commission, it appointed a committee to appear before the commissioners. 
This committee was instructed to show the unreasonableness of the Mohegan 
claims if the court were one of inquiry, but to protest and withdraw if judicial 
determination of titles was attempted. 50 When the royal commissioners assembled 
at Stonington, Connecticut, in August, 1705, the colony representatives, 
perceiving the latter intent, protested against the legality of such judicial 
determination. It was insisted that such action was contrary to law, to the royal 
intent, to the colony charter, and to the rights of subjects throughout the dominions 
51 Notwithstanding this objection and some interference with the 
proceedings, the commissioners proceeded to hear the complaint ex parte. 
On August 24,1705, the commissioners, accepting in toto Mohegan interpretation 
of the above events, gave judgment that Oweneco and the Mohegans be 
restored to possession of four tracts of land of which they had been unjustly 
deprived, with costs. The tracts were the "sequestered lands," or planting 
grounds, the tract north of Lyme, the Mohegan "hunting grounds," and a 
planting ground called Massapeage within New London township. 52 However, 
Dudley thought a further royal command necessary to enforce the judgment; 
in fact, the judgment was never executed. 53 
50 1 Trumbull, op. cit., 422. For the letter 
notifying the colony of the commission and 
enjoining obedience thereto see CSP, Col., 
1704-5, #181. 
51 Case of Respondents (Governor and Company), 
9; 1 Trumbull, op. cit., 422-23; CSP, 
Col., 17045, #1312. It was also a source of 
complaint that Dudley summoned subjects 
by sheriffs of his own appointment and that 
the lands of some of the summoned subjects 
were remote from the lands mentioned in the 
complaint (5 Winthrop Papers, 305). At a 
later date counsel William Samuel Johnson 
wrote that "the statute of Charles I we conceived 
prohibits the erecting any such court, 
and the crown was also stopped by the charter 
from claiming any such jurisdiction within the 
colony" (MS Conn. Archives, 2 Indians, 
#277 o). 
52 Case of Respondents (Governor and Company), 
9-1 1; CSP, Col., 17045, #1312, 
1312 i. Costs amounted to ,£573/12/8 (1 
Trumbull, op. cit., 424). The conduct of Connecticut 
toward the commissioners was included 
in the charges leveled by the Board of 
Trade against the charter governments (CSP, 
Col., 1706-8, #73). This judgment was 
severely criticized later by the colony: "The 
Appellants Affect to speake highly of the Commissioners 
in 1705, of the great Considerations 
they were of in the Colonies, of the 
rectitude of their Judgment, and the Lights 
they had not now to be Obtained to found it 
upon, and in these respects to Contrast it with 
the Judgment in 1743. It has been remarked in 
another place that their Judgment bears date 
the day after the Court was opened, so that 
it seems as if they had come prepared with 
it in their Pockets, and that in the whole they 
sat but three days, whereas the Court in 
1743 were fifty Days going thro' the same business. 
What they say of their being Men of so 
much Consideration in the Colonies, is not only 
unsupported by Evidence but is not true in 
fact. Dudley had been the Instrument of Sir 
Edmund Andross in all his oppressions of the 
Colonies, and was all his life long the Avowed 
Enemy of the Colony of Connecticut, which 
he constantly laboured to ruin. There is no 
Country in which there is not some Men disafected 
to the Government they are under, 
and of a factious Intriguing spirit, such, it is 
known, were the Majority of the Commissioners 
in 1705, and one of them, at least, undoubtedly 
Interested in the Lands in Controversy. As to 
the Rectitude of their Judgment, they are 
forced to Admit it wrong as to Massapeage, 
and it is apparent they had before them another 
Conveyance of a considerable Tract 
of Land which they rejected, tho' Acknowledged 
in Court by Oweneco to be genuine" 
(MS Conn. Archives, 2 Indians, #277 0, 
P). 
53 CSP, Col., 17045, #1422; 2 Talcott Papers