sion became an important branch of conciliar jurisdiction in the eighteenth 
century, but at this period was embryonic. 
In the seventeenth century the commission procedure was utilized in an 
attempt to settle the various boundary disputes of the Pawtuxet proprietors in 
Rhode Island. 295 These quarrels had their origin in a March, 1638, Indian 
grant to Roger Williams of a tract of land surrounding the settlement at 
Providence. 296 In October of that year the southern portion, later known as 
the Pawtuxet purchase, was conveyed to one William Harris and twelve 
others. 297 A line of division between the purchases of Providence and Pawtuxet 
was then settled in 1640. 298 In May, 1659, the General Court of Commissioners 
of Rhode Island licensed Providence township to purchase additional 
contiguous territory if desired. 299 Harris, seemingly without authority, 
then secured three deeds from relatives of the original grantor sachems confirmatory 
and explanatory of the 1638 grant. Particularly explained was an 
additional memorandum on the original deed, the authenticity of which has 
been disputed. 300 Although the deeds, under guise of confirmation, greatly 
extended the limits of both purchases, they were accepted by Providence in 
March, 1660. 301 
The effect of these confirmatory deeds was a conflict between the Pawtuxet 
and Warwick proprietors, allegedly holding by purchase from "inferior" Indians, 
as to ownership of lands west of the Pauchasett River and north of the 
Pawtuxet. In 1659/60 Harris and three other proprietors brought trespass on 
the case in the General Court of Trials of Providence Plantations against the 
Warwick proprietors for cutting grass at Toskeunke in the disputed territory 
302 The jury, on March 13, 1659/60, returned a verdict for the plaintiff of 
legation is discussed infra in connection with 
eighteenth century conciliar hearing o£ intercolonial 
controversies. 
295 This prolonged course of litigation is discussed 
in several places (see I. B. Richman, 
The hand Controversies of William Harris, 
introduction to Harris Papers, 10 R.I. Hist. 
Soc. Coll., 11-22, and 2 Rhode Island, Its 
Making and Its Meaning [1902], c. xiv; 2 
Andrews, Colonial Period, 55 et seq.; Notes 
on William Harris, 1 R.I. Hist. Soc. Proc. 
[1892-93], 214-29; W. R. Staples, Annals 
of the Town of Providence, 5 R.I. Hist. Soc. 
Coll. [1843], 562-90) but with little appraisal 
of the legal machinery involved. 
296 See 1 Chapin, Documentary History of 
Rhode Island (1916), facing page 64; 4 
Early Rec. Town Prov., 70-71; 5 ibid., 296; 
cf. Letters of Roger Williams, 6 Pub. Narragansett 
Club (Ist ser.), 305-6. 
297 15 Early Rec. Town Prov., 31. 
298 Ibid., 1. 
299 1 Rec. Col. R. 1., 418. 
300 For the confirmatory deeds see 5 Early 
Rec. Town Prov., 297, 300, 303. For the material 
on and discussion of authenticity see 
1 R.I. Hist. Soc. Proc, 194-98, 231-34; S. S. 
Rider, The Forgeries Connected with the Deed 
Given by the Sachems Canonicus and Miantinomi 
to Roger Williams of the Land on 
Which the Town of Providence Was Planted 
(1896), passim; G. T. Paine, A Denial of the 
Charges of Forgery in Connection with the 
Sachem's Deed to Roger Williams (1896), 
passim. 
301 2 Early Rec. Town Prov., 125, 127. 
302 Harris Papers, 53-55. The Warwick proprietors 
defended that the alleged trespass had 
occurred west of the Pauchasett River, the 
western boundary of the Pawtuxet purchase.