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Governour and ten Assistants, to bee from tyme to tyme chosen, out of the freemen of the sayd Company, for the tyme beinge, in such manner and fforme as is hereafter in these presents expressed; . . . And . . . wee doe . . . apoynt the aforesayd Benedict Arnold to bee the first and present Governor of the sayd Company, and the sayd William Brenton to bee the DeputyGovernor, and the sayd William Boulston, John Porter, Roger Williams, Thomas Olnie, John Smith, John Greene, John Cogeshall, James Barker, William Ffeild, and Joseph Clarke, to bee the tenn present Assistants of the sayd Companye. . . . And further, wee . . doe ordeyne . . . that the Governor of the sayd Company, for the tyme being, or, in his absence, . . . the Deputy-Governor, . . . shall and may, ffrom tyme to tyme, upon all occasions, give order ffor the assemblinge of the sayd Company, and callinge them together, to consult and advise of the businesse and affaires of the sayd Company. And that forever hereafter, twice in every year, that is to say, on every first Wednesday in the moneth of May, and on every last Wednesday in October, or oftener, in case it shall bee requisite, the Assistants, and such of the ffreemen of the Company, not exceedinge six persons ffor Newport, ffoure persons ffor each of the respective townes of Providence, Portsmouth and Warwicke, and two persons for each other place, towne or city, whoe shall bee, from tyme to tyme, thereunto elected or deputed by the majour parte of the ffreemen of the respective townes or places ffor which they shall bee so elected or deputed, shall have a generall meetinge, or Assembly then and there to consult, advise and determine, in and about the affaires and businesse of the said Company and Plantations. And further, wee doe . . . graunt unto the sayd Governour and Company . . . that the Governour. . . [or Deputy-Governor] . . ., the Assistants, and such of the fireemen of the sayd Company as shall bee soe as aforesayd elected or deputed, or soe many of them as shall bee present att such meetinge or assemblye, as afforesayde, shall bee called the Generall Assemblye; and that they, or the greatest parte of them present, whereof the Governour or Deputy-Governour, and sixe of the Assistants, at least to bee seven, shall have . . . ffull power [and] authority . . . to apoynt, alter and change, such dayes, tymes and places of meetinge and Generall Assemblye, as theye shall thinke ffitt; And further . . .

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wee doe . . . ordeyne, that yearelie, . . . the aforesayd Wednesday in May, and at the towne of Newport, or elsewhere, if urgent occasion doe require, the Governour, Deputy-Governour and Assistants of the sayd Company, and other officers of the sayd Company, or such of them as the Generall Assemblye shall thinke fitt, shall bee, in the sayd Generall Court or Assembly to bee held from that daye or tyme, newly chosen for the year ensueing, by such greater part of the sayd Company, for the tyme beinge, as shall bee then and there present; . . . Neverthelesse, our will and pleasure is, and wee doe hereby declare to the rest of oure Collonies in New-England, that itt shall not bee lawefull ffor this our sayd Collony . . . to invade the natives inhabiting within the boundes and limitts of theire sayd Collonies without the knowledge and consent of the sayd other Collonies. And itt is hereby declared, that itt shall not bee lawfull to or for the rest of the Collonies to invade or molest the native Indians, or any other inhabitants, inhabiting within the bounds and lymitts hereafter mentioned (they having subjected themselves unto us, and being by us taken into our speciall protection), without the knowledge and consent of the Governour and Company of our Collony of Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations. . . . And ffurther, know ye, that wee . . . doe give, graunt and confirme, unto the sayd Governour and Company, and theire successours, all that parte of our dominiones in New-England, in America, conteyneing the Nahantick and Nanhyganset Bay, and countryes and partes adjacent, bounded on the west, or westerly, to the middle or channel of a river there, commonly called and known by the name of Pawcatuck, alias Pawcawtuck river, and soe along the sayd river, as the greater or middle streame thereof reacheth or lyes vpp into the north countrye, northward, unto the head thereof, and from thence, by a streight lyne drawne due north, untill itt meets with the south lyne of the Massachusetts Collonie; and on the north, or northerly, by the aforesayd south or southerly. lyne of the Massachusetts Collony or Plantation, and extending towards the east, or eastwardly, three English miles to the east and north-east of the most eastern and north-eastern parts of the aforesayd Narragansett Bay, as the sayd bay lyeth or extendeth itself from the ocean on the south, or southwardly, unto the mouth of the river which runneth towards the towne of Provi

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dence, and from thence along the eastwardly side or banke of the sayd river (higher called by the name of Seacunck river), up to the ffals called Patuckett ffalls, being the most westwardly lyne of Plymouth Collony, and soe from the sayd ffalls, in a streight lyne, due north, untill itt meete with the aforesayd lyne of the Massachusetts Collony; and bounded on the south by the ocean: and, in particular, the lands belonging to the townes of Providence, Pawtuxet, Warwicke, Misquammacok, alias Pawcatuck, and the rest upon the maine land in the tract aforesaid, together with Rhode-Island, Blocke-Island, and all the rest of the islands and banks in the Narragansett Bay, and bordering upon the coast of the tract aforesayd (Ffisher's Island only excepted), graunt, or clause in a late graunt, to the Governour and Company of Connecticutt Collony, in America, to the contrary thereof in any wise notwithstanding; . . . And further, our will and pleasure is, that in all matters of publique controversy which may fall out betweene our Collony of Providence Plantations, and the rest of our Collonies in New-England, itt shall and may bee lawfull to and for the Governour and Company of the sayd Collony of Providence Plantations to make their appeals therein to us for redresse in such cases, within this our realme of England: and that itt shall be lawfull to and for the inhabitants of the sayd Collony... without let or molestation, to passe and repasse with freedome, into and through the rest of the English Collonies, upon their lawfull and civill occasions, and to converse, and hold commerce and trade, with such of the inhabitants of our other English Collonies as shall bee willing to admitt them thereunto, they behaveing themselves peaceably among them. . .

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No. 19.

Second Navigation Act

1663

THE Navigation Act of 1660 had assured to English vessels a monopoly of the carrying trade between the colonies and England; but English vessels might still trade, except in certain "enumerated articles," directly between colonial and foreign ports. The act of 1663 aimed to benefit the merchants as well as the shipowners, by securing to English merchants the control of the colonial import trade.

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Text in Statutes of the Realm, V., 449–452. The act is

cited as 15 Car. II., c. 7.

AN ACT for the Encouragement of Trade.

[IV] AND in reguard His Majesties Plantations beyond the Seas are inhabited and peopled by His Subjects of this His Kingdome of England, For the maintaining a greater correspondence and kindnesse betweene them and keepeing them in a firmer dependence upon it, and rendring them yet more beneficiall and advantagious unto it in the farther Imployment and Encrease of English Shipping and Seamen, vent of English Woollen and other Manufactures and Commodities rendring the Navigation to and from the same more safe and cheape, and makeing this Kingdome a Staple not onely of the Commodities of those Plantations but alsoe of the Commodities of other Countryes and Places for the supplying of them, and it being the usage of other Nations to keepe their [Plantations ] Trade to themselves, Be it enacted

That from and after .. [March 25, 1664,] . . . noe Commoditie of the Growth Production or Manufacture of Europe shall be imported into any Land Island Plantation Colony Territory or Place to His Majestie belonging, or which shall [belong hereafter 2] unto, or be in the Possession of His Majestie . . . in Asia Africa or America (Tangier onely excepted) but what shall be bona fide and without fraude laden and shipped in England Wales [and] the Towne of Berwicke upon Tweede and in English built Shipping, or which were bona fide bought before .. [October 1, 1662,] . . . and had such Certificate thereof as is directed... [by the explanatory Navigation Act of 1662,] ... and whereof the Master and three Fourthes of the Marriners at least are English, and which shall be carryed directly thence to the said Lands Islands Plantations Colonyes Territories or Places, and from noe other place or places whatsoever Any Law Statute or Usage to the contrary notwithstanding, under the Penaltie of the losse of all such Commodities of the Growth Production or Manufacture of Europe as shall be imported into any of them from any other Place whatsoever by Land or Water,

...

Plantation in the original Ms.

2 Hereafter belong in the original Ms.

3 The original Ms. has or.

and if by Water, of the Ship, or Vessell alsoe in which they were imported with all her Guns Tackle Furniture Ammunition and Apparell. . . .

[V.] PROVIDED alwayes . . . That it shall and may be lawfull to shipp and lade in such Shipps, and soe navigated as in the foregoeing Clause is sett downe and expressed in any part of Europe Salt for the Fisheries of New England and New found land, and to shipp and lade in the Medera's Wines of the Growth thereof, and to shipp and lade in the Westerne Islands or Azores Wines of the Growth of the said Islands, and to shipp [or 1] take in Servants or Horses in Scotland or Ireland, and to shipp or lade in Scotland all sorts of Victuall of the Growth or Production of Scotland, and to shipp or lade in Ireland all sortes of Victuall of the Growth or Production of Ireland, and the same to transport into any of the said Lands Islands Plantations Colonyes Territories or Places, Any thing in the foregoing Clause in the contrary in any wise notwithstanding.

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[VII.] AND it is hereby further enacted That if any Officer of the Customes in England Wales or Towne of Berwicke upon Tweede shall give any Warrant for or suffer any Sugar, Tobaccho, Ginger, Cotton, Wooll, Indico Speckle Wood or Jamaica Wood Fusticke or other Dying Wood of the growth of any of the said Lands Islands Colonyes Plantations Territories or Places to be carryed into any other Country or Place whatsoever untill they have beene first unladen bona fide and putt on shore in some Port or Haven in England or Wales or in the Towne of Berwicke, that every such Officer for such Offence shall forfeite his place and the value of such of the said Goods as he shall give Warrant for or suffer to passe into any other Country or Place. . .

No. 20.

Grant to the Duke of York

March 12/22, 1663/4

THE province of New Netherland, granted to the Duke of York, brother of Charles II., in March, 1663/4, was not surrendered to the English until the

1 And in the original Ms.

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