The Pilgrim Fathers of New England

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 villages1049 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of forty churches pointed their white fingers to the sky.1050 The rude log-cabins of the first months of settlement had been replaced by well-built houses.1051 Agriculture climbed the hill-sides.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.

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’.
57, Pg 46: ‘March 1, 1864-5’ replaced by ‘March 1, 1625’.