Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/455

 13. ANDREWS: COLONIAL CONDITIONS 441 forward in 1700-1701 for reuniting to the Crown the govern- ments of several colonies and plantations of America — Massachusetts Bay, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, East and West New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Carolina and the Bahamas and St. Lucia Islands — on the ground that " the severing of such power and authority from the Crown and placing the same in the hands of subjects hath by experience been found prejudicial and repugnant to the trade of this Kingdom and to the welfare of his Majesty's other plantations." ^ The bill, however, by reason of " the shortness of time and the multiplicity of other business,"^ failed to pass, but the Board thinking it very likely that it would come up again for consideration, desired from the colonies all possible informa- tion that would aid in the matter. From 1701 to 1706 charges continued to be sent in. Quary, Bass, Congreve, Larkin, Dudley, and Cornbury all drafted lists of com- plaints. The Board in a representation to the Council in 1703 expressed its opinion " that the great mischief can only be remedied by reducing these colonies to an immediate de- pendence on the Crown." ^ For Connecticut it was a time of anxiety. The influence of the Hallam case, of the contro- versy over the Narraganset country and the boundary line with New York, of the case of the Mohegan Indians, * of the Entry Book, C. .7. 426-430. Entry Book, B. flF. 86, 83. ^ B. T. Papers, Plantations General, Entry Book, C. f. 240. Every effort was made to i '.scover charges particularly against Connecticut and Pennsylvania. In 1703 Penn wrote to the Crown, " I observe your bent is extremely strong to bring all proprietary governments under the disposition of the Crown." B. T. Papers, Proprieties, M. 19. brought it to the attention of the Board were in large part agrarian. This was but natural in a community where husbandry was dominant. Talcott said as late as 1728 "many of the actions here (in Connecticut) are conversant about nothing else" (than the titles of land). Talcott Papers, I, 157. The Hallam appeal rested on the denial of a devise <^f land to " the ministry " of the colony, on the groimd that it was either in violation of the Statute of Mortmain, or, if it could not be so construed, it was a devise to '" the ministry " recognized by the laws of England, that is, the ministry of the Episcopal Church. As all towns in Connecticut made grants to " the ministry " or to " the church," a decision in Hallam's favor would have made havoc with ecclesiastical land titles in the towns. Caulkins, History of New London, pp. 222-227.
 * The text of the Act is to be found in B. T. Papers, Proprieties,
 * Board of Trade to Governor Blakeston. B. L Papers, Maryland,
 * It is interesting to note that the quarrels in the colony which