forty-fifth parallel intersects the St. Lawrence River.


The disposition made of the great rectangular area bounded by the
Alleghanies, the Mississippi, the Lakes, and the Gulf, was fairly
startling. With fine disregard of the chartered claims of the
seaboard colonies and of the rights of pioneers already settled
on frontier farms, the whole was erected into an Indian reserve.
No "loving subject" might purchase land or settle in the
territory without special license; present residents should
"forthwith remove themselves"; trade should be carried on only by
permit and under close surveillance; officers were to be
stationed among the tribes to preserve friendly relations and to
apprehend fugitives from colonial justice.

The objects of this drastic scheme were never clearly stated.
Franklin believed that the main purpose was to conciliate the
Indians. Washington agreed with him. Later historians have
generally thought that what the English Government had chiefly in
mind was to limit the bounds of the seaboard colonies, with a
view to preserving imperial control over colonial affairs. Very
likely both of these motives weighed heavily in the decision. At
all events, Lord Hillsborough, who presided over the meetings of
the Lords of Trade when the proclamation was discussed,
subsequently wrote that the "capital object" of the Government's
policy was to confine the colonies so that they should be kept in
easy reach of British trade and of the authority necessary to
keep them in due subordination to the mother country, and he
added that the extension of the fur trade depended "entirely upon
the Indians being undisturbed in the possession of their