is an established maintenance provided for the clergy. It must, therefore, be your particular care, and we do especially recommend it to you, to attend to every possible occasion of repairing their losses, and establishing their situations in the same condition in which they formerly held them. It should also be agreed, amongst those points which they should concede to us, that no vessels of war should be kept up but such as shall be employed and commissioned by us. All forts and fortifications should be delivered up to us, and the command of them should be in such Governors, or officers, as we shall, from time to time, appoint, garrisoned, however, by American troops. No coin should be struck, or coinage established, but by our orders, and in our name. All prisoners of war, and persons in custody, should be discharged. As to the Declaration of Independence dated the 4th of July 1776, and all votes, resolutions, and orders passed since the rupture began, it is not necessary to insist on a formal revocation of them, as such declaration, votes, orders and resolutions, not being legal acts, will be in effect rescinded by the conclusion of the treaty. Supposing upon the whole that the negociation should fall chiefly into the hands of the Congress, it will still be highly expedient, before the close of the negociation, that the several Assemblies should be called. The proper time to propose this would be when the material concessions on the part of Great Britain are settled, and when it becomes necessary to fix terms on the part of America. To give sanction and effect to these terms, each Legislature should empower persons to engage on behalf of the colonies, as it is proposed to do by the Articles of Confederation before mentioned. As it is impossible to foresee and enumerate all the matters which may arise during such an inquiry, you are not to consider these instructions as precluding you from entering into the examination and decision of any matters not contained herein, nor of any additional circumstances relative to such things as are the subject matter of these instructions. But you are at liberty to proceed upon every matter within the compass of your commission, and to give all possible satisfaction to the minds of our subjects in America, consistent with that degree of connection which is essentially necessary for preserving the relation between us and our subjects there. Lastly. If there should be a reasonable prospect of bringing the treaty to a happy conclusion, you are not to lose so desirable an end, by breaking off the negociation on the adverse party absolutely insisting on some point which you are hereby directed, or which, from your own judgment and discretion, you should be disposed, not to give up or yield to, provided the same be short of open and avowed Independence (except such independence as relates only to the purpose of treaty). But in such case you will suspend coming to any final resolution till you shall have received our further orders thereupon. And you are upon all occasions to send unto us, by one of our principal secretaries of state, a particular account of all your proceedings, relative to the great object of these our instructions, and to such other objects as you may think worthy of our royal attention.-G.R. RESOLUTION OF CONGRESS ON PUBLIC 10 October 1780 Resolved, that the unappropriated lands that may be ceded or relinquished to the United States, by any particular States, pursuant to the recommendation of Congress of the 6 day of September last, shall be disposed of for the common benefit of the United States, and be settled and formed into distinct republican States, which shall become members of the Federal Union, and shall have the same rights of sovereignty, freedom and independence, as the other States that each State which shall be so formed shall contain suitable extent of territory, not less than one hundred nor more than one hundred and fifty miles square, or as near thereto as circumstances will admit ; That the necessary and reasonable expences which any particular State shall have incurred since the commencement Journals of the Continental Congress (G. Hunt ed.), xviii. 915. A clause to the effect that no purchases from Indians within the ceded territory, which shall not have been ratified by lawful authority, shall be deemed valid or ratified by Congress', was lost on an even division. Cf. Constitution of Virginia, s. 21. of the present war, in subduing any of the British posts, or in maintaining forts or garrisons within and for the defence, or in acquiring any part of the territory that may be ceded or relinquished to the United States, shall be reimbursed; That the said lands shall be granted and settled at such times and under such regulations as shall hereafter be agreed on by the United States in Congress assembled, or any nine or more of them. ORDINANCE OF CONGRESS ON PUBLIC LANDS 1 20 May 1785 An Ordinance for ascertaining the mode of disposing of Be it ordained by the United States in Congress assembled, that the territory ceded by individual States to the United States, which has been purchased of the Indian inhabitants, shall be disposed of in the following manner : A surveyor from each State shall be appointed by Congress or a Committee of the States, who shall take an oath for the faithful discharge of his duty, before the geographer of the United States, who . . . shall occasionally form such regulations for their conduct, as he shall deem necessary; and shall have authority to suspend them for misconduct in office, and shall make report of the same to Congress, The surveyors, as they are respectively qualified, shall proceed to divide the said territory into townships of six miles square, by lines running due north and south, and others crossing these at right angles, as near as may be, unless where the boundaries of the late Indian purchases may render the same impracticable, The first line, running due north and south as aforesaid, shall begin on the river Ohio, at a point that shall be found to be due north from the western termination of a line, which has been run as the southern boundary of the State of Pennsylvania; and the first line, running east and west, shall begin at the same point, and shall extend throughout the whole territory; provided, that nothing herein shall be construed, as fixing the western boundary of the State of Penn 1 Journal of the United States in Congress Assembled. . . from the first Monday in November 1784 (Philadelphia, 1785), 167-75. sylvania. The geographer shall designate the townships, or fractional parts of townships, by numbers progressively from south to north; always beginning each range with No. 1; and the ranges shall be distinguished by their progressive numbers to the westward. The first range, extending from the Ohio to the lake Erie, being marked No. 1. The geographer shall personally attend to the running of the first east and west line; and shall take the latitude of the extremes of the first north and south line, and of the mouths of the principal rivers. The lines shall be measured with a chain; shall be plainly marked by chaps on the trees, and exactly described on a plat; whereon shall be noted by the surveyor, at their proper distances, all mines, salt-springs, salt-licks and millseats, that shall come to his knowledge; and all water-courses, mountains and other remarkable and permanent things, over and near which such lines shall pass, and also the quality of the lands. The plats of the townships respectively, shall be marked by subdivisions into lots of one mile square, or 640 acres, in the same direction as the external lines, and numbered from I to 36; always beginning the succeeding range of the lots with the number next to that with which the preceding one concluded. The board of treasury shall transmit a copy of the original plats, previously noting thereon the townships and fractional parts of townships, which shall have fallen to the several States, by the distribution aforesaid,1 to the commissioners of the loan-office of the several States, who, after giving notice . . . shall proceed to sell the townships or fractional parts of townships, at public vendue, in the following manner, viz. The township or fractional part of a township No. 1, in the first range, shall be sold entire; and No. 2, in the same range, by lots; and thus in alternate order through the whole of the first range. provided, that none of the lands, within the said territory, be sold under the price of one dollar the acre, to be paid in specie, or loan-office certificates, reduced to specie value, by the scale of depreciation, or certificates of liquidated debts of the United States, including interest, 1 One-seventh of the townships, chosen by lot, to be distributed by the States among their veterans. . . on besides the expense of the survey and other charges thereon, which are hereby rated at 36 dollars the township, failure of which payment, the said lands shall again be offered for sale. There shall be reserved for the United States out of every township the four lots, being numbered 8, 11, 26, 29, and out of every fractional part of a township, so many lots of the same numbers as shall be found thereon, for future sale. There shall be reserved the lot No. 16, of every township, for the maintenance of public schools within the said township; also one-third part of all gold, silver, lead and copper mines, to be sold, or otherwise disposed of as Congress shall hereafter direct. THE VIRGINIA STATUTE OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 1 October 1785 An Act for establishing Religious Freedom. I. WHEREAS Almighty God hath created the mind free; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the Holy author of our religion, who being Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do; that the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavouring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions. over the greatest part of the world, and through all time; that to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical; that even the forcing him to support this or that teacher of his own religious persuasion, is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the 1 Statutes at Large of Virginia (W. W. Hening ed., Richmond, 1823), xii. 84-6. |