MU DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS, to wit: District Clerk's Office. BE IT REMEMBERED, That on the sixteenth day of January, A. D. 1830, and in the fiftyfourth year of the Independence of the United States of America, John Marsh, of the said district, has deposited in this office, the title of a book, the right whereof he claims as proprietor, in the words following, to wit: 'A Brief Report of the Debates in the Anti-Masonic State Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Held in Faneuil Hall, Boston, December 30, 31, 1829, and January 1, 1830.' In conformity to the Act of the Congress of the United States, entitled, An Act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned:' and also to an Act entitled An Act supplementary to an Act, entitled "An Act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies during the times therein mentioned:" and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving, and etching historical and other prints.' JNO. W. DAVIS, Clerk of the District of Massachusetts DEBATES, &c. 1 WEDNESDAY, DEC. 30, 1829. THE Convention was organized by the choice of NATHAN LAZELL, Jr, Secretaries. Prayers were offered by Rev. ETHAN SMITH. Vice Presidents On the motion to choose a Committee to report on the truth of the disclosures of Free Masonry, now before the public,* Mr A. CHURCHILL, of Milton, questioned the expediency of this measure. It was spending time that could be more usefully emploved. He thought the Convention might as well choose a committee to report whether the sun was now shining above or below the horizon. He did believe the testimony sufficient to convince any reasonable man, who would take the trouble to examine it, that the principles of Masonry were now before the world. In many instances, in judicial proceedings, the testimony of a single witness of fair character, had been sufficient to establish facts affecting the property and lives of individuals. In this case, there were hundreds, and perhaps thousands of credible witnesses, residing in different and distant places, whose testimony corresponded in every material circumstance. They could have held no communication with each other; they were concerned in no mutual project of profit or aggrandizement; and they could have no common object to deceive. If one individual had come forward after another, and denied the correctness of former disclosures, saying, 'this man has imposed upon you a false statement, I will tell you the truth,' and then varied the testimony so as to give himself a personal and particular claim to attention and distinction, then we might have been thrown into doubt; but when multitudes of individuals, in different sections of the country, testified to the same facts; when they could obtain no possible object by falsehood and misrepresentation, and * See Proceedings of the Convention, as published by the Committee, page 4 |