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Description

Due to the explorations of the Cabots (1497--8) Britain had laid claim to the Atlantic Seaboard from Nova Scotia to Cape Fern; known as Virginia, it was granted to the London, Plymouth, and Exeter companies in two parts, divided by the 40th degree of latitude. In 1624 the grant to the London company was rescinded between the 34th and 40th degree of northern latitude and the northern part was granted in 1632, to Lord Baltimore and the southern part, in 1663, to the Earl of Clarendon. Later these grants were split again, bringing up boundary questions.

In the spring of 1684 Lord Baltimore and Penn were in England, each pressing claim for the territory included in the three lower counties of Pennsylvania. After many petitions, hearings, etc., the matter was decided in Penn's favor (1685); however the question remained in controversy until 1769 when the Mason-Dixon Line was ratified as the boundary. It is interesting to note a new line was established as late as 1921. The map present in this copy is from a copperplate; a woodcut map was issued with the book, Sabin, 45073; Campbell: Franklin Imprints, p. 50; Hildeburn, 455.

         The Articles of Agreement for settling the fifty-year-old boundary dispute between the Penns and Lord Baltimore are printed here for the first time from one of the six manuscript copies executed at London on May 10, 1732. A copy of the manuscript agreement had been sent to the agents of the Penns in Philadelphia and so was available to Franklin. The map that accompanies the Articles is a copy done in Philadelphia of the engraved map by John Senex referred to in the manuscript copies in a provision that reads, “the draught of plan printed in the margin upon this skin of parchment ... for the assistance and guidance of the said parties ... by which this present agreement is to be explained and understood.”

This woodcut version of the Senex copper plate is the first map to be printed in the English colonies south of New York. In speaking of this woodcut Lawrence Wroth in the Annual Report of the JCB for 1946--47, remarks that, “the identity of the American copyist of 1733 is unknown, but if we remember that before this time Franklin had taught himself enough of the engraver’s art to make small woodcuts of various sorts and plates for paper money, it is not entirely unreasonable to suggest that he may have copied the London map with his own hand.”---Thomas W. Streeter

Title/1st Text Page: https://www.raremaps.com/gallery/detail/52062b

Text and Map:  https://www.raremaps.com/gallery/detail/52062c

Condition Description
Minor soiling.