OF NEW HAMPSHIRE INCLUDING THE JOURNALS OF THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRE- WITH AN APPENDIX CONTAINING BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF MEN WHO SUSTAINED IM- JOINT RESOLUTION relating to the preservation and publication of portions of the early state and provincial records and other state papers of New Hampshire. Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court convened: That His Excellency the Governor be hereby authorized and empowered, with the advice and consent of the Council, to employ some suitable person and fix his compensation, to be paid out of any money in the treasury not otherwise appropriated, to collect, arrange, transcribe, and superintend the publication of such portions of the early state and provincial records and other state papers of New Hampshire as the Governor may deem proper; and that eight hundred copies of each volume of the same be printed by the state printer, and distributed as follows: namely, one copy to each city and town in the State, one copy to such of the public libraries of this state as the Governor may designate, fifty copies to the New Hampshire Historical Society, and the remainder placed in the custody of the state librarian, who is hereby authorized to exchange the same for similar publications by other states. Approved August 4, 1881. PREFACE. This volume is a continuation of the Journals of the Senate and House of Representatives, and the Records of the President and Council, on the plan outlined in the preface to Vol. XX. These three political years exhibit the workings of the state government in the midst of the experiment undertaken by the adoption of the constitution of 1784. At the same time, moreover, the relations of the state with other states and the Federal union had been radically changed by the adoption of the Federal constitution, and that epoch is included in the period covered by this volume. The student of constitutional history will find in these pages the official account of all the proceedings of the General Court touching the election of delegates, provision for a convention to consider the proposed Federal constitution, and the assumption of the various privileges and duties of statehood under the new compact. The journal of the convention which ratified the proposed Federal constitution has been published in Vol. X of this series, and illustrative notes and citations on the subject are given in the appendix to Vol. XX. The extensive jurisdiction assumed and exercised by the General Court in the treatment of matters now regarded as of strictly judicial cognizance, or assigned to the courts of law and equity from considerations of convenience and public policy, is amply disclosed in these records of legislative proceedings. The General Court often undertook to reverse and vacate judgments of the courts of law by entertaining petitions for new trials, and exercising judicial functions in other ways, and they may be regarded, in a measure, as an indication of a lack of confidence in the courts or as the passing vestiges of that legislative supervision long |