Along with other English customs, settlers arriving in the American colonies during the late 17th and early 18th centuries took with them the practice of wife selling, and the belief in its legitimacy as a way of ending a marriage. In 1645 "The P'ticular Court" of Hartford, Connecticut, reported the case of Baggett Egleston, who was fined 20 shillings for "bequething his wyfe to a young man". The "Boston Evening-Post" reported on 15 March 1736 an argument between two men "and a certain woman, each one claiming her as his Wife, but so it was that one of them had actually disposed of his Right in her to the other for Fifteen Shillings". The purchaser had, apparently, refused to pay in full, and had attempted to return "his" wife. He was given the outstanding sum by two generous bystanders, and paid the husband—who promptly "gave the Woman a modest Salute wishing her well, and his Brother Sterling much Joy of his Bargain." An account in 1781 of a William Collings of South Carolina records that he sold his wife for "two dollars and half dozen bowls of grogg".