It was fortunate that that event was almost simultaneous with the greatest change in the law of England since the days of King John. That change really gave to New York the Ireehold, partible, and perfectly alienable, land system, which, with slight modifications, has existed from that day to this, and under which her population has increased from the 10,000 souls in the last year of Director Stuyvesant to the 5,000,000 people over whom Governor Hill now rules in this year of grace 1886.

9.

The Manors in New York, what they were not, and what they were.

What were the Manors which existed in New York ? What were those in the County of Westchester ? To answer these questions, the origin and nature of Manors, especially those of England, all of which were created prior to the 18th year of the reign of Edward I. (Anno 1290), must be considered. The statute of Edward, called" of Westminster," or" Quia emptores " from its] first two words, " in the year 1290 put an end forever to New Manors in England." '^ Those Manors were feudal Manors, of the kind already alluded to, those erected in New York, four hundred years later were freehold Manors. Their difference, and why Manors could be erected in New York, and not in England will be shown.

" It has often been noticed," says Sir Henry Maine, " that a Feudal Monarchy was an exact counterpart of a Feudal Manor,^ but the reason of the correspondence is only now beginning to dawn upon us, which is, that both of them were in their