1831. RESOLUTIONS.

that it was so adjusted. It enlarged the jurisdiction of Vir-
ginia, and Fairfax gained the whole country between the
South and North Branch. It appears also, by the act refer-
red to, that Virginia and Fairfax run a line by consent,
from the head spring of the said river Potomac to the head
spring of the Rappahannock; beginning no doubt, at the
place on the North Branch which has since been known by
the Fairfax stone. The two interested parties, by a law
suit which appears to have been carried on for their mutual
benefit, got the King to decide that it shall be "between the
rivers Potomac and Rappahannock," instead of "the heads
of the rivers Rappahannock and Potomac," and then run a
line making the head spring of the Potomac on the North
Branch, where the Fairfax stone is now found. This was
a plain usurpation of the rights of the elder Baltimore, be-
ing obtained through a decision in a cause to which he was
no party, and of which he had no notice, and which after-
wards received the protest of his successor, which was not
made by his predecessor in consequence of his death. Some
time in the year seventeen hundred and forty-eight, a land
office for granting lands in the neck was opened by Fairfax,
after the ex-parte settlement of the boundary line between
him and the government of Virginia was made, and in
which the elder Baltimore had no part. From this office,
grants were issued which extended so far to the "west as
to raise the question of location of the head of the Poto-
mac," which caused Frederick Lord Baltimore, after his
accession to the right of the Maryland domain, to turn his
attention "to its western limits," and "in his instructions to
Governor Sharp, which were presented by the latter to
" his council in August, seventeen hundred and fifty-three, be
alludes to the Fairfax grant, and remarks, that he had been
informed that the government of Virginia had undertaken
to ascertain the limits of his charter, and that the commis-
sioners who had been appointed tor this purpose, instead of
stopping at the South Branch, which runs from the first
fountain of the Potomac, had gone even to the North
Branch; that if any such adjustment was made, he had no
knowledge of his predecessor being a party to it, and
therefore concluded by it." He therefore directed the
governor "to obtain early intelligence of the manner in
which the boundaries were settled by these commissioners,
and to apprise Lord Fairfax of his desire to adjust that
boundary with him; and he at the same time commands him
to keep a good look out, and prohibit settlements under
Fairfax to the country north of the South Branch.—These
instructions being laid before the council, in order to a com-