Act II of Spotswood before His Majesty
"And your Petitioner is (placed?) under the (burden?) of Representing that, according to the Plan laid down by the aforesaid Partners for carrying on so extensive a Design, there had been Taken up, Surveyed, and Patented considerable Tracts of some remote and ungranted Lands in which no other subject, than your Petitioner, has at this time any pretense of Right; yet for certain Formalities omitted in passing ye Patent He finds his Title to part of those lands may hereafter be controverted, without your Majesty's special Grace in now confirming them all to him.[Curtain]"And to the end your Petitioner may appear (to be no special?) object of your Royal Justice & Favour on this occasion, He humbly begs leave to observe, That he has already very dearly purchased those lands from his Partners, & fully complyed with ye law of ye Colony in (providing?) sufficient Improvements (to the land?). That they being such lands which for their Remoteness & dangerous Situation, nobody had before dared to venture upon, your Petitioner has been obliged to Seat them with a formidable Strength, & so run a mighty Risque, as well as been at an extraordinary charge, in maintaining Possession of them, until he happily obtained of the Five Nations of Indians to relinquish their pretensions thereto: and that to accomplish this point, he Travelled twelve Hundred miles, & not only underwent the Fatique of a Three Months Expedition, but also has Six hundred Pounds of the Expense thereof, which he had never yet been reimbursed, or in any wise . . . . considered . . .
"That he moreover remains to this day in disburse the like sum of Expenses, for his performing ye Conditions of certain treaties made in the year 1713 with Three Nations of Indians, and being laid before Her late Majesty, approved of, & assurances given that the charge thereof should be defrayed by the Crown.
"And . . . . that your petitioner not only, in his Treaty with ye said Five Nations, obtained of them to give to your Majesty their Pretensions to all ye Lands which they claimed between the Potowmach and James Rivers, but also, by new Regulations of his own forming while he was Governor, so improved His Maty's Revenue of Quit Rents in Virginia, that from an annual income of about One Thousand Pounds, they have been augmented to Three thousand Pounds per annum.
"Wherefore your Petitioner humbly Prays that -------"
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