Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/437

 12. SIOUSSAT: ENGLISH STATUTES 423 with the modern classification of the British colonial system, we are not here concerned.^ It must be remarked, however, first, that the opinions we have quoted show a process of development, and some lack of harmony; second, that while the principles as to extension which Blackstone lays down did, in American courts generally, become the accepted theory of the transfer of English law,^ a different attitude was as- sumed towards his consideration of the American possessions as conquered territory ; and thirdly, that as Reinsch has shown, the legal theory is not universally supported by the actual facts in the legal history of the colonies.^ As we have not undertaken any but the barest statement of this legal theory, so our reference to the experiences of other colonies must be of the briefest. While in every group of colonies incidents turned upon or called in question the same points as the Maryland controversy, and although no com- plete discussion of this part of the subject exists, we shall on this occasion mention only two or three such happenings which are peculiarly fitted to help us understand the more limited field that we have chosen. In 1651 the Colony of Virginia surrendered to the Com- missioners of the Puritan Government in England. The first article of capitulation declares : " It is agreed and const'd that the plantation of Virginia, and all the inhabitants thereof, shall be and remain in due obedience and subjection to the Commonwealth of England according to the laws there established, and that this sub- mission and subscription be acknowledged a voluntary act not forced nor constrained by a conquest upon the country, And that they shall have and enjoy such freedomes and priv- iledges as belong to the free borne people of England, and Burge, W.: Commentaries on Colonial and Foreign Laws Generally, and in their conflict with each other and with the Law of England, London, 1838. Here will be found the story of the proclamations of 1763 — the Grenada judgment, etc. For Canada and the Quebec Case, see also Coffin: The Province of Quebec and the early American Revolution. See also Egerton, H. E.: A Short History of English Colonial Policy ch. iv. » Van Ness v. Packard, 2 Pet. 13T. passim [reprinted in this Collection as Essay No. 11].
 * For a general discussion of the later development of the theory see
 * Reinsch: English Common Law in the Early American Colonies,