CHAPTER VIII. Contains certain Directions for all private Persons that intend to go into New England to plant. Next unto this I could wish, that every private man that hath a desire this way, would consider these things which I will here set down before he go too far, least he deprive himself of the profit I have shewed may be had, and be one of those that repent when it is too late, and so bring misery upon himself, and scandalize the country, as others have done. 1. That it is a country, where none can live except he either labor himself, or be able to keep others to labor for him. 2. If a man have a wife and many small children, not to come there, except for every three loiterers, he have one worker; which if he have, he may make a shift to live, and not starve. 3. If a man have but as many good laborers as loiterers, he shall live much better there than in any place I know. 4. If all be laborers, and no children, then let him not fear, but to do more good there in seven years than in England in twenty. 5. Let no man go without eighteen months provision, so shall he take the benefit of two seasons before his provision be spent. 6. Let as many plant together as may be, for you will find that very comfortable, profitable and secure. FINIS. Remarks on the Early Laws of Massachusetts Bay; with the Code adopted in 1641, and called THE BODY OF LIBERTIES, now first printed. By F. C. GRAY, LL. D., A. A. S., S. H. S. THE true history and real character of the early laws of Massachusetts have been very much misunderstood. They are in fact highly honorable to our ancestors, and evince not only their acknowledged love of liberty, but a degree of practical good sense in legislation, and a liberality of sentiment far greater, than have usually been ascribed to them; for it has been generally asserted and believed, that their first Code of Laws was deduced almost literally from the Books of Moses. This belief has given rise to no little ridicule, and however creditable to their piety it may have seemed to some in former times, it has certainly not tended to give the world in general, at the present day, a very exalted idea of their legislative wisdom. As it is extremely erroneous, it is quite time, that it should be accounted for and corrected. The early existence and long continuance of this error is by no means surprising. In the year 1641 there was published in London a pamphlet entitled: "An Abstract of the Laws of New England as they are now established. Printed in London 1641." It consists of Ten Chapters, and its provisions are chiefly taken from the Old Testament, and are for the most part accompanied by references to the chapter and verse, on which they are severally founded. Fourteen years afterwards the same work, but in a somewhat more complete form, and citing at length the passages of scripture referred to, was published under the following title: "An Abstract of Laws and Government, wherein as in a mirror may be seen the wisdom and perfection of the government of Christ's Kingdom, accommodable to any State or form of government in the world, that is not antichristian or tyrannical. Collected and digested into the ensuing method by that godly, grave and judicious divine Mr. John Cotton of Boston in New England in his lifetime, and presented to the General Court of Massachusetts. And now published after his death, by William Aspinwall. Isa. 33. 22. Jehovah is our Judge, Jehovah is our Lawgiver, Jehovah is our King, he will save us. London, 1655." In the preface, Aspinwall, the editor, states, that this Abstract was collected out of the scriptures by Mr. John Cotton, accommodated to the Colony of Massachusetts in New England, and commended to the General Court there; and intimates, that it would have been better for them, if they had then had the heart to receive it. In another part of the Preface, he says of it, "that being with all sweetness and amiableness of spirit tendered, but not accepted, he [Cotton] surceased to press it any further at that season." The Collection of Documents published by Governor Hutchinson in 1769, as an Appendix to his History, contains the same work with a few very slight variations, under the name of "Abstract of the Laws of New England." Governor Hutchinson in a note mentions the edition of 1655, and refers not only to that edition, but also to a Manuscript Life of Cotton by Davenport to show, that Cotton drew up this Abstract. He adds, that it ought rather to be called a Code of Laws prepared for Massachusetts Bay; "for although when they compiled their Laws, they made this abstract their plan in general, yet they departed from it in many instances, and in some, which were very material.” * From Governor Winthrop's Journal, first printed in 1790, it appears, under date of October 1636, that "Mr. Cotton did this court, present a model of Moses his Judicials, compiled in an exact method, which were taken into further "Hutchinson's Collections, p. 161. consideration till the next General Court." * In the same Journal, under date of December, 1641, is the following passage. "This session continued three weeks, and established one hundred Laws, which were called the Body of Liberties. They had been composed by Mr. Nathaniel Ward sometime Pastor of the Church of Ipswich: he had been a minister in England, and formerly a student and practiser in the course of the common law." + In the fifth volume of the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, A. D. 1798, the edition of this Abstract of 1641 is reprinted, and after it, the Preface prefixed by Aspinwall to the edition of 1655. This reprint is accompanied by the conjecture, that Sir Henry Vane wrote the work, or at least assisted Cotton in it, a conjecture resting only on the ground, that he was here in 1636, intimate with Cotton, and of the same political and religious sentiments. In Savage's Edition of Winthrop's Journal, we find the following note of the learned Editor on the appointment of a Committee in 1639 to prepare a Code of Laws. "In December, 1641, the labors of these Legislators were perfected, as this history will shew. The result was printed in London immediately after. An Abstract may be found by the curious 1 Hist. Coll. v. 171 — 192, with an account of a second edition by Aspinwall. We may be sure, that Winthrop could not be mistaken in ascribing to Ward the principal honor of the work, though Cotton has often enjoyed it. Perhaps any one of twenty in the civil or clerical line, had contributed as much as Cotton, though his name would carry the greatest weight."S In balancing these authorities, the chief weight must be given to those of Winthrop and of Aspinwall, not only as contemporaries, but because they had such means of information, that it is hardly possible they should be mistaken. Governor Winthrop's position is well known. William Aspinwall was among the eminent men of the Colony in that day. He came out with Winthrop and was deacon of the Church in Boston, under the pastoral care of Wilson and Cotton from its foundation, till the two colleagues differing in the Antinomian controversy, he joined with Cotton and * 1 Wint. J. 2 Wint. J. 55. 1 Hist. Col. v. 171. § 1 Wint. J. 322. went so far beyond him, that in the year 1637, he was disfranchised and expelled from the General Court, of which he had been chosen a member for Boston. He then went, with the rest of Mrs. Hutchinson's most zealous adherents, to Providence; but returned to Boston in 1642, and was, on submission, reconciled both to the Church and to the Government. At the time of his publishing the Abstract, he seems to have been in England. Now Aspinwall's statement, that it was drawn up by Cotton, and was not accepted by the General Court coincides perfectly with what we are told by Winthrop; that Cotton made and presented a model, but that the code actually adopted and called the Body of Liberties was composed by Ward. The only contemporaneous evidence, that this Abstract or anything like it, was ever in fact established, is the mere title of the London edition of 1641. But we know not by whom this title was prefixed to it. Probably by the publisher there. Certainly not by any person in New England, since no one here could be ignorant, that there were no laws common to all New England, but that each of the Colonies then existing in it was entirely independent of the others and unconnected with them; and no one residing here or well acquainted with our condition could have given to the Laws of Massachusetts Bay the title of the Laws of New England. The Abstract may have found its way to England at any time after 1636, and when it was learned there in 1641, that a Code of Laws had been adopted in New England, this title may not unnaturally have been put before it. However this may be, it was certainly put there by one unacquainted with our condition, and is therefore of no weight against the concurrent and positive testimony of Winthrop and Aspinwall. It should be observed, that it does not purport to be a copy of the Laws, but only an Abstract of them. Governor Hutchinson's opinion, that this Abstract, though differing in some instances very materially from the laws first established, was yet the general plan or basis of them, is also untenable. For in his own collection, only seventeen pages after this, is printed the Declaration of the General Court holden at Boston November 4th, 1646, concerning the Remonstrance of Dr. Child and others, which very |