(p.278) In the first year that Deputies from the towns took their place in the General Court, "John Winthrop and Richard Bellingham, Esq. [March 4, 1635] were desired by the Court to take a view of all orders already made and to inform the next General Court which of them they judged meet to he altered, abbreviated, repealed, corrected, enlarged, or explained, &c. (Mass. Rec., I. 137.) The General Court came together May 6, and the business remaining undone, the Governor [Haynes], Deputy Governor [Bellingham], John Winthrop, and Thomas Dudley, Esq., were deputed by the Court to make a draft of such laws as they should judge needful for the well-ordering of this plantation, and to present the same to the Court." (Ibid., 147; comp. Winthrop, I. 160.)

A year passed. Another General Court assembled; and "the Governor [Vane], Deputy-Governor [Winthrop], Thomas Dudley, John Haynes, Richard Bellingham, Esq., Mr. Cotton, Mr. Peter, and Mr. Shepard were entreated [May 25, 1636] to make a draft of laws agreeable to the word of God, which might be the fundamentals of this Commonwealth, and to present the same to the next General Court." (Mass. Rec., I. 174.) Provisionally "the Magistrates and their associates" were to "proceed in the Courts to hear and determine all causes according to the laws now established; and where there is no law, then as near the law of God as they can. The public attention was distracted by the Pequot war and the Antinomian controversy. Haynes was just going away; the young Governor had already enough upon his hands; and others of the commission had no heart for the business. Cotton held a ready pen, and loved a various activity. At the time appointed he was all prepared, and "did present a copy of Moses his judicials, compiled in an exact method, which were taken into further consideration till the next General Court." (Winthrop, I. 202.) It was probably easy for the quietists to persuade the Court that it would be scarcely decorous for them to act when one only of their committee had given his advice.

Two years had followed since their last action, and the freemen, . . . patient, but tenacious of their purpose, tried the virtue of a more formal method (March 12, 1638), and "ordered that the freemen of every town (or some part thereof chosen by the rest) within this jurisdiction shall assemble together in their several towns, and collect the heads of such necessary and fundamental laws as may he suitable to the times and places where God by his providence hath cast us, and the heads of such laws to deliver in writing to the Governor for the time being before the 5th day of the 4th month, called June, next, to the intent that the same Governor, together with the rest of the Standing Council, and Richard Bellingham, Esq., Mr. Bulkley, Mr. Phillips, Mr. Peter, and Mr. Shepard, elders of several churches, Mr. Nathaniel Ward, Mr. William Spencer, and Mr. William Hathorne, or the major part of them, may, upon the survey of such heads of laws, make a compendious abridgment of the same by the (p.279) General Court in autumn next, adding yet to the same or detracting therefrom what in their wisdoms shall seem meet, so that, the whole work being perfected to the best of their skill, it may be presented to the General Court for confirmation or rejection, as the Court shall adjudge."

Fifteen months came and went, but "most of the magistrates and some of the elders were not forward in the matter" (Winthrop, I. 322); and the General Court. . . was fain to order (June 6, 1639) "that the Marshal shall give notice to the Committee about the body of laws, to send unto the next General Court such drafts of laws as they had prepared, for the Court to take order about them what to settle." (Mass. Rec., I. 262.)

Still the coveted object did but mock their hopes with the show of having been approached. The tactics of delay were inexhaustible. Some "drafts of laws" indeed came in (two only, as far as we know,---Cotton's and Ward's); but the best that their friends could get done for them was an order (November 5, 1639) that "the Governor [Winthrop], Deputy-Governor [Dudley], Treasurer [Bellingham], and Mr. Stoughton, or any three of them; with two or more of the Deputies of Boston, Charlestown, or Roxbury, shall peruse all those models which have been, or shall be, further presented to this Court, or themselves, concerning a form of government and laws to be established, and shall draw them up into one body (altering, adding, or omitting what they shall think fit), and shall take order that the same shall be copied out and sent to the several towns, that the elders of the churches and the freemen may consider of them against the next General Court." (Ibid., 279.) And the case must have seemed to be getting well-nigh desperate, when, six months later yet (May 13, 1640), in consideration that "a breviate of laws was formerly sent forth to be considered by the elders of the churches and other freemen of this Commonwealth," it was "desired that they would endeavor to ripen their thoughts and counsels about the same by the General Court in the next eighth month." (Ibid., 292.) "The next eighth month" accomplished no more than its predecessors. The Court met, but the question was kept out of notice.

It came to be differently treated, when, on the one hand, from several years' experience, the characteristics of a useful jurisprudence had at length disclosed themselves, and, on the other, Parliament was crowding on the King, and in Massachusetts the fear of impending hostility from England was dying away. There had probably grown up a sincere disposition among the guides of public action to meet the popular wish for a legal code, when (June 2, 1641), in the place of an interminable consultation of the towns, the service of a learned lawyer was enlisted, and "the Governor [Bellingham] was appointed to peruse all the laws, and take notice of what may be fit to be repealed, what to be rectified, what to stand, and make return to the next General Court." (Ibid., 320.) And when, sufficient time having been allowed for this examination, "the Governor and Mr. Hathorne were desired [October 7] to speak to Mr. Ward for a copy of the Liberties and of the Capital Laws to be transcribed and sent to the several towns" (Ibid., 341), the order may be held to indicate a general desire in high quarters that the Deputies might next come together prepared for definitive action in favor of his code. The session of the General Court which adopted this vote was continued by adjournments more than two months. And that the project of a Statute-Book, and of Ward's in particular, was still gaining favor, may be inferred from the passage of an order (December 10) by which "Mr. Deputy Endicott, Mr. Downing, (p.280) and Mr. Hathorne are authorized to get nineteen copies of the laws, liberties, and the forms of oaths transcribed and subscribed by their several hands, and none to be authentic but such as they subscribe, and to be paid for by the constable of each town, ten shillings apiece for each copy, and to be prepared within six weeks." (Ibid., 344.) At length, in a session which "continued three weeks" (in December), the General Court "established the hundred laws which were called The Body of Liberties. They . . . had been revised and altered by the Court, and sent forth into every town to be further considered of, and now again in this Court they were revised, amended, and presented." (Winthrop, II. 55.)

---Palfrey