96 
Urdahl—Historical Survey of Fee Systems. 
CHAPTER V. 
FEES IN THE COLONIES. 
A study of the fee-system of the colonies, as contrasted with 
the English fees of the same period, reveals in a very striking 
way the influence which economic conditions and environment 
have upon the institutions, habits, and ideals of men. It is com¬ 
monly understood that the early American colonists carried with 
them their English laws, church, and institutions; and that they 
were in all respects Englishmen who had merely changed their 
abode. From one point of view this is not true. The moment 
the first colonists set foot on the American soil with the inten¬ 
tion of permanent residence, at that very moment they became 
Americans; in that the forces which have formed the American 
institutions began to influence them. They did not carry with 
them and apply to American conditions the whole English law 
in its English form, as one might expect. Even the church 
and social relations were profoundly modified in the process of 
transplanting from English to American soil. It was the spirit 
of the laws, and the ideas and ideals of the church which be¬ 
came the basis of the American structure. Some parts of the 
law were, it is true, taken literally and enforced as American 
law. But a greater portion of the English jurisprudence was 
found inapplicable to the new conditions and rejected. The 
English courts and judicial machinery were, however, extensively 
used in all colonies in a somewhat simplified form. 1 
This accounts for the fact that the charges made for the services 
of the courts of justice, represent almost the only system of fees 
for which we are indebted to England. To this fact may also be at¬ 
tributed the large number of apparently useles and superfluous fees, 
which have to be paid to officers connected with the courts in most 
1 See Duke of York’s Laws of Pennsylvania, pp. 147-151, for a well de¬ 
veloped system of court fees charged in 1682. 
