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occasionally to avail myself of the privilege of the Third Section in making a communication for our Proceedings. I can say no more.

Before resuming his seat Mr. Winthrop extended a cordial invitation to the members of the Society to lunch with him at his residence, No. 90 Marlborough Street, at two o'clock.

MAY MEETING, 1885.

The regular meeting was held on Thursday, the 14th instant, at three P. M.; the President, Dr. GEORGE E. ELLIS, being in the chair.

The minutes of the last meeting were read by the Recording Secretary.

The list of donors to the Library was submitted by the Librarian.

A Catalogue of the paintings, engravings, busts, and miscellaneous articles belonging to the Cabinet of the Society, which has been recently published under direction of the Cabinetkeeper, Dr. Oliver, was laid on the table for the members.

The Hon. Lincoln F. Brigham, of Salem, Chief Justice of the Superior Court, was elected a Resident Member of the Society.

The Recording Secretary and Messrs. Clement Hugh Hill and Alexander McKenzie were appointed a Committee on publishing the Proceedings.

The PRESIDENT raised the question whether the declaratory act of Parliament affirming a right to bind the colonies by legislation in all cases whatsoever, was passed before the Stamp Act was repealed. The question, he said, was an important one, — whether the ministry repealed the act, as if confessing a mistake, thus leaving matters where they were before; or whether, before repealing it, they chose by this act to retain a full and absolute control of the colonies.

Mr. HILL thought that the declaratory act was passed first; and among other writers he referred to Macaulay's article on Lord Chatham, as showing that this was the fact.

Mr. DEANE called attention to a remark of Mr. Savage, in Winthrop, vol. ii. p. 88, that John "Harvard's will was probably nuncupative, as it is nowhere recorded;" and said he thought the remark was inadvertently made, although repeated in the second edition of Winthrop, since nuncupative wills were matters of record as well as written ones, a fact

that Mr. Savage could not have been ignorant of. But legal provision was not made for recording wills in Massachusetts till September, 1639, a year after Harvard's death.2 His will, written or nuncupative, though not recorded, was probably placed on file, and, like many other early wills, is lost. Quite likely an attested copy was sent to England, where Harvard is supposed to have left property; and it may yet be found there.

Further remarks on this subject were made by Mr. G. S. Hale, Dr. Paige, Judge Chamberlain, and Mr. Appleton.

Mr. PUTNAM presented to the Society, from Dr. Thomas E. Pickett, of Maysville, Kentucky, an electrotype fac-simile of the Great Seal of the Confederate States of America, dated Feb. 12, 1862, the original of which was made in London in 1864 for James M. Mason, the representative of the Southern Confederacy in England, and was designed as a symbol of sovereignty.

Mr. WASHBURN presented a memoir of the late Hon. Stephen Salisbury, which he had been appointed to prepare.

1 See vol. i. of Recorded Wills in Suffolk Registry.

2 See Col. Records, vol. i. pp. 275, 276.

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