came aware of the bill by reading it in a Philadelphia paper. By advice of their friends in Congress, Putnam, Oliver, and Green made no response to this order. It was a question for Courts, not Legislatures.

Dr. Cutler applied to Senator George Cabot for information.

In a letter to General Putnam, 16th October, 1794, he gives Senator Cabot's statement, as follows: "He says there were no debates in the Senate on the petition of the French. It was introduced, he thinks by the bill which I showed him; that the bill was committed; that the report was that the Directors should be notified. He also says that Colonel Burr, and some others of the anti-federal clan, came forward very warm in favor of the French, and very bitter against the Ohio Company; and, among other things, it was asserted that the Ohio Company, by their own doings, had acknowledged themselves interested in the Scioto business; that the Directors had refused to give the French any share of the Donation lands; that the French were imposed upon in France by false descriptions, maps, etc. Mr. Cabot very politely offered to interest himself in our behalf. He thought it best that he should be informed of the circumstances of the two purchases in writing, that he might be prepared to meet the opposite party. I accordingly put into his hands a statement, in which I have detailed the circumstances of the applications of the the Committee to Congress for the whole tract, to the Board (of Treasury) for the two separate contracts, the advantages

*George Cabot, statesman; born, Salem, December 3, 1752; died, Boston, April 18, 1823. After passing two years at Harvard University, he went to sea for a short time, and then engaged in mercantile business, in which he was very eminent and successful. . . . He was a member of the Massachusetts State Convention, and of that which ratified the Constitution of the United States. He was United States Senator in 1791-6; a confidential friend of Washington, and of Hamilton, of whom he was an able coadjutor in the formation of his financial system. He was appointed Secretary of the Navy, 1798, which he declined. In 1814, a delegate to the Convention which met at Hartford, and was President of that body. He was a leader of the Federal party.-Drake's Dict. Am. Biog.

which both companies had in view; inclosed him my printed report at Boston, and the printed doings of the meetings in Boston and Providence, to prove that the Ohio Company had no interest, as such, in the Scioto."

No action was had against the Ohio Company by reason of this bill.

In January, 1795, the donation tract of the Ohio Company was thrown open for occupancy, and offered free in lots of 100 acres to each settler. Notice was given to the "French settlers at Gallipolis, with all others at that place,

to come forward by associations, or individually, and receive lands if they please."

In March, 1795, Congress gave, in response to the petition. presented by Duponceau, 24,000 acres of land in what is now Scioto County, Ohio, to the French settlers over 18 years of age who would be in Gallipolis on November 1st of that year. Four thousand acres were given to M. Gervais for his services; the remainder was divided among ninety-two persons reported by General Rufus Putnam, appointed by the Secretary of the Treasury for that purpose, as entitled to receive lands .under the act. This grant was made to the French without prejudice to their rights of action against any person or persons by reason of existing contracts. Settlement was to be made on each lot within five years, to confirm the title to it.

In December, 1795, the Ohio Company held a meeting in Marietta, to make final division of its lands. A committee. appointed by the citizens of Gallipolis attended, and asked that the town site be given to the settlers. This was refused, but an application to purchase at a low price was favorably considered, and two fractional sections, containing 900 acres, including Gallipolis and the improved lands adjacent, were sold to the inhabitants at one dollar and a quarter

an acre.

Each Frenchman, therefore, who remained at Gallipolis through the year 1795, was entitled to 217 acres of land in the "French Grant" (as it is still called), in Scioto County, and 100 acres of land in the Ohio Company do

nation tract on the waters of the Muskingum. Each had received a log house from the Scioto Associates, and held the lot he had improved by paying for it at the price of wild land. Many were indebted to Colonel Duer for eighteen months' subsistence and clothing.

END OF VCL. I.