April Meeting, 1934

A STATED Meeting of the Society was held, at the invitation of Mr. Alfred Marston Tozzer, at No. 7 Bryant Street, Cambridge, on Thursday, April 26, 1934, at half after eight o’clock in the evening, the President, Samuel Eliot Morison, in the chair.

The records of the last Stated Meeting were read and approved.

The Corresponding Secretary announced the death of Harold Murdock, a Resident Member, on April 5, 1934.

The Corresponding Secretary reported that letters had been received from Mr. Hermann Frederick Clarke, Mr. Albert Harrison Hall, and Mr. Clarence Eldon Walton accepting Resident Membership in the Society.

The President appointed the following committees, in anticipation of the Annual Meeting:

To nominate candidates for the several offices,—Messrs. Kenneth Ballard Murdock, George Richards Minot, and Richard Ammi Cutter.

To examine the Treasurer’s accounts,—Messrs. George Pomeroy Anderson and Nathaniel Thayer Kidder.

Mr. Alfred Vincent Kidder, of Andover, was elected a Resident Member of the Society.

Mr. Lawrence C. Wroth read a paper entitled:

John Maylem: Poet and Warrior195

I

JOHN Maylem, of Newport, was a poet of small talent and a warrior of little distinction. But so strongly was he possessed by love of poetry and love of war that if we are to remember him at all it seems only fair it should be in terms of the lyre and the sword. After all, it is something to have fought for one’s country, and, throughout, to have conceived its battles as the stuff of epic verse.

It is necessary at the beginning of this story to remove a persistent misapprehension regarding the identity of John Maylem, the author of Gallic Perfidy and The Conquest of Louisbourg, to make it clear, in brief, that he was himself and not his father of the same name. It is affirmed in more than one work of standard reference that the poet was a graduate of Harvard of the Class of 1715 and that he died in the year 1742. These assertions have brought about confusion in the record of one who is chiefly remembered for two poems celebrating events of the years 1757 and 1758. The poet was, in fact, the son, namesake, and youngest child of John Maylem, the Harvard graduate. He was born in 1739, and disappeared from record in 1762 at the age of twenty-three years.196

It may not be regarded as too great an assumption to suggest that the family of the poet descended from the John Mylom, or Mylam, cooper, whose name early appears upon the list of Boston freeholders, and who, with Christian, his wife, was admitted into church-membership in 1635.197 The poet was the grandson of the Joseph Maylem, bricklayer, who died in Boston early in the year 1733, possessed of a respectable estate in houses and lots in that town and in the township of Nottingham, New Hampshire, a neighborhood with which he was also associated through the circumstances of his second marriage.198 This citizen, I believe, was the Joseph Maylem whom Judge Sewall, anything but amused at the memory, portrayed in his diary in the act of leading a Shrove Tuesday mummery on February 15, 1686/87. “Jos. Maylem,” wrote the Recording Angel of Boston, “carries a Cock at his back, with a Bell in ’s hand, in the Main Street; several follow him blindfold, and under pretence of striking him or ’s cock, with great cart-whips strike passengers, and make great disturbance.”199 Though this portrait does not manifest quite the degree of dignity we demand of ancestors, it is a pleasant picture just the same, its subject caught off guard in a moment of liveliness and fun. It may be, moreover, that this was Joseph’s last appearance as leader of the revels, for on the thirty-first of the eighth month, 1688, he was married in the First Church of Charlestown to Hannah, daughter of the Widow King of that place.200 Certainly, when he wrote his will a good many years later, he showed himself a staid character and a severe father to one of his three sons. After the death of Hannah (King) Maylem, who was, I believe, the mother of his children, Joseph, in 1715, took another wife in the person of Keziah Brackett, a native of Rye, New Hampshire, who remembered the experience of having been carried off in an Indian raid upon her father’s house in 1691, and ransomed only after four years of captivity, most of them, probably, spent in Quebec.201 John Maylem, the poet, recalling what he had been told of this far-off experience of his step-grandmother, must have thought sometimes in the course of his own arduous captivity among the Indians, some sixty-two years later, that history was repeating itself just a bit too consistently in the annals of the Maylem family. Keziah, the widow of Joseph Maylem, and, it is said, of an earlier husband named Patterson, died childless, or certainly with no surviving child, three days after March 3, 1733, the date of her will.202 She must have felt assured that she had performed well the task of mothering another woman’s children when, in the closing years of her life, her stepson John, of Harvard, gave her names to two of his own infants, calling a son Brackett and a daughter Keziah.203 Upon her death, however, her property went to her sisters and her nieces and nephews. Doubtless she felt that her husband’s children had been reasonably provided for through their paternal inheritance.204

John Maylem, father of the poet, was born, according to one authority, in the year 1695.205 He appears in the Harvard catalogues as a member of the Class of 1715, and after 1742 his name regularly carries the star which in the Triennials indicates decease. In the Boston Weekly News-Letter for Thursday, March 18–25, 1742, is found the following notice of the death, on March 13 of that year, of an individual whom we assume to have been this John Maylem: “New-Port, March 19. Mr. John Maylem of this Town and late of Boston, died here very suddenly last Saturday morning, and was decently inter’d the Monday following, and left behind him, a sorrowful Widow, three Daughters and one Son.” In the Boston Weekly Post-Boy, May 24, 1742, there is a notice regarding the settlement of John Maylem’s estate which introduces us to an important member of his family in these words: “All … that have Demands on the Estate of Mr. John Maylem of New-Port on Rhode Island, deceased, are… desired to send an Account… to Mrs. Ann Maylem, Widow Relict… and Administratrix on said Estate….”206

One acquires the impression that the life of this John Maylem, whose death we have just recorded, was undistinguished and something short of successful in the usual meaning of the word. Soon after his graduation from Harvard in 1715, he was married to Ann, a capable and fruitful helpmate whose maiden name, fragmentary evidence seems to suggest, was Dehane.207 The first of their nine children was born in Newport in 1721. We must assume that the young couple had recently taken up their residence in that town, for a year later one “John Maylem, Gentleman,” whom I believe to have been this John, in buying a proprietor’s right in Nottingham, New Hampshire, where he was later to inherit land, is still described as of Boston.208 The four different places named in the record of the births, baptisms, or burials of the children of John and Ann in their family Bible convince one that during the father’s lifetime the Maylems led an unsettled existence. We learn from it that, roughly from 1721 to 1729, the family lived in Newport; from 1730 to 1732, in Exeter and in Nottingham, New Hampshire; and from 1733 to 1739, in Boston, whence, we learn from other sources, the wanderers returned in 1739 to Newport for their final place of residence.209 In a deed by which in 1726 the father of the family conveyed lot No. 96 on Easton’s Point to Isaac Bowen,210 he is described as “John Malem, merchant,” the only existing indication of status in the years of his first residence in Newport. In the year 1729 we find him engaged in litigation with one John Bolitho, who had endorsed the note of an individual indebted to Maylem for the sum of £100.211 Soon afterwards, the family removed to Exeter, New Hampshire. Of his life in Exeter and in Nottingham nothing seems to be recorded except the birth of one child and the death of two, and a few evidences of transactions in land in those towns.212 I have not found, either, any vestiges of the six years’ residence in Boston which followed his removal from Exeter, except records of the birth of three children, among them the subject of this study, and the occurrence of an entry reading, “John Maylem, M.A. (3 copies),” in the list of subscribers to Thomas Prince’s Chronological History of 1736.213

Reproduced from the original (measuring 9⅛ × 12¼)

Owned by the Massachusetts Historical Society

When he returned to Newport in 1739, it seems clear that he intended remaining there, for on May 6 of the next year he was admitted by the Assembly a freeman of Rhode Island.214 He seems also to have given up at this time his land interests in other colonies, for on October 6, 1741, John Maylem and Ann, his wife, sold to Samuel Lowe, of Barrington, Massachusetts, properties in Falmouth and Sagadahoc, Maine, and in Exeter and Nottingham, New Hampshire.215 It is probable that these sales were made necessary by the need for capital in his Newport business. It does not seem, however, that, when Maylem died six months later, his final venture in Newport had attained success. In two petitions to the Rhode Island General Assembly, in 1744 and 1748, Ann Maylem recites that her late husband, “John Maylem, Distiller,” had been compelled to hire money for the operation of their still-house in Newport; that the sum involved, £800, had come into litigation after his death; and that his estate had been injured as the result of a court decision concerning it. She begged that a retrial of the case be ordered, but the fact that the second of her appeals is found among the “Voted Out” petitions of 1748 in the Rhode Island Archives attests the ill success of her prayer.216 In the record of this litigation, as so often happens in suits at law, the sharp line of cleavage between right and wrong is hidden from the normal eye by the mists of accountancy and legal procedure. But there exists a clear statement—from the point of view of Mrs. Maylem, certainly—of the events which brought the dispute into being. Late in 1742, or early in 1743, Mrs. Maylem published a broadside in which, with bitter conviction, she set forth to the world her side of the contention. The later history of the case, however, suggests that neither honesty nor depth of feeling on the part of the harassed administratrix was enough to affect favorably the decisions of judges and legislators. There appears here in facsimile this Short Narrative of the Widow Maylem, a document of importance in the history of the poet’s family.217

Other litigation arose in the course of Ann’s administration, in which she seemed usually to be the loser. One of the creditors affirmed in a statement to the court that the estate of Ann’s husband “is suppos’d not sufficient to pay the whole of all his Debts.”218 But in an unpublished poem of 1760, written on his twenty-first birthday,219 her son, the poet, intimated that he had that day come into a small estate, enough to enable him, he writes,

To live with Comfort, tho’ not vainly great.

Unless these words sprang from poetic license, they suggest that the family fortune had not been completely wiped out by the father’s death at the beginning of his new venture into the world of business. It may be that the poet had in mind the entailed house and lots in Boston left his father (see note 2, p. 90, above) by Joseph Maylem, his provident grandsire.

We know little more of either John, Sr., or Ann Maylem, though of Ann we have references of one sort and another that indicate her continued residence in Newport and a certain activity in affairs for many years after the death of her husband. In 1743, she was appointed guardian of her children; in 1745, she rendered an account of the administration of her husband’s estate; in 1766, she acted as one of the administrators of the estate of her sister, Rachel Greene, of Warren, Rhode Island; and in the next year, probably, she served in a similar capacity in the settlement of the estate of her son-in-law, William Gubbins, mariner, having previously, in August, 1766, been appointed guardian of his son Francis, whose mother, Frances Maylem, had died a few weeks after the child’s birth in January, 1751.220 Though John Maylem, the poet, in his birthday verses of 1760 apostrophized Ann Maylem as his “aged parent,” she must at that time have been a moderately active old lady. At any rate, as we learn from the gift inscription in the family Bible, she was alive as late as May, 1775, having borne nine children and outlived seven of them, shared the struggles of a restless and unsuccessful husband, and attended to the business of the family to the third generation.

The last entry in the Maylem Bible record of the children born to John and Ann Maylem reads as follows: “Anno 1739, April 30th, on Monday, at 8 in the evening, Born at Boston, our ninth child and third son, named John. Baptized May 6th, by Doctor Sewall.”221 The unpublished poem twice referred to in the foregoing paragraphs enables us to corroborate the exactness of this entry, for it is headed, “A Poem by John Maylem on his birth day 30^th April 1760 being then 21 years of age.”222

II

THERE is no reason to suppose that the boyhood of John Maylem was spent elsewhere than in Newport, where his mother and sisters seem to have resided uninterruptedly after the death, in 1742, of the restless father of the family. We are without records of the poet’s boyhood, but there exist certain undated pieces of light verse, soon to be presented here, which may reasonably be regarded as proceeding from that period. The question of his schooling is of some interest because the only eighteenth-century reference to him that I have found in print praises his poetic efforts but bewails his defective education.223 From the character of the figures of speech and the references in his serious poems, however, one concludes that he must have had some contact with the training in history and the classics commonly given to the boys of his time. It is certain that he did not carry this training further by emulating his father’s career at Harvard College, for at barely seventeen years of age, John Maylem, of Newport, describing himself as “farmer,” enlisted in the army and for two years pursued a curriculum of a very different sort from that provided at Cambridge. But in one way or another, as schoolboy, farmer, or soldier, he acquired a decent knowledge of the laws of metrical composition and a smattering of the antique lore essential to the poet of his century. Whether a larger measure of formal education would have made him a greater as well as a smoother poet is matter too high for us to exercise ourselves in.

It is with plenty of assurance but with little evidence that I ascribe to the Newport boyhood of John Maylem the two poems now to be quoted—“To Miss Polly Turner” and “An Acrostick.” In the second of these the reader is introduced to Katy Malbone, a “Tender gentle tim’rous Maid,” who seems to have possessed that combination of positive and negative qualities connoted by the sentimental phrase “sweet sixteen”; and the only Catharine Malbone who fits the conditions of time and place was a girl of “sweet sixteen” in the year 1753, when John Maylem was a boy of fourteen years. Furthermore, and here is evidence of a sort that cannot be weighed, it is a literal truth that in these two poems we have our only pleasant remains of the pen of John Maylem. Never after the grim experiences of his first year of war does he seem to have directed that pen to anything except the epic strain, satire, coarse comedy, or the verse of disillusionment. I hope the readers of these two undated poems agree with me in thinking that they are the poet’s witnesses to a boyhood of normal happiness.224 The first of these playful exercises reads as follows:

To Miss Polly Turner225

On playing with her at Bo-peep by throwing up and letting fall the window, (living directly opposite each other).

Acrostic

P aphian Goddess, once again

O pe the window as before

L et me whisper o’er my pain

L anguish, sigh, in am’rous Train

Y ou are the Beauty I adore.

T hrow up then the Envious window;

U pon your celestial face

R avish there my fair Melinda

N ight and morning I will Gaze

E ver constant to attend ye

R apt in Love’s Ether’al blaze.

There is no doubt that for us the charm of this rather labored little piece lies in the naïveté of its title. In another of the same sort, however, are found in particular measure the qualities of simplicity, playfulness, and spontaneity. It is addressed to Miss Katy Malbone.

An Acrostick by John Maylem

K–ind good natur’d, debonair

A nd in ev’ry virtue rare

T ender gentle tim’rous maid

Y outhful am’rous—but afraid

M ade of all that’s soft and airy

A ll that’s pretty light and merry

L ight in carriage—light in mien

L ittle pretty flutt’ring Queen

B less me! but I have not writ

O f her beauty sense or Witt

N or her modest free deport—

E xcuse me Miss—your name’s too short.

One wonders whether the charming combination of qualities possessed by Miss Malbone was the happiest for her prospects. She reached the age, ripe for that period, of twenty-seven years before her marriage, in 1764, to Mr. Major Fairchild.226

A later Newport poet, Joseph Brown Ladd, has left us a sharp criticism of acrostics as a literary diversion in a couplet which reads:

But all agree, this maxim to recite

Who writes acrostics, nothing else can write.227

Happily John Maylem outgrew the habit of entertaining himself and his friends with acrostics, or else his case gives the lie to Ladd’s assertion, for it is certainly true that he could and did write other things.

For reasons that are difficult to define, one is inclined to believe that the lines on Newport, here printed for the first time, also proceed from the boyhood years of John Maylem, even though they are notable for a satirical spirit the reverse of subtle which marks and mars so much of his later work. This satire on the Rhode Island town seems to have been composed as a species of dialogue; the last and rhyming words of most of its lines are terse and rude monosyllabic comments by an interlocutor upon the statement contained in the forepart of the line.

Description of the Town of New Port Rhode Island by John Maylem a native of it228

A Town laid out ten furlongs—good

With houses like the people—wood

Save here and there an Edifice

of Brick and Stone and Mortar, yes.

a Goodly Church of Cedar So!

Two Presbyterian meetings poh!

a Quaker house with Stables ah!

Two anabaptists ditto la!

a Dancing School and Town house hie!

a Synagogue of Satan fie!

a Castle too, a building where?

G-d d—n you Sir! why in the air.

A Gallows too without the City

to hang all rogues but theirs, o Pity!

One would not say that these lines indicate great satisfaction on the part of Maylem with the town in which his boyhood was spent, but as the story progresses it will be seen that none of the towns in which he lived gave him happiness. Though he changed his skies more than once, he was never able to change the bitter heart within him.

There once existed another poem by John Maylem, more elaborate than these which have been quoted, which belongs to the poet’s boyhood. The Conquest of Beauséjour, written by him at the age of sixteen, celebrates the victory in Acadia of colonels Monckton and Winslow in June, 1755. Unfortunately this poem has been lost to us. No copy of it is known to exist, nor is it known in what form it attained publication.229

III

THE poem mentioned at the conclusion of the preceding section, The Conquest of Beauséjour, is significant in that it points the way to the two interests which were to fill the remainder of Maylem’s life. The French and Indian War, covering roughly the years 1754 to 1763, began in his fifteenth year and was still in progress at the time of his disappearance from record in 1762. His earliest part in it was to sing in the poem on Beauséjour its first strategic victory; but singing of battles did not entirely relieve the patriotic emotion in young Maylem’s breast. A year later, 1756, he took himself to Boston and enlisted for active service. In a descriptive list, dated Fort Edward, July 26, 1756, of Captain John Stebbing’s company in the regiment of Colonel Timothy Ruggles is found the name of “John Mailem,” of Newport, with his designation as quartermaster, and his description as a native of Boston, seventeen years of age, and a farmer by occupation.230 On various muster rolls of companies in the Crown Point expedition of 1756 and 1757, he is found listed at different times as quartermaster, private, and ensign.231 In the return of officers of Colonel Joseph Frye’s Massachusetts regiment present at the capitulation of Fort William Henry on August 9, 1757, is the name of “Ensign John Maylem.”232 In a petition of April 28, 1758, for two months’ advance pay, presented by nineteen captains of companies fitting out for the Canada expedition, appears again the name of “John Maylem.”233 The occurrence of his name in this petition is the only official record of his promotion to the rank of captain and the only documentary evidence we have that he went upon, or intended going upon, the Louisbourg expedition. Four years later his name was to be found among the Rhode Island soldiers enlisted for the campaign of 1762. With that enlistment our knowledge of him comes to an end.

This is a brief statement of John Maylem’s career in arms. To a small extent it is possible to fill in the blank spaces of his military record with details of a vital nature, for he has left in verse the story of his actual experience in one of the campaigns of the war, and has described another from what was probably the standpoint of personal observation. It was his fate to be an officer of that defeated garrison which one memorable August morning marched through the gateway of Fort William Henry straight into the ambush prepared for it by Montcalm’s Indians. The story of that fearful onslaught, of his own capture and escape from the general massacre, his sufferings on the march to Canada, his captivity at Montreal, his ransom from the Indians, and his eventual exchange form the matter of the best-remembered of his poems. Gallic Perfidy, by John Maylem, Philo-Bellum, published by Benjamin Mecom, of Boston, in 1758,234 is a narrative in blank verse surcharged with anger, bitterness, and the desire for revenge upon what the author believed had been an act of black treachery by the French commander. Its opening lines are an earnest of the anger and hatred with which it is filled. It is in keeping with the whole piece that in these lines the author adjures the Furies rather than the sacred Nine to inspire his song:

I Who, of late, in Epic Strains essay’d,

235And sung the Hero on Acadie’s Plains,

Dreadful in Arms, and Vest of Tyrian Hue,

With Laurel-Wreath, and mighty Conquest crown’d

In equal Numbers still attempt to sing;

But yet in rougher Strain, for softer Rhyme

Seems not adapt to this my solemn Theme.

Not how the Gaul and swarthy Foe approach’d,

And first assail’d the Fortress; nor what pass’d

In the dread Interval of eight Days Siege:

I mean to sing but Breach of plighted Faith,

And Violation of the sacred Laws

Of Nature and of Nations; with th’ Event,

The dire Event and fatal Consequence,

Attendant on the Foes perfidious Breach

Of solemn and capitulated Terms.

Amazing Perfidy! ….

… Not to invoke

A vulgar Muse.—Ye Powers of Fury lend

Some mighty Phrensy to enrage my Breast

With solemn Song, beyond all Nature’s Strain!

For such the Scene of which I mean to sing.

Enough! I rave!—the Furies rack my Brain!

I feel their Influence now inspire my Song!

My lab’ring Muse swells with the raving God!

I feel him here! my Head turns round! ’twill burst!

So have I seen a Bomb, with livid Train,

For description, see No. 2 of the appended Bibliography

(Emitted from a Mortar) big with Death,

And fraught, full fraught with Hell’s Combustibles,

Lay dreadful on the Ground; then with a Force

Stupendous, shiver in a thousand Atoms!

Turning to the conclusion of the poem, we read the young soldier’s promise that if given a command, he would himself, despite his youth, track and destroy the savage enemy:

O Chief in War! of all (young) Albion’s Force,

Invest me only with SUFFICIENT Power;

I (yet a Boy) will play the Man, and chase

The wily Savage from his secret Haunts;

Not Alpine Mounts shall thwart my rapid Course;

I’ll scale the Craggs, then, with impetuous Speed,

Rush down the Steep, and scow’r along the Vale;

Then on the Sea-Shore halt; and last, explore

The green Meanders of eternal Wood!

There is little detail found in Gallic Perfidy for the comfort of the military historian. It is too subjective a piece for that use. Nor are its merits as verse sufficient to give immortality to its lines. But it is a moving piece of writing, a clear, downright, and vivid expression of feeling by one who in his own person had suffered the shock and bodily pains of that tragedy in the wilderness south of Lake George. It is a speaking witness to the emotions of those who had parts in the play.

The poem is dated March 10, 1758, some seven months after the disaster which formed its theme.

IV

THROUGH an unexpected set of occurrences, it becomes possible to add detail of a most interesting character to John Maylem’s story of his captivity. In order to do this we must advance abruptly in time to the year 1869. In the pages of the magazine Notes and Queries (4th Series, iv, August 7, 1869, pp. 114–115) appears this romantic communication:

Descendants of Lieutenant Wade and Ensign Maylem.

Je crois être agréable à vos lecteurs, en leur faisant part d’un trait d’humanité bien naturel aux grandes âmes, mais encore assez rare de nos jours, de la part d’un aïeul d’un de mes compatriotes, habitant comme moi la ville de Tours.

Jean-François de Martel, actuellement inspecteur des domaines à Tours, serait heureux de savoir s’il existe en Angleterre des descendants des deux officiers dont il est question dans ce récit.

Votre estimable feuille, en publiant cette lettre dont je n’ai voulu rien changer quant au fond ni à la forme, et qui est une pièce authentique, fera un grand plaisir aux descendants de Jean-Baptiste-Grégoire Martel le bienfaiteur, et je n’en doute pas aux officiers Simon Wade et John Maylem qui ont reçu le bienfait.

D’Orange.

Le Conservateur de la Bibliothèque de Tours.

Tours, ce 22 juillet 1869.

“To all Land and Sea Officers, Civil and Military, and all People of the English Nation, Greeting.

“It is with the greatest pleasure and satisfaction we write this memorial, which, from the deep sense we have of the obligations we lay under to Monsieur Martel, induces us in point of gratitude to pay our sincere acknowledgements for the many favours received from him and family; the occasion of which, in as few words as possible, we shall relate:—

“Doubtless, Gentlemen, you have had intelligence of the transactions upon the surrender of Fort William Henry on Lake Huron [sic]. We were two of those whose fate it was to fall into the hands of the savages, contrary to the articles of capitulation, wherein we were to march off with all the honours of war, under an escort of a large body of French regulars, to Fort Edward; but they being under no command, we were hurried off by them and brought prisoners to Montreal, and kept by them without the city upon the green for the space of two or three days. During which time Monsieur Martel, with indefatigable labour, applied himself very closely to procure our redemption, sticking at no pains where he had any glimpse or prospect of procuring our releasement; and even interested himself so far in the affair as often to endanger himself, with no other view, as we have since found, than purely to regain us our liberty; which we [sic] had no sooner accomplished, but his lady in a sedan [sic] he conducted us to his house, where we were in the best manner clothed and entertained to the extent of everything the place could afford, until he procured us a room, and provided for us in a very decent and genteel manner, giving us daily instances of his favours, limited not to us only but extended to all the other officers that were before and afterwards taken in the same manner as ourselves. Nor did his generosity rest until even the meanest soldier had sensibly felt the liberal dealings of his hands.

“From all which, with a variety of other instances of his kindness we could mention, would earnestly recommend it to you gentlemen, if it ever should be his or any of his family’s fate through chance or the fortune of war, to be in our condition, you would treat him in such a manner as might give them occasion to speak in the same language of us as we do with pleasure now of them.

“We are sure no true Englishman, who by nature are [sic] heroic and generous, would misuse a prisoner because he was so unlucky as to fall into his hands, and certainly a gentleman by nature—a foe to our country—whose generosity has laid us under such infinite obligations to him, can never meet with too much civility and respect.

For description, see No. 5 of the appended Bibliography

(Reduced; size of original 5 ⁷/₁₆ × 6⅞)

“But not to enlarge, as what we have said is hearty and sincere, conclude,

	“Gentlemen,
	“Y^r most Obedient Servants,
“Monsieur Martel	“Simon Wade, Lieutenant
“Montreal, August 25, 1757.	“John Maylem, Ensign
“Thomas Shaw,
“Cap^tn in the
“New Jersey Regiment”236

So far as later issues of Notes and Queries show, M. Martel’s attempt to get in touch with the descendants of the two Americans to whom his ancestor had been benefactor was entirely in vain, but we are grateful to him for indulging the sentimental impulse which brought to view and record this knightly episode in the midst of a cruel war.

V

FIRST called upon to rejoice over the conquest of Beauséjour, then to mourn the tragedy of Fort William Henry, Maylem’s muse was not to be denied another pæan of victory. In July, 1758, the fortress of Louisbourg fell before the united British and colonial forces, and soon thereafter there appeared in Boston The Conquest of Louisbourg, by John Maylem, who again on the title-page added to his name the epithet “Philo-Bellum.” This piece, the third and last of his poems of war, is in the high-flown manner of its writer’s period. In heroic couplets, its 358 lines relate the general preliminary steps of the expedition, sing the praises of the leaders, and describe the assaults by which the victory was attained. It is more conventional in matter and smoother in construction, but less spontaneous, less genuine, indeed, than the earlier poem in which he proclaimed the personal and public injury resulting from the massacre at Fort William Henry.237

The evidence of Maylem’s actual participation in the Louisbourg campaign is not conclusive. There exists the petition of the nineteen officers already referred to, showing that in April, 1758, he was preparing to go upon the Canada expedition as a captain in the Massachusetts forces,238 but with that the record of his part in the expedition ceases. His poem on that event, furthermore, is entirely without personal reference, and, as far as its incidents are concerned, it could easily have been written upon the basis of reports contained in the gazettes of the action. But there is evidence of another sort that helps to persuade me he was present at that notable victory. Again we turn to the manuscript remains of the poet rather than to official records. One of the vexations of that campaign was the long period of inactivity the colonial forces were compelled to undergo at Halifax, the rendezvous of the expedition. The following lines on Halifax, then a semi-military colony less than ten years old, are replete with savage criticism of the place and its people and seem to spring from the personal experience of their writer. They form another, and the most bitter, of those satirical pieces which Maylem composed from time to time at the expense of cities in which he found himself bored.

Satire on Halifax in Nova Scotia239

The Dregs of Thames & Liffy’s sable stream

Danubian rubbish and the Rhine’s my theme

Of them I sing, the Rebble vagrant rout

base emigrants that Europe Speweth out

their Country’s bane, such traitrous scoundrel crews

torn from the Goals [sic], the Gallows & the Stews

from Europe’s plains to Nova Scotia’s woods

transported over the great Atlantick floods

in shoals they come and fugitive invade

the horrid gloom of Halifax’s shade

Oh Halifax! the worst of Gods creation

Possest of the worst scoundrels of Each nation

Whores, rogues & thieves the dregs and skum of vice

bred up to villany, theft, Rags and Lice

proud upstarts here tho starved from whence they come

just such a scoundrel pack first peopled Rome

Send them to hell & then they’ll be at home.

I do not know of any occasion in Maylem’s short life in which he might have visited “the horrid gloom of Halifax’s shade” except at the time of the Louisbourg expedition, so that his vindictive description of that northern outpost assumes some importance in our story as probable evidence of his presence at the siege which he celebrated in exalted strains.

VI

IT is difficult to be sure of Maylem’s movements immediately following the publication of his Louisbourg poem in the later months of 1758, but not long after that event he seems to have moved himself and his literary ambitions to the city of New York, where he lived from some time before June, 1759, until October, 1760.240 It is not certain whether his purpose in going there was the pursuit of literature or the pursuit of commerce, but it is unhappily true that he pursued neither to good effect. He left that city with but two coppers in his pockets after nearly two years of residence, and the only known results of his literary activity in those years are three unpublished poems of small merit. The first of these is an undated piece entitled “John Maylem’s directions to his Taylor in New York,”241 in which, with unnecessary particularity, he urges “Mr. Allen” to observe certain directions in the making of his clothes. Another is the piece mentioned earlier in this paper, “A Poem by John Maylem on his birth day 30^th April 1760”;242 and the third is “The Daw & Peacocks, a Tale,” which we mention later without too much praise.243 But despite the poverty of his achievement, his life in New York was not dull, though for his sake we might wish it had been so. Something of the nature of his interests and companionships is to be learned from the following exchange of literary cut and thrust between the poet and a pseudonymous personage calling himself “Blanco”:244

Livingston’s Manour 2^d June 1759

Sir

Let me tell you you are wicked and profligate at no allowance and that you are totally deficient of that capacity for Poetry and Litterature your senseless Countrymen have innocently flattered you with.

You are vain stupid arrogant mean pitifull Louzy very Louzy Sharping and poor as Job and will certainly continue so till you know yourself for an ass.

Pray take this friendly hint

from Blanco

To Mr. Maylem to be left at M^r Roome’s

coffee house

New York

Maylem’s reply to this little garner of spiteful epithets has been preserved to give us a glimpse of his sharp wit and his skill in the use of the logical processes. After reading it, one would say that such readiness in the art of vituperation must ordinarily have provided something of a protection to a poet with a sensitive nature.245

N. Y. June 15 1759

Nothing more excites my Pity, than to see the inveterate malice spite and envy of your Littleness who omits no opportunity to convince me that I am grown popular. You write me half a dozen letters, at half a dozen different times, disguis’d in half a dozen different names & hands, and by the date of your last, my fame has spread to Livingston’s manor—would any person that thought me a d—d fool, take all this pains to convince me of it? poring over and murd’ring half a dozen pages for Clarissa’s & Clarinda’s to adapt ’em to your inimitable nonsense.— your last conclude[s] “and poor as Job, and will everlastingly continue so till you know your self for an ass” i e (I suppose) when I know myself for an ass I shall be rich, but while I know myself the contrary, I shall be poor, very poor—as poor as Job—But (please your Littleness) if none but asses get money you are certainly very rich—I know they are lab’ring beasts—But—a—would it not be much better if your Littleness (instead of making your country men who are all rich a common weal of asses) to Sophisticate those only so that are poor?—faith If I’m to be rich upon no other terms than being your brother ass—I had rather be as poor as Job, and everlastingly continue so—Pray your Littleness next time you write, Stick a needle in your nose and look Sharp.

Your Littleness by enquiring at the Coffee house … [may] have an answer to your feign’d Clarissa’s request, wrote246 days ago

rem — y^r Littlenesses most &c.

To His Littleness

Blanco Esq^r

Phil-o’-Blunder

to be left at M^r Smiths Coffee House

Even if we may not take Blanco’s aspersions as based upon fact, it becomes evident from the letter about to be quoted that young Maylem went the pace during the year and a half or more of his New York residence. I have not found, except in the three inferior poems already mentioned, indications of any literary activity on his part that might provide a degree of compensation for his irregular and aimless life. One of these pieces, the birthday poem of April 30, 1760, is a feverish mixture of sense and obscurity, overlaid by a quality of gloom that seems more authentic than that which was often artificially engendered through the cult of melancholy then fashionable in English verse. His reflections in this poem on a wasted life and the grave do not seem, however, to have been marks of conversion, for it was several months afterwards that his dissipations reached their turning point in the events related in the following letter:247

My very good Friend M^r J–s–phs–n

I take this opportunity to avow my gratitude to you and your wife, in a most sincere manner for the many favours receiv’d when reduc’d to the most contemptible state of indigence, & should tax myself with the highest injustice, was I deficient in making my acknowledgements.

That unlucky afternoon when I came home to your house with my senses totally absorb’d in Liquor, prov’d one of the luckiest in my life—I awoke next morning in such a shocking condition, that to have any Idea of my situation you must form a picturesque of the horrors of the damn’d. I got up, & without seeing any one, ran directly to Whitehall, embark’d in the ferry boat & in 2 days (solely on foot) arriv’d at Philadelphia, with all the horrors of indigence and poverty having but 2 coppers in my pocket, & ate nothing for 36 hours & laying in the woods one night.—I determin’d to put an end to my being & striking farther into the woods, took out the shirt out of my pocket & fixing a noose in each sleeve, make [sic] a slip, hung one of the nooses on the remainder of a broken bough & stretching open the slip thrust my neck in & swung off—when the cloth giving way I came with a full sweep upon the ground the shirt being rent fairly in two—I began then to reflect with all the horror of suicide & could scarcely help thinking it otherwise than an interposition of divine Providence—however I made good use of it—refrain’d from all intemperance, alter’d my conduct & have since enjoy’d a tranquillity to which I have been a stranger this many years; my principles of religion however is not alter’d in regard to what they were but yet allowing there was no such thing as futurity yet the pleasures of a temporal life by the 3 weeks experience I have had can make of earth a heav’n.

I went into the city, found several of my friends—embark’d for R I where I am now arriv’d—& shall settle immediately into some steady Business.

Beg M^r J–s–phs–n you will be kind enough to deliver M^r Hawxhurst, that favour of the bag wig which you was kind enough to present me—he will see it safely convey’d me—mine is all off my head—& I am (you know) little able to buy—the favour will be gratefully acknowledged among the already innumerable receiv’d by

Y^r very much oblig’d

John Maylem

Hope your books prove right—pray mention nothing to no one concerning that same hanging affair, you are (except myself) the only person in the world that knows it—pray M^r J–s—n send the wig

due respects to y^r spouse M^r J–d–h & his Spouse M^r Hawxh—will send the wig by Capⁿ Gibbs with my lac’d hat—which is at Taylors, an odd place to leave a hat—as bad as to leave a watch at a Shoemakers

Newport 15 Oct^r 1760

vessel just going off

VII

THERE remain but two more events to be noticed in the annals of this frustrated life. On May 19, 1761, there appeared in the Newport Mercury the poem already mentioned in which Maylem satirizes the city of his birth. It is entitled “The Boston Sabbath,” and in the manuscript version in the Du Simitière Papers reads as follows:248

The Boston Sabbath

In ancient Days ’twas God’s most sacred will

T’ expound his laws, on Sinai’s lofty hill

Whose Top terrific, issu’d clouds of Smoke

and thus amidst the flames, the Great Eternal Spoke;

Six days, (said God and loud the same express’d)

Shall men still labour, on the Seventh Rest

But here alas! in this great pious Town,

Th’ annul this law; and thus prefer their own;

“and let it be enacted further still,

“that all our people strict observe our will

“Five days & half, shall men and women, too

“attend their business, and their mirth pursue,

“but after that no man without a fine

“shall walk the Streets; or at a tavern dine,

“one day & half ’tis requisite to rest

“from toilsome labour and a luscious feast;

“henceforth let none in peril of their lives,

“attempt a journey; or embrace their wives;

“no barber, foreign, or domestic, bred,

“shall once presume to dress a lady’s head;

“no Shop shall Spare, preceding Sabbath day

“a yard of Ribbon or an ounce of Tea;

“five days & half, th’ Inhabitants, may ride,

“all round the Town, & villages beside;

“but if thro’ chance, they lose their destin’d Road,

“Tis our Command, they lodge that night abroad,

From hence ’tis plainly seen how chang’d indeed,

That Sacred Law, which God himself decreed;

In this one act, they think to merit Heaven,

by taking half a day from Six & adding it to Seven.

On the roster of the Rhode Island troops enlisted for the campaign of 1762 appears the name of John Maylem.249 Fewer than half the Rhode Island men who joined the attack upon Havana in that year returned to their homes after that successful but costly expedition; and because we never afterwards find the name of John Maylem in record, or attached to book or poem, it naturally occurs to us as an explanation that the poet and warrior was among those who in the course of the West Indian campaign paid the price of their zeal.

Except for the two long pieces, Gallic Perfidy and The Conquest of Louisbourg, there is not much in the poetical remains of John Maylem to detain the critic of literature. There is nothing so unprofitable as conjecture of the “might have been” in the case of poets who die young. But of him it can be said that he possessed an ardent spirit as man and poet, and that his poems of war touched something in the hearts or minds of his contemporaries. The ill-natured and anonymous Blanco, whose letter has been quoted, gives us unwittingly a glance at contemporary opinion in his gibing words: “… you are totally deficient of that capacity for Poetry and Literature your senseless Countrymen have innocently flattered you with.” The reprinting of one of the long poems, and probably of both of them, at Newport in 1775, and of both at an unknown place in the early nineteenth century is evidence that in the opinion of immediately succeeding generations, they were not without effectiveness.250 A later poet, and fellow-townsman, Joseph Brown Ladd, recorded a youthful memory of Maylem’s verse in the couplet:

Such warmth of fancy, once a Maylem fir’d

Untaught he sung, by all the muse inspir’d.251

Appended to these words is Ladd’s note: “John Maylem was a poet of genius, who lived not many years since. His productions bear every mark of a deficient education; but his genius rose superior to every inconvenience, and he remains a shining example of the Horatian maxim, that ‘Poeta nascitur non fit.’” The author of this encomium was born in Newport in 1764 and lived there until his removal to Charleston, South Carolina, in 1783. It is good to know that a boy growing up in Newport in the generation following Maylem’s disappearance from record should still have heard the echoes of his verse and have thought it inspired. And whatever one’s personal definition of genius, it is good to know that the only eighteenth-century reference found in print to John Maylem’s poems was, in intention, one of high commendation.

VIII

The Unpublished Works in the Du Simitière Collection of Maylem Papers

THE Maylem Papers in the Du Simitière Collection in the Library Company of Philadelphia, all but two pieces unpublished, comprise the following poems and letters, arranged in what I suggest as an approximation to chronological order:

1. Acrostic—Polly Turner.
2. Acrostic—Katy Malbone.
3. Description of Newport.
4. Satire on Halifax (printed in E. A. and G. L. Duyckinck, Cyclopaedia of American Literature, i. 432).
5. The Daw & Peacocks, a Tale.
6. A Poem by John Maylem on his birth day.
7. John Maylem’s directions to his Taylor.
8. Letter from Blanco to Maylem.
9. Letter from Maylem to Blanco.
10. Letter from Maylem to Mr. Harris.
11. Letter from Maylem to Mr. Josephson.
12. The Boston Sabbath (printed in the Newport Mercury, May 19, 1761; re-printed in the New England Quarterly, June, 1934. See note 1, p. 108, above).
13. The Birdiad.

In the following pages is given either a description or a full quotation of such of these as have not already been dealt with.

“The Daw & Peacocks, a Tale” is a labored, silly anecdote, comprising four pages of written ordure. It is interesting as an example of the sort of thing that amuses a few of every era, and that in the eighteenth century amused many. In reading it one recalls how muddy the waters of mirth can be in youth and charitably keeps in mind the youth of its author. Its interest does not seem sufficiently great, even from the antiquarian standpoint, to demand its reproduction.

“A Poem by John Maylem on his birth day 30^th April 1760 being then 21 years of age” is the farewell to the world of a disillusioned, unhappy youth who seemed to be assured of his early demise. Much of it is obscure, most of it is commonplace, and a deal of it verges upon bathos. What there is in it of biographical value has been extracted for the purposes of the foregoing sketch. The remainder does not seem of sufficient importance to justify its printing here. Much of this poem may have been the usual Weltschmerz of youth, much the fashionable poetic melancholy, but having read Maylem’s letter of October, 1760, to Mr. Josephson, one feels in the poem a mannered but none the less genuine expression of the emptiness of heart, disappointment, and sense of futility that later engulfed him when, after a drinking bout, he actually tried to hang himself in the Pennsylvania forest.

“John Maylem’s directions to his Taylor in New York” is a bit of playful verse of some antiquarian interest, but hardly deserving of withdrawal from its manuscript obscurity. A part of it, however, may serve to gratify the curiosity of those interested in the details of male costume in New York in the year 1760.

Mr. Allen

Be kind enough to observing [sic] y^e following Directions in my Cloaths viz:

My Coat made a la mode—Paris

to reach in length below the Knee

Short waisted with a mighty Cuff

as big full cut as Frenchman’s muff

(not such as worn by modern asses

For current mode and Fashion passes—

which makes their elbows look by G–d

If as [sic] they’d wash’d em in soap sud)

Five buttons on it close in a row

Five on the Pocket flaps below

a very modish pocket Flap

full trim d’ y’ see with hair & shape

Such as may give important air

when I to Coffee house repair

To make me look as fierce as Caesar

and then a pretty girl to please Sir

. . . . .

Five Buttons to each Knee as Sir

you made ’em for me twice before

and in all things keep due proportion

and I shall be at your direction.

“To Mr. Harris in the Fields” is a letter full of recondite allusions of a bawdy character. Further reference to it seems to be unnecessary.

“The Birdiad” should be allowed to tell its own story. I have not been able to identify the Jonathan Bird who was the object of this savage attack in retaliation, this assault with a bludgeon that sometimes took on the qualities of a rapier. Indeed, the only person of that surname that I find in Newport in this period is Nathaniel Bird, who was made a citizen of the town in 1758, and who is found advertising later (Newport Mercury, April 28, 1761, and November 17, 1766, for example) a general store in which books and stationery form an important part of the stock for sale. Maylem refers several times to his victim in “The Birdiad” as “Natty.” In view of the character he gives him, however, I hardly like to suggest the probably meritorious Nathaniel Bird as the author of the Winter Evening’s Conversation to which Maylem replied in “The Birdiad.”

The reference in the heading of the poem to Green, the Boston satirist, leads us at once to the Entertainment for a Winter’s Evening (Boston, 1750), in which Joseph Green had amusingly satirized the Boston Freemasons on the occasion of their church procession on St. John the Evangelist’s Day, 1749. It is evident from Maylem’s remarks that Mr. Bird’s Winter Evening’s Conversation was reminiscent in more ways than one of Green’s witty book. I have not been able to find, in newspaper or separate publication of the years 1758–1762, this Winter Evening’s Conversation of Mr. Bird which drew upon him the anger of John Maylem. That Maylem’s poem is of the year 1758 or later seems to follow from his note on the old woman named Bird who was born in London in 1666 and died in Newport “some short time ago aged 92.”

It is possible to identify all but one of those members of the Lodge mentioned in Maylem’s defence. We learn from Henry W. Rugg’s History of Freemasonry in Rhode Island (p. 785) that “gen’rous Jenkins” must have been Robert Jenkins, master of St. John’s Lodge, No. 1, Newport, from 1753 to 1759 as well as in 1761 and 1762. The portrait of Robert Jenkins by Greenwood is on the walls of the Rhode Island Historical Society. The manuscript catalogue of the portraits in that Society states that Jenkins was born in England and came to Boston in 1700. It seems uncertain when he became a resident of Newport. “The friendly Richards” was doubtless that William Richards whose name appears in a Masonic advertisement in the Newport Mercury of July 3, 1759. The present secretary of St. John’s Lodge, No. 1, Newport, Mr. Chester Staats, has very courteously affixed Christian names to the following additional individuals mentioned in Maylem’s poem: “Johnston mercifull and kind”—Augustus Johnston, who became a member of the Lodge November 15, 1750; “the noble gen’rous Stelle”—Theodore G. Stelle, who became a member August 16, 1757; “Lightfoot in every sense refin’d”—Robert Lightfoot, who became a member September 1, 1757. From information supplied by Miss Mary T. Quinn, Rhode Island Archivist, who examined for me the signatures to the “Petition of Master, Wardens & Society of Free and accepted Masons of Newpor,”252 I conclude that “Franklin, Cole Dupee or Miller” were, respectively, James Franklin, the printer (nephew of Benjamin), Edward Cole, John Dupee (or Dupuy), and John Miller. “The sacred name of Pollen” brings to view the person of the Reverend Thomas Pollen, rector of Trinity Church, Newport, 1754–1760.253

The Birdiad

a poem

In answer to M^r Bird’s Winter Evening Conversation, of no less than 129 lines long &c as he calls it the title is borrow’d from Green, design’d as a satire against the Procession of Freemasons on S^t John’s day—tho’ ’tis so weak and fullsome, I imagine ’t would require (not only a winter’s Evening but) a Winter Season to make common Sense of it.

wrote ex tempore

by Philo-Muses

Rara Avis in Terris—hor.

The Birdiad wrote Extempore upon seeing the Productive Quality of a curious Phenomena which dayly exhibit itself to almost every individual in The Town of New-Por

Jonat. Bird

Presumptuous Fool! that durst Incur

the muses Ire by Grubstreet Slur—

Say what vertigo seiz’d your cranium?

what urg’d you to eject your venom?

Or was it Cyder ale or Port,

that Spurr’d you to the weak effort?

to handle Sacred Characters

in demi-Song and wretched Verse?

why put your self into a passion

and Quarrel with the Sage Procession

Because (unfit for Social Plan)

You only are—but half a man—

So Fox254 that gave a hundred leaps

To Reach a Luscious Bunch of Grapes

unable to attain the rare Juice

Cry’d damn ’em they’re as Sow’r as verjuice

like Indian drunk in number Whimsic,

you spew in Rhimes to make us damn’d sick

Had Grammar, numbers, sense or Rhime,

Made (only) an indifferent Chime,

How durst you miscreant draw your pen

To Scandalize the best of men?

What has not gen’rous Jenkins done?

are not his Excellencies known?

In everything he shews the man—

and—imitate him—if you can.

With Johnston mercifull and kind,

To charity and good inclin’d,

Whose gen’rous Soul with bounty flows,

approving what his purse bestows

and Bull whose virtues far exceeds

Th’ amount of all your foolish deeds

Did to your Grannam255 oft bestow

was she alive she’d tell you so—

The friendly Richards oft evinc’d

His Charity, and good dispenc’d

Has often reliev’d the low distressed

with Poverty and want oppress’d—

How durst you miscreant draw your Quill

against the noble gen’rous Stelle

Once in your life a truth you’ve said

to hungry mouths he deals his bread

Which ergo proves that in the mouth

of Fools sometimes there is a truth

Lightfoot in every sense refin’d

to Captivate the human mind

an honour to the Social Plan

and—(what is more than you,) a man

Had Franklin, Cole Dupee or Miller

Been each like you a silly fellow

I scarcely ever should imagine

You would have thus express’d your dudgeon

Ergo it proves upon the whole

They’re men of sense and you a fool

But what mistake is this you fall in

To use the sacred name of Pollen

miscreant vile—why not explode

at once the being of a God?

be drunk with Cyder—Spue agen

and ridicule the best of men—

what will your aged Grannam say

Then [sic] dy’d in alms-house t’other day

When she shall hear the doleful dole

That Natty is a dreadful fool!

Whether in Querpo or in Limbo

with ragged elbows half a kimbo

She’ll screw her mouth and leathern face

and has my Natty prov’d an ass?

Betray’d his folly?—oh the rogue!

How oft have I with neer a brogue

To house of God a Sunday gone soon

To pray for wisdom in my grandson

at Service time in th’ alley sat256

as melancholly as a Cat

when not a Soul wou’d be so civil

as ope their pew door—Oh! the Devil—

Is this my Natty—he who was

the very picture of my face?

the very nose the very chin

with freckled face and visage thin

in Shape, and gait and ev’ry Limb

he was like me, and I like him

Tho he indeed was something smaller

(Was three foot high257 I somewhat Taller)

and (Consequently) by the plan

of nature was but half a man

yet I expected (barring that)

He’d be a man in sense and witt

He might have pass’d a child of sense

Had not his dull impertinence

Like fabled Cur—betray’d the Elf

who yelping ridicul’d—himself

I’d rather had led Apes in hell

Than thus have known such poignant ill!

Dull versifier—sad ingrate!

To make a Parent curse her fate

What urg’d you to a task so shameful

To tell the world you was a d—d fool,

So have I seen a toad that’s speckled

For you’re an instance they are freckled258

Close under cover sitting squat

with venom working in their throat

at Travellers their malice spit

and all their little rage emit

while they their Journey did pursue

nor did the pretty reptile view—

and so you’ll often see a whelp

at light of Phoebe bark & yelp

while she unmindfull of the cur

moves calmly in her silver sphere

Perhaps you thought the name of Bird

Entitled you to name of Bard

Because a Bird you say will sing

and soar away—like any thing

That you are a Bird we all allow

your ev’ry action prove it so

But Hark ye—understand me right

I mean you are—a Bird—of night

an Owl by nature, Bird by name

The name and nature just the same

For was you any other Fowl

Than what you are—a perfect Owl

Or good for ought, you had been carv’d

or for a Chicken Soop had serv’d

or had you even been a Goose

You had been eat with Christmas sauce

But Owls you know—are good for ne’er-a-one

But are when dead a stinking Carrion—

Since then this prov’d you are an Owl

and (consequently) void of soul

to Lonely ruins skim away

nor more appear in open day.

But Natty if in spite of witt

you will your little——259 spit

Be not an owl, be not an ass

nor murder Green and Hudibras260

Philo-Muses.

N.B. the above Poem is an accurate Copy from the Original in John Maylem’s own hand writing. (Du Simitière’s note.)

IX

Bibliography of the Published Works of John Maylem

1. [The Conquest of Beauséjour. 1755]?

No copy of this poem on the victory of Monckton and Winslow in Acadia in June, 1755, has been found in separate form or in the columns of a Newport or Boston newspaper of that year. The only reference to its existence occurs in the opening lines of the author’s Gallic Perfidy, which read:

I Who, of late, in Epic Strains essay’d

*And sung the Hero on Acadie’s Plains,

and are supplemented by the following footnote: “*The Conquest of Beau-se-jour, by Colonels Moncton and Winslow, in 1755.” It seems unlikely that Maylem would have called attention in so conspicuous a fashion to a poem not already published.

2. Gallic Perfidy: a Poem. By John Maylem} Philo-Bellum. Boston: New-England: Printed and Sold by Benjamin Mecom, at The New Printing-Office, July 13. 1758 ----- Where may be had that noted little Book, called Father Abraham’s Speech.

8vo. [A]–B⁴; pages [1–6], 7–15.

Wilberforce Eames, Benjamin Mecom, No. 10; Evans, No. 8194; Sabin, No. 47155; Wegelin, No. 269.

This is the earliest of Maylem’s poems so far identified in printed form. It may claim place in three special bibliographies in addition to those of printer and author: French and Indian War narratives; early American poetry; and Indian captivities. For comment upon the “noted little Book” advertised in the imprint, see Eames, Benjamin Mecom, No. 9.

Copies: AAS. BA. JCB. MHS. NYPL.

3. [Gallic Perfidy. Newport, 1775?].

There is evidence that an edition of this place and date once had existence, though no copy of it has been recorded or found advertised in the Newport Mercury for that year. In entry No. 7, below, a nineteenth-century work in which are combined reprints of The Conquest of Louisbourg and Gallic Perfidy, we find at the foot of the first page of Gallic Perfidy the following imprint: “Boston, Printed in 1758. Newport, (R. I.) Re-printed by Solomon Southwick, in 1775.” Unless the publisher of this nineteenth-century reprint made up from the whole cloth the imprint just quoted, and this is unlikely, the reasonable inference is that there once existed a Newport edition of the poem bearing this very imprint. It is a fact that in 1772 Solomon Southwick reprinted two American historical narratives, Church’s Entertaining History of King Philip’s War and Morton’s New-England’s Memorial, and it is suggested from what seems good evidence, presented in No. 6, below, that he published in 1775 a reprint of Maylem’s Conquest of Louisbourg. It seems clear that he was indulging an interest in New England historical works of the past, almost, indeed, as if he were proposing a series of reprints. In such a series, he might reasonably have included an edition of a local author’s poem on an event of the French and Indian War. But no copy of such a reprint of Gallic Perfidy is known, though the supposed Southwick reprint of The Conquest of Louisbourg, No. 6, below, exists in several copies. One need not despair, however, of some day turning up a specimen of the edition suggested here as once having had existence.

4. Gallic Perfidy. ca. 1820.

See description of No. 7, below.

5. The Conquest of Louisbourg: a Poem. By John Maylem, Philo-Bellum. [ornament] Boston, N. E. [Samuel Kneeland?] Printed in the Year. 1758.

Sm. 4to. [A]–E², of which A₁, blank or with half-title, is lacking from both known copies; pages [i–ii], 1–16 in copies seen; 358 lines wrongly numbered 362.

There are no advertisements of the publication of the poem in Boston newspapers of either 1758 or 1759. The typographical flowers on page 1 and the engraved ornament on page 16 lead one to attribute this book to the press of Samuel Kneeland, even though one is aware of the danger of complete dependence on that method of identification. An examination of twenty of Kneeland’s books of the period 1750–1758 shows that he used the flowers in headpiece and initial on page 1 in fourteen instances and that in three instances he used precisely one or the other of the combinations of the flowers found in the Maylem book. This evidence is invalidated somewhat by finding an occasional use by other Boston printers of all but one of the flowers, and one instance in which Green & Russell employed the same combination of the same flowers used in the initial on page 1.

The engraved ornament on page 16, however, seems to offer stronger evidence of Kneeland’s responsibility for the book. This ornament is not found in any other Boston book examined that proceeds from the period 1750–1758, but recognizing its old-fashioned character, we turn to an earlier period and find at least three books in which it is employed: At a Conference held at Deerfield, Boston [no printer’s name], 1735; Memoirs of the Odd Adventures of John Gyles, Boston, Samuel Kneeland, 1736; A Discourse concerning the Currencies of the British Plantations in America, Boston, Samuel Kneeland, 1740. There is no question that the ornament was printed in each of these cases from the same cut that was used in the Maylem book of 1758. In At a Conference, of 1735, beginning of a narrow crack is perceptible in the right-hand corner of the impression. In the books of 1736 and 1740, which alone are known to be from the press of Samuel Kneeland, this crack has grown successively wider and longer. In the Maylem book of 1758, the crack is still wider and runs entirely across the upper right-hand corner of the impression. The use of a cut known to have belonged to Kneeland in a book which employs also certain combinations of printers’ flowers found in other Kneeland books is sufficient warrant for suggesting that the Maylem book too proceeded from the Kneeland press. If this method of reasoning is acceptable, it leads to the conclusion that Kneeland was also the printer of the Indian Treaty named above, At a Conference held at Deerfield, published without name of printer at Boston in 1735.

For description, see No. 6 on the facing page (reduced; size of original 4⅞×8)

Copies: AAS. MHS.

6. [Caption title]: The Conquest of Louisburg [sic]. A Poem. By John Maylem, Philo-Bellum. [Newport, Solomon Southwick. 1775?].

8vo. [A]⁴, B², last leaf blank, pages 1–10, [11–12]; 358 lines wrongly numbered 362.

It is necessary to turn to the description of No. 7, below, to understand the reasons for the attribution of this edition to the Newport press of Solomon Southwick in 1775.

This edition in octavo which we are now considering, without date, printer, or place of publication, is sometimes confused in cataloguing with the edition of Boston, 1758, No. 5, above, which until recently has been virtually unknown to bibliographers. There are two reasons, however, for assigning it to the Newport press of Solomon Southwick, and to the year 1775. In No. 7, below, we find a nineteenth-century reprint of the two poems, Gallic Perfidy and The Conquest of Louisbourg. In association with Gallic Perfidy is the imprint: “Boston, Printed in 1758. Newport, (R. I.) Re-printed by Solomon Southwick, in 1775.” In No. 3, above, we have taken this imprint as evidence that an edition of Gallic Perfidy appeared in 1775 in Newport, reprinted by Solomon Southwick from the Boston edition of 1758. We have also called attention to the fact that Southwick in this period seemed to be turning to the making of American historical reprints and suggested that among them he probably included these two works of a local poet.

Additional evidence for the attribution of the publication to Southwick is found in the line of typographical flowers at the head of page 1. Examination shows this line of flowers interrupted by an exclamation point and by an interrogation mark, doubtless put in to break the monotony of a stiff and unattractive ornament. This usage, in connection with the same flowers, appears in others of Southwick’s publications of the period 1774–1776, and one might conclude that it was a highly individual characteristic if it were not that the same line of flowers with an interrogation mark at the end of the line is found in Dunbar’s Presence of God with his People, printed by Kneeland & Green of Boston in 1760. There is nearly always a fly in the ointment of this particular mode of identification. But taking the given arguments together, there seems to be evidence enough for the suggestion of Southwick as publisher and Newport, 1775, as place and date of publication.

Copies: BU (Harris Collection). RIHS. A.S.W. Rosenbach. Matt B. Jones.

7. [Caption title]: The Conquest of Louisburg [sic]: a Poem. By John Maylem:—Philo-Bellum. [Second title]: Gallic Perfidy. A Poem. By John Maylem.—Philo-Bellum.

Format uncertain. Leaf measures 5⅞×3¾ inches; 9 leaves, pages 1–10, 3 unnumbered, 12–16; 349 lines instead of 358 in the Conquest of Louisbourg.

The place, printer, and date of publication are unknown, but the work is obviously that of an early nineteenth-century press. The only copy I have seen is that in the Harris Collection of American Poetry in the John Hay Library of Brown University. It bears at the bottom of the page which carries the “Argument” of Gallic Perfidy, facing the first page of text of that poem, the imprint already twice quoted: “Boston, Printed in 1758. Newport, (R. I.) Re-printed by Solomon Southwick, in 1775.” The book has been catalogued in the Harris Collection, because of this imprint, as of Newport, 1775; but it is, I am sure, a nineteenth-century publication. I have suggested in No. 3, above, that this imprint was literally copied by the nineteenth-century printer from a copy of an edition of Gallic Perfidy, Newport, 1775, which has since disappeared.

8. The Boston Sabbath.

This poem appeared in the Newport Mercury for May 19, 1761, without name of author. It is assigned to John Maylem on the basis of its inclusion among the manuscript remains of Maylem in the Du Simitière Collection in the Library Company of Philadelphia. It was reprinted in the New England Quarterly for June, 1934. See note i, p. 108, above.

It will be seen that the Maylem publications present numerous bibliographical difficulties. It is impossible to speak with certainty concerning all the elements—place, date, author, and publisher—of any of them except the Mecom edition of Gallic Perfidy, of Boston, 1758. The foregoing notes are presented as probable solutions of the questions raised by all other editions of the several pieces.

Mr. Leonard W. Labaree read a paper entitled:

The Royal Governors of New England

BY the terms of the charter of 1629 the freemen of the Massachusetts Bay Company were authorized to choose annually their governor, deputy-governor, and assistants. Few of the powers derived from the charter were more highly prized by the Puritans, for few were more fundamental to the complete maintenance of their ideas of Church and State than the naming of their own chief officers of government. Jealously did they guard this vital privilege. The very report of the appointment of a governor-general by the Crown in 1634 was enough to lead to the strengthening of the military defenses of the Bay Colony. But for fifty years more the annual elections continued without successful interference.

For description, see No. 7 on pages 119–120 (reduced; size of original 3¾ × 5⅛)261

It is not surprising, therefore, that when the charter was finally vacated and Massachusetts found herself ruled by governors not of her own choosing, the conservative Puritans showed resentment and looked with utmost suspicion upon governors who took office by virtue of the king’s commission instead of the mandate of God’s elect. In time, as the more militant Puritans passed from the scene and others became somewhat reconciled to the inevitable, the hostility to the royal governors underwent a change in character, if not in strength. The rise of new economic problems led to a division of sentiment within the province, with the conservative, propertied, and mercantile interests arrayed against the underprivileged and the rural classes. Since the governors almost always sided with the conservatives, they drew upon themselves the hatred of the economic radicals, who, quite correctly, recognized in the king’s representatives the most powerful opponents of inflation and ready help for debtors. Finally, the general rise of colonial discontent, especially at the new British policies adopted after 1763, led to a further shift in the basis of hostility to the royal governors. The political radicals, or patriots, came rightly enough to look upon them as the leaders of the prerogative party, as the standard-bearers of toryism and repression, and hated them for what they represented. At all times, therefore, from the destruction of the first charter to the outbreak of the Revolution, there were strong and articulate groups ready to attack the royal governor of the moment, to denounce him as mercenary and incompetent, and to leave upon the pages of later sympathetic historians a reflection of their own hostility.

In the course of the past forty years or so, historians have come to take a more objective view of the men and events of that earlier age than was taken in the days when Bancroft and Palfrey set the tone for all writers on New England history. Scholars have studied the documents afresh; new materials, not available to the older writers, have found their way into print; while competent and sympathetic biographies of several of these royal governors have appeared.262 It is now possible to resurvey these officers as a group, estimating their careers and their personalities, both in comparison with the governors of other royal colonies and in relation to the New England stage on which they played their parts. Since New Hampshire, the only other royal province in New England, was under the jurisdiction of Massachusetts during much of the seventeenth century, and for the first forty years of the eighteenth had the same governors as her larger neighbor, it may be well to include the chief executives of that province in the analysis.

Sir Edmund Andros, as head of the Dominion of New England,263 was the first of fifteen men to assume office as royal governor in New England. For a few years after the collapse of the Dominion the two provinces had separate executives—Sir William Phips in Massachusetts264 and Samuel Allen in New Hampshire.265 From 1697 until 1741 there was a personal union of the two provinces, with separate legislatures, but with common governors in the persons of the Earl of Bellomont,266 Joseph Dudley,267 Samuel Shute,268 William Burnet,269 and Jonathan Belcher.270 Then came a separation. While Massachusetts was entrusted successively to the care of five men—William Shirley,271 Thomas Pownall,272 Sir Francis Bernard,273

Thomas Hutchinson,274 and Thomas Gage275—New Hampshire had only two governors—Benning Wentworth276 and his nephew John.277 These are the men with whom we have to deal.

When we compare these New England executives with the English royal governors elsewhere during the same period, certain differences appear. The first and most striking fact is the large proportion of natives chosen to rule the New England provinces. Among all the colonies hardly more than one in eight or ten of the governors was born in America; but six of the fifteen in New England were born in the provinces which they later administered. Phips, Dudley, Belcher, Hutchinson, and the two Wentworths were all New Englanders,278 descendants of first-generation settlers, and steeped in the New England tradition. No other royal province among those that revolted in 1775 could boast a native son as its full governor, though one in New York came from Jamaica,279 and three in New Jersey were born in other continental colonies.280 It would seem as if the home authorities, conscious of New England’s pride in her own stock, had sought to conciliate this section by appointing her own sons to rule over her. And, as if to take additional precautions in the management of this difficult region, the Crown selected the remaining governors as far as possible from men who had previously resided in the colonies and were familiar with colonial problems. Of the nine governors born outside New England, only three—Allen, Bellomont, and Shute—were practically complete strangers to America when they assumed office.281 Andros, Burnet, and Bernard had previously been governors of other colonies;282 Shirley had lived ten years in Boston;283 Pownall had been a free-lance observer and general handy man to colonial officials for four eventful years;284 and Gage had spent long years as a soldier in American campaigns and as commander-in-chief of the British forces.285 This was a record of colonial experience such as the governors of no other province could boast. One may question, perhaps, whether it was of any practical benefit to a colony to be ruled by men who knew America at first hand, but the home officials, by selecting four fifths of its governors from this class, gave New England, above all sections, the benefit of the doubt.

The New England governors generally came from less exalted ranks of society than did many of their contemporaries in other provinces. Although peers and sons of peers were fairly common elsewhere, only two governors in New England belonged to noble families. Bellomont, son of an Irish baron and himself raised to an earldom in the Irish peerage, was something of a courtier as well as a politician in the British Isles, having been treasurer and receiver-general to Queen Mary as well as governor of County Leitrim in Ireland.286 Massachusetts and New Hampshire were flattered by the appointment of this noble lord, and the assembly at Boston gave him twice the salary they had paid his predecessor.287 General Gage, the other high-born governor, was the younger son of a viscount. But by his time Massachusetts was no longer interested in the families of the British peerage. The absence of enthusiasm at his inauguration bore eloquent testimony to the changed conditions since Bellomont was first received.288 Most of the other Englishmen who ruled these provinces belonged to the upper middle class or to the country gentry. Andros was the son of a Guernsey gentleman and was himself a knight; Bernard and Pownall were members of old county families; Burnet was the son of the famous Bishop of Salisbury; Allen and Shirley, and probably Shute, came from London merchant stock.289 Among the New Englanders, all but Phips belonged to the colonial aristocracy, proud of their ancestry and local prominence, but hardly to be considered the social equals of the leading English families. Phips was the only truly self-made man in the entire lot. Of a poor family from down-east Maine, he rose by an adventurous spirit, cleverness, and good luck to ultimate knighthood. Yet neither he nor the people over whom he ruled ever quite forgot his humble beginnings. New England’s governors, then, were men of moderate position in the world. The salaries and the society there were not such as to attract the more giddy or impecunious sons of England’s aristocracy, nor would the staid Puritans have wished them. Massachusetts had no governors like the Duke of Albemarle, bon vivant and crony of James II, who sailed off to his government of Jamaica in 1687 in his own private yacht, taking with him in his escort of frigates five hundred tons of household goods and one hundred servants.290 Everyone realized that the New England sun would have shone but bleakly upon such exotic branches of England’s great family trees.

The governors of Massachusetts and New Hampshire were comparatively well educated. While about one quarter of the chief executives of all the provinces matriculated at colleges or universities, New England’s proportion was two thirds. Eight of the fifteen actually took their bachelor’s degree at Oxford, Cambridge, or Harvard.291 All but Phips among the native sons could boast of Harvard degrees, though a supercilious don of an English university might think the boast an empty one. Still, the schooling given there was the best that the colonies had to offer at the time. The list of college graduates among the governors might be longer if Shute had not left Cambridge after matriculation to read law in the Middle Temple,292 and if Burnet had not been removed from the same university by his father, the bishop, for idleness and disobedience.293 But Burnet also read law in the Middle Temple, studied at the University of Leyden, and was later granted an M.A. at Cambridge.294 As a fellow of the Royal Society he contributed papers to its Philosophical Transactions on such varied subjects as the mountains of Switzerland, an eclipse of a satellite of Jupiter, and a set of “Siamese twins” from Hungary.295 He also published an essay on Scriptural prophecy,296 and consequently perhaps ought to be included among the intellectual aristocracy. Three others are noteworthy for their literary achievements. Bernard was a versifier of sorts and gained some notice when he edited the Latin odes of his stepfather, Anthony Alsop.297 Pownall not only put his justly famous Administration of the Colonies through six editions,298 but also wrote extensively upon economics, topography, archaeology, and philosophy.299 His philosophical work, indeed, deserves a closer examination than it has yet received from recent students of that subject. And lastly, but perhaps most noteworthy of all, Thomas Hutchinson devoted his spare moments for many years to that historical work for which we are all so much indebted to him.300 Clearly, Massachusetts, which prided itself on its high level of education and intellectual activity, had a higher average of educated and literary governors than any other royal province.

On the other hand, the governors of these two strategically important provinces were for the most part deficient in military training or experience. While half the governors generally were men of military or naval rank, only three of the fifteen in Massachusetts and New Hampshire were professional soldiers. Andros had been a major,301 Shute a brevet-colonel,302 and Gage a lieutenant-general303 before assuming civil office. Dudley, it is true, won the rank of colonel during King Philip’s War, but, if questioned in a candid moment, would probably himself have admitted that the title should be construed only in a Kentuckian sense. Shirley also became a major-general and commander-in-chief during his administration, but he had had no military experience before coming to America, and perhaps the less said about his real generalship the better.304 On the whole, the governors of New England were an unmilitary set, enthusiastic organizers when army expeditions were on foot, but devoid of that inner knowledge and understanding of military problems which usually come only from long years in camp and field. The appointment in 1774 of the one important soldier of the lot, Thomas Gage, was a compliment to the bellicose spirit of Massachusetts, but a compliment which the inhabitants would readily have done without.

Any attempt at exact comparison between the New England governors and those of other royal provinces as to motive in seeking office, personality, and general ability must inevitably result in failure. These things do not lend themselves to ready measurement, especially at a distance of several generations. Men must be considered individually against the background of their own time and environment. Only thus can sound conclusions be drawn.

We must lay aside any notion that these men were actuated by higher motives in seeking office than those that led others in England or the colonies to ask for political appointments. Whatever may be the ideals of public service today, we are dealing with the eighteenth century, not the twentieth, and as historians we must be realists. In those days men sought political preferment primarily for the prestige, the power, the opportunities for advancement, and the money they might win thereby. Among these fifteen only one—Thomas Hutchinson—stands out as not definitely coveting the appointment as governor. Shortly before the Stamp Act tumults he was accused of being an engrosser of public offices, and there may have been some justice in the charge, for he was at that time lieutenant-governor, president of the council, chief justice, and judge of probate.305 But the sacking of his house by the mob, the hostility of the Boston populace and its leaders, and, above all, the cares and responsibilities of the lieutenant-governorship after Bernard’s departure seem to have cured him of the desire for higher office for its own sake. There is a certain ring of sincerity in the repeated statement in his letters to England that he hoped that someone else would be appointed to the burdensome governorship.306 But when his commission came, he did not refuse it. He could have been under no illusions as to the difficulty and thanklessness of the task before him, and, as far as we can judge, he accepted the promotion, in part at least, in the hope of leading back to the path of loyal obedience the province which he so dearly loved.

No such thoughts of service above self are apparent in the efforts of the other native sons to win the highest office of their community. To Phips the governorship was the pinnacle of ambition. To return to the Massachusetts which had known his lowly youth, rich with the spoils of his treasure hunt, sponsored by no less a leader of the old régime than Increase Mather, knighted, and now royal governor—what more could the former ship’s carpenter ask? To Joseph Dudley, also, the return as governor held out the prospect of personal triumph and vindication. Upon no other official, not even Andros himself, had the Puritans so heaped their reproaches and their wrath in the days of the Dominion as upon the pro-English son of their own former governor, Thomas Dudley. But when, after years of scheming,307 the son returned, holding as governor the one office that would compensate him for the harsh treatment he had received, it must be said to his credit that he showed no vindictive spirit, but set himself to the task of providing for the public welfare as he understood it.

While Phips’s and Dudley’s very human motives in seeking appointment may arouse some measure of sympathy, the same cannot be said for Jonathan Belcher. Above all others he was an opportunist, seeking first of all his own political and financial advancement. A leader of the provincial group opposed to Governor Burnet, he was sent to England by the assembly to contest the royal demand that they provide the governor a permanent instead of an annual salary. Suddenly word came that Burnet was dead. Belcher, quick to see his chance, besought his own appointment to the vacancy on the ground that he alone could persuade the assembly to grant the required permanent salary.308 And, to complete the estimate of his disinterestedness, it must be recalled that when as governor he failed completely to accomplish this result, he almost tearfully begged permission to accept the proffered annual grants on the ground that in any case “to take the people’s money must be a punishment to them.”309

Fortunately for New England no other governor was so frankly a time-server. Others were undoubtedly just as interested as Belcher in enhancing their own prestige and fortunes. But to most of the native-born governors, and notably to the Wentworths in New Hampshire, the office was but a logical step upwards for members of leading local families long prominent in the political and economic life of the community.310 That most of them were really men of second-rate abilities is not to be denied—though Hutchinson is again a shining exception. But their mediocrity is only another illustration of what has long been recognized—that the second and third generations in New England produced few men who compared in stature with the first-generation settlers.

In time, hostility to the governors appeared largely because of the conservatism of their political and economic policies. They represented the Crown, and in their efforts to uphold the prerogative they came inevitably into conflict with the representatives of the popular point of view. Their natural allies were the wealthy merchants and landed aristocrats, whose economic interests were often directly opposed to those of the plebeian artisans and frontier farmers. The economic contests of the period were usually indistinguishable from the political struggles. In these engagements the governors were almost always found fighting on the side of the wealthier battalions. A notable exception was Pownall, who, for reasons partly political and partly temperamental, cultivated the popular party. In a courtly age he alienated the aristocrats of Boston by the carelessness of his dress and the informality and gaiety of his manner.311 Hutchinson, then chief justice and lieutenant-governor, was disgusted, but John Adams, writing years later, called Pownall “the most constitutional and national governor in my opinion, who ever represented the crown in this province.”312 Several of the governors brought the popular leaders raging like hornets about their ears because of their conservative views on currency questions. Dudley and Belcher especially earned the undying hatred of the inflationists by their successful opposition to schemes for establishing land banks.313 Hutchinson, too, gained his first political laurels when, as Speaker of the House of Representatives, he brought about, almost single-handed, the restoration of the Massachusetts currency to a specie basis.314 In these days of loose and ill-digested talk of inflation and “baloney dollars,” it is particularly easy to understand why disputes over currency and similar problems should have produced so much bitter feeling between men who sincerely believed that their opponents’ policies would lead straight to economic ruin.

In fact, a broad survey of all these governors and their administrations leads definitely to the conclusion that the times in which they lived rather than the characters and capacities of the men themselves are chiefly responsible for the unsympathetic treatment which they have usually received from historians. Few of them were first-class statesmen, though they might stand comparison with the governors elected in some of our States today. And, except for their lack of military knowledge, their background and experience put them, as a group, distinctly above the average of royal governors of their age. But from the nature of their office and the problems of their times they became storm centers for the economic and political conflicts of the most independent and articulate section of the colonial world. Even the best of them could hardly hope to emerge from the tenure of their trying office with reputations unscathed. Historically, the course of events was against them, for they represented a losing cause. The royal authority which they personified was finally driven from the land, and the popular factions which they opposed evolved into the successful party of a revolution. To the victors went the historical spoils. But now, with the passing of many years, whether we study the royal governors individually or as a group, we can see more clearly that they did not deserve all the abuse which has been heaped upon their memories.

Mr. Robert E. Moody read the following paper:

The Last Voyage of the Province Galley315

THE Province Galley, built in 1705 by the Province of Massachusetts Bay, was perhaps the best-known craft of her period in New England. She was in reality the province “navy,” and, as such, was busily engaged during Queen Anne’s War in the transport of troops and supplies, a duty for the performance of which she had been built. Her adventures in the service of the government have been told in detail elsewhere.316 But the Province Galley passed into private hands at the conclusion of the war, and her subsequent history, though brief, is of considerable interest because of the unusual controversies which developed among her new owners. These controversies, annoying and expensive to the litigants, were fortunate ones for later times since because of them scores of papers have been preserved in the files of the Superior Court of Judicature,317 which present a day-by-day picture of a trading voyage of considerable length in the early eighteenth century—a voyage typical of that of hundreds of vessels of the time carrying fish, New England’s greatest treasure, from port to port through the Mediterranean, where they picked up other cargoes for London and home.

The description of this particular enterprise, interesting as it is from an antiquarian point of view, has even greater significance for the historian in that it introduces a series of legal battles in which the Province Galley became involved. These court cases show clearly that the “litigiousness” which Mr. Chafee has pointed out as a characteristic of the people of Massachusetts Bay during the 1670’s318 carried over to a later period. Further, the appeals from court to court and the writs of prohibition directed by the Superior Court of the province against the Court of Vice-Admiralty give a significant picture of the judicial structure of the provincial period, a phase of American colonial history too often neglected, involving conflicts between royal and popular institutions. The resistance of the colonial courts to the allowance of appeals to the King in Council and to the exercise of jurisdiction by the courts of vice-admiralty, with their crown-appointed judges and their lack of juries, cannot be more adequately illustrated than by the cases resulting from the voyage of the Province Galley, starting from Boston, May 17, 1714, and ending at the same port, April 6, 1716.

The owners of the Province Galley after she was sold at public auction by the province in 1713 were the mercantile firm of Oulton and Waldo, which held a three-fourths share, and four individuals, each of whom shared equally the remaining quarter interest. John Oulton was a Boston merchant of considerable experience, owner at one time of a warehouse on Corn Street, and later of one on King Street. He was a proprietor of Long Wharf and a participant in many shipping ventures.319 His partner, Cornelius Waldo, then about thirty years of age, was the third of that name and had once been Oulton’s apprentice.320 The other four adventurers were Samuel Phillips, Jr., son of the bookseller; his brother-in-law, Arthur Savage, who was in turn a brother-in-law of Cornelius Waldo, and was to captain the vessel; John Caswall, a London insurance broker, whose interest was handled by Savage; and Francis Wainwright, a Boston merchant.

The owners shared not only the cost of purchasing the vessel—£1,582 7s 6d321—but also the expense of fitting her out for a European voyage and of lading her with fish for market. Though called a galley, and provided with places for oars, she was a sailing vessel, having a mainmast and a mizenmast. During the war she had carried, as a transport, as many as a hundred men, but on this trading voyage her crew numbered between ten and fifteen.322

On March 20, 1713/14,323 Savage cleared outwards from Boston for Marblehead, where he was to take on his cargo of fish—an ordinary procedure for Boston ships. The Reverend John Barnard, writing of Marblehead in 1714, says:

… there was not so much as one foreign trading vessel belonging to the town [i.e., a Marblehead ship that traded to Europe], nor for several years after I came into it; though no town had really greater advantages in their hands. The people contented themselves to be slaves that digged in the mines, and left the merchants of Boston, Salem, and Europe, to carry away the gains.…324

This trade, however, like all others, had been greatly hindered by the war, and the Province Galley was one of the first vessels to undertake the European trip after the peace. Entering the harbor of Marblehead, the pilot, Robert Orange, anchored hard by the Dragon, a fishing sloop owned by John Stacey and others of that town. Warned by Savage that the Province Galley lay too near in case of a high wind, Orange shifted position.325 On the night of March 31, 1714, a storm came up, and the Dragon was driven so close to the Province Galley that she fouled the ship and parted her own anchor cable. Let the records tell the story:

… the man that was upon y^e watch upon Deck [of the Province Galley] one Francis Lemontais called down y^e Scuttle and said there was a Ship under our Borsprit and on board of us it being so dark and full of Snow could not discern at first what Vessel it was the Master ordered all hands up & Candles to be lighted in the Lantthorne all the cables being cluttered with trumpery out of the Hole we having gott it out of y^e Hole in order to board our stoare of Fish we haile the Vessel and cauld on board for help to cleare her from us but there was not one person living to take care of her on board the Sloope ….326

Captain Savage did what he could in a bad situation. With less than half his men aboard, he was handicapped, but he “bent a Hauser to her s^d cable & Rode her the s^d Sloop at the stern of his s^d ship….” To no avail, for “whilst they were providing for another Hauser to fasten her the s^d Hauser dealt & She went on Shoar & Sunk….”327 Other ships were also, it may be said, in difficulties at the same time. Thus even before the Province Galley had begun to load her cargo, she had become involved in a damage suit which was to come up again and again during the next five years in the Massachusetts courts.

After this unfortunate accident, the ship’s master proceeded to his chief business—taking on his cargo. Marblehead harbor was in those days the gathering place for many small craft returned with their ladings of dried and cured fish. From them Captain Savage made his purchases, buying in small quantities from at least fifteen of the ships then in port. The total amount secured was 3,077¾ quintals: 2,883 of codfish, and the rest haddock. For the codfish twenty-four or twenty-five cents a quintal was the standard price; for the haddock, seventeen cents. The “master’s privilege” allowed Savage to store away sixty quintals in the “Lazarette,” besides which he carried nearly five hundred quintals on his own account, for which he paid freight. A great deal of the cargo was “Cape Sable Sloop-fish,” of which it was later charged that 1,327 quintals were “bad refuse salt burnt sloop Cape Sable codfish” which were “ketched in the fall before having been already culled several times before,” and which perhaps “came out of Capt. Vibert’s ship, being bad and relanded.”328 This portion of the cargo may indeed have been previously shipped to Europe and returned, not finding a market.329 According to Samuel Phillips,330 the responsibility for taking on the poor fish (apparently it was loaded while Savage was absent in Boston) was John Oulton’s, since he had insisted that one man should buy the whole cargo, and had himself assumed the task. Though Savage was not inexperienced in such matters, he later denied that he knew any of the present lot to be of inferior quality, being “wholly ignorant of this sort of Cape Sable fish laying up all Winter.”331 Out of the subsequent quarrel over the quality of the fish grew another lawsuit of the series with which the Province Galley is identified.

On May 11, 1714, Savage received his sailing orders from the owners, as follows:

Sr:

You being Com̄ander of our Ship the Province Galley Do desire you to Order all things to be ready for your Sailing with the First Fair wind and weather from Marblehead. When you are out at Sea with her make y^e best of your way for Gibralter, But in case you should meet with contrary winds & the same will favour your going to any adjacent port to Lisbon or Bilboa without loss of time, then try your market & advising with Mess^rs Ferd^o Wingfield & Comp^a and any other Gentⁿ If you should see cause to Stop there by an encouraging Market for your load of fish and a Freight for London, do your utmost for the Sale of your Fish and a good freight for London… If you proceed for Gibralter afores^d there take the best advise you can get for a Market for your Cargo of Fish which We pray you to Follow either for Barcelona Alligant Sardinia or Leghorn, The Port you first arrive at and fix on for the disposal of your cargo you must advise of to M^r Jn. Tidcombe of London and write him what Port you design next, and desire him to make Insurance on our part to what value you think needful not exceeding ¾ of y^e whole of Our adventure, From one of these forts We hope you will meet with a good freight for London & if need be for promoting of the same lay out such a part of y^e n^t proceeds of our Fish in things proper as may be necessary for the giving you a quick despatch from that Port to London, From y^e Port you sell your Fish at We desire you to get good Bills of Exch^a for London to the value of Oulton and Waldo’s part, save such a Sum as you think needful to keep for y^e Service of y^e Ship or her freight in proportion to everyone’s part … From thence [London] We hope to have you here before Winter sets in, if you have no prospect of this We hope you will have some Encouraging Freights in the Streights and then to contrive to be here early next Spring or in y^e mean time if you have a good Opportunity to our advantage for y^e Selling of y^e Ship or Stores you may do it and remit y^e produce to every ones freinds, on which head you shall be duly considered, Be as good husband of all things as you can and make as quick dispatch at from and to every place as is possible wishing you all prosperity, We rest S^r

Yor Freinds to Com̄and….332

Savage’s reply is in the form of a bill of lading dated Boston, May 12, 1714:

Shipped by the Grace of God in Good Order & well Conditioned, by John Oulton and Cornelius Waldo of Boston on their own proper Accompt and Risque upon the Good Ship Called the Province Galley whereof is master under God for this present Voyage Captain Arthur Savage and now rideing at Anchor in the Harbour of Marblehead And by Gods Grace bound for Lisbon Bilboa Gibralter or Leghorne to Say One hundred Twenty Eight Q^talls & 13/16 of Dry Haddock… [here follows a list of the consignment] goes consigned to the Said Cap^t Savage for him to dispose of at either of the s^d places … where it will fetch the greatest price … (the Danger of the Seas only Excepted) … So God Send the Good Ship to her Desired Port in Safety Amen.333

But before the Province Galley could sail, delay threatened Captain Savage in the form of a writ of attachment served May 14, 1714:

… to Answer unto John Stacy Marriner John Edgcomb Fisher-Man, Tabitha Woods Widow & Inholder all of Marblehead in the County of Essex & Capt. James Pitts of Boston in the County of Suffolk Merchant, and All owners of the Sloop Dragon … In a plea of Tresspass … which is to the damage of the sd John Stacy John Edgcomb Tabitha Woods & James Pitts as they say the Sum of Two hundred pounds….

Savage immediately put in his plea of “Not guilty in Manner and form,” and John Oulton went bond to the amount of £200 for Savage’s appearance at the next Inferior Court of Common Pleas, to be held in Salem in June.334 Freed, and with never a doubt of Oulton’s ability to avoid damages in the suit, Savage sailed from Marblehead, May 17, 1714, and set his course for Europe.335

On board the Province Galley, besides the captain and Samuel Phillips and their wives, there sailed Peleg Wiswall336 of Boston. A graduate of Harvard College in the Class of 1702, he later became one of the teachers of the Old North Grammar School of Boston. For a time, however, he followed the sea and was once captain of a letter of marque. But on this voyage he was listed as chaplain, though he may also have served as copilot since he had had previous experience in the Mediterranean. In all the litigations in which the Province Galley became involved, his name appears with colorful bits of testimony, and the excerpts from his Journal reveal many a fact not noted by Captain Savage either in his account book or in his letters to his employers.

The captain met with fair winds on his outward passage, and in about three weeks reached Fayal, a port of the Azores, where he put in for water—but for nothing else, he was careful to say, not even “a Kegg of Wine so much for reason of Dispatch….”337 The wind having died down, he decided to make a longer stop “by reason of the Calm fearing should be on the Rocks otherwise intended to stand off and on till could get some water on board …”338 Extracts from Wiswall’s Journal give the information that Savage here “Had a little trade with an East India Merch^tman, and the 10th day Sailed with her out of that Port with a designe to Enlarge his Trade with her But the weather prevented that Intention….,”339 Thus ten days passed while Savage was getting his water and having his little trade, of which his account book gives no report. He noted only his charges for watering the ship, for fees to the consul and to the governor for clearing his ship, and for greens and drink for his men.340

Finding it impossible to sail with the merchantman, he proceeded to Cadiz, where he arrived June 19.341 Here he went on shore and consulted with other traders, one John Short in particular, as to the best market for his fish. He was advised that Tarragona was the best place for a trade. Accordingly he wrote to John Tidcombe, as he had been instructed, asking for insurance to the amount of £4,600 on “ship & Cargoe … as high up as Leghorn.” In his letter Savage reported that his voyage had been uneventful save for the loss of one man overboard. This sailor and six others whom he discharged at Cadiz he replaced by hiring others “in their Room much better,” at 25s a month.342 Further delay was useless, the captain having been disappointed in his expectation of passengers. He therefore paid his bills for cannon powder, blacksmith work, wines, and anchorage,343 and sailed into the Straits on June 26.344

Faced with the serious business of discharging his cargo, Captain Savage intended for Tarragona, but, as he relates, he was forced first to sail for Mahon for fear of pirates. “I having no Mediterranean pass stood over to Mohone to get one (having run the risque of my self & family to be made Slaves of amongst the Turks for want of one)….345 Writing later of this voyage, which on the way took him to Alicante in Valencia, and to Majorca, he said:

We wrote you from Cales ꝑ Cap^t Macfedris we run a Great risque from thence having no pass that was good, thence we arrived at Alicant where I could not Sell our Fish for 5½ doll^rs ꝑ Quintal then was resolved to get a pass of our Admiral at Port Mahone [Minorca] (running the risk of Algier without it in our way We touched at Majorca where could not get Six doll^rs, thence to Port Mahone where by a pure accedent We got a pass of the Admiral he arriving the next day (off of the Harbours mouth for the Bomb Ketches) that I arrived with much difficulty he gave me one.…346

From Wiswall one again learns of a passenger whose presence Savage did not record. Nor did Savage report that at Alicante there was talk of selling the ship, “though little came of this talk.”347 Savage’s accounts show that he sold 300 quintals of fish at Mahon “at a good price,” and that he “Remitted y^e money.”348

At Salo (near Tarragona), on July 19, he disposed of more of his cargo. “… I proceeded and sold quick [he sap] for 6/4½ and could have raised it to seven dollars if the fish had not proved much salt burnt.”349 It was because of the bad fish, according to Samuel Phillips, that they were compelled to “goe from Port to Port and so dispose of small or great quantitie according to the Necessity of the People….”350 From Salo, where the Spanish would no longer trade with him, Captain Savage went to Mataro in Catalonia (nineteen miles northeast of Barcelona). At this port, according to the deposition of John Board, “… it [the fish] riseing so bad the Cap^t was threatened with his Life….”351 Rosael Amundia, to whom Savage had contracted to sell his cargo here, had no intention of paying the full price for refuse fish. He declined to take more than 350 quintals of it, and Savage set him free of his contract on his raising the price to $6 a quintal for the amount bought.352

Though somewhat disconcerted by the quality of his cargo, Savage was alert to the possibilities which offered themselves at Barcelona. That city was being besieged by the Duke of Berwick in behalf of Philip V of Spain. Should it be taken, Savage saw a market for codfish, salt-burnt or no. Only 1,500 quintals remained to be disposed of, but these were the worst of the lot. Keeping an eye out for pirates, Savage lay to off Barcelona, whence he wrote: “We intend to lye a Small time to see whether its Impossible to take Barcelona or not….”353

Barcelona fell after a defence of futile valor. It was stormed, September 11, 1714, by Berwick’s troops and “when sword, fire and lust had done its worst,”354 the city, desperately in need of food, was opened for trade. On September 17, Savage entered the harbor and lost no time in selling his refuse fish. “… We made an End of our Cargoe,” said Samuel Phillips, “the people being in absolute Necessity, being almost Starved .…”355 The fish brought the remarkably good price of $6¼ a quintal. With responsibility finally lifted from his shoulders, Savage determined to remain for a time where he was. It was necessary to make some small repairs on the ship, and to restock her with provisions, which, now that the most urgent needs of the people were over, could be purchased. The sailors were also in need of a stop-over, being troubled with scurvy. For them the captain bought all kinds of fresh vegetables, raisins, herbs, pepper-spice, cinnamon, eggs, onions, “pruins,” greens, and fowl.

For these expenses Savage retained $2,000 of the proceeds from the sale of the fish. Outlays for repairs are noted under the following heads: sulphur for the ship’s bottom, oakum for galleys, grooming and graving ship, thrums (untwisted rope), a “skin of Tarr to burn her bottom,” help of men in “heaving ship down,” hammer and caulking iron, shovels, tallow for the ship’s masts, heaving the ship’s keel out, and “to a Spanyard mending our Iron tiller.” There had been other expenses at Barcelona in connection with the sale of the fish. Savage notes: “To a Cryer crying y^e Fish,” “to 4 Soldiers Guard^g the fish from Theives ashore 7 days,” “to a hatt gave Paul Beck to Encourage others to buy fish,” and—a frequent charge—“excessive dear drinks” for prospective customers.356 Wiswall also mentions the purchase of a “parcell of small arms,” which may have been either for speculation or for protection.

Shallet and Crowe, who were Oulton and Waldo’s agents at Barcelona, advised Savage to try for a load of barley at Mahon to be delivered in Lisbon.357 Of this Savage wrote to both John Caswall and John Tidcombe: “There laying then at Barcelona sundry English Ships which could not get a Tun of freight … I eagerly Embraced with abundance of Thanks to these Gentⁿ for giving me y^e first offer …,”358 Wiswall reports that there had previously been some talk of the “Carriage of Guns for the King of Spain along the Coast.”359

The Province Galley finally left Barcelona on October 13, intending to go to Mahon. Savage relates that in this passage he was retarded by calms and by contrary easterly winds so that he was obliged to put in at Majorca to wait for a favorable wind. There he was advised that no barley was to be had at Mahon.360 But he did learn that salt from Iviza, the third in size of the Balearic Isles, was in demand at Monaco.361 Accordingly he made a contract with Don Francisco Fornaro for the Prince of Monaco.362 Samuel Phillips says: “But before we had laded the Ship the Cap^t found that this Fornaro had plaid him a trick and had sent away one of the Bills which he gave as Security to Genoa which might be paid as far as he knew before our arrival so here our contract was again broken.”363

The Province Galley was then beset by winds, “a hard Levant,” and “was beat back to and continued at Marseilles 5 days … very leaky.”364 Savage also put in at Toulon (thirty miles southeast of Marseilles) but could not sell the salt. At Villafranca, in the Duchy of Modena, on November 22, Savage sold the cargo, bringing the owners “817 doll^rs of Genova or 1122 doll^rs Cattalan … amounts to £251 158 sterling.”

… but the Ship continued very leaky, was obliged to Sail for Genova to heave keel out being the nighest port when got out of the harbour the same day met with an Extream hard Levant was afraid to beat the Ship … was obliged to bear away again for Ivaca [Iviza], lost my [long] boat by the hard wind & Sea in our passage where We loaded a second time (being very leaky as much as could keep her above water) and so returned up again for Genova where We hove keel out again and drove upwards of a hundred Trunells in y^e Ships bottom….365

This second load of salt Savage sold to the Intendant of Nice, Count Tovini de Quincinet, for $965 or £216 sterling.366 It was now the middle of January, 1714/15. Finding that salt sold as well as any cargo he was likely to find, Savage decided to return to Iviza again. Thence he was proceeding when, on February 20, off Antibes (Savage writes it “Antebo”), he met “a very hard gale of wind could not carry a Knott of Sail, the Extremity of the wind carryed away my Maintopsail yard and Topmast at Once … [and] lay beating up and down….”367 During the rest of February and a part of March, the Province Galley touched at several ports, having repairs made at Toulon and delivering passengers, but never, according to the accounts, taking in any freight. The captain did, however, ship a stranded Dutch doctor, paying the landlady twenty livres. He seemed disinclined to proceed to Iviza, reasoning that he had been so long away—eight weeks—that the salt might be gone or the island captured. Finally putting into Mahon for advice, he learned from the governor that “the Spaniards had not taken the Island but that all the Salt was Sold off to y^e Dutch & that no freight at all [was to be had] on y^e Christian Shore….”368 Then Savage was beset with a desire to sail to Iviza anyway to sue the commissioners “for breach of Contract & my Earnest for a Load of Salt….” Convinced of the foolishness of this idea by the arguments of his officers, “it not being worth while for the Lucre,” and feeling now no necessity of remaining on the Christian side, Savage “stood over on the Barbary shore downward for Algier….”369

The Province Galley reached Algiers, March 18, 1714/15, but she did not remain long among the Moors. Her master found trade costly because of the numerous gifts demanded by officials at every port. Interpreters were necessary for the simplest of transactions; nor was the gain so lucrative as Savage had anticipated. At one place he sold a few bags of rice; at Arzeu he took on his third and last load of salt. With this cargo he returned to Cadiz.

From Cadiz he proceeded to Amsterdam, arriving there in the middle of June. Here he took a house for himself and his wife and spent the next six weeks in the city while the Province Galley lay idle in the harbor. He disposed of the cargo of salt, “though in a bad trade”; he took on board a small cargo of earthenware and iron pots, but freight for London there was none. Among the items in his account book, furnishing local color to his stay in Amsterdam, is the following: “To a Scoot-boat to draw y^e Ship over the Pompass,” though an item of greater concern to Oulton and Waldo was the bill for “a new suit of Sails except a mainsail.”370

It was August 1, 1715, when the Province Galley reached London. There Savage reported at once to the owners’ agents. From them he received several letters which had been forwarded to Leghorn, a port which he had never visited. These communications were to the effect that the captain should end his voyage, sell the boat if possible, or return to Boston with the first freight he could secure. If Savage had seemed reluctant to leave Amsterdam, he was even less eager to embark for Boston. He discharged his sailors and sent Peleg Wiswall up the river on a collier with sundry goods for safe-keeping, but he found no freight for Boston. When winter came on, the captain found that the Province Galley, with many other ships, had been caught in the ice of the river, or, as he reported it, was “frozen in the pool,” by which he meant that portion of the Thames between London Bridge and Cuckold’s Point. His winter in London was now assured. He attended the execution of lords Derwentwater and Kenmure when they were beheaded on Tower Hill, February 24, 1715/16.371 He was summoned into the Marshalsea by one of his sailors for non-payment of wages.372 But there is little else to show how his time in London was spent. When the ice broke up, he was, according to his report, “the first boat to move in the pool, breaking three anchors in the ice.” He sailed from the Downs, March 8.

Early in April he arrived in Boston. The Boston News-Letter of April 2–9 says: “Friday last the 6th Currant arrived here Capt. Arthur Savage in the Province Galley about Five Weeks Passage from London.” Expecting a chilly welcome from the owners, he had prepared aboard ship a letter of apology, dated March 28, 1716:

I know we have made a bad Voyage, but I can truely say it was oweing wholly to the Weakness of the Ship—if she had been tight as other Ships & I not Obliged to heave her twice keel out in The Streights… I should have got what you would have desired… I Desire that there may be no Differance between us upon Acco^t of freindship as well as blood—& believe when you Materially weigh every thing you’l find you have not that reason w^h you now Think perhaps to have … [to complain of the voyage].

The case of the sloop Dragon against the Province Galley was particularly on his mind.

As to the Damages of the Sloop that drove on board of us at Marblehead I have heard that they recov’d damage against us—I have Complained hereof to the Governour and Judge Advocate who you may Expect very speedily over when I hope we shall have Justice done us in the Court of Admiralty or by the Gov^r and his Council.373

Thus we see that while in London Savage must have had conferences with Governor Shute and Judge Menzies,374 newly appointed to their respective positions.

The letter availed nothing. Immediately on his arrival in Boston, Oulton and Waldo tried to remove Savage as captain of the Province Galley, but Savage took refuge in the haven of admiralty jurisdiction, petitioning the new judge-advocate, John Menzies, for a decree in his behalf. The decree, handed down May 14, 1716, declared that Savage could not be dismissed except on payment to him of his interest in the ship. The decree reads:

[The Judge] having heard seen & Considered y^e Lybell … [and] well & riply [sic] advised & also haveing regard to y^e Civil & Rhodian Laws & y^e other Maritime Laws of those Countrys most renowned for trade … finds y^t y^e Choice of a Mast^r depends upon y^e Major p^t owners & y^t he is to be continued or altered in y^e same manner. & y^t where any alteration is intended it ought to proceed after due Notification to every owner … y^t there assent or dissent may be known … he cannot be dismissed except upon paym^t to him of y^e value of his p^t in y^e ship… and also of y^e wages yⁿ due to himself and p^d out by him to Sailors & therefore decerns and decrees Ar: Savage to renounce and resign his interest as Mast^r … upon y^e Plain^tff payment to him at y^e same time y^e sum of one hundred ninety pounds thirteen Shillings & four pence, as y^e price & value of his 1/16 p^t….375

Suspecting that Savage’s voyage had been a losing one to the owners only and not to the captain,376 Oulton and Waldo commenced suit against him, alleging breach of contract and claiming £2,000 damage. The charges against Savage are far too long to quote in full. The owners found fault with everything he did from the time he put into Fayal for water. That he neglected to write to them of all his transactions

… does not look with a good face … and does leave room enough for us to think he on this head does not design to do us Justice if he can help it….he hath Improved y^e Ship in the Streights from and to several parts (without any advantageous freight Except to himself) for near 12 months…. All this and more he told us he could have done by virtue of our Orders and have carried y^e Ship to y^e East Indies if he pleased: We are ready to believe that no man, except A. SAVAGE would have had y^e Assurance or Confidence to have told us so…377 He had orders to Sell the Ship…this he would not do We Suppose because then he must have parted with his pleaseure Boat as he hath made her … When we Consider his proceedings We do not wonder at his not giving us an Accy^t of all things; For time and Distance hath made him Believe the Ship & Cargo to be his own so is not accountable to any body else if he did not thus Believe, Surely he would have followed our Ord^rs in all things and returned home long before now to have proved himself an honest man, One that had a proper value for his Friends Imployers & their Interest, which we think now will be very hard for him to do.378

Their chief grievance against Savage was his disregard for them as principal owners of the boat. They repeatedly asserted the charge that he forgot their rights “while frolicking from port to port for his Lady’s curiosity,” and that “the profitts (we doubt not) only turns to his private advantage or the satisfaction of his & his Ladys Curiosity.”379 The courts, however, decided that the damage done to Oulton and Waldo by Savage’s “frolicking” was £360, a sum considerably less than the £1,052 9s which Oulton and Waldo submitted in their accounts.

Oulton and Waldo also figured from Savage’s accounts that he owed them £356 13s 2⅜d and hence sued him for £500. In the lower court they were awarded £184 12s 3d. Not satisfied, they appealed, and the decision was confirmed. But Savage was not through. He petitioned the General Court for the right to reopen the case on error, and then asked for £220, which he claimed was due him. Oulton and Waldo went him one better by asking for a review before King in Council, but it was denied. In May, the two parties agreed to arbitrate. After some difficulty in getting commissioners who would serve, the arbiters awarded Savage £34 2s 8d. Oulton and Waldo then brought a petition for review which the Superior Court, its patience exhausted after three and a half years of litigation, dismissed in October, 1719, as illegal.380

The suit for damage to the sloop Dragon also remained unsettled for a number of years, travelling from court to court. The owners, Stacey et al., first received a judgment of £200 and costs against Savage. Because of Savage’s absence in Europe when the decision was given, this sum had had to be paid by his bondsman, John Oulton. Oulton had then promptly sued Savage for the sum and had won his case, levying against the latter’s real estate. On his return to Boston in 1716, Savage immediately entered suit against Oulton and Waldo, who were, he claimed, liable as part owners for their proportionate share of the damages. The case in one form or another came before the Superior Court alone eight times before its settlement in November, 1718. Savage once attempted to bring the case before the Court of Vice-Admiralty but was prevented from obtaining a judgment there by a writ of prohibition issued in July, 1716, by the Superior Court. Even when he finally won back £164 18s 3d of the first judgment of £200 against him, he was not satisfied but asked for a review of the case, which, naturally enough, was denied him.381

These are the major cases fought out before the province courts. There were several others involving smaller amounts and an infinite variety of charges and counter-charges.382

Of more fundamental importance in these cases is the material found which is illustrative of the struggle between the provincial courts and the Court of Vice-Admiralty. To make this entirely clear it will be necessary to review briefly the general basis of the controversy.

The Massachusetts charter of 1691 reserved admiralty jurisdiction to the Crown but did not define its limits.383 The first two laws of the General Court establishing the Superior Court of the province were disallowed because they stated that all matters of fact were to be tried before juries—a clear attack on admiralty jurisdiction, where juries were not used.384 The third law, allowed by the King in Council, established the Superior Court with the same powers which the Court of King’s Bench, Common Pleas, and Exchequer in England “have or ought to have.”385 One of these powers was the right to restrict actions of the admiralty courts by the issuance of writs of prohibition. Thus the long struggle between common-law courts, with their jury trials, and the maritime courts, with more arbitrary rules, was transferred from England to America and became one more line of controversy between provincial politicians and royal officials.

Consequently, the use of writs of prohibition was often complained of by Judge Menzies386 of the Court of Vice-Admiralty in New England, and is one of the complaints specifically dealt with by Jeremiah Dummer in his Defence of the New England Charters, published in 1721 (pp. 29–32). His defence was, first, that the power of the Superior Court was not based on the charter at all but on a legislative act approved by the king, and, second, that the use of writs was wholly beneficent and necessary in order to uphold the privilege of Englishmen to be tried by jury under the common law. Dummer also argued that the right to appeal home to the Court of Delegates from the vice-admiralty decisions was not effective because judges were not likely to participate in any moves which would tend to limit their own powers. In his notes to these remarks Dummer quotes Coke and gives numerous references to English precedents for the restriction of admiralty jurisdiction by the common-law courts.387

Savage had considerable faith in the Court of Vice-Admiralty, partly perhaps because of his acquaintance made in London with Judge Menzies. As has been seen, he was prevented from getting the sloop Dragon case into the admiralty court by the use of a writ of prohibition. Other petitions to the same court followed. Oulton and Waldo refused to pay Savage’s claims for expenses after their unsuccessful attempt to dismiss him from his position as captain, claiming that until their appeal in the matter to England had been decided, they were not to be held responsible for the debts contracted. Judge Menzies, therefore, ordered the Province Galley sold to meet these claims. Oulton and Waldo petitioned that the sale, originally scheduled for September 12, 1716, be delayed.388 When the sale was finally announced for September 21, the selectmen of Boston refused to allow it to take place in the Town House, where the court sat, on the ground that it was “Forrein from the declared Intention in Erecting thereof, and such a President may be of Ill Tendency.”389 So it was some time later that the ship was finally sold, at Selby’s coffeehouse.

In the admiralty court Oulton and Waldo were charged by the advocate, James Smith, with “insulting the Honour and Dignity of His Majesties Crown and Government and opposing the Authority of the Courts of Judicature” by affixing in the Town House a paper, the contents of which we do not now know.390 They were fined £25 each by Judge Menzies. Outraged, the indignant merchants obtained a writ of prohibition from the Superior Court restraining Judge Menzies from the exercise of this jurisdiction over a matter which had occurred within their province. Sheriff Payne duly read the prohibition to the advocate, and offered to read it to Judge Menzies, but “he chose to read it himself.”391 Oulton and Waldo then sued Smith for £200 damage for his part in having them haled before the admiralty court. But Smith won in both the Inferior and the Superior courts.392

The cases continued. On September 4 and 5, 1716, Captain Savage filed libels in the admiralty court asking for decrees which would hold the Province Galley, or the sum for which she might be sold, liable for the claims of disbursements and tradesmen’s bills. The judge decreed that the ship should be responsible for the bills. From this decree Oulton and Waldo appealed, as so often before, to the common-law courts. Writs of prohibition were issued, and all matters rested pending the arrival of a decision from England regarding admiralty jurisdiction.

It is not possible from the records available in Boston to state the final solution of this conflict over admiralty jurisdiction. An entry in Sewall’s diary under date of August 4, 1719, reads: “Finish’d Examinations on the Com̄issions from Doctors Com̄ons, relating to Mr. Oulton and Waldo on the one part; and Capt. Arthur Savage on the other. Received £5 a-piece; having Spent Ten Days in the Service.”393 From this one assumes that the Court of Delegates in England, to which admiralty appeals were carried, had commissioned the judges of the Superior Court to make examination into the controversy between the merchants and the captain. But Sewall does not relate the outcome. Judge Menzies wrote from Boston to the Secretary of the Admiralty, July 20, 1721:

Since I transmitted to you Copies of my Decrees with reference to Captain Smarts’s Seizure when in this place, I have not given you the trouble of any Information of my Proceedings, or Complaints. The Provincial Judges in Colonel Shute’s Government and I having come to a better understanding in relation to Prohibitions, by his Countenance in Complyance with their Lordships Order.394

These orders, judging from the numerous complaints against prohibitions, must have been to the effect that the common-law courts were not to encroach on admiralty jurisdiction. At any rate, there was a marked falling off in the number of prohibitions. On the other hand, too, Menzies seems not so aggressive in his conduct of the court. An examination of the existing records of the Massachusetts Court of Vice-Admiralty indicates that writs of prohibition were seldom used after this time. But unfortunately, because of the destruction caused by the Stamp Act riots, the complete files of the court do not now exist. It is therefore difficult to trace the history of the conflict of jurisdiction in Massachusetts.

The career of the Province Galley after she was sold at auction was brief. She sailed again, late in October, 1716, from Long Wharf under a new captain, Othniel Beale of Marblehead. Before the end of the year she had gone to pieces, a wreck, on Block Island. In her last days she was called the Shute Galley, having been rechristened in honor of the new governor.

What are the respective merits of the claims of the captain and the merchant-owners? There is something to be said on both sides. Oulton and Waldo were grasping and unreasonable. Their money profits on the voyage were £233 9s; the ship had a new cable, a new hawser, a new long boat, new rigging, and new sails; and, besides, they had a cargo of goods consisting of 25 casks of figs, 125 dozen slates, 80 marble mortars, 3 barrels of anchovies (32 gallons each), 4 large Parmesan cheeses, 1 large marble table, and 6 marble hearths. The ship was sold because of their own obstinacy in refusing to buy the captain out.395 Further, it was they who persisted in dragging out the cases to great length.396

On the other hand, the captain was negligent in the matter of the fish; he was careless and stubborn in the case of the sloop Dragon; he was a time-waster; he disobeyed orders; he picked up a pretty penny on his own account, but at the owners’ expense, by carrying freight and passengers, besides profiting by a considerable cargo charged to himself. He may even have picked up the lion which was exhibited at his house after his return to Boston.397 Perhaps one should merely say that the voyage was an enterprise in which Yankees were trying to get the better of each other. At any rate, may we not hope that the captain and his lady received in due measure the broadening influence that should have come from “frolicking from port to port”?

Illustrative Documents

Number 1

Writ of Prohibition398

Province of ye		ss
Massachusetts Bay

GEORGE by the Grace of God of Great Brittain, France and Ireland King, Defender of y^e faith, &c^a

To John Meinzies Esq^r Judge of our Court of Admiralty for y^e s^d Province & James Smith Esq^r Advocate & Ambrose Vincent Gentlⁿ marshall (& to all other y^e officers) of y^e s^d Court Greeting—

WHEREAS John Oulton & Corn^s Waldo by their Petition & Suggestion to our Justices of our Superiour Court of Judicature for the Province afores^d Sept^r y^e Eleventh Cur^t Have declared That they have been unjustly vexed & grived [sic] by the Judge of the s^d Court of Admiralty, for a matter of fact arising within & Comitted in the Town of Boston within the County of Suffolk not Cognizable in the Court of Admiralty viz^t for affixing up a paper in the s^d Towne of Boston, Supposed to be a Libel, for w^ch they have been fined after an Exorbitant manner y^e 6^th of Sept^r Instant, as by their Suggestion more fully may Appear, we therefore being willing to Mentaine y^e Laws & Rights of our Judicatories & Courts of record & being unwilling our Liege people w^th Delays ag^st y^e same to hurt. We Com̄and & firmly enjoyne you & every of you That you meddle not farther w^th the s^d plea or Cause nor molest or cause to be molested, y^e s^d John Oulton & Corn^s Waldo, in the Cause afores^d in the s^d Court of Admiralty, neither attempt or presume to attempt anything more therein, untill our s^d Justices have advised & consulted there on, at the next Superiour Court of Judicature to be holden at Boston for the County of Suffolk afores^d, on the first Tuesday of Nov^r next, Where you the s^d John Meinzies or any other Person may be presant (If you please) To Shew forth & Mentain (If he can) That y^e afores^d Cause, or plea, is Cognizable in y^e s^d Court of Admiralty.

Witness Wait Winthrop Esq^r at Bristoll the Eleventh day of Sept^r In the third year of our Reign Anno: Dom: 1716

Elisha Cooke Cler

Seal

Suffolke ss

Boston, Sept^r 12^th 1716

I this day read the Original of the within Prohibition unto Ambros Vincent Gent. Marshal of the Court of Admiralty & then delivered him a Coppy thereof Attested—

I also read the Original unto James Smith Esq^r Advocate of the s^d Court of Admiralty & then delivered him an attested Coppy thereof—

I also offered to read the s^d Original unto John Minzes Esq^r Judge of the s^d Court of Admiralty but he chose to read it himselfe & after his reading the same I left the Original with him.

W^m Payne Sherif

Number 2

Writ of Prohibition in the Sloop Dragon Case399

Province of the		ss
Massachusetts Bay

GEORGE by the Grace of God of Great Brittain, France and Ireland King, Defender of the faith, &c^a

To John Menzies Esqr Judge of His Majestys Court of Admiralty in the Province afores^d, Advocate, Register Marshall & any & all other the officers of the Said Court of Admiralty and To Cap^t Arthur Savage of Boston Marriner Commander now or late of the Ship Called the Province Galley & one Sixteenth p^t owner Thereof Greeting.

WHEREAS It is Shewed to our Justices of our Superiour Court of Judicature at Cambridge within & for the County of Middlesex on the last Tuesday of July last past by the Grievous Complaints of John Oulton, Cornelius Waldo & Francis Wainwright of Boston afores^d Merchants that by the Constitution, Laws & Usage of this Province the Court of Admiralty is not to Intermeddle with things done within the Province, but only matters & things done on the Sea.

Nevertheless the Said Arthur Savage not Ignorant of the Premises, but designing the Said John Oulton, Cornelius Waldo, & Francis Wainwright against the Laws of the Province & diverse Statutes in that Case made & provided, Unjustly to vex & Disquiet: The Cognizance of which Plea doth to our s^d Superiour Court Specially belong & appertain, the Said John Oulton, Cornelius Waldo & Francis Wainwright did draw into the said Court of Admiralty at Boston aforesaid on the Twenty first day of May now last past, before you the Said John Menzies for the payment or Contribution of their Proportion or Severall Shares of the Sum of Two hundred thirty Eight pounds thirteen Shillings & eleven pence, Supposing the Fact on which the s^d Sum did arise to be within the Jurisdiction of the Court of Admiralty: Whereas in truth the same was done within the Body of the County of Essex & fully heard & determined before our said Justices of our s^d Superiour Court of Judicature.

We therefore Prohibit you the said John Menzies and all other the officers of the Said Court of Admiralty as well as the Said Arthur Savage That the afores^d Libell of the Said Arthur Savage against the Said John Oulton, Cornelius Waldo & Francis Wainwright Upon the premises, You do not further hold nor Attempt to hold or proceed any further thereon in our Contempt, as you will answer the Contrary at y^r Peril. Witness Wait Winthrop Esq^r at Boston the Sixth day of August in the Third Year of our Reign Annoque Domini.

Boston Aug^t 6^t 1716

A true Coppy of the Prohibition this day read by me to Judge Menzies and his officers in the Admiralty Court &c.

ꝑ W^m Payne Sherif

Number 3400

Libel against Province Galley

To the Hon^ble John Menzeis Esq^r Judge of Admiralty in New England or to his Lawful Deputy Libel & Information of Arthur Savage Mariner against the Ship province Galley now lying in the Harbour of Boston in New England

WHEREAS the Ship Province Galley by your Hon^rs Decree pronounced in Court the 31^st of August last past upon an Information exhibited in behalf of the Mariners lately belonging to the s^d Ship was adjudicated & ordained to be sold publickly on the 12^th Instant for payment of wages due to the s^d Mariners and Satisfaction for damages by them sustained as by the decree itself more fully and clearly may appear And Whereas Arthur Savage Master of the s^d Ship during the time he hath served in that Employment hath pursuant to his Duty at several times especially since the 11^th of April last made several Disbursements a particular And whereof in distinct Articles is fully & truely stated in a schedule hereunto annexed (which it is pray^d may be taken and Considered as a part of this Libel & that due reference may be had thereto) for the safety & service of the s^d Ship amounting in all to the Sum of Twenty Seven pounds Eight Shillings eleven pence and the said Arthur Savage humbly conceiving that the s^d Ship is liable to answer the disbursements & demands in the s^d schedule set forth & expressed according to Law and the practice of this Hon^ble Court It is therefore humbly pray^d in his behalf that upon due consideration had of the premises your Hono^r would be pleased by your definitive Decree to ordain the s^d Ship to be Liable as above and by Citation Issued out of Court to order all persons concerned as Owners in the Same to appear in Court at a certain day to Show Cause why Sentence should not pass accordingly—conform to the Laws Civil & Marine Usages of Admiralty and the Tenour of this Libel. Sic Subscrib^r Ja. Smith.

filed Sept^r 4^th allowed to cite

to Sept^r 5th sic subscribitur J. Menzeis J: ad.

A true Copy Exam^d ꝑ Edward Weaver, d^ty, Reg^r

Number 4401

Petition to Superior Court against Admiralty Jurisdiction

Province of the		ss
Massachusetts Bay

To the Hon^ble His Majest^ies Justices of the Superior Court of Judicature for the s^d Province &c^a

The Humble Petition of John Oulton and Cornelius Waldo both of Boston merch^ts and three quarter part owners of the Ship province Galley now Lying in the harbour of Boston Humbly sheweth

THAT your Petitioners have the Last week been prosecuted In the Court of Admiralty at Boston In and by Severall Libells or Informations at the Suit of James Smith Esq^r and Cap^t Arthur Savage and Thereupon Sundry orders and Decrees have been made Ag^st your Petitioners by the Judge of s^d Court Copies of all which are hereto annexed. But for as much as your Petitioners are Informed that the Severall matters things and Charges alleged & Contained In the s^d Libells and so In the s^d Orders or Decrees are by no means tryable in any Court of Admiralty—But only in the Courts of Com̄on Law and that therefore your Petitioners ought not to be Compelled to Comply with or Answer the Same In the s^d Court of Admiralty for the reasons or Suggestions hereunto also annexed.

Your Petitioners therefore most Humbly pray your honours who are the keepers of the Laws and Liberties of this his Majesties Province that you would be pleased to Consider of the Severall Suggestions which your Petitioners have offered against the Severall Libells and proceedings of the s^d Court of Admiralty and order a writ of Prohibition to the s^d Court of Admiralty Directing them to proceed no further on the s^d Libells and to stay Execution on s^d orders or decrees untill the Same have been fairly & fully heard and Argued before Your honours at Such Time and place as shall be appointed to know whether the s^d matters and Causes are Cognizable In the s^d Court of Admiralty or not. Your Petitioners being ready to give Security to Prosecute their s^d Complaint and to make out by Law that the afores^d matters and Causes are Tryable only In the Courts of Common Law

And Your Petitioners as In duty bound Shall Ever Pray

John Oulton

Cornelius Waldo

Septem^r 10^th 1716

Bristol Septerm^r 11^th 1716

Received & filed ꝑ Elisha Cooke Cler:

Present Sam^ll Sewell, Nath^ll Thomas, Benjamin Lynde, & Addington Davenport Esq^r four of the Justices of the Superior Court of Judicature of the Province in the County of Suffolk.

Ordered that a writ be Issued out to stay all further proceedings in the Matter of the fine of Oulton & Waldo til the Judges have advised at the next Superiour Court of Judicature to be held at Boston the first Tuesday of Novem^r next.

Paul Dudley Esqr & Jn° Valentine Gent

Recognized in £50 that s^d Oulton & Waldo prosecute their Petition & Suggestions & pay all Costs in Case they cannot maintain the Same.

At^tt Elisha Cooke Cler

The Severall & Respective Suggestions of John Oulton & Cornelius Waldo against the Proceedings of the Court of Admiralty at Boston on Severall Libells there Exhibited Ag^st Them and first as to the Libell of James Smith, Esq^r for Affixing a paper In the Town House of Boston.

Your Petitioners suggest

1^st That it being a matter of fact Transacted In the Town of Boston within the body of the County the Court of Admiralty Cannot have Cognizance of it for the Libell itself alleges it to be done at Boston.

2^d for that by the Laws of England and of our own Province all Scandalous papers or Libells are Expresly to be Tried by the Court of Common Law.

3 for that by the very Decree itself the fines Impos^d are not to the King as all fines ought but to be Dispos^d of in an arbitrary way as the s^d Court shall Direct. And then the Place of Commitments is very Uncertain for it is Either to the Tolbooth which Is somewhere In Scotland or Else your Petitioners must be sent to a prison house of Boston.

4 for that by the words of the Libell your Petitioners are Charg^d with Insulting the Honour and Dignity of his Majesties Crown and Government and opposing the Authority of his Courts of Judicature which Sounds like an Information at the Suit of the King’s Attorney Gen^l or a presentment of the Grand Jury for Certainly matters relating to the Crown and Government or any Court of Judicature Belong to and must be Tried In the King’s Courts of Common Law for that the Court of Admiralty Is no Court of Record.

2 As to the order or Decree of the Court of Admiralty for Selling of the s^d Ship Province Galley The Petitioners Suggest

1 That they offer^d their severall parts or proportions of the Sailors waiges In order to prevent the Sale of the s^d Ship and therein did all that they Could be obliged to by any Law whatsoever and for this they are ready to produce good authority in the Law.

2 For that by a former Decree of the Court of Admiralty the s^d Ship Is in Custody of the marshall of s^d Court from which Decree your Petitioners appeal to the High Court of Admiralty In England and have given bond to prosecute their Appeal and the papers are accordingly Transmitted for England and yet now Pendente Lite before the s^d Appeal be Determined the sd Judge has ordered the Ship to be Sould which would as well Confound the s^d Decree as your Petitioners Interest In s^d Ship which Is very Considerable.

Number 5402

Decision of Superior Court in Admiralty Dispute

Court of Assize and General Gaol Delivery began at Boston, November 5, 1717

John Oulton and Cornelius Waldo of Boston in the County of Suffolk Merchants who as well as for Our Soverign Lord the King as for themselves in this behalf prosecute &c …. Appellants		From the Judgment of an Inferiour Court of Com̄on Pleas begun and held at Boston for and within the County of Suffolk on the first Tuesday of July Being the Second day of the said Month Annoque Domini 1717
agst
James Smith of Boston in the County Afores^d Esq^r …. Appellee

IN a plea of the Case for that Whereas at a Parliment held at Westminster In the Thirteenth year of the reign of King Richard the Second amongst other things It is Accorded and Assented in these words (Viz^t) That the Admirals and their Deputyes shall not Meddle from thenceforth of any thing done within the Realme but only of a thing done upon the Sea as it hath been used in the time of the Noble Prince King Edward Grand Father of our Lord The King that now is, And Whereas also by one other Act of Parliment held at Westminster in the Fifteenth year of the reign of the said King Richard the Second It is Declared Ordained and Established in these words Viz^t That of all manner of Contracts pleas and quarrells and of all other things done riseing within the body’s of County’s as well as by Land as by Water and also Wreck of the Sea the Admiral’s Courts shall have no manner of Cognizance power nor Jurisdiction, but all Such manner of Contracts Pleas and quarrells and all other things riseing within the body’s of County’s as well by land as by water as afore and also Wrecks of the Sea shall be tryed determined Discussed and remedyed by the Laws of the Land and not before nor by the Admiral nor his Leiutenant in any wise And moreover Whereas by one other Act of Parliament held at Westminster the Second Year of the Reign of King Henry the fourth, It is amongst other things Contained in these words Viz^t Item Whereas in the Statute made at Westminster the Thirteenth Year of the said King Richard amongst other things it is Contained that the Admirals and their Deputyes shall not intermeddle from thenceforth of any thing done within the realme but only of a thing done upon the Sea according as it hath been duely used in the time of the Noble King Edward Grand Father to the said King Richard, Our said Lord the King Will & Granteth that the said Statute be firmly holden & keept and put in due Execution. And more over the Same Our Lord the King by the Advice and Assent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and at the Prayer of the said Com̄ons hath Ordained and Stablished that as touching a pain to be Sett upon the Admiral or his Leiutenant that the Statute and the Com̄on Law be holden against them And that he that feeleth himself grieved against the form of the said Statute Shall have his Action by Writ grounded upon the Case against him that doth so persue in the Admirals Court and Recover his double damages against the Pursuant, And the same pursuant shall incurr the pain of Tenn pounds to the King for the pursuit so made if he be Attainted: As in and by the said Several Acts of Parliament more at large it doth and may Appear Whereupon the said John Oulton and Cornelius Waldo who as well for our said Soverign Lord the King as for themselves in this behalf prosecute & Complain that the said James Smith on the Fifth day of Sep^r In the third year of his Majestyes Reign at Boston aforesaid in the Court of Admiralty then held before John Menzies Esq^r Judge of the said Court did Sign file and prosecute a Libell or Information against the said John Oulton and Cornelius Waldo for a pretended Libell or Contempt against the said Court of Admiralty And in the prosecution of the s^d Information the said James Smith Unjustly and Contrary to law did Cause the said Plaintiffs to be arraigned at the Barr of the said Court and also to be Fined the sum of Twenty five pounds each altho if any Such Libell or Contempt had been Com̄itted by the said Plaintiffs against the said Court of Admiralty it was done at Boston within the body of the County of Suffolk afores^d and not upon the Sea or within the Jurisdiction of the said Court of Admiralty which is in Contempt of our s^d Soverign Lord the King and to the greivous damage of the said John Oulton and Cornelius Waldo and against the form of the Statutes aforesaid, Whereupon the said John Oulton and Cornelius Waldo say that they are the worse to their damage as they say the sum of Two hundred pounds, At which said Court Judgment was rendered after mature Advisement hereon, That the Writ or process shall Abate and the Defendant recover his Costs.

Both parties Appeared the Writ Judgment reasons of Appeal and all things touching the same being fully discussed—It’s therefore Considered by the Court that the former Judgm^t be affirmed and the Appellee be Allowed Costs of Courts.

The Editor, on behalf of Mr. Fulmer Mood, presented by title the following paper:

Henry Robinson and the Authorship of the Bahama

Articles and Orders

1647

AT the last meeting of this Society I communicated the text of an anonymous broadside, printed in 1647, presumably at London: Articles and Orders, made and agreed upon the 9^th Day of July, 1647.403 The piece relates to a projected colonial venture to be undertaken in the Bahama Islands. There is no clue as to the identity of the writer. Yet, because the intellectual content of the document is so rich and so “advanced,” it has seemed that an effort to determine the authorship is worth while.

The method that has been followed is simplicity itself. The ideas contained in the broadside have been grouped into categories and analyzed, and the findings compared with the opinions of various contemporary schools of English thought. Thus it has been possible to eliminate several sources from consideration, to narrow the circle to one segment of opinion, and finally to bring forward the name of one particular person as the likely candidate for authorship.

The ideas dealt with in the Articles and Orders may be classified under five headings: religious, political, legal, military, and economic.

The author of the broadside repudiates the position of ecclesiastical uniformity, rejects the idea of religious persecution, and upholds in firm fashion the theory of toleration. He establishes it as a rule of conduct to be followed in the projected Bahama colony that there be “no names of distinction or reproach, as Independent, Antinomian, Anabaptist, or any other cast upon any such for their difference in judgement.…” He believes that spiritual knowledge unfolds itself and illuminates the individual soul by a logic all its own, that revelation is progressive, and that, as trade and government flourish under religious toleration, so do they suffer in its absence.

Such a pronouncement of friendliness for Independents and sectaries helps at once to circumscribe the area in which the unknown author moves. One may feel safe henceforth in excluding from consideration Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and Presbyterians. It is in the group of Independents and sectaries that one must seek him out. The current champions of toleration were Independents like John Goodwin and Henry Robinson, and Levellers like John Lilburne and William Walwyn.404 The idea of progressive revelation of religious truth is found clearly expressed, among other places, in a tract of 1643, Liberty of Conscience:

…though a Christian live never so long, yet he both may, and ought still to grow from grace to grace, and from knowledge to knowledge, continually ayming, and endeavouring, untill he arrive to a perfect man according to the measure of stature and fulnesse of Christ, in both which respects an inquisition or persecution for matters of Religion may not be tollerated: First, because it would as much as in us lyes, still withold such saving truth and knowledge as yet undiscovered, and unto which we are to attaine by degrees only, for not any of them but at first sight and hearing, is accounted heresie to most men, and much adoe there is before we will imbrace it.…405

The same writer goes on to observe that in France men of breeding are careful to raise no unnecessary questions about religious matters, but that in England it is common for Protestants to reproach one another with terms of abuse like “Puritan,” “Separatist,” “Presbyterian,” or “Independent.”406 The broadside is like an echo of the spirit of this remark.

William Walwyn, a friend of the English sectaries, expressed the identical position the same year when he wrote:

Great is the power of love, for love makes men to bee of one mind: and what can bee too strong for men united in love? … I doe not meane that you should marke those, that are different from you in judgement, with any ridiculous or reproach-full names: but my advice is that you marke those that make divisions amongst you, and those are they that have invented a name of reproach for every particular difference in judgement.…407

Soul liberty is to be established in the Bahamas. It is clearly stipulated in the prospectus that the jurisdiction of magistrates in the colony “shall reach onely to men as men.” It is understood that the projected settlement will be a Christian community. Planters and servants are to be religious folk, subject in civil affairs to their government, but free to worship as they choose. From one point of view the Articles and Orders partakes of the nature of a plantation covenant. It unites men who are devoted to a common purpose for the prosecution of civil ends. Since magistrates are denied power to regulate the religious life of the people, the religious folk are obliged to organize their churches outside the cognizance of the State. Thus the principle of the separation of Church and State is plainly implied. The plantation covenant, in the civil sphere, complements the church covenant in the ecclesiastical sphere.

A kind of test, applicable to servants as well as freemen, restricts membership in the projected colony: those persons who are qualified by reason of their belief in Jesus Christ, who walk, according to their lights, in all godliness, justice, and sobriety, may be admitted. All servants who are Christians are eventually to be eligible for certain benefactions. The text seems to imply that non-Christian servants are excluded from such gifts. In any case, it is plain that the base of Bahamian society was to be not secular but, as far as possible, religious. The presence of the principle of the separation of Church and State indicates that the unknown author of the plan, if not himself a sectary or Independent, stood in a close, sympathetic relation to those groups.408

A further indication of the Christian quality of the Bahama experiment is to be seen in the provisions in the broadside for educating, or at least training, the Indians in the teachings of Jesus. Such a provision reflects a well-defined contemporary interest often discussed in London at this time. It appears, then, that the writer has familiarized himself with this discussion, and has absorbed its substance into his own thinking. As he seeks to apply in a practical way the best resultant of Walwyn’s Power of Love, one may conclude that his purpose does as much credit to his heart as to his intelligence.409

The store of political ideas contained in the broadside is indeed rich. The author begins by adapting to his own uses the traditional corporate form of business organization. He is dealing with the business corporation, created to regulate profit-making activities on tropical islands, but the traditional shell is filled with a content of new life. This new life is, by and large, the republican philosophy and the republican spirit. The writer has no liking for the principle of hereditary monarchy. He boldly terms his newly fashioned polity a “Re-publick.” So it is that in this projected colony one sees the shadow of that coming event which was to end monarchy in England and replace it by a commonwealth. The Articles and Orders was drafted a year and a half before Charles I lost his head and his crown: it is thus, in a measure, prophetic of the future.

The fundamental law of the proposed Bahama republic is embodied in a written constitution. In so far as this document is a plantation covenant, it requires that every person who proposes to settle in the new community shall be obliged, by subscribing his name, to give his consent to all the provisions of the Articles and Orders. In so far as the document establishes authority, apportions functions, affirms rights, and restrains the exercise of powers, it is an organic law, and, in this instance, a written constitution. This was an age when the waters of institutional experiment and constitutional theory ran fast indeed. No more than seven years had passed since Charles I had called the Long Parliament. Already innovations were making themselves felt in the world of traditional political forms. The unknown author of this plan satisfies himself with a legislature of one chamber. Many months were to pass before England abolished the House of Lords. He is plainly, in this respect, a friend to innovation. And he unhesitatingly accepts that radical doctrine of the day, the sovereignty of parliament. He endows his Bahama legislature, as will shortly appear, with full power. Thus he reduces to practice in a colonial polity one of the practical teachings of parliamentary activity since 1640. Obviously the creator of this set of institutions was no royalist. He represented the immediate future, not the recent past, of England and English political experience.

It would be rash to assume, however, that this author stopped at no political radicalism, for certainly he knew where to draw the line, and he drew it at a point easily perceived. It so happens that there was going on in England at this time a vigorous dispute concerning the right to vote. When it was asked who were entitled to exercise the suffrage, two sharply different answers were heard. The conservative reply was that only property owners should be allowed this privilege. The radical reply insisted that every able adult male should have the right. The issue was in full evidence in the army debates of 1647,410 and, indeed, earlier still. In 1646, Thomas Edwards, no friend to sectaries and radicals, had declared the position of the army extremists to be this: “That, seeing all men are by nature the Sons of Adam, and from him have legitimately derived a naturall propriety, right, and freedom, Therefore … all particular persons in every Nation … ought to be alike free and estated in their naturall Liberties, and to enjoy the just Rights and Prerogatives of mankind….”411 First among these rights was that of a voice in electing members of parliament. The army democrats argued that government rested on the consent of the governed. Rainborow and Wildman urged the principle of universal suffrage. “I thinke its cleare,” declared the former, “that every man that is to live under a governement ought first by his own consent to putt himself under that governement; and I doe thinke that the poorest man in England is not at all bound in a strict sense to that government that he hath not had a voice to putt himself under.”412 One could easily multiply similar expressions of opinion.

To this philosophy of natural right was opposed the property theory of the suffrage, the position which affirmed that only those with a “stake in society” should have a vote in determining the common concerns. Ireton, a leader among the Independent grandees, spoke for the conservatives:

For my part I thinke itt is noe right att all. I thinke that noe person hath a right to an interest or share in the disposing or determining of the affaires of the Kingdome, and in chusing those that shall determine what lawes wee shall bee rul’d by heere, noe person hath a right to this, that hath nott a permanent fixed interest in this Kingedome; and those persons together are properly the Represented of this Kingedome, and consequentlie are to make uppe the Representors of this Kingedome, who taken together doe comprehend whatsoever is of reall or permanent interest in the Kingedome.413

Thus in 1647 the issue was clearly stated, but for the moment neither Levellers and army democrats on the one side nor Independent grandees on the other stubbornly insisted on pressing matters to a conclusion. In the autumn of 1647 two significant paper schemes were drawn up as a basis for the discussion of the liberties of Englishmen wearied by a horrid civil war, yet neither in the Heads of the Proposals nor in the Agreement of the People was mention made of the suffrage qualification. The alliance between the two groups was so vital to the safety of each member of the combination that the problem was prudently passed over. But in 1653, after the Levellers had been crushed, and the Independent grandees were in the saddle, able to shape institutions and requirements to their own liking, the Instrument of Government incorporated in its eighteenth clause the “stake in society” theory that Ireton had defended some years before. The stipulation reads that “all and every person and persons seised or possessed to his own use, of any estate, real or personal, to the value of £200, and not within the aforesaid exceptions, shall be capable to elect members to serve in Parliament for counties.”414

This conservative stand on the suffrage question is anticipated in the Articles and Orders of July, 1647; and thus one deduces that the author of the document, however experimental and innovating in some of his schemes, was at bottom a firm believer in the rights of property. The broadside reads: “That the present Adventurers, and all other persons, who within the space of one year now next ensuing, shall bring into the publick stock, the sum of 100l shall be admitted and reckoned into the number of the first Adventurers, their number not exceeding one hundred persons.” The sum required is just half that exacted in the Instrument of Government of 1653, but, even so, £100 was sufficient to exclude the great mass of persons from participating in the Bahama experiment. Plainly there was in contemplation a wealthy, exclusive society. The anonymous writer was obviously no believer in the doctrine of the natural right to vote, and one is therefore not likely to go astray in seeking him among the Independent grandees, among men like Cromwell and Ireton.

The economic form of the trading corporation is deftly combined by the author with the political republic. A person who subscribes his £100 to the common stock thereupon becomes, in his business capacity, an adventurer; and in his political capacity, a senator of Eleuthera. There are to be one hundred senators and adventurers. The general rule is to be that a senator holds office for life, but two qualifications are to be noted: first, a senator divests himself of his rank when he sells his business interest in the concern; and again, he may be “amoved by the said Senate, upon just cause or complaint.” The latter proviso incorporates in the Articles and Orders a constitutional doctrine put forward shortly before by Levellers and Independents against their Presbyterian brethren in parliament. To ensure that the senate will be responsive to the wishes of the community, this opportunity for “purgation” or removal is given. On June 15, 1647, the English army had demanded that the Long Parliament be purged of corrupt members, by which it meant Presbyterians who had defamed Levellers and Independent democrats. The army pressure was successful, and on June 26 eleven Presbyterians, leading men, withdrew from the House of Commons.415 Another case of the sort, more famous by far, was destined to follow.416 It is clear that the writer has been watching current politics with a keen eye; that he is in sympathy with the principle of the army demand that the legislature should be responsive to the people, in whom is supreme power; and that he includes the provision for senatorial removal with a definite purpose in mind. He has generalized on the basis of a small episode, and erected a universal principle on it. Here, again, he displays that in his political thinking he is close to Independency.

His main political problem is to create a government marked by the twin characteristics of stability and energy. He ensures continuity and permanence by providing that the senators shall hold their places for life. He does not throw light on the question of how frequently the senate is to meet, but it is not—so much is plain—to be in session every day. In the senate, repository of wealth and skill and influence, is vested full political power. Probably it would hold its sessions fairly often. But in order to ensure a rigorous and efficient administration, the writer provides in addition a small organ of government, a council of twelve and a governor. These thirteen officials are to be in perpetual session, to exercise delegated power, and to be responsible to the senate, which elects them to office for a term of one year. A period of authority as short as this argues a fear of misuse of authority; perhaps, therefore, short terms in office are to be combined with rotation of the several senators. The principle of rotation was dear to the hearts of republican theorists, and it would be surprising if it were not intended that it be practised in the present instance.417

The author has learned one of the lessons of war government: the need for emergency powers. Hence he provides that “the said Governor and Councel, shall have power to call together upon any emergency, to the said Senate or so many of them, as shall then be upon the said Islands, and to act and execute what shall be by the said convention of Senators, ordered and referred, or committed unto them.”418

The political future of the Bahama republic is guarded carefully. When senators sell their interest, or die, vacancies in the senate are to be filled according to a prescribed plan. Nominations, presumably by the senate, are to be made to the number of twenty “fit” persons. Three fourths of the nominees are to be discarded by “scrutiny,” that is, by a formal taking of individual votes. Then, of the five nominees who remain, one is to be elected by the major part of the senate voting by “ballotines.” In order to obviate the evil of absenteeism, the new senator must be a resident of the islands. By “fit” persons are meant, no doubt, those who meet the religious and financial requirements of the Articles and Orders. Thus the method of indirect elections is adhered to, ensuring that the senate will be protected from the poisons and corruptions of the body politic.

In this political system one beholds an aristocratic republicanism which combines elements making for stability with features that provide firmness and energy in administration. A written constitution outlines the scheme of government; theoretical sovereignty is in the people, properly interpreted; practical sovereignty is vested in the senate; and such devices as indirect elections, a limited term of office, and perhaps rotation in trust, are employed. One is at once reminded of the political theories of James Harrington, who in Oceana (1656) devoted a brilliant talent and much thought to the exposition of precisely such a philosophy of government as this.419

This sketch of the proposed Bahama governmental system anticipates in a remarkable way the institutions of the English Commonwealth. The House of Commons corresponds to the Bahama senate. In both cases there exists a legislature of a single chamber. In both cases, again, the legislature is aided by a small council elected by the larger body. And in both cases, finally, the legislatures make use of a system of committees.

Advanced ideas on legal reform were entertained by the anonymous author of the Articles and Orders. This topic, too, was much under discussion at the time. Walwyn and Lilburne wrote tracts complaining of abuses in the law and in the administration of justice. Winstanley, Wiseman, Warr, Leach, Parker, and Henry Robinson did likewise.420 One need not here introduce the substantive element in these complaints; as a matter of fact, there existed a number of genuine causes for dissatisfaction. To this movement in opinion the writer is certainly responsive when he asserts that “the equal distribution of justice, and respect to all persons, without faction or distinction,” are desirable in the Bahama plantation. And elsewhere he insists that there shall be “speedy justice done unto every man that shall seek it at their [the senate’s] hands.” Not only political radicals like the Levellers, but also practising lawyers voiced a demand for reform. The merchant Henry Robinson joined in the chorus. In 1641, he published a tract, England’s Safety in Trade’s Encrease, in the course of which he proposed that a special court be set up to settle differences between merchants.421 Time was valuable, he argued, and the merchant needed speedy justice. Mercantile affairs involved technical knowledge such as many judges did not possess. Current legal procedure was slow, expensive, and troublesome. Rascals were able to bring suit without good cause for action. To reform abuses, Robinson suggested that a merchants’ court be set up on the model of an Italian institution he describes. In this way knotty business conflicts could be solved quickly and cheaply.422

There are in the Articles and Orders some observations on military impressment which tell another tale of close attention to current popular demands, especially to those of the radical democrats. A denial of the right of impressment, though carefully qualified, is contained in the broadside. The problem was a vital issue at the very time now under discussion. Late in March, 1647, the officers of the army were circulating a petition which, among other matters, raised the question of the right of parliament to send soldiers to Ireland against their will. The officers and men opposed the parliamentary proposal, asserting: “That those who have voluntarily served the Parliament in the late Warrs may not hereafter be compelled by press or otherwise to serve as souldiers out of this Kingdome.”423 In the Agreement of the People, adopted by the democrats late in October, 1647, this demand was still insisted upon: “That the matter of impresting and constraining any of us to serve in the wars is against our freedom; and therefore we do not allow it in our Representatives….”424 As long as parliament retained the idea of an Irish expedition, just so long was this note of resistance to impressment sounded.

In the Articles and Orders one reads: “That none shall be compelled to take Arms, or go to war out of the Countrey unless it be for the necessary defence thereof, and to expel or divert an eminent invasion, neither shall any be suffered to take any depredations or invasions upon any, either by Sea or Land, unless upon a War first begun by them and open War by the said Plantations, first denounced against them.” The principle of nonimpressment is laid down, with the obvious intention of setting at rest the minds of prospective settlers weary of war; but the principle is so whittled away by concessions and qualifications that it could hardly amount to any safeguard at all. The writer is showing his hand here: it is plain that he cherishes imperialistic schemes for the Caribbean theater of action. He wishes settlers from the ranks of discontented army officers, and he must lull their suspicions to sleep if possible; hence his seeming acceptance of the principle. But he does not entirely conceal the fact that he expects that military adventures will use the Bahamas as a base in the same way as they had already used Old Providence. He has in the back of his mind exploits which will make the Spaniard wince. One seems to sense at this point the influence of the Earl of Warwick, militant champion of Protestantism and English expansion in West Indian waters. It is possible that the writer and the earl were coöperating at this juncture.425

As in religion and politics, so in economic matters the unknown author is inventive and original. His proposals for the exploitation of the natural resources of the Bahamas are based upon what would seem to be a fairly accurate knowledge of existing conditions. He first arranges for the granting of land. Each original adventurer is to receive three hundred acres of land in one dividend, and two thousand acres more in a second and subsequent dividends. For the first three years of the plantation’s existence, adventurers are to cultivate their lands in common. This provision undertakes to keep planters near one another during the infancy of the colony, and allows variety of occupation while ensuring the production of sufficient foodstuffs. At the end of the three-year period, the grants of three hundred acres to which each adventurer is to be legally entitled are to be made. The apportionment of particular parcels is to be made by lot, a device intended to obviate both possible corruption in making assignments and the certain ill feeling that would follow from this.426 The larger grants of two thousand acres are to be postponed, though made “with as much convenient speed, as the occasions of the Plantation will permit.” Each adventurer is to have an equity, in addition, in such other land as remains undistributed. This undivided acreage would constitute a kind of public domain, and supervision over it is entrusted to the senate or to such committees as that body may appoint.

Among the resources of the Bahamas were salt-pans, rich stands of exotic timber—mahogany, fustic, lignum vitae, and the like—and ambergris. The aim of the unknown writer in arranging his schemes for the use of these commodities was to ensure that, as the adventurers had shared equally in the investment, so should they share equally in the profits. Strife and vexation would almost certainly be introduced into the society of high-minded religious folk if a handful of them engrossed these rich resources to the exclusion of the community as a whole. To avoid this undesirable consequence, the author devises an interesting system of public works. It is not necessary to recapitulate his provisions here, for they may be read in the text of the broadside. It is only to be remarked that careful regulations are laid down, and definite penalties prescribed, for infraction of the rules. The hour of laissez-faire had not yet struck in the Bahamas: government regulation was the prevailing theory. The natural resources of the Bahama frontier are to be utilized according to an orderly plan. The scheme embraces a method of producing the commodities and a mode of marketing them. It is proposed that the senate shall appoint a committee of two skilled merchants. There is also an arrangement for the division of the proceeds in an equitable manner. In this plan, self-interest and the common good are both consulted. One experiences a feeling of admiration for the thought and skill which went into this scheme. Matter-of-fact person though he was, the writer was not without his share of benevolence. He envisages Bahama society making provision for works of mercy and charity. That this was not empty talk the first benefaction to Harvard College bears lasting witness.427

It is uncertain whether the labor system that he assumes as the base of his projected society is more or less liberal than those obtaining in other parts of English America at this time. Indentured servants in Bahama, having completed their term, are to be granted by the governor and council plots of twenty-five acres. One is not informed precisely how many years the servants are to labor; if for three years, then they are to be better off than the servants in the West Indies, who often spent four years or more in bondage. Some curiously detailed provisions cover the case where a servant is sent from England, but dies on the way out to the plantation. These provisions seem to be designed to set at rest a current dispute in plantation economy, a dispute that appears to have involved as parties colonial proprietors on the one hand and, on the other, English owners of shipping.428

It seems a just inference that the projector of the Bahama scheme contemplates that a monopoly of internal trade will be exercised by the Bahama Company. He also assumes that ownership and administration will be united. The public enterprises—salt-ponds, timber-cuttings, and the collection of ambergris—are to be conducted by committees appointed by the senate. This is proper, since legally all senators possess equities in these natural resources in so far as they are found on public property. Constitutionally, the expedient by which the writer curbs the liberty of individual entrepreneurs in business affairs is interesting. He makes use of the majority of the senators to restrain the activities of a few. This seems to be the continuance of a medieval and early modern point of view.429 In some respects the liberty of the subject, considered as a member of the senate and an adventurer, is abridged. In others, the liberty of the subject, if he be not a member of the senate, is insufficiently protected. Although the written constitution provides a scheme of government, what is there to keep the senate from becoming a tyrannical body? The Levellers dreaded, and with good reason, a tyrannical parliament as much as they feared a tyrannical king. How was arbitrary exercise of power to be hindered? A written constitution would be something of an attempt toward this end, as would be the doctrine of the separation of powers. The Bahama government is to be a government of fused powers. It concentrates in the senate legislative, judicial, and administrative or executive power. The senate is the source of positive law and, except for its creature, the council and governor, the instrument of policy. The powers of government are not separated, for its creator did not think this separation vital to his scheme. One recalls that Lilburne, the Leveller and champion of popular liberty, originated the doctrine of the separation of powers, and that his discovery dates from a few months after the time of this broadside.430

The leading religious, political, legal, military, and economic ideas incorporated in the Articles and Orders of 1647 have now been surveyed. From the foregoing observations it is reasonably clear that, as far as the author’s political stand may be determined, he was either an Independent or else close to the Independents of the more conservative stripe; in religion he was a friend of the principle of toleration, contended for by Independents and sectaries alike; in economic thought he was original as well as traditional, combining practical skill with a grasp of reality and a satisfactory knowledge of human behavior. Contemporary issues of moment had registered their effects on his brain, and he displayed the capacity to profit by the lessons of the day. He probably stood in some relation, more or less intimate, to the Earl of Warwick. One should not seek him in the ranks of the purely theological thinkers, but among men less narrow in their training. When one cons over the business men of the day, men who also were thinkers and theorists, one first pitches upon the name of Henry Robinson.

Concerning this talented man Dr. W. A. Shaw has some pertinent observations:

In a period which was to witness the short-lived triumph of dogmatic Calvinism and of ecclesiastic Presbyterianism … it was, strangely enough, a layman and a business man who was to be the first to point intolerant Presbyterian and fighting Independent to the true path of free development and wisdom—the path, namely, of tolerance in matters of religion—of freedom of conscience. That layman, unskilled, long-winded, and lumbrous as a writer, yet of wonderful originality and width of view, was Henry Robinson.

Dr. Gardiner was the first to point out the existence of an anonymous tract on Liberty of Conscience, the date of which is distinctly anterior to the similar tracts which the Baptist Church or any other has claimed to have been the first to anticipate the modern spirit, by showing the way of toleration. By a brilliant process of deduction, Mr. Firth has traced the authorship of this anonymous tract to Robinson, and the identification has revealed, in the figure of this London merchant, a versatility of gift and inventiveness of nature, which are little short of astounding.

Robinson was the eldest son of a London mercer…. He was born in 1605, and educated at St. John’s College, Oxford, but was apparently taken from Oxford and put to business before he had opportunity to graduate. He visited and lived in Constantinople, probably as his father’s factor, and at the age of twenty-eight was residing at Leghorn. Several indications exist in his works of other places on the Continent where he doubtless resided and traded. There can be little question that it was his travel which gave him his broad views on religion, as well as that intimate first-hand knowledge of business and exchange matters which he evinces in such of his tracts as bear on trade and commerce. On his return to England he continued to pursue his merchant business, but not that alone. He set up a private printing-press, from which he preached toleration to his countrymen … he brought forth propositions without measure or end for the practical advancement of trade, for the ease of the poor, for the registration of land, for the reform of legal procedure, for the establishment of banks, of state pawnshops, and what not more? … Under Cromwell he was Auditor of the Excise, he was a member of the committee for taking the accounts of the Commonwealth, and was Comptroller for the sale of the King’s lands. He saw the inner workings of the Commonwealth national finance, as well as of Commonwealth commerce and navigation.

His tracts on trade deserve to be reprinted entire, as well for the practical details of the 17th century commerce, which they contain, as for the curious originality of many of Robinson’s propositions.431

In this summary description of Henry Robinson’s quality there is nothing that militates against the hypothesis that he drafted the Bahama Articles and Orders. And a rapid survey of the titles of his known tracts brings additional support to the suggestion.

Robinson published: 1. England’s Safety in Trade’s Encrease (London, 1641), which contains in germ many of the ideas afterward discussed or debated at greater length in separate tracts. 2. Libertas, or Reliefe to the English Captives in Algier (London, 1642), embodying a proposal to clear the Mediterranean for English commerce, and confine the Turk to Constantinople, thus evincing well-defined imperialistic views. 3. Liberty of Conscience (London, 1644), a powerful statement of the case for toleration. 4. An Answer to Mr. William Prynne’s Twelve Questions concerning Church Government (London, 1644), which debates Presbyterian objections to Independent ideas. 5. John the Baptist ([London?], September, 1644), another tract dealing with liberty of conscience. 6. Certaine brief Observations (1644), an attack on Prynne. 7. An Answer to Mr. John Dury (London, 1644), a tract on church affairs. 8. The Falsehood of William Prynne’s Truth Triumphing (London, 1645), opposing Presbyterianism. 9. Some Few Considerations (London, 1646), dealing with religious problems. 10. A Short Discourse between Monarchical and Aristocratical Government, or a sober Persuasive of all true-hearted Englishmen to a willing conjunction with the Parliament of England in setting up the Government of a Commonwealth (London, 1649). This argues in favor of aristocratic republicanism, but leaves unsettled the then pressing issue of the rights of the broad masses as against the new rulers of the state. 11. Briefe Considerations concerning the Advancement of Trade and Navigation (London, 1650). 12. The Office of Addresses and Encounters, or The only Course for poor people to get speedy employment, and to keep others from approaching poverty, for want of Emploiment (London, 1650). This outlines a scheme for opening on Threadneedle Street, London, a registration office for both merchants and the needy. The idea behind it is at least as old as Montaigne’s Essays, and may be traced in English literature through Sir Walter Raleigh, Lord Bacon, Hartlib, Petty, and on to Robinson. 13. Certain Considerations in order to a more speedy, cheap, and equal distribution of Justice (London, 1651), devoted to the idea of law reform. 14. Certaine Proposals [for] the Advancement of Trade and Navigation of this Country (London, 1652). 15. Certaine Proposals in order to a new modelling of the Lawes and Law Proceedings, for a more speedy, cheap, and equall distribution of Justice throughout the Commonwealth (London, 1653).432

The sympathy in ideas between Robinson and the unknown author of the Bahama Articles and Orders is marked. Toleration, aristocratic republicanism, law reform, economic imperialism, and colonial expansion; a pronounced interest in the arts and devices by which the rich may grow still more wealthy, and a concern for ways by which poverty may be relieved: all these opinions the two have in common. If the unknown author of the Bahama scheme be justly credited with boldness, originality, and inventiveness in his thinking, he is, in this respect, well matched by Robinson. The pamphleteer was a man of property, an associate of Cromwell in government and in administration. The anonymous writer shows his affiliation with Independency and with the “stake in society” theory. The parallelism in opinions and attitudes is notable.

Refining the argument still further, one may examine this hypothesis more closely. In this connection, Robinson’s tract of 1641, England’s Safety in Trade’s Encrease, is of use. One may draw from it materials which supply parallels with ideas contained in the broadside. It is to be understood that this tract is directed primarily to readers who are interested in promoting the national wealth and security of England.433 In it Robinson summons Holland to witness that abundance of trade and commerce, not wide territorial possession, forms the basis of prosperity.434 Hence England’s cue is to enlarge her foreign trade, expel the Dutch from her North Sea fisheries, and take a firm grip on Newfoundland. With these things manfully accomplished, let England then carry out a series of particular reforms, which Robinson lists to the number of seventeen. His fourth proposal is that colonies in America ought to be increased in number and enlarged in strength. “This is a matter,” he writes, “of exceeding great moment enlarging both our Dominions and our Traffike; if people of good report and ranke could be prevailed upon by immunities and priviledges to bee the first Inhabitants in any new discoverie, certainly the businesse through their orderly and good government might succeede more prosperously.…”435 He proposes that swarms of English beggars be shipped to the American plantations, thus freeing England of their pestering presence, and saving “misled charity and daily almes.” His fourteenth proposal looks toward the creation of a series of trading monopolies: “all Merchants trading into one place and Province be contracted into a Corporation, the want whereof, or the non-observance of their Charters and Priviledges, both at home and abroad, hath no little prejudiced the trade of all parts in generall.…”436 If, now, one brings together these separate proposals, the combination is something strikingly suggestive of the Bahama Company, with its trading monopoly, its small group of godly, rich subscribers, employing English poor as indentured servants, and carrying on business in an orderly, prudent manner.

It will be recalled that the Bahama Company contemplated a monopoly of the trade, certainly of the internal trade, of the islands. Robinson’s attitude is in complete agreement with this view. An unrestricted, a free trade irked him extremely:

I know there are many that cry out to have merchandizing left open and free for any one to trade, where, when, and how he will; which I may confesse would much encrease it for the present … and might last some yeares too … though one halfe [of the traders] were undone, the rest, too greedy of gaine, would scarce beleeve them, but make triall also, and so run headlong unto our utter ruine, which must needs be the conclusion of all affaires managed by such as observe no good order, nor understand well what they goe about.437

The trade in English cloth and the trade in fish would be, Robinson thought, the bases of English prosperity if the realm were well conducted.438 Hence the importance of Newfoundland, and hence, too, the necessity of procuring large supplies of salt. In 1641, few Englishmen were aware of the existence of the Bahamas, but many well-educated men knew something about Newfoundland. Robinson stresses the importance for England of the latter island. Would he not, in 1647, favor the colonization of the Bahamas once he had learned that they could produce copious supplies of that all-important commodity in his scheme of things—salt? The conclusion is inescapable when one studies his remarks on this none too common article of trade:

The multiplying of salt, but chiefly making it with salt water deserves likewise particularly to bee continued and cherished, not so much for imploying many people, but that wee cannot well passe without it.… Our fish imployment cannot subsist without it, and the preserving both of fish and flesh the chief sustenance of our long voyages and Navigation, so that if possibly it may bee compassed, and made in England … questionlesse it will bee good pollicie.…439

Having elaborated his argument, he draws to a politic conclusion: “And surely it may serve us for a Maxime of direction in all such like cases, that whatsoever is necessary or so usefull, as probably wee cannot bee well without it, wee should by all meanes possible seeke to secure of it within our owne jurisdiction without being subject to the mercie and reliefe of others.…”440 Under the circumstances, then, one is loath to concede that Robinson would not have been interested in the salt-making possibilities of the Bahamas once he knew that they existed and could be worked by men of English blood.

His sixteenth proposal in the pamphlet under discussion is in the interest of promoting trade and prosperity. He wishes to see set up a board or commission of merchants, charged with the task of “advising and consulting all advantages of commerce, amongst which some understanding Merchants will be necessarie.…” Some of these members ought also to be members of the court for settling mercantile difficulties which was referred to earlier in this discussion. The two courts or boards, in short, are to labor to advance traffic, just as the governor and small council in the Bahama scheme are to work for the same purpose.441 In both instances one sees examples of a watchful magistracy seeking the welfare of business life by vigilant attention to the passing scene. Both in substance and in tone, then, there is a correspondence between some of the content of England’s Safety in Trade’s Encrease and the Articles and Orders.

A particular point, small, though seemingly significant, remains to be dealt with. It has been stated above that Robinson spent some years in Italy. It is therefore the more interesting, in the present connection, that an indication of an Italian influence of a sort is to be discerned in the Articles and Orders. The author of this document twice makes use of an Italian word, “ballotines,” that is of extreme rarity. The sole example of it in English known to the editors of the New English Dictionary dates from 1656, when it is found in Harrington’s Oceana. It is a technical expression, one of the cant terms of contemporary republican theory. The occurrence of this rare, though now no longer unique, word in the Articles and Orders argues that the author of the text was no insular Englishman, and thus adds its tiny increment of weight in support of the hypothesis that Henry Robinson wrote the plan for the Bahama expedition.

The evidence of the typography of the broadside cannot be neglected. Robinson, as is known, had a printing press in London, which he made use of to publish tracts of his own composition. What if it should turn out that this broadside was printed on Robinson’s press? There is no indication on the sheet as to the name or address of the printer. A task that specialists in typographical evidence may be prevailed upon to consider is to undertake a comparison between the broadside and the accepted works of Robinson printed on his secret press. If the presswork should prove to be identical, then the net of proof would be reasonably complete.

This concludes the survey of the evidence. In view of the facts presented, one reaches the decision that a case has been made out for the attribution to Robinson of the Articles and Orders. The attribution must for the present, however, be considered a probability rather than a certainty.

1 See below, p. 15.

2 Edward Randolph (Prince Society Publications), II. 217, 220–222, 256; III. 92, 161, 178, 147, 187, 286.

3 Andros Tracts (Prince Society Publications), II. 37.

4 Viola F. Barnes, The Dominion of New England, p. 124.

5 4 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., viii. 258, 571.

6 Cotton Mather makes some amusing comments on this situation in his Diary (7 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., viii. 804).

7 The First Americans, p. 108.

8 James Truslow Adams, The Founding of New England, p. 450. For more of the same, see id., pp. 447, 449; Homer C. Hockett, Political and Social Growth of the United States, p. 120; Marcus W. Jernegan, The American Colonies, p. 160; Wertenbaker, First Americans, pp. 108–109.

9 Randolph, iv. 92, 107.

10 Andros Tracts, ii. 37–39, 71.

11 Jeremy Belknap, History of New Hampshire, i. 178.

12 For example, Vernon L. Parrington, The Colonial Mind, p. 87.

13 4 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., viii. 280–281, 312.

14 Randolph, iv. 106.

15 Andros Tracts, iii. 174.

16 4 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., viii. 617–620.

17 Id., p. 253.

18 Randolph, iv. 105.

19 Randolph, iii. 146–148, 180; iv. 90; vi. 189; Andros Tracts, iii. 200.

20 Randolph, iii. 290.

21 Id., pp. 322–323.

22 Andros Tracts, ii. 76.

23 Id., 45.

24 Samuel G. Arnold, History of the State of Rhode Island, i. 474.

25 Belknap, New Hampshire, i. 205–206.

26 Andros Tracts, ii. 200; Robert Calef, More Wonders of the Invisible World, pp. 149–151.

27 Sketches of Elisha Cooke, Timothy Lindall, and Jonathan Belcher in Sibley’s Harvard Graduates, iv.

28 Andros Tracts, iii. 155, 169–173; Cotton Mather’s Diary, 7 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., vii. 148.

29 See sketches of Pemberton, Colman, and Wadsworth in Sibley, iv.

30 Disquisition Concerning Ecclesiastical Councils (Boston, 1716).

31 See below, pp. 35–37.

32 Photostat of agreement of June 1, 1704, at Massachusetts Historical Society.

33 Particularly the Brookfield Association. Congregational Quarterly, xii. 277 ff.

34 For example, Calvin R. Batchelder, History of the Eastern Diocese.

35 Ebenezer Turell, The Life and Character of the Reverend Benjamin Colman (Boston, 1749), PP. 136–141.

36 Recently by J. T. Adams, Provincial Society, p. 63.

37 4 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., viii. 291–292.

38 Id.

39 4 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., p. 478.

40 Id., p. 508.

41 Samuel Willard, Ne Sutor Ultra Crepidam (Boston, 1681).

42 Sibley, iv. 194.

43 Cotton Mather’s Diary, 7 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., vii, passim.

44 Brooks Adams, Emancipation of Massachusetts, p. 297. Cf. Kenneth B. Murdock, Increase Mather, p. 142.

45 Abijah P. Marvin, Cotton Mather, p. iii; Mather, Optanda (Boston, 1692), pp. 42–45.

46 Memorable Providences (Boston, 1689), appendix, p. ii.

47 Andros Tracts, iii. 170.

48 Magnalia (ed. 1702), Bk. vii. 23.

49 Diary, 7 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., viii. 445.

50 Colonial Mind, p. 113.

51 Andros Tracts, ii. 73.

52 Id., i. 68.

53 Magnalia (ed. 1702), Bk. iii. 10.

54 See sketch of Cutler in Sibley, v.

55 Chronological History (Boston, 1826), p. xxi.

56 Parable of the Ten Virgins (2d ed., Boston, 1747), pp. 56–57 (first published, 1707).

57 The Duty of an Apostatizing People (Boston, 1737), p. 67.

58 Andros Tracts, ii. 37. See also Taken from the Flying-Post, May 14–16, 1719 (broadside in Harvard College Library).

59 4 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., viii. 621–622.

60 Id., pp. 397–401; Diary, 7 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., vii. 161–162.

61 This recalcitrant seems to have been the only clergyman the writer’s family ever produced.

62 Parrington, Colonial Mind, p. 86.

63 Id., p. 114.

64 Id., p. 148; Wertenbaker (First Americans, p. 113) says of the new rationalism: “This movement found no corresponding development among the old school of churchmen. So far from attempting … to shape their theology in conformity with new ideals and new points of view, they remained rigid and unyielding.”

65 Diary, 7 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., viii. 349–350.

66 First Americans, p. 248.

67 Samuel E. Morison, “The Harvard School of Astronomy in the Seventeenth Century,” New England Quarterly, vi. 3–24.

68 Preface, p. xviii.

69 4 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., viii. 354–355. The book was probably John Spencer’s Discourse Concerning Prodigies (London, 1663).

70 “An arch-conservative, he justified his ways to his conscience by the excellence of the heritage he strove to conserve. A formalist, he satisfied his intellectual curiosity by extolling the sufficiency of the creed of the fathers. He closed the windows of his mind against the winds of new doctrine, and bounded the fields of speculative inquiry by orthodox fences … Why should one expect to find in the works of such a man the seeds of new systems of thought…?” Parrington, Colonial Mind, pp. 99, 100.

71 Diary, 7 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., viii. 86.

72 Id., p. 282 and passim.

73 The Christian Philosopher (London, 1721). This may be the “volume of garbled science and platitudinous moralizing” which Mr. Adams (Revolutionary New England, p. 36) attacks on the authority of a secondary work, but, as his reference is incorrect, one cannot be certain.

74 New York Times, December 24, 1933.

75 For violently contrasting interpretations, cf. Moses Coit Tyler, History of American Literature, ii. 183, 185–187, and American Literature, i. 393–404.

76 For an attack by Cotton Mather on popular astronomical superstitions, see Manuductio ad Ministerium (Boston, 1726), pp. 54, 55.

77 Jernegan, American Colonies, p. 187.

78 Founding of New England, p. 396.

79 Political and Social Growth, p. 124. See also Wertenbaker, First Americans, p. 155.

80 Truth Held Forthe (New York, 1695), pp. 174–200. Cf. John Hale, A Modest Inquiry (Boston, 1702), pp. 155–156.

81 Political and Social Growth, p. 124.

82 Printed in 4 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., viii. 550–570.

83 For example, Hockett, Political and Social Growth, p. 124.

84 Their attitude was that of modern psychologists who warn people not to play with automatic writing lest it lead to split personalities. These last square perfectly with the “demoniac seizures” of witchcraft days. For modern examples, distressing to a man who likes an ordered universe, see Elwood Worcester, Body, Mind, and Spirit.

85 4 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., viii. 391–397.

86 More Wonders, p. 93 (i.e., 53).

87 Christ’s Fidelity (London, 1704), pp. 70 ff.

88 Some Miscellany Observations (Philadelphia, 1692).

89 Political and Social Growth, p. 125.

90 Increase Mather, Cases of Conscience (Boston, 1693), appendix.

91 Id., p. 32.

92 This has been proved by the vast scholarship of Thomas J. Holmes in Increase Mather, A Bibliography of his Works, i. 115–138. This book was not available to the men I have been criticizing.

93 Cases of Conscience, postscript.

94 P. 13 of “Enchantments Encountered,” in Wonders of the Invisible World (Boston, 1693).

95 Adams, Founding of New England, p. 454.

96 Wonders of the Invisible World, pp. 50–51, and “Enchantments Encountered” in id.

97 “Cotton Mather not only ran with the mob, but he came near to outdistancing the most credulous.” Parrington, Colonial Mind, p. 115.

98 Adams, Founding of New England, p. 455. “During the Salem witchcraft delusion it was Thomas Brattle and Robert Calef, both merchants, who had the common sense to see the folly of the inquisition and the bravery to denounce the justices and the ministers for their part in it.” Wertenbaker, First Americans, p. 113.

99 The letter on which his reputation in this matter is based is printed in i Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., v. 61–79.

100 Founding of New England, p. 455; Provincial Society, p. 120.

101 More Wonders, p. 78.

102 This statement is based on the frequent appearance of Hale’s book in inventories and on mention of it elsewhere. But it is true that people who left enough books to be inventoried would have been the sort to despise Calef.

103 Hockett, Political and Social Growth, p. 125; Wertenbaker, First Americans, pp. 113, 162; Adams, Founding of New England, p. 455.

104 Provincial Society, p. 120.

105 More Wonders, p. 96 (i.e., 56).

106 4 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., viii. 646–647.

107 Printed in New Eng. Hist. Gen. Reg., xxxiii. 193 n.

108 Diary, 7 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., viii. 739–740.

109 For a detailed account of Edwards’s reading, see our Publications, xxviii. 193–222.

110 Cotton Mather, p. 303.

111 The situation is well illustrated by the experience of the town of Norwich, Connecticut, which was unable to pay the salary of its minister, John Woodward. But when he was discharged in 1716, the church split into four congregations, and under his successor the First Church threw off three more.

112 Daniel Lewes, Of Taking Heed to, and Fulfilling the Ministry (Boston, 1720), introduction, p. ii.

113 The Firm Union of a People Represented (New London, 1717), p. 55.

114 These are based upon Sibley, Dexter, histories and records of towns and churches, diaries, letters, and all the available newspapers of the period.

115 For examples, sec Justin Winsor, History of Duxbury, pp. 189–192. “One does not, of course, look for any genuine humility or a sense of humor in a Puritan. They destroy his specific characteristics as the sunshine does microbes, and that way tolerance lies.” Adams, Revolutionary New England, p. 34. Of course one does not find things without looking for them.

116 The Defects of Preachers Reproved (New London, 1724).

117 Edward L. Goodwin, The Colonial Church in Virginia, pp. 241–319. Of course no New England colony ever legislated in regard to its clergy as did Virginia. Cf. William W. Hening, Virginia Statutes at Large, iii. 362.

118 Sibley, iii. 396.

119 Id., iv, see index.

120 Franklin B. Dexter, Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College, pp. 182–184.

121 Solomon Stoddard, Defects of Preachers, introduction, pp. iv, v.

122 For example, Andrew Gardner of Worcester. Sibley, v.

123 The Man of God Thoroughly Furnished to Every Good Work (New London, 1758).

124 First Americans, pp. 189–190.

125 Id., p. 273.

126 Thomas W. Higginson, Travellers and Outlaws, pp. 15–16.

127 Diary, 7 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., viii.

128 In Terra Nova: The Northeast Coast of America before 1602.

129 First published in the London Chronicle, February 8, 1766, with an introduction by “A Lover of Britain”; see The Writings of Benjamin Franklin, A. H. Smyth, editor (cited hereafter as Writings), iii. 231, and Correspondence of William Shirley, C. H. Lincoln, editor, ii. 103–107. The text of the quotations is from the latter, pp. 104, 106–107.

130 Writings, iv. 362.

131 MS., William L. Clements Library. In this letter Franklin went on to assert that the plan had later found favor with members of the Rockingham ministry, who conferred frequently with him upon it, “and really strengthened one another and their Friends in the Resolution of Repealing the Stamp Act, on a Supposition that by this Plan of a Loan Office they could raise a greater sum with more satisfaction to the People.” The letter is referred to briefly by R. A. Humphreys in the English Historical Review, l. 267–268; and also by L. J. Carey in Franklin’s Economic Views (p. 20). But by the latter the episode is assigned to the year 1766, which obscures the true raison d’être of the proposal. I have also been able to identify a portion of Franklin’s draft of his scheme in the American Philosophical Society, Franklin Manuscripts, l (ii), 18. It is clear that this is the project which Pownall inserted in 1768 in his current edition of The Administration of the Colonies, and which he described as the joint production of himself and an American friend. But by 1768—indeed by 1767, when it looked for a time as if parliament, with the backing of the merchants, would take it seriously—Franklin had long since lost his enthusiasm for the plan. For his later attitude toward this revenue scheme, see his letter to Galloway of June 13, 1767, in Writings, v. 25–28.

132 American Philosophical Society, Franklin MSS., lviii (i), 36. The letter is dated December 21, 1766, and is incomplete.

133 “Observations,” in the London Chronicle, January 15, 1765; and “North American,” reprinted in the Newport Mercury, June 3, 1765, probably from the Westminster Gazette.

134 On Franklin and the Mutiny Act (5 Geo. III, c. 33). see Writings, iv. 388; v. 18. Bernard Faÿ, in his Franklin, the Apostle of Modern Times, p. 315, makes this a provision of the Stamp Act. In the Am. Philos. Soc., Franklin MSS., l (ii), 55, is a draft in Franklin’s own hand of a note to Welbore Ellis, Secretary at War: “Mr Glover & Mr Trecothic from the Committee of North American Merch^ts present their respectful Compliments to Mr [Ellis—name struck out] Secretary at War, and request halt an Hours Audience of him on the Mutiny Bill.…” The agents’ card is in the Newport Mercury, July 8, 1765, reprinted from the Gazetteer, May 2, 1765; the letters by “An American” are in the St. James’s Chronicle, April 18 and 23, 1765.

135 Writings, iv. 390.

136 London Chronicle, November 16, 1765. See Franklin to Thomson, February 27, 1766, Writings, iv. 411.

137 Writings, iv. p. 392.

138 Pennsylvania Magazine of History, x. 92.

139 Writings, v. 16.

140 Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Penn Papers (MSS.), Official Correspondence, x. 35; Pemberton Papers (MSS.), xxxiv. 142.

141 Pennsylvania Chronicle, February 9, 1767. See also the issues for February 16, 23, March 9, 23, 1767. These pieces are incompletely reprinted in Writings, iv. 393–399; v. 14–15.

142 Pennsylvania Journal, September 25, 1766.

143 Pennsylvania Chronicle, March 23, 1767.

144 “A Virginian,” in Lloyd’s Evening Post, September 2, 11, 1765 (the letters were dated, respectively, August 23 and September 5); “Equity,” in the Boston Evening-Post, December 2, 1765, reprinted from the Gazetteer, September 3, 1765.

145 “Americus,” in the Newport Mercury, February 3, 1766, reprinted from the Public Ledger, November 22, 1765; “Justice,” in the Newport Mercury, February 17, 1766, probably from the Gazetteer; “O,” in the Boston Evening-Post, March 17, 1766, reprinted from the Gazetteer, December 16, 1765.

146 Pennsylvania Journal, Supplement, September 18, 1766: “An Essay, Towards discovering the Authors and Promoters of the memorable Stamp Act, In a Letter from a Gentleman in London, to his friend in Philadelphia.”

147 Am. Philos. Soc., Franklin MSS., L (ii), 27, 30a, 31, 31a, 31b, 31c, 31d, 31e. A draft of the letter in the London Chronicle, April 9, 1767, is found in id., L. 9.

148 “Extract of a Letter from B. F. to W[illiam] F[ranklin],” London, November 9, 1765, Charles Norton Smith MSS., ii. 44, Historical Society of Pennsylvania. This is a copy in the handwriting of William Franklin. The original letter, not at the moment available, is in the Mason collection of Franklin material recently acquired by Yale University.

149 L. S. Sutherland, “Edmund Burke and the First Rockingham Ministry,” English Historical Review, xlvii. 46–70. At several points this new and illuminating exposition of the twofold movement for repeal and trade reform can be supplemented by a reading of the many extracts dealing with the movement from letters from London which were published in the colonial newspapers in the early months of 1766. In particular it appears that trade reform was the original purpose of the merchants, but that they were persuaded, probably by the arguments of the colonial agents, to concentrate first upon repeal.

150 Pennsylvania Journal, Supplement, September 18, 1766.

151 Am. Philos. Soc., Franklin MSS., l (ii), 46, 51. These parallels include two of the most famous passages in the Examination: the description of the altered temper of the Americans toward Great Britain after 1763; and the long discussion of colonial participation in the last French war and the character of the war as one for the supremacy of a British interest, the Indian trade. See Writings, iv. 418–419, 436–439.

152 Am. Philos. Soc., Franklin MSS., l (ii), 51.

153 Writings, iv. 446.

154 Id., p. 419.

155 On Franklin’s library and the present location of Franklin’s copies of the controversial pamphlets of this period, some of them annotated, see George Simpson Eddy, “Dr. Benjamin Franklin’s Library,” Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, n.s., xxxiv. 206–226. Franklin’s copy of the charters is in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; the other two items are in the New York Public Library.

156 F. J. Hinkhouse, The Preliminaries of the American Revolution as seen in the English Press, 1763–1775 (1926), pp. 93–94; and advertisements, as in the Daily Advertiser, January 11, 1766.

157 Franklin was uncomfortably aware of the reservation in the Pennsylvania charter of which the Grenvillites made so much: “King covenants not to tax but by Assembly or Act of Par^t” was his entry opposite this clause. When he noted the point in Knox, The Claim of the Colonies (p. 5), he wrote: “A Right that never existed cannot be a Right Reserved. … Qu^y If the Parliament had before no such Right, it would not be given to them by Words in the Charter?” See also his argument in his examination, Writings, iv. 445.

158 At the head of the title-page is a mutilated entry: “… mean by a thorough Inquisition of the point to procure a Settlement of Rights.” Again, opposite the record of the vote in the House of Lords on repeal, is the memorandum: “Comp[limen]t the Lords … Proof of my Opinion of their Goodness in the Freedom with which I purpose to examine their Protests.” And following a passage in which the peers had contested the right of the Americans to be exempt from a due share of the imperial burdens, he wrote: “Repeat on this Head all that has been done & paid by America.—King’s Message, Parl^t Grants, &c.” Where the Lords alleged that the last war was entered upon “for the interest and security of those Colonies,” Franklin wrote: “The fact deny’d. State the Cause & Effect of the War. The expensive Manner of Carrying it on &c.” Others of these marginalia are in the same style of hints for an intended rejoinder.

159 Protest against the Bill to Repeal the American Stamp Act (1766), p. 11.

160 Gazetteer, January 11, 1766, reprinted in the Pennsylvania Chronicle, March 9, 1767; Writings, iv. 421.

161 The Works of Benjamin Franklin, Jared Sparks, editor, iv. 209–210; Protest, p. 13.

162 Writings, iv. 441.

163 Protest, p. 12.

164 Id., p. 6.

165 William Knox, The Claim of the Colonies (1765), p. 8.

166 Id.

167 Protest, p. 4. Franklin, to be sure, struck out the second sentence, but apparently because it rested upon a strained reading of the text. Franklin also wrote “Neg.” in the margin opposite this passage.

168 There was, to be sure, a good deal of home-rule sentiment and expression in America from the beginning of the controversy, as Professor C. F. Mullett has clearly shown in his “Colonial Claims to Home Rule (1764–1775),” University of Missouri Studies, ii, no. 4 (1927).

169 Protest, p. 10. This claim, the text continued, “must (if admitted) set them absolutely free from any obedience to the power of the British Legislature.” Franklin commented: “but not to the Power of the Crown.”

170 The Claim of the Colonies, p. 9. Knox specified, among other such acts, those “restraining their commerce; prohibiting the carriage or exportation of their manufactures from one colony to another; taxing the productions of one colony when brought into another.” Franklin underscored these lines, and wrote: “Wicked.” When the Lords referred to “the wise policy” of the Navigation Act and subsequent trade laws (Protest, p. 11), Franklin observed: “The Policy wise with regard to foreigners. Selfish with Regd to Colonies.” Opposite the prediction of evils which would follow “that absolute freedom of trade, which they appear to desire,” he wrote “Qu^y. Other Advantages of Colonies besides Commerce. Selfishness of Commercial Views.”

171 Writings, v. 324–325.

172 In the margin of the Protest, p. 7.

173 Writings, v. 20–21.

174 Id., pp. 115–116.

175 Protest, p. 15.

176 Writings, v. 17–18, 21. Cf. “Letter concerning the Gratitude of America,” January 6, 1766, id., iv. 400–404.

177 Protest, p. 8. See also Writings, v. 260, for another expression of this view in 1770.

178 Writings, iv. 456.

179 See Franklin to Samuel Cooper, June 8, 1770, id., v. 261. The quotation is from Franklin to Joseph Galloway, January 11, 1770, MS., William L. Clements Library.

180 Writings, iv. 456; v. 17. See also “Francis Lynn,” id., v. 168. The germ of these passages is to be found in Am. Philos. Soc., Franklin MSS., l (ii), 46b.

181 Letter of February 18, 1774, MS., William L. Clements Library.

182 Writings, v. 115.

183 Id., vi. 260.

184 The Victoria County History of Survey, iv. 32–33.

185 Gardyner, Description, pp. 54–55.

186 Id., pp. 55–56.

187 Id., p. 74.

188 John H. Lefroy, Memorials of the Discovery and Early Settlement of the Bermudas or Somers Islands, 1515–1685, i. 548.

189 Leo F. Stock, Proceedings and Debates of the British Parliaments Respecting North America, i. 169–170.

190 Id., p. 196.

191 Id., p. 196 n.

192 Henry Wilkinson, The Adventurers of Bermuda, pp. 285, 287.

193 I am obliged to Miss Mary Isabel Fry, of the staff of the Huntington Library, for the careful collation of this text with the photostatic copy.

194 A useful short introduction is Arthur S. P. Woodhouse, “Milton, Puritanism, and Liberty,” University of Toronto Quarterly, iv. 483–513.

195 In addition to indebtedness for aid specifically acknowledged in the notes, the author wishes to express his thanks to the Library Company of Philadelphia, and to its librarian, Mr. Austin K. Gray, for many courtesies, culminating in permission to reproduce here the Maylem manuscript poems and letters in the Du Simitière Papers (see note 2, p. 94). Most of this material is now printed for the first time.

196 Statements concerning Maylem, incorrect in one or both of these particulars, are found in Samuel Kettell, Specimens of American Poetry, i. 83; E. A. and G. L. Duyckinck, Cyclopaedia of American Literature, i. 432; Moses Coit Tyler, A History of American Literature, ii. 53–54, in which the poet is confused with his father, but the inconsistency concerning his death in 1742 is pointed out; John C. Stockbridge, A Catalogue of the Harris Collection of American Poetry, p. 167; Charles E. Hammett, A Contribution to the Bibliography and Literature of Newport, R. I., p. 92; S. A. Allibone, Critical Dictionary of English Literature, ii. 1255; Charles Evans, American Bibliography, iii, Index of Authors. So far as I know, the first writer to point out the inconsistency in full was the late Sidney Rider, in a severe review of Hammett’s Bibliography of Newport, published in his Book Notes, ii (Providence, R. I., January 7, 1888). I should like to acknowledge in this note my indebtedness in the preparation of the present study to Mr. Rider, in whose miscellaneous collections in the John Hay Library of Brown University I found (Box 245, No. 8) notes and transcripts that opened the way to the main lines of inquiry pursued in my investigation.

197 Justin Winsor, Memorial History of Boston, i. 560, 570; ii. xii.

198 See the will of Joseph Maylem, dated August 13, 1730, in the Suffolk County Probate Court Records, Case No. 6378. Our Publications, xiv. 405, locates one of his lots in Boston next door to that upon which was built the Huguenot Church. This lot was left by the above-mentioned will to his son Mark. Joseph Maylem’s will was allowed February 13, 1733. The Boston Weekly News-Letter for Thursday, February 1, 1733, contains a notice which reads: “On Monday Evening [i.e. January 29, 1733] died at his House in School-Street, Mr. Joseph Maylem, who laboured under great bodily Indisposition and Pain for a long Time, in the 74th year of his age.” Samuel G. Drake, History and Antiquities of Boston, p. 592 n, suggests that Joseph was the son of the John Mylom referred to in the text above as having been admitted into church membership in 1635 The relationship is probable, but not certain.

199 5 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., v. 167.

200 “Record Book of First Church in Charlestown,” New England Historical and Genealogical Register, xxix. 71.

201 Emma L. Coleman, New England Captives Carried to Canada between 1677 and 1760, i. 74, 209, 212. Sec also Herbert I. Brackett, Brackett Genealogy, p. 122.

202 Suffolk County Probate Court Records, xxxi. 317. See also, for information about Keziah (Brackett) Maylem, Brackett, Brackett Genealogy, pp. 71, 122. Keziah Maylem’s will was allowed March 20, 1733. The Boston Weekly News-Letter for Thursday, March 8, 1733, contains a notice announcing that on “Tuesday last [i.e. March 6, 1733] died here the Widow Maylem, a very discreet and industrious Woman.”

203 See note 2, p. 91, below, for the names of the children of John and Ann Maylem.

204 Joseph Maylem names in his will (note 3, p. 88, above) three sons: Joseph, Mark, and John. The first of these he cut off with the proverbial five shillings, for reasons given. After providing for his widow Keziah by her legal “thirds,” he made a scrupulous division of his remaining property, real and personal, between his sons Mark and John. John’s inheritance, briefly stated, was a ten-acre lot, No. 17, in Bow Street in the township of Nottingham, New Hampshire, with buildings and improvements thereon; a silver tankard; a great chest with a Dantrick lock on it; the easternmost half of his double house in School Street, Boston; and a piece of land in that city lately purchased from. Peter Luce, both these pieces of real estate to be entailed to the third generation.

205 This date is given in Charles Evans, American Bibliography, iii, Index of Authors. It is obviously approximately correct.

206 For these newspaper references I am indebted to the interest of Mr. Clifford K. Shipton.

207 In her application for administrative rights upon the estate of her sister, Rachel Greene, Ann Maylem, or an amanuensis, has twice written the name Rachel “Dehane” and then erased it in favor of the married name “Greene.” Rhode Island Archives, Records of Governor and Council folder, 1760–1769, and “Petitions Voted Out” folder, June, 1768. Jacob Dehane, of Newport, on one occasion went on John Maylem’s bond. Rhode Island Archives, Cases in Equity, Part ii, 1743, 35–4, pp. 5–6. In the Short Narrative (see facsimile) Ann refers to a bond jointly signed by her husband and “Brother Dehane.”

208 See note 3, p. 92, below.

209 The Maylem family Bible was first described and its entries published by Dr. Henry E. Turner, its former owner, in the Rhode Island Historical Magazine, vi. 50. It is not definitely stated in the Bible that the births recorded there are those of the children of John and Ann Maylem, but the grounds for such an assertion are solid. The Bible contains this inscription: “The gift of Ann Maylem to her daughter, Rachel Denison, May the 6th, 1775.” The list of children shows three daughters, Frances, Rachel, and Mary, and a son John, alive in 1742, when in the newspaper notice of the death of John Maylem of Newport three daughters and one son were said to survive him. Furthermore, in the Newport Town Council Records (x. 6), in June, 1743, we find guardianship granted to Ann Maylem, widow of John, for her children Frances, Rachel, Mary, and John. There can be no question that the Bible referred to is the family Bible of John and Ann Maylem. I owe thanks to the late Lloyd M. Mayer, Librarian of the Newport Historical Society, for numerous courtesies in connection with the preparation of this paper, notably for information about the Maylem Bible, and for the several extracts from the Newport Town Council Records, the Newport Administration Bonds, and the Newport Land Evidence Records, which are referred to elsewhere in the notes.

It seems worth while to record here the essential data from the Maylem Bible, as abstracted for me by Mr. Mayer from Dr. Henry E. Turner’s manuscript collections.

Children of John and Ann Maylem from the Maylem Bible.

Ann Maylem, born July 22, 1721, Newport; bapt. by Mr. Clap; died Sept. 28, 1721, Newport (Common Burial Ground). The date of death is given as September 5 by Dr. Turner in the Rhode Island Historical Magazine, vi. 51.
Mary Maylem, born Feb. 7, 1722/3, Newport; bapt. by Mr. Clap; died Sept. 5, 1727, at Newport (Common Burial Ground).
Francis Maylem, born Oct. 8, 1725, Newport; died (still-born) Oct. 8, 1725 (Common Burial Ground).
Frances Maylem, born March 13, 1726/7, Newport; bapt. by Mr. Clap; died Feb. 4, 1750/1, aged 23 yrs. 10 mos. 22 days.
Brackett Maylem, born May 24, 1728, Newport; bapt. by Mr. Clap; died Aug. 22, Exeter.
Keziah Maylem, born Dec. 7, 1730, Exeter; bapt. by Mr. Odlin; died Nov. 13, 1731, Exeter.
Rachel Maylem, born Jan. 1, 1733/4, Boston; bapt. by Dr. Sewall; married — Denison.
Mary Maylem, born Aug. 12, 1737, Boston; bapt. by Mr. Prince.
John Maylem, born April 30, 1739, Boston; bapt. May 6, 1739, by Dr. Sewall.

In the Rider Collection in the John Hay Library of Brown University, Box 245, No. 8, is the following note: “Extracts by Dr. Turner from Church Records. Frances Maylen married Wm. Gubbins, May 7, 1747. (1st C. Ch.) Rachel Malane married Jabez Dennison, Nov. 17, 1774. (2nd C. Ch.) Mary Maylen married Paul Mumford Feb. 3, 1769 (Trinity Ch.).”

Mary Maylem, who married Paul Mumford, was doubtless the “Molly Maylem” who before her marriage conducted what seems to have been a large and active dry-goods store in Newport. See her numerous advertisements in the Newport Mercury, for example that of November 17, 1766, signed “Molly Maylem,” and a later one of June 25, 1767, signed “Mary Maylem.”

210 Land Evidence Records, Newport, vii 124–125.

211 John Bolitho’s petition of June 16, 1729, is found in Petitions to the Rhode Island General Assembly, 1725–1729, i. 60, MS. in Rhode Island Archives.

212 During this period, 1729–1732, John Maylem, husband of Ann, is three times described as of Nottingham or of Exeter, New Hampshire. The following extracts, covering a period of twenty years, from the New Hampshire Provincial Deeds, at the New Hampshire Historical Society, for which I am indebted to the courtesy of Mr. Otis G. Hammond, indicate a fairly extensive interest on the part of the elder John Maylem in land transactions in New Hampshire and Maine:

1722, May 21, John Maylem of Boston, gentleman, buys a proprietor’s right in Nottingham, N. H., from John Russell of Boston.
1729, December 10, John Maylem of Exeter, N. H., sells land in Nottingham to Samuel Little of Newmarket, N. H.; on June 28, 1731, to Israel Folsom of Newmarket.
1731, John Maylem of Nottingham, together with wife Ann, sells land in Nottingham to John Rindge of Portsmouth, N. H.; 1731/2, February 1, to Thomas Bartlett of Newbury, Mass.
1732, August 13, John Maylem of Nottingham buys land in Exeter from Moses Norris of Nottingham.
1741 October 6, John Maylem of Newport, R. I., together with wife Ann, sells land in Falmouth, Me., Exeter, N. H., Sagadahoc, Me., and Nottingham, N. H., to Samuel Lowe of Barrington, Mass.

213 One of these copies, bearing the inscription, “John Maylem Feb. 12th 1736/37 d^d to him this day by Mr. Gerrish,” was sold as No. 261 in the sale catalogue of The Library of the late Rev. Dr. Roderick Terry of Newport, Rhode Island, Part Two, American Art Association-Anderson Galleries, Inc., November 7 and 8, 1934.

214 Records of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, iv. 571.

215 See last entry in note 3, page 92, above.

216 The petition of 1744 is found in Petitions to the Rhode Island General Assembly, 1743–1747. vi. 13; that of 1748, in the “Voted Out” folder for 1748, MSS. in the Rhode Island Archives.

217 The only known copy of the broadside is in the Massachusetts Historical Society. The probability is that this broadside was issued from the Newport press of the Widow Franklin. Its date seems to be late in 1742 or early in 1743, for in the statement, under June 7 1742, is a reference to an action of the “last Tuesday of May past.” In other words, no month of May had come and gone at the time of writing since the month of May, 1742. By the next entry in the statement it is also made clear that the date of publication was later than November 19, 1742.

218 Other documents relating to Ann Maylem’s various legal troubles in connection with the estates she administered are found in manuscript in the Rhode Island Archives in: Cases in Equity, 1743, vi, Part ii, throughout; Record of Equity Court Judgments, October, 1743; Petitions, 1768–1770, xiii. 80; Records of Governor and Council folder, 1760–1769; “Petitions Voted Out” folder, June, 1768. From certain of these records it becomes clear that John Maylem had borrowed heavily from three or four individuals and by his untimely death had left his estate in considerable disorder. The inventory of his goods and chattels (Cases in Equity, 1743, Part ii, 35–4, pp. 5–6) shows at the time of his death a comfortable amount of furniture and equipment, appraised at £659, all of which had to be sold for the benefit of his creditors.

219 “A Poem by John Maylem on his birth day 30^th April 1760 being then 21 years of age.” A manuscript copy of this unpublished poem is found in the Du Simitière Collection in the Library Company of Philadelphia. All the manuscript poems referred to in this study are taken from the materials under Maylem’s name in this same collection. The article on Pierre Eugène Du Simitière in the Dictionary of American Biography provides a brief and general view of the life of the Swiss artist who devoted himself from about 1765 until his death in 1784 to the collecting of materials for the natural and civil history of North America which he proposed to write. The later history of these materials, particularly of the collections of papers in the Library Company of Philadelphia and in the Library of Congress, is set out in the excellent bibliography by Victor Hugo Paltsits in volume vi of I. N. Phelps Stokes’s Iconography of Manhattan Island (pp. 233–235). The writers of both these articles acknowledge indebtedness to the monographic study of Du Simitière by W. J. Potts in the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, xiii (October, 1889). Du Simitière’s papers are normally, I believe, fair copies of original materials. Presumably the originals from which these copies were made were afterwards destroyed. The Maylem letters here drawn upon, addressed to several different persons, must have been copied from Maylem’s own drafts.

220 Newport Town Council Records, x. 6; Account of estate of John Maylem, dec’d, Mrs. Ann Maylem, Admx., June 29, 1745 (Newport Town Council Records, ix. 76); Ann Maylem, widow, et al., administrators on estate of Rachel Greene, late of Newport, April 5, 1766 (Newport Administrators Bonds, II. 127); Ann Maylem, widow, et al., administrators on estate of William Gubbins, Mariner, dec’d (Newport Administrators Bonds, 11. 209); Francis Gubbins, minor, asked to have his grandmother, Mrs. Ann Maylem, appointed his guardian, August 4, 1766 (Newport Town Council Records, xv. 37). According to the Maylem Bible (see note 2, p. 91, above), Frances (Maylem) Gubbins died February 4, 1750/1.

221 See note 2, p. 91, above, where the entry of the poet’s birth has been given in condensed form. This fuller entry is given as in the text by Dr. Henry E. Turner, in the Rhode Island Historical Magazine, vi. 50.

222 See pp. 110–111, below.

223 Reference will be made later to the praise of Maylem by Joseph Brown Ladd in 1786. There may be quoted at this point, however, the following comment: “His productions bear every mark of a deficient education; but his genius rose superior to every inconvenience.…” Joseph Brown Ladd, The Poems of Arouet (Charleston, S. C., 1786), p. 23.

224 In view of Maylem’s later designation of himself as “farmer” at the time of his enlistment, the assumption may be that part of his boyhood days were spent on a farm, but when, where, or whose farm it was does not appear in the record.

225 In the eighth section of this study is found a list of the unpublished Maylem poems in the Du Simitière Papers in the Library Company of Philadelphia. Miss Polly Turner, “Paphian Goddess,” has succeeded in withholding her identity from me.

226 From the Annals of Trinity Church, Newport, by George Champlin Mason (first series), p. 131, it appears that Catharine Malbone was married to Major Fairchild (“Major,” a Christian name, not a title) on October 28, 1764. A note informs us that Catharine was the daughter of Godfrey and Catharine Malbone, and was born October 21, 1737. She was thus a sister of John Malbone, father of Edward Greene Malbone, the artist.

227 See note 4, p. 95, above.

228 This poem, like the other known unpublished writings of Maylem, is from the Du Simitière Papers.

229 See No. 1 in the list of Maylem’s published works, p. 117, below

230 Massachusetts Archives, French and Indian War Records. For this and other references to the main facts of Maylem’s military career, taken from the Massachusetts Archives, I am indebted to the courtesy of Mr. Albert Harrison Hall, State Archivist, and Miss Marie J. Hession, Principal Archives Assistant

231 Id.

232 Id.

233 Massachusetts Archives, Military Series, lxxvii. 578

234 For bibliographical description, see No. 2 in the list of Maylem’s published works, p. 117, below.

235 The Conquest of Beau-se-jour, by Colonels Moncton [sic] and Winslow, in 1755.

236 Lieutenant Simon Wade, who signed the letter with Maylem, was an associate in arms of the poet in more than one campaign, and at Fort William Henry both were officers under Colonel Frye. Wade’s record is found in Massachusetts Archives, French and Indian War Records, and in Massachusetts Archives, Military Series, lxxvi. 195, 239, 241, 708, and 709. Thomas Shaw, who seems to have endorsed the letter, was a captain of New Jersey troops present at Fort William Henry. After his release from captivity, he was promoted to a lieutenant-colonelcy and was killed before Ticonderoga on July 8, 1758. See Documents Relating to the Colonial History of New Jersey (New Jersey Archives Series), ix. 184–185.

237 For bibliographical discussion, see No. 5 in the list of Maylem’s published works, p. 118, below. The 358 lines of the poem are wrongly numbered 362.

238 See note 4, p. 99, above.

239 MS. in Du Simitiére Papers, Library Company of Philadelphia, whence this piece was printed by Duyckinck, Cyclopaedia of American Literature, i. 432. A list of the Maylem items in the Du Simitiére Papers is given below, p. 110.

240 This period is determined roughly by the dates of the Maylem letters in the Du Simitière Papers, now to be quoted.

241 Du Simitière Papers.

242 Id.

243 Id.

244 Id.

245 Du Simitière Papers.

246 Id.

247 Id.

248 This anonymous poem was reprinted from the Newport Mercury by Carl Bridenbaugh in the New England Quarterly, vii. 325–326, with an interesting note, but without attribution of authorship. Its inclusion in manuscript among the Maylem poems in the Du Simitière Papers and its publication in the Newport Mercury during Maylem’s lifetime in that town seem sufficient warrant for attributing it to Maylem’s pen.

249 Howard M. Chapin, Rhode Island in the Colonial Wars. A List of Rhode Island Soldiers & Sailors in the Old French and Indian War, 1755–1762, p. 100. We learn from Mr. Chapin also that a large company of those who enlisted in Newport in 1762 went upon the West Indian campaign.

250 See pp. 117–120, below, for an account of the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century reprints of Maylem’s poems.

251 Ladd, The Poems of Arouet, p. 23.

252 Petitions, x. 82, June 13, 1759

253 See Mason, Annals of Trinity Church.

254 Intruding himself once into the Lodge, they got him drunk—shinn’d his face & play’d the devil with him—as ’tis said.

255 There liv’d in New Port a very miserable object of the name of Bird, who subsisted upon alms she was born y^e night before the great fire in London 1666—& came (as did the subject of this satire) from London—whether they stood in relation to one another or not, is nothing to the purpose, this being Poetica Licentia—’tis to be observ’d however that there never was a greater connection between a couple of guineas, than the resemblance they bore to each other—as every body that knew her will confess she died in the alms house in New Port some short time ago aged 92—a most unreasonable age!—’tis reported he was a blue coat boy & a F—dl—g—tho at present he is in very affluent circumstances.

256 She us’d to go to meeting & sit in the alley opposite the pulpit & a damn’d motley figur [word illegible].

257 a d—d small fellow—

258 a d—d freckled Chap—

259 this word is defaced in the original. (Du Simitière’s note.)

260 this fellow, murder’d several passages in Hudibras, & one Green a great Satyrist in Boston—to adapt them to his matchless Essay which is just as comprehensive as Jacob Behmen—I wish I had a Copy of it.

261 The conquest of Beau-se-jour, by Colonels Monckton and Winslor, in 1756.

262 The more recent biographical studies of New England governors include: Mrs. Napier Higgins, The Bernards of Abington and Nether Winchendon, vols. i and ii constituting a biography of Sir Francis Bernard; Everett Kimball, The Public Life of Joseph Dudley; James K. Hosmer, The Life of Thomas Hutchinson, Royal Governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay; Viola F. Barnes, “The Rise of William Phips” and “Phippius Maximus,” New England Quarterly, i. 271–294, 532–553; C. A. W. Pownall, Thomas Pownall M.P., F.R.S., Governor of Massachusetts Bay, Author of the Letters of Junius; George A. Wood, William Shirley, Governor of Massachusetts, 1741–1756, A History; Lawrence S. Mayo, John Wentworth, Governor of New Hampshire, 1767–1775. A good short account of Jonathan Belcher is in Clifford K. Shipton, Sibley’s Harvard Graduates, iv. 434–449. In addition, the Dictionary of American Biography contains sketches of all the New England royal governors except Samuel Allen: Jonathan Belcher, Sir Francis Bernard, William Burnet, Joseph Dudley, Thomas Gage, William Shirley, and Samuel Shute, by James Truslow Adams; Sir Edmund Andros and Sir William Phips, by Viola F. Barnes; the Earl of Bellomont, by Charles W. Spencer; Thomas Hutchinson, by Carl Becker; Thomas Pownall, by Leonard W. Labaree; Benning Wentworth, by Isabel M. S. Whittier; and John Wentworth, by Wayne E. Stevens. For biographical data not otherwise credited in subsequent footnotes, I have usually relied upon the above works.

263 Assumed office, December 20, 1686; arrested and deprived of authority by the insurgents, April 18, 1689.

264 Assumed office, May 16, 1692; departed for England, December 4, 1694; died in London, February 18, 1695.

265 Appointed in 1692, but active governor only from September 15, 1698, until superseded on July 31, 1699.

266 Appointed in 1697; assumed office in Massachusetts, May 26, 1699; in New Hampshire, July 31, 1699; died in office, March 5, 1701.

267 Assumed office in Massachusetts, June 11, 1702; in New Hampshire, July 13, 1702; commissions not renewed in 1715.

268 Assumed office in Massachusetts, October 5, 1716; in New Hampshire, October 17, 1716; left for England, January 1, 1723; commissions not renewed in 1727.

269 Assumed office in Massachusetts, September 17, 1728; in New Hampshire, October 2, 1728; died in office, September 7, 1729.

270 Assumed office in Massachusetts, August to, 1730; in New Hampshire, August 25, 1730; superseded, August 14, 1741.

271 Assumed office, August 14, 1741; sailed for England upon recall, September 15, 1756.

272 Assumed office, August 3, 1757; sailed for England upon recall, June 3, 1760.

273 Assumed office, August 2, 1760; sailed for England, August 1, 1769.

274 Assumed office as acting governor, August 1, 1769, and as governor, March 4, 1771; superseded, May 17, 1774.

275 Assumed office, May 17, 1774; sailed for England during siege of Boston, October 10, 1775.

276 Assumed office, December 13, 1741; superseded, June 13, 1767.

277 Assumed office, June 13, 1767; fled to Boston, August 23, 1775.

278 The places and dates of birth of these men were as follows: Phips: Woolwich, Maine, February 2, 1650/1; Dudley: Roxbury, Massachusetts, September 23, 1647; Belcher: Cambridge, January 8, 1681/2; Hutchinson: Boston, September 9, 1711; Benning Wentworth: Portsmouth, New Hampshire, July 24, 1696; John Wentworth: Portsmouth, August 9, 1737.

279 Sir Henry Moore, Bart, (governor of New York, 1765–1769), was born at Vere, Jamaica, February 7, 1712/3.

280 Lewis Morris (governor, 1738–1746), born at “Bronck’s Land,” New York, October 15, 1671; Jonathan Belcher (governor, 1747–1757), born at Cambridge, January 8, 1681/2; William Franklin (governor, 1763–1775), born, probably in Philadelphia, in 1731.

281 Allen, though never in America before his assumption of the governorship, had a considerable stake in New Hampshire, since he had bought the proprietary claims to the province from the heirs of John Mason.

282 Andros had been an officer in a regiment in Barbados from 1666 until about 1672, in which year he was made a landgrave of Carolina. From 1674 until 1681 he was proprietary governor of New York. Burnet had been governor of New York and New Jersey, 1720–1728. Bernard had been governor of New Jersey, 1758–1759.

283 Wood (William Shirley, pp. 35–91) gives a detailed account of Shirley’s years in Boston as barrister, judge of the vice-admiralty court, and advocate-general, before attaining the governorship.

284 Pownall was sent over as secretary to Governor Sir Thomas Osborn of New York in 1753, and upon the latter’s almost immediate suicide, travelled among the colonies. He attended the Albany Congress in 1754 and Braddock’s council of governors in 1755. He was nominal lieutenant-governor of New Jersey from 1755 on, and for some months in 1756 was secretary extraordinary to the commander-in-chief in America, Lord Loudoun.

285 Gage first came to America in 1754 under General Braddock. He became commander-in-chief in 1763 and remained continuously in the colonies until the Revolution, except for a visit to England from the summer of 1773 until the spring of 1774. The article in the Dictionary of American Biography (vii. 87) is incorrect in stating that he left for England in February, 1773. He was in New York as late as the following June 3, as his correspondence shows. Clarence E. Carter, editor, The Correspondence of General Thomas Gage, i. 354.

286 See Frederic DePeyster, The Life and Administration of Richard Coote, Earl of Bellomont.

287 Acts and Resolves of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, i. 109, 174, 188, 395, 437; vii. 230.

288 Instead of being met upon arrival at Boston by the General Court, leading officials, and citizens, and escorted through the streets to an immediate induction, Gage found, when he reached Boston, May 14, 1774, that a town meeting was in progress, called to consider the news of the Port Bill. “The late Governor Hutchinson, The Cheif Justice, the Commissioners of the Customs, and the Consignies, were either at the Castle, or dispersed in the Country, not daring to reside in Boston. I Went to M^r Hutchinson and remained with him at Castle William till Preparations were made for My Reception in Boston, where My Commission Was read and Published in the usual Forms on the 17^th Ins^t.” Gage to Dartmouth, May 19, 1774, Carter, Gage Correspondence, i. 355. Cf. the account of the enthusiastic reception of Belcher in 1730 as given in the Boston NewsLetter, August 6–13 (reprinted in large part in Sibley, iv. 439–440).

289 The ancestries of most of these men are conveniently summarized in their biographical sketches in the Dictionary of American Biography.

290 Colonial Office Papers 138: 5, pp. 245–246, 250, 254–255; Calendar of Treasury Books, 1685–1689, pp. 1258, 1463; Estelle F. Ward, Christopher Monck, Duke of Albemarle, pp. 273–278.

291 The list, with the years of receiving the bachelor’s degree, is as follows: Oxford: Bernard, 1733 (Joseph Foster, Alumni Oxonienses, i. 100); Cambridge: Shirley, 1714 (J. and J. A. Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses, iv. 67); Pownall, 1744 (id., iii. 389); Harvard: Dudley, 1665 (Sibley, ii. 166–188); Belcher, 1699 (id., iv. 434–449); Benning Wentworth, 1715 (Harvard University Quinquennial Catalogue, 1636–1930, p. 175); Hutchinson, 1727 (id., p. 178); John Wentworth, 1755 (id., p. 186).

292 Shute was admitted at the Middle Temple, November 23, 1683. Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses, iv. 72.

293 T. E. S. Clarke and H. C. Foxcroft, A Life of Gilbert Burnet, pp. 426–428; H. C. Foxcroft, A Supplement to Burnet’s History of My Own Time, pp. 511–512 (autobiographical extract).

294 Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses, i. 261.

295 Burnet’s papers in the Philosophical Transactions have the following tides: “On the Icy Mountains in Switzerland” (xxvi. 316); “Observations on the eclipse of the first satellite of Jupiter, in 1723, made at New York” (xxxiii. 162); “Account of a doublebodied child” (l. 315).

296 An Essay on Scripture-Prophecy, Wherein it is Endeavored to Explain the Three Periods Contain’d in the XII Chapter of the Prophet Daniel. With some Arguments to make it Probable, that the First of the Periods did Expire in the Year 1715. [New York], 1724. This remarkable treatise demonstrates that the Kingdom of God was due to arrive in the year 1790. The Yale University Library copy was presented by the author to Samuel Johnson, the first Anglican minister in Connecticut, and later the first president of King’s College (Columbia).

297 Aedis Christi Olim Alumni Odarum. Libri Duo. London, 1752.

298 London, 1764, 1765, 1766, 1768, 1774, 1777.

299 Bibliographies of Pownall’s writings are in the Dictionary of National Biography, and C. A. W. Pownall, Thomas Pownall, appendix, pp. 3–6.

300 History of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, 1628–1691 (Boston, 1764); History of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, 1691–1750 (Boston, 1767); History of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, 1749–1774 (London, 1828).

301 Charles Dalton, English Army Lists and Commission Registers, 1661–1714, i. 37, 75, 115, 119, 168–169.

302 Id., v, part ii, pp. 16–17; Dalton, George the First’s Army, 1714–1727, i. 105.

303 Promoted in 1770. War Office, Army Lists, 1772, pp. 2, 76.

304 For a recent appraisal of Shirley as a military leader see Stanley M. Pargellis, Lord Loudoun in North America, especially pp. 134–135.

305 J. K. Hosmer, Thomas Hutchinson, pp. 66–68.

306 For example, he wrote Hillsborough, March 27, 1770: “I shall faithfully endeavor to support such person [as might be appointed governor] according to the best of my abilities, and I think it not improbable that I may be capable of doing his Majesty greater service in the Province, even in a private station, than at present.” Id., p. 188. To Richard Jackson he wrote in the same month: “I find my constitution is not strong enough to bear so great a burden [as the governorship], and I hope the next vessel will bring us news of a person of weight and importance appointed to the government.” Id., p. 189.

307 Dudley’s efforts to win the governorship are fully described in Kimball, Joseph Dudley, chap. iv.

308 Hutchinson, History of Massachusetts Bay, ii. 367; Sibley, iv. 438–439. In 1745, however, Belcher wrote to Newcastle: “I never sought the government of New England, but it was offered me.” British Museum, Additional MSS. 32,704 (Newcastle Papers, xix), fol. 547. Although he repeated this assertion in the following year (Add. MSS. 32,706, Newcastle Papers, xxi, fol. 292), the independent evidence runs overwhelmingly to the contrary.

309 Belcher to the Board of Trade, June 12, 1731. Acts and Resolves, ii. 633–634. Further light on Belcher’s zeal for office-holding is shed by the letters and memorials with which he and his friends bombarded the British ministers in 1745 and 1746, pleading that the South Carolina governorship be given him after his removal from Massachusetts. Add. MSS. 32,704, fol. 547; 32,706, fols. 235, 292–293, 314–315.

310 In a typical letter to Newcastle in support of Benning Wentworth’s candidacy, Joseph Windham Ashe wrote, November 23, 1739: “I therefore would humbly recommend to Your Grace Benning Wentworth, Esq. one of His Majesty’s council in the said Province of New Hampshire (Now in London) to be made Governor of His Majesty’s said Province. I shall only mention to Your Grace that he was eldest son of the late Lieutenant Governor Wentworth of the said Province and to his capacity and integrity there can be no objection. He has been a very great sufferer by the Crown of Spain, but as to any pretensions he may have to hope for Your Grace’s favour on this account, I must beg leave to refer Your Grace to Mr. Keene who designs to wait on Your Grace in his behalf so soon as his health will permit him to come abroad.” Add. MSS. 32,692, fol. 475.

311 William Tudor, Lift of James Otis of Massachusetts, p. 44; C. A. W. Pownall, Thomas Pownall, pp. 90–91.

312 Charles F. Adams, editor, Works of John Adams, x. 243.

313 Hutchinson, History of Massachusetts Bay, ii. 206–208, 392–399; Kimball, Joseph Dudley, pp 157–174; James T. Adams, Revolutionary New England, pp. 93–96, 154–160.

314 Hutchinson, History of Massachusetts Bay, ii. 435–440; Hosmer, Hutchinson, pp. 26–35.

315 The assistance of one of my former students, Miss Josephine Cobb, in arranging and summarizing the documents used in this article, entitles her to be credited with coauthorship of this paper

316 Harriet S. Tapley, “The Province Galley of Massachusetts Bay, 1694–1716,” Essex Institute Historical Collections, lviii. 73–88, 153–175.

317 These are now part of the files of the Supreme Judicial Court.

318 Our Publications, xxix. xvii–xciv.

319 Suffolk Files (hereafter cited as S. F.), 10,941; Boston Public Library MSS., 578

320 Waldo Lincoln, Genealogy of the Waldo Family, i. 69.

321 Acts and Resolves of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, ix. 430.

322 Savage’s account book, S. F. 13,529 (45 and 46); deposition of Francis Lamontais, id., 12,358 (13).

323 Boston News-Letter, March 15–22, 1713/14.

324 Samuel Roads, Jr., The History and Traditions of Marblehead, pp. 42–43.

325 Apparently the Province Galley was secured by two anchors, the cable of one of which overlapped the cable which moored the Dragon. Depositions of Eleazar Ingalls and Peter Stevens, S. F. 12,358 (11).

326 Deposition of Francis Lamontais, id., 12,358 (13). The remainder of the account is from id., 10,921; deposition of Robert Orange, id., 12,358 (12) and 28,863; deposition of John Pittman; deposition of Nathaniel Greenwood, id., 11,153 (5).

327 S. F. 10,647 (5), deposition of Ephraim Landin. Others testified that Savage could have saved the Dragon had he pleased. Id., 9,960.

328 Of these, 118½ quintals were Colonel Legg’s; 312 came from Hill’s sloop, 110 from Martin’s sloop, 251½ from Masefield’s sloop, 311 from Waters’s sloop, and 224½ had been brought by land from Cape Anne. Id., 11,153 (3); 13,529 (16–17).

329 Concerning the fish, see id., 11,084; 11,151; 11,153; 13,259.

330 Id., 11,151 (15). Phillips bought ten quintals on his own privilege and sold it for $8 a quintal. He thought Savage could have done the same if the fish had been as good.

331 Id., 11,151 (3).

332 S. F. 10,941 (2); 13,529 (19).

333 S. F. 13,529 (9).

334 Id.,11,037 (1, 2, 3).

335 “Observations taken from our orders to Captain Arthur Savage and from his proceedings in the Province Galley,” id., 13,529 (34). The original is in the Knox Papers, Maine Historical Society.

336 Edward M. Saunders, The Life and Times of the Rev. John Wiswall, a Loyalist Clergyman of New England and Nova Scotia; William A. Calnek, History of the County of Annapolis, pp. 633–634.

337 S. F. 10,941 (1, fol. 4).

338 S. F. 10,941 (1, fol. 4).

339 “Observations,” id., 13,529 (34).

340 Account Book, June 9, id., 13,529 (45 and 46).

341 Wiswall’s Journal, in “Observations,” id., 13,529 (34).

342 Letter to Tidcombe, June 25, id., 13,529 (27).

343 Account Book, id., 13,529 (45 and 46).

344 Wiswall’s Journal, in “Observations,” id., 13,529 (34)

345 Id., 10,941 (1, fol. 4).

346 S. F. 13,529 (31), letter to Oulton and Waldo, September 13, 1714.

347 Wiswall’s Journal, in “Observations,” id., 13,529 (34).

348 Id., 10,941 (1, fol. 4).

349 Id., 13,529 (31), letter to Oulton and Waldo, September 13, 1714.

350 Id., 13,529 (35), deposition of Phillips.

351 Id., 11,151 (12); deposition of Peleg Wiswall, id., 11,151 (5).

352 Id., 13,529 (30), letter written from Mataro, August 27, 1714; letter to Shallet and Crowe, August 27, 1714

353 Id; 13.529 (30).

354 Papers of the Castilian Club on the War of the Austrian Succession, Nos. 24, 25.

355 S. F. 13,529 (35), deposition of Phillips.

356 Account Book, id., 13,529 (46).

357 Id., 10,941 (1, fol. 5).

358 Id., 10,941 (1, fol. 6).

359 Wiswall’s Journal, in “Observations,” id., 13,529 (34).

360 Id., 10,941 (1, fol. 6).

361 S. F. 13,529 (32), letter to Crowe and Spikeman, October 20, 1714.

362 Id., 13,529 (35), deposition of Phillips.

363 Id.

364 Id., 10,941 (1, fol. 6).

365 Id.,10,941 (1, fols. 6, 7).

366 Id., 13,529 (52).

367 Id., 10,941 (1, fol. 7).

368 Id.

369 S. F. 10,941 (1, fol. 7).

370 Account Book, id., 13,529 (46).

371 5 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., vii. 77 (Sewall’s Diary).

372 S. F. 12,343.

373 S. F. 13,529 (33).

374 Menzies arrived in Rhode Island, December 24, 1715 (Boston News-Letter, January 9–16, 1715/16), and in Boston, January 4, 1715/16 (5 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., vii. 70).

375 S. F. 11,150 (5).

376 These suspicions were in part based on the accusations of Jonathan Caswall. See his letter from London, February 29, 1715/16 (read April 13, 1716).

377 On this point Savage later remarked: “Their insipid pun upon the word Savage discovers them to be as low and poor in their wit as they are now in trade and business.” S. F. 12,343 (3).

378 “Observations.” The quotation here is from the original in the Knox MSS. at the Maine Historical Society. It differs slightly from the copy in the court files.

379 Id., 13,529 (34).

380 Records of the Superior Court, 1715–1721 (MS.), pp. 152, 204, 186, 40 (in that order);S. F. 12,343 (twelve papers which have to do with the breach of orders case); Acts of the Privy Council, Colonial Series, 1680–1720, p. 721; Journals of the House of Representatives of Massachusetts, i. 132; ii. 180.

381 Records of the Superior Court, 1715–1721 (MS.), pp. 5, 142, 159, 193, 204, 209, 220; id., 1700–1714, p. 309.

382 See Savage’s list of his complaints, S. F. 12,343.

383 Acts and Resolves, i. 19.

384 Acts and Resolves, i. 72–76 (chap. 33, 1692–3, disallowed August 22, 1695); 283–287 (chap. 9, 1697, disallowed November 24, 1698).

385 Id., pp. 370–372 (chap. 3, 1699–1700).

386 J. Franklin Jameson, Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period, p. 318.

387 Dummer’s position was concurred in by the king’s attorney-general, Mr. West. In a report to the Council of Trade and Plantations, June 20, 1720, on admiralty jurisdiction, West argued that wherever the common law is in force, the people must have protection against illegal extension of admiralty power. Calendar of State Papers, Colonial, American & West Indies, 1720–21, pp. 53–55.

388 Boston News-Letter, August 27–September 3, September 9–16, 1716.

389 Report of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston, xiii. 9.

390 Possibly it was a notice stating their side of the case.

391 S. F. ii, 150 (10).

392 Records of the Superior Court, 1715–1721 (MS.), p. 202. Smith protested to Governor Shute concerning his arrest (Cat. St. Pap., Col., Amer. & W. I., 1719–20, pp. 25–29) and later was suspended by him from his position as advocate-general. By way of revenge, according to John Bridger, Surveyor-General of the King’s Woods (a position for which Smith had been an applicant), Smith went home loaded with complaints against the governor (id., pp. 178–179). These complaints may, in part at least, be found in Smith’s anonymous pamphlet Some Considerations on the Consequences of the French Settling Colonies on the Mississippi (London, 1720). In a reprint of this pamphlet published by the Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio in 1928, the editor states that internal evidence discredits Smith as the author, since the latter was judge of the admiralty court of South Carolina, while the author of the pamphlet shows intimate knowledge of New England. In reality, of course, Smith meets precisely all the conditions for authorship laid down by internal evidence. A copy of this pamphlet is in the Boston Public Library. A reply to it, Copy of a Letter by a Gentleman in New-England, to his Friend & Correspondent at London, containing Remarks on a late Pamphlet Entitled, Some Considerations (Boston, 1720), is in the John Carter Brown Library. I am indebted to Professor Zechariah Chafee, Jr., of the Harvard Law School for his detailed references to the 1934–35 Report of the John Carter Brown Library, which discusses both these pamphlets.

393 5 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., vii. 226.

394 Jameson, Privateering and Piracy, p. 318. Smith, in the “Abstract of a Letter concerning the Officers of Admiralty in N,” contained in his pamphlet noted above, vigorously attacked the integrity of Judge Menzies, he implied, was subservient to the governor. He argues that the governor should be divested of his power as vice-admiral.

395 S. F. 12,343; 10,941 (3 to 12).

396 5 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., vii. 170.

397 Boston News-Letter, November 26–December 3, 1716. According to Savage’s advertisement a “Lion of Barbary” was to be exhibited by William Nichols, who was Savage’s servant (S. F. 11, 171, 11, 236).

398 S. F. 11,150(10).

399 S.F. 11,150 (13).

400 S.F. 11,150 (12).

401 S.F. 11,150 (2).

402 Records of the Superior Court, 1715–1721 (MS.), pp. 202–203.

403 See above, pp. 78–86.

404 William Walwyn published Some Considerations tending to the undeceiving those, whose judgements are misinformed (1642) and The Power of Love (1643). John Lilburne wrote copiously on the topic. John Goodwin wrote Theomachia (1644) and other tracts. Henry Robinson published Liberty of Conscience (1643) and numerous other pieces on this theme. For the attribution of the Walwyn tracts, see William Haller, Tracts on Liberty in the Puritan Revolution, i. 121–127; for that of the Robinson tract, see Sir Charles H. Firth’s short essay in English Historical Review, ix. 715–717.

405 The idea of the progressive revelation of religious truth is expressed in the writings of Thomas Goodwin, Roger Williams, Milton, Cromwell, Ireton, Henry Robinson, and others. An article by Arthur S. P. Woodhouse, “Puritanism and Liberty” (University of Toronto Quarterly, iv. 395–404), and another article by the same writer (id., pp. 483–513) are of more than usual interest in connection with the substance of the present topic. The quotation from Robinson given in the text is taken from the edition published by William Haller, Tracts, iii. 166.

406 Haller, Tracts, ii. 157.

407 Haller, Tracts, ii. 299.

408 The idea of the separation of Church and State was quite new at this time. Charles Borgeaud, The Rise of Modem Democracy in Old and New England, p. 156; George P. Gooch and Harold J. Laski, English Democratic Ideas in the Seventeenth Century, p. 73.

409 Puritan ministers on both sides of the Atlantic were interested in the conversion of the Indians. In several New England tracts, e.g., [Thomas Shepard], The Day-Breaking, if not the Sun Rising of the Gospel with the Indians in New-England (London, 1647), the matter is discussed. Mayhew and Eliot were at work among the Indians by 1646, and this tract was published in April of that year, only a few months before the Bahama broadside. The movement came to a head in 1649 when parliament incorporated the so-called New England Company, the purpose of which was to promote missionary work among the Indians of that region.

410 Charles H. Firth, editor, The Clarke Papers, i. l–li, lx–lxiv.

411 Id., p. lxii.

412 Id., pp. lxii–lxiii.

413 Id., pp. 301–302.

414 Samuel R. Gardiner, Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution, 1625–1660, p. 411.

415 Joseph R. Tanner, English Constitutional Conflicts of the Seventeenth Century, p. 145.

416 Pride’s Purge, December 6, 1648, in which the Presbyterian element was expelled from parliament. Thereafter the Independents, formerly a minority, became the sole possessors of power.

417 H. F. Russell Smith, Harrington and His Oceana, pp. 40–49.

418 Charles H. McIlwain, The High Court of Parliament and Its Supremacy (p. 104), supplies a passage which is pertinent comment at this point: “By the ‘logic of events’ the new idea was slowly but surely borne in upon the minds of [seventeenth-century] Englishmen that Parliament was a real lawmaking organ. Times of crisis, of course, hastened this process. Emergencies arose that required prompt action [italics mine]; existing laws were inadequate; no rule was in existence to be ‘determined’; there was no time for a fiction; a rule must be made. Such a crisis confronted the Long Parliament. It was met by an assumption of power wholly unusual. The acts of the Long Parliament, legal and illegal, justifiable and unjustifiable, did much to habituate the minds of Englishmen to a legislative assembly.” The provision in the Articles and Orders for emergency action is a pointed contemporary illustration of the process to which Professor McIlwain refers.

419 The intellectual connection between the ideas of Levellers and radical Independents on the one hand and the republican theories of Harrington on the other still waits to be explored. Harrington’s theories are much more intimately related to the fabric of English progressive economic and political thought at this time than a reading of H. F. Russell Smith’s study would lead one to suppose.

420 Gooch and Laski, English Democratic Ideas, pp. 308–311.

421 Henry Robinson, England’s Safety in Trade’s Encrease (London, 1641), pp. 25–28. Page 28 is misnumbered “34.”

422 Id., pp. 25–28.

423 Firth, Clarke Papers, i. xi.

424 Gardiner, Constitutional Documents, p. 334; Theodore C. Pease, The Leveller Movement, p. 300.

425 The writer is informed by Dr. James A. Williamson that the Earl of Warwick had a hand in this enterprise. See also James A. Williamson, Short History of British Expansion, i. 212–213. The Spaniards took Old Providence, off the Central American coast, in 1641; but in 1647 the Bahama settlers applied the name “Providence” to one of the islands of the Bahama group, which thereupon became New Providence.

426 In 1675, Major John Fenwick, an old Cromwellian who had obtained a grant of land in West New Jersey, and was then preparing to colonize, issued at London a broadside advertising the nature of the community he proposed to set up there. Some of his provisions are so similar to those outlined in the Articles and Orders that Fenwick’s proposed arrangements may well be indicated here. Politically, he contemplated a republican form of government, with “a Governor and 12 Council to be Chosen every year, 6 of the Council to go out, and 6 to come in; whereby every Proprietor may be made capable of Government, and know the Affairs of the Country, and Privileges of the People.” The application of the principle of rotation in office is unmistakable.

Fenwick also proposed cultivation of the land in common for a limited term of years. This proposal seems to be similar to, though more fully explained than, the scheme outlined in the Articles and Orders: “First, 10,000 Acres being pitch’d Upon, and divided according to every mans Propriety; then Lots shall be cast, and when every one knows where his Lot lies, there being also a place Chosen and set out for a Town or City to be Built, in which every Purchaser must have a Part, by reason of Delaware River for Trade. Then every one must joyn their Hands, first in Building the Houses, and next in Improving the Land, casting Lots whose Houses shall be first built, and whose Land first Improved: And as the Land is Improved so it shall be for the Use of all the Hands and their Families which are joyned in this Community, until the whole 10,000 Acres be Improved; Then every one to have his own Lot to his own Use: And so this Method to be used till the Country be Planted. If any like not this Method, they may be left to Improve their Propriety alone.” The complete text of the broadside issued by Fenwick is found in Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, vi. 86–88.

427 Our Publications, xxxi. 29. Nathaniel White (H. C. 1646) returned to Boston in the summer of 1650 from a visit to the Bahamas. He brought with him a cargo of Brazil wood, produce of the islands, which the Eleuthera men had sent to the college as a “pledge of thankfulness … to bee disposed of … as a stock for your Colledges use.” The wood fetched a price of £124. The best account of the episode is by Samuel E. Morison, “The Strange History of the Eleuthera Donation,” Harvard Alumni Bulletin (June 19, 1930), pp. 1067–1072. See also Morison, Harvard College in the Seventeenth Century, pp. 39–43.

428 In a broadside parliamentary proclamation dated January 23, 1646/7, one reads that the legislature is concerned with regulating in some degree the exportation of servants to the colonies in America. It is stipulated that the names of such persons as are to be transported must be registered in the customhouse, and that certificates must be returned to England within one year, giving notice by the governors of colonies concerned that the servants have disembarked in the colonies. Servants are not to be spirited away from England, and apprentices are not to be urged to desert their masters. These are some of the aspects of the traffic in transported persons; the items in the Articles and Orders refer to still others of this unlovely business. The broadside is listed in Thomason Tracts under the date cited above; its caption is Die Sabbathi 23 Ianuarii 1646.

429 Inherited, it would seem likely, from the internal rules and regulations in force among guilds and business corporations.

430 On the fusion of powers in the old English government, see McIlwain, High Court of Parliament, passim. Lilburne expounded the theory of the separation of powers in pamphlets published in the spring of 1648. The words of T. C. Pease on this phase of the Levellers’ thought (Leveller Movement, pp. 241–242) are apposite: “[The Levellers] no longer designed that Parliament should be a supreme constituent body free of all restraint from lesser authorities and subject to reversal only by the people. Advancing a step further with their doctrine that the Parliament must be subject to law, they suggested the possibility of an inferior court’s sitting to review actions of the High Court of Parliament manifestly contrary to the law of England. The doctrine of Lilburne left Parliament supreme as a legislature, but erected beside it a judiciary bound by the known law, but nevertheless capable of checking the legislature if it passed the bounds of that law.”

431 William A. Shaw, Select Tracts and Documents Illustrative of English Monetary History, 1626–1730, pp. 49–50. Very little of a biographical nature concerning Robinson is known, and that little we owe to Dr. Shaw, who wrote the pioneer article on this interesting London merchant for the Dictionary of National Biography. There is a brief but good discussion of Robinson’s importance in Haller, Tracts, i. 64–65.

It would be desirable to have a thorough study dealing with this seminal figure in economic and religious thought. An effort ought to be made to determine his intellectual relationship to contemporaries like John Goodwin, William Walwyn, and Roger Williams on the one hand; and the extent of his influence, if any, on William Petty and James Harrington, his literary successors, on the other. Undoubtedly his influence radiated in many directions, just as the sources of his ideas are not confined to one place or a few writers. He read Montaigne: so much is certain.

432 Dr. Shaw is satisfied that “Robinson is doubtless the author of many works beside these,” of which the authenticity is certain (D.N.B.). The list printed above follows that given by Shaw, although Professor Haller has lately entered an objection to the attribution to Robinson of An Answer to Mr. John Dury (Tracts, i. 65, note 53). One may query whether The Waste Land Improved (1653) is by Robinson. It sounds in part as though it might be.

433 England’s Safety in Trade’s Encrease, A2 recto (Huntington Library copy).

434 Id., B1 recto.

435 England’s Safety, p. 13. The expression “people of good report and ranke” is a periphrasis for “rich Puritans,” the very sort of folk the Bahama enterprise was seeking to attract.

436 Id., p. 45.

437 Id., pp. 45–46.

438 Id., pp. 13–18.

439 England’s Safety, p. 19.

440 Id., p. 20.

441 Id., p. 46.

442 Our Publications, xxvii. 130–156.

443 Report of the Record Commissioner of the City of Boston, x. 70 (April 25, 1681).

444 Diary of Samuel Sewall (5 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., v. 213), entry for May 14, 1688. Moody, also well known as a scrivener, was in Boston as late as 1706 (id., vi. 175). He died in Dedham in 1720.

445 Mass. Archives, cxxix. 144a (Boston “Valuation List” of August 27, 1688).

446 Samuel Sewall’s ledger (MS. at New England Historic Genealogical Society), fol. 97, entry for October 8, 1701. Sewall’s daughter Elizabeth attended Samson’s school.

447 Suffolk County Probate Records, xxvii. 69 (will, dated June 1, 1727). Gatchell died before February 12, 1727/28. He was in Boston as early as October 19, 1722, when he married Elizabeth Calfe (Boston Records, xxviii. 106).

448 The entries under the dates December 22 and 29, 1670, and November 27, 1671, in Boston Records, vii (pp. 57, 63), indicate that he served a second time as usher in the public school, from March 1, 1669/70, to March 1, 1670/71.

449 I am convinced that the name should be Natstock, not Ratstock, as given in my earlier list. See my Public Schools of Colonial Boston, 1636–1775, p. 8, n 37.

450 Sewall’s ledger, fol. 71; Peter Burr’s account book (MS. at Massachusetts Historical Society); Boston Records, xxix. 226 (August 6, 1698).

451 Our Publications, xxvii. 136, n 8, line 4, should read “January 6, 1670/71” instead of “January 11.”

452 In view of the fact that Richard Henchman died at the age of seventy on February 15, 1724/25, I do not believe that he matriculated at Harvard with the Class of 1697.

453 Our Publications, xxvii. 142, n 35, line 7: “xi” should read “xiii.”

454 Id., p. 144, n 48, line 2: “xx” should be deleted.

455 Id., p. 154, n 101, line 1: “May 4, 1769” should read “March 13, 1769.”

456 This was Peter Pelham, Sr., not Peter Pelham, Jr. See my Private Schools of Colonial Boston, pp. 26 n, 27, 29 n, 31 n, 32, 35. Our Publications, xxvii. 146, n 55, line 6: “May 30, June 13, 20, 27” should be deleted.

457 This Samuel Holyoke (bap. May 18, 1729, d. July 24, 1784) was not the one who graduated from Harvard in 1734. See my Private Schools of Colonial Boston, p. 41, n 54.

458 This was Vere Ross. Our Publications, xxvii. 152: note 86 should be added to note 88.

459 This was William Dall, Jr., b. December 22, 1753.

460 Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England (cited hereafter as Mass. Records), i. 358–360. In 1636, the colony held a fast, partly because of the lack of grain. In the same season, candid, crotchety Lion Gardiner, when consulted about fortifications, said: “… I thought no forraigne potent enemie would doe them any hurt, but one yt was neare, they asked me who that was & I said it was Capt. Hunger threatened them most.…” Lion Gardiner, Relation of the Pequot Warres (Acorn Club Publications, No. 4), p. 7.

461 4 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., vi. 1–4.

462 See the letter from Hugh Peter to Winthrop, probably written in April, 1639, in 4 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., vii. 200–201.

463 Mass. Records, i. 326; John Winthrop, Journal (Hosmer ed.), ii. 19.

464 See, for example, Lord Say and Sele’s letter to Winthrop, July 9, 1640, in 5 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., i. 297–303.

465 Winthrop, Journal, i. 333–335; ii. 11; Mass. Records, i. 239; Frances Rose-Troup, “John Humfry,” Essex Institute Historical Collections, lxv. 293–299.

466 Mass. Records, i. 303–304, 307; Winthrop, Journal, ii. 6.

467 Hugh Peter, especially, set forth this possibility; see his letter to Winthrop in 4 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., vii. 200–201.

468 Winthrop, Journal, i. 127–128, 274–275, 300–301.

469 Id., ii. 24.

470 Winthrop, Journal, ii. 25.

471 Endecott’s objections are all embraced in a long letter to Winthrop, 4 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., vi. 138–141.

472 This was cited by Winthrop (Journal, ii. 25–26) as the “main reason … privately intimated.”

473 Id.

474 William D. Chappie, “The Public Service of John Endecott in the Massachusetts Bay Colony,” Essex Inst. Hist. Coll., lxv. 403–447.

475 Winthrop, Journal, ii. 26.

476 Mass. Records, i. 332.

477 Winthrop, Journal, ii, 31–32; Thomas Lechford, Plain Dealing (Trumbull ed.), pp. xxxvi, 109.

478 Winthrop, Journal, ii. 32.

479 5 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., viii. 35. He does not indicate in his letter who the others sailing with him were.

480 Winthrop, Journal, ii. 31.

481 Id.

482 Hugh Peter, A Dying Fathers Last Legacy (London, 1660), pp. 101–102; almost the same words appear in The Case of Mr. Hugh Peters (London, 1660), p. 3, and in his petition, printed in the Seventh Report of the Historical Manuscripts Commission, Part i, pp. 115b–116.

483 Before the agents left the Bay Colony, Emmanuel Downing, failing to bid them farewell in person as he had intended, wrote a letter which was delivered to Hugh Peter by the younger Winthrop, wherein he gave legal advice relative to the charter difficulties. Cf. 4 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., vi. 58, 59.

484 Winthrop, Journal, ii. 25. J. B. Felt’s denial of this object of the mission (Ecclesiastica History of New England, i. 434) is refuted by Winthrop, by the work of the agents in England, and by Hugh Peter’s statements. Edward Johnson, writing in 1652, said that Peter and Weld, “so soon as they heard of the chaining up of those biting beasts, who went under the name of spiritual Lords,” returned to England where “what assistance the Gospel of Christ found there by their preaching, is since clearly manifested.…” Wonder-Working Providence (Poole ed.), p. 224.

485 William Bradford, History of Plymouth Plantation (Ford ed.) ii. 164–171.

486 A. C. Flick, editor, History of the State of New York, ii. 40–46.

487 Winthrop, Journal, ii. 33.

488 E. B. O’Callaghan, editor, Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York, I. 568; “Afschriften der Depêches van de Nederlandsche Gezanten in Engeland aan de Staten Generaal der Vereenigde Nederlanden,” Add. MSS. 17677 W, fols. 5–6 (British Museum); Felt, Ecclesiastical History, i. 468–469.

489 Hibbins’s name is variously spelled “Hibbins,” “Hibbens,” “Hibbons.” The materials from which the above facts are derived are found in: Second Report of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston, pp. 41, 44, 53, 55 ff.; 4 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., vii. 200–201; Thomas Hutchinson, The History of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, i. 187; article on Ann Hibbins in the Dictionary of American Biography.

490 Samuel R. Gardiner, editor, Report of Cases in the Courts of the Star Chamber and High Commission (Camden Society Publications), pp. 260, 264; 3 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., i. 235–239; 4 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., vi. 10; A. G. Matthews, Calamy Revised, pp. 517–518.

491 For an account of the troubles in Holland in which Hugh Peter was concerned, see my article, “The New England Way in Holland,” New England Quarterly, vi. 747–792.

492 For references to Hugh Peter’s economic activities, see Winthrop, Journal, i. 165, 168 178; ii. 23; 4 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., vi. 93, 97–98; vii. 200–201.

493 Mass. Records, ii. 225, 259, 271; Winthrop, Journal, ii. 28–29.

494 Winthrop, Journal, ii. 23.

495 4 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., vi. 138–141.

496 The Root and Branch Petition, December 11, 1640. Cf. Samuel R. Gardiner, editor, The Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution (3d ed.), p. 138.

497 George L. Beer, The Origins of the British Colonial System, 1578–1660, pp. 300–305, 341–342.

498 Charles M. Andrews, British Committees, Commissions, and Councils of Trade and Plantations, 1622–75 (Johns Hopkins University Studies, Series xxvi, nos. 1–3), pp. 16–23.

499 Journals of the House of Lords, iv. 187b (cited hereafter as L. J.).

500 Id., iv. 188a.

501 If Hugh Peter consulted Charles I, “with whom,” as Peter wrote later, “I dealt about my New Eng: busines and was 3 or 4 tymes with him,” it was probably with regard to this phase of the agents’ efforts. Cf. 7th Report, Hist. MSS. Comm., Part i, p. 116.

502 Journals of the House of Commons, iii. 207 (cited hereafter as C. J.). A good example of the restraints which had been imposed upon vessels sailing for New England is found in the case of John Winthrop, Jr., who was delayed in 1643 when he set out with men and supplies to establish an ironworks in New England. Cf. 5 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., viii. 36–37.

503 Doubtless the agents early undertook, as they were charged, to satisfy the colony’s irate creditors, but the records do not indicate what progress was made.

504 Winthrop, Journal (Savage ed., 1826), ii. 342.

505 Henry C. Shelley, John Underhill, pp. 153–156.

506 Mass. Records, ii. 28.

507 Winthrop, Journal (Hosmer ed.), ii. 70; Mass. Records, ii. 27.

508 It is uncertain who gave this sum. Winthrop mentions it (Journal, Savage ed., 1826, II. 342); and the General Court, in returning thanks to the chief benefactors in September, 1642, mentions the three large gifts as those of “Mr. Willobie, Mr. Houghton, & Mr. Andrews.” Mass. Records, ii. 27.

509 Winthrop, Journal (Hosmer ed.), ii. 71; New England Historical and Genealogical Register, xxxvi. 63.

510 See Bradford, Plymouth, ii. 32–38, 64–73, 294–300.

511 Mass. Records, ii. 32; Winthrop, Journal, ii. 70 (the amount as stated here was £500).

512 Bradford, Plymouth, ii. 330–342. Sherley wrote to his Plymouth partners on June 14, 1642: “Mr. Andrews hath sealed an acquitance also, and sent it to Mr. Winthrop, whith shuch directions as he conceived fitt, and, as I hear, hath given his debte, which he makes 544^li unto the gentlemen of the Bay. Indeed, Mr. Welld, Mr. Peters, and Mr. Hibbens have taken a great deale of paines with Mr. Andrews, Mr. Beachamp, & my selfe, to bring us to agree, and to that end we have had many meetings and spent much time aboute it. But as they are very religious & honest gentle-men, yet they had an end that they drove at and laboured to accomplish (I meane not any private end, but for the generall good of their patente).” The arrangements were not completed nor the money received in Massachusetts until 1643. See Mass. Records, ii. 39.

513 Bradford, Plymouth, ii. 330–334. Weld wrote of this matter later: “There was about Five hundred pounds due from Newe Plymouth plantation to three Londoners which wee procured to bee given to the Bay to whome it was paid (as M^r Winslowe knowes) but itt never came into our hande, only one of the three refusing to give his share, Brother Peters and I were bound to pay him One hundred and Tenn pounds for his part, which not coming from thence [Massachusetts] att the tyme the Bond expired wee were driven to pay out of our owne purses, after y^e Accompt was made vpp, and are out of the money still.” Weld to Steele, January 2, 1649/50, Rawlinson MSS. (Bodleian), c. 934, fol. 5; reprinted in New Eng. Hist. Gen. Reg., xxvi. 64.

514 Massachusetts Archives, iii. 4; C. 2, 34.

515 New Eng. Hist. Gen. Reg., xlv. 162–163; George Sherwood, American Colonists in English Records (1st series, 1932), pp. 38–39. Weld wrote later that Bridges’s gift to the college “was paid vs in wollen cloath; but when it was about to be sent; we received order from ye Governour & Trustees of ye Coll. to pay it to Alderman Oldham in London, for so much rec’d in N. Engl: by Mr. Sparrowhawk for ye vse of ye Colledge. So we paid that 50l to him & received his acquittance.” Of the £20 for “clothing of the poore,” Weld said, “we sent 50l to Mr. Hooker, & as much to Mr. Simes, to distribute, & ourselves sent ye rest according to ye trust.” Rawlinson MSS., c. 934, fol. 29b.

516 Publications of this Society, xv. 175.

517 Weld recorded later that some donors “laid out for Utensills for the Colledge by theire [the college overseers’] desires as pewter, bras, Ironware, lynnen,… Bookes to supply theire Library.… others gave some cloth woollen and lynnen, all which was sent with directions, some gave publique Faith bills, for which wee laid downe as much ready money as the bills procured, and accounted for.” Weld to Steele, January 2, 1649/50, New Eng. Hist. Gen. Reg., xxxvi. 62–64. is impossible to learn whether these gifts are included in or are in addition to the items of Weld’s imperfect accounts.

518 Thomas Carte, The Life of James, Duke of Ormond, i. 279–378.

519 Id., ii. 52; John Borlase, History of the Irish Rebellion (copy revised by the author, in Stowe MSS., 82, British Museum), pp. 19–34.

520 Borlase, History of the Irish Rebellion, pp. 19–34.

521 Report of the Council for Ireland, November 15, 1641, in John Nalson, An Impartial Collection of the Great Affairs of State (London, 1682–3), ii. 737; The Last Newes from Ireland of the Rebel Papists (London, 1641), unpaged; A True Coppy of a Letter from Ireland (London, 1641), pp. 1–2. Sir Philip Warwick wrote (Memoirs of the Reign of King Charles I, p. 199) that “in one week they [the Irish] massacred very near one hundred thousand persons, men, women, and children.” Probably less than one third of that number of English people were in Ireland in 1641. See also A True and Credible Relation of the Barbarous Crveltie and Bloudy Massacres in Ireland, 1641 (London, 1642), pp. 1–8.

522 C.J., ii. 462–463, 467 ff.

523 Borlase, History of the Irish Rebellion, pp. 38–39.

524 Id., pp. 25, 52; Carte, Ormond, ii. 1–50; Warwick, Memoirs, pp. 199–200; John Turbervill to John Willoughby, January 29, 1641/2, Trevelyan Papers (Camden Society Publications), iii. 216–217.

525 A Continuation of the Passages in Parliament, No. 5, February 7–14, 1641/2, p. 38; Rushworth, Historical Collections, iv. 553, 556–557, 564–565.

526 Henry Scobell, A Collection of Acts and Ordinances (London, 1658), pp. 26–35; A Perfect Diurnall, February 21–28, 1641/2, p. 6; Carte, Ormond, ii. 305–306.

527 [Hugh Peter], A True Relation of a Voyage for Ireland (London, 1642), p. 3. Peter’s pamphlet was, in effect, an official account of the entire expedition.

528 Charles H. Firth and Robert S. Rait, Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum, 1642–60, i. 9–12.

529 Peter, True Relation, p. 4.

530 I have gathered the names of men connected with the expedition from a variety of sources. See especially Peter, True Relation, p. 4; C. J., v. 191; L. J., vi. 155b; ix. 165a; Firth and Rait, Acts and Ordinances, i. 9–12; Scobell, Collection of Acts, p. 27.

531 C. J., iii. 133–134; New Eng. Hist. Gen. Reg., xl. 168–169.

532 Peter, True Relation, p. 4; A Relation of the Svndry Occurrences in Ireland of the Additionall Forces by Sea (London, 1642), unpaged.

533 The author, at least, has found no indication of either disapproval or approval by Massachusetts leaders either in 1642 or later.

534 For accounts of the Forbes expedition, see, in addition to references cited above, The Last and Truest Intelligence from Ireland (London, October 17, 1642); Desiderata Curiosa Hibernica (Dublin, 1772), ii. 194–212; Edmund Hogan, editor, The History of the Warr of Ireland by a British Officer; Mary Hickson, Ireland in the Seventeenth Century.

535 A Perfect Diurnall, No. 15, September 19–26, 1642.

536 The Weekly Intelligence from Several Parts of this Kingdome, October 10–18, 1642, reported (p. 10) that the five captured ships had been sent “all at the charge of his Holynesse for the defence and support of the Catholick cause.…” See also, A Continuation of Certain Speciall & Remarkable Passages, No. 15, October 10–14, 1642; Special Passages and Certain Informations from Severall Parts, No. 10, October 11–18, p. 85.

537 L. J., v. 397a.

538 Both of Forbes’s letters sent by Peter to parliament were published as advertising sheets for the undertakers. See A True Copie of Two Letters Brought by Mr. Peters, this October 11, from my L. Forbes from Ireland (London, 1642).

539 True Copie of Two Letters, pp. 5–6.

540 The imprint reads: “London. Printed by Lvke Norton, for Henry Overton, in the Yeare mdcxlii.”

541 True Relation, p. 19.

542 See, for example, C. J., iii. 91; a committee of parliament was appointed in 1643 “to prepare a Declaration, to set forth, That the Rebellion in Ireland, and this in England, spring from one Head; and are managed with concurrent Counsels to one End; for the utter Overthrow and Extirpation of the Protestant Religion.…”—and this was done just after a committee had been appointed to prevent the spread of “false rumors”!

543 Samuel R. Gardiner, History of the Great Civil War (London, 1893), i. 67–76.

544 “Our militant Evangelists,” wrote a Cavalier, “Dr. Bayes, Dr. Downing, Mr. Marshall and Sedgwicke, whose consciences start out of the way at a white surplesse, but never boggle at garments rolled in blood.” “An Honest Letter” (1642), T. W. Webb and John Webb, Memorials of the Civil War as it affected Herefordshire, i. 180 n.

545 Speciall Passages, No. 18, December 6–13, 1642, pp. 152–153.

546 Id.

547 The True and Originall Copy of the first Petition which was delivered by Sir David Watkins, Mr. Shute, M. Peters (London, 1642), unpaged.

548 Id.

549 Gardiner, History of the Civil War, i. 75.

550 Id.

551 True and Originall Copy of the first Petition.

552 Gardiner, History of the Civil War, i. 75.

553 Mercurius Aulicus, April 2–9, 1643, p. 170. As this news-sheet was radically royalis in its bias, its reports must be accepted with great care. I have been unable to check this particular account against any other contemporary relation; this account is accepted because Aulicus’s stories of this sort usually have a basis in truth, and this particular one, in view of foregoing circumstances, seems credible.

554 Id., pp. 170–171.

555 Id.

556 Id. John Saltmarsh, later Hugh Peter’s fellow-chaplain in the army, preached the same ideas at this time. Cf. A Peace but No Pacification (London, 1643).

557 XIV Articles of Treason and Other Misdemeanors Exhibited to Isaac Pennington (Oxford, 1643), pp. 2–3.

558 Increasing attention to Hugh Peter in royalist pamphlets is evidence of his part in urging on the war. For his pains, he was impeached for high treason by the king. Cf. An Answer to the Articles against Master Calamy, Master Martiall, Master Burton, Master Peters (London, 1642).

559 4 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., vii. 201.

560 Peter, True Relation, p. 15.

561 Certain Informations, No. 3, January 30–February 6, 1642/3, p. 2.

562 Charles Deane, editor, “Records of the Council for New England,” Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, 1867, pp. 61, 7.1–73, 85; Beer, Origins of the British Colonial System, p. 45.

563 C. J., ii. 949.

564 Id.; Certain Informations, No. 3, January 30–February 6, 1642/3, p. 22.

565 See Weld’s accounts in Publications of this Society, xiv. 121–126 (reprinted from Mass. Archives, lviii. 3–4); New Eng. Hist. Gen. Reg., xxxix. 179–182 (reprinted from Rawlinson MSS., c. 934, fols. 19–21); Weld, “Innocency Cleared,” Rawlinson MSS., c. 934, fols. 26–30 (reprinted in New Eng. Hist. Gen. Reg., xxxvi. 64–70). The writer of XIV Articles of Treason Exhibited to Isaac Pennington (said by Thomason to have appeared March 30, 1643) states (pp. 2–3): “… I cannot thus passe by Mr. Peters, a man that hath done so much good for us, especially by his indefatigable pains in every parish in London to find out those our many Babes borne out of the estate & Covenant of Grace (though by this Malignant [Edward Dobson] called Bastards) and conveyed dilligently to New-England, by whose meanes the obiects of our owne vilenesse are taken away from our perpetuall remembrance.”

566 Mass. Archives, lviii. 3–4; Publications of this Society, xiv. 121–126.

567 This assumes a transportation cost of £6 a child, which was a common rate for those days. Actually, the agents contracted with shipmasters at the rate of £5 a child. See Weld, “Innocency Cleared,” Rawlinson MSS., c. 934, fols. 27b–28 (New Eng. Hist. Gen. Reg., xxxvi. 66).

568 Winthrop, Journal, ii. 96. Were the “other passengers” whom the governor mentions Irish refugees transported by means of the children’s fund?

569 Mass. Records, ii. 45, 89, 141.

570 £150 went towards a house for President Dunster of Harvard College (id., pp. 70, 84), and £50 was allowed John Winthrop, Jr., for expenses incurred in England on behalf of the colony (Winthrop Papers, i. 159, MSS., Massachusetts Historical Society). More of the children’s fund was spent for soldiers to go with Captain Cook to Providence in 1643 (Mass. Records, ii. 45), and a portion of the funds was later paid to Captain Richard Davenport “in pt of what the country stands indebted to him, for the Castle” (id., p. 164). In addition, some appears to have been pocketed by Emmanuel Downing and Nehemiah Bourne (Mass. Archives, c. 5b; Mass. Records, ii. 89, 141). Evidently the General Court used the children’s fund as a convenient way to avoid unpopular taxes; if any of the moneys thus misapplied were replaced, I have found no record of it.

571 Mass. Archives, c. 5b; Mass. Records, ii. 89, 141; 4 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., vi. 59–60.

572 Mass. Archives, lviii. 5.

573 Certain Informations, No. 3, January 30–February 6, 1642/3, p. 22.

574 C. J., ii. 949.

575 Id., pp. 987, 998; L. J., v. 632b; vii. 75a–b; Mass. Archives, lx. 23; Mass. Records, ii 34; Winthrop, Journal, ii. 96. Students of constitutional problems of British colonial policy might well note the early official use herein of the word “kingdom” as applied by parliament to “New England,” i.e., to Massachusetts Bay. Employed before exigencies of civil war led parliament to assume complete control of colonial affairs by the creation of the Warwick Commission, the word suggests parliamentary recognition of Massachusetts Bay as a separate realm analogous to Scotland and Ireland and associated with England only by relation to an identical Crown. Evidently Weld and Peter, as instructed by Massachusetts magistrates, were taking pains not to compromise “charter liberties” or the constitutional position of the colony.

576 C. J., iv. 337 (November 10, 1645).

577 Winthrop, Journal, ii. 246.

578 4 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., vi. 516.

579 Mass. Archives, lix. 13.

580 William Hubbard, “A General History of New England,” 2 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., ii. 374.

581 Reprinted in Samuel E. Morison, The Founding of Harvard College, pp. 420–447. As to the authorship of this pamphlet, see Worthington C. Ford’s critical study in Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc., xlii. 259–266; Morison, Founding of Harvard College, pp. 304–305. It seems “almost certain,” according to Mr. Morison, that Dunster “had the leading hand in compiling” the part of the pamphlet which refers to Harvard College, although “he did not actually write it.” In the portion which deals with the Indians, the numerous references to Salem experiences (pp. 2, 3, 4) and that to Agamenticus (p. 9) suggest Hugh Peter’s influence. Again, in the last part, the pamphlet’s preoccupation with material affairs—fishing, cloth-making, the fur-trade, shipbuilding, and the West Indies trade; the comparison of New England’s climate with that of Holland; the reference to the poor children, and the praise of New England’s morality (“… one may live there from yeare to yeare, and not see a drunkard, heare an oath, or meet a beggar”)—all these show traces of Peter’s hand in the pamphlet. The reference to New England’s morality, although an idea common at the time, is almost exactly like one of Peter’s later expressions in The Case of Mr. Hugh Peters by His Own Hand (London, 1660), pp. 2–3.

582 New Englands First Fruits, p. 1.

583 Id., p. 17.

584 See Andrew McF. Davis’s articles, “The First Scholarship at Harvard College,” Proc. Amer. Antiq. Soc., n.s., v. 129–139; “The Lady Moulson Scholarship at Cambridge,” id., viii. 274–280.

585 Davis, “The First Scholarship at Harvard College,” id., v. 133.

586 Weld’s accounts show £231 for the college, including Lady Moulson’s gift. Mass. Archives, lviii. 4; Publications of this Society, xiv. 121–126. He also reported various other sums for educational purposes, but the accounts are so confused and incomplete that it is impossible to determine the exact amounts. See also Hutchinson Papers, Mass. Archives, ccxl. 58.

587 Weld, “Innocency Cleared,” Rawlinson MSS., c. 934, fol. 29b (New Eng. Hist. Gen. Reg., xxxvi. 68).

588 Rawlinson MSS., c. 934, fol. 29 (New Eng. Hist. Gen. Reg., xxxvi. 68).

589 No records arc available to show the date or the circumstances of Mrs. Peter’s excommunication or the date of her return to England. Opposite her name in the MS. Records of the First Church at Salem, 1629–1736, p. 7, is written “Excom.” Weld’s letter, which is quoted below in the text, is the only proof that she was in England at this time although there is proof that she was there later.

590 Thomas Weld to the General Court, September 25, 1643, New Eng. Hist. Gen. Reg., xxxvi. 39.

591 Thomas Weld to the General Court, September 25, 1643, New Eng. Hist. Gen. Reg., xxxvi. 39. Weld added a postscript saying: “m^r Peters consented to this l’er but is not in Lon. at the p^rsent coming away of the ship.”

592 Hugh Peter had published a reprint of his little catechism, Milk for Babes, and Meat for Men (London, 1641) and an introduction to The Advice of That Worthy Commander, Sir Ed: Harwood, Collonell (London, 1642), called “The Life and Death of Collonell Harwood”; but neither of these pamphlets was primarily of a polemic nature.

593 Benjamin Hanbury, Historical Memorials Relating to the Independents, ii. 18–39; Williston Walker, Creeds and Platforms of Congregationalism, pp. 134–135.

594 The copy in the British Museum is marked by Thomason “June 15, 1643.” It is possible, even likely, that Weld collaborated with Peter in preparing the introduction.

595 Weld, however, did: in 1644, he was induced by Presbyterian plotters to edit, with additions, Governor Winthrop’s manuscript account of New England’s Antinomian troubles. The book, by emphasizing Congregational intolerance in New England, jeopardized the Independents’ political aspirations in Old England and placed Weld in a difficult position. See C. F. Adams, Antinomianism in the Colony of Massachusetts Bay (Prince Society Publications), pp. 60–63; Thomas Edwards, The Third Part of Gangraena (London, 1646), preface; Thomas Hooker to Thomas Shepard, September 17, 1646, Mass. Archives, ccxl. 100–101.

596 Peter’s introduction to Richard Mather, Church-Government and Church-Covenant Discussed.

597 See Worthington C. Ford’s comments in Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc., xlii. 264–266.

598 The True Constitution of a Particular Visible Church, proved by Scripture (London, 1642), and A Modest and Clear Answer to Mr. Ball’s Discourse of Set Forms of Prayer (London, 1642). Cf. Hanbury, Historical Memorials, ii. 154–166.

599 Such as An Answer to W. R. (London, 1644), and A Short Story of the Rise, Reign and Ruine of the Antinomians (London, 1644).

600 Mr. Challenor His Confession & Speech Made Upon the Ladder before his Execution on Wednesday the Fifth of July, 1643 (London, 1643), pp. 3–5; see also Gardiner, History of the Civil War, i. 157–158.

601 Firth and Rait, Acts and Ordinances, i. 165.

602 See the committees chosen for sequestration and the levying of money, id., i. 113–115, 148–150. See also C. Thomas Stanford, Sussex in the Great Civil War and Interregnum, pp. 64–65; R. Almack, editor, Papers Relating to the County of Kent (Camden Society Publications), pp. 16–17; Victoria History of Sussex, i. 523–524.

603 Commissioners of Sussex to Hugh Peter, Lewes, July 15, 1643, New Eng. Hist. Gen. Reg., xxxix. 371–372. The commission suggests that a similar one for Kent existed, but it has not been located.

604 Edwards, The Third Part of Gangraena, p. 105.

605 Id., pp. 76–77.

606 XIV Articles of Treason, p. 4.

607 A Letter from Mercurius Civicus to Mercurius Rusticus (Oxford, 1643), pp. 6–8.

608 Sir William Dugdale, A Short View of the Late Troubles (Oxford, 1681), p. 566.

609 Id., pp. 72–73.

610 Letter from Mercurius Civicus to Mercurius Rusticus, p. 13.

611 Reliquiae Baxterianae, p. 34. The truth of the charge is well demonstrated by the action of parliament on August 9, 1643, in ordering the divines of the Westminster Assembly who resided in the Associated Counties to go home and “stir up the People … to rise for their Defense.” C. J., iii. 199.

612 Firth and Rait, Acts and Ordinances, i. 220–221.

613 Deposition of Hugh Squier, New Eng. Hist. Gen. Reg., xxxviii. 414.

614 Clarendon Papers (Bodleian), 16109.22, fol. 128. The instructions are reprinted in full in New Eng. Hist. Gen. Reg., xxxix. 372.

615 Certain Informations, No. 47, December 4–11, 1643, p. 370; L. J., vii. 154a, 155a.

616 Memoirs of Edmund Ludlow (London, 1751), p. 368.

617 L. J., x. 135–154; Rushworth, Historical Collections, vii. 963; C. J., iii. 531, 570; iv. 8.

618 “… I haue very strong thoughts to speake with the Duitch Governor, & lay some way there.… Why should wee not make some league with them? who are very probable to bee more then ordinary good or bad neighbors.” Hugh Peter to Governor Winthrop, 4 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., vii. 200–201.

619 Documents Relative to the Colonial History of New York, i. 567–568; see also id., ii. 150–151; “Afschriften der Depêches,” Add. MSS. 17677 W, fols. 5–6 (British Museum).

620 History of the State of New York, ii. 50–51.

621 Documents Relative to the Colonial History of New York, i. 564–566; ii. 135; “Afschriften der Depêches,” Add. MSS. 17677 W, fols. 7–12.

622 Charles H. Firth, Oliver Cromwell and the Rule of the Puritans in England, pp. 312–313. 371–373.

623 Id., p. 371.

624 Winthrop, Journal, ii. 33; History of the State of New York, ii. 47. In 1644, when trouble with the Dutch was renewed with considerable heat, Edward Winslow suggested that the colonies commission Hugh Peter again to deal with the Dutch, but evidently nothing came of the suggestion. Cf. Winslow to John Winthrop, August 6, 1644, New Eng. Hist. Gen. Reg., xxix. 237.

625 Firth and Rait, Acts and Ordinances, i. 331–333. The ordinance was passed November 2, 1643.

626 Id.; see also Winthrop, Journal, ii. 163.

627 Id., pp. 186–187, 290–295; Beer, Origins of the British Colonial System, pp. 347–348.

628 Beer, Origins of the British Colonial System, pp. 329–330, 349 n; Andrews, British Committees, pp. 18–23.

629 As Hugh Peter was in Holland from before the time of the Warwick Committee’s appointment until the following March (1644), he could have had no part in the negotiations for the Narragansett charter.

630 For a description of the troubles between the Bay Colony on the one hand and the Narragansett Indians, the Gortonists, and the Williamsites on the other, see John G. Palfrey, History of New England (Boston, 1860), ii. 112–140.

631 Winthrop, Journal, ii. 53–54; Palfrey, History of New England, ii. 116–117.

632 Winthrop, Journal, ii. 81; Palfrey, History of New England, ii. 120–121.

633 See the dispute over this point between Charles Deane and Colonel Aspinwall in 1 Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc., v. 39–41, 399–406; vi. 41–77. A careful reading of the ordinance creating the Warwick Commission shows that ten names were necessary. See also Herbert L. Osgood, The American Colonies in the Seventeenth Century, i. 354.

634 Cf. Records of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, i. 143–146; Collections of the Rhode Island Historical Society, iv. 221–225.

635 Mass. Records, iii. 49; Roger Williams to Major Mason, 1 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., i. 275–293; Thomas Aspinwall, “The Narragansett Patent,” 1 Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc., vi. 41–77.

636 Parliament rewarded Peter with £100 and “a Study of Books, to that Value”; the books were the remains of Archbishop Laud’s library. Cf. C. J., iii. 421, 469, 544; L. J., vi. 458b, 476b, 499b. Thomas Shepard attempted—without success, it appears—to obtain the books from Peter for Harvard College. Cf. Shepard to Peter, December 27, 1645, American Historical Review, iv. 105–107.

637 Endecott to Winthrop, April 22, 1644, 4 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., vi. 147.

638 Thomas Edwards (The Second Part of Gangraena, London, 1646, p. 84) chid Weld and Peter for their delay. Master Weld halts, wrote Edwards, “between Giles Cripplegate and New England, between Master Walker and the money for the poore childrens sending over to New England.…” See also id., pp. 289–290.

639 4 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., vi. 108.

640 Mass. Records, ii. 138.

641 Winthrop, Journal, ii. 222.

642 Mass. Records, iii. 48. Evidently William Hibbins, who had returned to England temporarily, was also associated with Pocock and his colleagues. Cf. id., ii. 185.

643 Mass. Archives, cvi. 4a; Mass. Records, ii. 137.

644 From the agents’ viewpoint this would have been impossible; parliament granted for a specific purpose the right to collect the money and the license to transport the children, and the funds could not have been applied for another design in England without grave risk of scandal.

645 Giles Firmin expresses the attitude of Massachusetts in a letter from England to John Winthrop, July 1, 1646: “Mr. Peters hath done very much service since hither hee came. I could wish hee did not too much countenance the Opinionists, which wee did so cast out in N. England. I know he abhorrs them in his heart, but hee hath many hang vpon him, bejng a man of such vse.” 4 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., vii. 276–277. Thomas Weld appears not actually to have advocated a policy of toleration, but he acquiesced in the system of the Independent party, of which he was a constant member.

646 For an account of this juxtaposition, see Perry Miller, Orthodoxy in Massachusetts, pp. 262–313.

647 See note 5, p. 215, above.

648 For evidences of misappropriation of college moneys, see Mass. Archives, ccxl. 58; Mass. Records, ii. 70, 200, 205.

649 The money which Lady Armine granted for conversion of the natives was not applied for that purpose until 1647. Mass. Records, ii. 189.

650 At the colony’s order, Weld, Peter, and Hibbins purchased (in 1642) cloth to the value £150 from Pocock and engaged to pay for it in six months. The colony sold the goods at a profit but neglected to reimburse Pocock. Peter and Weld paid £100 out of money that they collected in England, but the remaining £50 went unpaid until 1656, much to Pocock’s irritation. See his letter to Thomas Weld, London, April 1, 1646, Mass. Archives, iii. 4; to Hugh Peter, London, May 26, 1651, id., c. 34. See also Mass. Records, ii. 82, 262; iii. 144, 247–248, 255, 291; iv. 66; Mass. Archives, iii. 160, 325, 366; c. 35a, 50.

651 Thomas Weld, “Innocency Cleared,” Rawlinson MSS., c. 934, fol. 26b (New Eng. Hist. Gen. Reg., xxxvx. 64–70).

652 Osgood, American Colonies in the Seventeenth Century, i. 423.

653 Mass. Records, ii. 141–144.

654 Edwards urged with great vehemence that Hugh Peter be called to account for the money embezzled from the poor children’s fund and from the other begging enterprises. Cf. The First Part of Gangraena (3d ed., London, 1646), pp. 40–42; The Second Part, pp. 84, 289–290.

655 See the act creating the Society for Promoting the Gospel in New England (the so-called New England Company) in Firth and Rait, Acts and Ordinances, ii. 197 ff.

656 “Records of the United Colonies of New England,” Records of the Colony of New Plymouth, ix. 192; Ebenezer Hazard, Historical Collections, ii. 174–177.

657 “Wee are begging all England ouer for N. E. Wee hope it may come to some thing.” Hugh Peter to John Winthrop, Jr., July 17, 1649, 4 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., vi. 113. As will be seen below, by the next year Peter’s attitude was altered.

658 Steele to the Commissioners of the United Colonies, April 7, 1651, Plymouth Colony Records, ix. 193; Hazard, Historical Collections, ii. 175.

659 Commissioners of the United Colonies to the New England Company, New Haven, September 10, 1651, Plymouth Colony Records, ix. 195; Hazard, Historical Collections, ii. 177–178.

660 Mass. Records, ii. 162; iii. 79; Ezekiel Rogers to John Winthrop, Sr., on Weld’s behalf, November 9, 1647, 3 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., i. 26–27; Weld to Winthrop, 1648, 5 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., i. 365–367; Weld’s earlier accounts (1645) were probably those referred to as among the elder John Winthrop’s papers in 1649, but they have since been lost. Cf. Mass. Records, iii. 179.

661 Mass. Archives, lviii. 3–6; Publications of this Society, xiv. 121–126. Weld evidently sent another copy of his report, dated April 21, 1647, which was attested and signed by “Natha: Duncan Aud^r” and returned to him. This is probably the copy in Rawlinson MSS., c. 934, fols. 19–21, with other papers of Weld. The second copy is published in New Eng. Hist. Gen. Reg., xxxix. 179–182. It checks exactly with the copy in the Massachusetts Archives except in the matter of the date, and that is only eleven days later.

662 See the copy in the Massachusetts Archives, reprinted in the Publications of this Society, xiv. 123–126. The copy sent to England has not been discovered.

663 Thomas Weld to William Steele, Gateshead, January 2, 1649/50, Rawlinson MSS., c. 934, fols. 5–6 (New Eng. Hist. Gen. Reg., xxxvi. 62–64).

664 Id.

665 The MS. copy is in Rawlinson MSS., c. 934, fols. 26–30; it is printed inaccurately in New Eng. Hist. Gen. Reg., xxxvi. 64–70.

666 This is further proof that the attacks against the agents in England were of Presbyterian origin.

667 Weld, “Innocency Cleared,” Rawlinson MSS., c. 934, fols. 26–27 (New Eng. Hist. Gen. Reg., xxxix. 65).

668 Id., p. 70.

669 Letter from the New England Company to the Commissioners of the United Colonies, London, February 18, 1653/4, Hutchinson Papers (Prince Society Publications), i. 287; Hazard, Historical Collections, ii. 311–312; Plymouth Colony Records, x. 118.

670 See William Steele’s letter to the Governor and General Court of Massachusetts, London, February 14, 1653/4, chiding the colony for causing these dissensions in the Confederation. Mass. Archives, x. 202–204; Plymouth Colony Records, x. 431–433.

671 Id.

672 Plymouth Colony Records, x. 432–433.

673 Id., p. 160; Hazard, Historical Collections, ii. 424.

674 Mass. Records, ii. 189; iii. 106.

675 Hutchinson Papers, i. 287–290; Hazard, Historical Collections, ii. 311–312; Plymouth Colony Records, x. 118.

676 See his letter to John Winthrop, Jr., July 17, 1649, 4 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., vi. 113.

677 See these and later pamphlets published to further the work of Indian conversion, 3 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., iv. 1 ff. In a letter to John Winthrop, Jr., in 1654, Peter wrote: “Here is 900l per annum for the Indians, I wish it were imployed for the English poore there.” 4 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., vi. 115–116.

678 Hutchinson Papers, i. 288; Plymouth Colony Records, x. 118; Hazard, Historical Collections, ii. 311–312.

679 Hutchinson Papers, i. 291.

680 George P. Winship, The New England Company of 1649 and John Eliot (Prince Society Publications), p. 17.

681 Id.

682 “… pd. Mr Weld, old debt—£0061 18 7.” Mass. Archives, c. 50.

683 Peter to John Winthrop, Jr., June 4, 1654, 4 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., vi. 114–115.

684 Edwards, First Part of Gangraena, p. 53.

685 They did not even consider him the fountainhead of their thought, but regarded him as one among many “judicious” divines. To an English correspondent who asked if Calvin had not definitely settled a certain point, Thomas Shepard replied: “I have forgot what he hath wrote and myself have read long since out of him” (Works, John Albro, editor, Boston, 1853, i. 326). Thomas Hooker did not hesitate to point out in a sermon that Calvin “casts a different construction” upon some words of Scripture, and to insist upon his own interpretation (A Comment Upon Christs Last Prayer in the Seventeenth of John, London, 1656, p. 157).

686 Institutes, iii. xxi, 2.

687 John Preston, Life Eternall, or, A Treatise of the Knowledge of the Divine Essence and Attributes (London, 1631), p. 94.

688 John preston, The New Covenant, or the Saints Portion (London, 1629), p. 503.

689 Id., p. 111.

690 The Marrow of Sacred Divinity (London, 1643), p. 11.

691 Id., p. 191.

692 Works (Cambridge, 1626), p. 278.

693 Works, i. 14.

694 Marrow, A₃ verso.

695 Institutes, iii. xxiii, 12.

696 Id., ii. ii, 1.

697 Works, p. 21.

698 Marrow, p. 198.

699 Institutes, iii. xxi, 1.

700 Marrow, p. 131.

701 Id., p. 118.

702 Institutes, i. iii–vi.

703 Marrow, p. 24.

704 Id., p. 2.

705 Marrow, p. 1.

706 Id., p. 117.

707 Preston, New Covenant, p. 556.

708 Shepard, Works, i. 329.

709 Shepard, Works, ii. 283.

710 Works, pp. 107–112.

711 The Holy State, Bk. ii, Chap. x.

712 Cf. “A Graine of Mustard Seed,” Works, pp. 637 ff.; “A Treatise Tending unto a Declaration Whether a man be in the estate of damnation,” id., pp. 356 ff.; “A Case of Conscience,” id., pp. 423 ff.

713 Works, p. 32.

714 Orthodoxy in Massachusetts, chap. vi.

715 Marrow, pp. 101–103.

716 Life Eternall, p. A6 recto.

717 New Covenant, p. 317.

718 Miller, Orthodoxy in Massachusetts, pp. 73–102.

719 Works (Alexander B. Grossart, editor, Edinburgh, 1862), i. 100; for interconnections of the group, see Grossart’s introduction, id., i, passim.

720 I should by no means wish to contend that Perkins, Ames, and Preston were the sole authors of the theory of the covenant. While these Englishmen were in the vanguard of the movement, they were probably not so much leaders of thought as indications of a spontaneous evolution among Calvinists of the period, brought about by the necessities I have outlined. There seems to have been a group of theologians in Germany in the late sixteenth century who used the idea, though there is no evidence that they had any influence in England. Sibbes could write as early as 1623, on the supposition that the reader was already familiar with the covenant doctrine: “It supposeth a reader grounded in the knowledge of the nature and properties of God, of Christ and his offices, of the covenant of grace, and such like” (Preface to Ezekiel Culverwell, Treatise of Faith). The Covenant of Grace was, of course, an old catchword in theology, which is legitimately derived from its frequent mention in the Bible. It had served to characterize the general scheme of redemption; more concretely, it had been used to signify an agreement of a sort with God, entered into by believers at their baptism. Richard Hooker had employed it as both Anglican and Puritan in the sixteenth century would probably have understood it when he said that baptism implied “a covenant or league between God and man,” wherein God bestows remission of sins, “binding also himself to add in process of time” sufficient grace for the attainment of life hereafter (Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, v. lxiv, 4). But though Hooker calls it a league and speaks of the covenant as God’s “binding” Himself, he does not stress the contractual nature of the agreement. The special quality of the Puritan emphasis upon the covenant does not, so far as I can tell, seem to derive from historic theology at all. Instead, in the background of Preston’s thought, lies the common-law conception of the covenant, the idea of a formal agreement of legal validity, a promise or contract under seal. Whether this school took the notion from the law consciously or unconsciously I cannot yet say, though I suspect that they knew what they were doing. A later English writer on the covenant, who constantly cites Ames, Preston, and Cotton for his authorities, explicitly acknowledges the influence of the law. He declares that “our Lawyers … have given us Presidents” for defining a covenant; and in countering the attack of an opponent he says: “We will referre it to the Common Law, whether this way of reasoning will hold or no” (Thomas Blake, Vindiciae Foederis, London, 1653, pp. 38, 377). It is enough to remember that the Puritans, in their controversy with the Crown, were steeped in the law, and it is no wonder that sooner or later they should be found busily reinterpreting theology in accordance with legal habits of thought. Hence it is quite plausible that many Puritans of the first decades of the seventeenth century should begin simultaneously to seize upon the idea of covenant and to stress it in their accounts of Calvinistic theology. William Ames taught the elements of the doctrine at Franeker. Among his students was a Dutchman known to history as Cocceius, who became the founder of a school which took the covenant as its central doctrine, and which, throughout the seventeenth century, disturbed the theological peace of Holland almost as much as did the Arminians. Without dwelling too long upon the fascinating history of the idea, we may sum up the situation in some such fashion as this: from its inception in England, as illustrated in the work of Perkins and Preston, the doctrine had a sort of triple life—in England it continued to be preached by various theologians, particularly by the Independents; in Holland it became the particular doctrine of a faction denominated in histories of theology as the Cocceian, or the Covenant, or the Federal School; and in New England it became a fundamental tenet, a doctrine that completely modified what otherwise would be called Calvinism, and became the starting point for many intellectual developments, not only theological, but also ecclesiastical, political, and philosophical. The chief seventeenth-century English documents on the subject, in addition to the works of Perkins, Ames, Preston, and Sibbes, are, chronologically: John Downame, The Christian Warfare, 1604, 1611; [Anon.], The Covenant between God and man plainly declared, 1616; George Downame, The Covenant of Grace, 1631; John Ball, A Treatise of Faith, 1631; Tobias Crisp, Christ Alone Exalted, 1643; James Ussher, A Body of Divinity, 1645; John Ball, A Treatise of the Covenant of Grace, 1645; Thomas Blake, Vindiciae Foederis, 1653, The Covenant Sealed, 1655; Edward Leigh, A System or Body of Divinity, 1654, A Treatise of Religion and Learning, 1656; William Allen, Discourse on the Nature, Ends and Differences of the Two Covenants, 1673 (preface by Richard Baxter); John Owen, The Doctrine of justification by Faith, 1677; William Strong, Discourse of the Two Covenants, 1678; Daniel Williams, Gospel Truth Stated and Vindicated, 1692. The Westminster Confession has some features of the doctrine rather covertly introduced, which fact helps to explain why it could be adopted without reservation by the Cambridge Synod in 1648. In the last half of the seventeenth century the covenant doctrine replaced other forms of Calvinism among English Calvinists, until in the eighteenth century all Calvinists—Ridgely, Doddridge, Watts—are nothing but Federalists. Though the idea and philosophy of the covenant run through almost the entire output of the first generation of New England authors, the principal works devoted to it are: Peter Bulkley, The Gospel-Covenant, 2nd ed., 1651; Thomas Cobbett, A Just Vindication of the Covenant, 1648; John Cotton, The Covenant of God’s Free Grace, 1645, The Grounds and Ends of the Baptisme of the Children of the Faithfull, 1647, Of the Holinesse of Church-Members, 1650, The New Covenant, 1654, A Treatise of the Covenant of Grace, 1659; John Davenport, The Power of Congregational Churches, 1672; George Phillips, A Reply to a Confutation, 1645; Thomas Shepard, The Sincere Convert, 1640, The Sound Beleever, 1645, The Church-Membership of Children, 1663. No one work of Thomas Hooker is especially devoted to the covenant, but the theory recurs in all his sermons, and he gives it even more prominence than do the other divines.

721 New Covenant, p. 351.

722 The Gospel-Covenant, or the Covenant of Grace Opened (2nd ed., London, 1651), p. 27.

723 New Covenant, p. 38; the innovation of this theology upon the theology of Calvin becomes apparent when its interpretation of Biblical texts is compared with his. Calvin, for instance, finds no such proposal of terms in Genesis, xvii, but only a statement of the permanence of God’s promises (Institutes, ii. viii, 21; x, 9) or the institution of the sacraments of circumcision and baptism (id., iv. xvi, 3; xvii, 21–22).

724 Sibbes, Works, i. civ.

725 John Cotton, Christ the Fountaine of Life (London, 1651), p. 35.

726 Bulkley, Gospel-Covenant, p. 86.

727 Id., p. 133 (cf. id., pp. 38, 112–113, 120); Preston, New Covenant, pp. 352–353, 357; Hooker, The Saintes Dignitie (London, 1651), p. 104; Cotton, The Grounds and Ends of the Baptisme of the Children of the Faithfull (London, 1647), p. 38; Shepard, Works, iii. 521.

728 Cotton, Grounds and Ends, p. 32.

729 Bulkley, Gospel-Covenant, p. 47; cf. p. 28.

730 New Couenant, p. 316.

731 Bulkley, Gospel-Covenant, p. 276.

732 Id., p. 314.

733 The Way of Life (London, 1641), p. 415. Cf. Hooker, The Application of Redemption (London, 1659): “Its Gods usual way so to deal not that he is tyed … to this manner of dealing upon necessity, but that he hath expressed it to be his good pleasure so to dispense himself” (p. 337).

734 Preston, New Covenant, pp. 330–331.

735 Id., p. 364.

736 Id., p. 105.

737 Works, vi. 6.

738 Preface to Bulkley, Gospel-Covenant, p. B1 recto. Bulkley, in the text of this volume, finds God committed by His covenant not only to mercy, but to insuring both the success of the Massachusetts Commonwealth—“The Lords end in taking us into covenant with himself, is to make us a happy and blessed people.…” (p. 194)—and the material prosperity of individuals within the covenant: “for any one to say, I feare I am none of Gods people, because I prosper in the world, is all one as if he should say, I feare the Lord intends me no good, because he makes good unto me the blessings which he hath promised in his Covenant” (p. 299). Cf. John Ball, A Treatise of Faith (London, 1632), pp. 63–64, 351, 363; Thomas Cobbett, A Just Vindication of the Covenant (London, 1648), p. 40.

739 Preface to Bulkley, Gospel-Covenant, p. B1 recto.

740 Preston, New Covenant, p. 321.

741 Shepard, Preface to Bulkley, Gospel-Covenant, p. B2 verso.

742 Preston, New Covenant, p. 32.

743 A Treatise of the Covenant of Grace (3rd ed., London, 1671), p. 6.

744 Shepard, Works, iii. 31–37; it should be noted that by “reason” Shepard carefully points out that he does not mean reason as it is corrupted by sin, but “right” reason. However, he can pronounce with perfect certainty the rules of right reason by which to test the rationality and so the validity of a moral law (pp. 37–41).

745 Id., p. 42.

746 Hooker, Christs Last Prayer, p. 422.

747 Consequently the Federal theologians of Holland were among the earliest adherents of Descartes.

748 New Covenant, p. 46.

749 Sibbes, Works, i. 204–205.

750 Cotton, Christ the Fountaine, p. 33. On another occasion Cotton paraphrases “the Philosopher” to this effect: “Miracula sine necessitate sunt multiplicanda” (Way of the Congregational Churches Cleared, London, 1648, pt. i. 42); though the providence of God is not always predictable, yet “there is a settled order and constancy in that instability, as there is in the motions of the Heavens and heavenly bodies” (Briefe Exposition upon the Whole Book of Ecclesiastes (London, 1654, p. 66).

751 Sibbes, Works, i. 225.

752 Marrow, pp. 40–41.

753 The New Creature (London, 1633), p. 97.

754 Life Eternall, p. 33.

755 Sibbes, Works, i. 197.

756 Preston, New Covenant, p. 118.

757 Hooker, The Soules Exaltation (London, 1638), pp. 27–28.

758 Hooker, The Soules Humiliation (London, 1638), pp. 59–60.

759 Christ the Fountaine, p. 174.

760 Marrow, p. 170; probably as a result of his teaching, Cocceius particularly stressed the evolutionary theory, and in Holland more energies were devoted to this aspect of the doctrine than in New England.

761 Id., pp. 38–42, 170 ff.; cf. Sibbes, Works, vi. 4.

762 Gospel-Cavenant, p. 118.

763 Hooker, Saintes Dignitie, p. 105.

764 Life Eternall, p. 57.

765 New Covenant, p. 155.

766 Id., p. 446.

767 Life Eternall, p. 55; he instances Alexander Polyhistor, Josephus, Cyril, “Chaldee Historians,” Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, Xenophon, “The Tables of Ptolomy, lately found.” Cf. George Phillips, A Reply to a Confutation (London, 1645): “The Argument from humane authority is as easily rejected as propounded, though otherwise much good use may be made of their writing” (p. 119).

768 Thomas Hutchinson, A Collection of Original Papers Relative to the History of Massachusetts Bay (Prince Society Publications), i. 79 ff.

769 A Survey of the Summe of Church Discipline (London, 1648), pt. i, pp. 50, 79, C3 recto.

770 Preston, New Covenant, p. 390.

771 Preston, Life Eternall, pt. ii, p. 84.

772 Bulkley, Gospel-Covenant, pp. 323–324.

773 Soules Exaltation, p. 8.

774 The Covenant of Gods Free Grace (London, 1645), p. 18.

775 Gospel-Covenant, p. 321.

776 Preston, New Creature, p. 23.

777 Preston, New Covenant, p. 477.

778 Cotton, Christ the Fountaine, p.32.

779 Cotton, The Covenant of Gods Free Grace, p. 18.

780 New Creature, p. 23.

781 Bulkley, Gospel-Covenant, p. 182.

782 Works, i. 266.

783 Id., p. 137.

784 Works, vi. 24–25.

785 Marrow, pp. 56–57, 60–61, 63, 219.

786 Life Eternall, p. A7 recto.

787 Id., p. 15.

788 The Saints Qualification (London, 1633), p. 129.

789 Id., p. 222. How far the covenant thought had strayed from pristine Calvinism is nowhere better illustrated than in the contrast between Preston and Calvin on this very question of the “remains.” What Preston says every man can know by nature Calvin says has at best been barely guessed by only the wisest of philosophers, and even their glimmerings are of no value, because they are overwhelmed in a mountain of falsehoods. “Human reason, then, neither approaches, nor teaches, nor directs its views toward this truth, to understand who is the true God, or in what character he will manifest himself to us” (Institutes, ii. ii, 18). Calvin does grant that in secular realms—civil polity, domestic economy, mechanical arts, and liberal sciences—reason is capable of discovering good principles. But his explanation for this ability indicates the immense gulf between his thought and Preston’s: the achievements of reason in any of these respects result from the talents possessed by occasional individuals, and these are temporary gifts bestowed here and there by God, not instances of an inherent ability still remaining in the soul (id., ii. ii, 12–17). Calvin is arguing for the utter incapacity of nature, relieved by occasional grants of power bestowed at the mere pleasure of an arbitrary sovereign. Preston is arguing for an innate and universal capacity in nature to achieve some good things in and by itself, even though the capacity is imperfect and cannot reach to the attainment of salvation. Cf. Hooker, Application of Redemption (p. 142): “The Lord hath left in thee the remainder of many natural abilities, hath lent thee the help of many common Gifts and Graces, which by Art and Education have grown to some ripeness.” Hooker goes as far as to assert that in the human will, considering it “merely as it ariseth from the power of those natural principles whereof its made,” there exist certain principles “which were at the first imprinted upon it,” and which naturally incline it “to close with God …” (id., p. 369).

790 The Cuppe of Blessing (London, 1633), p. 10. Cf. Calvin: “Are all our industry, perspicacity, understanding and care so depraved, that we cannot conceive or meditate anything that is right in the sight of God? … In the estimation of the Holy Spirit … such a representation is consistent with the strictest truth” (Institutes, ii. ii, 25).

791 Cuppe of Blessing, pp. 12–13.

792 Preston, New Covenant, p. 565.

793 Works, i. 409.

794 Survey, pt. i, p. 44.

795 Works, iii. 177. Cf. Cotton, A Practical Commentary upon the First Epistle Generall of John (London, 1656): “Though the Law of Nature was more dimly and darkly known, Moses Law was but a new draught of the Law of Nature in innocency. Heathen law givers, Philosophers, and Poets have expressed the effect of all the commandements save the tenth” (p. 234).

796 Preston, Saints Qualification, p. 130.

797 Id., p. 182.

798 Preston, Life Eternall, pp. 4–5.

799 Preston, Life Eternall, p. 15.

800 Shepard, Works, i. 10.

801 Id., iii. 178. The best revelation of the Puritan attitude toward the study of natural science that I have been able to discover among the writings of early New Englanders occurs in John Cotton’s Gods Mercie Mixed with His Iustice (London, 1641, pp. 113–134), in a discourse on the feasibility of predicting fair weather from the aspect of the sky at sunset or sunrise. He expounds the meteorological theories of the time, but reminds his listeners that these theories are utterly incapable of establishing with scientific accuracy a necessary connection between a red sky and the subsequent weather. “Every man that observes them to bee evident, yet findes them not alwaies certain: And those that are best able to discerne the reason, and the naturall causes, are not able to say, that the event hath and will alwayes follow.” This reflection leads to the conventional Puritan insistence that the providence of God rather than natural causality is to be accounted the reason for the behavior of phenomena, and Cotton declares that even if the signs were invariably followed by the correct effect, “and the reason were evident,” the whole business is not of such importance that a man should busy himself with it overmuch. He inveighs against those who spend time in the study of “philosophy” when they should be occupied with their salvation: “It is the nature of hypocrisie to bee very quick sighted in points of nature, but very dull and heavy in matters of Religion and grace.” Yet Cotton is far from intending hostility to natural science as such, for he immediately goes on to say that if nature is studied in subordination to religion, if the natural world is viewed, not as an end in itself, but as a symbol of the spirit, like “a mappe and shadow of the spiritual estate and soules of men,” there need be no inhibition upon such investigation. “It is not utterly unlawful for men to make observation of the estate of the weather, and face of the sky; our Saviour doth not reproove it in them, but onely reprooves this, in that they were better skilled in the face of the sky, and signes of the weather, then in the signes of the times … He rejects not such kind of conjectures, there is a workmanship of God in them, nor doth hee mislike the study of nature.” In this sense, Cotton can assert: “To study the nature and course, and use of all Gods works, is a duty imposed by God upon all sorts of men; from the King that sitteth upon the Throne to the Artificer” (Briefe Exposition upon Ecclesiastes, p. 23).

802 Preston, Saints Qualification, p. 152.

803 Id., p. 225. It should be noted that the idea of the Law of Nature being written in the heart sufficiently to render men inexcusable is good Calvinist doctrine (Institutes, ii. ii, 22–25); but in Calvin natural knowledge of natural law serves only this use. It is of no validity for any further regulation of life, and it is incapable of formulating an ideal of righteousness; it merely exists to make men know they have fallen short of something which they cannot even conceive.

804 Id., pp. 224–225.

805 Preston, New Covenant, p. 62.

806 Preston, New Creature, p. 129.

807 Id., pp. 95–96.

808 Soules Exaltation, p. 29.

809 Preston, Life Eternall, p. 21.

810 Preston, Life Eternall, pp. 46–47.

811 Preston, Cuppe of Blessing, p. 13.

812 Shepard, Works, iii. 96–97.

813 Hooker, Application of Redemption, p. 556.

814 There is no suspicion of the legal imputation theory in Calvin; cf. Institutes, ii. i, 7–8.

815 Marrow, p. 67.

816 Preston, New Creature, p. 19.

817 Saintes Dignitie, p. 29.

818 Works, i. 344.

819 The entire direction of this argument—the enlarging of natural abilities to provide a fulcrum for the lever of moral incitement—had been condemned by Calvin in so many words. He held that all the Fathers except Augustine committed precisely this error for the same reason. They attributed to the reasoning faculty more power toward the pursuit of virtue than was proper, because otherwise “they supposed it impossible to awaken our innate torpor” (Institutes, ii. ii, 4). From the heights of spiritual intensity upon which Calvin dwelt, he could afford to spurn all such devices for the coddling of faith.

820 Cotton, Way of Life, p. 229.

821 Preston, New Covenant, p. 102.

822 Hooker, Saintes Dignitie, pp. 4–5.

823 Cotton, Covenant of Gods Free Grace, p. 12.

824 Preston, A Sermon Preached at A Generali Fast Before the Commons-House of Parliament (London, 1633), p. 281.

825 Cotton, Way of Life, pp. 347–348.

826 Shepard, Works, iii. 128. It was in the tangle of this argument that Mrs. Hutchinson tripped and fell, and consequently denounced the law and works and called upon the regenerate to live by grace alone. And it was by the doctrine of the covenant that she was found in error and excommunicated by the Church of Boston: “If any therefore accuse the Doctrine of the Covenant of free grace, of Antinomianisme.… and if they commit any sin, they plead they are not bound unto the Law … The children of the Covenant of grace will onely tell you, that they are free from the Covenant of the Law, but not from the Commandment of it” (Cotton, The New Covenant, pp. 134–135).

827 How strained the reasoning became at this point to distinguish the conditional covenant from Arminianism is illustrated by the argument of Peter Bulkley:

“The grace of the Covenant is free notwithstanding the condition, because we doe not put any condition as antecedent to the Covenant on Gods part, whereby to induce and move the Lord to enter in Covenant with us, as if there were any thing supposed in us, which might invite and draw him to take us into Covenant with himselfe; but onely we suppose a condition antecedent to the promise of life, which condition we are to observe and walke in; and in the observation thereof to expect the blessing of life which the Covenant promiseth” (Gospel-Covenant, p. 383).

The difference between the Federal theory and Arminianism, therefore, hinges upon the fact that in the covenant theory good works are not the cause, but the accompaniment of salvation. In the twentieth century, when theology has become a wearisome desert, this difference may seem to be a mere quibble over words, but to the first generation in New England it involved the fundamental problems of philosophy and of life: “Where we finde the promise of life made unto good workes, wee must not looke at them as workes of the Law, but as workes and fruits of Faith … These kind of promises … are … not casuall, but declarative, making manifest who be those true believers … In these promises workes are not set as the causes of our salvation, but as evidences and signes of those that do believe unto life” (id., p. 384).

828 Works, vi. 8.

829 Preface to Bulkley, Gospel-Covenant, p. A2 verso.

830 Bulkley, Gospel-Covenant, p. 315.

831 Cotton, Covenant of Gods Free Grace, pp. 19–20.

832 Preston, New Covenant, pp. 434–435.

833 Works, ii. 31.

834 Preston, Saints Qualification, p. 223.

835 Hooker, “The Poore Doubting Christian,” in The Saints Cordials (London, 1629), p. 361.

836 Hooker, Saintes Dignitie, pp. 82–83.

837 The Soules Implantation (London, 1637), p. 77.

838 In many passages describing the extent to which an unregenerate man may go in the work of preparation, some of these writers passed beyond any limits that could be reconciled with Calvinism. In New England clearly the most extreme was Thomas Hooker, who with great eloquence magnified the possibilities of a man’s producing in himself the receptive frame of mind, bringing himself to be “willingly content that Jesus Christ should come into it” (Soules Implantation, p. 34), and dared to assert that he who could force himself to the point of readiness would certainly receive grace in time. “It is onely in the way to be ingrafted into Christ; but so that undoubtedly that soule which hath this worke upon it, shall have faith poured into it” (Soules Preparation, London, 1632, p. 155). “If ever you thinke to share in the salvation that Christ hath purchased … if you would have him dwell with you, and doe good to you, either prepare for him, or else never expect him … Christ is marvellous ready to come, only he watcheth the time till your heart be ready to receive and entertaine him … If the soule be broken and humbled, he will come presently” (Soules Implantation, p. 47). It is probably significant, therefore, that John Cotton’s regard for consistency was more circumspect, and though he, no less than Hooker, argued that unregenerate man was responsible for his own state, he could not admit that before some experience of faith a man could undertake even to put himself in readiness: “for our first union, there are no steps unto the Altar” (New Covenant, p. 54). “There is no promise of life made to those that wait & seek in their own strength, who being driven to it, have taken it up by their own resolutions” (id., pp. 196–197). Yet even in denying the possibilities of natural preparation, Cotton prefaces his remarks: “Reserving due honour to such gracious and precious Saints as may be otherwise minded” (Treatise of the Covenant of Grace, p. 35). Under the circumstances this may very possibly be a reference to Hooker, and the difference of opinion between Hooker and Cotton on this important issue may throw some light upon the reasons why Hooker led the migration to Connecticut rather than remain in Massachusetts where Cotton had become installed as the principal interpreter of dogma. However, Thomas Shepard was in agreement with Hooker, and his Sincere Convert was attacked by Giles Firmin for demanding too much of natural man before grace (Shepard, Works, i. clxxxvi; cf. id., i. 160–163, 173; iii. 308).

839 Shepard, Works, ii. 57.

840 Hooker, The Christians Two Chiefe Lessons (London, 1640), p. 64.

841 Shepard, Works, ii. 224.

842 Bulkley, Gospel-Covenant, p. 313.

843 Id., p. 316; cf. pt. iv, passim.

844 Preston, New Creature, pp. 30–31.

845 The Saints Daily Exercise (London, 1630), p. 35.

846 Works, i. 199.

847 Way of Life, pp. 11–12.

848 Winthrop, Journal (Hosmer ed.), ii. 239.

849 Survey, pt. i, p. 50.

850 Cotton, New Covenant, p. 34.

851 Gospel-Covenant, p. 346.

852 Id., pp. 219–220. There can hardly be any doubt that the development of the covenant theology is in some fashion connected with the amplification of the social compact engineered by the lawyers and parliamentarians with whom the Puritans were associated in the struggle with the Crown. It is impossible to tell, without further research in the lives of such men as Preston and Sibbes and their associates, whether the political theory was the father of the theology, or the theology of the theory. It is clear, however, that the two ideas were developed pari passu. Certainly, in expounding the theological covenant the writers were constantly illustrating it by the analogy of the political, once more revealing the extremely legalistic cast of their minds.

“The Covenant which passeth betwixt God and us, is like that which passeth between a King and his people; the King promiseth to rule and govern in mercy and righteousnesse; and they againe promise to obey in loyalty and faithfulnesse.…” (id., pp. 345–346). “Such a covenant there is usually in all well governed Common-wealths, unlesse the King comes in by way of Conquest and Tyranny, but in well settled Commonwealths, there is a Covenant and Oath between Prince and People” (Cotton, Christ the Fountaine, p. 34). From the political point of view this theology was a strategic assistance to parliament; it made God a constitutional monarch, so that James and Charles might feel no indignity in becoming such a ruler as well.

853 Hooker, Survey, pt. i, p. 69.

854 Hooker, Survey, pt. i, p. 78.

855 Cotton, Covenant of Gods Free Grace, p. 22.

856 Cotton, Way of Life, p. 357.

857 Works (Reginald Heber, editor, London, 1851), ix. 67.

858 Id., pp. 67–68.

859 Cotton, Way of Life, p. 113.

860 Id., p. 477.

861 Preston, Life Eternall, pp. 100–102.

862 Preston, Life Eternall, pp. 68–69.

863 Works, iii. 35.

864 Christs Last Prayer, p. 110.

865 Printed in Hermann F. Clarke and Henry W. Foote, Jeremiah Dummer, Colonial Craftsman and Merchant, pp. 101–127.

866 Sewall’s Diary contains references earlier than those found in the official records— March 8, 1685/6: “Mr. [Samuel] Nowell begun with Prayer, and I, by mere accident being left, was fain to conclude” (5 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., v. 125); March 14, 1686/87: “Capt. [William] Gerrish [the moderator] begun and ended with Prayer (id., p. 170); May 21, 1688: “No Prayer” (id., p. 214).

867 The invitations are in the selectmen’s minutes. The other records, which show that the minister in question actually did officiate, appear in the minutes of the town meetings.

868 Eliphalet Adams was an assistant to Benjamin Colman, August, 1701–February, 1704.

869 The selectmen voted, May 2, 1771, to invite Andrew Eliot.

870 The selectmen voted, May 7, 1746, to invite William Hooper.

871 The selectmen voted, April 27, 1739, to invite Joshua Gee.

872 The selectmen voted, April 27, 1745, to invite Thomas Foxcroft.

873 The town clerk did not indicate which Samuel Checkley it was in 1753 and 1765. Samuel Checkley, Sr., ordained November 22, 1719, died December 1, 1769; Samuel Checkley, Jr., ordained September 3, 1747, died March 19, 1768.

874 5 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., vi. 9.

875 Id., p. 303.

876 The selectmen voted, March 5, 1772, to invite John Lathrop.

877 5 Col. Mass. Hist. Soc., v. 474.

878 Id., vi. 275.

879 Id., p. 254.

880 The selectmen voted, June 1, 1764, to invite Samuel Checkley, Jr.

881 Id., p. 309.

882 The selectmen voted, March 24, 1786, to invite Samuel Stillman to offer a prayer at the meeting of April 1, 1786. The records do not indicate whether he accepted the invitation.

From 1638 until 1770, the ministers who preached the election sermons of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company were Congregationalists. This tradition was broken in 1770 by Samuel Stillman.

883 Samuel Parker, rector of Trinity Church, offered the prayer at the meeting of April 7, 1788, being the first of his denomination to do so. He was also the first Episcopalian to preach an election sermon (1791).

884 Tucker and Gilbert were two of his shipmates.

885 Travels and Works of Captain John Smith, Edward Arber and A. G. Bradley, editors, i. 6.

886 “The two and twentieth day of August, there died Captaine Bartholomew Gosnold, one of our Councell: he was honourably buried, hauing all the Ordnance in the Fort shot off, with many vollies of small shot.” “Observations Gathered out of A Discourse of the Plantation of the Southerne Colonie of Virginia,” id., p. lxxi.

887 Cf., in addition to the quotation from Percy, Wingfield’s “A Discourse of Virginia,” id., pp. lxxv–lxxvi.

888 Id., pp. 89–90.

889 The map is reproduced in id., 11, facing p. 384.

890 “Captaine Bartholomew Gosnold, the first mover of this plantation, hauing many yeares solicited many of his friends, but found small assistants; at last prevailed with some Gentlemen, as Maister Edward maria Wingfield, Captaine John Smith, and diverse others, who depended a yeare vpon his proiects, but nothing could be effected, till by their great charge and industrie it came to be apprehended by certaine of the Nobilitie, Gentrie, and Marchants, so that his Maiestie by his letters patent, gaue commission for establishing Councels, to direct here, and to governe and to execute there.” Thomas Studley, “The Proceedings of the English Colony in Virginia.” Arber and Bradley, John Smith, i. 89–90.

891 New England Quarterly, iv. 448–459; Old-Time New England, xxiv. 135–141.

892 Forum, lxxxv. 142.

893 i. 28 (1904 ed.).

894 British Colonial Policy, 1754–1765, p. 161.

895 The Colonial Period of American History, i. 437.

896 Charles E. Banks, “Religious ‘Persecution’ as a Factor in Emigration to New England, 1630–1640,” Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc., lxiii. 136–154.

897 Democracy in America (1898 ed.), i. 15, 32.

898 Quoted by Herbert L. Osgood, The American Colonies in the Seventeenth Century, i. 276.

899 “Capitalistic and Socialistic Tendencies in the Puritan Colonies,” Annual Report of the American Historical Association, 1920, p. 235.

900 Religion and Capitalism in the Seventeenth Century, p. 113.

901 Quoted by E. A. J. Johnson, “The Economic Ideas of John Winthrop,” New England Quarterly, iii. 248.

902 Wonder-Working Providence, J. Franklin Jameson, editor, p. 35.

903 Writings and Speeches of Daniel Webster (1903 ed.), i. 211–212. See De Tocqueville’s comment on this, Democracy in America (1898 ed.), pp. 59–60.

904 For a recent discussion, see Robert B. Morris, Studies in the History of American Law, pp. 69 ff.

905 American Historical Review, xl. 217–231.

906 3 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., vii. 45.

907 See H. L. Osgood, “The Political Ideas of the Puritans,” Political Science Quarterly, vi. 1–28, 201–231; H. D. Foster, “The Political Theories of Calvinists before the Puritan Exodus to America,” American Historical Review, xxi. 481–503; and A. J. Carlyle, “The Sources of Mediaeval Political Theory and its Connection with Mediaeval Politics,” id., xix. 1–12.

908 Robert C. Winthrop, Life and Letters of John Winthrop, ii. 440.

909 William MacDonald, Select Charters Illustrative of American History, p. 73.

910 Political Science Quarterly, vi. 21.

911 Our Publications, xxviii. 67–86.

912 Clifford K. Shipton, “A Plea for Puritanism,” American Historical Review, xl. 460–467.

913 Claude H. Van Tyne, Causes of the War of Independence, p. 358.

914 Herbert Agar, The People’s Choice, pp. 34, 93.

915 C. M. Andrews, The Colonial Period, p. 67.

916 xxxiii. 34–35; xxxiv. 310–311. Mr. Henry Williams (id., xlix. 182) corrected from it a mistake made by Savage and Sibley. Mr. Williams calls the book a “Journal or Church Record.”

917 Several of these have already been printed in my Harvard College in the Seventeenth Century (i. 126–127) and in my Puritan Pronaos, pp. 47–49, 51.

918 Our Publications, xxxi. 47–48.

919 The best accounts of Seaborn Cotton’s life and pastorate are in Sibley’s Harvard Graduates, i. 286–293, and Joseph Dow, History of Hampton, N. H., i. 356–365.

920 This was a common practice of students in the seventeenth century. In an autobiographical fragment, the Hon. Robert Boyle writes: “Yet did he at idle hours write some few verses, both in French and Latin, and many copies of amorous, merry, and devout ones in English.” Thomas Birch, Robert Boyle (London, 1744), p. 31.

921 Morison, Harvard College in the Seventeenth Century, i. 115.

922 I have collated the facetiae in Cotton’s book with the 1640, 1641, and 1654 editions in the Harvard College Library, and with the cumulative reprint of 1874, entitled Facetiae, Musarum Deliciae, etc. Dr. Raymond P. Stearns kindly collated them with the 1645 and 1650 editions in the British Museum. Every one of Cotton’s nineteen extracts are found in the 1640 edition, and in the same sequence that he copies them; but several are not to be found in any of the later editions, where, moreover, the order is different. This proves that it was the 1640 edition to which Cotton had access.

923 The remaining pages start with the back of the book, reversed.

924 Continued from pp. [53–54] of the manuscript (see below, pp. 333–336), which should be read first.

925 Written over “skill” crossed out; the version in Joseph W. Ebsworth, The Roxburghe Ballads, has “skills.”

926 Three lines of the Roxburghe copy here omitted.

927 “But now I’m come too late to kiss her, which were it not in vain” (Roxburghe).

928 “Gerhard’s” (Roxburghe).

929 This unidentified poem is in handwriting A′.

930 The rest of the poem was copied at a different time.

931 Cotton wrote “Ραλμερ”

932 Thomas Manton, A Practical Commentary, or an Exposition on the Epistle of James (London, 1651).

933 Edward Elton’s folio exposition of Colossians was first published in 1620 and again in 1637; I find no commentary of his on Corinthians.

934 Matthew Barker (1619–1698), a well-known Puritan divine, whose most important work was Natural Theology (1674).

935 Zacharius Ursinus, Opera Theologica (Heidelberg, 1612; Hanover, 1634), or his Corpus Doctrinae Orthodoxae sive Catechetiarum (Geneva, 1612, englished by “Henrie Parrie,” London, 1617, etc.).

936 Probably the last-named work in the preceding note. It ran to over 1,100 pages.

937 William (“Painful”) Perkins, A Case of Conscience, the Greatest That Ever Was, came out as early as 1592, and is also included in some editions of his Armilla Aurea or Golden Chaine.

938 Calvin wrote ten or twelve commentaries on the Epistles.

939 William Ames’s famous Medulla Theologiae, or Marrow of Divinity.

940 John Cotton, Practical Commentary upon the First Epistle Generall of John (London, 1656; 2d ed., 1658), may be alluded to, or some manuscript sermon in the son’s possession.

941 This paragraph is written in a different ink and in a slightly older handwriting.

942 This paragraph is written in a different ink from the preceding.

943 They are written in handwriting B.

944 These lines are written at the foot of the page, reversed.

945 The first four paragraphs are in handwriting A′.

946 This paragraph is in a different ink and a later hand.

947 This is in handwriting A′ or A″.

948 This is in handwriting A′ and is almost illegible.

949 This is in handwriting A′ and is almost illegible.

950 This is in handwriting A′ and is signed “Seaborne Cotton.”

951 This is in handwriting A′.

952 This is in handwriting A′.

953 A word is inserted here, possibly “Junior.”

954 The Complete Works of Sir Philip Sidney, Albert Feuillerat, editor (cited hereafter as Works).

955 Cotton omits the first words, “Here now have you,” and “Lady” after “deare,” inserting “here you have”; and he takes other liberties with the text.

956 Arcadia, dedication; Works, i. 6–7.

957 Works, i. 21.

958 Several broadside copies are known; for the list, see the reprint in Ebsworth, Roxburghe Ballads, vi. 563–566, whence the tide has been obtained. Mr. Ebsworth assigns 1660 as the probable date. The same ballad is paraphrased in Henry Bold, Poems Lyrique, Macaronique, Heroique (London, 1664), pp. 105–110.

959 These four lines are not in the Roxburghe version, but resemble that of Henry Bold, “Song lxvi. A Mock” (Poems Lyrique, p. 107):

Nor did I fear, though at my Bosome, all at once,

Such Darts did move;

She that receives, A thousand Sheaves,

She can no more, but Love.

960 Cotton’s note for his own benefit. The next four lines precede the previous four, as they do in Henry Bold’s version (p. 106):

But yet, my fore acknowledgment, shall testifie,

Thou hast no Craft,

To bend thy Bow, Against a Foe,

That aim’d, to catch the shaft;

961 This stanza resembles more closely the Roxburghe than the Henry Bold version, although some of the lines are transposed.

962 “Divines” appears in the Bold but not in the Roxburghe version.

963 “The Young-Man’s Answer; or, his Dying Breath, Lamenting for his fair Cordelia’s Death,” is the tide of this reply. It appears on the same broadside as “The Love-Sick Maid” and is reprinted in Roxburghe Ballads, vi. 565. It is not found in Henry Bold’s Poems.

964 “Where slumber hath no power to close the eye” (Roxburghe).

965 Three lines of the Roxburghe version are omitted here.

966 Continued on page [1]; see above, p. 326.

967 Arcadia, i. vii, 4; Works, i. 50.

968 Arcadia, i. viii, 3; Works, i. 53–54.

969 Arcadia, i. xiii, 6; Works, i. 90. Prose quotations from the Arcadia continue through p. [78]. I have copied only the beginings of the longer passages.

970 Arcadia, ii. ii, 4; Works, i. 156.

971 Id.

972 Arcadia, ii. xi, 7; Works, i. 164.

973 Arcadia, ii. xi, 6; Works, i. 218–222.

974 Arcadia, i. xiii, 6; Works, i. 91.

975 Arcadia, iii. iv, 5; Works, i. 375. This group of extracts continues through p. [86].

976 Patri Reverendissimo Honorabilissimo et Chiarissimo is the suggestion for expanding these initials made by our associate Edward Kennard Rand, who has kindly helped me establish the Latin text.

977 Operaeque is called for.

978 Another copyist’s mistake; should be poenitet.

979 Doubtful. The comparison of parental counsels to the contents of Pandora’s box is one of those compliments that might have been better expressed.

980 Juro is called for.

981 Obedientissimus Filius?

982 This line and the letter that follows are in the same ink, and in Seaborn Cotton’s earliest hand.

983 Numerous pen flourishes follow.

984 Title from Roxburghe Ballads, vi. 228, where an undated broadside copy is reprinted.

985 “Upon his Face he lay along, hard by a Chrystal River” (Roxburghe).

986 “Song” (Roxburghe).

987 “Wo worth her face, her comly grace!” (Roxburghe).

988 “Her splendid Rays cuts off my days” (Roxburghe); Cotton’s line is at the end of the next stanza in the Roxburghe version, which he omits.

989 “You chrystal Streams that sweetly glide, be partners of my Mourning” (Roxburghe).

990 “Meadows wide” (Roxburghe).

991 Cotton omits here two stanzas of the Roxburghe version.

992 “Who hath my Death conspired” (Roxburghe).

993 “Thus I perceived him near his Death” (Roxburghe).

994 The Roxburghe version concludes here.

995 Facetiae, Musarum Deliciae, ii. 38; Witts Recreations (1640), No. 116.

996 Facetiae, ii. 17; Witts Recreations (1640), No. 126.

997 Facetiae, ii. 17; Witts Recreations (1640), No. 129.

998 Title from Facetiae, ii. 97; also in Witts Recreations (1640), No. 138; (1641), No. 117; (1645), No. 111; (1650), No. 129; (1654), No. 129.

999 Facetiae, ii. 314; Witts Recreations (1640), No. 163; also in edition of 1654, among “Fancies & Fantastickes,” with title “Another.”

1000 Facetiae, ii. 18; Witts Recreations (1640), No. 164.

1001 Facetiae, ii. 106; Witts Recreations (1640), No. 165; (1641), No. 143; (1654), No. 168.

1002 Facetiae, ii. 44; Witts Recreations (1640), No. 168(2); (1641), No. 147.

1003 Facetiae, ii. 300; Witts Recreations (1640), No. 206 (here reproduced in facsimile); (1641), page 1 of “Fancies and Fantastickes.”

1004 Facetiae, ii. 112; Witts Recreations (1640), No. 211; (1641), No. 176.

1005 Facetiae, ii. 113; Witts Recreations (1640), No. 213; (1641), No. 178.

1006 Facetiae, ii. 139; Witts Recreations (1640), No. 216; (1641), No. 182.

1007 Facetiae, ii. 118; Witts Recreations (1640), No. 238; (1641), No. 200; (1654), No. 230.

1008 Facetiae, ii. 126; Witts Recreations (1640), No. 279; (1641), no. 239; (1654), No. 272.

1009 Facetiae, ii. 23–24; Witts Recreations (1640), No. 298.

1010 Facetiae, ii. 25; Witts Recreations (1640), No. 345. Measure for Measure, iv. 1.

1011 Facetiae, ii. 26; Witts Recreations (1640), No. 462.

1012 Facetiae, ii. 60; Witts Recreations (1640), No. 467; (1641), No. 494; in Francis Davison, Poetical Rhapsody (1602), no. 190, where it is called “Madrigal I. To Cupid,” and the lines are arranged differently. In Hyder E. Rollins’s edition of this latter work (ii. 118–120), it is shown that this madrigal is translated from the Rime of Luigi Groto (1541–1585).

1013 Facetiae, ii. 61–62; Witts Recreations (1640), no. 467; (1641), No. 497.

1014 Title from broadside of c. 1670–87 reprinted in J. W. Ebsworth, The Bagford Ballads, ii. 471–474. A copy not listed by Ebsworth is in the Pepys Collection, iii. 325, at Magdalene College, Cambridge. Cf. Bibliotheca Lindesiana. Catalogue of a Collection of English Ballads of the XVII^th and XVIII^th Centuries, No. 388. The first two lines are quoted in Elnathan Chauncy’s commonplace book.

1015 “E’er I from thee will part, my turtle-dove” (Bagford).

1016 Two stanzas of the Bagford version are here omitted, and the next stanza there is as follows:

Then let me go with you,

heart, love and joy;

I will attend on you,

and be your boy:

If you will go to sea,

I’ll serve you night and day,

For here I will not stay,

if you go hence.

There are eight more stanzas which Seaborn does not copy.

1017 Title from Westminster Drolleries, Both Parts, of 1671, 1672, J. W. Ebsworth, editor, Appendix, pp. x–xi; the poem, without the title, is also in John Cotgrave, Wits Interpreter: Or, Apollo and Orpheus (1655), pp. 103–104.

1018 These vital records have been printed in New Eng. Hist. Gen. Reg., xxxiii. 35.

1019 P. [146] is blank.

1020 P. [148] is blank.

1021 Seaborn’s younger brother, John Cotton (H.C. 1657), was ordained pastor of the church in Plymouth on June 30, 1669. See our Publications, xxii. 144.

1022 These were also printed in New Eng. Hist. Gen. Reg., xxviii. 35.

1023 This entry and that for the ninth child are in a younger hand than that for the eighth. The record of the birth of the eleventh child and that of the death of his wife were entered separately.

1024 This was entered later than the above deaths, and is in Seaborn Cotton’s oldest handwriting (A″), as are the remaining entries on p. [174].

1025 Beginning with this entry the handwriting is that of John Cotton (C).

1026 The last volume published before his death carried his work into the year 1799.

1027 The book was first reprinted by the Bradford Press, New York, 1868 (99 copies); next by Samuel Adams Drake in his Bunker Hill, Boston, 1875; then by William Abbatt in Number 8 of his Extra Numbers of the Magazine of History, 1909. All these follow, properly, the second edition. Both the 1775 editions are extremely rare.

1028 General Sir William Howe’s Orderly Book, B. F. Stevens, editor (London, 1890), p. 41.

1029 Army List for 1775, p. 181. A searcher in the Lists should notice that the Marines, whether on regular or half pay, are not in the general lists of army officers. Perhaps that is why Drake and Abbatt missed Clarke.

1030 A complete set of Army Lists would doubtless allow one to follow John Clarke pretty well, though names sometimes disappear and reappear very strangely. The letter to me from the Admiralty is dated August 27, 1930.

1031 Mr. Abbatt seems to ascribe the name of the author to the cataloguer, not to the book itself. I have not had the volume in my hand. Mr. Abbatt apparently set a research worker to hunting in the British Museum. As I shall show, while the fact he was looking for was there, where I found it, both he and I should have searched first in the Admiralty records, now in the Public Record Office, London.

1032 The First Year of the American Revolution, chapters xv and xvi.

1033 Allen French, General Gage’s Informers, p. 98.

1034 2 Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc., xii. 83; cf. id., p. 81, where Farnsworth writes of the fight at Hog Island.

1035 Clarke, Narrative (2d ed.), pp. 4–5.

1036 id., pp. 3–4.

1037 Percy was on duty at Roxbury.

1038 The list of casualties differs somewhat from the official list sent over by General Gage, by the vessel in which Clarke probably sailed, the Cerberus. For example, in the Fifth Regiment Clarke gives Major Mitchell as wounded, while Gage does not, and omits Harris, who was wounded and was in Gage’s list. As the despatches were sealed, Clarke of course had no access to them on board ship, nor did he correct his list by them afterward. He disagrees with the official total.

1039 Gage issued a list of promotions on June 25, and presumably sent it with his despatches of that date, also by Clarke’s ship. It is in Howe’s Orderly Book (pp. 20 ff.), but is not in the official despatches. The fact that it is not in Clarke’s first edition makes it seem as if the book had been rushed into print. Again Clarke’s list differs somewhat from the official one

1040 Clarke, Narrative, p. 18.

1041 The Command in the Battle of Bunker Hill, p. 43.

1042 From a letter, dated July 5, 1775, by an officer in Boston, quoted in Detail and Conduct of the American War. Americans believed that Warren’s coat was sold in Boston. Richard Frothingham, Life and Times of Joseph Warren, p. 519, quoting Jane Belknap Marcou, Life of Jeremy Belinap, p. 93.

1043 Clarke, Narrative, pp. 31–32.

1044 This can be found, not only in manuscript in the British Museum, but also in a modern manuscript copy in the Massachusetts Historical Society.

1045 These three passages (which can also be found under their proper dates in Graves’s despatches in Ad. 1: 485 in the Public Record Office) I take from his MS. “Conduct” in the British Museum (Add. MSS. 14,038). This is numbered twice; the references are pp. 82 or 47v, 119 or 68, 120–121 or 68v–69. They can also be found in the transcript in the Massachusetts Historical Society under the dates of June 8 and 14. The “8” is, however, an error for “7,” and the admiral gives it correctly in his second entry.

1046 Graves’s despatches and his “Conduct” show that the Cerberus arrived from England on May 25, and that her return voyage was delayed in order that she might carry the account of Bunker Hill. As Gage’s despatches were dated June 25, the ship doubtless sailed on the next fair wind

1047 Howe’s Orderly Book, p. 41.

1048 Cf. my First Year of the American Revolution, p. 96. Yet notice that the casualty list of Bunker Hill contains the name of a Volunteer in the Royal Artillery. Was he of old standing?

1049 Howe’s Orderly Book, p. 78, under date of August 28. Note that a Volunteer had no other title. On Gage’s Bunker Hill list the Volunteers are all “Mr.,” except for “Lieutenant Alexander Campbell, on half-pay.” He was “late [of] Barre’s,” a unit that I cannot identify.

1050 Ad. 1: 485: 447–448, 451–452; or in Ad. 1: 5307, not paged, June 7 and 8.

1051 The captain of the Cerberus reported to Lord Dartmouth on August 2. Dartmouth to Gage, August 2, C.O. 5: 92.

1052 The answers to Wilkins’s and Clarke’s petitions are to be found in Ad. 2:1169: 10, 274. I find little more about Clarke in the muster-book of his ship, the Falcon (Ad. 1: 8014), except the dates of his reporting for duty, and the fact that he was of Portsmouth. It is to be noted that Clarke, though a second lieutenant, was given first lieutenant’s half-pay, as was Wilkins in 1775, though on the previous occasion Wilkins received only the half-pay of his grade. Further, Wilkins does not again appear in the Army Lists, either on half-pay or as restored to duty. Yet promotion in the Marines during the Revolutionary War was very rapid, as is shown in the Army Lists, proving that trained men were much wanted.

1053 Both Gage and Graves feared an attack on Charlestown, and Gage did not feel that he was quite safe in Boston till he had disarmed the inhabitants, late in April.

1054 Our Publications, vii. 94–122, 125 note.

1055 The Reformado, p. 9. These “monuments” of Queen Elizabeth were erected in many English churches after her death. Cf. our Publications, vii. 102–105.

1056 If the latter, it might have come about as follows: the Puritans were given to bestowing biblical names on their children; a Puritan in England was satirically or derisively called “Brother Jonathan”; the early settlers in New England were mostly Puritans, and so the nickname followed them across the Atlantic.

1057 For this extract I am indebted to Mr. Allen French, who tells me that the letter was written to Humphrey Palmer of Providence, R. I.; and that Allen and Palmer “were not soldiers (at least at this stage of the war) but merchants established in a general business in Cambridge and Providence.”

On the same date (March 17, 1776) William Heath wrote: “In the morning the British evacuated Boston; their rear guard, with some marks of precipitation. A number of cannon were left spiked, and two large marine mortars, which they in vain attempted to burst. The garrison at Bunker’s Hill practised some deception to cover their retreat. They fixed some images, representing men, in the places of their centinels, with muskets placed on their shoulders, &c. Their immoveable position led to the discovery of the deception, and a detachment of the Americans marched in and took possession.” Memoirs, p. 43

This extract was not quoted in my original paper for the obvious reason that it is not relevant to the term under discussion since Heath failed to give the label. But it corroborates the presence of the images and so is pertinent. My guess is that Heath considered the label “beneath the dignity of history,” or else did not have sufficient sense of humor to record an epithet then regarded as uncomplimentary.

1058 Literary Diary, ii. 2. Quoted in my former paper, but repeated here for comparison with Allen’s letter.

1059 Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires preserved in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum, v. 218–219, No. 5329. This volume, edited by Dr. Mary Dorothy George, covers the years 1771–1783. Both the prints between which No. 5329 is placed are dated March 1, 1776. Mrs. George says (pp. xix–xx, 218–219): “1776 is noteworthy for two of the few anti-American satires, one a crude and ill-timed print on the American entrenchments near Boston (No. 5329), which incidentally illustrates the fact that at the beginning of the war Putnam was the best known (in England) of the American commanders.… The artist appears to have been ignorant of Washington’s appointment, 15 June 1775, as commander-in-chief. He took over the command of the troops round Boston on 3 July 1775, superseding not Israel Putnam (appointed fourth major-general June 1775) but Artemas Ward…. One of the few satires hostile to the Americans, cf. Nos. 5401, 6288.” The size of the print is 8 × 9⅝. Through the courtesy of Mr. Allen French it is here reproduced from a photograph, probably the only one in this country.

Mrs. George kindly writes me: “I think it extremely likely that No. 5329 was prepared at the end of 1775 for publication early in 1776. I have run across instances of prints dated with the year only where I suspect this to be the case—but this is only conjecture. The allusion to Putnam also suggests an earlier date than March 1, 1776; but the only thing we can say with certainty or truth is that it was published before news of the evacuation of Boston.” She adds that this allusion to Jonathan is “the only one that have run across, and I have now dealt with prints in this collection up to the end of 1792.” To a similar effect Professor Leonard W. Labarce, who called my attention to the above book, writes: “I take it the print was made either very late in 1775 or early in 1776. Certainly before news reached England of the evacuation. From this it seems clear that the term Jonathan for a New Englander had become sufficiently well known in England before the Boston evacuation for it to be used in a print intended for public sale. This, of course, simply goes to confirm your theory of a fairly wide use of the term much earlier than any important service of Trumbull to the Revolutionary cause.” In 1880, Nathaniel H. Morgan wrote: “The phrase ‘we must consult Brother Jonathan,’ used by Gen. Washington when he first took command of the army at Cambridge, was so often uttered by him afterwards, that it became a by-word among his staff, and spread through the army and the country.” Early Lebanon, p. 85. On his way from Virginia to Cambridge Washington passed through Hartford, but he and Trumbull did not then meet. Their correspondence, which began in July, 1775, was of slight importance until the spring of 1776. Leaving Boston on April 4, 1776, Washington went to New York by the “shore line,” and the two men met on the eighth at Norwich. Cf. 5 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., ix. 517–518; x. 1–11.

1060 Here the satirist appears to have made a slight slip and should have said “Liberty or Death.” On December 27, 1775, when preparations for storming Quebec that night were made but had to be postponed because “the weather cleared away serene and bright,” Isaac Senter, the surgeon of Arnold’s expedition against Canada, wrote: “For a mark of distinction each soldier was ordered to procure a fir sprig, and fix it in front of their caps, whereby they might be discriminated”; and again on December 31, the day of the actual assault: “To discriminate our troops from the enemy in action, they were ordered each officer and soldier to make fast a piece of white paper across their caps from the front to the acmé of them.” “Journal,” Bulletin of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, i. 32, 33. In a letter dated Quebec, May 14, 1776, to a friend in Glasgow, the anonymous writer said: “The rebels had slips of paper pinned to their caps, with the words Liberty or Death! wrote on them.” Pennsylvania Archives, Second Series, ii. 57. In 1897, a writer, describing the dress of the Virginia riflemen under Morgan who served in Arnold’s expedition, said: “On the part of their shirts covering the breast are the words of Henry ‘Liberty or Death.’” Essex Institute Historical Collections, xxxiii. 253. Patrick Henry’s famous words— “I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!”—are said by William Wirt (cf. M. C. Tyler, Patrick Henry, pp. 128–133) to have been uttered before the Virginia Convention in March, 1775; but the phrase “Liberty or Death” had doubtless for a decade been a commonplace on the lips of Americans, since the last two lines in Act ii, Scene iv, of Addison’s Cato, acted and published in 1713, read:

“It is not now a Time for aught

But Chains, or Conquest; Liberty, or Death.”

1061 A song printed in the Royal Gazette (New York) of October 3, 1778, contains the line, “And Jonathan felt bold Sir.” The letters and squibs of the period frequently allude to the Americans as “feeling bold,” and the Loyalists appear to have regarded it as a huge joke; but the exact significance of the phrase is obscure. Perhaps an extract from “Observations on the Government account of the late action near Charles Town,” which appeared in an English magazine soon after the battle of Bunker Hill, may give a clue to the origin of the phrase. The writer, it need scarcely be pointed out, was friendly to the Americans:

“But, ‘this action has shewn the superiority of the King’s troops.’—Has it indeed? How?—‘Why they (with a proportion of field artillery, and with the assistance of ships, armed vessels, and boats, and with the encouragement of certain and speedy reinforcement if necessary) attacked and defeated above three times their own numbers.’—What three times their own numbers? Of whom, pray? Of French or Spanish Regulars?—No, of the Americans—Of the Americans! What, of these dastardly, hypocritical cowards, who (Lord Sandwich knows) do not feel bold enough to dare to look a soldier in the face!” Almon’s Remembrancer, 1775, i. 135.

1062 In the War of 1812 “Uncle Tim” was a frequent target for ridicule by the Democratic press. Cf. “All Tories Together,” our Publications, x. 139–140

1063 The Boston Independent Chronicle, the Philadelphia Aurora, and the New York Argus.

1064 During the Revolutionary War Americans evidently did feel “injured” by “Jonathan,” and certainly they did not “glory” in “Yankee” until after April 19, 1775. In a letter written from Boston in 1777 by William Gardiner of Gardiner, Maine, there is an allusion to “a Joe Bunker justice.” Boston Transcript, November 12, 1910. The first line of “A New Song,” printed in the Massachusetts Centinel of July 11, 1787 (p. 131), reads: “Huzza, my joe-bunkers! no taxes we’ll pay!” I do not know exactly what the term means. The expression “a leather-button Curse” is new to me, and its meaning escapes me.

1065 In the Annual Report of the Street Laying-out Department for the Year 1896 (p. 279) it is stated that the name of King Street, Boston, was changed to State Street in 1784; but there is an allusion to State Street on August 28, 1782, and another to “State Street now so called” on March 25, 1783. Boston Records, xxv. 190–191; xxvi. 303. Evidently the new name was used colloquially before it was officially adopted; but there could hardly have been a State Street in this country before July 4, 1776. The name of Long Lane, Boston, was changed to Federal Street in 1788 (id., xxxi. 179); and there could hardly have been a street of that name before 1787. The verb “to burke” originated on January 28, 1829, which was the very day on which William Burke was executed. The word “boycott” first appeared in the autumn of 1880. But it is seldom that a word can be traced to its very birth.

1066 John Harriott (1745–1817), of whom there is a notice in the Dictionary of National Biography, had a varied and interesting career in several parts of the world. Recollections of events of half a century earlier must always be received with caution, if not suspicion. Harriott says that he came to Boston in 1765 in the Mary, commanded by “Captain D——n,” thus providing three tests as to the accuracy of his memory. A list of “Port Arrivals—Immigrants” from March 16, 1763, to August 14, 1769, is printed in Boston Records, xxix. 245–317. “Captain D——n” must have been one of the following: Ephraim Dean, James Dean, John Dean, William Dean, William Devers on, William Deverson, Jr., George Diamond, Thomas Dimond, — Doan, Nathaniel Doan, Seth Doan, John Dunn, Nathaniel Dunn, Richard Dunn. This embarrassment of riches makes it impossible to say which of the fourteen it was under whom Harriott served as second mate. But the name of Harriott’s vessel gives the clue. The following Marys arrived in Boston in 1763–1769: sloop Mary, Chars. Andrews, from Connecticut, October 17, 1763 (p. 251); schooner Mary, Theop^a Simonton, from New York, May 14, 1764 (p. 256); ship Mary, William Devers on, from London, June 25, 1764 (p. 257); schooner Mary, Caleb Hopkins, from Martinico, July 23, 1765 (p. 267); and schooner Mary, Thomas Mitchel, from Newfoundland, October 28, 1765 (p. 272). Thus only one Mary was a “ship,” only one Mary came from London, and only one Mary was commanded by “Captain D——n:” namely, the Mary, William Devers on, which entered June 25, 1764. The Boston Evening-Post of Monday, June 25, 1764, stated that “Last Saturday Evening arrived here Capt. Devers on in 9 Weeks from London”; and in the issue of July 2 was advertised the sale of books “Just Imported in the Mary, Capt. Deverson.” Though the Mary arrived Saturday evening, June 23, it would probably have been a violation of the Sabbath to allow her passengers to land, and her entry was not recorded until Monday the twenty-fifth. That was Captain William Deverson’s first and only voyage with the Mary; but he arrived here on September 11, 1765, with he ship Thomas and Samuel from London (p. 270); on February 4, 1766, with the ship Britannia from London (p. 275); and with the same ship on September 23, 1766, October 16, 1767, and September 23, 1768 (pp. 284, 298, 308). And he was also here with the Britannia in July, 1771. Id., xxiii. 92–95. Thus Harriott was correct as to the names of the ship and its captain, and was only one year out in the date of his voyage. Captain William Deverson was from “the old country,” and so would have particularly enjoyed retailing jokes at the expense of New Englanders.

1067 Several naval officers named Montagu (Montague) served in American waters in the eighteenth century. This one, Mr. Alien French tells me, was the Hon. William Montagu (1720?–1757), younger brother of John Montagu, fourth Earl of Sandwich, the latter of whom in 1763 was given the opprobrious nickname of “Jemmy Twitcher.” Cf. Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc., lxii. 180 note 1. Not wholly accurate is the notice of Captain Montagu in the Dictionary of National Biography, where it is stated that, getting into difficulties with Sir Peter Warren in the West Indies, he was in the Eltham “carried to New England, where, after he had been seven months under arrest, he was promoted by Warren to the post-ship Mermaid on 23 May 1745.” Warren did sail for Boston, having sent word to his wife (who was an American) to meet him there, but on the way he was intercepted and informed that the expedition against Louisbourg had already sailed, and so he changed his course and made directly for Canseau. Cf. Francis Parkman, A Half-Century of Conflict, ii. 103. After the capture of Louisbourg, Montagu was dispatched to carry the news to England, and thereafter remained in European waters; nor, so far as I can ascertain, was he ever on the Halifax or any other American station.

1068 Struggles through Life (3d ed., London, 1815), i. 138–146. This work went through the following editions: London, 1807 (in two volumes); London, 1808 (second edition, in two volumes); Philadelphia and New York, 1809 (in two volumes, from the second London edition); London, 1815 (third edition, in three volumes). The story is told in the seventeenth chapter of the first volume of the 1815 edition, which fills pp. 135–155, and is not found in any of the earlier editions, in each of which the chapter contains only about two pages. In it are also allusions to “Jonathan,” “our Brother Jonathans,” and “Brother Jonathan” (i. 149, 152, 153).

1069 This story in one form or another can be traced from 1674 to 1931.

1070 Struggles through Life, i. 15, 20, 23, 30, 119, 162–171; ii. 113, 347; iii. 33.

1071 E.A. Kendall Travels, i. 315–316.

1072 Out of 444 graduates in 1642–1700, there were 10 Jonathans, of whom certainly two (Jonathan Mitchell of 1647 and Jonathan Burr of 1651) and perhaps a third (Jonathan Ince of 1650) were born in England. There was no Jonathan in 1652–1674, the fourth of that name being Jonathan Russell of 1675. Out of 1,289 graduates in 1701–1750 there were 29 Jonathans, or 1 in 44 also.

1073 Kendall, Travels, i. 312–313; cf. p. 157.

1074 Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1598–1601, p. 425.

1075 Records of the Virginia Company, i. 269, 337, 409, 430, 509.

1076 D. W. Prowse, History of Newfoundland, p. 132. The writer of the letter was Sir George Calvert, who had been created Baron Baltimore the month before.

1077 Boteler’s Dialogues (1929), p. xiii.

1078 Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1625–1626, p. 493. Apparently this, too, was in the expedition against Cadiz. It is not quite clear whether there were two vessels of the name in that expedition or only one vessel.

1079 New England Historical and Genealogical Register, xxxii. 407.

1080 Calendar of State Papers, Colonial, America and West Indies, 1574–1660, p. 367.

1081 American Magazine, i (November, 1743), pp. 107–111.

1082 A Match for a Widow: or, the Frolics of Fancy. A Comic Opera, in Three Acts. As performed at the Theatre-Royal, Dublin. London, 1788. “SCENE, the Castle and Village of Bloomingdale,” presumably Ireland. For knowledge of this play I am indebted to Mr. Charles E. Goodspeed, who sold me a copy about twenty years ago. There is a copy in the Boston Public Library.

1083 The author goes on to say that Daly and others “earnestly recommended and urged me, instead of confining it to an after Musical Piece, to extend the design to a compleat Comic Opera by the assistance of new characters and an under-plot”; that “in the course of the week I again presented you, and read the Opera in its present state”; that it was then “transmitted to Mr. [Charles] Dibdin in London, who embellished it with his harmony”; and that “with the ornament of new scenery and dresses, and the then musical strength of your company, you in the spring of 1786, gave it a fair trial before an Irish audience.”

1084 A Match for a Widow, p. 12.

1085 In 1762, there were two Joseph Atkinsons in the British Army. One was commissioned an ensign in the Eighty-Sixth Regiment of Foot on June 26, 1761, and a lieutenant in the same regiment on May 17, 1762; but he left the regiment, and presumably the army, on December 9, 1762. That Eighty-Sixth Regiment is not to be confused with another regiment of the same number, raised in 1793. British Amy Lists, 1761, p. 152; 1763, pp. 152, 241; R. Trimen, Regiments of the British Army, p. 131; J. S. Farmer, Regimental Records of the British Army, p. 200.

Of the other Joseph Atkinson (1743–1818), who was the author of A Match for a Widow, the Dictionary of National Biography says that he “served in the Army until he obtained a captain’s commission,” which doesn’t tell us where he served and is slightly inaccurate, since he remained in the army four and a half years after obtaining his captaincy. (Besides the references in that work, there are glimpses of Atkinson in Lionel Stevenson’s The Wild Irish Girl: The Life of Sydney Owenson, Lady Morgan.) Atkinson’s rank in the army dated from March 4, 1762, when he was commissioned a lieutenant in the Eighty-Sixth Regiment of Foot, which, raised in 1759 and disbanded in 1763, was stationed in Senegal, Africa. In 1763–1768 he was on half-pay, but on February 4, 1768, he was commissioned a lieutenant, and on May 25, 1772, a captain in the Forty-Sixth Regiment of Foot, which was stationed in the West Indies in 1762–1764, on the American continent in 1764–1767, and in Ireland in 1767–1776. Early in 1776 the Forty-Sixth Regiment embarked from Ireland; arrived on the coast of North Carolina early in April; landed at Cape Fear; on June 1 sailed with the expedition against Charleston; passed the Charleston bar, but could not capture the capital and so reëmbarked and proceeded to Long Island, New York. At the end of 1776 Atkinson sold his commission, as appears from an entry dated December 24: “46th. Regiment.—Hon. Lieut. Chetwynd, 52d. Regiment, to be Captain vice Atkinson, by Purchase 23d. Dec., 1776.” Kemble Papers, i. 429. By mistake, owing to the slow communication between New York and London, Atkinson’s name is in both the London and the Dublin editions of the 1777 Army List, but in one copy of the latter that I have seen the name has been run through with pen or pencil. British Army Lists, 1763, p. 152; 1765–1768, under “Half-Pay…. Regiments, See. Reduced or Disbanded, 1763”; 1769–1777, p. 100; R. Cannon, Historical Records of the British Army, pp. 17–25; Farmer, Regimental Records, p. 140. Whether after leaving the army Atkinson remained for a while in New York or returned immediately to Ireland is unknown; and, though he may have been in New England before 1776 or between 1776 and 1785, there is no evidence that he ever was.

1086 i Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc., iii. 131–150.

1087 Journal (Savage ed., Boston, 1853), ii. 24.

1088 The Founding of New England, p. 453.

1089 For the history of the Winthrop Papers, see the preface to Winthrop Papers, 1 (Boston, 1929).

1090 It afterwards became mine.

1091 Students of Winthrop’s Journal will remember that the precise dates of the different entries are not always easy to determine. So far as can be discovered, the reference to the ravages of the mice was written about December 15, 1640.

1092 The Greek New Testament lacks a title-page, but at the foot of the last page (229) some former owner has written “Aurelia Allobrogum, Excudebat Petrus de la Roviere. M D C X.” Aurelia Allobrogum is a very ancient name for Geneva. Dictionnaire de Géographie Ancienne et Moderne, pp. 134, 554–556.

1093 See the letter of Margaret Winthrop to John Winthrop, Jr., who was then in London, ca. December, 1630, Winthrop Papers, ii (Boston, 1931), p. 321.

1094 2 Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc., vi. 2–20.

1095 See above, p. 311.

1096 Printed in Essex Institute Historical Collections, lxxii. 1–42.

1097 Arthur M. Schlesinger, “The Colonial Newspapers and the Stamp Act,” New England Quarterly, viii. 63–83.

1098 Article by “A Son of Liberty,” reprinted in the Boston Post-Boy, March 24, 1766, from A Providence Gazette Extraordinary, March 12. The writer had in mind pamphlet publications as well as newspapers.

1099 Letter to Richard Jackson, February 18, 1767, Bernard Papers (Sparks MSS., Harvard College Library), vi. 14.

1100 “No Seeker” in the Boston Evening-Post, March 30, 1767, quoting the “Lines of a celebrated Writer.”

1101 Issues of August 17, 24, 1767.

1102 Letter to Richard Jackson, September 14, 1767, Bernard Papers, vi. 47. “The proceedings in the newspapers are precisely the same as those preceding the former disturbances,” Bernard had written Lord Shelburne, August 24, 1767. British Papers (Sparks MSS.), i. 74.

1103 A good example was the article by “M. Y.” in the Boston Gazette, September 14, 1767.

1104 The series appeared originally in the Pennsylvania Chronicle from December 2, 1767, to February 15, 1768.

1105 Letter of December 5, 1767 (Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., lxxii. 3). Dickinson and Otis had been fellow-members of the Stamp Act Congress.

1106 Bernard to John Pownall, January 9, February 8, 1768, Bernard Papers, vi. 59–60, 89.

1107 Representation to Privy Council, January, 1774, The Barrington-Bernard Correspondence and Illustrative Matter, 1760–1770, Edward Channing and A. C. Coolidge, editors, p. 266.

1108 See valedictory editorials of Edes in the Boston Gazette, January 1, 1797, and September 17, 1798, quoted by Frederic Hudson, Journalism in the United States, from 1690 to 1872, pp. 165–167.

1109 Thomas Hutchinson, History of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, iii. 167.

1110 Entry of September 3, 1769, The Works of John Adams, C. F. Adams, editor, ii. 219.

1111 Letter to Shelburne, March 5, 1768, Bernard Papers, vi. 273.

1112 Hutchinson, Massachusetts Bay, iii. 295.

1113 See the list in William V. Wells, The Life and Public Services of Samuel Adams, i. 445 n., and Harry A. Cushing’s identifications in The Writings of Samuel Adams, i–ii, passim.

1114 Statement to Privy Council, Barrington-Bernard Correspondence, p. 266. During the years 1767–1770 Josiah Quincy, Jr., used the signatures “Hyperion,” “An Independant,” and “An Old Man” in the Gazette. The manuscript copy of some of his pieces contained the significant direction to the printers: “Let Samuel Adams Esq. correct the press.” Josiah Quincy, Memoir of the Life of Josiah Quincy Jun., pp. 11–13, 18–29. Though active earlier, John Adams declared on June 22, 1771, that he had not written in the newspapers for two years. Works, ii. 282.

1115 Letter of September 30, 1769, Letters of James Murray, Loyalist, Nina M. Tiffany, editor, pp. 161–162.

1116 Letter of July 18–19, 1768, Letters to the Ministry (Boston, 1769), pp. 44–46.

1117 This statement is quoted by “Tacitus” in the Boston Gazette, December 21, 1767. Others, of whom James Murray was typical, thought the two sets of contributors equally objectionable. Letters, p. 162. On occasion the Evening-Post’s independence also proved a source of annoyance to the radicals. Thus “Tacitus,” in the article just cited, referred to “that Emblem of Light and Purity, the Evening-Post, printed by those sweet, harmless, lovely Lambkins Tommy and Johnny Fleet, who are wholly ignorant that by this Conduct their Paper may be fitly compared to the Lanthorns, … which tho’ they give some Light, yet … ‘ray out, Abundance of Darkness.’”

1118 Unsigned article in Boston Evening-Post, December 7, 1767.

1119 Letter of May ii, 1768, The letters of Governor Hutchinson and Lieut. Governor Oliver, &c. (London, 1774), p. 27. See also id., pp. 30–31.

1120 William Tudor, The Life of James Otis, of Massachusetts, p. 450 n.

1121 Josiah Quincy, Jr., Reports of Cases Argued and Adjudged in the Superior Court of Judicature of the Province of Massachusetts Bay between 1761 and 1772, S. M. Quincy, editor, pp. 248–250; E. F. Brown, Joseph Hawley, Colonial Radical, pp. 63–67.

1122 Quincy, Reports, 244–246; New-Hampshire Gazette, October 16, 1767.

1123 Hutchinson in time came to believe that the disbarment had had the unfortunate effect of driving Hawley into the arms of the extremists. In a vain effort to repair the fancied damage he secured Hawley’s reinstatement in the fall of 1769. Brown, Joseph Hawley, pp. 67–68, 118, 121.

1124 That the writer was Joseph Warren seems beyond reasonable doubt. See Quincy, Reports, p. 271, and Richard Frothingham, Life and Times of Joseph Warren, p. 40 n. With much less evidence Wells (Samuel Adams, i. 175) assigns the authorship to James Otis.

1125 The House adopted the reply by a vote of 39 to 30. On the whole incident, see Quincy, Reports, pp. 270–275; Speeches of the Governors of Massachusetts, from 1765 to 1775; and the Answers of the House of Representatives to the Same, Alden Bradford, editor, pp. 118–119; Boston Gazette, March 7,1768; Bernard, Letters to Ministry, pp. 8–10; Hutchinson, Massachusetts Bay, iii. 186–187.

1126 Quincy, Reports, pp. 263–270.

1127 Hutchinson and Oliver, Letters, p. 9; Bernard, Letters to Ministry, pp. 10–12.

1128 Boston Gazette, March 21, 1768.

1129 Bernard, Letters to Ministry, p. 51; Quincy, Reports, p. 305. Bernard informed Hillsborough that on the day before the session the Boston Gazette, August 22, 1768, threatened publicly to expose Hutchinson’s “private Life and Conversation” if he renewed his charge. If such an article appeared, it was in a supplement no longer extant. A letter in that issue from “W.,” however, denounced Hutchinson (without naming him) for supposedly accepting a salary from home; the printers corrected this false report in their next number

1130 Quincy, Reports, p. 309

1131 Isaiah Thomas, The History of Printing in America, i. 145–147; ii. 57–58; John Adams, Notes, 1770, MS., Massachusetts Historical Society

1132 The Massachusetts Gazette, though issued from two different presses, adopted a system of consecutive numbering, beginning with No. 177 as a sort of continuation of the Massachusetts Gazette, and Boston News-Letter. When the arrangement lapsed, the News-Letter reverted to its earlier title, and the Boston Post-Boy lengthened its name to the Massachusetts Gazette, and Boston Post-Boy. On this whole matter, see Albert Matthews, “Bibliographical Notes on Boston Newspapers, 1704–1780,” our Publications, ix. 430–432, 470–471, 484–493.

1133 As early as October 5, 1767, “Anonymous,” writing in the Boston Gazette, had warned Draper: “Thy Paper will never gain the better Circulation if too frequently thou art made a Cat’s paw to Individuals, or a Party in judging thy Superiors.” By 1769 popular disapproval was assuming the form of muscular violence.

1134 “Journal of the Times,” April 14, 1769, in Boston Evening-Post, June 12, 1769.

1135 Letter to Hillsborough, September 17, 1768, Bernard, Letters to Ministry, p. 52. This article, headed “READER, ATTEND!,” bitterly arraigned the course of the royal officials and urged that, in theory, such acts had broken the compact between the colonies and the mother country and had dissolved the connection between them.

1136 Letter to Hillsborough, October 14, 1768, id., pp. 72–75.

1137 Through his privileges as a member of parliament Alderman William Beckford of London had secured copies for the agent of the Council, William Bollan, who transmitted them to Boston. Hutchinson, Massachusetts Bay, iii. 226–230; Bernard to John Pownall, April 12, 1769, Bernard Papers, vii. 280–282. The pamphlet was titled Letters to the Right Honourable The Earl of Hillsborough from Gov. Bernard, General Gage, and the Honourable his Majesty’s Council.

1138 Letters and Diary of John Rowe, Boston Merchant, 1759–1762, 1764–1779, Anne R. Cunningham, editor, p. 190. The account in the Boston Gazette (August 7) began: “Tuesday last embarked on board his Majesty’s Ship the Rippon, sir Francis Bernard of Nettleham, Bart., who for nine Years past, has been a Scourge to this Province, a Curse to North-America, and a Plague to the whole Empire.”

1139 Tudor, James Otis, pp. 360–366, 474–475; Boston Post-Boy, September 11, 1769. For the later indictment of Bernard and the commissioners by a grand jury of Suffolk County for “slandering the inhabitants of the town of Boston, and of the province of Massachusetts Bay,” see Hutchinson, Massachusetts Bay, iii. 262–263. The pamphlet publication, which presently appeared from the press of Edes and Gill, bore the title: Letters to the Ministry from Governor Bernard, General Gage, and Commodore Hood. And also. Memorials to the Lords of the Treasury, from the Commissioners of the Customs. With Sundry Letters and Papers.

1140 Boston Gazette, September 11, 25, 1769; Samuel Adams, Writings, i. 380–386.

1141 The series began in the New-York Journal on October 13, 1768, and lasted till September 14, 1769. The question of the “Journal’s” authorship is probably insoluble. Bernard doubtless got as near the facts as any later investigator is likely to when he informed Hillsborough on February 25, 1769, that the “Journal” was “composed by [Samuel] Adams & his Assistants among which there must be some one at least of the Council.…” Bernard Papers, vii. 148. I am indebted to Mr. Albert Matthews for information in regard to the “Journal.”

1142 Boston Evening-Post, February 6, 1769. For allegations of seduction and attempted rape, see, for example, the “Journal” for April 30, May 16 and 17, June 14, and July 5, 1769, in the Evening-Post, June 26, July 17, 31, and August 14, 1769.

1143 The Virginia Resolves, dated May 16, 1769, were printed in the Boston press on June 8 and were commented on in the “Journal” on June 16 (in the Evening-Post, July 31).

1144 Hutchinson, Massachusetts Bay, iii. 225. The Evening-Post, printing the first installment on December 12, 1768, sought to sustain its professed independence of parties with the statement: “…. if any of the Facts shall appear to have been misrepresented, a Place shall always be open to any Gentleman who shall think proper to correct them.”

1145 Letter of January 26, 1769, Charles M. Andrews, “Boston Merchants and the Non-importation Movement,” our Publications, xix. 196 n. Hutchinson concluded the account of the “Journal” in his history with the sentiment: “This lying for the sake of truth may as well be excused in the cause of liberty, as in that of religion, though, as has been long since observed, it is a scurvy trick at best.” Massachusetts Bay, iii. 225.

1146 Letter to Hillsborough, February 25, 1769, Bernard Papers, vii. 148–150.

1147 Printed also in the Boston Gazette and the Boston Chronicle, May 29.

1148 In due course the “Journal” directly replied to Murray, reiterating at length the substance of the earlier charges. See the “Journal” under the dates June 3, 8, and 9, in the Boston Evening-Post, July 31, 1769.

1149 It was printed in the Boston Evening-Post, December 11, 18, 1769. The items for July 25–30 had appeared in the issue of October 2.

1150 The Boston Gazette, March 12, 1770, observed that the friction between the townsfolk and the military had continued to grow after the “Journal” ceased to appear.

1151 Murray, Letters, p. 162.

1152 The cut, made by Paul Revere on March 9, originally showed “5 Coffings.” See E. H. Goss, The Life of Colonel Paul Revere (4th ed., Boston, 1904), i. 75–77. One of the victims, Patrick Carr, did not die until two days after the Boston Gazette appeared. The next issue (March 19) displayed in a black frame a single coffin, marked “P. C.”

1153 Accounts of Mein may be found in our Publications, xix. 227–230; Charles K. Bolton, “Circulating Libraries in Boston, 1765–1865,” id., xi. 196–200; Arthur M. Schlesinger, The Colonial Merchants and the American Revolution, 1763–1776, pp. 159–178; Thomas, History of Printing, i. 151–154; ii. 59–61.

1154 Proposals for Printing a New Weekly Paper, called The Boston Chronicle, dated October 22, 1767.

1155 See “Americus” in Boston Gazette, January 18, 1768, and Edes’s statement in id., January 25. Mein was haled into court where, he later said, James Otis “bandied about the Liberty of the Press as the Salvation of America” and accused him (Mein) of endeavoring by violence “to shutt up that great Source of freedom.” Papers Relating to New England (Sparks MSS.), iii. 45, 47; Adams, Notes. “Populus” (Samuel Adams?) took the same line as Otis in the Boston Gazette, February 1. Mein’s burst of temper cost him nearly £100 sterling at the hands of the court.

1156 Mein’s memorial to the Treasury, quoted by Andrews. “Boston Merchants,” our Publications, xix. 228 n.

1157 Francis Green’s characterization, reprinted in the Boston News-Letter, September 21, 1769.

1158 Boston Gazette, August 14, 1769.

1159 Mrs. Christian Barnes, in a letter from Marlboro in June, 1770, referred, as a matter of course, to the “Well Disposed Commity.” Murray, Letters, p. 176. Even the Boston Gazette, March 5, 1770, alluded to the “several ‘Well disposed’ Counties in this Province.”

1160 Hutchinson, Massachusetts Bay, iii. 259. For reasons that will appear presently, only the first installment was published.

1161 Papers Relating to New England, iii. 45–47.

1162 Letter of November 21, 1771, to Peter Timothy, Charleston, S. C., Writings, ii. 65. The merits of Mein’s contentions are canvassed in Schlesinger, Colonial Merchants, esp. p. 170.

1163 The principal charge against Hancock can be easily disposed of. He had infringed the spirit, not the letter, of the agreement by allowing some of his ships to carry prohibited goods as freight. This practice was not expressly proscribed until July 26, 1769. On September 6, he sent appropriate instructions to his London correspondents. Massachusetts Gazette, July 31, 1769; John Hancock His Book, A. E. Brown, editor, p. 166. For Mein’s chief articles against Hancock, see the Chronicle, August 21, 28, September 4, 18, October 9, 1769. The quotation above is from the issue of October 26.

1164 The pamphlet, entitled State of the Importations from Great Britain into Boston, from Jan. 1769 to Aug. 17, 1769, was twice reissued the next year with appendices of importations to January 1, 1770, and from January 1 to June 19. In a letter, July 1, 1770, to Mein, then in London, Fleeming declared that the popular rage excited by the appearance of the last edition had caused him on June 30 to take refuge in Castle William. Papers Relating to New England, iv. 5. A writer in the New-Tort Gazette and Weekly Mercury, October 15, 1770, refers to a further “Pamphlet of Entries at the Port of Boston” for the period July 7 to August 14.

1165 Issue of September 4, 1769. For a similar attitude, see “Civis” in the New-Hampshire Gazette, July 6, 13, 1770.

1166 Andrews, “Boston Merchants,” our Publications, xix. 250–252. For a sharp exchange of letters between the Boston and New York committees in regard to Mein’s accusations, see the New-York Journal, August 9, 1770, and the Boston Evening-Post, September 10.

1167 Murray, Letters, pp. 159–161.

1168 A Boston item of November 20 in the New-York Journal, December 14, 1769, sourly characterized the appointment as pay for Mein’s “impertinent, grossly abusive and false publications.”

1169 Letter of George Mason to Joseph Harrison, October 20, 1769. Papers Relating to New England, iii. 40.

1170 Letter of Mein to Joseph Hanson, November 5, 1769, id., p. 51; Hutchinson, Massachusetts Bay, iii. 258–261; Rowe, Diary, p. 194; Boston Evening-Post, October 30, 1769; Matthews, “Bibliographical Notes,” our Publications, ix. 480–481 n. Mein’s temporary absence marked no truce in the warfare on the “Well Disposed,” a fact which may in part perhaps be explained by Hudson’s statement in Journalism in the United States (p. 128) that Mein was aided in his editorial labors by Samuel Waterhouse, a customs officer, and Joseph Green, a Boston wit of repute. He may also have had other helpers. In an allusion to William Burch, one of the customs commissioners, the Boston Gazette, September 11, 1769, reported “certain Knowledge” that “Shylock Burch” wrote “the Impertinence that Mein exhibits in his Paper.” Green was probably responsible for the proposal (Chronicle, January 18, 1770) that non-marriage, with its threat of depopulation, be substituted for non-importation as a weapon against England, himself to act as chairman of a committee for storing females: “If any man should refuse to deliver up his wife or daughter upon such an interesting occasion, he must be deemed AN ENEMY TO HIS COUNTRY.”

1171 Boston Chronicle, November 9, 1769; also Boston Evening-Post, November 13.

1172 Facsimile in Narrative and Critical History of America, Justin Winsor, editor, vi. 78.

1173 Vote of January 23, in the Boston Evening-Post, January 29, 1770

1174 Judgments were eventually assessed against Mein totaling over £2,612 with costs and damages. His financial tribulations are set forth in Murray, Letters, pp. 169–174; John Hancock His Book, p. 74; and Bolton, “Circulating Libraries in Boston,” our Publications, xi. 198–200. John Adams, in the “Novanglus” papers (1774), perverted the facts in describing Mein’s difficulties in Boston. See his Works, iv. 30.

1175 The tombstone, as noted above, gives August 27, 1717, as the date. John Phelps, Family Memoirs, gives August 15. A memorandum by Charles Phelps in his own hand gives August 16, which is Old Style for August 27, 1717.

1176 The date April, 1764, is given as the time of the arrival of the Phelps family in Marlborough. This is to be found on the gravestone of Timothy Phelps, son of Charles Phelps, in the abandoned burying-ground in Marlborough, Vermont. The town of New Marlborough was chartered by New Hampshire on April 17, 1764, in the name of Charles Phelps and his associates. Benjamin H. Hall, History of Eastern Vermont, p. 97.

Subsequent to the order of the King in Council fixing the Connecticut River as the eastern boundary of New York, Phelps applied to that Province for a charter for this town, but there is no record that he ever obtained it. His petmon was originally filed October 15, 1766 (New York Land Papers, xxi. 183, 185), and was renewed March 16, 1772 (id., xxxi. 48). The petition was finally granted by the Governor and Council on June 15, 1772, but no patent was taken out. For this information I am indebted to our associate, Mr. M. B. Jones.

1177 Phelps, Family Memoirs, p. 10.

1178 Id.

1179 Id., p. 11.

1180 Hall, History of Eastern Vermont, pp. 206–208.

1181 Id., pp. 243–244.

1182 Our Publications, xxv. 51–52.

1183 Heath Papers (MSS., Massachusetts Historical Society), v. 279.

1184 A communication of his to the Massachusetts Council, July 29, 1779, is printed in our Publications, xxv. 54–57.

1185 Phelps, Family Memoirs, pp. 9–10.

1186 Id., p. 15.

1187 Id., p. 11.

1188 Dorothy Phelps, the judge’s daughter, wife of Jonathan Warner of Hadley.

1189 Public Papers of George Clinton, v. 311–312.

1190 For information regarding this excessively rare pamphlet, I am indebted to Mr. Jones.

1191 Public Papers of George Clinton, viii. 44.

1192 See Appendix, below.

1193 Quoted in Hall, History of Eastern Vermont, p. 483.

1194 The original MS. is in the Library of Congress.

1195 This proposal is said to have been made in view of the partition of Poland of 1772.

1196 In my opinion the most illuminating discussion of the existence of land-jobbery by both parties in the New Hampshire Grants is to be found in The Vermont Settlers and the New York Land Speculators, an 188-page pamphlet printed in 1894 by Reuben Clark Benton, a native Vermonter

1197 The election figures given herewith are taken from the World Almanac, 1937.

1198 See Hiland Hall, Early History of Vermont, p. 444, for a statement of the bearing of the admission of Vermont into the Union upon the prospective choice of the permanent seat of the Federal Government. See also James B. Wilbur, Ira Allen, ii. 1–2.

1199 A summary of the case of Vermont, then an applicant before Congress for admission to the Union, dated May 1, 1782, and prepared by James Madison of Virginia, then in Congress, is found in Madison’s Papers, i. 122. It is also in Hiland Hall, Early History of Vermont, pp. 406–408.

1200 For an account of the distribution of the $30,000 paid by Vermont to New York as a condition of the latter’s withdrawal of all claim to Vermont lands, see Hiland Hall, Early History of Vermont, pp. 506–511. There were seventy-six claimants who shared in the total, the sums varying from $2,655.03 to $9.98, most of the claims being small. Most of the original claimants were dead when the distribution finally occurred, April 23, 1799.

1201 Our Publications, xvii. 2–111.

1202 Id., xxviii. 37–66.

1203 It is a thin folio, bound in green cloth with back and comers in black leather, and on the front cover is pasted a piece of black leather, on which is printed in gold letters the title. Of Amasa Walker (1799–1875), who was Secretary of State of Massachusetts in 1851–1853, there is a sketch in the Dictionary of American Biography; and of Robert Lemon (1800–1867), to whom “the suggestion of forming and publishing the ‘Calendars of State Papers’ is due,” there is a sketch in the Dictionary of National Biography.

1204 The extracts in this paragraph quoted from Mr. Elton’s paper are from our Publications, xxviii. 52, 57–58, 59.

1205 After May 14, 1774, the only meeting of the Council under the Province charter of 1691 recorded in the documents here printed took place on June 9, 1774; but as Oliver did not become lieutenant-governor until August 8 following, he of course was not present at that meeting. The Mandamus Council, as these documents show, met on August 31, 1774, and on July 17, 20, October 9, 25, 26, 28, and 30, 1775. Why there was no meeting of the Council between August 31, 1774, and July 17, 1775, is explained in Oliver’s letter to Dartmouth of December 9, 1774: “General Gage has no doubt acquainted Your Lordship that since the 2d of September, the Province has been in such a state of confusion, in which the People have so far put an end to all law and order, that the direction of Government has been rather in the line of a General than that of a Governor. And as the forms of a Council under these circumstances, and the Prejudices of the People would only tend to encrease their violences, and add to his difficulties and embarrassment; upon these reason I presume he has avoided calling one.” Thus instead of reassuming his seat in the Council “as soon as he got into Boston” in September, 1774, Oliver did not do so until July 17, 1775. It is not surprising that after the lapse of a decade Oliver’s memory, if indeed he used the exact words attributed to him, should have been slightly at fault.

1206 In his discussion of that point, Mr. Elton remarks that some writers call him “Governor Oliver,” and goes on to say: “It is probable, however, that between Gage’s departure on October 10, 1775, and Oliver’s on March 17, 1776, the latter was acting Governor, although officially entitled ‘Lieutenant Governor.’” It is not “probable” but certain that such was the fact. In the years 1694–1771, because either of the absence from Massachusetts or of the death of the governor, five lieutenant-governors became acting governors, and, oddly enough, each of them served twice in that capacity. William Stoughton was acting governor from December 4, 1694, to May 26, 1699, and again from July 22, 1700, to his death on July 7, 1701; William Tailer, from November 9, 1715, to October 5, 1716, and again from June 11 to August 10, 1730; William Dummer, from January 2, 1723, to July 19, 1728, and again from September 10, 1729, to June 11, 1730; Spencer Phips, from September 15, 1749, to August 7, 1753, and again from September 25, 1756, to April 4,1757; and Thomas Hutchinson, from June 3 to August 2, 1760, and again from August 2, 1769, to March 14, 1771, when he himself became governor. A lieutenant-governor never (except, as in the case of Hutchinson, through a new commission) became governor; and when serving as acting governor was never addressed as “His [or Your] Excellency,” but always as “His [or Your] Honor.” Cf. our Publications, xvii. 48, 49, 51, 52, 61, 68, 71, 72, 76, 82, 85, 92, 109, 110. And now a sixth must be added to the list of acting governors, for on October 25, 1775—Gage having departed on the tenth—Oliver took the usual oaths that “he would faithfully perform the duties of Lieutenant Governor & Commander in Chief of the Province, according to his best skill and judgment”—just as if nothing had happened! Certainly Oliver played the game to the bitter end. His salary as lieutenant-governor continued to be paid up to October, 1782. The words “according to his best skill and judgment,” or some slight variation of the words, are found in the oaths taken by Hutchinson, November 26, 1761, on becoming lieutenant-governor, again, August 2, 1769, on becoming acting governor, and for a third time, March 14, 1771, on becoming actual governor; by Gage, May 17, 1774, on becoming governor; and by Andrew Oliver, March 14, 1771, on becoming lieutenant-governor. Cf. our Publications, xvii. 84, 86, 87, 95.

1207 Here Mr. Lemon has underlined “September” and has written in the margin: “sic q Nov^r.” The correct date is November 27,1774: see p. [9], below

1208 The following note is in the hand of Mr. Lemon: “These were Draft Instructions, proposed by the Board of Trade on the 20th of May, which were referred to the Privy Council on the 25th of that month, and agreed to and reported on the 1st of June following; the only alterations in the Names being that of John Erving Senior instead of John Irwin, and the substitution of John Erving Junior for the last name William Clicking.”

1209 Here is written in the margin: “see ante,” a reference to p. [5], above.

1210 Mr. Lemon has appended the following note: “The letter r. has been added to several names apparently at a subsequent period.”

1211 Here is written in the margin: “sic q versus.”

1212“A short note dated 2^d September, begging the Governor, on no consideration, to send out any Troops.”

1213 Oliver’s letter is, according to Mr. Lemon, “in several parts, corrected & interlined.”

1214 Gage had left Boston on October 10.

1215 Here “Commander in Chief” of course refers to Oliver under his commission as lieutenant-governor.

1216 Here Oliver refers to Howe as “Commander in Chief” because Gage on his departure was succeeded by Howe as commander-in-chief of the British forces in North America.

1217 This word is here used in its obsolete sense of “grateful appreciation or acknowledgment (of a service, kindness, etc.); a feeling or expression of gratitude.” Cf. our Publications, xvi. 870.

1218 Again the title refers to Oliver under his commission as lieutenant-governor.

1219 That is, as lieutenant-governor under his commission as such.

1220 The fleet from which the Mt. Vernon so narrowly escaped was undoubtedly the French, under the command of Admiral Bruix, which was sent from Brest into the Mediterranean in the spring of 1799 to support Napoleon in Egypt after Nelson had destroyed the French fleet in the Battle of the Nile. However, without going into the eastern Mediterranean at all, Bruix returned to Brest on August 13, 1799, so that this must have been his fleet that the Mt. Vernon met off Cape St. Vincent on July 28.

1221 New England Historical and Genealogical Register, xlii. 300–307. I have also had the benefit of the notes taken by our associate, Clifford K. Shipton, in preparing a sketch of Hugh Hall for Volume VI of Sibley’s Harvard Graduates. The Hall arms and crest here reproduced are: arms—silver semy of crosslets and three talbots’ heads sable, the tongues gules; crest—a talbot’s head erased sable, the tongue gules.

1222 This was probably Joseph Parsons of the Class of 1697, who was dismissed from the ministry in 1708, and was in business in Boston until 1717. Sibley, Harvard Graduates, iv. 366–368.

1223 He wrote to President Leverett, February 28, 1717, requesting letters “to some of y^e Royall Society, or South Sea Company”—an odd alternative.

1224 Letter to President Leverett, August 2, 1717. Letter-Book, p. 29.

1225 London, 1710–11. The set is noted in the 1723 Catalogue of the Harvard College Library, p. 71.

1226 In a later letter to Benning Wentworth (p. 142), Hall writes, “I could have been Content to have Drank your health in … Cytron Water Punch.” In the inventory of the estate of Lieutenant-Governor John Montgomery of New York, at the New York Public Library, are several dozen pints of citron-water, which sold at about £2 8s a dozen.

1227 Apparently there was quite a market in Boston for broken cannons and other scrap iron, as later letters show (p. 266). To John Cabot, Hall sent “Six barrells of Select Old Iron” in 1720 (p. 222) and solicits in return “Good Refuse Cod and Polluck Fish” (p. 221).

1228 Williams had formerly been minister of a Congregational church in Barbados. Sibley, Harvard Graduates, iv. 182–183.

1229 Alice Morse Earle, Child Life in Colonial Days, pp. 102–103. Both children took dancing and writing lessons from Increase Gatchell.

1230 Doubtless the father of Charles Carroll of Carrollton.

1231 At this period the term “Union flag” was used in America to mean a flag having the union of the two crosses in the canton. See George H. Preble, History of the Flag of the United States of America (2nd ed., Boston, 1880), p. 197. Cf. the use of the phrase “Grand Union Flag,” meaning a flag with a union in the canton, not with the union as the design of the field.

1232 For a discussion of Hopkins’s flags, see “The Signal Instructions of Esek Hopkins,” by William Davis Miller, in The Correspondence of Esek Hopkins, pp. 7–15.

1233 Cf. W. G. Perrin, British Flags, Their Early History, and Their Development at Sea, pp. 117–120.

1234 Van Wyck Brooks, The Flowering of New England, pp. 21, 22, 45; see also Plutarch’s Cicero, chap. v.

1235 Letters of Members of the Continental Congress, Edmund C. Burnett, Editor, ii. 49–50. Presumably “Gribelin” should be “Gobelin.”

1236 John C. Miller, Sam Adams, Pioneer in Propaganda, p. 108.

1237 Cf. extract from Pennsylvania Packet, September 22, 1787, in Pennsylvania and the Federal Constitution, John B. McMaster and Frederick D. Stone, Editors, p. 125.

1238 Richard F. Upton, Revolutionary New Hampshire, p. 215.

1239 A biographical sketch of Wilson can be found in Dictionary of American Biography, xx. 326–330. His writings have been published as follows: Works of James Wilson, Bird Wilson, Editor, 3 vols. (Philadelphia, 1804); Selected Political Essays of James Wilson, Randolph G. Adams, Editor (New York, 1930), which contains a good bibliography of Wilson’s writings and speeches; Works of James Wilson, James DeWitt Andrews, Editor, 2 vols. (Chicago, 1896). B. A. Konkle, author of James Wilson and the Constitution, is projecting a complete Life and Works.

1240 Pennsylvania and the Federal Constitution, pp. 631, 682.

1241 Id., p. 511.

1242 L. H. Alexander, “James Wilson, Patriot, and the Wilson Doctrine,” North American Review, clxxxiii, p. 3, 5, 8, 10, 16.

1243 L. H. Alexander, “James Wilson, Patriot, and the Wilson Doctrine,” North American Review, clxxxiii, p. 5.

1244 Letters of Members of the Continental Congress, i. 175.

1245 Id., ii. 215–217.

1246 Works (Andrews edition), i, Introduction.

1247 Letters of Members of the Continental Congress, ii. 53.

1248 Works (Bird Wilson edition), i. 443, iii. 390.

1249 Id., i. 211.

1250 “A gangrened wound must be amputated with the knife, lest the healthy part of the body be corrupted also.” Ovid, Metamorphoses, i, 190–191; Works (Bird Wilson edition), i. 466, ii. 351.

1251 “The Law is the foundation of the liberty which we enjoy. We are all slaves to the law, in order that we may be free.” Cicero, Pro Cluentio, 146.

1252 Cicero, De Legibus, ii, 23; Plato, Laws, 624, 659, etc.

1253 Cicero, De Oratore, i, 199; Works (Bird Wilson edition), i. 32; Cicero, Brutus, 53; Tacitus, Dialogus de Oratoribus, 28.

1254 “The mind, soul, purpose, and idea of the State depend upon its laws.” Cicero, Pro Cluentio, 146.

1255 “What tribe or race of men is there that does not have an intimation of immortality, without formal training?” Cicero, De Natura Deorum, i, 16.

1256 “What is holier or more protected by every article of faith, than any individual citizen’s household?” Cicero, Pro Domo, 41; Tacitus, Germania, 21.

1257 “Let me assure you, each of you receives a greater heritage in these same goods from the law and from legislation than from those persons by whom these very goods have been left by will.” Cicero, Pro Caecina, 26.

1258 “In every class of mankind, and especially in the most untutored, there is at work a mighty and marvellous process of nature.” Cicero, De Oralore, iii, 50.

1259 Works (Bird Wilson edition), ii. 288, i. 85, ii. 234; Homer, Iliad, xviii, 497.

1260 Aristotle, Politics, iv, 9; Sir Henry Maine, Ancient Law (Sir Frederick Pollock, Editor), chap. iii.

1261 Cicero, De Republica, Book iii (fragment), in Lactantius, Institutes, vi, 10.

1262 Miller, Sam Adams, p. 267; see also Selected Essays of Wilson, p. xxxv.

1263 “I think that, if our allegiance to the gods were annulled, faith and the society of mankind and that primarily excellent virtue, justice, would disappear.” Cicero, De Natura Deorum, i, 4.

1264 Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved (2d ed., London, 1765), p. 70; Ulpian, Digest, l, 17, 32; Justinian, Institutes, i, 5. For this idea, even in Tudor England, see Albert F. Pollard, Henry VIII, ii. 234.

1265 Aristotle, Ethics, 1102 a, 5; William A. Dunning, History of Political Theories, i. 68.

1266 “According as each man perceives most clearly the kernel of every fact, and is able with the greatest acumen and speed to explain its principles, so he may be properly regarded as the wisest and soundest of all.” Cicero, De Officiis, i, 5.

1267 De Jure Naturae et Gentium, i, 6, 10–11.

1268 Aeschylus, Supplices, 370–375; Livy, v, 48; Thucydides, v, 105; Dio, i, 5; Suetonius, Caligula, 22 (perhaps); Marcus Aurelius (Loeb Classical Library), pp. 357, 365, 367. Wilson quotes a great deal from memory, and often gives a free rendering of the original.

1269 Politics, iv, 7 (1293 b).

1270 “So I prescribe, so I order it; let my will take the place of explanations.” Juvenal, Satires, vi, 223 (hoc for sic; sit for stet).

1271 Works (Bird Wilson edition), i. 210.

1272 “Nothing is more welcome to the Godhead of the universe than councils and gatherings of men which are united by the sanction of the law.” Cicero, Pro Balbo, 13, Somnium Scipionis, 3.

1273 Marcus Aurelius (Loeb Classical Library), p. 137.

1274 Cicero, De Republica, iii, 2, De Fato, 28; Lactantius, Institutes, i, 6. The phrase is adapted by Wilson as is so often the case.

1275 Cicero, De Officiis, i, 15, iii, 23, i, 22; De Amicitia, 87.

1276 Tacitus, Germania, 12; Cicero, De Officiis, ii, 41.

1277 Cicero, De Republica, ii, 41; Tacitus, Annals, iv, 33.

1278 Tacitus, Germania, xi.

1279 Metamorphoses, ii, 13–14.

1280 Ars Poetica, 191.

1281 Livy, viii, 23; Herodotus, vi, 108.

1282 Cicero, De Officiis, i, 17, De Legibus, iii, 1.