Page:History of Barrington, Rhode Island (Bicknell).djvu/350

 278 THE HISTORY OF BAERINGTON. ward." This land grant was evidently intended to cover all the lands between Plymouth on the East, and Narragansett Bay on the West, and was confirmed by the League of Peace with Massassoit and the settlers, by which, " hee the said Massassoiet freely gave them all the lands adjacent to them, and their heires forever." In answer to the claim of Plymouth and the Bay Colonies to all the territory " of Puckenokick als. Sawaamsett to Narragansett Bay and Patuckquet River," which had been deeded to the Sowams proprietors by Massassoit, in 1653, Rhode Island set up the rights guaranteed by her Charter of 1663 from Charles II., which describes the Eastern boun- dary line as " extending towards the East or Eastwardly three English miles to the East and North Eastern parts of the aforesayd Narragansett Bay, as the sayd bay lyeth or extendeth itself from the ocean on the South or South- wardly unto the mouth of the said river which runneth to- wards the town of Providence, and from thence along the Eastwardly side or bank of the sayd river (higher called by the name of Seacunck River) up to the ffalls called the Patuckett ffalls." This line was secured, among other valuable considerations of this Charter, by John Clarke, who spent twelve years in England prior to 1664, in defending the claims and protecting the rights of the Rhode Island Colony. The Charter of Charles was the death blow to the claims of Plymouth, but it was nearly an hundred years before the final act, establishing a permanent boundary line between Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Time and again colonial and royal commissioners considered the question at issue between Rhode Island and Plymouth. Sir Robert Carr, at the head of a royal commission, spent a part of the year 1665 in Rhode Island, and reported to Lord Arlington in London " that the two colonies could not agree for that Rhode Island claimed a strip three miles in breadth, east of the Bay, which Plymouth could not concede without great prejudice to her interests, and therefore they had, for the present, established the Bay as the boundary line until his