Volume II., now issued, takes in the period from the settle ment of the Colony to 5 March, 1643 — 4. This volume, though containing the records of a period earlier than that in the former volume, has been numbered Volume II. For the reasons given in the preface to the first volume. Part I. Is taken from the first volume of the Records of the Colony of the Massachusetts Bay in the State Archives, and has been printed, like the earlier volume, with an exact adherence to the originals, and is a reproduction of them in every particular, so far as the difference between print and manuscript will allow.