Dedication
TO
NEW-ENGLAND.
Publisher’s Preface
The work published by Josselyn in 1672, entitled “New England’s Rarities discovered,” which has been reprinted in a similar form, and as a companion volume to the present, contains a full and detailed account of the family of the author, with many curious facts relating to the personal history of this early explorer of New England; but it has been thought expedient to prefix to his narrative a genealogical chart of the family, copied from a paper among the Harleian MSS. in the British Museum, the substance of which has been printed in the “New England Historical and Genealogical Register,” and which is now kindly furnished for publication by Samuel G. Drake, Esq. The table now published will be found generally to confirm the information given in the account of the family already published.
The first of the “Two Voyages” of Josselyn, of which he gives an account in the present work, was undertaken in the year 1638, only eight years after the settlement of Boston, and when, to use his own words, “it was rather a village than a town, there being not above twenty or thirty houses;” while the second visit of the author to New England took place in 1663, after an absence of twenty-five years, and when the town had assumed the proportions of a flourishing seaport. On this occasion he appears to have remained in New England for eight years, the principal part of which was spent on the plantation of his brother, Henry Josselyn, at Black Point.
This work is the latest of the author’s productions, and was not given to the public until 1674. It was reprinted by the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1833, and may be found in the third volume of the third series of their collections. Josselyn’s observations on the natural history of the country, his descriptions of the various plants and notices of their medicinal effects, are more full and exact in the present work than in the “New England’s Rarities,” printed two years earlier, and must be considered as among the most valuable of those given by the early botanists of New England.
The political and theological opinions of Josselyn were not in accordance with those generally received in the Colonies, particularly in the later years of his life. On this subject, Prof. Tuckerman, in his Introduction to the work last mentioned, remarks that, “In the account of his first voyage, there is no appearance of that dislike to the Massachusetts government and people which is observable in the narrative of the second; and may there not unfairly be connected with his brother’s political and religious differences with Massachusetts.” There is sufficient evidence in this work to show that the sympathies of the author were enlisted in the royal cause, and there appears to be little ground for admitting his supposed complicity in the fruitless insurrection in the north of England in 1663, or his identity with the “Capt. John Jossline” mentioned by the late Rev. Joseph Hunter in his account of the family.
The chronological table appended to his “New-England’s Rarities” is greatly enlarged in the present work, and continued to the year 1674.
In reprinting this rare and curious volume, great care has been taken to make it a literal and exact copy of the original, the proofs having been carefully collated with a copy of the work belonging to the Library of Harvard College.
Boston, June 15, 1865.
AN
ACCOUNT
OF TWO
VOYAGES
TO
NEW-ENGLAND.
Wherein you have the setting out of a Ship, With the charges; The prices of all necessaries for furnishing a Planter & his Family at his first coming; A Description of the Country, Natives and Creatures; The Government of the Countrey as it is now possessed by the English, &c. A large Chronological Table of the most remarkable passages from the first discovering of the Continent of America, to the year 1673.
By John Josselyn Gent.
The Second Addition.
Memner. distich rendred English by Dr. Heylin.
Heart, take thine ease,
Men hard to please
Thou haply might’st offend,
Though one speak ill
Of thee, some will
Say better; there’s an end.
London Printed for G. Widdowes at the Green Dragon in St.
Pauls Church-yard, 1675.
LICENSED
BY
Roger L’estrange,
Novemb. the
28. 1673.
TO THE
RIGHT HONOURABLE,
AND
MOST ILLUSTRIOUS
THE
President & Fellows
OF THE
Royal Society:
The following Account of Two
VOYAGES
TO
New-England,
Is Most Humbly presented
By the Authour
John Josselyn.
A
RELATION
OF TWO
VOYAGES
TO
New-England.