Thomas Danforth was the senior associate, who is described by Sewall as “a very good husbandman, and a very good Christian, and a good councillor;” but his reputation as a jurist rested upon a spotless record, he having been the most uncompromising of the high church managers. Wait Winthrop was a soldier, and was not only in the council, but so active in public life that years afterward, while on the bench, he was set up as a candidate for governor in opposition to Dudley. John Richards was a merchant, who had been sent to England as agent in 1681, just when the troubles came to a crisis; but the labors by which he won the ermine seem plain enough, for he was bail for Increase Mather when sued by Randolph, and was appointed by Phips. Samuel Sewall was brought up to preach, took to politics on the conservative side, and was regularly chosen to the council. This motley crew, who formed the first superior court, had but one trait in common: they belonged to the clique who controlled the patronage; and as it began so it continued to the end, for Hutchinson, the last chief justice but one, was a merchant; yet he was also probate judge, lieutenant-governor, councillor, and leader of the Tories. In so intelligent a community such prostitution of the judicial office would have been impossible but for the pernicious tradition that the civil magistrate needed no special training to perform his duty, and was to take his law from those who expounded the Word of God. And there was another inheritance, if possible, more baleful still. The legislature, under the Puritan Commonwealth, had been the court of last resort, and it was by no means forward to abandon its prerogative. It was consequently always ready to listen to the complaints of suitors who thought themselves aggrieved by the decisions of the regular tribunals, and it was fond of altering the course of justice to make it conform to what the members were pleased to call equity. This abuse finally took such proportions that Hutchinson remonstrated vigorously in a speech to the houses in 1772. “Much time is usually spent ... in considering petitions for new trials at law, for leave to sell the real estates of persons deceased, by their executors, or administrators, and the real estates of minors, by their guardians. All such private business is properly cognizable by the established judicatories.... A legislative body ... is extremely improper for such decisions. The polity of the English government seldom admits of the exercise of this executive and judiciary power by the legislature, and I know of nothing special in the government of this province, to give countenance to it.” [Footnote: Mass. State Papers, 1765-1775, p. 314.]