PRIMARY DOCUMENT

“D. C. DeJarnette’s Letter to the Governor” in the Report of the Commissioners on Boundary Lines (November 18, 1871)

CONTEXT

In this report submitted to Governor Gilbert Carlton Walker on November 18, 1871, by Daniel Coleman DeJarnette, he recounts his efforts to track down records in England that would clarify Virginia’s boundaries and ultimately establish ones that were favorable to the state. When seeking to determine Virginia’s northern boundary with Maryland, he attributes Maryland’s claim on the Potomac River to Augustine Herrman’s map Virginia and Maryland As it is Planted and Inhabited this present Year 1670 where Herrman drew the southern border of Maryland with a dotted line on the southern bank of the Potomac. DeJarnette tries to discredit the map by noting that Herrman was friends with and dependent on Lord Baltimore.

FULL TEXT

Richmond, November 18th, 1871.

To his Excellency G. C. Walker,

Governor of Virginia:

Sir—Under an Act passed by the General Assembly of this State, on the 4th of February, 1871, authorizing and requesting the Governor, if he should deem it expedient, to send to England an agent, charged with the duty of restoring the mutilated records obtained thence, by Angus McDonald, in 1860, and all other records, and documentary evidence, tending to ascertain and establish the true lines of boundary between Virginia and the States of North Carolina, Tennessee and Maryland, your Excellency was pleased, on the recommendation of my associates on the boundary commission, (General Henry A. Wise and Col. William Watts,) to commission me as such agent, and by your instructions of March 30th, 1871, to indicate the service I was expected to perform.

I beg leave now to report to your Excellency the result of my mission.

To expedite the removal of the rigid forms, by which access to British archives is guarded, and (which so much embarrassed my predecessor, Mr. McDonald,) I obtained from the Secretary of State of the United States, the sanction of the official seal of the Government, and also that of the British Legation at Washington, and was also favored by Sir Edward Thornton, Her Majesty’s Minister, resident at Washington, with a letter to Mr. Hammond, the Under Secretary of State at London.

I sailed from New York on the 15th April, and landed in Liverpool the 28th of the same month, and, by rail, reached London the same day.

I called the American Embassy the following day, and from Mr. Moran, in charge of the Legation, received the assurance of his official support, and the promise of an early interview with Mr. Hammond.

Accordingly, a few days thereafter, I was presented to Mr. Hammond, and received from him authority to enter the British Museum as a reader, with the privilege of taking copies of any books I desired, and also of taking for my assistants such clerks as I might deem necessary.

But when I was asked permission to examine the Rolls Office and State Paper Office, with the same privilege of taking copies, it was refused.

The reasons for refusal, as alleged, were, that those departments contained all the official papers of the Government; that those papers were not arranged under the heads of the several Colonies, but were mixed promiscuously with those of the British Government, and were arranged only as to dates; and, also, because the State Paper

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Office had been discontinued, by order, in 1863, and all of the papers transferred to the Rolls Office, and were not yet arranged even as to dates.

The difficulties which my predecessor, Mr. McDonald, had previously encountered, prepared me to expect a refusal. From Mr. Hammond, however, I obtained a promise of an early interview with Lord Granville, Secretary of State, with the assurance that the rules should be as much relaxed, in my behalf, as was consistent with the requirements of British laws.

It was not then tell the 11th of May, that I received from Lord Granville the authority asked for, and even then, was prohibited from examining records of later date than the reign of Queen Anne.

1606 being the date of the first charter of the Colony of Virginia, I commenced my investigations with the records of that date. For ready references, I have arranged in chapters the documents, as they were found and copied; corresponding to the numbers, as they occur in the index, herewith transmitted.

Chapter 1st contains the original grant to Sir Thomas Gates, Sir George Summers and others, of Virginia, between 34 and 35 degrees, dated April 10th, 1606.

Chapter 2d contains the amended charter of Virginia, granted to Robert, Earl of Salisberry and others, the recapitulations of whose names occupies 28 pages, dated May 23d, 1609.

Chapter 3d contains extract of the grant to Earl of Salisberry and others, confirming all their former privileges, &c., dated March 12th, 1612.

Chapter 7th contains an order of the Privy Council, in regard to the new charter of Virginia, dated October 8th, 1623.

Chapter No. 8, reply of the Virginia Company to the King, October 15th, 1623.

Chapter No. 9, proposals of Virginia Company to surrender their charter, October 20th, 1623.

Chapter No. 11, the King to Sir John Harvey, Governor of Virginia, renewing their grants to lands, and privileges formerly granted, and declares his pleasure in sundry other things touching the Government there, September 12, 1628.

Chapter 12th, memorial of Lord Baltimore to Secretary Dorchester, prays for a grant of a portion of land in Virginia—the King having given him leave to choose a part, December, 1628.

Chapter No. 13, Lord Baltimore to the King, protestations of services. &c., desires a grant of a precinct of land in Virginia, to which he wishes to remove with some forty persons, with such privileges as King James granted to him in Newfoundland, dated August 19, 1629.

Chapter No. 14, the King to Lord Baltimore, in answer to the above, dated November 22d, 1629.

Chapter 15th, Governor Pott and others to the Council, respecting Lord Baltimore’s arrival in Virginia, and his desire to remain there.

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Being of the Romish Church, refuses to take the oath of supremacy, November 30th, 1629.

Chapter 16, petition of Edwin Rosingham to the Council. The King takes the government of Virginia in his own hands, July 11th, 1629, &c.

Chapter 17th, articles of agreement between Lord Berkely and William Boswell and others, for the settlement of Carolina, in 34, 35 and 36 degrees north latitude, dated May 15, 1630.

Chapter 20th, patent to Cecil, (Lord Baltimore,) containing a grant of province of Maryland, communicated to Mr. Beak from Lord Baltimore, dated June 20th, 1632. This purports to be the original found in the Rolls Office, enrolled on parchment, and engrossed in the Latin language. This copy was taken by the keeper of the Rolls, and bears his official seal. To verify this (a most important paper,) I employed Thomas Edlyne Tomlins, (attorney at law, and record solicitor of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London,) to copy and translate so much of this Latin charter, found in the Rolls Office, as describes the bounds of the territory thereby granted. This copy, also, will be found under the head of this chapter.

Chapter 21st, another copy of the same patent, certified by Henry Brooke, clerk of the Rolls Chapel. “This and the preceding charter differ in this respect, that in the present copy the contracted words are not extended in the preceding copy—they have been written in extenso, from the original, in possession of Lord Baltimore.”

Chapter 22d, another copy, (printed,) taken from a volume, entitled a “Relation of Maryland.”

Chapter 23d, another copy, taken from a printed volume, entitled The Acts of Assembly, printed by John Basket.

Chapter 24th, still another copy, taken from a printed volume, called the Laws of Maryland.

Chapter 25th, consideration of objections of Lord Baltimore’s patent, in matters of law, inconvenience and equity, &c., in which the King places Watkins’ Point on the 38th parallel, dated June, 1632.

Chapter 26th, order of Privy Council, upon a petition of the planters in Virginia, remonstrating against certain grants of a larger portion of lands within that Colony, and their differences with Lord Baltimore, dated July 3d, 1633.

I do not deem it necessary in this synopsis, to invite your Excellency’s appended to the documents, obtained by me from the British archives.

I have deemed it necessary, thus far, to invite your Excellency’s attention to those referred to, (with few omissions) in their regular succession, in order that at a glance you might discover the relative rights of the two Colonies, at the date of the controversy.

I was fortunate to reproduce all of the important papers directly relating to the boundary between Virginia and Maryland, obtained by

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my predecessor, Mr. McDonald, and by the light of his labors and arches, was put on the race of others, which I was so fortunate as to obtain, thus enabling Virginia to remove the last doubt, if any remained, as to Virginia’s right to all she claims.

Inasmuch as the conclusions arrived at by McDonald, sustained by the records procured by him from the British archives, and delivered by Governor Letcher, together with Mr. McDonald’s report, dated 2d February, 1861, to the Legislature of Virginia, are deemed conclusive. I have only to assure your Excellency, that those documents reproduced will be found with those I have the honor herewith to transmit.

I will add in this connection, that those papers enable us to located Watkin’s Point, (the pivotal point,) on which this boundary controversy on the eastern shore, turns on the thirty-eighth parallel, by the authority of the grantor, (Charles I,) who locates it there himself.

To locate the true and proper line of boundary from Watkins’ Point to the Pocomoke, a distance of 14 98 miles, is to solve the boundary on the eastern shore, since the line from the Pocomoke to the sea is well defined by the ancient marks and monuments established by Scarborough and Calvert, in 1668.

In this view of the case, I am not embarrassed by the compact of 1785, as that compact only relates to the joint use of the Potomac and Bay, and not to the territorial limits. For it is certain that neither the Legislature of Virginia nor of Maryland, conferred upon the Commissioners the right to adjust territorial bounds.

Entertaining this view and fully appreciating the difficulties attending a satisfactory adjustment of a controversy, existing nearly two and a half centuries, I could entertain no hope of success, without appealing to the muniments of titles, on which each State relied, and by which alone this controversy can be adjusted. They existed mostly in England, and had to be dug from a mountain of colonial records with care and labor.

I have referred your Excellency to the first charter granted by James I., dated 10th April, 1606, to the London Company for Virginia, embracing all the country between 34 and 45 degrees N. latitude. Then to the amended charters dated 23d May, 1609, and also to another amendment of the same charter, of date 12th March, 1616. In neither of these amendments are the territorial limits of Virginia, as embraced in the first charter altered, except as to the islands. The territory embraced in Lord Baltimore’s charter for Maryland, dated 20th June, 1632, was carved (in the exercise of a royal prerogative,) from the territory embraced in the boundary calls of the Colony of Virginia.

With this stipulation from Charles I., (herewith transmitted,) that he was prohibited from embracing any part of Virginia in his limits inhabited by others than Indians.

In this connection, I invite your Excellency’s attention to chapter 49, which is a report of commissioners of plantations, showing that not only the Virginia Colony had settled the country north of the Po-

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tomack, but at the date of Lord Baltimore’s charter, a member of the House of Burgesses lived north of that river.

I refer to this, not to assail the validity of Lord Baltimore’s grant, but to show the origin of this controversy, which has been from that time to the present, existing in regard to this boundary.

Chapter 26th contains an order of the Privy Council, on the petition of the planters in Virginia, remonstrating against certain grants of a large portion of lands within that Colony, and their differences with Lord Baltimore, dated 23d July, 1633.

Then follows a letter from Charles I. to Lord Baltimore, charging with having deceived him, in representing that he embraced in his boundary calls, no country occupied by the Virginia settlers. This is not so, says the King—for in truth a part of already occupied by the Virginia Colonists.

Lord Baltimore’s charter embraces also the State of Delaware—but Charles II., when it was shown him, that at the ate of Lord Baltimore’s charter, that that territory was occupied by the Dutch, and informed Lord Baltimore that it did not pass to him. Though embraced in his boundary calls, because it was at the date of his charter, occupied by others than Indians and the King—accordingly sold it to Wm. Penn.

Charles I., secretly a Roman Catholic, controlled in a great degree by Lord Baltimore and his brother-in-law, (Peasley, who was Secretary to the King,) was made to believe by those two zealous Catholics,

In Chapter 56, (with its inclosures,) will be found a petition; and that they could establish the Roman Church in the colonies, and thus Lord Baltimore was allowed to hold that part of Virginia.

amongst other matters prayed for, is a grant of land, between the rivers Potomac and Rappahannock, “by reasons of a Royal promise formerly made the Virginia Company”—date, July 28th, 1639.

Mr. McDonald, in his report, to which I have referred, thus alludes to this grant. The grant of Northern Neck, by Charles II., to Ralph, Lord Hopton, Henry, Earl of St. Albans, Lord Culpeper and others, in the first year of that King’s reign, included the rivers Potomac and Rappahannock, and all the islands within their banks.

“This grant,” says Mr. McDonald, “will be found referred to in the first vol., Revised Code, page 43, chapter 89; it is also referred to in a letter from Charles II., of date March 30th, 1663—copied in volume 4th, page 261, and therein mentioned as having been made in the first year of the King’s reign; the commencement of which he was accustomed to date from the date of his father’s death on the scaffold.”

In this letter he describes said grant as embracing all the land lying between the rivers Potomac and Rappahannock, and the Chesapeake Bay, together with the rivers themselves, and all the islands within their banks.

This grant and all its amendments and its transfer to Va., I

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was so fortunate as to find, and beg leave to invite your Excellency’s careful attention to what follows:

That Virginia should have erected forts, established ports of entry, created ferries, and to this day appoints Pilots on the Potomac river, without exciting remonstrance from the Legislature of Maryland, furnish the strongest presumption, that she had abandoned all claim to any portion of that river, and can be explained only by the light thrown on this subject by the Fairfax grant, which places that river wholly within the limits of Virginia. Thus the mystery of Maryland’s acquiescence is explained.

Chapter 80th

Contains a copy of an original letter from King Charles II., to the Governor and Council of Virginia, commanding them to give every encouragement to the planters and settlers, &c., with enclosure; and also a petition of Henry, Earl of St. Albans, John Lord Berkely, Sir Wm. Moncton, and John Fethurg, Sir Cobden, assignees of the late Lord Hopton, to the King, in 1649; the King granted, by letters pattent to them, all that territory bounded by the rivers Potomac and Rappahannock, the course of those rivers to Chesapeake bay. After the restoration, their agent, Sir Humphrey Hook, was molested by the Governor of Virginia, which fact being brought before the King in Council, they, Lords Culpeper, Fairfax and others, surrendered some of their privileges, and on the 8th of May, 1665, a new pattent, with the consent of Mr. Morrison, the Governor’s agent, was granted to them, dated April, 1665.

Chapter 86th contains a copy of an original grant of charter by Charles II., to Henry, Earl of St. Albans, and others, together with a copy of amended grant, dated May 8th, 1667, at Westminster. The original is here said to have been granted under the Great Seal at St. Germain’s, December 8th, 1651: it embraces the rivers Potomac and Rappahannock, and the land between those rivers, and the islands within their banks.

The terms of the grant require that it should be held under the jurisdiction of the Colony of Virginia, dated 8th of May, 1667. It was by virtue of this grant, that to Virginia was restored the jurisdiction of the Potomac, which was exercised by the Assembly, on the 23d of September, the same year, 1667. Chapter 89 contains Acts of Assembly at James City, establishing forts on the James, York, Potomac and Rappahannock rivers, 23d of September, 1667.

Chapter 92. Petition to the King, for permission to buy Lord Culpeper’s grant, and remonstrating against similar grants for the future. Dates Feb. 28th, 1674.

Chapter 93. Copy of the report of the Attorney and Solicitor General in the report of the case of a charter for Virginia &c. Dated October 14th, 1675.

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Chapter 94.

Order of Council upon a report touching a grant to be passed to his Majestie’s subjects, in Virginia. Dated November 19th, 1675.

Chapter 136.

Copy of an Act appointing ports, &c., for preventing frauds upon the customs in Virginia. Under this Act ports were established on the Potomac, December 7th, 1685.

By this evidence the last doubt is removed, as regards the Northern boundary of Virginia.

The last grant of that section was to the Earl of St. Albans, Lord Culpeper, Lord Fairfax and others, calling, not only for the Potomac river as their boundary, but in express words, embracing that river and the islands within its banks.

This grant was acquired by Virginia, and by order of Council, restored to her the 9th of November, 1675. But for the date of the grant, May, 1667, to Lords Culpeper, Fairfax and others, (her citizens) she, Virginia claimed and exercised undisputed control of the river Potomac.

Her first Act exercising jurisdiction, was dated 23d September, 1667, in erecting forts on the Potomac. It was not until October, 1673, that the attention of the Colonial Legislature was directed to the subject of establishing ferries, and the first and only steps then taken, were to provide for the appointment of Commissioners to fix upon suitable points at which to establish free ferries, who were to report to the next Assembly. 2d Hen., S. at L., page 310.

But no ferries were established until 1702, when many were established on the James, York and Rappahannock, and one on the Potomac: “From Col. Wm. Fitzhugh’s Landing, in the Potomac river, over to Maryland.”

It will be borne in mind, that up to the ratification of the compact of 1785, as many as twenty-eight ferries were established by Acts of the Legislature of Virginia, over the Potomac to Maryland.

When, may I inquire, in view of this history, did Virginia lose the limits of the Fairfax grant? Not by the compact of 1785, because that compact had no reference to territorial bounds. The Fairfax stone, situated at the head springs of the North Branch of the Potomac river, is admitted by Maryland to be the Southern extremity of her Western line, and also the Western extremity of her Southern line. It, in fact, is her Southwestern corner, and from that punctual spot, her line follows the North Bank of the Potomac river to the Bay, and thence to Watkins’ Point.

Does Maryland recognize the Fairfax stone as the corner established by the boundary calls of her original charter? Certainly not, as is indisputably shown by the history of that stone.

Let me refer your Excellency to Lord Baltimore’s answers to ques-

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tions propounded by the Lords, Commissioners, &c., dated 10th April, 1676.

In chapter 96th will be found those questions, and Lord Baltimore’s answers. In answering the tenth question, Lord Baltimore says: “the boundaries, longitudes and latitudes of the Province of Maryland are well described and set forth in the chart or map of this province, lately made and prepared by one Augustine Herman, an inhabitant of said province, and printed and publicly sold in London by his Majestie’s license, to which I humbly refer for greater certainty, &c.” “For this map,” says Mr. McDonald, “I made myself and caused others to make, great search, in every known depository in London, but could find no map authenticated as Herman’s.”

This map I found, not in the map department of the British Museum, where all maps are supposed to be deposited, but in the Greenville Library, created and sustained by donations of private libraries, and a depository of the papers of extinct families.

By permission of one of the Trustees of this Institution, I was kindly permitted to examine the books, but not the papers, deposited there. This map I had photo-lithographed, and is marked A. in the maps herewith transmitted. It dots Lord Baltimore’s Southwestern boundary on the south bank of the Potomac to Acquia Creek, and thence up said creek along its southern bank as far as said creek is shown on said map. It places Watkins’ Point also on 38th parallel.

This map was made by Augustine Herman, a personal friend and dependent of Lord Baltimore’s, who lived at the line in Maryland, and at whose house Lord Baltimore spent most of his time while in the Colony; and he was present with Lord Baltimore and Wm. Penn at their first Conference about the grant and boundary of Delaware and Pennsylvania coterminous with Maryland, as is shown by the accompanying papers herewith iled marked X. It bears Lord Baltimore’s coat of arms, and is the matrix from which has sprung all the difficulties in adjusting the territorial limits of the two States.

In Ogilby’s America, will be found an exact copy of this map of Herman’s, and all authors whose maps show the Southern line of Maryland dotted on the South bank of the Potomac, were misled by Ogilby, who copied whithout alteration from Herman.

This map, in the language of Lord Baltimore, well describes and sets forth the boundaries, latitudes and longitudes of his province. Does Herman, in running this Western line of Maryland in its course South, stop at the Fairfax stone? certainly not; but passes over that spot fifty miles directly South, to what was supposed to be the Potomac, but really the head of Acquia Creek.

By what authority, then, was this line established, by Lord Baltimore, through his agent, Augustine Herman, altered? As he claimed that that map embraced, only what was called for, by his original charter.

It could have been done only by Royal authority, which was exercised by Charles II., when in exile.

Among his first official acts, he restored to Virginia her rightful

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bounds, of which she had been deprived by his father, to promote the interest of the Catholic Church, which it was known he secretly favored. To give full force and effect to this grant, soon after his restoration he confirmed it, and describes the territory thereby granted, “as being all that country lying between the rivers Potomac and Rappahannock, together with the rivers themselves, and the islands within their banks.”

It was then by the authority of this grant, that Maryland was forced to agree to the establishing of the Fairfax stone, located in 1745, as her limit South, on her Western line. The name of this stone, then, reveals its history; and Maryland, by recognizing it, admits the validity of the Fairfax grant.

From this stone then, to the Chesapeake, there is no escape for her from following the calls of the Fairfax grant, which gives the Potomac river and the islands within its banks to Virginia.

This conclusion is justified and rendered irresistible by the maps B., C. and D., obtained from the British Museum, and herewith transmitted.

These maps dot the Northern line of Virginia, on the North bank of the Potomac, from the Fairfax stone, to where it empties into the Chesapeake Bay, at Point Lookout. We are then at Point Lookout by virtue of that authority, which commanded obedience from Maryland, and from which there is no escape.

On the Eastern shore we are placed at Watkins’ Point, on the 38th parallel by Charles I.; on the Western shore of the Chesapeake, we are placed by Charles II., as I have shown, by authorities, not to be controverted at Point Lookout. The closing line, therefore, can be easily run between these two points.

Mr. McDonald, after his return from England, arrived at the same point sustained by the records, which ehe obtained there, with great labor. He shows that the claim of Maryland to the South bank of the Potomac, sprung from a mistranslation of her original charter.

Let me again invite your Excellency’s attention to the admirable report of Mr. McDonald.

Mr. McDonald, in referring to the discrepancies between the different copies of the original charter, given Lord Baltimore, says: “It will be seen, by comparing the two, that the Latin text as given by Bacon, is a plain and gross departure from the original, as found recorded both in the Rolls Office and the State Paper Office.

“And but for the gross and patent violations of both the letter and spirit of the original grant, no reasonable doubt would ever have existed—that the whole Potomac river, from its source, (wherever fixed and whenever ascertained,) to its mouth, was wholly without the limits of Maryland, and within the limits of Virginia.”

He says: “I have caused to be translated, by Thomas Edlyn Tomlins, attorney at law and record solicitor, of Lincoln’s Inn Field, London, so much of the Latin charter as the same is found recorded in the Rolls Office, as describes the bounds of the territory thereby granted; which translation cannot be interpreted as to permit the Maryland

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boundary along the banks of the river Potomac to be on the Virginia shore—and more, it establishes, beyond all plausible cavil, Point Lookout as the point from which the closing line of the descriptive calls, is to be drawn over the bay to the headland, called in the charter, Watkins’ Point, and mentioned as the beginning point on the Eastern Shore.”

The evidence on which Mr. McDonald based his conclusions, as well as that which sustains me in the conviction that Point Lookout is the extreme southern point on the Chesapeake, to which Maryland can justly claim on the western shore, I have the honor to submit to your Excellency, together with this report.

In the British Museum I found a book styled, “A Relation of Maryland,” which throws much light on this controversy; and also another, in the Greenville Library, styled, “Lord Baltimore’s case, &c.” See chapter 143. These books purport to have been written by an inhabitant of Maryland. These I had copied, and they will prove to be of interest and value, and will be found under the heads indicated in the index.

By your instructions, I was likewise directed to obtain such evidence as the British archives contained, relating to the boundary between Virginia and North Carolina, and Virginia and Tennessee.

In this regard, I invite your excellency’s attention to chapter 78, which is the charter of the Earl of Clarendon and others, for Carolina, dated March 14th, 1663.

In chapter 82 will be found the amended charter to the Earl Clarendon, enlarging the terms of his former patent, dated June 30th, 1665.

I also obtained maps which correspond to the boundary calls of the charter, which will remove all difficulties, should any occur, in adjusting the boundary of Virginia with those States.

There are many chapters and maps embraced in this report not referred to, because it has already grown far beyond its intended limits; they cannot fail to interest the reader, by revealing the history of this controversy.

The maps are the fac similies of the originals, photo-lithographed, the most expensive, but only mode by which fac similies can be produced. The usual process is by tracing on linen, when it is impossible for inaccuracies, not to occur. From those obtained by me, all doubt is removed as to the fidelity of the copy.

Under the regulations of the British Museum, two maps copied from each original, are to be given to the Map Department of that Institution. This was accordingly done by me.

By this process of photo-lithography, when the impression is transferred to stone, copies are reproduced at very slight expense. I therefore brought with ne six copies of each of the maps obtained from the Map Department of the British Museum, all of which accompany this report.

From the Museum there was comparatively little labor in obtaining such copies as I desired. There books and maps are alone kept, and by admirable system made accessible. Not so, however, in the

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Rolls Office—here nothing is kept but records, enrolled on parchment or loose papers.

The colonial papers are not arranged under the heads of their respective Colonies, but thrown promiscuously together; and as reports were required to be made of all occurrences in each of the many Colonies of England, they constitute an immense mass of ill-kept and badly written records. These I had to examine and extract such as related to the subject in hand.

I, of course, had to employ many assistants to aid me in discovering the Maryland and Virginia papers, all of which, when found, I had personally to inspect, to see what relation they sustained to this boundary controversy.

My progress was tediously slow; it, not unfrequently being the case, that my labor, together with six or eight clerks for days at a time, was rewarded with not a single paper of importance.

At other times a single package of papers would give me employment for days, when I would have to dismiss my examining clerks, (whose charges were from two to four shillings per hour.) To reassemble these clerks and report the occurrence, was my employment for sixty-one days in the Rolls office.

Your Excellency will find that all the papers that are herewith submitted, are attested by an official of the Rolls Office, as being true copies of the originals.

The amount drawn by me from the Treasurer of the State, on your order, on the recommendation of my associates to meet the expenses of the mission, was two thousand five hundred dollars. The premium paid for gold, thirteen per cent., and eleven per cent. for exchange on London, (which I payed in New York,) reduced the amount to one thousand nine hundred and forty dollars, current funds in London.

The amount expended by me, traveling expenses, board, &c., &c., including cost of documents and maps, was $1,908, leaving unexpended in my hands, thirty-two dollars, which, since my arrival, has been reduced, by $2.25 express freight on two maps, not completed when I left London, and to be further reduced by the same sum, as two other maps are yet to be received.

The amount, then, unexpended, is $27.50, which would have been greatly increased but for my being in London during what is known as “The Season,” when the city is always full, and filled then beyond its capacity to accommodate, by the Civil War, then raging in France. The prices for accommodations at hotels, &c., were increased to two and three hundred per cent. above the usual rates for the season, which are always greatly advanced above those of the ordinary periods of the year.

All of which is most respectfully submitted to your Excellency, by yours respectfully,

D. C. DeJarnette.

P. S.—The seventy-four maps not called for in the index, accompany this report. D. C. DeJ.

CITE THIS ENTRY
APA Citation:
DeJarnette, Daniel Coleman. “D. C. DeJarnette’s Letter to the Governor” in the Report of the Commissioners on Boundary Lines (November 18, 1871). (2022, March 10). In Encyclopedia Virginia. https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/d-c-dejarnettes-letter-to-the-governor-in-the-report-of-the-commissioners-on-boundary-lines-november-18-1871.
MLA Citation:
DeJarnette, Daniel Coleman. "“D. C. DeJarnette’s Letter to the Governor” in the Report of the Commissioners on Boundary Lines (November 18, 1871)" Encyclopedia Virginia. Virginia Humanities, (10 Mar. 2022). Web. 30 Sep. 2023
Last updated: 2023, September 11
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