Opinion of Sidney Webster, Esq., On the Law of Marriage Prevailing in the Colony of New York in 1772 (Classic Reprint) 12+

🔖 Excerpt from Opinion of Sidney Webster, Esq., On the Law of Marriage Prevailing in the Colony of New York in 1772From 1609 to 1772 there was not an opening, or an oppor tunity, through which any English common law, as regu lating marriage, could and did enter and become established in the Province of New Netherland or the Colony of New York. Englishmen settling in a newly discovered region occupied by the aboriginal races, or not peopled by any human beings, may bring With them and establish so much of English law, which is the birthright of every subject of the Crown, as they shall decide is applicable to their cir cumstances; but when Henry Hudson arrived in 1609 in what is now the Bay of New York, there were not, and never had been, English settlers in all that territory known in 1772 as the Colony of New York. Certainly from that date down to 1664 the political and municipal government, defacto, of all the region, had been continuously Dutch and not English. It is also my Opinion that the Govern ment of the Province of New Netherland and the laws of marriage prevailing therein were, down to 1664, dejure as well as defacto, Dutch.Whatever may be said of the other portions of the Atlan tic seaboard south of Delaware Bay, or 38° of latitude, and north of 41° of latitude, I assume it to be an historical fact that all the region within those lines was, first and foremost among Europeans, settled, planted, occupied and used by the Dutch, to the exclusion of any other Europeans ...