Upon my return home from the Annapolis Races (from whence I wrote you, committing the Letter to the care of Captn McGachen of Baltimore Town, who assured me it should be forwarded the Week after) I receivd a Letter from Lord Dunmore our Governor, containing the following Paragraph, which I inclose for your information, agreeable to my promise.1

I was suspicious, as I think I wrote you in my last, that the report of Lord Dunmores granting Patents was rather premature; for after declaring to the Officers of his own Government that, he did not conceive himself at liberty to Issue Patents for Lands on the Western Waters, I could scarce think he would change his opinion without giving them some intimation of it, either in a publick, or private manner; and yet, there are some words in his Letter (which I have markd) which seem to Imply an expectation at least of doing it. It remains therefore to be considered, whether the Officers claiming under his Majesty’s Proclamation of 1763 have2 a better chance of securing their lands elsewhere; and if they have not, whether the known equity of their claims, the prevailing opinion that Bullet is proceeding by authority in the surveys he is now making, and the united endeavors of the officers to obtain patents for the lands actually surveyed, may not discourage other emigrants from settling thereon; and, in the end, induce government to comply with their just requisitions by fullfilling its own voluntary promises. I own it is a kind of lottery, and whether the chance of a prize is not worth the expense of a survey, is the point in question. As subjects and individuals of the community at large, we are at least upon a par with those who are occupying the country; but whether any of these pleas, under the present discouragements of government, will avail anything, is a mere matter of speculation, on which every person must exercise his own powers of reflection.