grant." It was maintained, and justly, by Allen, that he held all that
was conveyed to John Endicott, Jr. But the Court had no right to
encroach upon the Orchard Farm, which had been granted to the
Governor by them prior to all deeds and to the town grant to Bishop.

Never did that deep and sagacious observation on the mysteries of
human nature, "Men's judgments are a parcel of their fortunes,"
receive a more striking or melancholy illustration than in the case of
Zerubabel Endicott. With his falling fortunes, his judgment and
discretion fell also; his mind, maddened by a sense of wrong, seemed
bent upon exposing itself to new wrongs. Having been broken down by
lawsuits, that had wasted his estate, he seemed to have acquired a
blind passion for them. Having destroyed his peace and embarrassed his
affairs in attempts to resist the adjudications of the Court, he
persisted in struggling against them. He had tried to push the Bishop
grant west, over the land of Nathaniel Putnam in that quarter. The
highest tribunal had settled it against him. But he appeared to be
incapable of realizing the fact. He sent his hired men to cut timber
on that land. They worked there some days, felled a large number of
trees, and hewed them into beams and joists for the frame of a house.
One morning, returning to their work, there was no timber to be found;
logs, framework, and all, were gone. They were carefully piled up a
mile away, by the side of Putnam's dwelling-house, who had sent two
teams, one of four oxen, the other of two oxen and a horse, with an
adequate force of men, and in two loadings had cleaned out the whole.
Endicott of course sued him, and of course was cast.

When the General Court had consented to give him a rehearing of the
case of the Bishop farm, they expressly forbade his making any "strip"
of the land in the mean while. But with the infatuation which seemed