Travels Through North America 



cert-room highly finished in the Ionic manner. I 

 had reason to think the situation of Boston un- 

 healthy, at least in this season of the year, as there 

 were frequent funerals every night during my stay 

 there. 



The situation of the province of Massachusetts 

 Bay, including the district of Plymouth,* is between 

 the 4ist and 43d degree of north latitude, and about 

 72 degrees west longitude. The climate, soil, 

 natural produce, and improved state of it, are much 

 the same as of Rhode Island. It is divided into 

 counties, and townships ; f and each township, if it 

 contains forty freeholders, \ has a right to send a 

 member to the assembly;^ the present number of 



* Sagadahoc and the Maine, very large territories, lying north 

 of New Hampshire, belong also to the province of Massachusetts 

 Bay; they were annexed to it by the new charter of 1691. The 

 Maine forms one county called the county of York, and sends three 

 members to the council; Sagadahoc, which is annexed to it, sends 

 one. 



f Townships are generally six miles square, and divided into 

 sixty-three equal lots, viz. one lot for the first settled minister as 

 inheritance, one lot for the ministry or glebe-lands, one lot for the 

 benefit of a school; the other sixty lots to sixty persons or families, 

 who, within five years from the grant, are to erect a dwelling-house, 

 and clear seven acres of land, fit for mowing or ploughing, etc. 



J By the charter, every freeholder should possess 40 s. freehold, 

 or 50 1. personal estate; but I believe this article has not been 

 strictly adhered to. 



^| Every town, containing forty freeholders, has a "right" to 

 send a member to the assembly, but is not absolutely "obliged" 

 to do so, unless it contains eighty freeholders. 



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