of a gubernatorial instruction to enforce the report. 196 Later attempts to have 
the line altered as inconveniently severing townships were unsuccessful. 197 
We have already seen one aftermath of this boundary settlement in the litigation 
between the Penny Cook and Bow proprietors. 198 Although the commission 
and appeal proved a more practical device in this instance than in the 
Connecticut-Mohegan Indians controversy, the inclinations of dually commissioned 
Belcher almost led to the undoing of New Hampshire. 
THE MASSACHUSETTS-RHODE ISLAND BOUNDARIES 
A second instance in which a commission and appeal was employed to settle 
an intercolonial boundary dispute is found in a long-standing controversy between 
Massachusetts and Rhode Island. 199 The 1663 charter to the latter colony 
granted the territory "three English miles to the east and north-east of the 
most eastern and north-eastern parts" of Narragansett Bay. 200 When the Plymouth 
colony laid claim to this area, the royal commissioners of 1664 appointed 
Narragansett Bay, the natural boundary of each colony, to stand as the boundary 
until the royal pleasure was further known. 201 But the royal pleasure was 
not immediately forthcoming, and various unsuccessful attempts were made 
to secure a permanent settlement by Rhode Island and by Massachusetts 
Bay. 202 Finally, when the appointment of commissioners by both colonies, in 
1733, was rendered futile by inability to agree upon an umpire, 203 Rhode Island 
decided to "appeal" to the King. 204 
In December, 1734, therefore, a petition was presented to the King in Council 
196 3 APC, Col., #432; 2 Labaree, Royal 
Instructions, #9741 fCTP, 1734/'5-41, 329- 
30, 336, 352. Belcher ascribed delay in the 
issuance of the instruction to Tomlinson's desire 
to make a handle against Belcher in an 
effort to secure a separate government for 
New Hampshire (2 Belcher Papers, 322). 
107 3 APC, Col., #432. A question of interpretation 
of the conciliar judgment also arose 
as to whether the lands between the northern 
boundary of Massachusetts and the southern 
boundary of New Hampshire were under any 
jurisdiction (2 Belcher Papers, 377-78, 522- 
23). For an account of the survey see 32 New 
England Historical and Genealogical Register 
(1879), 323-33. 
198 Supra, pp. 233-34. 
199 The history of the cause is intermittently 
related in 2 Arnold, History of the State of 
Rhode Island (i860), 111-34. For a partisan 
account see 2 Hutchinson, Hist. Col. and Prov. 
Mass. Bay, 304-5. 
200 6 Thorpe, Federal and State Constitutions, 
3220. i 
201 2 Rec. Col. R. 1., 128. Cf. 2 Richman, Rhode 
Island; Its Malting and Its Meaning (1902), 
243-44. F° r tne charter provision under which 
Plymouth claimed, see 3 Thorpe, op. cit., 
1843. 
202 4 Rec. Col. R. 1., 445, 470; 1 Correspondence 
of the Colonial Governors of Rhode 
Island, 18; 2 Acts and Res. Prov. Mass. Bay, 
624. 
203 p or t h e statutes see 2 Acts and Res. Prov. 
Mass. Bay, 665; 4 Rec. Col. R. 1., 482; Governor 
Wanton to Richard Partridge, 1733 
(R.1.-Mass. Boundary MSS). 
204 4 Rec. Col. R. 1., 482, 491; 1 Correspondence 
of the Colonial Governors of Rhode 
Island, 65-66. Presumably this appeal was 
taken under the charter provision allowing 
appeals in public controversies with other 
New England colonies; see supra, p. 52.