As a form of estoppel, it was asserted that when the body of laws, including the act in question, had been laid before the Board of Trade thirty years earlier, no objection was found thereto, with one unimportant exception. 100 Lastly, came the reply to the contention that the law was contrary to the laws of England and thus not warranted by the charter. To this contention it was prayed that no necessary colony law should be declared contrary to the laws of England when not contrary to some one type of English law —statutory, common, or customary —whether then in force or formerly in use when English circumstances paralleled present Connecticut conditions. 161 This prayer would leave room to justify the statute as consonant with descent under the law of gavelkind. 162 In addition to these general instructions regarding action to relieve the intestacy situation, instructions were given addressed to the specific articles of the Winthrop complaint, including the denial of appeals to the King in Council. 163 These instructions were apparently intended as an arsenal of arguments, not as directions for an attack, for they covered too many points of no particular weight and had none of the drive of a compact and well-reasoned case. They are redolent with the homespun philosophy of the county courthouse that any argument is a good argument. Shortly before these instructions to Belcher issued, agent Dummer, in London, was ordered by the Committee to lay before it the answer received from the colony. 164 An answer was offered, but the Lords, who were well acquainted with provincial forensics, rejected it as not the one received from the colony, but one drawn up in London. Dummer was therefore ordered shortly to lodge the original answer with the clerk of the Council. 165 After this answer was accordingly proffered, the Committee ordered laid before it many people, skilled only in husbandry, would be undone; creditors would be defrauded; the intent of intestates relying upon the 1699 act would be frustrated; the consequent decline of husbandry would affect commercial relations with other colonies and with Great Britain; population would decline; and increase of manufactories would be promoted {ibid., 146- 47). The first point was overstated, since settlements made previous to the 1699 act would not be affected by the nullification of that act. From the date of the act the "third, fourth, and fifth generation" had not been arrived at. 1110 Ibid., 148. 101 Ibid., 149-50. 162 This possibility had been mentioned in the lower court proceedings (see supra, a. 83), but there is no evidence that it was urged upon appeal. In the draft of instructions to Belcher it is stated that "if Bracton say true such a custom as our law has been in England" (2 Talcotl Papers, 427). 163 p or tne instructional answers to Winthrop see ibid., 150-58. See supra, pp. 160-61 for the discussion of the denial of appeals. Compare the answer in PC 1/48 with the above. 164 This Committee action was motivated by a Winthrop representation that the agent had received the answer six months previous, but had neglected to lay the same before the King in Council (PC 2/90/390 [November 19, 1728]). In the same month Belcher wrote that Dummer had the answer for over a year, but had done nothing for the relief of the colony (1 Talcott Papers, 139). Talcott replied that the agent had never been called upon to answer Wintiirop's complaint (ibid., 141). 165 PC 2/90/398.