Indians, are very much disapproved by the King, and that the reasons assigned by you for that deviation in the first of those cases do not appear at present either to excuse or extenuate a disobedience to the King's commands declared in the most clear and positive manner.
I am further to acquaint you that the sentiments expressed in Lord Hillsborough's letter to you of the 4th day of December 1771. concerning the unwarrantable and collusive practice of granting Lands in general are fully adopted by the King's servants, and I was exceedingly surprised to find that such an intimation to you on that subject had not had the effect to restrain that practice, & that the same unjustifiable collusion had been adopted to a still greater extent in the Licenses you have granted to purchase Lands of the Indians.
As all the facts however, are now under examination in the privy Council, I will not anticipate their Lordpps resolutions thereupon ; but in the mean time it is the King's pleasure and positive command that you do not, upon any pretence whatever, sign any Grant or Patent for those Lands ; that you do not either upon your own judgement, or by the advice of others, presume to depart from the letter of the King's Instructions, or to Act contrary in any respect to such explanations of them as you may have received from those to whom His Majty has intrusted the signification of his commands, which commands ought ever to be held sacred, and which it will be my duty to see obeyed, so long as I continue in the situation in which His Majesty has been graciously pleased to place me —
I am ettc
Darmouth
E. B. O'Callaghan, editor, Documents relative to the. Colonial History of the State of New-York (Albany, 1857), VIII, 339.
