Note 33 — Chapter II · THE UNITED STATES. COLONIAL PERIOD

Yet in 1700 Massachusetts passed an elaborate immigration law, requiring shipmasters to furnish lists of their passengers, and prohibiting the introduction of lame, impotent, or infirm persons, or those incapable of maintaining themselves, except on security that the town should not become charged with them. In the absence of this security, shipmasters were compelled to take them back home. This statute was reënacted with amendments from time to time. Proper, op. cit., pp. 29, 3.