Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/154

122 the said lords proprietors a second charter, enlarging the bounds of Carolina, etc. * * * That Carolina was afterward divided into two provinces called North and South Carolina. That by a charter dated the 9th day of June, 1732, George II., king of Great Britain, granted to certain persons therein named all the lands lying be tween the rivers Savannah and Altamaha, and lines to be drawn from the heads of those rivers respectively to the South Seas, and styled the said colony of Georgia. * * * That South Carolina claims the lands lying be tween the North Carolina line and a line to be run due west from the mouth of the Tugaloo river to the Mississippi, because, as the State contends, the river Savannah loses that name at the confluence of Tugaloo and Keowee rivers, consequently that spot is the head of Savannah river; the State of Georgia, on the other hand, contends that the source of Keowee is to be considered at the head of Savannah river.

The petition recites other disputed points of boundary, and concludes with a prayer to Congress to take jurisdiction and try the case under the Articles of Confederation. The case was adjourned from time to time, until September 4, 1786, when both States appeared by their agents. Proceedings were then instituted and a court appointed to try the case, which was to sit in New York, June 4, 1787. No judgment was ever rendered by this court in consequence of the compromise of the suit be tween the parties.

Both states appointed commissioners, who met at Beaufort, S. C., clothed with full powers to make a final settlement. And now comes a singular part of the history, and the origin of the twelve-mile strip. These commissioners Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Andrew Pickens and Pierce Butler, on the part of South Carolina; and John Habersham, Lacklan Mclntosh, a majority of the commissioners, on the part of Georgia—April 28, 1787, signed an agreement and convention establishing