For the most part acts were disallowed as infringements upon the civil, 
rather than the criminal jurisdiction of colonial courts. The strongest diatribe 
against legislative interference in matters not properly cognizable is found 
in the 1761 disallowance of a 1759 Georgia act for confirming titles. The Committee 
represented that 
the determining upon a question of this nature by a partial act of legislature without 
any hearing of parties or any of those regulations and exceptions which justice 
and policy has prescribed in all general laws for quieting possessions, is arbitrary, 
irregular and unjust, and subversive of these established principles of the constitution 
by which disputes and questions in all matters of private property and private 
claims are referred to the decision of the courts of law." 82 
New Hampshire was a particular offender in failure to distinguish between 
the proper fields of action of the respective governmental branches. In July, 
1764, five acts of this province were disallowed, principally on the ground that 
they dealt with matters properly cognizable at law. 583 The rationale of disallowance 
was that judicial proceedings provided for decision on the merits 
in a contested action, whereas legislative procedure was ex parte in nature. 
In August, 1768, another New Hampshire act fell, because it involved matter 
properly cognizable in the courts of law. 584 At the same time a further act was 
disallowed as highly improper in restraining and directing proceedings in 
the courts of law upon party application. 686 In Massachusetts, in 1767, an act 
to enable one Abigail Little to recover from the children and heirs of her 
late husband certain sums due her as dower rights in realty was disallowed as 
not a legislative matter, but one determinable at law. Although the objection 
might be softened by the lack of a court of equity in the province, the Board 
of Trade apprehended great inconveniences and irregularities from allowance 
of such extrajudicial proceedings. 686 
The province of New Jersey also produced a galaxy of interfering statutes. 
A New Jersey act of September, 1762, conferring protection from legal ac- 
[Jamaica Record Office]). Wade's petition to 
the Assembly for relief was referred to a committee 
of three, who reported the verity of 
the allegations therein. See 6 Journals Assembly 
Jamaica, 463, 483, 485, 487-89, 497. 
652 5 APC, Col, #456. 
583 4 APC, Col, #560. For the acts see 3 
Laws of N.H., 168, 170, 183, 223, 237. 
584 5 APC, Col, #82. For the act see 3 Laws 
of N.H., 378. 
585 5 APC, Col, #82. For the act see 3 Laws 
of N.H., 406. 
588 Sir Matthew Lamb represented that the act 
related to an agreement made between parties 
in private matters, that it was alleged some 
of the parties had broken the agreement, and 
that the act was to enforce the agreement. He 
was of the opinion that it was a matter of right 
determinable in the courts of law and that the 
party aggrieved must seek for redress in such 
courts, where all parties concerned would have 
an opportunity to make their defense, which 
it did not appear they had in passage of the 
act (5 APC, Col, #16). For the act see 6 Acts 
and Res. Prov. Mass. Bay, 197.