Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Transmitted to Congress with the Annual Message of the President, December 2, 1872, Part II, Volume V

No. 3.

Extract from the patent granted by James I of England, November 3, in the eighteenth year of his reign, to the council of Plymouth.

* * * * “Wee, therefore, of our especiall Grace, mere Motion, and certaine Knowledge, by the Advice of the Lords and others of our Priuy Councell, have for Us, our Heyrs and Successors, graunted, ordained, and established, and in and by these Presents, Do for Us, our Heirs and Successors, grant, ordaine, and establish, that all that Circuit, Continent, Precincts, and Limitts in America, lying and being in Breadth from Fourty Degrees of Northerly Latitude from the Equinoctiall Line, to Fourty-eight Degrees of the said Northerly Latitude, and in Length by all the Breadth aforesaid throughout the Maine Land, from Sea to Sea.” * *English colonial charters bounded English colonies by parallels of latitude.