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between the French and English in America. His is the best account of the famous confederation of the Iroquois.
With respect to Pennsylvania, I cannot do better than point out the work of Proud, entitled the History of Pennsylvania, from the original Institution and Settlement of that Province, under the first Proprietor and Governor, William Penn, in 1681, till after the year 1742; by Robert Proud; 2 vols., 8vo., printed at Philadelphia in 1797. This work is deserving of the especial attention of the reader; it contains a mass of curious documents concerning Penn, the doctrine of the Quakers, and the character, manners, and customs of the first inhabitants of Pennsylvania.
APPENDIX G.—Page 52.
We read in Jefferson's Memoirs as follows:—
“At the time of the first settlement of the English in Virginia, when land was had for little or nothing, some provident persons having obtained large grants of it, and being desirous of maintaining the splendor of their families, entailed their property upon their descendants. The transmission of these estates from generation to generation, to men who bore the same name, had the effect of raising up a distinct class of families, who, possessing by law the privilege of perpetuating their wealth, formed by these means a sort of patrician order, distinguished by the grandeur and luxury of their establishments. From this order it was that the king usually chose his counsellors of state.”[1]
In the United States, the principal clauses of the English law respecting descent have been universally rejected. The first rule that we follow, says Mr. Kent, touching inheritance, is the following: If a man dies intestate, his property goes to his heirs in a direct line. If he has but one heir or heiress, he or she succeeds to the whole. If there are several heirs of the same degree, they divide the inheritance equally among them, without distinction of sex.
This rule was prescribed for the first time in the state of New York by a statute of the 23d of February, 1786. (See Revised Statutes, vol. iii., Appendix, p. 48.) It has since then been adopted in the revised statutes of the same state. At the present day this law holds good throughout the whole of the United States, with the exception of the state of Vermont, where the male heir inherits a double portion: Kent's Commentaries, vol. iv., p. 370. Mr. Kent, in the same work, vol. iv., p. 1-22, gives an historical account of American legislation on the subject of entail; by this we learn that previous to the revolution the colonies followed the English law of entail. Estates tail were abolished in Virginia in 1776, on a motion of Mr. Jefferson. They
- ↑ This passage is extracted and translated from M. Conseil's work upon the Life of Jefferson, entitled, “Mélanges Politiques et Philosophiques de Jefferson.”
