MARCH MEETING, 1906.
A Stated Meeting of the Society was held at No. 25 Beacon Street, Boston, on Thursday, 22 March, 1906, at three o’clock in the afternoon, the President, George Lyman Kittredge, LL.D., in the chair.
The Records of the last Stated Meeting were read and approved.
The Corresponding Secretary reported that a letter had been received from Mr. William Logan Rodman Gifford of St. Louis, Missouri, accepting Corresponding Membership.
The President announced the death on the twenty-seventh of February of Mr. Samuel Pierpont Langley, an Honorary Member, and on the twenty-first of March of Mr. James Mills Peirce, a Resident Member, and paid a tribute to their memory.
The President stated that he had received from the Massachusetts Historical Society a Memorial to Congress respecting the preservation of the frigate Constitution. The Memorial was referred to the Council.
The President also announced the appointment of Mr. Henry H. Edes as the delegate from this Society to attend the meeting at Philadelphia in April of the American Philosophical Society in celebration of the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of Benjamin Franklin, at which the Society had been invited to be represented.
A SEARCH FOR THE BEGINNINGS OF STOCK SPECULATION.
It is a long step backward to the time when one might turn for investment to the stocks of the companies which bore the suggestive titles “Virginia,” “New Jersey,” or “Pennsylvania.” Yet in their day the securities of these companies had their attractions for capitalists, and perhaps at times for speculators, although it was impossible that dealings in these stocks in early days should have been classed under the head of “stock-jobbing,” an expression which is only used with reference to trading based upon rapid fluctuations of values in an open market. For dealings of this kind, whether on time or on margin, it is essential that there should be companies having fixed capitals divided into shares of uniform value, capable of easy transfer. The limitations which at the outset the great trading companies at times imposed upon their membership, and the intricate and difficult process of transferring interests in the ventures of such companies made it impossible so long as these restraints existed, that their stocks should be the subject of this sort of speculation. At the beginning the English Company of Adventurers admitted members who were bound together by oaths in temporary association for purposes of trading, colonization or conquest, and the rights obtained by the individuals who participated in these enterprises could only be transferred by consent of the majority of the Adventurers. Then followed the limited participation of owners of stock in some particular venture of a company, and finally in the course of time the idea was evolved of organizing companies for industrial and mining purposes, each having a fixed capital divided into certificates of uniform value transferable at will. Under the latter conditions came facilities for quotations of value, for transfers of ownership, and for trading in futures; and the opportunity was then given for dealings in stocks on the part of speculators, who could thereby find vent for that craving for excitement which had hitherto sought relief in hazardous mercantile ventures, in voyages of exploration, in preying upon Spanish commerce, or perhaps in privateering. Shakespeare puts all of Antonio’s hazards on the deep:
Have all his ventures failed? What, not one hit?
From Tripolis, from Mexico, and England,
From Lisbon, Barbary, and India,
And not one vessel ’scape the dreadful touch
Of merchant-marring rocks?
The London Bassanios might have continued to comment, in similar language, on the business embarrassments of their merchant friends, until, sometime in the latter part of the seventeenth century when speculation in stocks having become pronounced, the phrase “stock-jobbing” was born. Then the ventures that failed were to be sought for on the stock-market as well as on the high seas. It is for the period which first gave birth to this phrase that we must look in order to fix the beginnings of stock speculations. We know that prior to the early part of the seventeenth century there were no stocks in which speculation was possible. The exact determination of the origin of the term “stock-jobbing” would fix within narrow limits the beginning of such dealings, but even if we should fail to ascertain that date with certainty, our search will be helpful towards settling the question under discussion.
We can approach the subject, if we choose, by starting with the foundation of the great trading ventures and working down to the times when joint-stock companies became common. Or we may begin at some era in the historic past, far enough away from the present methods of business life to encounter customs which differ essentially from those in use to-day, yet near enough to permit knowledge of most of the conditions essential for stock speculation as conducted in our own time. If by preference we adopt the latter method for our research and turn to those marvellous events in Europe which startled the business world at the beginning of the eighteenth century, we find both in France and England the conditions to furnish the starting point that we seek.
Furious dealings in stocks, and evidence of some knowledge as to time transactions characterized what was the first stock-market in Paris. The industrial and commercial opportunities were absolutely different from our own. Law’s System, which then furnished in France the stock needed for the stock-jobbers, was initiated in 1716 by the organization of the Banque Générale. This was twenty-two years after the incorporation of the Bank of England. The Bank of Scotland, which had furnished Law with some lessons in the use of paper money, was then just of age. Over thirty years had passed since the “Fund at Boston in New-England” had made its feeble attempt to supply the little Massachusetts village with Bank Credit as a substitute for coin,483 and the Colony of the Massachusetts-Bay had for a quarter of a century depended upon a denominational paper currency issued by the government for all local business transactions. A brief review of the rise of the System and a glance at the story of its feeble imitator the South Sea Bubble, will help us to discover what was new in these proceedings, and what was inherited from the past.
The speculative upheaval in France familiarly known as Law’s Mississippi Bubble culminated in the winter of 1719–1720. A foreigner, whose career had been marred by his dissolute habits; a fugitive from justice, whose life had been forfeited by English law; a writer of pamphlets on money and trade; a promulgator of schemes for banks and companies which should revive the fortunes of whatever nation should adopt them; a wanderer upon the continent of Europe seeking for some monarch who would test his plans, Law at last found a listener in the Regent of France and taught him the magic power of credit. So complete a change was wrought in the temper of the French nation by the establishment of Law’s company, that the same government which but a few months before had seen its notes at seventy per cent discount, was able to flood the market with the issues of the Royal Bank and see an actual preference given them over the coin of the realm. The narrow street known as the Rue Quincampoix, the centre of speculation in Paris, was thronged with a motley crowd, composed of all classes and of all European nations. Here priest and soldier, noble and tradesman, mistress and maid, Parisian, provincial and. foreigner, jostled each other in their eager contest for the wonderful shares which had produced this marvellous result, shares to whose upward course it seemed at one time as if no limit could be set. The seed of speculation had been sown in virgin soil. The plant, fostered in the earlier stages of its life by devices entirely novel in France, grew with a rank luxuriance which soon outstripped the need of helping hand. The very excess of its vitality, combined with the favorable circumstances under which it was placed, carried a threat to its own existence, nor could the pruning-hook be applied without danger to life. As in nature, the plant which grows too rapidly finds itself unable to stand erect and bear its own weight, so the mad fury of speculation increased in Paris from day to day until it was no longer able to sustain itself. Meantime, however, the French had become familiar with many of the methods which are in vogue to-day, and which have continued without interruption, in France, from that period to the present, in spite of the edicts which were promulgated against them at the time of the fall of Law’s System. This furor of speculation had been accomplished through the agency of a gigantic commercial company into whose hands had been concentrated the management of the commerce and finances of the kingdom, combined with which was a bank which had unlimited capacity to issue paper money. The collapse followed closely upon the attempt to compel the conversion of the Rentes into the stock of the Company.
The Bank with which Law began his operations had a fixed capital divided into shares, but in the Company of the West — the second step taken in the development of the System — although there was a stated par value for the shares named in the original edict, there was no limitation to the capital except the needs of the business.484 A few months afterwards, however, such a limit was stated. Here then, we have certain knowledge of the existence of some of the conditions which are demanded for stock-jobbing. The analogy to modern securities does not, however, stop here. As time went on and speculation developed, Law put on the market three classes of shares: actions simples, which participated proportionately in the profits and losses of the company; actions rentières, which had a fixed guaranteed income, but did not participate in dividends; and actions intéressées, which had a fixed guaranteed income and also certain rights to participate in dividends. To some of these shares coupons were attached.485 So that we have in the three classes given above the three types of securities which the modern corporation puts on the market: common stock; preferred stock; and the unsecured bond with fixed interest.
Law, therefore, furnished an outfit of securities sufficient to run a modern stock board. If to this it be added that the founder of the System bulled the stock of the Company of the West by contracts to purchase on future deliveries at an advance on current prices, we see that the added element of time contracts brings this early market in close touch with modern methods. Moreover, the ingenious privileges for subscriptions to new stock, given to existing stock-holders, added to the fury of the speculation, and gave to the several classes of stock different values, a source of much puzzle to those who did not analyze the subscription rights attaching to the specific shares.
The great change which took place in the condition of France during the progress of these events could but excite the wonder of the rest of Europe. A government which at the death of Louis XIV. found itself absolutely without credit was able in the fall of 1719 to propose the redemption of its entire debt.486 Manufactures sprang up, trade revived, interest was reduced, and the nominal value of property throughout France was enormously increased. It was not unnatural that while this was going on, other nations should seek to imitate the example. If the prostrate kingdom of France could be revived in so short a time; if paper money and commercial companies could convert destitution into opulence, and actual suffering into extravagant luxury; if a treasury, bankrupt when inherited, could by these means be made solvent and put in condition to propose the redemption of a government debt which though small was burdensome, surely the experiment was” worthy of being tried elsewhere. The financiers of England were already familiar with the several processes which had been used in France to accomplish these ends. In fact, the whole of Law’s scheme was but an extension of a plan for the relief of the government which had been already started upon a smaller scale in London. The Bank of England had been created for the purpose of loaning its capital to the government and had issued demand notes. Its capital had been subsequently increased to enable it to make further government loans. The South Sea Company had been incorporated in order to fund certain government deficits and debts which were unprovided for. Its capital had been increased to furnish a redemption for the fund appropriated for payment of lottery tickets of 1710. There were in 1719 certain annuities, some of them covering a period of ninety years, which the government wished to redeem. The South Sea Company, stimulated by its previous successes and influenced by Law’s example, offered to redeem not only these but the entire debt. In a competition with the Bank of England for this privilege, the Company finally prevailed, and in 1720 a proposition was accepted by the Government, which was substantially the same in character as that which was made with reference to the French debt, by Law’s Company to the Regent of France. The debt was to be converted into shares in the South Sea Company.
The mere announcement that the proposition was accepted caused South Sea shares to rise. The infatuation which followed resembled that which had seized upon the French people. The scenes which had characterized the daily gatherings in the Rue Quincampoix at Paris were transferred to ’Change Alley, London. A cause for the speculative movement in Paris is to be found in the sudden inundation of the market with an immense amount of paper money. The infatuation in London seems to have been founded mainly upon the fact that there were large sums of money in the city seeking investment, but combined also with this was the popular belief that great gains could be made in some inexplicable manner by this process of redeeming the public debt. This mood of the public was fostered by promises of dividends, and the speculative mania thereby created survived for some months after the downfall of Law’s System in Paris. In France the speculation was confined almost exclusively to the various issues of Law’s Company. In England, however, the speculators were ready to deal in anything that was offered them. The stocks of all existing companies sympathized with the movement. Old organizations which had been abandoned were revived, and shares were put upon the market. New schemes, without the advantage of incorporation, were freely dealt in. There seemed to be no necessity that the alleged purposes of the company whose stock was offered for sale should be even plausible, nor was any guarantee required as to the honesty of the promoters. It was enough that an advertisement should be issued stating that a company was about to be formed, and that shares would be offered at a given time in ’Change Alley. Subscribers were ready to put down their names and pay an instalment in response to any advertisement. The long list of companies whose prospectuses were launched upon the market during the days of the South Sea Bubble contains the titles of many, the alleged purposes of which were at the time absurd. Some of these with increased knowledge of the laws of business and of mechanics have since become feasible. Many, however, seem as preposterous to-day as they were when they were first offered to purchasers.
The perusal of these titles can only cause wonder that people credulous enough to purchase shares in the companies should have been found, even during the wildest excitement. A proposition for a “Fish Pool for bringing in fresh fish to London” is said to have commanded £160 per share before any money was called in. A company was announced to “fish for wrecks on the Irish Coast.” Another “to make salt water fresh.” Still another was projected, whose alleged purpose was to make “oil from poppies.” Perhaps the wildest scheme of all was that “for transmuting quicksilver into a malleable and fine metal.”487 One project was advertised in the newspapers as follows: “For subscribing two millions to a certain promising or profitable design, which will hereafter be promulgated.” The projector of a scheme for manufacturing sail-cloth issued permits to subscribe, which were themselves current in the market. A contemporary author says:
We can well remember one of these named Globe-Permits, which came to be currently sold cash for 60 Guineas and upwards in the Alley, which nevertheless was only a square Bit of a playing Card, on which was the Impression of a Seal in Wax, being the Sign of the Globe Tavern in the Neighbourhood, with the Motto or Inscription Sail-Cloth Permits, [without any name signed thereon] the Possessors thereof being to be hereafter permitted to subscribe to a new Sail-Cloth Manufactory, projected by one who was then known to be a Man of Fortune, though afterwards involved in great Calamities and Disgrace.488
It was impossible that fraudulent proceedings of this nature should not leave behind some traces of litigation. Doubtless if one knew just where to turn in the various sets of English Reports, one could find in them many items of interest concerning these companies. One case, Colt v. Woolaston and Arnold, which was decided in 1723,489 gives practically all the details connected with the formation of one of these projects. It is so much more explicit than the general statements of the pamphleteers that no apology is needed for giving a résumé of the proceedings. Woolaston, the principal defendant, invented a project for extracting oil from radishes, and took out a patent for the sole exercise of his invention. His proposed plan included the cultivation of a farm for raising the radishes from which the oil was to be extracted. In pursuance of this plan he bought an estate for £31,800, on which a mortgage of £28,000 was left. The patent was then assigned to Arnold (who was also made a defendant in the suit) in trust for contributors to the scheme.490 A company was organized June, 1720, with 5,000 shares of £20 each. The £100,000 was to be applied, £28,000 to the mortgage and £57,200 to Woolaston for the Patent, the balance to remain in the treasury of the Company, the title of which was the “Land Security and Oil Patent.” In August, 1720, the Company failed, and this suit and another were successfully prosecuted against the projectors.
In the midst of so many chimerical schemes and absurd propositions it was a difficult task for the wits of the day to find language extravagant enough to satirize, in burlesque titles of fictitious companies, the preposterous plans devised by sharpers to draw in money from the credulous. One advertisement, however, has been handed down to us, which shows that even at that time, when the wise and the ignorant, the rich and the poor, nobles and peasants, were alike inoculated with the fever of speculation, there were some who comprehended the follies which were being perpetrated. In this advertisement it was stated that at a certain place, on a given day, “books would be opened for a subscription of two millions, for the invention of melting down sawdust and chips, and casting them into deal boards, without cracks or knobs.”491
If we examine the methods made use of by the speculators of that day, we shall find that Law attracted attention to his company by purchasing “calls” at prices far above what there was any necessity for him to pay.492 By means of these contracts he not only ultimately made money, but he stimulated confidence that the stock would rise, at a time when it was needed. In England it was stated by an observer that “great numbers of contracts were made [during the South Sea excitement] for taking many of the stocks at a future time; and also for Puts and Refusals of them, at very high prices.”493 In other words, the speculative methods in vogue not only covered cash transactions, but included the “puts” and “calls” of to-day. More than that, shrewd observers detected the plans of the speculators, and one of them, in a published comparison of the advantages offered the public by the proposals of the Bank and the Company, alluded to “jobbing tricks played and reports given about the Alley to raise stock,” and asserted that the manipulators of the South Sea stock would, if let alone, “turn this great design into a private job, and when they have worked up their stock by management to an unnatural price will draw out and leave the public to shift for itself.”494
Abundant evidence exists that the whole business of speculating in stocks was in 1718 a novelty to the French. They had to be taught the A B C of the methods. When they had learned how to speculate, they dealt only in the stocks furnished by the genius of one man. The allusion to transactions in futures in London referred to above, shows that the English were already familiar with stock speculations, with all the ramifications which follow transactions in futures, and with the manœuvres and tricks often used to secure a fictitious valuation for a stock. They were accustomed to the methods of forming joint-stock companies, of launching them on the market, and of creating a favorable public opinion. There is, I think, a decided disposition to fix upon the date when these episodes occurred as the time when stock-jobbing began. The fact is that these conspicuous transactions form an epoch during which the frenzy of the speculators so completely overshadows antecedent events that there is actual danger of overlooking facts. The general reader will, however, find enough in the field of ordinary literature to serve as a warning against this conclusion and to put him on guard, even though he lays no claim to knowledge upon technical points in the history of finance.
Readers of Sir Walter Scott’s novels will recall the fascinating description of English life in the days of Charles II. portrayed in Peveril of the Peak. Among the features of the day of which the novelist made use was the speculative mania which at some time during the seventeenth century began to pervade society. In an interview between the Duke of Buckingham and his valet, the latter is made to recapitulate a number of schemes which had been submitted to the duke for the rehabilitation of his fortune. “Dr. Wilderhead’s powder of projection,” “Solicitor Drownland’s plan for draining the fens,” and other similar projects are rejected by the impatient duke, who urges Jerningham to post down to the Alley and buy for him £20,000 in the South Sea Fisheries.
As if conscious that a doubt might arise in the reader’s mind whether this was not an anachronism, Sir Walter adds in a note, —
Stock-jobbing as it is called, that is dealing in shares of monopolies, patents, and joint stock companies of every description, was at least as common in Charles II’s time as our own; and as the exercise of ingenuity in this way promised a road to wealth without the necessity of industry, it was then much pursued by dissolute courtiers.
The novelist is not, perhaps, to be held to the same rigid severity of criticism as the historian. By means of the note, however, the dialogue in the text is to a certain extent withdrawn from the land of fiction. Unfortunately, the note is not fortified by any reference. The statement is made by contemporaneous writers that the transfer of stock speculation from the Royal Exchange to ’Change Alley took place in 1698.495 The South Sea Company was incorporated in 1711. In sending his order for shares in the “South Sea Fisheries” to “the Alley,” the Duke of Buckingham anticipated history by a few years, but that there must have been dealings in stocks at the time which the novelist was describing seems extremely probable. There were in England at that date joint-stock and incorporated companies with shares or transferable interests, and there was money. Tulip bulbs and money had sufficed to set Holland wild a few years before, and dealings in “monopolies and patents” had become of enough importance in the early part of the seventeenth century to furnish a topic for satirical play-writers. Whether these dealings assumed the character of stockjobbing may be doubted, but the general statement that there, were stock dealings in England in the days of Charles II. is, perhaps, true. There may indeed at times have been speculative movements. That such was the case has been repeated in a vague way by some writers on finance, while others have sought to associate the birth of stock speculation with the accession of William and Mary or with the Charter of the Bank of England.
Among those who have assigned the former period, is that distinguished contemporary writer Bolingbroke who, referring to the accession of William and Mary, says:
Thus the method of funding and the trade of stock-jobbing began; thus were great companies created the pretended servants, but in many respects the real masters of every administration.496
A writer in the Democratic Review, in an article on Stock-Gambling, announces the result of his investigation as follows:
This System may be said to have began with the English Revolution in 1689;497
while in a paper published in the Banker’s Magazine the following statement is made:
It is therefore from this period (the Charter of the Bank of England) that we may date the origin of that spirit of gambling which infested the City of London, at different times, and which gave birth to some of the most extraordinary frauds and delusive schemes, that were ever concocted by man in civilized society.
Recurring to the definition of stock-jobbing given by Sir Walter Scott in his note, it will be observed that he does not in express terms include time bargains. Francis, in his Chronicles and Characters of the Stock Exchange says:
The origin of these bargains is obvious, and may be traced to the period of six weeks in each quarter, when the Bank books were, as it was then thought, necessarily closed to prepare for the payment of the dividend.498
This statement is almost as misleading as the anachronisms in Peveril of the Peak. Francis, in the Chronicles, etc., quotes freely from a pamphlet published in 1719, entitled The Anatomy of Exchange Alley,499 the opening words of which were, “The general cry against stock-jobbing has been such, and people have been so long and so justly complaining of it as a public nuisance,” etc. It is true that the assertion that people have long been suffering from stock-jobbing fixes no date, but we can easily trace the use of the phrase farther back than a quarter of a century. A glance at some of the publications treating of this subject about this time will permit us to measure the means at command of the writer to avoid this error.
Defoe, between the years 1697 and 1705, wrote several pamphlets in which he feelingly describes the frauds perpetrated upon the credulous.
There are, and that too many, fair pretences of fine discoveries, new inventions, engines, and I know not what; which being advanced in notion, and talked up to great things to be performed when such sums of money shall be advanced, and such and such engines are made, have raised the fancies of credulous people to such height, that merely on the shadow of expectation, they have formed companies, chose committees, appointed officers, shares and books, raised up great stocks, and cried up an empty notion to that degree, that people have been betrayed to part with their money for shares in a new-nothing. . . .
I might go on upon this subject, to expose the frauds and tricks of stock-jobbers, engineers, patentees, committees, with those exchange mountebanks we very properly call brokers, but I have not gall enough for such a work;500 . . .
In his Essay upon Loans, the same author says:
Here together with the innumerable tallies which upon the deficiency of former taxes as aforesaid, went about the town upon discount, and the great obstruction of running cash, by calling in the old coin, was the first rise given the art and mystery of stock-jobbing, etc.
If by this he means the re-coinage of 1696, it is not consistent with what he had already published in his Essay upon Projects, where he says:
I shall trace the original of the projecting humour that now reigns no farther back than the year 1680, dating its birth as a monster then, though by times it had indeed a something of life in the time of the late civil war. . . . But about the year 1680 began the art of projecting to creep into the world. . . .
A while before this several people under the patronage of some great persons had engaged in planting of foreign colonies, as William Pen, the Lord Shaftesbury, Dr. Cox, and others, in Pennsylvania, Carolina, East and West Jersey, and the like places, which I do not call projects because it was only prosecuting what had been formerly begun. But here began the forming of public joint-stocks, which together with the East India, Africa and Hudson’s Bay Companies before established begot a new trade, which we call by a new name stock-jobbing, which was at first only the simple occasional transferring of interest and shares from one to another, as persons alienated their estates, but by the industry of the exchange brokers, who got the business into their hands it became a trade, and one perhaps ‘managed with the greatest intrigue, artifice and trick that ever anything that appeared with a face of honesty could be handled with, for while the brokers held the box they made the whole exchange the gamesters, and raised and lowered the prices of stocks as they pleased, and always had both buyers and sellers who stood ready innocently to commit their money to the mercy of their mercenary tongues.
In The Consolidator: A Memoir of Sundry Transactions from the World in the Moon, 1705, Defoe adds a description of the manner in which the bears of those days depressed a stock and when they had gained their object captured the control of the company in whose stock they were operating:
They concerted matters and all at once fell to selling off their stock, giving out reports that they would be no longer concerned. . . . By this artifice, they daily offering to sale, and yet in all their discourse discouraging the thing they were to sell, no body could be found to buy. . . . All this while the Crolians employed their emissaries to buy up privately all the interest or shares in these things that any of the Solonarian Party would sell.
John Asgill, a writer on finance, published in 1696 a tract entitled Several Assertions proved in order to create another species of Money than Gold and Silver, in which he says “this kingdom stands stock-jobbed, by being obliged to deliver what they have not.” He speaks of “the splitting of shares in joint-stocks, to multiply them in the hands of those whose they then are, that, before the fallacy is found out they may sell them (by number) to others, who come to the right understanding of it by the fall of them in their own hands.” It would seem as if Asgill must have known something about “corners” when he speaks of “being obliged to deliver what they have not,” and “the splitting of shares” and then selling them “by number” is suggestive of what we should to-day denominate “watering stock.” But before Asgill wrote what has just been quoted, an anonymous writer had already published a pamphlet in which he devoted himself largely to a merciless attack upon those who by fraudulent means and tricky ways were engaged in the process of making money by bulling stocks.
The pamphlet in question was published in London in 1695, and was entitled Angliæ Tutamen, or The Safety of England = Being an Account of the Banks, Lotteries, Diving, Draining, Metallic, Salt, Linen, and Lifting and sundry other Engines, and many other pernicious Projects now on Foot, tending to the Destruction of Trade and Commerce, and the impoverishing of this Realm.501 The author of the pamphlet has no patience with stock-jobbing, and attributes the failure of many of the projects to the fact that they were taken out of the management of a few hands and converted into stock-jobbing schemes. He describes the methods of sharpers as follows:
The projectors of many of these made a great noise in the town, for drawing in people to join with them, making use of various tricks and stratagems. As, first, they pretend a mighty vein of gold, silver or copper, to have been discovered in a piece of ground of their knowledge: then they agree with the lord or patentee for a small yearly rent, or a part reserved to him, to grant them a lease of twenty-one years to dig that ground, which they immediately fall to, and give out it is a very rich mine. Next, they settle a company, divide it usually into four hundred shares, and pretend to carry on the work for the benefit of all the proprietors; who, at the beginning, purchase shares at a low rate, viz, ten or twenty shillings, etc. Then, all on a sudden, they run up the shares to three pounds, five pounds, ten pounds, and fifteen pounds per share. Then they fall to stock-jobbing, which infallibly ruins all projects; when those originally concerned, sell out their interest, and by this, and other underhand dealings, trickings, and sharping, on one another, the whole falls to the ground, and is abandoned by everybody.
The references already given have carried us back to a time when the Bank of England was only a year old, a brief space for the growth of a novel method of trading, inaugurated, according to Francis, solely in consequence of the annual closing of the books of the Bank for a short period; but if we go back still another year, we shall find that even then stock-jobbing had reached such a height as to furnish a dramatist with a subject for a satirical play, and time bargains were already so common that forms for “Puts and Refusals” had been published in a serial publication of the day.
The last play written by Thomas Shadwell was entitled, The Volunteers or the Stock-jobbers.502 It was not performed until 1693, some months after the death of the author, which occurred in 1692. In the Epilogue which was written for the posthumous bringing out of the play, and was “spoken by one in deep mourning,” the author is described as:
SHADWELL the great Support oth’ Comick Stage,
Born to expose the Follies of the Age.
This estimate of Shadwell’s work is much more just than opinions expressed upon such occasions ordinarily are. A glance at the notes in Peveril of the Peak and in Macaulay’s History of England will show how much the novelist and the historian were benefited by the discrimination of the play-writer. His selection from the manners and customs of the day of what was suitable for satire upon the stage, was precisely what Scott and Macaulay were in search of. An analysis of Shadwell’s plays reveals many peculiarities of life at that time which are entirely overlooked by ordinary writers. The title of the play already referred to shows, not only that the mania for stock speculation had fastened itself upon the English public in 1692, but that the familiar name of stockjobbing had even then become a cant phrase. Without undertaking to expose the plot of the stock-jobbers, a few extracts from the dialogue will illustrate the material which the stock-market then furnished for dramatic purposes.
Hackwell, an old Cromwellian Colonel, has been led by his young wife to speculate in stocks. He is interviewed by Welford, whom the Colonel evidently mistakes for a dealer in stocks.
Hackwell, Sen. Who are you, sir? Have you ought with me?
Welford. I have, if you be Colonel Hackwell, somewhat which concerns you.
Hack. Sen. Men are wont to call me so; Is it about the Linen manufacture?
Welf. Ha! This godly old fellow is of the honest vocation of stockjobbing. (Aside) — No, it is not.
By means of the dialogue the glass, the copper, the tin and paper manufactures are then in turn introduced. A trial is made of “the Divers” and of “The Dippers who will make the Sarcenet keep out the rain like Drap de Berry,” after which the dramatist, having made effective use of the titles of companies, permits Welford to state the purpose of his visit, and the action of the play moves along.
In another scene two stock-jobbers present their schemes. The dramatist makes use of them to present the extravagances of the stock-market through the contest which ensues between the stockjobbers in offering for Hackwell’s consideration a number of absurd schemes, the enumeration of which was calculated to amuse an audience. In the course of this contest the second stock-jobber announces that “There is likewise a Patent moved for of bringing some Chinese rope-dancers over, the most exquisite in the world. Considerable men,” he adds, “have shares in it, but verily I question whether this be lawful or not.” This furnishes an opportunity for setting forth the morals of stock-jobbing in an obnoxious light, and the instrument selected for the purpose is the old Cromwellian Colonel, who develops the same in the following speech:
Look thee, brother, if it be to a good end, and that we ourselves have no share in the vanity or wicked diversion thereof by beholding of it, but only use it, whereby we may turn the penny, and employ it for edification, always considered that it is like to take, and the said shares will sell well, and then we shall not care, whether the aforesaid dancers come over or no.
The interview with the brokers is ended by Hackwell in the following words:
Look ye, brethren, hye ye into the city, and learn what ye can; we are to have a consultation at my house at four, to settle matters as to lowering and heightening of shares.
If the date of this play were concealed, one might imagine that it was intended to satirize the period of the South Sea Bubble. The play was, however, produced twenty-seven years before the excitement which has been named after the South Sea Company. It is evident not only that Shadwell was himself familiar with the processes which he introduced into his dialogue, but that he expected a London audience to enjoy the satire.
About this time a set of forms for stock transactions was published in a serial edited by a certain John Houghton.503 The topics treated in the weekly papers covered a wide range. Recipes were furnished housewives; advice as to the rotation of crops was given farmers; discussions of scientific subjects were laid before those who were interested in such matters; statistics and facts relating to commerce and trade were published for the benefit of merchants and traders. In the ninety-eighth number of this serial, issued 15 June, 1694, Houghton fixes the period when activity in stocks began in the English market as follows:
A great many stocks have arisen since this war with France; for trade being obstructed at sea, few that had money were willing it should lie idle, and a great many that wanted employments studied how to dispose of their money, that they might be able to command it whensoever they had occasion, which they could more easily do in joint stocks than in laying out the same in lands, houses or commodities, these being more easily shifted from hand to hand: this put them upon contrivances, whereby some were encouraged to buy, others to sell, and this is it that is called Stock jobbing.
Under date of 6 April, 1692, he says:
Altho they that live at London, may, every noon and night on working days, go to Garraway’s Coffee House, and see what prices the Actions504 bear of most companies trading in joint Stocks;
and, under date of 3 March, 1692–93:
At this time when companies of men are so eager to enter into joint stocks for improvement of anything that appears reasonable; witness our linen and copper companies; and the company that lately subscribed for the lead mines in Wales, to which to my knowledge, a subscription was made in one day of 2,500£. And I am well assured they might easily have raised four times as much, and I presume they still may do so, if occasion requires it.
The series of papers specially devoted to joint stocks, or as he says, to “the various dealings therein, commonly called stockjobbing,” came out in 1694. Houghton was acquainted with many worthy persons who dealt in stocks, and he considered it a great hardship that such gentlemen should “undergo the censures of mankind, who inveigh against all traders and trading in stock, tho’ at the same time they know little or nothing of it.” For this reason he proposed “to give an account of the original and necessity of joint-stocks, the lawfulness and usefulness of trading therein, and the abuses that are so much complained of and charged upon the traders in them.” He proceeds to give a few historical facts about joint-stock companies, describes the method of their organization and adds an account of “the manner of managing the trade” and “the manner of refuse:”
The manner of managing the trade is this: the monied man goes among the brokers (which are chiefly upon the Exchange and at Jonathan’s Coffee-House, sometimes at Garraway’s, and at some other Coffee-Houses505) and asks how stocks go. And upon such information, bids the broker buy or sell so many shares of such and such stocks if he can, at such and such prices. Then he tries what he can do among those that have stocks, or power to sell them, and if he can, makes a bargain.
Another time he asks what they will have for refuse of so many shares; that is how many guineas a share he shall give for his liberty to accept or refuse such shares, at such a price, at any time within six months, or other time they shall agree for.
Having thus shown what a “refuse” of shares is, he proceeds to give a form of the contract, and to demonstrate “the conveniency of giving money for a refuse.” He then describes “the manner of putting stock,” argues in favor of its “conveniencies” and gives “the contract for security.” Perhaps the most astonishing revelation in this series of letters or papers is the description of the modern corner under the title of “The great mystery of buying more than all.”506 The whole subject is finally disposed of in a paper headed “The advantages of stocks particularized.” In this paper the author discloses the condition of a number of trades, ventures and companies, leaving it to be inferred that their stock was for sale on the market. From this list Macaulay, who is authority for the statement that the word stock-jobber was first heard in London about the year 1688,507 derived the names and descriptions of many of the companies which he enumerates in his account of the speculations of this period. Two, however, which are mentioned by Houghton find no place in the historian’s list, and these two bring before us more conspicuously perhaps than all the rest the marvellous changes wrought during the two centuries which have intervened. “New Jersey,” said Houghton, “will improve without question; as Pennsylvania by the like means already has.”
The foregoing quotations from Shadwell and from Houghton show that in 1692 dealings in stocks occupied a great share of public attention in London. Already many of the devices of purchasing and selling on time had become common, and rogues had learned that beneath specious promises and under cover of high sounding titles companies could be organized with transferable stock which could be disposed of to the unwary upon the open market. Popular prejudice was already aroused against all stock-dealings. The sins of a part were visited upon the beads of all. It is evident that when Houghton calmly discussed the situation and pointed out the benefits to be derived from these companies and from time transactions in their stocks, he undertook a task which required moral courage.
So strong was the feeling aroused by the many frauds perpetrated by stock-jobbers that in the spring of 1693–94 a bill was introduced in the House of Commons for the purpose of “preventing frauds and abuses in buying and selling of parts and shares in joint-stocks.” A petition of several merchants in behalf of themselves and divers other merchants and tradesmen in and about the city of London and elsewhere, was presented to the House, and read. It set forth that a bill was depending in the House for preventing abuses in selling interests in joint-stocks, that if it should pass as worded it would be of dangerous consequence and a means of ruin to trade, and the petitioners prayed that they might be heard by counsel to offer their reasons against the passage of said bill. The petition was rejected but the bill failed to pass.
On 27 March, 1696, leave to bring in a bill to prevent stockjobbing was granted and a committee was appointed to prepare one. This committee reported a bill which was read twice and then committed. On the first of April, 1697, it was ordered that leave be given to bring in a bill to restrain the number and ill-practices of brokers and stock-jobbers, and that Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Rowland Gwyn and Sir Joseph Tiley do prepare and bring in the bill. A committee was also appointed to inquire into the ill-practices of brokers and stock-jobbers and report the same, with their opinions thereupon to the House.508 This time the bill passed and according to the Monthly Mercury, the royal assent was given to it on the 16th of April and it then became a law.509
We can trace every step of the rapid growth of stock-jobbing in France. In England, however, except for the vague statements of Defoe, when we first hear of the subject it has already reached such proportions that the drama is invoked to satirize it, pamphleteers ventilate the wrongs perpetrated on the public in its name, and Parliament is called upon to check the abuses which follow in its train. Nevertheless, it is evident that in England it was a growth, perhaps a rapid growth, but not a creation, certainly not, as in France, the creation of one man.
If we step back of the well-defined craze of stock-jobbing of which we have just been treating, we find that in 1688 there was enough of a market for East India shares to permit a diplomat to speculate in them on the basis of his political knowledge. Burnet says510 that Abbeville before going over to The Hague in 1688 sent over a threatening Memorial. This was printed at Amsterdam before it was delivered to the States. “The chief effect this had was that the Actions of the company did sink for some days. But they soon rose again; and by this it was said that Abbeville himself made the greatest gain.” The inference is plain here that the shares in which Abbeville made his gains were transferable at will.
In those days goldsmiths received deposits and were of course on the lookout for temporary investments in which they could place their surplus funds. Anderson, referring for authority to a pamphlet entitled “The Mystery of the new fashioned Goldsmiths or Bankers discovered,”511 says that in 1665 all public demands fell short of employing the cash which was deposited with them. “This made them run into the way of lending money on private pawns at high interest; or discounting bills of exchange, or lending money on personal security to heirs in expectancy, etc.” It is evident from this, that in 1665 the shares of joint-stock companies, notwithstanding the fact that Macaulay gives a quotation of East India stock in 1664512 and regardless of what Defoe says of the several companies which he enumerates, did not furnish a conspicuous avenue for the investment of surplus funds.
If the inference which may naturally be drawn from what this pamphlet states be true, we might at this point abandon our search for the beginnings of stock speculation. We have passed through a well defined period of stock-jobbing. We have seen the British public familiar, in the latter part of the seventeenth century, with the methods of organization of stock-companies, and ready to avail themselves of this knowledge upon any pretence for speculative purposes, and we find that but a few years back of this a writer upon finance makes no mention of joint-stock companies when enumerating the avenues in which surplus wealth could be invested. The reason why the securities of the trading companies, which were then from time to time offered for sale, should not have commanded the support of those who wished to make temporary investments of their surplus money, is probably to be found in the fact that the restrictions surrounding the memberships of some of the companies and the difficulties attendant upon a transfer of the stock which have been referred to, had not been removed. Besides, their charters were originally granted for limited periods, and even as late as 1693 only a portion of them had been converted from “regulated” companies in which the risks of the commercial ventures were assumed by individual members513 into joint-stock companies in which all participated proportionately to their stock in the profits and losses in which the stock was interested. At each renewal of the privilege of the company there was a contest in which the rights of the invested capital were by no means sure of recognition and protection.
From Evelyn we get a view of the relations of the Adventurers to the East India Company in 1657. He gives a description in his diary of a meeting of this company as follows:
I went to London, to a Court of ye East India Company upon its new union in Merchant Taylors Hall where was much disorder by reason of the Anabaptists, who would have the Adventurers oblig’d only by an engagement; without swearing, that they still might pursue their private trade; but it was carried against them. Wednesday was fix’d on for a general court for election of Officers, after a sermon and prayers for good successe. The Stock resolv’d on was 800,000£.
27. I tooke ye oath at the E. India House subscribing 500£.514
Although there are references to the rise and fall of East India stock back of this date, it is difficult to conceive of them in the sense of an ordinary stock quotation. The necessity of binding the shareholders by oath to prevent them from private trading introduced a personal element between the Adventurers which must necessarily have hampered transactions in shares. Considerable power was given in the acts of incorporation of the company to levy assessments. If these powers were exercised in accordance with the resolutions passed by the company, this fact must have held back investors. For instance, at a meeting of the company 11 January, 1601–02, an assessment was laid for the voyage of discovery to the North West Passage, to which this clause was attached:
Provided always that if any brother of this fellowship shall deny to bring in his said contribution at the rate of twelve pence the pound of his former adventure, or do not bring in the same at or before the days and times before limited that then he or they shall satisfy and pay for a fine by way of deduction out of his stock adventure in the last voyage five times the value of the contribution by him payable by virtue of this Act.515
Whether under pressure of assessments or by virtue of sales, there were occasional transfers of interest in these ventures. They required, however, the approval of the company, which was obtained in the manner indicated in the following entry made at a meeting held 6 July, 1601:
At this Court Francis Dent one of the Adventurers of this fellowship whose name is contained in the patent did present to this Assembly one George Bennett and prayed that he might be admitted in his place being willing to assign unto him both his freedom and his adventure which is Two hundred and forty pounds in his Adventure set down and supplies. Which this Court assented unto and in place of the said Francis Dent have received the said George Bennett and admitted him to this freedom as freely as if he had been nominated in the Patent.516
It is also to be noted that when the Common Seal was adopted in 1601, one of the alleged purposes was that “Every contributor might have a bill of Adventure of his Contribution under the common seal of the Company.”517 In April of the same year, in levying an assessment the interests of the Adventurers are spoken of as stock. Even at the very beginning of the Company we find stock and a certificate of ownership under seal of the Company,518 although ownership was accompanied with various personal agreements and obligations, and transfers were only possible by consent of the Company.
The Virginia Company also furnishes a few hints of the methods of these Adventurers. Subscribers to the funds of the company were by the terms of the second Charter in 1609 to be enrolled in the books of record of the Company, and were to be held and reputed Adventurers of the Colony, being capable of enjoying grants as if named in the letters patent.519 In 1613, the Company brought suit in equity against some of the delinquent subscribers. In their petition to the Lord Chancellor, it is stated that upon receipt from subscribers of money, the Company “delivered their bills of receipt and infranchisement sealed with the common seal of the Company.”520
That the Company was regarded as a “joint stock Company” would appear from the memorandum in the Court Minutes of the East India Company 26 February, 1614, to the effect that permission was given Sir Thomas Dale, now employed in Virginia, to adventure £100 in the joint-stock at the request of Sir William Throgmorton.521 Thus we have in the Virginia Company in 1613–14, a joint-stock company which issues evidences of ownership to shareholders under seal of the Company. What they expected in the way of dividends appears in 1616, when they declare that —
they intend, God willing, to begin a present division by lot to every man that hath already adventured his money or person, for every single share of twelve pounds ten shillings, fifty acres of land, till further opportunitie will afford to divide the rest, which we doubt not will bring at least two hundred acres to every single share.522
It was not, perhaps, necessary to show by these extracts that these incorporated trading companies were not at this early period the possible subjects of stock speculation. Contemporary allusions are met with which indicate knowledge of the work which the Companies were accomplishing, but these do not in any way connect their stocks with speculation.523 Yet we must not overlook the fact that occasional rare quotations of East India stock are to be met with during this century; and that Houghton refers to New Jersey and Pennsylvania as though they were on the market in 1694, and that Defoe associates the East India, Africa, and Hudson’s Bay Companies with what he calls “public joint-stocks.”
The companies which furnished the speculators with the means for “lowering and heightening” their stocks towards the end of the century were not, however, as a rule corporations. Behind the epoch of speculative activity which has rendered ’Change Alley immortal and has added to the interest which attaches to the names of Jonathan’s and of Garraway’s, there stretches a period when speculative dealings were apparently confined to patents and monopolies, the former word having, prior to the Statute of Monopolies, a much broader sense than it has to-day; a sense, indeed, which we have seen repeated by Shadwell in the reference to the patent for bringing over some Chinese dancers, as late as 1692.524
Hume gives us a long list of the patents and monopolies granted by Elizabeth to her courtiers.525 These grants were continued by James the First in such profusion that in 1624 the Statute of Monopolies was passed, which prevented thereafter such grants being made except under the guise of inventions. Scattered through Anderson we find the titles of many patents, and turning to the dramatists of the day, we discover that they were somehow made use of for speculative purposes.
If we were put upon our guard as to the speculative epoch prior to the South Sea Bubble by Scott’s Peveril of the Peak we may, perhaps, find in the allusions of historians and dramatists to the similar state of affairs in the beginning of the century, a warning that to this period we must turn before we can safely say that we have got behind stock speculation. It is obvious that there were then speculative dealings in these grants. The question to be solved is, were there at that time any joint-stock companies?
Richard Brome, at one time a servant of Ben Jonson and later a writer of comedies, was one of those who joined in the attack upon this conspicuous abuse of the period. Brome died in 1652. In the Court Beggar, which was pubbshed in 1653, he introduces among the dramatis personæ “Three poore projectors,” and in Scene 1 of Act I he refers to “The Monopoly of making all the Perrukes, male and female through Court and Kingdome.” This, obviously, is quite within the range of possible or even probable monopolies, but in the Antipodes, Act IV., Scene 9, he brings ridicule to bear upon the “projects” of the day, in a long speech, the character of which will be seen from the following extract:
As for yours,
For putting down the infinite use of jacks,
Whereby the education of young children,
In turning spits, is greatly hindered,
It may be looked into: and against yours
The multiplicity of pocket-watches.
Whereby much neighborly familiarity,
By asking “What d’ ye guess it is o’clock?”
Is lost, when every puny clerk can carry
The time o’ the day in’s breeches.
In 1632 Shackerley Marmion published a play called Hollands League. In the fifth Scene of the first Act, a boy announces that five or six are without and would speak with the principal character in the scene. He recognizes them as his “Gibeonites,” his “old projectors,” and adds:
One of them
Will undertake the making of Bay-Salt,
For a penny a bushel, to serve the State,
Another dreames of building water-workes;
Drying of Fennes and Marshes, like the Dutchman.
Again in the second Scene of the third Act, the same speaker says:
You’ll put a period to my undertakings
And save all my labor of projecting.
. . . . . .
’T will hinder to the gaine of Courtiers
Put on by me, to begge Monopolies.
It will be noticed that this play was published eight years after the passage of the Statute of Monopolies. Yet the author makes the projector base his hopes upon monopolies to be begged by courtiers.
It is, however, to Ben Jonson’s The Devil is an Ass that we must turn if we would learn what a “projector” was in 1616 and how the projector proposed to make money for his client, or perhaps it would be better to say, what the delusions were by means of which he intended to rob his client. In Act I., Scene 3, of this play, the projector is thus defined:
Why, one sir, that projects ways to enrich men or to make them great, by suits, by marriages, by undertakings; according as he sees they humour it.
The relations of the client to the project are set forth in Act II., Scene 1:
He shall but be an undertaker with me
In a most feasible business. It shall cost him
Nothing . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . He shall not draw
A string of ’s purse. I’ll drive his patent for him.
We’ll take in citizens, commoners and aldermen,
To bear the charge, and throw them off again
Like so many dead flies, when it is carried.
The thing is for the recovery of drowned land.
A follower brings in a “black bag of papers” from which the projector extracts numerous manuscripts. Project four is a method of dressing dog’s skins. Another is for “Bottle-Ale:”
I will save in cork
In my mere stop’ling, above three thousand pound.
A third is “Making Wine from Raisins,” which would greatly reduce the price of all wines:
But how, sir, if you raise the price of the other Commodity,
Raisins?
Why, then, I’ll make it out of blackberries.
The particular project with which Fitzdottrell, the gull, is to be worked is the redemption of the fens, and this he himself describes in the same scene in the following words:
He has his winged ploughs, that go with sails,
Will plough you forty acres at once! and mills
Will spout you water ten miles off! All Crowland
Is ours wife; and the fens, from us, in Norfolk
To the utmost bounds of Lincolnshire!
Even more seductive than this was the promise of the title “Duke of the Drowned Lands, or Drowndland.” And here we see how Sir Walter Scott’s memory played him false and linked the speculations of two centuries together in Peveril of the Peak. The draining of the fens, until it was actually accomplished, was a favorite field of the projectors. Randolph in the Muses’ Looking Glass, Act III., Scene 1, puts in the mouth of one of his speakers, the following:
I have a rare device . . .
to drain the fens.
The title of Jonson’s play, to which reference has been made and its plot, the purpose of which is to show that a devil fresh from hell was unable to compete at that time with the iniquities of English society, would seem to demand from the author his highest efforts in satire when he comes to the enumeration of the projects to be offered to the gull. Yet the titles of those mentioned do not represent improbable schemes to us, however they may have seemed to contemporaries, nor is the picturesque language used by Fitzdottrel in describing them much different from that used in actual patents granted at this time to Court followers and inventors. In 1618 King James granted an exclusive patent to John Gilbert for the sole making and vending of what was clearly a dredger but which he called a “Water-plough,” and for an engine “for the raising of Waters in greater quantity than heretofore.”526 To David Ramsey and Thomas Wildgosse he granted the sole use and benefit of certain discoveries and inventions, one of which was “For ploughing of Land without Horses or Oxen.”527 Another was for making “Boats for the carriage of burdens and passengers to run upon the water as swift in calms, and more fast in storms, then Boats full sailed in great winds.”528 Can one doubt that Jonson had actual knowledge of Gilbert’s inventions — I will not say the patent, for that was not granted till two years afterward — when he wrote the speech concerning the winged ploughs and the water spouted ten miles off, which has been quoted? Is it not probable that he thought that the keenest satire at his command was the list of patents actually granted?
What concerns us most, however, in connection with these plays is, not so much the character of the patents and monopolies in which people speculated at this date, as the form of the speculation itself. Have we any signs in these quotations of the existence of the conditions which would permit stock speculations?
When Meercraft says —
He shall but be an undertaker with me
In a most feasible business . . .
We’ll take in citizens, commoners and aldermen,
To bear the charge, and throw them off again
Like so many dead flies when it is carried,
he gives us an intimation that some sort of an organization was to be effected by means of which outsiders were to be drawn in, but there is no reference in all this to dealings in stocks. The projector of the day having discovered the “humour” of his victim, worked him either through “suits,” “marriages,” or “undertakings.” In the latter event other gulls were to be sought for, but there is no hint of the intervention of the joint-stock company.
So far as the authorities referred to in this paper furnish any clue to the period when stock-jobbing began in England, they would seem to corroborate the assertion of Bolingbroke which associates it with the accession of William and Mary. The activity in dealings in joint-stocks, which in 1694 attracted the attention of Parliament, had been stimulated by the interference with ordinary avenues of investment, through the war which followed the change of monarchs. During the period of infancy stock-dealings did not attract attention. It was only when the dealers lost their heads and outsiders joined the market, that their transactions became matters of public interest. If this date be accepted as that of the probable origin of those dealings, the rapidity with which all the methods of modern times were developed will seem almost incredible. It may be that Macaulay is correct in his assertion that the word was coined in 1688 and Defoe may be correct when he asserts that the craze which begot stock-jobbing sprang up in 1680. But, what we can certainly say is that just after 1690 dealings in stocks had reached such a magnitude as to be condemned by hostile legislation, were characterized with such absurdities as to be satirized by a playwright; and had developed such intricate bargains as to require explanatory essays at the hands of a serial publication.
If these represent the only positive conclusions to be drawn from our research, we may still claim that the negative results to be derived from our examination of the dramatists at the beginning of the seventeenth century will be helpful in keeping the reader from that condition of confusion which seems to have prevailed in the mind of Sir Walter Scott when he wrote Peveril of the Peak.
Mr. Albert Matthews exhibited a facsimile of The Present State of the New-English Affairs, printed at Boston in 1689 by Samuel Green, Jr., and spoke as follows:
It is well known that the earliest American newspaper to be established on a firm basis was the Boston News-Letter, the first number of which appeared 24 April, 1704. It is also well known that the Boston News-Letter was preceded by a genuine newspaper called Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick, printed at Boston by Richard Pierce for Benjamin Harris 25 September, 1690, and that the paper was at once suppressed. It is also known that the paper Publick Occurrences was preceded by a sheet measuring 143/8 by 9 inches, and bearing the imprint:
Bofton, Printed and Sold by Samuel Green, 1689.529
The heading is as follows:
In 1869 William H. Whitmore stilted that “This document was issued as a broadside.”530 In 1881 Delano A. Goddard declared that “This sheet had none of the attributes of a newspaper.”531 In 1895 this statement was repeated by William Nelson.532 In 1901 Dr. Samuel A. Green twice called the sheet a “broadside,”533 and in 1903 alluded to it as a “sheet.”534 In 1906 Professor Clyde A. Duniway calls the sheet a “broadside” and states that it “had none of the attributes of a newspaper.”535 Finally, in the Massachusetts Archives (XXXV. 83) it is indexed as a “Printed Broadsheet.”
On the other hand, more than a century ago it was suggested that this sheet might be a newspaper, and recently elaborate arguments have been made in favor of such a contention. The sheet has been reprinted no fewer than six times. It was first reprinted in a Boston magazine in 1789, preceded by the following words:
to the EDITORS of the MASSACHUSETTS MAGAZINE.
gentlemen,
As all facts relative to the first settlement and government of our country, ought to be handed down to posterity, and as the following is a very ancient publication, perhaps the specimen it affords of the language and manner of printing at so early a period, together with the information it contains, render it worth preserving in the Massachusetts Magazine. It was printed in 1689 (just a century ago) by Samuel Green, of Boston, in a Handbill, or Newspaper extraordinary, and entitled536 . . .
The sheet was next reprinted in 1824, and again in 1866, with the following introduction:
Newspaper Extraordinary, 1689.
[If the following may be considered as a Newspaper Extra., it was probably one of the earliest printed in this country. It was published by Samuel Green of Boston, in 1689, at the time that Dr. Increase Mather was endeavouring to procure a new charter for the colony of Massachusetts.]537
The sheet was for the fourth time reprinted in 1869 by Mr. Whitmore, who was unaware of the previous reprints.538 In 1874 Joel Munsell, writing of the sheet under discussion, asked:
If this [Publick Occurrences of 25 September, 1690] can be claimed as a newspaper, may also the sheet printed by Samuel Green in 1689, the placard mentioned in the New Hamp. Hist. Soc. Coll., I, 252? This was issued at the time Dr. Increase Mather was in England, endeavoring to procure a new charter for the colony of Massachusetts. It was entitled The Present State of the New English Affairs, and was published to prevent false reports.539
In May, 1902, the sheet was printed in facsimile at the University Press for Mr. William Green Shillaber of the Club of Odd Volumes.540 In 1903 Mr. Charles Evans stated that “This was the first publication in the nature of a newspaper issued in the Colonies.”541 Finally, it was for the sixth time reprinted, again in facsimile, by Dr. Samuel A. Green in 1903.542
Mr. Shillaber’s reprint consists of a folio, to the third page of which the facsimile is attached. The first page bears this title, enclosed within a border copied from the title-page of Eliot’s Indian Bible, of which Mr. Shillaber owns more than one copy:
A Fac-Simile Reproduction of
The Preſent State of the
New-Engliſh Affairs.
Being the firſt attempt at Newſpaper Publication
on the American Continent.
The second page contains some remarks by Mr. Shillaber, of which the part pertinent to our immediate subject is here repeated:
IT has seemed to the writer that the credit for making the first attempt at newspaper publication on this side of the Atlantic Ocean should be given to Samuel Green, Junior, of Boston, who printed in the fall of 1689 a sheet which he called The Present State of the New-English Affairs, and which is herewith reproduced in facsimile. The object of the reproduction is to give those who may be interested in the subject a convenient opportunity to examine the publication, and decide whether or not the claim is a reasonable one.
In early times, as is of course well known, news of general interest passed from one person to another by means of news-letters, being exactly what the name implies, namely: — manuscript letters containing the news of the day. Samuel Green, Junior, is supposed to have been a writer of these news-letters, and he seems to have originated the idea of printing several copies instead of writing one or more. One copy of this first attempt is extant. It is in the Massachusetts Archives, Vol. 35, page 83. As it is printed in two columns, newspaper style, it is not a broadside. It is folio in size, printed on the recto, the verso being blank. So far as is known, the experiment was not repeated by Green. There is, however, no evidence that this newspaper was his only publication of the kind; others may have been printed of which no copy now exists. The following year, Sept. 25, 1690, R. Pierce printed for Benjamin Harris at Boston a similar publication, which he called Public Occurrences. A comparison of these two newspapers will show, at least so it seems to the writer, that Pierce or Harris copied the idea of Green; the only important difference being that Pierce promises an issue once every month, “Or if any Glut of Occurrences happen, oftener.” Also, instead of one page, three pages of two columns each are printed on two leaves, the last page being blank. . . . But one copy of Public Occurrences is known to exist, and it is kept in the Colonial State Paper Office in London. It has, however, been reprinted in this country, and bibliographers generally allude to it as the first newspaper effort.
In April, 1903, Mr. George H. Sargent, writing in the column of the Boston Evening Transcript called The Bibliographer, considered at length Mr. Shillaber’s reprint, and accepted unequivocally Mr. Shillaber’s conclusion. A portion of Mr. Sargent’s remarks is here given:
Thomas, in his History of Printing in America, purposely omits this publication and the “Publick Occurrences,” and gives John Campbell . . . the credit of publishing the first American newspaper, “The Boston News-Letter.” . . . In the note to Thomas’s History of Printing, however, he [Isaiah Thomas] mentions the “Publick Occurrences,” and refers to the reprint of it by Dr. Samuel A. Green, who in the Massachusetts Historical Magazine543 for August, 1857, refers to this as the first American newspaper. (Vol. i., pages 228–231.) But the note adds: “If this can be called a newspaper, may also the sheet printed by Samuel Green, Jr., in 1689, the placard mentioned in the New Hampshire Historical Society Collections, vol. i., page 252?” There seems to have been no question in the mind of [Isaiah] Thomas that both were in the same class.544
If not a newspaper, what was the “New English Affairs”? It was printed in newspaper style, beyond question. The fact that it was printed on one side only proves nothing. There may not have been such a “glut of occurrences” as to warrant two pages. The heading was that of a modern newspaper, and the rules across the page under the headline, with the sentence, “This is published to prevent False Reports”, indicates that it was the intention to continue the publication from time to time, as “False Reports” is too much of a ghost to be laid once and for all time. The publication has been called a broadside, but it was not a broadside in form, as the Century Dictionary defines a broadside. Any one who takes the pains to look into the subject in all its bearings must be forced, it would seem, to the conclusion that the “New English Affairs” was more than the first attempt to publish a newspaper in this country — it was the first successful attempt, and to Samuel Green, Jr., belongs the honor of publishing the first newspaper on the American continent.545
Instead of cavalierly dismissing the question with the curt statement that the sheet of 1689 is a broadside, it seems to the present writer at once more satisfactory, as well as more courteous, to examine with care the arguments advanced by those who maintain that the sheet is a newspaper. Besides, the mere assertion that the sheet of 1689 is a broadside is not in itself conclusive, and leaves untouched the question whether it is or is not a newspaper. For as a broadside may be a newspaper, and as a newspaper may be a broadside, it follows that the sheet of 1689 may be either (1) a broadside but not a newspaper, or (2) a newspaper but not a broadside, or (3) a broadside and also a newspaper.546
Let us begin our examination with Mr. Shillaber’s remark that the sheet, “as it is printed in two columns, newspaper style, . . . is not a broadside.” We here have, first, the implication that the printing in two or more columns is a characteristic essential to a newspaper; and, secondly, the statement that in a broadside the lines must be printed not in columns but across the page. It can be shown, I think, that in both respects Mr. Shillaber and Mr. Sargent are under a misapprehension. An hour spent in the Newspaper Room at the British Museum will convince the inquirer that a newspaper may be printed in almost any number of columns from one to nine or more. The Burney Collection contains many newspapers of the seventeenth century. In Volume III. of that Collection will be found The Newes of this Present Weeke of 12 May, 1623, No. 31, where all the lines of the twenty-two pages are printed across the page. The same is true of Our Last Newes of 2 October, 1623, No. 50. Volume XXV. contains various newspapers for 1646, in all of which the lines are printed across the page. Volume XC. contains various newspapers for 1682, in some of which the lines are printed across the page, while in others the lines are arranged in two columns on a page. In short, the printing in two or more columns is not a characteristic essential to a newspaper.
In stating that the sheet of 1689 is not a broadside, Mr. Shillaber and Mr. Sargent have relied on the definition of a broadside given in the Century Dictionary:
A sheet printed on one side only, and without arrangement in columns; especially, such a sheet containing some item of news, or an attack upon some person, etc., and designed for distribution.
It seems probable that this definition is based on the definition given in the Imperial Dictionary (1882), where we read: “In printing, a sheet of paper, one side of which is entirely covered by a single page.” It will be remembered that material taken from the Imperial Dictionary was freely used in the preparation of the Century Dictionary. I have examined many dictionaries published during the past two hundred years, and the only ones in which I have found such a definition are the Imperial and the Century. The notion that, in order to be a broadside, a sheet must be printed in a single column only, is not countenanced either by the dictionaries (with the two exceptions named) or by the extracts quoted in them. In the Oxford Dictionary, that great storehouse of our knowledge of usage in the English language, Dr. Murray defines a broadside as “a sheet of paper printed on one side only, forming one large page,” and gives extracts in illustration ranging from 1575 to 1861. He also gives quotations for “broadsheet,” which has the same meaning as broadside, ranging from 1705 to 1878. It seems impossible to escape the conclusion that the definition given in the Imperial and in the Century must be pronounced erroneous; and if such is the case, the argument that the sheet of 1689 cannot be a broadside falls to the ground.
Comparing the sheet of 1689 with the newspaper called Publick Occurrences, printed by Pierce for Harris 25 September, 1690, Mr. Shillaber remarks that “the only important difference” is “that Pierce promises an issue once every month, ‘Or if any Glut of Occurrences happen, oftener;’” and also, that “instead of one page, three pages of two columns each are printed on two leaves, the last page being blank.” Even if these were the only differences, a little consideration will show how important they are. First, as to the promise of a future issue. An essential feature of a newspaper is its appearance at regular but short intervals. The Publick Occurrences was numbered, and its regular appearance once a month was promised, with the possibility of a still more frequent issue. On the other hand, the sheet of 1689 was not numbered, and there is not a particle of evidence to indicate that Green intended to issue a second similar sheet. Secondly, Publick Occurrences contains two leaves, or four pages, of which three pages are filled with printed matter, the fourth page being blank. Consequently, Publick Occurrences cannot possibly be a broadside.
The sheet of 1689, on the contrary, is printed on one side only of a single leaf, and not only may be a broadside, but in the opinion of such authorities as Whitmore, Goddard, Nelson, Dr. Green, and Professor Duniway, is a broadside.
In addition to these two differences, one of which is fundamental, another important difference between the sheet of 1689 and the newspaper of 1690 may be dwelt upon. The first column of the sheet of 1689 is entirely filled by an extract from a letter written from England by Increase Mather on 3 September, 1689, to Governor Bradstreet. The first half of the second column is occupied by “A Passage extracted from the publick News-Letter, Dated July 6,1689,” containing an account of the interview between Increase Mather and King William III. Then follows an extract from a letter written by Increase Mather on 2 September, 1689, to his son Cotton Mather, relating to the same subject. Finally, there is the statement that an order has just arrived from King William, dated 30 July, 1689, requiring the Government in New England to send Sir Edmund Andros, Edward Randolph, and others to England by the first ship. In short, all four documents relate to a single subject, the political affairs of New England, — as indeed the title of the sheet implies. Turning, now, to the Publick Occurrences of 1690, we find a long editorial introduction, filling nearly a column.547 We then have news about the Christianized Indians near Plymouth, about farmers, about Indians lurking near Chelmsford, about a tragical accident at Watertown, about fevers and agues in some parts of the country, about the smallpox in Boston, about a fire in Boston, about a vessel seized at Penobscot by Indians and French, about the expedition against Canada under Sir William Phips, about certain Mohawks killed by the French and other Indians, about the West Indies, about the proclaiming of King William at Cork, Ireland, about King Willam’s victory in Ireland, about the King of France, about Indians at Saco and other places. Clearly, this news is comprehensive and in striking contrast to the single subject to which the sheet of 1689 is confined.
Let me now explain my notion as to how the sheet of 1689 came to be printed. The Revolution had taken place in England, and a new King had come to the throne; in New England the Massachusetts Charter had several years before been vacated, the Andros Government had been overthrown, and Increase Mather was in England for the purpose of procuring a new charter and of looking after the interests of New England. What view would King William take of the doings of the New Englanders? The question was one of supreme importance. When two letters from Increase Mather, a public news-letter, and an order from King William reached Boston, the excitement and interest must have been intense. In order “to prevent false reports,” extracts from the documents just received were printed either through the enterprise of Samuel Green, or through the desire of Governor Bradstreet to allay misapprehensions. That the sheet which we have been considering at such length was not the only one issued is proved by the following:
Whereas many papers haue beene lately printed & dispersed tending to the disturbance of the peace & subuersion of the gouerm̄t of this theire Maiesties Collonie King William & Queene Mary It is therfor ordered that if any person or persons within this Collony be found guilty of any such like Misdemeanour of printing publishing or concealing any such like papers or discourses or not timely discouer such things to Authority or doe any act or thing that tends to the disturbance of the peace or the subuersion of this governm̄t They shall be accounted enemies to theire Maiesties present Gouernm̄t & be proceeded agt as such with uttermost severity
Noṽ:br 8th: 1689, Past in the affirmative
by the Representatives
Ebenezer Prout Clerk548
Finally, it should be pointed out that Mr. Sargent’s statement that there was “no question in the mind of [Isaiah] Thomas that both” the sheet of 1689 and the newspaper of 1690 “were in the same class,” cannot be accepted. In his History of Printing in America, published in 1810, Thomas did not mention either the sheet of 1689 or the newspaper of 1690. This omission was not, as Mr. Sargent holds, made “purposely,” but doubtless because Thomas did not know of their existence. Otherwise he would scarcely have made this statement:
THERE was not a newspaper published in the English colonies, throughout the extensive continent of North America, until the 24th of April 1704.549
Thomas died in 1831 and his History of Printing in America was issued in a second edition, with notes by various persons, by the American Antiquarian Society in 1874. The note quoted by Mr. Sargent, as has already been shown in the text of this paper,550 was written not by Thomas but by Joel Munsell. Consequently the authority of Thomas cannot be cited one way or the other. It will be observed, too, that Munsell himself was by no means certain about the matter and put his remark in the form of a question.
The conclusion reached by me is that the sheet of 1689 is a broadside, but is not a newspaper.551
Mr. Henry H. Edes communicated (1) a letter written 19 February, 1785, by President Joseph Willard of Harvard College to Governor John Hancock, who had taken umbrage at some fancied slight put upon him at a dinner given to Lafayette the previous October; (2) a letter dated 27 December, 1791, from President Willard to Governor Hancock, relating to the chaplaincy at Castle Island, Boston; and (3) a draft of a letter written 20 October, 1783, by Governor Hancock to President Willard, offering to build a fence about the College Yard. The letters follow.
I
JOSEPH WILLARD TO JOHN HANCOCK.
Cambridge February 19, 1785
Sir,
I was at Boston yesterday, and was no less surprised than grieved to hear (for the first time) that your Excellency supposes, that I treated you with disrespect, the day the Marquis de la Fayette dined in company with you, in the College Hall.552 I am informed, that you suppose, that I placed you at table, that day, below the Marquis; and are therefore offended, as you would have reason to be, were that the case.
I wish your Excellency would be pleased to recollect the order at table, in the Hall, on the Commencement day — a day, which belongs to the Overseers, as well as to the Corporation. At that time, the Governor sits at the upper end of the first table, and facing the entrance of the Hall. This is reckoned the first place. The Lieutenant Governor sits directly opposite to him, on the other side of the same table. This is reckoned the second. The President sits next to the Governor, on the same bench; which is reckoned the third place.
It was considered proper, that the President, as Head of the Corporation, who ordered the dinner and made the invitations, the last fall, should take the head of the table and be master of the ceremonies; but I perfectly remember, when we were going to dinner, that I desired your Excellency to take the next place at the table, viz, that directly opposite to the President; and I also desired the Marquis to take the seat next below the President, on the same bench; which was the third place. So far was I, therefore, from designing or attempting to place your Excellency below the Marquis, that my intention was directly the reverse. I beg your Excellency to advert to what passed on that occasion, and at the same time recollect the order at table, on the Commencement day, and I think that you must acquit me from any design to treat you with disrespect, or offer you an affront, than which (I can sincerely say) nothing could be farther from my mind.
I cannot bear to lie under the above imputation, when I am conscious that I do not deserve it; and I am no less solicitious to vindicate myself now that your Excellency has been pleased to retire to private life, than if you were still in the Chair of Government, your resignation of which is so far from giving me pleasure, that it affords me much uneasiness and pain, as I doubt not it does the people in general.
I wish you, Sir, the full recovery of your health, and the enjoyment of every blessing: And may the inhabitants of this land, whom you have so generously and nobly exerted yourself to serve, and whose best interests you have so essentially promoted, ever feel their obligations and discover a true sense of them!
I consider myself under great obligations to your Excellency, for many favors, of which I shall ever retain a grateful remembrance; and in whatever light you may view me, a high esteem and regard for you will always possess the mind of him,
who has the honor of being,
your Excellency’s most humble
and obedient servent
Joseph Willard.
His Excellency Governor Hancock.
[Filed]
President Willard
1785
II
JOSEPH WILLARD TO JOHN HANCOCK.
Cambridge December 27. 1791.
Sir,
Sometime since your Excellency enquired of me whether I knew any Gentleman whom I could recommend to you as a suitable person for a Chaplain at the Castle. As I knew of no person at that time I have borne the matter upon my mind as I promised your Excellency but have not been able to find any one disengaged, who I supposed would answer for that station.
This day the Revd Mr Foster553 formerly a Minister of Berwick but lately of Packersfield with whom I have been acquainted for a considerable number of years came to my house. He informs me that he has lately left his parish and is at liberty to supply any vacant desk. Might not this Gentleman, Sir, from his age, experience and character make a suitable Chaplain? Your Excellency must formerly have been acqainted with him as he was your Classmate. How far you may have known him since you took your degree I cannot say. However, your Excellency may be assured that he has supported a good character in the ministry and that his leaving his people has arisen from some untoward circumstances in the parishes of which he has had the care. I know this to have been the case at Berwick.
Should your Excellency think Mr Foster a suitable person to fill the Chaplaincy, and see fit to give him the appointment, it would be serving a worthy man, whose lot in life has been hard.
I am,
with sentiments of the highest respect,
your Excellency’s most humble & obliged servant
Joseph Willard
His Excellency the Governor.
[Filed]
Joseph Willard’s
letter Decr. 27. 1791
III
JOHN HANCOCK TO JOSEPH WILLARD.
Boston Octoṛ 20tḥ 1783.
Revd Sir
However illiberal the Treatment I have met with from some of the former & present Governors of the College has been, it shall never operate in my mind to the Prejudice of the University at Cambridge. I most sincerely wish its Enlargement; the present appearance of those Buildings is very disagreeable for want of a Reputable Inclosure, they must appear to a Stranger as Buildings totally neglected & Deserted, instead of being improv’d for the noble purposes they are now Occupied. I wish to Remedy this inconvenience, and have to Request (if worthy your Notice) that you would be pleas’d to give orders to your College Carpenters to Erect a Respectable Fence around those Buildings, such an one as shall not Disgrace the Buildings, & such an one as shall be pointed out to them by your self & Doctor Cooper,554whose Instructions they are to follow, & upon your Signifying the Completion of the Business, & Transmitting to me the Bill of its Amount, it shall meet with immediate Payment.
My best wishes for your prosperity & that of the University under your Charge Concludes me, Revd Sir
Your very hume sert
J H
Revd Mr President Willard
[Filed]
To the Revd Presidt Willard 1783
Mr. William C. Lane exhibited some water-color views of the College buildings made by John Abbot of the Class of 1798, and spoke as follows:
The absence of a fence about the College Yard, referred to in Governor Hancock’s letter, was no doubt due to the occupation of the College buildings by the Provincial troops at the opening of the Revolutionary War. In an “Account of Damages done to the Colledges by the Army after April 19th, 1775, which remained to be made good after the first repairs were made previous to the return of the Scholars,”555 besides knob-locks and box-locks, paper and paint, window blinders, chapel window curtains, two hundred square feet of sheet lead, etc., is noted “63 rods of board fence that was round the Colledge Yard, 12/ per rod, £37. 16s.” The whole account of damages amounted to £417. 8. 8, which sum was voted by the General Court 23 April, 1778, and paid over to the College the next day. It is likely enough that in the difficult situation in which the College found itself during the war, the fence was not promptly repaired. Whether Governor Hancock’s offer was accepted is doubtful. There is no reference to it in the Records of the Corporation. On the contrary, the Corporation voted 2 May, 1785, “that the President, the Treasurer, and Professor Wigglesworth be desired to agree with some Workmen to build a fence in the front of the Colleges, upon the best terms they can.”556This seems to imply that Hancock’s fence was never built — at least not along the front of the College Yard.
The simple character of the earlier board fence is shown in Revere’s engraving, reproduced in the Harvard Graduates’ Magazine, 1903 (XII. 338). The new fence, of a more elaborate character — closed below and open palings above, and with somewhat stately gate-posts — is shown in many of the later views of the College; for example, in the Massachusetts Magazine for June, 1790 (II. 321), reproduced in W. L. Andrews’s A Prospect of the Colledges in Cambridge. Several water-color views of the College buildings, by John Abbot, of the Class of 1798, and doubtless painted about that time, show an ordinary board fence along the sides of the College Yard; that is, south of Massachusetts Hall, and north of Holden Chapel and Hollis Hall, and running at the back only a few feet east of these buildings.
The vote conferring the degree of LL.D. on Lafayette is recorded in the Corporation Records 20 October, 1784,557 but there is no reference in the Records, or in contemporary newspaper accounts, to the dinner at which Lafayette was entertained, and to which President Willard’s letter refers. But in the College Treasurer’s Journal (UA. I. 4. 44), November, 1784, these entries appear:
|
5 Corporation Dinners, etc. |
£21. 8.5 |
|
1 Do for Marquis De la Fayette |
15.19.2 |
On the next page appear the items:
|
Pḍ James Carter |
|
|
engrossing Diploma for the Marquis |
|
|
De la Fayette |
£ 1.16.0 |
|
Z. Brigden, a Silver Box for Seal |
1. 6.0 |
|
Ribbon & Wax for Dọ |
0. 3.2 |
|
2 pr. brass handles for Cabinett |
0.11.2 |
|
£ 3.16.4 |
and in March, 1785:
|
Pḍ J: How, a Tin Case, For a Diploma |
|
|
for the Marquis de la Fayette |
£ 0. 7. 6 |
The tin case may have been similar to that in which Franklin’s diploma was enclosed.558 Whether the tin case was enclosed in the cabinet, or the cabinet within the tin case, it would be hard to say.
The text of the diploma is preserved in a manuscript volume in the College Archives, entitled, “Drafts of Diplomas, 1779–1810” (UA. III. 1. 80), in which most of the diplomas awarded from 1779 to 1810 are recorded. This supplements the similar record in the back of College Book No. III.559 The text of the diploma follows.
Senatus Universitatis Harvardianae Cantabrigiensis, in Republica Massachusettensi, omnibus, ad quos Literæ præsentes pervenerint, salutem in Dominosempiternam.
Cum eum in finem Gradus Academici instituti fuerint, ut Viri disciplina, sapientia et virtute insignes, qui et de Re literaria et de Republica optimé meruerint, Honoribus Laureatis remunerarentur; maxime decet, quod hujusmodi honore afficiatur Vir ille nobilissimus Marchio De la Fayette, scientiis multis et variis ornatus, in legibus vero tam Naturæ et Gentium quam Civili versatus, generis humani libertatum Amicus et Patronus fervidus, strenuus, constans; Qui, Nationis nostræ nascentis, cum Brittannis pro aris & focis fortissime animisque magnis colluctantis, amore et reverentia motus, sese quam maturrime ad exercitum Americanum militem voluntarium adjunxit, et paulò post, prælio cum hostibus inito, vulnus accepit. His peractis, ille Vir eximius a gradu ad gradum in exercitu promotus, citó ex Imperatoribus summo proximis constitutus fuit. Inde, locis variis, dum bellum arsit rem militarem agens, denique illustrissimo Washington Eboracum Virginiense obsidione cingenti, fortiter, et strenue astitit; quum arma fœderata, hostium Imperatorem obsessum, una cum exercitu ejus in deditionem redigendo, bellum ad finem felicissimé perduxerunt, quo, Rerumpublicarum fæderatarum summa potestas stabilita fuit, et pax Nationibus belligerantibus restituta.
In pace, æque ac in bello, Rebuspublicis nostris Amicum conspicuum sese ostendit, præcipuèque, ut commercium illarum promoveretur, à quo beneficia haud pauca oritura sint, feliciter contendit.
Notum igitur esto, quod Nos Præses et Socii, consentientibus honorandis admodum ac reverendis Universitatis supradictæ Inspectoribus, nobilissimum Marchionem de la Fayette supra nominatum, Jurisutriusque, tum Naturæ et Gentium tum Civilis, honoris causa, Doctorem statuimus et creavimus eique dedimus atque concessimus omnia jura,privilegia, dignitates ac honores, quibus ad istiusmodi Gradum evecti ornantur, vel ornari debent.
In cujus rei testimonium, Literis hisce, nostro communi Sigillo munitis, die Octobris XXI, Anno Salutis humanæ MDCCLXXXIV, Rerumque publicarum Americæ fæderatarum summæ potestatis IX, apposuimus chirographa.
Mr. Matthews made the following remarks:
So much attention has always been paid to Harvard College affairs by the newspaper press, that I supposed it would be easy to run down contemporary allusions to Lafayette’s visit to Cambridge. On the contrary, I have been astonished to find that apparently the receiving of the degree and the dinner were alike ignored. Soon, however, this visit to America of Lafayette became the subject of comment. Crèvecœur’s celebrated Letters of an American Farmer were first published at London in English in 1782. In 1787 a French edition, much enlarged, was published at Paris, and in this Crèvecœur devotes no fewer than sixty-six pages to an account, drawn chiefly from American and French newspapers, of Lafayette’s tour in 1784.560 In 1878 the late John Austin Stevens wrote a paper on the Visit of Lafayette to the United States, 1784.561 In these, Lafayette’s visits to Hartford, Worcester, Salem, Marblehead, Beverly, Newburyport, and Portsmouth, are duly recorded, but there is no mention of the visit to Cambridge.
I should like, however, to quote two brief extracts. In a Boston newspaper562 appeared the following —
Epigram, to the Maequis de la Fayette.
FROM whence Columbia, do thy blessings flow?
And whence does war inexorable cease?
Does not the western hemisphere yet know
’T was Heav’n’s great FYAT lull’d the world in peace?
A. B.
Oct. 17,1784.
Under date of 29 July, 1827, Samuel Breck wrote:
Judge Peters, who has been made a doctor of laws lately, told me that when La Fayette was in America during the Revolutionary War, some university in New England created him doctor of laws. Old Baron Steuben did not like this. He thought it derogatory to the military character to be dubbed a doctor. Shortly afterward the baron, at the head of a troop of dragoons, was obliged to pass through the town in which the university was that had elected La Fayette. He halted his troop at the entrance of the town, and addressed it thus: ‘‘You shall spur de horse vel and ride troo the town like de debbil, for if dey catch you dey make one doctor of you.”563
It would be a pity to submit this amusing story to critical examination. If the Harvard Quinquennial Catalogue564 is destructive of its authenticity, the story at least shows the existence of a tradition.
Mr. Henry Lefavour of Boston was elected a Resident Member, and Mr. Robert Hallowell Gardiner of Gardiner, Maine, was elected a Corresponding Member.
1 Publications, i. 388–451. 1
2 Johannes in Eremo, Boston (1695), p. 25; and see the Magnalia (1702), book iii. chap. iv. § 12, p. 56.
3 H. M. Dexter, Congregationalism as seen in its Literature, p. 474.
4 1 Massachusetts Historical Collections, iii. 258.
5 Hill, History of the Old South Church, i. 94.
6 3 Massachusetts Historical Collections, x. 58, 59.
7 Papers of the New Haven Colony Historical Society, ii. 232.
8 Magnalia (1702), book iii. chap. iv. § 10, p. 55.
9 1 Proceedings, xx. 175–185, 206–209.
10 New English Canaan (Prince Society), pp. 103–105.
11 See the Publications of this Society, vi. 137–151.
12 I have seen copies dated Boston, 1827, 1829, Exeter, 1829, 1836, 1842, and Hartford, 1851. All of these were printed from the same plates, and the passage will be found at p. 178. Church’s book was also reprinted from the Stiles edition of 1772 in Samuel L. Knapp’s Library of American History, New York (1839), ii. 258, and in The People’s History of America, New York (1874), p. 703.
13 Colonial Records of Connecticut, v. 481, 482.
14 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xv. 307.
15 In S. Sewall’s History of Woburn (1868), p. 552.
16 In Shakspere’s King John, iv. iii. 158, are the words: “a thousand businesses are brief in hand.” Dr. Murray remarks: “The origin of this sense [of brief] is not clear: the Shaksp. quot. is generally cited as an example, but is by no means certain.” Schmidt explains the passage as meaning a thousand businesses “must be speedily dispatched.”
17 New English Canaan (1637), p. 181.
18 Itinerary (1617), part i. book i. p. 2.
19 History of the Plimoth Plantation (1896), p. 46. For a complete discussion of this point, see a paper on the Naming of Hull in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register for April, 1905, lix. 177–186.
20 C. W. Upham, Salem Witchcraft (1867), ii. 187.
21 Cancelled in the original.
22 Suffolk Court Files, no. 162, 281.
23 Cancelled in the original.
24 Suffolk Court Files, no. 2700.
25 Records of the Superiour Court of Judicature, 1692–1695, folios 34, 35.
26 Upham, Salem Witchcraft, ii. 141.
27 Ibid. ii. 128.
28 Ibid. ii. 140
29 Ibid. ii. 142.
30 Upham, Salem Witchcraft, ii. 472.
31 An Act to Reverse the Attainders of George Burroughs and others for Witchcraft, Private Act No. 26 (Massachusetts Province Laws, vi. 71, 72).
32 Interlined in the original.
33 Interlined in the original.
34 Suffolk Court Files, no. 47120:8. The original deposition is no. 46720:2. “Pastree Execx̣ of Hollard & English Admṛ of English, July 1738.” See also Record Superiour Court of Judicature for Suffolk County, 8 August, 1738, fol. 181.
35 Interlined in the original.
36 Interlined in the original.
37 Suffolk Court Files, no. 48343. See also no. 48342 (3 papers): “English Admr. & Pastree Execr. of Hollard Feb. 1738–9.”
38 History of New England (1853), ii. 326.
39 See Hutchinson, History of Massachusetts (1764), i. 187.
40 Memorial History of Boston, ii. 133–142 and notes; Paige, History of Cambridge, pp. 355, 595.
41 Records of the Court of Assistants (1901), i. 11.
42 Ibid. i. 33.
43 Ibid. i. 159.
44 Records of the Court of Assistants, i. 189, 190.
45 Ibid. i. 188, 189.
46 Ibid. i. 228, 229.
47 Ibid. i. 229, 233.
48 So in the original.
49 Some time after this meeting, Mr. Kittredge discovered in the British Museum a letter written by Samuel Sewall in 1690. Mr. Lee’s letter was originally inclosed in that of Judge Sewall’s. As Mr. Kittredge expects to communicate the Sewall letter at a subsequent meeting, the Lee letter is withheld for the present.
50 Privately printed under the title Five Straws gathered from Revolutionary Fields.
51 For a fuller account of the history of Commons and of the causes leading to the disorders of 1766, see Peirce’s History of Harvard University, pp. 217–223, and Quincy’s History of Harvard University, ii. 94–99.
In the old Harvard Hall, destroyed by fire 24 January, 1764, the Commons room was in the middle of the building on the first floor. During the interval before the new Hall was completed, “the two southern middle ground rooms of Hollis Hall, viz. Nos. 2 and 4” were assigned as dining rooms, and No. 1 was assigned to the Butler. In the new Harvard Hall occupied in the fall of 1765, the east end of the lower floor was used for Commons, the kitchen being directly beneath.
52 “Put out of Commons” means “erased from the list,” so that no charges are incurred.
53 See the Oxford Dictionary under hatch and kitchen.
54 College Book No. 7, pp. 139, 140. These Articles were incorporated, with slight verbal changes, in the copies of the Laws written out at this time for official use, as Chapter VI.
55 Sidney Willard says that when the time for Hancock’s triennial re-election as Tutor drew near in 1766, it had been intimated to him that he would not again be chosen.
His services were at no time highly appreciated; but, not willing to be unceremoniously superseded, he made known his wishes to be re-elected, and his determination to resign afterwards. But his determination indeterminate was interpreted by the electors in a sense more restricted than was justified by the issue; for after being again chosen, lie deliberated a whole year before he carried his determination into effect (Memories of Youth and Manhood, i. 34, 35).
56 See the Publications of this Society, vii. 321–339.
57 See Willard, Memories of Youth and Manhood, i. 11.
58 Willard, Ibid. i. 39; Wyman, Genealogies and Estates of Charlestown, i. 276.
59 Asa Dunbar, of the Class of 1767, was the son of Samuel and Melatiah (Hayward) Dunbar, and was born in Bridgewater, Massachusetts, 26 May, 1745 (Bridgewater Town Records). He entered the ministry after graduating, preached first at Bedford, Massachusetts, and then removed to Salem, where he was settled from 1772 to 1779. Retiring from the ministry, he took up the study of the law, and began practice in Keene, New Hampshire, in 1783, gaining the esteem and confidence of his fellow-citizens. He died 22 June, 1787.
His daughter Cynthia, born in 1787, married John Thoreau in 1812, and was the mother of Henry D. Thoreau. See Charles H. Bell, Bench and Bar of New Hampshire (1894), p. 323; F. B. Sanborn, Henry D. Thoreau (1882), pp. 9, 18.
60 President Holyoke, John Winthrop, Edward Wigglesworth, Stephen Sewall, Belcher Hancock, Simeon Howard, Thomas Danforth, Andrew Eliot and Joseph Willard. It will be noticed that the writer names the President first, then the three Professors in order of seniority, then the four Tutors and the Librarian in the same order.
61 Down to 1769, the members of each class, toward the close of their Freshman year, were “placed” in an order of precedence corresponding to the social position of their fathers, and a common form of punishment was to degrade a student a certain number of places in his class. This aristocratic principle was applied for the last time in June, 1769, in the case of the Class which had entered in 1768 and was to graduate in 1772. It thus disappeared with the close of President Holyoke’s long term of office and with the inauguration of his successor, Samuel Locke. But in the Quinquennial Catalogue the names of the members of all classes down to 1772 preserve the order of their original “placing.” The democratic alphabetical arrangement begins with the class of 1773.
62 Prayers were conducted at this time in the new chapel in Harvard Hall. Holden Chapel, built in 1744, was used for religious services for only about twenty-one years. The College records and the historians of the College do not tell us why, on the rebuilding of Harvard Hall, a new chapel was provided in the west end of that building on the first floor, corresponding to the Commons room on the other side of the entrance. No explicit statement is made in the records when religious services were transferred from one place to the other, but there is little doubt that it was when the new Hall was first occupied in the fall of 1765. One bit of evidence in regard to this is to be found in the records. On 24 September, 1765, the records of the Corporation (College Book No. 7, p. 142) show that the several districts into which the College buildings were divided were settled. The first district comprised “Harvard Hall & the Chapel,” i. e. Holden Chapel. In the third volume of the Faculty Records, beginning 13 September, 1766, this distribution of districts is copied in on the first page as a memorandum; but here the first district is “Harvard Hall & the Chapels,” i. e. the new chapel in Harvard Hall and Holden, or the “old chapel,” as it is called in the Faculty Records of 26 September, 1766, quoted on p. 45, below.
63 Daniel Johnson, of the Senior Class, and Thomas Hodgson, of the same Class, a North Carolinian, who did not graduate. On 9 March, 1767, Hodgson and six others were rusticated, being guilty of “great and scandalous crimes,” according to the 8th law of the 4th chapter of the College Laws.
64 There is no verse 6 in the original.
65 Wadsworth House.
66 The Board of Overseers.
67 In the library of the New England Historic Genealogical Society there exists another manuscript of the Book of Harvard which was given to that library in 1879 by the late John Langdon Sibley, Librarian of Harvard College. This manuscript is substantially the same as that in the Harvard Library, but unimportant additions, omissions, and variations indicate that, as might be expected, many copies were probably made of what must have been considered at the time a clever parody, a bit of humor to be circulated and enjoyed in secret.
Doubtless the tale received additions and variations as it passed from hand to hand, and it would be difficult to say which of these two copies was derived from the other, or whether both came from a third. A few variations in the Genealogical Society’s copy are worth noting. In Chap. II. v. 5, read “Unless thou makest an humble Confession before all Harvard” in place of “unless thou repent.” After v. 11 add “And they ordered these Things to be written in a Book, and all Harvard signed every one his Name.” In v. 13 read “But the Sons of Harvard assembled in Unity Hall and went unto the House, etc.” In v. 17 the date is given as the sixth day of the month. At the end is inscribed “Joseph Cummings scripsit Jany 7th 1767.” This may, of course, mean that Joseph Cummings, who was a “Junior Sophister” at this time, was the author, but it is more likely that he was simply the writer of this copy.
68 In a copy of the College Laws written out at about this time (probably this very year) for official use, Chapter IV., Law xix., reads as follows:
If any Combination or Agreement to do any unlawful Act or to forbear a Compliance wtḥ any Injunction from lawful Authority in the College, shall be enter’d into by Undergraduates, or if any Enormity, Disorder or Act of Disobedience shall be perpetrated by any Undergraduates, agreeable to, or in consequence of such Combination or Agreement in both or either of such cases, such & so many of the Offenders shall upon due Conviction, be punish’d wtḥ Degradation, Rustication or Expulsion according to the circumstances of their Offences, as shall be judg’d necessary for the Preservation of good Order in the Society.
69 The substance of this Law is found in the fourth paragraph of the “Articles” printed on p. 36, above.
70 The full text, too long for reproduction here, will be found in the Faculty Records, iii. 7–16.
71 See the account of this in the students’ “Defence,” p. 51, below.
72 See the reference to the same subject in the students’ statement, and the agreement accepted by the Corporation, p. 51 note, below.
73 Professor Wigglesworth’s house stood next to the President’s house, about opposite the head of Holyoke Street, a site now occupied in part by Boylston Hall (Paige, History of Cambridge, p. 691).
74 Mr. Albert Matthews points out that the use of this word is interesting as showing how closely in touch the students and Faculty were with the political events of the day. Though known as early as 1743, the word unconstitutional first came into vogue in this country in connection with the Stamp Act. See the Nation, 24 December, 1896, lxiii. 472.
75 Faculty Records, iii. 15.
76 College Book No. 7, pp. 163, 164. 4
77 This refers to an agreement accepted by the Corporation, which it was expected would diminish the discontent that naturally attends the attempted abolition of an ancient and convenient practice. In the Faculty Records (iii. 6) we find the following entry:
The Following was an Agreemṭ of ye Corporc̄on when they met here on Sept. 29. 1766, who tho’t it not proper to make a formal Vote upon the Affair, wherefore it is not enter’d in the Corporation book.
It is agreed that when at the Calling over the Bill on Fryday Mornings, Answer shall be made by the Students as their Excuse for Absence, Ex Opido, non benè valui, Detentus à Nuntio Paterno or Ab Amicis, It shall be left to the Presdts Discretion to punish as he may at that Time think proper; But then, That such several Punishmts. shall, before They are carried to the Butler, be deliver’d to the Tutrs., in Order, That such as are so punish’d, may give their Reasons for Absence, if any They have, to their Respective Tutrs., Which if, upon inquiry, they find to be sufficient, They shall certify the same to the Presdt. in order to obtain a Remission of sd. Punishmt.
It must be remembered that punishments at this time consisted almost exclusively of what President Quincy calls “pecuniary mulcts,” and that the account of the fines imposed was kept by the Butler.
78 Chap. IV., Law xxiii., of the College Laws reads as follows:
No Scholar (or his Parent or Guardian in his behalf) shall exhibit to any other Authority yn that of the College, a Complaint against any of the Governors or resident Members thereof; for any Injury cognizable by the Authority of the College, before he has sought for Redress to the President, Professors & Tutors; & in case of their denying him Relief, to the Corporation & Overseers; & if any Scholar (or his Parent or Guardian for him) shall without such Application made or contrary to the Determination of the Corporation & Overseers, carry said Complaint to any other Authority, such Scholar shall forthwith be expell’d the College.
79 Bernard, Smith, Briggs, and Dunbar were Seniors, and their signatures follow in the same order in which the men had been “placed” in their Class. Green (whose name is spelled Greene in the Quinquennial Catalogue) was a Junior, Peabody was a Sophomore, and Cabot a Freshman. George Cabot does not appear in the Quinquennial Catalogue. He was born at Salem, but there is uncertainty as to the date of his birth. The date given in the biographical dictionaries is 3 December, 1751; by Mr. Lodge, 16 December, 1751. The Faculty Records (iii. 41) state that he was born 3 December, 1752, and that he was thirteen years and seven months old at the time of his admission to College in July, 1766. This statement is clearly wrong, as he was baptized 19 January, 1752 (Historical Collections of the Essex Institute, viii. 206). His birth is not entered, as Mr. George F. Dow kindly informs me, in the Salem Town Records. He was “placed” seventeenth in a class of forty-two, 26 March, 1767, and left College 19 March, 1768. For the reasons which caused him to leave College, see H. C. Lodge, Life and Letters of George Cabot, pp. 8, 9. In July, 1779, Cabot, who later became United States Senator from Massachusetts, was a delegate from Beverly to the State Convention which met at Concord to consider questions of the currency. This seems to have been the occasion of his receiving the degree of A.M. in that year from Harvard College.
80 Jonathan Hastings (H. C. 1768), a son of Jonathan Hastings of the Class of 1730, was appointed Postmaster of Cambridge 8 July, 1775, as the successor of James Winthrop (H. C. 1769), whose amusing letter of resignation is in Paige’s History of Cambridge, p. 700 note. Mr. Hastings later removed to Boston, became Postmaster of that town, and died 8 March, 1831.
81 I am indebted to Mr. Henry H. Edes for the following information. Jonathan Hastings, Steward of Harvard College from 1750 till 1779, graduated in the Class of 1730 with Chief-Justice Oliver. He was the eldest son of Jonathan and Sarah (Phipps) Hastings; born in Cambridge 1 January, 1708–9; purchased, in 1742, and occupied as his residence till his death the estate subsequently known as the Holmes Place; married, 31 October, 1750, Elizabeth Cotton, daughter of the Rev. John Cotton (H. C. 1710) of Newton; “was an ardent patriot in the War of the Revolution;” and died 16 February, 1783. His son Walter Hastings (H. C. 1771) was a surgeon in the Revolutionary Army and may have accompanied Dr. Joseph Warren to Bunker Hill on the afternoon of 17 June, 1775, from his father’s house in Cambridge whence Warren is known to have gone to the battlefield. Dr. Walter Hastings’s gold cuff-buttons, which he wore during the engagement at Bunker Hill while caring for the wounded, are still preserved as a precious heirloom in the family of his descendants. It was in memory of his father Walter Hastings (1778–1821), of Townsend, Massachusetts, a graduate of 1799, and of his grandfather the above-mentioned Dr. Walter Hastings (1752–1782) of Chelmsford, a graduate of 1771, that the late Walter Hastings (1814–1879), a Boston merchant, left to Harvard the large bequest which was used in part to build Walter Hastings Hall (Paige, History of Cambridge, pp. 575–577; Wyman, Genealogies and Estates of Charlestown, i. 480, ii. 749; Vital Records of Newton, pp. 263, 303; Jackson, History of Newton, pp. 127, 128, 130; Frothingham, Life and Times of Joseph Warren, pp. 510–513; Boston City Records of Deaths).
82 The Hon. Joseph Hodges Choate.
83 Mr. Carter’s address was printed in the Harvard Graduates’ Magazine for September, 1900, ix. 67–70.
84 Mr. Lea generously declined to accept a fee for this search, saying that he was glad to contribute this interesting will to the common knowledge concerning a prominent figure in the history of King’s Chapel and of Boston.
85 Bristol Journal, 3 November, 1792, No. 952, p. 3/5. Mr. Matthews found notices of Dr. Caner’s death in the following British magazines and newspapers: Scots Magazine, November, 1792, liv. 571; Gentleman’s Magazine, November, 1792, lxii. 1058; European Magazine, November, 1792, xxii. 400; Lloyd’s Evening-Post, 5–7 November, 1792, p. 446/3; St. James’s Chronicle, 3–6 November, 1792, p. 3/2; London Chronicle, 6–8 November, 1792, p. 443/2; Public Advertiser, 7 November, 1792, p. 3/4; Star, 7 November, 1792, p. 4/3. In all these notices Dr. Caner’s name is spelled “Conor,” except in the Scots Magazine, where it is disguised as “Canec.” In this form the name appears in Musgrave’s Obituary. To the keenness of Mr. Henry E. Woods I am indebted for recognizing our Dr. Caner under this form.
86 An examination of the King’s Chapel Registers, which were recovered from Dr. Caner’s heirs in 1805, reveals the name of Patience Murray, who appears to have been the mother of an illegitimate child baptized in July, 1749, and buried in the following September. She also appears among the sponsors at the baptism of several children between 1757 and 1774.
87 Thavies Inn.
88 Robert Hallowell was of the Boston family of that name, a younger son of Benjamin and Rebecca (Briggs) Hallowell, born in July, 1739. His father was a Boston merchant, and the Navy Agent of the Port. The son, —
after holding the post of Collector of Portsmouth [New Hampshire], succeeded his brother Benjamin in the Collectorship of Boston, when Benjamin became a Commissioner of Customs. His remarkable urbanity and gentleness of manners protected him from personal animosity, even in the discharge of this very obnoxious office, which he held at the time when the tea was destroyed in the harbor, and when the Port was closed by act of Parliament.
Sabine (Biographical Sketches of Loyalists of the American Revolution, i. 508–511) and Snow (History of Boston, pp. 260, 384) have confused these brothers. It was Benjamin Hallowell whose house in Hanover Street was attacked by the mob which sacked Governor Hutchinson’s house, 26 August, 1765. The site of this house was subsequently occupied by Dr. Lyman Beecher’s church. It was on the south side of Hanover Street, its easterly boundary line being about twenty feet west of what is now Friend Street, and to-day is traversed, diagonally, by Washington Street, which was extended through the estate in 1873. The lot had a frontage of about 80 feet, and a uniform depth of 94 feet.
Robert Hallowell married Hannah Gardiner, a daughter of Dr. Sylvester Gardiner, at King’s Chapel, 7 January, 1772; was an Addresser of Gage 6 October, 1775; went with his family to Halifax in March, 1776; was proscribed and banished in 1778; went to England and settled in Bristol; returned to Boston in 1792 and resided in the family mansion in Batterymarch Street, built after the great fire of 1760; removed to Gardiner, Maine, in 1816; died there 23 April, 1818, and was buried 25 April, under Christ Church. Mr. Hallowell’s return to New England just before Dr. Caner’s death accounts for his failure to qualify as one of the executors of his will (Family Bible; Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xxviii. 107, xxx. 364; Suffolk Deeds, xciv. 205, cxxxiv. 60; Suffolk Probate Files, nos. 16794, 17663; 1 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, xviii. 266, Second Series, x. 164, 174, 175; Province Laws, v. 913, 915, 1005, 1054; Collections of the Maine Historical Society, vii. 403–428; Foote, Annals of King’s Chapel, ii. 147, 159, 312, 313, 591).
89 Dr. Caner’s “freehold at Boston” was the estate in Tremont Street, between the old Boston Museum and King’s Chapel Burial-ground, long owned and occupied by the Massachusetts Historical Society. It was confiscated at the Revolution and never recovered by Dr. Caner or his heirs. See Suffolk Probate Files, no. 16426; Suffolk Deeds, clxxvii. 82; 2 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, x. 162, 170; Sabine, Biographical Sketches of Loyalists of the American Revolution, i. 292; Foote, Annals of King’s Chapel, ii. passim.
90 Mrs. Sarah Gore was a daughter of Dr. Caner (Foote, Annals of King’s Chapel, ii. 347–350).
91 Prerogative Court of Canterbury, Dodwell 12.
92 The date “1775” is written in pencil in a modern hand. The letter was written Thursday, 4 April, 1776, for on that day Washington left Boston for Providence (W. S. Baker, Itinerary of General Washington, 1892, p. 36).
93 Erased in the original.
94 Erased in the original.
95 Erased in the original.
96 Erased in the original.
97 The letter to which this was a reply was dated New York, 24 June, 1776, and related to the sale of ordnance stores captured by Capt. John Manly in October, 1775. Mr. Slade exhibited the original letter. The letter (wrongly dated 25 June, 1776) is printed in Force’s American Archives, Fourth Series, vi. 1067. Cf. Ibid. pp. 532, 1713; and see the Journals of Congress (1823), i. 204, 378. For notices of Captain Manly, see the Publications of this Society, v. 274 note 1, viii. 99 note.
98 Abraham Lott was in mercantile business in New York, occasionally officiated as Clerk of the Colonial Assembly, was subsequently appointed Treasurer of the Province, and died in 1795. See Thompson, History of Long Island (Second edition, 1843), ii. 469–472; T. Jones, History of New York during the Revolutionary War, i. 101; A. D Mellick, Jr., Story of an Old Farm, p. 475; G. W. Greene, Life of Nathanael Greene, i. 376, 377; Probate Records in the office of the Secretary of State at Trenton, New Jersey, xxxvi. 167.
99 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, ix. 205.
100 A copy of this engraving is in the Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Athenaeum.
101 Colonel Henry Bromfield.
102 The Bromfield-Phillips mansion in Beacon Street, of which a cut is given in the Memorial History of Boston, ii. 521.
103 In a previous communication (v. 210) it was erroneously stated that Mrs. Bromfield was the daughter of Thomas Fayerweather.
104 For information in regard to the various persons mentioned in these remarks and letters, see the Publications of this Society, v. 193–211, vi. 77 and note, 78 note, 217, 221 and note, viii. 289, 290; Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xxviii. 27, 238.
105 Johann Caspar Spurzheim, born in 1775 or 1776 near Treves, came to Boston from New York in August, 1832, and delivered many lectures here previous to the illness which proved fatal. For notices of him, and for accounts of his funeral, see the Boston Daily Advertiser, 12, 19 November, 1832, pp. 2/3, 2/2; Boston Evening Transcript, 12, 19 November, 1832, pp. 2/1, 2/1; Boston Daily Atlas, 12, 16 November, 1832, pp. 2/4, 2/3. See also N. Capen’s Reminiscences of Dr. Spurzheim and George Combe (1881), pp. 34–43, 88–91; C. Follen’s Funeral Oration (1832); and p. 79 note, below. The arrival of Spurzheim in Boston was noticed in the Boston Daily Atlas, 23 August, 1832, p. 2/5, and in the Boston Evening Transcript, 23 August, 1832, p. 2/1. In the Boston Daily Atlas of 20 November, 1832, William Pendleton advertised that he would publish immediately “a first rate Lithographic Print of this distinguished character, from a half length Painting by Mr. Fisher, representing him in the act of lecturing” (p. 3/2). The painting was on exhibition at Mr. Fisher’s rooms, 21 School Street.
106 Mrs. Sarah Le Cain or Lekain’s boarding-house was then at No. 3 Pearl Street. She appears in the Boston Directory as early as 1823 as residing in Pearl Street and as late as 1837, when her boarding-house was at Nos. 4 and 5 Pearl Street. No. 3 was the third door from Milk Street on the east or harbor side. Our associate Mr. Thomas Minns states that “up to 1840 or later the street was numbered 1 to 12 on the east side from Milk to High Streets and 13 to 22 on the west side, returning.” Mrs. Le Kain died 5 October, 1843, at the age of 87 (Boston City Records; Mt. Auburn Cemetery Records and Monument).
107 Charles Beck.
108 Charles Follen.
109 Jonathan Barber, M.D., was Instructor in Elocution at Harvard College, 1830–1835; the first Vice-President of the Boston Phrenological Society, organized 31 December, 1832; and Professor of Oratory at McGill University, Montreal, 1858–1864. The University Librarian, Mr. Charles Henry Gould, writes me that —
he was a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of London. He practised homoeopathy in Montreal, being indeed, I believe, the first to introduce this practice in Montreal. One of his daughters married Mr. Christopher Dunkin who was a very well known judge and prominent citizen of the Province of Quebec, living in Knowlton. He also had another daughter who lived in Montreal until comparatively recently, unmarried.
Dr. Barber was the author of A Grammar of Elocution, New Haven, 1830; A Practical Treatise on Gesture, Cambridge, 1831; An Address before the Boston Phrenological Society on the Evening of its Organization at the Masonic Temple, 31 December, 1832, Boston, 1833; and An Introduction to the Grammar of Elocution, Boston, 1834. He was born in England in 1784 and died near Montreal, 11 May, 1864 (Boston Athenaeum Catalogue; manuscript letter of James Atkins Noyes). See Capen’s Reminiscences of Dr. Spurzheim, pp. 120, 175, 177.
110 Thomas Wren Ward was Treasurer of the Boston Athenaeum, 1828–1837. He was also Treasurer of Harvard College, 1830–1842, and in 1843 received from it the honorary degree of A.M. He was a son of William and Martha (Proctor) Ward; born in Salem, 20 November, 1786; married Lydia Gray, 13 November, 1810; and died in Boston, 4 March, 1858 (Quincy, History of the Boston Athenaeum, p. 139; Historical Collections of the Essex Institute, v. 212, 215; Boston City Records).
111 Nathaniel Bowditch, LL.D., father of the writer of the letter.
112 Seth Bass, M.D., was the eldest son of Seth and Mary (Jones) Bass of Quiney, and was born in 1780. He graduated in medicine at Dartmouth College in 1815; married Ann Lovett Harmon at Beverly 12 February, 1826; was Librarian of the Boston Athenaeum 1825–1846, and with his family occupied rooms in the Athenaeum building then located in Pearl Street; removed to Stow, Massachusetts, but did not practise his profession as he was nearly blind, and died there 30 December, 1867, at the age of 87 years and 6 months, although the Town Records of Stow erroneously give the date as 31 December (Bates, Records of the Town of Braintree, 1886, p. 882; Faxon, History of the Faxon Family, 1880, pp. 190, 267; General Catalogue of Dartmouth College, and the Associated Schools, 1900, p. 327; Quincy, History of the Boston Athenaeum, pp. 93, 173; Middlesex Probate Files, no. 19611 (Petition); Boston Evening Transcript of 3 January, 1868, p. 3/4; State House Returns of Deaths (Stow), cciii. 187).
113 Edward Wigglesworth (H. C. 1822).
114 Suffolk Probate Files, no. 30044. In all the proceedings in the Probate Court the intestate is described as “Gaspard Spurzheim; physician.” The net amount of the estate was $2,796.85, and this was decreed by the Court to be distributed equally to his sister, “Madam Marie Therèse Spurzheim widow of Mr. Nicholas Hermesdorf of Schweick in the Canton of the same name and District of Treves in the Grand Dutchy of the lower Rhine,” and his two brothers, “Willibrod Spurzheim of Oedenburg in Hungary, watchmaker,” and “Mr. Charles Theodore Henry Spurzheim of Vienna, Master Saddler.”
115 The earlier lectures were delivered in the Hall of the Boston Athenaeum in Pearl Street, but as it proved to be too small to accommodate the audience the later lectures were heard in the old Masonic Temple, which stood at the northeasterly corner of Tremont Street and Temple Place and is now occupied as a dry goods store by R. H. Stearns and Company.
116 William Grigg, M.D., son of John and Maria (Pell) Grigg, was born in New York 30 May, 1805; graduated at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in the City of New York in 1826; married in Boston, 5 October, 1827, Eunice Maria Faxon, daughter of Nathaniel and Eunice (Bass) Faxon and niece of Dr. Seth Bass; became a licentiate of the Massachusetts Medical Society in 1828; practised his profession in Boston, 1828–1836, residing with his father-in-law at No. 30 Atkinson (now Congress) Street; was of the committees to arrange for the funeral of Spurzheim, and to superintend a post-mortem examination and to procure a cast of his head; had some connection, not now determined, with the Boston Athenseum in 1835 and 1836; had a daughter, Mary Pell Grigg, born 31 May, 1834, baptized at the Church in Federal Street 5 October, 1834, whose name was changed by act of the Legislature, 17 March, 1841, to Mary Josephine Faxon, and who married in Boston 8 November, 1858, Edward William Forbush (H. C. 1854); and died in 1836 (Faxon, History of the Faxon Family, 1880, pp. 190, 267; Catalogue of the Alumni, Officers and Fellows of the College of Physicians and Surgeons in the City of New York, Medical Department of Columbia College, 1807–1881; Massachusetts Medical Society, Catalogue of its Officers, Fellows and Licentiates, 1781–1893, p. 201; Boston Directory, 1828–1836; Records of the Church in Federal Street, Boston; Boston City Records, Marriages in 1858 no. 1722, Deaths in 1871 no. 508; Nahum Capen’s Reminiscences of Dr. Spurzheim, p. 36).
117 Dr. Winslow Lewis (H. C. 1819). Dr. James Jackson had charge of the case and Dr. John Ware and Dr. Jonathan Greely Stevenson were called in consultation several days before Dr. Spurzheim’s death (Capen, Reminiscences of Dr. Spurzheim, p. 30).
118 Dr. Spurzheim’s tomb, of which a picture will be found in Sketches of Boston, Past and Present (1851), part ii. p. 107, was erected at the expense of the Hon. William Sturgis (1 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, vii. 463). Dr. Spurzheim’s body was the second to be interred at Mt. Auburn. Dr. J. Collins Warren (H. C. 1863) writes me that Spurzheim’s brain was preserved, with his skull, many years in the Mastodon Room, No. 92 Chestnut Street, Boston, but in time the brain preparation became spoiled and the brain no longer exists. The skull is now in the Warren Museum at the Harvard Medical School. The elder Dr. John Collins Warren (H. C. 1797) performed a post-mortem examination of Spurzheim’s body (Edward Warren, Life of John Collins Warren, ii, 11, 12, 25; 1 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, vii. 463; Capen, Reminiscences of Dr. Spurzheim, pp. 2, 36, 43–45).
119 See the Publications of this Society, v. 116–132.
120 First Essays at Banking in New England, Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society for October, 1884, p. 268.
121 Tracts relating to the Currency of the Massachusetts Bay, p. 9.
122 The Fund was described by me in a paper read before the American Antiquarian Society, 29 April, 1903, and published in the Proceedings of that Society, pp. 368–384.
123 “Severals relating to the Fund” is the first tract in Tracts relating to the Currency of the Massachusetts Bay.
124 A phrase frequently used by the pamphleteers of the day, Lumber being intended for Lombard, the name of a well-known street in London, and the whole expression meaning simply a pledge of merchandise. The “deposit in Land” was, of course, a mortgage.
125 Tracts relating to the Currency of the Massachusetts Bay, p. 4.
126 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, xiii. 272.
127 Substantially the same statement is made in the prospectus of the Bank, but the month is there given as July. (2 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society for December, 1903, xviii. 63–81.)
128 Massachusetts Archives, cxxvi. 103.
129 Our knowledge of Blackwell’s Bank rests upon documents in the Archives, described in Currency and Banking in the Province of the Massachusetts Bay (ii. 75 et sq.), and upon a manuscript copy of a Prospectus of the Bank found in the Winthrop Papers, described in 2 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society for December, 1903, xviii. 63–81.
130 Suffolk Deeds, xii.
131 The following is the language of the Act, taken from the Massachusetts Court Records, vi. 170, 171:
The forme of the Bill agreed upon
This Indented Bill of Twenty Shillings due from the Massachusetts Colony to the Possessor shall be in value equal to Money and shall be Accordingly Accepted by the Treasurer, and Receivers subordinate to him in all Publick Payments, and for any stock at any time in the Treasury Boston in New England Decemr 10th 1690.
By Order of the General Court.
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132 The motto of the bill was to be Crescit Eundo and the form was as follows:
THIS INDENTED BILL OF CREDIT, Obliges Us and every of Us, and all, and every of our Partners of the Bank of Credit of Boston in New-England, to accept the same in Lieu of Twenty Shillings, in all Payments according to our Articles of Agreement; and that it shall be so accepted by our Receiver or Treasurer, for the Redemption of any Pawn or Mortgage in the said Bank.
Boston, November First, One Thousand Seven Hundred and Fourteen.
(Tracts Relating to the Currency of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, p. 79.)
133 The career of this Company is described in Currency and Banking in the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, ii. 102 et sq.; and in the Publications of this Society, v. 96–111. The following is a copy of one of the notes given in the former work (ii. 106):
Three Shillings. This Indebted bill of Three Shillings Due to the possessor thereof from the NEW LONDON Society United for Trade and Commerce in Connecticut in NEW-ENGLAND, shall be in Value Equal to Silver at Sixteen Shillings pr. Ounce, or to Bills of Publick Credit of this or the Neighboring Governments, and shall be Accordingly accepted by the Treasurer of said Society, and in all Payments in said Societv from time to time.
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New-London, Aug. 1732. |
by Order of Said Society |
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Comt.134 The Merchants’ Notes of 1733, in 2 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society for April, 1903, xvii. 184–208.
135 The form of the note which was ultimately emitted was as follows:
|
Half a Crown |
No ( |
Half a Crown |
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2=6 |
2=6 |
We JOYNTLY AND Severally Promise to pay to Richard Clarke of Boston Mercht. or Order, two Pennyweight, fifteen grains and One quarter, Troy weight, of Coin’d Silver, Sterling Alloy, or the Value in Coin’d Standard Gold, vizt three tenths parts thereof by Decemr 30th 1736, three tenths more by Decemr 30th 1739, and the other four tenths, by Decemr 30th 1743; and on each of the two first payments to renew our Bills accordingly; for Value Received. Boston New England, Novr 30th 1733.
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Half a Crown |
Half a Crown |
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2=6 |
2=6 |
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Seal |
[Signed] H. Hall |
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[A hand holding a pair of scales on an escutcheon having the motto Justitiæ ergo at the top] |
Edw Bromfield Jun. |
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Edwn Hutchinson |
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James Bowdoin |
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Wn Foye |
(See facsimile of half-crown note, Plate 13, facing p. 192, Currency and Banking in the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, ii.)
136 The form of the proposed bill was as follows:
This Indented Bill of due from the Province of Massachusetts Bay in New England to the Possessor thereof shall be in value equal to silver coin after the rate of six shillings and eight pence the Ounce, or gold coin after the rate of four pounds sixteen shillings the ounce and shall be accordingly accepted in all payments: And the Trustees shall be obliged at any time after the day of to deliver to the possessor hereof one-half of the sum herein expressed in silver or gold coin at the rates before mentioned and the other half in new bills of the same form and tenor with this bill and in like manner to be exchang’d at the end of five years more.
By order of the Great and General Court or Assembly
Boston, the day of
|
A |
|
Committee |
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B |
||
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C |
(Massachusetts Archives, ci. 522.)
137 The following is a copy of one of the notes:
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PROVINCE |
||
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N. HAMPSHIRE |
||
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7s |
No. |
7s |
We Promise jointly and severally to Pay to Hunking Wentworth Mercht of Portsmo or Order the Sum of Seven Shillings on the 25th day Decr wch will be in the year of our Lord one thousand Seven hundd and forty Six in Silver or Gold at ye then Currt price or in Passable Bills of Credt on ye Provs of N. Hampr Massachu Rhode Island or Connect. Cols, with Interest of one Ꝑ Cent Ꝑ Ann from the date hereof being for value Recd as Witness our hands 25th of Decr
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A. D.1734 |
||
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7s |
7s |
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Seal |
[Signed] |
Geo. Jaffket |
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[A Pine tree on an escutcheon with the motto Beneficio Commercii] |
Hen Sherburne |
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Josh. Peirce |
||
(See Plate 14, facing p. 208, Currency and Banking in the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, ii.)
138 Massachusetts Province Laws, ii. 743.
139 This experiment is described in Currency and Banking in the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, ii. 125 et sq.
140 The following is a copy of the bill, which was known as the new tenor bill:
|
Eighty Pence |
Seal of the |
|
|
No ( ) |
[on an escutcheon] |
Province |
This Bill of Six Shillings and Eight Pence Due from the Province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England to the Possessor thereof shall be in Value equal to One Ounce of Coin’d Silver, Troy weight of Sterling Alloy, or Gold Coin at the Rate of Four Pounds eighteen Shillings p” Ounce, and shall be accordingly accepted by the Treasurer or Receivers subordinate to him in all Payments (ye Duties of Impost and Tunnags of Shipping and Incomes of the Light House only excepted) and for any Stock at any Time in the Treasury BOSTON 1736
Febr 4th 
By Order of the Great and General Court or Assembly
|
John Jeffries |
J. Wainwright Committee |
Wm Dudley |
(See Plate 8, facing p. 112, Currency and Banking in the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, ii.)
141 The Coin Shilling of Massachusetts Bay, in Yale Review for November, 1898, p. 262.
142 Publications, iii. 2–40.
143 The following is a copy of the bill as originally printed in the broadside:
TWENTY SHILLINGS.
WE Promise for Our Selves and Partners to receive this Twenty Shilling Bill of Credit, as so much Lawful Money, in all Payments, Trade and Business and after ye Expiration of Twenty Years to pay ye Possessor ye Value thereof in Manufactures of this Province Boston &c
144 The following is a copy of one of the bills:
6d THE MANUFACTORY BILL 6d
WE, Joyntly & Severally, Promise (for ourselves & Partners) to take this Bill, as Sixpence lawfull Money, at Six Shillings & Eight Pence pr Ounce in all Payments Trade & Business, for Stock in our Treasury at any time, & after Twenty Years, to pay y same (at that estimate) on Demand to Mr Joseph Marion or order in the Produce or Manufactures enumerated in our Scheme for Value Received
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BOSTON Septr 9th |
||||
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No |
1740 |
585 |
||
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6d |
6d |
|||
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NEC PLURIBUS IMPAR [On a ribbon stretched across] |
||||
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[Signed] |
||||
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WM Stoddabd |
||||
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Saml Watts |
||||
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Saml Tkustt |
||||
(See Plate 10, facing p. 144, Currency and Banking in the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, ii.)
145 The following is a copy of one of the bills:
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|
|
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A Crown |
A Crown |
|
We jointly and Severally promise to pay Isaac Winslow Mercht. or Order in Boston Five penny Wgt of Coind Silver Sterling Alloy Troy w’ by the 31 December 1755 value recd |
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5 Boston N. E. |
Augt 1t 5 |
|
1740 |
|
|
Seal |
[Signed] |
|
[A sloop under sail on an escutcheon, the motto Fiat Justitia below] |
James Bowdoin And. Oliver Jas. Boltineau |
(See Plate 16, facing p. 210, Currency and Banking in the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, ii.)
146 The following is a copy of one of the bills:
THE BANK BILL
No. Two Shillings (520)
WE JOINTLY and SEVERALLY for our SELVES and PARTNERS Promise to take this Bill as Two Shillings, lawful money at Six Shillings and Eight Pence pr ounce, in all Payments, Trade and Business, and for Stock in our Treasury at any Time And to pay the same at that estimate on Demand to MR. JAMES EVELETH, or order, in the Produce or Manufactures enumerated in our Scheme; as recorded in the County of Essex’s Records, for Value recd. Dated at Ipswich, the First day of May, 1741.
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2s |
2s |
|
|
Seal |
[Signed] |
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[A wharf with a vessel and a row boat, the motto Justitia above Rediviva below, inverted] |
Jonathan Hale Robert Choatb John Brown Eben Stevens |
(See Plate 17, facing p. 256, Currency and Banking in the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, ii.)
147 The engraved bills of this emission were very elaborate. The form given below is copied from the Act of Emission:
No ( ) TWENTY SHILLINGS.
THIS bill of twenty shillings, due to the possessor thereof, from the province of Massachusetts Bay, shall be equal to three ounces of coined silver, Troy Weight, of sterling alloy, or gold coin at the rate of four pounds, eighteen shillings perounce; and shall be so accepted in all payments and in the Treasury.
|
Boston |
1741 |
By order of the |
|
|
general Court or assembly. |
|
Committee |
(Massachusetts Province Laws, ii. 1077.)
148 Massachusetts Province Laws, ii. 1081.
149 The form of the bill given in the Act was as follows:
No( ) Twenty Shillings.
This bill of Twenty Shillings, due to the possessor thereof from the province of the Massachusetts Bay, shall be equal to two ounces thirteen pennyweight and eight grains of coin’d silver, troy weight, of sterling alloy, or gold coin at the rate of five pounds ten shillings and three pence per ounce, and shall be so accepted in all payments in the treasury, agreeable to act of Assembly 1744
By order of the General Court or Assembly
Committee
(Massachusetts Province Laws, iii. 148.)
150 This was in 1744. The form submitted was as follows:
The province of the Massachusetts Bay Promise to pay the possessor hereof being an inhabitant of this province ________ lawful money by the ______ day of ___________ Anno Domini 17—
Dated 17—
Witness A. B. C. D. E. F. Committee for signing the bills.
(Massachusetts Archives, cii. 280, 281.)
151 See pp. 1–6, above.
152 See Monthly Bulletin of the Boston Public Library for October, 1902.
153 Publications, v. 167–186.
154 I am indebted to our associate the Hon. James Phinney Baxter for kindly examining his own manuscript copy of the York Court Records in the vain endeavor to get trace of this Proclamation.
155 Massachusetts Colony Records, v. 333.
156 Ibid. v. 333.
157 Ibid. v. 346.
158 Ibid. v. 346.
159 These Instructions may be read in Massachusetts Colony Records, v. 346–319.
160 History of New England, iii. 352.
161 Massachusetts Colony Records, v. 385–392.
162 Palfrey, History of New England, iii. 369 and note; Massachusetts Archives, cxxvii. 218; below, p. 112.
163 Collection of Original Papers (1769), p. 537 n.
164 See “An Answer to severall heads of enquiry concerning the present state of New England,” sent by Randolph, in the autumn of 1676, to the Lords of Trade, in Hutchinson’s Collection of Original Papers, pp. 477–513. See also Edward Randolph (Prince Society’s Publications), ii. 225–259.
165 Hutchinson’s Collection of Original Papers, pp. 531–533.
166 The allusion is to Capt. John Foye, who “commanded Vessels in the trade between Boston and the Thames” (Historical Catalogue of the Old South Church, 1883, p. 338). Sewall records his burial, 26 November, 1715 (Diary, iii. 68), and that of his widow Dorothy, 16 January, 1723–24, at the age of 74 (Ibid. iii. 328). Their son William Foye, born 6 March, 1680 (Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, ix. 151), was Treasurer of the Province from 1736 till his death, 21 March, 1759, at the age of 78 (Heraldic Journal, iii. 151; Whitmore’s Massachusetts Civil List, p. 45). See Wyman’s Genealogies and Estates of Charlestown, i. 372. 373.
167 On the eve of Randolph’s return to England, Danforth took leave of him in a characteristic and amusing letter, dated 2 April, 1683, still preserved in the Massachusetts Archives (lvii. 55). The good advice which it contains is fortified by citations from Scripture, — Genesis xxi. 24, 29; Exodus ix. 16, and Acts ix. 1–9. The letter is printed by Palfrey in his History of New England, iii. 375 n.
168 Hutchinson’s Collection of Original Papers, pp. 534–536.
169 Palfrey, History of New England, iii. 358.
170 4 Massachusetts Historical Collections, viii. 494–503.
171 Massachusetts Colony Records, v. 377.
172 Fast and Thanksgiving Days of New England, pp. 224, 225, 477.
173 History of the State of Maine, i. 571, 572.
174 See Massachusetts Province Laws, v. 1253–1255.
175 Massachusetts Province Laws, v. 669.
176 Resolves of the General Assembly (1776), p. 19.
177 Province Laws, v. 558.
178 Ibid. v. 669.
179 Resolves of the General Assembly (1776), p. 23.
180 Ibid. p. 32.
181 Resolves of the General Assembly (1776), p. 34.
182 Province Laws, v. 670.
183 Ibid. v. 583.
184 Ibid. v. 647.
185 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xviii. 253.
186 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xviii. 200.
187 Province Laws, v. 733.
188 Resolves of the General Assembly (1777), p. 21.
189 Province Laws, v. 810.
190 Ibid. y. 813.
191 Province Laws, v. 734.
192 Province Laws, v. 733, 734.
193 Ibid. v. 730, 738, 777, 922.
194 Ibid. v. 731.
195 Ibid. v. 1012.
196 Province Laws, v. 1017.
197 Ibid. v. 1019.
198 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xxvi. 9.
199 Ibid. xxvi. 13.
200 Province Laws, v. 1016.
201 Province Laws, v. 924.
202 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xxvi. 46.
203 Province Laws, v. 1073.
204 Province Laws, v. 1255.
205 Ibid. v. 1114.
206 See the issue of 15 July, 1779.
207 See the Boston Gazette of 2 August, 1779. 9
208 For an account of the carting out of town of several persons, under the direction of Joyce Junior, see the Publications of this Society, viii. 94–101.
209 Shattuck, History of Concord, p. 123.
210 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xxvi. 98, 99.
211 Ibid. xxvi. 100, 101.
212 Province Laws, v. 1250.
213 Ibid. v. 1258.
214 Province Laws, v. 1261.
215 Ibid. v. 1264.
216 Province Laws, v. 1339.
217 The student will recognize from the references that the narrative portion of this paper rests upon the collation of authorities in Volume v. of the Massachusetts Province Laws. Some acknowledgment is due to our associate Mr. Goodell, the editor of that volume, for the great value to students of the notes relating to this period of our history which he has collated.
218 Congressional Globe, 27 January, 1865, p. 467.
219 Mr. Edes is indebted to our associate Mr. William Watson Goodwin and to Mr. George Francis Dow for data which enabled him fully to identify the owner of this silhouette. See Salem Town and City Records; Pickering Genealogy (1897), i. 84, 163–166, ii. 460; Historical Collections of the Essex Institute, iii. 94, 95, iv. 78, 79, vi. 252–254.
220 Salem Gazette, 12 March, 1813, p. 2/4.
221 Christopher Gore was the son of Capt. John Gore, who was an Addresser of Hutchinson 28 May, 1774, and of Gage 8 June, 1774, and 6 October, 1775. See Sabine, Biographical Sketches of Loyalists of the American Revolution, i. 483, 484; Publications of this Society, iii. 387, 395.
222 This was possibly John Robinson, Commissioner of the Customs, who on 5 September, 1769, committed an assault on James Otis. See the Boston Gazette, 11 September, 1769, No. 753, p. 2/3.
223 Though not recognized in the dictionaries, “Sail” appears to be a generic name for a negress, as Sambo is for a negro. In the Harvard Magazine for March, 1855, we read:
Mr. Smith lights his cigar, and swears at slaveholders; Mrs. Smith takes a cup of very sweet coffee, and drops several tears for the oppressed Ethiopian; Miss Smith makes cotton pincushions for the antislavery fair; and Master Smith thinks he should like to marry “Sally dear” (i. 114).
A poetical satire on Jefferson, printed in the Columbian Centinel of 26 February, 1803 (p. 4/1), contained this line:
To charm the lovely Sally’s eye.
224 Aurora (Philadelphia), 7 October, 1813, p. 2/5.
225 To these have been added the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and the New York Historical Society. The Check-List is printed in volume ix. of our Publications.
226 See Records of the Court of Assistants, Index, under “Will.”
227 As far as time has been available for investigation, the development of the County Courts and of their jurisdiction over matters of probate appears to have been as follows, — all references being to the Massachusetts Colony Records.
1635–36, March 3. A law was passed establishing four courts to be kept every quarter, the first at Ipswich, to which Newbury should belong; the second at Salem, to which Saugus should belong; the third at Newtowne, to which Charlestown, Concord, Medford, and Watertown should belong; and the fourth at Boston, to which Roxbury, Dorchester, Weymouth, and Hingham should belong. Each court was composed of at least one magistrate with such associates as were chosen by the General Court from persons nominated by the several towns, so that there should be five members in all. These courts had civil jurisdiction up to ten pounds, and criminal jurisdiction not exceeding life, member, or banishment (i. 169). On 25 May, 1636, it was provided that three members of any of these courts, one at least being a magistrate, should constitute a quorum (i. 175).
1639, September 9. It was enacted that records be kept of all wills, administrations, and inventories; also of marriages, births, and deaths. At the same Court “Mr Steven Winthrope was chosen to record things” (i. 276).
1611, June 2. The Courts at Ipswich and Salem were given the same power both in civil and criminal cases as was exercised by the Court of Assistants at Boston, except as to trials for life, limb, or banishment (i. 325). Thenceforth the Courts at Ipswich and Salem exercised probate jurisdiction within their respective territories.
1643, May 10. The whole plantation within the jurisdiction was divided into four shires, to wit:
Essex: Salem, Lynn, Enon [Wenham], Ipswich, Rowley, Newbury, Gloucester, Coehichawick [Andover]. Middlesex: Charlestown, Cambridge, Watertown, Sudbury, Concord,
Woburn, Medford, Lynn Village, Reading. Suffolk: Boston, Roxbury, Dorchester, Dedham, Braintree, Weymouth,
Hingham, Nantasket. Norfolk: Salisbury, Hampton, Haverhill, Exeter, Dover, Strawberry Bank (ii. 38).
After this act, at first seldom but later more often, the courts created by the act of 3 March, 1635–36, are referred to in the statutes as the County Courts. In this way they acquired that name, as there does not appear to have been any statute specifically bestowing it upon them.
1647, November 11. A law providing for the preservation of records, wills, births, etc., ordered that by direction of the Auditor General “a strong presse [be] made of very firme oake planks . . . about 6 foote high, 5 foote long, [and] 3 foote broad . . . wth 3 strong locks.” The Governor was to have one key, the Secretary one, and the Recorder one. It was further ordered that wherever any court of record was kept, some like provision be made by direction of the judge or president or elder judge of said court, with two locks, one key to remain in the hands of the elder judge of said court, the other in the hands of the secretary or recorder there (ii. 208). I am informed by Mr. Walter K. Watkins that at the time of this statute a similar practice in regard to the keeping by the incumbent and two churchwardens of the keys of the presses in which parish records were kept had for about a century prevailed in England. This statute is cited as being of incidental interest.
1647–48, March. The magistrates were authorized to choose gentlemen of worth as their associates for keeping a court in the County of Norfolk (ii. 226).
1649, May 2. A law providing that the Court of Assistants should take cognizance of no case triable in any County Court, unless by way of appeal; and that no debt or action proper to the cognizance of any one magistrate, or of any three commissioners for trial of cases under forty shillings, should be entertained by any County Court or Court of Assistants but by appeal from such magistrate or commissioner as aforesaid (ii. 279).
1649, May 2. A law that where any husband died intestate the County Court was empowered to assign to the widow such part of his personal estate as it should conceive just and equal; and to assign to the children or other heirs their several portions (ii. 281).
1649, October 17. A law providing that if any executor shall not at the next Court of the County which shall be about thirty days after the decease of the party make probate of his will, or shall not cause the same to be recorded by the recorder of the county where deceased dwelt or shall not within the same time take administration, if none had been already granted, of such goods as he had meddled with of anyone deceased, etc., every such person shall be bound to pay all such debts as the deceased party owed; with forfeit also to the Commonwealth proportioned to the delay in proving the will or taking of administration. There is further provision that the Court of the County shall take such action as it deems meet in case executorship is renounced or administration is not applied for (ii. 287).
This last statute evidently invested the County Courts with all such power to prove wills and grant administrations as they may not already have possessed. It would appear that thereafter the Court of Assistants had no original but only appellate jurisdiction of these matters. See the statute of 2 May, 1619, cited above.
228 Acts of the Commissioners of the United Colonies, i. (Plymouth Colony Records, ix.) 137.
229 Massachusetts Colony Records, iii. 164, under date of 14 May, 1649.
230 Colonial Records of Connecticut, i. 179, under date of 14 March, 1648–49.
231 Acts of the Commissioners of the United Colonies, i. (Plymouth Colony Records, ix.) 24, under date of September, 1644.
232 Colonial Records of Connecticut, i. 113, under date of 25 October, 1644.
233 The following from Blackstone’s Commentaries (delivered in 1753–1766), tells how the probate of wills and administrations of estates came to be placed under the jurisdiction of the clergy:
In case a person made no disposition of such of his goods as were testable, whether that were only part or the whole of them, he was, and is, said to die intestate; and in such cases it is said, that by the old law the King was entitled to seize upon his goods, as the parens patriae, and general trustee of the kingdom. This prerogative the king continued to exercise for some time by his own ministers of justice, and probably in the county court where matters of all kinds were determined; and it was granted as a franchise to many lords of manors, and others, who have to this day a prescriptive right to grant administration to their intestate tenants and suitors, in their own courts baron, and other courts, or to have their wills there proved, in case they made any disposition. Afterwards, the crown, in favour of the church, invested the prelates with this branch of the prerogative; which was done, saith Perkins, because it was intended by the law, that spiritual men are of better conscience than laymen, and that they had more knowledge what things would conduce to the benefit of the soul of the deceased. The goods, therefore, of intestates were given to the ordinary by the crown; and he might seize them, and keep them without wasting, and also might give, aliene, or sell them at his will, and dispose of the money in pios usus; and, if he did otherwise, he broke the confidence which the law reposed in him. So that, properly, the whole interest and power which were granted to the ordinary, were only those of being the king’s almoner within his diocese; in trust to distribute the intestate’s goods in charity to the poor, or in such superstitions uses as the mistaken zeal of the times had denominated pious. And, as he had thus the disposition of intestates’ effects, the probate of wills of course followed: for it was thought just and natural, that the will of the deceased should be proved to the satisfaction of the prelate, whose right of distributing his chattels for the good of his soul was effectually superseded thereby.
The goods of the intestate being thus vested in the ordinary upon the most solemn and conscientious trust, the reverend prelates were, therefore, not accountable to any, but to God and themselves, for their conduct. . . . And to what length of iniquity this abuse was carried, most evidently appears from a gloss of Pope Innocent IV, written about the year 1250, wherein he lays it down for established canon law, that “in Britannia tertia pars bonorum descendentium ah intestato in opus ecclesiae et pauperum dispensanda est.” Thus, the popish clergy took to themselves (under the name of the church and poor) the whole residue of the deceased’s estate; after the partes rationabiles, or two-thirds, of the wife and children were deducted; without paying even his lawful debts, or other charges thereon. For which reason it was enacted by the statute of Westm. 2, that the ordinary shall be bound to pay the debts of the intestate so far as his goods will extend, in the same manner that executors were bound in case the deceased had left a will: a use more truly pious, than any requiem, or mass for his soul. This was the first check given to that exorbitant power, which the law had intrusted with ordinaries. But, though they were now made liable to the creditors of the intestate for their just and lawful demands; yet the residuum, after the payment of debts, remained still in their hands, to be applied to whatever purposes the conscience of the ordinary should approve. The flagrant abuses of which power occasioned the legislature again to interpose, in order to prevent the ordinaries from keeping any longer the administration in their own hands, or those of their immediate dependents; and therefore the statute 31 Edw. Ill, c. 11 provides, that, in case of intestacy, the ordinary shall depute the nearest and most lawful friends of the deceased to administer his goods; which administrators are put upon the same footing, with regard to suits and to accounting, as executors appointed by will. This is the original of administrators, as they at present stand, who are only the officers of the ordinary, appointed by him in pursuance of this statute, which singles out the next and most lawful friend of the intestate; who is interpreted to be the next of blood that is under no legal disabilities. The statute of 21 Hen. VIII, c. 5, enlarges a little more the power of the ecclesiastical judge; and permits him to grant administration either to the widow, or the next of kin, or to both of them, at his own discretion; and where two or more persons are in the same degree of kindred, gives the ordinary his election to accept whichever he pleases. (Commentaries, Book ii., Chapter xxxii., Of Title by Testament and Administration.)
234 Washburn, Sketches of the Judicial History of Massachusetts, p. 95.
235 History of New England, iii. 522.
236 See Mr. A. C. Goodell’s paper on the Seals of the Colonial and Provincial Courts of Justice in Massachusetts, in 1 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, xx. 157–170.
237 This message may be found in Quincy’s Massachusetts Reports, Appendix iii. p. 573.
238 This volume, lettered Probate Records, 1761–1784, is in the office of the Secretary of the Commonwealth.
239 Wales v. Willard, 2 Massachusetts Reports, 119–123.
240 See Publications of this Society, vii. 285 and note; Memorial History of Boston, i. 519 note 2; Winthrop, History of New England (1853). ii. 382.
241 T. Lechford, Plain Dealing, p. 39; Memorial History of Boston, i. 518, 519.
242 Palfrey, History of New England, ii. 39.
243 C. W. Upham, Records of Massachusetts under its First Charter, in Early History of Massachusetts (1869), p. 250, published by the Massachusetts Historical Society; Palfrey, History of New England, i. 384.
244 The Massachusetts Province Charter granted by William and Mary provided that there should be a liberty of conscience allowed in the worship of God to all Christians (“Except Papists”) inhabiting or which should inhabit or be resident within the province. Was it ever held that the King and Queen established a theocracy by this Charter?
245 This Commission may be found in Hubbard’s History of New England (1815), p. 264; and also, in Latin, in E. Hazard’s Historical Collections (1792), i. 344. It is directed to the Archbishop of Canterbury and ten others, and gives to them, or any five or more of them, power of protection and government over English Colonies then planted, or thereafter to be planted; also power to make laws and constitutions concerning either the state public of the Colonies, “or utility of private persons, and their lands, goods, debts, and succession,” for the relief and support of the clergy, etc., and for consigning maintenance unto them by tithes, oblations, and other profits according to their good discretion, with the advice of two or three of the bishops they may advise with touching matters ecclesiastical; also power to remove all governors of Colonies for cause, and to appoint others; to ordain judges and officers for courts ecclesiastical, and to establish courts of justice, both ecclesiastical and civil. Authority was also given to take measures in certain contingencies looking to the revocation of any of the Letters Patent granted by the King or his predecessor. The laws, etc., however, were not to be put in execution until Royal assent had been obtained.
246 Washburn, Sketches of the Judicial History of Massachusetts, pp. 192, 193; Mason A. Green, History of Springfield, pp. 228–258; Massachusetts House Journals, 1735, pp. 101–172.
247 Massachusetts Colony Records, iv. i. 328.
248 Massachusetts Colony Records, iv. i. 417.
249 In regard to the subject of education, it is evident that the colonists provided for it not only because they wanted their children to read the Bible, not only for its advantages on general principles, but in addition because the republic they were establishing could not exist a day unless its officers and servants and those of its towns, had education sufficient for their duties. As pertinent to the subject of this paper, consider how absolutely essential it was that all persons administering matters of probate, or having duties regarding the same, should have at least such education as was given in the schools of the Colony.
250 The letter is printed in John Adams’s Works, x. 35, 36.
251 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, ii. (Third edition), part i. 22; part ii. 26, 27, 107.
252 Ibid.; Massachusetts Colony Records, iv. i. 338; Suffolk Probate Files, nos. 420,460; New England Historical and Genealogical Register for 1864, xviii. 154, 156. Mrs. Ward’s Petition to the General Court contains interesting domestic particulars.
253 Bodge, Soldiers in King Philip’s War (1896), pp. 154, 156.
254 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, ix. 95.
255 Genealogical Memoir of the Newcomb Family (1874), pp. 13, 14.
256 Suffolk Probate Files, no. 1692.
257 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, ix. 178.
258 Ibid, xxviii. 26.
259 Boston Town Records. See Suffolk Probate Files, no. 3685.
260 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xxviii. 94. Their intentions of marriage were entered 17 August, 1715.
261 Boston Town Records.
262 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xxiv. 89.
263 Ibid, xxviii. 210.
264 Concerning her ancestry, see J. D. Butler, Butleriana Genealogica et Biographica, or Genealogical Notes concerning Mary Butler and her Descendants (1888), pp. 34, 35; Daniels, History of the Town of Oxford, Massachusetts (1892), p. 417. I am indebted to both these volumes, which also contain many facts of interest beyond the scope of this memoir. See also New England Historical and Genealogical Register for 1847, i. 167–170.
265 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xxiv. 235.
266 Ibid, xxviii. 236.
267 Butleriana Genealogica et Biographica, p. 33.
268 Ibid. p. 33; and 1 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, xviii. 266, where his name is misprinted “Butter.” See Sabine, Biographical Sketches of Loyalists of the American Revolution, ii. 490.
269 Cf. Butleriana Genealogica et Biographica, pp. 33, 34; Daniels, History of Oxford, p. 417. He may have been identical with the James Butler who is said to have died in Boston in 1776 aged 63 (New England Historical and Genealogical Register, i. 169).
270 Catalogue of the Boston Public Latin School (1886), p. 69 and note.
271 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xxx. 44.
272 Mary Sigourney, of French Huguenot descent, daughter of Anthony and Mary (Waters) Sigourney, was born in Boston 23 March, 1741–42 (Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xxiv. 244), and died in Oxford, Massachusetts, 14 April, 1823 (Vital Records of Oxford, 1905, p. 272). She is described as a woman of “remarkable ability and force of character” (History of Oxford, p. 417). A brief sketch of her by the Rev. Abiel Holmes is in 3 Massachusetts Historical Collections, ii. 76–79. See Genealogy of the Sigourney Family (1857), pp. 10, 26.
273 Butleriana Genealogica et Biographica, pp. 37, 38.
274 Ibid. pp. 39, 40. Butler and his wife were earnest supporters of the Patriot cause. His father, as we have already seen, was a Tory.
275 Vital Records of Oxford, p. 272; Butleriana Genealogica et Biographica, p. 40.
276 Butleriana Genealogica et Biographica, p. 36.
277 Ibid. p. 52.
278 Oxford Vital Records, p. 140. Their intentions of marriage were entered 21 September, 1800.
279 Ibid. p. 272.
280 Ibid. p. 22.
281 J. E. Morris, The Felt Genealogy (1893), p. 153. She was the daughter of John Cleaveland and Nancy (Felt) Proctor, and was married to Mr. Butler in Boston, 5 September, 1843 (Boston City Records of Marriages).
282 Boston City Records of Births; Vital Records of Oxford, p. 87; Daniels, History of Oxford, pp. 419, 420, 635, 636.
283 A view of this house is in Butleriana Genealogica et Biographica, facing p. 68.
284 Mr. George E. Littlefield states that the first edition was published in 1740 (Early Schools and School-Books of New England, p. 120).
285 This Benjamin Franklin came to Boston about 1716 and resided with his brother Josiah until the marriage of his own son Samuel, with whom he lived until his death on 17 March, 1727. He is mentioned by Dr. Franklin in his Autobiography, who says that his uncle “left behind him two quarto volumes of manuscripts, of his own poetry, consisting of fugitive pieces addressed to his friends.” Dr. Franklin’s sister Mrs. Jane Mecom, in a letter written 8 November, 1765, declared that “with all my own art, and good uncle Benjamin’s memorandums, I can’t make them good colors.” See New England Weekly Journal, 27 March, 1727, p. 2/2; Sparks’s edition of Franklin’s Works, i. 5, 6, 540–542, 545, 546, vii. 533; J. Parton, Life and Times of Franklin, i. 17, 23–26, 32–38, 41–43, 402, 522, 523; S. G. Drake, History and Antiquities of Boston, pp. 573, 574; Letters to Benjamin Franklin, from his Family and Friends (1859), p. 31.
286 The original pagination is indicated within square brackets. At the top of each page occurs the word “Memorand.” The origitial is owned by Dr. Edward A. Whiston of Newtonville, Massachusetts, who has kindly allowed a copy to be made.
287 Sir George Byng (1663–1733), Viscount Torrington.
288 Port Mahon, Minorca, which at that time belonged to England.
289 The Boston News-Letter.
290 James Francis Edward Stuart (1688–1766), the Old Pretender.
291 La Coruña, Spain.
292 James Butler, second Duke of Ormonde, the leader of the Jacobites.
293 The Boston News-Letter.
294 This is an autograph signature, doubtless that of Samuel Franklin (17211775), grandson of the writer. See p. 205 note 2, below.
295 Bayonne, France.
296 Salee or Sallee, Morocco, formerly a noted pirate headquarters.
297 Peter the Great.
298 George Seton, fifth Earl of Winton, was taken prisoner at the battle of Preston in 1715, found guilty of high treason, condemned to death, but escaped out of the Tower of London, and died at Rome in 1749.
299 James Maule, fourth Earl of Panmure, was captured in 1715, and attainted, but made his escape and died at Paris in 1723.
300 The early numbers of the Boston Gazette were printed by the writer’s nephew James Franklin, an older brother of Dr. Franklin.
301 The Rev. Benjamin Colman.
302 The Rev. Thomas Prince. The letters following Prince’s name are perhaps an abbreviation for “Teacher.”
303 Sir Richard Temple, Viscount Cobham, captured Vigo in 1719.
304 For an account of these pirates, and for extracts from the Boston News Letter, see Sewall’s Diary, iii. 335 and note.
305 Robert Scarlett (1499–1594) was long the sexton of Peterborough Cathedral. The two queens buried in the cathedral were Catharine of Aragon in 1535 and Mary Queen of Scots in 1586. The inscription is not over the gate of King’s College, Cambridge, but on a portrait of Scarlett which hangs on the north side of the great west door of Peterborough Cathedral. See Dictionary of National Biography, 1. 405; Murray’s Handbook for Travellers in Northamptonshire and Rutland (1878), p. 71.
306 This will of course at once be recognized as the inscription on the stone above Shakspere’s grave in the chancel of Stratford Church.
307 These lines, not quite accurately quoted, are from Crashaw’s famous Epitaph upon Mr. Ashton, a conformable Citizen.
308 Born in 1654, Hannah Franklin married John Morris. Elsewhere she is stated to have died in 1716 (New England Historical and Genealogical Register, xi. 17; Sparks’s edition of Franklin’s Works, i. 546).
309 At a town meeting held 22 September, 1701, it was —
Voted that the Select men of this Town are impowered to Assign and affix Names unto the Severall streets & Lanes within this Town, so as they shall judg meet and convenient (Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, viii. 17).
On 3 May, 1708, it was —
Ordered that the Streets, Lanes, and Alleys of this Town as they are now named & bounded, be accordingly recorded in the Town Book (Ibid. xi. 72; cf. viii. 49–54).
In 1708 a broadside was issued bearing the following heading and imprint:
The Names of the STREETS, Lanes & Alleys,
Within the Town of Boston, in New-England.
BOSTON: Printed by Bartholomew Green, in Newbury Street: Sold by the Booksellers, 1708. Price 3d.
In this broadside the streets are numbered — beginning with Orange Street (1) and ending with White Bread Alley (110) — and descriptions are given. A single example will suffice:
45. The Alley leading Easterly from the Common, on the North side of Madam Ushers House. Turn Again Alley
A comparison between the broadside and Franklin’s list printed in the text shows a few trifling differences, the only one worth noting being that what Franklin calls “Swinge lane” is in the broadside called “Swingbridge Lane.”
The original broadside is in the Boston Public Library. A reduced facsimile was published in 1900 by Dr. Samuel A. Green in his Ten Fac-simile Reproductions Relating to New England, pp. 31, 32.
310 No later instance than 1616 of the use of the noun decore, meaning “grace, honour, beauty, adornment,” is given in the Oxford Dictionary.
311 These verses, doubtless written by some English author, were printed in the Boston Magazine for December, 1784, i. 623. There are some slight variations between the lines as there given and as printed in our text, the only important difference being that the word “fangles” (in the fourth line of the second stanza) is in the Boston Magazine “fancies.” At the bottom of the page in the Boston Magazine some one has written, “Vous avez raison.”
312 It was in this church, it will be remembered, that our associate Mr. Joseph H. Choate recently erected a memorial window to John Harvard. See the Harvard Graduates’ Magazine for September, 1905, xiv. 198–202.
313 Louis XIV. (1638–1715). This Epitaph is in the Somers Tracts, iii. 176.
314 The allusions are to the Peace of Ryswick (1697), the Peace of Utrecht (1713), and the War of the Spanish Succession.
315 The renunciation of her rights to Spain by the Infanta Maria Theresa on her marriage to Louis XIV. in 1660.
316 The demolition of the fortifications of Dunkirk was carried out by Louis XIV. in accordance with the Peace of Utrecht.
317 Landau was fortified by Vauban, as was also Dunkirk, near which is Mardyk.
318 Louis XIV. died 1 September, 1715, — or 21 August in England.
319 “Good sister” means sister-in-law. Philip (1640–1701), Duke of Orleans, the only brother of Louis XIV., married (1) Henrietta Anne, daughter of Charles I. of England, and (2) Elizabeth Charlotte (1652–1721), daughter of Charles Lewis, Elector Palatine. Henrietta Anne and Philip were married 30 March, 1661. On the afternoon of 29 June, 1670, Henrietta Anne was seized with a sudden illness and died the next day. Saint Simon asserts that she was poisoned, with the connivance of her husband, by his squire. She was buried with great magnificence on 21 August at St. Denis, Bossuet pronouncing the funeral oration.
320 Louis XIV. had favored the Turks on account of his hostility to Austria.
321 Doubtless either the town of Bar-le-Duc or the Duchy of Bar, which was a kind of secondary possession of the Duke of Lorraine, who is mentioned a little later. On the conclusion of the Peace of Utrecht, the Pretender was obliged to leave France and for a time lived at Bar-le-Duc.
322 The Tories were opposed to Marlborough and to a continuation of the war with France.
323 Probably either John Robartes (1606–1685), first Earl of Radnor, or his grandson Charles Bodville Robartes (1660–1723), second Earl of Radnor.
324 See p. 192 note 1, above.
325 Claude Louis Hector, Duc de Villars.
326 Henry Saint-John (1678–1751), first Viscount Bolingbroke.
327 Françoise d’Aubigné, Marquise de Maintenon, who in 1685 married Louis XIV., founded a home for the daughters of poor gentlemen at St.-Cyr, where she herself died.
328 Charles XII.
329 Doubtless Francesco Morosini (1618–1694), who on account of his conquest of nearly all the Morea in 1687 was surnamed II Peloponnesiaco. Later, he became Doge of Venice.
330 Philip V.
331 Leopold Joseph.
332 Clement XL
333 William Lloyd, Bishop of Worcester.
334 Samuel Franklin, born 15 October, 1684. See p. 205, below.
335 Josiah Franklin, the father of Dr. Franklin.
336 William Wood (not Woodward) secured a patent for Ireland for a cash payment of £10,000 to the Duchess of Kendal, the mistress of George I. The scandal drew from Swift the famous Drapier’s Letters, and the patent was surrendered in 1725. See Dictionary of National Biography, lxii. 378, 379; G. Harris, Life of Lord Chancellor Hardwicke, i. 149–160; S. S. Crosby, Early Coins of America, pp. 145–168.
337 For a notice of the Rev. Samuel Wells, see Dictionary of National Biography, lx. 231.
338 Samuel Franklin came to Boston before his father. On 13 August, 1719, he married Hannah Kellineck, by whom he had one son Samuel. The son Samuel was born 21 October, 1721, married Eunice Greenleaf 22 January, 1756, and died 21 February, 1775. Five letters written by Dr. Franklin to this Samuel Franklin, who was a cutler, are printed by Sparks. See Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xxiv. 150, xxviii. 81, xxx. 17,377; Massachusetts Spy, 2 March, 1775, p. 3/2; Sparks’s edition of Franklin’s Works, vii. 347, 479, 533, 559, viii. 73; Suffolk Probate Files, no. 15760. The following advertisement appeared in the Boston Chronicle of 2 January, 1769, No. 55 (ii. 4/3):
Just imported in the Ship Thames, Captain Watt, from London, by
Samuel Franklin,
At the Sign of the Crown and Razor, South-End
Boston.
BEST Razors, Pen-knives, scissars, shears, shoe-knives, shoe tacks and stampt awl blades, teeth instruments, lancets, white and yellow swords, and sword belts; case-knives and forks; ink powder and sealing-wax, files and rasps; horse fleams; hones and curling tongs; brass ink-pots, horn and ivory combs; white, yellow and steel shoe and knee buckles; gilt, lackered and plated coat and breast buttons, snuff boxes, and a few second hand hats, &c. all very cheap.
N. B. Razors, penknives and scissars ground, scabbards made for swords and bayonets, caseknife and fork blades made.
339 For this information about Alexis, as well as for other assistance in preparing these notes, the Editor is indebted to President Kittredge. The collations, enclosed within square brackets, are also due to Mr. Kittredge. There is a copy of Warde’s translations in the Harvard College Library.
340 The original is also owned by Dr. Whiston, to whom we are again indebted for permitting a copy to be made.
341 On the cover of coarse brown paper are the words “Dying & Coloring,” in the hand of the writer of the treatise. Then follow the words —
Samu Franklin
1762.
This is no doubt the signature of Samuel Franklin (1721–1775), the writer’s grandson. See Mrs. Meeom’s statement about her uncle’s recipes, p. 191 note 1, above.
342 To searce is to sift through a searce or sieve.
343 Edward Cocker (1631–1675).
344 The Herbal of the Rev. William Turner, Dean of Wells, is said to have marked the start of the science of botany in England. The portion called The Names of Herbes, originally printed in 1548, was republished in 1881 by the English Dialect Society, edited by James Britten.
345 The treatise here comes to an abrupt end. The next page of the original is blank. The final page is probably in the same hand, but written at a later period.
346 Publications, viii. 245, 246. 15
347 New England Historical and Genealogical Register, xi. 10, 20, xxxiii. 26–31; Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, ix. 247, xxiv. 181; Records of the Church in Brattle Square (1902), p. 149.
348 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xxiv. 180, xxviii. 106, 136, 191; Records of the Church in Brattle Square (1902), p. 152. Robert Charles Billings, a benefactor of this Society, was also baptized at this Church 6 June, 1819; and his parents, Ebenezer Billings and Elizabeth Cleverley, were married there 8 October, 1811, by the Rev. Joseph Stevens Buckminster (Records of the Church in Brattle Square, 1902, pp. 219, 271). It is not improbable that there was kinship between our benefactor and Sarah (Billings) Davenport.
349 In a manuscript genealogy of the Davenports in the library of the New England Historic Genealogical Society, Sarah (Billings) Davenport’s husband
350 E. L. Clark, A Record of the Inscriptions on the Tablets and Grave-Stones in the Burial-Grounds of Christ Church, Philadelphia (1861), p. 52; and seeis called Josiah Franklin Davenport (p. 50), and in another place (p. 74) he is referred to as “Jos. F.” In the Journal of the New Jersey Provincial Congress, under date of 29 June, 1776, is an entry stating that —
Mr. Josiah Franklin Davenport handed to Congress an Account, in the words following:
The Account is for boarding Gov. William Franklin and his servant (Force,. American Archives, Fourth Series, vi. 1633). In the Town Record of his birth, (Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xxiv. 181), however, and in the record of his baptism (Records of the Church in Brattle Square, 1902, p. 149), his name appears as Josiah Davenport. In the Christ Church, Philadelphia, Register of Burials is this entry, under date of 1 April, 1751:
Sarah Wife of Josiah Davenport.
See a discussion of Mr. Davenport’s name in the American Historical Record (1877), iii. 84, 226, 275, wherein he is confounded with his son Senator Franklin Davenport. He was County Clerk of Gloucester, 1774–1776 (New Jersey Archives, Second Series, i. 91, 94, 551 and note).
Diagram between pp. 32 and 33. I am indebted to Mr. Albert Matthews for this reference and also for an examination of the original Registers of Christ Church.
351 Ann Annis, daughter of William and Patience Annis, was baptized at Christ Church 16 December, 1736, at the age of ten months (Registers). It is interesting to inquire whether Ann Annis was of kin to the family of that name long settled at Newbury, Massachusetts, or to those persons bearing the name who were connected with the Church in Brattle Square, Boston,—John Annis, who married 3 March, 1795, Miss Sally Cleverley, and their two children, John, baptized 12 May, 1799, and William, baptized 24 May, 1801 (Coffin, History of Newbury, p. 293; Essex Antiquarian, 1899, iii. 184–187; Records of the Church in Brattle Square, pp. 203, 206, 263). See also p. 226 note 2, above.
352 See New England Historical and Genealogical Register, xxxii. 90.
353 See pp. 358–365, below.
354 This letter is owned by Mr. Charles W. Prescott of Concord, through whose courtesy it was exhibited. The letter is printed in Dr. William Darlington’s Memorials of John Bartram and of Humphry Marshall (1849), pp. 517, 518, and also in the Protectionist for March, 1905, xvi. 614.
355 See Darlington, Memorials of John Bartram and of H. Marshall, pp. 485–493. The first word of the title of Marshall’s book, doubtless through a typographical error, is printed “Arbustrum.”
356 Under date of 2 May, 1740, William Seward, while in Philadelphia, wrote: “Call’d at Mr. Franklin’s the Printer’s” (Journal of a Voyage, London, 1740, p. 22).
357 See the Columbian Centinel, 22 January, 1803, p. 4/1; 21 January, 1804, p. 4/1; 19 January, 1805, p. 4/1.
358 The following is taken from a communication by Mr. Aleck Abrahams of London to Notes and Queries of 3 June, 1905, Tenth Series, iii. 433:
No. 6 of ‘Pen-and-ink Sketches of London,’ by J. B., appearing in The Lady’s Newspaper, 22 March, 1851, provides an interesting sketch of these premises in illustration of a description of Great Queen Street:
The house selected for engraving is, however, that to which the most lasting importance will be attached, from its having been the place of humble labour of the afterwards great statesman and philosopher, Benjamin Franklin. . . .
Referring to the press at which Franklin worked, the writer continues:
The sum of money received for this relic is now appropriated to the relief of one unfortunate, called the ‘Franklin Pensioner,’ to which a disabled person of any country is eligible if there is a vacancy.
359 Samuel Holten (1738–1816), of Danvers, Massachusetts.
360 See a letter on the same subject written by Franklin 27 June, 1780, in Sparks’s edition of Franklin’s Works, viii. 476, 477.
361 The original of this letter is also owned by Dr. Edward A. Whiston.
362 College Book No. 7, p. 26.
363 The list of these diplomas may be of some interest.
|
Jeremiah Dummer |
Ph. D. |
1703 |
Utrecht. |
|
Cotton Mather |
S. T. D. |
1710 |
Glasgow. |
|
Edward Wigqlesworth |
S. T. D. |
1730 |
Edinburgh. |
|
Benjamin Colman |
S. T. D. |
1731 |
Glasgow. |
|
Joseph Sewall |
S. T. D. |
1731 |
Glasgow. |
|
Samuel Mather |
M. A. |
1731 |
Glasgow. |
|
Charles Chaunct |
S. T. D. |
1742 |
Edinburgh. |
|
Jonathan Mathew |
S. T. D. |
1749 |
Aberdeen. |
|
Ebenezer Miller |
S. T. D. |
1747 |
Oxford. |
|
Benjamin Franklin |
A. M. |
1753 |
Harvard. |
|
Thomas Bulfinch |
M. D. |
1757 |
Edinburgh. |
|
Mather Byles |
S. T. D. |
1765 |
Aberdeen. |
364 The letter is printed in full in Smyth’s edition of Franklin’s Works (1905), iii. 285–286, but under John Hancock’s name as the recipient. The superscription of the letter is “Thomas Hancock Esquire, Boston.”
365 Publii Virgilii Maronis Bucolica, Georgiea, et Æneis. Birminghamiae: typis Johannis Baskerville. 1757. 4o. Franklin subscribed for six copies. The copy sent to the Harvard Library is still to be seen there, handsomely bound and inscribed with the name of the donor on the binding.
366 Harvard College Papers, i. 95.
367 Professor Winthrop’s second wife was Mrs. Hannah Tolman, daughter of Thomas Fayerweather.
368 James Bowdoin writes to Franklin, 2 July, 1764:
When I last saw Mr. Winthrop I inquired of him after Æpinus. He told me he sent it to Mr. Stiles of Newport, who would convey it to you (6 Massachusetts Historical Collections, ix. 21).
369 The College Library had been destroyed by fire 24 January, 1764.
370 The Rev. Dr. Charles Chauncy (H. C. 1721).
371 The Rev. Dr. Andrew Eliot (H. C. 1737).
372 The Rev. Samuel Cooper (H. C. 1743).
373 Samuel Danforth (H. C. 1758).
374 This bust, a plaster cast, still adorns the Reading Room of the College Library.
375 Experiments and Observations on Electricity, made at Philadelphia in America, by Benjamin Franklin, L. L. D. and F. R. S. To which are added, Letters and Papers on Philosophical Subjects. . . . London. 1769. 4o.
376 Harvard College Papers, ii. 17.
377 A Dissertation on the Use of the Negative Sign in Algebra . . . By Francis Maseres, M. A., Fellow of Clare-Hall, Cambridge. London. 1758. 4o.
Elements of Plane Trigonometry. In which is introduced a dissertation on The nature and Use of Logarithms. By Francis Maseres, M.A. of Clare-Hall, Cambridge. London. 1760. 8o.
378 Doctrina particularum linguae Graecae auctore et editore Henrico Hoogeveen. E typographeo Dammeano. 1769. 4o. 2 vol.
379 In the Donation Book, this is described as “his own effigies in mezzotinto.” It is without doubt the mezzotint engraved by Fisher in 1771 from Chamberlin’s portrait, which has hung for many years in the Librarian’s office in the College Library. A copy of the original painting, made by Leslie, was presented to the University by Joshua Bates in 1855, and hangs in Memorial Hall. The original painting is in the possession of Victor van de Weyer, of London, a grandson of Joshua Bates.
380 The History and Present State of Discoveries relating to Vision, Light, and Colours. By Joseph Priestley, LL.D. F.R.S. London. 1772. 4o.
381 Œuvres de M. Franklin, Docteur es Loix. Traduites de Panglois sur la quatrième Edition. Par M. Barbeu Dubourg. Avec des additions nouvelles. 2 tom. Paris. 1773. 4o.
382 Le Droit des Gens, ou Principes de la Loi Naturelle, appliqués à la Conduite & aux Affaires des Nations & des Souverains. Par M. de Vattel. Nouvelle Édition augmentée, revue & corrigée. Amsterdam. Chez E van Harrevelt. 1775. 2 vols. 4o.
383 James Bowdoin writing to Franklin 19 August, 1776, acknowledges the receipt of the Vattel and promises to send it “to the President of Harvard College as a present to the Library from you” (6 Massachusetts Historical Collections, ix. 400).
384 The medallion is depicted in Franklin in France (1887), by E. E. Hale and E. E. Hale, Jr., facing p. 140.
385 Under date of 12 January, 1777, Franklin wrote a letter to Mrs. Mary Hewson which begins as follows:
Figure to yourself an old man with gray hair appearing under a martin fur cap, among the powdered heads of Paris. It is this odd figure that salutes yon, with handfulg of blessings on you and your dear little ones (Works, 1888, vi. 53).
386 Mrs. Rogers’s full sister Sarah Bromfield, who became the second wife of the Rev. Eliphalet Pearson, and her half sister Elizabeth Bromfield, who became the second wife of Mr. Daniel D. Rogers. These ladies were the daughters of Col. Henry Bromfield (1727–1820). See New England Historical and Genealogical Register, xxvi. 38, 39; Publications of this Society, v. 210 note, viii. 290.
387 Ralph Izard married his niece Alice De Lancey, daughter of Peter De Lancey.
388 The first wife of Samuel Quincy (H. C. 1754) was Hannah Hill.
389 On 31 October, 1781, Franklin wrote a letter to M. de Marignac introducing Mrs. Montgomery (W. C. Ford’s List of the Benjamin Franklin Papers in the Library of Congress, 1905, p. 113). To Dr. I. Minis Hays of the American Philosophical Society I am indebted for the information that Mrs. Montgomery’s Christian name was Dorcas and that M. de Marignac was a schoolmaster in Geneva, where Mrs. Montgomery placed her son in company with young Benjamin Franklin Bache.
390 Henry Bromfield (1751–1837).
391 The writer’s step-mother, Hannah (Clarke) Bromfield, the second wife of Col. Henry Bromfield.
392 Suffolk Deeds, viii. 58, xxiii. 109.
393 Suffolk Deeds, xxiii. 147. This small estate, the front portion of which is now numbered 339–341 in Washington Street, on the westerly side, was a part of the original possession of Thomas Grubb the northerly line of which abutted on the Province House estate. The lot adjoining this locus on the north, — between it and the Province House estate, had been bought 26 April, 1706, by the said Thomas Creese of David Hitchcock of Springfield and Elizabeth Hitchcock his wife, who had been the widow of Paul Batt, Junior, and was daughter of Thomas and Bethulia Mighell (Ibid, xxiii. 109, 110). That part of Thomas Grubb’s possession which comprised these two lots passed to Christopher Batt by an unrecorded deed, and thence to his son Paul Batt, Senior, and the latter’s two children, Paul, Junior, and Sarah, wife of Micajah Torrey. See Suffolk Probate Files, nos. 274, 702, 970, 2857; Suffolk Deeds, viii. 58; Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xxviii. 2, 10.
394 Topographical and Historical Description of Boston, pp. 594–597.
395 Wonder-working Providence, p. 110. Cf. Publications of this Society, v. 134, 150, 151, 166.
396 General Wheeler was a grandson of Gen. William Hull. See two pamphlets by Samuel Curtis Clarke: Records of Some of the Descendants of Richard Hull (1869), pp. 12, 16,17; Records of Some of the Descendants of John Fuller (1869), pp. 11, 12; and pp. 365–369, below.
397 Publications, vi. 151–155, where some account of Professor McKean will be found.
398 The account in the Harvard Magazine (1864), x. 270, 271, is amusing but improbable.
399 Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit (1866), ii. 417.
400 Extended notices of these brothers are in Gov. Bell’s Bench and Bar of New Hampshire (1894), pp. 466, 467, 469, 470; and Briggs’s Genealogies of the Different Families Bearing the Name of Kent in the United States (1898), pp. 257, 262, 270, 272, — to both of which I acknowledge my indebtedness for many of the facts in my brief sketch in the text.
401 Abel Moore was an innholder in Boston several years, and afterward kept a tavern at the corner of North (now Massachusetts) Avenue and Holmes Place. He died 2 January, 1794, aged 39 (Paige, History of Cambridge, p. 612).
402 Joseph Kent of Newbury port was born 20 May, 1741, and died 19 July, 1802. He was the father of Amos and Moody Kent
403 Charles Chauncy Parsons (II. C. 1801).
404 Publications, vii. 328, 329.
405 Ibid. vii. 328 note.
406 Remembrancer for the Year 1776, iii. 260, 261.
407 Publications, viii. 272, 273.
408 It was printed, under the title of War and Washington, in Sewall’s Miscellaneous Poems (1801), pp. 52, 53, and also in S. Kettell’s Specimens of American Poetry (1829), i. 199, 200. There are some slight variations in the version as printed by Sewall and Kettell and as printed by us. A song to the air of War and Washington was printed in the Boston Gazette of 29 December, 1777, p. 4/1.
409 Remembrancer for the Year 1781, xi. 286–288.
410 Publications, viii. 275–287.
411 Inflependent Ledger, 18 February, 1782, p. 3/2.
412 Ibid.16 February, 1784, p. 3/2.
413 Independent Chronicle, 10 February, 1785, p. 3/2.
414 Massachusetts Centinel, 12 February, 1785, p. 3/1.
415 Seth Warner (1743–1784).
416 A constitutional convention was held at Manchester, Vermont, in June and July, 1786. See Records of the Governor and Council of the State of Vermont, i. 84, iii. 110 note.
417 Richard Price (1723–1791).
418 Massachusetts Centinel, 5 March, 1785, p. 3/2.
419 Massachusetts Centinel, 15 February, 1786, p. 3/1.
420 Mr. Henry H. Edes informs me that this building stood in Scollay Square between the headhousewof the East Boston tunnel and the subway station the entrance to which covers a portion of the site. A schoolhouse was on or very near this site as early as 1684, when John Cole was engaged “to keepe a Free Schoole to teach ye Children of the Towne to read & write;” and in 1698 it was mentioned as “the New School house at Cotton Hill” (Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, vii. 171, 226, 227, 232). It was enlarged in 1715; and in 1720 a committee was charged by the Selectmen with fencing in the yard, digging a well, and placing a pump therein (Ibid. viii. 110, 113, xiii. 74). The well, long disused, was discovered in the winter of 1904 by workmen who were digging for the foundations of the beadhouse. See an article on the Old School House and Well in Scollay Square, in the Boston Sunday Globe of 28 February, 1904, p. 20/3; and a Plan showing the site of the building and well in the office of the Surveying Division of the Street Department of the City of Boston.
421 Massachusetts Centinel, 16 February, 1788, viii. 177/2.
422 Massachusetts Centinel, 28 February, 1789, x. 193/1.
423 Columbian Centinel, 12 February, 1791, xiv. 175/3. The day was celebrated at Providence, Rhode Island, in 1792; at Hallowell, Maine, in 1793; at Salem and Hingham in 1793; and in Virginia in 1795.
424 Columbian Centinel, 11 February, 1792, xvi. 174/4.
425 Ibid. 23 February, 1793, p. 3/1.
426 Ibid. 11 February, 1795, p. 2/4.
427 In the margin are these words: “A new hereditary Dignity proposed in the British Plantations; for the Benefit of Improvments there” (i. 474). This allusion escaped the late Mr. Toppan’s search; see his paper on the Failure to Establish an Hereditary Political Aristocracy in the Colonies, in the Publications of this Society, iii. 407–411.
428 It is described by C. H. Hart in his Catalogue of the Engraved Portraits of Washington (1904), No. 7S6, p. 332.
429 It is described by W. S. Baker in his Engraved Portraits of Washington (1880), No. 407, p. 192.
430 It is described by Baker (Ibid. No. 9, pp. 20, 21), who inclines “to the opinion that the lettering is incorrect, and that it is really after one of Charles Willson Peale’s later portraits.”
431 This medal was issued in gold, silver, and tin. In gold, it is declared by Baker to be “excessively rare.” Baker states that the die for it was executed by Jacob Perkins of Newburyport, and asserts that the medal “is said to have been struck for, and worn in, the . . . Masonic demonstration [at Boston] of February 11, 1800, attended by sixteen hundred brethren” (Medallic Portraits of Washington, 1885, No. 165, pp. 77, 79). For sketches of Jacob Perkins, see Mrs. E. Vale Smith’s History of Newburyport (1854), pp. 378–380; W. S. Baker American Engravers and their Works (1875), pp. 129–135.
432 Presumably Suffolk, Nansemond County, Virginia.
433 “Me Franciscū Doughty De Dorcestria in N. A. plantator’ tener’ &c. Henriço Webb in quingentis libris &c. Dat 29. 5. 1639. Coram Joħe Winthrop gub. & meipō” (T. Lechford’s Note-Book, p. 137).
434 The will of Alderman Doughty mentions, besides son Francis and daughter Elizabeth, Spencer Achley, son of daughter Frances; John Dauyes, son of daughter Margaret; and Mary, Francis, and Eliah [Elias], children of son Francis (H. F. Waters, Genealogical Gleanings in England, i. 820). Alderman Doughty had also a son Jacob, who died about 1634 (Lechford’s Note-Book, 1867, p. 110), and a brother Robert Doughty who died not later than 1637, leaving a widow Margaret (Ibid. p. 88). There was a John Doughty at Bristol, successively sheriff (1606), alderman, mayor, and member of Parliament (1628), who was probably the John Doughty, one of the patentees of the London and Bristol Adventurers for Colonizing Newfoundland (1610). This man, presumably a relative, died in 1628 or 1629. Doughty or Doughtie was not a Gloucestershire family. It is asserted in Bolton’s History of the County of Westchester, New York, that the refugee was descended from “the Doughtys or Douteys of Easher Surrey, and Boston, Lincolnshire, England, descended from an English Saxon house of Dohteg, before the conquest” (ii. 414). Mr. Bolton is not critical in such matters. The family names would perhaps point to descent from Doughtys of Hanworth, County Norfolk; it is clearly not a Gloucestershire family.
435 “A farme called Hamsted farme . . . worth 2000 ɫ at the least” (Lechford’s Note-Book, p. 111). There is Oldbury-on-the-Hill on the east border of Gloucestershire, and Oldbury-on-Severn, each with its Roman camp.
436 It is not expressly stated that Elizabeth Cole’s “sister” is her sister-in-law and her brother Francis’ wife, but so it seems.
437 Lechford’s Note-Book, p. 110.
438 W. F. Hook, Church Dictionary (1846), p. 121.
439 Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1635–1630, p. 471.
440 Ibid. p. 479.
441 Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1635–1636, p. 487.
442 Ibid. p. 496.
443 Ibid. p. 505.
444 Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1636–1637, p. 557.
445 There were three Sodburys, close together: Little Sodbury, where the incumbent was a rector; Chipping Sodbury; and Old Sodbury, where the clergymen were vicars. Old Sodbury seems more likely to have been meant by the word Sodbury.
446 On 12 January, 1635–36, Henry Doughty, clerk, vicar of Meriden, County Warwick, was before the High Commission on some charge not named (Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1635–1636, pp. 468, 472).
447 S. H. Emery, Ministry of Taunton i. 18, 37.
448 For a general statement of Mrs. Cole’s claim in this first case against her brother, see Lechford’s Note-Book, p. 110.
449 Lechford’s Note-Book, p. 173.
450 “The Answere & Complaint” of Mrs. Cole, “Boston (4). 25. 1640,” are in Lechford’s Note-Book, p. 150. Mr. Doughty’s brief letter to Governor Winthrop asking what to do about it, is in 5 Massachusetts Historical Collections, i. 308. For a general account of the trial and result, see Massachusetts Colony Records, ii. 205–207. See also Records of the Court of Assistants (1906), iii. 5 note.
451 Plain Dealing, J. H. Trumbull’s edition (1867), pp. 90–92.
452 Cohasset (Indian name Quonahassit or Conohasset), formerly part of Hingham, was incorporated into a district 26 April, 1770 (Manual of the General Court, 1905, p. 154).
453 History of the State of New York (1853), i. 333.
454 History of the City of New York (1877), i. 104, 105. Mr. B. F. Thompson, in the second edition of his History of Long Island (1843), seems to have started this “Cohasset” preacher, who has ever since been confusing the New Yorker and confounding the New Englander, in spite of the careful accountof Mr. Doughty given by the learned and accurate Mr. Riker in his Annals of Newtown (1852), pp. 17–25. Mr. Thompson does not mention Mr. Doughty or the Mespat settlement in his first edition, but has acquired abundant misinformation for the second edition, a part of which is as follows:
Francis Doughty . . . came to Long Island in 1644, and was the first minister of Flushing, probably abaptist, but afterwards turned Quaker. . . . This was the same Francis Doughty who was at Cohasset in 1642, and mentioned by Leechford in his “News from New England,” as being dragged out of a public assembly, for asserting that Abraham’s children should have been baptized (ii. 70 and note).
Brodhead follows in 1853, and the Rev. G. II. Mandeville in his Flushing, Past and Present (1860), has improved on Mr. Thompson thus:
Francis Doughty . . . seemes to have preached at Tannton, Mass., and “for declaring that Abraham ought to have been baptised,” he was by order of the Magistrates dragged by the Constables out of the public assembly and soon after was compelled to leave with his children. He also preached at Linn, Mass., where he denied baptism to infants. This doctrine could not be tolerated in that puritanical atmosphere (pp. 105, 106).
Mrs. Lamb follows in 1877, and in 1885 G. W; Schuyler tells of this same “minister at Cohasset” and “preacher at Cohasset” as “torn from his pulpit” and “rudely expelled,” “because of some doubtful expressions in his sermon” or “because of some expressions which sounded like heresy” (Colonial New-York, ii. 29, 91). And still the tale goes on. Mr. B. Tuckerman in 1893 speaks of “Francis Doughty, expelled from Cohasset for preaching that Abraham’s children should have been baptized” (Peter Stuyvesant, p. 30). And in 1896 we still read of this “Cohasset” victim of New England intolerance, that “his chief heresy was the assertion that Abraham’s children should have received the rite of baptism” (Miss Martha B. Flint, Early Long Island, p. 163 and note).
Mr. Doughty’s contention was, of course, as Lechford clearly stated, that the children of all baptized Christians ought to be baptized; that baplism should not be refused to those whose parents had neither of them been admitted to membership (“full covenant relation”) in a local church organization on the Congregational model. And the occasion of his protest was the organization of the Cohannet church, at which a “covenant” was to be adopted. Doughty wished to have this restriction excluded, or possibly to have an express provision for the baptism of the children of all Christians inserted. The mention of “Abraham’s children” was a theological argument and illustration in favor of his contention, then easily understood by every one, — compare Galatians, iii. 27–29.
455 Plymouth Colony Records, ii. 8. And after he was settled in Mespat. We find that at the General Court at Plymouth held 6 June, 1043,—
John Gilbert, Jnr, compɫus agst Mr Francis Doughty, in an action of trespas vpon the case, to the dam̃ xxs [omission in record] bushells of corne attached by the constable of Taunton; the deffent̃ made no answere. The Court awards the corne to the pɫtiff, onely Thomas Gilbert promiseth to make it good if the debt be not proued (Ibid. vii. 35).
456 Plymouth Colony Records, ii. 17, xi. 37.
457 Lechford, Plain Dealing, p. 92 note.
458 Lechford, writing of the Island of Aquedney, says:
The place where the Church was, is called Newport, but that Church, I heare, is now dissolved; . . . At the other end of the Island there is another town called Portsmouth, but no Church: there is a meeting of some men, who there teach one another, and call it Prophesie;
and in the Massachusetts Historical Society Manuscript quoted by Trumbull in a note:
There is Mr. Lenthall a minister out of office and imployment, and lives very poorly. Mr. Doughty also is come to this Island. . . . He [Lenthall] stood upon his ministrie and against the Church Covenant in the Bay, and diverse joyneing to choose him their minister at Weymouth, by subscribing to a paper for that end, he was censured in the generall Court at Boston, and so were they that joyned in that election, and one of them named Brittaine for words saying that some of the Ministers in the Bay were Brownists, and that they would not [sic] till it came to the swords point, was whipt, and had eleven stripes (Plain Dealing, p. 94 and note).
In fact, I take it, Doughty and Lenthall were Presbyterian Nonconformists, or inclined to that opinion, and that Doughty tried at Taunton to do very much what Lenthall succeeded in carrying somewhat further at Weymouth. Lenthall returned to England in 1642, the same year that Doughty went to Long Island, and is probably the same Robert Leynthall who was “of Oxon, cler. fil. Oriel Coll., matric. 17 Oct., 1611, aged 14; B. A. from All Souls’ Coll. 8 July, 1619, rector of Aston Sandford, Bucks, 1627, and of Great Hampden, Bucks, 1643 “(J. Foster, Alumni Oxonienses, iii. 902).
459 “In area ua continentem sex millia sexcenta sexaginta sex jugera Hollandica, aut circiter ignographice inclusum,” etc. (Riker, Annals of Newtown, p. 413). A Dutch acre is said to be a little less than two English acres, and this patent “embraced nearly the whole of the present town of Newtown” (Ibid. p. 17). The Indian name for Newtown, sometimes written Mespachtes by the Dutch, was usually shortened to Mespat, and in modern days has been corrupted to Maspeth (Ibid. p. 13 note).
460 Soon corrupted, as now, to Gravesend.
461 Mr. Doughty’s affairs became of much consequence in New Netherland and of some importance in Holland. We have three sources of information: (1) Remonstrance of New Netherland, 28 July, 1649; (2) The answer made by Stuyvesant’s Secretary to this attack on him; (3) Some court records. The court records are meagre so far as they are found in print. The Remonstrance and reply are, as is to be expected, largely contradictory. The leader of the men who took over the Remonstrance was Adriaen van der Donck, a man of education far beyond most of the colonists and of excellent character and understanding. He had married Mary Doughty 22 October, 1645, and was thoroughly informed in all the matters concerned. He is supposed to have written the Remonstrance. While he cannot be considered unbiassed, he was yet under no compulsion to make any statements or bring forward any matter he did not wish, while Stuyvesant’s agent had to answer point by point, and that was not easy. Where there is contradiction the presumption then seems in favor of the correctness of the Remonstrance. The Remonstrance was for relief from the tyranny of the Directors General. Kieft had been a “grafter,” a fool and a tyrant; Stuyvesant, honest and no fool, was a tyrant and not scrupulous. Doughty’s experiences were related as one instance of a manwho had suffered from both Directors, and the object of the answer was to deny the charges, or at all events to discredit him. All that is alleged against him is his alleged poverty when he first came, which is probably exaggerated, his alleged debt to the Company — given as a reason for not allowing him to go away, — and the assertion that he had no rights in the Mespat patent except to a farm, — which seems clearly false. He and his associates unnamed in the patent appear to have had equal rights. For the Remonstrance of New Netherland, the Short Digest of the Excesses and highly injurious Neglect, the Answer of the West India Company to the Remonstrance, and Secretary van Tienhoven’s Answer to the Remonstrance, see Documents relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York, particularly, i. 305, 310, 311, 334, 335, 341, 426, 427. For au account of van der Donck by O’Callaghan, see Ibid. i. 532 note.
462 Richard Denton of Wethersfield and Stamford, Connecticut, and about 1644 of Hempstead, Long Island.
463 Massachusetts Colony Records, ii. 74.
464 Ibid. ii. 191; iii. 138, 139.
465 Ibid. ii. 205–207.
466 Ibid. ii. 257.
467 Ibid. ii. 272.
468 Ibid iii. 190. Mrs. Cole’s name appears again on these records three times. On 16 October, 1650, “being visited with longe & sore sicknes, & hauing spent all her estate,” she petitions for help and is granted £20 (Ibid. iii. 217). On 14 October, 1651, John Lewes petitions for fifty shillings expended for her “mayntenance” and it is granted, “it beinge the last the country is like to pay for her, whose extremity was such as deserued pitty” (Ibid. iii. 256). And last there is in May, 1652, a grant to pay a final physician’s bill (Ibid. iii. 276).
469 H. Onderdonk, Queens County in Olden Times, p. 9.
470 Records of New Amsterdam, i. 143, ii. 4.
471 Documents relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York, i. 311; cf. i. 305, 310, 332, 334, 341, 426, 427.
472 Plymouth Colony Records, x. 45, 46. It seems worth noting that Mrs. van der Donck could speak “very good Indian.”
473 Documents relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York, ii. 93.
474 “Van der Doncx’ widow will enter again into possession of Nipperha. She claims also laud in Mespadt” (Van Ruyven to Stuyvesant, 1666, in Documents relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York, ii. 473). O’Callaghan speaks of “the tract of land called Nepperhaem, but now known as Yonkers “(History of New Netherland, i. 382, 383). It does not appear what became of Mrs. O’Neal and her children or of the Yonkers property. The O’Neals or Neales appear to have been birds of passage in Maryland. Capt. James O’Neal was made a member of the Council in 1638–39, was absent with his family for some years, and was Lord Baltimore’s attorney in Holland in the dispute about the Dutch settlements on the Delaware. He returned and was again of the Council in 1661. Capt. Hugh Neale was put in command of a company in Charles County in 1661–62; and in 1674 there was some curious legislation about his importation of horses.
475 Mr. Doughty’s brother-in-law, William Stone, an early settler in Accomack (Northampton) County, Virginia, was by commission of Lord Baltimore in 1648 made Governor of Maryland. He was a Protestant and clearly chosen on that account, and in accordance with previous agreement brought in the Puritan emigration from Virginia; he was, however, deposed by the Puritan Commissioners, then reinstated, then wounded in the battle of the Severn and condemned to be shot but respited and imprisoned and his Maryland property confiscated. He was in prison or recently released when Doughty went to Maryland.
476 Virginia Magazine, v. 130.
477 E. D. Neill, Virginia Carolorum, p. 407.
478 Magnalia (1S53), ii. 10.
479 Virginia Magazine, v. 288, 289.
480 Ibid. pp. 289.
481 Second Annual Report of the State Historian of the State of New York (1897), pp. 352, 353, 357. This suit first appears on the calendar 28 September, 1665. Under date of 1666, Onderdonk writes:
Mr. Francis Doughty was minister at Flushing, at 100 guilders a year. His contract for salary was burnt one year before his trial [1665?] by Wm. Lawrence’s wife, who put it under a pye in an oven. . . . Underhill had ordered the church door shut up because Doughty preached against the Government. Thereafter Doughty was discharged. His son recovered 600 guilders; each party to pay their own costs. The defence was, that Gov. Stuyvesant, by calling each person into his room separately, had forced the town to sign a call to said Doughty (Queens County in Olden Times, p. 6).
482 Mr. Doughty’s two sons Francis and Elias, who came with him from England, married and remained in the Province of New York. Mrs. Bunker in her Long Island Genealogies seems possibly to have mistaken grandchildren for children in the list she gives of his sons.
483 See Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, 29 April, 1903, pp. 368–384.
484 The following is an extract from the letters patent in the form of an edict establishing the Company of the West:
Nous voulons que les fonds de cette Compagnie soient partagez en Actions de Cinqcens livres chacune, . . . & lorsqu’ il Nous sera representé par les Directeurs de ladite Compagnie, qu’il aura esté délivré des Actions pour faire un fonds suffisant, Nous ferons fermer les Livres de la Compagnie (Du Hautcharap, Histoire du Système, etc., 1739, v.106).
485 Recueil d’Arrests et autres pièces pour l’établissement de la Compagnie d’Occident, Amsterdam, 1720, § 14, pp. 34, 35. On the subject of coupons on shares, see also Du Hautchamp, Histoire du Système, etc., v. 235, vi. 66.
486 The idea that a government might bear the load of a permanent debt was not then conceived in France.
487 See Adam Anderson, Historical and Chronological Deduction of the Origin of Commerce, London, 1764, ii. 292–295. Doubtless these various titles were selected on account of their apparent absurdity, yet if we examine them we can see that our cold storage systems serve the purpose of the “Fish Pool” perhaps too well. The fishers for wrecks on the Irish coast were probably after wrecks of the Armada. Divers overhauled one of them last year off the coast of Scotland. The condensation of fresh water from ocean water is not only practicable but its entire feasibility on a large scale is of great value to our ocean steamers. The production of opium from English poppies was possible even in those days. Finally, the discovery of radium has caused a renewal of the speculations as to the transmutation of metals.
488 Anderson, History of Commerce, ii. 291.
489 Peere Williams’s Reports, pp. 153, 157. See also Viner’s Abridgment, xiii. 543. Viner thus contemptuously alludes to the transaction: “Money paid upon a bubble in the year 1720,” etc.
490 The Assignment of the patent evidently carried with it the equity in the land. This idea of associating solid landed security with a preposterous patent was evidently a favorite method of the day. “Aaron Hill’s case” is referred to in Colt v. Woolaston and Arnold. Hill had a patent for extracting oil out of beech which was also divided into shares, and to quote from the report: “A security agreed to be made of lands which came out to be terra incognita betwixt the degrees 50 and 57.” The Colt project and the Aaron Hill project are both mentioned by Anderson, History of Commerce, ii. 294.
491 Anderson, History of Commerce, ii. 291. Even this joke of the satirists of the stock-market is punctured by the industrial needs of our day — compressed sawdust having actually been made use of for some purposes.
492 These contracts of Law were generally spoken of by writers upon the System as if they were invented by him.
493 Anderson, History of Commerce, ii. 296.
494 J. Trenchard, A Comparison between the Proposals of the Bank and the South Sea Company (1720), in A Collection of Tracts, by the late John Trenchard, Esq; and Thomas Gordon Esq; London, 1751, i. 221.
495 Anderson, History of Commerce, ii. 225.
496 Works, London, 1754, iii. 151.
497 United States Magazine and Democratic Review, 1846, xviii. 83.
498 Reprinted in the Banker’s Magazine, iv. 645 et seq.
499 Reprinted in the Banker’s Magazine, v. 151 et seq. A correspondent of Notes and Queries quotes from Anatomy of Exchange Alley (1719), and says those who buy Exchange Alley bargains are styled “buyers of Bear-Skins” (Fifth Series, vi. 118). He infers that the present expression “Bears,” for one who depresses stocks, is here foreshadowed. The word “bear,” however, is found as early as 1709. See the Oxford Dictionary.
500 Introduction to Essays upon Several Projects.
501 This publication was of service to Macaulay in the compilation of a list of Companies (History of England, Boston, 1856, iv. 258). Anderson gives an abridgment of the pamphlet in his History of Commerce, ii. 209.
502 The Volunteers or the Stock-Jobbers — as it is acted by their Majesties Servants at the Theatre Royal. Written by Tho. Shadwell, Esq. late Poet Laureate and Historiographer Royal. Being his last play. London, 1693.
503 The papers were afterwards collected and published under the following title: Husbandry and Trade Improved, etc., by John Houghton, F.R.S. Now revised, corrected and published with a preface and useful Indexes by Richard Bradley, F.R.S. and Professor of Botany in the University of Cambridge. In three Volumes. London, 1727. I find among my notes the following memorandum in the handwriting of the late Professor Charles F. Dunbar:
The passage cited by Macaulay from Houghton’s Collection for Husbandry and Trade occurs in vol. ii. no. 33, for Mar. 17, 1692–93, in the original folio edition in the British Museum.
November, 1691, Houghton issued his prospectus, with a testimonial signed (inter alia) by John Eveliu, Samuel Pepys, Hans Sloane, Hugh Chamberlen, Richard Waller, Edm. H alley.
One of his objects stated to be to give “an account of the value of the Actions of the East India” and other companies.
504 The word “Action” as used by Houghton evidently corresponds in meaning with the same word in French. Burnet used the word in a similar way when in 1688 he speaks of “Actions of the Company” (History of His Own Times, Oxford, 1833, iii. 208), but in another place he speaks of buying and selling, in Cromwell’s time, “of the Actions of money so advanced.” In this latter case “the Actions of money” must be the evidence of the debt whether simply a tally or a written obligation.
505 For some graphic contemporary descriptions of these coffee-houses, see Publications of this Society, vii. 120, 121.
506 Husbandry and Trade Improved, No. 102, 13 July, 1694.
507 History of England, iv. 256.
508 Journals of the House of Commons, xi. 123, 128, 132, 535, 541, 765.
509 The legislation on this subject from the time of Sir John Barnard’s “Act to prevent the infamous practice of Stock-Jobbing” which was passed in 1734, down to the present time, is fully discussed in A Treatise on Contracts for Future Delivery and Commercial Wagers, by T. Henry Dewey, New York, 1886. The author does not go behind the Act of 1734. For the purposes of his treatise there was perhaps no necessity for him to go back of Sir John Barnard’s Act and trace the legislation from 1697 to 1734. It is evident from An Essay on the Practice of Stock-Jobbing, etc., by Thomas Gordon, 1724 (A Collection of Tracts by the late John Trenchard, Esq. and Thomas Gordon, Esq., London, 1751, ii. 83 et seq.), that legislation on this subject during this period was of no avail. The author after speaking of the “Modern practice of stock-jobbing.” defines his meaning to be “those guileful Acts and unjust attempts which are used to raise and sink the public stocks of this nation,” then alludes to “the making of fictitious contracts and bargains,” and afterward says such laws “as heretofore have been enacted by our ancestors to rectify the irregular use of money . . . are either disused as exceedingly old and out of date, or being temporary and limited to a particular time are now expired.”
510 History of His Own Times, iii. 208.
511 History of Commerce, ii. 77, 78. The date of the publication is given as 1676. It was reprinted by Professor Charles F. Dunbar in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, ii. 251–262.
512 Macaulay has collated (History of England, iv. 108) a number of quotations of East India stock, the oldest being 1664.
513 Anderson, History of Commerce, ii. 199. Regulated Companies are defined by Anderson, i. 420.
514 Memoirs, London, 1819, i. 257.
515 The Dawn of British Trade to the East Indies, London, 1886, p. 111.
516 Ibid. p. 177.
517 Ibid. p. 113.
518 Ibid. p. 161. See also p. 220.
519 A. Brown’s Genesis of the United States, i. 236.
520 Ibid. ii. 627.
521 Ibid. ii. 680.
522 Ibid. ii. 777.
523 The well known reference to “the still-vex’d Bermoothes” in the Tempest and the mention of Mexico as one of Antonio’s ventures associate Shakespeare’s name with these explorations. Jonson’s reference to “Pokahontas” in the Staple of News brings him in touch with Smith’s Generall Historie of Virginia. Jonson’s name is also associated with those of Marston and Chapman in the authorship of Eastwaid Ho! a play in which Virginia figures extensively. A reference to Pocahontas by Richard Brathwaite occurs in some verses prefixed to Capt. John Smith’s True Travels, Adventures, and Observations (1630).
524 It will be noted, however, that Shadwell says his patent was divided into “shares,” thus making it conform to the conditions of the market. Moreover the traditional value of the “patent” for speculative purposes is shown in the suits referred to in which the projections were based upon patents.
525 History of England, Boston, 1854, iii. 174. Hume cites D’Ewes as the source of his information. The list which he quotes is to be found in The Journals of all the Parliaments during the reign of Elizabeth, collected by Sir Simonds d’Ewes, Revised and published by Paul Bowes, London, 1682, p. 648. A list of monopolies or grants reported by a Parliamentary Committee will be found at p. 650. In a speech by Secretary Cecil, promising the revocation or suspension of the grants, they are reviewed by title, pp. 652, 653. These grants seem to be in the character of monopolies and scarcely the subjects of speculation.
526 Anderson, History of Commerce, i. 498. See also Rymer’s Fœdera, xvii. 102, to which Anderson refers.
527 Anderson, History of Commerce, i. 499; Rymer’s Fœdera, xvii. 121.
528 Anderson relied almost exclusively upon Rymer for information as to the grants of this period. His descriptions of the patents are couched in the language of the originals as far as was possible. If we turn to the Fœdera we can see the documents in full. Some of these patents may perhaps suggest the use of steam as a power, though they lack details on this point. On 6 April, 1627, a patent was granted to William Brouncker and others “to put in use an Instrument or device for earing and Plowing of land without either Horses or Oxen” (Fœdera, xviii. 992). On 26 December, 1627, William Parham and others were granted a patent for an engine “that shall inforce all Manner of Mills of what Nature or Kind soever to grind and perform their wonted Labour without help of either Horse, Wind or Water” (Ibid, xviii. 992). In 1630 David Ramsey turns up again as a patentee. This time he secures a patent for raising “water from low pits by fire;” for making “any sort of Mills to go on standing waters by continual motion, without the help of wind, height or horse;” for making tapestry “without any weaving Loome or Wail ever yet in use in this Kingdome;” for making “Boats, Ships and Barges to go against strong wind & tide;” for raising “water from low mines & Coal pits by a way never yet in use” (Ibid. xix. 239–242). In 1632 Thomas Grent, a doctor in physick, was granted a patent for “An Instrument” which he said could be called the Wind-Mate which was “very profitable when common winds do fail for a more speedie passage of calmed Shippes or other Vessels upon the Sea or Great Rivers” (Ibid. xix. 371). In 1632 a patent was granted for a “Fishe-call, or a Looking-glasse for Fishes in the sea, very usefull for Fishermen to call all kinds of Fish to their netts or Hookes;” for a “Water-Bowl for the more speedy Preservation of Houses on Land or Ships at Sea from Fire;” and for a “Building Mould or Stone Press, very requisite for the building of Churches or great houses . . . without hewing, cutting, sawing, carving or engraving” (Ibid. xix. 371).
529 Mr. Lindsay Swift calls my attention to a broadside which partakes “somewhat of the character of a” newspaper. It bears this imprint:
London, Printed by J. Dawks, Re-printed at Bofton, in N. E. by B, Green, & J. Allen. 1697.
The heading is as follows:
London Septemb. 27.
Yefterday Morning arrived Three Holland Mails,
which bring the following Advices.
Vienna, September 18.
The original is in the Boston Public Library, and is reproduced in facsimile in the Boston Public Library Bulletin for October, 1893, xii. 215. The lines are printed across the page.
530 Andros Tracts, ii. 15 note, 18 note.
531 Memorial History of Boston, ii. 387 note.
532 New Jersey Archives, vol. xii. p. cxxix.
533 Ten Fac-simile Reproductions Relating to Old Boston and Neighborhood, p. 3.
534 Ten Fac-simile Reproductions Relating to Various Subjects, p. 17.
535 Development of Freedom of the Press in Massachusetts (Harvard Historical Studies), p. 68 note.
536 Massachusetts Magazine for October, 1789, i. 642. The passage quoted in the text is followed in the Massachusetts Magazine by a reprint of the sheet of 1689.
537 Collections of the New Hampshire Historical Society, i. 252–255, viii. 258–260.
538 Andros Tracts, ii. 15–18.
539 In Thomas, History of Printing in America (1874), ii. 12 note.
540 To the kindness of Mr. Shillaber I am indebted for a copy of one of these facsimile reproductions.
541 American Bibliography, i. 81. In spite of this statement, Mr. Evans labels the sheet “Broadside, fol.” Mr. Evans goes on to quote a remark made by the late J. Hammond Trumbull, but without stating where Trumbull made it. In reply to a letter of inquiry, Mr. Evans courteously writes as follows:
In a copy of Dr. S. F. Haven’s “Catalogue of ante-Revolutionary Publications” prepared for the American Antiquarian Society’s new edition of Thomas’s History of Printing, formerly belonging to Dr. Trumbull, he has written against the entry of “The Present State of the New-English Affairs. Boston, 1689” the following:
- “Boston” does not appear in the imprint, and it is in the highest degree improbable — indeed, it is impossible that such a tract was printed at the Boston press. After careful inspection of the typography and make up, I incline to the belief that it came from Bradford’s press.
I have never seen the copy in the Massachusetts State Library, and can pass no criticism upon his judgment. From its author’s absence in London, and Trumbull’s statement, I am inclined to agree that it was not printed in Boston; but my judgment refuses to follow him when he ascribes it to Bradford’s press at Philadelphia.
Trumbull’s blunder in asserting that “Boston” does not appear in the imprint is extraordinary.
After reading the remarks printed in the text, Mr. Evans wrote me an interesting letter from which the following passage is extracted:
Your statement that the broadside bears the printed colophon of Samuel Green, settles the place of printing definitely. It is not open to question, any more than any other book bearing his imprint would be.
The position you maintain regarding the publication being a broadside is also correct. Bibliographieally speaking, the term broadside is used in the same way, and for the same purpose that folio, quarto, octavo, etc., are used — to convey to the mind some idea of form. It always indicates that the printed matter is on the face of the sheet, only. When the matter runs over to the other side it becomes a broadsheet, and is bibliographically described as: “pp. (2) folio.” When the single sheet is folded it then becomes a “tract,” and its bibliographical description becomes, when so folded, “pp. 16, 16 mo.;” when there are two or more sheets requiring to be sewn together the publication becomas a “pamphlet;” and, after five sheets, becomes a “book.” The way in which the printed matter is displayed makes no difference whatever. Broadside Proclamations usually are composed across the face of the sheet. College “Theses” are usually in two columns. Elegies appear in one, two, or more columns according to length.
Strictly speaking, “The Present State of the New-English Affairs” is not a newspaper; but in its ephemeral purpose to convey intelligence and mould public opinion it partakes of the nature of one in those particulars.
542 Ten Fac-simile Reproductions Relating to Various Subjects. Though some, if not all, of the previous reprints were doubtless known to Dr. Green, he does not mention them.
543 The Historical Magazine is meant.
544 It was not Isaiah Thomas, but Joel Munsell, who wrote the words quoted by Mr. Sargent. See p. 312, above, and pp. 319, 320, below.
545 Boston Evening Transcript, 29 April, 1903, p. 19/1. An article on the same subject by the present writer was printed in the same paper of 27 May, 1903, p. 21/3.
546 Several of the supplements to the Boston newspapers issued in the eighteenth century were broadsides.
547 Publick Occurrences was reprinted by Dr. Samuel A. Green in the Historical Magazine for August, 1857, i. 228–231; by F. Hudson in his Journalism in the United States, from 1690 to 1872 (1873), pp. 44–48; and again, this time in facsimile, by Dr. Green in his Ten Fac-simile Reproductions Relating to Old Boston and Neighborhood (1901).
548 Massachusetts Archives, xxxv. 78.
549 History of Printing in America (1810), ii. 191.
550 See p. 312, above.
551 In a work just published, Professor Duniway remarks:
When the government found it necessary to enlighten the people on the course of public affairs, it authorized Samuel Green to publish a broadside entitled “The Present State of the New-English Affairs,” and bearing the indorsement “This is Published to prevent False Reports” (Development of Freedom of the Press in Massachusetts, p. 68).
552 The Hall in Harvard Hall. Mr. William C. Lane writes me that —
The entrance to Harvard Hall was always, I believe, in the same position as at present, namely, in the middle of the South side. The dining hall was at the East end of the building, that is, on the right of the entrance: and the “entrance of the hall” must have been, I should think, the door from the hallway into the Commons room, that is to say, the Governor would face the West.
553 The Rev. Jacob Foster was born in Holliston, Massachusetts, 10 March, 1732, graduated at Harvard College in 1754, married to Hepzibah Prentiss of Cambridge, 1756, ordained at Berwick, Maine, 1756, dismissed at his own request and entered the Continental Army as Chaplain of Col. James Scammon’s Regiment, 1775, installed at Packevsfield (now Nelson), New Hampshire, 1781, and retained the pastorate ten years. He died at Packersfield 3 December, 1798 (E. J. Forster, The Pedigree and Descendants of Jacob Forster, Senior, of Charlestown, 1870, pp. 7, 8). He also appears to have served in Col. Edmund Phinny’s Regiment at Fort George in 1776. See Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War, v. 875, 904; Paige, History of Cambridge, pp. 630, 631.
It appears by the Executive Council Records that Hancock did not consider favorably the recommendation of President Willard, since the Rev. Thomas Cushing Thacher (H. C. 1790) was nominated by the Governor 28 January, 1792, “as Chaplain to the Garrison at Castle Island,” and that the appointment was consented to. Mr. Thacher held the post but little over a year, as Mr. Jacob Emerson (H. C. 1756) was appointed and confirmed as his successor 26 March, 1793.
554 The Rev. Samuel Cooper, a member of the Corporation and minister of the Church in Brattle Square, Boston, where Hancock worshipped.
555 Harvard College Papers, ii. 40.
556 College book No. 8, p. 195.
557 Ibid. p. 117.
558 See p. 239, above.
559 See p. 230, above.
560 Lettres d’un Cultivateur Américain, ii.314–380.
561 Magazine of American History, ii.724–733. See also Étienne Charavay, Le Général La Fayette (1898), pp. 106–115.
562 Massachusetts Centinel, 20 October, 1784, p. 2/3.
563 Recollections (1877), p. 260.
564 According to the Quinquennial Catalogue, the only degrees received by Lafayette during the eighteenth century were from Harvard College in 1784, from the University of Pennsylvania in 1787, and from the College of New Jersey in 1790.
565 The address was written by President Kittredge and engrossed on parchment, measuring 17 by 22 inches, by Mr. Albert F. Hall, the initial letter being illuminated in blue and gold. The seal was pendant on a scarlet grosgrain silk ribbon.
566 Professor Peirce was born 1 May, 1834, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he died 21 March, 1906.
567 New-England Weekly Journal, 8 March, 1731, p. 2/2.
568 County Court Record, Salem, June, 1658, pp. 19, 51.
569 Plymouth Colony Records, iii. 176.
570 Ibid. in. 178.
571 Ibid. iii. 184.
572 Massachusetts Archives, x. 265. The endorsement is in the handwriting of Edward Rawson, Secretary of the Court of Assistants.
573 History of New England, ii. 480.
574 12: 25?
575 Publications, viii.72–74.
576 An interesting account of Christopher Holder and his connection with the persecution of the Quakers in Massachusetts is to be found in the published proceedings at the Dedication of the Holder Memorial Building of the Clinton Historical Society, 20 September, 1905, pp. 5 et seq., 58 et seq.
577 1660–61.
578 See Massachusetts Colony Records, iv. i. 433.
579 For the groundwork and most of the material of this paper, I am indebted to the exhaustive researches of Mr. William P. Upham, my late coadjutor in the exploration of original sources, documents, and records.
580 This Bibliography will be printed in volume iv. of our Publications.
581 These documents were found by Mr. Ford in a file of the Boston News-Letter owned by the Boston Athenæum. They were bound between Nos. 565 and 566, the issues of 14 and 21 February, 1714–15, respectively. The printed portion of the first document measures 106/16 by 6 inches, while the printed portion of the second document measures 11 by 66/16 inches. Each of the documents is a folio sheet, printed on both sides.
582 Massachusetts Colony Records, i. 75.
583 Massachusetts Colony Records, iii. 207, iv.i.9. This charter is in the Massachusetts Archives, cxii. 26–35. It was printed by J. B. Felt in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register for July, 1857, xi. 206–210, but without specific reference.
584 See, besides the authorities cited in the notes to the present remarks, J. Quincy, Municipal History of the Town and City of Boston, pp. 16,17; S. G. Drake, History and Antiquities of Boston, pp. 535, 599; A. Gilman, Story of Boston, pp. 419–421; C. C. Smith, Boston and the Colony, in Memorial History of Boston, i. 219; J. M. Bugbee, Boston under the Mayors, Ibid. iii. 219; J. M. Bugbee, The City Government of Boston, pp. 8–22, in Johns Hopkins University Studies, v. 80–94; H. H. Sprague, City Government in Boston, pp. 8–10.
585 Massachusetts Colony Records, iv. i. 368. Mr. Smith says:
It is curious to notice how little trace of these applications has been left on the town records. There is not a single entry in them near the date of the orders of the Court which can be directly connected with these petitions for a charter; and the only votes of the town which can be supposed to have even a remote reference to the matter were in October, 1652, and October, 1658 (Memorial History of Boston, i. 219).
The passages referred to by Mr. Smith are as follows:
21st of the 8th mo. . . . Att the sam meetting thear was Chosen, Mr Ed. Hutchinson, Capt. Robert Keyn, for to draw up and present a petition to the Genirale Court (Boston Records Commissioners’ Reports, ii. 112).
15:8:58. Att a publick meeting of the freemen Itt was voted that the Gen. Court bee desired to make a law against publick houses entertainment of any inhabitants to drink on the night after the Sabbath is ended (Ibid. ii. 148).
The nature of the petition mentioned in the first extract is not stated, and it is difficult to see how the second extract can refer to the subject of incorporation.
586 Massachusetts Colony Records, iv. ii. 26, 27. The entry is as follows:
In ansr to the petic͠on of senerall the inhabitants of Boston, the Court, hauing received three petitions of the like nature, & haue giuen answer thereto, judg that the sajd answer maybe to the sattisfaction of the ꝑsent petic͠oners, to wch they are referred.
Presumably the references are to 30 May, 21 June, 1650, and 11 May, 1659 (Ibid. iii. 207, iv. i. 9, 368).
587 Ibid. iv. ii. 56. A committee was appointed “to pervse the charter now in Court.” If by the “charter now in Court” is meant the charter of 1650, it will be found, as already stated, in the Massachusetts Archives, cxii. 26–35; but if a new charter was drawn, a search in the Archives has failed to disclose it.
588 Massachusetts Colony Records, iv. ii. 99. Again a committee was appointed “to pervse the charter now in Court.” The comment made in the preceding note may be repeated.
589 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, vii. 111. Quincy states that “as early as 1667, among the instructions given by the town to its representatives, there was inserted the endeavor to obtain a law ‘making the town a corporation, or making it a county by itself’” (Municipal History of the Town and City of Boston, p. 16). No such instructions are found in the Town Records for 1667, and presumably Quincy’s date is a typographical error for 1677, when it was agreed “That this towne may be a Corporation or made & towne & countie.”
It may be added that attempts to make Boston a county were made in 1721 and 1735 (Ibid. xii, 112, 114–118, xiii. 82, 276, 282).
590 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, viii. 55, 56, 58, 59, xi. 83, 84. Judge Sewall was one of the committee, and allusions to its meetings will be found in his Diary, ii. 247, 248, 250.
591 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xvi. 67, xix. 182. This attempt was overlooked by Mr. Bugbee and by Quincy. The latter says that “in May, 1744, the subject was again revived, in a form, as was probably supposed, less exceptionable” (Municipal History of the Town and City of Boston, p. 17). At that time the town asked that —
their power may be now by an Act of the General Court increased, so as to make By Laws with the Consent of the Court of Sessions with a Penalty not exceeding Forty Shillings. That the Selectmen for the time being or the Major part of them be Constituted a Court of Record & Vested with Powers Sufficient to try & determined all Offences against the By Laws of the Town (Boston Record Commissioners’ Report, xiv. 45, 49, 50).
592 Ibid. xxv. 245, 246, xxxi. 25, 89–93.
593 The Council Records, the Court Records, the Massachusetts Archives, and the Boston Town Records have been searched in vain for allusions to this attempt. Writing in 1764 Hutchinson said:
There was a disposition fifty years ago in most of the principal inhabitants of Boston to be made a corporation. A plan was formed in order to be laid before the general court of the province, which by the charter is impowered to make corporations. When the heads of it were presented at a town-meeting a demagogue called out, “It is a whelp now, it will be a lion by and by, knock it in the head. Mr. moderator put the question.” The people were prepared and it was rejected by a great majority (History of Massachusetts, i. 175 note).
On the face of it, this would seem to be an allusion to the attempt made in 1714. But that attempt never reached the town meeting held in March, 1714–15, and it seems probable that Hutchinson referred to the attempt made in 1708–09, which did come before the town meeting and was rejected.
594 Boston News-Letter, 20 September, 1714, No. 544, p. 2/2. A copy of the London Gazette of 3 August, 1714, is bound between Nos. 544 and 545 of the Boston News-Letter in the Boston Athenæum. The funeral obsequies of Queen Anne were celebrated and King George was proclaimed at Boston on 22 September, at Salem on 23 September, and at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on 23 September (Ibid. 27 September, 1714, No. 545, p. 2). See also Publications of this Society, v. 79 note, 80 note.
595 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xi. 218, 219, 223.
596 Publications, viii. 202, 203.
597 3 Massachusetts Historical Collections, viii. 258, 259; Hotten’s Original Lists (1874), p. 59.
598 Genealogical Dictionary of New England, ii. 280.
599 Pioneers of Massachusetts, p. 193.
600 An abstract of this will is also printed in Waters’s Genealogical Gleanings in England, ii. 956, 957.
601 The reference is probably to John Dillingham of Boston, afterward of Ipswich, Massachusetts, whose relations with Richard Saltonstall were intimate, although it may possibly have been to his brother Edward Dillingham of Lynn and later of Sandwich, Massachusetts. Cf. Massachusetts Colony Records, i. 177, 193; Hammatt Papers (18S0), pp. 41 n., 45 n., 77, 78; 4 Massachusetts Historical Collections, vi. 40b, 54, 55, 496, 498, vii. 253; New England Historical and Genealogical Register, vii. 225, 226; Savage, Genealogical Dictionary of New England, ii. 50; Jewett, Memorial of Samuel Appleton (1850), pp. 11, 84, 85.
602 Emanuel Downing.
603 The Rev. Dr. Robert Warren (or Wareyn), after holding the living of Long Melford for twenty-five years, was sequestered from his benefice and parsonage in 1643, but, at the age of ninety-six, was restored in 1660. See E. L. Conder, Church of the Holy Trinity, Long Melford, Suffolk (1887), pp. 14, 15; J. Gage, History and Antiquities of Suffolk, Thingoe Hundred (1838), pp. 89, 90; W. A. Copinger, Suffolk Records & MSS, iv. 116, 117; J. and S. C. Venn, Admissions to Gonville and Caius College in the University of Cambridge (1887), p. 51.
604 The reference is to Long Melford in the hundred of Babergh and county of Suffolk, England, a rectory in the archdeaconry of Sudbury and diocese of Norwich, three miles north from Sudbury.
605 4 Massachusetts Historical Collections, vi. 563, 564.
606 Harvard Graduates’ Magazine for March, 1906, xiv 571, 572.
607 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xxiv. 300, xxx. 34, 326, 419, 448. The marriage is not recorded in the Boston Town or Church Records.
608 Publications, x. 225–227.
609 Mr. William Nelson, the Corresponding Secretary of the New Jersey Historical Society, to whom I am indebted for much of the new material used in this sketch of General Davenport, sends me the following memoranda concerning the appointments of his father, Josiah Davenport, or Josiah Franklin Davenport as he was sometimes called (see p. 227 note, above), to various public offices:
|
1773 |
|
|
Jany. 8 |
Davenport, Josiah Franklin, Register and Clerk in Chancery (Book of Commissions AB, p. 121). |
|
Feb. 11 |
Davenport, Josiah Franklin, Cursitor in Chancery (Ibid. AB, p. 121). |
|
Feb. 25 |
Davenport, Josiah Franklin, Naval Officer for New Jersey (Ibid. AB, p. 122). |
|
Feb. 25 |
Davenport, Josiah Franklin, Justice of the Peace for Burlington County (Ibid. 3A, p. 436). |
|
1774 |
|
|
Oct. 3 |
Davenport, Josiah F., Clerk, Gloucester County (Ibid. AB, p. 168). |
|
1776 |
|
|
Sept. 11 |
Davenport, Josiah F., Justice of the Peace for Burlington County (Minutes and Proceedings of the Council and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey in Joint Meeting, 30 August, 1776–May, 1780, p. 7). |
Mr. Nelson adds:
In the Minutes of the Provincial Congress of New Jersey (p. 483), it is noted that on June 29, 1776, Josiah Franklin Davenport presented a bill “To board and lodging Governor Franklin, his servant, &c. one week £3,” which was ordered paid. Josiah Franklin Davenport’s several appointments to office were made by his cousin Governor Franklin. No doubt he gave the Governor full value for the £3 which he charged the State for his board.
Mr. Nelson also calls attention to the fact that there was a Francis Davenport of Salem and Burlington Counties who held many public offices, 1684–1716, and a family of Devenports in Morris County, who came from Kingston, New York, in 1704, none of whom were related to the Gloucester County Davenports, although they are sometimes confounded by writers who are not aware of the lack of kinship.
610 Nearly all the facts contained in this notice of General Davenport are embodied in an article on the editorial page of the Constitution and Farmers and Mechanics’ Advertiser, published at Woodbury, New Jersey, in its issue of Wednesday, 11 July, 1906, p. 2/4.
611 Registers of Christ Church, in which no later record of this family is found. From this fact and the abseuce of any record of General Davenport’s birth in Philadelphia, the inference is reasonable that soon after their marriage his parents removed to New Jersey, and that he was born there, perhaps at Woodbury.
612 National Cyclopædia of American Biography, ii. 8; Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, ii. 82; Lamb, Biographical Dictionary of the United States, ii. 348.
613 A Biographical Congressional Dictionary, 1774–1903 (Washington, 1903), p. 489.
614 Lamb, Biographical Dictionary of the United States, ii. 348.
615 Minutes and Proceedings of the Council and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey in Joint Meeting, 30 August, 1776–May, 1780, p. 9. I am indebted to Mr. Henry C. Buchanan, Librarian of the New Jersey State Library, for the facts drawn from the Minutes of the General Assembly and also from the Minutes of the Joint Meeting. My thanks are also due to the Hon. S. D. Dickinson, Secretary of State, and Mr. William Riker, Jr., Clerk of the Supreme Court of New Jersey, for their courteous replies to my inquiries for information which I sought in their respective offices.
616 Franklin Davenport had previously been appointed Lieutenant-Colonel of the Second Regiment, Gloucester, 5 June, 1793 (Ibid. 23 May–5 June, 1793, p. 29).
617 It is to be remarked that General Davenport’s appointment as Major-General of the First Division of the Militia of New Jersey appears under the subsequent date of 9 December, 1823 (Ibid. 31 October–9 December, 1823, p. 31). General Breintnall’s attention having been called to this discrepancy, he replied as follows:
I have your letter . . . relative to the appointment of General Franklin Davenport as Major General of the First Division of the Militia of New Jersey. The date I sent you — November 12, 1823 — is of record, but December 9, 1823, is the correct date. I am glad you called my attention to this fact that I might have the privilege of making the correction.
You are further informed that Franklin Davenport was a Captain commanding a Battery of Artillery attached to Colonel Joseph Ellis’ Second Battalion, Gloucester County Militia, in the brigade commanded by Brigadier General Silas Newcomb, at the battle of Red Bank, New Jersey, October 22, 1777, Revolutionary War.
618 See New Jersey Archives (1901), vol. xxiii. pp. lxviii-lxx, lxxii, lxxxii, lxxxiii. General Davenport held this office until 1798, when he resigned it and was succeeded (26 December) by Elisha Clark. Twenty-five years later he was once more a candidate for this office but was defeated, 31 October, 1823, by Jacob Glover, with whom he again unsuccessfully contested the office, 31 October, 1828. He was also an unsuccessful candidate for the office of Clerk of the Pleas in Gloucester County, 28 October, 1825 (Minutes and Proceedings of the Council and General Assembly in Joint Meeting, 31 October–9 December, 1823, p. 5; 1825, p. 10; and 1828, 1829, p. 5).
619 Minutes of the General Assembly of the State of New Jersey, 1787, 1788, 1789.
620 Minutes and Proceedings of the Council and General Assembly in Joint Meeting, 29 October–30 November, 1792, p. 42; and 1812, p. 259.
621 Journals of the United States Senate; A Biographical Congressional Dictionary, 1774–1903, pp. 33, 489; 2 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, x. folding table between pp. 8 and 9.
622 Journals of the United States House of Representatives; A Biographical Congressional Dictionary, 1774–1903, p. 37; National Cyclopædia of American Biography, ii. 8.
623 Memorandum attached to the back cover of the volume containing the Minutes and Proceedings of the Council and General Assembly in Joint Meeting, 1776–1799; General Index of Masters and Examiners in Chancery, Chancery Office, Trenton, New Jersey.
624 Minutes and Proceedings of the Council and General Assembly in Joint Meeting, 29 October–6 November, 1812, p. 261.
625 Proceedings and Address of the Convention of Delegates to the People of New Jersey, n. p., n. d., 8vo., pp. 20.
626 Minutes and Proceedings of the Council and General Assembly in Joint Meeting, 1828, 1829, pp. 15, 16.
627 The Intelligencer, and Weekly Advertiser, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, of Tuesday, 22 May, 1804, p. 3/3.
628 Trenton Federalist of Monday, 28 May, 1804.
629 It would be interesting to know who this relative was, but as my New Jersey correspondents inform me that no gravestone to General Davenport’s memory can be found, it is impossible to identify this person.
630 Emporium and True American, Trenton, New Jersey, of 4 August, 1832. This notice, doubtless, was copied from one in the same form which appeared in Poulson’s American Daily Advertiser, Philadelphia, of 31 July. The Daily Chronicle, Philadelphia, of Tuesday, 31 July, merely announces General Davenport’s death in two lines as having occurred on the 27th instant at Woodbury, which is only eight or ten miles from Philadelphia. The Newark Daily Advertiser of 2 August also prints a two-line announcement of the death, which it states occurred “on the morning of the 28th instant,”—undoubtedly a double typographical error. Adjutant-General Breintnall informs me that the records in his office state that General Davenport died at Woodbury 27 July, 1832, at the age of seventy-seven years.
631 Thomas Cushing and Charles Sheppard, History of the Counties of Gloucester, Salem and Cumberland, New Jersey, with Biographical Sketches of their prominent citizens (1883), pp. 129, 130.
632 Our late associate, General Joseph Wheeler, U. S. A., a grandson of General Hull, had been engaged for several years in collecting from the public archives of England, Canada, and the United States the materials for a complete vindication of General Hull from the aspersions cast upon him by rivals who, in consequence of his downfall, rose to place and power which they abused by preventing him from obtaining for several years copies of official documents for which he had repeatedly applied in vain. See above, p. 247 and note.
633 The dinner was given on Monday, 30 May, 1825, at the Exchange Coffee House. Two hundred persons were present. The Hon. William Sullivan was president of the day, introduced the guests to General Hull, made him a formal address, to which Hull replied, and presided at the dinner. See the Columbian Centinel of Wednesday, 1 June, 1825, p. 2/3, in which the two Addresses are printed at length.
634 Columbian Centinel of Wednesday, 30 November, 1825, p. 2/4; Jackson, History of Newton, p. 312; Vital Records of Newton, p. 465; Dexter, Yale Biographies and Annals, iii. 444–148; S. C. Clarke, Records of Some of the Descendants of Richard Hull (Boston, 1869), pp. 7–17, and Records of Some of the Descendants of John Fuller (Boston, 1869), pp. 8–12; New England Historical and Genealogical Register, xlvii. 141–153, 305–314; Report of the Trial of Brig. General William Hull, commanding the North-Western Army of the United States, by a Court Martial held at Albany on Monday, 3d January, 1814, and succeeding days, New York, 1814; Defence of Brigadier General W. Hull . . . With an Address to the Citizens of the United States, Boston, 1814; W. Hull, Memoirs of the Campaign of the North Western Army of the United States, A. D. 1812, Boston, 1824; Maria Campbell and J. F. Clarke, Revolutionary Services and Civil Life of General William Hull . . . with the History of the Campaign of 1812, and the Surrender of the Post of Detroit, New York, 1848.
635 The Columbian Centinel of Wednesday, 28 March, 1825, p. 2/2, announced that General Hull had received “a letter from Gen. Lafayette, dated at Charleston, South Carolina, the 9th instant,” — doubtless in reply to Hull’s letter in our text.
636 There are, in fact, three rough draughts of this letter. What is apparently the final form of the letter is printed in the text.
637 This house was numbered 3 in Winthrop Place. It was subsequently the home of Rufus Choate. Isaac McLellan, of Portland, Maine, had married, 13 March, 1805, General Hull’s daughter Eliza. See S. C. Clarke, Records of Some of the Descendants of Richard Hull, pp. 11, 13, 14.
638 Her son, Mr. Charles French Read, is the efficient Clerk of the Bostonian Society.
639 Anna Maria Campbell Hickman, born at Detroit, 23 July, 1809, was the elder daughter of Capt. Harris Hampden Hickman, U. S. A., and Ann Binney Hull, his wife, a daughter of General Hull. She married (1) George Alexander Otis, Jr., of Boston, (2) the Rev. Zachariah Mead (Y. C. 1825), and (3) David Chalmers, of Halifax County, Virginia (S. C. Clarke, Records of Some of the Descendants of Richard Hull, pp. 9, 11, 14; Heitman, Historical Register of the United States Army, 1789–1889; A Biographical Sketch, Anna Maria Mead Chalmers, In Memoriam, 1893, in which the meeting of Lafayette and General Hull is briefly described, p. 21).
640 Savage, Genealogical Dictionary of New England, iv. 89, 40.
641 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, ii., vii., passim.
642 Ibid. ii. (third edition), part 2 (Book of Possessions), pp. 14, 88, 97. Cf. the Publications of this Society, vi. 93, 94.
643 Records of the First Church in Boston, 19 (3) 1639.
644 Ibid.; Hill, History of the Old South Church in Boston, i. 12, 113, 116 and notes, and passim; An Historical Catalogue of the Old South Church in Boston (1883), pp. 5, 219, 220.
645 Massachusetts Colony Records, ii. 137.
646 O. A. Roberts, History of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, i. 152, 153.
647 Savage, Genealogical Dictionary of New England, iv. 40; Massachusetts Colony Records, iii. 304, iv. i. 146.
648 See the Publications of this Society, vi. 86–89.
649 See Ibid. vi. 39.
650 Benjamin Blakeman’s name was and is often misspelled Blackman. See notices of him in Sibley, Harvard Graduates, ii. 140–144; Williamson, History of the State of Maine (1832), i. 664, 665.
651 For notices of Thomas Scottow see Sibley, Harvard Graduates, ii. 522–524; Williamson, History of the State of Maine, i. 692. He was left a double portion in his father’s will (Suffolk Probate Files, no. 2432), dated 23 June, 1696, but he died soon after, as Sibley says he was starred in the Triennial of 1700.
652 W. Willis, in A History of the Law, the Courts and the Lawyers of Maine (1863), pp. 55, 56, gives lists of the Judges and Registers of Probate in which the Scottows, father and son, appear to have held their respective offices from 1687 till 1693. The son had already received a similar appointment at the hands of Andros’s predecessor. Mr. James J. Tracy has been so kind as to send me a memorandum stating that the Council Records during Dudley’s Presidency show that on 18 June, 1686, Thomas Scottow, designated “Sworn Clerk of the Province of Maine,” was empowered to demand and receive the records from Mr. Rush worth, “late Registrar of the Province” (ii. 44); and, under date of 20 July, 1686, that an order was passed that a letter be drawn up and directed to Mr. Edward Rushworth to comply with the order for delivering the records to Thomas Scottow, “now appointed” Recorder of the Province, and designating a committee to advise Scottow as to a suitable place in Wells for keeping the records and to fix his time of attendance at his office (ii. 54).
653 York Court Records, ii. 223. I am again indebted to our associate the Hon. James Phinney Baxter for the use of his copy of these Records, which is cited in this and subsequent notes to this communication. See also Williamson, History of the State of Maine, i. 666, 667.
654 W. S. Southgate, History of Scarborough, in Collections of the Maine Historical Society (1853), iii. 116. A notice of Scottow is in Ibid. iii. 115–126, 131–133. The lands embraced in the Cammock Patent, some 1500 acres, and the 750 acres contiguous thereto, were sold in 1728 by Scottow’s executor and son-in-law, Capt. Samuel Checkley, for £1500, to Timothy Prout of Boston, merchant, who had married Lydia Savage, daughter of Lieut.-Col. Thomas Savage (1640–1705) and grand-daughter of Captain Scottow. The locality has since become known as Prout’s Neck (York Deeds, xii. 276; Williamson, History of the State of Maine, i. 392, 692; Suffolk Deeds, xxiv. 99; Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, xxviii. 20).
655 York Court Records, iii. 251.
656 Ibid. iii. 268.
657 Ibid. iii. 320, 337.
658 Williamson, History of the State of Maine, i. 556. Scottow’s associates were Joseph Dudley, Richard Waldron, Edward Rishworth, John Wincoln and Samuel Wheelwright. See also York Court Records, 1 July, 1679, iii. 363, 371.
659 Williamson, History of the State of Maine, i. 558, 565; Publications of this Society, i. 287 n.
660 Williamson, History of the State of Maine, i. 593.
661 York Court Records, iii. 383.
662 Ibid. iv. 118.
663 Ibid. iv. 157.
664 Williamson, History of the State of Maine, i. 692.
665 York Court Records, iv. 37; Williamson, History of the State of Maine, i. 572 n., 573 n.
666 Williamson, History of the State of Maine, ii. 16; p. 371 and note 2, above.
667 York Court Records, passim.
668 History of the State of Maine, i. 392 note, 566 note.
669 Old Mens Tears for their own Declensions, etc., Boston, 1691; and A Narrative of the planting of the Massachusetts Colony, Anno 1628, etc., Boston, 1694. The full titles of these and other tracts by Scottow are in Sabin, Dictionary of Books relating to America, xix. 159–161.
670 Diary, i. 467. The absence of Scottow’s minister, the Rev. Samuel Willard, was doubtless owing to illness, as well as to the “extream cold,” which prevented him from preaching in his own pulpit on the following Sunday, — the next day.
671 The inscription on the grave-stone and some account of its discovery in the Meeting House tower may be read in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register for 1851, v. 78.
There is a very brief notice of Scottow in Williamson’s History of the State of Maine, i. 692, and another in 2 Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, iv. 100–104. See also Massachusetts Colony Records, iv. ii. 208, 209, 218, 517; Collections of the Maine Historical Society (Documentary History of Maine, Baxter Manuscripts), Second Series, iv., v., vi., passim.
672 See Massachusetts Colony Records, v. 102.
673 See Publications of this Society, v. 176 note 185; Williamson, History of the State of Maine, i. 693.
674 See Publications of this Society, i. 275 and note, 276, 279, 283–286, 287 note, v. 177 note, 178 note, 182, 183 note, 185; Williamson, History of the State of Maine, i. 691.
675 Col. Samuel Wheelwright was a son of the Rev. John Wheelwright and occupied many positions of trust and honor in the Colony of the Bay and in the Province of Maine. He died 13 May, 1700. See Publications of this Society, i. 277 note, 280, 282, 283, 285, 287 and note, 288, 290, 292, 293, 302, v. 184, viii. 128, 129; Williamson, History of the State of Maine, ii. 76.
676 Black Point was a part of Scarborough, Maine, where Scottow’s Hill perpetuates the name and memory of one of her most serviceable and public spirited, although at times much abused, citizens.
677 The allusion is probably to the massacre by the Indians, in the autumn of 1675, of Robert Nichols and his wife at their house on the upper part of Blue Point, near Dunstan, in Scarborough, and the brothers Andrew and Arthur Alger at their garrison-house near the Landing, which was at some distance from the two principal settlements at Black Point and Blue Point. It was charged that Scottow refused to send for the protection of the Dunstan planters any of the soldiers who had been sent by the Massachusetts Government for the defence of the settlements at Scarborough and placed under his command. From this charge, as we shall presently see (in the next note), he was acquitted by the General Court. Subsequently, he was maliciously charged with the murder of his fellow-townsman Nathan Bedford, the keeper of the first ordinary in Scarborough, who came to his death by drowning, as appears by the verdict of the Coroner’s jury rendered 24 August, 1681, which was further inquired into by the Court of Sessions, 27 September, and accepted by it, 30 May, 1682, an entry in the margin of the record reading “Scottow Cleared” (Southgate, History of Scarborough, in Collections of the Maine Historical Society, 1853, iii. 78–80, 104–106, 125; York Court Records, iv. 104, 113, 232). See also Savage, Genealogical Dictionary of New England, i. 152.
678 The Court’s decision was as follows:
This Court, having hearc the complaint of Mr Rishworth exhibbeted against Captaine Scottow for improoving the countrys souldjers on his oune particcular occasions, & neglecting the service of the country, & thereby endeavoring to put the charge of these souldjers vpon Capt̄ Scottow, vppon a full hearing of both partjes, see no reason for the aforesajd complaint, and doe judge, that the sajd Capt̄ Scottow (for ought doth appeare) hath faithfully dischardged his trust, and is therefore acquitted from the chardge endeavored to be put on him, but that the same be borne by the county [of York], and that Mr Rushworth doe pay Capt Scottow his costs & damage. The Conrt granted & determined the costs to be nine pounds thirteen shillings & eight pence (Massachusetts Colony Records, v. 121). See also Ibid. v. 129, 182.
679 The surrender of Black Point occurred 14 October, 1676. It is described by Williamson, History of the State of Maine, i. 540, 541.
680 The second attack on Scottow’s garrison, which was repulsed, was made 16 May, 1677, when Mugg, the powerful Indian chief, was slain (Ibid. i. 519, 550).
681 Cancelled in the original.
682 In the Suffolk Court Files (xxi. 106–115, no. 1828: 18) is a deposition by Thomas Cousens, aged about thirty years, sworn to 16 January, 1679–80, before Samuel Wheelwright, Commissioner, which was used in this case. It reflects severely upon Scottow’s management of the forces at Black Point during th e Indian troubles and probably furni shed the occasion for the legal proceedings which he instituted in the Provincial Courts immediately on his return home after the General Court had refused (11 June, 1680) the hearing requested in th e petition in our text. The York Court Records (iv. 76) under date of 30 June, 1680, show action “upon Complaynts exhibited by Capt. Josua Scottow against Thomas Cussons upon suspition of periury;” and under date of 6 April, 1681, the case is “transmitted unto the next Generall Assembly houlden for this province” (iv, 87).
683 The Boston Athenæum has long had in its possession the original manuscript folio volume of some seven hundred pages which contains the Records of the County Court at Boston covering the decade 1671–1680. These Records are now being printed by the Registry Department of the City of Boston. The following entry records the decision of the Court in the case of Scottow against Shapleigh et al.:
At a County Court held at Boston
27o̱̣ January Aọ 1679. @
Captn Joshua Scottow of Boston, plaint, contạ m Nicholas Shapleigh of Kittery, mṛ Edwḍ Rishworth of Yorke, mṛ Samuel Wheelewright of Wells or any of them. Defendṭs in an accon̄. of the case of defamation, for Slaundering the plaint, by divers false charges of falsifying his trust drawn up against him under pretence of reasons Signed by them all contained in a writing and exhibited to the Honrḍ Genlḷ. Court upon the 9th of august 1676. and managed against the sḍ plaint, by the sd Rishworth before the sḍ Court at their Session on the 11th of Octobṛ. 1676. as by the sḍ. writings more fully doth appeare wc̣h hath been to the plaints very great damage with all other due damages; mṛ Samuel Wheelewright appeared as Defenḍt The Attachmt and Evidences in the case produced being read & com̄itted to the Jury wc̣h are on file. The Jury brought in their verdict they found for the Defendt costs of Court. The plaint, appealed from this Judgemt. unto the next Court of Assistants and put in security for prosecution thereof to Effect (Records of the County Court at Boston, 1671–1680, p. 622).
Scottow cont. Shapleigh
The decision of the Court of Assistants follows:
Att A Court of Assistants held at Boston 2d day of march 1679.
Joshua Scottow plaintiff agt Samuel wheelewright defendt in an Annon of Appeal from the Judgment of the County Court in Boston After the Attachment Courts Judgement reasons of Appeale & euidences in th e Case pr oduced were read Comitted to the Jury & are on file wth the records of this Court the Jury brought in their virdict they found for the deffendant Confirmatiou of the formr Judgment & Costs of Courts fiue pounds fiueteen shillings & ten pence (Records of the Court of Assistants of the Colony of the Massachusetts Bay, 1901, i. 152).
The Suffolk Court Files contain twenty-five papers connected with this case. These include the attachment of Wheelwright, Scottow’s account, his declaration and reasons of appeal, Wheelwright’s answers to both, an order of the General Court and a petition to it, certificates, declarations, depositions, and bill of costs (xix, 70, no. 1641; xxi. 106–115, no. 1828; mccxii. 9, no. 162, 190).
684 The official record of this decision, under date of 11 June, 1680, is in the following words:
In ansr to the petition of Capt̄ Joshua Scottow, the Court judgeth it not convenient to grant the peticoner a hearing, since the petic̄oner & the partjes concerned are now, by late transactions, put vnder a distinct government vpon the place, i. e., the Prouince of Mayne, to which authority, if he be vnder any sufferings, he ought to apply himself, it being inconvenient & vnsafe for this Court to com̄and any thenc to be judged here (Massachusetts Colony Records, v. 282). See York Court Records, iv. 31.
685 The names of Messrs. Saltonstall, Russell, Brattle, Appleton, Wayte, Torrey, and Rawson, appended to this document, are autograph signatures. The Petition, which is not dated, is wholly in Scottow’s handwriting; the decision of the Court is in another hand.
686 In the original there are here two or three words, which cannot be deciphered, in the hand of Edward Rawson.
687 W. Douglass, Summary (1749), i. 483–485.
688 E. Washburn, Sketches of the Judicial History of Massachusetts (1840), pp 172–186.
689 J. Noble, in Publications of this Society, viii. 150–185.
690 Province Laws, vii. 514, 515.
691 Printed in 6 Massachusetts Historical Collections, volume v., which constitutes Part VI. of the Winthrop Papers. In the Preface to this volume (pp. xiii.–xxi.) will be found an interesting sketch of Wait Winthrop.
692 The commission enclosed in this letter is engrossed on parchment with an engraved heading in which are depicted a crowned lion rampant, an eagle, a serpent, and various birds, etc.; and in the upper left-hand corner is a portrait of William III. It is of considerable length, and is wholly in Latin. The jurisdiction of the court extended over the Colonies of Massachusetts Bay, New York, and New Hampshire. The Commission is dated 2 May, 1699. On the back of it is an entry by the Register of the Admiralty Office in New York.
693 Washburn draws the character of Byfield in a manner far from flattering. He was long the friend and supporter of Joseph Dudley, who endeavored to have him appointed Lieutenant-Governor at the time he (Dudley) was made Governor of the Province. By false accusations against Wait Winthrop, who had been proposed by Sir Henry Ashuist, Dudley had prevented his appointment to this office; but he failed to secure it for Byfield. Thomas Povey was appointed 11 April, 1702 (Sketches of the Judicial History of Massachusetts, pp. 178–183; 6 Massachusetts Historical Collections, v. 109, 110; Whitmore, Massachusetts Civil List, p. 44). See also Publications of this Society, iii. 76, vi. 267 note, 269 note; Savage, Genealogical Dictionary of New England, i. 325, 326; F. Baylies, Historical Memoir of the Colony of New Plymouth, ii. part iv. pp. 53–57, which contains a sketch of Byfield.
694 William Atwood was appointed Chief-Justice of New York in June, 1700. He was a violent partizan, and was finally arrested, but made his escape. See New York Colonial Documents, vol. iv. passim.
695 O. A. Roberts, History of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, i. 253, 254.
696 Province Laws, vii. 104, 148, 164, 180.
697 Ibid. vii. 164, 568, 595; Whitmore, Massachusetts Civil List, p. 125.
698 Publications of the Harleian Society, xvii. 23; Waters, Genealogical Gleanings in England, i. 115, ii. 1363, 1376, 1378, 1380, 1394.
699 Massachusetts Council Records, v. 243.
700 Whitmore, Massachusetts Civil List, pp. 99, 102. See also Ibid. pp. 47, 48, 50–53, 64–66, 71, 72, 78; 6 Massachusetts Historical Collections, v. 39, 40, 50, 90, 91, 159.
701 The appearance of the manuscript clearly indicates that it was originally prepared for the subscription of Judge Winthrop only, and that it was subsequently utilized when other Crown officials qualified. The assumption that these were subordinate officers of the Court of Vice-Admiralty is not unreasonable.
702 James Davis, and others, subscribed a similar Oath, Declaration and Association in Boston 27 May, 1702 (1 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, iv. 256, 257).
703 Timothy Hilliard was of Hampton and Dover, New Hampshire. See Ibid. xvi. 265; New England Historical and Genealogical Register, xxvii. 364–367; Collections of the Dover (New Hampshire) Historical Society, i. 115.
704 There was a family of Blackden in Rochester, Dover, and Durham, New Hampshire (New England Historical and Genealogical Register, xxix. 265, 267, xxxiii. 347).
705 Major William Vaughan of Dover and Portsmouth, New Hampshire, was a member of the Executive Council of that Province and later Chief-Justice of its Superior Court, 1708–1716. He died 12 November, 1719. See Savage, Genealogical Dictionary of New England, iv. 368; New England Historical and Genealogical Register, v. 245; Sewall’s Diary, i. 312; Sewall’s Letter Book, ii. 9; 1 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, xiv. 124 note, 128 note, 140, xvi. 257, 262, 261, 266, 275, xvii. 106, 107 and note, 226, 228; Bell, Bench and Bar of New Hampshire (1891), pp. 10, 11.
706 A sketch of Mr. Weisse is in Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, vi. 423. His school in Roxbury was on the northwesterly side of Hawthorne Street, on an estate subsequently owned by Roland Worthington. John Chandler Bancroft (H. C. 1854) and the Rev. Dr. Alfred Porter Putnam (B. U. 1848) were also pupils of Mr. Weisse between 1840 and 1847. Nicholas Weisse, Sr., of Roxbury was his brother. Mr. John A. Weisse married, 27 June, 1841, Jane Lee, daughter of William Hunt (H. C. 1768), of Watertown, Massachusetts, and his wife Jane, daughter of George and Mary (Faneuil) Bethune, of Boston. Mrs. Weisse compiled: Records, Genealogical Charts, and Traditions of the Families of Bethune and Faneuil, New York, 1866; Records and Traditions of the Families of Hunt and Weisse, New York, 1866; and A History of the Bethune Family, Together with a Sketch of the Faneuil Family, New York, 1884. See also W. L. G. Hunt, Genealogy of the Name and Family of Hunt (1863), p. 322; Bond, Genealogies and History of Watertown, pp. 174, 304; Roxbury, Massachusetts, Town Records of Births, 1843, 1845; Baptismal Register of the First Religious Society in Roxbury, 1844, 1847.
707 Reminiscences of Foreign Travel. A Fragment of Autobiography. Privately printed, 1894, pp. 104.
708 Memoir of Robert C. Winthrop (1897), p. 64.
709 Mr. Winthrop was also a member of the Institute of 1770, and of the M. O. F. Club, the latter long since disbanded.
710 2 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, xix. 301, 302.
711 Katharine Winthrop, born 26 September, 1664, was a daughter of Thomas Brattle, the richest merchant of his day in New England, and widow of John Eyre of Boston at the time of her marriage to Chief-Justice Wait Still Winthrop, 13 November, 1707. She died 2 August, 1725 (Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, ix. 91, xxviii. 17; Sewall’s Diary, iii. 363; Paige, History of Cambridge, p. 499).
712 Proceedings, 1884–1885, p. 379.
713 This reference to Mr. Adams was doubtless prompted by his Oration, entitled “A College Fetich,” — a term by which he characterized the traditional study of Greek, delivered in June, 1883, before the Harvard Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa.
714 Publications, iii. 86–90.
715 Ibid., vii. 68–80, 325 note.
716 Publications, i. 148, 149.
717 Publications, x. 365–369.
718 Corporation Records, vii. 26; Records of the Board of Overseers, ii. 28. Yale conferred the M.A. degree on Franklin, 12 September, 1753. See Howard Payson Arnold’s Historic Side-Lights (1899), pp. 66–72.
I am indebted to Mr. Albert Matthews for the following extract from the Boston Gazette of Tuesday, 31 July, 1753 (p. 3/1):
On Monday last the Corporation of Harvard-College met at Cambridge, and taking into Consideration the great Genius of Benjamin Franklin, of Philadelphia, Esq; for Learning, the high Advances he has made in Natural Philosophy, more especially in the Doctrine and Experiments of Electricity, whereby he has rendered himself justly famous in the Learned World, unanimonsly voted him a Degree of Master of Arts, which Vote was the Day following as fully confirmed by the Overseers of that Society, and on Friday the President presented him a Diploma therefor.
719 See Province Laws, iii. 662, 663.
720 The Diploma which the Academy sent to Franklin to testify to his election to fellowship in 1781, has been reproduced for this volume and appears above, between pages 242 and 243.
721 For the draught of this letter, which varies slightly from this text, see 6 Massachusetts Historical Collections, ix. 449.
722 Benjamin Guild (H. C. 1769).
723 Printed in 2 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, viii. 290.
724 The Act, Chap. 46 of the Acts of 1779–80, passed 4 May, 1780, is printed in Province Laws, v. 1194–1196. See also the Note by the Editor, ibid. v. 1369, 1370.
725 The Catalogue immediately follows this letter.
726 American Philosophical Society.
727 Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d’ Anville (1697–1782).
728 Richard Price (1723–1791). “He was the intimate friend of Franklin; . . . and in the winter of 1778 he was actually invited by Congress to transfer himself to America, and assist in the financial administration of the insurgent states” (Dictionary of National Biography, xlvi. 335).
729 Col. Henry Laurens.
730 Stephen Sewall (H. C. 1761), Hancock Professor of Hebrew and other Oriental Languages for twenty-one years, and also Librarian of Harvard College.