forcement, at this critical moment, inspired the desponding troops with fresh hopes, courage, and zeal; the vigorous efforts of the siege were renewed, and on the 13th of Aug. the important city of Havannah, with twelve ships of the line, three frigates, and several merchantmen, in the harbour, together with a district of country, of about one hundred and eighty miles, were surrendered to the victorious arms of his Britannic Majesty.

This conquest, in its effects and consequences, was, of itself a campaign; but the sweeping conquests in the West-Indies, struck at the vital interests of French and Spanish commerce, and led them to think seriously of putting an end to the war. Commissioners were appointed by the courts of England, France, and Spain, and the preliminaries of a peace were concluded upon, at Fontainbleau, upon the basis of uti possidetis, entered upon by Mr. Pitt, and on the 10th of February, the difinitive treaty of Paris was ratified, and peace was restored, 1763.

By this treaty, all French America, including Novascotia, was ceded to Great-Britain, and all the conquests, in Europe, in India, and the West-Indies, were restored in statu quo; but Spain ceded to Great-Britain the Floridas, in exchange for the Havannah; and France agreed to destroy the fortifications of Dunkirk, as a general acknowledgement for the indulgencies she had received in the treaty. With the treaty of Paris was soon united the treaty of Hubertsburg, which closed the war between Austria, and Prussia; and all Christendom was once more hushed to re

pose.

REMARKS.

This peace, great as were its blessings and advantages to America, and high as it had elevated the arms and the nation of Great-Britain, in the scale of nations, had its sharp and strenuous opposers in England. Many contend

ed that the possessions in India, and the city of Havannah, should have been retained; and that whatever sacrifices it might have become necessary for Great Britain to make, they should have been made in Canada and in Louisiana, and thus the commercial advantages of England might have been preserved. This, so far as it went to favour the avarice of man, was well; but it was not considered that the war began upon the Canada and Novascotia claims, and that to carry this point, and secure the fishery, was an advantage equal to such a war, and removed a troublesome enemy from the borders of the colonies.

The cession of French America to Great-Britain, cost the colonies an arduous and expensive eight years' war; but it disarmed the Indians of the murderous hatchet and scalping-knife, extinguished the torch that had for so many years laid waste their frontier settlements, and laid the foundation for security, and lasting repose to the church in the wilderness. Herein the hand of God was most conspicuously displayed, both in Europe and America; for the earth helped the Woman when the Dragon cast out waters as a flood, to overwhelm and drown her; and the preservation of Prussia in Europe, as well as the preservation of the colonies in America, together with the conquest of Canada, placed the reformation upon a permanent foundation, and secured a durable triumph to the church in the wilderness.

Although the burthens of the war were heavy upon New-England, in supporting an army of ten thousand men annually, at a general average, through the war;* in the loss of a great number of her sons, on her own borders, as well as in distant expeditions into Canada, Novascotia, and the

* Some years Massachusetts furnished 7 or 8000, and Connecticut 5 or 6000, exclusive of what they suffered to enlist into the royal regiments, and were impressed, or entered voluntarily into the navy, or were furnished to keep garrison, &c. Connecticut expended about 400 0001. in the war, exclusive of the sums that were reimbursed by the British government and the other colonics-Massachusetts nearly in the same ratio.

West-Indies; and although her husbandry, commerce, and population, were greatly impaired, yet she viewed the hand of God in all the operations of the war, both in adversity, and prosperity, and gave to him the praise for the sigual advantages that resulted to her, as well as to America and Britain at large, at the return of peace.

CHAPTER XXXIx.

CONNECTICUT CONTINUED.-SUSQUEHANNAH CLAIMS CON

TESTED WITH PENNSYLVANIA.

It will be recollected that the original grant of the Colony of Connecticut, was included in the grant made by King James I. of England, in the year 1620, to the Earl of Warwick and others, and that this patent conveyed all the lands in America, lying between the fortieth and fortyeighth degrees of north latitude, extending from the At-. lantic ocean on the east, to the Pacific ocean on the west, and including those tracts of country, which afterwards became the colonics of Pennsylvania and New-York. It will also be recollected, that in 1631, the Earl of Warwick, President of the Council of Plymouth, granted by patent to Lords Say and Seal, and Brook, and associates "All that part of New-England, in America, which lies, and extends itself from a river there called Naraganset River, for the space of forty leagues, upon a straight line, near the shore, towards the southwest, west and by south, as the coast runs, towards Virginia ; accounting. three English miles to the league, and all and singular, the lands, and hereditaments whatsoever, lying, and being the lands aforesaid, north and south, in latitude and breadth, and in length and longitude, of and within all the breadth aforesaid, throughout all the main lands there, from the Western Ocean to the South Seas; and all lands, and grounds, soil, wood, and woods ground, havens, forts, creeks, and rivers, waters, fishings, and hereditaments whatsoever, lying within the said space, and every part and parcel thereof; and also all islands lying in America, aforesaid, in the said seas, or cither of them, on the western or eastern coasts, or parts of the said tracts of land, by these presents to be given or granted.".

This territory was again comfirmed to Connecticut, as a Colony of England, by her charter granted by King Charles II. in 1662, as has been noticed; which confirmation under the great seal of England, was considered as divesting the crown of all possible legal claims to said lands, and vesting in the Colony of Connecticut, all possible legal rights to said lands. These grants were all made, as well as the charter of Charles II. and given, many years before any grants were made to William Penn; and the settlers of the Colony of Connecticut, had not the least doubt but the title to the lands was clear, and that they had good right to sell or settle all lands heretofore described. Accordingly in the year 1754, a company of gentlemen, (afterwards known by the name of the Susquehannah Company,) purchased of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, (when in council at the congress, held at Albany at that time,) a tract of land) lying west of the Colony of New-York, and upon the waters of the Susquehannah, extending seventy miles north and south, and ten miles east of said river; being within the degrees of latitude described in the grant first made to the Earl of Warwick, and afterward conveyed by him to the Lords Say and Seal, and Brook, and confirmed by charter of King Charles II. to the Colony of Connecticut. These purchasers, with full confidence in their claim, petitioned the General Assembly, at their session in May, 1655, praying for act of incorporation, with permission to form a distinct commonwealth, if it should meet with his majesty's pleasure; which petition was granted, and the company were recommended to the favour of his majesty.

These lands, at the time this company extinguished the Indian claims at Albany, were uninhabited and unoccupied, and at the close of the war, in 1763, the company began the Wyoming settlement upon the river Susquehannah. At the same time the company sent out Col. Eliphalet Dyer, as their agent to the Court of Great-Britain, to manVol. I.

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