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 P^r sentium, 18^o Martij, 1628. Coram me, Carola Cæsare, Milite, in Cancellariâ Mro.
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 Gen^rall Court holden att Boston, the 18th day of May, 1631. John Winthrop, Esq was chosen Goun^r for a whole yeare nexte ensueinge by the gen^rall consent of the Court, according to the meaneing of the pattent, and did accordingly take an oathe to the place of Goun^r belonginge."
"Tho: Dudley, Esq, is also chosen Deputy Goun^r for this yeare nexte ensuing, & did in p^rsence of the Court take an oath to his place belonginge." And "to the end the body of the comons may be p^rserued 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.
