Excerpt from Journals of the House of Representatives of Massachusetts, 1732-1734 The previous General Court, it will be recollected,4 had been prorogued to meet on Wednesday, March 29, 1732, but the Executive Records of the Coun cil Show that on March 18, 1732, it was advised that the General Court be further prorogued to Wednesday, April 12, 1732. In the Legislative Records of the Council is the copy of a proclamation issued by Governor Belcher, March 31, 1732, stating, in effect, that as there seemed to be nothing that required the sitting of the Court on April 12, the Court be accordingly dissolved. He had recourse to a similar method in the winter and spring of 1729 - 1730. But just two months after Governor Belcher's proclamation a General Court met in Boston, May 31, 1732, eighty-four towns being represented out of one hundred and thirty-four, among the fifty delinquents being Brookline, Manchester, Chilmark, Medford, Easton, Provincetown, and Biddeford.5 A year later, it is interesting to notice, out of ninety-six members present, eighty-seven towns were represented, two were temporarily vacant, and fifty had sent none, and were accordingly subjected to the ordinary fine of according to the act 7 that every town within the Province having forty families should be en joined to send a Person to represent them in the General Court. The sub sequent excuses of towns failing to elect and the exemptions granted them are instructive.8 Members actually elected and absent from the House were fined five shillings a day 9 by the General Court of 1733 - 1734. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.