THE PROVINCE LAWS 
 
 ilifornia 
 
 ional 
 
 ility
 
 THE PROVINCE LAWS 
 
 THEIR VALUE, AND 
 THE PROGRESS OF THE NEW EDITION. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 CUPPLES, UPHAM & CO., PUBLISHERS. 
 
 THE OLD CORNER BOOKSTORE. 
 
 1885.
 
 PKKSS OF DAVID CLAPP & SON.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THE author of this pamphlet was for more than twenty years a 
 fellow townsman, and during the years 1861 and 1862 a student at 
 law, of the late Ellis Ames, senior editor, after the death of Gov. 
 Clifford, of the Province Laws, now being reprinted by authority of 
 the Commonwealth. Having from childhood taken a deep interest 
 in local history, and having enjoyed exceptional opportunities of 
 observing the devotion with which his departed friend labored to 
 collect and preserve for public use the rare and fading pages of the 
 legislation of the Colony and Province, upon which our state super- 
 structure is erected, he naturally took some interest in the work. 
 He frequently listened to the conversations between Gov. Clifford 
 and Mr. Ames upon the subject, and well remembers the large 
 bossed safe and the antique bookshelves that held the rare old jewels, 
 that, covered with dust and liable any day to be burned, adorned 
 one side of this musty old office. 
 
 Again, some two years ago the writer heard a distinguished anti- 
 quary, a resident of New York City, in the course of conversation 
 say, "That the great object of his life was to complete his set of 
 Massachusetts early laws." The next express that went to New 
 York carried over twelve hundred pages of Acts and Resolves, 
 Journals of the House, Perpetual and Temporary Laws, passed be- 
 tween the years 1684 and 1779. Since this article was commenced 
 the writer has been informed that the set, owned by his own state, 
 was not complete, and that three pages of this collection, given out 
 of the state if for sale to-day, would bring their weight in diamonds. 
 He deeply regrets that the few hundred pages he now has, are not 
 of equal value. 
 
 Havino- had occasion to frequently use the volumes of the Province 
 Laws which have been published, and gleaning much material of 
 historical value from them, it was with some surprise that he read 
 the doubt expressed in the recent message of Gov. George D. 
 Robinson, as to how far the work is to be carried, and what amount
 
 of money is "reasonably proper" to continue the undertaking. 
 Whether the doubt arises from unfamiliarity with the subject, 
 whether the Governor has been led to believe that some other 
 department can use this money to better advantage, or whether, if 
 retrenchment must come, there will be less of a contest with histo- 
 rians than with politicians, we are not informed. The Governor 
 has simply called the attention of the Legislature to the question 
 whether the expense of the work is disproportionate to its usefulness. 
 
 No one having come forward to give to the public those details in 
 relation to the purposes of the work, which the citizens have a right 
 to know, and in which it may be reasonably supposed, in view of 
 the prominence which the Governor has given to the subject, they 
 would be likely to take an interest, the writer offers this pamphlet 
 to supply, as far as in his ability lies, the information withheld in 
 His Excellency's Address. 
 
 In publishing these pages the author has a two-fold satisfaction : 
 first, it gives him an opportunity to pay a tribute to the memory of a 
 profound, laborious, and useful worker in the law, who was more 
 eager to obtain and impart knowledge than to seek position or 
 parade his achievements, a dear, kind hearted friend for nearly a 
 quarter of a century. 
 
 And secondly, to give his fellow citizens some idea of the value 
 and progress of a work, the importance of which may be estimated, 
 when it is known that even to the legal profession it is the revelation 
 of a body of laws, imposed upon us by the constitution, but of which 
 even our judges have had no knowledge, except what they have 
 obtained from a few experts who enjoyed a monopoly in this branch 
 of learning, by having spent their lives in accumulating and becom- 
 ing at last the fortunate possessors of two or three sets of the early 
 laws, none of which were complete. 
 
 DANIEL T. V. HUNTOON. 
 
 Canton, Feb. 20, 1885.
 
 PROVINCE LAWS. 
 
 IN the recent message of Gov. George D. Robinson, the following 
 paragraph appears under the heading " Provincial Laws." 
 
 "In 1865 and 1867 authority to publish the acts and laws of the Prov- 
 ince of Massachusetts Bay was given, and to the present time four volumes 
 have been issued and distributed, and another volume is in the hands of the 
 printer. The expenditures, authorized by appropriations from year to year, 
 amount now to $77,505.75. The work, without doubt, has been well done ; 
 but would it not be well to inquire what limit to its extent and cost is 
 reasonably proper? The Governor and Council, to whom the authority for 
 publication is committed, can exercise but little discretion in this matter, in 
 view of the grauts of money made by the Legislature from time to time." 
 
 The resolve of 1865 alluded to by the Governor, authorized the 
 appointment of three or more commissioners, " to prepare for publi- 
 cation a complete copy of the statutes and laws of the Province and 
 State of Massachusetts Bay, from the time of the Province Charter 
 to the adoption of the Constitution of the commonwealth, including 
 all the session acts, private and public, general and special, tempo- 
 rary and perpetual, passed from time to time by the General Court; 
 all incorporations of towns and parishes, and all other legislative 
 acts of legal or historic importance, appearing on the records of the 
 General Court, with suitable marginal references to the statutes and 
 judicial decisions of the Province and Commonwealth ; the orders of 
 the King in Council, and to such other authorities as, in their opinion, 
 may enhance the value and usefulness of the work; and to append 
 to the same a complete index." 
 
 The commissioners appointed under this resolve, were presumed 
 to be the best that could be selected in the state ; they were men 
 prominent in their profession. 
 
 The first commissioner named was John H. Clifford, who as Gover- 
 nor had shown his love for the state by calling the attention of his 
 council to the decayed and perishing condition of the oldest records, 
 and in a special message on the twelfth of February, 1853, recom- 
 mended and strongly urged the printing of the two oldest volumes, 
 that comprised the records of about twenty years of our political 
 existence. From his practice at law, he knew the vast importance
 
 of saving from destruction the ancient laws of the state that had 
 honored him with its highest gift, and for his labor on the Prov- 
 ince Laws deserves the thanks of all students of law. history and 
 philosophy. , 
 
 Next in order came Ellis Ames, of Canton, who has died within 
 the past year, of whom an eminent lawyer says in "Every Other Satur- 
 day," under date of December 6, 1884 "Ellis Ames was decidedly 
 at the^head of the Norfolk* and Plymouth Bars, He was re- 
 puted the best equity lawyer in the state, and in special pleading, 
 and in the old learning of the common law, he was considered a great 
 man. His preparation of his cases was most exhaustive ; he left no 
 
 loopholes, and ho made few bldnders, he was learned, strong 
 
 and honest." 
 
 It should be recorded, because so uncommon now-a days, that he 
 never gave a friend one of these volumes of the Province Laws, 
 without paying for it out of his own pocket. 
 
 Mr. Ellis Ames was selected as a member of the commission, be- 
 cause he had been for many years, what might well have been called, 
 the "right bower" of Ihe Supreme Court, in all matters pertaining 
 to the Colonial and Provincial Laws; the judges were dependent 
 on him, for he made a study of the ancient law and was thoroughly 
 proficient in it. He had spent forty years of his life, travelled hun- 
 dreds of miles, in order to collect books and pamphlets relating to 
 the subject, and when any matter of grave importance, involving 
 obscure points of legal history, came up, his decision settled it. Be- 
 fore Mr. Ames's day this position was accorded to Nathan Dane; 
 before him, to Judge Edmund Trowbridge, an eminent lawyer, 
 Attorney General and Judge of the Superior Court of Judicature, 
 during the period of the Revolution. Before Trowbridge, John 
 Read, commonly called " the father of the Common Law." All the 
 above mentioned were eminent and profound lawyers, who were 
 familiar with these early laws. 
 
 While the Essex Institute's collection ~of the Provincial Statutes 
 was rare and valuable, especially in the earliest Session acts, Mr. 
 Ames's collection was more complete and more methodically arranged, 
 embracing (1) The Session acts down to 1699, the date of the first 
 revision. (2) The edition of 1699 with supplements to 1714, the 
 date of the second revision. (3) /The edition of 1714 with supple- 
 ments to 1726, the date of the third edition. (4) The edition of 
 1726 with supplements to 1742, the date of the fourth edition. (5) 
 The edition, Temporary and Perpetual, of 1742, with supplements to 
 1755. 
 
 Of the editions of 1699, 1714, 1726, 1742, 1755, 1759, 1763, 
 Temporary and Perpetual, with the supp'cments to each, only one 
 other set approaching this in completion is known to exist, and was 
 
 * See Appendix A.
 
 perfected since this set was sold to the state. It is in the Lenox 
 Library in New York, and the writer believes that the splendid 
 Psalmomm Codex printed by Faust and Schoeff in 1459, sold recently 
 for X4.950, would not be taken in exchange for it. We know 
 that the Mazarin bible that was sold at the same sale for 3,900 
 would have been no inducement, for they have already a copy for 
 which they only paid in 1848 500. When a New York man like 
 Mr. Lenox gives more than $2,000,000, and a private collection of 
 books, the rare bibles and testaments of which alone are worth 
 $100,000, and which he had been more than forty years collecting, 
 to found a library for the use of students in special subjects in the 
 city of New York, when he, or after his death, when the eminent 
 historian, whom he honored with the guardianship of his trust, 
 George H. Moore, LL.D., places such a value on'the rubbish of New 
 England attics, how long will it be before we must go 'to New York 
 to learn our own history ? 
 
 And yet, although the set of Mr. Ames was considered perfect, 
 the diligent, active and energetic commissioners have added to the 
 new edition of the Province Laws one ^hundred and thirty-seven 
 public, and thirty-two private acts that were not contained in Mr. 
 Ames's collection. 
 
 The only surviving member of this commission Is Abner Cheney 
 Goodell, Jr., upon whom, from the beginning, has fallen all the detail 
 of the work, being the youngest, having been appointed when only 
 thirty-three years of age. His^tanding was remarkably good, as a 
 lawyer. He was admitted to the bar at the age of twenty-one, and 
 soon built up a very large practice, extending beyond his own 1 
 county, to Suffolk and Norfolk counties, as the dockets of the old 
 Court of Common Pleas and Superior Court of Suffolk, and of the 
 Supreme Judicial Court, will show. Such was his position, when 
 the solicitation of his friends, his love of historic law, and the 
 mandate of the Governor influenced him to devote himself to the 
 preparation of these volumes of " The Province Laws." 
 
 His contributions to history show marvellous research ; his mono- 
 graphs on " The Court Seals " and " Witchcraft " are well known, 
 and have, in connection with the " Notes " on the latter subject, by 
 perhaps the greatest historian in New York, George H. Moore, 
 LL.D., brought out a mass of new material, which illumined by such 
 accurate, pains-taking, and learned men, throws a clear, white, one 
 might say, an electric light, into those dark and dismal ages of tho 
 past. 
 
 Mr. Goodell was appointed, perhaps, because he held the post of 
 Vice President of the Essex Institute, in the department of history. 
 He is a member of the Massachusetts Historical Society, a life mem- 
 ber of the New England Historic Genealogical Society, and corres- 
 ponding member of the New York, New Hampshire, and Rhode 
 Island Historical Societies. The commissioners of 1811, Dane,
 
 8 
 
 Story and Prescott, were all members of the Essex County Historical 
 Society, which was merged in the Institute ; and the library of the 
 latter contained the ancient volumes of the Province Laws used by 
 the commissioners before named in compiling the edition of 1811. 
 These books the present commissioners have made the best use of, 
 with the consent of the Essex Institute, even cutting them up as copy 
 for the printers. 
 
 Soon after the appearance of the first volume of this series of 
 Province Laws, it was said of Mr. Goodell, that " his persistent study 
 at home and correspondence with England, involving an amount of 
 ingenious labor and thought, which but few appreciate, has helped to 
 a completeness and thoroughness before unattained." Mr. Goodell, 
 it is well known, has often been consulted by law writers, historians 
 and judges, in this and other states, on recondite matters of law, re- 
 quiring historical research. 
 
 Such were the men selected to undertake the publication of the 
 Province Laws, and who have, with absolute fidelity, with the highest 
 conceptions of professional and public duty, continued while life was 
 spared, to save for us and posterity, in well arranged, well printed 
 but not expensive books, the musty records of our noble Common- 
 wealth, that might at any hour have been destroyed by fire. 
 
 Do I anticipate the comment of my reader, familiar with political 
 affairs of the day, if at this point he exclaims, " All very true, but 
 how much money did they get out of it?" 
 
 In the year 1853 the Commonwealth resolved that the Massachu- 
 setts Colony Records should be printed, as requested by Gov. 
 Clifford. The cost of preparing and printing these five volumes was 
 $41,834.44.* 
 
 Two years later, from fear that the Ancient Records of Plymouth 
 Colony might be destroyed by fire, they were ordered to be copied 
 and printed. The wisdom of this measure will be very apparent to 
 those who witnessed the condition of the floor of the Plymouth Court 
 House, after the fire which occurred there within a year or two. The 
 Plymouth Records consisted of twelve volumes, which, with the five 
 previously printed, completed the two colonies. For printing these 
 twelve volumes, there was paid the sum of $47,117.66.f 
 
 The total cost of preparing and printing the Province Laws, is as 
 follows, 7T,255,75.| 
 
 The reader will see that the amount paid to Mr. A. C. Goodell, 
 Jr., in the above statement, is $11,837.13. Now this represents, let 
 it be remembered, twenty years of labor when next June comes ; 
 not work, from ten till four o'clock in the day time, but from early 
 morning to five in the afternoon, then home, and work again at night; 
 and his average yearly salary has amounted to the enormous sum of 
 
 * For Items, see Appendix B. 
 f For Items, see Appendix C. 
 % For Items, see Appendix D.
 
 less than six hundred dollars a year. It would be interesting to 
 compare this amount with some of the officers, who attend the State 
 House during the session only, or even the gentlemen who answer 
 bell calls. 
 
 Let us for a moment compare the two publications. In the first 
 place, the number of words in the iwelve volumes of the Ply- 
 mouth and Massachusetts Colony Records is estimated at 2,683,846, 
 while the number of words in the six* volumes of the Province Laws, 
 including the reprint of volume 2, which was destroyed by fire, so 
 far is more than 4,500,000, of which 1,100,000 are editorial notes, 
 procured either in the Public Record Office in London, or by the 
 most laborious and exhaustive research in the poorly indexed files 
 and volumes in the State Archives, numbering in all about four hun- 
 dred immense volumes, folios and manuscripts. 
 
 The history of each act, as far as it could be discovered by this 
 research, is given in the notes, at the end of the acts of each year, 
 and a flood of new light is thereby thrown upon the laws and history 
 of the Province. 
 
 Again, while it has been the purpose of the editor to make these 
 notes clear, in every passage that might by any possibility be mis- 
 construed, he has condensed them as much as possible, consistent 
 with a due regard to making his statements understood, and they 
 are in many instances more valuable than the text itself. 
 
 The records of towns and parishes, the pages of unpublished con- 
 temporary journals, and printed histories, have been made to con- 
 tribute to the work ; and the public records of each county, existing 
 before the Revolution, have been personally examined and referred 
 to, when necessary, by the commissioners. 
 
 The acts have not only been compared, letter by letter, with the 
 original engrossments, when the engrossments could be found, but 
 also with the contemporaneous impressions of the acts, and all differ- 
 ences carefully noted. 
 
 The result of this research has been the restoration of three hun- 
 dred and sixty-seven acts, the engrossments of which had, in the 
 course of time, been lost from the Secretary's office, and one hundred 
 arid thirty-seven acts which are not to be found in any other printed 
 collection. 
 
 Finally, it should be remembered, that when some of these volumes 
 were passing through the press, during the period just after the war, 
 the price of composition, press-work, paper and binding, was at its 
 highest. 
 
 On the other hand, the first six volumes of the Plymouth Colony 
 Records had no editorial work done on them ; the editor in his in- 
 troductory remarks, writes, "In the performance of his duty, the 
 editor has studiously avoided making comments upon the subject 
 
 * See Appendix E.
 
 10 
 
 matter of the records." The editor, therefore, according to his own 
 showing, was merely a proof reader, who compared his sheets with a 
 single original manuscript. 
 
 The cost of the twelve volumes of the Plymouth and Massachu- 
 setts Records was $88,962.10. The cost of the Province Laws is 
 $77,505.75. 
 
 Compare either of these with the cost of the Public Statutes, which, 
 if I am rightly informed, cost $99,687.61, and what was the editorial 
 work on that ? Compare it with the editorial work on the Memoir of 
 Hon. Charles Sumner. 
 
 The whole cost is considerably less than the extra or " contingent " 
 expenses of the Council and Executive for the same period, if the 
 Auditor's statement for January, 1884, is a fair average. The com- 
 parison might be extended to either one of the Justices of the Supe- 
 rior Court for their services alone ; while here we have the volumes, 
 besides the labor involved. 
 
 One thing is clear: If the commissioners' labors began in 1865, 
 when authority was first given for the work, according to the Gover- 
 nor's statement, their expenditures thus far have not exceeded $4,000 
 a year, for salaries of commissioners and clerks, stationery and inci- 
 dentals, as well as for composition, stereotyping, press-work, binding, 
 and supplying to every town in the state the four volumes already 
 distributed, and for defraying all the cost thus far of a fifth volume 
 nearly completed. 
 
 I cannot believe that the people of Massachusetts are going to 
 consider the cost of this edition of the Province Laws as burden- 
 some, when they understand the matter. Four thousand a year would 
 be about four mills per capita throughout the state. 
 
 Will the citizens of Boston, who pay forty-two per cent, of the 
 State tax, refuse to contribute $1,680, less than one junketing bill, to 
 have the old records preserved and made available for use, or is it 
 more advantageous to spend it for wine and cigars. The City of 
 Boston has done nobly in perpetuating her own records. Ten vol- 
 umes, containing an enormous amount of information, have been dis- 
 tributed throughout the country; and antiquaries, historians and 
 lawyers are no longer subject to the inconvenience and loss of time 
 it used to take, to consult the original unindexed records. One can 
 always find a copy at the public libraries throughout the state, and 
 some individuals are fortunate enough to own a set. If one thinks 
 the Province Laws are valueless, buy a set, keep it twenty years, and, 
 with the plates of the first volume burned, judging from our know- 
 ledge of the value of earlier editions, they will bring a very large 
 price. 
 
 In order that the Governor may better understand the scope of 
 this work, we shall endeavor to show what value was placed by his 
 illustrious predecessors upon the Province Laws, what efforts they 
 made to save them, and preserve, in the best manner, a collection of
 
 11 
 
 statutes which should show, in chronological sequence, the develop- 
 ment of our legislation. 
 
 At the same time it will not be amiss to place on record, the money 
 value which individual searchers place on these musty, faded, yellow 
 pages. It may help us all to realize the value of the new edition a 
 hundred years from now. 
 
 During the period of the first charter, between the years 1628 and 
 1691, three editions of the laws were published, in 1648, 1660, 
 1672. A single copy of the edition of 1648, if it could be found, 
 would easily bring ten thousand dollars, and persons are known to 
 the writer who will pay that amount for it to-day. Copies of the 
 editions of 1660 and 1672, with the supplements complete, are worth 
 as much as " Eliot's Indian Bible " or the " Bay Psalin Book." Of 
 the two copies of this edition in Boston, one at the State Library and 
 one at the Athenaeum, neither are complete, as both lack supplements. 
 
 During the time of the second charter, between 1692 and 1774, 
 Sir William Phipps, on the sixteenth of December, 1692, ordered the 
 " Acts and Laws made by the Great and General Court, or Assembly, 
 of this their Majesty's Province of the Massachusetts Bay in New 
 England, to be printed, that so the people might be informed there- 
 of ;" and it was done. In 1713, the Governor, Council, and Assembly 
 ordered the Acts and Laws, since the second charter, to be reprinted, 
 and it was done the following year; but a copy with the supple- 
 ments is rare now-a-days; and yet it was distributed in all the towns 
 of the Province, as this new edition will be in all the towns of the 
 Commonwealth. 
 
 In 1726 another reprint was issued, with supplements running to 
 1742; a perfect copy, with its whole number of seven hundred and 
 eighty-nine pages, would set a biblophile wild. 
 
 In August, 1742, the laws were again revised and reprinted in 
 two volumes; one of Temporary and one of Perpetual Laws; the 
 former were continued, with supplements, up to 1755, and the latter 
 until 1760. A perfect copy of either is rarely seen, owing to the 
 loss of the supplements. 
 
 In 1752 Lieut. Gov. Phips reminded the Council and Represen- 
 tatives that many of the laws were " obsolete and others by frequent 
 additions, amendments and alterations are rendered difficult to be 
 understood and variously construed and practised upon." Again in 
 a letter to the Lords of Trade, under date of Jan. 24, 1753, he says: 
 
 " I am not to confine you to any particular form in your proceeding, but 
 I must recommend to you a plau which has been executed by one of His 
 Majesty's other Govern' 8 with very good success, a Copy of which shall 
 also be laid before you. It is generally allowed that there is no juster way 
 of forming a Judgment of the wisdom of any People than by their body of 
 Laws; it behoves you the -efore to give the greatest attention to what I 
 now propose to you, and as it is a work that will require much time and 
 close application you cannoi too soon engage upon it."
 
 12 
 
 Later Gov. Shirley made a speech on the necessity of a revision 
 of the laws, fully setting forth the advantages of such a work, and 
 arguing against numerous objections which the members of the As- 
 sembly, who had no idea of the value the work would be to pos- 
 terity, were ready to offer. 
 
 On August 21, 1756, the Governor sent the following message to 
 the Council and House : 
 
 " I have repeatedly recommended to former assemblies the appointing a 
 committee to revise the laws of this Province, the particular plan of which 
 has been laid before those assemblies, and may now be found in your files. 
 I cannot permit this court to rise without again urging a consideration of 
 this matter, it appears to me a matter of great moment; besides the inac- 
 curacy of some of your laws, there are many which militate one with another, 
 and others are expressed in ambiguous terms, so as to render the construc- 
 tion various and frequently altering; all which is not only dishonorable to 
 the legislature but must be of bad consequence to the people of the govern- 
 ment. You must be convinced, Gentlemen, that I have nothing in view but 
 the real advantage of the Province, and I hope you will engage in the affair 
 without delay." 
 
 In 1755 the Temporary Laws, then in force, were printed, and 
 continued by the addition of supplements to 1763, when another 
 edition was prepared, which was continued by supplements down 
 to the time of the Revolution. None of those can be picked up in 
 " Ye Antique Bookstore." 
 
 In 1759 an edition of the Perpetual Laws then in force was 
 printed, and supplements to it were published each session up to 1774. 
 
 Many attempts were made in pre-rcvolutionery days by the patriots 
 to revise the Provincial Laws, supply omissions and correct errors. 
 This most interesting period of our history, the embryonic era, is 
 most fully set forth in these law books, for, in addition to the Acts 
 of the Province, all the Acts of Parliament, which led to the out- 
 break of the Revolution, are usually bound up with them. 
 
 In 1771 James Otis reported, in behalf of a committee, that "they 
 find a great number of the standing laws omitted in the last impres- 
 sion, and some in the impression of the last but one of the Perpetual 
 Laws, and also some laws left out of the last impression of the 
 Temporary Laws, and that it was absolutely necessary to have a 
 new edition of the Perpetual and Temporary Laws of the Province." 
 This however failed to meet the approval of Hutchinson, not only 
 Governor, but Chief Justice, as will appear by the following letter, 
 now for the first time printed, dated at Boston, March 20, 1773, and 
 addressed to Lord Dartmouth. 
 
 " I am obliged also to acquaint your Lordship that a vote has passed the 
 two Houses both in this and the former Session for a new impression of 
 the Province laws which have been some time out of Print. I think that 
 printing the laws may very properly be claimed as part of the Prerogative, 
 but in the Colonies it is attended with expences, as no Printer will under-
 
 13 
 
 take it unless a sufficient number of books be engaged and therefore in this 
 Colony, and I believe generally, it has been done by a vote of the General 
 Court originated with the Representatives, and the care of the impression 
 left with a Committee, and I refused my assent to these votes because I found 
 it to be the declaration of one or more of the members of the House that 
 none of the Acts of Parliament which are printed with the Province Laws 
 should be brought into the new impression. I should have thought it of less 
 importance if it had not evidently proceeded from the denial of the authority 
 of those and all other Acts of Parliament which immediately respect us, and 
 I think myself obliged to mention it to your Lordship as a proof of a fixed 
 resolution to avoid acknowledging the supremacy of Parliament." 
 
 After the adoption of the Constitution in 1780, a compilation of 
 the most important of the unrepealed laws of the Province was pre- 
 pared, under a resolve of February 28, 1799, by a committee ap- 
 pointed to edit the laws. It was issued in 1801, and in 1807 it was 
 so scarce that it was reprinted. In 1814 this edition was in turn 
 exhausted, and another and more complete collection of the Laws of 
 the Colony and Province appeared, under the title of " The Charters 
 and General Laws of the Colony and Province of Massachusetts 
 Bav." This volume contained the acts passed during the Revolution ; 
 the labor was performed by the late Hon. James Savage, under the 
 direction of Nathan Dane, Judge Story and Judge Prescott, who 
 were the commissioners, selected by the highest wisdom of this era 
 in our history, as the most capable and learned in the State ; this 
 book has been out of print for years. 
 
 This edition of 1814 contained only eight hundred and sixteen 
 
 pages of Laws of the Colony and Province, covering a period of 
 
 one hundred and fifty years, while the first volume of the Province 
 
 Laws, of the edition now in press, covering only twenty-two years, 
 
 makes a volume of over nine hundred pages. 
 
 The following examples will show the value of the new light 
 thrown upon legal matters in this ably edited book, The Province 
 Laws. 
 
 In Vol. I. p. 172, in the margin, reference is made to I. Gray, 
 p. 1 19, where neither court nor counsel finding authority "that the 
 age of consent, in marriage, as fixed by the common law, is the rule 
 iii 5 force in this Commonwealth, the court decided in an elaborate 
 opinion that the common law rule prevailed here on general princi- 
 ples, there being no rule established by statute." But by the publi- 
 cation of this book it appears that there was actually an unrepealed 
 act of the Province conclusive on the point, the knowledge of which 
 would have saved both court and counsel much useless research, and 
 that the age of consent was, for a man, fourteen years ; for a woman, 
 twelve. See Act, 1694-5, chap. 5, 5. 
 
 Mr. Goodell has an elaborate note in Vol. I. p. 363, in which it 
 appears that our copy of the Province charter of 1692 provides that 
 "electors shall possess property to the value of forty pounds ster-
 
 14 
 
 ling," while the original required y*/ty. This error found its way into 
 theprecepts for the choice of representatives, and invalidated all 
 proceedings made under it, as not according to the charter. 
 
 Again in the Commonwealth vs. Manning, Dane's General Abridg- 
 ment and Digest of American Law, Vol. III. chap. 71, Art. 5, Sec. 
 8-10, the following statements appear: 
 
 " It was said that this was clearly an indictment at common law by ob- 
 structin<r a town watering place or a common watering place, that no indict- 
 ment lies at common law for obstructing a common watering place, 
 
 further that there is no case to be found in the books of an indictment for 
 
 obstructing a town watering place It has been our practice to indict 
 
 nuisances involving the same principle." 
 
 Yet in Vol. I. chjap 3, p. 312 of the Province Laws, the Act of 
 1698 clearly indicates that it was statute law. 
 
 The difference between the torments of the damned and the suffer- 
 ings of the living, are clearly designated by the misspelling shown 
 in Vol. I. p 430 of the Province Laws, correcting the ancient printer. 
 
 " And whereas, through the anguish of the [deceased] [diseased] testator, 
 or through his solicitous intention though in health, or through the oversight 
 of the scribe, some of the testator's children are omitted and not mentioned 
 in the will, many children also being borne after the makeing of the will, 
 tho in the life-time of their parents." 
 
 On the question, whether one single act concerning witchcraft was 
 passed to be enacted, in 1711, such interest has been evoked among 
 historians and lawyers, that four pamphlets have already been printed 
 from papers read before the Massachusetts Historical Society and 
 the Antiquarian Society at Worcester, and one more pamphlet is now " 
 in press, which will probably call forth another. 
 
 Of the importance of their preservation by publication, it is neces- 
 sary to quote from the preface of the first volume of the Province 
 Laws. 
 
 " It is a matter of congratulation, surely, that the original engrossments 
 of the province laws incomplete though they be, have so generally withstood 
 decav and the ravages of vermin, and have been preserved from the con- 
 flagrations which, more than once, during the provincial period destroyed 
 so many valuable public records and tiles, and it is not less fortunate that there 
 were societies and individuals interested in the preservation of the printed 
 acts before the late improvements in paper making had increased their value 
 for the manufacturer's purposes." 
 
 These Province Laws form a part of the fundamental laws of the 
 state. At the present moment, all our laws relating to the govern- 
 ment and prudential affairs of towns, state valuation, apportionment 
 and arf.ses.--mi.-nt of taxe.s, the establishment of courts and forms of 
 writs and processes, the rules of practice, the summoning of juries, 
 and the subordination of Inferior to Appellate Courts, the probate
 
 15 
 
 system, the settlement of the estates of deceased persons, the sup- 
 port of paupers, the punishment of criminals, the inspection of various 
 articles of merchandise, the rules governing domestic relations, the 
 conveyance of lands and the registration of deeds, the general 
 frame- work of the three great departments of government, legislative, 
 judicial and executive, and their relation to each other, the appoint- 
 ment of sheriffs, coroners, constables, and other officers of the peace 
 are all derived from the laws of the Colony and Province, and 
 most of them exist to-day without substantial chanjje. The old laws, 
 under which all these were established, as the result of experience, 
 must necessarily be constantly referred to, in order to ascertain from 
 their preambles and fulness of expression the true meaning of the 
 condensed modern statutes, into which they have been compressed. 
 
 Such being the facts, these Province Laws will be recognized as 
 invaluable in all courts. Does not this alone warrant the continua- 
 tion of the same ? 
 
 In the preservation of documents illustrating its early history, 
 Massachusetts holds an enviable and honorable place among other 
 states. Her Archives are rich mining fields for obtaining material 
 for events yet unpublished. The old volumes contain the foundation 
 of historical knowledge; they are continually throwing new light 
 upon affairs which, but for their preservation, would have been buried 
 in oblivion. By their means, a diligent seeker after truth is able to 
 furnish data which will demolish inexact and careless writers; they 
 have been searched diligently. When a lawyer wanted to find some 
 particular act or resolve; when the writer of a town history wanted 
 to find the act incorporating it as a precinct, district, or town, he 
 was obliged formerly to spend days and sometimes weeks in the 
 search for it, for want of good indexes. Now these volumes of the 
 Province Laws are all thoroughly and carefully indexed, and it is 
 easy to draw from them the richest treasures of the wisdom and 
 experience of the past. 
 
 Few men have leisure to write books, and fewer still have the re- 
 quisite skill and knowledge on subjects of law and history, for it re- 
 quires an immense amount of time and research to render an article 
 accurate, reliable, and interesting. 
 
 The fifth volume, as has been stated, soon to be issued, will close 
 all the Public Acts down to 1780. 
 
 The commissioners in their preface foreshadow what they desire 
 and purpose to do, as follows : " All Acts of Parliament in force in 
 or affecting the Province; all private acts, in full; all votes of the 
 General Court granting lands, establishing districts, precincts, and 
 parishes, and determining territorial boundaries ; all votes in the nature 
 of declaratory acts or judicial decisions concerning: the interpretation 
 of the charter, the rules of the common law, and the jurisdiction and 
 powers of the judicial courts; all executive action in respect to the 
 organization of tribunals and the appointment of public officers in
 
 16 
 
 which, by the charter, the legislature had no part, and all decisions 
 of parliamentary law, are reserved for the appendix; to which it has 
 been deemed proper to add a complete list of the sessions of the 
 General Court, and such matters of historical importance found in 
 the public records, as seemed of use to illustrate the progress of 
 civilization, the amelioration of laws and manners, and the action of 
 physical causes which affect society directly, or in their operation 
 upon the sources of human comfort and sustenance." 
 
 The sixth volume will contain what are known as the Private Acts, 
 but these will occupy only a small portion of the book, or appendix, 
 for which the commissioners have been preparing a full collection of 
 all unprinted votes and resolves relating to the establishment of 
 towns, parishes, and districts. By referring to the index, the mem- 
 ber from " Cranberry Centre " can trace out the ancient history for 
 himself of his own town, fix the original grant, and follow its landed 
 history through the changes of precinct, district, and town. To 
 all searchers of history, or lawyers, and legislators, this sixth 
 volume will be of great use and importance, as the searches which 
 are carefully being made are in the forty-five ponderous folios of the 
 General Court Records, the two hundred and ninety-nine volumes of 
 the " Archives," the twenty-five manuscript volumes of Council 
 Records, the sixty-seven volumes of the House Journals, and outside 
 of the State House, in libraries and public offices, from the Lenox 
 Library in New York to the State House at Augusta, Maine. 
 
 We have already shown with how much avidity the ancient pre- 
 decessors of His Excellency sought to have the laws printed and pre- 
 served. Let us now come down to more modern days. There was 
 once a governor, named John A. Andrew. In his inaugural address 
 delivered Jan. 5, 1861, he says, in regard to the^Provincial Statutes: 
 
 " I earnestly recommend the collection and publication under the patron- 
 age of the Commonwealth, of the statutes enacted between the time of the 
 union of the two colonies of Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay, under the 
 Charter of William and Mary 1691, and that of the adoption of the Con- 
 stitution of 1780. Not more than a moiety of these Provincial Laws are 
 to be found among the accumulations of the State Library; but the zeal and 
 intelligent industry of one gentleman of the bar, has enabled him, after 
 years of careful search, to complete a collection of them. They are of 
 inestimable value on account of their historical interest, their usefulness in 
 throwing light upon subsequent legislation, and the assistance which they 
 afford in the determination of many important questions mooted by the 
 profession and the courts." 
 
 Again on March 20, 1861, the lawyer as well as the governor of 
 the Commonwealth utters his sentiments : 
 
 "By the constitution of the Commonwealth the statutes of the Province, 
 Colony and State of Massachusetts Bay, not repugnant to that constitution, 
 are continued in force until altered or repealed by the legislature. As 
 there has been no general repeal of these statutes, many of them are still
 
 17 
 
 part of the law of the land, and a much larger number are subjects of 
 frequent reference in controversies relating to facts which occurred, or titles 
 which become vested, while they are in force. As time goes on, and the 
 knowledge of these laws, derived from memory and tradition, disappears, 
 the importance of making them publicly known increases, 
 
 " A few examples will illustrate the present operation of these statutes 
 better than any general statement. Cases involving the settlement of 
 paupers, and the construction of ancient deeds and wills, are very familiar. 
 Some statutes of the Province, affecting the titles of valuable lands, are not 
 to be found except in the old and rare folio editions. Instances of the 
 application of such statutes may be found in Holland v. Cruft, 3 Gray, 164, 
 173, and Brown v. Wenham, 10 Met. 498." 
 
 4< There can be no better evidence of the importance and even necessity 
 of publishing these statutes than the recent decision of the supreme judicial 
 court, by which the title of the Commonwealth was established in a very 
 valuable tract of land in the Back Bay. That judgment was based in great 
 part upon the early Acts of the Colony, relating to the organization of 
 towns, then recently rendered accessible in the publication by the state of 
 
 the Massachusetts Colony Records. 
 
 **** **#* 
 
 " The Provincial Statutes, whether public or private, in force or repealed, 
 are of the greatest value in the interpretation of the existing statutes of the 
 Commonwealth, and even of the constitution itself. It is a familiar rule in 
 the construction of statutes, frequently applied by the courts, that all Acts 
 upon the same subject, at whatever times passed, must be construed together 
 
 as one Act. 
 
 **** **** 
 
 " In a historical point of view, the importance of the Provincial Statutes 
 can hardly be exaggerated, covering, as they do, the whole history of the 
 Province of Massachusetts Bay, from the union of the Colonies of Massa- 
 chusetts and Plymouth to the establishment of the Commonwealth, and 
 having had a great influence on the legislation of the other colonies. 
 
 " Yet, owing to negligence in collecting the sessions laws as they were 
 published, and accidental destruction or dispersion of such collections as 
 were made, these laws, which ought to be easily accessible to every lawyer 
 and judge, every legislator and town officer, and every historical student, 
 are in fact within the reach of very few. The State Library does not con- 
 tain more than one half of them ; and there are probably not more than 
 half a dozen libraries in the Commonwealth, public and private, which 
 comprehend so many as that. The only set which approaches completeness, 
 and which, by many years of judicious and indefatigable research and con- 
 stant and zealous industry, has been rendered so nearly perfect that any 
 trifling deficiencies in it can be easily supplied, is that of Ellis Ames, Esq., 
 of Canton, who has most kindly and liberally offered to the Commonwealth 
 the use of this invaluable collection in the preparation of any edition which 
 they may desire to publish. 
 
 ' The collection of " the Charters and General Laws of the Colony and 
 Province of Massachusetts Bay," published by order of the General Court 
 in 1814, and usually cited as "the Ancient Charters," as is well known to 
 every one who has had occasion to pursue any legal or historical inquiry 
 in the time of the Colony or Province, is very incomplete and inaccurate, 
 and omits many public and general statutes, and all the local and special 
 ones."
 
 18 
 
 On the third of January, 1862, in the midst of all his tremendous 
 labor for the salvation of the state, and the comfort of the soldiers, 
 he does not forget the little wooden shanty at Canton, and the 
 terrible loss to the bar and the historian, if a match were carelessly 
 dropped by some departing client who loved his pipe. 
 
 " Of even superior importance in every point of view, is the preservation 
 by publication, of the Provincial Statutes of Massachusetts covering a 
 period of nearly a century, from 1691 to 1780, the only complete collec- 
 tion of which iu existence has been gathered in one private library in the 
 Commonwealth, and is subject to all the risks of loss, destruction, and dis- 
 persion, to which private property is necessarily liable. In my Inaugural 
 Address to the General Court of 1861, I had the honor earnestly to recom- 
 mend the printing of these statutes, and I desire earnestly to repeat that 
 recommendation." 
 
 Even in the darkest days, when the currency was at its lowest 
 depreciation, his loyal enthusiasm could not forbear again mentioning 
 a subject that was evidently near the heart of the never-to-be-for- 
 gotten " War Governor.*" In his address on the 6th of January, 
 1865, his arms being held up by the members of one of Massachu- 
 setts' most honored and venerable societies, he spoke these words : 
 
 " I received yesterday from a committee of the Massachusetts Historical 
 Society, a letter, which I enclose with this communication, concerning the 
 needed republication of our Provincial Statutes which at the various ses- 
 sions of the General Court, when propositions for such publication have 
 been pending, has met your approval and support. In my address to the 
 General Court at the session of 1861, I had the honor to urge the subject 
 upon its attention, and a careful report earnestly recommending the publi- 
 cation was made to the Senate by the committee of which Hon. Mr. 
 Whiting was chairman. The resolves reported by the committee failed, 
 however, to be passed. In my address to the General Court of 1862, I 
 again presented the subject. In 1863 and 1864 allusion was made to it 
 occasionally in the proceedings of the General Court and its committees, 
 but no legislative action was taken not, I think, from any positive want of 
 interest in the measure, but from the greater impression produced by other 
 matters of more immediate importance, and the opinion that this one may 
 wait yet longer. 
 
 "So that now in 1865, as in 1861, the only complete collection of our 
 Provincial Statutes exists in the library of a private citizen, liable to all the 
 hazards of fire and the ordinary accidents to which any private library is 
 exposed. If this collection should be dispersed or destroyed, the importance 
 of it would be realized at once. The loss to the historian of the Common- 
 wealth would be irreparable; and also to the jurist. There would remain 
 no complete series of the legislative acts of the Province of Massachusetts, 
 covering that great and most interesting period of our judicial as well as 
 political history from 1691, under the charter of William and Mary, down 
 to the adoption of the Constitution of Massachusetts in 1780. Nor could 
 the loss be repaired." 
 
 * See Appendix E.
 
 19 
 
 We have only space to quote one more Governor, upon whose 
 shoulders appears to have fallen the mantle of love and reverence 
 for ancient law and history, of this glorious Commonwealth, that 
 was so conspicuous in Gov. Andrew. 
 
 We quote from Gov. Alexander H. Bullock's address, in 1866 : 
 
 " My predecessor twice in his annual address earnestly recommended the 
 collection and publication of the Provincial Laws, as of inestimable value. 
 In 1865 a Resolve was passed for the appointment of Commissioners to 
 prepare for publication, at some future time, a complete copy of our Acts 
 and Laws, from May, 1692, down to the Constitution, including all legislative 
 Acts of legal and historical importance appearing on the General Court 
 Records. Commissioners were appointed accordingly, who state to me that 
 there can be procured an entire series of the printed pamphlets of all such 
 Acts and Laws engrossed on parchment as the General Court saw fit to 
 publish at the end of each session, from May, 1692. down to October 25, 
 1780, in ten folio volumes; but that there are very many enactments or 
 laws, during that period, never engrossed on parchment, or printed, but ex- 
 tended in manuscript upon the General Court Records, of legal or historical 
 importance, including the incorporation of some towns and of many pre- 
 cincts or parishes ; to gather all of which would require a careful examina- 
 tion and discreet selection from twenty-six volumes of those Records. The 
 Commissioners suggest that the means provided by the Resolve are inade- 
 quate for so considerable a work, and express a hope that, if the General 
 Court shall deem the work worthy of completion, the Resolve may be 
 amended, and more specific or precise directions be given. The landmarks 
 of our legislation and jurisprudence ought to be clearly defined and sacredly 
 preserved, and the suggestion of the Commissioners will, I trust, receive 
 your approval." 
 
 The North American Review has been considered by most Ameri- 
 cans as one of the ablest literary productions in the country, its 
 standard is high, and among the contributors are the ablest minds 
 in literature. Its statements carry weight, particularly when the 
 author is known, although it is not the custom to have communications 
 signed in its columns, and this is no exception to the rule. 
 
 The following notice appeared in the pages of the North American 
 Review, Vol. III. p. 245, after the publication of the first volume of 
 the Province Laws. 
 
 " To undertake to comment on the contents of a thick statute book would 
 be something like attempting to make an abstract of a dictionary. A 
 thoughtful reader of this volume will see reason to apply to many and many 
 a page the remark forced from the unfriendly but able and knowing Chal- 
 mers, when he compared New England with the colonies of the South. In 
 cases where the legislation of Massachusetts did not cross the higher powers 
 at home, he was clear-sighted, and fair enough often to see and praise its 
 wisdom. Writing nearly a century after the enactment of some laws which 
 he named of the early provincial period, he said that they ' not only marked 
 the spirit of the people, but were probably the cause of the most lasting 
 consequences,' and that 'to these .salutary regulations much of the populous- 
 ness and of the commerce of the Massachusetts is owing.' The course of
 
 20 
 
 nearly another prosperous century has now added its testimony to the whole 
 soundness and durable efficacy of those primitive regulations, and this, too, 
 in respect to matters more vital than were dreamed of in the philosophy of 
 that juiceless economist." 
 
 Again, on the issue of the second volume, the North American 
 Review thus mentions it, Vol. CXX. pp. 229, et seq. 
 
 " The second volume of the Provincial Laws of Massachusetts, prepared 
 by Mr. Ames and Mr. Goodell, under the authority of the Commonwealth, 
 was all but ready for publication, when the whole edition with the stereo- 
 type plates was destroyed by the great fire in Boston in 1872. We receive 
 a copy of the reprint just as we dismiss the last sheets of thisnuuber. We 
 expressed our sense of the singular value of the work at the time of the ap- 
 pearance of the first volume, four years ago. 
 
 ******* * 
 
 " This second volume of the Provincial Laws of Massachusetts covers 
 the period of the thirty years peace between England and France in the 
 reigns of the first two kings of the house of Hanover. It is the least in- 
 teresting portion of the Massachusetts history. Yet the student of the 
 causes of the growth of states will find matter for thought in observing the 
 arrangements made here from year to year for keeping the people safe, 
 orderly, healthy, peaceable, intelligent, industrious, moral, and religious ; for 
 courts of justice, for churches, ministers, and schools, for facilities of com- 
 munication, for the restriction of pauperism and the support of the poor, for 
 a just distribution of public burdens, for the encouragement and control of 
 business. 
 
 We repeat that it is impossible to speak in too high praise of the execution 
 of this work. Of course we have not verified the correctness of the copies 
 of the statutes, extending in the two volumes through two thousand closely 
 printed pages. But there is every appearance of the extremest exactness 
 in the transcription. The book contains the abundant wealth of a wide 
 and accurate learning, and the apparatus of tables and indexes furnishes per- 
 fectly fitting keys for access to the heaped-up treasures." 
 
 We have stated that the author's name was not appended to the 
 above articles, but by the assistance of Mr. Poole's valuable " Index 
 to Periodical Literature," a work prepared with great labor and re- 
 search, we are able to assert that these articles in the North American 
 were written by no less a person than John Gorham Palfrey, D.D., 
 LL.D., a gentleman, who from his position as Secretary of the Com- 
 monwealth for four years, would alone entitle him to be a competent 
 judge of the value of these records, and the way in which they had 
 been edited; but when we consider that this high praise comes from 
 one, who, by his exact, patient, and thoughtful study of the contem- 
 poraneous authors and documents of the period of which he wrote, 
 his conscientious fidelity to truth, his impartiality, has rendered his 
 History of New England almost a classic, worthy of the men, the 
 measures, and the manners of the period it commemorated ; when we 
 consider that one. sometimes called " the greatest historian of New 
 England," has showered such praise upon that portion of this edition
 
 Insert p. 21, after "historian and the people," the following: "to restore 
 in full the active body of the Colony Laws under the first charter,"
 
 21 
 
 of the Province Laws which met his eye, can we believe that it is 
 not worth continuing? 
 
 An article, containing about twenty pages, written by the Hon. 
 Hamilton B. Staples, one of the Judges of the Superior Court, ap- 
 peared in the Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, in 
 April, 1884. It is the freshest contribution to the value of the 
 Province Laws, as it was written after the appearance of the fourth 
 volume. The distinguished jurist writes : 
 
 " The four large volumes already published of the Acts and Resolves of 
 the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, prepared by the Commissioners, 
 Mr. Ellis Ames and Mr. Abner C. Goodell, Jr., embrace three quarters of 
 a century, viz.: from 1692-93 to 1768. These volumes supply abundant 
 material for the history of the State as well as of many of its municipalities. 
 They enable us to trace the development almost from germ life of our pres- 
 ent system of laws and of government. They show us what the political 
 and social life of the province was, and the perpetuity of that life under 
 new forms and conditions. 
 
 All through these volumes there is an atmosphere of repression. The 
 province was allowed to manufacture nothing that could come into compe- 
 tition with the manufactures of England. Although our people yielded to 
 this claim they never believed in its justice, and, as time passed on, it proved 
 more and more detrimental to the prosperity of the State. The necessity 
 of a change was the one underlying cause of the Revolution." 
 
 The Hon. George H. Moore, of New York, the greatest living 
 authority on the value of the Provincial Laws, thus writes in regard 
 to their publishment : 
 
 " The careful chief Magistrate might have noticed that the professional 
 and scholarly ability devoted to this great work, to restore to Massachusetts 
 a knowledge and use of her entire Provincial Legislation, was not very 
 costly. The expense of the Executive Department and the whole legis- 
 lative printing might be judiciously diminished during the next twenty 
 years, enough to provide four thousand dollars a year, to obtain results of 
 such value to history, and the historical reputation of Massachusetts, as has 
 been secured by the $77,505.77 which looks so formidable in the address. 
 No scholar who has had occasion or opportunity to examine the volumes 
 which have been issued, can fail to recognize the intrinsic value of a work, 
 which reflects the highest honor on the Commonwealth. While it is a 
 disgrace to most of our states that their statutes at large have never been 
 printed, it will always be to the lasting honor of Massachusetts, that she will 
 not be the last but always the first, to provide for the future preservation of 
 these memorials of her honored past. I believe only Virginia and South 
 Carolina have preceded her in this good work, and neither the one nor the 
 other have produced anything to be compared in thoroughness and fidelity 
 of editorial skill, with the work of the esteemed and honored Goodell. The 
 State of Massachusetts ought to pay him $5,000 a year for the rest of his 
 life, and furnish his office with the records of the Province Laws, complete and 
 accessible, to the lawyer, historian and the people^that time, when Massa- 
 chusetts laid the foundations sure and deep of the law of the whole conti- 
 nent, for true it is, that Massachusetts has given the law to this whole 
 country, more literally than her friends or her enemies have ever cared to 
 assert or admit."
 
 22 
 
 The more this clause in Gov. Robinson's message is considered, 
 the more difficult it is to understand the motive that induced him to 
 write it. He does not suggest that the expense is disproportionate 
 to the work accomplished. Can he expect to have it done for less ? 
 As to the " limit to the extent " of the work concerning which the 
 Governor suggests the propriety of an inquiry by the Legislature, it 
 would have been well for His Excellency to have pointed out ex- 
 actly what obscurity exists in the resolve of the last legislature 
 (1884, chap. 56), which he approved less than seven months before 
 he prepared the above paragraph in his address. By that resolve 
 "the time of the adoption of the Constitution" (Oct. 25, 1780) is 
 expressly fixed as the limit of the "acts, laws, resolves and orders" 
 which the commissioners are required to print. It is understood 
 that the fifth volume, which will include all the public acts to that 
 period, has been already stereotyped to the year 1 7 79. The Governor 
 has failed to point out in his message anything that has occurred 
 since last May that would justify a modification -of that resolve. 
 
 It cannot be supposed that the Governor has taken any special in- 
 terest in the work either one way or the other. Indeed, it is probable 
 that one so busily occupied in politics, and with matters of national 
 concern, has had neither time or inclination to examine the volumes 
 until very recently, and that therefore his bringing the subject to 
 the attention of the Legislature at this day was a service to some of 
 those about him who have opposed the work from the start, and who 
 could not extort from him a more unfavorable allusion to the work 
 than his rather faint compliment to the manner of its performance. 
 
 We have endeavored to show the value of the work, and the cost 
 of publication ; if we have fallen into any errors, there are many 
 persons who can correct them. 
 
 As lovers of Massachusetts, proud of her history and anxious for 
 its preservation, would it be presumptuous to offer the following 
 suggestions : 
 
 That if the sole survivor of the original commissioners is still 
 the competent and able man he was when selected, if he has increased 
 in wisdom and understanding, if he has done his work with fidelity 
 and accuracy, why should he not continue the work to its completion ? 
 That if the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has paid him less 
 than six hundred dollars a year, during the past twenty years, now 
 that the Governor has brought this subject before the people and the 
 Legislature, would it not be a fitting time for this wealthy and intelli- 
 gent Commonwealth to grant him a compensation more nearly cor- 
 responding with the value of the services performed ?
 
 23 
 
 APPENDIX A. 
 
 The Members of the Norfolk County Bar Association, at a meeting held 
 February 17, 1885, in memory of the late Ellis Ames, unite in saying: 
 
 " They regard it as a striking and impressive testimony to his legal 
 learning and professional fidelity that, with the exception of fire years 
 served in the Legislature in the very beginning, Mr. Ames devoted himself 
 exclusively to the practice of the law throughout his whole career to the 
 close, and that he had a full and successful practice, not only in Norfolk 
 County, but in the counties of Bristol and Plymouth, and that he drew 
 clients and law students from places far and near in these counties to his 
 quiet country office, where his ample library, his rare collections of pamphlet 
 editions of the Laws of Massachusetts and curious manuscripts were objects 
 of interest to every visitor. 
 
 They also remember with great satisfaction the extensive researches made 
 by Mr. Ames into the sources of the history of the colonies of Plymouth 
 and Massachusetts Bay ; his labors as a commissioner, under a resolve of 
 the legislature for the publication of the Provincial Laws ; his papers upon 
 special historical subjects for the Massachusetts Historical Society, of which 
 he was long a valuable member, and his intimate and exact knowledge of 
 family genealogies, incidents and events, many of which are matters of 
 unwritteL history. 
 
 Finally, they would bear witness to his high sense of professional duty ; 
 to his untiring zeal in maintaining his clients' cause when upon trial; to 
 his reliance upon legal principle and legitimate evidence in the argument of 
 his causes ; to his willingness to adjust controversies rather than needlessly 
 to promote litigation ; to his singleness and discreetness of purpose, and to 
 his uncompromising integrity, all of which qualities entitled Ellis Ames to 
 be held in grateful and honorable remembrance, both as a lawyer and a man." 
 
 APPENDIX B. 
 
 The cost of printing the Massachusetts Colony Records in detail, Resolve 
 1853, chapter 33 : 
 
 For printing 5 volumes, including plates and stereotyping $21,628.12 
 
 Additional copies volume 1 and 2 .... 4,362.58 
 
 Reprinting 500 copies of each volume under Resolve 
 
 1855, chapter 19 . . ... . 7,112.10 
 
 N. B. Shurtleff, Editorial Services .... 3,500.00 
 
 Clerical Services 5,231.64 
 
 Total $41,834.44 
 
 APPENDIX C. 
 
 The cost of printing the Plymouth Colony Records, Resolve 1855, 
 chapter 19 : 
 
 For printing 12 volumes $24,649.66 
 
 N. B. Shurtleff's Editorial Services .... 7,500.00 
 
 Clerical Services .... . 14,968.00 
 
 Total . . . . ,i . . $47,117.66
 
 UUSB LIBRARY 
 
 24 
 
 APPENDIX D. 
 
 The total cost of preparing and printing the Provincial Laws, Resolve 
 1869, chapter 87, is as follows : 
 
 Printing 5 volumes $43,150.18 
 
 Clerical Services ....... 15,038.73 
 
 Bills of exchange for books 2,347.51 
 
 Travel 1,253.74 
 
 Miscellaneous 
 
 Ellis Ames, Editorial 2,926.33 
 
 A. -C. Goodell, Jr., Editorial 11,837.13 
 
 Commissioners' pay ...... 750.00 
 
 Total .' . . ' "."' . . . $77,505.75 
 
 APPENDIX E. 
 
 It is hardly fair to assess the cost of these volumes, upon five volumes, 
 when by the postscript to the second volume it appears that the first edition 
 of that volume, together with the stereotype plates, was wholly destroyed 
 by the great fire of 1872, and the work had to be done over again, so that 
 in reality the figures given by the Governor represent the cost of five com- 
 plete volumes, averaging more than one thousand pages each, and between 
 nine hundred and one thousand pages of the sixth volume. It may be 
 mentioned, in this connection, that only one copy of the advance sheets of 
 this volume was saved, having been sent to a gentleman in Cambridge. This 
 saved the commissioners much delay, expense and labor. The plates of all 
 the volumes of the Province Laws are owned by the Commonwealth. 
 
 APPENDIX F. 
 
 At a Regular Meeting of the New England Historic Genealogical 
 Society, holden at the Society's Rooms, in Boston, March 4th, A. D. 1863, 
 the following resolution was offered : 
 
 WHEREAS, on the 27th day of February, A. D. 1863, a communication 
 was received by this society from Henry Wheatland, Esq., Secretary of 
 the Essex Institute, enclosing the resolve and vote of said society, wherein 
 they heartily approve of the recommendation of his Excellency, Governor 
 Andrew, in his inaugural addresses for the year 1861 and 1862, to the 
 Legislature, for the collection and publication of the statutes enacted 
 between the years 1691 and 1780: 
 
 Voted, that we fully concur with the Essex Institute in the importance 
 of collecting and publishing the Colonial Statutes aforesaid, and will cheer- 
 fully join in any proper measure to promote an object of such historic 
 value ; and this society would also recommend the publication of the Journals 
 kept by the legislature during the same period of Colonial history, as they 
 are exceedingly valuable, and have become very scarce and are in danger 
 of being lost. 
 
 The above preamble and vote were unanimously adopted. 
 A true copy from the records.
 
 i 
 
 A 000610984 7
 
 University 
 Southern 
 Library