[London, 1645?] s. sh. 12º. 11,626. aa. (1, 2.)
An analysis of this entry seems to show points of resemblance following closely the known facts regarding the first work printed in this country.
The title is the one given by John Childe presumably from the earliest printed copy in his possession. The abbreviated title, freemen’s oath, as given by John Winthrop, first appearing in the Code of 1648, which seems to justify the belief that Winthrop wrote his Journal some years after the press was established.
The letters B. L. indicate that the printed text is in black-letter. While there is no evidence of the number and kinds of fonts of type purchased for the first press by Joseph Glover, there is an itemized statement of the number and names of the fonts of type for the second press sent over later by the Society for Propagating the Gospel among the Indians in New England, for printing the Bible in the Indian language, and among them is a small font of “blacks,” i.e. black-letter, which would indicate that a small font of that letter was generally considered a part of the equipment of a printing-office of the period. Even if this was not so, on the good authority of Isaiah Thomas, the type used in printing the Bay Psalm Book, of 1640, was “small bodied English,” a type commonly used for works in quarto and folio, which approximates in size to black-letter, but without the ceriphs, or fine projecting points of that letter. It is not unreasonable to suppose that a cataloguer might, hastily, consider the thickly inked, heavy press-work we find in the Bay Psalm Book, under the same conditions in a somewhat crudely printed sheet, to be black-letter printing.
The brackets enclosing the imprint indicate that the place and date given do not appear on the printed sheet, but are the personal judgment of the cataloguer regarding them. Having already determined the printing to be in black-letter English, it naturally follows in his judgment that the place of printing is London. His guess of the year, 1645, which he queries, is a close one; but is open to the criticism that an Oath of a Freeman could never have been printed or exacted in England during the reign of Charles the First. Ten years later, under Cromwellian rule, it might have been done. But the only place on earth it could have been printed and exacted without imprisonment, in 1645, was in the freemen’s Colony of Massachusetts-Bay.
In this connection it may be well to observe, as a further illustration that Governor Winthrop wrote his Journal years later than the events he records, that his date of 1638/9, should be one year later, for the date of the half-sheet almanac by William Peirce, mariner. Following Winthrop, if the almanac was calculated for the year beginning in March, 1639, it would suppose its printing sometime before the 25th of March, or in the Julian year 1638. This would leave nearly a whole year during which no other printing was done. If the almanac was calculated for the year beginning in March, 1640—the year the Bay Psalm Book is dated—then it would suppose the Oath, and the Almanac, printed in the eleventh or twelfth months of the Julian year 1639, which is more probable. Isaiah Thomas, writing in 1810, leaves this question in doubt by not stating whether his January, 1639, refers to the Julian, or the Gregorian Calendar.
To continue our analysis: The format, and size, agrees with the known facts that the Oath was printed “on the face of a half sheet of small paper.” The shelf-mark indicates the permanent place on the shelves of the Library.
The singular appearance of the only known copy of this important and interesting document in the Colonial history of New England, nearly three hundred years after its printing, so far from its place of publication, calls for explanation, which is apparently furnished in a work published in London, in April, 1647, entitled: “New-Englands Jonas cast up at London.” On the title-page it purports to be written by Major John Childe, a brother of Doctor Robert Childe, of Hingham, who was detained by order of the General Court of Massachusetts-Bay; but according to William Hubbard, in his History, and affirmed by John Winthrop, in his Journal, the real author of everything, except the Preface, was William Vassall.
Fac-Simile of Original Manuscript
in the Handwriting of Thomas Dudley,
in the Public Library of the City of Boston
Issued with Bulletin, July, 1894