VII

states not interested as from those which were interested in the claim; and can attest the danger to which the peace of the Confederacy might have been exposed, had this state attempted to assert its rights by force. Two motives preponderated in that opposition: one, a jealousy entertained of our future power; and the other, the interest of certain individuals of influence in the neighboring states, who had obtained grants of lands under the actual government of that district. Even the states which brought forward claims, in contradiction to ours, seemed more solicitous to dismember this state, than to establish their own pretensions. These were New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. New Jersey and Rhode Island, upon all occasions, discovered a warm zeal for the independence of Vermont; and Maryland, till alarmed by the appearance of a connection between Canada and that state, entered deeply into the same views. These being small states, saw with an unfriendly eye the perspective of our growing greatness. In a review of these transactions we may trace some of the causes which would be likely to embroil the states with each other, if it should be their unpropitious destiny to become disunited.