[9] See Cowley's pamphlet, "Our Divorce Courts," &c., pp. 11, 13, 28-30. In the last revision of his History of the United States, Mr. Bancroft has corrected the errors which disfigured all the earlier editions of that work, and which are exposed on p. 10. The leading members of the General Court (which then included the Assistants), had been born and bred in England, and were familiar with the general principles which governed the Ecclesiastical Courts, and the High Court of Parliament, in granting divorces. They knew nothing of any rules or principles applicable to divorce proceedings except those which were recognized in the land of their birth, and of course they intended that those rules and principles should be followed, as, in fact, they were followed, by the Court of Assistants. Although the Plymouth Colony had no statute touching divorce, the General Court of that colony granted divorces in at least six cases, as follows, viz.: in 1661, to Elizabeth Burge, of Sandwich, from Thomas Burge; in 1668, to William Tubbs, of Scituate, from Mary Tubbs; in 1670, to James Skiff from Elizabeth Skiff; in 1673, to Ensign John Williams, of Barnstable, from Sarah Williams; in 1675, to Mary Atkinson, of Taunton, from Marmaduke Atkinson; in 1680, to Elizabeth Stevens from Thomas Stevens; in 1686, to John Glover from Mary Glover.[10] [10] See the supplementary chapter in the late John A. Goodwin's "Pilgrim Republic," soon to be published. Perhaps the case of Wade was rather a decree of nullity than a divorce. In all these cases except one, the ground on which the divorce was granted was infidelity to the marriage-vow. In the case of Mr. Atkinson, the husband was presumed to have died, having been absent, and not heard of, for seven years. Prior to 1785 there was no statute in Massachusetts which defined the causes for which divorces should be granted, or which prescribed the forms, the rules, or the principles which the court of divorce should follow, or which specified whether the divorces granted should be from bed and board only, or from the bond of matrimony; though, as a fact, most, if not all, of the divorces granted under the first charter were from the bond of matrimony.