By The King The King’s most excellent majesty being informed that great numbers of his subjects have been and are every year transported into those parts of America, which have been granted by patent to several persons, and there settle themselves, some of them with their families and whole estates, amongst which numbers there are also many idle and refractory humors whose only or principal end is to live as much as they can without the reach of authority; his Majesty, having taken the premises into consideration, is minded to restrain for the time to come such promiscuous and disorderly departing out of the realm, and does therefore straightly charge and command all and every the officers and ministers of his several ports in England, Wales, and Berwick that they do not hereafter permit or suffer any persons being subsidy men or of the value of subsidy men to embark themselves in any of the said ports, or the members thereof, for any of the said plantations without license from his Majesty’s commissioners for plantations first had and obtained in that behalf; nor that they admit to be embarked any persons under the degree or value of subsidymen without an attestation or certificate from two justices of the peace living next the place where the party last of all, or lately, then before dwelt, that he has taken the Oath of Supremacy and Allegiance, and like testimony from the minister of the parish of his conversation and conformity to the orders and disciplines of the Church of England. And further, his Majesty’s express will and pleasure is that the officers and ministers of his several ports, and the members thereof, do return to his Majesty’s said commissioners for plantations every half year a particular and perfect list of the names and qualities of all such persons as shall from time to time be embarked in any of the said ports for any of the said plantations. And of these his Majesty’s royal commands all the officers and ministers of his said ports, and the members thereof, are to take care, as they will answer the neglect thereof at their perils.
Given at our court at Whitehall the last day of April in the thirteenth year of our reign.
God Save The King
imprinted at London by Robert Barker, printer to the King’s most excellent majesty, and by the assigns of John Bill. 1637.
