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 LETTERS 
 
 OF 
 
 SAMUEL LEE AND SAMUEL SEWALL 
 
 « 
 HELATING TO 
 
 NEW ENGLAND AND THE INDIANS 
 
 EDITED BY ' 
 
 - GEORGE LYMAN KITTREDGE 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tinis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028814477 
 
LETTERS 
 
 OF 
 
 SAMUEL LEE AND SAMUEL SEWALL 
 
 RELATING TO 
 
 NEW ENGLAND AND THE INDIANS 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 GEORGE LYMAN KITTREDGE 
 
 REPRINTED FROM 
 
 THE PUBLICATIONS 
 
 OF 
 
 Clie Colonial a&ocirt^ of &^aessa^vufttte 
 
 Vol. XIV 
 
 CAMBRIDGE 
 
 JOHN WILSON AND SON 
 
 SlnilinsitB VrtM 
 
 1912 
 
■0 c-O 
 
 A-2.(,(>t\3 
 
LETTERS 
 
 or 
 
 SAMUEL LEE AND SAMUEL SEWALL 
 
 BELATma TO 
 
 NEW ENGLAND AND THE INDIANS 
 
LETTERS 
 
 OF 
 
 SAMUEL LEE AND SAMUEL SEWALL RELATING 
 TO NEW ENGLAND AND THE INDIANS 
 
 The Rev. Samuel Lee, while Pastor of the Church at Bristol, 
 Rhode Island, received from Nehemiah Grew, M.D., of London 
 (famous as a pioneer in vegetable physiology), a long document, 
 consisting of two series of numbered questions. The first series re- 
 lated to the Colony of Massachusetts and to Harvard College; the 
 second and more elaborate series had to do with the Indians of New 
 England. Grew's document seems not to be extant, but Lee's reply 
 is preserved, in holograph, in the British Museum (Sloane MS. 4062, 
 fols. 235-236).! It is fully dated at the end: "June 25. 1690. at 
 Mount Hope." Lee sent the letter to Samuel Sewall at Boston, 
 with a request that he forward it to Grew. This appears from the 
 outside of the letter, where we read, in Lee's hand: 
 
 For the very Learned Doctor 
 Nehemiah prew. M.D. at 
 his Lodging in Fleetstreet. 
 London. 
 Cap* Saywell I pray inclose 
 it in yo" when you write to 
 him, with my service. 
 
 Under this request, Sewall has written: 
 
 Reed these Observations 
 Jany 24. 169 J 
 
 Under date of February 5, 1691, Sewall notes in his Letter-Book:* 
 
 "To Dr. Nehem. Grew, inclosing ]\Ir. Lee's Observations, and 
 
 some few animadversions of my own." Sewall's covering letter has 
 
 also found an asylum among the Sloane MSS. (4067, fob. 140-141).' 
 
 Both letters are now printed for the first time.* 
 
 » Lee's letter fills three pages. The fourth page, of course, formed the out- 
 side of the document as folded, and received the address. 
 « i. 116. 
 
 ' It is on a four-page sheet. The third page is blank, and the fourth contains 
 the address. 
 
 * Cf. Publications of this Society, x. 32. 
 
1912] NEHEMIAH GREW AND SAMUEL LEE 143 
 
 Nehemiah Grew, M.D. (1641-1712), was the son of Obadiah 
 Grew, D.D. (1607-1689) . Sewall made the acquaintance of the Grews, 
 father and son, when he was in England in 1689. Under April 4th of 
 that year he notes in his almanac: "Dr. Nehemiah Grew son of Dr. 
 Obadiah Grew formerly of Bahol Colledg, Oxford,* lives at Racket 
 Court in Fleet-Street near Shoe-Lane. — Leave a Ps[alm]. B[ook]. 
 there." On April 6th he called on Dr. Obadiah Grew at Coventry, 
 and was "very candidly and kindly received," and on the 8th he 
 "din'd with Dr. Obadia Grew and his Daughter and 2 Kinswomen."* 
 On the 20th he records in his Diary that he gave one copy of " Revo- 
 lution"* to "Dr. Grew of Coventry" and one to "Dr. Nehemiah 
 Grew," and on the 24th he remarks: "Writt to Dr. Grew, inclosing 
 my Psalm-Book, in Turkey-Leather, and 4 of Mr. Cotton Mather's 
 Sermons." * On July 4th, he copies into his Diary a farewell letter 
 "to Dr. Obadia Grew of Coventry." » 
 
 Since both Mr. Lee and Dr. Grew have been deemed worthy of 
 a place in the Dictionary of National Biography, it is unnecessary 
 to dilate upon them here. For convenience, however, I may note 
 that Lee, after a distinguished career in the mother country, sailed 
 from Gravesend on June 24, 1686, tmd arrived in Boston on August 
 22d.* He was called to the Church at Bristol on November 9th of the 
 same year, and began his labors there on April 10, 1687.^ Late in 
 1691 he sailed for England with Captain John Foy. The ship was 
 captured by the French and taken to St. Malo,' where Lee died in 
 December.' "In his Return for England," writes Cotton Mather, 
 "the French took him a Prisoner, and uncivilly detaining him, he 
 died in France; where he found the Grave of an Ileretick, and was 
 therein (after some sort, like Wickliff&nd Bucer) made a Martyr after 
 
 1 Obadiah Grew was of Balliol College; Nehemiah was of Pembroke Hall, 
 Cambridge. 
 
 » Diary, i. 304-305. • The Revolution in New England Justified. 
 
 • Diary, i. 250. • i. 262. 
 
 • Sewall, Diary, i. 148. 
 
 1 Wilfred H. Munro, History of Bristol, 1880, pp. 130, 131. 
 
 ' Under date of January 26, 1691-2, Sewall remarks: "Foy (in whom went 
 Mr. Lee) taken into France." On Captain Foy see the Transactions of this 
 Society, x. 112 note 2. 
 
 • Lee's will was proved April 13, 1692, and in the Probate Act Book the tes- 
 tator is said to have died in France ("in regno Galliffi def[unc]ti"). See Waters, 
 Gleanings, i. 470-471. 
 
144 THE COLONIAL SOCIETT OF MASSACHUSETTS [Feb. 
 
 his Death." * The reader will remember that Mather's third vnfe 
 (Lydia, the widow of John George) was Lee's daughter.* 
 
 It is an odd circumstance that, in the letter now first printed, Lee 
 himself seems to forecast his own fate. In a postscript,* after de- 
 scribing bayberry candles, he remaxks: 
 
 I have made some & might have sent you a candle for your Epictetus 
 Studies: but I feare as yet they will saile into France if you send us not 
 some Frigots to convey them & us to you: yt may be of great comfort 
 to ye Country under y' many dangers & likewise I should hope to see 
 you by y° leave of o' gracious God but I dare not yet venture in ships of 
 no force, who run into S. Maclovip ^ to see yt port: The Ld dd us. 
 
 Mr. Lee was a scholar of wide and profound attainments. He left 
 a noble collection of books behind him when he sailed for England. 
 It was dispersed after his death. A great part of it came into the hands 
 of Duncan Cambell, the Boston bookseller, whose catalogue of the 
 collection may be found in the Boston Public library.* I have seen 
 volumes that once belonged to Lee in the Boston Athenseum, in the 
 New York Society Library, and in the Ubrary of the Massachusetts 
 Historical Society. 
 
 Mr, Lee says, at the end of his letter, that he received most of his 
 intelligence from "one M"^ Arnold a practitioner in Physick of good 
 request in Rhode Island, who hath conversed [i. e., associated] much 
 with the Indians." This was beyond a doubt Caleb Arnold, of Ports- 
 mouth, Rhode Island, the son of Governor Benedict Arnold (1615- 
 1678), of Providence and Newport, who was the son of William Arnold 
 (1587-C.1676) of Providence. Caleb Arnold was born December 
 19, 1644, and died February 9, 1719. His will was proved March 9, 
 1719. The inventory of his estate includes books valued at £17, 
 
 ' Magnalia, 1702, Book iii. pt. iv. chap. 6, p. 224. 
 
 • See a letter to her from the Rev. Dr. Benjamin Colmaa (February 7, 
 1700-01) in the Transaotiona of this Society, viii. 247-260. 
 
 • P. 152, below. 
 
 ' S. Madovius, i. e. St. Malo in Brittany. 
 
 ' The Library of the late Reverend and Learned Mr. Samuel Lee . . . Ex- 
 posed at the most Easy Rates, to Sale, by Dunoon CamteH, Bookseller at the 
 Dock-head over-against the Conduit. Boston Printed for Duncan Cambell . . . 
 1693. (Prince Library.) Dr. Samuel A. Green gives the title-page in his Ten 
 Fao-simile Reproductions relating to Old Boston and Neighborhood (1901). 
 Cf. 2 Massachusetts Historical Proceedings, x. 640-544. 
 
19121 LETTER OP SAMUEL LEE, 1690 145 
 
 gallipots, vials, three cases of bottles, mortar, pestle, and lancets. 
 He describes himself as "practicioner of physic." * 
 
 In 1687 Dr. Nehemiah Grew sent a set of queries relating to the 
 Virginia Indians to the Rev. John Clayton. It was much shorter 
 than that which he afterwards sent to Lee. Clayton's replies are 
 printed in the Philosophical Transactions.* 
 
 The notes which I append to Lee's letter are of course merely in- 
 tended to be suggestive, not to exhaust any of the many subjects 
 which he broaches.' I have often referred to Mr. C. F. Adams's 
 edition of Morton's New English Canaan, but I wish here to make 
 a particular acknowledgment of indebtedness to his learning and 
 industry. 
 
 [Rev. Samuel Lee to Nehemiah Grew, M.D.] 
 [First page: Sloane MS. 4062, fol. ^5 a] 
 
 [ I h]ave * sent you such replies as I could collect in this [part 
 
 of the] world to yo' Questions; praying yo' candid acceptance [ 
 b]riefe answers. 
 
 [1. In New Engl]and' there is a very pretty [ ] a handsome 
 library & seveiall [c]onveniencies for Scholars at a place now called, 
 Cambridge about 5 or 6 miles fro Boston & is styled, the CoUedge, hath 
 a president & some fellowes, It was given by one M' Harvard & calld 
 by his name. They take degrees of Batchelor & M' of Arts but proceed 
 no further. It was instituted by y' Govemour & Magistrates of y' 
 Massachussets Colony in the yeeie. 1642. as I [ ]* not much 
 
 ' J. O. Austin, Genealogical Dictionary of Rhode Island, Albany, 1887, pp. 
 242-243. 
 
 « No. 454, xlL 143-162. 
 
 • The following works are sometimes cited by the authors' names merely, to 
 save repetition of titles: — Josselyn, An Account of Two Voyages to New Eng- 
 land, 2d ed., 1675; Morton, New Knglish Canaan, 1637; Smith, A Map of Vir- 
 ginia, 1612; Strachey, The Historie of Travaile into Vir^nia Britannia, ed. by 
 R. H. Major for the Hakluyt Society, 1849; Wood, New Englands Prospect, ed. 
 of 1635. 
 
 ' Brackets indicate words or letters lost by the tearing off of the upper comers 
 of the sheet. The words within brackets are supplied by conjecture. 
 
 ■ The word England is certain; part of the gl may be made out. 
 
 ' Here the MS. is not damaged, but there is a short (or abbreviated) word 
 illegible after /. The clause aa I [ ] is interlined, with a caret. It seems to be- 
 long to what precedes. 
 
146 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Feb. 
 
 salary: (2) ' the Revenue of Charleston Fery goes in p* to it I think. 
 (3) about 40 or 50 students: but stands much at a stay by reason of 
 changes & troubles. 
 
 4 * No Corporation in a strict forme: no degrees in physick or Licen- 
 tiates regular (5) no approbation, but by their patients: & the physi- 
 tians are great patients in y' purses. (6) no Lectures or instructors but 
 their owne pia or dura mater — salit in bevA parte mamillse. (7) Prac- 
 titioners are laureated gratis with a title feather of Doctor. Potecaries, 
 surgeons & midwifes are dignified ace. to successe: (8) they use the 
 London dispensatory at pleasure or any other, tyed to none. 
 
 9. Apotheciaries make mithridate without inspection for they have it 
 fro London. (10) They are puniaht w"" noli me tangere or a persicaria 
 siliquosa to snap ag' them, if they faile. (11) I know of no licenses: 
 but are Licentia deteriores. (12) 3 or 4 m that great towne w""" is about 
 a mile in Length & full of people, counted by some about 7000* * of all 
 sortes as I think I have heard if not more. (13) There b a pretty hos- 
 pitall upon the comon for y* poore. may containe it may be 30 or 40 or 
 more. (14) As for fees no great matters, ad libitu, or like o' cooks fees 
 in Oxoh on friday nights. (15) Physitians may make or buy or send 
 to the Potecaries. Quod Ubet, Ucet. (16) Potecaries doe practise what 
 they will, physick & Surgery. (17) Barbing is a trade by it self: & 
 tooth drawing is used at pleasure. (18) No Company, yt I know of; 
 unles at y" Taveme. (19) I know not above 3 or 4 & not concerned 
 by authority. Things are very raw here in these cases, udum & moUe 
 lutum. (20) Apprentices serve for yeeres as any other trade 
 
 21 * They visit whom they please. Surgeons are of no Fraternity or 
 
 * The figure 2 stands in the margin, — the lines being arranged thus: 
 
 asll ] 
 the yeere. 1642. /^ not much salary: the 
 
 2 Revenue of Charleston Fery goes in p* to it 
 
 3 I think, about 40 or 50 students: but stands 
 
 Since it would be absurd to try to reproduce this arrangement (which continues 
 throughout the first series of replies), 1 have transferred the figure, in each case, to 
 a place immediately before the reply to which it belongs. In the second series 
 of replies (about the Indians), no such transfers are necessary, for Mr. Lee has 
 put each figure where it belongs, not running his replies together so much as in 
 the first series. 
 
 « Hero the figure 4 stands where it belongs. It is reasonable to begin a new 
 paragraph here. Mr. Lee seldom indents, but I have done so wherever I thought 
 he intended a paragraph. 
 
 * "7000"'" is repeated by Lee in the margin, the 7 in the text being unclear. ' 
 
 * Here the 21 in the margin stands before its own reply, and I begin a new 
 
1912] LETTER OF SAMUEL LEE, 1690 147 
 
 guild but y' guelt what they can get. not many. & no qualification but 
 fro their owne chest & boxe 
 
 24^ I thinke no bills of mortality at least not printed, but some 
 observation in y" registers. (25) of midwifes every one takes whom they 
 please. (26) I knew one D' Avery since deceased, a man of pretty in- 
 genuity: who from the Ars veterinaria fell into some notable skill in 
 physick and midwifery & invented some usefull instrum** for that case. 
 & besides was a great inquirer and had skill in Helmont & chemicall 
 physick & he had one notion w""" He mention (tho' alien from your en- 
 quiries) that if a ships planks & boards be laid from steme to head in 
 the graine as it grew from root to top: it were a great ' facilitation to 
 its quicker moti[on thro' y' water] & so I end the 1" row of enquiri[es.] 
 
 As to the Indians 
 
 1.* Generally flaking black hai[re. they have no] beards or thin 
 haires. 
 
 2 not so early. 
 
 3 more flat and dank faced but [ ] & tawny colourd: like the 
 Tartarians. & I doe humbly judge that they come ptly from y* African 
 Phoenicians as may seeme by Diod. Sic. I. 5. & ptly fro y" Easteme Tar- 
 tars from Japan-ward It being as yet questionable whether Japan be 
 an Hand or joynd to the Norwest of America. Koi ItrtroftivouTi nvOtcrdcu* 
 
 4. Much at one: only y* legs & hands are much smaller. 
 
 5. From 4' & ^ to 6 & that rarely few so high or above. 
 
 6. generally leane & lank 
 
 7. No hermaphrodites. Some Monstrous births but few & none 
 crooked. 
 
 8. much at one: but short of it, seldome till 18 or 19. [9]* none 
 (10) much at one. The English have some times put some to nurse to 
 them & done well 
 
 11 nothing extraordinary. (12) not much but ye Negroes here are 
 
 paragraph accordingly. There are no 22 and 23. Apparently Nos. 21-23 are all 
 included under 21. No. 22 may begin with "Surgeons" and No. 23 with "not 
 many." 
 
 > Here 24 is placed like 21 (see last note), and I begin a fresh paragraph. 
 
 ' Here the first column of the first page enda. 
 
 • From this point there is no further complication of the kind described in 
 note 4, p. 146, above, and I am able to follow the MS., which puts each figure 
 before its proper reply. 
 
 • So in the MS., the Greek, however, being written in abbreviated fashion 
 (sec p. 166, below). We should read itai iaroiihouri xviMM. 
 
 ' The brackets are m the MS. and the 9 is plain. 
 
148 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Feb. 
 
 very rank hardly endurable (13) nothing at all, but in consumptions. 
 14. much more then we, by eating beanes & Indian come 15. rarely, 
 nor the English but little 16. when in great anger, they look swarthy 
 & black, in other cases, not at all. 17. No weepers under y* greatest 
 torments, nor cry so much as, oh; tho' ye cut y" in pieces. Onely y* 
 women in a little measure. I knew an Indian weep bitterly at a 
 funerall. 
 
 18 No foole among Indians: but some borne deafe, & so, dumb: but 
 very ingenious to demonstrate y' mindes 
 
 19. Great memories, especially in injuries 
 
 20. None in y" world, its thought like jr™ & they count him all one 
 woman that cries out of any 
 
 21. very patient in fasting, & will gird in their bellies till they meet 
 with food; but then none more gluttons or drunk on occasion. Theyle 
 eat 10 times in 24 houres, when they have a beare or a deare & are great 
 fishermen. 
 
 22 Can't speak to it: but think they doe not 
 
 23. Its uncertaine. they sleep & eat at all times & require as much 
 as we 
 
 24. Seldome or rarely. 25 Some have tunable voices & sing finely 
 in their half Christian meetings but want method 
 
 26. varies as dyet 27. beare 3 or 4 times as much physick as y* Eng- 
 lish in all cases. 28. much as y" English 
 
 29. Quick in motion: but not such strength as the English unles 
 these shou'd degenerate ' by hot & cold excesses & dyet 
 
 [Second page: fol. 235 b] 
 
 [30. Mo]re old women then men. wars & [other] causes wasts y". 
 many men there be [of] great age 80, 90 & some of 100 [that carr\] 
 baskets on y' backs at a great [pace bu]t usually they burden their 
 [old wiv]es. w""" is unkindly 31. little or [none]. 32 rather barren, 
 no twins that we heare of 33. Same exactly, variatis variandis 34. 
 hardly marriageable till 18 or 19 or till y' menses flow & thats late (35) 
 not so long as the English. 36. The French poxe & the Sebcniack or 
 Consumption & y" very mortall, else few diseases, a pure aire generally. 
 
 37 That dreadfuU disease & arrow of God is not knowne here, nor as I 
 can heare b all America. Q. whether the many minerals especially 
 
 « Here there ia a slight defect, a Uttle piece of the lower right-hand comer of 
 the leaf being cut or torn off. There can be no doubt that "degenerate" ia right. 
 The first two letters arc preserved and the tops of most of tho others. 
 
1912] LETTER OF SAMUEL LEE, 1690 149 
 
 Quicksilver & Arsemcall fumes may not extinguish such atomes would 
 be inquired, as tis said 40 mile round the quicksilver mines in Friuli. or 
 what other latent providence of God is in it, is worth yo' Learned in- 
 quisition If you think good, nor is the gout, nor rupture, nor Scurvy 
 nor rickets observd amg y" 
 
 38 Small pox very frequent & dangerous 
 
 39 not observed. 40 It is comon, & calld cosh-caska. 41. not at all. 
 
 42. no contagious distemper: but the consumption: from w"** they 
 fly, as being catching among y*", but not among y* English 
 
 43. They use two herbs, w"'' are rank poyson the one like chervil, y» 
 other like columbines: but no names can we tell: they are very secret 
 in such things, pownd y" & drink y" in water. & swell till they dye in 
 6, 8, or 12 houres 
 
 44. None but the Ratlesnake: w*'' tumes all the body into a speckled 
 hew in a few houres, with great paine, tongues & heads work with the 
 poyson 
 
 45. never: they have little or no love, but are almost like the beasts. 
 
 46. being not acquainted with their waies : onely heare, yt conjura- 
 tion is frequent among y"*. & then one appeares like a rattlesnake & 
 sometimes like a white-headed eagle (47.) None (48.) none but y» 
 negroes much afiOicted. (49) they have generally very easy labour (50) 
 have not heard or observed it. (51) not long. For they goe a digging 
 Clams at 3 dayes end (52) we know little or nothing of any such matter. 
 (53) nor can say but little to that. (54.) none. (55) none but whats 
 comon to ours. (56) not so difficult. & mostly but Uttle at all & their 
 teeth continue longer. They eat not so much sugar: w""" being but y' 
 salt of the cane impaires o' sweet teeth exceedingly ' 
 
 57. Not observably, no [ ] 
 
 58. A very comon distemp[er ] kernels & breakings out 
 
 [ ] 
 
 59 Accidentally as other nati[ons but not] hereditary (60) Autumne 
 
 genera [Uy.] 
 
 61 none. 62. distemps usually follow but not any pticular one 
 
 63 Norwest cures all. South east is unwholsome southwest when 
 
 strong & with a seatume breeds headakes & nervous distempers. 
 
 64. more changeable & unconstant then I ever found in England, 
 contrary to y" usuall saying that Ilanders weathers are most various. 
 
 65. We haue not had it here: nor did I think of bringing one, coming 
 in some hast: but find both heat & cold to be far more impetuous & 
 hardly tolerable at times, severall dyed in y° y. 1689 of heat. 
 
 * First column of second page ends. 
 
150 THE COLOlflAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Feb. 
 
 66. Any sort of meat they can get. None comes amisse & eat of all 
 sorts night & day: & gird in y' bellies till they get some as before no 
 curiosity in dressing, lay it before the fire, & dry y' fish & venison & 
 y' usuall stuff \a, Indian corne powdrd & mixt with water & call it No- 
 cake by an English terme 
 
 67. As to swine flesh they eat it freely when they can get it & ordi- 
 narily sell it for Rum. swine at sea townes feed on Fish & are not so 
 wholsom 
 
 68. Nothing more frequent then gorging when they have it & are 
 beastly drunkards. Cry & howle extremely when they are drunk, I 
 think I have heard them about half a mile severall times 
 
 69. Their onely sauce is hunger. 
 
 70. Their bread (such as 'tis) is made of green or old come, baked 
 under y° ashes. & call it, pone. It must be alwaies new, never holds 2 
 daies together 
 
 71. water onely: unles they get Rum or brandy. 72 most notoriously. 
 73 when sick they drink water hot or y' herbs in it infused or boild. 
 rather 
 
 74. for diversion: Their tobacco is like henbane & take it in a Lobster 
 or crabs claw 
 
 75. They wash them & put up their heeles close to their nates & tye 
 y™ downe to a board & 'tis thought is y* cause they never are bursten. 
 & when fowle wipe y™ with mosse & tye them up againe & carry y™ at 
 y* backs 
 
 76. Suckle a yeere comonly & feed y° 
 
 77 with any thing y' child will eat & usually with clams. 78 Never 
 but if the mother dye: the men give them oysters to suck. (79) They 
 have many poysons & are expert in y' use. The women often poyson 
 y" selves & children: if y' husbands will not owne them. 
 
 80. Roots & herbs 
 
 81. It's a question not fit to be spoken to or inquired of y". pardon 
 this Query for any answer 
 
 82. what they please. 
 
 83 a sort of football & dancing & a kind of dice made of plum-stones 
 before the English came. 
 
 [Thir4page: fol. 236 a] 
 
 [84. b]ut a string to tye [ | Now some begin 
 
 to [ y»] English 85. Skins tumd [ ^ ] & now are much 
 
 affected to [ ]ew truck in . or any blewes. 
 
1912] LETTER OF SAMUEL LEE, 1690 151 
 
 86. Use hot baths on all occasions by the water side, heat a stone & 
 put it into y" hole where they sit & in the height of y' sweat leap or run 
 into the water (87. no other (88 none at all, (89 Seldome or never 
 wash but greaze y' faces & when mourners black them 
 
 90. physick is practisd, by y' priests & conjurers who 1°* conjure to 
 knowe whether they shall dye. 91. We think not 92. all in General! 
 but 1°* they inquire of y' oracle & if that sales they shall dye, they use 
 nothing. 93. none 94. no more judgment then a horse. 95. No 
 thing at all: onely w* their oraacle informes y" being usually a rattle- 
 snake, a crow or a hawke or &c 
 
 96. Of simples: herbs or roots in water & drink it 
 
 97. plants onely, roots chiefly: they have one excellent root, called by 
 us a snakeroot but is indeed no other then what Parkinson Trib. 2. c. 25. 
 §. 6. calls. Helleborus niger Saniculae folio, major, pag. 214. ed. 1640. 
 w** they use in decoctions & truly is an excellent Alexipharmacon in all 
 sudden & dangerous fevers, to drive poyson from the heart 
 
 98. Little or none, but Rakoons oile for aches 99. none. 100. Nor 
 milk till the English came 101 None at all; I think they know nothing 
 of it 102. They use a root called now by them since the English came by 
 y name of Sleep & smoake it among y' Tobacco 
 
 103. They use a root for philters: but will not tell us, what is its name 
 or discover it. (104 None at all (105. They pownd y* herb or root & 
 boile it in water & when in hast, use it cold. 
 
 106. None either purgative or vomiting, onely as s"* before of decoc- 
 tions. 107. None at all but when they poyson psons. onely y' pow- 
 wawes use the bark of a tree to vomit psons 7 daies before they are 
 admitted into that order. U they cannot beare their poysonous 
 vomits, they dye & as for y' usuall physick they use nothing but 
 roots & barks. & specially of a certaine sort of alder, w""" gives a notable 
 vomit 
 
 108. None at all. but Cure the poxe easily with a root w"*" they will 
 not tell 
 
 109. If any, in fevers. Not consumptions They have no dropsies nor 
 Quartan agues 
 
 110. No rule at all, let it work as 'twill 
 
 111. by chewing what root they use, & w'*" y" masht root, anoint y' 
 joints & some they swallowe downe. No plague in this Country blessed 
 be God onely violent & somewhat virulent fevers' 
 
 112. Snakeroot. w""" I s"* befor[e] is y" same with y* 6"" Hellebor. 
 
 I First column of third page ends. 
 
152 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OP MASSACHUSETTS [Fed. 
 
 113. In short: many triflbg me[dicines] none rational, or worth 
 me[ntion.] 
 
 114. Very rarely. If a Pow-w[aw dejsigne such a thing. & can spy 
 the [man] make water, he digs a hole in y" s[and] & puts a herb into it 
 & y" man shall never make water more. They have many evil charmes 
 but not knowne to us or as to y" cure of diseases 
 
 115. Some skill they have, but very little manuall opation. 
 
 116. Never let bloud (117. None, but scarify a place with sucking 
 118. None at all. 
 
 June 25, 1690. at Mount Hope. 
 
 I rec^ most of this inteUigence From one M' Arnold a practitioner in 
 Physick of good request in Rhode Iland, who hath conversed much with 
 the Indians 
 
 Yo's to serve you in any 
 X" Service to my power 
 & leisure: pray divine 
 successe on yo' labours 
 Sa. Lee •:• 
 
 One thing I would annexe of a rare sort of Candle found out last y. 
 1689 w"*" is made of a guinous matter gatherd by boiling of y" berries 
 of a little bush or shrub w"'' they here call bay berries but I take it to be 
 a sort of myrtle but y" leaves are deciduous in sharp winters. It is very 
 odoriferous & lasting & fit for students. I have made some & might have 
 sent you a candle for your Epictetus Studies: but I feare as yet they will 
 saile into France if you send us not some Frigots to convey them & 
 us to you: yt may be of great comfort to y° Country under y' many 
 dangers & likewise I should hope to see you by y" leave of o' gracious 
 God but I dare not yet venture in ships of no force, who run into S. 
 Maclovip ' to see yt port: The Ld dd us. — 
 
 y" ' wick of silkgrasse spun like cotton serves for candles 
 
 have y" Loadstone 7 mile fro Boston. 
 
 There is a root w"*" they call Makerell & is singular in gripings of y* 
 belly I have seen it dry: but not as yet, growing. 
 
 Galingale. Some judge it a sort of wild Gentian.* 
 
 * St. Maclovius, i. e. St. Molo in Brittany. 
 ' MS. obBcure. 
 
 • The arrangement is confusing. See the facsimile. "Some judge it a sort 
 of wild Gentian" appears to belong with the remark about "MokerelL" 
 
1912] LETTER OF SAMUEL SEWALL, 1691 153 
 
 [Fourth Page: Fol. 236 b] 
 
 For the very Learned Doctor 
 Nehemiah Grew M.D. at 
 his Lodging in Fleetstreet. 
 London. 
 Capt. Saywell I pray inclose 
 it in yo" when you write to 
 him, with my service.' 
 
 Reed these Observations 
 Jan" 24. 169i » 
 
 II 
 
 [Samuel Sewall to Nehemiah Grewj ■ 
 [Krst Page: Sloane MS. 4067, fol. 140 a] 
 
 [I] * reed y* Reu'' Mr. Lee's Observations but y[* 
 lett]er y* inclos'd them was pleas'd to ask my [adu]ice of th[ 
 ] that by my experience of y" American N[ati]ves in t[ 
 ] Travail, and by the Information of [oJtheTs, I find the [ 
 
 ] Eye & Hair; both black: excepting [t]he hoary head 
 pTo[ ] of y" Foreskin, 'tis the Indians custom to flay 
 
 off the h[air from the head of] such of their Enemies as they kill in Fight. 
 I have sent s[ome of the scalps to] Charles Morton a Physician who 
 lodges at K. W"' Head in Bp Gate [ ] y" Left hand as you goe to 
 
 y' Gate. N" 74. The Indians now use English pipes' [for] y" most 
 part, sometimes Stone, or Wood garded in y" inside with Pewter I 
 [know] not what shift they might formerly make; as they used Axes of 
 Stone of wPuch] I have one by me, and till'd their Ground with y' shells 
 
 ' In Lee's hand. 
 
 ' In Sewall's hand. 
 
 ' The manuscript is tattered and soiled. Many words and letters have dis- 
 appeared or are illegible. I have indicated such places by brackets, supplying 
 what is missing as well aa I could. A careful scrutiny of the manuscript enabled 
 me, in August, 1909, to decipher some things that are unreadable in a photograph. 
 
 * The leaf containing the text of the letter has lost the upper comers and has 
 also suffered some mutilation on the upper and the right-hand edge. At the 
 beginning, however, only the salutation and the first word or so (perhaps /) seem 
 to have disappeared. 
 
 ■ The word pipea is practically legible. The reading is established beyond 
 question by Lee's reply to No. 74 (see p. 160, above). 
 
154 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Feb. 
 
 of Fish. At N[arra]ganset (formerly y" chief place of Indians in N E) 
 One gave me an account [of] a Dance held by a great woman, who had 
 met with many Adversities in (y"] Loss of near Relations &c A Day & 
 place was apointed y' so persons far [& near] might be present, Consider- 
 able Provision made for Entertainment of the[m a]f[ter] yr fashion. 
 When the Company was met, she made several Speeches to them im- 
 porting her former Calamity, and hopes of future Prosperity, [ ] now 
 and then danc'd a considerable time, gave many Gifts, and had a new 
 Name given to herself. When a Maid's Menses are first taken notice of, 
 a Uttle house, or rather Tent call'd a Wigwam, is provided for her, [and] 
 she is kept apart by herself. The Hair upon the forheads of the young 
 Females is cut in such a fashion, from time to time, that one may defie 
 what form Nature has plac'd them in. N° 63. Mr. Lee lives at 
 Mount Hope or Bristow, a place fifty miles ofif, upon the Sea, which bears 
 south [erly or] souwest; whereas the Sea is to y" Eastward of us. So 
 that what is sp[oke] of the Souwest Wind, must be interpreted of that 
 place: for [ ] 'tis a pleasant wind: West, & Norwest very Serene. 
 And hardly any [are] bad with us from South East to North. Our 
 North-East brings the [most] uncomfortable Storms, so that 'tis almost 
 become a Proverb, North East, Neither good for Man nor Beast. "Twould 
 be a vain thing to goe about to dissemble the severity of our Winters; 
 only most ancient [inha]bitants judge there is an abatement of their 
 former rigor; the clear[ing of] y" Ground of Wood being the cause of it, 
 as is conjectur'd. Our H[arbour be]ing near y' Sea, and being Salt Water, 
 is not easily frozen. Capt. W[ear * came] away from Cows y* first Dec' 
 and arriv'd* here y° 24"' of Jan" [ ] open Chanel, th6 have had a 
 
 [The following remark is written in the left-hand margin of the page:] 
 
 [* T]wo more Ships are since arriv'd y' sail"* from Plim" xr. 19.' bring- 
 ing supphes of Arms and Amilmtion [in] which y' mercifull Goodness of 
 God is much to be acknowledged, considering our great want, and 
 diffi[culty] of the Winter Season. 
 
 ' Part of the W is preserved. The following entry in Sewall's Diary 
 (i. 340) supplies the captain's name: — "Satterday, Jan. 24, 169?. Wear comes 
 in; came from Clows Deo' 1." Captain Wear is several times mentioned by 
 Sewall (Diary, i. 277, 357; Letter-Book, i. 43, 44, 45, 46, 118, 128). 
 
 • I. 0., December 19. One of these two ships was evidently that whose coming 
 is recorded by Sewall in hia Diary, February 2, 1690-1 (i. 340): — "Capt. 
 Brown arrives at Marbleheod, come from Plimouth 19*-^ December." For Csp- 
 taii/ William Brown sec Sewall's Letter-Book, ii. 107, 154, 157. 
 
1912] LETTER OF SAMUEL SEWALL, 1691 155 
 
 very severe Winter for Frost & [ ] thing that makes y » Harbour refuse 
 
 the Impositions of y» Cold, [is the Tide,] which swells higher than ordi- 
 nary when the Perige and Change or Full [of y« Moon] are coincident, by 
 which means (especially if the wind blow hard) the Ic[e is bro]ken & 
 driven out to Sea. Yet somtimes when many Accidents meet, 'tis fr[ozen] 
 so hard, that a Cart and Oxen may pass over loaden. We have some 
 Compen[sation] in a pleasant Serenity of y" Air, and moderation of our 
 Day[e]s [ ] being about nine hours long from Sun to Sun: for 
 
 Boston is not [so norther]ly as 42"* & 30°" "Tis built on an Island & 
 Peninsula extended in [length] from N. East to Souwest about a Mile & 
 half, from the Ferry to the For[ti]fication. The Buildings reach but 
 little more than a Mile and quarter and more thinly at y" South-end. My 
 House stands just a Mile from y' Fe[rry.] The Continent affords great 
 plenty of Wood & Coal: but y" Coal in y" [ ] Dominion, and for 
 
 that reason, & bee. make not so sweet a fi[re it is] not much used yet ' 
 
 [Second Page: fol. 140 V] ' 
 
 [h]as lat[ely gone t]horow the Tow[n] 
 a sor [e mor]tal Fever in Town & Coimtry. I [ ] 
 f two [of] our Burying Places. There are tw[o] 
 [Ru]mney-Marsh [&] Muddy-River w"*" belong to Boston 
 least some of y* dead at Boston; the latter at Roxbury, 
 [a]lmost compassed with Salt; yet we have very good 
 Wells of Fresh Water. But I shall tire you 
 [ th]ings y* are of so remote concernment to you. My humble 
 
 [SCTvi]oe to Doctor Grew of Coventry,' if living. I am 
 
 Sir, your humble Serv' 
 
 Samuel Sewall. 
 
 [Fourth page, fol. 141 v"] 
 [Address] 
 
 For 
 Doct' Nehemia Grew 
 in Racket Court 
 near Shoe-Lane 
 in Fleet-street 
 London 
 > Hereenda the first page (fol. 140 v"). There is nothing lacking on this page 
 after the word yet, which closes a paragraph. 
 
 • The text of this page is bo badly mutilated that it has seemed best to print it 
 line for line. Some of the readings are not quite certain. The letter ends near the top 
 of the page, all below the signature being blank. The third page is entirely blank. 
 
 • Dr. Obadiah Grew had died on October 22, 1689. 
 
156 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Feb. 
 
 NOTES ON LEE'S LETTER 
 The Colony and Harvard College 
 
 1. "Instituted in 1642." A manifest error. The College was 
 founded in 1636. John Harvard's benefaction was in 1638, and in 
 that year the name Harvard College was decided on, and the first 
 class was formed. 1642 is the date of the Act establishing the Over- 
 seers of Harvard College. 
 
 2. "The ferry betweene Boston & Charlestowne is granted to the 
 colledge," Massachusetts Colony Records, October 7, 1640 (i. 304). 
 See also Quincy, History of Harvard University, ii. 271. 
 
 3. "About 40 or 50 students." Twenty-two persons received the 
 degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1690; eight in 1691 ; six in 1692; fifteen 
 in 1693. Increase Mather was Rector of the College when Lee wrote. 
 
 4. The fourth reply must refer, not to Harvard College, but to the 
 medical profession, which was not organized in corporate form (like 
 the Royal College of Physicians in London) or subject to any fixed 
 control. This appears to be the meaning of "no corporation in a 
 strict form." What follows under the same head and imder No. 5 
 bears out this interpretation: "No degrees in physick or licentiates 
 regular," etc. The incorporation of Harvard College took place in 
 1650, and the Charter of that year, with the Appendix of 1657, re- 
 mains in force. 
 
 5. This means, apparently, that physicians do not have to be 
 approved by authority before they may practise. If th^ patienta 
 approve, says Mr. Lee jocosely, that is all that is required. 
 
 6. "In their owne pia and dura mater" is a jocose way of saying 
 " in their own brain." Cf . " One of thy kin has a most weak pia mater " 
 (Twelfth Night, i. 5. 123); "Whatever piety your Fathers pretended 
 in the Pia Mater of their Brains, to be sure it is Ardled into impious 
 matter of Deuilism, in their Childrens crack'd Crowns" ([Joshua 
 Scottow,] A Narrative of the Planting of the Massachusets Colony *). 
 What follows m the letter is from Juvenal's Seventh Satire, verses 
 158-160: 
 
 Culpa docentis 
 Scilicet arguitur quod laeva in parte mamillae 
 Nil salit Arcadio iuveni. 
 
 ' BoatoD, 1694 (4 Moaaaohusotts Historical Collections, iv. 317). 
 
1912] INSPECTION OF THE APOTHECARIES 157 
 
 9. Dr. Grew had asked, it seems, whether the apothecaries were 
 subject to any inspection. In London, it was the duty of the Apothe- 
 caries' Company to examine the drugs and medicines kept for sale 
 and to destroy such as were unsound or adulterated. The College 
 of Physicians acted as Censors of the apothecaries. Thus Dr. Merrett 
 remarks in 1669: — "Whereas Apothecaries are bound to shew pub- 
 lickly to the Censors of the Colledg, and the Master and Wardens of 
 their Company, Mithridaie, Diascordium, Alkermes, &c. Yet for all 
 this some of them privately make a great deal more of the Composition 
 then is shewed of imsound Drugs, and some without any view at all." * 
 The records of the Company show niunerous cases of penalties im- 
 posed for selling unsound medicines or for compounding medicines 
 "without public view." Thus in 1619 one Eason was fined more 
 than £6 for such offences, and his "Methridatie" and "London 
 Treacle" were seized and destroyed.* In 1624 the Company viewed 
 a "dispensacon of Methridate." * Perhaps Dr. Crew's question 
 applied particularly to this complicated medicine, to the proper 
 preparation of which great importance was attached. Mr. Lee re- 
 plies, with characteristic jocosity, that the Boston apothecaries im- 
 port their mithridate from London and therefore may be said to make 
 it "without inspection." 
 
 The New London Dispensatory describes " Mithridaiium Damo- 
 cratis, The ^Mithridate of Damocrates, taken from the Greek Copy." 
 There are 48 ingredients, almost all vegetable, besides canary wine 
 and clarified honey. "Make an Electuary." Salmon (pp. 658-659) 
 gives a whole column to an enumeration of the diseases for which 
 it is good, including the plague, madness, wind, leprosy, cancer, gout, 
 and dysenteria. It "cures the bitings or stingings of any poisonous 
 Creature, expels Poison." * Hence, of course, its name, from the 
 Pontic king Mithridates VI. 
 
 10. This passage involves a botanical joke. Mr. Lee means that, 
 
 ' Christopher Merrett, A Short View of the Frauds, and Abuses cominitted by 
 Apothecaries, 1669, pp. 8-9. 
 
 • C. R. B. Barrett, History of the Society of Apothecaries of London, 1905, 
 p. 6. 
 
 • Barrett, p. 24. 
 
 • PharmacopcBia Londinensis. Or, the New London Dispensatory. In VI. 
 Books. Translated into English . . . The Sixth Edition, Corrected and Amended. 
 By William Sahnon, Professor of Physiok. London, 1702, lib. iv. cap. 22, p. 658. 
 
158 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Feb. 
 
 if a physician is unsuccessful in curing disease, patients will have 
 nothing to Ho with him. Thb he expresses by saying that such 
 luckless practitioners are punished with " noli me tangere," to which 
 he adds the old botanical name of the plant known as " noli me tan- 
 gere" or "wild mercury" or " quick-in-hand," — PersicariA siliquosa. 
 The phrase " to snap at them " is explained by the fact that the jkxIs of 
 this plant snap open at a touch, so that the seeds spring out. John 
 Parkinson describes the plant in his Theatrum Botanicum (1640),' a 
 standard work with which Mr. Lee was familiar. After the " flowers 
 are past," writes Parkinson, "there come up in their places, small long 
 joynted pods, hanging downewards, striped as it were all the length 
 of them, wherein is conteined small long and somewhat flat seede, 
 of a duskie colour, which is so hardly gathered, in regard that even 
 before it be thorough ripe, if it be but very Ughtly handled, the pods 
 will breake, and twine themselves a Uttle, as the pods of some cer- 
 taine pulses will doe, and the seed will leape forth, yea for the most 
 part, the very shaking of the branches by the winde, causeth the pods 
 to breake open, and shed their seede on the ground, where the ripest 
 may best be gathered if they be taken in time." 
 
 11. "Licentia deteriores." Another pun. The doctors have no 
 licenses, and by reason of this very license (or lack of restraint) they 
 are the worse. The phrase is from a well-known passage in Terence, 
 Heautontimorumenos, iii. 1. 74 (483): "Nam deteriores omnes 
 sumus licentia." 
 
 13. The "pretty hospital upon the common for the poor" was the 
 almshouse, "ordered by the town in 1660, built, later, on or near 
 the present site of the Athenaeum," and "rebuilt in 1685-6 (after a 
 fire)." Since Lee wrote in 1690, he was of course referring to the 
 second structure. The Boston almshouse is thought to have been 
 the earliest in the country.* 
 
 15. Dr. Grew had evidently asked whether physicians had the 
 right to compound and dispense their own prescriptions, or whether 
 the privilege of dispensing was confined to the apothecaries (compare 
 
 ' Tribe ii. chap. 64, p. 297 (cf. p. 296, fig. 5). 
 
 " See the remarks of our late associate, Dr. James Bourne Ayer, on Boston at 
 the Time of the Battle of Bunker Hill (Procpodings of the Bunker Hill Monument 
 Association, 1905, pp. 35-36). Dr. Ayer cites Robert W. Uebberd, The Chari- 
 ties Review, January, 1901, x. 516. 
 
1912] BARBERS AND SURGEONS IN LONDON 159 
 
 the note on No. 9, above). Mr. Lee replies that they may themselves 
 manufacture medicines, or buy them and dispense them, or send their 
 patients to the apothecaries with prescriptions to be filled. On Feb- 
 ruary 20, 1721-2, William Douglass, M.D., wrote from Boston 
 to Cadwallader Golden: — "We abound with Practitioners, though 
 no other graduate than myself, we have fourteen Apothecary shops 
 in Boston; all our Practitioners dispense their own medicines." ' 
 
 16. The question was apparently whether, in case the apothecaries 
 practised, they confined themselves to medicine, or included surgery 
 as well. In the disputes between the London physicians and the 
 apothecaries, the Barber-Surgeons' Company had also become 
 involved.* 
 
 17-18.- These remarks about barbers and "tooth-drawing at 
 pleasure" make it clear that Dr. Grew had based his inquiries on the 
 state of things in London. There are traces of an unincorporated 
 guild or fraternity of barbers (including barbei^surgeons) as early 
 as 1308.' In the same century there existed a similar unincorporated 
 guild or fraternity of surgeons.* In 1462 the former was incorporated 
 by royal charter; * the latter continued to exist on the old basis until 
 1540, when the incorporated Company of Barbers (including barber- 
 surgeons) and the unincorporated guild of surgeons were imited by 
 an Act of Parliament, which also provided that no surgeon should 
 practise barbery and that no barber should practise surgery except 
 the drawing of teeth.' A new charter was granted to this united 
 Company of Barbers and Surgeons in 1605 and in 1629.'' In 1684 all 
 previous charters were surrendered, and in the following year were 
 superseded by a fourth charter,* which was in force when Mr. Lee 
 wrote. These successive charters, however, had made no substantial 
 change in the make-up of the Company, which still consbted of both 
 barbers and the surgeons, although in 1684 certain surgeons of the 
 Company had petitioned the king to incorporate the surgeons as a 
 separate body." In 1745 the growing animosity between the two 
 
 ' Dr. Samuel A. Green, 2 Massachuaetts Historical Proceedings, i. 44. 
 ' Barrett, History of the Society of Apothecaries of London, p. 111. 
 
 • Austin T. Young, Ajmals of the Barber-Surgeons of London, 1890, pp. 23, 
 27-28. 
 
 * P. 35. • Pp. 52 «f. 
 
 ' ' P. 80. 'Pp. 112, 129. 
 
 > Pp. 146-147. • P. 146. 
 
160 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHtrSETTS (Feb. 
 
 classes of members led to an Act of Parliament which dissolved the 
 Company, made a separate Company of Surgeons, and reincorporated 
 the barbers as Barbers only.' 
 
 Mr. Lee informs his correspondent that in Boston the barbers are 
 not associated with the sm-geons ("barbing is a trade by itself") and 
 that anybody may draw teeth. 
 
 19. Apparently Dr. Grew had asked if there was anything in the 
 Colony that corresponded to the Apothecaries' Company in London. 
 Mr. Lee replies with a pmi, — no company except when they meet at 
 the tavern. "Concerned by authority" seems to mean "taken cog- 
 nizance of (or regulated) by the magistrates or the laws." The Latin 
 quotation is from the Third Satire of Persius, v. 23: " I'dum et molle 
 lutum es." The poet tells a young man that he is still soft and mobt 
 clay, that is, that he needs to be formed on the potter's wheel. 
 
 20. "Apprentices . . . please." This still refers to the apothe- 
 caries. The question of an apothecary's right to practise medicine 
 ("to visit whom he pleases") was of much interest in England in the 
 second half of the seventeenth century. 
 
 The Worshipful Society of the Apothecaries of London was incor- 
 porated in 1617. Their charter separated them from the Grocers, 
 with whom they had been united by a previous charter in 1606. The 
 apothecaries were not empowered to prescribe medicines, but only to 
 dispense them, and the Royal College of Physicians had certain rights 
 of inspection, in order that purity of drugs might be ensured and 
 abuses avoided. In the latter half of the centurj-, however, many 
 apothecaries became general practitioners, and this occasioned a 
 dispute with the physicians.* 
 
 Thus Dr. Jonathan Goddard, F.R.S. and Professor of Phj'ac at 
 Gresham College, advocated the preparation of medicines by the 
 physicians themselves, complaining of the evil condition into which 
 the profession had fallen on account of the taking up of medical 
 practice by the apothecaries. "If Patients," wTites Dr. Goddard, 
 "understood theu- interest, they would take no such satisfaction, as 
 they seem to do, in the \'isits of Apothecaries; but ratlier wish them 
 in their Shops to make, or oversee the making of their Medicines pre- 
 
 > Young, pp. irjt-lOZ. 
 
 ' Barrit,t, History of the Society of Apothecarioa of London, pp. xvi-xvii, 1 ff, 
 82-84. 
 
1912] CONTROVERSY BETWEEN PHYSICIANS AND APOTHECARIES 161 
 
 scribed by Physicians, which are left to their Servants, many times 
 raw and slovenly Apprentices, while the Masters spend their time 
 abroad, Physician-like, in Visitmg." * 
 
 These differences were aggravated by the celebrated Dispensary 
 Dispute, which began in 1675 and lasted through the century, though 
 receiving its quietus on the publication of Dr. (afterwards Sir) 
 Samuel Garth's celebrated poem in 1699.* 
 
 When Dr. Grew wrote his inquiries about the condition of the medi- 
 cal profession in New England, the Apothecaries and the College of 
 Physicians were on by no means good terms. It is significant that, 
 in the very year of Mr. Lee's reply (1690), an attempt was made to 
 arrange an accommodation by which the physicians were not to keep 
 shops for the dispensing of drugs and the apothecaries were to refrain 
 from practising.' 
 
 A curious passage, giving an account of the growth of the practice 
 of medicine among the apothecaries, may be quoted from a tract by 
 another London physician. Dr. Christopher Merrett, F.R.S.:* 
 
 The next thing to be treated of, shall be the ways of Apothecaries 
 creeping into practice, and their unfitness there'unto. As to the first, 
 heretofore when they were Members of the Company of Grocers, and 
 dispersed in place, as well as in counsel, they then were wholy subordinate 
 to the Physicians, only keeping in their Shops, and faithfully making the 
 prescriptions they received from the Physician, and when made, sending 
 them to the Patient by their men (as they still continue to do in Foreign 
 Countries) and not committing the preparation to raw Boys, or Appren- 
 tices, which is the true interest of the Patient they should do here like- 
 wise. But in process of time PhysiciuTis in acute diseases having taught 
 them somewhat, sent them to visit their Patients, to give them the best 
 account they could of the estate of their health, and effect of their Medi- 
 cines. ' And of later years some Physicians took them along with them in 
 their Visits, whereby they acquired a little smattering of diseases, by 
 
 ' A Discourse Setting forth the Unhappy Condition of the Practice of Physick 
 in London (London, 1670), p. 21. 
 
 ' Barrett, pp. 94-95, 113-118. 
 
 » Pp. 111-112. 
 
 * A Short View of the Frauds, and Abuses committed by Apothecaries, Lon- 
 don, 1669, pp. 43-44 (2d ed., 1670, pp. 50-51). See also Merrett's tract entitled 
 Self-Conviction, published in 1670. [Henry Stubbe] replied to Merrett in Medice 
 cura teipsumi or The Apothecaries Plea, London, 1671, All these tracts are in 
 the Harvard College Library. 
 
162 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Feb. 
 
 which means, and their continual officiousness, they insinuated them- 
 selves into Families, and by applying (right or wrong) the terms of Art 
 they had learned from the Physicians, they made people believe they had 
 acquired some skill in the Art, and afterwards began to venture a little 
 at practice, and but until these 10 years last past kept themselves within 
 some bounds and limits ; but since that time have daily more and more 
 incroached upon our Profession, being assisted by a greater familiarity 
 of conversation with younger Physicians. And in the Plague time (most 
 Physicians being out of Town) they took upon them the whole Practice 
 of Physick,' which ever since they have continued, being much helped 
 also therein by the dispersing of Physicians into places unknown to their 
 Patients, by the Fire, but above all by the burning of the CoUdg, by means 
 whereof their Government and view of their Shops * have been omitted, 
 insomuch that now their ' past restraint having insinuated and (as they 
 think) rooted themselves by the aforesaid Artifices. 
 
 21. The surgeons are neither associated in a single company with 
 the barbers, as in London (see Nos. 17-18), nor have they any "frar 
 ternity or guild" of their own as they had in London before they were 
 united with the barbers in 1540. "Guelt" involves another pun. 
 Gelt, gheli, or guelt (from the German and Dutch Geld) was a common 
 word for "money" or "pay" in the sixteenth and seventeenth 
 centuries. 
 
 26. The Avery mentioned by Mr. Lee is, beyond a doubt. Dr. 
 William Avery of Dedham and Boston. He was admitted a towns- 
 man of Dedham in 1651,* and, on February 16, he and his wife were 
 received into the First Church there.* In March he got permis^on 
 to set up his smith's shop." This agrees with Lee's remark that 
 the Avery to whom he refers had formerly practised the "ars vete- 
 
 ' This point is handled in a rather gingerly manner. It was notorious that 
 most of the regular practitioners had left their patients in the lurch while the 
 plague raged. In the second edition (1670) Dr. Merrett omitted the damaging 
 parenthesis "most Physicians being out of town" (p. 51). 
 
 ' That is, the inspection of the apotheoariea' shops by the Censors of the Royal 
 College of Physicians. See No. 9. 
 
 ' I. e., they're. The second edition reads, "now they are past all restraint" 
 (p. 51). 
 
 * Drciham Records, iii. 132. 
 
 » Church Records, in Dedham Records, ii. 32 (cf. 35). His name is given as 
 
 " — Avery" and "brother Avery," but there can bo no question of hia 
 
 identity. 
 
 ' Dedham Records, iii. 179. 
 
1912] DR. WILLIAM AVERT OF DEDHAM AND BOSTON 1G3 
 
 rinaria," i. e. farriery. William Avery's name occurs frequently in 
 the records of Dedham, often with the title of Sergeant. In 1669 he 
 was Deputy to the General Court.* In 1673 he was appointed Lieuten- 
 ant of the Dedham Military Company.* In 1675 his name appears 
 in the records with the title of "Mr.;" » so also in 1679." When he 
 began to practise medicine we do not know; but his name bears the 
 title "Doc" in the town .records for 1676/ and thereafter Doc, Do, 
 orDoct is its common prefix.' On January 1, 1678, he obtained per- 
 mission " to fell timber of the town common, for a frame of a house to 
 carry to Boston, provided he paid to the use of the town in money 
 two shillings per ton, not exceeding seven ton." ^ This gives us an 
 approximate date for his removal to Boston. In 1680 he offered the 
 town of Dedham £60 for the encouragement of a Latin School,' and 
 in the same year there b the following important entry in the records 
 of that town: 
 
 Cap* Dan Fisher make a return of the trust Comited to him selfe and 
 En Tho Fullar of a Some of mony of sixty pounds giuen to the Towne 
 and the Improument for the benifit of a Latine Schoole 
 
 The retume is as foloweth be it Here by declared that I Will Auery 
 Phisision now resedent in Boston : some times of the Church of Dedham 
 do out of my Intire loue to the: Church and Towne: thier frely giue the 
 full Some of sixty pound in mony thier of to be wholy for the incoragmt 
 of a latin Schoole as shall be from time to tim so ordered by the Elders 
 or Elder of that Church and select men for the time being desirous y* 
 others whom god shall make able will adde thier vnto that a latine Schoole 
 may generaly be maintayned thier and this to stand vpon record in thier 
 towne Booke.' 
 
 ' Dedham Records, iv. 287. 
 
 > Massachusetts Colony Records, vol. iv. part ii. p. 567. 
 
 > Dedham Records, v. 34, 36. 
 
 • v. 76. 
 
 • V. 41. 
 
 • V. 43, 45, 47, 48, 54, 55, 57, 60, 61, 65, 70, 73, 83, 89. _ 
 
 ' "Grant liberty to Do Auery to fell timber of the Towne Com for a fram of a 
 House to cary to Boston prouid he pay to the vse of the Town in mony 2" per 
 tune not excding 7 tune" (Dedham Records, v. 63). 
 
 ' "Doc Will Auery doth tender mony sixty pounds for the incorogment of a 
 latine Schoole in this Towne prouided thier be such incoragmt to a choole as may 
 be sutoble of the Townes part and to that end to treet with him refering to his 
 conditions we Chose Cap* Dan Fisher and En Tho Fullar" (v. 98). 
 
 • V. 100-101. 
 
164 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [FEB. 
 
 In March, 1681, there is a further record about Dr. Avery's bene- 
 faction, as follows: — "it being proposed to the Town whether they 
 will allow twenty two pounds by the year to a lattin schoolmaster 
 whereof seaven pounds shall be mony besides the incom of that 60 
 pounds given by Docter Avery, it was voated in the afirmitive." ' 
 And there are other entries relating to this same gift.^ 
 
 IMr. Lee says that "Dr Avery was a great inquirer and had skill 
 in Helmont & chemicall physick." By a lucky chance, two letters 
 that show his inquiring mind and his addiction to chemistry are 
 preserved in the Works of the famous natural philosopher, Robert 
 Boyle, to whom they were addressed.' They are dated at Boston, 
 November 9, 1682, and May 1, 1684. From them it appears that he 
 was in hot pursuit of the alkahest or universal solvent. He refers 
 to Starkey's Pyrotechny,^ and mentions * " the worshipful Mr. Dud- 
 ley* and "my worthy friend Mr. Thomas Brattle." ^ In the second 
 letter he speaks of a son "about thirty years of age" as also a "prac- 
 titioner in physic, and an assiduous labourer at the chemical fire." * 
 This son was Jonathan Avery, of Dedham, who first appears in the 
 town records in lOSl (with the title of Doctor),' and often thereafter." 
 Under date of December 16, 1701, are mentioned "the Heires of 
 Jonath Avery Deceased." " 
 
 Dr. William Avery died in Boston, March 18, 1687.'* His will is 
 preserved in the Suffolk County Probate Files, No. 1526. The tes- 
 tator describes himself as "resident in Boston," as "practitioner in 
 physick," and as "aged about 61 years." This was in 1683, for the 
 will is dated on the 15th of October in that year. It is signed William 
 
 » Dedham Records, v. 109. 
 
 » V. 148-1 to, 367 (cf. V. 169). 
 
 » Boyle's Works, ed. Birch, v. 614-617. 
 
 * This is a once famous treatise by George Stirk of the Harvard Class of 1646 
 (who changed his name to Starkey): — Pyroteohny Asserted and Illustrated, 
 London, 1658. Cf . Publications of this Society, ]dii. 14S. 
 
 » Boyle's Works, v. 616. 
 
 " Josoph Dudley, 1647-1720 (H. C. 1665). 
 
 ' 1658-1713 {H. C. 1676). 
 
 ' Boyle's Works, v. 617. 
 
 » Dedham Records, v. 114 (cf. 116). 
 
 " V. 121. 124, 128, 131, 136, 145, 146, 160, 163, 165, 166, 174, 178, 186, 194, 
 200, 279, 365. 
 " V. 295. 
 " "Dr. W™ Avery dies" (SewaU's Diary, i. 170, March 18, 1686-7). 
 
1912] DR. WILLIAM AVERY AND DR. JONATHAN AVERY 165 
 
 Avery, and has two witnesses. Below their signatures is the acknowl- 
 edgment in the presence of three witnesses, dated.March 13, 1686-7. 
 The will mentions the doctor's wife (Mary), and his four children, 
 William, Robert, and Jonathan Avery, and Mary Tisdale; also 
 his sons-in-law, William Sunmer and Benjamin Dyer. There is an 
 interesting bequest to charity which shows that the Doctor was in- 
 terested in mines, as befitted a loyal student of alchemy: 
 
 Jt. Concerning my part in several mines, my Will is, that after all 
 necessary charges already laid out or to be laid out upon them be equally 
 satisfyed, then the profit or income of them while my wife lives, shall be 
 divided to her & to my four children William, Robert & Jonathan Avery 
 & Mary Tisdale, & after my Wife's decease shall be divided among my 
 said children: And my will is that in all these divisions my son william 
 shall have a double share . . . Further my [Will] is that a third part of 
 all the profit y* shall arise to any & all of my children from the said mines 
 shall be improved for publick & charitable uses according to their own 
 discretion. And my will is that it shall so remain from time to time with 
 them their heirs or successors, that, all necessary charges deducted, a 
 third part of the profit of y' mines aforesaid shall be for publick & chari- 
 table use. 
 
 All medical books and apparatus are bequeathed to the Doctor's 
 son Jonathan. " Jt. My W\}1 is y* my son Jonathan shall have my two 
 Stills, all my Physick books & instruments, he allowing twenty poimd 
 to my executors for y' same." The three sons are named as execu- 
 tors, but on May 26, 1687, they filed a document renouncing their 
 executorship. This, with the will, is all that the Suffolk Files contain. 
 The will is docketed as taken to the Probate Office by William and 
 Robert Avery on May 26, 1687. 
 
 The will of Dr. Jonathan Avery is also in the Suffolk Probate Files, 
 No. 1856. He describes himself as "Jonathan Avery, resident in 
 Dedham . . . Practitioner in Physick, & aged about Thirty-five 
 years." The will is dated February 18, 1689, and was recorded in 
 May, 1691. The inventory, which is the only other document m the 
 Files, is dated May 13, 1691, and was sworn to on May 27. The will 
 mentions the Doctor's wife Sibyll,and his three daughters, Sibyll, Mar- 
 garett, and Dorothy, all under age. His brother, William Avery, is also 
 mentioned. The inventory values his "Bookes Devinitie & Pisicall & 
 other small books" at £5, and his " Chyrurgion Jnstruments" at £1. 
 
106 THE COLONIAL SOCXETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Feb. 
 
 The iNDtiNs 
 
 1. A flake is "a lock or band of hair not twisted or plaited." The 
 following passages (among those quoted in the Oxford Dictionary) 
 make the meaning of the term clear: — "Will you have . . . your 
 mustachoes sharpe at the ends, like shomakers aules, or hanging 
 downe to your mouth like goates flakes?" (Lyly, Midas, iii. 2, ed. 
 Jairholt, ii. 29-30); "The flakes of hair which naturally suggest 
 lightning" (Steele, Guardian, No. 86); "His hair was flaxen, and 
 fell in long flakes upon his shoulders" (Captain Marryat, The Phan- 
 tom Ship, chap. viii.). The word is the same as the second part of 
 snow/lake, and King Lear plays on the two meanings when he speaks 
 of his hoary locks as "these white flakes" (iv. 7. 10). 
 
 Josselyn, Rarities, p. 99, remarks: "The Men are somewhat 
 Horse Fac'd, and generally Faucious, i. e. without Beards." Cf. 
 Smith, p. 19; Wood, part ii. chap. 4, p. 55. 
 
 3. "Dank-faced" I do not understand. The only recorded mean- 
 ing of dank seems to be the ordinary one, — "damp." 
 
 Mr. Lee's views concerning the ori^ of the American Indians, 
 though not original, show that he was abreast of his time in ethnology. 
 He thinks that their origin is twofold, — that they " came partly from 
 the African Phoenicians, as may be seen by Diod. Siculus, and partly 
 from the Eastern Tartars, it being as yet questionable whether Japan 
 be an island or joined to the northwest of America." As to the latter 
 point, he shows his confidence in future discovery by adding a httle 
 tag from the Iliad, ii. 119 {xal iffo-ofiA/oiai irvffeadcu), which, in his 
 special application of it here, signifies "And 'tis for posterity to 
 ascertain." ' 
 
 The passage from Diodorus Siculus which Mr. Lee has in mind 
 consists of the nineteenth and twentieth chapters of the Fifth Book, 
 in which Diodorus describes a great island in the Atlantic, several 
 days' voyage to the westward of Libya (Africa), and tells how it was 
 discovered by certain Phoenician explorers who were blown far out 
 to sea while skirting the African coast after they had passed through 
 the Pillars of Hercules. Both the Diodorus passage and the question 
 
 • Mr. Lee writes his Greek with the ligatures and contractions then custom- 
 ary, which I have not tried to reproduce in typo. By slips of the pen he gives 
 iiraoiuvouTi ae iiTaafuvouri and accents nvOiaOai on the first syllable. 
 
1912] CONNECTION BETWEEN ASIA AND AMERICA 167 
 
 whether Japan is connected with America are discussed in Georg 
 Horn's monograph, De Originibus Americanist — a little book which 
 once enjoyed a well-merited reputation, and with which Mr. Lee 
 (Uke Cotton Mather * and Samuel Sewall ') was undoubtedly familiar. 
 
 The theory that America joined Asia is well known to have been 
 continuously entertained by geographers, with ever-varying degrees of 
 favor, from the time of Columbus until well into the nineteenth cen- 
 tury. Even the discovery of Bering Strait in 1728 and Cook's survey 
 of it in 1778, did not put an end to what we may call the Asiatic theory. 
 As late as 1819, Captain James Bumey, who had been one of Cook's 
 officers, and whose moderation and expert knowledge were alike re- 
 markable, took pains to point out that there was as yet no "satis- 
 factory proof of a separation of America and Asia having been dem- 
 onstrated by an actual navigation performwi." It was still quite 
 conceivable that the two continents might unite somewhere farther 
 north. "The sea North of Bering's Strait," argues Bumey, "... 
 has in some respects the character of a mediterranean sea," and in his 
 chart he inserts, just above the seventieth parallel, the legend " Indi- 
 cations of land to the north of the line of soundings." On the whole, 
 he does not hesitate to maintain that "there is cause to suppose 
 Asia and America to be contiguous, or parts of one and the same 
 continent." * 
 
 When Lee wrote, most geographers believed that Asia was sepa- 
 rated from North America by the Strait of Anian, that mysterious 
 forerunner of Bering Strait made popular by Mercator in 1569.' 
 
 1 See book ii. chap. 1 (Hague, 1652, pp. 61 fif) for the Japanese question; 
 book ii. chap. 7 (pp. 91 5) for the passage from Diodorus. 
 > Magnalia, 1702, book 1. chap. 1, § 6, p. 4. 
 
 • Lettei^Book, i. 23; Phaenomena quffidam Apocalyptica, 1697 f2d ed., 1727, 
 p. 2). Cf. the note on No. 67, pp. 178-179, below. 
 
 * A Chronological History of North-Eastem Voyages of Discovery, London, 
 1819, pp. 298, 300, 301 (cf. pp. 302 ff). Bumey bad abeady advanced these 
 opinions in a memoir read before the Royal Society on December 11, 1817 (Philo- 
 sophical Transactions for 1818, part i. pp. 9-23). Cf. Adelbert von Chamisao's 
 reply, in Otto von Kotzebue, Voyage of Discovery, London, 1821, iii. 265 ff. 
 
 ' The first dated map to contain the name Strait of Anian ("Streto de Anian") 
 appears to be Zaltieti's Map of North America, 1566 ("II Disegno del disco- 
 perto della noua Franza . . . Venteijs sneis formis Bolognini Zaltieri Anno. 
 M.D. LXVI"). The Lenox Collection (New York Public Library) has this map, 
 and I have had the pleasure of examining it. It is in the Lenox copy of Lafreri's 
 Atlas, fol. [81]. There is a fascimHe in Nordenskidld's Facsimile-Atlas, fig. 81 
 
168 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Feb. 
 
 Others held out for absolute continuity.* In either case, the idea that 
 a part of America had been peopled by emigrants from Tartary had 
 long been popular. It was espoused, for example, by Edward Brer©- 
 wood, in 1614.^ " It is certaine," writes Brerewood, "that the North- 
 east part of Asia possessed by the Tartars, is if not continent with 
 the West side of America, which yet remaineth somewhat doubtful] : 
 yet certainely, and without all doubt, it b the least disioyned by sea, 
 of all that coast of Asia."" 
 
 What is peculiar in Lee's remarks, then, is not the Tartar theory 
 (which was well established in men's minds),* but the introduction 
 of Japan, and its possible connection with Asia by land, as an element 
 in the problem. This consideration had developed on the basis of a 
 notion (entertained by the Japanese themselves and by them conmiu- 
 nicated to European visitors) that Yezo extendetl far to the eastward. 
 This notion had been reported in 1616 by Father Girolamo de Angelis, 
 
 (English translation, p. 129; cf. No. 103, p. 121), and in the Atlas to Kretschmer's 
 Entdeckung Amerika's, 1892, Tafcl XIX. 3 (cf. the text, pp. 440-143). See 
 Sophus Ruge, Fretum Anian (Programm, Annenschule, Dresden, 1873, pp. 19- 
 32 ; also in his Abhandlungen und Vortrage, Dresden, 1888, pp. 53 fif) ; O. 
 Peschel, Gcschichtc der Erdkunde, 2d ed. (by Ruge), Munich, 1877, pp. 273 and 
 n. 2, 816; K. E. von Bacr, in Beitrage zur Kenntniss des Rjissischen Reiches, 
 xvi. 289-290 (St. Petersburg, 1872); Nordenskiold, Periplus, English translation, 
 1897, p. 193; William Goldson, Observations on the Passage between the Atlantic 
 and Pacific Oceans, Portsmouth, England, 1793, pp. 67-122. 
 
 ' So for instance. Father Athanasius Kircher, the learned Orientalist, in his 
 Introduction to the Coptic Language (Prodomus Coptus sive i£gyptiacus, Rome, 
 1636), expresses himself as "almost convinced by mathematical considerations" 
 that Greater Cathay in the extreme north "angulo Americs isthmo quodam 
 coniungi" (p. 100). 
 
 * Enquiries touching the Diversity of Languages, and Religions through the 
 Cheife Parts of the World, London, 1014, pp. 96 ff (ed. 1674, pp. 117 ff). Brere- 
 wood opposes the "vain and cappricious phantasie" that the Tartars "are of the 
 Jsraelitea progeny" (pp. 94 ff; ed. 1674, pp. 114 ff). 
 
 * P. 97 (ed. 1674, p. 118). 
 
 * See Roger WilUams, Key, 1643, p. [viiij; Montanus (van Bergen), De Nieuwe 
 en Onbekende Weerold, Amsterdam, 1671, pp. 38 ff; John Ogilby, America, 
 1671, pp. 39 ff (a translation of Montanus); Nioolaas Witsen, Nord en Oost 
 Tartaryen, new ed., 1785, i. 157 ff; S. G. Drake, Book of the Indians, Book i. 
 chap, ii, 8lh ed., 1811, pp. 6 ff; Winsor, Narrative and Critical llistory, i. 76 ff. 
 Morton, New English Canaan, 1637, pp. 19 ff, rejects the Tartar hypothesis in 
 favor of the Trojans. In so doing he simply followed the lead of learned com- 
 binations going back to Virgil and involving Franks, Britons, and Scandinavians 
 (see especially Viktor Rydberg, Undcrsbkningar i Germanisk Mythologi, j. 24- 
 74, Stockholm, 1886). 
 
1912] CONNECTION BETWEEN JAPAN AND ASIA 169 
 
 a Sicilian missionary in Japan.* He declared that, to the best of his 
 beUef, "Jesso" was not an island, but a huge projection of Tartary, 
 lying opposite to Quivira, a similar projection of New Spain, so that 
 the Strait of Anian lay between Quivira and Tartary. In 1621 
 Father de Angelis visited Yezo, and somewhat modified his view. 
 He decided that "Jesso" was after all an island, separated from Tar- 
 tary by a strait, though he is ready to admit that the supposed 
 western strait may be only a river. As to the extent of Yezo and its 
 position with respect to the Strait of Anian and America, he seems to 
 have remained of his former opinion.* 
 
 These views had a profound and long-continued influence on car- 
 tography. Lee, however, was doubtless particularly affected by a 
 more recent report, that of Frangoys Caron in 1636.' 
 
 ' For a sketch of the life of Father de Angelis see Craaset, Historie de I'figlise 
 du Jai>on, Paris, 1715, book xvi. chap. 26, ii. 429-432. He was burned to death 
 at Jedo, December 3, 1623. 
 
 ' The report of Father de Angelis (Relazione del regno di Jeso) seems to have 
 been first published in Relazione di alcune cose cavate dalle Lettere scritte 
 negli anni 1619, 1620 & 1621, dal Giappone al molto Rev. in Christo P. Mutio 
 Vitelleschi, Preposito Generale della C. di Giesu (Rome, 1624), pp. 217-232 (Uon 
 Pagte, BibUographie Japoncdse, No. 173, p. 21). The Harvard College Library 
 has a large number of these Jesuit Relations from Japan, but lacks this volume, 
 and I have not seen it. It is quoted, however, in the original Italian, by Sir Robert 
 Dudley, Dell' Arcano del Mare, vol. i. book ii. chap. 17, p. 55, 1646 (and 2d ed., 
 vol. L book ii. chap. 17, p. 18, 1661). The substance of the letter, with a long 
 extract, is given by de Charlevoix, Historie et Description Generale du Japon, 
 Paris, 1736, vi. 24-41, and there is a sufficient extract (in Dutch) in Witsen, Nord 
 en Oost Tartatyen, ed. 1785, i. 143-145. See also Buache, Considerations Gdo- 
 graphiques et Physiques, 1753, pp. 84-88. 
 
 ' Beschiijvinghe van het machtigh Coninckrijck van lapan, gestelt door 
 Francoys Caron, . . . ende met eenige aenteeckeningen vermeerdert door Hen- 
 drick Hagenaer, annexed to Verhael van de Reyze gedaen inde meeste Deelen 
 van de Oost-Indien, door den Opper-Coopman Hendrick Hagenaer, p. 134 (in 
 [Isaak Commelin,] Tweede Deel van het Begin ende Voortgangh der Vereenighde 
 Nederlantsche Geoctroyeerde Oost-Indische Compagnie, 1646). There is also 
 an edition of Caron's Beschrijvinghe, Amsterdam, 1649, in the John Carter 
 Brown Library. The Description (with Hagenaer's additions) is translated in 
 Recueil de divers Voiages qui ont servi k I'fitablissement et aux Progrfes de la 
 Compagnie des Indes Orientales, form^e dans les Provinces Unies des Pals-bas, v. 
 301 ff (Amsterdam, 1706); 2d edition, v. 381 ff (Amsterdam, 1716). In 1662 
 Caron published his report in a revised form, purged of Hagenaer's additions. 
 There is a translation of this (from a copy furnished by Caron) in Melchis^deo 
 Thevenot's Relations de divers Voyages Curieux, part ii, Paris, 1664; reprinted 
 in Recueil de Voyages au Nord, new edition, iv. 32-141 (Amsterdam, 1732). An 
 
170 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Feb. 
 
 Caron was Director of the Dutch East India Company in Japan. 
 In replying to certain inquiries of Phihp Lucas, Director-General of 
 the Company, he expressed the opinion that Japan, "called by the 
 Inhabitants Nipon," is an island; but he declined to make the asser- 
 tion positively, "for," he says, "I find that a great part of this coun- 
 try is vuiknown to the Japanese themselves." As to the "land of 
 lesso or Sesso," that, according to the best mformation that Caron 
 can get from the Japanese, is an island, separated from the north of 
 Nipon by an arm of the sea. It is of great size, and the Japanese do 
 not know how far it extends, though they have made several attempts 
 to explore it. Caron appears to believe that Yezo is attached to the 
 mainland of Asia. 
 
 Georg Horn, ah-eady referred to, was probably the intermediary 
 between Caron and Lee. In his De Ori^bus Americanis he appeals 
 to Caron as affording strong support for the theory that the Americans 
 are, in part, of Tartar origin. "The whole tract of country," writes 
 Horn, " from Nova Zembla and Japan and the Chinese Wall and Corea, 
 b still unknown to Europeans, so that, if America anywhere comes 
 close to our hemisphere, or joins it, the junction must be in the 
 neighborhood of Cathay, outside the Arctic Circle." "That North 
 America is rather closely joined to Asia," adds Horn, "is made 
 easily credible by the description of Japan which Francis Caron has 
 lately published." * Then, after quoting from Caron's Report, he 
 proceeds as follows: — "All this throws much light on the doubtful 
 questions about America which we are investigating. For what 
 hinders us from supposing that Sesso is a part of America, or very 
 close to it? And how well the barbarousness of the inhabitants, as 
 described by Caron, agrees with the New World!" * 
 
 Further confusion was introduced into the geography of Yezo by 
 
 English version, apparently from the Dutch edition of 1649, appeared at London 
 in 1663: — A true Description of the Mighty Kingdoms of - Japan and Siam. 
 Written originally in Dutch by Francis Caron and Joost Schorten [error for 
 Schouten]: and now rendrcd in English by Capt. Roger Manley (Harvard Col- 
 lege Library). 
 
 ' "Vt vcro facile credamua Americam Septentrionalem Asia: propius con- 
 jungi, nupera quam Fronciscus Caron publicavit laponiee facit descriptio" (De 
 Originibua Americanis, liook ii. chap. 1, Hague, 1652, pp. 62-63). 
 
 ' " Quee omnia magnam lucem Amrricanis tcncbris inferunt. Quid enim vetat 
 quominus Sesso vol pars Americie vel oi admodum vicina sit? Et quam bene ilia 
 barbaries novo orbi convonit?" (pp. 63-64). 
 
1912] VARIOUS PHYSIOLOGICAL MATTEBS 171 
 
 the Dutch discoveries of 1643, but since these had not reached 
 Horn's ears, and since Mr. Lee shows no signs of being acquainted with 
 them, we need not pursue the subject. The curious will consult Count 
 Teleki's sumptuous and definitive work on the historical cartography 
 of the Japanese Islands.^ 
 
 7. Compare Wood, New Englands Prospect, ed. 1635, part ii. 
 chap. 4, p. 54: — "Yet did I never see one that was borne either in 
 redundance or defect a monster, or any that sicknes had deformed, 
 or casualty made decrepit, saving one that had a bleared eye, and 
 another that had a wenne on his cheeke." Morton, New English 
 Canaan, 1637, p. 32 (ed. Adams, p. 147), notes "not any of them, 
 crooked backed or wry legged." In Champlain's Voyage we read: — 
 "Tous ces peuples se sont gens bien projwrtionnez de leur corps, sans 
 aucune difformitl." ^ 
 
 8. This question probably referred to the menses (cf. No. 34). 
 
 10. Dr. Grew had doubtless inquired about flow of milk as com- 
 pared with that of Englishwomen. 
 
 12-14. These were certainly physiological questions, — No. 12 
 relating to odor, No. 13 to discharge of phlegm, and No. 14 to the 
 movements of the bowels. With Mr. Lee's answer to No. 14, cf. 
 Williams, Key, p. 100: 
 
 There be diverse sorts of this Come, and of the colours: yet all of it 
 either boild in milke, or buttered, if the use of it were knowne and re- 
 ceived in England (it is the opinion of some skillfull in physick) it might 
 save many thousand lives in England, occasioned by the binding nature 
 of English wheat, the Indian Come keeping the body in a constant 
 moderate loosenesse. 
 
 16. Probably Dr. Grew had asked whether the Indians change 
 color under stress of emotion, as we do. 
 
 17. On the weeping and mourning of the Indians, see Morton, 
 New English Canaan, p. 51, with the passages from Williams, Wood, 
 and others cited by Mr. Adams m his note (pp. 170-171). Thomas 
 Mayhew, 1650, speaks of their "hellish howUngs over the dead."' 
 
 » Paul Teleki, Atlas zur Geschichte der Kartographie der Japanischen Inseln, 
 Budapest and Leipzig, 1909. Cf. O. Nachod, Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft fOr 
 Erdkunde zu Berlin, 1910, pp. 196 ff. 
 
 ' Des Sauvages, ou Voyage de Samuel Champlain, 1604, fol. 11 v". 
 
 » In Henry Whitfeld, The Light Appearing, 1651, p. 11. 
 
172 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Feb. 
 
 Dunton, Letters from New England, borrows from Williams.^ Smith, 
 A Map of Virginia, 1612, p. 30, is like Strachey, p. 90. 
 
 18. Compare Williams, Key, chap. 6, p. 40 (ed. TrmnbuU, p. 68): 
 — " They have also amongst them naturall fooles, either so borae, or 
 accidentally deprived of reason." 
 
 19. Josselyn, Two Voyages, ed. 1675, p. 125, says that the 
 Indians " seldom forget an injury." 
 
 20. "They count him all one woman," that is, "all one as (jiist 
 the same as) a woman." A Uttle bit of Indian English. See Kit- 
 tredge. The Old Farmer and his Almanack, 1904, pp. 333-378. 
 
 21. Cf. Nos. 66, 68. 
 
 25. Cf. Wood, pt. ii. ch. 20, p. 82: — "To heare one of these In- 
 dians unseene, a good eare might easily mistake their untaught voyce 
 for the warbling of a well tuned Instrument. Such command have 
 they of their voices." Josselyn, Two Voyages, ed. 1675, p. 135: — 
 "Musical too they be, having many pretty odd barbarous tunes 
 which they make use of vocally at marriages and feastings." Strachey, 
 bk. i. cap. 6, p. 79: — "They have likewise their errotica carmina, or 
 amorous dittyes in their language, some numerous [i. e. metrical], and 
 some not, which they will sing tunable enough." Vimont, Jesuit 
 Relations, Relation 1642 et 1643 (Paris, 1644), p. 35: — "LesSauvages 
 se plaisent fort au chant & y reiississent tres bien." 
 
 27. "Three or four times as much physic as the English" was 
 doing pretty well in view of the heroic doses of those times. "Sup- 
 pose," writes Dr. Merrett, "a Physician hath prescribed a Pint of 
 Juleb, &c. to be taken at four several times," and again, " When a 
 Physician hath prescribed 20 Pilb." ' 
 
 30. Cf. Wood, pt. ii. ch. 19, p. 79: — "Spinne out the threed of 
 their dayes to a faire length, numbering three-score, four-score, some 
 a hundred yeares." Josselyn, Two Voyages, p. 130: — "They live 
 long, even to an hundred years of age, if they be not cut off by thdr 
 Children, war, and the plague, which together with the small pox 
 hath taken away abundance of them." 
 
 36. The' manuscript reads plauily "Sebeniack." The word is un- 
 known to me. Cf. No. 108. 
 
 ' Dunton, ed. Whitmore, pp. 294-295 (or 2 Massachusetts Historical Col- 
 lections, ii. 122) ; Williams, Key, chap. 32, pp. 193 £f (ed. Trumbull, pp. 215 ft). 
 
 ■ A Short View of the Frauds, and Abuses Committed by Apothecaries, 1669, 
 pp. 16, 17. 
 
1912] THE CONTAGIOUSNESS OF CONSUMPTION 173 
 
 37. "That dreadful disease and arrow of God" is doubtless the 
 plague, which was regarded as a very special manifestation of God's 
 wrath. Morton, New English Canaan, thmks that the pestilence of 
 1616 and 1617 was "by all likelyhood" the plague.^ Cf. No. 111. 
 Cotton Mather, Angel of Bethesda, ch. xx. (MS., p. 113), remarks: 
 — "The proper Plague has never yett visited the Vast Regions of 
 America: Howbeit Peatilential Fevers little better than that, have 
 there made made fearful Ravages." 
 
 40. On coshrcaska compare Hariot's Report, 1588, sig. C 4 v°: — 
 " Cose&ahaw, some of our company tooke to bee that kinde of roote 
 which the Spaniards in the West Indies call Cassauy." 
 
 42. The idea that consumption is "catching" among the Indians, 
 but not among the English, is noteworthy in view of recent discoveries. 
 
 That consumption was contagious was a common idea among 
 educated persons when Mr. Lee wrote. The Hon. Roger North, in 
 his life of his brother. Lord Keeper Guilford, congratulates himself 
 that the latter (then Sir Francis North) was not present when his 
 (Sir Francis's) wife died (November 15, 1678) : 
 
 Her distemper . . . was a violent cough attended with a spitting of 
 blood. . . . Every one knows what offences, nay hazards, a nearness to 
 persons, that expire gradually in such consumptions, induceth; for he 
 [Sir Francis] would not be absent from her more than was consistent: 
 and when she must expire, and probably in his arms, he might have 
 received great damage in his health.* 
 
 Cf. Cotton Mather's Diary, ii. 452 (a reference that I owe to our 
 associate Mr. W. L. R. Gifford). 
 
 The contagious character of phthisis was well known to the an- 
 cients. In the Problems, wrongly ascribed to Aristotle, the question 
 is raised: "Why do those who approach the patient catch consump- 
 tion and ophthalmia and itch, while they do not catch dropsy and 
 fevers and apoplexy or other diseases?"' 
 
 I P. 24 (see Mr. Adama's note, p. 133). 
 
 » The Lives of the Right Hon. Francis North, Baron Guilford, the Hon. Sir 
 Dudley North, and the Hon. and Rev. Dr. John North, London, 1826, i. 167-168. 
 
 • Auk Ti diri <f>0iae<ot xal 6<^8aKiilat naX ^iipat ol irXijo-tdfowrtt dXiVxoiTai • anb ii 
 vipamos Koi wptr&v koI dn-OTrXijfiar oix iX/<r(toinr<u, oiSi tuv SK\a>v (vii. 8). Cf. 
 Isocrates, Aegincticus, 29. See W. H. S. Jones, Malaria and Greek History, 
 1909, pp. 42-43, 128. 
 
174 THE COLONIAL SOCIETT OF MAB8ACHU8ETT8 [Feb. 
 
 44. Compare Wood, part i. p. 39: — "Whatsoever is bitten by 
 these snakes his flesh becomes as spotted as a leaper." So Lechford, 
 Plain Dealing, 1642, p. 47: — "There are Rattle-snakes, which some- 
 times doe some harme, not much; He that is stung with any of them, 
 or bitten, he turnes of the colour of the Snake, all over his body, 
 blew, white, and green spotted; and swelling, dyes, unlesse he timely 
 get some Snake-weed; which if he eate, and rub on the wound, he 
 may haply recover, but feele it a long while in his bones and body." 
 See No. 97. 
 
 Cotton Mather sent the Royal Society two good snake stories in 
 1712. They are reported, with some changes in form, in the Philo- 
 sophical Transactions.* I give them from a copy of the original 
 letter: 
 
 A Traveller in this Countrey mett and killed a Rattlesnake; but suf- 
 fered the Angry Snake to give a Bite before he died unto y* lower end of 
 the Switch, with y" lashes of which he had first spoiled his leaping. He 
 rode on, & a fly disturbing him on one of his Temples, he rubb'd y* place, 
 w"" y" upper end of the Switch in his hand, unto which y" poison below 
 had so permeated, that y" Head of y" pKJor Man Swell'd immediately, and 
 (as I remember) he died upon it. . . . At Cape Fear, one of o' i)eople 
 Sporting with a RatUe Snake, provoked him, & suffered him to bite y° 
 edge of a Good Broad Ax; whereupon, immediately y* Colour of the 
 Steeled Iron changed, & at the first blow he gave, when he went after 
 this to use his Axe, y" discoloured part of y' Bitten Iron, broke off with- 
 out any more ado. I know not whether I have now Sprung a New 
 Game, for the Gentlemen, that are hunting after y,* Liquor Alkahest} 
 
 Cf. Mather's Christian Philosopher, 1721, p. 169:— "And yet 
 [is] this Rattlesnake such a venomous Wretch, that if he bite the Edge 
 of an Axe, we have seen the bit of Steel that has been bitten, come off 
 immediately, as if it had been imder a Pvirefaction." 
 
 > No. 339 (for April-June, 1714), xxix. 68. Paul Dudley's account of the 
 rattlesnake (dated Roxbury, October 25, 1722) may be seen in the Philosophical 
 Transactions, No. 376, xxxii. 292-296. It is far more sober than Mather's. 
 
 • Letter of Nov. 27, 1712 (addressed to Richard Waller, the Secretary of the 
 Royal Society). In the archives of the Society. From a copy kindly lent me by 
 our associate Mr. Frederick Lewis Gay. The alkahest, or universal solvent, was 
 passionately sought after in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Dr. Wil- 
 liam Avery in Boston was in hot pursuit of it in 1682-1684 (see No. 26, p. 164, 
 above). 
 
1912] STORTES OP THE RATTLESNAKE 175 
 
 The rattlesnake had attracted the attention of the Royal Society 
 at an early date. In the Philosophical Transactions for May 8, 1665, 
 there is a somewhat amusing passage: — "There being not long since 
 occasion given at a meeting of the Royal Society to discourse of 
 Ratle Snakes, that worthy and inquisitive Gentleman, Captain Silas 
 Taylor, related the manner, how they were killed in Virginia." It 
 appears that bruised leaves of "Wild Penny-royal or Ditany of Vir- 
 ginia" were fastened in the cleft of a long stick, and this contrivance 
 was kept in front of the snake's mouth. "She was killed with it, in 
 less than half an hours time, as was supposed, by the scent thereof." ^ 
 
 Dr. Nehemiah Grew knew a good deal about rattlesnakes before 
 he sent his questionnaire to Mr. Lee. In 1681 he had published an 
 elaborate catalogue of the curiosities of nature and art in the cabinet 
 of the Royal Society.' I note in his list "the SKIN of a RATTLE- 
 SNAKE," "about fourteen more SKINS of the RATTLE-SNAKE," 
 and "several RATTLES of the same Serpent." * He gives a particu- 
 lar description of the rattles, and his account of the creature is full of 
 interest. "Those that are bitten with him," he avers, "sometimes 
 die miserably in 24 hours; their whole body cleaving into chops." 
 
 In 1683 Dr. Edward Tyson had dissected a rattlesnake at the Re- 
 pository of the Roy^l Society. An account of the dissection was in- 
 serted by Tyson in the Philosophical Transactions for February, 
 1683.* 
 
 46. Cf. Nos. 90, .95, 114. As to the appearance of the conjurer's 
 demon in the shape of an eagle or a rattlesnake, there is a close parallel 
 in Winslow's Good Newes from New England: — "This Hobbamock 
 appears in sundry forms unto them, as in the shape of a man, a deer, a 
 
 ' No. 3, i. 43. For thrilling experiments with live rattlesnakes in South Caro- 
 lina in 1720, see Philosophical Transactions, No. 390, xxxv. 309-315. Cf. also 
 XXXV. 377-381. 
 
 ' Musxum Regalia Societatis. Or a Catalogue & Description of the Natural 
 and Artificial Rarities belonging to the Royal Society and preserved at Gresham 
 Colledge. Made by Nehemiah Grew, M.D., London, 1681. 
 
 » Pp. 50-51. 
 
 * It was republished in 1699: — Vipera Caudi-sona Americana: or the Anat- 
 omy of a Rattle-snake, Dissected at the Repository of the Royal Society, in 
 January, 1682-3 (appended to Tyson's Orang-Outang, sive Homo Sylvestris: 
 or the Anatomy of a Pygmie). There was a second edition in 1751. The Acta 
 Eruditorum, Leipzig, 1684, pp. 138-149, contains "Viperte caudisona; anatomia, 
 descripta ab Eduardo Tyson . . . Excerpta ex Transactionibus Philosophioia 
 Anglicia mensis Febr. 168!. No. 144." 
 
176 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Feb. 
 
 fawn, an eagle, &c. but most ordinarily a snake." * Winslow, speak- 
 ing of the Indian "powah," also remarks: "If the party be wounded 
 he will also seem to suck the wound; but if they be curable, (as they 
 say,) he toucheth it not, but askooke, that is, the snake, or wohsacuck, 
 that is, the eagle, sitteth on his shoulder and licks the same. This 
 none see but the powah, who tells them he doth it himself." * 
 
 In [Thomas Shepard], The Day-Breaking, 1647, p. 21, we find: 
 "They were askt how they come to bee made Pawwahs, and they 
 answered thus, that if any of the Indians fall into any strange dreame 
 wherein Chepian appeares unto them as a serpent, then," etc. Com- 
 pare Thomas Mayhew, letter of October 16, 1651, from the Vineyard, 
 in Strength out of Weaknesse, 1652, pp. 28-29: 
 
 One of them did then discover the bottom of his witchcraft, confessing 
 that at first he came to be a Pawwaw by Diabolical Dreams, wherein he 
 saw the Devill in the likenesse of four living Creatures; one was like a 
 man . . . Another was like a Crow. . . . The third was like to a Pidgeon 
 . . . The fourth was like a Serpent, very subtile to doe mischiefe, and 
 also to doe great cures, and these he said were meer Devills. 
 
 See also Thomas Mayhew's letter of October 22, 1652, in Tears of 
 Repentance, 1653, [p. 8,] sig. B 2; cf. [Shepard,] The Day-Breaking, 
 1647, p. 21; Experience Mayhew, Indian Converts, 1727, p. 7. 
 
 Father Lallemant, who regards the Huron country as "vne des 
 principales forteresses, & comme vn donjon des Demons,"* speaks 
 of the devils as appearing in dreams, "tantost en forme de corbeau, ou 
 autre oiseau; tantost en forme de couleuure . . . ou d'autre animal." * 
 
 49. On easy labor see Morton, pp. 31-32, and the authorities cited 
 in Mr. Adams's note (p. 146). Compare Strachey, p. 110 (Smith, 
 A Map of Vu-ginia, 1621, p. 21); Dunton, Letters from New England, 
 1686, ed. Whitmore, pp. 268-269 (cf. 2 Massachusetts Historical 
 Collections, ii. 119), from Roger Williams, Key, p. 141 (ed. Trumbull, 
 pp. 170-171); Mather, Magnalia, 1702, Book iii. part 3, p. 192. Cf. ' 
 No. 51. 
 
 ' Young, Chronicles of the Pilgrim FatherB, 1844, p. 357; 2 Massachusetts 
 Historical Collections, ix. 92. 
 
 » Young, p. 357. 
 
 » Huron report, p. 100, appended to the Relation of 1639 (Paris, 1640). 
 
 * Pp. 129-130. Cf. Huron report, p. 74, appended to the Relation of 1643 
 and 1644 (Paris, 1645). 
 
1912] WEATHER PROVERBS 177 
 
 51. This evidently refers to women after childbirth. See the refer- 
 ences under No. 49. Wood's testimony is strikingly similar to Lee's: 
 — "Upon a board two foot long and one foot broade . . . this little 
 Pappouse travels about with his bare footed mother, to paddle in the 
 Icie Clammbankes, after three or four daies of age have sealed his 
 passe-board and his mothers recovery." ^ Winslow, too, remarks: 
 "On the third day after child-birth, I have seen the mother with the 
 infant, upon a small occasion, in a boat upon the sea." * 
 
 56. Cf. Lechford, Plain Dealmg, 1642, p. 52: — "They will not taste 
 sweet things." Josselyn, Two Voyages, ed. 1675, p. 124: — "Their 
 Teeth are very white, short and even, they account them the most 
 necessary and best parts of man." Josselyn, p. 185, notes how the 
 Enghsh "lose their Teeth." Wood, pt. ii. ch. 19, p. 79, says the In- 
 dians do not "experimentally know" "tooth-aches." 
 
 63. Cf. Williams, Key, chap. 14, p. 86 (ed. Trumbull, p. Ill): — 
 "This Southwest wind is called by the i\r«o-J?n{/ZMA, the Sea tume. . . . 
 It is rightly called the Sea tume, because the wind commonly all the 
 Summer, comes off from the North and Northwest in the night, and 
 then tumes againe about from the South in the day." 
 
 On the winds, see Sewall's letter, which adapts Lee's remarks to 
 Bostonian conditions.' The proverb quoted by Sewall is still cur- 
 rent. I have heard the following traditional rhyme on Cape Cod: 
 
 When the wind is to the north, 
 The fisherman he goes not forth; 
 When the wind is to the east, 
 'T is neither good for man nor beast; 
 When the wind is to the south, 
 It blows the bait in the fish's mouth; 
 When the wind is to the west, 
 Then 't is at the very best. 
 
 65. Probably Lee is referring to the thermometer, then a rare 
 instrument. See Robert Hooke's Posthumous Works, 1705, pp. 
 555-556. When Canon Derham communicated to the Royal So- 
 
 ' New Englands Prospect, ed. 1635, part ii. chap. 19, p. 82 (quoted by Adams 
 in his edition of Morton's New English Canaan, p. 146). 
 
 » Good Newea from New England (Young, 1844, p. 358), — abo cited by 
 Adams, ibid. 
 
 » P. 164, above. 
 
178 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Feb. 
 
 ciety a specimen of the meteorological observations made at Harvard 
 College, 1715-1722, by Tutor Thomas Robie, he was forced to re- 
 mark: "I am sorry that Mr. Robie'a Observations want those of the 
 Barometer and Thermometer: Neither of which Instruments were 
 to be gotten in Nm-England." • On February 20, 1721, Dr. Wil- 
 liam Douglass wrote from Boston to Cadwallader Golden: " I know 
 of no Thermometer nor Barometer in this place."* In 1725-6 Mr. 
 Feveryear' was able to make observations at Boston with both 
 instruments, and Isaac Greenwood, enclosing them in a letter to the 
 Royal Society (May 1, 1727), described them as "the first sett of 
 such Observations that was ever made in New England." * 
 
 66. Cf. Nos. 21, 68. Curiosity means "elaborateness" or "nice 
 care." No-cake is merely an English corruption of the Indian word 
 (by "popular etymology"). See Williams, Key, p. 11: "N6kehick, 
 Parch' d meal, which is a readie very wholraome food, which they eate 
 with a little water, hot or cold." Gompare the references contributed 
 by Mr. Albert Matthews to the Oxford Dictionary (s. v. nocake). 
 See also Trumbull, Natick Dictionary, 1903, p. 91 (s. v. ruphkik) and 
 p. 294 (s. V. meal); Gookin, 1 Massachusetts Historical Collections, 
 i. 150-151. The earliest example of hoe-cake in the Oxford Dictionary 
 is from Joel Barlow's Hasty Pudding (1793). 
 
 67. Dr. Grew's question about pork may have been prompted by 
 his wish to get evidence as to the fancied descent of the Indians from 
 the Lost Tribes, — a theory well known to have been held by the 
 Apostle Eliot * (though Cotton IMather thinks it was rather his 
 vdsh than his belief) and to have been regarded with some favor by 
 Roger Williams.' In this discussion the feeling of the Indians toward 
 swine was of course much canvassed. " In America," writ^ Thorow- 
 good, the choregus of the Jewish theory, "they eate no swines flesh 
 tis hatefull to them, as it was among the Jews." ' And his inference 
 
 » Philoaophical Transactions, No. 423, xxxvii. 26ft-267. 
 ' i Massachusetts Historical Collections, ii. 165. 
 
 » GraftoA Feveryear (see Zabdiel Boylston, Historical Account of the Smoll- 
 Pox Inoculated, 2d ed., Boston, 1730, p. 13; Register, xv. 333). 
 
 • Royal Society MS. Lettor-Hook, G. 2. 6 (quoted by Andrews and Daven- 
 port, Guide to the Manuscript Materials, 1907, p. 364). 
 
 • Eliot's letter in Thorowgood, Jews in America, 1660; Mather, Magnalia, 
 1702, book iii. part 3, pp. 192-193. 
 
 • Key, 1643, pp. [viii-ix] (ed. TrumbuU, p. 24). 
 ' lowes in America, 1650, p. 7. 
 
1912] JEWISH ORIGIN OF THE INDIANS 179 
 
 from the supposed fact is largely controverted by Sir Hamon I'Es- 
 trange.^ Mather admits that the Indians have "a great unkindness 
 for our Stoine; but," he adds, "I suppose that is because our Hogs 
 devour the Clams which are a Dainty with him." * 
 
 Lee rejects the hypothesis of Jewish origin, as appears from his 
 answer to Grew's third question, preferring the theory that the In- 
 dians " come partly from y" African Phoenicians . . . and partly from 
 y" Easterne Tartars from Japanward." ' Sewall, in his covering 
 letter, makes no comment on Lee's views. His silence was doubtless 
 due to deferential courtesy; for, in 1686, in writing to Stephen Dum- 
 mer, he had shown himself much impressed with Thorowgood's 
 reasoning,^ and in 1697 he was still on the Jewish side: — "For my 
 own party what Mr. Downam, and Mr. Thorowgood have written on 
 this head, seems to be of far more weight with me, than what Homius, 
 or any other that I have seen, have guess'd to the contrary." " How- 
 ever, the Jewish hypothesis was not particularly acceptable to 
 scholars. Gookin, who was disposed to regard it with favor, declares 
 (in 1674) that " this opinion, that these people are of the race of the 
 Israelites, doth not greatly obtain."' 
 
 68. Cf. Strachey, p. 77: — "They be all of them hugh eaters, and 
 of whome we may saye with Plautus, Nodes diesque esturj for which 
 we ourselves doe give imto every Indian that labours with us in our 
 forts, doble the allowance of one of our owne men." Cf. Josselyn, 
 p. 130: — "They have prodigious stomachs, devouring a cruel deal, 
 meer voragoes, never giving over eating as long as they have it." See 
 also Wood, part ii. chap. 6, p. 58.* Morton has a chapter "Of their 
 inclination to Drunkennesse " (book ii. chap. 9, p. 54). 
 
 70. Compare Strachey, p. 74: — "Flatt, broad cakes (much like 
 the sacrificing bread which the Grecians offred to their gods, called 
 
 ■i Americana no lewes, 1652, pp. 19-20. 
 
 » Magnalia, 1702, book iii. part 3. p. 193. 
 
 » P. 147, above (of. p. 166). 
 
 « Letter-Book, i. 23. 
 
 ' Phjenomena qiuedam Apocalyptica, 1699 (2d ed., 1727, p. 2). 
 
 • Historical Collections of the Indians in New England (1 Massachusetts 
 Historical Collections, i. 145). 
 
 ' The passage which Strachey quotes is in the Mostellaria, i. 3. 78 {diea noc- 
 teague estur). 
 
 > See Morton, p. 25 (where Adams cites Wood and Josselyn). 
 
180 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Feb. 
 
 popanum), and these they call appones." In the little Dictionarie 
 appended, Strachey gives "Apones, bread" (p. 183). Trumbull, 
 Natick Dictionary, p. 14, compares the Delaware word achpoan, 
 "bread," given by Zeisberger, with the Natick apw6u, "he roasts or 
 cooks (meat)," also "as used by Eliot, ... he bakes or cooks 
 (bread or other inan. obj.)." See also the references (most of them 
 contributed by Mr. Albert Matthews) under pone in the Oxford 
 Dictionary. 
 
 74. Compare Josselyn, New-Englands Rarities, 1672, p. 54: — 
 " Tobacco, there is not much of it planted in New-England; the In- 
 dians make use of a small kind with short round leaves called Pooke." 
 The same author, in his Two Voyages, ed. 1675, p. 76, remarks: — 
 "The Indians in New England use a small round leafed Tobacco, 
 called by them, or the Fishermen Poke. It is odunis to the EnglisL" 
 This poke, according to Tuckerman,* was Nicotiana rustica (Lirmseus), 
 "the yellow henbane of Gerard's Herbal, p. 356." ' See also pooke 
 in Trumbull, Natick Dictionary, p. 131, where it is noted that Tuck- 
 erman "is unquestionably right in his inference that 'the name 
 poke or pooke was perhaps always indefinite.' " "It signifies," adds 
 Dr. Tnunbull, " merely ' that which is smoked,' or ' which smokes.' " 
 Cf. No. 102, below. Strachey, pp. 121-122, speaking of Virginia, 
 declares that "there is here great store of tobacco, which the salvages 
 call apooke: howbeit yt is not of the best kynd, yt is but poore and 
 weake, and is of a byting tast, yt growes not fully a yard above 
 ground, bearing a little yellowe flower like to henne-bane, the leaves 
 are short and thick, somewhat round at the upper end." ' 
 
 With what Lee says about pipes, compare Rosier's Relation of 
 Waymouth's Voyage to the Coast of Maine, 1605, ed. H. S. Burrage, 
 Gorges Society, 1887, p. 124:— " They filled their Tabacco pipe, which 
 was then the short claw of a Lobster, which will hold ten of our pipes 
 full." Sewall's letter shows that the Indians had adopted English 
 pipes.* Cf. Williams, Key, ch. 6, pp. 44r45: — "Sometimes they 
 make such great pipes, both of wood and stone, that they are two foot 
 
 ' In ]iiH edition of Jossclyn'H Rarities, 1865, pp. 103-104 (or Transactions of 
 the American Antiquarian Society, 1860, iv. 189). 
 
 » See John Gerard, Herball, enlarged by Thomas Johnson, 1633, book ii. 
 chap. 67, p. 356. 
 
 ' Cf. Strachey, p. 65. In the Dictionarie (p. 183) he enters apooke and apokan. 
 
 * P. 153, above. 
 
19121 StrrCIDE AMONG THE INDIANS 181 
 
 long, with men or beasts carved, so big or massie, that a man may be 
 hurt mortally by one of them; but these comonly come from the 
 Mauquduwogs, or the Men eaters, three or fom-e hundred miles from 
 us: They have an excellent Art ip cast our Pewter and Brasse into 
 very neate and artificiall Pipes." 
 
 75. On the treatment of infants see Wood, part ii. chap. 20, p. 82; 
 Morton, 1637, p. 32 (ed. Adams, p. 147); Josselyn, pp. 127-128. 
 
 79. On suicide among the Indians see Sewall's Diary, October 12, 
 1715 (iL 62). Increase Mather says that Squando, the Saco sachem, 
 hanged himself (Illustrious Providences, 1684, chap. xi. p. 361). 
 INIorton tells of an Indian who "desperately killed himself e" when 
 he was drunk (p. 54). The following entry m Stiles's Diary (March 
 16, 1789) b very curious: 
 
 Mr. Isaacs now a Student in Law in this Town while in Georgia or 
 Car" last year, went out on a party ag' the Indians. They pacificated & 
 gave Hostages. One of the Sachems left his son an Hostage. But the 
 son not endiuing the Hos^ge state hung himself. The Indians resented 
 it. The English alledged Suicide. The Indians on Examin" said they 
 could not find that ever an Indian committed Suicide, & therefore be- 
 lieved the English killed the Indian Youth Hostage: and thereupon de- 
 clared Revenge & Hostilities. N. B. Tho' Suicide frequent among the 
 English, never among Indians.' 
 
 81. Dr. Crew's question obviously concerned unnatural vice. Dr. 
 Lee asks him to excuse him from making any reply, — " Pardon this 
 Query for any answer." That the question was neither idle nor 
 unreasonable may be seen from Westermarck, The Origin and De-- 
 velopment of the Moral Ideas, chap, xliii. II. 456 iT (1908). 
 
 83. On Indian games see the references in Mr. Adams's note in 
 his edition of Morton's New English Canaan, p. 138, and cf. A. 
 McF. Davis, Bulletin of the Essex Institute, 1885, xvii. 89 ff. 
 
 86. Compare Josselyn, p. 132: — "Their manner b when they 
 have plague or small pox amongst them to cover their Wigwams 
 with bark so close that no Air can enter in, lining them . . . within, 
 and making a great fire they remain there with a stewing heat till 
 they are in a top sweat, and then run out into the Sea or River, and 
 presently aftCT they are come into their Hutts again they either re- 
 
 ' Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles, ed. Dexter, iii. 348. 
 
182 THE COLONIAL SOCIETT OF MASSACHUSETTS [FltB. 
 
 cover or give up the Ghost." See also Strachey, p. 108 (Smith, p. 
 29); Mather, Magnalia, 1702, book iii. part 3. pp. 191-192; Clayton, 
 Philosophical Transactions, xli. 149. William Douglass, the opponent 
 of the Mathers and Zabdiel Boylston in the matter of inoculation, 
 approves the Indian " sweathouses " for the treatment of some dis- 
 eases; see his Summary, Boston, 1749, i. 174. Paul Dudley sent the 
 Royal Society a highly interesting account of a sweating cure per- 
 formed in 1704 at Exeter, New Hampshire. He added a description 
 of the Indian "houses to sweat" at Nantucket; elsewhere, he says, 
 the aborigines have pretty well abandoned this method of treatment.* 
 
 89. On "blacking the face" as a sign of mourning see Morton, 
 p. 51 (with Adams's note); cf. Wood, part ii. chap. 19, p. 79; Lech- 
 ford, Plain DeaUng, 1642, p. 50; Williams, Key, 1&43, chap. 32, p. 193. 
 
 90. We may note that Mr. Lee wrote these words (as well as those 
 imder Nos. 46, 95, and 114) shortly before the witchcraft prosecution 
 at Salem, for which the beUef that the Indians had to do with devils 
 was partly responsible.* It is needless to cite the many extant ac- 
 coimts of Indian powwows or nugicians. See, for references, Adams's 
 note to Morton (Prince Society edition, pp. 150, 152) ; Oxford Dic- 
 tionary, under powwow (noun and verb) and powwower.' Cf. David 
 Brainerd, Letter to Ebenezer Pemberton, November 5, 1744, p. 37 
 (appended to Pemberton's Sermon at the Ordination of Brainerd, 
 1744); Samuel Hopkins, Housatunnuk Indians, 1753, pp. 23, 24; 
 Journal of George James, in James Walcot, The New Pilgrim's 
 Progress, 1748, p. 257. There is a ciuious remark, particularly inter- 
 esting because of its late date, in President Stiles's Diarj' (June 13, 
 1773):^ 
 
 The Powaws of the American Indian are a Relict of this ancient System 
 of seeking to an evil invisible Power; . . . Something of it subsists among 
 some Almanack Makers and Fortune Tellers, as Mr Stafford of Tiverton 
 lately dead who was wont to tell where lost things might be found, and 
 what day, hour and minute was fortunate for vessels to siul &c. . . . 
 But in general the System is broken up, the Vessel of Sorcery ship- 
 
 ' Philosophical Transaotiona, No. 384, xxxiii. 129-132. 
 
 ' Cf. Kittrodge, Notes on Witchcraft, 1907, pp. 51-52 (Proceedings of the 
 American Antiquarian Society, Now Series, xviii. 195-196). 
 
 • The passages were contributed to the Dictionary by our associate, Mr. 
 Albert Matthews. 
 
 « Ed. Dexter, i. 386. 
 
1912] SNAKEROOT OR SNAKEWEED 183 
 
 wieckt and only some shattered planks and pieces disjojoied floating and 
 scattered on the Ocean of the human Activity and Bustle. When the 
 System was intire, it was a direct seeking to Satan. 
 
 95. Cf. Nos. 46, 90. 
 
 97. Compare Prancb Higpnson, New-Englands Plantation, 1630, 
 sig. C3: 
 
 Yea there are some Serpents called Rattle Snakes that haue Rattles in 
 their Tayles that will not flye from a Man as others will, but will flye 
 vpon him and sting him so mortally, that he will dye within a quarter of 
 an houre after, except the partie stinged haue about him some of the 
 root of an Hearbe called Snake Weed to bite on, and then he shall receiue 
 no harme. 
 
 Wood, pp. 38-39, is more circumstantial: 
 
 When any man is bitten by any of these creatures [rattlesnakes], the 
 poyson spreads so suddenly through the veines, and so runs to the heart, 
 that in one houre it causeth death, imlesse he hath the Antidote to expel 
 the poyson, which is a root called Snakeweede, which must be champed, 
 the spittle swallowed, and the roote applied to the sore; this is present 
 cure against that which would be present death without it: this weede 
 is ranke poyson, if it be taken by any man that is not bitten, unlesse it 
 be Physically compounded. 
 
 Snakeroot was known to Dr. Nehemiah Grew before he received 
 Lee's letter; for in 1681 he mentions as one of the botanical specimens 
 in the Royal Society's museum "a sort of SXAKE\\^ED, growing 
 near the River in Connecticut. So called, because the Root is used 
 for the biting of the RaHleSnake." * The Rev. John Clayton in his 
 replies (from Virginia) to Grew's inquiries of 1687, mentions "the 
 Root which cures the Bite of the Rattle-snake." He also remarks 
 that he has had "40 several Sorts" of herbs, "or near that Number, 
 shewed me as great Secrets, for the Rattle-»nake-root . . . But I have 
 no Reason to believe, that any of them are able to effect the Cure." 
 He gives particulars.* 
 
 Robert Boyle, in his treatise Of the Reconcileableness of Specific 
 Medicines to the Corpuscular Philosophy, speaks of " Virginia snake- 
 weed" or "serpentaria Virginiana" as a cure "for the bitings of those 
 
 < MussBum RegaJis Societatis, 1681, part ii. section iii. chap. 1, p. 227. 
 » Philosophical Transactions, No. 454, vol. Hi, part i. pp. 144, 153-154. 
 
184 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Feb. 
 
 serpents, which, for the.noise they are wont to make with a kind of 
 empty bladders in their tails, the English call rattle-snakes." ^ 
 
 James Petiver, F.R.S., the distinguished botanist and entomologist, 
 mentions, in 1717, in a list of "Some ^TKcncanPiante . . . lately sent 
 me by the licvermd and Learned Dr. Cotton Mather, at Boston, in New 
 England, and Fellow of the Royal Society,'^ London," a plant called 
 "Ophiophuga, Cottonis Mather." He adds Mather's note: — "A 
 Poultiss of this bruised and laid to the Part bitten by the Rattle-Snake, 
 it immediately fetches out the Deadly Poyson: it's also remarkable, 
 that if put into the Shoes, no Serpent will dare to come near them. 
 A Tea of it is a good Ophihalmiack. C. ISl." Petiver appends this 
 remark: — "N.B. I have already 4 or 5 different Sorts of these 
 Raitle-Snake Plants from Carolina, Virginia and Maryland, and this, 
 another, altogether new to me." ' Doubtless it was the same plant 
 that Mather mentions in a letter to the Royal Sodety in 1712: — 
 "We have another American plant, which is a certain and speedy 
 cure, and does wonders, for the bite of a Rattlesnake; and is admirable 
 against all Internal as well as external poisons." * 
 
 In his Account of the Rattlesnake, printed in the Philosophical 
 Transactions for March-April, 1723, Paul Dudley mentions bloodroot 
 as a remedy. "Snake-weed" was among the New England curioa- 
 ties presented to the Royal Society by John Winthrop, F.R.S. (H. C. 
 1700), in 1734.' See also Josselyn, Rarities, pp. 38-39, and Two 
 Voyages, p. 114, cited (as well as Higginson and Wood) in IMr. Adams's 
 note to Morton (p. 213, n. 3). Cf. No. 44, p. 149, above. 
 
 Mr. Lee's reference to Parkinson is exact. See John Parkinson, 
 Theatrum Botanicum, London, 1640, Tribe 2, chap. 25, § 6, p. 214: — 
 " Ilelleborus niger SanictdcB folio major. The greater purging Sanicle 
 like Hellebor." 
 
 » Works, ed. Birch, iv. 305. 
 
 ' See pp. 81-114, above. 
 
 • Petiveriana III, seu Natune Colleotanea; Domi Forisque Axtetori Communi- 
 cata, London, 1717, p. 12, col. 2. 
 
 « Letter of November 18, 1712 (addressed to John Woodward, M.D.), in the 
 archives of the Royal Society. I quote from a copy belonging to Mr. F. L. Gay. 
 The letter is excerpted in the Philosophical Transactions, No. 339, April^une, 
 1714 (xxix. 64). 
 
 ' SeleotionB from an Ancient Catalogue, etc. (extracted from the American 
 Journal of Science, vol. xlvii), New Haven, 1844, p. 6 (from the MS. Journal of 
 the Royal Society). 
 
1912] RACCOON GREASE, PHILTRES, AND INITIATION 185 
 
 98. Josselyn, New-Englands Rarities, 1672, p. 43, notes the use of 
 "Raccoons greese" by the Indians in the treatment of wounds and 
 aches, and again, in his Two Voyages, ed. 1675, p. 85, he remarks of 
 "the Bacoon or Rattoon," that its "grease is soveraign for wounds 
 with bruises, aches, streins, bruises; and to anoint after broken bones 
 and dislocations." Morton, p. 79, remarks that raccoon's oil is "pre- 
 dous for the Syattica." 
 
 103. As to "philtres pour attirer & soy I'amour" see Father Lallc- 
 mant's Huron report, p. 74, appended to the Relation of 1643 and 
 1644 (Paris, 1645). 
 
 107. The classic passage for initiation by vomit among the New 
 England Indians b the description in William Morrell's New-Eng- 
 land, 1625: 
 
 Nee priiks excercet crudelia paruulus arma, 
 Quam patiens armorum vt sit sibi p)ectus, amarom 
 Herbis compositam peramaris sorbiat vndam, 
 Vsq; in sanguineum vertatxir lympha colorem, 
 Vndaq ; sanguinea ex vomitu rebibenda tenellis 
 Vsq; valent maribus: sic fit natura parata 
 Omnia dura pati: puer hiec cui potio grata, 
 Pectore fit valido cuncta expugnare pericla. 
 
 And here obserue thou how each childe b traind. 
 
 To make him fit for Armes he is constraind 
 
 To drinke a potion made of hearbs most bitter, 
 
 Till tumd to blood with casting, whence he 's fitter, 
 
 Induring that to vnder-goe the worst 
 
 Of hard attempts, or what may hurt him most.' 
 
 See also Winslow, Good Newes from New England, 1624 (Young, 
 ed. 1844, p. 360; 2 Massachusetts Historical Collections, ix. 94); 
 Josselyn, Two Voyages, ed. 1675, p. 60. 
 
 108. On this point Cotton Mather had fuller knowledge. In a 
 letter to the Royal Society, 1712, he remarks: 
 
 We have a sort of Cranea-biU, which differs little from yours; except 
 perhaps in the Colour of y" Flowre, which with us is of sky-blue, and the 
 largeness of y° Root which is near that of Ginger. Our Indians call it by 
 the name of Taiituttipang; * and from them we learn the manner, and 
 
 > Reprint for the Club of Odd Volumes, 1895, pp. 6, 19. 
 ' Probably Mather wrote TaiUutHpoag. 
 
186 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OP MASSACHUSETTS [Feb. 
 
 strange effect of using it. It is an Infallible cure, and safely, and Quickly, 
 and easily performs it, for that filthy Disease (the Ijues Venerea,) which 
 the just Judgment of God had reserved for our later Ages, wherein so 
 many Fools abandon themselves to the destructive Debaucheries of 
 Unchastity. 
 
 He then gives details of the method of treatment, and adds that 
 "with no other means, the Wretches, who have been so far gone in 
 the foul disease, as to ly roaring with the Anguish of it, have in about 
 a Fortnights time received a thorough Cure." ' 
 
 James Petiver, F.R.S., remarks in 1717, that Mather had sent 
 him a certain plant, " TautiMipoag, so called by the Indians." He 
 quotes Mather's note to the effect that "a Tea of this inwardly, and 
 a Pultiss to the Part grieved, is the grand Medicine here for the foul 
 Disease." Petiver adds : — " This is a sort of Geranium. Batrachoides, 
 hngius radicatum, Ray 31 : p. 1061." ' 
 
 The Rev. John Clayton, in repljdng to Grew's questions about 
 Virginia, remarks: "Among the Indiana they have a Distemper 
 which they call the Yaws, which is nearly related to the French-pox; 
 which they are said to cure with an Herb that fluxes them: But this 
 I have only by Hear-say." ' 
 
 I have not foimd makereU elsewhere as the name of an herb or root. 
 Gerard gives "Macrell Mint" as a synonym for "Speare Mint,"* 
 but this cannot well be the plant to which Lee refers. 
 
 Among the curiosities presented to the Royal Society by John 
 Winthrop, F.R.S., in 1734, were "Myrtle berries, of which are made 
 candles and soap. (Myrica.) " and "one of the candles and pieces of 
 the soap." * See also Eattredge, The Old Farmer and his Almanack, 
 p. 189. 
 
 • Letter of November 18, 1712 (addressed to John Woodward, M.D.); in the 
 archives of the Royal Society. I use a copy kindly lent me by Mr. Frederick L. 
 Gay. The letter is excerpted G^riefly) in the Philosophical Transactions, No. 
 339 (for April^une, 1714), xxix. 63-61. 
 
 ' Petiveriana III, seu Naturic Collectanea, London, 1717, p. 12, col. 2. Mather's 
 letter to Petiver, September 24, 1716, is in Sloane MS. 4065, fol. 255, and the 
 original draught is in the library of the Massachusetts Historical Society. 
 
 ' Philosophical Transactions, No. 454, xli. 140. 
 
 * Herbal!, enlarged by Thomas Johnson, 1633, book ii. chap. 225, p. 681 (cited 
 by the Oxford Dictionary). 
 
 ' Selections from an Ancient Catalogue, etc. (extracted from the American 
 Journal of Science, vol. xlvu), New Haven, 1844, p. 6 (from the Journal Book of 
 the Royal Society). 
 
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