George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 5, 13th edition.

[215] Massachusetts and west of Connecticut river.¹ The

chap. X.} 1764. Sept.

decision was declaratory of the boundary; and it was therefore held by the royalists that the grants made under the sanction of the royal governor of New Hampshire were annulled. Many of the lands for which the king had received the price, and which were already occupied and cultivated, were granted in the king's name anew, and the former purchasers were compelled to redeem them, or menaced with eviction.

This decision was based upon the belief of the superior loyalty of New-York; and yet at that moment the spirit of resistance was nowhere so strong. ‘History,’ it was said, ‘does not furnish an instance of a revolt begun by the people which did not take its rise from oppression. Nothing but this, sensibly felt, can unite the several governments in such a design; and without union they can do nothing.’²

But the passions of New-York were too vehement to wait for concert. Its assembly contained merchants, and owners of large tracts of land, and ‘common farmers, which last,’ wrote the lieutenant governor, ‘are men easily deluded and led astray with popular amusements of liberty and privileges.’³ On coming together in September, their address⁴ claimed for their constituents ‘that great badge of English liberty, the being taxed only with their own consent.’