freely than ever. The attention and the fears of the
Government were accordingly again awakened; and in October, 1664, it was
enacted that no printing press should be allowed in any other town or
place of the colony than Cambridge; and that no person or persons should
be permitted to print anything even there, but by the allowance of at
least two of a board of three censors appointed for that purpose. But
even the licensers were not sufficiently rigid to please the General
Court--for, having permitted the publication of that most excellent and
pious little work, 'The Imitation of Christ,' by Thomas a Kempis, it was
held to be heretical by the Legislature, and its further publication
without a new revision was prohibited in 1667. The principal
specification against it was that it was written by a Popish minister.

In 1671, the General Court directed the revision and publication of the
laws of the colony. Until that time the laws had always been printed at
the expense of the commonwealth. But a wealthy bookseller, by the name
of John Usher, applied for permission to publish them on his own
account; and to prevent Green from printing extra copies for himself, he
procured the passage of an act prohibiting the printing of any more
copies than he should direct; and in this enactment we find the origin
of copyright in this country. In 1673, the copyright was secured to
Usher for seven years. Green soon became a prolific printer. He came to
this country so destitute as to be obliged to sleep under the shelter of
a barrel; but lived to an advanced age, and had two wives and nineteen
children. He was early in life elected an ensign of the Cambridge
militia company, and subsequently rose to the rank of captain, under
which commission he served thirty years. So exceeding fond was he of his
martial life, that, when extremely old, he was carried to the parade
ground in a chair to direct the exercises of his company. Some of his
descendants have been engaged in the printing business for more than a
century past in Connecticut. Others of his family established their
business at Annapolis, in Maryland, in 1740, where it has been continued
by their descendants until the present day.

The partner of the elder Green, for a number of years, was Marmaduke
Johnson, who had been sent over from England by the Commissioners of
Indian affairs to assist in printing the Bible in the Indian language.
He turned out badly, however, and, in two years