matters was limited to forty shillings, and an appeal laid to the higher court. The records disclose the same simple forms of procedure that had previously prevailed. They exhibit also the first bill in equity in Maine, filed June, 1640. It is probably the first in New England. The names of the parties are John Kinkford vs. George Cleeves and Richard Tucker. The cause of action related to accounting for some clapboards, ..." notwithstanding the said George Cleeves and Richard Tucker did formerly know that the said clapboards were in con troversy, neither can the plf. enjoy them; and they utterly refuse to give the com plainant any satisfaction for the same "... It required forty years' incessant effort, and at the cost of nearly all his estate, by Gorges, to establish a government giving protection to the scattered colonies of Maine. As will be readily seen, the future of the judicial department depended upon the suc cess of his government as an entirety. Judgments of a court without power to en force them, or doubts and strife as to the lawfulness of its right to hear and determine causes, must, of necessity, create confusion and uncertainty. That is what did happen soon after the Civil War broke out in Eng land, in the spring of 1642, when Gorges, returning to the mother country to espouse the royal cause, died in 1647. Sir Alexander Rigby, at the instigation of Cleeves, pur chased the Plough Patent of 1630, as it was called, and the latter, sent over in 1643 as Rigby's deputy, held courts at Casco and Scarboro' for seven or eight years, in con flict with the courts of Gorges, held by Vines. This was the beginning of thirty years' conflict ending in 1677, when Massa chusetts purchased of Gorges' grandson all his interests in the province for £1250 ster ling. During the last-named period, the law did not exist among the people as a science, nor was its practice regulated by men trained to the profession. After the purchase of Maine by Massa
chusetts, in 1677, the way was fairly open for the peaceful rule of the Bay Colony. Courts were immediately established, over which Thomas Danforth presided, and, in 1680, he was appointed president of the province. He proceeded at once to York, where he held an assembly of representa tives called to reorganize the government. The judicial system then prevailing in Massachusetts was not extended over Maine, as it was decided that the purchased terri tory must be governed according to the charter granted to Gorges. Provision, however, was made for appeals in all cases from the superior courts, and death penalties were subject to the concurrence of a majority of the Assembly. And it was ordered that the laws, orders and precedents that had been practiced before, and were of use in the province, should remain in full force until the General Assembly or Council should take order therein. This jurisdiction continued eleven years from the purchase, until it was interrupted by the second Indian war, which devastated the whole eastern country. During the existence of the colonial gov ernment no educated lawyer except Thomas Gorges, the first deputy of the proprietor, practiced in the courts of Maine. He was educated at the Inns of Court in London, and presided in the General Court of the province four years only. II. There was another province, lying between the Kennebec and Penobscot rivers, known as Pemaquid. It was occupied by perma nent settlers as early as 1625. In 1630, the year that Boston was founded, it had a pop ulation of about five hundred persons. It was at one time the seat of the most con siderable transactions of any settlement upon the New England coast. The general reader will find an interesting account of ancient Pemaquid by Mr. Thornton in the fifth
