DECEMBER MEETING, 1895.

A Stated Meeting of the Society was held in the Hall of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences on Wednesday, 18 December, 1895, at three o’clock in the afternoon, the President in the chair.

The Records of the Annual Meeting having been read and approved, the Corresponding Secretary reported that he had received several letters from Librarians and the officers of Historical Societies in different parts of the country, expressing the wish to subscribe for our Publications.

Mr. Andrew McFarland Davis communicated for the consideration of the Society a copy of an indictment of two negroes, in 1742, for attempting to fight a duel on Boston Common with rapiers. One of the combatants is described as “labourer, servant;” the other as “labourer & servant or slave.” The challenge is set forth in the indictment, and the encounter of the combatants; but the event fades out in the assertion that they “did then and there attempt to fight a duel.” Mr. Davis stated that while the circumstances connected with this transaction could not be regarded as of much consequence, yet all information which led to an understanding of the life of those days would undoubtedly be welcomed by students of the times.

The Document75 is as follows: —

Suffolk ss. Att his Majesty’s Superiour Court of Judicature Court of Assize and General Goal Delivery begun & held at Boston in & for y^e County of Suffolke on y^e third tuesday of August in y^e sixteenth year of y^e Reign of our Sovereigne Lord George y^e Second of Great Brittain etc King Def^r of y^e Faith etc Anno q^e Domini seventeen hundred and forty two

The Jurors for our s^d Sovereigne Lord y^e King upon oath present that Caesar a Negroe of Boston in y^e County of Suffolke afores^d labourer servant to Sam^l Miller of said Boston Gunsmith on or about the sixteenth day of March last past att Boston in y^e County of Suffolke afores^d of his private malice and revenge did then and there challenge and provoke one Tom Negroe of Boston aforesd labourer & servant or slave of Daniel Bell of sd Boston Mason to fight a Duel with him at small sword who then & there accepted y^e aforesd challenge and y^e sd Tom negroe and Cesar negroe in consequence thereof in y^e Comon at Boston aforesd in y^e County of Suffolke aforesd Did then and there at y^e time last mentioned armed each of them with a Rapier or small sword of their private malice fury & revenge meet each other with force & arms did voluntarily engage in Rencountier with small sword to y^e manifest hazard of each of their lives, and did then & there with small sword voluntarily wickedly & maliciously attempt to fight a duel each with y^e other and armd as aforesd And so y^e said Jurors upon Oath say that y^e sd Tom and Cesar negroes with force as aforesd out of malice & their private revenge did challenge accept and attempt to fight a Duel with small sword each with the other to the hazard of their lives, in evil example to others & contrary to y^e peace Crowne & dignity of our sd Lord y^e King as alsoe to y^e Law in y^e case made & provided.

J. Overing Attorn

⅌ Dño Rege.

Billa vera Jos. Green Foreman

Witnesses

Mr Glover

Phillips Chamberlain

Mr Casno & Mr

Baxters Negroes

Mr Barkers Sam

Lives @ Captn Watts.

The two negroes gave bail, and the bonds are to be found in the Suffolk Court Files.76 Samuel Miller, gunsmith, and Thomas Pemberton, shopkeeper, entered into recognizance for £200 each for Cæsar; while Daniel Bell, bricklayer, and William Young, gentleman, were each held for the same amount for Tom. Mr. Davis stated that he had found no other trace of this case, either in the Files or on the Records of the Courts.

Mr. Henry Dwight Sedgwick read the following paper on —

ROBERT SEDGWICK.

Under many quaint and rugged spellings the cognomen of Sedgwick can be traced in the North of England as far back as 1379. In that year, and thenceforward for centuries, the family seat was in the dale of Dent, a picturesque village in the West Riding of Yorkshire, on the border of Westmoreland. Before the end of the sixteenth century, however, some of the family removed to Wisbech in the Isle of Ely, in Cambridgeshire, where they settled. By this branch, to which Robert Sedgwick appears to have belonged, was adopted the spelling of the family name which is retained to the present time. He was the son of William Sedgwick, a Warden of St. Mary’s Church at Woburn, in Bedfordshire, and was born in 1611. As appears by the Registers of the church, he was baptized there 6 May, 1613. His father’s marriage to Elizabeth Howe, 10 April, 1604, and burial, 25 July, 1632, are recorded in the same Registers.77 After some military training and other experiences, of which no details have reached us, but which tended to make of him a sturdy Independent in religion, Sedgwick flung himself, at the age of twenty-four, into that strong Puritan tide which was then setting to the congenial rocks of the New England shore.

On his arrival, in 1636, he was admitted (3 June) an Inhabitant of Charlestown, Massachusetts, then vigorously emulating the enterprise of its important neighbor Boston, and there he established himself as a merchant. Of the surname and previous history of his wife Johanna there is no known record. On the ninth of March, 1636–37, he was made a Freeman of the Colony, and chosen Captain for Charlestown. In the same year, and also in the years 1638–1644, 1648 and 1649, he was chosen a Deputy to the General Court. In 1643 he was one of the Selectmen of Charlestown, and throughout his residence in the town was influential in its affairs, and active in promoting the public weal. His house was in the Market Place on or near the present site of the Bunker Hill National Bank building.78

“The first Sergeant-Major chosen to order the regiment of Essex, was Major Robert Sedgwick, stout and active in all feats of war, nurst up in London’s Artillery Garden, and furthered with fifteen years experience in N. E. exact theory, besides the help of a very good headpiece, being a frequent instructor of the most martial troops of our Artillery men. Although,” continues Johnson, from whose quaint chronicle we quote, “Charles Town . . . do not advantage such o’ertopping batteries as Boston doth, yet hath he [Sedgwick] erected his to very good purpose, insomuch that all shipping that comes in . . . must needs face it all the time of their coming in. The cost he hath been at in helping on the discipline of his regiment hath profited much.”79

This zeal for the service procured him the gratitude and affection of the soldiers, which were manifested by the trainband’s giving him, with the unstinted liberality of those who bestow what does not belong to them, a piece of land in Charlestown, the title to which, fortunately for him, was afterwards confirmed by the town.

The so-called “Blue Laws” of Connecticut at this period have an invidious but scarcely deserved pre-eminence in evil fame over those of her New England sister colonies. Indeed, as we are told by Mr. Charles Deane in his chapter on New England, in Winsor’s Narrative and Critical History of America, the twelve capital laws of the Connecticut colony, established in 1642, were taken almost literally from the one hundred laws called “The Body of Liberties,” established by the General Court of Massachusetts in 1641. The legislation against graver offences, and the rough paternalism of the law-makers of those days, characteristically unlike that of the modern “American System,” among other moral therapeutics of the heroic sort, subjected children over sixteen to the possible punishment of death for “cursing or smiting” their parents,80 or even for being “stubborn or rebellious”81 to them. Though in truth not outdone by the maligned Code of Draco, this might be paralleled in the old statute books of the mother country. We need not stop to shudder at a theoretical severity of discipline seldom or never enforced, and which certainly did not affect the domestic life of Robert Sedgwick’s family; but so much of the legislation of the day as related to extravagance or unsuitableness of attire came nearer home. Greek, Roman, and English civilizations have all had, from time to time, virtuous spasms resulting in the adoption of this kind of laws; but the sumptuary enactments of our Puritan fathers, perversely following the total abandonment of the same species of legislation by the mother country, though keeping a reasonable eye to the main chance, and indicating a lingering liking for the discarded privileges of aristocracy, were very characteristic of our canny ancestors, and certainly tended to restrict the profits of Sedgwick’s business.

“Although,” declares the General Court, “we acknowledg it to be a matter of much difficulty . . . to set down exact rules to confine all sorts of persons, yet we cannot but account it our duty . . . to declare our utter detestation . . . that men or women of mean condition should take upon them the garb of Gentlemen, . . . or points at their knees, or to walk in great boots, or women of the same ranke to wear silk or tyffany hoods or scarfes, which though allowable to persons of greater estates, or more liberal education, yet we cannot but judg it intollerable in persons of such like condition.”

The Court therefore orders —

“That no person within this jurisdiction, nor any of their relations depending upon them, whose visible estates real and personal shall not exceed the true and indifferent value of two hundred pounds, shall weare any gold or silver lace or gold and silver buttons, or any bone lace above two shillings per yard, or silk hoods or scarfs, upon the penalty of ten shillings for every such offence. . . . And forasmuch as distinct and particular rules in this case suitable to the estate or quality of each person cannot easily be given,” the Court orders “the Selectmen of every town, or the major part of them, . . . from time to time to . . . take notice of [the] apparel of any of the inhabitants of their several Townes respectively, and whosoever they shall judg to exceed their rankes and abilities in the costlines or fashion of their apparel in any respect, especially in the wearing of Ribbons or great boots (leather being so scarce a commoditie in this country), lace, points, &c, silk hoods or scarfes, the Selectmen aforesaid shall have power to assess such persons so offending in any of the particulars above mentioned, in the country rates, at two hundred pounds’ estates, according to that proportion that such men use to pay to whom such apparel is suitable and allowed.”

By a shrewd proviso, however, it was declared that the law should —

“not extend to the restraint of any Magistrate or public officer of this jurisdiction, their wives and children, who are left to their discretion in wearing of apparel, or any settled Millitary officer or souldier in the time of millitary service or any other whose education and employment have been above the ordinary degree, or whose estate [shall] have been considerable though now decayed.”82

The amount of profit on the sale of cloth was rigorously restricted. In 1639 Mr. Sedgwick in his capacity of a merchant was admonished for selling goods too high. Indeed, he can hardly have avoided some embarrassment in harmonizing his gains as a thrifty tradesman with his duties as a Selectman in detecting and repressing extravagance. While it is not mentioned that he concurred as a magistrate in the warning which he received as a draper, it does not appear that his offence was repeated.

Soon after his arrival Sedgwick aided in forming the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company. In 1641 he was chosen its Captain, an office which he also held in 1645 and 1648. It is worth noting that when he and Francis Norton became inhabitants of Charlestown and undertook the training of its trainband, the town was relieved from the payment of the “twenty shillings a time” that it had previously paid “to the renowned Captains, Patrick and Underhill,” for this service.83 In the first of these years Captain Sedgwick was assigned to the command of the fortress which seven years before had been built on an island in Boston Harbor, and was known as the Castle. On its site is now Fort Independence. In 1645 he was commissioned to take charge of the fortifications of the town, and to keep it and the harbor “from all hostile and mutinous attempts or insurrections.” In May, 1652, he was chosen Major-General of the Colony.

Nor in the arts of peace was Sedgwick less successful. He was enterprising in trade, useful in the town and popular with the citizens. In association with others and also alone, he built ships, warehouses, and wharves. He was engaged with “Deacon Stitson”84 as owner and builder of the Tide Mill at Middlesex landing in Charlestown, and with John Winthrop, Jr., in the first furnace and iron works at Lynn. With Mr. Increase Nowell and others, he took an active part in having a new meeting-house built. In 1638 he owned a goodly number of lots in, and a tract of land adjoining, Charlestown, including “eight score acres” at the northeast point of the town bordering the Boston line and embracing a part of Lynn. If this domain had come down to his descendants tax-paid, it would have made them perfectly comfortable even at the present rates of living.

In 1642 Sedgwick aided in setting off Charlestown Village, under the name of Woburn,85 from the parent town, as is attested in the Woburn records by some beautiful verses, of which the poets of this Society must be content with the following specimen: —

“In peniles age I Woburne Towne began

Charles Towne first moued the Court my lins to span

To vewe my land place, compild body Reare

Nowell, Sims, Sedgwick, thes my paterons were.”86

In 1648 the customs on wines at the port of Boston were let to Sedgwick and others for £120, and evidently yielded the associates a fair income. From his trade, his mill, his iron foundry and farming of the revenue he derived a comfortable income, which enabled him to live well and practise charity. His contributions to the town school were liberal, and in 1642 he gave £40 to the infant college at Cambridge, — which, trifling as it seems to-day, was by far the largest pecuniary donation then or for years after received by it since its foundation by John Harvard’s noble bequest. Four years later, he conveyed to it “two shops standing by the ordinary called the Ship’s Tavern [Boston], under lease for fifteen years at ten shillings sterling,” which term was afterwards extended five years more by President Dunster.87

Stern in his religion, as then befitted a Puritan nonconformist, Mr. Sedgwick yet scorned the atrocious bigotry of the legislation of the day. So early as 1643 he united in a petition to the General Court to repeal the cruel laws against the Anabaptists. The Court curtly answered that these laws “should not be altered or explained at all,” and three years later granted a counter petition for their more effectual enforcement.

Early in 1654, having returned to England on a visit, General Sedgwick fell under the notice of Cromwell, who with his wonted shrewdness perceiving the colonist’s civil and military capacity, appointed him and Captain John Leverett to the charge of an expedition against the Dutch on “Hudson’s River and at the Manhatoes.” These Commissioners on 17 June, 1654, met other Commissioners from the General Courts at New Haven and Connecticut for the arrangement of the campaign. Immediately after, however (20 June), news arrived of the conclusion of peace between England and the United Provinces.

The ship in which the Commissioners had come met with headwinds and had a slow passage, so that the vessel which brought the announcement of the peace arrived almost as soon. Sedgwick, always devout, and a firm believer in the conduct of human affairs by the direct agency of Heaven, writes to Cromwell, 1 July, 1654:

“When I considered the vareious and strainge turnes in God’s workings and dealeings with us in our voyage, it makes me now beleive, and apprehend, that hee stood in our way . . . causeing our voyage to be longer then is usuall at that season of the yeare, and bringing in that shipp, that brought newes of peace, with a short and prosperous voyage.”88

He was a Cromwellian after the Protector’s own heart, pious in thought, Scriptural in language and resolute in action, although he had a tender nature, and preferred the sword of the Lord to that of Gideon. His report, like all his official correspondence, betrays a trust in God which was absolute, and, under Him, in the Lord Protector, which was less unwavering though doubtless as sincere.

The close of hostilities with Holland caused the release of a Dutch prize General Sedgwick had captured off the coast of England, and Cromwell’s vigorous preparations to attack the Dutch were turned against the French. “The restoration of Acadie to France, in 1632, had not been agreeable,” says Murdoch,89 “to the republicans in old or new England.” Disregarding the trilling circumstance that it was a time of profound peace between England and France, Oliver gave secret orders that when the Dutch colony should have been reduced, Nova Scotia should be conquered. On hearing of the Dutch treaty, therefore, it was determined, in June, 1654, by the Commissioners in Boston, to annex Acadia. It may be said in excuse that the title to this fair province was in a rather loose and fluctuating condition, as was apt to be the case with North American territorial titles at that day. The Sieur d’Aunay de Charnisay had claimed all Acadia on the ground, apparently, of prior occupation. Emmanuel le Borgne, having recovered against him a judgment for 260,000 livres (or francs), proceeded to try to enforce it by the seizure of the whole province.90

At this juncture, July, 1654, Sedgwick, with strong Oliver at his back, appeared on the scene and superseded both titles by the application of —

“The good old rule, the simple plan,

That he should take who has the power,

And he should keep who can.”

Sedgwick, as a subordinate faithfully executing orders, ought not to be held responsible for the iniquity, if such there were, of this invasion. It is the glory of the soldier’s fidelity that it is unquestioning. “Theirs not to reason why” applies to officers under orders as to privates in the ranks. Even if “thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just,” the soldier’s gallantry is not tarnished by the injustice or arrogance of his governors. If it were so, how often would the red coats of the long line of English heroes be stained a darker dye! So far, indeed, as Sedgwick was entitled to question the rightfulness of the campaign, he may well have accepted the theory, which was especially prevalent in those cold but quarrelsome latitudes, that every Englishman was in a state of normal hostility to every Frenchman. This theory took much of its local vigor from the circumstance that in 1605, two years after Henry IV. of France had generously granted to a gentleman of his household all of North America between 40° and 46° north latitude, James I. of England, with rival generosity, granted to some of his English subjects all the territory of the same continent between 34° and 45° north latitude, — embracing five parallels of the French grant.

Leverett, writing to Cromwell from Boston 5 September, 1654, announces that “the Lord has vindicated the blasphemy of those who had given it out among the Indians that the English were so and so valiant and victorious against the Dutch at Sea, but that one Frenchman could beate ten Englishmen ashore.” These Gallic illusions, if they existed, were dissipated by the successive capture by General Sedgwick of the Forts of St. John and Port Royal in July, 1654, — the first with a force not exceeding that of the besieged, and the second with but half the number of the garrison. In St. John, “seventy fighting men, eighteen pieces of ordnance, and several busses,” and in Port Royal, “a hundred and fifty men with eighteen pieces of ordnance, besides small stock fowlers and busses, also ammunition a good quantity,” were captured. Thence, with a fleet of four ships, General Sedgwick sailed to Penobscot. This place had been taken from the Plymouth men about eighteen years before by the French, who had strongly fortified it. On the second of September following, it surrendered with eight pieces of ordnance, three smaller pieces, and a good supply of ammunition. This success completed the reduction of Acadia, which, although destined to revert temporarily to the French before its final incorporation with the British empire, was thenceforward to be known by the name Nova Scotia, by which the English had a few years before baptized it. The General Court of Massachusetts, though entertaining a doubt whether Sedgwick had not exceeded his commission, “appointed a publick and solemn thanksgiving to the Lord for his gracious working” for the Commonwealth.

Cromwell, far from finding fault with Sedgwick’s vigorous proceedings, after issuing a proclamation91 by which civil government was established and all duties and imposts were remitted for a period of seven years in the lately captured island of Jamaica, despatched him with a fleet to reinforce the troops stationed there under Generals Penn and Venables.

On Sedgwick’s arrival at Barbadoes after a prosperous voyage, he found that General Venables had been repulsed from Hispaniola with a loss of from four hundred to five hundred men. Pursuant to an order from General Penn awaiting him at Barbadoes, after taking provisions at that island, Sedgwick united his forces with those of Venables, and proceeded to Jamaica, touching by the way at St. Christopher’s, and passing near enough to San Domingo to observe people in arms engaged in building earthworks.

The Puritans, notwithstanding the thoroughness of their discipline when concentrated under an iron leader like Cromwell, were Independents in their military as in their religious notions, and Sedgwick found at Jamaica a medley of officers in a divided and loose command. The fleet was under Admiral William Goodsonn, and the army under Major-General Fortescue, General Penn, General Venables, Commissioner Butler, and others. The authority of Sedgwick’s Commission, however, was promptly recognized by these officers; and the only obstacle to a harmonious conduct of affairs was in the scruples of Sedgwick himself, who entertained a doubt as to the supremacy of his command, arising perhaps in part from disinclination to assume so grave a responsibility. A provision in the constitution of the Commission as originally appointed by the Protector allowed “no act but what was acted on by three or in some cases by two.” Commissioner Butler relinquished his position, and but for a belief that it was his duty not to allow the objects of the expedition to be defeated by technical conflicts of authority, Sedgwick would willingly have yielded his supremacy. All the officers were indeed unselfish, and an instrument92 was mutually executed by them establishing a government by a Supreme Executive Council, with Sedgwick at the head. This Constitution Sedgwick transmitted to Cromwell for his approval. In his reports to the Protector, he gives a graphic picture of the state of things discovered by him. The fleet was in good health and condition. Admiral Goodsonn had landed at St. Martin’s, taken and demolished two forts, and plundered and burnt the town. It was a gallant action, says Sedgwick, “although,” he adds, — betraying the courageous kindliness of his nature, of which frequent instances are found even in the scanty details of his life which have come down to us, — “in my judgment it is not so honourable that your highness’s fleet should follow this old trade of West-India cruisers and privateers to ruin and plunder poor towns, and so leave them.”93

Sedgwick’s report of the army is deplorable enough. Of the soldiers large numbers were dead,—

“the carcasses lying unburied in the highways and among bushes. Many of them,” he writes, “that were alive walked like ghosts of dead men, who as I went through the town lay groaning and crying out ‘Bread for the Lord’s sake!’ Unless God in his mercy stay his hand, will all perish, and be as water spilled upon the grass, that cannot be gathered up again. Greatest part sick — those set down as well, pitifully well. Of Col. Humphrey’s regiment landed 831 lusty men, 50 are dead. Officers all sick and weak. Young men in appearance well, in three or four days in the grave. Soldiers die, I believe, a hundred and fifty a week. The truth is, God is angry and the plague is begun, and we have none to stand in the gap. . . . My heart and soul grieveth when I think of Hispaniola business, one or two negroes to make five hundred Englishmen fling down their arms and run away. Oh tell it not in Gath, nor publish it in Askelon, lest the uncircumcised rejoice. The truth is you cannot conceive us so sad as we are, broken and scattered, a senseless hearted people, not affected with his dealing with us.”94

No sooner had the expedition settled itself than Major-General Fortescue died. Sedgwick thereupon made Colonel D’Oyley commander of the forces for three months, or till the Protector’s order.

As to the country, it is the old story. All save the spirit of man was divine.

The island, writes Sedgwick, seems desirable, productive, full of cattle. The English have killed twenty thousand, and they are now so wild it is not easy to kill them. Our soldiers have destroyed all sorts of fruits, provision, and cattle. Nothing but ruin attending them wherever they go.

There is a considerable number of Mulattoes and blacks, and some Spaniards — some say a thousand, and some two. What God will do with them or with us by them I know not, but I have thought sometimes they may do us a mischief. He warns the Protector that there is nothing left for carrying on the work but two field-pieces and a few great guns. The garrison, he writes, is dwindling. The enemy is threatening. If there were planters it might be well. Soldiers should be employed or sent home. They will rather starve than work. Unless more provision be supplied, they will perish for want of food. I humbly beg that your highness would cast an eye this way, that these poor people be not made a sacrifice to an enraged enemy.95

In the same letter Sedgwick avows his belief in the piety and justice of Cromwell’s plans, in terms which, though evidently heartfelt, seem to suggest that he was aware of the doubt which the Protector’s enemies then entertained, as some of his critics have since done, as to his sincerity.

“I left my native land and my dear relations in some singleness of heart and eyeing God and his glory in this venture, hoping he might have some design in hand to the accomplishment of that, which hath so long time been the prayer, and desire of his people; and also thinking God might have carried your spirit to that purpose, to attend this work. I was satisfied [with] the work itself, taken much with the honesty of your highness’s expressions, and that religious discourse came from you out of a heart, as I believe, unfeigned, which made me believe God would own the design, and prosper it.”96

Again he says: —

“I am fully satisfied of your highne’s [sic] pious and religious intentions in this design; yet God may disappoint expectations in many particulars, but in the issue magnifying his special love and grace.”97

A striking passage reminds us of Lincoln’s immortal words in the reference to slavery in his second inaugural address: —

“The righteousness of God’s dealings and proceedings with us may early, I think, be discerned, and be justified in his actions towards us. He is a pure and holy God, and delights in pure and clean actings of the people professing his name. I must still say, O, how just art Thou, O God! in all thy works, and righteous to the sons of man.”98

Sedgwick’s heart was oppressed by the suffering and unthrift everywhere on the islands, and he was appalled at the inadequacy of the means for the serious undertaking confided to him; notwithstanding his honest faith in Oliver, he evidently questioned whether the great immediate destruction of human life was not out of all proportion to the ultimate gain to Great Britain and mankind. Coming events cast their shadows before, and he felt a premonition that his life would sink under the burden the Protector bad laid upon him. “I am sometimes,” he writes, “sick, and think I may fall away among the rest of my countrymen, and durst do no other than plainly to let your highness know our condition.”

Of his master he makes two requests, which proved his last:

“One is, if God spare me life, that your highness would be pleased to admit me to come to England. But I am not very solicitous as to that; sometimes thinking that another place will be my portion before I hear again from your highness.

“The other petition is, I left behind me a dear and religious wife, who through grace hath much of the fear and knowledge of God in her. I have also five children, to me dear and precious. I would only beg this, that whatever hazard or hardship I may go through, my relations may not be forgotten. I only expect what your highness was pleased to promise me, that they may not be troubled in obtaining it in such seasons, as may tend to her comfort.”99

He pledges himself to “continue the business under the instrument drawn up, hoping very speedily to receive further orders. You shall find me,” he adds, “willing according to those talents which God giveth me, to give myself to the utmost I can to be serviceable in the present employment which God hath cast me in.”100

On 24 January, 1655–56, he writes to Secretary Thurloe, —

“I must profess I am not able to discover or make out to myself what God intends in this business; only this I am willing to believe and hope, God may lay us low in the dust, and humble our souls before him, and if thereby he may be pleased to prepare our spirits for some more glorious carrying on to the end his work, it will in the issue be a mercy. But hitherto God hath torn us, and scattered us, yet seems not to bind us up, or heal us. Did you but see the faces of the poor, small army with us, how like skeletons they look, it would move pity; and when I consider the thousands laid in the dust in such a way as God hath visited, my heart mourns. I know this work could not be expected to be carried on without the loss of many men’s lives; yet if God should sweep us away, as if he would take no delight in us, what may we think? It is true,” he continues, “we may with our fleet and a few soldiers waste and burn towns and places of inferior rank, but that can procure little profit unless God cast in some considerable ships in our hands. . . . Some have been apt to think that if the money spent in this design had been laid out in lying upon the coast of Spain, it might have brought the Indies to have bowed to easy terms; but that I waive. . . .

“It is possible you may count me despondent, . . . yet . . . never man heard me discourage the work, but do and shall to the uttermost encourage and strengthen the hearts and hands of any employed in this affair. I have been thought too bitter in reproving the despondency of men’s spirits in this business.”101

With melancholy frankness Sedgwick asserts his unfitness for the work before him, which, he says, he should not have undertaken if he had not expected to find associates of greater abilities than he has, and begs that men be sent “of approved goodness, and of sound and solid judgment, and able pens, which are extremely wanting amongst us.”

On the same date a detailed report by Sedgwick, jointly with Vice-Admiral Goodsonn, to the Protector, describes the continued decline and wretched condition of the army, which is still losing not less than fifty men a week, and is reduced to less than three thousand. A depredation of the kind that Sedgwick in a former communication had deprecated, had been inflicted on the north side of the island, where a few firearms and one mulatto had been captured; but the invader’s means had been inadequate to renew the attempt at the taking of St. Jago de Cuba, in which Venables had failed, or for any other serious enterprise. This report, like all the others of Sedgwick and his associates, was full of the pious Puritanism which has so long, in fact as well as in expression, disappeared from such papers both in the new and old worlds. “Let the Lord,” say these devout captains, “send by whom he pleases, we believe you have an interest in Heaven, and hope we are the subject of your prayers; we stand in as much need thereof as ever poor people did; an anchor cast within the vale will hold; if Christ own us, we continue and conquer.” On the twelfth of March following, the same officers, in another long report to the Protector, announce that the army, though reduced to twenty-five hundred men, is in better condition. “But if his highness resolve to proceed in this great design, he must in a manner begin the work again.”102 More soldiers and settlers and more provisions were needed. D’Oyley, in writing to Thurloe, complains bitterly of the want of liquor, — “the waters of the country breeding dropsies and other distempers, and nothing to be bought of the seamen but at treble rates.”

On the same date Sedgwick, in a separate communication, reports to Thurloe a “better outlook.” “Though some still die, and many are weak, yet generally they recruit strength — a marvelous great mercy.” He has had, he writes, “not a few revolutions and turnings of heart about our business, and . . . sometimes been willing to go to Heaven, to the God of Counsel, what advice and which way to act.” But he still struggles with perplexities and anxieties.

“Fleet,” he writes, “not over-manned. . . . Seamen on shore in land service are so extremely uncommanded and undisciplined in that service that it may be ruinous to them. If we fall on small towns, it is true we may burn and destroy the estate of our enemies; but by attempting such a course it will be prejudicial, as I conceive, to the great ends proposed. We are not able to possess any place we may attack, and so cannot dispense any knowledge of the true God in Jesus Christ to the inhabitants, but rather render ourselves to the Indians and blacks a. cruel, bloody, ruinating people when they can see nothing from us but fire and sword . . . and cause them to think worse of us than of the Spaniards. . . .

“The inhabitants run away, carrying their treasure. The plunder does not pay for the powder and shot spent. The seamen are brave, but the army is worse than would have been thought possible for Puritan and English soldiers. . . . Our army in general,” he writes, “I believe they are not to be parallelled in the world, a people so basely unworthy, lazy, and idle, as it cannot enter the heart of any Englishman that such blood did run in the veins of any born in England.” Those in command are nearly as bad as the men. “Officers say soldiers won’t, when it is most certain they are not willing they should, but still stand gaping to go off the island as after a gaol-delivery.”103

Sedgwick had received from the Protector two main injunctions for effecting the subjugation of the island, — namely, fortification and plantation; but under the sad conditions prevailing, little could be done towards fulfilling them. By great exertions, however, some progress was made. “A fort,” he writes, “is almost finished — as good as the materials will permit, and may prove useful.” Other works are started, including a magazine and “small palisado for powder and ammunition,” but all proceeds languidly. He exclaims: “Such kind of spirit breathing in Englishmen, I till now never yet beheld;” and he adds: “I see a vast expense and no return, no, none at all, and methinks I see little will be, yet sometimes think God may return in mercy and yet own our people; but on the other hand, sometimes am thinking he will not own his generation, but that they will die in the wilderness.”

The indolence and imbecility of the land forces are the more intolerable because the means of living are within their grasp. “The island if planted by industrious people would be exceedingly profitable.”

In closing be says: “I blush to think that the so-long progress of so gallant a design should produce no other return but letters filled with such kind of matter as tins.”104

The wretched condition of affairs described in the foregoing report continued with slight fluctuations to the end of Sedgwick’s life. His sensitive nature soon gave way under the strain to which be was subjected. By the weird legerdemain of fate, the same fiat of the Lord Protector which raised him to the head of the expedition buried him in the grave.

After the death of General Fortescue, who had been in charge of affairs in Jamaica, Cromwell sent a commission to Sedgwick giving him supreme command. Discontent had broken out among the soldiery, and three mutinous leaders had been executed. The laurel bestowed on him was mixed with cypress, and boded ill to his anxious spirit. He concealed the news from those around him, especially from Colonel D’Oyley, who at the time, in the absence of Admiral Goodsonn on a cruise, was in temporary command, and was eager for the preferment from which Sedgwick shrank. D’Oyley writes to the Protector, 20 June, 1656: “He sent immediately upon the receipt of his commission to me, but told me nothing of the commission, but by his looks showed unusual dumpishness and confusion.” After reporting Sedgwick’s death, he adds: “I had the greatest loss in him, being now in the publique charge without your highness’ commission.” The closing scene is so striking as to justify the following extracts from a letter written, 25 June, 1656, by Sedgwick’s secretary, Aylesbury, to Thurloe: —

“I came hither . . . with Major-General Sedgwicke, whose favor, which I enjoyed in a large degree, was as great an honor to me as his death was an unhappiness. I may truly say, never man had a more real friend or a greater losse. Yet I do not so much bewaile myself as the publiqtie, to which he was exceedingly useful, very generally beloved and esteemed by all sorts of people. He dyed upon the 24th of May, not of any visible great distemper, only a little feaverish; and the morning it pleased God to take him from us, I as little apprehended his death as at any time since our departure from England. But his disease was inward; he never enjoyed himselfe since the last letter, but as was apparent to all . . . from that time lost much of his freedome and cheerfulness. When he had perused his letters, having been private about two hours, he called me to him; and when I came into the roome, perceiving a great alteration in his countenance, I asked him what was the matter. He replyed, ‘Ah! Mr. Aylesbury, I have not, since we were together, concealed anything from you that most conceme me. . . . I am utterly undone. I have had the greatest conflict in my spirit that ever man hail, and find I am not able to bear what is laid upon me.’ ‘Sir,’ sayd I again, ‘what is the matter?’ ‘Peruse these letters,’ he replyed, ‘and you will see.’ I read one from his highnes, another from yourselfe, . . . after the perusal whereof sayd I, ‘there is nothing contained in these that ought to afflict you. His highness hath made choice of you to command his army; and both he and Mr. Secretary have expressed so great an esteem of you, that on the contrary you have good cause to rejoice your endeavors have been so well accepted, and be thankful to God for it.’ ‘Ah! Mr. Aylesbury,’ said he again, ‘it is that which undoes me. There is too much expected of me, and I, conscious of my own disabilities, having besides so untoward a people to deale with, am able to perform so little, that I shall never overcome it; it will breake my heart,’ and so, notwithstanding all the arguments I could use, I verily believe it did. He was a truly religious man, and of the most innocent conversation I ever accompanyed.”105

In a letter written by Cromwell in June, 1656, to the commanders in America, he announces the despatch of more regiments and provisions, reminds them of the vast charge of maintaining the fleet, gratefully “sees that the Lord has been pleased to smile on them in some measure in respect to the health of the soldiers,” deplores the unworthy conduct of some officers in provoking the soldiers’ discontent, and directs that “something be published by the commander-in-chief that no license of leaving the army on any terms be granted.” To Sedgwick, as commander-in-chief, he wrote separately to the same effect. But these orders, worthy as they were of the great ruler whose foreign policy had made England more respected abroad than ever before, reached Jamaica only when Sedgwick was in his grave. Indeed, it was not till after the Protector’s own death, which followed in a little more than two years, that the permanence of his conquest of Jamaica became finally assured. Still later was it that the insular government he established became a pillar, though never a very solid one, in the huge colonial fabric which he did so much to rear and consolidate.

Sedgwick’s premature death was deplored, as his piety and virtue had been recognized, by all his associates. Admiral Goodsonn, writing to Thurloe, 25 June, 1656, says: —

“We arrived here the 23^d [of May]; where we found major-general Sedgwicke, who the next day after God was pleased to take to himself; a person, I have cause to believe truly feared God, and one whose losse we have reason to lament, being of singular use in this worke, and generally beloved of the souldiery.”106

Carlyle, after touching on “the deadly inextricable jungle of tropical confusions” and the sad sacrifices of the leaders, describes Sedgwick as “a very brave, zealous, and pious man, whose letters in Thurloe are of all others the best worth reading on this subject.”107

Like many other delicately strung natures on which heavy responsibility has been suddenly flung, Sedgwick broke down under a load which a robuster nervous organization might have borne without wincing. Like the Prince of Denmark, he might have exclaimed, —

“The time is out of joint! O cursed spite,

That ever I was born to set it right!”

The close of his life and his character are thus epitomized by the historian of Jamaica: —

“The fortification at Caguay, or Port Royal Point, was now almost compleated, when the major-general, who was sick of his charge, wearied out with the refractory temper of the army and unprosperous condition of the colony, . . . received the Protector’s order to take upon him the sole and supreme command. So undesirable a preferment was not more welcome to him than a death warrant. In short, when he reflected on the impossibility of his fulfilling the Protector’s intentions with such miserable instruments, of whose unfitness for such a work he was fully sensible, . . . and perceived how much the Protector relied upon his single ability, he could not conquer his diffidence; the chagrin so deeply preyed upon his spirits as to overwhelm him with melancholy; and he died . . . within a very few days after receiving the orders. The general regret, which appeared in the fleet and army in consequence of this event, was a clear indication of his worth. The honesty of his heart, the mildness of his disposition, gentleness of manners and competence of understanding, qualified him to have been a most amiable governor over any well-settled and established colony. But he wanted that severity, firmness, and fire which were requisite to subdue and awe the stubborn, restive, and insolent spirits, that had long distracted the army in Jamaica.”108

In the hecatomb of lives sacrificed during the sad and inglorious struggle for the retention of Jamaica, none was gentler or braver than that of Robert Sedgwick. Cromwell’s major-general united with fine and noble qualities that self-depreciation which, due or undue, has marked some of his descendants, — especially Major-General John Sedgwick, who died the idol of the Sixth Corps of the Army of the Potomac after thrice declining the supreme command of that army.

Mr. Charles Sedgwick Rackemann said: —

In view of the fact that Robert Sedgwick was prevented, by his untimely death in Jamaica, from returning to Charlestown, where, prior to his departure, he had so many personal and property interests, it is worth while to note that, two and a half centuries later, the title to some of the same lands of which he was a part owner was questioned, and became the subject of litigation which was carried to the Supreme Judicial Court,109 and that three of the lineal descendants of General Sedgwick were employed by the Railroad Company which asserted title to these lands and successfully maintained its claim. These three men are all members of the Suffolk Bar, — namely, the present William Minot, who was junior counsel in the conduct of the case; his younger brother, Robert Sedgwick Minot; and myself. The “Report” of the case, so called, by which it was reserved for the consideration of the full bench, contains an interesting summary of the state of the early title. This Report is not printed in the volume just referred to (135 Massachusetts Reports), which contains the opinion of the court upon the law questions involved; but it is on file, with the briefs of counsel and other papere, in the Social Law Library.

The lease made by General Sedgwick of the Charlestown Tide Mills, being the estate in question, is dated 1645.110 The lessee there named was John Fownell. From this lease, and subsequent papers relating to the title, it appears that the original proprietors of these lands were Robert Sedgwick, owning one eighth; William Stitson,111 one eighth; Thomas Coytemore, five eighths; and John Coggan, one eighth.

At the time when the case was in court, no will of Robert Sedgwick had been found. He probably left none, as administration on his estate was granted in England, 30 September, 1650,112 to his widow, Johanna Sedgwick, who, in the following year, was living at Stepney, near London. Mr. Waters, however, has found the will of John Sedgwick, brother of Robert. I suppose that our own General John Sedgwick, already referred to to-day, may have been named for General John Sedgwick of the Revolutionary Army, brother of Judge Theodore Sedgwick, and he, in turn, for this brother of the emigrant.

Mr. Henry H. Edes communicated the following letter of the Rev. Samuel Cary, afterwards Assistant Minister of King’s Chapel, Boston, prefacing it with these remarks: —

Mrs. Sarah Atkins, of Newbury, to whom the following letter is addressed, was a woman of marked ability. She was the daughter of Col. Richard Kent and Hannah Gookin, whose first husband, by whom she had four children, was Vincent Carter, of Charlestown.113 Through her mother, Mrs. Atkins had a distinguished lineage, and also a social rank which was in no way affected by the sharp vicissitudes of fortune that she experienced in her young widowhood. The Rev. Thomas Cary, long the minister of the Third Parish in Newbury, married Esther, a daughter of Nathaniel Carter (son of Vincent Carter), a half-brother of Mrs. Atkins; and the Rev. Samuel Cary, the writer of the letter I hold in my hand, was the son of this marriage. The warmest affection existed between the Carter and Kent kindred of the half blood; and although not lineally descended from Mrs. Atkins, Samuel Cary always called her “grandmother.” Both, however, had the blood of Hannah Gookin, of whom I have just spoken.

Mrs. Atkins’s descendants are no less distinguished than was her ancestry,114 and bear the honored names of Dexter, Dwight, Eliot, Higginson, Norton, Parkman, and Ticknor, not to mention others of our early Massachusetts families.

A Memoir115 of the Hon. Dudley Atkins Tyng (the fifth child of Dudley and Sarah (Kent) Atkins), by the Hon. John Lowell, contains the following tribute to this remarkable woman: —

“Mr. Tyng’s father having died at the early age of 37, under circumstances of great embarrassment as a merchant, in no degree affecting his character as a man, the care of his whole family devolved, without other means than the resources of her own strong and vigorous mind, upon his widow, the late Mrs. Sarah Atkins. Those who, with us, had the happiness of knowing the energy, perseverance, and high intellectual character of this lady, will not be surprised at her surmounting difficulties which would have discouraged minds of less force, and that she not only provided for the physical wants of her children, but imparted to them, by her example and precepts, what was of inestimable and unappreciable value to them, — intellectual and moral power; . . . Mrs. Atkins’s efforts and usefulness were not, however, confined to her own family; they shed a benign and most powerful influence upon all who enjoyed the delights of her society. A more radiant mind, one which exerted an higher influence on all around her, cannot easily be cited, — certainly fifty years’ experience do not enable the writer to recall one whose moral efficacy was greater. We should not have dwelt upon this subject were it not that in our opinion much of Mr. Tyng’s firmness of character, of his sterling integrity, and soundness of opinions, may be fairly traced to the influence of a mother whom no stranger ever visited without a conscious improvement.”

The Rev. Samuel Cary, who graduated at Harvard College in 1804, was a divinity student at Cambridge when he wrote the letter which I am about to communicate. He had already attracted the attention of scholars and theologians, as will be seen by the following extract from the Diary of the Rev. Dr. John Pierce, which records an observation of Dr. James Freeman upon Mr. Cary’s Commencement performance: —

“I never knew a better speaker. I have heard my classmate Rufus King, and all the eminent speakers since his time. But this young man in my estimation exceeds them all. I should rejoice to have him for my colleague.”

This wish of Dr. Freeman was gratified on the first of January, 1809.116 In a memorial sermon which he preached after Mr. Cary’s death, Dr. Freeman said: —

“At Commencement there was assigned to him a honorable part, by which he excited attention and acquired reputation. In a subsequent performance, at the inauguration of President Webber, he rose still higher. His oration on that occasion has rarely been equalled, perhaps never excelled. The pronunciation of certain words was in such thrilling tones of eloquence that it charmed every classical ear” (p. 45).

The selection of Mr. Cary as the orator at President Webber’s Inauguration is interesting from the fact that Dr. Webber (who, when called to the Presidency of the College, was the Hollis Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, a position he had held since 1789) was born in Byfield, which was in part a parish of Newbury.

Mrs. Lincoln, who is so prominently mentioned in Mr. Cary’s letter, was Mary, the accomplished daughter of James Otis the patriot, and wife of Benjamin Lincoln, Jr., of Boston, eldest son of Major-General Benjamin Lincoln, of Hingbam. She had two sons, — Benjamin (H. C. 1806), a physician, also mentioned in the letter, who died of fever in Demerara, 17 August, 1813; and James-Otis (H. C. 1807), a lawyer, who died 12 August, 1818. The father of these boys was himself bred to the law and “gave promise of great distinction,” but died in Boston, 18 January, 1788, at the age of thirty-one. His widow retired with her sons to Hingham, where she long abode. After a widowhood of nearly twenty years she married the Rev. Dr. Henry Ware, at Cambridge, 9 February, 1807,117 and died on the seventeenth of the same month.118

The text of Mr. Cary’s letter is as follows: —

Cambridge, March 19th, 1806.

My dear Madam, — Your letter threw me into the precise situation in which the poets represent Tantalus, whose hunger was perpetually inflamed by the sight of luxuries which he was not allowed to taste. True I had a taste, but it served only to increase my desire for more; and when I found that I was to have but 3 words and Mrs. Lincoln a huge packet, I was almost on the point of laying violent hands upon said packet. It seemed to me to be excessively large, larger than common letters, as if it meant to laugh at mine; it was as I may say (as Sheridan has it in one of his comedies) a malicious & designing looking letter. However I had the philosophy to abstain from doing it any harm, detriment or molestation, a thing as I take it not a little praiseworthy, inasmuch as any provocation is more tolerable than a sneer at our disappointments. But for all this, I could not help thinking that the letter was hardly safe in my hands, & therefore not knowing what might be the consequences, I determined to set off with it directly. Nothing cools the mind like a walk. On the way I began to think that though Mrs. Lincoln’s letter might be longer, yet it might not be in your own hand-writing, & this thought was so perfectly to the point, that before I reached the house, I was not merely in a state of serenity, but had even acquired an air of triumph, with which I entered. When the facts were fairly explained, I had the satisfaction of hearing Miss Storrow119 express something like jealousy at my being thus eminently favored; & so the triumph of my letter over that of Mrs. Lincoln was complete.

I have therefore to return a thousand thanks for it, and if I had the same power of giving pleasure by a letter that you have I would return some part of the gratification I have received from it. As it is, however, my gratitude will be best shewn by saving you the trouble of reading a long letter, which shall be done if possible. In answer to the first part of your letter, it would be a matter of no small difficulty, if not impossible, to give you an accurate account of the late revolutions at this seat of the Muses; for the election of Mr. Webber & the resignation of Dr. Pearson have so completely taken off the check from the tongues of the good people of this town & its vicinity, and such a torrent of stories, observations, remarks, criticisms & opinions has issued forth from all quarters, that a quiet person is in danger of receiving a very serious shock. I am fully of the mind that all evils eventually produce good, & such occurrences though not in themselves desirable excite in all parties such a spirit of talking as very essentially do promote health & cheerfulness. I am not certain that you will consider this as very conclusive reasoning. I am however convinced that I should have been in great danger of sinking into dullness the last winter at Newbport [Newburyport] if Dr. Dana120 had not been civil enough to furnish the public with a topic of conversation. — Professor Pearson, notwithstanding his many & warm declarations of regard, esteem, love, affection, etc., for the College has thought proper to quit his post at the very time when, by his own account in a letter to the Overseers, it is most in danger. They who infer a man’s principles from his conduct, will not perhaps consider this step as the most striking proof he could have given of his sincerity; unless he has had the wit to perceive that the only way to save the College was by withdrawing himself from any concern in its government. Now I am so wicked as not to believe that he possesses so great a degree of discernment. These professions of friendship for the students were repeated in his reply to their address and would have done very well, if he had not, as I have been told, in his letter to the Overseers represented them in a deplorable situation, as youth of bad manners & in need of reformation, etc. Indeed this affectation of sincerity on both sides is extremely ludicrous. The students, who have for years past regarded him with the most cordial aversion & who are, as a body, delighted at his departure, had the assurance, to send him an address in which they expressed their respect for him & regret that he was about to leave them. He wrote a reply which was read in the College chapel, & to say the truth was very well done. It was full of good advice & abundance of passages from the Bible. He requested them & all his former pupils to excuse the occasional severities he had shewn in his criticisms on their compositions. They were made in haste & with the best intentions. That is to say, with a little circumlocution, My young friends, you have now got to years of discretion, & are I doubt not fully sensible that “folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction shall drive it from him;” this rod it has been my peculiar business to handle, but take my word for it, it has been used with the utmost gentleness, etc.

Mr. Webber is a very good & learned man, & will make a respectable president, but I think the Corporation would have done better if they had filled the chair with a person who has a little more knowledge of men & dignity of character. Every body is pleased that he has got a better salary, & much of the pleasure consists in the prospect that his old cloak which makes a figure on Sunday, together with other ornaments of himself & family will be committed to the flames with all possible expedition.

Proceed we now to the third topic of your letter, & though not least, to wit Mrs. Lincoln. She is very well & always speaks of you. Your pine table I do assure you wants nothing but a poet to be immortalized. It is in all conversations, in all mouths. Here’s a wonder. Your guests are not satisfied with putting the contents of the table upon their tongues, but they find room for the table itself. It certainly deserves to be transmitted to posterity.121 But a poet in this part of the world would be shewn as a curiosity. We have, however, some hopes of Ben. Lincoln. Mrs. L. notwithstanding her sagacity seems sadly puzzled to account for the overturnings at College. She thinks that variety is charming, but not so confusion.

After Mrs. Lincoln are two etc. etc.’s which as the lawyers say of Lord Coke’s, are full of meaning. I comprehend the whole force of them, & perceive at once that untill they are fully treated upon, your letter is not to be considered as answered. I would proceed willingly, but the edge of the paper draws near me, & I must take the hint.

I am, dear Madam

Your obedient & affect. grandson

Sam^L. Cary.

[Addressed]

Mrs. Sarah Atkins.	Favd. by
Newbury.	Rev. Mr. Andrews.122

Messrs. Lindsay Swift, of Boston, Charles Frank Mason, of Watertown, and Appleton Prentiss Clark Griffin, of Newton, were elected Resident Members.

1 Mr. Lincoln also gave the following information: —

The Daughters of the Revolution, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, was incorporated 28 February, 1894.

The Hills Family Genealogical and Historical Association, Boston, was incorporated 6 July, 1894. Its purposes are: The collection, compilation, and publication of such data and information as may be obtained concerning the genealogy and history of the Hills family.

The Naval Order of the United States, Commandery of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Boston, was incorporated 14 December, 1894. Its purposes are: To transmit to latest posterity the glorious names and memories of the illustrious naval commanders and their companion officers in arms, who are identified with many of the principle (sic) battles and famous victories of the several wars in which the United States has participated, and which were fought and achieved by the naval forces; to encourage research and publication of data pertaining to naval art and science, and to establish a library in which to preserve all documents, wills, books, portraits, and relics relating to the Navy and its heroes at all times.

2 The sources of authority for this story of the Land and Silver Banks are mainly to be found in the Massachusetts Archives and the Suffolk Court Files. [A Calendar of these documents by the author of this paper will be found in Volume iv. of the Publications of this Society.] Occasionally the thread of the narrative prior to 1743 is maintained by use of facts furnished by a contemporary pamphlet entitled, —

An Account of the Rise, Progress, and Consequences of the two late Schemes commonly call’d the Land Bank or Manufactory Scheme and the Silver Scheme, in the Province of the Massachusetts Bay. Wherein the Conduct of the late and present G—r during their Ad—ns is occasionally consider’d and compar’d. In a letter from a gentleman in Boston to his Friend in London. Printed in the year 1744.

3 “In our most happy times (as in our fondness we call them) we allowed our Governor an Hundred per annum &c and when the Salary was changed from Corn-Specie to money, there was a muttering and grumbling in the country, as tho’ they were going into a mutiny.” — (A Word of Comfort to a Melancholy Country or the Bank of Credit erected in the Massachusetts Bay, fairly defended by a discovery of the Great Benefit, accruing by it to the whole Province; with a remedy for recovering a Civil State when sinking under desperation by defeat on their Bank of Credit. By Amicus Patriœ. Boston, 1721, p. 9.)

4 By Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull. See Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, October, 1884, p. 266 et seq.

5 Felt, alluding to this Bank, says (Historical Account of Massachusetts Currency, p. 47): “How long or how far the preceding Corporation continued their operations, we are unable to tell.” It seems to me that John Blackwell’s letter of 26 July, 1088 (Massachusetts Archives, cxxix. 63), which opens, “I perceive you have declyned the concerning yourselves any further in the Bank affairs,” is conclusive enough. It appears from this letter that the press was actually set up and used “for tryall of the plates & printing off some bills.”

6 The caulkers, in 1741, alleged that they had for many years “labored under great inconvenience, and had suffered much damage wrong and injury in receiving their pay for their work, by notes on shops for money or goods, and thereby had greatly impoverished themselves and families” (News-Letter, No. 1926, 19 February, 1741).

7 A Model for Erecting a Bank of Credit with a Discourse in Explanation thereof Adapted to the Use of any Trading Countrey, where there is a Scarcity of Moneys: More Especially for his Majesty’s Plantations in America. . . . London: Printed in the year 1688. Reprinted at Boston in New-England in the Year 1714.

See also Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, October, 1884, New Series, iii. 302, note E.

8 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports (Town Records, 1700–1728), viii. 115.

9 The notes are generally described in the language used in the text. In a pamphlet entitled “The Melancholy State of the Province considered in a Letter from a Gentleman in Boston to his friend in the Country, . . . printed in the Year 1736,” it is stated (page 2) that “the first proposal was to make one hundred thousand pounds in notes to be paid to the Trustees of the Bank in ten years in silver at Twenty shillings per ounce, the Silver to remain in the Bank until the Ten Years were expired.” The writer goes on to say that they were “perswaded to alter the Scheme and agree to have the Silver drawn out at three periods viz. three tenths at the end of three years, & three tenths more at the end of other three years; and the remaining four tenths at the end of the tenth year.”

10 These notes are described in chapter 21, Province Laws 1734–1735 (Province Laws, ii. 743). The fact that they bore interest is stated in the Report of the Board of Trade to the Privy Council (Ibid. ii. 747).

11 The new tenor notes were originally issued in 1741 upon the basis of twenty shillings for three ounces of coined silver, troy weight. In 1744 there was a change in the portion of the note defining the value at which the notes would be received in the Treasury. Bills under this new form were still receivable in all payments to the Treasury, but the basis of valuation was reduced to two ounces, thirteen pennyweights, and eight grains of coined silver, troy weight.

Douglass says that they were known as old tenor, middle tenor, new tenor first, and new tenor second. He adds that the latter, although about twelve per cent worse than the new tenor firsts, passed indifferently among the people at the same value. (A Summary, Historical and Political, of the first Planting, progressive Improvements, and present State of the British Settlements in North-America. . . . By William Douglass, M.D., i. 493.)

12 Massachusetts Archives, cii. 113.

13 The Distressed state of The Town of Boston once more considered, And methods for Redress humbly proposed. With remarks on the pretended Countryman’s Answer to the Book, entitled The Distressed State of the town of Boston &c. With a Schæme for a Bank Laid down: And methods for bringing in silver money, proposed. By John Colman.

14 Some Proposals To benefit the Province, — a tract without a titlepage but with these headlines on page 1. At the end, on page 15, is Boston: Printed for and Sold by Benj. Eliot, at his Shop below the Town-House. 1720.

15 March 18^th, [1740.]. The Comp^y for Merch^t. notes redeem^l p. silver [in] 25 yrs., carrying 3 per cent interest, meet, signed, and chose their Director at Boston. (The Diaries of Benjamin Lynde and of Benjamin Lynde, Jr., Boston, 1880, p. 161).

Although the description is inaccurate, this can only refer to the Silver Scheme.

16 The following from the News-Letter is a sample of these advertisements:

The Negro-Man advertised to be sold by me the Subscriber for Bills of the Land Bank, will be sold to the highest Bidder, by Inch of Candle, on Tuesday next 4 o’clock, at the Sign of the Lamb.

Ephraim Baker.

17 Special references are not necessary on these points. An examination of the News-Letter for the summer and autumn of 1740 and the early part of 1741 will reveal numerous instances of the publications alluded to. A sample of the humor employed by the wits of the day will be found in the following from the News-Letter of 25 September, 1740: —

“This is to caution my Friends concernd in the said Scheme against loading the Contribution Boxes in their several places of Worship with their Bills, for if they are free that way, it will assuredly stir up the Clergy of every denomination against those who have hitherto (to the admiration of all mankind amongst us) been silent about em.”

18 The report of the Board of Trade to the Privy Council was made 13 November. They recommended “prosecutions against all concerned in the said Land Bank.” The Privy Council, on 19 November, stated that they agreed with the Board in their opinion that “the said Land Bank Project may create great interruption and confusion in business;” but referred the question of methods of suppression to his Majesty’s Attorney and Solicitor-General (News-Letter, 29 January, 1741).

19 Hobart, in his Historical Sketch of Abington (p. 166), says: “It is not known that any one was removed from office in Plymouth County excepting Elkanah Leonard, Esq., of Middleborough.”

20 Middleton unanimously voted, 27 January, 1740–41, to receive Land Rank Bills for town rates (News-Letter, 29 January, 1741). Abington passed a similar vote 31 March, 1741 (Hobart’s Historical Sketch of Abington, p. 133).

It was one of the points submitted to the qualified voters of Dartmouth, 30 March, 1741 (Suffolk Court Files, cccxliii. 53351.

The Supremacy of the Land Bank in Salem affairs in 1741 is developed in the Diaries of Benjamin Lynde, &c, pp. 104 and 162. The overthrow of the advocates of the Bank in 1742 is noted, p. 163.

21 See News-Letter, 16 April and 21 May, 1741.

22 [1741, May] 23d, Saturday . . . the Land Bank, and all other Private Banks are likely to be blank’t by Act of Parliament. The Government frowns on them, our principal establishment (The Diaries of Benjamin Lynde, &c, p. 109). The News-Letter, under the following dates, furnishes evidence of knowledge of the progress of the Bill: —

30 April. It was stated in a London letter that the Bill was passing.
28 May. There was a notice of the arrival of the Bill which had passed both Houses.
16 July. An extract from the Act was published.

23 Province Laws, ii. 747.

24 In the Fifth Report of the English Historical Manuscripts Commission, Appendix, page 229, the following is said to be among the Shelburne Papers, under date of 10 November, 1735: “Report of the Attorney-General to the Lords of Trade on the Scheme of erecting a Land Bank in Massachusetts.” The quotation in the text is taken from a manuscript copy of a paper in the Public Record Office, Board of Trade, New England, 26, B^b. 136. Mr. B. F. Stevens, who procured this copy for me, has also secured from Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice a note to the effect that the above copy is identical with the document in the Shelburne Papers which was calendared in the Report of the Historical Manuscripts Commission as an opinion on a scheme for erecting a Land Bank.

25 An Account of the Rise, Progress, and Consequences of the two late Schemes, &c, pp. 41, 42. For full title of this pamphlet see note on p. 2, ante.

26 Edward Hutchinson, Samuel Welles, James Bowdoin, Samuel Sewall, Hugh Hall, Joshua Winslow, Edmund Quincy, Thomas Oxnard, James Boutineau. This list is from a mortgage. There is a return in the Archives (cii. 216) in which the name of Andrew Oliver appears in place of Samuel Sewall, while a copy of the note given in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, 1860, xiv. 264, has appended to it ten names, those of Sewall and Oliver being both included.

27 Robert Auchmuty, William Stoddard, Samuel Adams, Peter Chardon, Samuel Watts, John Choate, Thomas Cheever, George Leonard, Robert Hale.

28 Province Laws, iii. 803.

29 How extensively this Agreement was executed by the subscribers I have no means of knowing. The only copy that I have seen is in possession of our associate Mr. William Gordon Weld. A description of it will be found in this volume of our Transactions, pp. 47–49, post.

30 Answer of the House of Representatives, 2 March, 1773, to the Speech of the Governor [Hutchinson] of 16 February, in “Speeches of the Governors of Massachusetts from 1765 to 1775, and the Answers of the House of Representatives to the Same, . . . Boston, 1818” (generally cited as Bradford’s State Papers), p. 394.

Hutchinson, in his History (ii. 355), says: “It was said the Act of George I. when it passed had no relation to America; but another Act twenty years after gave it force, even from the passing it, which it never could have had without. This was said to be an instance of the transcendent power of Parliament.” This transcendent power of Parliament, which was partially set aside by the General Court in 1743, which was disputed by Samuel Adams in 1773, and which was submitted to the arbitrament of the sword in the Revolution, was claimed by the counsel for the defendant in Phillips v. Blatchford (137 Mass.) to still have force in Massachusetts. His brief recites the passage of the Acts of 6 George I. and 14 George II., quotes from the State Constitution the clause which continues in force existing laws until repealed, and concludes:

“This law, established by the express command of the Sovereign, and, on the change of the government, confirmed by the new Sovereign, is the law to-day.”

31 Novanglus and Massachusettensis; or Political Essays published in the years 1774 and 1775, on the principal points of controversy between Great Britain and her Colonies, . . . p. 39.

We seek in vain for any recognition by historians of the political importance of these events, at all proportionate to the claim advanced in the text of this paper. Hildreth gives a brief sketch of the Land Bank, and says that the Act extending the Bubble Act to the Colonies “was denounced in Massachusetts as an interference with the Provincial Charter, and in South Carolina as a violation of provincial rights.” He also refers to the fact that “earnest efforts on behalf of these unfortunate speculators, of whom his father was one, first introduced into politics Samuel Adams, afterward so celebrated.” Palfrey says “the project became a prominent political question,” evidently referring, however, to local contemporary politics. After stating that “some of the best men of the Province” appealed to Parliament for relief, he sums up the effect of the application of the Bubble Act to the colonies in the epigrammatic statement, “The Land Bank was caught in its own devices.” As a rule the references of historians to these events are brief and inappreciative. Hildreth alone seems to have been upon the verge of a complete understanding of their political value. It may be asked why this is so. Our associate, Mr. Abner C. Goodell, Jr., has made a suggestion to me upon this point which furnishes an answer to this question. He says it is because Hutchinson, who is the accepted authority for this period of our history, was opposed to the scheme not only as an economist but as a politician. It was not possible for him to interpret these events without prejudice, nor could those who relied upon his judgment arrive at a true measure of their political influence.

32 See Sewall’s Diary, i. 209, 210.

33 Williston Walker, Ph.D., of the Hartford Theological Seminary, in Papers of the American Society of Church History for 1893, pp. 73, 74.

34 A very full account of this Controversy will be found in the Rev. Henry W. Foote’s Annals of King’s Chapel, chap. xvii. (ii. 241–280), on Episcopacy and the Mayhew Controversy.

35 The story of Mayhew’s ancestry and their civilizing work is given on pages 252, 253, of the chapter above referred to. In this connection the speaker took occasion to refer to the Treasurer of our Society, Mr. Henry H. Edes, as a lineal descendant and worthy representative of the heroic Mayhew family.

36 The mortgage is recorded with Suffolk Deeds, lx. 103.

37 Suffolk Court Files, vol. ccclix. no. 56470.

38 Suffolk Files, vol. ccclxii. no. 56960.

39 Ibid. vol. ccclxix. no. 58408.

40 For an account of this volume and a transcript of its unique passages, see William H. Whitmore’s “A Bibliographical Sketch of the Laws of the Massachusetts Colony,” etc. Boston, 1890.

41 Mr. Noble, as Clerk of the Supreme Judicial Court for the County of Suffolk, is the official custodian of the Suffolk Court Files.

42 This Society was incorporated 22 March, 1895.

43 Sewall’s Diary, ii. 105.

44 Sewall’s Diary, ii. 109, 110, and notes.

45 The treaty of amity and alliance between Great Britain and Portugal was signed at Lisbon, 16 May, 1703, and was renewed by Article xxvi. of the treaty of 1810.

46 By the following November, the Charles, being still the property of the same owners, had sailed upon another expedition as a privateer, under a new commission. See Province Laws, viii. 140, 525, Resolves, 1705–6, Chapter 62 and note.

47 Diary, ii. 102.

48 Diary, ii. 102.

49 Addington, who, after Winthrop’s short term, succeeded Stoughton as Chief Justice, offered to resign his commission 23 July, 1703, but was suffered to retain it with the understanding that “no further service was expected from him therein at present,” and that the Governor and Council would consider the subject of filling that place “as soon as possible.” After this, and until Wait Winthrop was reappointed, 19 February, 1707–8, Sewall presided, and writs bore teste in his name.

50 See a foot-note to Mr. Lindsay Swift’s paper at the December, 1894, Meeting (ante, i. 409), on the location of the Star Tavern.

51 Essay XIV., Of Nobility.

52 At a meeting of the Council held 15 October, 1895, the President appointed Mr. Gardiner M. Lane to fill the vacancy in this Committee occasioned by Mr. Andrew’s death, which occurred on the thirtieth of May.

53 Memorial History of Boston, i. 481.

54 Suffolk Deeds, i. 102.

55 Suffolk Deeds, i. 45.

56 For his title, recently discovered, see 2 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society for November, 1896, xi. 185–187.

57 Suffolk Deeds, iii. 124.

58 Ibid. i. 321.

59 Ibid. iii. 124.

60 Ibid. v. 231.

61 Ibid. vii. 153.

62 Ibid. vii. 302.

63 The History of the County Palatine and City of Chester . . . incorporated with a republication of King’s Vale Royal and Leycester’s Cheshire Antiquities, By George Ormerod, Esq., LL.D., &c., &c., &c. Second edition, revised and enlarged by Thomas Helsby, Esq., of Lincoln’s Inn, Barrister-at-Law. In three volumes. London, 1882, ii. 805.

See also Magna Britannia; being a concise topographical account of the several Counties of Great Britain, by the Rev. Daniel Lysons, A.M. . . . and Samuel Lysons, Esq., F.R.S. London, 1810, iii. 798.

64 My kindly reception by Mr. Evans deserves a more grateful acknowledgment than I can give in these pages.

65 Report of the Commissioners appointed in pursuance of an Act of Parliament made and passed in the 5th and 6th years of King William the 4th, c. 71. Intituled, &c., &c., &c. London, 1837.

66 Some Account of the Citizens of London and their Rulers from 1060 to 1867, by B. B. Orridge. . . . London, 1867. p. 234.

67 A short Account of the Company of Grocers, from their Original together with their case and condition (in their present circumstances) truly stated. . . . London, 1689.

68 Some Account of the Worshipful Company of Grocers of the City of London, by John Benjamin Heath, Esq., F.R. and A.S. Second edition. London, 1854.

69 Papers of the House of Commons, 1878, Vol. 62. The titlepage of this volume is somewhat obscure, but I give it verbatim: Accounts and Papers.

Thirty-nine volumes — (17. Part I.) — Members of Parliament. Part I. Session 17 January–16 August, 1878. LXII. Part I. p. 476.

70 The Register Book of St. Christopher le Stocks, in the City of London. Edited by Edwin Treshfield. . . . London, 1882. p. 42.

71 Westmin. 1 June, 1632. To Mr. Alderman Moulson, Governor of the Merchant Adventurers. Epistolæ Ho — Elianæ. Familiar Letters Domestic & Forren. . . . By James Howel, Esq; One of the Clerks of his late Ma^ties most Honb^le Privy Councell. The Fifth Edition. London, 1678. p. 216.

I am indebted to Mr. Edward M. Borrajo, of the Guildhall Library, for this reference to the authority which was the basis of Mr. Welch’s assertion relative to Sir Thomas’s position in this Company. For this and for the courtesy which led him to submit the Stocken papers to my inspection, and for the great courtesy of my treatment at the Library, I desire to make my acknowledgments.

72 Ante, i. 353.

73 See Mr. Noble’s paper read at the February, 1895, meeting, ante, pp. 51–65, and especially pp. 55 and 56.

74 Massachusetts Colony Records, ii. 259.

75 Suffolk Court Files, vol. ccclvi., no. 55.818.

76 Suffolk Court Files, vol. ccclvi., no. 55.818.

77 New England Historical and Genealogical Register for April, 1888, xlii. 184, 185.

78 Sedgwick afterwards removed to Boston, where he owned a house and garden on Washington Street, the estate being contiguous, on the north, to that on the corner of School Street, a part of which is now (1895) the site of the “Old Corner Book-Store.” Cf. Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, ii. 192 and iii. 2; Wyman’s Genealogies and Estates of Charlestown, ii. 852; and Memorial History of Boston, i. 399, ii. xxxiv.

79 Wonder-Working Providence of Sion’s Saviour in New England (Poole’s edition), p. 192.

80 General Laws of New Plymouth, chap. ii. sec. 13, p. 245.

81 Ibid. chap. ii. sec. 14, p. 245

82 The Colonial Laws of Massachusetts reprinted from the edition of 1660 (Whitmore’s edition), p. 123.

83 Frothingham’s History of Charlestown, p. 97.

84 William Stilson’s name was often spelled “Stitson” and “Stetson” in the early records. See Wyman’s Genealogies and Estates of Charlestown, ii. 902.

85 The town was named by Capt. Edward Johnson in honor of his friend and “pateron” Sedgwick, who, as we have seen, was a native of Woburn, in Bedfordshire, England. See Hurd’s History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, i. 336.

86 Wonder-Working Providence (Poole’s edition), p. lxxxvi. Frothingham (History of Charlestown, p. 108) interprets the phrase “compild body reare” as meaning “my compact body to rear.”

87 Quincy’s History of Harvard University, i. 271, 511.

88 A Collection of the State Papers of John Thurloe (Birch’s edition), London, 1742, ii. 419.

89 History of Nova Scotia, i. 126.

90 Murdoch’s History of Nova Scotia, i. 124.

91 Thurloe, iii. 753.

92 Thurloe, iv. 152.

93 Ibid. iv. 152, 153.

94 Thurloe, iv. 155.

95 Ibid.

96 Thurloe, iv. 155.

97 Ibid.

98 Ibid.

99 Thurloe, iv. 155

100 Ibid. iii. 151.

101 Thurloe, iv. 454.

102 Ibid. iv. 600.

103 Thurloe, iv. 604.

104 Thurloe, iv. 604.

105 Thurloe, v. 154.

106 Thurloe, v. 152.

107 Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches (Chapman and Hall edition, London, 1870), iv. 171.

108 Long’s History of Jamaica, i. 257.

109 Eastern Railroad Company v. Allen, 135 Massachusetts, 13 (a. d. 1883).

110 Massachusetts Archives, lix. 22.

111 Cf. ante, p. 160, note 1.

112 New England Historical and Genealogical Register, January, 1888, xlii. 67.

113 Wyman’s Genealogies and Estates of Charlestown, i. 180, 188, ii. 573.

114 See Francis Higginson Atkins’s Joseph Atkins, The History of a Family, pp. 57–71, 146–150.

115 Printed in 3 Massachusetts Historical Collections, ii. 284, 285.

116 An account of Mr. Cary’s ministry is given in Foote’s Annals of King’s Chapel, ii. 407–416.

117 Records of the First Church in Cambridge. For a short time previous to her second marriage, Mrs. Lincoln had been afflicted with melancholia, and fears were expressed (verified by the sad event) that she might die by her own hand.

118 Tudor’s Life of James Otis, pp. 19, 20; History of Hingham, iii. 9, 277; and Records of the Church in Brattle Square, Boston.

119 Miss Ann Gillam Storrow is here referred to. She was born in Halifax, 24 June, 1784, and died in Brattleborough, Vt., 20 May, 1862. She was the daughter of Capt. Thomas Storrow of the British Army by his wife, Ann Appleton, whose mother, Mary Wentworth, was granddaughter of Lieut.-Gov. John Wentworth, niece of Gov. Benning Wentworth, and cousin of Gov. John Wentworth of New Hampshire (Wentworth Genealogy, i. 513). Miss Storrow was a sister of Louisa Storrow, who married Stephen Higginson, Steward of Harvard College, and lived much in her family, where she was always addressed as “Aunt Nancy.”

120 The Rev. Dr. Daniel Dana, afterwards President of Dartmouth College. He was pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Newburyport (in a vault under the pulpit of which Whitefield is buried) from 1794 till 1820. From 1826 till 1845 Dr. Dana ministered to the Second Presbyterian Church, the founders of which withdrew from the First Presbyterian Church because of dissatisfaction with his settlement over it thirty-two years before.

121 One of Mrs. Atkins’s descendants writes to me: “The table was of plain white pine, and always kept scoured to perfect whiteness. Mrs. Atkins was obliged to live very carefully, and probably set up her pine table because she could not afford cloths. They had honey in the comb, and, my mother said, no cake except the lightest sponge-cake. These simple things often charmed visitors, but I know not what Mrs. Lincoln saw there.”

122 The Rev. John Andrews, D.D., was colleague and successor to the Rev. Thomas Cary in the pastorate of the Third Parish of Newbury, now the First Parish of Newburyport.

123 New England’s First Fruits, 1 Massachusetts Historical Collections, i. 245.

124 Account of Indigenous Vegetables Botanically Arranged, p. 397.

125 Gerard’s Herbal (Johnson’s edition), p. 1588.

126 3 Massachusetts Historical Collections, viii. 89.

127 3 Massachusetts Historical Collections, viii. 78.

128 Mourt’s Relation, 2 Massachusetts Historical Collections, ix. 51.

129 Wood’s New England’s Prospect (Prince Society’s edition), pp. 16, 17.

130 The New English Canaan (Prince Society’s edition), book i. chap, xviii. p. 172.

131 Description of New England, 3 Massachusetts Historical Collections, vi. 117, 118.

132 3 Massachusetts Historical Collections, viii. 87.

133 Ibid. viii. 88, 89.

134 Ibid. viii. 93, 94.

135 3 Massachusetts Historical Collections, viii. 134.

136 Ibid. viii. 157.

137 2 Massachusetts Historical Collections, v. 24.

138 3 Massachusetts Historical Collections, vi. 120.

139 New England’s Plantation (Higgeson), 1 Massachusetts Historical Collections, i. 118, 119.

140 Hakluyt’s The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of the English Nation (Goldsmid’s edition), xiii. 92.

141 Somerset’s Land of the Muskeg (London, 1895), passim.

142 Chap. ii. Rhode Island Historical Collections, i. 34.

143 1740–1745, xv. 266, 267.

144 History of the United States (edition of 1858), vii. 105.

145 Province Laws, ii. 586, 595.

146 See pp. 241, 242, post.

147 There were but four generations of Martin Brimmers, — two having been in one generation, one having died in childhood.

148 For the full text of this document see post, v. 116–132.

149 Suffolk Court Files, vol. cccciv. no. 65,227.

150 Province Laws, iii. 449, 505.

151 Palfrey (History of New England, v. 567) gives his term of office 1747, 1748. He was, however, a member of the Council in 1749.

152 Province Laws, iii. 479.

153 Douglass’s “Summary,” Serial Number 15; pp. 235–238, text and note, of loose sheets, without date, among Suffolk Court Files (see p. 227. post); and i. 253 and note (edition of 1749, see p. 218, note 1, post); Snow’s History of Boston, p. 238 et seq.; James Grahame’s History of the United States, ii. 186–188; Bancroft’s History of the United States (edition of 1840), iii. 465, 466; Palfrey’s History of New England, v. 88 et seq.; Memorial History of Boston, chap. xvi.; Narrative and Critical History of America, v. 148 et seq.: and New England Historical and Genealogical Register for October, 1874, xxviii. 451–466. See also Boston Weekly Post-Boy, 23 November, 14 and 21 December 1747, and 4 January, 1748; Boston Evening Post, 14 and 21 December, 1747; Boston Weekly News-Letter, 17 and 31 December, 1747, and 7 January, 1748; and Boston Gazette or Weekly Journal, 5 January, 1748.

154 A Summary, Historical and Political, of the first Planting, progressive Improvements, and present State of the British Settlements in North-America, containing — I. Some general Account of ancient and modern Colonies, the granting and settling of the British Continent and West India Island Colonies, with some transient Remarks concerning the adjoining French and Spanish Settlements, and other Remarks of various Natures. II. The Hudson’s Bay Company’s Lodges, Fur and Skin Trade. III. Newfoundland Harbours and Cod-Fishery. IV. The Province of l’Accadie or Nova-Scotia; with the Vicissitudes of the Property and Jurisdiction thereof, and its present State. V. The several Grants of Sagadahock, Province of Main, Massachusetts-Bay, and New Plymouth, united by a new Charter in the present Province of Massachusetts Bay, commonly called New-England. By William Douglass, M. D. Vol. I. (Ne quid falsi dicere audeat, ne quid veri non audeat. —Cicero.) Boston, New England: Printed and Sold by Rogers and Fowle in Queen Street, md, cc, xlix.

155 The Titlepage of this Number is as follows: A Summary Historical and Political of the first Planting progressive Improvements, and present State of the British Settlements in North America; with Some transient Accounts of the Bordering French and Spanish Settlements. By W: D: M: D. N^o. 15. To be continued. Boston. Printed and Sold by Rogers and Fowle in Queen Street 1747 Where may be had all the former Numbers at 6^d. each New tenor.

156 Address at the meeting of the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association at Fort Dummer, 13 August, 1896, by Rev. George Leon Walker, D. D. (Greenfield (Mass.) Gazette and Courier (newspaper) of 15 August, 1896); McClintock’s History of New Hampshire, p. 210.

157 See Albert H. Hoyt’s article on the Pepperrell Papers in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register for October, 1874, xxviii. 451–466; and Palfrey’s History of New England, v. 88, 145.

158 Memorial History of Boston, ii. chap. xv. and xvi.; iv. chap. ix. and x.; Drake’s History and Antiquities of Boston, p. 623; Shurtleff’s Topographical and Historical Description of Boston, pp. 609, 610; Palfrey’s History of New England, iv. 414 et seq.; and New England Historical and Genealogical Register for 1877. xxxi. 118.

159 Records of the Superior Court of Judicature, 1747–50, xvii. 194.

160 Records of the Superior Court of Judicature, 1747–50, xvii. 267.

161 Records of the Superior Court of Judicature, 1747–50, xvii. 276.

162 This may have been Peter Mortimore, mariner, who was married at Trinity Church, Boston, 18 October, 1748, to Mary Wilcocks. See Suffolk Probate Files, No. 15,465.

163 Robert Ball, died in October, 1774 (The Boston Evening Post, No. 2038, of Monday, 17 October, 1774). See Suffolk Probate Files, No. 15,703; and Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xiii. 309; xv. 318; xix. 50; and xx. 224.

164 Massachusetts Archives, liii. 231, 232.

165 Massachusetts Archives, xi. 488. Cf. ante, p. 200, and 1 Massachusetts Historical Society’s Proceedings for June, 1859, iv. 349–353.

166 In the Council Records (xv. 24) the name of the fifth petitioner is entered as “Andrew Duckerman.”

167 Province Laws, ii. 586, 595.

168 Its title is, “What a Small Town may do for Itself.”

169 The Lawrence Society of Natural History and Archæology was incorporated at Lawrence, 8 March, 1895. Its purpose is “to promote the study of natural history and archæology.”

170 My attention was called to this suit by Mr. William P. Upham, who is engaged in arranging the old papers in the Suffolk Court Files. If they shall prove to have the value to students of Constitutional Law which I attribute to them, my gratitude to Mr. Upham for this service on his part will readily be appreciated.

I wish also to express my appreciation of the many courtesies received from our associate Mr. John Noble, while examining these and other papers under his charge at the Suffolk office. The admirable arrangement of the papers, and the manner in which they have been mounted for reference, leave nothing to be desired on the part of historical students.

171 1 Cranch, 137. The student of Constitutional Law will find an excellent abstract of this case in Cases on Constitutional Law, by our associate James Bradley Thayer, Cambridge, 1895.

172 The early cases under State Constitutions where the question of the constitutionality of a law was under discussion have been collated by Professor Thayer in his Cases on Constitutional Law. Holmes v. Walton, a New Jersey case in 1780, mentioned in a note on page 62, is said to have been an important case, and to have been discussed in the Constitutional Convention. See also Trevett v. Weeden, Rhode Island, 1786, page 73 et seq.; Den d. Bayard and Wife v. Singleton, North Carolina, 1787, page 78 et seq.: and Van Horne’s Lessee v. Dorrance, Circuit Court, Pennsylvania District, 1795, page 94 et seq.

173 The question of appeals from Colonial Courts was fully discussed by Harold D. Hazeltine, in 1894, before the American Historical Association. (Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the year 1894, pp. 299–350).

174 It seems to me that Palfrey is disposed to underestimate the importance of this case. He speaks of the reservation in the Charter to the effect that the Legislature could make no laws contrary to the laws and statutes of the realm of England, as “a provision which had little practical significance” (History of New England, ii. 541). When he discusses this case he says, “Winthrop’s wife produced to the Governor a record of an Order of the King in Council, overruling that action of the Connecticut Courts of which Winthrop had complained; and the Assembly ordered the Secretary to proceed to put Winthrop in possession of the land claimed by him, as soon as the bounds and quantity of said land should be ascertained.” Notwithstanding this practical application of the determination of the Privy Council, he then goes on to say: “Connecticut could not be brought to accede to the determination of the Privy Council. And at length, nearly twenty years after the adverse decree of that body, the Provincial law was sanctioned by a decision of the Council, under advice of the Crown lawyers” (Ibid. iv. 578). The Crown lawyers were of opinion that this reservation was of force, and that any law which violated it was null and void “(Chalmers’s Opinions, London edition, 1814, i. 347, 354). This last opinion ends as follows: “If any laws have been there made, repugnant to the laws of England, they are absolutely null and void.”

175 “His Majesty cannot, by law, give a direction to any court for to rehear any cause depending therein, but rehearings are granted, or denied, by courts of equity, on petition of the parties grieved, to such court as shall be judged proper.” (From the opinion of Edward Northey, given to the Board of Trade, 19 December, 1717, in Opinions of Eminent Lawyers on various points of English Jurisprudence, chiefly concerning the Colonies, Fisheries, and Commerce of Great Britain. Collected, and digested from the originals, in the Board of Trade, and other depositories. By George Chalmers, Esq., F. R. S. and S. A. London, 1814, ii. 177. This work is generally cited as Chalmers’s Opinions.)

176 I am indebted to Mr. Edward M. Borrajo of the Guildhall Library, London, for the following information concerning Ralph Gulston: —

“In the Gentleman’s Magazine (ix 161) the death of Ralph Gulston, Esq., Turkey Merchant, is recorded under date March 11, 1739. This Gulston was a member of a distinguished family which traces its pedigree from Sir Ralph Gulston, knighted on the field of Cressy by the Black Prince, a. d. 1316; he was the second son of William Gulston, and grandson of Joseph Gulston, Dean of Chichester, Chaplain and Almoner of Charles I., and present with him at his execution. Ralph was born in 1684, and appears to have died without issue. That this Ralph Gulston was identical with your man seems probable. I may add that the address given in a directory of the time is ‘Great St. Helen’s.’”

Mr. Henry E. Woods was kind enough to look up this matter, and through independent sources of information reached the same conclusion as Mr. Borrajo.

177 6 Massachusetts Historical Collections (Belcher Papers), vii. 479. Letter, 9 December, 1734, to the Duke of Newcastle, etc. This letter is as follows: —

May it please your Grace:

The 18: of last mo: I rec’d the honour of his Majestys commands by y^r Graces letter of the 3^d of October respecting a complaint made by Mr Gulston the contractor for supplying His Majestys Navy with masts from this Country which letter with the copy of the Complaint inclos’d by your Grace I first of all laid before His Majestys Council here and then before the General Assembly now sitting that the whole Legislature might exert themselves in an affair that so highly concerns the good of the service and the inclos’d print will give your Grace an account of the particular steps taken for the better preservation of His Majestys Woods.

Then follows what is quoted in the text.

178 Thinking that possibly there might be something among the Privy Council Records which would throw some light upon these proceedings, I made application to the Privy Council Office for information upon the subject. I am indebted to the courtesy of Mr. Thomas Preston, Record Clerk, for the following: —

“The Registers contain just bare minutes of the proceedings & the orders. The dates are as follows: —

Heard	2 April 1736
Petn to enforce order	21 Decr 1738
Report & order	23 Feb 1738
Further order	22 Mar 1738”

179 Willis, in his History of Portland, gives us the following particulars concerning Emery: —

“Noah Emery of Kittery was for many years the only lawyer in Maine; he commenced practice about 1725, and although not regularly bred to the profession, he was a man of talents, a ready draftsman, and had considerable practice. On one occasion, between 1720 and 1730, an action of trespass was commenced in the Inferior Court of York by Matthew Livermore for the plaintiff. William Shirley of Boston, afterward Governor of Massachusetts, for the defendant, filed a special plea; but as special pleading was rarely used in that day and by the practising attorneys of those times little understood, and much less by the Court, the plea was answered by some ore tenus observations by the plaintiff’s counsel, and the cause went to trial ‘somehow or other.’ The verdict was for the plaintiff, and the defendant appealed to the Superior Court, where the cause went again in favor of the plaintiff and execution issued. The defendant entered a complaint to the King in Council, and an order was issued thereon to set the whole proceedings aside, on account of the defective pleadings in the Inferior Court. The order of restitution was addressed to the Superior Court, and Mr. Auchmuty, an able lawyer of Boston, made an earnest application to the Court to have the order carried into effect; the Court was somewhat perplexed on the occasion, but Mr. Emery, as counsel for the plaintiff, drew up an answer to Mr. Auchmuty’s petition, in substance as follows: That the Superior Court of Judicature was a court constituted by the law of the Province, whereby they were authorized to hear and determine such civil matters therein mentioned as were made cognizable by them, and to render judgment thereon, and to issue execution pursuant to their own judgment and not otherwise. And if counsel for the defendant in this case had obtained a different judgment from what appeared upon their records, he must go there for his execution, as they were not by law empowered to issue any execution contrary to the record of their own judgment. The Court were satisfied with this answer, and complimented Mr. Emery upon the manner in which he relieved them from their embarrassment. Mr. Auchmuty acquiesced in the decision.” [Reference, Judge Sewall MSS.] (The History of Portland from 1632 to 1864: With a notice of previous settlements, colonial grants, and changes of government in Maine, by William Willis, second edition, Portland, 1865, pp. 616, 617.)

Notwithstanding the variations between the account of the above suit and the story of Frost v. Leighton, there can be but little doubt that this is an attempt to tell the story of that suit from memory.

180 The Board of Trade were advised to the contrary by their counsel: “And as to the instructions given to the Governor mentioned in the petition, whereby he is restrained from allowing an appeal in any case under the value of £500 sterling, that does restrain the Governor only from granting of appeals under that value, notwithstanding which, it is in his Majesty’s power, upon a petition, to allow an appeal in cases of any value, where he shall think fit, and such appeals have been often allowed by his Majesty.” . . . (From the opinion of Edward Northey, 19 December, 1717, on a petition to the Board of Trade, by William Cockburn, from a decision rendered against him in Jamaica. Chalmers’s Opinions, ii. 177).

181 Cf. Massachusetts Reports, cvi. 479–489, 489–498; cxix. 1–28.

182 The words in parentheses were inserted by Ames, J., without indicating where they properly belong. — George F. Tucker, Reporter of Decisions.

183 Pennsylvania Chronicle (newspaper), No. 41, from Monday, October 26th, to Monday. November 2d, 1767.

184 Franklin boarded for fifteen years with Mrs. Margaret Stevenson, whose daughter Mary married Dr. William Hewson, F. R. S. (Bigelow’s Complete Works of Benjamin Franklin (edition of 1887, 1888), ii. 522, note.)

185 Tuthill Hubbart, who succeeded James Franklin, was Postmaster till the Revolution; was Selectman of Boston, 1781–1784; and died, on the site of Sears’s Building, 17 January, 1808, aged 88.

186 “An Epitaph &c To the much esteem’d Memory of B. . . . . F. . . . . . . Esq,’ L. L. D. * * * Possessed of many lucrative Offices Procured to him by the Interest of Men Whom he infamously treated, And receiving enormous Sums from this Province, For Services He never performed After betraying it to Party and Contention, He lived, as to the Appearance of Wealth In Moderate Circumstances. His principal Estate, seeming to consist In his Hand Maid Barbara A most valuable Slave, The Foster Mother of his last Offspring Who did his dirty Work And in two Angelic Females, whom Barbara also served As Kitchen Wench and Gold Finder. But alas the Loss! Providence for wise tho’ secret Ends Lately deprived him of the Mother of Excellency.”^α

^α Governor William Franklin.

187 Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography for 1893, xvii. 256.

188 Samuel Soumien was a silversmith and lived only a few doors from the Franklins in Philadelphia.

189 The names of the gentlemen who constituted this Committee are given in connection with the proceedings of the December Meeting of the Society.

190 The Committee was composed of Messrs. George S. Hale, George M. Lane, Edward Wheelwright, Seth C. Chandler, and S. Lothrop Thorndike.

191 The Class of 1844, Harvard College. Prepared for the Twenty-fifth Anniversary of their Graduation, Cambridge, 1869.

192 Verses by Charles Henry Boylston Snow, Class Poet, recited at a Class meeting in 1864.

193 Reference to these papers is made in the Proceedings of the Society for November, 1896, and January, 1897, Second Series, xi. 183, 221–226.

194 By an Act of the General Court (chap. 95 of the Acts of 1790) passed 11 March, 1797, the Records of the Court after 1 August, 1797, were to be kept in the respective Counties. — The General Laws of Massachusetts (edition of 1823), i. 536.

195 See Freeman’s Norman Conquest (second edition), i. 640; iv. 736. Edric “the Wild,” though his career is very obscure, is prominent enough to figure in the background of Kingsley’s “Hereward.”

196 This letter has the Weld crest, with the motto Auspicium melioris ævi; Nil sine Numine.

197 See Publications of this Society, i. 153.

198 Province Laws, ii. 586.

199 See a copy of this Petition, ante, pp. 211, p. 242.

200 Mr. Thomas Hills.

201 Acts of 1861, chap. 183.

202 Page 2

203 Page 3.

204 Page 23.

205 Page 27.

206 Miss Susan Whitney died at Taunton, Massachusetts, 16 November, 1880, aged 80 years. Her school for boys and girls, in Boston, —was kept in the basement of the First Church, in Chauncy Place.

207 The line of descent from the emigrant ancestor was through the Rev. Michael (H. C. 1651), Prof. Edward (H. C. 1710), Prof. Edward (H. C. 1749), Thomas (H. C. 1793), and Edward (H. C. 1822), — the father of our late associate.

208 John Forrester Andrew was descended from the Higginson, Pickering, Grafton, Otis, Crushing, and other prominent New England families.

209 Memorial address on Governor John A. Andrew, by Parke Godwin.

210 The Officers of the Young Men’s Republican and Independent Club of Boston were as follows: —

President, John F. Andrew; Vice-Presidents, Roger Wolcott, Francis Leeds, Henry W. Putnam, Lewis U. Tucker, and Henry H. Edes; Secretary, John T. Wheelwright; Assistant-Secretary, Francis C. Lowell; Treasurer, Arthur L. Woodman.

211 Andrew had early been urged by the Tariff Reformers to accept the Congressional nomination, but it was decided by him and those whom he consulted that the general cause could be pushed more advantageously if he were the candidate for the Governorship on a platform supporting the reforms which he especially sought to advance.

212 During his absence in Europe in the summer of this year he was mentioned as the probable Democratic candidate, and as he had authorized Mr. Moorfield Storey to decline for him in case his nomination was seriously considered, Mr. Storey did so in an open letter to Hon. P. A. Collins, then the Chairman of the Democratic State Committee.

213 Hon. Scott Wike, now Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, in an interview published in Boston Herald, 1 June, 1895.

214 The re-organization of the Fourth-Class Postmasterships in accordance with the recommendations of the De Forest Report could not be accomplished, as the Fifty-fourth Congress refused to grant the requisite transfer of appropriations requested by Postmaster-General Wilson.

215 Mr. Andrew married 11 October, 1883, Harriet, daughter of Nathaniel and Cornelia (Van Rensselaer) Thayer of Boston. She died 16 September, 1891, leaving two daughters, Cornelia-Thayer, and Elizabeth.

216 This Bill proposed the increase of circulation of National Banks to the par value of the bonds held to secure it, the repeal of the tax on circulation, and the reduction of the bond deposits; also the repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act.

217 A Constitutional Prohibitory Amendment was presented by the Republicans, in 1886, for popular vote. Andrew said in a speech of this campaign in regard to this prohibitory legislation: “We need no more laws; we should better enforce the laws we already have. An Act of the Legislature never yet made a man temperate.”

218 Publications, i. 19.

219 At the time of the appointment of this Committee Mr. Endicott was serving on two similar committees of other organizations. He therefore asked to be excused from service, and Mr. Henry H. Edes was appointed by the President to fill the vacancy thus created.

220 This may refer to James Anderson, of Boston, who was an Addresser of Hutchinson and of Gage; but more probably the person referred to was Samuel Anderson, of New York, who, at the beginning of the Revolution, went to Canada, where he held, successively, high judicial offices under the Crown. See Sabine’s Loyalists of the American Revolution (edition of 1864), i. 164.

221 This is probably intended for Lincoln, the fifth and sixth letters being transposed. Mr. James’s mother was descended from the Lincolns. See History of Hingham, ii. 380, 381.

222 General James Warren.

223 General Benjamin Lincoln.

224 The Rev. Caleb Gannett (H. C. 1763) and his first wife, Katherine Wendell, are here referred to. He was Steward of Harvard College from 1779 till his death in 1818.

225 She was probably a daughter of John and Elizabeth (Gretian) Pinkney. See post, pp. 895, 396, notes.

226 Published by the Town in 1893.

227 See also “John Gay of Dedham, Mass., and some of his Descendants,” by Frederick Lewis Gay, in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register for January, 1879, xxxiii. 45–57, from which the authors of the History of Hingham appear to have copied.

228 See post, p. 398, note 3.

229 Suffolk Probate Files. No. 16,842.

230 In the Roll of Members, &c., published by the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company in 1895, Martin Gay is erroneously set down as Captain under the year 1772. In 1770 he was Lieutenant. He was Captain for one year only.

231 This was the Building now occupied as the West End Branch of the Boston Public Library.

232 The Columbian Centinel (No. 2592) of Saturday, 4 February, 1809, records his death on the previous morning, and announces his funeral on the following Monday “at half past 8 o’clock from his late, dwelling house on Union Street.”

233 See List of “Addressers” in Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society for October, 1870, xi. 392–395. Also, Hutchinson’s History of Massachusetts, iii. 459.

234 Foote’s Annals of King’s Chapel, ii. 294–296. See also the Rev. Edward G. Porter’s Rambles in Old Boston, p. 98.

235 This List is commonly known as Barrell’s List. It is printed in the Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society for December, 1880, xviii. 266–268.

236 See also Mr. Frederick Lewis Gay’s article in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register for January, 1879, xxxiii. 45–57, already cited on p. 384, ante.

237 Suffolk Probate Files, No. 18,785, Bond of Timothy Atkins et al., dated 9 December, 1794.

238 See Suffolk Probate Files, No. 16,950.

239 Swansey or Swansea, Bristol County, Massachusetts.

240 Suffolk Deeds, xcv. 196–198. The second of these conveyances (Gay to Gay) is from the parents of Martin Gay, viz,— “Ebenezer Gay of Hingham, clerk, & Jerusha, his wife.” Mrs. Gay was one of the four daughters of Hannah Bradford.

241 See plan drawn by Osgood Carleton, 7 February, 1814.

242 From plans drawn in 1814 by Osgood Carleton, and in 1881 by Alexander Wadsworth, for subsequent owners of the estate, it appears that the site is now, in part, covered by the modern buildings numbered 56–58 and 60–62 Union Street, near Hanover Street, and opposite the entrance to Marshall Street. A large part of the rear portion was cut off in laying out Friend Street, in 1855, but the line of frontage on Union Street remains, measuring, however, 48 ⁷⁰/₁₀₀ feet instead of 44 feet, according to the old measurement. Something has probably been added from the adjoining estate on the north, belonging to the same owners, in order to equalize more nearly the width of the three buildings. All resemblance to the former aspect of the premises has entirely disappeared. “The great entry way” was long since closed and built upon. The numbering of Union Street has been frequently changed; in 1840 the building covering the site of Martin Gay’s front shop was No. 22.

243 See Act of 1 May, 1779 (chap. 49), Province Laws, v. 968–971, 1056, 1057.

244 Suffolk Probate Files, No. 16,842. See Acts of 1776–77 (chap. 38, sect. 5), Province Laws, v. 631.

245 Suffolk Probate Files, No. 16,842.

246 This Appeal was allowed by Chap. 278 of the Resolves of 1781, approved 30 October of that year.

247 Suffolk Probate Files, No. 16,842.

248 Mrs. Gay is so styled by inadvertence, as her husband was still living.

249 John Lowell, the Agent of the estate, was a Boston merchant and auctioneer, a member of the Committee of Correspondence and, in 1776, Deputy-Secretary of the Executive Council. He was cousin-german to his more distinguished namesake, Judge John Lowell (1743–1802), and died in Boston, 1 June, 1793, œ. 54 years.

250 Suffolk Probate Files, No. 18, 785. The estate was not settled until 1794.

251 See Hassam’s Confiscated Estates of Boston Loyalists in 2 Massachusetts Historical Society’s Proceedings for May, 1895, x. 162–185.

252 Beside the estate on Union Street, Martin Gay, at the time of his leaving Boston, owned a house and land on Winter Street. This was also leased by John Lowell, Agent, until sold to John Davis, of Boston, shopkeeper, for £225, “money.” (Suffolk Deeds, cxxxvi. 228.) In this sale no right of dower was reserved. In the Inventory of the estate of Martin Gay, Absentee, 2 April, 1779, the Mansion House, workshop, stable, and land belonging to the same were appraised at £9000. 0. 0, and the House and land in Winter Street at £600. 0. 0. (Suffolk Probate Files, No. 16,842.)

253 Suffolk Deeds, clxviii. 122.

254 See ante, p. 384 and note 1. There is, to be sure, a difference in spelling. Martin Gay’s wife is called Mary Pinckney; the daughter of John and Elizabeth was Mary Pinkney.

255 See Genealogies of the Payne and Gore Families, published by the Prince Society, 1875, and in the Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society for January, 1875, xiii. 405–424. See also the will of John Pinckney in Suffolk Probate Files, No. 7219. For a further account of Christopher Gore, see Quincy’s History of Harvard University (edition of 1860), ii. 430; Foote’s Annals of King’s Chapel, ii. 470–480 and notes; and 3 Massachusetts Historical Collections, iii. 191.

256 Chap. 85 of the Resolves of 1807.

257 Suffolk Deeds, ccxxii. 168.

258 Ibid, ccxxx. 301.

259 It seems not to have been thought necessary to make Christopher Gore a party to this conveyance, though the legal title to the estate conveyed would seem to have been at the time vested in him as Trustee. It was probably assumed that the purposes for which the trust was created had been accomplished, — that it had executed itself. Its provisions are rehearsed in the deed to Davis.

260 From this amount should be deducted the £380 lawful money paid by Timothy Atkins at the sale, 15 June, 1786, and the $1,680 paid by Mrs. Ruth Gay, 23 June, 1807. (Suffolk Deeds, ccxxii. 168.)

261 Suffolk Deeds, ccxxii. 302.

262 It is entitled Fifty Years with the Revere Copper Company. A paper read at the Stockholders’ Meeting held on Monday, 24 March, 1890. By its Treasurer, S. T. Snow. Boston: Printed by request and for use of the Stockholders.

263 The Boston Directory of 1796 records the name of Robert Crocker, brass founder, on Edwards’ wharf, Back Street, whose house was also on Back Street.

264 Mr. Snow thinks that it was through this association that Martin Gay acquired the designation of “Brass founder,” sometimes applied to him. In all original documents examined, of early date, where his calling is mentioned, he is styled “Brazier” or “Coppersmith;” in later documents, “gentleman.”

In the Act of the year 1778 (chap. 24), “to prevent the return to this State of certain persons therein named,” etc., the name of Martin Gay is followed by the designation “Founder.” (Province Laws, v. 913, 1004–1009.) Also, in the Inventory of the Estate of Martin Gay, Absentee, taken and appraised 2 April, 1779, one of the items (besides the founder’s mould already mentioned) is “Founder’s pattin [?], £8. 15. 0.” (Suffolk Probate Files, 16,842.)

265 Fifty Years with the Revere Copper Company, p. 21.

266 Fifty Years with the Revere Copper Company, p. 21. In a note Mr. Snow adds: “The foregoing is taken largely from Mr. Joseph T.Buckingham’s Letter, No. XVII., in The Saturday Evening Gazette, of May 21,1859. It is understood that the facts contained therein were obtained by him directly from Mr. Davis.”

267 Ibid. p. 22.

268 Ibid. p. 13.

269 Occasional Sermons; Notes, p. 68.

270 Suffolk Probate Files, No. 23,280.

271 Given in Quincy’s History of Harvard University (edition of 1860), i. 311, 312.

272 William Dummer.

273 Hutchinson’s History of Massachusetts Bay (edition of 1768), ii. 292.

274 Hutchinson’s History of Massachusetts Bay (edition of 1768), ii. 290, note

275 Magnalia (edition of 1702), Book iv. p. 131.

276 Ben: Perley Poore’s The Federal and State Constitutions, Colonial Charters, and other Organic Laws of the United States, ii. 1904

277 Henry Vane, elected Governor in 1636 partly on account of his father’s high social position in England, was not knighted until his return to England.

278 Winthrop’s History of New England (edition of 1853), i. 160, 161; Hutchinson’s History of Massachusetts Bay (edition of 1765), i. 490–495.

279 “Hereditary honors both nature and scripture doth acknowledge, but hereditary authority and power standeth only by the civil laws.” — Hutchinson’s History of Massachusetts Bay (edition of 1765), i. 493 (Appendix).

280 Massachusetts Colony Records, i. 167 et al.; also Winthrop’s History of New England (edition of 1853), i. 363, 364.

281 Felt’s Ecclesiastical History of New England, i. 135.

282 Winthrop’s History of New England (edition of 1853), ii. 19.

283 Massachusetts Colony Records, ii. 95, — 13 November, 1644.

284 History of Massachusetts Bay (edition of 1765), ii. 9. Hutchinson considered the House of Lords the bulwark of the British Constitution, curbing both the Crown and the people.

285 Sibley’s Harvard Graduates, i. 17, note. For some years the title Mr. was given in the records to the Assistants of the Colony, although the Governor Deputy Governor, and some of the Assistants were styled Esquires. This was followed by a period when the title Gentleman was accorded to all of these; and this again was followed by the custom, lasting down to the overthrow of the first Royal Charter, of naming them Esquires. See Massachusetts Colony Records, passim.

286 James Phinney Baxter’s Sir Ferdinando Gorges and his Province of Maine (Prince Society’s Publications), ii. 127.

287 Rev. Edmund F. Slafter’s Sir William Alexander and American Colonization (Prince Society’s Publications), p. 233; Rymer’s Fœdera, xix. 301; Traité entre le Roi Louis XIII. et Charles Roi d’Angleterre pour la Restitution de la Nouvelle Fiance, la Cadie et Canada, 1632

288 Schuyler’s Colonial New York: Philip Schuyler and his Family, i. 12 et al.

289 New York Colonial Documents (edition of 1853), iii. 72 et al.

290 Schuyler’s Colonial New York, i. 275. Cf. New York Colonial Documents, iv. 823.

291 New York Colonial Documents, ii. 619 note.

292 Ibid. iv. 823; also Schuyler’s Colonial New York, i. 199.

293 New York Colonial Documents, iv. 829.

294 Learning and Spicer’s Grants and Concessions of New Jersey, p. 609; also New Jersey Archives, ii. 462.

295 Hazard’s Annals of Pennsylvania, p. 489.

296 William H. Egle’s History of Pennsylvania, p. 281 et al.

297 Maryland Archives, i. 20. An Act was passed in March, 1637–38, against “aliening” manors; also an Act passed to establish baronies. The manors of Bridgewater, of Talbot, of Arundell, of Lady Baltimore and others mentioned in the Maryland Archives appear to have been tracts of land so designated without possessing any special privileges. See also Ibid. vi. 134, 205 et al.

298 Colonial Records of North Carolina, i. Prefatory Notes, p. xviii.

299 Historical Collections of Georgia, by George White, p. 20.

300 Major Simon Willard, who arrived in Boston in May, 1634, was thrice married, his first wife having been Mary Sharpe, his second wife Elizabeth Dunster, and his third wife Mary Dunster. Miss Willard’s descent from him was through Samuel (H. C. 1659), Vice-President of the College, 1700–1707; John (H. C. 1690); Samuel (H. C. 1723); Joseph (H. C. 1765), LL.D., President of the College, 1781–1804; Joseph (H. C. 1816), and Robert (H. C. 1860), M. D. See Willard Memoir, pp. 350, 351, 365 et al.

301 An account of the opening of Dunster’s grave in the old Cambridge Cemetery, 1 July, 1846, is printed in Palfrey’s History of New England, ii. 534, note; further details, including an account of the discovery of the grave, are in Chaplin’s Life of Henry Dunster, pp. 225–230. At that time the Corporation renewed the tablet over the tomb. This last tablet having been broken into several pieces, and the vault being in need of repair, a few of the graduates of the college, with the consent of the President and Fellows, have recently caused the tomb to be repaired, and have placed over it a slab of North River stone, into which the fragments of the old tablet have been set in cement. The work has been done at the expense of David P. Kimball of the Class of 1856, Francis H. Brown and Franklin Haven of 1857, Charles P. Bowditch of 1863, William L. Richardson of 1864, Heman W. Chaplin of 1867, Amory A. Lawrence and Otis Norcross of 1870, Charles M. Green of 1874, and Grenville H. Norcross of 1875. Cf. Paige’s History of Cambridge, pp. 266–269, where it is maintained that the grave is not that of Dunster, but that of the Rev. Jonathan Mitchell, who succeeded the Rev. Thomas Shepard in the pulpit of the Cambridge Church, and who wrote an Elegy on Dunster; and Eliot’s Sketch of the History of Harvard College, pp. 15 and note, 140, where the Latin epitaph, written by Charles Folsom in 1846, may be read.

302 Eliot’s Sketch of the History of Harvard College, p. 8.

303 Middlesex County Court Records, 1 April–25 June, 1656, i. 77, 83, 87, in Thomas’s History of Printing (edition of 1810), i. 229, 458–466.

304 Palfrey’s History of New England, ii. 534, note. The will of Sir Henry Mildmay of Graces mentions no son William.

305 Lechford’s Plain Dealing (Trumbull’s edition), pp. 122, 123, and notes.

306 See Eliot’s Sketch of the History of Harvard College, p. 15.

307 Edward Jackson was a generous benefactor of the College, and had already served, with Increase Nowell and others, on a Committee which settled Thomas Welds’s account 25th 8th month, 1651. He was an honored citizen of Cambridge Village (Newton) and sat in the General Court sixteen years, between 1617 and 1676. He died 17 June, 1681, œt. 79, leaving a large estate. See Quincy’s History of Harvard University (edition of 1860), i. 458, 474, 506, 512, 513; Massachusetts Colony Records, passim; Jackson’s History of Newton, pp. 330–333; and Paige’s History of Cambridge, p. 593.

308 Massachusetts Colony Records, iv. (Part I.), 178–180. This Order was also recorded in the House Journal, 14 September, 1653. See Ibid. iii. 331, 332.

309 It thus appears that Dunster arrived in Boston early in August, 1640, not “in the autumn of 1610,” as stated by Quincy in his History of Harvard University (edition of 1860), i. 14. Cf. Johnson’s Wonder-Working Providence (Poole’s edition), p. 162.

310 Dunster married (1) Elizabeth (Harris), widow of the Rev. Jose (or Josse) Glover, 22 June, 1641. As the spelling and pronunciation of Glover’s given name have been the subject of much discussion, it is not inapposite to call attention to the fact that, to this day, Jŏsse — pronounced as one syllable — is the common contraction for Joshua in Lancashire, and, perhaps, elsewhere in the north of England. Cf. Glover Memorials, p. 564; New England Historical and Genealogical Register, xxx. 26–28; Sibley’s Harvard Graduates, i. 208, 209; and Paige’s History of Cambridge, pp. 559, 560.

311 Joseph Cooke was a prominent citizen of Cambridge, of which he was a Commissioner, Selectman, and Town Clerk. He lived on the east side of Holyoke Street near Holyoke Place, and represented the town in the General Court six years. Under date of 30 October, 1651, the records of that body contain the following entry: —

“Itt is ordered, that Capt̃ Daniell Gooking, M^r Joseph Cooke, or M^r Henry Dunster, shallbe, and is heereby, inipowred to marry M^r John Apleton and M^rs Priscilla Glover, who have been published at Cambridge, according to lawe.” (Massachusetts Colony Records, iv. (Part I.), 74).

Priscilla Glover was the youngest daughter of the Rev. Jose (or Josse) Glover, consequently Dunster’s step-daughter. Paige tells us that Cooke went to England in 1658, and that it is not known that he returned to America. See History of Cambridge, pp. 40, 513, 560; and Massachusetts Colony Records, i. 275.

312 Hugh Peter sailed for England 3 August, 1641; and Samuel Shepard was excused from further service as a member of the General Court, 18 October, 1645, “being to goe for England,” where both joined the Parliamentary Army. See Winthrop’s History of New England (edition of 1853), ii. 37, 38; Massachusetts Colony Records, i. 275, iii. 52; and Paige’s History of Cambridge, pp. 653, 654, where a full account of Major Shepard, who was a half-brother of the Rev. Thomas Shepard, the elder, may be read. See also post, p. 454.

313 See Plymouth Colony Records, ix. 93–98, 216, 217. The Records of the Commissioners of the United Colonies fill Volumes ix. and x. of the Plymouth Colony Records, where they are printed in full from the contemporary manuscript copy which belonged to the Old Colony.

314 “Cyguatea or Cigoteo, but known also as Eleutheria, Eleuthera, Ethera, Alabaster, and the Bahama Island,” also as Segotea. The circumstances attending this gift and the occasion of it have been fully told by Air. Sibley. The persecuted people of this Island sent to the College, in 1658, another gift of £124, “out of their poverty.” See Sibley’s Harvard Graduates, i. 139; and Quincy’s History of Harvard University (edition of 1860), i. 507, and note.

315 This doubtless refers to the plan for maintaining poor scholars at Cambridge submitted by the Rev. Thomas Shepard to the Commissioners for the United Colonies, 30 September, 1644. See Plymouth Colony Records, ix. 20, 21; and Quincy’s History of Harvard University (edition of 1860), i. 15 et seq.

316 The Rev. Urian Oakes (H. C. 1649), afterwards President of the College, is doubtless here referred to. His name appears in the Quinquennial Catalogue (pp. 10, 35) in the lists of Fellows and Tutors followed by a query; and his term of service — 1650 to 1652 — is also questioned. Dunster’s statement, taken in connection with the entry in the Steward’s Account Book (i. 11, 12), apparently removes these doubts. There was a close friendship between Oakes and the younger Thomas Shepard, who was settled later over the Charlestown Church as colleague with the Rev. Zechariah Symmes. Cf. Sibley’s Harvard Graduates, i. 173, 548.

317 It is not improbable that the other “fellow” to be thus maintained by the Hartford, Connecticut, Colony was a classmate of Oakes, — Samuel Eaton, eldest son of Gov. Theophilus Eaton, of New Haven, who, according to Mather (Magnalia, edition of 1702, book ii. p. 28), maintained his son “in the Colledge until he proceeded Master of Arts,” which was in 1652, — the year before Dunster was writing. Samuel Eaton was one of the five original Fellows named in the College Charter of 1650. See Quincy’s History of Harvard University (edition of 1860), i. 589; and Sibley’s Harvard Graduates, i. 171, 172, 548.

318 See Quincy’s History of Harvard University (edition of 1860) i. 455 et seq., where these accounts appear, but without dates.

319 These marks occur in the original paper. They do not indicate that any part of this letter has been omitted in printing.

320 The Rev. John Norton, who was bred at St. Peter’s College, Cambridge.

321 It does not clearly appear whether Leverett’s name was inadvertently omitted from the superscription of this letter or whether he did not sit with the “Commissioners,” which is not improbable. His services were constantly required for important military and civil occasions of every kind. In May of this very year (1653), and for more than a year following, he was a prominent figure in the troubles with the Dutch; and for a considerable part of this time he was out of the country. Early in 1651 Cromwell sent hither ships and troops for the reduction of New York. This expedition was put in charge of Robert Sedgwick and John Leverett, who bore the title of “His Highness’s Commissioners.” Leverett wrote to the Protector from Boston, 4 July, 1654, a letter in which he refers to “my last from Fiall of the first of May, 1654,” and to his “saife arrival in Boston the fifth of June following.”

It is not difficult, therefore, to see that Leverett’s public engagements in a military capacity during the autumn of 1653 and the following winter and spring probably precluded his giving to the affairs of the College that close attention which their importance demanded, and that he preferred to leave to his four competent associates the responsibility of making the investigation and “retourne” ordered by the General Court. — See Plymouth Colony Records, x. 26–30 et al.: Massachusetts Colony Records, iii. and iv. (Part I.) passim; Hutchinson’s History of Massachusetts Bay (edition of 1765), i. 179–183; Palfrey’s History of New England, ii. passim; and Thurloe’s State Papers, ii. 425.

322 Cf. Johnson’s Wonder Working Providence (Poole’s edition), p. cxv.

323 Massachusetts Colony Records, iv. (Part I.), 186, 187.

324 See Backus’s History of the Baptists in New England (edition of 1871), i. 290; and Wyman’s Genealogies and Estates of Charlestown, i. 102, 312, 313, and 428.

325 Deane’s History of Scituate, p. 180. Cf. Ibid. p. 248; and Palfrey’s History of New England, ii. 533, 534, notes.

During the years 1653–1657 Dunster was harassed by no less than fourteen lawsuits brought by his step-children John Glover and Mrs. Priscilla (Glover) Appleton (ante p. 420, note) and others for an accounting of his stewardship of the Glover property. See Willard Memoir, pp. 178–180 and notes; Sibley’s Harvard Graduates, i. 210, 211; and Middlesex County Court Records, i. 79, 83, 87, in Thomas’s History of Printing (edition of 1810), i. 205, 222, 458–466

326 See Sibley’s Harvard Graduates, i. 148–152, 155.

327 History of Harvard University (edition of 1860), i. 14, 15. See also Magnolia (edition of 1702), book iv. sect. 10, pp. 175, 176; and ante, p. 416, note.

328 Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, New Series, vi. 323–349.

329 Chap. xix. pp. 164, 165 (Poole’s edition).

330 1 Massachusetts Historical Collections, i. 242 et seq.

331 History of New England (edition of 1853), ii. 105.

332 Ibid. ii. 165.

333 Princeton Sketches (1893), p. 150.

334 Page 42.

335 The Princeton Book (1879), p. 14.

336 Writings of James Madison (1860), i. 4.

337 J. Maclean’s History of the College of New Jersey (1877), ii. 47, 48.

338 Discourses, p. 276.

339 Ways of Yale (1895), p. 6. 55

340 See Postscript on p. 437, post.

341 1774, January, C. C. Beatty, in J. F. Hageman’s History of Princeton and its Institutions (1879), i. 102.

342 1787, November 26, Ibid. ii. 316.

343 1807, in J. Maclean’s History of the College of New Jersey (1877), ii. 80.

344 M. LaBorde’s History of the South Carolina College (1859), p. 129. The date of this resolve was 1821, — the earliest use of the term at any college except Princeton.

345 1824, J. W. Alexander’s Forty Years’ Familiar Letters (1860), i. 57. The writer was a professor at Princeton.

346 Finch’s Travels in the United States and Canada (1833), p. 282. The writer refers to Princeton.

347 L. R. Gibbes, in M. LaBorde’s History of the South Carolina College (1859), p. 197.

348 S. W. Fisher, in Semi-Centennial Celebration of Hamilton College (1862), p. 82, note.

349 1871, A. C. Dayton’s Last Days of Knickerbocker Life in New York (1897), p. 162. In 1857 Columbia College was removed to its present site. It is doubtful whether Campus was ever actually in use during the occupation of the original site.

350 1870, W. A. Stearns, in Opening of Walker Hall, Amherst College (1871), p. 32. The writer was then President of Amherst, where the term was beginning to be adopted.

351 G. R. Cutting’s Student Life at Amherst College (1871), p. 113.

352 W. Wells, Union College, in The College Book (1878), p. 187.

353 H. J. Van Dyke, Jr., in The Princeton Book (1879), p. 375.

354 Annual Catalogue of the University of Rochester, 1895–96, p. 13.

355 E. M. Hyde’s Lehigh University: A Historical Sketch (1896), p. 36.

356 Catalogue of Ohio Wesleyan University, 1896, pp. 80, 89.

357 The Indiana University: Illustrated Announcement (about 1896), p. 5.

358 Suffolk Court Files, vol. xxviii, group-number 2.331.

359 Magnalia (edition of 1702), book iv., p. 130.

360 Eliot’s Sketch of the History of Harvard College, p. 25; Sibley’s Harvard Graduates, i. 166, 167.

361 Sibley’s Harvard Graduates, i. 417.

362 Ibid. i. 419.

363 Eliot’s Sketch of the History of Harvard College, p. 28.

364 Sibley’s Harvard Graduates, i. 423.

365 Eliot’s Sketch of the History of Harvard College, p. 166. See also Quincy’s History of Harvard University (edition of 1860), i. 513.

366 Sibley’s Harvard Graduates iii. 354, 355; and Sewall’s Diary, ii. 320.

367 Paige’s History of Cambridge, p. 562.

368 Ibid. p. 580.

369 Ibid. pp. 558, 559

370 Middlesex County Court Files, October Term, 1672. Cf. Paige’s History of Cambridge, p. 226; and Sibley’s Harvard Graduates, ii. 416, 417.

371 Middlesex County Court Records, iii. 35, 37.

372 Sibley’s Harvard Graduates, ii. 416; and Paige’s History of Cambridge, pp. 625, 626.

373 Paige’s History of Cambridge, p. 625.

374 Sibley’s Harvard Graduates, ii. 428.

375 Ibid. ii. 455.

376 Ibid. iii. 208.

377 Ibid. iii. 169.

378 Massachusetts Colony Records, i. 217.

379 See ante, p. 420 and note.

380 The Proprietors’ Records of Cambridge, p. 77; Paige’s History of Cambridge, pp. xv, xvii, 610, 653.

381 The Proprietors’ Records of Cambridge, p. 88; Paige’s History of Cambridge, pp. xv, xvii, 512, 564. The doubt which Paige records as to Gookin’s occupancy of this estate is removed by Oakes’s deposition.

382 I.

To the Constable of Cambridge.

In his Ma^ties name.

you are required to warne Samuel Gebson that he appeare at the Court to be held to morrow at this Towne then and there to answ^r for wrong doing, fraudelency & injustice to Herbert Pelham, Esq^r. by receiveing & taking his sonnes Apparll theu stud^t of Harvard Colledge, & under Age of 21: yeares, without consent of Parents, Guardian, Tutor, or other y^t [have ?] ye dispose & goverm’ of him, & concealing & deteyning ye same from y^m contrary to rules of justice & equity, and her of you are to mak a true return under your hand & not to faile. date 30. 7. 1672.

Thomas Daxforth, Assis^t.

This warrent was served upon Samuell Gibson according to the Tenor of it by me

John Goue

Consta^l

1 (8) 82

[Endorsed] Warrant for Sam^l. Gibson.

Apparrell y^t Samuel Gibson hath had of M^r Pelhams sonne. 1 p^r.of new breeches conteyneing 3 yd^s. Devonshir Kersie. 8^s. yd.		01 — 04 — 0
To making, 2^s 6^d. Pockets. thred, & silk 18^d		00 — 04 — 0
1 Great Coate of bro. cloath. 24^s. yds. 2: yds. ³/₂ [sic] —
	is 3^s. 00 — 00
making & tremeng.	00 — 06 — 00
	3: 06. 00
Abate ye ½ for w^t it had been worn, the remainder is		01 — 13 — 00
The whole is		03 — 01 — 00

— (Middlesex County Court Files, October Term, 1672)

383 At a County Court held at Charlestown Dec. 15, 1674. . . . Samuel Gibson appearing before the Court to answer the p^r sentm^t of the Grand Jury for a pound breach. He is convicted of being guilty thereof, & to pay costs, & the fine imposed by law is respited untill next Court. — Middlesex County Court Records, iii. 107.

At a County Court held at Cambridge April 6, 1675. . . . Samuel Gibson appearing before the Court & refusing to take the Oath tendred for clearing hiins: of a Pound breach. The Court ordered y^t the fine should be respited untill the Court gave further order. — Ibid. iii. 112.

At a County Court held at Cambridge, by speciall order of the Gen^ll. Court. Decemb^r. 18, 1678. . . . Samuel Gibson appearing before the Court, On vehement suspicot of his breaking open the house of Elizabeth Belcher, & stealing a p^s of linnen. On his examination he stands convicted of being out unseasonably, neere to y^e place where the aboves^d damage was done and not giveing a satisfactory ausw^r to the Court of his being abroad so unseasonably at the s^d place, he is sentenced to pay a fine of forty shill: money, or to ly hi Bridwell three dayes.

Samuel Gibson made his Appeale to y^e next Court of Assist^ts.

Samuel Gibson as principle in five pounds Nath^ll. Hancock & Jn^o Gibson as his suretyes in 50^s. a p^e, do acknowledge y^ms to stand bound Joyntly & severally to the Tre͞r of the Coun. On Condiccon that Samuel Gibson shall prossecute his appeale to effect as the law injoynes Aud y^t in y^e meane time he shall be of the good behavio^r— Ibid. iii. 238, 239.

To the Honoured Countye Courte now Seting in Cambridge.

The humble Petition of Samuell Gibson sheweth that whereas your poore petitioner was bound ouer to the last Courte of this Countye upon ye Complainte of M^rs: Belcher whoe had suffered wronge in her Goods by night and your Petitioner being found abroade from his habitation y^e same night did give your honours Reason to adjuge your Petitioner to paye fortye shilings as a fine to ye Countye, but because your humble Petition^r: do knowe & professe his ignorance & inocencey of anye burte done to any bodye or Goods at y^t time, & for his owne parte in that matter can bringe the testimoney (as your honours have ben alredy inforin^d of Sam^ll: Goffe & Sam^ll: Green, therefore I humbly intreate y^t my Bonds of appeale maye bee made Nulle & voyade with y^e remition of my fine and it shall oblige mee in toake[n] of Thankefullues always to praye for yo^r: Honours happines

Sam^ll Gibson.

— (Middlesex County Court Files, October Term, 1678).

The Appeal seems never to have been entered in the Court of Assistants, as its Records show no such case. The Petition, presumably, was granted.

384 Oliver’s Case. — At the “Court of Common pleas holden at Edgertown Octb^r 1^st 95 M^r Samuell Gibson atturnnie to Nathaniel Oliver appeared.” Upon a plea to the jurisdiction the cause was “adjudged to be dismist.” The “petion^r by his Attorney appealed.” His appeal was refused. Oliver then petitioned the General Court “to take this mighty breach upon the undoubted Eight of the Subject and laws of this Land, into yo^r most Serious Consideration & provide Some Redress for so great a Grievance.” The General Court directed a hearing. When it came on “Matthew Mayhew Esq^r One of the said Justices Appeared & Justified the Denial” for want of “Jurisdiction . . . within Elsabeth Islands.” The justification was adjudged good. — Province Laws, vii. pp. 110, 491–496. The identity of Gibson, in this case, while not absolutely established, is made reasonably certain by many circumstances.

Gove v. Gibson. —Samuel Gibson, the defendant in an action brought by John Gove of Cambridge “before Joseph Lynde one of then Majesties Justices of Peace” for “Trespas for cuting and cariiug four trees, . . . plead that the Land upon which the Trees were cut did not belong to the Plant^ve but to the Town of Cambridge, whereof the Defend^t was ail Inhabitant and Proprietor,” and to the jurisdiction “for that the Title of Land wasconcern’d.” . . . “Judgment was giuen for the plaintif,” and “defen^at apealed to the next Court of Common pleas.” To his Reasons of Appeal signed by himself, assigning as the only ground want of jurisdiction, Anthony Checkley filed the Answers. At the September Term, 1695, “The Court . . . find the Judgment good . . .” &c.

Gibson then petitioned the General Court for “direction and assistance therein,” having “no relief or remedy in the premises in the ordinary course of Law;” assigning as his grievance that the plea to the jurisdiction “being overruled at y^e Inferiour Court, Judgement ought not to have been given finally and peremptorily, but he ought to have been permitted to plead issueably.” The General Court voted him a hearing. The two branches disagreed; conferences were ineffectual, and the matter slumbered till 1702, when Gibson presented another petition for a hearing, which was granted. This not coming off, Gibson again petitioned. This hearing was twice deferred. Finally, 5 November, 1703, the General Court —

“Ordered, That there be a full hearing of the said Cause upon the merits thereof at the next Inferiour Court of Common Pleas within the County of Middlesex. And the said Court is hereby directed and Impouered, to receive and hear the said Cause, Aud to do therein that which to Justice pertaineth according to Law.”

At the trial the former judgment was reversed. Gove appealed, and the case was concluded in the appellate Court at the July Term, 1704, the Court determining that in the Inferior Court of Common Pleas, “the Tryal of the s^d Cause being in the nature of an Appeal from M^r Justice Lynde, the order of that Court is final & the Appellant can take nothing by his Appeal.” (Records of the Superior Court of Judicature, iii. 129.) However barren the victory, Gibson was at the last left in possession of the field. (Province Laws, vii. 111, 354, 369, 496–498, 728–730, 745; and viii. 9, 30–31, 263, 309, 310.)

There is also in the office of the Clerk of the Supreme Judicial Court in Boston a collection of papers originally used in different stages of the trial, — thirteen in number, petitions, orders of the General Court, pleadings, &c. (Suffolk Court Files, vol. lxi., group-number 6171.)

Gibson also appears as attorney for the plaintiff in Oliver r. Ray. (Suffolk Court Files, vol. dlxiv., group-number 1301, — “Fragments,” Two papers.)

Mr. Goodell’s Notes give a full history of the cases with complete transcripts from the Massachusetts Archives, Council Records, and Court Records. Too high an estimate can hardly be put on the value of these Notes to the several volumes of the Province Laws issued by Mr. Goodell. With indefatigable research, judgment, and exhaustive knowledge, a wealth of material has been gathered for the illustration of the legislation of that period. Law is not an exact science like mathematics, where what is true once is true for all time, and where results can be ciphered out, — it needs the light of History as an adjunct. And so of Laws, — a mere compilation is comparatively a barren schedule of enactments. The material here collected, from sources often not readily accessible and to a great degree unrecognized before, is ready for instant use. It is not merely for the antiquary, the genealogist, the sociologist, and the historian, but equally or more for the legislator, the lawyer, the judge, and the student of jurisprudence.

In conversation with one of our associates, the late Mr. Justice Devens, not long before his death, bestowed the highest praise upon Mr. Goodell’s method of editing the Province Laws, referring especially to the value of his elaborate Notes, adding: “We often hear it said that Mr. Goodell’s work is valuable only to the antiquary and genealogist; and yet in this very case of which I have been speaking, it would have been impossible for the Court to do justice as between the litigants without the aid of Mr. Goodell’s unique and matchless work.” In some three hundred cases the Province Laws have been cited in the Massachusetts Reports, and in many of these cases the Opinions show that much of the historical information which they contain was drawn from these Notes.

385 Jackson’s History of Newton, p. 445.

386 Ibid. p. 446.

387 Paige’s History of Cambridge, pp. 20 note, 540.

388 The father died about 1676, and his estate had not been fully administered in 1700. In 1678, “during their nonage,” Jonathan and his brother Thomas were put under the guardianship of John Fayerweather and Arthur Mason, of Boston, and Amos Richardson, of Stonington, Conn., the maternal grandfather of the boys. (Suffolk Probate Files, Nos. 341, 811, 946.) This grandfather seems to have been well endowed with prudence and foresight and landed property. In 1073 he conveys to his —

“Son in Law . . . as a portion with his Wife, . . . in Cousiderac͠on of my parentall Lone to Jonathan Gatliffe of Boston in New England aforoSaid Marriner & his wife Mary Gatliffe my Eldest Daughter & of their Filiall afectiou to Mee . . . all that my house & Land Lieing & beeing in Boston afores^d, which for Seuerall years past hath bin in the Possession & tenu^r of hiin the Said Jonathan Gatliffe . . . And also a farme in Stoneington aforeS^d of two hundred Acres of Land . . . & Also halfe of my Land by the Dock . . . in Boston aforeSaid . . . in fee . . . Prouided always that the premisses nor any part thereof shall not be Sold by the Said Jonathan Gatliue except vponan Imergent otation to reileeme him out of Captiuty in case hee should be taken in Slauery or for the Sustentation of his family in case of Diuiue prouidence by Sickness or losses reducing him to pouerty.”

Anthony Checkley was one of the witnesses to the deed, which was acknowledged before Edward Tyng, Assis^t. — (Suffolk Deeds, viii. 290.)

389 Paige’s History of Cambridge, pp. 97, 572.

390 Ibid. p. 558.

391 Paige’s History of Cambridge, p. 530.

392 Peirce’s History of Harvard University, p. 45.

393 Magnalia (edition 1702), book iv., page 129.

394 Sibley’s Harvard Graduates, i. 179.

395 Colonial Laws of Massachusetts, 1660 (Whitmore’s edition), pp. 136, 137.

396 Suffolk Court Files, vol. xii, group-number 1.174.

397 Records of the Corporation of Harvard College, 22 June, 1693.

398 Eliot’s Sketch of the History of Harvard College, p. 33.

399 Records of the Court of Assistants, ii. 192, 193.

400 The Convention which framed the Constitution of the United States met in Philadelphia 14 May, 1787, but a majority of the States not being represented the members adjourned, from day to day, until the twenty-fifth of the month, when an organization was effected and Washington was chosen President of that august body.

401 Probably the Independent Chronicle of 31 May, 1787, and the Columbian Centinel of 2 June, 1787, which contain lists of the members of the General Court in which the “new Comers” are indicated.

402 Nathan Dane, the writer of this letter, was at this time an able and influential member of the Old Congress then sitting in New York.

403 Dr. Samuel Holten, of Danvers.

404 Judge Gorham was born in May, 1738, in Charlestown, Massachusetts, where he died 11 June, 1796. He was the most distinguished man who ever lived in Charlestown, where he was universally honored. Besides his judicial honors, Judge Gorham sat in the House, of which he was Speaker, in the Provincial Congress, the Board of War, the State Constitutional Convention of 1779, and the Old Congress, of which he was President. In the Convention which framed the Federal Constitution he took high rank, was chosen Chairman of the Committee of the Whole, presided over the Convention in Washington’s absence, and was put on important committees, including that to which the Resolutions of the Convention were referred, in July, for the purpose of draughting a Constitution. Judge Gorham subsequently exerted a powerful influence in securing the adoption of the Federal Constitution by Massachusetts.

405 The Society of Mayflower Descendents (sic) was incorporated 1 April, 1896 for patriotic, antiquarian, and historical purposes.

406 This Sketch proved too long for full insertion in the volume referred to, and with Gould’s entire approval considerable portions were omitted in printing. The original Sketch has been in the hands of the present writer.

407 This school was kept in a building which stood at the northwesterly corner of Kingston and Bedford Streets.

408 In the printed Catalogue of the Boston Latin School Gould appears as entering in 1835. This is surely wrong, and must signify that he entered the class entitled of that year.