[1053] Arnold, Hist. of R. I., I, 365 (Nov., 1672). This bill was granted to Richard and Mary Pray, whom the assembly had permitted to live apart in 1667: R. I. Col. Rec., II, 479.
[1054] Ibid. (1664-77), 543.
[1055] The entry is marked "returned to county court": Early Records of Muddy River, 69.
[1056] Arnold, op. cit., I, 470 (June, 1683).
[1057] Ibid., 483 (1685).
[1058] See Acts and Laws (Newport, 1767), 74, containing the changes made in 1749 and 1754. The superior court is authorized in its discretion to grant alimony from the husband's estate.
[1059] In that year the court of trials, composed of the governor and assistants or councillors, which with no essential change in composition and functions had existed from about 1644, was superseded by a regular law tribunal, the superior court of judicature: Arnold, op. cit., II, 157. But already in 1729 a "Superior Court," composed of at least five members of the upper branch of the legislature, and apparently lower than the court of trials, was established: ibid., 90. In general on the various stages in the history of the court of trials, see ibid., I, 210 (1647), 302 (1663-64), 460 (1680); II, 16 (1704).
[1060] In Oct., 1749, a divorce was granted by the assembly; and this is the first Arnold had noticed, probably meaning in that period: op. cit., II, 175.
[1061] Durfee, Gleanings from the Judicial Hist. of R. I., 35, 36. See Laws of R. I. (1851), 796, where petitions for divorce on account of wilful desertion are transferred by the assembly to the supreme court; and similar reference, ibid. (1846), 57, 85.
[1062] Bishop, Mar., Div., and Sep., I, § 116. "If an uninhabited country is discovered and planted by British subjects, the English laws are said to be in force there, for the law is the birthright of every subject."—Story, Commentaries, I, §§ 147 ff. Cf. Kent, Commentaries, I, 343, 473; and Blackstone, Commentaries, I, 107, who regards the colonies as a conquered country.