^T-^^^^^^^^^m^m #■* m \f vr m %*f. m**f, STON lllllllll IIIIIIIIIIMH ' MP .-- ■ . , ■ '•-...:.■ • «~-r. fr^g «*,| |W| * | fj, II HIWII ~^7 T - m -^T <£*l P» HTd ! 1 ; ; _ — _. *■ .,. 1 1 ! — JT ■ • 1 11 J4!P.|.*UW*lw,. w W^m^^K^^m^ a® 05 CB ® ' :' irii ram i$£ p '-k* I 1 »# FUM ft ST. BOTOLPH'S TOWN 'Works of Mary Caroline Crawford The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees $1.50 The Romance of Old New England Churches 1.50 The College Girl of America 2.00 Little Pilgrimages Among Old New England Inns 2.00 St. Botolph's Town 2.50 L. C. PAGE & COMPANY New England Building, Boston, Mass. DOROTHY QUINCY, FROM A PORTRAIT BY COPLEY St ISotoljrf^ €fofem an account of £>lti TBogton in Colonial 2©a#s BY MARY CAROLINE CRAWFORD Author of "Among Old New England Inns," "The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees," etc. Illustrated Copyright, 1908 By L. C. Page & Company (INCORPORATED) AU rights reserved First Impression, September, 1908 949 Electrotyped and Printed at THE COLONIAL PRESS: C. H. Simo nds ca.Cc, Boston, U .S. A . FOKEWORD In my student days colonial history never interested me. I did not then understand why but I am now perfectly certain that it was be- cause persons and events were discussed, in most of the books set before me, only as their careers touched New England and hence in so fragmentary a way as to make them appear mere puppets with tiresome dates attached. The treatment usually accorded Sir Harry Vane offers an excellent example of what I mean. He flashed before us, in the history books, as a brilliant, handsome youth who espoused the cause of Mrs. Hutchinson, — and then disappeared for ever from view. Because his wonderful career in England was deemed to have nothing to do with the subsequent his- tory of Massachusetts we were deprived of the great privilege it would have been to make his inspiring life-story a part of our mental equip- ment ! If this volume errs in the other extreme vi Foreword by talking over-much of Vane and of La Tour after their connection with Boston has ceased the fault may be attributed to a reaction from my own defective education. The truth is that it is biography rather than history which really allures me; history seems to me worse than useless unless it illus- trates the times of which it writes as those times affected the lives of its men and women. A book like this has no justification, to my mind, save as it makes us understand just a little better the part New England, in the per- son of its chief town, has played in the mighty drama of nations made up of thinking, feeling men and women. Up to the time of the Revolution, of course, Boston was the biggest place in all the colonies as well as the chief settlement of Massachu- setts. This numerical preeminence needs to be borne in mind if we would understand many acts on both sides of the ocean. To understand the America of to-day, too, we must needs know the Boston of the fathers. So only can we be sure that the excrescences of modern govern- ment are no essential part of that Christian state of which Winthrop dreamed and for which Vane was glad to die. The books consulted in the preparation of Foreword vii this work have been many and, for the most part, are named in the text. But sweeping credit is here due to the invaluable ' ' Memorial History of Boston " and to the " Boston An- tiquities " of Samuel Drake. I have to thank also Mr. Irwin C. Cromack of the engineering department, City of Boston, for kindly aid given and the editor of the Canadian Magazine for permission to incorporate in the chapter 1 ' How Winthrop Treated With the La Tours ' ' my article on the " Fight Between La Tour and D'Aulnay " contributed to his magazine last year. m. c. o. Charlestown, 1908. " Q*T. BOTOLPWS Town! Far over leagues of ^3 tend And leagues of sea looks forth its noble tower, And far around the chiming bells are heard : So may that sacred name forever stand A landmark and a symbol of the power That lies concentred in a single wordy — Longfellow. ir " r T^HE distinctive characteristic of the settlement £ of the English colonists in America is the in- troduction of the civilization of Europe into a wilderness without bringing with it the political insti- tutions of Europe. The arts, sciences, and literature of England came over with the settlers. . . . But the monarchy did not come, nor the aristocracy, nor the church as an estate of the realm. Political institu- tions were to be framed anew such as should be adapted to the state of things.'''' — Daniel Webster. " r T^HE spirit of that age was sure to manifest J[ itself in narrow cramping measures and in ugly acts of persecution; but it is, none the less, to the fortunate alliance of that fervid religious enthu- siasm with the love of self-government that our modern freedom owes its existence." — John Fiske. i< " '"TTJETOTJ, too, sail on O ship of State ! I Sail on, Union, strong and great ! Humanity with all its fears, With all the hopes of future years Is hanging breathless on thy fate ! " — Longfellow. CONTENTS His Wife England and Foreword I. As It Was in the Beginning II. John Winthrop and Margaret III. St. Botolph's Town in Old New IV. The Coming op a Shining Light V. Sir Harry Vane — Prophet and Martyr VI. How Winthrop Treated with the La Tours VII. Freedom to Worship God VIII. Boston as John Dunton Saw It IX. The Dynasty of the Mathers . X. The College at Cambridge . XI. The Boston of Franklin's Boyhood XII. A Puritan Pepys XIII. In the Reign of the Royal Governors XIV. A Genuine Colonial Romance XV. The Dawn of Active Resistance Index PAGE V 1 17 34 48 63 89 108 138 165 205 233 255 283 311 333 361 PAGE Dorothy Quincy, From a portrait by Copley Frontispiece Captain John Smith 4 Old House in Medford, Built by Governor Cradock 12 Governor John Winthrop . . . . . . . .18 St. Botolph's Church, Boston, England ... 40 John Cotton's Vicarage 43 Rev. John Cotton 56 Cotton Chapel, St. Botolph's, Boston, England . 60 Sir Harry Vane, From an old Miniature ... 66 John Endicott 72 Oliver Cromwell 80 Sir Harry Vane's House, Still Standing in Hampstead, London 86 Fort La Tour (or St. Jean), St. John, New Brunswick, From a drawing by Louis A. Holman . . . 102 Roger Williams 118 The Wells - Adams House, on Salem Street, where the Baptists held secret meetings .... 121 Sir Richard Saltonstall 134 Governor Simon Bradstreet . . . . . .147 Increase Mather 166 House of Cotton Mather, which stood at what is now 298 Hanover Street 172 xi xii List of Illustrations PAGK Sir Edmund Andros 178 The Pratt House, Chelsea 186 Sir William Phips 193 Cotton Mather . . . 197 William Stoughton 200 Cover and Title-page op John Harvard's Book . . 206 Massachusetts Hall, Harvard University, Built during the Presidency of John Leverett . . 225 Governor Joseph Dudley 230 Map of Boston in 1722 Facing 232 Benjamin Franklin 234 The Old Feather Store 236 Franklin's Birthplace 238 Samuel Sewall 255 The Deane Winthrop House, Winthrop . . . . 263 Governor Bellingham's House, Chelsea . . . 265 Green Dragon Tavern 273 The Province House 286 The Original King's Chapel and the King's Chapel of To-day 298 Governor William Burnet 303 The Mather Tomb in the Copp's Hill Burying Ground 310 Governor William Shirley 312 Sir Harry Frankland 316 Governor Shirley's House, Roxbury . . . .319 The Clarke House, Purchased by Sir Harry Frank- land 325 Governor Pownall ... .... 334 Sir Francis Bernard .... ... 336 James Otis. . . . . . . . . . . 339 The Old State House 350 Peter Faneuil's House 356 Samuel Adams ... 358 ST. BOTOLPH'S TOWN AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING To Sir Ferdinando Gorges, the intimate friend of Sir Walter Baleigh and a man of nmch more than common interest in the history of Elizabethan England, is dne the credit of the first enduring settlement in the environs of Boston. John Smith had skirted the coast of New England and looked with some care into Boston Harbour before Gorges came; Miles Standish had pushed up from Plymouth to trade with the Indians of this section; and Thomas Weston, soldier of fortune, had es- tablished a temporary trading-post in what is now Weymouth. But it remained for Gorges and his son Robert to plant firmly upon our shores the standard of England and to reiter- ate that that was the country to which, by l St. Botolph's Town virtue of the Cabots, those shores rightly be- longed. The Cabots, to be sure, had come a century and a quarter before and, since their time, ex- plorers of several other nations had ventured to the new world — one of them even going so far as to carve his name upon the continent. But an English king had fitted out the " car- vels ' ' of John and Sebastian Cabot ; and Eng- lish kings were not in the habit of forgetting incidents of that sort. The letter in which Sebastian Cabot relates the story of those Bris- tol vessels is very quaint and interesting. " When my father," he writes, " departed from Venice many yeers since to dwell in Eng- land, to follow the trade of merchandizes, he took me with him to the city of London, while I was very yong, yet having, nevertheless, some knowledge of letters, of humanity and of the Sphere. And when my father died in that time when news was brought that Don Chris- tofer Colonus Genuse [Columbus] had discov- ered the coasts of India whereof was great talke in all the court of King Henry the Seventh, who then raigned, inso much that all men with great admiration affirmed it to be a thing more divine than humane, to sail by the West into the East where spices growe, by As It Was in the Beginning a way that was never known before; by this fame and report there increased in my heart a great flame of desire to attempt some notable thing. And, understanding by reason of the Sphere, that if I should saile by way of the Northwest winde, I should by a shorter track come into India, I thereupon caused the king to be advertised of my devise, who immediately commanded two Carvels to bee furnished with all things appertaining to the voiage, which was, as farre as I remember, in the yeere 1496, in the beginning of Sommer. " I began therefore to saile toward the Northwest, not thinking to find any other land than that of Cathay, and from thence to turn toward India, but after certaine dayes I found that the land ranne towards the North, which was to me a great displeasure. Nevertheless, sailing along the coast to see if I could find any gulfe that turned, I found the land still con- tinuing to the 56 deg. under our pole. And seeing that there the coast turned toward the East, despairing to find the passage, I turned back again, and sailed down by the coast of that land towards the Equinoctiall (ever with intent to find the said passage to India) and came to that part of this firme land which is now called Florida, where my victuals failing, I St. Botolph's Town departed from thence and returned into Eng- land, where I found great tumults among the people, and preparation for warrs in Scotland : by reason whereof there was no more consid- eration had to this voyage.' ' But barren of immediate results as this voyage undoubtedly was it is of immense importance to us as the first link in the chain which, for so long, bound America to England. The next link was, of course, forged by Cap- tain John Smith to whom New England as well as Virginia owes more than it can ever repay. About one year before the settlement of Boston by the company which came with Winthrop Smith recapitulated the affairs of New Eng- land in the following lucid manner: " When I went first to the North part of Virginia, [in 1614] where the Westerly colony [of 1607] had been planted, which had dissolved itself within a yeare, there was not one Christian in all the land. The country was then reputed a most rockie barren, desolate desart; but the good return I brought from thence, with the maps and relations I made of the country, which I made so manifest, some of them did beleeve me, and they were well embraced, both by the Londoners and the Westerlings, for whom I CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH As It Was in the Beginning had promised to undertake it, thinking to have joyned them all together. Betwixt them there long was much contention. The Londoners, in- deed, went bravely forward but in three or four yeares, I and my friends consumed many hundred pounds among the Plimothians, who only fed me but with delayes promises and excuses, but no performance of any kind to any purpose. In the interim many particular ships went thither, and finding my relations true, and that I had not taken that I brought home from the French men, as had beene re- ported; yet further for my paines to discredit me and my calling it New England, they ob- scured it and shadowed it with the title of Cannada, till, at my humble suit, king Charles confirmed it, with my map and booke, by the title of New England. The gaine thence re- turning did make the fame thereof so increase, that thirty forty or fifty saile, went yearely only to trade and fish; but nothing would be done for a plantation till about some hundred of your Brownists of England, Amsterdam and Leyden, went to New Plimouth, whose humour- ous ignorances caused them for more than a yeare, to endure a wonderful deale of misery with an infinite patience ; but those in time do- 6 St. Botolph's Town ing well diverse others have in small handfulls undertaken togoe there, to be sever all Lords and Kings of themselves. . . . " The Gorges project, certainly, aimed at noth- ing short of a principality and was begun in all pomp and circumstance. To Greenwich on June 29, 1623, came the Dukes of Buckingham and Richmond, four earls and many lords and gentlemen to draw lots for possessions in the new country. This imposing group was called the Council for New England and had been established under a charter granted in 1620 to the elder Gorges and thirty-nine other patentees. Gorges had had the good luck to acquaint Ealeigh with the conspiracy of the Earl of Essex against Queen Elizabeth and James I had valid reason, therefore, to appoint him governor of Plymouth in Devonshire. It was while pursuing his duties in Plymouth that his interest in New England was excited, by the mere accident, as he relates, of some Indians happening to be brought before him. At much pains he learned from them something of the nature of their country and his imagination was soon fired with the vision of golden har- vests waiting in the western continent to be reaped by such as he. Naturally sanguine and full of enthusiasm he succeeded in interesting As It Was in the Beginning in his project Sir John Popham, Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench, through whose acquaintance with noblemen and connection at Court the coveted patent for making settle- ments in America was ere long secured. Then the success of the Greenwich assembly — King James himself drew for Buckingham! — seems to have decided both Sir Ferdinando and his son to go at once to their glittering new world ; and, a few weeks later, the latter sailed forth, armed with a commission as lieutenant of the Council with power to exercise jurisdic- tion, civil, criminal and ecclesiastical, over the whole of the New England coast. The plan was for him to settle not too far from Ply- mouth, absorb as soon as might be the little group of men and women who were really lay- ing there the foundations of a nation and be- gin in masterful fashion the administration of the vast province which was undeniably his — on paper. At Weymouth Thomas Weston had left a rude block-house and this Eobert Gorges and his comrades immediately appropriated. In their company were several mechanics and tillers of the soil who proceeded to make them- selves useful in the new land; but of most in- terest to us because of their after-history, were 8 St. Botolph's Town three gentlemen colonists, Samuel Maverick, a young man of means and education who es- tablished at what is now Chelsea the first per- manent house in the Bay colony, Eev. "William Morrell, the Church of England representative in the brave undertaking and William Black- stone, graduate of Cambridge University and destined to renown as the first white settler of what we to-day know as Boston. It was in September, 1623, that Eobert Gorges landed in Weymouth. In the spring of 1624 he returned to England taking with him several of his comrades. Governor Bradford, whom he tried in vain to bully into obeisance observes mildly that Gorges did not find " the state of things heare to answer his Qualitie and condition. ' ' So he stayed less than a year. Some of those who had come with him were for trying the thing longer, however. Even the Eev. Mr. Morrell put in a second bitter winter before giving up the attempt. Though he speaks feelingly of the hard lot of men who are " landed upon an unknown shore, peradven- ture weake in number and naturall powers, for want of boats and carriages,' ' and being for this reason compelled with a whole empty con- tinent before them " to stay where they are first landed, having no means to remove them- As It Was in the Beginning selves or their goods, be the place never so fruitlesse or inconvenient for planting, build- ing houses, boats or stages, or the harbors never so unfit for fishing, fowling or mooring their boats," — yet Morrell was none the less very favourably impressed, as Smith and all the others had been, with the natural charms of New England. As the fruit of his sojourn we have a Latin poem in which the country is described in a genial and somewhat imaginative way. The year that Morrell returned to England (1625) was in all probability that in which William Blacks tone took up his abode across the bay, in Shawmut, opposite the mouth of the Charles. And it was in that same year, too, that Captain Wollaston and his party es- tablished themselves at the place since known as Mount Wollaston, in the town of Quincy. Among Wollaston's companions was one Thomas Morton " of Clifford's Inn, Gent.," a lawyer by profession and an outlaw by practice. In the rather dull pages of early New England history Morton's escapades supply " colour," however, for which we cannot be too grateful to him. The staid Plymouth people soon came to speak of him as the ' ' Lord of Misrule ' ' and there is no evidence whatever that he failed 10 St. Botolph's Town to deserve the title. When Wollaston departed to Virginia on business he proceeded to become captain in his stead and, naming the settlement Mare Mount, — Merry Mount, — he invited all the settlers to have a good time. They did so, according to Morton's own account — in the mad glad bad way ever dear to roystering Eng- lishmen. Not only did he and his followers drink deep of the festal bowl but they made the Indians with whom they traded welcome to drink deep also. To the men savages were given arms and ammunition while to the women was extended the privilege of becoming the mates of the conquering English. The May Day of 1627 was celebrated in revelry run riot. Morton has left us a minute description of the pole used on this occasion l ' a goodly pine tree of 80 foote long . . . with a peare of bucks horns nayled one, somewhat neare unto the top of it," while Governor Bradford says they " set up a May-pole, drinking and dan- cing aboute it many days togither, inviting the Indean women for their consorts, dancing and frisking togither (like so many fairies, or furies rather) and worse practices." Bradford not unnaturally failed to appre- ciate the " colour." Moreover, the settlers could not, of course, have the natives furnished As It Was in the Beginning 11 with firearms. So Morton was, after some difficulty, made a prisoner and shipped off to England. Bnt he came back again the next year and for a considerable time was a veri- table thorn in the flesh to Endicott and his com- panions at Salem. The Salem settlement was in the nature of a rescuing party. For while Sir Ferdinando and his friends had been exhausting themselves upon the pomps and ceremonies of colonization John White, a Dorchester clergyman, had es- tablished a little group of " prudent and hon- est men '' in a kind of missionary settlement near what is now Gloucester. Of these men Eoger Conant with three others had stayed on in the face of much discouragement after their companions returned to England, finally re- moving to Naumkeag ( Salem) , — where Endi- cott found them when he landed early in the fall of 1628. The rights of Endicott 's men to territory in New England were obtained by purchase from Sir Ferdinando 's Council of Plymouth. The name adopted by them was that of " the Massa- chusetts Company.'' Very wisely, however, as matters turned out, Endicott and his friends insisted that a charter be obtained from the Crown confirmatory of the grant from the 12 St. Botolph's Town Council of Plymouth. And though they sailed before the charter passed the seals, when it did so, March 4, 1629, the rights of the colonists were defined as they never before had been, — and Charles I had placed in the hands of mere subjects powers which many a king who came after him would have given much to revoke. Though Endicott was the " Governor of London's Plantation in the Massachusetts Bay of New England " Matthew Cradock was the governor, — i. e. the executive business head, — in the old country ; and Cradock it was who, in July, 1629, submitted to his fellow-members in England certain propositions, conceived by himself, which, reinforced as they were by the charter, were destined to work a veritable revolution in the colonization of New England. Up to this time there seems to have been no thought whatever of transferring to the new land the actual government of the Company but Cradock made the startling proposal that just this should be done to the end that persons of worth and quality might deem it worth while to embark with their families for the planta- tion. There is still standing in Medford, near Boston, a house bearing the name of this gov- ernor and built for his use though he never came to occupy it. Between the suggestion As It Was in the Beginning 13 of Cradock's plan at Deputy Goffe's house in London, in August, 1629, and its adoption a month later every member of the Company gave deep thought to the change involved. And, gradually, they came to see in it a way of escape from persecution and oppression. Reforms in England, whether of Church or State, seemed impossible. Strafford was at the head of the army and Laud in control of the Church. Illegal taxes were being levied on all hands and it looked as if Charles were re- solved to rule the kingdom in his own stiff- necked way, disdaining the cooperation of any Parliament. Little hope indeed did the Old World offer to the liberty-loving, religious men who made up the bulk of the Puritan party ! The document by which these men finally emancipated themselves has come down to us as the Cambridge Agreement, so called because it was signed beneath the shadows and prob- ably within the very walls of that venerable university whose traditions it was destined to transplant into a new world. It bore the date, August 26, 1629; and was in the following words : — " Upon due consideration of the state of the Plantation now in hand for New England, wherein we whose names are hereunto sub- 14 St. Botolph's Town scribed, have engaged ourselves, and having weighed the work in regard of the consequence, God's glory and the Church's good; as also in regard of the difficulties and discouragements which in all probabilities must be forecast upon the prosecution of this business; considering withal that this whole adventure grows upon the joint confidence we have in each other's fidelity and resolution herein, so as no man of us would have adventured it without the assurance of the rest; now for the better en- couragement of ourselves and others who shall join with us in this action, and to the end that every man may without scruple dispose of his estate and affairs as may best fit his prepara- tion for this voyage; it is fully and faithfully agreed among us, and every one of us doth hereby freely and sincerely promise and bind himself, in the word of a Christian and in the presence of God, who is the searcher of all hearts, that we will so really endeavor the prosecution of this work, as by God's assist- ance we will be ready in our persons, and with such of our several families as are to go with us, and such provision as we are able conve- niently to furnish ourselves withal, to embark for the said Plantation by the first of March next, at such port or ports of this land as shall As It Was in the Beginning 15 be agreed upon by the Company, to the end to pass the Seas (under God's protection) to in- habit and continue in New England: Provided always, that before the last of September next, the whole Government, together with the Patent for the said Plantation, be first, by an order of Court, legally transferred and estab- lished to remain with us and others which shall inhabit upon the said Plantation ; and provided also, that if any shall be hindered by such just or inevitable let or other cause, to be allowed by three parts of four of these whose names are hereunto subscribed, then such persons for such times and during such lets, to be dis- charged of this bond. And we do further promise, every one for himself, that shall fail to be ready by his own default by the day ap- pointed, to pay for every day's default the sum of £3 to the use of the rest of the company who shall be ready by the same day and time. (Signed) Richard Saltonstall, Thomas Sharpe, Thomas Dudley, Increase Nowell, William Vassall, John Winthrop, Nicholas West, William Pinchon, Isaac Johnson, Kellam Browne, John Htjmfry, William Colbron." 16 St. Botolph's Town As important to this epoch-making agree- ment as the Prince of Denmark to the play of Hamlet is the sentence " Provided always, that before the last of September next, the whole Government, together with the Patent for the said Plantation, be first by an order of Court, legally transferred and established to remain with us and others which shall inhabit upon the said Plantation." This was the great condi- tion, we must bear clearly in mind, upon which Saltonstall, Dudley, Winthrop and the rest agreed to leave the land where they had been born and bred, and ' ' inhabit and continue ' ' in a new land of which they knew nothing. Two months later John Winthrop was chosen head of the enterprise, with the style and title Gov- ernor of the Massachusetts Bay Company. Emphatically, Boston has now " begun.' ' II JOHN WTNTHROP AND MARGARET, HIS WIFE From every point of view that was a remark- able group of men who boldly declared at Cam- bridge their resolution to found a state in the new world. Sir Eichard Saltonstall was de- scended from a former lord mayor of London and occupied a place of no little importance in the England of his time; the ancestors of Thomas Dudley had all been men honoured in English history; John Nowell was related to the dean of St. Paul 's in the reign of Elizabeth ; John Humfrey married a daughter of the Earl of Lincoln ; William Vassall was endowed with a positive genius for trade; William Pynchon possessed unusual learning and piety; Isaac Johnson was a man of very large wealth and another son-in-law of the Earl of Lincoln, and Thomas Sharpe, Michael West, Killam Browne and William Colbron were all English country gentlemen of no inconsiderable fortune and of university breeding. But the greatest 17 18 St. Botolph's Town man of the group was, of course, John Win- throp, who had been chosen to be its head. And his peer in every womanly respect was Mar- garet, his noble wife. As a lad Winthrop had received a good edu- cation and had been admitted in 1602 into Trinity College, Cambridge. An early love- match prevented him from staying to take his degree, however, and when only a youth of eighteen, we find him living at Great Stam- bridge in the County of Essex with his first wife 's family, — very wealthy people for that day and of high standing in the community. Six children were born to the happy young pair and then, when the husband and father was only twenty-five, he was left a widower. Within a year he was married again, according to the customs of that period. Then, in another year, this wife and her infant child were also committed to the grave. Up to this time Win- throp 's profession had been that of a lawyer but these successive and severe bereavements made him full of misgivings as to his religious condition and he seriously contemplated the abandonment of the law with a view to taking orders as a clergyman. His introspection at this stage of his development is recorded in a manuscript of " Eeligious Experiences " which GOVERNOR JOHN WINTHROP John Winthrop and His Wife 19 covers a period of three years and makes in- tensely interesting reading. To understand these ' i Religious Experi- ences ' ' and the subsequent life of the man who wrote them it is necessary to appreciate the fact that Winthrop came of intensely religious parentage. Adam Winthrop, his father, was a man of deep personal piety and Anne Win- throp, his mother, could not live happily away from the daily inspiration of her Bible, as we see from a letter sent to her husband before their son was born. The mingling of love for God with ardent human affection which we shall find to be a constant trait in the letters of her son is present here also: " I have re- seyved, Right deare and well-beloved, ' ' she writes her absent husband, " from you this week a letter, though short, yet very sweete, which gave me a lively tast of those sweete & comfortable wordes, whiche alwayes when you be present with me, are wont to flowe most aboundantlye from your loving hart — where- bye I perseyve that whether you be present with me or absent from me, you are ever one towardes me, & your hart remayneth airwaves with me. Wherefore layinge up this perswai- sion of you in my brest, I will most assuredlye, the Lord assistynge me by his grace, beare al- 20 St. Botolph's Town wayes the lyke loving hart unto you agayne, untyll suche tyme as I may more fully enjoye your loving presence: but in the meane tyme I will remayne as one having a great inherit- aunce, or riche treasure, and it beinge by force kept from him, or hee beinge in a strange Con- trey, and cannot enjoye it; longethe contin- ually after it, sighinge and sorrowinge that hee is so long berefte of it, yet rejoyseth that hee hathe so greatt tresure pertayninge to him, and hopeth that one day the tyme will come that hee shall enjoye it, and have the wholle benyfytt of it. So I having a good hoope of the tyme to com, doe more paciently beare the time present, and I praye send me word if you be in helthe and what sucesse you have with your letters. ... I send you this weke by my fathers man a shyrte and fyve payer of hoses. . . . I pray send me a pound of starch by my fathers man. You may very well send my byble if it be redye — thus with my verye hartye com- mendacions I byd you farewell comittinge you to almightye God to whom I commend you in my dayle prayers as I am sure you doe me, the Lord kep us now & ever Amen " Your loving wife " Anne Winthrop " John Winthrop and His Wife 21 From his mother, then, Winthrop inherited a nature of quite unusual affectionateness for a man of his time and from his father an en- during tendency toward introspection and stern self-discipline. His Diary, as frank and often as pathetic as AmiePs, constantly displays the warring of a passionate tendency with a conse- crated other-worldliness. " The Love of this present world! " he exclaims in the course of an exquisite love-letter to the wife from whom his work has parted him, ' ' how it bewitches us & steales away our hearts from him who is the onely life & felicitye. O that we could delight in Christ our Lord & heavenly husband as we doe in each other, & that his absence were like greivous to us ! ' ' Winthrop could leave home and friends, yes, even his adored Margaret, — to come to a foreign land. But it would not be easy for him. The step would be taken in that same frame of mind which his Diary of Jan. 1, 1611, reflects when it says: " Beinge admon- ished by a christian freinde that some good men were ofended to heare of some gaminge which was used in my house by my servants I resolved that as for my selfe not to use any cardings etc, so for others to represse it as much as I could, during the continuance of my present state, & if God bringe me once more 22 St. Botolph's Town to be whollye by my selfe, then to banishe all togither." This resolution is particularly in- teresting when placed alongside of the first New England temperance pledge later fathered by Governor Winthrop. 1 When in the heydey of his youthful vigour (he was then only twenty-five!) Winthrop wrote, " Finding that the variety of meates drawes me on to ea.te more than standeth with my healthe, I have resolved not to eate of more then 2 dishes at any one meale, whither fish, flesh, fowle or fruite or whittemeats etc: whither at home or abroade; the lorde give me care & abilitie to perf orme it. ' ' A year later when, by the death of his second wife 's father, he had come into considerable wealth and therefore felt again keen temptation to self- indulgence he makes twelve resolutions, so in- teresting in the light of his after life that I give them here in full : . " 1. I doe resolve to give myself e, my life, my witt, my healthe, my wealthe to the service of my God and & Savior, who by givinge him- selfe for me & to me, deserves whatsoever I am or can be, to be at his Comandement & for his glorye: "2. I will live where he appoints me. 1 See p. 9 "Old New England Inns." John Winthrop and His Wife 23 " 3. I will faithfully endeavour to discharge that callinge wch he shall appoint me unto. "4. I will carefully avoide vaine & need- less expences that I may be the more liberall to good uses. - ' 5. My property, & bounty must goe f orthe abroade, yet I must ever be careful that it be- ginne at home. "6. I will so dispose of my family affaires as my morning prayers & evening exercises be not omitted. " 7. I will have a speciall care of the good education of my children. " 8. I will banish profanes from my familye. "9. I will diligently observe the Lords Sabaoth bothe for the avoidinge & preventinge worldly business, & also for the religious spend- inge of such tymes as are free from publique exercises, viz. the morninge, noone, & evening. 1 ' 10. I will endeavour to have the morninge free for private prayer, meditation & reading. " 11. I will flee Idlenes, & much worldly bu sines. ' ' 12. I will often praye & conf erre privately wth my wife." Just here seems as good a place as any to observe that Winthrop was wonderfully fortu- 24 St. Botolph's Town nate in each of the three women whom he suc- cessively called " my wife." The bride of his youth, the wife of his young manhood, • — with whom he lived only one short year, — and Mar- garet, who was his faithful spouse for more than a quarter of a century, were all women who could respond richly to the aspirations of his soul as well as to the cravings of his heart. Margaret, of course, was peculiarly his mate. The daughter of Sir John Tyndal, knight, she it was who made him what he now became. " From the day that his faith was plighted to her " as one sympathetic historian has said . . . " he learned to step boldly out among his equals, to take his share in the world's work." After his marriage and up to the time when he engaged upon the New England enterprise Winthrop's business was that of an attorney practising in London and on the circuit. This, naturally, took him much away from Groton where Margaret and his young children lived and as a result we find in the correspondence which passed between Groton Manor and the " Chamber at the Temple Gate " an almost complete record of the temporal, spiritual and affectional development of this remarkable pair. Tender love-letters, every one of these John Winthrop and His Wife 25 epistles! "I wish thy imployments coulde suffer thee to come home," writes the wife, to which her husband responds promptly, " such is my love to thee my deare spouse, as were it not that my imployment did enforce me to it, I could not live comfortably from thee halfe thus long. ... so I kiss my sweet wife & rest alwayes Thy faithfull husband " John Wintheop " For a dozen years of this correspondence there is, however, no thought that Winthrop's " imployment " would ever be such as to put the ocean between them. He was not a mem- ber of the original Massachusetts Company; one may search in vain for his name along with those of Cradock, Saltonstall and Endicott on the Massachusetts Charter of March, 1629. But the early summer of that year found him thinking very seriously of emigration as one sees between the lines of a letter to Margaret dated June 22, 1629. " My comfort is that thou art willinge to be my companion in what place or condition soever, in weale or in woe. Be it what it may, if God be with us we need not feare; his favour, & the kingdome of heaven wilbe alike & happiness enough to us & ours in all places." Evidently the writer of this 26 St. Botolph's Town felt a crisis to be at hand both in the affairs of his country and in his own personal life. But it was not in John Winthrop's nature to lightly decide upon any serious step. From his paper ' ' General Considerations for the Planta- tions of New England " it is plain that he thought carefully and prayerfully upon every phase of the enterprise. Then finally it became to him clear that he had fallen upon disastrous times; that foun- tains of learning in his own country were cor- rupted; that all arts and trades were carried on in such deceitful and unrighteous ways that it was well-nigh impossible for a good man to live by any of them; that the land was weary of her inhabitants ; that man had become of less importance than beasts, children, — who ought to have been considered blessings, — being counted the greatest burdens ; that the kingdom of anti-christ was increasing; that, in a word, the Lord had begun to frown upon England and cut its inhabitants short. To John Win- throp, therefore, New England seemed a place provided by God " to be a refuge for many whome he meanes to save out of the generall callamity. ' ' His friends, of course, were not nearly so sure as he was that the new country was beck- John Winthrop and His Wife 27 oning him and Robert Ryece, whose advice he asked in the matter, replied in a letter which is full of interest because it marshals all the pru- dent considerations which should have per- suaded Winthrop to stay just where he was and let other people be pioneers in this difficult and dangerous enterprise. " The Church & Common welthe heere at home," he begins, " ha the more neede of your beste abyllytie in these dangerous tymes then any remote planta- tion, which may be performed by persons of leser woorthe & apprehension. . . . Agyne, your owne estate wylbe more secured in the myddest of all accidents heere at home, than in this forreine expedition, which discovereth a 1000 shipwrackes which may betyde. All your kynsfolkes & moste under standinge friendes wyll more re Joyce at your stayenge at home with any condition which God shall sende, then to throwe your selfe upon vayne hopes, with many difficulties & uncertaynties. Agayne, you shalbe more acceptable in the service of the Hieste, & more under His protection whiles you walke charely in your vocation heere at home, then to goe owte of your vocation, comyttinge your selfe to a woorlde of dangers abroade. " The pype goeth sweete, tyll the byrde be in the nett ; many bewtifull hopes ar sett before 28 St. Botolph's Town your eyes to allewer you to danger. Planta- tions ar for yonge men, that can enduer all paynes & hunger. Yf in your yewthe you had byn acquaynted with navigation, you mighte have promised your selfe more hope in this longe vyadge, but for one of your yeeres [Win- throp was now forty- two] to undertake so large a taske is seldome seene but to miscarry. To adventure your wholle famylly upon so mani- festo uncerteynties standeth not with your wys- dome & longe experience. Lett yonger yeeres take this charge upon them, with the advyse of that which elder yeeres shall direct e them unto, the losse shalbe the lesse yf thay mys- carry ; but there honor shalbe the more if thay prosper. So long as you sytt at the helme, your famylie prospereth, but yf you shoold happen to fayle, your flocke woolde be at the least in hazarde, if not totally to myscarrye. Yonge men directions thowghe sometymes with some successe, do not all waves succeede. These remote partes will not well agree with your yeeres ; whiles you are heere you wyll be ever fytter by your understandings & wisdome to supply there necessities. But if it shoolde happen that you shoolde gett safely thither, you shall soone fynde, how necessitie wyll calle for supplies from these parts. I pray you par- John Winthrop and His Wife 29 don my boldnes, that had rather erre in what I thinke, then be sylente in what I shoolde speake. How harde wyll it bee for one browghte up among boockes & Learned men, to lyve in a barbarous place, where is no learnynge & lesse cyvillytie. . . . " This counsel of prudent cowardice was writ- ten just a fortnight before the memorable com- pact at Cambridge. But it did not deter Win- throp from signing that brave Agreement. For, in the meantime his son, — that John Win- throp who was afterwards renowned as Gov- ernor of Connecticut, — returned from a pro- tracted journey in foreign lands and heartened him with these words: " For the business of New England, I can say no other thing, but that I believe confidently, that the whole disposition thereof is of the Lord. . . . And for my- self, I have seen so much of the vanity of the world, that I esteem no more of the diversities of countries, than as so many inns, whereof the traveller that hath lodged in the best or in the worst, findeth no difference, when he cometh to his journey's end; and I shall call that my country, where I may most glorify God, and enjoy the presence of my dearest friends. Therefore, herein I submit myself to God's will and yours, and with your leave, do dedicate 30 St. Botolph's Town myself ... to the service of God and the Company. . . . " Best of all the gentle Margaret did not fail her husband in this hour of need. Letters full of cheer and sympathy found their way to him from Groton Manor and in them all she ex- pressed conviction that the good Lord would " certainly bless us in our intended purpose." His tender appreciation of her pluck is reflected in all the letters he sent her during the months preceding his departure. " I must now begin to prepare thee for our long parting, which grow very near," he writes early in January, 1629. " I know not how to deal with thee by arguments ; for if thou wert as wise and patient as ever woman was, yet it must needs be a great trial to thee and the greater because I am so dear to thee ; ' ' and then he goes on to point out that she must find her comfort in religion, as where else could she find it, poor thing! when the husband with whose soul hers was pecul- iarly knit was for venturing to a foreign land, leaving her behind. Her replies to his brave attempts at consolation are indeed touching, and immensely pathetic also are his answers. He has been arranging to leave with friends fifteen hundred pounds for her support until she should be able to follow him to the New John Winthrop and His Wife 31 World and now he writes, " My sweet wife, The Lord hath oft brought us together with comfort, when we have been long absent; and if it be good for us he will do so still. When I was in Ireland he brought us together again. When I was sick here in London he re- stored us together again. How many dangers, near death, hast thou been in thyself! and yet the Lord hath granted me to enjoy thee still. If he did not watch over us we need not go over sea to seek death or misery : we should meet it at every step, in every journey. And is not he a God abroad as well as at home? Is not his power and providense the same in New Eng- land as it hath been in Old England? . . . My good wife, trust in the Lord, whom thou hast found faithful. He will be better to thee than any husband and will restore thee thy husband with advantage. But I kiss my sweet wife and bless thee and all ours and rest Thine ever Jo. Winthrop February 14, 1629 — Thou must he my val- entine ..." The picture of him whom we are wont to call " the stern John Winthrop " remembering, even in the midst of hurried and troubled pre- parations to embark for the New World woman's perennial sentiment concerning such 32 St. Botolph's Town festivals as St. Valentine's Day is so striking as to be worth bearing in mind. And when we have placed alongside of it the series of fare- well letters sent to his wife from Cowes and the Isle of Wight where the ships were detained by bad weather, we have a complete compre- hension of one side of the man's character. " Mondays and Fridays, at five of the clock at night, we shall meet in spirit till we meet in person," he promises her. Shakespeare, not long before, had put the same thought into the month of Imogen, when, on having parted with Posthumus, she complains that they had been torn apart " Ere I could tell him, How would I think on him, at certain hours, Such thoughts, and such ; ... or have charged him, At the sixth hour of morn, at noon, at midnight, To encounter me with orisons ; for then I am in heaven for him." But Posthumus, as Bobert C. Winthrop, the editor of his progenitor's remarkable letters, points out, was not in his forty-third year, as was the Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony; nor Imogen in her thirty-ninth. More- over, one can scarcely fancy either of Shake- speare's lovers admitting, as Winthrop does in John Winthrop and His Wife 33 one of the first New England letters which he sent his wife, " I own with sorrow that mnch business hath made me too often forget Mon- days and Fridays." Ill ST. BOTOLPH'S TOWN IN OLD ENGLAND AND NEW Nowadays embarking from old England for the new seems no great matter. But in that spring of 1630 when Winthrop's little fleet sailed from Cowes travelling was quite a dif- ferent proposition. For it was certain that the voyage would be very long and usually it was dangerous also. On this particular occasion it took seventy-six days and was attended by all those " perils of the deep " against which some of us still have the good sense to pray. Winthrop's vessel was called the Arbella in compliment to Lady Arbella Johnson, who was one of its passengers, and among the other ships which brought over this Company of some eight hundred souls was the Mayflower, consecrated in every New England heart as the carrier, a decade earlier, of the Pilgrims of Plymouth. During the voyage Governor "Win- throp wrote the simple beginnings of what is known as his " History of New England," a 34 In Old England and New 35 journal from which we glean the most that we know of the early days of the colonists. Being rather impatient, however, just as its compiler probably was, actually to land in the New World we will quote here only that para- graph which describes the end of the voyage: " Saturday 12. About four in the morning we were near our port. We shot off two pieces of ordnance and sent our skiff to Mr. Peirce his ship. . . . Afterwards Mr. Peirce came aboard us, and returned to fetch Mr. Endecott, who came to us about two of the clock and with him Mr. Skelton and Captain Levett. We that were of the assistants and some other gentle- men and some of the women and our captain returned with them to Nahumkeck, where we supped with a good venison pasty and good beer, and at night we returned to' our ship but some of the women stayed behind. In the mean time most of our people went on shore upon the land of Cape Ann, which lay very near us and gathered store of fine strawberries." The initial landing, this makes clear, was not at Boston at all but at Salem where Endicott's band had already settled. Things were not very rosy in this colony just then, however, as we see from the following passage in Dud- ley's letter to the Countess of Lincoln: " We 36 St. Botolph's Town found the colony in a sad and unexpected con- dition, about eighty of them being dead the win- ter before, and many of those alive weak and sick; all the corn and bread amongst them all hardly sufficient to feed them for a fortnight, insomuch that the remainder of a hundred and eighty servants we had the two years before sent over, coming to us for victuals to sustain them, we found ourselves wholly unable to feed them by reason that the provisions shipped for them were taken out of the ship they were put in; and they who were trusted to ship them in another failed us and left them behind whereupon necessity forced us, to our extreme loss, to give them all liberty, who had cost us about £16 or £20 a person furnishing and send- ing over." So, far from being able to take in more people, Salem had to relinquish almost two hundred of those already there! Small wonder that Dudley comments dryly, " Salem, where we landed, pleased us not." Accordingly, Winthrop and his friends moved farther south along the coast until they came to the spot now dear to our country as the town which shelters Bunker Hill Monu- ment. Here they established their settlement. And here, on the thirtieth of July, 1630, Win- throp, Dudley, Johnson and the pastor John In Old England and New 37 Wilson adopted and signed a simple church covenant which was the foundation of the inde- pendent churches of New England. Before leaving England this band of colonists had made it clear that they were not " Separatists from the Church of England " though they ad- mitted that they could but separate themselves from the corruptions in it in order that they might practise the positive part of Church reformation and propagate the Gospel in America. We must remember this in order to justify the stand taken by Winthrop, a little later, in dealing with Roger Williams. But it is necessary also to bear clearly in mind the fact of this established church at Charlestown. To set up a state in which there should be no established church was as far from the minds of these men as to set up a state in which there should be no established government. None the less they esteemed it their honour, as Win- throp expressly said, " to call the church of England our dear mother." By August the little company was appar- ently settled for good in Charlestown, for the first Court of Assistants had now been held and recommendations as to " how the minister should be maintained " adopted. As a further step towards permanency Governor Winthrop, 38 St. Botolph's Town as we are told in the town-records, " ordered his house to be cut and framed there." Then sickness came upon them, the Lady Arbella and her husband being among the first to pass away in the land from which they had hoped so much. Of the lady Cotton Mather has said quaintly that " she took New England in her way to Heaven. ' ' She was only one of the many who died. Johnson in his " Wonder- Working Providence ' ' records that * ' in almost every family lamentation, mourning and woe were heard, and no fresh food to be had to cherish them. It would assuredly have moved the most lockt up affections to tears, had they past from one hut to another, and beheld the piteous case these people were in; and that which added to their present distress was the want of fresh water. For, although the place did afford plenty, yet for present they could find but one spring, and that not to be come at, but when the tide was down. ' ' Enter, thereupon, Mr. William Blackstone, as the saviour of the enterprise! Blackstone was one of those who had come over with Sir Eobert Gorges and had remained in spite of untoward conditions. On Shawmut (after- wards Boston) he possessed large holdings by virtue of a title Winthrop and his men later In Old England and N~ew 39 acquired by purchase. Now, therefore, " he came and acquainted the Governor of an excel- lent Spring there; withal inviting him and soliciting him thither. "Whereupon after the death of Mr. Johnson and divers others, the Governor, with Mr. Wilson, and the greatest part of the church removed thither; whither also the frame of the Governor's house, in pre- paration at this town, was also (to the discon- tent of some) carried; where people began to build there houses against winter; and this place was called Boston." Thus does the record incorporated in Frothingham's " His- tory of Charlestown " tell the tale of Boston's actual birth. There are those who maintain that the story of our city's growth could very effectively be told by a series of historical ta- bleaux; for the initial number on the program they name with excellent judgment the picture of Blackstone, the gentle recluse, exhibiting to John Winthrop the " excellent spring " of his own domain. This act of Blackstone's was the more praise- worthy because he was a " solitary " by nature and frankly disliked men even remotely of Puritan stripe. He was at this time about thirty-five and had dwelt in his lonely hut on the west slope of what is now Beacon Hill, not 40 St. Botolph's Town far from Beacon and Spruce streets, for about five years, spending his quiet days in trade with the savages and in the cultivation of his garden. Just why he had left England is not more clear than just why he later left Boston. But when he died in Bhode Island (May 26, 1675) he left behind him " 10 paper books " in which it is believed he may have told the story of his mys- terious life. These were unfortunately des- troyed by the Indians when they burned his house, however, and all that we further know of him is that he returned to Boston, after he had ceased to be an inhabitant of the place, and married the widow of John Stephenson, who lived on Milk street, on the site of the build- ing in which Franklin was born. In regard to a name for the new settlement there seems to have been absolute unanimity. By common consent it was called after the old-world city, St. Botolph's town, or Bos- ton, of Lincolnshire, England, from which the Lady Arbella Johnson and her husband had come and in whose noble parish church John Cotton was still preaching. The order of the Court of Assistants, — Governor Win- throp presiding, — "That Trimontaine shall be called Boston " was passed on the 17th of September, 1630, thus giving the death blow ST. BOTOLPH'S CHURCH, BOSTON, ENGLAND In Old England and New 41 to Carlyle's picturesque statement in his book on Cromwell concerning Cotton's share in the matter : l ' Kev. John Cotton is a man still held in some remembrance among our New Eng- land friends. He had been minister of Boston in Lincolnshire; carried the name across the ocean with him; fixed it upon a new small home he found there, which has become a large one since, — the big busy capital of Massa- chusetts, — Boston so called. John Cotton, his mark, very curiously stamped on the face of this planet; likely to continue for some time. ,, This is superb writing, of course, but ex- ceedingly lame history. Cotton did not come to the new world until nearly four years after this settlement was named Boston. But, since it is a fact that the St. Botolph's town, in which Cotton was still living, exercised a profound influence upon that to which he presently came let us turn aside and make a little pilgrimage there. Hawthorne did this during one of his trips abroad and he printed the result in the Atlantic Monthly of January, 1862. We cannot do better, I think, than to follow as he leads : ' ' In mid-afternoon we be- held the tall tower of Saint Botolph's Church (three hundred feet high, the same elevation as the tallest tower of Lincoln Cathedral) loom- 42 St. Botolph's Town ing in the distance. At about half-past four we reached Boston (which name has been short- ened, in the course of ages, by the quick and slovenly English pronunciation, from Botolph's town) and were taken by a cab to the Peacock, in the market-place. It was the best hotel in town, though a poor one enough; and we were shown into a small stifled parlor, dingy, musty, and scented with stale tobacco smoke, — to- bacco smoke two days old, for the waiter as- sured us that the room had not more recently been fumigated. An exceedingly grim waiter he was, too, apparently a genuine descend- ant of the old Puritans of this English Bos- ton. " In my first ramble about the town, chance led me to the riverside, at that quarter where the port is situated. . . . Down the river I saw a brig, approaching rapidly under sail. The whole scene made an odd impression of bustle and sluggishness and decay, and a remnant of wholesome life; and I could not but contrast it with the mighty and populous activity of our own Boston, which was once the feeble infant of this old English town ; — the latter, perhaps, almost stationary ever since that day, as if the birth of such an offspring had taken away its own principle of growth. I thought of Long In Old England and New 43 Wharf and Faneuil Hall, and Washington street and the Great Elm and the State House, and exulted lustily, — but yet began to feel at home in this good old town, for its very name's sake, as I never had before felt in England.' ' The next day Hawthorne visited " a vacant spot of ground where old John Cotton's vicar- age had stood till a very short time since. Ac- cording to our friend's description it was a humble habitation, of the cottage order, built of brick, with a thatched roof. In the right- hand aisle of the church there is an ancient chapel, which at the time of our visit was in process of restoration, and was to be dedicated to Cotton, whom these English people consider as the founder of our American Boston. . . . The interior of St. Botolph's is very fine and satisfactory, as stately almost as a cathedral, and has been repaired — as far as repairs were necessary — in a chaste and noble style. . . . When we came away the tower of St. Botolph's looked benignantly down; and I fancied that it was bidding me farewell, as it did Mr. Cot- ton, two or three hundred years ago, and telling me to describe its venerable height and the town beneath it, to the people of the American city, who are partly akin, if not to the living 44 St. Botolph's Town inhabitants of old Boston, yet to some of the dust that lies in its churchyard." It is of this tower with its beacon and its bells that we hear in Jean Ingelow's touching poem, " High Tide On the Coast of Lincoln- shire." St. Botolph, the pious Saxon monk of the seventh century, who is believed to have founded the town, received his name, indeed, — Bot-holp, i. e. Boat-help, — from his service to sailors; and the high tower was originally de- signed to be a guide to those out at sea, six miles down the river. An account of the town written in 1541 tells the whole story in one terse paragraph: " Botolphstowne standeth on ye river of Lindis. The steeple of the church 6 being quadrata Turris ' and a lanthorn on it, is both very high & f aire and a mark bothe by sea and land for all ye quarters thereaboute. ' ' Perhaps it was remembrance of what the beacon in St. Botolph's tower had meant to the people of Lincolnshire which caused the Court of Assistants, assembled in new Boston, to pass the following resolution March 4, 1634 : " It is ordered that there shalbe forth with a beacon sett on the Centry hill at Boston to give notice to the Country of any danger, and that there shalbe a ward of one pson kept there from the first of April to the last of September ; In Old England and New 45 and that upon the discovery of any danger the beacon shalbe fired, an allarum given, as also messengers presently sent by that town where the danger is discov'red to all other townes within this jurisdiction. ' ' Hawthorne hints, too, that it is to the influ- ence of the old St. Botolph's town that the winding streets of our modern city may be at- tributed. " Its crooked streets and narrow lanes reminded me much of Hanover street, Ann street, and other portions of our American Boston. It is not unreasonable to suppose that the local habits and recollections of the first settlers may have had some influence on the physical character of the streets and houses in the New England metropolis; at any rate here is a similar intricacy of bewildering lanes -and a number of old peaked and projecting- storied dwellings, such as I used to see there in my boyish days. It is singular what a home feeling and sense of kindred I derived from this hereditary connection and fancied physi- ognomical resemblance between the old town and its well-grown daughter.' ' Somewhat less romantic but still appealing is the explanation of our crooked streets volun- teered by Bynner. " The first houses [of the colonial period] were necessarily of the rudest 46 St. Botolph's Town description and they seem to have been scat- tered hither or thither according to individual need or fancy. The early streets, too, obedient to the same law of convenience, naturally fol- lowed the curves of the hills, winding around their bases by the shortest routes and crossing their slopes at the easiest angles. To the pio- neer upon the western prairie it is compara- tively easy to lay out his prospective city in squares and streets of unvarying size and shape, and oftentimes be it said, of wearying sameness; to the colonist of 1630 upon this rugged promontory of New England it was a different matter. Without the power of leisure to surmount the natural obstacles of his new home, he was contented to adapt himself to them. " Thus the narrow winding streets, with their curious twists and turns, the crooked alleys and short-cuts by which he drove his cows to pasture up among the blueberry bushes of Beacon Hill, or carried his grist to the wind- mill over upon Copp's steeps, or went to draw his water at the spring-gate, or took his sober Sunday way to the first rude little church, — these paths and highways, worn by his feet and established for his convenience, remain after two centuries and a half substantially un- In Old England and New 47 changed, endeared to his posterity by priceless associations. And so the town, growing at first after no plan and with no thought of propor- tion, bnt as directed and shaped by the actual needs of the inhabitants, became a not unfitting exponent of their lives, — the rough outward garb, as it were, of their hardy young civiliza- tion." Truth, however, demands the statement that our forefathers made brave efforts to compel a ship-shape city. In 1635 it was ordered: " That from this day there shall noe house at all be built in this towne neere unto any of the streetes or laynes therein but with the advise and consent of the overseers . . . for the more comely and commodious ordering of them." At a subsequent meeting in the same month John Gallop was summarily told to im- prove the alignment of the " payles at his yard's end." Very likely he fought off the order, however; and very likely dozens of others did the same, regulating their homes in the fashion attributed to those settlers of Mar- blehead who are said to have remarked, each to the other, " I'm a'goin' to set here; you can set where you're a mind to." Apparently just that had happened in the old St. Botolph's town ; not improbably that was what also hap- pened in the new. IV THE COMING OF A SHINING LIGHT The earliest and, in many ways, the best account of Boston life in the winter immedi- ately following the naming of the town was that sent by Thomas Dudley in a letter to the Countess of Lincoln, mother of Lady Arbella Johnson. The explanation of this letter's origin is found in a note which Dudley sent with it " to the righte honourable, my very good Lady, the Lady Bryget, Countesse of Lincoln " in the care of Mr. Wilson, pastor of the First Church, who sailed from Salem, April 1, 1631. " Madam," he wrote, " your ltt'res (which are not common or cheape) fol- lowing me hether into New England, and bring- ing with them renewed testimonies of the ac- customed favours you honoured mee with in the Old, have drawne from me this Narrative retribucon, (which in respect of your proper interest in some persons of great note amongst us) was the thankfullest present I had to send 48 The Coming of a Shining Light 49 over the seas. Therefore I humbly intreat your Honour, this bee accepted as payment from him, who neither hath nor is any more than your honour's old thankful servant, " Thomas Dudley." Chronologically, the narrative trips in places for it was written, as Dudley himself says, by the fireside on his knee, in the midst of his family, who " break good manners, and make me many times forget what I would say and say what I would not, ' ' at a time when he had ( l no leisure to review and insert things forgotten, but out of due time and order must set them down as they come to memory. ,, None the less the plain unvarnished descriptions in this let- ter make it a very telling one and when we put along with it Winthrop's brave notes to his son we have a vivid picture of the hardships of that first winter. " I shall expect your mother and you and the rest of my company here next spring, if God will ..." wrote the governor. " Bring some good oil, pitch and tar and a good piece of an old cable to make oakum; for that which was sent is much lost. Some more cows should be brought, especially two new milch, which must be well mealed and milked by the way, and some goats, especially 50 St. Botolph's Town sheep, if they can be had. Bring some store of garlick and onions and conserve of red roses, alum and aloes, oiled skins, both calf and sheep and some worsted ribbing of several sizes.' ' The middle of August, 1631, found Margaret Winthrop under sail for the new world and early in November the married lovers were re- united after their sad season of parting. In honour of the joyful occasion Governor Brad- ford of Plymouth came up to visit the head of the Massachusetts Colony and " divers of the assistants and most of the people of the near plantations " came also to bid the lady Mar- garet welcome, bringing with them " great store of provisions, as fat hogs, kids, venison, poultry, geese partridges etc so as the like joy and manifestation of love had never been seen in New England. It was a great marvel that so much people and such store of provisions could be gathered together at so few hours' warning," recorded the happy husband. The resources of the settlement, as the last sentence of this entry clearly shows, were still very meagre. And the governor was no more prosperous than a number of his associates. In fact, he was poorer than they, if anything, for he had no assured income from his office The Coming of a Shining Light 51 and he was under the constant necessity of spending money for the common good. In the fall of 1634 Winthrop presented a detailed ac- count of his pecuniary relations to the Massa- chusetts colony for " the four years and near an half ' ' in which he had held the office of chief magistrate and this document is so interesting that it is here given entire from the Eecords of the Colony. It speaks more eloquently than we could in many pages of the severe simplicity of those early days in Boston. " Whereas, by order of the last general court, commissioners were appointed, viz., Roger Ludlow, Esq. the deputy governour, and Mr. Israel Stoughton, gent, to receive my ac- compt of such things as I have received and disbursed for public use in the time of my government ; in all due observance and submis- sion to the order of the said court, I do make this declaratory accompt ensuing : — " First, I affirm, that I never received any moneys or other goods committed to me in trust for the commonwealth, otherwise than is hereafter expressed. " Item, I acknowledge I have in my custody certain barrels of common powder, and some match and drumheads, with some things be- 52 St. Botolph's Town longing to the ordnance; which powder, being landed at Charlestown, and exposed to the in- jury of the weather, I took and bestowed first in a tent which I made of mine own broad- cloth, (being then worth eight shillings the yard but in that service much spoiled). After I removed it to my storehouse at Boston, where it still remains, save that some of it hath been spent in public service, and five barrels I sold to some ships that needed them, which I will allow powder or money for. The rest I am ready to deliver up to such as shall be ap- pointed to receive them. " I received also some meal and peas, from Mr. White of Dorchester in England, and from Mr. Roe of London, which was bestowed upon such as had need thereof in the several towns ; as also £10 given by Mr. Thomson. I received also from Mr. Humfrey, some rugs, frieze suits, shoes, and hose, (the certain value whereof I must know from himself,) with let- ters of direction to make use of the greatest part thereof, as given to help bear out my charge for the public. I paid for the freight of these goods and disposed of the greatest part of them to others; but how I cannot set down. I made use, also, of two pair of car- riage wheels, which I will allow for : I had not The Coming of a Shining Light 53 meddled with them but that they lay useless for want of the carriages which lay in Eng- land. For my disbursements, I have formerly delivered to the now deputy a bill of part of them, amounting to near £300, which I dis- bursed for public services divers years since, for which I have received in corn at six shil- lings the bushel, (and which will not yeild me above four shillings) about £180, or near so much. I disbursed also for the transportation of Mr. Phillips his family which was to be borne by the government till he should be chosen to some particular congregation. " Now, for my other charges, by occasion of my place of government, it is well known I have expended much, and somewhat I have re- ceived towards it, which I should have rested satisfied with, but that, being called to accompt, I must mention my disbursements with my re- ceipts and, in both, shall refer myself to the pleasure of the court. " I was first chosen to be governour without my seeking or expectation (there being then divers other gent, who for their abilities every way, were far more fit.) Being chosen I fur- nished myself with servants and provisions ac- cordingly, in a far great proportion than I would have done had I come as a private man, 54 St. Botolph's Town or as an assistant only. In this office I con- tinued four years and near an half, although I earnestly desired in every election to have been freed. In this time I have spent above £500 per annum, of which £200 per annum would have maintained my family in a private condition. So, as I may truly say, I have spent by occasion of my late office, above £1,200. Towards this I have received by way of benev- olence, from some towns about £50 and by the last year's allowance £150 and by some pro- visions sent by Mr. Humfrey, as is before- mentioned, about £50, or, it may be, somewhat more. " I also disbursed, at our coming away, in England, for powder and great shot, £216, which I did not put into my bill of charges for- merly delivered to the now deputy, because I did expect to have paid myself out of that part of Mr. Johnson's estate, which he gave to the public; but, finding that it will fall far short, I must put it to this accompt. " The last thing, which I offer to the consid- eration of the court, is, that my long continu- ance in the said office hath put me into such a way of unavoidable charge, as will be still as chargeable to me as the place of governour will be to some others. In all these things, I The Coming of a Shining Light 55 refer myself to the wisdom and justice of the court, with this protestation, that it repenteth me not of my cost or labour bestowed in the service of this commonwealth ; but do heartily bless the Lord our God, that he hath pleased to honour me so far as to call for anything he hath bestowed upon me for the service of his church and people here, the prosperity whereof and his gracious acceptance, shall be an abundant recompense to me. I conclude with this one request, (which in justice may not be denied me) that, as it stands upon rec- ord that, upon the discharge of my office, I was called to accompt, so this my declaration may be recorded also; lest, hereafter, when I shall be forgotten, some blemish may lie upon my posterity, when there shall be nothing to clear it. John Winthrop." " September 4, 1634." The person who had unconsciously precip- itated all this calling to account was none other than Winthrop's old friend, Eev. John Cotton, who, almost immediately after landing in Bos- ton, preached a sermon in which he maintained that a magistrate ought not to be turned into a private man without just cause. This was a view of civil government not at all palatable 56 St. Botolph's Town to the Massachusetts worthies of that day and, as if to assert, once for all that they wished to be entirely free in their choice of a supreme officer they chose for the highest office in their gift, not Winthrop who had so far served them continuously, but Thomas Dudley, his former deputy. Winthrop entirely acquiesced in this result and after entertaining the new governor handsomely in his own house rendered the above account of his stewardship, which had been demanded of him. Three years later he was again chosen chief magistrate. During twelve of the nineteen years of his life in Bos- ton, indeed, he served his fellow colonists in this capacity. No doubt the Eev. John Cotton was sorely perplexed and not a little chagrined at the change in the government which his first effort in his new pulpit had brought about. But his had been an exciting life and he was fairly well used to changes. Born in 1585, a son of Rowland Cotton, a lawyer of Derby, England, he had entered Trinity College, Cambridge, when only twelve years of age and soon became noted for his acquirements. At nineteen he was admitted to the degree of Master of Arts. Soon afterwards he received the appointment of head lecturer, dean and catechist of Em- REV. JOHN COTTON The Coming of a Shining Light 57 manuel College. Here he came to be greatly loved by his students for his sweet and gentle disposition and prodigiously admired by the distinguished divines of the time for his grasp upon the doctrines of Calvin. His theological bent being what it was it is difficult to under- stand how he should have been called to St. Botolph's until one learns that this came about through a mistake on the part of the Mayor who voted for him when he intended to vote against him. And so great was the tact of the new clergyman that he was able to hold for many years a place gained in this extraordi- nary way! In his marriage as in many other things Cotton was fortunate, for Elizabeth Horrocks, with whom he lived eighteen years, brought him on his wedding day the " assur- ance of his spiritual redemption ; hence it was a day of double marriage to him." After her death he married " one Mrs. Sarah Story, a vertuous widow, very dear to his former wife." Eventually the news of Cotton's non-con- formity got to the ears of those on the lookout for heresy, and complaint being entered at the High Commissioned Court that " the Magis- trates did not kneel at the Sacrament " and that some other ceremonies were also unob- served " letters missive were dispatched in- 58 St. Botolph's Town continently to convene Mr. Cotton " before that " infamous " Court. Some time previ- ously the Earl of Dorset had promised to do what he could for Cotton should he be perse- cuted as others before him had been, but now, when appealed to, he replied " that if Mr. Cot- ton had been guilty of drunkenness, of unclean- ness, or any such lesser fault, he could have obtained his pardon; but inasmuch as he had been guilty of Nonconformity and Puritanism, the crime was unpardonable and therefore he must fly for his safety ! ' ' Accordingly, Mr. Cotton travelled in dis- guise to London and while hesitating between Holland, Barbadoes and New England decided to set sail for the last-named place. To this decision he was no doubt much influenced by the pressing invitations of friends and by " letters procured from the Church of Boston by Mr. Winthrop, the Governor of the Col- ony." Boston in New England was certainly very glad to welcome him. It was a figurative saying there for many years that the lamp in the lantern of St. Botolph's ceased to burn when Cotton left that church to become a shi- ning light in the wilderness of New England. His ascendency seems to have been a purely personal one, however. Though Hutchinson The Coming of a Shining Light 59 says that he was more instrumental in the set- tlement of the civil as well as the ecclesiastical polity of New England than any other person one finds little in his writing to explain his power. And the " insinuating and melting way ' ' which Hubband attributed to him is con- spicuous chiefly by its absence from the pub- lished sermons which have come down to us. He became the progenitor of many of the best and most useful citizens Boston has had, and these good people are ever zealous to link the Old Boston to the new. This very winter of 1908, for instance, they have been approached by the mayor of the old-world city to help re- pair a portion of St. Botolph's church as a sign of love for its " shining light." The request this functionary made seems rather odd until one has heard what our Bos- ton gladly did in this respect more than fifty years ago. The story is told briefly in a sound- ing Latin inscription written by the Honour- able Edward Everett and engraved upon a memorial plate in the southwest chapel of St. Botolph's, now called Cotton Chapel, in honour of him who was once minister of the church. Put into English it reads : " In perpetual remembrance of John Cotton who, during the reigns of James and Charles 60 St. Botolph's Town was, for many years, a grave, skilful and la- borious vicar of this church. Afterward, on account of the miserable commotion amongst sacred affairs in his own country, he sought a new settlement in a new world, and remained even to the end of his life a pastor and teacher of the greatest reputation and of the greatest authority in the first church of Boston in New England, which city received this venerable name in honour of Cotton. Two hundred and twenty-five years having passed away since his migration, his descendants and the American citizens of Boston were invited to this pious work by their English brethren in order that the name of an illustrious man, the love and honour of both worlds, might not any longer be banished from that noble temple in which he diligently, learnedly and sacredly ex- pounded the divine oracles for so many years; and they have willingly and gratuitously caused this shrine to be restored, and this tab- let to be erected, in the year of our recovered salvation, 1855." Those who then subscribed to the chapel have, almost all of them, descendants bearing the same names who are to-day living in and about Boston. These people it is, no doubt, who will gladly respond to the request of the COTTON CHAPEL, ST. BOTOLPH'S, BOSTON, ENGLAND The Coming of a Shining Light 61 English mayor. For the original contributors were, in the majority of cases, either descend- ants of John Cotton, or husbands of wives so descended. To the former class belonged John Eliot Thayer, who gave $250; Edward, Gor- ham, Sidney and Peter C. Brooks, who gave $100 each, and John Chipman Gray, who gave $50. Among the husbands of Cotton's women descendants who contributed were Charles Francis Adams, Edward Everett and Langdon Frothingham, each of whom gave $100. Other well-known names on the list of donors are Nathan and William Applet on, George Ban- croft, Martin Brimmer, Abbott Lawrence, John Amory Lowell, Jonathan Phillips, Jared Sparks, Frederic Tudor and John Collins Warren. The good feeling between the two Bostons, which was cemented by these generous gifts toward the Cotton Chapel, seems to date from the reopening of the church, two years earlier, for which occasion several gentlemen from our Boston were invited to England, at least four of whom were able to be present. In our public library may be found a curious little sheet which gives an account of the exer- cises. In print so poor and so small as to nearly ruin the eyes are there recorded the 62 St. Botolph's Town speeches of the day. One of these, made by Col. T. B. Lawrence of this city, expresses regret that " the domestic institutions of the states of the south " were being warmly de- bated in the English drawing-rooms of that time. Happily, Cotton's Boston descendants did not all think alike on this important sub- ject ! SIR HARRY VANE PROPHET AND MARTYR Thomas Dudley, whom Cotton's zeal had caused to be chosen as Winthrop's successor, was himself left out of the governorship at the election of May, 1635, and John Haynes elected in his stead. Then there arrived in Boston two men of very different character both of whom, however, were destined to make a deep mark in the history of their time and eventually to die on the scaffold for allegiance to the truth as they saw it. These two men were Hugh Peters and Sir Harry Vane. Peters had been the pastor of the English church in Eotterdam and had there been per- secuted by the English ambassador. Vane was heir to Sir Harry Vane, Comptroller of the king's household, a man of great impor- tance in the politics of the time. And his son has a personality of so much interest that I am resolved to trace his life fom its bright beginning to its glorious end even if, in so 63 64 St. Botolph's Town doing, I run somewhat ahead of my narrative and carry my readers far away from Boston in New England. The fact is that one usually encounters only the Massachusetts segment of Vane's wonderful life and so is deprived of opportunity to judge his career in its whole- ness and to realize that he, more than any other man, is the " link that binds together the severed divisions of the English-speaking race." One American writer, Charles Wentworth Upham, has pointed out in the preface to his really capital " Life of Sir Harry Vane," that there is an interesting parallel between the career of this hero and that of Lafayette. Both were scions of an aristocratic house and might easily have passed their youth follow- ing the pleasures of court life and indulging in those enervating relaxations commonly as- sociated with young aristocrats. Instead, however, both yearned towards America, Lafayette because he saw in the new land a chance to realize the vision of political free- dom which illumined his young soul, Harry Vane because he thought to find here " free- dom to worship God." Both paid dearly in youth and in middle life for their devotion to an ideal, and Vane finally suffered death upon Sir Harry Vane 65 the block. But because of them American his- tory contains at least two highly romantic chapters and is more deeply inspiring than it could ever have been without them. For each served in his own era to point the truth that the only really great man is he who, with never a thought of self, unswervingly " follows the gleam ' ' even when it leads to exile, prison and death. Sir Harry Vane was born in 1612, one of a very numerous family of children. His father had been knighted by James I and though only in the early twenties at the time of the younger Harry 's birth, was already on the way to eminence in the government of England. At the preparatory school in Westminster and while at Magdalen College in Oxford young Vane bade fair to follow a similar career along the line of least resistance. He was gay, ad- dicted to pleasure and, as he himself says, fond of " good fellowship.' ' But when he was about seventeen he began to interest himself in theology and, the fascination of this subject growing rapidly upon him, he pursued it further and further, at the same time aliena- ting himself as a natural result from the form of worship and doctrine established by law. "When the period of his matriculation arrived 66 St. Botolph's Town he declined to take the oath of allegiance and, leaving Oxford, passed over to Holland and France, finally settling down for some time in Geneva. Eesidence in the stronghold of Calvinism naturally strengthened the yonng man's bent towards doctrinal speculations and spiritual exercises and as it was never part of his habit to conceal his opinions, the king was soon being informed by his bishops that the heir of an important family, closely connected with the throne, had conceived a dislike for the dis- cipline and ceremonies of the Church of Eng- land. Whereupon, Laud was instructed to ex- postulate with the young Puritan and wean him back to the true faith. The young dis- senter had learned his new lesson well, how- ever, and he was much more than a match for Laud in theological discussion. Perceiving which, the haughty prelate lost his temper and tried to threaten where he could not persuade. This naturally did not endear his doctrines to Harry Vane, whose ardent soul was aflame with love for the meek and gentle One Laud only professed to serve. Accordingly he an- nounced his purpose of going to New England, where those who believed as he did stood ready to give him a warm welcome and, although his SIR HARRY VANE, FROM AN OLD MINIATURE Sir Harry Vane 67 father at first opposed the plan, he soon as- sented to it, having found the king to be quite in favour of removing the aristocratic heretic. The excitement occasioned by the coming to the colony of this brilliant youth, not yet twenty-three, who was heir to a title and a fine estate, whose hand had not yet been pledged in marriage and who was, besides, exceedingly handsome and distinguished-looking, can be better imagined than described. That he should at such an age, after visiting foreign capitals and witnessing all the splendours and enticements which the gay and brilliant world holds out to those of his rank and condition, voluntarily take up the self-denying unevent- ful life of the Boston of that day was held to mean, as indeed it did mean, deep desire to realize himself spiritually. Accordingly Win- throp and the rest gave him the right hand of fellowship without any of the usual delays and, within a month after his arrival young Vane found himself an honoured member of John Cotton's congregation. A year later he was chosen governor of the colony, Winthrop, who was twice his age, being appointed his deputy. " Because he was son and heir to a Privy Councillor in England, the ships congratulated his election with a volley 68 St. Botolph's Town of great shot," comments the Journal. But Vane deserved the salutes of the cannon on his own account as well as on his family's. He was a remarkable youth. In the perplexing civil and religious controversies which now came crowding thick and fast, he soon found scope, however, for all the tolerance and good judgment he could possibly command. The most appealing of these controversies, from the point of view of those who care chiefly for the human side of history, was that which centred about Mrs. Hutchinson. A later chapter will discuss this matter in some detail, so we will here touch upon it only so far as it concerns the young governor, precip- itated, at twenty-four, into disputes that would have made many an older head ache with their complexities. Like a youth he took the gen- erous and what proved to be the wrong (?) side of the question. And this, added to the fact that his sudden elevation had nursed deep jealousies of him, proved his undoing in Mas- sachusetts. Naught did it avail that he showed great sagacity in dealing with the Indians and extraordinary tact in smoothing the ruffled sensibilities of the older magistrates. The fact remained that he was too popular with the masses, too young, too handsome, too zealous Sir Harry Vane 69 for liberty of conscience to be acceptable to those who had borne the burden and heat of colonization and who saw their hard-won peace threatened by people with opinions subversive of theirs. Even the noble Winthrop indulged, on at least one occasion, in jealousy of Vane's pop- ularity. The case in point occurred after the elder man had again been elected governor and so would, in the natural order of things, have entertained all distinguished visitors from abroad. But Lord James Ley (after- wards the Earl of Marlborough) snubbed his advances. He was then only a youth of nine- teen and he made no secret of preferring the society of the magnetic Vane to that of the dig- nified Winthrop. Vane had no house of his own for, upon arriving in Boston, he went to live with Mr. Cotton and there, or in an addi- tion made to the parsonage, stayed throughout his sojourn in Boston. But if he could not entertain Lord Ley in his own mansion he could put him up at the inn of a friend, which he at once proceeded to do, Winthrop at the moment being away on a two-days' visit to Lynn and Salem. The inn in question was that of Mr. Cole 1 and when the governor, upon his 1 See " Among Old New England Inns." 70 St. Botolph's Town return, proffered hospitality to Lord Ley, the latter politely declined, saying he " came not to be troublesome to any and the house where he was, was so well governed that he could be as private here as elsewhere." That Win- throp deeply resented this and an incident that followed is shown by an entry in his Journal under date of July, 1637: " The differences grew so much here," he wrote, referring to the religious troubles, " as tended fast to a separation; so as Mr. Vane being among oth- ers, invited by the Governor to accompany the Lord Ley at dinner, not only refused to come, alleging by letter that his conscience withheld him, but also, at the same hour, he went over to Noddle's Island to dine with Mr. Maverick, and carried the Lord Ley with him." This happened at the end of Vane's stay in Amer- ica, however, and we are only at the beginning. The first act of his administration, accom- plished within a week of his induction into office, was one at which no one could cavil. It was an amicable arrangement by which all in- ward-bound vessels agreed to come to anchor below the fort in the harbour and wait there for the governor's pass; further, the captains agreed to submit their invoices to the inspec- tion of the government before discharging Sir Harry Vane 71 their cargoes ; and, in addition, they gave their word that their crews should never be per- mitted to remain on shore after sunset except under urgent necessity. These measures, all of which made for the preservation of order in the community, were exceedingly important ; but only a Vane could have carried them through, for they required the kind of han- dling no previous governor could give. Soon, however, there arose a complication which no human creature could have solved to the satisfaction of everybody. A contuma- cious mate of the British vessel Hector, ob- serving that the king's colours were not dis- played at the fort, declared, on the deck of his vessel and in the presence of many of the townspeople then visiting her, that the colo- nists were all " traitors and rebels." Of course, the government had to take cognizance of this and, equally of course, the mate was made to apologize. But, after the dignity of the colony had been vindicated, the fact still remained that the king's colours were not fly- ing at the fort and the British officers could not say that they were should news of the af- fair be wafted back to England and the king moved to ask questions about the matter. Would not the governor, then, be so kind as 72 St. Botolph's Town to run up a flag, just to save their consciences? Now, on the surface, this seemed an exceed- ingly reasonable request for British officers to make of a colony which held a charter from the crown and resented as an insult the imputa- tion that they were " rebels." But the Eng- lish flag displayed a " papal cross," an abom- ination no Puritan could bear! And on the board of magistrates who were requested to hoist this ensign sat John Endicott who, in a fit of insensate rage against the " emblem of papacy," had cut the red cross out of the flag! The issue was for a time deferred by the ex- planation that the whole colony contained not a single flag. But when the unsuspecting cap- tains courteously offered to present a flag to be hoisted at the fort, the magistrates, unable longer to dodge the issue, had to explain how matters stood. But they promised to display the king's colours on the king's fort, though protesting that they were fully persuaded that the cross in those same colours seemed to them idolatrous. The matter being thus adjusted to the satisfaction of everybody, the confer- ence was brought to a close. But the clergy, who had a finger in every pie, were yet to be reckoned with, and when the case was submitted to them, that evening, JOHN ENDICOTT Sir Harry Vane 73 in accordance with the practice of the govern- ment upon all important and difficult questions, they gave it as their opinion that the magis- trates had erred in saying that a flag bearing the badge of Eomish superstition should be displayed on any terms whatever over Puritan soil. Whereupon the poor captains were or- dered to appear next morning, the whole mat- ter was again threshed out and the board voted, on reconsideration, not to display the flag. Governor Vane, though as conscientious a Puritan as any of them, could not sympa- thize with such proceedings. They seemed to him not only inconsistent but absurdly over- scrupulous. Mr. Dudley agreed with him and, the magistrates obstinately adhering to their last determination, the flag was displayed with- out the authority of the government and upon the personal responsibility of Mr. Vane and Mr. Dudley. In this case, as in dozens of crises which came later in his life, Sir Harry exhib- ited an admirable sense of proportion and jus- tified Milton's characterization of him as " Vane, young in year, but in sage counsel old." For had he not taken the action which he did on this occasion the colony would with- out doubt have been precipitated into enor- mous difficulties with which it was in no posi- 74 St. Botolph's Town tion then to cope. But, of course, he had to pay the price of his diplomacy. Had he not begun his career by defying the clergy? The attitude which he took in the Mrs. Hutchinson affair naturally did not help his cause. He believed with all his soul in religious liberty and, into the bargain, he admired Mrs. Hutch- inson as a woman of unquestionable piety as well as talent. Moreover, he was fresh from Geneva, where the impress of Calvin was still sharp and inclined all interested in intellectual pursuits to a delight in fine-spun theological discussion. The occasion of his break with the ruling powers was, however, a law passed after Win- throp was again governor to the effect that a heavy penalty should be imposed upon any person who should receive into his house a stranger coming with intent to reside, or let to such an one a lot or habitation, without, in every instance, obtaining particular permis- sion of one of the standing council, or two of the assistant magistrates ; and a large fine was also to be levied upon any person, which should without such permission, allow a stranger a residence. This law was aimed to prevent the reception into the colony of several friends of Eev. John Wheelwright, who would have Sir Harry Vane 75 joined the Hutchinson faction, bnt it was felt by many beside Harry Vane to be a violation of the rights of the people. So incensed were the inhabitants of Boston that they refused to meet the governor, as was their custom, when he returned from the legislature. Vane's stand in the matter was the broad liberty-lov- ing one of a man cosmopolitan by nature, Win- throp's that of a colonist bent, above every- thing else, upon preserving peace in the coun- try for which he had given his all. Both were honest with themselves and right from their own standpoint, only Vane had the far view as against Winthrop's short sight. In all jus- tice to the latter, however, it seems fair to re- member that he had suffered much more than Vane for the peace he was bent upon securing. Nor could he sail away, as Vane soon did, to a glorious career elsewhere. It is good, in this connection, to be able to record that Vane never forgot the country to which he had dedi- cated his ardent youth, and that Winthrop has left to posterity this cordial eulogy of the man who, for a time, utterly eclipsed him in a com- munity of which he was founder and patri- arch: " Although he might have taken occa- sion against us for some dishonor, which he apprehended to have been unjustly put upon 76 St. Botolph's Town him here, yet he showed himself at all times a true friend to New England and a man of noble and generous mind." Soon after returning to England Vane mar- ried, and for a time it seemed as though he would remain in retirement and lead the quiet happy life of an English country-gentleman. But in the spring of 1640 he was induced to enter Parliament and, soon after, he was made Treasurer of the Navy and knighted by King Charles. Almost immediately, as a result of this preferment, he was singled out for ven- geance and insult by Sir Thomas Wentworth, afterward the Earl of Strafford. The means chosen by Wentworth to incense Sir Harry seems rather clumsy to us of to-day. The fam- ily seat of the Vanes was Baby Castle, and it was here that Sir Harry's father had been wont to entertain King Charles with such feu- dal splendour and princely pageantry as Scott has described for all time in " Kenilworth. ' ' To this castle the younger Sir Harry Vane would naturally fall heir, and so, purely out of contempt, as Wentworth's own biographer admits, the Earl of Strafford had his patent to the peerage made out with the style and title Baron Eaby of Eaby Castle, " an act of the most unnecessary provocation and one Sir Harry Vane 77 which was the chief occasion of the loss of Strafford's head.' ' For the elder Sir Harry Vane was not of a forgiving nature and, from now on, he pur- sued Lord Strafford with a fixed and deadly hostility. His son, on the other hand, felt himself free of embarrassing loyalties to a king who would permit his father to be so insulted and he forthwith devoted himself openly to the advocacy of those principles of freedom for which he had always contended. When Charles dissolved Parliament because it had not voted him the supplies he had asked for our Sir Harry was immediately reelected. And as he was now in the Long Parliament (so called in consequence of an act which it passed early in its session, and which the king was infatuated enough to sign, by which the body was assured against its own dissolution, except by its con- sent in both houses), the young member for Kingston upon Hull was for quite a term of years in a position greatly to influence the Eng- land of his time. Here, as in the Massachusetts colony, he soon came to be a leader. Hallam, in his Constitu- tional History of England, accounts for this fact thus : " He was not only incorrupt but dis- interested, inflexible in conforming his public 78 St. Botolph's Town conduct to his principles, and averse to every sanguinary and oppressive measure; qualities not common in revolutionary chiefs." This very temperate dictum gives one rather a chill for the fact of the matter was that Vane was positively heroic in his contention for peace and liberty of conscience and abhorred every form of persecution and bigotry. Great as was his personal dislike for all that Papacy implied, he so exerted himself in the cause of Catholic emancipation as to bring down upon his head denunciations from Protestants whose cause he would have died for. Similarly, in the nego- tiations between Charles and the Parliament, he struggled with all his might for such terms as would assure to the people the rights which they had lost. And yet, when Colonel Pride forcibly ejected the members opposed to his views and principles he would not stay with " The Bump," preferring retirement to a tri- umph gained in so illegal a manner. Of all the republicans he alone refused to profit by power thus gained. Consequently Sir Harry Vane cannot be held in the least degree responsible for the impeach- ment, trial and execution of King Charles. He heartily disapproved of the whole proceeding. And when Cromwell came to him in February, Sir Harry Vane 79 1649, to urge the purity of his intentions as a reason for Vane's becoming a member of the Council Sir Harry only reluctantly agreed to accept the honour and would not take the oath of office until the clause which approved of the trial and condemnation of Charles was struck out. In the foreign wars . which followed Vane bore a glorious part and when the people felt as too oppressive the taxes these struggles en- tailed he voluntarily relinquished the profits of his office as treasurer and commissioner for the navy. Later, when Cromwell followed the des- perate determination which had insidiously taken possession of him and on April 20, 1653, grasped once for all the power with which he had been dallying, Vane was the first to leap to his feet in stinging rebuke of his treacherous course. We are not surprised to read in his- tory that Oliver's retort to this was the excla- mation, in a fit of unbounded passion, " Sir Harry Vane! Sir Harry Vane! Good Lord deliver me from Sir Harry Vane." After which he seized the records, snatched the bill from the hands of the clerk, drove the members out at the point of the bayonet, locked the doors, put the key in his pocket and returned to Whitehall to observe that the spirit of God 80 St. Botolph's Town had been too strong npon him longer to be re- sisted. Tyranny once more having the upper hand in England there was nothing for Sir Harry Vane to do but again to retire to Eaby Castle and pursue his philosophical and theological studies while awaiting a time when he could again serve the " good cause,' ' as he termed it, of the people's rights and liberties. The occasion for which he longed came duly. Fol- lowing his policy of giving a sanctimonious face to each new encroachment upon liberty the Protector, as a step in his plan to make himself king and settle upon his descendants forever the crown he had wrested from its rightful owner, published, on March 15, 1656, a declaration calling upon the people to observe a general fast to the end that counsel and direc- tion might come to the government from Prov- idence concerning the best ways of promoting peace and happiness in England. To Cromwell's unbounded surprise and in- dignation Sir Harry Vane took him at his word and composed a paper entitled " A Healing Question propounded and resolved, upon Occa- sion of the late public and seasonable Call to Humiliation in order to Love and Union amongst the honest Party, and with a Desire OLIVER CROMWELL Sir Harry Vane 81 to apply Balm to the Wound, before it become incurable. By Henry Vane, Knight.' ' With perfect good faith he transmitted his paper privately to Cromwell before giving to the world any hint of the advice therein contained. But when, after the lapse of a month, the man- uscript was returned without comment Sir Harry immediately issued it from the press together with a Postscript in which allusion was made to the fact that it had been previ- ously communicated to Cromwell. Now, whether Cromwell had read the manu- script or not we shall never know, but he was furious at its publication and sent Vane a per- emptory and harshly-worded summons to ap- pear at once before the Council on the ground that his paper tended to the disturbance of the present government and the peace of the Com- monwealth. Of course it did, for in this, one of the most remarkable documents ever penned by man, Vane had asserted, for the first time in history, the need of a written constitution or body of fundamental laws by which the gov- ernment itself should be controlled! In an- swering the dictatorial summons of the Council Vane added fuel to the flames by remarking, 11 I cannot but observe, in this proceeding with me, how exactly they tread in the steps of the 82 St. Botolph's Town late king, whose design being to set the gov- ernment free from all restraint of laws, as to our persons and estates, and to render the monarchy absolute, thought he could employ no better means to effect it, than by casting into obloquy and disgrace all those who desired to preserve the laws and liberties of the na- tion." His letter concludes: " It is no small grief to be lamented that the evil and wretched principles by which the late king aimed to work out his design, should now revive and spring up under the hands of men professing godli- ness.' ' For this and the pamphlet which pre- ceded it Vane was imprisoned in Carisbrook Castle on the Isle of Wight and, when Oliver feared longer to keep him in durance, was hunted down on his own stamping-ground and unlawfully deprived of his estates. Then, in the fall of 1658, Oliver went to meet a King whom he could not bully and Eichard Cromwell assumed the Protectorate. This was more than even Sir Harry Vane could stand with patience. Oliver had at least been a foe worthy of his steel; but that the opportunity for a republic should be set aside in order that this feeble creature should hold office was too much for any man with high hopes of England to bear. Sir Harry again offered himself for Sir Harry Vane 83 Parliament and, when tie had been cheated ont of two elections given him by the franchises of the people, he tried in a third district, that of Whitchurch in Hampshire, and was returned in spite of the machinations of his enemies. Then he made in Parliament what seems to me one of the best short speeches I have ever read: " Mr. Speaker, Among all the people of the universe, I know none who have shown so much zeal for the liberty of their country, as the English at this time have done. They have, by the help of Divine Providence, overcome all obstacles and have made themselves free. We have driven away the hereditary tyranny of the house of Stuart, at the expense of much blood and treasure, in hopes of enjoying hered- itary liberty, after having shaken off the yoke of kingship, and there is not a man amongst us who could have imagined that any person would be so bold as to dare attempt the ravish- ing from us that freedom which has cost us so much blood and so much labour. 1 ' But so it happens, I know not by what mis- fortune, we are fallen into the error of those who poisoned the Emperor Titus to make room for Domitian, who made away Augustus that they might have Tiberius and changed Clau- 84 St. Botolph's Town dius for Nero. I am sensible these examples are foreign from my subject since the Romans in those days were buried in lewdness and lux- ury; whereas the people of England are now renowned all over the world for their great virtue and discipline, — and yet suffer an id- iot without courage, without sense, nay, without ambition, to have dominion in a country of liberty. " One could bear a little with Oliver Crom- well, though contrary to his oath of fidelity to the Parliament, contrary to his duty to the public, contrary to the respect he owed to that venerable body from whom he received his authority, he usurped the government. His merit was so extraordinary that our judgement and passions might be blinded by it. He made his way to empire by the most illustrious ac- tions. He held under his command an army that had made him a conqueror and a people that had made him their general. " But as for Richard Cromwell, his son, who is he ? What are his titles ? We have seen that he has a sword by his side, but did he ever draw it? And, what is of more importance in this case, is he fit to get obedience from a mighty nation who could never make a footman obey him? Yet, we must recognize this man as our Sir Harry Vane 85 king under the style of Protector — a man without birth, without courage, without con- duct. For my part, I declare, sir, it shall never be said that I made such a man my master/ ' Following this remarkable triumph of ora- tory Eichard Cromwell was forced to resign, the famous Long Parliament was reassembled, and Sir Henry Vane was appointed one of the Committee of Safety, to whom the supreme and entire power of the country was entrusted until Parliament could make further arrange- ments. Later he was made President of the Council. And if General George Monk had not sold the army to Prince Charles for the title of a duke Vane's dream of a republican Eng- land would in all probability have been real- ized. As it was, Charles the Second was crowned and England given over to the scourge of an unbridled tyranny. Of course Sir Harry Vane was among the first to fall a victim to the treachery of the army and of Parliament. He was imprisoned, first in his own castle and then on the island of Sicily, while the king waited until he should be strong enough to claim his life. Then he kept him for another season in the Tower. In the Declaration of Breda Charles had pro- claimed amnesty to all not especially excepted 86 St. Botolph's Town by Parliament and as Sir Harry had not been one of his father's judges and was a well-known ppponent of the action taken by the regicides, it had been supposed that he would be quite secure from the vengeance of the new monarch. Moreover, the two Houses of Parliament had been assured through the Lord Chancellor that, " If Vane were ever convicted, execution as to his life should be remitted. ' ' It was because this appeared to be sufficient that Sir Harry Vane's name was excepted from the Act of In- demnity and Oblivion which the Commons framed. When a new Parliament came in, however, and, stimulated by desire to get a share of Sir Harry's great estate, pushed matters vigor- ously against him, the king had either to re- deem or break his pledge. Characteristically he shifted the burden of decision upon his Chancellor in the following letter which shows, as well as a whole volume of history could, the manner of man who now ruled England : " Hampton Coukt, Saturday, " Two in the afternoon. cc (jv^e re i a tion that has been made to me of Sir Henry Vane's carriage yesterday in the Hall, is the occasion of this letter; which, if Sir Harry Vane 87 I am rightly informed, was so insolent as to justify all lie had done, acknowledging no su- preme power in England but a Parliament, and many things to that purpose. You have had a true account of all and if he has given new occasion to be hanged, certainly he is too dan- gerous a man to let live, if we can honestly put him out of the way. Think of this and give me some account of it to-morrow, till when I have no more to say to you. c. b." The end soon came. Sir Harry was by this time in the Tower and the king was thirsting, as he very well knew, for his blood. When it was suggested to Vane that he might save his life by making submission to Charles he an- swered simply, " If the king does not think himself more conserved for his honour and word than I am for my life let him take it." And indeed nothing could have availed. His trial was long but unfair from beginning to end and, even when he came to the block, look- ing very handsome in his black clothes and scarlet waistcoat, he was given none of the privileges usually accorded those about to die. Pepys, who was on hand for the execution as for most other interesting spectacles that hap- pened during his lifetime, describes, with every 88 St. Botolph's Town mark of admiration, the bearing of the pris- oner, adding further, loyalist though he was, that " the king lost more by that man's death than he will get again for a good while. ' ' An- other loyalist exclaimed in admiration, as he watched the dignity of those last moments, ' ' He dies like a prince. ' ' To which I can only add, after reading his wonderful prayer for those who had betrayed him, that he died like the Prince, — that Prince of Peace whose prin- ciples he had all his life advocated and whose sublime example he followed even in the hour of his death. VI HOW WINTHROP TREATED WITH THE LA TOURS Scarcely had Winthrop been chosen gov- ernor for the fourth time when (June, 1643) there came to Boston to entreat help against his rival, Charnissay D'Aulnay, Charles La Tour, one of the lords of New France and per- haps the most picturesque figure in the early history of this continent. The manner of this powerful Frenchman's arrival in Boston was most disconcerting to the Puritans. For he came in a French armed ship and sailed straight up the harbour, past a fort in which there was not a single person to answer his military salute! Had he been an enemy he might easily have sacked the town. As it was, he made his debut in Boston in a charmingly simple fashion. For coming toward his ship as it sailed up the bay was discerned a boat containing Mrs. Gibbons, the wife of Captain Edward Gibbons, going with her children to their farm. One of the gentle- 89 90 St. Botolph's Town men on La Tour's vessel recognized her and told La Tour who she was. Whereupon the lord of New France had a boat of his own fitted out and proceeded to follow the lady to her landing-place. Mrs. Gibbons, not knowing the strangers, hastened from them as fast as she could and put in at Governor's Island, so called because it was the summer home of the Winthrops. But it happened that the governor and some of his family were on the island at the time, so La Tour was able, by having pur- sued her, the more speedily to get in touch with the very person whom he had come to see! While he was telling his story over the hos- pitable supper-table, Mrs. Gibbons returned to town in the governor's boat and spread the news of the stranger's informal arrival, so that when La Tour, later, took the governor up to Boston in his own boat, they were met by three shallops of armed men, come out to escort them ceremoniously into the town. Before proceeding to describe the negotia- tions which went on between Winthrop and this representative of a foreign state, let us, however, digress a bit and learn who this La Tour was and why he had come to Boston. To make the matter clear one must go back to the very beginnings of the settlement of Winthrop and the La Tours 91 New France and retrace the story of Cham- plain's second expedition to the St. Lawrence, when in 1604 he sailed under De Monts (to whom the King of France had granted the land), in company with Baron de Poutrincourt, Pontgrave and divers merchants, priests and Huguenot ministers. This variously assorted company on exploration and colonization bent settled on St. Croix Island, in the mouth of St. Croix Eiver, now the boundary between Maine and New Brunswick. There they passed their first winter in America. But the next year they crossed the Bay of Fundy and founded Port Royal on the wooded shore of Annapolis Basin, in the very heart of that country where . . . the murmuring pines and the hemlocks, Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight, Stand like Druids of old, with voices sad and prophetic, Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms. It was a wonderfully peaceful land which they found; and so it continued to be — even when the colonists suffered most from want and privation — until the passions of ambi- tious men and the schemings and counter- schemings of rival branches of the priesthood 92 St. Botolph's Town availed to transform it into a scene of feudal- ists strife. Champlain's men had been content to work hard and deny themselves, to live cleanly and to beguile their days with gardening, verse- making and a nonchalant Christianization of the Indians. Not so their sons. Poutrin- court's son cared chiefly for war, and soon built among the rocks and fogs of Cape Sable a small fort to which he gave the name Fort Lomeron. This fort descended at his death to Charles La Tour, one of his adventurous re- tainers, and was by him called Fort St. Louis. La Tour, by improving to the utmost every chance that came his way and by winning the alliance of both English and French, soon made himself a terrifying power in the Acadian land. To his first fort he ere long added another variously called to-day Fort La Tour and Fort St. Jean — the latter from its situation at the mouth of the river, in the centre of the present city of St. John, N. B. Strong as Charles La Tour had succeeded in becoming, an even stronger man was soon to arrive from France. Under Claude de Bazilly (a knight of Malta, charged by Louis XIII to seize the Acadian possessions), had sailed D'Aulnay Charnissay, a gentleman of birth, Winthrop and the La Tours 93 and to him in 1635 there came by Razilly's death royal power in Acadia. D'Aulnay made his headquarters at Port Royal, and nobody thought of disputing his authority, so clearly could it be traced to the king — nobody, ex- cept La Tour. That adventurer, having papers from both the English and the French, and having besides an indomitable spirit and inex- haustible craft, made D'Aulnay 's situation from the very beginning well-nigh unbearable. In position and qualities the two rivals were poles apart. D'Aulnay came of an old and distinguished Touraine family, and he prided himself above all things upon his character of gentilhomme frangais. He was a consistent Catholic, too, while La Tour's religion — like his family — was obscure. The rivalry, which had always been keen, appears to have grown into positive bitterness, when, five years after his first coming to Acadia, D'Aulnay returned from a visit to France, bringing with him a charming wife. The plucky bride was a daugh- ter of the Seigneur de Courcelles, and was well fitted by birth and breeding to transmute, by her gentlewoman's touch, the rough settlement into an orderly colony. What with old settlers and new, about forty families were now gath- ered at Port Royal and on the river Annapolis. 94 St. Botolph's Town And over these D'Aulnay ruled, " a kind of feudal Robinson Crusoe." A scene for an artist, as Parkman points out, was the Port Royal of those days, with its fort, its soldiers, its manor-house of logs, its semi- nary of like construction, and its twelve Ca- puchin friars, with cowled heads, sandaled feet and the cord of St. Francis! The friars were supported by Richelieu; their main business — and they were pretty successful in it — was to convert the Micmac and Abenaki Indians into loyal vassals of France and earnest sub- jects of the Church. But Charles La Tour was not so easily dealt with. He who had before felt himself the chief man in Acadia was now fairly aflame with jeal- ousy of this French seigneur who dwelt just across the intervening Bay of Fundy, sur- rounded by loyal retainers and solaced by a loving wife. Wives, however, were certainly to be had even if settlers were not; and since D 'Aulnay had given evidence, by bringing over a woman, that he had no intention of abandon- ing his claim, La Tour resolved that he, too, would set up a home in Acadia. His agent was thereupon instructed to pick out in France a girl worthy to share his heart and fort. Ac- cordingly, Marie Jacquelin, daughter of a bar- Winthrop and the La Tours 95 ber of Mans, was selected to join La Tour at Fort St. Jean. She proved to be an Amazon. With passionate vehemence she took up her husband's quarrel, and where D'Aulnay's lady heartened her lord by gentle words and soft caresses, Lady La Tour threw herself into the thick of the fight and became a force greatly to be feared in the Acadian land. From this time on events march. Goaded by his wife, La Tour grew more and more con- tumacious, until that day when the King of France, losing all patience, ordered D'Aulnay to seize his rival's forts and take their com- mander prisoner. In accordance with these in- structions, we find D'Aulnay (in 1642) an- chored at the mouth of the St. John and endeav- ouring to arrest the outlaw. Then it was that La Tour, rendered desperate, defied the king as well as his representative, and — Catholic though he claimed to be — turned for help to the heretics of Boston. Boston was in no position, as we have seen, to help and La Tour's coming provided highly disturbing matter for debate. Though he was hospitably received by Governor Winthrop and the Eeverend John Cotton, many there were who wished him well out of the way. Even his unimpeachable gravity of demeanour when he 96 St. Botolph's Town attended church with Winthrop on Sunday could not make him acceptable to these clear- sighted souls. Still, his men were not only allowed to come ashore, but permission was granted them to drill on Boston common, along with the town militia, — to the accompaniment of the ambitious band and the industrious frog chorus. One very amusing incident is connected with the " land leave " granted the La Tour men. Winthrop, writing the next year, tells the story, not without some sense of its humour: < < There arrived here a Portugal ship with salt, having in it two Englishmen only. One of these happened to be drunk and was carried to his lodging; and the constable (a godly man and a zealous against such disorders) hearing of it found him out, being upon his bed asleep ; so he awaked him and led him to the stocks, there being no magistrate at home. He, being in the stocks, one of La Tour 's gentlemen lifted up the stocks and let him out. The constable hearing of it, went to the Frenchman (being then gone and quiet), and would needs carry him to the stocks; the Frenchman offered to yield himself to go to prison, but the constable', not understanding his language, pressed him to go to the stocks; the Frenchman resisted Winthrop and the La Tours 97 and drew his sword; with that company came in and disarmed him and carried him by force to the stocks ; but soon after the constable took him out and carried him to prison, and pres- ently after, took him forth again and delivered him to La Tour. Much tumult there was about this." The magistrates looked into the case and decided that the gentleman must return to prison until the Court met. Some Frenchmen offered to go bail for him, but since they were strangers their offer was declined. " Upon this," continues Winthrop, " two Englishmen, members of the church of Boston, standing by, offered to be his sureties, whereupon he was bailed till he should be called for, because La Tour was not like to stay till the Court. This was thought too much favour for such an of- fence by many of the common people, but by our law bail could not be denied him ; and be- side the constable was the occasion of all this in transgressing the bounds of his office, and that in six things: 1. In fetching a man out of his lodging that was asleep on his bed and that without any warrant from the authority. 2. In not putting a hook upon the stocks nor setting some to guard them. 3. In laying hands upon the Frenchman that had opened 98 St. Botolph's Town the stocks when he was gone and quiet, and no disturbance then appearing. 4. In carry- ing him to prison without warrant. 5. In de- livering him out of prison without warrant. 6. In putting such a reproach upon a stranger and a gentleman when there was no need, for he knew he would be forthcoming and the mag- istrate would be at home that evening; but such are the fruits of ignorant and misguided zeal." The clever La Tours lost no time in pushing the business upon which they had come. Show- ing papers which would seem to prove the doughty Charles a lawful representative of the King of France, the governor was asked for such aid as would enable him to bring to his fort the ship, containing supplies, which D 'Aul- nay would not permit to proceed up the bay. Very adroitly La Tour then suggested that he at least be permitted to hire four vessels, each fully armed and equipped, with which to defend his rights in Acadia. Winthrop finally gave bewildered consent to this arrangement, and his action was approved by a majority of those in authority. But in the ensuing discussion over this arresting depar- ture, the " inevitable clergy " joined hotly, and texts being the chief weapons of the debate, Winthrop and the La Tours 99 various Old Testament worthies were brought forward to prove that Massachusetts would have done much better to keep out of the fight. John Endicott stoutly maintained that La Tour was not to be trusted, and that he and D'Aul- nay would much better have been left to fight it out by themselves. In this opinion several chief men of the colony concurred, saying in the famous " Ipswich letter " that they feared international law had been ill observed, and declaring in substance, that the merits of the case were not clear, that the colony was not called upon in charity to help La Tour (see 2 Chronicles xix, 2, and Proverbs xxvi, 17) ; that this quarrel was for England and France ; that endless trouble would come if D'Aulnay were not completely put down, and that " he that loses his life in an unnecessary quarrel dies the devil's martyr." This letter, trenching as it did upon Win- throp 's pride of office, stung the governor into vehement retort. But he soon had the candour to admit that he had been in fault in three things : first in answering La Tour too hastily, next in not sufficiently consulting the elders, and lastly in not having opened the discussion with prayer. But La Tour had meanwhile received his 100 St. Botolph's Town ships, and was able with them to ront D'Aul- nay's three vessels. His lady alertly followed up this advantage, visiting France to help strengthen his cause, and coming back by way of Boston. This visit on the part of the re- doubtable madam seems not to have been of her planning, however. She had engaged Cap- tain Bayley to transport her from London to Acadia whither she was anxious to bring, as soon as might be, stores and munitions which should aid her husband. But Bayley chose to put in at Boston. Promptly Madam La Tour sued him for damages, alleging that the six months con- sumed by the voyage had been an unreasonable length of time and that he had not taken her to Acadia as bargained for. The jury awarded her £2,000, for which Captain Bayley 's ship was attached. This proved to be worth only £1,100, however, and it cost the Lady about £700 to hire vessels to convey her and her effects to Acadia. The colony, too, had ulti- mately to pay the damages it had awarded her. For the owners of the ship and cargo which Lady La Tour had attached promptly seized a Boston ship in London to indemnify them- selves and, when it became doubtful whether they would be able to hold her, attached the Winthrop and the La Tours 101 bodies of Stephen Winthrop, the governor's son, who happened to be then in London, and of Captain Joseph Weld, who had been on the jury when the La Tour damages were awarded. Sir Harry Vane nobly came to the rescue of the Bostonians, thus winning from Winthrop the acknowledgment that " both now and at other times Mr. Vane showed himself a true friend of New England and a man of a noble and generous mind." Meanwhile Lady La Tour had arrived back at her stamping-ground and had offered her husband a very shrewd piece of advice. " Go to Boston, declare yourself to be a Protestant, ' ' she counselled, " ask for a minister to preach to the men at the fort, and promise that if the Bostonians help us to master D'Aulnay and conquer Acadia, we will share our conquests with them. ,, This Machiavellian suggestion La Tour seized with avidity, and sailed gaily forth. Scarcely had he gone when his lady, falling one day into a transport of fury at some un- pleasant turn of events, so berated and reviled the Eecollet friars at Fort St. Jean, that they refused to stay under her roof, and set out for Port Eoyal in the depth of winter, taking with them eight strong soldiers, who were too good 102 St. Botolph's Town — Catholics to remain longer in such a hotbed of heresy. At Port Eoyal this little party was most warmly received. D'Aulnay paid the eight soldiers their long overdue wages and lodged the friars with his own priests. Then he plied them all with questions and, learning that La Tour had gone to Boston, leaving only forty-five men to defend his wife and his fort- ress, he saw Heaven's smile at last, and leaped to seize the golden opportunity opened to him. Every man about Port Eoyal was hastily mustered into action. Then D'Aulnay crossed the Bay of Fundy with all his force, erected a fort on the west side of the river, and, after delaying for a time in an attempt to win over more of La Tour's men (capturing incidentally a small vessel which had been sent from Boston loaded with provisions and bearing a letter to tell Lady La Tour that her husband would join her in a month), he brought his cannons into position, and made as if he would batter down the fortress. The garrison was summoned to surrender, but when for answer they hung out a red flag and ' ' shouted a thousand insults and blasphemies, ' ' accompanying the same with a volley of cannon shots directed by the intrepid Amazon, D'Aulnay could do nothing but fight the thing to a finish. In spite of the gallant tte*» - -i ^±Lgk^^M : ;mBI ■mi • _■ ^ji • FORT LA TOUR (OR ST. JEAN), ST. JOHN, NEW BRUNSWICK, FROM A DRAWING BY LOUIS A. HOLMAN Winthrop and the La Tours 103 defence of Madame La Tour, D'Aulnay 's su- perior numbers prevailed. All resistance was overcome; the fort was pillaged, and all the survivors of the garrison, including Madame La Tour, "were taken prisoners. At first the lady was left at liberty, but after she had been detected in an attempt to communicate with her husband by means of an Indian, she was put into confinement. Then, and then only, did she fall ill. Three weeks later she was dead. D'Aulnay had now robbed his rival of his wife and captured Fort St. Jean, the best tra- ding station in Acadia. The King compli- mented him higMy, and when he demanded reparation for the part Boston had taken against him his right to satisfaction was in- directly admitted. Winthrop had learned his lesson. D'Aulnay 's stay as described in the governor's Journal makes interesting reading: " It being the Lord's day [of September, 1646] and the people ready to go to the assem- bly after dinner, Monsieur Marie and Monsieur Louis, with Monsieur D'Aulnay [and] his secretary arrived at Boston in a small pinnace and Major Gibbons sent two of his chief officers to meet them at the waterside who con- ducted them to their lodgings without noise or bustle. The public worship being ended the 104 St. Botolph's Town Governor repaired home, and sent Major Gib- bons with other gentlemen and a guard of mus- keteers to attend them to the Governor's house, who meeting them without his door carried them into his house, where they were enter- tained with wine and sweetmeats, and after a while he accompanied them to their lodgings being the house of Major Gibbons, where they were entertained that night. " The next morning they repaired to the Governor, and delivered him their commission, which was in form of a letter directed to the Governor and magistrates. . . . Their diet was provided at the ordinary, where the Magis- trates used to diet in Court times; and the Governor accompanied them always at meals. Their manner was to repair to the Governor's house every morning about eight of the clock, who accompanied them to the place of meeting ; and at night either himself or some of the Commissioners, accompanied them to their lodgings. ' ' A great deal of ceremony surely for a little place like Boston! But then, D'Aulnay had asked £8,000 indemnity and the government had to look as if it could pay in case it had to. The Commissioners, though, sturdily denied " any guilt " on their part maintaining that Winthrop and the La Tours 105 they had only permitted La Tour to hire the vessels. And they brought counter-charges against D 'Aulnay. Finally, it was agreed that the matter be settled amicably and that Boston " send a small present to D'Aulnay in satis- faction." A treaty was accordingly signed. In due time the proposed " small present " was sent. It consisted of a sedan chair which the marauding Captain Cromwell had taken as a prize and presented to Winthrop a few months before. Winthrop gave it to D'Aulnay, as he frankly says, because it was of no value to him ! But the suite of the victorious French lord was sent off with all possible honours just the same " the Governor and our Commissioners accompanying them to their boat, attended with a guard of musketeers, and gave them five guns from Boston, three from Charlestown, and five from Castle Island ; and we sent them aboard a quarter cask of sack and some mut- ton. . . ." D'Aulnay was evidently satisfied with the results of his visit. For he had not in the least expected the large sum of money for which he had asked. All that he wished to make clear to the Puritans was that they should fit out no more expeditions for La Tour. And now, when he had made this point, forced Fortune to crown his life-work and saw ahead 106 St. Botolph's Town of him promise of a thriving trade and a con- stantly growing colony, " Death stepped tacitly and took him." On the 24th of May, 1650, as he and his valet were canoeing in the basin of Port Royal, not far from the month of the Annapolis, their frail craft overturned, and though they clung to it and got astride of it, one at either end, in an endeavour to save themselves, they could not. At the end of an hour and a half D'Aul- nay was dead, not from drowning but from cold, for the water still retained the chill of winter. So Father Ignace, the Superior of the Capuchins, found him. With fitting ceremonies he was buried in the chapel of the fort at Port Royal in the presence of his soldiers, his ten- ants and his sorrowing wife. That poor, poor wife! For she still had Charles La Tour to deal with, and with him her own life was destined to be linked. That La Tour had friends in France she soon came to know only too well. Through false papers, intrigues and dastardly treachery Port Royal was promptly wrested from her, and she was even persuaded to return to La Tour Fort St. Jean, which her husband had taken fairly in a well-fought fight. Beset with insidious ene- Winthrop and the La Tours 107 mies and tortured beyond endurance by fears for her eight young children, the brave spirit of this lovely woman broke with her heart, and three years after the death of her noble hus- band she married (February 24, 1653) the man who had so long been her tormentor. With him she took up her abode at Fort St. Jean. Of the children for whose sake she had sold herself the four boys were killed in the wars of Louis XIV, and the girls all became nuns. So no single trace of D'Aulnay's blood may to-day be found in the land for which he gave his life and wealth out of the great love he bore France and the Church. The significant lesson of this whole episode so far as Boston history is concerned lies, how- ever, in the fact that what was, properly speak- ing, an international matter took place wholly within the borders of the town; and that Mas- sachusetts assumed, throughout, the attitude of a completely independent government, deal- ing with D'Aulnay and La Tour just as inde- pendently and in the same manner as Charles and Buckingham dealt with the Huguenots and the French monarchy. We shall do well to recall this incident later on in Boston's history and contrast it with the claims made by Eng- land in regard to her attitude of " protection." vn FREEDOM TO WORSHIP GOD Critics of the Puritans, taking their text from Mrs. Heman's poem, are disposed to judge harshly, on the ground of inconsistency, that band of earnest Christians, who, coming here because they had been persecuted in Eng- land persecuted in their turn those who ven- tured upon a spiritual angle in any degree different from their own. Such critics are, however, confusing the ideals cherished by our forefathers with their own ideals for them. They never claimed that their object in coming here was to secure for all men the boon of freedom in religion. On the contrary, they said quite plainly that the object of their emi- gration was to escape oppression for them- selves. Upon that they laid the emphasis ; and with that they stopped. Far from being inconsistent they adhered through fire and water to their own self-de- fensive principle. All their legislation, all the 108 Freedom to Worship God 109 arrangements of their society were framed to secure this object. It was in accordance with this that they reserved to themselves the right of admitting only whom they pleased as free- men of the colony ; and it was to this end that, a little more than a year after their arrival, they " ordered and agreed that, for time to come, no man should be admitted to the free- dom of the body politic, but such as are mem- bers of some of the churches within the limits of the same." To them such an ordinance seemed the one and only way of forming the Christian republic towards which their hearts yearned, a community in which the laws of Moses should constitute the rules of civil life and in which the godly clergy should be the interpreters of those rules. Of course, the weakness of the system lay in the fact that the clergy were only men. And being men, of like passions with ourselves, they grew, by the very deference they fed upon, into creatures insatiate for power. But piti- fully narrow though they were, revoltingly cruel though they soon came to be, it should nevertheless be borne in mind that they were, in almost every case, sincere. They believed that they were conserving the great good of Christian amity in persecuting relentlessly all 110 St. Botolph's Town who differed from them, — and so, girding np their loins, they gave still another turn to the screw ! And now, having said in their defence all, as I honestly believe, there is to be said, I can with a clear conscience, record their persecu- tions and paint as darkly as I mnst the horrors of that terrible era. To understand it all we must bear in mind the fact that, not only was the number of clergy among the emigrants to Boston and vicinity large, but being men of un- usual gifts, that they of necessity exercised an enormous influence in this " Christian repub- lic.' ' Moreover, the magistrates themselves were, in a large number of cases men imbued with what we may call the ecclesiastical feel- ing. When Governor Dudley, for instance, came to die, there were found in his pocket these lines which showed his own cast of mind to have been fiercely bigoted : " Let men of God in Courts and Churches watch O're such as do a Toleration hatch, Lest that 111 Egg bring forth a Cockatrice, To poison all with heresie and vice." The " cockatrice " which most powerfully agitated Boston was Mrs. Anne Hutchinson, delicately characterized by the Eeverend Freedom to Worship God 111 Thomas Welde as " the American Jezebel." To students of history calmly examining to- day the testimony on both sides, Mrs. Hutch- inson stands out however as a gentlewoman of spotless life, kind heart, brilliant mind and superb courage. That she had a good deal of that intellectual vanity possessed by most clever women is also plain. And she had be- sides — and it was this which more than any- thing else occasioned her banishment — a tongue which could and did lash furiously those whom she disliked. Comparing with her own clergyman — the Reverend John Cotton — the host of other clergy then in the Massa- chusetts colony, she found between them a great gulf fixed; and she said this quite dis- tinctly to the groups of people who used to come to her house opposite the place where the Old South Church now stands, to hear her discuss Mr. Cotton's sermons. Mrs. Hutchinson came to the colony (in the autumn of 1634) primed for religious discus- sion. Her father had been Francis Marbury, a minister, first in Lincolnshire and afterwards in London, and in the scholarly and theological atmosphere of his house she had, for years, been accepted as the intellectual equal of his ministerial friends. Theology, indeed, was as 112 St. Botolph's Town the breath of life to her and she hinted in no uncertain way to some Puritan ministers who were on the vessel during her journey to New England that they might expect to hear more from her in the new world. For she regarded herself as one with a mission. William Hutchinson, the husband of this lady, was the type of man who is always mar- ried by strong-minded magnetic women. Win- throp has nothing but words of contempt for him, but there is little doubt that a sincere attachment existed between the married pair and that Hutchinson possessed sterling char- acter and solid worth as well as a comfortable estate. In their Lincolnshire home the two had been parishioners of the Eeverend John Cot- ton and regular attendants at St. Botolph's Church. When Cotton fled to escape the tyr- anny of the bishops, the Hutchinsons decided to follow, and when the Eeverend John Wheel- wright, who had married Mrs. Hutchinson's daughter, began to be persecuted in his turn their departure was naturally hastened. Promptly upon their arrival in Boston both Hutchinsons made their application to be re- ceived as members of the church. This step was indispensable to admit the pair into Chris- tian fellowship and to allow Mr. Hutchinson Freedom to Worship God 113 the privilege of engaging in business and otherwise exercising the rights of a citizen. He came through the ordeal easily enough but, in consequence of the reports already spread concerning her extravagant opinions, his wife was subjected to a most searching examina- tion. Finally, however, she, too, was pro- nounced a ' ' member in good standing ' ' of the congregation over which her beloved John Cotton served as associate pastor. And now she was ready to enter upon the career which soon divided Boston into two violently opposed factions and which ended by the withdrawal to England of the brilliant young Governor Vane and by the banishment from the colony of her with whom he had sympathized. Even so far back as 1635 Boston seems to have been capable of great enthusiasm over a woman who could persuasively present " some new thing.' ' The doctrine advanced by this woman was certainly an arresting one for that day. For, cleverly interwoven with what was ostensibly only a recapitulation of the sermon preached the Sunday before, ran constantly the astonishing proclamation that there are in this world certain " elect " who may or may not be ordained clergy and that to them are given direct revelations of the will of God, Now the 114 St. Botolph's Town ministers of New England were formalists to the core and the society which they dominated was organized npon the basis that if a man had a sad countenance, wore sombre garb, lived an austere life, quoted the Bible freely, attended worship regularly and took off his hat to the clergy he was a good man. Such a man alone might be a citizen. To admit, therefore, that, in place of these convenient signs of grace, — ' ' works ' ' as they were called, — one must rest salvation upon the intimate and so necessarily elusive relation between man and his God was to preach political as well as spiritual revolu- tion. The logical result of accepting Mrs. Hutchinson's doctrines would have meant noth- ing less than the annihilation of those conve- nient earmarks by which the " good " and the " bad " in the community could be readily dis- tinguished, — the ' l good ' ' marked for civic advancement and the " bad " for the stocks and banishment. At first the far-reaching import of the lady's views seems not to have struck her hearers. All the leading and influential people of the town flocked to her " parlour talks " and, for a time, she was that very remarkable thing — a prophet honoured in her own community. For the matter of her " lectures " was always Freedom to Worship God 115 pithy and bright, the leader's wit always ready and " everybody was there," — which counted then for righteousness just as it does now. Hawthorne's genius has conjured up for us the scene at one of these Hutchinson gather- ings so that we, too, may attend and be among the ' ' crowd of hooded women and men in stee- ple hats and close-cropped hair . . . assembled at the door and open windows of a house newly- built. An earnest expression glows in every face . . . and some pressed inward as if the bread of life were to be dealt forth, and they feared to lose their share." Unfortunately Mrs. Hutchinson found the transition between the abstract and the con- crete as easy as every other descensus Averni. From preaching against a doctrine of " works " she soon dropped into sly digs at the pastors who defended this belief. " A company of legall professors," quoth she, " lie poring on the law which Christ hath abol- ished." No wonder it began to be noised abroad that the seer was casting " reproach upon the ministers, . . . saying that none of them did preach the covenant of free grace but Master Cotton, and that they have not the seale of the Spirit and so were not able min- isters of the New Testament." 116 St. Botolph's Town It was, however, in Cotton's house and not in her own that Mrs. Hutchinson made the fatal admission for which she had afterward to pay so dear. The elders had come to Bos- ton in a body to see how far Cotton " stood for " the things his gifted parishioner was preaching and, in the hope of clearing the whole matter up, the clergyman had suggested a friendly conference with Mrs. Hutchinson at his house. The interview took place, the lady cleverly parrying all attempts to make her say indiscreet things. But finally, the Eeverend Hugh Peters having besought her to deal frankly and openly with them, she admitted that she saw a wide difference between Mr. Cotton's ministry and theirs and that it was because they had not the seal of the Spirit that this difference arose. If Mrs. Hutchinson had not thought herself in confidential intercourse with those who were men of honour as well as clergymen, she would never have put the thing thus bluntly. But the event proved that her confession was treasured up to be used against her, — and that there were many in the colony who chafed as she did, under the power of those preaching this ' ' covenant of works. ■ ' For promptly the liberals, whose mouthpiece she had unconsciously become, blossomed out Freedom to Worship God 117 into a sturdy political party led by the enthusi- astic Vane. The part which he played in the controversy has already been touched upon in the previous chapter and the brave way in which he fought against the decree which would banish the incoming friends of Wheel- wright there described. But it all availed nothing. The theocracy had been attacked and the clergy sprang like one man to its defence. Even Cotton, after a little, ranged himself on the side of his order as against the woman who lauded him above his brethren. The " trial,' ' in the course of which Mrs. Hutchinson was condemned, is one of the ghastliest things in the history of the colony. The prisoner, who was about to be- come a mother, was made to stand until she was exhausted, the while those in whom she had confided as friends plied her with end- less questions about her theological beliefs. Through two long weary days of hunger and cold she defended herself as well as she could before these " men of God," but her able words availed nothing; she had " disparaged the ministers " and they were resolved to be revenged. Though Coddington pointed out that " no law of God or man " had been broken by the woman before them, she was none the 118 St. Botolph's Town less banished " as nnfit for our society.' ' So there was driven out of the city she had adopted the most remarkable intellect Boston has ever made historic by misunderstanding. Eoger Williams was another great and good man of whom the city founded by Winthrop soon proved itself unworthy. Just here seems as good a place as any to attempt some ex- planation of the change that had come about in Winthrop 's character. His letters to his wife show him to have been tender and gentle, but he was certainly relentless in his attitude towards Mrs. Hutchinson, — though all the time more than half persuaded that what she said was true. The fact is that Winthrop 's very amiability made him subject to men of inflexi- ble will. His dream had been to create on earth a commonwealth of saints whose joy should be to walk in the ways of God. But in practice he had to deal with the strongest of human passions and become himself intolerant for the sake of leading an intolerant party. The exigencies of life in America seem to have made him more and more narrow as the years went by, but he appears to have repented, at the last, of his tendency towards intolerance; for, being requested on his death-bed to sign an order for the banishment of some person ROGER WILLIAMS Freedom to Worship God 119 for heterodoxy, he waved the paper away, say- ing, " I have done too much of that work al- ready. ' ' Williams, though, was one whom he perse- cuted with a will. He had been glad to have him come to Boston and he recorded his ar- rival — in the Journal of February, 1631 — as that of u a godly minister. ' ' But he did not then know what startling doctrines the new arrival was to set forth or how iconoclastic to the state would prove this clergyman's earnest conviction that, in all matters of religious be- lief and worship, man was responsible to God alone. Scarcely had Williams set foot in Bos- ton when things began to happen. In the first place, he was thoroughly convinced that the Puritans had done wrong in holding commu- nion with Church of England folk, whose power and resources were constantly employed in crushing the spirit of true piety. So he re- fused to join with the church at Boston until its congregation had declared repentance for having had communion with the churches in England. His chief offence against the state, however, was in immediately promulgating the principle for which he all his life contended, i. e. that the magistrates had no right whatever to impose 120 St. Botolph's Town civil penalties upon those who had broken only church rules. From the point of view of Bos- tonians of that day any man holding this opin- ion was by that very fact unfitted for the office of a minister among them. Consequently, the magistrates opposed with all the authority at their command the settling of Williams in the Salem pulpit to which he had now been called. His history from this time on does not prop- erly belong to a book about Boston; but it is worth noting that he was persecuted for being, among other things, a believer in adult bap- tism and that against the Anabaptists, as they were called, were directed some of the most cruel persecutions ever waged in the Saint Bo- tolph's Town of New England. One can scarcely believe the records as one follows the story of the way President Dun- ster of Harvard College was treated for the crime of believing in adult baptism. Because he would not baptize infants he was deprived of his office (in October, 1654), and when he asked leave to stay for a few months in the house he had built, on the ground that " 1st. The time of the year is unseasonable, being now very near the shortest day and the depth of winter. ' ' 2nd. The place into which I go is unknown Freedom to Worship God 121 to me and my family, and the ways and means of subsistence. . . . " 3d. The place from which I go hath fuel and all provisions for man and beast laid in for the winter. . . . The house I have builded upon very damageful conditions to myself, out of love for the college, taking country pay in lieu of bills of exchange on England, or the house would not have been built. . . . " 4th. The persons, all beside myself, are women and children, on whom little help, now their minds lie under the actual stroke of affliction and grief. My wife is sick and my youngest child extremely so and hath been for months, so that we dare not carry him out of doors, yet much worse now than before. . . ." Still slight heed was paid to him. For in answer to these pathetic demands Dunster was reprieved only until March and then, with what was due him still unpaid, he was driven forth, a broken man, to die in poverty and neglect. Clearly Massachusetts was not a comfortable place for the Baptists. You see the eminent John Cotton had declared that the rejection of infant baptism would overthrow the church ; that this was a capital crime and that there- fore, those opposing this tenet were " foul murtherers ! ' ' The offence was plainly enough 122 St. Botolph's Town admitted to be against the clergy rather than against God. When John Wilson — of whom in his venerable old age Hawthorne has given us a pleasing portrait in " The Scarlet Let- ter ' ' — was in his last sickness he was asked to declare what he thought to be the worst sins of the country. His reply was that people sinned very deeply in his estimation when they rebelled against the power of the clergy. Upon the Quakers, who absolutely refused to conform, and who promulgated the doctrine that the Deity communicated directly with men, were naturally visited the worst of all the re- ligious persecutions. The first Quakers who came to Boston were women, Mary Fisher and Ann Austin, the former being a person whose previous experience enabled her to compare unfavourably the manners of New England Christians with those of Turkish Mahometans ! For, some time before setting out for Boston, Mary Fisher had made a romantic pilgrimage to Constantinople for the purpose of warning the Turks to " flee from the wrath to come." This was at a time when the Grand Vizier was encamped with his army near Adrianople, to whom this astonishing person having jour- neyed " 600 miles without any abuse or in- jury " had herself announced as "an Eng- Freedom to Worship God 123 lishwoman bearing a message from the Great God to the Great Turk." She was promptly given an audience and treated with great re- spect, an escort being even offered to her when the time came for her to depart. As for her treatment in Boston, let us read Sewel : ' ' It was in the month called July, of this present year (1656) when Mary Fisher and Ann Austin arrived in the road before Boston, before ever a law was made there against the Quakers; and yet they were very ill-treated; for before they came ashore the deputy governor, Bichard Bellingham (the governor himself being out of town), sent of- ficers aboard, who searched their trunks and chests and took away the books they found there, which were about one hundred and car- ried them ashore, after having commanded the women to be kept prisoners aboard; and the said books were, by an order of the council, burnt in the market-place by the hangman. . . . And then they were shut up close prisoners and the command given that none should come to them without leave; a fine of five pounds being laid upon any that should otherwise come at or speak with them, tho' but at the window. Their pens, ink and paper were taken from them and they not suffered to have any candle- 124 St. Botolph's Town light in the night season; nay, what is more, they were stript naked under pretence to know whether they were witches, tho' in searching, no token was found upon them but of inno- cence. And in this search they were so bar- barously misused that modesty forbids to men- tion it. And that none might have communi- cation with them a board was nailed up before the window of the jail. " And seeing they were not provided with victuals, Nicholas Upshal, one who had lived long in Boston and was a member of the church there, was so concerned about it (liberty being denied to send them provision) that he pur- chas'd it of the jailor at the rate of ^ve shil- lings a week lest they should have starved. And after having been about five weeks pris- oners, William Chichester, master of a vessel, was bound in one hundred pound bond to carry them back, and not suffer any to speak with them, after they were out on board; and the jailor kept their beds and their Bible, for his fees." The lack of laws touching the Quakers was now at once supplied. Those who brought in members of this sect were fined and those who entertained them deprived of one or both ears. In 1656 an act was passed by which it cost Freedom to Worship God 125 five shillings to attend a Quaker meeting and five pounds to speak at one. In October of the same year the penalty of death was decreed against all Quakers who should return to the colony after they had been banished. When Nicholas Upshall, the kindly innkeeper 1 who had befriended Mary Fisher and her comrade, protested against such legislation he was fined and finally banished. Then, to provide a fillip to zeal, constables who failed vigorously to break up Quaker meetings were themselves fined and imprisoned, a share of the fine im- posed being given to the informer. The object of this last-named legislation was to sustain the atrocious custom of " flogging through three towns,' ' a privilege established by the Vagabond Act, so called, of May, 1661, in which it was provided that any foreign Quaker or any native, upon a second conviction, might be ordered to receive an unlimited number of stripes, the whip for such service being a two- handled implement, armed with lashes made of twisted and knotted cord or catgut. The last Quaker known to have been whipped in Boston was Margaret Brewster, whose offence Samuel Sewall has chronicled in the following paragraph: " July 8, 1677, New Meeting 'See "Among Old New England Inns."" 126 St. Botolph's Town House Mane: In sermon time there came in a female Quaker, in a canvas frock, her hair disshevelled and loose like a Periwigg, her face as black as ink, led by two other Quakers and two others following. It occasioned the great- est and most amazing uproar that I ever saw. Isaiah i. 12, 14." Whittier has put the scene into verse for us and made us poignantly to feel its horror : " Save the mournful sackcloth about her wound, Unclothed as the primal mother, With limbs that trembled and eyes that blazed With a fire she dared not smother. . . . " And the minister paused in his sermon's midst And the people held their breath, For these were the words the maiden said Through lips as pale as death : . . . " Repent ! repent ! ere the Lord shall speak In thunder and breaking seals ! Let all souls worship him in the way His light within reveals. " She shook the dust from her naked feet And her sackcloth closer drew, And into the porch of the awe-hushed church She passed like a ghost from view/' The meeting-house which provided the back- ground for this very dramatic scene was the predecessor on the same site of the present Old Freedom to Worship God 127 South Church. 1 Thither Margaret Brewster had travelled a long distance for the express purpose of protesting against further persecu- tions of her sect. At her trial, she said some brave words that effectually stirred — after an interval — the consciences of her persecutors. John Leverett was then chief magistrate and to him she appealed thus: " Governour, I de- sire thee to hear me a little for I have some- thing to say in behalf of my friends in this place: ... Oh governour I cannot but press thee again and again, to put an end to these cruel laws that you have made to fetch my friends from their peaceable meetings, and keep them three days in the house of correc- tion, and then whip them for worshipping the true and living God: Governour, let me en- treat thee to put an end to these laws, for the desire of my soul is that you may act for God, and then would you prosper, but if you act against the Lord and his blessed truth, you will assuredly come to nothing, the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. . . . " " Margaret Brewster/' came the stern re- ply? " you are to have your clothes stript off to the middle, and to be tied to a cart's tail at the South Meeting House, and to be drawn 1 See " Romances of Old New England Churches.' > 128 St. Botolph's Town through the town, and to receive twenty stripes upon your naked body." But though Margaret Brewster suffered last she did not suffer most. Mary Dyer paid the extreme penalty in 1660 because she insisted on coming back to Boston after she had been re- prieved from death and banished. In no case better than here may we see illustrated the lengths to which religious enthusiasm will carry the person possessed by it. For with William Eobinson and Marmaduke Stevenson she had been condemned to hang on the Com- mon, but ' ' after she was upon the ladder with her arms and legs tied and the rope about her neck she was spared at the earnest solicitation of her son and sent out of the colony." But, because she thought she must needs die for the triumph of her cause she came back a year later to be executed. Josiah Southwick, eldest son of Lawrence and Cassandra Southwick, was another who " appeared manfully at Boston in the face of his persecutors " after he had been shipped to England. As punishment, he was " sentenced to be whipt at a cart's tail, ten stripes in Bos- ton, the same in Koxbury and the same in Ded- ham." The peculiar atrocity of flogging from town to town lay in the fact that the victim's Freedom to Worship God 129 wounds became cold beween the times of pun- ishment, and in winter often froze, the result- ing torture being intolerably agonizing. The case of the Southwicks is particularly interesting as an extreme example of the far- reaching ferocity of persecution as pursued by Eridicott. Whittier in his poem, " Cassan- dra Southwick, ' ' has given us the colour of this event but, for poetic purposes, has made the woman young. In point of fact, however, Law- rence and Cassandra Southwick were an aged couple, members of the Salem church. Be- sides the son Josiah, already referred to, they had a younger boy and girl named Daniel and Provided. The father and mother were first arrested in 1657 for harbouring two Quakers, and although her husband was soon released Cassandra was imprisoned for seven weeks and fined forty shillings because there was found on her person a Quaker tract. Later, the three elder Southwicks were again arrested and sent to Boston to serve as an example. Here, in the February of 1657 they were whipped without form of trial, imprisoned eleven days and their cattle seized and sold to pay a fine of £4 13 s. for six weeks ' absence from worship on the Lord's day. The letter which they sent from their prison in Boston 130 St. Botolph's Town to Endicott and the others at Salem is worthy of being reproduced in full because it breathes the very spirit of that peace for which the Quakers ideally stood. " This to the Magistrates at Court in Salem. " Friends, " Whereas it was your pleasure to commit us, whose names are underwritten, to the house of correction in Boston, altho' the Lord, the righteous Judge of heaven and earth, is our witness, that we had done nothing worthy of stripes or of bonds; and we being committed by your court to be dealt withal as the law provides for foreign Quakers, as ye please to term us ; and having some of us suffered your law and pleasures, now that which we do ex- pect is, that whereas we have suffered your law, so now to be set free by the same law, as your manner is with strangers, and not to put us in upon the account of one law, and execute another law upon us, of which according to your own manner, we were never convicted as the law expresses. If you had sent us upon the account of your new law, we should have expected the jaylor's order to have been on that account, which that it was not, appears by the warrant which we have, and the punish- Freedom to Worship God 131 ment which we bare, as four of us were whipp'd, among whom was one who had for- merly been whipp'd so now also according to your former law. 1 1 Friends, let it not be a small thing in your eyes, the exposing as much as in you lies, our families to ruine. It's not unknown to you the season and the time of year for those who live of husbandry, and what their cattle and families may be exposed unto; and also such as live on trade; we know if the spirit of Christ did dwell and rule in you these things would take impression on your spirits. What our lives and conversation have been in that place is well known; and what we now suffer for is much of false reports, and ungrounded jealousies of heresie and sedition. These things lie upon us to lay before you. And, for our parts, we have true peace and rest in the Lord in all our sufferings, and are made will- ing in the power and strength of God, freely to offer up our lives in this cause of God for which we suffer: Yea and we do find (through grace) the enlargements of God in our impris- oned state, to whom alone we commit ourselves and families, for the disposing of us according to his infinite wisdom and pleasure, in whose love is our rest and life. 132 St. Botolph's Town " From the House of Bondage in Boston wherein we are made captives by the wills of men, although made free by the Son, John 8, 36. In which we quietly rest, this 16th of the 5th month, 1658. " La whence " " Cassandra VSouthwick, " Josiah " Samuel Shattock, " Joshua Buffum." When Lawrence and Cassandra Southwick were rearrested after banishment for not hav- ing gone away promptly, the old people pite- ously pleaded " that they had no otherwhere to go." But they were none the less com- manded to get out quickly under pain of death. They went to Shelter Island, where they died within a few days of each other as a result of flogging and starvation. And, inconceivable as it seems, the sale as slaves of the younger chil- dren, Daniel and Provided, was actually au- thorized by law to satisfy a debt accumulated from fines for their non-attendance at church! Thus were free-born English subjects dealt with for cherishing a faith subversive of a theocracy. In all honesty, however, it should be said Freedom to Worship God 133 that not all the Quakers, by any means, were as mild and inoffensive as the Southwicks. Even the gentle-spirited Roger Williams was at one time so sorely tried in patience by them that he allowed himself to write: " They are insufferably proud and contemptuous. I have, therefore, publicly declared myself that a due and moderate restraint and punishment of these incivilities, though pretending conscience, is so far from persecution, properly so called, that it is a duty and command of God unto all mankind, first in Families, and thence unto all mankind Societies." What did they do? Everything which they thought might tend to batter down the intol- erant spirit of Puritanism. A favourite method of protest was for Quaker women to break bottles over the head of a preacher " as a sign of his emptiness.' ' John Norton was more than once thus affronted while engaged in the solemn delivery of the Thursday lecture in Boston. This could scarcely have been pleasant, of course, either to the preacher or his people. But a little tact, above all a sense of humour, would have smoothed the sharp- ness of the controversy. Only, these qualities were precisely the ones which the Puritans and the Quakers both conspicuously lacked. 134 St. Botolph's Town Against the Puritan persistency, therefore, there was ranged the exceeding contumacy of the Quakers. And if the war had been left to fight itself out, the Quakers, because they had a great principle on their side, would probably have won the day, revolting and bloody as must have been the battles. Happily, however, three or four influences cooperated to put an end to this unseemly conflict. One of the sufferers from persecution hav- ing gone to England and gained access to Charles II, brought back from that monarch a peremptory command that the death penalty against the Quakers should be no more in- flicted and that those who were under judg- ment or in prison should be sent to England for trial. Sir Eichard Saltonstall, too, — who had returned to England some time before, and was watching with great interest, though at a distance, the course of events in and about Bos- ton, — perceived that the intolerance of Wilson and Cotton would work great harm to the col- ony, and to these two teachers of the Boston First Church he had addressed a manly letter of remonstrance. Most important of all for the Quakers, John Norton, who of all the clergy had exercised the most baleful influence in the direction of intolerance, died in 1663, suddenly SIR RICHARD SALTONSTALL Freedom to Worship God 135 and of apoplexy, and the friends of the Qua- kers, after the fashion of the day, pronounced his sudden taking ofT a punishment sent by the Lord. Already John Norton had been nearly fright- ened to death in England by the Quakers. The narrow-minded but well-meaning priest had been sent with Simon Bradstreet to present an address to the just-crowned Charles and find out what his attitude towards the colonies was to be, Norton had accepted this mission with reluctance, for he knew perfectly well that, in the eye of the English law, the executions he had pushed against the Quakers were homicide. But, after long vacillation, " the Lord so en- couraged and strengthened his heart " that he ventured to sail. From the king and his prime minister he and his companion soon found they had nothing to fear, but they were none the less uncomfortable in London, the reason whereof may be gleaned from this anecdote related by Sewel: " Now the deputies of New England came to London, and endeavoured to clear them- selves as much as possible, but especially priest Norton, who bowed no less reverently before the archbishop, than before the king. . . . They would fain have altogether excused 136 St. Botolph's Town themselves; and priest Norton thought it suf- ficient to say that he did not assist in the bloody trial nor had advised to it. " But John Copeland, whose ear was cut off at Boston, charged the contrary upon him: and G. Fox the elder, got occasion to speak with them in the presence of some of his friends and asked Simon Bradstreet, one of the New England magistrates, ' whether he had not a hand in putting to death those they nicknamed Quakers '? He not being able to deny this confessed he had. Then G. Fox asked him and his associates that were present, ' whether they would acknowledge themselves to be subjects to the law of England? and if they did by what law they had put his friends to death? ' They answered ' They were sub- ject to the laws of England and they had put his friends to death by the same law as the Jesuits were put to death in England.' Here- upon G. Fox asked, ' whether they did believe that those, his friends whom they had put to death, were Jesuits or jesuistically affected? ' They said ' Nay. ' * Then 9 replied G. Fox, ' ye have murdered them; for since ye put them to death by the law that Jesuits are put to death here in England, it plainly appears you Freedom to Worship God 137 have put them to death arbitrarily, without any law.' " Fox might have turned the tables, it is clear, upon the magistrate and the minister, but he had no desire to do that. Though many royal- ists urged him to prosecute relentlessly these New England persecutors of his followers, he said he preferred to leave them " to the Lord to whom vengeance belonged. " So Bradstreet and John Norton came back to their homes in safety though they passed a very bad quar- ter of a year in London. The election in 1673 of Leverett as governor sounded, however, the death-knell to persecu- tion. For though he had been trained under Cotton's preaching, he was personally opposed to violent methods of suppressing dissenting sects, and, during his administration, the Bap- tists, the Quakers and all the rest worshipped their God undisturbed by any legal interfer- ence. Long and bitter had been the struggle, but now, at last, there was assured to those in Massachusetts a boon for which men have ever been content to yield up their life in dun- geons, on the scaffold and at the stake, — that very noble and precious thing we call " free- dom to worship God." vni BOSTON AS JOHN DUNTON SAW IT What the Journal of Madame Knight is to those who are studying tavern and transpor- tation conditions in the New England of two centuries ago, 1 the Letters of John Dunton are to us when we are concerned with Boston in the latter part of the seventeenth century. That time was peculiarly barren of description at the hands of visitors, upon whom the city made an impression rather favourable as a whole. Sewall's Diary is of inestimable value, of course, but he was a part of all that he de- scribed and so could not bring an unbiased mind to bear upon his subject. And many of the visitors who wrote about us took a hostile tone and so presented material by no means trustworthy. Sometimes, to be sure, there was good rea- son for the harshness of the picture drawn. When Jasper Danker s and. Peter Sluyter, for 1 See " Among Old New England Inns." 138 Boston as John Dunton Saw It 139 instance, gained the impressions which have since been published by the Long Island His- torical Society, they were strangers, unable to speak English, and " as Jesuits who had come here for no good " were of course regarded with suspicion. Some of the things which Dunton saw through rather rose-coloured glasses, they seem to have found not at all prepossessing. But their understatements of the country's attractions are generally less to be credited than his slight overstatement. What they wrote is interesting, though, and some few passages from their pens may well enough be quoted before we proceed to enjoy Dunton 's racy discourse. Our Jesuit friends shared in a fast day at one of the Boston churches and they were not in the least edified. " In the first place a min- ister made a prayer in the pulpit of full two hours in length; after which an old minister delivered a sermon an hour long, and after that a prayer was made and some verses sung out of the psalm. In the afternoon three or four hours were consumed with nothing except prayers, three ministers relieving each other alternately: when one was tired another went up into the pulpit. The inhabitants are all Independent in matter of religion, if it can be 140 St. Botolph's Town called religion; many of them perhaps more for the purposes of enjoying the benefit of its privileges than for any regard to trnth and godliness. . . . All their religion consists in observing Sunday by not working or going into the taverns on that day; but the houses are worse than the taverns. . . . There is a penalty for cursing and swearing such as they please to impose, the witnesses thereof being at liberty to insist upon it. Nevertheless, you discover little difference between this and other places. Drinking and fighting occur there not less than elsewhere.' ' One of the most curious items is their pic- ture of Harvard College. Apparently the in- stitution was not then very flourishing (June, 1680), for they found only ten students and no professor! On entering the College build- ing they discovered " eight or ten young fel- lows sitting about, smoking tobacco, with the smoke of which the room was so full that you could hardly see ; and the whole house smelt so strong of it that when I was going upstairs, I said, this is certainly a tavern. . . . They could hardly speak a word of Latin so that my comrade could not converse with them. They took us to the library where there was nothing particular. We looked over it a little.' ' Boston as John Dunton Saw It 141 Dunton 's experience at Harvard we shall find to be quite a different one though his visit there was only six years later than that of the missionaries. A very red-blooded gentleman was this London bookseller and journalist, who, after Monmouth's insurrection, came to New England to sell a consignment of books and so retrieve his depressed fortunes. Dunton had been intended for the ministry, but developing some tendencies of the gay Lothario stripe he became, instead, apprenticed to a bookseller and, succeeding in this line of work, soon set up a shop for himself. On August 3, 1682, he married the daughter of Dr. Samuel Annesley, a distinguished non-conformist minister. One sister of this lady became the mother of John Wesley and another the wife of Defoe. She herself must have been a remarkable person for she held the affection of her flighty hus- band the while she enabled him to keep his credit good and to be of financial aid to several dependent relatives. She had a piquant dash of Bohemianism, too, and this adds to her charm for us, as for her devoted spouse. She and John were al- ways Iris and Philaret to each other and in- stead of having a. house and living staidly in it they settled down, when their honeymoon 142 St. Botolph's Town days were over, in the Black Raven, on Prince 's street, London, where they lived for two years without a single care. " Look which way we would the world was always smiling on us," wrote Dunton of this time of their lives. ' ' The piety and good-humour of Iris made our lives one continued courtship." But our bookseller had been " born under a rambling planet " and so, when opportunity came to him, he armed himself with a stock of his wares, took along plenty of ink and white paper and went forth to sell books, — and make them. In his letters home he was, from the start, very de- liberate and naive writing his wife from Cowes all about her leave-taking with him, adding as explanation that " 'tis necessary to render the History of my Rambles perfect, which I design to print." During the voyage Dunton enjoyed a sea- sickness which he so vividly describes as to induce similar suffering on the part of his readers. But when the New World was reached he recovered speedily and began dili- gently to write back to Iris and his friends all he did, saw, read or squeezed out of others in the course of his stay in the town. The first letter descriptive of Boston was addressed to his London printer, sixty letters to Iris having Boston as John Dunton Saw It 143 been immediately dispatched previous to the inditing of this one. To Larkin he declares that he will in this New England letter " 1. Give an account of my reception at Boston. 2. The character of my Boston Landlord, his wife and daughter: 3. Give you an account of my being admitted into the freedom of the City: 4. I shall describe next the town of Boston, it being the Metropolis of New Eng- land; and say something of the government, Law and Customs thereof. 5. I shall relate the Visits I made, the Eemarkable friendships I contracted, and shall conclude with the char- acter of Madam Brick as the Flower of Bos- ton, and some other Ladyes. And I'll omit nothing that happened (if remarkable) during my stay here. And in all this I will not copy from other, as is usual with most Travellers, but relate my own Observations." After which preface Dunton goes on with character- istic verbosity to tell his little tale. Opposite to the Town House he found " in Capital Letters : LODGINGS TO BE LET WITH A CON- VENIENT WAKEHOUSE " I found 'twas convenient for my purpose and so we soon made a bargain. My Landlord, 144 St. Botolph's Town Mr. Richard Wilkins, like good old Jacob, is a good plain man. He was formerly a bookseller in Limerick, and fled hither on the account of conscience . . . and is now a member of Mr. Willard's church." Having unloaded his books, opened his shop and presented letters which he bore to the Deputy Governor, William Stoughton, and to Joseph Dudley [Governor from 1702-1715] Dunton was made a freeman of the town through the good offices of Francis Burroughs. In a book at the City Clerk's office may still be found the document of this last transaction which is so interesting that I herewith repro- duce it: " Witnesse these presents, that I, Francis Burrowes, of Bostone, Merchant, doe bind my- selfe, my Executors and Administrators to Edward Willis, Treasurer of the Towne of Bostone, in the sume of forty pounds in mony, that John Dunton booke-seller, nor any of his familie, shall not be chargeable to this towne duringe his or any of there abode therein. Witnesse my hand the 16th of February, 1685. " That is, sd Burrowes binds himself e as above to sd Willis and his successors in the Boston as John Dunton Saw It 145 office of Treasurer, omitted in the due place above. (Signed) Francis Burroughs. " John Dunton.' ' This formality over, Dunton was in a posi- tion to enjoy himself. Which he did by promptly accepting an invitation to " dine with the Governour and Magistrates of Bos- ton; the Place of Entertainment was the Town-Hall, and the Feast Rich and Noble : As I enter 'd the Room where the Dinner was, the Governour in Person [Bradstreet], the Deputy Governour, Major Dudley, and the other Mag- istrates, did me the Honour to give me a par- ticular welcome to Boston, and to wish me suc- cess in my undertaking." One wishes that Dunton had dwelt upon this dinner instead of proceeding to tell us, guide-book fashion, about the latitude and longitude of the city, and the manner in which it had been settled. But we would not for a great deal be without his de- scription of the houses : " The Houses are for the most part raised on the Sea-banks, and wharfed out with great industry and cost; many of them standing upon piles, close together, on each side the streets, as in London, and furnished with many fair Shops ; where all sorts of commodities are 146 St. Botolph's Town sold. Their streets are many and large, paved with Pebbles; the Materials of their Houses are Brick, Stone, Lime, handsomely contrived, and when any New Houses are bnilt, they are made conformable to our New Buildings in London since the fire. Mr. Shrimpton has a very stately house there, with a Brass Kettle atop, to shew his Father was not ashamed of his Original [he had been a brazier] : Mr. John Usher (to the honour of our Trade) is judg'd to be worth above £20,000, and hath one of the best Houses in Boston ; They have Three Fair and Large Meeting-Houses or Churches, [the First Church, which stood on the south side of what is now State street on Washington street ; the second church or North Meeting-House which stood at the head of North square ; and the Third or Old South Church] commodiously built in several parts of the Town, which yet are hardly sufficient to receive the Inhabitants, and strangers that come in from all Parts. " Their Town-House [which stood from 1657 to 1711 on the site of the present Old State House] is built upon Pillars in the mid- dle of the Town, where their merchants meet and confer every day. In the Chambers above they keep their Monthly Courts. The South- side of the Town is adorned with Gardens and GOVERNOR SIMON BRADSTREET Boston as John Dunton Saw It 147 Orchards. The Town is rich and very popu- lous, much frequented by strangers. Here is the dwelling of Mr. Bradstreet, Esq. their present Gouvernour. On the North-west and North-east two constant Fairs are kept, for daily Traffick thereunto. On the South there is a small but pleasant Common, where the Gallants a little before sunset walk with their Marmalet Madams, as we do in Moorfield &c till the Nine-a Clock Bell rings them home; after which the Constables walk their Bounds to see good order kept, and to take up loose people. In the high-street towards the Com- mon, there are very fair Buildings, some of which are of stone.' ' Dunton was a kindly and a liberal person, so he can speak with very little patience of the religious persecutions which he found going on all about him. " The Quakers here have been a suffering Generation, ' ' he writes, " and there's hardly any of the Yea and Nay Per- suasion but will give you a severe account of it; for the Bostonians, though their fore- fathers fled hither to enjoy liberty of con- science, are very unwilling any should enjoy it but themselves : But they are now grown more moderate. The Government, both Civil and Ecclesiastical is in the hands of the Independ- 148 St. Botolph's Town ents and Presbyterians, or at least of those that pretend to be such." Thanks to Dunton, we have an outsider's glimpse of a church collection among the Puri- tans. " On Sundays in the After-noon, after Sermon is ended, the People in the Galleries come down and march two a Brest, up one Isle and down the other, until they come before the Desk, for Pulpit they have none: Before the Desk is a long Pew, where the Elders and Deacons sit, one of them with a Money-box in his hand, into which the People, as they pass put their Offerings, some a shilling, some two shillings, and some half a Crown or five shil- lings, according to the Ability or Liberality of the Person giving. This I look upon to be a Praise-worthy Practice. This money is dis- tributed to supply the Necessities of the Poor, according to their several wants, for they have no Beggars there. Every Church (for so they call their particular Congregations) have one Pastor, one Teacher, Euling Elders and Dea- cons.' ' Borrowing adroitly from Josselyn's Two Voyages Dunton now describes what he calls " their Laws: This Colony is a Body Cor- porate, Politick in Fact, by the Name of, The Governeur and Company of the Massachusetts Boston as John Dunton Saw It 149 Bay in New-England. Their Constitution is, That there shall be one governour and Deputy- Governour, and eighteen Assistants of the same Company, from time to time. That the Governour and Deputy Governour, who for this year are Esq Bradstreet and Esq Stough- ton, Assistants and all other officers, to be chosen from among the Freemen the last Wednesday in Easter Term, yearly, in the General Court. The Governour to take his corporal oath to be True and Faithful to the Government, and to give the same Oath to the other Officers. They are to hold a Court once a month, and any seven to be a sufficient Quo- rum. They are to have four General Courts kept in Term-Time, and once General and sol- emn Assembly, to make Laws and Ordinances; Provided, They be not contrary or repugnant to the Laws and Statutes of the Eealm of Eng- land. In Anno 1646, They drew up a Body of their Laws for the benefit of the People. Every Town sends two Burgesses to their Great and Solem General Court. 11 Their Laws for Beformation of Manners are very severe, ' ' he now goes on to say, ' ' yet but little regarded by the People, so at least to make 'em better or cause 'em to mend their manners. For being drunk, they either Whip 150 St. Botolph's Town or impose a Fine of Five shillings: And yet notwithstanding this Law, there are several of them so addicted to it, that they begin to doubt whether it be a Sin or no; and seldom go to Bed without Muddy Brains. For Cursing and Swearing they bore through the Tongue with a hot Iron. For kissing a woman in the Street, though but in way of Civil Salute, 1 Whipping or a Fine. . . . For adultry they are put to Death, and so for Witchcraft; For that they are a great many Witches in this Country the late Tryals of 20 New England Witches is a sufficient Proof. . . . An English Woman suf- fering an Indian to have carnal knowledge of her had an Indian cut out exactly in red cloth, and sewed upon her right Arm, and enjoyned to wear it Twelve Months. Scolds they gag, and set them at their own Doors, for certain hours together, for all comers and goers to gaze at. Stealing is punished with Bestor- ing four-fold, if able; if not, they are sold for some years, and so are poor Debtors. I have not heard of many Criminals of this sort. . . . For I say again you must make a Distinction: For amongst all this Dross, there runs here and there a vein of pure Gold : And though the Generality are what I have >See " Among Old New England Inns," p. 22. Boston as John Dunton Saw It 151 describ'd 'em, yet is there as sincere a Pious and truly Religious People among them, as is any where in the Whole World to be found. " The next thing I have to do is to proceed to give you some account of the Visits I made : For having gotten a Warehouse and my Books ready for sale, (for you know mine was a Learned Venture) 'twas my Business next to seek out the Buyers : So I made my first Visit to that Reverend and Learned Divine, Mr. In- crease Mather: He's the Present Rector of Harvard College: He is deservedly called, The Metropolitan Clergy-Man of the Kingdom. And the next to him in Fame (whom I likewise visited at the same time) is his son, Mr. Cot- ton Mather, an Excellent Preacher, a great Writer; He has very lately finish 'd the Church- History of New England, which I'm going to print; And which is more than all, He Lives the Doctrine he Preaches. After an hour spent in his company (which I took for Heaven) he shew'd me his Study: And I do think he has one of the best (for a Private Library) that I ever knew. ... I am sure it was the best sight I had in Boston. " Early the next morning (before the Sun could shew his Face) I went to wait upon Mr. Willard: He's the Minister of the South Meet- 152 St. Botolph's Town ing in Boston: He's a Man of Profound No- tions : Can say what he will, and prove what he says : I darken his Merits if I call him less than a Walking Library.' ' Among the other clergymen visited by Mr. Dnnton that day when he rose so early was Joshua Moody, hon- ourably distinguished by his opposition to the witchcraft delusion and extolled by Dunton, a little further on, for a sermon which he preached upon the hanging of James Morgan for murder. The booksellers of the town are now de- scribed, together with Samuel Green, the printer, George Monk, landlord of the Blue Anchor, — which, standing as it did on the site of the present Globe building, was a very con- venient refuge for Dunton when the felicity of family life at the Wilkins' began to pail, — and Dr. Bullivant in whom were combined the pro- fessions of apothecary and physician. Bulli- vant was a good deal of a character. It is of him that Hutchinson says : 1 1 Among the more liberal was one Bullivant, an apothecary who had been a justice of the peace under Andros. Lord Bellamont, going from the lecture to his house, with a great crowd round him, passed by Bullivant standing at his shop door loiter- ing. ' Doctor,' says his lordship with an audi- Boston as John Dunton Saw It 153 ble voice, ' you have lost a precious sermon to-day/ Bullivant whispered to one of his companions who stood by him, ' If I could have got as much by being there as his lordship will, I would have been there too. ' ' ' Bullivant was a Church of England man and his lordship — ought to have been. We are now come, in Dunton's discursive letter to Larkin, to the portion devoted to his "Female Friends in Boston.' ' Highly enter- taining reading this ! One of these friends was a maiden, another was the wife of a rival book- seller and the third and most significant, re- ferred to interchangeably as " Madam Brick " and " the flower of Boston " was a widow. " I shall Speak first of the Damsel, [Comfort Wilkins, his landlord's daughter]. . . . She was a little Transported with the Zeal of Vol- untary Virginity as knowing there's few Prac- tice it. But tho' an old (or Superannuated) Maid, in Boston, is thought such a curse as nothing can exceed it, and looked on as a Dis- mal Spectacle, yet she by her Good Nature, Gravity and strict Vertue, convinces all that 'tis not her Necessity but her Choice that keeps her a Virgin. She's now about Twenty Six years (the Age which we call a Thornback) yet she never disguises her self by the Gayetys of 154 St. Botolph's Town a Youthful Dress, and talks as little as she thinks of Love: She goes to no Balls or Dan- cing Match, as they do who go (to such Fairs) in order to meet with Chapmen. . . . Her Looks, her Speech, her whole behaviour are so very chaste, that but once going to kiss her I thought she had blush 'd to death.' ' [One won- ders if Dunton ever did kiss her ; we know that he talked to her by the hour of " Platonick Love."] Mrs. Green, though married, seems to have been quite as modest as this incomparable maiden. The talk of that time was not always delicate and this the printer's wife set herself to reform. Dunton tells us that she " was so severely scrupulous that, there being an invi- tation of several Persons to a Gentleman's House in Boston and some that were invited resolving to be very merry, one of the company made this Objection ' that Mrs. Green woul'd be there which woul'd spoil their Mirth.' " Of the Flower of Boston Dunton makes the rather terrifying statement that her " Head has been cut off yet she lives and walks." This, being interpreted, means that the lady's husband was dead and that she devoted her life to keeping his memory green. " Yet she did not think her self oblig'd to such Starch 'd- Boston as John Dunton Saw It 155 ness of Carriage,' ' comments Dunton tersely, " as is usual among the Bostonians, who value themselves thereby so much that they are ready to say to all others, Stand off, I am holier than thou." Not all the women in the Boston of that day were in a class with Caesar's wife, however. Dunton records that he had ' ' several Acquaint- ance with Persons of a far different character : For all sorts came to my Ware house to buy Books, according to their several Inclinations. There was Mrs. Ab — 1, (a Person of Quality) : A well-wisher to the Mathematics: A young Proficient, but willing to learn, and therefore came to Enquire for the School of Venus; She was one of the first that pos'd me, in asking for a Book I cou'd not help her to; I told her however, I had the School of Vertue ; but that was a Book she had no occasion for. . . . Yet bad as she is, for her Father's sake, 1 hope she'll live to repent. The next I shall mention is Mrs. D — , who has a bad face and a worse tongue ; and has the report of a Witch ; whether she be one or no, I know not, but she has ig- norance and malice enough to make her one: And indeed she has done very odd things, but hitherto such as are rather strange than hurt- ful; yea, some of them are pretty and pleas- 156 St. Botolph's Town ing, but such as I think cann't be done without the help of the Devil : As for instance : She '11 take 9 sticks, and lay 'em across, and by mum- bling a few words, make 'em all stand up an End like a pair of Nine-Pins ; but she had best have a care, for they that use the Devil's help to make sport, may quickly come to do mischief. I have been told by some that she has actually indented with the Devil; and that he is to do what she would have him for a time, and after- wards he is to have her Soul in Exchange: What pains poor Wretches take to make sure of Hell! " This naive description of a " witch," hot from the pen of a contemporary, is most interesting and worth bearing in mind when we are studying the phenomenon of witch- craft, as seen by the persecuting Mathers. Of women who shop without knowing what they want the Boston of that day evidently had its due share. Dunton amusingly describes one of them: " Doll- S-der's life is a perpetual Contradiction ; and she is made up of ' I will * and ' I will not.' ' Reach me that Book, yet let it alone too; but let me see't however: and yet 'tis no great matter neither ; ' was her con- stant Dialect in my Ware house: She's very fantastical but cann't be called Irresolute; for an Irresolute Person is always beginning, and Boston as John Dunton Saw It 157 she never makes an End. She writes and blots out again, whilst the other deliberates what to write: I know two negatives make an affirma- tive bnt what her aye and no together make I know not. Her head is just like a Squirrel's Cage and her Mind the Sqnirrel that whirls it round." One of his single women customers Dunton characterizes as " Vox et preterea nihil, ' ' adding that it is certainly ' c some bodies happiness that she is yet unmarried, for she wou'd make a Husband wish that she were dumb, or he were deaf. . . . She us'd to come to my Warehouse, not to buy Books, (for she talk'd so much she had no time to read) but that others might hear her. ' ' And now, as if to balance the entertainment offered by the first part of this letter Dunton reproduces, almost in full, the three sermons preached at the unfortunate James Morgan before his execution! This event had just taken place in Boston and was remarkable for being the first of its kind to occur there in three years. The two Mathers and Joshua Moody officiated as preachers, the crowd present at the New Church being such that " the Gallery crack 'd, and so they were forced to remove to Mr. Willard , s. ,, After the execution, to which Dunton " rid with Mr. Cotton Mather/' our 158 St. Botolph's Town indefatigable friend, in the company of Mrs. Green, Madam Brick, Comfort Wilkins and two or three other acquaintances of both sexes, * i took a Ramble to a place call'd Governour's Island, abont a mile from Boston, to see a whole Hog roasted. We all went in a Boat; and having treated the Fair Sex, returned in the Evening.' ' To just this period belongs the holding of the first Church of England service in Boston and it is interesting to know that Dunton was present. The parson was Robert Ratclrffe who " the next Sunday after he landed, preached in the Town-house and read Common-Prayer in his Surplice, which was so great a Novelty to the Bostonians, that he had a very large Audience, myself among others.' ' Dunton also bore his part in the Training Day exercises on the Common. " Tis their custom here for all that can bear arms, to go out on a Training Day : But I thought a pike was best for a young Souldier, and so I carry 'd a Pike; . . . Be- tween you and I, Reader, there was another reason for it too, and that was I knew not how to shoot off a Musquet. Twas the first time I was ever in arms. " Being come into the Field the Captain calPd us all into Close Order, in order to go Boston as John Dunton Saw It 159 to Prayer, and then Pray'd himself: And when our Exercise was done, the Captain likewise concluded with Prayer. I have heard that Gus- tavus Adolphus, the warlike King of Sweden, wou'd before the beginning of a Battel, kneel down devoutly at the head of his Army, and pray to God (the Giver of Victories) to give them Success against their Enemies, which commonly was the Event; and that he was as Careful also to return thanks to God for the Victory. But solemn Prayer in the Field upon a Day of Training, I never knew but in New England, where it seems it is a common Cus- tom. About three of the Clock both our Exer- cise and Prayers being over, We had a very Noble Dinner, to which all the Clergy were invited. ' ' The influence of the " rambling planet " under which Dunton had been born, continuing as potent in New England as in old, our friend made many little journeys to places of interest near Boston, diligently writing back to his cor- respondents on the other side all that befell him on these occasions. His visit to the com- munity " that at first was called New Town but is now made a University and called Cam- bridge, there being a colledge erected there by one Mr. John Harvard, who gave £700 for the 160 St. Botolph's Town Erecting of it in the year 1638,' ' is most enter- tainingly described. " I was invited hither by Mr. Cotton [son of the Beverend John Cotton and librarian of the College] by whom I was very handsomely Treated and shewn all that was remarkable in it. He discoursed with me about my venture of Books ; and by this means I sold many of my Books to the Colledge." The book talk which then went on between these two is pleasantly hinted at. Dunton, when asked who were " his great authors/ ' spoke of " Jeremy Taylor, Mr. John Bunyan, who tho' a man of but very ordinary Education, yet was as well known for an Author throughout Eng- land as any, . . . Kobert Boyle, Sir Matthew Hale, Cowley and Dryden." In return for which Cotton instanced as distinguished con- temporary authors of New England the " Fa- mous Mr. Elliot " and the inevitable Mathers. Eliot, who was now a very old man, Dunton soon went to see " alone that I might have nothing to hinder me in conversing with him. When I came he receiv'd me with all the Ten- derness and respect imaginable, and had me up into his Study; and then he enquir'd of me with all the Expressions of Love and Kindness that cou'd be how my Father-in-Law, the Eev- erend Doctor Annesly did? . . . And then Boston as John Dunton Saw It 161 speaking to me, said, ' Well, Young Man, how goes the Work of Christ on in England! ' I then told him of the Troubles that were there, and how like Popery was to be set up again. ' No, ' said he, ' it never will be, it never shall : They may indeed attempt it ; they have Tower- ing Thoughts, as their Brethren the Babel- Builders had of old, but they shall never be able to bring their wicked Intentions to pass ; . . . ' ' And this he spake with good Assurance. ( But, ' says he, ' do the People of God keep up their Meetings still! Is the Gospel preach 'd! Does the work of Conversion go forward! ' . . . I told him that tho' the Gaols were full of Dissenters, yet the Meetings were as nu- merous, and as much throng 'd as ever. And I had heard my Father say, That more Members had been added to the Church the last year than in some years before. " Mr. Elliot was very well pleas'd at what I had told, and said, l It was a Token for Good, that God had not forsaken his People. ' . . . After which he presented me with 12 Bibles in the Indian Language, and gave me a charge to present one of 'em to my father Dr. Annesly; he also gave me Twelve Speeches of Converted Indians, publish 'd by himself, to give to my Friends in England : After which, he made me 162 St. Botolph's Town stay and dine with him, by which means I had the opportunity of hearing him Pray, and ex- pound the Scriptures with his Family. After Dinner, he told me that both for my own, but especially for my Father's sake, whom he said he admir'd above most Men in England, if his Countenance and Recommendation cou'd be of any Service to me, I sho'd not want it: And I have already found the good Effects of it." So favourably, indeed, were Dunton's books received that he was almost persuaded to take up his permanent residence in Boston. But while debating the matter, he was suddenly seized with a great desire to ramble back to London and once again behold his beloved Iris. So, leaving his good landlord Wilkins to collect the remittances still due him, he sailed for Eng- land, where he arrived early in August, 1686. His whole stay in America covered, therefore, but four months. One of his first acts, after being restored to the arms of his faithful wife, was to send his regards to Comfort Wilkins, with whom he had so often discoursed upon Platonic love, and his ' ' service in a more par- ticular manner to the Widow Brick. ' ' Already, he had let it be known that only the excellent health enjoyed by Iris prevented him from making actual love to this " flower of Boston." Boston as John Dunton Saw It 163 His subsequent career was a bit checkered. A " ramble to Holland, where he lived four months,'' and up the Ehine, where he stayed, as he himself says, ' ' until he had satisfied his curiosity and spent all his money,' ' occupied the next two years. Then he took a shop op- posite London's Poultry Counter which he opened the day the Prince of Orange entered the city. Here he sold books with varying suc- cess for ten years, publishing, the while, several semi-political pamphlets. The blow of his life came in May, 1697, in the death of Iris. But within twelvemonths he had married another woman, — for her fortune, — and the last years of his life were full of squalid quarrels with this lady and with her mother. Dunton 's always-flowery style of composi- tion seems to have grown more marked as time went on, and the Spectator found his effusions good matter for ridicule. One kind friend tried to tell him this. ' ' If you have essays or letters that are valuable, call them essays and letters in short plain language," this common-sense person counselled, " and if you have anything writ by men of sense and on subjects of impor- tance, it may sell without your name to it." But Dunton was now sixty and could not give up the old way. To the last his projects had 164 St. Botolph's Town the catchword of Athenian appended to them. He died in obscurity in 1733, aged 74. If he had never come to Boston his name would long ago have been forgotten. Even as it is his " Letters " are almost unobtainable. For since the Prince Society of Boston reprinted a very limited edition, forty years ago, the vol- ume has been growing every year more and more rare. To-day only collectors can boast of its possession. IX THE DYNASTY OP THE MATHEES Dunton's letters abound, as we have seen, in references to the Mathers, Increase and Cot- ton ; and the same thing is true of all the litera- ture of the period. Brooks Adams has cut- tingly observed in his remarkable volume, " The Emancipation of Massachusetts,' ' that one weak point in the otherwise strong posi- tion of the early Massachusetts clergy was that the spirit of their age did not permit them to make their order hereditary. With the Math- ers, however, the priesthood was hereditary, and they constituted a veritable dynasty in the government of Boston. The story of their lives offers a remarkable illustration of power — theological and otherwise — transmitted through at least four generations. When ' ' the shining light ' ' was extinguished by death, late in 1652, he left a widow who be- came, before long, the second wife of the Eev- erend Eichard Mather, minister of Dorchester. 165 166 St. Botolph's Town This Mather had already a theologically minded son named Increase, who had been born in Dorchester in June, 1639, and who, after preaching his first sermon on his birthday, in 1657, sailed for England and pursued post- graduate studies in Trinity College there. Then he preached for one winter in Devonshire and, in 1659, became chaplain to the garrison of Guernsey. But the Restoration was now at hand and, finding that he must " either con- form to the Revived Superstitions in the Church of England or leave the Island,' ' he gave up his charge and, in June, 1661, sailed for home. The following winter he passed preaching alternately for his father and " to the New Church in the North-part of Boston.' ' In the course of that year the charms of Mrs. Mather's daughter, Maria Cotton, impressed themselves upon him and, " On March 6, 1662, he Came into the Mar- ried State ; Espousing the only Daughter, of the celebrated Mr. John Cotton ; in honor of whom he did . . . call his First-born son by the Name of Cotton." Two years after his marriage Increase Mather was ordained pastor of the North Church in Boston and for some twenty years he appears to have performed with notable sue- INCREASE MATHER The Dynasty of the Mathers 167 cess the duties of this important parish. At the same time, he exercised — beneficently on the whole — his great power in the temporal affairs of the colony. For he had good sense and sound judgment, — exactly the qualities, it may be remarked, which his more brilliant son conspicuously lacked. One of the most attractive traits in the younger Mather's character is his appreciation of his father. Barrett Wendell, who has writ- ten a highly readable Life of Cotton Mather, observes dryly that the persecutor of the witches " never observed any other law of God quite so faithfully as the Fifth Command- ment." And there seems to have been excel- lent reason for this. Increase Mather devo- tedly loved his precocious young son and upon him he lavished a passionate affection which the lad repaid in reverence which was almost worship. The motto of Cotton Mather's life seems indeed to have been, My Father can do no Wrong. The schoolmaster whose privilege it became to plant the seeds of learning in the mind of this hope of the Mathers was Ezekiel Cheever, whose life Sewall has written for us in the following concise paragraph : ' ' He was born January 25, 1614. Came over 168 St. Botolph's Town to N. E. 1637, to Boston : To New Haven 1638. Married in the Fall and began to teach School ; which work he was constant in till now. First, at New-Haven, then at Ipswich; then at Charlestown; then at Boston, whither he came 1670. So that he has laboured in that Calling Skilfully, diligently, constantly, Religiously, Seventy years. A rare instance of Piety, Health, Strength, Serviceableness. The Well- fare of the Province was much upon his spirit. He abominated Perriwigs. ' ' That Cheever was in truth an excellent teacher may be accepted from the fact that he had Cotton Mather ready at twelve to enter Harvard College. And this, too, in spite of the fact that one fault of the lad was " idleness.' ' Warning his son against this fault, Cotton Mather wrote, the " thing that occasioned me very much idle time was the Distance of my Father's Habitation from the School; which caused him out of compassion for my Tender and Weakly constitution to keep me at home in the Winter. However, I then much em- ployed myself in Church History; and when the Summer arrived I so plied my business, that thro' the Blessing of God upon my en- deavours, at the Age of little more than eleven years I had composed many Latin exercises, The Dynasty of the Mathers 169 both in prose and verse, and could speak Latin so readily, that I could write notes of sermons of the English preacher in it. I had conversed with Cato, Corderius, Terence, Tully, Ovid and Virgil. I had made Epistles and Themes ; pre- senting my first Theme to my Master, without his requiring or expecting as yet any such thing of me; whereupon he complimented me Laudabilis Diligentia tua [Your diligence de- serves praise]. I had gone through a great part of the New Testament in Greek, I had read considerably in Socrates and Homer, and I had made some entrance in my Hebrew grammar. And I think before I came to fourteen, I com- posed Hebrew exercises and Ean thro' the other Sciences, that Academical Students ordi- narily fall upon." In a later chapter we shall discuss at some length the rules and regulations, the studies and the social life which, all together, consti- tuted a highly important formative influence in the life of this and the other Puritan youth who went to Harvard. Suffice it, therefore, in this place to say that Cotton Mather was put through the mill duly and was able in 1678 to present himself for the bachelor's degree, being at that time the youngest who had ever ap- plied for it. This fact it was, which added to 170 St. Botolph's Town his illustrious ancestry, inspired President Oakes to single him out at Commeneemcent for the following eulogy delivered in sounding Latin: " The next youth is named Cotton Mather. What a name! Or rather, dear friends, I should have said * what names.' Of his reverend father, the most watchful of guardians, the most distinguished Fellow of the College I will say nothing, for I dare not praise him to his face. But should this youth bring back among us the piety, the learning, the sound sense, the prudence, the elegant ac- complishment and the gravity of his very rev- erend grandfathers, John Cotton and Eichard Mather, he will have done his highest duty. I have no slight hope that in this youth there shall live again, in fact as well as in name, Cotton and Mather." Can you wonder that a boy of sixteen, thus conspicuously praised at the very entrance upon serious life, felt himself to be a person of considerable importance in his community, a man born to sustain a theological dynasty? Of course the ministry was the profession for which he was destined, but, for some seven years after matriculation, he followed the call- ing of a tutor because he was afflicted with a tendency to stammer. Then he began the study The Dynasty of the Mathers 171 of medicine. Soon after this he was advised to practise speaking with " dilated delibera- tion/ ' which he did so successfully as com- pletely to overcome the impediment which had bothered him and, possessing already every educational qualification as a preacher, he was thus able (in May, 1685) to become the asso- ciate of his father in the charge of the church in North Square. Before accepting this trust he had kept many days of fasting and prayer, for he had long desired remotely to emulate that Eabbi mentioned in the Talmud whose face was black by reason of his fasting. The fasts observed by Cotton Mather throughout his life were so frequent that his son observes of him in his funeral sermon l ' that he thought himself starved unless he fasted once a month! " Such then was the Mather to whom the cele- brated Eliot had extended, at the age of twenty- two, the fellowship of the churches ! Ten days after coming into this high estate the young parson was present at a u private Fast " in the home of Samuel Sewall, an occasion which happily supplies us with an authentic glimpse of the manners of the times. For Sewall writes: " The Magistrates . . . with their wives here. Mr. Eliot prayed, Mr. Willard preached. I am afraid of thy judgments. — 172 St. Botolph's Town Text Mather gave. Mr. Allen prayed; cessa- tion half an hour. Mr. Cotton Mather prayed ; Mr. Mather preached, Ps. 79. 9. Mr. Moodey prayed about an hour and half ; Sung the 79th Psalm from the 8th to the End; distributed some Biskets & Beer, Cider, Wine. The Lord hear in Heaven his dwelling place." But of course a young minister of that day — as of this — must very soon, if only in self- defence, take unto himself a wife. Cotton Mather was already matrimonially minded : he had begun to ask " the guidance and blessing of God in what concerns the change of my con- dition in the world from Single to married, whereunto I have now many invitations/' These last words we must not take as an evi- dence of Leap Year activity in his parish, but rather as meaning that the young parson de- sired to enter into the state of matrimony but had not as yet met the girl whose charms should draw him thither. His attitude of mind at this stage is singularly like that of the pure young woman of our own time whose heart is still untouched, — and it is in striking contrast to the pronounced dislike with which young men of to-day regard marriage per se. The girl was now sure to arrive, and so it came about that the year 1686 — troublous The Dynasty of the Mathers 173 enough to New England, because Edward Ban- dolph and Joseph Dudley had succeeded in wresting away the Charter — was a decidedly happy one for Cotton Mather. His wooing was very godly, as it was bound to be, but it re- sulted in his bringing home as a wife Abigail, daughter of the Honourable Colonel Phillips of Charlestown. On his wedding day he got up early to ponder ; but in spite of his ponder- ing he reached Charlestown ahead of time and had to put in an hour or so in the garden with his Bible while Abigail was being arrayed in her wedding finery. Two Sundays afterwards he preached at his own church in Boston on Divine Delights. This was the very Sunday when Mr. Willard " prayed not for the Gov- ernour. ' ' The implications of this just-quoted entry in Sewall's invaluable Diary are enormous. Now that we have married off Cotton Mather, let us turn aside briefly to consider them. From the settlement of the Colony it had been gov- erned under a royal charter granted, as we have seen, to the governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay in 1629. Under this none but church members had been freemen, and as these freemen elected all political officers and developed their own system of law it is clear 174 St. Botolph's Town that the government was much more nearly a theocracy than a dependency of the crown. Tacitly, England had agreed to this state of affairs, but this was only because she had been too busy with Civil Wars and internal dissen- sions to do anything else. For the sovereign did not forget by any means that New England was theoretically the private property of the crown by virtue of its discovery at the hands of the Cabots, who had been fitted out with crown money. What rights the Colonists had to the land came, it was argued, from the Char- ter; at best, therefore, their positions could be compared only to that of tenants on a pri- vate estate. From the very beginning, how- ever, the Charter had been contested by some gentlemen who maintained that it had been given originally in violation of previous royal grants to them. Among these contestants was one Gorges, a name we readily recognize as potential in more way than one. By the time Charles II ascended the throne New England had become so prosperous that the opponents of the Charter could not let the matter longer alone, and there appeared in Boston as their agent, Edward Kandolph, " the evil genius of New England," with a letter requiring the governor and Assistants of Mas- The Dynasty of the Mathers 175 sachusetts at once to send representatives to England, there to answer the claims of those who contested their rights. The contest thus begun lasted nntil 1684, a period of nearly nine years, during which Randolph made no less than eight voyages to New England, the colo- nists sending back to London meanwhile innu- merable long-drawn petitions. But the blow fell at last and on June 18, 1684, the Court of Chancery decreed that the Charter should be vacated. In the Colony it- self there had appeared, by this time, a party which favoured submission to royal authority. This party had been built up chiefly by the exertions of Randolph and at its head was Joseph Dudley, a son of the Colony's second governor. He, as " president of New Eng- land, ' ' was now named to succeed Simon Brad- street, the last governor elected by the people of the colony, — and the last survivor, as well, of the magistrates, who, nearly sixty years before, had founded the government. It was a goodly heritage for which Randolph and his tools had fought. From the day that Winthrop landed, the Puritan State of his ideal had risen steadily, and Boston, its chief town, was now a thriving and well-built settlement. Moreover, it was distinctly an English town, 176 St. Botolph's Town for the migration had been unmixed, and, va- ried as were the religious beliefs of its inhab- itants, they agreed perfectly in their love of English names for their streets, English flow- ers for their gardens, English furniture for their rooms and English architecture for their homes. But they had few books, no amuse- ments, and no intellectual interest except relig- ion. " The people of Boston," as Henry Cabot Lodge remarks in his excellent study of that city's rise and development, " practically went from work to religion and from religion to work without anything to break the monotony ex- cept trouble with England and wars with the savages. . . . And now the charter, under which they had enjoyed power and exercised independence was taken from them." If we read Sewall's account of those days in the spring of 1686 with this great impending change in mind the brief entries become dra- matic in the extreme. He tells us how the Bose frigate arrived in Nantasket on the 14th of May; how Bandolph came to town by eight in the morning and took coach for Boxbury, where Dudley lived ; and how, with other mag- istrates, he himself was summoned to see the judgment against the charter with the great seal of England affixed. He tells how, on the The Dynasty of the Mathers 177 following Sunday, Kandolph came to the Old South Church, where Mr. Willard, in his prayer, made no mention of governor or gov- ernment ; but spoke as if all were changing or changed. He tells how, the next day the Gen- eral Court assembled, and how Joseph Dudley, temporarily made President of New England, exhibited the condemnation of the Charter and his own commission, how the old magistrates began to make some formal answer and how Dudley refused to treat with them as a court. There is a note of very real pathos in Sewall's picture of that sorrowful group of old magis- trates, who, when Dudley was gone, decided that there was ' ' no room ' ' for a protest : " The foundations being gone what can the righteous do? " So, for seven months, Joseph Dudley was President of the Provisional Government of New England, and during those months the birthdays of the king and queen were celebrated by the royalists in Boston, and to Episcopa- lians was granted the right to hold services in the east end of the Town House. The Puritan Pepys, as Sewall has well been called, duly notes these developments, telling us that on Sunday, May 30, he sang "the 141 Psalm . . . exceedingly suited to the day. "Wherein there 178 St. Botolph's Town is to be worship according to the Church of England, as 'tis called, in the Town House, by countenance of Authority.' ' In August Sewall has grave doubts as to whether he can con- scientiously serve in the militia under a flag in which the cross, cut out by Endicott, has been replaced; and three months later he an- swers his own question by resigning as captain of the South Company. A few Saturdays be- fore this the queen's birthday had been cele- brated with drums, bonfires and huzzas, thereby causing Mr. Willard to express, next day, " great grief in's Prayer for the Profanation of the Sabbath last night." Then, on Sunday, December 19, while Sewall was reading to his family an exposition of Habakkuk, he heard a great gun or two, which made him think Sir Edmund Andros might be come. Such proved to be the case. The first governor sent out from England had arrived u in a Scarlet Coat laced." That day Joseph Dudley went to listen to Mr. Willard preach, and had the chagrin of hearing that personage say, " he was fully persuaded and confident God would not forget the Faith of those who came first to New England." Between sermons the President went down the harbour to welcome Sir Edmund. The SIR EDMUND ANDROS The Dynasty of the Mathers 179 next afternoon the king's appointee landed in state, and was escorted to the Town House by eight militia companies. Here a commission was read, declaring his power to suspend coun- cillors and to appoint others, — and vesting the legislative power in him and his Council thus appointed. Then he took the oath of allegiance and stood by, with his hat on, while eight coun- cillors were sworn. The same day he de- manded accommodation in one of the meeting- houses for the services of the Church of Eng- land! Andros was a gentleman of good family, had served with distinction in the army, had mar- ried a lady of rank and for three years had very successfully ruled as governor of New York. When James came to the throne he quite naturally turned to him as a person well fitted, by his previous American experience — as well as by his well-known personal dewl^ to the Stuarts — to preside acceptably over the New England colonies. But, New York was not Boston then any more than to-day and, as ill luck would have it, Andros from the very start, made mistakes which soon caused him to be one of the best-hated men Massachusetts had ever known. Scarcely had he set foot in the town when he proceeded, as we have seen, to assail 180 St. Botolph's Town the religious sensibilities of the Puritans. All forms and ceremonies, symbols and signs were to them marks of the Beast, and it was a cruel shock, after what they had suffered to get away from the Church of England, to have a priest in a surplice conducting in their Town House a service hateful to them, to see men buried according to the prayer-book and to learn that marriages, which they had made a purely civil contract, must henceforth be solemnized by the rites of the church. Even worse was the en- forced celebration of royal anniversaries and the reappearance of old sports upon certain holidays. Samuel Sewall was the type of a class of well-to-do Puritans, who were, on the whole, inclined to be submissive to the new govern- ment, but he shows himself to have been hurt in a tender spot by many of the things Andros did. His Diary may well enough be held to reflect the deep feeling of many. As early as November, 1685, he sees the change coming and records that " the Ministers Come to the Court and complain against a Dancing Master who seeks to set up here and hath mixt dances, and his time of Meeting is Lecture-Day; and His reported he should say that by one Play he could teach more Divinity than Mr. Willard The Dynasty of the Mathers 181 or the Old Testament. . . . Mr. Mather [In- crease] struck at the Eoot, speaking against mixt Dances. ' ' Early in September, 1686, we read, " Mr. Shrimpton . . . and others come in a Coach from Roxbury about 9 aclock or past, singing as they come, being inflamed with Drink: At Justice Morgan's they stop and drink Healths, curse, swear, talk profanely and baudily to the great disturbance of the Town and grief of good people. Such high-handed wickedness has hardly been heard of before in Boston." With ill-concealed exultation the old diarist notes that the people, for the most part, refused to observe Christmas and the other imported holidays, but kept the shops open, brought fire- wood into the town and generally went on with their business as under the old regime. But some annoyances they could not avoid. On the " Sabbath Feb. 6, 1686-7,' ' he writes, " Be- tween half hour after eleven and half hour after twelve at Noon many Scores of great guns fired at the Castle and Tower suppose upon account of the King's entering on the third year of his Eeign. . . . This day the Lord's Super was administered at the middle and North Church; the rattling of the Guns during almost all the time gave them great 182 St. Botolph's Town disturbance. 'Twas never so in Boston be- fore.' ' Again he says on " February 15 1686-7, Jos. Maylem carries a Cock at his back with a bell in's hand, in the Main Street; sev- eral followed him blindfold, and under pre- tence of striking him or's cock, with great Cart- whips strike passengers and make great dis- turbance.' ? By countenancing such practices as these did Andros inflame every possible prejudice against the crown he fain would represent. But the horse-play of Shrove Tuesday, with its suggestions to the Puritans of Papacy and the hated days of Laud, was only a forerunner of what Andros really purposed : i. e. a Church in which the service of his king and country should be fittingly carried on! Pending the erection of such an edifice Sir Edmund deter- mined that, regardless of the wishes of the pop- ulace, he would have his prayer-book service read in one of the three meeting-houses of the town and on " Wednesday March 23 " Sewall tells us, " the Govr sends Mr. Eandolph for ye keys to our Meetingh. yt may say Prayers there. Mr. Eliot, Frary, Oliver, Savage Davis and self wait on his Excellency; shew that ye Land and House is ours, and that we can't consent to part with it to such use; exhibit an The Dynasty of the Mathers 183 extract of Mrs. Norton's Deed [this lady was the widow of the Reverend John Norton, had owned the land upon which the chnrch was built 1 and had given the same in trust for ever " for the erecting of a house for their assem- bling themselves together publiquely to wor- ship God."] and How 'twas built by particu- lar persons as Hull, Oliver £100 a piece &c." All this appears to have been of non-avail, how- ever, for three days later, the Diary sadly re- cords : ' i The Govr has service in ye , South Meetinghouse; Goodm. Needham (the Sex- ton) tho' had resolv'd to ye Contrary, was prevail'd upon to Ring ye Bell and open ye door at ye Governour's Comand, one Smith and Hill, Joiner and Shoemaker, being very busy about it. Mr. Jno. Usher was there, whether at ye very begining, or no, I can't tell." Yet a year later even Sewall has so far capitulated as to be willing to attend part of a Church of England service in this same church. The occasion, to be sure, was one to make a tender-hearted man forget enmities for the nonce, for it was the ' ' Funeral of ye Lady Andros, I having been invited by ye Clark of ye South-Company. Between 7 and 8 Lychrs 1 See " Romance of Old New England Churches." 184 St. Botolph's Town [torches] illuminating ye cloudy air The Corps was carried into the Herse drawn by six Horses. The Souldiers making a Guard from ye Governour's House down ye Prison Lane to ye South-M. House, there taken out and car- ried in at ye western dore and set in ye Alley before ye pulpit with six Mourning women by it. House made light with candles and Torches ; was a great noise and clamor to keep people out of ye House, yt might not rush in too soon. I went home, where about nine a clock I heard ye Bell toll again for ye Funeral. It seems Mr. BatclifPs Text was, Cry, all flesh is Grass." Three years later an Episcopal church, the King's Chapel, was built on the spot where it now stands. But by this time Sir Edmund Andros had paid the penalty of the affront he had put upon the Puritans by for- cing them to lend their cherished meeting-house for a service utterly obnoxious to them. Besides the church affront two others even more vital were offered by this choice of the English crown. One of these was his assump- tion of the power of taxation without their con- sent; the other was the laying down of the principle that all titles to lands had been vacated along with the charter and that who- ever wanted a sound title must get his claim The Dynasty of the Mathers 185 confirmed by Sir Edmund, — and pay for it. In short, as Cotton Mather said, ' ' all was done that might be expected from a Kirk, Except the Bloody Part. But that was coming on." He and his father honestly believed, as did many other good people of New England that their heads were in danger! Increase Mather ac- cordingly opposed Andros in every possible way beseeching God the while to " send Revi- ving News out of England." As if in answer to this prayer James II issued in April, 1687, his Declaration of Indulgence which, though designed, of course, to relieve the Catholics, was very grateful to Dissenters as well assur- ing them, as it did, of entire freedom to meet and serve God in their own way. So full of joy were the ministers of New England that they wished to hold a public thanksgiving and when Sir Edmund forbade this, with threats of military force, they drew up, on the motion of Increase Mather, an ad- dress of thanks to the king. This it was thought best to intrust to some " well qualified person " who " might by the Help of such Protestant Dissenters as the King began, upon Political Views, to cast a fair Aspect upon, Obtain some Belief to the Growing Distresses of the Country : and Mr. Mather was the Per- 186 St. Botolph's Town J son that was pitch 'd upon.'' Since 1685 this busy minister had been president of Harvard College as well as one of the first citizens of Boston. Eandolph hated him violently and was determined to prevent his embarkation, if pos- sible. So, when his church had released him and the college had bidden him God Speed he had to slip off, in disguise, in order to avoid arrest! After being concealed at what was afterwards the Pratt House in Chelsea he was carried by boat, on a night early in April, 1688, to the ship, President, lying outside the bay. Safely aboard he sailed away to England, charged with the enormous task of persuading a Catholic king to restore, of his own free will, the vacated charter of Massachusetts. The Mathers feared that it was James's pur- pose to set up the Eoman Catholic religion in America, and Increase Mather was secretly determined, therefore, to bring back into power the theocratic democracy of the fathers. As a means to this end he hoped to obtain for the College, whose head he had the honour to be, a royal charter by which it should be perma- nently secured to the Calvinists who had founded and cherished it. King James received him graciously enough, but answered his requests only in fair-sounding The Dynasty of the Mathers 187 promises. He could, indeed, do little else for his own seat was far from secure ; and, in less than a year from the time Increase Mather sailed from Boston William and Mary were proclaimed rulers of England and its terri- tories. Sewall, who had gone to join Mather in London, gives us a vivid account of these rapid and far-reaching changes. In Boston several very important steps were taken even before the accession of William and Mary was established as a fact. For on April 4, 1689, there came over a young man named John Winslow, bearing with him a copy of the Declaration issued by the Prince of Orange upon his landing in England. Sir Edmund Andros would not listen to Winslow and an- grily committed him to prison " for bringing traitorous and treasonable libels and papers of news." But the people of Massachusetts were willing to take their chance on William's turning out the king he had proclaimed himself to be and, on April 18, Boston rose in arms and seized the chief magistrates. This was perhaps the most astounding inci- dent in the whole history of Boston. There does not appear to have been any plan to seize the reins of government or to rise up in arms. Yet it was just this which was done. " I knew 188 St. Botolph's Town not anything of what was intended nntil it was begun,' ' writes an eye-witness, " yet being at the north end of the town where I saw boys running along the streets with clubs in their hands, encouraging one another to fight, I be- gan to mistrust what was intended; and, ha- sting towards the Town Dock I soon saw men running for their arms, but before I got to the Eed Lion I was told that Captain George and the Master of the Frigate [upon which Andros had tried to escape] were seized and secured in Mr. Column's house, at the North End; and when I came to the Town Dock I understood that Bullivant and some others of them were laid hold of, and then, immediately the drums began to beat and the people hastened and ran, some with and some for arms. Young Dudley and Colonel Lidget with some difficulty attained to the Fort.' ' The fort, in which Andros had promptly in- trenched himself, was at the summit of Fort Hill, on the site of what is now Fort Hill Square. This hill was formerly one of the three great hills of " Treamount " (Copp's Hill and Beacon Hill being the two others) and ascended sharply from the foot of what is now Milk street. From this safe place Andros sent forth messengers, requesting the four minis- The Dynasty of the Mathers 189 ters and one or two other persons of impor- tance in the town to come to him for consulta- tion. But they refused on the ground that they did not think such action safe. For, " by this time," as our eye-witness con- tinues, " all the persons who they [the revo- lutionists] concluded not to be for their side were seized and secured. . . . All the com- panies were soon rallied together at the Town House, where assembled Oaptain Winthrop, Shrimpton, Page and many other substantial men to consult matters: in which time the old Governor [Bradstreet] came among them at whose appearance there was a great shout by the soldiers." The self-restraint exercised both by the peo- ple and by Andros on this occasion seem to me very remarkable. Both sides were full of de- sire to fight, but neither was quite sure just how things stood in England and so let wisdom be the better part of valour. In the Assembly the following paper was drawn up and sent to Andros : " At the Town House in Boston, "April 18, 1689. " To Sir Edmund Andros, " Sir: Ourselves and many others, the in- 190 St. Botoiph's Town habitants of this town and the places adjacent, being surprised with the people's sudden ta- king up of arms; in the first motion, whereof we were wholly ignorant, being driven by the present accident, are necessitated to acquaint your Excellency that for the quieting and se- curing of the people inhabiting in this country from the imminent dangers they many ways lie open and disposed to, and tendering your own safety, we judge it necessary you forthwith surrender and deliver up the Government and Fortifications to be preserved and disposed ac- cording to order and direction from the Crown of England, which suddenly is expected may arrive; promising all security from violence to yourself or any of your gentlemen or soul- diers in person and estate; otherwise we are assured they will endeavour the taking of the Fortification by storm, if any opposition be made : — Simon Bradstreet, J. Nelson, John Bichakds, Wait Winthrop, Elisha Cooke, William Stoughton, Js. Addington, Thomas Danforth, John Foster, Samuel Shrimpton, Peter Sergeant, William Browne, David Waterhouse, Bartholo. Gedney." Adam Winthrop, The Dynasty of the Mathers 191 At first Andros refused to do what was here demanded, but, after a little reflection, he com- plied and Captain Fairweather, with his sol- diers proceeded to take peaceable possession of the fort. The deposed governor with his friends was then marched with scant ceremony to the Town House, from the balcony of which William's Declaration had already been read to the assembled crowd. Upon the demand of the country people, who had come armed into the town, he was bound and straightway sent back as a prisoner to the fort he had just sur- rendered. The people, too, were all for resu- ming the vacated charter, but it was finally de- cided that the old officers of the government of 1686 should assume a sort of conservative control until more news should be received from England. The day following this ar- rangement a ship arrived proclaiming that William and Mary were indeed king and queen. The writers of the time pronounce this " the most joyful news ever before re- ceived in Boston.'' Certainly the Puritans were unwontedly gay in celebrating it, " civil and military officers, merchants and principal gentlemen of the Town and Country, being on horseback, the regiment of the Town and many companies of horses and foot from the Country 192 St. Botolph's Town appearing in arms ; a grand entertainment was prepared in the Town-house and wine was served out to the soldiers! " All that summer and the following autumn Sir Edmund Andros, Joseph Dudley and " the rest of his crew," as Cotton Mather express- ively put it, were kept prisoners. Some at- tempts at escape were made by the chief cap- tive, and at one time he even got as far as Ehode Island before being retaken. On one previous occasion, he had passed two guards in the disguise of woman's clothing, and if he had taken as much care about his boots, in preparing for flight, as with the rest of his make-up, he would undoubtedly have secured his liberty. The Provisional Government did not keep him confined because it wanted to however, only because it did not know what else to do with him. We can be sure the whole town gave a deep sigh of relief when an order from the king was received, the following Feb- ruary, that the prisoners should be sent to England. Meanwhile Increase Mather in England had been rapidly making friends with the new sov- ereign. At first it even looked as if he would be able to obtain the first charter again, but while the matter was hanging fire, the enemies SIR WILLIAM PHIPS The Dynasty of the Mathers 193 of the old system busied themselves against it. Yet if Mather failed to reinstate the old charter, he did succeed in separating New Eng- land from the other colonies and in securing for it a charter much more liberal than was granted to any other colony. And while he could not prevent the provision of a royal gov- ernor equipped with a veto power, he was adroit enough to have the territories of Nova Scotia, Maine and Plymouth annexed to Mas- sachusetts and to gain a confirmation for all the grants made by the General Court. Also he was able practically to select the new gov- ernor. After four years of unremitting effort, therefore, he sailed in March, 1692, for New England pretty well satisfied with himself. The new governor was Sir William Phips and his lieutenant-governor was William Stoughton, who had been bred for the church and who possessed just enough bigotry to make him very acceptable to the clergy. The news of the men whom the elder Mather had caused to be put into office was so glorious to the son, who had been watching and working at home, that he broke into a shout of triumph when he heard it: " The time has come. The set time has come. I am now to receive an answer of so many prayers. All the counsellor's of the 194 St. Botolph's Town province are of my father's nomination; and my father-in-law with several related unto me, and several brethren of my own church are among them. The governor of the province is not my enemy but one whom I baptized; namely Sir William Phips, one of my own flock and one of my dearest friends." A most romantic figure was this new gov- ernor. Born in the woods of Maine, one of a family of twenty-six children, he had early been left to pick up, as best he could, his living and his scanty education. At the age of twenty-two he came to Boston in pursuit of the fortune he had determined should be his and, while working at his trade of carpenter, attracted the attention of a prosperous widow. This lady had the advantage of him both in years and in estate, but the marriage which soon followed proved a fairly happy one, — and it certainly helped Phips to launch out into the profession of ship-builder, through which he afterwards came to renown. On one of his voyages he heard of a Spanish treasure- ship which had been sunk in the waters of the Spanish main and, fired with ambition to raise from the deep the untold wealth the ship was supposed to contain, he went to London and, young and unknown though he was, managed The Dynasty of the Mathers 195 so to plead his cause that (in 1684) James II gave him an eighteen-gun ship and ninety-five men with which to make his fortune — and the king's. For two years he cruised in the "West Indies without any very striking success, but he did obtain, during this time, knowledge of the precise spot where the treasure-ship had foundered, nearly half a century before, and when he returned to England he gave such a good account of this to the Duke of Albermarle and other courtiers that he managed to obtain from them another vessel, on shares. This time he succeeded in his expedition. One wonders if Stevenson had not freshly read the story of Phips's adventures when he wrote his incomparable Treasure Island. Cer- tainly in this case history fairly rivals fiction. For Phips's men mutinied, one poor fellow went mad at the mere thought of the wealth which was to be his if only he would do his duty, there was a lot of fighting, much diplomacy of a sort and through it all the cleverness of a born sea dog. But Phips accomplished his purpose. From the sunken galleon he raised bullion to the value of £300,000 together with many precious stones. After the shares had been distributed according to contract there was about £20,000 for his own share. Armed 196 St. Botolph's Town with this, a gold cup that the Duke of Alber- marle had caused to be fashioned for his wife, and reinforced by the rank of knight, the Maine carpenter was able to sail in triumph back to his native New England. The time when he thus arrived was that of Andros, and the office bestowed upon the doughty sailor by James II had been " High Sheriff of New England." But since Phips knew nothing of law and could not write plainly, he was not a very great success as a sheriff. He did better as head of the expedition sent out in 1690 against Port Royal. But he failed in that against Quebec and so happened to be back in England and " out of a job " just at the time Increase Mather wanted a promising person to be first governor of the royal Province of Massachusetts. Sir William Phips particularly recom- mended himself to the Mathers because they saw in him one whom the people would respect as self-made, and who would respect them as ministers of the Gospel. Increase Mather had preached the sermon, away back in 1674, which caused Phips to feel himself a sinner and seek for enrolment among the righteous of the state; Increase Mather also had now named him for the office which crowned his worldly COTTON MATHER The Dynasty of the Mathers 197 ambition. Why, then, might not Increase Mather expect, through Sir William Phips and a new charter, which gave the governor more power than he had ever had under the former one, to bring back the good old days of the theocracy? Unhappily for his hopes an unex- pected influence now entered into the life of the people. And it was because Cotton Mather was so intimate a part of this that the Mather dynasty finally fell. The great tragedy of witchcraft! This and the part Cotton Mather played in it did for the theocracy, I repeat, what no mortal power could undo. Long before the time of the great outbreak at Salem, which constituted the most marked event of Phips's administration, there had occurred in Boston the somewhat notori- ous affair of the Goodwin children. To go deeply into the subject of witchcraft would not be fitting in this volume, especially as I have elsewhere 1 advanced what seems to me as good a theory as any concerning the delusion. More- over, certain phases of the whole matter are now beginning to be pretty well understood under the name of hypnotism, suggestion and the like. But they were not at all understood in Cotton Mather's time, and to blame him for 1 See " Romance of Old New England Roof -Trees." 198 St. Botolph's Town not possessing scientific knowledge to which we, two centuries later, have scarcely found the key seems as unfair as it is unnecessary. He had to pay the price, however, of the witch- craft trials which he incessantly urged on. And the process by which he paid it is cer- tainly our concern. Let us therefore look into the affair of the children who were his special care. We may perhaps get the facts most clearly in mind by quoting from Governor Hutchinson's account, reproduced by Mr. Poole in the Memorial His- tory of Boston. ' ' In 1687 or 1688 began a more alarming in- stance than any that had preceded it. Four of the children of John Goodwin, a grave man and good liver at the north part of Boston, were generally believed to be bewitched. I have often heard persons who were in the neigh- bourhood speak of the great consternation it occasioned. The children were all remarkable for ingenuity of temper, had been religiously educated, were thought to be without guile. The eldest was a girl of thirteen or fourteen years. She had charged a laundress with ta- king away some of the family linen. The mother of the laundress was one of the wild Irish, of bad character, and gave the girl harsh The Dynasty of the Mathers 199 language; soon after which she fell into fits which were said to have something diabolical in them. One of her sisters and two brothers followed her example, and, it is said, were tor- mented in the same part of their bodies at the same time, although kept in separate apart- ments and ignorant of one another's com- plaints. . . . Sometimes they would be deaf, then dumb, then blind; and sometimes all these disorders together would come upon them. Their tongues would be drawn down their throats, then pulled out upon their chins. Their jaws, necks, shoulders, elbows and all other joints would appear to be dislocated, and they would make the most piteous outcries of burnings, of being cut with knives, beat, etc., and the marks of wounds were afterwards to be seen. " The ministers of Boston and Charlestown kept a day of fasting and prayer at the troubled house ; after which the youngest child made no more complaints. The others perse- vered and the magistrates then interposed, and the old woman was apprehended ; but upon ex- amination would neither confess nor deny, and appeared to be disordered in her senses. Upon the report of physicians that she was compos 200 St. Botolph's Town mentis, she was executed, declaring at her death the children should not be relieved. ' ' This case derives its peculiar interest from the fact that Cotton Mather wrote a book about it and then engaged in numerous controversies in defence of statements which were made therein. He also preached upon the subject more than was either wise or good when one considers that all delusions grow by what they feed upon. Such words as these seem clearly reprehensible from a " man of God: " " Con- sider the misery of them whom witchcraft may be let loose upon. ... what a direful thing it is to be prickt with pins and stabbed with knives all over, and to be fill'd all over with broken bones/ ' In a credulous community the mere circulation of suggestions like these served almost literally to pour oil upon the fire. So by the time Sir William Phips landed in the chief city of his province the prisons were filled to overflowing with those suspected of witchcraft and those who had given informa- tion on the subject. One of his first acts, there- fore, — and there is little reason to doubt that it was suggested by the Mathers, — was to ap- point a special court of Oyer and Terminer to try the witches. Of this court William Stough- WILLIAM STOUGHTON The Dynasty of the Mathers 201 ton, the bigoted Deputy Governor, was made chief justice; and Samuel Sewall was ap- pointed one of his associates. When their stomachs for the horrible work upon which they had enlisted failed them they applied to the Boston ministers for advice. Cotton Mather " earnestly recommended that the pro- ceedings should be vigorously carried on." It is for this recommendation that he is execrated to-day. But I do not see why we should doubt the honesty of his purpose in giving this harsh counsel. Witchcraft was to him a terrible reality and the active presence of the devil in the world a thing in which he implicitly be- lieved. More than once in his various writings he adduces as evidence of the devil's activity the fact that steeples of churches are more often struck by lightning than are any other edifices ! Soon no one was safe from accusation, even Mr. Willard, the pastor of the Old South, being threatened and Lady Phips herself named. Possibly it was this bringing of the thing home which made the governor put an abrupt stop to proceedings that had already begun to menace the well-being of the entire community. Very likely, too, he had come to fear, that he might be called to account in England. At any 202 St. Botolph's Town rate the court so unceremoniously instituted by him was summarily dismissed and a general pardon issued to all those who had been con- victed or accused. And though a few infatu- ated individuals continued to urge prosecu- tions juries refused to bring in the verdict of guilty, — and Judge Samuel Sewall stood up manfully (in 1696) at the old South Church while his confession of having done wrong in admitting " spectral evidence " at the witch- craft trials was read aloud by one of the clergy- men. Stoughton, when he heard of this, de- clared that he had no such confession to make having acted according to the best light God had given him. Nor did Cotton Mather feel at this time any consciousness of wrong-doing. Seventeen years later, however, when his pub- lic influence was on the wane and the power of the Church, for which he had had such hopes, was also notably diminished he wrote in his Diary : ' ' I entreated the Lord that I might un- derstand the meaning of the Descent from the Invisible World which, nineteen years ago, pro- duced a sermon from me, a good part of which is now published." The sermon in question was the one which had done so much to incite the witch trials. Evidently Cotton Mather had at last come to doubt its inspiration. The Dynasty of the Mathers 203 Witchcraft, however, was by no means the worst of poor Sir William Phips's troubles. He had to carry on French and Indian wars not all of which turned ont well, the new charter was not nearly so much liked as the Mathers had hoped it might be, and, — what was of more importance than anything else, — the governor had a hasty temper and was in- clined to resort to the strength of his fists when matters proved especially trying to him. Early in his administration, he had an altercation with the collector of the port of Boston which culminated in a hand-to-hand fight. And, in January, 1693, a little difficulty between him and the captain of the Nonesuch frigate brought upon the officer a caning in the streets of Boston and upon Sir William Phips a sum- mons to return to England to explain his un- dignified conduct. He obeyed the summons, passed through his trial without any very great difficulty and was permitted to turn his energy into lines for which he was better fitted than for government. Then he suddenly died at the early age of forty-five. With him died all hope of ever restoring the power of the theocracy. For though Lieuten- ant-Governor Stoughton, one of the old Puri- tan stock, remained at the head of the govern- 204 St. Botolph's Town ment until 1699 flood-tide in the affairs of the Mathers had passed for all time. That they did not recognize this fact makes their subse- quent history only the more pitiable. X THE COLLEGE AT CAMBRIDGE To discuss in any detail the history of Har- vard College would be, of course, quite outside the province of a book on Colonial Boston. But, as an institution of which Increase Mather, one of Boston's most noted divines, was for a number of years president, as an enterprise to which Cotton Mather longed throughout his later life to give himself as head, and as a school in which almost all the men who made deep marks upon Boston's early history were educated, Harvard has, un- deniably, a certain claim upon our attention. This, too, quite apart from the fact that it memorializes an early Puritan minister to whom we owe it to ourselves here to pay at least a passing tribute. Only seven years after the arrival of Gov- ernor Winthrop with the first charter of the colony the General Court voted (1636) " four hundred pounds towards a school or college." 205 206 St. Botolph's Town Two years later, John Harvard, a yonng grad- uate of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, who had emigrated to Charlestown, died, and be- queathed one-half of his whole property and his entire library to the proposed institution. His estate amounted to £779 17s. 2d., which shows he must have been among the most wealthy of the early settlers, — and his library consisted of three hundred and twenty volumes. Of this goodly collection of books but one sur- vives to-day, — Downame's " Christian War- fare,' ' — all the others having been destroyed in the fire of 1764. At the time of his death Harvard was assistant minister to Rev. Z. Symmes in the first church at Charlestown. He was buried in the old Charlestown burying- ground and to his memory the alumni of Har- vard University there erected September 26, 1828, what was then regarded as a very im- pressive granite monument. The munificence of the Rev. John Harvard inspired further enthusiasm in the magistrates and made the common people, also, very anxious *to give their mites towards the new institution of learning. There is, indeed, some- thing very touching in these early gifts, which reflect the simplicity of the necessities in that period as well as the earnest desire of the The College at Cambridge 207 colonists to help on the good work of educa- tion. One man bequeathed a number of sheep, another a quantity of cotton cloth worth nine shillings, another a pewter flagon worth ten shillings and not a few their household treas- ures amounting to perhaps a pound or so when sold. In 1642 a Board of Overseers, consisting of the Governor and Deputy Governor, all the magistrates and the teaching elders of the six adjoining towns was established. In 1650, a charter was granted by the General Court, empowering a corporation, consisting of the President, the treasurer, five fellows and the overseers to perpetuate themselves and govern the affairs of the college. The first president was Henry Dunster, whose pathetic end has already been referred to in the chapter on the religious persecutions. Dunster deserves al- ways to be recalled, however, when Harvard in the making is being discussed for he contrib- uted, at a time of its utmost need, one hundred acres of land towards the support of the col- lege and for many years served the institution unweariedly for scarcely any recompense. How the college rewarded him we have seen. But if they treated their presidents differ- 208 St. Botolph's Town ently two hundred and fifty years ago they also maintained quite a different attitude, from to- day, towards their students. In the college records are preserved several documents which throw interesting side-lights upon the academic life of that early period. None of these is more illuminating than " Dunster's Eules " printed in President Josiah Quincy's " History of Harvard University, ' ' but quite worth reprint- ing here because that volume is now so rare. The original rules were in Latin and all con- tinued in force at least until the revision of 1734 when a few were made less harsh. In translation they read: " The Laws, Liberties and Orders of Har- vard College, Confirmed by the Overseers and President of the College in the years 1642, 1643, 1644, 1645, and 1646, and Published to the Scholars for the Perpetual Preservation of their Welfare and Government. ' ' " 1. When any scholar is able to read Tully, or such like classical Latin author, extempore, and make and speak true Latin in verse and prose suo (ut aiunt) Marte, and decline per- fectly the paradigms of nouns and verbs in the Greek tongue, then may he be admitted into the college, nor shall any claim admission be- fore such qualifications. The College at Cambridge 209 " 2. Everyone shall consider the main end of his life and studies, to know God and Jesus Christ, which is eternal life; John xvii., 3. " 3. Seeing the Lord giveth wisdom, every- one shall seriously, by prayer in secret, seek wisdom of Him; Proverbs ii., 2, 3, etc. " 4. Everyone shall so exercise himself in reading the Scriptures twice a day, that they be ready to give an account of their proficiency therein, both in theoretical observations of language and logic, and in practical and spirit- ual truths, as their tutor shall require, accord- ing to their several abilities respectively, see- ing the entrance of the word giveth light, etc. ; Psalm cxix., 130. "5. In the public church assembly they shall carefully shun all gestures that show any con- tempt or neglect of God's ordinances, and be ready to give an account to their tutors of their profiting, and to use the helps of storing them- selves with knowledge, as their tutors shall direct them. And all sophisters and bachelors (until themselves make common place) shall publicly repeat sermons in the hall, whenever they are called forth. " 6. They shall eschew all profanation of God's holy name, attributes, word, ordinances and times of worship; and study, with rever- 210 St. Botolph's Town ence and love, carefully to retain Grod and His truth in their minds. " 7. They shall honour as their parents, magistrates, elders, tutors and aged persons, by being silent in their presence (except they be called on to answer), not gainsaying; show- ing all those laudable expressions of honour and reverence in their presence that are in use, as bowing before them, standing uncovered, or the like. ' ' 8. They shall be slow to speak, and eschew not only oaths, lies and uncertain rumours, but likewise all idle, foolish, bitter scoffing, frothy, wanton words and offensive gestures. " 9. None shall pragmatically intrude or in- termeddle in other men's affairs. " 10. During their residence they shall stu- diously redeem their time, observe the general hours appointed for all the scholars, and the special hour for their own lecture, and then diligently attend the lectures, without any dis- turbance by word or gesture; and, if of any- thing they doubt, they shall inquire of their fellows, or in case of non-resolution, modestly of their tutors.' " 11. None shall, under any pretence what- soever, frequent the company and society of such men as lead an ungirt and dissolute life. The College at Cambridge 211 Neither shall any, without the license of the overseers of the college, be of the artillery or trainband. Nor shall any, without the license of the overseers of the college, his tutor's leave, or, in his absence, the call of parents or guardians, go out to another town. " 12. No scholar shall buy, sell or exchange anything, to the value of sixpence, without the allowance of his parents, guardians or tutors; and whosoever is found to have sold or bought any such things without acquainting their tutors or parents, shall forfeit the value of the commodity, or the restoring of it, according to the discretion of the president. " 13. The scholars shall never use their mother tongue, except that in public exercises of oratory, or such like, they be called to make them in English. " 14. If any scholar, being in good health, shall be absent from prayers or lectures, ex- cept in case of urgent necessity, or by the leave of his tutor, he shall be liable to admonition (or such punishment as the president shall think meet), if he offend above once a week. " 15. Every scholar shall be called by his surname only, till he be invested with his first degree, except he be a fellow commoner or knight's eldest son, or of superior nobility. 212 St. Botolph's Town " 16. No scholar shall, under any pretence of recreation or other cause whatever (unless foreshowed and allowed by the president or his tutor), be absent from his studies or ap- pointed exercises, above an hour at morning never, half an hour at afternoon never, an hour and a half at dinner, and so long at supper. " 17. If any scholar shall transgress any of the laws of God, or the House out of perverse- ness, or apparent negligence, after twice ad- monition, he shall be liable, if not adultus, to correction; if adultus, his name shall be given up to the overseers of the college, that he may be publicly dealt with after the desert of his fault; but in greater offences such gradual proceeding shall not be exercised. " 18. Every scholar, that on proof is found able to read the original of the Old and New Testament into the Latin tongue and to resolve them logically, withal being of honest life and conversation, and at any public act hath the approbation of the overseers and master of the college, may be invested with his first degree. " 19. Every scholar that giveth up in wri- ting a synopsis or summary of logic, natural and moral philosophy, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy, and is ready to defend, his The College at Cambridge 213 theses or positions, withal skilled in the orig- inals as aforesaid, and still continues honest and studious, at any public act after trial, he shall be capable of the second degree, of Mas- ter of Arts. 1 ' By orders of the overseers in 1650, it was provided among other things that " no scholar whatever, without the fore-acquaintance and leave of the president and his tutor, shall be present at any of the public civil meetings, or concourse of people, as courts of justice, elec- tions, fairs, or at military exercise, in the time or hours of the college exercise, public or pri- vate. Neither shall any scholar exercise him- self in any military band, unless of known gravity, and of approved sober and virtuous conversation, and that with the leave of the president and his tutor. " No scholar shall take tobacco, unless per- mitted by the president, with the consent of their parents or guardians, and on good reason first given by a physician, and then in a sober and private manner." At a meeting of the corporation in 1659, it was voted that, ' ' whereas there are great com- plaints of the exorbitant practices of some stu- dents of this college, by their abusive words and actions to the watch of this town/' the 214 St. Botolph's Town Cambridge town watch were authorized to ex- ercise their powers within the precincts of the college. It was provided, however, that none " of the said watchmen should lay violent hands on any of the students being found within the precinct of the college yards, other- wise than so that they may secure them until they may inform the president or some of the fellows.' ' It was also voted that " in case any student of this college shall be found absent from his lodging after nine o'clock at night, he shall be responsible for and to all complaints of disorder in this kind, that, by testimony of the watch or others shall appear to be done by any student of the college, and shall be ad- judged guilty of the said crime, unless he can purge himself by sufficient witness." In 1682, the civil authority " was formally recognized as the last resort for enforcing, in extreme cases," college discipline. In October, 1656, the president and fellows were empowered by statute ' ' to punish all mis- demeanours of the youth in their society, either by fines, or whipping in the hall openly, as the nature of the offence shall require, not exceed- ing ten shillings, or ten stripes for one of- fence." The tutors " chastised at discretion, and on very solemn occasions the overseers The College at Cambridge 215 were called together, either to authorize or to witness the execution of the severer punish- ments. ' ' An old diary tells of the punishment, in 1674, of one who had been guilty of ' ' speak- ing blasphemous words. " The sentence of the overseers was read twice in the library. Then, " the offender having kneeled, the president prayed, and then publicly whipped, before all the scholars,' ' the blasphemer. " The solem- nities were closed by another prayer from the president." Although this public flogging by the presi- dent gradually fell into disuse, it was not for- mally abolished until 1734 when the right of punishing undergraduates by " boxing " was " expressly reserved to the president, profes- sors, and tutors.' ' In 1755, the doing away with this form of punishment was considered; but no decisive action was taken, although the practice was gradually given up. The system of imposing fines for infractions of the rules continued. Here is the schedule. 1 i List of pecuniary mulcts : " Absence from prayers, 2d; tardiness at prayers, Id; absence from professor's public lecture, 4d; tardiness at professor's public lecture, 2d; profanation of Lord's Day, not exceeding 3s; absence from public worship, 216 St. Botolph's Town 9d; tardiness at public worship, 3d; ill beha- viour at public worship, not exceeding Is 6d; going to meeting before bell-ringing, 6d; neg- lecting to repeat the sermon, 9d; irreverent behaviour at prayers, or public divinity lec- tures, Is 6d; absence from chambers, etc., not exceeding 6d; not declaiming, not exceeding Is 6d ; not giving up a declamation, not exceed- ing Is 6d; absence from recitation, not exceed- ing Is 6d; neglecting analyzing, not exceeding 3s; bachelors neglecting disputations, not ex- ceeding Is 6d; respondents neglecting dispu- tations, from Is 6d to 3s; undergraduates out of town without leave, not exceeding 2s 6d; undergraduates tarrying out of town without leave, not exceeding, per diem, Is 3d; under- graduates tarrying out of town one week with- out leave, not exceeding 10s; undergraduates tarrying out of town one month without leave, not exceeding £2 10s; lodging strangers with- out leave, not exceeding Is 6d; entertaining persons of ill character, not exceeding Is 6d; going out of college without proper garb, not exceeding 6d; frequenting taverns, not exceed- ing Is 6d; profane cursing, not exceeding 2s 6d ; graduates playing cards, not exceeding 5s ; undergraduates playing cards, not exceeding The College at Cambridge 217 2s 6d; undergraduates playing any game for money, not exceeding Is 6d; selling and ex- changing without leave, not exceeding Is 6d; lying, not exceeding Is 6d; opening door by pick-locks, not exceeding 5s; drunkenness, not exceeding Is 6d ; liquors prohibited under pen- alty, not exceeding Is 6d; second offence, not exceeding 3s; keeping prohibited liquors, not exceeding Is 6d; sending for prohibited liquors, not exceeding 6d; fetching prohibited liquors, not exceeding Is 6d; going upon the top of the college, Is 6d; cutting off the lead, Is 6d; concealing the transgression of the 19th law, Is 6d; tumultuous noises, Is 6d; second offence, 3s; refusing to give evidence, 3s; rudeness at meals, Is ; butler and cook to keep utensils clean, not exceeding 5s; not lodging at their chambers, not exceeding Is 6d; send- ing freshmen in studying time, 9d; keeping guns, and going on skating, Is ; firing guns or pistols in college yard, 2s 6d; fighting or hurt- ing any person, not exceeding Is 6d. ' ' It is noteworthy that " undergraduates play- ing cards " (whether merely " for pins " or " for money ") were punished by a fine of 2s 6d ; but that ' ' lying " — an offence of which very few students are now guilty, and for 218 St. Botolph's Town which suspension, if not expulsion, is now con- sidered a mild punishment — made the liar liable only to a fine of Is 6d. Naturally students were little disturbed by these fines. They proved so annoying to par- ents, however, that in 1761 a committee was appointed to consider some other method of punishing offenders. Although mulcts were not entirely abolished, a system was adopted which resembled somewhat the present meth- ods of enforcing discipline by " admonition, ' ' " probation," " suspension/' " dismissal/ ' or " expulsion." In addition to the formal rules, a system of " Ancient Customs of Harvard College, Es- tablished by the Government of It," grew up, was recognized by the authorities and soon had all the force of law. As these had to do chiefly with the conduct of freshmen, and as it was to the interest of all the " seniors " that these customs should be observed, doubtless they were more scrupulously lived up to than Pres- ident Dunster's rules. Here is a copy of these customs as they appear in the official records: " 1. No freshman shall wear his hat in the college yard, unless it rains, hails, or snows, provided he be on foot, and have not both hands full. The College at Cambridge 219 "2. No undergraduate shall wear his hat in the college yard, when any of the governors of the college are there; and no bachelor shall wear his hat when the president is there. " 3. Freshmen are to consider all the other classes as their seniors. "4. No freshmen shall speak to a senior with his hat on; or have it on in a senior's chamber, or in his own if a senior be there. " 5. All the undergraduates shall treat those in the government of the college with respect and deference; particularly they shall not be seated without leave in their presence; they shall be uncovered when they speak to them or are spoken to by them. " 6. All freshmen (except those employed by the immediate government of the college) shall be obliged to go on any errand (except such as shall be judged improper by some one in the government of the college) for any of his se- niors, graduates or undergraduates, at any time, except in studying hours, or after nine o'clock in the evening. " 7. A senior sophister has authority to take a freshman from a sophomore, a middle bach- elor from a junior sophister, a master from a senior sophister, and any governor of the col- lege from a master. 220 St. Botolph's Town " 8. Every freshman before he goes for the person who takes him away (unless it be one in the government of the college), shall return and inform the person from whom he is taken. "9. No freshman, when sent on an errand, shall make any unnecessary delay, neglect to make due return, or go away till dismissed by the person who sent him. " 10. No freshman shall be detained by a senior when not actually employed on some suitable errand. " 11. No freshman shall be obliged to ob- serve any order of a senior to come to him, or go on any errand for him, unless he be wanted immediately. " 12. No freshman, when sent on an errand, shall tell who he is going for, unless he be asked; nor be obliged to tell what he is going for, unless asked by a governor of the college. " 13. When any person knocks at a fresh- man's door, except in studying time, he shall immediately open the door, without inquiring who is there. " 14. No scholar shall call up or down, to or from, any chamber in the college. " 15. No scholar shall play football or any other game in the college yard, or throw any- thing across the yard. The College at Cambridge 221 "16. The freshmen shall furnish bats, balls and footballs for the use of the students, to be kept at the buttery. " 17. Every freshman shall pay the butler for putting up his name in the buttery. " 18. Strict attention shall be paid by all the students to the common rules of cleanliness, decency and politeness. " The sophomores shall publish these cus- toms to the freshmen in the chapel, whenever ordered by any in the government of the col- lege; at which time the freshmen are enjoined to keep their places in their seats, and attend with decency to the reading." About 1772, after the overseers had repeat- edly recommended abolishing the custom of allowing the upper classes to send freshmen on errands, the president and fellows voted that " after deliberate consideration and weighing all circumstances, they are not able to project any plan in the room of this long and ancient custom, that will not be attended with equal, if not greater inconvenience s." Indeed, in 1786, " the retaining men or boys to perform the services for which freshmen had been here- tofore employed " was declared to be a grow- ing evil, and was prohibited by the corporation. In extenuation of the Dunster rules it should 222 St. Botolph's Town be borne in mind, of course, that Harvard, instead of being the university for young men which we now know, was then little more than a " seminary " for boys. It was indeed the puerility of the students which made it diffi- cult, for a long time, to get a man of first class powers to act as president at Cambridge. In- crease Mather, of whose dallying with the office we shall hear much a few pages further on, finally said frankly, when pushed to it, that he had no mind whatever to " leave preaching to 1,500 souls . . . only to expound to 40 or 50 children, few of them capable of edification by such exercises." Dunster, however, gladly consecrated four- teen years of his life to the upbuilding of the college. In this task he had the devoted co- operation of his wife, a woman of such parts as to entitle her to respectful notice on her own account. For Elizabeth Dunster was, by her first marriage, Elizabeth Glover, wife of Eev. Joseph Glover, — rector of the church at Sutton in Surrey, England, — who in 1638 re- signed as minister and came to found the first printing-press ever known in New England. During the voyage over Eev. Joseph Glover passed away, and his wife was therefore con- fronted with the necessity of setting up her The College at Cambridge 223 press alone. Her husband had already ar- ranged with Stephen Daye of London to have a share in the undertaking, and it is his imprint — S. D. — which all the early productions of the press bear. But President Dunster gave accommodation in his own house to the plant and very likely had a good deal to do with its early output. It is even conceivable that be- tween planning out his rigid " Rules " he re- laxed by " holding copy " for the fair widow to whose heart he soon laid siege. Certainly he would have assisted with unc- tion in turning out the famous " Freeman's Oath " given on the broadside which was the very first issue of the press. This oath, printed in 1639, splendidly reflects the sturdy charac- ter of the early colonists and is indeed just as pertinent to-day as it was then. One of the most stirring sights I have ever seen is its ad- ministration each spring, at Faneuil Hall, Bos- ton, on the occasion of the New Voters Fes- tival. It reads in part: " I do solemnly bind myself in the sight of God, when I shall be called to give my voice touching any such mat- ter of this state, in which Free-men are to deal, I will give my vote and suffrage as I shall judge in mine own conscience may best conduce and tend to the public weal of the body, with- 224 St. Botolph's Town out respect of persons, or favour of any man. ' ' After Dunster had been driven out, Chaun- cey, Hoar, and Oakes were successively presi- dents of the college, but there is little of inter- est to us, in the conduct of the institution, until the election in 1685 of Increase Mather as its head. Mather took the place with the under- standing that he should not reside at Cam- bridge, and should be permitted to continue, at the same time, his work as pastor of the second church in Boston. He was still presi- dent when sent on his mission to England, and in July, 1688, in an interview with James II he brought his long-continued efforts to secure a royal charter for the college to what he thought to be a head. For he then asked the king directly to grant a charter for a non-con- formist institution. Yet when the new charter really materialized, was signed by Sir William Phips and went back to England for ratifica- tion, the king vetoed it (July, 1696) for the reason that it provided no visiting board. Still Mather was not in the least discouraged; op- portunity for another appointment to England seemed thus provided. The object of the preacher-president in all this matter of the new charter — which it is The College at Cambridge 225 not worth our while here to follow in detail — was to make the college at Cambridge dis- tinctly the stamping-ground of his own par- ticular brand of dissent. The king, however, had an eye to the recognition of episcopacy at Cambridge, and so would not grant the kind of charter for which Mather yearned. More- over, during the absence abroad of the presi- dent, certain lay members, who were not en- slaved to him, gained power on the board. In spite of all that he could do, therefore, Mather gradually lost his hold upon the college. The occasion but not the cause of his en- forced resignation was his refusal to live in Cambridge. For several years the legislature had been steadily passing resolutions requiring the president to go into residence, but these Mather, for the most part, blandly ignored. Then, in 1698, they voted the president the lib- eral salary, for that age, of two hundred pounds annually and appointed a eommittee to wait upon him. Judge Sewall describes the ensuing interview: " Mr. President expostu- lated with Mr. Speaker . . . about the votes being altered from 250. . . . We urged his going all we could ; I told him of his birth and education here; that he look'd at work rather than wages, all met in desiring him. . . . [He] 226 St. Botolph's Town Objected want of a house, bill for corporation not pass'd . . . mnst needs preach once every week, which he preferred before the gold and silver of the West Indies. I told him would preach twice a day to the students. He said that [exposition] was nothing like preaching." The real reason why Mather fought off set- tling in Cambridge was however his lingering hope that he might still get the English mis- sion he so ardently desired. But the Massa- chusetts Assembly was about at the end of its patience, and on July 10, 1700, they voted Mather two hundred and twenty pounds a year, at the same time appointing a committee to obtain from him a categorical answer. This time the president apparently complied with the request of the authorities, and after a " suitable place . . . for his reception and en- tertainment " had been prepared at the public expense, he moved to Cambridge. By the last of October he was back in town again, however, professing to Stoughton that Cambridge did not suit his health and suggesting that another president be found. To his great surprise the General Court " took him up " and resolved that " foras- much as the Constitution requires that the President reside at Cambridge, which is now The College at Cambridge 227 altered by his removal from thence, and to the intent that a present necessary oversight be taken of the College, ... in case of Mr. Math- er^ refusal absence, sickness or death, that Mr. Samuel Willard be Vice-President. ' ' Stimulated by this Increase Mather managed to sustain residence in Cambridge for three months more. Then, in a characteristic note to Stoughton, who was then acting governor, he expressed his determination to " return to Boston the next week and no more to reside in Cambridge; for it is not reasonable to de- sire me to be (as out of respect to the public interest I have been six months within this twelve) any longer absent from my family. ... I do therefore earnestly desire that the General Court would . . . think of another president. " " But," warns our reluctantly retiring official, " it would be fatal to the in- terest of religion, if a person disaffected to the order of the Gospel, professed and practiced in these churches, should preside over this so- ciety. ' ' This letter proved Mather's undoing, for when he made it clear to the Court that he could " with no conveniency any longer reside at Cambridge and take care of the College there,' ' a committee was promptly appointed 228 St. Botolph's Town " to wait upon the Rev. Samuel Willard and to desire him to accept the care and charge of the said College and to reside in Cambridge in order thereunto." The outcome of the whole matter was that Mather, who for years would neither reside nor resign, was succeeded at length by Mr. Samuel Willard, who prom- ised to stay at the college two days and nights a week. This appointing was made on Sep- tember 6, 1701, by the General Court Council of which Sewall was a member. That worthy had, therefore, to pay the price of the decision. The manner of this is amusingly told in his Diary : " 1701, Oct. 20. Mr. Cotton Mather came to Mr. Wilkins's shop and there talked very sharply against me as if I had used his father worse than a neger ; spake so loud that people in the street might hear him. ... I had read in the morn Mr. Dod's saying; Sanctified af- flictions are good promotions. I found it now a cordial. " Oct. 6. I sent Mr. Increase Mather a hanch of good venison; I hope in that I did not treat him as a negro. " Oct. 22, 1701. I, with Major Walley and Capt. Saml. Checkly, speak with Mr. Cotton Mather at Mr. Wilkins's. ... I told him of The College at Cambridge 229 his book of the Law of Kindness for the Tongue, whether this were corresponding with that. Whether correspondent with Christ's rule: He said, having spoken to me before there was no need to speak to me again; and so justified his reviling me behind my back. Charg'd the council with lying, hypocrisy, tricks and I know not what all . . . and then show'd my share which was in my speech in council ; viz. If Mr. Mather should goe to Cam- bridge again to reside there with a resolution not to read the Scriptures and expound in the Hall: I fear the example of it will do more hurt than his going thither will doe good. This speech I owned. ... I ask'd him if I should supose he had done something amiss in his church as an officer; whether it would be well for me to exclaim against him in the street for it." Samuel Sewall, a mere layman, thus re- buking the impeccable Mathers must certainly have been a spectacle for gods and men ! The truth is, however, that, in this matter of the college, Cotton Mather put himself, on this occasion and again on a later one, hope- lessly in the wrong. For the thing did not end with the defeat of his father for president. He himself soon began to look with covetous eyes on the executive chair at Cambridge. And 230 St. Botolph's Town when, after the death of Willard in 1707, John Leverett, the right-hand man of Governor Jo- seph Dudley, was elected to the office, the wrath of the younger Mather knew no bounds. The fact that thirty-nine ministers, presumably as interested in the welfare of the college as even he could be, had enthusiastically endorsed Dudley's choice of Leverett, counted for noth- ing as against his wounded pride. Sewall describes with unction Dudley's inau- guration of his friend: " The govr. prepar'd a Latin speech for instalment of the president. Then took the president by the hand and led him down into the hall. . . . The govr. sat with his back against a noble fire. . . . Then the govr. read his speech . . . and mov'd the books in token of their delivery. Then presi- dent made a short Latin speech, importing the difficulties discouraging and yet he did accept : . . . Clos'd with the hymn to the Trinity. Had a very good dinner upon 3 or 4 tables. . . . Got home very well. Laus Deo." The Mathers were now thoroughly beaten, but they could not seem to understand that a man might honestly fail in appreciation of them, and they proceeded to charge Dudley with all manner of bribery, hypocrisy and cor- ruption. Their letters to the governor at this GOVERNOR JOSEPH DUDLEY The College at Cambridge 231 time seem to me so pitiful an exhibition of narrowness that I will not reproduce them. For I still feel that both father and son were sincere, and that to bnry them beneath such adjectives as " dastardly " and " venomous " — after the manner of many writers — is not to reproduce faithfully this interesting conten- tion. Dudley, however, was an able man, even if his political career had not, in every par- ticular, been above reproach. And this time he happened to be right. So we cannot do bet- ter than close our chapter with his admirably dignified answer to the accusations of the Mathers, a reply which is also, as it seems to me, a deserved rebuke to the claims of the the- ocracy as regards the college. " Gentlemen, Yours of the 20th instant re- ceived ; and the contents, both as to the matter and manner, astonish me to the last degree. I must think you have extremely forgot your own station, as well as my character; other- wise it had been impossible to have made such an open breach upon all the laws of decency, honour, justice and Christianity, as you have done in treating me with an air of superiority and contempt, which would have been greatly culpable towards a Christian of lowest order, 232 St. Botolph's Town and is insufferably rude toward one whom di- vine Providence has honoured with the charac- ter of your governour. . . . " Why, gentlemen, have you been so long silent? and suffered sin to lie upon me years after years? You cannot pretend any new in- formation as to the main of your charge ; for you have privately given your tongues a loose upon these heads, I am well assured, when you thought you could serve yourselves by expo- sing me. Surely murder, robberies and other such naming immoralities were as reprovable then as now. . . . " Eeally, gentlemen, conscience and religion are things too solemn, venerable or sacred, to be played with, or made a covering for actions so disagreeable to the gospel, as these your endeavours to expose me and my most faith- ful services to contempt; nay, to unhinge the government. . . . " I desire you will keep your station, and let fifty or sixty good ministers, your equals in the province, have a share in the govern- ment of the college, and advise thereabouts as well as yourselves, and I hope all will be well. ... I am your humble servant, " J. Dudley. " To the Eeverend Doctors Mathers.' ' XI THE BOSTON OF FKANKLIN's BOYHOOD The Boston over which the Mathers reluc- tantly relinquished ascendency was, in its out- ward aspect, pretty much that which Franklin has described for all time in his matchless Autobiography. Their reign had covered a period of many changes. When Increase Mather had been at the height of his power the taxable polls of the town numbered a little less than nine hundred and the estates were valued (in 1680) at about £23,877. By 1722 there were more than eighteen thousand in- habitants in Boston. To be sure this estimate of the earlier date followed closely two pretty serious fires. That of November, 1676, was thus described by a contemporary writer: " It pleased God to alarm the town of Boston, and in them the whole country, by a sad fire, accidentally kin- dled by the carelessness of an apprentice that sat up too late over night, as was conceived 233 234 St. Botolph's Town [the lad was rising before daylight to go to his work and fell asleep while dressing, the result being that his candle set the house on fire] ; the fire continued three or four hours in which time it burned down to the ground forty-six dwelling houses, besides other buildings, to- gether with a meeting-house of considerable bigness.' ' This meeting-house of " consider- able bigness " was the Second Church, the church of the Mathers, the first sermon in which had been preached in June, 1650. Re- built on its old site immediately after this fire, the edifice stood at the head of North Square until the British soldiers, in 1775, pulled it down for firewood. Mr. Mather's dwelling was destroyed in the same fire which deprived him of his parish church, ' ' but not an hundred of his books from above a thousand " were lost. The town did not yet possess any fire- engine, but this great conflagration hastened the acquiring of one, and, two years later, Bos- ton had its first organized fire company. Then, on August 7, 1680, there came another " terrible fire," which raged about twelve hours. Capt. John Hull, who kept a Diary, records that this fire began " about midnight in an alehouse, which by sunrise consumed the body of the trading part of the Towne; from 4 vf 153 mm " is ■ v'wM ■ j ^i ' is? K il ^HHBk BENJAMIN FRANKLIN The Boston of Franklin's Boyhood 235 the Mill creek to Mr. Oliver's house, not one house nor warehouse left; and went from my warehouse to Mrs. Leveret's hence to Mr. Hez. Usher's, thence to Mrs. Thacher's thence to Thomas Fitch's." Another contemporary manuscript account adds that "the number of houses burnt was 77 and of ware houses 35." This fire was believed to have been of incen- diary origin, and one Peter Lorphelin, who was suspected of having set it, was sent to jail and then " sentenced to stand two hours in the Pillory, have both ears cut off, give bond of £500 (with two sureties), pay charges of prosecution, fees of Court, and to stand com- mitted till the sentence be performed." After this fire the burnt district was rebuilt with such rapidity that lumber could not be had fast enough for the purpose and an at- tempt was made to prohibit, temporarily, its exportation. One of the buildings then erected survived until 1860 and was long known as the Old Feather store. It stood in Dock (now Adams) Square so close, in early days, to tide- water that the prows of vessels moored in the dock almost touched it. The frame was of hewn oak and the outside walls were finished in rough-cast cement, with broken glass so firmly imbedded in it that time produced no 236 St. Botolph's Town effect. The date 1680 was placed upon the principal gable of the westerly front. For many years the store on the ground floor was used for the sale of feathers, though, from the building's peculiar shape, it was quite as often called The Old Cocked Hat as The Old Feather Store. The menace of fire had come to be a very serious one in a town having so many wooden buildings. Accordingly in the June, 1693, term of the General Court there was passed an " Act for building of stone or brick in the town of Boston and preventing fire." It was here ordained that " hence forth no dwelling house, shop, warehouse, barn, stable, or any other housing of more than eight feet in length or breadth, and seven feet in height, shall be erected and set up in Boston but of stone or brick and covered with slate or tyle," except in particular cases and then not without license from the proper authorities. Six years later the possible exceptions were greatly curtailed. Yet in October, 1711, there was another shocking fire which " reduced Cornhill into miserable ruins and made its impression into King's street [now State street], into Queen's street [now Court street] and a great part of Pudding-lane [Devonshire street]. Among The Boston of Franklin's Boyhood 237 these ruins were two spacious Edifices, which until now, made a most considerable figure, because of the public relations to our greatest solemnities in which they had stood from the days of our Fathers. The one was the Town- house; the other the Old Meeting-house. The number of houses, and some of them very spa- cious buildings, which went into the fire with these, is computed near about a hundred." Those not burned out in the fire contributed about seven hundred pounds through the churches of Boston to the families that had suffered loss. The immediate effect of this conflagration was the appointment of ten of- ficers called Fire wards in the various parts of the town who were ' ' to have a proper badge assigned to distinguish them in their office, namely a staff of five feet in length, coloured red, and headed with a bright brass spire of six inches long." These functionaries had full power to command all persons at fires, to pull down or blow up houses and to protect goods. Among the small boys interested, as boys have ever been, in the havoc wrought by this fire of 1711, there would very likely have been found the five-year-old son of Josiah Franklin, tallow-chandler. Franklin had been a dyer in England but, upon reaching Boston, had set 238 St. Botolph's Town up in the business of chandlery and soap boil- ing. In 1691 he had built — near the south meeting-house — on what is now Milk street, a dwelling for his family, and there on Sunday, January 17, 1706, his child Benjamin was born. Soon afterwards, Josiah Franklin removed to a house at the corner of Hanover and Union streets where he lived the rest of his life. Here he hung out, as a sign of his trade, the blue ball, about the size of a cocoanut, which now reposes in the old State House, Boston. Although there were so many children swarming in that little house on Hanover street, with its parlour and dining room close behind the shop, it was not a bit too crowded. Franklin in his Autobiography records that he well remembers " thirteen sitting at one time at his father's table who all grew up to be men and women and married. ' ' There were many visitors, too, in the living-room back of the shop, because Josiah Franklin had sturdy common sense and so was sought out by ' ' lead- ing people who consulted him for his opinion in the affairs of the town or the church he belonged to and showed a good deal of respect for his judgment and advise." The life led by the Franklins we may well enough take to be a type of that lived in hun- FRANKLIN S BIRTHPLACE The Boston of Franklin's Boyhood 239 dreds of self-respecting families of that day. There was a great deal of work, a great deal of church-going and considerable hardship of a healthy kind. Bnt there were pleasures, too, chief among them being that of hospitality: "My father,' ' Franklin tells ns, "liked to have at his table, as often as he could, some sensible friend or neighbour to converse with, and always took care to start some ingenious or useful topic for discourse, which might tend to improve the minds of his children. By this means he turned our attention to what was good, just and prudent in the conduct of life; and little or no notice was ever taken of what related to the victuals on the table, ... so that I was brought up in such a perfect inat- tention to those matters as to be quite indif- ferent what kind of food was set before me, and so unobservant of it to this day, that if I am asked I can scarce tell a few hours after dinner what I dined upon. ' ' We can the more readily, after reading this, accept as authentic an anecdote told by the grandson of Franklin to the effect that, one day, after the winter's provision of salt fish had been prepared, Ben- jamin observed, " I think, father, if you were to say grace over the whole cask once for all, it would be a vast saving of time. ,, 240 St. Botolph's Town Josiali Franklin, like every other good Christian of his day, wished to give at least one son to the order of the sacred ministry, and Benjamin, being his tenth child, was sin- gled out for this distinction. The boy was, therefore, sent at the age of eight to the gram- mar school, where in less than a year he had risen gradually from the middle of the class in which he entered to the head of the class above. But business at the sign of the blue ball was now less brisk than heretofore and Father Franklin began reluctantly to confess that he could see no chance of providing a col- lege training for the boy. A commercial edu- cation would bring quicker returns than that provided by the grammar school. Accord- ingly, the lad was placed in an institution es- pecially designed for the teaching of writing and arithmetic. Here Franklin " acquired fair writing pretty soon " but failed in arith- metic. So, since the family fortunes would not permit of his being a clergyman and failure in arithmetic made it impossible for him to be a clerk, Benjamin was " taken home at ten to assist in the business." This occupation he utterly loathed and, in truth, cutting candle- wicks and filling candle-molds with tallow must The Boston of Franklin's Boyhood 241 have been sad drudgery to this imaginative book-loving lad of twelve. Besides, he longed to run away to sea. Born and bred in a seafaring town, and accustomed from earliest childhood to rowing and sailing, nothing delighted him so much as adventures smacking of the salt water. One Franklin boy already had run away to sea, however, and been cut off, as a result, from the family home and hearth. Josiah Franklin determined that, if he could help it, he would not lose his young- est son in the same way. Accordingly, when he found that nothing would make the lad rec- onciled to soap-making, he set about fitting him to another calling. After a round had been made of the various shops, it was settled that Ben be apprenticed as a printer to his elder brother James, who had then (1717) just returned from learning this trade in London. With this idea Benja- min fell in the more readily by reason of his already great fondness for books. " From a child," he tells us in the Auto- biography, " I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came into my hands was ever laid out in books. Pleased with the ' Pil- grim's Progress,' my first collection was of John Bunyan's works in separate little vol- 242 St. Botolph's Town unies. I afterward sold them to enable me to buy E. Burton's historical collections. They were small chapmen's books, and cheap, forty or fifty in all. . . . Plutarch's ' Lives ' there was, in which I read abundantly, and I still think that time spent to great advantage. " This bookish inclination at last deter- mined my father to make me a printer. . . . I stood out some time, but at last was per- suaded, and signed the indentures when I was yet but twelve years old. I was to serve as an apprentice till I was twenty-one years of age, only I was to be allowed journeyman's wages during the last year. In a little time I made great proficiency in the business, and became a useful hand to my brother. " I now had access to better books. An ac- quaintance with the apprentices of booksellers enabled me sometimes to borrow a small one, which I was careful to return soon and clean. Often I sat up in my room reading the greatest part of the night, when the book was borrowed in the evening and to be returned early in the morning, lest it should be missed or wanted. " And after some time an ingenious trades- man, Mr. Matthew Adams, who had a pretty collection of books, and who frequented our printing-house, took notice of me, invited me The Boston of Franklin's Bovhood 243 to his library, and very kindly lent me such books as I chose to read. I now took a fancy to poetry and made some little pieces. My brother, thinking it might turn to account, en- couraged me, and put me on composing occa- sional ballads. One was called ' The Light- house Tragedy,' and contained an account of the drowning of Capt. Worthilake with his two daughters. The other was a sailor's song on the taking of Teach (or Blackbeard) the pirate. They were wretched stuff, in the Grub-Street- ballad style; and, when they were printed, he sent me about the town to sell them. The first sold wonderfully, the event being recent, hav- ing made a great noise. This flattered my van- ity; but my father discouraged me by ridicu- ling my performances, and telling me verse- makers were generally beggars. So I escaped being a poet, most probably a very bad one." But he taught himself to write excellent Eng- lish prose by modelling his style upon that of Addison and Steele. " About this time I met with an odd volume of the Spectator. It was the third. I had never before seen any of them. I bought it, read it over and over, and was much delighted with it. I thought the writing excellent, and wished, if possible, to imitate it. With this 244 St. Botolph's Town view I took some of the papers, and, making short hints of the sentiment in each sentence, laid them by a few days, and then, without looking at the book, tried to complete the pa- pers again by expressing each hinted sentiment at length, and as fully as it had been expressed before, in any suitable words that should come to hand. " Then I compared my Spectator with the original, discovered some of my faults, and corrected them. But I found I wanted a stock of words, or a readiness in recollecting and using them, which I thought I should have ac- quired before that time if I had gone on mak- ing verses, since the continual occasion for words of the same import, to suit the measure, or of different sound for the rhyme, would have laid me under a constant necessity of searching for variety, and also have tended to fix that variety in my mind and make me mas- ter of it. Therefore I took some of the tales and turned them into verse; and, after a time, when I had pretty well forgotten the prose, turned them back again. I also sometimes jumbled my collection of hints into confusion, and after some weeks endeavoured to reduce them into the best order, before I began to form the full sentences and complete the paper. The Boston of Franklin's Boyhood 245 This was to teach me method in the arrange- ment of thoughts. " By comparing my work afterward with the original, I discovered many faults and amended them ; but I sometimes had the pleas- ure of fancying that, in certain particulars of small import, I had been lucky enough to im- prove the method or the language, and this encouraged me to think that I might possibly in time come to be a tolerable English writer, of which I was extremely ambitious. My time for these exercises and for reading was at night after work or before it began in the morning, or on Sundays, when I contrived to be in the printing-house alone, evading as much as I could the common attendance on public worship, which my father used to exact of me when I was under his care, and which, indeed, I still thought a duty, though I could not, as it seemed to me, afford time to practise it." Additional time — and additional money, too — for the indulgence of his love of books came to Franklin about this time through his adop- tion of a vegetarian diet. Meat had always been rather disagreeable to him, so he pro- posed to his brother that he should give him weekly half the money paid for his board, and let him board himself. His brother agreeing, 246 St. Botolph's Town he had opportunity, while the others were at meals, to be alone in the printing-house with his books. " Despatching presently my light repast, which often was no more than a biscuit or a slice of bread," he writes, " a handful of rai- sins or a tart from the pastry-cook, and a glass of water, I had the rest of the time for study, in which I made the greater progress from that greater clearness of head and quicker appre- hension which usually attend temperance in eating and drinking." Sixteen years before that Sunday morning when the baby Benjamin was born the first American newspaper had been printed in Bos- ton. It was a sheet of four pages, seven inches by eleven, with two columns on a page, and at the top of the first page the words, " Publick Occurrences, both Foreign and Domestic," printed in large letters. It was designed to be published once a month, or of tener, ' ' if any glut of occurrences happened.' ' By reason of an unfortunate allusion in the first number to a political misunderstanding between those in high authority, Publick Oc- currences died, immediately after its initial issue. No successor appeared until 1704, when John Campbell, postmaster of Boston, a dull, The Boston of Franklin's Boyhood 247 ignorant Scottish bookseller, began to pnt out a weekly sheet called the Boston News-Letter, which was for many years the only newspaper in America. Newspapers went free of postage in those days. It was quite natural, therefore, that the publishing privilege should fall into the hands of postmasters. Usually when a postmaster lost his office he sold out his newspaper to his successor; but when John Campbell ceased to preside over the Boston mails, he refused to dispose of his paper, a fact which induced his successor, William Brocker, to set up, in De- cember, 1719, a sheet of his own, the Boston Gazette. This paper James Franklin was em- ployed to print. Postmasters in those days were, of course, appointed from England, and before Brocker had been in office many months he found him- self in turn superseded. James Franklin, how- ever, having incurred some expense for the sake of printing the Gazette and being en- amoured of publishing, determined that he would now start a paper of his own. It thus came about that on August 7, 1721, appeared the first number of the New England Courant. The papers previously published in the col- ony had been either very dull or very pious. 248 St. Botolph's Town But this journal, from the beginning, showed the trenchant pen and free mind which appears to have been a Franklin habit. The Mathers did not at all approve of it, and the boy Ben- jamin probably had no need to stop at their door when he i ' carried the papers through the streets to the customers," after having set up the type with his own hands and printed the sheets from the old press now in the posses- sion of the Bostonian Society. The fortunes of this paper, and of Franklin while connected with it, have been better told by the person chiefly concerned than I could ever tell them. Hear him then : ' ' My brother had some ingenious men among his friends, who amused themselves by writing little pieces for this paper, which gained it credit and made it more in demand, and these gentlemen often visited us. Hearing their conversations, and their accounts of the approbation their papers were received with, I was excited to try my hand among them; but, being still a boy, and suspecting that my brother would object to printing anything of mine in his paper if he knew it to be mine, I contrived to disguise my hand, and, writing an anonymous paper, I put it at night under the door of the printing-house. " It was found in the morning, and commu- The Boston of Franklin's Boyhood 249 nicated to his writing friends when they called in as usual. They read it, commented on it in my hearing, and I had the exquisite pleasure of finding it met with their approbation, and that, in their different guesses at the author, none were named but men of some character among us for learning and ingenuity. I sup- pose now that I was rather lucky in my judges, and that perhaps they were not really so very good ones as I then esteemed them. " Encouraged, however, by this, I wrote and conveyed in the same way to the press several more papers which were equally approved; and I kept my secret till my small fund of sense for such performances was pretty well ex- hausted, and then I discovered it, when I began to be considered a little more by my brother's acquaintance, and in a manner that did not quite please him, as he thought — probably with reason — that it tended to make me too vain. And perhaps this might be one occasion of the differences that we began to have about this time. " Though a brother, he considered himself as my master and me as his apprentice, and accordingly expected the same services from me as he would from another, while I thought he demeaned me too much in some things he 250 St. Botolph's Town required of me, who from a brother expected more indulgence. Our disputes were often brought before our father, and I fancy I was either generally in the right or else a better pleader, because the judgment was generally in my favour. But my brother was passionate, and had often beaten me, which I took ex- tremely amiss; and, thinking my apprentice- ship was very tedious, I was continually wish- ing for some opportunity of shortening it, which at length offered in a manner unex- pected. (I fancy his harsh and tyrannical treatment of me might be a means of impress- ing me with that aversion to arbitrary power that has stuck to me through my whole life.) " One of the pieces in our newspaper on some political point, which I have now forgot- ten, gave offence to the Assembly. He was taken up, censured, and imprisoned for a month, by the speaker's warrant, I suppose, because he would not discover his author. I, too, was taken up and examined before the council; but, though I did not give them any satisfaction, they contented themselves with admonishing me, and dismissed me perhaps as an apprentice who was bound to keep his mas- ter's secrets. " During my brother's confinement, which I The Boston of Franklin's Boyhood 251 resented a good deal, notwithstanding our private differences, I had the management of the paper ; and I made bold to give our rulers some rubs in it, which my brother took very kindly, while others began to consider me in an unfavourable light, as a young genius that had a turn for libelling and satire. My brother's discharge was accompanied with an order from the House (a very odd one) that 1 James Franklin should no longer print THE PAPER CALLED THE " NEW ENGLAND CoU- rant," except it be first supervised by the Secretary of this Province. ' " There was a consultation held in our printing-house among his friends what he should do in this case. Some proposed to evade the order by changing the name of the paper; but my brother seeing inconveniences in that, it was finally concluded on, as a better way, to let it be printed for the future under the name of Benjamin Franklin. And, to avoid the censure of the Assembly that might fall on him as still printing it by his appren- tice, the contrivance was that my old indenture should be returned to me, with a full discharge on the back of it, to be shown on occasion ; but, to secure to him the benefit of my service, I was to sign new indentures for the remainder 252 St. Botolph's Town of the term, which were to be kept private. A very flimsy scheme it was. However, it was immediately executed, and the paper went on accordingly under my name for several months. ' ' The next number of the Courant announced that " the late Publisher of this Paper, finding so many Inconveniences would arise by his carrying the Manuscripts and publick News to be supervis 'd by the Secretary as to render his carrying it on unprofitable, has intirely dropt the Undertaking. ' ' Possibly the display of his own name in big type as publisher of a newspaper bred in Ben- jamin something more of self-importance than he had hitherto had. In any case, he and his brother got on very badly after this. There were knocks and cuffs and general unbrotherly treatment, which Benjamin, as a high-spirited lad, soon found unendurable. These blows had the effect, too, of inspiring in the younger Franklin a determination to be tricky, — just as his brother had been with the authorities. So " a fresh difference arising between us two I took upon me to assert my freedom, presu- ming that he would not venture to produce the new indentures. It was not fair in me to take this advantage, and this I therefore reckon one The Boston of Franklin's Boyhood 253 of the first errata of my life; but the unfair- ness of it weighed little with me when under the impressions of resentment for the blows his passion too often urged him to bestow upon me, though he was otherwise not an ill-natured man. Perhaps I was too saucy and provoking. " When he found I would leave him, he took care to prevent my getting employment in any other printing-house of the town, by going round and speaking to every master, who ac- cordingly refused to give me work. I then thought of going to New York as the nearest place where there was a printer. . . . My friend Collins, therefore, undertook to manage a little for me. He agreed with the captain of a New York sloop for my passage. So I sold some of my books to raise a little money, was taken on board privately, and, as we had a fair wind, in three days I found myself in New York, near three hundred miles from home, a boy of but seventeen, without the least recom- mendation to or knowledge of any person in the place, and with very little money in my pocket. ' ' Franklin had now left for ever the Boston of his boyhood. Not many times in his life, in- deed, did he return there. But, when a famous man, he wrote, to be placed over the graves of 254 St. Botolph's Town his parents in the old Granary burying ground, this epitaph which touchingly connects, for all time, his talents with the city of his birth : Josiah Franklin and Abiah, his wife, Lie here interred. They lived lovingly together in wedlock Fifty -five years. And without an estate or any gainful employ- ment, By constant labour and honest industry, Maintained a large family comfortably, And brought up thirteen children and seven grandchildren reputably. From this instance, reader, Be encouraged to diligence in thy calling, And distrust not Providence. He was a pious and prudent man ; She a discreet and virtuous woman. Their youngest son, In filial regard to their memory, Places this stone. SAMUEL SEWALL xn A PURITAN PEPYS What the Diary of Samuel Pepys is to sev- enteenth century England the Diary of Samuel Sewall is to the Boston of the Puritan era. This invaluable contribution to New England literature covers more than fifty-five years of old Boston life and covers it, too, at a time when that life was putting itself into form. It is therefore a rich mine of history, a veritable storehouse of old ways and social customs. The man who wrote it was a part of all that he met and he was, besides, a red-blooded healthy-minded human being in an age which too many people think wholly given over to disagreeable asceticism. We cannot do better, then, than follow for a chapter SewalPs varied career as he himself traces it for us in the vivid pages of his mental and spiritual day-book. At the outset we must do the old judge the justice to believe that, — to him, — New Eng- land was a colony with a mission. In a speech 255 256 St. Botolph's Town made in 1723 after Lieutenant-Governor Dum- mer had taken the oath of office he said : ■ * The people you have to do with are a part of the Israel of God and you may expect to have of the prudence and patience of Moses communi- cated to you for your conduct. It is evident that our Almighty Saviour counselled the first planters to remove hither and settle here ; and they dutifully followed his advice; and there- fore he will never leave nor forsake them nor theirs." All his life long Sewall strove to help the Lord do the work he felt to be marked out for the Puritans. We must bear this in mind when the judge of the witches seems narrow to us. But he does not often so seem for he was a generous-minded man, temperamentally and physically easy-going in spite of his Puri- tan training. The Beverend N. H. Chamber- lain, who has written most entertainingly of " Sewall and the World He Lived In " attrib- utes the endearing qualities of his hero to the fact that he was much more Saxon than Dane, and came from the English South Land where the sun is warmer than in the North, the gar- dens and orchards fuller. Moreover, none of the Sewalls had suffered from persecution. Samuel's great-grand- father, beyond whom the family cannot be A Puritan Pepys 257 traced, made a fortune as a linen-draper at Coventry and was several times elected mayor. His life was then an eminently successful one. The mayor 's eldest son, however, was a Puri- tan of such strong convictions that he sent Se wall's father, Henry, to New England. But the climate of Newbury, where Henry Sewall took up land, did not agree with the family and they returned to the mother country. Thus it happened that Samuel Sewall was born in Bishopstoke, Hampshire, England, in 1647 and spent the impressionable years of his young life in a background where orchards flourished mightily, where cock-fighting was a favourite sport and where roast beef and attendant good things exercised a potent formative influence. When the boy Samuel was nine the family returned to America. His account of their landing at Boston is given thus naively: " We were about eight weeks at sea where we had nothing to see but water and sky; so that I began to fear that I should never get to shore again; only I thought the captains and the mariners would not have ventured themselves, if they had not hopes of getting to land again. On the Lord's Day my mother kept aboard; but I went ashore ; the boat grounded and I was carried out in arms, July 6, 1661." 258 St. Botolph's Town The future Diarist was educated at his father's house in Newbury by a private tutor and at Harvard College, from which he was graduated in 1671. Three years later he took his master's degree, an occasion which he de- scribed thus in a letter written to his son, Joseph, when he (Sewall) was a grown man: " In 1674 I took my second degree and Mrs. Hannah Hull, my dear wife, your honoured mother was invited by Doctor Hoar and his lady (her kinsfolk) to be with them awhile at Cambridge. She saw me when I took my de- gree and set her affection on me, though I knew nothing of it until after our marriage which was February 28, 1675-76. Governor Bradstreet married us." Sewall's thesis on this interesting commencement day was a Latin discourse on original sin! For of course the young man was ministeri- ally minded and, at this stage of his career, bade fair to follow the profession of most Har- vard men of the day. Very likely, too, he would have kept on with his preaching but for the fact that, after a supplementary year or two at Cambridge, it was made easy for him to enter the business and the family of John Hull, the New England mint-master. Hull was now old and Sewall seems to have been en- A Puritan Pepys 259 trusted, almost at once, with the correspond- ence appertaining to the merchant branch of his profession. Ere long the Diarist is im- porting and exporting on his own account. First, though, came his marriage with the bouncing Hannah Hull, a lady whose weight played a more important part in her charms, than has been the case with any other hero- ine of romance. Hawthorne is chiefly respon- sible for this, of course, for he has described in fascinating fashion the marriage of Sewall to this, his first wife. But if Sewall did get his wife's weight in pine-tree shillings when he got her he had not stipulated for this or any other dowry. " The mint-master was especially pleased with his new son-in-law be- cause he had courted Miss Betsy out of pure love/' we are told, " and had said nothing at all about her portion." It is good for us to remember this passage when we read the story of Judge Sewall 's later courtships. About a year after his marriage Sewall joined the Old South Church and having ful- filled this pre-requisite to citizenship, he was (in 1678) made a freeman. In 1681 he was appointed master of the public printing-press, an office which he held for some three years printing public and religious documents, and 260 St. Botolph's Town especially the Assembly's Catechism, five hun- dred copies of which he gave away to the chil- dren of his relations. Sewall had now gone to live at Cotton Hill, on Tremont street, almost opposite King's Chapel burying ground, on property which once belonged to Sir Harry Vane. In the colony records we find (1684) :' — " In answer of the petition of Sam' Sewall Esq, humbly showing that his house of wood in Boston, at the hill where the Eevd John Cotton former dwelt, which house is consider- ably distant from other building and standeth very bleak, he humbly desiring the favour of this court to grant him liberty to build a small porch of wood, about seven foot square, to break off the wind from the fore door of said house, the court grants his request." A pleasant glimpse of the social life of the period is gained from an entry made in the Diary the spring following the building of this porch: " June 20, Carried my wife to Dor- chester to eat Cherries and Raspberries, chiefly to ride and take the air ; the time my wife and Mrs. Flint spent in the orchard I spent in Mr. Flint's study reading Calvin on the Psalms.' ' The following January he tells us that the cold was so extreme that the ' l harbour is frozen up and to the Castle, so cold that the sacramental A Puritan Pepys 261 bread is frozen pretty bad and rattles sadly as broken into the plates.' ' From November, 1688, to November, 1689, Sewall was abroad combining with the business of helping Increase Mather make terms with the King's government the pleasure of renew- ing family friendships in the land of his birth. There was naturally a good deal of sermon- hearing mingled with these occupations and we find one excellent description of the fashion in which the Lord's supper was administered in England at the church of that Dr. Annesley of whom we have already heard as Dunton's father-in-law. " The Dr. went all over the meeting first, to see who was there, then spake something of the sermon, then read the words of institution, then prayed and eat and drunk himself, then gave to every one with his own hand, dropping pertinent expressions. In our pew said, ' Now our Spikenard should give its smell; ' and said to me ' Eemember the death of Christ.' The wine was in quart glass bot- tles. The deacon followed the Doctor and when his cup was empty filled it again; as at our pew all had drunk but I, he filled the cup and then gave it to me ; said as he gave it — must be ready in new obedience and stick at nothing for Christ." 262 St. Botolph's Town To Cambridge and to Oxford, the colleges where many of the Puritan preachers had been educated, Sewall made pious pilgrimages with Mather and between whiles he ate and drank with his numerous relatives. At " Cousin Jane Holt's " he had " good bacon, veal and parsnips, very good shoulder of mutton and a fowl roasted, good currant suet pudding and the fairest dish of apples I have eat in Eng- land." But he was very glad to get back to Boston for that city was now his dear home and he was one of its most useful citizens. In 1683 he is a deputy to the General Court from West- field, as his father-in-law, John Hull, had been before him — it being then possible for a man to be elected from a town other than that in which he lived — and he belonged to the Bos- ton Fire Department and to the Police and Watch. In business he was prospering might- ily and so was able May 23, 1693, to lay the corner-stone of his new house, next Cotton Hill, " with stones gotten out of the Common." Two years later we find the house completed and Governor Bradstreet " drinking a glass or two of wine, eating some fruit and taking a pipe or two of tobacco " under its substantial A Puritan Pepys 263 roof. " Wished me joy of the house and de- sired our prayers," comments the Diary. Picnics and weddings were favourite diver- sions with Sewall. The Diary records one fes- tivity of the former class held Oct. 1, 1697, the refreshments for which consisted of " first, honey, butter curds and cream. For dinner very good roast lamb, turkey, fowls and apple pie. After dinner sung the 121 Psalm. A glass of spirits my wife sent stood upon a joint stool which Simon W. jogging it fell down and broke all to shivers. I said it was a lively emblem of our fragility and mortality." Not long after this our Diarist attended the wedding of Atherton Haugh, his ward, and Mercy Winthrop, daughter of Deane Winthrop, at the latter 's house which still stands in the town bearing his name. " Sang a Psalm to- gether,' ' writes Sewall in describing the occa- sion. "I set St. David's tune." None of the many duties which Sewall discharged was bet- ter done than that which had to do with settling his young people in life. On several occasions we find the Diary saying: " Prayed for good matches for my children as they grow up ; that they may be equally yoked. ' ' It was the Puri- tan habit to marry, not once, but several times, 264 St. Botolph's Town if death came to separate. Instances of old maids were very rare and those of old bachelors even more so. (Stoughton stands almost alone among Puritan worthies as a man who never took unto himself a wife.) The elders on the man's side seem to have had a custom of send- ing a suitable present to the lady's parent as a sign that Barkis was " willm'." If the match was to be refused the present was very likely returned. This custom may be held to explain the following rather blind letter of SewalPs: " Boston, Jan. 13, 1701. " Madam: — The inclosed piece of silver, by its bowing, humble form bespeaks your favour for a certain young man in town. The name (Eeal) the motto (plus ultra) seem to plead its suitableness for a present of this nature. Neither need you accept against the quantity; for you have the means in your own hands; and by your generous acceptance you may make both it and the giver great. Madam, I am " Your affect, friend, "When the Puritans first came to New Eng- land they ordered (1646), in a reaction against A Puritan Pepys 265 the Church of England, that only magistrates or one appointed by the authorities should join parties in holy wedlock. Under this law Gov- ernor Eichard Bellingham, the last survivor of the patentees named in the charter, performed a marriage service for himself and his new bride : — * * His last wife was ready to be con- tracted to a friend of his who lodged in his house and by his consent had proceeded so far with her when, on the sudden, the governor treated with her and obtained her for himself. He was fifty and the lady twenty and Belling- ham also solemnized the marriage himself. ,f By Sewall's time, however, the ministers, as we have seen, were performing the marriage ceremony. One rather curious courtship custom which obtained at this time was that of addressing fervid petitions to a near woman-relative of the girl a man wished for his wife, praying that this sister or mother would intercede with the " divine mistress.' ' Drake in his " Rox- bury ' ' gives such a letter sent by Paul Dudley, son of the royal governor, to Mrs. Davenport, sister of his " dearest Lucy ": " Dear Madam: — It is impossible but that you must take notice of that most affectionate 266 St. Botolph's Town Eespeet and Dutiful Passion I Bear to your most charming and amiable Sister, and you as easily guess at my Design in it which I Blush at the thought of. But the just honour and Ee- gard I have and ought to have to Colonel Wain- wright, [the girl's father] and his Lady in this affair, forbids my pursuing it any further till I have mentioned it to them; for Which Eeason it is that I am now going Hither (though with a trembling and heavy heart) and carry with me a letter from the Governor to your Father that he would allow me to wait upon my Sweetest fairest Dearest Lucy. But unless my Dearest Davenport will assist and make An Interest for me I Can't Hope for Success. I Confess I have no grounds to ask or expect such a favour from you, unless it Be by reminding you of the many obligations you have already laid me Under, and this is an argument which goes a great way with Noble and Generous minds, and I am sure if you did but know what I Un- dergoe Both Day and Night, you would Pity me at least. I must beg of you therefore if you have any regard to my Health and Happi- ness, I might say to my life, you would show your compassion and friendship to me in this matter;* and Hereby lay such an obligation upon me as shall not, cannot ever Be forgotten. A Puritan Pepys 267 I Beg a thousand pardons of my Dame for this Freedom ; and Pray her not to expose my folly to any one, tho' if she thinks it proper, or that it will Doe me any Service She may Eead (to the mark * above) to my Divine Mistress; I know you have smiled all along and By this time are weary of my Scrawle. I'll have done therefore, and when I have asked the favour of you to present, as on my knees, my most Sin- cere, passionate, Dutifull and Constant Soul to My Charming Nymph, With whom I hope to rind it upon my Eeturn, of which I shall be most Impatient. Dear Madam, I once more beg par- don of you and pray you to think me in Earnest in what I write for every Word of it Comes from the Bottom of My Soul, and I hope Be- fore I have done to Convince My Dearest Lucy of the truth of it tho' as yet She Believes noth- ing that I say to her. Madam, I am, with all affection and Eespect, Your most obliged tho' now Distressful Humble Servant, " Paul Dudley." " You may show all this letter if you think fit, Mrs. Davenport." He married Lucy in 1703 and there are occa- sional references, in Sewall's Diary, to the fortunes of the couple. 268 St. Botolph's Town This son of Governor Dudley it was, by the bye, who entered Harvard at the tender age of eleven and about whom his father thus wrote the president: " April 26, 1686. I have humbly to offer you a little sober well-disposed son, who, though very young, if he may have the favour of admittance I hope his learning may be tolerable ; and for him I will promise that, by your and my care, his own Industry and the blessing of God, his mother, the uni- versity, shall not be ashamed to allow him the place of a son at seven years end. Appoint a time when he may be examined.' ' SewalPs children all made good matches (except Hannah, who was an invalid and never married), the oldest son winning as a wife the daughter of Governor Dudley. This alliance made it very difficult for Sewall to be as sym- pathetic as he must otherwise have been when the Mathers, with whom he was very intimate, solicited his support in their memorable con- troversy with that official. After the weddings of the poorer classes there had been wont to be dancing at a nearby ordinary or tavern, but the court early took this abuse vigorously in hand and ordered (May, 1651) that " whereas it is observed that there are many abuses and disorders by dan- A Puritan Pepys 269 cing in ordinaries whether mixed or unmixed, upon marriage of some persons, this Court doth order that henceforward there shall be no dancing upon such occasion, or at any other times in ordinaries, upon the pain of five shil- ling for every person that shall so dance in ordinaries. ' ' Sewall especially hated dancing and writes it down with glee in his Diary when one Stepney, who had come over to teach this accomplishment, had to run away because of debt. In his relations to Indians, negroes and the witchcraft delusion Sewall showed himself con- siderably in advance of his time, however. Eeference has already been made to his brave confession of error in the acceptance of ' i spec- tral evidence/' so we can here confine our at- tention to his attitude towards the two other persecuted peoples. After King Philip's War, which reached its crisis in May, 1676, the cause of the Indians went down apace and it was ordered " that a guard be set against the en- trance of the town of Boston (on the Neck) and that no Indian be suffered to enter upon any pretext, and without a guard and two mus- keteers and not to lodge in town." Indians even approaching by land or water were liable to arrest. But a few men, and Sewall was 270 St. Botolph's Town among them, still persisted in their labours for these people. Cotton Mather sets down the fact that Judge Sewall built a meeting-house at his own charge for one of the Indian con- gregations and " gave those Indians cause to pray for him because ' he loveth our nation for he hath built us a synagogue.' " This meeting-house was in Sandwich, Barnstable County, Cape Cod. Already Sewall had writ- ten as to ways of dealing with the race: " The best thing we can do for our Indians is to Anglicize them in all agreeable instances; in that of language as well as others. They can scarce retain their language without a tincture of other savage inclinations. ... I should think it requisite that convenient tracts of land should be set out to them; and that by plain and natural boundaries as much as may be ; as lakes, rivers, mountains, rocks; upon which for any man to encroach should be accounted a crime. Except this be done, I fear their own jealousies and the French Friars will per- suade them, that the English as they increase and think they want more room will never leave till they have crowded them quite out of all their lands. And it will be a vain attempt for us to offer heaven to them, if they take up A Puritan Pepys 271 prejudices against us as if we did grudge them a living upon their own earth.' ' To the negro also Sewall was a constant friend. He wrote a remarkable anti-slavery tract " On the Selling of Joseph," and he ranks first among those who strove to give the black man a chance at decent and respectable married life. The Diary of June 22, 1716, records " I essayed to prevent Indians and negroes being rated with horses and hogs but could not prevail. ' ' As a justice he gave some highly important decisions in cases where ne- groes had been wronged, one of them setting forth in truly stirring language that " the poorest boys and girls within this province, such as are of the lowest condition, whether they be English or Indians or Ethiopians, they have the same right to religion and life that the richest heirs have. And they who go about to deprive them of this right, they attempt the bombarding of Heaven; and the shells they throw shall fall down upon their own heads.' ' Sewall experienced, of course, that very thrilling thing, the birth of a new century. The Diary of January 2, 1701, records that " just about break of day Jacob Amsden and 3 other trumpeters gave a blast with the trum- 272 St. Botolph's Town pets on the Common near Mr. Alford's. Then went to the Green Chamber and sounded there till about sunrise. Bell man said these verses a little before break-a day which I printed and gave them. The trumpeters cost me five pieces of 8." These verses were from Se wall's own pen; they were fittingly reread on Beacon Hill by the Eeverend Edward Everett Hale at mid- night on the eve of our present century's dawn. The first two are: " Once more ! Our God vouchsafe to shine : Tame thou the rigor of our clime. Make haste with thy impartial light And terminate this long dark night. " Let the transplanted English vine Spread further still ; still call it thine ; Prune it with skill : for yield it can More fruit to thee the husbandman." Nothing about the Diary is more significant than some of its omissions. When " news is brought to us " (September 17, 1714) of Queen Anne's death the only comment Sewall makes upon the sad countenance of him who bore the tidings is, "I was afraid Boston had burnt again." Anne was a High Churchwoman and had given aid and succour to the Church of England to which Sewall had refused to sell A Puritan Pepys 273 land for a parish home. Though Sewall was now sixty-two, he was on hand bright and early, we may be sure, for that dinner held at the Green Dragon tavern to proclaim George I king of England and " Supreme Lord of the Massachusetts. " Judge Sewall 's wife Hannah died October 19, 1717. He mourned her deeply, but briefly. It was expected with the rigour of a law in the Puritan land that widows and widowers should remarry. They all did it, and not to do it was a social offence. Apparently they all helped each other to do it, and for a man in Judge Sewall 's social station there was no chance of escape, even though he was sixty-five. But he appears to have bent his neck cheerfully enough to the matrimonial yoke, for we find the Diary recording: ' ' Feby. 6, 1718. This morning wandering in my mind whether to live a single or married life, I had a sweet and very affectionate medi- tation concerning the Lord Jesus. Nothing was to be objected against his person, parent- age, relations, estate, house, home. Why did I not presently close with him. And I cried mightily to God that he would help me so to do." 11 Feby. 10. I received a letter from Mr. 274 St. Botolph's Town Winthrop having one enclosed to his mother which I carry to her. She tells me Mr. Eyre [Mrs. Winthrop 's first husband] married her May 20, 1680. Lived together about twenty years. ' ' " March 10. In Madame Usher's absence Madam Henchman took occasion highly to com- mend Madame Winthrop, the Major-General's widow [as a wife] March 14. Deacon Marion comes to me, sits with me a great while in the evening; after a great deal of discourse about his courtship — he told me all the Olivers said they wished I would court their aunt (Madam Winthrop). I said 'twas not five months since I buried my dear wife. Said little, but said before 'twas hard to know whether best to marry again or no; whom to marry. Dr. Mather (Increase) sends me his Mar ah in a letter in which is this expression, i But your honor will allow me now at length to offer you my opinion that all the regards are not yet paid which you owe unto the Widow, and which are expected from you.' " This Mar ah was probably one of the elder Mather's books, with the title, " An Essay to do Good unto the Widow," and the grave bad- inage here of the Puritan divine at the expense of the Puritan Judge is characteristic. A Puritan Pepys 275 " March 19. Mr. Leverett, when he and I are alone, told me his wife and he had laid out Madam Brown for me and yet took occasion to say that Madam Winthrop had done very generously by the Major General's family in giving up her dower. I said if Madam Brown should leave her fair accommodations at Salem, she might be apt to repent it. ' ' But soon, either because fate was unpropi- tious, or Sewall's discretion had the upper hand, he turned for comfort to the Widow Den- nison, whose husband had died shortly before — ' ' an autumnal matron, ' ' as Hawthorne would phrase it, but withal a business woman not wasting property on sentiment. Judge Sewall had written the late Dennison's will and attended his funeral, for we read : " March 19. I write Mr. William Dennison's will, being desired by a messenger from Box- bury with minutes." On March 26, Sewall, with other Puritan notables, attended Mr. Dennison's funeral at Koxbury, where his pastor, Mr. Walter, said: " He was a man of truth, and of trust, a man of prayer, integrity and piety. ' ' " Gov. Dudley and I went next the mourn- ers/ ' the Judge records. " Went back to the house in a coach. At coming away I prayed 276 St. Botolph's Town God to keep house with the widow." " Mr. Danforth gives the widow Dennison a high commendation for her piety, prudence, dili- gence, humility." " April 7. I prove Mr. Dennison 's will. Her brother, Edmund Wells, brought the widow to town and gave me notice before hand. I gave her 10s. to give her sister Weld for her Indian Bible. Mr. Dorr took occasion in her absence to say she was one of the most dutiful wives in the world. Her cousin, the widow Hayden, accidentally came in with her. April 8. Mr. Boydell, when I was at his office and signed the papers, smiling said Mr. Dennison's will looked as if it was written by me. I told him, ' Yes, but there was not a tittle of it mine, but the form.' " " June 3d. Gro to Roxbury, talk with Mr. Walter about Mrs. Dennison. He advises me not to see her then, lest should surprise her undressed [not dressed for callers]. Told him I came on purpose; yet finally submitted to his advice; he spake of her coming to town on Thursday. June 5. Nobody came — I writ to Mr. Walter. June 9. Note, Mrs. D. came in the morning about nine o'clock, I took her up into my chamber and discoursed thoroughly with her. She desired me to procure another and better nurse. [Sewall had represented A Puritan Pepys 277 that he needed some one to look after him in his old age.] " I gave her the last two News Letters, — told her I intended to visit her at her own house next lecture day. She said 'twould be talked of. I answered in such cases persons must run the gauntlet. Gave her Mr. Whi- ting's oration, for Abijah Walter who brought her on horseback to town. I think little or no notice was taken of it." " June 17. Went to Eoxbury Lecture. Vis- ited Govr. Dudley, Mrs. Dennison; gave her Dr. Mather's sermons very well bound; told her we were in it invited to a wedding. She gave me very good curds. July 2. I gave Mrs. Dennison her oath to the inventory [of her hus- band's goods.] At night when all were gone to bed, Cousin Moody went with me into the new hall, read the history of Rebecca's Courtship and prayed with me respecting my widowed condition. July 16. Went and visited Mrs. Dennison. Gave her King George's effiges in copper ; and an English crown of King Charles II., 1677. Eat curds with her ; I craved a bless- ing and returned thanks ; came home after it. ' ' " July 25. I go in a hackney coach to Eox- bury. Call at Mr. Walter 's who is not at home ; nor Gov. Dudley nor his lady. Visit Mrs. Den- 278 St. Botolph's Town nison; she invites me to eat. I give her two cases with a knife and fork in each ; one, turtle shell tackling; the other long with ivory han- dles, squared, cost 4s. 6d. ; pound of raisins with proportional almonds. Visit her brother and sister Weld." " Aug. 6. Visited Mrs. Dennison, carried her sister Weld, the widow and Mrs. Weld to her brother, where we were courteously enter- tained. Brought Mr. Edmund Weld's wife home with me in the coach; she is in much darkness [concerning the outcome of his suit]. Gave Mrs. Dennison a psalm book neatly bound in England with Turkey leather. 27th. I ride and visit Mrs. Dennison, leave my horse at the Grey Hound. She mentions her dis- couragements by reason of discourses she heard; I prayed God to direct her and me." In fact, Sewall visits this lady upon almost every opportunity; but as his duty as circuit judge took him away, Mrs. Dennison disap- pears from the Diary while he is on his travels. The next significant entry is Oct. 15 : — " Visit Mrs. Dennison on horseback; pre- sent her with a pair of shoe buckles cost 5s. 3d." " Nov. 1. My son from Brookline being here, I took his horse and visited Mrs. Denni- son. I told her 'twas time to finish our busi- A Puritan Pepys 279 ness. Asked her what I should allow her. She not speaking, I told her I was willing to give her £250 pr. annum during her life, if it should please God to take me out of the world before her. She answered she had better keep as she was than to give a certainty for an uncertainty. She should pay dear for dwelling at Boston. I desired her to make proposals but she made none. I had thought of publishment next Thursday. But now I seemed to be far from it. May God who has the pity of a father, direct and help me!" Her late husband, as Sewall well knew, had left Mrs. Dennison a life interest in all his estates. The trouble in this case seems to have been that the lady declined to alienate any of her interests by marriage. In fact, all through his later courtships Sewall shines more as a sharp business man than a lover with tact or sentiment. " Novr. 28, 1718. I went this day in the coach [to Mrs. Dennison 'si, had a fire made in the chamber where I stayed with her before. I enquired how she had done these three or four weeks. Afterwards, I told her our con- versation had been such when I was with her last that it seemed to be a direction in Prov- idence not to proceed any further; she said 280 St. Botolph's Town it must be what I pleased, or to that purpose/ ' Then there apparently proceeded one of those wrangles not peculiar to Puritan courtships, but in this case carried on with due Puritan decorum, which, as usual with persons in such relations, came to nothing, she holding her own. But the ending entry is delicious : 1 ' She asked me if I would drink ; I told her Yes. She gave me cider, apples, and a glass of wine; gathered together the little things I had given her and offered them to me; but I would take none of them. Told her I wished her well, should be glad to hear of her welfare. She seemed to say she would not take in hand a thing of this nature. Thanked me for what I had given her and desired my prayers. I gave Abijah Weld an Angel. Got home about 9 at night. My bowels yearn towards Mrs. Dennison; but I think God directs me in his Providence to desist.' ' We catch one more glimpse of the lady, Lord's Day, Nov. 30, when, in the evening, while Sewall was at family prayers : — 1 1 She came in, preceded by her cousin Weld, saying she wished to speak to me in private. I was very much startled that she should come so far afoot in that exceeding cold season. She asked pardon if she had affronted me. A Puritan Pepys 281 Seemed inclined the match should not break off, since I had kept her company so long. I fetched a tankard of cider and drank to her. She desired that nobody might know of her being here. I told her they should not. She went away in the bitter cold, no moon being up, to my great pain. I saluted her at part- ing/' The last glimpse of Mrs. Dennison in the Diary is this : — " Dec. 22. Mrs. Dorothy Dennison brings an additional inventory. I gave her her oath; asked her brother Brewer and her to dine with me; she said she needed not to eat; caused her to sit by the fire and went with her to the door at her going away. She said nothing to me nor her brother Brewer. ' ' Mrs. Dennison remarried in 1720, Sewall having already taken to wife Mrs. Tilly whom he had formerly considered, and then set aside because they could not agree upon the terms of settlement. This lady died when they had been married but a short time and then the twice-widowed judge began — after an inter- val of only four months, this time — to pay attentions to Mrs. Winthrop, a highly eligible widow. The ardent fashion in which this lady was pursued by the venerable justice I have 282 St. Botolph's Town elsewhere 1 described. But the courtship came to nothing, because Sewall would not agree to set up a coach nor wear a periwig. He soon found another woman less exacting, however, and her he blithely took to be his third wife, thought he was now over seventy. She sur- vived him, for he died Jan. 1, 1730. He sleeps in death in the Old Granary Burying Ground almost on the very spot where he long ago had his home. 1 " Romance of Old New England Churches." XIII IN THE REIGN OF THE ROYAL GOVERNORS The year in which Sewall died marked the appointment of Jonathan Belcher as governor of Massachusetts. He was the sixth governor to be sent out by the crown and the third who was a native of the province. But he suc- ceeded in his office no better than the gentle- men who had preceded him, the wrangling which had become a regular feature of legisla- tive life here marring his administration as it had done those of his predecessors. Belcher was the son of a prosperous Boston merchant and a graduate of Harvard College. He was polished and sociable and had had the benefit of extensive travel. But he found himself in an impossible situation and the only thing for him to do was to make as few enemies as possible and wait for death or the king to remove him. People who for two generations had been prac- tically independent were not going to take 283 284 St. Botolph's Town kindly to any appointee of a throne they were determined to find tyrannical. Of course the opposition was by no means unanimous. Quite a few persons there were in Boston and its nearby towns to whom the old regime, with its subserviency to men like the Mathers, had been noxious in the extreme, and they naturally welcomed the change. But to most of those who in lineage, sentiment, and habit, represented the first planters the foist- ing upon New England of a royal governor, bound in loyalty to a far-off king, was an af- front to be neither forgiven nor condoned. Though the holder of this office had been a man of superhuman breadth and of extraordinary generosity he would not have been acceptable to this portion of the inhabitants. William Phips had been indigenous to a degree found in no man elected by the people. But he suited neither the Mathers, who nominated him, nor the common people who hated the Mathers. Even the Earl of Bellomont, the " real lord " who succeeded Phips, got on better with the captious people who moulded public opinion in Boston than did this Maine carpenter. For a time, indeed, it looked as if Bellomont were going to get on very well indeed. A vig- orous man of sixty-three, fine looking, with Reign of the Royal Governors 285 elegant manners and courtly ways> lie had little difficulty, at first, in making friends with even the least friendly of the Bostonians. Churchman though he was, he was not averse to attendance at the Thursday lecture and this, of course, made upon the stiff-necked Puritans just the impression he had calculated that it would. The Assembly hired of Peter Sergeant for him the Province House afterwards renowned as the official home of the governors, and here he entertained handsomely. By a curious co- incidence his lady thus succeeded as mistress of the handsome mansion Lady Phips, whom Peter Sergeant had married for his third wife. The builder, owner and first occupant of what is perhaps the most interesting house in colo- nial history was a rich London merchant who came to reside here in 1667 and died here Feb- ruary 8, 1714. Sergeant had held many offices under the old charter government, was one of the witchcraft judges and, when Andros had been deposed, played an important part in that proceeding. That he was a very rich man one must conclude from the extreme elegance of the homestead which he erected, nearly op- posite the Old South Church, on a lot three hundred feet deep with a frontage of nearly 286 St. Botolph's Town a hundred feet on what was then called High street but which we now know as Washington street. The house was square and of brick. It had three stories, with a gambrel roof and lofty cupola, the last-named adornment surmounted with the gilt-bronzed figure of an Indian with a drawn bow and arrow. Over the portico of the main entrance was an elaborate iron balus- trade bearing the initials of the owner and the date " 16 P. S. 79." Large trees graced the court-yard, which was surrounded by an ele- gant fence set off by ornamented posts. A paved driveway led up to the massive steps of the palatial doorway. Two small out-build- ings, which, in the official days served as por- ters' lodges, signified to passers-by that this house was indeed the dwelling-place of one who represented the majesty of England. Hawthorne in his " Legends of the Province House " has repeopled for us this impressive old mansion and, at the risk of anticipating somewhat the arrival of governors not yet on the scene, I shall quote his description while suppressing, as far as possible, his allusions to the deplorable condition of the house at the time he himself visited it : "A wide door with double leaves led into the hall or entry on the THE PROVINCE HOUSE Reign of the Royal Governors 287 right of which was a spacious room, the apart- ment, I presume, in which the ancient gover- nors held their levees with vice-regal pomp, surrounded by the military men, the Counsel- lors, the judges, and other officers of the Orown, while all the loyalty of the Province thronged to do them honour. . . . The most venerable ornamental object is a chimney- piece, set round with Dutch tiles of blue-figured china, representing scenes from Scripture; and, for aught I know, the lady of Pownall or Bernard may have sat beside this fireplace and told her children the story of each blue tile. . . " The great staircase, however, may be termed without much hyperbole, a feature of grandeur and magnificence. It winds through the midst of the house by flights of broad steps, each flight terminating in a square landing- place, whence the ascent is continued towards the cupola. A carved balustrade . . . borders the staircase with its quaintly twisting and intertwining pillars, from top to bottom. Up these stairs the military boots, or perchance the gouty shoes of many a Governor have trodden, as the wearers mounted to the cupola, which afforded them so wide a view over the metropolis and the surrounding country. The cupola is an octagon with several windows, and 288 St. Botolph's Town a door opening npon the roof. . . . Descending ... I paused in the garret to observe the pon- derous white oak framework, so much more massive than the frames of modern houses, and thereby resembling an antique skeleton.' ' The cheerful task of recalling the courtly- functions of the Province House in its bright days has been ably discharged by Edwin L. Bynner who, writing in the Memorial History of Boston on the " Topography of the Provin- cial Period " invokes " this old-time scene of stately ceremonial, official pomp or social gay- ety, of many a dinner rout or ball. Here dames magnificent in damask or brocade, towering head-dress and hoop petticoat — here cavaliers in rival finery of velvet or satin, with gorgeous waistcoats of solid gold brocade, with wigs of every shape, — the tie, the full-bottomed, the ramillies, the albermarle, — with glittering swords dangling about their silken hose — where, in fine, the wise, the witty, gay and learned, the leaders in authority, in thought and in fashion, the flower of old Provincial life, trooped in full tide through the wainscoted and tapestried rooms, and up the grand old winding staircase with its carved balustrade and its square landing-places, to do honour to the hospitality of the martial Shute, the courtly Reign of the Royal Governors 289 Burnet, the gallant Pownall, or the haughty Bernard. ' ' At the time of Bellomont's administration, however, the house had not yet become identi- fied with any great amount of official grandeur. The Boston of that year (1699) impressed one traveller, indeed, as a very poor sort of place. This traveller's name was Edward Ward and he is worth some attention as a wit, even though we may need to discount a good deal of what he wrote about the chief town of New England: " The Houses in some parts Joyn as in London," he says, " the Buildings, like their women, being neat and handsome; their Streets, like the Hearts of the Male Inhabit- ants are paved with Pebble. In the Chief or High street there are stately Edifices, some of which have cost the owners two or three thou- sand pounds the raising; which, I think, plainly proves two old adages true, — viz that a Fool and his Money is soon parted, and Set a Beggar on Horseback he'll Ride to the Devil, — for the Fathers of these men were Tinkers and Peddlers. To the Glory of Religion and the Credit of the Town there are four Churches. . . . Every Stranger is invariably forc'd to take this Notice, That in Boston there are more religious zealouts than honest men. . . . The 290 St. Botolph's Town inhabitants seem very religious showing many outward and visible signs of an inward and Spiritual Grace but though they wear in their Faces the Innocence of Doves, you will find them in their Dealings as subtile as Serpents. Interest is Faith, Money their G-od, and Large Possessions the only Heaven they covet. Elec- tion, Co mm encement and Training days are their only Holy-Days. They keep no saints' days nor will they allow the Apostles to be saints ; yet they assume that sacred dignity to themselves, and say, in the title-page of their Psalm-book, * Printed for the edification of the Saints in Old and New England.' " A witty fellow certainly, this taverner and poet whom Pope honoured with a low seat in the Dunciad and who so cleverly hit off the peculiarities of our Puritan forbears that we have to quote him whether we will or no. In connection with the law against kissing in pub- lic he tells a story which has since become classic of a ship captain who, returning from a long voyage, happened to meet his wife in the street and, of course, kissed her. For this he was fined ten shillings. " What a happi- ness," comments Ward, " do we enjoy in old England, " that can not only kiss our own wives but other men's too without the danger Reign of the Royal Governors 291 of such a penalty." Ward regarded our women as highly kissable, observing that they had better complexions than the ladies of Lon- don. "But the men, — they are generally meagre and have got the hypocritical knack, like our English Jews, of screwing their faces into such puritanical postures that you would think they were always praying to themselves, or running melancholy mad about some mys- tery in the Revelations. ' ' One of the chief objects that the king had in mind in appointing Lord Bellomont gov- ernor was the suppression of piracy, which had long been an appalling scourge on the whole American coast. The new incumbent did not disappoint his royal master, for he promptly arrested and caused to be sent to England for subsequent hanging the notorious Captain Kidd, who, from pirate hunting with Bellomont as silent partner, himself turned pirate and had to be given short shrift. While Kidd was in jail he proposed to Bellomont that he should be taken as a prisoner to Hispaniola in order that he might bring back to Massachusetts the ship of the Great Mogul, which he had unlaw- fully captured, and in the huge treasure of which Bellomont and his companions would own four-fifths if the prize were . adjudged a 292 St. Botolph's Town lawful one. Bellomont refused this offer, for lie well knew that the Great Mogul's ship ought not to have been attacked inasmuch as that personage was on friendly terms with England. It is to this " great refusal " of Bellomont that we owe the mystery that to this day en- shrouds the whereabouts of Captain Kidd's treasure. Bellomont died in New York — whither he had gone for a short visit — March 5, 1701, after a sojourn in Boston of a little over a year. The stern-faced Stoughton again filled the gap as the head of the government. And then, on July 11, 1702, there arrived in Boston harbour as governor that Joseph Dudley who, eleven years before, had been sent out of the country a prisoner in the ' ' crew ' ' of the hated Andros. Dudley has been more abused than any of the royal governors. Most historians speak of him as " the degenerate son of his father " but, as far as I can see, they mean by this only that he honoured the king instead of the theocracy and attended King's Chapel instead of the Old South Church. He had been born in Boxbury July 23, 1647, after his father had attained the age of seventy, and was duly educated for the ministry. But, preferring civil affairs to the church, he held various of- Reign of the Royal Governors 293 fices and was sent to England in 1682, one of those charged with the task of saving the old charter. He soon saw that this could not be done and so advised the surrender of that doc- ument, — counsel which, of course, caused him to be called a traitor to his trust. But it served to recommend him to the royal eye and brought him the appointment of President of New Eng- land. How he was imprisoned, how he at- tempted escape and how he was finally pun- ished (?) in England we have already seen. Dudley was in truth much too able a man to be ignored. During the almost ten years of his exile from America, he not only served as deputy governor of the Isle of Wight but he was also a member of Parliament. Most inter- esting of all he enjoyed the close friendship of Sir Richard Steele, who acknowledged that he " owed many fine thoughts and the manner of expressing them to his happy acquaintance with Colonel Dudley; and that he had one quality which he never knew any man pos- sessed of but him, which was that he could talk him down into tears when he had a mind to it, by the command he had of fine thoughts and words adapted to move the affections." Even those who admired Dudley did not invariably trust him, however. Sewall, whose son had 294 St. Botolph's Town married the governor's daughter, records that " the Governor often says that if anybody would deal plainly with him he would kiss them. But I (who did so) received many a bite and many a hard word from him. ,, Dud- ley, first among the royal governors, began that fight for a regular salary which lasted almost as long as did the office. For some time he refused the money grants which were voted to him but, when he found that he would get nothing else, he at last gave way. Yet he was so unpopular that there was hardly any year when he received more than six hundred pounds. When Queen Anne died he knew that his power must come to an end. So he retired from public office to his estate at West Rox- bury, where he died in 1720, having bequeathed fifty pounds to the Roxbury Free school for the support of a Latin master. All his life he had been a conspicuous friend of letters and, in distributing commissions, he uniformly gave the preference to graduates of the college for which he had done so much. To the year of Dudley's death belongs the institution of what is perhaps Boston's most unique educational enterprise, — ' 6 a Spinning School for the instructions of the children of this Town." There had arrived in Boston, Reign of the Royal Governors 295 shortly before this, quite a number of Scotch- Irish persons from in and about Londonderry, bringing with them skill in spinning and a habit of consuming the then-little-known po- tato. The introduction of the potato had no immediate social effect but the coming of the linen wheel, a domestic implement which might be manipulated by a movement of the foot, was looked upon as a matter of great importance. Accordingly, a large building was erected on Long- Acre street (that part of Tremont street between Winter and School) for the express purpose of encouraging apprentices to the manufacture of linen. Spinning-wheels soon became the fad of the day and, at the com- mencement of the school " females of the town, rich and poor appeared on the Common with their wheels and vied with each other in the dexterity of using them. A larger concourse of people was perhaps never drawn together on any occasion before." By a curious kind of irony the General Court appropriated to the use of this spinning school the tax on carriages and other articles of luxury. The Common, by the bye, had now come to be the cherished possession which Bostonians of to-day still esteem it. Purchased by Gov. Winthrop and others of William Blackstone in 296 St. Botolph's Town 1634 for thirty pounds, a law was enacted as early as 1640 for its protection and preserva- tion. Originally it extended as far as the pres- ent Tremont Building, and an alms-house and the Granary as well as the Granary Burying Ground (established in 1660) were within its confines. It is certainly greatly to be regretted that the famous Paddock Elms, set out on the Common's edge in 1762 by Major Adino Pad- dock, the first coachmaker of the town, whose home was opposite the Burying- Ground, had to be removed in 1873, in order to make way for traction improvements ! The next governor after Dudley was Colonel Samuel Shute, in whose behalf friends of the Province, then in London, purchased the office from the king's appointee for one thousand pounds. Shute was a brother of the after- wards Lord Barrington and belonged to a dis- senting family. It was, of course, expected by Ashhurst, Belcher and Dummer — when they obtained from Colonel Elisha Burgess the right to the governorship — that Shute would give them their money's worth and help them to down the rising Episcopal party in Boston. But their incumbent promptly showed that he was a king's man by voting an adjournment of the court over December 25, 1722. " The Reign of the Royal Governors 297 Governor mentioned how ill it would appear to have votes passed on that day," records Sewall; and on further argument Colonel Shute " said he was of the Church of Eng- land." This must have been a bitter fact for our old friend, the justice, to write down in his Diary, for none had struggled harder than he against the inevitable advance of Episcopacy. Of course the religion of England must surely, if slowly, make its way forward in an English province governed by officials sent out from England. Sewall was too sensible a man not to know this. But he would not raise his left little finger to help the matter on. His Diary abounds, as we have already seen, in references to the difficulties encountered by those who were trying to introduce into Boston the ways and the worship of the old country. When Lady Andros died he had none of his usual exclama- tions of pity for the sorrow of the bereaved husband, and when Andros tried to buy land for a church-home Sewall refused to sell him any. But the governor got land just the same, for he appropriated a corner of the burial ground for his church. The Reverend Increase Mather, speaking of the matter in 1688 said: " Thus 298 St. Botolph's Town they built an house at their own charge; but can the Townsmen of Boston tell at whose charge the land was purchased? " This refers, however, only to the land occupied by the orig- inal church. The selectmen of Boston docilely granted, in 1747, the additional parcels needed for the enlargement of the building then on the spot. Sufficiently unpretentious, certainly, was the exterior of the early home of prayer-book serv- ice in Boston. It was of wood crowned by a steeple, at the top of which soared a huge " cockerel.' ' In the one cut which has come down to us of the building, the height of this scriptural bird rivals that of the nearby Bea- con. This, however, is very likely attributable to an error in perspective on the part of the " artist.' ' Greenwood tells us that " a large and quite observable crown " might be dis- cerned just under this ambitious bird. The interior of the church was much more attract- ive to the eye than was the case in the other Boston meeting-houses. Though there were no pews for several years, this defect had been remedied, by 1694, as the result of a purse of fifty-six pounds collected from the officers of Sir Francis Wheeler's fleet, which had been in the harbour shortly before. Further to offset Reign of the Royal Governors 299 its humble exterior the chapel had a " cushion and Cloth for the Pulpit, two Cushions for the Reading Desks, a carpet for the Allter all of Crimson Damask, with silk fringe, one Large Bible, two Large Common Prayer Books, twelve Lesser Common Prayer Books, Linnin for the Allter. Also two surplises." All these were the gift of Queen Mary. There was be- sides a costly Communion service presented by king and queen. Against the walls were " the Decalougue viz., the ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer and the Creed drawne in Eng- land." G. Dyer, the early warden of the chapel gave also according to his means and wrote down for posterity the manner of his generosity: " To my labour for making the Wather cock and Spindel, to Duing the Commandements and allter rome and the Pulpet, to Duing the Church and Winders, mor to Duing the Gal- lary and the King's Armes, fortey pounds, which I freely give." In 1710 the chapel was rebuilt to twice its original size, to accommo- date the rapidly growing congregation. As now arranged the pulpit was on the north side, directly opposite a pew occupied by the royal governors and another given over to officers of the British army and navy. In the western gal- 300 St. Botolph's Town lery was the first organ ever used in America. The fashion in which the chapel acquired this 61 instrument " (now in the possession of St. John's parish, Portsmouth, New Hampshire) is most interesting. It was originally the prop- erty of Mr. Thomas Brattle, one of the found- ers of the old Brattle street church and a most enthusiastic musician. He imported the organ from London in 1713 and, at his death, left.it by will to the church with which his name is associated, " if they shall accept thereof and within a year after my disease procure a sober person that can play skillfully thereon with a loud noise.' ' In the event of these conditions not being complied with it was provided that the organ should go to King's Chapel. The Brattle street people failed to qualify and the Episcopalians got the organ. It was used in Boston until 1756 and then sold to St. Paul's church in Newburyport, where it was in con- stant use for eighty years, after which it was acquired for the State street Chapel of the Portsmouth church, where it still gives forth sweet sounds every Lord's day. High up on the pulpit of King's Chapel stood a quaint hour-glass richly mounted in brass and suspended from the pillars, then as now, were the escutcheons of Sir Edmund Andros, Reign of the Royal Governors 301 Francis Nicholson, Captain Hamilton, and the governors Dudley, Shute, Burnet, Belcher and Shirley. It was arranged that the royal gov- ernor and his deputy were always to be of the vestry. Joseph Dudley accordingly hung up his armorial bearings and took his place under the canopy and drapery of the state pew as soon as ever he came back to the land in which his father had been a distinguished Puritan. There is nothing to show that he did not do this conscientiously, however. Certainly it must have been much pleasanter here for a governor than in the bare meeting-houses where everything he might or might not do would be counted to his discredit. During Colonel Shute 's term of office the smallpox, which Boston had escaped for nearly twenty years, again visited the town (1721). Nearly six thousand people contracted the dis- ease, of whom almost one thousand died. In- oculation was urged and Cotton Mather did really noble service in pushing its propaganda, soon converting to his belief in the efficacy of the practice Dr. Zabdiel Boylston, an eminent physician, and Benjamin Colman, first minis- ter of the Brattle street Church and for nearly half a century (1701-1747) one of the famous preachers of the Province. Dr. William Doug- 302 St. Botolph's Town las was the chief opponent of the new theory and he printed in the paper of the Franklins his attacks upon those who nrged it. Two years after the sconrge Shute went to England on a visit from which he never returned, and Lieutenant Governor William Dummer took the chair, which, as the event proved, he was to occnpy for nearly six years. During this interim both Increase and Cot- ton Mather died, the one in 1723, the other five years later. The father had preached sixty- six years and had presided over Harvard Col- lege for twenty; the son was in the pulpit forty-seven years and was one of the over- seers of the college. To bear him to his bury- ing-place on Copp's Hill six of the first min- isters of Boston gave their services, and the body was followed by all the principal officials, ministers, scholars and men of affairs, while the streets were thronged and the windows were filled " with sorrowful spectators/ ' How ex- pensive this funeral was I do not know, but when Thomas Salter died (in 1714) the bill was as follows: £ s. d. 50 yds of Plush 10 8 4 24 yds. silk crepe . . . . 2 16 9 3-8 black cloth 11 5 10 yards fustian . . . . - 16 8 GOVERNOR WILLIAM BURNET Reign of the Royal Governors 303 Wadding 6 9 Stay tape and buckram 7 7 6 13 yds. shalloon . 2 12 To making ye cloths . 4 17 Fans and girdles . 10 Gloves .... 10 9 6 Hatte, shoes, stockings 3 15 50 1 2 yds. lutestring . 25 5 Several rings 3 10 Also buttons, silk, cloggs 2 yards of cypress 3 10 To 33 gallons of wine @ 4s. 6 d 7 8 6 To 12 ozs. spice @ 18d . 18 To 1-4 cwt. sugar @ 7s . 18 To opening ye Tomb . > To ringing ye Bells [ 3 10 To ye Pauls ) Doctor's and nurse's bills 10 — the whole amounting to over £100. Enter now as governor William Burnet, son of the historian bishop. He arrived in Boston July 13, 1728, and was escorted from the Neck to the Bunch of Grapes Tavern by a large body of enthusiastic citizens, among them the fa- mous Mather Byles, who dropped into poetry on this as on many a later occasion of state. Burnet had in his train a tutor, a black laun- dress, a steward and a French cook. Upon the latter, as will be easily understood, the Bos- tonians gazed with particular awe. But Bur- net was merely preparing to live here as he 304 St. Botolph's Town had lived in England and, later, in New York. He was a true English gentleman, cultivated, courteous, affable and inclined to be all things to all men. Had he come in any other capacity than that of royal governor he would have found life in Boston exceedingly agreeable. But one of his instructions was to push the matter of salary, and as soon as this matter was broached the people forgot that he was personally a delightful man. As if to avert any plea of poverty which the House might advance, he referred in his first address, ask- ing for a salary of £1,000, to the lavish fashion in which he had been welcomed. But this quite failed to make those whom he would have con- ciliated agree to what he demanded. They had planted themselves once and for all where the war of the Eevolution found them — on the position that all " impositions, taxes and dis- bursements of money were to be made by their own freewill, and not by dictation of king, council or parliament. ' ' "We must, as George E. Ellis lucidly points out in his study of the royal governors, honour their pluck and prin- ciple, while at the same time doing justice to the " firm loyalty, the self-respect, the dignity and persistency, with which Burnet stood to his instructions, nobly rejecting as an attempt Reign of the Royal Governors 305 at bribery, all the evasive ingenuity of the recusant House in offering him three times the sum as a present, while he was straitened by actual pecuniary need." The dissension which followed after this question had been broached was harsh in the extreme and, in the midst of it, the governor, while driving from Cambridge to Boston in his carriage, was overturned on the causeway, cast into the water and so chilled as to be thrown into a fever from which he died on September 7, 1729. The Bostonians seem to have realized that chagrin and excitement probably played as much part in hastening his end as the ducking which was the immedi- ate cause of it, and they buried him with great pomp at an expense of eleven hundred pounds. The funeral was conducted after the English fashion and not in the slightly mitigated Puri- tan manner of Cotton Mather's interment. (Before Mather's day there had been wont to be no service whatever, the company coming together at the tolling of a bell, carrying the body solemnly to the grave and standing by until it was covered with earth and that, not in consecrated ground, but in some such enclo- sure by the roadside as one sees frequently to-day in sparsely settled country villages.) 306 St. Botolph's Town Gloves and rings were given to the mourning members of the General Court, and the minis- ters of King's Chapel, to three physicians, the bearers, the president of Harvard College and the women who laid ont the body ; while gloves only were given to the under-bearers, the jus- tices, the captains of the castle and of the man- of-war in the harbour, to officers of the cus- toms, professors and fellows of the college, and the ministers of Boston who happened to at- tend the funeral. Wine in abundance was fur- nished to the Boston regiment. Apropos of Governor Burnet's funeral Mr. Arthur Gil- man states in his readable " Story of Boston " that the distribution of rings was common on such occasions, and until 1721 gloves and scarfs were also given away. But in 1741 wine and rum were forbidden to be distributed as scarfs had been forbidden twenty years earlier. (There had, however, been some advance since the time of Charles II, when on the occasion of the burying of a lord, as the oration was being delivered " a large pot of wine stood upon the coffin, out of which everyone drank to the health of the deceased.") Five years after Burnet's death the General Court voted his orphan children three thousand pounds. Reign of the Royal Governors 307 And now we come to the appointment of Belcher, with whom this chapter opened. He was in London, on the Province's behalf, at the time when the news of Burnet's death ar- rived and, by the exercise of not a little diplo- macy, he managed to get himself commissioned governor (January 8, 1730), and so was able to land in Boston from a warship in the au- tumn of that same year. He also was received with signs of rejoicing, accompanied by the in- evitable sermon. To his credit, it should be said, that he alone, of the governors chosen by the king, seems to have stood faithful to his paternal religion. He gave the land for the Hollis Street Church, of which Rev. Mather Byles, Sr., was minister, and, for many years, lived conveniently near to this parish of which he was a patron. The house still standing in Cambridge, with which Belcher's name is asso- ciated, was an inheritance from his father and had passed out of his hands ten years before he became governor. Apart from the salary matter, concerning which he of course strove with no more and no less success than his predecessors, Belcher's administration of eleven years was a very peaceable one. I have elsewhere 1 given an 1 See " Among Old New England Inns." 308 St. Botolph's Town account of the very interesting journey that he and his Council made to Deerfield for the purpose of settling a grievance of the Indians in that section. The governor lost his wife during his term of office and the News-Letter of October 14, 1736, obligingly describes in de- tail the ensuing funeral : " The Eev. Dr. Sewall made a very suitable prayer. The coffin was covered with black vel- vet and richly adorned. The pall was sup- ported by the Honourable Spencer Phipps Esq., our Lieutenant-Governor; William Dum- mer Esq., formerly Lieutenant Governor and Commander-in Chief of this province; Benja- min Lynde, Esq., Thomas Hutchinson, Esq., Edmund Quincy, Esq., and Adam Winthrop Esq. His Excellency, with his children and family followed the corpse all in deep mourn- ing; next went the several relatives, according to their respective degrees, who were followed by a great many of the principal gentlewomen in town; after whom went the gentlemen of His Majesty's Council; the reverend ministers of this and the neighbouring towns the rev- erend President and Fellows of Harvard Col- lege; a great number of officers both of the civil and military order, with a number of other gentlemen. Reign of the Royal Governors 309 " His Excellency's coach, drawn by four horses, was covered with black cloth and adorned with escutcheons of the coats of arms both of his Excellency and of his deceased lady [She had been the daughter of Lieutenant Gov- ernor William Partridge of New Hampshire]. All the bells in town were tolled; and during the time of the procession the half minute guns begun, first at His Majesty's Castle William, which were followed by those on board His Majesty's ship ' Squirrel ' and many other ships in the harbour their colors being all day raised to the heighth as usual on such occa- sions. The streets through which the funeral passed, the tops of the houses and windows on both sides, were crowded with innumerable spectators." Belcher was removed from his post in Bos- ton May 6, 1741, and, after an interval of four years, was made governor of New Jersey, where he was welcomed with open arms and did much to help Jonathan Edwards — in whose " Great Awakening " he had been deeply interested — put Princeton University on its feet. But he always retained his affec- tion for his native place and he enjoined that his remains be brought to Cambridge and bur- ied in the cemetery adjoining Christ Church, in 310 St. Botolph's Town the same grave with his cousin Judge Reming- ton, who had been his ardent friend. He died August 31, 1757. He was succeeded in Boston by William Shirley, a man whose stay here was bound up with such an interesting romance that I have chosen to discuss his career along with the events traced in the next chapter. It must, however, be plain by now that Boston has ad- vanced a long way from the prim town over which the Mathers held sway. Already it has become the scene and centre of a miniature court, with the state, the forms and the cere- monies appertaining thereto. Gold lace, ruffled cuffs, scarlet uniform and powdered wigs are by this time to be encountered everywhere on the street, and even when the governor went to the Thursday lecture he was richly attired and escorted by halberds. The bulk of the peo- ple to be sure are still thrifty mechanics, indus- trious and plain-living; but there are many persons of wealth, intelligence and culture, and these throng King's Chapel on Sunday. For the Brocade Age has dawned. XIV A GENUINE COLONIAL ROMANCE No single individual contributed more gen- erously to King's Chapel than Sir Charles Harry Frankland, the hero of Boston's most charming colonial romance. Frankland 's inti- mate friend Governor Shirley laid the corner- stone of the present building (in 1749) and both gentlemen seem to have felt keen interest that services here should flourish. This we must needs keep in mind about Frankland as we follow the outlines of his life-story. For it serves to prove, in a way, the contention of the Boston Puritans that loyalty to Church of England doctrines did not of necessity influence greatly in the middle of the eighteenth century the private life of those in high places. When Jonathan Belcher was transferred from the governorship of Massachusetts to that of New Jersey and, by the death of John Jekyl, the office of collector of the port of Bos- ton became at the same time vacant, the choice 311 312 St. Botolph's Town of these royal favours was offered by the Duke of Newcastle to the nephew of Sir Thomas Frankland, then one of the Lords of the Ad- miralty. This nephew — who was also heir- presumptive to the baronetcy and to the family estates at Thirkleby and Mattersea — was, however, a young man of only twenty-four at this time and could boast no previous experi- ence in colonial affairs, as could William Shir- ley, — a lawyer who had already lived seven years in this country. The outcome of the matter was therefore, that Shirley, whose wife had strong influence at court, was made gov- ernor and Frankland came to New England as collector of the port of Boston. Both were well born, highly-bred English- men, Frankland resembling both in manners and person the Earl of Chesterfield, whom he had the happiness to count among his friends. He had been born in Bengal, where his father was a colonial officer, and to this fact his sym- pathetic biographer, the Beverend Elias Na- son, attributes the trend of his talents towards art and literature rather than towards politics or trade. In Frankland 's face, also, with its noble cast of features and its expression of peculiar melancholy may be discerned that strain of introspection and self -analysis which GOVERNOR WILLIAM SHIRLEY A Genuine Colonial Romance 313 not infrequently characterizes the Eastern-born children of English parents. Both Frankland and Shirley were, of course, bound to count immensely in Boston society of that time. The important question of the day in the highest circles of the town was " How is this done at court? " And here were two handsome fellows who could tell with ex- actness just the procedure fitting on each and every state occasion. By the Amorys, Ap- thorps, Bollans, Hutchinsons, Prices, Auch- mutys, Chardons, Wendells, and Olivers, who held the money, offices and power in the chief settlement of New England, they were there- fore welcomed with the greatest enthusiasm. Nason, who has made a careful if limited study of the society which greeted them, tells us that it is hardly possible for us to conceive what distinction title, blood, escutcheon, and family conferred in that regime. " Those gentlemen and ladies who occupied the north, or court end of the town, who read the Spectator, Sam- uel Kichardson's Pamela and the prayer-book, who had manors of a thousand acres in the country cultivated by slaves from Africa . . . were many of them allied to the first families in England and it was their chief ambition to keep up the ceremonies and customs of the 314 St. Botolph's Town aristocratic society which they represented. A baronet was then approached with greatest deference; a coach and four with an armorial bearing and liveried servants was a munition against indignity; the stamp of the crown upon a piece of paper, even, invested it with an association almost sacred. In those digni- taries, — who in brocade vest, goldlace coat, broad raffled sleeves and small clothes; who, with three-cornered hat and powdered wig, side-arms and silver shoe buckles, promenaded Queen street and the Mall, spread themselves through the King's chapel, or discussed the measures of the Pelhams, Walpole and Pitt, at the Eose and Crown, — as much of aristocratic pride, as much of courtly consequence dis- played itself, as in the frequenters of Hyde Park or Eegent street.' ' An excellent contemporaneous description of life in Boston at just this period has come down to us in the manuscript of a Mr. Bennett, from which Horace E. Scudder quotes freely in the invaluable Memorial History: " There are several families in Boston that keep a coach and pair of horses, and some few drive with four horses ; but for chaises and saddle-horses, considering the bulk of the place they outdo London. . . . Their roads, though they have A Genuine Colonial Romance 315 no turnpikes are exceedingly good in summer; and it is safe travelling night or day for they have no high-way robbers to interrupt them. It is pleasant riding through the woods; and the country is pleasantly interspersed with farmhouses, cottages, and some few gentle- men's seats between the towns. When the ladies drive out to take the air, it is generally in a chaise or chair, and then but a single horse, and they have a negro servant to drive them. The gentlemen ride out here as in England, some in chairs, and others on horseback, with their negroes to attend them. They travel in much the same manner on business as for pleasure, and are attended in both by their black equipages. . . . " For their domestic amusements, every afternoon, after drinking tea, the gentlemen and ladies walk the Mall, and from thence ad- journ to one another's house to spend the eve- ning, — those that are not disposed to attend the evening lecture; which they may do, if they please, six nights in seven the year round. What they call the Mall is a walk on a fine green common adjoining to the south-west side of the town. It is near half a mile over, with two rows of young trees planted opposite to each other, with a fine footway between in 316 St. Botolph's Town imitation of St. James Park; and part of the bay of the sea which encircles the town, taking its course along the north-west side of the Common, — by which it is bounded on the one side and by the country on the other, — forms a beautiful canal in view of the walk. . . . Not- withstanding plays and such like diversions do not obtain here [the famous performance of Otway's " Orphan " at the British Coffee House, with its attendant theatrical riot, did not occur until 1750] they don't seem to be dispirited nor moped for want of them, for both ladies and gentlemen dress and appear as gay, in common, as courtiers in England on a coronation or birthday. . . ." It is this Boston that we see in the pictures of Copley, himself a Bostonian by birth, and described by Trumbull, when he visited him in London, as an " elegant-looking man, dressed in a fine maroon cloth with gilt buttons." Small wonder that a young man who became the pet of a Boston like this felt that he could not marry, even though he must needs love, a girl whom he had found scrubbing the floor of a public house. The time of that historic first encounter at the Fountain Inn in quaint old Marblehead between these famous lovers was the summer of 1742. Frankland's official du- SIR HARRY FRANKLAND A Genuine Colonial Romance 317 ties had sent him riding down to Marblehead where the fortification, since named and to-day still known as Fort Sewall, was then just being built (at an expense of almost seven hundred pounds) for the defence of the harbour against French cruisers. On the way to the fort he stopped for a draught of cooling ale at the Inn where Agnes did odd jobs for a few shillings a month. And lo! scrubbing the tavern floor there knelt before him a beautiful child-girl of six- teen, with black curling hair, shy dark eyes and a voice that proved to be of exquisite sweetness, when the maiden, glancing up, gave her good-day to the gallant's greeting. The girl's feet were bare, and this so moved Frank- land's compassion that he gently gave her a piece of gold with which to buy shoes and stockings. Then he rode thoughtfully away to conduct his business at the fort. But he did not by any means forget that charming child just budding into winsome womanhood whom he had seen performing with patience and grace the duties that fell to her lot as the poor daughter of some honest hard-working fisher-folk of the town. When he happened to be again in Marblehead on busi- ness he inquired at once for her, and then, see* 318 St. Botolph's Town ing her feet still without shoes and stockings, asked a bit teasingly what she had done with the money he gave her. Quite frankly she re- plied, blushing the while, that the shoes and stockings were bought but that she kept them to wear to meeting. This reply and the sight for the second time of the girl engaged in heavy work for which her slender figure and delicate face showed her to be wholly unfitted put it into Frankland's head to take her away to Boston and educate her for less menial employment. The consent of the girl's parents to this proposal appears to have been given with rather surprising read- iness; but it is more than likely that Agnes took the matter into her own hands, as many a girl since has done, and that to permit her to go was regarded as the wiser course. Women matured early in those days, and a strong reciprocal emotion, innocent though it undoubtedly was in its nature, must have been aroused in this girl's heart by the ardent ad- miration of the handsome gentleman from Boston. Moreover the Beverend Dr. Edward Holyoke, who had been the family pastor at Marblehead, was now president of Harvard College, and it was probably expected that he HP^ i y n A Genuine Colonial Romance 319 would exercise pastoral oversight over this maiden he had known so long. To do Frankland justice, however, it should at once be said that his intentions at the start seem only to have been those of a friendly guardian. If the heir to Sir Thomas Frank- land is seized with a benevolent impulse and wishes to undertake the expense of educating a young person of humble parentage, who is there to say him nay? Mrs. Shirley might laughingly shake her finger at him and tell him to " beware " on one of those occasions when Agnes has looked unusually charming while dining with her and her daughters at Shirley House in Eoxbury, but Frankland would of course protest his excellent intentions, — and the matter would be dropped. It seems to me, indeed, as I examine the evi- dence, that the relation between these two con- tinued to be that of ward and guardian until Agnes was well over eighteen, the age at which a girl becomes legally her own mistress. For several years she is taught reading, writing, grammar, music and embroidery by the best tutors the town can provide, and though she grows steadily in beauty and maidenly charm she still retains that childish sweetness and 320 St. Botolph's Town simplicity which first won Frankland's heart. Then these two suddenly discover that they are all in all to each other. The thought of being separated is insupportable to them both. But Frankland has been suddenly elevated to the baronetcy and is no longer his own master. Agnes 's father, on the other hand, has died and there is no one to take the matter firmly in hand on her behalf. And so it comes about that this low-born girl and this high-born man find themselves in a situation for which Agnes is to pay by many a day of tears and Sir Harry by many a night of bitter self-reproach. Of course he paid in money, too. How else can one understand his purchase, for the sum of fifty pounds " lawful money," at the close of the year 1745 of Mrs. Surriage's " right and title to one seventh part of a vast tract of land in Maine " inherited by her from her father? Frankland never did anything with this land and the grantor's title to it was none too clear. One can only conclude, therefore, that this transfer of fifty pounds was by way of deli- cately making a substantial gift to the widowed mother of the girl the baronet felt himself to be wronging. We caught a hint from Dunton's letters that Boston morality had been somewhat vitiated A Genuine Colonial Romance 321 by the introduction of the habits and standards of crown officials. By Frankland 's time many a thing for which a man would have had to suffer the stocks and women the ducking-stool — or worse — in the old days was winked at because the parties concerned sat in high places. The heart of the people was still sound, however, and those Puritan maidens who had been Agnes 's school-fellows, naturally shrank from her when they came to realize that she and the collector of the port of Boston were unwedded lovers. Gradually, too, the ladies whose good opinion Frankland valued grew in- dignant at him. Thus it was that at this stage of the story he decided to live in rural Hop- kinton rather than in censorious Boston. Already a former rector of King's Chapel, the Eeverend Eoger Price, had purchased land and started a mission church in this charming village of Middlesex county. From him Frank- land bought nearly four hundred acres, build- ing upon them (in 1751) a commodious man- sion house. The following year he and Agnes took up their abode on the place. Here it was, then, that Frankland wrote the greater part of that interesting Journal, which is still pre- served in the rooms of the Massachusetts His- torical Society, of two hundred hand-written 322 St. Botolph's Town pages and which reflects so strikingly the man's varying moods. Of politics there is here and there a dash, of horticulture one finds a great deal, of current events there are interest- ing mentions ; but the bulk of the book is given over to philosophical reflection that bears wit- ness to the strain of introspection in Frank- land's temperament and stamps him at once as far removed from the careless libertine some writers would make him out. Under the date of March 17, 1755, we read: " Mr. Coles gathers anemone seed. Wrote by packet to mother; Park and Willis for shoes. Paid for shaving in full for this and the next month. " Nothing considerable can ever be done by the colonies in the present disturbed state. The plan of union as concerted by the commis- sioners at Albany, if carried into execution, would soon make a formidable people. . . . " The uneasiness thou feelest; the misfor- tunes thou bewailest; behold the root from which they spring, even thine own folly, thine own pride, thine own distempered fancy. . . . " In all thy desires, let reason go along with thee; and fix not thy hope beyond the bounds of probability, so shall success attend thy un- dertakings, and thy heart shall not be vexed with disappointments. ' ' A Genuine Colonial Romance 323 Horticulture was Frankland's delight and he introduced upon the Hopkinton estate a great variety of the choicest fruit, — such as apples, pears, plums, peaches, cherries of excellent quality, apricots and quinces from England, — and upon the extensive grounds of the place he set out elms and other ornamental trees, embellishing the walks of his garden with box lilac and hawthorn. The interchange of gar- dening advice and of recipes was the favourite amenity of the day and we find a Boston ac- quaintance sending to the baronet with a box of lemons, these lines: " You know from Eastern India came The skill of making punch as did the name. And as the name consists of letters five, By five ingredients is it kept alive. To purest water sugar must be joined, With these the grateful acid is combined. Some any sours they get contented use, But men of taste do that from Tagus choose. When now these three are mixed with care Then added be of spirit a small share. And that you may the drink quite perfect see Atop the musky nut must grated be." That Sir Harry's Arcady never came to bore him was very likely due to these diversions and occupations. Moreover, he had his dozen slaves to oversee, there was good fishing as 324 St. Botolph's Town — * well as good hunting, — and Agnes had a mind able to share with him the enjoyment of the latest works of Richardson, Steele, Swift, Addi- son and Pope, sent over in big boxes from England. The country about Hopkinton was then, as to-day, a wonder of hill and valley, meadow and stream, while only a dozen miles or so from Frankland Hall was the famous Wayside Inn where his men friends could put up by night after enjoying by day the hunting and wines he had to offer. Then the village rector was always to be counted on for com- panionship and breezy chat. For that worthy seems not to have felt it his duty to admonish Frankland. And Sir Harry, on the other hand, carefully observed all the forms of his religion and treated Agnes with all the respect due a wife. He still continued, however, to neglect the one attention which would have made her really happy. A close approach to death was needed to bring this duty home to him. I have elsewhere 1 told the story of the visit these two made to Lisbon in 1755 and of Agnes 's heroic action in her lover's behalf dur- ing the earthquake of that year. Frankland's awful suffering it was, at the time when he lay pinned down by fallen stone and tortured x See " Romance of Old New England Roof -Trees." A Genuine Colonial Romance 325 almost beyond endurance by the pain of the wound in his arm, that brought him to himself. He then solemnly vowed to amend his life and atone to Agnes, if God in his mercy should see fit to deliver him, and he wasted not a moment, after his rescue, in executing his pledge to Heaven. His spirit had been effectually chas- tened, as the Journal shows. For he there writes down " Hope my providential escape will have a lasting good effect upon my mind." The summer of 1756 was passed by the knight and his lady at Hopkinton but the following October Frankland purchased of Thomas Greenough, for the sum of twelve hun- dred pounds sterling the celebrated Clarke mansion on Garden Court street, Boston. This is the house described in Cooper's Lionel Lin- coln (although there incorrectly said to stand on Tremont street) and it adjoined the far- famed Hutchinson house whose splendour it was intended to rival. The site was all that could be desired and the house itself was, for that period, very elegant and commodious. It was built of brick, three stories high, and con- tained in all twenty- six rooms. It had inlaid floors, carved mantels and stairs so broad and low that Sir Harry could and did ride his pony up and down them with safety. This amuse- 326 St. Botolph's Town ment was probably a feature of those stag- parties held during his wife's absence in Hop- kinton, in the course of which Frankland used his famous wine-glass of double thickness, a possession which enabled him to keep sober long after all his guests were under the table. The kind of congratulatory letters received now by Sir Harry and his Agnes may be guessed from the following, for the use of which I am indebted to Mrs. S. H. Swan of Cambridge. The writer of this letter was Ed- mund Quincy, father of Hancock's Dorothy, who lived from 1740 - 1752 on the south side of Summer street, Boston, — in which house his famous daughter was born May 10, 1747. " Braintree, Nov. 30, 1756. " To Sir H. Frankland: "As ye unhap. situation of my affairs [he had been unfortunate in business] has depM me of ye satisfaction of long since waiting upon yourself and lady & personally congrat- ulating your safe & happy return into this prov. after so remarkable a protection wh ye G't Author & preserver of all things was pleas 'd to afford you at Lisbon, on ye never to be forgotten 10th of Nov. last, I hope yr good- A Genuine Colonial Romance 327 ness will excuse an epistolary tender of my sin- cerest complements on ye pleasing occasion. "I'm agreeably informed that you have pur- chased ye mansion of ye late Mr. Clarke, & I hope with a view to settlement for life in ye town of Boston, whose very declining state ren- ders ye favor you may have done that town in ye choice ye more distinguished. As testimony of my respect & gratitude I have taken ye free- dom to send you, a trifling collection of some of ye fruits of ye season produced on the place of my birth, on which (tho' mine no more!) I have yet a residence. It asks yr. candid ac- ceptance, if more & better I sh'd be ye more pleased. Tel qu'il est, permit me ye pleasure of assuring you that it is accompanied by the sincerest regard of, Sir, Yr. most obedient & very humble S't e. Q." As Lady Frankland Agnes was cordially re- ceived by those who had formerly looked coldly upon her, and the spacious parlours, with their fluted columns, elaborately carved, their richly gilded pilasters and cornices, their wainscoted walls and panels, embellished with beautiful landscape scenery, were the background for many an elegant tea-party and reception. The Inmans, the Bowes, the Greenoughs and the 328 St. Botolph's Town Sheafes were constantly entertained at snpper and dinner here, and Dr. Timothy Cutler, first rector of Christ Church (built in 1723 when the Episcopalians of the town became too numer- ous to be accommodated in King's Chapel) was a frequent and an honoured guest. Very likely the good old man many a time talked over with Lady Frankland in a quiet corner of her own sitting-room the best ways of launching in life the children of her sister Mary, whose guar- dian she had become. All in all it was a good and gracious life that the humbly-born Marble- head girl led in her noble mansion-house on Garden Court street. Warm weather, of course, found the family often at Hopkinton. Once they had a narrow escape from a tragic end while making the journey from their country to their town house. The account of this may be found in the New Hampshire Gazette of September 2, 1757: " Boston August 20, 1757. Thursday last as Sir Henry Frankland and his lady were coming into town in their chariot, a number of boys were gunning on Boston neck — notwithstand- ing there is an express law to the contrary, — when one of them discharging his piece at a bird missed the same, and almost the whole charge of shot came into the chariot where Sir A Genuine Colonial Romance 329 Henry and his lady were, several of which en- tered his hat and clothes, and one grazed his face but did no other damage to him or lady." Frankland's health, however, was not rugged and in July, 1757, he sought and obtained the post of consul-general to Lisbon, a place for which he was well fitted by reason of his knowl- edge of the language and customs of the coun- try. The entries in the Journal concerning the articles which he determined to purchase in London " for Lisbon " are interesting: " silver castors; wine glasses like Pownal's; two turreens; saucers for water glasses, des- sert knives and forks and spoons ; common tea- kettle; jelly and syllabub glasses; fire-grate; long dishes ; tea cups etc., clothes etc., for Lady Frankland. Consul's seal; combs; mahogany tray, press for table-linen and sheets; stove for flatirons ; glass for live flea for microscope ; Hoyle's Treatise on Whist; Dr. Doddridge's Exposition on the New Testament, 16 hand- some chairs with two settees and 2 card tables, working table like Mrs. F. F. Gardner's." Our hero, it will be observed, has now be- come a thorough-going family man. It is greatly to be regretted that his Journal no longer deals with Boston and its affairs, for he seems in a fair way to become as gossipy 330 St. Botolph's Town as the delicious Sewall. Once he pnts down the weight of all the ladies taking part in a certain pleasure excursion, — we thus know that Lady Frankland weighed 135 pounds at the age of thirty- six, — and again he tells us that linseed oil is excellent to preserve knives from rust ! The year 1763 found the pair back once more for a brief visit in Boston and Hopkinton. But Frankland could not stand our east winds and so the following winter he returned again to the old country, settling down at Bath to the business of drinking the waters. In the Jour- nal he writes : "I endeavor to keep myself calm and sedate. I live modestly and avoid ostentation, decently and not above my condi- tion, and do not entertain a number of para- sites who forget favors the moment they de- part from my table. ... I cannot suffer a man of low condition to exceed me in good man- ners." A little later we read that he is now bed-ridden. He died at Bath, January 2, 1768, at the age of fifty-two and was, at his own re- quest, buried in the parish churchyard there. Agnes almost immediately came back to Bos- ton and, with her sister and sister's children, took up her residence at Hopkinton. There she remained, living a peaceful happy life A Genuine Colonial Romance 331 among her flowers, her friends and her books until the outbreak of the Bevolution, when it seemed to her wise to go in to her town house. The following entry relative to this is found in the records of the committee of safety: " May 15, 1775. Upon application of Lady Frankland, voted that she have liberty to pass into Boston with the following goods and ar- ticles for her voyage, viz. 6 trunks: 1 chest: 3 beds and bedding : 6 wethers : 2 pigs : 1 small keg of pickled tongues: some hay: 3 bags of corn: and such other goods as she thinks proper.' ' So, defended by a guard of six soldiers, the beautiful widow entered the besieged city about the first of June and thus was able to view from the windows of her mansion the imposing spectacle of Bunker Hill. With her own hands, too, she assuaged the sufferings of the British wounded on that occasion. For, of course, she was an ardent Tory. Then, too, General Bur- goyne had been among her intimates in the happy Lisbon days. Eather oddly, neither of Lady Frankland 's estates were confiscated, but she herself found it convenient soon to sail for England, where she lived on the estate of the Frankland fam- ily until, in 1782, she married Mr. John Drew, 332 St. Botolph's Town a rich banker of Chichester. And in Chiches- ter she died in one year's time. It is greatly to be regretted that no portrait of her is ob- tainable, for she must have been very lovely, — and she certainly stands without a rival as a heroine of Boston romance. XV THE DAWN OF ACTIVE BESISTANCE No institution in the life of early Boston played a more important part in promoting the break with the mother-country than the tav- ern. 1 The attitude of a man towards England soon came to be known by the public house where he spent his evenings, and from the time of the establishment of the Eoyal Exchange (1711), which stood on the southwest corner of Exchange and State street, a line of cleav- age between kingsmen and others was faintly to be discerned. When Luke Vardy became landlord here the place took on the colour which has made it famous. It was then the resort of all the young bloods of the town, who, brave in velvet and ruffles, in powdered hair and periwigs, swore by the king and drank deep draughts of life and liquor. This tavern was distinctly the resort of the British officers and many an international romance is connected 1 For further data on this subject see " Old New England Inns." 333 334 St. Botolph's Town with the house, — notably that of Susanna Sheafe (eldest daughter of the Deputy), and the dashing Captain Ponsonby Molesworth, whom the maiden saw marching by with his soldiers as she stood in the balcony of the inn. Molesworth was immediately captivated by her beauty and pointing her out to a brother of- ficer exclaimed, ' ' Jove ! that girl seals my fate ! ' ' She did, very soon after, a clergyman assisting. The Bunch of Grapes, too, though later as- sociated with many a Bevolutionary feast, was, in the early part of the eighteenth century, a favourite resort of the royal representatives. It stood on what is now the west corner of Kilby street, on State street, and hither Gov- ernor William Burnet was enthusiastically es- corted by a large body of citizens upon his arrival in 1728. Governor Pownall, too, fre- quented the house, and there is a pleasant story of a kiss which he once delivered, stand- ing on a chair there. Pownall was a short, corpulent person but a great ladies' man, and it was his habit to salute every woman to whom he was introduced with a sounding smack upon the cheek. One day a tall dame was presented and he requested her to stoop to meet his prof- fered courtesy. " Nay, I'll stoop to no man, GOVERNOR POWNALL The Dawn of Active Resistance 335 — not even to yonr Excellency, ' ' exclaimed the lady, with a hanghty toss of her head. ' ' Then I'll stoop to yon, madam," readily retorted the gallant governor, and springing to a chair be- side her he bent over to do his obeisance. Ere long, however, there came a time when a scarlet coat was an inflammatory signal in the tap-room of this inn. Pownall was rather less to blame for this, though, than any of the governors, who had preceded him. Our gallant hero had been in Boston twice before, in the em- ploy of Shirley, before he came to the town as governor (August 3, 1757), and he really had an intelligent idea of the underlying causes of the then smouldering American resentment. To be sure, he stood calmly and firmly for the pre- rogative of the king; but he appears to have divined tendencies, already at work, towards throwing off the yoke of royalty. At his own request, he was recalled, after a short term of service, and it so happened that from 1768- 1780 he was a member of Parliament. Thus he was able to use, in our behalf, the experi- ence he had gained while here. But his advice and protests were not regarded in England and he lived to see us take a place among the nations in fulfilment of his own prophecies. After Pownall had sailed back to England 336 St. Botolph's Town (June 3, 1760) Thomas Hutchinson, the lieu- tenant-governor, had a chance to try his hand at the helm. To relieve him there soon came Sir Francis Bernard, who seems to have been, personally, a very delightful gentleman, but who, as the king's representative, had a most unhappy time of it while in Boston. Before his appointment to Massachusetts Bernard had been the successful administrator of affairs in New Jersey and he had high hopes, therefore, of getting on well with the Puritans. Writing to Lord Barrington of the matter he said, ' ■ As for the people, I am assured that I may depend upon a quiet and easy administration. I shall have no points of government to dispute about, no schemes of self-interest to pursue. The people are well disposed to live upon good terms with the Governor and with one another ; and I hope I may not want to be directed by a junto or supported by a party; and that I shall find there, as I have done here, that plain- dealing, integrity and disinterestedness make the best system of policy.' ' This optimistic vision was destined speedily to be dispelled by the facts. Though he was met, near Dedham, on his journey from New Jersey, by a number of gentlemen in " coaches and chariots," the new governor had hardly SIR FRANCIS BERNARD The Dawn of Active Resistance 337 reached the seat of his province when things began to look blue for him. In his first speech to the Assembly (which came immediately after the fall of Montreal), he maladroitly put his hearers in mind of the blessings they de- rived from their " subjection to Great Britain, without which they could not now have been a free people; for no other power on earth could have delivered them from the power they had to contend with." Hutchinson, in his nar- rative of this and succeeding events relates that " the Council, in their address, acknowl- edge that to their relation to Great Britain they owe their present freedom. . . . The House, without scrupling to make in express words the acknowledgement of their subjec- tion, nevertheless explain the nature of it. They are ' sensible of the blessings derived to the British Colonies from their subjection to Great Britain; and the whole world must be sensible of the blessings derived to Great Brit- ain from the loyalty of the Colonies in gen- eral, and for the efforts of this province in particular; which, for more than a century past, has been wading in blood and laden with the expenses of repelling the common enemy; without which effort Great Britain, at this day, might have had no Colonies to defend/ " 338 St. Botolph's Town The truth was that gratitude to Great Brit- ain was an emotion very remote, just then, from the mind of Boston. For two enactments of long standing, — but which, from disuse, had not hitherto been oppressive, — were now being very unpleasantly brought home to the people. The Navigation Act of Charles II and the Sugar Act of 1733 had been far from ac- ceptable to the New Englanders, but so long as there seemed slight disposition to enforce these statutes nobody minded them much. Then Pitt fell, and there came into power new men who were only creatures of the young king (George III), — and an era of experimen- tation, so far as the colonies was concerned, was immediately inaugurated. Governor Bernard was especially instructed to see that the decrees of the English Board of Trade in regard to the collection of duties and the restriction of commerce were enforced. He therefore ranged himself with Hutchinson and Charles Paxton when there came a question of assisting customs officers in the execution of their duty. Hutchinson, as it happened, was Chief-justice of the superior court as well as lieutenant-governor, and it was, therefore, within his power to issue what came to be known as the Writs of Assistance, permits by JAMES OTIS The Dawn of Active Resistance 339 means of which officers could forcibly enter dwelling-houses, stores and warehouses in search of goods which they believed, rightly or wrongly, to be smuggled. Charles Paxton, head of the Boston Custom House, who insti- gated the granting of these writs, was hung in effigy from the Boston Liberty Tree as a sign of the hatred his act inspired in the people. James Otis, on the other hand, a part of whose duty as advocate-general it would have been to support the cause of the customs officers, resigned his position under the Crown and en- gaged himself to argue, for the suffering mer- chants of Boston, against the legality of the writs! Thus there stepped upon the stage of the world's history, for the first time, one of the most brilliant men America has ever produced. The scene of the now-famous trial, in which Otis played so important a part, was the coun- cil-chamber of the Old Boston Town House, an imposing and elegant apartment at the east end of the building, ornamented with fine full- length portraits of Charles II and James II. Hutchinson presided and there were also in attendance four associate judges, wearing great wigs on their heads and rich scarlet robes upon their backs. Thronging the court- 340 St. Botolph's Town room were the chief citizens and officers of the Crown, all of whom well understood that a mat- ter of enormous importance was to be debated. Among the young lawyers who were present on that important day was John Adams, a fresh-faced youth who had come up from his home in Braintree to hear what should be said. In his old age he wrote to William Tudor a description of the scene, which brings vividly before us the actors and the parts they took: " Eound a great fire were seated five judges, with Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson at their head as Chief-Justice, all arrayed in their new fresh rich robes of scarlet English broadcloth; in their large cambric bands and immense judi- cial wigs. At a long table were all the barris- ter s-at-law of Boston and of the neighboring county of Middlesex, in gowns, bands and tie- wigs. They were not seated on ivory chairs, but their dress was more solemn and more pompous than that of the Eoman senate, when the Gauls broke in upon them. Two portraits of more than full length of King Charles the Second and of King James the Second, in splendid golden frames were hung up on the most conspicuous sides of the apartment. If my young eyes or old memory have not de- ceived me, these were as fine pictures as I ever The Dawn of Active Resistance 341 saw; . . . they had been sent over without frames in Grove rnor Pownall's time, bnt he was no admirer of Charles or James. The pictures were stowed away in a garret among rubbish until Governor Bernard came, who had them cleaned, superbly framed and placed in council for the admiration and imitation of all men, no doubt with the advice and concurrence of Hutchinson and all his nebula of stars and sat- ellites." The case was opened by Jeremiah Gridley, the king's attorney, who defended the validity of the writs on statute law and English prac- tice. To which Oxenbridge Thacher replied in a strong legal argument which showed that the rule in English courts did not apply to Amer- ica. Then the Advocate of Freedom began to speak, confounding all his opponents by the splendour of his eloquence. " Otis," says John Adams, " was a flame of fire. With a plenitude of classical allusions, a depth of research, a rapid summary of his- torical events and dates, a profusion of legal authorities, a prophetic glance of his eye into futurity, and a torrent of impetuous eloquence, he hurried away everything before him! . . . Every man of a crowded audience appeared to me to go away, as I did, ready to take arms 342 St. Botolph's Town against writs of assistance. Then and there was the first scene of the first act of opposition to the arbitrary claims of Great Britain. Then and there the child Independence was born! " For Otis had made a passionate appeal on the ground of human rights. He had said that the writs of assistance were instruments of slavery and villainy, and that he was standing there on behalf of English liberties. He de- clared that a man's house was his castle and that this writ destroyed the sacred privilege of domestic privacy. Thus for four hours he poured out a stream of eloquence which, if it did not avail to convince the Court (who ulti- mately sustained the legality of the writs), served admirably to bring home to the Boston people the rank iniquity of taxation without representation. The fight was on! Governor Bernard did not appreciate this fact, though, and when he opened the legisla- ture, the following autumn, was once more sin- gularly unhappy in his choice of speech-making material. For he now recommended the mem- bers to " give no attention to declamations tending to promote a suspicion that the civil rights of the people were in danger. ' ' Otis had just been elected a member of the body, and it was, of course, recognized that these words The Dawn of Active Resistance 343 were aimed at him. The representatives re- plied to them with scarcely concealed resent- ment. Speedily, too, Governor Bernard found out that he would have to be very circumspect in order to avoid the adverse criticism of this clever lawyer to whom he had thrown down the gauntlet. In the summer of 1762, during a recess in the sessions of the legislature, Governor Ber- nard, with the approval of the Council, ex- pended a comparatively trifling sum in fitting out a vessel with which to quiet the fears of Boston merchants who wished protection from the French for their fishing-boats off New- foundland. Instantly opponents of the admin- istration remonstrated against his " unwar- ranted outlay.' ' The protest came through a committee of the legislature of which Otis was chairman! In the remonstrance it was said that " no necessity can be sufficient to justify the House of Eepresentatives in giving up such a privilege ; for it would be of little con- sequence to the people whether they were sub- ject to George or Lewis, the king of Great Britain or the French king, if both were arbi- trary, as both would be if both could levy taxes without a parliament. ' ' When this passage was read out, a member cried " Treason! 344 St. Botolph's Town treason! " in much the same way that it was cried against Patrick Henry, three years later. Yet it was only with considerable difficulty that the governor prevailed upon the House to ex- punge the passage in which the king's name had been so disloyally introduced. Poor Fran- cis Bernard! Well must he have understood, by this time, that Massachusetts was to give him anything but " a quiet and easy admin- istration! " Yet if his official path was not always smooth, Governor Bernard was made very happy in his home life and in his social intercourse. He had three residences, one in Jamaica Plain, one at " Castle William " and one, of course, in the Province House. His youngest daugh- ter, Julia, who was a baby when the family moved from New Jersey to Massachusetts, afterwards wrote down, for the information of her descendants, her recollections of Boston in her girlhood and the resulting manuscript is freely quoted in " The Bernards of Abington and Nether Winchendon " by Mrs. Napier Higgins. From that delightful work I repro- duce by permission: " During the hot months we resided at the beautiful spot, Castle Will- iam [Castle Island], a high hill rising out of the sea in the harbor of Boston, where a The Dawn of Active Resistance 345 residence was always ready for the Governor, a twelve-oared barge always at call to convey him backwards and forwards. . . . " My first recollections were of the large Government House, with a great number of servants, some black slaves and some white free servants; a peculiar state of intercourse with the inhabitants, everybody coming to us and we going to nobody, a public day once a week, a dinner for gentlemen, and a drawing- room in the afternoon when all persons of either sex who wished to pay their respects were introduced, various refreshments handed about, and some cards, I can remember. We had a man cook, a black, who afterwards came to England with us. My Father had a country house also a few miles from Boston. . . . " The cold in winter was intense, but calm and certain; it set in early in November, and continued — a hard frost, the ground covered with snow — till perhaps the end of March, when a rapid spring brought in a very hot sum- mer. During the winter all carriages were taken off the wheels and put upon runners, that is — sledges; and this is the time they choose of all others for long journeys and ex- cursions of pleasure. It was a common thing to say to a friend: * Yours are bad roads; I'll 346 St. Botolph's Town come and see you as soon as the snow and frost set in.' The travelling is then done with a rapidity and stillness which makes it necessary for the horses to have bells on their heads; and the music, cheerfulness and bustle, of a bright winter's day were truly amusing and interesting. Open sledges, with perhaps twenty persons, all gay and merry, going about the country on parties of pleasure, rendered the winter a more animated scene than the hot summers present.' ' Concerning the house at Jamaica Plain Miss Bernard wrote that it was built chiefly by her father himself and that " there was a consid- erable range of ground, and a small lake [of] about one hundred acres attached to it with a boat on it. . . . This was called Jamaica Pond. To this residence we generally moved in May, I think, and here we enjoyed ourselves ex- tremely. My Father was always on the wing on account of his situation. He had his own carriage and servants, my mother hers; there was a town coach and a whiskey for the young men to drive about." Governor Bernard's personal appearance is thus described by his daughter : ' i My Father, though not tall, had something dignified and distinguished in his manner; he dressed su- The Dawn of Active Resistance 347 perbly on all public occasions." Of her mother she adds that she was tall and that " her dresses were ornamented with gold and silver, ermine and fine American sable.' ' Miss Ber- nard tells us also that her father was musical and sometimes wrote both tune and words for a song he and his friends would after enjoy together. His was the age of toasts and it is interesting to know that the bitterly-hated royal governor originated the following amia- ble sentiment: " Here's a health to all those that we love, Here's a health to all those that love us ; Here's a health to all those that love them that love those That love them that love those that love us." Events in the mother country were now ta- king place, however, which were bound to make Massachusetts people hate the royal governor, no matter how engaging that functionary might be in his private capacity. Charles Townshend had been made first Lord of Trade in England and secretary of the colonies. He proposed to grasp and execute absolute power of taxation. Whereupon George Grenville came to the front and planned a colonial stamp act designed to pay the expenses of the British army! Nat- urally the colonists protested. Yet it was not 348 St. Botolph's Town so much, now or at any time, unwillingness to pay their part of England's current expenses as unwillingness to help support a government in which they were not represented that we should see in ensuing events. " It was not the taxation of the Stamp Act that alarmed them, but the principle involved in it." In this " strike " of the Bostonians as in many a strike since there were — unfortu- nately — outbreaks of mob violence as well as calm and effective opposition. And the very men who condemned unlawful measures were credited, just as they often are to-day in sim- ilar circumstances, with " standing for " the particular measure involved. Hutchinson fa- voured neither the Stamp Act nor the Sugar Act. He believed that the government, whose loyal servant he tried faithfully to be, was making a great mistake in instituting such measures in the colonies. But he regarded with the utmost horror what he saw to be a growing tendency towards revolt from the mother- country. His whole attitude in this matter is expressed in a quotation which he selected as the title-page motto of his " History of the Bevolt of the Colonies : "I have nourished children and brought them up and even they have revolted from me " (Isaiah). In other The Dawn of Active Resistance 349 words he was a Loyalist in every drop of his blood. Nobody, however, except Samuel Adams, looked with favour upon revolt at this stage of the game. What Otis and Franklin desired was Parliamentary representation for the colo- nies. But the redoubtable Adams had for twenty years been thinking along revolutionary lines. When he was graduated from Harvard he had taken for the subject of his master's thesis the question, " Whether it Be lawful to Resist the Supreme Magistrate, if the Com- monwealth Cannot Otherwise Be Preserved? " and from this beginning he had followed a methodical scheme of advance in pursuance of which such men as Otis, John Adams, Dr. Jo- seph Warren and John Hancock were enlisted as his co-workers. Hutchinson had had the misfortune to re- ceive an office which James Otis had wished given to his father and he never recovered from the idea that all the Otis opposition was based upon personal resentment. Otis, on the other hand, was firmly persuaded that Hutch- inson was a rapacious seeker of power and so failed, on his part, to do justice to a strong and commanding personality glad of much work to do because conscious of ability to do 350 St. Botolph's Town it. That the brilliant yonng orator had a great principle on his side when he asserted, again and again, that judicial and execntive power should not be invested in the same person we of to-day clearly recognize. But Montesquieu's doctrines are now well-established where he was then an author known in America only to Otis and a few choice others. So, though Hutchinson was conscious of no offence in ful- filling at one and the same time the functions of lieutenant-governor, president of the Coun- cil, chief justice and judge of probate, Otis could and did make capital out of his Pooh- Bah-like personality. The result was that poor Hutchinson, as we shall see, had to pay very dearly for his honours. The hated Stamp Act received the king's sanction March 22, 1765, and the news of it arrived in Boston on the twenty-sixth of the following May. The act was not to be opera- tive until the following November, however, so the people had ^.ve months in which to resent its enaction and plan their modes of resistance. The office of distributor of stamps was accepted by Andrew Oliver; he was promptly hung in effigy from the branches of the Liberty Tree. Later, on that memorable fourteenth of Au- gust, the e&igy was burned in view of Mr. OH- THE OLD STATE HOUSE The Dawn of Active Resistance 351 ver's residence and he himself was set npon by the crowd. The next day he resigned. It began to be seen that there wonld be no great demand for the stamps. Yet business could not go legally on without them. Vessels could not enter or go out of a harbour without stamped papers, colleges could not grant their degrees, marriages could not be made legal, and newspapers and almanacs would require this " mark of slavery " ere they could cir- culate undisturbed. While feeling was at fever heat a sermon preached against violence was interpreted by a half -drunken mob, who seem to have heard only rumours of it, as urging people forcibly to resent the Stamp Act. And then there fol- lowed what is, without exception, the most dis- graceful scene in Boston's history, the out- rageous pillaging of an official's house by a mob frenzied with liquor. The story as told by the victim in his Autobiography is not a bit too prejudiced to be reproduced as narra- tive here: " To Richard Jackson " Boston, Aug. 30, 1765. 1 ' My dear Sir, — I came from my house at Milton, the 26th in the morning. After dinner 352 St. Botolph's Town it was whispered in town there would be a mob at night, and that Paxton, Hallowell, the cus- tom-house, and admiralty officers ' houses would be attacked; but my friends assured me that the rabble were satisfied with the insult I had received and that I was become rather popular. In the evening, whilst I was at sup- per and my children round me, somebody ran in and said the mob were coming. I directed my children to fly to a secure place and shut up my house as I had done before, intending not to quit it ; but my eldest daughter repented her leaving me, hastened back, and protested she would not quit the house unless I did. I couldn't stand against this and withdrew, with her, to a neighboring house, where I had been but a few minutes before the hellish crew fell upon my house with the rage of devils and in a moment with axes split down the doors and entered. My son, being in the great entry, heard them cry: ' Damn him, he is upstairs, we'll have him.' Some ran immediately as high as the top of the house, others filled the rooms below and cellars, and others remained without the house to be employed there. " Messages soon came, one after another to the house where I was, to inform me the mob were coming in pursuit of me, and I was The Dawn of Active Resistance 353 obliged to retire through yards and gardens to a house more remote where I remained until four o'clock by which time one of the best fin- ished houses in the Province had nothing re- maining but the bare walls and floors. Not contented with tearing off all the wainscot and hangings, and splitting the doors to pieces, they beat down the partition walls ; and though that alone cost them near two hours they cut down the cupola or lanthorn, and they began to take the slate and boards from the roof, and were prevented only by the approaching daylight from a total demolition of the building. The garden-house was laid flat and all my trees etc broke down to the ground. " Such ruin was never seen in America. Be- sides my plate and family pictures, household furniture of every kind, my own my children's and servants' apparel, they carried off about £900 in money, and emptied the house of every- thing whatsoever, except a part of the kitchen furniture, not leaving a single book or paper in it, and have scattered and destroyed all the manuscripts and other papers I had been col- lecting for thirty years together, besides a great number of public papers in my custody. " The evening being warm I had undressed me and put on a thin camlet surtout over my 354 St. Botolph's Town waistcoat. The next morning, the weather be- ing changed, I had not clothes enough in my possession to defend me from the cold, and was obliged to borrow from my friends. Many articles of clothing and a good deal of my plate have since been picked np in different quarters of the town, but the furniture in general was cut to pieces before it was thrown out of the house, and most of the beds cut open and the feathers thrown out of the windows. The next evening I intended with my children to Milton, but meeting two or three small parties of the ruffians, who I suppose had concealed them- selves in the country, and my coachman hear- ing one of them say, ' There he is ! ' my daugh- ters were terrified and said they should never be safe, and I was forced to shelter them that night at the Castle. " The encouragers of the first mob never intended matters should go this length, and the people in general expressed the utmost detes- tation of this unparalleled outrage, and I wish they could be convinced what infinite hazard there is of the most terrible consequence from such demons, when they are let loose in a gov- ernment where there is not constant authority at hand sufficient to suppress them. I am told the government here will make me a compen- The Dawn of Active Resistance 355 sation for my own and my family's loss, which I think cannot be mnch less than £3000 sterling. I am not sure that they will. If they should not it will be too heavy for me, and I must humbly apply to his majesty in whose service I am a sufferer; but this and a much greater sum would be an insufficient compensation for the constant distress and anxiety of mind I have felt for some time past and must feel for months to come. You cannot conceive the wretched state we are in. Such is the resent- ment of the people against the Stamp Duty, that there can be no dependence upon the Gen- eral Court to take any steps to enforce, or rather advise to the payment of it. On the other hand, such will be the effects of not sub- mitting to it, that all trade must cease, all courts fall, and all authority be at an end. . . . ' ' The picture made in court, the day following the riot, by the stripped Chief Justice was a very pathetic one if we may trust the Diary of Josiah Quincy. The persecuted king's of- ficer, clad in tattered and insufficient garments, then protested in language which can leave no doubt as to his sincerity, " I call my Maker to witness that I never, in New England or Old, in Great Britain or America, neither directly 356 St. Botolph's Town nor indirectly was aiding assisting or support- ing, — in the least promoting or encouraging, — what is commonly called the Stamp Act; but, on the contrary, did all in my power and strove as much as in me lay to prevent it." The mob violence visited upon Hutchinson was, of course, abhorred by Adams and by the soberer inhabitants generally. At a meeting held in Faneuil Hall a unanimous vote was passed calling upon the selectmen to suppress such disorders in the future. Hutchinson, how- ever, states grimly that many of the immedi- ate actors in the orgies of the night before were present at this meeting ! The Stamp Act itself was, of course, roundly denounced on this occa- sion, notable as one of the first through which this fine old landmark came to be identified with the cause of liberty. The original building given by Peter Faneuil in 1740 to be a market- house and town-hall had burned in 1761, but the edifice had been rebuilt the following year, and it was, therefore, in the hall substantially as we know it to-day (though the place was enlarged in 1805), that Liberty first found it- self. The beautiful mansion-house of the hall's donor stood on what is now Tremont street, opposite the King's Chapel Burial-ground. As was to be expected no stamps were sold PETER FANEUIL'S HOUSE The Dawn of Active Resistance 357 when November first dawned. The ports were closed, vessels could not sail, business was suspended. The news of all this naturally penetrated speedily to England, where Pitt soon stood up in Parliament and declared that he " rejoiced that America had resisted." In May accordingly there came to Boston news of the Act's repeal and every one was so glad of this tidings that no attention was paid to the Declaratory Act accompanying the revocation, an act of enormous importance, however, in that it maintained the Supremacy of Parlia- ment in all cases whatsoever not only in the matter of taxation but in that of legislation in general. It was in the train of this permissory measure that there followed the first steps of active revolution. For Samuel Adams had now been joined in the Assembly by John Hancock (who, through the death of his uncle, had just come into the largest property in the Province, and was beginning to visit with particular as- siduity the daughter of Edmund Quincy, now a blooming girl of nineteen). Confronting these distinguished " patriots," as they soon came to be called, were Bernard, Hutchinson and the Olivers, henceforward widely branded by their enemies as " Tories." From this time on the influence of the chief 358 St. Botolph's Town town in the province grows, day by day, to be more and more important. In a speech, deliv- ered in Parliament by Colonel Barre, one of the staunch friends of Massachusetts, the Bostoni- ans were characterized as " Sons of Liberty,' ' and this name was soon adopted by a society comprising about three hundred active patri- ots, many of whom were mechanics and labour- ing men. The public gatherings of the society were held in the open space around the Liberty Tree, and Samuel Adams was the leading spirit of all that went on there and in the private ses- sions of the club. Both he and Otis encouraged the people to celebrations on anniversary days of significance in the development of the Eevo- lutionary idea, and at these gatherings and the dinners which followed them Bernard and his colleagues were invariably stigmatized as ca- lumniators of North America and now and then pronounced worthy of " strong halters, firm blocks and sharp axes." The people now saw clearly that they had really gained nothing by the repeal of the Stamp Act inasmuch as this hated measure had only given place to Townshend's Bill, so-called, a measure levying duty on glass, paper, paint- ers' colours and tea. In the excitement fol- lowing the announcement of this bill's passage SAMUEL ADAMS The Dawn of Active Resistance 359 Governor Bernard returned to England and the duties of his office were assumed by his lieutenant-governor, Hutchinson, — the great- great-grandson of that strong-minded woman whom Massachusetts had cast out a century and a quarter earlier, and who was himself des- tined to be cast out, also. The manner of his expulsion and the violent scenes of which it was a part belongs properly to the revolution- ary period of Boston's history, however, rather than to this present volume. We may well enough, therefore, close our book with an order sent by Hutchinson to his London tailor for clothes which he very likely had by him and often wore in the troublous times of the Mas- sacre and the Tea-Party: " October 6, 1769. To Mr. Peter Leitch: I desire to have you send me a blue cloth waistcoat trimmed with the same colour, lined, the skirts and facings with effigeen, and the body linnen to match the last blue cloath I had from you : — two under waistcoats or camisols of warm swansdown, without sleeves, faced with some cheap silk or shagg. A suit of Cloathes full-trimmed, the cloath something like the enclosed only more of a gray mixture, gold button and hole, but little wadding lined with effigeen. I like a wrought or flowered or embroidered hole, 360 St. Botolph's Town something, though not exactly, like the hole npon the cloaths of which the pattern is en- closed ; or, if frogs are worn, I think they look well on the coat; bnt if it be qnite irregular I would have neither one nor the other, but such a hole and button as are worn. I know a laced coat is more the mode but this is too gay for me. A pair of worsted breeches to match the colour, and a pair of black velvet breeches and breeches with leather linings. Let them come by the first ship. . . . ' ' Hutchinson, though fifty-nine, and the head of a contumacious people, evidently had a care to his personal appearance! In other words he possessed the most important qualification of a royal governor in the Brocade Age. THE END. INDEX Adams, Brooks, 165. Adams, Charles Francis, 61. Adams, John, 340. Adams, Samuel, 349, 357, 358. Addington, Joshua, 190. Adrianople, 122. Albermarle, Duke of, 195, 196. Amsden, Jacob, 271. Andros, Sir Edmund, 178, 179, 182, 184, 185, 187, 191, 192, 300. Annesley, Rev. Samuel, 141, 160, 261. Appleton, William, 61. Austin, Ann, 122. Bancroft, George, 61. Barre, Colonel, 358. Barrington, Lord, 336. Belcher, Jonathan, 283, 307, 311. Bellingham, Richard, 123, 265. Bellomont, Earl of, 152, 284, 291, 292. Bennett, 314. Bernard, Sir Francis, 336-347, 359 Blackstone, William, 8, 9, 38, 39, 40, 295. Boston Common, 295, 314. Boylston, Dr. Zabdiel, 301. Bradford, Gov., 8, 10, 50. Bradstreet, Simon, 135, 137, 145, 175, 189, 258, 262. Brattle Street Church, 300, 301. Brattle, Thomas, 300. Brewster, Margaret, 125, 127, 128. Brimmer, Martin, 61. British Coffee House, 316. Brocker, William, 247. Browne, Kellam, 15. Browne, William, 190. Bunch of Grapes Tavern, 303, 334. Buckingham, 6, 7. Buffum, Joshua, 132. Bullivant, Dr., 152, 188. Burgess, Col. Elisha, 296. Burgoyne, General, 331. Burnet, William, 303, 305, 306, 334. Burroughs, Francis, 144. Byles, Rev. Mather, 303, 307. Bynner, Edwin L., 45, 288. Cabot, John, 2. Cabot, Sebastian, 2. Calvin, John, 57. Cambridge Agreement, The, 13, 14, 15. Campbell, John, 246, 247. Carlyle, Thomas, 41. Castle Island, 344. Chamberlain, Rev. N. H., 265. Champlain, 91. Charles I, 12. Charles II, 85, 134, 174. Charlestown, 37, 52, 206. Cheever, Ezekiel, 167, 168. Chesterfield, Earl of, 312. Chichester, William, 124. 361 362 Index Christ Church, 328. Coddington, 117. Colbron, William, 15. Colman, Benjamin, 301. Columbus, Christopher, 2. Conant, Roger, 11. Cooke, Elisha, 190. Copeland, John, 136. Copley, John Singleton, 316. Cotton, Rev. John, 40, 41, 43, 55, 67, 95, 111, 112, 113, 115, 116, 117, 121, 134, 137, 165. Cotton, Rowland, 56. Coventry, 257. Cradock, Matthew, 12, 13. Cromwell, Captain, 105. Cromwell, Oliver, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82. Cromwell, Richard, 82, 84, 85. Cutler, Dr. Timothy, 328. Danforth, Thomas, 190. Dankers, Jasper, 138. D'Aulnay Charnissay, 89, 92, 94, 95, 100, 102, 103, 104. Daye, Stephen, 223. Defoe, Daniel, 141. De Monts, 91. Dennison, Mrs. Dorothy, 275- 281. Dennison, William, 275. De Razilly, Claude, 92. Dorset, Earl of, 58. Douglas, Dr. William, 302. Drew, John, 331. Dudley, Joseph, 144, 173, 175, 177, 178, 192, 230, 232, 292, 294 301. Dudley, Paul, 265, 267, 268. Dudley, Thomas, 15, 17, 48, 49, 56, 63, 73, 110. Dummer, William, 256, 302, 308. Dunster, Elizabeth, 222. Dunster, Henry, 120, 207, 222, 223. " Dunster's Rules," 208-213. Dunton, John, 138-164. Dyer, G., 299. Dyer, Mary, 128. Edwards, Rev. Jonathan, 309. Eliot, Rev. John, 161, 171. Ellis, George E., 304. Elizabeth, Queen of England, 6. Endicott, Gov., 11, 12, 35, 72, 99, 129, 130, 178. Essex, Earl of, 6. Everett, Edward, 59, 61. Fairweather, Captain, 191. Faneuil Hall, 356. Faneuil, Peter, 356. Fisher, Mary, 122, 123, 125. Fort Lomeron, 92. Fort La Tour, 92. Fort Sewall, 317. Foster, John, 190. Fountain Inn, 316. Fox, George, 136, 137. Frankland, Sir Charles Harry, 311-333. Frankland, Sir Thomas, 312, 319 Franklin, Benjamin, 233, 238, 240, 251. Franklin, James, 247, 251 Franklin, Josiah, 237, 240, 254. Frothingham, Langdon, 61. Frothingham's " History of Charlestown," 39. Gallop, John, 47. Gedney, Bartholomew, 190. George I, 273. George III, 338. Gibbons, Capt. Edward, 89, 103. Gilman, Arthur, 306. Glover, Rev. Joseph, 222. Goffe, Deputy, 13. Goodwin, John, 198. Gorges, Sir Ferdinando, 1, 6, 7, 11. Gorges, Robert, 1, 8, 38, 174. Governor's Island, 90, 158. Grand Vizier, 122. Index 363 Gray, John Chipman, 61. Green Dragon Tavern, 273. Green, Samuel, 152. Greenough, Thomas, 325. Greenwich, 6, 7. Grenville, George, 347. Gridley, Jeremiah, 341. Groton, Eng., 24. Hale, Rev. Edward Everett, 272. Hallam's " History of Eng- land," 77. Hancock, Dorothy, 326, 357. Hancock, John, 349, 357. Harvard College, 120, 140, 151, 186, 205-232, 318. Harvard, Rev. John, 159, 206. Haugh, Atherton, 263. Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 41, 43, 45, 115, 122, 259, 286. Haynes, John, 63. Hemans, Mrs., 108. Henry, Patrick, 344. Higgins, Mrs. Napier, 344. Hollis street church, 307. Holyoke, Rev. Edward, 318. Hopkinton (Mass.), 320. HuU, Capt. John, 234, 258, 262. Humfry, John, 15, 52. Hutchinson, Anne, 68, 110. Ill, 114, 117, 118. Hutchinson, Thomas, 152, 198, 308, 336, 337, 338, 339, 348, 349, 350, 359. Hutchinson, William, 112. Indian Meeting-House, 270. Ingelow, Jean, 44. " Ipswich letter," 99. Jackson, Richard, 351. Jamaica Pond, 346. James I, 7, 65. James II, 185, 187, 195. Jekyl, John, 311. Johnson, Lady Arbella, 34, 38. Johnson, Isaac, 15. Kidd, Captain, 291. King's Chapel, 184, 292, 310, 311. Knight, Madame, 138. Lafayette, 64. La Tour, Charles, 89-107. Laud, Archbishop, 13, 66, 182. Lawrence, Abbott, 61. Lawrence, Col. T. B., 62. Leitch, Peter, 359. Leverett, John, 127, 137, 230. Ley, Lord James, 69, 70. Liberty Tree, 339, 350, 358. Lincoln, Countess of, 35, 48. Lodge, Henry Cabot, 176. Long Island Historical Society, 139. Lowell, John Amory, 61. Ludlow, Roger, 51. Lynde, Benjamin, 308. Marbury, Francis, 111. Mather, Rev. Cotton, 38, 151, 167, 168, 170, 171, 185, 192, 197, 200, 201, 202, 205, 228, 270, 301, 302. Mather, Rev. Increase, 151, 166, 167, 168, 185, 192, 196, 205, 222, 224, 227, 261, 274, 297, 302. Mather, Rev. Richard, 165. Maverick, Samuel, 8, 70. Medford, 12. Merry Mount, 10. Molesworth, Captain Pon- sonby, 334. Monk, George, 152. Monk, Gen. George, 85. Moody, Rev. Joshua, 152. Morgan, James, 152, 157. Morrell, Rev. William, 8, 9. Navigation Act, 338. Nason, Rev. Elias, 312. " New England Courant," 247, 251. 364 Index Norton, Rev. John, 133, 134, 135, 137, 183. Norton, Thomas, 9, 10, 11. Newbury, 258. Nicholson, Francis, 301. Noddle's Island, 70. Nowell Increase, 15. Oakes, President, 170. " Old Feather Store," 235. Old Granary Burying Ground, 282 " Old New England Churches," 127, 183, 282. " Old New England Inns," 22, 69, 125, 138, 150, 307, 333. " Old New England Roof- Trees," 197, 324. Old South Church, 127, 177, 183, 202, 259. Oliver, Andrew, 350. Otis, James, 338, 349. Otway's " Orphan," 316. Paddock, Major Adino, 296. Parkman, Francis, 94. Partridge, Lieut .-Gov. Will- iam, 309. Paxton, Charles, 338, 339. Pepys, Samuel, 87, 255. Peters, Hugh, 63, 116. Phillips, Col., 173. Phillips, Jonathan, 61. Phips, Lady, 201, 285. Phips, Sir William, 193, 195, 196, 203. Phipps, Hon. Spencer, 308. Pitt, William, 357. Plymouth, Mass., 7. Pontgrave. 91. Pope, 290. Popham, Sir John, 7. Port Royal, 91, 93, 94, 101, 102, 106, 196. Poutrincourt, 91. Pownall, Governor, 334, 335, 341. Pratt House, Chelsea, 186. Price, Rev. Roger, 321. Province House, 285, 287, 288, 344, 345. Pynchon, William, 15, 17. Quakers, 122, 124, 125, 129, 133, 134, 135, 136, 147. Queen Anne, 272, 294. Quincy, Dorothy, 326, 357. Quincy, Edmund, 308, 326, 357. Quincy, Josiah, 208, 355. Raleigh, Sir Walter, 1, 6. Randolph, Edward, 173, 174, 182 Ratcliffe, Rev. Robert, 158, 184. Remington, Judge, 310. Richards, John, 190. Robinson, William, 128. Royal Exchange, 333. Ryece, Robert, 27. St. John, N. B., 92. Salem, 11. Salter, Thomas, 302. Saltonstall, Richard, 15, 17, 134. Scudder, Horace E., 314. Sergeant, Peter, 190, 285. Sewall, Joseph, 258. Sewall, Henry, 257. Sewall, Samuel, 171, 177, 178, 180, 183, 187, 201, 202, 229, 255-282 SewalFs Diary, 125, 138, 167, 173, 176, 182, 183, 225, 228, 230. Sewel, 123, 135. Sharpe, Thomas, 15. Shattock, Samuel, 132. Shawmut, 9, 38. Sheafe, Susanna, 334. Shelter Island, 132. Shirley, William, 311, 312. Shrimpton, Samuel, 190. Shute, Col. Samuel, 296. Sluyter, Peter, 138. Smith, John, 1, 4. Index 365 " Sons of Liberty/' 358. Southwick, Cassandra, 128, 129, 132 Southwick, Daniel, 129, 132. Southwick, Josiah, 128, 129. Southwick, Lawrence, 128, 129, 132. Southwick, Provided, 129, 132. Sparks, Jared, 61. Stamp Act, 348, 349, 350, 355, 356, 357. Standish, Miles, 1. Steele, Sir Richard, 293. Stepney, 269. Stevenson, Marmaduke, 128. Stevenson, Robert Louis, 195. Stoughton, William, 144, 190, 193, 201, 202, 203, 264, 292. Stoughton, Israel, 51. Strafford, Earl of, 13, 76. Sugar Act, 338. Surriage, Agnes, 316-332. Swan, Mrs. S. H., 326. Thacher, Oxenbridge, 341. Thayer, John Eliot, 61. Townshend's Bill, 358. Townshend, Charles, 347. Trumbull, 316. Tudor, Frederick, 61. Tudor, William, 340. Tyndal, Sir John, 24. Upham, Charles Wentworth, 64. Upshall, Nicholas, 124, 125. Usher, John, 146. Vagabond Act, 125. Vardy, Luke, 333. Vane, Sir Harry, 63-88, 101, 113, 117, 260. Vassall, William, 15. Walter, Abijah, 277, 280. Ward, Edward, 289. Warren, John Collins, 61. Warren, Dr. Joseph, 349. Waterhouse, David, 190. Wayside Inn, 324. Welde, Rev. Thomas, 111. Wendell, Barrett, 167. Wesley, John, 141. West, Nicholas, 15. Weston, Thomas, 1, 7. Weymouth, 1, 7, 8. Wheeler, Sir Francis, 298. Wheelright, Rev. John, 74, 112, 117. White, John, 11. Whittier, 126, 129. Willard, Samuel, 227, 228, 230. Williams, Roger, 37, 118, 119, 120 133. Willis' Edward, 144. Wilkins, Comfort, 153, 158. Wilkins, Richard, 144. Wilson, Rev. John, 37, 48, 122, 134. Winslow, John, 187. Winthrop, Adam, 19. Winthrop, Anne, 19, 20. Winthrop, Deane, 263. Winthrop, John, 15, 16, 18, 21, 22, 26, 27, 30, 34, 36, 38, 40, 49, 51, 55, 58, 67, 69, 89, 95, 98, 99, 112, 118, 175, 205, 295. Winthrop, John, Jr., 29. Winthrop, Margaret, 18, 21, 24, 30, 50. Winthrop, Mercy, 263. Winthrop, Robert C, 32. Winthrop, Stephen, 101. 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