A MS. copy of "The Body of Liberties" of the Massachusetts Colony, the first code of laws established in New England, and therefore in a very real sense our "Magna Charta," was discovered in the Boston Athenaeum by Francis C. Gray, and published in the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Third Series, vol. viii., in 1843; and the student should read Gray's valuable essay on the Early Laws of Massachusetts accompanying it. He shows the absurdity of prevalent notions that the first Massachusetts code was deduced almost literally from the Books of Moses. On the contrary, the code evinces not only the fathers' "acknowledged love of liberty," but a noteworthy degree of "practical good sense in legislation and liberality of sentiment." The code was far in advance of the time.

In 1889 William H. Whitmore printed the MS. discovered by Mr. Gray in facsimlie in the introduction to his reprint of the "Colonial Laws of the Massachusetts Colony," and again with his "Bibliographical Sketch" of those laws, which is worthy of careful study.

A significant defence of the early Massachusetts laws, prepared by a committee including Winthrop, Dudley, and Bellingham, was embodied in a declaration of the General Court in 1646 concerning a remonstrance of Robert Child, Thomas Fowle, Samuel Maverick, and others against certain features of this legislation. This Declaration, which includes parallels between "The Body of Liberties" and Magna Charta and the Common Law of England, is printed in Hutchinson's "Original Papers relative to Massachusetts," 1760, pp. 196-218, following the remonstrance. There is much concerning this in Winthrop's History (vol. ii.), the section covering 1646. See Barry's History of Mass., i. 275, Palfrey, etc.

Nathaniel Ward, the compiler of "The Body of Liberties," was born about 1578 at Haverhill in England, and was the son of Rev. John Ward, an eminent Puritan minister. He was graduated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in 1603, studied law, and became a barrister. Travelling extensively on the Continent, he met at Heidelberg the celebrated writer, David Pareus, who induced him to enter the ministry. He served as a clergyman for a time at Elbing in Prussia, then returning to England, lecturing in London, and then settling in Essex, where he became a Puritan leader, and in 1631 was brought before Laud. In 1634 he came to New England, and became the colleague of Rev. Thomas Parker at Ipswich. After two years, owing to feeble health, he resigned his pastorate, but continued to reside at Ipswich. Here he compiled "The Body of Liberties," which was adopted by the General Court of Massachusetts in December, 1641. In 1646 he published "The simple Cobbler of Agawam," which at once became so famous. See the review of it and of Ward's general work by Professor Moses Coit Tyler in his "History of American Literature"; also by Rev. T. Franklin Waters in his edition of "The Simple Cobbler." Returning to England in 1647, Ward became minister of the church at Shenfield in Essex, where he remained until his death in 1652. His sermon before the House of Commons in 1647 and various writings relating to the conflicts of that stormy time in England were published. Probably few of his associates in New England had legal abilities and training superior to his. "I have read almost all the common Law of England," he says in his "simple Cobbler"; and this was clearly the main source of the Massachusetts "Body of Liberties." In the defence of the Massachusetts laws by the authorized committee of the colony in 1646, referred to above, these laws are compared only with Magna Charta and the Common Law of England.

---Palfrey