Note 14 — Chapter II
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The laws they intended to be governed by were the laws of England, the which they were willing to be subject unto, though in a foreign land, and have since that time continued of that mind for the general, adding only some particular municipal laws of their own, suitable to their constitution, in such cases where the common laws and statutes of England could not well reach, or afford them help in emergent difficulties of place. (Hubbard's "General History of New England, from the Discovery to 1680." Massachusetts Historical Collection, 2nd Series, Vol. I., p. 62.)
Palfrey says: "All that is extant of what can properly be called the legislation of the first twelve years of the colony of Plymouth, suffices to cover in print only two pages of an octavo volume." (History of New England, Vol. I., pp. 340, 341.)