Note 951 — Chapter XV · DIVORCE IN THE AMERICAN COLONIES

In the petition for divorce in the Halsall case the counsel for the plaintiff says: "But considering the power of divorce doth properly belong to the Honored Court of assistants as is expressed in an order of the general Court (May 16, 1656) & a president ther is for it (namly Mr. freeman sometimes of Watertowne) & the law admitts it (page 17)."—MSS. Early Court Files of Suffolk, No. 257. From the last phrase (in which he reads "submitts" for "admitts") Whitmore thinks it "a reasonable surmise that this clause stood in the code of 1649, under the title Courts": Bibliog. Sketch, 101, note. The general court, referring to the same case, declares that it "doth properly belong" to the court of assistants: Mass. Col. Rec., IV, i, 272. Cowley, Our Divorce Courts, 10, mentions the error of Palfrey, Hist. of U. S., II, 17, who says the superior "courts had jurisdiction in cases of divorce."