ABSTRACT
On the surface the purpose of this pamphlet is to demolish the authenticity of a masonic ritual exposure entitled A Master-Key to Free-Masonry (1760), the first edition of which is reproduced in volume 2. As Jan Snoek notes in his headnote, A Master-Key to Free-Masonry exposure, being the first English one in the 1760s, was a shortened and free translation of French exposures, in particular L’Ordre des Francs-Maçons Trahi [The Order of Free Masons Betrayed] of 1745. All the sections of the former can be found together in the latter in the same order. As the early French rituals were created by English Freemasons who established the first lodges in France from 1726 onwards, A Master-Key to Free-Masonry must fairly represent the English rituals of the period. In masonic historiography, this ritual is regarded as the earliest English publication which contains an important alteration in the ceremony made around 1739, that is, the reversal of the first and second degree words ( Jachin and Boaz) , in order to exclude ‘imposters’ from the lodges.4 However, as Jan Snoek points out, there is no evidence for this statement made by the Premier Grand Lodge in 1809.
