be, as neere as conveniently may be, agreeable to the forme of
the lawes, statutes, government, or pollicie of
England."[Footnote: Poore, "Charters and Constitutions," II,
1381.]

In the Southern New England colonies, when first settled, the
common law of England was disowned. They made the little law
which they needed for themselves, and as cases which this might
not provide for arose, they were to be decided by such rules as
the magistrates might think right and warranted by the precepts
found in the Bible. Connecticut continued to insist on this
view, with general consistency, until the days of the Stamp Act,
when it became the interest of her people to claim the benefit of
the principles of the English constitution and of the common law,
on which it was built up.[Footnote: Colonial Records of Conn.,
1689-1706, 261; Conn. Stat., ed. of 1769, 1. _Cf._
citations by D. Davenport, _arguendo,_ in Flynn _v._
Morgan, 55 Connecticut Reports, 132-134, from MSS. in the State
archives.]

In early Massachusetts the written pleadings often referred to
the Bible, quoting a text from it as an authority, just as
citations now might be made in a lawyer's brief from a legal
treatise or reported case.[Footnote: Publications of the Colonial
Society of Mass., III, 324.]

As was anticipated in the Raleigh patent, it was found from the
first and everywhere that if the common law was to be applied to
the rough conditions of colonial life some modifications were
necessary. These the colonists were, in the main, left free to