Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol I).djvu/108

vincial state, partook very much of the character of those of the neighbouring Province of Massachusetts^[1]. Those regulating the descent and distribution of estates, the registration of conveyances, the taking of depositions to be used in the civil courts, for the maintenance of the ministry, for making lands and tenements liable for the payment of debts, for the settlement and support of public grammar schools, for the suppression of frauds and perjuries, and for the qualification of voters, involve no important differences, and were evidently framed upon a common model. New-Hampshire seems also to have had more facility, than some other colonies, in introducing into her domestic code some of the most beneficial clauses of the acts of parliament of a general nature, and applicable to its local jurisprudence.^[2] We also find upon its statute book, without comment or objection, the celebrated plantation act of 7 & 8 William 3, ch. 22, as well as the acts respecting inland bills of exchange, (9 & 10 William 3, ch. 17,) and promissory notes, (4 Ann, ch. 9,) and others of a less prominent character.

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1. N. Hamp. Prov. Laws, (Edit. 1771,) 19, 22, 55, 90, 104, 105, 143, 157, 163, 137, 166.
2. N. Hamp. Prov. Laws, (Edit. 1771,) p. 209; Gov. Wentworth's Commission in 1766.