order was issued from the Privy Council chamber in Whitehall
granting an immense territory, including all of the present West
Virginia and the land alienated to Virginia by Donelson's
agreement with the Cherokees (1772), to a company including
Thomas Walpole, Samuel Wharton, Benjamin Franklin, and others.
This new colony, to be named "Vandalia," seemed assured. A clash
between Dunmore and the royal authorities was imminent; for
Virginia under her sea-to-sea charter claimed the vast middle
region of the continent, extending without known limit to west
and northwest. Moreover, Dunmore was interested in great land
speculations on his own account; and while overtly vindicating
Virginia's claim to the trans-Alleghany by despatching parties of
surveyors to the western wilderness to locate and survey lands
covered by military grants, he with the collusion of certain
members of the "Honourable Board," his council, as charged by
Washington, was more than "lukewarm," secretly restricting as
rigorously as he dared the extent and number of the soldiers'
allotments. According to the famous Virginia Remonstrance, he was
in league with "men of great influence in some of the neighboring
states" to secure, under cover of purchases from the Indians,
large tracts of country between the Ohio and the Mississippi." In
shaping his plans Dunmore had the shrewd legal counsel of Patrick
Henry, who was equally intent upon making for himself a private
purchase from the Cherokees. It was Henry's legal opinion that
the Indiana purchase from the Six Nations by the Pennsylvania
traders at Fort Stanwix (November 5, 1768) was valid; and that
purchase by private individuals from the Indians gave full and
ample title. In consequence of these facts, William Murray, in
behalf of himself and his associates of the Illinois Land
Company, and on the strength of the Camden Yorke decision,