349
Land Companies.
8
vo.
1815 Catalogue, page 99. no. 307, Land Companies, 1802-4, 8vo.
A volume lettered
Land Companies was bound for Jefferson by John March in August, 1805 (price .50); there is no longer any evidence as to its contents.
Jefferson’s knowledge of and interest in land companies is shown in a letter to Gérard de Rayneval, dated from Washington
March 20, 1801: “
. . . During the regal government, two companies, called the Loyal & the Ohio companies, had obtained grants from the crown
for 800,000, or 1,000,000 of acres of land each, on the Ohio, on condition of settling them in a given number of years. they
surveyed some, & settled them; but the war of 1755. came on & broke up the settlements. after it was over they petitioned
for a renewal. four other large companies then formed themselves, called the Missisipi, the Ilinois, the Wabash & the Indiana
companies, each praying for immense quantities of land, some amounting to 200 miles square, so that they proposed to cover
the whole country North between the Ohio & Missisipi, & a great portion of what is South. all these petitions were depending,
without any answer whatever from the crown, when the revolution war broke out. the petitioners had associated to themselves
some of the nobility of England, & most of the characters in America of great influence. when Congress assumed the government,
they took some of their body in as partners, to obtain their influence, and I remember to have heard at the time that one
of them took m
(
~
r)
Gerard as a partner, expecting by that to obtain the influence of the French court, to obtain grants of those lands which
they had not been able to obtain from the British government. all these lands were within the limits of Virginia, and that
state determined peremptorily that they never should be granted to large companies, but left open equally to all: and when
they passed their land law (which I think was in 1778.) they confirmed only so much of the lands of the Loyal company as they
had actually surveyed, which was a very small proportion, and annulled every other pretension. and when that State conveyed
the lands to Congress (which was not till 1784.) so determined were they to prevent their being granted to these or any other
large companies that they made it an express condition of the cession, that they should be applied first towards the soldiers’
bounties, and the residue sold for the paiment of the national debt, and for no other purpose. this disposition has been accordingly
rigorously made, and is still going on, and Congress considers itself as having no authority to dispose of them otherwise
. . .
”
[3513]
350
Callender’s Political register 94. 95.
8
vo.
1815 Catalogue, page 95. no. 264, as above, 2 v.
CALLENDER,
James Thomson.
The Political Register; or, proceedings in the Session of Congress, commencing November 3
d, 1794, and ending March 3
d, 1795. With an Appendix, containing a selection of papers Laid before Congress during that period. By James Thomson Callender. Vol. I.
Philadelphia: Printed by
Thomas Dobson,
m.dcc.xcv
. [1795.]
J15 .C2
First Edition. 8vo. 2 parts in 1, 280 leaves in eights with continuous signatures and pagination; Part I ends on R
3 recto, verso blank, and is followed by a leaf with Richard Folwell’s advertisement (unnumbered); half-title for Part II on
S
1.
Sabin 10067.
Evans 28382.
The Preface is dated from Philadelphia, 29th May, 1795. Volume I was all that was published. The
2 v called for in the 1815 Library of Congress catalogue as above is an error. The original working copy of that catalogue has
written beside the entry
1 vol. missing.
[3514]
