Part I. The initial settlements, 1607-1660 -- The Chesapeake -- New England -- New Netherland -- Part II. The forging of empire, 1660-1750 -- The Crown's imposition of the common law and colonial resistance -- The end of resistance and the triumph of the common law -- Ready acceptance of the common law : Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and the South -- The emergence of the legal profession -- Property, commercial law, labor law, and slavery -- Part III. Altering empire to defeat France, 1689-1750 -- The local structure of power -- The law of religion -- Criminal and regulatory law -- Part IV. The collapse of empire, 1750-1776 -- The well-functioning empire of the mid-Eighteenth Century -- Weakening the bonds of empire -- Testing the bonds of empire -- Severing the ties of empire -- A historian's postscript.