Fees in the American Colonies. 
101 
licenses 1 in some colonies. Fees for letters patent, for natur¬ 
alization privileges, for certificates of ability to contract debt, 
and for many other real or imaginary privileges, were received 
by many colonial governors. Most of these fees may, in one 
sense, be considered as relics of the old system of royal prerog¬ 
atives, which survived for shorter or longer periods of time 
under American conditions. Very often the fees of the gover¬ 
nor continued to be collected, long after the special dispensation 
had ceased to exist. Many of these fees, especially for licenses, 
did not remain very long a perquisite of the governor’s office. 
Their abolition or gradual transference into the public treas¬ 
ury, is marked by frequent clashes between the representatives 
of the people and the governors, the latter backed by the crown. 
The licensing power was usually taken away from the governor 
first, and transferred to some licensing body or to the legislature 
afterwards; and the fee was either abolished altogether, 2 or else 
commuted for a fixed annual appropriation. 3 
B. COLONIAL LICENSE FEES. 
It is not possible at present to state the exact cause of the 
different kinds of license legislation which we find on the colonial 
statute books; nor can we place our finger upon the original 
acts, which may be called the prototypes of all the subsequent 
laws on this subject. But sufficient data may be found in the 
colonial records and laws of any colony, to establish, beyond all 
reasonable doubt, the origin and development of the fees which 
were and are at present paid for the licenses granted by public 
authority. Many of these charges must, no doubt, as has al¬ 
ready been pointed out, be considered as survivals of the Eng¬ 
lish, or European, systems of government. But a very large 
majority of our license regulations and license fees, have been 
introduced and developed on American soil. To obtain a proper 
Denning’s Statutes , III, 377-378. 
2 Fees of the Governor of Massachusetts for ordinary and marriage 
licenses were abolished in 1776. Laws , 1776, VIII, 225. 
3 A law of South Carolina in 1711 provided that the license money be 
paid into the treasury and that the Governor be granted 120<£ per annum 
in lieu of all license money formerly collected by him. Statutes , p. 363. 
