December Meeting, 1938

A STATED Meeting of the Society was held, at the invitation of Mr. Augustus P. Loring, Jr., at No. 2 Gloucester Street, Boston, on Thursday, December 15, 1938, at three o’clock in the afternoon, the President, Kenneth Ballard Murdock, in the chair.

The records of the Annual Meeting in November were read and approved.

The Corresponding Secretary reported the death on December 6, 1938, of Harold Robert Shurtleff, a Resident Member.

Mr. William Alexander Jackson of Cambridge, the Hon.’ Marcus Morton of Boston, Mr. William Greene Roelker of Boston, and Mr. Austin Warren of Boston were elected Resident Members of the Society; and Mr. Fulmer Mood of Berkeley, California, was elected a Corresponding Member.

The Council recommended for adoption by the Society the following amendment to the By-laws:

Chapter II, Art. I, amend the fifth sentence by substituting the word fifteen for the word ten, so that the sentence shall read: “The number of Associate Members shall not exceed fifteen.”

The amendment was unanimously adopted by the Society.

Mr. George P. Winship read a paper entitled “Facts and Fancies about the Cambridge Press.”161

Mr. Samuel E. Morison presented by title the following paper:

The Commonplace Book of Joseph Green

(1675–1715)

CHARLES W. Upham, in his Salem Witchcraft (ii. 506), spoke in glowing terms of the ministry of Joseph Green at Salem Village (Danvers, Massachusetts) on the morrow of the witchcraft delusion: “No ministry in the whole history of the New-England churches has had a more difficult task put upon it, and none has more perfectly succeeded in its labors.” Into that distracted community, still festering with hate and fear, this recent college graduate of twenty-two brought youth, courage, and a serene faith that nothing was impossible for the power of divine love.

Green’s diary from 1700 to his death in 1715, the original of which is in the Essex Institute at Salem, was printed many years ago.162 There has now come to light another precious document of this remarkable young man, his commonplace book, containing an account of his early life, his religious experiences, and some entries for his Danvers ministry not noted in the diary. The leather-bound duodecimo volume, bearing the bookplate of Robert Theodore Gunther, Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, was noted in an English bookseller’s catalogue by our associate, Charles E. Goodspeed, and purchased for the Harvard College Library by another of our associates, William G. Mather of Cleveland. It is here printed for the first time.

Chronologically, the volume begins on page [124] with Green’s account of his family and early life, an account that gives an intimate view of New England life in that day and generation. He was born in Cambridge on November 24, 1675, eighth son in a family of ten brothers and four sisters. His father was a tailor. Five of his brothers went to sea. John “was killed in a fight with the Turks.” Edward left the tailor’s bench for the sea “and became commander of a brave ship, the Eagle,” won a notable sea fight against the French in King William’s War, but died of consumption before returning home. Benjamin was a privateersman in the same war. Thomas had left the village smithy for deep waters four years before and had not been heard from when Joseph wrote. Nathaniel, also a tailor, likewise followed the call of the sea and met the same fate. Samuel followed his father’s trade and died of consumption. Jonathan became a carpenter and joiner at Cambridge. Percival graduated from Harvard College with the Class of 1680 and became the minister of Wells, Maine, but died of consumption in 1684. Then it was decided to make young Joseph the scholar of the family.

Joseph was at the time at the Cambridge Grammar School, under its noted master Elijah Corlet. “I was Idle and lazy,” writes Joseph, “and my master was very aged, and altho’ he was excellent at Instructing me, yet he had almost lost his spirit of government, or else I might have gone to the colledge some years before I did.” The death of his father, when Joseph was just ready to enter, seemed to blast his prospects; but a number of gentlemen, including all the surviving classmates of his brother Percival, each agreed to contribute from ten to thirty shillings each year to see him through.

Joseph entered college in 1691, a bright but frivolous boy, and graduated twentieth in a class of twenty-two, as befitted his humble social station. Early in his freshman year he was taken ill with a fever and promised to “live more seriously and circumspectly” if spared, but he forgot his good resolutions with returning health. “As to my Colledge business I was as negligent as used to be: altho I made a shift to perform my Colledge task yet I studyed little else; but spent much of my time in fowling and in fishing: and in danceing and foolishness. I have forgotten many of the sins of my youth so that I have reason to pray as [in the] 19 Psalm that God would cleanse me from secret faults, but I can call to mind enough to amaze me.” Writing about a year after he graduated, Joseph enumerated his sins and drew a line through them; but one can still read under the erasure that some of them were profanity, Sabbath-breaking, and “I was once a great player at cards.” “I roisterd until I had my first degree,” he continues.

On graduating, Green was offered a chaplaincy on a merchant vessel but refused it as he felt no inclination toward the sea or religion. Instead he took charge of the Roxbury Latin School, “very much out of order by reason of the Sloathfullness and unfaithfulness of my predecessor.” At Roxbury, reading a book by Cotton Mather on the Lord’s Supper turned Joseph’s mind toward serious matters. In the early part of his commonplace book he records another reason for turning to religion: the aid that it would be in governing unruly schoolboys. “I am forced to be severe and angry sometimes; and I feared least my discourse should harden my boys.” Joseph Green had learned early the way of love, a way in which he walked the rest of his life.

At this point, chronologically, comes the long series of religious reflections and meditations with which the book opens. Later (page [139]) comes an account of his conversion and joining the church in Roxbury. Following this experience, but earlier in the book (pages [83 ff.]), are several copies of letters which he sent, or intended to send, to his relatives and friends, telling them the good news and proffering pious advice. The master of the Eagle is congratulated on his courageous fight: “The whole country rings with your praise but I pray you not to be lifted up but grow humble and give all diligence to secure your own soul.” One wonders what effect this advice would have produced on the quarter-deck of the Eagle, especially when Captain Green read the list of theological works that his younger brother expected him to purchase in London, but Captain Edward died before the letter could have been received. He left his brother a legacy, with which he procured the library that accompanied his active ministry. Joseph urged his younger brother Benjamin to come home from the West Indies and stay with him at Roxbury, where there was a doctor who could cure “sore heads” (Benjamin probably then had the scurvy). “Furthermore,” writes Joseph, “I will learn you the mariners art & you may go to sea again in some good imploy & I hope you will be better both in soul and body.” So Joseph must have learned enough nautical astronomy at college to teach navigation. “The Letter I sent,” he notes at the end of the copy, “and God prospered it, so that he was thereby perswaded to come home out of a privateer.”

A few pages further on comes the copy of a letter to his classmate Samuel Vassall, a lawyer at Jamaica. Vassall, the son of a planter, was head of the Class of 1695. In accordance with the social distinction of that day, Joseph Green addresses him as “Honoured Sir,” bemoans his “horrid ingratitude” for not writing sooner to one who had shown him “many kindnesses,” and by way of reparation sends him college news and an informal class report. As the class had not yet taken their master’s degree, they are referred to by the old academic title of “Sir” reserved for bachelors of arts not yet commenced masters. Sir Price is “the same man still”; Sir Saltonstall, Jr., is the college butler; Sir Lindall is a “chirurgeon” and “merchant very solid”; seven others are schoolmasters at various places from New Hampshire to Long Island; Sir Webster is “I know not where.” Evidently “lost members” of Harvard classes are of ancient origin.

After joining the church at Roxbury, Joseph Green began to preach sermons, the repute of which evidently reached Salem Village (Danvers), for Deacon Putnam invited him, on November 8, 1697, to preach there the following Sabbath. That and another sermon earned him “an invitation from the Inhabitants of Salem village to come and be their minister.” “Mr. Brattle”—his college tutor—“advised me to go thither—and none discouraged me,” writes Green. That none did, and that Green went, is proof of the stern sense of duty of our predecessors; for he was going into a parish impoverished by warfare with the invisible world, and where men’s garments were literally stained with each other’s blood. Green accepted on the condition “that they continue in love; and if once they begin to quarrel and contend; I should look upon myself to be free from any obligation to tarry with them.” He was to get £60 for his first year’s salary, with a promise of £70 a year thereafter, plus a few extras. On this salary he married and raised a large family of children.

The rest of the manuscript, written at odd times from 1698 to 1713, tells of his final ordination, with some pleasant details of his family life, and is full of ejaculations of praise and gratitude for the improved spiritual state of his congregation. One must look to other sources for a record of the change that this youthful pastor wrought in his dour flock; for his wise reseating of the meetinghouse so that accusers and accused, instead of glaring at each other across the aisle, sat in the same pew; and for the dramatic scene when Ann Putnam, the girl who started the witchcraft frenzy, made humble confession of her sin. Upham writes of Green: “By wise, prudent, but persistent efforts, he gradually repaired every breach, brought his parish out from under reproach, and set them right with each other, with the obligations of justice, and with the spirit of Christianity.”

Much credit, too, is due the parish, which proved worthy of its young pastor’s character. Indeed, as a recent writer on witchcraft has well said, “the abiding marvel of the whole witchcraft embroglio is that no one act of private vengeance or personal violence followed the collapse of the hysteria. Yet the provocation had been enough to have filled Essex County with undying feuds on the Kentucky model. . . . Human nature was here acting up to standards far in advance of what is commonly known as human nature.”163

Green was a secular as well as a religious leader. He established the first public school in Danvers, and his house was such a center of frugal hospitality and pleasant social life that in his epitaph he is described as a man memorable “Tum Gravitate Doctrinae Turn Suavitate Morum.” One year he made forty barrels of cider. News arrived during meeting on August 29, 1708, of the Indian attack on Haverhill. Green immediately left his pulpit, hastened to the scene of the massacre, and joined his classmate Price in pursuit of the redskins. He continued without reproach to indulge his love of fowling and fishing, and was accounted quite an expert in decoying wild pigeons. From one day’s shooting he came home with a catamount.

Joseph Green died suddenly in 1715, two days after his fortieth birthday and shortly after the close of his last sermon. According to the elegy on him by the Reverend Nicholas Noyes, the people crowded about his deathbed in “transports of love and grief,” embracing him and declaring that he must stay with them or they go with him. Noyes compares him to Noah’s dove:

For like that Blessed Bird, he Still

Green Olive Leaves brought in his bill.

He dry’d up Floods of Strife, and he

Made Brethren dwell in Unitie.164

As Upham says, “a man who extinguished the fires of passion in that community deserved to be held in lasting honor.” It is fortunate indeed that this permanent record of the youthful saint and hero has survived. It is fortunate, too, that we have another authentic document of love and humanity in a New England parish in a period too often dismissed as uncouth, repressive, and “glacial.”

[title page]

Joseph Green

His Book

Anno Domⁱ

1696

roxb: 1696.

Think of Eternity

Eternity165

Joseph Green: His Book

W^t is written in y^e 81 following pages, I began in March: 96:166 The reasons why I did it were several.

1. y^e consideration of y^e account y^t I must give at y^e great day for those under me, which was quickend by a sermon of m^r Walters.167

2. my considerations for y^e good of souls:

3. Thereby my heart was kept up more religious all y^e week: & many other reasons: but in June, I discoursing with many sober men concerning sch^l government &c: they feered not to commend such a way: and many other consideration[s] there were which discouraged me: one is bec: I am forced to be severe and angry sometimes; and I feared least my discourse should harden my boys.

J G:168 [1]

Some motives to be timely religious or some arguments to persuade young ones to be religious betimes; w^th some Instructions in y^e principals of y^e Christian religion; in usum Discipulorum

Beg: March: 28. 1696

J. G.

To be born in a land of light and to [be] brought up under y^e Gospell & to be instructed in y^e Christian religion, are some of the greatest blessings that mankind is priviledged with in this world; and although (as I have often told you) y^t y^e interest of Christ & y^e Christian religion runs low & is slighted by y^e greatest part of y^e world; & perhaps by y^e most of y^m y^t live under y^e Gospell nevertheless we should [2] y^e rather give all diligence to make our calling & election sure; to work out our own salvation with fearr and trembling;

And thô there are many in y^e world who are asham’d of Christ & of y^e Gospell: and of being strictly religious, yet we should remember y^t if we are ashamed of Christ now, he will be ashamed of us at y^e great day. And althô we may meet with many discouragements from y^e wickedness of our own hearts; and from Satans temptations, and bec: a strict religious life is contrary to y^e sinfull pleasures of y^e world, which are indeed no pleasures at all; yet I advise & intreat and charge you all to be religious betimes; and I shall in the first place lay down some motives & encouragements [3] both from y^e danger of living irreligiously, and from y^e Good that will follow upon your begining to be religious betimes; and then (by Gods leave & help) I shall proceed to instruct you in y^e principals of religion: and because the result of all is to practice what we know, therefore be perswaded to put into practice what you know to be your duty, and give attention to what I shall lay before you: for I do it as expecting to be called to an account by God, what I have done for your souls; therefore I say do you observe & regard as you expect to answer it at y^e great day before y^e whole world; and remember these y^ngs to move you to be religious before it be too-late.

1. Remember that you are mortal creatures, and must not live here alwayes; in a very little time you know not how soon; [4] you must go to your long home whence you must return no more; you must take an everlasting farewel of all things here below; and consider y^t this life is little at longest to prepare for all eternity; for we can never be so good as we should be, while in this world.

2 Consideration. That you have immortal souls within you that must endure to all Eternity; there is not one of you but must endure thrôout eternal ages; the consideration of this should make us in good earnest; we should say when we meet with temptations, y^t we are acting for eternity.

3 Consideration. Remember y^t by nature those souls of yours are heirs of hell & eternal destruction; and if you dye in y^t natural estate in which we all come into y^e world, you will surely have your portion with Devils & dammed spirits forever. [5]

4 Consideration. The Devil would feign have you to continue in this estate of nature, in which he knows you are miserable; and desires y^t you should [be] as he is himself.

5 Consideration. The only way to get out of your natural estate & to have your souls saved is to be religious & to get into Jesus Christ.

Be perswaded yⁿ to think much of eternity before it be too-late think also of Death & hell.

6 Consideration. Let me add: 6. Think seriously with your-selves what y^e damned in hell would give for such opportunitys as you enjoy: if you could but discourse with a poor soul that has been in hell but a little while; to hear w^t torments it endures for refuseing Christ; surely you would be astonished: And suppose you should; what could such an one say more; but only bid you be religious & love & fear and serve God: and for your encouragement consider a few things. [6]

1. God the father is willing to accept you; he is truth itself and he has sworn by himself that he delights not in y^e death of sinners but had rather y^t they should turn & live; and to confirm his willingness he has given his son to fulfill y^e whole law & to dye for y^e sins of any that will but accept of him for y^eir redeemer and saviour.

2. God y^e son, y^e Lord Jesus Christ is abundantly willing to save and accept of all even y^e greatest sinners; and he hath declared himself willing to accept even of such young ones as you are, and he is y^e same yesterday today & forever.

3. God y^e Holy-Ghost is willing to accept of you; he is continually striveing with you and urgeing you every sermon and opportunity to accept of Christ for your prophet preist and king. [7]

4. The saints and angels are willing to accept of you; for there is joy in heaven at y^e conversion of a sinner, Indeed there are none but Devils and mer-men y^t are like y^m y^t mourn at y^e conversion & salvation of a sinner.

5. Consider y^t A religious life is truely pleasant, both in itself and in its end: it is y^e most pleasant life in y^e world; this is as true as y^e word of God which is truth itself; for it says y^t her ways are wayes of pleasantness and all her paths are peace: Let yⁿ nothing disswade you from being religious.

6. Remember there is grace enough in y^e Lord Jesus Christ to carry you thrô all y^e hindrances difficultys & temptations you may meet with in your way.

7. Remember y^t God has visibly owned you in his covenant by your baptisme; thô y^t will not save you, but if you are not carefull to perform what your parents promised for you; y^e sum of which is y^t [8] you love & fear God & serve him by a leading a life truely religious when you come to years of discretion; I say if you do not thus live but dye in your [sins]; your being baptized will add to your account at y^e great day and will also add to your torments in hell for ever: and this advice which I have given you will rise up as a witness against you in y^t day; & will condemn you: but if on y^e contrary you do observe to love & fear & serve God, by praying to live, by reading his word by keeping holy his sabbaths, by honouring your parents, by performing all y^t you know to be your duty, and by avoiding all y^t you know to be displeasing to God & contrary to his commands: If you lead a holy blameless conversation, you shall not only be enabled by y^e spirit of God to serve him & honour him here; but you shall lead lives truely pleasant, and shall at last be brought to live with God forever in another world. [9]

Apr. 4, 1696.

The cheif end of man, or y^t which man ought cheifly to aim at or desire to seek and endeavour to obtain, is y^e Glory of God and y^e enjoyment of him forever, And to this end we should refer & direct all our actions, and y^e whole course of our lives:

Now this is done in y^e performance of y^e dutys of a mans General calling; such as praying reading y^e scriptures honouring our parents keeping strictly y^e Sabbath and in a continual watch over our thoughts words & actions; or else God is glorifyed by our performing y^e dutys of our particular callings; as at present it is my calling to teach & yours to learn; but yet we must not think y^t there is or can be any additional Glory given to God; but only y^e actual manifestations of his Glory.

Now in all we should be carefull that we never do any thing from which we desire Gods absence; for God takes notice of all things, and all things are perfectly known to him. And if we are thus carefull to glorify God here, we shall enjoy his special protection and love & favour in this world, and shall be admitted to his Glorious presence in heaven and shall fully and immoderately enjoy him forever. [10]

And indeed it is well worth our while to give all diligence to do this; for God is y^e cheif good & y^e enjoyment of him is only capable of satisfying our immortal souls; and God in his word hath directed us how we may come to y^e enjoyment of himself; and therefore we should be much in reading y^e scripture, for y^ere is no other way given under heaven whereby we may be saved but by y^e Lord Jesus Christ; and he is revealed to us only in y^e scriptures. And in y^e scriptures we have made known unto us what we are to beleive concerning God and our duty to him: and also our duty towards men; And our duty towards our own souls.

Concerning God we are to beleive y^t he is a spirit who is infinite in all perfections, and so is not to be comprehended by us: He is one God in three persons who knows all things perfectly of himself from all eternity: & of him and all things [11] He did by his power create all things out of nothing, and all things were at first very good, and he created man and endowed him with power & facultys to obey his commands; but withall man was mutable (for immutability is proper only to God) and God haveing thus made man after his own Image he then entred into a covenant with him y^t if he would obey his commands, he should obtain life for himself, & for his posterity, and if our first parents had stood, we had been happy forever; but they horribly rebelled against God by their eating y^e forbidden fruit, and therefore according to Gods covenant they did expose themselves and their posterity after y^m (of which posterity we are) to Gods eternal wrath forever.

And its very just & right that if Adam had stood we should have stood and been happy; so he falling y^t we should fall in & with him: for y^e covenant was made with him not only for himself alone, but also for all his posterity; and so we being of his seed did fall in & with him [12] and are thereby exposed to all miserys; we are also altogether sinfull, and have (ever since Adams fall) natures in us prone to all y^t is evil, & y^t are averse to that which is good; & we are naturally heirs to Gods eternal wrath and exposed to all y^e miserys imaginable; this is our wretched condition that we are in by nature w^ch is y^e dreadfull consequent of sin.

But God who knows all things from all eternity before time was, he in his infinite love wisedome & mercy did from everlasting elect some (thô but a few) to life eternal, and he did then enter into a covenant with his blessed son Jesus Christ who willingly engaged to do & to suffer what was to be done and suffered by fallen man who was then uncapable of helping himself out of that lost condition. [13]

This God did to magnify y^e riches of his grace in y^e contrivance & in y^e accomplishment of y^e Redemption of a certain number of fallen children of Adam, who were in Christ Jesus chosen from eternity.

For man althô he had sinned, and had deprived himself of y^e power of performing obedience acceptable to God; yet he stood indebted to God both to make him satisfaction for y^e injury done to his law; and also to yeild perfect obedience to it. neither of which was man capable of doing: so y^t it was infinite rich & free grace in God to find out any way whereby man might be restored, & it was infinite wisedome in that his own justice is also fully satisfyed. So y^t now notwithstanding all if we will but humble ourselves and repent & turn to Jesus Christ we may hope to obtain mercy through him to the Eternal salvation of our souls. [14]

Apr. 11. 1696.

God haveing from all eternity elected a certain number of fallen man to eternal life; and haveing entred into a covenant with his son Jesus Christ concerning their salvation; our blessed Lord Jesus Christ did undertake to redeem fallen man; and he it is y^t is y^e only redeemer of all them that are or ever shall be saved; and whoever trust to or rest on any thing else for salvation shall dye in y^eir sins and be lost forever.

Indeed y^e Incarnation of Christ, or his takeing to himself y^e nature of man & yet his continueing sinless, is a wonderfull mystery but yet so it was y^t he is y^e eternal son of God who was from all eternity blessed forever, took upon him our nature, he was born of y^e virgin mary, & took to himself a soul and body which is his humane nature; and he is at y^e same [15] Time God blessed forever.

The consideration of this is enough to astonish y^e rocks and stones & yet we y^e sinfull sons of Adam are careless and unconcerned about our great salvation.

The angells are astonished & stand and wonder at y^e infinite love wisdome and condescention of God y^e Father; and they are continually admireing y^e condescention & love of God y^e son, to poor sinfull rebellious man in dying for him.

And this great mystery of mans redemption will be matter of wonder to y^e holy angells and Glorifyed saints unto all eternity surely then we are worse than mad, if we are not very sollicitous about getting an interest in this great saviour.

He & he alone is able to save us both from y^e guilt & y^e dominion of sin, & to bestow upon us eternal salvation and to make us to be perfectly blessed in y^e enjoyment of himself to all eternity. [16]

In Christ Jesus there is grace enough to make us holy & there is mercy enough with God thrô him to forgive even so great sinners as we are.

Let us then all be perswaded to fly to him for mercy and grace.

For if we neglect to seek to him we may provoke him to give over calling of us and striveing with us by his spirit, which if he do we shall as surely go to hell as if were there already, but if [we] do go to him and confess our sins and begg of him to convince us of y^e evil of sin, & to convert us, he has promised y^t he will in no wise cast off any y^t come to him; and therefore he will accept of us, and will convert us, and make us more holy, and will make our peace with God for us, and will enable us to serve him while we live and when we dye we shall be received to serve him forever in his heavenly kingdom. [17]

April. 18. 1696.

I have heretofore laid down some motives before you to engage you to be religious now in your younger days: and I have endeavoured to instruct you in y^e principles of y^e Christian religion contained in the Chatechisme; as far as w^t offices does Jesus Christ execute &c and I intend to proceed; but because as I have before told you; y^t all lys in y^e practicing of what we know; therefore I shall lay down a few more motives & Dir[ections] to move you to do y^t which is wellpleasing to God. and yⁿ I shall (Deo volente) proceed &c.

1. Pray to God in secret; w^tever you do let not this be neglected. Remember your creatour in y^e days of your youth; pray to God that he would pardon your sins for his son Jesus Christ’s sake Pray to Jesus Christ to pardon you he is as able now as he was wⁿ on y^e earth: and pray y^t he would [18] save you from hell fire, and from eternal misery: I am sure there is none of you y^t is willing to have your portion with Devils and damned forever, o then be perswaded to pray in secret.

2. Read y^e scriptures; labour to take delight in reading y^e Gospell of Jesus Christ.

3. Keep holy y^e sabbath day do not speak your own words nor think your own thoughts on y^e sabbath, but spend y^e whole day in reading and praying and other holy dutys.

4. Give good attention to y^e word preached; not only to remember something to tell me; but remember something for your souls and for eternity; remember it is God y^t speaks to you by his servants.

5. Remember Death; think much of death; think how it will be on a death bed, whether then you will not wish y^t you had prayed & done y^t you know to be our duty. [19]

6. Think much of y^e day of judgement, when every secret thing shall be discovered before y^e whole world, all secret sins shall be discovered and shall be punished with eternal burnings; and then also all secret good dutys shall be discovered and shall be rewarded with life eternal.

7. Think of Eternity: y^e greatest thing y^t I would ask of you for all my pains, is, y^t every day you would think seriously of Eternity. Think of those y^t are in hell, y^t must abide under all y^e paine imaginable to eternity and those y^t are in heaven shall live in y^e greatest happyness with God forever.

O then be perswaded to be religious betimes: these are no trifling things, these are for eternity: think then every day when you rise, and say to yourselves, I may dy before night & yⁿ ask seriously, if it sh^d be so; where will my soul lodge thrô out eternal ages—[20] and say every night wⁿ you go to bed, If I should dy before morning where shall I live forever, should I go down to eternal misery w^re there is nothing but weeping and wailing & blaspheming Gods name forever, or should I go to heaven to live with and to love & serve unto all eternity.

Be awakened then to set about your duty, and secure your own souls by geting an Interest in Jesus Christ: and once more I charge you in y^e fear of God to think of these things seriously for know assuredly y^t God will call you to a strict account, not only for every sermon, but also for every such opportunity as this, and you be found despisers of Jesus Christ he will give y^t sentence [21] Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for y^e Devil and his angells: but if ye be found [among] y^ose y^t fear him & serve him he will at that day own you openly before y^e whole world, and will say to you: Come ye blessed of my father inherit a kingdome prepared for you, before y^e foundation of y^e world.

April. 25. 96: I was sick of y^e tooth ake.

May 2^d 1696.

I come now to shew you y^t Jesus Christ y^e only redeemer of Gods elect, did while on earth in his state of humiliation; and does also now in heaven perform y^e offices of a prophet of a preist & of a king in order to our conversion Justification sanctification and eternal glorification. [22]

As a prophet Christ reveals to us what God would have us beleive in order to our salvation. And it is Christ alone y^t teach us this y^e way to everlasting salvation; and this he does by sending his ministers, by his word and by his spirit; hereby, he effectually calls home all his elect, and builds them unto salvation; As a preist Christ continually appears in y^e presence of God and presents before him the infinite satisfaction of his perfect obedience in fulfilling y^e law and in dying for sinners and he continual plead y^t y^e benefits of his death may be applyed to beleivers; and indeed if it were not for this intercession of Jesus Christ y^e best performances of the best men would be rejected by God.

And as a king Jesus Christ rules in y^e hearts of his elect; his kingly power is exercised in their conversion, and in defending y^m from all thei[r] enemys and temptations y^t they meet with. [23] And althô there are very few y^t did beleive on Christ while he was on y^e earth, or do now beleive Christ to be such a prophet preist and king, as he is, (I mean so as to obey him) yet All y^e world shall know & be forced to own y^t he is God over all blessed forever, in y^t day wⁿ they shall call upon y^e rocks and unto y^e mountains to fall on y^m wⁿ Jesus Christ shall be revealed from heaven in flames of fire takeing vengeance on them y^t know not God and y^t obey not his Gospell. but of this day of Judgement I desire to discourse at large.

May. 9. 1696.

Among all y^e truths y^t are revealed in y^e scriptures, there is none y^t is more plainly & clearly asserted then this viz: y^t there will be a general day of Judgement There will certainly be a day when y^e lord Jesus Christ himself will appear with all his holy Angels in the clouds of heaven to judge y^e whole world, [24] And all y^e dead shall rise out of their graves and appear before him; and then before y^e whole world every one shall give an account for all things done here in y^e flesh, and Christ himself will give sentence to every one according to what they have done in this life. Indeed when Jesus Christ humbled himself in his first appearance he shewed his power in working miracles, and his knowledge in looking into mens hearts, and he shewed his great wisedome in his Doctrine & his holyness in his exact walk and perfect obedience, and he wonderfully shewed his goodness and mercy In all y^e infinite love and kindness he shewed to y^e children of men and in all that he did for y^m: these excellencys shined at [25] his first appearance, tho it was but darkly as being vailed; and indeed these are abundantly shineing in him now especially his goodness and mercy, for he stands now and entreats sinners to be reconciled to God by him, and he is really willing to save and accept of all y^t will forsake their sins and come to him for forgiveness and salvation.

But at his 2^d appearance, y^ere be no mercy to be obtained for them, who in this life have neglected to get an Interest in him He will then appear as a mercifull saviour to them y^t love him & fear him; but to them y^t do not keep all his commandments he will appear as an angry judge & his eyes will look as flames of fire, and then poor sinners will call to y^e rocks and to y^e mountains to fall on them & to hide y^m from y^e wrath of the lamb but all will be in vain. [26]

Indeed to set forth y^e power and Glory and splendour of Christ’s 2^d comeing is beyond y^e skill of men or angells; but yet we have something revealed to us in y^e scriptures! of y^e manner of it.

1. He shall [have] power in heaven and earth given to him, there will yⁿ be no hideing from him; all things will yⁿ obey him, y^e grave shall give up her dead, and he shall then have power over men and Devils, all good men y^t have served him faithfully he will receive to eternal Glory; But wicked men and Devils shall be bound in chains under darkness for ever, he will then send wicked men and angels into y^t lake of fire and brimstone, which shall burn throout eternal ages.

2. Christ Jesus will come in great Glory, he will then be cloathed with honour and Glory, and y^re shall be ten thousand times ten thousand holy angels waiting on him to do his will. [27]

Now y^e angels are some in heaven and some on earth ministring to Gods servants, but yⁿ they will be all gathered together into one innumerable company, there to attend on our blessed Lord Jesus.

Then y^e sun shall be darkened & y^e moon shall vanish, and y^e heaven and earth shall flee away before him, & his brightness shall exceed ye brightness of y^e sun moon and stars; and Christ shall come with a Glorious and dreadfull noise which will make wicked men and Devils to quake & tremble but it will make y^e hearts of good men to leap for Joy.

Then y^e heavens shall roar and there will be terrible thunderings and lightnings, & y^e earth shall be in flames of fire, and there shall be such a shout as shall awake y^e dead out of y^eir graves, And all men shall hear that voice, Arise Ye Dead & come to Judgement, & then y^e whole world shall ring & tremble, but especially wicked men and despisers of Christ shall tremble surely this will startle all such and fill y^m w^th amazement. [28]

2. the End of Christ’s comeing. & y^t will be to judge y^e whole world then he will raise y^e dead out of y^eir graves & y^e sea shall give up her dead, and y^e saints shall find their own bodys and he will cause those y^t are in hell to come out, and they shall all be joined soul and body & so be prepared for y^e last judgement.

Then all nations shall be gathered together, and there will be an innumerable number of saints but 1000 times as many wicked. the righteous shall stand at Christ’s right hand, and y^e wicked at his left hand, there will yⁿ be no mistake; those y^t are God’s children & servants shall every one be secured forever. and then all nations being there gathered together and y^e righteous being filled with unspeakable joy and y^e wicked with irrepressible horrour greif and amazement; then y^e books shall be opened, [29] and y^e Judgement shall be set, Then it shall be openly de[c]lared what every ones name was and in what age & place they lived, and especially all mens actions shall openly be declared to y^e whole world. It will then be told what their carriage was to God and towards one another, It will yⁿ be known who prayed in secret and read y^e Scriptures & who were obedient to y^eir parents, and who were diligent to perform what they found to doe. It will yⁿ be known who loved to pray & read & keep holy the sabbath day, and who made conscience to keep a strict watch over their thoughts words & actions, &c.

And then all the sinfull actions of men will be made known, It will then be said such an one did never pray, or if he did it was but seldom and he did not take delight in praying and in reading y^e scriptures, but it was a burden to them; such were disobedient to parents, and such played on the sabbath day. [30] And It shall be said such a one did not give serious attention to y^e word preached, or were careless in family prayer, or in publick worship.

And then it will be known to y^e world who were dishonest intemperate unclean; then all secret sins will be manifested, for Gods eyes are as a flame of fire and he perfectly sees all y^e secret abominations which are unknown to men.

And these things will not only be declared by God himself, but then conscience shall be as a thousand witnesses, and althô men forget many sins which now they commit yet at that day they shall all be remembred, & then a good conscience will be worth ten thousand worlds: For then wicked men shall be judged by the law and shall be con[31]-demned bec: they did not perform perfect obedience to the law neither did they fly to Christ for salvation; but then y^e righteous shall be accepted thrô the intercession of Jesus Christ and shall be judged by the Gospell, and Christ Jesus who will then be Judge will acquit them before the whole world and then none shall be able to object any thing against them.

O then be perswaded before it be too late, even now while y^e day of grace lasts to set about it with all Diligence and get your sins pardoned, and while Christ Jesus himself is intreating you to come to God by him. I say now give all diligence to get an Interest in him and in his righteousness and then it shall go well with you in y^t day and forever. [32]

May 16. 1696.

I desire now to proceed in discourseing more particularly of y^e Judgement of y^e righteous and of y^e wicked, y^t so you may be awakened to improve all the advantages you are entrusted withall to get into Christ Jesus and not be found among Devils and damned spirits at y^e left hand of Christ at that day; but at his right hand with holy saints and angels.

The righteous shall be raised up in Glory; those that now are (perhaps) despised in y^e world and want many good thing as Lazarus did, shall then in a moment be raised out of their graves with inexpressible pleasure and yⁿ y^e holy angels shall meet them and bid them welcome and then saints shall meet one with another and shall every one know one another [33] And then they shall all be caught up to meet the Lord in y^e air, then all y^e disciples and servants of Christ which never saw him in y^e flesh shall meet him with inexpressible delight and rejoyceing. and he will rejoyce to see them and will place y^m at his right hand.

And Christ will take an account of y^m, althô I cannot say whether Christ will then mention the sins and infirmitys of his servants yet this I know y^t if he does it will only be as so many sins y^t are pardoned and so it will tend to y^e exaltation of y^e Glory of Christ’s blood and to the rejoyceing of his redeemed. But doubtless he will take an account of their graces and vertues, and how they have improved all y^e endowments and talents & opportunitys that he has priviledged them withall he will then take an account what they have done for their fellow creatures [34] In order to their eternal salvation; and he will then take an account of all y^e Injurys and affronts y^t they have met with for his names sake, and all this shall be open before the whole world and every one shall see & hear it, and Christ Jesus himself will then proceed to Give sentence to them and they shall hear y^t blessed call, come ye blessed of my father inherit a kingdome prepared for you before the foundation of y^e world.

Thus I have told you in short how it will fare with the righteous at that day: and I hope y^t you will every one of you be of y^t number at y^t day and surely y^t thought of their blessedness is enough to stir you up to a care to secure to yourselves an interest in Christ which alone will make you blessed. [35]

For then all y^t are out of him, shall arise out of their graves and their miserable souls shall come out of hell and they shall be reunited, but o what an unhappy meeting will this be, o what sighs and groans and crys will then be uttered by poor miserable sinners at that their doleful meeting: o how will they be cast down to think y^t they are lost forever, and that they must lye in hell soul & body in extremity of pain unto all eternity; and then they shall meet with Devils, which will torment & spit their malice in their faces and will laugh them to scorn bec. they hearkened to them and suffered them to tempt them and lead them to eternal darkness, and then wicked men shall meet with one another, and shall look back upon their former sins with sorrow and shame but then it will be too-late. [36]

And they shall look forward, and shall see nothing but an angry God and an endless Eternity of misery & their company Devils and damnd spirits forever: and then the wicked y^t shall be alive at the second appearance of Christ shall see all this; and it will be a surprizal to them, for there shall not be more warning then now there is but y^e world will be careless and unconcerned about it; It may be I shal be teaching & you be learning.

And suppose y^t now you should hear terrible thunderings and see great lightnings and sh^d see heaven and earth in a flame, and sh^d hear y^e word, Come to Judgement would your heart leap with Joy within you [37] and could you with great comfort look back upon your past lives or could you claim an interest in Christ, or would y^r hearts sink within you for sorrow would you not then cry out for mercy and beg of Gods children to take you up with them; but alas then it will be too-late; now you are called to repent & beleive and love God and to make conscience of praying & keeping holy y^e sabbath day and to keep a strict watch over your thoughts words and actions; and to make it your business to be religious, and now Christ Jesus is abundantly willing to save you but then all crys and tears will be too-late if now we neglect to get an interest in him; then he will look with an angry countenance on them that have despised him, [38] and they shall be filled with confusion and shame and in the mean while they see the righteous on the right hand of Christ and then y^y will be past all hopes of obtaining one smile from Christ or one Jot of mercy unto eternity: but there poor sinners must stand trembling in expectation of their last Judgment: (the particular discription whereof I shall leave until next time) thus I have shewn you w^t a blessed estate y^e righteous will be in, and w^t a miserable condition the wicked will be in at that day; and we shall every one of us stand naked before Christ’s judgement seat, and y^erefore it highly concerns us to look to ourselves for unless we get out of our natural estate [39] and get an interest in Jesus Christ we shall be miserable forever. These are no trifling things, but they are of eternal concernment to every one of us, and if we y^t have y^e Gospell and y^e way to heaven made known to us should miscarry, it would have been better for us that we had never been born; o then think much of this day and live every moment as if it were to be y^e next and Do not allow yourselves in any sin, for all even the most secret sins shall be laid open before y^e whole world & y^e least sin deserves eternal wrath; and therefore break off all sin by a speedy & thorô repentance least God cut you of now in your younger days & never give you an opportunity to repent; or least God give over striveing with you and so you be found at y^e left hand of Christ at the Great day. [40]

May 23. 1696.

At y^e day of Judgement y^e wicked shall be judged by y^e Lord Jesus Christ who will appear in his Glory and power and he will perfectly know all things, and he who is holyness itself will be impartial and righteous and will strictly examine all y^e wicked and will be implacably set against them.

And then if any of you which have y^e way to heaven made known to you, be among the wicked your misery will be intollerable: for if so then Gods Goodness and mercy and patience will accuse you: and Gods ministers and your Godly freinds will accuse you and your own consciences will then fly in your faces, and tell you y^t you might have been saved and would not.

And then if you are found despisers of religion and are found to have lived and dyed in y^e neglect of secret prayer. [41] Then shall you hear y^e doleful and dreadfull sentence, depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for y^e Devil and his angells And when once this sentence is passed there will be no recalling of it forever; but away you shall go into everlasting burnings. And let me tell you that every one of us shall hear either y^t sentence come ye blessed &c or Go ye cursed &c and we shall live to Eternity either in heaven or in hell, and further remember y^t this short life is y^e only time y^t we have to prepare for a long Eternity And therefore it highly concerns us all to improve this time in serving God y^t so we may enjoy him forever; and therefore now be perswaded to repent of sin and Get an interest in Christ. Confess all y^r sins to God and forsake y^m and God will forgive you.

And remember y^t repentance is [42] absolutely necessary unto eternal salvation, and you may yet repent and return to God, but remember y^t is a fruit of God’s wonderfull patience y^t you are yet on this side hell: and let this quicken you to set about y^s work of saveing y^r souls to day while it is called to day. and to quicken you, consider That you must repent: for if you do not repent now while you are in y^e world, you will repent to all Eternity and your repentance yⁿ will be too-late If you repent now your sorrow will be mixed with some comfort and your repentings & mournings for sin will be well-pleasing to God.

And God will have mercy upon you and pardon you, and you shall escape everlasting punishment; and you shall also enjoy true comfort while in this world o yⁿ repent now, It is not too-soon for you while in your natural estate, every moment exposed to Eternal vengeance. [43] And remember y^t y^e time when your particular Judgement shall be is very nigh, you must all dy and after y^t come to Judgement.

And moreover consider y^t if now you defer to repent and to seek God, it is a wonder if ever you do repent. for let me tell you y^t you cannot repent when you will; you cannot repent when on a sick bed so easily as some Imagine; and the longer you defer your repentance y^e harder it will be to repent. will you then be perswaded to repent or will you go on in your sins and so go down into eternal misery? I hope you will now turn and live forever, and for your direction: Go to God by secret prayer and upon your knees do you confess all your sins with shame and sorrow; do not keep one sin but confess all, and be sure you resolve by the grace of Christ to forsake all sin; for you cannot think y^t God will accept of your confessions if they are not [44] with resolutions to forsake sin; you must not think to go to God and to Christ and say I have sinned I pray for pardon in Christ’s blood, and then I will go sin again, no, no God will have you to confess and forsake & then you shall have mercy If you do speedily break off from all sin with full purpose and endeavours never to sin more, and if you live in y^e constant practice of all y^e dutys y^t are required of you then you may go to God freely for an interest in Christ and for eternal salvation and he will accept of you and love you and save you from all misery both here and forever hereafter.

Thus I have done with the handling this subject of y^e day of judgement, and if I shall lay a few [45] Directions which if you observe you may by Gods grace appear at y^e right hand of Christ in y^e great day.

1. Dir: forsake all sin and fly unto God by Christ for salvation and Let it be your great care to be holy, keep a strict watch over yourselves and alwayes live as becomes the Gospell.

2. dir: Be much in secret meditation, go alone and remember y^t you have immortal souls and think much of Death and Eternity. think of Judgment and of y^e damned in hell and remember y^t you are by nature heirs to y^e portion of Devils and damned spirits, and consider with yourselves y^t you may yet get an Interest in Christ and so secure your souls.

3. Give serious attention to the word preached: and let this consideration quicken you to y^t viz: y^t you must give an account for every sermon you hear. [46]

4. Be much in reading y^e bible and good books.

5. Be much in earnest secret prayer be constant in y^e practice of this duty, beg of God to pardon your sins and to change your natures and to guide you to eternal salvation. and

6. forsake all known sins presently, do not live one hour longer in any one sin: and

7. avoid all occasions of sin. shun bad company; which is sometimes y^e mine of many a soul: and

8. Do not allow yourselves in Idleness, this is a thing y^t Exposes you all manner of temptations; you should never let y^e Devil find you Idle; but be diligent, in what ever you find to do. I do not mean y^t you should never recreate yourselves but only I would have [47] you to improve your recreation to quicken you to your duty.

9. Be religious presently, do not put of your repentance ’til to morrow; but to day while y^e day of grace lasts give all diligence to secure your souls; for you know not but you may be in hell before to morrow if you defer your repentance:

10: and Lastly: Resolve never to sin any more; do not allow yourselves in any known sin but resolve to persevere in religious courses; and if you do give over all sin and do in good Earnest set about religion, then y^e ways of Godlyness will be pleasant unto [you] and y^e longer you walk in them y^e more Easy they will be to you. Thus I have laid down y^ese directions before you, and if not withstanding any of you shall dare to live in any sin and in y^e neglect of any duty [48] and shall live and dye in sin; then these words which I have spoken shall rise up in judgment against [you] and y^t which I have desired for your good shall be a witness against you and prove to your destruction and Eternal damnation. But I hope y^t you will none of you be so foolish as yet to go on in sin; if you are then will be more tolerable for sodom and Gomorrha in y^t day then for you; but if now you are so wise as to forsake all sin and to give up your souls to Christ and to accept of him for to rule in your souls, and if you are resolved to love and serve him; then your work is done, and your souls shall be saved; then God and Christ are yours; and if you now chuse Christ [49] then heaven and happyness are yours and you shall be blessed throughout y^e days of Eternity.

May 30. 96.

I have heretofore showed you how y^t all men by nature are heirs to eternal damnation: but because it is not in my power to convince you of it althô it is truth it self. Therefore I exhort you to fly to God and humbly and earnestly ask of him his spirit to shew you y^e evil of sin, and to Convince you y^t you are by reason of sin exposed to Gods Eternal wrath; and also I do advise you to pray to God y^t he would shew y^e excellency of Jesus Christ and y^e beauty of holyness. And entreat him to convert & turn you, and to make you holy. for let me tell you that if God y^e holy Ghost does not undertake to convert you, and to guide you to eternal Glory you will certainly miscarry: therefore it concerns us to be very carefull least [50] we should provoke Gods spirit to depart from us: And the way to have him abide w^th us is to entertain its notions and to be religious to day while y^e offers of salvation are made known unto us; and Let me once more entreat you to look about you and to prepare for eternity; and least you should be discouraged from being religious now while you are young: I shall shew you y^e pleasantness of being religious, and also y^e benefits which converted sinners are made partakers of while in this world and also in eternal Glory.

There are many y^ngs w^ch make a religious life pleasant: as

1. The pardon of all sin; for althô a mans being religious cannot merit y^e pardon of sin, yet when a man is throughly religious; when he respects all Gods commands; then he has a good evidence of his pardoned estate. [51]

For as a man y^t allows himself in any known sin, has no true evidence for heaven; so a man y^t hates all sin and loves all Gods commands, has good evidences for his pardon and salvation; and this cannot but yeild unspeakable joy and comfort to him, and make a religious life y^e most pleasant life in y^e world.

Think of this and consider and ask yourselves whether your lives would not be more pleasant if you were perswaded y^t your sins were pardoned; and I am perswaded and know y^t your consciences will say that they would: and therefore let this move you to be religious bec: then God will pardon your sins thô not for being religious; yet for his own names sake & for his promise sake.

2. A religious life is y^e most pleasant life bec: such as are religious are y^e sons of God, and this makes obedience to Gods commands pleasant bec: [52] those y^t obey are his own sons by Jesus Christ.

It may be you are apt to think y^t if you were sons to some king or great man y^t then you should live pleasantly: but let me tell you y^t there [is] a possibility of becoming y^e sons of the King of Glory; and will not this yeild inexpressible pleasure to you to have God y^e Creatour of all things to be your father and to smile upon you; and will not this be a comfort & make your life pleasant to you to think and say to y^rselves y^t in a little while I shall have my soull carryed to eternal Glory; to think y^t God and heaven & Christ are mine and I am heir to a kingdome which shall last to eternity this surely will perswade you all to choose to be religious, and to love God and Christ and to live in y^e performance of all dutys. [53]

3. A holy life is y^e most pleasant life bec: It is an honourable life. The Lord Jesus Christ himself who was the king of Glory, condescended to live an holy life to set us an example.

4. Those y^t are holy lead y^e most pleasant life bec: they enjoy peace of conscience; their consciences do not condemn them as wicked mens consciences do.

5. Those y^t are religious lead y^e most pleasant life bec: they are alwayes ready for death: this make a mans life comfortable: A good man is commonly so prepared for death y^t he desires to dy; for when a good man dyes as soon as ever his soul is seperated from his body he is by the holy angels conveyed into eternal Glory and shall spend an eternity in singing praises to God: but now a wicked man has no comfort of his life, bec: he is alwayes afraid of death. [54] a wicked man never thinks of death but it affrights him bec: he knows y^t when he dyes; y^e devils will carry him down to hell and there he must abide under Gods wrath unto all Eternity: and the forethoughts of this makes his life miserable & uncomfortable, & hence it is y^t men run into company into y^e world or to drinking or playing or any thing in y^e world to divert the thoughts of death: y^y cannot endure to think on death and Eternity. but now a good man takes delight in thinking on death for then he knows he shall be perfectly freed from sin and from sorrow, and shall be possessed of eternal blessedness.

6. Another thing which makes religious lives pleasant is the thoughts of y^e resurrection and of the day of Judgment. [55]

A good man knows y^t at y^e resurrection he shall be acknowledged by God before y^e whole world; and shall be made perfectly blessed forever; and this makes his life pleasant; but a wicked man wⁿ he thinks of this he trembles & knows y^t when he dyes he goes to hell and at y^e resurrection he shall be condemned to eternal vengeance; and this makes his life unpleasant & uncomfortable. All y^t a wicked man does is sin; But a righteous man endeavours to serve & please God; and there is not one duty in all y^e Christian religion, but the performance of it yeilds true pleasure and comfort to y^e sincere Christian that performs it.

There might be multitudes of reasons given for y^e pleasantness of a truely holy life, but this may serve to convince us of it if we will remove prejudice and Let me add one reason more to convince us. & y^t is

7. None ever repented them of their being truely religious. [56] There never was any one man y^t was truely & throughly religious, y^t ever repented him; and this argues y^t religion is pleasant.

And if all this will not convince you, then look into y^r bibles and you shall find Jesus Christ himself saying y^t his yoke is easy; and wisedome says y^t her ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peace, and by wisedome there is meant Christ, (as I think)

1. hence see y^e folly of all those y^t lived an irreligious life: y^t neglect to pray in secret & to read y^e scriptures and y^t allow y^mselves in any known sin whatsoever: they deprive themselves of y^e comfort of their lives and make their lives unpleasant.

2. hence see the true wisedome of those y^t are religious: especially in their younger days. [57] They are truely wise; and I hope there are some among [you] y^t do make it your business to be religious; and those of you y^t do I do assuredly tell you y^t you are truely & certainly wise; and whatever y^e world may call you; yet you will be found to be wise when Christ shall come to judge the world: therefore be perswaded to go on for these 2 reasons.

1. The longer you continue under Christ’s yoke y^e easier it will be.

2. If you do not persevere unto y^e end you will loose y^r own souls: y^erefore be not discouraged. 2. Ezk: Be all perswaded to make it your business to be religious a religious life is y^e most pleasant life: and y^e sooner you get into a course of serving God y^e better it will be; and you are not too-young and y^erefore do not delay [58] for consider seriously y^s one thing: and y^t is

Consider: you must be converted or damned: go alone and think seriously and say to yourselvs y^t I must either turn from all sin, and give myself up to Christ or else I must be damned: and Let not y^e Devil perswade you to tarry any longer. be not put of ’til to-morrow for you are not sure of to-morrow:

Therefore be perswaded to work while y^e day lasts: and do not make any objections against taking up Christ’s yoke: for if you do you will endanger your own souls: and what is a man profited if he gain y^e whole world and loose his own soul, truly he would be found an infinite looser y^t sh^d gain 10000 worlds & loose his own soul. [59]

June 6. 1696.

Before I proceed to answer any objections against being religious, I shall labour to convince you all y^t you are while out of Christ under y^e condemning power of y^e law and so under sentence to eternal misery.

All men are under y^e law until they do come under y^e second covenant y^e covenant of grace, & willingly give up y^mselves to Christ.

And those y^t are under the law are obliged to keep y^e whole law strictly: for cursed is every one y^t continueth not in all things y^t are written in y^e book of y^e law to do them: and all men by nature are under this law and so under the curse, for they have broken y^e law in adam, and they are thereby exposed to eternal vengeance; and they are by no means capable giveing [60] God satisfaction unless by Christ. and therefore it highly concerns us all to get into Christ if it were only to satisfy God for y^t first offense of Adam which if it ly upon us will sink us into hell forever.

But this is not that which I aim at: for their are two other things of y^e like nature which lay us under an absolute necessity of geting into Christ.

1. We have already broken the whole law (2: we are of ourselves unable to keep it for the future).

We have broken y^e whole law already; The sum of y^e law is y^t we love y^e Lord our God with all our heart with all our soul and strength and mind and our neighbours as ourselves.

And now if we ask ourselves whether we have done this and do it stil: surely our own hearts will condemn us and God is greater yⁿ our consciences and knoweth all things. [61]

Man by his fall has not only broken Gods law, but has also deprived himself of all power to keep Gods law; of ourselves we have no power to perform any one duty acceptable to God and hence it is y^t we are guilty of breaking the whole law of God: and I shall shew this unto [you], by asking whether you have kept every command in particular and I shall leave it with y^r own consciences to judge whether you are guilty or not.

1. have you kept y^e first com^dt This requires us to know God and to worship and glorify him; and now let me ask you, do you know God as you ought have you acquaintance with him so as to go boldly and humbly to him for pardon and for mercy: and have you glorifyed him as you ought to have done; have you been carefull to please God, and have you been carefull to abstain from sin, or is it not quite contrary. [62]

2. have you kept y^e second commandment? This requires us to receive and observe all such ordinances as God hath appointed: now let me ask you have you alwayes been conscientious to pray to God, & have you been carefull to read y^e scriptures as you ought have you kept your baptismal engagement to God: have you been carefull to meditate on y^e word read and preached, and have you been carefull to abstain from all sinfull words. These are ordinances which y^e Eternal God of heaven commands us in this command, & therefore if we are guilty of y^e breaking of this command and are stil out of Christ and are every moment exposed to eternal misery.

3. have you kept y^e 3^d command. This requires us to make use of Gods name ordinances word and providences with all reverence; now let me ask every one of you, have [63] you always spoken reverently of Gods name ordinances word &c did you never take Gods name in vain; did you never speak or think slightly of Gods word, did you alwayes esteem Gods words so as to practice what was commanded in it: did you never despise your fellow creatures w^ch are y^e work of Gods hands: surely your consciences condemn you; and I am sure y^t if they do not yet God does and will so long as you are out of Christ.

4. have you kept y^e 4^th command have you alwayes made conscience to keep holy y^e sabbath day; were you alwayes carefull to abstain from speaking your own words & thinking y^r own thoughts; were you alwayes carefull to spend y^e whole sabbath in reading and praying? or else did you never pray in y^r lives? I hope none of you are so desperately wicked as to live wholly prayerless; if you [64] are, I am sure you are every moment in danger of hell fire; there is nothing between you and hell but Gods wonderfull patience: by this you may certainly know y^t you are in your natural estate: if you content yourselves to live prayerless, I am sure you are out of Christ: are you thus diligent to keep strictly all days of fasting and thanksgiveing I beleive your consciences will condemn you; and truly if they do not, it is because they are corrupted and misled by satan.

5. are you carefull to give that honour to your parents which you should? I wish truly that some of you do not allow yourselves in disobedience to your parents, and I take this opportunity to charge you every one in y^e fear of God, that you be obedient to your parents. [65]

If your father or mother bid you do any thing, I charge you to do it if you can without sin; and if they bid you to abstain from any thing y^t is evil, be sure you obey y^m O, have a care of telling your fathers or mothers y^t you wont least God strike you dead in the place: truly if you tell your mothers you will not; or if you do not what they bid you; you do provoke God wonderfully, and you have reason to fear that God will strike you dead in y^e place: If your parents bid you do any thing that is lawfull you should go and do it; but if they pray you to do it (as some do) then you should run:—have you not heretofore neglected to obey your parents; if so then you are under the condemning power of the law while out of Christ. [66]

6. have you kept the 6^th command: this forbids all anger without cause: let me then ask you, were you never angry with one another when you should not have been, did you never promise y^rselves to be revenged of any when they have done you wrong. truly if you have this an high degree of murder; and were you never guilty of intemperance; if you have then you have broken this command; bec: thereby your own health is impared.

7. have you kept the 7^th commandment; have you done what in you lay to preserve your own and your neighbours chastity in heart speech and behaviour, did you never willingly entertain unclean thoughts of sinfull objects: if so, remember y^t every sinfull thought shall [67] be brought into judgment: & truly I wish some of you do not allow yourselves in unclean and unseemly discourse, & unclean actions, which if they should be told before the whole world would make you blush: y^erefore have a care of all unchast thoughts words & actions: and be sure you never do any y^ng which you are ashamed sh^d be known to y^e world.

8. Did you never break the 8^th comm^t: this requires justice to our neighbours & toward ourselves; now did you never steal any thing from your neighbour, and did you never wrong yourselves: this command requires diligence, and those of you that can content y^rselves to live some hours in Idleness are guilty of breaking this command: I do not mean by Idleness lawfull recreation but loytering & lazyness. [68]

9. were you alwayes carefull to keep y^e 9^th command. did you never tell a ly, and did you never say any ill of your neighbour without a cause.

10. did you never covet any y^ng which you ought not: did you never wish for this or that pleasure or profit or honour to your neighbour’s damage? and were you always contented with your own condition & full of charity toward your neighbour.

I am perswaded that if you do seriously ask yourselves whether you have not broken these commands, your own consciences will condemn you: and if you are guilty of any the least of those sins, you are exposed to Gods eternal veangeance every moment y^t you are out of Christ, thus I have shewn you the necessity of your [69] geting an interest in Jesus Christ. & that for 2 reasons. 1. because y^e guilt of adams sin lys on you & there is a necessity of Gods justice being satisfyed; and of ourselves we are utterly unable to render any satisfaction to divine justice: 2: we are guilty of many actual transgressions which we have commited ourselves and therefore if we do not get into Christ we must suffer unto Eternity; because we can never satisfy God for y^t wrong which we have done to his majesty in breaking his just & good law: but of this hereafter.

June 13. 1696.

I come now to show a 3^d reason of y^e necessity of your geting an Interest in Jesus Christ: and y^t is bec: we cannot keep Gods law: We (in adam) were once capable of keeping Gods law perfectly. [70] When God created our first parents, he gave them an holy and just law: and he gave them also power and facultys to obey this law and so he might justly require obedience from them: and now man has sinned and broken Gods law, and exposed himself to divine vengeance and also deprived himself of power to keep this law; yet this does not at all excuse man from yeilding obedience to y^s law. For, it will not satisfy God, when he commands us to obey all his commands perfectly; for us to say we have no power, to do it, this is so far from excuseing our fault that it aggravates our crime and lays us under double guilt, for [he] may justly say to us that he gave us power, and if we have lost it, yet that will not satisfy his justice, but we must either obey, or if not suffer vengeance. [71]

June 13. 1696. conclusion.

Haveing shown how y^t God created man in an holy & upright estate & gave him power to keep his; but he being mutable did by y^e temptation of y^e Devil, break Gods holy law and did not only offend God by his commiting that one sin; but also deprived himself of y^t power to keep Gods law which at first God endowed him with; and so thereby laid himself and his posterity under an utter inability to keep Gods law; and hence we that are of Adams posterity are not only under the guilt of y^t first sin; which is enough to sink us into hell forever, but we haveing no power to keep Gods law, have and do necessarily brake it every day, & yet we are obliged to y^e great God our law-giver to make him satisfaction for y^e least offence, and of ourselves we can neither satisfy God for the offence done to him, [72] nor yet keep his law for y^e future; and hence we are every moment while in our natural estate exposed to the eternal wrath of God.

All this being plain, and no creature being able to help us; this makes way for y^e astonishing free & rich grace of God in Jesus Christ: and truly it [is] enough to fill y^e world with admiration, to think y^t y^e great God of heaven who needs nothing; should send his only well beloved son to live in y^e miserable world & to dy a cruel death y^t so a company of poor rebellious sinners might be restored into his favour, this is y^t which y^e angells in heaven wonder at. & it will be matter of wonderment to saints and angels unto all Eternity, and y^t which ever causes y^e wonderment of y^e invisible world is y^t [73] poor miserable sinners will not mind this grace of God so as to close with it: and not withstanding y^e terms are so easy, yet sinners will not comply with them: the terms on which God would have sinners may be comprized under these 3 heads:

1. God requires us to beleive on Jesus Christ & to rest on his merits & intercession for salvation: we must give up ourselves to Christ to be saved by him alone, we must reject sin satan & y^e world & cleave close to Jesus Christ if we would be saved.

2. In order unto salvation God requires of us true & unfeigned repentance: this is absolutely necessary to salvation: and there are two things commonly go before this turning from sin unto God in Christ by repentance. [74]

1. We must see our own misery & lost estate.

2. We must see & beleive that God thrô Christ is willing to receive us into his favour: and when once we come to see these 2 things, then there needs not many motives to perswade us to repentance: and it is impossible for us to see this unless y^e blessed spirit of God discover it unto us: for truly we cannot see our own misery when we will, for it is only y^e spirit of God enlightens our dark minds; & shews us the sinfullness of sin; & when God y^e spirit undertakes this work, then he also discovers y^e mercy of God in Christ, & so perswades the soul to fly to Christ Jesus for salvation.

When once y^e holy-Ghost begins to discover y^e sinner to himself then he abhors himself for his sins & is sorry & ashamed that he has dishonoured God: and then he willingly flys unto God upon any terms rather than he will continue [75] in his estate & so perish forever, then he thinks y^e terms of salvation easy & will readily resolve & endeavour to lead a life conformable to y^e Gospell of Jesus Christ.

3. The 3^d thing required in order to our eternal salvation is universal holyness: If we will be saved, we must beleive in Christ & repent of & forsake all sin, & also labour to be conformed to y^e image of Jesus Christ: now this desire of & endeavour after sanctification, shews itself especially in y^e use of all these means whereby Christ is wont to sanctify his saints & servants. When once a sinner is convinced of his miserable condition, then he uses all endeavours whereby he may find Christ & his benefits: now these means which are ordinary, are 1. Gods word both written & preached When a sinner is awakened he will fly to Gods word & will be as constant as he can in reading y^e word of God: and will give all preparation to hear the word preached. [76] he fears least he has outstood his time, and he gives all diligence to hear, he will not miss one sentence, least God never speak to him more: and if y^e minister deliver any thing y^t may serve to quicken to awaken to encourage direct or comfort him, then he receives it gladly and presently resolves to practice it. & accordingly he zealously practices what he knows to be his duty notwithstanding the discouragements he meets with from y^e Devil & y^e scoffs he may meet with from y^e world, thus whe[n] y^e spirit of God has enlightened a sinner He makes y^e word profitable for his furtherance in order to his sanctification.

2. The sacraments are means by which God uses to convey blesing to repenting sinners; The Eternal King of heaven is pleased to confirm his covenant with an oath & to set to his seal [77] y^t he is willing to save sinners, and he has appointed 2 seals to his covenant: baptisme & y^e Lords-supper, now one y^t is convinced of his lost condition, (if he be one y^t has been baptized) he looks back & reflects on his baptisme & remember[s] that he has been baptized into the name of father son & spirit and remembers y^t he or his parents for him then gave him up to God to be his & to serve him; & he also remembers y^t God did thereby promise to him all y^e blessings of the covenant of grace: & he then looks back & sees whether he has not broken covenant with God, and if he finds y^t he has then he comes humbly to God for pardon & entreats grace to keep covenant for y^e future and one that is truly enlightened endeavours to prepare himself for y^e Lords-supper, for he knows y^t he [who] would be saved must obey every one of Christ’s commands, & he knows y^t Christ has not only commanded this, but it is also of excellent use for to encrease grace in Christians. [78]

3. Prayer is a means whereby Christ communicates gracious blesings to returning sinners.

A sinner y^t is awakened out of natural security immediately betakes himself to prayer, & truly if men did but see their own misery & the danger they are in every moment while out of Christ, they would not dare to ly down or rise up without praying to God to keep them from sin & from hell fire which is the just reward of every sin unrepented of.

June.

I shall now speak more fully to this means whereby God conveys blessings on sinners, viz: prayer, and I shall consider it as haveing 3 parts.

1. confession, an awakened sinner flys to God and confesses all sins in particular & y^t with shame & sorrow & resolves never to sin more. [79]

2. he prays to God for mercy, he has nothing to trust unto but Gods free & infinite mercy by Christ: he confesses y^t he has forfeited all mercy & deserves to be cast into hell forever; but he crys out for pardon and for grace to live better for y^e time to come, he prays y^t he may not be sunk down into hell forever.

3. he blesses God; thanksgiving to God is his dayly practice: he blesses God y^t he is out of hell and he blesses God for Christ Jesus who is y^e only way to salvation, and he thanks him for all y^e mercy which he enjoys: wⁿ a sinner is once thorôly enlightened by y^e spirit of God then (& not before) he sees reason to admire Gods grace & mercy This is y^t which puts life into y^e praises y^t are in heaven, viz: when y^e saints look back & think how they were exposed to eternal vengeance; therefore be you now perswaded to look into your own souls & pray to God to discover to you your own misery, & then you will see abundant reason to bless God forever. [80]

Thus I have glanced over y^e whole Catechisme (thô confusedly); which is a thing not usual, yet It may prove beneficial to you if it be not your own fault; If it do prove any benefit to you then it will be a great rejoyceing to me; and as I have before told you, y^e result of all is to practice; therefore if you would get any real good by this, then zealously practice what you know live soberly & serve God constantly & give all diligence to work out your own salvation with fear & trembling; for if you do stil resolve to allow yourselves in any sin, yⁿ it will be a discouragement to me, and I shall loose my labour, and if what I have said to you have no impression upon any of you; then shall I have just cause to fear y^t God in his judgment has given [81] you up to sin & if so; then you may bid Christ & heaven & happyness farewell forever, & take y^e Devil for your companion to eternity & must ly down in everlasting burnings. O fear & tremble least you provoke God to withdraw his spirit from you; and now while you are alive and out of hell forsake all sin & live in y^e performance of all duty and upon Christ for salvation; and then you may upon good grounds conclude y^t God & Christ and eternal blessedness are yours and you may expect y^t God will acquit you from all guilt, and will sanctify you & give you grace to serve him; & will own you in y^e great day & will receive you into his favour & say to you before y^e whole world Come ye blessed of my fathers Inherit a kingdome prepared for you before ye foundation of the world: amen. [82]

June 13. 1696.

I proceed no longer in this course for many reasons: on many accounts.

Jos: Green. 1696 [83]

June 24. 96. I haveing lately written several letters; and kept no copys by me, and fearing least wⁿ I have been prescribing to others y^e way to salvation, sh^d myself be a cast-away; I shall endeavour to write y^e substance of wⁿ I have written to others; That so wⁿ I read it I may be quickened to live up fully to those rules which I have prescribed to others;

The begining of may. 96. I wrote to my brother Edward G.169 to y^s purpose.

Loveing Broth:

I have formerly given you an account of y^r business concerning y^e Estate of Uncle Fox but least my letters sh^d miscarry I will repeat again.

A little before y^e time was [84] expired, I went to brother Johnston170 for y^e Letter of Attorney (for he never minded it) and I carryed [it] to M^r Remington and he utterly refused to have any y^ng to do with it unless it were to give another Letter of Attorny under him; and there being none to take, & I being insufficient, y^e Estate is forfeited forever: We have an account of your couragious fight; and y^e whole county rings with your praise but I pray you not to be li[ft]ed up but grow humble and give all diligence to secure your own soul; for you must live to Eternity & if heaven and Eternity are not worth striveing for then I am sure nothing is;

Your freinds are all well; but my Father Chamny171 is dead and has left our mother very well and well-provided for; so y^t if you are sick I advise you to come home & my mother & mary are in a capacity to nurse you; [85] I write thus to you because I expect these lines will find you very sick; for truly If you doe come home in health I should look upon it as a wonder and as nothing but an answer of prayers which are laid up in heaven for you every day.

I pray you to take some care of Benjamin, for he is on board of y^e man of warr, y^e unity, therefore if he be alive I pray you to let your brotherly affection be manifested to him in seeking for his freedome.

I have sent to you a catalogue of some books which I pray you if you can to help me unto; bec: If you send them they will be a great advantage to me in many respects, (w^ch I named): I know not how you are circumstanced, but I would not trouble you too much, but if you &c. [86]

The Catalogue

D^r Saundersons Sermons
D^r Stillingsfleets	Sermons
	origines sacra
	Irenicum
D^r Tillotsons sermons
Turrettines Divinity
D^r Scots Christian Life. 3 vollumn
D^r Towerson upon y^e Chrisⁿ Catechisme
D^r Bates		Harmony of y^e Attr[ibutes]
		final happiness
		4 last things
Pools annotations: and a Bible

It may be you may be so circumstanced as to help me to these; but I fear y^t you are in a sick case, and therefore I pray y^t you would prepare for [87] Eternity: you know y^t you have an immortal soul; you know y^t you can be saved by none but Christ, you know y^t sanctification is necessary unto Eternal salvation; you know y^t Gods mercys are infinite. And I pray have a care least your knowledge add to your condemnation; I Intreat you as a loveing brother to give all diligence to make sure of heaven y^t so you may spend an everlasting Eternity in Glory which is y^e earnest prayer of y^r loveing Brother

Jos. GREEN

Roxbury: May, 96

Much more I wrote to him which now I forget. [88]

The begining of June. 96 I wrote to Broth: Z. H:172

L: Broth:

There being in me a sinfull bashfullness and backwardness to perform my duty; I am forced to communicate my mind to you in writeing; and my End in writeing to you is to perswade you to join to y^e Church at Cambridge. I pray you to make no objection, because I know G. will take none.

If you are not fit you ought to be fit; and if you are not fit to come to y^e Lordstable then you are not fit to dye & so not fit for Eternity and if you sh^d dy while you are reading this where would your soul lodge throughout eternal ages; I pray you to think of it & prepare for it speedily: and for your direction [89]

1. forsake all sin; in heart and life.

2. Live in y^e constant performance of every duty: pray constantly in secret, allow yourself a little time every day for secret meditation, think on death judgement & Eternity; keep strictly y^e sabbath &c.

3. after all Rest upon Jesus Christ alone for salvation; thus if you do you may come with a holy boldness to y^e Lords-table: and I Intreat you to give all diligence to make your calling & Election sure; and labour to be found among Christ’s sanctifyed ones at y^e great day; which y^t it may be so is y^e constant prayer of your Loveing brother.

Jos. Green

Roxb: J[une] 96

This is y^e sum of w^t I writ to him. [90]

The begining of June I wrote to my broth: Jos: H:173

Lov: Broth.

I being sensible y^t It is a great failing in Christians not to stir up their freinds to y^e dutys of Christianity & especially to y^t of comeing to y^e L: sup: I thought it my duty to tell you my mind plainly, and I pray you to join to y^e church at cambridge; and for mat: consider: y^t if you lived allowedly in y^e neglect of any duty your world was never right with God; and I pray you to make no objections for if heaven & Christ are not worth a striveing for nothing is: and Let me tell you nothing will excuse you in y^e great day, if you live in y^e neglect of y^t duty, and if you say you are not fit then let me tell you y^t you ought to be fit; [91] and so you live in a neglect; & if you are fit then you live in a neglect: therefore I pray you to live no longer without that ordinance and for your direction.

1. forsake all sin &c.

2. Live in y^e constant conscientious discharge of every duty: pray in secret constantly: keep strictly y^e sabbath: allow y^rself a little time every day for secret seriou[s] meditation, & think often of death judgement Eternity heaven & hell; and consider y^t you must live forever, & w^t is a man profited if he gain y^e whole world & lose his own soul: therefore close with Christ and save your soul & give all diligence to work out y^r own salvation with fear & trembling & labour to live so here as that you may live forever in Glory w^th [God] y^t it may be so is y^e earnest prayer of your Loving Broth:

Jos. GREEN

Roxb. J[une] 96 [92]

The begin: of June I wrote to my broth: Jonathan: to y^s pur[pose]

Lovei[ng] Brother

I have written to all my relations and haveing an opportunity I write to you; but I write very breifly to you bec: I have written very largely to my sisters; my desire in writeing to you is to thank you for all your kindness to me, & to begg an Interest in your prayers y^t I may live to serve God in my generation; and to intreat you to make religion your business; and for your direction let me propose a few things which I have found very beneficial.

1. If you can allow yourself a little time every day for secret, serious meditation; 4 things remember well death Judgement heaven & hell. [93]

2. Pray in secret constantly do not neglect y^t duty one day for a whole world.

3. Keep a strict watch over your thoughts words and actions.

4. Keep holy y^e sabbath day.

5. Joine to some church, y^e first opportunity.

6. Read y^e scriptures dayly; and y^y will afford to you both quickening & comfort &c.

7. Do nothing rashly, but do all things with advice and consideration.

8. Be not discouraged but hope in God; & consider you how many prayers in heaven.

Thus if you do I hope we shall live to see good days on earth or however enjoy eternal blessedness in Glory thrô Jesus Christ w^ch is y^e constant prayer of

your L: Broth:

Jos: Green

Roxb: June. 96 [94]

June. 96. I wrote to my mother to this purpose.

Honoured Mother.

According to your desire I have written to all my relations and have told y^m my mind plainly; and I pray you to deliver y^e letters unto y^m at some time when they are very serious: which I leave to your discretion & prudence:

I shall not need to write any thing to your self; but only I commend serious meditation to you as a thing of excellent advantage.

I pray you often to think of heaven & Eternal Glory & of y^e Excellencys of Jesus Christ. & I pray you to be often looking y^e Estate of y^r soul; we cannot too-often examine our-selves, for all y^t we have to do is to save our own souls. [95]

I shall not need to say any thing more but only, ask your forgiveness for all my former disobedience; and ask an interest in your prayers, y^t I may live to serve God in my generation for truly this is all y^t I desire to live for, and I find in me a cold dead heart to any y^ing y^t is good; and therefore I humbly ask your prayers y^t we may all meet in Glory which is y^e constant prayer of your dutifull son.

Jos: GREEN

Roxb: J[une] 96

This is some thô not all that I wrote: but the rest has slipt my memory: [96]

May: 29. I wrote to my sister, B: H:174 to y^s purp[ose].

L: Sis^r B:

My present thoughts concerning you are y^t you are under the striveings of Gods spirit: I beleive y^t you are under some outward afflictions and these have some influence upon your mind.

The Reasons of my writeing to you are, 3. 1. I do it as my duty, knowing y^t God will call me to an account for my relations next to myself & 2. I do it out of love to y^r immortal soul; and 3. because I cannot speak to you by reason of y^t sinfull bashfullness which is in my nature: these are the reasons cheifly; but there are many other things which move me to write unto you.

The End of my writeing to you is to perswade you to be riligious in good earnest, and to look about you for eternity; for is a man profited if he gain y^e whole world [97] and lose his own soul: verily you would be an infinite looser: if you sh^d gain ten thousand worlds and loose your own soul: therefore I pray you to give all diligence to make sure of Christ & so secure your own soul.

And Give me leave (after I have begged pardon in y^e blood of Christ) to lay down a few mottoes & directions.

1. mot: consi^r y^t you have an immortal soul which must live into Eternity, & therefore it concerns you to prepare for Eternity.

2. you are (as all men are) by nature an heir to Eternal misery, and if you dye in a state of nature you will be lost forever.

3. you have been baptized and God has visibly owned you; but if you do not live up to your baptismal engagem^nt then your baptism will rise up against you at y^e great day.

4. mercy is to be obtained by Christ, there is mercy enough in Christ for you, his mercy is infinite. [98] and let me tell you y^t God and christ and y^e holy saints and angells are more willing to receive you into their communion than you are to be received into it.

5. you have multitudes of holy prayers laid up in heaven for you Let those things awaken you to work out your own salvation with fear & trembling: & For Direct: 1. Think of Eternity think of heaven & hell; think w^t y^e damned in hell would give for y^e opportunitys which you now enjoy.

4 things remember well Death Judgment heaven & hell, allow yourself a little time every day for serious meditation; go alone think of your past mispent life, think of heaven of hell of y^e excellencys of Jesus Christ, and of y^e true & unspeakable happyness of y^e saints above. [99]

2. Live in y^e constant exercise of secret prayer; do not neglect it one day for a world; be not ashamed to let y^r husband or y^r family know y^t you make conscience of praying in secret dayly: but let your conversation be such as may win many to be Christians; & remember y^t if you are ashamed of Christ now, he will be ashamed of you at y^e great day; when he will appear in his Glory.

3. Read y^e scriptures every day; and give me leave to set down a few places of Scripture which I pray you to turn unto and read at your leasure. 34. Exod: 6. 7. 1 Chron. 28. 9. 1 Isai. 16. 17. 18. 55 Isai: 6. 7 18 Ezek: c: 36 Ezek: 25. 26. 27. 15 & 16 chapters of Luke. 1 John 1–9: many others [100] these are some y^t come to my mind, and I would have you look over y^m & think upon y^m and also read some part of y^e bible every day: and it will afford you many precious promises & quickenings & comforts.

4. Close with Christ in all his ordinances; be speedy in joining to y^e church; do not put it of until tomorrow; least God give over striveing with you; which if he sh^d do you would as surely go to hell as if you were y^ere already.

It may be [you] will object and say you are not fit. for answer.

1. Then you are not fit to dye, and if you sh^d dye today where will your soul lodge unto Eternal ages.

2: your unfitness does not at all excuse your neglect of y^t duty it is your duty to prepare spedily for y^t ordinance of y^e L. Supper.

3: Let me tell you for your comfort y^t never any was [101] so fit, as they would have been but [God] accepts of y^m y^t are humble & have mean thoughts of y^mselves & therefore be not discouraged; If your sins are many & great, God[s] mercy is infinite to returning repentant sinners, if your doubts & fears are many God has appointed this ordinance for y^e solution of your doubts and for y^e clearing up of his love & favour to your soul: and if you observe these directions you may come with an holy boldness to y^e L-table.

1. forsake all sin; both in heart & in life & strive to mortify your corruptions & begg of God to search you & to help you &c.

2. presently resolve to live in y^e performance of every duty.

3. after you have done all rest on Christ alone for righteousness and salvation; thus if you do you may come to Christ’s table and ought to come; therefore let no bashfullness hinder you least [he] be ashamed of you at y^e great day; and if y^e Devil brings any temptations: answer them with this, I am acting for Eternity. [102]

Thus I have given you my mind plainly; and will assure you y^t I do it not only in a religious frame; but upon serious consideration & after many prayers put up to God for [you]; and this may let you know y^t I am in good earnest: and now if after all y^t I have said you continue in sin & neglect and dye in your sins it will be more tolerable for sodome and Gomorrha in y^e day of judgment than for you, & this advice will rise up in judgment against you; but I hope you will now set about y^e great work & save your soul: I hope you will not delay (for delays are dangerous) but fly to Christ today while salvation is offered unto you y^t you may be safe for ever in Glory which is y^e hearty prayer of

your Lov: Broth:

Jos: Green [103]

At y^e same time I wrote to my sister mary to y^e like effect: and also to my sister Ruth: and also added y^t (if w^t I have said unto you have no influence upon you, then I shall greatly fear that God has judicially given you up to hardness and blindness & will never strive more with you; but God forbid &c:) with something more.

Now God grant it may not rise up in Judgment against me to condemn me.

July 10 1696 I wrote to my mother to y^s effect:

Honoured Mother

I am sorry y^t I have so sorrowfull a subject to write upon, but I pray you neither to despise y^e chastening of y^e Lord nor faint under y^r affliction & y^e reason of my writeing is to help you least you faint &c. [104]

As for y^e news it is certain &c. (in my pocket book page ult.) and now I pray remember that it is God y^e soveraign Lord of the whole world y^t sets & steers the course of providence & he has infinitely wise ends for all y^t is brought about; and we sh^d labour to God wherefore God smites us, & to be sensible of his hand upon us; but this is not y^t which I fear will prevail in you; but I fear y^t I shall despise Gods chastizements, and y^t you will faint under your afflictions: but for y^r comfort Consider y^e many instances in scripture, of Gods dear children who were under sore afflictions. I shall mention only two, 1. Job was as dear to God as y^e apple of his eye when he was bereaved of all his children & all y^t he had: 2. Lazarus on y^e dunghill was a dear child of God: [105] And there are many more instances which you are as able to turn unto as I: from which we may learn y^t God does not afflict willingly &c.

But more particularly concerning my br: Edwards death.

I know you are under fears and perplexitys concerning his soul and his eternal well-fare: and I hope y^e thoughts of it will make you plain w^th & more carefull to speak to y^e rest of y^r children: but for y^r comfort consider.

1. Gods mercy is infinite, and there is more satisfaction in y^e sacrifice of Jesus Christ than in y^e eternal damnation of y^e whole world; and it would be a sin in us to say y^t Ed. sins were too great for God to pardon; & yet keep his justice spotless, we do not know but God might chuse him for an object to magnify his mercy upon: & we know not how it was with him in his last sickness; God might at y^e very last give him a sense of his misery; & faith to close savingly with Christ. [106]

2. Another thing which may add some comfort to you is; y^t wⁿ he came to have the command of y^e ship he was carefull y^t y^e sabbath sh^d be kept holy; and he spent y^e time in reading y^e scriptures &c. and he was a just dealer, and wⁿ out of this country he was temperate.

3. he had multitudes of prayers laid up in heaven for him; and God always hears y^e prayers of his children, & I beleive my father has many a time prayed for him in particular &c. and althô prayers will not save a man yet we may hope y^t in answer to prayers God did give him true repentance & faith in Christ, so as to make sure of eternal Glory, amen.

These things considered there is some ground for comfort. [107] And now I pray be not discouraged under y^r afflictions and pray for me y^t I may not despise y^e chastening of y^e Lord: & I pray take all opportunitys to speak to y^r children y^t so we may all meet in Glory, which y^t it may be so is y^e prayer of

your dutifull son

Joseph Green

Roxb: July 10. 96

Loveing br: Benjamin.

I have formerly written to you wⁿ you were on board y^e Unity, & sent you mony but I fear y^t you neither received my L’s nor mony, and I haveing now an opportunity to write to you shall write my mind as plainly as in [sic] can in a few words. [108]

Cap^t Ems is come in on y^e 12 day of July, but as yet we have no account of my br. E estate but only y^e will and m^r Scinner is ingenuous but he is loath to tell all y^e business between capⁿ Ems & you: & if you know of a bail of goods of E: on board E[ms] I pray you to write me as large an account as you can of w^t Ed. had & of y^e difference between you & captⁿ Ems. & do not put it of least you sh^d not get well home.

In y^e next place I pray you & advise you to come home as soon as you can & y^t for 3 reasons, 1. Jonathan is about comeing [109] from y^e village & geting out of debt & he is very desirous to see you. 2. mother is very desirous y^t you would come home. 3. I beleive y^t if you come home you may come and board at roxb. with me & here is one y^t has cured several of their sore heads, & furthermore I will learn you the mariners art & you may go to sea again in some good imploy & I hope you will be better both in soul and body. I pray you to think seriously of these things & let nothing hinder you from comeing home for I think Jonⁿ is not like to live long &c: y^r freinds are all well & remember their love to you espec: mother & Mary who live mighty well together. [110] Thus I have written breifly & I pray you read it deliberately & if you cannot write to me largly I pray you to write to me shortly, & I hope I shall shortly see you & communicate my mind to you.

Before I conclude give me leave to lay down a few directions for y^r imitation:

1. pray in secret constat^ly.

2. shun uncleaness and swearing & intemperance.

3. read y^e bible & meditate on death judgment & eternity & give all diligence now y^t so you may dye in peace: 4. things remember well &c. [111]

4. shun all company unless it be sober & profitable, thus if you do I hope I shall see you in peace at y^e great day. no more at present but remain

your Lov: brother

Jos. GREEN

Roxb: July: 28. 96

Y^e Letter I sent, & God prospered it, so y^t he was thereby perswaded to come home out of a privateer.175

To M^r Benjamin Green on board the Redemption: in falmouth in Antego:176 M^r Grayer, commander: Q.D.C. [112]

To M^rs Barbary Weld in Salem

Loveing Cousin

When I call to mind that acquaintance which I once had with y^rself I cannot but think myself somewhat unhappy in y^t I am not only banished from your company but from so much as hearing of y^r Welfare.

But althô I am so far distant from you, yet I am not forgetfull of you, but am heartily desirous of your welfare both here & hereafter.

y^r freinds are all well &c. As for myself I am not so healthy as I used to be, but yet I hope to give you a visit about 2 months hence.

I pray remember my respects to my aunt & my love to y^e D^r & to all my freinds & to Cous^ns Kitchins: I am sorry for y^r loss [113] I might have written much larger concerning Eternity y^e happiness & misery of another world & of y^e way y^reunto but I did not know w^t entertainment it would have and so I forbear & intreat you to commit these and also all y^e other scrawls w^ch you have of mine unto y^e flames, and if you will so far condescend as to send me a few lines you will thereby very much oblige him who is a welwisher to your health & wealth both in body and soul.

Jos. GREEN

Roxb: Sept: 8. 96

Bethyah has a brave Girl born Aug: 28. 1696. [114]

Loveing Brother.177

I have formerly written to you &c: and I wrote a Letter dated Roxbury. July 28. 96. but least if you sh^d miss of these Letters I take all opportunitys to write unto you, and I pray you as soon as ever you receive y^s letter to write to me again concerning brother Ed^s things on board Capⁿ Ems and of y^e difference between Ems & you.

And I advise and perswade you to come home very speedily, for broth^r Jonathⁿ is not well & you may (I beleive) live at Roxb: with me and have y^r head cured & I will learn you y^e art and so you may go to sea again; & it is now very healthy here & sickly in y^e world. [115]

y^erefore I account it y^r great wisdom to come for y^ese & many other reasons. But above all labour to avoid sin. do not put off conversion, pray in secret read y^e scriptures, avoid uncleaness and drunkeness, & bad company labour to be a christian, think of Death judgment Eternity heaven hell; remem^r y^r baptism and y^e vows & promises which you have doubtless made unto God when you were sick and in distress and think of y^e many prayers y^t are in heaven laid up for you and be carefull y^t they do not rise up in judgment against you:

Mother & mary are well & live very well together, & remember y^eir love to you: I think fath: Chauncy dyed before you went: Z. &. Jos Hicks are well & B has a girl. y^r freinds are all well & long to see you well come home: which y^t you may do in [sic] y^e hearty prayer of y^r Loveing Brother

Joseph Green

Roxb: Sept: 4: 1696 [116]

To m^r Sam^ll Vassall178 in Jamaica

Honoured S^r

Wⁿ I consider y^e many kindnesses I have received from you, I cannot but condemn myself, for horrid ingratitude in y^t I never wrot above once unto you; and y^t is so long since y^t I have forgotten every word &c:

But wⁿ I call to mind y^r excelling wit, your comprehensive mind, y^r great Learning and Knowledge, your argumentative skill, y^r solid and discerning judgment, y^r affable pleasant and amiable conversation and other your incomparable endowments, then I account myself unhappy in y^t I cannot so much as receive one line from you concerning your welfare.

But althô heretofore I have been negligent in my duty to you, yet I considering your great ingenuity am notwithstanding encouraged to send my nonsensical [117] scrawls unto you, to render 10000^nd thanks unto you for all y^r kindness & to entreat you to write unto me by some convenient opportunity, & I shall thereby be y^e more engaged to do y^e like to y^rself: I would enlarge upon these things and also in giveing you an account of forreign accademical & personal news, but I want y^r quick & witty Invention, good judgment, and skill in writeing, and since you know I am destitute of these I hope you will excuse me; and furthermore I suppose m^r Noyes is no way want[in]g unto you concerning such things.

As for y^e things of another world (about which we ought to be mainly busied & concerned) you are better (it may be) instructed yⁿ I am; and so I shall say nothing concerning it, bee. I conclude you are so considerate as not to neglect communion with God by reading y^e scriptures by praying in secret &c.

And considering y^r prudence I write nothing concerning y^e place you live in, y^e company you converse with y^e temptations you meet with [118] in your particular calling or any other ways w^tsoever. Therefore I conclude intreating you to remember in y^r retired thoughts him who is

your obliged freind & servant

Joseph Green

Roxb: Sept: 7. 96

Your freinds and my relations are all well without any great alteration B: Hicks has a girl born aug: 28. 90. As for myself I keep sch: at Roxb:

I also put in this in a loose peice of paper:

Sept. 7. 96. News: no forreign news:

Accademical news call it.

The fellow			m^r Leveret representative for Cambridge
The fellow			m^r Br[attle] likely to be minis: y^ere179
M^r Wadsworth ordained to morrow at y^e old church at boston.
M^r Pemberton: Willi^ms Flint Hunting Baxters180 and y^e rest are all well &c.
o^r Class			s^r vassall Lawyer as I hear by your letter to s^r noyes:
			s^r price:181 Idem: i.e: y^e same man still. [119]
			s^r saltonstall sen^r Idem:182
			s^r Jun^r Idem, buder183
			s^r Hubbard sch: mast, at hadly184
			s^r W: simon185 Idem:
			s^r savage.186 Idem:
			s^r Noyes.187 grave &c:
			s^r Phyps.188 sch: mast: at perscataqua.
			s^r Lyndal:189 Phis chirur: merchan[t] very solid &c.
			s^r Law190
			s^r Lewis191 sch: mast: Long Island
			s^r Blow:192 sch: m: at Cambridge
			s^r Little sen^r.193 D^r or R^r
			s^r L. Jun:194 sch: m: at plimoth
			perkins:195—
			Andrews.196 Idem
			Robinson:197 sch: m: at dorchester
			mors.198 sch: m. at dedham:
			Webster199 I know not where:

In September 95. my brother Edw^d Green as he was sailing into plimouth in y^e ship Eagle w^th 18 guns & 14 men met with a french privateer with many guns & multitudes of men [120] but they fought until they lost all their riging: and afterward they fought 3 privateers together y^e least of which was of twice as much force as y^e Eagle but my brother althô he had been sick a long time200

Sept: 27. 96. Sacram: day. Roxb:

I am at present horribly burdened w^th y^e [ ]. In heart especially: I do therefore resolve thrô y^e grace of Jesus Christ strengthening me, to be more moderate in my [ ]; which I think I am intemperate in y^e use of.

O my soul give not way to sloth nor to Idleness.

And I resolve to be more [ ] my conversation; and to keep a more strict watch over my words & my thoughts &c. O Lord let me not return as y^e dog to his vomit &c. [121]

I wrote a letter to M^r Ezekiel Lewis, 18 December: and sent it & another inclosed in it which I wrote almost a year agoe: they were both pretty large, & I have forgotten a great part of y^m.

I wrote a Letter to brother Benjamin Green Dated Jan. I: 96/7: I can not now stay to write y^e contents of it.

Y^e substance of it was to urge him to pay his vows to God & to walk wholly with him; to give himself to God forever: and to labour to get his peace made with God; and y^e most of it was to encourage him against fears & doubts of Gods willingness to accept of him.

I pray God to let his spirit accompany my poor endeavours for the good of my relations, amen. [122]

December. 1696. I wrote a paper for Bethyah: and a book for br: Zachariah Hicks and November. 96. I wrote a paper for Mary Green, which should have been in this book; but I had not time to write y^m over again.

I have written several Letters which are not in y^s book: Mar. 4. 97/8. I wrote to M^r Walter and to my mother. [123]

Roxbury. Nov: 27. 1696

I have now lived in the world above one & twenty years and have done but very little tending to Gods Glory or y^e eternal welfare of my own soul.

But now I desire to return to God, as a poor prodigal; and to be humbled before God y^t I have so long served y^e Devil, and the lusts of my own heart.

And y^t I may be humbled for the sinfullness of my life, I shall endeavour to call to mind my former life with all y^e considerable passages of it; that so when I look over it I may have my heart filled with shame and sorrow, for y^e disorders of my mispent life.

And If I should dye before I have commited this book to the flames; I give leave to my nearest relation to look over it; but I give a strict charge to y^m not to expose it to y^e view of any; And it is my will y^t this book be viewed by none unless by one person which is nearest related unto me; and now I pray God to help me to write sincerely humbly, & without any ostentation. [124]

I was born in Cambridge upon the 24 day of November 1675. My father was John Green, who had to his father Percivall Green, who dyed (a good man) when my father was about 4 years old, and to his mother he had Elliner Green who was afterwards marryed to Thomas fox, and lived and dyed a singular Christian; My father was their only son (and he had an only sister who is now wife to John Hall of Medf[ord]) When my father was young he was put out an apprentice to a taylour; and my Grandmother Ellin: Green was continually instructing him and giveing him good counsell so y^t he sought God when he was young; & he once s^d y^t he made conscience of praying in secret alwayes after he was 8 years old: and he lived & dyed a man esteemed sincerely holy by all y^t knew him.

My mother was Ruth Mitchelson, who was y^e Eldest daughter of Edw^d and Ruth Mitchelson; who were both of y^m Eminent for holiness, and lived and dyed esteemed so by all y^t ever knew y^m. [125]

My father was admitted to full communion with y^e church at Cambridge wⁿ he was about 14 years of age (as I think) and my mother wⁿ about 15 or 16. My father and mother were marryed wⁿ my father was about 21 & my mother about 16. They had 10 sons & 4 daughters which were all alive at one time and went to meeting all together 2 sabbaths, which I can just remember.

My Eldest brother John Green was a sailor and was marryed in London and had one child and (I think) was killed in a fight with y^e turks. My 2^d brother Nathanael was a tailor who lived at home, & marryed; but about 4 years agone went to sea & has not been heard of.

My 3 brother Percivall was a scholar and dyed of a consumption some years after he took his 2^d degree.201 my Eldest sister Ruth (who was born next) is now liveing in Cambridge marryed to Z. Hicks.

My 4 br: Samuel was also a taylour he served his apprentiship with And. boordman he marryed in Cambridge to Eliz: Syll and had a son (Samuel) & daughter (Elizabeth) both now liveing [126] altho he dyed of a consumption about 4 or 5 years ago, and his wife a few months before him of a fever. My 2^d sister Elizabeth was marryed to thomas Johnston and had 7 children (all of which are dead save one) and dyed I think soon after my father.

My 5^th brother Edward was a taylour served his appren. with br: Sam^ll but went to sea about 19 or 20 years of age, and became commander of a brave ship y^e Eagle and in September 95 made a remarkable miraculous fight, going into England, and got in safe & dyed of a consumption in y^e downs on board Cap^t Emms his ship y^e 6 feb: 95/6.

My 6 br: Thomas was a blacksmith, and went to sea and being in Captⁿ Woodberry bound home was never heard of for 4 years & my 7 br: Jonathan is a carpent^r and joiner, who has met with bad success, but now lives pretty comfortably:

My 3^d sister bethyah is marryd to Jos: Hicks and has 2 children. [127] I am y^e 8^th son: & my next to me is Benjamin 9^th brother; who wrote to me from Antigua, 2 or 3 months since and I hope is well.

My 4^th sister Mary who now lives with my mother at Cambridge.

My 10^th brother was Mitchelson who dyed wⁿ about 6 months old.

Thus I have breifly noted down an account of our family least I sh^d forget: and now w^t reflection can I make but humbly bless God who has in his soveraign good pleasure suffered me to be born of those y^t are his covenant servants, so y^t If I look as far as I can, yet my predecessours have been those that have been the true fearer[s] of God and doubtless have laid up many prayer[s] in heaven for me in Jesus Christ, which I hope I am y^e better for thrô Christ above. And also I would bless God y^t our family (thô not great in y^e world) yet by his grace have been so far kept from being scandalous, as y^t y^e greatest sins we are guilty of, I hope may not (as to y^e world) hinder me from serveing God in my generation: I would also be carefull not to trust in y^e prayers or goodness of my predecessours but renounce all but Christ Jesus his righteous ways. [128] and since I have such great encouragement I would press forward after perfection; and seeing I have y^e counsells Examples & prayers of religious predecessours I would labour to be more humble holy heavenly fruitfull yⁿ they were, which I beg of God y^t I may be thrô Jesus Christ my redeemer.

Thus I have got down an account of my originall: but this is not my original for I am of y^e seed of Apostate Adam and brought into the world with me y^e guilt of that first sin whereby y^e blessed Image of God instamped on men was defiled and Lost; and for y^t guilt I justly deserve hell forever.

But further althô my parents were sanctifyed, yet I brought into y^e world with me a corrupt nature which is y^e fountain of all the wickedness y^t ever I was guilty of in my whole life, I was conceived in sin and brought forth in iniquity, and have to this day a fountain of all sin in my heart.

Insomuch y^t I know y^t notwithstanding I have been born & brought up under y^e covenant yet unless I am born again I can never see y^e Kingd. of God. [129] In my Infancy I can remember as soon as I came to use my reason y^e corruptions of my own heart began to break forth into sinfull transgressions and my Enmity to God did plainly discover itself:

In my Infancy (it may be wⁿ I was about 4 or 5 years old at most) my father used to tell me I must be a good boy and must serve God, and used to ask me whether I went alone and prayed to God to bless me & to pardon my sins and save my soul from hell; and I sadly remember how my corrupt heart used to hate such motions; I loathed to hear of such things; this is y^t which sh^d humble me before God.

My parents were very carefull to instruct me in the principles of religion when I was young, and althô I was a very untoward corrupt child, yet God bles^d me with a good memory, and so my parents were urged to make me a scholar &c. I remember my perverse frowardness when I was (I beleive) about 3 years old; I then had y^e small pox and I remember how to[u]chy & pevish I was &c: but God spared me and all y^e family y^t had it. [130]

When I came to be big enough to go to school I went to y^e Dames School, where I was bad enough, but I at length went to m^r Corlets202 sch[ool] and he gave my parents encouragement to make me a scholar, and they kept me to sch[ool]: but I was Idle and lazy, and my master was very aged and althô he was excellent at Instructing me, yet he had almost lost his spirit of government, or else I might have gone to y^e colledge some years before I did.

But after I had entred my gram^r and had begun to parse lat[in] my master dyed; and I think before that my br. percival dyed, and so it was concluded y^t I sh^d be a scholar; but the death of my mast.^r was a gr[eat] stop: but then I went to m^r Walter203 at colledge until mr. Hasting204 was setled a school master at camb[ridge], and yⁿ I went to School to him my freinds designeing to make me a scho^r but my father was low in y^e world & began to think y^t he sh^d not be able to make me a sch[olar] and yⁿ m^r John Leveret [131] told my father y^t he would give me my schooling &c which I think he did until I went to Colledge; but the march before I was admitted to Colledge my father dyed y^e 3^rd day, 1691: but I stil went to school, and was almost ready to enter the Colledge, althô I was not so fit as I should be; [for M^r Hastings was carefull to make me mind my book, but was no price in instructing;]205 and about half a year before I went to Colledge m^r Joⁿ Hancock206 taught me &c: so y^t I was admitted into Harvard Colledge in June 1691: and I began to recite to my Tutour Mr. Willi^m Brattle in July; but before I had recited many times, I think not above 3 or 4 I was taken very sick of a fever, and was senseless some days, and comeing to myself I promised God y^t If he would spare me I would live more seriously & circumspectly yⁿ ever before I had done; and God did spare me, and restored me to health and saved me from going down to y^e pit; althô I was very week all y^t summer, and had so lost y^e strength of my memory, and my understanding was so weakened and I had so often missed my recitations y^t it was greatly to my damage, and I never did recover y^t which I lost in y^e latine & greek tongues by that sickness. [132] But my Tutor when he perc^d it was very favourable to me and required of me to get but a little at y^e beg[inn]ing of the recitation &c.

But I soon forgot my promise of amending my life &c: and I lived in y^e neglect of known duty, and in the commission of known sin; I sought happyness in y^e enjoyment of y^e faiding vanitys & pleasures of this world: And as to my Colledge business I was as negligent as used to be: altho I made a shift to perform my Colledge task yet I studyed little else; but spent much of my time in fowling and in fishing: and in danceing & foolishness. I have forgotten many of y^e sins of my youth, so y^t I have reason to pray as 19 ps. y^t God would cleanse me from secret fau[lts] but I can call to mind enough to amaze me; and I have cause to call my sins to mind with greater sorrow than others, bec: I was not only priviledged with many instructions in my Infancy; but after my father had been dead about half a year; & I had been some months at Colledge, God did Remarkably preserve me from going from Colledge; for my freinds being not able to bring me up to learning: were about to take me away & to put me to something else: but God stirred up the heart of my Freinds to hinder it: [133] And especially my Honoured Tutor M^r William Brattle who drew up two papers to this effect; and He and my mother got y^e persons to sign y^m. Ita.

We whose names are underwritten do oblige ourselves by these Presents to pay annually for the term of 4 years next ensuing, begining July the first 1691 to Ruth Green of Camb. Widow y^e Respective sums annexed to our names in mony it being for her help & encouragem^t in keep[in]g her son Jos. at Colledge & giveing him academick learning. Dated in Cambr. Janu: 19. 1691. W^m Brattle 40 shil: Joⁿ Leveret 20 shil. James Oliver207 20. Henry Deering208 20 per an. Thomas Green209 20. Adam Winthrop210 10. Nehemiah Walter 30. shil per an. We whose Names are underwritten do oblige ourselves to pay to Ruth Green of Camb. Widow the sums annexed to our names in the month June 1691 it being for the defraying of charges which will arise by her son Joseph Green takeing his degree at Colledge; Dated in Camb. Jan 19. 91. W^m Brattle 30 shi. Joⁿ Leveret 20. James Oliver 20. Rich^d Whitingham211 20. Will. Payne212 20. Edw^d Brattle213 20. Benj. Lynde214 40. Joⁿ Richards 40. Thomas Brattle 12. Henry Newman215 12. Hannah Mitchel216 20. B. Wadswo[rth]217 5.

This was all paid & more too. [134]

This one would think should have engaged me [in] more than ordinary circumspection; but it did not. But God by his grace wonderfully preserved me from sin: If God had not restrained me, I sh^d have ran into all manner of sin; but God has pleased to keep me from all gross acts of uncleanness to this day; but [ ] to my own heart: The greatest sins y^t ever I was guilty of I shall not mention; althô I hope I shall never forget y^m while I live but remember [ ] shame me and to melt my heart with sorrow: In Gen^ll they are [ ] and [ ] and Intemperance and prophaneness & Sabbath breaking and disobedience to parents. And Generally: I once was a great player at Cards; but now I do by Gods Grace loathe y^e very thoughts of y^m, and recon my gaming to be of my great sins of youth: And my sin in y^t respect is y^e greater in y^t I [ ] Satan after solemn promises made to God & to my father & my Tutor and after [many] warnings and disswasions to y^e contrary. [135]

But why do I wonder at it seeing I was under y^e power of my natural corruptions: And In my natural estate I continued. I roistered[?] until I had my first degree; althô I cannot conclude when God began to work saveingly upon my heart: yet I can make some guesses about it, for I hope in his infinite mercy he hath begun a saveing work in my soul: Before I had my degree I was provided for as I mentioned before, and also I was helped to take my degree, but when y^e Commencement was past I began to be in some want and especially I wanted a setled imploy: And this put me upon some serious thought of my fitness to doe God service, and did somewhat restrain me & make me a little studious & diligent; and I think made me to live constantly in the practice of secret prayer: which I think I had done before for some months but had broken it of: but I think I did not do much unless it were to make some good resolutions in case of my settlement.

I being thus desirous of setling because of want, God provided for me to keep sch[ool] here at Roxbury: But before I came hither, I was very likely to have gone to England; Captⁿ Ems his chaplain; but my freinds could not advice me to it: and so I went not but came to Roxbury to keep school. [136]

Conversion. And when I came to keep school and to pray constantly to God every day, God soon discovered to me y^e formality and rottenness of my heart, so y^t I was not a little concerned about an Interest in Jesus Christ: and God helped me to live in the constant Exercise of secret prayer: and I haveing the faithfull and powerfull ministry of M^r Walter, and also seeing the faithfull & powerfull administration of the Lords-supper was yet under greater concern to secure an Interest in Jesus Christ, and to prepare for Eternity.

And I began to be much affected with Gods goodness to me; and to be somewhat sensible of my lost Estate by nature, and of my own unworthyness to receive so much of common mercys.

And y^t which especially melted my heart was this—wⁿ I came to Roxbury I found y^e school very much out of order [by reason of y^e sloathfullness & unfaithfulness of my predecessour]218 and y^e town were sensible of it as well as I insomuch y^t when I came they gave me a great character for a faithfull school-master: and [137] this affected my heart y^t God sh^d so smile upon me, and I was concerned to render praise to God; and was afraid of useing my self to a form of serveing God without y^e power of Religion in my soul. And as I was looking over some old books at my Land Lords, I found a paper entitl^d a preparation for y^e Lords table, which I took & read from which I had much encouragement; and I read m^r Doolittle &c.219 And as I was at m^rs Lambs I saw a book of M^r Cot: Mathers concerning y^e Lords supper220 which I borrowed, and read, and I think by Gods assistance it so moved me to come to y^e Lords table y^t I began to think of closeing wholly with Jesus Christ: one rule which he gave was y^t if a person could not conclude y^mselves to be unconverted they ought to approach it: and as a mark of sincerity, he gave y^t if we were willing to come to y^e light we had reason to think y^t we were upright. Now I know my life to have been spent in sin; yet I know also [138] that I had made resolutions to turn to God, and I know y^t it was my duty to partake in y^e L. supper and y^t my unfitness was my sin And I hope y^t I then experienced y^e saving motions of Gods spirit I think in a few weeks time my thoughts were sensibly changed about sin: my affections to it, and y^e first thing y^t gave me encouragement to hope y^t the grace of God was in my heart was y^t I loved Gods servants and I thought bec: of their holyness: be sure my affections were turned from my sinfull companions to y^e Children of God: And althô I had many sore temptations from y^e Devil & my own heart; yet God helped me to resolve to give myself to him, and if I perished to perish at his feet: And I now resolved to go to M^r W[alter] and enquire of him y^e way to Zion and desire him to try me; and I had much adoe to perswade myself to it, but God by his spirit did compel me to come into Jesus Christ I hope: [139]

In december 1695 I went to m^r W. in the Evening & as he was telling how the town were pleased with me and abundantly satisfyed in my faithfulness &c: I told him y^t I lived in y^e neglect of a known duty i.e. y^e L. supp. he made answer y^t he was glad to hear me concerned about it; but I told him I feared I was unfit; & so after some discourse, I told him I sh^d despair if it were not for Gods infinite mercy in Christ; and y^t I thought if I knew my own heart I desired a sincere conversion & valued it above y^e whole world: he yⁿ asked me why I desired it: I told him y^t I might lead an holy conversation & do service for God in my generation: and we had considerable other discourse which I now forget: when I came away he asked me whether he sh^d propound me y^e next sabbath; I told him I was almost afraid bec: it was so short a time sence I had allowed myself in sin especially gameing: he advised to read y^e 15 Luke of y^e returning prodigal; and advised me to observe y^e moveing of y^e waters and not to sit stil while y^e waters were troubled: and God helped me to encrease in my desires after y^e ordinance & preparations for it: [140] and y^e next Sabbath I was not propounded; but the next to it was sacrament: and y^e day before y^e sacram^t Deacon Williams221 came to see me with a designe to urge me to y^t duty: and I asked him whether m^r Walter propounded me to their communion and he answered no; for I did not certainly know but he would propound me.

He told me he would speak to him and a sabbath day after y^e sacr: at noon m^r Walter asked me and I desired it and he propounded me at night: and y^t day 14 after (as I take it) I was admitted to their communion: my Relation Deacon Williams read which was this, altho it was but mean compared with some sence, yet I hope it was every word in sincerity & humility: to y^s effect—

It haveing pleased y^e Infinitely mercifull God (notwithstanding all my former sinfulness and unfruitfulness under the many and Great advantages & priviledges y^t I have enjoyed) to continue me yet alive in his world, and under the Enjoyment of his word and ordinances faithfully dispensed; And he haveing (as I hope by the Influences of his blessed Spirit) given me in some measure to see the evil of sin so [141] as to abhor my self for it, & fly to God thrô Christ for pardon and salvation; and he haveing (notwithstanding satans temptations and the Corruptions of my own heart) brought me to a hearty desire to close with y^e Lord Jesus in all his ordinances, and to wait on him in the ways of his appointment not only for freedom from y^e guilt, but also from the dominion and power of sin; and haveing enabled me to desire and resolve (by his grace strengthening me) never to sin any more and haveing Given me an opportunity to close with him in his ordinances; I shall declare as far as I know my deceitfull heart how the case stands between God & my immortal soul, and with w^t a frame of heart, I desire and endeavour to come to Christ. I might give a relation of my life as wicked as ever man lived in y^e world; but I shall only say y^t y^e sinful corruptions y^t are within me, and y^e Enmity ag^t God w^ch is in my heart, and my transgressions of Gods Commandments, and my rejecting the offers of life & salvation made to me by Jesus Christ; and sins so Great and so circumstanced, that I sh^d utterly despair of ever obtaining pardon, if Gods free Grace and Mercy were not infinite; but thence it is y^t I have hope; and to y^s Infinitely merciful God It is y^t I desire to come. And I beleive y^t y^s God is the Infinite incomprehensible first being, who is infinitely happy in the Enjoyment of himself from all Eternity: and I beleive y^t y^s God subsists in 3 persons who are equal in power and Glory. [142] I beleive y^t y^s God did create y^e world out of nothing, and create man upright and holy after his own Image; And this man being in upright estate, and haveing power given him to stand, yet being mutable he did horridly rebel against his maker, & we in him, and by his fall he did purchase to himself, and to all his posterity that darkness, and blindness which covers our understandings, and did expose us to Gods Eternal wrath. And that averseness to all y^t is good, and y^t proness to all y^t is evil, w^ch is in us, is a just judgment of God on all his posterity for y^t rebellion of Adam, in which we are all partakers.

I beleive y^t fallen man being thus miserable and no created beeing, being able to pity him or help him, and he himself haveing attracted to himself an utter impotency of doeing any thing whereby he might be restored into the favour of God again and God owing him no pity or mercy, then the Eternal Son of God, y^e 2^d person in the trinity did freely offer to undergoe the punishment due to man, & to perform what was requisite to be done in order to his salvation; and he did not only undertake this work, (which was too great for any creature to perform,) but he also fully perfected it by obeying y^e whole law, and by his sufferings and death did infinitely satisfy divine justice for the sins of those y^t beleive on him; I beleive y^t there is no other name given whereby we can be saved, either from the guilt or from the dominion and power of sin. And [143] I beleive that this Lord Jesus is fully able and abundantly willing to save all y^ose who do truly repent of, and turn from all y^eir sins unto him, and do rely on him for all life and salvation.

I beleive y^t notwithstanding y^e Efficacy of y^e death and merits of Christ that yet he never intended to save one sinner with his sins, but y^e main end of his Comeing into y^e world was to save a certain Number, chosen by God in him from all Eternity, from their sins, i.e. from the power and dominion of sin here, & to fit for, and afterwards to bring y^m to his Eternal Glory; there to serve and praise him without sin and sorrow forever. I beleive y^t this God hath appointed many dutys to be attended by all those who expect to be saved by him, such as repentance of all sin; wherein he requires a thorô perswasion of the sinfulness of sin, and he requires a greif for and hatred of sin, bec. tis ag^t the Glory of God, He also requires faith in Jesus Christ whereby we apprehending y^s mercy in Christ do heartily rest on him as or prophet to guide and teach us; as our preist to Intercede with God for us, and our king to Reign and rule in our souls to overcome satans temptations & y^e lusts of our own hearts; God also requires sincere and willing obedience to all his commands, which things I beleive y^t no man is able to perform by his own power and strength.

I beleive y^t a man must have Gods spirit to convince him of his sinfulness and misery, to make him sensible of the Corruptions y^t are within him; [144] and to enable him to repent of and mourn for sin, and to rest on y^e free grace of God in Christ for pardon & salvation. Fallen man needs Gods spirit to convince him y^t God ow[e]s not the least favour to him, and that he would be just if he sh^d cast him out of his presence forever. and he needs this spirit to humble him under a sense of all this; And thus it has pleased God y^t it sh^d be y^t so his free grace might be magnified in the whole of mans salvation. I beleive y^t God justifys freely for his son Jesus Christ’s sake all those y^t beleive on him, and therein absolves y^m from the guilt and condemnation of all y^eir sins, and accepts y^m as righteous to Eternal life.

And I beleive God accepts our obedience in Christ althô it be imperfect if it be performed willingly, and if we confess and lament our sins that attend us therein, and if we humbly desire to serve God better and crave acceptance in the blood of Christ and beg of him for more grace and depend on him for strength, and give the praise to him for the least ability to do his will. I beleive y^t God for Jesus Christ his sake enables his children to dye unto sin more and more every day, and Enable y^m to lead holy conversations, to fight ag^t sin & satan and the corruptions of y^e world and the lusts of their own hearts. [147]222

In a word I beleive the Scriptures to be the word of the Eternal God, who is truth itself, and y^t Jesus Christ who is therein manifested is able to save all those who do thirst after him. I beleive y^t God delights not in the death of any sinner, but will frely bestow on all those y^t do with shame and sorrow turn from their sins to him an Interest in Jesus Christ & in y^e benefits of his death. I beleive y^t God is wont peculiarly to bestow these benefits on his children in his ordinances & especially in y^t of the Lords supper, and I beleive it the duty of all those who expect to be saved by Christ to seek the enjoyment of this ordinance in some particular church, y^t so they may be under the special care and government of Christ in his church & of the officers y^ereof & may be in the way of Gods blessings, and in the way to have their graces increased. And as for myself I must confess my great sin and folly in liveing so long in the neglect of this Great duty, and I must confess y^t God would be just if he sh^d give me up to a blind mind and a hard heart, and if he sh^d never have put it into my heart to close with him; And I must confess myself unworthy to have any communion with so holy a God, but yet I beleive and know y^t y^e [148] Lord Jesus Christ is most worthy, & y^erefore I desire to come in his Name, & to be found haveing his righteousness imputed unto me, and yⁿ I know I shall be welcome.

And althô my fears and doubts are many, and satans temptations and my corruptions are great, yet this I know y^t I have an Immortal soul which must continue to Eternity and if God does not freely for Jesus Christ’s sake bestow pardon & mercy on me, I am undone to all Eternity, and since God delights to magnify his mercy in his son I am resolved (by Gods grace) that I will cast myself on y^e Lord Jesus Christ and will humbly wait at the throne of his grace in the ways of his appointment for all the mercy y^t I need.

I hope God hath in his Infinite Mercy to me given me to see so much of the sinfulness of sin, as to be humbled for it, and to make me resolve to rest on him for grace and to preserve me from ever falling into sin any more; and I being sensible of my [149] own impotency to preserve myself from sin one moment do desire to come to Christ in this ordinance of y^e L. sup. y^t so my blind mind may be enlightened, and my heart broken, and my sinfull corruptions may be subdued, and y^t I may hate sin, and love God more, & may receive some glimpses of his love and favour, and may have my faith increased, and may be quickened to new and chearful obedience, and may get power ag^t my sins, and may have my heart raised with everlasting thankfulness to God for his mercy in Jesus Christ unto me—to y^s end.

I beg your prayers for me that God will make me and keep me humble under a sense of my own unworthyness, under a sense of my former folly which is very great and my present sinfull infirmitys and under a sense of all my wants, which none but merciful God can supply & under a sense of my utter impotency to do any service or duty acceptable to him and that he would [150] give me an heart to love him above all the world, and grace to serve him in sincerity and holyness here y^t so I may be fitted thrô Christ Jesus to praise him without sin and sorrow forever in another world.

J. Green

This being Read: M^r W. propounded to me the terms of the covenant; and I solemnly in the face of y^e congregation consented to y^m and was admitted in ch. communion. And sence I was taken into ch. I hope I have found great good to my poor soul, and do not in the least repent me, but I have abundant reason to bless God who compel’d me to come in; and I hope God has accepted me a poor returning prodigal. and has I hope made me an Instrument of good to some others, and I hope will yet own me and improve me as an instrument in his hand of doing much [151] service in my generation, and will never leave me nor forsake me.

I have now been at Roxbury above a year, and I hope I have not been wholly unprofitable to my generation. I now want nothing but a thankfull heart & an heart humbled for my past life; and I desire an heart and an opportunity to serve God; I now renounce the Devil and his service and the lusts of my own heart and Give myself to God father son and holy Ghost to be his forever, and desire to go out of myself, and depend on Jesus Christ alone for pardon & Righteousness and grace, and I pray God to bless me and sanctify me and my freinds and acquaintance and relations and his whole Israel y^t we may all live in Glory forever. amen.

I made an end of writeing, January 1. 1696/7.

Sence y^t I have preached above 30 serm. (or times): thrô Gods g^t goodness all to acceptance. [152]

Novemb: 8. 97. 2 men came from salem village viz: Deacon Putnam & John Putnam: and by vertue of an order from the town (or village) desired me to come, y^e next sab: & I promised that I would: 14. Novem. sab: I preached at salem village: and at night there came 20 men, and desired me to come again the next sabb: viz. 21. Nov: & so I did. 22. Nov: I went to salem—I rec^d an invitation from the Inhabitants of salem village to come & be their minister. 28 Nov: sab: I pr[eached] there, and the whole congregation voted & manifested their desire y^t I should come amongst y^m I rec^d an invitation from y^e church.

Dec. 12 I preach, at Roxb:

Dec: 19 I pr[eached] at salem village: and 20 dec: M^r Brattle223 advised me to go thither—and none discouraged me. 21 dec: There came 4 men from the village representing y^e whole and y^e 22^d dec. I spake to y^e fe[o]ffes to provide another school-master: and I promised y^m to come 5 Janu. Wednesday (Deo volente)—upon these terms.

1. That they continue in love; and if once they begin to quarrel and contend; I sh^d look upon myself to be free from any obligation to tarry with y^m.

2. I was to have free liberty once a month or 2 to leave y^m and go to a sacrament. [153]

3. they were to fulfill their engagem^t which was: to give me y^e ministry house and land so long as I continued amongst y^m: and for my salary the first year 60 pounds—& if I lived after y^t 70li in mony, besides strangers mony: and if I sh^d live to settle & take office, I sh^d expect something of my own. and th[e]y freely consented to it: and told me they expected to give me something for my own in case of settlem^t there.

28. Dec: I left the school: And seeing all things do so far concur I think it my duty to go: and Inasmuch as my comfort & the good of my people does depend on my haveing the presence & blessing of God & the light of his countenance: therefore I set apart y^e 1 Jan. 97/8 to seek the face & favour of God and to remember my past sins and afflict & humble my soul before him, and cry for pardon & eternal life thrô a dear Redeemer.

And althô I know I can merit nothing—yet I have encouragement from divine promises. seek & ye shall find &c. I have not said to the house of Jacob seek ye my face in vain: 45 Isai: 29. [154]

1 January. 97/8. I have solemnly renewed my covenant with God; and laid myself under the most strict obligations to be his servant forever: and now I pray y^t he will hear me and answer me and give me grace to serve him here, y^t I may live with him in heaven forever thrô my dear Redeemer, amen.

January 4. there came several men from salem village to Roxbury I took my leave of my freinds; and January 5^th I came from Roxb. M^r Walter came with me to M. River and M^r Walter & my L. Lord & M^r Lamb. I took my leave of M^r Brattle &c I came comfortably to s. village M^r Nath Saltonstal & Broth Z. hicks.

Jan 6. M^r Saltonst[all] & br. H. went to haveril—and I settled to my bus[iness]. [155]

Mar. 16—God has assisted me since I came to salem village so y^t my labours have been Generally to the good acceptance of all my hearers.

But I am so atheistical & formal in my approaches to God, y^t I often fear y^t either I am not converted—or y^t God has forsaken me. But yet I am afraid of charging God foolishly—or of denying w^t he has done for me.

My flesh trembleth for fear of thee and I am afraid of thy judgments.

I do accordingly fear and tremble least after I have preached to others I myself should be a cast-away.

O Lord pity me pardon me sanctify quicken comfort and save me & give me more of the knowledge of thyself & of thy son Jesus Christ whom to know is life eternal. [156]

June 7. 98. I was at church Meeting at Deacon Engersols224 according to y^e desire of y^e church at salem village.

And they by a vote Manifested their approbation of my Ministry, and desired me to continue in the work &c.

And they set apart thorsday the 16 of June to be spent in prayer to God at Deaⁿ Putnams house, to seek the presence & direction of God in order to their present proceedings.

And in my own mind I set apart the same to pray to God for all Mercy.

June 16. y^s day my heart was much affected by [157] meditating upon that text 12 eccl: 5. man goeth to his long home &c. I had in the Morning some good frames—but O the wickedness, deceitfulness and vileness of my heart, that is soon out of frame. O Lord pity and help me.

June 16. 98. I have this day renewed my Covenant with God. And I doe Now renew it in the sight and presence of y^e holy and Jealous God.

O Most Glorious Jehovah who art the God of my fathers, I doe this day with my whole heart, without any known reservation, renounce Satan y^e sinfull vanitys of this world, & all my own hearts lusts & Give myself soul and body to be thine forever and ever amen. [158] O holy father of Jesus Christ I doe make choice of thee to be my God & father & portion forever. & humbly offer myself to thine acceptance, and submit myself to thy disposal.

O holy Jesus Thou Eternal son of God and saviour of the world, I make choice of thee to be my advocate and Intercessour to commend me to the acceptance of God—and to be my saviour and Redeemer to deliver me from Satan sin and wrath.

O holy spirit who art The Great sanctifyer of thine Elect, [159] I doe this day chuse thee to convince me of my sin and misery, & to awaken me to fly to christ for refuge—and to sanctify comfort quicken & guide me to Glory—humbly Intreating y^t thou wilt Now take y^e everlasting possession of me for Jesus Christ, altho I am unworthy thou shouldest come into my heart.

This is the Covenant that I make with God this day—I do promise to be his forever, and Give myself to that God y^t made me, & humbly pray that he will be my God & exceeding Great reward. [160] And inasmuch as I am utterly unworthy to enter into covenant with God, I desire this day to renounce my own righteousness and cast myself upon Christ, and Inasmuch as I am of myself Insufficient for a good thought, I implore thy Grace O Dear Redeemer to enable me to keep y^s covenant, Thou art my Redeemer my surety, my advocate O be my all—and Let Me Never break this Covenant, but by thy Grace be enabled to keep it to my dying day—[161] that I may yⁿ be admitted into thy kingdome and dwell forever with thee O holy father, Dear Redeemer, and blessed sanctifyer—amen.

O Lord Thou that knowest my deceitfull heart, search me I pray thee, and see if y^ere be any wicked way within me, & lead me in y^e way Everlasting.

and O let this coven^t Now be Confirmed in Heaven, amen, amen. [162]

When the church at sal[em] village applyed y^mselves unto me once & again to take office here—I advisd y^m to take the congregation wish—and upon the 31 day of July 98 y^e whole congregation did manifest (that they were desirous y^t I sh^d be ordained among y^m) by lifting up their hands, and y^e vote was Gen^ll if not universal.

After this the Inhabitants met to subscribe something for my encouragement and the church & some others subscribed almost 30 cord wood, and octob. 9 I gave y^m my answer In publick to y^s effect—

Whereas this church & congregation have applyed y^mselves unto me desiring me to take charge of this people and now expecting an answer from me. [163] The answer I give to y^r Invitation is this—If your love to me does continue and be duly manifested as hitherto It has been, And you do all study to be quiet and maintain peace among y^rselves—yⁿ I am willing to continue with you, and in y^e fear of God, to Engage in the work of y^e ministry among you. and I hope I shall (by the Grace of God helping me,) to my utmost endeavour to promote y^e Interest of christ, and Religion here, and I humbly ask your constant humble and earnest prayers to God for me, that I may be faithfull, & successfull all my days.

On this day, I told y^m y^t the 13 octob. was appointed by the church for a day of humiliation, & y^t I Intended in their Name to ask the assistance of the Neighboring Elders. [164] and thursday 13 oct. M^r Hale and M^r Peirpoint were here and carryed on the work of the day.

After this the Church Met at our house—and I told y^m y^t If they left it to y^e deacons and to me to appoint the day for ordination they should know the day on the sabbath.

And then I went down to sal[em] & saw M^r Hale and M^r Noyes &c. & they advised me to let the congregation understand that such a day the church thought convenient for ordination if No one had any thing of weight to object—and so we did—[165] Deacon Ingersol spake something—which he has in writeing—& told the Inhabitants y^t y^e next day y^e Church was to meet at his house & y^t they would be thankfull to any of their Neighbors y^t would come & joine with y^m about carrying on the ordination. and y^e Next day I met at M^r Gerrishes and saw M^r Daniel Andrews225—& told him y^t If he had anything to say before ordination Now was the time—and at night he came to D. Engersols & desir’d satisfaction from the church about a paper y^t was brought into y^e counsell &c—& I drew up a confession in their Name—and they desired me to read it publickly the next sabbath—& M^r Andrews said y^t sh^d satisfy him—[166] and upon the sabbath I read it publikely—(see y^e confession in a loose paper)—and told y^m y^t If those y^t were offended would now manifest that they were satisfyed, it would be very encourageing to me.

Whereupon M^r Andrews stood up & after some discourse I desired him to say whether he was satisfyed or not, and he said y^t he was satisfyed with y^m as a Church—and prayed God to bless y^m.

These things I Note down y^t there may be no objection made—either by my own conscience or by others—ag^t my being called of God to settle in this place. [167]

And The Letters being sent to y^e churches to desire their Elders & Messengers to assist in ordination—I have determined to spend some time y^e 8 Nov. in seeking to God for mercy & a blessing—and I haveing overlooked what is written in y^s book about the transactions between God, and my own soul—do with all my heart say amen, amen.

And humbly pray for pardon & grace—& pray y^t I may be sensible of the worth of every soul y^t I am about to take the charge of, and which I must be accountable for.

And y^t I may be sensible of my own Insufficiency for so great a work & y^t I may not engage in it in my own strength, [168] and I pray y^t I may depend on the allsufficiency mercy and faithfulness of Christ, and y^t I may enjoy his Grace spirit & presence—amen.

Nov. 8. 98—I haveing set apart this day to seek to God for a blessing upon me & upon this poor village—& upon y^e land & upon our Nation, & on Gods whole church—& haveing spent some time in prayer (althô I have been diverted by company comeing in) yet I hope I have had some taste of the Goodness & mercy of God in Jesus Christ, and hope God will be with me in the Great work y^t I am about to Engage in,—& hope I shall enter upon it in the fear and in the strength of the Lord Jesus Christ. [169]

Nov. 10: 98. The Reverend Elders and Messengers of y^e church of sal[em] & Beverly, & Whenham, & Redding & Roxbury226 being conven’d at my Land Lord Putnams—I was called in, and M^r Walter gave me a dismission from Roxbury church—and M^r Noyes being Moderator,—I was admitted into the church at salem-village & promised to walk with y^m according to y^e order of the Gospell.

And yⁿ The Elders &c desired to see the confession of the church which I had read publickly in the congreg. octob. 31 and I read it to y^m & Deacon Putnam acknowledged so much y^t y^e Elders s^d y^t M^r Andrews ought to be satisfyed with him and with the church—and althô captⁿ Putnam refused to acknowledge w^t they urgd him unto—yet they s^d—he was but one—& so his refuseing &c ought not to hinder our proceedings. [170]

In publick M^r Walter began with prayer, & yⁿ I preached, and yⁿ M^r Hale desired the church to renew their call to me, which they did. and yⁿ he proposed it to the Elders & Messengers of the churches—and yⁿ to the Inhabitants of this village, and yⁿ to the whole assembly that If any had any thing to object—they might speak. and there being no impedi[me]nt he turned to me, & asked my consent to be ordained, & to take the charge of y^e church—& I answerd thus, I desire to doe it in the fear and in the strength of God. Then M^r Hale prayed—and gave the charge—M^r Noyes, M^r Gerrish, M^r Walter, & M^r Peirpoint laying on of hands together with m^r Hale—[171] yⁿ m^r Hale told the church something of their duty—Then M^r Noyes in the Name of the Ministers, gave to me the right hand of fellowship, and In the Name of y^e churches he gave to this church, by me the right hand of fellowship. Then M^r Peirpoint concluded with prayer, & we sung 133 ps. & I gave y^e blessing.

O Lord help me to be humble & thankfull, and to fulfill my ministry, that when the Great shepherd shall appear I may receive a crown of Glory y^t fadeth not away.

M^r Hale ordained me a Minister of the Everlasting Gospell—a Pastour of y^e church, and a Preacher to y^s congregation &c.227 [172]

March 15. 99. God haveing Inclined the heart of my Dear consort, Eliz. Gerrish, to give her consent to be my wife, as I hope in answer to my poor prayers—and I expecting to be marryed to her tomorrow; I have determined to spend some time y^s day, in confesing my sins, and in imploreing pardon y^t so I may not enter into the Marriage coven^t with any old guilt upon my soul,—but may be washed pardond and sanctifyed,—

and y^t God will please to smile upon me in y^s affair as hitherto he has done—and y^t all the mercys of the coven^t may be confered upon my dear consort,—and y^t we may come together & live together in y^e fear of God,—& may be blessings to each other, & to y^s village, and may rejoice together here & in heaven forever, amen. [173]

I hope God will answer my prayers and give returns in much mercy amen.

March 16. 1699 I was marryed to Eliz. Gerrish a virgin (by y^e Rever^d M^r W^m Hubbard of Ipswich) at her fathers house in Wenham.

We lived at Wenham until the 12 day of April 1699—& yⁿ we came home to salem village & began to keep house,—and God has been very bountiful to us ever since.

On monday Novem. 27. 1699 my Wife was safe Delivered of a Daughter which we named Anna, for the sake of my wifes mother. and God has continued her unto us several months for all which favours I desire to be very thankfull. And desire to Give up myself & my Dear Wife & little one & all y^t I have unto y^t God who is the Giver & bestower of every Good Gift. And desire to live more to the Glory of God from y^s time forward than ever yet I have done, amen feb. 15 1699/1700.228 [174]

Janua. 11. 1700/1701. my wife was deliver’d of a stil born son, which we buryed in y^e burying place Jan. 13. my wife continued ill several months after.

I desire to acknowledge y^e hand of God in all, & quietly to submit unto him, and I think y^t I never did once murmur ag^t God for y^s stroke; but have cause to say y^t God has punished me far less yⁿ I deserve.

And I desire to bless God y^t he has taken me into y^t coven^t which Includes my seed also—& y^t he spared and restored my wife.

O y^t I could walk more humbly circumspectly & thankfully before God all my days.

Apr. 8. 1701. I went to y^e ministers meeting at salem at m^r Noys’s m^r Chever, & m^r Gerrish there,—we began & Ended with prayer. We spent much of y^e day in discourseing of Beverly—and bec. I differ from my fathers in y^e ministry about beverly,—I shall write y^s following account for my future satisfaction or vindication, &c. [175] upon more serious meditation I purpose not to write any thing about y^e affairs of Beverly least I sh^d unavoidably reflect upon my betters.229

Only I acknowledge y^e Goodness of God in giveing y^m so comfortable a settlement—which is (for ought I know) to universall satisfaction.

And abundantly to my satisfaction bec. I account y^t it is y^e Lords doings and He knows y^t I alwayes left it with him as his work to settle a faithfull labourer there. And althô I desire as I have reason to be humbled for my heat of spirit & hot talk in managing y^e affair.

Yet as to y^e substance of w^t I have said about it I have great peace in it, and I trust ever shall, and y^t my heart shall not reproach me (for y^e matter) so long as I live.

I pray y^t God will teach us to be more wise & humble for the future, and guide us into all truth & lead us all in very plain paths at all times amen. [176]

1701. 1702. December 22. about 12 at night my wife was safe Delivered of a son which we named John for y^e sake of my father John Green.

The Lord bless it & own it as one of his children, & let it be born again of y^e spirit of God.

And O y^t we might be thankfull & learn to trust God for y^e future and live more to his praise for the time to come.

Decemb^r 12. 1703/4 [sic]. while y^e moon was In y^e Eclypse my wife was taken ill, about 4 a clock, & was safe delivered of a son about 9 a clock being sabb. day.—& after noon it was baptized & called Joseph, being my father Gerrishes name as well as my own—& also y^e name of my wifes eldest brother who dyed last spring. Hitherto we have had wonderfull experience of the Goodness of God to us O y^t God would help us to be thankfull, & to devote ourselves & our children a thankoffering to him who is y^e authour of all our mercys—& to trust in Him so long as we live. amen. [177]

December. I. 1705. My wife was Deliverd of our 5^th child: about 11 of y^e clock at night The next day being y^e sab. it was baptiz^d & named Edward for y^e sake of my Grandfather Mitchelson, & also my Broth^r Edw^d Green, who dyed about 10 years ago & gave me a legacy wherewith I procured my Lybrary.

God has been very favourable to us far beyond our expectations—every thing has been turned for us—O y^t all might do us good according to y^t prom. 8. rom. 28.

Decem. my wife was very ill but God was pleased to bless y^e means used by D^r Hale so as to restore her & raise her up for which I desire to be always thankfull.

Many a time God has appeared for us in the mount of difficulty, and we may set up our Ebenezer and say hitherto the Lord has helped us. O y^t we might obtain Grace to be more carefull to do our duty, and to bring up our children for that Gracious God to whose service they are devoted—and O y^t God would betimes put his fear into all their hearts that they may never forsake him. [178]

In y^s winter 1705/6 our son Edw^d has been so bad with a cough that we thought several times he had been quite dead. But God has been pleased to pity us in our distress and to spare his life.

Mar. 1707. our son Edward has been very ill; but God has directed to and blessed means used for his recovery to some measure of health—for which we desire to be thankfull to that God who deals not with us as our sins deserve.

O that we might by the Goodness of God be led nearer to him in the way of our duty.

1708. We have this winter lived mostly without any boy or maid because we could not procure any and yet God hath carried us along from day to day with great comfort and when things have seemed to go ag^t us, we have often seen reason to say that all was for the best.

May 8. 1708. my wife was Delivered of our 6^th child Elizabeth God was very Good to her—y^e next day being y^e sab. it was baptiz^d.

my mother champny was very ill may 9, but God appeared in the mount. [179]

May 12. 1708. my wife was very ill at night—but God appeared for us & removed her pain & illness.

And now what shall I render to y^e Lord for all his benefits? 1. I desire to be more diligent in my calling and ministerial work. 2. to be more faithfull as to relative dutys. 3. I would more carefully honour y^e Lord with my substance. And it is in my thoughts to publish a sermⁿ to encourage liberality—if the Lord will assist me, & in his providence make way for it—and if he does so I shall still be the more indebted to him.

May 15. 1710. I took a Journey to East-Hampton on Long-Island and brought my mother chamny down with me: I was carryed thrô many difficultys and dangers—& had much experience of y^e Goodness of God to me in all my Journy & to my family in my absence.

Augu: 11. 1710. My wife Delivered of a son William—God appeared in y^e mount of difficulty, when y^e life of y^e child was in danger and very often when we or our children or servant have been ill, our God hath heard our prayers & appeared for us. [180]

In 1712 I met with Great temptations from some of y^e chief of my people contending with me for teaching y^m from the 3 Prov: 10 y^t Men sh^d ordinarily honour God with one tenth of y^eir Increase or clear gain.

But I desire to wait upon God for wisdom & grace to doe my Duty & to teach my people theirs.

Octob^r 1712. My wife & some of our children have had very ill fitts, but our God hath pityed & spared us, as he hath often before when Joⁿ & Jos: were sick. O that we could live more unto his praise & Glory.

1712. Our son Edward hath been very ill: & our Daught^r Eliz^a: But our God hath had pity upon us &c. [181]

January 16. 1712/13. This Day We have had wonderfull experience of y^e Compassion of God unto us In spareing the life of our son Edward whom we have (as it were) received from the Dead.—He was following his two Brothers & as we suppose fell backward as he was going over a gap in y^e wall about 40 poles from y^e house, and after some time his Brothers looking behind saw him lyeing upon y^e snow, & runing to him found him Dead as they thought & so John stay’d with him & Jose. came in & told us Nedde was dead & we all ran crying, & when I came I perceived life in him but no sense, & so I brought him home, & after he had vomited, & we had put him to bed and he had lain awhile he revived & after his fall it was almost an hour before he could take any thing—O That we & ours may never forget y^s Providence! [182] I doe not remember y^t I ever was in greater distress than at this time. But I found my heart justifying God as holy & righteous, & crying to him for mercy, & for grace to be more holy & carefull to discharge my Duty—y^e sins which In y^s distress I cheifly was checked for, & repented of were heart-sins, & neglecting to pray so particularly and earnestly for my children as I should doe.

O y^t I could amend more & more.

1713. June 30. soon after one a clock in y^e morning my wife was Delivered of a son Benjamin—I had so often experienced Gods Goodness that I told my wife I was ashamed to distrust & to be fearfull. God was pleased to overule all circumstances beyond expectation for our comfort. Blessed be his name. [183]

July 5 being sacrament day, our son Benjamin was baptized after a sermon which I preached from 2 Sam: 23. 50.

1714. May & June our son Benj^a was very sick of a fever, and near unto death—& others of our children have been ill—But we have had experience of y^e Power & Goodness of our God in spareing & recovering of them, oh y^t we could Give Glory to his name.

1 Suffolk Probate Records, xxii. 585.

2 Suffolk Deeds, lxxv. 257–258.

3 See Ronald Fuller, Hell-Fire Francis (London, 1939).

4 British Museum, Add. MSS., 30870.

5 Public Record Office, A. O. 13:73.

6 Alexander Gillespie, An Historical Review of the Royal Marine Corps to 1803 (Birmingham, 1803), 191.

7 Id., 193.

8 Cyril Field, Britain’s Sea-Soldiers: History of the Royal Marines (Liverpool, 1924), 156.

9 Gillespie, Historical Review of the Royal Marine Corps, 199.

10 A. O. 13:73.

11 William Hall Gage, 2nd Viscount Gage, brother of the General.

12 A. O. 12:105, f. 103.

13 A. O. 13:73.

14 There are biographical sketches of Arthur Savage and Joseph Domett in E. Alfred Jones, The Loyalists of Massachusetts (London, 1930).

15 A. O. 12:100, f. 323.

16 In preparing this paper I compiled, from readily accessible printed materials, a list of merchants active in the 1780’s. The careers of such merchants were then examined in order to determine the views of each respecting the Constitution.

The present study is not intended to be definitive, but it is believed that a large enough sample has been considered to yield valid conclusions. The records examined disclosed that fifty-three merchants, at least, expressed views on the Constitution. Only three men in this group opposed it: Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, John Lamb of New York, and Charles Pettit of Pennsylvania. Among the fifty who supported the movement for strengthening the general government, twenty-four lived in Massachusetts: Jonathan Austin, Joseph Barrell, Samuel Barret, James Bowdoin, Samuel Breck, George Cabot, Caleb Davis, Stephen Higginson, Nathaniel Gorham, William Gray, Jonathan Jackson, Charles Jarvis, John C. Jones, Jonathan Mason, Perez Morton, Samuel A. Otis, Edward Payne, William Phillips, Joseph Russell, Thomas Russell, Isaac Smith, James Swan, and William Tudor. At critical points John Hancock acted with the majority of his fellow merchants. Among the pro-Constitution merchants of Pennsylvania were Charles Biddle, William Bingham, George Clymer, Tench Coxe, Thomas Fitzsimons Isaac Hazelhurst, Samuel Howell, Mordecai Lewis, Thomas Mifflin, Robert Morris, John M. Nesbit, John Ross, Pelatiah Webster, Richard Wells, John Wilcox, and Thomas Willing. The names of four Rhode Island merchants appear on the list: John Brown, Moses Brown, Nicholas Brown, and Samuel Ward. Connecticut was represented by Roger Sherman and Benjamin Trumbull; New Hampshire, by John Langdon; South Carolina, by Christopher Gadsden; North Carolina, by Hugh Williamson; Maryland, by James McHenry. In the preparation of these lists the following works have been particularly useful: Charles A. Beard, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States (New York, 1935), Chapter 5; Norman S. B. Gras, The Massachusetts First National Bank of Boston, 1784–1934 (Cambridge, 1937); Robert A. East, “The Massachusetts Conservatives in the Critical Period,” The Era of the American Revolution. Studies Inscribed to Evarts Boutell Greene, Richard B. Morris, Editor (New York, 1939); and the Dictionary of American Biography. In the April, 1787, number of the American Museum (Philadelphia) are petitions in favor of a stronger central government signed by merchants of Philadelphia (313–314) and by merchants of Boston (320–322).

17 “The men of that age [1750–1825], while striking out for themselves a new path in a new country, never fell into the mistake of abandoning practice in favor of theory. . . . If from lack of imagination they went too far in their contempt for theory, at least they understood what they meant. . . .” Henry Cabot Lodge, Life and Letters of George Cabot (Boston, 1878), 10.

18 Born in Lebanon, Connecticut, November 24, 1726, Webster studied theology after his graduation from Yale in 1746. Between 1749 and 1755 he was pastor at Greenwich, Massachusetts, a post which he left to become a merchant at Philadelphia. During the Revolution he supported the American cause and suffered considerably at the hands of the British. He died on September 2, 1795. Dictionary of American Biography, xix. 597. Webster’s most famous essay, A Dissertation on the Political Union and Constitution of the United States of North America (1783) led Hannis Taylor to regard Webster as the father of the Constitution and to petition Congress for national recognition of his work. See Hannis Taylor, A Memorial in Behalf of the Architect of Our Federal Constitution (Washington, 1908). Taylor’s exaggerated claims were refuted by Gaillard Hunt in the Nation, December 28, 1911.

19 Article 1, Sections 8, 10.

20 Article 1, Section 10.

21 Webster originally presented his argument in the form of articles or pamphlets signed “Citizen of Philadelphia.” His articles were collected and printed in 1791 as a volume entitled Political Essays. The most important papers, for this study, are: 1. “An Essay on the Danger of Too Much Circulating Cash” (October 5, 1776)—a plea for financing the war by means of taxes rather than issues of paper currency. 2. “An Essay on Free Trade and Finance” (July, 1779)—an attack upon statutory price-fixing and other legal restraints on trade. 3. “Second Essay on Free Trade and Finance” (August, 1779), in which he proposed to prevent the increase of paper money by means of tax levies designed to raise enough money for new war expenditures. He proposed to leave the existing paper in circulation to pass at the rate of twenty paper dollars to one silver dollar. 4. “Third Essay on Free Trade and Finance” (January 8, 1780). The argument resembles that of the “Second Essay.” Foreign loans should be made only for the purpose of procuring the means of paying the interest on the money borrowed within the United States. Webster again opposed price-fixing. He suggested in this essay the establishment of a federal office of Superintendent of Finance. 5. “Fourth Essay on Free Trade and Finance” (February 10, 1780)—a plan for stabilizing the paper currency, in which Webster opposed either an increase or a decrease in the quantity of paper in circulation. He favored taxation as a means of preventing such increase. 6. “Fifth Essay on Free Trade and Finance” (March 30, 1780)—a criticism of paper currency on the ground that it imposed an unjust levy upon wealth, and another plea for taxation as the proper means of financing the war. 7. “Strictures on the Tender-Acts” (December 13, 1780)—a very strong statement against legal tender paper currency, inspired by an act of Pennsylvania of December, 1780. 8. “An Essay to Examine the True Interest of Pennsylvania with Respect to Paper Currency” (December 13, 1780)—another plea for taxation in preference to more issues of paper currency. 9. “An Essay on the Economy of the Thirteen States” (January, 1781), in which Webster again insisted that taxation was necessary in order to restore the currency. 10. “Dissertation on a Financier-General” (January 24, 1781), in which Webster presented his plan for a superintendency of finance. 11. “A Dissertation on the Political Union and Constitution of the United States of North America” (1780)—Webster’s famous plan for a strong central government endowed with independent taxing power as a means of raising assured revenues in order to pay the public debt and avoid the issuance of paper currency. 12. “Sixth Essay on Free Trade and Finance” (March 24, 1783)—an argument for a federal tax on imports as a means of raising money to support the public credit. 13. “Seventh Essay on Free Trade and Finance” (January 10, 1785)—a protest against further issues of paper currency and a plea for payment of the public debt, with safeguards against the enriching of speculators in federal certificates of indebtedness. 14. “Essay on Credit” (February 10, 1786)—an analysis of credit and a defense of the Bank of North America. 15. “A Plea for the Poor Soldiers and Other Public Creditors” (January 2, 1790). 16. “A Review of the Principles and Arguments of the Seventh Essay and of the Plea for the Poor Soldiers” (December 20, 1790). In these last two pamphlets Webster proposed to pay original creditors in full and to pay speculators an average market price of depreciated certificates of indebtedness. Two other essays by Webster are “Remarks on the Address of the Sixteen Members of the Assembly of Pennsylvania to their Constituents” (Philadelphia, 1787); and “The Weakness of Brutus Exposed” (Philadelphia, 1787), reprinted in Pamphlets on the Constitution of the United States, Paul L. Ford, Editor (Brooklyn, 1888). Both essays defend the Federal Constitution of 1787.

22 Political Essays, 235–236.

23 Id., 32.

24 Id., 61.

25 Id., 37.

26 Id., 144, 150.

27 Id., 84.

28 Id., 114.

29 Id., 86, 104, 139, 140, 285.

30 Id., 14, 18, 115, 117, 141, 157.

31 Id., 6, 8, 27–32.

32 Id., 31.

33 Id., 17.

34 Id., 123.

35 Id., 16.

36 Id., 62.

37 Id., 2–3, 60–62.

38 Political Essays, 9–16, 60, 66, 153, 157, 237.

39 Id., 138.

40 Id., 84–85, 149.

41 Id., 407.

42 Id., 257.

43 Id., 40–41.

44 Id., 63.

45 Id., 64.

46 Id., 105.

47 Id., 46–47.

48 Id., 7–8; 27, 49, 145.

49 Id., 60–61.

50 Political Essays, 126–127.

51 Id., 207.

52 Id., 243.

53 Id., 243.

54 Id., 258.

55 Id., 152–157, 231–241, 244–245, 247, 258–268, 272–273, 291.

56 Id., 203.

57 Id., 224.

58 Id., 274, 277, 279, 282, 291.

59 Id., 347, 349, 354.

60 Id., 45, 85, 160; 435, 436, 439.

61 Id., 435–436.

62 Id., 435.

63 Id., 436.

64 Id., 443.

65 Political Essays, 436; see also 422.

66 Id., 447–448.

67 Id., 448–449, 453, 454.

68 Id., 451 456–458.

69 The minute books of the New England Committee are among the Friends records preserved at the Moses Brown School, Providence; those of the Philadelphia Meeting are at the Friends Record Room, 304 Arch Street, Philadelphia.

70 Papers of the Meeting for Sufferings, Box 14 (1774–1778). A valuable history, “The Society of Friends in Pennsylvania and New Jersey from 1764 to 1782,” was started in The Friend, September 12, 1846 (xix. 404), using largely the official records. But after many instalments it stopped abruptly, unfinished, in the issue of July 10, 1847 (xx. 333), when it had reached a date early in 1775. Consequently only a few of the records here cited were included.

71 Published in 4 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc, iv. 1–278.

72 Minutes of Philadelphia Meeting for Sufferings, i. 426–427.

73 Id., 439; printed in The Friend, xx. 293. The “few lines” were printed in Philadelphia in 1775 under the tide, The Epistle from the Meeting for Sufferings in London to Friends and Brethren in New England.

74 Minutes of Philadelphia Meeting for Sufferings, i. 454.

75 See my article, “Intercolonial Solidarity of American Quakerism,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, lx (October, 1936), 362–374.

76 To Dr. Sandiford, Philadelphia, October 8, 1774. Pemberton Papers (MSS., Historical Society of Pennsylvania), xxvi. 165.

77 Id., 162, 167, 171, 173, 175, 180; xxvii. 1, 20, 27, 28.

78 This memorandum (id., xxvn. 21) is as follows:

List of Friends in Boston	No.	Occupation
Ebenezer Pope, wife, & son ab^t 17 years old	3	Taylor, depends on his business, rather low in circumstances
John Pope wife & 2 Children	4	Doctor & Surveyor, in Circumstances
Samuel Pope	1	Scyth Smith Not in needy circumstances
James Raymer & 3 Daughters (Grown up)	4	Tallow Chandler & Grocer in Good Circumstances
John Philips Wife & Daug^r	3	Ship Carpenter, has a house etc. & two apprentices (works Journey work)
Eph. Silsbury, wife, & Daughter	3	ship carpenter, aged & infirm depends on his dayly labour
Nathaniel Low, wife, & 3 Children	5	Blacksmith & at present full of Business
Ezra Curtain wife, & 7 Children	9	Shoemaker, a House & full business
Ezra Collins & Sister	2	Hatter in Good Circumstances
Daniel Silsbury, & 2 sisters	3	merchant. The sisters keep a House of Entertainment
Ann Gillett, (a widow) with Elizabeth Ann & Hannah Orrick & Jane Burn	5	Have a house etc. in a small [ ] of Business. 2 of the Young [ ] go out to sew etc
Sampson Silsbury & wife being cousins married Out
Josiah Goram, wife & 4 Children	6	Mariner

79 Id., xxvii. 20.

80 Moses Brown of Providence.

81 Pemberton Papers, xxvii. 28.

82 4 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc, iv. 148.

83 Jonathan B. Smith to William Phillips, Philadelphia, November 25, 1774. Id., 150.

84 Id., 149 n.

85 The Friend, xx. 252.

86 Minutes of Philadelphia Meeting for Sufferings, i. 418.

87 Id., 431; printed in The Friend, xx. 292.

88 This particular letter I do not find; but Israel Pemberton did write to Brown shortly before October 19 (Pemberton Papers, xxvi. 177½), and Brown received a letter from Pemberton—perhaps the same one—on November 28 (id., xxvii. 27). The former letter was sent by the hand of James Manning, President of Rhode Island College. “He is a Baptist preacher and with another of them from New England and a committee of their Yearly Meeting here [Philadelphia] last week had a conference with the speaker and other members of the Massachusetts Assembly on the sufferings of that people in their country and on their laws under which they and Friends may be subjected to sufferings.”

89 New England Hist. Gen. Reg., xxx. 377.

90 Minutes of Salem Monthly Meeting, at Moses Brown School, 199, 200.

91 Papers of the Meeting for Sufferings, Box 14. The paper is dated Lynn, March 9, 1775, and is signed by Joseph Southwick, James Purinton, Joseph Gaskill, Daniel Newhall, and Isaac Basset.

92 Pemberton Papers, xxvii. 107.

93 Minutes of Philadelphia Meeting for Sufferings, 11 (1775–1785), 1f.

94 Pemberton Papers, xxvii. 165. The writer had come to Yearly Meeting from his home in Salem but had not had opportunity to go into Boston on his way.

95 The text of the appeal is given in the Minutes of the Philadelphia Meeting for Sufferings, ii. 10ff. It was drafted by John Hunt, Israel Pemberton, James Pemberton, John Reynell, David Evans, and Anthony Benezet, and subscribed “7th of 6 mo. 1775, John Pemberton, Clerk.” It is not mentioned in the bibliographies of Joseph Smith, Hildeburn, or Evans. A copy, lacking, however, the subscription blank, in the Haverford College Library is reproduced here. Another copy, likewise without the blank, is now in the Yale University Library in the Mason Franklin Collection. This copy, formerly belonging to Charles F. Heartman, is recorded in Sabin (No. 95902) from the title as given in Charles F. Heartman, The Cradle of the United States, ii, No. 950. From the same source it is listed as No. 436 in the unpublished “Supplement to Hildeburn’s Century of Printing,” by Ethel M. Metzger (M.A. Thesis, Columbia University, 1930). The subscription form, recoverable from other sources, was worded as follows (Minutes of Philadelphia Meeting for Sufferings, ii. 11f.):

“We, the subscribers, in Consideration of the distresses to which many of our fellow subjects in the province of the Massachusetts Bay & the adjacent Provinces, are subjected, thro’ the unhappy commotions now prevailing, being desirous of contributing towards their relief do agree and promise to pay the sums by us respectively subscribed to — of — to be by — paid unto John Reynell of Philadelphia or Samuel Smith of Burlington, Treasurers of the Yearly Meeting of Friends in Pennsylvania & New Jersey, in order that the same may be transmitted at such time and in such manner as the said Yearly Meeting or the Meeting for Sufferings at Philadelphia may judge most expedient to the Committee lately appointed by the Yearly Meeting of Friends in New England to assist, advise, and relieve such who are or may be reduced to necessitous circumstances thro’ the present calamitous state of public affairs there, or to be otherwise distributed to & among such sufferers.

“Witness our hands the — day of the — Month, 1775”

96 Epistle from Philadelphia Meeting for Sufferings, July 27, 1775. Minutes of Philadelphia Meeting for Sufferings, ii. 15.

97 Pennsylvania Ledger, July 22, 1775; Pennsylvania Mercury, July 14, 1775; Pennsylvania Gazette, July 12, 1775; Virginia Gazette, July 29, 1775; Newport Mercury, July 31, 1775. Cf. Newport Mercury, July 24, 1775; Essex Gazette (Salem), July 21, 1775. For these references I am indebted to Mr. Arthur J. Mekeel.

98 See letter to John Pemberton from a Quaker correspondent, London, September 11, 1775. Pemberton Papers, xxviii. 59.

99 Letter to Philadelphia Meeting for Sufferings, August 14, 1775. Minutes of Philadelphia Meeting for Sufferings, ii. 22.

100 Epistle from New England Committee for Sufferings, September 12, 1775. Id., 28.

101 Letter of David Evans to Israel Pemberton, written en route at New London, November 16. Pemberton Papers, xxviii. 108.

102 Minutes of Philadelphia Meeting for Sufferings (November 30, 1775), ii. 48.

103 This is a reference to the prevalence of Continental currency, which Friends objected to using.

104 Letter from Philadelphia Meeting for Sufferings, November 17, 1775. Id., 38f.

105 Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789, Worthington C. Ford and Gaillard Hunt, Editors, ii. 189. Neither comparison of dates nor any mention by one party of the other indicates that either’s action was in any sense a bargain with the other. Before long most of the Congress were much less well disposed towards conscientious objectors.

106 Meeting at Smithfield, June 30, 1775.

107 Minutes of New England Meeting for Sufferings (July 15, 1775), i. 3.

108 William Rickman to —, New York, August 9, 1775. Pemberton Papers, xxviii. 25.

109 Moses Brown to John Pemberton, Providence, August 29, 1775. Id., 41.

110 Minutes of New England Meeting for Sufferings, i. 9; Minutes of Philadelphia Meeting for Sufferings, ii. 27f.

111 Letter from New England Committee for Sufferings to the Meeting for Sufferings in Philadelphia, Providence, November 21, 1775. Minutes of New England Meeting for Sufferings, i. 17; Minutes of Philadelphia Meeting for Sufferings, ii. 49.

112 Printed in The Friend, xxii. 406.

113 A full-length biography of Brown is badly needed. There is an article on him in the Dictionary of American Biography, iii. 146–147. There is also a sketch by Augustine Jones entitled, Moses Brown: His Life and Services (Providence, 1892).

114 Moses Brown Papers, ii. 32.

115 Mr. Allen French has called to my attention what is probably an echo of this interview, told by Moses Brown himself a few years before his death to the biographer of General Nathanael Greene. Greene had been a Friend, a member of Greenwich Monthly Meeting, Rhode Island, but had been disowned in 1773 for his military propensities. He was now on Washington’s staff at Cambridge. “Go to General Greene; he is a Quaker, and knows more about it than I do, was his [Washington’s] answer to Moses Brown, who had been sent to Cambridge upon some business in which the Quakers were particularly interested.” George W. Greene, The Life of Nathanael Greene, i (New York, 1867), 142–143.

116 Moses Brown to Henry Lloyd, Roxbury, December 15, 1775; Brown to Ellis Gray, Providence, January 30, 1776. Moses Brown Papers, ii. 47, 49.

117 Minutes of New England Meeting for Sufferings, i. 33; Minutes of Philadelphia Meeting for Sufferings, ii. 75ff.

118 Pemberton Papers, xxix. 2.

119 Episde from Philadelphia Meeting for Sufferings to New England Meeting for Sufferings. Minutes of Philadelphia Meeting for Sufferings, ii. 89.

120 Id., 89; Minutes of New England Meeting for Sufferings, i. 44f.

121 This letter has been printed, much edited, in The Friend, xxii. 412f., and, more nearly accurately, in the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, i. 168–174. Its text as given here is from the original in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. It was evidently circulated with other documents as a form of report to the contributing meetings in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. There is, for instance, a copy in the papers of the Philadelphia Meeting for Sufferings, Box 14. The manuscript report received by Shrewsbury Quarterly Meeting is preserved at the Record Room at Friends Meeting House, 221 East Fifteenth Street, New York City.

122 See above, pages 51–52.

123 The letter to Howe, his reply, and the letters to Pope and Ramor are copied in the report mentioned above, page 54, n. 4. They are also copied in Minutes of the New England Meeting for Sufferings, i. 23ff.

124 The remark is probably: “How many are spending their time and money in vanity and superfluities, while thousands and tens of thousands want the necessaries of life, who might be relieved by them and their distress at such a time as this, in some degree softened by the administering suitable things.”

125 “Watertown, Nov. 27 . . . Friday last, General Howe sent 300 Men, Women and Children, Poor of the Town of Boston, over to Chelsea, without any Thing to subsist on, at this inclement Season of the Year . . .” Boston Gazette, November 27, 1775.

126 See their briefer report in Minutes of New England Meeting for Sufferings, i. 27.

127 Pemberton Papers, xxix. 32. In the same letter Moses Brown remarks: “I think it may be said in justice to the people of that government [Massachusetts] that there is now as little appearance of the Spirit of Persecution of Friends as in any of the Colonies.”

128 Minutes of Philadelphia Meeting for Sufferings, ii. 100f. In the Reynell-Coates Collection at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania is John Reynell’s original account book containing the same itemized information under the heading “Dr & Cr Subscriptions received from the monthly meetings belonging to the Yearly Meeting for the relief of the poor Inhabitants of Massachusetts.” The book itself is now marked “Pensilvania and New Jersey Yearly Meeting Stock in account with John Reynell 1762–1783.” I cannot find trace of any record of the individual donations.

129 James Berry of Maryland wrote from Choptank to John Pemberton on August 8, 1775: “Diverse Friends hereaways have for some time past been inclined to give a small matter towards the support of the sufferers in New England but not finding any satisfactory way of conveying it (till the Meeting for Sufferings in Philad^a opened a channel for that purpose) nothing has been done till our last Quarterly Meeting when I was directed to receive the contributions of Friends and to convey it to the Meeting for Sufferings provided it can be joined to the sum raised in your provinces and forwarded therewith.” Pemberton Papers, xxviii. 23.

130 Papers of Philadelphia Meeting for Sufferings, Box 14.

131 Of the Boston Quaker families listed in 1774 (see page 42, n. 5, above) the following refugees were, according to the lists, assisted: at Falmouth, Maine, Phebe Pope, Nathaniel Low, wife, and three children; at Salem, Sarah Silsbey; at Lynn, Ephraim Silsbey and wife, Ezra Curtain and wife.

132 Lilley Eaton, Genealogical History of the Town of Reading, Mass. (Boston, 1874), 715–716.

133 MS., Massachusetts Historical Society. There are twenty-one families totaling eighty-two persons on this list. On the back is an account of what the town of Concord provided for them from May 13, 1775.

134 Minutes of New England Meeting for Sufferings, i. 38; Minutes of Philadelphia Meeting for Sufferings, ii. 82.

135 Minutes of the Meeting for Sufferings of New York Yearly Meeting (Friends Record Room, 221 East Fifteenth Street, New York City), i. 38.

136 Compare the action in 1781 of the congregation in Chelsea, Mass., in sending money to “the distressed inhabitants of South Carolina and Georgia who are driven out by British troops.” 2 Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc, ix. 105–108.

137 According to English minutes preserved in the records of the Philadelphia Meeting for Sufferings (Box 18), this wish was fulfilled by a grant of £500 to the Negro school in Philadelphia, while other money was being applied as late as 1789 to war sufferers in Nova Scotia.

138 Joseph B. Felt, The Annals of Salem (Salem, 1827), 497, 499. Cf. Rufus M. Jones, The Quakers in the American Colonies (New York, 1911), 152, where he observes: “In Salem the Friends in company with the selectmen of the town went from house to house and distributed their relief through the very streets along which the Quakers had been whipped a hundred years before.”

139 The New England Meeting for Sufferings wrote to Philadelphia in May, 1776, that the distribution had “a tendency to make a good impression on the minds of some who have been prejudiced against Friends.” Minutes of Philadelphia Meeting for Sufferings, ii. 84.

140 The abbreviations used in the lists are:

B. Baptist	M. Moravian
C. Church of England	P. Presbyterian or Congregationalist
D. Dissenter	P. Presbyterian or Congregationalist
F. Friend	R. Roman Catholic
L. Lutheran	W. Widow

141 “N.B. Those Woomen who have no Occupations put against them, Usualy got their Living by their hand Labour of Various Kinds, now Obstructed & Stopt by the present Troubles &c.”

142 The “child” listed as Mrs. Lopthorn’s is stated to be “aged 59 years.”

143 “Taken Prisoners at Mechias in 6^th M^o 1775 whose allowance is small (1^st of y^e 3^d M^o 1776).”

144 “Those in Malbrow marked * in the Margin were not Vissited Living much dispers’d in the Town, but after due Enquiry of other people who came from Boston & the Select Men the Sums were apportion’d and sent by John Sigane of Boston & Two of the Select Men.”

145 “He freed by his master. She purchased by him, have a house in Boston & paid Taxes per bills shewn us from 1766 to 1772, but have not been favor’d with the publicks support he has 10 children She One of them, all Slaves.”

146 “Those marked * in Reading living scatter’d & remote were after due Examination relieved by sending the Moneys Anex’s to each, by Benj^a Brown a Select Man per Rc^t.”

147 “N.B. All those in Glocester on Cape Ann (a few expected as per the first Lists) are Presbiterians Congregationalist.”

148 “Calls herself a Quaker.”

149 “These persons were Imprisoned in Worcester Goal for not Appearing (or procureing others) with Arms when calld for & Refusing to pay the fine, and Leaving their Familes poor & Needy were Visited after Visiting them in Prison; they are called by some New Lights by some Friends, they seldom Attend friends Meetings but appeard sober Some faild in their perseverance & have Lamented their fall, Others were Released by their parents & Relations and are all out of Goal.”

150 “These persons were Imprisoned in Worcester Goal for not Appearing (or procureing others) with Arms when calld for & Refusing to pay the fine, and Leaving their Familes poor & Needy were Visited after Visiting them in Prison; they are called by some New Lights by some Friends, they seldom Attend friends Meetings but appeard sober Some faild in their perseverance & have Lamented their fall, Others were Released by their parents & Relations and are all out of Goal.”

151 “These persons were Imprisoned in Worcester Goal for not Appearing (or procureing others) with Arms when calld for & Refusing to pay the fine, and Leaving their Familes poor & Needy were Visited after Visiting them in Prison; they are called by some New Lights by some Friends, they seldom Attend friends Meetings but appeard sober Some faild in their perseverance & have Lamented their fall, Others were Released by their parents & Relations and are all out of Goal.”

152 “These persons were Imprisoned in Worcester Goal for not Appearing (or procureing others) with Arms when calld for & Refusing to pay the fine, and Leaving their Familes poor & Needy were Visited after Visiting them in Prison; they are called by some New Lights by some Friends, they seldom Attend friends Meetings but appeard sober Some faild in their perseverance & have Lamented their fall, Others were Released by their parents & Relations and are all out of Goal.”

153 “These persons were Imprisoned in Worcester Goal for not Appearing (or procureing others) with Arms when calld for & Refusing to pay the fine, and Leaving their Familes poor & Needy were Visited after Visiting them in Prison; they are called by some New Lights by some Friends, they seldom Attend friends Meetings but appeard sober Some faild in their perseverance & have Lamented their fall, Others were Released by their parents & Relations and are all out of Goal.”

154 “These persons were Imprisoned in Worcester Goal for not Appearing (or procureing others) with Arms when calld for & Refusing to pay the fine, and Leaving their Familes poor & Needy were Visited after Visiting them in Prison; they are called by some New Lights by some Friends, they seldom Attend friends Meetings but appeard sober Some faild in their perseverance & have Lamented their fall, Others were Released by their parents & Relations and are all out of Goal.”

155 “These persons were Imprisoned in Worcester Goal for not Appearing (or procureing others) with Arms when calld for & Refusing to pay the fine, and Leaving their Familes poor & Needy were Visited after Visiting them in Prison; they are called by some New Lights by some Friends, they seldom Attend friends Meetings but appeard sober Some faild in their perseverance & have Lamented their fall, Others were Released by their parents & Relations and are all out of Goal.”

156 “Put into the hands of John Beckford, Timothy Pickering, Samuel Holman, Joseph Brown, John Tuesdal and Jeremiah Hacker to deal out agreeable to directions.”

157 “Put into the hands of Robert Hooper Junr. of Marblehead, to deal out according to directions. And it appears likely more than 200 families will receive of these provisions, lodged in these two Towns, the number of poor, & smallness of the quantity to each is such, that an exact account is not required of the persons who deliver’d it, their integrity & faithfulness is not to be doubted.”

158 1,008 lbs. beef were distributed to 38 persons.

159 “Independent.”

160 “Omitted in the other Acc^t.”

161 Printed, in substance, in The Colophon, New Series, III, No. 4, 531–557.

162 Essex Institute Historical Collections, viii. 215–224; x. 73–104.

163 Editorial in the Boston Sunday Globe, February 17, 1929.

164 Essex Institute Historical Collections, viii. 168–174.

165 Scribbled on the title page is the following: “p^r 1s 2d J. G. hunc librum vendicat.” On the verso of the title page Green has written a list of the symbols and abbreviations used in his manuscript. In printing, only those that can be readily reproduced in modern type have been retained.

166 When he was teaching school at Roxbury.

167 Nehemiah Walter, minister of the church at Roxbury.

168 This is written on the verso of the second leaf, which is unnumbered. On the recto there is a business memorandum in a later hand.

169 Edward Green, captain of the Eagle.

170 Thomas Johnson of Cambridge, who married Green’s sister Elizabeth.

171 Samuel Champney (d 1695), whom Green’s mother married as her second husband.

172 Zechariah Hicks, who married Green’s sister Ruth.

173 Joseph Hicks, who married Green’s sister Bethiah.

174 Bethiah Green Hicks.

175 This sentence was inserted by Green at a later time.

176 Antigua.

177 Green’s memorandum: “Y^s letter I have not sent.”

178 Son of John Vassall of Jamaica, formerly of Scituate, Massachusetts. He stood at the head of the Class of 1695.

179 William Brattle did become minister of Cambridge in 1696.

180 Nathaniel Williams, Henry Flynt, Nathaniel Hunting, and Joseph Baxter of the Class of 1693.

181 Walter Price of Salem, a merchant in later life. He was captain in the fight with the Indians at Haverhill, August 29, 1708.

182 Richard Saltonstall of Haverhill, later a representative and colonel of militia.

183 Nathaniel Saltonstall, brother of Richard, college butler until 1697, subsequendy librarian.

184 John Hubbard of Ipswich, later minister at Jamaica, Long Island.

185 Simon Willard, son of the Reverend Samuel Willard, vice-president of the college.

186 Habijah Savage of Boston, apothecary and commander of the fort at Pemaquid.

187 Alfred Noyes of Boston, physician, politician, promoter of Long Wharf, and owner of fishing vessels.

188 Thomas Phipps of Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

189 Timothy Lindall of Salem, merchant and councillor.

190 Jonathan Law, chief justice of Connecticut, 1725–1741, and governor, 1742–1750.

191 Ezekiel Lewis, master at the Boston Latin School and merchant.

192 Thomas Blowers, minister of Beverly.

193 Thomas Little, physician and clerk of courts at Plymouth.

194 Ephraim Littie, minister of Plymouth.

195 John Perkins, physician of Ipswich.

196 Jedediah Andrews of Hingham, minister of a Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia.

197 John Robinson of Dorchester, minister of Duxbury.

198 Joseph Mors of Medfield, minister of Dorchester Village (Canton).

199 Nicholas Webster of Newbury, preacher and physician at Manchester and Gloucester.

200 Green’s memorandum: “this I had thoughts of sending but afterwards repented me &c.”

201 Percival Green (A.B. 1680, A.M. 1683), minister of Wells, Maine. He died July 10, 1684.

202 Elijah Corlett, a graduate of Pembroke College, Cambridge, and master of the Cambridge Grammar School from its foundation about 1641 to his death on February 25, 1686/7.

203 Nehemiah Walter (A.B. 1684), at this time studying at the college, often served as a substitute for Corlett. John L. Sibley, Biographical Sketches of Graduates of Harvard University, iii. 295.

204 “The successors of Mr. Corlett were generally young men fresh from college.” Lucius R. Paige, History of Cambridge, Massachusetts (Boston, 1877), 369. No Hastings is mentioned in his list, and the only college graduate of that name was John Hastings (A.B. 1681).

205 The bracketed words are crossed out in the original manuscript.

206 John Hancock (A.B. 1689), minister of Lexington, 1698–1752, grandfather of the patriot.

207 A.B. 1680; a physician of Cambridge.

208 He married a sister of Joseph Green’s mother and lived in Boston. New England Historical and Genealogical Register, v. 414⁷.

209 Apparently Joseph’s blacksmith brother. Paige states (History of Cambridge, 569) that he was living in 1691.

210 A.B. 1668; a merchant of Boston and a member of the governor’s council.

211 A.B. 1689; a man of means who later lived in England.

212 A.B. 1689; he was learning the mercantile business in 1691.

213 A brother of Thomas and William Brattle.

214 A.B. 1686; later chief justice of the province.

215 A.B. 1687; later agent of the province and the college in London and secretary of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.

216 The wife of Jonathan Mitchel (A.B. 1687).

217 Benjamin Wadsworth, later president of the college.

218 The bracketed words are crossed out in the original manuscript. Green’s predecessor was Thomas Barnard (A.B. 1679), whose description of the school in 1681 is given in Sibley, Harvard Graduates, iii. 174–175.

219 Thomas Doolittle, A Treatise concerning the Lord’s Supper. The earliest Boston edition, which is described as the nineteenth edition, was published in 1700.

220 A Companion for Communicants: Discourses upon the Nature, the Design and the Subject of the Lord’s Supper (Boston, 1690).

221 Samuel Williams, ruling elder.

222 Pages [145–146] are missing.

223 William Brattle, his college tutor.

224 Nathaniel Ingersoll, ordained deacon in 1691 and the first innholder of Salem Village.

225 A Daniel Andrew was one of those who on July 21, 1697, as “Attornies for the people of the Village” addressed a remonstrance to the arbitrators appointed to settle the controversy between Parris and the Salem Village church that continued after his active ministry had ended. Samuel G. Drake, The Witchcraft Delusion in New England (Roxbury, 1866), ii. 159.

226 Nicholas Noyes, minister of Salem; John Hale, minister of Beverly; Joseph Gerrish, minister of Wenham, Jonathan Pierpont, minister of Reading; and Nehemiah Walter, minister of Roxbury.

227 Green characteristically fails to mention his first triumph for charity and peace following his ordination. On November 25, 1698, the church, at his instance, unanimously received back into full communion the three seceding members who had raised the faction against his predecessor. Upham, Salem Witchcraft, ii (Boston, 1867), 506–507, where other extracts from the church records are given.

228 Green’s diary begins on March 4, 1699/1700, with a characteristic entry: “Quiet & rainy. Heard small phebe and other birds sing. I was at home partly reading & pruning my orchard.”

229 “On the death of Mr. Hale, some difficulty appears to have arisen in the church, the nature of which is not defined.” Edwin M. Stone, History of Beverly (Boston, 1843), 221.

230 Printed, in substance, in Harold R. Shurtleff, The Log Cabin Myth (Cambridge, 1939).

231 Coram claimed credit for the passage of the Act of 1704 to encourage the making of tar and pitch in the colonies. Acts of the Privy Council of England, Colonial Series, vi. 172.

232 Calendar of State Papers, Colonial, America and West Indies (1712–1714), §§357, 364, 460 (June and August, 1713); Nova Scotia Papers (Gay Transcripts, Massachusetts Historical Society), I. 117–121.

233 Col. State Paps., Col. (1712–1714), §§385, 390, 448, 459.

234 Id., §§629, 633, 634, 635, 640.

235 Charles M. Andrews, The Colonial Period of American History, iv (New Haven, 1938), 385–390.

236 Proposals of Coram not discussed here may be found in Cal. State Paps., Col. (1712–1714), §§629, 633, 634, 635, 640; Documentary History of Maine, ix. 342–348.

237 Cal. State Paps., Col. (1712–1714), §460; Nova Scotia Papers, i. 117–121 (August 19, 1713).

238 Cal. State Paps., Col. (1716–1717), §577; see also §§412, 528, 567, 582; Journal of the Commissioners of Trade and Plantations (hereafter cited as Board of Trade) (1715–1718), 235.

239 The date is probably 1718. A copy is in the Boston Public Library.

240 Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc, lvi. 29.

241 Cal. State Paps., Col. (1712–1714), §§643, 656, 672, 673, 677; (1716–1717), §§249, 291, 303, 305, 315, 340.

242 Cal. State Paps., Col. (1716–1717), §599; Documentary History of Maine, ix. 357–361; Nova Scotia Papers, i. 749.

243 Board of Trade (1715–1718), 321–322, 323, 351; Cal. State Paps., Col. (1717–1718), §§308, 383.

244 Board of Trade (1715–1718), 352–354; Cal. State Paps., Col. (1717–1718), §458.

245 Cal. State Paps., Col. (1717–1718), §543.

246 Thomas Hutchinson, The History of the Province of Massachusetts-Bay, ii (Boston, 1767) 244–245.

247 Doctor Pinfold’s State of the Case of the Petitioners, for Settling His Majesties Waste Land, Lying between Nova Scotia, and the Province of Main in New-England, in America. It is dated March 17, 1721. A copy is owned by the Boston Public Library.

248 Board of Trade (1722–1728), 90, 93, 114, 119, 124.

249 Cal. State Paps., Col. (1728–1729), §501.

250 Cal. State Paps., Col. (1726–1727), §§820, 841.

251 Dunbar to Lord Wilmington, February 5, 1738/9. Historical Manuscripts Commission, Eleventh Report, Appendix, Part IV, 282–283.

252 Nova Scotia Papers, iv. 88. The complete text of Coram’s memorial is given in id., 76–91.

253 Board of Trade (1722–1728), 418.

254 Cal. State Paps., Col. (1728–1729), §6281; Nova Scotia Papers, iv. 99–101.

255 Cal. State Paps., Col. (1728–1729), §§630, 631, 665; Nova Scotia Papers, iv. 101–115.

256 C.O. 217/5:108–109.

257 Report on Canadian Archives (1894), 68.

258 Documentary History of Maine, x. 440–441.

259 Cal. State Paps., Col. (1728–1729), §483.

260 Id; §§133; 234i, 365 iii.

261 Documentary History of Maine, x. 455, 459, 465; xi. 31; Cal. State Paps., Col. (1731), §3531 (1730), §402.

262 Documentary History of Maine, xi. 79.

263 Colonial Office, Maps and Plans, 180, 181 (Public Record Office).

264 For the discoveries at Pemaquid, see Warren K. Moorehead, “The Ancient Remains at Pemaquid, Maine,” Old-Time New England, xiv (January, 1924), 133–141.

265 Cal. State Paps., Col. (1731), §217.

266 Order of Both Branches of the Legislature of Massachusetts to Appoint Commissioners to Investigate the Causes of the Difficulties in the County of Lincoln; and the Report of the Commissioners Thereon (Boston, 1811), 145. Waldo took over the peppercorn idea in his deeds subsequent to Dunbar’s leaving Pemaquid. Some of the deeds are to be found in Knox Papers, l. 21f. (Massachusetts Historical Society), and in the Maine Historical Society’s manuscripts.

267 Commissioners’ Report, 144.

268 Nova Scotia Papers, iv. 125–130. Dunbar’s advertisement for settlers in the Boston Gazette, August 17, 1730, gives no hint of a change of plans. He felt that it was necessary to broach the matter to the prospective settlers by degrees. Cal. State Paps., Col. (1730), §402.

269 Documentary History of Maine, xi. 44–47; Massachusetts House Journals, ix. 272; Cal. State Paps., Col. (1731), §§6i, 12, 12 iii.

270 Documentary History of Maine, xi. 63–65. It should be mentioned that Woodside had been in difficulties with the Massachusetts House. Executive Records of the Council (MS., Mass. Archives), xv. 54–55; Massachusetts House Journals, x. 100–101.

271 Cf. Robert G. Albion, Forests and Sea-Power (Cambridge, 1926), 262.

272 Cal. State Paps., Col. (1731), §§73, 300, 301.

273 Documentary History of Maine, xi. 67–70; Massachusetts House Journals, ix. 282, 289.

274 The committee’s report is in Documentary History of Maine, xi. 70–85. Two original manuscript copies, signed by the members, are in the Massachusetts Historical Society, Miscellaneous Papers, iii. 16–18.

275 Documentary History of Maine, xi. 66–67.

276 Id., 112–128.

277 Massachusetts House Journals, x. 387–403; xi. 117.

278 Documentary History of Maine, xi. 134–135; 6 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc, vi. 422–425; Massachusetts House Journals, xi. 174, 257–258, 281.

279 Massachusetts House Journals, xi. 322, 329; Acts and Resolves, xi. 759; 6 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc, vi. 396.

280 6 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc, vi. 327; see also 318–321, 324–328, 331–338.

281 C.O. 217/5: 108–109.

282 The Society has, with Mr. Frost’s permission, issued and distributed amongst the members a broadside containing A Considerable Speck, one of the poems, hitherto unpublished, which Mr. Frost read on this occasion. The broadside was printed from the first font of type cut and cast by Mr. Dard Hunter, Jr., and on paper made by Mr. Dard Hunter, Sr.

283 On December 17, 1936, Mr. Mood spoke before the Society on “The Genesis of Frederick Jackson Turner’s Historical Ideas.” Some of the material dealt with was afterward used in his essay, “Turner’s Formative Period,” printed (pages 5–39) in The Early Writings of Frederic Jackson Turner (Madison, 1938). Though based in part on the essay of 1938, the present paper is essentially a new piece of work.

284 Wisconsin Magazine of History, xv (September, 1931), 93; xix (September, 1935), 101–103. I have also consulted the data on the population of Wisconsin in the Census of 1870.

285 “History of the ‘Grignon Tract’ on the Portage of the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers,” State Register (Portage, Wisconsin), June 23, 1883. My thanks are due the late Joseph Schafer, who kindly supplied me with a photostat copy of this, the earliest writing by Turner.

286 “The History of Fort Winnebago,” Collections, Wisconsin State Historical Society, xiv (Madison, 1898), 65–102.

287 On Veblen’s beginnings, see the earlier chapters in Joseph Dorfman, Thorstein Veblen and His America (New York, 1934).

288 Official transcript of the record of Fred Jackson Turner at the University of Wisconsin.

289 Frederick J. Turner, “Problems in American History,” The Early Writings of Frederick Jackson Turner (Madison, 1938), 76. This volume also contains a chronological list of all Turner’s works, compiled by Everett E. Edwards, and an introduction by Fulmer Mood.

290 Wisconsin Magazine of History, xix (September, 1935), 101–103.

291 Official transcript of the record of Fred Jackson Turner at the University of Wisconsin.

292 William F. Allen, Essays and Monographs (Boston, 1890), 8. D. B. Frankenburger’s memoir in this volume gives the fullest account of Allen’s life. The Dictionary of American Biography has a sketch.

293 Catalogue of the University of Wisconsin, 1881–1882 (Madison, 1882), 49.

294 The syllabus was reprinted to form a part of Methods of Teaching History, G. Stanley Hall, Editor (Boston, 1886), 323–336.

295 Catalogue of the University of Wisconsin, 1884–1885 (Madison, 1884), 8, 10. Hereafter specific references will not be given to the University of Wisconsin catalogues when the context supplies sufficient information to run down the source.

296 Wisconsin Magazine of History, xv (September, 1930), 89.

297 Printed in the University Press (Madison), 14 (35): 4 (May 26, 1883).

298 University Press, 15 (39): 12 (June 21, 1884). This oration was awarded the Lewis prize.

299 “An Act to Provide for a System of Common Schools,” Statutes of California Passed at the Sixteenth Session (Sacramento, 1866), 400–401.

300 Reuben Gold Thwaites. A Memorial Address (Madison, 1914), 38.

301 Id., 18.

302 This textbook by Alexander Johnston (1849–1889) was the first really successful, scholarly work of the kind. Editions, revised from time to time, were published in 1879, 1880, 1882, 1890, 1892, 1898, 1907, and 1910.

303 This forms part of his History Topics. See Hall, Methods of Teaching History, 330–336.

304 Syllabus of American History, 61.

305 Nation, xli (1885), 54.

306 Id., xxxii (1881), 280.

307 The Frontier in American History (New York, 1920), 25.

308 For a contrary view, see Wirt A. Cate, “Lamar and the Frontier Hypothesis,” Journal of Southern History, i (February, 1935), 497–501.

309 History of America, 386–387.

310 Hall, Methods of Teaching History, 282. The London edition of Doyle’s work was reviewed by Allen in the Nation, xxii (May, 1876), 296.

311 The Colonies, 1492–1750, ix.

312 Dr. Edward L. Hardy graduated from the University of Wisconsin with the degree of B.L. in 1893. During his last two years he elected courses in American history with Turner and accumulated an extensive file of notes recording the opinions of the lecturer. In April, 1940, Dr. Hardy, with marked generosity, presented these to me. On going through them again lately, I noted a reference by Turner to the maps in Doyle’s History of America in Dr. Hardy’s notes on the course on American Economic and Social History which he had in 1892–1893.

313 Nation, xx (1875), 226.

314 Id., xxxii (1881), 151.

315 Catalogue of the University of Wisconsin, 1888–1889 (Madison, 1889), 14.

316 Proceedings, Wisconsin State Historical Society, xxxvi (Madison, 1889), 52–98.

317 Id., 97–98.

318 Outline Studies in the History of the Northwest, 6.

319 “Little Known Fragments of Turner’s Writings,” Fulmer Mood, Editor, Wisconsin Magazine of History, xxiii (March, 1940), 329–330 (the quotation is from the editor’s Introduction). One of the “fragments” here reprinted is the article on Wisconsin, first published in the ninth edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica (xxiv. 616–619), and reprinted in the tenth edition (xxxiii. 861–862).

320 Official transcript of advanced courses taken by Frederick J. Turner at Johns Hopkins University.

321 Early Writings of Turner, 198.

322 Richard T. Ely, An Introduction to Political Economy (New York, 1889), 39–41.

323 Ely, Introduction to Political Economy, 41.

324 Id., 42–50.

325 Id., 53–54.

326 Ely, Studies in the Evolution of Industrial Society (New York, 1903), 21 and n. 1. In the Philadelphia edition of List the scheme of stages is found on page 72.

327 Francis A. Walker, Political Economy, Advanced Course (2nd ed., New York, 1887), 44–53.

328 Ely’s popularization of this concept of stages gave it wide currency. Note, for example, its influence on his pupil, Charles J. Bullock, in Bullock’s Introduction to the Study of Economics (Boston, 1897), Chapter ii, “The Growth of Foundational Industry.” Bullock had studied at Wisconsin under Ely. Through the medium of Elementary Principles of Economics, together with A Short Sketch of Economic History (New York, 1904, and later editions), both by Ely and George R. Wicker, the concept reached an immense audience on both the high school and college levels. Book ii, “The Natural History of a Society,” in Albion W. Small and George M. Vincent, An Introduction to the Study of Society (New York, 1894), comes pretty close to the idea. Ely and Small were at Baltimore at the same time.

329 Of course, to take over, however critically, any a priori scheme or concept is to run a grave risk. The Listian sequence of stages is today firmly embedded in Turner’s great essay, and today the Listian concept can be asserted to be, as a universal rule, a fallacious idea. It is one component element in Turner’s essay that will not now stand the test of inspection.

330 Proceedings, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, xxxv (Madison, 1888), 16.

331 On Gannett, in addition to the sketch in the Dictionary of American Biography, see Simon N. D. North, Henry Gannett, President of the National Geographic Society, 1910–1914 (Washington, 1915).

332 Scribner’s Statistical Atlas, Fletcher Hewes and Henry Gannett, Editors (New York, 1885), vii (hereinafter cited as Atlas). Hewes was apparently responsible for the editing of the text; he had compiled other works earlier. Fittingly, the work was dedicated to Francis A. Walker.

333 Atlas, Plates 7–10.

334 Id., Plate 11.

335 For the text of the essay, see id., xxxvii–xl; for the maps, see id., Plates 12–17.

336 Id., Plates 15–17.

337 Early Writings of Turner, 195.

338 Atlas, xii–li.

339 Id., Plates 54–57.

340 Id., xxiii–xxiv.

341 In its first edition this work (published by the American Book Company) was issued as one of the National Geographic Monographs (1, Number 3). It was republished the following year (1896) by the National Geographic Society, Washington. It was used by Turner in his classroom teaching for many years. When I studied the history of the West as a Harvard undergraduate in 1919–1920, I was required to have the substance of this essay completely at my command. As the scientific study of physiography developed, Turner kept pace with it and made use of new findings. The paragraph in the text can be rounded out by the following quotation: “I have generalized from the report of N. M. Fenneman, Physiographic Divisions of the United States (Association of American Geographers Annals, xviii, 261–353), and A. K. Lobeck, Physiographic Diagram of the United States (Madison, Wis., 1922). . . . An older, and still useful, analysis is J. W. Powell, ‘Physiographic Regions of the United States. . . .’” Frederick J. Turner, The United States, 1830–1850: The Nation and Its Sections (New York, 1935), 2, n. 2.

342 The original MS. is in the Harvard College Library.

343 “Problems in American History” (1904), The Significance of Sections in American History (New York, 1932), 9.

344 Atlas, xliii–xliv. and Plate 22.

345 Atlas, xliv.

346 United States Census Office, Eleventh Census, 1890, Census Bulletin No. 12. Population of the United States by States and Territories, 1890 (Washington, 1890), 5. For a republication of the substance of this discussion, including tables, map, and text, see Compendium of the Eleventh Census: 1890. I. Population (Washington, 1892), xl–xliv.

347 Early Writings of Turner, 198–199.

348 United States Census Office, Eleventh Census, 1890, Extra Census Bulletin No. 2. Distribution of Population according to Density: 1890 (Washington, 1891), 1–2.

349 Id., 4.

350 Official transcript of advanced courses taken by Frederick J. Turner in Johns Hopkins University.

351 Letter from Wilson to Turner, Middletown, Connecticut, August 23, 1889, in the Harvard College Library.

352 I am under obligation to Dr. Eric F. Goldman of the Department of History, Johns Hopkins University, who called my attention to this material and assisted me in other ways in settling specific points relating to Turner’s period of study at Baltimore. Dr. Goldman’s student, Thomas W. McElhiney, kindly permitted me to make transcripts from his notes of the seminar discussions.

353 MS. minutes of the Johns Hopkins University seminar, 420.

354 W. Stull Holt, Editor, Historical Scholarship in the United States, 1876–1901: As Revealed in the Correspondence of Herbert Baxter Adams (Baltimore, 1938), 156; Johns Hopkins Half-Century Directory, 1876–1926, W. Norman Brown, Editor (Baltimore, 1926), 363. Other historians who completed their work on the same day were Charles H. Haskins, John M. Vincent, and James A. Woodburn.

355 Holt, Historical Scholarship in the United States, 158–159. Turner had received twenty-five copies of the published work by December 9.

356 Id., 168–169, 173–174.

357 MS. minutes of the Johns Hopkins University seminar (December 4, 1891), 622.

358 Johns Hopkins University Circulars, No. 4 (April, 1880), 47–48.

359 MS. minutes of the Johns Hopkins University seminar (October 31, 1884), 66.

360 MS. minutes of the Johns Hopkins University seminar, 139.

361 Id. (October 15, 1886), 160.

362 Id. (October 14, 1887), 29.

363 Ely’s teaching on economic rent is brief and clear. See his Introduction to Political Economy, 215–216.

364 Early Writings of Turner, 185–186.

365 Walker, Political Economy, 193, 211.

366 George W. Pierson, “The Frontier and the Frontiersman of Turner’s Essay,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, lxiv (October, 1940), 449–478.

367 Walker, Political Economy, 193.

368 Id., 193–218.

369 Francis A. Walker, Land and Its Rent (Boston, 1883), 21.

370 Id., 22.

371 Walker, Land and Its Rent, 23.

372 Id., 25–26.

373 Id., 45–47.

374 Id., 140.

375 Id., 41.

376 Early Writings of Turner, 82–83.

377 Proceedings, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, xxxviii (Madison, 1891), 93.

378 The edition was small, and the book soon went out of print.

379 J. Franklin Jameson, The History of Historical Writing in America (Boston, 1891), 141–142.

380 Dial, x (August, 1889), 71.

381 Early Writings of Turner, 236–237.

382 Holt, Historical Scholarship in the United States, 145.

383 For bibliographical details, see Early Writings of Turner, 236–240.

Wisconsin Magazine of History, xxii (December, 1938), 216.

384 Annals, American Academy of Political and Social Science, ii (Philadelphia, 1892), 782–783.

385 James A. James and Albert H. Sanford, American History (New York, 1909). In a letter to me Professor James states that this book “was, I think, the earliest text for schools to make use of the Turner viewpoint.” The book was not submitted to Turner in manuscript, Professor James adds.

386 For the inception of the plan, see Proceedings, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, xxxvi. 47.

387 Transactions, Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters, viii (Madison, 1892), 288–298.

388 Here Turner followed the gracious custom of his predecessor, Professor Allen.

389 Collections, Wisconsin State Historical Society, xii (Madison, 1892), 299–334.

390 Id., xiv (Madison, 1898), 341–393.

391 J. Franklin Jameson, Editor, Essays in the Constitutional History of the United States in the Formative Period, 1775–1789, by Graduates and Former Members of the Johns Hopkins University (Boston, 1889), 67.

392 Charles A. Beard, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States (New York, 1913), 5.

393 Orin G. Libby, The Geographical Distribution of the Vote of the Thirteen States on the Federal Constitution, 1787–8 (Madison, 1894), iii–vii.

394 Collections, Wisconsin State Historical Society, xiii (Madison, 1895), 293–334.

395 Id., 334.

396 Id., 335–374.

397 Id., 363.

398 I have reprinted the 1894 “Frontier” essay, with introductory remarks, in “Little Known Fragments of Turner’s Writings,” Wisconsin Magazine of History, xxiii (March, 1940), 330, 338–341. Why Turner allowed this useful essay (as well as his Ægis article of 1892) to drop out of sight is a minor mystery. He seems to have had little concern over being misunderstood by those who were to come afterward. Until the recently published chronological bibliography of Turner’s writings by Dr. Edwards (Early Writings of Turner, 234–268) it was quite impossible to trace the unfolding of his scholarship.

399 Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1893 (Washington, 1894), 6.

400 Catalogue of the University of Wisconsin for 1891–1892 (Madison, 1892), 98.

401 Trent was of Virginian birth, had done postgraduate work at Johns Hopkins, and was the author of English Culture in Virginia (1889) and Life of William Gilmore Simms (1892).

402 William P. Trent, Southern Statesmen of the Old Régime: Washington, Jefferson, Randolph, Calhoun, Stephens, Toombs, and Jefferson Davis (New York, 1897), vii–xv.

403 Max Farrand, “Frederick Jackson Turner at the Huntington Library,” Huntington Library Bulletin, Number 3 (February, 1933), 159.

404 Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1896 (Washington, 1897), i. 281–296.

405 Id., 283.

406 Id., 287.

407 For bibliographical details, see Early Writings of Turner, 239.

408 Id., 239–250 (entries for the years 1895–1905).

409 For a statement of Libby’s views on this subject, see his article, “A Plea for the Study of Votes in Congress,” Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1896, i. 323–334.

410 Id., 323.

411 Id., 332.

412 Id., 332 and n.1.

413 Ulrich B. Phillips, Georgia and State Rights. A Study of the Political History of Georgia from the Revolution to the Civil War, with Particular Regard to Federal Relations (Washington, 1902), 5.

414 See Everett E. Edwards, “A Bibliography of the Writings of Professor Ulrich Bonnell Phillips” [Introduction by Fred Landon], Agricultural History, viii (October, 1934), 196–218.

415 His American Diplomacy (New York, 1915, and four subsequent editions) developed from this branch of his teaching.

416 Holt, Historical Scholarship in the United States, 276.

417 Woodrow Wilson to F. J. Turner, Princeton, January 21, 1902, in Harvard College Library.

418 This anecdote comes to me from Professor Wilbur C. Abbott.

419 Huntington Library Bulletin, Number 3, 160–162.

420 The helpful Introduction by Professor Avery Craven reveals how Turner worked and composed his manuscript.

421 For an account of the literary project that Fish had in hand, see his The American Civil War, vii–viii.

422 The project was outlined by Phillips in the Preface to Life and Labor in the Old South (Boston, 1929).

423 Wisconsin Magazine of History, xix (September, 1935), 96–97.

424 Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the year 1909 (Washington, 1911), 165–172.

425 Id., 165.

426 Mr. Potter, to whose studies and interest all later concern with the John Harvard donation is indebted, retired as the Harvard College Librarian in 1936. The Library has continued, however, to secure as far as possible copies of the books whose titles were identified. A list of some seventy such additions will be found below in the footnote on page 355; but there remains a list of desiderata, nearly twice as long, representing the items still lacking at the Library. Most of the books regarded as replacements of the original donation have been classified as a separate category with a shelf list of their own, and many of them have stood together in a separate show case in the old Treasure Room in the main building of Widener Library.

The substance of this paper is included in a more popular article, “What Happened to John Harvard’s Books?” Harvard Alumni Bulletin, xli (November 18, 1938), 241–248.

427 “A Few Notes concerning the Records of Harvard College,” Bibliographical Contributions, Justin Winsor, Editor, No. 27 (Cambridge, 1888). The list, without identifications, was published in Thomas G. Wright, Literary Culture in Early New England, 1620–1730 (New Haven, 1920), 265–272, and in our Publications, xv. 158–166.

428 In his list Potter used the designation “(Cat. 1723)” to indicate items that he identified in this way. This symbol may now be added to his printed list in the following instances, confirming or correcting his titles and editions: Nos. 26, 44 (should be Geneva, 1625), 50, 55 (also Poitiers, 1619, f^o), 81 (should be 4^o), 111a (the edition in English), 163b (should be Basel, 1611), 196 (should be 4^o), 222 (should be edition of 1547, for which “1647” in the Catalogue is an obvious error), 227b. The dates in Potter’s list should be further corrected in these items: Nos. 8b (1620 for 1630), 72d (1572 for 1568), 143a (1599 for 1589), 174a (1570 for 1574), 198a (1618 for 1628), 199 (1629 for 1627). The asterisk used by Potter to mark items of which copies are in the Harvard College Library may now be added, owing to more recent accessions, to the titles and editions which he names under Nos. 1, 2, 6a (Volumes 3 and 4), 13, 16, 18, 23a, 24a (Antwerp, 1616), 29b, 29d (Venice, 1617), 30d, 31, 33, 42, 46a, 46e, 48b, 48d, 48e, 48g, 48j, 51a, 54, 59, 60, 62a, 62c, 62f, 62h, 70, 72a, 75b, 75c, 90 (London, 1593), 91 (London, 1633), 94 (Frankfort, n.d.), 106, 108a, 109b, 114, 116, 117, 126, 134, 140, 143b, 156, 162, 163b (Basel, 1603), 169 (London, 1638), 172, 174, 183a, 184b, 189a, 191e, 195, 198a, 205, 208, 210, 220, 222 (Lyons, 1547), 234, 237, 242b, 245, 246 (London, 1618), 247, 250.

429 This striking difference between ancient and modern library practice is rarely mentioned or thought of today. Burnett H. Streeter thinks the custom goes back to the days of chained books. The Chained Library (London, 1931).

430 Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, xx. 287, 288. The original manuscript of this list is in the Boston Public Library.

431 This similarity was noted by Andrew McF. Davis (Bibliographical Contributions, No. 27, 7), but he drew no deductions from it. The list was printed by him in id., 14.

Of course some coincidences between contemporary libraries in New England are to be expected. I have attempted to compute the number of titles in the John Harvard list that are also found in three other lists of the period. The library of Thomas Jenner, left by him in America in 1649 and bought in 1651 for the use of John Eliot by the Corporation for Propagation of the Gospel in New England (the New England Company) had 200 titles (our Publications, xxviii. 113–136), of which not more than 40 are in the John Harvard list. The library left in America by Thomas Weld (1595–1662) and similarly disposed of at the same time as Jenner’s (id., 136–156) contained 195 titles, of which about 32 may be the same as titles in the John Harvard list. A smaller and earlier library, owned and housed in various places in the colony from its presentation in 1629 until it was burned in the Town House fire in Boston in 1711, was that given the Massachusetts Bay Company by William Backhouse and the Reverend Samuel Skelton. About a dozen of the John Harvard titles may be included in its 52 entries. Proc. Am. Antiq. Soc, xx. 271.

432 The date at which the two lists were copied into the Record Book is not known. Mr. Morison thinks it was probably after 1667, when the new library laws called for a catalogue. The Founding of Harvard College (Cambridge, 1935), 264. The handwriting is not that of President Dunster, as was formerly thought, but it has not been identified. Bellingham’s gift may have been made in 1642, when the magistrates and elders gave to Harvard College from their libraries books to the value of £200 (id., 263); or by bequest at his death in 1672, when, according to the inventory of his estate, he had at his house in Boston a library of books worth £30. Mellen Chamberlain, Documentary History of Chelsea, 1624–1824 (Boston, 1908), i. 427.

433 Sibley has written on the bookplate: “This book belonged to the Library before the fire Jan. 24, 1766 [sic].”

434 Proc. Am. Antiq. Soc., xxxiv. 2–4, 14–19.

435 Our Publications, xvi. 522. On the recovery of nearly seventy of the duplicates thus disposed of, see my article, “My Professor’s Closet,” Harvard Alumni Bulletin, xxxix (December 4, 1936), 297–301.

436 Our Publications, xvi. 570.

437 Id., 728.

438 Id., xxviii. 381–461.

439 Or perhaps a similar work of the same title by Ravisius Textor.

440 Of this total, $291.18 is to be reimbursed from the savings bank deposit belonging to the Martha Rebecca Hund Fund.

441 Printed in John Adams, Works, ix. 641–643, and Hezekiah Niles, Principles and Acts of the Revolution in America (New York, 1876), 107–108.

442 E. Francis Brown, Joseph Hawley, Colonial Radical (New York, 1931), 154.

443 Hawley to Gerry, February 18, 1776, in James T. Austin, Life of Elbridge Gerry, 1 (Boston, 1828), 161.

444 Id., 160.

445 2. Samuel, i: 20.

446 The material for this paper has been obtained from the following sources:

Derby business papers, Essex Institute.
Edward B. Allen, Early American Wall Paintings (New Haven, 1926).
George C. Mason, Reminiscences of Newport (Newport, 1884).
Article by Joseph Northam in the Newport Daily News, December 31, 1895.

447 Our Publications, xxxii. 505–514.

448 Frederick M. Kimball, “Corné and Tomatoes,” Canco (the trade journal of the American Can Company), v (April, 1939), 6.

449 The substance of Mr. Murdock’s remarks is printed in Appalachia, vii (June, 1941), 344–354.

450 Political Register and Impartial Review, ix (London, 1771), 81–83.

451 Id., 81.

452 The first biographer of Wilkes to use the American letters was John Almon. In his Correspondence of the Late John Wilkes (5 vols., London, 1805), Almon printed four letters from the Sons of Liberty. Two recent biographies, Raymond Postgate, That Devil Wilkes (London, 1930), and O. H. Sherrard, A Life of John Wilkes (London, 1930), have quoted these and other American letters from the Wilkes papers in the British Museum. All these letters were printed by Worthington C. Ford in Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc, xlvii. 190–215.

Two other American letters to Wilkes are available in print: from the Sons of Liberty, November 4, 1769, in John G. Palfrey, “William Palfrey,” Library of American Biography, 2nd Series, vii (Boston, 1845), 358–362; from William Palfrey, March 13, 1770, describing the Boston Massacre, in 1 Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc, vi. 480–483.

453 Printed in Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc, xlvii. 196–197.

454 John Dickinson, Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, 1768).

455 Palfrey had sent Wilkes copies of the Boston Evening Post, which began on February 6, 1769, to publish a series of letters containing a “full answer to the Farmer’s.” Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc, xlvii. 196–197.

456 George Hayley, Palfrey’s commercial correspondent in London and Wilkes’s brother-in-law.

457 Copy by Anna R. Palfrey, corrected and endorsed by John G. Palfrey: “Original given by J. G. P. to Mrs. [George] Ticknor May 15, 1873.”

458 Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc, xlvii. 200–202.

459 Palfrey had sent Wilkes a copy of a deposition by Sampson Toovey, clerk to James Cockle, Collector of Customs at Salem, stating that Cockle received bribes and shared them with Governor Bernard. Wilkes published this, with a short introduction, in the London Daily Advertiser and Morning Chronicle, July 22, 1769.

460 Hancock’s sloop Liberty was condemned in 1768 after several months of litigation. See Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc, lv. 239–284.

461 Printed by permission of the Harvard College Library. Excerpts from this letter are printed in Library of American Biography, 2nd Series, vii. 365n.

462 Eliot visited Wilkes on September 14 and 20, 1769. Anna Ticknor, Samuel Eliot (Boston, 1869), 32.

463 In his letter of July 26 Palfrey had written: “The society of the friends of Liberty have directed me to forward you two Turtles. . . . They are now in fine order, one weighs 45 lb., the other 47, making in the whole 92 lb. which is the Massachusetts patriotic number.” Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc, xlvii. 206.

464 John Glynn (1722–1779), London politician and lawyer, who took the lead in defending Wilkes in numerous suits.

465 Palfrey’s draft bears no date. However, the supplement to this letter, printed in i Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc., vi. 480–483, indicates that it was written on March 5, 1770.

466 John Jeffries (1745–1819), after graduating from Harvard in 1763, studied medicine in England for several years. At first an ardent patriot, he lost the respect of the radicals by testifying for Captain Preston in October, 1770. During the war he moved to England where he subsequently became famous for the first crossing of the Strait of Dover by air.

467 The passage in brackets is canceled in Palfrey’s draft.

468 Lieutenant Colonel William Dalrymple.

469 Ebenezer Richardson.

470 “Knight of the Post” was a term of contempt for a perjurer or one who got his living by giving false evidence.

471 One paragraph, describing the Richardson affair in words similar to those above, is here omitted.

472 Wilkes’s term in the King’s Bench Prison ended on April 18, 1770.

473 Copy by Anna R. Palfrey, endorsed by John G. Palfrey: “Copy of a letter of which I gave the original to Miss Arnold.”

474 Wilkes was sworn in as alderman on the day of his release from prison.

475 Palfrey’s draft is undated. The two paragraphs describing Governor Hutchinson’s character were printed in Library of American Biography, 2nd Series, vii. 368–372.

476 Colonel James Otis (1702–1778).

477 John Temple (1732–1798), Surveyor General of the Customs.

478 Henry Temple, second Viscount Palmerston (1739–1802).

479 See page 414, n. 3, above.

480 James Murray (1713–1781) was President of the Council of North Carolina before he moved to Boston in 1765.

481 These Boston and Marlborough merchants had aroused considerable animosity by their violations of the nonimportation agreement. See Publications of this Society, viii. 98n.; xix. 226, 226n, 232, 233n.

482 Charles Churchill (1731–1764), English poet.

483 Arthur Lee of Virginia (1740–1792).

484 Numerous pamphlets were printed in England and America in 1770 claiming to contain the complete love letters of the Duke and Lady Grosvenor. At a trial on July 5, 1770, at King’s Bench, Lord Grosvenor was awarded £16,000 “for a criminal conversation between the Defendant and the Plaintiff’s wife.”

485 Palfrey had been in England from February 3 to April 3, 1771.

486 John Sawbridge (1732–1795), Sheriff of Middlesex, who five times returned Wilkes as duly elected to Parliament in defiance of the House of Commons.

487 Unidentified, but not Charles Churchill, the poet.

488 Mr. George G. Wolkins has written two valuable articles on the exploits of Captain Daniel Malcom: “The Seizure of John Hancock’s sloop Liberty,” Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc, lv. 239–284; and “Daniel Malcom and Writs of Assistance,” id., lviii. 5–84.

489 C.O. 5:849.

490 Massachusetts Superior Court of Judicature, No. 76273.

491 Litigation was Captain John’s favorite pastime while on shore. During the twenty years 1750–1770 he was frequently suing somebody or being sued. Writ after writ is to be found in the files of the Superior Court of Judicature.

492 The Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles, D.D., LL.D., Franklin B. Dexter, Editor (New York, 1901), i. 39.

493 Superior Court of Judicature, No. 90105.

494 “The War of the Regulation occurring in North Carolina . . . has often been regarded as a part of the general revolutionary movement. In reality it was rather a ‘peasants’ revolt’ against the hard conditions then prevailing; and most of the ‘regulators’ were tories a few years later. Professor Bassett, whose detailed article in the American Historical Association’s Reports (1894, pp. 141–212) is by far the best study that has yet been made, says (p. 211): ‘This investigation leads to the view that the Regulation could have no direct connection with the Revolution. I can see no continuity of influence. The Regulation did not make the later struggle inevitable.’ Although, as Professor Bassett states, there is no direct connection between the War of the Regulation and the American Revolution, and although most of the regulators were tories, these disturbances were doubtless influential in adding to the general spirit of unrest which was rising throughout the continent.” Edward Channing, A History of the United States, iii (New York, 1920), 122n.

495 Colonial Records of North Carolina, viii. 583.

496 State Records of North Carolina, xix. 843–845. The expedition ended on June 21, when Governor Tryon left to sail for New York.

497 The name of a fierce swashbuckler in the dramatic burlesque, The Rehearsal (1671), by George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham.

498 Colonial Records of North Carolina, ix. 236–237.

499 Id, 300.

500 Id., 351.

501 Id., 618–619.

502 Boston Gazette, February 14, 1774.

503 Waldo’s letter to the Lords of the Treasury (T.I. 525, f. 119) is dated November 21, 1776, and is addressed to John Robinson, formerly one of the Commissioners of the Customs in Boston. Waldo had come to England after the burning of Falmouth, Maine, by the British in October, 1775. In the destruction of the town he lost his dwelling house and its contents, his distill house, and his storehouse, not to mention the customhouse, which was his own property. Treasury In-letters, 525, f. 125 (Public Record Office).

504 T.I. 525, f. 117.

505 Benjamin B. Thacher, Traits of the Tea Party; Being a Memoir of George R. T. Hewes (New York, 1835), 130–133.

506 Dartmouth mss., Patshull House, Wolverhampton, Shropshire.

507 Dartmouth mss.

508 Letters of a Loyalist Lady (Cambridge, 1927), 70–72.

509 Boston Evening-Post, December 5, 1774; Massachusetts Gazette, December 8, 1774; Massachusetts Spy, December 8, 1774.

510 The imprint reads: “London Printed for Rob^t Sayer & J. Bennett, Map & Printseller, No. 53, Fleet Street as the Act directs 31, Oct^r 1774.”

511 The imprint reads: “Printed for Carington Bowles, at his Map & Print Warehouse, No. 69 in St. Paul’s Church Yard, London. Published as the Act directs, Oct. 12^th, 1774.” The print was Number 306 in Bowles’s series of folio mezzotints.

512 The imprint is the same except for the date, June 2, 1775.

513 Two months later the London Chronicle, December 17, 1774, contained a news item confirming this expectation: “The Exciseman who was tarred and feathered at Boston and lately arrived in England has obtained a pension of 200£ per annum.”

514 R. T. H. Halsey, The Boston Port Bill as Pictured by a Contemporary London Cartoonist (New York, 1904), 93.

515 I first became acquainted with this print through the copy of it in Carpenters’ Hall, Philadelphia. My thanks are due to Charles L. Chandler, Esq., of Philadelphia for his kindness in securing a photograph of the print for me. I have subsequendy come across a copy of the print in the Harvard College Library.

516 The explanation of the scene given below the engraving is as follows: “Le 25 Janvier 1774 la populace irritée pénétra sans armes dans sa maison. Il blessa plusieurs personnes à coups d’épée: mais les Bostoniens, modérés jusques dans leur vengeance, le saisirent, le descendirent par la fenêtre dans une charrette; ensuite il fut dépouillé, goudronné, emplumé, mené sur la place publique, battu de verges, et obligé de remercier de ce qu’on ne le punisait point de mort: puis on le ramena chez lui sans autre mal.”

517 The Letters and Diary of John Rowe, Boston Merchant, 1759–1762, 1764–1779, Anne L. Cunningham, Editor (Boston, 1903), 261.

518 Massachusetts Gazette, February 3, 1774.

519 The complete report of Major Eyre is in the Parkman Transcripts, Massachusetts Historical Society.

520 The Diary and Letters of His Excellency Thomas Hutchinson, Esq., Peter O. Hutchinson, Editor (London, 1886), i. 164.

521 Boston Gazette, January 31, 1774.

522 T.I. 510, f. 49.

523 Dartmouth mss.

524 Massachusetts Gazette, December 8, 1774.

525 Id., December 16, 1774.

526 Dartmouth mss.

527 Dartmouth mss.

528 Hutchinson Diary, ii. 100–101.

529 See pages 440–442, above.

530 Admiralty Office 13:79 (Public Record Office).

531 War Office 12:11616 (Public Record Office).

532 The word in the original is unexempted.

533 A.O.13:75.

534 Malcom’s case is entered under the head of “Persons receiving Allowances under a General Minute of the Board dated the day of but whose Claims are not set forth by Memorial or supported by Voucher.” He is put down as having a “present allowance” of £100, and his “profession” is given as surveyor of the customs.

535 A.O.12:105, f. 141.

536 A.O.13:75.

537 W.O.12:11616.

538 W.O.25:3101.

539 To purchase certain books from the Matt B. Jones collection as a memorial to Mr. Jones.

540 To purchase certain books from the Matt B. Jones collection as a memorial to Mr. Jones.

541 Printed in substance as “Origins of the Colonial Idea in England,” Proceedings, American Philosophical Society, lxxxv (September 30, 1942), 448–465.

542 Francis N. Thorpe, Federal and State Constitutions (Washington, 1909), iii. 1849.

543 Id., 1870, 1877.

544 New England Council, id., 1827, 1834; Maine, id., 1625, 1627; Connecticut, id., i. 529, 536; Rhode Island, id., vi. 3211, 3221.

545 See the Introduction by Charles M. Andrews in Beverly W. Bond, The Quit-Rent System in the American Colonies (New Haven, 1919), 14–17.

546 Lyttleton, His Treatise of Tenures, Thomas E. Tomlins, Editor (London, 1841), 153; Melville Egleston, The Land System of the New England Colonies (Baltimore, 1886), 14. Other reasons are suggested in Viola Barnes, “Land Tenure in English Colonial Charters of the Seventeenth Century,” Essays in Colonial History Presented to Charles McLean Andrews (New Haven, 1931), 4–40; George L. Haskins, “The Beginnings of the Recording System in Massachusetts,” Boston University Law Review, xxi (April, 1941), 299–302.

547 Cf. Charles H. Atherton, “Address,” Collections, New Hampshire Historical Society, iii. 153, 156–157.

548 Cf. Edward P. Cheyney, “The Manor of East Greenwich in the County of Kent,” American Historical Review, xi (October, 1905), 29–35.

549 A partial list of these writers may be found in Richard B. Morris, Studies in the History of American Law (New York, 1930), 106, n. 2.

550 “Fuit agrée per touts que si terre soit alledge d’estre en Kent, serra presume d’estre Gavelkind, si non que le contrary soit prove.” Browne v. Brokes (1659), 2 Siderfin, 153. “Touts terres in Kent sont suppose destre Gavelkind.” Wiseman v. Cotten (1661), 1 Siderfin, 135, 138. See also Robinson on Gavelkind, Charles I. Elton and H. J. H. Mackay, Editors (London, 1897), 44. Cf. Lord Hale’s opinion in Randall v. Writtall (1673), 3 Keble, 214, 216.

551 It should be pointed out that, contrary to the opinion of some, gavelkind was frequently an incident of free and common socage. Cf. Theodore F. T. Plucknett, review, New England Quarterly, iii (July, 1930), 575: “In discussing the famous manor of East Greenwich and the question of gavelkind, we miss the one simple and conclusive answer, viz. that the charters expressly define the tenure as socage; and socage is not gavelkind.” The answer is neither simple nor conclusive; see Charles I. Elton, Tenures of Kent (London, 1867), Chapter xv.

552 Further discussion of the social and economic implications of this is given in my article, “The Beginnings of Partible Inheritance in the American Colonies,” Yale Law Journal, li (June, 1942), 1280–1315. The medieval background is detailed in John E. A. Jolliffe, Pre-Feudal England: The Jutes (Oxford, 1933), 19–30. See also George C. Homans, “Partible Inheritance of Villagers’ Holdings,” Economic History Review, viii (November, 1937), 48–56.

553 William Bradford, History of Plymouth Plantation (Boston, 1912), ii. 41–43.

554 Letter to Samuel Bloommaert, one of the directors of the West India Company, Collections, New York Historical Society, 2nd Series, ii. 352.

555 The Colonial Laws of Massachusetts Reprinted from the Edition of 1660, William H. Whitmore, Editor (Boston, 1889), 51, Titles 81, 82. See also The Laws and Liberties of Massachusetts, 1648, Max Farrand, Editor (Cambridge, 1929), 53–54, and below, page 487.

556 It was repealed in 1789. Acts and Resolves of Massachusetts, 1788–1789 (Boston, 1894), 395–396. For fee tail estates, see below, page 486, n. 2.

557 Studies in the History of American Law, 107–108.

558 Charles M. Andrews, The Colonial Period of American History, i (New Haven, 1934), 86n.–87n.; Zechariah Chafee, Jr., Introduction to Records of the Suffolk County Court, 1671–1680, our Publications, xxix. lxvii–lxviii. See also Professor Chafee’s article, “Professor Beale’s Ancestor,” Harvard Legal Essays Written in Honor of and Presented to Joseph Henry Beale and Samuel Williston (Cambridge, 1934), 39, 56.

559 There is some confusion in the records and the early authorities as to whether the rules of partible inheritance extended to a fee tail in Massachusetts, or whether primogeniture prevailed. In Baker v. Mattocks, Quincy, 69 (Mass., 1763), the court construed the province statute of 1692 as not extending to estates tail, thus holding that the common-law rule of primogeniture prevailed. Cf. The Charter and General Laws of the Colony and Province of Massachusetts Bay (Boston, 1814), 230–232. Earlier in the century, however, the court reached an opposite result in two cases. See Morris, Studies in the History of American Law, 100–101. Yet in 1723 the Council passed a declaratory resolve that the statute of 1692 did not apply to estates tail. Journals of the House of Representatives of Massachusetts, v (Boston, 1924), 279. The real difficulty is that the statute of 1692 refers explicitly to fee simple estates. The earlier enactments, in 1641 and 1660, in providing for descent to all children, make no distinction between fee simple and fee tail estates. Colonial Laws of Massachusetts, 1660, 51 (Titles 81, 82), 201. Morris (Studies in the History of American Law, 102) has concluded that partible descent existed as to fee tail estates during the seventeenth century. It is noteworthy that Plymouth enacted in 1685 that “all Lands heretofore Intailed, and that shall be Intailed hereafter, shall descend and enure as by the Law of England the same ought to do.” William Brigham, The Compact with the Charter and Laws of the Colony of New Plymouth (Boston, 1836), 299. This parallel might tend to weigh in favor of the view that in the Bay Colony rules of partible inheritance applied to estates in fee tail, since no contrary enactment exists. But the use of the words “fee simple” in the 1692 statute equally supports an opposite view. The question must remain an open one until more evidence than the enactments comes to light.

560 For full discussion of these and other incidents, see especially Robinson on Gavelkind, Book ii; Elton, Tenures of Kent, 39–44, 73–104; Nellie Neilson, “Custom and the Common Law of Kent,” Harvard Law Review, xxxviii (February, 1925), 482–498.

561 That is, among the living children of a deceased son by right of representation.

562 Colonial Laws of Massachusetts, 1660, 51, Title 82.

563 Id., 51, Title 81.

564 Laws and Liberties of 1648, 53–54.

565 Colonial Laws of Massachusetts, 1660, 201; The Colonial Laws of Massachusetts Reprinted from the Edition of 1672, William H. Whitmore, Editor (Boston, 1887), 158.

566 Records of the Court of Assistants of the Colony of the Massachusetts Bay, John Noble, Editor, ii (Boston, 1904), 97 (1640); Probate Records of Essex County, Massachusetts, i (Salem, 1916), 62 (1647), 91 (1647), 173 (1654), etc.

567 See above, page 485, n. 3. The grant to Bradford and his associates in 1629 was not as of East Greenwich. Thorpe, Federal and State Constitutions, iii. 1844. Prior to that their patent was from the Plymouth Company, which had received its charter in 1606 with an express mention of the Kentish manor. Id., iii. 3783, 3789. However, the leaders of the colony no doubt thought the tenure unchanged by the Bradford grant, since in the Code of 1636 they specifically mention East Greenwich. Brigham, Compact and Charter, 43, 51, 54.

The Plymouth laws of 1671 include a provision similar to the 1660 law in Massachusetts: that is, children take without distinction between males and females in cases of intestacy. Brigham, Compact and Charter, 281–282. In the revision of 1685 the daughters are expressly excluded and do not take unless there are no sons; again, the double portion is reserved to the eldest son. Id., 299.

568 Laws and Liberties of 1648, 17–18. There had been no earlier provision with regard to dower, as can be seen from the preamble to the title “Dowries” in this enactment: “Forasmuch as no provision hath yet been made for any certein maintainance for Wives after the death of their Husbands. . . .” The earlier provision in 1641 was of a very general character and was clearly “uncertain.” Colonial Laws of Massachusetts, 1660, 51, Title 79.

569 Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay, Nathaniel B. Shurdeff, Editor, ii (Boston, 1853), 281: amendment to 1647 law to strike out the clause “a third part of her husbands money, goods, & chattels, reall & personall.” For the 1692 statute, see Charter and General Laws of Massachusetts Bay, 230. The effectiveness of the amendment is perhaps open to question. Cf. Records of the Court of Assistants, in. 91: “. . . by A third part for the wife to be ment a third part of the whole.” This declaration was made in 1656 by Governor Endecott. See also Records of the Court of Assistants, iii. 208, where a committee was appointed by the court “to lay out the peticon^r hir Just thirds as the law directs.” (Italics mine.) Curiously enough, the excision in 1649 was voted at the same session (May 2) at which Endecott was elected Governor. Massachusetts Records, ii. 265.

The widow very often got a great deal more than her common-law third, but not in any definite proportion. This was particularly so when there were minor children to bring up. See Essex Probate Records, passim.

570 Brigham, Compact and Charter, 43. In practice, in Massachusetts Bay, the widow might get more if the allotted third was manifestly inadequate. The court had power to assign to her such part as should seem just and reasonable. Colonial Laws of Massachusetts, 1660, 51 (Title 79), 201. The administration and settlement of estates in individual cases amply bear out this proposition. Cf. the Plymouth practice of relieving the widow when the husband by will deprived her of “reasonable allowance for her subsistency.” Brigham, Compact and Charter, 281.

571 Colonial Laws of Massachusetts, 1660, 35 (Title 11), 45 (Title 53) — 1641.

572 Id., 35, Titles 10, 11.

573 On this distrust of the English land system, see my article, previously cited, in Boston University Law Review, xxi. 301–302.

574 Colonial Laws of Massachusetts, 1660, 35, Title 10: “All our lands and heritages shall be free from all fines and licences upon Alienations, and from all hariotts, wardships, Liveries, Primerseisins, yeare day and wast, Escheates and forfeitures, upon the deaths of parents or Ancestors. . . .”

Two points deserve special notice in this title. In the first place, a license to alienate was not necessary if a tenant held gavelkind land. Elton, Tenures of Kent, 74. This strengthens my position that gavelkind did not obtain in Massachusetts. In the second place, relief and primer seisin never attached to land held of the King in free and common socage. Lyttleton’s Tenures, 153. No doubt the colonists did not know this. At the same time, it is doubtful whether they had ever had to meet the obligations as socage tenants of the lord of East Greenwich.

In connection with the prohibition against forfeiture, mention should be made of the reply of the Massachusetts General Court to the objection by the Attorney General that persons condemned were in Massachusetts allowed to make wills: “. . . wee conceive it to be according to our patent; and if its originall, viz^t, that of East Greenwitch, according vnto which, as wee conceive, notw^thstanding the fathers crime, yet the children are to possesse the estate.” Massachusetts Records, v. 199. We cannot tell from this assertion whether the General Court actually thought the incident of gavelkind prevailed in Massachusetts, or whether the answer to the Attorney General was merely a legal argument which they hoped would stick. Thomas Hutchinson, writing a hundred years later, was surprised: “They strangely supposed that socage-tenure included all the properties and customs of gavelkind.” History of the Colony and Province of Massachusetts-Bay, Lawrence S. Mayo, Editor (Cambridge, 1936), i. 377. Cf. below, page 497.

575 Of general interest in this connection are Robinson on Gavelkind, Book I, Chapters ii, iii, and Elton, Tenures of Kent, 53^ff. Of more specific interest are Sir Frederick Pollock and Frederick W. Maitland, History of English Law (Boston, 1895), ii. 268, and Howard L. Gray, English Field Systems (Cambridge, 1915), 337. The relation of such customs to the Massachusetts law of partible inheritance is reserved for discussion elsewhere. See above, page 485, n. 1.

576 Those of 1606, 1609, and 1612. Thorpe, Federal and State Constitutions, vii. 3783, 3789, 3790, 3796, 3802, 3804.

577 Those of 1663 and 1665. Id., v. 2743, 2745, 2761, 2763.

578 Those of 1664 and 1674. Id., iii. 1637, 1638, 1641.

579 Those of 1664 and 1674. Id., v. 2533, 2534, 2546.

580 See Virginia Colonial Decisions, Robert T. Barton, Editor (Boston, 1909), i. 58, 163; John S. Bassett, “Landholding in Colonial North Carolina,” Law Quarterly Review, xi (April, 1895), 154, 164; Colonial Laws of New York, i (Albany, 1894), 114; Morris, Studies in the History of American Law, 80, n. 2. In Rhode Island, whose charter of 1663 contained the East Greenwich clause, primogeniture prevailed except during the period 1718–1728. Records of the Colony of Rhode Island, John R. Bartlett, Editor, iv (Providence, 1859), 238, 417; Morris, Studies in the History of American Law, 80.

581 See above, page 484, n. 6.

582 Robinson on Gavelkind, 38–39.

583 Id., Book I, Chapter v; Elton, Tenures of Kent, 112; First Report of the Real Property Commissioners (London, 1829), Appendix ii. 228 (examination of Mr. John Bell, K.C.).

584 Lord Coke, writing in the reign of James I, observes that in a great part of Kent land was descendible to the eldest son. Coke on Littleton, 140b. The disgavelling acts and the persons whose lands were affected are listed in Robinson on Gavelkind, 67–71. See also the entries under “Disgavelled lands” in the Index to Elton, Tenures of Kent.

585 See previous note.

586 The best account is Edward Hasted, History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent, i (Canterbury, 1797), 383–385.

587 The charters, together with other pertinent documents, are collected in Auguste van Lokeren, Chartes et documents de l’Abbaye de Saint Pierre (Ghent, 1868), i, ii. See below, n. 9.

588 Examples may be found in William Somner, Treatise on Gavelkind (London, 1660), 172–187. Cf. Jolliffe, Pre-Feudal England, 24–26.

589 War conditions have prevented my examining photostats of these court rolls, but Professor Viola F. Barnes of Mount Holyoke College, who has worked with them, has kindly informed me that there is no evidence in them of the existence of gavelkind. Cf. Essays Presented to C. M. Andrews, 33.

590 Domesday Book (London, 1783), i. 12b, under “Levesham.”

591 Placita de Quo Warranto (London, 1818), i. 356.

592 Printed in John Kimbell, An Account of the Legacies, Gifts, Rents . . . of the Parish of St. Alphege, Greenwich (London, 1816), 183–209.

593 Id., 206.

594 Robinson on Gavelkind, 73–75; Elton, Tenures of Kent, 236ff.

595 These charters may be found as follows: that of Edgar, in van Lokeren, Chartes, i, No. 38; that of Edward the Confessor, in id., No. 124, and in Benjamin Thorpe, Diplomatarium Anglicum Aevi Saxonici (London, 1865), 357–361; that of William II, in van Lokeren, Chartes, i, No. 159; that of Henry I, in id., No. 170; that of Stephen, in id., No. 215. These and other documents, in abstract, are calendared in John H. Round, Calendar of Documents Preserved in France (London, 1899), i. 500–505, and, in part, in Henry W. C. Davis, Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum (Oxford, 1913), i, Nos. 141, 323. The charter of William the Conqueror, printed in van Lokeren, Chartes, i, No. 156, and in Kimbell, Legacies of Greenwich, 13–16, is unquestionably a forgery. See Davis, Regesta, 38.

A word must be said on a point raised by Davis when he asserts (Regesta, 38) that the manor of Greenwich was held by the Bishop of Lisieux of the Bishop of Bayeux in 1086. His authority for this is the entry in Domesday Book, i. 6b, which includes “Grenviz” under the holdings of the Bishop. It is to be noted, however, that these lands are specified as belonging to Earl Harold and Brixi in the time of Edward the Confessor, whereas we know that at the Conquest the manor of Greenwich was appurtenant to Lewisham and in the hands of the Abbot at Ghent. That this was the manor of Greenwich with which we are concerned seems plain from references in the charters of Henry I (“manerium suum . . . de Gronewic”) and Stephen (“maneria sua de Gronewic et Lieuesham”). The charters of William II and Henry I speak of it as having been held by the Abbot in the time of Edward the Confessor. Since Lewisham belonged to the Abbot at the time of Domesday (Domesday Book, i. 12b), we can only conclude that the manor remained appurtenant to Lewisham and belonged to the Abbot rather than to the Bishop. Just what is meant by “Grenviz” in the holdings of the Bishop is a point which must remain open. It was not until considerably later that the word “East” was prefixed to Greenwich. For our purposes, however, the important thing is that the manor of Greenwich was held in free alms before the Conquest and was certainly again held in free alms after the charter of William II. The possible doubts as to its tenure from 1066 to 1091 do not affect the conclusions as to gavelkind and frankalmoigne.

596 By the statute 1 Henry V, c. 7 (Statutes of the Realm, ii. 172).

597 Sir William Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, i (London, 1655), 974–977; Calendar of the Charter Rolls, 1341–1417, 469, 479, 482. Cf. confirmation by Henry VI in Calendar of the Patent Rolls, 1422–1429, 222.

598 Thomas Rymer, Foedera (Hague ed.), vi, ii, 161.

599 The general rule is emphasized clearly in an early case in the time of Henry III relating to a manor held by the Priory of Christchurch in frankalmoigne from a time before the Conquest. It was held that lands held by such an ancient spiritual tenure were not subject to the customs of gavelkind. Robinson on Gavelkind, 74.

600 “Le custome est solement suspende par reason del prerogative, car maintenant que cest ceo vient in auter maines ceo discendre come gavelkind arrere.” Wiseman v. Cotten, 1 Siderfin, 138. However, it was only the custom of descent which remained in abeyance. Robinson on Gavelkind, 62–63. I am grateful to Professor Roscoe Pound for helpful discussion on this point.

601 Elton, Tenures of Kent, 157; Coke on Copyholds, s. 31. Put more graphically, the question is this: If A held Blackacre in Sussex as of the manor of Dale in Kent, and gavelkind prevailed at Dale, would Blackacre descend according to the customs of gavelkind? Apart from Elton and Lord Coke, there seems to be no explicit authority on the point. An early case, Anon. (1552), Dalison, 12, pl. 21, speaks of gavelkind as a custom which “runs with the land and is by reason of the land.” Robinson on Gavelkind, 55, 61, is explicit to the effect that gavelkind customs cannot be imposed on lands which had never been subject to them. Not even the King, he says, could do this.

What happened if an ordinary subject tried to vary a mode of descent is seen in another early case, Anon. (1560), Dyer, 179b, pl. 45. There it appeared that a man was seised in fee of borough-English lands after the statute of 27 Henry VIII, c. 10. He made a feoffment to divers persons in fee to the use of himself and of his heirs male of his body according to the course of common law. It was held on his death, however, that the youngest son should take by descent. Notice also a case in Y. B., Trinity, 26 Henry VIII (1534), 4, pl. 19, where a man seised of gavelkind lands made a gift in tail to hold of himself by knight’s-service. It was held the land nevertheless remained partible.

Finally, we have a statement in Wiseman v. Cotten, 1 Siderfin, 138: “Si Gavelkind terres sont tenus dun Sn̄ry que est tenus in Chivalry et puis ils Escheate, Issint que sont tenus in Chivalry ore il dit que le Gavelkind Custome est destroy, Mes ceo fuit deny par Twisden Justice (que est bien Conusant in les Leys de son pais).” The implication of this passage is not only that gavelkind is inherent in the land itself, and not merely a technicality of tenure, but also that land held of a superior holding is not affected by the customs of descent of that holding. Twysden’s knowledge of Kentish customs is undeniable. From this it may be argued that lands which normally descended according to common law would not become changed as to the descent when held of a manor which was itself subject to gavelkind. The plausibility of this contention is heightened by the ensuing remarks on the number of tenements held as of the manor of East Greenwich; or rather, its plausibility is heightened for those who may still insist that gavelkind attached to the manor of East Greenwich.

602 See above, page 489.

603 Rymer, Foedera, vii, ii, 156.

604 Select Charters of Trading Companies, 1530–1707, Cecil T. Carr, Editor (Selden Society, London, 1913), 51, 54.

605 Sir John H. LeFroy, Memorials of the Discovery and Early Settlement of the Bermudas (London, 1877), i. 550, 551.

606 Patent Rolls, 20 Charles II, pt. iii. I am grateful to the officials of the Public Record Office in London for checking this reference.

607 Robert M. Martin, History of the British Colonies (London, 1835), i. 38.

608 The number of these grants is too great to make possible any systematic list. See, however, the printed Calendars of the Patent Rolls for the reigns of Edward VI, Mary, and Elizabeth (to 1560); Archaeologia Cantiana, xix (1892), lii (1940); Abstracts of Wiltshire Inquisitions Post Mortem, Edward A. Fry, Editor (London, 1901), i. 3, 12, 40, 41, 59, etc.; Abstracts of Inquisitions Post Mortem Relating to London, George S. Fry, Editor, I (London, 1896), 200, 206, 221, etc.; Thomas Madox, The History and Antiquities of the Exchequer (London, 1769), i. 621; Owen Manning, History and Antiquities of the County of Surrey, i (London, 1804), 357.

609 Quoted by Cheyney, American Historical Review, xi. 30. See also Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1598–1601, 517.

610 In the early years of Edward VI’s reign the socage grants show an increasing favoritism for the manor of East Greenwich. Forty-nine grants are made as of this manor, whereas those of other manors are much less numerous: e.g., five as of the Honour of Hampton Court; four as of Stalbridge, Dorset; three as of Stokenham, Devon; two as of Woking, Surrey, etc. See Calendar of the Patent Rolls, 1548–1549; Viola F. Barnes in Essays Presented to C. M. Andrews, 10, n. 8.

611 American Historical Review, xi. 33–34.

612 See the instructions for the sale of lands in statute 35 Henry VIII, c. 14 (Statutes of the Realm, iii. 972–973); Letters and Papers foreign and Domestic of the Reign of Henry VIII, James Gairdner and R. H. Brodie, Editors, xix, i (London, 1903), 167–168, Section 5.

613 For example, the cut granted to the New River Company in 1619 was given as of the manor of East Greenwich. Select Charters of Trading Companies, 106, 113. So, too, the grant to the Yarmouth Saltmakers in 1636 (id., 148, 155) and the Bedford Level reclaiming project in 1663 (statute 15 Charles II, c. 17, Statutes of the Realm, v. 501). During the Interregnum the forfeited estates of various delinquents and the property of abolished bishops and deans were vested in trustees to be held as of the manor of East Greenwich in free and common socage. Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum (London, 1911), i. 881, 1018, 1150; ii. 83, 201, 592, 639, etc.

614 It is noteworthy how nominal the rents or other payments were in some of the charters for the British colonies. In Massachusetts Bay, for instance, it was one-fifth of the gold or silver discovered (Thorpe, Federal and State Constitutions, iii. 1849); in Pennsylvania, in addition, two beaver skins (id., v. 3037); in Maryland, two Indian arrows (id., iii. 1671); in Bombay, £10 (Select Charters of Trading Companies, lii, n. 4).

615 Wiltshire Inquisitions Post Mortem, i. 386.

616 Id., 209.

617 Thorpe, Federal and State Constitutions, iii. 1669, 1671; v. 3035, 3037.

618 Id., ii. 765, 771.

619 Charter to William Penn and Laws of the Province of Pennsylvania (Harrisburg, 1879), 174, 231–232.

620 Morris, Studies in the History of American Law, 108–111, has collected some of these. He attaches considerable weight to such expressions.

621 Morris (id., 108) considers the reference to East Greenwich in the Plymouth Code of 1636 as an expression of conviction that gavelkind had been brought over by the charter. The Plymouth law says: “That inheritance do descend according to the comendable custome of Engl, and hold of Est. Greenwich.” Brigham, Compact and Charter, 43. It is hard to see why this law is susceptible to that one interpretation. For one thing, gavelkind was never known as the “custom of England”; it was known as the common law of Kent at best. For another, “hold of Est. Greenwich” would seem merely to emphasize the tenurial aspect of landholding. The “Forme of Evidence” for particular holdings in Plymouth bears this out: “to A.B. his heires and assignes forever, The said lands to be holden of his Ma^tie and his successors as of his Mannor of East Greenwich,” etc. Id., 54. Cf. id., 279. The same would seem to apply to the reference to East Greenwich in the habenda of Massachusetts deeds, e.g. Suffolk Deeds, xiv (Boston, 1906), 69, 70. But see Morris, Studies in the History of American Law, 109.

622 See, for instance, Massachusetts Records, v. 199; 6 Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., v. 428; and above, page 488, n. 7. Cf. Collections, Connecticut Historical Society, v. 427. Such arguments are to be contrasted with the sober preamble to the 1692 Statute of Descents, which gives quite a different explanation for the persistence of partible inheritance: “Whereas estates in these plantations do consist chiefly of lands, which have been subdued and brought to improvement by the industry and labour of the proprietors, with the assistance of their children, the younger children generally having been longest and most serviceable unto their parents in that behalf, who have not personal estate to give out unto them in portions, or otherwise to recompense their labours. . . .” Charter and General Laws, 230.

Occasionally in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, partible inheritance, whether in or outside of Kent, was termed gavelkind. Elton, Tenures of Kent, 53–54. Reference has already been made (above, page 489, n. 1) to the existence of partible inheritance outside of Kent. However, the association of gavelkind with Kent on the part of the colonists when the argument of English precedent is made shows that they were not using the word in its loose sense of “partibility.”

623 Note the letter of William Harris, the Rhode Island planter, printed in Collections, Rhode Island Historical Society, x. 249–250.

624 Aspects of this general question are treated by Julius Goebel, Jr., “King’s Law and Local Custom in Seventeenth Century New England,” Columbia Law Review, xxxi (March, 1931), 416–448, and by George L. Haskins in Boston University Law Review, xxi. 281–304, and in Yale Law Journal, li. 1280–1315.

625 The will, which occupies 158 pages of the first volume of the Suffolk County Probate Records, is printed in Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, x. 1–54.

626 See three letters printed in Suffolk Deeds, i (Boston, 1880), 83–84.

627 Records of the First Church of Boston (copy in the library of the Massachusetts Historical Society), 25.

628 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, x. 21.

629 See my article, “Responsibilities of a Puritan Parent,” More Books, xvii (April, 1942), 141–159.

630 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, x. 19, 21.

631 See More Books, xvii (March, 1942), 87–105.

632 New England Hist. Gen. Reg., i. 132.

633 Massachusetts Archives, xvb, 213.

634 Files of the Suffolk County Court, No. 2233, paper 43.

635 Massachusetts Archives, xvb, 212.

636 Suffolk Files, No. 2233, paper 6.

637 Chamberlain MSS., M.H.S., iii. 179 (November 24, 1657).

638 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, ix. 62.

639 Massachusetts Archives, ix. 32.

640 Records of the Court of Assistants of the Colony of the Massachusetts Bay, iii (Boston, 1928), 67–68.

641 Suffolk Files, No. 2233, paper 8.

642 Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in Neiv England, iv, Part i, 370 (May 28, 1659).

643 Massachusetts Archives, xvb, 213.

644 Massachusetts Colony Records, iv, Part i, 392 (October 18, 1659).

645 Miscellaneous Bound MSS., October, 1666, M.H.S. (printed in Mellen Chamberlain, A Documentary History of Chelsea (Boston, 1908), ii. 63).

646 Suffolk Files, No. 2233, paper 8.

647 Id., No. 2233, paper 43.

648 Miscellaneous Bound MSS., March 12, 1665/66, M.H.S. The extraordinary manner of this second marriage probably accounts for the fact that no record was made of it in the book of records.

649 Suffolk Files, No. 2233, paper 5.

650 Id., No. 26733 (printed in Chamberlain, Documentary History of Chelsea, II. 12).

651 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, ix. 74, 79, 80; New England Hist. Gen. Reg. xxiii. 266–269.

652 Suffolk Files, No. 2233, papers 33, 35.

653 Id., No. 2233, paper 33.

654 Id., No. 2233, paper 44.

655 Id., No. 2233, paper 17.

656 Massachusetts Colony Records, iv, Part ii, 309.

657 Suffolk Files, No. 2233, paper 10.

658 Id., No. 2233, paper 7.

659 Id., No. 2233, paper 43.

660 Id.

661 Suffolk Files, No. 26733 (printed in Chamberlain, Documentary History of Chelsea, ii. 12).

662 Suffolk Files, No. 2233, papers 39, 40, 41.

663 Massachusetts Archives, xxxix. 67.

664 Miscellaneous Bound MSS., October, 1666, M.H.S. (printed in Chamberlain, Documentary History of Chelsea, ii. 62–64).

665 Suffolk Files, No. 2233, paper 43.

666 Miscellaneous Bound MSS., October, 1666, M.H.S.

667 Massachusetts Colony Records, iv, Part ii, 327.

668 Massachusetts Archives, xvb, 107 (printed in Chamberlain, Documentary History of Chelsea, i. 649–650).

669 New England Hist. Gen. Reg., xxxvii. 284.

670 Edward Randolph, Robert N. Toppan, Editor, iii (Prince Society, Boston, 1899), 70–73.

671 Id., iv. 12–14.

672 On June 2, 1686, it was voted in Council “that Mr. Paige have five pounds a quarter for his attendance on the President.” “Dudley Records,” 2 Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc., xiii. 243.

673 Toppan, Randolph, ii. 90n.

674 Everett Kimball, The Public Life of Joseph Dudley (New York, 1911), 52.

675 See the edicts issued by Dudley and the Council providing for courts and juries 2 Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc., xiii. 232–237. The details of the ensuing litigation, with many of the documents in the case, may be found in Chamberlain, Documentary History of Chelsea, i. 635–668; ii. 1–84.

676 5 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., v. 333.

677 Id., 225.

678 An Historical Catalogue of the Old South Church (Boston, 1883), 7.

679 5 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc, vi. 109.

680 Suffolk Probate Records, xx. 166–169.

681 Edward Taylor (ca. 1645–1729), a graduate of Harvard College in the Class of 1671, was minister at Westfield from 1672 until his death. The manuscript volume is in the Yale University Library, and transcription and publication of these verses are now possible by the generous permission of the Library. For a brief account of Taylor, see John L. Sibley, Biographical Sketches of Graduates of Harvard University, ii (Cambridge, 1881), 397–412. Much of the best poetry has been published in The Poetical Works of Edward Taylor, Thomas H. Johnson, Editor (New York, 1939), in which (pages 221–228) there is a full description of the manuscript.

682 The sole omission is that of two brief Latin elegies on the death of President Chauncy of Harvard College. They appear on the flyleaf of the volume, so mutilated as to make clear reconstruction impossible. For Taylor’s English elegy on the same theme, see the fifth selection, below.

683 All manuscript line-spacings as well as the spelling, capitalization, and punctuation are exactly rendered. Words, phrases, and lines which are undecipherable or worn away are indicated by, or conjecturally supplied within, brackets.

684 Zechariah Symmes was born in Canterbury, England, on April 5, 1599. He was a graduate of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and emigrated to Charlestown in 1634 in the same ship with Anne Hutchinson, whom he later reproved for “the corruptness and narrowness of her opinions.” Thomas Hutchinson, The History of the Colony and Province of Massachusetts-Bay, Lawrence S. Mayo, Editor (Cambridge, 1936), ii. 373. In December, 1634, he became teacher, and in March, 1636, pastor of the Charlestown church, and he held the latter post until his death on February 4, 1670/71. By virtue of that position he became, in accordance with the General Court’s order of September 27, 1642, a member of the first Board of Overseers of Harvard College, and he remained an Overseer throughout his life. Zechariah Symmes of the Class of 1657 was his son. Taylor was a senior at the time of Symmes’s death.

685 For Francis Willoughby, Deputy Governor of Massachusetts Bay from 1665 until 1671, see Isaac J. Greenwood, “The Willoughby Family of New England,” New England Hist. Gen. Reg., xxx (January, 1876), 67–78.

686 The early curriculum at Harvard required students to improve their rhetoric by delivering an oration or “declamation” at regular intervals during their four undergraduate years. These events took place at nine o’clock on Fridays and were so arranged that each student spoke at least once a month. After 1655 the requirements were modified, undergraduates declaiming bimonthly. Some of the declamations have been preserved, and this of Taylor’s is one of the most entertaining. It is unique among the declamations thus far brought to light in that it is composed in poetical form. Yet its frivolous and playful spirit was not uncommon to such occasions.

Taylor could not resist a pun, and his display of superficial learning has both the charm and the tediousness of much that still passes for undergraduate wit. Later on Taylor learned to govern his exuberant delight in figurative, involved language; and mere cleverness gave way to controlled harmonies. But the mood of the declamation was light and would have been judged only as oratory. Doubtless it am used the President and Fellows, as well as the less nimble-witted students who would admire the facile display.

I am indebted to Dr. Nabih A. Faris, Curator of Arabic Manuscripts and Literatures at Princeton University, for assistance in establishing the Hebrew readings; and to Dr. Floyd C. Harwood, Chairman of the Latin and Greek Departments, Lawrenceville School, for his suggestions regarding the most appropriate renderings of the Latin quibbles and puns. For sources about the Harvard curriculum in the seventeenth century, see Samuel E. Morison, Harvard College in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, 1936), i. 139–280.

687 “I am not Hebrew, I am not Greek, neither am I a Latin.”

688 Taylor, addressing his classmates, employs the term nurslings in its seventeenth-century literal meaning of alumni: all students of a school or college, whether of the past or present, not necessarily graduates. It is significant that he refers to the Puritan institution as one nourished by the muses.

689 The eardrum is figuratively conceived as trussed: that is, drawn tight or stretched firmly during the period of attentive listening.

690 Here used figuratively to mean the air current striking the tympanum. The spelling follows an obsolete form.

691 That is, an apology for or defense of his subject is due if he speak the things with which men usually introduce a subject; the apology will perform the duty of a gentleman usher to the body of his remarks. At Harvard, as at the English universities, each fellow had a sizar—a poorer student earning part of his own education—to serve him as secretary and valet. The term gentleman usher, however, is figurative; it was not applied to any university or college function. An usher was an undermaster or teaching assistant.

692 “I say that such an introduction you have ‘never before’ had from me, lately attempting some complimentary speech for us.” The meaning is not entirely clear. These two lines, taken with the succeeding four, might imply that Taylor had been asked or had expected at some earlier date to declaim in some class exercise in which he was heckled during his speech.

693 Help in raising up.

694 A block placed under a wheel to prevent slipping.

695 Error for truckles: that is, pulleys. The whole sentence seems to mean that the duty imposed on the speaker was one in which he received no aid, and if he succeeds in performing adequately, he will do so with the prestige that accrues under a handicap.

696 Pots in which perfumes and cordials are kept or prepared.

697 The word is often used by Taylor to mean sweet odor; it is not in the New English Dictionary, where the last recorded entry in which reek means perfume is dated 1599.

698 A rare substitute for honeydew.

699 To make trim or neat: spruce.

700 Taylor seems to mean that English is relatively free from the particles, dots, and markings attached to letters frequently used in Hebrew and Greek. These are all weaving terms: Taylor had been brought up in or near Coventry, Warwickshire, a center of the English weaving industry. He often enriched his poetry with such native, homely terms.

701 Evidently Taylor had been preceded at “this Desk” by the declaimers in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin.

702 The Hebrew equivalent for the English h (pron. āch) is now usually transliterated ‘ain or ‘ayin. The Hebrew beginner’s grammar in use at Harvard in the seventeenth century was Johann Buxtorf’s Epitome Radicum Hebraicarum et Chaldaicarum. In it the transliteration is given ajin, and the symbol, formed vaguely like the Greek psi (on which Taylor puns two lines below), looks something like a drumstick lying across the edge of a drum, thus ע. In the possession of Lewis S. Gannett, Esq., of New York City, a Taylor descendent, is a copy of Victor Bythner, Lyra Prophetica Davidis Regis sive Analysis Critico-practica Psalmorum . . . ad Calcem Addita Est Brevis Institutio Linguae Hebraeae et Chaldaeae (London, 1664). The copy bears Taylor’s autograph on the flyleaf and seems clearly to account for these two lines. The brief introduction to Hebrew grammar which Bythner appends to his analysis of the Psalms spells the aspirate ghajin.

703 That is, careless students might be confused by the fact that certain initial vowels in Greek (e.g. aspirates) should be given the value of consonants. To be sure, students of Greek in the seventeenth century would not have been aware of the correct linguistic laws, but they would have been taught the fact by rule of thumb.

704 The letter h in Latin has the kindred but weaker aspirate value of our h, taken over from the Greek. Initially, however, the Latin h was totally silent in the vernacular forms which emerged as Old French and Italian. Ignorance of the fact might result in a sort of “cockney” dialect. The English h in the Teutonic part of the language comes from an original surd guttural, a k, which first became a guttural spirant (as ch in German and Scotch) and then weakened to a mere aspiration.

705 Latin nouns are declined in the nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, ablative, and vocative cases.

706 That is, case endings are almost totally absent in English nouns. See the preceding note.

707 Most English words form plurals simply by adding s.

708 Arraign.

709 A reference to the Latin fifth declension, in which only res and dies have plurals. Singulariter and pluraliter were the words used instead of singular and plural to head paradigms in early textbooks.

710 For example, castra (second declension) is declined only in the plural, but with a singular meaning. Its syntax requires a plural construction. It is probable that Taylor had castra in mind, for it was commonly used in seventeenth-century textbooks to demonstrate the point.

711 For example, filia and dea (feminine, first declension) have a dative and ablative in -abus to distinguish them from the masculine forms of the substantives (filiis and deis).

712 “In the [irregular] dative case.”

713 “Into the accusative.”

714 The usual Latin textbook expression for “in the ablative.” Some nouns, for example, domus (second or fourth declension), would be recognized by the ablative, domo.

715 For example, vis, which is regular in the plural but irregular in the singular.

716 Copia means supply or plenty in the singular, troops in the plural. Locus is masculine in the singular, neuter in the plural.

717 Coniunx (conjunx): husband, wife, spouse. Lepus (hare) is usually given in its masculine form, but it takes a feminine adjective when it means a feminine hare. It was a common textbook example in early grammars.

718 In grammar a heteroclite is an irregularly inflected noun.

719 That is, in English, nouns regularly follow actual (i.e. sensitive), not grammatical, gender.

720 That is, treat them as neuters.

721 The craft or art in which a thing is made to lie in relation to something else. Cf. “the lay of the land.”

722 The meaning probably is: “We helve [furnish a handle to] their handspikes, made of foreign [outland] elements [olivant: oliphant or ivory].”

723 “We also adapt foreign words to English by giving them native spellings and pronunciations, thus increasing the richness of our tongue.”

724 Galls (provincial English) are imperfections. Taylor is either coining a word or using a dialectical form by substituting an adjective for the substantive.

725 A frieze is a thick, warm woolen cloth used for rough outer garments.

726 The rare transitive verb subaud (Lat. sub + audire) means to supply mentally, as a word or an ellipsis. Taylor is coining a substantive.

727 A false etymology. The Greek αὐλή, a hall or court, is cognate with air, aura, and asthma, and from it is derived New English aula (a court or hall). But New English hall is of Germanic origin.

728 That is, we do more than merely aspirate initially: we place the letter h at the beginning of the words. Such false etymologies were commonly taught long after Taylor’s day. His metaphors, however, are by no means dull.

729 The etymology here is correct. Lamp is derived, through Latin lampas, from the Greek λάμπας.

730 Hebrew qash, stubble. The pun is complicated but was probably not obscure to his audience.

731 In modern Hebrew, qul, but in the texts of the seventeenth century, kol: the imperative of the verb speak or say. The etymology is preposterous, but the pun makes good sense.

732 An entertaining pun. The Hebrew p (cf. Greek phi) was transliterated in early texts phe and had a value sometimes p and sometimes f. It was even then known originally to mean mouth. These lines are the sole indication I know of that seventeenth-century undergraduates at Harvard were sometimes fed pie for supper!

733 Provincial English: swaggering.

734 The colloquial adjective jemmy means spruce, neat, smart. It may have been Taylor’s intention to adapt the word here and give some such meaning.

735 The whole figure conveys a surprisingly lyric touch to Taylor’s concept of poetry.

736 In rhetoric, an immediate or almost immediate repetition of a word, involving added emphasis.

737 Clearly some kind of decoration for dress is intended, but such a meaning is not recorded in the New English Dictionary.

738 In rhetoric, a repetition of a word, especially the last word, of a clause at the beginning of the next.

739 In rhetoric, a repetition of a word or words at the beginning of successive clauses.

740 In rhetoric, a figure in which several successive clauses or sentences end with the same word or affirmation.

741 In rhetoric, a repetition of one word at the beginning and of another at the end of successive clauses. It is a combination of epanaphora and epistrophe.

742 In rhetoric, the repetition or resumption of a figure, especially of one by which the same word or phrase is repeated after one or more intervening words, or on returning to the same subject after a digression.

743 In rhetoric, a recapitulation of the chief points or heads in a discourse.

744 Dapper?

745 The general idea is clear enough though the three metaphors complicate the image, and the third is structurally obscure. Taylor says that English is not inferior to the other three languages: it (1) will not lower topsail to them or (2) yield reverence “with Cap in hand,” but (3) proves its right to be accepted as a tongue of equal dignity and power.

746 Obsolete: to scratch or break slighty; graze.

747 “It is neither the language of the Bible [i.e., Hebrew and Greek] nor that used in college.” Latin was not only the language of the school texts then in use but of all recitations and, theoretically, of all informal conversation as well.

748 Hebrew was universally looked on before the nineteenth century not only as the sacred language of the Old Testament but as the parent tongue of all languages. It was therefore considered linguistically of great importance.

749 Taylor seems to mean that Latin was never a sacred language. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew, the New Testament in Greek; but Latin has been the source by which the Testaments have been transmitted from the days of the Vulgate. Latin also has been the language of most of the Biblical commentators and, together with Hebrew and Greek, of all textbooks.

750 “And if they compete on their individual merits for honors, English will take first place.”

751 Though the implication here is that Taylor expects to be quizzed or heckled, it is likely he is speaking facetiously, in keeping with the tone of the whole declamation. There is nothing here that would call for an answer. Of course the weekly disputations gave an opponent the chance to question the respondent. But no formula beginning Si quis (“If anyone wishes to question. . . .”) was therein followed.

752 As the tide states, those declaiming on the four languages were to be followed by “five upon the five senses.” Apparently the speakers declaimed in the order named.

753 John Allen (Allin), a graduate of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, emigrated to Dedham in 1637 and was ordained pastor of the church there two years later. He was one of the more notable figures among the first generation of colonists: he assisted John Eliot in missionary work among the Indians; drafted the reply to Dr. Robert Child, the Remonstrant, in 1646; and served as an Overseer of Harvard College from 1654 until his death on August 25, 1671. His sons John and Daniel graduated from the college in 1643 and 1675, respectively.

754 John Norton of Boston (d April 5, 1663), Samuel Newman of Rehoboth (d July 5, 1663), Samuel Stone of Hartford (d July 20, 1663), William Tompson of Braintree (d December 10, 1666), John Wilson of Boston (d August 7, 1667), Samuel Shepard of Rowley (d April 7, 1668), Henry Flint of Braintree (d April 27, 1668), Jonathan Mitchel of Cambridge (d July 9, 1668), John Eliot of Newton, son of the Apostle to the Indians (d October 13, 1668), Richard Mather of Dorchester (d April 22, 1669), Eleazar Mather of Northampton (d July 24, 1669), Benjamin Bunker of Malden (d March 3, 1670), William Woodward of Dedham (d June 26, 1669), John Rayner of Dover (d April 20, 1669), John Davenport of New Haven (d March 15, 1670), Zechariah Symmes of Charlestown (d February 4, 1671), John Warham of Windsor (d April 19, 1670). Gray remains unidentified.

755 The addition, by growth or accident, of a nonsignificant letter or syllable to the end of a word (e.g., agains-t, amongs-t).

756 For the best account of Chauncy, see Morison, Harvard College in the seventeenth Century, i. 320–339.

757 John Allen, the subject of the preceding elegy, who died August 25, 1671.

758 These words are written inside a crude drawing of a dove holding an olive branch with which Taylor decorated this page of his manuscript.

759 Taylor’s first wife, whom he married on November 5, 1674, was Elizabeth, daughter of the Reverend James Fitch of Norwich, Connecticut. She died on July 7, 1689, in her thirty-ninth year, and in 1692 he married Ruth Wyllys, daughter of Samuel Wyllys of Hartford. Though the “posy-ring” verses are undated, they doubtless were composed about the same time as the decasyllabic couplets, dated October 27, 1674, which follow (No. VII).

760 The impersonal quality of these lines gives no clue to the husband’s sensitiveness, nor do they suggest his authentic talent as a poet. Among his “Sacramental Meditations,” under date of this very Sunday, is an extraordinarily beautiful poem of seven stanzas written on the occasion of his wife’s death. Poetical Works of Edward Taylor, 144–145, and Introduction, 14.

761 Samuel Hooker of Farmington, Connecticut, was a worthy but not distinguished son of the famous Thomas Hooker of Hartford. He was a classmate (H. C. 1653) of Taylor’s father-in-law, Samuel Wyllys. Ordained to his pastoral office in July, 1661, he remained at Farmington till his death. For a biographical sketch, see Sibley, Harvard Graduates, i 348–352.

762 A pun on the name of Thomas Hooker’s close friend and colleague at Hartford Samuel Stone (1602–1663).

763 Mary (Willett) Hooker, daughter of Captain Thomas Willett of Plymouth, later of Swansea and subsequently of New York, of which city he was the first mayor. She survived her husband and married the Reverend Thomas Buckingham of Saybrook in 1703.

764 Samuel Hooker was the father of nine sons and two daughters, one of whom, Mary, was the wife of the Reverend James Pierpont of New Haven and the mother of Jonathan Edwards’ wife Sarah.

765 Mehetabel (Wyllys) Woodbridge, born ca. 1658, was the second daughter of Samuel Wyllys of Hartford and an elder sister of Ruth Wyllys, Taylor’s second wife.

766 John Haynes, third governor of Massachusetts Bay (1635–1636) and first governor of Connecticut (1640).

767 George Wyllys, successively magistrate (1639), deputy governor (1641), and from 1642 till his death in 1645 governor of Connecticut.

768 An earlier spelling for grudge; now dialectical.

769 Ruth (Haynes) Wyllys, second daughter of Governor John Haynes.

770 Mehetable (Mabel) Wyllys first married (ca. 1676) the Reverend Daniel Russell of Charlestown. He died on January 4, 1678/79. The next year she married the Reverend Isaac Foster of Hartford, a classmate of Taylor and a close friend of her deceased husband. Foster died on August 20, 1682, at the age of thirty. She then married (ca. 1684) Foster’s colleague and successor in the Hartford pastorate, Timothy Woodbridge, who survived her by some thirty years. He married again shortly after her death.

771 Taylor’s verses are the only known source for the information that she bore sixteen children in the twenty-two years between 1676 and 1698 and died in childbirth on December 20, 1698. The five “Buds” here spoken of as surviving her—one each by her first two marriages and three by her third—all lived to maturity and were married.

772 Samuel Sewall noted in his Diary (iii. 389) that when Taylor died in 1729 he was “entirely enfeebled . . . longing and waiting for his Dismission.” This elegy, written upon the occasion of Increase Mather’s death on August 23, 1723, was undertaken when Taylor was approaching eighty. His handwriting is all but undecipherable, and much of the content is difficult to follow. The purport seems to be that Mather, in Taylor’s eyes, had been a champion of orthodox Congregationalism to the last, fighting courageously, under handicaps, against increasing heterodoxies.

773 Richard Mather died on April 22, 1669, while Taylor was an undergraduate at Harvard College. Mather was an Overseer of that institution at the time. Samuel Mather, a grandson of Richard, was a classmate of Taylor at college, and it may be that others of the class besides Taylor also acted as bearers.

774 Timothy Cutler, rector of Yale from 1719 to 1722, led “the Connecticut Apostacie” in the latter year by openly avowing adherence to the Church of England. In view of the fact that his defection from Nonconformist principles was considered to be not a sudden conversion but a carefully timed public statement of long-held private beliefs, his act, to men like Mather and Taylor, seemed open treachery.

775 This refers to the years (1688–1692) Mather spent in England, negotiating for the renewal of the colony charter.

776 The so-called “Pope Joan” was a legendary female Pope of the ninth century, usually placed between Leo IV (847–855) and Benedict III (855–858). She was said to have been born either in England or in Germany of English parents, and to have fled with a Benedictine monk to Athens, disguised as a man. On his death she is supposed to have gone to Rome under the alias of Joannes Anglicus, where she entered the priesthood, received a cardinal’s hat, and finally ascended the papal throne under the title of John VIII. The accounts have it that she died in childbirth during a papal procession. This myth was widely circulated from medieval times down through the seventeenth century. Taylor could have received the account from any of several authors who circulated the story.

Though undated, the verses bear every mark of late composition. They occupy the final pages among the topical poems, the handwriting suggests the author to be advanced in years, and the substance and thought are at times quite difficult to follow.

777 Muff?

778 Much satirical verse which John Cleiveland (1613–1658) never wrote was attributed to him till long after his day. The precise reference has not been identified.

779 Part of Harlequin’s Wishing Cap, or The Gift of Fortunatus.

780 Odell says she was the Wallacks’ sister. Annals of the New York Stage, ii. 247.

781 At the end of this performance there was a display of fireworks, as was the case on January 17 and on February 6 and 13. On February 6 the set pieces included “A Playing Fountain, The State-House at Annapolis, The Boston State-House, Emblems of Free Masonry, A Monumental Tribute to superior Worth, and the Arms of the United States.”

782 Also ascribed to Isaac Bickerstaffe, Richard Ford, Prince Hoare, and others.

783 The performances given on this date were originally scheduled for February 14.

784 A pantomime taken from the poems of Ossian.

785 These performances were originally scheduled for March 26. The postponement caused the cancellation of two plays by Arthur Murphy that had been announced for the twenty-eighth: Agnes of Bernauer and The Citizen.

786 Described in the announcement as “a gentleman of Boston,” he was probably not William Brown, author of West Point Preserved, also performed in Boston this season.

These performances were originally announced for August 21.

787 These performances were originally announced for October 13.

788 “A dramatic proverb in two acts.”

789 These performances were originally announced for October 16.

790 Later known by the name of Robert Treat Paine, Jr.

791 There are records of a program of entertainment by Messrs. Maginnis and Robinson at the Haymarket Theatre on December 16, advertised as their third such, and of another by Maginnis alone, at the same theatre, on December 30.

792 While Mein returned to England in November, 1769, advertisements of his Boston firm appeared in the Boston Chronicle as late as June 25, 1770.

793 Ironically enough, Knox’s Controversy between Great Britain and Her Colonies Reviewed has also been ascribed to Mein.

794 “Books Printed at Boston and Cambridge before 1775,” Isaiah Thomas MSS., American Antiquarian Society.

795 Isaiah Thomas, The History of Printing in America (2d ed., Albany, 1874), i. 152–154; ii. 59–61, 230.

796 Charles K. Bolton, “Circulating Libraries in Boston, 1765–1865,” Publications of this Society, xi. 196–200.

797 Charles M. Andrews, “The Boston Merchants and the Non-Importation Movement,” id., xix. 159–259, particularly 227–230; Arthur M. Schlesinger, Colonial Merchants and the American Revolution (New York, 1918), Chapter iv, and “Propaganda and the Boston Newspaper Press, 1767–1770,” Publications of this Society, xxxii 396–416, particularly 411–416.

798 Roll of Edinburgh Burgesses and Guild-Brethren, 1701–1760, Charles B. Boog Watson, Editor (Edinburgh, 1930), 138.

799 Roll of Edinburgh Burgesses, 1406–1700 (Edinburgh, 1929), 346; Roll of Edinburgh Burgesses, 1701–1760, 138.

800 Boston Gazette, October 22, 1764; Thomas, History of Printing in America, I. 152–153.

801 Thomas, History of Printing in America, i. 153.

802 Boston Gazette, October 22, 1764; Boston Evening Post, October 22, 1764.

803 See the articles on John Glas and Robert Sandeman in the Dictionary of National Biography and that on Sandeman in the Dictionary of American Biography.

804 Thomas, History of Printing in America, i. 152, n. 1.

805 Henry H. Edes, “The Places of Worship of the Sandemanians in Boston,” Publications of this Society, vi. 109–134, particularly 131, n. 3.

806 The Sandeman-Barrell Papers, in the possession of the Massachusetts Historical Society, throw much light on the personal affairs of the Sandeman family in America at this time.

807 See Williston Walker, “The Sandemanians of New England,” Annual Report of the American Historical Association for 1901, i. 131—162.

808 Samuel A. Drake (Old Landmarks and Historic Personages of Boston, 107) identifies the site as the north corner of what is today the junction of Franklin and Washington streets, but the wording of the advertisement indicates that the site may rather have been one or two doors north of Franklin Street. Mein remained in business at this address until sometime between July 29, 1765, and September 2, 1765. In the Boston Gazette of the latter date his advertisement states that his bookstore was then “opposite to the West End of the Town House,” i.e., in Cornhill. He remained here but a few weeks, however, for his newspaper advertisements show that sometime between September 23 and October 7, 1765, he moved his shop to “the second Door above the British Coffee-house, North Side of King-street,” the premises recently occupied by the firm of Rivington and Miller.

809 Thomas, History of Printing in America, i. 152–153; ii. 230.

810 J. G. Sandeman, The Sandeman Genealogy (Edinburgh, 1895), 15, 21.

811 Rivington, as sole owner, had opened the London Book Store on February 8, 1762. Boston Gazette, February 8, 1762. Subsequent newspaper advertisements show that his partnership with Miller began at some date between April 26 and July 19 of that year.

812 Boston Evening-Post, November 4, 1765. The account given there of Miller, “lately from Edinburg,” says: “He was a young Gentleman of an amiable Character enobled with Friendship; and therefore much lamented by all his Acquaintance of the same happy Disposition.”

813 No advertisement of the firm appeared in Boston newspapers after February 18, 1765.

814 The Massachusetts Historical Society possesses an apparently unique copy of this Catalogue of Mein’s Circulating Library. It has been reproduced in its series of Photostat Americana.

815 For a more extensive discussion of Mein as publisher, see John E. Alden, “John Mein, Publisher: An Essay in Bibliographic Detection,” Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, xxxvi (Third Quarter, 1942), 199–214.

816 This partnership concerned only the printing business. The London Book Store continued to belong to Mein alone.

817 Thomas, History of Printing in America, i. 151.

818 Boston Records Commissioners’ Reports, xxix. 286.

819 Thomas, History of Printing in America, i. 150.

820 Edward A. Jones, The Loyalists of Massachusetts (London, 1930), 206–207.

821 Thomas, History of Printing in America, i. 151.

822 Boston Records Commissioners’ Reports, xxix. 286.

823 Ezra Stiles MSS., Yale University Library.

824 Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Early Court Files, Case 101964, f. 73: “An Inventory of sundry goods attach’d by Joseph Otis, Deputy Sheriff, March 1st, 1770, being taken as the Property of John Mein, late of Boston, Bookseller.”

825 Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, xxxvi. 211–214.

826 Sparks MSS., Harvard College Library, Papers relating to New England, iii. 46. The quotation is taken from Mein’s notes in explanation of the terms “Muddlehead” (Otis) and “Pieces from Salem” used in satirical descriptions of certain Boston leaders which appeared in the Boston Chronicle of October 26, 1769.

827 Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Early Court Files, Case 101491, f. 134.

828 Professor Schlesinger tentatively identifies Populus as Samuel Adams. Publications of this Society, xxxii. 411, n. 3.

829 As a Boston business man Mein was early accepted, at least for a while, as a respectable citizen, being chosen constable in town meeting on March 10, 1766. This was, however, the only elective office he held while in Boston. Boston Records Commissioners’ Reports, xvi. 164.

830 Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Early Court Files, Case 89428.

831 John Adams, Miscellaneous Legal Memoranda (photostat), Massachusetts Historical Society.

832 George Mason to Joseph Harrison, Boston, October 20, 1769. Sparks MSS., New England Papers, III. 40.

833 John Mein to Joseph Harrison, Boston, November 5, 1769. Id., 51.

834 Elizabeth Cuming to Elizabeth Smith, Boston, October 28, 1769. J. M. Robbins Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.

835 Letters and Diary of John Rowe, Anne R. Cunningham, Editor (Boston, 1903), 194.

836 John Mein to Joseph Harrison, November 5, 1769. Sparks MSS., New England Papers, iii. 51.

837 Elizabeth Cuming to Elizabeth Smith, Boston, October 30, 1769. J. M. Robbins Papers.

838 Thomas Hutchinson to Lord Hillsborough, Boston, November 11, 1769. Sparks MSS., New England Papers, III. 53.

839 James Murray to Elizabeth Smith, November 12, 1769. J. M. Robbins Papers.

840 Massachusetts Gazette, November 24, 1769; January 15, 1770.

841 James Murray to Elizabeth Smith, November 12, 1769. J. M. Robbins Papers.

842 Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Early Court Files, Case 101964.

843 Hancock Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.

844 John Hancock to Thomas Longman, Boston, May 18, 1770. John Hancock His Book, A. E. Brown, Editor (Boston, 1898), 94.

845 Thomas Longman to John Hancock, London, January 3, 1770. Hancock Papers.

846 John Robinson, Commissioner of Customs in Boston, best remembered for his brutal attack upon James Otis, which was not unlike that of Mein upon Gill.

847 Hancock Papers.

848 There is no reason to believe that Mein returned to Boston early in 1770, particularly in view of a letter from Mein to James Murray, dated London, January 25, 1770, which is in the J. M. Robbins Papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society. In his “Propaganda and the Boston Newspaper Press, 1767–1770” (Publications of this Society, xxxii. 415), Professor Schlesinger assumes that it was Mein who directed the continued campaign in the Boston Chronicle against the signers of the nonimportation agreement. Professor Schlesinger is evidently following the statements of Mr. Bolton, in his account of Mein’s circulating library, who draws the conclusion that because Mein was sued in the Boston courts he was himself present. Mein’s case, however, was obviously conducted for him through powers of attorney left with Fleeming. It may also be pointed out that Professor Andrews is obviously in error when he states (Publications of this Society, xix. 230) that Mein “left New England permanently some time after 1771.”

849 A copy of this affidavit is included among the Hancock Papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society. William Palfrey, Hancock’s chief clerk and agent, returned from London to Boston on May 9, 1771. Letters and Diary of John Rowe, 215.

850 J. M. Robbins Papers.

851 Id.

852 Charles Steuart, erstwhile cashier and paymaster of the Board of Customs in Boston.

853 It is probable that the “last years bounty” was the result of a similar memorial from Mein which is listed by Charles M. Andrews in his Guide to Materials for American History in the Public Record Office, 11 (Washington, 1914), 178, under Treasury Papers, In-Letters, 1770.

854 I am indebted to Professor Verner W. Crane of the University of Michigan for photostatic and microfilm reproductions of Mein’s contributions to the Public Ledger, from the files in the British Museum.

855 Thomas, History of Printing in America, 154.

856 Public Ledger, March 15, 1774.

857 Sagittarius’s Letters, 116–117.

858 The Life of Benjamin Franklin, Written by Himself, John Bigelow, Editor (Philadelphia, 1905), ii. 547–556; The Writings of Benjamin Franklin, Albert H. Smyth, Editor (New York, 1907), i. 164–166.

859 J. M. Robbins Papers.

860 Norton Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.

December Meeting, 1938

The Commonplace Book of Joseph Green

Joseph Green: His Book

Beg: March: 28. 1696

Apr. 4, 1696.

Apr. 11. 1696.

April. 18. 1696.

May 2d 1696.

May. 9. 1696.

May 16. 1696.

May 23. 1696.

May 30. 96.

June 6. 1696.

June 13. 1696.

June.

June 13. 1696.

May 2^d 1696.