[68] This is a protest against the occasional arbitrary action of the Massachusetts governor in past years. Both Winthrop and Vane had been guilty of refusing to put motions to the General Court.
[69] The coroner's jury had existed by custom in the colony from the first.
[70] This recognized existing local practice. Cf. No. 66.
[71] This democratic advance had been taken two years earlier in Connecticut. Cf. No. 93.
[72] Actual practice disregarded this limitation to nine, and also the attempt to restrict the "select men" and the voters to "freemen." 74 should have followed 66.
[73] This with the first half of the next law is based upon the Jewish law.
[74] This noble provision soon became a dead letter.
[75] To give the prefix Mrs. (Mistress) to this poor woman would be wholly out of keeping with the usage of that day.
[76] Cf. also some of the entries in the extracts from the _Watertown Records_, No. 83, below.
[77] The heading is missing (by mutilation) from the _Records_.
[78] This was a fee for a very indefinite description of title: cf. (8), below, and note.
[79] The descriptions of such divisions of lands were exceeding vague,--illustrated by the following entry from the _Records_ of the Town of Plymouth,--rather clearer than the average but selected here because of its brevity:--
"Ordered to be Recorded pr. Thomas Southworth:
haveing order att a Townemeeting held the second day of January 1666 for the bounding of ten acrees of land graunted to Benjamine Eaton lying above the lands that was formerly George Clarkes and betwixt ffrancis Billingtons lott and the lotts that were John Cookes; have layed it out on the westward side of the swamp called Bradfords Marsh and on the south side and east end of the said land have bounded it with a swamp wood tree standing att or in the swamp: from thence the line extends nearest southwest and by west to a Red oake tree marked and standing on the westward side of the Topp of a hill; and on the north side and east end next to the swamp with a young walnutt sapling, and from the said walnut the line extends nearest southwest and by west unto a forked Red oake sapling; bounded Aprill 11th 1667 pr Will: Crow."
The following entry of a "deed" from the _Early Records of the Town of Providence_ illustrates the worst cases of land titles:--