Mr. FREDERICK L. GAY spoke as follows:

Robert F. Roden in his Bibliographical List of the Issues of the Cambridge Press mentions, under the year 1643, the title "Capital Laws of Massachusetts Bay. Cambridge, Stephen Daye, 1643." In his note to this issue he says:

This is the "Body of Liberties," the first Code, prepared by Nathaniel Ward. The Cambridge edition is referred to in the preface of "New England's Jonas," London, 1647; but no copy is extant.1

Roden errs in calling it the "Body of Liberties." It was simply the Capital Laws. On June 14, 1642, "It is ordered, that such lawes as make any offence to bee capitall shall fourthwth bee imprinted & published, of wch lawes the Secretary is to send a coppey to the printer, when it hath bene examined by the Gov'nor or Mr Bellingham wth himselfe, & the Treasurer to pay for the printing of them." 3

Hitherto we were forced to rely on the reprint of these Capital Laws that is found in Major John Child's New-Englands Jonas Cast up at London, printed in London in 1647. They were introduced in the body of the text, and there was no way to determine the extent and limits of Day's original edition. This uncertainty, however, is removed by the discovery of an earlier London reprint. It is in the form of a single-sheet, and is entitled "The Capitall Lawes of New England, as they stand now in force in the Common-Wealth. . . . Printed first in New-England, and re-printed in London. for Ben. Allen in Popes-head Alley 1643." This early single-sheet reprint confirms the correctness of the Capital Laws as given in NewEnglands Jonas, and reproduces Day's original edition, perhaps in the same outward form.

1 The Cambridge Press, 1638-1692 (1905), p. 146.

...

2 The Body of Liberties was first printed, from a manuscript owned by the Boston Athenaeum, in 1856 in 3 Massachusetts Historical Collections, viii. 191– 237; and the same manuscript was reproduced in facsimile in 1890 by W. H. Whitmore in his Bibliographical Sketch of the Laws of the Massachusetts Colony From 1630 to 1686, pp. 32-61. Of the one hundred Liberties constituting the Body of Liberties, the Capital Laws form the 94th. Originally there were only twelve Capital Laws, and twelve only are found in the above-mentioned manuscript (p. 54 of Whitmore's facsimile) and in New-Englands Jonas Cast up at London (pp. 9-11). Three others were added on June 14, 1642 (Massachusetts Colony Records, ii. 21-22).

3 Massachusetts Colony Records, ii. 22.

The Capirall Lawes of New-England, as they ftand now in force in the Common-Wealth.

BY THE

COVRT,

In the Years 1641. 1642.

Capuall Lawes, Iftablifhed within the Iurifdiction of Maffachusets.

"I

3.

kany man after legall conviction, hall have or worship any other God, but the Lord God, he shall be put to death. Deut. 13. 6, &c. and 17. 2. &c.

Exodus 22, 20,

Ir,
3· I any perfon fhall blafpheme the Name of God the Father, Sonne, or Holy
Ghof, with direct,expreffe,prefumptuous, or high-handed blafphemy, or fhall
cuife God in the like manner, le fhall be put to death. Lev. 24. 15, 16.
It
4. any perfon hall commit any wilfull murther, which is manflaughter,commit
ted upon premeditate malice,harred, or cruelty, not in a mans neceffary and juft
defence, nor by meer cafualtie, againft his will, he fhall be put to death. Exod. 21.
12,13,14, Num. 35, 39, 31,

I any man on woman be a Witch, that is, hath or confulteth with a familiar fpi-
they shall be purro death. Exod. 22. 18. Lev. 20.27. Deut. 18. 10, 11.

5. Fany perfon flyeth another fuddenly in his anger, or cruelty of paffion, he fall be pur to death, Num, 35.20, 21. Lev. 24. 17.

any perfon fhall flay another through guile, either by poyfonings, or other fich divilifh practice, he fhall be put to death. Exod. 21.14.

a man or woman fhall lye with any beaft, or bruit creature, by carnall copulas tion, they fhall furely be put to death; and the beaft fhall be flaine, and buried.

Leu. 20. 15, 16.

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