of England at the first beginning of this infant plantation, which was to enact such laws as should most befit a state in the non-age thereof, not rejecting or omitting to observe such of the laws of our native country as would conduce unto the good and growth of so weak a beginning as ours in the wilderness."

The secretary was directed to and did prepare a manuscript volume of these laws for each of the towns in the colony, in whose meetings they were to be read at least once in a year. It is believed that some copies of these laws are still extant. There was one in the town of Taunton in a good state of preservation, but which was destroyed by a great fire which occurred in that town, some years since.

§ 45. In 1671, another revision was made by a convention of the general court. It was not like the others, a mere publication of the laws then in existence, but a complete digest properly arranged. This was printe d and is the first edition of the laws of the colony which was printed. In 1684, another digest was made under the direction of a committee of the general court, and printed. No other edition of the laws of this colony was printed till 1836, when they were again printed by an order of the legislature of Massachusetts, under the superintendence of William Brigham, Esq.; to whose kindness and research, as already remarked, we are indebted for all the information possessed relative to the facts above detailed, in reference to the legislative history of this colony.

Any one desirous of more extensive information upon this subject, will peruse with great pleasure as well as profit, the learned article from the pen of Mr. Brigham, in the April number of the North American Review for 1840; from which we have in part made our extracts -and in part from a letter he had the kindness to write

the author, in answer to one addressed to him for information on this subject.

§ 46. We shall, in the next place, direct our attention to the colony of Massachusetts Bay. For a period after the arrival of the colonists, they seem to have been actuated by the spirit of that religion which they professed, and in defence of which they too had suffered. It formed the only restraint under which they lived. The pure and elevated precepts which it inculcated, was the only rule of civil government which was known or brought into exercise in the government of the colony of Massachusetts Bay. For a time at least, it seemed entirely adequate to all the great ends of their limited social compact. As the colony increased, it soon became apparent that something more was needed to strengthen the arm of civil authority, for the government of a growing republic destined, as it was from its position, to become a great commercial community, and the inlet to a continent intrinsically inexhaustible in its

resources.

§ 47. The first settlers in this colony had taken possession under no other grant, except one which was derived from a mere private corporation; and which necessarily could not, and did not confer any right to the exercise of civil or political authority. Hence, it became necessary and important to have their right of property rest upon a more sure foundation, and that it should flow to them from a source which could at the same time, confer the right of exercising some of the attributes of sovereignty itself in founding their civil institutions. In 1629, on the petition of the Massachusetts Company, seconded by the solicitations of Lord Dorchester, Charles I. by charter confirmed the patent of the Massachusetts colony. By this patent the company were incorporated by the name of "The Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New Eng

land," to have perpetual succession forever: and it was empowered to elect out of the freemen of the said company, a Governor, a Deputy Governor, and eighteen Assistants, to be chosen annually; and to make laws not repugnant to the laws of England.(a)

§ 48. By the terms of the charter, full legislative power and executive authority was conferred not on the emigrants, but on the company, of which, from the very fact of its location in England, the emigrants could not be active members. The associates in London were to establish ordinances, to settle the form of government, to name all necessary officers, to prescribe their duties, and to establish their criminal code. Thus it will be perceived Massachusetts was not originally erected into a province to be governed by laws of its own enactment. It was reserved for the corporation to decide what degrees of civil rights its colonists should enjoy; indeed, the charter on which the freemen of Massachusetts succeeded in erecting a system of independent representative liberty did not secure to them a single privilege of self government. They, like the Virginians, had been left without one valuable franchise, entirely at the mercy of a corporation without the colony, insomuch that they too understood that a strict adherence to its letter would reduce them to absolute slaves.(b) Nay more, even the legislative power granted to the company itself, was subject to the restriction of not being contrary to the laws of England; and its imposition of fines and mulcts were to be "according to the course of other corporations in England."(c) To surmount and rise

(a) 1 Holmes' An. 247-8; Hutch. Col. 123; 1 Chalm. An. 137; 1 Bancroft, 344, 345,

(b) 1 Bancroft, 344, 345.

(c) Hutch. Col. 1 to 23, 239; Chalm. An. 139.

above such obstacles as these, it required men just like those whose minds had been animated with a spirit of religious independence, and which hesitated not to exemplify a spirit of innovation in civil as well as religious policy.

The habits of mind they had acquired in casting off the restraints of outward and senseless forms and external rights in the one, fitted them to the work, and paved the way for a kindred spirit of innovation in prosecution of their natural and inherent civil rights as freemen.

§ 49. Shortly after the consummation of the charter, a court of the Massachusetts company was held in London which settled a form of government for the new colony. It ordained that eighteen persons, such as should be reputed the most wise, honest, expert, and discreet, resident in the colonial plantations, should from time to time have the sole management of the government and affairs of the colony; and they, to the best of their judgment, were to endeavor to settle the same as might "make most to the glory of God, the furtherance and advancement of this hopeful plantation, the encouragement and future benefit of the company, and of others, concerned in the commencement and prosecution of the work." The persons thus appointed to be entitled, "The Governor and Council of London's Plantation in Massachusetts Bay in New England." On the 29th of August, 1629, for the purpose of promoting the determination of certain individuals of becoming members of the colony, and whose sagacity led them to foresee the inconvenience of being governed by laws made for them without their consent, and whose judgment led them to the rational conclusion that the colony should be governed by men resident among them, rather than by those living three thousand miles distant, with an intervening ocean, and over whom they could have no control; the governor and company called a general court for the purpose of settling the

question, whether the government should be settled in Old or New England; and it was then determined, that the government and patent of the plantation should be transferred from London to Massachusetts Bay: and an election was called for the purpose of electing such offieers as should be willing to remove to the colony. John Winthrop was thereupon elected governor, and a deputy and assistant were also elected.(a.) In this singular transaction, to which there is no parallel in the history of the English colonies, two circumstances merit particular attention: one is the power of the company to make the transferance; the other is, the silent acquiescence with which the king permitted it to take place. That acquiescence, however, is most satisfactorily accounted for in the history of the subsequent struggle between the crown and the colony, down to the final overthrow of the charter in 1684. If the validity of this determination of the company be tried by the charter which constituted it a body politic, and conveyed to it all the corporate powers with which it was invested, it is evident that it could neither exercise those powers in any mode different from what the charter prescribed, nor alienate them in such a manner as to convert the jurisdiction of a trading corporation in England into a provincial government in America! It is quite evident that, on the one hand, the king never intended this charter to operate as a concession of any of his rights, or to yield under it any of his prerogatives to the colonists; and that, on the other hand, the patentees, from the first institution of the company, did intend the moment they had taken possession under it, to assume that they not only possessed the natural right, but that they would exercise that right, in the adoption of such form of government, and to enact

(a) Holmes' An. vol. i. pp. 247, 248.