oured, in all things, as near as the capacity and constitution of this country would admit, to adhere to those excellent and often refined laws of England, to which we profess and acknowledge all due obedience and reverence."
[1] The prevalence of the common law was also expressly provided for in all the charters successively granted, as well as by the royal declaration, when the colony was annexed as a dependency to the crown. Indeed, there is no reason to suppose, that the common law was not in its leading features very acceptable to the colonists; and in its general policy the colony closely followed in the steps of the mother country. Among the earliest acts of the legislature we find the Church of England established as the only true church; and its doctrines and discipline were strictly enforced. All nonconformists were at first compelled to leave the colony; and a spirit of persecution was exemplified not far behind the rigour of the most zealous of the Puritans. The clergy of the established church were amply provided for by glebes and tithes, and other aids. Non-residence was prohibited, and a due performance of parochial duties peremptorily required. The laws, indeed, respecting the church, made a very prominent figure during the first fifty years of the colonial legislation. The first law allowing toleration to protestant dissenters was in the year 1699, and merely adopts that of the statute of the 1st of William and Mary. Subject to this, the church of England seems to have maintained an exclusive
su-
- ↑ 2 Henning, Stat. 43. Sir William Berkeley, in his answer to the questions of the Lords commissioners in 1671. "Contrary to the laws of England we never did, nor dare to make any [law] only this, that no sale of land is good and legal, unless within three months after the conveyance it be recorded."
