INTRODUCTION.

These mortuary records of Lincoln County are matter of public interest and importance. In them we have an epitome of the thrift of the generations past of this ancient part of our state as a culmination of the English common law, where first applied in the beginnings of New England, to shape and develop the life forms of society and Christian civilization in its civil relations.

The record also discloses, in clear and precise features, the religious and Christian sentiments of the fathers of Lincoln County to have been eminently biblical in all phases of man's mortuary relations to the pregnant future of human life. The facts of this record, in this respect, we deem quite remarkable.

As an outgrowth of pre-existing legal conditions of the history of this county, where first was applied in New England the forces of the English common law as a colonizing agency, I propose to make the facts of such application and the incidents of development a supplement to the legal records herein published; which had origin in the charter of April 10, A. D., 1606; practically enforced on the peninsula of Sabino, now Sagadahoc, in seizen and possession, under the English theories of valid land title in A. D. 1607; and further developed at Pemaquid and Sheepscot, when Lincoln County was an integrant part of Ducal Territory to 1689; and the organization of Lincoln Bar.

Expansion and application of the English common law as a colonizing force and antecedents.

UNDERLYING FACTS. A. D. 1492.

The fact of the existence of a continent in the west had been revived and certified to the nations of Europe by Columbus.

The next year, 1493, the newly discovered lands were partitioned to

Spain and Portugal in virtue of alleged Divine vice-geral domination. in a dotal act of Pope Alexander VI. These facts startled and excited Europe. The legal soundness of land title so acquired was questioned, as matter of international law. France wanted to find Adam's will and see the clause warranting its exclusion to a share of the new world.

England protested: appealed to natural right and justice: declared there was no good title in land without possession in newly discovered countries.

It was her common law doctrine of "seizen and possession," as applied to her popular homestead holdings.

The international conflict raised grave questions of right. England pressed the issue with incisive diplomacy.

The British Lion shook his mane; and bristling with resentment at the wrong of Papal presumption, roared,-"prescriptio sine possessione, haud valeat" and made preparation to force her common law postulate of homestead holdings into the international code and have it applied to trans-atlantic interests in defiance of the Pope's authority and in derogation of his assumed right in giving away the lands of the newly discovered world.

The English doctrine was novel. It was also revolutionary. The conflict deepened. Spain was supreme in prestige and power on sea and land, and also a petted child of the Church of that day. The issue of trans-atlantic titles had become national. England was resolute. The issue narrowed. Spain led off, the champion, not only of her dotal title, but also of Divine vice-geral authority in the Pope. More than a century had passed the Papal grant, when the English Parliament declared, that by law of nature and nations, seizen and possession were sole grounds of good title to newly discovered lands. In 1580,† this postulate of her common law was officially declared. The doctrine of possession, as the ground of perfected right in lands abroad, as well as at home, had become a battle ground of statesmanship and diplomacy in the legal arena.

CRISIS. A. D. 1588.

The argument was ended. Spain resolved to cut the Gordian knot with the sword. She marshalled an "Armada,"-arrogantly called, "the invincible",-entered the English Channel, with all the pomp and pride of a Divine mission, the 19th of July. England gathered her ships of *Holmes' Annals, vol. I, p. 1.

+Poor's Vindication, p. 9.

war, and massed her guns to meet the issue. Battle was joined the 21st day of July. Drake led the English manoeuvres. Fifteen different* engagements were fought. The conflict continued to the 27th of July, and Spain lost five thousand men and seventeen ships of war. England burned and sunk, and storms scattered, the Armada of Spain; and her naval supremacy went with it; and England became herself mistress of the sea.

Spain, to crush England in her presumption, had failed and fallen in the struggle. The Pope's dictum and dotal, heretofore regarded and respected as the end of all law, went down with the "Great Armada.” The issue gave force and effect to the doctrine of English "seizen and possession," as a guarantee of title to an American foothold in the new world.

The ancient doctrine of Papal Divine right, as an element of international law, was thus over-ruled. Possession now became the ground of right to valid title in North America.

Thereupon the maritime nations pushed for discovery of eligible sites for possession and the English common law of seizen and possession became a great colonizing force.

RESULTS. 1602.

Maritime restlessness in the west of England took shape in a voyage of discovery, by a new and untried route, to the American shores, direct in course west, as the winds would allow. The vessel was the "Concord," Bartholomew Gosnold, master. The result was that he made and touched the new world in a land full of hillocks, an "outpoint of tall grown trees ahead, a rock-bound coast and shores of white sand in Lat. 40° N."

It was a sunrise view. A Spanish sloop with mast and sail and iron grapnel came along-side; and the Indian seamen, some clad in European costume, came on board and chalked a map of the country on deck which they called "Ma-voo-shan."

Its attractions were noted, and reported in England; and the landfall marked, for further examination.

In 1605, a "new survey" was projected, and executed, by Captain George Weymouth, and returned before autumn. This survey resulted in the discovery of a magnificient harbor, the little River of Pemaquid, and the Saga-da-hock, the notable river of the Ma-voo-shan land-fall of the Concord's voyage of 1602.

*Teig's Chronology.

These rivers, of this land-fall, at once became coveted points of commercial value to England, for seizure and possession, where the forms and forces of English common law, should be applied, in planting homesteads of the English race, in New Englard.

The report of Gosnold, the survey of Weymouth, fixed the English idea of desirable locality, for eminent domain, in a national act of "Seizen and possession," for a "great state project."

Spacious harbors, grand river tributaries, magnificent woods, abounding in sea-shore fisheries and beaver haunts, were the appreciated features of commercial promise, in the panorama, of the Mavooshan land-fall, for places "fit and convenient, for hopeful plantations."

Sagadahoc, the notable river of the Gosnold land-fall of Mavooshan, was the magnet of subsequent colonial and commercial activity, to the west of England communities.

Gosnold's "wooded out-point" of the Mavooshan land-fall, the beaver haunts of Pemaquid dependencies, Sheepscot and Muscongus, with Sagadahoc, environed with waters, "the strangest fish-pond of the western seas," land-marked by Monhegan and highlands of Penobscot in the east and the twinkling mountains of "Au-co-cisco," west, in 1606, had become a land of promise, to the commercial industries of England, as a seat of English Empire in North America.

CHARTER OF APRIL 10, 1606 a. d.

Public interest and enterprise, took definite shape, 10 of April 1606. English purposes of seizen and possession then took form and expression, in legal muniments of contract.

A corporation was organized under a crown grant composed of eminent subjects of England.

The grant covered agreements. "We do grant and agree," were the words of compact. In tenor, it was a Royal license, hedged about with conditions precedent to future and further concessions. The grantees, were government contractors. a conception, legal and formal, of valid title and covering a purpose of enduring foot-hold of the English race, at the points of seizen and possession, made.

The transaction, was permanent possession,

The Christian nobility of England, joined the commercial agencies of her great seaports, in pressing government to participate in the enterprise. "The wings of man's life are plumed with the feathers of death," was cried in the ears of Elizabeth, in urgency of national colonization in the New World.

The Lord Chief Justice of the English Bench, Sir John Popham, headed the west of England movement, who is described as eminently* honorable and patriotic, and by the jealous Spaniards, a "Great Puritan." He manipulated the contract. The conditions were the making of habitations, leading out colonies of volunteer subjects of Great Britain, and planting them in "fit and convenient places." The contractors were required to "build and fortify" where they should inhabit, and could lawfully colonize only those of English citizenship, who would emigrate as volunteers.

The salient points of the contract of April 10, 1606, for seizing and holding actual and permanent possession of the American coast at and near the 44° N. E. are full and clear in purpose and plan. Gosnold's land-fall, the out-point of fair tall trees, little green round hills inland with the rockey shores of white sand, in the country of the Mavooshans was the contemplated "locus in quo," of the colonial undertakings.

English voluntary colonization, domiciliation of the race, military occupancy of fit and convenient places herein and about the latitude described, were the avowed purposes of both the government and its grantees, the adventurers, of the charter license.

George Popham and Rawley Gilbert with other eminent men of English nobility, their heirs, assigns and successors, were executive agents, under the grant.

Such a colonization by them accomplished under royal stipulations, insured, a future endowment of plenary rights to the fruits of their undertaking in a crown deed, or patent to the section of country by them discovered and so seized and possessed, on their petition therefor.

The contract of the 10th, April, 1606, pregnant with the forces of English common law at once began to unfold in starting effective English colonization at two eligible points in the Temperate Zone of North America, north of Florida, in English cartography, marked "Virginia." Two* colonial adventures were organized under the contracts of April 10, 1606, known as "the first and second colonies."

DUAL COLONIAL EXODUS.

The first sailed for Chesapeake Bay and seized the peninsula of Jamestown, on James River, May 12, 1607. (0. s.)

The second sailed May 31st, 1607, for Mavooshan, landing at and *Genesis of U. S. p. 45, Vol. I.