The New Hampshire Gazette And General Advertiser

A correspondent observes, that as that tract of land on the western side of Connecticut river is now erected into a separate State, and acknowledged by Congress as a new State, by the name of the State of Vermont, and received by that name into the union, it is expected that the present legislature of this new State will supervise and correct the rigour of those laws which have been put in execution against the properties of the subjects of the other States, who have been hitherto forbid by Congress to acknowledge their jurisdiction, especially such acts as have subjected their lands to the payment of taxes, in which they have not been represented.—Some of their leading men have reaped grand harvests—An act, passed to re-survey the out-lines of every town in this new State, although most of them were as well known as the public roads—Yet the Surveyor-General had power to collect taxes from each town to pay this expense, and in default of payment, to sell so much land as would pay the same, with contingent charges, by which power whole rights have been sold belonging to non-residents in the eastern States, without giving them any other notice than by a circumscribed newspaper, published in that State, while those non-residents lived at a great distance, and have never heard of the act—and it is well known that the Surveyor-General has made a nobleman's fortune from these sales, if he is allowed to retain his ill-gotten property. He has fallen under some censure, and some gentleman chosen in his place—and he now sets all at defiance, as he supposes himself justified by the laws made, before we were allowed to acknowledge their jurisdiction.—

What adds to the imposition, is, that the proprietors have already paid large proprietary taxes for laying out said towns and dividing them into locations, ranges and divisions; and all the lots now sold, only for running and re-marking the out-lines. Every step has been taken to deprive the non-residents of their title and lands, by quieting acts, and acts for laying road taxes, building meeting-houses, town-houses, and many other matters, on purpose to collect small taxes, so as to sell the non-residents lands there, before they can possibly get notice by their circumscribed advertisements.

The eyes of the people are upon Congress to procure some relief for the injured subjects of the union, who have left their lands, while this new State was in an unsettled situation, and only a few men had the influence to monopolize, near the whole of the non-residents lands, by virtue of laws which they themselves were most interested in procuring.