It is possible that Captain Campbell could not have paid this extortion even if he had been so disposed; but being high-spirited, he resolutely refused his consent. The governor, still pretending to be very anxious to aid the emigrants, recommended the legislature of the province to grant them assistance; but, as usual, the latter was at war with the governor, and refused to vote money to the Highlanders, which they suspected, with good reason, the latter would be required to pay to the colonial officers for fees.
Not yet discouraged, Captain Campbell determined to exhaust every resource that justice might be done to him. His next step was to appeal to the legislature for redress, but it was in vain; then he made an application to the Board of Trade, in England, which had the power to rectify the wrong. Here he had so many difficulties to contend with that he was forced to leave the colonists to themselves, who soon after separated. But all his efforts proved abortive.
The petition of Lieutenant Donald Campbell, though courteously expressed, and eminently just, was rejected. It was claimed that the orders of the English government positively forbade the granting of over a thousand acres to any one person; yet that thousand acres was denied him.
The injustice accorded to Captain Campbell was more or less notorious throughout the province. It was generally felt there had been bad treatment, and there was now a disposition on the part of the colonial authorities to give some relief to his sons and daughters. Accordingly, on November 11, 1763, a grant of ten thousand acres, in the present township of Greenwich, Washington county, New York, was made to the three brothers, Donald, George and James, their three sisters and four other persons, three of whom were also named Campbell.
The final success of the Campbell family in obtaining redress inspired others who had belonged to the colony to petition for a similar recompense for their hardships and losses. They succeeded in obtaining a grant of forty-seven thousand, four hundred and fifty acres, located in the present township of Argyle, and a small part of Fort Edward and Greenwich, in the same county.
On March 2, 1764, Alexander McNaughton and one hundred and six others of the original Campbell emigrants and their descendants, petitioned for one thousand acres to be granted to each of them
"To be laid out in a single tract between the head of South bay and Kingsbury, and reaching east towards New Hampshire and westwardly to the mountains in Warren county. The committee of the council to whom this petition was referred reported May 21, 1764, that the tract proposed be granted, which was adopted, the council specifying the amount of land each individual of the petitioners should receive, making two hundred acres the least and six hundred the most that anyone should obtain. Five men were appointed as trustees, to divide and distribute the land as directed. The same instrument incorporated the tract into a township, to be called Argyle, and should have a supervisor, treasurer, collector, two assessors, two overseers of highways, two overseers of the poor and six constables, to be elected annually by the inhabitants on the first day of May. The patent, similar to all others of that period, was subject to the following conditions:
An annual quit rent of two shillings and six pence sterling on every one hundred acres, and all mines of gold and silver, and all pine trees suitable for masts for the royal navy, namely, all which were twenty-four inches from the ground, reserved to the crown."[97]
The land thus granted lies in the central part of Washington county, with a broken surface in the west and great elevations and ridges in the east. The soil is rich and the whole well watered.
The trustees were vested with the power to execute title deeds to such of the grantees, should they claim the lands, the first of which were issued during the winter and spring of 1764-5 by Duncan Reid, of the city of New York, gentleman; Peter Middleton, of same city, physician; Archibald Campbell, of same city, merchant; Alexander McNaughton,[98] of Orange county, farmer; and Neil Gillaspie, of Ulster county, farmer, of the one part, and the grantees of the other part.