for assuming that
Mr. Fish ever was settled legally over a Congregational parish in
Marshpee, so as to establish him a sole corporation, to hold the lands
belonging to the Proprietors of Marshpee, under the dedication deed of
1783. If that deed and the subsequent act of 1809, conveyed any thing,
the conveyance was for the use of the inhabitants as a parsonage,
there being no parish in Marshpee, distinct from the Plantation. In
such case, it would be held to be a grant to Marshpee, (that is
the town,) for the use of its ministers, (14 Mass. 333.) The grant,
therefore, could it be regarded as such, was to the whole Proprietors
of Marshpee, and they must first settle a minister before he could
claim the use of the grant as a minister of the parish.

Neither has Mr. Fish, even if he had been legally settled, any just
right, under the deed of 1783, to take the whole parsonage, because
that deed states the principal object of the sequestration of the land
to be, for the important purpose of promoting the gospel in Marshpee,
and merely referred to the only worship then known there, which was
Congregational. When Mr. Fish went there in 1811, there was a Baptist
church, and they objected to his taking possession of the parsonage.

There is a case in point in the 13th Mass. Rep. 190, which decides,
that where the original Proprietors of a township appropriated a lot
of land for a parsonage, and at the same time voted that they would
endeavor that a Congregational minister should be settled in the
township, such vote ought not to be construed to limit the benefit of
the parsonage to a minister of the Congregational order, and that if
the inhabitants of the parish should become Christians of any other
Protestant sect, they would be entitled to the land, and that a
Congregational society, incorporated as a full parish would have no
right to the parsonage. Neither can a parish convey a parsonage to a
minister to be held by him in his personal right. By this decision,
the Baptist or Methodist church in Marshpee have as good claim to the
parsonage as Mr. Fish has.

The dedication, or whatever it may be called, of Marshpee parsonage,
was made by Lot Nye, &c. in 1783, and confirmed in 1809, by the
General Court. Mr. Fish did not become a minister in Marshpee, until
1811. Whoever settled him there, for the Indians did not, made no
stipulation as to the income of the parsonage, which could bind the
Plantation. The society only, could m