NOTES ON A MINUTE BOOK. 143 



Perliaps the nature of them may account for this. For T suppose 

 his duties were primarily with tlic ]\Iayor and Town Council acting 

 in their judicial and legislative capacity. Xow C. 12 appears to 

 he the record, for by far the most part at least, of business done 

 by the Mayor and Town Council as a general Financial Committee. 

 The phrase used in this volume is not the Mayor and Town 

 Council, but the Mayor and this Company order this or that. Ly 

 the way this is not the Company of Freemen, the President of 

 which was not the Mayor. The entries in the Book begin on 

 June 30, 1637, and end on Nov. 24, 1656, but with a most 

 vexatious hiatus. After Feb. 27, 1642 (3) we find this entry :— 

 " By reason of the Warres this book was discontinued for fower 

 yeares, and Another booke was made use of for the Towne 

 business, &c." To my great regret I have not succeeded in my 

 eflforts to find this book. C. 12 has been carefully read and pretty 

 largely extracted from, and so has the chief division of C. 9. 

 This is a small folio of from 200 to 300 pages, bound in limp 

 parchment, only about two-thirds full, and endorsed as containing 

 Orders, Copies of Letters, Choice of Officers of Dorchester, Choice 

 of Almspeople, and Compositions for Town Leases. The first 

 division is on ff. 1 to 56, and extends from June 18, 1629, to 

 Dec. 17, 1661, with one or two much later entries. 



A choice of extracts will now Ije read, thrown together under 

 three lieads: — 1. The dealings of Mayor and "Company"' in Church 

 matters, especially as relates to the Rev. J. AVhite ; 2. The 

 defences of the Borough ; 3. The care of the Borough and of the 

 poor. The paper will end with some few unclassified remarks. 

 The Rev. J. White, of Winchester and New Colleges, Rector of 

 Holy Trinity and St. Peter's, Dorchester, was a leading promoter 

 of the Puritan migration to New England, where his name and 

 fame yet flourish greatly ; and a man who, with all faults, had a 

 sway here in Dorchester, which must have been founded on i)iety 

 and ability. Proof of his high position here was given in a paper 

 on C. 8, which is printed in Vol. X. of the Club I'roceeilings. 

 As a supplement to this a few passages from C. 12 and one from 



