1. George Blake and Theophilus Parsons represented the case of James Martin. George Blake relied on the definition that “an undercover woman was never obliged to swear an oath of allegiance” (p.146). Anna Martin fulfilled her duties as a wife. “A covert feme has no more political relationship with the State than an alien” (p.146). Theophilus Parsons added that: “Infants, madmen, femes-coverts, all those whom the law considers without will, cannot act freely” (p.149). It raised the question of whether the statute includes people without a will of their own. James Sullivan said of Blake's accusation “the words of the deed do not include them because the words are of the masculine gender. The same reasoning would prove that the Commonwealth Constitution does not extend to women” (p.147). She also stated that women could make their own political choice in the presence of a revolution. “Can't a clandestine female harvest war and conspire to impose war? He certainly can commit treason” (p.148). Daniel Davis argued that women were “inhabitants and members” of the state. “Anna Martin was a resident, it appears from the documents that this was the case. She therefore falls within the statute" (p. 147). Four judges favored the annulment of the confiscation and only three addressed the issue of feme-coverts. Judge Theodore Sedgwick respected women's understanding in submitting their opinions to their husbands to the point of losing their property. Justice Simeon Strong emphasized that married women were bound to their duty of obedience as wives, exempting them from punishments committed by their husbands. Judge Francis Dana stated that “because the femes-covert, having no will, could not incur confiscation. And that the statute was never intended to include them – and either…half of the paper…or American colonies. Some colonies or loyalists remained loyal and became dependent on the British government. Likewise, through feme-covert status, husbands had absorbed their wives' legal identity. “She could exercise no choice in her political allegiance independently of her husband” (p.154). But a few decades after American independence, “many states liberalized their divorce laws, making it easier for women to divorce husbands who had abused or abandoned them” (p. 154). Married women could own and sell their property independently. Due to the economic crisis, husbands transferred their assets to their wives to protect them from creditors. Women had control over a family's wealth. “Despite the “new code of laws” drafted by her husband and his colleagues, the principles and practices underlying feme-covert remained entrenched in the legal system” (p..154).