law a dead letter, as belongs to our republican selves. The patent on
our table, being for a nominal hundred thousand acres, contains the
names of one hundred different grantees, while three several parchment
documents at its side, each signed by thirty-three of these very
persons, vest the legal estate in the first named, for whose sole
benefit the whole concession was made; the dates of the last
instruments succeeding, by one or two days, that of the royal patent
itself.

Such is the history of most of the original titles to the many estates
that dotted the region we have described, prior to the revolution.
Money and favouritism, however were not always the motives of these
large concessions. Occasionally, services presented their claims; and
many instances occur in which old officers of the army, in particular,
received a species of reward, by a patent for land, the fees being duly
paid, and the Indian title righteously "extinguished." These grants to
ancient soldiers were seldom large, except in the cases of officers of
rank; three or four thousand well-selected acres, being a sufficient
boon to the younger sons of Scottish lairds, or English squires, who
had been accustomed to look upon a single farm as an estate.

As most of the soldiers mentioned were used to forest life, from having
been long stationed at frontier posts, and had thus become familiarized
with its privations, and hardened against its dangers, it was no
unusual thing for them to sell out, or go on half-pay, when the wants
of a family began to urge their claims, and to retire to their
"patents," as the land itself, as well as the instrument by which it
was granted, was invariably termed, with a view of establishing
themselves permanently as landlords.