Gerard van Honthorst, initially trained at the…

Acadia has fallen under English sovereignty following the Treaty of Utrecht and the restoration of peace between France and England.

The sachems seek a truce when the natives realize that they can no longer depend on the French for protection, and propose a peace conference to be held at Casco.

Joseph Dudley, Governor of the Provinces of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, agrees to a conference, but chooses instead to host it at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, which is protected by the guns of Fort William and Mary.

Dudley and various dignitaries from New Hampshire and Massachusetts Bay (which at this time extends into Maine) meet On July 11, 1713, with delegates from Abenaki tribes, including the Amasacontee, Maliseet, Norridgewock, Pennacook, Penobscot and Sokoki.

The agreement is read aloud by sworn interpreters to the sachems, eight of whom sign with totemic pictographs on July 13.

Others will do so the following year after similar interpretation at another convention.

At the signing of the Treaty of Portsmouth are also the St. John River Maliseet [Wolastoqiyik], Mi'kmaw (Mi'kmaq), and Abenaki nations of Acadia.

The Wabanaki regard the Treaty of Portsmouth as the reaffirmation of the Treaty of 1699 at Mare's Point, limiting British settlements to the west of the Kennebec River, while the British also would keep Port Royal (Annapolis Royal).

The Mi'kmaq and Maliseet state that Acadia belongs to them, and that the French King cannot give it to the English King, since he does not own it.

The British make efforts to win over the Wabanaki by using superior goods and ceremonial presents for the fur trade.

They also try to have the Wabanaki expel French soldiers and priests from their villages, but without much success.

The Mi'kmaq do not sign the Treaty of Portsmouth.

The British see the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht and Treaty of Portsmouth as an opportunity to regain the settlements of Saco, Scarborough, and Falmouth, and a new chance to exploit the Wabanaki territories between the Kennebec and St. Croix rivers, in violation of the treaty.

Benning Wentworth's commission as governor of New Hampshire is issued in June 1741; he is also later appointed the king's surveyor general.

Wentworth assumes the office on December 13, 1741.

The eldest child of John Wentworth, Lieutenant Governor for the Province of New Hampshire from 1717 to 1730, Benning Wentorth is a great-grandson of "Elder" William Wentworth, a follower of John Wheelwright and an early settler of New Hampshire.

Benning was born and will die in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

Under his father's leadership, the Wentworths had become one of the most prominent political and merchant families in the small colony.

Benning Wentworth had graduated from Harvard College in 1715.

He became a merchant at Portsmouth, and frequently represented the town in the provincial assembly.

He was appointed as a King's Councillor, October 12, 1734.

A series of twists of fate bring Wentworth to the governor's chair in 1741.

His father, a relation of Charles Watson-Wentworth, the Marquis of Rockingham, had lobbied colonial officials to establish a separate governorship for New Hampshire.

Until now it has been under the oversight of the governor of the neighboring (and much larger) Province of Massachusetts Bay.

Jonathan Belcher, governor of both provinces during the 1730s and a Massachusetts native, had during his tenure issued many land grants to Massachusetts interests in disputed areas west of the Merrimack River.

There are claims that he had been biased in his awards.

The dispute had finally reached the highest levels of King George II's government by the late 1730s, and the Board of Trade had decided to separate the two governorships.

At the time, Wentworth was in London dealing with a personal financial crisis.

He had delivered a shipment of timber to Spain in 1733, but was not paid by the Spanish because of an episode of difficult diplomatic relations at the time.

Wentworth had had to borrow money to pay his own creditors, and had lobbied London to secure payment from Spain.

The diplomatic moves were unsuccessful (the War of Jenkins' Ear had started in 1739 as a result of these disputes), and Wentworth had been forced into bankruptcy.

As part of the bankruptcy, he had claimed £11,000 are owed him by the British government due to the Spanish failure to pay.

His London creditors had agreed to forgo immediate repayment of the debt if the government would give him the governorship of New Hampshire.

This had been agreed, on the condition that Wentworth abandon his claim against the British government.

The Crown has authorized New Hampshire's Governor Wentworth to grant patents of unoccupied land, and in 1749 begins making grants in what is now southern Vermont.

He enriches himself by a clever scheme of selling land to developers in spite of jurisdictional claims for this region by the Province of New York.

He often names the new townships after famous contemporaries in order to gain support for his enterprises (for example, Rutland is named after John Manners, 3rd Duke of Rutland; he names Bennington after himself).

In each of the grants, he stipulates the reservation of a lot for an Anglican church, and one for himself.

Ultimately, this scheme will lead to a great deal of contention between New York, Massachusetts, and the settlers in Vermont.

The dispute will outlive Wentworth's administration, lasting until Vermont is admitted as a state in 1791.

A fact often overlooked among those who accuse Wentworth of overweening self-interest is that the charters he issues (known as the New Hampshire Grants) are intended to establish self-supporting towns based on democratic government and fee simple ownership of land.

The Wentworth grants created modern towns in this sense, unlike New Netherland and New York, for example.

The grants are all similar: the towns are six miles square, containing about 24,000 acres.

The charters require set-asides to support the school, the settled minister, the glebe, and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts.

He issues the charters to groups of investors in southern New England, most of whom will never set foot there.

They hire surveyors who measure off hundred-acre lots, then hire middlemen who sell the lots to individuals and families eager to move north out of the already-crowded lower colonies.

To prevent runaway speculation, failure to personally occupy and put the land under cultivation will result in forfeiture.

Wentworth's charters call for settlers to cultivate five acres in five years for every fifty acres they own.

Proof of cultivation is payment of an ear of Indian corn in Portsmouth once a year at Christmas (Lady Day), for the first ten years.

Hereafter, once the economy is up and running and hard currency is available, the "tax" will be one shilling per year for every hundred acres owned, in perpetuity.

When fifty families have settled the town can have a market and two fairs per year.

An equally important and universally missed fact is that the Wentworth charters stipulate the formation of a town government and an annual Town Meeting, to be held the first Tuesday in March.

This town meeting practice still holds today.

It is true that Wentworth reserves five hundred acres in the contiguous corners of each town, marked on maps with "B. W.", but it still is not clear whether he does so as a private individual or as a representative of the Crown; more study in original documents is needed.

To understand New Hampshire's controversy with New York Province, a contest for the same land area in what will become the state of Vermont, it is necessary to remember that Governor Wentworth's charters provide for ownership in fee simple.

New York still operates on a quasi-feudal system (perhaps borrowing from the Dutch patroon system), awarding enormous tracts of land to political favorites, who see no need to provide for schools or allow self-government by settlers.

As a result, your yeoman farmer, who assumes his New Hampshire deed is valid, becomes a tenant farmer overnight.

New York, waiting until one hundred and twenty-eight towns in the New Hampshire Grants have come under cultivation, moves in and claims them all on the strength of an ill-defined hundred-year-old grant to the Duke of York (the future James II) by his brother Charles II, imposing entire new grants on top of the Wentworth grants, and requiring landowners to repurchase their deeds at exorbitant fees from New York Province.

A furor results, and even when the Crown imposes a moratorium in 1764 of all chartering and Governor Wentworth stops, New York continues with the practice, to the disgust and outrage of Ethan Allen, among others.

Other popular demonstrations occur in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, ...

British military command votes early in December to prohibit the export of arms and powder to North America, and to secure all remaining stores.

On December 12, intelligence received by Paul Revere indicates that a seizure of stores at Fort William and Mary in Portsmouth, New Hampshire is imminent.

He rides from Boston to Portsmouth the next day to notify the local Patriots, who quickly raid the fort on the fourteenth and remove its supplies.

Revere's intelligence had been incorrect; although a British operation had been contemplated, it had not been ordered.

The British do send ships carrying troops to Portsmouth, and they arrive three days after the fort's supplies were removed.

The first arrives on the 17th, and is directed into shallows at high tide by a local Patriot pilot, much to the captain's anger.