Part 6

Liberty without money, is like a man opprest with the Gout, every step he puts forward puts him to {102} pain; when on the other side, he that has Coyn with his Liberty, is like the swift Post-Messenger of the Gods, that wears wings at his heels, his motion being swift or slow, as he pleaseth.

I received this year two Caps, the one white, of an honest plain countenance, the other purple, which I conceive to be some antient Monumental Relique; which of them you sent I know not, and it was a wonder how I should, for there was no mention in the Letter, more then, _that my Brother had sent me a Cap_: They were delivered me in the company of some Gentlemen that ingaged me to write a few lines upon the purple one, and because they were my Friends I could not deny them; and here I present them to you as they were written.

_Haile from the dead, or from Eternity,_ _Thou Velvit Relique of Antiquity;_ _Thou which appear’st here in thy purple hew,_ _Tell’s how the dead within their Tombs do doe;_ _How those Ghosts fare within each Marble Cell,_ _Where amongst them for Ages thou didst dwell._ _What Brain didst cover there? tell us that we_ _Upon our knees vayle Hats to honour thee:_ _And if no honour’s due, tell us whose pate_ _Thou basely coveredst, and we’l joyntly hate:_ _Let’s know his name, that we may shew neglect;_ _If otherwise, we’l kiss thee with respect._ _Say, didst thou cover Noll’s old brazen head,_ _Which on the top of Westminster high Lead_ {103} _Stands on a Pole, erected to the sky,_ _As a grand Trophy to his memory._ _From his perfidious skull didst thou fall down,_ _In a dis-dain to honour such a crown_ _With three-pile Velvet? tell me, hadst thou thy fall_ _From the high top of that Cathedral?_ _None of the_ Heroes _of the_ Roman _stem,_ _Wore ever such a fashion’d Diadem,_ _Didst thou speak_ Turkish _in thy unknown dress,_ _Thou’dst cover_ Great Mogull, _and no man less;_ _But in thy make methinks thou’rt too too scant,_ _To be so great a Monarch’s Turberant._ _The_ Jews _by_ Moses _swear, they never knew_ _E’re such a Cap drest up in_ Hebrew: _Nor the strict Order of the_ Romish _See,_ _Wears any Cap that looks so base as thee;_ _His Holiness hates thy Lowness, and instead,_ _Wears Peters spired Steeple on his head:_ _The Cardinals descent is much more flat,_ _For want of name, baptized is_ A Hat; _Through each strict Order has my fancy ran,_ _Both_ Ambrose, Austin, _and the_ Franciscan, _Where I beheld rich Images of the dead,_ _Yet scarce had one a Cap upon his head:_ Episcopacy _wears Caps, but not like thee,_ _Though several shap’d, with much diversity:_ _’Twere best I think I presently should gang_ _To_ Edenburghs _strict_ Presbyterian; _But Caps they’ve none, their ears being made so large,_ _Serves them to turn it like a_ Garnesey _Barge;_ _Those keep their skulls warm against North-west gusts,_ _When they in Pulpit do poor_ Calvin _curse._ {104} _Thou art not_ Fortunatus, _for I daily see,_ _That which I wish is farthest off from me:_ _Thy low-built state none ever did advance,_ _To christen thee the_ Cap of Maintenance; _Then till I know from whence thou didst derive,_ _Thou shalt be call’d, the_ Cap of Fugitive.

You writ to me this year to send you some Smoak; at that instant it made me wonder that a man of a rational Soul, having both his eyes (blessed be God) should make so unreasonable a demand, when he that has but one eye, nay he which has never a one, and is fain to make use of an Animal conductive for his optick guidance, cannot endure the prejudice that Smoak brings with it: But since you are resolv’d upon it, I’le dispute it no farther.

I have sent you that which will make Smoak, (namely Tobacco) though the Funk it self is so slippery that I could not send it, yet I have sent you the Substance from whence the Smoak derives: What use you imploy it to I know not, nor will I be too importunate to know; yet let me tell you this, That if you burn it in a room to affright the Devil from the house, you need not fear but it will work the same effect, as _Tobyes_ galls did upon the leacherous Fiend. No more at present. _Vale._

_Your Brother_, G. A.

From _Mary-Land_, _Dec._ 11. _Anno_

{105}

_To my Honored Friend_ Mr. T. B.

SIR,

This is the entrance upon my fifth year, and I fear ’twill prove the worst: I have been very much troubled with a throng of unruly Distempers, that have (contrary to my expectation) crouded into the Main-guard of my body, when the drowsie Sentinels of my brain were a sleep. Where they got in I know not, but to my grief and terror I find them predominant: Yet as Doctor _Dunne_, sometimes Dean of St. _Pauls, said, That the bodies diseases do but mellow a man for Heaven, and so ferments him in this World, as he shall need no long concoction in the Grave, but hasten to the Resurrection_. And if this were weighed seriously in the Ballance of Religious Reason, the World we dwell in would not seem so inticing and bewitching as it doth.

We are only sent by God of an Errand into this World, and the time that’s allotted us for to stay, is only for an Answer. When God my great Master shall in good earnest call me home, which these warnings tell me I have not long to stay, I hope then I shall be able to give him a good account of my Message.

_Sir_, My weakness gives a stop to my writing, my hand being so shakingly feeble, that I can hardly hold my pen any further then to tell you, I am yours {106} while I live, which I believe will be but some few minutes.

If this Letter come to you before I’me dead, pray for me, but if I am gone, pray howsoever, for they can do me no harm if they come after me.

_Vale._

_Your real Friend_, G. A.

From _Mary-Land_, Dec. 13. _Anno_

_To my Parents._

From the Grave or Receptacle of Death am I raised, and by an omnipotent power made capable of offering once more my Obedience (that lies close cabbined in the inwardmost apartment of my Soul) at the feet of your immutable Loves.

My good Parents, God hath done marvellous things for me, far beyond my deserts, which at best were preposterously sinful, and unsuitable to the sacred will of an Almighty: _But he is merciful, and his mercy endures for ever._ When sinful man has by his Evils and Iniquities pull’d some penetrating Judgment upon his head, and finding himself immediately not able to stand under so great a burthen as Gods smallest stroke of Justice, lowers the Top-gallant sayle of his Pride, and with an humble submissiveness prostrates himself before the Throne of his sacred Mercy, and {107} like those three Lepars that sate at the Gate of _Samaria_, resolved, _If we go into the City we shall perish, and if we stay here we shall perish also: Therefore we will throw our selves into the hands of the_ Assyrians _and if we perish, we perish_: This was just my condition as to eternal state; my soul was at a stand in this black storm of affliction: I view’d the World, and all that’s pleasure in her, and found her altogether flashy, aiery, and full of notional pretensions, and not one firm place where a distressed Soul could hang his trust on. Next I viewed my self, and there I found, instead of good Works, lively Faith, and Charity, a most horrid neast of condemned Evils, bearing a supreme Prerogative over my internal faculties. You’l say here was little hope of rest in this extreme Eclipse, being in a desperate amaze to see my estate so deplorable: My better Angel urged me to deliver up my aggrievances to the Bench of Gods Mercy, the sure support of all distressed Souls: His Heavenly warning, and inward whispers of the good Spirit I was resolv’d to entertain, and not quench, and throw my self into the armes of a loving God, _If I perish, I perish_. ’Tis beyond wonder to think of the love of God extended to sinful man, that in the deepest distresses or agonies of Affliction, when all other things prove rather hinderances then advantages, even at that time God is ready and steps forth to the supportment of his drooping Spirit. Truly, about a fortnight before I wrote this Letter, two of our ablest Physicians {108} rendered me up into the hands of God, the universal Doctor of the whole World, and subscribed with a silent acknowledgement, That all their Arts, screw’d up to the very Zenith of Scholastique perfection, were not capable of keeping me from the Grave at that time: But God, the great preserver of Soul and Body, said contrary to the expectation of humane reason, _Arise, take up thy bed and walk_.

I am now (through the help of my Maker) creeping up to my former strength and vigour, and every day I live, I hope I shall, through the assistance of divine Grace, climbe nearer and nearer to my eternal home.

I have received this year three Letters from you, one by Capt. _Conway_ Commander of the _Wheat-Sheaf_, the others by a _Bristol_ Ship. Having no more at present to trouble you with, but expecting your promise, I remain as ever,

_Your dutiful Son_, G. A.

_Mary-Land_, _April_ 9. _Anno_

I desire my hearty love may be remembered to my Brother, and the rest of my Kinred.

FINIS.

{109}

NOTES.

_Note_ 1, _page_ 15.

After having resolved to reprint Alsop’s early account of Maryland, as an addition to my _Bibliotheca Americana_, I immediately fell in with a difficulty which I had not counted on. After much inquiry and investigation, I could find no copy to print from among all my earnest book collecting acquaintances. At length some one informed me that Mr. Bancroft the historian had a copy in his library. I immediately took the liberty of calling on him and making known my wants, he generously offered to let me have the use of it for the purpose stated, I carried the book home, had it carefully copied, but unfortunately during the process I discovered the text was imperfect as well as deficient in both portrait and map. Like Sisyphus I had to begin anew, and do nearly all my labor over; I sent to London to learn if the functionaries in the British Museum would permit a tracing of the portrait and map to be made from their copy, the answer returned was, that they would or could not permit this, but I might perfect my text if I so choosed by copying from theirs. Here I was once more at sea without compass, rudder, or chart: I made known my condition to an eminent and judicious collector of old American literature in the city of New York, he very frankly informed me that he could aid me in my difficulty by letting me have the use of a copy, which would relieve me from my present dilemma. I was greatly rejoiced at this discovery as well as by the generosity of the owner. The following day the book was put into my possession, and so by the aid of it was enabled to complete the text. Here another difficulty burst into view, this copy had no portrait. That being the only defect in perfecting a copy of Alsop’s book, I now resolved to proceed and publish it without a portrait, but perhaps fortunately, making known this resolve to some of the knowing ones in book gathering, they remonstrated against this course, adding that it would ruin the book in the estimation of all who would buy such a rarity. I was inclined to listen favorably to this protest, and therefore had to commence a new effort to obtain a portrait. I then laid about me again to try and procure a copy that had one: I knew that not more than three or four collectors in the country who were likely to have such an heir-loom. To one living at a considerable distance from New York I took the liberty of addressing a letter on the subject, wherein I made known my difficulties. To my great gratification this courteous and confiding gentleman not only immediately made answer, but sent a perfect copy of this rare and much wanted book for my use. I immediately had the {110} portrait and map reproduced by the photo-lithographic process. During the time the book was in my possession, which was about ten days, so fearful was I that any harm should befall it that I took the precaution to wrap up the precious little volume in tissue paper and carry it about with me all the time in my side pocket, well knowing that if it was either injured or lost I could not replace it. I understand that a perfect copy of the original in the London market would bring fifty pounds sterling. I had the satisfaction to learn it reached the generous owner in safety.

Had I known the difficulties I had to encounter of procuring a copy of the original of Alsop’s singular performance, I most certainly would never have undertaken to reproduce it in America. Mr. Jared Sparks told me that he had a like difficulty to encounter when he undertook to write the life of Ledyard the traveler. Said he: “a copy of his journal I could find nowhere to purchase, at length I was compelled to borrow a copy on very humiliating conditions; the owner perhaps valued it too highly.” I may add that I had nearly as much difficulty in securing an editor, as I had in procuring a perfect copy. However on this point I at last was very fortunate.

WILLIAM GOWANS.

115 Nassau street, March 23d, 1869.

_Note_ 2, _page_ 19.

Cecilius, Lord Baltimore, eldest son of George Calvert, 1st Lord Baltimore, and Anne Wynne of Hertingfordbury, England, was born in 1606. He succeeded to the title April 15, 1632, and married Anne, daughter of Lord Arundel, whose name was given to a county in Maryland. His rule over Maryland, disturbed in Cromwell’s time, but restored under Charles II, has always been extolled. He died Nov. 30, 1675, covered with age and reputation.—_O’Callaghan’s N. Y. Col. Doc._, II. p. 74.

_Note_ 3, _page_ 19.

Avalon, the territory in Newfoundland, of which the first Lord Baltimore obtained a grant in 1623, derived its name from the spot in England where, as tradition said, Christianity was first preached by Joseph of Arimathea.

_Note_ 4, _page_ 21.

Owen Feltham, as our author in his errata correctly gives the name, was an author who enjoyed a great reputation in his day. His _Resolves_ appeared first about 1620, and in 1696 had reached the eleventh edition. They were once reprinted in the 18th century, and in full or in part four times in the {111} 19th, and an edition appeared in America about 1830. Hallam in spite of this popularity calls him “labored, artificial and shallow.”

_Note_ 5, _page_ 24.

Burning on the hand was not so much a punishment as a mark on those who, convicted of felony, pleaded the benefit of clergy, which they were allowed to do once only.

_Note_ 6, _page_ 25.

Literally: “Good wine needs no sign.”

_Note_ 7, _page_ 26.

Billingsgate is the great fish market of London, and the scurrilous tongues of the fish women have made the word synonymous with vulgar abuse.

_Note_ 8, _page_ 28.

Alsop though cautiously avoiding Maryland politics, omits no fling at the Puritans. Pride was a parliament colonel famous for _Pride’s Purge_.

_Notes_ 9, 10, _pages_ 31, 33.

William Bogherst, and H. W., Master of Arts, have eluded all our efforts to immortalize them.

_Note_ 11, _page_ 35.

Chesapeake is said to be K’tchisipik, Great Water, in Algonquin.

_Note_ 12, _page_ 38.

Less bombast and some details as to the botany of Maryland would have been preferable.

_Note_ 13, _page_ 39.

The American deer (_Cariacus Virginianus_) is here evidently meant. {112}

_Note_ 14, _page_ 39.

Whetston’s (Whetstone) park: “A dilapidated street in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, at the back of Holborn. It contains scarcely anything but old, half-tumble down houses; not a living plant of any kind adorns its nakedness, so it is presumable that as a park it never had an existence, or one so remote that even tradition has lost sight of the fact.”

_Note_ 15, _page_ 39.

The animals here mentioned are the black wolf (_canis occidentalis_), the black bear, the panther (_felis concolor_).

_Note_ 16, _page_ 40.

These animals are well known, the elk (_alces Americanus_), cat o’ the mountain or catamount (_felis concolor_), raccoon (_procyon lotor_), fox (_vulpes fulvus_), beaver (_castor fiber_), otter (_lutra_), opossum (_didelphys Virginiana_), hare, squirrel, musk-rat (_fiber zibethicus_). The monack is apparently the Maryland marmot or woodchuck (_arctomys monax_).

_Note_ 17, _page_ 40.

The domestic animals came chiefly from Virginia. As early as May 27, 1634, they got 100 swine from Accomac, with 30 cows, and they expected goats and hens (_Relation of Maryland_, 1634). Horses and sheep had to be imported from England, Virginia being unable to give any. Yet in 1679 Dankers and Sluyters, the Labadists, say: “Sheep they have none.”—_Collections Long Island Hist. Soc._, I, p. 218.

_Note_ 18, _page_ 41.

Alluding to the herds of swine kept by the Gadarenes, into one of which the Saviour allowed the devil named Legion to enter.

_Note_ 19, _page_ 42.

The abundance of these birds is mentioned in the _Relations of Maryland_, 1634, p. 22, and 1635, p. 23. The Labadists with whose travels the Hon. {113} H. C. Murphy has enriched our literature, found the geese in 1679–80 so plentiful and noisy as to prevent their sleeping, and the ducks filling the sky like a cloud.—_Long Island Hist. Coll._, I, pp. 195, 204.

_Note_ 20, _page_ 43.

Alsop makes no allusion to the cultivation of maize, yet the Labadists less than twenty years after describe it at length as the principal grain crop of Maryland.—_Ib._, p. 216.

_Note_ 21, _page_ 45.

Considering the facts of history, this picture is sadly overdrawn, Maryland having had its full share of civil war.

_Note_ 22, _page_ 46.

The fifth monarchy men were a set of religionists who arose during the Puritan rule in England. They believed in a fifth universal monarchy of which Christ was to be the head, under whom they, his saints, were to possess the earth. In 1660 they caused an outbreak in London, in which many were killed and others tried and executed. Their leader was one Venner. The Adamites, a gnostic sect, who pretended that regenerated man should go naked like Adam and Eve in their state of innocence, were revived during the Puritan rule in England; and in our time in December, 1867, we have seen the same theory held and practiced in Newark, N. J.

_Note_ 23, _page_ 46.

In the provisional act, passed in the first assembly, March 19, 1638, and entitled “An Act ordaining certain laws for the government of this province,” the twelfth section required that “every person planting tobacco shall plant and tend two acres of corn.” A special act was introduced the same session and read twice, but not passed. A new law was passed, however, Oct. 23, 1640, renewed Aug. 1, 1642, April 21, 1649, Oct. 20, 1654, April 12, 1662, and made perpetual in 1676. These acts imposed a fine of fifty pounds of tobacco for every half acre the offender fell short, besides fifty pounds of the same current leaf as constables’ fees. It was to this persistent enforcement of the cultivation of cereals that Maryland so soon became the granary of New England. {114}

_Note_ 24, _page_ 47.

The Assembly, or House of Burgesses, at first consisted of all freemen, but they gradually gave place to delegates. The influence of the proprietary, however, decided the selection. In 1650 fourteen burgesses met as delegates or representatives of the several hundreds, there being but two counties organized, St. Marys and the Isle of Kent. Ann Arundel, called at times Providence county, was erected April 29, 1650. Patuxent was erected under Cromwell in 1654.—_Bacon’s Laws of Maryland_, 1765.

_Note_ 25, _page_ 47.

Things had changed when the _Sot Weed Factor_ appeared, as the author of that satirical poem dilates on the litigious character of the people.

_Note_ 26, _page_ 47.

The allusion here I have been unable to discover.

_Note_ 27, _page_ 48.

The colony seems to have justified some of this eulogy by its good order, which is the more remarkable, considering the height of party feeling.

_Note_ 28, _page_ 48.

Halberdeers; the halberd was smaller than the partisan, with a sharp pointed blade, with a point on one side like a pole-axe.

_Note_ 29, _page_ 49.

Newgate, Ludgate and Bridewell are the well known London prisons.

_Note_ 30, _page_ 50.

Our author evidently failed from this cause. {115}

_Note_ 31, _page_ 50.

A fling at the various Puritan schools, then active at home and abroad.

_Note_ 32, _page_ 50.

The first Quakers in Maryland were Elizabeth Harris, Josiah Cole, and Thomas Thurston, who visited it in 1657, but as early as July 23, 1659, the governor and council issued an order to seize any Quakers and whip them from constable to constable out of the province. Yet in spite of this they had settled meetings as early as 1661, and Peter Sharpe, the Quaker physician, appears as a landholder in 1665, the very year of Alsop’s publication.—_Norris, Early Friends or Quakers in Maryland_ (Maryland Hist. Soc., March, 1862).

_Note_ 33, _page_ 50.

The Baptists centering in Rhode Island, extended across Long Island to New Jersey, and thence to New York city; but at this time had not reached the south.

_Note_ 34, _page_ 56.

A copy of the usual articles is given in the introduction. Alsop here refutes current charges against the Marylanders for their treatment of servants. Hammond, in his _Leah and Rachel_, p. 12, says: “The labour servants are put to is not so hard, nor of such continuance as husbandmen nor handecraftmen are kept at in England. . . . . The women are not (as is reported) put into the ground to worke, but occupie such domestic imployments and housewifery as in England.”

_Note_ 35, _page_ 59.

Laws as to the treatment of servants were passed in the Provisional act of 1638, and at many subsequent assemblies.

_Notes_ 36, 37, _pages_ 59, 61.

Lewknors lane or Charles street was in Drury lane, in the parish of St. Giles.—_Seymour’s History of London_, II, p. 767. Finsbury is still a well known quarter, in St. Luke’s parish, Middlesex. {116}

_Note_ 38, _page_ 65.

Nicholas Culpepper, “student in physic and astrology,” whose _English Physician_, published in 1652, ran through many editions, and is still a book published and sold.

_Note_ 39, _page_ 65.

Dogs dung, used in dressing morocco, is euphemized into _album græcum_, and is also called _pure_; those who gather it being still styled in England pure-finders.—_Mayhew, London Labor and London Poor_, II, p. 158.

_Note_ 40, _page_ 65.

He has not mentioned tobacco as a crop, but describes it fully a few pages after. In Maryland as in Virginia it was the currency. Thus in 1638 an act authorized the erection of a water-mill to supersede hand-mills for grinding grain, and the cost was limited to 20,000 lbs. of tobacco.—_McSherry’s History of Maryland_, p. 56. The Labadists in their _Travels_ (p. 216) describe the cultivation at length. Tobacco at this time paid two shillings English a cask export duty in Maryland, and two-pence a pound duty on its arrival in England, besides weighing and other fees.

_Note_ 41, _page_ 66.

The Parson of Pancras is unknown to me: but the class he represents is certainly large.

_Note_ 42, _page_ 66.

The buffalo was not mentioned in the former list, and cannot be considered as synonymous with elk.

_Note_ 43, _page_ 67.

For satisfactory and correct information of the present commerce and condition of Maryland, the reader is referred to the _Census of the United States_ in 4 vols., 4to, published at Washington, 1865. {117}

_Note_ 44, _page_ 69.

This is a curious observation as to New England trade. A century later Hutchinson represents Massachusetts as receiving Maryland flour from the Pennsylvania mills, and paying in money and bills of exchange.—_Hist. of Massachusetts_, p. II, 397.

_Note_ 45, _page_ 69.