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Lorsque le document est trop grand pour dtre reproduit en un seul cliche, il est filmd A partir de Tangle sup^rieur gauche, de gauche d droite, et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images n^cessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la m^thode. rata o lelure. □ 32X 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 REV. JACOB BAILEY HIS CHARACTER AND WORK^ BY CHARLES E. ALLEN Read before the Lincoln County Historical Society November 13, 1895 rKINTKlt i;V THK SOCIETY Vi: i f 1 f REV. JACOB BAILEY. Missionary of Church of England on Kennebfx River. 1760 — 1779. His Character ani» Work. BY CHARLES E. AI.l.EX. Read before the Lincoln County Historical Society, November 7J, i8g5. If American History, in that process of re-writing which now seems to be taking place, is to be correctly written, many fallacies or fictions, as well as much prejudice in the mind of the average Ameri- can, must be outgrown. History can never be correctly written while hatred for even a greatly mistaken political or religious enemy or op- ponent exists in the mind of the chronicler, or is cherished by his readers. By no means least among our hatreds, as a people, is that which has been for so many years cherished against those people who, at the time of the war for American Independence, remained firm in their loyalty to their English Sovereign, and who have long been known as Loyalists, sometimes derisively as Tories, or sympathetically as Refu- gees. And why? Since at the outbreak of hostilities, all colonists were so loyal that they fought the battles of Lexington and Concord, and of Bunker Hill in the name of their sovereign, it being with them a sort of legal fiction that they were only contending against the illegal acts of the parliament and of the king's ofificers, and not against their lawful ruler. My present paper will deal with one such Loyalist, the Rev. Jacob Baii.ev, the first Missionary of the Church of England, on Ken- nebec river; and I trust that I may not be thought disloyal to that government which I had the honor, in a humble way, to aid in defend- ing in the civil war ot 1861, if I affirm that an examination of what remains of the vast volume of ])apers which he left, has caused me to become very much his champion, and to sympathize with him most fully. ^Vhen Rev. Mr. Barllet wrote the "Frontier Missionary" some forty years ago, much material he could not use had he wished to, be- \^c •I J ■=> Lincoln County Historical Society. cause of prejudice. Some matters he was obliged to arbitrarily suppress for the same reason, but in his admirable and painstaking work he aimed at justice for his subject, and succeeded so far as circumstances would permit. But even in his preface to that work, the late Bishop Burgess, who seems by writing that preface to have indorsed Mr. Bartlet's book, naturally enough, perhaps, fails to fully comprehend the character of Mr. Bailey, while William Willis, writing for lawyers, knew so little about Bailey that he calls him eccentric. It is my wish, in this paper, to deal wholly with matters which have never appeared in print, and yet an introduction of the subject requires some reference to and quotation from the " Frontier Mission- ary. " It will be new to those who have never had the pleasure of reading that book, and may serve to refresh the memories of those who have. I shall emphasize the fact, hinted at in that work, that the bitter opposition to Mr. Bailey was really the Puritan's narrow oppo- sition to the Church of England, his Loyalty to the English King being only a pretext. Jacob Bailey was born in the town of Rowley, Mass., in 1731. The boy, like the man of later years, although just a little smutted by some social corruption of the times, was greatly superior to his sur- roundings. Socially, he was very poor, of very poor parents, and hence socially, he was low, very low, for society, so called, generally grades its members by any standard other than that of moral worth, or intellect. He entered Harvard College at the age of 20, and gradu- ated therefrom in 1755, at the foot of his class, because the Puritan Commonwealth of Massachusetts was far from Democratic, and his so- cial position was at the foot. He taught school in several Massachu- setts towns, having among his pupils a class of young ladies some years before Puritan Boston thought it prudent to admit girls to her public schools. Born a Congregationalist, he preached for a while as minister of that sect until he came to examine the tenets and discipline of the Church of England. His change to that communion was cer- tainly unselfish, for Episcopacy was then far from popular in Massachu- setts. Nor was his field of labor such an one as would have been chosen by a self-seeker. His change of faith, too, was the occasion of some bitterness on the part of many of his acquaintances, of which fact some of his letters of that period give evidence. In religion, the motley company of humble settlers, such people as make a state possible everywhere, and who were, at the solicitation of C tvvi^v*^ Rev. Jacob Bailey. r the Plymouth Company, gathered at the old Kennebec plantation of Frankfort, was very much mixed. A list of their names, in Bailey's handwriting, with his designations affixed thereto, gives us Roman Catholics, Presbyterians, Calvinists, Lutherans,, independents, Quak- //'/-^^^^ <2^^UA.-v«^Cn*^ t^rs, and people without religious preferences. Among them were those who could not speak English, nor understand it very well when they heard it spoken ; and when i>Ir. Bailey afterwards became their minis- ter it was somewhat amusing to him to note the earnestness with which they looked at him as they tried to comprehend his words. These were the French refugees who, with their neighbors, asked in Novem- ber, 1759, that the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in For- eign Parts, would send this young man to them for their religious teacher, he taking the place of Mr. McClennahan, who had shown him'ielf un- fitted for the work. As Frankfort and the settlements along che west- erly side of Sheepscot river were the following year, as the town of Pownalborough, made the shire town of the new County of Lincoln, Mr. Bailey's position became not only prominent, but important. It was the first town in New England where the Episcopal church was estab- lished at the commencement of the town. It was a field unoccupied and unclaimed by any body of Christian worshipers, if we may ex- cept Catholics, for Massachusetts Puritans cared little about religion in the wilderness of Maine except to oppose somebody who might inter- fere with that system of fraud which they dignified by the name of trade with the Indians. Can we of to-day realize just what this section of country was 135 years ago? Mr. Bailey's picture is a vivid one, and as I hope to show you that picture in the course of this paper, I will now simply remark that It was a wilderness of wild animals, flies, fleas, mosquitoes, and of Indians who might have been friendly, but who had been made hos- tile by repeated acts of perfidy on the part of white sanctimonious long-faces, as Mr. Bailey calls them. There were no roads worth men- tioning, and very little cleared land. The people were very poor, but not very ignorant. It is a mistake to suppose that poverty and igno- rance always go together. Some of them were Irish, and others were French, two peoples which Puritans, with Englishmen, always misrepre- sented and misunderstood. Indeed, Mr. Bailey himself shared the cur- rent prejudice against the French, which, however, afterwards became with him very much modified. And he was earnest in defendmg the French who were of his little flock from misrepresentation by people Lincoln County Historical Society. i who knew too little to understand them, or regarded them as chattels. He took much pains to study their language. But I am anticipating. In Mr. Bailey's manuscript, "Journal of a Travel from Gloucester in New P^ngland to London in Great Britain ; and from thence to Pownalborough on Kennebec River," we find that he commenced his pilgrimage on Thursday, December 13, 1759, and he walked from the fishing town to the metropolis. Much of this part of his journal is quoted by Mr. Bartlet. He tarried in Boston and in Cambridge almost a month before he could complete arrangements for his journey and secure a passage across the Atlantic, which was finally obtained in a dirty, dingy little cabin in the British war-vessel called the Hind, Capt. Bond. While he tarried in Boston he seems to have been the favored guest of the celebrities of the Episcopal church, and of others. On shipboard he was surrounded by officers who were "pompous nobodies," and by squalid sailors, all officiously profane, and nearly all needlessly drunken even for an Englishman in those times. One wonders if the discipline on the Hind was a fair sample of British naval discipline in the i8th century. Despite his dismal surroundings, his greasy hammock, his terrible seasickness, and the roughness of this winter voyage across the ocean, he kept a very minute journal, noting often even the distance sailed by the ship on certain days. But that it would crowd out matter which is more important for us now, I would be pleased to give you some records omitted in the Frontier Missionary, for I am confident they would interest you. I reluctantly pass them by, although I cannot refrain from presenting an anecdote or two illustrating his style of story-telling. All his writings are distinguished by a minuteness, a faithfulness to detail, dear to the true lover of history, although tire- some to those who mistake that delirum of fever, which we of to-day call progress, for real advancement. He is much amused at a certain Deacon W. who called upon him at his lodgings, and who was wealthy, and he rebates that when travelling with a young man, the latter pro- posed tarrying for dinner at a certain inn which they passed. The thrifty Deacon answered that he had a friend living a short distance along the road, and invited his young companion to dine with him there, assuring him that both would be welcome. Soon they arrived at a hovel occupied by an old cripple and his wife, who earned a sub- sistence by making brooms. The travellers were invited to a meal of porridge, that being the best the couple could furnish, and of which Rev. Jacob Bailey. | the hungry travellers partook and proceeded on their way. At the time for the next meal they found themselves at an inn, when the Dea- con claimed that as he had been the means of securing his companion a dinner, he should now return the favor by paymg for both meals at the inn, which the young man did, and took care to travel no farther in the Deacon's company. That young man was no doubt himself. At 12 o'clock on Saturday, the i6th day of February, 1760, and 28 days after leaving Nantasket, the Hind dropped anchor in Ports- mouth harbor; and while our young candidate for Episcopal ordination stood upon deck gazing longingly at the shore, the Lieutenant of ma- rines said to him : — "Now, Mr. Bailey, you have a view of a Christian country, which you had never an opportunity of seeing before," and he further intimated that he looked upon the people of New Kngland as a barbarous and inhospitable generation. Mr. Railey was prevented from landing that day, and he wrote out a description of the Isle of Wight. The next day — Sunday — he took a joyful leave of his dirty prison ship, although he expresses regrets at parting with the friends he had made among the ship's company. Arrived on shore, he met with sundry adventures which led him to think that many of the people of this Christian country were far worse than those of the Boston he had left. In fact his descriptions, both of scenes in England and of social customs and manners in New England, might be commended to those who bewail the degeneracy of the present times. Stripped of the more objectional passages — for writers wrote more freely in those days — they would interest if I had space to present the details in the compass of an address like this. I hope that much of the detail may yet find its way into print. On the way to London by "stage machine," he gave a minute de- scription of the towns passed through. In one place, Guilford, while the coach changed horses he went into a shop to make some purchases. Making some inquiry about English walnuts, the surprised shop-keeper asked him where he lived that he didn't know about them. When told New England, the astonished shop-keeper exclaimed, "Is it possi- ble for a person educated in New England to speak such good Eng- lish ! Why, sir ; you speak as plain English as we do." A crowd having been collected, Mr. Bailey found himself the center of a group of wondering Britons. Arrived in London, he is struck by the grandeur of the buildings, although he pronounces the road over which he has travelled to be Lincoln County Historical Society. u/ worse than those in New England. This, remember, was 135 years ago. While in the metropolis, waiting for the very slow movement of church dignitaries, he visited Dr. Franklin and other celebrities, in- spected Westminster Abbey and wrote an elaborate description of that hjjiftoric church. Finally, on the 2nd of March, 1 760, Zachary, Bishop of Rochester, affixed the seal of the dying Thomas Sherlock to the certificate of Mr. Bailey's ordination as Deacon of the Church of Eng- land, and 14 days later he was ordained Priest by the Bishop of Peter- borough, taking the ordination oath which he felt himself bound by during the troublesome years which followed. On his return to his native land he made the following entry in his journal : — "Wednesday, May 28. About ten to our inexpressible joy made the mountains of Adimenticus, on the coast of New England, having been out of sight of knd from Cape Cornwall in Britain 32 days. These hills bore from us at noon W. N. W. about 9 leagues and made something like this appearance" — followed by a drawing of their out- line. On the ist of July following he became "Itiner/ant Missionary on the Eastern Frontier of Massachusetts Bay," living at first with Ma- jor Goodwin in the Barracks of Fort Shirley, afterwards in Fort Rich- mond, in 1 766 in a log house in Pownalborough, and finally in the parsonage built in 1770. He conducted services where he could find room, chiefly in the court house, until St. John's church was built in 1770, it being the first Episcopal church edifice completed east of Port- land, unless we except the chapel of Fort St. George in 1607. Matters seem to have run quite smoothly with our. young missionary until he succeeded in obtaining a grant of land for the proposed church. Cer- tain it is that the missionary field was unoccupied when he unt* ^ )k it. And it is evident that he was ambitious, zealous, industrious, and painstaking, often subordinating his own interests to the good of his parish. His scholarship was good, his reading extensive, his abilities of a high order. I regret that I find his sermons to be very dull when compared with his miscellaneous writings, which are very entertaining, and often sparkle with wit and humor. The first intimation he received that there was any opposition to him he had in the conduct of Charles Gushing, who from being a regu- lar attendant at church got to absenting himself therefrom. In addi- tion to this he found reports circulated reflecting upon himself as man and as minister. Among papers which he left is a copy of a manly letter addressed to Gushing asking for an interview and hoping that f Rev. Jacob Bailey. f Gushing would tell him as a brother why he had taken offence. No notice was taken of his request. He afterwards found that Jonathan Bowman was the real leader in the opposition to him, which opposition grew so formidable that Mr. Bailey at one time seriously contemplated asking for removal to another station. These two gentlemen, Jonathan Bowman and Charles Gushing, were the "M" and "N" of Bartlet's "Frontier Missionary." William Gushing, afterwards Judge, seems to have been Mr. Bailey's friend. ♦Vhat was the nature of this opposition, and why did these men become enemies to our missionary ? The reasons were incidentally religious, but chiefly less worthy motives actuated them. They were of that Massachusetts Puritan stock whose faces were sternly set against any church but their own — a people which, when pious were very P' s but seldom very good. Frankfort had been settled by poor in.iiigrants eight years before the establishment of the Gourts at Pownalborough, and the arrival of lawyer adventurers in the section. The poor Galvinists and Lutherans were evidently a religious people. They asked for Mr. Bailey to be sent them, but they had no concep- tion of the means adopted by shrewd adventurers acquainted with the many inconsistencies of English law, relative to land titles, to increase their estates at the expense of their unfortunate neighbors. When Mr. Bailey first came to these people, he was often amused at their efforts during divine service to comprehend the meaning of his words. They spoke French and German. Their pastor bee me interested in them and they venerated him in return. Bowman and his party were jeal- ous of his influence, especially when Mr. Bailey sought to follow the example of the Gatholic missionary at Norridgewock some forty years before, and tried to come between his people and these schemers. His writings speak of the low estimate in which his people were held, and he sought to correct that estimate. Englishman and Puritan alike hated a Frenchman and robbed him as mercilessly as they did an Indian. One of the most pathetic stories which it has ever been my for- tune to study is that of the Acadians, as shown in the volume of Massachusetts State papers, labelled "French Neutrals." It was Massachusetts Puritan hatred of anything Gatholic or French that led to the removal of the Acadians from their homes in 1755. I incline to the belief that the claim of several writers, all Protestants, that it was a crime without a parallel in history is hardly an exaggeration. Lincoln County Historical Society. When Frankfort was being settled and Pownalboro' incorporated, Mass- achuEvitts was engaged in placing these unfortunate exiles — anywhere, \o get the detested French out of her way. Some were sent to towns in Maine, but none to Pownalboro', I think. This incident, no doubt, tended to embarrass Mr„ Bailey. His parish in Pownalboro' was largely composed of Frenchmen, and he was looked upon as the champion of an alien church and an alien people. What more was wanted ? His opponents care nothing for religion. His church was free for the poorest. After being defeated in their schemes, they became quiet for a time, until the troublous limes of the revolution came. That gave them an opportunity which they improved to the extent of driving off the missionary, and enriching themselves at the expense of confiscated estates. Dr. Johnson remarked that " Patriotism was the refuge of the scoundrel." None so patriotic as those who are enabled to enrich themselves at the expense of political opponents. Mr. Bailey was a loyalist ; and it is commonly supposed that op- position to him was solely on that account. Jonathan Bowman and Charles Gushing, as officers of Lincoln County, were solemnly sworn to bear true faith and allegiance to his Majesty, George the 3d ; and that they would give information of any conspiracies against his person, crown, or dignity; and indeed in a letter dated Feb. 6, 1772, thank- ing Gov. Hutchinson for his commission, Cushing says, "It is not in my power to make your excellency better amends than by endeavoring at such a life as shall denominate me one of his majesty's faithful sub- jects. " Can we wonder when we consider that only a few years later, while Cushing still held that commission, Mr. Bailey asked the ques- tion, *' Will Col. Cushing, as sheriff of Lincoln county, dare imprison a man for refusing to take up arms against his sovereign?" When our missionary's name was placed in a list to be considered by his townsmen, for transportation, the qualified voters of Pownalbo- ro in town meeting voted to strike his name from the list, along with Abiel Wood and others ; and Bailey sent the Committee of Safety a letter assuring them that if they would permit the loyalists of Pownal- borough to enjoy their homes and property in peace, they would pledge themselves to be quiet and refrain from giving either aid or informa- tion to the enemies of Congress ; but they could not conscientiously renounce their allegiance to their sovereign. Before matters had gone so far, however, his friend and patron, Dr. Gardiner, wrote him sharply for even reading a thanksgiving proclamation issued by the provincial '\i mmmmmsm fmmm. ii, J?ev. Jacob Bailey. 9 Congress. And yet there are t lose who think that Bailey was stub- born. The reason for his refusal to read the Declaration of Indepen- dence are best given in his words. Of that Mr. Bailey writes : — On the 22nd of September, immediately after divine service, instead of reading the Declaration of Independency, I said, "Some of you per- haps expect that I should read a paper, but I cannot comply without offering the utmost violence to my conscience, and I solemnly declare in the presence of this assembly that my refusal does not proceed from any contempt of authority, but from a sacred regard to my former engagements, and from a dread of offending that God who is infinitely superior, to all earthly power." Finally, every other means j^roving in- effectual. Gushing, Bowman, Hambleton and Garleton, the committee, summoned him to trial at the court house on the 28th of October. The first count in the indictment charged him with preaching sedition, and they had one or more witnesses, whereupon Mr. B., upon the prin- cipal of giving them the best evidence, read the sermon complained of. It seems that Samuel Goodwin, Jr., was the chief witness, but when Bailey read the seditious discourse Goodwin's testimony was not need- ed. The refusal to read the Declaration of Independence was next considered, and after reading his ordination oath to them, the parson proceeded to say that this tleclaration afforded little satisfaction to the committee, and Gushing asked him a number of ensnaring questions, among them whethei if the king had broken his coronation oath that did not absolve his subjects? To this inquiry, Mr. Bailey replied that the falsehood and treachery of one party could never justify the base- ness and perjury of another. "As for instance, no engagements are more solemn and binding than the marriage vows, and if the husband commit adultery the wife may not have liberty to commit the same crime." This was intended for High Sheriff Col. Gushing, and illustrates the parson's style of sarcasm. I conclude this with a hint at his argu- ment relative to not reading the Declaration. Bailey's claim was that in so refusing he was not guilty of contempt of authority, because it was simply a requisition from the council, and could not obtain the nature and force of a law. It was from one branch of the legislative body only. And farther, the council has not directly ordered ministers to read the Declaration, and gives no directions from whom this requi- sition is to proceed. He observed, too, that no penalty was annexed to the order, and by the English constitution no penalty could be in- flicted. Disobedience to a royal proclamation, or even an act of par- lO Lincoln Count > Historical Society. liament, without a penalty, cannot subject an offender to any punish- ment, for in every law, before it can operate, the authority which enacts it must specify both the crime and its penalty. "It is true the offence alleged is contempt of authority, and that is a crime which deserves punishment. I answer that the authority offended ought either to take cognizance of the matter, or to delegate proper persons to determine the case, and where regard is had to the liberties of the people the punishment will undoubtedly be specified. No penalty can be annexed after the crime is committed." The offence of praying for the king seems to have been lost sight of, and finally Mr. Bailey was discharged. His writings during this period sparkle with both humor and irony. For instance, we are told in Mr. Bartlet's book that a liberty pole was erected to offend him. But it says nothing about that pole being cut down. It was cut down, and Mr. Bailey was looked upon as the insti- gator of the act, and he wrote a letter disclaiming his connection with the cutting. Among the reasons why he was sorry for the act, he says that if one pole would give his neighbors so much pleasure it were better to have a thousand than merely one. But he adds, "you are sensible that liberty may subsist without any pole at all ; and if all the pines, spruces and firs were lying prone upon the ground it would not elevate tyranny a i^it." And again, he will no longer wonder at the heathen adoring images of wood or stone, since he finds so many pro- fessed Christians paying homage to a pole. When the revolutionists made raids on tea to the extent of making a teapot of the Kennebec River, his sympathies were with poor innocert tea that never harmed anybody. And his letters during this period almost always contain appeals to his correspondents for tea. After Massachusetts government granted his request for permission to depart for Nova Scotia, the sea- son was so far advanced that he was unal le to get away in 1778, and during the winter at the request of members of his parish he thought to conduct divine service. Gushing forbade it, and in no very mild or gentlemanly terms, characterizing his congregation as a nest of d d tories. Mr. Bailey responded that he did not suppose the United States could possibly be in danger if he ministered to his people. Bowman and Gushing were determined to drive him to leave his church and either imprison him or force him to take the oath of allegiance to Congress. They attempted to prevent Massachusetts General Court from granting him permission to depart in peace, and even after that Rev. Jacob Bailey. XI permission was granted they sought to annoy him. Finally, in the summer of 1779 he succeded in chartering a small schooner of two brothers named Light and with part of his effects, his wife and infant son, and a heavy heart, he commenced his long and wearisome journey to Halifax. He could not, however, think of any- thing but a speedy return to the scene of his labors. His letters to friends left at Pownalborough constantly alluded to his hopes of a return. But tjie American cause prevailed and prevented the realization of his wishes. Although John Silvester John Gardiner read prayers for a while in his church at Pownalborough, and Mr. Bailey wrote him about being ordained for that parish, the church and parsonage, being stripped by vandal hands, soon went to decay, and the missionary set- tled at Annapolis, and after a long pastorate, died in 1808, and was buried in the old cemetery adjoining the fort about which for more than a hundred years the English and French contended for suprema- cy in North America. Last summer it was my privilege to stand upon the site of his church there, to visit the old cemetery, and to converse with and share the hospitality of his grandchildren. During his life there he was as industrious as he had been while on the Kennebec. He travelled much in the Annapolis valley and elsewhere, and left minute descriptions of the country, then sparsely '•ettled. He made observations on the minerals of Nova Scotia, especially in Cumber- land county, long before the mines were worked. The story of the Acadians interested him. His writings show him to be possessed of a most Catholic spirit. He shared the average Protestant's antipathy to what he called the Romish church, and yet he extended a generous hospitality to some French Jesuit priests who called on him while in Pownalborough. In- deed, in his M S. History of the Eastern Country, after giving an ac- count of the destruction of Father Ralle's mission at Norridgewock, he pays a warm tribute to the self-sacrificing zeal, the education and cul- ture of the Jesuit, and closes his narrative by affirming that "though mistaken in his religious and political principles, he honestly endeav- ored to support the welfare of his disciples, and to pursue the dictates of his conscience ; but like other upright men he perished in the cause he labored to maintain, and by the power he most heartily despised. To blacken the moral character of a person for no other reason than because his country, education, and interest are opposed to our own, is narrow, base and ungenerous." Of his account of this afFair he 12 Lincoln County Historical Society. aflfirms that as he has read every printed account, and talked with those who were with the expedition, he believes his to be as nearly correct as any. I find him always a champion of the Indian, although he does not atteni'yi to hide the fact of the Indian's wanton cruelty to captives, at t"mes. But as he wao himself witness to wanton acts of duplicity on the part of the whites, he affirms that although his own ancestors had suffered at the hands of the Indian, yet he must declare that his sym- pathies were with the savage, and he pays warm tribute to the character of Boniazeen and other chieftains. Of the Lovewell fight at Fryeburg, he declares that it was the outcome of a bounty offered by Massachu- setts on Indian scalps, and the only heroism displayed was by the savages. Young men from Boston then included Indians in their list of game, just as to-day they regard Maine as only a game preserve kept for their pleasure and profit. Mr. Bailey delighted to puncture the bubble of I'uritanism, although he speaks highly of the character of many of the fathers of New England. He says that when the colonists who first settled Massachusetts Bay, left F^ngland they signed a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, the bishops, clergy, and brethren of the Church of England wherein "They earnestly request their petitions to heaven : allow them to be nearest to the throne of divme mercy, and entreat them not to regard any reports to their disadvantage which might arise from the disaffection and indiscretion of particular persons. They profess that the body of their company esteem it an honor to call the Church of England their dear mother, and that they cannot forsake their native country without much sadness of heart and many tears. They acknowledge that the hope and interest they had obtained in the common salvation they had received in her bosom and sucked from her breasts. They bless God for their parentage and education in this church, and as members of the same body declare they shall always rejoice in her safety and unfeignedly grieve for any sorrow that shall ever betide her ; and while they have any breath will sincerely desire and endeavor to continue her welfare with the enlargement of her bounds." Mr. Bailey thinks that does not look as if our forefathers fled into this howling wilderness to avoid persecution, as he affirms was believed by multitudes. In the second volume of Hutchinson's MS. History of Massachusetts Bay, which MS. forms Vol. 28 Mass. Archives, and still has the mud stains which it received when thrown into the street at the time Gov. Hutchinson's house was mobbed in 1 765, Rev. Jacob Bailey. ij occurs the same statements. The MS. was discovered by W. F. Poole, late librarian of Chicago Public Library, and I am informed that as a volume it has never been printed. I do not think Mr. Bailey could have seen that from which to cull his statements. He affirms that the Puritans, so-called, who settled Massachusetts, were naturally devout, ambitious, desirous oi ^'»;oying civil and religious liberty themselves, but unwilling to grant the privilege to others. But they were impatient of restraint, and could they have arrived at dignity and power in Eng- land we should not have heard them complain of the Hierarchy. Later he speaks of their tyranny and intolerance ; and after giving a vivid account of the trials at the time of the degrading witchcraft superstition, he affirms that "It is somewhat curious that 22 persons out of 28 were females. It must have been, I conceive, a prevailing article of faith in those times that women are more easily seduced into a correspondence with the malignant spirits of darkness than men." Mr. Bailey affirms that the examination of persons charged was too in- decent for publication even then. And as for pathetic interest, I know nothing surpassing volume 135 Massachusetts State papers, unless it be the volumes relating to the French Neutrals, or Acadians. Mr. Bailey's detailed account is very minute. At times he quotes from Hutchinson. A single quotation from Bailey must suffice at present : — "Mr. Samuel VVardwell, when first apprehended and accused, confessed himself guilty of witchcraft, and though he afterwards solemnly recanted his confession, yet he fell a sacrifice to the fury of his adversaries, and what was peculiarly severe and cruel in his affair, his own wife and daughter were admitted as evitlences against him, by which means they were able to save their own lives. The daughter, indeed, upon a sec- ond inciuiry denied the guilt of her parent, but the wife upon this cir- cumstance in his favor, was never i)ermitte(l another examination." Massachusetts did not fully recover from the effects of this delusion for more than half a century, or until Mr. liailcy was entering college. He was most industrious. His garden occupied much of his time, and he searched all New ICngland for fruits, vegetables and flowers for it. He gave much attention to the fauna and flora of his section, and his MS. History of the Eastern Country, designed lor publication, re- mained unprinted because both he and his proposed printer were loyal- ists and were obliged to leave the country. His description of the soil, scenery, rivers, bays, harbors, islands, hjrests, animals,