RESOLUTIONS. 1831,

in it, have long since slept with their fathers, this surrey
yet speaketh in language sufficient to remove every invo-
lution of darkness which has at any time concealed the
true and single question. "Which is the first fountain of
the river Potomac?" Both branches are delineated on the
plat with the meridians through the head of each; and the
meridian through the head of the South Branch is near
thirty miles west of the one through the head of the North
Branch.

6th. In regard to the information sought by the sixth
resolution, your committee further report—That they have
examined the nature of the dispute touching the southern
and western limits of the Maryland charter between Fre-
derick Lord Baltimore, apd Lord Fairfax, up to the close
of the revolution, as well as the other matters referred to
in that resolution. Your committee having already dis-
tinctly adverted to the origin of Lord Baltimore's charter,
and the common call in that charter for the first fountain of
the river Potomac, beg leave also to make a brief refer-
ence to the origin and calls of the letters patent issued for
lands in the Northern Neck of Virginia to certain persona
from whom it passed into the Fairfax family. In the first
volume of the revised code of Virginia, these letters pa-
tent are recited; by which it appears that the grantors of
the grant under whom Fairfax claimed, were Lord Haps-
ton, Lord Jerrayn, Lord Culpepper, Sir John Berkeley,
Sir William Morton, Sir Dudley Wyatt, and Sir Thomas
Culpepper; and the territory granted was, "all that entire
tract, territory or parcel of land, situate, lying and being
in America, and bounded within the heads of the rivers
Rappahannock and Quiriough, or Potomac river; the cours-
es of the said rivers as they are commonly called and known
by the inhabitants, and the descriptions of those parts, and
Chesapeake Bay." The title having passed by the death
of some of the proprietors, and by purchase from others
of them, to Henry Earl of St Al bans, John Lord Berke-
ley, Sir William Morton, and John Treatherway, Esquire,
they surrendered the original grant, for the purpose of
receiving a new one for the same territory, for which they
afterwards obtained letters patent. The title to the whole
having vested in Thomas Lord Culpepper, a new patent
was granted to him by King James the second, and "from
him it descended to his daughter and only child, who was
married to Lord Fairfax, and thus passed into the Fairfax
family." The grant of domain to Lord Baltimore, calling
for the first fountain of the Potomac, and the grant of the
right of soil afterwards, "of all that entire tract, territory
67