Patenting of Land in Indian Occupation

Two patents were the particular objects of Johnson's ire and constant objec­tion to London during the 1760s when his influence was at its peak. The Kayad- erassos (1701) and Canojaharie patents were the primary culprits although there were others that were also troublesome (such as the Mohawk Flatts, Philipse and the Wappinger Patents).

Actions in ejectment in New York during the 1760s, including those against Klock and Lydius who claimed by right of patent, seemed to confirm the con­fusion and intractability of the ownership issues that drew in First Nations, tenant farmers (including Palatine German settlers), and the powerful paten­tees and speculators (like John Lydius of Albany) claiming lands by grant from a neighbouring colony. The politics of land and access to it in were complicat­ed involving shifting alignments of interest that agreed on some issues and diverged strongly on others?^[1059] Agrarian disorder broke out in this decade, indi­cating the issues were not limited to the treatment of First Nations.

An abundance of correspondence and private papers makes it easy to iden­tify the self-interest of many officials at this time, including that of Johnson himself, along with Cadwallader Colden (Lieutenant Governor in New York throughout the 1760s and into the 1770s). Many had become involved, some­times with a regrettable degree of intimacy, with heightening disputations sur­rounding New York land titles. Once this baneful situation came to be seen from London, royal instructions were issued to the �Governors of Nova Scotia, New Hampshire, New York, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Geor­gia forbidding them to Grant Lands or make Settlements which may interfere with the Indians bordering on those Colonies'.^[1060] These instructions of Decem­ber 1761 were intended to prevent the spread of the type of issue that had arisen in New York. As with the later and matching announcement in the Royal Proclamation of 1763, however, they were prophylactic and offered no solution.

As early as 1759, Johnson had been exhorting that the �Indians ought to be redressed or satisfied, in all their reasonable & well founded complaints of enormous & unrighteously obtained Patents for their Lands and Treaties of Limitations with the respective Provinces agreed upon & religiously observed, with regard to the Bounds of our Settlements towards the Indian Country’.^{[1061] [1062] [1063] By the mid-r760s, he was clearer sighted both as to the obstacles and the need for remedial measures. Now he spoke of the unavailing character of local courts and legislatures:}

The extreme difficulty of obtaining redress in such cases, I have often re­marked in my letters to the Ministry and the Board of Trade. There is no provisional allowance in our Laws for the ignorance of the Indians in a variety of circumstances, for their extravagant love of liquor, by which, any thing may be had from them, and for their inability of procuring evi­dences as the Law requires, or any proofs or minutes from their illiterate state, so that Governors, Councils and Courts, have it seldom in their power to redress the fraud, much less can it be expected, when the Mem­bers of the Law, and the principal persons in the Govermt are interested in every valuable Tract, so that an opposition must arise, which few of His Majesties Representatives or other Officers can conveniently with­stand, and there is in most cases a some thing wanting which prevents redress.3²

Johnson’s view of the pointlessness of court proceedings on behalf of First Na­tions hardened as he pushed the circumstances of particular patents.

Johnson’s opening position was that �the sentiments’ of all Indian Nations �with regard to us are nearly the same’. They �entertain a very slender opinion of our faith and sincerity, they are to the last degreejealous of our designs’.^[1064] Good relations had to be sought out again or renewed, and the way to achieve this was to develop procedures to provide for �the redress of those grievances with regard to lands, which most materially affect the Indians’:

this [redress] they have been oft times promised, they expect it with ea­gerness and impatience, proportioned to the satisfaction they will re­ceive from it which will diffuse itself thro’ all the nations, tend to remove one of the principal causes of their disquiet, and spread abroad a favour­able character of our uprightness and integrity, which it is certainly for the interest and credit of the nation to render universal. For altho’ (as yet) the circumstances of fraud respecting lands are only felt immediately by those Nations that are our neighbours, yet the effect of their complaint greatly alarms the whole, and has induced them to expect the like treat­ment in a few years, whilst, in the mean time they are by custom obliged to make a provision for those who are deprived of, or straitned [sic] in their hunting grounds^[1065]

Johnson had by this time become well-acquainted with �every argument’ sur­rounding the inviolability of Crown patents, �the sum of which are’, as he dis­missively categorised them, �that the Laws can not affect patents, that they are old rights, and must hurt the present claimants, that it is a dangerous prece­dent, and may make the Indians farther troublesome on that score etc’^[1066] But all such arguments, Johnson stressed, stemmed from �a defect in the Laws ow­ing to the times in which they were made, when provision could not be made for unforeseen concerns’.

ag[ainst] reason, and moral equity, nor can the abuse of his Majties name be justly produced to cover a fraudulent grant. Their long standing is very little in their favour, it is rather a reason for vacating them; for tho’ they still subsist, they have been complained of from the time they were first known, to the present, and the injury done to the present possessors, must be proportioned to the Quit Rents they have paid, with the improve­ments and expences they have been at, but where it shall appear that such Quit rents, are next to nothing, the improvements and expences, none, what then will become of the argument, any more than that of the danger of the precedent.

For Johnson any objection to upsetting Crown grants on grounds of fraud against the Indians boiled down to this �danger of the precedent', which he re­stated in paraphrase as �literally this: That we should not give them a precedent of our justice, least they should induced to expect that from us, which we do not intend to afford them'. Yet, he was clear, First Nations were not set upon opening all the �old grants'. �[W]hat should make all impartial men still easier on this score, is, that their complaints are only against two or three notorious impositions, which affect their very existence'.^[1067] This was not a simple matter of making a treaty for hunting grounds but the more vexed question of lands vital to its First Nations inhabitants.

Weeks later Johnson repeated his view to General Gage that proceedings at law, because of the �Frauds, & Misconduct of Traders', only made the situation worse for the Mohawks. Such proceedings threatened not only �to destroy their opinion of the Officers of the Crown', but also to turn �the Whole Confederacy' against the colony.

that in matters regarding the Ind[ians] who are incapable of allowing for the prejudice of a party, or the Nicetys of the Common Law, should the accusation be reasonable, & yet thro' some defect in the Laws, or other reason redress is not obtained, it were better never to Attempt it[.] The want of power in the Laws which were not framed with an Eye to the pe­culiar compact between the Ind[ian] & us, has been admitted by sev[eral] Gentlemen learned in that profession, & the necessity there is for making a particular provision in these Cases has been pointed out^[1068]

This �peculiar compact' between officeholders of the crown and a mixture of independent and semi-independent First Nations was damaged, and would inevitably inspire volatility, owing principally to the presence of unruly settlers on the frontier and the disputed patents in their possession. These Johnson had been keeping an eye on for some time. In September 1755, soon after the Battle of Lake George, Johnson wrote to the Board of Trade to raise concerns about the Kayoderasseras and Canajoharie patents. These were the two to which he was apt to return most often although there were others that gave rise to similar issues, including those in territory subject to overlapping bound­aries claims. Johnson had become convinced of �the Necessity and Expediency of a speedy, impartial and effectual Examination into these Complaints of the Indians with respect to the Kayoderasseras & Conojoharry Patents, and other like Violations of Our Treaties and Engagements with them'. It followed for Johnson that such an examination would see �that the Indians may be fully convinced that there was no want of a proper Attention on the part of Government’.^[1069] At this time he believed that any annulment of patents over land that was still in First Nations occupation and without treaty required local legislation.

The house of Assembly when directed to proceed ag[ainst] the enormous and fraudulent Patent of Kayderosseras assigned as one cause why they would not proceed against it, that it would be calling in question the character of the Governor, who granted it, tho’ they have done that in eight other instances; and as a reason why it was not settled since 1708, say, that it lay too much exposed to the Enemy; whereas many of other Tracts, particularly mine, make a frontier to it, and was settled by me with a hundred familys during the heat of the War^[1071]

That the crisis unfolding in New York in Johnson's time had been one in the making for many generations was notorious. For this reason, it will be instruc­tive to place into mind some of the historical aspects of the workings of office and prerogative in respect of patents, quitrents, equity jurisdiction, and local legislation in the period following the Glorious Revolution and carrying into the beginning of the Hanoverian period.

It was scandalous that Lieutenant-Governor Benjamin Fletcher had in his time (1692-98) made extravagant and ill-defined grants of land at a low quit­rent with poorly defined boundaries, such as that to his henchman man Cap­tain Evans whose job had been to keep the assembly pliable. The Evans grant covered anywhere from 350,000 to 600,000 acres and the quitrent was only twenty shillings per year.^[1072] The generosity of another New York Governor, Ed­ward Hyde, styled Governor Cornbury (1702-08) and later the 3rd Earl of Clar­endon, received less negative attention, but was known also to Johnson, Cold- en, and Wraxall not least through William Smith (Junior)'s History of the Province of New York (first published 1756).4³ Smith's History was critical of these early Governors and their patenting practices:

The bigotry and tyranny of some of our governors, together with the great extent of their grants, may also be considered among the discourage­ments against the full settlement of the province. Most of these gentle­men coming over with no other view than to raise their own fortunes made extravagant patents, charged with small quit rents, to such as were able to serve them in assembly: and these patentees being generally men of estates, have rated their lands so exorbitantly high, that very few poor persons could either purchase or lease them.44

Richard Coote, 1st Earl of Bellomont governed between these two profligate Governors whose patenting was to cause so much trouble in the 1760s. He con­demned the patenting practices of his predecessor Fletcher in the strongest terms and received an order �to indeavour to breake the two excessive grants of land to AP Dellius, by Act of Assembly, and also M' Bayards of 40 miles long, which comprehends part of the Mohack's [sic] land, and whereof they also complained to me at Albany'.^[1073] He obtained legislation (1699) to annul two grants to Dellius and one to Bayard. Smith tells us that Dellius �the Dutch min­ister... was one of the commissioners for Indian affairs, and had fradulently [sic] obtained the Indian deeds, according to which the [large] patents had been granted'^[1074] The Lords of Trade, doubtless alarmed by the impingement upon prerogative, handled this vacating act �very gingerly', with allowance not forthcoming until the summer of 1707.4^[1075]

During the 1730s the author Smith's father, ChiefJustice William Smith (Sen­ior), hadjoined local opposition to Governor Cosby's erection of a court of equity by prerogative and without the consent of the assembly. This had caused an enormous controversy, the assembly petitioning London that �a court of chancery in this province, in the hands or under the exercise of a governor, without consent in general assembly, is contrary to law, unwarrantable, and of dangerous consequence to the liberties and properties of the people'^[1076] The Governors were commissioned keepers of the great seal of the colony, in whom it was argued there inhered the chancery jurisdiction.^[1077] Colonial assemblies fearful of a prerogative court countered that customarily any erection of equi­table jurisdiction in the colonies had occurred through local legislation. Cosby invoked this sub-office in order to hear an application in chancery to annul the Oblong Patent (lands formerly under Connecticut’s jurisdiction but made part of New York by a boundary settlement) on grounds of fraud and deceit. When he was prevented from assuming the jurisdiction, a ripple was sent through the colonies, stymying other governors from making recourse to this jurisdiction for the annulment of bad patents. Though the vacating legislation was only allowed several years after Bellomont’s departure, he was recollected fondly, in Smith (Jnr)’s History, for having �wisely procured recommendatory instruc­tions from the lords justices for vacating those patents, which was now regu­larly accomplished by a law’.^{[1078] [1079] Implicitly endorsing his father’s stand, Smith (Jnr)’s point was that the annulment had occurred other than by gubernatorial assumption of judicial authority (prerogative) but by local legislation respond­ing to judicial instruction (and filling the jurisdictional void). Nonetheless ob­served Smith (Jnr), �the vacating act practically added only uncertainty and confusion to the evils in the land situation in New York which had been created by the abuses in Fletcher’s time'.51 This incident (local legislation passed at the instruction of the court) provided a precedent that excluded the Governor, and was one that would have been recollected in the 1760s, as problems surround­ing the issue of provincial land patents surfaced yet again.}

In the summer of 1754, Lieutenant-Governor De Lancey informed the Lords of Trade of Mohawk complaints brought to his attention in the course of the Albany Congress, particularly concerning the Canojaharie and Kayaderosseras Patents. Principally through the notes of De Lancey and Johnson, this chapter will now turn to these patents in order to illustrate how prerogative and office were put to work on a frontier bereft of any effectual avenues for redress.

3.1 Kayaderosseras

Addressing their lordships, De Lancey commented on the �large Tract of Land' reputedly conveyed by the Kayaderosseras Patent, but �which the Indians say they have never sold'. Enquiring into the nature of this �complaint’, he �sent for some of the owners who produced an Indian deed (of which the inclosed is a copy) and a patent granted thereupon in November 1708 the bounds of which seem [...] much larger than those in the Indian Deed’.^{[1080] [1081] [1082] [1083]}

This dispute concerned land granted by Queen Anne (1708) in respect of which an Indian purchase was contemplated. That patent was disputed as sig­nificantly exceeding the lands covered by the deed of purchase and extending into important hunting grounds. The dispute was resolved in 1768 when the Mohawks executed a release in return for £5000.5³

Two years before this resolution, the situation had looked grave.Johnson had given the Board of Trade a comprehensive and sympathetic account of the grievance:

The Indians alive at that time, many of whom, were living for several years after my arrival in this Country in 1738, repeatedly assured me, that no more was explained to those who signed the Deed, than a small piece of Land sufficient for three or four farms. From my first acquaintance with the Mohawks, they continued to make complaints, and to remon­strate against this Tract, and I as often assured them, that I had not the least doubt, that they should be redressed[.p⁴

The Mohawk had become �pretty well satisfied that the proprietors had laid aside their claim, and would never attempt any Title by it, till about the year 1754’. The Indians �have since, repeatedly desired to know from me, whether the same was vacated, and given me infinite trouble to pacify them thereon from time to time’. Johnson was emphatic that �the fraud and enormity of Kay- aderasseras, and the claim of the City of Albany to the Lands they, the Mo­hawks, reside on, could not be allowed of, without entirely ruining them’. John­son listed numerous reasons for �vacating this unreasonable Grant’. The first four were these:55

First: that the same was fraudulent, evidently appears from the difference of the quantity mentioned in the Indian Deed, from that described by the Patent.

Secondly: that the purchase money, scarce worth mentioning, was never paid to the Indians.

Thirdly: that it was privately transacted, with only a few Indians, con­trary to the usual custom, & that it appears evident they have in lieu of a small patent, taken up the quantity of a large Country.

Fourthly: that in reason and justice, they have forfeited any title they might have had, to any part, for want of settlement, which they totally neglected during fifty years, to the great prejudice of the Colony.

Johnson reported the Mohawk ready to use force with the whole Confederacy coming to their aid. Months later the situation was worsening with the com­mencement of active settlement of the disputed lands:

The latter [Mohawk] had a conferrence with me several weeks ago upon that subject, on which occasion they acquainted me that they had warned two familys lately settled thereon to remove, who returned them for an­swer, that they would not, nor were they apprehensive they could be obl- idged to do so, as a number of Persons of Power in New York were concer­net therein, & would make good their Possession, & (according to the silly independ[en]t stile often used here) should the King order them off they would nevertheless remain. The Mohawks were so much exasperat­ed thereat, that I had no small difficulty to prevent them from making use of force, and they then declared they found themselves under a necessity of interesting the rest of the Six Nations in the affair, of this, I acquainted the L' Governour of New York by letter[.]^[1084]

This was Cadwallader Colden, during one his stints in the position of Lieutenant-Governor of New York, who had obtained an Order in Council and instructed his attorney general to proceed against the Kayaderosseras Patent by scirefacias proceedings. But, as Johnson indicated, the Mohawk were un­impressed.^[1085] The prospect of such proceedings �did not content the Mohawks, who declare that they thought themselves trifled with, and as I could not positively assure them that the Patent would be thereby vacated, they made a formal complaint to the rest of the Confederacy, w[hich] occasioned them to address me’.^[1086]

Governor Moore, who relieved Colden from 1765, endorsed Johnson’s ac­count in agreement about the impossibility of resolution through the local legislature or courts. In the meantime, the patentees had proceeded to divide the ownership from sixteen interests to over one-hundred and fifty. This mul­tiplication of ownership was likely designed to frustrate the attempts of the government to buy out the patent. It also frustrated the pursuit of other op­tions. �The consequence of this is’, Moore admitted, was �that every family of any consideration in the Province is concerned in it, as well as the principal Lawyers of the Country so that neither application is made to the Assembly, or to the Courts of Justice there is not the least probability of success as the very persons interested in the event will in either case be the Judges in their own Cause'.5^[1087]

By the beginning of 1767, those proceedings still had not commenced. The restiveness reported by Johnson had not exploded into an Indian War, but such an outcome would only be a matter of time if �redress’ was not soon forthcom­ing, as he admitted to Shelburne.^[1088] Two years later the situation had changed, not owing to developments in the colonial court, but developments away from it, as Johnson reported to General Gage:

The long dispute ab[out] Kayadarosseras is at Length brought to a Con­clusion, the late Attempt to Settle it when the Gov[ernor] was here in my absence having proved ineffectual. Their Agent not agreeing to the offers made by the Ind[ians] & Not having produced any Original Deed - The Patentees therefore Applied again & Sir H Moore Wrote ab[about] it & the Ind[ians] Wearied out in Waiting for redress from home, & having had the Deed I ment[ioned] produced to them have been at length in­duced to Relinquish their title to that patent, the Attorneys paying them 5000 dollars^[1089]

He presented the resolution of this grievance to Lord Hillsborough and Gov­ernor Moore in terms that accentuated his personal facilitation. He also made it plain the grievance could never have succeeded in court:

Since my return having found an Orig[inal] Indian Deed & had their Line run the Patentees, again applied to me, and the same was recommended by Letter from Sir H. Moore in consequence of which on the Arrival of their Agents they met the Mohocks who on Examining the Indian deed & Survey, & receiving a handsome sum of money were at length prevailed on to yield their claim to the Patentees in my presence, This will save some trouble, and Expence to the Crown as according to the opinion of the Lawyers there were not sufficient grounds to proceed ag[ainst] the Patent with any prospect of success in a Court of Law.^[1090]

Johnson was making his recurrent (as well as self-serving) point about the ca­pacities of the ordinary institutions of colonial government to handle First Na­tions claims: the requirements of legal process were too stringent and unsym­pathetic; ordinary governors lacked familiarity with Indian ways; a specially commissioned office was needed; the outcome he had achieved spoke for itself.

3.2 Canojaharie

Johnson's ministrations were less effective with the Canojaharie Patent. The Patent had issued in 1731 to a group claiming purchase by two Indian deeds of 1730. The group included David Schulyer and Philip Livingstone, who was Sec­retary of Indian Affairs (1725-49) to the Albany Commissioners then charged with dealing with the Iroquois and managing the fur trade in the Albany re­gion. Johnson, whose superintendency replaced the commissioners, had been a business rival of many of the Dutch families and, with his patron Cadwal- lader Colden and his Secretary Peter Wraxall, took every opportunity to record criticism of the commissioners^[1091]

The Dutch colony of New Netherland had entrusted relations with indige­nous nations north of the lower Hudson to fur traders and members of the courts of Beverwyck, Fort Orange, Rensselaerswyck, and Schenectady. The British kept these officials on in much the same capacity as commissioners, in addition to the new expectation that they tend to the Covenant Chain. The families who supplied most of the commissioners - the Schulyers, the Living­stones, and the van Rensselaaers of the province - were landed families who held patents of vast tracts in New York mostly by grants issued from governors between 1664 and 1749. Among those patents that were later disputed, and brought to Johnson's attention, was the Canjoaherie Patent.

De Lancey's letter to the Lords of Trade, describing the grievance put before him at Albany, introduced the Mohawk concerns as follows:

they say the lands on which they live, have been clandestinely surveyed in the night time, and patented some years ago to M' Livingston and oth­ers; if this proves so upon inquiry, it must have been done by fraud and deceit, for it is not possible to believe that the Indians would dispose of the Lands on which they live, and from which they have the Chief part of their subsistence. I shall cause the Records to be searched, and if I find the fact to be as the Mohawks have suggested, I will order some legal course to be taken to vacate that patent; for till this be done, the uneasi­ness on their minds will never be removed; when this is done, I suppose the other, as lesser matters, may be easily got over.^[1092]

Livingstone eventually agreed to surrender the Canajoharie patent at Albany, but subsequently found he was unable to bring in the other patentees. In March 1761, Johnson was reporting to Lieutenant-Governor Colden that Living­stone had sold his quitclaim to George Klock:

Mr Livingstons giveing Klock only a Quit claim, carries with it a bad look, and shews he did not think his Title good. I am almost certain it is not, from what I have heard old David Schyler say about it, who is one of the Partners, and many more who know a good deal of the affair. The People liveing on said Land, have for these several years past, paid their Rent to the Indians uninterruptedly, and they say they will pay it to no other, until it appears to them clearly that the Indians have no right to it, & indeed I cant see they are to blame. Should it come to a Law suit, I think the Crown would defray the expence, but I should rather imagine that the affair from a proper representation, ought to be determined at Home.^{[1093] [1094]}

Klock began actions in ejectment against the Indians and their tenants on the strength of the patent. He considered the law to be on his side. Invoking a co­lonial statute of 1684, which he claimed empowered him to purchase any out­standing Indian right, he insisted on the legitimacy of Indian deeds traded on the authority of a licence from 1755.66 No doubt, there had been a degree of dishonesty to his conduct. Complaints about his behaviour were plentiful, in­cluding numerous tales of his getting Indians drunk then obtaining their sig­nature to whatever was put under their nose. For a time, it appeared such con­duct would set the law to turn against him. When the first of two suits were brought against Klock in March 1762, he was summoned before the Council to �hear the charge against him and to shew Cause why a Prosecution should not be ordered against him’^[1095] The Mohawk of Conajoharie made a declaration be­fore Johnson and three Justices of the Peace, praying for the Crown through the Governor to protect their land, and setting out their own factual account of the nighttime survey that had led to the patent. Here is that declaration:

We therefore hope that his Excellency the Governor, of whom we have beared an universal good Character, will Secure to us the Possession of the little which we have Remaining, especially, as we have during the course of the War faithfully Assisted the English at the Expence of many of the Lives of our People, and have no other Recourse left, but the Lands now in Dispute, which we do assure the Governor, and Council, we never disposed of by our Castle, nor did we ever consider them as Lands Sold, in which case, we should never have disputed concerning them, as it is well known we never Claim any Lands we Sell, nor ever have called fair Purchases on this River, in Question: but in this present Case we have been greatly Overreached, which we might have Remained in Ignorance of, for a considerable time, had we not found out by mere Accident a Surveyors Staff stuck in the Ground, where he had been, during the night, surveying our Lands, without our Knowledge, and contrary to the usual Custom, when, as in all fair Purchases, Surveys are made in the Day, and in the Presence of some Indians. - At the Time of this [this] Discovery, the greatest part of our People were abroad Hunting Pidgeons, which we Imagine induced the Surveyor to take that Advantage, and which all our Castle highly Resented. - Shortly after. We were Informed, that the Survey had been made by one Collins. - We have heard that the Land lying on the South shore of the [blank] from the End of the large Island called Degaghneghiahere, or Bleechers Island, to two large Rocks in the River, near the House of Christian Nellus, was disposed of in a private Manner by a few of our People, who had been made drunk for that purpose, under Colour of which, the Persons who had been concerned therein, took in all the Land up to Onowedaga Creek, which we Suppose they were desirous to keep private, until all the Indians were dead, that they might then Share the whole amongst them. - but we positively Deny that the Lands from these Rocks upwards were ever disposed of by us, or any of our People. - These we do most solemnly Declare to be the Unanimous Senti­ments, and Opinion of all the Indians of our Castle, and therefore we most earnesdy Entreat the Governor & Council to take our Case into Con­sideration, and to Secure to us the Possession of our Just Property for the Support of our Wives, and Children, who must had inevitably perish, un­less Relieved in the Premisses.^[1096]

When the matter finally came to trial, only for the jury to acquit Klock on 25th June 1763, Johnson became disenchanted. The patent was declared good. For all Johnson's efforts to bring attention to the case, the result was a profound disappointment for him. He was trumped, as he saw it, by a technicality in the nature and style of legal proceeding permitted in the case. He conveyed this to General Amherst:

The Lawsuit concerning the upper Mohawks property having yesterday ended in a Manner verry dissatisfactory to them because as is alledged matters in equity cannot be considered at Common Law, and a Pattent however fraudulently obtained is a Claim superior to all Justice and rea­son. I Shall therefore return home to Morrow, when, after quieting the minds of the Indians (if possible) by assurances that they will have Jus­tice done to them by his Majesty, as it seems a Chancery Suit cannot be carried on by reason that all the Parties are not within the Province, I shall then use all my endeavours to gain intelligence & preserve peace between ye Indians of the Six Nations & us, to the utmost of my power & Interest.^[1097]

A month later Johnson reiterated the discontent that the failure of �procureing Justice for the Mohawks touching their Lands, on which Subject they could have no satisfaction at ye late Tryal at common Law at Albany as at that Court'. The case illustrated to Johnson all that was pernicious about the colonial work­ings of the English common law, such that �a Pattent however fraudulently ob­tained is deemed a good right, neither would the Evidences be admitted who could prove the Villainy of obtaining the same, wch are too tedious to mention, or trouble your Excellency with at present'.^[1098] To this was added a fierce repri­mand of the character of George Klock and his ploys to keep the Mohawks in a �continued state of Drunkeness'. Frank in his admission that the dispute �can­not end here' - for �there will be no satisfactory nor effectual measures taken on behalf of the Indians, nor any thing thought of for putting a Stop to Klocks flagitious proceedings' - Johnson proposed to proceed in a way that only an officeholder in his position could expect to proceed:

I must therefore earnestly request your Excellencys interposition to pun­ish this fellow, as I shall make it appear He deserves, as also to prevent him & any other Persons from engageing the Indians in parties on Mat­ters of private concern, to the prejudice of his Majestys Service, & the hazard of numbers of the Inhabitants resideing in this Country.

The detail of the dispute was only to become more highly involved. The other patentees deeded the land back to the Mohawk in November, 1763. This instrument named Klock, but he refused to execute it by signature and there­after argued it was invalid.^{[1099] [1100] [1101] [1102] [1103] [1104] [1105] In 1767, the Executive Council ordered the prose­cution of Klock by information/2 again to an unsuccessful outcome/3 Later, in 1773, Johnson recommenced action against the Canajoharie Patent/4 this time (and as Revolution was looming) seemingly with more support from the assembly and in contemplation of legislation to override the grant7≡ (as more sanguinely he had expected eighteen years before). If this step was in the off­ing, it did not eventuate before the outbreak of Revolution. By early 1774, Sir William Johnson's health and capacity to intervene was waning and the Mo­hawk, tired of being placated, were becoming more forceful with Klock who still refused to sign the release/6 The final chapter in the Canajoharie patent was a trial in New York state court system (1819) by way of ejectment (com­menced 1808) where the 1763 release was invalidated and the patent upheld/7 By this time, there remained an abundance of self-interested officeholders in the State of New York, but there was no longer any crown and only the tatters of a torn-up prerogative lying around for state and federal judges to recognise in the furtherance of the maturing jurisprudence of the new Republic.}

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