wn. The Marshpee Indians were minors in
law, and there was no legal parish to settle a minister, or to hold a
parsonage, and no one to make contracts as such. Harvard College had
no power to settle a minister in Marshpee, nor had the Overseers any
such power. Their supervision was temporal and not ecclesiastical.
Besides, the actual Congregational society which subsisted in
Marshpee, when Mr. Fish was sent there, in 1811, was composed of a
majority of _whites_. Mr. Fish himself testified before the Committee,
that the church at Marshpee, in 1811, consisted of sixteen whites
and but five colored persons. The church members were a majority of
whites, so that even had the church voted to settle Mr. Fish, it would
have been a vote of white men having no interest in the premises, and
not of Indian Proprietors. Mr. Fish admits that the church passed no
vote. It was asserted by one of the old Overseers, Mr. Hawley, that
five Indians called on him, after Mr. Fish had preached there, and
personally expressed a wish to have him stay with them, but there was
no official act, and no vote of the church or society, and no assent
of the Proprietors of Marshpee in any form.

Who were the Congregational church, and who the society in Marshpee,
in 1811? A regularly gathered Congregational church, is composed
of several persons associated by covenant or agreement of church
fellowship, (9th Mass. 277.) and a church cannot exist for any legal
purposes, except as connected with a congregation or some regularly
constituted religious society. (16 Mass. 488.) Where there are no
special powers given to the church by the Legislature, the church
cannot contract with or settle a minister, but that power resides
wholly in the parish, of which the members of the church, who _are
inhabitants_, are a part. (9 Mass. Reports, 277. Burr vs. First Parish
in Sandwich.)

We have seen that there was no legal parish in Marshpee, in 1811, and
therefore the Congregational church, if there were such then, had no
power to settle Mr. Fish, even had they done so, which they did not.
A parish may elect a public teacher, and contract to support him,
without the consent of the church, if he be ordained by a council
invited by the parish; but in Mr. Fish's case, he was ordained by the
request and under the direction of the President and Corporation of
Harvard College, the Trustees of the Williams fund, with the assent of
the Overseers. There is then no ground whatever