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To the King's most excellent Majesty

May it please Your Majesty

Arthur Dobbs Esqre Governor of Your Majesty's Province of North Carolina has in several letters represented to us that great numbers of rich and substantial persons desirous of becoming Settlers in the Western parts of Your Maj. said Province daily resort thither from the neighbouring Colonies to the Northward but that they are unwilling to

take up the small quantity of land which by the 88th Article of his Instructions he is empowered to grant being one hundred acres to every Master or Mistress and fifty acres for every man woman or child of which his or her family shall consist and that it would tend greatly to the benefit and improvement of Your Majesty's said Province if he were empowered to grant to persons of substance and quality a larger quantity of land than the number of their respective families would entitle them to according to the proportion above mentioned obliging them only to the clearing and cultivating of three Acres per year for every hundred acres it being found impracticable for a settler to clear more than three Acres in one year and go on with his other improvements.

Whereupon We beg leave humbly to propose to Your Majesty that you would be graciously pleased to give an Instruction to your said Governor authorising to make Grants of any quantity of land on the Western Frontier near the Mountains not exceeding six hundred and forty acres to any one person of whose wealth and ability to cultivate the same he shall be sufficiently assured, Provided the Grantee be obliged by the terms of his Grant to clear and cultivate three Acres in every year for every hundred acres contained in his Grant and that Your Maj. said Governor do in all other respects strictly observe the rules and regulations prescribed in Your Majesty's Instructions to him with regard to the form and method of passing Grants of Land and ascertaining the payment of Your Majesty's Quit Rents

Which is most humbly submitted.

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