Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol I).djvu/129

 CH. VIII.] themselves therein were made liable to the payment of their debts. In respect to the descent of real estates, the canons of the common law were adopted, and the eldest son took the whole inheritance by primogeniture. This system was for a short period repealed by an act, (4 & 5 George I, 1718,) which divided the estate among all the children, giving the eldest son a double share. But the common law was soon afterwards (in 1728) reinstated by the public approbation, and so remained to regulate descents until a short period (1770) before the Revolution. Contracts for things above the value of ten pounds were required to be in writing; and conveyances in fraud of creditors were declared void. And we may also trace in its legislation provision respecting hue and cry in cases of robbery; and of forfeiture in cases of accidental death by way of deodand.

§ 101. We have now finished our review of all the successive colonies established in New-England. The remark of Chalmers is in general well founded: "Originally settled (says he ) by the same kind of people, a similar policy naturally rooted in all the colonies of New-England. Their forms of government, their laws, their courts of justice, their manners, and their religious tenets, which gave birth to all these, were nearly the same." Still, however, the remark is subject to many local qualifications. In Rhode Island, for instance, the rigid spirit of puritanism softened down (as we have seen) into general toleration. On the other hand the VOL. I.