“The last phrase is apparently JA’s note of his own position made during Fitch’s argument. The charter clause is presumably the provision of the Province Charter of 1691, by which the Crown, after granting all the lands formerly part of the colonies of Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay, Maine, and Nova Scotia to the inhabitants of the newly created Province, confirmed the titles to all lands “which any person or persons or Bodyes Politique or Corporate Townes Villages Colledges or Schooles doe hold and enjoy or ought to hold and enjoy within the bounds aforesaid by or under any Grant or estate duely made or granted by any Generall Court formerly held or by vertue of the Letters Patents herein before recited [those to the New England Council, note 2 above, and from the Council to the Massachusetts Bay Company] or by any other lawful Right or title whatsoever,” to be “by such person and Persons Bodyes Politique and Corporate Townes Villages Colledges or Schooles their Respective Heires Successors and assignes forever hereafter held and enjoyed” according to the terms of the original grant. 1 A&R 9–10.
The “law” to which JA referred was probably the Act of 30 Oct. 1697, 1 A&R 299–301, which provides that “every person or persons who were possessed in his and their own proper right of any houses or lands within this province,” on 1 Oct. 1692, and their successors in interest, who continued in undisturbed possession until 1 Oct. 1704, should thereafter have title in fee simple, “provided, always, that there shall be a saving of his majesty’s rights, and all publick lands belonging to the province not orderly disposed of.” An exception that titles in the Maine lands should remain open until five years after the conclusion of King William’s War, then in progress, is not material, because that war ended on 30 Oct. 1697 with the Treaty of Ryswick, which was proclaimed at Boston on 10 Dec. of that year. See 1 A&R 767 note.
17. This argument is presumably based on the fact that the Plymouth colony was not directly constituted by the Crown; the Plymouth Patent of 1630 was in form a grant to William Bradford and his associates. See note 3 above. The colony was recognized as such by the Crown in various dealings, including the Massachusetts Charter of 1691, however, so that it may be said to have had some sort of de facto status. See 1 Andrews, Colonial Period 296 note; 1 A&R 8. Moreover, the government of the colony was sanctioned by both the so-called “Peirce Patent” of 1621 and the 1630 grant to Bradford. Morison, “Pilgrim Fathers’ Patents,” 38 Col. Soc. Mass., Pubns. 402–403, 411. There was thus a corporate body in existence to take title to the lands, even if it was not technically a colony.
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/05-02-02-0007-0003-0002