If the feudal system ever prevailed in the American Colonies, it had been shorn of its most severe features before either of the grants in question [or ani/ other of the Manor (/rants in New York'] was made, by the Statute 12 Charles II., ch. 24 {Anno 1660), which abolished the peculiar incidents of the military tenures, and changed them whether holden of the King or others, into free and common socage ; and which was re-enacted in this State soon after the Revolution with a retrospect to the time of the passage of the English statute I. (Ireenleaf, 359, p. 2."

The case in which the foregoing opinion was delivered was the famous one of the People against Van Rensselaer instituted by the Attorney-General of this State expressly to test the validity of manorial grants and privileges in the former province of New York, reported in 5 Selden 291. It was decided by the Court of Appeals unanimomly in favor of the defendant Mr. Van Rensselaer, in 1853, the decision being, that " Royal letters patent granting lands in the province of New York are not void by reason of their conferring manorial privileges and franchises upon the patentees."

These "privileges and franchises" are set forth at length in every Manor Grant, being such incidents of the Grant as the Crown chose to express in the instrument itself, and saw fit to bestow upon the grantee therein named.

These privileges and franchises of " the Freehold Manors of New York " as Chief Justice Denio styles them, were, in his words," " free from the vexatious incidents of the feudal tenures. And he further says " the feudal system, which if it ever prevailed in the American colonies, had been shorn of its most severe