Governor and Assistants nominated in the Charter. Oaths to subsequent officers being arranged: the new Governor to take the Oath before the old Deputy Governor, or two Assistants; and the new Deputy Governor, Assistants and all other officers hereafter chosen to take the oath before the Governor for the time being. They were empowered to transport any of our loving subjects, or any strangers willing to become our loving subjects, and any seven at least of their number had “full power and authoritie to choose, nominate, and appointe such and soe many others as they shall thinke fitt, and that shall be willing to accept the same, to be free of the said Company and Body, and Them into the same to admitt.” All subjects inhabiting the lands granted, and their children “which shall happen to be borne there, or on the seas in goeing thither, or retorning from thence shall have and enjoy all liberties and immunities of free and natural subjects, ... as yf they and everie of them were borne within the realme of England.” And the Governor and Deputy Governor, and any two or more of the Assistants, at any of their Courts or Assemblys shall and may at all times have full power to give the Oath of Office and Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance, or either of them, to every person who may go to New England to inhabit in the same. They were also authorized to make “the formes of such Oathes warrantable by the lawes and statutes of this our realme of England as shalbe respectivelie ministered vnto them, for the execuc̄on of the said severall offices and places ... and ministring the said oathes to the newe elected officers.” At the end of the Charter appeared the Oath of Governor: PRÆDICT, Matthaeus Cradocke Juratus est de Fide et Obedientiâ Regi et Successoribus suis, et de Debitâ Exequutione Officij Gubernatoris iuxta Tenorem P^r sentium, 18^o Martij, 1628. Coram me, Carola Cæsare, Milite, in Cancellariâ Mr̃o. Char. Cæsar. By this Charter, under the privy seal of Cardinal Wolseley, was, unwittingly, planted the seed of the fairest flower that ever bloomed in the garden of colonization since Eden. Up to August, 1630, the business of the Massachusetts-Bay Company was transacted in London. But the business of the Massachusetts-Bay Colony may be said to have really begun in May, 1631. At “A Gen^rall Court holden att Boston, the 18th day of May, 1631. John Winthrop, Esq̃ was chosen Goun^r for a whole yeare nexte ensueinge by the gen^rall consent of the Court, according to the meaneing of the pattent, and did accordingly take an oathe to the place of Goun̄^r belonginge.”