Articles of Confederation of the United Colonies of New England, AND OTHER VALUABLE DOCUMENTS. PUBLISHED AGREEABLY TO A RESOLVE, PASSED APRIL 5, 1836. DUTTON AND WENTWORTH, PRINTERS TO THE STATE, 1836. ADVERTISEMENT. By a Resolve of the Legislature, passed on the fifth day of April, 1836, it was ordered, that fifteen hundred copies of the Laws of the Old Colony should be published for the use of the Commonwealth, and His Excellency the Governor was authorized to appoint a Superintendent of the printing and publishing of the same. Under that Resolve, the subscriber had the honor of an appointment, and in discharging the duties of his office, he has endeavored to carry into effect the liberal views of the Legislature, and to prepare the work in a manner which he hopes will be acceptable to the public. A large portion of the volume has never before been published, and was taken from manuscript records—the originals of which are now in the Registry of Deeds for the County of Plymouth. The attention of the Legislature appears to have been first directed to these records in 1818, when a Committee, consisting of Rev. James Freeman, D. D., and Benjamin R. Nichols and Samuel Davis, Esquires, was appointed, with authority "to examine them, and if they should find the same of right belonging to the Commonwealth, they shall have power to take the same into their custody, for the purpose of a full examination; and they are requested to report how far, in their opinion, it may be proper to have the same deposited in the Archives of the Secretary of the State, for the use of legislators, historians, and antiquarians, and how far it may be useful to multiply copies of the whole, or any part of them, for the use of all the people." This Committee reported their doings to the General Court at its next session, and gave the following account of these records, viz: "The Old Colony records consist of twelve volumes in folio, and the Charter engrossed on parchment. The volumes are marked 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 12, 15, 16. Though it does not appear that |