CHAPTER XXXII.

EUREKA.

“Like one who had set out on his way by night, and travelled through a region of smooth or idle dreams, our history now arrives on the confines, where daylight and truth meet us with a clear dawn, representing to our view, though at far distance, true colors and shapes.” MILTON, _History of England_.

When Great Britain, looking through the eyes of the Long Parliament in 1641, glanced across the Atlantic, she was surprised to see that the despised bantling of 1620 had, against all discouragements, staggered to its feet, and stood a nation, self-sustaining, robust, independent.

Already twenty-one thousand Pilgrims were permanently seated in New England;[1048] fifty prosperous villages[1049] peeped from the openings in the long unbroken forests. The steeples of forty churches pointed their white fingers to the sky.[1050] The rude log-cabins of the first months of settlement had been replaced by well-built houses.[1051] Agriculture climbed the hill-sides. Commerce played by the sea-shore. Trade laughed and chaffed and dickered in the market-place. The spindle and the loom nodded merrily to each other over their work, as they labored side by side in the fabrication of “cotton and woollen and linen cloth;” for manufactures were even thus early established in New England.[1052]

And the Pilgrims had a foreign influence. When a Madeira merchant visited Boston in 1642, he told Winthrop that the West Indian Jesuits taught that the “New-Englanders were the worst of all heretics, and that they were the cause of the civil war in the British island, and of the downfall of Archbishop Laud.”[1053]

The Pilgrims in England cordially recognized their kinship to the exiles. When the Parliament held regal prerogatives, in 1641, the colonists were urgently advised to solicit the admission of their delegates to its floor. “But upon consulting about it,” says Winthrop, “we declined the motion, for this consideration, that if we should put ourselves under the protection of the Parliament, we should then be subject to all its laws, or at least to such as the Commons might be pleased to impose on us; which might be inconvenient, and prove very prejudicial to us.”[1054] And when, a twelvemonth later, “letters arrived inviting the colonial churches to send representatives to the Westminster Assembly of Divines, the same sagacity led them to neglect the invitation. The love of political independence declined even benefits. New England spoke almost as one sovereign to another.”[1055]

The Pilgrims were singularly jealous of their franchises, and they never neglected an opportunity to consolidate and enlarge their liberty. And now, since the days had come when England was rent by the demon of war, when the throne tottered to its fall, when exultant republicanism, speaking through the lips of Cromwell, shouted, “_Sic semper tyrannis!_” as the head of a royal despot was struck off, the colonists had ample time in which to develop and define their rights.

Thus, exciting and momentous as were the scenes enacted on the European stage, and deeply as the Forefathers were interested in the issue, they were not won to overlook their own home drama. They were busy at this very time in reaping the benefits of secure and liberal domestic legislation. A bill of rights was promulgated; and under this, “though universal suffrage was not established, every man, whether citizen or alien, received the right of introducing any business into any public assembly, and of taking part in its deliberations. Then Massachusetts, by special law, offered free welcome and aid, at the public cost, to Christians of any nationality who might fly beyond the Atlantic ‘to escape from wars or famine, or the oppression of their persecutors.’ Thus the fugitive and the downtrodden were, by statute, made the guests of the commonwealth. Pilgrim hospitality was as wide as misfortune.”[1056]

This noble legislation was but the forerunner of a yet more significant act. In 1643, after several prior ineffectual essays, the four chief colonies of New England clasped hands in a confederacy.[1057] Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Haven, and Plymouth, by solemn and free agreement, became the “UNITED COLONIES OF NEW ENGLAND.”[1058] The Dutch Republic was the model of this union;[1059] and the reasons which impelled the Pilgrims to cement it are recited in the preamble to the twelve Articles of Agreement:

“Whereas, we all came into these parts of America with one and the same end and aim, namely, to advance the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to enjoy the liberties of the gospel in purity and peace; and whereas, in our settling—by a wise providence of God—we are farther dispersed upon the seacoasts and rivers than was at first intended, so that we cannot, according to our desires, with convenience communicate in one government and jurisdiction; and whereas we live encompassed with people of several nations and strange languages, which may hereafter prove injurious to us or our posterity; and forasmuch as the natives have formerly committed sundry insolences and outrages upon several plantations of the English, and have of late combined themselves against us; and seeing, by reason of these sad distractions in England, which the Indians have heard of, and by which they know we are hindered from that humble way of seeking advice or reaping those comfortable fruits of protection which at other times we might well expect; we hereby conceive it our bounden duty, without delay, to enter into a present consociation for mutual help and strength in all our future concernments; that, as in nation and religion, so in other respects, we be and continue one.”[1060]

The old Hindoo dreamed that he saw the human race led out to its varied fortune. First, he saw men bitted and curbed, and the reins went back to an iron hand. But his dream changed on and on, until at last he saw men led by reins that came from the brain and ran back into shadowy fingers. It was the type of progress. The first was despotism; the last was a government of ideas, of morals, of the normal forces of society.[1061] The New England Confederation was the forerunner of a mightier union; and when Liberty saw it, she cried, “Eureka!” and thanked God.

The machinery of the league was very simple, very sensible, and very effective. The colonies were co-equal. Each appointed two commissioners, who formed a directory, which was to hold an annual session. The commissioners were empowered to assemble more frequently if necessity pressed; and they could deliberate on all matters which were “the proper concomitants or consequents of confederation.”[1062] “The affairs of peace and war exclusively belonged to them. They were authorized to make internal improvements at the common charge, assessed according to population. They too were the guardians to see equal and speedy justice assured to all the confederates in every jurisdiction; but each colony carefully reserved its respective local rights, as the badges of continued independence; so that, while the commissioners might decree war and levy troops, they had no executive power, but were dependent on the states for the execution of the plans they matured and voted.”[1063]

Two bodies of colonists were rigidly excluded from this union. Gorges’ pioneers, beyond the Piscataqua, were not admitted, because “they ran a different course” from the Pilgrims, “both in their ministry and in their civil administration.” Providence and Rhode Island were shut out, partly because they were not esteemed sufficiently strong and settled to add strength to the league, and also because they were regarded as the haunts of heresy and fanaticism.[1064] It was thought that the confederacy, in order to be effective, should be homogeneous. On that basis it was launched; and, surviving “the jealousies of the Long Parliament, it met with favor from the Protector, remained safe from censure at the restoration of the Stuarts,” and walked buoyantly on, scattering its benefactions on the right hand and on the left, until James II. vacated the New England charters, in 1686.[1065]

The colonial union was the crowning service of the founders of New England to humanity. Now they began, one by one, to descend into the grave, worn to early death by a toilsome grapple with the rough and grinding forces of nature. But in their footsteps trudged their sons, succeeding to the same blessed inheritance of faith, and love, and godly energy.[1066]

Travellers tell us that at Florence there is a rich table, worth a thousand crowns, made of precious stones neatly inlaid, in whose construction thirty men were employed daily for fifteen years. The Pilgrim Fathers were twice that time in carving out and inlaying New England with churches, and free schools, and printing-presses, and manufactures. Think of their task. “That gore of land, a few hundred miles wide and long, which lies between the St. Lawrence and the Atlantic ocean, and seems to have been formed of the leavings and fragments after the rest of the continent was made, whose ribs stick out past all covering; which has sand enough to scour the world; where there are no large rivers, but many nimble little ones, which seem to have been busy since the flood in taking exercise over rifts and rocks. This was their field of action. The only indigenous productions were ice, Indians, and stunted trees. Trading and commercial adventurers had essayed to effect a settlement in vain. The soil was too hard even for Indians and rovers. It was apparently set apart for a wilderness, and it had peculiar aptitudes for keeping man away from it. Its summers were short, its winters were long, its rocks were innumerable, its soil was thin.” Yet the Pilgrims entered and subdued this waste, making it to bud with churches and to bloom with schools; cultivating it to the sterile hill-tops; dotting the landscape with neat farm-houses, factories, mills, the evidences and the tokens of a ripe, full civilization.

But the fierce struggle with nature left its scars upon the Pilgrims, and it has marked their children. They had to seize and impress into their service every help. This begot the inventive faculty, and the habit of looking at every thing from the angle of its utility. This it was which strung factories on every stream-side, as gold beads are hung on a silver cord; which used every drop of water a dozen times over in turning wheels before it was suffered to run, weary and fretted, to the sea; which sent the little feet toddling to the woodpile to pick up chips; which made labor-saving machines, those gnomes whose cunning fingers were to work up the black earth and the hard rock into golden grains.

“Looking, therefore, at civilization in New England, we see a people beginning without aristocracy or hierarchical forms. We see the leading men among them educated and honorable; the working men devoted to agriculture and owners of the soil. We see all resisting the incoming of a state church, persistently opposing a distant but domineering court; and, singularly enough, through nigh two centuries of savage and civilized war, steadily refusing to organize a standing army, trusting to the native valor of the mass. Thus the commonalty educated themselves by daily practice in self-government, until, at this present time, rulers there are simply lay-figures for show-days.”

“The Pilgrims were readers. Drunkenness, pauperism, filth, and dilapidation, nowhere abounded. They were thrifty, and industrious, and frugal; and so, though the land was poor, they lived in comfort. Money was hard to get, and carefully spent; no man lavished it, or lent it except on good security; yet nowhere else was there such a constant contribution for the relief of suffering or the cure of secular and religious ignorance; nowhere else would men more quickly risk life and health to serve a fellow. As there was no aristocracy, so there was no inferior or pariah class, except when, at an unguarded moment, negro slavery crept in for a time. But servitude was so palpably contrary to the genius and principles of the Pilgrims, that it was banished as soon as the mind and conscience grappled with it;” for the corner-stone of New England was religion, and the top-stone was honest, self-respecting, well-paid, and skilled labor. Religion and labor begot that spirit which has tamed the continent, cheered it with churches and schools, set the busy spindles humming and the shuttles flying, plunged into the earth and into the sea, run over the prairies, talking by lightning from the Atlantic to the Pacific, until the whole land where men are intelligent, industrious, and free, seems singing and smiling at its daily work.

The Pilgrim Fathers literally obeyed the injunction of the great German poet—they knew the aim and reason of yesterday; they worked well to-day for worthy things, calmly trusting the future’s hidden season, and believing with unquestioning faith that their children would eat of the fruit of the tree which they had planted in a sterile soil and under wintry skies. Patient in waiting, they never hurried; they did not dig up their seed every twelve hours to see whether it had sprouted. Without haste, they were also without rest; and in their treatment of causes, they never paused to worry and fret about effects; for they knew that justice was the best policy, and that the steady every-day bravery which vaunteth not itself is more than a match for the Hotspur valor which presumes that any cause is good which is desperately defended.

The Pilgrims were men of conscience; and this they carried with them into work and into statesmanship. Quincy Adams once, in a happy moment, called New England “the colony of conscience.” It was a religious plantation, not an essay for trade. “He that made religion as twelve and the world as thirteen had not the spirit of a true New England man.” “Religion was the object of the Pilgrims; it was also their consolation. With this the wounds of the outcast were healed, and the tears of exile were sweetened.”

Puritanism has been finely called religion struggling for the people—evoking, in the logical sequence of events, political equality. “Those peculiar outward emblems, which were its badges at first, were of transient duration; like the clay and ligaments with which the graft is held in its place, made to be brushed away as soon as the scion is firmly united. The spirit of the Pilgrims was a life-giving spirit; activity, thrift, intelligence, liberty, followed in its train; and as for courage, a coward and a Puritan never went together. ‘He that prays best and preaches best will fight best;’ such was the judgment of Cromwell, the greatest soldier of his age.”

From any enumeration of the elements of the early colonial felicity, purity of morals must not be omitted. “As Ireland would not brook venomous serpents, so would not that land vile livers.” One might dwell there “from year to year, and not see a drunkard, nor hear an oath, nor meet a beggar.” The consequence was wide-spread health, one of the chief promoters of social happiness.

As for the soil, it was owned by the colonists. It was bought and paid for. The little farms, the straggling villages, the slowly-growing towns, were the absolute private property of their occupants; and in a time of unusual commotion, when their settlements, for which they had done and dared so much, seemed menaced with subversion—seemed liable to be converted into a receptacle for all the spawn of England—the Pilgrims assumed to decide, standing on their own grounds, who should be welcomed among them as fellow-citizens, who should be treated as guests, and who should be bidden to depart, never to return under the heaviest penalty.

Yet “on every subject but religion, the mildness of Puritan legislation corresponded to the popular character of the Puritan doctrines. Hardly a European nation has as yet made its criminal code as humane as was that of early New England. The Pilgrims brushed a crowd of offences at one sweep from the catalogue of capital crimes. They never countenanced the idea that the forfeiture of human life may be demanded for the protection of material interests. The punishment for theft, burglary, highway robbery, was far more mild than the penalties imposed even by modern American legislation. Domestic discipline was highly valued; but if the law was severe against the child who was undutiful, it was also severe against the parent who was faithless. The earlier laws did not decree imprisonment for debt, except when there was an appearance of some estate which the debtor would not produce. Even the brute creation was not forgotten; and cruelty to animals was a civil offence. The sympathies of the colonists were wide; a regard for Protestant Germany was as old as emigration; and during the Thirty Years’ war, the Pilgrims held fasts and offered prayers for the success of the Saxon cause”—crowned with the gospel.

But the glory of the Pilgrim Fathers was their faith. They trusted God, and acted. The secret of their strength and success was the open Bible and the family altar. They were men, and therefore not infallible. They sometimes erred grievously, and walked limping and awry; but they always meant right, and with God’s word as a lamp to their feet, they could not stray and grope far or long from the sunlight. To much that the Pilgrim conscientiously believed, and with his whole heart accepted, the present age has grown careless; we are lukewarm or indifferent upon some points which he esteemed vital; but it is small credit to us, if we are tolerant of error simply because we care little for truth. In former times New England was not latitudinarian; and, clad in her sparkling snow, crowned with her evergreen pine, the glory of her brow was justice, the splendor of her eye was liberty, the strength of her hands was industry, the whiteness of her bosom was faith; for the Pilgrims were men of absolute conviction. Moral earnestness was the key with which they unlocked the treasure-house of success. They were always true to their highest conceptions; and they could say as Paul said to Agrippa, “I obeyed the heavenly vision.”

Yet they were not visionaries, but they made that fine distinction between material nature and spirituality: “giving to Cæsar the things which are Cæsar’s, and unto God the things which are God’s.” Thus it was that, though they were the most practical of men, they were also the most spiritual—wedding a paradox.

The curse of our age is materialism. We kindle only within the sphere of material interests and pursuits. On higher subjects we are as cold as an ice-field on the breast of Alp. There is an apotheosis of dirt. Men do not half believe in what they cannot see, and feel, and handle. They group about them the tokens of their skill—steam-engines, and telegraphs, and sewing-machines—and worship these as the ultimate good, saying, “See, these are the realities of life.”

The Pilgrim spirit protests against this tendency. It comes to remind us that the controllers of the present, the moulders of the future, are not the babblers who plead for an unreal realism; that they are not the heaviest brains of the epoch, but the heroes of religious earnestness, men inspired by drinking from the spiritual springs, men who go forth to fight like the red knight of Odessa, with the cross emblazoned on their shield, and with Christ buried in their hearts. Behind intellect there must be a ground-swell of religious earnestness, else brains are a snare, and useless. Rousseau, and Voltaire, and Pascal, do not mark the ages. Name them anywhere, and scores of vacant eyes will ask you, “Who are they?” The Luthers, the Calvins, the Ridleys, the Brewsters, shake the world, seize all hearts, and educate the centuries, because they were fired by conviction, and built for God.

This is the lesson which the story of the Pilgrims teaches us. Let us heed it; and then, clasping hands with the martyrs and apostles, we too may press forward with our “garlands and singing-robes about us,” and by battling for Christ, insure for ourselves in the long hereafter a blessed rest and a fragrant memory.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Palfrey, Hist. of New England, vol. 1, p. 101.

[2] Perhaps this whole chapter of history is nowhere more graphically treated than in D’Aubigné’s Hist. of the Ref. in the Sixteenth Century. See also, Ranke’s Hist. of the Popes.

[3] Uhden, New England Theocracy, p. 15.

[4] Grote, Hist. of Greece.

[5] Preface to Warburton’s Divine Legation.

[6] Neale, Hist. of the Puritans. Collier’s Church Hist. Hallam, Const. Hist. of Eng.

[7] See “An Account of the Principles and Practices of Several Non-conformists, wherein it appears that their religion is no other than that which is professed in the Church of England,” etc. By Mr. John Corbet; London, 1682.

[8] Elliot, Hist. of New Eng., vol. 1, p. 43.

[9] Fuller, Church Hist. Strype, Life of Parker. Heylin, Life of Lord Clarendon.

[10] Palfrey, Hist. of New England, vol. 1, p. 113, note.

[11] Palfrey, Hist. of New England, vol. 1, p. 114.

[12] Hoyt, Antiquarian Researches.

[13] Fuller, Ch. Hist., vol. 3. Rymer’s Fœdera, vol. 16, p. 694.

[14] Goodrich, Ch. Hist.

[15] Neale, History of the Puritans, vol. 1. Rushworth, Clarendon, etc.

[16] Parliamentary History.

[17] Strype, Life of Whitgift. Bradshaw, English Puritanism, 1605.

[18] Calderwood, True Hist. of the Ch. of Scotland. Perry, Ch. Hist., vol. 1.

[19] Ibid.

[20] Fuller, Ch. Hist., vol. 3. Hume, Hist. of Eng., etc.

[21] Barlow’s Account of the Hampton Court Conference. A copy of it is in Harvard college library. Harrington, Nugæ Antiquæ.

[22] Palfrey, Hist. of New England, vol. 1, p. 131.

[23] Bradford, Hist. of the Plymouth Plantation, p. 9.

[24] Bancroft, Hist. United States, vol. 1, pp. 277, 278.

[25] Bradford, Hist. Plymouth Plantation.

[26] Ibid., Morton’s Memorial, Founders of New Plymouth, etc.

[27] Bradford, Hist. Plymouth Plantation, pp. 10, 11. See also Neal’s Hist. of New England, vol. 1, p. 76.

[28] Some authorities say 1602. Newell, for instance, p. 348, citing the British Quarterly Review. But so competent an authority as Bradford gives the date in the text. See also Young’s Chronicles, etc.

[29] Bradford, p. 12.

[30] Ibid. Young’s Chronicles of the Pilgrims.

[31] Bradford, p. 12.

[32] Stoughton, Spiritual Heroes, p. 72.

[33] British Quarterly Review, vol. 1, p. 15.

[34] Stoughton, Young, Bancroft.

[35] Young’s Chronicles, Stoughton, Bradford, etc.

[36] Stoughton.

[37] British Quarterly Review, vol. 1, p. 15.

[38] Stoughton, p. 74.

[39] Young, cited in Stoughton, p. 74.

[40] Young’s Chronicles, p. 29.

[41] The facts in the above description of Amsterdam are taken from Motley’s Rise of the Dutch Republic, from various accounts of travels in the Low Countries, and particularly from the very interesting and instructive “Tour” of W. Chambers. London, 1837.

[42] Bancroft, Hist. United States, vol. 1, p. 303.

[43] Ibid. Bradford, Young, Stoughton, etc.

[44] Bradford, Hist. Plymouth Plantation.

[45] Stoughton, p. 82. Young’s Chronicles.

[46] Morton’s Memorial, Prince, Bradford.

[47] Bradford, Cotton Mather, etc.

[48] Stoughton, p. 82.

[49] Bradford, Hist. Plymouth Plantation, p. 17.

[50] Golden Book of Marcus Aurelius; first printed in English in 1534. Debley’s Typog. Antiq., vol. 3, p. 289.

[51] Bradford, pp. 17, 18.

[52] Bradford, pp. 17, 18. Young, etc.

[53] Bradford, pp. 17, 18.

[54] Cotton Mather’s Magnalia, vol. 1, p. 47.

[55] Bradford, p. 18. Stoughton.

[56] Cited in Stoughton, p. 84.

[57] Robinson died at Leyden, March 1, 1625.

[58] For an interesting account of Ziska, or Zisca, the blind Hussite leader of the Bohemian insurgents, who was never defeated, see Mosheim’s Eccles. Hist., cent. XV., Hallam’s Hist. of the Middle Ages, vol. 1, p. 463, or the Encyclopædia Americana, article “Zisca.”

[59] Bradford, pp. 18, 19.

[60] Ibid., pp. 19, 20.

[61] The Walloons inhabited the southern Belgic provinces bordering on France. As they spoke the French language, “they were called _Gallois_, which was changed, in Low Dutch, into Waalsche, and in English into Walloon.” Many of them were Protestants, and being subject to relentless persecution by the Spanish government, they emigrated in great numbers into Holland, carrying with them a knowledge of the industrial arts. See Bradford’s Hist. Plym. Plantation, p. 20, note.

[62] Bradford, p. 20. Stoughton, Young, Ashton’s Life of Robinson.

[63] Stoughton, p. 85.

[64] Bradford, Young, Neal, Mather, etc.

[65] A collection of the Works of John Robinson was printed in London in 1851, with a memoir and annotations by Mr. Robert Ashton.

[66] Bradford, p. 21. Cotton Mather’s Magnalia, vol. 1, p. 47.

[67] Bradford, Mather, Stoughton.

[68] Ibid., Young, Ashton’s Life of Robinson.

[69] Robinson’s Apology for the Romanists.

[70] Uhden, New England Theocracy, p. 42. Robinson’s Works, etc.

[71] Uhden, p. 42.

[72] This “famous truce,” so long desired, embraced a period of twelve years. It was signed in April, 1609, and expired in 1621. Grattan, Hist. Netherlands.

[73] Bancroft, Hist. United States, vol. 1, p. 303.

[74] Bradford, Hist. Plymouth Plantation, pp. 22, 23.

[75] See Plutarch’s Life of Cato the Younger.

[76] Bradford.

[77] Proverbs 22:3.

[78] Bradford.

[79] Bradford, p. 24.

[80] Bradford, p. 24.

[81] For additional reasons, see Young, p. 385.

[82] Bancroft, Hist. United States, vol. 1, p. 303.

[83] Bradford, p. 24; Young’s Chronicles, etc.

[84] In allusion, probably, to the plantation project at Sagadahoc, in 1607. See Bancroft and others.

[85] This debate is copied from Bradford, pp. 25-27.

[86] Bradford, Young, Elliot, Bancroft, etc.

[87] Wilson’s Pilgrim Fathers, p. 341.

[88] Bancroft, vol. 1, p. 204.

[89] Ibid.

[90] Ibid., Bradford, Young.

[91] Wilson’s Pilgrim Fathers, p. 356.

[92] Ibid., Bradford, Bancroft.

[93] Bradford, p. 29.

[94] Ibid.

[95] Bancroft, vol. 1, p. 304.

[96] Bradford, p. 28.

[97] Bradford, p. 28.

[98] For some account of Sir Edwin Sandys, one of the most prominent members of the Virginia company, see Hood’s Athenæ Oxon., vol. 2, p. 472.

[99] This letter, as also that of Sandys which occasioned it, may be found _in extenso_ in Bradford, pp. 30, 31, 32, 33.

[100] Bradford, p. 29.

[101] Bancroft, p. 305.

[102] Bancroft.

[103] Bradford.

[104] Ibid. “Being taken in the name of one who failed to accompany the expedition, the patent was never of the least service.” Bancroft, vol. 1, p. 303.

[105] Bancroft, pp. 305, 306. The title of the company thus formed was “The Merchant Adventurers.” See Elliot, vol. 1, p. 49.

[106] Bradford. Winslow in Young’s Chronicles.

[107] Ibid.

[108] Bradford. Winslow in Young’s Chronicles.

[109] Bradford, p. 42.

[110] Bancroft.

[111] Ezra 8:21. This is the version in Bradford’s Narrative.

[112] Stoughton, Spiritual Heroes—The Pilgrim Fathers.

[113] Neale; Winslow in Young; Belknap, Stoughton, etc.

[114] Stoughton, p. 97.

[115] The first separatists were so called after Robert Brown, who, in the latter part of the sixteenth century, propounded a system of church government which contained many of the features of modern Congregationalism. Brown was born in 1549, and was a relative of Elizabeth’s lord-treasurer, the famous Burleigh. In 1582 he published his book, “The Life and Manners of True Christians,” and suffered persecution therefor. Eventually, after a roving life, he conformed to the church of England, and was made rector in Northamptonshire. Shortly after, he died very miserably in a jail. Strype’s Annals, vol. 2. Collier’s Eccl. Hist., part 2, book 7.

[116] Winslow’s account of Robinson’s Sermon.

[117] Wilson’s Pilgrim Fathers. Bradford, Belknap.

[118] Elliot, Hist. of New England, vol. 1. Palfrey, etc.

[119] Ibid., Bradford, Young.

[120] Winslow in Young’s Chronicles.

[121] Stoughton.

[122] Ibid., p. 100.

[123] Young’s Chronicles. Bradford.

[124] Bradford.

[125] Bradford, pp. 69, 70.

[126] Dated Dartmouth, August 17, 1620. Cushman remained in England. Elliot, vol. 1, p. 57.

[127] Bancroft.

[128] Virgil’s Æneid, book 1.

[129] Elliot, Hist. New England, vol. 1, pp. 58, 59.

[130] See this whole letter in Bradford, pp. 64-67.

[131] Bradford, Young, etc.

[132] Bancroft, vol. 1, p. 310. This compact was signed Nov. 11, 1620.

[133] Ibid., p. 309.

[134] “Some have charged that the Dutch bribed the captain to deceive the Pilgrims. Bradford does not mention it, and the Dutch historians deny it.” Elliot, vol. 1, p. 59.

[135] Uhden, Wilson, Smith’s Narrative, etc.

[136] Bradford, Elliot, Bancroft.

[137] Longfellow’s Courtship of Miles Standish.

[138] Journal of the Pilgrims.

[139] Ibid.

[140] Journal of the Pilgrims.

[141] Ibid.

[142] Elliot, vol. 1, p. 61.

[143] Bancroft.

[144] Bradford, Winslow.

[145] Ibid. Young, Elliot, Bancroft.

[146] Elliot, vol. 1, pp. 62, 63.

[147] Ibid. Bradford, Young.

[148] Bancroft, vol. 1, p. 312.

[149] According to the new style of reckoning time, it was the 22d of December, now kept as “Forefathers’ Day.”

[150] Bradford, Winslow.

[151] Ibid., Elliot, Bancroft.

[152] Fort Hill, now Burial Hill.

[153] Elliot, vol. 1, p. 66.

[154] Now called Leyden-street.

[155] Elliot, Bradford, Young’s Chronicles.

[156] Journal of the Pilgrims.

[157] Ibid., Bancroft.

[158] One of these was Clarke’s Island; the other was probably Saquish Peninsula.

[159] Young’s Chronicles. Journal of the Pilgrims.

[160] Cotton Mather, Magnalia, vol. 1, p. 51.

[161] Ibid., Elliot, Felt.

[162] Elliot, p. 67.

[163] Ibid. Journal of the Pilgrims. Young, Bradford.

[164] Longfellow’s Miles Standish, p. 11.

[165] Bancroft, vol. 1, p. 310.

[166] Bancroft, vol. 1, p. 308.

[167] “Exiguam sedem sacris, litusque rogamus Innocuum, et cunctis undamque; auramque; patentem.” Cotton Mather, Magnalia, vol. 1, p. 52.

[168] Bancroft, Banvard, Elliot, Felt.

[169] Journal of the Pilgrims.

[170] Young’s Chron. of the Pilg’s. Pilgrims’ Jour.

[171] Ibid.

[172] Bradford, Young, Pilgrims’ Journal.

[173] Ibid.

[174] Bradford, Young.

[175] Ibid. Pilgrims’ Journal.

[176] Ibid.

[177] Pilgrims’ Journal.

[178] Elliot, vol. 1, p. 71.

[179] Pilgrims’ Journal.

[180] Bradford, Young.

[181] Ibid. Banvard.

[182] Bancroft, Elliot, Banvard.

[183] Bradford, Pilgrims’ Journal.

“On the 22d of March, the first interview took place between the Pilgrims and the Indians, with their great chief Massasoit, Squanto acting as interpreter. This was conducted becomingly on both sides, and according to the manner of the time. After Gov. Carver had drunk some ‘strong water’—rum—to the sachem, Massasoit ‘drunk a great draught that made him sweat all the while after.’ The result of the conference was an alliance, offensive and defensive, between the governor and the chief, applauded by the followers of both, and Massasoit was received as an ally of the dread King James.” Elliot, vol. 1, p. 72.

[184] Young’s Chronicles, Pilgrims’ Journal.

[185] Bancroft, p. 317.

[186] Pilgrims’ Journal, p. 58.

[187] Elliot, p. 73.

[188] Bancroft, Pilgrims’ Journal.

[189] Ibid.

[190] Ibid.

[191] Pilgrims’ Journal.

[192] Banvard.

[193] Elliot, p. 74.

[194] Bradford’s Journal.

[195] Holmes’ Annals, Thatcher’s Plymouth, p. 37.

[196] Bradford, Hist. Plymouth Plantation, p. 101.

[197] Ibid.

[198] Holmes, Thatcher, Elliot, etc.

[199] Elliot, p. 75.

[200] Sigourney.

[201] Elliot, ut antea.

[202] Bradford, Young, Thatcher.

[203] Pilgrims’ Journal. Winslow.

[204] Ibid.

[205] Pilgrims’ Journal.

[206] Palfrey, Hist. New England, vol. 1, p. 182.

[207] Pilgrims’ Journal.

[208] Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 182.

[209] Pilgrims’ Journal.

[210] Bancroft, vol. 1, pp. 317, 318.

[211] Chronicles of the Pilgrims.

[212] Ibid., Palfrey.

[213] Winslow in Chronicles of the Pilgrims, p. 201.

[214] Ibid.

[215] Ibid.

[216] Winslow in Chronicles of the Pilgrims, p. 201. Banvard, Wilson.

[217] Chronicles of the Pilgrims.

[218] Ibid. Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 184.

[219] Chronicles of the Pilgrims. Mount, Journal, p. 45.

[220] Ibid.

[221] Wilson, p. 386.

[222] Ibid. Pilgrims’ Journal.

[223] Banvard. Chronicles of the Pilgrims.

[224] Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 184. Banvard, p. 55. Wilson, p. 386.

[225] Chronicles of the Pilgrims. Mount, Journal, p. 47.

[226] Banvard, Plymouth and the Pilgrims, p. 55.

[227] Mount, Journal. Chronicles, etc.

[228] Wilson.

[229] Whittier, Ballads and other Poems.

[230] Pilgrims’ Journal, Palfrey, Bradford.

[231] Banvard, p. 56. Prince; Mount in Young, pp. 214-218.

[232] Mount in Young. Banvard.

[233] Bradford, p. 103.

[234] Banvard, p. 56. Mount.

[235] Mount in Young. Banvard.

[236] Ibid.

[237] Bradford, p. 103.

[238] Banvard, p. 58.

[239] Mount in Young. Banvard.

[240] Ibid.

[241] Ibid. Prince, vol. 1, p. 107.

[242] Ibid.

[243] Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 185. Bradford, p. 103.

[244] Pope.

[245] Palfrey, Banvard, Bradford, Pilgrims’ Journal.

[246] Bradford, p. 103.

[247] Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 185.

[248] Banvard, p. 62.

[249] Nabb’s Microcosmos.

[250] Bradford, pp. 103, 104.

[251] Mount in Young; Banvard, Bradford.

[252] Banvard, p. 64.

[253] Mount in Young.

[254] Ibid.

[255] Bradford, Mount, etc.

[256] Bradford, p. 104. Felt, Hist. of New England, vol. 1, pp. 64, 65. Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 183.

[257] Bradford, ut antea.

[258] Ibid., Felt, Palfrey.

[259] Wilson.

[260] Bradford, p. 104. Palfrey, Banvard.

[261] Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 186.

[262] The word _Massachusetts_ signifies an arrow-shaped hill. It is supposed to have been given to the surrounding country from the Blue Hills of Milton, which were formerly called Massachusetts Mount. See Banvard, p. 65.

[263] Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 186. For a fuller account of this expedition, see Mount in Young, pp. 224-229.

[264] Bradford, p. 105.

[265] Ibid.

[266] Bradford, p. 105.

[267] Palfrey.

[268] Bradford.

[269] Palfrey, vol. 1, pp. 186, 187.

[270] Winslow in Mount, etc., cited in Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 187.

[271] Smith’s Description of New England, cited in Elliot, vol. 1, p. 77.

[272] Russell’s Pilgrims’ Memorial, p. 131. Young’s Chronicles, p. 232.

[273] Mount, in Young, pp. 224-229. Russell’s Pilgrim’s Manual, p. 153.

[274] Bradford, Elliot, Banvard.

[275] Elliot, vol. 1, p. 79.

[276] Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 190.

[277] Ibid. Peckham’s Life of Nicholas Ferrar. London, 1852.

[278] Gorge’s Brief Narrative, chap. 16.

[279] Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 193.

[280] Ibid.

[281] “It was dated June 1, 1621, and is interesting, as being the first grant made by the great Plymouth company. ’Twas first printed in 1854, in 4th Mass. Hist. Coll., vol. 11. The original is now at Plymouth. ’Tis probably the oldest document in Massachusetts officially connected with her history,” Bradford, Ed. note, pp. 107, 108.

[282] Bradford, p. 107, Russell, Morton, Young.

[283] Ibid.

[284] Bradford, pp. 108, 109.

[285] Elliot, Felt, Banvard, Mount in Young.

[286] Bradford, p. 108. About twenty-five hundred dollars.

[287] Ibid.

[288] Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 197. Bradford.

[289] Dr. Young has reprinted it in his Chronicles, p. 262, et seq.

[290] Cushman, cited in Felt, vol. 1, p. 67.

[291] Winslow’s Good News, London, 1624.

[292] “Captain Smith describes the Virginia settlers as made up of forty-eight needy ‘gentlemen’ to four carpenters, who were come to do nothing else ‘but dig gold, make gold, refine gold, and load gold.’” Elliot, vol. 1, p. 79, note.

[293] Cited in Elliot, vol. 1, pp. 79, 80.

[294] Winslow, in Young’s Chronicles.

[295] Wilson, p. 389. Felt, vol. 1, p. 67.

[296] Smith, New England’s Trials. Prince, vol. 1, p. 115.

[297] Bradford, Young.

[298] Bradford, Mount in Young, Russell.

[299] Ibid. Prince, vol. 1.

[300] Bradford, p. 106.

[301] Bradford, p. 110.

[302] White’s Incidents, etc.

[303] White’s Incidents, etc.

[304] Palfrey, vol. 1, pp. 187-189.

[305] Chap. 7, p. 106.

[306] Winslow in Brief Narration, in Hypocrisie Unmasked, p. 393. Also, Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 189, note.

[307] Bradford, p. 106.

[308] Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 189.

[309] Bradford, p. 112.

[310] Allen’s Biog. Dict. Thatcher’s Plymouth, p. 77.

[311] Chap. 7, p. 108.

[312] Morton’s Memorial, Prince’s Annals, Hall’s Plymouth Records.

[313] Ibid.

[314] Ibid. Elliot, vol. 1, p. 109.

[315] Hall, Prince, Thatcher.

[316] Elliott, vol. 1, p. 110.

[317] Graham, vol. 1. Massachusetts Historical Records. Hazard, vol. 1.

[318] Ibid.

[319] Thatcher’s Plymouth.

[320] Graham, vol. 1, p. 230.

[321] Elliot, vol. 1, pp. 112, 113.

[322] Plymouth Records. Hazard, vol. 1.

[323] Plymouth Records. Hazard, vol. 1. Elliot.

[324] Elliot.

[325] Thatcher’s Plymouth, Morton’s Memorials, etc.

[326] Book of Laws of New Plymouth, 1671.

[327] Laws of New Plymouth, cited in Elliot, vol. 1, p. 111.

[328] Prince, Annals, vol. 1, pp. 76, 98, 103, 105. Bradford, p. 101.

[329] Ibid.

[330] Ruth, chap. 4.

[331] Bradford, p. 101.

[332] Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 196.

[333] This seal was dated 1620, and circumscribed with the words, “Sigillum Societatis Plymouth, Nov. Anglia.”

[334] Winslow’s Good News from New England.

[335] Ibid.

[336] Winslow’s Good News from New England. Banvard, p. 70.

[337] Winslow in Young.

[338] Ibid. Banvard.

[339] Winslow in Young, Banvard, Bradford.

[340] Winslow in Young, Banvard.

[341] Ibid., Bradford.

[342] Bradford, pp. 111, 112.

[343] Banvard, p. 72.

[344] Longfellow’s Miles Standish’s Courtship, pp. 9-12.

[345] Winslow in Young, Bradford.

[346] Ibid.

[347] Bradford, p. 113.

[348] Ibid. Winslow.

[349] Ibid. Young’s Chronicles. Thatcher’s Plymouth.

[350] Ibid.

[351] Prince.

[352] Bradford, p. 113.

[353] Banvard, pp. 76, 77.

[354] Banvard, pp. 76, 77.

[355] Winslow in Young. Banvard.

[356] Bradford, p. 114.

[357] Ibid., p. 124.

[358] Ibid., 114.

[359] Bradford, p. 114.

[360] Cited in Bradford, pp. 115, 116.

[361] Bradford, p. 116. By the third article of the agreement, this was permitted to be done by general consent. See Bradford, p. 46.

[362] Chap. 10, p. 137.

[363] Psalm 118:8.

[364] Ibid. 146:3.

[365] Ibid. verse 5.

[366] Bradford, pp. 116, 117.

[367] Smith’s General History, folio ed., p. 236. Winslow in Young, p. 296.

[368] Cited _in extenso_ in Bradford, pp. 118, 119.

[369] Ibid., pp. 119, 120.

[370] Ibid., 122, 123.

[371] Cited _in extenso_ in Bradford ut antea.

[372] The vessels were gone most of the summer.

[373] Bradford, pp. 123, 124.

[374] This massacre occurred on the 22d of March, 1622. Smith says that three hundred and fifty settlers were slain. General Hist., pp. 144-149.

[375] Bradford.

[376] Bradford, p. 125.

[377] Ibid. Winslow in Young.

[378] Thatcher’s Plymouth, Prince’s Annals, Banvard.

[379] Banvard, p. 82.

[380] Banvard, p. 82.

[381] Pope.

[382] Bradford.

[383] Weston in Young, Thatcher, Prince.

[384] Bradford.

[385] Cotton Mather, Magnalia, vol. 1, p. 58.

[386] Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 200. Prince, Thatcher.

[387] Banvard.

[388] Ibid.

[389] Thatcher, Winslow in Young.

[390] Ibid.

[391] Banvard.

[392] Banvard, Bradford.

[393] Thatcher, Winslow in Young.

[394] Bradford.

[395] Ibid.

[396] Cited in Russell’s Guide to Plymouth, p. 143.

[397] Winslow in Young. Thatcher, Bradford.

[398] Prince, Hubbard, Banvard.

[399] Cotton Mather, Magnalia, vol. 1, p. 66.

[400] Winslow in Young. Bradford, p. 131.

[401] Ibid.

[402] Ibid. Banvard, p. 95.

[403] Banvard, Winslow’s Good News, etc.

[404] “Mr. Baylies, in his Memoirs of Plymouth, assumes that this was the great Hampden, vol. 1, p. 410. I find no facts sufficient to sustain that opinion.” Elliot, vol. 1, p. 93, note.

[405] Elliot, Banvard, Winslow.

[406] Winslow’s Good News.

[407] Ibid.

[408] Winslow’s Good News.

[409] Banvard, pp. 95, 96.

[410] Winslow’s Good News.

[411] Ibid.

[412] Winslow’s Good News.

[413] Ibid.

[414] Banvard, pp. 101, 102.

[415] Ibid.

[416] Banvard, p. 102.

[417] Winslow’s Good News.

[418] Bradford, p. 131.

[419] Bradford, pp. 130, 131.

[420] Winslow’s Good News.

[421] Banvard.

[422] Banvard, p. 116.

[423] Ibid.

[424] Ibid.

[425] Shakspeare.

[426] Winslow, cited in Banvard, p. 120.

[427] Winslow, Elliot, Palfrey.

[428] Ibid.

[429] Winslow, Bradford, Thatcher.

[430] Winslow, Bradford, Thatcher.

[431] Morton, Young’s Chronicles.

[432] Bancroft, Hist. United States, vol. 1, p. 319.

[433] Fountain’s Rewards of Virtue.

[434] Bradford, p. 133.

[435] Winslow in Young. Banvard.

[436] Bradford, pp. 133, 134.

[437] In the latter part of 1623, Weston went to Virginia; thence he returned to England, where he disappears from history. Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 207.

[438] Judge Davis, note on Morton’s Memorial.

[439] Winslow in Young, p. 346. Palfrey, Thatcher, etc.

[440] Winslow in Young, p. 346. Palfrey, Thatcher, Banvard, etc.

[441] Bradford, pp. 135, 136.

[442] Ibid., p. 136.

[443] Bradford, p. 136.

[444] White’s Incidents, p. 41.

[445] Winslow in Young.

[446] White’s Incidents, p. 42.

[447] Banvard, Thatcher, Morton’s Memorial.

[448] Chap. 10, p. 137.

[449] Bancroft, vol. 1, p. 320. Bradford, p. 138.

[450] Morton’s Memorial, pp. 95-97. Palfrey, vol. 1, pp. 210, 211.

[451] “Pierce sold his patent for five hundred pounds; he gave fifty for it.” Banvard, p. 133. See Palfrey, ut antea, on this point.

[452] Cotton Mather’s Magnalia, vol. 1, p. 60.

[453] Cited in extenso in Bradford, pp. 139, 140.

[454] Bradford, p. 141. Winslow in Young.

[455] Banvard, p. 134.

[456] Morton’s Memorial, Thatcher, Palfrey.

[457] Bradford, p. 146.

[458] Palfrey, vol. 1, pp. 211, 212.

[459] Mather’s Magnalia, vol. 1, p. 60.

[460] Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 212, note.

[461] Bradford, p. 145.

[462] Ibid., pp. 145, 146.

[463] Prince, Morton’s Memorial, Bradford, Thatcher’s Plymouth.

[464] Bradford, p. 147.

[465] Ibid.

[466] Bradford, p. 148.

[467] Felt, Hist. New England, Prince, Bradford.

[468] Felt, Bradford, Morton’s Memorial, etc.

[469] Felt, vol. 1, p. 77.

[470] Bradford, p. 149.

[471] Ibid. Morton’s Memorial.

[472] Ibid.

[473] Felt.

[474] Ibid. Bradford, Morton’s Memorial.

[475] Felt, vol. 1, p. 78.

[476] Cited in Felt, ut antea.

[477] “There were also this year some scattering beginnings made in other places, as at Piscataway, by Mr. David Thompson, who was sent over by Mason and Gorges, at Monhegin, and some other places by sundry others.” Bradford, p. 154.

[478] Prince, Bradford, Pilgrims’ Journal.

[479] Bradford, pp. 156, 157.

[480] Seneca’s Epis. 123.

[481] Phillips’ Letters and Speeches, p. 372.

[482] Prince, Bradford.

[483] Morton’s Memorial.

[484] Thatcher’s Plymouth, p. 111.

[485] Morton’s Memorial, p. 103.

[486] Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 215.

[487] Bradford, pp. 159, 160, 167.

[488] Palfrey, vol. 1, pp. 216-219.

[489] Psalm 10:10.

[490] Jeremiah 41:6.

[491] Bradford, p. 171.

[492] Ibid.

[493] Ibid., p. 172.

[494] Bradford, p. 172. Morton’s Memorial, p. 112.

[495] Ibid.

[496] Bradford, p. 173.

[497] Bradford, p. 173.

[498] Bradford, p. 175.

[499] Ibid.

[500] He had a wife and four children. Bradford, p. 175, editor’s note.

[501] Ibid, pp. 175, 176.

[502] Ibid.

[503] Bradford, pp. 175, 176.

[504] Ibid., p. 182.

[505] Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 221, note. Morton’s Memorial, p. 117, note.

[506] Ibid.

[507] Bradford.

[508] Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 221.

[509] Winslow, quoted in Palfrey, ut antea.

[510] Thatcher, Prince, Palfrey, Bradford.

[511] Bradford, p. 190.

[512] Ibid., p. 192. Morton’s Memorial, p. 120.

[513] Ibid.

[514] Bradford, p. 192. Morton’s Memorial, p. 120.

[515] Ibid.

[516] Cheever’s Journal, p. 327. Morton’s Memorial.

[517] Bradford, p. 189.

[518] Ibid., p. 188.

[519] Elliot, vol. 1, pp. 119, 120.

[520] Ibid., p. 116. Prince’s Chronology. Thatcher’s Plymouth.

[521] A Brief Review of the Rise and Progress of New England. London, 1774.

[522] Elliot, vol. 1, p. 135.

[523] Morton, Prince, Hazard, Bradford, Thatcher, Banvard.

[524] Bradford, pp. 202, 203.

[525] Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 224.

[526] Hazard, Bradford, Palfrey.

[527] Ibid.

[528] Bradford, p. 207.

[529] Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 225.

[530] Banvard, p. 151.

[531] Elliot’s Biog. Dict.

[532] Young’s Chronicles, p. 481.

[533] “It is not certain where he lies buried; George Sumner thinks in St. Peter’s church, Leyden.” Elliot, Hist. New Eng., vol. 1, p. 125, note.

[534] Stoughton, Heroes of Puritan Times, p. 102.

[535] Bancroft, vol. 1, p. 321.

[536] Smith’s General History, p. 247.

[537] Palfrey, vol. 1, pp. 221, 222.

[538] Bradford, p. 204.

[539] Pliny, lib. 18, chap. 2.

[540] Bradford, p. 168.

[541] Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 225.

[542] Ibid.

[543] Bradford, Morton’s Memorial.

[544] Felt, Hist. New England, vol. 1, p. 91.

[545] These were Bradford, Brewster, Standish, Allerton, Fuller, Jeremy, Alden, Howland. Prince, Bradford, Hazard, etc.

[546] Bradford, pp. 212, 213. Palfrey.

[547] Ibid., p. 214.

[548] Bradford, p. 214.

[549] Ibid., p. 214. Morton’s Memorial.

[550] Ibid.

[551] Ibid.

[552] Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 229.

[553] Elliot, vol. 1, p. 85.

[554] Bradford, p. 226.

[555] The names of the formers of the trade were: Bradford, Brewster, Standish, Prince, Alden, Howland, and Allerton. Prince had come out in the “Fortune,” all the rest in the “Mayflower.” Palfrey.

[556] Hazard, Prince, Cheever’s Journal, Thatcher.

[557] These were James Shirley—who became their English agent—John Beauchamp, Richard Andrews, and T. Hathaway—“the glue of the old company.” Mass. Hist. Coll., vol. 3, p. 34.

[558] Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 230.

[559] Thatcher, Prince, Morton’s Memorial.

[560] Cheever’s Journal. Bradford, p. 243.

[561] Mather’s Magnalia, vol. 1, p. 62.

[562] Cited in Mather’s Magnalia, vol. 1, pp. 62, 63.

[563] Bancroft, vol. 1, p. 321.

[564] Felt’s Hist. of New England, vol. 1, p. 95.

[565] “The Dutch had trading in those southern parts divers years before the English came, but they began no plantation until after the Pilgrims came and were here seated.” Morton’s Memorial, p. 133, note.

[566] Davis’ New Amsterdam, Booth’s History of New York City, Bradford.

[567] Bradford, p. 222, et seq.

[568] In Roger Williams’ Key, wampum is considered as Indian money, and is described in the twenty-fourth chapter of that interesting tract. Their _white_ money they called _wampum_, which signifies _white_; their _black_, _suckawhack_, sucki signifying _black_. Hist. Col., vol. 3, p. 231.

[569] Mr. Gookin says: “Wampum is made chiefly by the Narragansett Block Island Indians. Upon the sandy flats and shores of those coasts the wilk shell are found.” Hist. Col., vol. 1, p. 152.

[570] Bradford, p. 234.

[571] Mr. Brodhead, who obtained this valuable letter, only summarized in the text, from the archives at the Hague, gives it in full in the New York Hist. Col., sec. series, vol. 2, p. 343, et seq.

[572] Prince, vol. 1, p. 160. Deane’s Scituate, p. 332. “Mrs. Robinson, widow of Rev. John Robinson, came over with the latter company, with her son Isaac, and perhaps with another son.” Editorial note in Bradford, p. 247. “There was an Abraham Robinson early at Gloucester, who is surmised to have been a son of the Leyden minister.” Ibid. It has been thought that Mrs. Robinson did not remain in Plymouth, but went to Salem, “where was a Mrs. Robinson very early.” MS. Letters of J. J. Babson, Esq., of Gloucester, Mass.

[573] Bradford, pp. 247, 248.

[574] Bradford, pp. 247, 248.

[575] Ibid., p. 249.

[576] Bradford’s Letter-Book, in Mass. Hist. Col., vol. 3, pp. 69, 70.

[577] Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 233.

[578] Bradford, p. 236.

[579] Morton’s Memorial, pp. 137, 138.

[580] Bradford, Morton’s Memorial, etc.

[581] Vide Harris’ Life of Charles I., p. 278.

[582] Bradford’s Letter-book.

[583] “’Tis not known when Conant came over. Nothing appears in any of the Plymouth documents to confirm Hubbard’s statement, that Conant was one of Lyford’s party at Plymouth. Though historians have adopted that _ipse dixit_, it rests on his word alone. But since Hubbard and Conant were afterwards neighbors and friends, he is likely to have been well informed.” Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 255, note.

[584] Elliot. Hubbard’s Hist. of New England, chap. 18.

[585] Hubbard, chap. 9. Palfrey, Elliot.

[586] Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 286.

[587] Elliott, vol. 1, p. 139.

[588] Hubbard, chap. 17.

[589] Conant’s petition of May 28, 1671, in Mass. Hist. Archives.

[590] Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 287.

[591] Planters’ Plea, chap. 9.

[592] Cited in Bradford, p. 251.

[593] Elliot, vol. 1, pp. 139, 140.

[594] Planters’ Plea, chap. 9. Johnson’s Wonder-working Providence. Belknap’s Biography, p. 249. Hubbard’s Hist.

[595] Ibid.

[596] Mather’s Magnalia, vol. 1, pp. 67, 68.

[597] Charlestown Records, Palfrey, Elliot, Everett’s Address.

[598] Wilson’s Pilgrim Fathers, p. 483.

[599] Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 290.

[600] Colony Records. Cradock’s Letter in Young’s Chronicles.

[601] Prince; Hazard. Hubbard’s Hist. Memoir of J. Endicott, Salem, 1847.

[602] Bancroft, vol. 1, p. 342.

[603] This is filed in the State-House in Boston, and is printed in Colony Laws, in Hutchinson’s Call, and in Hazard. Bancroft.

[604] Palfrey, Wilson.

[605] Bancroft, vol. 1, pp. 342, 343.

[606] Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 291.

[607] Young’s Chronicles, Prince, Mass. Hist. Coll.

[608] Bacon’s Works, vol. 2.

[609] Bancroft, vol. 1, p. 346.

[610] Prince’s Chronicles, p. 247.

[611] Ibid.

[612] Cited in Elliot, vol. 1, p. 142. “In a subsequent letter this is reiterated thus: ‘We especially desire you to take care that no tobacco be planted under your government, unless it be some small quantity for mere necessity, for physic, or the preservation of health; and that the same be taken privately by old men, and no other.’” Ibid.

[613] Young’s Chronicles, p. 141. Hazard, vol. 1.

[614] Bancroft.

[615] Ibid., vol. 1, p. 345.

[616] History of the English Puritans, American Tract Society, N. Y., 1867.

[617] Hist. of the English Puritans, ut antea.

[618] Hume, Hist. of Eng., vol. 2, p. 253.

[619] Perry, Eccl. Hist., vol. 1.

[620] Mass. Col. Rec., vol. 1. Palfrey.

[621] Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 293.

[622] Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 293. Mather’s Magnalia.

[623] Higginson’s New England Plantation. Palfrey.

[624] Bradford, p. 263. Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 294.

[625] Mather’s Magnalia.

[626] Ibid., vol. 1, p. 68. Palfrey, vol. 1, pp. 294, 295.

[627] Hutchinson’s Coll., 24, 25. Hubbard, Bancroft.

[628] Mather’s Magnalia, ut antea. “_Ungrateful country of my birth, thou shall not possess even my lifeless bones._”

[629] Mather’s Magnalia, vol. 1, p. 74. Uhden, pp. 63, 64.

[630] Elliot, vol. 1, p. 150.

[631] They landed on the 24th of June, 1629. Uhden, Hutchinson.

[632] Higginson’s New England Plantation, pp. 123, 124.

[633] Bradford, pp. 263, 264.

[634] Bradford, pp. 263, 264.

[635] In allusion to the wide-spread charge of Brownism, and bigoted exclusion of all other sects from Christian fellowship.

[636] Bradford, pp. 264, 265.

[637] Bradford, p. 245.

[638] Higginson’s New England Plantation. Gott’s letter to Bradford; cited in Bradford, pp. 265, 266.

[639] Palfrey.

[640] Ibid., Bradford, Gott, etc.

[641] Gott’s Letter to Bradford.

[642] Morton’s Memorial, p. 146. Hubbard, Prince.

[643] See the Covenant in Neale’s History of New England, vol. 1, pp. 141-143. The subordinate church officers were not chosen till later. See Bradford’s Letter-book.

[644] Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 298.

[645] Uhden’s New England Theocracy.

[646] Bancroft, vol. 1, p. 348.

[647] Mather’s Magnalia.

[648] Ibid., vol. 1, p. 72.

[649] Ibid., Morton, Prince, Young, Cheever.

[650] Young’s Chronicles, p. 288.

[651] Mass. Col. Rec., vol. 1, p. 408.

[652] Mass. Col. Rec., vol. 1, p. 408.

[653] Bancroft, vol. 1, p. 350.

[654] See the _ipsissima verba_ of the charter, Mass. Hist. Col.

[655] Hutchinson’s Hist. of Mass., vol. 1, p. 13. Bancroft, Grahame.

[656] Ibid.

[657] Ibid. Young’s Chronicles, p. 88.

[658] Hutchinson, Winthrop, Palfrey, Bancroft.

[659] Ibid.

[660] Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 302.

[661] Cited in Hutchinson, in Winthrop, vol. 1, pp. 359, 360, and in Bancroft.

[662] Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 310.

[663] Ibid.

[664] Magnalia, vol. 1, p. 107.

[665] See Winthrop’s Life, by R. C. Winthrop, Boston, 1866. Mather’s Account, Hutchinson’s Sketch, Palfrey, etc., etc.

[666] Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 303.

[667] Ibid. Elliot, Wilson.

[668] Winthrop’s Hist. of New England, vol. 1, p. 332.

[669] Mass. Hist. Col. Palfrey, Prince, Mather.

[670] Ibid.

[671] Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 303.

[672] Ibid.

[673] Hume, Hist. Eng. Mather, Prince.

[674] Archæologia Americana, vol. 3, 47, et seq. From this work most of the above facts have been cited.

[675] Formerly the “Eagle;” she was a naval vessel, and carried twenty-eight guns. She had been recently bought by the Company. Palfrey.

[676] Winthrop’s Hist. of New England.

[677] Elliot, vol. 2, pp. 16, 17.

[678] The most common orthography is _Arabella_, but later writers almost unanimously reject this spelling, which is founded on the often erring authority of Mather in the Magnalia, and of Josselyn, and accept that of John Winthrop in his Diary, of Johnson in the “Wonder-working Providence,” and of Dudley’s Epistles. All of these men were personally intimate with Mrs. Johnson, and they must have known her name. See Winthrop, p. 1, note.

[679] Mather, Winthrop, Palfrey, Elliot, Hutchinson, etc., etc.

[680] Hist. of the Result of the American Colonies, vol. 1, p. 58.

[681] Winthrop’s Diary.

[682] This address is said to have been drawn by Mr. White. Palfrey.

[683] Elliot.

[684] Elliot.

[685] Winthrop’s Diary, p. 31.

[686] Ibid.

[687] Ibid., Palfrey, Bancroft.

[688] Winthrop’s Journal, p. 32.

[689] Dudley’s letter to the countess of Lincoln, cited in Hutchinson.

[690] Hubbard, Mass. Col. Rec., Archæol. Am.

[691] Ibid.

[692] Bancroft, vol. 1, p. 350.

[693] Hubbard, p. 133.

[694] Ibid. Prince, Winthrop.

[695] Ibid.

[696] Magnalia, vol. 1, p. 77.

[697] Winthrop, vol. 1, p. 34.

[698] Palfrey, Bancroft, Archæol. Am.

[699] Ibid. Mass. Hist. Col.

[700] Dudley’s Letter to the Countess of Lincoln. Prince’s Chronology.

[701] Winthrop’s Hist. of New England. Hutchinson.

[702] Ibid.

[703] Shawmut, or the Settlement of Boston, p. 2.

[704] Drake’s Hist. of Boston.

[705] Ibid. Elliot.

[706] Drake’s Hist. of Boston. Elliot.

[707] “Blackstone retained nothing in America of his ministerial character but his canonical coat. He devoted himself to the cultivation of the six or seven acres of land which he retained in his possession, and planted, it is said, the first orchard of apple-trees in New England. He left Boston because he was annoyed by its strict sectarian laws. Banishing himself again to the wilderness, he settled in a place now called Cumberland, on the banks of the Pawtucket river. Here he built a house in the midst of a park, planted an orchard near it, and divided his time between study and labor. He called his retreat “Study Hill,” and resided there until his death in May, 1675.

“He was a man of a kind and benevolent heart; and when he went to Providence to preach, as he did occasionally, notwithstanding his disagreement in opinion with Roger Williams, he would carry with him some beautiful apples as a present to the children, who had never seen such fruit before. Indeed, the kind called Yellow Sweetings were first produced in his orchard; and the older inhabitants, who had seen apples in England, had never before seen that sort.” Shawmut, or the Settlement of Boston, p. 27.

[708] Elliot, vol. 1, p. 152.

[709] Bancroft, p. 359. Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 313.

[710] Hutchinson, Prince, Hubbard.

[711] Ibid. Charlestown Records.

[712] Mass. Col. Rec., Bancroft.

[713] Bancroft, Story, Palfrey. See the Charter, in Massachusetts Hist. Col.

[714] Winthrop, Hutchinson, Hubbard.

[715] See chap. 19, pp. 245 et seq.

[716] Bradford, Winthrop, Hubbard.

[717] On the 19th of Oct.

[718] Winthrop, Hutchinson.

[719] See the charter.

[720] Bancroft, vol. 1, p. 359.

[721] Ibid.

[722] Ibid., p. 360.

[723] Bancroft, vol. 1, p. 360.

[724] Bancroft, vol. 1, pp. 360, 361.

[725] Uhden’s New Eng. Theocracy, p. 68. Dexter’s Congregationalism.

[726] Ibid., p. 71.

[727] Ibid., Bancroft.

[728] Ibid. Vide Cambridge Platform.

[729] Vide the Cambridge Platform, 1648. “This Confession of Faith belongs, indeed, to a later period, but it expresses throughout the principles of the early colonists unchanged.” Uhden, p. 68.

[730] Wilson’s Pilgrim Fathers, pp. 487, 488.

[731] Winthrop’s Journal.

[732] Elliott, vol. 1, pp. 155, 156.

[733] Longfellow’s Courtship of Miles Standish. See, also, Banvard and Thatcher.

[734] Elliot, vol. 1, p. 154. Winthrop, Bradford, Prince.

[735] Ibid., p. 68. Banvard, Thatcher, Morton.

[736] Elliott, vol. 1, p. 68. Banvard, Thatcher, Morton. This was in 1630.

[737] Winthrop’s Journal.

[738] Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 329.

[739] Ibid.

[740] Bradford, p. 294.

[741] Winthrop’s Journal.

[742] Bradford, p. 295.

[743] Ibid.

[744] Winthrop’s Journal.

[745] Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 330.

[746] Elliot, vol. 1, p. 155.

[747] Magnalia, vol. 1, p. 103.

[748] Ibid., p. 97.

[749] Orations, N. Y., 1855.

[750] Winthrop’s Hist., vol. 1, p. 97.

[751] Ibid., p. 76.

[752] Eliot spent the first years of his transatlantic life as a preacher at Roxbury. Here he was engaged with Weld and Richard Mather in compiling the first book published in New England—“The Psalms in Metre”—which appeared in 1640. In 1645, he became deeply interested in the work of evangelizing the Indians, “those ruins of mankind.” Into this labor he threw his whole heart; and he never relinquished it until God called him home; for he believed with the psalmist, that Jehovah was perpetually saying, “Ask of me, and I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance.”

Going into the wilderness, he preached his first Indian sermon in October, 1646, in a wigwam at Nonantum, near Watertown. He had already familiarized himself with the aboriginal languages; and since the New England tribes—loosely estimated at a united membership of forty thousand—were a part of the Algonquin race, whose tongues were similar, this acquisition was not as difficult as it might seem. Eliot had the happiness to witness several conversions as the result of his first essay; and from that moment he worked on with a resolution and self-abnegation above all earthly praise. The “Apostle,” as he soon came to be called, at once commenced several translations. Two catechisms were done into the Indian dialects. A primer, the Psalms, and Baxter’s Call, followed; and finally, an Indian Bible, a marvellous monument of patience, industry, and faith, appeared in 1663. Of course, this work necessitated money. Eliot appealed for aid. The English Parliament granted, in 1649, a special sum for the promotion of the gospel among the aborigines. Large collections were made throughout England for the same purpose; and even infant Boston contributed twenty-five hundred dollars in its poverty. The zeal of Eliot and the funds of the godly were not in vain expended. A number of Indians were hopefully converted, and these were colonized into separate towns. The chief seat of the “praying Indians” was Natick, settled by them in 1651. There Eliot erected his headquarters; and he gave his converts “the same advice as to government that Jethro gave to Moses; so they assembled, and chose their rulers of hundreds, fifties, and tens, and proclaimed, ‘that God should rule over them.’” Their houses were Indian cabins, built of bark, except the meeting-house, which was fashioned after the churches of the pale-faces. In this latter building Eliot had a bed and a room. Natick then contained one hundred and fifty-two persons. Eliot saw that civilization was necessary for his dusky _protégés_, both as a bond of union and as a fulcrum for his gospel lever. He knew also that responsibility educates. So he was careful to induct into offices of honor and responsibility those of his converts who seemed the most trusty, energetic, and intelligent. Such commissions were highly esteemed by the Indians, and sometimes they performed their official duty with amusing formality. On one occasion, a native magistrate named Hihoudi, issued the following warrant, directed to an Indian constable: “I, Hihoudi, you, Peter Waterman. Jeremy Wisket,—quick you take him, fast you hold him, straight you bring him before me. Hihoudi!”

Natick was a nucleus settlement. Soon a number of supplementary colonies were grouped about it, and these embraced, some sixty, some seventy, some eighty, “praying Indians,” all provided with churches, schools, and the rude initial apparatus of civilization. In 1674, there were eleven hundred Christian Indians who were possessed of fixed homes within the jurisdiction of Massachusetts. And Eliot enumerated twenty-five hundred more to Boyle, as settled in Plymouth, Nantucket, and Martha’s Vineyard. The usual exercises were praying, reading the Bible, and preaching—sometimes by a white teacher, sometimes by a native missionary. Then all united in singing; and we are told that “sundry could manage to do so very well.” After this, some were catechized. Then, says Eliot, “if there was any act of public discipline—as divers times there was, since ignorance and partial barbarism made many stumblers—the offender was called forth, exhorted to give glory to God, and urged to confess his sins.” King Philip’s war partially paralyzed these efforts of Eliot and his compeers; it robbed them of the sympathy of the whites, and roughened their path; but they persevered; and even after Eliot’s decease, in 1690, God put it into the hearts of some to carry on his work, and efforts continued to be made towards the evangelization of the natives as far down as the year 1754. At that time the Rev. Mr. Hawley was “set apart” for that special work, in the “Old South Church,” in Boston, and Deacon Woodbridge and Jonathan Edwards were enlisted in the same good cause. Roger Williams had been an active co-worker with Eliot, and a little later the Mayhews gleaned their rich harvest at Martha’s Vineyard. Indeed, the Mayhews were so successful that on the single little island where they labored, six meetings were held in as many different places every Sabbath, and there were ten native preachers, who, according to the testimony of Thomas Mayhew, were of “good knowledge and holy conversation.”

But the missionaries did not find it plain sailing. Besides the incessant jealousy between the whites and the aborigines, they had to encounter the natural repugnance of the Indian to desert the blind faith of his fathers and accept the God and Saviour of the white men. Massasoit, spite of his friendship for the whites, lived and died a strict unbeliever. Philip, his son, was equally obstinate, saying on one occasion, after listening to an exhortation from Eliot, and placing his hand on a button on the Apostle’s coat: “I care no more for the gospel than I care for that button.” The Narragansetts went so far as to prohibit preaching within their borders. Yet still the missionaries went on, and, with God’s blessing, they harvested many souls, long before good Bishop Berkeley launched his noble but abortive scheme for the conversion of the red men. Those readers who are desirous of studying this subject in detail, are referred to Sparks’ Life of Eliot; Mayhew’s Indian experiences; Mansell’s recent reprint at Albany of tracts concerning Eliot’s Indian missions; R. Williams’ Key; Hubbard’s Hist.; Mather’s Magnalia; Gookin, in Mass. Hist. Col., etc., etc.

[753] Ibid., p. 49. He came February 11, 1630.

[754] Wood’s New England Prospect, p. 4.

[755] J. Macpherson’s America Dissected, 1752.

[756] Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 323. These were Salem, Charlestown, Watertown, Boston, Roxbury, Dorchester, Mystic, and Saugus.

[757] Bradford, p. 311.

[758] Elliot, vol. 1, p. 1.

[759] Prince, Bancroft, Hutchinson.

[760] Bancroft, vol. 1, chap. 2. passim.

[761] Brodhead’s Hist. of New York. Dunlap.

[762] Chalmers, Hening.

[763] Thatcher’s Plymouth.

[764] Bradford, pp. 255-310.

[765] Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 336.

[766] Bradford, p. 301.

[767] Chap. 21, p. 264.

[768] Bradford, p. 263.

[769] Elliot, vol. 1, p. 119. Young’s Chronicles, Morton’s Memorials, etc.

[770] Bradford, p. 263. Morton.

[771] The old form of expression for _exhort_ or _expound_.

[772] Now called “North river,” near Scituate. Massachusetts Hist. Col. 4.

[773] Winthrop, vol. 1, pp. 108-111.

[774] Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 337. Hubbard, Prince.

[775] Bradford, p. 294.

[776] Ibid., p. 311. Winthrop, Hubbard, Thatcher.

[777] Brodhead’s N. Y.; the Dutch claim to have discovered it. Brodhead.

[778] Bradford, ut antea.

[779] Trumbull’s Connecticut.

[780] Winthrop, vol. 1, p. 52.

[781] Bradford, p. 312.

[782] Ibid.

[783] Brodhead’s N. Y., Bradford, Hubbard.

[784] Ibid., Palfrey.

[785] Brodhead’s N. Y., Bradford, Hubbard, Palfrey.

[786] Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 340.

[787] Winthrop, vol. 1, pp. 105-113. Bradford, pp. 311-314. Brodhead, Hist. N. Y., vol. 1, pp. 235-242.

[788] “The insect here described,” remarks Judge Davis, “is the _Cicada Septendecim_ of Linnæus, commonly called the _locust_. They have frequently appeared since, indicated by Linnæus’ specific name.” Davis’ edition of the Mem., p. 171.

[789] Bradford, pp. 314, 315.

[790] Elliot, vol. 1, pp. 160, 161. Hist. Eng. Puritans, Am. Tract Soc., N. Y., 1866. Arch. Am. Mather’s Magnalia, vol. 1, p. 97. Rev. J. S. M. Anderson’s Hist. of the Col. Chh. of the B. Emp., vol. 1, p. 175, note. The fact of this embarkation of Cromwell and Hampden has been questioned by some careful writers. See Forster’s British Statesmen, in loco. Also, Sanford’s Ill. of the Fr. Rev., Lond., 1858.

[791] Hutchinson, vol. 1, p. 93.

[792] Bancroft, vol. 1, p. 362.

[793] Magnalia, vol. 1, p. 265.

[794] Bancroft, ut antea.

[795] Bancroft, vol. 1, p. 363.

[796] Magnalia, vol. 1, pp. 265, 266.

[797] Ibid, p. 277.

[798] Ibid., 276.

[799] Mather’s Magnalia, vol. 1, p. 343. Mr. Stone was his assistant.

[800] Bancroft, ut antea.

[801] Magnalia, vol. 1, p. 346.

[802] Ibid., p. 345.

[803] Ibid.

[804] Magnalia, vol. 1, p. 345.

[805] See the Charter.

[806] Chap. 21, pp. 260, 261; also chap. 27, p. 342.

[807] Winthrop’s Journal.

[808] Colony Records. Winthrop.

[809] Ibid.

[810] Winthrop, Hutchinson, Hubbard.

[811] Ibid., Elliot.

[812] Elliot, Bancroft.

[813] Bancroft, vol. 1, p. 365.

[814] Bossuét.

[815] Reply to Whitgift, cited by Stowell in his History of England. Puritans.

[816] “Bloody Tenet;” see Cotton’s Controversy with Roger Williams.

[817] Rev. Mr. Ward, in 1647.

[818] Cited in Elliot, vol. 1, p. 190.

[819] Knowles’ Life of Roger Williams.

[820] Knowles, ut antea. Colony Records, C. Mather, etc.

[821] Bancroft, vol. 1, pp. 367, 368.

[822] Elliot, vol. 1, p. 188. Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 406, et seq.

[823] Winthrop, vol. 1, p. 53.

[824] See Williams’ “Hireling Ministry.”

[825] Bradford, p. 310.

[826] Mather’s Magnalia, vol. 2, p. 495.

[827] Ibid.

[828] Winthrop, Hubbard, Mather’s Magnalia, Hutchinson.

[829] Winthrop’s Journal, pp. 63, 64.

[830] Knowles’ Life, Savage on Winthrop, Magnalia, etc.

[831] Bradford, p. 310.

[832] Ibid.

[833] Morton’s Memorial, p. 151. Bradford, p. 310.

[834] Prince, Elliot, Banvard.

[835] Cited in Elliot, vol. 1, p. 199. Banvard, p. 160.

[836] Ibid.

[837] Palfrey, Knowles. Winthrop, vol. 1, pp. 143, 144.

[838] Elliot, vol. 1, pp. 197, 198.

[839] Knowles’ Life of Williams, Mather’s Magnalia, Dwight’s Tracts, ante chaps. 21 and 26, pp. 260, 261.

[840] Bancroft, vol. 1, p. 368.

[841] Winthrop, vol. 1, pp. 145, 146. Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 409.

[842] See 1 Corinthians 11:5.

[843] Magnalia. Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 409.

[844] A writ requiring a person to show by what right he is doing a special thing.

[845] Elliot, vol. 1, p. 200. Bancroft, Hubbard.

[846] Ibid., Hutchinson, Knowles.

[847] Williams’ connection with this act is but distant and oblique, if he had any. See Knowles, Winthrop, Hubbard, Palfrey, etc.

[848] Elliot, vol. 1, p. 201.

[849] Williams’ “Bloody Tenet.”

[850] Ibid.

[851] Felt’s Hist. of New England, vol. 1, p. 175.

[852] Bancroft, vol. 1, pp. 372, 373.

[853] Winthrop, Hutchinson, Hubbard, Knowles, Elton’s Life.

[854] Bancroft, ut antea.

[855] Winthrop, Colonial Records, Knowles.

[856] Winthrop, Colony Records, Knowles.

[857] Bancroft, vol. 1, p. 377.

[858] Ibid., Hubbard, Hutchinson.

[859] Knowles, Elton’s Life, Hutchinson, etc.

[860] Roger Williams in Mass. Hist. Col., vol. 1, p. 276.

[861] Ibid.

[862] Elliot.

[863] Knowles, Elliot, Judge Durfee’s poem, “What Cheer?”

[864] Knowles, p. 270.

[865] Elliot.

[866] Knowles, p. 120. Elton, Hutchinson.

[867] Cited in Bancroft, vol. 1, p. 371.

[868] Magnalia, vol. 1, p. 497.

[869] Love will overcome all things.

[870] Winthrop, Hutchinson, Hubbard.

[871] Knowles, p. 295.

[872] Elton, p. 127. Hutchinson, Elliott.

[873] Ibid. Knowles, Hist. Col., vol. 2, p. 121.

[874] Ibid.

[875] Ibid.

[876] Rhode Island Colony Records.

[877] Morton’s Memorial, p. 154.

[878] See Hutchinson, vol. 1, p. 38.

[879] Elton’s Life of Williams, p. 54. Knowles, Winthrop.

[880] Gammel, p. 182.

[881] Bancroft, vol. 1, pp. 376, 377.

[882] Magnalia, vol. 1, p. 80.

[883] Ibid., p. 136.

[884] Bancroft, vol. 1, p. 383.

[885] Winthrop’s Journal.

[886] Ibid., Bancroft, Elliot, Palfrey, Hutchinson. They landed in October, 1635.

[887] See Encyclopedia Americana, Appleton’s Encyclopedia, English Encyclopedia.

[888] Mather’s Magnalia, Palfrey, etc.

[889] Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 436.

[890] Winthrop, p. 170.

[891] Ibid., p. 173, Palfrey, Trumbull’s Hist. Conn., Elliot.

[892] Trumbull, Mather’s Magnalia.

[893] Mather’s Magnalia, vol. 1, p. 158.

[894] Elliot, vol. 1, pp. 249, 250.

[895] Palfrey, Bancroft, Hubbard.

[896] Palfrey, Winthrop, Elliot, Bancroft.

[897] Mather’s Magnalia, vol. 1, p. 136.

[898] Elliot, Hubbard.

[899] Ibid.

[900] Winthrop, pp. 177-179.

[901] New England’s First Fruits, vol. 1. Quincy’s Boston, etc.

[902] Ibid., Hutchinson, Hubbard, Mather’s Magnalia.

[903] The nation’s safety. See Magnalia, vol. 2, p. 1.

[904] See Magnalia, vol. 2, p. 1.

[905] “Emollit mores, nec sinit esse feros.” HORACE.

[906] Winthrop, p. 132.

[907] Ibid., Palfrey, Bancroft, Trumbull.

[908] Memorial, pp. 239, 240.

[909] Trumbull, Winthrop, Hutchinson.

[910] Bancroft, vol. 1, p. 396.

[911] Trumbull, vol. 1. Mather’s Magnalia, vol. 1, p. 81.

[912] Bradford, Hubbard, Morton.

[913] Magnalia, ut antea.

[914] Bancroft, vol. 1, p. 396.

[915] Palfrey, Trumbull, Bancroft. Elliot, etc.

[916] Hubbard, Palfrey, Elliot, Mather.

[917] Trumbull, vol. 1. Hubbard, Hist. Col.

[918] Ibid.

[919] Magnalia, vol. 1, p. 88.

[920] Hubbard, p. 321. Hazard.

[921] “The settlers met in Mr. Newman’s barn,” etc. Elliot, vol. 1, p. 242.

[922] Magnalia, vol. 1, p. 83.

[923] Ibid.

[924] Bradford, Morton’s Memorial, Thatcher, Banvard.

[925] Ibid., Prince, Hazard.

[926] Increase Mather’s Early Hist. of New England, p. 121, et seq.

[927] Ibid.

[928] Elton’s Life of Roger Williams, p. 54.

[929] Elton’s life of Roger Williams, p. 54. Elliot, vol. 1, p. 210.

[930] Elliot.

[931] I. Mather’s Early Hist., etc. Palfrey, Bancroft, Elliot, Hutchinson.

[932] Ibid.

[933] White’s Incidents, p. 59. I. Mather, Palfrey, Hubbard, Winthrop.

[934] Ibid.

[935] Chap. 17, p. 215, et seq.

[936] Bradford, Morton’s Memorial, Hubbard, White.

[937] Winthrop, pp. 189, 190.

[938] Palfrey, White, Elliot, etc.

[939] Palfrey, vol. 1, pp. 458, 459.

[940] Palfrey, vol. 1, pp. 458, 459. I. Mather, Prince, Introduction to Mason’s Hist. of the Pequod War.

[941] Ibid.

[942] Gardiner’s Relations, etc., in Mass. Hist. Rep., 23.

[943] Ibid., p. 143. Trumbull’s Hist. Connecticut, vol. 1, p. 76.

[944] Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 462.

[945] I. Mather, Gardiner in Mass. Hist. Col., 23.

[946] Mass. Hist. Col. Col. Rec., vol. 1, p. 192.

[947] Ibid.

[948] Plym. Col. Rec., vol. 1, pp. 60-62.

[949] Palfrey, ut antea. Prince. Introduction to Mason’s Hist.

[950] Mason’s Brief Hist., etc. Hubbard.

[951] Trumbull, Mather.

[952] Palfrey, vol. 1.

[953] Ibid., Hubbard, Trumbull, Mather.

[954] Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 164.

[955] Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 465.

[956] Ibid., Mason, Underhill.

[957] Palfrey, ut antea.

[958] Mason’s Brief Account, etc.

[959] Ibid., Palfrey, Elliot, I. Mather, Winthrop, Hubbard, Hutchinson. Two of the English were killed, and upwards of forty—more than half of the force—were wounded.

[960] Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 467.

[961] Mason, Hubbard, Hazard, Trumbull.

[962] Ibid., Elliot.

[963] Trumbull, Mason, Winthrop, Hist. Coll.

[964] Elliot, vol. 1, p. 257. Trumbull.

[965] Ibid. Hutchinson, vol. 1, p. 80. Winthrop, vol. 1. Palfrey.

[966] Uhden’s New England Theocracy, p. 135.

[967] Winthrop, Hutchinson, Hubbard, Col. Records, etc.

[968] Bancroft, vol. 1, p. 389.

[969] Ibid., p. 386.

[970] Uhden, Winthrop, Hutchinson, Hubbard.

[971] Shepherd’s Lamentation, 2.

[972] Bancroft, vol. 1, p. 387.

[973] Bancroft, vol. 1, p. 387.

[974] There are few controversies where a woman is not at the bottom of them.

[975] See Bancroft, vol. 1, p. 388.

[976] Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 472, et seq.

[977] Winthrop, vol. 1, p. 200.

[978] Ibid., Hubbard.

[979] Palfrey, vol. 1, p. 473.

[980] Ibid. Magnalia, vol. 2, p. 516.

[981] Ibid., Elliot, Hutchinson, Uhden.

[982] Palfrey, Winthrop, Elliot, Hubbard, etc.

[983] Ibid., Col. Records.

[984] Magnalia, vol. 2, p. 509.

[985] Elliot, vol. 1, p. 263.

[986] Ibid.

[987] Ibid.

[988] Fuller’s Ch. Hist. of England, vol. 2, pp. 514, 515, et. seq.

[989] Ibid.

[990] Uhden, p. 98.

[991] Winthrop, vol. 1, p. 203. Hubbard, Palfrey, Hazard.

[992] Winthrop, vol. 1, p. 203. Hubbard, Palfrey, Hazard, Col. Records.

[993] Palfrey, vol. 1, pp. 475, 476. Winthrop.

[994] Ibid.

[995] Ibid., Bancroft, Elliot, Hutchinson.

[996] Ibid. Uhden, p. 96.

[997] Winthrop, Palfrey.

[998] Cited in Bancroft, vol. 1, p. 390.

[999] C. Mather’s Magnalia, vol. 2, p. 510. Palfrey, Hubbard.

[1000] Ibid., Hutchinson’s Coll., Neale’s Hist. of New England.

[1001] Elliot, vol. 1, p. 267.

[1002] Bancroft, vol. 1, p. 390.

[1003] C. Mather’s Magnalia, vol. 2, p. 512.

[1004] Winthrop in Hutchinson’s Coll.

[1005] Winthrop’s Journal.

[1006] Bancroft, vol. 1, p. 391.

[1007] Battles of the Churches.

[1008] Magnalia, vol. 2, p. 508.

[1009] Magnalia, vol. 2, p. 512.

[1010] Knowles’ Life of Williams, Elton. Mrs. Hutchinson, some years after her exile, suffered a melancholy fate, being tomahawked by the savages. See Bancroft, vol. 1, pp. 393, 394.

[1011] Johnson’s Wonder-working Providence, p. 96.

[1012] Banvard, p. 200.

[1013] Thatcher’s New Plymouth, Banvard.

[1014] Charter and Laws of New Plymouth.

[1015] Ibid., Banvard.

[1016] Ibid.

[1017] Ibid.

[1018] Ibid.

[1019] Ibid.

[1020] Ibid.

[1021] Ibid.

[1022] Banvard, p. 211.

[1023] Charter and Laws, etc.

[1024] Banvard, ut antea.

[1025] Elliot, vol. 1, pp. 183, 184.

[1026] Chap. 12, p. 151.

[1027] Winthrop, vol. 1.

[1028] “Quo quis in republicâ majorem dignitatis gradum adeptus est, eo Deum colat submissius.”

[1029] Τέχνη πυβερνητικὴ.

[1030] He died in 1657, in his sixty-ninth year.

[1031] Thatcher, Wilson, Mather, etc.

[1032] Plymouth Pilgrims, p. 227.

[1033] Magnalia, vol. 1, pp. 113, 114.

[1034] Letter to John Winthrop the Younger, cited in Magnalia, vol. 1, p. 161.

[1035] Elliot. Life of J. Winthrop, by R. C. Winthrop. Boston, 1866.

[1036] Williams’ Letter to Mason. Knowles, Elton.

[1037] Wilson, p. 494.

[1038] Hutchinson, vol. 1, p. 23.

[1039] Wilson.

[1040] Shawmut; or the Settlement of Boston, p. 86.

[1041] Hutchinson, vol. 1, p. 40.

[1042] See his Sonnet in Magnalia, vol. 1, p. 134.

[1043] Elliot, vol. 1, p. 170.

[1044] Bancroft, vol. 1, p. 383.

[1045] Bancroft, ut antea.

[1046] Hubbard, cited in Elliot, vol. 1, pp. 173, 174.

[1047] Cicero, Orati Pro. Plan.

[1048] Hutchinson, vol. 1, p. 91. Mass. Historical Coll., vol. 1, 23. Neale’s New England.

[1049] Johnson, Mather, Bancroft.

[1050] Mass. Hist. Coll., vol. 1, p. 246, et seq.

[1051] Ibid., Bancroft.

[1052] Winthrop, vol. 2, p. 119.

[1053] Felt, vol. 1, p. 481.

[1054] Winthrop, vol. 2, p. 25.

[1055] Bancroft, vol. 1, pp. 416, 417.

[1056] Bancroft, ubi sup.

[1057] Mather’s Magnalia, vol. 1, p. 160. Palfrey, Hubbard, etc.

[1058] Hutchinson, Winthrop, Felt.

[1059] Ibid. Palfrey, Elliot, Bancroft.

[1060] Hubbard, p. 466. Col. Rec., etc.

[1061] W. Phillips.

[1062] Records in Hazard, vol. 2. Winthrop, Hubbard, Morton.

[1063] Bancroft, ut antea.

[1064] Hubbard, Hazard, Hutchinson, Morton, Bradford.

[1065] Hist. Coll., Col. Records, Elliot.

[1066] The half century which succeeded this act of union was singularly checkered. In this time four momentous events occurred. The first of these, in point of time, was the persecution of the Quakers. The early advocates of this sect in New England displayed little of the mild philosophy and statesmanlike benevolence of Penn and his modern disciples; and, indeed, “the first and most noisy exponents of any popular sect are apt to be men of little consideration.” To this rule the first Quakers of Massachusetts were no exception. They knew the public opinion of the province; they knew the laws which were put into the statute-book to curb heresy; yet they broke through the restraints of sentiment, and contemned the laws—not mildly, but with harsh, violent, and often indecent obstinacy. Persecution, under any circumstances, is wrong, and the theocratic principles of the Massachusetts colonists were far from being either just or necessary. Yet granting all this, and it has still been well said that, “if the essential guilt of persecution would be aggravated when aimed against the quiet, patient philanthropist of to-day, it does not follow that it would be attended with like aggravation, however wicked else, when the subject was the mischievous madman of two centuries ago, who went raving through the city reviling authority, inveighing against the law and order of the time, running naked in the streets, and rudely interrupting divine service in the churches, as many called Quakers, of both sexes, did in 1656 and onwards. The duty of toleration stops short of the permission of such indecency; nor does it suffer men, for conscience’ sake, or to gain a name like Abraham, to sacrifice their sons, as one of these Friends was proceeding to do in 1658, when the neighbors, alarmed by the boy’s cries, broke into the house in time to balk the fanatic.” Still, it must be confessed that there was a better way than the magistrates of Massachusetts took, and one more efficient in curbing this fanaticism, than the pillory, mutilation statutes, and the death penalty; and this Roger Williams proved in Rhode Island, and the younger Winthrop demonstrated in Connecticut—in both of which colonies there was freedom of religious opinion, and yet there were few Quakers.

That furious Indian war, known as “King Philip’s war,” occurred in 1675. It originated in the same deep-rooted feeling of jealousy and hatred—begotten of dispossession and imagined wrong—that caused the Pequod war. Massasoit died about 1661. He was succeeded by his son Alexander, who was, on his death, succeeded by his brother Philip, the hero of the struggle. This sagacious chieftain saw that the whites were grasping; that his corn-lands and hunting-grounds were rapidly being usurped; that rum was poisoning his warriors; and he panted for revenge. So he gave his days and nights to the organization of a conspiracy. “He spared no arts; he lived but for one purpose, and that was to unite the Indians, split into numberless clans, into one body, for the destruction of the encroaching pale-faces.” Philip was largely successful, and the ensuing conflict was bitter, doubtful, and prolonged. But eventually civilization and discipline triumphed. The great sagamore was slain, and peace once more brooded over mutilated and wailing New England—peace insured by the definitive subjection of the Indian tribes.

In 1683, James II. abrogated the Massachusetts charter; three years later, Sir Edmund Andros arrived, armed with the king’s commission to take upon himself the absolute government of New England. Andros at once commenced to play the despot. He shackled the press; he imprisoned men for their religious opinions; he endeavored to get possession of the charter of Connecticut—which, however, was hidden in the “charter-oak” at Hartford, a circumstance which has made the tree immortal; he denied the colonists the most common civil rights, and asserted the highest doctrines of arbitrary taxation. The colonies were ripe for insurrection, when, in 1688, news came of the landing and coronation of William of Orange. Instantly Andros was deposed, and flung, broken and dishonored, out of New England. In 1691, King William granted Massachusetts a new charter; but in this he reserved the right of appointing a colonial governor, allowed appeals to be made to the English courts, freed all Protestant religions, and confirmed the annexation of Plymouth to Massachusetts—an annexation which Plymouth had decreed in 1690. This charter robbed the colonists of several prerogatives which had betokened independence, and was continued in substance until the dawn of the Revolution. The same policy was pursued throughout New England.

It was in the years 1691-2 that what has been called the “Salem witchcraft epidemic” occurred. In that age the belief in witches was general and strong. In 1644, ’5, and ’6, England hanged fifteen persons accused of witchcraft in one batch at Chelmsford, sixteen at Yarmouth, and sixty in Suffolk. In Sweden, in 1670, there was a panic about witches; and in one town, Mahra, seventy persons were charged with this offence, and spite of their protestations of innocence, most of them were executed. Fifteen children were hung on their own confession; and fifty others were condemned to be whipped every Sunday for a twelvemonth. Even so late as 1697, five years after the Salem troubles, seven persons were hung in Scotland as witches, and that too upon the unsupported testimony of a single child eleven years old.

New England, then, was not alone in her belief in witches, or in her punishment of them. She merely shared the opinion of such consummate scholars and noble thinkers as Sir Thomas Browne and Sir Matthew Hale. Many things combined to increase this belief. James I. had published a book on demonology. Books containing rules for binding witches were in wide circulation. The practice and the opinion of centuries substantiated these phantoms. And the recent excitement in Sweden and England was certain to cause a ripple in America. Men’s minds were thus prepared for an epidemic. As early as the year 1688, a case of supposed witchcraft occurred in Boston. An old half-witted Irish woman was charged with having bewitched the children of John Goodwin, and she was soon hanged. The witches then quit Boston, and in 1691-2 appeared at Salem. Children began to act oddly, getting “into holes, creeping under chairs, and uttering foolish speeches”—all of which were esteemed as tokens of bewitchment. Inquiries were at once and everywhere made for witches. The children accused at random. This woman was said to be a witch, and that man. Salem was aghast. Startled women passed from house to house, repeating and enlarging every idle tale. Soon the excitement was unprecedented. Fasting and prayer failed to exorcise the “spirits.” Then the witches were imprisoned, tried, condemned, executed. A reign of terror commenced. All lived in fear; accusation was equivalent to proof; there seemed no safety. Many, spurred by fear, acknowledged themselves to be witches when accused, thinking thus to save their lives; others hastened to complain that they were bewitched; and only those who avowed themselves to belong to one of these two classes could be sure of life. Still the panic spread. Andover was infected. New England at large began to shudder. The executioner was busy. And it was not until January, 1692, that the panic began to abate. Nineteen persons had been hung; one had been pressed to death; many had been condemned; hundreds had been imprisoned. So remorseless, so cruel is panic. But the excess cured itself; the reaction was great; men began to lament the part they had played; and some made open confession in church of their grievous fault and weakness. The infatuation grew perhaps from the tricks or the craziness of the “bewitched” children; perhaps from the folly or the superstition of their parents. Whatever its cause, its effects were sad, and they are pregnant with warning.

It is sometimes said that these doings sprang naturally from the theology and temper of New England. Rather, they were directly counter to both. They were a weak and foolish importation from Europe; and they prevailed in New England only for a short season. Soon her sons outgrew such folly; and nowhere in Christendom was the popular revolution against witchcraft so speedy and complete as in the Puritan colonies.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within the text and consultation of external sources.

Some accents and hyphens in words have been silently removed, some added, when a predominant preference was found in the original book.

Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the text, and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained.

Pg 7: ‘The Nansets’ replaced by ‘The Nausets’. Pg 106: ‘opprobious speeches’ replaced by ‘opprobrious speeches’. Pg 111: ‘to sow and hill’ replaced by ‘to sow and till’. Pg 117: ‘the earthern floor’ replaced by ‘the earthen floor’. Pg 124: ‘named Aspiret’ replaced by ‘named Aspinet’. Pg 124: ‘bade Aspiret a hasty’ replaced by ‘bade Aspinet a hasty’. Pg 125: ‘Squanto, Takamahamon’ replaced by ‘Squanto, Tokamahamon’. Pg 151: ‘passed in in 1632’ replaced by ‘passed in 1632’. Pg 174: ‘clams, and muscles’ replaced by ‘clams, and mussels’. Pg 191: ‘They had had been left’ replaced by ‘They had been left’. Pg 201: ‘sprang aleak’ replaced by ‘sprang a leak’. Pg 217: ‘malicious inuendoes’ replaced by ‘malicious innuendoes’. Pg 258: ‘seal of Soloomon’ replaced by ‘seal of Solomon’. Pg 312: ‘wise statemanship’ replaced by ‘wise statesmanship’. Pg 326: ‘both of Massachusets’ replaced by ‘both of Massachusetts’. Pg 339: ‘with sevral other’ replaced by ‘with several other’. Pg 373: ‘the evenging of’ replaced by ‘the avenging of’. Footnote 57, Pg 46: ‘March 1, 1864-5’ replaced by ‘March 1, 1625’.