^^^^^^^^^ss^ss^i \u li (DM msfon UmcoJnshire OLD BOSTON IN COLONIAL DAYS OR, ST. BOTOLPH'S TOWN FROM THE TIME OF BLACKSTONE, THE FIRST SETTLER, TO THE OUTBREAK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION Works of Mary Caroline Crawford @ The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees $2.50 The College Girl of America 2.50 Among Old New England Inns 2.50 Old Boston in Colonial Days 4.00 @ THE PAGE COMPANY 53 Beaton Street, Boston, Mass. Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson in the Audience Chamber of the Province House From a painting by Frank T. Merrill <&Vb Boston in Colonial Baps; From the Time of Blackstone, the First Settler, to the Outbreak °f the American Revolution BY MARY CAROLINE CRAWFORD Author of "Among Old New England Inn6," "The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees." etc Illustrated BOSTON THE PAGE COMPANY MDCCCCXXII .lUUllUUsUyUilUUiL Copyright, 1908 By The Page Company All rights reserved Made in U. S. A. PRINTED BY C. H. SIMONDS COMPANY BOSTON, MASS., U.S.A. FOREWORD In my student days colonial history never interested me. I did not then understand why but I am now perfectly certain that it was be- cause persons and events were discussed, in most of the books set before me, only as their careers touched New England and hence in so fragmentary a way as to make them appear mere puppets with tiresome dates attached. The treatment usually accorded Sir Harry Vane offers an excellent example of what I mean. He flashed before us, in the history books, as a brilliant, handsome youth who espoused the cause of Mrs. Hutchinson, — and then disappeared for ever from view. Because his wonderful career in England was deemed to have nothing to do with the subsequent his- tory of Massachusetts we were deprived of the great privilege it would have been to make his inspiring life-story a part of our mental equip- ment ! If this volume errs in the other extreme 2( vi Foreword by talking over-much of Vane and of La Tour after their connection with Boston has ceased the fault may be attributed to a reaction from my own defective education. The truth is that it is biography rather than history which really allures me; history seems to me worse than useless unless it illus- trates the times of which it writes as those times affected the lives of its men and women. A book like this has no justification, to my mind, save as it makes us understand just a little better the part New England, in the per- son of its chief town, has played in the mighty drama of nations made up of thinking, feeling men and women. Up to the time of the Eevolution, of course, Boston was the biggest place in all the colonies as well as the chief settlement of Massachu- setts. This numerical preeminence needs to be borne in mind if we would understand many acts on both sides of the ocean. To understand the America of to-day, too, we must needs know the Boston of the fathers. So only can we be sure that the excrescences of modern govern- ment are no essential part of that Christian state of which Winthrop dreamed and for which Vane was glad to die. The books consulted in the preparation of Foreword vii this work have been many and, for the most part, are named in the text. But sweeping credit is here due to the invaluable " Memorial History of Boston " and to the " Boston An- tiquities " of Samuel Drake. I have to thank also Mr. Irwin C. Cromack of the engineering department, City of Boston, for kindly aid given and the editor of the Canadian Magazine for permission to incorporate in the chapter " How Winthrop Treated With the La Tours " my article on the " Fight Between La Tour and D'Aulnay " contributed to his magazine last year. m. c. c. " Q*T. BOTOLPE'S Town! Far over leagues of ^J land And leagues of sea looks forth its noble tower, And far around the chiming bells are heard : So may that sacred name forever stand A landmark and a symbol of the power That lies concentred in a single word." — Longfellow. " r I 1 EE distinctive characteristic of the settlement _/ of the English colonists in America is the in- troduction of the civilization of Europe into a wilderness without bringing with it the political insti- tutions of Europe. The arts, sciences, and literature of England came over with the settlers. . . . But the monarchy did not come, nor the aristocracy, nor the church as an estate of the realm. Political institu- tions were to be framed anew such as slwuld be adapted to the state of things.''' 1 — Daniel Webster. " r T^HE spirit of that age was sure to manifest £ itself in narrow cramping measures and in ugly acts of persecution ; but it is, none the less, to the fortunate alliance of that fervid religious enthu- siasm with the love of self-government that our modern freedom owes its existence.'''' — John Fiske. " nr^ROU, too, sail on O ship of State! £ Sail on, Union, strong and great I Humanity with all its fears, With all the hopes of future years Is hanging breathless on thy fate I " — Longfellow. CONTENTS CHAPTER page I. As It Was in the Beginning 1 II. John Winthrop and Margaret, His Wif E . 17 III. St. Botolph's Town in Old England AND New 34 IV. The Coming of a Shining Light . 48 V. Sir Harry Vane — Prophet and Martyr 63 VI. How Winthrop Treated with the La 1 'ours 89 VII. Freedom to Worship God 108 VIII. Boston as John Dunton Saw It . 138 IX. The Dynasty of the Mathers . . 165 X. The College at Cambridge . 205 XI. The Boston of Franklin's Boyhood . 233 XII. XIII. In the Reign of the Royal Governors . 283 XIV. XV. The Dawn of Active Resistance . 333 PAGE Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson in the Audience Chamber of the Province House . . . Frontispiece Captain John Smith 4 Old House in Medford, Built by Governor Cradock 12 Governor John Winthrop 18 St. Botolph's Church, Boston, England ... 40 John Cotton's Vicarage 43 Rev. John Cotton 56 Cotton Chapel, St. Botolph's, Boston, England . 60 Sir Harry Vane, From an old Miniature ... 66 John Endicott 72 Oliver Cromwell 80 Sir Harry Vane's House, Still Standing in Hampstead, London 86 Fort La Tour (or St. Jean), St. John, New Brunswick, From a drawing by Louis A. Holman . . . 102 Roger Williams 118 The Wells - Adams House, on Salem Street, where the Baptists held secret meetings .... 121 Sir Richard Saltonstall 134 Governor Simon Bradstreet 147 Increase Mather 106 House of Cotton Mather, which stood at what is now 298 Hanover Street 172 xii List of Illustrations PAGH Sir Edmund Andros 178 The Pratt House, Chelsea 186 Sir William Phips 193 Cotton Mather 197 William Stoughton 200 Cover and Title-page of John Harvard's Book . . 206 Massachusetts Hall, Harvard University, Built during the Presidency of John Leverett . . 225 Governor Joseph Dudley 230 Map of Boston in 1722 Facing 232 Benjamin Franklin 234 The Old Feather Store 236 Franklin's Birthplace 238 Samuel Sewall 255 The Deane Winthrop House, Winthrop . . . 263 Governor Bellingham's House, Chelsea . . . 265 Green Dragon Tavern 273 The Province House 286 The Original King's Chapel and the King's Chapel of To-day 298 Governor William Burnet 303 The Mather Tomb in the Copp's Hill Burying Ground 310 Governor William Shirley 312 Sir Harry Frankland 316 Governor Shirley's House, Roxbury . . . .319 The Clarke House, Purchased by Sir Harry Frank- land 325 Governor Pownall 334 Sir Francis Bernard .... ... 336 James Otis 339 The Old State House 350 Peter Faneuil's House • 356 Samuel Adams ... 358 OLD BOSTON IN COLONIAL DAYS: OR, ST. BOTOLPH'S TOWN AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING To Sir Ferdinando Gorges, the intimate friend of Sir Walter Raleigh and a man of much more than common interest in the history of Elizabethan England, is due the credit of the first enduring settlement in the environs of Boston. John Smith had skirted the coast of New England and looked with some care into Boston Harbour before Gorges came; Miles Standish had pushed up from Plymouth to trade with the Indians of this section; and Thomas Weston, soldier of fortune, had es- tablished a temporary trading-post in what is now Weymouth. But it remained for Gorges and his son Robert to plant firmly upon our shores the standard of England and to reiter- ate that that was the country to which, by 1 St. Botolph's Town virtue of the Cabots, those shores rightly be- longed. The Cabots, to be sure, had come a century and a quarter before and, since their time, ex- plorers of several other nations had ventured to the new world — one of them even going so far as to carve his name upon the continent. But an English king had fitted out the " car- vels " of John and Sebastian Cabot; and Eng- lish kings were not in the habit of forgetting incidents of that sort. The letter in which Sebastian Cabot relates the story of those Bris- tol vessels is very quaint and interesting. " When my father," he writes, " departed from Venice many yeers since to dwell in Eng- land, to follow the trade of merchandizes, he took me with him to the city of London, while I was very yong, yet having, nevertheless, some knowledge of letters, of humanity and of the Sphere. And when my father died in that time when news was brought that Don Chris- tofer Colonus Genuse [Columbus] had discov- ered the coasts of India whereof was great talke in all the court of King Henry the Seventh, who then raigned, inso much that all men with great admiration affirmed it to be a thing more divine than humane, to sail by the West into the East where spices growe, by As It Was in the Beginning 3 a way that was never known before; by this fame and report there increased in my heart a great flame of desire to attempt some notable thing. And, understanding by reason of the Sphere, that if I should saile by way of the Northwest winde, I should by a shorter track come into India, I thereupon caused the king to be advertised of my devise, who immediately commanded two Carvels to bee furnished with all things appertaining to the voiage, which was, as farre as I remember, in the yeere 1496, in the beginning of Sommer. " I began therefore to saile toward the Northwest, not thinking to find any other land than that of Cathay, and from thence to turn toward India, but after certaine dayes I found that the land ranne towards the North, which was to me a great displeasure. Nevertheless, sailing along the coast to see if I could find any gulfe that turned, I found the land still con- tinuing to the 56 deg. under our pole. And seeing that there the coast turned toward the East, despairing to find the passage, I turned back again, and sailed down by the coast of that land towards the Equinoctiall (ever with intent to find the said passage to India) and came to that part of this firme land which is now called Florida, where my victuals failing, I St. Botolph's Town departed from thence and returned into Eng- land, where I found great tumults among the people, and preparation for warrs in Scotland : by reason whereof there was no more consid- eration had to this voyage." But barren of immediate results as this voyage undoubtedly was it is of immense importance to us as the first link in the chain which, for so long, bound America to England. The next link was, of course, forged by Cap- tain John Smith to whom New England as well as Virginia owes more than it can ever repay. About one year before the settlement of Boston by the company which came with Winthrop Smith recapitulated the affairs of New Eng- land in the following lucid manner: " When I went first to the North part of Virginia, [in 1614] where the Westerly colony [of 1607] had been planted, which had dissolved itself within a yeare, there was not one Christian in all the land. The country was then reputed a most rockie barren, desolate desart; but the good return I brought from thence, with the maps and relations I made of the country, which I made so manifest, some of them did beleeve me, and they were well embraced, both by the Londoners and the Westerlings, for whom I CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH As It Was in the Beginning had promised to undertake it, thinking to have joyned them all together. Betwixt them there long was much contention. The Londoners, in- deed, went bravely forward but in three or four yeares, I and my friends consumed many hundred pounds among the Plimothians, who only fed me but with delayes promises and excuses, but no performance of any kind to any purpose. In the interim many particular ships went thither, and finding my relations true, and that I had not taken that I brought home from the French men, as had beene re- ported; yet further for my paines to discredit me and my calling it New England, they ob- scured it and shadowed it with the title of Cannada, till, at my humble suit, king Charles confirmed it, with my map and booke, by the title of New England. The gaine thence re- turning did make the fame thereof so increase, that thirty forty or fifty saile, went yearely only to trade and fish; but nothing would be done for a plantation till about some hundred of your Brownists of England, Amsterdam and Leyden, went to New Plimouth, whose humour- ous ignorances caused them for more than a yeare, to endure a wonderful deale of misery with an infinite patience ; but those in time do- St. Botolph's Town ing well diverse others have in small handfulls undertaken to goe there, to be severall Lords and Kings of themselves. ..." The Gorges project, certainly, aimed at noth- ing short of a principality and was begun in all pomp and circumstance. To Greenwich on June 29, 1623, came the Dukes of Buckingham and Eichmond, four earls and many lords and gentlemen to draw lots for possessions in the new country. This imposing group was called the Council for New England and had been established under a charter granted in 1620 to the elder Gorges and thirty-nine other patentees. Gorges had had the good luck to acquaint Raleigh with the conspiracy of the Earl of Essex against Queen Elizabeth and James I had valid reason, therefore, to appoint him governor of Plymouth in Devonshire. It was while pursuing his duties in Plymouth that his interest in New England was excited, by the mere accident, as he relates, of some Indians happening to be brought before him. At much pains he learned from them something of the nature of their country and his imagination was soon fired with the vision of golden har- vests waiting in the western continent to be reaped by such as he. Naturally sanguine and full of enthusiasm he succeeded in interesting As It Was in the Beginning 7 in his project Sir John Popham, Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench, through whose acquaintance with noblemen and connection at Court the coveted patent for making settle- ments in America was ere long secured. Then the success of the Greenwich assembly — King James himself drew for Buckingham ! — seems to have decided both Sir Ferdinando and his son to go at once to their glittering new world ; and, a few weeks later, the latter sailed forth, armed with a commission as lieutenant of the Council with power to exercise jurisdic- tion, civil, criminal and ecclesiastical, over the whole of the New England coast. The plan was for him to settle not too far from Ply- mouth, absorb as soon as might be the little group of men and women who were really lay- ing there the foundations of a nation and be- gin in masterful fashion the administration of the vast province which was undeniably his — on paper. At Weymouth Thomas Weston had left a rude block-house and this Robert Gorges and his comrades immediately appropriated. In their company were several mechanics and tillers of the soil who proceeded to make them- selves useful in the new land; but of most in- terest to us because of their after-history, were 8 St. Botolph's Town three gentlemen colonists, Samuel Maverick, a young man of means and education who es- tablished at what is now Chelsea the first per- manent house in the Bay colony, Rev. William Morrell, the Church of England representative in the brave undertaking and William Black- stone, graduate of Cambridge University and destined to renown as the first white settler of what we to-day know as Boston. It was in September, 1623, that Robert Gorges landed in Weymouth. In the spring of 1624 he returned to England taking with him several of his comrades. Governor Bradford, whom he tried in vain to bully into obeisance observes mildly that Gorges did not find " the state of things heare to answer his Qualitie and condition." So he stayed less than a year. Some of those who had come with him were for trying the thing longer, however. Even the Rev. Mr. Morrell put in a second bitter winter before giving up the attempt. Though he speaks feelingly of the hard lot of men who are " landed upon an unknown shore, peradven- ture weake in number and naturall powers, for want of boats and carriages," and being for this reason compelled with a whole empty con- tinent before them " to stay where they are first landed, having no means to remove them- As It Was in the Beginning selves or their goods, be the place never so fruitlesse or inconvenient for planting, build- ing houses, boats or stages, or the harbors never so unfit for fishing, fowling or mooring their boats," — yet Morrell was none the less very favourably impressed, as Smith and all the others had been, with the natural charms of New England. As the fruit of his sojourn we have a Latin poem in which the country is described in a genial and somewhat imaginative way. The year that Morrell returned to England (1625) was in all probability that in which William Blackstone took up his abode across the bay, in Shawmut, opposite the mouth of the Charles. And it was in that same year, too, that Captain Wollaston and his party es- tablished themselves at the place since known as Mount Wollaston, in the town of Quincy. Among Wollaston 's companions was one Thomas Morton " of Clifford's Inn, Gent.," a lawyer by profession and an outlaw by practice. In the rather dull pages of early New England history Morton's escapades supply " colour," however, for which we cannot be too grateful to him. The staid Plymouth people soon came to speak of him as the " Lord of Misrule " and there is no evidence whatever that he failed 10 St. Botolph's Town to deserve the title. When Wollaston departed to Virginia on business he proceeded to become captain in his stead and, naming the settlement Mare Mount, — Merry Mount, — he invited all the settlers to have a good time. They did so, according to Morton's own account — in the mad glad bad way ever dear to roystering Eng- lishmen. Not only did he and his followers drink deep of the festal bowl but they made the Indians with whom they traded welcome to drink deep also. To the men savages were given arms and ammunition while to the women was extended the privilege of becoming the mates of the conquering English. The May Day of 1627 was celebrated in revelry run riot. Morton has left us a minute description of the pole used on this occasion " a goodly pine tree of 80 foote long . . . with a peare of bucks horns nayled one, somewhat neare unto the top of it," while Governor Bradford says they " set up a May-pole, drinking and dan- cing aboute it many days togither, inviting the Indean women for their consorts, dancing and frisking togither (like so many fairies, or furies rather) and worse practices." Bradford not unnaturally failed to appre- ciate the " colour." Moreover, the settlers could not, of course, have the natives furnished As It Was in the Beginning 11 with firearms. So Morton was, after some difficulty, made a prisoner and shipped off to England. But he came back again the next year and for a considerable time was a veri- table thorn in the flesh to Endicott and his com- panions at Salem. The Salem settlement was in the nature of a rescuing party. For while Sir Ferdinando and his friends had been exhausting themselves upon the pomps and ceremonies of colonization John White, a Dorchester clergyman, had es- tablished a little group of " prudent and hon- est men " in a kind of missionary settlement near what is now Gloucester. Of these men Roger Conant with three others had stayed on in the face of much discouragement after their companions returned to England, finally re- moving to Naumkeag (Salem), — where Endi- cott found them when he landed early in the fall of 1628. The rights of Endicott 's men to territory in New England were obtained by purchase from Sir Ferdinando 's Council of Plymouth. The name adopted by them was that of " the Massa- chusetts Company." Very wisely, however, as matters turned out, Endicott and his friends insisted that a charter be obtained from the Crown confirmatory of the grant from the 12 St. Botolph's Town Council of Plymouth. And though they sailed before the charter passed the seals, when it did so, March 4, 1629, the rights of the colonists were denned as they never before had been, — and Charles I had placed in the hands of mere subjects powers which many a king who came after him would have given much to revoke. Though Endicott was the " Governor of London's Plantation in the Massachusetts Bay of New England " Matthew Cradock was the governor, — i. e. the executive business head, — in the old country ; and Cradock it was who, in July, 1629, submitted to his fellow-members in England certain propositions, conceived by himself, which, reinforced as they were by the charter, were destined to work a veritable revolution in the colonization of New England. Up to this time there seems to have been no thought whatever of transferring to the new land the actual government of the Company but Cradock made the startling proposal that just this should be done to the end that persons of worth and quality might deem it worth while to embark with their families for the planta- tion. There is still standing in Medford, near Boston, a house bearing the name of this gov- ernor and built for his use though he never came to occupy it. Between the suggestion As It Was in the Beginning 13 of Cradock's plan at Deputy Goffe's house in London, in August, 1629, and its adoption a month later every member of the Company gave deep thought to the change involved. And, gradually, they came to see in it a way of escape from persecution and oppression. Reforms in England, whether of Church or State, seemed impossible. Strafford was at the head of the army and Laud in control of the Church. Illegal taxes were being levied on all hands and it looked as if Charles were re- solved to rule the kingdom in his own stiff- necked way, disdaining the cooperation of any Parliament. Little hope indeed did the Old World offer to the liberty-loving, religious men who made up the bulk of the Puritan party! The document by which these men finally emancipated themselves has come down to us as the Cambridge Agreement, so called because it was signed beneath the shadows and prob- ably within the very walls of that venerable university whose traditions it was destined to transplant into a new world. It bore the date, August 26, 1629; and was in the following words : — " Upon due consideration of the state of the Plantation now in hand for New England, wherein we whose names are hereunto sub- 14 St. Botolph's Town scribed, have engaged ourselves, and having weighed the work in regard of the consequence, God's glory and the Church's good; as also in regard of the difficulties and discouragements which in all probabilities must be forecast upon the prosecution of this business; considering withal that this whole adventure grows upon the joint confidence we have in each other's fidelity and resolution herein, so as no man of us would have adventured it without the assurance of the rest; now for the better en- couragement of ourselves and others who shall join with us in this action, and to the end that every man may without scruple dispose of his estate and affairs as may best fit his prepara- tion for this voyage; it is fully and faithfully agreed among us, and every one of us doth hereby freely and sincerely promise and bind himself, in the word of a Christian and in the presence of God, who is the searcher of all hearts, that we will so really endeavor the prosecution of this work, as by God's assist- ance we will be ready in our persons, and with such of our several families as are to go with us, and such provision as we are able conve- niently to furnish ourselves withal, to embark for the said Plantation by the first of March next, at such port or ports of this land as shall As It Was in the Beginning 15 be agreed upon by the Company, to the end to pass the Seas (under God's protection) to in- habit and continue in New England: Provided always, that before the last of September next, the whole Government, together with the Patent for the said Plantation, be first, by an order of Court, legally transferred and estab- lished to remain with us and others which shall inhabit upon the said Plantation ; and provided also, that if any shall be hindered by such just or inevitable let or other cause, to be allowed by three parts of four of these whose names are hereunto subscribed, then such persons for such times and during such lets, to be dis- charged of this bond. And we do further promise, every one for himself, that shall fail to be ready by his own default by the day ap- pointed, to pay for every day's default the sum of £3 to the use of the rest of the company who shall be ready by the same day and time. (Signed) Richard Saltonstall, Thomas Sharpe, Thomas Dudley, Increase Nowell, William Vassall, John Winthrop, Nicholas West, William Pinchon, Isaac Johnson, Kellam Browne, John Humfry, William Colbron." 16 St. Botolph's Town As important to this epoch-making agree- ment as the Prince of Denmark to the play of Hamlet is the sentence " Provided always, that before the last of September next, the whole Government, together with the Patent for the said Plantation, be first by an order of Court, legally transferred and established to remain with us and others which shall inhabit upon the said Plantation." This was the great condi- tion, we must bear clearly in mind, upon which Saltonstall, Dudley, Winthrop and the rest agreed to leave the land where they had been born and bred, and ' ' inhabit and continue ' ' in a new land of which they knew nothing. Two months later John Winthrop was chosen head of the enterprise, with the style and title Gov- ernor of the Massachusetts Bay Company. Emphatically, Boston has now " begun." II JOHN WINTHROP AND MARGARET, HIS WIFE From every point of view that was a remark- able group of men who boldly declared at Cam- bridge their resolution to found a state in the new world. Sir Richard Saltonstall was de- scended from a former lord mayor of London and occupied a place of no little importance in the England of his time; the ancestors of Thomas Dudley had all been men honoured in English history; John Nowell was related to the dean of St. Paul's in the reign of Elizabeth; John Humfrey married a daughter of the Earl of Lincoln ; William Vassall was endowed with a positive genius for trade; William Pynchon possessed unusual learning and piety; Isaac Johnson was a man of very large wealth and another son-in-law of the Earl of Lincoln, and Thomas Sharpe, Michael West, Killam Browne and William Colbron were all English country gentlemen of no inconsiderable fortune and of university breeding. But the greatest 17 18 St. Botolph's Town man of the group was, of course, John Win- throp, who had been chosen to be its head. And his peer in every womanly respect was Mar- garet, his noble wife. As a lad Winthrop had received a good edu- cation and had been admitted in 1602 into Trinity College, Cambridge. An early love- match prevented him from staying to take his degree, however, and when only a youth of eighteen, we find him living at Great Stam- bridge in the County of Essex with his first wife's family, — very wealthy people for that day and of high standing in the community. Six children were born to the happy young pair and then, when the husband and father was only twenty-five, he was left a widower. "Within a year he was married again, according to the customs of that period. Then, in another year, this wife and her infant child were also committed to the grave. Up to this time Win- throp 's profession had been that of a lawyer but these successive and severe bereavements made him full of misgivings as to his religious condition and he seriously contemplated the abandonment of the law with a view to taking orders as a clergyman. His introspection at this stage of his development is recorded in a manuscript of " Religious Experiences " which John Winthrop John Winthrop and His Wife 19 covers a period of three years and makes in- tensely interesting reading. To understand these " Religious Experi- ences ' ' and the subsequent life of the man who wrote them it is necessary to appreciate the fact that Winthrop came of intensely religious parentage. Adam ."Winthrop, his father, was a man of deep personal piety and Anne Win- throp, his mother, could not live happily away from the daily inspiration of her Bible, as we see from a letter sent to her husband before their son was born. The mingling of love for God with ardent human affection which we shall find to be a constant trait in the letters of her son is present here also: " I have re- seyved, Right deare and well-beloved," she writes her absent husband, " from you this week a letter, though short, yet very sweete, which gave me a lively tast of those sweete & comfortable wordes, whiche alwayes when you be present with me, are wont to flowe most aboundantlye from your loving hart — where- bye I perseyve that whether you be present with me or absent from me, you are ever one towardes me, & your hart remayneth allwayes with me. Wherefore layinge up this perswai- sion of you in my brest, I will most assuredlye, the Lord assistynge me by his grace, beare al- 20 St. Botolph's Town waves the lyke loving hart unto yon agayne, nntyll suche tyme as I may more fully enjoye your loving presence : but in the meane tyme I will remayne as one having a great inherit- aunce, or riche treasure, and it beinge by force kept from him, or hee beinge in a strange Con- trey, and cannot enjoye it; longethe contyn- ually after it, sighinge and sorrowinge that hee is so long berefte of it, yet rejoyseth that hee hathe so greatt tresure pertayninge to him, and hopeth that one day the tyme will come that hee shall enjoye it, and have the wholle benyfytt of it. So I having a good hoope of the tyme to com, doe more paciently beare the time present, and I praye send me word if you be in helthe and what sucesse you have with your letters. ... I send you this weke by my fathers man a shyrte and fyve payer of hoses. . . . I pray send me a pound of starch by my fathers man. You may very well send my byble if it be redye — thus with my verye hartye com- mendacions I byd you farewell comittinge you to almighty e God to whom I commend you in my dayle prayers as I am sure you doe me, the Lord kep us now & ever Amen " Your loving wife 11 Anne Winthrop " John Winthrop and His Wife 21 From his mother, then, Winthrop inherited a nature of quite unusual affectionateness for a man of his time and from his father an en- during tendency toward introspection and stern self-discipline. His Diary, as frank and often as pathetic as Amiel's, constantly displays the warring of a passionate tendency with a conse- crated other-worldliness. " The Love of this present world! " he exclaims in the course of an exquisite love-letter to the wife from whom his work has parted him, " how it bewitches us & steales away our hearts from him who is the onely life & felicitye. O that we could delight in Christ our Lord & heavenly husband as we doe in each other, & that his absence were like greivous to us! " Winthrop could leave home and friends, yes, even his adored Margaret, — to come to a foreign land. But it would not be easy for him. The step would be taken in that same frame of mind which his Diary of Jan. 1, 1611, reflects when it says: " Beinge admon- ished by a christian freinde that some good men were ofended to heare of some gaminge which was used in my house by my servants I resolved that as for my selfe not to use any cardings etc, so for others to represse it as much as I could, during the continuance of my present state, & if God bringe me once more 22 St. Botolph's Town to be whollye by my selfe, then to banishe all togither." This resolution is particularly in- teresting when placed alongside of the first New England temperance pledge later fathered by Governor Winthrop. 1 When in the heydey of his youthful vigour (he was then only twenty-five!) Winthrop wrote, " Finding that the variety of meates drawes me on to eate more than standeth with my healthe, I have resolved not to eate of more then 2 dishes at any one meale, whither fish, flesh, fowle or fruite or whittemeats etc: whither at home or abroade; the lorde give me care & abilitie to performe it." A year later when, by the death of his second wife's father, he had come into considerable wealth and therefore felt again keen temptation to self- indulgence he makes twelve resolutions, so in- teresting in the light of his after life that I give them here in full: " 1. I doe resolve to give myself e, my life, my witt, my healthe, my wealthe to the service of my God and & Savior, who by givinge him- selfe for me & to me, deserves whatsoever I am or can be, to be at his Comandement & for his glorye: 1 ' 2. I will live where he appoints me. 1 See p. 9 " Old New England Inns." John Winthrop and His Wife 23 "3. I will faithfully endeavour to discharge that callinge wch he shall appoint me unto. "4. I will carefully avoide vaine & need- less expences that I may be the more liberall to good uses. " 5. My property, & bounty must goe forth e abroade, yet I must ever be careful that it be- ginne at home. "6. I will so dispose of my family affaires as my morning prayers & evening exercises be not omitted. "7. I will have a speciall care of the good education of my children. "8. I will banish profanes from my familye. "9. I will diligently observe the Lords Sabaoth bothe for the avoidinge & preventinge worldly business, & also for the religious spend- inge of such tymes as are free from publique exercises, viz. the morninge, noone, & evening. "10. I will endeavour to have the morninge free for private prayer, meditation & reading. "11. I will flee Idlenes, & much worldly busines. "12. I will often praye & conferre privately wth my wife." Just here seems as good a place as any to observe that Winthrop was wonderfully fortu- 24 St. Botolph's Town nate in each of the three women whom he suc- cessively called " my wife." The bride of his youth, the wife of his young manhood, - — with whom he lived only one short year, — and Mar- garet, who was his faithful spouse for more than a quarter of a century, were all women who could respond richly to the aspirations of his soul as well as to the cravings of his heart. Margaret, of course, was peculiarly his mate. The daughter of Sir John Tyndal, knight, she it was who made him what he now became. " From the day that his faith was plighted to her " as one sympathetic historian has said . . . " he learned to step boldly out among his equals, to take his share in the world's work. ' ' After his marriage and up to the time when he engaged upon the New England enterprise Winthrop's business was that of an attorney practising in London and on the circuit. This, naturally, took him much away from Groton where Margaret and his young children lived and as a result we find in the correspondence which passed between Groton Manor and the " Chamber at the Temple Gate " an almost complete record of the temporal, spiritual and affectional development of this remarkable pair. Tender love-letters, every one of these John Winthrop and His Wife 25 epistles! " I wish thy imployments coulde suffer thee to come home," writes the wife, to which her husband responds promptly, " such is my love to thee my deare spouse, as were it not that my imployment did enforce me to it, I could not live comfortably from thee halfe thus long. ... so I kiss my sweet wife & rest alwayes Thy faithfull husband " John Winthrop " For a dozen years of this correspondence there is, however, no thought that Winthrop 's " imployment " would ever be such as to put the ocean between them. He was not a mem- ber of the original Massachusetts Company; one may search in vain for his name along with those of Cradock, Saltonstall and Endicott on the Massachusetts Charter of March, 1629. But the early summer of that year found him thinking very seriously of emigration as one sees between the lines of a letter to Margaret dated June 22, 1629. " My comfort is that thou art willinge to be my companion in what place or condition soever, in weale or in woe. Be it what it may, if God be with us we need not feare; his favour, & the kingdome of heaven wilbe alike & happiness enough to us & ours in all places." Evidently the writer of this 26 St. Botolph's Town felt a crisis to be at hand both in the affairs of his country and in his own personal life. But it was not in John Winthrop's nature to lightly decide upon any serious step. From his paper " General Considerations for the Planta- tions of New England " it is plain that he thought carefully and prayerfully upon every phase of the enterprise. Then finally it became to him clear that he had fallen upon disastrous times; that foun- tains of learning in his own country were cor- rupted; that all arts and trades were carried on in such deceitful and unrighteous ways that it was well-nigh impossible for a good man to live by any of them; that the land was weary of her inhabitants ; that man had become of less importance than beasts, children, — who ought to have been considered blessings, — being counted the greatest burdens ; that the kingdom of anti-christ was increasing; that, in a word, the Lord had begun to frown upon England and cut its inhabitants short. To John Win- throp, therefore, New England seemed a place provided by God "to be a refuge for many whome he meanes to save out of the generall callamity. ' ' His friends, of course, were not nearly so sure as he was that the new country was beck- John Winthrop and His Wife 27 oning him and Robert Ryece, whose advice he asked in the matter, replied in a letter which is full of interest because it marshals all the pru- dent considerations which should have per- suaded Winthrop to stay just where he was and let other people be pioneers in this difficult and dangerous enterprise. " The Church & Common welthe heere at home," he begins, " ha the more neede of your beste abyllytie in these dangerous tymes then any remote planta- tion, which may be performed by persons of leser woorthe & apprehension. . . . Agyne, your owne estate wylbe more secured in the myddest of all accidents heere at home, than in this forreine expedition, which discovereth a 1000 shipwrackes which may betyde. All your kynsfolkes & moste understandinge friendes wyll more rejoyce at your stayenge at home with any condition which God shall sende, then to throwe your selfe upon vayne hopes, with many difficulties & uncertaynties. Agayne, you shalbe more acceptable in the service of the Hieste, & more under His protection whiles you walke charely in your vocation heere at home, then to goe owte of your vocation, comyttinge your selfe to a woorlde of dangers abroade. " The pype goeth sweete, tyll the byrde be in the nett ; many bewtifull hopes ar sett before 28 St. Botolph's Town your eyes to allewer you to danger. Planta- tions ar for yonge men, that can enduer all paynes & hunger. Yf in your yewthe you had byn acquaynted with navigation, you mighte have promised your selfe more hope in this longe vyadge, but for one of your yeeres [Win- throp was now forty-two] to undertake so large a taske is seldome seene but to miscarry. To adventure your wholle famylly upon so mani- feste uncerteynties standeth not with your wys- dome & longe experience. Lett yonger yeeres take this charge upon them, with the advyse of that which elder yeeres shall directe them unto, the losse slialbe the lesse yf thay mys- carry ; but there honor shalbe the more if thay prosper. So long as you sytt at the helme, your famylie prospereth, but yf you shoold happen to fayle, your flocke woolde be at the least in hazarde, if not totally to myscarrye. Yonge men directions thowghe sometymes with some successe, do not all waves succeede. These remote partes will not well agree with your yeeres ; whiles you are heere you wyll be ever fytter by your understandings & wisdome to supply there necessities. But if it shoolde happen that you shoolde gett safely thither, you shall soone fynde, how necessitie wyll calle for supplies from these parts. I pray you par- John Winthrop and His Wife 29 don my boldnes, that had rather erre in what I thinke, then be sylente in what I shoolde speake. How harde wyll it bee for one browghte up among boockes & Learned men, to lyve in a barbarous place, where is no learnynge & lesse cyvillytie. ..." This counsel of prudent cowardice was writ- ten just a fortnight before the memorable com- pact at Cambridge. But it did not deter Win- throp from signing that brave Agreement. For, in the meantime his son, — that John Win- throp who was afterwards renowned as Gov- ernor of Connecticut, — returned from a pro- tracted journey in foreign lands and heartened him with these words: " For the business of New England, I can say no other thing, but that I believe confidently, that the whole disposition thereof is of the Lord. . . . And for my- self, I have seen go much of the vanity of the world, that I esteem no more of the diversities of countries, than as so many inns, whereof the traveller that hath lodged in the best or in the worst, findeth no difference, when he cometh to his journey's end; and I shall call that my country, where I may most glorify God, and enjoy the presence of my dearest friends. Therefore, herein I submit myself to God's will and yours, and with your leave, do dedicate 30 St. Botolph's Town myself ... to the service of God and the Company. ..." Best of all the gentle Margaret did not fail her husband in this hour of need. Letters full of cheer and sympathy found their way to him from Groton Manor and in them all she ex- pressed conviction that the good Lord would " certainly bless us in our intended purpose." His tender appreciation of her pluck is reflected in all the letters he sent her during the months preceding his departure. " I must now begin to prepare thee for our long parting, which grow very near," he writes early in January, 1629. " I know not how to deal with thee by arguments ; for if thou wert as wise and patient as ever woman was, yet it must needs be a great trial to thee and the greater because I am so dear to thee ; " and then he goes on to point out that she must find her comfort in religion, as where else could she find it, poor thing! when the husband with whose soul hers was pecul- iarly knit was for venturing to a foreign land, leaving her behind. Her replies to his brave attempts at consolation are indeed touching, and immensely pathetic also are his answers. He has been arranging to leave with friends fifteen hundred pounds for her support until she should be able to follow him to the New John Winthrop and His Wife 31 World and now he writes, " My sweet wife, The Lord hath oft brought us together with comfort, when we have been long absent; and if it be good for us he will do so still. When I was in Ireland he brought us together again. When I was sick here in London he re- stored us together again. How many dangers, near death, hast thou been in thyself! and yet the Lord hath granted me to enjoy thee still. If he did not watch over us we need not go over sea to seek death or misery: we should meet it at every step, in every journey. And is not he a God abroad as well as at home? Is not his power and providense the same in New Eng- land as it hath been in Old England? . . . My good wife, trust in the Lord, whom thou hast found faithful. He will be better to thee than any husband and will restore thee thy husband with advantage. But I kiss my sweet wife and bless thee and all ours and rest Thine ever Jo. Winthrop February 14, 1629 — Thou must be my val- entine ..." The picture of him whom we are wont to call " the stern John Winthrop " remembering, even in the midst of hurried and troubled pre- parations to embark for the New World woman's perennial sentiment concerning such 32 St. Botolph's Town festivals as St. Valentine's Day is so striking as to be worth bearing in mind. And when we have placed alongside of it the series of fare- well letters sent to his wife from Cowes and the Isle of Wight where the ships were detained by bad weather, we have a complete compre- hension of one side of the man's character. " Mondays and Fridays, at five of the clock at night, we shall meet in spirit till we meet in person," he promises her. Shakespeare, not long before, had put the same thought into the mouth of Imogen, when, on having parted with Posthumus, she complains that they had been torn apart " Ere I could tell him, How would I think on him, at certain hours, Such thoughts, and such ; ... or have charged him, At the sixth hour of morn, at noon, at midnight, To encounter me with orisons ; for then I am in heaven for him." But Posthumus, as Kobert C. Winthrop, the editor of his progenitor's remarkable letters, points out, was not in his forty-third year, as was the Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony; nor Imogen in her thirty-ninth. More- over, one can scarcely fancy either of Shake- speare's lovers admitting, as Winthrop does in John Winthrop and His Wife 33 one of the first New England letters which he sent his wife, " I own with sorrow that much business hath made me too often forget Mon- days and Fridays." in ST. BOTOLPH'S TOWN IN OLD ENGLAND AND NEW Nowadays embarking from old England for the new seems no great matter. But in that spring of 1630 when Winthrop's little fleet sailed from Cowes travelling was quite a dif- ferent proposition. For it was certain that the voyage would be very long and usually it was dangerous also. On this particular occasion it took seventy-six days and was attended by all those " perils of the deep " against which some of us still have the good sense to pray. Winthrop's vessel was called the Arbella in compliment to Lady Arbella Johnson, who was one of its passengers, and among the other ships which brought over this Company of some eight hundred souls was the Mayflower, consecrated in every New England heart as the carrier, a decade earlier, of the Pilgrims of Plymouth. During the voyage Governor Win- throp wrote the simple beginnings of what is known as his " History of New England," a 34 In Old England and New 35 journal from which we glean the most that we know of the early days of the colonists. Being rather impatient, however, just as its compiler probably was, actually to land in the New World we will quote here only that para- graph which describes the end of the voyage: " Saturday 12. About four in the morning we were near our port. We shot off two pieces of ordnance and sent our skiff to Mr. Peirce his ship. . . . Afterwards Mr. Peirce came aboard us, and returned to fetch Mr. Endecott, who came to us about two of the clock and with him Mr. Skelton and Captain Levett. We that were of the assistants and some other gentle- men and some of the women and our captain returned with them to Nahumkeck, where we supped with a good venison pasty and good beer, and at night we returned to our ship but some of the women stayed behind. In the mean time most of our people went on shore upon the land of Cape Ann, which lay very near us and gathered store of fine strawberries." The initial landing, this makes clear, was not at Boston at all but at Salem where Endicott's band had already settled. Things were not very rosy in this colony just then, however, as we see from the following passage in Dud- ley's letter to the Countess of Lincoln: " We 36 St. Botolph's Town found the colony in a sad and unexpected con- dition, about eighty of them being dead the win- ter before, and many of those alive weak and sick; all the corn and bread amongst them all hardly sufficient to feed them for a fortnight, insomuch that the remainder of a hundred and eighty servants we had the two years before sent over, coming to us for victuals to sustain them, we found ourselves wholly unable to feed them by reason that the provisions shipped for them were taken out of the ship they were put in; and they who were trusted to ship them in another failed us and left them behind whereupon necessity forced us, to our extreme loss, to give them all liberty, who had cost us about £16 or £20 a person furnishing and send- ing over." So, far from being able to take in more people, Salem had to relinquish almost two hundred of those already there! Small wonder that Dudley comments dryly, " Salem, where we landed, pleased us not." Accordingly, Winthrop and his friends moved farther south along the coast until they came to the spot now dear to our country as the town which shelters Bunker Hill Monu- ment. Here they established their settlement. And here, on the thirtieth of July, 1630, Win- throp, Dudley, Johnson and the pastor John In Old England and New 37 Wilson adopted and signed a simple church covenant which was the foundation of the inde- pendent churches of New England. Before leaving England this band of colonists had made it clear that they were not " Separatists from the Church of England " though they ad- mitted that they could but separate themselves from the corruptions in it in order that they might practise the positive part of Church reformation and propagate the Gospel in America. We must remember this in order to justify the stand taken by Winthrop, a little later, in dealing with Roger Williams. But it is necessary also to bear clearly in mind the fact of this established church at Charlestown. To set up a state in which there should be no established church was as far from the minds of these men as to set up a state in which there should be no established government. None the less they esteemed it their honour, as Win- throp expressly said, " to call the church of England our dear mother." By August the little company was appar- ently settled for good in Charlestown, for the first Court of Assistants had now been held and recommendations as to " how the minister should be maintained " adopted. As a further step towards permanency Governor Winthrop, 38 St. Botolph's Town as we are told in the town-records, " ordered his house to be cut and framed there." Then sickness came upon them, the Lady Arbella and her husband being among the first to pass away in the land from which they had hoped so much. Of the lady Cotton Mather has said quaintly that " she took New England in her way to Heaven. ' ' She was only one of the many who died. Johnson in his " Wonder- Working Providence " records that " in almost every family lamentation, mourning and woe were heard, and no fresh food to be had to cherish them. It would assuredly have moved the most lockt up affections to tears, had they past from one hut to another, and beheld the piteous case these people were in; and that which added to their present distress was the want of fresh water. For, although the place did afford plenty, yet for present they could find but one spring, and that not to be come at, but when the tide was down. ' ' Enter, thereupon, Mr. William Blackstone, as the saviour of the enterprise! Blackstone was one of those who had come over with Sir Bobert Gorges and had remained in spite of untoward conditions. On Shawmut (after- wards Boston) he possessed large holdings by virtue of a title Winthrop and his men later In Old England and New 39 acquired by purchase. Xow, therefore, " he came and acquainted the Governor of an excel- lent Spring there; withal inviting him and soliciting him thither. "Whereupon after the death of Mr. Johnson and divers others, the Governor, with Mr. Wilson, and the greatest part of the church removed thither; whither also the frame of the Governor's house, in pre- paration at this town, was also (to the discon- tent of some) carried; where people began to build there houses against winter; and this place was called Boston." Thus does the record incorporated in Frothingham's " His- tory of Charlestown " tell the tale of Boston's actual birth. There are those who maintain that the story of our city's growth could very effectively be told by a series of historical ta- bleaux ; for the initial number on the program they name with excellent judgment the picture of Blackstone, the gentle recluse, exhibiting to John Wmthrop the " excellent spring " of his own domain. This act of Blackstone 's was the more praise- worthy because he was a " solitary " by nature and frankly disliked men even remotely of Puritan stripe. He was at this time about thirty-five and had dwelt in his lonely hut on the west slope of what is now Beacon Hill, not 40 St. Botolph's Town far from Beacon and Sprnce streets, for about five years, spending his quiet days in trade with the savages and in the cultivation of his garden. Just why he had left England is not more clear than just why he later left Boston. But when he died in Rhode Island (May 26, 1675) he left behind him " 10 paper books " in which it is believed he may have told the story of his mys- terious life. These were unfortunately des- troyed by the Indians when they burned his house, however, and all that we further know of him is that he returned to Boston, after he had ceased to be an inhabitant of the place, and married the widow of John Stephenson, who lived on Milk street, on the site of the build- ing in which Franklin was born. In regard to a name for the new settlement there seems to have been absolute unanimity. By common consent it was called after the old-world city, St. Botolph's town, or Bos- ton, of Lincolnshire, England, from which the Lady Arbella Johnson and her husband had come and in whose noble parish church John Cotton was still preaching. The order of the Court of Assistants, — Governor Win- throp presiding, — "That Trimontaine shall be called Boston " was passed on the 17th of September, 1630, thus giving the death blow ST. BOTOLPH S CHURCH. BOSTON, ENGLAND In Old England and New 41 to Carlyle's picturesque statement in his book on Cromwell concerning Cotton's share in the matter: " Eev. John Cotton is a man still held in some remembrance among our New Eng- land friends. He had been minister of Boston in Lincolnshire; carried the name across the ocean with him; fixed it upon a new small home he found there, which has become a large one since, — the big busy capital of Massa- chusetts, — Boston so called. John Cotton, his mark, very curiously stamped on the face of this planet; likely to continue for some time." This is superb writing, of course, but ex- ceedingly lame history. Cotton did not come to the new world until nearly four years after this settlement was named Boston. But, since it is a fact that the St. Botolph's town, in which Cotton was still living, exercised a profound influence upon that to which he presently came let us turn aside and make a little pilgrimage there. Hawthorne did this during one of his trips abroad and he printed the result in the Atlantic Monthly of January, 1862. We cannot do better, I think, than to follow as he leads: " In mid-afternoon we be- held the tall tower of Saint Botolph's Church (three hundred feet high, the same elevation as the tallest tower of Lincoln Cathedral^ loom- 42 St. Botolph's Town ing in the distance. At about half-past four we reached Boston (which name has been short- ened, in the course of ages, by the quick and slovenly English pronunciation, from Botolph's town) and were taken by a cab to the Peacock, in the market-place. It was the best hotel in town, though a poor one enough; and we were shown into a small stifled parlor, dingy, musty, and scented with stale tobacco smoke, — to- bacco smoke two days old, for the waiter as- sured us that the room had not more recently been fumigated. An exceedingly grim waiter he was, too, apparently a genuine descend- ant of the old Puritans of this English Bos- ton. " In my first ramble about the town, chance led me to the riverside, at that quarter where the port is situated. . . . Down the river I saw a brig, approaching rapidly under sail. The whole scene made an odd impression of bustle and sluggishness and decay, and a remnant of wholesome life; and I could not but contrast it with the mighty and populous activity of our own Boston, which was once the feeble infant of this old English town ; — the latter, perhaps, almost stationary ever since that day, as if the birth of such an offspring had taken away its own principle of growth. I thought of Long — J, r*-~ In Old England and New 43 Wharf and Faneuil Hall, and Washington street and the Great Elm and the State House, and exulted lustily, — but yet began to feel at home in this good old town, for its very name's sake, as I never had before felt in England. ' ' The next day Hawthorne visited " a vacant spot of ground where old John Cotton's vicar- age had stood till a very short time since. Ac- cording to our friend's description it was a humble habitation, of the cottage order, built of brick, with a thatched roof. In the right- hand aisle of the church there is an ancient chapel, which at the time of our visit was in process of restoration, and was to be dedicated to Cotton, whom these English people consider as the founder of our American Boston. . . . The interior of St. Botolph's is very fine and satisfactory, as stately almost as a cathedral, and has been repaired — as far as repairs were necessary — in a chaste and noble style. . . . When we came away the tower of St. Botolph's looked benignantly down; and I fancied that it was bidding me farewell, as it did Mr. Cot- ton, two or three hundred years ago, and telling me to describe its venerable height and the town beneath it, to the people of the American city, who are partly akin, if not to the living 44 St. Botolph's Town inhabitants of old Boston, yet to some of the dust that lies in its churchyard. ' ' It is of this tower with its beacon and its bells that we hear in Jean Ingelow's touching poem, " High Tide On the Coast of Lincoln- shire." St. Botolph, the pious Saxon monk of the seventh century, who is believed to have founded the town, received his name, indeed, — Bot-holp, i. e. Boat-help, — from his service to sailors; and the high tower was originally de- signed to be a guide to those out at sea, six miles down the river. An account of the town written in 1541 tells the whole story in one terse paragraph: " Botolphstowne standeth on ye river of Lindis. The steeple of the church * being quadrata Turris ' and a lanthorn on it, is both very high & faire and a mark bothe by sea and land for all ye quarters thereaboute. ' ' Perhaps it was remembrance of what the beacon in St. Botolph's tower had meant to the people of Lincolnshire which caused the Court of Assistants, assembled in new Boston, to pass the following resolution March 4, 1634 : "It is ordered that there shalbe forth with a beacon sett on the Centry hill at Boston to give notice to the Country of any danger, and that there shalbe a ward of one pson kept there from the first of April to the last of September ; In Old England and New 45 and that upon the discovery of any danger the beacon shalbe fired, an allarum given, as also messengers presently sent by that town where the danger is discov'red to all other townes within this jurisdiction." Hawthorne hints, too, that it is to the influ- ence of the old St. Botolph's town that the winding streets of our modern city may be at- tributed. " Its crooked streets and narrow lanes reminded me much of Hanover street, Ann street, and other portions of our American Boston. It is not unreasonable to suppose that the local habits and recollections of the first settlers may have had some influence on the physical character of the streets and houses in the New England metropolis; at any rate here is a similar intricacy of bewildering lanes and a number of old peaked and projecting- storied dwellings, such as I used to see there in my boyish days. It is singular what a home feeling and sense of kindred I derived from this hereditary connection and fancied physi- ognomical resemblance between the old town and its well-grown daughter." Somewhat less romantic but still appealing is the explanation of our crooked streets volun- teered by Bynner. " The first houses [of the colonial period] were necessarily of the rudest 46 St. Botolph's Town description and they seem to have been scat- tered hither or thither according to individual need or fancy. The early streets, too, obedient to the same law of convenience, naturally fol- lowed the curves of the hills, winding around their bases by the shortest routes and crossing their slopes at the easiest angles. To the pio- neer upon the western prairie it is compara- tively easy to lay out his prospective city in squares and streets of unvarying size and shape, and oftentimes be it said, of wearying sameness; to the colonist of 1630 upon this rugged promontory of New England it was a different matter. Without the power of leisure to surmount the natural obstacles of his new home, he was contented to adapt himself to them. " Thus the narrow winding streets, with their curious twists and turns, the crooked alleys and short-cuts by which he drove his cows to pasture up among the blueberry bushes of Beacon Hill, or carried his grist to the wind- mill over upon Copp's steeps, or went to draw his water at the spring-gate, or took his sober Sunday way to the first rude little church, — these paths and highways, worn by his feet and established for his convenience, remain after two centuries and a half substantially un- In Old England and New 47 changed, endeared to his posterity by priceless associations. And so the town, growing at first after no plan and with no thought of propor- tion, but as directed and shaped by the actual needs of the inhabitants, became a not unfitting exponent of their lives, — the rough outward garb, as it were, of their hardy young civiliza- tion." Truth, however, demands the statement that our forefathers made brave efforts to compel a ship-shape city. In 1635 it was ordered: " That from this day there shall noe house at all be built in this towne neere unto any of the streetes or laynes therein but with the advise and consent of the overseers . . . for the more comely and commodious ordering of them." At a subsequent meeting in the same month John Gallop was summarily told to im- prove the alignment of the " payles at his yard's end." Very likely he fought off the order, however; and very likely dozens of others did the same, regulating their homes in the fashion attributed to those settlers of Mar- blehead who are said to have remarked, each to the other, "I'm a'goin' to set here; you can set where you're a mind to." Apparently just that had happened in the old St. Botolph's town; not improbably that was what also hap- pened in the new. IV THE COMING OF A SHINING LIGHT The earliest and, in many ways, the best account of Boston life in the winter immedi- ately following the naming of the town was that sent by Thomas Dudley in a letter to the Countess of Lincoln, mother of Lady Arbella Johnson. The explanation of this letter's origin is found in a note which Dudley sent with it "to the righte honourable, my very good Lady, the Lady Bryget, Countesse of Lincoln " in the care of Mr. Wilson, pastor of the First Church, who sailed from Salem, April 1, 1631. " Madam," he wrote, " your ltt'res (which are not common or cheape) fol- lowing me hether into New England, and bring- ing with them renewed testimonies of the ac- customed favours you honoured mee with in the Old, have drawne from me this Narrative retribucon, (which in respect of your proper interest in some persons of great note amongst us) was the thankfullest present I had to send 48 The Coming of a Shining Light 49 over the seas. Therefore I humbly intreat your Honour, this bee accepted as payment from him, who neither hath nor is any more than your honour's old thankful servant, " Thomas Dudley." Chronologically, the narrative trips in places for it was written, as Dudley himself says, by the fireside on his knee, in the midst of his family, who " break good manners, and make me many times forget what I would say and say what I would not, " at a time when he had ' ' no leisure to review and insert things forgotten, but out of due time and order must set them down as they come to memory." None the less the plain unvarnished descriptions in this let- ter make it a very telling one and when we put along with it Winthrop's brave notes to his son we have a vivid picture of the hardships of that first winter. " I shall expect your mother and you and the rest of my company here next spring, if God will ..." wrote the governor. " Bring some good oil, pitch and tar and a good piece of an old cable to make oakum; for that which was sent is much lost. Some more cows should be brought, especially two new milch, which must be well mealed and milked by the way, and some goats, especially 50 St. Botolph's Town sheep, if they can be had. Bring some store of garlick and onions and conserve of red roses, alum and aloes, oiled skins, both calf and sheep and some worsted ribbing of several sizes." The middle of August, 1631, found Margaret Winthrop under sail for the new world and early in November the married lovers were re- united after their sad season of parting. In honour of the joyful occasion Governor Brad- ford of Plymouth came up to visit the head of the Massachusetts Colony and " divers of the assistants and most of the people of the near plantations " came also to bid the lady Mar- garet welcome, bringing with them " great store of provisions, as fat hogs, kids, venison, poultry, geese partridges etc so as the like joy and manifestation of love had never been seen in New England. It was a great marvel that so much people and such store of provisions could be gathered together at so few hours' warning," recorded the happy husband. The resources of the settlement, as the last sentence of this entry clearly shows, were still very meagre. And the governor was no more prosperous than a number of his associates. In fact, he was poorer than they, if anything, for he had no assured income from his office The Coming of a Shining Light 51 and he was under the constant necessity of spending money for the common good. In the fall of 1634 Winthrop presented a detailed ac- count of his pecuniary relations to the Massa- chusetts colony for " the four years and near an half ' ' in which he had held the office of chief magistrate and this document is so interesting that it is here given entire from the Eecords of the Colony. It speaks more eloquently than we could in many pages of the severe simplicity of those early days in Boston. " "Whereas, by order of the last general court, commissioners were appointed, viz., Roger Ludlow, Esq. the deputy governour, and Mr. Israel Stoughton, gent, to receive my ac- compt of such things as I have received and disbursed for public use in the time of my government ; in all due observance and submis- sion to the order of the said court, I do make this declaratory accompt ensuing : — " First, I affirm, that I never received any moneys or other goods committed to me in trust for the commonwealth, otherwise than is hereafter expressed. " Item, I acknowledge I have in my custody certain barrels of common powder, and some match and drumheads, with some things be- 52 St. Botolph's Town longing to the ordnance; which powder, being landed at Charlestown, and exposed to the in- jury of the weather, I took and bestowed first in a tent which I made of mine own broad- cloth, (being then worth eight shillings the yard but in that service much spoiled). After I removed it to my storehouse at Boston, where it still remains, save that some of it hath been spent in public service, and five barrels I sold to some ships that needed them, which I will allow powder or money for. The rest I am ready to deliver up to such as shall be ap- pointed to receive them. " I received also some meal and peas, from Mr. White of Dorchester in England, and from Mr. Boe of London, which was bestowed upon such as had need thereof in the several towns; as also £10 given by Mr. Thomson. I received also from Mr. Humfrey, some rugs, frieze suits, shoes, and hose, (the certain value whereof I must know from himself,) with let- ters of direction to make use of the greatest part thereof, as given to help bear out my charge for the public. I paid for the freight of these goods and disposed of the greatest part of them to others; but how I cannot set down. I made use, also, of two pair of car- riage wheels, which I will allow for : I had not The Coming of a Shining Light 53 meddled with them but that they lay useless for want of the carriages which lay in Eng- land. For my disbursements, I have formerly delivered to the now deputy a bill of part of them, amounting to near £300, which I dis- bursed for public services divers years since, for which I have received in corn at six shil- lings the bushel, (and which will not yeild me above four shillings) about £180, or near so much. I disbursed also for the transportation of Mr. Phillips his family which was to be borne by the government till he should be chosen to some particular congregation. " Now, for my other charges, by occasion of my place of government, it is well known I have expended much, and somewhat I have re- ceived towards it, which I should have rested satisfied with, but that, being called to accompt, I must mention my disbursements with my re- ceipts and, in both, shall refer myself to the pleasure of the court. " I was first chosen to be governour without my seeking or expectation (there being then divers other gent, who for their abilities every way, were far more fit.) Being chosen I fur- nished myself with servants and provisions ac- cordingly, in a far great proportion than I would have done had I come as a private man, 54 St. Botolph's Town or as an assistant only. In this office I con- tinued four years and near an half, although I earnestly desired in every election to have been freed. In this time I have spent above £500 per annum, of which £200 per annum would have maintained my family in a private condition. So, as I may truly say, I have spent by occasion of my late office, above £1,200. Towards this I have received by way of benev- olence, from some towns about £50 and by the last year's allowance £150 and by some pro- visions sent by Mr. Humfrey, as is before- mentioned, about £50, or, it may be, somewhat more. " I also disbursed, at our coming away, in England, for powder and great shot, £216, which I did not put into my bill of charges for- merly delivered to the now deputy, because I did expect to have paid myself out of that part of Mr. Johnson's estate, which he gave to the public; but, finding that it will fall far short, I must put it to this accompt. " The last thing, which I offer to the consid- eration of the court, is, that my long continu- ance in the said office hath put me into such a way of unavoidable charge, as will be still as chargeable to me as the place of governour will be to some others. In all these things, I The Coming of a Shining Light 55 refer myself to the wisdom and justice of the court, with this protestation, that it repenteth me not of my cost or labour bestowed in the service of this commonwealth; but do heartily bless the Lord our God, that he hath pleased to honour me so far as to call for anything he hath bestowed upon me for the service of his church and people here, the prosperity whereof and his gracious acceptance, shall be an abundant recompense to me. I conclude with this one request, (which in justice may not be denied me) that, as it stands upon rec- ord that, upon the discharge of my office, I was called to accompt, so this my declaration may be recorded also; lest, hereafter, when I shall be forgotten, some blemish may lie upon my posterity, when there shall be nothing to clear it. John Winthrop." " September 4, 1634." The person who had unconsciously precip- itated all this calling to account was none other than "Winthrop 's old friend, Rev. John Cotton, who, almost immediately after landing in Bos- ton, preached a sermon in which he maintained that a magistrate ought not to be turned into a private nian without just eause. This was a view of civil government not at all palatable 56 St. Botolph's Town to the Massachusetts worthies of that day and, as if to assert, once for all that they wished to be entirely free in their choice of a supreme officer they chose for the highest office in their gift, not Winthrop who had so far served them continuously, but Thomas Dudley, his former deputy. Winthrop entirely acquiesced in this result and after entertaining the new governor handsomely in his own house rendered the above account of his stewardship, which had been demanded of him. Three years later he was again chosen chief magistrate. During twelve of the nineteen years of his life in Bos- ton, indeed, he served his fellow colonists in this capacity. No doubt the Kev. John Cotton was sorely perplexed and not a little chagrined at the change in the government which his first effort in his new pulpit had brought about. But his had been an exciting life and he was fairly well used to changes. Born in 1585, a son of Eowland Cotton, a lawyer of Derby, England, he had entered Trinity College, Cambridge, when only twelve years of age and soon became noted for his acquirements. At nineteen he was admitted to the degree of Master of Arts. Soon afterwards he received the appointment of head lecturer, dean and catechist of Em- Photographed from the Boston Parish Register Signature of John Cotton, 1620 The Coming of a Shining Light 57 manuel College. Here he came to be greatly loved by his students for his sweet and gentle disposition and prodigiously admired by the distinguished divines of the time for his grasp upon the doctrines of Calvin. His theological bent being what it was it is difficult to under- stand how he should have been called to St. Botolph's until one learns that this came about through a mistake on the part of the Mayor who voted for him when he intended to vote against him. And so great was the tact of the new clergyman that he was able to hold for many years a place gained in this extraordi- nary way! In his marriage as in many other things Cotton was fortunate, for Elizabeth Horrocks, with whom he lived eighteen years, brought him on his wedding day the " assur- ance of his spiritual redemption ; hence it was a day of double marriage to him." After her death he married " one Mrs. Sarah Story, a vertuous widow, very dear to his former wife." Eventually the news of Cotton's non-con- formity got to the ears of those on the lookout for heresy, and complaint being entered at the High Commissioned Court that " the Magis- trates did not kneel at the Sacrament " and that some other ceremonies were also unob- served u letters missive were dispatched in- 58 St. Botolph's Town continently to convene Mr. Cotton " before that " infamous " Court. Some time previ- ously the Earl of Dorset had promised to do what he could for Cotton should he be perse- cuted as others before him had been, but now, when appealed to, he replied " that if Mr. Cot- ton had been guilty of drunkenness, of unclean- ness, or any such lesser fault, he could have obtained his pardon; but inasmuch as he had been guilty of Nonconformity and Puritanism, the crime was unpardonable and therefore he must fly for his safety ! ' ' Accordingly, Mr. Cotton travelled in dis- guise to London and while hesitating between Holland, Barbadoes and New England decided to set sail for the last-named place. To this decision he was no doubt much influenced by the pressing invitations of friends and by " letters procured from the Church of Boston by Mr. Winthrop, the Governor of the Col- ony." Boston in New England was certainly very glad to welcome him. It was a figurative saying there for many years that the lamp in the lantern of St. Botolph's ceased to burn when Cotton left that church to become a shi- ning light in the wilderness of New England. His ascendency seems to have been a purely personal one, however, Though Hutchinson The Coming of a Shining Light 59 says that he was more instrumental in the set- tlement of the civil as well as the ecclesiastical polity of New England than any other person one finds little in his writing to explain his power. And the " insinuating and melting way " which Hubband attributed to him is con- spicuous chiefly by its absence from the pub- lished sermons which have come down to us. He became the progenitor of many of the best and most useful citizens Boston has had, and these good people are ever zealous to link the Old Boston to the new. This very winter of 1908, for instance, they have been approached by the mayor of the old-world city to help re- pair a portion of St. Botolph's church as a sign of love for its " shining light." The request this functionary made seems rather odd until one has heard what our Bos- ton gladly did in this respect more than fifty years ago. The story is told briefly in a sound- ing Latin inscription written by the Honour- able Edward Everett and engraved upon a memorial plate in the southwest chapel of St. Botolph's, now called Cotton Chapel, in honour of him who was once minister of the church. Put into English it reads : " In perpetual remembrance of John Cotton who, during the reigns of James and Charles 60 St. Botolph's Town was, for many years, a grave, skilful and la- borious vicar of this church. Afterward, on account of the miserable commotion amongst sacred affairs in his own country, he sought a new settlement in a new world, and remained even to the end of his life a pastor and teacher of the greatest reputation and of the greatest authority in the first church of Boston in New England, which city received this venerable name in honour of Cotton. Two hundred and twenty-five years having passed away since his migration, his descendants and the American citizens of Boston were invited to this pious work by their English brethren in order that the name of an illustrious man, the love and honour of both worlds, might not any longer be banished from that noble temple in which he diligently, learnedly and sacredly ex- pounded the divine oracles for so many years; and they have willingly and gratuitously caused this shrine to be restored, and this tab- let to be erected, in the year of our recovered salvation, 1855." Those who then subscribed to the chapel have, almost all of them, descendants bearing the same names who are to-day living in and about Boston. These people it is, no doubt, who will gladly respond to the request of the COTTON CHAPEL, ST. BOTULPH S, BOSTON, ENGLAND The Coming of a Shining Light 61 English mayor. For the original contributors were, in the majority of cases, either descend- ants of John Cotton, or husbands of wives so descended. To the former class belonged John Eliot Thayer, who gave $250; Edward, Gor- ham, Sidney and Peter C. Brooks, who gave $100 each, and John Chipman Gray, who gave $50. Among the husbands of Cotton's women descendants who contributed were Charles Francis Adams, Edward Everett and Langdon Frothingham, each of whom gave $100. Other well-known names on the list of donors are Nathan and William Appleton, George Ban- croft, Martin Brimmer, Abbott Lawrence, John Amory Lowell, Jonathan Phillips, Jared Sparks, Frederic Tudor and John Collins "Warren. The good feeling between the two Bostons, which was cemented by these generous gifts toward the Cotton Chapel, seems to date from the reopening of the church, two years earlier, for which occasion several gentlemen from our Boston were invited to England, at least four of whom were able to be present. In our public library may be found a curious little sheet which gives an account of the exer- cises. In print so poor and so small as to nearly ruin the eyes are there recorded the 62 St. Botolph's Town speeches of the day. One of these, made by Col. T. B. Lawrence of this city, expresses regret that " the domestic institutions of the states of the south " were being warmly de- bated in the English drawing-rooms of that time. Happily, Cotton's Boston descendants did not all think alike on this important sub- ject ! SIR HARRY VANE PROPHET AND MARTYR Thomas Dudley, whom Cotton's zeal had caused to be chosen as Winthrop's successor, was himself left out of the governorship at the election of May, 1635, and John Haynes elected in his stead. Then there arrived in Boston two men of very different character both of whom, however, were destined to make a deep mark in the history of their time and eventually to die on the scaffold for allegiance to the truth as they saw it. These two men were Hugh Peters and Sir Harry Vane. Peters had been the pastor of the English church in Rotterdam and had there been per- secuted by the English ambassador. Vane was heir to Sir Harry Vane, Comptroller of the king's household, a man of great impor- tance in the politics of the time. And his son has a personality of so much interest that I am resolved to trace his life fom its bright beginning to its glorious end even if, in so 63 64 St. Botolph's Town doing, I run somewhat ahead of my narrative and carry my readers far away from Boston in New England. The fact is that one usually encounters only the Massachusetts segment of Vane's wonderful life and so is deprived of opportunity to judge his career in its whole- ness and to realize that he, more than any other man, is the " link that binds together the severed divisions of the English-speaking race." One American writer, Charles Wentworth Upham, has pointed out in the preface to his really capital " Life of Sir Harry Vane," that there is an interesting parallel between the career of this hero and that of Lafayette. Both were scions of an aristocratic house and might easily have passed their youth follow- ing the pleasures of court life and indulging in those enervating relaxations commonly as- sociated with young aristocrats. Instead, however, both yearned towards America, Lafayette because he saw in the new land a chance to realize the vision of political free- dom which illumined his young soul, Harry Vane because he thought to find here " free- dom to worship God." Both paid dearly in youth and in middle life for their devotion to an ideal, and Vane finally suffered death upon Sir Harry Vane 65 the block. But because of them American his- tory contains at least two highly romantic chapters and is more deeply inspiring than it could ever have been without them. For each served in his own era to point the truth that the only really great man is he who, with never a thought of self, unswervingly " follows the gleam " even when it leads to exile, prison and death. Sir Harry Vane was born in 1612, one of a very numerous family of children. His father had been knighted by James I and though only in the early twenties at the time of the younger Harry's birth, was already on the way to eminence in the government of England. At the preparatory school in Westminster and while at Magdalen College in Oxford young Vane bade fair to follow a similar career along the line of least resistance. He was gay, ad- dicted to pleasure and, as he himself says, fond of " good fellowship." But when he was about seventeen he began to interest himself in theology and, the fascination of this subject growing rapidly upon him, he pursued it further and further, at the same time aliena- ting himself as a natural result from the form of worship and doctrine established by law. When the period of his matriculation arrived 66 St. Botolph's Town he declined to take the oath of allegiance and, leaving Oxford, passed over to Holland and France, finally settling down for some time in Geneva. Residence in the stronghold of Calvinism naturally strengthened the young man's bent towards doctrinal speculations and spiritual exercises and as it was never part of his habit to conceal his opinions, the king was soon being informed by his bishops that the heir of an important family, closely connected with the throne, had conceived a dislike for the dis- cipline and ceremonies of the Church of Eng- land. Whereupon, Laud was instructed to ex- postulate with the young Puritan and wean him back to the true faith. The young dis- senter had learned his new lesson well, how- ever, and he was much more than a match for Laud in theological discussion. Perceiving which, the haughty prelate lost his temper and tried to threaten where he could not persuade. This naturally did not endear his doctrines to Harry Vane, whose ardent soul was aflame with love for the meek and gentle One Laud only professed to serve. Accordingly he an- nounced his purpose of going to New England, where those who believed as he did stood ready to give him a warm welcome and, although his Harry Vane Afterwards Sir Henry Vane Sir Harry Vane 67 father at first opposed the plan, he soon as- sented to it, having found the king to be quite in favour of removing the aristocratic heretic. The excitement occasioned by the coming to the colony of this brilliant youth, not yet twenty-three, who was heir to a title and a fine estate, whose hand had not yet been pledged in marriage and who was, besides, exceedingly handsome and distinguished-looking, can be better imagined than described. That he should at such an age, after visiting foreign capitals and witnessing all the splendours and enticements which the gay and brilliant world holds out to those of his rank and condition, voluntarily take up the self-denying unevent- ful life of the Boston of that day was held to mean, as indeed it did mean, deep desire to realize himself spiritually. Accordingly AVin- throp and the rest gave him the right hand of fellowship without any of the usual delays and, within a month after his arrival young Vane found himself an honoured member of John Cotton's congregation. A year later he was chosen governor of the colony, "Winthrop, who was twice his age, being appointed his deputy. " Because he was son and heir to a Privy Councillor in England, the ships congratulated his election with a volley 68 St. Botolph's Town of great shot," comments the Journal. But Vane deserved the salutes of the cannon on his own account as well as on his family's. He was a remarkable youth. In the perplexing civil and religious controversies which now came crowding thick and fast, he soon found scope, however, for all the tolerance and good judgment he could possibly command. The most appealing of these controversies, from the point of view of those who care chiefly for the human side of history, was that which centred about Mrs. Hutchinson. A later chapter will discuss this matter in some detail, so we will here touch upon it only so far as it concerns the young governor, precip- itated, at twenty-four, into disputes that would have made many an older head ache with their complexities. Like a youth he took the gen- erous and what proved to be the wrong (?) side of the question. And this, added to the fact that his sudden elevation had nursed deep jealousies of him, proved his undoing in Mas- sachusetts. Naught did it avail that he showed great sagacity in dealing with the Indians and extraordinary tact in smoothing the ruffled sensibilities of the older magistrates. The fact remained that he was too popular with the masses, too young, too handsome, too zealous Sir Harry Vane 69 for liberty of conscience to be acceptable to those who had borne the burden and heat of colonization and who saw their hard-won peace threatened by people with opinions subversive of theirs. Even the noble Winthrop indulged, on at least one occasion, in jealousy of Vane's pop- ularity. The case in point occurred after the elder man had again been elected governor and so would, in the natural order of things, have entertained all distinguished visitors from abroad. But Lord James Ley (after- wards the Earl of Marlborough) snubbed his advances. He was then only a youth of nine- teen and he made no secret of preferring the society of the magnetic Vane to that of the dig- nified Winthrop. Vane had no house of his own for, upon arriving in Boston, he went to live with Mr. Cotton and there, or in an addi- tion made to the parsonage, stayed throughout his sojourn in Boston. But if he could not entertain Lord Ley in his own mansion he could put him up at the inn of a friend, which he at once proceeded to do, Winthrop at the moment being away on a two-days' visit to Lynn and Salem. The inn in question was that of Mr. Cole l and when the governor, upon his 1 See " Among Old New England Inns." 70 St. Botolph's Town return, proffered hospitality to Lord Ley, the latter politely declined, saying he " came not to be troublesome to any and the house where he was, was so well governed that he could be as private here as elsewhere." That Win- throp deeply resented this and an incident that followed is shown by an entry in his Journal under date of July, 1637: " The differences grew so much here," he wrote, referring to the religious troubles, " as tended fast to a separation; so as Mr. Vane being among oth- ers, invited by the Governor to accompany the Lord Ley at dinner, not only refused to come, alleging by letter that his conscience withheld him, but also, at the same hour, he went over to Noddle's Island to dine with Mr. Maverick, and carried the Lord Ley with him." This happened at the end of Vane's stay in Amer- ica, however, and we are only at the beginning. The first act of his administration, accom- plished within a week of his induction into office, was one at which no one could cavil. It was an amicable arrangement by which all in- ward-bound vessels agreed to come to anchor below the fort in the harbour and wait there for the governor's pass; further, the captains agreed to submit their invoices to the inspec- tion of the government before discharging Sir Harry Vane 71 their cargoes ; and, in addition, they gave their word that their crews should never be per- mitted to remain on shore after sunset except under urgent necessity. These measures, all of which made for the preservation of order in the community, were exceedingly important ; but only a Vane could have carried them through, for they required the kind of han- dling no previous governor could give. Soon, however, there arose a complication which no human creature could have solved to the satisfaction of everybody. A contuma- cious mate of the British vessel Hector, ob- serving that the king's colours were not dis- played at the fort, declared, on the deck of his vessel and in the presence of many of the townspeople then visiting her, that the colo- nists were all " traitors and rebels." Of course, the government had to take cognizance of this and, equally of course, the mate was made to apologize. But, after the dignity of the colony had been vindicated, the fact still remained that the king's colours were not fly- ing at the fort and the British officers could not say that they were should news of the af- fair be wafted back to England and the king moved to ask questions about the matter. Would not the governor, then, be so kind as 72 St. Botolph's Town to run np a flag, just to save their consciences'? Now, on the surface, this seemed an exceed- ingly reasonable request for British officers to make of a colony which held a charter from the crown and resented as an insult the imputa- tion that they were " rebels." But the Eng- lish flag displayed a " papal cross," an abom- ination no Puritan could bear! And on the board of magistrates who were requested to hoist this ensign sat John Endicott who, in a fit of insensate rage against the " emblem of papacy," had cut the red cross out of the flag! The issue was for a time deferred by the ex- planation that the whole colony contained not a single flag. But when the unsuspecting cap- tains courteously offered to present a flag to be hoisted at the fort, the magistrates, unable longer to dodge the issue, had to explain how matters stood. But they promised to display the king's colours on the king's fort, though protesting that they were fully persuaded that the cross in those same colours seemed to them idolatrous. The matter being thus adjusted to the satisfaction of everybody, the confer- ence was brought to a close. But the clergy, who had a finger in every pie, were yet to be reckoned with, and when the case was submitted to them, that evening, John Endicott Sir Harry Vane 73 in accordance with the practice of the govern- ment upon all important and difficult questions, they gave it as their opinion that the magis- trates had erred in saying that a flag bearing the badge of Romish superstition should be displayed on any terms whatever over Puritan soil. Whereupon the poor captains were or- dered to appear next morning, the whole mat- ter was again threshed out and the board voted, on reconsideration, not to display the flag. Governor Vane, though as conscientious a Puritan as any of them, could not sympa- thize with such proceedings. They seemed to him not only inconsistent but absurdly over- scrupulous. Mr. Dudley agreed with him and, the magistrates obstinately adhering to their last determination, the flag was displayed with- out the authority of the government and upon the personal responsibility of Mr. Vane and Mr. Dudley. In this case, as in dozens of crises which came later in his life, Sir Harry exhib- ited an admirable sense of proportion and jus- tified Milton's characterization of him as " Vane, young in year, but in sage counsel old." For had he not taken the action which he did on this occasion the colony would with- out doubt have been precipitated into enor- mous difficulties with which it was in no posi- 74 St. Botolph's Town tion then to cope. But, of course, he had to pay the price of his diplomacy. Had he not begun his career by defying the clergy? The attitude which he took in the Mrs. Hutchinson affair naturally did not help his cause. He believed with all his soul in religious liberty and, into the bargain, he admired Mrs. Hutch- inson as a woman of unquestionable piety as well as talent. Moreover, he was fresh from Geneva, where the impress of Calvin was still sharp and inclined all interested in intellectual pursuits to a delight in fine-spun theological discussion. The occasion of his break with the ruling powers was, however, a law passed after Win- throp was again governor to the effect that a heavy penalty should be imposed upon any person who should receive into his house a stranger coming with intent to reside, or let to such an one a lot or habitation, without, in every instance, obtaining particular permis- sion of one of the standing council, or two of the assistant magistrates; and a large fine was also to be levied upon any person, which should without such permission, allow a stranger a residence. This law was aimed to prevent the reception into the colony of several friends of Rev. John Wheelwright, who would have Sir Harry Vane 75 joined the Hutchinson faction, but it was felt by many beside Harry Vane to be a violation of the rights of the people. So incensed were the inhabitants of Boston that they refused to meet the governor, as was their custom, when he returned from the legislature. Vane's stand in the matter was the broad liberty-lov- ing one of a man cosmopolitan by nature, Win- throp's that of a colonist bent, above every- thing else, upon preserving peace in the coun- try for which he had given his all. Both were honest with themselves and right from their own standpoint, only Vane had the far view as against Winthrop's short sight. In all jus- tice to the latter, however, it seems fair to re- member that he had suffered much more than Vane for the peace he was bent upon securing. Nor could he sail away, as Vane soon did, to a glorious career elsewhere. It is good, in this connection, to be able to record that Vane never forgot the country to which he had dedi- cated his ardent youth, and that "Winthrop has left to posterity this cordial eulogy of the man who, for a time, utterly eclipsed him in a com- munity of which he was founder and patri- arch: " Although he might have taken occa- sion against us for some dishonor, which he apprehended to have been unjustly put upon 76 St. Botolph's Town him here, yet he showed himself at all times a true friend to New England and a man of noble and generous mind." Soon after returning to England Vane mar- ried, and for a time it seemed as though he would remain in retirement and lead the quiet happy life of an English country-gentleman. But in the spring of 1640 he was induced to enter Parliament and, soon after, he was made Treasurer of the Navy and knighted by King Charles. Almost immediately, as a result of this preferment, he was singled out for ven- geance and insult by Sir Thomas Wentworth, afterward the Earl of Strafford. The means chosen by Wentworth to incense Sir Harry seems rather clumsy to us of to-day. The fam- ily seat of the Vanes was Eaby Castle, and it was here that Sir Harry's father had been wont to entertain King Charles with such feu- dal splendour and princely pageantry as Scott has described for all time in " Kenilworth. ' ' To this castle the younger Sir Harry Vane would naturally fall heir, and so, purely out of contempt, as Wentworth 's own biographer admits, the Earl of Strafford had his patent to the peerage made out with the style and title Baron Raby of Raby Castle, " an act of the most unnecessary provocation and one Sir Harry Vane 77 which was the chief occasion of the loss of Strafford's head." For the elder Sir Harry Vane was not of a forgiving nature and, from now on, he pur- sued Lord Strafford with a fixed and deadly hostility. His son, on the other hand, felt himself free of embarrassing loyalties to a king who would permit his father to be so insulted and he forthwith devoted himself openly to the advocacy of those principles of freedom for which he had always contended. When Charles dissolved Parliament because it had not voted him the supplies he had asked for our Sir Harry was immediately reelected. And as he was now in the Long Parliament (so called in consequence of an act which it passed early in its session, and which the king was infatuated enough to sign, by which the body was assured against its own dissolution, except by its con- sent in both houses), the young member for Kingston upon Hull was for quite a term of years in a position greatly to influence the Eng- land of his time. Here, as in the Massachusetts colony, he soon came to be a leader. Hallam, in his Constitu- tional History of England, accounts for this fact thus : " He was not only incorrupt but dis- interested, inflexible in conforming his public 78 St. Botolph's Town conduct to his principles, and averse to every sanguinary and oppressive measure; qualities not common in revolutionary chiefs." This very temperate dictum gives one rather a chill for the fact of the matter was that Vane was positively heroic in his contention for peace and liberty of conscience and abhorred every form of persecution and bigotry. Great as was his personal dislike for all that Papacy implied, he so exerted himself in the cause of Catholic emancipation as to bring down upon his head denunciations from Protestants whose cause he would have died for. Similarly, in the nego- tiations between Charles and the Parliament, he struggled with all his might for such terms as would assure to the people the rights which they had lost. And yet, when Colonel Pride forcibly ejected the members opposed to his views and principles he would not stay with " The Rump," preferring retirement to a tri- umph gained in so illegal a manner. Of all the republicans he alone refused to profit by power thus gained. Consequently Sir Harry Vane cannot be held in the least degree responsible for the impeach- ment, trial and execution of King Charles. He heartily disapproved of the whole proceeding. And when Cromwell came to him in February, Sir Harry Vane 79 1649, to urge the purity of his intentions as a reason for Vane's becoming a member of the Council Sir Harry only reluctantly agreed to accept the honour and would not take the oath of office until the clause which approved of the trial and condemnation of Charles was struck out. In the foreign wars which followed Vane bore a glorious part and when the people felt as too oppressive the taxes these struggles en- tailed he voluntarily relinquished the profits of his office as treasurer and commissioner for the navy. Later, when Cromwell followed the des- perate determination which had insidiously taken possession of him and on April 20, 1653, grasped once for all the power with which he had been dallying, Vane was the first to leap to his feet in stinging rebuke of his treacherous course. We are not surprised to read in his- tory that Oliver's retort to this was the excla- mation, in a fit of unbounded passion, " Sir Harry Vane! Sir Harry Vane! Good Lord deliver me from Sir Harry Vane." After which he seized the records, snatched the bill from the hands of the clerk, drove the members out at the point of the bayonet, locked the doors, put the key in his pocket and returned to Whitehall to observe that the spirit of God 80 St. Botolph's Town had been too strong upon him longer to be re- sisted. Tyranny once more having the upper hand in England there was nothing for Sir Harry Vane to do but again to retire to Raby Castle and pursue his philosophical and theological studies while awaiting a time when he could again serve the " good cause," as he termed it, of the people's rights and liberties. The occasion for which he longed came duly. Fol- lowing his policy of giving a sanctimonious face to each new encroachment upon liberty the Protector, as a step in his plan to make himself king and settle upon his descendants forever the crown he had wrested from its rightful owner, published, on March 15, 1656, a declaration calling upon the people to observe a general fast to the end that counsel and direc- tion might come to the government from Prov- idence concerning the best ways of promoting peace and happiness in England. To Cromwell's unbounded surprise and in- dignation Sir Harry Vane took him at his word and composed a paper entitled " A Healing Question propounded and resolved, upon Occa- sion of the late public and seasonable Call to Humiliation in order to Love and Union amongst the honest Party, and with a Desire Oliver Cromwell Sir Harry Vane 81 to apply Balm to the Wound, before it become incurable. By Henry Vane, Knight." With perfect good faith he transmitted his paper privately to Cromwell before giving to the world any hint of the advice therein contained. But when, after the lapse of a month, the man- uscript was returned without comment Sir Harry immediately issued it from the press together with a Postscript in which allusion was made to the fact that it had been previ- ously communicated to Cromwell. Now, whether Cromwell had read the manu- script or not we shall never know, but he was furious at its publication and sent Vane a per- emptory and harshly-worded summons to ap- pear at once before the Council on the ground that his paper tended to the disturbance of the present government and the peace of the Com- monwealth. Of course it did, for in this, one of the most remarkable documents ever penned by man, Vane had asserted, for the first time in history, the need of a written constitution or body of fundamental laws by which the gov- ernment itself should be controlled! Tn an- swering the dictatorial summons of the Council Vane added fuel to the flames by remarking, 11 I cannot but observe, in this proceeding with me, how exactly they tread in the steps of the 82 St. Botolph's Town late king, whose design being to set the gov- ernment free from all restraint of laws, as to our persons and estates, and to render the monarchy absolute, thought he could employ no better means to effect it, than by casting into obloquy and disgrace all those who desired to preserve the laws and liberties of the na- tion." His letter concludes: " It is no small grief to be lamented that the evil and wretched principles by which the late king aimed to work out his design, should now revive and spring up under the hands of men professing godli- ness." For this and the pamphlet which pre- ceded it Vane was imprisoned in Carisbrook Castle on the Isle of Wight and, when Oliver feared longer to keep him in durance, was hunted down on his own stamping-ground and unlawfully deprived of his estates. Then, in the fall of 1658, Oliver went to meet a King whom he could not bully and Eichard Cromwell assumed the Protectorate. This was more than even Sir Harry Vane could stand with patience. Oliver had at least been a foe worthy of his steel; but that the opportunity for a republic should be set aside in order that this feeble creature should hold office was too much for nny man with high hopes of England to bear. Sir Harry again offered himself for Sir Harry Vane 83 Parliament and, when he had been cheated out of two elections given him by the franchises of the people, he tried in a third district, that of Whitchurch in Hampshire, and was returned in spite of the machinations of his enemies. Then he made in Parliament what seems to me one of the best short speeches I have ever read: " Mr. Speaker, Among all the people of the universe, I know none who have shown so much zeal for the liberty of their country, as the English at this time have done. They have, by the help of Divine Providence, overcome all obstacles and have made themselves free. We have driven away the hereditary tyranny of the house of Stuart, at the expense of much blood and treasure, in hopes of enjoying hered- itary liberty, after having shaken off the yoke of kingship, and there is not a man amongst us who could have imagined that any person would be so bold as to dare attempt the ravish- ing from us that freedom which has cost us so much blood and so much labour. " But so it happens, I know not by what mis- fortune, we are fallen into the error of those who poisoned the Emperor Titus to make room for Domitian, who made a way Augustus that they might have Tiberius and changed Clau- 84 St. Botolph's Town dius for Nero. I am sensible these examples are foreign from my subject since the Romans in those days were buried in lewdness and lux- ury; whereas the people of England are now renowned all over the world for their great virtue and discipline, — and yet suffer an id- iot without courage, without sense, nay, without ambition, to have dominion in a country of liberty. " One could bear a little with Oliver Crom- well, though contrary to his oath of fidelity to the Parliament, contrary to his duty to the public, contrary to the respect he owed to that venerable body from whom he received his authority, he usurped the government. His merit was so extraordinary that our judgement and passions might be blinded by it. He made his way to empire by the most illustrious ac- tions. He held under his command an army that had made him a conqueror and a people that had made him their general. " But as for Richard Cromwell, his son, who is he? What are his titles? We have seen that he has a sword by his side, but did he ever draw it? And, what is of more importance in this case, is he fit to get obedience from a mighty nation who could never make a footman obey him? Yet, we must recognize this man as our Sir Harry Vane 85 king under the style of Protector — a man without birth, without courage, without con- duct. For my part, I declare, sir, it shall never be said that I made such a man my master." Following this remarkable triumph of ora- tory Richard Cromwell was forced to resign, the famous Long Parliament was reassembled, and Sir Henry Vane was appointed one of the Committee of Safety, to whom the supreme and entire power of the country was entrusted until Parliament could make further arrange- ments. Later he was made President of the Council. And if General George Monk had not sold the army to Prince Charles for the title of a duke Vane's dream of a republican Eng- land would in all probability have been real- ized. As it was, Charles the Second was crowned and England given over to the scourge of an unbridled tyranny. Of course Sir Harry Vane was among the first to fall a victim to the treachery of the army and of Parliament. He was imprisoned, first in his own castle and then on the island of Sicily, while the king waited until he should be strong enough to claim his life. Then he kept him for another season in the Tower. In the Declaration of Breda Charles had pro- claimed amnesty to all not especially excepted 86 St. Botolph's Town by Parliament and as Sir Harry had not been one of his father's judges and was a well-known ppponent of the action taken by the regicides, it had been supposed that he would be quite secure from the vengeance of the new monarch. Moreover, the two Houses of Parliament had been assured through the Lord Chancellor that, " If Vane were ever convicted, execution as to his life should be remitted." It was because this appeared to be sufficient that Sir Harry Vane's name was excepted from the Act of In- demnity and Oblivion which the Commons framed. When a new Parliament came in, however, and, stimulated by desire to get a share of Sir Harry's great estate, pushed matters vigor- ously against him, the king had either to re- deem or break his pledge. Characteristically he shifted the burden of decision upon his Chancellor in the following letter which shows, as well as a whole volume of history could, the manner of man who now ruled England : " Hampton Coukt, Saturday, " Two in the afternoon. " The relation that has been made to me of Sir Henry Vane's carriage yesterday in the Hall, is the occasion of this letter; which, if Sir Harry Vane 87 I am rightly informed, was so insolent as to justify all he had done, acknowledging no su- preme power in England but a Parliament, and many things to that purpose. You have had a true account of all and if he has given new occasion to be hanged, certainly he is too dan- gerous a man to let live, if we can honestly put him out of the way. Think of this and give me some account of it to-morrow, till when I have no more to say to you. c. r." The end soon came. Sir Harry was by this time in the Tower and the king was thirsting, as he very well knew, for his blood. When it was suggested to Vane that he might save his life by making submission to Charles he an- swered simply, " If the king does not think himself more conserved for his honour and word than I am for my life let him take it." And indeed nothing could have availed. His trial was long but unfair from beginning to end and, even when he came to the block, look- ing very handsome in his black clothes and scarlet waistcoat, he was given none of the privileges usually accorded those about to die. Pepys, who was on hand for the execution as for most other interesting spectacles that hap- pened during his lifetime, describes, with every 88 St. Botolph's Town mark of admiration, the bearing of the pris- oner, adding further, loyalist though he was, that " the king lost more by that man's death than he will get again for a good while." An- other loyalist exclaimed in admiration, as he watched the dignity of those last moments, ' ' He dies like a prince. ' ' To which I can only add, after reading his wonderful prayer for those who had betrayed him, that he died like the Prince, — that Prince of Peace whose prin- ciples he had all his life advocated and whose sublime example he followed even in the hour of his death. VI HOW WINTHROP TREATED WITH THE LA TOURS Scarcely had Winthrop been chosen gov- ernor for the fourth time when (June, 1643) there came to Boston to entreat help against his rival, Charnissay D'Aulnay, Charles La Tour, one of the lords of New France and per- haps the most picturesque figure in the early history of this continent. The manner of this powerful Frenchman's arrival in Boston was most disconcerting to the Puritans. For he came in a French armed ship and sailed straight up the harbour, past a fort in which there was not a single person to answer his military salute! Had he been an enemy he might easily have sacked the town. As it was, he made his debut in Boston in a charmingly simple fashion. For coming toward his ship as it sailed up the bay was discerned a boat containing Mrs. Gibbons, the wife of Captain Edward Gibbons, going with her children to their farm. One of the gentle- 89 90 St. Botolph's Town men on La Tour's vessel recognized her and told La Tour who she was. Whereupon the lord of New France had a boat of his own fitted out and proceeded to follow the lady to her landing-place. Mrs. Gibbons, not knowing the strangers, hastened from them as fast as she could and put in at Governor's Island, so called because it was the summer home of the Winthrops. But it happened that the governor and some of his family were on the island at the time, so La Tour was able, by having pur- sued her, the more speedily to get in touch with the very person whom he had come to see! While he was telling his story over the hos- pitable supper-table, Mrs. Gibbons returned to town in the governor's boat and spread the news of the stranger's informal arrival, so that when La Tour, later, took the governor up to Boston in his own boat, they were met by three shallops of armed men, come out to escort them ceremoniously into the town. Before proceeding to describe the negotia- tions which went on between Winthrop and this representative of a foreign state, let us, however, digress a bit and learn who this La Tour was and why he had come to Boston. To make the matter clear one must go back to the very beginnings of the settlement of Winthrop and the La Tours 91 New France and retrace the story of Cham- plain's second expedition to the St. Lawrence, when in 1604 he sailed under De Monts (to whom the King of France had granted the land), in company with Baron de Poutrincourt, Pontgrave and divers merchants, priests and Huguenot ministers. This variously assorted company on exploration and colonization bent settled on St. Croix Island, in the mouth of St. Croix River, now the boundary between Maine and New Brunswick. There they passed their first winter in America. But the next year they crossed the Bay of Fundy and founded Port Royal on the wooded shore of Annapolis Basin, in the very heart of that country where . . . the murmuring pines and the hemlocks, Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight, Stand like Druids of old, with voices sad and prophetic, Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms. It was a wonderfully peaceful land which they found; and so it continued to be — even when the colonists suffered most from want and privation — until the passions of ambi- tious men and the schemings and counter- schemings of rival branches of the priesthood 92 St. Botolph's Town availed to transform it into a scene of feudal- ists strife. Champlain 's men had been content to work hard and deny themselves, to live cleanly and to beguile their days with gardening, verse- making and a nonchalant Christianization of the Indians. Not so their sons. Poutrin- court's son cared chiefly for war, and soon built among the rocks and fogs of Cape Sable a small fort to which he gave the name Fort Lomeron. This fort descended at his death to Charles La Tour, one of his adventurous re- tainers, and was by him called Fort St. Louis. La Tour, by improving to the utmost every chance that came his way and by winning the alliance of both English and French, soon made himself a terrifying power in the Acadian land. To his first fort he ere long added another variously called to-day Fort La Tour and Fort St. Jean — the latter from its situation at the mouth of the river, in the centre of the present city of St. John, N. B. Strong as Charles La Tour had succeeded in becoming, an even stronger man was soon to arrive from France. Under Claude de Bazilly (a knight of Malta, charged by Louis XIII to seize the Acadian possessions), had sailed D'Aulnay Charnissay, a gentleman of birth, Winthrop and the La Tours 93 and to him in 1635 there came by Razilly's death royal power in Acadia. D'Aulnay made his headquarters at Port Royal, and nobody thought of disputing his authority, so clearly could it be traced to the king — nobody, ex- cept La Tour. That adventurer, having papers from both the English and the French, and having besides an indomitable spirit and inex- haustible craft, made D'Aulnay 's situation from the very beginning well-nigh unbearable. In position and qualities the two rivals were poles apart. D'Aulnay came of an old and distinguished Touraine family, and he prided himself above all things upon his character of gentilhomme francais. He was a consistent Catholic, too, while La Tour's religion — like his family — was obscure. The rivalry, which had always been keen, appears to have grown into positive bitterness, when, five years after his first coming to Acadia, D'Aulnay returned from a visit to France, bringing with him a charming wife. The plucky bride was a daugh- ter of the Seigneur de Courcelles, and was well fitted by birth and breeding to transmute, by her gentlewoman's touch, the rough settlement into an orderly colony. "What with old settlers and new, about forty families were now gath- ered at Port Royal and on the river Annapolis. 94 St. Botolph's Town And over these D'Aulnay ruled, " a kind of feudal Robinson Crusoe." A scene for an artist, as Parkinan points out, was the Port Royal of those days, with its fort, its soldiers, its manor-house of logs, its semi- nary of like construction, and its twelve Ca- puchin friars, with cowled heads, sandaled feet and the cord of St. Francis! The friars were supported by Richelieu; their main business — and they were pretty successful in it — was to convert the Micmac and Abenaki Indians into loyal vassals of France and earnest sub- jects of the Church. But Charles La Tour was not so easily dealt with. He who had before felt himself the chief man in Acadia was now fairly aflame with jeal- ousy of this French seigneur who dwelt just across the intervening Bay of Fundy, sur- rounded by loyal retainers and solaced by a loving wife. Wives, however, were certainly to be had even if settlers were not ; and since D 'Aulnay had given evidence, by bringing over a woman, that he had no intention of abandon- ing his claim, La Tour resolved that he, too, would set up a home in Acadia. His agent was thereupon instructed to pick out in France a girl worthy to share his heart and fort. Ac- cordingly, Marie Jacquelin, daughter of a bar- Winthrop and the La Tours 95 ber of Mans, was selected to join La Tour at Fort St. Jean. She proved to be an Amazon. With passionate vehemence she took up her husband's quarrel, and where D'Aulnay 's lady heartened her lord by gentle words and soft caresses, Lady La Tour threw herself into the thick of the fight and became a force greatly to be feared in the Acadian land. From this time on events march. Goaded by his wife, La Tour grew more and more con- tumacious, until that day when the King of France, losing all patience, ordered D'Aulnay to seize his rival's forts and take their com- mander prisoner. In accordance with these in- structions, we find D'Aulnay (in 1642) an- chored at the mouth of the St. John and endeav- ouring to arrest the outlaw. Then it was that La Tour, rendered desperate, defied the king as well as his representative, and — Catholic though he claimed to be — turned for help to the heretics of Boston. Boston was in no position, as we have seen, to help and La Tour's coming provided highly disturbing matter for debate. Though he was hospitably received by Governor Winthrop and the Reverend John Cotton, many there were who wished him well out of the way. Even his unimpeachable gravity of demeanour when he 96 St. Botolph's Town attended church with Winthrop on Sunday could not make him acceptable to these clear- sighted souls. Still, his men were not only allowed to come ashore, but permission was granted them to drill on Boston common, along with the town militia, — to the accompaniment of the ambitious band and the industrious frog chorus. One very amusing incident is connected with the " land leave " granted the La Tour men. Winthrop, writing the next year, tells the story, not without some sense of its humour: " There arrived here a Portugal ship with salt, having in it two Englishmen only. One of these happened to be drunk and was carried to his lodging; and the constable (a godly man and a zealous against such disorders) hearing of it found him out, being upon his bed asleep ; so he awaked him and led him to the stocks, there being no magistrate at home. He, being in the stocks, one of La Tour's gentlemen lifted up the stocks and let him out. The constable hearing of it, went to the Frenchman (being then gone and quiet), and would needs carry him to the stocks; the Frenchman offered to yield himself to go to prison, but the constable, not understanding his language, pressed him to go to the stocks; the Frenchman resisted Winthrop and the La Tours 97 and drew his sword; with that company came in and disarmed him and carried him by force to the stocks ; but soon after the constable took him out and carried him to prison, and pres- ently after, took him forth again and delivered him to La Tour. Much tumult there was about this." The magistrates looked into the case and decided that the gentleman must return to prison until the Court met. Some Frenchmen offered to go bail for him, but since they were strangers their offer was declined. " Upon this," continues Winthrop, " two Englishmen, members of the church of Boston, standing by, offered to be his sureties, whereupon he was bailed till he should be called for, because La Tour was not like to stay till the Court. This was thought too much favour for such an of- fence by many of the common people, but by our law bail could not be denied him ; and be- side the constable was the occasion of all this in transgressing the bounds of his office, and that in six things: 1. In fetching a man out of his lodging that was asleep on his bed and that without any warrant from the authority. 2. In not putting a hook upon the stocks nor setting some to guard them. .°>. In laving hands upon the Frenchman that had opened 98 St. Botolph's Town the stocks when he was gone and quiet, and no disturbance then appearing. 4. In carry- ing him to prison without warrant. 5. In de- livering him out of prison without warrant. 6. In putting such a reproach upon a stranger and a gentleman when there was no need, for he knew he would be forthcoming and the mag- istrate would be at home that evening; but such are the fruits of ignorant and misguided zeal." The clever La Tours lost no time in pushing the business upon which they had come. Show- ing papers which would seem to prove the doughty Charles a lawful representative of the King of France, the governor was asked for such aid as would enable him to bring to his fort the ship, containing supplies, which D'Aul- nay would not permit to proceed up the bay. Very adroitly La Tour then suggested that he at least be permitted to hire four vessels, each fully armed and equipped, with which to defend his rights in Acadia. Winthrop finally gave bewildered consent to this arrangement, and his action was approved by a majority of those in authority. But in the ensuing discussion over this arresting depar- ture, the " inevitable clergy " joined hotly, and texts being the chief weapons of the debate, Winthrop and the La Tours 99 various Old Testament worthies were brought forward to prove that Massachusetts would have done much better to keep out of the fight. John Endicott stoutly maintained that La Tour was not to be trusted, and that he and D'Aul- nay would much better have been left to fight it out by themselves. In this opinion several chief men of the colony concurred, saying in the famous " Ipswich letter " that they feared international law had been ill observed, and declaring in substance, that the merits of the case were not clear, that the colony was not called upon in charity to help La Tour (see 2 Chronicles xix, 2, and Proverbs xxvi, 17) ; that this quarrel was for England and France ; that endless trouble would come if D'Aulnay were not completely put down, and that " he that loses his life in an unnecessary quarrel dies the devil's martyr." This letter, trenching as it did upon Win- throp 's pride of office, stung the governor into vehement retort. But he soon had the candour to admit that he had been in fault in three things: first in answering La Tour too hastily, next in not sufficiently consulting the elders, and lastly in not having opened the discussion with prayer. But La Tour had meanwhile received his 100 St. Botolph's Town ships, and was able with them to rout D'Aul- nay's three vessels. His lady alertly followed up this advantage, visiting France to help strengthen his cause, and coming back by way of Boston. This visit on the part of the re- doubtable madam seems not to have been of her planning, however. She had engaged Cap- tain Bayley to transport her from London to Acadia whither she was anxious to bring, as soon as might be, stores and munitions which should aid her husband. But Bayley chose to put in at Boston. Promptly Madam La Tour sued him for damages, alleging that the six months con- sumed by the voyage had been an unreasonable length of time and that he had not taken her to Acadia as bargained for. The jury awarded her £2,000, for which Captain Bayley 's ship was attached. This proved to be worth only £1,100, however, and it cost the Lady about £700 to hire vessels to convey her and her effects to Acadia. The colony, too, had ulti- mately to pay the damages it had awarded her. For the owners of the ship and cargo which Lady La Tour had attached promptly seized a Boston ship in London to indemnify them- selves and, when it became doubtful whether they would be able to hold her, attached the Winthrop and the La Tours 101 bodies of Stephen Winthrop, the governor's son, who happened to be then in London, and of Captain Joseph Weld, who had been on the jury when the La Tour damages were awarded. Sir Harry Vane nobly came to the rescue of the Bostonians, thus winning from Winthrop the acknowledgment that " both now and at other times Mr. Vane showed himself a true friend of New England and a man of a noble and generous mind." Meanwhile Lady La Tour had arrived back at her stamping-ground and had offered her husband a very shrewd piece of advice. " Go to Boston, declare yourself to be a Protestant," she counselled, " ask for a minister to preach to the men at the fort, and promise that if the Bostonians help us to master D'Aulnay and conquer Acadia, we will share our conquests with them." This Machiavellian suggestion La Tour seized with avidity, and sailed gaily forth. Scarcely had he gone when his lady, falling one day into a transport of fury at some un- pleasant turn of events, so berated and reviled the Eecollet friars at Fort St. Jean, that they refused to stay under her roof, and set out for Port Poyal in the depth of winter, taking with them eight strong soldiers, who were too good 102 St. Botolph's Town Catholics to remain longer in such a hotbed of heresy. At Port Royal this little party was most warmly received. D'Aulnay paid the eight soldiers their long overdue wages and lodged the friars with his own priests. Then he plied them all with questions and. learning that La Tour had gone to Boston, leaving only forty-five men to defend his wife and his fort- ress, he saw Heaven's smile at last, and leaped to seize the golden opportunity opened to him. Every man about Port Royal was hastily mustered into action. Then D'Aulnay crossed the Bay of Fundy with all his force, erected a fort on the west side of the river, and. after delaying for a time in an attempt to win over more of La Tour's men (capturing incidentally a small vessel which had been sent from Boston loaded with provisions and bearing a letter to tell Lady La Tour that her husband would join her in a month), he brought his cannons into position, and made as if he would batter down the fortress. The garrison was summoned to surrender, but when for answer they hung out a red flag and " shouted a thousand insults and blasphemies," accompanying the same with a volley of cannon shots directed by the intrepid Amazon, D'Aulnay could do nothing but fight the thing to a finish. In spite of the gallant FoRT LA TOUR <>R ST. JEAN), ST. .loHN". NEW BRUNSWICK, PROM A DRAWING HY LOUIS A. HOLMAN Winthrop and the La Tours 103 defence of Madame La Tour, D'Aulnay 's su- perior numbers prevailed. All resistance was overcome; the fort was pillaged, and all the survivors of the garrison, including Madame La Tour, were taken prisoners. At first the lady was left at liberty, but after she had been detected in an attempt to communicate with her husband by means of an Indian, she was put into confinement. Then, and then only, did she fall ill. Three weeks later she was dead. D'Aulnay had now robbed his rival of his wife and captured Fort St. Jean, the best tra- ding station in Acadia. The King compli- mented him highly, and when he demanded reparation for the part Boston had taken against him his right to satisfaction was in- directly admitted. Winthrop had learned his lesson. D'Aulnay 's stay as described in the governor's Journal makes interesting reading: " It being the Lord's day [of September, 1646] and the people ready to go to the assem- bly after dinner, Monsieur Marie and Monsieur Louis, with Monsieur D'Aulnay [and] his secretary arrived at Boston in a small pinnace and Major Gibbons sent two of his chief officers to meet them at the waterside who con- ducted them to their lodgings without noise or bustle. The public worship being ended the 104 St. Botolph's Town Governor repaired home, and sent Major Gib- bons with other gentlemen and a gnard of mus- keteers to attend them to the Governor's house, who meeting them without his door carried them into his house, where they were enter- tained with wine and sweetmeats, and after a while he accompanied them to their lodgings being the house of Major Gibbons, where they were entertained that night. " The next morning they repaired to the Governor, and delivered him their commission, which was in form of a letter directed to the Governor and magistrates. . . . Their diet was provided at the ordinary, where the Magis- trates used to diet in Court times; and the Governor accompanied them always at meals. Their manner was to repair to the Governor's house every morning about eight of the clock, who accompanied them to the place of meeting; and at night either himself or some of the Commissioners, accompanied them to their lodgings." A great deal of ceremony surely for a little place like Boston! But then, D'Aulnay had asked £8,000 indemnity and the government had to look as if it could pay in case it had to. The Commissioners, though, sturdily denied " any guilt " on their part maintaining that Winthrop and the La Tours 105 they had only permitted La Tour to hire the vessels. And they brought counter-charges against D'Aulnay. Finally, it was agreed that the matter be settled amicably and that Boston " send a small present to D'Aulnay in satis- faction." A treaty was accordingly signed. In due time the proposed " small present " was sent. It consisted of a sedan chair which the marauding Captain Cromwell had taken as a prize and presented to "Winthrop a few months before. Winthrop gave it to D'Aulnay, as he frankly says, because it was of no value to him ! But the suite of the victorious French lord was sent off with all possible honours just the same " the Governor and our Commissioners accompanying them to their boat, attended with a guard of musketeers, and gave them five guns from Boston, three from Charlestown, and five from Castle Island; and we sent them aboard a quarter cask of sack and some mut- ton. ..." D'Aulnay was evidently satisfied with the results of his visit. For he had not in the least expected the large sum of money for which he had asked. All that he wished to make clear to the Puritans was that they should fit out no more expeditions for La Tour. And now, when he had made this point, forced Fortune to crown his life-work and saw abend 106 St. Botolph's Town of him promise of a thriving trade and a con- stantly growing colony, " Death stepped tacitly and took him." On the 24th of May, 1650, as he and his valet were canoeing in the basin of Port Royal, not far from the mouth of the Annapolis, their frail craft overturned, and though they clung to it and got astride of it, one at either end, in an endeavour to save themselves, they could not. At the end of an hour and a half D'Aul- nay was dead, not from drowning but from cold, for the water still retained the chill of winter. So Father Ignace, the Superior of the Capuchins, found him. With fitting ceremonies he was buried in the chapel of the fort at Port Royal in the presence of his soldiers, his ten- ants and his sorrowing wife. That poor, poor wife! For she still had Charles La Tour to deal with, and with him her own life was destined to be linked. That La Tour had friends in France she soon came to know only too well. Through false papers, intrigues and dastardly treachery Port Royal was promptly wrested from her, and she was even persuaded to return to La Tour Fort St. Jean, which her husband had taken fairly in a well-fought fight. Beset with insidious ene- Winthrop and the La Tours 107 mies and tortured beyond endurance by fears for her eight young children, the brave spirit of this lovely woman broke with her heart, and three years after the death of her noble hus- band she married (February 24, 1653) the man who had so long been her tormentor. With him she took up her abode at Fort St. Jean. Of the children for whose sake she had sold herself the four boys were killed in the wars of Louis XIV, and the girls all became nuns. So no single trace of D'Aulnay's blood may to-day be found in the land for which he gave his life and wealth out of the great love he bore France and the Church. The significant lesson of this whole episode so far as Boston history is concerned lies, how- ever, in the fact that what was, properly speak- ing, an international matter took place wholly within the borders of the town; and that Mas- sachusetts assumed, throughout, the attitude of a completely independent government, deal- ing with D'Aulnay and La Tour just as inde- pendently and in the same manner as Charles and Buckingham dealt with the Huguenots and the French monarchy. "We shall do well to recall this incident later on in Boston's history and contrast it with the claims made by Eng- land in regard to her attitude of " protection.'' VII FBEEDOM TO WORSHIP GOD Critics of the Puritans, taking their text from Mrs. Heman's poem, are disposed to judge harshly, on the ground of inconsistency, that band of earnest Christians, who, coming here because they had been persecuted in Eng- land persecuted in their turn those who ven- tured upon a spiritual angle in any degree different from their own. Such critics are, however, confusing the ideals cherished by our forefathers with their own ideals for them. They never claimed that their object in coming here was to secure for all men the boon of freedom in religion. On the contrary, they said quite plainly that the object of their emi- gration was to escape oppression for them- selves. Upon that they laid the emphasis ; and with that they stopped. Far from being inconsistent they adhered through fire and water to their own self-de- fensive principle. All their legislation, all the 108 Freedom to Worship God 109 arrangements of their society were framed to secure this object. It was in accordance with this that they reserved to themselves the right of admitting only whom they pleased as free- men of the colony ; and it was to this end that, a little more than a year after their arrival, they " ordered and agreed that, for time to come, no man should be admitted to the free- dom of the body politic, but such as are mem- bers of some of the churches within the limits of the same." To them such an ordinance seemed the one and only way of forming the Christian republic towards which their hearts yearned, a community in which the laws of Moses should constitute the rules of civil life and in which the godly clergy should be the interpreters of those rules. Of course, the weakness of the system lay in the fact that the clergy were only men. And being men, of like passions with ourselves, they grew, by the very deference they fed upon, into creatures insatiate for power. But piti- fully narrow though they were, revoltingly cruel though they soon came to be, it should nevertheless be borne in mind that they were, in almost every case, sincere. They believed that they were conserving the great good of Christian amity in persecuting relentlessly all 110 St. Botolph's Town who differed from them, — and so, girding up their loins, they gave still another turn to the screw ! And now, having said in their defence all, as I honestly believe, there is to be said, I can with a clear conscience, record their persecu- tions and paint as darkly as I must the horrors of that terrible era. To understand it all we must bear in mind the fact that, not only was the number of clergy among the emigrants to Boston and vicinity large, but being men of un- usual gifts, that they of necessity exercised an enormous influence in this " Christian repub- lic." Moreover, the magistrates themselves were, in a large number of cases men imbued with what we may call the ecclesiastical feel- ing. When Governor Dudley, for instance, came to die, there were found in his pocket these lines which showed his own cast of mind to have been fiercely bigoted : "Let men of God in Courts and Churches watch O're such as do a Toleration hatch, Lest that 111 Egg bring forth a Cockatrice, To poison all with heresie and vice." The " cockatrice " which most powerfully agitated Boston was Mrs. Anne Hutchinson, delicately characterized by the Reverend Freedom to Worship God 111 Thomas Welde as 4k the American Jezebel." To students of history calmly examining to- day the testimony on both sides, Mrs. Hutch- inson stands out however as a gentlewoman of spotless life, kind heart, brilliant mind and superb courage. That she had a good deal of that intellectual vanity possessed by most clever women is also plain. And she had be- sides — and it was this which more than any- thing else occasioned her banishment — a tongue which could and did lash furiously those whom she disliked. Comparing with her own clergyman — the Reverend John Cotton — the host of other clergy then in the Massa- chusetts colony, she found between them a great gulf fixed; and she said this quite dis- tinctly to the groups of people who used to come to her house opposite the place where the Old South Church now stands, to hear her discuss Mr. Cotton's sermons. Mrs. Hutchinson came to the colony (in the autumn of 1634) primed for religious discus- sion. Her father had been Francis Marbury, a minister, first in Lincolnshire and afterwards in London, and in the scholarly and theological atmosphere of his house she had, for years, been accepted as the intellectual equal of his ministerial friends. Theology, indeed, was as 112 St. Botolph's Town the breath of life to her and she hinted in no uncertain way to some Puritan ministers who were on the vessel during her journey to New England that they might expect to hear more from her in the new world. For she regarded herself as one with a mission. William Hutchinson, the husband of this lady, was the type of man who is always mar- ried by strong-minded magnetic women. Win- throp has nothing but words of contempt for him, but there is little doubt that a sincere attachment existed between the married pair and that Hutchinson possessed sterling char- acter and solid worth as well as a comfortable estate. In their Lincolnshire home the two had been parishioners of the Reverend John Cot- ton and regular attendants at St. Botolph's Church. When Cotton fled to escape the tyr- anny of the bishops, the Hutchinsons decided to follow, and when the Reverend John Wheel- wright, who had married Mrs. Hutchinson's daughter, began to be persecuted in his turn their departure was naturally hastened. Promptly upon their arrival in Boston both Hutchinsons made their application to be re- ceived as members of the church. This step was indispensable to admit the pair into Chris- tian fellowship and to allow Mr. Hutchinson Freedom to Worship God 113 the privilege of engaging in business and otherwise exercising the rights of a citizen. He came through the ordeal easily enough but, in consequence of the reports already spread concerning her extravagant opinions, his wife was subjected to a most searching examina- tion. Finally, however, she, too, was pro- nounced a " member in good standing " of the congregation over which her beloved John Cotton served as associate pastor. And now she was ready to enter upon the career which soon divided Boston into two violently opposed factions and which ended by the withdrawal to England of the brilliant young Governor Vane and by the banishment from the colony of her with whom he had sympathized. Even so far back as 1635 Boston seems to have been capable of great enthusiasm over a woman who could persuasively present " some new thing." The doctrine advanced by this woman was certainly an arresting one for that day. For, cleverly interwoven with what was ostensibly only a recapitulation of the sermon preached the Sunday before, ran constantly the astonishing proclamation that there are in this world certain " elect " who may or may not be ordained clergy and that to them are given direct revelations of the will of God. Now the 114 St. Botolph's Town ministers of New England were formalists to the core and the society which they dominated was organized upon the basis that if a man had a sad countenance, wore sombre garb, lived an austere life, quoted the Bible freely, attended worship regularly and took off his hat to the clergy he was a good man. Such a man alone might be a citizen. To admit, therefore, that, in place of these convenient signs of grace, — " works " as they were called, — one must rest salvation upon the intimate and so necessarily elusive relation between man and his God was to preach political as well as spiritual revolu- tion. The logical result of accepting Mrs. Hutchinson's doctrines would have meant noth- ing less than the annihilation of those conve- nient earmarks by which the " good " and the ' ' bad ' ' in the community could be readily dis- tinguished, — the ' ' good ' ' marked for civic advancement and the " bad " for the stocks and banishment. At first the far-reaching import of the lady's views seems not to have struck her hearers. All the leading and influential people of the town flocked to her " parlour talks " and, for a time, she was that very remarkable thing — a prophet honoured in her own community. For the matter of her " lectures " was always Freedom to Worship God 115 pithy and bright, the leader's wit always ready and ' ' everybody was there, ' ' — which counted then for righteousness just as it does now. Hawthorne's genius has conjured up for us the scene at one of these Hutchinson gather- ings so that we, too, may attend and be among the ' ' crowd of hooded women and men in stee- ple hats and close-cropped hair . . . assembled at the door and open windows of a house newly- built. An earnest expression glows in every face . . . and some pressed inward as if the bread of life were to be dealt forth, and they feared to lose their share." Unfortunately Mrs. Hutchinson found the transition between the abstract and the con- crete as easy as every other descensus Averni. From preaching against a doctrine of " works " she soon dropped into sly digs at the pastors who defended this belief. " A company of legall professors," quoth she, " lie poring on the law which Christ hath abol- ished." No wonder it began to be noised abroad that the seer was casting " reproach upon the ministers, . . . saying that none of them did preach the covenant of free grace but Master Cotton, and that they have not the seale of the Spirit and so were not able min- isters of the New Testament." 116 St. Botolph's Town It was, however, in Cotton's house and not in her own that Mrs. Hutchinson made the fatal admission for which she had afterward to pay so dear. The elders had come to Bos- ton in a body to see how far Cotton " stood for " the things his gifted parishioner was preaching and, in the hope of clearing the whole matter up, the clergyman had suggested a friendly conference with Mrs. Hutchinson at his house. The interview took place, the lad} r cleverly parrying all attempts to make her say indiscreet things. But finally, the Reverend Hugh Peters having besought her to deal frankly and openly with them, she admitted that she saw a wide difference between Mr. Cotton's ministry and theirs and that it was because they had not the seal of the Spirit that this difference arose. If Mrs. Hutchinson had not thought herself in confidential intercourse with those who were men of honour as well as clergymen, she would never have put the thing thus bluntly. But the event proved that her confession was treasured up to be used against her, — and that there were many in the colony who chafed as she did, under the power of those preaching this " covenant of works." For promptly the liberals, whose mouthpiece she had unconsciously become, blossomed out Freedom to Worship God 117 into a sturdy political party led by the enthusi- astic Vane. The part which he played in the controversy has already been touched upon in the previous chapter and the brave way in which he fought against the decree which would banish the incoming friends of Wheel- wright there described. But it all availed nothing. The theocracy had been attacked and the clergy sprang like one man to its defence. Even Cotton, after a little, ranged himself on the side of his order as against the woman who lauded him above his brethren. The " trial," in the course of which Mrs. Hutchinson was condemned, is one of the ghastliest things in the history of the colony. The prisoner, who was about to be- come a mother, was made to stand until she was exhausted, the while those in whom she had confided as friends plied her with end- less questions about her theological beliefs. Through two long weary days of hunger and cold she defended herself as well as she could before these " men of God," but her able words availed nothing; she had " disparaged the ministers " and they were resolved to be revenged. Though Coddington pointed out that " no law of God or man " had been broken by the woman before them, she was none the 118 St. Botolph's Town less banished " as unfit for our society." So there was driven out of the city she had adopted the most remarkable intellect Boston has ever made historic by misunderstanding. Roger Williams was another great and good man of whom the city founded by Winthrop soon proved itself unworthy. Just here seems as good a place as any to attempt some ex- planation of the change that had come about in Winthrop 's character. His letters to his wife show him to have been tender and gentle, but he was certainly relentless in his attitude towards Mrs. Hutchinson, — though all the time more than half persuaded that what she said was true. The fact is that Winthrop 's very amiability made him subject to men of inflexi- ble will. His dream had been to create on earth a commonwealth of saints whose joy should be to walk in the ways of God. But in practice he had to deal with the strongest of human passions and become himself intolerant for the sake of leading an intolerant party. The exigencies of life in America seem to have made him more and more narrow as the years went by, but he appears to have repented, at the last, of his tendency towards intolerance; for, being requested on his death-bed to sign an order for the banishment of some person Roger Williams Freedom to Worship God 119 for heterodoxy, he waved the paper away, say- ing, " I have done too much of that work al- ready. ' ' Williams, though, was one whom he perse- cuted with a will. He had been glad to have him come to Boston and he recorded his ar- rival — in the Journal of February, 1631 — as that of " a godly minister." But he did not then know what startling doctrines the new arrival was to set forth or how iconoclastic to the state would prove this clergyman's earnest conviction that, in all matters of religious be- lief and worship, man was responsible to God alone. Scarcely had Williams set foot in Bos- ton when tilings began to happen. In the first place, he was thoroughly convinced that the Puritans had done wrong in holding commu- nion with Church of England folk, whose power and resources were constantly employed in crushing the spirit of true piety. So he re- fused to join with the church at Boston until its congregation had declared repentance for having had communion with the churches in England. His chief offence against the state, however, was in immediately promulgating the principle for which he all his life contended, i. e. that the magistrates had no right whatever to impose 120 St. Botolph's Town civil penalties upon those who had broken only church rules. From the point of view of Bos- tonians of that day any man holding this opin- ion was by that very fact unfitted for the office of a minister among them. Consequently, the magistrates opposed with all the authority at their command the settling of Williams in the Salem pulpit to which he had now been called. His history from this time on does not prop- erly belong to a book about Boston; but it is worth noting that he was persecuted for being, among other things, a believer in adult bap- tism and that against the Anabaptists, as they were called, were directed some of the most cruel persecutions ever waged in the Saint Bo- tolph's Town of New England. One can scarcely believe the records as one follows the story of the way President Dun- ster of Harvard College was treated for the crime of believing in adult baptism. Because he would not baptize infants he was deprived of his office (in October, 1654), and when he asked leave to stay for a few months in the house he had built, on the ground that " 1st. The time of the year is unseasonable, being now very near the shortest day and the depth of winter. " 2nd. The place into which I go is unknown - 5 2; Freedom to Worship God 121 to me and my family, and the ways and means of subsistence. . . . " 3d. The place from which I go hath fuel and all provisions for man and beast laid in for the winter. . . . The house I have builded upon very damageful conditions to myself, out of love for the college, taking country pay in lieu of bills of exchange on England, or the house would not have been built. . . . " 4th. The persons, all beside myself, are women and children, on whom little help, now their minds lie under the actual stroke of affliction and grief. My wife is sick and my youngest child extremely so and hath been for months, so that we dare not carry him out of doors, yet much worse now than before. ..." Still slight heed was paid to him. For in answer to these pathetic demands Dunster was reprieved only until March and then, with what was due him still unpaid, he was driven forth, a broken man, to die in poverty and neglect. Clearly Massachusetts was not a comfortable place for the Baptists. You see the eminent John Cotton had declared that the rejection of infant baptism would overthrow the church ; that this was a capital crime and that there- fore, those opposing this tenet were " foul murtherers! " The offence was plainly enough 122 St. Botolph's Town admitted to be against the clergy rather than against God. When John Wilson — of whom in his venerable old age Hawthorne has given us a pleasing portrait in " The Scarlet Let- ter ' ' — was in his last sickness he was asked to declare what he thought to be the worst sins of the country. His reply was that people sinned very deeply in his estimation when they rebelled against the power of the clergy. Upon the Quakers, who absolutely refused to conform, and who promulgated the doctrine that the Deity communicated directly with men, were naturally visited the worst of all the re- ligious persecutions. The first Quakers who came to Boston were women, Mary Fisher and Ann Austin, the former being a person whose previous experience enabled her to compare unfavourably the manners of New England Christians with those of Turkish Mahometans! For, some time before setting out for Boston, Mary Fisher had made a romantic pilgrimage to Constantinople for the purpose of warning the Turks to " flee from the wrath to come." This was at a time when the Grand Vizier was encamped with his army near Adrianople, to whom this astonishing person having jour- neyed " 600 miles without any abuse or in- jury " had herself announced as " an Eng- Freedom to Worship God 123 lishwoman bearing a message from the Great God to the Great Turk." She was promptly given an audience and treated with great re- spect, an escort being even offered to her when the time came for her to depart. As for her treatment in Boston, let us read Sewel: " It was in the month called July, of this present year (1656) when Mary Fisher and Ann Austin arrived in the road before Boston, before ever a law was made there against the Quakers; and yet they were very ill-treated; for before they came ashore the deputy governor, Richard Bellingham (the governor himself being out of town), sent of- ficers aboard, who searched their trunks and chests and took away the books they found there, which were about one hundred and car- ried them ashore, after having commanded the women to be kept prisoners aboard; and the said books were, by an order of the council, burnt in the market-place by the hangman. . . . And then they were shut up close prisoners and the command given that none should come to them without leave; a fine of five pounds being laid upon any that should otherwise come at or speak with them, tho' but at the window. Their pens, ink and paper were taken from them and they not suffered to have any candle- 124 St. Botolph's Town light in the night season; nay, what is more, they were stript naked under pretence to know whether they were witches, tho' in searching, no token was found upon them but of inno- cence. And in this search they were so bar- barously misused that modesty forbids to men- tion it. And that none might have communi- cation with them a board was nailed up before the window of the jail. " And seeing they were not provided with victuals, Nicholas Upshal, one who had lived long in Boston and was a member of the church there, was so concerned about it (liberty being denied to send them provision) that he pur- chas'd it of the jailor at the rate of five shil- lings a week lest they should have starved. And after having been about five weeks pris- oners, William Chichester, master of a vessel, was bound in one hundred pound bond to carry them back, and not suffer any to speak with them, after they were out on board; and the jailor kept their beds and their Bible, for his fees." The lack of laws touching the Quakers was now at once supplied. Those who brought in members of this sect were fined and those who entertained them deprived of one or both ears. In 1656 an act was passed by which it cost Freedom to Worship God 125 five shillings to attend a Quaker meeting and five pounds to speak at one. In October of the same year the penalty of death was decreed against all Quakers who should return to the colony after they had been banished. When Nicholas Upshall, the kindly innkeeper 1 who had befriended Mary Fisher and her comrade, protested against such legislation he was fined and finally banished. Then, to provide a fillip to zeal, constables who failed vigorously to break up Quaker meetings were themselves fined and imprisoned, a share of the fine im- posed being given to the informer. The object of this last-named legislation was to sustain the atrocious custom of " flogging through three towns," a privilege established by the Vagabond Act, so called, of May, 1661, in which it was provided that any foreign Quaker or any native, upon a second conviction, might be ordered to receive an unlimited number of stripes, the whip for such service being a two- handled implement, armed with lashes made of twisted and knotted cord or catgut. The last Quaker known to have been whipped in Boston was Margaret Brewster, whose offence Samuel Sewall has chronicled in the following paragraph: "July 8, 1677, New Meeting »See "Among Old New England Inns "• 126 St. Botolph's Town House Mane: In sermon time there came in a female Quaker, in a canvas frock, her hair disshevelled and loose like a Periwigg, her face as black as ink, led by two other Quakers and two others following. It occasioned the great- est and most amazing uproar that I ever saw. Isaiah i. 12, 14." Whittier has put the scene into verse for us and made us poignantly to feel its horror : " Save the mournful sackcloth about her wound, Unclothed as the primal mother, With limbs that trembled and eyes that blazed With a fire she dared not smother. . . . « And the minister paused in his sermon's midst And the people held their breath, For these were the words the maiden said Through lips as pale as death : . . . " Repent ! repent ! ere the Lord shall speak In thunder and breaking seals ! Let all souls worship him in the way His light within reveals. « She shook the dust from her naked feet And her sackcloth closer drew, And into the porch of the awe-hushed church She passed like a ghost from view. - ' The meeting-house which provided the back- ground for this very dramatic scene was the predecessor on the same site of the present Old Freedom to Worship God 127 South Church. 1 Thither Margaret Brewster had travelled a long distance for the express purpose of protesting against further persecu- tions of her sect. At her trial, she said some brave words that effectually stirred — after an interval — the consciences of her persecutors. John Leverett was then chief magistrate and to him she appealed thus: " Governour, I de- sire thee to hear me a little for I have some- thing to say in behalf of my friends in this place: ... Oh governour I cannot but press thee again and again, to put an end to these cruel laws that you have made to fetch my friends from their peaceable meetings, and keep them three days in the house of correc- tion, and then whip them for worshipping the true and living God : Governour, let me en- treat thee to put an end to these laws, for the desire of my soul is that you may act for God, and then would you prosper, but if you act against the Lord and his blessed truth, you will assuredly come to nothing, the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. . . ." " Margaret Brewster," came the stern re- ply, " you are to have your clothes stript off to the middle, and to be tied to a cart's tail at the South Meeting House, and to be drawn 1 See " Romances of Old New England Churches." 128 St. Botolph's Town through the town, and to receive twenty stripes upon your naked body." But though Margaret Brewster suffered last she did not suffer most. Mary Dyer paid the extreme penalty in 1660 because she insisted on coming back to Boston after she had been re- prieved from death and banished. In no case better than here may we see illustrated the lengths to which religious enthusiasm will carry the person possessed by it. For with William Robinson and Marniaduke Stevenson she had been condemned to hang on the Com- mon, but ' ' after she was upon the ladder with her arms and legs tied and the rope about her neck she was spared at the earnest solicitation of her son and sent out of the colony." But, because she thought she must needs die for the triumph of her cause she came back a year later to be executed. Josiah Southwick, eldest son of Lawrence and Cassandra Southwick, was another who " appeared manfully at Boston in the face of his persecutors " after he had been shipped to England. As punishment, he was " sentenced to be whipt at a cart's tail, ten stripes in Bos- ton, the same in Roxbury and the same in Ded- ham." The peculiar atrocity of flogging from town to town lay in the fact that the victim's Freedom to Worship God 129 wounds became cold beween the times of pun- ishment, and in winter often froze, the result- ing torture being intolerably agonizing. The case of the Southwicks is particularly interesting as an extreme example of the far- reaching ferocity of persecution as pursued by Endicott. Whittier in his poem, " Cassan- dra Southwick," has given us the colour of this event but, for poetic purposes, has made the woman young. In point of fact, however, Law- rence and Cassandra Southwick were an aged couple, members of the Salem church. Be- sides the son Josiah, already referred to, they had a younger boy and girl named Daniel and Provided. The father and mother were first arrested in 1657 for harbouring two Quakers, and although her husband was soon released Cassandra was imprisoned for seven weeks and fined forty shillings because there was found on her person a Quaker tract. Later, the three elder Southwicks were again arrested and sent to Boston to serve as an example. Here, in the February of 1657 they were whipped without form of trial, imprisoned eleven days and their cattle seized and sold to pay a fine of £4 13 s. for six weeks' absence from worship on the Lord's day. The letter which they sent from their prison in Boston 130 St. Botolph's Town to Endicott and the others at Salem is worthy of being reproduced in full because it breathes the very spirit of that peace for which the Quakers ideally stood. " This to the Magistrates at Court in Salem. " Friends, " Whereas it was your pleasure to commit us, whose names are underwritten, to the house of correction in Boston, altho' the Lord, the righteous Judge of heaven and earth, is our witness, that we had done nothing worthy of stripes or of bonds; and we being committed by your court to be dealt withal as the law provides for foreign Quakers, as ye please to term us ; and having some of us suffered your law and pleasures, now that which we do ex- pect is, that whereas we have suffered your law, so now to be set free by the same law, as your manner is with strangers, and not to put us in upon the account of one law, and execute another law upon us, of which according to your own manner, we were never convicted as the law expresses. If you had sent us upon the account of your new law, we should have expected the jaylor's order to have been on that account, which that it was not, appears by the warrant which we have, and the punish- Freedom to Worship God 131 ment which we bare, as four of us were whipp'd, among whom was one who had for- merly been whipp'd so now also according to your former law. 1 ' Friends, let it not be a small thing in your eyes, the exposing as much as in you lies, our families to ruine. It's not unknown to you the season and the time of year for those who live of husbandry, and what their cattle and families may be exposed unto; and also such as live on trade; we know if the spirit of Christ did dwell and rule in you these things would take impression on your spirits. What our lives and conversation have been in that place is well known; and what we now suffer for is much of false reports, and ungrounded jealousies of heresie and sedition. These things lie upon us to lay before you. And, for our parts, we have true peace and rest in the Lord in all our sufferings, and are made will- ing in the power and strength of God, freely to offer up our lives in this cause of God for which we suffer: Yea and we do find (through grace) the enlargements of God in our impris- oned state, to whom alone we commit ourselves and families, for the disposing of us according to his infinite wisdom and pleasure, in whose love is our rest and life. 132 St. Botolph's Town " From the House of Bondage in Boston wherein we are made captives by the wills of men, although made free by the Son, John 8, 36. In which we quietly rest, this 16th of the 5th month, 1658. " Lawkence " Cassandra ^Southwick, " Josiah 11 Samuel Shattock, " Joshua Buffum." When Lawrence and Cassandra Southwick were rearrested after banishment for not hav- ing gone away promptly, the old people pite- ously pleaded " that they had no otherwhere to go." But they were none the less com- manded to get out quickly under pain of death. They went to Shelter Island, where they died within a few days of each other as a result of flogging and starvation. And, inconceivable as it seems, the sale as slaves of the younger chil- dren, Daniel and Provided, was actually au- thorized by law to satisfy a debt accumulated from fines for their non-attendance at church! Thus were free-born English subjects dealt with for cherishing a faith subversive of a theocracy. In all honesty, however, it should be said Freedom to Worship God 133 that not all the Quakers, by any means, were as mild and inoffensive as the Southwicks. Even the gentle-spirited Roger Williams was at one time so sorely tried in patience by them that he allowed himself to write: " They are insufferably proud and contemptuous. I have, therefore, publicly declared myself that a due and moderate restraint and punishment of these incivilities, though pretending conscience, is so far from persecution, properly so called, that it is a duty and command of God unto all mankind, first in Families, and thence unto all mankind Societies." What did they do? Everything which they thought might tend to batter down the intol- erant spirit of Puritanism. A favourite method of protest was for Quaker women to break bottles over the head of a preacher " as a sign of his emptiness." John Norton was more than once thus affronted while engaged in the solemn delivery of the Thursday lecture in Boston. This could scarcely have been pleasant, of course, either to the preacher or his people. But a little tact, above all a sense of humour, would have smoothed the sharp- ness of the controversy. Only, these qualities were precisely the ones which the Puritans and the Quakers both conspicuously lacked. 134 St. Botolph's Town Against the Puritan persistency, therefore, there was ranged the exceeding contumacy of the Quakers. And if the war had been left to fight itself out, the Quakers, because they had a great principle on their side, would probably have won the day, revolting and bloody as must have been the battles. Happily, however, three or four influences cooperated to put an end to this unseemly conflict. One of the sufferers from persecution hav- ing gone to England and gained access to Charles II, brought back from that monarch a peremptory command that the death penalty against the Quakers should be no more in- flicted and that those who were under judg- ment or in prison should be sent to England for trial. Sir Richard Saltonstall, too, — who had returned to England some time before, and was watching with great interest, though at a distance, the course of events in and about Bos- ton, — perceived that the intolerance of "Wilson and Cotton would work great harm to the col- ony, and to these two teachers of the Boston First Church he had addressed a manly letter of remonstrance. Most important of all for the Quakers, John Norton, who of all the clergy had exercised the most baleful influence in the direction of intolerance, died in 1663, suddenly Sir Richard Sai.tonstall Freedom to Worship God 135 and of apoplexy, and the friends of the Qua- kers, after the fashion of the day, pronounced his sudden taking off a punishment sent by the Lord. Already John Norton had been nearly fright- ened to death in England by the Quakers. The narrow-minded but well-meaning priest had been sent with Simon Bradstreet to present an address to the just-crowned Charles and find out what his attitude towards the colonies was to be. Norton had accepted this mission with reluctance, for he knew perfectly well that, in the eye of the English law, the executions he had pushed against the Quakers were homicide. But, after long vacillation, " the Lord so en- couraged and strengthened his heart " that he ventured to sail. From the king and his prime minister he and his companion soon found they had nothing to fear, but they were none the less uncomfortable in London, the reason whereof may be gleaned from this anecdote related by Sewel : " Now the deputies of New England came to London, and endeavoured to clear them- selves as much as possible, but especially priest Norton, who bowed no less reverently before the archbishop, than before the king. . . . They would fain have altogether excused 136 St. Botolph's Town themselves; and priest Norton thought it suf- ficient to say that he did not assist in the bloody trial nor had advised to it. 11 But John Copeland, whose ear was cut off at Boston, charged the contrary upon him: and G. Fox the elder, got occasion to speak with them in the presence of some of his friends and asked Simon Bradstreet, one of the New England magistrates, ' whether he had not a hand in putting to death those they nicknamed Quakers "? He not being able to deny this confessed he had. Then G. Fox asked him and his associates that were present, 1 whether they would acknowledge themselves to be subjects to the law of England? and if they did by what law they had put his friends to death? ' They answered ' They were sub- ject to the laws of England and they had put his friends to death by the same law as the Jesuits were put to death in England.' Here- upon G. Fox asked, ' whether they did believe that those, his friends whom they had put to death, were Jesuits or jesuistically affected? ' They said ' Nay.' ' Then ' replied G. Fox, ' ye have murdered them; for since ye put them to death by the law that Jesuits are put to death here in England, it plainly appears you Freedom to Worship Cod 137 have put them to death arbitrarily, vrithout any law.' " Fox might have turned the tables, it is clear, upon the magistrate and the minister, but he had no desire to do that. Though many royal- ists urged him to prosecute relentlessly these New England persecutors of his followers, he said he preferred to leave them " to the Lord to whom vengeance belonged." So Bradstreet and John Norton came back to their homes in safety though they passed a very bad quar- ter of a year in London. The election in 1673 of Leverett.as governor sounded, however, the death-knell to persecu- tion. For though he had been trained under Cotton's preaching, he was personally opposed to violent methods of suppressing dissenting sects, and, during his administration, the Bap- tists, the Quakers and all the rest worshipped their God undisturbed by any legal interfer- ence. Long and bitter had been the struggle, but now, at last, there was assured to those in Massachusetts a boon for which men have ever been content to yield up their life in dun- geons, on the scaffold and at the stake, — that very noble and precious thing we call " free- dom to worship God." VIII BOSTON AS JOHN DUNTON SAW IT What the Journal of Madame Knight is to those who are studying tavern and transpor- tation conditions in the New England of two centuries ago, 1 the Letters of John Dunton are to us when we are concerned with Boston in the latter part of the seventeenth century. That time was peculiarly barren of description at the hands of visitors, upon whom the city made an impression rather favourable as a whole. Sewall's Diary is of inestimable value, of course, but he was a part of all that he de- scribed and so could not bring an unbiased mind to bear upon his subject. And many of the visitors who wrote about us took a hostile tone and so presented material by no means trustworthy. Sometimes, to be sure, there was good rea- son for the harshness of the picture drawn. When Jasper Bankers and Peter Sluyter, for 'See "Among Old New England Inns." 138 Boston as John Dunton Saw It 139 instance, gained the impressions which have since been published by the Long Island His- torical Society, they were strangers, unable to speak English, and " as Jesuits who had come here for no good " were of course regarded with suspicion. Some of the things which Dunton saw through rather rose-coloured glasses, they seem to have found not at all prepossessing. But their understatements of the country's attractions are generally less to be credited than his slight overstatement. "What they wrote is interesting, though, and some few passages from their pens may well enough be quoted before we proceed to enjoy Dunton 's racy discourse. Our Jesuit friends shared in a fast day at one of the Boston churches and they were not in the least edified. " In the first place a min- ister made a prayer in the pulpit of full two hours in length; after which an old minister delivered a sermon an hour long, and after that a prayer was made and some verses sung out of the psalm. In the afternoon three or four hours were consumed with nothing except prayers, three ministers relieving each other alternately: when one was tired another went up into the pulpit. The inhabitants are all Independent in matter of religion, if it can be 140 St. Botolph's Town called religion; many of them perhaps more for the purposes of enjoying the benefit of its privileges than for any regard to truth and godliness. . . . All their religion consists in observing Sunday by not working or going into the taverns on that day; but the houses are worse than the taverns. . . . There is a penalty for cursing and swearing such as they please to impose, the witnesses thereof being at liberty to insist upon it. Nevertheless, you discover little difference between this and other places. Drinking and fighting occur there not less than elsewhere." One of the most curious items is their pic- ture of Harvard College. Apparently the in- stitution was not then very flourishing (June, 1680), for they found only ten students and no professor! On entering the College build- ing they discovered " eight or ten young fel- lows sitting about, smoking tobacco, with the smoke of which the room was so full that you could hardly see ; and the whole house smelt so strong of it that when I was going upstairs, I said, this is certainly a tavern. . . . They could hardly speak a word of Latin so that my comrade could not converse with them. They took us to the library where there was nothing particular. We looked over it a little." Boston as John Dunton Saw It 141 Dunton 's experience at Harvard we shall find to be quite a different one though his visit there was only six years later than that of the missionaries. A very red-blooded gentleman was this London bookseller and journalist, who, after Monmouth's insurrection, came to New England to sell a consignment of books and so retrieve his depressed fortunes. Dunton had been intended for the ministry, but developing some tendencies of the gay Lothario stripe he became, instead, apprenticed to a bookseller and, succeeding in this line of work, soon set up a shop for himself. On August 3, 1682, he married the daughter of Dr. Samuel Annesley, a distinguished non-conformist minister. One sister of this lady became the mother of John Wesley and another the wife of Defoe. She herself must have been a remarkable person for she bold the affection of her flighty hus- band the while she enabled him to keep his credit good and to be of financial aid to several dependent relatives. She had a piquant dash of Bohemianism, too, and this adds to her charm for us, as for her devoted spouse. She and John were al- ways Iris and Philaret to each other and in- stead of having a house and living staidly in it they settled down, when their honeymoon 142 St. Botolph's Town days were over, in the Black Raven, on Prince's street, London, where they lived for two years without a single care. " Look which way we would the world was always smiling on us," wrote Dunton of this time of their lives. ' ' The piety and good-humour of Iris made our lives one continued courtship." But our bookseller had been " born under a rambling planet " and so, when opportunity came to him, he armed himself with a stock of his wares, took along plenty of ink and white paper and went forth to sell books, — and make them. In his letters home he was, from the start, very de- liberate and naive writing his wife from Cowes all about her leave-taking with him, adding as explanation that " 'tis necessary to render the History of my Rambles perfect, which I design to print." During the voyage Dunton enjoyed a sea- sickness which he so vividly describes as to induce similar suffering on the part of his readers. But when the New World was reached he recovered speedily and began dili- gently to write back to Iris and his friends all he did, saw, read or squeezed out of others in the course of his stay in the town. The first letter descriptive of Boston was addressed to his London printer, sixty letters to Iris having Boston as John Dunton Saw It 143 been immediately dispatched previous to the inditing of this one. To Larkin he declares that he will in this New England letter " 1. Give an account of my reception at Boston. 2. The character of my Boston Landlord, his wife and daughter: 3. Give you an account of my being admitted into the freedom of the City: 4. I shall describe next the town of Boston, it being the Metropolis of New Eng- land; and say something of the government, Law and Customs thereof. 5. I shall relate the Visits I made, the Remarkable friendships I contracted, and shall conclude with the char- acter of Madam Brick as the Flower of Bos- ton, and some other Ladyes. And I'll omit nothing that happened (if remarkable) during my stay here. And in all this I will not copy from other, as is usual with most Travellers, but relate my own Observations." After which preface Dunton goes on with character- istic verbosity to tell his little tale. Opposite to the Town House he found " in Capital Letters : LODGINGS TO BE LET WITH A CON- VENIENT WAREHOUSE " I found 'twas convenient for my purpose and so we soon made a bargain. My Landlord, 144 St. Botolph's Town Mr. Eicliard Wilkins, like good old Jacob, is a good plain man. He was formerly a bookseller in Limerick, and fled hither on the account of conscience . . . and is now a member of Mr. Willard's church." Having unloaded his books, opened his shop and presented letters which he bore to the Deputy Governor, William Stoughton, and to Joseph Dudley [Governor from 1702-1715] Dunton was made a freeman of the town through the good offices of Francis Burroughs. In a book at the City Clerk's office may still be found the document of this last transaction which is so interesting that I herewith repro- duce it: " Witnesse these presents, that I, Francis Burrowes, of Bostone, Merchant, doe bind my- selfe, my Executors and Administrators to Edward Willis, Treasurer of the Towne of Bostone, in the sume of forty pounds in mony, that John Dunton booke-seller, nor any of his familie, shall not be chargeable to this towne duringe his or any of there abode therein. Witnesse my hand the 16th of February, 1685. " That is, sd Burrowes binds himselfe as above to sd Willis and his successors in the Boston as John Dunton Saw It 145 office of Treasurer, omitted in the due place ahove. (Signed) Francis Burroughs. " John Dunton." This formality over, Dunton was in a posi- tion to enjoy himself. Which he did hy promptly accepting an invitation to " dine with the Governour and Magistrates of Bos- ton; the Place of Entertainment was the Town-Hall, and the Feast Rich and Noble : As I enter 'd the Room where the Dinner was, the Governour in Person [Bradstreet], the Deputy Governour, Major Dudley, and the other Mag- istrates, did me the Honour to give me a par- ticular welcome to Boston, and to wish me suc- cess in my undertaking." One wishes that Dunton had dwelt upon this dinner instead of proceeding to tell us, guide-book fashion, about the latitude and longitude of. the city, and the manner in which it had been settled. But we would not for a great deal be without his de- scription of the houses : " The Houses are for the most part raised on the Sea-banks, and wharfed out with great industry and cost; many of them standing upon piles, close together, on each side the streets, as in London, and furnished with many fair Shops ; where all sorts of commodities are 146 St. Botolph's Town sold. Their streets are many and large, paved with Pebbles; the Materials of their Houses are Brick, Stone, Lime, handsomely contrived, and when any New Houses are built, they are made conformable to our New Buildings in London since the fire. Mr. Shrimpton has a very stately house there, with a Brass Kettle atop, to shew his Father was not ashamed of his Original [he had been a brazier] : Mr. John Usher (to the honour of our Trade) is judg'd to be worth above £20,000, and hath one of the best Houses in Boston ; They have Three Fair and Large Meeting-Houses or Churches, [the First Church, which stood on the south side of what is now State street on Washington street; the second church or North Meeting-House which stood at the head of North square ; and the Third or Old South Church] commodiously built in several parts of the Town, which yet are hardly sufficient to receive the Inhabitants, and strangers that come in from all Parts. " Their Town-House [which stood from 1657 to 1711 on the site of the present Old State House] is built upon Pillars in the mid- dle of the Town, where their merchants meet and confer every day. In the Chambers above they keep their Monthly Courts. The South- side of the Town is adorned with Gardens and m Simon Bradstreet Boston as John Dunton Saw It 147 Orchards. The Town is rich and very popu- lous, much frequented by strangers. Here is the dwelling of Mr. Bradstreet, Esq. their present Gouvernour. On the North-west and North-east two constant Fairs are kept, for daily Traffick thereunto. On the South there is a small but pleasant Common, where the Gallants a little before sunset walk with their Marina let Madams, as we do in Moorfield &c till the Nine-a Clock Bell rings them home; after which the Constables walk their Rounds to see good order kept, and to take up loose people. In the high-street towards the Com- mon, there are very fair Buildings, some of which are of stone." Dunton was a kindly and a liberal person, so he can speak with very little patience of the religious persecutions which he found going on all about him. " The Quakers here have been a suffering Generation," he writes, " and there's hardly any of the Yea and Nay Per- suasion but will give you a severe account of it; for the Bostonians, though their fore- fathers fled hither to enjoy liberty of con- science, are very unwilling any should enjoy it but themselves: But they are now grown more moderate. The Government, both Civil and Ecclesiastical is in the hands of the Independ- 148 St. Botolph's Town ents and Presbyterians, or at least of those that pretend to be such." Thanks to Dunton, we have an outsider's glimpse of a church collection among the Puri- tans. " On Sundays in the After-noon, after Sermon is ended, the People in the Galleries come down and march two a Brest, up one Isle and down the other, until they come before the Desk, for Pulpit they have none: Before the Desk is a long Pew, where the Elders and Deacons sit, one of them with a Money-box in his hand, into which the People, as they pass put their Offerings, some a shilling, some two shillings, and some half a Crown or five shil- lings, according to the Ability or Liberality of the Person giving. This I look upon to be a Praise-worthy Practice. This money is dis- tributed to supply the Necessities of the Poor, according to their several wants, for they have no Beggars there. Every Church (for so they call their particular Congregations) have one Pastor, one Teacher, Ruling Elders and Dea- cons." Borrowing adroitly from Josselyn's Two Voyages Dunton now describes what he calls " their Laws: This Colony is a Body Cor- porate, Politick in Fact, by the Name of, The Governeur and Company of the Massachusetts Boston as John Dunton Saw It 149 Bay in New-England. Their Constitution is, That there shall be one governour and Deputy- G-overnour, and eighteen Assistants of the same Company, from time to time. That the Governour and Deputy Governour, who for this year are Esq Bradstreet and Esq Stough- ton, Assistants and all other officers, to be chosen from among the Freemen the last Wednesday in Easter Term, yearly, in the General Court. The Governour to take his corporal oath to be True and Faithful to the Government, and to give the same Oath to the other Officers. They are to hold a Court once a month, and any seven to be a sufficient Quo- rum. They are to have four General Courts kept in Term-Time, and once General and sol- emn Assembly, to make Laws and Ordinances; Provided, They be not contrary or repugnant to the Laws and Statutes of the Realm of Eng- land. In Anno 1646, They drew up a Body of their Laws for the benefit of the People. Every Town sends two Burgesses to their Great and Solem General Court. " Their Laws for Reformation of Manners are very severe," he now goes on to say, " yet but little regarded by the People, so at least to make 'em better or cause 'em to mend their manners. For being drunk, they either Whip 150 St. Botolph's Town or impose a Fine of Five shillings : And yet notwithstanding this Law, there are several of them so addicted to it, that they begin to doubt whether it be a Sin or no; and seldom go to Bed without Muddy Brains. For Cursing and Swearing they bore through the Tongue with a hot Iron. For kissing a woman in the Street, though but in way of Civil Salute, 1 Whipping or a Fine. . . . For adultry they are put to Death, and so for "Witchcraft; For that they are a great many Witches in this Country the late Tryals of 20 New England Witches is a sufficient Proof. . . . An English Woman suf- fering an Indian to have carnal knowledge of her had an Indian cut out exactly in red cloth, and sewed upon her right Arm, and enjoyned to wear it Twelve Months. Scolds they gag, and set them at their own Doors, for certain hours together, for all comers and goers to gaze at. Stealing is punished with Restor- ing four-fold, if able; if not, they are sold for some years, and so are poor Debtors. I have not heard of many Criminals of this sort. . . . For I say again you must make a Distinction: For amongst all this Dross, there runs here and there a vein of pure Gold : And though the Generality are what I have 1 See " Among Old New England Inns," p. 22. Boston as John Dunton Saw It 151 describ'd 'em, yet is there as sincere a Pious and truly Religious People among them, as is any where in the Whole AVorlH to be found. " The next thing I have to do is to proceed to give you some account of the Visits I made : For having gotten a Wa rehouse and my Books ready for sale, (for you know mine was a Learned Venture) 'twas my Business next to seek out the Buyers : So I made my first Visit to that Reverend and Learned Divine, Mr. In- crease Mather: He's the Present Rector of Harvard College : He is deservedly called, The Metropolitan Clergy-Man of the Kingdom. And the next to him in Fame (whom I likewise visited at the same time) is his son, Mr. Cot- ton Mather, an Excellent Preacher, a great Writer ; He has very lately finish 'd the Church- History of New England, which I'm going to print; And which is more than all, He Lives the Doctrine he Preaches. After an hour spent in his company (which I took for Heaven) he shew'd me his Study: And I do think he has one of the best (for a Private Library) that I ever knew. ... I am sure it was the best sight I had in Boston. " Early the next morning (before the Sun could shew his Face) I went to wait upon Mr. AA T illard : He 's the Minister of the South Meet- 152 St. Botolph's Town lug in Boston: He's a Man of Profound No- tions . Can say what he will, and prove what he says : I darken his Merits if I call him less than a Walking Library." Among the other clergymen visited by Mr. Dunton that day when he rose so early was Joshua Mpody, hon- ourably distinguished by his opposition to the witchcraft delusion and extolled by Dunton, a little further on, for a sermon which he preached upon the hanging of James Morgan for murder. The booksellers of the town are now de- scribed, together with Samuel Green, the printer, George Monk, landlord of the Blue Anchor, — which, standing as it did on the site of the present Globe building, was a very con- venient refuge for Dunton when the felicity of family life at the Wilkins' began to pall, — and Dr. Bullivant in whom were combined the pro- fessions of apothecary and physician. Bulli- vant was a good deal of a character. It is of him that Hutchinson says : ' ' Among the more liberal was one Bullivant, an apothecary who had been a justice of the peace under Andros. Lord Bellamont, going from the lecture to his house, with a great crowd round him, passed by Bullivant standing at his shop door loiter- ing. ' Doc lor,' says his lordship with an audi- Boston as John Dunton Saw It 153 ble voice, ' you have lost a precious sermon to-day.' Bullivant whispered to one of his companions who stood by him, ' If I could have got as much by being there as his lordship will, I would have been there too.' " Bullivant was a Church of England man and his lordship — ought to have been. "We are now come, in Dunton 's discursive letter to Larkin, to the portion devoted to his " Female Friends in Boston." Highly enter- taining reading this ! One of these friends was a maiden, another was the wife of a rival book- seller and the third and most significant, re- ferred to interchangeably as " Madam Brick " and " the flower of Boston " was a widow. " I shall Speak first of the Damsel, [Comfort Wilkins, his landlord's daughter]. . . . She was a little Transported with the Zeal of Vol- untary Virginity as knowing there's few Prac- tice it. But tho' an old (or Superannuated) Maid, in Boston, is thought such a curse as nothing can exceed it, and looked on as a Dis- mal Spectacle, yet she by her Good Nature, Gravity and strict Vertue, convinces all that 'tis not her Necessity but her Choice that keeps her a Virgin. She's now about Twenty Six years (the Age which we call a Thornback) yet she never disguises her self by the Gayetys of 154 St. Botolph's Town a Youthful Dress, and talks as little as she thinks of Love : She goes to no Balls or Dan- cing Match, as they do who go (to such Fairs) in order to meet with Chapmen. . . . Her Looks, her Speech, her whole behaviour are so very chaste, that but once going to kiss her I thought she had blush 'd to death." [One won- ders if Dunton ever did kiss her ; we know that he talked to her by the hour of " Platonick Love."] Mrs. Green, though married, seems to have been quite as modest as this incomparable maiden. The talk of that time was not always delicate and this the printer's wife set herself to reform. Dunton tells us that she " was so severely scrupulous that, there being an invi- tation of several Persons to a Gentleman's House in Boston and some that were invited resolving to be very merry, one of the company made this Objection ' that Mrs. Green woul'd be there which woul'd spoil their Mirth.' " Of the Flower of Boston Dunton makes the rather terrifying statement that her " Head has been cut off yet she lives and walks." This, being interpreted, means that the lady's husband was dead and that she devoted her life to keeping his memory green. " Yet she did not think her self oblig'd to such Starch 'd- Boston as John Dunton Saw It 155 ness of Carriage," comments Dunton tersely, " as is usual among the Bostonians, who value themselves thereby so much that they are ready to say to all others, Stand off, I am holier than thou." Not all the women in the Boston of that day were in a class with Caesar's wife, however. Dunton records that he had ' ' several Acquaint- ance with Persons of a far different character : For all sorts came to my Ware house to buy Books, according to their several Inclinations. There was Mrs. Ab — 1, (a Person of Quality) : A well-wisher to the Mathematics: A young Proficient, but willing to learn, and therefore came to Enquire for the School of Venus ; She was one of the first that pos'd me, in asking for a Book I cou'd not help her to; I told her however, I had the School of Vertue ; but that was a Book she had no occasion for. . . . Y r et bad as she is, for her Father's sake, 1 hope she '11 live to repent. The next I shall mention is Mrs. D — , who has a bad face and a worse tongue ; and has the report of a Witch ; whether she be one or no, I know not, but she has ig- norance and malice enough to make her one : And indeed she has done very odd things, but hitherto such as are rather strange than hurt- ful; yea, some of them are pretty and pleas- 156 St. Botolph's Town ing, but such as I think cann't be done without the help of the Devil: As for instance: She'll take 9 sticks, and lay 'em across, and by mum- bling a few words, make 'em all stand up an End like a pair of Nine-Pins ; but she had best have a care, for they that use the Devil's help to make sport, may quickly come to do mischief. I have been told by some that she has actually indented with the Devil; and that he is to do what she would have him for a time, and after- wards he is to have her Soul in Exchange: What pains poor Wretches take to make sure of Hell! " This naive description of a " witch," hot from the pen of a contemporary, is most interesting and worth bearing in mind when we are studying the phenomenon of witch- craft, as seen by the persecuting Mathers. Of women who shop without knowing what they want the Boston of that day evidently had its due share. Dunton amusingly describes one of them: " Doll- S-der's life is a perpetual Contradiction ; and she is made up of ' I will ' and ' I will not.' ' Reach me that Book, yet let it alone too; but let me see't however: and yet 'tis no great matter neither; ' was her con- stant Dialect in my Ware house: She's very fantastical but cann't be called Irresolute; for an Irresolute Person is always beginning, and Boston as John Dunton Saw It 157 she never makes an End. She writes and blots out again, whilst the other deliberates what to write : I know two negatives make an affirma- tive but what her aye and no together make I know not. Her head is just like a Squirrel's Cage and her Mind the Squirrel that whirls it round." One of his single women customers Dunton characterizes as " Vox et preterea nihil," adding that it is certainly " some bodies happiness that she is yet unmarried, for she wou'd make a Husband wish that she were dumb, or he were deaf. . . . She us'd to come to my Warehouse, not to buy Books, (for she talk'd so much she had no time to read) but that others might hear her." And now, as if to balance the entertainment offered by the first part of this letter Dunton reproduces, almost in full, the three sermons preached at the unfortunate James Morgan before his execution! This event had just taken place in Boston and was remarkable for being the first of its kind to occur there in three years. The two Mathers and Joshua Moody officiated. as preachers, the crowd present at the New Church being such that " the Gallery crack 'd, and so they were forced to remove to Mr. Willard's." After the execution, to which Dunton " rid with Mr. Cotton Mather," our 158 St. Botolph's Town indefatigable friend, in the company of Mrs. Green, Madam Brick, Comfort Wilkins and two or three other acquaintances of both sexes, " took a Bamble to a place call'd Governour's Island, about a mile from Boston, to see a whole Hog roasted. We all went in a Boat; and having treated the Fair Sex, returned in the Evening." To just this period belongs the holding of the first Church of England service in Boston and it is interesting to know that Dunton was present. The parson was Robert Ratcliffe who " the next Sunday after he landed, preached in the Town-house and read Common-Prayer in his Surplice, which was so great a Novelty to the Bostonians, that he had a very large Audience, myself among others." Dunton also bore his part in the Training Day exercises on the Common. " Tis their custom here for all that can bear arms, to go out on a Training Day : But I thought a pike was best for a young Souldier, and so I carry 'd a Pike; . . . Be- tween you and I, Reader, there was another reason for it too, and that was I knew not how to shoot off a Musquet. Twas the first time I was ever in arms. " Being come into the Field the Captain call'd us all into Close Order, in order to go Boston as John Dunton Saw It 159 to Prayer, and then Pray'd himself: And when our Exercise was done, the Captain likewise concluded with Prayer. I have heard that Gus- tavus Adolphus, the warlike King of Sweden, wou'd before the beginning of a Battel, kneel down devoutly at the head of his Army, and pray to God (the Giver of Victories) to give them Success against their Enemies, which commonly was the Event; and that he was as Careful also to return thanks to God for the Victory. But solemn Prayer in the Field upon a Day of Training, I never knew but in New England, where it seems it is a common Cus- tom. About three of the Clock both our Exer- cise and Prayers being over, AYe had a very Noble Dinner, to which all the Clergy were invited. ' ' The influence of the " rambling planet " under which Dunton had been born, continuing as potent in New England as in old, our friend made many little journeys to places of interest near Boston, diligently writing back to his cor- respondents on the other side all that befell him on these occasions. His visit to the com- munity " that at first was called New Town but is now made a University and called Cam- bridge, there being a colledge erected there by one Mr. John Harvard, who gave £700 for the 160 St. Botolph's Town Erecting of it in the year 1638," is most enter- tainingly described. " I was invited hither by Mr. Cotton [son of the Reverend John Cotton and librarian of the College] by whom I was very handsomely Treated and shewn all that was remarkable in it. He discoursed with me about my venture of Books ; and by this means I sold many of my Books to the Colledge." The book talk which then went on between these two is pleasantly hinted at. Dunton, when asked who were " his great authors," spoke of " Jeremy Taylor, Mr. John Bunyan, who tho' a man of but very ordinary Education, yet was as well known for an Author through 'out Eng- land as any, . . . Eobert Boyle, Sir Matthew Hale, Cowley and Dryden." In return for which Cotton instanced as distinguished con- temporary authors of New England the " Fa- mous Mr. Elliot " and the inevitable Mathers. Eliot, who was now a very old man, Dunton soon went to see " alone that I might have nothing to hinder me in conversing with him. When I came he receiv'd me with all the Ten- derness and respect imaginable, and had me up into his Study; and then he enquir'd of me with all the Expressions of Love and Kindness that cou'd be how my Father-in-Law, the Rev- erend Doctor Annesly did? . . . And then Boston as John Dunton Saw It 161 speaking to me, said, ' Well, Young Man, how goes the Work of Christ on in England? ' I then told him of the Troubles that were there, and how like Popery was to be set up again. ' No,' said he, ' it never will be, it never shall: They may indeed attempt it ; they have Tower- ing Thoughts, as their Brethren the Babel- Builders had of old, but they shall never be able to bring their wicked Intentions to pass; . . ." And this he spake with good Assurance. ' But,' says he, ' do the People of God keep up their Meetings still? Is the Gospel preach 'd? Does the work of Conversion go forward? ' ... I told him that tho' the Gaols were full of Dissenters, yet the Meetings were as nu- merous, and as much throng 'd as ever. And I had heard my Father say, That more Members had been added to the Church the last year than in some years before. " Mr. Elliot was very well pleas 'd at what I had told, and said, ' It was a Token for Good, that God had not forsaken his People.' . . . After which he presented me with 12 Bibles in the Indian Language, and gave me a charge to present one of 'em to my father Dr. Annesly; he also gave me Twelve Speeches of Converted Indians, publish 'd by himself, to give to my Friends in England : After which, he made me 162 St. Botolph's Town stay and dine with him, by which means I had the opportunity of hearing him Pray, and ex- pound the Scriptures with his Family. After Dinner, he told me that both for my own, but especially for my Father's sake, whom he said he admir'd above most Men in England, if his Countenance and Recommendation cou'd be of any Service to me, I sho'd not want it: And I have already found the good Effects of it." So favourably, indeed, were Dunton's books received that he was almost persuaded to take up his permanent residence in Boston. But while debating the matter, he was suddenly seized with a great desire to ramble back to London and once again behold his beloved Iris. So, leaving his good landlord Wilkins to collect the remittances still due him, he sailed for Eng- land, where he arrived early in August, 1686. His whole stay in America covered, therefore, but four months. One of his first acts, after being restored to the arms of his faithful wife, was to send his regards to Comfort Wilkins, with whom he had so often discoursed upon Platonic love, and his " service in a more par- ticular manner to the Widow Brick. ' ' Already, he had let it be known that only the excellent health enjoyed by Iris prevented him from making actual love to this " flower of Boston." Boston as John Dunton Saw It 163 His subsequent career was a bit checkered. A " ramble to Holland, where he lived four months," and up the Ehine, where he stayed, as he himself says, " until he had satisfied his curiosity and spent all his money," occupied the next two years. Then he took a shop op- posite London's Poultry Counter which he opened the day the Prince of Orange entered the city. Here he sold books with varying suc- cess for ten years, publishing, the while, several semi-political pamphlets. The blow of his life came in May, 1697, in the death of Iris. But within twelvemonths he had married another woman, — for her fortune, — and the last years of his life were full of squalid quarrels with this lady and with her mother. Dunton 's always-flowery style of composi- tion seems to have grown more marked as time went on, and the Spectator found his effusions good matter for ridicule. One kind friend tried to tell him this. " If you have essays or letters that are valuable, call them essays and letters in short plain language," this common-sense person counselled, " and if you have anything writ by men of sense and on subjects of impor- tance, it may sell without your name to it." But Dunton was now sixty and could not give up the old way. To the last his projects had 164 St. Botolph's Town the catchword of Athenian appended to them. He died in obscurity in 1733, aged 74. If he had never come to Boston his name would long ago have been forgotten. Even as it is his " Letters " are almost unobtainable. For since the Prince Society of Boston reprinted a very limited edition, forty years ago, the vol- ume has been growing every year more and more rare. To-day only collectors can boast of its possession. IX THE DYNASTY OF THE MATHERS Dunton's letters abound, as we have seen, in references to the Mathers, Increase and Cot- ton ; and the same thing is true of all the litera- ture of the period. Brooks Adams has cut- tingly observed in his remarkable volume, " The Emancipation of Massachusetts," that one weak point in the otherwise strong posi- tion of the early Massachusetts clergy was that the spirit of their age did not permit them to make their order hereditary. With the Math- ers, however, the priesthood was hereditary, and they constituted a veritable dynasty in the government of Boston. The story of their lives offers a remarkable illustration of power — theological and otherwise — transmitted through at least four generations. When " the shining light " was extinguished by death, late in 1652, he left a widow who be- came, before long, the second wife of the Rev- erend Richard Mather, minister of Dorchester. 165 166 St. Botolph's Town This Mather had already a theologically- minded son named Increase, who had been born in Dorchester in June, 1639, and who, after preaching his first sermon on his birthday, in 1657, sailed for England and pursued post- graduate studies in Trinity College there. Then he preached for one winter in Devonshire and, in 1659, became chaplain to the garrison of Guernsey. But the Restoration was now at hand and, finding that he must " either con- form to the Revived Superstitions in the Church of England or leave the Island," he gave up his charge and, in June, 1661, sailed for home. The following winter he passed preaching alternately for his father and " to the New Church in the North-part of Boston." In the course of that year the charms of Mrs. Mather's daughter, Maria Cotton, impressed themselves upon him and, " On March 6, 1662, he Came into the Mar- ried State ; Espousing the only Daughter, of the celebrated Mr. John Cotton ; in honor of whom he did . . . call his First-born son by the Name of Cotton." Two years after his marriage Increase Mather was ordained pastor of the North Church in Boston and for some twenty years he appears to have performed with notable sue- Increase Mather The Dynasty of the Mathers 167 cess the duties of this important parish. At the same time, he exercised — beneficently on the whole — his great power in the temporal affairs of the colony. For he had good sense and sound judgment, — exactly the qualities, it may be remarked, which his more brilliant son conspicuously lacked. One of the most attractive traits in the younger Mather's character is his appreciation of his father. Barrett Wendell, who has writ- ten a highly readable Life of Cotton Mather, observes dryly that the persecutor of the witches " never observed any other law of God quite so faithfully as the Fifth Command- ment." And there seems to have been excel- lent reason for this. Increase Mather devo- tedly loved his precocious young son and upon him he lavished a passionate affection which the lad repaid in reverence which was almost worship. The motto of Cotton Mather's life seems indeed to have been, My Father can do no "Wrong. The schoolmaster whose privilege it became to plant the seeds of learning in the mind of this hope of the Mathers was Ezekiel Cheever, whose life Sewall has written for us in the following concise paragraph : " He was born January 25, 1614. Came over 168 St. Botolph's Town to N. E. 1637, to Boston : To New Haven 1638. Married in the Fall and began to teach School ; which work he was constant in till now. First, at New-Haven, then at Ipswich; then at Charlestown; then at Boston, whither he came 1670. So that he has laboured in that Calling Skilfully, diligently, constantly, Religiously, Seventy years. A rare instance of Piety, Health, Strength, Serviceableness. The Well- fare of the Province was much upon his spirit. He abominated Perriwigs." That Cheever was in truth an excellent teacher may be accepted from the fact that he had Cotton Mather ready at twelve to enter Harvard College. And this, too, in spite of the fact that one fault of the lad was " idleness." Warning his son against this fault, Cotton Mather wrote, the " thing that occasioned me very much idle time was the Distance of my Father's Habitation from the School; which caused him out of compassion for my Tender and Weakly constitution to keep me at home in the Winter. However, I then much em- ployed myself in Church History; and when the Summer arrived I so plied my business, that thro' the Blessing of God upon my en- deavours, at the Age of little more than eleven years I had composed many Latin exercises, The Dynasty of the Mathers 169 both in prose and verse, and could speak Latin so readily, that I could write notes of sermons of the English preacher in it. I had converse I with Cato, Corderius, Terence, Tully, Ovid and Virgil. I had made Epistles and Themes; pre- senting my first Theme to my Master, without his requiring or expecting as yet any such thing of me; whereupon he complimented me Laudabilis Diligent la tua [Your diligence de- serves praise]. I had gone through a great part of the New Testament in Greek, I had read considerably in Socrates and Homer, and I had made some entrance in my Hebrew grammar. And I think before I came to fourteen, I com- posed Hebrew exercises and Ran thro' the other Sciences, that Academical Students ordi- narily fall upon." In a later chapter we shall discuss at some length the rules and regulations, the studies and the social life which, all together, consti- tuted a highly important formative influence in the life of this and the other Puritan youth who went to Harvard. Suffice it, therefore, in this place to say that Cotton Mather was put through the mill duly and was able in 1G78 to present himself for the bachelor's degree, being at that time the youngest who had ever ap- plied for it. This fact it was, which added to 170 St. Botolph's Town his illustrious ancestry, inspired President Oakes to single him out at Commencemcent for the following eulogy delivered in sounding- Latin: " The next youth is named Cotton Mather. What a name! Or rather, dear friends, I should have said ' what names.' Of his reverend father, the most watchful of guardians, the most distinguished Fellow of the College I will say nothing, for I dare not praise him to his face. But should this youth bring back among us the piety, the learning, the sound sense, the prudence, the elegant ac- complishment and the gravity of his very rev- erend grandfathers, John Cotton and Richard Mather, he will have done his highest duty. I have no slight hope that in this youth there shall live again, in fact as well as in name, Cotton and Mather. ' ' Can you wonder that a boy of sixteen, thus conspicuously praised at the very entrance upon serious life, felt himself to be a person of considerable importance in his community, a man born to sustain a theological dynasty? Of course the ministry was the profession for which he was destined, but, for some seven years after matriculation, he followed the call- ing of a tutor because he was afflicted with a tendency to stammer. Then he began the study The Dynasty of the Mathers 171 of medicine. Soon after this he was advised to practise speaking with " dilated delibera- tion," which he did so successfully as com- pletely to overcome the impediment which had bothered him and, possessing already every educational qualification as a preacher, he was thus able (in May, 1685) to become the asso- ciate of his father in the charge of the church in North Square. Before accepting this trust he had kept many days of fasting and prayer, for he had long desired remotely to emulate that Eabbi mentioned in the Talmud whose face was black by reason of his fasting. The fasts observed by Cotton Mather throughout his life were so frequent that his son observes of him in his funeral sermon " that he thought himself starved unless he fasted once a month! " Such then was the Mather to whom the cele- brated Eliot had extended, at the age of twenty- two, the fellowship of the churches ! Ten days after coming into this high estate the young parson was present at a " private Fast " in the home of Samuel Sewall, an occasion which happily supplies us with an authentic glimpse of the manners of the times. For Sewall writes: " The Magistrates . . . with their wives here. Mr. Eliot prayed, Mr. Willard preached. I am afraid of thy judgments. — 172 St. Botolph's Town Text Mather gave. Mr. Allen prayed; cessa- tion half an hour. Mr. Cotton Mather prayed ; Mr. Mather preached, Ps. 79. 9. Mr. Moodey prayed about an hour and half; Sung the 79th Psalm from the 8th to the End; distributed some Biskets & Beer, Cider, Wine. The Lord hear in Heaven his dwelling place." But of course a young minister of that day — as of this — must very soon, if only in self- defence, take unto himself a wife. Cotton Mather was already matrimonially minded : he had begun to ask " the guidance and blessing of God in what concerns the change of my con- dition in the world from Single to married, whereunto I have now many invitations." These last words we must not take as an evi- dence of Leap Year activity in his parish, but rather as meaning that the young parson de- sired to enter into the state of matrimony but had not as yet met the girl whose charms should draw him thither. His attitude of mind at this stage is singularly like that of the pure young woman of our own time whose heart is still untouched, — and it is in striking contrast to the pronounced dislike with which young men of to-day regard marriage per se. The girl was now sure to arrive, and so it came about that the year 1686 — troublous The Dynasty of the Mathers 173 enough to New England, because Edward Ran- dolph and Joseph Dudley had succeeded in wresting away the Charter — was a decidedly happy one for Cotton Mather. His wooing was very godly, as it was bound to be ; but it re- sulted in his bringing home as a wife Abigail, daughter of the Honourable Colonel Phillips of Charlestown. On his wedding day he got up early to ponder ; but in spite of his ponder- ing he reached Charlestown ahead of time and had to put in an hour or so in the garden with his Bible while Abigail was being arrayed in her wedding finery. Two Sundays afterwards he preached at his own church in Boston on Divine Delights. This was the very Sunday when Mr. "Willard " prayed not for the Gov- ernour. ' ' The implications of this just-quoted entry in Sewall's invaluable Diary are enormous. Now that we have married off Cotton Mather, let us turn aside briefly to consider them. From the settlement of the Colony it had been gov- erned under a royal charter granted, as we have seen, to the governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay in 1629. Under this none but church members had been freemen, and as these freemen elected all political officers and developed their own system of law it is clear 174 St. Botolph's Town that the government was much more nearly a theocracy than a dependency of the crown. Tacitly, England had agreed to this state of affairs, but this was only because she had been too busy with Civil Wars and internal dissen- sions to do anything else. For the sovereign did not forget by any means that New England was theoretically the private property of the crown by virtue of its discovery at the hands of the Cabots, who had been fitted out with crown money. What rights the Colonists had to the land came, it was argued, from the Char- ter; at best, therefore, their positions could be compared only to that of tenants on a pri- vate estate. From the very beginning, how- ever, the Charter had been contested by some gentlemen who maintained that it had been given originally in violation of previous royal grants to them. Among these contestants was one Gorges, a name we readily recognize as potential in more way than one. By the time Charles II ascended the throne New England had become so prosperous that the opponents of the Charter could not let the matter longer alone, and there appeared in Boston as their agent, Edward Randolph, " the evil genius of New England," with a letter requiring the governor and Assistants of Mas- The Dynasty of the Mathers 175 sachusetts at once to send representatives to England, there to answer the claims of those who contested their rights. The contest thus begun lasted until 1684, a period of nearly nine years, during which Eandolph made no less than eight voyages to New England, the colo- nists sending back to London meanwhile innu- merable long-drawn petitions. But the blow fell at last and on June 18, 1684, the Court of Chancery decreed that the Charter should be vacated. In the Colony it- self there had appeared, by this time, a party which favoured submission to royal authority. This party had been built up chiefly by the exertions of Randolph and at its head was Joseph Dudley, a son of the Colony's second governor. He, as " president of New Eng- land," was now named to succeed Simon Brad- street, the last governor elected by the people of the colony, — and the last survivor, as well, of the magistrates, who, nearly sixty years before, had founded the government. It was a goodly heritage for which Randolph and his tools had fought. From the day that "Winthrop landed, the Puritan State of his ideal had risen steadily, and Boston, its chief town, was now a thriving and well-built settlement. Moreover, it was distinctly an English town, 176 St. Botolph's Town for the migration had been unmixed, and, va- ried as were the religious beliefs of its inhab- itants, they agreed perfectly in their love of English names for their streets, English flow- ers for their gardens, English furniture for their rooms and English architecture for their homes. But they had few books, no amuse- ments, and no intellectual interest except relig- ion. " The people of Boston," as Henry Cabot Lodge remarks in his excellent study of that city's rise and development, " practically went from work to religion and from religion to work without anything to break the monotony ex- cept trouble with England and wars with the savages. . . . And now the charter, under which they had enjoyed power and exercised independence was taken from them." If we read Sewall's account of those days in the spring of 1686 with this great impending change in mind the brief entries become dra- matic in the extreme. He tells us how the Rose frigate arrived in Nantasket on the 14th of May; how Randolph came to town by eight in the morning and took coach for Roxbury, where Dudley lived; and how, with other mag- istrates, he himself was summoned to see the judgment against the charter with the great seal of England affixed. He tells how, on the The Dynasty of the Mathers 177 following Sunday, Randolph came to the Old South Church, where Mr. Willard, in his prayer, made no mention of governor or gov- ernment; but spoke as if all were changing or changed. He tells how, the next day the Gen- eral Court assembled, and how Joseph Dudley, temporarily made President of New England, exhibited the condemnation of the Charter and his own commission, how the old magistrates began to make some formal answer and how Dudley refused to treat with them as a court. There is a note of very real pathos in Sewall's picture of that sorrowful group of old magis- trates, who, when Dudley was gone, decided that there was " no room " for a protest: " The foundations being gone what can the righteous do? " So, for seven months, Joseph Dudley was President of the Provisional Government of New England, and during those months the birthdays of the king and queen were celebrated by the royalists in Boston, and to Episcopa- lians was granted the right to hold services in the east end of the Town House. The Puritan Pepys, as Sewall has well been called, duly notes these developments, telling us that on Sunday, May 30, he sang "the 141 Psalm . . . exceedingly suited to the day. Wherein there 178 St. Botolph's Town is to be worship according to the Church of England, as 'tis called, in the Town House, by countenance of Authority." In August Sewall has grave doubts as to whether he can con- scientiously serve in the militia under a flag in which the cross, cut out by Endicott, has been replaced; and three months later he an- swers his own question by resigning as captain of the South Company. A few Saturdays be- fore this the queen's birthday had been cele- brated with drums, bonfires and huzzas, thereby causing Mr. Willard to express, next day, " great grief in's Prayer for the Profanation of the Sabbath last night." Then, on Sunday, December 19, while Sewall was reading to his family an exposition of Habakkuk, he heard a great gun or two, which made him think Sir Edmund Andros might be come. Such proved to be the case. The first governor sent out from England had arrived "in a Scarlet Coat laced." That day Joseph Dudley went to listen to Mr. Willard preach, and had the chagrin of hearing that personage say, " he was fully persuaded and confident God would not forget the Faith of those who came first to New England." Between sermons the President went down the harbour to welcome Sir Edmund. The H ~** K B V ^ ^B ° * v^^^Hy - vt n^B^H IT "3 HL ~ TiffiB ^K* ""-^(i ' ■K-.^^j ft ' # TheTOWNof OS TON Znyrarm. oW i'rwUd by Tr a Dtnvy JJoitonNE.i 7 )2. Sold by Cap'.J^hn£,mn^rartd WM'Pria, qp**n/ty Tmnt&u/' nd«*my,ttk»/'llS"*.::■-. *..':: '- v^-.-i.'.*.. t:.e '.:.'.'. -m v: : 312 St. Botolph's Town of these royal favours was offered by the Duke of Newcastle to the nephew of Sir Thomas Frankland, then one of the Lords of the Ad- miralty. This nephew — who was also heir- presumptive to the baronetcy and to the family estates at Thirkleby and Mattersea — was, however, a young man of only twenty-four at this time and could boast no previous experi- ence in colonial affairs, as could William Shir- ley, — a lawyer who had already lived seven years in this country. The outcome of the matter was therefore, that Shirley, whose wife had strong influence at court, was made gov- ernor and Frankland came to New England as collector of the port of Boston. Both were well born, highly-bred English- men, Frankland resembling both in manners and person the Earl of Chesterfield, whom he had the happiness to count among his friends. He had been born in Bengal, where his father was a colonial officer, and to this fact his sym- pathetic biographer, the Beverend Elias Na- son, attributes the trend of his talents towards art and literature rather than towards politics or trade. In Frankland 's face, also, with its noble cast of features and its expression of peculiar melancholy may be discerned that strain of introspection and self-analysis which ,.*t .^.-Lji^K'ML/L jSjk jBKX&&^2 ?i% fplppsi j r j f^'- ^Satf. ffliff • ■ *^<<&hsI WgEgr': Bkv x^fcfe Pm ^^^^ »^"^ : ■ - * ■ ^ : ™ I snbipr GOVEKNOR WILLIAM SHIRLEY A Genuine Colonial Romance 313 not infrequently characterizes the Eastern-born children of English parents. Both Frankland and Shirley were, of course, bound to count immensely in Boston society of that time. The important question of the day in the highest circles of the town was 1 ' How is this done at court ! ' ' And here were two handsome fellows who could tell with ex- actness just the procedure fitting on each and every state occasion. By the Amorys, Ap- thorps, Bollans, Hutchinsons, Prices, Auch- mutys, Chardons, Wendells, and Olivers, who held the money, offices and power in the chief settlement of New England, they were there- fore welcomed with the greatest enthusiasm. Nason, who has made a careful if limited study of the society which greeted them, tells us that it is hardly possible for us to conceive what distinction title, blood, escutcheon, and family conferred in that regime. " Those gentlemen and ladies who occupied the north, or court end of the town, who read the Spectator, Sam- uel Richardson's Pamela and the prayer-book, who had manors of a thousand acres in the country cultivated by slaves from Africa . . . were many of them allied to the first families in England and it was their chief ambition to keep up the ceremonies and customs of the 314 St. Botolph's Town aristocratic society which they represented. A baronet was then approached with greatest deference; a coach and four with an armorial bearing and liveried servants was a munition against indignity; the stamp of the crown upon a piece of paper, even, invested it with an association almost sacred. In those digni- taries, — who in brocade vest, goldlace coat, broad ruffled sleeves and small clothes; who, with three-cornered hat and powdered wig, side-arms and silver shoe buckles, promenaded Queen street and the Mall, spread themselves through the King's chapel, or discussed the measures of the Pelhams, Walpole and Pitt, at the Rose and Crown, — as much of aristocratic pride, as much of courtly consequence dis- played itself, as in the frequenters of Hyde Park or Regent street." An excellent contemporaneous description of life in Boston at just this period has come down to us in the manuscript of a Mr. Bennett, from which Horace E. Scudder quotes freely in the invaluable Memorial History: " There are several families in Boston that keep a coach and pair of horses, and some few drive with four horses ; but for chaises and saddle-horses, considering the bulk of the place they outdo London. . . . Their roads, though they have A Genuine Colonial Romance 315 no turnpikes are exceedingly good in summer; and it is safe travelling night or day for they have no high-way robbers to interrupt them. It is pleasant riding through the woods; and the country is pleasantly interspersed with farmhouses, cottages, and some few gentle- men's seats between the towns. When the ladies drive out to take the air, it is generally in a chaise or chair, and then but a single horse, and they have a negro servant to drive them. The gentlemen ride out here as in England, some in chairs, and others on horseback, with their negroes to attend them. They travel in much the same manner on business as for pleasure, and are attended in both by their black equipages. . . . " For their domestic amusements, every afternoon, after drinking tea, the gentlemen and ladies walk the Mall, and from thence ad- journ to one another's house to spend the eve- ning, — those that are not disposed to attend the evening lecture; which they may do, if they please, six nights in seven the year round. What they call the Mall is a walk on a fine green common adjoining to the south-west side of the town. It is near half a mile over, with two rows of young trees planted opposite to each other, with a fine footway between in 316 St. Botolph's Town imitation of St. James Park; and part of the bay of the sea which encircles the town, taking its course along the north-west side of the Common, — by which it is bounded on the one side and by the country on the other, — forms a beautiful canal in view of the walk. . . . Not- withstanding plays and such like diversions do not obtain here [the famous performance of Otway's " Orphan " at the British Coffee House, with its attendant theatrical riot, did not occur until 1750] they don't seem to be dispirited nor moped for want of them, for both ladies and gentlemen dress and appear as gay, in common, as courtiers in England on a coronation or birthday. ..." It is this Boston that we see in the pictures of Copley, himself a Bostonian by birth, and described by Trumbull, when he visited him in London, as an " elegant-looking man, dressed in a fine maroon cloth with gilt buttons.' ' Small wonder that a young man who became the pet of a Boston like this felt that he could not marry, even though he must needs love, a girl whom he had found scrubbing the floor of a public house. The time of that historic first encounter at the Fountain Inn in quaint old Marblehead between these famous lovers was the s umm er of 1742. Frankland's official du- SIR HARKY KRANKLAND A Genuine Colonial Romance 317 ties had sent him riding down to Marblehead where the fortification, since named and to-day still known as Fort Sewall, was then just being built (at an expense of almost seven hundred pounds) for the defence of the harbour against French cruisers. On the way to the fort he stopped for a draught of cooling ale at the Inn where Agnes did odd jobs for a few shillings a month. And lo! scrubbing the tavern floor there knelt before him a beautiful child-girl of six- teen, with black curling hair, shy dark eyes and a voice that proved to be of exquisite sweetness, when the maiden, glancing up, gave her good-day to the gallant's greeting. The girl's feet were bare, and this so moved Frank- land's compassion that he gently gave her a piece of gold with which to buy shoes and stockings. Then he rode thoughtfully away to conduct his business at the fort. But he did not by any means forget that charming child just budding into winsome womanhood whom he had seen performing with patience and grace the duties that fell to her lot as the poor daughter of some honest hard-working fisher-folk of the town. "When he happened to be again in Marblehead on busi- ness he inquired at once for her, and then, see- 318 St. Botolph's Town ing her feet still without shoes and stockings, asked a bit teasingly what she had done with the money he gave her. Quite frankly she re- plied, blushing the while, that the shoes and stockings were bought but that she kept them to wear to meeting. This reply and the sight for the second time of the girl engaged in heavy work for which her slender figure and delicate face showed her to be wholly unfitted put it into Frankland's head to take her away to Boston and educate her for less menial employment. The consent of the girl's parents to this proposal appears to have been given with rather surprising read- iness; but it is more than likely that Agnes took the matter into her own hands, as many a girl since has done, and that to permit her to go was regarded as the wiser course. Women matured early in those days, and a strong reciprocal emotion, innocent though it undoubtedly was in its nature, must have been aroused in this girl's heart by the ardent ad- miration of the handsome gentleman from Boston. Moreover the Eeverend Dr. Edward Holyoke, who had been the family pastor at Marblehead, was now president of Harvard College, and it was probably expected that he A Genuine Colonial Romance 319 i would exercise pastoral oversight over this maiden he had known so long. To do Frankland justice, however, it should at once be said that his intentions at the start seem only to have been those of a friendly guardian. If the heir to Sir Thomas Frank- land is seized with a benevolent impulse and wishes to undertake the expense of educating a young person of humble parentage, who is there to say him nay? Mrs. Shirley might laughingly shake her finger at him and tell him to " beware " on one of those occasions when Agnes has looked unusually charming while dining with her and her daughters at Shirley House in Roxbury, but Frankland would of course protest his excellent intentions, — and the matter would be dropped. It seems to me, indeed, as I examine the evi- dence, that the relation between these two con- tinued to be that of ward and guardian until Agnes was well over eighteen, the age at which a girl becomes legally her own mistress. For several years she is taught reading, writing, grammar, music and embroidery by the best tutors the town can provide, and though she grows steadily in beauty and maidenly charm she still retains that childish sweetness and 320 St. Botolph's Town simplicity which first won Frankland's heart. Then these two suddenly discover that they are all in all to each other. The thought of being separated is insupportable to them both. But Frankland has been suddenly elevated to the baronetcy and is no longer his own master. Agnes's father, on the other hand, has died and there is no one to take the matter firmly in hand on her behalf. And so it comes about that this low-born girl and this high-born man find themselves in a situation for which Agnes is to pay by many a day of tears and Sir Harry by many a night of bitter self-reproach. Of course he paid in money, too. How else can one understand his purchase, for the sum of fifty pounds " lawful money," at the close of the year 1745 of Mrs. Surriage's " right and title to one seventh part of a vast tract of land in Maine " inherited by her from her father? Frankland never did anything with this land and the grantor's title to it was none too clear. One can only conclude, therefore, that this transfer of fifty pounds was by way of deli- cately making a substantial gift to the widowed mother of the girl the baronet felt himself to be wronging. We caught a hint from Dunton's letters that Boston morality had been somewhat vitiated A Genuine Colonial Romance 321 by the introduction of the habits and standards of crown officials. By Frankland 's time many a thing for which a man would have had to suffer the stocks and women the ducking-stool — or worse — in the old days was winked at because the parties concerned sat in high places. The heart of the people was still sound, however, and those Puritan maidens who had been Agnes's school-fellows, naturally shrank from her when they came to realize that she and the collector of the port of Boston were unwedded lovers. Gradually, too, the ladies whose good opinion Frankland valued grew in- dignant at him. Thus it was that at this stage of the story he decided to live in rural Hop- kinton rather than in censorious Boston. Already a former rector of King's Chapel, the Reverend Roger Price, had purchased land and started a mission church in this charming village of Middlesex county. From him Frank- land bought nearly four hundred acres, build- ing upon them (in 1751) a commodious man- sion house. The following year he and Agnes took up their abode on the place. Here it was, then, that Frankland wrote the greater part of that interesting Journal, which is still pre- served in the rooms of the Massachusetts His- torical Societv, of two hundred hand-written 322 St. Botolph's Town pages and which reflects so strikingly the man's varying moods. Of politics there is here and there a dash, of horticulture one finds a great deal, of current events there are interest- ing mentions ; but the bulk of the book is given over to philosophical reflection that bears wit- ness to the strain of introspection in Frank- land's temperament and stamps him at once as far removed from the careless libertine some writers would make him out. Under the date of March 17, 1755, we read: " Mr. Coles gathers anemone seed. Wrote by packet to mother; Park and Willis for shoes. Paid for shaving in full for this and the next month. " Nothing considerable can ever be done by the colonies in the present disturbed state. The plan of union as concerted by the commis- sioners at Albany, if carried into execution, would soon make a formidable people. . . . " The uneasiness thou feelest; the misfor- tunes thou bewailest; behold the root from which they spring, even thine own folly, thine own pride, thine own distempered fancy. . . . " In all thy desires, let reason go along with thee; and fix not thy hope beyond the bounds of probability, so shall success attend thy un- dertakings, and thy heart shall not be vexed with disappointments." A Genuine Colonial Romance 323 Horticulture was Frankland's delight and he introduced upon the Hopkinton estate a great variety of the choicest fruit, — such as apples, pears, plums, peaches, cherries of excellent quality, apricots and quinces from England, — and upon the extensive grounds of the place he set out elms and other ornamental trees, embellishing the walks of his garden with box lilac and hawthorn. The interchange of gar- dening advice and of recipes was the favourite amenity of the day and we find a Boston ac- quaintance sending to the baronet with a box of lemons, these lines : " You know from Eastern India came The skill of making punch as did the name. And as the name consists of letters five, By five ingredients is it kept alive. To purest water sugar must be joined, With these the grateful acid is combined. Some any sours they get contented use, But men of taste do that from Tagus choose. When now these three are mixed with care Then added be of spirit a small share. And that you may the drink quite perfect see Atop the musky nut must grated be." That Sir Harry's A ready never came to bore him was very likely due to these diversions and occupations. Moreover, he had his dozen slaves to oversee, there was good fishing as 324 St. Botolph's Town well as good hunting, — and Agnes had a mind able to share with him the enjoyment of the latest works of Kichardson, Steele, Swift, Addi- son and Pope, sent over in big boxes from England. The country about Hopkinton was then, as to-day, a wonder of hill and valley, meadow and stream, while only a dozen miles or so from Frankland Hall was the famous "Wayside Inn where his men friends could put up by night after enjoying by day the hunting and wines he had to offer. Then the village rector was always to be counted on for com- panionship and breezy chat. For that worthy seems not to have felt it his duty to admonish Frankland. And Sir Harry, on the other hand, carefully observed all the forms of his religion and treated Agnes with all the respect due a wife. He still continued, however, to neglect the one attention which would have made her really happy. A close approach to death was needed to bring this duty home to him. I have elsewhere l told the story of the visit these two made to Lisbon in 1755 and of Agnes 's heroic action in her lover's behalf dur- ing the earthquake of that year. Frankland 's awful suffering it was, at the time when he lay pinned down by fallen stone and tortured 'See " Romance of Old New England Roof-Trees." A Genuine Colonial Romance 325 almost beyond endurance by the pain of tlie wound in his arm, that brought him to himself. He then solemnly vowed to amend his life and atone to Agnes, if God in his mercy should see fit to deliver him, and he wasted not a moment, after his rescue, in executing his pledge to Heaven. His spirit had been effectually chas- tened, as the Journal shows. For he there writes down " Hope my providential escape will have a lasting good effect upon my mind. ,, The summer of 1756 was passed by the knight and his lady at Hopkinton but the following October Frankland purchased of Thomas Greenough, for the sum of twelve hun- dred pounds sterling the celebrated Clarke mansion on Garden Court street, Boston. This is the house described in Cooper's Lionel Lin- coln (although there incorrectly said to stand on Tremont street) and it adjoined the far- famed Hutchinson house whose splendour it was intended to rival. The site was all that could be desired and the house itself was, for that period, very elegant and commodious. It was built of brick, three stories high, and con- tained in all twenty-six rooms. It had inlaid floors, carved mantels and stairs so broad and low that Sir Harry could and did ride his pony up and down them with safety. This amuse- 326 St. Botolph's Town ment was probably a feature of those stag- parties held during his wife's absence in Hop- kinton, in the course of which Frankland used his famous wine-glass of double thickness, a possession which enabled hirn to keep sober long after all his guests were under the table. The kind of congratulatory letters received now by Sir Harry and his Agnes may be guessed from the following, for the use of which I am indebted to Mrs. S. H. Swan of Cambridge. The writer of this letter was Ed- mund Quincy, father of Hancock's Dorothy, who lived from 1740 - 1752 on the south side of Summer street, Boston, — in which house his famous daughter was born May 10, 1747. " Braintree, Nov. 30, 1756. " To Sir H. Frankland: "As ye unhap. situation of my affairs [he had been unfortunate in business] has dep'd me of ye satisfaction of long since waiting upon yourself and lady & personally congrat- ulating your safe & happy return into this prov. after so remarkable a protection wh ye G't Author & preserver of all things was pleas 'd to afford you at Lisbon, on ye never to be forgotten 10th of Nov. last, I hope yr good- A Genuine Colonial Romance 327 ness will excuse an epistolary tender of my sin- cerest complements on ye pleasing occasion. "I'm agreeably informed that you have pur- chased ye mansion of ye late Mr. Clarke, & I hope with a view to settlement for life in ye town of Boston, whose very declining state ren- ders ye favor you may have done that town in ye choice ye more distinguished. As testimony of my respect & gratitude I have taken ye free- dom to send you, a trifling collection of some of ye fruits of ye season produced on the place of my birth, on which (tho' mine no more!) I have yet a residence. It asks yr. candid ac- ceptance, if more & better I sh'd be ye more pleased. Tel qu'il est, permit me ye pleasure of assuring you that it is accompanied by the sincerest regard of, Sir. Yr. most obedient & very humble S't e. q. j ' As Lady Frankland Agnes was cordially re- ceived by those who had formerly looked coldly upon her, and the spacious parlours, with their fluted columns, elaborately carved, their richly gilded pilasters and cornices, their wainscoted walls and panels, embellished with beautiful landscape scenery, were the background for many an elegant tea-party and reception. The Inmans, the Rowes, the Greenoughs and the 328 St. Botolph's Town Sheafes were constantly entertained at supper and dinner here, and Dr. Timothy Cutler, first rector of Christ Church (built in 1723 when the Episcopalians of the town became too numer- ous to be accommodated in King's Chapel) was a frequent and an honoured guest. Very likely the good old man many a time talked over with Lady Frankland in a quiet corner of her own sitting-room the best ways of launching in life the children of her sister Mary, whose guar- dian she had become. All in all it was a good and gracious life that the humbly-born Marble- head girl led in her noble mansion-house on Garden Court street. Warm weather, of course, found the family often at Hopkinton. Once they had a narrow escape from a tragic end while making the journey from their country to their town house. The account of this may be found in the New Hampshire Gazette of September 2, 1757: " Boston August 20, 1757. Thursday last as Sir Henry Frankland and his lady were coming into town in their chariot, a number of boys were gunning on Boston neck — notwithstand- ing there is an express law to the contrary, — when one of them discharging his piece at a bird missed the same, and almost the whole charge of shot came into the chariot where Sir A Genuine Colonial Romance 329 Henry and his lady were, several of which en- tered his hat and clothes, and one grazed his face but did no other damage to him or lady." Frankland's health, however, was not rugged and in July, 1757, he sought and obtained the post of consul-general to Lisbon, a place for which he was well fitted by reason of his knowl- edge of the language and customs of the coun- try. The entries in the Journal concerning the articles which he determined to purchase in London " for Lisbon " are interesting: " silver castors; wine glasses like Pownal's; two turreens; saucers for water glasses, des- sert knives and forks and spoons ; common tea- kettle; jelly and syllabub glasses; fire-grate; long dishes ; tea cups etc., clothes etc., for Lady Frankland. Consul's seal; combs; mahogany tray, press for table-linen and sheets; stove for flatirons ; glass for live flea for microscope ; Hoyle's Treatise on Whist; Dr. Doddridge's Exposition on the New Testament, 16 hand- some chairs with two settees and 2 card tables, working table like Mrs. F. F. Gardner's." Our hero, it will be observed, has now be- come a thorough-going family man. It is greatly to be regretted that his Journal no longer deals with Boston and its affairs, for he seems in a fair way to become as gossipy 330 St. Botolph's Town as the delicious Sewall. Once he puts down the weight of all the ladies taking part in a certain pleasure excursion, — we thus know that Lady Frankland weighed 135 pounds at the age of thirty-six, — and again he tells us that linseed oil is excellent to preserve knives from rust ! The year 1763 found the pair back once more for a brief visit in Boston and Hopkinton. But Frankland could not stand our east winds and so the following winter he returned again to the old country, settling down at Bath to the business of drinking the waters. In the Jour- nal he writes: "I endeavor to keep myself calm and sedate. I live modestly and avoid ostentation, decently and not above my condi- tion, and do not entertain a number of para- sites who forget favors the moment they de- part from my table. ... I cannot suffer a man of low condition to exceed me in good man- ners." A little later we read that he is now bed-ridden. He died at Bath, January 2, 1768, at the age of fifty- two and was, at his own re- quest, buried in the parish churchyard there. Agnes almost immediately came back to Bos- ton and, with her sister and sister's children, took up her residence at Hopkinton. There she remained, living a peaceful happy life A Genuine Colonial Romance 331 among her flowers, her friends and her books until the outbreak of the Revolution, when it seemed to her wise to go in to her town house. The following entry relative to this is found in the records of the committee of safety: " May 15, 1775. Upon application of Lady Frankland, voted that she have liberty to pass into Boston with the following goods and ar- ticles for her voyage, viz. 6 trunks: 1 chest: 3 beds and bedding : 6 wethers : 2 pigs : 1 small keg of pickled tongues: some hay: 3 bags of corn: and such other goods as she thinks proper." So, defended by a guard of six soldiers, the beautiful widow entered the besieged city about the first of June and thus was able to view from the windows of her mansion the imposing spectacle of Bunker Hill. With her own hands, too, she assuaged the sufferings of the British wounded on that occasion. For, of course, she was an ardent Tory. Then, too, General Bur- goyne had been among her intimates in the happy Lisbon days. Rather oddly, neither of Lady Frankland 's estates were confiscated, but she herself found it convenient soon to sail for England, where she lived on the estate of the Frankland fam- ily until, in 1782, she married Mr. John Drew, 332 St. Botolph's Town a rich banker of Chichester. And in Chiches- ter she died in one year's time. It is greatly to be regretted that no portrait of her is ob- tainable, for she must have been very lovely, — and she certainly stands without a rival as a heroine of Boston romance. XV THE DAWN OF ACTIVE RESISTANCE No institution in the life of early Boston played a more important part in promoting the break with the mother-country than the tav- ern. 1 The attitude of a man towards England soon came to be known by the public house where he spent his evenings, and from the time of the establishment of the Eoyal Exchange (1711), which stood on the southwest corner of Exchange and State street, a line of cleav- age between kingsmen and others was faintly to be discerned. When Luke Vardy became landlord here the place took on the colour which has made it famous. It was then the resort of all the young bloods of the town, who, brave in velvet and ruffles, in powdered hair and periwigs, swore by the king and drank deep draughts of life and liquor. This tavern was distinctly the resort of the British officers and many an international romance is connected 1 For further data on this subject see " Old New England Inns." 333 334 St. Botolph's Town with the house, — notably that of Susanna Sheafe (eldest daughter of the Deputy), and the dashing Captain Ponsonby Molesworth, whom the maiden saw marching by with his soldiers as she stood in the balcony of the inn. Molesworth was immediately captivated by her beauty and pointing her out to a brother of- ficer exclaimed, ' ' Jove ! that girl seals my fate ! ' ' She did, very soon after, a clergyman assisting. The Bunch of Grapes, too, though later as- sociated with many a Eevolutionary feast, was, in the early part of the eighteenth century, a favourite resort of the royal representatives. It stood on what is now the west corner of Kilby street, on State street, and hither Gov- ernor William Burnet was enthusiastically es- corted by a large body of citizens upon his arrival in 1728. Governor Pownall, too, fre- quented the house, and there is a pleasant story of a kiss which he once delivered, stand- ing on a chair there. Pownall was a short, corpulent person but a great ladies' man, and it was his habit to salute every woman to whom he was introduced with a sounding smack upon the cheek. One day a tall dame was presented and he requested her to stoop to meet his prof- fered courtesy. " Nay, I'll stoop to no man, GOVERNOR I'OWNALL The Dawn of Active Resistance 335 — not even to your Excellency, ' ' exclaimed the lady, with a haughty toss of her head. " Then I'll stoop to you, madam," readily retorted the gallant governor, and springing to a chair be- side her he bent over to do his obeisance. Ere long, however, there came a time when a scarlet coat was an inflammatory signal in the tap-room of this inn. Pownall was rather less to blame for this, though, than any of the governors who had preceded him. Our gallant hero had been in Boston twice before, in the em- ploy of Shirley, before he came to the town as governor (August 3, 1757), and he really had an intelligent idea of the underlying causes of the then smouldering American resentment. To be sure, he stood calmly and firmly for the pre- rogative of the king; but he appears to have divined tendencies, already at work, towards throwing off the yoke of royalty. At his own request, he was recalled, after a short term of service, and it so happened that from 1768- 1780 he was a member of Parliament. Thus he was able to use, in our behalf, the experi- ence he had gained while here. But his advice and protests were not regarded in England and he lived to see us take a place among the nations in fulfilment of his own prophecies. After Pownall had sailed back to England 336 St. Botolph's Town (June 3, 1760) Thomas Hutchinson, the lieu- tenant-governor, had a chance to try his hand at the helm. To relieve him there soon came Sir Francis Bernard, who seems to have been, personally, a very delightful gentleman, but who, as the king's representative, had a most unhappy time of it while in Boston. Before his appointment to Massachusetts Bernard had been the successful administrator of affairs in New Jersey and he had high hopes, therefore, of getting on well with the Puritans. Writing to Lord Barrington of the matter he said, ' ' As for the people, I am assured that I may depend upon a quiet and easy administration. I shall have no points of government to dispute about, no schemes of self-interest to pursue. The people are well disposed to live upon good terms with the Governor and with one another ; and I hope I may not want to be directed by a junto or supported by a party; and that I shall find there, as I have done here, that plain- dealing, integrity and disinterestedness make the best system of policy." This optimistic vision was destined speedily to be dispelled by the facts. Though he was met, near Dedham, on his journey from New Jersey, by a number of gentlemen in " coaches and chariots," the new governor had hardly SIR FRANCIS BKRN'AKD The Dawn of Active Resistance 337 reached the seat of his province when things began to look blue for him. In his first speech to the Assembly (which came immediately after the fall of Montreal), he maladroitly put his hearers in mind of the blessings they de- rived from their " subjection to Great Britain, without which they could not now have been a free people; for no other power on earth could have delivered them from the power they had to contend with." Hutchinson, in his nar- rative of this and succeeding events relates that " the Council, in their address, acknowl- edge that to their relation to Great Britain they owe their present freedom. . . . The House, without scrupling to make in express words the acknowledgement of their subjec- tion, nevertheless explain the nature of it. They are ' sensible of the blessings derived to the British Colonies from their subjection to Great Britain; and the whole world must be sensible of the blessings derived to Great Brit- ain from the loyalty of the Colonies in gen- eral, and for the efforts of this province in particular; which, for more than a century past, has been wading in blood and laden with the expenses of repelling the common enemy; without which effort Great Britain, at this day, might have had no Colonies to defend.' " 338 St. Botolph's Town The truth was that gratitude to Great Brit- ain was an emotion very remote, just then, from the mind of Boston. For two enactments of long standing, — but which, from disuse, had not hitherto been oppressive, — were now being very unpleasantly brought home to the people. The Navigation Act of Charles II and the Sugar Act of 1733 had been far from ac- ceptable to the New Englanders, but so long as there seemed slight disposition to enforce these statutes nobody minded them much. Then Pitt fell, and there came into power new men who were only creatures of the young king (George III), — and an era of experimen- tation, so far as the colonies was concerned, was immediately inaugurated. Governor Bernard was especially instructed to see that the decrees of the English Board of Trade in regard to the collection of duties and the restriction of commerce were enforced. He therefore ranged himself with Hutchinson and Charles Paxton when there came a question of assisting customs officers in the execution of their duty. Hutchinson, as it happened, was Chief-justice of the superior court as well as lieutenant-governor, and it was, therefore, within his power to issue what came to be known as the Writs of Assistance, permits by JAMES OTIS The Dawn of Active Resistance 339 means of which officers could forcibly enter dwelling-houses, stores and warehouses in search of goods which they believed, rightly or wrongly, to be smuggled. Charles Paxton, head of the Boston Custom House, who insti- gated the granting of these writs, was hung in effigy from the Boston Liberty Tree as a sign of the hatred his act inspired in the people. James Otis, on the other hand, a part of whose duty as advocate-general it would have been to support the cause of the customs officers, resigned his position under the Crown and en- gaged himself to argue, for the suffering mer- chants of Boston, against the legality of the writs! Thus there stepped upon the stage of the world's history, for the first time, one of the most brilliant men America has ever produced. The scene of the now-famous trial, in which Otis played so important a part, was the coun- cil-chamber of the Old Boston Town House, an imposing and elegant apartment at the east end of the building, ornamented with fine full- length portraits of Charles II and James II. Hutchinson presided and there were also in attendance four associate judges, wearing great wigs on their heads and rich scarlet robes upon their backs. Thronging the court- 340 St. Botolph's Town room were the chief citizens and officers of the Crown, all of whom well understood that a mat- ter of enormous importance was to be debated. Among the young lawyers who were present on that important day was John Adams, a fresh-faced youth who had come up from his home in Braintree to hear what should be said. In his old age he wrote to William Tudor a description of the scene, which brings vividly before us the actors and the parts they took: " Round a great fire were seated five judges, with Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson at their head as Chief-Justice, all arrayed in their new fresh rich robes of scarlet English broadcloth; in their large cambric bands and immense judi- cial wigs. At a long table were all the barris- ters-at-law of Boston and of the neighboring county of Middlesex, in gowns, bands and tie- wigs. They were not seated on ivory chairs, but their dress was more solemn and more pompous than that of the Roman senate, when the Gauls broke in upon them. Two portraits of more than full length of King Charles the Second and of King James the Second, in splendid golden frames were hung up on the most conspicuous sides of the apartment. If my young eyes or old memory have not de- ceived me, these were as fine pictures as I ever The Dawn of Active Resistance 341 saw; . . . they had been sent over without frames in Governor PownalPs time, but he was no admirer of Charles or James. The pictures were stowed away in a garret among rubbish until Governor Bernard came, who had them cleaned, superbly framed and placed in council for the admiration and imitation of all men, no doubt with the advice and concurrence of Hutchinson and all his nebula of stars and sat- ellites." The case was opened by Jeremiah Gridley, the king's attorney, who defended the validity of the writs on statute law and English prac- tice. To which Oxenbridge Thacher replied in a strong legal argument which showed that the rule in English courts did not apply to Amer- ica. Then the Advocate of Freedom began to speak, confounding all his opponents by the splendour of his eloquence. " Otis," says John Adams, " was a flame of fire. With a plenitude of classical allusions, a depth of research, a rapid summary of his- torical events and dates, a profusion of legal authorities, a prophetic glance of his eye into futurity, and a torrent of impetuous eloquence, he hurried away everything before him! . . . Every man of a crowded audience appeared to me to go away, as I did, ready to take arms 342 St. Botolph's Town against writs of assistance. Then and there was the first scene of the first act of opposition to the arbitrary claims of Great Britain. Then and there the child Independence was born! " For Otis had made a passionate appeal on the ground of human rights. He had said that the writs of assistance were instruments of slavery and villainy, and that he was standing there on behalf of English liberties. He de- clared that a man's house was his castle and that this writ destroyed the sacred privilege of domestic privacy. Thus for four hours he poured out a stream of eloquence which, if it did not avail to convince the Court (who ulti- mately sustained the legality of the writs), served admirably to bring home to the Boston people the rank iniquity of taxation without representation. The fight was on ! Governor Bernard did not appreciate this fact, though, and when he opened the legisla- ture, the following autumn, was once more sin- gularly unhappy in his choice of speech-making material. For he now recommended the mem- bers to " give no attention to declamations tending to promote a suspicion that the civil rights of the people were in danger." Otis had just been elected a member of the body, and it was, of course, recognized that these words The Dawn of Active Resistance 343 were aimed at him. The representatives re- plied to them with scarcely concealed resent- ment. Speedily, too, Governor Bernard found out that he would have to be very circumspect in order to avoid the adverse criticism of this clever lawyer to whom he had thrown down the gauntlet. In the summer of 1762, during a recess in the sessions of the legislature, Governor Ber- nard, with the approval of the Council, ex- pended a comparatively trifling sum in fitting out a vessel with which to quiet the fears of Boston merchants who wished protection from the French for their fishing-boats off New- foundland. Instantly opponents of the admin- istration remonstrated against his " unwar- ranted outlay." The protest came through a committee of the legislature of which Otis was chairman! In the remonstrance it was said that " no necessity can be sufficient to justify the House of Representatives in giving up such a privilege ; for it would be of little con- sequence to the people whether they were sub- ject to George or Lewis, the king of Great Britain or the French king, if both were arbi- trary, as both would be if both could levy taxes without a parliament." When this passage was read out, a member cried " Treason! 344 St. Botolph's Town treason! " in much the same way that it was cried against Patrick Henry, three years later. Yet it was only with considerable difficulty that the governor prevailed upon the House to ex- punge the passage in which the king's name had been so disloyally introduced. Poor Fran- cis Bernard! Well must he have understood, by this time, that Massachusetts was to give him anything but " a quiet and easy admin- istration! " Yet if his official path was not always smooth, Governor Bernard was made very happy in his home life and in his social intercourse. He had three residences, one in Jamaica Plain, one at " Castle William " and one, of course, in the Province House. His youngest daugh- ter, Julia, who was a baby when the family moved from New Jersey to Massachusetts, afterwards wrote down, for the information of her descendants, her recollections of Boston in her girlhood and the resulting manuscript is freely quoted in " The Bernards of Abington and Nether Winchendon " by Mrs. Napier Higgins. From that delightful work I repro- duce by permission: " During the hot months we resided at the beautiful spot, Castle Will- iam [Castle Island], a high hill rising out of the sea in the harbor of Boston, where a The Dawn of Active Resistance 345 residence was always ready for the Governor, a twelve-oared barge always at call to convey him backwards and forwards. . . . " My first recollections were of the large Government House, with a great number of servants, some black slaves and some white free servants; a peculiar state of intercourse with the inhabitants, everybody coming to us and we going to nobody, a public day once a week, a dinner for gentlemen, and a drawing- room in the afternoon when all persons of either sex who wished to pay their respects were introduced, various refreshments handed about, and some cards, I can remember. We had a man cook, a black, who afterwards came to England with us. My Father had a country house also a few miles from Boston. . . . " The cold in winter was intense, but calm and certain ; it set in early in November, and continued — a hard frost, the ground covered with snow — till perhaps the end of March, when a rapid spring brought in a very hot sum- mer. During the winter all carriages were taken off the wheels and put upon runners, that is — sledges ; and this is the time they choose of all others for long journeys and ex- cursions of pleasure. It was a common thing to say to a friend: ' Yours are bad roads; I'll 346 St. Botolph's Town come and see you as soon as the snow and frost set in.' The travelling is then done with a rapidity and stillness which makes it necessary for the horses to have bells on their heads; and the music, cheerfulness and bustle of a bright winter's day were truly amusing and interesting. Open sledges, with perhaps twenty persons, all gay and merry, going about the country on parties of pleasure, rendered the winter a more animated scene than the hot summers present." Concerning the house at Jamaica Plain Miss Bernard wrote that it was built chiefly by her father himself and that " there was a consid- erable range of ground, and a small lake [of] about one hundred acres attached to it with a boat on it. . . . This was called Jamaica Pond. To this residence we generally moved in May, I think, and here we enjoyed ourselves ex- tremely. My Father was always on the wing on account of his situation. He had his own carriage and servants, my mother hers; there was a town coach and a whiskey for the young men to drive about." Governor Bernard's personal appearance is thus described by his daughter : ' ' My Father, though not tall, had something dignified and distinguished in his manner; he dressed su- The Dawn of Active Resistance 347 perbly on all public occasions." Of her mother she adds that she was tall and that " her dresses were ornamented with gold and silver, ermine and fine American sable." Miss Ber- nard tells us also that her father was musical and sometimes wrote both tune and words for a song he and his friends would after enjoy together. His was the age of toasts and it is interesting to know that the bitterly-hated royal governor originated the following amia- ble sentiment: " Here's a health to all those that we love, Here's a health to all those that love us ; Here's a health to all those that love them that love those That love them that love those that love us." Events in the mother country were now ta- king place, however, which were bound to make Massachusetts people hate the royal governor, no matter how engaging that functionary might be in his private capacity. Charles Townshend had been made first Lord of Trade in England and secretary of the colonies. He proposed to grasp and execute absolute power of taxation. Whereupon George Grenville came to the front and planned a colonial stamp act designed to pay the expenses of the British army! Nat- urally the colonists protested. Yet it was not 348 St. Botolph's Town so much, now or at any time, unwillingness to pay their part of England's current expenses as unwillingness to help support a government in which they were not represented that we should see in ensuing events. " It was not the taxation of the Stamp Act that alarmed them, but the principle involved in it. ' ' In this " strike " of the Bostonians as in many a strike since there were — unfortu- nately — outbreaks of mob violence as well as calm and effective opposition. And the very men who condemned unlawful measures were credited, just as they often are to-day in sim- ilar circumstances, with " standing for " the particular measure involved. Hutchinson fa- voured neither the Stamp Act nor the Sugar Act. He believed that the government, whose loyal servant he tried faithfully to be, was making a great mistake in instituting such measures in the colonies. But he regarded with the utmost horror what he saw to be a growing tendency towards revolt from the mother- country. His whole attitude in this matter is expressed in a quotation which he selected as the title-page motto of his " History of the Eevolt of the Colonies : "I have nourished children and brought them up and even they have revolted from me " (Isaiah). In other The Dawn of Active Resistance 349 words lie was a Loyalist in every drop of his blood. Nobody, however, except Samuel Adams, looked with favour upon revolt at this stage of the game. What Otis and Franklin desired was Parliamentary representation for the colo- nies. But the redoubtable Adams had for twenty years been thinking along revolutionary lines. When he was graduated from Harvard he had taken for the subject of his master's thesis the question, " "Whether it Be lawful to Resist the Supreme Magistrate, if the Com- monwealth Cannot Otherwise Be Preserved? " and from this beginning he had followed a methodical scheme of advance in pursuance of which such men as Otis, John Adams, Dr. Jo- seph Warren and John Hancock were enlisted as his co-workers. Hutchinson had had the misfortune to re- ceive an office which James Otis had wished given to his father and he never recovered from the idea that all the Otis opposition was based upon personal resentment. Otis, on the other hand, was firmly persuaded that Hutch- inson was a rapacious seeker of power and so failed, on his part, to do justice to a strong and commanding personality glad of much work to do because conscious of ability to do 350 St. Botolph's Town it. That the brilliant young orator had a great principle on his side when he asserted, again and again, that judicial and executive power should not be invested in the same person we of to-day clearly recognize. But Montesquieu's doctrines are now well-established where he was then an author known in America only to Otis and a few choice others. So, though Hutchinson was conscious of no offence in ful- filling at one and the same time the functions of lieutenant-governor, president of the Coun- cil, chief justice and judge of probate, Otis could and did make capital out of his Pooh- Bah-like personality. The result was that poor Hutchinson, as we shall see, had to pay very dearly for his honours. The hated Stamp Act received the king's sanction March 22, 1765, and the news of it arrived in Boston on the twenty-sixth of the following May. The act was not to be opera- tive until the following November, however, so the people had five months in which to resent its enaction and plan their modes of resistance. The office of distributor of stamps was accepted by Andrew Oliver; he was promptly hung in effigy from the branches of the Liberty Tree. Later, on that memorable fourteenth of Au- gust, the effigy was burned in view of Mr. Oli- THE OLD STATIC HOUSE The Dawn of Active Resistance 351 ver's residence and he himself was set upon by the crowd. The next day he resigned. It began to be seen that there would be no great demand for the stamps. Yet business could not go legally on without them. Vessels could not enter or go out of a harbour without stamped papers, colleges could not grant their degrees, marriages could not be made legal, and newspapers and almanacs would require this " mark of slavery " ere they could cir- culate undisturbed. While feeling was at fever heat a sermon preached against violence was interpreted by a half-drunken mob, who seem to have heard only rumours of it, as urging people forcibly to resent the Stamp Act. And then there fol- lowed what is, without exception, the most dis- graceful scene in Boston's history, the out- rageous pillaging of an official's house by a mob frenzied with liquor. The story as told by the victim in his Autobiography is not a bit too prejudiced to be reproduced as narra- tive here : " To Richard Jackson " Boston, Aug. 30, 1765. 1 ' My dear Sir, — I came from my house at Milton, the 26th in the morning. After dinner 352 St. Botolph's Town it was whispered in town there would be a mob at night, and that Paxton, Hallowell, the cus- tom-house, and admiralty officers' houses would be attacked; but my friends assured me that the rabble were satisfied with the insult I had received and that I was become rather popular. In the evening, whilst I was at sup- per and my children round me, somebody ran in and said the mob were coming. I directed my children to fly to a secure place and shut up my house as I had done before, intending not to quit it ; but my eldest daughter repented her leaving me, hastened back, and protested she would not quit the house unless I did. I couldn't stand against this and withdrew, with her, to a neighboring house, where I had been but a few minutes before the hellish crew fell upon my house with the rage of devils and in a moment with axes split down the doors and entered. My son, being in the great entry, heard them cry: ' Damn him, he is upstairs, we'll have him.' Some ran immediately as high as the top of the house, others filled the rooms below and cellars, and others remained without the house to be employed there. " Messages soon came, one after another to the house where I was, to inform me the mob were coming in pursuit of me, and I was The Dawn of Active Resistance 353 obliged to retire through yards and gardens to a house more remote where I remained until four o'clock by which time one of the best fin- ished houses in the Province had nothing re- maining but the bare walls and floors. Not contented with tearing off all the wainscot and hangings, and splitting the doors to pieces, they beat down the partition walls ; and though that alone cost them near two hours they cut down the cupola or lanthorn, and they began to take the slate and boards from the roof, and were prevented only by the approaching daylight from a total demolition of the building. The garden-house was laid flat and all my trees etc broke down to the ground. " Such ruin was never seen in America. Be- sides my plate and family pictures, household furniture of every kind, my own my children's and servants' apparel, they carried off about £900 in money, and emptied the house of every- thing whatsoever, except a part of the kitchen furniture, not leaving a single book or paper in it, and have scattered and destroyed all the manuscripts and other papers I had been col- lecting for thirty years together, besides a great number of public papers in my custody. " The evening being warm I had undressed me and put on a thin camlet surtout over my 354 St. Botolph's Town waistcoat. The next morning, the weather be- ing changed, I had not clothes enough in my possession to defend me from the cold, and was obliged to borrow from my friends. Many articles of clothing and a good deal of my plate have since been picked up in different quarters of the town, but the furniture in general was cut to pieces before it was thrown out of the house, and most of the beds cut open and the feathers thrown out of the windows. The next evening I intended with my children to Milton, but meeting two or three small parties of the ruffians, who I suppose had concealed them- selves in the country, and my coachman hear- ing one of them say, ' There he is ! ' my daugh- ters were terrified and said they should never be safe, and I was forced to shelter them that night at the Castle. " The encouragers of the first mob never intended matters should go this length, and the people in general expressed the utmost detes- tation of this unparalleled outrage, and I wish they could be convinced what infinite hazard there is of the most terrible consequence from such demons, when they are let loose in a gov- ernment where there is not constant authority at hand sufficient to suppress them. I am told the government here will make me a compen- The Dawn of Active Resistance 355 sation for my own and my family's loss, which I think cannot he much less than £3000 sterling. I am not sure that they will. If they should not it will be too heavy for me, and I must humbly apply to his majesty in whose service I am a sufferer; but this and a much greater sum would be an insufficient compensation for the constant distress and anxiety of mind I have felt for some time past and must feel for months to come. You cannot conceive the wretched state we are in. Such is the resent- ment of the people against the Stamp Duty, that there can be no dependence upon the Gen- eral Court to take any steps to enforce, or rather advise to the payment of it. On the other hand, such will be the effects of not sub- mitting to it, that all trade must cease, all courts fall, and all authority be at an end. ..." The picture made in court, the day following the riot, by the stripped Chief Justice was a very pathetic one if we may trust the Diary of Josiah Quincy. The persecuted king's of- ficer, clad in tattered and insufficient garments, then protested in language which can leave no doubt as to his sincerity, " I call my Maker to witness that I never, in New England or Old, in Great Britain or America, neither directly 356 St. Botolph's Town nor indirectly was aiding assisting or support- ing, — in the least promoting or encouraging, — what is commonly called the Stamp Act; but, on the contrary, did all in my power and strove as much as in me lay to prevent it." The mob violence visited upon Hutchinson was, of course, abhorred by Adams and by the soberer inhabitants generally. At a meeting held in Faneuil Hall a unanimous vote was passed calling upon the selectmen to suppress such disorders in the future. Hutchinson, how- ever, states grimly that many of the immedi- ate actors in the orgies of the night before were present at this meeting! The Stamp Act itself was, of course, roundly denounced on this occa- sion, notable as one of the first through which this fine old landmark came to be identified with the cause of liberty. The original building given by Peter Faneuil in 1740 to be a market- house and town-hall had burned in 1761, but the edifice had been rebuilt the following year, and it was, therefore, in the hall substantially as we know it to-day (though the place was enlarged in 1805), that Liberty first found it- self. The beautiful mansion-house of the hall's donor stood on what is now Tremont street, opposite the King's Chapel Burial-ground. As was to be expected no stamps were sold PETER FANEUII, S HOUSE The Dawn of Active Resistance 357 when November first dawned. The ports were closed, vessels could not sail, business was suspended. The news of all this naturally penetrated speedily to England, where Pitt soon stood up in Parliament and declared that he " rejoiced that America had resisted." In May accordingly there came to Boston news of the Act's repeal and every one was so glad of this tidings that no attention was paid to the Declaratory Act accompanying the revocation, an act of enormous importance, however, in that it maintained the Supremacy of Parlia- ment in all cases whatsoever not only in the matter of taxation but in that of legislation in general. It was in the train of this permissory measure that there followed the first steps of active revolution. For Samuel Adams had now been joined in the Assembly by John Hancock (who, through the death of his uncle, had just come into the largest property in the Province, and was beginning to visit with particular as- siduity the daughter of Edmund Quincy, now a blooming girl of nineteen). Confronting these distinguished " patriots," as they soon came to be called, were Bernard, Hutchinson and the Olivers, henceforward widely branded by their enemies as " Tories." From this time on the influence of the chief 358 St. Botolph's Town town in the province grows, day by day, to be more and more important. In a speech deliv- ered in Parliament by Colonel Barre, one of the staunch friends of Massachusetts, the Bostoni- ans were characterized as " Sons of Liberty," and this name was soon adopted by a society comprising about three hundred active patri- ots, many of whom were mechanics and labour- ing men. The public gatherings of the society were held in the open space around the Liberty Tree, and Samuel Adams was the leading spirit of all that went on there and in the private ses- sions of the club. Both he and Otis encouraged the people to celebrations on anniversary days of significance in the development of the Revo- lutionary idea, and at these gatherings and the dinners which followed them Bernard and his colleagues were invariably stigmatized as ca- lumniators of North America and now and then pronounced worthy of " strong halters, firm blocks and sharp axes." The people now saw clearly that they had really gained nothing by the repeal of the Stamp Act inasmuch as this hated measure had only given place to Townshend's Bill, so-called, a measure levying duty on glass, paper, paint- ers' colours and tea. In the excitement fol- lowing the announcement of this bill's passage SAMUEL ADAMS The Dawn of Active Resistance 359 Governor Bernard returned to England and the duties of his office were assumed by his lieutenant-governor, Hutchinson, — the great- great-grandson of that strong-minded woman whom Massachusetts had cast out a century and a quarter earlier, and who was himself des- tined to be cast out, also. The manner of his expulsion and the violent scenes of which it was a part belongs properly to the revolution- ary period of Boston's history, however, rather than to this present volume. We may well enough, therefore, close our book with an order sent by Hutchinson to his London tailor for clothes which he very likely had by him and often wore in the troublous times of the Mas- sacre and the Tea-Party: " October 6, 1769. To Mr. Peter Leitch: I desire to have you send me a blue cloth waistcoat trimmed with the same colour, lined, the skirts and facings with effigeen, and the body linnen to match the last blue cloath I had from you : — two under waistcoats or camisols of warm swansdown, without sleeves, faced with some cheap silk or shagg. A suit of Cloathes full-trimmed, the cloath something like the enclosed only more of a gray mixture, gold button and hole, but little wadding lined with effigeen. I like a wrought or flowered or embroidered hole, 360 St. Botolph's Town something, though not exactly, like the hole upon the cloaths of which the pattern is en- closed ; or, if frogs are worn, I think they look well on the coat; but if it be quite irregular I would have neither one nor the other, but such a hole and button as are worn. I know a laced coat is more the mode but this is too gay for me. A pair of worsted breeches to match the colour, and a pair of black velvet breeches and breeches with leather linings. Let them come by the first ship. ..." Hutchinson, though fifty-nine, and the head of a contumacious people, evidently had a care to his personal appearance! In other words he possessed the most important qualification of a royal governor in the Brocade Age. THE END. INDEX Adams, Brooks, 165. Adams, Charles Francis, 61. Adams, John, 340. Adams, Samuel, 349, 357, 358. Addington, Joshua, 190. Adrianople, 122. Albermarle, Duke of, 195, 196. Amsden, Jacob, 271. Andros, Sir Edmund, 178, 179, 182, 184, 185, 187, 191, 192, 300. Annesley, Rev. Samuel, 141, 160, 261. Appleton, William, 61. Austin, Ann, 122. Bancroft, George, 61. Barre, Colonel, 358. Barrington, Lord, 336. Belcher, Jonathan, 283, 307, 311. Bellingham, Richard, 123, 265. Bellomont, Earl of, 152, 284, 291, 292. Bennett, 314. Bernard, Sir Francis, 336-347, 359. Blackstone, William, 8, 9, 38, 39, 40, 295. Boston Common, 295, 314. Boylston, Dr. Zabdiel, 301. Bradford, Gov., 8, 10, 50. Bradstreet, Simon, 135, 137, 145, 175, 189, 258, 262. Brattle Street Church, 300, 301. Brattle, Thomas, 300. Brewster, Margaret, 125, 127, 128. Brimmer, Martin, 61. British Coffee House, 316. Brocker, William, 247. Browne, Kellam, 15. Browne, William, 190. Bunch of Grapes Tavern, 303, 334. Buckingham, 6, 7. Buffum, Joshua, 132. Bullivant, Dr., 152, 188. Burgess, Col. Elisha, 296. Burgoyne, General, 331. Burnet, William, 303, 305, 306, 334. Burroughs, Francis, 144. Byles, Rev. Mather, 303, 307. Bynner, Edwin L., 45, 288. Cabot, John, 2. Cabot, Sebastian, 2. Calvin, John, 57. Cambridge Agreement, The, 13, 14, 15. Campbell. John, 246, 247. Carlyle, Thomas, 41. Castle Island, 344. Chamberlain. Rev. N. H., 265. Champlain, 91. Charles I, 12. Charles II, 85, 134. 174. Charlestown, 37, 52. 206. Cheever, Ezekiel, 167, 168. Chesterfield, Earl of. 312. Chichester, William, 124. 361 362 Index Christ Church, 328. Coddington, 117. Colbron, William, 15. Colman, Benjamin, 301. Columbus, Christopher, 2. Conant, Roger, 11. Cooke, Elisha, 190. Copeland, John, 136. Copley, John Singleton, 316. Cotton, Rev. John, 40, 41, 43, 55,67,95, 111, 112, 113, 115, 116, 117, 121, 134, 137, 165. Cotton, Rowland, 56. Coventry, 257. Cradock, Matthew, 12, 13. Cromwell, Captain, 105. Cromwell, Oliver, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82. Cromwell, Richard, 82, 84, 85. Cutler, Dr. Timothy, 328. Danforth, Thomas, 190. Dankers, Jasper, 138. D'Aulnay Charnissay, 89, 92, 94, 95, 100, 102, 103, 104. Daye, Stephen, 223. Defoe, Daniel, 141. De Monts, 91. Dennison, Mrs. Dorothy, 275- 281. Dennison, William, 275. De Razilly, Claude, 92. Dorset, Earl of, 58. Douglas, Dr. William, 302. Drew, John, 331. Dudley, Joseph, 144, 173, 175, 177, 178, 192, 230, 232, 292, 294, 301. Dudley, Paul, 265, 267, 268. Dudley, Thomas, 15, 17, 48, 49, 56, 63, 73, 110. Dummer, William, 256, 302, 308. Dunster, Elizabeth, 222. Dunster, Henry, 120, 207, 222, 223. " Dunster's Rules," 208-213. Dunton, John, 138-164. Dyer, G., 299. Dyer, Mary, 128. Edwards, Rev. Jonathan, 309. Eliot, Rev. John, 161, 171. Ellis, George E., 304. Elizabeth, Queen of England, 6. Endicott, Gov., 11, 12, 35, 72, 99, 129, 130, 178. Essex, Earl of, 6. Everett, Edward, 59, 61. Fairweather, Captain, 191. Faneuil Hall, 356. Faneuil, Peter, 356. Fisher, Mary, 122, 123, 125. Fort Lomeron, 92. Fort La Tour, 92. Fort Sewall, 317. Foster, John, 190. Fountain Inn, 316. Fox, George, 136, 137. Frankland, Sir Charles Harry, 311-333. Frankland, Sir Thomas, 312, 319. Franklin, Benjamin, 233, 238, 240 251. Franklin, James, 247, 251 Franklin, Josiah, 237, 240, 254. Frothingham, Langdon, 61. Frothingham's " History of Charlestown," 39. Gallop, John, 47. Gedney, Bartholomew, 190. George I, 273. George III, 338. Gibbons, Capt. Edward, 89, 103. Gilman, Arthur, 306. Glover, Rev. Joseph, 222. Goffe, Deputy, 13. Goodwin, John, 198. Gorges, Sir Ferdinando, 1, 6, 7, 11. Gorges, Robert, 1, 8, 38, 174. Governor's Island, 90, 158. Grand Vizier, 122. Index 363 Gray, John Chipman, 61. Green Dragon Tavern, 273. Green, Samuel, 152. Greenough, Thomas, 325. Greenwich, 6, 7. Grenville, George, 347. Gridley, Jeremiah, 341. Groton, Eng., 24. Hale, Rev. Edward Everett, > 272. Hallam's " History of Eng- land," 77. Hancock, Dorothy, 326, 357. Hancock, John, 349, 357. Harvard College, 120, 140, 151, 186, 205-232, 318. Harvard, Rev. John, 159, 206. Haugh, Atherton, 263. Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 41, 43, 45, 115, 122, 259, 286. Haynes, John, 63. Hemans, Mrs., 108. Henry, Patrick, 344. Higgins, Mrs. Napier, 344. Hollis street church, 307. Holyoke, Rev. Edward, 318. Hopkinton (Mass.), 320. Hull, Capt, John, 234, 258, 262. Humfry, John, 15, 52. Hutchinson, Anne, 68, 110, 111, 114, 117, 118. Hutchinson, Thomas, 152, 198, 308, 336, 337, 338, 339, 348, 349, 350, 359. Hutchinson, William, 112. Indian Meeting-House, 270. Ingelow, Jean, 44. " Ipswich letter," 99. Jackson, Richard, 351. Jamaica Pond, 346. James I, 7, 65. James II, 185, 187, 195. Jekyl, John, 311. Johnson, Lady Arbella, 34, 38. Johnson, Isaac, 15. Kidd, Captain, 291. King's Chapel, 184, 292, 310, 311. Knight, Madame, 138. Lafayette, 64. La Tour, Charles, 89-107. Laud, Archbishop, 13, 66, 182. Lawrence, Abbott, 61. Lawrence, Col. T. B., 62. Leitch, Peter, 359. Leverett, John, 127, 137, 230. Ley, Lord James. 69, 70. Liberty Tree, 339, 350,358. Lincoln, Countess of, 35, 48. Lodge, Henry Cabot, 176. Long Island Historical Society, 139. Lowell, John Amory, 61. Ludlow, Roger, 51. Lynde, Benjamin, 308. Marbury, Francis, 111. Mather, Rev. Cotton, 38, 151, 167, 168, 170, 171, 185, 192, 197, 200, 201, 202, 205, 228, 270, 301, 302. Mather, Rev. Increase, 151, 166, 167, 168, 185, 192, 196, 205, 222, 224, 227, 261, 274, 297, 302. Mather, Rev. Richard, 165. Maverick, Samuel, 8, 70. Medford, 12. Merry Mount, 10. Molesworth, Captain Pon- sonby, 334. Monk, George, 152. Monk, Gen. George, 85. Moody, Rev. Joshua, 152. Morgan, James, 152, 157. Morrell, Rev. William, 8, 9. Navigation Act, 338. Nason. Rev. Elias, 312. " New England Courant," 247, 251. 364 Index Norton, Rev. John, 133, 134, 135, 137, 183. Norton, Thomas, 9, 10, 11. Newbury, 258. Nicholson, Francis, 301. Noddle's Island, 70. Nowell Increase, 15. Oakes, President, 170. " Old Feather Store," 235. Old Granary Burying Ground, 282 " Old New England Churches," 127 183 282 " Old New' England Inns," 22, 69, 125, 138, 150, 307, 333. " Old New England Roof- Trees," 197, 324. Old South Church, 127, 177, 183, 202, 259. Oliver, Andrew, 350. Otis, James, 338, 349. Otway's " Orphan," 316. Paddock, Major Adino, 296. Parkman, Francis, 94. Partridge, Lieut.-Gov. Will- iam, 309. Paxton, Charles, 338, 339. Pepys, Samuel, 87, 255. Peters, Hugh, 63, 116. Phillips, Col., 173. Phillips, Jonathan, 61. Phips, Lady, 201, 285. Phips, Sir William, 193, 195, 196, 203. Phipps, Hon. Spencer, 308. Pitt, William, 357. Plymouth, Mass., 7. Pontgrave. 91. Pope, 290. Popham, Sir John, 7. Port Royal, 91, 93, 94, 101, 102, 106, 196. Poutrincourt, 91. Pownall, Governor, 334, 335, 341. Pratt House, Chelsea, 186. Price, Rev. Roger, 321. Province House, 285, 287, 288, 344, 345. Pynchon, William, 15, 17. Quakers, 122, 124, 125, 129, 133, 134, 135, 136, 147. Queen Anne, 272, 294. Quincy, Dorothy, 326, 357. Quincy, Edmund, 308, 326, 357. Quincy, Josiah, 208, 355. Raleigh, Sir Walter, 1, 6. Randolph, Edward, 173, 174, 182. Ratcliffe, Rev. Robert, 158, 184. Remington, Judge, 310. Richards, John, 190. Robinson, William, 128. Royal Exchange, 333. Ryece, Robert, 27. St. John, N. B., 92. Salem, 11. Salter, Thomas, 302. Saltonstall, Richard, 15, 17, 134. Scudder, Horace E., 314. Sergeant, Peter, 190, 285. Sewall, Joseph, 258. Sewall, Henry, 257. Sewall, Samuel, 171, 177, 178, 180, 183, 187, 201, 202, 229, 255-282. Sewall's Diary, 125, 138, 167, 173, 176, 182, 183, 225, 228, 230. Sewel, 123, 135. Sharpe, Thomas, 15. Shattock, Samuel, 132. Shawmut, 9, 38. Sheafe, Susanna, 334. Shelter Island, 132. Shirley, William, 311, 312. Shrimpton, Samuel, 190. Shute, Col. Samuel, 296. Sluyter, Peter, 138. Smith, John, 1, 4. Index 365 " Sons of Liberty," 358. Southwick, Cassandra, 128, 129, 132. Southwick, Daniel, 129, 132. Southwick, Josiah, 128, 129. Southwick, Lawrence, 128, 129, 132. Southwick, Provided, 129, 132. Sparks, Jared, 61. Stamp Act, 348, 349, 350, 355, 350, 357. Standish, Miles, 1. Steele, Sir Richard, 293. Stepney, 269. Stevenson, Marmaduke, 128. Stevenson, Robert Louis, 195. Stoughton, William, 144, 190, 193, 201, 202, 203, 264, 292. Stoughton, Israel, 51. Strafford, Earl of, 13, 76. Sugar Act, 338. Surriage, Agnes, 316-332. Swan, Mrs. S. H., 326. Thacher, Oxenbridge, 341. Thaver, John Eliot, 61. Townsheml's Bill, 358. Townshend, Charles, 347. Trumbull, 316. Tudor, Frederick, 61. Tudor, William, 340. Tyndal, Sir John, 24. Upham, Charles Wentworth, 64. Upshall, Nicholas, 124, 125. Usher, John, 146. Vagabond Act, 125. Vardy, Luke, 333. Vane, Sir Harry, 63-88, 101, 113, 117, 260. Vassal!, William, 15. Walter, Abijah, 277, 280. Ward, Edward, 289. Warren, John Collins, 61. Warren, Dr. Joseph, 349. Waterhouse, David, 190. Wayside Inn, 324. Welde, Rev. Thomas, 111. Wendell, Barrett, 167. Wesley, John, 141. West, Nicholas, 15. Weston, Thomas, 1, 7. W 7 eymouth, 1, 7, 8. Wheeler, Sir Francis, 298. Wheelright, Rev. John, 74, 112, 117. White, John, 11. Whittier, 126, 129. Willard, Samuel, 227, 228, 230. Williams, Roger, 37, 118, 119, 120, 133. Willis, Edward, 144. Wilkins, Comfort, 153, 158. Wilkins, Richard, 144. Wilson, Rev. John, 37, 48, 122, 134. Winslow, John, 187. Winthrop, Adam, 19. Winthrop, Anne, 19, 20. Winthrop, Deane, 263. Winthrop, John, 15, 16, 18, 21, 22, 26, 27, 30, 34, 36, 38, 40, 49, 51, 55, 58, 67, 69, 89, 95, 98, 99, 112, 118, 175, 205, 295. Winthrop, John, Jr., 29. Winthrop, Margaret, 18, 21, 24, 30, 50. Winthrop, Mercy, 263. Winthrop, Robert C, 32. Winthrop, Stephen, 101. Winthrop, Wait, 190. Wollaston, Captain, 9, 10. Writs of Assistance, 338. 3g»i UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. NO PHONE RENEWALS 01 or \9& S.MeMAnut '."At*' w 3 1158 01141 6590 w CnOtC3rH)nt_l. 00 ! 1 03 325 7 Old&tffon in JIBlgiil [i]ffl © 1(1] liHI