Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/461

 13. ANDREWS: COLONIAL CONDITIONS 447 little personal estate.^ Many of these settlements reached back to the beginnings of the colony, and the invalidating of titles would have affected large numbers of descendants who would thus have been liable to ejection at the instance of the eldest heir. ^ Such ejectment concerned the younger sons and the female heirs, for whom under such conditions there would be no place in the colony. ^ Even if the titles to estates already settled in the Court of Probate should be allowed to stand, yet there were many estates of twenty or thirty years standing that had never been settled, and more of a later date, so that the suffering would only be limited, not ended. Furthermore, litigation would have at once ensued, which would have involved the colony in an eco- nomic loss greater than that entailed in a resistance to the decree. The agrarian system of the towns would have given to this litigation a curious complexity. Quarrels were cer- tain to arise within the towns themselves regarding the ownership of the common and undivided lands. ^ Would the title rest with the heirs at common law of those who re- ceived by grant from the King, that is, the patentees, or with those who as proprietors and contributors to the common fund purchased the lands from the Indians, and received their shares according to the size of their families and the amount of their subscription? ^ Judges, too, in settling all » Talcott Papers, I, p. 234. » Talcott Papers, I, p. 146. » Ibid., I, pp. 122, 146. count of the Interest of the Several Proprietors of the Common and Undivided Lands [computed] according to the Custom of Deviding Intestates in the Colony of Connecticut." Dec. 28, 1733. A study of the lists herein contained shows graphically the practical working of the intestacy law. In 1673 a list of proprietors had been drawn up, 52 in number, with real estate " rights " in the undivided lands ranging from £224 to £24. In 1733 this list was revised, and it was found that by constant subdivision of " rights " through purchase, bequest and intestacy settlement, the number of proprietors had increased to 328, the number of " rights " to 386 (circa) ranging in value from £103 to 9sh. with by far the greater number valued at less than £5, An ex- amination of such lists proves how impossible it would have been to carry out the Order in Council voiding the law. The Middletown pro- prietors paid no attention whatever to the king's decree. might have been caused had this feature of the case been brought to the attention of the authorities at home. It might have been decided in favor of the Patentees if we may judge from the legal opinion of At-
 * In the Middletown Mss. Proprietary Records there is " An Ac-
 * Talcott Papers, I, 177. It is not unlikely that considerable trouble