Dame Justice, weighing long the doubtful right,
Takes, opens, swallows it, before their sight.
The cause of strife removed so rarely well,
‘There take’—says Justice—‘take you each a shell.
We thrive at Westminster on fools like you:
’Twas a fat oyster—live in peace—adieu.’”
But while the Pilgrims knew nothing of law as a vehicle for quarrels to ride on and for trickery to drive, they made use of it as a bit to curb disorder. “Some of their enactments exhibit profound wisdom, sagacity, and forecast; others show their strong attachment to the precepts of the Bible; and still others descend to matters of such trivial nature as to appear puerile; yet of these it may be said that they are preventive. The Pilgrims believed in nipping crime in the bud. The things forbidden may have been, in themselves, comparatively unimportant; but their influence, if unchecked, might have led to gross offences. By destroying the seed of wickedness, they labored to prevent the fruits.”[1012]
Very evidently the colonists were not free traders, for, three years after the landing at Plymouth Rock, a protective law was passed, by which it was enacted that “no handicraftsmen, as shoemakers, tailors, carpenters, joiners, smiths, and sawyers, belonging to this plantation, shall work for any strangers and foreigners until the domestic necessities be served.”[1013] And at the same time, in order to prevent the return of a famine which had repeatedly visited them, it was enacted that “until farther orders, no corn, beans, or peas, be exported, under penalty of a confiscation of such exports.”[1014]
Marriage was held to be a civil contract,[1015] and the intention to marry was to be published fourteen days, including three Sabbaths, before the union, and was then to be consummated only on the consent of the parents or guardian of the lady, if she were under “parental covert.”[1016]
Denial of the Scriptures as the rule of life, was an indictable offence, and was punishable by whipping; so were violations of the Sabbath, the neglecting of public worship, and slander.[1017] Once a Miss Boulton, on conviction of slander, was condemned to the humiliating punishment of sitting in the stocks, with a paper fastened to her breast on which were written the details of her offence in capital letters.[1018] At another time, two men were similarly dealt with for having disturbed a meeting;[1019] and this same court also “sharply reproved John Whitson for writing a note on common business on the Lord’s day.”[1020] Women who abused their husbands or who struck their fathers-in-law, were fined or whipped at the option of the magistrate.[1021]