Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/418

 404 ///. THE COLONIAL PERIOD said : " Be well advised in making laws, but being made let them be obeyed, and let none stand for scare-crows, for that is the way at last to make all to be condemned." ^ The instruction for the government of the colonies ^ fixed general rules for the descent of lands, criminal law, jury trials, and placed civil jurisdiction in the hands of the gov- ernor and council. The first code intended for the colonies, printed at London in 1612, and entitled Laws Divine, Moral and Martial,^ was exceedingly severe, and Sir Thomas Smith, the governor, was later much abused for having introduced it into Virginia. On account of the character of the population a strict rule was, however, absolutely necessary. In 1620, an attempt was made by the London company to compile a rnore adequate and humane code. Sir Edwin Sandys proposed the appointment of several committees for the following pur- poses : ( 1 ) compiling the laws of England suitable for the plantation; (2) collecting the orders and constitutions already in existence; (3) revising the laws passed by the Assembly. These committees were finally to meet and har- monize the entire body of laws which was then to be submitted to the king. Among the commissioners was John Selden.* These committees, however, did not report and Governor Yeardley asked for authority to make a collection of suit- able laws.^ The first legislative assembly of Virginia met in 1619. It passed a number of laws and petitioned the council that they would " not take it in ill part if these laws passed current and be of force until we know their further pleasure out of Eng- land, for otherwise this people would in a short time grow too insolent." There is here so far no claim of the immediate validity of English laws in the colony, and all parties con- cerned seem to think the formation of a new code adapted to the circumstances of the settlers necessary. In 1631, the oath of commissioner of monthly courts was fixed as follows : " You shall do equal right to poor and to rich after your ' Ibid., pp. 368-71. ' Ibid., p. 528. ical Collections, vol. VII, p. 55. » Ibid., p. 55.
 * Brown, Genesis of the United States, p. 371.
 * Proceedings of the Virginia Company of London. Virginia Histor-