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by Cornell University Library 1993.LADY DEBORAH MOODY.
A DISCOURSE
DELIVERED BEFORE
The New York Historical Society,
JVC ~¥T 3	18 80,
JAMES W. GERARD.
PUBLISHED BY PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR BY
F. B. PATTERSON.

v-l
J^ew York:
UoUULAS TAYLOR, PRINTER, CORNER NASSAU AND FULTON STREETS.
1880.LADY DEBORAH MOODY.
A DISCOURSE
DELIVERED BEFORE
The New York Historical Society,
Js/L	1880,
JAMES W. GERARD.
PUBLISHED BY PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR BY
F. B. PATTERSON.
J^EW York:
DOUGLAS TAILOR, PRINTER, CORNER NASSAU AND PULTON STREETS.
1880.
I \ /LADY DEBORAH MOODY.
THE ENGLISH REFORMATION AND TOLERATION,
Mere difference of opinion has ever been a fruitful source
of strife.
Especially have those cherishing religious dogmas enter-
tained feelings of hostility towards those who would not
be convinced.
Even men wise and humane will join in a bitter hue and
cry, on questions the truth or falsity of which is not sus-
ceptible of proof, and the truth or falsity of which is of no
real concern to humanity.
There is no injustice so great, no prejudice so bitter, no
hate so lasting, no enmity so unrelenting as that which has
its foundation in sectarian opposition.
No deeds have been so bloody, no persecutions so cruel,
no wars so terrible, as those instigated by differences of
religious credence; and, it may be said, that no acts have
been more shameful to humanity than those that make the
ecclesiastical history of civilized Europe.
Eaces, nations and individuals resolved theological ques-
tions by mutual slaughter.
The Christian dove, surviving the attacks of Paganism,
as it sailed down the tide of centuries, became as a vulture,
smeared with gore.
The blood of Christian sectaries flowed from wounds
mutually inflicted as deep as those ever made by a Nero or
a Diocletian.
During the great thirty years’ religious war on the Conti-
nent, so late as the seventeenth century, the enmity4
between Lutheran and Calvinist equalled their mutual hate
for the Eoinanist.
Incendiarism, robbery and slaughter were the only argu-
ments thought of. Eeligion was used as the cloak for am-
bition and rapine, and in its name all Germany was laid
waste. “ Soldiers,” says a contemporary, “ treated men
and women as none but the vilest of mankind would now
treat brute beasts.” u Outrages of unspeakable atrocity were
committed everywhere ; their flesh pierced with needles or
cut to the bone with saws. Others were scalded with boil-
ing water, or hunted with dogs.”
The Hew World, from its earliest infancy, became a battle-
ground for sectarianism.
More than eighty years before the landing at Plymouth,
when the French Huguenots had established themselves on
the Florida coast, and thought to have acquired a peaceful
home, they were slaughtered by the Spaniards under Melen-
dez. On landing with his force of Spanish cutthroats, this
apostle of propagandism said, in answer to a summons as
to his business there, “ I am Melendez of Spain, sent with
strict orders from my king to hunt and behead all the Pro-
testants in these regions.” He obeyed his orders. A cross
was raised over the scene of carnage—a solemn mass was
said—and the smell of blood and of smoking ruins went up
to the Throne of Grace with the incense of the altar.
UI massacre these people,” said Melendez, “ not as
Frenchmen, but as Lutherans.”
Three years afterwards retribution came, and the wolves
in their turn were hung to trees by de Gourges, the Gascon
Huguenot.
The history of the origin and progress of the Eeformed
religion in England is not grateful to the Christian mind.
Eeligion was enlisted, in turns by king, prelate and zealot,
as an auxiliary to gratify lust, ambition, hate or revenge ;
and as an instrument to grasp or strengthen political
power.5
The despotic monarchs, Henry the Eighth, Mary, Eliza-
beth, James and Charles; ambitious prelates like Woolsey
and Pole; obsequious tools of tyranny, like Cromwell
under Henry, and Strafford under Charles; despotic pri-
mates like Oranmer and Laud ; bloody prelates like Gardi-
ner and Bonner; unseated abbots, unfrocked priests, de-
prived curates and the martyred laity—Romanist and
Protestant, Conformist, and Dissenter, Puritan and
Malignant—pass along the tide of history the actors in a
great drama of blood.
The true essence of religion was lost sight of in the sec-
tarian hate and zeal that claimed to sustain it.
The Reformed Prelacy became a mere part of State
machinery, of which the Crown was the head; and any
question of the King’s spiritual, as well as civil supremacy
was visited as a felony. Religious opinion became not a
matter of faith, but of treason or allegiance.
Men had to believe by prescription; and religious creeds
were imposed, not as a subject of conviction, but of eccles-
iastical direction. Not only were outward acts criminal,
but the conscience was dug out and shackled. Even silence
became a crime, and oaths were applied to test those who
maintained their opinions in secret.
Religion wore a motley garb. She varied not only her
forms, but her doctrines, as this or that prelate came into
office, or this or that State assassin could direct the inyrmi-
dions of the High Commission or the Star Chamber, or
play upon the fantasies or weakness of royalty.
The most grievous part of the history of the Reformation
is that such a reprobate as Henry the Eighth should have
been selected as the instrument to bring it about. The
immediate cause, too, was contemptible.
Its institution was not in the service of God, nor for the
spiritual welfare of the English people. Anna Boleyn’s
charms were the motive power.
To these and to Pope Clement’s opposition to the divorce6
from stale Queen Katherine are we indebted for this holy
work in England.
Theretofore, dubbed “ Defensor Ecclesiae,” as a faithful son
of Rome, little was required to change the creed of the vacil-
lating tyrant, since upheld by history to the scorn and
contempt of posterity.
As a curious illustration of this monarch’s reformatory
views, at about the time that he was excommunicated by a
bull from St. Peter’s, we read of his commencing the spiri-
tual amelioration of his people by burning two men in
London for denying transubstantiation.
Ann Ascough, John Lambert and scores of others were
subsequent!y tortured and burned for entertaining similar
views.
Under this spiritual Autocrat, too, was enacted the
“ Bloody statute,” or the u whip with six strings,” as it was
called. “Each one,” says Thomas Fuller, “as heavily laid
on, fetching blood from the backs of Protestants.” This
statute embraced six articles of spiritual dogma. Opposi-
tion to the first of the articles, on the Eucharist, was
punished with death; opposition, even by word, to the
other spiritual abstractions was visited by scourging and
imprisonment.
And so bluff King Hal went on with the Reform, using
the axe and the faggot, now against Catholic, and now
against Protestant.
Martyrdom was the doom for opposition to the King’s
doctrines, or question of his spiritual as well as temporary
supremacy.
The horrible incidents of the succeeding reign are fami-
liar. In the three years of Mary’s persecution we are told
that three hundred victims perished at the stake. Arch-
bishop and bishop, priest and layman, lordly prelate and
humble worshipper, men stout of heart and limb, who
cursed the she-devil as they died, and trembling women
and harmless boys—all alike yielded their lives at the
mandate of this royal Moloch, whose commission for thesuppression of heresy made short work of those who did
not bend to her relentless fanaticism.
The diocese of London, under the religious assassin,
Bishop Bonner, was headquarters for the bloody work.
Old Thomas Fuller, the learned prebendary of Sarum, says,
in his Church History, that “ lion, tiger, wolf, bear, yea,
a whole forest of wild beasts, were centered in him, killing
two hundred in the compass of three years. No sex, quality
or age escaped him, whose fury reached from John Felty,
a lad of eight years old, by him scourged to death, even
unto Hugh Laverock, a cripple, sixty years old, whom he
caused to be burned. Yea, sometimes he made cruel addi-
tions of his own invention, as when he caused a faggot to
be tossed in the face of Mr. Denlie, the martyr, when he
was ready to be burned.”
Good Queen Bess used also to hang people for their
religious abstractions, even although unimpeachable in
their loyalty.
Barrow and Greenwood, hung at Tyburn, were speci-
mens of her reformatory handiwork.
Under the tender reign of this virgin monarch, the Duke
of Exeter’s daughter and the Scavenger’s daughter, and
the five other deadly racks, were kept busy in the
Tower.
John Lewes was burned for his Arian views on the
Trinity; and Penry and Udall, men of blameless life, for
circulating pamphlets, not heterodox in doctrine, but criti-
cising ecclesiastical courts and ceremonies.
Under this u glorious reign ” the Inquisitorial Court of
the High Commission was created; and arbitrary conviction
and punishment was enforced by compelling an oath to be
taken by parties suspected of so-called heresy.
When the pedant James, the lauded translator of the
Bible, became King, he illustrated some of its principles
in this wise, when speaking of his Puritan subjects : “ J will8
make them conform, or I will harry them out of the land—or
else, worse, I will only hang them ; thaVs all.”
He burned Edward Wigbtman and Bartholomew Legate
for upholding Unitarian ideas. The opinions of the latter,
the royal buffoon tried to overcome by argument, but, be-
ing worsted therein, issued against his opponent the writ
“ de hceretico comburendo which closed the argument at the
stake. Even worthy Thomas Puller, in his history, exults
over this performance, and claims that it was quite a dif-
ferent thing from the burning of the Protestant martyrs in
the days of Bloody Mary. He blasphemously says, “ God
seemed well pleased with this seasonable severity.”
Under Charles I., Prynne, Bostwick, and Burton—men
of high social standing and culture—had their ears cut
off at the public pillory ; and Prynne was branded on both
cheeks, for what were called libels on the established dis-
cipline of the Church of England.
This monarch’s savage primate of Canterbury, Laud, was
as great a tyrant over the mind and conscience as was his
master over the civil rights of his subjects.
“ Under Laud’s direction,” writes Macaulay, “ every cor-
ner of the realm was subject to a constant and minute in-
spection. Every little congregation of Separatists was
tracked out and broken up. Even the devotion of private
families could not escape the vigilance of his spies.”
Another annalist of these times remarks :	“ Laud and
his prelates were abject in their dependence upon the Crown.
They erected the most dangerous pretentions of the mon-
archy into religious dogmas. Their model, Bishop An-
drews, had declared James to have been inspired by God.
They preached passive obedience to the worst tyranny.
They declared the person and goods of the subject to be
at the King’s absolute disposal, and turned religion into a
systematic attack on English liberty.”
During this comparatively modern reign, the Courts of
High Commission and the Star Chamber were used as a
standing means of attack against Puritan ministers; and9
holy and wise men were whipped, pilloried and maimed for
any question of the powers of the prelacy.
Ceremonies most offensive to Puritan feeling were en-
forced in every parish ; Geneva Bibles were suppressed ;
preachers were compelled by royal will to read the declara-
tion in favor of Sunday pastimes from the pulpit; and
hundreds of ministers, favoring simplicity of worship were
cited before the High Commission and deprived of their
cures.
One of Charles’s truckling prelates, in preaching the doc-
trine of passive obedience to the King’s behests, thundered
out that to resist his will was to incur eternal damnation !
There is little lament, now, even from English historians,
as Clio analyses and groups the incidents of this disgraceful
reign, that Strafford, Laud, and King Charles “the martyr”
as he is styled in the prayer-books—all conspirators against
the mind and body of the subject—met with the stern
retribution that they did from the humanity they had out-
raged and trampled upon.
THE CHUECH IN NEW ENGLAND.
What wonder is there, amid these persecutions, that
those professing a simple faith, and desiring to be freed
from an oppressive hierarchy, should have turned their
backs upon their ancient home and sought, in a distant
wilderness, freedom to worship God in peace, and that
liberty of thought and action which has always been an
aspiration of humanity f
Unlike those who settled the Southern continent, for this
mere liberty of conscience and from no hope of gain, the
Protestant pilgrims sorrowfully abandoned their native
land, battled in frail barks the tempestuous ocean, encoun-
tered famine, and fought for very existence with the forces
of nature and a savage foe.
Godly people in England, it was said, “ began to appre-
hend a special hand of Providence in raising this planta-
tion in Massachusetts, and their hearts were generally
stirred to come over.”10
People of intelligence, wealth and culture flocked over,
the more numerously as the oppressive hand of prelacy
weighed stronger on life and conscience.
Three thousand colonists emigrated to New England in a
single year.
The sense of a grand moral obligation, an earnest aspira-
tion for truth, a firm, conscientious conviction, and a lofty
enthusiasm, which had been transmitted through a century
of persecution, sustained the hearts and nerved the arms of
the noble bands who planted themselves as pioneers on New
England’s desolate coasts.
Even amid unexpected hardship and misery, Winthrop
wrote: “ We now enjoy God and Jesus Christ, and is not
that enough? I thank God, I like so well to be here, as I
do not repent my coming. 1 would not have altered my
course, though I had seen all these afflictions, I never had
more content of mind.”
The clergymen that came over from England, and
established themselves in the New England colonies, were
generally men who had been connected with the English
Church, of Calvinistic principles, but who were obliged by
law to conduct public worship in conformity with the
English statutes, and to withhold their own opinions when
in conflict with the views prescribed by ecclesiastical con-
vocation.
It is a strange illustration of human weakness that these
victims of religious persecution should have, in turn, sought
to shackle conscience and oppose toleration.
The practice and the principles of the Puritan fathers
became far from harmonious. The rigid lines of their
established faith were drawn as strictly and maintained
almost as ruthlessly as in the father land, and the govern-
ing authority exacted conformity in spiritual matters as the
condition of civil freedom.
Those who had been branded as heretics stigmatized
others as heretics for differences on theological abstractions,
and even for non-conformity to church routine.
The persecuted, in turn, turned persecutors, and visited11
upon others the treatment against which, as an outrage
upon human rights, they had solemnly protested.
The State, too, as in the country they had abandoned,
was retained as comptroller in ecclesiastical affairs, and
given power to punish ecclesiastical offences.
In an address by the elders, in convention, to the General
Court at Boston, the claim is made that it belongs to the
civil powers “ to exercise care and authority in matters
pertaining to religion and public worship, and to suppress
enormities and heresies.”
In the introduction to the laws of the colony of Plymouth
is found the following declaration :
“ It being a duty to restrain or provide against such as bring in dangerous
errors or heresies tending to corrupt or destroy the souls of men, whoever is
convicted of this offense, and continues obstinate therein, shall be fined,
banished, or otherwise severely punished, as the court of magistrates shall
udge meet.”
We read of one who was condemned to fine and banish-
ment, and to have his ears cut off, for speaking disrespect-
fully of the Church at Salem, and of another who was
sentenced to fine, banishment and seizure of all his goods
and the burning of his house for adherence to Episcopacy
and a maypole.
It was evident, too, says one of their ancient historians,
not only by Mrs. Ann Hutchinson’s trial, but by many
other public proceedings, that inquisition was made into
men’s private judgments as well as into their declarations
and practice.
Toleration was preached against as a sin in rulers, which
would bring down the judgment of heaven upon the land.
In the pocket of Governor Dudley, when he died, was
found a copy of verses written with his own hand, of which
the following were two of the lines:
“Let men of God in court and churches watch
O’er such as do a toleration hatch.”
The use of the book of common prayer was forbidden by
the Salem Church as a “ deadly and pestiferous bookand
by the laws of Connecticut the punishment was as severe12
for reading that book as for making mince pies, dancing, or
kissing the baby on Sunday.
Nonconformists were scourged and fined for their ideas?
no matter how mildly expressed; and even if they met
together privately to partake of communion, they were
disfranchised and imprisoned.
Ann Hutchinson and those who thought with her on the
abstractions of sanctification and justification were banished
the Commonwealth ; and Roger Williams found hospitality
from the Wampanoags and the Dutch, which had been
denied him by his fellow-colonists.
Any sympathy expressed for the sufferings of the vic-
tims, or criticisms made on the severe action of the magis-
trates, was visited with fines and scourging. Any ques-
tioning of the authority of any part of the Biblical history
was visited with scourging, and a second offence with
death. These things, at times, provoked the criticism of
the wise and liberal men of the New England colonies. Sir
Richard Saltonstall, in a letter to Cotton and Wilson, two of
the most bigoted of the New England clergymen, in allud-
ing to their intoleration, says:
“ It doth not a little grieve my spirit to hear what sadd things are reported
daily of your tyranny and persecution in ISTew England, as that you fyne,
whip and imprison men for their conscience. First, you compell such to come
into your assemblyes as you know will not joyne with you in worship ; and
when they shew their dislike thereof and witness against it, then you styrre up
your magistrates to punish them for (such as you conceive) their public
affronts.”
When Dr. Robert Child and others, who were compelled
to contribute to the support of the church, applied to the
Massachusetts authorities, in 1646, to be allowed to partake
of Christian ordinances in the Congregational churches, or
else to be allowed to set up an Episcopal church for them-
selves, their reasonable application was deemed subversive
and seditious, and they were imprisoned and heavily fined.
Hutchinson says; “ Bigotry and blind zeal prevailed
among Christians of every sect and profession. Each
denied to each other what all had a right to claim—liberty
of conscience.”13
The plea made for all this intolerance was the usual
excuse of necessity. It was urged that heretics and sec-
tarians might disturb the public peace.
The same plea, however, had been the excuse for intoler-
ance under the Tudors and the Stuarts, and was inappropri-
ate against those who were neither disturbers of the public
peace or morals, but asked merely forbearance and repose.
Toleration was never allowed in Massachusetts until the
declaration of indulgence of James II. established it.
It has been remarked, as a singular feature in the history
of New England theology, that there was no freedom of
conscience and worship there until it was established by a
tyrant and a bigot, who was a Romanist.
The shining exception in those early New England days
was Roger Williams. A refugee from intolerance in Eng-
land and Massachusetts, he could not apply to others the
injustice of which he had been the victim. Fleeing to the
wilderness, where he founded a State, he. freely extended
to refugees, for conscience sake, the tolerance he had
preached.
Many of the best of the English colonists moved to the
Dutch colony, for freedom of conscience and liberty of
worship. The Dutch authorities encouraged this emigra-
tion, and found great return in it by the addition of able-
bodied and experienced men to strengthen and enrich the
State.
The Dutch colonial government, in the main, was an
indulgent one to sectaries. It followed the principles of
the mother country in tolerating all sects of a Christian
character.
In 1656, when Stuyvesant issued a proclamation forbid-
ding preachers not having been called by ecclesiastical or
temporal authority, from holding conveuticles not in har-
mony with the established religion as set forth by the
synod of Dort, the ordinance expressly disclaimed “ any
lording over the conscience, or any prohibition of the read-14
ing of God’s Holy Word, and the domestic praying and
worship of each one in his family.”
The home government subsequently rebuked the Director
for his sectarian zeal.
Any objection to the Quakers, on the part of the Dutch
colonists, was rather from their being political malcontents
than from any objection to their principles.
In this spirit Governor Stuyvesant caused John Bowne
to be banished from the colony.
The Dutch West India Company, however, wrote back
to Stuyvesant these admonitory and memorable words:
“The consciences of men ought to be free and unshackled so long as they
continue moderate, peaceable, inoffensive and not hostile to the government.
Such have been the maxims of prudence and toleration by which the magis-
trates of this city (Amsterdam) have been governed, and the consequences have
been that the oppressed and persecuted have found among us an asylum of
distress. Follow in the same steps, and you will be blessed.”
ANABAPTISTS AND QUAKEBS.
The two “ damnable heresies,” as they were called, which
gave the New England colonists the most concern, were
the doctrines of the Anabaptists and of the Quakers.
The ire of both the civil and ecclesiastical powers was
visited upon them, and even the simple profession of such
tenets, without any outward act of worship, was sufficient
to bring upon the professors disgrace and punishment.
The principles of the Anabaptists, although obnoxious,
created no civil disturbance, and had as much basis of
biblical authority as any other of the polemical dogmas.
Their views were similar to those of the Baptists of this
day.
The word “Anabaptism,” as formerly used, signified a
rebaptising; the Anabaptists holding that the baptism of
infants was unwarranted, and that the ceremony, to be
effective as a means of saving grace, should be performed
upon adults, who could understand and conscientiously
seek the beneficent sacrament.
The original Anabaptists of Germany, who formed them-
selves into a sect during the early period of the Reforma-15
tion, in tlieir reformatory zeal transcended that of Luther;
their piety at times breaking forth into ungoverned fanati-
cism and aggressive political action.
Imposters and anti-Christs arose among them, trading on
the religious enthusiasm of the peasants, and leading
revolts against the civil authority.
Munzer, in 1521, at Saxony, and Matthias of Harlem, set
whole provinces in a blaze, and Buccold at Leyden, after
dubbing himself King John and assuming the purple,
finally expiated his zeal, under torture, in an iron cage.
Sucb extreme action of zealots involved even peaceable
professors of the creed in obloquy.
These patiently suffered martyrdom.
Their fellow-Protestants, even in Switzerland and the
Netherlands, were as unrelenting as any.
Even Zwinglius, persecuted himself, pronounced on
Mantz the sentence, “ Quiiterum mergit mergaturP
Menno Simonis, their last great spiritual leader, was the
instrument of gathering them into a body of Protestant
Christians, under the name of Mennonites.
The baptists in England, from Henry VIII. to William
III., struggled vigorously for religious freedom, and were
leaders in the battle against ecclesiastical oppression.
Anabaptists came over in large numbers to England
when Ann of Oleves was married to Henry VIII. Their
doctrines were offensive to the English hierarchy, and were
condemned in the articles of religion promulgated in
Henry’s reign as a detestable heresy- Their sufferings at
the stake testified to their sincerity and to the tyranny over
conscience, which, in that day, and long after, colored
Anglo-Episcopacy with Protestant blood.
The New England colonists were no more tolerant of the
Anabaptists than were the prelates and the Star Chamber
of the fatherland.
The Massachusetts law against the Anabaptists was
enacted in 1644.16
They were, in it, termed “ incendiaries of the common-
wealth and infectors of persons in main matters of re-
ligion ;” and it was provided,
“That if any person, within this jurisdiction, shall either openly condemn
or oppose the baptising of infants, or go about secretly to seduce others from
the approbation or use thereof, or shall purposely depart the congregation at
the ministration of the ordinance, and shall appear to the court wilfully and
obstinately to continue therein, after due time and means of conviction, every
such person shall be sentenced to banishment. ”
Thomas Painter was whipped because not able to pay a
fine imposed for not suffering his child to be baptised.
Joseph Redknap was imprisoned for a similar neglect.
Roger Williams, whose name stands out in colors of
light against the bigotry of the time, protested against
these enactments. Both he and Ann Hutchinson were
opposed to the baptism of infants, and both were alike, for
their opinions, driven into the wilderness, she to be mur-
dered by Indians, he to found a State, the first principle of
which, as promulgated by its founder, was the noble one,
since universal in this land, “ that matters relating to con-
science and religion were to be free of the control of civil
magistrates, and that no one was to be accounted a delin-
quent for doctrine.”
In a communication of Roger Williams to Endicott,
relative to the fining and scourging of some Baptists at
Lynn, who were guilty of the crime of holding a religious
meeting in a private house, he concludes in these memor-
able words: u I end with an humble cry to the Father of
mercies that no sleep may seize upon your eyes until your
serious thoughts have calmly and unchangeably, through
help from Christ, fixed on a moderation towards the spirit
and conscience of all mankind, merely differing from or
opposing yours with only religious and spiritual opposi-
tion.”
The Quakers in the New England settlements were even17
more obnoxious to our rigid forefathers than the Anabap-
tists, and were persecuted with greater zeal.
Scourging, banishment and hanging were common pun-
ishments for the outward manifestation of their peculiar
tenets, and the holding even of private conventicles for
their simple worship was held an offence both against God
and the State.
Their patience and persistence under this savage perse-
cution from their fellow-exiles is as marvellous on their side
as is the bigotry which harassed them.
Even those who lodged, fed or showed ordinary human
sympathy toward any of that “ pestilent company and
notorious heretics, the Quakers,” as they were termed, and
particularly those who accompanied the victims on their
last march to the scaffold, were fined, scourged or disfran-
chised.
At New Haven Quakers were to be branded with the
letter “ H ” if they came a second time into the colony,
and, for a fourth visit, both males and females were to have
their tongues bored through with a hot iron.
In 1658 three Quakers had each a right ear cut off for
visiting Boston a second time without permission.
The execution of Mary Dyer illustrates fully the zeal of
the Quakers and the opposing zeal that persecuted them.
I select the following episode from a history of the time:
“ The whole court met together, sent for Mary Dyer, who rebelliously, after sen-
tence of death passed against her, returned to this jurisdiction. Being come before
the court, she acknowledged herself to be Mary Dyer, the person who was con-
demned by this court to death! Being asked what she had to say why sentence
should not be executed, she gave no other answer but that she denied our law, and
came to bear witness on it, and could not choose but come and do as formerly.”
“June 1.—The day previous to this Mary Dyer, on hearing the Governor again
sentence her to death, answered : ‘There is no more than thou saidst before.’ Pie
rejoined : ‘ But now it is to be executed ; therefore, prepare yourself for to-morrow,
at nine o’clock.’ After other remarks she was carried back to prison. At the time
appointed, Marshal Michelson came for her with a guard, and found her composed,
with her friend Margaret Smith in the same apartment. She was brought out, and,
with a band of soldiers, led through the town, the drums being beaten before and
behind her, that none might hear her speak, all the way to the place of execution,
which was about a mile. When she had gone up the ladder, some said to her that
#18
if she would return she might come down and save her life ; to which she replied:
‘ Nay, I cannot, for. in obedience to the will of the Lord I came, and in His will I
abide faithfully to the death.’ Then Captain John Webb said that she had been
there before, and had the sentence of banishment upon pain of death, and had broken
the law in coming again now, and therefore she was guilty of her own blood ; to
which she returned: ‘Nay, I came to keep blood guiltiness from you, desiring you
to repeal the unrighteous and unjust law of banishment, upon pain of death, made
against the innocent servants of the Lord.’ Mr. Wilson said : ‘ Mary Dyer, O,
repent! 0, repent! and be not so deluded and carried away by the deceit of the
devil.’ To this she answered: ‘Nay, man, I am not now to repent.’ And, being
asked by some whether she would have the elders pray for her, she said: ‘ I know
never an elder here.’ A bystander remarked that she had said she had been in Para-
dise ; to which she answered : ‘Yea, I have been in Paradise several days.’ Sewall
adds: 4 In this well-disposed condition she was turned otf and died a martyr of
Christ, being twice led to death, which the first time she expected with undaunted
courage, and now suffered with Christian fortitude.’ ”
We read, also, that one Edward Wharton, at Salem, was
fined and whipped for merely remarking that two Quakers
were unjustly hung.
It must'be confessed, however, that the Quakers, in those
times, were rather too self-asserting, and their zeal often
led them to the commission of acts that were subversive of
the public order, or that shocked the moral sense.
Great must have been the wonder and tribulation of the
decent matrons of Salem when the wife of Robert Wilson
went through the town, utterly denuded of clothing, as a
sign of the spiritual nakedness, as she termed it, of the
town and colony. We can, imagine, too, the consternation
of the elders of the church at Hampton, in New Hampshire,
when Lydia Wardwell, in order to demonstrate her deep
impression of the spiritual destitution of the people of the
church, in Newbury Meeting House, walked naked up the
aisle in presence of the startled congregation.
LADY MOODY.
Such was the condition of nonconformity in New Eng-
land when Lady Deborah Moody fled from England and
settled in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
She was the widow of Sir Henry Moody, of Garesden, in19
Wiltshire, who was one of the baronets created by Janies
in 1622.
Lady Deborah’s maiden name was Dunch. The Dunches
were an ancient family from Berkshire. Their x>olitics
favored liberty of conscience and freedom of Parliaments.
Lady Deborah’s father, Walter Dnneh, was a member of
Parliament in Elizabeth’s time. Her uncle Edward was a
member both in the time of James and of Charles I.
His son, Sir William, was uncle by marriage to Cromwell,
and the son of Sir William, as a member of Parliament
during the troublous times of Charles the First and of
Cromwell, was a strenuous advocate of the rights of the
subject.
Thus Lady Deborah, on the father’s side, sprang from a
family in close sympathy with those who battled for consti-
tutional and natural rights.
She drank in, from her family association, those prin-
ciples of religious freedom that were trampled on in her
native land, and the denial of which caused her to flee from
it, an exile, never to return.
Of Sir Henry Moody little has been ascertained ; he was
of a Wiltshire family. It is recorded in Burke’s Extinct
Baronetages that he died in about the year 1632.
There was one son of the marriage surviving, Sir Henry,
the younger, of whom mention will be made hereafter.
There was also a daughter, whose history has not been
ascertained.
About the time of the death of the elder Sir Henry the
condition of the English subject was deplorable.
The Crown claimed and exercised despotic power; the
judges were servile tools; compulsory loans and extraor-
dinary taxes were enforced; arbitrary detentions, at the
King’s will, were made; trade was interfered with by royal
proclamation; torture was a part of judicial procedure, and20
the Court and courtiers derided the idea of any liberty in
the subject.
The Established Church, too, was at the zenith of its
power, and daily approached nearer to the Bomish
ritual.
Prelates sat in the Council and Star Chamber, and
enforced conformity with unrelenting rigor.
Every deviation from the prescribed doctrines was rank
heresy; every word uttered against the established hie-
rarchy was treasonable; the divine right of the king and
of the episcopacy was adopted as a canon and enforced as
a doctrine, under pain of excommunication. Printers, and
even readers of reformed books, were prosecuted. Prelates
became the statesmen, showing how close was the corpora-
tion of Church and State. Laud became Prime Minister,
and Juxon Lord High Treasurer.
Five years before leaving England, it is stated in Lewis’s
History of-'Lynn, Lady Moody had gone from her country
residence to London, where she remained, in opposition to
a penal statute, which enjoined that no person should reside
beyond a limited time from their own homes. The Court of
the Star Chamber made an order that “ Dame Deborah
Moody and the others should return to their hereditaments
in forty days, in the good example necessary to the poorer
class.”
The state of the English subject then being that of slavery
to the Crown and Prelacy, and the Lady Moody being a
particular object of animadversion by the inquisitorial Court
of the Star Chamber, she resolved to abandon her native
land.
She decided to settle in the colony of Massachusetts Bay.
To this colony a strong tide of immigration was fleeing of
those who sought it as a place of repose and religious peace.
Many of the colonists, and some of the English patentees
who formed the company, were persons of rank and
influence.
Lady Moody was evidently a friend of the Winthrops,21
father and son, the former of whom had become governor
of the colony.
There is a letter, among the Massachusetts annals, from
Mrs. Priscilla Paynter to John Winthrop, Jr., dated in
1631, and directed to him as her beloved son, he being then
in London. The letter states, among other things, that
forty pounds, which was due as part of the marriage por-
tion of his wife (who was a step-daughter of Mrs. Paynter),
was lodged in “Lady Moudde’s hands, which if you will be
earnest with her,’5 the letter states, “ I make no doubt she
will pay it forthwith.”
Lady Moody left England either before the year 1640 or
early in that year, and was doubtless accompanied by sev-
eral friends, some of whom went with her subsequently to
New Amsterdam.
If she had waited a little longer, she would have wit-
nessed the commencement of the mighty political change
whose throes and heavings throughout the land were then
hardly visible.
Soon after her departure began the session of the Long
Parliament, which put an end to the arbitrary jurisdiction
of the Crown, and, within two years, expelled the Bishops
from its sessions, and brought Strafford’s career to a close,
on the scaffold.
Lady Moody appears to have sailed without either of her
children or any relatives—a harassed and lonely widow—
voluntarily exiling herself for conscience sake.
She established her residence in the colony, at the settle-
ment then known as Saugus, but subsequently called Lynn.
The colony, at the time of her arrival, had been settled not
over twelve years, and was still in a rude state.
In April, 1640, we find her name placed among the mem-
bers of the Congregational Church at Salem, situate about
five miles north of Lynn.22
She immediately busied herself in establishing a perma-
nent residence in the country of her adoptiou.
In May of the year 1640, the General Court of Massa-
chusetts granted her 400 acres of land, to be selected by
her, for a plantation.
In 1641 she purchased the large farm of John Hum-
phries, at a place then and now known as Swampscott,
near Lynn.
John Humphrey, whose farm she purchased, was one of
the original patentees; lie had married a daughter of the
Earl of Lincoln. She was a sister of Lady Arabella John-
son, who succumbed to the hardships of her new life, soon
after her arrival.
The Humphrey farm was beautifully situated between
the ocean cliffs of the Essex coast and a river in the rear.
This farm was stocked with cattle, and was put under ex-
tensive culture by Lady Moody.
She resided either at Lynn or at Salem, at which latter
place she had a small house next to that occupied by the
Eev. Hugh Peters. Peters subsequently returned to Eng-
land, to be one of Cromwell’s fighting chaplains, and to
lose his life for treason to Charles I., he being supposed to
be one of those who stood masked on the scaffold when
that monarch was beheaded.
On Lady Moody’s subsequent removal to New Neder-
land, she leased her farm to Daniel King, who in 1651
purchased the same of her, it then consisting of about 1,200
acres.
The purchase of the Humphrey farm seems to have some-
what embarrassed Lady Moody.
Lechford, in 1641 says, u Lady Moody lives at Lynn, but
is of Salem church. She is a good lady, almost undone
by buying Master Humphries’ farm, Swampscott.”
Hardly had she become comfortably settled in her new
possessions, than she had personal experience that she was
not to enjoy that religious freedom which had been the
inducement of her exile.23
After her arrival, probably, she became impressed with
the peculiar views on baptism that had been promulgated
by Roger Williams and his followers, and which had taken
root in all the New England settlements.
In three years after joining the church at Salem, we find
that she was admonished by that church for denying the
propriety of infant baptism.
She was subsequently formally excommunicated by that
church, for denying that the baptism of infants was of di-
vine ordinance.
Governor Winthrop, in his annals, speaks of her as follows:
“ The Ladye Moodye, a wise and anciently religious woman,
being taken with the error of denying baptism to infants,
was dealt withal by many of the elders and others, and
admonished by the church of Salem (whereof she was a
member); but persisting still, and to avoid further trouble,
etc., she removed to the Dutch, agt the advice of all
her friends. Many others infected with anabaptism re-
moved thither also. She was after excommunicated.”
We also find that, under date of December, 1842, in the
proceedings of the Quarterly Court, “the Lady Deborah
Moodie, Mrs. King and the wife of John Tillton, were pre-
sented for houldinge that the baptising of infants is noe
ordinance of God.”
Mrs. King was a neighbor of Lady Moody. She was
wife of Dan’l King, who lived at Swampscott. John Tilton
came over at the same time as Lady Moody, and afterwards
removed with her to Gravesend, where he became an officer
of the town.
The number of inhabitants at Lynn became greatly
diminished after the year 1641, when the immigration from
England seemed to fall off, and many of the best families,
under the pressure of the theocratic administration of civil
affairs, removed to other settlements in Kew England or to
Long Island.
This fact was adverted to in a petition presented in 164524
to the General Court, for the abatement of the general
taxes to be paid by Lynn.
The petition alludes to the departure of those who had
paid a large part of the taxes, and speaks of “ those fewe
able persons which were with and of us, it’s not unknowne
how many of them have deserted us; as my Lady Moody,
whose share in a former rate of this town, at £80, was about
£4, and her estate, left now in a life rate, pays not £1.10s.”
It does not appear by the above extracts that Lady
Moody was actually banished by the Government authori-
ties; but the admonition and arraignment she was the
subject of did not suit her high spirit and sensitive nature,
and she preferred to abandon her friends and the country
of her adoption, and flee to strangers, to remaining an
object of reproach and criticism; and under restraint of all
expression of her religious creed.
Again harassed—still seeking a haven of repose—Lady
Moody, for a second time, became a voluntary exile.
In the summer of 1643, she reluctantly bade farewell to
the Massachusetts colony and the Pilgrim Fathers, and set
her face towards New Amsterdam.
The mode of transit, in those days, between New England
and New Amsterdam was on the trading vessels passing
through Long Island Sound.
She was accompanied by some of her friends, who har-
monized with her religious views, and was subsequently
joined by others.
There is a letter in the Massachusetts records, written in
March, 1643, stating that the Rev. Mr. Walton, of Marble-
head, “ is for Long Island shortly, there to set down with
my Lady Moodie, from under civill and church watch,
among ye Dutch.”
During her early sojourn, at New Amsterdam, Lady
Moody does not appear to have been satisfied with her
condition there. Possibly there may have been some ani-25
madversion upon her, on account of her peculiar religious
tenets, and, it has been stated, that she was arraigned before
the Director and Council on account of them. I have not,
however, found the authority for this statement.
We are led, however, to infer that there was some dis-
satisfaction or disappointment on her part, from a request
that she made for a return to the New England colony.
This is evidenced by the contents of a letter written by
Deputy-Governor John Endicott to Governor Winthrop.
It is dated in the spring of 1644, and the original is now
with the Winthrop family in Boston.
In the postscript of this letter are the following words :
“ Salem, the 22d of the 2d mo., 1644.
“ Sir, since I wrot my Lettre, Mr. Norrice came to mee, to tell mee, that hee
heard that the Lady Moody hath written to you to give her advice for her returne.
I shall desire that shee may not have advice to returne to this Jurisdic.cion, vnless
shee will acknowledge her ewill in opposing the Churches, & leave her opinions be-
liinde her, ffor shee is a dangerous woeman. My brother Ludlow writt to mee, that,
by meanes of a booke she sent to Mrs. Eaton, shee questions her owne baptisme &
it is verie doubtefull whither shee will be reclaymed, shee is so farre ingaged. The
Lord rebuke Satan, the aduersarie of our Soules.”
Matters, however, seem to have been amicably arranged
with the New Amsterdam authorities, for Lady Moody and
her friends were allowed to settle upon a large tract of
laud on Long Island at that portion of the island known
subsequently as the town of Gravesend, for which a patent
was subsequently given. This place was situated on the
southwesterly coast of Long Island, within a few miles of
New Amsterdam.
The name was given to it by Governor Kieft, after the
Dutch town (s'G-ravensande) of that name, on the river Maas.
Lady Moody, being a person of substance, no doubt had
as comfortable a residence built for her as could be erected
at that time. It was evidently a large substantial structure,
for it was used as a sort of citadel when the town was
attacked by Indians.
The settlement was made at Gravesende about two years
before the date of the patent before referred to. It is sup-26
posed to have been in the spring of 1643; and the colonists
immediately began to enclose their lands within palisades,
and to plant and raise cattle, Coney Island being used as a
pasture ground.
Among her other possessions, Lady Moody owned a drove
of hogs. From the old records we find that the crew of a
certain English privateer, the u Seven Stars” landed on the
farm of Anthony Jansen Yan Salee, in the bay, and stole
his pumpkins, and would have carried away a lot of hogs
from Coney Island had they not learned that they belonged
to Lady Moody.
In the winter following the settlement, the town had to
undergo the horrors of a marauding attack from the In-
dians, but they were driven oft* by the stout colonists, some
of whom were expert Indian fighters.
Winthrop writes, in 1643, of Indians u who, having killed
and driven away all the English upon the main, as far as
Stamford (for so far the Dutch had gained possession by
the English), they passed on to Long Island, and there
assaulted the Lady Moody in her home several times, for
there were forty men gathered there to defend it.”
At another time, under an attack from the Indians, the
settlers had to betake themselves to Amersfoort, orFlatlands,
for temporary refuge. This was probably before the
town was properly fortified by the palisades. Possibly it
may have been these Indian attacks that led Lady
Moody to desire to return to New England.
The first patentee in the Gravesend region was Anthony
Jansen Yan Salee, who figures, not very creditably, in the
early history of New Amsterdam.
His patent was for 100 morgens or two hundred acres
of land, “ over against Conven (or Coney) Island.” It is
dated August 1st, 1639 ; and was confirmed in 1643.
The patent from Director Keift to Lady Moody, and the
first settlers at Gravesende, is dated 19th December, 1645.
It gives and grants unto u Ye honoured Lady Deborah
Moody ; Sir Henry Moody, Baronet; Ensign George Bax-27
ter, and Sergeant James Hubbard, and any that shall
join in association with them, a tract bounded on the creek
adjacent to Coneyne Island; also, by land of Anthony
Johnson and Bobert Pennoyer, and by the ocean; with
privilege to graze cattle on Oonyne Island ;” with power to
erect a town and fortifications, and “to have and injoye
the free libertie of conscience according to the costome and
manner of Holland, without molestation or disturbance from
any madgistrate or madgistrates, or any other ecclesiastical
minister that may pretend jurisdiction over them, and with
liberty to constitute themselves a body politic as freemen
of the Province and Town of Gravesende.” Power was
also given to nominate to the Director members of a minor
Court of three men, to be constituted, and also a Sellout or
chief magistrate.
The patent is upon the condition that the patentees and
their heirs “ shall faithfully acknowledge and reverently
respect the high and mighty Lord the Estates General of the
United Belgic provinces, His Highness Prince Frederick,
by the grace of God Prince of Orange; and the Bight
Honorable Lords of the West India Company.”
It will be observed that liberty of conscience and of wor-
ship, free from disturbance by the civil power, is fully pro-
vided for in this patent.
Prior to the Gravesend grant, Gov. Kieft, in May, 1644,
had made a grant of the whole of “ Conyen Island,” con-
sisting of about 44 morgens of land, to one Gysbert Op-
Dyke.
A subsequent grant in the vicinity was made, in Novem-
ber, 1645, to one Bobert Pennoyer. This tract is described
as lying between the land of “ A. Jansen (Van Salee) and
Meleydie Moedy.”
Gravesend was intended for a large city, and laid out in
a circuit of ten acres, with streets converging to the centre.
To each person was allotted a village residence within the
pallisades, while without were the appurtenant farms.
In the proceedings in a certain action, instituted many28
years after the settlement by the magistrates of Gravesend,
it appeared in the evidence taken before the notary that
Lady .Moody and her associates habitually used Coney
Island for their cattle, and the valleys there for their hogs.
The magis* rates claimed that Evart Petersen and Har-
man Vedder, in the name of one De Wolf, a merchant of
Amsterdam, under claim of right through Gysbert Op-
JDyck, had given written notice to the petitioners to drive
away the town cattle and that said persons had erected a
salt kettle on the island.
The magistrates prayed a mandamus, that, the town of
Gravesend might be maintained in possession of Coney
Island, in such manner as they have possessed it for nine-
teen years.
Pieters and Yedder subsequently brought suit, and the
magistrates put in answer, that Coney Island was granted
to Lady Moody, her associates and successors in 1643, for
pasture and for hay.
Judgment was obtained in January, 1662, by the town,
against the claim of Van OpDyck, in this action of Pieters
and Yedder.
The settlers at Gravesend seem to have been generally
affected with anabaptist views, and to have had no settled
church.
In an account of the state of the churches in New Neder-.
land, given in 1657, by Domines Megapoleusis and
Drisius, addressed to the classis at Amsterdam, they speak
of the inhabitants of Gravesend as being Mennonists—
u yea,” the account states, “ they, for the most part, reject
infant baptism, the Sabbath, the office of preacher and the
teachers of God’s word; saying that through these have
come all sorts of contention into the world. Whenever
they meet together, the one or the other reads something
for them.”
After five or six years of settlement, we get an idea of29
Lady Moody’s pecuniary condition and style of living, and
the extent of her farming* operations, from a letter written
in 1349 by her agent to Wm. King, the purchaser of her
Swampscott farm.
On the back of this letter, apparently written by the
lady herself, is a list of articles which she desired Mr.
King to send her in part payment of the farm.
This list is still extant among the town records of Salem,
and is curious as showing the articles of wear, and the
various implements in use at that day.
Among the articles desired to be sent are, “ Two yards of
black Taffety; 40 yeardes of broade dowlasse; 40 yeardes of
holland ; 40 yeardes, at 4s. per yard, of Broadclothe; of
whit fustenn, 10 yards; of brown fussten, 10 yards ; oune
good greene Rugg ; oune paire of blankets; of narrow teek
for boulsters and pyllows, 20 yards; one piece cullered stuff;
one of shagy bayss, 20 yds; 8 seyeths for mowing (I pray
let them be very good); of plow chains 3; & 2 peauter pots.”
There is also a request for nails, saws, angurs and other
tools; shoes, skillets and other implements and articles for
domestic use ; and for a hundredweight of iron.
Lady Moody seems to have retained very friendly feel-
ings to the Winthrop family, notwithstanding her exile.
The following is the copy of a letter written by her to
John Winthrop, Jr., the Governor of Connecticut. It is ad-
dressed “ To ye worshipfull and my much honored friend
Mr. John Winthrop, at his house at Pequid, give this,” and
the contents are as follows:
[1649 ?]
“ Woethi Sue,—My respective love to you remem[bered,] acknowliging my selfe
for youre many kindness[es] & respecte to me much obliged to you. I have written
divers times to you, but 1 dout you have not received it; at present, being in hast, I
can not inlarg my selfe, only my request is y you will be pleased, either by this bote,
if in your wisdom you see not a conuenienter opertunitie, to send to me those things
y* Mr. Throgmortone brought for me, & I understand are with you, for I am in
great need of ym, together with Marke Lucars chest & other things. So with my
respective love to you & youre wife, with Mrs. Lacke, remem bred, hoping you &
they, with youre children, are in helth, I rest, comitting you to ye protection of
ye Allmighti. Pray remember my nesesiti in this thing.
DEBORAH MOODY.”30
Lady Moody seems to have been on terms of great friendly
intimacy with Director Kieft’s successor, Governor Stuy-
vesant.
Among the records we find a letter of September 3, 1654,
from him to Lady Moody, informing her of the appoint-
ment of Commissioners to settle the boundaries between
Gravesend, Anthony Jansen’s land and the land patented
to Pennoyer. The letter is subscribed as “ Your honor’s
affectionnate friend, P. Stuyvesant.”
The Gravesend settlers, it will be remembered, were
mostly English; and, although they held their lands under
a pateut from the Dutch, on the condition of allegiance to
the States General, were ever chafing under the Dutch rule,
and ready to join in alliance with Connecticut and the other
English settlements on Long Island.
In 1653, war was carried on between England and Hol-
land, which gave additional feeling of unrest to the Graves-
end settlers, and caused a treasonable co-operation between
them and the New England colonists.
Cromwell, in 1654, made peace with Holland, just as the
New Englanders were preparing an expedition to attack
New Amsterdam.
Subsequently, in the same year, Gravesend became openly
disaffected ; the colonists denied the right of the Director
to pass upon nominations, and appointed twelve men of
their own selection to manage the town. Ensign Baxter
and Sergeant Hubbard were nominated magistrates.
This nomination was distasteful to Stuyvesant; for those
men were supposed to have treasonable designs against the
Dutch authority.
To settle matters, in December of that year, Stuyvesant
went in person to Gravesend, and stayed at Lady Moody’s
house.
Lady Moody seems to have acted as a pacificator in the
matter. Her high standing and character among the set-
tlers gave her great influence over them. Stuyvesant, also,
had a great respect for her; for he confided to her the31
nomination of the magistrates for that and for subsequent
years, and her popularity with the Gravesend people recon-
ciled them to this unusual procedure.
Subsequently, in 1655, Baxter, Hubbard and other of the
malcontents openly revolted and hoisted the English flag,
claiming that they were under English law. This revolt
was speedily quelled by Stuyvesant, and Baxter and Hub-
bard were thrown into prison at New Amsterdam.
Among the records appears a letter written in 1655 from
Lady Moody and John Tilton, clerk of the town, to Director
Stuyvesant, notifying him of their selection of the town
officers for his approval. The nomination was confirmed
by the Governor, in spite of a remonstrance from the Dutch
inhabitants of the town. The reasons of the remonstrance
alleged were, that there was no Dutchman among the
nominees, and that the Gravesend people had given out
that no Dutchman should have anything to do with the
government at Gravesend.
In 1655 the settlement, it appears, was again attacked by
some Indians, who had descended the Hudson Biver, and
after devastating the settlements on the New Jersey coast
and on Staten Island, passed over to Long Island, attacked
the Gravesend settlement, and Lady Moody’s house was
besieged. The settlers were unable, unassisted, to beat off
their savage foe, but made a stout resistance until they
were relieved by Dutch soldiers from New Amsterdam.
I have been unable to gather any more facts as to the
life of Lady Deborah Moody, who was the only woman of
rank that settled in our ancient Dutch State, and who, as
Judge Benson remarks, came as another Dido to found a
colony.
SIR HENRY MOODY.
Lady Moody’s only son was Sir Henry, who succeeded his
father in the baronetcy.
At what time Sir Henry came to America is not ascer-
tained. It is not clear whether he came over with his32
mother to New England, or whether he joined her after-
wards there, or at Gravesend, of which latter place he was
one of the patentees.
In 1624, as appears from the records of Wiltshire, he
was eighteen years of age.
If so, in 1643, at the time of the settlement at Gravesend,
nineteen years later, he would have been aged thirty-seven.
It is probable that Sir Henry was in New England at
some time before going to New Nederland. In a report
made in 1661, by Captain Thomas Breedon, to the English
Council for Foreign Plantations, on the state of the New
England colonies, as to their feeling of allegiance to the
Royal Government, then recently re-established, he speaks
of a person having been seized in New England by the au-
thorities several years back, under suspicion that he was
the king ; they resolving, if such was the case, to send him
to England; but that Sir Henry Moody and others, who
were acquainted with the king’s appearance, had identified
the accused as a different person.
The king here referred to was doubtless Charles II, whom
Sir Henry had seen in England, when Prince of Wales,
either at Court, or during the wars with the Parliamentari-
ans. Sir Henry partook, doubtless, of his mother’s princi-
ples, and, like her, he gave up his country, friends and social
standing to seek a land where he might have liberty of per-
son and of conscience.
By the English records it appears that he sold the family
estate at Garesden before leaving, thereby indicating an
intention never to return.
Sir Henry and the English settlers at Gravesend, al-
though under allegiance to the Dutch, as has been seen,
had strong sympathy with the English Government, especi-
ally during the period when the English, under Cromwell,
were at war with Holland.
From the New Haven records it appears that, on the
trial of one Captain Manning, in 1654, he presented a cer-33
tificate under the hand of Sir Henry Moody, Knight, and
some others, directed to all admirals, captains, &c., to the
effect that he, Manning, had tendered his vessel to serve
the Commonwealth of England.
Manning was tried for trading with the Dutch, and so
serving the enemies of England during the war with Hol-
land under the Protectorate.
The records of Gravesend and New Amsterdam do not
furnish us with much information as to the doings of Sir
Henry. He appears, however, to have been a prominent
man in the settlement, and to have enjoyed the confidence
and respect of his fellow townsmen, who often sought his
advice.
Towards the end of the year 1659, Sir Henry seems to
have contemplated leaving Gravesend for Virginia, as a
region more congenial to his tastes and national feeling.
There was little to retain him at Gravesend. His vener-
able mother had passed away. He had, so far as it appears,
no relatives or connections in this country, and the people
that surrounded him were doubtless uncongenial, he being,
as appears by the list of his books below given, a man of
culture and literary tastes.
Another reason for his leaving Gravesend was that he
had become embroiled with some of his neighbors in dis-
agreeable litigation, and his estate was much impaired.
Doubtless the various Indian raids had made havoc with
the stock and crops on his farm; and the Plantation at
Swrampscott had been sold at a great sacrifice.
We find him, accordingly, in May, 1659, making a trans-
fer of some of his land to one Johnson.
It is described as a double lot. The deed transfers the
grantor’s right of inheritance from his deceased mother,
Deborah Moody, patentee thereof, from the honored Wm.
Kieft, unto her.
This deed fixes the date of Lady Moody’s decease as be-
fore May 1659.
The property sold was probably the family home and34
messuage at Gravesend. Johnson, it seems, was unable to
pay for the land.
We next find records of a suit for slander brought by Sir
Henry against this same Johnson, who was apparently a
great plague to the Baronet.
The complaint alleged that Johnson came to Sir Henry’s
house and used abusive language. A witness, Annetje
Wall, testified that she was scouring pewter there, and
Johnson asked her what she did there, and commanded her
to take it away, calling Sir Henry, at the same time, a dog,
a rogue and a “ shellumme”, and abused her with evil lan-
guage. The Court made award that Johnson should pay
ten guilders, and gave an admonition to him to behave bet-
ter or fare worse.
In July 1659 there was another action brought by Sir
Henry against this Johnson, the purchaser of his land. By
the minutes of the trial it appears that the plaintiff alleged
that he daily expected a vessel in which to leave the coun-
try, having sold his “ outwear,” seeing that he could not
subsist here.
He alleged that Johnson had bought his land, house,
plate and cattle, but had yet not paid for it.
He stated that he should not be able to get to Virginia
unless payment was made.
He also claimed that Johnson prevented him from living
in his house.
The Court stated that, as Johnson had no defence to the
claim, and as Sir Henry Moody produced a bill of sale
amounting to 13 ankers of brandy, it awarded the full
amount to be paid in fourteen days and costs. And also de-
cided that Sir Henry should continue to live in the house
for the present.
There was another suit by Sir Henry against Johnson
for detaining corn, in which Sir Henry was also successful.
Sir Henry, about this year, 1659, seems also to have been
of service to the Dutch Government, against the Indians.35
In a report made to Lord Clarendon as to the condition
of the Dutch, it is stated that in September, 1659, a fort
belonging to the Dutch, about 80 miles above the Man-
hattas, being besieged by Indians, Sir Henry Moody was
requested by the Dutch authorities to raise a company to
go to its assistance, which he did; and, having entered the
Port, set up the English colors there. The effect of the
English interference caused a cessation of further hostilities
by the Indians.
Sir Henry soon afterwards departed for Virginia, which
colony he had visited before that time, as we infer from
a letter written by John Davenport to John Winthrop,
Jr., dated in February, 1659. This letter gives an account
of military movements in England by General Monk and
Lord Lambert, with relation to their supposed action in
behalf of the restoration. The writer thus concludes: “ The
storie runs in Sir Henrie Moody’s report sent in his letter
from Virginia to an Englishman, a Captain at Manatoes.”
Besides the reasons above adduced for leaving New
Nederland for Virginia, it is probable that Sir Henry felt
that, as the tenure of the Gravesend settlers under their
patent had been on condition of allegiauce to the Dutch
authority, and as the temper of the settlement was to rebel
against such authority, he could not, with honor, continue
among them and favor their principles of revolt.
Virginia had always maintained a friendly intercourse
with New Nederland, while there was always jealousy and
rivalry on the part of the New England colonies.
Stuyvesant’s brother-in-law, Nicolas Varlett, and Captain
Bryan Newton, deputed by Stuyvesant, had previously gone
to Virginia, to propose a treaty of mutual fellowship and
commerce, and for protection against “ the savage and bar-
barous nations, the enemies of both.”
The Commissioners met with a hospitable reception at
Jamestown, and a treaty stipulating for free trade and
commerce was negotiated: a condition of the treaty was,36
that the inhabitants of the respective provinces were to
have mutual rights in each other’s courts of justice; run-
away servants were to be mutually surrendered, and ab-
sconding debtors arrested.
Soon afterwards, in the year 1660, Sir Henry Moody, as
representing Virginia, was sent to ratify the treaty with the
Dutch authorities.
Our State records now give us some rather interesting
details of Sir Henry’s visit to New Amsterdam.
By the minutes of the proceedings it appears that, on the
21st of June, 1660, he arrived as the Ambassador from Vir-
ginia, and made his appearance officially before the Director
and Council.
He was treated with great respect, and was reconducted,
on leaving, by two members of the Council, escorted by two
halbadiers. He exhibited his credentials in the shape of a
letter from Sir William Berkeley, Governor, and Theodore
Blande, Speaker of the Assembly of Virginia, to the Director
and Council, empowering him to receive their signatures
to the proposed treaty.
The letter introduced Sir Henry in courteous terms, as
representing the Virginia Government, and requested the
Dutch Government to honor his draft for 4,000 pounds
weight of tobacco.
Tobacco was one of the standards of currency in those
days; one pound of tobacco, by a law of Virginia, being
made equal to three shillings.
By another letter from Governor Berkeley, it appears that
Governor Stuyvesant had made a present of white wine to
Governor Berkeley, which the latter acknowledges, with
many thanks, and states that by next vessel he will reci-
procate by sending some of his best tobacco, and will
satisfy Stuyvesant for what Sir Henry had had of him.
In June, 1660, wTe find, on the records ot the Governor
and Council, a resolution to advance 1000 or 1200 guilders
to Sir Henry Moody, and a memoranda of the delibera-37
tions on the proposed treaty, with a statement that Sir
Henry had fall power to make any change in the treaty.
The money thus provided was probably not for Sir
Henry’s personal use, but for some public purpose of the
Virginia Government.
In September, 1660, the records show that Sir Henry dis-
posed of a “ tract and plantation” at Gravesend, to one
John Bowne.
The worldly affairs of Sir Henry, at about this time, seem
to have been at a low ebb. The English patrimony at
Garsden had doubtless been parted with at a sacrifice, on
his departure from England; the farm at Swampscott had
been sold at a great loss, and the Gravesende estate seems
to have been sold, under pressure, to purchasers that were
unable to pay the purchase-money. While sojourning at
New Amsterdam, Sir Henry took lodgings with one Daniel
Litschoe, an iun-keeper. Litschoe’s inn was situated just
by the Water-poort, or City water gate, near the present
junction of Wall and Pearl Streets.
Litschoe was one of the early emigrants to New Amster-
dam, and was a retired soldier, having been an ensign in
the Dutch army. His tavern was pleasantly situated on
the water side, on the outskirts of the town, in a rural posi-
tion, overlooking the waters of the bay and the green hills
of Breuckelen.
Before returning to Virginia, where he soon afterwards
died, Sir Henry, who seems then to have been in great
straits, left certain books in the hands of Daniel Litschoe in
security for the payment of his board and lodging. The
catalogue of these books has come down to us. They are
not only interesting, as connected with the subject of our
memoir, but curious to the antiquarian, as showing what
were the books then in vogue, forming part of the library
of a cultivated man of the time.
The catalogue reads as follows: “A Latyn Bible, in
folio—A written book, in folio, containing private matters of
State—A written book, in folio, containing private matters38
of the king—Seventeen several books of devinite matters—
A dictinaruis Latin & English—15 several Latin & Italian
books of divirs matters—A book, in folio, containing the
voyage of Ferdinand Mendoz—A book in folio kalleth
Sylva Sylvarmn—A book in quarto calletli Bartas’ six days
work of the Lord, translit in English by Josa. Sylvester—
A book in quarto ealleth the Summe and substance of the
conference which it pleased his excellent Majestie to have
with the Lords, bishops, &c., at Hampton Court, contract-
eth by William Barlow—A book, in quarto, ealleth Eccle-
siastica Interpretatio, or the Expositions upon the difficult
and doubtful passages of the 7 Epistles, called Oatholique,
and the Revelation collecteth by John Mayer—Eleven
several books more, of divers substants—The verification
of his Fathers Knights’ order, given by King James.”
This catalogue is found in the notarial records of Solomon
Lachair, one of the New Amsterdam notaries, under date
of 1661.
Lachair testifies as follows: “ That, at request of Daniel
Litschoe, inn keeper, at his home, where was exhibited an
obligation dated 20th Sept. 1661, written in English, and
signed by the Bt. Sir Henry Moody, who died in Virginia, at
the house of one Colonel Morrittson ; and also a quantity of
50 written and printed books, which, the requirent declared,
were left in pledge with him and as security of his debt, by
the above named Sir Henry Moody.”
Lachair afterwards wrote to Col. Morrittson enclosing a
notarial copy of the obligation in behalf of Litschoe, stat-
ing that he held the above obligation of Sir Henry for 320
guilders, to be paid in March next, at the Manothans—
“ Which money,” Litschoe states, “I lent him, some part to
keep his. reputacion, and the other part he spent here in my
house, where he did lodge with his man, Henry, and where
for lie did give me said obligation,” and, the record states,
“ that the library of books was left as security for the debt,
besides the verification of his father’s Knights order given
under the great seal of King James, whych he did esteem
very much.”39
The letter asks the Colonel to pay the debt, to prevent a
sale of the books, u at public outcry,” particularly as some
of them were of “ private matters of the king.” This letter
was sent to Virginia with the catalogue of the books.
Lachair, in his certificate, states that he kept one of Sir
Henry’s books, temporarily, for his fees.
The next incident we find in the records is under date of
April, 1662, when Daniel Litschoe having died, his widow,
Annekin, is ordered by the Orphans’ Court to bring
with her into Court an inventory of her husband’s estate.
Litschoe’s will, as proved, bore date on the 26th December,
1661, stating that he was then sick in bed and was Lieute-
nant of a Burgher Company.
Subsequently the widow requests by petition to be allowed
to sell by the bailiff “some books, which she has, belong-
ing to Sir Henry Moody, as, according to obligation, she
has a claim on him for a considerable sum.” The petition
was granted.
These books then were doubtless sold. They were the
last of the property of the Moody family.
Some of these books are doubtless still in this city. Those
relating to the private matters of the State and of the King
would, doubtless, if discovered, prove to be of great historical
interest.
It does not require much stretch of the imagination to
infer that at least one of the books above referred to is in
the Library of this Society. It is the one called “ Bartas’
Six Days’ Work of the Lord.” This book I now hold in my
hand. It was published in 1605, and has been a quarto,
but has been cut down by a ruthless modern binder to its
present size. The title-page has been lost, but on one of
the pages I find written the name of “ Cornelius Island,”
under date of 1662. He was probably a purchaser at the
sale, which was made in that year.
The above, Mr. President, is all I have been able to40
gather relative to the history of those two interesting per-
sonages, Lady Deborah Moody and her son.
They are interesting figures in our ancient colonial his-
tory, not only as being the only English persons of rank
who lived among our Dutch predecessors, but as illustrating
the varying fortunes of that class of emigrants who aban-
doned friends, rank and home rather than surrender liberty
of conscience and worship, without which existence, any-
where, was, to them, intolerable.
Their fortunes painfully illustrate, also, the narrow and
oppressive spirit of the time, which claimed to shackle the
will and bind the spirit to the conventional dictations of
arbitrary authority, which kept even thought chained down
to limits prescribed by sinister policy or prejudice ; which
ruthlessly punished, as heretical, all questioning of ecclesi-
astical dominion, and, as treasonable, all criticism of civil
rule.
Happy are we, in this age of enlightenment, to be free
from thraldom such as this, and to live in a time when, and
a place where, the rights of individual humanity are recog-
nized and respected; and where freedom of speech, of action
and of thought are recognized as fundamental rights, which
no government, lay or ecclesiastical, dares to tamper with.