REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE APPOINTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF RHODE-ISLAND AND PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS, TO INVESTIGATE THE CHARGES IN CIRCULATION AGAINST FREEMASONRY AND MASONS IN SAID STATE: TOGETHER WITH ALL THE OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS AND TESTIMONY RELATING TO THE SUBJECT. PROVIDENCE: Published by order of the General Assembly, superintended by the Committes. See 1354-77, FORVARO COLLEGE LIBRARY WINSLOW LEWIS TRACTS NEW ENGLAND HISTORIC, GENEALOGICA SOU Entered, according to act of Congress, in the year 1832, by William Marshall, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Rhode Island. State of Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations-in General Assembly, October Session, A. D. 1831. Whereas the crimes and enormities within a few years commited in a neighboring State, by certain Freemasons, avowedly in the cause of masonry, have excited universal indignation and abhorrence, and have awakened jealousies and suspicions very unfavorable to all masonic institutions, and under the weight of which the whole masonic fraternity, the good and the virtuous as well as the vicious, must unavoidably suffer. Therefore, in the hope of allaying the great and increasing excitement thus occasioned, and that the innocent may be distinguished from the guilty, if in this State there are any who can justly be charged with advocating the criminal doctrines imputed to freemasonry, Resolved, That Messrs. Hazard, W. Sprague, Jr. Simmons, Haile, and E. R. Potter, with such others as the Hon. Senate may think proper to add, be and they are hereby appointed a committee fully to investigate and inquire into the causes, grounds, and extent of the charges and accusations brought against freemasonry, and masons in this State; and that said committee, so far as may be necessary to enable them to perform this duty, be empowered to administer oaths, to examine witnesses, and to call for books and papers. In the Senate read the same day and concurred, with the addition of Mr. Cornell, True Copy: Witness, .HENRY BOWEN, Sec'ry. REPORT, &c. The Committee appointed to inquire into the causes, grounds and extent of the charges and accusations now in circulation against Freemasonry and Masons in this State, Report, That from the moment of their appointment they were fully sensible of the peculiar nature of the investigation they were to engage in. The charges to be inquired into were, most of them, of a general, indefinite, irresponsible character: yet, in their scope and tendency, imputing motives, designs, principles and practices; adverse to religion and morality, subversive of civil government and incompatible with all the social and civil virtues and duties; imputing these to a large portion of the community in which we live; a portion connected and amalgamated with the rest throughout the state by all those ties of common interests, pursuits, sympathies and feelings, of daily intercourse, of friendships and of kindred, by which society itself is bound and held together. All these high charges were also to be gathered from various printed addresses, memorials, reports of meetings and committees, from numerous pamphlets and newspapers; and, when collected, were to be put into some tangible shape and order for examination. And, while taking this preparatory survey of the task before them, the committee could not but be aware that, as the whole of these charges, in their application to masonry and masons in this state, had been framed or propagated by an association which had for some time been organized among us, and had lately declared or avowed itself to be a political antimasonic party; it was probable that that party, or rather the more active and zealous leaders of it, might consider themselves as having a particular interest in those charges; and as being entitled to take a managing part in the investigation before the committee. Such a claim, in fact, had adready been advanced even before the General Assembly, in the instance of the antimasonic memorial, which had been presented by the same association, and which association had, at a meeting held by them a few weeks before, instructed a committee "to attend to the memorial before the General Assembly, and to employ counsel for that purpose!" And as the charges in that memorial, as far as they went, were the same charges which the committee were to inquire into; it was more than probable that those memorialists, or their committee, (and perhaps counsel,) would expect to be recognized by the committee as a party concerned; and, should they be so recognized, would of course expect also to be received in the same capacity before the Gener |