1851. RESOLUTIONS.

round the grant, that it has produced in your committee no
little surprise to learn from the early history of the pro-
vince, the legal perplexities in which the proprietary was
involved, concerning them. They were indelible signs of
nature, skirted along the whole grant, and were doubtless-
intended to put out of the reach of all controversy the in-
tention of the grantor in carving out of his immense domain
a territory for Lord Baltimore. The third section declares
that it was intended to contain "all that part of the Penin-
sula, or Chersonese, lying in the parts of America, between
the ocean on the east, and the bay of Chesapeake on the
west, divided from the residue thereof by a right line drawn
from the promontory or head land called Watkins' Point si-
tuate upon the bay aforesaid, near the river Wighco on the
west, unto the main ocean on the east; and between that
boundary on the south, unto that part of the bay of Dela-
ware on the north, which lieth under the fortieth degree of
north latitude from the equinoctial, where New England is
terminated; and all the tract of that land within the metes
under written, (that is to say,) passing from the said bay,
called Delaware bay, in a right line by the degree aforesaid,
unto the true meridian of the first fountain of the river of
Potomac, ihence verging towards the south, unto the further
bank of the said river, and following the same on the west
and south unto a certain place called Cinquack, situate near
the mouth of said river, where it disembogues into the afore-
said bay of Chesapeake, and thence by the shortest line
unto the aforesaid promontory or place called Watkins'
Point." Looking at this horoscope of Baltimore's charter,
in search of its southern and western limits, we are cau-
tiously told to begin on that part of the bay of Delaware on
the north, which lieth under the fortieth degree of north lat-
itude from the equinoctial, and are directed to pass from the
said part of said bay, which lieth under the said degree,
and by the said degree unto the true meridian of the first
fountain of the river Potomac; although it is probable but
little was known of the upper fountains or tributaries of the
Potomac, to the king of Great Britain, by actual observa-
tion and inspection, made by his agents, yet no doubt it was
well ascertained or believed, that it flowed from the west,
and its courses and first fountain with the greatest relative
extent to the west, were intended to be sought for, as your
committee believe, by actual survey due west along the de-
gree aforesaid, until a true meridian could be got to strike
the first fountain of the river Potomac, having the greatest
extent to the west, without regard to any branch or tributa-
ry of that river. For notwithstanding the confines of the