especially Maryland, which had no unsettled lands,
insisted that as the unoccupied lands, if wrested from Great Britain,
would owe their preservation to the common purse and the common sword,
the money arising from them ought to be applied in just proportion among
the several States to pay the expenses of the war, and ought not to be
appropriated to the use of the State in whose chartered limits they
might happen to lie, to the exclusion of the other States, by whose
combined efforts and common expense the territory was defended and
preserved against the claim of the British Government.

These difficulties caused much uneasiness during the war, while the
issue was in some degree doubtful, and the future boundaries of the
United States yet to be defined by treaty, if we achieved our
independence.

The majority of the Congress of the Confederation obviously concurred in
opinion with the State of Maryland, and desired to obtain from the
States which claimed it a cession of this territory, in order that
Congress might raise money on this security to carry on the war. This
appears by the resolution passed on the 6th of September, 1780, strongly
urging the States to cede these lands to the United States, both for the
sake of peace and union among themselves, and to maintain the public
credit; and this was followed by the resolution of October 10th, 1780,
by which Congress pledged itself, that if the lands were ceded, as
recommended by the resolution above mentioned, they should be disposed
of for the common benefit of the United States, and be settled and
formed into distinct republican States, which should become members of
the Federal Union, and have the same rights of sovereignty, and freedom,
and independence, as other States.

But these difficulties became much more serious after peace took place,
and the boundaries of the United States were established. Every State,
at that time, felt severely the pressure of its war debt; but in
Virginia, and some other States, there were large territories of
unsettled lands, the sale of which would enable them to discharge their
obligations without much inconvenience while other States, which had no
such resource, saw before them many years of heavy and burdensome
taxation; and the latter insisted, for the reasons before stated, that
these unsettled lands should be treated as the common property of the
States, and the proceeds applied to their common benefit.

The letters from the