The arguments of the respondent landholders for affirmance differed somewhat from those of the Governor and Company. First, it was asserted that the 1640 deed or the 1659 deed together with Mason's surrender were either of them sufficient to convey a legal interest to the colony under which the landholders were purchasers for valuable consideration. These transactions implied that the Indians had agreed to live in submission to the laws of the colony. Whatever the operation of these deeds or the surrender, nothing was more evident than that the Indians and their agents intended their lands to be sold and cultivated, with only a reservation for their own use. Every transaction evidenced this intention except the two fraudulent deeds of 1665 and 1671, clandestinely intended for the private gain of Mason. 139 In addition, the respondents had paid valuable consideration for their respective lands to the Indians themselves. If it should turn out that such payment could not be fully proved at such distance of time and space, yet it should not be presumed against respondents or decided otherwise than by jury trial in the ordinary course of justice —at least not until it appeared that the Indians had sought redress without effect in the courts of the colony. 140 139 Case of Respondents (Landholders), 15. Cf. the statement of William Samuel Johnson that "The Colour they give to the Transaction in 1671, Sequestering the Lands to the Indians (as well as to many other Transactions in which respect they have throughout taken great Liberties) is unsupported by any Evidence. It was plainly Intended for the private benefit of Mason, or to humor the Indians, perhaps bodi, but could have no legal Effect with regard to the Title. Their Observation that it was Recorded, Immediately, by which the Colony had Notice does not seem to be well founded, there is no Date to the Record of it in the Colony books and it could hardly be recorded before the deed 1665, at die foot of which it was originally wrote, and which was first recorded 15th of Aug. 1705, after the Controversy was begun and then not in the Colony Books, but at Stonington where Dudley's Court was to sit. It may be farther remarked with regard to this Sequestration that if all the Lands were Conveyed to Mason in trust, as they pretend, and of which they produce this Instrument as proof, that it was but an 111 Execution of his Trust to Sequester so small a part of it for the Indians. Was he and his Heirs to have all the rest?" (MS Conn. Archives, 2 Indians, #277 h). 140 Case of Respondents (Landholders), 15. Cf. the argument of counsel Johnson: "The Deed in 1665 Is adduced to show the Trust and that the Indians and Mason yet thought they had Land, which they also Infer from the Treaty with Aramamet, and from other subsequent Transactions. Answer. No doubt they had a Right to Planting Land but of every other Right at least of all Native Right, the prior Deeds and Transactions, upon the most narrow Construction of them, clearly shew they had divested themselves. And the seeming Admissions of the contrary on the part of the Colony which are so often and largely Insisted upon, are fairly Accounted for by Considering the State of the Indians, unacquainted with Law and the Nature of Conveyances, barbarous and savage; and the situation of the Colony in those times when the Indians were very numerous and they equally few and feeble. No wonder that the Indians on the one hand should reclaim their Lands or want to sell them over and over again, nor on the other hand that the Colony should at times seem to admit their Claims, and make new Agreements with them, or purchases of them. It was perhaps Necessary, at least it was prudent. But it is apprehended that no Presumption arising from such political Conduct can defeat the fair Evidences of Title which the English early took Care to acquire, and afterwards were only solicitous so to Conduct towards them as if possible to keep them quiet. It never was an Objection of any weight in the American Courts where all those things