Wherever and whenever made, the testimony of all the writers is unani-
mous, that these Constitutions became as early as 1762, the law of the Rite
of Perfection.* That Brother Morin accepted them as such, is clear j
because he either carried them with him to America, or received them
soon after his arrival there, and furnished them to the Deputy Inspectors
whom he appointed. In what year he went to America we do not know ;
but it was not long after 1761 ; for in 1769, he was in Kingston, Jamaica.
In two old rituals of the twenty-fourth degree (Kadosh), in our possession,

* Ragon, Orthod. Mag. 294. Chemin Dupontes, Cours Pratique de la Franc
Magonnerie, 213. Vidal-Fezandi6, Essai Hist. 167. Count Muraire, de I'lnde-
pendence des Rites Ma^onniques, 3. Discourse before the Sov.-. Chap.-.
Ecoss.-. du Pere de Famille, at Angers, i. Hermes, 296. Kauffmann &
Cherpin, Hist. Phil. 452. L'Univers. Maf. 119.
A HISTORICAL INQUIRY. 177

is the following note: "The Grand Inspector, Stephen Morin, founder
of the Lodge of Perfection, in a Consistory of Princes of the Royal Secret,
held at Kingston, Jamaica, in January of the Masonic Year, 5769, informed
the Princes Masons that latterly there had been some excitement ar
Paris, and investigations had been made there, to learn whether the Masons
tyled ' Kadosch,' were not in reality the Knights Templar; and that it had
in consequence been determined, in the Grand Chapter of Communication
of Berlin and Paris, that the degree should for the future be styled ' Knights
of the White and Black Eagle,' and that the jewel should be a ' Black
Eagle.' " That degree is so styled in the Regulations of 1762.
