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"We was cleaned up and had our 'pokes' at the post when the first boat from Dawson smoked 'round the bend. "Now, in them days, a man's averdupoise was his abstract of title. There was nothing said about records and patentees as long as you worked your ground; but, likewise, when you didn't work it, somebody else usually did.
Their journey was begun so late that the winter overtook them before they reached the river, and, as they had brought their cattle with them, they found great difficulty in getting everything across the river by means of rafts. It may have been that the echoes of all these preparations had reached England, and stirred the tardy patentees to action.
I grant indeed, that many of the latter coinage yield in weight to some of Wood's, by a fraud natural to such patentees; but not so immediately after the grant, and before the coin grew current: For in this circumstance Mr. Wood must serve for a precedent in future times. Let us now examine this new patent granted to William Wood.
In 1621 a number of extensive grants were made to persons thus engaging themselves to take settlers to Virginia. To Arthur Swain and Nathaniel Basse were given 5,000 acres for undertaking to transport one hundred persons. Five thousand acres was also given Rowland Truelove "and divers other patentees." Similar tracts were given to John Crowe, Edward Ryder, Captain Simon Leeke and others.
Lambert Meredith a name quite unknown to your Lordship, but of some consequence in this Colony through a fortunate Marriage with a descendant of one of the original Patentees at the last Election barely succeeded in carrying the Poll, and is represented to be a Man of much impracticality, hot-tempered, a stickler over trivial points, at odds with his Neighbours, and not even Master of his own Household.
Though various branches of trade and industry groaned under the oppression inflicted upon them, there were no means of redress. The patentees enjoyed perfect immunity, grinding them down as they pleased, farming out whole districts, and dividing the spoil.
The "Council" was composed of forty patentees, and Baxter truly states, that "Sir Ferdinando Gorges, at this time stood at the head of the Council for New England, so far as influence went; in fact, his hand shaped its affairs."
I might go on upon this subject to expose the frauds and tricks of stock-jobbers, engineers, patentees, committees, with those Exchange mountebanks we very properly call brokers, but I have not gaul enough for such a work; but as a general rule of caution to those who would not be tricked out of their estates by such pretenders to new inventions, let them observe that all such people who may be suspected of design have assuredly this in their proposal: your money to the author must go before the experiment.
Telegraph lines were being pushed forward in all directions, but the more the utility of this wonderful new agent was realized, the greater became the efforts to break down the lawful rights of the patentees, and competing lines were, hurriedly built on the plea of fighting a baleful monopoly by the use of the inventions of others, said to be superior.
Some few of their number, attached to the ritual of the church of England, were dissatisfied with its total abolition; and, withdrawing from communion with the church, met apart, to worship God in the manner they deemed most proper. At the head of this small number were two of the first patentees, who were also of the council.
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