A Social History of the American Negro Part 2

The slave had none of the ordinary rights of citizens.h.i.+p; in a criminal case he could be arrested, tried, and condemned with but one witness against him, and he could be sentenced without a jury. In Virginia in 1630 one Hugh Davis was ordered to be "soundly whipped before an a.s.sembly of Negroes and others, for abusing himself to the dishonor of G.o.d and the shame of Christians, by defiling his body in lying with a Negro."[1] Just ten years afterwards, in 1640, one Robert Sweet was ordered "to do penance in church, according to the laws of England, for getting a Negro woman with child, and the woman to be whipped."[2] Thus from the very beginning the intermixture of the races was frowned upon and went on all the same. By the time, moreover, that the important acts of 1661 and 1662 had formally sanctioned slavery, doubt had arisen in the minds of some Virginians as to whether one Christian could legitimately hold another in bondage; and in 1667 it was definitely stated that the conferring of baptism did not alter the condition of a person as to his bondage or freedom, so that masters, freed from this doubt, could now "more carefully endeavor the propagation of Christianity." In 1669 an "act about the casual killing of slaves"

provided that if any slave resisted his master and under the extremity of punishment chanced to die, his death was not to be considered a felony and the master was to be acquitted. In 1670 it was made clear that none but freeholders and housekeepers should vote in the election of burgesses, and in the same year provision was taken against the possible owners.h.i.+p of a white servant by a free Negro, who nevertheless "was not debarred from buying any of his own nation." In 1692 there was legislation "for the more speedy prosecution of slaves committing capital crimes"; and this was reenacted in 1705, when some provision was made for the compensation of owners and when it was further declared that Negro, mulatto, and Indian slaves within the dominion were "real estate" and "incapable in law to be witnesses in any cases whatsoever"; and in 1723 there was an elaborate and detailed act "directing the trial of slaves committing capital crimes, and for the more effectual punis.h.i.+ng conspiracies and insurrections of them, and for the better government of Negroes, mulattoes, and Indians, bond or free." This last act specifically stated that no slave should be set free upon any pretense whatsoever "except for some meritorious services, to be adjudged and allowed by the governor and council." All this legislation was soon found to be too drastic and too difficult to enforce, and modification was inevitable. This came in 1732, when it was made possible for a slave to be a witness when another slave was on trial for a capital offense, and in 1744 this provision was extended to civil cases as well. In 1748 there was a general revision of all existing legislation, with special provision against attempted insurrections.

[Footnote 1: Hening: _Statutes_, I, 146.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid_., I, 552.]

Thus did Virginia pave the way, and more and more slave codes took on some degree of definiteness and uniformity. Very important was the act of 1705, which provided that a slave might be inventoried as real estate. As property henceforth there was nothing to prevent his being separated from his family. Before the law he was no longer a person but a thing.

2. 737 _The Indian, the Mulatto, and the Free Negro_

All along, it is to be observed, the problem of the Negro was complicated by that of the Indian. At first there was a feeling that Indians were to be treated not as Negroes but as on the same basis as Englishmen. An act in Virginia of 1661-2 summed up this feeling in the provision that they were not to be sold as servants for any longer time than English people of the same age, and injuries done to them were to be duly remedied by the laws of England. About the same time a Powhatan Indian sold for life was ordered to be set free. An interesting enactment of 1670 attempted to give the Indian an intermediate status between that of the Englishman and the Negro slave, as "servants not being Christians, imported into the colony by s.h.i.+pping" (i.e., Negroes) were to be slaves for their lives, but those that came by land were to serve "if boys or girls until thirty years of age; if men or women, twelve years and no longer." All such legislation, however, was radically changed as a result of Nathaniel Bacon's rebellion of 1676, in which the aid of the natives was invoked against the English governor.

Henceforth Indians taken in war became the slaves for life of their captors. An elaborate act of 1682 summed up the new status, and Indians sold by other Indians were to be "adjudged, deemed, and taken to be slaves, to all intents and purposes, any law, usage, or custom to the contrary notwithstanding." Indian women were to be "t.i.thables,"[1] and they were required to pay levies just as Negro women. From this time forth enactments generally included Indians along with Negroes, but of course the laws placed on the statute books did not always bear close relation to what was actually enforced, and in general the Indian was destined to be a vanis.h.i.+ng rather than a growing problem. Very early in the eighteenth century, in connection with the wars between the English and the Spanish in Florida, hundreds of Indians were s.h.i.+pped to the West Indies and some to New England. Ma.s.sachusetts in 1712 prohibited such importation, as the Indians were "malicious, surly, and very ungovernable," and she was followed to similar effect by Pennsylvania in 1712, by New Hamps.h.i.+re in 1714, and by Connecticut and Rhode Island in 1715.

[Footnote 1: Hurd, commenting on an act of 1649 declaring all imported male servants to be t.i.thables, speaks as follows (230): "_t.i.thables_ were persons a.s.sessed for a poll-tax, otherwise called the 'county levies.' At first, only free white persons were t.i.thable. The law of 1645 provided for a tax on property and t.i.thable persons. By 1648 property was released and taxes levied only on the t.i.thables, at a specified poll-tax. Therefore by cla.s.sing servants or slaves as t.i.thables, the law attributes to them legal personality, or a members.h.i.+p in the social state inconsistent with the condition of a chattel or property."]

If the Indian was destined to be a vanis.h.i.+ng factor, the mulatto and the free Negro most certainly were not. In spite of all the laws to prevent it, the intermixture of the races increased, and manumission somehow also increased. Sometimes a master in his will provided that several of his slaves should be given their freedom. Occasionally a slave became free by reason of what was regarded as an act of service to the commonwealth, as in the case of one Will, slave belonging to Robert Ruffin, of the county of Surry in Virginia, who in 1710 divulged a conspiracy.[1] There is, moreover, on record a case of an indentured Negro servant, John Geaween, who by his unusual thrift in the matter of some hogs which he raised on the share system with his master, was able as early as 1641 to purchase his own son from another master, to the perfect satisfaction of all concerned.[2] Of special importance for some years were those persons who were descendants of Negro fathers and indentured white mothers, and who at first were of course legally free.

By 1691 the problem had become acute in Virginia. In this year "for prevention of that abominable mixture and spurious issue, which hereafter may increase in this dominion, as well by Negroes, mulattoes and Indians intermarrying with English or other white women, as by their unlawful accompanying with one another," it was enacted that "for the time to come whatsoever English or other white man or woman being free shall intermarry with a Negro, mulatto, or Indian man or woman, bond or free, shall within three months after such marriage be banished and removed from this dominion forever, and that the justices of each respective county within this dominion make it their particular care that this act be put in effectual execution."[3] A white woman who became the mother of a child by a Negro or mulatto was to be fined 15 sterling, in default of payment was to be sold for five years, while the child was to be bound in servitude to the church wardens until thirty years of age. It was further provided that if any Negro or mulatto was set free, he was to be transported from the country within six months of his manumission (which enactment is typical of those that it was difficult to enforce and that after a while were only irregularly observed). In 1705 it was enacted that no "Negro, mulatto, or Indian shall from and after the publication of this act bear any office ecclesiastical, civil or military, or be in any place of public trust or power, within this her majesty's colony and dominion of Virginia"; and to clear any doubt that might arise as to who should be accounted a mulatto, it was provided that "the child of an Indian, and the child, grandchild, or great-grandchild of a Negro shall be deemed, accounted, held, and taken to be a mulatto." It will be observed that while the act of 1670 said that "none but freeholders and housekeepers" could vote, this act of 1705 did not specifically legislate against voting by a mulatto or a free Negro, and that some such privilege was exercised for a while appears from the definite provision in 1723 that "no free Negro, mulatto, or Indian, whatsoever, shall hereafter have any vote at the election of burgesses, or any other election whatsoever." In the same year it was provided that free Negroes and mulattoes might be employed as drummers or trumpeters in servile labor, but that they were not to bear arms; and all free Negroes above sixteen years of age were declared t.i.thable. In 1769, however, all free Negro and mulatto women were exempted from levies as t.i.thables, such levies having proved to be burdensome and "derogatory to the rights of freeborn subjects."

[Footnote 1: Hening: _Statutes_, III, 537.]

[Footnote 2: _Virginia Magazine of History_, X, 281.]

[Footnote 3: The penalty was so ineffective that in 1705 it was changed simply to imprisonment for six months "without bail or mainprise."]

More than other colonies Maryland seems to have been troubled about the intermixture of the races; certainly no other phase of slavery here received so much attention. This was due to the unusual emphasis on white servitude in the colony. In 1663 it was enacted that any freeborn woman intermarrying with a slave should serve the master of the slave during the life of her husband and that any children resulting from the union were also to be slaves. This act was evidently intended to frighten the indentured woman from such a marriage. It had a very different effect. Many masters, in order to prolong the indenture of their white female servants, encouraged them to marry Negro slaves.

Accordingly a new law in 1681 threw the responsibility not on the indentured woman but on the master or mistress; in case a marriage took place between a white woman-servant and a slave, the woman was to be free at once, any possible issue was to be free, and the minister performing the ceremony and the master or mistress were to be fined ten thousand pounds of tobacco. This did not finally dispose of the problem, however, and in 1715, in response to a slightly different situation, it was enacted that a white woman who became the mother of a child by a free Negro father should become a servant for seven years, the father also a servant for seven years, and the child a servant until thirty-one years of age. Any white man who begot a Negro woman with child, whether a free woman or a slave, was to undergo the same penalty as a white woman--a provision that in course of time was notoriously disregarded.

In 1717 the problem was still unsettled, and in this year it was enacted that Negroes or mulattoes of either s.e.x intermarrying with white people were to be slaves for life, except mulattoes born of white women, who were to serve for seven years, and the white person so intermarrying also for seven years. It is needless to say that with all these changing and contradictory provisions many servants and Negroes did not even know what the law was. In 1728, however, free mulatto women having illegitimate children by Negroes and other slaves, and free Negro women having illegitimate children by white men, and their issue, were subjected to the same penalties as in the former act were provided against white women. Thus vainly did the colony of Maryland struggle with the problem of race intermixture. Generally throughout the South the rule in the matter of the child of the Negro father and the indentured white mother was that the child should be bound in servitude for thirty or thirty-one years.

In the North as well as in the South the intermingling of the blood of the races was discountenanced. In Pennsylvania as early as 1677 a white servant was indicted for cohabiting with a Negro. In 1698 the Chester County court laid it down as a principle that the mingling of the races was not to be allowed. In 1722 a woman was punished for promoting a secret marriage between a white woman and a Negro; a little later the a.s.sembly received from the inhabitants of the province a pet.i.tion inveighing against cohabiting; and in 1725-6 a law was pa.s.sed positively forbidding the mixture of the races.[1] In Ma.s.sachusetts as early as 1705 and 1708 restraining acts to prevent a "spurious and mixt issue"

ordered the sale of offending Negroes and mulattoes out of the colony's jurisdiction, and punished Christians who intermarried with them by a fine of 50. After the Revolutionary War such marriages were declared void and the penalty of 50 was still exacted, and not until 1843 was this act repealed. Thus was the color-line, with its social and legal distinctions, extended beyond the conditions of servitude and slavery, and thus early was an important phase of the ultimate Negro Problem foreshadowed.

[Footnote 1: Turner: _The Negro in Pennsylvania_, 29-30.]

Generally then, in the South, in the colonial period, the free Negro could not vote, could not hold civil office, could not give testimony in cases involving white men, and could be employed only for fatigue duty in the militia. He could not purchase white servants, could not intermarry with white people, and had to be very circ.u.mspect in his relations with slaves. No deprivation of privilege, however, relieved him of the obligation to pay taxes. Such advantages as he possessed were mainly economic. The money gained from his labor was his own; he might become skilled at a trade; he might buy land; he might buy slaves;[1] he might even buy his wife and child if, as most frequently happened, they were slaves; and he might have one gun with which to protect his home.[2] Once in a long while he might even find some opportunity for education, as when the church became the legal warden of Negro apprentices. Frequently he found a place in such a trade as that of the barber or in other personal service, and such work accounted very largely for the fact that he was generally permitted to remain in communities where technically he had no right to be. In the North his situation was little better than in the South, and along economic lines even harder. Everywhere his position was a difficult one. He was most frequently regarded as idle and s.h.i.+ftless, and as a breeder of mischief; but if he showed unusual thrift he might even be forced to leave his home and go elsewhere. Liberty, the boon of every citizen, the free Negro did not possess. For all the finer things of life--the things that make life worth living--the lot that was his was only less hard than that of the slave.

[Footnote 1: Russell: _The Free Negro in Virginia_, 32-33, cites from the court records of Northampton County, 1651-1654 and 1655-1658, the noteworthy case of a free negro, Anthony Johnson, who had come to Virginia not later than 1622 and who by 1650 owned a large tract of land on the Eastern Sh.o.r.e. To him belonged a Negro, John Casor. After several years of labor Casor demanded his freedom on the ground that from the first he had been an indentured servant and not a slave. When the case came up in court, however, not only did Johnson win the verdict that Casor was his slave, but he also won his suit against Robert Parker, a white man, who he a.s.serted had illegally detained Casor.]

[Footnote 2: Hening: _Statutes_, IV, 131.]

3. _First Effort for Social Betterment_

If now we turn aside from laws and statutes and consider the ordinary life and social intercourse of the Negro, we shall find more than one contradiction, for in the colonial era codes affecting slaves and free Negroes had to grope their way to uniformity. Especially is it necessary to distinguish between the earlier and the later years of the period, for as early as 1760 the liberalism of the Revolutionary era began to be felt. If we consider what was strictly the colonial epoch, we may find it necessary to make a division about the year 1705. Before this date the status of the Negro was complicated by the incidents of the system of servitude; after it, however, in Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Ma.s.sachusetts alike, special discrimination against him on account of race was given formal recognition.

By 1715 there were in Virginia 23,000 Negroes, and in all the colonies 58,850, or 14 per cent of the total population.[1] By 1756, however, the Negroes in Virginia numbered 120,156 and the white people but 173,316.[2] Thirty-eight of the forty-nine counties had more Negro than white t.i.thables, and eleven of the counties had a Negro population varying from one-fourth to one-half more than the white. A great many of the Negroes had only recently been imported from Africa, and they were especially baffling to their masters of course when they conversed in their native tongues. At first only men were brought, but soon women came also, and the treatment accorded these people varied all the way from occasional indulgence to the utmost cruelty. The hours of work regularly extended from sunrise to sunset, though corn-husking and rice-beating were sometimes continued after dark, and overseers were almost invariably ruthless, often having a share in the crops. Those who were house-servants would go about only partially clad, and the slave might be marked or branded like one of the lower animals; he was not thought to have a soul, and the law sought to deprive him of all human attributes. Holiday amus.e.m.e.nt consisted largely of the dances that the Negroes had brought with them, these being accompanied by the beating of drums and the blowing of horns; and funeral ceremonies featured African mummeries. For those who were criminal offenders simple execution was not always considered severe enough; the right hand might first be amputated, the criminal then hanged and his head cut off, and his body quartered and the parts suspended in public places. Sometimes the hanging was in chains, and several instances of burning are on record.

A master was regularly reimbursed by the government for a slave legally executed, and in 1714 there was a complaint in South Carolina that the treasury had become almost exhausted by such reimburs.e.m.e.nts. In Ma.s.sachusetts hanging was the worst legal penalty, but the obsolete common-law punishment was revived in 1755 to burn alive a slave-woman who had killed her master in Cambridge.[3]

[Footnote 1: Blake: _History of Slavery and the Slave-Trade_, 378.]

[Footnote 2: Ballagh: _Slavery in Virginia_, 12.]

[Footnote 3: Edward Eggleston: "Social Conditions in the Colonies," in _Century Magazine_, October, 1884, p. 863.]

The relations between the free Negro and the slave might well have given cause for concern. Above what was after all only an artificial barrier spoke the call of race and frequently of kindred. Sometimes at a later date jealousy arose when a master employed a free Negro to work with his slaves, the one receiving pay and the others laboring without compensation. In general, however, the two groups worked like brothers, each giving the other the benefit of any temporary advantage that it possessed. Sometimes the free Negro could serve by reason of the greater freedom of movement that he had, and if no one would employ him, or if, as frequently happened, he was browbeaten and cheated out of the reward of his labor, the slave might somehow see that he got something to eat.

In a state of society in which the relation of master and slave was the rule, there was of course little place for either the free Negro or the poor white man. When the pressure became too great the white man moved away; the Negro, finding himself everywhere buffeted, in the colonial era at least had little choice but to work out his salvation at home as well as he could. More and more character told, and if a man had made himself known for his industry and usefulness, a legislative act might even be pa.s.sed permitting him to remain in the face of a hostile law.

Even before 1700 there were in Virginia families in which both parents were free colored persons and in which every effort was made to bring up the children in honesty and morality. When some prosperous Negroes found themselves able to do so, they occasionally purchased Negroes, who might be their own children or brothers, in order to give them that protection without which on account of recent manumission they might be required to leave the colony in which they were born. Thus, whatever the motive, the tie that bound the free Negro and the slave was a strong one; and in spite of the fact that Negroes who owned slaves were generally known as hard masters, as soon as any men of the race began to be really prominent their best endeavor was devoted to the advancement of their people. It was not until immediately after the Revolutionary War, however, that leaders of vision and statesmans.h.i.+p began to be developed.

It was only the materialism of the eighteenth century that accounted for the amazing development of the system of Negro slavery, and only this that defeated the benevolence of Oglethorpe's scheme for the founding of Georgia. As yet there was no united protest--no general movement for freedom; and as Von Holst said long afterwards, "If the agitation had been wholly left to the churches, it would have been long before men could have rightly spoken of 'a slavery question.'" The Puritans, however, were not wholly unmindful of the evil, and the Quakers were untiring in their opposition, though it was Roger Williams who in 1637 made the first protest that appears in the colonies.[1] Both John Eliot and Cotton Mather were somewhat generally concerned about the harsh treatment of the Negro and the neglect of his spiritual welfare.

Somewhat more to the point was Richard Baxter, the eminent English nonconformist, who was a contemporary of both of these men. "Remember,"

said he, in speaking of Negroes and other slaves, "that they are of as good a kind as you; that is, they are reasonable creatures as well as you, and born to as much natural liberty. If their sin have enslaved them to you, yet Nature made them your equals." On the subject of man-stealing he is even stronger: "To go as pirates and catch up poor Negroes or people of another land, that never forfeited life or liberty, and to make them slaves, and sell them, is one of the worst kinds of thievery in the world." Such statements, however, were not more than the voice of individual opinion. The principles of the Quakers carried them far beyond the Puritans, and their history shows what might have been accomplished if other denominations had been as sincere and as unselfish as the Society of Friends. The Germantown protest of 1688 has already been remarked. In 1693 George Keith, in speaking of fugitives, quoted with telling effect the text, "Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which is escaped from his master unto thee" (Deut. 23.15).

In 1696 the Yearly Meeting in Pennsylvania first took definite action in giving as its advice "that Friends be careful not to encourage the bringing in of any more Negroes; and that such that have Negroes, be careful of them, bring them to meetings, have meetings with them in their families, and restrain them from loose and lewd living as much as in them lies, and from rambling abroad on First-days or other times."[2]

As early as 1713 the Quakers had in mind a scheme for freeing the Negroes and returning them to Africa, and by 1715 their efforts against importation had seriously impaired the market for slaves in Philadelphia. Within a century after the Germantown protest the abolition of slavery among the Quakers was practically accomplished.

[Footnote 1: For this and the references immediately following note Locke: _Anti-Slavery in America_, 11-45.]

[Footnote 2: _Brief Statement of the Rise and Progress of the Testimony of the Religious Society of Friends against Slavery and the Slave-Trade_, 8.]

In the very early period there seems to have been little objection to giving a free Negro not only religious but also secular instruction; indeed he might be ent.i.tled to this, as in Virginia, where in 1691 the church became the agency through which the laws of Negro apprentices.h.i.+p were carried out; thus in 1727 it was ordered that David James, a free Negro boy, be bound to Mr. James Isdel, who was to "teach him to read the Bible distinctly, also the trade of a gunsmith" and "carry him to the clerk's office and take indenture to that purpose."[1] In general the English church did a good deal to provide for the religious instruction of the free Negro; "the reports made in 1724 to the English bishop by the Virginia parish ministers are evidence that the few free Negroes in the parishes were permitted to be baptized, and were received into the church when they had been taught the catechism."[2] Among Negroes, moreover, as well as others in the colonies the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts was active. As early as 1705, in Goose Creek Parish in South Carolina, among a population largely recently imported from Africa, a missionary had among his communicants twenty blacks who well understood the English tongue.[3] The most effective work of the Society, however, was in New York, where as early as 1704 a school was opened by Elias Neau, a Frenchman who after several years of imprisonment because of his Protestant faith had come to New York to try his fortune as a trader. In 1703 he had called the attention of the Society to the Negroes who were "without G.o.d in the world, and of whose souls there was no manner of care taken," and had suggested the appointment of a catechist. He himself was prevailed upon to take up the work and he accordingly resigned his position as an elder in the French church and conformed to the Church of England. He worked with success for a number of years, but in 1712 was embarra.s.sed by the charge that his school fomented the insurrection that was planned in that year. He finally showed, however, that only one of his students was in any way connected with the uprising.

[Footnote 1: Russell: _The Free Negro in Virginia_, 138-9.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid_., 138.]

[Footnote 3: C.E. Pierre, in _Journal of Negro History_, October, 1916, p. 350.]

From slave advertis.e.m.e.nts of the eighteenth century[1] we may gain many sidelights not only on the education of Negroes in the colonial era, but on their environment and suffering as well. One slave "can write a pretty good hand; plays on the fife extremely well." Another "can both read and write and is a good fiddler." Still others speak "Dutch and good English," "good English and High Dutch," or "Swede and English well." Charles Thomas of Delaware bore the following remarkable characterization: "Very black, has white teeth ... has had his left leg broke ... speaks both French and English, and is a very great rogue."

One man who came from the West Indies "was born in Dominica and speaks French, but very little English; he is a very ill-natured fellow and has been much cut in his back by often whipping." A Negro named Simon who in 1740 ran away in Pennsylvania "could bleed and draw teeth pretending to be a great doctor." Worst of all the incidents of slavery, however, was the lack of regard for home ties, and this situation of course obtained in the North as well as the South. In the early part of the eighteenth century marriages in New York were by mutual consent only, without the blessing of the church, and burial was in a common field without any Christian office. In Ma.s.sachusetts in 1710 Rev. Samuel Phillips drew up a marriage formulary especially designed for slaves and concluding as follows: "For you must both of you bear in mind that you remain still, as really and truly as ever, your master's property, and therefore it will be justly expected, both by G.o.d and man, that you behave and conduct yourselves as obedient and faithful servants."[2] In Ma.s.sachusetts, however, as in New York, marriage was most often by common consent simply, without the office of ministers.

[Footnote 1: See doc.u.ments, "Eighteenth Century Slave Advertis.e.m.e.nts,"

_Journal of Negro History_, April, 1916, 163-216.]

[Footnote 2: Quoted from Williams: Centennial Oration, "The American Negro from 1776 to 1876," 10.]

As yet there was no racial consciousness, no church, no business organization, and the chief cooperative effort was in insurrection.

Until the great chain of slavery was thrown off, little independent effort could be put forth. Even in the state of servitude or slavery, however, the social spirit of the race yearned to a.s.sert itself, and such an event as a funeral was attractive primarily because of the social features that it developed. As early as 1693 there is record of the formation of a distinct society by Negroes. In one of his ma.n.u.script diaries, preserved in the library of the Ma.s.sachusetts Historical Society,[1] Cotton Mather in October of this year wrote as follows: "Besides the other praying and pious meetings which I have been continually serving in our neighborhood, a little after this period a company of poor Negroes, of their own accord, addressed me, for my countenance to a design which they had, of erecting such a meeting for the welfare of their miserable nation, that were servants among us. I allowed their design and went one evening and prayed and preached (on Ps. 68.31) with them; and gave them the following orders, which I insert duly for the curiosity of the occasion." The Rules to which Mather here refers are noteworthy as containing not one suggestion of anti-slavery sentiment, and as portraying the altogether abject situation of the Negro at the time he wrote; nevertheless the text used was an inspiring one, and in any case the doc.u.ment must have historical importance as the earliest thing that has come down to us in the nature of the const.i.tution or by-laws for a distinctively Negro organization. It is herewith given entire:

Rules for the Society of Negroes. 1693.

We the Miserable Children of Adam, and of Noah, thankfully Admiring and Accepting the Free-Grace of G.o.d, that Offers to Save us from our Miseries, by the Lord Jesus Christ, freely Resolve, with His Help, to become the Servants of that Glorious LORD.

And that we may be a.s.sisted in the Service of our Heavenly Master, we now join together in a SOCIETY, wherein the following RULES are to be observed.

I. It shall be our Endeavor, to Meet in the _Evening_ after the _Sabbath_; and Pray together by Turns, one to Begin, and another to Conclude the Meeting; And between the two _Prayers_, a _Psalm_ shall be sung, and a _Sermon_ Repeated.

II. Our coming to the Meeting, shall never be without the _Leave_ of such as have Power over us: And we will be Careful, that our Meeting may Begin and Conclude between the Hours of _Seven_ and _Nine_; and that we may not be _unseasonably Absent_ from the Families whereto we pertain.

III. As we will, with the help of G.o.d, at all Times avoid all _Wicked Company_, so we will Receive none into our Meeting, but such as have sensibly _Reformed_ their lives from all manner of Wickedness. And, therefore, None shall be Admitted, without the Knowledge and Consent of the _Minister_ of G.o.d in this place; unto whom we will also carry every Person, that seeks for _Admission_ among us; to be by Him Examined, Instructed and Exhorted.