represented the injustice of the Massachusetts petition to Chief Justice Willes, 
a prominent Committee member. 223 
The Committee, after considering both petitions and hearing counsel, reported 
that on appeal both parties were fully heard by counsel and given full 
liberty to lay all proper evidence before the Committee. In its opinion the 
Massachusetts petition was designed not only to delay settlement of the boundaries 
but also to introduce a new method of conciliar proceeding by admitting 
of rehearings or of a commission of review after Committee report. As Massachusetts 
could not produce any precedents of rehearings on appeals (all former 
attempts having been discountenanced as attended with dangerous consequences) 
and did not present any new evidence, the Committee abided by 
its former opinion. Therefore, on May 28, 1746, the King in Council finally 
confirmed the December n, 1744, report and dismissed the Massachusetts 
petition. 224 When the conciliar order reached the colonies, Rhode Island commissioners 
ran the line ex parte, no commissioners for Massachusetts appearing.22s 
In this instance the commission and appeal proved an effective device 
for settlement of intercolonial boundaries. The denial of a commission of review 
prevented the prolongation found in the Connecticut-Mohegan Indians 
controversy. 
THE CONTROVERSY BETWEEN NEW YORK AND NEW JERSEY 
Imperial insistence upon the commission and appeal as the procedural norm in 
settlement of controverted intercolonial boundaries is seen in the dispute between 
New York and New Jersey, 226 a cause in which no appeal was taken, 
nial Governors of Rhode Island, 309-10, 314, 
330-31. 343-44, 357, 390, 403, 408-n. For 
tlie Rhode Island petitions see ibid., 317—20, 
392-94. 
223 Partridge, in a Feb. 14, 1745/6, letter to 
Governor Wanton related that having left 
his answer with Willes, C. J., he received 
notice to attend the Chief Justice. He went 
accordingly "and had a fair opportunity and 
a full time of discourse with the Chief Justice 
setting forth the hardship it was to us 
to have our cause so long depending by the 
eyelids, etc., upon the whole he told me that 
as the petitions were directed to the King the 
Committee could do nothing on them till 
they were referred back to them from the 
King in Council and advised to get them referred 
as soon as I could and promised that 
he would speak himself to the clerk of the 
Council to get it done, and sayd he had read 
over our answer and that it was very full; 
which I apprehended was favourable and 
looked well . . . but I think this conversation 
with the Lord Chief Justice should not 
be made too publick" (R.1.-Mass. Boundary 
MSS). 
224 PC 2/99/452, 492. 
225 5 Rec. Col. R. 1., 197-201; 2 Correspondence 
of Colonial Governors of Rhode Island, 
95-97- 
226 For detailed recitals of the controversy see 
Fisher, New Jersey as a Royal Province, 210- 
39; Lilly, The Colonial Agents of New Yor\ 
and New Jersey (1936), 170-97; W. A. 
Whitehead, Circumstances Leading to the 
Establishment in 176g of the Northern Boundary 
Line between New Jersey and New Yorl{, 
8 Proc. N.J. Hist. Soc. (1859), 157-86. For a 
collection of documents relating to the controversy 
see 2 Report of the Regents of the 
University on the Boundaries of the State of 
N.Y. (comp. by D. J. Pratt, 1884), 598-801