Privy Council: Referral of Franklin’s Application for a Land Grant, 10 February 1766
Privy Council: Referral of Franklin’s
Application for a Land Grant
MS Minutes: Public Record Office
Franklin’s interest in Nova Scotia lands has been examined in the preceding volume, where documents were printed showing that, as a member of two land speculating syndicates headed by Alexander McNutt, he acquired in 1765 claims to thousands of acres in what is now the province of New Brunswick. See above, XII, 345–50. The petition summarized here differs from the earlier two in that Franklin made it individually and not as a member of a syndicate, and that he applied to the Privy Council in England and not to the governor of the province.
[February 10, 1766]7
Upon reading this day at the Board the Petition of Benjamin Franklin L.L.D. humbly praying that His Majesty will be graciously pleased to grant him twenty thousand Acres of Land in such part of the Province of Nova Scotia as the Petitioner or his Agent shall choose upon the same terms and conditions on which Lands have been granted within the said Province, in order to make a Settlement thereupon. It is Ordered &ca. ut antea.8
[In the margin:]
Nova Scotia
Petn: of Benj: Franklin for Lands in this province.
Refd: to the Bd: of Trade
7. Acts Privy Coun., Col., iv, 817, notes this referral to the Board of Trade under this date.
8. Like a number of similar petitions entered above this one, it was ordered referred to the Board of Trade for report. That body having reported favorably on May 28, 1767 (more than a year later), the Privy Council Committee approved the application, stipulating the conditions for the grant, June 12, and the Privy Council issued an order, June 26, 1767, directing the governor to grant BF 20,000 acres. Public Record Office.