THE OATH OF A FFREEMAN You shalbee truely Loyall to our Sour Lord the Kinge his heires and Successors; you shall not doe nor speake deuise or aduise any thinge or thinges act or actes directly or Inderectly by Land or water; that shall or may tend to the destruction or ouerthrow of any of these plantations or towneshipes of the Corporation of New Plymouth; neither shall you suffer the same to bee spoken or done but shall hinder oppose and discouer the same to the Gou' and Assistants of the said Collonie for the time being or some one of them; you shall faithfully submitt vnto such good and wholesome lawes and ordinances; as either are or shalbee made for the ordering and Gou❜ment of the same; and shall endeauor to advance the good and grouth of the seuerall Towneshipes and plantations within the Lymetts of this Corporation by all due meanes and courses; all which you p'mise and sweare by the Name of the great God of heauen and earth simply truely and faithfully to pforme as you hope for healpe from God whoe is the God of truth and the punisher of ffalchood. [1671.] In Massachusetts-Bay Colony. When on the 4th of March 1628/9, Charles, "by the grace of God, Kinge of England, Scotland, Fraunce, and Ireland, Defender of the Fayth, &c. in the fourth yeare of our raigne" did by letters patent grant unto Sir Henry Rosewell and his twenty-five associates, their heirs and assigns forever, all that certain part of the grant of New England which his "deare and royall father, Kinge James of blessed memory hath given and graunted vnto the Counsell established at Plymouth in the County of Devon" and which the said Council by deed dated the 19th of March, 1627/8, had "given, graunted, bargained, soulde, enfeoffed, aliened and confirmed" to Sir Henry Rosewell, Sir John Young, Knightes, Thomas Southcott, John Humphrey, John Endecott and Symon Whetcombe, their heirs and associates forever, To be houlden of vs our heires and successors, as of our manor of Eastgreenewich, in the County of Kent, within our realme of England," under the name of the "Governor and Company of the Mattachusetts Bay in Newe England, one bodie politique and corporate in deede, fact, and name, . and that by that name they shall have perpetuall succession, "-may acquire lands, &c. have a common seal; and that there shall be one Governor, one Deputy Governor, and eighteen assistants to be chosen out of the freemen. He went farther, and constituted "our welbeloved Mathewe Cradocke to be the first and present Governor; Thomas Goffe to be Deputy Governor, and eighteen of the other associates to be Assistants, who before they undertake the execution of their offices and places shall respectively take their corporal oaths for the faithful performance of their duties. The Oath for Matthew Craddock, as Governor, to be administered by a Master of the Chancery, the Governor was then empowered to administer the oaths to the Deputy Governor and Assistants nominated in the Charter. Oaths to subsequent officers being arranged: the new Governor to take the Oath before the old Deputy Governor, or two Assistants; and the new Deputy Governor, Assistants and all other officers hereafter chosen to take the oath before the Governor for the time being. They were empowered to transport any of our loving subjects, or any strangers willing to become our loving subjects, and any seven at least of their number had "full power and authoritie to choose, nominate, and appointe such and soe many others as they shall thinke fitt, and that shall be willing to accept the same, to be free of the said Company and Body, and Them into the same to admitt." All subjects inhabiting the lands granted, and their children "which shall happen to be borne there, or on the seas in goeing thither, or retorning from thence shall have and enjoy all liberties and immunities of free and natural subjects, . . . as yf they and everie of them were borne within the realme of England." And the Governor and Deputy Governor, and any two or more of the Assistants, at any of their Courts or Assemblys shall and may at all times. have full power to give the Oath of Office and Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance, or either of them, to every person who may go to New England to inhabit in the same. They were also authorized to make "the formes of such Oathes warrantable by the lawes and statutes of this our realme of England as shalbe respectivelie ministered vnto them, for the execucon of the said severall offices and places. . and ministr ing the said oathes to the newe elected officers.' At the end of the Charter appeared the Oath of Governor: PRÆDICT, Matthaeus Cradocke Juratus est de Fide et Obedientiâ Regi et Successoribus suis, et de Debitâ Exequutione Officij Gubernatoris iuxta Tenorem Pr sentium, 18° Martij, 1628. Coram me, Carola Cæsare, Milite, in Cancellariâ Mão. Char. Cæsar. By this Charter, under the privy seal of Cardinal Wolseley, was, unwittingly, planted the seed of the fairest flower that ever bloomed in the garden of colonization since Eden. Up to August, 1630, the business of the Massachusetts-Bay Company was transacted in London. But the business of the Massachusetts-Bay Colony may be said to have really begun in May, 1631. At "A Genrall Court holden att Boston, the 18th day of May, 1631. John Winthrop, Esq was chosen Goun for a whole yeare nexte ensueinge by the gen'all consent of the Court, according to the meaneing of the pattent, and did accordingly take an oathe to the place of Gouñ' belonginge." "Tho: Dudley, Esq, is also chosen Deputy Gount for this yeare nexte ensuing, & did in p'sence of the Court take an oath to his place belonginge." And "to the end the body of the comons may be p'serued of honest & good men, it was likewise ordered and agreed that for time to come noe man shalbe admitted to the freedome of this body polliticke, but such as are members of some of the churches within the lymitts of the same." The Law that all freemen must be church members, while assented to in Salem in 1631, was modified in 1632, probably for local reasons, that no civil magistrate could be an elder in the church. To give force to this law an Oath of Freemen was required, and this service the newly appointed Governor and the Deputy Governor elected to perform. The result of their labors, the original draft of the Oath of a Freeman, in the handwriting of the first and greatest of the Governors of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and the Oath of a Servant, in the handwriting of the second Governor-a document perhaps only surpassed in historical interest and importance by, and worthy to rank with, the Declaration of Independence—is now, appropriately, in the possession of the Public Library of the City of Boston, and its preservation assured. Through the courtesy of the Trustees, this Society is permitted again to give publicity to the excellent facsimiles of these interesting documents, together with transcriptions of the somewhat obscure handwriting, with interlineations and cancelled words showing, line for line, the changes made by the authors, which first appeared in the Bulletin of the Library for July, 1894. THE OATH OF A FREEMAN, OR of a Man to be MADE FFREE. I, A. B. &c. being, by the Almighties most wise disposicon, become a memb❜ of this body, consisting of the Goūn', Deputy Goūn', Assistants, & a comolty of the Mattachusets in Newe England, doe, freely & sincerely acknowledge that I am iustly & lawfully subject to the goum of the same, & doe accordingly submitt my pson & estate to be ptected, ordered, & gouned by the lawes & constitucons thereof, & doe faithfully pmise to be from time to time obedient & conformeable therevnto, & to the authie of the said Goūn' & Assistants & their success's, & to all such lawes, orders, sentences, & decrees as shalbe lawfully made & published by them or their successors; and I will alwaies indeav' (as in dutie I am bound) to advance the peace & wellfaire of this bodie or commonwealth to my vtmost skill & abilitie; & I will, to my best power & meanes, seeke to devert & prevent whatsoeuer may tend to the ruyne or damage thereof, or of any the said Goun', Deputy Goūn', or Assistants, or any of them, or Fac-simile of the Freemen's Oath The oath of a servt. 1. N. N. servt of &c. haveinge heard and vnderstoode that oursoveraigne Lord Kinge Charles hath by his res patents vnder the great seale of England graunted power and aucthoryty vnto a Governor a Deputy Governor &. 18. Assistants to rule governe & Judge all psones wch doe or shall inhabyte in or betweene the Charles ryver &. 3. myles southward & merimack ryver &. 3. myles northwards in new England & soe westwards to the south sea, hinge wthin wch compa lymitts I doe nowe inhabyt Doe promise to be at all tymes hereafter Dureinge my abode to. be in America obedyent to all Λ lawes orders constitutions & lawfully comaunds wch by the said Governor Deputy Governor and forth & shall come to my heareinge, And to be true and faith full to them & their governemt, And I likewise promise that if I heare of heare of or suspect shall know of any hurt or losse intended against any of them I will A reveale the same to one or more of them wth all convenyent speede, And to bind my selfe to the faithfull pformance of this promise, I sweare by the name of the onely true God the lover of truth & the avenger of falshood |