men would not stay until the voting upon the list was finished, preferring for various reasons to cast an early ballot. The natural tendency was to support the experienced and known, even if indifferently efficient councilor, rather than to vote for an untried and unfamiliar man whose name would come up later, or even for popular men who could not be proposed until far into the day. As a result the party in power felt assured of their continuance in office. Moreover, proxies for the election were returned in April, but the result was not announced until the legislature met in May, nor was there any supervision compelling an honest count. Thus it was easy to keep in office Federal candidates, and thus the Senate, or Council, came to reflect public opinion about twenty years behind the popular sentiment. Furthermore, the clergy of the Establishment would get together and talk matters over before the elections, and the parish minister would endeavor to direct his people's vote according to his opinion of what was best for the commonwealth. This ministerial influence was not shaken until about 1817. There was still another grievance against the Council besides that just mentioned. It had come to be almost a Privy Council for advice and consultation. Furthermore it was, until 1807, the Supreme Court of the state to which lay appeals in all cases, civil or criminal, where errors of law had been committed in the trial courts. Its twelve members were mostly, if not all, lawyers, holding a tremendous power of patronage over the members of the Lower House, many of whom were also lawyers, eager for preferment; over the courts throughout the state, from which, since 1792, the old non-professional judges had been debarred, and also over the militia, whose officers, from the earliest times, had been appointed by the General Court. Further, the united action of the two houses was necessary to pass or to repeal a law, and thus much important legislation centred upon a majority of seven in the Council. Furthermore, at the opening of the nineteenth century, the courts of law also were thought to need reorganizing. The judges were declared partisan, as they naturally would be under the conditions of their appointment. The Republicans could not meet the Federals upon an equal footing in the state tribunals. They were disparaged in their business relations, "were treated as a degraded party, and this treatment was extended to all the individuals of the party however worthy or respectable; in fact as the Saxons were treated by the Normans and the Irish by the English government." [196]