The assembly rested from further matrimonial legislation until the passage of the act of 1766, already mentioned, which gave some relief to the Presbyterians, but not to any other dissenting body. Aside from the greed for the marriage fees, the principal motive leading to its passage was not justice, as will presently appear, but a desire to reward and strengthen the sympathy of the Presbyterians for the government in its struggle with the Regulators. The preamble of the act recites that because "the presbyterian, or dissenting clergy, conceiving themselves not included in the restrictions mentioned" in the act of 1741, have "joined many persons together in holy matrimony, without either licence or publication; whereby the payment of the just and legal fees to the governor on such occasions, has been eluded, and the validity of marriages may be endangered:" therefore all such marriages now celebrated or to be celebrated before the first day of January next are declared valid. Henceforth no minister of the Church of England or justice of the peace may celebrate marriage without a certificate of three times publication of banns, or a license from the governor or the commander in chief, "who is authorized hereby to grant the same, on certificate of the county court" of the person's "having taken and filed ... the usual bond," under the "penalty of fifty pounds, proclamation money; with condition that there is no lawful cause to obstruct the marriage for which such license is given." Presbyterian missionaries or itinerants in the western parishes, as well as all other dissenters in the province, are in effect excluded by the provision that after January 1 any Presbyterian minister regularly called to any congregation in this province may celebrate matrimony "in their usual and accustomed manner." But in all cases a license from the governor is requisite; and the marriage fee, it is carefully added, is always reserved to the clergyman of the Church of England having cure of any parish, no matter whether a dissenting minister or a justice performs the ceremony. Furthermore, a marriage celebrated without a license is declared "illegal and void."[779] [Footnote 779: IREDELL-MARTIN, _op. cit._, I, 157, 158; DAVIS, _Revisal_ (ed. 1773), 350. "It was proposed to limit this law to three years, which was not done. It provided for no Dissenters _except_ Presbyterians. But it seems that the original intention was to cover the case of all Dissenters. The second section probably read 'dissenting _or of the dissenting Presbyterian clergy_.' The clause in italics was stricken out and the phrase 'dissenting or Presbyterian clergy' took its place, thus excluding all Dissenters except Presbyterians."--WEEKS, _op. cit._, 245 n. 2; _cf._ _N. C. Col. Rec._, VII, 411, 329, 331.]