Other States, whose boundaries were fixed, could put forward no such claims; and, as they were therefore limited in their area of expansion, they were fearful lest in the future they should be overbalanced by those States which might obtain extensive property in the West.

It was maintained that the Proclamation of 1763 had changed this western territory into "Crown lands," and as, by the Treaty of Peace, the title had passed to the United States, the non-claimant States had demanded in self-defense that the western land should belong to the country as a whole and not to the individual States.

Rhode Island, Maryland, and Delaware were most seriously affected, and they were insistent upon this point.

Rhode Island and at length Delaware gave in, so that by February, 1779, Maryland alone held out.

In May of that year the instructions of Maryland to her delegates were read in Congress, positively forbidding them to ratify the plan of union unless they should receive definite assurances that the western country would become the common property of the United States.