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THE
HISTORY OF NET ENGLAND
FROM
1630 TO 1649.
BY
JOHN WINTHROP, ESQ.
FIRST GOVERNOUR OF THE COLONY OF TIE MASSACHUSETTS BAY.
FROM
HIS ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPTS.
WITH NOTES
TO ILLUSTRATE
THE CIVIL AND ECCLESIASTICAL CONCERNS, THE GEOGRAPHY, SETTLEMENT, AND INSTITUTIONS OF THE COUNTRY, AND THE LIVES
AND MANNERS OF THE PRINCIPAL PLANTERS.
BY JAMES SAVAGE,
PRESIDENT OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
A NEW EDITION,
WITH ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS BY THE FORMER EDITOR.
VOL. I.
Sepe audivi, Q. Maximum, P. Scipionem, proeterea civitatis nostros praclaros viros, solitos ita diceee,
cum majorum imagines intuerentur, vehementissime sibi animum ad virtutem accendi.
Sallust, Bell. Jugurth. c. iv.
BOSTON:
LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY.
M DCCC LII.




Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1853, by
LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY.
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.
CAMB     I D G
ALLEN AND FARNHAtAM, PRINTERS.




PRE F ACE
T   THIS E D I TION,
FR nearly six years Winthrop's History of New England
has been out of print. Moved by the steadily increasing interest of liberal minds in studying the original materials of our
country's story, I acknowledge the duty of supplying some
addition and some correction to the results of my research,
bestowed with so high delight on the former edition. Most of
the corrections are, indeed, too slight to be set forth here, and
may be passed, as they are generally introduced, in silence.
Of some it may be better to speak. A change will be observed
in the order of several of the family epistles, the most attractive part of the Appendix; and this may be approved, or not,
as the judgment of the reader decides on the chronological
arrangement, that depended on conjecture in a few cases, to
which this change relates. Citation of authorities, in works of
this character, is of prime importance; and how the references
will be verified, should determine the manner in which they are
to be presented. It seemed to me most respectful to students
of these pages, who might prefer to search for themselves, to
assume that such inquiries would be prosecuted in some public
library, where the best editions of the authors to be consulted
are to be found; and therefore my special citations from the
Magnalia are to be sought in the original London folio, of
MDCCII. Whatever value be set on that work of Mather, the




ij           PREFACE TO THIS EDITION.
learned author may justly claim, that his own division into
seven books, with chapters and sections numbered, shall be
obeyed, instead of quoting the page of volume I. or II of
a modern Svo. which, in decency, must preserve the same
books, chapter and sections, but otherwise may vary with every
caprice. So too my respect for the History of Hutchinson, the
great authority for the early annals of Massachusetts, led me
to follow the pages of the London edition, though formerly I
had cited one of the Boston editions, in which the enumeration
is quite diverse from the other.
Enlargement of the notes, both in number and substance,
needs no specification. Some benefit hasfollowed from one or
another in the preceding impression. To have been the means
of correcting no trifling error in such widely respected authors,
as honest Anthony Wood, the generous tory, and honest Andrew Marvell, the uncompromising republican, is some reason
for rejoicing; but in charging, Vol. II. 241, the noble editor of
Pepys's Memoirs with mistake in the affiliation of Downing, I
am taught, by my own lapse, to rejoice with trembling. Emanuel is expressly called, by Hutchinson, Vol. II. 2, " father of Sir
George Downing." More than a quarter of a century has been
enjoyed the satisfaction of uniting my name, in however humble degree, with that of the ever honored first Governour of the
colony of Massachusetts Bay; and I have not slighted the opportunities for enlarging our acquaintance with his early family
relations, as they occurred in this country or in England.
Want of knowledge about two of the Governour's sons, was
especially regretted by his readers. That Mather, our first
resort, commonly, for instruction as to the founders of New
England, should give no light upon Forth, or the younger sons
of the Governour, is less observable than his errors about the
eldest, whom he particularly desired to honor, in his biography
of the first Governour of the United Colony of Connecticut.




PREFACE TO THIS EDITION. 
His blunder as to " a liberal education at the University, first
of Cambridge in England, and then of Dublin in Ireland," that
misled Belknap, and others of our most assiduous inquirers,
may have an apology, since he seldom touched any thing that
he did not confound, in his melting into one the education of
Forth and of John. Never was the latter, probably, at Cambridge, unless for an hour or two to visit his younger brother;
and he was only sixteen, when he went to Dublin. By the
Registrar of the University, who examined the records, at my
request, in June, 1850, it was certified, that Forth " was matriculated a Pensioner of Emanuel College on the 4th of July,
1626, having been admitted on the boards of that college in
the preceding April;" and he added, " I do not find that any
other of the Winthrop family were ever members of this University in the 17th century."  How little reverence is by the
Magnalia given to exact chronology, the best element of truth
in history, appears a few lines later, in telling of this son's election, as a magistrate, "though not above twenty three years of
age;" whilst only four sentences back he had given the true
date of his birth, and, in the same line with his heedless assertion, had proved that he was more than twenty-five years and
eight months old on first landing in the country. In fact, when
chosen, he wanted but three days of the age of twenty-six years
and three months.
The difficult question of the relationship between this Governor of Connecticut and Hugh Peters has obtained solution
just as the later sheets of this work were passing under the
press. That Peters was an undergraduate, not sixteen years
old, at Cambridge, when the second wife of the younger Winthrop was baptized, rendered certain our denial, that she was
his daughter; but my friend, Charles Deane, Esquire, of Cambridge, who corroborated my opinion by strong statement of
facts, after long fruitless search, acquired the probable explicaA *




vi           PREFACE TO THIS EDITION.
tion of the words of Williams and others on this subject. His
frst wife, the "gentlewoman," of whom Peters, in his Legacy
to an only child, refers, was " one Mistress Read, a widow
woman, dwelling near unto him," when he taught a free school
at Maldon in Essex, or its vicinity, who befriended him in his
poverty,' had children, and an estate of two or three hundred
pounds yearly." I suppose she was some years older than this
new husband, bore him no offspring, and died, perhaps, before
coming to this country; at least Felt, in his list of members of
the church in the time of Peters, does not show her name. This
approach to explanation is gained from'the Life and Death
of Hugh Peters, by William Yonge, Dr. Med. London, 1663,9'
a very curious, and more scarce tract. The wife of Winthrop
was Eliz. daughter of Col. Read of Essex.
Necessity of re-examining the question of authority of
Wheelwright's deed from the Indians led to some more light on
a clear case; and it may seem to some that to this, as well as
the subject of claim to the title of first Governour of Massachusetts in Captain Endicott or Roger Conant, too large room
is given. Exposure of the infirmity of unhappy Thomas
Welde, in his Short Story of the Rise, Reign, and Ruin of
Antinomianism, will compensate, I think, the curious hunter in
bibliography.
Jane, 1853.




PREFACE
TO THE SECOND EDITXON.
EARLY in the spring of 1816 was discovered, in the tower of
the Old South Church in Boston, the third volume of the History of New England, in the original MS. of the author, John
WTinthrop, first governour of the Massachusetts Bay. When
the precious book was presented to the Massachusetts Historical Society, at their next meeting, 25 April, the difficulty of
transcribing it for the press seemed to appall several of the
most competent members, whose engagement in more important duties afforded also a sufficient excuse for leaving such
labor to be undertaken by any one, at any time, who could devote to it many weeks of leisure. The task appeared inviting
to me. On the same evening the MS. was taken, and the
study of its chirography was begun, the next day, by the aid of
one of the former MSS. collated with the printed volume, usually called Winthrop's Journal. Of all the three MSS. and of
the published Journal, a sufficient account may be seen in 2
Hist. Coll. IV. 200.
Before the collation of the former MS. with the volume
printed in 1790 had proceeded through many pages, the discovery of numerous important errors seemed to make a new edition of the earlier part of the History very desirable; and when
a transcript of the new-found volume was completed, my resolution was fixed, that it should not be printed without a perfect




viii      PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
revision of the Journal. Notes, explanatory, in some instances,
of the text, illustrating, in some degree, the biography of many
persons named in it, and referring to better accounts of others
than I could furnish, were thought necessary. Several hundred
notes were prepared, and a careful collation of the whole printed volume, for the second time, with the original volumes of
MS. was finished on 2 June, 1819. Being then required to
visit a foreign country, all my preparations were suspended
nntil I returned. Care, however, was taken to leave the corrected copy of the printed volume, with my copy of the third
part, to be kept safely. Again called abroad in 1822, I so
carefully disposed of my copy of the third volume, as to leave
it in a forgotten place, which afforded me the gratification of
making a new one, begun 8 December, 1823, and finished 30
March, 1824. This circumstance admonished me of the propriety of adopting early measures for guarding against farther
accidents of that kind. Application was made, at the next
session of the General Court of this commonwealth, by the
Historical Society, for encouragement of the publication. In
consequence of the liberal aid of the Legislature, the volume
comes thus early before the public.
To the account of the three MSS. above referred to, may be
added, that the whole had been in possession of Hubbard, the
reverend historian of Ipswich, who made the basis, and much
the most valuable part of his work, out of Winthrop's materials, using them commonly without other labor than literal
copying, and disposing them in a different order. See page
297 of this volume, for an estimate of the value of that work.
Nor can I forgive the slight use of these invaluable documents,
which is evinced by Mather, the unhappy author of Magnalia
Christi Americana, who, in the hurry of composing that endless work, seems to have preferred useless quotations of worthless books, two or three centuries older, or popular and corrupt




PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.            ix
traditions, to the full matter and precise statement of facts,
dates, principles, and motives, furnished by authentic history.
That he possessed these MSS. is plain enough from his citations of several passages in his Life of our author, book II.
cap. 4. Perhaps he grudged the time, which must have been
consumed by a devoted study of the volumes; for no other
excuse can I imagine for his clumsy abbreviation of that excellent speech in ~ 9, that will appear in our next volume. From
this mutilated transcript of Mather, we may presume, the
authors of the Modern Universal History condensed and adorned, in vol. XXXIX. 291, 2, their report, as if delivered in St.
Stephen's chapel, of "the following speech, which is equal to
any thing of antiquity, whether we consider it as coming from
a philosopher or a magistrate." It may be seen, also, in the valuable Summary History of New England by Hannah Adams,
79, 80. Agreeable as this commendation of the London compilers is, the original address from Winthrop's own pen is far
superior to their copy, and its simplicity is injured by their
decorations. One would as soon exchange a portrait of full
size from the life for an engraving in duodecimo, as receive the.
version of the oration in the Universal History for our author's
report of his " little speech."
These venerable MSS. afterwards were in the hands of
Prince, who used part of the first in compiling his Annals, II,
Hutchinson, we know, did not enjoy the use of them.
Of the title of this work, it may be desirable for the reader to
understand, that it is the exact language of the author. In the
first volume of MS., indeed, it is not used, nor is any other
designation given to the book. But Prince labels it " History
of New England, by John Winthrop, governour of the Massachusetts," and both the other MS. volumes begin, in the writer's own hand, " A Continuation of the History of New England." Perhaps it would be more gratifying, could we deter



x        PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
mine, whether Winthrop designed by this term the colony of
Massachusetts only, or all the country, before 1628 and since
1660, usually called New England. It is plain enough, that,
in the early part of his work, his regards are confined to Massachusetts proper, exclusive of Maine, New Hampshire, and
Plimouth; nor is there, in later parts, so liberal a narrative of
those colonies, or of Rhode Island and Connecticut, as we
should be happy to receive from one so well acquainted with
the history of all. Johnson certainly means, by New England,
Massachusetts alone; and the omission of regular notices, by
our author, of the annual elections, and, indeed, of all other
incidents in each of the other colonies, except those incidents
had close connexion with our colony, leaves it beyond question,
that the name must have the same interpretation. Letters from
private persons on the other side of the ocean were frequently
addressed to John Winthrop, governour of New England. Sir
William Berkley, the royal governour of Virginia, employs the
same style; and the king and council usually designate this
colony New England. Perhaps the great confederation of the
four colonies in 1643, extended the name to them, or rather
deprived Massachusetts of its improper appropriation. The
next year the patent for Providence Plantations in New England was obtained, which name would certainly not have been
allowed by their neighbors without authority of parliament.
My duty has called for a very scrupulous attention to the
exact phraseology of the original MS. and the reader may confidently receive this text of Winthrop for a correct one, verified
by collation of his autograph at three several periods in different years. The integrity of the text has, indeed, been as great
an object of my labor, as the preparation of notes. Yet mistakes may have occurred; for, at different times, the same
word has sometimes been variously read by me. The venerable authorities will remain in the archives of the Historical




PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.             xi
Society for my correction by any one, who doubts of the faithfulness of a single passage.
Perhaps some of my readers will be pleased with an explanation of the style, or supputation, of the year. Before 1752,
the year was, by the legal method of computation, held to
begin on 25 March, Lady Day, or Annunciation, so called from
the notion entertained by the church, that the event recorded in
the gospel of Luke, i. 26-38, occurred on that day. The general practice of England had, indeed, several years earlier, conformed to that of the rest of Christendom, in making the first
of January new year's day; and the law, at last, followed the
popular wisdom, as usual, in the correction. But, in our author's time, the custom coincided with the law. It is of more
importance, however, to remark, that, in reckoning the months,
March was called the first, February the twelfth, September,
October, November, and December, then having, consistent
with their Latin etymology, the numerical rank, which is now
lost. Yet it is still more important to be noticed, that a very
dangerous diversity existed in styling the year by its old numeral until 25 March, or giving it the new designation from the
beginning of that month. In the Appendix, A. 37, 38, 39, 40,
our author dates the old year, and such course is generally followed through the History, though sometimes he varied. I
have preferred uniformity with his general custom. In the
Appendix G., Davenport and Gov. Eaton use 1638, where
Winthrop would have written 1637. Numerous errors from
this source are observable in all the writers on our early history; and even the most careful sometimes fall into them.
The accurate Hutchinson, I. 16, 17, mentions the purchase by
our company from the Plimouth council, 19 March, 1627, and
the charter from. the king, confirming the same, 4 March, 1628,
in which we might suppose he followed the old style. But the
first election of officers, pursuant to the charter, on the last




xii       PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
Wednesday in Easter term, he makes 13 May, 1628, by which
we see his mistake. It was 1629.
An apology may be expected by the public for my references
to the edition of Morton's Memorial by Judge Davis, when
that work is not published. It is easily made. The work had
been several years nearly finished, when I began my labor in
1816; and the liberal editor, —liberal in every thing but withholding from the community the fruit of so many years acquisition,-allowed me freely to peruse his notes. His friends
might reasonably expect, that the volume would be soon issued
of which nineteen-twentieths had so long been printed. My
good fortune, however, permits the present publication to appear without the peril of a comparison with one, by which it
must be so greatly overshadowed. If that long-desired work
is to be postponed during the life of the editor, the community
will gladly prolong their eager expectation.
For assistance received in the progress of my work, no other
acknowledgments than will be seen in the notes is required by
the living or the dead.  But Hutchinson, Eliot, Bradford,
Prince, Hazard, and other deceased writers, - Holmes, Davis,
Allen, and other living ones, —are common property. The
freedom used by me in correcting their errors will, I hope, entitle my humble notes to the same regard.
Hane veniam petimusque damusque vicissim.
It would be thought only a childish affectation to give here the
names of all, who lent their aid in rendering this book minutely
accurate; yet, after all my obligation to them, it is expedient,
for greater benefits than all their kindness bestowed, to refer to
the free and unexhausted field, the soil of which is only partially turned up to the day, that lies for the cultivation of any,
in our Colony, County, Town, and Church Records, whence
the information derived will be equally abundant and authen



PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.,           xiii
tic. There is, however, one gentleman, to whom my readers
will feel so much indebted, that to withhold his name would
be greater affectation than to publish it. My friend, James Bowdoin, Esq., procured for me most of the articles in the Appendix, especially the family letters, received from his cousin,
Francis B. Winthrop, Esq., of New Haven, which will, no
doubt, be thought the most valuable appendage to the I-listory
of their great ancestor.
The title page, dedication, and preface of the former edition
are here added.
B








A
JOURNAL
OF THE
TRANSACTIONS AND OCCURRENCES IN THE SETTLEMENT OF
MASSACHUSETTS AND THE OTHER NEW ENGLAND
COLONIES, FROM THE YEAR 1630 TO 1644.
WRITTEN BY
JOHN    WINTHROP, ESQ.,
FIRST GOTERNOUR OF MASSACHIUSETTS,.ANbTD NOW FIRST PUBLISHED FROM A CORRECT COPY OF TIHE
ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT.
Utcumque erit, juvabit tamen, rerum gestarum memorile, ipsum consuluisse. —TIT. Liv. PRES.
HARTFORD:
PRINTED BY ELISHA BABCOCK.
MDCCXC.
TO
THE POSTERITY
OF
JOHN WINTHROP, ESQ.,
THIE FOUNDER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS COLONY,
AND, FOR MANY YEARS,
THE FATHER AND THE GOVERNOUR OF THAT INFANT SETTLEMENT,
1je fulunming Surntnl,
WRITTEN BY THEIR ILLUSTRIOUS ANCESTOR,
IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED
BY TIIEIR 3IOST OBEDIENT,
HUMBLE SERVANT,
THE EDITOR.
HAIRTFORD, July, 1790.




THE    EDITOR'S PREFACE.
TuE following Journal was written by John Winthrop, Esq., first
governour of Massachusetts. This distinguished gentleman was born
at Groton in Suffolk, June 12, 1587. His grandfather was an eminent
lawyer, in the reign of Henry VIII. and attached to the reformation.
His father was of the same profession; and the governour himself was
bred a lawyer, in which character he was eminent both for integrity
and abilities. Indeed, he must have had the fairest reputation; for he
was appointed a justice of peace at eighteen years of age.
When the design of settling a colony in New England was undertaken, Mr. Winthrop was chosen, with general consent, to conduct the
enterprise. His estate, amounting to the value of six or seven hundred
pounds sterling a year, he converted into money, and embarked for
America, in the forty-third year of his age. He arrived at Salem, with
the Massachusetts charter, June 12, 1630. He was many years governour of that infant colony, and conducted himself with such address
and unshaken rectitude, as to render his character universally respectable among his cotemporaries, and his memory dear to posterity. He
died March 26, 1649.
Mr. Winthrop kept a Journal of every important occurrence, from
his first embarking for America, in 1630, to the year 1644. This manuscript, as appears by some passages, was originally designed for publication; and it was formerly consulted by the first compilers of New
England history, particularly by Hubbard, Mlather, and Prince. But
it continued, unpublished and uncopied, in possession of the elder branch
of the family, till the late revolution, when Gov. Trumbull of Connecticut procured it, and, with the assistance of his secretary, copied a considerable part of it. Soon after the governour's death, a gentleman,
who has a taste for examining curious original papers, which respect
his own country, came, by accident, to a knowledge of this manuscript;
and, with consent of the governour's heirs, contracted for a copy, merely
for his own improvement and amusement. On reading the work, he
found it to contain many curious and interesting facts, relating to the




THE EDITOR'S PREFACE.                         xvii
settlement of Massachusetts and the other New England colonies, and
highly descriptive of the character and views of the first inhabitants.
This suggested to him   the design of publishing the Journal complete;
as any abridgment of it would tend to weaken its historical evidence,
and put [it] in the power of captious critics to impeach its authenticity.
By consent of the descendants of Governour Winthrop, proposals were
issued for publishing a small number of copies; and the design is at
length accomplished.
The copy here presented to the public was made by John Porter,
Esq., the secretary of the late Gov. Trumbull, whose declaration
respecting its accuracy, is here annexed.  It is an extract from  his letter to the editor: —
LEBANON, Janucoay 1st, 1788.
DEAR SIR,
Agreeable to your request, I send you a copy of Gov. Winthrop's History. The
transcribing has required more labor than I at first expected. I carefully examined
the original, and, on comparing, found many errors in the first copy; which upon
further experience in reading the original, I have been able to correct; as also to
fill up many blanks. This has caused me much study, and retarded the completion
of the business for some time. You will observe some blanks in the present copy -
some of them are so in the original; but, excepting the blanks, I believe this may
be depended on as a genuine copy.
I am, lear Sir,
with sentiments of esteem,
your obedient humble servant,
JOHN PORTER.
The original is in the hand-writing common to that age, and is not
read without difficulty. The first copy was made during Gov. Trumbull's life, and part of it by the governour himself.   The last copy,
here given to the world, was taken from the first, and, throughout the
whole, compared with the original.1   The blanks are few, and, as the
reader will observe, of no considerable consequence.
Many parts of the work are not interesting to modern readers; but
even these are necessary to give future historians an accurate account
1 Caution is due to the reader, lest by misunderstanding this language, the proper
merit of Mr. Secretary Porter be transferred to the Editor, who assured me, that he
never read the original. The celebrated philologist, wzho in his English Dictiolnary
triumplhed over the difficulties of derivation in our etymology fiom Danish, Russian,
Irish, Welsh, German, high or low, Sanscrit, Persian, or Chaldee fountains, might,
after exhausting his patience, have reputably shrunk from encounter with the manuscript of Winthrop.




xviii              THE EDITOR'S PREFACE.
of the first transactions of the settlers, and furnish posterity with a precise knowledge of the characters and manners of their forefathers.
Important institutions, and the general complexion of national government, often originate in the most trivial circumstances, or the minutest traits of character; and without a detail of the most trifling facts
in the early history of New England, it will be impossible to understand
the nature of their present religious and political establishments.
But, however unimportant particular passages in the following Journal may appear to the body of readers, the substance of the work is
highly valuable; and, it is presumed, the historian, the philosopher, and
the divine, will be gratified with a publication, which has long been a
desideratum among the literati of the New World.
HARTFORD, Jul, 1790.




[To gratify the last surviving son of Professor John Winthrop, F. R. S. I admitted, in the former impression, this curious note on a separate page.]
"AT ye Feast of St. Michael, Ano 1607, my Sister, ye Lady Mildmay, did give me a Stone Pot, tipped and covered wth a Silver Lydd."
THE above memorandum was taken out of my great great grandfather, Mr. Adam Winthrop, his notes, and given me, October 13th,
1707, by my cousin John Winthrop, relating to the Stone Pot, given
him by his sister one hundred years ago; which Pot is now in my
possession.
ADAM WINTHROP,
the son of Adam —the son of Adam -the son
of John, governour of Massachusetts-the
son of the abovesaid Adam, to whom the Pot
was at first given.
BE it remembered, that the "c Stone Pot, tipped and covered with a
Silver Lydd," descended to me upon the death of my father in 1779 
and that it has, on this 29th day of September, 1807, (being the Feast
of St. Michael,) been two hundred years in the family, and is now in
my possession.
WILLIAM WINTHROP,
the son of John - the son of Adam - the son of
Adam-the son of Adam-the son of John,
(governour of Massachusetts,)-the son of
Adam, to whom the Pot was at first given.




READERS will observe, that, at the top of the page, stands the name of the governour for the time being; references from the text to the notes are marked by Arabick
numerals; words doubtful in the original are printed in Italic, as on page 286;
words presumed to be deficient are supplied in brackets, as on page 19; words having a pen drawn through them in the original MSS. are denoted by a star before and
after, as on page 232; some important omissions in the Hartford edition are
marked by a ~ before and after, as on page 148; the difference in some particular
places, between the correct reading and the erroneous one of the first edition, is
marked by giving the true word or words in the text between parallel lines before
and after, and the wrong word or words between similar lines in the margin below,
as on page 3.
In printing Indian names, the spelling of originals, however various at different
times, is observed. Great literal correctness has been aimed at, and in general obtained in printing these volumes. Other errors may, certainly, be detected; but all
that have met my eye are noted in the following -
ERRATA.
Vol. I. page  64, line 6 of note 2, for Stanbridge, read Stambridge.
"     "    91, "   8 of note, for 1663, read 1643.
"       " 141, "  11 of note, for last note, read la;st note but one.
Vol. II. "  241, "  15 of note, for?3.fcc/i, read 3arveil.




THE
HISTORY OF NEW ENGLAND.
ANNO DOMINI, 1630, MARCH 29, MONDAY.
Easter Monday.]       RIDING at the Cowes, near the Isle of
Wight, in the Arbella,1 a ship of three hundred and fifty tons,
1 This name has been usually spelt Arabella, and thus Neal, Hutchinson,
Trumbull, Dr. Holmes, and Judge Davis, besides Eliot and Allen, in their Biographical Dictionaries, following chiefly Josselyn and Mather, have all written
it. Other authorities, of less value, though of earlier date, may have strengthened the mistake. Johnson, who probably was personally acquainted with the
fact, in his " Wonder-working Providence," doubles the letter r; but the additional syllable gains little support from a book, whose innumerable inaccuracies
of every sort can scarcely be accounted for by the circumstance of its author
living here while his work was printed at London. The grandson of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, in his " America painted to the Life," gives only a meagre
abstract of Johnson, and adds no evidence for the common orthography. The
celebrated letter from these adventurers, dated on board this ship at Yarmouth,
7 April, published in London, 1630, found in Hubbard, 126-128, and the first
article in Hutchinson's Appendix, gives the true name. Hubbard, in his narrative of events during the life of Winthrop, is indeed of very little value, except
for the closeness with which he copies the Governor's text. The unfailing accuracy of Prince led him beyond Hubbard to original private manuscripts and
the Colony Records, for the exact spelling. I testify that such is the original
note of the meeting of the assistants, 23 March, on board this ship.
The principal vessels, which brought our fathers hither, are remembered by
their descendants with no small degree of affection. The Mayflower had been
a name of renown, without forming part of this fleet, because in her came the
devoted planters of Plimouth, and she had also brought, in the year preceding
this, some of Higginson's companions to Salem. Endicot and the first colonists
VOL. I.                      1




2                       JOHN WINTHROP.                        [1630.
whereof Capt. Peter Milbornel was master, being manned with
fifty-two seamen, and twenty-eight pieces of ordnance, (the wind
coming to the N. by W. the evening before,) in the morning
there came aboard us Mr. Cradock,2 the late governour, and the
masters of his two ships, Capt. John Lowe, master of the Ambrose, and Mr. Nicholas Hurlston, master of the Jewel, and Mr.
Thomas Beecher,3 master of the Talbot, (which three ships rode
of Massachusetts in 1628 demand our gratitude for the Abigail. But the circumstance of changing, " in honour of the Lady " Arbella, wife of Isaac Johnson, Esq., the original name of this admiral ship, which was the Eagle, makes
us confident in the correctness of this name, while it pleases the imagination
that would honor the vessel. In his epistle to the Countess of Lincoln, wife of the!
brother of this lady, Gov. Dudley uses the same letters with Winthrop, in whose
MS. the word is more plainly written than almost any other, and we cannot suppose they could be mistaken in so simple a point about one of their most intimate friends. It was, therefore, only in compliance with popular opinion, that
this error found place in the former edition; and we may now hope that, in
time to come, the correction will be always regarded.
1 By the company records it appears, the master owned one eighth of the
ship.
2 Matthew Cradock, it is certain, never came to our country, though he
maintained a small plantation for fishing at Mistick, in the present bounds of
Maiden, opposite to Winthrop's farm at Ten Hills. He was long honoured in
our annual registers as first governour of the colony; yet, as he was in fact
only the head of a commercial company in England, not ruler of the people,
his services are adequately acknowledged without retaining his name in that
most respectable list. To him is due the honor of the proposal, 28 July, preceding the date of commencement of this History, for transferring the government from the company in London to the inhabitants here, - a measure, of
which the benefit was felt more and more every year till the independence of
the United States, with which its connexion is apparent.  This fact is by
Prince, I. 189, verified from the records of that day. His death I refer to
1644, for in our county registry are found deeds of that year from his agent,
and in the next year from the agent of his executors. A descendant, George
Cradock, Esq., is mentioned by Douglass and Hutchinson as an inhabitant of
Boston.
3 The same master, in the same ship, had the year before brought to Salem
the venerable Higginson, the father and pattern of the New England clergy.
His relation of the voyage, printed at London, 1630, is preserved in Hutchinson's
" Collection of Papers," and more correctly by Young. Hubbard, 128, makes this
name Belcher; but this is perhaps a misprint, for Higginson gives it like Winthrop, except that his first syllable has but one e. Thomas Beecher is among
the early members of Boston church, being No. 112, and he was a representative from Charlestown in the first year, and often afterwards.  He was by




1630.]              JOHN WINTHROP.                        3
then by us, -the Charles, the Mayflower, the William and
Francis, the Hopewell, the Whale, the Success and the Trial
being still at Hampton1 and not ready,) when, upon conference,
it was agreed, that (in regard it was uncertain when the rest of
the fleet would be ready) these four ships should consort together; the Arbella to be admiral, the Talbot vice-admiral,
the Ambrose rear-admiral, and the Jewel a captain; and accordingly articles of consortship were drawn between the said
captains and masters; whereupon Mr. Cradock took leave of
us, and our captain gave him a farewell with four or five shot.
About ten of the clock we weighed anchor and set sail, with
the wind at N., and came to an anchor again over against Yarmouth, and the Talbot weighed likewise, and came and anchored by us. Here we met with a ship of Hampton, called
the Plantation, newly come from Virginia. Our captain saluted her, and she us again; and the master, one Mr. [blank]
Graves,2 came on board our ship, and stayed with us about two
or three hours, and in the meantime his ship came to an anchor by us.
Tuesday, 30.] In the morning, about ten of the clock, the
wind being come to the W. with fair weather, we weighed and
rode nearer Yarmouth. When we came before the town, the
castle put forth a flag; our captain saluted them, and they
answered us again. The Talbot, which rode farther off, saluted
the castle also.
Here we saw, close by the shore of the Isle of Wight, a
Dutch ship of one thousand tons, which, being bound to the
East Indies, about two years since, in passing Ilthrough the
Needles, l   struck upon a rock, and being forced to run ashoie
to save her men, could never be weighed since, although she
11 thither the rudder 11
the General Court, in May, 1635, Col. Ree. I. 150, appointed "captain of the
fort at Castle Island." Hubbard read our MS. as calling the master of the
Jewel, Harlston.
1 This port is usually called Southampton.
2 I cannot satisfactorily make out this name from the MS., but am convinced
the first edition which gave it, Guerns, was wrong, and note my uncertainty in
the text. One Graves was mate of the Talbot, in Higginson's voyage, and was
so in the present.




4                  JOHN WINTHROP.                 [1630.
lies a great height above the water, and yet she hath some men
aboard her.
Wednesday, 31.] The wind continued W. and S. W. with
rain. Our captain and some of our company went to Yarmouth for supply of wood and other provisions; (our captain
was still careful to fill our empty casks with water).
Thursday, April 1.] The wind continued very strong at W.
and by S. with much rain.
Friday, 2.] We kept a fast aboard our ship and the Talbot.
The wind continued still very high at W. and S. and rainy.
In the time of our fast, two of our landmen pierced a rundlet
of strong water, and stole some of it, for which we laid them
in bolts all the night, and the next morning the principal was
openly whipped, and both kept with bread and water that day.
Saturday, 3.] The wind continued still at W. and with continual storms and rain.
Sunday, 4.] Fair, clear weather. In the morning the wind W.
and by N., but in the afternoon S. S. W. This evening the Talbot weighed and went back to the Cowes, because her anchor would not hold here, the tide set with so strong a race.
Monday, 5.] The wind still W. and S. with fair weather.
A maid of Sir Richard Saltonstall' fell down at the grating by
the cook-room, but the carpenter's man, who occasioned her
fall unwittingly, caught hold of her with incredible nimbleness,
and saved her; otherwise she had fallen into the hold.
Tuesday, 6.] Capt. Burleigh, captain of Yarmouth castle,
a grave, comely gentleman, and of great age, came aboard us
and stayed breakfast, and, offering us much courtesy, he departed, our captain giving him four shot out of the forecastle
for his farewell.2 H-e was an old sea captain in Queen Elizabeth's time, and, being taken prisoner at sea, was kept prisoner
in Spain three years. Himself and three of his sons were captains in Roe's3 voyage.
1 A copious collection of biographical memoirs of this gentleman and his
descendants, of whom our country has justly been proud, may be seen in 2
Hist. Coll. IV. 154-168.
2 Ie had paid kind attention to Higginson the year before.
3 Sir Thomas Roe was named by the king to be of the council in the
second charter of Virginia in May, 1609, and was in the same year sent by




1630.]                  JOHN WINTHROP.                             5
The wind was now come about to N. E. with very fair
weather.
In the afternoon Mr. Cradock came aboard us, and told us,
that the Talbot, Jewel, and Ambrose were fallen down into
Stoke's Bay, intending to take their way by St. Helen's Point,
and that'they desired we could come back to them.        Hereupon
we came to council, and wrote unto them to take the first
opportunity of the wind to fall down to us, and Mr. Cradock
presently went back to them, our captain giving him three shot
out of the steerage for a farewell.
Our captain called over our landmen, and tried them at their
muskets, and such as were good shot among them             were enrolled to serve in the ship, if occasion should be.
The lady Arbella and the-gentlewomen, and Mr. Johnson1
and some others went on shore to refresh themselves.
Prince Henry to explore the coast of Guiana. On the dangerous shores at the
mouth of the Oronoco he laboured many months with great diligence, and
ascended the Maragnon three hundred miles. After his return in 1611, he
became a politician, was a member of parliament, and supported the rights of
the people in 1614. After that year he was employed, first at the instance of
the East India Company, in several embassies. Of these his own relation,
after lying in manuscript more than a century, was given to the press; but, I
believe, no account is extant of his voyage to America. He sat with John
Selden for the University of Oxford in the Long Parliament, and died during
the civil war, having obeyed the call of the king in January, 1644, for assembling at Oxford, while his colleague adhered to the majority of the Commons
at Westminster. Such was the separation of true patriots frequently occurring in the contest; and the best men of either side, Hampden and Lord Falkland, were happy in meeting early death. He was one of the forty, incorporated in 1620 as the Plimouth Council, whose names may be seen in Belknap's
New Hampshire, I. 12, and Hubbard, 217.
1 Of this gentleman, formerly regarded as the founder of Boston, where it is
not probable that he ever passed a single night, an interesting account may be
found in Hutchinson, I. 22, to which neither myself nor Snow, the diligent historian of Boston, have been able to make much addition. From the first
volume of our Probate Records it may be seen, that he was the most liberal
contributor to the company's funds. His early death prevented hini from contributing much to the stability of the colony he so assiduously promoted at
home, for I find no mention of him in our records, but at the Court 7 September, and again, 18 of same, acting with Winthrop in taking inquisition at
Charlestown upon, one of their company, who died after short illness. His will,
made on'y three weeks before embarkation with our -fathers, obtained by me in
1*




6                    JOHN WINTHROP.                   [1630.
V Wednesday,1 7.]  Fair wTeather, the wind easterly, in the
morning a small gale, but in the afternoon it came about to
the south. This afternoon our other consorts came up to us, and
about ten or twelve Flemingsl and all anchored by us, and the
masters of the Jewel and of the Ambrose came aboard us, and
our captain and they went on shore.
Towards night there came from the TW. a Fleming, a small
man-ofw,-Tar, with a Brazil man Twhich he had taken prize, and
came to anchor by us.
Thursday, 8.]  About six in the morning (the wind being E.
and N. and fair weather) we weighed anchor and set sail, and
before ten wve gat through the Needles, having so little wind as
we had much to do to stem the tide, so as the rest of our fleet
(we being nine in all, whereof somle were small ships, which
were bound for Newfoundland) could not get out all then till
the ebb. In the afternoon the wind came S. and W. and we
were becalmed, so as being not able to get above three or four
leagues from the Needles, our captain tacked about, and putting
his fore-sheets aback stays, he stayed for the rest of the fleet,
and as they came by us we spake to them, and about eight in
the evening we let fall an anchor, intending to stop till the ebb.
But before ten at night the wind came about to the N. a good:gale; so we put up a light in the poop, and weighed and set
sail, and by daylight, Friday 9, we. were come to Portland;
but the other ships being not able to hold up with us, we were
forced to spare our mainsail, and went on with a merry gale.
In the limorningil we descried from the top eight sail astern of
us, (whom Capt. Lowe told us he had seen at Dunnose in the
evening.)  WAe supposing they might be Dunkirkers,2 our
night 
a certified copy at Doctor's Commons, is printed in 3 M'ass. Iist. Coll. VIII.
244.
1 On this day the admirable letter " to the rest of their brethren in and of
the Clhrch of Englancl" was addressed by our adventurous pilgrims from Yarmouth, aboard the Arbella. It is most appropriately given by IHutchinson as
the first article in the Appendix to his first volume. Only seven of the signers
are named, in the 4to pamphlet, printed for John Bellamie, London, 1630,
whence Hubbard, 126, derived it.
2 Dunkirk was then part of the Spanish Netherlands, and the war between
-England and Spain lasted till December following.




1630.]             JOHN TWINTROP.                    7
captain caused the gunroom and gundeck to be cleared; all
the hammocks were taken down, our ordnance loaded, and our
powder-chests and fireworks made ready, and our landmen
quartered among the seamen, and twenty-five of them appointed for muskets, and every man written down for his quarter.
The wind continued N. [blank] with fair weather, and after
noon it calmed, and we still saw those eight ships to stand towards us; having more wind than we, they came up apace, so
as our captain and the masters of our consorts were more occasioned to think they might be Dunkirkers, (for we were told
at Yarmouth, that there were ten sail of them waiting for us;)
whereupon we all prepared to fight with them, and took down
some cabins which were in -the way of our ordnance, and out
of every ship were thrown such bed matters as were subject to
take fire, and we heaved out our long boats, and put up our
waste cloths, and drew forth our men, and armed them with
muskets and other weapons, and instruments for fireworks;
and for an experiment our captain shot a ball of wild-fire fastened to an arrow out of a cross-bow, which burnt in the water
a good time. The lady Arbella and the other women and children were removed into the lower deck, that they might be out
of danger.  All things being thus fitted, we went to prayer
upon the upper deck. It was much to see how cheerful and
comfortable all the company appeared; not a woman or child
that showed fear, though all did apprehend the danger to haveQ
been great, if things had proved as might well be expected, for
there had been eight against four, and the least of the enemy's
ships were reported to carry thirty brass pieces; but our trust.
was in the Lord of Hosts; and the courage of our captain,
and his care and diligence, did much encourage us. It was
now about one of the clock, and the fleet seemed to be within
a league of us; therefore our captain, because he would show
he was not afraid of them, and that he might see the issue before night should overtake us, tacked about and stood to meet
them, and when we came near we perceived them to be our
friends,,-the Little Neptune, a ship of some twenty pieces
of ordnance, and her two consorts, bound for the Straits; a
ship of 11 Flushing, l1 and a Frenehman, and three other English
1 Hampshire, 11




8                      JOHN WINTHROP.                      [1630.
7    ships bound for Canada and Newfoundland.1       So when we
drew near, every ship (as they met) saluted each other, and
the 11 musketeers [I discharged their small shot; and so (God be
praised) our fear and danger was turned into mirth and friendly
entertainment. Our danger being thus over, we espied two
boats on fishing in the channel; so every of our four ships
manned out a skiff, and we bought of them great store of excellent fresh fish of divers sorts.
Saturday, 10.]   The wind at E. and by N. a handsome gale
with fair weather.    By seven in the morning we were come
over against Plimouth.
About noon the wind slacked, and we were come within
sight of the Lizard, and towards night it grew very calm and a
great fog, so as our ships made no way.
This afternoon Mr. Hurlston, the master of the Jewel, came
aboard our ship, and our captain went in his skiff aboard the
Ambrose and the Neptune, of which one Mr. Andrew Cole
was master.    There he was told, that the bark Warwick was
taken by the Dunkirkers, for she came single out of the Downs
about fourteen days since, intending to come to us to the
Wight, but was never heard of since.2     She was a pretty ship
of about eighty tons and ten pieces of ordnance, and was set
out by Sir Ferdinando Gorges,3 Capt. Mason, and others, ~for
discovery of the great lake in New England,~ so to have inter|Mlayflower and oursl
1 Johnson, lib. I. c. 14, makes the number of these suspicious sail only four.
But though he was, I presume, a passenger in the fleet with Winthrop, his
story was probably committed to paper long after the events. Prince, I. 205-6,
got into confusion between Johnson and Hubbard, and followed the carelessness of the latter, 129, who represents these ships as "the rest of the fleet,"
which, we know from Dudley, did not sail before Maay.
2 She was not taken, but had put into Plymouth, whence Ambrose Gibbens,
a passenger in her, wrote 8 April to his employers; and she came safely to
Gorges's plantation at Piscataqua, as Eyre in his letter next year acknowledges.
Belknap, -N. H. I. Appendix ii.
8 Of Gorges and Mason, whose names frequently occur in this History, no
more perfect account can be expected, than is furnished by Dr. Belknap in the
first volume of his admirable American Biography, though we must regret,
that the information about Mason i;s verv slight,. Tl-e manner in which, in this
work, iMason's delath is related s:ub an. IG3G andti 1iG-  is mulil to be regretted.




1630.]              JOHN WINTHROP.                       9
cepted the trade of beaver.  The master of her was one Mr.
Weatherell, whose father was master of one of the cattle ships,
which we left at Hampton.
This day two young men, falling at odds and fighting, contrary to the orders which we had published and set up in the
ship, were adjudged to walk upon the deck till night with their
hands bound behind them, which accordingly was executed;
and another man, for using contemptuous speeches in our
presence, was laid in bolts till he submitted himself, and promised open confession of his offence.
I should have noted before, that the day we set sail from the
Cowes, my son Henry Winthrop went on shore with one of 
my servants to fetch an ox and ten wethers, which he had
provided for our ship, and there went on shore with him, Mr.
Pelham1 and one of his servants. They sent the cattle aboard,
but returned not themselves.  About three days after, my servant and a servant of Mr. Pelham's came to us to Yarmouth,
and told us they were all coming to us in a boat the day before, but the wind was so strong against them, as they were
forced on shore in the night, and the two servants came to
Yarmouth by land, and so came on ship-board, but my son
and Mr. Pelham (we heard) went back to the Cowes and so
to Hampton.   We expected them three or four days after, but
they came not to us, so we -have left them  behind, and suppose they will come after in Mr. Goffe's2 ships.  We were very
sorry they had put themselves upon such inconvenience, when
they were so well accommodated in our ship. This was not
noted before, because we expected daily their return; and upon
this occasion I must add here one observation, that we have
many young gentlemen in our ship, who behave themselves
well, and are conformable to all good orders.
1 It may be concluded, from the letter of Herbert Pthaml, Esq., to Gov.
AWinthrop, found in Hutch. Coll. 59, that this gentleman was his brother. The
list of persons, desiring to become freemen, in 1630, Prince, II. 4, has the name
of Mr. William Pelham.
2 Thomas Goffe, Esq., a merchant of London, had been an adventurer in
the New Plimouth settlement, and was one of our original patentees, but never
came to this country. He was in the charter named deputy governour of the
company, and was at this time an assistant.




10                 JOHN WINTHROP.                 [1630.
About ten at night it cleared up with a fresh gale at N. and
by W., so we stood on our course merrily.
Sunday, 11.] The wind at N. and by W. a very stiff gale.
About eight in the morning, being gotten past Scilly, and
standing to the W. S. W. we met two small ships, which falling in among us, and the Admiral coming under our lee, we let
him pass, but the Jewel and Ambrose, perceiving the other to
be a Brazil man, and to take the wind of us, shot at them and
made them stop and fall after us, and sent a skiff aboard them
to know what they were. Our captain, fearing lest some mistake might arise, and lest they should take them for enemies
which were friends, and so, through the unruliness of the mari.
ners some wrong might be done them, caused his skiff to be
heaved out, and sent Mr. Graves,' one of his mates and our
pilot, (a discreet man,) to see how things were, who returned
soon after, and brought with him the master of one of the
ships and Mr. Lowe and Mr. Hurlston. When they were come
aboard us, they agreed to send for the captain, who came and
showed his commission from the Prince of Orange. In conclusion he proved to be a Dutchman, and his a man-of-war of
Flushing, and the other ship was a prize he had taken laden
with sugar and tobacco; so we sent them aboard their ships
again, and held on our course. In this time (which hindered
us five or six 11 leagues 11) the Jewel and the Ambrose came foul
of each other, so as we much feared the issue, but, through
God's mercy, they came well off again, only the Jewel had her
foresail torn, and one of her anchors broken. This occasion,
and the sickness of our minister and people, put us all out of
order this day, so as we could have no sermons.
Monday, 12.]  The wind more large to the N. a stiff gale,
with fair weather. In the afternoon less wind, and our people
began to grow well again. Our children and others, that were
sick, and lay groaning in the cabins, we fetched out, and having stretched a rope from the steerage to the mainmast, we
made them stand, some of one side and some of the other, and
i days ||
1 He was afterwards master of a vessel, perhaps, in several voyages, and, I
think, settled in our country; Prince, II. 4, makes him a rear-admiral.




1630.]             JOHN WINTHROP.                   11
sway it up and down till they were warm, and by this means
they soon grew well and merry.
Tuesday, 13.] The night before it was calm, and the next
day calm and close weather, so as we made little way, the
wind with us being W.
Wednesday, 14.] The wind S. W. rainy weather, in the
morning.
About nine in the forenoon the wind came about to N. N.
W. a stiff gale; so we tacked about and steered our course W.
S. W.
This day the ship heaved and set more than before, yet we
had l but few ll sick, and of these such as came up upon the
deck, and stirred themselves, were presently well again; therefore our captain set our children and 11 2young ] men to some
harmless exercises, which the seamen were very active in, and
did our people much good, though they would sometimes play
the wags with them. Towards night we were forced to take
in some sail to stay for the vice-admiral, which was near a
league astern of us.
[Large blank.]
Thursday, 15.] The wind still at N. N. W. fair weather,
but less wind than the day and night before, so as our ship
made but little way.
At noon our captain made observation by the cross-staff,
and found we were in forty-seven degrees thirty-seven minutes north latitude.
All this forenoon our vice-admiral was much to leeward of
us; so after dinner we bare up towards her, and having fetched
her up and spoken with her, the wind being come to S. W.
we tacked about and steered our course N. N. W. lying as near
the wind as we could, and about four of the clock, with a stiff
gale, we steered W. and by N. and at night the wind grew very
strong, which put us on to the WV. amain.
About ten at night the wind grew so high, and rain withal,
that we were forced to take in our topsail, and having lowered
our mainsail and foresail, the storm was so great as it split our
foresail and tore it in pieces, and a knot of the sea washed our
II still some I1     1[ 2 grown II




12                 JOHN WINTHROP.               [1630.
tub overboard, wherein our fish was a-watering. The storm
still grew, and it was dark with clouds, (though otherwise
moonlight,) so as (though it was the Jewel's turn to carry the
light this night, yet) lest we should lose or go foul one of
another, we hanged out a light upon our mizzen shrouds, and
before midnight we lost sight of our vice-admiral.
Our captain, so soon as he had set the watch, at eight in the
evening called his men, and told them he feared we should have
a storm, and therefore commanded them to be ready upon the
deck, if occasion should be; and himself was up and down the
decks all times of the night.
Friday, 16o] About four in the morning the wind slacked a
little, yet it continued ~a great storm~ still, and though in the
afternoon it 1| blew not 1] much wind, yet the sea was so high as
it tossed us more than before, and we carried no more but our
mainsail, yet our ship steered well with it, which few such ships
could have done.
About four in the afternoon, the wind still W. and by S. and
rainy, we put on a new foresail and hoisted it up, and stood
N. W. All this day our rear-admiral and the Jewel held up
with us.
This night was very stormy.
All the time of the storm few of our people were sick, (e 2except the women,ll who kept under hatches,) and there appeared
no fear or dismayedness among them.
[Large blank.]
Saturday, 17.] The wind S. W. very stormy and boisterous.
All this time we bore no more sail but our mainsail and foresail, and we steered our course W. and by N.
This day our captain told me, that our landmen were very
nasty and slovenly, and that the gundeck, where they lodged, was so beastly and noisome with their victuals and beastliness, as would much endanger the health of the ship. Hereupon,
after prayer, we took order, and appointed four men to see to
it, and to keep that room clean for three days, and then four
others should succeed them, and so forth on.
The wind continued all this day at S. W. a stiff gale. In
11 cleared with 11    II2 though no men 11




1630.1             JOHN WINTHROP.                   13
the afternoon it cleared up, but very hazy. Our captain, about
four of the clock, sent one to the top to look for our vice-admiral, but he could not descry him, yet we saw a sail about two
leagues to the leeward, which stood toward the N. E.
We were this evening (by our account) about ninety leagues
from Scilly, W. and by S. At this place there came a swallow
and lighted upon our ship.
Sunday, 18.] About two in the morning the wind N. W.;
so we tacked about and steered our course S. W. We had
still much wind, and the sea went very high, which tossed our
ship continually.
After our evening sermon, about five of the clock, the wind
came about to S. E. a good gale, but rainy; so we steered our
course W. S. W. and the ship's way was about nine leagues a
watch; (a watch is four hours).
This day the captain sent to top again to discover our viceadmiral. We descried from thence to the eastward a sail, but
we knew not what she was.
About seven of the clock the Jewel bare up so near as we
could speak each to other, and after we bated some sail; so
she went ahead of us, and soon after eight put forth her light.
Monday, 19.] In the morning the wind was come about to
the N. W. a good gale and fair weather; so we held our course,
but the ship made not so good way as when the wind was large.
This day, by observation and account, we found ourselves to
be in forty-eight degrees north latitude, and two hundred and
twenty leagues W. from the meridian of London.
Here I think good to note, that all this time since we came
from the WMight, we had cold weather, so as we could well endure our warmest clothes. I wish, therefore, that all such as
shall pass this way in the spring have care to provide warm
clothing; for nothing breeds more trouble and danger of sickness, in this season, than cold.
In the afternoon the wind came to S. W. a stiff gale, with
rain; so we steered westerly, till night; then the wind came
about to N. W. and we tacked again and stood S. W.
Our rear-admiral being to leeward of us, we bare up to l12
him. He told us all their people were in health, but one of
their cows was dead.
VOL. I.                    2




14                      JOHN WINTHROP.                       [1630.
Tuesday, 20.] The wind southerly, fair weather, and little
wind.    In the morning we stood S. and by E., in the afternoon
W. and by N.
Wednesday, 21.]     Thick, rainy weather; much wind at S. W.
Our captain, over night, had invited his consorts to have
dined with him this day, but it was such foul weather as they
could not come aboard us.
Thursday, 22.] The wind still W. and by S. fair weather;
then W. N. W.
This day at noon we found ourselves in forty-seven degrees
and forty-eight minutes, and having a stiff gale, we steered
S. W. about four leagues a watch, all this day and all the night
following.
Friday, 23.]   The wind still WV. N. W. a small gale, with
fair weather.   Our captain put forth his ancient in the poop,
and heaved out his skiff, and lowered his topsails, to give sign
to his consorts that they should come aboard us to dinner, for
they were both a good way astern of us, and our vice-admiral
was not yet seen of us since the storm, though we sent to the
top every day to descry her.
About eleven of the clock, our captain sent his skiff and
fetched aboard us the masters of the other two ships, and Mr.
Pynchon,l and they dined with us in the round-house, for the
lady2 and gentlewomen3 dined in the great cabin.
1 William Pynchon, Esq., of whom frequent mention is made in this History,
was named an assistant in the Massachusetts charter. Dudley relates, that his
wife died here before the return of the ship they came in. Many papers in 2
Hist. Coll. VIII. 227 et seq. give honourable proof of his services. He settled
first at Roxbury, but in a few years removed to Springfield, of which town he
was the founder, and there lived till 1652, when, "having received some ill
treatment" from the government, "on account of his religious principles, he,
with Capt. Smith, his son-in-law, went to England, and with them went the
minister of the town, the Rev. Mr. Moxon, never to return."  Se6 Breck's
century sermon. I presume Pynchon had written a book above the spirit of
that age; for our government, in a curious letter to Sir Henry Vane, who had,
in 1652, advised a different course, give no clear idea of its doctrines. See 3
Hist. Coll. I. 35. His son, John, was of the council in 1665, and many of his
descendants are in places of public usefulness in Springfield and its neighborhood and at Salem.
2 The lady was the wife of Johnson.
3 Mrs. Phillips, the minister's wife, the two daughters of Sir R. Saltonstall,




1630.]                JOHN WINTHROP.                         15
This day and the night following we had little wind, so   13
as the sea was very smooth, and the ship made little way.
Saturday, 24.]  The wind still W. and by N., fair weather
and calm all that day and night. Here we made observation
again, and found we were in forty-five degrees twenty minutes,
north latitude.
Sunday, 25.]    The wind northerly, fair weather, but still
calm.   We stood W. and by S. and saw      two ships ahead of
us as far as we could descry.
In the afternoon the wind came W. and by S. but calm still.
About five of the clock, the rear-admiral and the Jewel had
fetched up the two ships, and by their saluting each other we
perceived they were friends, (for they were so far to windward
of us as we could only see the smoke of their pieces, but could
not hear them).   About nine of the clock, they both fell back
towards us again, and we steered N. N. W. Now the weather
begins to be warm.
Monday, 26.]    The wind still W. and by S. close weather,
and scarce any wind.
The two ships, which we saw yesterday, were bound for
Canada.    Capt. Kirk' was aboard the admiral.   They bare up
with us, and falling close under our lee, we saluted each other,
and conferred together so long till his vice-admiral was becalmed by our sails, and we were foul one of another; but
there being little wind and the sea calm, we kept them asunder
with oars, etc., till they heaved out their boat, and so towed
their ship away.
They told us for certain, that the king of France had set out
six of his own ships to recover the fort from them.
and, probably, the wives of Coddington, Dudley, Bradstreet, Nowell, and
others, are here intended; as the principal people, except Revell and Pynchon, seem to have been in the Arbella, which was chiefly owned by them.
1 Probably a brother of Sir David Kirk, or Kertk, as Champlain, in his
Voyage, and Charlevoix in his Histoire de la Nouvelle France, choose to spell
the name. In the table of contents to the former, it is changed to Quer. Sir
David, with his two brothers, Thomas and Lewis, had, the preceding year,
taken Quebeck, an event then, and long after, thought of so little consequence,
as not to be noticed in Hume's History of England. The name of Kirk will
recur in the latter part of this History, when he was governour of Newfoundland, of which he had, in a charter of 1628, been one of the grantees.




16                      JOHN WINTHROP.                        [1630.
About one of the clock Capt. Lowe sent his skiff aboard us,
(with a friendly token of his love to the governour,) to desire
our captain to come aboard his ship, which he did, and there
met the masters of the other ships and Capt. Kirk, and before
night they all returned to their ships again, Capt. Lowe bestowing some shot upon them for their welcome.
The wind now blew a pretty gale, so as our ship made some
way again, though it were out of our right course N. W. by N.
*14     Tuesday, 27.]    The wind still westerly, a stiff gale, with
close weather.     We steered W.. N.W.            About noon
some rain, and all the day very cold.     We appointed Tuesdays
and Wednesdays to catechize our people, and this day             Mr.
Phillips 1 began it.
Wednesday, 28.]      All the night, and this day till noon, the
1 Of the Rev. George Phillips frequent mention will be found in the following pages, and an elaborate eulogy, with very slight biography, may be seen in
the Magnalia. He was of Gonville and Caius College, took his degrees in
1613 and 1617, and for the latter was compelled to submit to subscription.
His wife died soon after arrival. In Gov. Bradford's Letter Book, the conclud-!ing part of which is preserved in 1 Hist. Coll. III. an epistle to him from Samuel Fuller, of 28 June of this year, only a few days after our colonists' arrival
at Salem, discovers to us, that Phillips was of a straiter sect than most of the
companions of Winthrop. "Here is come over," says he, " with these gentlemen, one Mr. Phillips, (a Suffolk man,) who hath told me in private, that if
they will have him stand minister, by that calling, which he received from the
prelates in England, he will leave them."  This was not the spirit of the first
settlers of Massachusetts, until they had lived some years in the wilderness;.and I imagine Phillips was overcome, by the persuasion of his friends, to postpone the scruple he had communicated to the Plimouth colonist. Hubbard,
186, lets us a little into the cause of the change: "It is said, that Mr. Phillips
was at the first more acquainted with the way of church discipline, since owned
by Congregational churches; but being then without any to stand by him, (for
wo to him that is alone,) he met with much opposition from some of the magistrates, till the time that Mr. Cotton came into the country, who, by his preaching and practice, did by degrees mould all their church administrations into
the very same form, which Mr. Phillips laboured to introduce into the churches
before." Yet his name is subscribed to the excellent letter, with Winthrop,
Dudley, Johnson, Saltonstall, Fiennes, and Coddington, dated on board the
Arbella, wishing to be regarded " as those who esteem it our honour to call the
church of England, from whence we rise, our dear mother."
A long list of men, distinguishing the name of Phillips in our country by
their civil stations and munificent patronage of institutions of learning and benevolence, descends from this first pastor of Watertown.




1630.]             JOHN WINTHROP.                   17
wind very high at S. W., close weather, and some rain. Between eleven and twelve, in a shower, the wind came W. N.
W., so we tacked about and stood S. W.
Thursday, 29.] Much wind all this night at W. and by N.
and the sea went very high, so as the ship rolled very much,
because we sailed but with one course; therefore, about twelve,
our captain arose and caused the foretopsail to be hoisted, and
then the ship went more steady. ~He caused the quartermaster to look down into the hold to see if the cask lay fast and
the.... ~
In the morning the wind continued with a stiff gale; rainy
and cold all the day.
We had been now three weeks at sea, and were not come
above three hundred leagues, being about one third part of our
way, viz., about forty-six north latitude, and near the meri- 15
dian of the 1I Terceras II.
This night Capt. Kirk carried the light as one of our consorts.
Friday, 30.] The wind at W. N. W., a strong gale all the
night and day, with showers now and then.
We made observation, and found we were in forty-four north
latitude. At night the wind scanted towards the S. with rain;
so we tacked about and stood N. W. and by N.
Saturday, May 1.] All the night much wind at S. S. W.
and rain. In the morning the wind still strong, so as we could
bear little sail, and so it continued a growing storm all the day,
and towards night so much wind as we bore no more sail but
so much as should keep the ship stiff. Then it grew a very
great tempest ~ all the night,~ with fierce showers of rain intermixed, and very cold.
Lord's day, 2.] The tempest continued all the day, with the
wind W. and by N., and the sea raged and tossed us exceedingly; yet, through God's mercy, we were very comfortable,
and few or none sick, but had opportunity to keep the Sabbath, and Mr. Phillips 112 preached 1| twice that day. The AmII T —sll                112 prayed 11
1 This passage, being interlined, was extremely difficult to be made out, and
part of it remains illegible, I think, by the aid of any eyes or glasses.
2*




18                JOHN WINTHROP.                [1630.
brose and Jewel were separated far from us the first night, but
this day we saw them again, but Capt. Kirk's ships we saw
not since.
Monday, 3.] In the night the wind abated, and by morning
the sea was well assuaged, so as we bare our foresail again,
and stood W. S. W.; but all the time of the tempest-we could
make no way, but were driven to the leeward, and the Ambrose struck all her sails but her mizzen, and lay a hull. She
brake her main yard.  This day we made observation, and
found we were in forty-three and a half north latitude. We
set two lfightersll in the bolts till night, with their hands
bound behind them. A maid-servant in the ship, being stomach-sick, drank so much strong water, that she was senseless,
and had near killed herself. We observed it a common fault
in our 112 young [1 people, that they gave themselves to drink hot
waters very immoderately.
Tuesday, 4.] Much wind at S. W., close weather. In the
morning we tacked about and stood N. V. and about ten in
the morning W. N. W., but made little way in regard of the
head sea.
Wednesday, 5.]  The wind W. and by S. thick, foggy
weather, and rainy; so we stood N. W. by W. At night the
*16 Lord remembered us, and enlarged the wind to the N.; so
we tacked about and stood our course W. and by S. with
a merry gale in all our sails.
Thursday, 6.] The wind at N. a good gale, and fair weather.
We made observation and found we were forty-three and a
half north latitude; so we stood full west, and ran, in twentyfour hours, about thirty leagues.
[1 3Four 1I things I observed here. 1. That the declination of
the pole star was much, even to the view, beneath that it is in
England. 2. That the new moon, when it first appeared, was
much smaller than at any time I had seen it in England. 3.
That all the way we came, we saw fowls flying and swimming,
when we had no land near by two hundred leagues. 4. That
wheresoever the wind blew, we had still cold weather, and the
sun did not give so much heat as in England.
Friday, 7.] The wind N. and by E. a small gale, very fair
I sailors 11     112 grown 1        11 Some 11




1630.]             JOHN WINTHROP.                   19
weather, and towards night a still calm. This day our captain
and Mr. Lowe dined aboard the Jewel.
Saturday, 8.] All the night calm. In the morning the wind
S. W. a handsome gale; so we tacked and stood N. W. and
soon after, the wind growing more large, we stood W. N. W.
with a good gale. About four of the clock we saw a whale,
who lay just in our ship's way, (the bunch of his back about a
yard above water). He would not 11 shun us;11 so we passed
within a stone's cast of him, as he lay spouting up water.
Lord's day, 9.] The wind still S. W. a good gale, but close
weather and some rain; we held on our course W. N. W.
About nine it cleared up, and towards night a great fog for an
hour or two.
We were now in forty-four and a half north latitude, and a
little west of 11 2 Corvos I.
Monday, 10.] The wind S. S. W. a good gale and fair
weather; so we stood W. and by N. four or five leagues a
watch, all this day. The wind increased, and was a great
storm all the night. About midnight our rear-admiral put
forth two lights, whereby we knew that some mischance had
befallen her. We answered her with two lights again, and
bare up to her, so near as we durst, (for the sea went very high,
and she lay by the lee) 11 Sand having hailed her, we thought
she had sprung aleak; but she had broken some of her
shrouds; 1| so we went a little ahead of her, and, bringing our
foresail aback stays, we stayed for her, and, about two *17
hours after, she filled her sails, and we stood our course
together, but our captain went not to rest till four of the clock,
and some others of us slept but little that night.
Tuesday, 11.] The storm continued all this day, till three
in the afternoon, and the sea went very high, so as our ship
could make no way, being able to bear no more but our mainsail about midmast high. At three there fell a great storm of
rain, [1 4which laid jI the wind, and the wind shifting into the W.
we tacked and stood into the head sea, to avoid the rolling of
swim up 1                  11 2Cowes II
113 but she had broken some of her shrouds. Having hailed her, we learnt
she had sprung aleak 
114 we layed toll




20                JOHN WINTHROP.                [1630.
our ship, and by that means we made no way, the sea beating
us back as much as the wind put us forward.
We had still cold weather, and our people were so acquainted with 1I storms 11 as they were not sick, nor troubled, though
we were much tossed forty-eight hours together, viz., twentyfour during the storm, and as long the next night and day following, Wednesday, 12, when as we lay as it were a hull, for
want of wind, and rolling continually in a high grown sea.
This day was close and rainy.
Complaint was made to our captain of some injury that one
of the under officers of the ship had done to one of our landmen. He called him and examined the cause, and commanded him to be tied up by the hands, and a weight to be
hanged about his neck; but, at the intercession of the governour, (with some difficulty,) he remitted his punishment.
At night the wind blew at S. E. a handsome gale, with rain;
so we put forth our sails and stood W. and by S.
Thursday, 13.]  Toward morning the wind came to the
south-westerly, with close weather and a strong gale, so as before noon we took in our topsails, (the rear-admiral having split
her fore-topsail) and we stood west-southerly.
Friday, 14.] The wind W. S. W., thick, foggy weather, and
in the afternoon rainy. We stood W. and by S. and after W.
and by N. about five leagues a watch. We were in forty-four
and a half. The sun set N. W. and by N. one third northerly.
And towards night we stood W.
Saturday, 15.] The wind westerly all this day; fair weather.
We tacked twice to small purpose.
Lord's day, 16.] As the 15 was.
Monday, 17.] The wind at S. a fine gale and fair weather.
We stood W. and by S. We saw a great drift; so we heaved
out our skiff, and it proved a fir log, which seemed to have
been many years in the water, for it was all overgrown with
barnacles and other trash. We sounded here and found no
*18 ground at one hundred fathom and more. We saw two
whales. About nine at night the wind grew very strong
at S. W. and continued so, with much rain, till one of the
clock; then it ceased raining, but the wind came to the W.
II showers 11




1630.]             JOHN WINTHROP.                   21
with more violence. In this storm we were forced to take in
all our sails, save our mainsail, and to lower that so much as
we could.
Tuesday, 18.] In the morning the wind slacked, but we
could stand no nearer our course than N. and we had much
wind all this day. In the afternoon we tacked and stood S. by
E. Towards night (our rear-admiral being near two leagues to
leeward of us) we bare up, and drawing near her, we descried,
11 some j1 two leagues more to leeward, two ships, which we conceived were those two of Capt. Kirk's, which parted from us
in the storm, May 2. We had still cold weather.
Wednesday, 19.]  The wind S. S. W.; close and rainy;
little wind. We tacked again and stood W.; but about noon
the wind came full W. a very strong gale; so we tacked again
and stood N. by E. and at night we took off our main bonnet,
and took in all our sails, save our main-course and mizzen.
We were now in forty-four degrees twelve minutes north, and
by our account in the midway between the false bank and the
main bank. All this night a great storm at W. by N.
Thursday, 20.] The storm continued all this day, the wind
as it was, and rainy. In the forenoon we carried our forecourse and stood W. S. W., but in the afternoon we took
it in, the wind increasing, and the sea grown very high; and
lying with the helm a-weather, we made no way but as the
ship drove. We had still cold weather.
1 In the great cabin, at nine at night, etc., and the next day
again, etc. The storm continued all this night.
Friday, 21.] The wind still N. W.; little wind, and close
weather. We stood S. W. with all our sails, but made little
way, and at night it was a still calm.
A servant of one of our company had bargained with a
child to sell him a box worth 3d. for three biscuits a day all the
voyage, and had received about forty, and had sold them and
many more to some other servants. We caused his hands to
scarce l
I In the margin of the MS. the word " fast" is written by the governour,
and a later reader has put in a W: pointing at the paragraph. In this bad
weather they were, probably, without food.




22                  JOHN WINTHROP.                 [1630.
be tied up to a bar, and hanged a basket with stones about his
neck, and so he stood two hours.
Saturday, 22.] The wind S. S. W. much wind and rain.
*19 Our spritsail laid so deep in as it was split in pieces with a
head sea at the instant as our captain was going forth of his
cabin very early in the morning to give order to take it in. It
was a great mercy of God, that it did split, for otherwise it
had endangered the breaking of our bowsprit and topmasts at
least, and then we had no other way but to have returned for
England, except the wind had come east. About ten in the
morning, in a very great fret of wind, it chopt suddenly into
the W. as it had done divers times before, and so continued
with a small gale and [we] stood N. and by W. About four
in the afternoon there arose a sudden storm of wind and rain,
so violent as we had not a greater. It continued thick and
boisterous all the night.
About seven we descried a sail ahead of us, towards the N.
and by E. which stood towards us. Our captain, supposing it
might be our vice-admiral, hoisted up his mainsail, which before was struck down aboard, and came up to meet her.
When we drew near her we put forth our [1 ancient, | 1 and she
)2lufed ll up to get the wind of us; but when she saw she
could not, she bare up, and hoisting up her foresail, stood away
before the wind; yet we made all the signs we could, that we
meant her no harm, but she would not 1 3 trust 1I us. She was
within shot of us, so as we perceived she was a small Frenchman, which we did suppose had been driven off the bank.
When she was clear of us, she stood her course again, and we
ours.
This day at twelve we made observation, and were about
forty-three, but the storm put us far to the N. again. Still cold
weather.
Lord's day, 23.] Much wind, still westerly, and very cold
weather.
I1 ensign II    1|2 tuffled 1     113 hail 
1 Some modern pen had been drawn through this word, that was originally
as I have printed it, and the word given in the first edition was substituted.
This unimportant alteration is noted, because it affords me an opportunity of
assuring the reader that our MS. has not often been so corrupted.




1630.]               JOHN WINTHROP.                        23
Monday, 24.]   The wind N. W. by N. a handsome gale,
and close weather and very cold.    We stood S. W.     About
noon we had occasion to lie by the lee to straighten our mizzen shrouds, and the rear-admiral and Jewel, being both to
windward of us, bare up and came under our lee, to inquire if
anything were amiss with us; so we heard the company was
in health in the Jewel, but that two passengers were dead in
the Ambrose, and one other ~ cow ~.
Tuesday, 25.]   The wind still N. W.; fair weather, but *20
cold. We went on with a handsome gale, and at noon
were in forty-three and a half; and the variation of the compass was a point and one-sixth.  All this day we stood W. S.
W. about five or six leagues a watch, and towards night the
wind enlarged, with a cold dash of snowy rain, and then we
ran in a smooth sea about eight or nine leagues a watch, and
stood due W.
Wednesday, 26.]    The wind still N. W. a good gale and
fair weather, but very cold still; yet we were about forty-three.
At night we sounded, but found no ground.
Thursday, 27.]   The wind N. W. a handsome gale; fair
weather. About noon it came about to the S. W. and at night
rain, with a stiff gale, and it continued to rain very hard till it
was near midnight.
This day our skiff went aboard the Jewel for a hogshead of
j meal, 1[ which we borrowed, because we could not come by
our own, and there came back in the skiff the master of the
Jewel and Mr. 12 Revell; 11 1 so our captain stayed them  dinner, and sent for Capt. Lowe; and about two hours after din[ water 11                 |2 Nowell 
1 I cannot dissemble the pleasure enjoyed by restoring the true name in this
place, nor my surprise at finding the marginal substitute in the hand of the
scrupulous Prince.
John Revell, Esq., was among those adventurers to New Plimouth, who, in
1626, assigned their interest to the colonists by an indenture, preserved by
Bradford in 1 Hist. Coll. III. 47. He had been chosen one of our assistants in
October preceding, and was one of those five undertakers to reside here for
the management of the joint stock of the company, five others being in England. Yet he returned in the Lyon after a few weeks' visit, before the first
meeting of the assistants. He was probably too rich to adventure life and fortune with us.




24                 JOHN WINTHROP.               [1630.
ner, they went aboard their own ships, our captain giving Mr.
II Revell 11 three shot, because he was one of the owners of
our ship.
We understood now, that the two which died in the Ambrose were Mr. Cradock's servants, who were sick when they
came to sea; and one of them should have been left at Cowes,
if any house would have received him.
In the Jewel, also, one of the seamen died - a most profane
fellow, and one who was very injurious to the passengers,
though much against the will of the master.
At noon we tacked about and stood W. and by N. and so
continued most part of that day and night following, and had
much rain till midnight.
Friday, 28.] In the morning the wind veered to the W. yet
we had a stiff gale, and steered N. W. and by N. It was so
great a fog all this day, as we had lost sight of one of our ships,
*21 and saw the other [2 sometimes much [I to leeward. We
had many 113 fierce 11 showers of rain throughout this day.
At night the wind cleared up, and we saw both our consorts
fair by us; so that wind being very scant, we tacked and
stood W. and by S. A child was born in the Jewel about
this time.
Saturday, 29.] The wind N. W. a stiff gale, and fair weather,
but very cold; in the afternoon full N. and towards night N.
and by E.; so we stood W.
Lord's day, 30.] The wind N. by E. a handsome gale, but
close, misty weather, and very cold; so our ship made good
way in a smooth sea, and our three ships kept close together.By our account we were in the same meridian with Isle Sable,
and forty-two and a half.
Monday, 31.] Wind N. W. a small gale, close and cold
weather. We sounded, but had no ground. About noon the
wind came N. by E. a stiff, constant gale and fair weather, so
as our ship's way was seven, eight, and sometimes twelve
leagues a watch. This day, about five at night, we expected
113 Nowell 11.  12 some leagues I  I113 fine 11
1A note in the margin, "ergo fil. nullius," is an absurd conclusion of a
stranger.




1630.]             JOHN WINTHROP.                   25
the eclipse, but there was not any, the sun being fair and clear
from three till it set.
June 1, Tuesday.] The wind N. E. a small gale, with fair,
clear weather; in the afternoon full S., and towards night a
good gale. We stood W. and by N. A woman in our ship
fell in travail, and we sent and had a midwife out of the Jewel.
She was so far ahead of us at this time, (though usually we
could spare her some sail,) as we shot off a piece and lowered
our topsails, and then she brailed her sails and stayed for us.
This evening we saw the new moon more than half an
hour after sunset, being much smaller than it is at any time in
England.
Wednesday, 2.] The wind S. S. W., a handsome gale; very
fair weather, but still cold; in the evening a great fog. We
stood W. and by N. and W. N. W.
Our captain, supposing us now to be near the N. coast, and
knowing that to the S. there were dangerous shoals, fitted on a
new mainsail, that was very strong, and double, and would not
adventure with his old sails, as before, when he had sea-room
enough.
Thursday, 3.] The wind S. by WT. a good steady gale, and
we stood W. and by N. The fog continued very thick, and
some rain withal. We sounded in the morning, and again *2g
at noon, and had no ground. We sounded again about
two, afternoon, and had ground about eighty fathom, a fine
gray sand; so we presently tacked and stood S. S. E., and shot
off a piece of ordnance to give notice to our consorts, whom
we saw not since last evening.
The fog continued all this night, and a steady gale at S. W.Friday, 4.] About four in the morning we tacked again (the
wind S. W.) and stood W. N. W. The fog continued all this
day, so as we could not see a stone's cast from us; yet the sun
shone very bright all the day. We sounded every two hours,
but had no ground. At night we tacked again and stood S.
~ In the great cabin, fast. ~1
1 Comparing the close of this paragraph, perhaps, with that of the next following, some careless person had substituted thanksgiving for fast, and then
struck out the whole sentence. The first edition was printed in conformity
VOL. I.                3




26                  JOHN WLNTHROP.                [1630.
Saturday, 5.] In the morning the wind came to N. E. a
handsome gale, and the fog was dispersed; so we stood before
the wind W. and by N., all the afternoon being rainy. At
night we sounded, but had no ground. In the great cabin,
thanksgiving.
It rained most part of this night, yet our captain kept
abroad, and was forced to come in in the night to shift his
clothes.
We sounded every half watch, but had no ground.
Lord's day, 6.] The wind N. E. and after N., a good gale,
but still foggy at times, and cold. We stood W. N. W., both
to make Cape Sable, if we might, and also because of the
current, which, near the west shore sets to the S., that we
might be the more clear from the southern shoals, viz., of Cape
Cod.
About two in the afternoon we sounded and had ground at
about eighty fathom, and the mist then breaking up, we saw
the shore to the N. about five or six leagues off, and were (as
we supposed) to the S. W. of Cape Sable, and in forty-three
and a quarter. Towards night it calmed and was foggy again,
and the wind came S. and by E. We tacked and stood W.
and by N., intending to make land at Aquamenticus, being to
the N. of the Isles of Shoals.
Monday, 7.] The wind S. About four in the morning we
sounded and had ground at thirty fathom, and was somewhat
calm; so we put our ship a-stays, and took, in less than two
hours, with a few hooks, sixty-seven codfish, most of them very
great fish, some a yard and a half long, and a yard in compass.`23 This came very seasonably, for our salt fish was now spent,
and we were taking care for victuals this day (being a fish
day).
After this we filled our sails, and stood W. N. W. with a
small gale.  We hoisted out a great boat to keep our sounding the better.*  The weather was now very cold. WeV'sounded at eight, and had fifty fathom, and, being calm, we h-eayed.
with this mutilation. As this was the sixty-eighth day passed on board ship,
and the wind was adverse, the passengers might well keep a fast; and show
their gratitude for the favorable gale the next day by thanksgiving.




1630.]              JOHN WINTHROP.                     27
out our hooks again, and took twenty-six cods; so we all feasted with fish this day.  A woman was delivered of a child in
our ship, stillborn.  The woman had divers children before,
but none lived, and she had some mischance now, which caused
her to come near a month before her time, but she did very
well. At one of the clock we had a fresh gale at N. W. and
very fair weather all that afternoon, and warm, but the wind
failed soon.
All the night the wind was W. and by S. a stiff gale, which
made us stand to and again, with small advantage.
Tuesday, 8.]  The wind still W. and by S., fair weather, but
close and cold. We stood N. N. W. with a stiff gale, and,
about three in the afternoon, we had sight of land to the N. W.
about ten leagues, which we supposed was the Isles of Monhegan, but it proved Mount Mansell.1    Then we tacked and
stood W. S. W. We had now fair sunshine weather, and so
pleasant a I[ sweet air 11 as did much refresh us, and there came
a smell off the shore like the smell of a garden.
There came a wild pigeon into our ship, and another small
land bird.
Wednesday, 9.]   In the morning the wind easterly, but
grew presently calm. Now we had very fair weather, and
warm. About noon the wind came to S. W.; so we stood W.
N. W. with a handsome gale, and had the main land upon our
starboard all that day, about eight or ten leagues off. It is
very high land, lying in many hills very unequal. At night
we saw many small islands, being low land, between us and
the main, about five or six leagues off us; and about three
leagues from us, towards the main, a small rock a little above
| scene here 11
1 Now Mount Desert. I presume the name had been given in honor of Sir
Robert Mansell, the highest naval officer of England, and one of the patentees
in the great patent for New England, usually called the Plimouth charter, of
King James, 3 November, 1620, which, in the title page of his History of Connecticut, Trumbull incautiously says, had been "never before published in
America," when it may be found in Haz. I. 103 et seq. See North Amer. Review, VIII. 117, where is found an examination of that work, ascribed to a
gentleman thoroughly acquainted with the geography and history of this
country.




28                 JOHN WINTHROP.                 [1630.
water. At night we sounded and had soft oozy ground at
*24 sixty fathom; so, the wind being now [1 scant [1 at W. we
tacked again and stood S. S. W. We were now in fortythree and a half. This high land, which we saw, we judged to:be at the W. cape of the great bay, which goeth towards Port
Royal, called Mount Desert, or Mount Mansell, and no island,
but part of the main.' In the night the wind shifted oft.
Thursday, 10.] In the morning the wind S. and by W. till
five. In the morning a thick fog; then it cleared up with fair
weather, but somewhat close. After we had run some ten
leagues W. and by S. we lost sight of the former land, but
made other high land on our starboard, as far off as we could
descry,2 but we lost it again.
The wind continued all this day at S. a stiff, steady gale, yet
we bare all our sails, and stood W. S. W. About four in the
afternoon we made land on our starboard bow, called the
Three Turks' Heads, being a ridge of three hills upon the main,
whereof the southmost is the greatest. It lies near Aquamenticus. We descried, also, another hill, more northward, which
lies by Cape Porpus. We saw, also, ahead of us, some four
leagues from shore, a small rock,3 not above a flight shot over,
which hath a dangerous shoal to the E. and by S. of it, some
two leagues in length. We kept our 11 2luff and weathered it,
and left it on our starboard about two miles off. Towards
night we might see the trees in all places very plainly, and a
small hill to the southward of the Turks' Heads. All the rest
of the land to the S. was plain, low land. Here we had a fine
fresh smell from shore. Then, lest we should not get clear of
the ledge of rocks, which lie under water from within a flight
shot of the said rock, (called Boone Isle,) which we had now
brought N. E. from us, towards Pascataquac, we tacked and
stood S. E. with a stiff gale at S. by W.
Friday, 11.] The wind still S. W., close weather. We stood
II set 11                   11leftll
1 But it is an island.
2 This was, undoubtedly, the White Hills, which the sun, at that season of
the year, arrays in exquisite brilliance, frequently mistaken for that of clouds,
as I have often observed.
3 " Called Boone Isle," is the governour's marginal note.




1630.]                  JOHN WINTHROP.                             29
to and again all this day within sight of Cape Ann. The
Isles of Shoals were now within two leagues of us, and we
saw a ship    lie there at anchor, and five or six shallops under
sail up and down.
We took many mackerels, and met a shallop, which stood
from   Cape Ann towards the Isles of Shoals, which be- *25
longed to some English fishermen.2
Saturday, 12.] About four in the morning we were near our
port. We shot off two pieces of ordnance, and sent our skiff
to Mr. Peirce   his ship (which lay in the harbour, and had been
there [blank] days before). About an hour after, Mr. Allerton 4 came aboard us in a shallop as he was sailing to Pema1 Probably the ship was a fishing vessel, bringing no planters. These islands
have never been populous. When R. Mather stopped there in 1635, he says,
there were two families and about forty persons; so that we may conclude,
most of them were transient residents.
2 Here is inserted, on a whole page of the original MS., a chart of the shore
of Maine, Isles of Shoals, Boone Isle, Cape Ann, etc., with remarks on the
appearance of the various landmarks on the several days, depth of water, bottom, bearings, distances, etc.
3 William Peirce deserves honourable mention among the early navigators
between Old England and New. He made many voyages, of which the earliest known by me was in 1623, in the Ann, the sixth vessel, whose arrival in
our bay, since the foundation of Plimouth, is mentioned. See Morton and
Gov. Bradford in Prince, I. 114, 119, 121, 139. Edward Winslow, afterwards
governour of Plimouth, and the celebrated commissioner of Cromwell in Admiral Penn's West India expedition, in that ship then returned with Peirce.
He was, in 1629, in the Massachusetts Company's employment, master of the
Mayflower, Haz. I. 278, and was now in the service of the Plimouth people,
for whom, with Allerton, he had brought in the ship Lyon, this spring, from
Bristol, many of their Leyden brethren. Hubbard unvaryingly, except on
page 82, gives his name Peirse. So the Probate Record spells it, and so by
himself, as I have seen, was it written. In another part of this volume his
name will recur as the maker of the first American Almanac, viz., for 1639.
He was killed at Providence, one of the Bahamas, in 1641, as will be seen in
this History.
4 He was one of the principal men in Plimouth colony, of the memorable
number of one hundred who came in the first ship, and the first assistant
chosen in that government. Dr. Eliot laments, that the later years of Allerton are not illustrated by public services; but, we may presume, they
would have been, had he, as our New England Biographer erroneously says,
" spent the remainder of his days with the people of Plimouth."  Notice of him
will be found more than once in later portions of this work; and the reader,
3*




30                      JOHN WINTHROP.                        [1630.
quid. As we stood towards the harbour, we saw another shallop coming to us; so we stood in to meet her, and passed
through the narrow strait between Baker's Isle and Little Isle,
and came to an anchor a little within the islands.
After Mr. Peirce came aboard us, and returned to fetch Mr.
"26 Endecott,' who came to us about two of the clock, and
with him   Mr. Skelton2 and Capt Levett.3       We that were
who would know of him what diligent inquiry could redeem from oblivion,
must consult the invaluable edition of Morton's Memorial by Judge Davis, and
Bacon's memoir, in 3 Mass. Hist. Coll. VII. 243, with the appendix of that Vol.
Hutchinson, whose accuracy of information may generally be relied on, erroneously says, he left this country for England to settle there, but adds, " his
male posterity settled in Maryland. If they be extinct, Point Alderton, [in
Boston harbour,] which took his name, will probably preserve it many ages."
The latest notice of him I have found, is in the second volume of our County
Registry of Deeds, p. 192, where is recorded a receipt by Isaac Allerton, senior,
merchant, of New Haven, 29 November, 1653, for one hogshead and four barrels of mackerel from Evan Thomas, vintner, of Boston, to adventure for half
profits. A letter, in my possession, of J. Davenport, 4 August, 1658, mentions
young Allerton coming from the Dutch to New H-aven.
1 This distinguished father of Massachusetts had, near two years before, been
sent to found the plantation in the settlement of Salem, the oldest town in the
colony. IIe had a commission, in 1629, from the company to act as governour,
which was, of course, superseded by the arrival of Winthrop with the charter.
With the history of his adopted country, that of Endecott is interwoven, till
the time of his death, 15 March, 1665. He served four years as deputy governour, and sixteen years as governour, being at the head of administration a
longer time than any other under the old patent, exceeded under the new
charter by Shirley alone, and that only by one year. The farm which he cultivated, remains in possession of an honorable descendant; and one pear tree,
planted by the governour on it, is said still to repay his care, bearing fruit in
its old age.
2 Samuel Skelton, pastor of Salem, came the year before in the same fleet
with Higginson. The notices of his history are very brief; that of his death
will be found in this volume, 2 August, 1634. His wife died 15 March, 1631,
as we learn from Dudley, who says, "she was a godly and helpful woman; she
lived desired, and died lamented, and well deserves to be honorably remembered."
8 No satisfactory information has been obtained, by searching every quarter
for some account of this gentleman, unless it may be he who died at sea about
two years after this date, by which event some indiscreet letters fell into the
hands of our adversaries, as will be seen in this work, 22 February, 1633. It
might be conjectured, that we should identify him with Christopher Levett,
Esq., named in 1623, by the council of New England, under the great charter,




1630.]                  JOHN WINTHROP.                           31
of the assistants, and some other gentlemen, and some of the
women, and our captain, returned with them         to Nahumkeck,
where we supped with a good venison pasty and good beer,
and at night we returned to our ship, but some of the women
stayed behind.
In the 11 mean time most of our it people went on shore upon
the land of Cape Ann, which lay very near us, and gath-`27
ered store of fine strawberries.
An Indian came aboard us and lay there all night.
Lord's day, 13.] In the morning, the sagamore' of Agawam and one of his men came aboard our ship and stayed
with us all day.
About two in the afternoon we descried the Jewel; so we
manned out our skiff and wafted them in, and they went as
near the harbour as the tide and wind would suffer.
Monday, 14.] In the morning early we weighed anchor, and
the wind being against us, and the channel so narrow as we
I morning the rest of the Il
with Capt. Francis West and the governour of Plimouth for the time being,
assistants to Robert Gorges, who had a commission to be general governour;
and he published, at London, 1628, A Voyage into New England, begun in
1623, and ended in 1624, which is reprinted in 3 Mass. Iist. Coll. VIII. 159.
But this is improbable; for those constituents were adversaries to our humble
colony, and the representative would not have been at Salem on good terms
with Endecott and Skelton; and that title seems hardly consistent with our
text, being in those times very sparingly given, especially by Morton, the honest annalist of Plimouth, from whom all my information of that gentleman is
derived. Nor do I more incline to the notion, that the person mentioned was
Thomas Levet, who, with John Wheelwright, Augustine Story, Thomas Wite,
and William Wentworth, is said to have purchased of four Indian sagamores,
17 May, 1629, a large tract of land in New Hampshire, by a very formal,
though, it will be proved, a spurious deed, preserved in Belknap's New Hampshire, I. Appendix i. In that paper they are indeed called " all of the Massachusetts Bay in New England."  The church of Exeter had, in 1639, with
Whleelwright, after his banishment from our colony, a member of that name,
Haz. I. 463; but I imagine none of Wheelwright's followers had yet come to
our country. From a long correspondence, in 1816 and 1817, with which the
late Rev. Dr. Bentley of Salem favoured me, I obtained little more than his
opinion that Winthrop here intended Lovett, one of Roger Conant's companions, ancestor of a numerous and respectable family in Beverly. But the arguments, though plausible, did not convince.
1 Hubbard, 130, calls him Masconomo.




32                      JOHN WINTHROP.                        [1630.
could not well turn in, we warped in our ship and came to an
anchor in the inward harbour.
In the afternoon we went with most of our company on
shore, and our captain gave us five pieces.
[Large blank.]
Thursday, 17.] We went to Mattachusetts,1 to find out a
place for our sitting down. We went up Mistick River about
six miles.2
We lay at Mr. Maverick's,3 and returned home on Saturday.
1 It would now seem strange to use this expression,' From Salem we went
to Massachusetts;' but the name, though sometimes more comprehensive, generally included only the country lying around the inner bay, usually called
Boston harbour, from Nahant to Point Alderton.
2 We must presume the reckoning to be from Conant's, afterwards called
Governour's Island, on which now Fort Warren stands, or at least from Maverick's on Noddle's Island, because, being accustomed now to say, Mistick
River empties into Charles River, or Boston harbour, at the easterly point of
Charlestown, one would consider it little over three miles to the limit of boat
navigation. The geography was then unknown or unsettled, and Mistick, at
high tide, might as well appear the principal river, as Charles. Dudley speaks
of Charlestown as " three leagues up Charles River," but he means undoubtedly to represent its mouth at the outer lighthouse.
3 Maverick was seated on Nottle's or Noddle's Island, and was a gentleman
of good estate; but the time of his arrival in our country, I believe, has never
been ascertained. As no assessment for the brief campaign against Merry
Mount, 1628, is laid on him, perhaps he was not then here; yet I conclude
from Johnson's language, lib. I. chap. xvii, he came in that year or the next.
At a court 1 April, 1633, the first volume of our Colony Records, p. 96, informs us, " Noddle's Island is granted to Mr. Samuel Maverick, to enjoy to him
and his heirs forever, yielding and paying yearly at the general court to thegovernour for the time being, either a fat wether, a fat hog, or ~10 in money,
and shall give leave to Boston and Charlestown to fetch wood continually, as
their need requires, from the southern part of the said island." Winisemet
Ferry, both to Charlestown and Boston, was also granted to him forever. Josselyn, who visited him 10 July, 1638, calls him, p. 12, "the only hospitable
man in all the country, giving entertainment to all comers gratis;" but in the
chronological observations, p. 252, appended to his Voyages, he is strangely
confounded, as the father of Samuel Maverick, Esq., the royal commissioner in
1664, with the Rev. John Maverick, minister of Dorchester. Samuel was not
one of our church members, being, says Hutchinson, an Episcopalian. But so
were all our fathers. Johnson, in the passage before referred to, designates
him as " an enemy to the reformation in hand, being strong for the lordly prelatical power."  This circumstance, perhaps, saved him from much trouble in




1630.]                  JOHN WINTHROP.                            33
As we came home,' we came by Nataskott, and sent for *28
Capt. Squib ashore - (he had brought the west-country
people, viz., Mr. Ludlow,2 Mr. Rossiter,3 Mr. Maverick,4 ~etc.,
to the bay, who were set down at Mattapan,) ~ -        and ended a
difference6 between him and the passengers; whereupon he
sent his boat to his ship, (the Mary and John,) and at our
the earlier years of his residence; but in the progress of this History he will
be seen involved in difficulty with the party of Dr. Child, petitioners for enlargement of privileges. He died 10 March, 1664.
1 He means to Salem.
2 The name of Roger Ludlow often occurs in our early history. At the
last general court of the company in England, he was chosen an assistant in
the room of Samuel Sharp, who had the year before come over to Salem in the
same ship with Skelton. He was one of the founders of Dorchester, whence,
in about five years, he removed to Windsor, of which he may be called the
father. In Connecticut he was deputy governour several times, but he seems
to have been unquiet in his domicile, for in 1639 he removed from Windsor
and founded Fairfield. In 1654 he removed in disgust to Virginia, where,
perhaps, in his advanced years, he became stationary. Eliot has drawn his
character with discrimination.  From Hubbard, 165, we learn, that he was
brother-in-law of Endecott, whom he rivalled in ardour of temperament.
3 Edward Rossiter, Esq., one of the assistants, Hutchinson informs us, was of
a good family in the west of England, whence all the Dorchester people came.
He was one of the principal encouragers of the settlement at that place, the
first town in the ancient county of Suffolk, unless Quincy or Weymouth may
dispute the honour. He died in a few months.
4 Of the Rev. John Maverick I learn nothing, before his coming to Dorchester, but that he had been a preacher about forty miles from Exeter in Old
England; and, after his arrival, so little, except what will be found in our
History, during the few years of his life, that it may be unnecessary to prolong
this note.
The cause of this difference, probably, is found in the landing of the passengers from the ship, in which they sailed 20 March; and arrived 30 May.
Capt. Roger Clap, who was one of the sufferers, informs us in his brief memoirs, "when we came to Nantasket, Capt. Squeb, who was captain of that
great ship of four hundred tons, would not bring us into Charles River, as he
was bound to do, but put us ashore, and our goods, on Nantasket Point, and
left us to shift for ourselves in a forlorn place in this wilderness;" and a little
farther on, " Capt. Squeb turned ashore us and our goods, like a merciless
man."  Trumbull, in a note on Vol. I. p. 8, of his History of Connecticut, several
of whose first settlers came in this vessel, says, the master "was afterwards
obliged to pay damages for this conduct."  He leaves us to conjecture his authority, which was perhaps a contemporaneous manuscript of some gentleman
of greater age and distinction than Clap.




34                      JOHN WINTHROP.                       [1630.
*29   lparting ll gave us five pieces.  At our return we found
the Ambrose in the harbour at Salem.
Thursday, July 1.] The Mayflower and the Whale arrived
safe in Charlton harbour. Their passengers were all in health,
but most of their cattle dead, (whereof a mare and horse of
mine). Some 11 2stone [1 horses came over in good plight.
Friday, 2.] The Talbot' arrived there. She had lost fourteen passengers.
My son, Henry Winthrop,2 was drowned at Salem.
Saturday, 3.]   The Hopewell, and William       and Francis arrived.
Monday, 5.]    The Trial arrived at Charlton, and the Charles
at Salem.
Tuesday, 6.] The Success arrived. She had [blank] goats
and lost [blank] of them, and many of her passengers were
near starved, etc.
Wednesday, 7.] The Lion went back to Salem.3
llfiring  2l |12 few                   II
1 This ship had parted company with the rest, on 15 April, in a storm.
2 Delicacy permitted the author to say no more of this son, whose name in
the original MS. is denoted only by the initials; but this brief sentence from
Hubbard, 131, will be easily indulged: " A sprightly and hopeful young gentleman he was, who, though he escaped the danger of the main sea, yet was unhappily drowned in a small creek, not long after he came ashore, even the
very next day, July the 2d, after his landing, to the no small grief of his
friends, and the rest of the company." He was baptized 19 January, 1607, o.
s. It will be recollected, that he, with Mr. Pelham, had accidentally lost his
passage in the ship with his father, to find another in one of those remaining at
Southampton. His father's touching notice of his untimely death will be found
in the first letter to his wife from America, given in the Appendix A. From
the language the conclusion is unavoidable, that the young man had been married before they came from England, leaving his wife with her mother-in-law;
and from a previous letter, written 2 March, after taking leave, she was, I presume, in an advanced state of pregnancy. The genealogy of the family mentions, that he married a Fones, his cousin, and left issue a daughter, who was
baptized Martha, on Sunday, 9 May, 1630. He was the second son, and of the
age of twenty-two years at his death.
3 Whence she came back, is matter of conjecture, for in the text it has not
been told, that she left Salem, after being first found by our author in that harbour on his arrival. I am induced to think, from a comparison of Prince, I.
201, 207, 241, contrary to his opinion of her landing Ashley at Penobscot in
May, that she had gone there in June from Salem, being in the employment of




1630.]                  JOHN WINTHROP.                           35
Thursday, 8.] We kept a day of thanksgiving in all the
plantations.
[Large blank.1]
Thursday, August 18.]      Capt. Endecott and —         Gib- *30
son2 were married by the governour and Mr. Wilson.3
Saturday, 20.] The French ship called the Gift, came into
the harbour at Charlton.     She had been twelve weeks at sea,
and lost one passenger and twelve goats; she delivered six.
Monday we kept a court.4
the Plimouth people, probably, and not of ours. After this return our governour made a contract with the master to go to the nearest port in England for
provisions.
1 Another ship, with passengers, came in on 31 July, see Bradford's Letterbook, in 1 Mass. Hist. Coll. III. 76, Fuller's letter of 2 August, 1630, to him.
By a letter of 14 August, from the Governour to his son, in the appendix, it
appears that the ship was Hewson's. Thomas Hewson, or Huson, a member of
the Company in London, like Cradock, its former Governour, maintained a
plantation for himself, which was, I think, at Marblehead.
2 In Prince, I. 178, is preserved a letter from Cradock, in London, to Endecott, of the year before, from which we learn, that Endecott brought a wife
from England, of the time of whose death we are ignorant. Morton, the
scandalous author of New English Canaan, insinuates, that she perished by
the quackery of Fuller of Plimouth. Two seasons of disease had afflicted the
colonists at Salem, and the highest seem, equally with the lowest, to have been
exposed to its power. By the kindness of the late Rev. William Bentley, the
diligent historian of Salem, I learn that the name of this second wife was Elizabeth, and, from our Probate Records, that she survived her husband.
3 Of the Rev. John Wilson's biography abundant materials are furnished by
this History and most other books about our early affairs, and most copiously
by Mather, which are happily abbreviated by the amiable Eliot in his New
England Dictionary, and Emerson in his History of the First Church. His
will is in our Probate Records, VI. p. 1. Having been minister at Sudbury,
he was well known to his neighbour, our author, before their undertaking this
work of leaving their native country.
4 Johnson says, this court was holden 23 August, on board the Arbella. As
he adds, that Winthrop was then chosen governour, and Dudley, deputy, which
I agree with Prince in thinking improbable, since they had before been chosen
in England, and our records have no trace of such election, it may also be
doubted whether the assistants' meeting was held on shipboard. The record
says, the court was at Charlton, and, we may imagine, the "great house"
would have been the most convenient place. He is, however, right in his date,
and the reader will remark, that, in noting events a few weeks before and after
this time, the governour seems to fail of his usual diligence. It may be ac



36                       JOHN WINTHROP.                         [1630.'31 Friday, 27.] We, of the congregation, kept a fast, and
counted for, either by his grief on account of his son's death, or anxiety from
the extraordinary press of business in the circumstances of the new colony.
The two preceding dates are erroneous. The 20th of August was Friday, not
Saturday. Endecott's marriage, if it were on Thursday, was solemnized on
the 19th, or if on the 18th it was Wednesday. The name of the month is indeed inserted, in the MS., not against the line in which the wedding is mentioned, but the next. But the dates before and after convince me, that August, and not July, is the date intended for Endecott's union; and I gather a
slight confirmation of my judgment from the fact of his absence from this court.
Johnson was, also, at Salem, near his dying wife.
The transactions of this first court are sufficiently interesting to excuse the
extract from Prince, quoting the Colony Records: " Aug. 23.  The first court
of assistants held at Charlestown.  Present Gov. Winthrop, Deputy Gov.
Dudley, Sir Richard Saltonstall, Mr. Ludlow, Rossiter, Nowell, T. Sharp,
Pynchon, and Bradstreet; wherein the first thing propounded is, How the ministers shall be maintained, Mr. Wilson and Phillips only proposed; and ordered,
that houses be built for them with convenient speed at the public charge.
Sir R. Saltonstall undertook to see it done at his plantation for Mr. Phillips;
and the governour at the other plantation for Mr. Wilson; 3Mr. Phillips to have
thirty pounds a year, beginning at the first of September next; Mr. Wilson to
have twenty pounds a year till his wife come over, beginning at 10 July last;
all this at the common charge, those of Mattapan and Salem excepted. Ordered, that Morton of Mount Wollaston, be sent for presently; and that carpenters, joiners, bricklayers, sawyers, and thatchers, take no more than two
shillings a day, under pain of ten shillings to giver and taker."
Such was the first formal legislation of Massachusetts. But in March following, artificers were left at liberty to agree for their wages, Prince, II. 23, from
Colony Records, though I am sorry to observe, that, two years after, the wisdom of experience was slighted, and the absurd policy of legal rates restored.
For many years, this interference with the freedom of contracts was more or
less severe, but the very means of enforcing it, probably, conduced to the abolition of the prejudice. It was left to the freemen of the several towns, from
time to time, as occasion might require, to agree among themselves about the
prices and rates of all workmen's labour and servants' wages; and to exceed
those rates was made penal. In the adjustment, great diversity would soon
arise in different places, to prevent which, it was provided, that if any town
had cause of complaint against the freemen of any other town, for allowing
greater wages than themselves, it should be in the power of the county court to
adopt uniform regulations. During the war of our revolution, it is within the
recollection of many, that, to counteract the inevitable embarrassment arising
from the depreciation of the paper currency, arbitrary values were affixed to
all commodities by an agreement, which was shown by experiment to be impracticable, after reason had in vain proved it unjust. See President Kirkland's Life of Fisher Ames, p. xi.




1630.]                  JOHN WTINTHIEOP.                           37
chose Mr. Wilson our teacher,1 and Mr. Nowell2 an elder,3 331
1 Between the offices of teacher and pastor there was, we know, some slight
difference in the early times; for, on Cotton's arrival three years after, he was
chosen teacher, Wilson having a year before been made pastor. Yet these
terms, though at first distinct, soon became convertible, and not much can with
certainty be known of the distinction. Eliot says, - Biographical Dictionary,
SKELTON, — "Mr. Skelton, being farther advanced in years, was constituted
pastor of Salem church, Mr. Higginson, teacher."  That author, however, in
his Essays on the Ecclesiastical History of Massachusetts, felt the same difficulty as I have; for he says, 1 Hist. Coll. VII. 271, "we, who make no such
distinction of offices, think it strange, that there should have been such difference between pastor and teaching elders; for we suppose any man, who can
feed the people with knowledge, is qualified for one office equally with another.
But it appears from the ecclesiastical history of this country, that A VERY
GREAT DISTINCTION was made in the early state of their settlement. They
esteemed many to be excellent teachers, whom they would not endow with the
pastoral care." This seems to me too strongly stated. Cotton was an older
and a greater man than Wilson, yet the latter was pastor. Higginson cannot
be postponed to Skelton, except for his years; and as he took his degrees at
Cambridge, 1609, being then of Jesus College, and 1613, being then of St.
John's, while Skelton, who was of Clare Hall, was two years later, he was advanced enough in years to be either pastor or teacher. Maverick, the teacher
of Dorchester, was older than Warham. Several instances in other towns of
inferiority of the talents, if not character, of the pastor may be found, I think,
in our early churches. Still the reason of Dr. Eliot's distinction may be supported by the rule of the clerical constitutions. See Trumbull, I. 282, 283,
and the numerous authorities.
2 Increase Nowell, Esq., had been chosen an assistant in England, and was a
person of high consideration in the colony, of which he was long secretary.
He died poor, 1 November, 1655. 3 Hist. Coll. I. 47.
3 This office of ruling elder was generally kept up hardly more than fifty
years, though in a few churches it continued to the middle of the last century,
much reduced, however, in importance, and hardly distinguishable from that of
deacon. The title of elders is retained from the beginning as a name for ministers. Prince, I. 92, delineates from high authorities the difference between
teaching and ruling elders, thus: "Pastors, or teaching elders, who have the
power both of overseeing, teaching, administering the'sacraments, and ruling
too, being chiefly to give themselves to studying, teaching, and the spiritual care
of the flock, are therefore to be maintained."  " Mere ruling elders, who are
to help the pastors in overseeing and ruling; that their offices be not temporary, as among the Dutch and French churches, but continual. And being
also qualified in some degree to teach, they are to teach only occasionally,
through necessity, or in their pastor's absence or illness; but being not to give
themselves to study or teaching, they have no need of maintenance. In less
than two years, it will be seen in this History, a question arose, whether the
VOL. I.                       4




38                       JOHN WINTHROP.                        [1630.`32  and Mr. Gager and Mr. Aspinwall,l deacons.            We used
imposition of hands, but with this protestation by all, that
offices of magistrate and ruling elder might be filled at the same time by the
same person. This may in our days appear quite unimportant, as the elder
was not required to give himself to study or teaching, and was allowed no
maintenance by the congregation. But in the primitive times it was so important, that our fathers of Boston took the advice of distant churches. Perhaps
it was intended, by those who raised the inquiry, only to make Nowell lay
down one of his titles. Happily he preferred to retain the station that demanded most service, and continued a magistrate.
The comparative disesteem, into which the office of ruling elder soon fell,
was very pathetically lamented by many of the early planters in their later
years. In a tract, by Joshua Scottow, 1691, under the whimsical title of " Old
Men's Tears for their own Declensions, mixed with Fears of their and Posterities' further falling off from New England's primitive Constitution," this sad
presage of portending judgments is thus treated: "It's not unknown, that
some churches, in laying their foundation, did solemnly promise and covenant,
before God, and one to another, that they would be furnished with two teaching and two ruling elders; but it's not attended to. It was not for want of
maintenance; no, religion hath brought forth riches, but the daughter hath
devoured the mother, as was said and observed of old."
" Where are the ruling elders, who as porters were wont to inspect our sanctuary gates, and to take a turn upon the walls? Is not the remembrance of
such an officer almost lost and extinct, though the scripture and the platform
of church discipline expressly declare for them, and set out their particular
charge and work'? It was an affecting question put forth by one of about fifty
years old, born in the communion of our churches, concerning ruling elders,
what these men were, who were formerly so called; professing, in time of their
minority, there were such men to their remembrance, but since had forgotten
what they were, and therefore desired resolution."
He proceeds to relate, that it is " questioned by some among us, whether such
an officer be jure divino, or any rule for them in God's word, which occasions a
reverend elder to take up the argument against such, and bewails the neglect
of them in the churches, as a sad omen of their turning popular or prelatical,
and if so, then to be regulated either by lord brethren or lord bishops. Is not
this a great derogation from Christ's authority to say, that deacons may serve
the churches' turn, who may officiate to do these elders' work? Is it not a preference of men's politics before Christ's institutes? Did not the practice of
men's prudentials prove the ruin of the churches and rise of Antichrist? That
our colleges by God's blessing should afford materials for teaching elders, and
that our churches should grow so barren, as not to bring forth, nor educate
men qualified for the other, may seem to portend a threatening of Christ's departure from them, as to conjugal communion."
1 Frequent notice of William Aspinwall will be found in this History. He
had come over with his wife, I presume, in the fleet with Winthrop, and cer



1630.]                  JOHN WINTHROP.                             39
it was only as a sign of election and confirmation, not of,33
any intent that Mr. Wilson should renounce his 11 ministry I1 he received in England.
1 money |
tainly was in high esteem with our people until the unhappy controversy about
antinomianism, in which, being on the side of the majority of Boston church,
he was too important to get off with impunity. With the other disfranchised or
discontented members, he removed to Rhode Island, which they purchased 24
March, 1638; and was wise enough, after the heat subsided, to return. He was
the first secretary of that colony. His official signature is found afterwards in
our records, as notary publick, to protests of bills of exchange. I have seen a
very curious tract, entitled, " A brief Description of the Fifth Monarchy, or
Kingdom that shortly is to come into the World; the Monarch, Subjects, Officers and Laws thereof, and the surpassing Glory, Amplitude, Unity, and Peace
of that Kingdom, etc. And in the Conclusion there is added a Prognostick of
the Time, when the Fifth Kingdom shall begin. By William Aspinwall. N.
E." Its title-page is garnished with several texts of scripture distorted in the
usual style of that day. " London, printed by M. Simmons, and are to be sold
by Livewell Chapman at the Crown in Popeshead Alley, 1653." It contains
fourteen pages. After showing, " that there is such a thing to be expected in
the world as a fifth monarchy," from Daniel's vision, filfilled in part by the execution of Charles I., he anticipates a farther progress from the destruction of
all other kings, though " they have a little prolonging in life granted after the
death of Charles Stuart."  He comforts himself with the confidence, that " the
space will be short; it will be but for a season and time; and then will their
lives go for it, as well as Charles; and then, these four monarchies being destroyed, the fifth kingdom  or monarchy follows immediately."  Proceeding
through his inquiries of " the Sovereign, (Jesus Christ,) subjects, officers, and
laws of that kingdom," his fanatical vaticination favours us with " some hint of
the time when the kingdom shall begin," which he had wit enough to delay so
long, that the event might not probably injure the credit of the living soothsayer. " Know, therefore, that the uttermost durance of Antichrist's dominion
will be in the year 1673, as I have proved from scripture in a brief chronology,
ready to be put forth."  Cromwell, whose power was just then preparing to be
established, knew well the dangerous tendency of such jargon, unless when
used by himself; but though he applied the civil arm to many other dreamers
of King Jesus, I believe he left the New England seer to the safety of oblivion
or contempt. A more useful work, with a well-written preface by him, was
two years after printed in London, by the same printer, for the same Chapman,
with the ludicrous prsenomen, " An abstract of Laws and Government," etc.,
collected and digested by John Cotton, of Boston, in N. E. in his life time, presented to our General Court, " and now published after his death by William
Aspinwall." This evidence of his talents is preserved in 1 Hist. Coll. V. 187.
Our Registry of Births mentions, of his children, Edward, born 26 September,




40                      JOHN WINTHROP.                        [1630.
September 20.] Mr. Gager died.l
*34     30.]  About two in the morning, Mr. Isaac Johnson
died; his wife, the lady Arbella, of the house of Lincoln,2
being dead about one month before.        He was a holy man, and
wise, and died in sweet peace, leaving some 3 part of his substance to the colony.
The wolves killed six calves at Salem, and they killed one
wolf.
1630, died 10 October following; Hannah, born 25 December, 1631; Elizabeth, (his wife's name,) born 30 September, 1633; Samuel, 30 September,
1635; Ethlan, 1 March, 1637; Dorcas, 14 February, 1640. But of him or his
family we know nothing after some years. The respectable family bearing this
name in our times, of which Thomas, H. C., 1804, Consul of the United States
at London, is now the oldest, does not descend from him, but Peter Aspinwall,
from Lancashire, I think, in England, whose will is in our Register, lib. VIII. 67.
1 William Gager, whose election is mentioned in the former paragraph, Gov.
Dudley calls "a right godly man, a skilful chyrurgeon."  An allowance by the
company, from the public treasury, was made him, on account of his office, but
this practice did not continue. He was reckoned of the governour's household;
and his son John is remembered by our author in his will. See Appendix.
This son was, probably, a youth, and went with the governour's son to New
London, where, in September, 1659, he complained with others to the commissioners of the United Colonies against some Indian outrage. Haz. II. 412.
The name is, perhaps, perpetuated by descendants in Connecticut; at least, in
Trumbull, II. 532, a William  Gager, of the second church of Lebanon, is
among the ministers, 27 May, 1725.
2 Mather calls it " the best family of any nobleman then in England." Collins's Peerage informs us, that Thomas, third Earl of Lincoln, who was descended of a family that came in with William the Conquerer, had by one wife eight
sons and nine daughters. Two sons and four daughters died young. One
daughter, Frances, married John, son and heir of Sir Ferdinando Gorges,
another, Susan, married John Humfrey; a third is the lady mentioned in the
text. Dudley and Bradstreet, two other of our assistants, had lived many
years in the family, so that a close relation to New England would be acknowledged by the brother of this lady, Theophilus, the fourth earl, who came to his
title on the death of his father, 15 January, 1619. He was a warm patriot on
the parliament's side in the civil war, but, after the captivity of the king, being
inclined to moderation, was imprisoned and accused of treason by the usurping
power of the army, which subverted, under Cromwell's direction, all the principles of the constitution. The earl was in reputation at the restoration, and bore
a part in the solemnities of crowning Charles II.; and descendants of his grandfather, Henry Fiennes, the second Earl of Lincoln, I believe, enjoy their hereditary honours with the augmented title of Duke of Newcastle.
3 Instead of some, was first written a good.




1630.]                   JOHN WINTHROP.                             41
Thomas Morton' adjudged to be imprisoned, till he were sent
1 Notice of the court, at which this sentence passed, being the second, held
7 September, is omitted by the author. Prince, I. 248, gives, from the Colony
Records, the proceedings at full length: " Ordered, that Thomas Morton of
Mount Wollaston shall presently be set in the bilbowes, and after sent prisoner
to England by the ship called the Gift, now returning thither; that all his
goods shall be seized to defray the charge of his transportation, payment of his
debts, and to give satisfaction to the Indians for a canoe he took unjustly from
them; and that his house be burnt down to the ground in sight of the Indians,
for their satisfaction for many wrongs he has done them."
This settlement at Mount Wollaston, called Merry Mount by Morton, had
been begun in 1625 by Capt. Wollaston. In the Memorial of Nathaniel Morton, the pious secretary of Plimouth colony, a full history of its sufferings, perhaps an impartial one, may be found. The unhappy subject of this note had
some years before been established at Weston's plantation at Wessaguscus. He
informs us, in his book, that he arrived in June, 1622, of course, in the Charity.
For this publication, called New English Canaan, by Thomas Morton of Clifford's Inn, Gentleman, upon ten Years' Knowledge and Experiment of the
Country, printed at Amsterdam by J. F. Stam, 1637, he undoubtedly repented,
when again exposed to punishment here in 1644, as will be seen in the history
of that time. This work is very rare, only one copy having ever been heard of
by me, which was owned by his Excellency John Q. Adams. It is divided into
three books; the first treating of the Indians; the second, of the natural history; the last, of the people planted there, their prosperity, what remarkable
incidents have happened since, together with the tenets and practice of their
church. This part, in thirty-one chapters, is written in an allegorical style,
shadowing the principal characters under fictitious names, insomuch that it has
to a great degree become hardly intelligible. Endecott suffers his vengeance
under the appellation of Littleworth, and YWinthrop is aptly called Joshua, and
sirnamed Temperwell. Dedicating his work to the lords of the privy council,
he says, " it is but a widow's miit;e, yet all that rapine and wrong hath left me to
bring from thence."  Laudatory verses are prefixed by Sir Chr. Gardiner and
two others, and some of. his own poetry is occasionally interspersed. In the 23
chapter of the third book, his own story of his sufferings is told, which we of
this age may read without much injury to our forefather's melmory: " A court
is called of purpose for mine host, he there convented, and must hear his doom,
before he go. Nor will they admit him to capitulate, and know wherefore they
are so violent to put such thlings in practice against a man they never saw Iefore. Nor will they allow of it, though he decline their jurisdiction."
"There they all, with one assent, put him to silence, crying out, hear the
governour, Hear the governour, who gave this sentence against mine host at
first sight," as above from the Records. He ascribes to the governour a reason,
which the character of the age may induce us to believe was really uttered,
"because the habitation of the wicked should no more appear in Israel."
He styles himself " of Clifford's Inn, Gent." but his namesake, the Memo4*




42                      JOHN WINTHROP.                        [1630.
rialist, from whom all later authors have taken every thing to his discredit, calls
him " a pettifogger at Furnival's Inn." No doubt he was a common disturber
of the whole country, for the expenses of the expedition against him by Standish, in 1628, were assessed on eight different plantations, in several of which
there was little religious sympathy with the worthies of Salem and Plimouth.
Thomas Morton is the first writer, who gave currency to the ludicrous report
of a vicarious punishment, for which New England has been jeered in former and later times. But justice to him requires me to add, that he mentions the
fact only as a proposal, that was not agreed to, and thus overthrows the possibility, which Hubbard, 77, supposes, that justice "might be executed not on
him that most deserved, but on him that could be best spared, or who was not
like to live long, if he had been let alone."  He has, indeed, given the fact
(which is put beyond doubt by the contemporary relation of Winslow) that the
guilty man was hanged. See Purchas's Pilg. lib. X. c. 5, Prince, I. 131, and 1
Hist. Coll. VIII. 266. A judicious note, on p. 333 and 4, of the Chronicles of
the Pilgrims contains the sum of the matter; but the author relies too much
on the authority of Prince, in support of his mistaken report, that Morton did
not come over till March, 1625. Low as is our value of the character of
Thomas Morton, yet why should we hesitate to believe his first line of ch. 2 in
Book I. or the plainer statement opening ch. I. of the next Book in New English Canaan, "in the Moneth of June, auno salutis 1622, It was my chance to
arrive in the parts of New England with thirty servants," etc., etc.? What motive could he have to misdate? Dr. Young will correct this in his next edition of the Chronicles.
Butler's Hudibras has admirably enlarged the ground-work, and decorated
the edifice:
Our brethren of New England use
Choice malefactors to excuse,
And hang the guiltless in their stead,
Of whom the churches have less need.
>    - * *  * e    X     *   X   em
A precious brother having slain,
In time of peace, an Indian,
The mighty Tottipotimoyf
Sent to our elders an envoy,
Complaining sorely of the breach
Of league, held forth by brother Patch.
For which he crav'd the saints to render
Into his hands, or hang the offender.
But they, maturely having weighed,
They had no more but him of the trade,f The poet may be excused for misappropriating the name of a sachem in Virginia.




1630.]                  JOHN WINTHROP.                             43
into England, and his house burnt down, for his many injuries
offered to the Indians, and other misdemeanours.           Capt. *35
Brook, master of the Gift, refused to carry him.'
[Large blank.]
Finch, of Watertown, had his wigwam burnt and all his *36
goods.
Billington2 executed at Plimouth for murdering one.
Mr. Phillips, the minister of Watertown,3 and others, had
their hay4 burnt.
A man that served them in a double
Capacity, to preach and cobble, -
Resolv'd to spare him; yet to do
The Indian Hogan Mogan too
Impartial justice, in his stead did
Hang an old weaver that was bed-rid.
1 Dudley says, he was sent home in December by the Handmaid.
2 Of John Billington, and the circumstances of this case, it is remarkable,
that no mention is made in Morton's New England Memorial, though written
" with special reference to the first colony thereof, called Plimouth." Morton,
the slanderer, alludes to the murder in a trifling manner. Something may be
learned of it from Hubbard, 101, and Prince, II. 2, 3, extracting from Gov.
Bradford's Register, a work unhappily lost. Hutchinson has perhaps digested
all that can be known, in his Appendix, II. 413, in which he relates, that, on a
doubt of their authority to inflict capital punishment, Winthrop's advice was
sought and followed.
Billington had come over in the first ship, and was soon distinguished among
that sober people; for we find, Prince, I. 103, he was guilty of the first offence
in the colony, being in March, 1621, " convented before the whole company for
his contempt of the captain's lawful command with opprobrious speeches; for
which he is adjudged to have his neck and heels tied together." The family
were four in number. John, his son, in the summer following, was five days
lost in the woods, and preserved by the Indians. His son Francis had in January before discovered the lake, that from him has the name of Billington Sea.
Gov. Bradford, writing to Cushman, June, 1625, says of the father, "Billington
still rails against you, and threatens to arrest you, I know not wherefore; he is
a knave, and so will live and die." 1 Hist. Coll. IH. 37. This is much nearer
to prophecy than many sayings which have been so regarded.
3 This name is presumed to have been given by Saltonstall; but the reason
for his choice must be conjectured. A hamlet, called Waterton, which Sir
Richard would often pass near in going to or returning from London, on journeys from his estate in Yorkshire, is in the parish of Luddington, on the Isle of
Axholme, on the west side of Trent, not far from its junction with the Humber.
4 Prince, II. 3, who had not then acquired so perfect a knowledge of the au



44                       JOHN WINTHROP.                        [1630.
The wolves killed some swine at Saugus.
*37     A cow   died at Plimouth, and a goat at Boston,1 with
eating Indian corn.
October 23.]    Mr. Rossiter,2 one of the assistants, died.
25.]   Mr. Colburn3 (who was chosen deacon by the congregation a week before) was invested by imposition of hands of
the minister and elder.
The governour, upon       consideration   of the  inconveniences
which had grown in England by drinking one to another, restrained it at his own table, and wished others to do the like,
so as it grew, by little and little, to disuse.4
thor's chirography, as his late experience furnished, in transcribing this passage,
gave houses, instead of hay.
1 This is the first notice, in this work, of the name of the town, which had
been given by the court of assistants, 7 September preceding, with those of
Dorchester and Watertown. We may be confident, therefore, that the settlement had made good progress, though Gorges postpones it to the next spring.
Here is proof, that the name of our chief city of New England was given,
not, as often is said, after the coming of Cotton, but three years before.
2 Hutchinson, I. 17, could give little account of this gentleman.
3 William Colburn was a gentleman of great influence in Boston, and representative of the town in 1635, 6 and 7. The name is spelt with seven or eight
variations, and his own signature, in a deed now before me, is Colbron, though
the scrivener began, I, William Coleborne. He was long a ruling elder, after
ceasing to be deacon, and died 1 August, 1662. His will is in our Probate office, lib. I. 400.
4 In the MS. volume of this work last found, I discovered a loose paper, containing reasons for a law against this custom, written, probably, by Winthrop,
which appears sufficiently interesting, to inquirers into the customs of our fathers, to justify its insertion.
"(1.) Such a law as tends to the suppressing of a vain custom (quatenus it
so doth) is a wholesome law. This law doth so, - ergo. The minor is proved
thus: 1. Every empty and ineffectual representation of serious things is a way
of vanity. But this custom is such: for it is intended to hold forth love and
wishes of health, which are serious things, by drinking, which, neither in the
nature nor use, it is able to effect; for it is looked at as a mere compliment, and
is not taken as an argument of love, which ought to be unfeigned, - ergo. 2.
To employ the creature out of its natural use, without warrant of authority,
necessity or conveniency, is a way of vanity. But this custom doth so, - ergo.
"(2.) Such a law as frees a man fiom frequent and needless temptations to
dissemble love, etc. (quatenus it so doth) is a wholesome law. But this doth so,
-ergo."
On such arguments a law was passed, as may be seen, 10 mo. 1639.




1630.]               JOHN WINTHROP.                        45
29.]   The Handmaid arrived at Plimouth, having        been
twelve weeks at sea, and spent all her masts, and of twentyeight cows she lost ten. She had about sixty passengers, who
came all well; John Grant, master.
Mr. Goffe wrote to me, that his shipping this year had utterly
undone him.
She brought out twenty-eight heifers, but brought but seventeen alive."'
November 11.] The master came to Boston with Capt. o38
Standish2 and two gentlemen passengers, who came to
plant here, but having no testimony, we would not receive
them.
10.] [blank] Firmin, of Watertown, had his wigwam burnt.
Divers had their hay-stacks burnt by burning the grass.
27.] Three of the governour's servants were from this day
to the 1 of December abroad in his skiff among the islands, in
bitter frost and snow, being kept from   home by the N. W.
wind, and without victuals.    At length they gat to Mount
Wollaston,3 and left their boat there, and came home by land.
Laus Deo.
December 6.] The governour and most of the assistants,
and others, met at Roxbury, and there agreed to build a town.
fortified upon the neck between that and Boston, and a committee was appointed to consider of all things requisite, etc.
14.]  The committee met at Roxbury, and upon further consideration, for reasons, it was concluded, that we could not
have a town in the place aforesaid: 1. Because men would
be forced to keep two families. 2. There was no running
water; and if there were any springs, they would not suffice
the town. 3. The most part of the people had built already,
1 This is easily rendered consistent with loss of ten by supposing, that it became necessary to kill one for food, from the unusual length of the passage. I
do not think the governour erased this sentence.
2 Miles Standish is treated by Dr. Belknap, in his American Biography, with
such felicity, that it cannot be necessary for me to protract this note any further than to advise the reader, who desires more knowledge of him, to consult
Judge Davis's edition of Morton.
3 For some account of the first settlement in this place, which is the northeastern promontory of Quincy, formerly of Braintree, see note on page 34.




46                       JOHN WNINTHROP.                        [1630.
and would not be able to build again. So we agreed to meet
at Watertown that day sen'night, and in the meantime other
places should be viewed.
Capt. Neal' and three other gentlemen came hither to us.
*39  He came in the bark Warwick, this summer, to Pascataqua, sent as governour there for Sir Ferdinando Gorges
and others.
21.]   We met again at Watertown, and there, upon view of
a place a mile beneath the town, all agreed it a fit place for
a 1I fortified 112 town, and   we took time     to  consider further
about it.
24.] Till this time there was (for the most part) fair, open
weather, with gentle frosts in the night; but this day the wind
came N. W., very strong, and some snow withal, but so cold
as some had their fingers frozen, and in danger to be lost.
Three of the governour's servants, coming in a shallop from
II beautiful 
1 Walter Neal, whose name will occur several times in the early parts of this
History, had, in September preceding, as appears from the letter of Thomas
Eyre, in Belknap's N. H. I. Appendix ii. promised to discover the lakes, in
which the chief purpose of his employers, probably, was to secure a monopoly
of the beaver trade. The vessel, as is before mentioned in the text, p. 7, had
been fitted out in March, perhaps with Neal on board, to join, as was thought,
the fleet, which brought Winthrop and his companions; but from her not joining, they feared she had been captured by the Dunkirkers. As the scheme of
the adventurers would require secrecy and despatch, perhaps the report of their
intention to join our fleet was only a pretence. She arrived late in May; for the
letter of Eyre acknowledges " a good account of your times spent from the first_
of June."  Neal left New England in August, 1633, as appears in this work
and articles vi. vii. and viii. of the Appendix above-mentioned; and nothing
more is known of him, but the forgery of his name to a deed, as a witness, a
little more than a year before the probable date of his first arrival.
2 Dr. Holmes, in his History of Cambridge, 1 Hist. Coll. VII. 6, and American Annals, I. 262, note 1, was led into error by the former edition of this work.
6"A fit place for a beautiful town" it certainly was; but our fathers, at that
time, were chiefly solicitous for the security of their dwellings. This note, however, is made, not so much to correct the mistake, as to express my high sense
of the value of that writer's labours. His accuracy is wonderfully preserved
through two large volumes, surpassing that of all other authors on American
history, except Prince, the interruption of whose work is a misfortune that can
never wholly be compensated, because we can never retrieve the loss of his
materials.




1630.]                JOHN WIlNTHROP.                        47
Mistick, were driven by the wind upon Noddle's' Island, and
forced to stay there all that night, without fire or food; yet,
through God's mercy, they came safe to Boston next day, but
the fingers of two of them were blistered with cold, and one
swooned when he came to the fire.
26.]  The rivers were frozen up, and they of Charlton could
not come to the sermon at Boston till the afternoon at high
water.
Many of our cows and goats were forced to be still j1 abroad II
for want of houses.
28.]  Richard Garrett,2 a shoemaker of Boston, and one of
the congregation there, with one of his daughters, a young
maid, and four others, went towards Plimouth in a shallop,
against the advice of his friends; and about the Gurnett's
Nose the wind overblew so much at N. W. as they were %40
forced to come to a [ 2killock l at twenty fathom, but
their boat drave and shaked out the 1 3stone, II and they were
put to sea, and the boat took in much water, which did freeze
so hard as they could not free her; so they gave themselves for
lost, and, commending themselves to God, they disposed themselves to die; but one of their company espying land near
Cape Cod, they made shift to hoist up part of their sail, and,
by God's special providence, were carried through the rocks to
the shore, where some gat on land, but some had their legs
frozen into the ice, so as they were forced to be cut out. Being
come on shore they kindled a fire, but, having no hatchet, they
could get little wood, and were forced to lie in the open air all
night, being extremely cold.    In the morning two of their
|I aboard 11     1l2 hillock l1       113 stern 11
1 Prince, II. 29, giving the names of several admitted, in May following,
freemen of the colony, among whom is William Noddle, adds in a note, " Perhaps Noddle's Island might derive its name from him."
2 The word is printed thus by me, although the governour's MS. rather looks
like Garrard, because that was the true name of the sufferer. Prince makes
the same correction, taking the story from our author. Hubbard, 138, has it
Garn; but the original MS. of that author, who borrowed wholly from Winthrop, was, perhaps, more faithful in its representation. In the First Church
Records, I find Garrett's name, as a member, No. 55, and he was, undoubtedly,
one of the passengers in the fleet of 1630.




48                   JOHN WINTHROP.                  [1630.
company went towards Plimouth, (supposing it had been
within seven or eight miles, whereas it was near fifty miles
from them). By the way they met with two Indian squaws,
who, coming home, told their husbands that they had met two
Englishmen. They thinking (as it was) that they had been
shipwrecked, made after them, and brought them back to their
wigwam, and entertained them kindly; and one of them went
with them the next day to Plimouth, and the other went to
find out their boat and the rest of their company, which were
seven miles off, and having found them, he holp them what he
could, and returned to his wigwam, and fetched a hatchet, and
built them a wigwam and covered it, and gat them wood (for
they were so weak and frozen, as they could not stir;) and
Garrett died about two days after his landing; and the ground
being so frozen as they could not dig his grave, the Indian
hewed a hole about half a yard deep, with his hatchet, and
having laid the corpse in it, he laid over it a great heap of
wood to keep it from the wolves. By this time the governour
of Plimouth had sent three men to them with provisions, who
being come, and not able to launch their boat, (which with
the strong N. W. wind was driven up to the high water mark,)
the Indian returned to Plimouth and fetched three more; but
before they came, they had launched their boat, and with a fair
southerly wind were gotten to Plimouth, where another of their
company died, his flesh being mortified with the frost; and the
two who went towards Plimouth died also, one of them being
not able to get thither, and the other had his feet so frozen as
he died of it after. The girl escaped best, and one Harwood,1
41 a godly man of the congregation of Boston, lay long
under the surgeon's hands; and it was above six weeks
1 Harwood was one of the earliest brethren of the church, being No. 27.
From the Colony Records, I. 82, it may be learned, that our court of assistants,
16 August following, ordered, " that the executors of Richard Garrett shall pay
unto Henry Harwood the sum of twenty nobles, according to the proportion
that the goods of the said Richard Garrett shall amount unto." This looks little like satisfaction of a debt, legally considered, and must, I think, be a provision, out of the estate of the dead, for the danger and suffering, into which the
living man had been led by him. As such it may be considered an imitation of
oriental jurisprudence.




1630.]                  JOHN WINTHROP.                            49
before they could get the boat from Plimouth; and in their return they were much distressed; yet their boat was very well
manned, the want whereof before was the cause of their loss.
January.]    A house at Dorchester was burnt down.
February 11.]     Mr. Freeman's' house at Watertown was
burned down, but, being in the daytime, his goods were saved.
5.]  The ship Lyon, Mr. William        Peirce, master, arrived at
Nantasket.    She brought Mr. Williams,2 (a godly 11 minis1 Samuel Freeman, I am told, came fiom Devonshire, and was one of the
chief planters at Watertown. His name is in the list of persons desiring to be
made freemen, Prince, II. 4; but the record of his admission I find not till
seven or eight years after. Tradition in the family informs of his return home.
His elder son, Henry, it is said, died in 1672, on the paternal estate, and that
branch of the family ceased with his grandchildren. Edmund Freeman, one
of the earliest settlers at Sandwich, assistant of Plimouth colony in 1640 and
following years, and John Freeman, one of the fathers of Eastham, assistant in
that colony in 1660 and following years, are by tradition reported to have been
brothers of this Watertown gentleman; but it is not known whether it were a
son or grandson Edmund, who in 1646 married Rebecca, daughter of Gov.
Prence, who had previously married his widowed mother. Part of the governour's estate at Eastham is still enjoyed by descendants of the Freeman race.
This name is extremely common in the county of Barnstable, and has sent out
its branches to other parts widely. My friend, the late Rev. Dr. James Freeman, who died 14 November, 1835, a most careful student of our geography,
and early history, was great, great, great grandson of the first Samuel. Watertown Records show, " Samuel, the son of Samuel and Apphia Freeman, born
11 (3), 1638."
2 The biography of Roger Williams deserved more attention than it had
thirty years ago received, but would lead me too far from my present undertaking, even were not the attempt to do full justice to his merit above my ability.
In our common books he is said to have studied at the University of Oxford,
and his life proves he had there learned more than in that day was commonly
taught. Had Belknap lived to enlarge the number of volumes of his American
Biography, his assidulity and judgment would have raised this pilgrim, whose
name for some generations was oppressed with calumny, to a rank inferior, non
longo intervallo, only to the two Winthrops, Brewster, Bradford, and Penn.
For the effect that bigotry and folly produced in Massachusetts, we refer to
Iubbard, 208, who transcribed his facts from Morton, and to Mather, too long
the chief authority in our ecclesiastical affairs, though justice was done nearly
one hundred and twenty years since by the reverend historian of Rhode Island.
From the utter condemnation that most of our theologians of the first and second
generation denounced against him, for vindicating the liberty of worshipping God
according to the light of conscience, Williams was partially preserved by an inconVOL. I.                      5




50                      JOHN WINTHROP.                        [1630.'42 ter, 1 1) with his wife, Mr. Throgmorton,2 [blank] Perkins,
II man 11
sistency, to which he was led in the latter years of his life by aversion to the Quakers; and this temporary change to intolerance gained him the title of " child
of light," which the blameless policy and virtue of a long administration in the
flourishing plantation of Providence had not deserved. The amiable historian
of Salem, and the author of New England Biographical Dictionary, were, in
our times, the first to confer due honour on his character. The examination
provoked by the former does little injury to any but the writer of Remarks in
1 Hist. Coll. VII. introd. Deficiency in all former accounts of this great, earliest assertor of religious freedom, has been well supplied by a gentleman,
whose elegance and perspicuity of style are fully known. Several quires
of original letters of Williams have been seen by me, transcribed by or for
the Rev. Mr. Greenwood of this city; and other materials are abundant.
He lived to a good old age, and deserves peculiar honour from virtuous politicians for his conduct to the Indians, and from men of science for his researches
into their language. In Benedict's General History of the Baptists, I. 473, it
is said, that he received a liberal education under the patronage of the great
Sir Edward Coke. The authority for this is the records of Williams's own
church at Providence. I have examined that volume, and regret to say, that it
was compiled within sixty years, probably by Gov. Hopkins. He is there said
to have studied the law with the same oracle, but, perhaps, it was rather under
his advice. The traditions in this case may be worth more than such traditions
usually are. Williams certainly displays a knowledge of general principles of
equity and jurisprudence beyond many practitioners of the science in that time,
after all allowances for his rigid rejection of many harmless points, which will
be disclosed in this History. From a memorandum on the back of a letter of
Williams to Mrs. Ann Sadler, about 1652, I ascertain, that the Lord Chief
Justice had favored him so far as to procure his admission at a school of high
distinction, called Sutton's Hospital, now the Charter House. Mrs. Sadler was
daughter of Sir Edward Coke. Letters of Williams and of Mrs. Sadler are-in
the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge. See Elton's Life of R. W., pp.
96-109.
1 In the original MS. this word has been tampered with, perhaps by some
zealot; yet it appears clearly enough to be Winthrop's usual abbreviation for
that which is restored in the text, and Prince read it as I do.
2 We may think, he was that George Thockmorton, freeman, 18 Iay, 1631;
yet his baptismal name may be John. John Throgmorton, from a note in
Hutchinson, I. 371, it appears, was thought, by the fiery Hugh Peter, worthy
of the same persecution that drove Williams to Providence. The original letter is preserved by our Historical Society. From Callender we learn, that he
followed his spiritual guide, and by him he is mentioned in a letter of 1638,
3 Hist. Coll. I. 172. The name is perpetuated at Salem, as the Rev. Dr. Bentley informed me, by Throgmorton's Cove.




1630.]                   JOHN WINTHROP.                            51
[blank]   Il Ong, 1   and   others, with    their wives    and   children, about twenty passengers, and about two hundred               43
tons of goods. She set sail from Bristol, December 1.
She had a very tempestuous passage, yet, through God's mercy, all her people came safe, except Way2 his son, who fell
from the spritsail yard in a tempest, and could not be recovered, though he kept in sight near a quarter of an hour. Her
goods also came all in good condition.
8.] The governour went aboard the Lyon, riding by Long
Island.
9.]  The Lyon came to an anchor before Boston, where she
rode very well, notwithstanding the great drift of ice.
10.]   The frost brake up; and after that, though we had
many 112 snows 11 and sharp frost, yet they continued not, neither
were the waters frozen up as before.        It hath been observed,
ever since this bay was planted3 by Englishmen, viz., seven
years, that at this day the frost hath broken up every year.
II Augre II                        1|2 storms II
1 This word has perplexed me much. It was certainly given wrong in the
former edition, for the first letter is a capital 0. Presuming that the others
were n, y, e, and that the governour wrote the word as frequently pronounced,
I once inserted Olney, with much confidence in the substitution, as by Salem
church Thomas Olney was excommunicated, Hutchinson, I. 371, for uniting in
the errors with Williams. But it is actually written Onge, a name so unusual,
that it was not adopted before I found, by Watertown Records, Frances Ong,
widow, buried 12 (9), 1638, and in our county Register, 1643, a mortgage to
the children of the deceased, and in 1646 a deed from Simon Onge of that
town.
Of Perkins, I am less able to speak with certainty, because the name is very
common, but conclude he was not the man designed in an order of our assistants, 3 April, 1632, "that no person whatsoever shall shoot at fowl upon Pullen
Point or Noddle's Island, but that the said places shall be preserved for John
Perkins to take fowl with nets," Mass. Rec. I. 85; for he is the same, whose
sentence for drunkenness is given by Hutchinson, I. 385. But the gentleman
mentioned in the text, probably, sat down, with Williams and his other fellow
passengers, at Salem; to confirm which opinion, the reverend historian of that
town assured me, that, from the earliest time, the name of Perkins has been
found in possession of estates in that part of Salem since become Topsfield.
2 Way was of Dorchester, as, I presume, the name again occurring, 26 July
next, refers to the same person, who was one of the principal men in that town.
3 This planting in Boston harbour deserves and will reward inquiry. In the




52                      JOHN WINTHROP.                        [1630.
*44   The poorer sort of people (who lay long in tents, etc.)
autumn of 1622 Weymouth, under the aboriginal name of Wessaguscus, WVessaguscusset, Wessagussett, Wichaguscussett, or Wessagusquassett, had been
planted by a small colony from England, sent by Thomas Weston; but the
settlement was broken up the following year. See Winslow's Relation, 1 Hist.
Coll. VIII. 248-271. A company under Capt. Robert Gorges, (son of Sir F.)
together with the Rev. William Morell, reoccupied the same spot in a few
months after. They, in November, 1623, lost all their goods and provisions at
Plimouth by fire, occasioned by the carelessness of the sailors celebrating, I
presume, the anniversary of the gunpowder plot with less discretion than loyalty. From this and other misfortunes, the design was next year relinquished.
See Bradford, in Prince, I. 141-144. Morell continued above a year in the
country, and wrote a poetical, but not very particular account of the land and
its productions, reprinted in English and Latin, 1 Hist. Coll. I. 125. Perhaps
some stragglers remained on the soil. In 1625 Mount Wollaston was occupied
by the captain of that name. This was in Quincy. Here was that disorderly
band, among whom Morton, of whom see page 34, exhibited his talent for mischief. This settlement, I believe, was permanent, though the high authority of
Gov. Dudley's Narrative, 1 Hist. Coll. VIII. 37, makes it vanish; and, if permanent, must be considered the oldest of Massachusetts colony, unless Weymouth should assert a claim of vitality through its state of suspended animation. Hubbard, 107, informs us, that, the same year, Nantasket was planted by
Lyford, Oldham, and Conant, persons discontented with the unseasonable
rigour of their brethren of Plimouth. Not long, however, did they remain
there; at least Lyford and Conant went to Cape Ann, where some gentlemen
of Dorchester, in Old England, attempted to establish a fishing station; but
Conant soon removed thence to Salem, where Endecott, in 1628, found him.
Hutchinson, I. 15, makes this last removal of Conant to be in the autumn of
1626, and adds, " I find mention made of planters at Winisimet about the same
time, who probably removed there from some of the other plantations."  From
Hubbard, 105, we learn, that David Thomson, a Scotchman, who had been sent
over in 1623 by Gorges, Mason, and their associates, and was seated at Piscataqua, " removed down into Massachusetts Bay within a year after." But I
doubt, that Hubbard, who is not usually precise, except when he copies, has
antedated this emigration of Thomson; for Gov. Bradford, in Prince, I. 161,
mentions his abiding at Piscataqua in 1626. The business, however, in which
he united, in tie summer of that year, with the Plimouth colonists, seems to
have been connected with an intention of seeking better quarters, which he
found in an island of our harbour that has ever since borne his name. This
island, with the neck of land (Squantum) on the neighbouring continent, Hubbard, from the Colony Records, says, " was confirmed to him and his heirs by
the court of Massachusetts."
Of the exact time when Maverick first pitched his tent on Noddle's Island,
or Thomas Walford at Charlestown, or William Blaxton at Boston, we shall,




1630.]                  JOHN WINTHROP.                            53
were much afflicted with the scurvy, and many died, espeprobably, remain forever uninformed. Walford was found in possession by the
Spragues, who went from Salem soon after arriving there in 1629. That Blaxton had occupied our peninsula several years, and with no slight advantage, we
may presume from the expenses assessed on the several plantations, from Plimouth northward, for the campaign against Morton at Merry Mount, in 1628; his
proportion, though the least, being more than one third of that to be paid by
the settlers at Salem, before the coming of Endecott. With him, too, was probably included the Winisimet people, if there were any, and Walford and
Maverick, if they had dwellings.  The apportionment of the charges, from
Bradford, in 1 Hist. Coll. III. 63, is interesting:Plimouth......         ~2.10    Natascot...... ~1.10
Naumkeak.....         1.10   Thomson...... 0.15
Pascataquack.....         2.10    Blaxton.....    0.12
Jeffrey and Burslem... 2.00    Edward Hilton.... 1.00
Total.... ~12.7
It is not in my power to determine the residence of Jeffery and Burslem, but
conjecture would fix it either at Cape Ann, or, more probably, Weymouth,
from the latter town a Mr. Bursley being found a deputy so early as 1636.
Blaxton removed a few years after Winthrop's arrival, and seated himself
about thirty-five miles to the southward, near the place which the famous Roger
Williams soon rendered illustrious by the name of Providence, where a river,
which flows into the harbour of that city, still bears the name of this pilgrim.
See a memoir in 2 Hist. Coll. X. 170, which gives the time of his death 26
May, 1675, and contains all that the assiduous antiquary of Plimouth could
rescue from the shades of forgetfulness. I am able to add only, that by our
Colony Records he took the freeman's oath 18 May, 1631, being the first admission, and that in our Town Records it appears he "was married to Sarah
Stephenson, widow, 4 July, 1659, by John Endecott, governour. He well improved his new estate, and the apples on his farm were long in high repute.
2 Hist. Coll. IX. 174.
An approximation to the time of Blaxton's coming to Boston is easily
obtained. Lechford, who wrote in 1641, thus speaks of him: " One Mr. Blaxton, a minister, went from Boston, having lived there nine or ten years, because
he would not join with the church; he lives near Mr. Williams, but is far from
his opinions." Now, to ascertain when he withdrew from this spot first planted
by him, is all that remains, and we may find reason, I believe, to reckon it the
spring of 1635. That he was unjustly driven away, is an opinion not to be
entertained for a moment. As all the right of soil, which the government at
home could give, was by the charter given to our governour and company, we
shall be convinced of the equity in their treatment, by reading their Records,
I. 97. At a court, 1 April, 1633, "It is agreed, that Mr. Wm. Blaxton shall
5*




54                      JOHN WINTHROP.                        [1630.`5   cially at Boston and Chariestown;l but when this ship
came and 1] brought store 11 of juice of lemons, many recovered speedily.    It hath been always observed here, that such
as fell into discontent, and lingered after their former conditions in England, fell into the scurvy and died.
18.]   Capt. Welden,2 a hopeful young gentleman, and an
experienced soldier, died at Charlestown of a consumption,
and was buried at Boston with a military funeral.
Of the old planters, and such as came the year before, there
Ijbrought us good storesll
have fifty acres of ground set out for him near to his house in Boston to enjoy
forever."  All this right be sold next year to the other inhabitants, of whom
none, now recollected, had so large a portion. See the depositions of Odlin,
Walker, Hudson and Letherland about this purchase, 2 Hist. Coil. IV. 202.
This evidence, taken after the tyrannical proceedings in chancery in 1683,
against our charter, showed that all titles were in danger on our side of the
ocean, states the price agreed to be six shillings for every householder in town,
still reserving six acres for the grantor. The Town Records of that day, on
the second surviving page, confirm the evidence; "10 November, 1634, at a
general meeting upon public notice, it was agreed that Edmund Quincy, Samuel Wilbore, William Balstone, Edward Hutchinson the elder, and William
Cheeseborough the constable, shall make and assess all these rates, viz., a rate
for ~30 to Mr. Blaxton, a rate for cow's keeping, etc., etc." This sum was,
undoubtedly, the consideration for his sale, and, taking from the depositions the
proportion for each, would show the number of householders one hundred. I
desire the reader to correct an error in Shaw's Description of Boston, 308,
where he has Blactcstone, instead of Balstone, one of a committee in this month
to divide the lands among the inhabitants. Blaxton, probably removed the
following spring. If so, and he had resided here as long as Lechford, who visited him at his new plantation, reports, he arrived at Boston in 1625 or 1626.
Mr. Felt thinks, he arrived in 1623, with Robert Gorges; and my opinion is
that he came not before 1625, and with Capt. Wollaston. Perhaps he abandoned lis associates at Braintree, when they received Morton. He was of
Emanuel College, Cambridge, where, on taking his degrees of A. B. and A.
M., 1617 and 1621, he subscribed the requisite declarations, as I saw the signatures, by his own hand, William Blaxton.
1 This is the first instance of thus spelling the name.
2 By Dudley, 1 Hist. Coll. VIII. 45, the loss of this gentleman is lamented in
these terms: " Amongst others, who died about this time, was Mr. Robert Welden, who, in the time of his sickness, we had chosen to be captain of one hundred
foot, but before he took possession of his place, he died, the sixteenth of February,.and was buried as a soldier, with three vollies of shot." Our MS. is very plain




1630.]                 JOHN WINTHROP.                           55
were but two, (and those servants,) which had the scurvy.46
in all the country.  At Plimouth not any had it, I1 no not 11
of those, who came this year, whereof there were above sixty.
Whereas, at their first planting II 2there,ll near the half of their
people died of it.
A shallop of Mr. Glover's1 was cast away upon the rocks
about Nahant, but the men were saved.
Of those which went back in the ships this summer, for fear
of death or famine, etc., many died by the way and after they
were landed, and others fell very sick and low, etc.
The Ambrose, whereof Capt. Lowe was master, being new
masted at Charlton, spent all her masts near Newfoundland,
and had perished, if Mr. Peirce, in the Lyon, who was her consort, had not towed her home to Bristol.      Of the other ships2
which returned, three, viz., the Charles, the Success, and the
Whale, were set upon by Dunkirkers, near Plimouth in England, and after long fight, having lost many men, and being
much torn, (especially the Charles,) they gat into Plimouth.
The provision, which came to us this year, came at excessive rates, in regard of the dearness of corn in England, so as
every bushel of wheat-meal stood us in fourteen shillings, peas
eleven shillings, etc.  Tonnage was at ~6.11.3
11 nor out 11                       112 time II
in its date, and the discrepancy may be reconciled by referring it to the funeral
honours, though Prince, II. 20, was not of this opinion. No. 91 of the members of Boston church is, " Elizabeth Welden, gone to Watertown," perhaps
the widow of the captain.
1 John Glover was one of the chief men of Dorchester, and many times a
deputy in the general court, from which station his services raised him to be an
assistant. Johnson, lib. I. chap. xiv. calls him " a man strong for the truth, a
plain, sincere, godly man, and of good abilities."
2 A strange misapprehension by Hubbard, 140, who postpones to the following spring the voyage of these ships returning in the autumn, after bringing to
this country the colony, with the relation of which our History begins, arose
solely from his failing to observe, that the report of their disasters was brought
hither by the Lyon, which, after towing one of them, the Ambrose, home, had
left England, 1 December. His mistake would have been impossible, had he,
as Prince, II. 19, combined the more perspicuous narrative of Dudley, on this
subject, with that of Winthrop.
3 We find this last sentence in the margin of the original MS. The extrem



56                      JOHN WINTHROP.                        [1630.`7      22.]  We held a day of thanksgiving for this ship's arrival, by order from the governour and council, directed to
all the plantations.
ity of want here, before the arrival of the Lyon, may be judged of from the
anticipations announced by Winthrop in his letters. See Appendix. Mather
says, probably from tradition, that the governour " was distributing the last
handful of meal in the barrel unto a poor man distressed by the wolf at the
door;" and the language of Capt. Clap, one of the sufferers, Prince I. 10, is
much more satisfactory, because less figurative. Having been furnished with
an original letter of the venerable John Rogers, of Dedham in Old England,
father of our Nathaniel, addressed, probably, in November, 1630, to John Winthrop, jun., at Bristol,'" or, in his absence, to Mr. Pelham of Buers," on this
foreseen evil, I think it worth insertion: -
" Good Mr. Winthrop, —I hope you have my letters with certain moneys
that I sent to you to intreat you, of all love, to provide some little matter of
butter and meal for such as I named, wherein I earnestly entreat your loving
faithfulness and care to procure it and direct it to them, to Jeffery Ruggles, late
of Sudbury, he is the chief. But this day I have received so lamentable a letter from one John Page, late of Dedham, that hath his wife and two children
there, and he certifies me, that unless God stir up some friends to send him
some provision, he is like to starve. Now I pity the man much, and have sent
you twenty shillings, entreating you, for God's sake, to provide such a barrel of
meal as this money will reach unto, and direct it over to John Page with this
my letter enclosed. In which I pray God move your heart to be very careful,
for it stands upon their lives; and it cuts me to the heart to hear that any of
our neighbours should be like to famish. If we could possibly help to prevent
it, I should be glad. So, ceasing to trouble you farther, I commend you and
the weighty business you are about to the blessing of Almighty God, who speed
it happily.
" I sent a letter to your father, which was directed to Mr. Harwood. I beseech you be a help to the safe sending of it.
Your worship's in the Lord,
JOHN ROGERS.
" Good Mr. Pelham,- If, in lMr. Winthrop's absence, this letter should come
to your hand, I beseech you, good Sir, that you would be so good as fulfil the
contents of it. I shall be much thankful unto you."
Ruggles died before the relief left England, as appears by letter of the Governour in the Appendix.
The Charlestown Records mention, that a fast had been appointed for the
next day after this ship's coming, but this happy arrival caused the government
to order a thanksgiving.
I have the original bill of Capt. Peirce for the governour's stores, as follows:



1630.]                     JOHN WINTHROP.                            57
[March 16.]     About noon the chimney of Mr. Sharp's' 48
Provisions to be imade at Bristol for the worshipful John TWinthr1op, Governour.
~. s.d.
Wheat meal, 34 hhds. cont'g 8 bushels per hhd. at 8s. 6d. per bush. 115. 2.0
Peas, 15 hhds. cont'g 7 bushels, at 6s. per bushel..     32. 2.0
Oatmeal, 4 hhds. cont'g 32 bushels, at 10s. per bushel.... 16. 0.0
Beef and pork, 4 hhds............... 24. 0.0
Cheese, 15 cwt. at 30s. per cwt. cask and all.......       22.10.0
Butter, 5 kinderkins, at 38s............                    9.10.0
Suet, 6 firkins................        8. 0.0
Seed barley, 14 bushels...............                     2.16.0
Seed rye, 1 hhd................                           1.10.0
Oakum, 1 cwt................                           0.12.0
For 20 (unknown) of cask, at 14s............                 7. 0.0
For haling, craneing, and lightering, at 2s. 8d........    2.13.4
For one half freight...............                        40. 0.0
280.11.4
More paid out to the apothecary for provision, for the cask...  6. 6.4
Paid out for Samuel Sampson for his passage.......   3. 0.0
Paid him more for to bring him up to London.....10.0
Paid more for him for physic and diet at Bristol.....       2.10.0
Paid for 300 trees.........                 6. 0.0
299.17.8
1 Thomas Sharp, Esq., was an assistant chosen in England, and probably a
passenger in the fleet with Winthrop; for he was present at the first court here,
and the last in England on board the Arbella. He is the sixth member of Boston church. We conclude, that he made no preparations for rebuilding his
house; for in a fortnight after this disaster he left America, and no account of
his return is known. Nor was this the only misfortune that might induce him
to go home: the death of his daughter, perhaps, had before fixed his resolution,
if she deserved to be valued above, or even equally, with the wives of Johnson,
Phillips, Coddington, and Pynchon, as by Dudley, 1 Hist. Coll. VIII. 44: " Upon
the third of January died the daughter of Mr. Sharp, a godly virgin, making a
comfortable end, after a long sickness. The plantation here received not the
like loss of any woman, since we came hither, and therefore she well deserves
to be remembered in this place."
Another Sharp, Samuel, perhaps brother of Thomas, had been, in England,
chosen an assistant, but was superseded before embarking, because the company
then designed to consider themselves a corporation in London. They, however,
desired Endecott to regard him as united in the commission with others, for his
advisers. He accompanied Skelton in the George Bonadventure, and while on
his passage, the deed of the Indian sachems to Wheelwright and others of the




58                      JOHN WINTHROP.                        [1630.
house in Boston      took fire,1 (the splinters being    not clayed
at the top,) and taking the thatch burnt it down, and the wind
being N. W., drove the fire to Mr. Colburn's house, being [blank]
rods off, and burnt that down also, yet they saved most of their
goods.
23.]   Chickatabot2 came with his sannops and squaws, and
presented the governour with a 1| hogshead 11 of Indian corn.
49   After they had all dined, and had each a small cup of sack
and beer, and the men tobacco, he sent away all his men
and women, (though the governour would have stayed them,
in regard of the rain and thunder).       Himself and one squaw
and one sannop stayed all night, and, being in English clothes,
the governour set him at his own table, where he behaved himself as soberly, etc., as an Englishman. The next day after
dinner he returned 1 2home, 1 the governour giving him        cheese
and peas and a mug and some other small things.
II bushel 11                          112 here ll
lower part of New Hampshire, to which his name as a witness is forged, purports to be executed. His friends, I presume, were restrained from choosing
him an assistant again by that scruple, of the propriety of uniting in the same
person the offices of ruling elder and magistrate, which compelled Nowell to
forego the least honourable service. Elder Sharp died in 1658, as the historian
of Salem writes, 1 Hist. Coll. VI. 243.
1 Gov. Dudley's account of this fire, 1 Hist. Coll. VIII. 46, seems worth
transcribing, with the judicious comment: "The like accident of fire also befel
Mr. Sharp and Mr. Colburn, upon the seventeenth of this March; both whose
houses (which were as good and as well furnished as the most in the plantation)
were in two hours' space burned to the ground, together with much of their
household stuff, apparel, and other things; as also some goods of others, who
sojourned With them in their houses; God so pleasing to exercise us with corrections of this kind, as he hath done with others. For the prevention whereof
in our new town, intended this summer to be builded, we have ordered, that no
man there shall build his chimney with wood, nor cover his house with thatch,
which was readily assented unto; for that divers other houses have been burned
since our arrival."
2 This sachem lived near the Neponset Piver, probably on the eastern side,
as there Wood, in his map, 1634, places his wigwam, but his power, no doubt,
reached several miles around. Dudley, who calls him Chickatalbot, says, he
oppressed Weston's plantation, and intended to destroy it. Notice of his death
will be found November, 1633. His son, Josiah, grandson, Jeremy, and great
grandson, Charles Josiah, succeeded in the humble sovereignty. See the excellent History of Dorchester, 1 Hist. Cell. IX. 160, 161.




1631.]                  JOHN WINTHROP.                             59
26.] John' Sagamore and James his brother, with divers
sannops, came to the governour to desire his letter for recovery
of twenty beaver skins, which one Watts in England had
forced him    of.   The governor entertained them        kindly, and
gave him    his letter with directions to Mr. Downing2 in England, etc.
The night before, alarm was given in divers of the plantations.   It arose through the shooting off' some pieces at Watertown, by occasion of a calf, which 11 Sir Richard Saltonstallll
had lost; and the soldiers were sent out with their pieces to
I 2tryII the wilderness from thence till they might find it.
29.]   Sir Richard Saltonstall and his two daughters, and one
of his younger sons, (his two eldest sons remained still in the
country,) came down to Boston, and stayed that night at the
governour's, and the next morning, by seven of the clock, accompanied with Mr. Peirce and others in two shallops, they
departed to go to the ship riding at Salem.           The gov-     50
ernour gave them      three l 3 drakes 113 at their setting sail,
II blank II         12 search 11         II3 ducks 11
1 In assigning the residence of these Indians to the neighbourhood of Watertown, or between the Charles and Mistick Rivers, I rely on my slight information of them. A few days before, this Sagamore with one of his subjects had
made complaint of the burning of two of their wigwams, of which an account
is given by Dudley; but Prince, II. 21, from the Colony Records, enlarges the
information by the circumstance, that Sir R. Saltonstall was ordered to make
satisfaction, which he did by seven yards of cloth, because the mischief had
been occasioned by one of his servants.
2 Emanuel Downing was of the Inner Temple, and related to Winthrop by
marriage of his sister, Lucy. Before coming over, he sent three of his children.
In our Church Records, under November, 1633, I find, "Mary Downing, kinswoman to our brother John Winthrop, governour," admitted, No. 182. From
several letters brought by her, I am satisfied, she was the daughter of this gentleman. He lived several years, in great esteem, at Salem, which he often represented in the general court, and was father of the celebrated Sir George
Downing, ambassador both of Cromwell and Charles II. in Holland, of whom
mention will be found in the second volume of this History. Ann, the youngest daughter of Emanuel, was the second wife of the venerable Gov. Bradstreet;
but as the first died so late as 16 September, 1672, I presume the second gave
no increase to the governour's family. She had been wife of that Capt. Gardner, killed in Philip's war, at the great swamp fight, 19 December, 1675.
8 To mention, that discharges of artillery are intended by this phrase,




60                       JOHN WINTHROP.                         [1631.
the wind being N. W. a stiff gale and          full sea.   Mr. Sharp
went away at the same time in another shallop.
About ten of the clock, IMr. Coddington' and Mr. Wilson,
and divers of the congregation, met at the governour's, and
there Mr. Wilson, praying and exhorting the congregation to
love, etc., commended to them       the exercise of prophecy2 in his
absence, and designed those whom         he thought most fit for it,
viz., the governour, Mr. Dudley,3 and        Mr. Nowell the elder.
would be unnecessary, had not the erroneous reading of the former edition
permitted a careless reader to suppose, that birds were given for food on the
voyage.
1 William Coddington, whose name is sometimes spelt Cottington, probably
from the sound resembling that of Lord Cottington, then of the privy council,
was a gentleman of great estate and influence in Boston, where, it is said by
Callender, he built the first brick house. He was one of the earliest assistants,
treasurer of the colony for some time, and is always mentioned with great
esteem by our author, until the unhappy separation caused by the antinomian
controversy. His name as a member of our church is not earlier than No. 92,
and that of his wife, who died in the first season, is not found. On his return
from England, in 1633, he brought another wife, Mlary, who is among our church
members No. 158. Besides what may be learned of him from these pages, the
Biographical Dictionaries of Eliot and Allen, and still more the candid century
discourse of the modest historian of Rhode Island, dedicated to his grandson,
give ample attestation to the talents and integrity of Coddington, who was the
father of that colony, and many years its governour.
2 After Wilson's departure, only the churches of Salem, Dorchester, and
Watertown were supplied with pastors. Since Dorchester had two ministers,
WVarham and MIaverick, it may appear strange, that one of them was not spared
for a season to the principal congregation in the colony, including the dwellers
at Boston, Charlestown, and Newtown  but perhaps their duties were so diverse,
as pastor and teacher, that each was considered as necessary as either. The
people of Roxbury had now, indeed, united themselves to Dorchester, as their
church records show, Prince, II. 64, yet in November before, we may be sure,
from their assessment, Prince, II. 6, they had been part of TTilson's charge.
This "exercise of prophecy," or office of preaching, was well entrusted, however, to the three eldest magistrates, though the instructions of Dudley and
Nowell were probably rendered less serviceable by their severe tempers than
the nmild wisdom of Winthrop.
3 Of Thomas Dudley, little information should be expected in the narrow
limits of this note. Something may be learned fiom lMather, though his habit
of intermeddling in politics, 1 Hist. Coll. II. 137, made the governour's family,
probably, distrustful of his authority, and therefore the Magnalia contains this
curious passage: "I had prepared and intended a more 1articular account of




1631.]                   JOHN WINTHROP.                              61
Then he desired the governour to commend himself and,51
the rest to God by prayer; which being done, they accomthis gentleman; but not having any opportunity to commit it unto the perusal
of any descended from him, (unto whom I am told it will be unacceptable for
me to publish anything of this kind, by them not perused,) I have laid it aside,
and summed all up in this more general account."
Being the first deputy governour in the colony, many years governour, and,
when he filled neither of these offices, one of the assistants, his history must be
embodied in that of his country; and the diligence of Eliot has gleaned almost
all that the Records omitted. A hardness in public, and rigidity in private life,
are too observable in his character, and even an eagerness for pecuniary gain,
which might not have been expected in a soldier and a statesman. Gov. Belcher wrote an epitaph for him:Here lies Thomas Dudley, that trusty old stud,
A bargain's a bargain, and must be made good.
Dudley lost, in 1643, the wife he brought over, of whose children are known,
Samuel, Ann, Patience, Mercy, and Sarah; but he married again the next year,
and the celebrated Gov. Joseph was child of the second wife. Perhaps he had,
older or younger than Samuel, Thomas, bred at Emanuel, where he took his
degrees 1626 and 1630; but certainly he did not come to our country. Samuel
married Mary, daughter of Gov. Winthrop, in 1632, I presume, for she was
received of the church, as his wife, in this year, and our Records verify the
baptisms of their children, Thomas, 9 March, 1634; John, 28 June, 1635;
Samuel, 2 August, 1639. Why these children were baptized here, when the
father was not a church member, though the mother was, must be referred to a
liberality of practice much controverted in after times, and even to the present day.  He was some time at Salisbury, and deputy from that town 1641,
settled at Exeter in 1650, where he was a preacher, and is called a person of
good capacity and learning. Belknap's New Hampshire, I. 48, in note.
His daughter, Ann, married, at sixteen years of age, to Bradstreet, before
our colonists left England, bore him eight children. She is the most distinguished
of the early matrons of our land by her literary powers, of which proof is given
in a volume of poems, the second edition of which, printed at Boston, 1678, by
John Foster, in a very respectable 12mo of 255 pages, is now before me. It
does credit to her education, and is a real curiosity, though no reader, free from
partiality or friendship, might coincide in the conmmendation of the fineral elogy
by Rev. John Norton:Could Maro's muse but hear her lively strain,
He would condemn his works to fire again.
Her breast was a brave palace, a broad street,
Where all heroic ample thoughts did meet,
Where nature such a tenement had ta'en,
That other souls, to hers, dwelt in a lane.
VOL. I.                        6




62                      JOHN WINTHROP.                        [1631.
panied him to the boat, and so they went over to Charlestown
to go by land' to the ship.      This ship set sail from     Salem,
>52  April 1, and arrived at London (all safe) April 29.2
April.]   The beginning     of this month     we had    very
much rain and warm weather.         It is a general rule, that when
the wind blows twelve hours in any part of the east, it brings
rain or snow in great abundance.
4.]  Wahginnacut, a sagamore upon the River Quonehtacut
which lies west of Naragancet, came to the governour at Boston, with John    Sagamore, and Jack       Straw, (an Indian, who
had lived in England    and had served Sir Walter Raleigh, and
was now     turned Indian    again,) and divers of their sannops,
and brought a letter to the governour from         Mr. Endecott to
this effect: That the said Wahginnacut was very desirous to
have some Englishmen to come plant in his country, and offered to find them corn, and give them yearly eighty skins of
beaver, and that the country was very fruitful, etc., and wished
that there might be two men sent with him to see the country.
The governour entertained them        at dinner, but would send
none with him.      He discovered after, that the said sagamore
Patience was wife of Major Gen. Denison; Mercy, of Rev. John Woodbridge;
and Sarah was the unhappy partner of Major Benjamin Keayne, and more
unhappy after his repudiation of her, though a new husband was procured.
The grandson, Thomas, was graduated at Harvard College in 1651, fourteen
years before his uncle Joseph, and died in 1655. His will comes but a few
pages after that of his grandfather in our first volume of Records. Of so distinguished descendants as the sons of the second governour, Paul, chief justice
of the province, and William, speaker of the representatives, it cannot be
necessary to speak. Eliot has done better than any one else will ever attempt.
1 That is, to Salem. Dudley's letter went by this ship, in which were embarked Coddington and Wilson, as well as Sharp and Saltonstall with three
of his children. The two first returned soon; the others came no more. So
many persons of distinction went in this vessel, that the court's order, of 1
March preceding, for the transportation of some unquiet spirits, I imagine,
could not be thoroughly executed. Mr. Aleworth, Mr. Weaver, Mr. Plastow,
Mr. Shuter, Cobbet, Wormewood, Sir Chr. Gardiner, and Mr. Wright, " or so
many of them as the ship can carry," were ordered to be sent to England " as
persons unmeet to inhabit here."  The knight, who caused so much uneasiness,
and Plastow, are afterwards named in the Records as present, though Hutchinson hastily gave Gardiner passage in this ship.
2 This sentence is by the governour given in the margin.




1631.]                  JOHN WINTHROP.                             63
is a very treacherous man, and at war with the Pekoath (a far
greater sagamore).      His country is 1 not abovell five days'
journey from us by land.
12.]   At a court holden at Boston, (upon information to the
governour, that they of Salem had called1 Mr. Williams to the
office of a teacher,) a letter was written from the court to Mr.
Endecott to this effect: That whereas Mr. Williams had refused to join with the [1 2congregation 11 at Boston, because they    *53
would not make a public declaration of their repentance for
having communion with the churches of England, while they
[| 8lived 11 there; and, besides, had declared his opinion, that the
magistrate might not punish the breach of the Sabbath, nor
any other offence, 114as it     was a breach of the first table;2
therefore, they marvelled they would choose him         without advising with the council; and withal desiring him, that they
would forbear to proceed till they had conferred about it.8
11 at about I1  112 churches II   113 tarried II   114 that I1
1 In opposition to this extraordinary interference, as we should now think it,
of the civil power in election of a church officer, Bentley informs us, the congregation of Salem received him, on this same day, as teacher. He succeeded
Higginson, the time of whose death is mistaken by that author, 1 Hist. Coll.
VI. 244. Certainly it was not 15 March, 1630, unless Dudley, 1 Hist. Coll. VIII.
40, Hubbard, 120, and the Memorialist of Plimouth, are in a strange error.
Hubbard's precise date, 6 August, is probable, as it differs little, if at all, from
Dudley, and is consistent with Morton. See mention of his death in a letter of
our author, 9 September, 1630, in Appendix. At what time the violence of
opposition, by such as had no real interest in the transaction, caused Williams
to separate from his affectionate people, does not clearly appear; but in this
History it will appear, that he was driven out of the jurisdiction, and had found
refuge at Plimouth, before 25 October, 1632.
2 All, who are inclined to separate that connection of secular concerns with
the duties of religion, to which most governments, in all countries, have been too
much disposed, will think this opinion of Roger Williams redounds to his
praise. The laws of the first table, or the four commandments of the decalogue first in order, should be rather impressed by early education than by
penal enactments of the legislature; and the experience of Rhode Island and
other States of our Union is perhaps favorable to the sentiment of this earliest
American reformer. By a restoration of the true reading in the text, the sentiment is made more distinct. Too much regulation was the error of our fathers,
who were perpetually arguing from analogies in the Levitical institutions, and
encumbering themselves with the yoke of Jewish customs.
3 From the Records of the Colony, I. 71, I introduce another sentence of




64                      JOHN WINTHROP.                       [1631,
13.]   Chickatabot came to the governour, and desired to buy
some English clothes for himself.       The governour told him,
that English sagamores did not use to truck; but he called his
tailor and   gave him    order to make him      a suit of clothes;
a5    whereupon he gave the governour two large skins of coat
beaver, and, after he and his men had dined, they departed,
and said he would come again three days after for his suit.
14.]  *We began a court of guard upon the neck between
Roxbury and Boston, whereupon should be always resident an
officer and six men.*
An order was made        last court, ~ that no man should discharge a piece after sunset, except by occasion of alarm.
15.]   Chickatabot came to the governour again, and he put
him into a very good new suit from head to foot, and after he
set meat before them; but he would not eat till the governour
had given thanks, and after meat he desired him to do the like,
and so departed.
this court: " Thomas Walford of Charlton is fined ~10, and is enjoined, he and
his wife, to depart out of the limits of this patent before the 20th day of October next, under pain of confiscation of his goods, for his contempt of authority
and confronting officers, etc." This severity must be regretted; for he was the
first Englishman at that place, being by the Spragues (who went thither, in
1629, from Endecott's company at Salem) found there a smith; but it is not
told for whom he was labouring. Prince, I. 175, from the Records of the town.
Walford was, however, a valuable man at Piscataqua, being one of two trustees
or wardens for the church property. Conf. Hubbard, 220, and 1 Hist. Coll. X.
64. In a record of the court, only a month later than that in the text, I observe, that, being fined ~2, " he paid it by killing a wolf." But our rulers distrusted him; for, 3 September, 1633, "it is ordered, that the goods of Thomas
Walford shall be sequestered and remain in the hands of Ancient Gennison, to
satisfy the debts he owes in the bay to several persons." John Walforl, probably a son of this person, was by the king named, in 1692, one of the council to
Gov. Allen. Belknap's N.H. I. 193. One Jane Walford, perhaps the wife of
Thomas, was, in 1656, persecuted by her neighbours as a witch, and, ten or
twelve years later, recovered damages against one for calling her by that odious
name.
At the same court, in an action of battery by Thomas Dexter against Endecott, a jury was empanneled, and their names are given, whose verdict was ~10
damages. For an account of this strange affair, see the very curious letter of
the defendant, Hutchinson's Coll. 52, in which the meek ruler of Salem permits himself to say, "If it were lawful to try it at blows, and he a fit man for
me to deal with, you should not hear me complain."




1631.]                   JOHN WINTHROP.                             65
21.]   The house of John Page       of Watertown was burnt by
carrying a few coals from    one house to another: a coal fell by
the way and kindled in the leaves.
One'Mr. Gardiner, (calling himself* Sir Christopher Gardiner,2 knight of the golden 1I melice, I1) being accused to have.55
two wives in England, was sent for; but he had intelligence, and escaped, and travelled up and down among the InI| blank I1
1 John Page is among the first freemen, admitted at the general court of all
the company next month, when the number was 118, not 110, as Johnson, lib.
I. c. 17, has it. He fell into another error, in mistaking the desire to become
freemen, expressed at the court in October preceding, for the admission. From
Prince, II. 29, who makes only 116 take the oath of freemen, the reason of my
differing is, that I count, in the original Record of the Colony, two more names,
viz., Robert Coles and Thomas Dexter, which indeed were afterwards erased,
but it is evident that they could not have been inserted by the secretary, unless
justly entitled to the place. Besides, there is the old enumeration of the three
columns of names, 44, 40, and 34, to make up my reckoning. We know, that
Dexter was disfranchised some years after, and Coles probably was.
Of Page, I know only what is given in the fine letter of Rogers on p. 47;
that he was of Dedham in Old England, and had, on coming over, a wife and
two children; and, from the Colony Records, that, at the first general court, in
October, 1630, held at Boston, he was made constable of Watertown; and,
from the Watertown Records of Births, " Daniel, the son of John and Phebe
Page, born 10 August, 1634."
2 I apprehend, that the original cause of dislike to Sir Chr. Gardiner by our
colonists, or of his enmity to the company, must be forever left to uncertain
conjecture. He arrived, probably, in 1630, but at which plantation, or in what
vessel, our early writers leave us uninformed. " Some miscarriages, for which
he should have answered," is the doubtful phrase, in which Morton assigns the
reason of his flight from Massachusetts; and Hubbard, 149-153, who does some
service by correcting the chronology of the Plimouth historian, has enlarged his
slender narrative only by an humble sarcasm. The accusation mentioned in the
text should have been supported by a warrant from England to arrest the culprit; but as no such legal cause of imprisonment is noted, and he seems to have
escaped, on returning to England, any suspicion or even inquiry, we may safely
conclude, that Gardiner's disaffection to the worship of our churches first rendered him obnoxious to the charge of popery, for which the evidence afterwards appeared sufficient. The letter of Winthrop to Bradford, 5 May, the
day after the prisoner's arrival, preserved in Prince, II. 27, was composed in a
temper, the mildness of which scarcely comports with the writer's belief of the
misconduct imputed to the knight by the later historian. See two letters, written from Bristol, 1632, to London, by Thomas Wiggin, in which Gardiner's
6*




66                       JOHN WINTHROP.                        [1631.
dians about a [ month; 1] but, by means of the governour of
Plimouth, he was taken ~by the Indians~ about Namasket,'
and brought to Plimouth, and from thence he was brought, by
Capt. Underhill2 and his Lieut. Dudley,3 May 4, to Boston.
16.]   There was an alarm    given to all our towns in the night,
by occasion of a piece which was shot off, (but where could.
not be known,) and the Indians having sent us word the day
before, that the Mohawks were coming            down against them
and us.
17.4]   A  general court at Boston.       The former governour
was chosen again, and all the freemen of the commons were
I| week I
case is treated of, after his arrival in England. They are printed in 3 Mass.
Hist. Coll. VIII. 320 et seq.
Dudley, in his letter to the Countess of Lincoln, informs her, that " G.
arrived here a month before us;" and so we may infer, that he had come in
Pierce's ship, the Lion, with fellow passengers of a soberer life. About the two
wives, he was quite free in relation, as also, how G. avoided the arrest by the
messengers sent to his house, " which was seven miles from" Boston, probably
on the south side of Neponset. D. mentions the arrest of a young woman, who
had accompanied G. from England, not being either of the wives. Having extorted confession fiom this paramour, they sent her for examination, to London,
in the same ship with Saltonstall, Coddington, and Wilson.
1 This name belonged to part of the tract, now included in Middleborough;
but the lines of Indian geography were probably not very precise, or are forgotten.
2 Of John Underhill, his errors, fanaticism, and hypocrisy, sufficient notice
will be found in subsequent pages, and in most of the early histories of our
country; but all, I think, derived from this work. He was early a member-of
our Boston church, being No. 57, and one of the first deputies in the general
court. After removal from Massachusetts to Piscataqua, where he staid not
long, he was living in good repute at New Haven colony, as is proved by his
election as a representative from Stamford in 1643, Trumbull, I. 124, and by
Gov. Welles's letter, eleven years later, in Hutchinson's Coll. 253. In 1655 he
dwelt on Long Island, as appears in Haz. I. 341.
3 This is thought to be that son of Gov. Dudley, who married Winthrop's
daughter, mentioned in note on page 51. He died, probably, at Exeter, in
1683. New Hamp. Hist. Coll. H. 238. Mather does not rank him with the
ministers.
4 Prince, II. 28, remarks the error of this date. The court was held on 18th,
being the day prescribed by the charter.




1631.]                  JOHN WINTHROP.                             67
sworn to this government.       At noon, Cheeseborough's1 house
was burnt down, all the people being present.
27.]   There came from      Virginia into Salem    a pinnace`56
of eighteen tons, laden with corn and tobacco. She was
bound to the north, and put in there by foul weather. She sold
her corn at ten shillings the bushel.
June 14.]     At a court, John      Sagamore    and   Chickatabot
being told at last court of some injuries that their men did to
our cattle, and giving consent to make satisfaction, etc., now
one of their men was complained of for shooting a pig, etc.,
for which    Chickatabot was ordered to pay a small skin of
beaver, which he presently paid.
At this court one Philip Ratcliff,2 a servant of Mr. Cradock,
1 William Cheeseborough, or Chesbrough, was one of the earliest members of
Boston church, and in 1634 chosen constable of the town. He moved soon
after to Mount Wollaston, where he lived several years, and had a considerable
estate. His character is known, by being one of the two appointed for Boston,
to unite with committees from other towns in advising the governour and council about raising a public stock, as hereafter mentioned in this History, May,
1632. That measure, as Prince supposed, was, undoubtedly, the natural introduction of a house of representatives. In October, 1640, he was deputy for.
Braintree, and the same person, whom Trumbull, I. 234, makes first planter of
Stonington, coming thither from Rehoboth in 1649. He had some trouble in
Connecticut about title to his lands, but soon prevailed; and among the principal people, enumerated soon after by the same author, are William, Elisha, and
Samuel Cheeseborough, the two latter being his sons. I find, however, William
witness to a deed of land in or near Rehoboth, so late as 1658; yet the distance
in those days was thought so little of, that we may suppose he was on a short
visit to old neighbours. Descendants are found in Connecticut.
2 A foreign hand has inserted in the text the Christian name of the culprit;
but as it is true, we should not complain of the interpolation. In our Colonial
Records, vol. I. 86, is found the sentence, as in the governour's text, with an
addition of some importance, - a fine of ~40. The offence is there stated, with
a little more precision, " for uttering malicious and scandalous speeches against
the government, and the church of Salem, etc., as appeareth by a particular
thereof proved upon oath." No trace of this evidence is known, and the etc.
must go unexplained, though the proof would be quite curious, if we may trust
the brother libeller, Morton, who represents Ratcliff, by the name of " Mr. Innocence Faircloth, by Mr. Mathias Charterparty sent over," as an injured man,
whose chief offence was, asking payment of his debts in his sickness. The New
English Canaan aggravates the cruelty of the judgment by the additional circumstances of boring and slitting his tongue, branding his face, and whipping in




68                      JOHN WINTHROP.                       [1631.
being convict, ore tenus, of most foul, scandalous invectives
against our churches and government, was censured to be
whipped, lose his ears, and be banished the plantation, which
was presently executed.
25.] There came a shallop from Pascataqua, which brought
news of a small English ship come thither with provisions and
some Frenchmen to make salt.       By this boat, Capt. Neal, gov57 ernour of Pascataqua, sent a packet of letters to the governour, directed to Sir Christopher Gardiner, which, when
the governour had opened, he found it came from Sir Ferdinando Gorges, (who claims a great part of the Bay of Massachusetts).   In the packet was one letter to Thomas Morton,
(sent prisoner before into England upon the lord chief justice's
warrant:) by both which letters it appeared, that he had some
secret design to recover his pretended right, and that he reposed
much trust in Sir Christopher Gardiner.
These letters we opened, because they were directed to one,
who was our prisoner, and had declared himself an ill willer to
our government.1
27.]   There came to the governour Capt. Southcot2 of Dorevery plantation; but the adversary felt a momentary emotion of candor, when
he wrote, that Sir Chr. Gardiner's interference with Gov. Winthrop prevented
the execution of part of it.
Still I am compelled to regret the cruelty of the punishment, and am not surprised at the dissatisfaction it produced in England. A letter in my possession
to J. Winthrop, jun., from his relative, Edward Howes, London, 3 April, 1632,
says, " I have heard divers complaints against the severity of your government,
especially Mr. Endecott's, and that he shall be sent for over, about cuttingoff
the lunatic man's ears, and other grievances."
1 The task of justifying this breach of confidence, in opening the letters of
Gorges, forwarded by his agent, might, to many politicians, appear easy; but
I shall merely remark, that a little dislike of the proceeding is by the governour
indicated, by giving this paragraph only in the margin, and, probably, at a later
date. Perhaps, as in the case of Ratcliff, some other of the council is chargeable with the influence that moved the court.
2 Southcot was one of the principal planters of Dorchester, 1 Hist. Coll. IX.
150; but this is all the information obtained of him, except, from Capt. Clap,
we may infer, what is not probable, that the " worthy gentleman, Mr. William
Southcot, about three miles from the city of Exeter," with whom he first went
to live, is the same person. Prince, II. 32, from the Colony Records, shows,
that, at a court, 26 July following, " Captain Southcot hath liberty to go for




1631.]                 JOHN WINTHROP.                           69
chester, and brought letters out of the White Angel, (which
was lately arrived at Sauco).   She brought [blank] cows, goats,
and hogs, and many provisions, for the bay and for Plimouth.
Mr. Allerton returned in this ship, and by him we heard, that
the Friendship, which put out from Barnstable [blank] weeks
before the Angel, was forced home again by extremity of foul
weather, and so had given over her voyage. This ship, the
Angel, set sail from [blank].
July 4.]   The governor built a bark at Mistickl which was
launched this day, and called the Blessing of the Bay.
6.] A small ship of,sixty tons arrived at Natascott, o58
Mr. Graves master.      She brought ten passengers from
London.    They came with a patent to Sagadahock, but, not
liking the place, they came hither. Their ship drew ten feet,
and went up to Watertown, but she ran on ground twice by
the way.    These were the company called the Husbandmen,
and their ship called the Plough.    Most of them    proved familists and vanished away.2
13.] Canonicus' son, the great sachem of Naraganset, came
to the governour's house with John Sagamore.       After they had
England, promising to return with all convenient speed." Thomas Southcot
was one of the original patentees of Massachusetts, came in company with
Winthrop, had leave to go home in the fleet, under condition; but he probably
came not back.
1 imagine this was the author's residence, during the summer, for the first
two or three years, and that Boston then became his constant home; though,
from the disagreement between him and Dudley, related hereafter under date
of August, 1632, it seems, that he was prevented from sitting down at Newtown only by the affection borne by the people of Boston towards him. The
court of assistants, 6 September, 1631, as by the Records, I. 82, is shown,
" granted to Mr. Governour six hundred acres of land, to be set forth by metes
and bounds, near his house at Mistick, to enjoy to him and his heirs forever."
He called this farm Ten Hills,- a name it has retained ever since. It is in the
town of Charlestown, nearly opposite the entrance of Maiden River into the
Mistick, where they form a broad bay.
2 This last sentence was, as might be supposed by the reader, and as the
original proves, added after the lapse of some time. Gentlemen, who remained
in England, I suppose, had fitted out the expedition; for, it appears by the.
Colony Records, I. 89, that, 5 June, 1632, the court "ordered, that the goods
of the company of Husbandmen shall be inventoried by the beadle, and preserved here for the use and benefit of the said company."




70                      JOHN WINTHROP.                       [1631.
dined, he gave the governour a skin, and the governour requited
him with a fair pewter pot, which he took very thankfully, and
stayed all night.
14.]   The ship called the Friendship, of Barnstable, arrived
at Boston, after she had been at sea eleven weeks, and beaten
back again by foul weather. She set' sail from Barnstable
again about the midst of May.       She landed here eight heifers,
and one calf, and five sheep.
21.]   The governour, and deputy, and Mr. Nowell, the elder
of the congregation at Boston, went to Watertown to confer
with Mr. Phillips, the pastor, and Mr. Brown,' the elder of the
congregation there, about an opinion,2 which they had pub*59 lished, that the churches of Rome were true           churches.
The matter was debated before many of both congregations, and, by the approbation of all the assembly, except three,
was concluded an error.
22.] The White Angel came into the bay. She landed
here twenty-one heifers.
26.]   A small bark of Salem, of about twelve tons, coming
towards the bay, John Elston' and two of Mr. Cradock's fish1 Richard Brown is among those, who first applied for admission as freemen,
and, by an order, 5 November, 1633, in Colony Records, I. 105, I find, is
"allowed by the court to keep a ferry over Charles River against his house,
and is to have two pence for every single person he so transports, and one
penny a piece, if there be two or more." He seems to have been a person of
consequence, and was the representative of Watertown in the first, second,
fourth, ninth, and many following courts of deputies. But no information of
him, more than our author's, is obtained, except in Hubbard, 187, who, after
saying " he was discharged from his office," which certainly was a good thing,
though meant as no honour, because it permitted him to come into civil service,
adds, " He was a man of good understanding, and well versed in the discipline
of the separation, having been a ruler in one of their churches in London,
where he was known to be very violent and passionate in his proceedings."
Still he commends him for " his faithfulness and care of Dr. Ames and Mr.
Robert Parker, safely conveying them (being himself one that kept a wherry)
aboard their vessel at Gravesend, when they were pursued by some that would
willingly have shortened their journey."
2 Of this opinion, more will be found in future pages. To rigid Puritans it
seemed, no doubt, very strange; for only the high church party entertained it;
and all the unintelligible wonders of the Apocalypse were usually employed to
prove the bishop of Rome to be Antichrist.
3 Of this man I know nothing. Prince reckons him one of Cradock's servants.




1631.]                 JOHN   WINTHROP.                           71
ermen being in her, and two tons of stone, and three [ hogsheads 11 of train oil, was overset in a gust, and, being buoyed
up by the oil, she floated up and down l12forty-eight hours, and
the three men sitting upon her, till Henry Way his 1I boat, coming by, espied them and saved them.
29.] The Friendship set sail for the Christopher Islands,
and ran on ground behind 11 3Conant's 1 2 Island.
30.]   The White Angel fell down for Plimouth, but, the
wind not serving, she came to an anchor by Long Island, and
ran on ground a week after, near Gurnett's Nose.
Mr. Ludlow, in digging the foundation of his house at Dorchester, found two pieces of French money: one was coined
in 1596. They were in several places, and above a foot within
the firm  ground.3
August S.]    The Tarentines, to the number of one hundred,
came in three canoes, and in the night assaulted the wigwam
of the sagamore of Agawam, by MIerimack, and slew              seven
men, and wounded John          Sagamore, and James, and        some
others, (whereof some died after,) and rifled a wigwam           *60
I1 barrels II11 2 till then, when al    I     1 i3 C — 1
11 am satisfied that Prince, II. 32, is mistaken in reading this word stores.
2 The island has been called Governour's Island, probably, ever since it was,
by the court, in April following, demised to Gov. Winthrop; but the rent
reserved, being part of the produce, was several times varied. The property
remained in the family of the father of Massachusetts, until, within a few years,
it has been obtained by the national government for the purpose of fortification.
3 Perhaps no reader will expect, that the occasion of these coins being lodged
here should be satisfactorily ascertained; yet I may be pardoned for offering a
conjecture, that they came from a French ship, wrecked at Cape Cod about
fourteen years before, whose crew were soon murdered by the savages, except
three or four, that were " kept and sent from one sachem to another to make
sport with them."  Two were redeemed by Dormer, about three years after
their calamity, and one died among the Indians, having lived with them long
enough to give them some instruction. See Morton's Memorial, sub an. 1620;
and Prince, I. 45, relying for his narrative on Bradford and Purchase.
Hubbard, 134, plants some scattering inhabitants, a few years before, at Dorchester; but I know not any proof of such settlement, except these pieces of
money. As he, again, p. 186, positively asserts it, we may consider it probable.




72                      JOHN WINTHROP.                         [1631.
where Mr. Cradock's men kept to catch sturgeon, took away
their nets and biscuit, etc.'
[Large blank.]
19.] The Plough returned to Charlestown, after she had
been on her way to the Christopher Islands about three weeks,
and was so broke she could not return home.
31.]   The governour's bark, called the Blessing of the Bay,
being of thirty tons, went to sea.
September 6.]     The White Angel set sail from      Marble Harbour.
About this time last year the company here set forth a pinnace to the parts about Cape Cod, to trade for corn, and it
brought here above eighty bushels. This year again the Salem pinnace, being bound thither for corn, was, by contrary
winds, put into Plimouth, where the governour, etc., fell out
~ with them, ~ not only forbidding them to trade, but also telling
them they would oppose them by force, even to the spending of
their lives, etc.; whereupon they returned, and acquainting the
governour of Massachusetts with it, he wrote to the governour
of Plimouth this letter, here inserted, with their answer, which
came about a month after.2
1 Hubbard, 145, says, that the Agawam sachem "was the less pitied of the
English," because they heard that he " had treacherously killed some of those
Tarratine families."  The invaders were from the east. Johnson, lib. I. chap.
xxv., in his usual prolix manner, mentions the alarm among the English from
this expedition, and the precautions'of our fathers; but it is not a very probable story, or at least is much ornamented.
The number of canoes, thirty, in the former edition, appeared to me too large
for the forces; and as the Arabic numeral in Winthrop's writing is commonly
followed by a:, which easily deceives a common reader, and he had first written two sshirng shallops, I have determined to reject the cypher, and adhere to
my resolution, though both Hubbard, 145, and Prince II. 32, read our MS. 30.
On a later page, October 2, 1633, our author observes, that the Indians of
Long Island have canoes " so great as one will carry eighty men."  Had the
fierce natives of the eastern shore so small craft for their expedition as to want
thirty to carry one hundred?
2 Since the days of the first generation of the statesmen of the two colonies,
it may be presumed, these documents have never been seen; for no other notice
of them is known.  Perhaps each side desired afterwards to destroy them.




1631.]                  JOHN WINTHROP.                            73
The wolves did much hurt to calves and swine between
Charles River and Mistick.1
At the last court, a young fellow2 was whipped for soliciting
an Indian squaw to incontinency.        Her husband and she`61
complained of the 11 wrong, II and were present at the execution, and very well satisfied.
At the same court, one Henry Linne8 was whipped and banished, for writing letters into England full of slander against
our government and orders of our churches.
17.]   Mr. Shurd4 of Pemaquid,5 sent home James Saga| injury ||
The jealousy of the weaker power seems, in this instance, less reasonable than
in some succeeding.
1 This sentence is in the margin.
2 The name of the offender is found in the first volume of our Colony Records, page 82, and, immediately after the sentence, is added by the court,
"6 Upon this occasion it is propounded, whether adultery, either with English or
Indian, shall not be punished with death. Referred to the next court to be
considered of." At the next court of assistants, held 18 of next month, such
an act was adopted, though it could not at first be enforced. It certainly indicates rather the rigorous purity than the wisdom of our early legislators.
3 Lynn, who was of Boston, had been sentenced, in September of the first
year, to be whipped. Colony Records, I. 59. Dissatisfaction with this discipline, probably, led to his second offence, which, from the Records, I. 82, consisted only of writing into England " against the government and execution of
justice here;" but it may naturally be imagined, that his letters contained some
slander of the " orders of our churches," though not included in the judgment
against him. His banishment was certainly remitted, though the Records do
not mention it; for, in November, 1632, the court fined him " ten shillings, for
absenting himself from training."  Four years later I find, in our town proceedings, an order about the ranging of his fence.
4 Abraham Shurd, or Shurt, or Short, lived many years at the eastward; for
Thomas Gorges, in a letter to Winthrop, Hutchinson's Coll. 114, 28 June, 1643,
says, that he had information of the governour's writing to him by that person.
From this fact, with the mention of him by our author in June and July, 1644,
it is rendered certain, that he was a man of some consideration. In 1662, 1
have found his testimony, that he was agent of Aldworth and Elbridge at their
establishment. He was, therefore, one of those who, under the grant of Sir
F. Gorges, Haz. I. 315, had, for three years preceding, lived at this plantation,
which was prosperous. Randolph, in his letter to Povey, Hutchinson's Coll.
563, represents one of the name, in June, 1688, as town clerk of Pemaquid,
who perhaps was a son of the earliest settler.
6 The president (Sir F. Gorges) and council of New England, in a grant,
VOL. I.                      7




74                    JOHN WINTHROP.                     [1631.
more's wife, who had been taken away at the surprise at Agawam, and writ that the Indians demanded [blank] fathom of
wampampeague and [blank] skins for her 11 ransom. 11
27.]  At a court, one Josias Plaistowe and two of his servants were censured for stealing corn from Chickatabot and
his men, (who were present,) the master to restore two fold,
and to be degraded from    the title of a gentleman, and fined-,
five pounds, and his men to be whipped.1
[Blank.]`62    October 4.]    The Blessing went on a voyage to the
eastward.
11.]  The governour, being at his farm     house at Mistick,
walked out after supper, and took a piece in his hand, supposing he might see a wolf, (for they came daily about the house,
and killed swine and calves, etc.;) and, being about half a mile
off, it grew suddenly dark, so as, in coming home, he mistook
his path, and went till he came to a little house of Sagamore
John, which stood empty.      There he stayed, and having a
piece of match in his pocket, (for he always carried about him
match and a compass, and in 11 2summer time snake-weed, 11) he
made a good fire 11 near 1 the house, and lay down upon some
old mats, which he found there, and so spent the night, sometimes walking by the fire, sometimes singing psalms, and sometimes getting wood, but could not sleep. It was (through
God's mercy) a 1 4warm 1I night; but a little before day it began to rain, and, having no cloak, he made shift by a long poi1
to climb up into the house. In the morning, there came thither
11 remission  112 the former there spake need l 113 and warmed l  114weary r
29 February, 1631, to Aldworth and Elbridge, Haz. I. 315, recite, that their
people or servants had occupied the mouth of the river three years or more.
1 Copying exactly the sentence of the court, appears to me the best explanation of this passage: " It is ordered, that Josias Plastowe shall (for stealing
four baskets of corn from the Indians) return them eight baskets again, be
fined ~5, and hereafter to be called by the name of Josias, and not Mr. as
formerly he used to be; and that William Buckland and Thomas Andrew shall
be whipped for being accessary to the same offence." We must conclude,
therefore, that our fathers thought the whipping of the servants a lighter punishment than the degradation of the master.




1631.]               JOHN WINTHROP.                       75
an Indian squaw, but perceiving her before she had opened the
door, he barred her out; yet she stayed there a great while
essaying to get in, and at last she went away, and he returned
safe home, his servants having been much perplexed for him,
and having walked about, and shot off pieces, and hallooed in
the night, but he heard them not.
22.]  The governour received a letter from Capt. Wiggin'
of Pascataquack, informing him   of a murder committed the
third of this month at Richman's Isle, by an Indian sagamore,
called Squidrayset, and his company, upon one Walter Bagnail, called Great Watt, and one John P-, who kept with
him.   They, having killed them, burnt the house over. 63
them, and carried away their guns and what else they
liked. He persuaded the governour to send twenty men presently to take revenge; but the governour, advising with some
of the council, thought best to sit still awhile, partly because he
heard that Capt. Neal, etc., were gone after them, and partly
because of the season, (it being then frost and snow,) and want
of l boats ll fit for that expedition. This Bagnall was sometimes servant to one in the bay, and these three years had dwelt
alone in the said isle, and had gotten about ~400   2most in
goods. I He was a wicked fellow, and had much wronged the
Indians.
25.] The governour, with Capt. Underhill and others of the
officers, went on foot to Sagus, and next day to Salem, where
they were bountifully entertained by Capt. Endecott, etc., and,
the 28th, they returned to Boston by the [ 3fordll at Sagus
River, and so over at Mistick.
A plentiful crop.
30.] The governour, having erected a building of stone at
I boots 1     112 interest in government II  j13 fort 11
1 Thomas Wiggin was agent, or governour, of the upper plantation, as Neal
was of the lower. He was a worthy man, without doubt; for the Puritan
peers, Say and Brooke, employed him as their representative, and he gave evidence in favor of our people against Gorges and Mason. In 1650, after the
union of New Hampshire with our colony, he became one of the assistants,
Hutch. I. 150, and, two years later, was among the commissioners to receive the
submission of the inhabitants of Maine. Probably descendants perpetuate his
name.




76                      JOHN WINTHROP.                         [1631.
Mistick, there came so violent a storm     of rain, for twenty-four
hours, from   the N. E. and S. E. as (it being not finished, and
laid with clay for want of lime) two sides of it were washed
down to the ground; and much harm was done to other houses
by that storm.
~ Mr. Pynchon's boat, coming from         Sagadahock, was cast
away at Cape Ann, but the men and chief goods saved, and
the boat recovered. ~
November 2.]      The ship Lyon, William       Peirce master, arrived at Natascot.     There came in her the governour's wife,2`64~ his eldest son, and his wife, ~3 and others of his children,
and Mr. Eliot,4 a minister, and other families, being in all
1 Our author wrote this sentence in the margin; but Prince understood it,
very justly, to refer to the same storm, in which the governour's new building
had received such injury.
2 In the latter part of this History, 1647, notice of this lady's death will be
found. She was the governour's third wife, and the mother of all his children
named in this work, except John, Henry, Mary, and Forth. In an Almanac of
1617, belonging to Adam Winthrop, Esq., father of the governour, against 17th
September, is this note: "My son rid first to Maplested."  At 12 January, he
remarks, " This day J. W., the elder, is twenty-nine years old;" at 12 February, " This day J. W., the younger, is eleven years old; at 10 August, " This
day I, A. W., am sixty-nine years old." He used the same little book for a
register next year; for, in another part, I find it written, "that on Friday the
24th of April, 1618, my son's third wife came first to Groton. She was married to him the 29th day of the same month at Great Maplested, anno 1618."
Her baptismal name was Margaret, and her admission at our church was, probably, on the first Sunday after arrival, her number being 111, next to John
Eliot.
3 Her name was Martha, admitted of our church, No. 130, her husband being
121. She was daughter of Thomas Fones, an apothecary of London, married
after Gov. Winthrop came over, bore no children, and died early at Agawam,
before it obtained the name of Ipswich. In one of the letters in Appendix the
governour mentions his sister Painter, and I have a letter of Mr. Painter to
John Winthrop the younger, before leaving England, on this voyage with his
mother, in which the writer speaks of his sister, whom his correspondent was to
accompany, and of his daugiter Winthrop. It is printed in 3 Mass. Hist. Coll.
IX. 231. I presume Painter had married the widow of Fones.
4 This was the celebrated apostle of the Massachusetts Indians, whose fame
has been too widely diffused in Europe and America to need any addition from
the humble pen of the editor. He joined Boston church, No. 110, and our
pages will show how soon he was removed to higher usefulness. Just praise is




1631.]                  JOHN WINTHROP.                            77
about sixty persons, who all arrived in good health, having
been ten weeks at sea, and lost none of their company but two
children, whereof one was the governour's daughter Ann, about
one year and a half old,1 who died about a week after they
came to sea.
3.]  The wind being contrary, the ship stayed at Long Island, but the governour's son2 came on shore, and that night
given him in 1 Hist. Coll. VIII. 5, by his amiable namesake of the last generation. He was of Jesus College, Cambridge, where he took his degree of B. A.,
1622.
1 From the age of the daughter, thus mentioned, we conclude, that her father
had never seen her. She was baptized 20 April, 1630. The situation of his
wife in the spring of the preceding year, (see Appendix,) was the reason, probably, why she did not accompany him. As if a fatality attended the name, this
was his third child called Ann.
2 This distinguished gentleman, the governour, for many years, of Connecticut, whose name will frequently recur in our History, was the heir of all his
father's talents, prudence, and virtues, with a superior share of human learning.
His birth was on 12 February, 1605-6, his father having married, 16 April preceding, being then only seventeen years and three months old, Mary, daughter
of John Forth, Esq., of Great Stanbridge, Essex. By that wife, as we learn
from a letter to the eldest son, published by Mather, II. 32, which I consider the
most valuable part of the Magnalia, our author had three sons and three daughters. The sons were John, Henry, and Forth. Of the daughters, Mary alone
lived; the others, called Ann, died in a few days. All the children of that
union, except the subject of this note, he says, were deceased before the date
of that letter, 1643.
Belknap has honoured the son in his American Biography, though we regret
much the brevity of the memoir. He probably relied too far upon Mather, as
we are sure he did in the life of the father. Mather, speaking of John, jun.,
with his customary carelessness, says, he was " not above twenty-three years
of age" when chosen assistant, in 1632. Two sons, Fitz-John, born 14 March,
1638, and Wait-Still, born 27 February, 1641-2, and five daughters, survived
him, and are remembered in his will in the Registry of Suffolk, lib. VI. fol.
156. He died in Boston, 5 April, 1676. He was a member of Boston church,
and his wife, Martha, soon after coming. She was sister of Elizabeth, who married the governour's second son, Henry; and they were daughters of Ann, the
governour's sister. Of course each married her first cousin. Martha died in
a few years, and the family memoirs say, was buried at Ipswich. All his children were born of the second wife, Elizabeth, the eldest, of the same name
with her mother, baptized July, 1636. Who was the second wife, has been
much disputed. In a letter of Roger Williams, 12 July, 1654, soon after returning from England, to John Winthrop of Connecticut, he says, " I had no
7V




78                       JOHN WINTHROP.                         [1631,
*65   the governour went to the ship, and lay aboard all night;
letters for you, but yours were all well. I was at the lodgings of Major Winthrop and Mr. Peters, but I missed them. Your brother flourisheth in good
esteem, and is eminent for maintaining the freedom of the conscience, as to
matters of belief, religion, and worship. Your father Peters preacheth the same
doctrine, though not so zealously as some years since; yet cries out against
New English rigidities and persecutions, their civil injuries and wrongs to himself, and their unchristian dealing with him in excommunicating his distracted
wife. All this he told me in his lodgings at Whitehall, those lodgings which I
was told were Canterbury's; but he himself told me that the library, wherein
we were together, was Canterbury's, and given him by the parliament. His
wife lives fiom him, not wholly, but much distracted. He tells me, he had but
two hundred a year, and he allowed her four score per annum of it. Surely,
Sir, the most holy Lord is most wise in all the trials he exerciseth his people
with. He told me, that his affliction from his wife stirred him up to action
abroad, and when success tempted him to pride, the bitterness in his bosom
comforts was a cooler and a bridle to him." In letters in the Appendix, from
our historian to his son, he speaks of nmy brother Peter, and my sister Peter; but
this might only refer to Christian fellowship. But another letter of Williams to
Winthrop of Connecticut, 6 February, 1659-60, giving premature rumour of Peter's death, seemed to settle the matter: " Sir, you were not long since the son
of two noble fathers, Mr. John Winthrop and Mr. H. Peters. It is said, they:are both extinguished. Surely, I did ever, from my soul, honour and love them,
even when their judgments led them to afflict me."
However fair might be the inference, often drawn, that Winthrop had married a daughter of Peters, it is clearly wrong. The " only child" to whom " A
dying father's last legacy" was addressed by Hugh Peters, was Elizabeth, to
whose mother he was not married until some years after Winthrop's second
marriage. By his former wife Peters had not, therefore, any child living in
1660. The Winthrop traditional genealogy makes the second wife of John,
first Governour of the United Colony of Connecticut, Elizabeth, baptized 27
November, 1614, daughter of Col. Edward Reed of Essex. Her he brought
from England in 1635, and she was mother of all his children. Elizabeth, the
daughter of Hugh Peters, was born at Salem, 1640.
Peters was only six years older than John Winthrop, jun., and could not, by
his first wife, have had any child above twelve years old, vwhen Winthrop married his second.
Fitz-John, who was a captain in Col. Read's regiment at the restoration, in
1660, continued to reside in Connecticut, of which he was governour, by ten
annual elections, from 1698 to his death, 27 November, 1707. Thus father, son,
and grandson died in the highest office, to which the affections of the people
could exalt them. He was twice married, had an only child, Mary, who became
wife of Col. John Livingston. Wait-Still, after living in Connecticut during
the life of his father, with whom he was colleague commissioner of the United




1631.]                  JOHN WINTHROP.                            79
and the next morning, the wind coming fair, she came to an
anchor before Boston.
Colonies, in 1675, removed to Boston during the usurpation of the charter
rights by Andros, to whom he and his brother, the governour, were made counsellors. Hutchinson, I. 317. In the spirit of that oppressor, we know, he did
not sympathize; for, on the breaking out of the Boston revolution, he was
made by the patriots commander of the militia. He was named of the council
by the new charter of William and Mary; but why Increase Mather permitted
his name of baptism, in that instrument, to be curtailed to Wait, I cannot divine, unless he thought the dissyllable, as one word, sounding Puritanick, might
be unpleasant to courtly ears. But that middle name was derived from intermarriage of Adam, his great grandfather, with the family of Still, the Puritan
Bishop of Bath and Wells; and this gentleman was not designated by a perverse simplicity, which characterized the age. He was afterwards chief justice
of the superior court of Massachusetts, and died 7 November, 1717. His wife
was Mary, daughter of Hon. William Browne of Salem. The inventory of his
estate, that was divided between his son John, of New London, born in Boston,
26 August, 1681, and his daughter, Ann, wife of Thomas Lechmere, surveyor
of the customs in Boston, returned January, 1717-18, found in lib. XX. fol. 91,
of Suffolk Registry, appraises the property over ~3000, of which the Elizabeth Islands and stock thereon made ~2000. In the settlement of the estate,
a controversy arose, from the decision of which, in Connecticut, for his sister,
John appealed to the king in council, and obtained an ultimate decree in his favor, consistent with the laws of England, and overruling those of the colony.
See an account in Trumbull's Connecticut, II. 54; but observe a strange mistake of the reverend author, who makes the parties children of the last governour of the family, who was their uncle. He was chosen into the Royal Society, of which his grandfather had been, from its beginning, a valued correspondent, and remained to his death in England. Eliot's Biographical Dictionary contains a valuable extract of the dedication to him of the 40th volume of
their Transactions. The family have preserved many communications of Sii
Robert Boyle, Sir Kenelm Digby, Oldenburgh, and other distinguished naturalists, to the first governour of Connecticut, and many of the second generation
after, to this descendant. I have been favoured with a copy of the recommendation by Sir Hans Sloane and three other members, 10 January, 1733, in favor
of the "grandson of the learned John Winthrop, Esq., who was one of the first
members of this society, and who, in conjunction with others, did greatly contribute to the obtaining our charter, to whom the Royal Society, in its early
days, was not only indebted for various ingenious communications, but their
museum still contains many testimonies of his generosity, especially of things
relating to the natural history of New England." He is the third of the name
in Harvard College Catalogue, 1700, married a daughter of Gov. Joseph Dudley, and died 1 August, 1747. Of seven children, two were sons, John Still,
born at New London, 15th January, 1720, and Basil. The latter died a bach



80                      JOHN WINTHROP.                       [1631.'66    4.]   The governonr, his wife and children,l        went on
shore, with Mr. Peirce, in his ship's boat. The ship gave
them six or seven pieces. At their landing, the captains, with
their companies in arms, entertained them with a guard, and
divers vollies of shot, and three drakes; and divers of the as-`67 sistants and most of the people, of the near plantations,
came to welcome them, and brought and sent, for divers
days, great store of provisions, as fat hogs, kids, venison, poultry, geese, partridges, etc., so as the like joy and manifestation
of love had never been seen in New England. It was a great
marvel, that so much people and such store of provisions could
be gathered together at so few hours' warning.
11.] We kept a day of thanksgiving at Boston.
17.] The governour2 of Plimouth came to Boston, and
lodged in the ship.
23.]   Mr. Peirce went down to his ship, which lay at Nantascot.  Divers went home with him into England by Virginia,
elor. One daughter married Gov. Wanton of Rhode Island. John Still married, 4 September, 1750, Jane, only daughter of Francis Borland of Boston, by
whom he had John, H. C., 1770, Jane, Francis B., Ann, William, Joseph, Mary,
Thomas L., and died at New London, 6 June, 1776. Francis B. died at
New York, leaving four sons and three daughters. From the second of the
sons, Francis B., I have derived most of the original papers, that illustrate the
private affairs of the family. Ann married the late David Sears, Esq., of Boston; William was of New York; Joseph of Charleston, S. C.; and Thomas L.,
H. C., 1780, a distinguished gentleman of Boston, who died 22 February, 1841.
By a second wife, daughter of William Sheriff, a British officer, John Still had
six children, of whom.three survived in 1825, viz., Benjamin, of New York,
married a daughter of Peter Stuyvesant, Esq., descendant of his ancestor's great
antagonist; Robert, an admiral in the British navy; Elizabeth Sebor of Middletown, Conn.
1 Besides Henry, one son, probably Stephen, came with his father. The other
children, to come with John, jun., could only have been Mary, Forth, Adam,
Deane, Samuel, and Ann; but Forth had died in England some few months
before their embarkation, and I doubt not, that the letter of Ursula Sherman, in
the Appendix, relates to him. The loss of Ann on the voyage has just been told
in the text. Deane was left to pursue his education until 1635, when he came
in the Abigail with his brother, John, who had gone home the preceding year.
2 William Bradford, whose character is sufficiently illustrated in Belknap's
American Biography.




1631.]               JOHN WINTHROP.                   81
as Sir Richard Saltonstall his eldest son 1 and others; and they
were six weeks in going to Virginia.
The congregation at Watertown (whereof Mr. George Phillips was pastor) had chosen one Richard Brown for their elder,
before named, who, persisting in his opinion of the truth of the
Romish church, and maintaining other errors withal, and being
a man of a very violent spirit, the court wrote a letter to the
congregation, directed to the pastor and brethren, to advise
them to take into consideration, whether Mr. Brown were fit to
be continued their elder or not; to which, after some weeks,
they returned answer to this effect: That if we would take the
pains to prove such things as were objected against him, they
would [l endeavour 1I to redress them.
December 8.] The said congregation being much divided
about their elder, both parties repaired to the governour for
assistance, etc.; whereupon he went to Watertown, with the
deputy governour and Mr. Nowell, and the congregation being
assembled, }the governour told them, that being come to settle
peace, etc., they might proceed in three distinct respects: 1.
As the magistrates, (their assistance being desired). 2. As
members of a neighbouring congregation. 3. Upon the answer which we received of our letter, which did no way satisfy
us. But'the pastor, Mr. Phillips, desired us to sit with them
as members of a neighbouring congregation only, whereto the
governour, etc., consented.
Then the one side, which had first complained, were 1 2moved
to open 1] their grievances; which they did to this effect: That
they could not communicate with their elder, being guilty of
errors, both in judgment and conversation. After much debate
of these things, at length they were reconciled, and agreed *68
to seek God in a day of humiliation, and so to have a solemn l 3uniting; [1 each party promising to reform what hath
been amiss, etc.; and the pastor gave thanks to God, and the
assembly brake up.2
II undertake II  II2 noticed to exhibit 11  113 writing 
1 He came back, with a wife, in the Susan and Ellen, 1635.
2 The subject of this controversy is thus introduced by the ecclesiastical historian of Massachusetts in 1 Hist. Coll. IX. 21: " Very particular mention is




82                       JOHN WINTHROP.                        [1631.
January 27.] The governour, and some company with him,
went up by Charles River about eight miles above Watertown,
and named the first brook, on the north side of the river, (being
a fair stream, and coming from a pond a mile from          the river,)
Beaver Brook, because the beavers had shorn down divers great
trees there, and made divers dams across the brook. Thence
they went to a great rock, upon which stood a high stone, cleft
in sunder, that four men might go through, which they called
Adam's Chair, because the youngest of their company was
Adam      Winthrop.     Thence     they  came    to  another   brook,
greater than the former, which they called Masters' Brook, because the    eldest of their company was one John           Masters.2
made of an elder in the church at Watertown, much to his honour in an age of
bigotry, though censured by worthy men, who were influenced by the spirit of
the age."
1 He was the second son of the governour's third wife, and now nearly twelve
years of age, admitted to the freemen's oath 2 June, 1641. In the Suffolk Registry of Deeds, I. 25, is found an indenture, by which John Winthrop, Margaret
his wife, and Adam their son, grant the island, called the Governour's Island, to
Henry Dunster, president of Harvard College, and Capt. George Cooke, to the
use of said Adam and Elizabeth Glover, and the heirs of their two bodies, remainder to the said Adam and his heirs, reserving to the governour and his
wife one third of the apples, pears, grapes, and plums yearly growing. This
was made on consideration of a marriage contracted and intended between the
said Adam and Elizabeth, and bears date 1 February, 1641-2. He died 24
August, 1652, and the inventory of his estate, taken 4 September, is entered in
our Probate Records, II. 64. His son, of the same name, is the first of the
family in the catalogue of Harvard College, 1668, was named of the council in
the charter of William and Mary, and died August, 1700: and the grandson, of
the same name, son of Adam, second in H. C., 1694, was of the council, and
died 2 October, 1743. Administration of his estate is in our Probate Records,
XXXVI. 221. His son, Adam, the fourth, born 12 Aug., 1706, H. C., 1724,
married Mary, daughter of Hugh Hall, Esq., of Boston, was clerk of our judicial courts, died 12 December, 1744. His will is in our Probate Records,
XXXVII. 194. John, brother of the last Adam, H. C., 1732, was a member
of the Royal Society, and distinguished as a professor at the University. The
Dictionaries of Eliot and Allen duly honor him. The professor had four sons
at the University; John, 1765, lived in Boston, a merchant; Adam, 1767, was
master of a vessel in Gov. Hancock's employment, and in the Downs was
knocked overboard and lost; James, 1769, a man of much curious erudition;
William, 1770, the last survivor, died 1825. Of these, John alone was married,
and had issue, John, II. C., 1796, and Adam, H. C., 1800.
2 Masters was at this time, I presume, an inhabitant of Watertown, though




1631.]                  JOHN WINTHROP.                             63
Thence they came to another high pointed rock, having a *69
fair ascent on the west side, which they called Mount
Feake, from    one Robert Feake,1 who had married the governour's daughter-in-law.2     On the west side of Mount Feake,
they went up a very high rock, from whence they might see all
over 1[ Neipnett, I| and a very high hill due west, about forty
miles off, and to the N. W. the high hills by Merrimack, above
sixty miles off.3
February 7.]     The governour, Mr. Nowell, Mr. Eliot, and
others, went over Mistick River at Medford, and going N. and
by E. among the rocks about two or three miles, they came to a
very great pond, having in the midst an island of about one
acre, and very thick with trees of pine and [1 2beech; 11 and the
pond had divers small rocks, standing up here and there in it,
which they therefore called Spot Pond.4       They went all about
11 Whipcutt 11                       12 birch ||
the preceding year he lived, perhaps, at Newtown, where he made a dock, paid
for by contribution of the whole colony. See Prince, II. 30, 31, 60, and Dr.
Holmes's History of Cambridge, in 1 Hist. Coll. VII. 8, 10. Cambridge Records say, he died 21 December, 1639, and his wife five days after. His will,
dated 19 December, 1639, is one of the earliest in our Probate Registry, being,
vol. I. 11.
1 At a court, 4 September following, he was " chosen into the place of lieutenant to Capt. Patrick," and he represented Watertown in the first, second, third, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth courts of deputies; but my information of him reaches little farther than that, he united with Patrick, 1640, in the
purchase of Greenwich, Conn., Trumbull, I. 116; but he continued at Watertown, and died there in 1663, having several years been insane. The same gentleman is meant, where Hazard, II. 214, has erroneously given Fenner, as I
know from the original act of the commissioners, preserved in the archives of
the Massachusetts Historical Society. In Frothingham's valuable History of
Charlestown, p. 66, his name is printed Heake, as a witness to graht from Indian Sachems. This arose from mistake of the double f, the initial letter.
In a very accurate description of Waltham, in 2 Hist. Coll. III. 261, the scene
of this early survey, we are informed, that the name of the mountain is perpetuated.
2 She was widow of his son Henry.
3 The very high hill is Wachusett, the only elevation in Massachusetts, that
justly asserts the name of mountain, east of Connecticut river, though several
heights claim it. The Merrimack hills are, I think, the spurs of Monadnock,
usually called the Peterborough Mountains.
4 Succeeding generations have reverenced the first nomination.




84                 JOHN WINTHROP.                  [1631.
it upon the ice. From thence (towards the N. W. about half
a mile,) they came to the top of a very high rock, beneath
which, (towards the N.) lies a goodly plain, part open land,
and part woody, from whence there is a fair prospect, but it
being then close and rainy, they could see but a small distance.
This place they called Cheese Rock, because, when they went
*70 to eat somewhat, they had only cheese, (the governour's
man forgetting, for haste, to put up some bread).
14.] The governour and some other company went to view
the country as far as Neponsett, and returned that night.
[Large blank.]
17.] The governour and assistants called before them, at
Boston, divers of Watertown; the pastor and elder by letter,
and the others by warrant. The occasion was, for that a warrant being sent to Watertown for levying of ~8, part of a rate
of ~60, ordered for the fortifying of the new town, the pastor
and elder, etc., assembled the people and delivered their opinions, that it was not safe to pay moneys after that sort, for fear,of bringing themselves ~and posterity~ into bondage. Being
come before the governour and council, after much debate, they
acknowledged their fault, confessing freely, that they were in
an error, and made a retractation and submission under their
hands, and were enjoined to read it in the assembly the next
Lord's day. The ground of their error was, for that they took
this government to be no other but as of a mayor and aldermen,
who have not power to make laws or raise taxations without
the people; but understanding that this government was rather
in the nature of a parliament, and that no assistant could be
chosen but by the freemen, who had power likewise to remove
the assistants and put in others, and therefore at every general
court (which was to be held once every year) they had free liberty to consider and propound anything concerning the same,
and to declare their grievances, without being subject to question, or, etc., they were fully satisfied; and so their submission
was accepted, and their offence pardoned.1
1 In the objection of these gentlemen of Watertown, there was much force,
for no power was by the charter granted to the governour and assistants to raise
money by levy, assessment or taxation. Indeed, the same may be said of the




1631.]                   JOHN WINTHROP.                              85
March 5.] The first court after winter. It was ordered, *71
right of making general orders or laws; for the directors of the company, or
court of assistants, could only be executive. The company, or great body of
the corporation, however, submitted at first to the mild and equal temporary
usurpation of the officers, chosen by themselves, which was also justified by indisputable necessity. So simply patriarchal was the government, and so indifferent was the majority of the settlers to retain their full charter rights, that,
at the first general court, or meeting of the whole company, held at Boston, 19
October after their arrival, " for the establishing of the government, it was propounded, if it were not the best course, that the freemen should have the power
of choosing assistants, when there are to be chosen, and the assistants, from
amongst themselves, to choose a governour and deputy governour, who, with
the assistants, should have the power of making laws and choosing oflicers to
execute the same. This was fully assented unto by the general vote of the
people and erection of hands." Col. Rec. I. 62. Such an extraordinary surrender of power proves, that no jealousy was excited by the former assumption,
by the governour and assistants, of the legislative, in addition to the executive
and judicial functions, with which the charter seems to invest them. From the
circumstance of omission of any mention, by our author, of that general court,
we may conclude, that the grant was not viewed as very important. The crudity of their political system is farther evidenced by the neglecting to notice in
the Records the choice of assistants the next year after such enlargement of
their authority, especially if we remember, that, besides the governour and deputy, only five of the council remained, though the charter required eighteen.
The manner of the early elections also, which was by proposing the former tenant of office for the new year, and calling for a show of hands, rendered the
continuance of the assistants almost certain. But though the secretary has left
no trace of the exercise of their rights, at the general meeting of May, 1631,
in the choice of assistants, the people appear to have made inquiry on the subject, since it is recorded, I. 72, after notice of the election of governour and
deputy, as follows: " For explanation of an order made the last general court,
holden the 19th October last, it was ordered now, with full consent of all the
commons then present, that, once in every year, at least, a general court shall
be holden, at which court it shall be lawful for the commons to propound any
person or persons, whom they shall desire to be chosen assistants, and if it be
doubtful, whether it be the greater part of the commons or not, it shall be put
to the poll. The like course to be holden, when they:, the said commons, shall
see cause, for any defect or misbehaviour, to remove any one or more of the
assistants."
The cause of uneasiness, the second year, was, we may presume, the small
number that constituted the supreme council or parliament. We may be certain, at least, that no inequality in the proportion of burdens sharpened the opposition to the assessment in the text; for of the thirty pounds levied in July
preceding, Boston and Watertown had each five, and each paid equally in the
subsequent rate. It might, by modern conjecture, be supposed, that the Waters
VOL. I.                        8




86                      JOHN WINTHROP.                       [1632.
that the courts (which before were every three weeks) should
now be held the first Tuesday in every month.1
Commissioners appointed to set out the bounds of the towns.
14.]  The bark Warwick arrived at Natascott, having been
at Pascataquack and at Salem to sell corn, which she brought
72 from    Virginia.   At her coming into Natascott, with a S.
E. wind, she was in great danger, by a sudden gust, to be
cast away upon the rocks.
19.]   She came to Winysemett.
Mr. Maverick, one of the ministers of Dorchester, in drying
a little powder, (which took fire by the heat of the fire pan,)
fired a small barrel of two or three pounds, yet did no other
harm but singed his clothes. It was in the new meeting-house,
which was thatched, and the thatch only blacked a little.
April 3.]  At a court at Boston, the deputy, Mr. Dudley,
went away before the court was ended, and then the secretary
delivered-the governour a letter from him, directed to the governour and assistants, wherein he declared a resignation of his
deputyship and place of assistant; but it was not allowed.
At this court an act was made expressing the governour's
power, etc., and the office of the secretary and treasurer, etc.2
town people were less satisfied with the object of the present expenditure; but
this would be erroneous, for the other plantations would derive as little protection as they from this palisado; yet Dudley and Bradstreet were the only members of the court, by which the rate was levied, who lived at Newtown. To
the agitation of this subject, we may refer the origin of that committee of two
from each town to advise with the court about raising public moneys, " so as_
what they should agree upon should bind all," which will be found a few pages
onward, under date of May of this year. This led to the representative body,
having the full powers of all the freemen, except that of elections.
1 An order of extraordinary character was passed at this court, " that no
planter within the limits of this jurisdiction, returning for England, shall carry
either money or beaver with him, without leave from the governour (for the
time being) under pain of forfeiting the money or beaver so intended to be
transported." No comment can increase our sense of the dangerous power
thus given, nor display the folly of such inhibition.
2 No mention of the resignation of Dudley is found in the Colony Records;
and it is remarkable, that equal disregard of these acts about the governour,
secretary, and treasurer is evinced, though to us they appear very important.
One curious occurrence is, however, preserved there:' "Thomas Knower was




1632.]             JOHN WINTHROP.                     87
9.] The bark Warwick, and Mr. Maverick's pinnace, went
out towards Virginia.
12.] The governour received letters from Plimouth, signifying, that there had been a broil between their men at Sowamset and the Naraganset Indians, who set upon the English
house there to have taken Owsamequin,l the sagamore of Packanocott, who was fled thither with all his people for refuge;
and that Capt. Standish, being gone thither to relieve the three
English, which were in the house, had sent home in all haste
for more men and other provisions, upon intelligence that Canonicus, with a great army, was coming against them. Withal
they writ to our governour for som'e powder to be sent with all
possible speed, (for it seemed they were; unfurnished). Upon
this the governour presently despatched away the messenger
with so much powder as he could carry, viz., twenty-seven
pounds.
16.] The messenger returned, and brought a letter from the
governour, signifying, that the Indians were retired from Sowams to fight with the Pequins, which was probable, because
John Sagamore and Chickatabott were gone with all their men,
~ viz., John Sagamore with thirty, and Chickatabott with
[blank]~ to Canonicus, who had sent for them.
A wear was erected by Watertown men upon Charles,73
River, three miles above the town, where they took great
store of shads.
A Dutch ship brought from Virginia two thousand bushels
of corn, which was sold at four shillings sixpence the bushel.
May 1.] The governour and assistants2 met at Boston to
consider of the deputy his deserting his place. The points discussed were two. The 1st, upon what grounds he did it: 2d,
whether it were good or void. For the 1st, his main reason
was for public peace; because he must needs discharge his conscience in speaking freely; and he saw that bred disturbance,
etc. For the 2d, it was maintained by all, that he could not
set in the bilbows for threatening the court, that if he should be punished, he
would have it tried in England, whether he was lawfully punished or not."
1 Formerly called Massassoiet, father of the celebrated Philip.
2 Undoubtedly this was a private meeting, for notice of it is not found in the
Records.




88                   JOHN WINTHROP.                   [1632.
leave his place, except by the same power which put him in;
yet he would not be put from his contrary opinion, nor would
be persuaded to continue till the general court, which was to
be the 9th of this month.
Another question fell out with him, about some bargains he
had made with some poor men, members of the same congregation, to whom he had sold seven bushels and an half of corn
to receive ten for it after harvest, which the governour and
some others held to be oppressing usury,' and within compass
of the statute; but he persisted to maintain it to be lawful, and
there arose hot words about it, he telling the governour, that,
if he had thought he had sent for him to his house to give him
such usage, he would not have come there; and that he never
knew any man of understanding of other opinion; and that
the governour thought otherwise of it, it was his weakness.
The governour took notice of these speeches, and bare them
with more patience than he had done, upon a like occasion, at
another time. Upon this there arose another question, about
his house. The governour having [I formerly ll told him, that
he did not well to bestow such cost about wainscotting and
adorning his house, in the beginning of a plantation, both in
regard of the necessity of public charges, and for example, etc.,
his answer now was, that it was for the warmth of his house,
and the charge was little, being but clapboards nailed to the
wall in the form of wainscot. These and other speeches
passed before dinner.   After dinner, the governour told
l2them,l] that he had heard, that the people intended, at the
next general court, to desire, that the assistants might be chosen
anew every year, and that the governour might be chosen by
the whole court, and not by the assistants only.  Upon this,
Mr. Ludlow2 grew into passion, and said, that then we should
fireely II                       l himll
1 Common sense vindicated her rights long since in Massachusetts, though
she has not yet obtained a full triumph in all dealings between man and man.
The proviso in our statute against usury, 1783, c. 55, directs, that "nothing in
this act shall extend to the letting of cattle, or other usages of the like nature,
hi practice amongst farmers, etc., as hath been heretofore accustomed."
2 This name standing here, as in the first edition, though the reader was
informed, in its list of errata, four in number, at the end, that it should be DunD




1632.]                 JOHN WINTHROP.                            89
have no government, but there would be an interim, wherein
every man might do what he pleased, etc.) This was answered
and cleared in the judgment of the rest of the assistants, but
he continued stiff in his opinion, and protested he would then
return back into England.
Another [ business I1 fell out, which was this.    Mr. Clark' of
Watertown had complained to the governour, that Capt. Patrick,2 being removed out of their town to Newtown, did compel them to watch near Newtown, and desired the governour,
that they might have the ordering within their own town. The
governour answered him, that the ordering of the watch did
properly belong to the constable; but in those towns where the
captains dwelt, they had thought fit to leave it to them, and
since Capt. Patrick was removed, the constable might take
care of it; but advised him withal to acquaint the deputy *75
with it, and at the court it should be ordered.    Clark went
right home and told the captain, that the governour had ordered, that the constable should set the watch, (which was false;)
1[ question l1
LEY,-I must give a short explanation. Our original MS. is plain enough;
the copy, too, prepared for the press by the secretary of Connecticut, written
in an uncommonly fair hand, now in the archives of our Historical Society, I
testify, follows Winthrop. The former editor, as he himself assured me, never
read the original; and we must conjecture, and only conjecture, why he did not
follow the copy. Ludlow's name had not, in this conference, been mentioned
before, as Dudley's had. By his correction of the text, against the authority of
original and copy, the editor must have thought proper to insert Dudley, because he was the only person likely to fall into a passion. Had Mr. Webster
been conversant with the early history of Connecticut, he would have better
judged the character of Ludlow.
1 John Clark, the constable, was appointed by the court early in this year.
2 He came in the fleet, it is probable, with the governour, as a military leader
and instructer; for, at the court of assistants, 28 September, 1630, we find,
Prince, II. 1, that fifty pounds were assessed on the plantations for him and Underhill. I suppose their pay was raised, as the colony became more able to
bear the expense. At a court, 4 March, 1633, thirty pounds were levied, as
their half year's compensation. Col. Rec. I. 96. Patrick was admitted a freeman in May, 1631; but for any farther information of him, except about his
removing to Connecticut, it is in my power to do no more than refer to the second volume of this History, in which his death is commemorated, near the close
of 1643.
8*




90                    JOHN WINTHROP.                     [1632.
but the captain answered somewhat rashly, and like a soldier,
which being certified to the governour by three witnesses, he
sent a warrant to the constable to this effect, that whereas some
difficulty was fallen out, etc., about the watch, etc., he should,
according to his office, see due watch should be kept till the
court had taken order in it. This much displeased the captain,
who came to this meeting to have it redressed. The governour told the rest what he had done, and upon what ground;
whereupon they refused to do anything in it till the court.
While they were thus sitting together, an Indian brings a
letter from Capt. Standish, then at Sowams, to this effect, that
the Dutchmen (which lay for trading at Anygansett or Naragansett) had lately informed him, that many Pequins (who
were professed enemies to the Anagansetts) had been there divers days, and advised us to be watchful, etc., giving other reasons, etc.
Thus the day was spent and no good done, which was the
more uncomfortable to most of them, because they had cormmended this meeting to God in more earnest manner than ordinary at other meetings.
May 8.]1    A  general court at Boston.     Whereas it was
(at our first coming) agreed, that the freemen should choose
the assistants, and they the governour, the whole court
agreed now, that the governour and assistants should all be
new chosen every year by the general court, (the governour
to be always chosen out of the assistants;) and accordingly
the old governour, John Winthrop, was chosen;/ accordingly all the rest as before, and Mr. Humfrey2 and         Mr.
1 The charter fixed Wednesday the 9th, and Prince thus quotes it from the
Colony record.
2 This distinguished planter deserves greater honor than he has received from
the brief note of Hutchinson, which Eliot transcribed, but could not enlarge.
Allen has forgotten to name him; but his importance in the colony will be observed from many passages of this History. He had been chosen deputy governour at a general court of our company in England, 20 October, 1629, though
our annual registers, that used to record, in their list of gentlemen who had
filled that office, the name of Goffe, who never came to our country, omitted
that of Humfrey. He was also one of the original patentees of the colony of
Connecticut. Haz. I. 318. An adventurous desire of planting new colonies
consumed his estate; and all wish to end his life with us must have been de



1632.]                  JOHN WINTHROP.                           91
Coddington     also, because they were      daily   expected.    76
The deputy governour, Thomas Dudley, Esq., having
submitted the validity of his resignation to the vote of the
court, it was adjudged a nullity, and he accepted of his place
again, and the governour and he being reconciled the day
before, all things were carried very lovingly amongst all, etc., and
the people carried themselves with much silence and modesty.
John Winthrop, the govcrnour's son, was chosen an assistant.
A proposition was made by the people, that every company
of trained men might choose their own captain and officers;
but the governour giving them       reasons to the contrary, they
were satisfied II without 11 it.
Every town chose two men to be at the next court, to advise
with the governour and assistants about the raising of a public
stock, so as what they should agree upon should bind all, etc.2
1| with 11
stroyed by the shocking calamities in his family, of which notice will be found
in these pages, under date of November, 1641. If any reader would excuse
his natural indignation, felt on perusal of the narrative of Hubbard, 379, when
obscurely commenting on these sufferings, which he almost calls a judgment for
the offence of leaving our country, he may recollect, that the full relation of
Winthrop was then lying before Hubbard, and then study the character of the
afflicted father in his letter to our author, 4 September, 1646, in Hutchinson's
Coll. 159. No praise of the subject of this note can be equivalent to that epistle.
Humfrey was brother-in-law of Isaac Johnson, having married Susan, sister
of the lady Arbella. From his connexion with the Earl of Lincoln, I presume,
that he was not the person, honored by an order of the celebrated " High Court
of Justice," 20 January, 1648-9, "that Sir Henry Mildmay be desired to deliver unto John Humphreys, Esq., the sword of state in his custody, which said
sword, the said Mr. Humphreys is to bear before the lord president of this
court." Perhaps he had no connexion with those proceedings, which, in a few
days, terminated in the execution of his sovereign. I have been favored with
four letters from him to John Winthrop, the younger, of 18 August and 4 November, 1631, 21 June, and 3 December, 1632; the first directed for him "at
the Dolphin, Mr. Humfries' house, in Sandwich," when preparing to come over
with his father's wife and his own, the other three to him here at Boston, all
written before Humfrey left England. They are full of pious reflections and
encouragement to the plantation; but give no assistance to merely historical
inquiries.
1 But Humfrey did not come before 1634, and Coddington not until 1633.
2 Prince, II. 60, gives, from the Colony Records, the names of the gentlemen
that formed this embryo of a parliament:



92                     JOHN WINTHROP.                       [1632.
*This court was begun and ended with speeches for the, etc.,
as formerly.*
*77     The governour, among other things, used this speech to
the people, after he had taken his oath: That he had received gratuities from   divers towns, which he received with
much comfort and content; he had also received many kindnesses from particular persons, which he would not refuse, lest
he should be accounted uncourteous, etc.; but he 1] professed, II
that he received them with a trembling heart, in regard of God's
rule, and the consciousness of his own 11 2infirmity; 11 and therefore desired them, that hereafter they would not take it ill, if
he did refuse presents from particular persons, except they were
from the assistants, or from  some special friends; to which no
answer was made; but he was told after, that many good people were much grieved at it, for that he never had any allowance towards the charge of his place.
24.]   The fortification upon the Corn Hill at Boston was
begun.
25.]   Charlestown men came and wrought upon the fortification.
Roxbury the next, and Dorchester the next.
26.]   The Whale arrived with Mr. Wilson,' Mr. Dummer,2
II expressed 11                  112 inconformity II
1. Mr. Oldham and Mr. Masters, for Watertown.
2. Robert Coles and John Johnson, for Roxbury.
3. Mr. William Colbron and William Cheesbrough, for Boston.
4. Richard Wright and      -, for Sagus.
5. Mr. Lockwood and Mr. Spencer, for Newtown.
6. Mr. Gibbons and Mr. Palmer, for Charlestown.
7. Mr. Conant and Peter Palfrey, for Salem.
8. William Felps and John Gallard, for Dorchester.
1 Wilson brought his wife.
2 Richard Dummer will be frequently mentioned in this History, and Hutchinson and Eliot have well preserved his reputation. It is less remarkable, that
the former fell into an error of three years in the date of this gentleman's arrival, than that the latter copied it, with Winthrop in his possession. The mistake of one letter of the name in the former edition, however, prevented Eliot,
perhaps, from obtaining the fact from the text, though it had been correctly
given by Prince. In this place, it may be proper to observe another error in




1632.]                   JOHN WINTHROP.                             93
and about thirty passengers, all in health; and of seventy cows
lost but two. She came from Hampton, April 8th.           Mr. Graves
was master.
June 5.]    The William      and Francis, Mr. Thomas master,
with about sixty passengers, whereof Mr. Welde 1 and old            78
Mr. Batchelor2 (being aged 71) were, with their families,
the New England Biography of Dummer. He was of Roxbury, not Boston,
before his settlement at Newbury. In the antinomian controversy, he was of
the heterodox, or weaker party, and of course punished for his opinions. With
others of the same principles, he purchased Rhode Island; but soon after returned to Massachusetts; and even Johnson praises him. He was grandfather
of the celebrated Jeremy Dummer; and of Lieut. Gov. William Dummer,
founder of Dummer Academy.
1 Of Thomas Welde enough, it may seem, to an indifferent reader, will be
found in the progress of this History, or in the Dictionaries of Eliot and Allen.
But as he figures in one of the most important events of our colonial history,
and himself furnished a Narrative of it, I shall not be restrained from honoring
him further in these notes, at a more proper place. It may now only be necessary to suggest, connected with Eliot's compliment, that " we may suppose him
a very prudent and judicious man," the cautions of the same author, in the history of his celebrated namesake, before referred to. 1 Hist. Coll. VIII. 7 and
8. Welde had suffered in England from the follies of the bishops. See the
interesting letters of Henry Jacie, in 3 Hist. Coll. I. 235. There was a brother
of the clergyman, Joseph, at Roxbury; and, I believe, of both, certainly of
Thomas, descendants are spread in the land.
2 This unfortunate gentleman, Stephen Batchelor, whose name does not occur
in either of the Biographical Dictionaries, will often be noticed in the pages of
this work, about the close of 1635, while he remained at Lynn, in November,
1641, when he was pastor at Hampton, and in July, 1644, when he was restrained from the exercise of his office at Exeter. Hubbard, 193, mentions
Newbury, as another scene of his disquiet, which might be in the progress from
Lynn to Hampton; and in Belknap's New Hampshire, I. 37 and 52, his name
is introduced. An unfavorable opinion of Batchelor seems to have prevailed
soon after his arrival; for, in our Colony Records, I. 93, I find, he was, at a
court, 3 October, 1632, "required to forbear exercising his gifts as a pastor or
teacher publicly in our patent, unless it be to those he brought with him, for his
contempt of authority, and till some scandals be removed." But, at the court,
4 March following, he was relieved from this inhibition. Johnson, in the
wretched verses, with which he usually closes his notice of the distinguished
men of the colony, advises him, as if he were alive at the period, when his age
of ninety must have disinclined him to regard the precept,
"Teach thyself with others thou hast need;
Thy flowing fame unto low ebb is brought."




94                    JOHN WINTHROP.                     [1632.
and many other honest men; also, the Charles of Barnstable,
with near eighty cows and six mares, Mr. Hatherly,' the merchant, and about twenty passengers, all safe, and in health.
They set sail, viz., the William   and Francis from    London,
March the 9th, and the Charles from II Barnstable, 1[ April 10th,
and met near Cape Ann.     Mr. Winslow2 of Plimouth came in
the William and Francis.3
12.]  The James, Mr. Grant master, arrived.     Her passage
was eight weeks from     London.    112 She ll brought sixty-one
heifers and lost forty, and brought twelve passengers.
*79    13.]  A day of thanksgiving in all the plantations, by
public authority, for the good success of the king of Sweden, and Protestants in Germany, against the emperour, etc.,
and for the safe arrival of all the ships, they having not lost one
person, nor one sick among them.
~ 14.] The governour was invited to dinner aboard the
Whale.    The master fetched him in his boat, and gave him
three pieces at his going off.~
The French came in a pinnace to Penobscot, and rifled a
trucking house belonging to Plimouth, carrying thence three
hundred weight of beaver and other goods.4     *They took also
one Dixy Bull and his shallop and goods.*
One Abraham      13 Shurd ll of Pemaquid, and one Capt.
Wright,5 and others, coming to Pascataquack, being bound for
[Portsmouth II        II2 He i           3 Sheert II
1 It is not to be expected, that any thing can be added by me to the acquisitions of the antiquary, who duly honors Timothy Hatherly, " the principal founder
and father of the town of Scituate," in his History of that place.
2 To the life of Edward Winslow, governour of Plimouth, a great man in all
circumstances, the elaborate work of Dr. Belknap has afforded sufficient care;
but whatever, beyond the American Biographer, can be acquired by diligence
and adorned by affection, must be read in Judge Davis's edition of Morton's
Memorial.  A very interesting letter from Winslow, at Barbados, March,
1654-5, on Cromwell's great expedition against the Spanish West Indies, in
which he died, is contained in Thurloe's State Papers, published by Birch, III.
250.
3 Names of several other passengers in this ship, as also of those in the
James, are preserved in 4 Mass. Hist. Coll. 92 and 93.
4 Ample account is given of this hostile, or felonious, transaction, by Gov.
Bradford, preserved by Prince, II. 62.
5 I presume this to be the same person, who was one of two chosen for




1632.]                  JOHN WINTHROP.                           95
this bay in a shallop with ~200 worth of commodities, one of
the seamen, going to light a pipe of tobacco, set fire on a barrel of powder, which tare the || boat ll in pieces. That man
was never seen: the rest were all saved, but the goods lost.
The man, that was blown away with the powder in the boat
at Pascataquack, was after foundl with his hands and feet torn
off. This fellow, being wished by another to forbear to take
any tobacco, till they came to the shore, which was hard by,
answered, that if the devil should carry him       away quick, he
would take one pipe.      Some in the boat were so drunk and
fast asleep, as they did not awake with the noise.
A shallop of one Henry Way of Dorchester, having been
missing all the winter, it was found that the men in her, being
five, were all killed treacherously by the eastern Indians.
Another shallop of his being sent out to seek out the other,
was cast away at Aquamenticus, and two of the men drowned.2  A  fishing shallop at Isle of Shoals was overset.        One
Noddle, an honest man of Salem, I12 carrying I[ wood in a'80
canoe, in the South River, was overturned and drowned.
[ bark 1                              112 running l
Sagus, about a public stock, as mentioned in a note on page 76. Hubbard,
195, makes all the people in the boat belong to Pemaquid; but I give little
credit to him, because it is evident, that he took all his information from Winthrop, in this place, and copied him so carelessly as to give the year 1633.
1 Mather introduced this accident, sixty-five years after, into a sermon, Magn.
VI. with a ridiculous addition, of the body being found in the woods long after,
torn in pieces.
2 My chief object, in this note, is to observe an error in the History of Dorchester, by the Rev. Dr. T. M. Harris. In 1 Hist. Coll. IX. 152, after inserting
the substance of the two preceding sentences, on the authority of Hubbard,
198, then existing only in MS., instead of Winthrop, from whom Hubbard took
his story, with a trifling addition, which probably is a mistake, that Way with
his company perished by the Indians, -these absurd remarks are added, from
Hubbard, but ascribed to our author: " Thus ofttimes, he that is greedy of gain
troubles his own house; and, instead of acquiring a little pelf of this world,
loses his own life in the conclusion; which hath been observed as very remarkable on many, who have followed that course of life."  Some gratitude
might be due to Hubbard, perhaps, had he enlarged the facts, as well as the
words, of the text; but as his work was written nearly fifty years after the occurrence of an event so comparatively unimportant, I am convinced, that he
carelessly added the murder of Way, without any information, having intended




96                      JOHN WINTHROP.                         [1632.
July.]   At a training at Watertown, a man of John           |] Oldham's, l1 having a musket, which had been long charged with
pistol bullets, I2 not [ knowing of it, gave fire, and shot three
11 Alden's 11                         112 and l
nothing more than to transcribe, as usual with him, the contemporary narrative.
From the silence of Winthrop on a particular, which would have been the principal incident of the tragedy, as reported at the time, and from the subsequent
expedition of another shallop of his, that Way was not killed, would be a probable conclusion; but this is rendered certain by the MS. annals of Blake of
Dorchester, who, under 1667, mentions his death at the mature age of eightyfour years.
1 Copious materials for the character of this person are found in Morton's
Memorial, 74-82, condensed by Hubbard, 92-94, who suggests to our judgment
some reasonable cautions in perusing the Plimouth secretary. The contemporary, Gov. Bradford, in Prince, I. 149, 153, 154, affords also some better information, which proves that Oldham was much disliked. But he was so far restored to the affections of the first colonists, after some years, as to be intrusted
with their letters to England, in June, 1628, when Thomas Morton was sent
home a prisoner. 1 Hist. Coll. III. 63. Oldham was, probably, very enterprising, and less disposed to overlook this world, in his regard for the next, than
most of his early neighbours. His boldness and acquaintance with the natives,
and perhaps disaffection to the rigid church discipline of the separatists at Plimouth, rendered him not unacceptable to our planters, though he desired to pursue a course independent of their territorial rights. See, in Hazard, I. 256,
and, better, in Young's Chronicles of Mass. 141-171, a most valuable letter from
the governour and company to Endecott in 1629. This planter was certainly
held in respect in this colony; for he was one of that assembly, mentioned in
May preceding, page 76, and was chosen from Watertown, where dwelt many
gentlemen, esteemed even by the authority of Plimouth. He had, perhaps,
seated himself at Watertown, before the arrival of Winthrop, coming over after
the fleet that brought Higginson, Skelton, and Sharp; or he may have come in
the great fleet of 1630; but we are confident he was not here in season to witness the Indian deed to Wheelwright. Trumbull, in two places, I. 34 and 72,
erroneously called him of Dorchester, one of Warham's congregation. Oldham's favor with the Narragansetts, and murder by some of those of Block
Island, which was a principal incitement in Massachusetts to the great Pequot
war, will be found hereafter in this History.
In copying the relation of the accident mentioned in the text, Prince assumes
the date of it to be Monday, 2 July, because, at a court on the 3d, the first
order that passed, was, "that the captain and other officers take a special care
to search all pieces brought into the field, for being charged with shot or bullets;
and that no person whatever shall, at any time, charge any piece of service with
bullets or shot, other than for defence of their houses, or at command from the
captain, upon such penalty as the court shall think meet to inflict."




1632.]             JOHN WINTHROP.                     97
men, two into their bodies, and one into his hands;1 but
it was so far off, as the shot entered the skin and stayed
there, and they all recovered.
The congregation at Boston wrote to the elders and brethren
of the churches of Plimouth, Salem, etc., for their advice in
three questions: 1. Whether one person might be a civil magistrate and a ruling elder at the same time? 2. If not, then
I which ll should be 112laid down?l 3. Whether there might
be divers pastors in the same church? - The 1st was agreed by
all negatively; the 2d doubtfully; the 3d doubtful also.
[Large blank.]
The strife in Watertown congregation continued still; but
at length they gave the separatists a day to come in, or II 3else I1
to be proceeded against.
5.] At the day, all came in and submitted, except John
Masters, who, though he were advised by divers ministers and
others, that he had offended in turning his back upon the sacrament, and departing out of the assembly, etc., because 1 4they [1
had then admitted a member whom he judged unfit, etc.; yet
he persisted. So the congregation (being loath to proceed
against him) gave him a further day; 8, at which time, he continuing obstinate, they excommunicated him; but, about a
fortnight after, he submitted himself, and was received in
again.
[Blank.]
At Watertown there was (in the view of divers witnesses) a
great combat between a mouse and a snake; and, after a long
fight, the mouse prevailed and killed the snake. The II'pastor II
of Boston, Mr. Wilson, a very sincere, holy man, hearing of it,
gave this interpretation: That the snake was the devil; the
mouse was a poor contemptible people, which God had brought
hither, which should overcome Satan here, and dispossess him
of his kingdom. Upon the same occasion, he told the governour, that, before he was resolved to come into this country, he
dreamed he was here, and that he saw a church arise out of
1I what 11  112best done |  113 all |l   114 he jI  115 minister l
1 Prince, II. 63, reads this word h7ead. It does not look so to me.
VOL. I.                 9




98                     JOHN WINTHROP.                     [1632.
the earth, which grew    up and became a marvellous goodly
church.
*"82   After many I1 imparlances II and days of humiliation, by
those of Boston and Roxbury, to seek the Lord for Mr.
Welde his disposing, and the advice of those of Plimouth
being taken, etc., at length he resolved to sit down with them
of Roxbury,
[Large blank.]
August 3.]    The deputy, Mr. Thomas Dudley, being still
discontented with the governour, partly for that the governour
had removed the frame of his house, which he had set up at
Newtown, and partly for that he took too much authority upon
him, (as he conceived,) renewed his complaints to Mr. Wilson
and Mr. Welde, who acquainting the governour therewith, a
meeting was agreed upon at Charlestown, where were present
the governour and deputy, Mr. Nowell, 1Mr. Wilson, Mr. Welde,
Mr. Maverick, and Mr. Warham.'       The conference being begun with calling upon the Lord, the deputy began, -that howsoever he had some 1 2particular | grievances, etc.; yet, seeing
he was advised by those present, and divers of the assistants,
to be silent in them, he would let them  pass, and so come first
to complain of the breach of promise, both in the governour
and others, in not building at Newtown.     The governour answered, that he had performed the words of the promise; for
he had a house up, and seven or eight servants abiding in it,
by the day appointed: and for the removing of his house, he
II importunings II               112 public 11
1 John Warham receives little notice from Eliot and Allen, to which, after
consulting their authorities, I presume nothing can be added. Fuller, in his
letter to Bradford, June, 1630, 1 Hist. Coll. III. 74, mentions his colloquy on
religion with the people of Dorchester, till he was weary. " Mr. Warham holds,
that the visible church may consist of a mixed people, - godly and openly ungodly; upon which point we had all our conference, to which, I trust, the Lord
will give a blessing." This is sufficient, even though not reported, perhaps,
with adequate precision, to satisfy us, that this gentleman's opinions were less
strict than those of the Plimouth colonists. From Mather's 18th chapter of the
3d book of the Magnalia, devoted to Warham, it would not be easy to learn
more of him, than that he preached with notes, went to Windsor, Conn., and
was of a melancholy temperament.




1632.]             JOHN WINTHROP.                  99
alleged, that, seeing that the rest of the assistants went not
about to build, and that his neighbours of Boston had been
discouraged from removing thither by Mr. Deputy himself, and
thereupon had (under all their hands) petitioned him, that (according to the promise he made to them when they first sate
down with him at Boston, viz., that he would not remove, except they went with him) he would not leave them;- this was
the occasion that he removed his house. Upon these and other
speeches to this purpose, the ministers went apart for one hour;
then returning, they delivered their opinions, that the governour
was in fault for removing of his house so suddenly, with- 8$3
out conferring with the deputy and the rest of the assistants; but if the deputy were the occasion of discouraging Boston men from removing, it would excuse the governour a
ltanto, but not a II2toto l. The governour, professing himself willing to submit his own opinion to the judgment of so
many wise and godly friends, acknowledged himself faulty.
After dinner, the deputy proceeded in his complaint, yet with
this protestation, that what he should charge the governour
with, was in love, and out of his care of the public, and that
the things which he should produce were but for his own satisfaction, and not by way of accusation. Then demanded he
of him the ground and limits of his authority, whether by the
patent or otherwise. The governour answered, that he was
willing to stand to that which he propounded, and would challenge no greater authority than he might by the patent. The
deputy replied, that then he had no more authority than every
assistant, (except power to call courts, and 11 Sprecedency, 11 for
honor and order). The governour answered, he had more; for
the patent, making him a governour, gave him whatsoever power
belonged to a governour by common law or the statutes, and
desired him to show wherein he had exceeded, etc.; and speaking this somewhat apprehensively, the deputy began to be in
passion, and told the governour, that if he were so round, he
would be round too. The governour bad him be round, if he
would. So the deputy rose up in great fury and passion, and
the governour grew very hot also, so as they both fell into
bitterness; but, by mediation of the mediators, they were
jl qualnto 1     112 tanto I1    1I3 proceedings 11




100                     JOHN WINTHROP.                       [1632.
soon pacified. Then the deputy proceeded to particulars, as
followeth:
1st. By what authority the governour removed the ordnance
and erected a fort at Boston.      The governour answered, that
the ordnance lying upon the beach in danger of spoiling, and
having often complained of it in the court, and nothing done,
with the help of divers of the assistants, they were mounted
upon their carriages, and removed where they might be of some
use: and for the fort, it had been agreed, above a year before,
that it should be erected there: and all this was done without
any penny charge to the public.
2d. By what authority he lent twenty-eight pounds of powder to those of Plimouth. - Governour answered, it was of his
own powder, and upon their urgent distress, their own powder
proving naught, when they were to send to the 1 rescuell of
their men at Sowamsett.
*84     3d.  By what authority he had licensed Edward Johnson1 to sit down at Merrimack. —        Governour answered,
IIrest |
1 This person I presume to be the same, of whom mention will recur in
our second volume, September, 1643, as one of the leaders of the expedition
against Gorton, for which station he seems to be designated by his severe bigotry. He probably came in the fleet with Winthrop, is enumerated with those
desiring to be made freemen, 19 October, 1630, and admitted in May following.
From the phrase, " at Merrimack," in the text, we must not imagine, that a permanent settlement was made by Johnson; for no such was made for some years,
and his residence was Charlestown, probably in the upper part, which became
Woburn in 1642. It is strange, that his name is omitted in Eliot's Dictionary,
and that Allen has given but seven lines to the enthusiastic historian of " The
Wonder-working Providence of Zion's Saviour in New England." This work,
published in London, 1654, had become very scarce, and was republished in 2
Hist. Coll. II. III. IV. VII. and VIII., the editor of this History supervising the
proof-sheets of that, and faithfully preserving the exact reading of the original,
with most of its errors, in some instances furnishing a certain or conjectural
correction in the margin. Johnson was one year speaker of the house of deputies, as will be seen in another part of this work, and his reputation was maintained by one, at least, of his sons, William, a sturdy supporter of the old charter. Robert, H. C., 1645, is also thought to be one, and to be alluded to by his
father, lib. II. c. 19, as acting in the Summer islands. A good account of this
pilgrim is furnished by Rev. Mr. Chickering, formerly minister of Woburn, extracted into 2 Hist. Coll. HI. 95,-and a letter in the Columbian Centinel, 16




1632.]                 JOHN WINTHROP.                        101
that he had licensed him only to go forth on trading, (as he had
done divers others,) as belonging to his place.
4th.  By what authority he had given them       of Watertown
leave to erect a wear upon Charles River, and had disposed of
lands to divers, etc. - Governour answered, the people of Watertown, falling very short of corn the last year, for want of
fish,l did complain, etc., and desired leave to erect a wear; and
upon this the governour told them, that he could not give them
leave, but they must seek it of the court; but because it would
be long before the courts began again, and, if they deferred till
then, the season would be lost, he wished them to do it, and
there was no doubt but, being for so general a good, the court
would allow of it; and, for his part, he would employ all his
power in the court, so as he should sink under it, if it were not
allowed; and besides, those of Roxbury had erected a wear
without any license from the court. And for lands, he had.S5
I] disposed of none, II otherwise than the deputy and other
of the assistants had done, —he had only given his consent,
112butll  referred them  to the court, etc.  But the deputy had
taken more upon him, in that, without order of court, he had
empaled, at Newtown, above one thousand acres, and had assigned lands to some there.
5th. By what authority he had given license to Ratcliff and
Grey2 (being banished men) to stay within our limits. -     Gov11 not disposed any 11              112 and ||
June, 1819, written by a descendant in the sixth generation, John Farmer,
Esq., and, with some improvement, taken into the last volume of his Historical
Collections. There are some interesting materials in the work of Johnson, that
can be found in no other place; but the style is above or below criticism.
1 For manure. The husbandry, taught our fathers by the Indians, whose
contented indolence permitted them to seek no better compost, with materials
for which, especially marine grasses, the shores and woods abounded, lasted,
I imagine, not much beyond their exclusive devotion to the cultivation of
maize.
2 Of Ratcliff nothing need be added to the note on page 56. The other
culprit was early obnoxious to censure. At the court, 28 September, 1630, he
was " enjoined, under the penalty of ~10, to attend on the court in person,
this day three weeks, to answer divers things objected against him, and to remove himself out of the limits of this patent before the end of March next."
Col. Rec. I. 59. His disregard of the latter part of this order was, perhaps,
9":




102                   JOHN WINTHROP.                     [1632.
ernour answered, he did it by that authority, which was granted
him in court, viz., that, upon any sentence in criminal causes,
the governour might, upon cause, stay the execution till the
next court.  Now the cause was, that, being in the winter, they
must otherwise have perished.
6th. Why the fines were not levied. -   Governour answered,
it belonged to the secretary and not to him: he never refused
to sign any that were brought to him; nay, he had called
upon the secretary for it; yet he confessed, that it was his
judgment, that it were not fit, in the infancy of a commonwealth, to be too strict in levying fines, though severe in other
punishments.
~7th. That when a cause had been voted by the rest of the
court, the governour would bring new reasons, and move them
to alter the sentence:-which the governour justified, and all
approved ~.
The deputy having made an end, the governour desired the
mediators to consider, whether he had exceeded his authority
or not, and how little cause the deputy had to charge him with
it; for if he had made some slips, in two or three years' government, he ought rather to have covered them, seeing he could
not be charged that he had taken advantage of his authority
*86 to oppress or wrong any man, or to benefit himself; but, for
want of a public stock, had disbursed all common charges
out of his own estate;' whereas the deputy would never lay out
one penny, etc.; and, besides, he could shew that under his
hand, that would convince him of a greater exceeding his authority, than all that the deputy could charge him with, viz.,
that whereas Binks and Johnson were bound in open court to
appear at next court to account to, etc., he had, out of court,
not the only cause of the severity of the sentence in October of the next year,
"that Thomas Gray's house at Marble Harbour shall be pulled down, and
that no Englishman shall hereafter give house-room to him, or entertain him,
under such penalty as the court shall think meet to inflict." The delay in executing this interdict, by the governour, was the honourable occasion of Dudley's accusation of him. But the sentence remained, probably, inoperative; for,
so long after as the court, 5 June, 1638, I find the same fellow " censured to be
severely whipped, and the former execution of banishment to be inflicted.
-Col. Rec. I. 225.




1632.]              JOHN WINTHROP.                103
discharged them of their appearance. The deputy answered,
that the party, to whom they were to account, came to him and
confessed that he was satisfied, and that the parties were to go
to Virginia; so he thought he might discharge them.
Though the governour might justly have refused to answer
these seven articles, wherewith the deputy had charged him,
both for that he had no knowledge of them before, (the meeting being only for the deputy his personal grievances,) and also
for that the governour was not to give account of his actions to
any but to the court; yet, out of his desire of the public peace,
and to clear his reputation with those to whom the deputy had
accused him, he was willing to give him satisfaction, to the end,
that he might free him of such jealousy as he had conceived,
that the governour intended to make himself popular, that he
might gain absolute power, and bring all the assistants under
his subjection; which was very improbable, seeing the governour had propounded in court to have an order established for
limiting the governour's authority, and had himself drawn articles for that end, which had been approved and established by
the whole court; neither could he justly be charged to have
transgressed any of them. So the meeting breaking up, without any other conclusion but the commending the success of it
by prayer to the Lord, the governour brought the deputy onward of his way, and every man went to his own home. ~ See
two pages after ~.
5.] The sachem, who was joined with Canonicus, the great
sachem of Naragansett, called Mecumeh, after Miantonomoh,
being at Boston, where [he] had lodged two nights with his
squaw, and about twelve sanapps, being present at the sermon,
three of his sanapps went, in the meantime, and brake into a
neighbour's house, etc. Complaint being made thereof to the
governour, after evening exercise, he told the sachem of it, and
with some difficulty caused: him to make one of his sanapps to
beat them, and then sent them out of the town; but brought
the sachem and the rest of [the] company to his house, and
made much of them, (as he had done before,) which he seemed
to be well pleased with; but that evening he departed.
At a court not long before, two of Chickatabott's men *87
were convented and convicted for assaulting some Eng



104                JOHN WINTHROP.                 [1632.
lish of Dorchester in their houses, etc. They were put in the
bilboes, and Chickatabot required to beat them, which he did.
[Large blank.]
The congregation of Boston and Charlestown began the
meeting-house at Boston, for which, and Mr. Wilson's house,
they had made a voluntary contribution of about one hundred
and twenty pounds.
[Blank.]
14.] Fair weather and small wind, and N. E. at Boston,
and, at the same time, such a tempest of wind N. E. a little
without the bay, as no boat could bear sail, and one had her
mast borne by the board. So again, when there hath [been] a
very tempest at N. W. or W. in the bay, there hath been a
stark calm one league or two off shore.
This summer was very wet and cold, (except now and then
a hot day or two,) which caused great store of musketoes and
rattle-snakes. The corn, in the dry, sandy grounds, was much
better than other years, but in the 11 fatter 1 grounds much
worse, and in Boston, etc., much shorn down close by the
ground with worms.
The windmill was brought down to Boston, because, where
it stood near l 2 Newtown, II it would not grind but with a westerly wind.
Mr. 113 Oldham II had a small house near the wear at Watertown, made all of clapboards, burnt down by making a fire in
it when it had no chimney.
This week they Il[had l in barley and oats, at Sagus, above
twenty acres good corn, and 11 5sown 11 with the plough.
Great store of eels and lobsters in the bay. Two or three
boys have brought in a bushel of great eels at a time, and sixty
great lobsters.
The Braintree2 company, (which had begun to sit down at
I flatter 11  112 Watertown 11   113 Pelham II  11 harvested 11  115 strove 11
1 This sentence, in different ink, was probably written some time after the
preceding.
2 Deriving their name from a town in Essex, 40 miles from London, where
Mr. Hooker was a preacher. It was, like many others, perpetuated, by the
affection of the settlers, in Massachusetts; but, on a division of the town, the




1632.]                  JOHN WINTHROP.                           105
Mount Wollaston,) by order of court, removed to Newtown.,88
These were Mr. Hooker's1 company.
The governour's wife was delivered of a son, who was baptized by the name of William.2        The governour himself held
the child to baptism, as others in the congregation did use.
William signifies a common man, etc.
30.] Notice being given of ten sagamores and many Indians assembled at Muddy3 River, the governour sent Capt.
I Underhill, 1] with twenty musketeers, to discover, etc.; but at
Roxbury they heard they were broke up.
September 4.]     One Hopkins,4 of Watertown, was convict
for selling a piece and pistol, with powder and shot, to James
Sagamore, for which he had sentence to be whipped and branded in   the cheek.    It was discovered by an Indian, one of
James's men, upon promise of concealing him, (for otherwise
he was sure to be killed).
[Large blank.]
The ministers afterward, for an end of the difference between
IoC. —- 11
part, first occupied, nearest the bay, in which Mount Wollaston is included, was
called Quincy. See note on page 43.
1 His company came before their pastor. Of Hooker enough will be found
in the Magnalia, in Holmes's History of Cambridge, 1 Hist. Coll. VII. 38, in
Trumbull's Connecticut, I. 293, and in the biographical works of Eliot and
Allen, to excuse the editor from any farther research. He was bred at Emanuel College, Cambridge, and had his degrees in 1607 and 1611. The high esteem, in which he was held, will often appear in the progress of this work. A
line of pious, useful, and honorable descendants have embalmed the memory of
their ancestors; and, in a former age, his writings were valued with those of
the very first class of New England divines.
2 Knowing nothing more of this son, I presume he died soon, as our Town
Registry does not even enrol his birth. The church record is, " William, son of
our brother John Winthrop, governour, baptized 26 of 6, 1632."
3 This place is now the village of Brookline, the most beautiful in New England; for a very minute account of which, see 2 Hist. Coll. II. 140.
4 Notice of this misdemeanour, in Colony Records, I. 93, concludes with a
suggestion, proving the correct estimate by our ancestors of the dangers of
such trade with the Indians, though melancholy experience showed the impracticability of prevention: " Hereupon it was propounded, if this offence should
not be punished hereafter by death. Referred to the next court to be determined." Of the offender nothing more is discoverable, than that his given
name was Richard.




106                 JOHN WINTHROP.                 [1632.
the governour and deputy, ordered, that the governour should
procure them a minister at Newtown, and contribute somewhat
towards his maintenance for a time; or, if he could not, by the
spring, effect that, then to give the deputy, toward his charges
in building there, twenty pounds. The governour accepted
this order, and promised to perform it in one of the kinds.
But the deputy, having received one part of the order, returned
89 the same to the governour, with this reason to NM. Wilson, that he was so well persuaded of the governour's love
to him, and did prize it so much, as if II they 1j had given him
one hundred pounds instead of twenty pounds, he would not
have taken it.
Notwithstanding the heat of contention, which had been between the governour and deputy, yet they 112usually l met
about their affairs, and that without any appearance of any
breach or discontent; and ever after kept peace and good correspondency together, in love and friendship.'
One Jenkins,2 late an inhabitant of Dorchester, and now removed to Cape Porpus, went with an Indian up into [the]
country with store of goods to truck, and, being asleep in a
wigwam 113ofll one of Passaconamy's men, was killed in the
night by an Indian, dwelling near the Mohawks' country, who
fled away with his goods, but was fetched back by Passaconamy. There was much suspicion, that the Indians had some
plot against the English, both for that many Naragansett men,
etc., gathered together, who, with those of these parts, pretended to make war upon the Neipnett men, and divers insolent
speeches were used by some of them, and they did not frequent our houses as they were wont, and one of their pawawes
told us, that there was a conspiracy to cut us off to get our
victuals and other substance. Upon this there was a camp
pitched at Boston in the night, to exercise the soldiers against
|I he 11        12 peaceably II   I3 with 1
1 In a later hand the last clause appears; and it was, perhaps, introduced after the family union between the respective children.
2 Perhaps the settlement of that portion of the coast of Maine, which is now
in the town of Arundel, would not be known to have been made so early, without this sentence of our text. Nothing more of Jenkins is known to me, than
here inserted, of the manner of his death.




1632.]                JOHN WINTHROP.                      107
need might be; and Capt. Underhill (to try how they would
behave themselves) caused an alarm to be given upon the quarters, which discovered the weakness of our people, who, like
men amazed, knew not how to behave themselves, so as the
officers could not draw them into any order. All the rest of
the plantations took the alarm  and answered it; but it caused
much fear and distraction among the common sort, so as some,
which knew of it before, yet through fear had forgotten, and
believed the Indians had been upon us.      We doubled our
guards, and kept watch each day and night.
14.]  The rumour still increasing, the three next sagamores
were sent for, who came presently to the governour.
16, being the Lord's day.]  In the evening Mr. Peirce, ~90
in the ship Lyon, arrived, and came to an anchor before
Boston.   He brought one hundred and twenty-three passengers, whereof fifty children, all in health; and I| lost l1 not one
person by the way, save his carpenter, who fell overboard as he
was caulking a port.' They had been twelve weeks aboard,
and eight weeks from the Land's End. He had five days east
wind and thick fog, so as he was forced to come, all that time,
by the lead; and the first land he made was Cape Ann.
22.]  The Barnstable ship went out at Il2Pullen 11 Point to
Marble Harbour.
27.]  A day of thanksgiving at Boston for the good news of
the prosperous success of the king of Sweden, etc., and for the
safe arrival of the last ship and all the passengers, etc.
October 18.]   Capt. Camock,2 and one Mr. Godfry, a mer11 left 11                         112 Helen's 11
1 Names of several of these persons, of whom some became the chief men in
Connecticut, may be seen in 4 Mass. Iist. Coll. I. 94.
2 Hubbard, 216, was slightly mistaken in saying, that Cammock came not "to
New England till about the year 1633;" and as he, with Henry Josselyn, Belk.
N. H. I. 21, was appointed attorney, in a deed of 3 November, 1631, to give
possession to Sir F. Gorges and other grantees of the president and council of
New England, I conclude, that he had either settled before at Piscataqua, or a
little to the eastward, or was at that time projecting the expedition, which he
made in the following spring. Sullivan, in his History of Maine, 128, says, that
"the council of Plimouth, in the year 1629, granted to Thomas Cammock, five
thousand acres in Black Point, now in Scarborough, which are held on the east




108                      JOHN WINTHROP.                         [1632.
*91  chant,' came from    Pascataquack in Captain Neal his pinnace, and brought sixteen hogsheads of corn to the mill.
They went away November [blank].
25.]   The governour, with      Mr. Wilson, pastor of Boston,
and the two captains, etc., went aboard the Lyon, and from
side of that town, under the title of that grant, at this day. Cammock was the
nephewz of the Earl of Warwick, and came over in 1663, and died at Scarborough." Perhaps this was designed to show the first voyage, and, if so, the error
arose from inadvertently taking the date of John Josselyn's second voyage for
the first, in 1638, in which this gentleman, page 10, informs us, that Cammock,
whom he calls " a near kinsman of the earl," was his fellow passenger. But it
is plain enough, from the text, that he was here long before. He died, on a
voyage to the West Indies, in 1663, and Henry Josselyn married his widow,
Margaret.
I Edward Godfrey was very honorably intrusted by Mason and his joint adventurers, as appears by a letter of 5 December, 1632, preserved in Belknap's
N. H., I. Appendix iii. In the charter from Sir F. Gorges, for incorporation of
Agamenticus, or Acomenticus, 10 April, 1641, in Haz. I. 472, he is named first
of the aldermen. He became governour of the province of Maine before
1651; but was compelled, the following year, to submit, with the other inhabitants of that quarter of the country, to the government of Massachusetts, whose
commissioners appointed him, with three others, to hold county courts. Haz. I.
564-577. Yet, in 1658, his hopes of independence seem to have revived; for,
in Hutchinson's Coll. 314, we find a petition from York, Kittery, Wells, etc., to
his highness, the lord protector, against his design; and from the document next
in that collection, a letter from Leverett to the government of Massachusetts, it
seems, that Godfrey was the most active or most powerful of the discontented.
That petition of the loyal inhabitants was a strange libel on their country, representing the parts eastward, which are now found to be much the best, as " uninhabitable, sterile lands, swamps and rocky mountains, as not more than a few
shreds are left by the sea shore fit for cohabitation." Any good or evil conse-.
quences at that time were prevented by the decease of the great protector.
But though the complaints were renewed after the restoration, (see Leverett's
letter of 13th September, 1660, in Hutchinson's Coll. 322,) and thus afforded a
pretext for the temporary separation directed by the royal commissioners some
years after, I know not that any benefit was obtained by Godfrey. Hie is, perhaps, the gentleman referred to in the Narrative, Hutchinson's Coll. 423, "who
refused to submit to the Massachusetts, and suffered great loss by them, showed
the commissioners a warrant the Massachusetts made to have him brought to
Boston, alive or dead, and now demands justice against them."
The error of Prince, II. 70, who, transcribing this passage from our author, gives Vesey instead of Godfrey, must render cautious all decypherers
of ancient proper names, in which I have often fallen, for a time, into as great
mistakes.




1632.]                  JOHN WINTHROP.                           109
thence Mr. Peirce carried them in his shallop to Wessaguscus.
The next morning Mr. Peirce returned to his ship, and the governour and his company went on foot to Plimouth, and came
thither within the evening. The governour of Plimouth, Mr.
William   Bradford, (a very discreet and grave man,) with Mr.
Brewster,' the elder, and some others, came forth and met them
without the town, and conducted them to the governour's
house, where they were very kindly entertained, and feasted
every day at several houses.      On the Lord's day there was a
sacrament, which they did partake in; and, in the afternoon,
Mr. Roger Williams (according to their custom) propounded a
question, to which the pastor, Mr. Smith,2 spake briefly; then
Mr. Williams prophesied; and after the governour of *92
Plimouth spake to the question; after him      the elder; then
some two or three more of the congregation.          Then the elder
desired the governour of Massachusetts and Mr. Wilson to
speak to it, which they did.     When this was ended, the dea1 It would be presumption, without hope, for me to attempt any memoir of
Elder William Brewster, after the elaborate account in Belknap's American
Biography, II. 252. Yet far higher value belongs to the recent researches of
Rev. Joseph Hunter, as exhibited in 4 Mass. Hist. Coll. I. 64-72. Brewster may
well be thought the earliest layman of prominent service among the Puritans.
2 In the governour and company's letter to Endecott, 1629, is contained the
earliest notice of the Rev. Ralph Smith, "his difference in judgment in some
things from our ministers" being therein referred to as a caution against distraction in the Salem church. Haz. I. 260. His stay at that place, however, was
very short; for we learn from Bradford, in Prince, I. 188, that he went to Nantasket, where he was found living " in a poor house, that would not keep him
dry," and desired a better residence. Being carried to Plimouth, he became
their minister for several years. In Morton, I discern his name only twice, and
then with no epithets of reverence or circumstance of importance, except that
of making, in 1638, complaint against Gorton; thus being the earliest of the
numerous adversaries of the unhappy sectarian. But the History of Plimouth
Church, 1 Hist. Coll. IV. 108, written, indeed, so lately as 1760, informs of his
resignation of office in 1635, at the request of some of the flock, and partly of
his own accord; and therefore I infer, that the controversy with Gorton arose
not from his station. In that tract Smith is called "a man of low gifts and
parts."  How long he continued to reside, where he was so lightly esteemed,
is not certainly known; but the latter part of this History, 1645, tells, that the
people of Manchester, not then formed into a church body, had employed him
to preach to them. Neither Eliot nor Alien have given him a place in their
dictionaries. Young, Chron. of Mass. 151.
VOL. I.                         10




110                     JOHN WINTHROP.                       [1632.
con, Mr. Fuller,1 put the congregation in mind of their duty of
contribution; whereupon the governour and all the rest went
down to the deacon's seat, and put into the box, and then returned.
27.]   The wind N. W., Mr. Peirce set sail for Virginia.2
31, being Wednesday.] About five in the morning the governour and his company came out of Plimouth; the governour
of Plinouth, with the pastor and elder, etc., accompanying
them near half a mile out of town in the dark.          The Lieut.
Holmes,3 with two others, and the governour's 1[ mare, 114 came
along with them to the great swamp, about ten miles.         When
they came to the great river,5 they were carried over by one
Luddam,6 their guide, (as they had been when they came, the
stream being very strong, and up to the crotch;) so the governour called that passage Luddam's Ford.       Thence they came to
a place called Hue's1 Cross. The governour, being displeased
Ilman 
1 Samuel Fuller was a gentleman high in esteem at Plimouth. He had been
chosen to his office in Holland, with Gov. Carver, whom he accompanied in the
first ship. He is duly honored by Eliot, though his article should have been
enlarged, from Morton's Memorial, with the date of his death, 1633. Young,
Chron. of the Pilgr. 222.
2 In this voyage he was wrecked, six days after, outside of the capes of Virginia. See a good letter from him to his friends at Plymouth, in Prince's annals, 428 of Hale's Edition. His ship was the Lion.
3 After the notice of Holmes, by Judge Davis, in his edition of the New
England Memorial, nothing should be expected here to extend the reader's acquaintance with him.
4 Winthrop had gone to Plimouth, on foot, from Wessaguscus, as his narrative just before showed. His friend, the governour of the elder colony, sent
him back with his own horse. I have no doubt of the MS., though the former
edition had man.
5 Now called North River, - a stream rendered important by the great number of ships built upon its banks. See the copious account of Scituate, 2 Hist.
Coll. IV. 227.
6 I have not learned any thing of this man, nor been able even to ascertain
precisely where the fording place was.
7 Hue could hardly have been of much consequence in the governour's opinion, and we can scarcely justify his displeasure at the trifle. Anticipation of so
great an empire as grew in two hundred years from their planting, could not
consist with the fear, that Papists might say their religion was first settled here.
By the antiquary of Plimouth we are told of " Hewes' Cross Brook," and that




1632.]                 JOHN WINTHROP.                           111
at the name, in respect that such things might hereafter'93
give the Papists occasion to say, that their religion was
first planted in these parts, changed the name, and called it
Hue's Folly.    So they came, that evening, to Wessaguscus,'
where they were bountifully entertained, as before, with store
of turkeys, geese, ducks, etc., and the next day came safe to
Boston.
About this time Mr. Dudley, his house, at 1] Newtown, 11 was
preserved from   burning down, and all his family from        being
destroyed by gunpowder, by a marvellous deliverance; — the
hearth of the hall chimney burning all night upon a principal
~beam,~ and store of powder being near, and not discovered
till they arose in the morning, and then it began to flame out.
Mr. John Eliot, a member of Boston congregation, and one
whom    the   2congregation    intended presently to call to the
office of teacher, was called to be a teacher to the 113 church 1I
at Roxbury; and though Boston laboured all they could, both
with the congregation of Roxbury and with Mr. Eliot himself,
alleging their want of him, and the covenant between them,
etc., yet he could not be diverted from accepting the call of
Roxbury, November 5.       So he was dismissed.
|[ Watertown 11     112 company I[     113 company 11
John Hewes was one of the first settlers of Scituate. 2 Hist. Coll. IV. 303.
The act of jurisdiction by Winthrop, in thus changing a name within the limits
of another colony, was a slight usurpation.
1 The settlements of this place are mentioned, in order of time, on page 43.
In 1624, "some addition to the few inhabitants of Wessaguscus, from Weymouth in England," is given by Prince, I. 150; but his authority being only
manuscript letters, written, perhaps, more than a hundred years later, and probably embodying idle traditions, I am not disposed to give much credit to them,
especially as the contemporary, Gov. Bradford, remarks with emphasis, ib. 144,
that the second plantation came to an end in the spring of that very year. Besides, the exquisite diligence of the Annalist found no opportunity even to
name the spot again before the year 1628. p. 176. Then the ill conduct of
Morton and his clan rendered necessary the interference of " the chief of the
straggling plantations from Piscatoway, Naumkeag, Winisimet, Wesaguscusset,
Natasco, and other places." This was the celebrated and efficient expedition of
Standish. Prince's authority for this is the same chief of Plimouth, whose information is always most minute and satisfactory. Perhaps, in 1627, some settiers had reoccupied the vacant fields.




112                     JOHN WINTHROP.                        [1632.
About a fortnight before this, those of Charlestown, who had
formerly been joined to Boston congregation, now, in regard of
the difficulty of passage in the winter, and having opportunity
*94  of a pastor, one Mr. James,1 who came, over at this time,
were dismissed from the congregation of Boston.2
1 He remained at Charlestown little over three years, as, in the progress of
this History, will be seen.  Thence he removed to New Haven, where he
resided some years, exceptwhile engaged on a mission, in 1642 and 3, to Virginia; and Eliot has erroneously related, that at New Haven he finished the
remainder of his days. Hubbard, 191, says, James "returned back to England, where he was accepted as a faithful minister of the gospel, and continued
in that work till the year 1678, at Needham, in Suffolk, which was about the
eighty-sixth year of his age, and may yet be living." I am the more disposed
to value highly this original information of Hubbard, as it is of so very rare
occurrence. Prince, II. 77, is still more full than the contemporary historian.
His son, of the same name, by the accounts of the commissioners of the United
Colonies, seems to have been in their employment as a teacher of the Indians
on Long Island, until 1665; and he is No. 10 of the second classis of the Magnalia. Mather, with his habitual carelessness, sinks the name of baptism of
both. Allen omits the name of Thomas James.
2 In the books of our divines, the order of time, in which the churches of
Massachusetts were gathered, has often been noticed; but it will be found, that
they have, in general, deferred too easily to the authority of Johnson's Wonderworking Providence. That writer did not, probably, mean to be precise on
this point; or, if he did, is entitled to little regard. Holmes, in his History of
Cambridge, 1 Hist. Coll. VII. 15, follows the general current; and, though he
made a partial correction, 1 Hist. Coll. X. 314, he only increases the injustice
on Johnson's authority. The six churches next after Salem, he assigns to 1631,
when not one was gathered that year. Half were in 1630, and half in 1632.
With reference to Boston, he made amends, indeed, in Annals, I. 267, by suggesting, what nobody can fail to acquiesce in, that our church may be considered as translated in its organized state from Charlestown; though his expressions, compared with those of page 262, where he enumerates only six, instead
of seven, show his timidity. Still his injustice to Watertown remains unexpiated. The scrupulous attention of this most diligent annalist would have protected him from my humble animadversion, in a particular of so slight importance, did he not receive encouragement from companions of the highest character. Judge Davis, in the beautiful address on the anniversary of the Plimouth
forefathers' landing, 22 December, 1813, with which the first volume of 2 Hist.
Coll. appropriately commences, has, page ix, injuriously postponed Watertown
to Roxbury and Lynn. In his note F. a severe observer will, indeed, find reason to presume, that the author's judgment would give Watertown priority over
those churches, notwithstanding the rank of Johnson. The body of that note,
however, is occupied with disputing the claim of Watertown to stand second




1632.]                  JOHN WINTHROP.                            113
The congregation of Watertown discharged their elder,.95
Richard Brown, of his office, for his unfitness in regard of
only to Salem. Eliot, in his invaluable essays on our ecclesiastical history, 1
Hist. Coll. X. 26, obeys, against his own knowledge, the direction of Wonderworking Providence; and Harris's History of Dorchester betrays the right to
the second honor for that church. The Century Sermon of the late Dr. Kendall, in a note on pages 20, 21, irresistibly draws me to his opinion, by which
Watertown is determined to a rank equal with Boston. "July 30, 1630, at
Watertown, forty men subscribed a church covenant."  Now, there can be no
evidence, that any others, but Salem and Dorchester, preceded; though the
right of Wilson's (Boston) church to date from the same day is established by
Judge Davis's argument from the contemporaneous narrative of Bradford, in
Prince, I. 243. We cannot doubt the precedence of Dorchester, and its claim
to be reckoned in June, 1630, because, when the first court of assistants, 23
August, provided " how the ministers shall be maintained," and made a common charge on the colony for Wilson's (Boston) and Phillip's (Watertown) salaries, Mattapan and Salem were excepted. This, from the Records of Massachusetts, Prince, I. 247, must satisfy every one, that the former was considered
in a church state no less than the latter. Our Dorchester settlers had an embodied church, we know, when they left home in March, and undoubtedly had
regular ordinances with their two ministers after arrival in Massachusetts, in
June. Prince, I. 200. Whether Roxbury, or Lynn, which come in the third
year, have records to show which may certainly claim priority, is unknown,
probably, to themselves. Books cannot assist us in determining. See Prince,
II. 64, 68, and Johnson, lib. I. c. 21, 22.
A strange obliquity of judgment has applied the facts in our text to sustain
the precedency of Charlestown to Boston church. The pastor and the flock,
rather than the place of their assembly, ought surely to entitle any society of
worshippers to be thought the same, and not another. Even if exclusive regard
be paid to place, the church of Charlestown loses more than it can gain; for,
in September, 1630, the greater part of the congregation lived on this side of
the river; and in that month, for the last time, the court of assistants met at
Charlestown.  There the body of the church remained, therefore, less than
three months. The worship, afterwards, was always here; yet, for twenty-five
months more, there was but one church of worshippers from both sides. The
History always calls this congregation,- a word, which, unless plainly used as
a distinction from those in more intimate brotherhood, must always be understood by the reader as signers of the church covenant, -the congregation of
Boston. The dismission of Mr. James, and the thirty-two other brethren, little
more than one fourth of the whole, is from Boston to Charlestown. We have
every light on this subject, that Prince enjoyed, and are fully justified in forming a different conclusion from his, if his, which is doubtful, be adverse to this
now expressed. If reference be made to custom or common law, the identity
of a body corporate, like each of our churches, must be shown by its records.
10*




114                     JOHN WINTHROP.                       [1632.
*96 his passion and distemper in speech, having been oft admonished and declared his repentance for it.
21.] The governour received a letter from Capt. Neal, that
I Dixy 1| Bull  and fifteen    more of the    English, who     kept
about the east, were turned pirates, and had taken divers boats,
and rifled Pemaquid, etc., - 23. Hereupon the governour called a council, and it was agreed to send his bark with twenty
men, to join with those of Pascataquack, for the taking of the
said pirates.
22.]   A  fast was held by the congregation of Boston, and
Mr. Wilson (formerly their teacher) was chosen pastor, and
[blank] Oliver2 a ruling elder, and both were ordained by
I D. 
This evidence is, of course, in favor of Boston. In future days, I persuade myself, a contrary opinion will seem as strange, as the assertion in the Historical
Sketch of Charlestown, 2 Hist. Coll. II. 164, that Winthrop and his company
came in 1629.
To conclude this long note, I solicit indulgence for the following arrangement of
the early churches of Massachusetts proper, which to me appears most probable:
I. Salem, 1629, 6 August.       XVI. Rowley, 1639, 3 Dec.
II. Dorchester, 1630, June.     XVII. Salisbury.
III. Boston,    l1630 30 J l    XVIII. Sudbury, 1640, August.
IV. Watertown,, 30 Ju      XIX. Gloucester, 1642.
V. Roxbury, 1632, July.           XX. Woburn, 1642, 14 August.
VI. Lynn, 1632.                   XXI. Hull, 1644, July.
VII. Charlestown, 1632, 2 Nov.    XXII. Wenham, 1644, 8 October.
VIII. Cambridge, 1633, 11 Oct.    XXIII. Haverhill, 164,.
IX. Ipswich, 1634.              XXIV. Andover,     1645 Oct.
X. Newbury, 1635.                XXV. Reading, 1645, 5 Nov.
XI. Weymouth, 1635, July.       XXVI. Springfield, 1645.
XII. Hingham, 1635, September.  XXVII. Manchester.
XIII. Concord, 1636, 5 July.     XXVIII. Maiden.
XIV. Dedham, 1638, 8 Nov.         XXIX. Boston, 2d, 1650, 5 June.
XV. Quincy, 1639, 17 Sept.
1 Of this miserable fellow, it cannot be expected, that any memoirs should
remain. It seems probable, that the loss of his shallop and goods, reported, in
June preceding, to be taken by the French, may have led him and his companions to this renunciation of the friendship of the rest of the settlements on the
coast. They seem to have committed no outrages. Capt. Clap, in Prince, II.
91, gives the largest account of their operations, and concludes, " Bull got into
England; but God destroyed this wretched man."
2 Thomas Oliver, whose name occurs several times in the course of this History, was undoubtedly an estimable and useful man; but little is known of him.
He came, in the William and Francis, with his family. Reverence for his eldership, probably, kept him from other services, either offered by his townsmen, or




1632.]                   JOHN WINTHROP.                           115
imposition of hands, first by the teacher, and 11 the |I two      *97
deacons, (in the name of the congregation,) upon the elder,
and then by the elder and the deacons upon the pastor.
December 4.]      At a meeting of all the assistants, it was
agreed, in regard that the extremity of the 1 2snow 1I and frost
had hindered the making ready of the bark, and that they had
certain intelligence, that those of Pascataquack had sent out
two pinnaces and two shallops, above a fortnight before, to defer any further expedition against the pirates till they heard
what was done by those; and for that end it was agreed, to
send presently a shallop to Pascataquack to learn 11 more, 11 etc.
5.] Accordingly, the governour despatched away John Gallopp1 with his shallop.       The wind     being   very great at S.
W., he could reach no farther than Cape Ann harbour that
I[ then 11       112 season 11        13 news 11
sought by his own ambition; but he was several years one of the selectmen.
He died in the latter part of 1657, I conclude, from finding his will proved, 27
January following, in our Registry, I. 300. She died in 1635. His son, John,
H. C., 1645, is honorably mentioned in a later part of this work. His son, Peter, was father of Nathaniel, born 8 March, 1651, of whom the first newspaper
printed in North America, the Boston Newsletter, 24 April, 1704, has this notice: " Mr. Nathaniel Oliver, a principal merchant of this place, died April 15,
and was decently interred April 18, oetatis 53."  The same son, one of the
chief founders of Boston Third Church, was also father of the Hon. Daniel
Oliver, who died 1732. Of him and the sons, Andrew, lieutenant governour,
and Peter, chief justice, distinguished in the political history of the province of
Massachusetts Bay, as, well as others of the name, full biographies are given by
Eliot. They are written with an honorable impartiality, for the want of which,
in a son of the chief justice, to whom application was made by a son of the
biographer, for leave to copy a small part of his transcript of Hubbard's History, liberal minds will make large estimate of the evils of rancorous remembrance incident to civil conflicts. See 2 Hist. Coll. III. 288. But the denial
was of no detriment to any other than the possessor; for every careful student
of Hubbard would easily part with half that we have.
1 Mention is often made of this person, who was a fisherman well acquainted
with our harbour, in which an island perpetuates his name. He was admitted
of the church 5 January, 1633-4. His will, Prob. Rec. I. 292, made 20 December, 1649, proved 9 February following, signed with a cross, was made,
probably, in his last hours. In it he gives forty shillings towards building the
new meeting-house, which was that for the Second Church. His son, John,
was a captain in the great Narraganset battle, 19 December, 1675, and slain at
the head of his company.




116                     JOHN WINTHROP.                       [1632.
night; and the winds blowing northerly, he was kept there so
long, that it was January the 2d before he returned.
By letters from  Capt. Neal and Mr. Hilton,1 etc., it was cer*98 tified, that they had sent out all the forces they could make
against the pirates, viz., four pinnaces and shallops, and
about forty men, who, coming to Pemaquid, were there windbound about three weeks.
It was further advertised, by some who came from Penobscott, that the pirates had lost one of their chief men by a musket shot from Pemaquid; and that there remained but fifteen,
whereof four or five were detained against their wills; and that
they had been at some English plantations, and taken nothing
from them but what they paid for; and that they had given
another pinnace in exchange for that of Mr. Maverick, and as
much beaver and otter as it was worth more, etc.; and that
they had made a law against excessive drinking; and that
their order was, at such times as other ships use to have prayer,
1 Edward Hilton and his brother William, with a few others, sent by Gorges
and Mason, were the first planters of New Hampshire in 1623. See Hubbard,
214. The name of Edward, who was a gentleman of good judgment, is often
found in our History; and in 1641, when Massachusetts usurped the jurisdiction of the colony of New Hampshire, he became a magistrate. William had
visited New Plimouth, before settling on the Piscataqua, as appears by a letter
from him, Haz. I. 120, extracted from "New England's Trials," published, in
1622, by the celebrated John Smith. The note of Hazard, that the vessel,
which carried this letter, left New England the beginning of April, 1621, is not
given with his usual accuracy. The Mayflower, in which came the first company of one hundred, among whom was not Hilton, was the only vessel, Prince,
I. 104, that could leave Plimouth in April, 1621. On recurring to the original
authority of Hazard, Purchas's Pilgrims, lib. X. c. 3, page 1840 of vol. IV.
compared with Prince, I. 114, I find the Fortune arrived at Plimouth in November, 1621. William Hilton was, therefore, a passenger in her, with the
venerable Cushman, and by her, in December of the same year, was his epistle
returned. Descendants of one, or both, of these brothers, are found in New
Hampshire, of whom one, Winthrop, a distinguished officer in the Indian and
French wars, was killed by the savages near his own home, 23 June, 1710.
Some genealogical account of the families may be seen in Alden's Collection of
Epitaphs; II. 131. One, a grandchild of the above named Winthrop, died in
March, 1822, in possession of part of the unalienated estate of two centuries.
Gov. Joseph Dudley calls the grandfather his dear kinsman, and it is agreeable
to find the adoption by this family of a name of baptism from the father of
Massachusetts. It is still borne by a gentleman of Newmarket.




1632.]               JOHN WINTHROP.                       117
they would assemble upon the deck, and one sing a song, or
speak a few senseless sentences, etc. They also sent a writing,
directed to all the governours, signifying their intent not to do
harm to any more of their countrymen, but to go to the southward, and to advise them not to send against them; for they
were resolved to I1 sink Ii themselves rather than be taken: Signed underneath, Fortune le garde, and no 12name 1I to it.
January 1.]   Mr. Edward Winslow       chosen governour of
Plimouth, Mr. Bradford having been governour about ten years,
and now by importunity gat off.'
9.]  Mr. Oliver, a right godly man, and elder of the churec
of Boston, having three or four of his sons, all very young,
cutting down wood upon the      1 Sneck, 1 one of them, being
about fifteen years old, had his brains beaten out with the fall
of a tree, which he had felled.  The good old father (having
the news of it in as fearful a manner as might be, by another
boy, his brother) called his wife (being also a very godly woman) and went to prayer, and bare it with much patience and
honor.
17.] The governour, having intelligence from the east, that
the French had bought the Scottish plantation2 near Cape Sable, and that the fort and all the ammunition were deliver- q99
ed to them, and that the cardinal, having the managing
thereof, had sent some companies already, and preparation was
made to send many more the next year, and divers priests and
Jesuits among them, - called the assistants to Boston, and the
ministers and captains, and some other chief men, to advise
what was fit to be done for our safety, in regard the French
strike 11     II2 more |1       I3 rocks II
From Prince, II. 75, we learn, that the people of Plimouth this year
enacted, "that whoever refuses the office of governour shall pay ~20, unless
he was chose two years going." A proportional penalty was laid on any refusing to be a counsellor. This severity has become unnecessary for such high
offices, though it is found useful to provide similar fines for declining subordinate ones.
2 We presume this to mean the plantation, for which Sir William Alexander had patents from James I. and Charles I. 10 September, 1621, and 12
July, 1625, soon after ceded to the French. The settlement was at Port
Royal.




118                 JOHN WINTHROP.                 [1632.
were like to prove ill neighbours (being Papists;) at which
meeting it was agreed, that a plantation and a fort should forthwith be begun at Natascott, partly to be 1I some 1[ block in an
enemy's way, (though it could not bar i 2his l entrance,) and
especially to prevent an enemy from taking that passage from
us; and also, that the fort begun at Boston should be finished;
-also, that a plantation should be begun at Agawam, (being
the best place in the land for tillage and cattle,) least an enemy,
finding it void, should possess and take it from us. The governour's son (being one of the assistants) was to undertake
this, and to take no more out of the bay than twelve men; the
rest to be supplied at the coming of the next ships.
A maid servant of Mr. Skelton of Salem, going towards Sagus, was lost seven days, and at length came home to Salem.
All that time she was in the woods, having no kind of food,
the snow being very deep, and as cold as at any time that winter. She was so frozen into the snow some mornings, as she
was one hour before she could get up; yet she soon recovered
and did well, through the Lord's wonderful providence.
[Large blank.]
About the beginning of this month of January the pinnaces,
which went after the pirates, returned, the cold being so great
as they could not pursue them; but, in their return, they hanged up at Richman's Isle an Indian, one Black Will, one of
those who had there murdered1 Walter Bagnall. Three of the
pirates' company ran from them and came home.
[Large blank.]
February 21.] The governour and four of the assistants,
with three of the ministers, and others, about twenty-six in all,
went, in three boats, to view Natascott, the wind W., fair
weather; but the wind arose at N. W. so strong, and extreme
cold, that they were kept there two nights, being forced to lodge
upon the ground, in an open cottage, upon a little old straw,
|[ stone                     I112 their II
1 That murder was mentioned under date of October, 1631, page 62, a year
and a quarter before. The process mentioned in the text is more like revenge
than justice. Richman's or Richmond's Isle, is part of Scarborough.




1632.]                JOHN WINTHROP.                      119
which they pulled from the thatch.    Their victuals also r100
grew short, so as they were forced to eat muscles,- yet
they were very [I mean, 1 - and came all safe home the third
day after, through the Lord's special providence. Upon view
of the place, it was agreed by all, that to build a fort there
would be of too great charge, and of little use; whereupon the
planting of that place was deferred.1
22, or thereabouts.]  The ship William, Mr. Trevore master,
arrived at Plimouth with some passengers and goods for the
Massachusetts Bay; but she came to set up a fishing at Scituate, and so to go to trade at Hudson's River.
By this ship we had intelligence from our friends in England,
that Sir Ferdinando Gorges and Capt. Mason (upon the instigation of Sir Christopher Gardiner, Morton, and Ratcliff) had
preferred a petition to the lords of the privy council against us,
charging us with many false accusations; but, through the
Lord's good providence, and the care of our friends in England,
(especially Mr. ~ Emanuel ~ Downing, who had married the governour's sister, and the good testimony given on our behalf by
one Capt. Wiggin,2 who dwelt at Pascataquack, and had been
divers times among us,) their malicious practice took not effect.
The principal matter they had against us was, the letters of
some indiscreet persons among us, who had written against the
church government ~in England, ~ etc., which had been intercepted by occasion of the death of Capt. Levett, who carried
them, and died at sea.
26.] Two little girls of the governour's family were sitting
under a great heap of logs, plucking of birds, and the wind
[ merry l
1 Readers accustomed to receive, with some hesitation, any information from
Johnson, will compare the narrative in our text with his, lib. I. c. 28, or as it is
reprinted in 2 Hist. Coll. III. 138, 9. A scrutiny of his representation discloses
mistakes of the time, making it " the vernal of the year 1634;" of the place,
"a small island, about two miles distant from Boston," that is, Castle Island, instead of Nantasket; and of the number, " some eight or ten persons of note."
He wrote eighteen years after the event, and shows little precision in any thing
but his creed; yet his book is one of the most curious that an inquirer into the
manners and institutions of our fathers can peruse.
2 For some of this testimony, see 3 Mass. Hist. Coll. VIII. 320.




120                    JOHN WINTHROP.                        [1633.
driving the feathers into the house, the governour's wife caused
them to remove away. They were no sooner gone, but the
whole heap of logs fell down in the place, and had crushed
them to death, if the Lord, in his special providence, had not
delivered them.
"March.]   The governour's son, John Winthrop, went, with
*101 twelve1 II more, II to begin a plantation at Agawam, after
called Ipswich.
[Large blank.]
One John Edye, a godly man of Watertown congregation,
fell distracted, and, getting out one evening, could not be found;
but, eight days after, he came again of himself. He had
kept his strength and colour, yet had eaten nothing (as must
needs be conceived) all that time. He recovered his understanding again in good measure, and lived very orderly, but
would, now and then, be a little distempered.2
[Blank.]
April 10.]   Here arrived Mr. Hodges, one of Mr. Peirce his
mates.   He came from Virginia in a shallop, and brought news
that Mr. Peirce's ship was cast away upon a shoal four miles
from Feake' Isle, ten leagues to the N. of the mouth of Vir|I men I
1 At the court, 1 April next, it was." ordered, that no person whatsoever
shall go to plant or inhabit at Agawam, without leave from the court, except
those that are already gone with Mr. John Winthrop, jun."  Then follows in
the Record, I. 96, the list of the others: "Mr. Clerke, Robert Coles, Thomas
Howlett, John Biggs, John Gage, Thomas Hardy, William  Perkins, Mr.
Thorndike, William Sarjeant," as in Prince, II. 86. Of course, there were
three more.
2 The last sentence appears to have been written, as the sense would induce
us also to suppose, sometime later than the preceding. A blank had been left
for the sufferer's Christian name, which is inserted in a different ink from the
rest of the page.  From Watertown Records, I find, "Pilgrim, daughter of
John and Amie Eddie, born 25 August, 1634; John, son of J. and A. E., born
16 February, 1636-7, died soon; Benjamin, son of J. and A. E., buried 1639;
Samuel, son of J. and A. E., born 30 September, 1640." Another daughter is
also mentioned of a later date.
8 Probably this name was given as a compliment to the relative of Gov. Winthrop, and may not have been perpetuated. The island is undoubtedly on the
ocean side of the eastern shore of Virginia. In the map of Maryland, in Ogilby's History of America, it is called Fetche's Island.




1633.]                JOHN WINTHROP.                        121
ginia Bay, November 2d, about I|five [1 in the morning, the wind
S. W., through the negligence of one of his mates, who had
the watch, and kept not his lead as he was 11 2exhorted 11. They
had a shallop and their ship's boat aboard. All that went into
the shallop came safe on shore, but the ship's boat was sunk by
the ship's side, and [blank] men'drowned in her, and ten of
them were taken up alive into the shallop.    There were in the
ship twenty-eight seamen and ten passengers.      Of these were
drowned seven seamen and five passengers, and all the goods
were lost, except one hogshead of beaver; and most of the letters were saved, and some other small things, which were
driven on shore the next day, when the ship was broken in
pieces. They were nine days in much distress, before'102
they found any English.     Plimouth men lost four hogsheads, 9001 pounds of beaver, and 200 otter skins.     The governour of Massachusetts lost, in beaver and fish, which he sent
to Virginia, etc., near ~100. Many others lost 1 lbeaver, 11 and
Mr. Humfrey, fish.2
[Large blank.]
May.]   The William and Jane, Mr. Burdock master, arrived
with thirty passengers and ten cows [1 or morell.   She came in
six weeks from London.
[Blank.]
The Mary and Jane arrived, Mr. Rose master.        She came
from London in seven weeks, and brought one hundred and
ninety-six passengers, (onLy two children died).  Mr. Coddington, one of the assist     ants, and his  ife, came in her.  In her
I one 11  112 appointed 1   1[3 skins 11  11 4one mare II
1 These figures, taken from the margin, were designed, as I think, to represent the quantity, not the value; the pounds avoirdupois, not, as the former
editor had it, pounds sterling. Of this construction I felt confident before knowing the concurrence of Prince, II. 87. He inserts a characteristic; letter from
Capt. Peirce about the shipwreck.
2 She was bound to England, after stopping to trade at Virginia, probably
to receive tobacco for her fish. The skins from Massachusetts were, of course,
destined for London. I have seen several letters from friends in England
to John Winthrop, jun., here, acknowledging receipt of epistles sent by this
vessel, which, having been drenched in the sea, were hardly legible by his correspondents.
8 Her name was Mary, and she is the 158th member of Boston church. CodVOL. Il                    11




122                  JOHN WINTHROP.                   [1633.
return she was cast away upon Isle Sable, but [blank] men
were saved.
By these ships we understood, that Sir Christopher Gardiner,
and Thomas Morton, and Philip Ratcliff, (who had been punished here for their misdemeanours,) had petitioned to the king
and council against us, (being set on by Sir Ferdinando Gorges and Capt. Mason, who had begun a plantation at Pascataquack, and aimed at the general government of New England
for their agent there, Capt. Neal).  The petition was of many
sheets of paper, and contained many false accusations, (and
among some truths misrepeated,) accusing us to intend rebellion, to have cast off our allegiance, and to be wholly separate
from the church and laws of England; that our ministers and
*103 people did continually rail against the state, church, and
bishops there, etc. Upon which such of our company as
were then in England, viz., Sir Richard Saltonstall, Mr. Humfrey, and Mr. Cradock, were called before a committee of the
council, to whom they delivered in an answer in writing;1 upon
reading whereof, it pleased the Lord, our gracious God and
Protector, so to work with the lords, and after with the king's
majesty, when the whole matter was reported to him by Sir
Thomas Jermin, one of the council, (but not of the committee,
who yet had been present at the three days of hearing, and
spake much in the commendation of the governour, both to the
lords and after to his majesty,) that he said, he would have
them severely punished, who did abuse 11 his governour ll and
the plantation; that the defendants were dismissed with a favorable order for their encouragement, being assured from some
II this government |
dington had lost the wife he brought in the first expedition, as appears by Dudley's letter, in the great mortality of the seasoning. He went to England early
in 1631. Gov. Winthrop, in writing to his son, in a letter of that date, in the
Appendix, desires him to favor Coddington's application to his sister, whom I
presume to be the widow of Henry. But she came over in the latter part of
that year, with her mother-in-law, the wife of the governour, and soon married
Feake.
1 A letter from Winthrop to his friend Bradford, giving a relation of this inquiry, and the order of the privy council thereon, preserved in Prince, II.89-91,
is worth perusal.




1633.]                  JOHN WINTHROP.                           123
of the council, that his majesty did not intend to impose the
ceremonies of the church of England upon us; for that it was
considered, that it was the freedom from such things that made
people come over to us; and it was credibly informed to the
council, that this country would, in time, be very beneficial to
England for masts, cordage, etc., if the Sound should be debarred.1
We sent forth a pinnace after the pirate Bull, but, after *104
she had been forth two months,2 she came home, hav1 The fears, entertained by our friends in England, while this subject was before the council, will be fully exhibited by extracts from two letters in my possession to J. Winthrop the younger. Edward Howes writes, 18 March, 1632-3,
" I am glad, and exceedingly rejoice at your prosperity, and the prosperity of
the whole colony, and that it hath pleased God to show his power and mercy
upon you all in a wonderful manner, beyond the expectation of the great ones
of this land, in delivering you, not from a Spanish powder plot, nor an accounted invincible armada, but from a Spanish-like French infection, which was like
to have tainted the halest and best men amongst you, yea all of you, as may appear by the writings and letters written with mine own hand, and sent to
your father, my honored friend. Sir, I am the more sensible hereof, in regard
I was a daily and hourly auditor and spectator of all the passages, which hath
caused me to take it into consideration, that your plantation hath need of some
hearty and able friends to back you upon all occasions, which must remain here
and have friends at court. I, though not so able as I could wish, (if God saw it
good,) yet as hearty as the best, considering Mr. Humfrey's preparation for departure, and my master's desire and resolution to be with you, have betaken
myself now, at last, to the study of the laws, and to that purpose have admitted
myself as a student of Clifford's Inn. Not that I mean absolutely, or presently,
to leave my master, but to enable myself to leave when he is gone, and to retire
myself, in the vacation time, to my study, which shall ever tend, to the utmost
of my poor ability, to the good and welfare of your plantation and state."
Francis Kirby writes, 26 March, 1633, "Your friends here, who are members of your plantation, have had much to do to answer the unjust complaints
made to the king and council of your government there. I understand that you
are an assistant, and so have a voice in the weighty affairs of that commonwealth. I know I shall not need to advise you, that the prayers for our king
be not neglected in any of your public meetings; and I desire that you differ
no more from us in church government, than you shall find that we differ from
the; prescript rule of God's word, and further I meddle not." Our fathers and
all their descendants may be content with so liberal a permission of difference
on church government.
2 Prince, II. 91, gives this word weeks. The court, 2 July after, directed the
treasurer to pay Lieut. Mason ~10 for his services in this expedition; and the




124                 JOHN WINTHROP.                  [1633.
ing not found him.    After, we heard he was gone to the
French.
A Dutch pink arrived, which had been to the southward a
trading.
June 2.] Capt. Stone' arrived with a small ship with cows
and some salt. The governour of Plimouth sent Capt. Standish to prosecute against him for piracy. The cause ] was, beingll at the Dutch plantation, where a pinnace of Plimouth
coming, and Capt. Stone and the Dutch governour having been
drinking together, Capt. Stone, upon pretence that those of
Plimouth had reproached them of Virginia, from whence he
came, seized upon their pinnace, (with the governour's consent,) and offered to carry her away, but the Dutchmen 11 2rescued  her; and the next day the governour and Capt. Stone
entreated the master of the pinnace (being one of the council
of Plimouth) to pass it by, which he promised by a solemn instrument under his hand; yet, upon their earnest prosecution
at court, we bound over Capt. Stone (with two sureties) to appear in the admiralty court in England, etc. But, after, those
of Plimouth, being persuaded that it would turn to their reproach, and that it could be no piracy, with their consent, we
withdrew the recognizance.
15.]  Mr. Graves, in the ship Elizabeth2 Bonadventure, from
Yarmouth, arrived with ninety-five passengers, and thirty-four
Dutch sheep, and two mares. They came from Yarmouth in
six weeks; lost not one person, but above forty sheep.
19.] A day of thanksgiving was kept in all the congrega*105 tions, for our delivery from the plots of our enemies, and
for the safe arrival of our friends, etc.
July 2.] At a court it was agreed, that the governour, John
Winthrop, should have, towards his charges this year, ~150,3
I| was began 11              112 wrested |I
other charges amounted to ~24.7.6, for which see the treasurer's account, in 2
Hist. Coll. VIII. 232, 3.
1 More will be found of this unhappy man in September and January following, and in November, 1634. A very bad report of him, under this latter year,
is also given by Morton.
2 Here, at first, a blank had been left for the ship's name, which the governour afterwards inserted.
3 The figures in the MS. are 130, or 150, the 3 being, I think, written upon




1633.]                  JOHN WINTHROP.                            125
and the money, which he had disbursed in public business, as
officers' wages, etc., being between two and three hundred
pounds, should be forthwith paid.
12.]   Mr. Edward     Winslow, governour of Plimouth, and
Mr. Bradford, came into the bay, and went away the 18th.
They came partly to confer about joining in a trade to Connecticut, for beaver and hemp. There was a motion to set up
a trading house there, to prevent the Dutch, who were about to
build one; but, in regard the place was not fit for plantation,
there being three or four thousand warlike Indians, and the
river not to be gone into but by small pinnaces, having a bar
affording but six feet at high water, and for that no vessels can
get in for seven months in the year, partly by reason of the
ice, and then the violent stream, etc., we thought not fit to
meddle with it.'
24.]   A  ship arrived from    Weymouth, with       about eighty
passengers, and twelve kine, who sate down at Dorchester.
They were twelve weeks coming, being forced into the Western Islands by a leak, where they stayed three weeks, and were
very courteously used by the Portugals; but the extremity of
the 5; but it is observable, that the Colony Record has it only ~100. The
treasurer's account of all the payments to Winthrop, as referred to in my note
above, amounts to ~328.10.
1 Under date of 4 April, 1631, the reader has seen the earliest mention of
Connecticut arising in the History of Massachusetts. But, from  Bradford's
Register, in Prince, II. 94, we may be sure, that Plimouth had entertained
views of establishing a plantation there, at an earlier season, and was willing to.
admit our colonists, her neighbours, to partake the advantage. On the first
proposal from the Indian sachem, a sufficient cause for declining to send out a
colony, to such a distance, would be found in our weakness; but I am constrained to remark, that the reasons, in the text above assigned, the strength of the
current, shoalness of the water, continuance of the ice, and multitude of Indians, look to me more like pretexts, than real motives. Some disingenuousness, I fear, may be imputed to our council, in starting difficulties to deter our
brethren of the humble community of Plimouth from extending their limits to
so advantageous a situation; for we next season were careful to warn the Dutch
against occupation of it, and the following year took possession ourselves. Honest Morton complains, that his people " deserved to have held it, and not by
friends to have been thrust out, as, in a sort, they afterwards were;" and his
complaint appears very natural, if not unanswerable,
11*




126                     JOHN WINTHROP.                       [1633.
the heat there, and the continual rain brought sickness upon
them, so as [blank] died.
*106     Much sickness at Plimouth, and above twenty' died of
pestilent fevers.
Mr. Graves returned, and carried a freight of fish from hence
and Plimouth.
By him the governour and assistants sent an answer to the
petition of Sir Christopher Gardiner, and withal a certificate
from the old planters2 concerning the carriage of affairs, etc.
August 6.]    Two men servants to one Moodye, of Roxbury,
returning in a boat from the windmill, struck upon the oyster
bank.   They went out to gather oysters, and, not making fast
their boat, when the flood came, it floated away, and they were
both drowned, although they might have waded out on either
side; but it was an evident judgment3 of God upon them, for
they were wicked persons. One of them, a little before, being
reproved for his lewdness, and put in mind of hell, answered,
that if hell were ten times hotter, he had rather be there than
he would serve his master, etc. The occasion was, because he
had bound himself for divers years, and saw that, if he had
been at liberty, he might have had greater wages, though otherwise his master used him very well.4
1 For the number a blank was left, when the line was first written.
2 Of these old planters, we may conjecture the names to be, Blaxton, Jefferies, Maverick, Thomson; and perhaps Bursley, Conant, and Oldham.
3 Too many instances of more extraordinary providential or fortuitous occurrences, perverted in their interpretation, will be observed in the progress of
this History. It was the vice of the age, and indeed of most ages. The great
historian of the civil war abounds in such judgments; but on the other side they
are still more numerous.
4 With the incomplete transcript of this paragraph, and in the midst of a sentence, Prince's third pamphlet, II. 96, abruptly terminates. To omit here the
expression of deepest regret for thus parting with such a companion, would be
injurious to his memory. Yet deeper will be the regret of all inquirers after
the minute circumstances of New England history, that such a patient and judicious student had not begun his Annals with the discovery by Columbus,
rather than the creation of Moses. No other antiquary will ever enjoy advantages equal to his for an exact chronological series of our events; and when
great opportunities are afforded, a dozen Hubbards, or a score of Mathers, may
rise for one Prince. Civil convulsions, disregard of manuscripts, and the lapse
of time, favorable to worms and damp, have each robbed us of many of his




1633.]               JOHN WINTHROP.                      127
Mr. Graves returned.    He carried between five and six
thousand weight of beaver, and about thirty passengers. Capt.
Walter Neal, of Pascataquack, and some eight of his company,
went with him. He had been in the bay above ten days, and
came not all that time to see the governour. Being persua- *107
ded by divers of his friends, his answer was, that he was not
well entertained the first time he came hither, and, besides, he had
some letters opened in the bay; 11 ergo, 11 except he were invited,
he would not go see him. The 13th1 day he wrote to the
governour, to excuse his not coming to see him, upon the same
reasons.  The governour returned him answer, that his entertainment was such as time and place could afford, (being at
their first coming, before they were housed, etc.) and retorted
the discourtesy upon him, in that he would thrust himself, with
such a company, (he had five or six gentlemen with him,) upon
a stranger's entertainment, at such an unseasonable time, and
having no need so to do; and for his letters, he protested his
innocency, (as he might well, for the letters were opened before
they came into the bay;) and so concluded courteously, yet
with plain demonstration of his error.  And, indeed, if 11 2the
governour II should have invited him, standing upon those terms,
he had blemished his reputation.
There is mention made before of the answer, which was returned to Sir Christopher Gardiner his accusations, to which
the governour and all the assistants subscribed, only the
deputy refused. He made three exceptions: 1. For that we
termed the bishops reverend bishops; which was only in repeating the l13accuser's words 1,. 2. For that we professed to
believe all the articles of the 114 Christian I1 faith, according to
the scriptures and the common received tenets of the churches
II Government;;1  12 he courteously 11  3 accusations made 1  114 gospel [
dearest treasures; but for those which himself made public, all succeeding admirers of the days of old must unite with me in the oblation of highest regard,
" His saltem accumulem donis."
Of the month, not of his visit, I presume to be meant. William Wood,
to whom we are obliged for New England's Prospect, printed at London, 1634,
went undoubtedly with Graves; for he says, he sailed from Boston, 15th August, 1633.




128                     JOHN WINTHROP.                       [1633.
of England. This he refused, because we differed from them in
matter of discipline, and about the meaning of Christs descension into hell; 1|yet |I the faithful in England (whom we account
the churches) expound it as we do, and not of a local descent,
as some of the bishops do. 3. For that we gave the king the
title of sacred majesty, which is the most proper title of princes,'being the Lord's anointed,*1 and the word a mere civil word,
never applied in scripture to any divine thing, but sanctus used
always, (Mr. Knox called the 11 2queen of Scotland II by the same
*108 title).   Yet by no reasons could he be drawn to yield to
these things, although they were allowed by divers of the
ministers and the chief of Plimouth.
There was great scarcity of corn, by reason of the spoil our
hogs had made at harvest, and the great quantity they had
11 even |I in the winter, (there being no acorns;) yet people lived
well with fish and the fruit of their gardens.2
Sept. 4.] The Griffin, a ship of three hundred tons, arrived,
(having been eight weeks from the Downs). ~ This ship was
brought in by John Gallop a new3 way by Lovell's Island, at
low water, now called Griffin's Gap.~ She brought about
that II       112 In. of S ---          I 3 eaten 1
1 I am certain, from the difference of the ink, that the pen was drawn through
this passage some time after it was written. If it were the governour's pen, his
sentiments, but not his principles, were changed in a few years.
2 At the court, 5 November after, the adoption of two remarkable regulations
was caused by this scarcity: 1. "That no man shall give his swine any corn,
but such as, being viewed by two or three neighbours, shall be judged unfit for
man's meat." 2. " Also, that every plantation shall agree how many swine
every person may keep, winter and summer, about the plantation: this order to
take place ten days hence."
3 The new way is not so clearly indicated, that I should dare to pilot the
reader through it. On first reading this sentence, it seemed as if the passage
must be our present ship channel, between Lovell's and George's with Gallop's Islands, and, of course, that Broad Sound was the former common way.
But this would be wrong; for the governour has noticed, that, in July, 1643,
when La Tour sailed from us with the ships hired here, they went out at Broad
Sound, where no ships of such burden had gone out before, or not more than one.
So I conclude, that our present ship channel is the same that was first used;
and that Gallop brought the Griffin in between Lovell's Island and the Great
Brewster from the northward. We are confident, that very great changes have
occurred in the harbour; and, within the recollection of many, such violences




1633.]                    JOHN WINTHROP.                         129
two   hundred   passengers, having     lost some four, ~ whereof
one was drowned two days before, as he was casting forth
a line to take mackerel~.        In this ship came Mr. Cotton,'
Mr. Hooker, and      Mr. Stone,2 ministers, and ~Mr. Peirce,~3
are known, as may justify the conjecture, that the long shoal, to the south-west
from the Great Brewster, was solid upland when the bay was first settled.
1 Nothing can be added to the abundant materials offered by this History, and
all the contemporary books, which Mather, Hutchinson, Eliot, Allen, and Emerson, have exhausted in their notices of " the great Cotton." The first author
derived his name and part of his blood from this spiritual guide of Boston; and
the last adorned, in his History of the First Church, all who had preceded himself in ministration at that altar.
2 Samuel Stone was, happily, in favor with the author of the Magnalia; and
readers that dread to pursue an inquiry in such a work, will find ample account
of him in Trumbull, Eliot's and Allen's Dictionaries, Holmes's History of Cambridge, 1 Hist. Coll. VII.; and in the Plimouth Memorialist, at the date of
his death, 1663, an elegy in the worst style of that age. He performed good
service with Mason, whom he accompanied as chaplain in the expedition against
the Pequots, 1637. See 2 Hist. Coll. VIII. 134. A Body of Divinity, in a
catechetical way, by him, in a 4to MS. of 540 pages, is in the library of our
Historical Society.
8 He was a gentleman of high repute in Boston, being one of the selectmen
with Winthrop and Coddington the next year, and must not be confounded
with the mariner, who had the same name of baptism. His freeman's oath, at
the general court, 14 May, 1634, was taken at the same time with eighty others,
of whom Hooker, Stone, Cotton, Thomas Mayhew, and William Brenton are
all, besides Peirce, that have the respectful title, Mr., prefixed. to their names.
Col. Rec. I. 112. Prince, enumerating the principal members of Boston
church, II. 69, has mistaken him for the master of the Lyon, as I infer from
finding in their Records but one of the name, and being satisfied, that he could
not be honored with such office in the civil line, unless in full cofimunion with
the brethren. Yet Prince may be correct; for the admission to our church was
several weeks before the dismission of Charlestown people. The name of William Peirce does not appear in the record of Boston first church except as next
to those of Rev. Mr. James and his wife, and so the very latest before the formation of Charlestown church. It might therefore be thought, that this fellow
passenger with Cotton went to some other church, perhaps that of Cambridge
or Watertown. But as it is apparent, that our record, in its few earliest pages,
is not original, but copy, I presume the fact of admission of this gentleman was
omitted by the scribe supposing the former mention of the other W. P. applied
to him. His wife, Bridget, was admitted of our church 2 Feb. 1634, after her
husband. A second wife survived him, and had administration of his estate in December, 1669. See Prob. Rec. VII. 2, by which we find his estate much reduced,
the inventory amounting only to ~85.2, unless another person of the same




130                      JOHN WINTHROP.                        [1633.
*109   Mr. Haynes,1 (a gentleman of great estate,) Mr. I1 Hoffe, 1 2
and many other men of good estates. They gat out of
England with much difficulty, all places being belaid to have
taken Mr. Cotton and Mr. Hooker, who had been long sought
for to have been brought into the high commission; but the
Jnaster being bound to touch at the Wight, the I1 2pursuivants 11
attended there, and, in the mean time, the said ministers were
taken in at the Downs.      Mr. Hooker and Mr. Stone went presently to Newtown, where they were to be entertained, and
Mr. Cotton stayed at Boston.        1 On Saturday Ii evening, the
I Goffe        11 pursuants       113 One Sunday II
name, but not the navigator mentioned in a note on page 25, be in that record
intended; for administration of the estate of one William Peirce was granted,
January, 1661, to his wife, Prob. Rec. IV. 66, and the inventory of it is ~228.5.
Several children survived, of whom the Prob. Rec. VII. 213, affords the
names. It is not now easy to refer to each stock the numerous descendants in
our country.
1 There can be no need of saying more of this gentleman than will be found
in a few pages of this History, in Trumbull, the Magnalia, and the biographies.
He was fortunate in being governour of Massachusetts, and more fortunate in
removing after his first year of office, thereby avoiding our bitter contentions,
to become father of the new colony of Connecticut.
2 Drs. Trumbull and Holmes were, by the error of the former edition, led
into,nistake of this gentleman's name. Atherton Haugh, or Hough, pronounced
as the text gives it, was of great influence in Boston, as this work, in its progress, will show. He was early chosen into the council, and afterwards a deputy
from Boston in several general courts. I presume he came from Boston in Lincolnshire; for, in 1628, the mayor of that borough was of the same name, probably the same person. His descendants, in male and female lines, if we may
judge from the perpetuation of the unusual name of baptism, continued long in
Boston and its vicinity; and the derivation through female lines is probably not
yet extinct. He died 11 September, 1650.
8 In any other place, I know not that evidence of a regular religious assembly, on the evening before the first day of the week, can be found. The time
was observed as holy in private families for many years; and writings in favor
of the custom, nearly a century, are recollected, particularly in 1722, by Stoddard of Northampton, one of the greatest divines of that age in our country.
The practice still subsists, with greater or less punctuality, in Connecticut,
where, on the evening of Sunday, it is said, many recur to their secular labors;
and by the statute of Massachusetts, 1791, c. 58, certain regulations, "respecting the due observation of the Lord's day, shall be construed to extend to
the time included between the midnight preceding and the sun setting of the
same day."




1633.]                  JOHN WINTHROP.                          131
congregation met in their ordinary exercise, and Mr. Cotton,
being desired to speak to the question, (which was of the *110
church,) he showed, out of the Canticles, 6, that some
churches were as queens, some as concubines, some as damsels,
and some as doves,' etc.      He was then (with his wife) propounded to be admitted a member.' The Lord's day following, he exercised in the afternoon, and being to be admitted, he
signified his desire and readiness to make his confession according to order, which he said might be sufficient in declaring his
faith about baptism, (which he then desired for his child, born
in their passage, and therefore named Seaborn2).      He gave two
reasons why he did not baptize it at sea, (not for want of fresh
water, for he held, sea water would have served:) 1, because
they had no settled congregation there; 2, because a minister hath no power to give the seals but in his own congregation. l He desired his wife might also be admitted a member,
and gave a modest testimony of her, but withal requested, that
she might not be put to make open confession, etc., which he
said was against the apostle's rule, and not fit for women's
modesty; but that the elders might examine her in private.
So she was asked, if she did consent in the confession of faith
1 Most of the early Protestants and especially the Puritans, paid no less
attention to the Song, than to the Wisdom of Solomon; and sometimes, by their
extreme fondness for spiritualizing what needs great distortion to make it " profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,"
seem to be ignorant of the strong doubts of its canonical authority. Piety is
shocked, when prudence is thus slighted.
2 Of this son, whose name, in the catalogue of Harvard College, is found,
Marigena, 1651, a brief note is found in Allen. I am less surprised at the omission of him by Eliot, whose account of the father, is admirable for its propriety,
than of his younger brother, John, H. C., 1657, who, after officiating several
years as teacher of the Indians, and thirty years as pastor at Plimouth, removed
to Charleston, S. C., and there gathered a Congregational church. We cannot
here avoid the expression of regret, that, in Ramsay's " History of the Independent or Congregational Church in Charleston," so little is related of him;
but the ample account of the Plimouth church, 1 Hist. Coll. IV. 122-128,
affords all the information that might be desired. For his acquirements in the
language of the aborigines, no man of New England, I presume, except Eliot
and Williams, ranks higher. Still, on account of the unhappy cause of his dismission from Plimouth, it was, perhaps, excusable in Eliot's Biographical Dictionary, to avoid notice of the younger John Cotton.




132                  JOHN WINTHROP.                  [1633.
made by her husband, and if she did desire to be admitted,
etc.; whereto she answered affirmatively; and so both were
admitted, and their child baptized, the father presenting it, (the
1  child's baptism being, as he did then affirm, in another
case, the father's |lincentivell for the help of his faith,
etc).
The said 4th of September, came in also the ship called the
Bird, (Mr. Yates master). She brought [blank] passengers,
having lost [blank;] and [blank] cows, ~ having lost [blank;]~
and four mares. She had been twelve weeks at sea, being, at
her first coming out, driven northerly to fifty-three.
About ten days before this time, a bark was set forth to Connecticut and those parts, to trade.
John Oldham, and three with him, went over land to Connecticut, to trade. The sachem used them kindly, and gave
them some beaver. They 11 2brought of the hemp, which grows 11
there in great abundance, and is much better than the English.  He accounted it to be about one hundred and sixty
miles.' He brought some black lead, whereof the Indians told
him there was a whole rock. He lodged at Indian towns all
the way.
12.] Capt. John Stone (of whom mention is made before)
carried himself very dissolutely in drawing company to drink,
etc., and being found upon the bed in the night with one Barcroft's wife, he was brought before the governour, etc., and
though it appeared he was in drink, and no act to be proved,
yet it was thought fit he should abide his trial, for which [1 end II
warrant was sent out to stay his pinnace, which was ready to-.
set sail; whereupon he went to Mr. Ludlow, one of the assistants, and used j 4braving 11 and threatening speeches against
him, for which he raised some company and apprehended him,
and brought him to the governour, who put him in irons, and
instruction 11 I12 bought of him the hemp that grew II  1 a'a1  14-   11
1 The former editor, desirous of shortening the road to the capital, put this
annotation on the text: From Boston to Connecticut River, in a direct line,
is not more than half that distance." Probably Oldham and his fellow travellers followed winding paths for the convenience of lodging all the way, as in
much later times we were compelled to for some part of the route.




1633.]                 JOHN WINTHROP.                         133
kept a guard upon     him   till the court, (but his irons were
taken off the same day).      At the court his indictment was
framed for adultery, but found ignoramus by the great jury;
but, for his other misdemeanors, he was fined ~100, which yet
was not levied of him; and ordered upon pain of death to come
here no more, without license of the court; and the woman
was bound to her good behaviour.'
17.]  The governour and council met at Boston, and *112
called the ministers and elders of all the churches, to consider about Mr. Cotton his sitting down.      He was desired to
divers places, and those who came with him desired he might
sit down where they might keep store of cattle; but it was
agreed, by full consent, that the fittest place for him was Boston, and in that respect those of Boston might take farms in
any part of the bay not belonging to other towns; and that
(keeping a [( lecture 1I) he should have some maintenance out of
the treasury. But divers of the council, upon their second
thoughts, did after refuse this contribution.2
October 2.]    The bark    Blessing, which was sent to the
southward, returned. She had been at an island over against
Connecticut, called Long Island, because it is near fifty leagues
long, the east part about ten leagues from the main, but the west
I1 lecturer ||
1 Though the Colony Records, I. 103, in the account of Stone's offence, take~
not any notice of the supposed adultery, yet the whole severity of the sentence
is found there. Hubbard, 156, borrows from them the vituperative language,
going, in this instance, beyond our author, whom, almost uniformly, he follows
with undeviating prudence. But the judgment mentions assaulting, as part of
the misdemeanor, which both the historians overlook.
2 I think the refusal was proper. There was certainly no propriety in making the colony, after Boston was so much increased in wealth and numbers, contribute to the support of her minister, because he was the most able man on
this side of the ocean.
The rate of ~400, voted at the court, 1 October next, shows the relative importance of the towns. The proportions are, to Boston, Roxbury, Newtown,
Watertown, and Charlestown, ~48 each; Dorchester, ~80; Sagus, ~36; Salem, ~28; Medford, ~12; Wenetsemit and Agawam, ~8 each. The aggregate exceeds the amount of the levy by ~12; but that does not appear so unexpected as the large tax on Dorchester. Some new comers of large estate had,
I imagine, settled in that town.
VOL. I.                        12




134                   JOHN WINTHROP.                     [1633.
end not a mile. There they had store of the best wampampeak, both white and blue.      The Indians there are a very
treacherous people.    They have many canoes so great as
one will carry eighty men. They were also in the River of
Connecticut, which is barred at the entrance, so as they could
not find above one fathom of water. They were also at the
Dutch plantation upon Hudson's River, (called New       Nether-'
lands,) where they were very kindly entertained, and had some
beaver and other things, for such commodities as they put off.
They showed the governour (called Gwalter Van Twilly) their
113 commission, which was to signify to them, that the king
of England had granted the river and country of Connecticut to his own subjects; and therefore desired them to forbear to build there, etc. The Dutch governour wrote back to
our governour, (his letter was very courteous and respectful, as
it had been to a very honorable person,) whereby he signified,
that the Lords the States had also granted the same parts to the
West India Company, and therefore requested that 11 we 11 would
forbear the same till the matter were decided between the king
of England and the said lords.
The said bark did pass and repass over the shoals of Cape
Cod, about three or four leagues from Nantucket Isle, where the
breaches are very terrible, yet they had three fathom waterall
over.
[Large blank.]
The company of Plimouth sent a bark to Connecticut, at this
time, to erect a trading house there. When they came, they
found the Dutch had built there, and did forbid the Plimouth
men to proceed; but they set up their house notwithstanding,
Ihe
1 Authentic history preserves little account of the administration of this gentleman. But a work of exquisite humour, in which fiction builds on the
ground-work of truth, has fully amplified his renown; and the name of Diedrick Knickerbocker, his panegyrist, will forever remind posterity of " the unutterable ponderings of Walter the doubter." William Smith, History of New
York, 4to, London, 1757, dates the arrival of the governour, whom he calls
Wouter Van Twiller, in June, 1629. Hubbard, 323, with more than his usual
negligence, calls Kieft first governour, when he had transcribed, 171, 2, from
Winthrop, this and the two following paragraphs, with hardly the change of
a letter.




1633.]                  JOHN WINTHROP.                          135
about a mile above the Dutch.'      This river runs so far northward, that it comes within a day's journey of a part of Merrimack called [blank,] and so runs thence N. W. so near the Great
Lake, as [allows] the Indians to pass their canoes into it over
land.   From this lake, and the hideous swamps about it, come
most of the beaver which is traded between Virginia and Canada, which runs forth of this lake; and Patomack River in Virginia comes likewise out of it, or very near, so as from this lake
there comes yearly to the Dutch about ten thousand skins,
which might easily be diverted by Merrimack, if a course of
trade were settled above in that river.2
10.]   A fast was kept at Boston, and Mr. Leverett,3 an      *114
ancient, sincere professor, of Mr. Cotton's congregation in
1 Smith, N. Y. 2, asserts the priority of the Dutch settlement, by erection of
a fort in 1623; but there can hardly be a particle of doubt, that an error of
ten years must be allowed for, since the negotiations between the Dutch commissioner, De Razier, and the Plimouth colony, in 1627, are so totally silent on
the subject of Connecticut, that it is impossible for us to believe they had then
formed such an establishment. See 2 Hist. Coll. III. 51-57. See also the
Dutch governour, Stuyvesant's, case stated by himself in Haz. II. 262, beginning with an allegation of purchase, by Jacobus Van Corlis, in 1633, and complaining of the expedition of Holmes from Plimouth in October following. See
further a full account, by Gov. Bradford, of the origin of the controversy,
Hutchinson's Mass. II. 469-71. Trumbull, I. 21, says the Dutch fort was at
Hartford; the Plimouth house at Windsor.
2 Here is an ignorance of geography, at which we might be surprised, were
not similar instances, in the early times, very common. The Connecticut is,
indeed, within a day's journey of the Merrimack; but the passage of Indian
canoes into that river, over land, could never have been from the Great Lake.
It may have been, with a short portage, from the St. Lawrence. All the beaver
trade between Virginia and Canada, by which name is designated the great
river of Niagara, Cataraqui, or St. Lawrence, naturally took, through Lake
Champlain, the direction of Hudson's River, and was therefore secured to the
Dutch. It could not easily have been diverted to the Merrimack or the Potomack.
3 An omission to notice the fact, that this gentleman was father of the celebrated John Leverett, governour of Massachusetts, can only be accounted for
by supposing, that Mather, Hutchinson, Holmes, Eliot, and Allen, were all unacquainted with it. Yet our first Church Record mentions it, when announcing the admission of the son, 14 July, 1639. Of Thomas little is mentioned;
but we may be sure he came with Cotton, and other gentlemen of Boston in
Old England, where he was an alderman; for his entrance to the church was




136                    JOHN WINTHROP.                        [1633.
England, was chosen a ruling elder, and Mr. Firmin,' a godly
man, an apothecary of Sudbury in England, was chosen deacon, by imposition of hands; and Mr. Cotton was then chosen
teacher of the congregation of Boston, and ordained by imposition of the hands ~ of the presbytery, in this manner: First, he
was chosen by all the congregation testifying their consent by
erection of hands.~    Then Mr. Wilson, the pastor, demanded of'him, if he did l acceptll of that call.    He paused, and then:spake to this effect: that howsoever he knew himself unworthy
and unsufficient for that place; yet, having observed all the
passages of God's providence, (which he 1 2reckoned I1 up in particular) in calling him to it, he could not but 1 3 accept || it.  Then
the pastor and the two2 elders laid their hands upon his head,
and the pastor prayed, and then, taking off their hands, laid
them on again, and, speaking to him       by his name, they did
| 4thenceforth 1| design him  to the said office, in the name of
the Holy Ghost, and did give him the charge of the congrega*115 tion, and did thereby (as by a sign from     God) indue him
with the gifts fit for his office; and lastly did bless him.
Then the neighboring ministers, which were present, did (at the
pastor's 11 5motion 11) give him the right hands of fellowship, and
the pastor made a stipulation between him       and the congregation.  When Mr. Cotton accepted of the office, he commended
to the congregation such as were to come over, who were of
II except 11  112 recorded II  11 3 except 11   114 thereby 1|  II5 notice I1'in October, 1633, he and his wife, Ann, being Nos. 169 and 170. The date of
his death is marked in the church record, 3 April, 1650.
1 His place was enjoyed but a short time; for, at the town meeting, on 6 October next year, which is the earliest, whose proceedings are preserved in our
Town Records, the preceding pages being all lost, Richard Bellingham, Esq.,
was chosen a selectman, they say, " in the place of Giles Firmin, deceased."
He took the freeman's oath 4 March, 1633-4. Eliot has given, with minuteness, the biography of the son, who attended his father across the ocean, and
in a few years removed to Ipswich, whence an excellent letter from him to
Winthrop, dated 26 December, 1639, is preserved by HI-utchinson, Coll. 108;
but I must correct his mistake in making the son, instead of the father, deacon
of our church. Giles, the younger, married a daughter of the famous Nathaniel Ward, and died in England, 1697, at a great age, having written several devotional pieces, of which some are, as is reported, read in our time.
2 Oliver and Leverett.




1633.]                  JOHN WINTHROP.                          137
his charge in England, that they might be comfortably provided for.
The same day, Mr. Grant, in the ship James, arrived at Salem, having been but eight weeks between Gravesend              and
Salem.    He brought Capt. Wiggin and about thirty, with one
Mr. II Leveridge, l1 a godly minister, to Pascataquack, (which
the Lord Say and the Lord Brook had purchased of the Bristol
men,) and about thirty for Virginia, and        about twenty for
I 2this lI place, and some sixty cattle. He brought news, that
the Richard, a bark of fifty tons, which came forth with the
Griffin, being come above three hundred leagues, sprang such a
leak, as she was forced to bear up, and 113was put in at 1[ Weymouth.
11.] A fast at Newtown, where Mr. Hooker was chosen
pastor, and Mr. Stone teacher, in such a manner as before at
Boston.
The wolves continued to do much hurt among our cattle;
and this month, by Mr. Grant, there came over four Irish greyhounds, which were sent to the governour by Mr. Downing, his
brother-in-law.
[Very large blank.]
November.]     A great mortality among the Indians.        ChickIIL L-              112 thatll         3 Iput into 1
1 Brief notice only of this gentleman can be given. William Leveridge joined
our church 9 August, 1635, being No. 308. Hubbard, who calls him "an able
and worthy minister," says, 221, that, for want of encouragement at Wiggin's
plantation of Dover, " he removed more southward, towards Plimouth or Long
Island." This want of precision in that historian is especially blamable, as the
earlier writer, Johnson, lib. 3. c. 10, had mentioned his residence at Sandwich,
and engagement in the pious service of instructing the Indians. At that place
notice is taken of him by our author, post, 331, sub an. 1640, as introducing a
new practice in celebrating the eucharist. His departure from Sandwich is not
related by Judge Davis in his edition of Morton's Memorial, 217; but Hazard,
II. 372, 384, informs of his employment, by the commissioners of the United
Colonies, as a missionary, in 1657. Seventeen years later, in a letter from Col.
Matthias Nicolls of New York to Gov. Winthrop of Connecticut, I find him
named thus: "I have given conveyance to your enclosed to Mr. Leveredge,
which your honor saith related to some medicinal matter, but have received no
return; probably he will find out some other way to give answer to it." He
was then, I presume, stationed at Newtown, L. I., with which the best mode of
conveyance, from Hartford, was through New York.
12*




138                JOHN WINTHROP.                 [1633.
*116 atabot, the sagamore of Naponsett, died, and many of
his people. The disease was the small pox. Some of
them were cured by such means as they had from us; many of
their children escaped, and were kept by the English.
Capt. Wiggin of Pascataquack wrote to the governour, that
one of his people had stabbed another, and desired he might be
tried in the bay, if the party I1 died lI. The governour answered,
that if Pascataquack lay within their limits, (as it was supposed,) they would try him.
A small ship of about sixty tons was built at Medford, and
called the Rebecca.
This year a watermill was built at Roxbury, by Mr. Dummer.1
The scarcity of workmen had caused them to raise their
wages to an excessive rate, so as a carpenter would have three
shillings the day, a laborer two shillings and sixpence, etc.;
and accordingly those who had commodities to sell advanced
their prices sometime double to that they cost in England,
so as it grew to a general complaint, which the court, taking knowledge of, as also of some further evils, which were
springing out of the excessive rates of wages, they made an
order, that carpenters, 11 2masons, l etc., should take but two
shillings the day, and laborers but eighteen pence, and that
no commodity should be sold at above four pence in the shilling more than it cost for ready money in England; oil, wine,
etc., and cheese, in regard of the hazard of bringing, etc., [excepted]. The evils which were springing, etc., were: 1. Many
spent much time idly, etc., because they could get as much in
four days as would keep them a week. 2. They spent much
in tobacco and strong waters, etc., which was a great waste to
the commonwealth, which, by reason of so many 1 3foreign [I
commodities expended, could not have subsisted to this time,
but that it was supplied by the cattle and corn, which were sold
to new comers at very dear rates, viz., corn at six shillings the
bushel, a cow at ~20, — yea, some at ~24, some ~26,-a
desired 11    112 masters I1  I|3 scarce ii
1 Earlier in the year, the first watermill in the colony had been erected in
Dorchester, by Stoughton. See 1 Hist. Coll. IX. 164.




1633.]                JOHN WINTHROP.                         139
mare at ~35, an ewe goat at 3 or ~4; and yet many cattle
were every year brought out of England, and some from Virginia. Soon after order was taken for prices of commodities,
viz., not to exceed the rate of four pence in the shilling above
the price in England, except cheese and liquors, etc.
The ministers in the bay and Sagus did meet, once a fortnight, at one of their houses by || course, 11 where some     117
question of moment wras debated.     Mr. Skelton, the pastor of Salem, and Mr. Williams, who was removed from Plimouth thither, (but not in any office, though he exercised by way
of prophecy,) took some exception against it, as fearing it
might grow   in time to a presbytery or superintendency, to the
prejudice of the churches' liberties.  But this fear was without
cause; for they were all clear in that point, that no church or
person can have power over another church; neither did they
in their meetings exercise any such jurisdiction, etc.1
[Large blank.]
News of the taking of Machias2 by the French.       Mr. Allerton of Plimouth, and some others, had set up a trading wigwarn there, and 1 2left 1 in it five men and store of commodities.  La Tour,3 governour of the French in those parts, making claim to the place, came to displant them, and, finding resistance, killed two of the men, and carried away the other three,
and the goods.
[Large blank.]
Some differences fell out still, now   and then, between the
11 commission II                    [|2 lost II
1 By Emerson, in Iistory of the First Church, this is considered as the origin
of the Boston Association of Congregational Ministers. He censures the
strange bitterness of Hubbard, 189, 190, on this subject.
2 Permanent establishment of settlers at that port was delayed one hundred
and thirty years. See 1 Hist. Coll. III. 144. Of this hostile act, see Vol. II.
125-7.
3 Of this governour of Nova Scotia, to whom a grant of the country had
been made by Sir William Alexander, 30 April, 1630, as extracted from the
Suffolk Registry of Deeds, III. 265, by Hazard, I. 307, and confirmed by Cromwell, 9 August, 1656, as in Hazard, I. 616, such perpetual mention will occur in
the progress of this History, that it may be necessary to protract this note no
farther than by reference, for what is not to be found in our author, to Hutchinson, I. 127-135.




140               JOHN WINTHROP.                [1633.
governour and the deputy, which yet were soon healed. It had
been ordered in court, that all hands should help to the finishing of the fort at Boston, and all the towns in the bay
had gone once over, and most the second time; but those of
Newtown being warned, the deputy would not suffer them
to come, neither did acquaint the governour with the cause,
which was, for that Salem and Sagus had not brought in
money for their parts. The governour, hearing of it, wrote
friendly to him, showing him that the intent of the court was,
that the work should be done by those in the bay, and that,
after, the others should pay a proportionable sum for the
house, etc., which must be done by money; and therefore desired him that he would send in his neighbours. Upon this,
11ts Mr. Haynes and Mr. Hooker came to the governour to
treat with him about it, and brought a letter from the deputy full of bitterness and resolution not to send till Salem, etc.
The governour told them it should rest till the court, and withal
gave the letter to Mr. Hooker with this speech: I am not willing to keep such an occasion of provocation by me. And
soon after he wrote to the deputy (who had before desired to
buy a fat hog or two of him, being somewhat short of provisions) to desire him to send for one, (which he would have
sent him, if he had known when his occasion had been to have
made use of it,) and to accept it as a testimony of his good will;
and, lest he should make any scruple of it, he made Mr. Haynes
and Mr. Hooker (who both sojourned in his house) partakers
with him. Upon this the deputy returned this answer:' Your
overcoming yourself hath overcome me.  Mr. Haynes, Mr..
Hooker, and myself, do most kindly accept your good will;
but we desire, without offence, to refuse your offer, and that
I may only trade with you for two hogs;" and so very lovingly
concluded. - The court being two days after, ordered, that
Newtown should do their work as others had done, and then
Salem, etc., should pay for three days at eighteen pence a man.
11.] The congregation of Boston met to take order for
Mr. Cotton's ] passage 11 and house, and his and Mr. Wilson's
maintenance. Mr. Cotton had disbursed eighty pounds for his
2passage, I| and towards his house, which he would not have
I pursage                  I12 pursage II




1633.]                  JOHN WINTHROP.                           141
again; so there was about ~60 raised (by voluntary contribution) towards the finishing of his house, and about ~100 towards their maintenance. At this meeting there arose some
difference between    the governour and Mr. Cottington, who
charged the governour, that he took away the liberty of the
rest, because (at the request of the rest) he had named some
men to set out 1 men's 11 lands, etc., which grew to some heat of
words; but the next Lord's day they both acknowledged openly
their failing, and declared that they had been reconciled the
next day.
[Large blank.]
26.]   Mr. Wilson (by leave of the congregation of Boston,
whereof he was pastor) went to Agawam          to teach the people
of that plantation, because they had yet no minister. Whiles
he was there, December 4, there fell such a snow (knee deep) as
he could not come back for [blank] days, and a boat, which
went thither, was frozen up in the river.1
[ minister's |
1 Nobody can pretend, I believe, that an equal severity of cold has been
twice experienced, at so early a season, for the last hundred years. The 4th of
December, corresponding to our 14th by correction of the style, very seldom
witnesses, on the sea shore, more than three or four inches depth of snow; and
that which falls before Christmas does not often lie longer than two days. The
frost, in the text, we should now think more remarkable than the snow; and
no boat has probably been frozen up in Ipswich harbour, by the middle of December, within the recollection of any inhabitant. There is distinct reference to
a degree of frost, in the year before this, that "hindered the making ready" of
the expedition against Bull, the pirate, which, in the present age, would be ex —
traordinary. In 1631 nothing is said of the approach of winter, nor any mention of the weather until 27 January. But the first autumn our author passed
here was quite favorable; for he remarks that, till the 24 December, or our 3
January, was, " for the most part, fair, open weather;" yet such severity of
"bitter frost and snow," as kept three servants in his boat, without victuals,
from 27 November to 1 December, (that is, by our reckoning, from 7 to 11 December,) among the islands of Boston harbour, and finally compelled them to
run ashore in Braintree Bay, (see page 38,) would surprise us. Cold came on
earlier, it will be observed, in the year after this, in the text; and the man
frozen in the snow, in November,. on Plumb Island, would, in our days, be unable to find credit for his tale. November, 1635, affords strong proof of severe
cold in Connecticut and Plimouth. Even Mr. Webster should have been struck
with the circumstance of the freezing of the Connecticut so early as the 15 of that




142                    JOHN WINTHROP.                         [1633.
*119    iDecember 5.]    John Sagamore died of the small pox,
and almost all his people; (above thirty buried by Mr.
Maverick of Winesemett in one day).         The towns in the bay
took away many of the children; but most of them died soon
after.
James Sagamore of Sagus died also, and most; of his folks.
month, 0. S., however he might disregard the deep snow of the following December. Of the winter of 1636 nothing is observed, and perhaps Winthrop
forgot the temperature of the sky in the unnatural heat of the controversy
about grace. The rigid season of the next year, we shall see, continued one
hundred and thirty-nine days.
The opinion is general, but not universal, that our climate is less rigorous
than it was known to be soon after the discovery of the country; and we find
certainly the mildness of autumn is usually prolonged to the winter solstice.
But those who are slow to believe the improvement of temperature in our sky,
overpowered by the testimony that establishes the fact of retardation in the
advance of winter, discern some compensation, as they imagine, in the later
approach of spring. I am confident, however, that the complaint of backwardness in that season, though rendered common by the tenderness of valetudinarians, and the impatience of husbandmen, is generally unjust. If the instances
of that duration of cold, in the winter of 1641-2, when the ice was strong
enough to bear many passengers together, from Pullen Point to Boston in a
straight line, on the day corresponding to our 27 February, continuing even to
3 March, and that great snow of 1644-5, which blocked up the roads three
weeks in March, and prevented the court from meeting in Boston, remaining on
the ground to 9 of April, N. S., be undervalued in the estimate, as uncommon
cases, from which conclusions may not safely be deduced,- it may be answered,
that modern wonders in the atmosphere are not greater, and that the experience
of Winthrop being short, no greater portion of time than his should now be
assumed for a parallel. In the autumn of 1645 the cold came earlier than had
ever been known, so that the genial season of that year was shortened at thebeginning and end. The aggregate, or mean, of observations for many years,
as given, nearly one hundred and seventy years ago, by Hubbard, 20, is here
transcribed, in order that every reader may, every season, do something, by
observation of the phenomena, in aid of the solution of so interesting a question: "The frost here useth to visit the inhabitants so early in the winter, and
ordinarily tarries so long before it takes its leave in the spring, that the difficulty
of subsistence is much increased thereby; for it commonly begins to take possession of the earth about the middle of November, (25, N. S.) forbidding the
husbandman to meddle therewith any more, till the middle or end of March
(25 March, - 9 April, N. S.) not being willing, till that time, to resign up its
possession or the hold it hath taken for near two feet below the surface of the
earth."
On this subject, which has of late received much elucidation, an Essay by an




1633.]                 JOHN WINTHROP.                        143
John Sagamore desired to be brought among the English, (so
he llwas; I) and promised (if he recovered) to live with r120
the English and serve their God. He left one son, which he
disposed to Mr. Wilson, the pastor of Boston, to be brought up
by him. He gave to the governour a good quantity of wampompeague, and to divers others of the English he gave gifts,
and took order for the payment of his own debts and his men's.
He died in a persuasion that he should go to the Englishmen's
God. Divers of them, in their sickness, confessed that the
Englishmen's God was a good God; and that, if they recovered, they would serve him.
It wrought much with them, that when their own people forsook them, yet the English came daily and ministered to them;
and yet few, *only two families,* took any 11 2infection 11 by it.
Among others, Mr. Maverick of Winesemett is worthy of *a
perpetual"   remembrance.     Himself, his wife, and servants,
went daily to them, ministered to their necessities, and buried
their dead, and took home many of their children. So did
other of the neighbours.
This infectious disease spread to Pascataquack, where all
the Indians (except one or two) died.
One Cowper of Pascataquack, going to an island, upon the
Lord's day, to fetch some sack to be drank at the great house,
he and a boy, coming back in a canoe, (being both drunk,) *121
were driven to sea and never heard of after.
At the same plantation, a company having made a fire at a
II agreed I1                  112 instructions 11
anonymous author, published at Philadelphia, 1809, will reward attentive perusal. A review of it, by the editor of this work, was printed in the Monthly
Anthology, IX. 25. Some years before, a very elaborate, but skeptical dissertation had been offered to the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, by
Noah Webster, Esq., for which, and other ingenious labors, the literary public
is more indebted to him than even for the first edition of this History. A
learned and judicious examination of that tract, usually ascribed to Professor
Farrar of Cambridge, may be seen in the General Repository, IV. 313.
1 That Maverick was not in full communion with our churches, was not, we
may hope, the cause of striking a pen through this honorable epithet. No man
seems better entitled by his deeds to the character of a Christian. The MS.
appears to testify that the mutilation was not Winthrop's.




144                     JOHN WINTHROP.                       [1633.
tree, one of them  said, Here this tree will fall, ~ and here will I
lie; ~ and accordingly it fell upon him and killed him.
It pleased the Lord to give special testimony of his presence
in the church of Boston, after Mr. Cotton was called to office
there. More were converted and added to that church, than to
all the other churches in the bay, (or rather the lake, for so it
were more 1[ properly |1 termed,2 the bay being that part of sea
without between the two capes, Cape Cod and Cape Ann).
Divers profane and notorious evil persons came and confessed
their sins, and were comfortably received into the bosom of the
church. Yea, the Lord gave witness to the exercise of prophecy, so as thereby some were converted, and others much edified.  Also, the Lord pleased greatly to bless the practice of
discipline, wherein he gave the pastor, Mr. Wilson, a singular
gift,3 to the great benefit of the church.
After much deliberation and serious advice, the Lord directed
the teacher, Mr. Cotton, to make it clear by the scripture, that
the minister's maintenance, as well as all other charges of the
church, should be defrayed      out of a 11 2stock, 11 or treasury,
which was to be raised out of the weekly contribution; which
accordingly was agreed upon.4
I principally |                      I|2 chest |
1 Hubbard, 190, who, with sufficient accuracy, quotes his master, from whom
a large part of his Iistory is transcribed, enlarges the expression to " all the
rest of the churches in the country."  The reputation of Cotton needs no such
exaggeration. From his arrival to this time, that is, three months, I was led by
curiosity to ascertain from the Records the precise number intended by the
text, and found thirty-seven added to the members of the church. The " profane and notorious evil persons" cannot be distinguished in the list; but perhaps, in several, the old disease broke out again. Temporal inducements operated too strongly to swell the company of communicants.
2 The governour first wrote, " so it shall be termed henceforth;" but the name
could not be made popular in his day, and has never been thought of since.
Yet the situation resembles much those arms of the sea, called lochs by the
Scots, loughs by the Irish, and lagoons by the Spaniards.
3 Elder Leverett, as well as Wilson, is, by Hubbard, 190, blessed with this
singular gift in "the practice of discipline." It certainly belonged to his office.
4 Cotton's arguments are lost, we may presume, for the custom of raising
these charges of the church, which was made so clear from the scripture, is
totally changed. Our fathers looked too much to a special divine appointment




1633.]                JOHN WINTHROP.                         145
27.]  The governour and assistants met at Boston, and'122
took into consideration a treatise, which Mr. Williams
(then of Salem) had sent to them, and which he had formerly
written to the governour and council of Plimouth, wherein,
among other things, he disputes their right to the lands they
possessed here, and concluded that, claiming by the king's grant,
they could have no title, nor otherwise, except they compounded
with the natives. For this, taking advice with some of the
most judicious ministers, (who much condemned Mr. Williams's
error and presumption,) they gave order, that he should be convented at the next court, to be censured, etc.  There were three
passages chiefly whereat they were much offended: 1, for that
he chargeth King James to have told a solemn public lie,
because in his patent he blessed God that he was the first
Christian prince that had discovered this land: 2, for that he
chargeth him and others with blasphemy for calling Europe
Christendom, or the 11 Christian [i world: 3, for that he did personally apply to our present king, Charles, these three places in
the Revelations, viz., [blank.]1
Mr. Endecott being absent, the governour wrote to him to
let him know what was done, and withal added divers arguments to confute the said errors, wishing him to deal with Mr.
Williams to retract the same, etc. - Whereto he returned a very
modest and discreet answer.    Mr. Williams also wrote to the
governour, and also to him and the rest of the council, very
submissively, professing his intent to have been only to have
written for the private satisfaction of the 12 governour 11 etc., of
11 church II                  112 gentlemen II
in their management of secular concerns, often forgetting that reason was no
less the gift of God, than the ritual of Moses, and that a different state existed
in the church, from that which the apostles were compelled, by circumstances,
not led by inspiration, to adopt.
1 Perhaps the same expressions, by another, would have given less offence.
From Williams they were not at first received in the mildest, or even the most
natural sense; though further reflection satisfied the magistrates, that his were
not dangerous. The passages from the Apocalypse were probably not applied
to the honor of the king; and I regret, therefore, that Winthrop did not preserve them. No complaint of such indiscretion would have been expressed ten
years later, when the mother country far outran the colony in these perversions
of scripture.
VOL. I.                    13




146                  JOHN WINTHROP.                   [1633.
Plimouth, without any purpose to have stirred any further in it,
if the governour 11here ll had not required a copy of him;
withal offering his book, or any part of it, to be burnt.
At the next court he appeared 11 2penitently 1, and gave satisfaction of his intention and I 1loyalty l. So it was left, and
nothing done in it.
January 21.] News came from Plimouth, that Capt. Stone,
who this last summer went out of the bay or lake, and so to
*123 Aquamenticus, where he took in Capt. Norton, putting
in at the mouth of Connecticut, in his way to Virginia,
where the Pequins inhabit, was there cut off by them, with all
his company, being eight.' The manner was thus: *Three of
his men, being gone ashore to kill fowl, were cut off. Then the
sachem, with some of his men, came aboard, and staid with
Capt. Stone in his cabin, till Capt. Stone (being alone with
him) fell on sleep. Then he knocked him on the head, and all
the rest of the English being in the cook's room, the Indians
took such pieces as they found there ready charged, and bent
them at the English; whereupon one took a piece, and by accident gave fire to the powder, which blew up the deck; but most
of the Indians, perceiving what they went about, shifted overboard, and after they returned, and killed such as remained,
and burned the pinnace. We agreed to write to the. governour of Virginia, (because Stone was one of that colony,) to
move him to revenge it, and upon his answer to take further
counsel.' 2
20.]  Hall and the two others, who went to Connecticut
November 3, came now home, having lost themselves and endured much misery. They 11 4informed 11 us, that the small pox
was gone as far as any Indian plantation was known to the
il there [I  112 privately l  113 gilt 11  114 assured 11
It was first written ten or twelve.
2 A pen has been drawn diagonally across this narrative in the MS.; and in
the margin this direction is given, " See after, November 6, 1634." But it is
evident, that this is not superseded by that relation, in fulness of detail at least.
Whether the first story were designed to be stigmatized as less credible than
the other, when neither could come from the innocent, is left to the judgment
of the reader. Both are worth preserving.




1633.]             JOHN WINTHROP.                   147
west, and much people dead of it, by reason whereof they
could have no trade.
At Naragansett, by the Indians' report, there died seven hundred; but, beyond Pascataquack, none to the eastward.
24.] The governour and council met again at Boston, to
consider of Mr. Williams's letter, etc., when, with the advice
of Mr. Cotton and Mr. Wilson, and weighing his letter, and
further considering of the aforesaid offensive passages in his
book, (which, being written in very obscure and implicative
phrases, might well admit of doubtful interpretation,) they
found the matters not to be so evil as at first they seemed.
Whereupon they agreed, that, upon his retractation, etc., or
taking an oath of allegiance to the king, etc., it should be
passed over.
[Very large blank.]
An Englishman of Sacoe, travelling into the country *124
to trade, was killed by the Indians.
[Very large blank.]
30.] John Scales, who ran from his master to the Indians,
came Ihome 1 again. He was at a place twelve miles off,
where were seven Indians, whereof four died of the pox while
he was there.
[Large blank.]
February 1.]  Mr. Cradock's house at Marblehead was burnt
down about midnight before, there being then in it Mr. Allerton, and many fishermen, whom he employed that season, who
all were preserved by a special providence of God, with most
of his goods therein, by a tailor, who sate up that night at
work in the house, and, hearing a noise, looked out and saw the
house on fire above the oven in the thatch.
This winter was very mild, little wind, and most S. and S.
W. but l12oft 1 snows, and great. One snow, the 15th of this
month, was near two feet deep all over.
[Large blank.]
Such of the Indians' children as were left were taken by the
English, most whereof did die of the pox soon after, three
only remaining, whereof one, which the governour kept, was
I1 here 11                   112 after 11




148                    JOHN WINTHROP.                      [1633.
called Know-God, (the Indians' usual answer being, when they
were put in mind of God, Me no know God).
[Large blank.]
22.] The grampus came up towards Charlestown 11 against I[
the tide of ebb.
[Large blank.]
*This season Mr. Allerton fished with eight boats at Marble Harbour.*
[Large blank.]
By this time seventeen fishing ships were come to Richman's
Isle and the Isles of Shoals.
March 4.]    By order of court a mercate was erected at
Boston, to be kept upon Thursday, the fifth day of the week,
being the lecture day.   Samuel Cole2 set up the first house for
*125 common entertainment, and John Cogan,3 merchant, the
first shop.
Upon offer of some new comers to give liberally towards the
building of a galley for defence of the bay, and upon consultation with divers experienced seamen and others, it was thought
fitter for our condition to build a vessel forty feet in length,
and twenty-one in breadth, to be 1 2minion I1 proof, and the upper deck musket proof, to have one sail, and to carry whole
culverin and other small pieces, eight in all. This was found
to be so chargeable, and so long time ere it could be finished,
that it was given over.
11 by 11                         112 cannonl
Here some may imagine, as the former editor certainly did, that the
name of a ship is intended; but to me it seems evident, that the author designed only to remark the early arrival of that species of fish in our shoal
waters.
2 From his being so early a member of the church, No. 42, and his wife, Ann,
who died no long time after arrival, standing next, I conclude they came over
with Winthrop. His will, dated 21 December, 1666, was proved in the following February.
3 This gentleman, who died in 1658, spelt his name with a double g. He left
a good estate, of which five hundred acres in Woburn is valued in the inventory at ten pounds. From the Boston Records it appears, he was married, for
the second time, as his former wife, Ann, is named in the Church Record of
July, 1634, to Mrs. Martha Winthrop, undoubtedly the widow of the author of
this History, on 10 March, 1651, by Gov. John Endecott.




1633.]               JOHN WINTHROP.                  149
At this court all swamps, above one hundred acres, were
made common, etc. Also Robert Cole, having been oft punished for drunkenness, was now ordered to wear a red D about
his neck for a year.
[Blank.]
7.]  At the lecture at Boston a question was propounded
about veils. Mr. Cotton concluded, that where (by the custom of the place) they were not a sign of 1[ the women's subjection, 11 they were not commanded by the apostle.. Mr. Endecott opposed, and did maintain it by the general arguments
brought by the apostle.' After some debate, the governour,
perceiving it to grow to some earnestness, interposed, and so it
brake off.
[Large blank.]
Among other testimonies of the Lord's gracious presence
with his own ordinances, there was a youth of fourteen years
of age (being the son of one of the magistrates) so wrought
upon by the ministry of the word, as, for divers months, he
was held under such affliction of mind, as he could not be
brought to apprehend any comfort in God, being much humbled
and broken for his sins, (though he had been a dutiful child,
and not given up to the lusts of youth,) and especially for his
blasphemous and wicked thoughts, whereby Satan buffeted him,
so as he went mourning and languishing daily; yet, at-'126
tending to the means, and not giving over prayer, and
seeking counsel, etc., he came at length to be freed from his
temptations, and to find comfort in God's promises, and so, being received into the congregation, upon good proof of his understanding in the things of God, he went on cheerfully in a
Christian course, falling daily to labor, as a servant, and as a
younger brother of his did, who was no whit short of him in the
knowledge of God's will, though his youth kept him from darI a woman's sobrietyll
1 In this opinion Endecott had been instructed by Williams, whose scruple on
this subject is ridiculed by Hubbard, 204, 5. That historian makes Cotton
preach a sermon at Salem one Sunday morning, which so enlightened the women, that " they appeared in the afternoon without their veils."
13'




150                     JOHN WINTHROP.                        [1633.
ing to offer himself to the congregation.' -Upon      this occasion
1 Conjecture would confidently apply this anecdote to the writer's own family;
for such minute relation could only be expected from a party. The " younger
brother" was, no doubt, Deane, born March, 1622-3. Stephen, the governour's son, chiefly alluded to in the text, was, on 16 of this month, received as a
member of the church. By his wife, Judith, he had, as I learn from Boston
Records, two children, Stephen, born 7 November, 1644, and John, 24 May,
1646. They, probably, both died young. He went to England, as will be seen
in the sequel of this History, either in the latter part of 1645, or in 1646,
whence he did not return, I believe, but for a short period. I find a power of
attorney from him to his brother John, 20 July, 1653, and a deed of 28 February, 1654-5, both executed here. He had before been a deputy, and was exposed in England to suit, because he had been recorder of a court, which gave
an unsatisfactory judgment in the case of Alderman Berkley. In England he
got forward in military and political life. He commanded a regiment, was a
member of parliament in Oliver's time, for Scotland, as by letter of George
Monk, 30 August, 1656, in Thurloe's State Papers, V. 366, appears; and, being
a gentleman of sobriety, was much trusted by the protector. Roger Williams,
in a letter to Gov. John of Connecticut, 21 February, 1655-6, gives him the
news from England, " Your brother succeeds Major General Harrison."  This
was the exquisite enthusiast, who troubled Cromwell so much with his anticipation of a kingdom of the saints, as to require his imprisonment. He died
early; for in our Registry of Deeds is one of 20 May, 1659, to John Leverett,
from Judith in England, therein styled " relict of Stephen Winthrop."
I had supposed, when I wrote the note for his brother John, that the royal
gratitude had been expressed to Stephen for assisting the preparation for the
great change of 1660, knowing his influence so short a time before the restoration, and therefore postponed to this place the introduction of the following
curiosity: -
Letter of King Charles II. to........
BRUSSELLES, 6 or 8 April, 1660.
I HAVE so good information of the many good offices you have done for
me, that I cannot doubt but you will continue the same affection, till you
have perfected the work you have begun, which, you may be most assured,
will be accompanied with such an acknowledgment from  me, that all the
world shall take notice of the sense I have of your kindness, and how great
an instrument you have been in promoting the happiness of your country. I
have no more to ask of you, but to proceed in the same way and method
your own understanding suggests to you, and that- you will believe I will
always be
Your affectionate friend,
CHARLES R.
The foregoing is folded in the common style of letters, but not superscribed,




1633.]                  JOHN WINTHROP.                          151
*127 it is not impertinent (though no credit nor regard be to
be had of dreams in these days) to report a dream, which
the father of these children had at the same time, viz., that,
coming into his chamber, he found his wife (she was a very gracious woman) in bed, and three or four of their children lying
by her, with most sweet and smiling countenances, with crowns
upon their heads, and *blue ribbons about their leaves.'     When
he awaked, he told his wife his dream, and made this interpretation of it, that God would take of her children to make them
fellow heirs with Christ in his kingdom.
[Large blank.]
Satan bestirred himself to hinder the progress of the gospel,
as, among other practices, appeared by this:' He stirred up a
spirit of jealousy between Mr. James, the pastor of Charlton,
and many of his people, so as Mr. Nowell, and some others,
who had been dismissed from Boston, began to question their
fact of breaking from Boston, and it grew to such a principle
of conscience among them, as the advice of the other ministers
was taken in it, who, after two meetings, could not agree about
their continuance or return.
[Large blank.]
though it bears the royal signet on its wax. It has been since labelled, " Regis
Anglia Epistola," and in another place, by a different hand, " King Charles II.
Letter to Gov. Winthrop."  This letter, which is wholly in the king's handwriting, has been preserved in the Winthrop family; but, the envelope being
lost, it cannot be known to whom the honor was addressed. I once presumed it
was to John, the governour of Connecticut. But he had not been absent from
New England. The royal autograph may have been given to him by a friend;
for that his majesty addressed it to him, is beyond any appearance of problability. It is much regretted by me, that Bancroft too easily followed my presumption. Monk, afterwards rewarded as Duke of Albemarle, would, probably,
have the best claim to the epistle; yet in England there were many others, at
that day, justly entitled to similar testimonials.
1 It is to be regretted, that any jealousy arose in the infant church of Charlestown; yet if Nowell and others doubted the propriety of their separation from
the brethren of Boston, we may ascribe their dissatisfaction to finding their
pastor to be a man of less useful talents or amiable temper than had been expected.  Few in the present age would attribute such a misfortune to the
agency of Satan, who has been, says Jortin, " charged with many things, which
perhaps he never did." But in our indictments for capital offences, we retained,
until very recently, the absurd allegation, "'being moved and seduced by the
instigation of the devil."




152                     JOHN WINTHROP.                       [1634.
One Mr. Morris,' ensign to Capt. Underhill, taking some dis*128 taste in his office, requested the magistrates, that he might
be discharged of it, and so was, whereby he gave offence
to the congregation of Boston, so as, being questioned and convinced of sin in forsaking his calling, he did acknowledge his
fault, and, at the request of the people, was by the magistrates
chosen lieutenant to the same company, for he was a very stout
man and an experienced soldier.
April 1.]   Order was taken for ministering an oath to all
house keepers and sojourners, being twenty years of age and
not freemen, and for making a survey of the houses and lands
of all freemen.
Notice being sent out 1 ofll the general court to be held the
14th day of the third month, called May, the freemen deputed
two of each town to meet and consider of such matters as they
were to take order in at the same general court; who, having
met, desired a sight of the patent, and, conceiving thereby that
all their laws should be made at the general court, repaired to
the governour to advise with him about it, and about the abrogating of some orders formerly made, as for killing of swine
II to ||
1 Richard Morris was a person of some consequence in the colony, and probably accompanied Winthrop in the fleet; for he and his wife early became
members of the Boston church, being Nos. 64 and 5. He was in the military
service, when a body of men, or at least of officers, was kept in pay, in 1632
and 3, as appears from the original account of William Pynchon, the treasurer,
and became a deputy in the general court of March, 1635 —6, I presume from
Roxbury. Being unhappily of that party in religion, which favored Wheel —
wright and his sister, Mrs. Hutchinson, he signed the petition in favor of the
preacher, about which great controversy arose a few years after; and the legislature, 20 November, 1637, had ordered him, with the other dangerous schismaticks, to be disarmed, as in the history of that time will appear. On 6 September of next year, Col. Rec., I. 227, informs us, " Lieut. Morris had leave to depart, (having offended in subscribing the petition or remonstrance,) being
advised to forbear meddling with our people in the matters of opinion, least
they be farther dealt with; and was advised not to sit down within our limits,
and was wished to warn the rest not to sit down within our limits." From this
banishment, so gently expressed, for signing a memorial to the court eighteen
months before, I know not that he returned. His retreat was Exeter, where,
with many of his persecuted brethren, he formed the association, 4 October,
1639, which is preserved in Hazard, I. 463.




1634.]                  JOHN WINTHROP.                          153
in corn, etc.  He told them, that, when the patent was granted,
the number of freemen was supposed to be (as in like corporations) so few, as they might well join in making laws; but now
they were grown to so great a body, as it was not possible for
therh to make or execute laws, but they must choose others for
that purpose: and that howsoever it would be necessary
hereafter to have a select company to intend that work, yet
for the present they were not furnished with a sufficient number
of men qualified for such a business, neither could the commonwealth bear the loss of time of so many as must intend it.
Yet this they might do at present, viz., they might, at the general court, make an order, that, once in the year, a certain number should be appointed (upon summons from          the governour)
to revise all laws, etc., and to reform what they found         129
amiss therein; but not to make any new laws, but prefer
their grievances to the court of assistants; and that no assessment should be laid upon the country without the consent of
such a committee, nor any lands disposed of.1
1 No country on earth can afford the perfect history of any event more interesting to its own inhabitants than that which is here related. Winthrop seems
to have spoken like an absolute sovereign, designing to grant a favor to his subjects, by admitting them to a representation at court. Such was the origin of
most of the assemblies, in other nations, of delegates of the people, by whom
some influence of the majority is imparted to the government. The enlargement of this kind of civil liberty to that perfect measure, enjoyed in Great
Britain and our country, may be traced, with tolerable distinctness, for about
five hundred years; but its commencement is very dimly discerned through the
mists of antiquity. A long controversy on the origin of parliaments is indeed
now at an end; but it terminated with a general acquiescence in that opinion,
which assigned their beginning to nearly the same motives as our general courts
of deputies.
A natural inquiry arises, what induced this concert among the several towns
to send deputies, or why the NOTICE mentioned in the text was given? Since
nothing can be found in the Records, previous to this meeting of the deputies,
the answer must be left to conjecture; and perhaps no conjecture can be more
satisfactory, than that the assistants were become weary of the exercise of all
the powers of government, and desired others to participate in the responsibility. For this, however cautious the language of our author, it appears to me
very evidently designed. The very humble powers, he proposed that the representative should receive from his constituent, it is hardly necessary to add,
were immediately transcended; and the assembly, as it ought, was ever after



154                      JOHN WINTHROP.                         [1634.`130     3.]   The governour went on foot to Agawam, and because the people there wanted a minister, spent the Sabwards by itself thought competent to the enaction of any regulation for the
public welfare.
It seems proper to transcribe here the earliest mention in our Colony Records, I. 115, of any representation, other than that to raise a public stock, of
which ample notice is heretofore taken, in pages 70, 76: " It was further ordered, that it shall be lawful for the freemen of every plantation to choose two
or three of each town, before every general court, to confer of and prepare
such public business as by them shall be thought fit to consider of at the next
general court; and that such persons as shall be hereafter so deputed by the
freemen of [the] several plantations, to deal in their behalf in the public affairs
of the commonwealth, shall have the full power and voice of all the said freemen derived to them for the making and establishing of laws, granting of lands,
etc., and to deal in all other affairs of the commonwealth, wherein the freemen
have to do, the matter of election of magistrates and other officers only excepted, wherein every freeman is to give his own voice."  This is one of the
first acts of the representatives.
The proceedings of this first general court of delegates, 14 May, 1634, begin
on the preceding page, in the margin of which are the names of twenty-four
persons, who were, I have no doubt, deputies from only eight towns, being not
two, as the text has it, but three for each town. As the occasion is so interesting, it may be agreeable to the reader to have here inserted the names of the
FIRST representatives of Massachusetts, in the same order as in the Record:
" MR. GOODWIN, MR. SPENCER, MR. TALCOTT; MR. FEAKES, MR. BROWN,
MR. OLDHAM; MR. BEECHER, MR. PALMER, ROBERT MOULTON; MR.
COXEALL, EDMOND QUINSEY, CAPT. JOHN UNDERHILL; JOHN JOHNSON,
WILLIAM   HEATH, MR. ALcoCK; MR. ISRAEL          STOUGHTON, WILLIAM
FELPES, GEORGE HULL; CAPT. TURNER, MR. WILLIS, MR. EDWARD
TOMLINS; MR. HOLGRAVE, MR. CONANT, FRANCIS WESTON."            The first
three were of Newtown; the others of Watertown, Charlestown, Boston, Roxbury, Dorchester, Sagus, and Salem, in equal numbers, according to this order.
But, in this assignment of the individuals to the several towns, I have followed
my own judgment; in making up which, the most patient inquiry was rewarded,
for all but two or three, with perfect certainty. No specification of the places,
from which the deputies came, is inserted, for many years, in the margin of the
volume, wherein their names are contained.
Having taken a copy of the names of members in the first twenty-two courts,
I may add, that the places in the lists are filled without regard to rank of the
person, or age of the town. Hingham stands at the top as often as Salem; and
those of the same town are not always written next to each other, though so
much regularity is commonly found. Perhaps they were often entered by the
secretary, as they came in to take their seats. At the courts in May, September, and November, 1637, all the Boston members are named last. This, I pre



1634.]                  JOHN WINTHROP.                           155
bath with them, and exercised by way of prophecy, and returned home the 10th.
20.] John Coggeshall,1 gentleman, being dismissed from the
church of Roxbury to Boston, though he were well known and
approved of the church, yet was not received but by con-'131
fession of his faith, etc.
[Very large blank.]
May 3.]     News came of the        death  of Hockin     and the
Plimouth man at Kenebeck, (and of the arrival of the ship at
Pemaquid, which brought thirty passengers for this place).
The occasion of the death of those men at Kenebeck was
sume, was a punishment of their heresy, and regret, that it was not the only
punishment.
The ninth town, that sent deputies, was Ipswich, on 4 March next; and the
right was extended to Weymouth at the court, 2 September following. Hingham members appear 25 May, 1636. In September after one from Newbury
is found among the representatives; and in April following Concord has a
place.
1 This gentleman was of high consideration, represented Boston in the first,
second, third, sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth courts, in the Records of which
his name is sometimes written by the secretary, as it was probably pronounced,
Coxeall. He was elected for the twelfth, but, with Aspinwall, as we find, Col.
Rec. I. 202, " affirming that Mr. Wheelwright is innocent, and that he was persecuted for the truth, was in like sort dismissed from being a member of the court,
and order was given for two new deputies to be chosen by the town of Boston."
Perhaps the ceremony, mentioned in the text, would have been dispensed with
for himself; but his wife and a maid servant, Ann Shelley, were received, at
the same time, from the neighboring church, as I learn from the Records of our
own. In general, communicants from other churches were received, in early
times, with the same liberality as now prevails. At the same court from which
he was expelled, 2 November, 1637, " being convented for disturbing the public peace," he " was disfranchised, and enjoined not to speak any thing to disturb the public peace, upon pain of banishment." He was exiled in March
following, and retired with his blameless associates to Rhode Island, which they
had just before purchased from the natives. In that peaceable settlement he
became an assistant, and, in 1647, presided over the colony with a spirit of heterodox charity. See Callender, 30, 42. His son I presume to be the clerk of
the general assembly of that colony in 1676. 2 Hist. Coll. VII. 112. Descendants in a right line remain to this day. In 1817 one was a representative in
Massachusetts from Somerset, bordering on the state of Rhode Island; and,
from some neighboring ports, several masters of ships of this name have of late
years been noticed.




156                   JOHN WINTHROP                     [1634.
this: The Plimouth men had a grant, from the grand patentees
of New England, of Kenebeck, with liberty of sole trade, etc.
The said Hockin came in a pinnace, belonging to the Lord Say
and Lord Brook at Pascataquack, to trade at Kenebeck.    Two
of the magistrates 11 of[ Plimouth, being there, forbad him; yet
he went up the river; and, because he would not come down
again, they sent three men in a canoe to cut his cables. Having cut one, Hockin presented a piece, and sware he would
kill him that went to cut the other. They l 2bad I him do if
he durst, and went on to cut it. Thereupon he killed one of
them, and instantly one in the Plimouth pinnace (which rode
by them, and wherein five or six men stood with their pieces
ready charged) shot and killed Hockin.
15.]  At the general court at Boston, upon the complaint of
a kinsman of the said Hockin, John Alden,1 one of the said
magistrates of Plimouth, who was present when Hockin was
slain, being then at Boston, was called and bound with sureties
not to depart out of our jurisdiction without leave 1 Shad; 11 and
withal we wrote to Plimouth to certify them what we had done,
and to know whether they would do justice in the cause, (as
belonging to their jurisdiction,) and to have a speedy answer,
etc. This we did, that notice might be taken, that we did disavow the said action, which was much condemned of all men,
and which was feared would give occasion to the king to send
a general governour over; and besides had brought us all and
the gospel under a common reproach of cutting one another's
throats for beaver.2
[Blank.]
l at l          112 told II       113 etc. 1
1 While the Memorial of Plimouth Colony survives, the name of Alden, a
brief account of whom is found in Eliot and Allen, cannot be forgotten. Many
of his descendants are in honorable place in various parts of the United States,
of whom one was an indefatible antiquary, the president of a college at Meadville in Pennsylvania, to whose Collection of Epitaphs many acknowledgments
are due. The ancestor and his genealogical series, down to the present age, are
found in Vol. II. 264-274.
2 Bradford's relation is a little more full; and, as he was a patentee, the reader
will find, with pleasure, that his pen was guided by truth, as well as interest.
See Appendix to Hutchinson, II. 474-5.. A little farther onward in this History, more will be found on the same subject.




1634.]                THOMAS DUDLEY.                        157
By this time the fort at Boston was in defence, and di-'132
vers pieces of ordnance mounted in it.
[Large blank.]
Those of Newtown complained of straitness for want of
land, especially meadow, and desired leave of the 1 court It to
look out either for enlargement or removal, which was granted;
whereupon they sent men to see Agawam       and Merimack, and
gave out they would remove, etc.
[Large blank.]
14.]  At the general court, Mr. Cotton preached, and delivered this doctrine, that a magistrate ought not to be turned into
the condition of a private man without just cause, and to be
publicly convict, no more than the magistrates may not turn
a private man out of his freehold, etc., without like public trial,
etc. This falling in question in the court, and the opinion of
the rest of the ministers being asked, it was referred to further
consideration.'
The court chose a new governour,2 viz., Thomas Dudley, Esq.,
the former deputy; and Mr. Ludlow was chosen deputy; and
John Haines, Esq., an assistant, and all the rest of the assistants chosen again.
At this court it was ordered, that four general courts should
ke kept every year, and that the whole body of the freemen
should be present only at the court of election of magistrates,
etc., and that, at the other three, every town should send their
deputies, who should assist in making laws, disposing lands,
etc.3  Many good orders were made this court.     It held three
1[ council 1
1 Expediency should have kept Cotton silent; for the people are more likely
to become jealous, when such a principle is preached, than when it is put in
practice. The reverend teacher took his freeman's oath at this court, and had
not sufficient experience in the affairs of the country to authorize so strong an
expression of his opinion, unless he believed himself directed from on high.
Any of his friends could have led him to doubt the suggestion, however,
had he pretended such; but he was delivering a sincere opinion of his own
forming.
2 Chosen by papers, is written in the margin of our MS.
3 Mr. Cottington chosen treasurer, is in the margin.
VOL. I.                      14




158                    THOMAS DUDLEY.                       [1634.
days, and all things were carried very peaceably, notwithstanding that some of the assistants were questioned by the freemen
for some errors in their government, and some fines imposed,
but remitted again before the court brake up. The court was
kept in the meeting-house at Boston,'and the new governour
and the assistants were together entertained at the house of the
old governour, as before.*
1q33    The week the court was, there came in six ships, with
store of passengers and cattle.
[Large blank.]
Mr. Parker,1 a minister, and a company with him, being
about one hundred, went to sit down at Agawam, and divers
others of the new comers.
[Very large blank.]
One [blank,] a godly minister, upon conscience of his oath
and care of the commonwealth, discovered to the magistrates
some seditious speeches of his own son, delivered in private to
himself; but the court thought not fit to call the party in
question then, being loath to have the father come in as a
public accuser of his own son, but rather desired to find other
matter, or other witness against him.
24.]  Mr. Fleming, master of a ship of Barnstable, went
hence to the eastward to cut masts there, and so to return to
England. There returned with him Ensign Motham and
another.
[Large blank.]
1 Of Thomas Parker, a learned theologian, pupil of the great Archbishop
Usher, having passed a short time at Magdalen College, Oxford, notice will
often arise in the progress of this work. He finished his preparation for the
pulpit at Leyden, and had a school at Newbury in Berkshire, where also he
preached; was a bachelor, but stood in place of a father to many divines of the
succeeding generation. One who desires to know more of him, may consult
Hubbard, 193, the Magnalia, Eliot, Allen, 1 Hist. Coll. VI. 273, and IX. 48,
and Brooks's Lives of the Puritans. An error may be corrected in a note to
James Parker's letter, in Hutch. Coll. 155, where it is supposed, "he was afterwards one of the ministers of Newbury," which was the place of usefulness
assigned to our Thomas. James had preached at Portsmouth before going to
Barbados. 1 Hist. Coll. X. 39. Rev. James Noyes and his brother Nicholas,
came with Parker. They were his cousins.




1634.]                 THOMAS DUDLEY.                           159
These ships, by reason of their short passage, had store of
provisions left, which they put off at easy rates, viz. biscuit at
20s. the hundred; beef at ~6 the hogshead, etc.
[Blank.]
Newtown men, being straitened for ground, sent some to
Merimack to find a fit place to transplant themselves.
[Blank.]
June 1.] The Thunder, which went to Bermuda the 17th
October, now returned, bringing corn and goats from       Virginia,
(for the weavils had taken the corn at Bermuda before they
came there). Ensign Jenyson I went in her for pilot, and related,
at his return, that there was a very great change in Bermuda
since he dwelt there, divers lewd persons [I being II become good
Christians. They have three ministers, (one a Scotchman,)
who II 2take 1] great pains among them, and had lately (by`134
prayer and fasting) dispossessed one possessed II with 1 a
devil.   They obtained    his recovery while the congregation
were assembled.2
He brought news, also, of a great ship arrived in Patomack
11 having 1           I1 took II           13 of l
1 William Jennison was of Watertown, from which he was a deputy in the
second and many subsequent courts, with higher titles than in the text, as
lieutenant and captain.
2 If this be the story of the traveller, not the belief of the author, giving it
civilly, without throwing any shadow on it, we should rejoice at the completeness of the narrative, rather than exhibit regret for its credulity. The miracle
wrought by the prayer and fasting of three ministers at Bermuda, has never,
to my knowledge, been brought up against Protestantism, though it may be
rejected with as much contempt as the numerous ones produced, at a later day,
by the Jansenists in France. It has been remarked by a disbeliever, that,
while the church of Rome asserts, from its foundation to our times, the regular
succession of miraculous gifts of all kinds, the reformed are contented with
exorcisms. What kind of possession this was, thus exorcised at Bermuda, we
know not, unless we infer, from the mode of cure, that the operators attempted
a recovery of that species (epilepsy) related by Matthew, xvii. 21, and
Mark, ix. 29. Better signs, or better proof, are wanted in such cases, if, for
our reception, a modern instance of hearing prayer in heaven is offered;
though the weak and the cunning, the deluded or the deluders, have, in all
ages, abounded in such impositions. The credibility of the evangelists is supported by the very means, which, to a careless observer, might seem to detract
from it; and the truth is more resplendent, when the counterfeit is detected.




160                    THOMAS DUDLEY.                      [1634.
River in Virginia, with a governour and colony sent by the Lord
Bartimore,1 who was expected there shortly himself, and that
they resisted those of Virginia, who came to trade in that river.
It appeared after, that the king had written to Sir John
Harvy,2 11 knight, II governour of Virginia, to give all assistance
to that new plantation, which was called Maryland by the
queen of England; and those who came over were, many of
them, Papists, and did set up mass openly.
July.] The Hercules of Dover returned by St. George's to
cut masts to carry to England.
The last month arrived here fourteen great ships,8 and one
at Salem.
Mr. Humfrey and the lady Susan, his wife, one of the Earl
of Lincoln's sisters, arrived here. He brought more ordnance,
*135 muskets, and powder, bought for the public by moneys
given to that end; for godly people in England began
now to apprehend a special hand of God in raising this plantation, and their hearts were generally stirred to come 1 2over!.
Among others, we received letters from a godly preacher, Mr.
Levinston, a Scotchman in the north of Ireland, whereby he
signified, that there were many good Christians in those parts
resolved to come hither, if they might receive satisfaction concerning some questions and propositions which they sent over.
Likewise, Mr. Humfrey brought certain propositions 4 from some
II king's 11                       112 to  us II
1 Cecil, son of George, Lord Baltimore, against whom nothing can be
learned from history but the father's conscientious conversion, and the heir's
adherence, to the Romish religion. For their just deserts, which the liberal
inhabitants of Maryland will never forget, the reader is referred to Belknap's
American Biography, II. 363-380. Candor must be extended to some passages of this History, in which the spirit of the age will appear more prominently than justice.
2 This gentleman, who had been named by King James, in his last year, of
the council for the immediate government of Virginia, Haz. I. 189, was, by
Charles, appointed governour, 26 March, 1627. Ib. 234. A new commission
for the same place was given him nine years after. Ib. 400.
3 One of these was the Planter. The bill of lading for the government
stores, put on board by Humfrey, who was, probably, a passenger, was dated
7 April. See the account of Treasurer Pynchon, in 2 Mass. Hist. Coll. VIII. 228.
4 For these propositions of certain peers, and others of the English nobility,




1634.]                THOMAS DUDLEY.                          161
persons of great quality and estate, (and of special note for
piety,) whereby they discovered their intentions to join with
us, if they might receive satisfaction therein. It appeared
further, by many private letters, that the departure of so many
of the best, both ministers and Christians, had bred sad thoughts
in those behind of the Lord's intentions in this work, and an
apprehension of some evil days to come upon England.
11 Then 11 it began now to be apprehended by the archbishops,
and others of the council, as a matter of state, so as they sent
out warrant to stay the ships, and to call in our patent; but,
upon petition of the shipmasters, (11 2attending I how beneficial
this plantation was to England) in regard of the Newfoundland
fishing, which they took in their way homeward, the ships
were at that time released. But Mr. Cradock (who had been
governour in England before the government was sent over)
had strict charge to deliver in the patent; whereupon he wrote
to us to send it home. Upon receipt of his letter, the governour and council consulted about it, and resolved to answer
Mr. Cradock's letter, but not to return any answer or excuse to
the council at that time.
[Very large blank.]
~ For the success of the passengers and cattle in the ships: ~
Divers of the ships lost many cattle; but the two which came
from Ipswich,' of more than one hundred and twenty, lost but
seven. None of the ships lost any passengers, but the Eliza11 yea 1                         11I 2alleging ~
with the answers, drawn with great discretion, returned two years after, the
curious are indebted to Hutchinson's Mass. I. Appendix, 490-5. Following
them is a letter of Cotton, to enforce our answers, addressed to the Puritan
Lord Say. He says, " Democracy I do not conceive that ever God did ordain
as a fit government, either for church or commonwealth. If the people be
governours, who shall be governed? As for monarchy, and aristocracy, they
are both of them clearly approved, and directed in scripture, yet so as referreth
the sovereignty to himself, and setteth up theocracy in both, as the best form
of government in the commonwealth, as well as in the church."
1 The Elizabeth, William Andrews master, and the Francis, of which John
Cutting was master, were the Ipswich ships. Names of 102, and 84 passengers,
respectively, are printed in 3 Mass. Hist. Coll. X. 140-145. Probably several
of the others were not known to the officers of government, or they would have
been forbidden.
14*




162                 THOMAS DUDLEY.                  [1634.
*136 beth Dorcas,l which, having a long passage, and being
hurt upon a rock at Scilly, and very ill victualled, she
lost sixty passengers at sea, and divers came sick on shore, who
all recovered, (through the mercy of God,) except
[Large blank.]
Mr. Humfrey brought sixteen heifers given by a private
friend, viz. Mr. Richard Andrews,2 to the plantation, viz. to
every of the ministers one, and the rest to the poor, and one
half of the increase of the ministers' to be reserved for other
ministers. Mr. Wilson, so soon as he had his, gave it to Mr.
Cotton. By Mr. Humfrey's means much money was procured,
and divers promised yearly pensions.
[Large blank.]
Six of Newtown went in the Blessing, (being bound to the
Dutch plantation,) to discover Connecticut River, intending to
remove their town thither.
9.]  Mr. Bradford and Mr. Winslow, two of the magistrates
of Plimouth, with Mr. Smith, their pastor, came to Boston by
water, to confer with some of our magistrates and ministers
about their case of Kenebeck.    There met hereabout Mr.
Winthrop, Mr. Cotton, and Mr. Wilson, and after they had
sought the Lord, they fell first upon some passages which they
had taken some offence at, but those were soon cleared. Then
for the matter itself, it fell into these two points: 1, whether
their right of trade there were such, as they might lawfully
hinder others from coming there; 2, admitting that, whether
in point of conscience, they might so far stand upon their right
as to take away or hazard any man's life in defence of it.
For the first, their right appeared to be good; for that, besides the king's grant, they had taken up that place as vacuum
domicilium, and so had continued, without interruption or claim
of any of the natives, for divers years; and also had, by their
charge and providence, drawn down thither the greatest part of
1 In this ship came Henry Sewall, father of the first Chief Justice, of the
name of Samuel.
2 Of the liberality of this distinguished friend of Massachusetts and Plimouth
colonies, further notice will occur in our progress. He was an alderman of the
city; and Thomas, probably his brother, became mayor of London.




1634.]              THOMAS DUDLEY.                   163
the trade, by carrying wampampeage thither, which none of
the English had known the use of before. For the second,
they 11 alleged, 1| that their servant did kill Hockin to save other
of their men, whom he was ready to have shot. Yet they
acknowledged, that they did hold themselves under guilt of the
breach of the sixth commandment, in that they did hazard
11 2man's life II for such a cause, and did not rather wait to preserve
their right by other means, which they rather acknowl- 137
edged, because they wished it were not done; and hereafter they would be careful to prevent the like.
The governour and Mr. Winthrop wrote their letters into
England to mediate their peace, and sent them by Mr. 113 Winslow 1{.
Sir Ferdinando Gorges and Capt. Mason sent [blank] to Pascataquack and Aquamenticus, with two sawmills, to be erected,
in each place one.'
[Blank.]
Mr. Cradock wrote to the governour and assistants, and sent
a copy of the council's order,2 whereby we were required to
send over our patent.  Upon long consultation whether we
should return answer or not, we agreed, and returned answer to
Mr. Cradock, excusing that it could not be done but by a general court, which was to be holden in September next.
[Blank.]
Mr. Winthrop, the late governour, received a letter from the
Earl of Warwick, wherein he congratulated the prosperity of
our plantation, and encouraged our proceedings, and offered his
help to further us in it.
29.] The governour and council, and divers of the ministers,
and others, met at Castle Island, and there agreed upon erecting two platforms and one small fortification to secure 11 them
both, [l3 and, for the present furtherance of it, they agreed to
11 allowed l  112men's lives 11   13 Wilson 1  114 the cityll
1 Belknap's New Hampshire, Appendix VIII. contains a letter of Mason
about these mills, to erect which he sent people with Josselyn, brother of John,
the voyager.
2 A copy of this order is in Hazard, I. 341, taken from Hubbard, 153.
3 By the error of the first edition, Dr. Holmes was led to remark, in the




164                      THOMAS DUDLEY.                        [1634.
lay out ~5 a man till a 1] rate 11 might be made at the next general court.   The deputy, Roger Ludlow, was chosen overseer
of this work.
August 2.]    Mr. Samuel Skelton, pastor of Salem, died.
4.] At the court, the new town at Agawam was named
Ipswich, in acknowledgment of the great honor and kindness
done to our people which took shipping there, etc.; and a day
of thanksgiving appointed, a fortnight after, for the I'prosperous arrival of the others, 11 etc.
A  letter' ~was delivered~ to       Mr. Winthrop by Mr. Jeffe*138 ry,2 an old planter, written to him from       Morton, wherein
he related, how he had obtained his long suit, and that a
commission was granted for a general governour to be sent
over, with many railing speeches and threats against this plantation, and. Mr. Winthrop in particular. Mr. Winthrop acquainted
the governour and council with it, and some of the ministers.
[Blank.]
This summer was hotter than many before.
[Blank.]
rule |[       I2 particular revival of the times 
first edition of his Annals, I. 278, that the "metropolis has never yet been incorporated with that name."
1Never were feelings of triumph more openly, and, as the event showed,
incautiously displayed, than in this epistle, for which the author smarted ten
years after, as in the History of that time, in our second volume, will be seen.
The original deformity is there exhibited. Hubbard, 428, copied it, and most
subsequent writers imagined, that to his page, not Winthrop's, were they indebted for the curiosity.
2 William Jeffery, or Jeffries, was a person of some distinction, settled in our
colony before the arrival of the first company of Endecott, sent by the patentees in 1628. His admission as a freeman is noticed among the earliest who
were received. Col. Rec. I. 73. I can assign his residence, only by guess, to
Weymouth. See note 2, on page 43. He was named, with Blaxton, by Sir
Ferdinando Gorges's son, in his abortive grant to Oldham, attorney to give possession of Massachusetts. Conf. Haz. I. 259 and 268. Such a letter Morton
could not have sent, without supposing his correspondent would agree with him
in dislike of the men, on whom he lavished so bold abuse; and it may almost
seem treachery in the receiver to give it up. Perhaps Jeffery was afraid of
discovery, or else the Merry Mount rioter was deceived in judging one his
friend, who had six years before joined the formidable alliance for his overthrow.




1634.]              THOMAS DUDLEY.                   165
12.] About midnight, one Craford; (who came this summer,) with his brother and servant, having put much goods in
a small boat in Charles River, over against Richard Brown his
house, overset the boat with the weight of some hogsheads, (as
was supposed,) so as they were all three drowned; yet one of
them could swim well, and though the neighbors came running
forth, instantly, upon their cry, yet none could be saved.
[Large blank.]
Our neighbors of Plimouth and we had oft trade with the
Dutch at Hudson's River, called ~ by them ~ New Netherlands.
We had from them about forty sheep, and beaver, and brass
pieces, and sugar, etc., for sack, strong waters, linen cloth, and
other commodities. They have a great trade of beaver, - about
nine or ten thousand skins in a year. Our neighbors of Plimouth had great trade also this year at Kenebeck, so as M'r.
Winslow carried with him into England, this year, about twenty
hogsheads of beaver, the greatest part whereof was traded for
wampampeage.
One pleasant passage happened, which was acted by the
Indians. Mr. Winslow, coming in his bark fiom Connecticut to
Narigansett, - and he left her there, - and intending to *139
return by land, he went to Osamekin the sagamore, his
old ally, who offered to conduct him home to Plimouth. But,
before they took their journey, Osamekin sent one of his men
to Plimouth to tell them that Mr. Winslow was dead; and
directed him to show how and where he was killed. Whereupon there was much fear and sorrow    at Plimouth.  The
next day, when Osamekin brought him home, they asked him
why he sent such word, etc. He answered, that it was their
manner to do so, that they might be more welcome when they
came home.
[Blank.]
19.] Mr. Bradford and Mr. Collier' of Plimouth came to
1 Honorable mention must ever be made of William Collier, Esq., who came
over to Plimouth only the year before that of the text. He was chosen an
assistant in 1634, and thenceforward until 1666, every year, except 1638, 52
and 53, when he was probably absent, and was one of the two first delegates to
the congress of the United Colonies, in 1643.




166                    THOMAS DUDLEY.                        [1634.
Boston, having appointed a meeting here the week before, but
by reason of foul weather were driven back. They had written to Capt. Wiggin of Pascataquack about the meeting for
hearing the cause of Hockin's death.
[Large blank.]
Corn was this year at four shillings the bushel, and some at
three shillings, and some cheaper.
[Large blank.]
29.] The 11 Dove, 11 a pinnace of about fifty tons, came from
Maryland upon Patomack River, with corn, to exchange for
fish and other commodities. The governour, Leonard Calvert,1
and two of the commissioners, wrote to the governour here,
to make offer of trade of corn, etc., and the governour of Virginia wrote also on their behalf, and one Capt. Young wrote
to make offer to deliver cattle here.    Near all their company
came sick hither, and the merchant died within one week after.
[Blank.]
*140     September 4.]   The general court began2 at Newtown,
and continued a week, and then was adjourned |l 2fourteen It days.  Many things were there agitated and concluded,
as fortifying in Castle Island, Dorchester, and Charlestown; also
against tobacco, and costly apparel, and immodest fashions; and
I1D   1 112 eleven II
1 This gentleman was the brother of Cecil, Lord Baltimore, mentioned in the
note on page 134, sent by the patentee as his governour. His name will recur
in the progress of this History; but I regret that any information of the events
of his administration is confined to its policy, applauded by Belknap, and the
minute, but imperfect narrative in Bozman's History of Maryland. The Hon.
Charles Calvert, governour of Maryland, a descendant, died 2 February, 1732.
A tomb, erected at Annapolis, bore inscriptions in honor of himself and wife,
which may be seen in the American Magazine, printed at Boston, 1743,
page 74. I believe reputable descendants of this family perpetuate its fame in
Maryland.
2 By the Col. Records, I. 126, the day of assembling is the 3d, not 4th, of
September. But it is more important to observe, that no names of deputies
appear; so that I regard it only as a second session of the court, adjourned in
May, and therefore give the. distinction of second court to that in March following. Many new members appeared then, and so we find the fact in every succeeding meeting for many years. Perhaps one or more new delegates appeared
at this court from some town not represented at the May session.




1634.]             THOMAS DUDLEY.                  167
committees appointed for setting out the bounds of towns; with
divers other matters, which do appear upon record. But the
main business, which spent the most time, and caused the adjourning of the court, was about the removal of Newtown.
They had leave, the last general court, to look out some place
for enlargement or removal, with promise of having it confirmed
to them, if it were not prejudicial to any other plantation;
and now they moved, that they might have leave to remove to
Connecticut. This matter was debated divers days, and many
reasons alleged pro and con. The principal reasons for their
removal were, 1. Their want of accommodation for their cattle, so as they were not able to maintain their ministers, nor
could receive any more of their friends to help them; and here
it was alleged by Mr. Hooker, as a fundamental error, that
towns were set so near each to other.1
2. The fruitfulness and commodiousness of Connecticut, and
the danger of having it possessed by others, Dutch or English.
3. The strong bent of their spirits to remove thither.
[Large blank.]
Against these it was said, 1. That, in point of conscience, they
ought not to depart from us, being knit to us in one body, and
bound by oath to seek the welfare of this commonwealth.
2. That, in point of state and civil policy, we ought not to
give them leave to depart. 1. Being I1 we 11 were now weak and
in danger to be assailed. 2. The departure of Mr. Hooker
would not only draw many from us, but also divert other
friends that would come to us. 3. We should expose them to
evident peril, both from the Dutch (who made claim to the same
river, and had already built a fort there) and from the Indians,
and also from our own state at home, who would not endure
they should sit down without a patent in any place which *141
our king lays claim unto.
3. They might be accommodated at home by some enlargement which other towns offered.
1 newl|
1 In this fifth year of the Colony history, so sadly crowded were the settlers at
Newtown, that Watertown was not a mile and a half distant, nor Charlestown
more than two miles.




168                    THOMAS DUDLEY.                      [1634.
4.  They might remove to Merimack, or any other place
within our patent.
5. The removing of a candlestick is a great judgment, which
is to be avoided.
Upon these and other arguments the court being divided, it
was put to vote; and, of the deputies, fifteen were for their departure, and ten against it.1 The governour and two assistants
were for it, and the deputy and all the rest of the assistants
were against it, (except the secretary, who      gave no vote;)
whereupon no record was entered, because there were not six
assistants in the vote, as the patent requires. Upon this grew
a great difference between the governour and assistants, and
the deputies.   They would not yield the assistants a negative
voice, and the others (considering how dangerous it might be
to the commonwealth, if they should not keep that strength to
balance the greater number of the deputies) thought it safe to
stand upon it.    So, when they could proceed no farther, the
whole court agreed to keep a day of humiliation to seek the
Lord, which accordingly was done, in all the congregations, the
18th day of this month; and the 24th the court met again. Before they began, Mr. Cotton preached,) (being desired by all
the court, upon Mr. Hooker's instant excuse of his unfitness for
that occasion).  He took his text out of Hag. ii. 4, etc., out of
which he laid down the nature or strength (as he termed it) of
the magistracy, ministry, and people, viz., -the strength of the
magistracy to be their authority; of the people, their liberty;
1 The error of Hutchinson, in reporting this division of the deputies, and his
mistake of the name of the deputy governour, he owed to Hubbard, 173, 4,
who copied our author with carelessness surprising even in him. He almost
literally transcribed from our text the very form of the argument and partition
of the subject; and the numerals are here as plain as in any part of the original
MS. On so important a question, we might, a priori, conclude, that every one
of the deputies was present; and since their number, at the first general court
when representatives appeared, was twenty-four, and so small a body never
appears again, we may confidently presume, there were now twenty-five, though
the enumeration of the body cannot be given precisely, because the Records, in
this solitary instance, omit their names. See the last note. Ludlow was the
deputy governour; and it seems not very strange, that he opposed the removal,
while he was in this office, but adopted that course, after failing to be rechosen
next year.




1634.]                   THOMAS DUDLEY.                          169
and of the ministry, their purity; and showed how all of these
had a negative voice, etc., and that yet the ultimate resolution,
etc., ought to be in the whole body of the people, etc., with answer to all objections, and a declaration of the people's duty
and right to maintain their true liberties against any un-`142
just violence, etc., which gave great satisfaction to the
company. And it pleased the Lord so to assist him, and to
bless his own ordinance, that the affairs of the court went on
cheerfully; and although all were not satisfied about the negative voice to be left to the magistrates, yet no man moved aught
about it, and the congregation of Newtown came and accepted
of such enlargement as had formerly' been offered them            by
Boston and Watertown; and so the fear of their removal to
Connecticut was removed.
At this court Mr. Goodwin,2 a very reverend and godly man,
1 Hubbard, 175, read this word freely.
2 William Goodwin is known to us, for many years, only by this notice of his
language, as a deputy in the court. The occasion of his disrespect to the
assistant, no doubt, arose from the projected migration of his townsmen. He
did not represent Newtown in any following legislature, and removed, probably,
the next year but one, with a large portion of his constituents, to Connecticut.
Nothing more is heard of him until 1654, when a controversy sprang up in the
church of Hartford, where Goodwin was ruling elder, between him and Stone,
the teacher, which lasted several years, baffling the attempts of the legislature
to calm it, and drawing New Haven and Massachusetts into the idle examination. The humble importance of such mighty agitation occupies many pages in
Trumbull, I. 311 and following; but Mather, book III. says, the origin of it
" has been rendered almost as obscure as the rise of Connecticut River."  That
author, in his usual diffuse manner, follows up his illustration with allusions to
the force of the stream, and the width of its overflow; yet he has omitted the
important parallel, of enriching the soil by its inundation. Goodwin was honored by Gov. Hopkins, in being made a trustee in his will. He died at Farmington, 1673, leaving only daughter, from whom the distinguished family of
Wadsworth is derived.
I have seen, among the Hutchinson Papers, in the archives of our Historical
Society, a tract, of eight and a half folio pages, entitled " The Sentence of the
Council held at Boston, September 26, 1659, concerning the long, sad, andi
afflicting Controversy between the rev. teacher, Mr. Samuel Stone, the honored
and dearly beloved brethren of the church of Hartford, on the one part, and'
the honored and dearly beloved brethren, the withdrawers from the said church,
on the other part, since the relapse after the pacification, May 3, 1657." It
bears date 7 October, and is signed by Wilson, Chauncey, R. Mather, Allen,
VOL..                        15




170                     THOMAS DUDLEY.                         [1634.
being the elder of the congregation of Newtown, having, in
heat of argument, used some unreverend speech to one of the
assistants, and being reproved for the same in the open court,
did gravely and humbly acknowledge his fault, etc.
*143     18.]   At this court were many laws made against tobacco, and immodest fashions, and costly apparel, etc., as
appears by the Records; and ~6001 raised towards fortifications and other charges, which were the more hastened, because
the Griffin and another ship now arriving with about two hundred passengers and one hundred cattle, (Mr. Lothrop2 and Mr.
Simmes,8 two godly ministers, coming in the same ship,) there
Symmes, Norton, Eliot, Edm. Browne, Cobbet, Sherman, Hubbard, Danforth,
Mitchell, and Shepard, among the divines; and R. Russell, Edw. Tyng, and
Isaac Heath, of the laity. It appears to be the handwriting of matchless Mitchell; but though it refers to "the great labor of the reverend council held at
Hartford in'56; the poor service of the church messengers from hence in'57;
the several occasional letters from the elders of these parts before and since;
and, lastly, the travels of this present assembly," with earnest entreaty for healing the scandalous divisions,-I hope it may not be imputed to any disesteem
of the council or the subject, that my curiosity was not sufficiently strong to
encounter the labor of perusal of so venerable a manuscript.
1 The apportionment is worth transcribing from the Records, I. 128, as, we
may be confident, it represents the relative wealth of the settlements: " Boston,
Dorchester, and Newtown, each, ~80; Roxbury, ~70; Watertown, ~60; Sagus
and Ipswich, each, ~50; Salem and Charlestown, each, ~45; Meadford, ~26;
Wessaguscus, ~10; Barecove, ~4."
2 With the excellence of the Rev. John Lathrop, we could form little acquaintance in a place, to which every reader would most naturally resort, the
Description of Barnstable, in 1 Hist. Coll. III. But the extraordinary errors of
that tract, pages 15, 16, or any other writer's deficiency, are all forgotten on
perusal of the memoir of him and his posterity, by a descendant, found in 2
Hist. Coll. I. 163. Eliot has afforded two pages to him, and his name is excluded from Allen only by some less desirable matter. A great, great grandson, one of the most sincere and benevolent men of his time, who died since
furnishing that narrative of his ancestor, after a long life of devotion to his
duties will long be remembered as pastor of the Second Church of Boston.
The patriarchal divine at West Springfield, whose sermons have justly been
more in repute than those of equal volume by any other American, who deceased since my work on these pages began, deduced his origin from this first
clergyman of Scituate. A very numerous line of descendants is found in our
country.
3 Zechariah Symmes, the worthy teacher of the church at Charlestown, is




1634.]                 THOMAS DUDLEY.                       171
came over a copy of the commission' granted to the two archbishops and ten others of the council, to regulate all plantations,
and power given them, or any five of them, to call in all patents,
to make laws, to raise tythes and portions for ministers, to remove and punish governours, and to hear and determine all
causes, and inflict all punishments, even death itself, etc. This
being advised from our friends to be intended specially for us,
and that there were ships and soldiers provided, given out as
for the carrying the new  governour, Capt. Woodhouse, to Virginia, but suspected to be against us, to compel us, by force, to
receive a new governour, and the discipline of the church *144
of England, and the laws of the commissioners, - occasioned the magistrates and deputies to hasten our fortifications,
and to discover our minds each to other; which grew to this
conclusion,2 viz.
[Large blank.]
At this court, as before, the assistants had their 1i diet 11 at the
governour's at Newtown, and the first day all the deputies.
He had ~100 allowed him for his charges, and ~500 more was
raised towards fortifications, etc.
30.] About this time one Alderman, of Bear Cove, being
about fifty years old, lost his way between Dorchester and
Wessaguscus, and wandered in the woods and swamps three
days and two nights, without taking any food, and, being near
I dues |
sufficiently commemorated in Eliot's Dictionary, where the time of his death is
erroneously given 1676, for February 4, 1670-1. Johnson has honored him,
and especially his wife, above most of the ministers in the land, lib. I. c. 32. In
this History his service to the community is often mentioned; and at the last
election of Winthrop, as governour, narrated in this work, he preached the sermon. His descendants, at different times, have been honored in church and
state.
The famous Mrs. Ann Hutchinson came over in the same ship with
Symmes, as was given in evidence on her trial. See Hutchinson's Mass. II.
Appendix.
1 See the commission in Hubbard, 264.
2 What the conclusion was, we may easily judge from the opinion of the
ministers, obtained at a meeting 19 January following, as, a few pages onward
will appear.




172                THOMAS DUDLEY.                [1634.
spent, God brought him to Scituate; but he had torn his legs
much, etc. Other harm he had none.
October 5.]  It being found, that the four lectures did
spend too much time, and proved l over ] burdensome to the
ministers and people, the ministers, with the advice of the
magistrates, and with consent of their congregations, did agree
to reduce them to two days, viz., Mr. Cotton at Boston one
Thursday, or the 5th day of the week, and Mr. Hooker at
Newtown the next 5th day, and Mr. Warham at Dorchester
one 4th day of the week, and Mr. Welde at Roxbury the next
4th day.
Mr. Lathrop, who had been pastor of a private congregation in London, and for the same kept long time in prison,
(upon refusal of the oath ex-officio,) being at Boston upon a
sacrament day, after the sermon, etc., desired leave of the congregation to be present at the administration, etc., but said that
he durst not desire to partake in it, because he was not then in
order, (being dismissed from his former congregation,) and
he thought it not fit to be suddenly admitted into any other,
for example sake, and because of the deceitfulness of man's
heart. He went to Scituate, being desired to be their pastor.
14.] It was informed the governour, that some of our people, being aboard the bark of Maryland, the sailors did revile
them, calling them holy brethren, the members, etc., and withal
did curse and swear most horribly, and use threatening speeches
against us. The governour wrote to some of the assistants
about it, and, upon advice with the ministers, it was agreed to
*145 call them in question; and to this end (because we knewnot how to get them out of their bark) we apprehended
the merchant of the ship, being 112on shore, [I and committed
him to the marshal, till Mr. Maverick came and undertook that
the offenders should be forthcoming.1 The next day (the governour not being well) we examined the witnesses, and found
them fall short of the matter of threatening, and not to agree
about the reviling speeches, and, beside, not able to design certainly the men that had so offended. Whereupon (the bark
l very 1 I                 2lone Store 1
1 The process was more effectual than regular.




1634.]                   THOMAS DUDLEY.                            173
staying only II upon 1 this) the bail was discharged, and a letter
written to the master, that, in regard such disorders were committed aboard his ship, it was his duty to inquire out the offenders and punish them; and withal to desire him to bring no
more such disordered persons among us.
* Mr. Wilson's hay, being stacked up not well dried, fell on
fire, to his great prejudice at this season; fired by his own servants, etc., as they intended to prevent firing.*
The weather was very fine and hot, without rain, near six
weeks.
The Lords Say and Brook wrote to the governour and Mr.
Bellingham,1 that howsoever they might have sent a man of
ifor 1
1 Gov. Richard Bellingham's worth is exhibited in the annals of his country,
of which he was the last surviving patentee named in the charter, " having
spun," says Hubbard, 610, "a long thread of above eighty years."  His talents
were adapted less for eloquence than advice, as the same writer expresses it,
"like a vessel whose vent holdeth no good proportion with its capacity."  Hubbard, after observing that his qualifications, as a governour, were rather lessened
by his melancholy humour, continues: " He had been bred a lawyer, yet turned
strangely, although upon very pious considerations, as some have judged, out of
the ordinary road thereof, in the making of his last will and testament, which
defect, if there were any, was abundantly supplied by the power of the general
court, so as that no prejudice did arise to his successors about his estate."  A
fact inconsistent with the correctness of the closing suggestion, is, by the recent
editor, in the note to Amer. Ed. Hutch. I. 24 7, asserted. Bellingham and his wife,
Elizabeth, who died in a few years, were received into Boston church, 3 August
of this year, so that a wrong date of his arrival is given by Eliot; but more observation is deserved by a casual sentence about this gentleman from the same
author. He calls him " a very learned man, compared with his contemporaries
in New England."  This is uttered without the caution that usually distinguishes
our New England biographer. Several of the laity were equals, in my opinion,
of Bellingham; and, -without naming some of the worthies of Plimouth,
Rhode Island, Connecticut, or New Haven, - both the Winthrops, Bradstreet,
and Saltonstall his superiors. I speak confidently, but advisedly, that, if we
include the clergy, who surely had as good a share of letters as their brethren
educated at the same universities of Oxford and Cambridge, there were in New
England, at any time between 1630 and 1690, as many sons of those two famous
nurseries of learning as would be found in a proportionate number of their fellow subjects in the mother country. Besides which our own college, for four
fifths of the time, sent out streams, many of which flowed to make glad the land
of their fathers.
In the eulogium of this worthy, by Hubbard, "a notable hater of bribes"
15*




174                      THOMAS DUDLEY.                         [1634.
*146  war to beat down the house at Kenebeck, for the death
of Hockin, etc., II yet J1 they thought better to take another
course; and therefore desired that some of ours might be joined
with Capt. Wiggin, their agent at Pascataquack, to see justice
done, etc.
20.]   Six men of Salem, going on fowling in a canoe, were
overset near Kettle Island, and five of them drowned.
November 5.]' At the court of assistants complaint was
made by some of the country, (viz., Richard Brown of Waterl that l
is part; and in the Granary burial ground, in this city, over his tomb, which
now belongs to the family of the late Gov. Sullivan, that honor is repeated:"Virtue's fast friend within this tomb doth lie,
A foe to bribes, but rich in charity."
Surely the character of the age forbids us to consider these clean hands as distinguishing him from other magistrates.
He was of a good family in England, and was recorder of Boston in 1625.
In our Registry of Deeds, lib. VIII. 297, is evidence of a gift from the governour to Angola, a negro, of a piece of land on the highway leading to Roxbury,
fifty feet square, to him and his children forever, with the language of the
donor: " He was the only instrument that, under God, saved my life, coming to
me with his boat, when I was sunk in the river between Boston and Winisimet,
several years since, and laid hold of me and got me into the boat he came in,
and saved my life; which kindness of him I remember."
Something from the will, 28 November, 1672, in Prob. Rec. VII. 271, is
worth copying: " Among many other undeserved favors of God towards me,
this is none of the least, that, for so long a time, I have lived under the special
government of Christ in his church, not without some soul satisfaction through
the gracious presence of Christ, who hath walked in the midst of these churches,
which I judge have been constituted according to his mind. That I may testify
the engagement of my heart to the Lord, being now of perfect memory and
understanding, I do dispose," etc. After various devises, he says, " I do freely
and willingly dispose and give (after mine and my wife's decease) the farms she
hath during her life, and (after the decease of my son and his daughter) my
whole estate in Winnisimet, to be an annual encouragement to some godly ministers and preachers, and such as may be such, who shall be by my trustees
judged faithful to those principles in church discipline, which are owned and
practised in the First Church of Christ in Boston, of which I am a member; a
main one whereof is, that all ecclesiastical jurisdiction is committed by Christ
to each particular organical church, from which there is no appeal, visible
saintship being the matter, and express covenanting the form, of the church."
Bellingham was warm in his opposition to the Third, now Old South, Church.




1634.]              THOMAS DUDLEY.                     175
town, in the name of the rest,) that the ensign at Salem
was defaced, viz. one part of the red cross taken out. Upon
this, an attachment was awarded against Richard Davenport,'
ensign-bearer, to appear at the next court to answer. Much
matter was made of this, as fearing it would be taken as an act
of rebellion, or of like high nature, in defacing the king's colors;
though the truth were, it was done upon this opinion, that the
red cross was given to the king of England by the pope, as an
ensign of victory, and so a superstitious thing, and a relique of
antichrist.  What proceeding was hereupon, will appear after,
at next court, in the first month; (for, by reason of the great
snows and frosts, we used not to keep courts in the three winter
months).
The Rebecka came from Narigansett with five hundred bushels of corn given to Mr. John Oldham.  The Indians had promised him 11 one thousand II bushels, but their store fell out less
than they expected. They gave him     also an island in the
Narigansett Bay, called Chippacursett, containing about *one
thousand acres,* six miles long, and two miles broad. This is
a very fair bay, being above twelve leagues square, with divers
great islands in it, a deep channel close to the shore, being
rocky. Mr. Peirce took the height there, and found it forty-one
degrees, forty-one minutes, being not above half a degree to the
southward of us. In his voyage to and fro, he went over the
shoals, having, most part, five or six fathom, within half a mile
and less of the shore from the north part of Cape Cod to
Natuckett Island, which is about twenty leagues - and, in the
shallowest place, two and an half fathom. The country on the
west of the Bay of Naragansett is all champaign for many
miles, but very stony, and full of Indians. He saw there above
one thousand men, women, and children, yet the men were
1110011
1 This person rose to higher rank, and was several years commander at Castle
Island in Boston harbor, where, Hubbard, 642, informs us, he was killed by
lightning in July, 1665, to which Hutchinson, I. 253, adds some particulars.
Capt. Roger Clap, the next month, was appointed successor. From his Memoirs
something may be learned of the spirit and manners of the early settlers, if not
of their deeds. Davenport named a daughter, born, soon after, Truecross.




176              THOMAS DUDLEY.                 [1634.
many abroad on hunting. Natuckett is an island full of Indians,
about ten leagues in length east and west.
6.] There came to the deputy governour, about fourteen
days since, a messenger from the Pekod sachem, to desire our
friendship. He brought two bundles of sticks, whereby he
signified how many beaver and 1[ otter 1] skins he would give us
for that end, and great store of wampompeage, (about two
bushels, by his description). He brought a small present with
him, which the deputy received, and returned a moose coat of
as good value, and withal told him, that he must send persons
of greater quality, and then our governour would treat with them.
*148 And now there came two men, who brought another present of wampompeage. The deputy brought them to Boston, where most of the assistants were assembled, by occasion of
the lecture, who, calling to them some of the ministers, grew to
this treaty with them: That we were willing to have friendship
etc.; but because they had killed some Englishmen, viz. Capt.
Stone, etc., they must first deliver up 1 2those who II were guilty
of his death, etc. They answered, that the sachem, who then
lived, was slain by the Dutch, and all the men, who were guilty,
etc., were dead of the pox, except two, and that if they were
worthy of death, they would move their sachem to have them
delivered, (for they had no commission to do it;) but they
excused the fact, saying that Capt. Stone, coming into their
river, took two of their men and bound them, and made them
show him the way up the river, which when they had done, he
with two others and the two Indians, (their hands still bound,)
went on shore, and nine of their men watched them, and when
they were on 113 sleep 11 in the night, they killed them; then going
towards the pinnace to have taken that, it suddenly blew up
into the air. This was related with such confidence and gravity,
as, having no means to contradict it, we inclined to believe it.
But, the governour not being present, we concluded nothing;
but some of us went with them the next day to the governour.
The reason why they desired so much our friendship was,
because they were now in war with the Naragansetts, whom,
till this year, they had kept under, and likewise with the Dutch,
who had killed their old sachem and some other of their men,
llother l    Il2 such as ll  113 shore 1




1634.]                 THOMAS DUDLEY.                      177
for that the Pekods had killed some Indians, who came to trade
with the Dutch at Connecticut; and, by these occasions, they
could not trade safely any where. Therefore they desired us
to send a pinnace with cloth, and we should have all their
trade.
They offered us also all their right at Connecticut, and to
further us what they could, if we would settle a plantation
there.
When they came to the governour, they agreed, according to
the former treaty, viz. to deliver us the two men, who were
guilty of Capt. Stone's death, when we would send for them;
to yield up Connecticut; to give us four hundred fathom of
wampompeage, and forty beaver, and thirty otter skins; and
that we should presently send a pinnace with cloth to trade
with them, ~ and so should be at peace with them, and as friends
to trade with them, ~ but not to defend them, etc.
The next morning news came, that two or three hundred    149
of the Naragansetts were come to Cohann, viz. Neponsett,
to kill the Pekod ambassadors, etc. Presently we [j met at l
Roxbury, and raised some few men in arms, and sent to the
Naragansett men to come to us.     When they came there were
no more but two of their sachems, and about twenty 11 2more,ll
who had been on hunting thereabouts, and came to lodge with
the Indians at Cohann, as their manner is. So we treated with
them about the Pekods, and, at our request, they promised they
should go and come to and from us in peace, and they were
also content to enter further treaty of peace with them; and in
all things showed themselves very ready to gratify us. So the
I sent out to 1               112 men 11
1 A cause of the omission, in the first edition, of this member of the sentence
is very easily found. The eye of the transcriber, turning from his copy to the
original MS., caught, in the latter branch, the words, " trade with them," which
close each part, and he supposed it was what he had already transferred to his
sheet. Several errors of that edition, as will appear in the progress of our labor,
were occasioned in this way. Collations of ancient MSS. afford critics frequent
opportunity of detecting such faults, arising from the OuotOItE'svtov, which forms
a class of cases excepted from the general rule, that the shorter reading should
be preferred. By such a cause the loss of the famous spurious text, 1 John, v. 7,
from all the MSS. was formerly, in vain, attempted to be explained.




178                     THOMAS DUDLEY.                       [1634.
Pekods returned home, and the Naragansetts departed well
satisfied; only they were told in private, that if they did make
peace with the Pekods, we would give them part of that wampompeage, which they should give us; (for the Pekods held it
dishonorable to offer them any thing as of themselves, yet were
willing we should give it them, and indeed did offer us so much
for that end').
The agreement they made with us was put in writing, and
the two ambassadors set to their marks-one a bow with an
arrow in it, and the other a hand.
13.] The Regard, a ship of Barnstable, of about two hundred
tons, arrived with twenty passengers and about fifty cattle.
One thing I think fit to observe, as a witness of God's providence for this plantation. There came in this ship one Mans*150 field, a poor godly man of Exeter, being very desirous to
come to us, but not able to transport his family.      There
was in the city a rich merchant, one Marshall, who being
troubled in his dreams about the said poor man, could not be
quiet till he had sent for him, and given him   ~50, and lent him
~100, willing him withal, that, if he wanted, he should send to
him for more. This Mansfield grew suddenly rich, and then
lost his godliness, and his wealth soon after.2
18.]   About this time an open pinnace of one Mr. Sewall3 of
1 If any doubt has ever been entertained, in Europe or America, of the
equitable and pacific principles of the founders of New England, in their relations with the Indians, the secret history, in the foregoing paragraph, of this
negotiation, should dissipate it. By the unholy maxims of vulgar policy, the
discord of these unfriendly nations would have been encouraged, and our
European fathers should have employed the passions of the aborigines for their
mutual destruction. On the contrary, an honest artifice was resorted to for
their reconciliation, and the tribute received by us from one offending party
was, by a Christian deception, divided with their enemies to procure mutual
peace. Such mediation is more useful than victory, and more honorable than
conquest.
2 The last sentence is an addition, by the author, at a later time. Perhaps
that providence, which sent us a man, who soon lost his character and his
property, had better been reverenced in silence.
3 This ancestor of one of the most venerated families, which has given three of
its members to preside in the highest court of civil and criminal jurisdiction in
Massachusetts, was one of the first settlers at Newbury. The biographies of




1634.]               THOMAS DUDLEY.                    179
Ipswich, going deep laden from Boston, was cast away upon
the rocks at the head of Cape Ann, in a N. E. storm; but all
the men were saved.
21.] One Willys,1 a godly man, and member of Boston
church, and one Dorety, an honest man, and two boys, going
over to Noddle's Island to fetch wood, in a small boat, and none
of them having any skill or experience, were cast away in a
N. E. tempest, as they came home in the night laden, being
then ebbing water. We sent two boats on the Lord's day, (so
soon as they were missing, being the 23d,) but they could not
find men, or boat, or wood, in any 1[ part 11 of the bay.  Three
days after, the boat was found at Muddy River, overturned.
27.] The assistants met at the governour's, to advise about
the defacing of the cross in the ensign at Salem, where (taking
advice with some of the ministers) we agreed to write to Mr.
Downing in England, of the truth of the matter, under all our
hands, that, if occasion were, he might show it in our excuse;
for therein we expressed our dislike of the thing, and our purpose to punish the offenders, yet with as much wariness as we
might, being doubtful of the lawful use of the cross in an ensign,
though we were clear that fact, as concerning the matter, was
very unlawful.
It was then informed us, how Mr. Eliot, the teacher of "151
the church of Roxbury, had taken occasion, in a sermon,
to speak of the peace made with the Pekods, and to lay some
blame upon 1] the ministry I1 for proceeding therein, without consent of the people, and for other failings, (as he conceived).
We took order, that he should be dealt with by Mr. Cotton,
Mr. Hooker, and Mr. Welde, to be brought to see his errour,
and to heal it by some public explanation of his meaning; foi
the people began to take occasion to murmur against us for it.
I{ place 11               112 our measures I1
Eliot and Allen, and especially the copious Collection of American Epitaphs, by
Alden, II. 115, have well perpetuated the memory of his descendants. Henry
died at Rowley, 1654; and in Hutchinson, I. Appendix xii. is a letter from
Richard Cromwell, during his short enjoyment of the poor title of Lord Protector,
to our governour and magistrates, in favor of the son, who was a minister in
Hampshire, and came over about his father's estate.
3 John and Jane Willis are, in the Records of Boston Church, numbered
135, 6; and against their names is written, dead since.




180                 TIIOMAS DUDLEY.                 [1634.
It was likewise informed, that Mr. Williams of Salem  had
broken his promise to us, in teaching publickly against the
king's patent, and our great sin in claiming right thereby to
this country, etc. and for usual terming the churches of England
antichristian.  We granted summons to him for his appearance
at the next court.
The aforesaid three ministers, upon conference with the said
Mr. Eliot, brought him to acknowlege his errour in that he had
mistaken the ground of his doctrine, and that he did acknowledge, that, for a peace only, (whereby the people were not to
be engaged in a war,) the magistrates might conclude, plebe
inconsulto, and so promised to express himself in public next
Lord's day.1
24.]  One Scott and Eliot of Ipswich were lost in their way
homewards, and wandered up and down six days, and eat
nothing. At length they were found by an Indian, being almost
senseless for want of rest, etc.
About the same time one [blank] was twenty-one days upon
Plumb Island, and found by chance frozen in the snow, yet
alive, and did well. He had been missing twenty days, and
himself said he had no food all that time.2
December 4.]  Was an extraordinary tempest of wind and
snow, at N. N. E. which continued twenty-four hours, and after
that such frost as, within two days, the whole bay was frozen
over, but free again before night.
11.] The lectures at Boston and Newtown returned again
to their former course, because the weather was many times so
tedious as people could not travel, etc.
This day, after the lecture, the inhabitants of Boston met to
choose seven men who should divide the town lands among
them.3 They chose by papers, and in their choice left out
1 In less than twenty years, Eliot had fallen into a worse indiscretion by
writing his " Christian Commonwealth," for which, at a later day, he was called
by our General Court, to make submission. See 3 Mass. Hist. Coll. IX. 130.
2 Perhaps he had lost his memory, and reckoned time by his suffering, and
not by the almanac.
S In his index, the former editor seems to have considered this paragraph as
affording an account of the " origin of selectmen in Boston;" and the same




1634.]                 THOMAS DUDLEY.                        181
Mr. * Winthrop,* Coddington, and other of the chief men; *152
only they chose one of the elders and a deacon, and the
rest of the inferior sort, *and Mr. Winthrop had the greater
number before one of them by a voice or two.*l This they did,
as fearing that the richer men would give the poorer sort no
great proportions of land, but would rather leave a great part
at liberty for new comers and for common, which Mr. Winthrop
had oft persuaded them     unto, as best for the town, etc.  Mr.
Cotton and divers others were offended at this choice, because
they declined the magistrates; and Mr. Winthrop refused to be
one upon such an election as was carried by a voice or two,
telling them, that though, for his part, he did not apprehend
any personal injury, nor did doubt of their good II affectionll
towards him, yet he was much grieved that Boston should be
the first who should shake off their magistrates, especially Mr.
Coddington, who had been always so forward for their enlargement; adding further reason 11 2of declining this choice, to blot
out so bad a precedent.     Whereupon, at the motion of Mr.
Cotton, who showed them, that it was the Lord's order among
the Israelites to have all such businesses committed to the
elders, and that it had been 11 3nearer II the rule to have chosen
some of each sort, etc., they all agreed to go to a new election,
which was referred to the next lecture day.2
The reason why some were not willing that the people should
11 offering II     I2 for II      113 never 
error was followed even by so careful a writer as Holmes, Annals, I. 279, of the
first ed. This, and most other of the towns, had before been governed by such,
officers, though the title was different. See note 2 on p. 114. That which continued to our times is first used in Boston Records in 1645. See Shaw's
Description of Boston, 147.
1 The author's modesty erased the conclusion of the sentence, and his own
name, in the former part.
2 Our Town Records omit notice of the first election of these seven; but, on
the 18th, Winthrop, Coddington, Bellingham, Cotton, Oliver, Colburn, and.
Baulstone, were chosen, "to divide and dispose of all such lands, belonging to
the town, as are not yet in the lawful possession of any particular person, to the
inhabitants of the town, according to the order of the court, leaving such.
portions in common, for the use of new comers, and the further benefit of the
town, as in their best discretion they shall think fit. The islands hired by the
town to be also included in this order."
16




182                     THOMAS DUDLEY.                        [1634.
have more land in the bay than they might be likely to use in
some reasonable time, was partly to prevent the neglect of trades,
and other more necessary employments, and partly that there
might be place to receive such as should come after; seeing it
would be very prejudicial to the commonwealth, if men should
be forced to go far off for land, while others had much, and
could make no use of it, more than to please their eye with it.
*153     One Abigail Gifford, widow, being kept at the charge
of the parish of Wilsden in Middlesex, near London, was
sent by Mr. Ball's ship into this country, and being found to be
sometimes distracted, and a very burdensome woman, the governour and assistants returned her back by warrant, 18, to the
same parish, in the ship Rebecca.
22.] A fast was kept by the church of Charlton, and Mr.
Symmes chosen their teacher.
By a letter from Plimouth it was certified, that the Dutch of
Hudson's River had been at Connecticut, and came in warlike manner to put the Plimouth men out of their house there;
but when they stood upon their defence, they departed, without offering any violence.1
11 mo. 13.2]    The church of Boston kept a day of humilia1 In Haz. II. 262, the invaluable proceedings of the commissioners of the
United Colonies preserve the Dutch relation of this affair. We must regret to
find in Trumbull, I. 36, too much of the feeling of a partisan on this subject.
A very judicious explanation of the controversy may be seen in the North
American Review, VIII. 85.
2 Here is discovered the first instance of changing the name of the month,
which arose from a weak scruple, as if there were something heathenish in following the Roman nomenclature.  Our fathers departed gradually from the
church of England, and perhaps their tendency to separation increased faster
in the wilderness than it would have done at home. It will be observed, that
this work begins on Easter Monday, and, in his margin, that great festival of
the church is duly honored by our historian. A slight error, as to the commencement of this change, is found in Hutchinson, I. 428, who seems to attribute it to the Puritanical severity of Vane; but, before his coming, the settlers
were well cured of their fondness for the forms, in which they had been educated. From this place, our original MS. usually employs this new enumeration of the great divisions of time, though we may occasionally observe a backsliding to the errors of the author's earlier years. The fantastical custom was
maintained for nearly two generations in New England; and the gradual abrogation of it was, no doubt, regarded by the elder planters as a modern defec



1634.]                  THOMAS DUDLEY.                          183
tion for the absence of their pastor and other brethren, gone to
England, and like to be troubled and detained there, and for
that the Lord had made a breach upon them            by those four
which were drowned, as is before set down; at which fast Mr.
Cotton preached out of Numbers xxxv. 13, and one of the members taught out of that in | Lamentations [1 iii. 39: Wherefore
doth a living man complain?
19.]   All the ministers, except Mr. Ward2 of Ipswich, *154
met at Boston, being requested by the governour and assistants, to consider of these two cases: 1. What 1 2we ought
to do, 11 if a general governour should be sent out of England?
2. Whether it be lawful for us to carry the cross in our banners? -  In the first case, they all agreed, that, if a general governour were sent, we ought not to accept him, but defend our
lawful possessions, (if we were able;) otherwise to avoid or
protract.  For the matter of the cross, they were divided, and
so deferred it to another meeting.
II Samuel [I              1[2 ought to be done I[
tion; for, in Johnson's Wonder-working Providence, lib. I. c. 27, we are
informed, that the practice was designed " of purpose to prevent the heathenish
and popish observation of days, months, and years, that they may be forgotten
among the people of the Lord."
1 The strange error of the first edition, in giving here a wrong book in the
Bible, is easily accounted for in note 1 on page 74. The editor was almost as
well acquainted with scripture texts as Winthrop, who, we may be sure, is
referred.to by the passage above.
2 Of Nathaniel Ward, the author of the celebrated " Simple Cobler of Agawam," almost enough will be found in the course of this History, in the biographies of Eliot and Alien, and in the books cited by the latter, to excuse me
from saying more. He was in the church of Standon Massey, near Chipping
Ongar, in Essex, about eighteen miles from London, and favored the cause of
New England some years before coming over. See a letter from him to Cotton, of December, 1631, given in Hutchinson, I. 120. I-e was soon after deprived for his non-conformity, and a new rector was inducted 8 August, 1633.
Before obtaining that benefice, he had been a curate at St. James, Duke's Place,
London, as both places may be found in Newcourt's Repertorium, I. 917 and
II. 545. Brook, in his lives of the Puritans, seems ignorant of the title of the
book, which has contributed, by its anonymous authorship, to spread most
widely his name. Yet he quotes from a writer the strange news, that he " discovered great loyalty to the king, and much solicitude for his majesty's welfare."
That work is very attractive for its humor, and curious for its execrable spirit.




184                    THOMAS DUDLEY.                      [1634.
About the middle of this month, Mr. Allerton's pinnace
came from the French about Port Royal.      They went to fetch
the two men, which had been carried by the French from Machias, and to demand the goods taken, etc.     But Mr. La Tour
made them answer, that he took them as lawful prize, and that
he had authority from   the king of France, who challenged all
from Cape Sable to Cape Cod, wishing them to take notice,
and to certify the rest of the English, that, if they traded to the
east of Pemaquid, he would make prize of them.         Being desired to show his commission, he answered, that his sword was
commission    sufficient, where he had strength to overcome;
where that wanted, he would show his commission.
In the end of this month, three men had their boat frozen
up at Bird1 Island, as they were coming from        Deer Island,
so as they were compelled to lodge there all night; and
in the morning they came over the ice to Noddle's Isle, and
thence to Molten's Point in Charlestown, and thence over the
ice, by Mr. Hoffe's, to Boston.    At the same time six others
were kept a week at the Governour's Garden; and in the end
*155 gate with their boat to Mattapan Point; for, near all that
time, there was no open place between the Garden and
Boston, neither was there any passing at Charlestown for two
or three days, the wind about the N. W. three weeks, with much
snow and extreme frost.
[Very large blank.]
Mo. 12.]   About the middle of this month, a I1 proper 11 young
j promp 
1 This island is not remembered by any person now alive, I believe, as a spot
on which men might lodge, although some soil, covered at high tide, permitted
a coarse vegetation of grass within sixty years. That soil is now so washed
away, that the rocks, on which it rested, are not visible till near low water. So
early as 1650, permission to mow the marsh there was granted to Thomas Munt;
and the town gave, eight years after, a lease of it, for sixty years at an annual
rent of twelve pence in silver, or a bushel of salt. Better evidence of the devastation of the ocean, if better were wanted, will be found in a comparison of
the modern state of Nix's Mate, so called, on whith is barely room for a sea
mark, with what it must have been in September, 1636, when the general court
granted " twelve acres of land to John Gallop, upon Nixe's Island, to enjoy to
him and his heirs forever, if the island be so much?"




1634.]                  THOMAS DUDLEY.                          185
man, servant to Mr. Bellinghim, passing over the ice to Winnesemett, fell in, and was drowned.       Divers others fell in, in
that and other places, but, by God's providence, were saved.
14.]   Capt. Wiggin, governour at Pascataquack, under the
Lords Say and Brook, wrote to 11 our 1I governour, desiring to
have two men tried here, who had committed sodomy with
each other, and that on the Lord's day, in time of public
exercise.  The governolr and divers of the assistants met and
conferred about it, but did not think fit to try them here.'
[Large blank.]
Mo. 1. 4.]   A   general court at Newtown.          Mr. Hooker
preached, and showed the three great evils.2
[Very large blank.]
At this court, one   of the deputies was questioned for deny1 the 11
1 It is apparent, from inspection of the MS., that the last sentence of this
paragraph was written at a later time than the preceding. The desire of Wiggin seems to imply a defect of criminal jurisdiction; but the refusal, on our part,
to accept it, was a very prudent measure.
2 Perhaps these evils were evanescent, though it may be otherwise; but posterity, I believe, is deprived of the light shown to our fathers.
a The name was partly written in the author's MS. but erased. It appears,
however, a few pages onward. An explanation worth transcribing is found in
Col. Rec. I. 137: " Whereas Mr. Israel Stoughton hath written a certain book,
which hath occasioned much trouble and offence to the court; the said Mr.
Stoughton did desire of the court, that the said book might forthwith be burnt,
as being weak and offensive."  Such almost unexampled modesty, in an author,
did not, however, propitiate the severe justice of the assembly; for on the same —
page appears an order, "that Mr. Israel Stoughton shall be disabled for bearing
any public office in the commonwealth, within this jurisdiction, for the space of
three years, for affirming the assistants were not magistrates." But his disability was removed or overlooked before the expiration of the sentence; for, in
December of the year 1636, he was again a deputy, and being orthodox on the
subject of the antinomian controversy, was chosen an assistant the following
spring. He commanded the forces in the Pequod expedition in the same year.
The General Index to 1 Hist. Coll. X. 295, must be wrong in ascribing to
Thomas Stoughton the erection of the mill at Neponsit; for our Col. Rec. I.
111, mentions, that Israel had liberty granted " to build a mill, a wear, and bridge
over Neponsit River, and is to sell the alewives he takes there at five shillings
the thousand."
Thomas, who went to Windsor, was, I presume, brother of Israel, and, proba16*




186                     THOMAS DUDLEY.                       [1634.`156  ing the magistracy among us, affirming that the power of
the governour was but ministerial, etc. I[ He [I had also
much opposed the magistrates, and 112 slighted 11 them, and
used many weak arguments against the negative voice, as himself acknowledged upon record.       He was adjudged by all the
court to be disabled for three years from bearing any public
office.
One' of the assistants was called to the lower end of the
table to answer for refusing to pay towards a rate made by the
court, and was fined ~5, which was after released.
Mr. Endecott was called to answer for defacing the cross in
the ensign; but, because the court could not agree about the
thing, whether the ensigns should be laid by, in regard that
many refused to follow     them, the whole cause was deferred
till the next general court; and the commissioners for military
affairs gave order, in the mean time, that all the ensigns should
be laid aside, etc.
At this court brass farthings were forbidden, and musket bullets made to pass for farthings.
A   113commission 1 for military      affairs  was  established,
j1 4which II had power of life and limb, etc.2
[Very large blank.]
11 and 2I II| stigmatized |I  113 commissioner [  I4 who 1
bly, came first to New England; for he was admitted freeman in May, 1631,
while the same Records show that Israel took the oath 5 November, 1633.
In the latter part of this History it will be found, that Stoughton went to
England, and became a lieutenant colonel in the parliament's service, and died
during the civil war. He was father of the celebrated William Stoughton, first
lieutenant governour named by the crown under the charter of William and
Mary, and chief justice in the trial of the witches. In that lamentable delusion
his agency may almost be forgiven, by future generations, for his munificence to
Harvard College, in which one'of the halls perpetuates his memory. Quincy's
History of the University well delineates his character. His epitaph, closely
imitated from that of Pascal, is in 1 Hist. Coll. II. 10. A bachelor seldom
attained such honors in the infancy of our country; but he had preached.
1 Pynchon was the offender. For the same. cause files were imposed, at the
same time, on the towns of Sagus and Salem, and all were released together.
2 From the greatness of the powers granted to this body, a fuller account
than Winthrop has given may reasonably be extracted from Col. Rec. I. 139;
" It is ordered, that the present governour, deputy governour, John Winthrop,
John Humfrey, John Haynes, John Endecott, William Coddington, William




1635.]                  THOMAS DUDLEY.                          187
15.]   Two of the elders of every church met at Sagus, *157
and spent there three days. The occasion was, that divers of the brethren of that church, not liking the proceedings
of the pastor, and withal making question, whether they were
a church or not, did separate from church communion. The
pastor and other brethren desired the advice and help of the rest
of the churches, who, not thinking fit to judge of the cause,
without hearing the other side, offered to meet at Sagus about it.
Upon this the pastor, etc., required the separate members to
deliver their grievances in writing, which they refusing to do,
the pastor, etc., wrote to all the churches, that, for this cause,
they were purposed to proceed against them as persons excommunicated; and therefore desired them to stay their journey, etc. This letter being read at a lecture at Boston, (where
some of the elders of every church were present,) they all
agreed (with consent of their churches) to go presently to
Sagus, to stay this hasty proceeding, etc. Accordingly, being
met, and both parties (after much debate) being heard, it was
agreed, that they were a true church, though not constituted, at
first, in due order, yet after consent and practice of a church
estate had supplied that defect; and so all were reconciled.
[Large blank.]
Mo. 2.]   Some of our people went to Cape Cod, and made
Pynchon, Increase Nowell, Richard Bellingham, Esquires, and Simon Bradstreet, or the major part of them, who are deputed by this court to dispose of
all military affairs whatsoever, shall have full power and authority to see all
former laws concerning all military men and munition executed; and also shall
have full power to ordain or remove all military officers, and to make and
tender to them an oath suitable to their places; to dispose of all companies, to
make orders for them, and to make and tender to them a suitable oath, and to
see that strict discipline and trainings be observed, and to command them forth
upon any occasion they think meet; to make either offensive or defensive war;
as also to do whatsoever may be farther behoofeful for the good of this plantation, in case of any war that may befal us; and, also, that the aforesaid commissioners, or the major part of them, shall have power to imprison or confine
any that they shall judge to be enemies to the commonwealth; and such as will
not come under command or restraint, as they shall be required, it shall be lawful for the said commissioners to put such persons to death. This order to continue to the end of the next general court." It was prolonged from court to
court, several times, and some new members were occasionally added.




188                 JOHN HAYNES.                 [1635.
some oil of a whale, which was cast on shore. There were
three or four cast up, as it seems there is almost every year.
26.] An alarm was raised in all, our towns, and the governour and assistants met at Boston, and sent forth a shallop to
Cape Ann, to discover what ships were there. For the fishermen had brought in word to Marblehead, that two ships had
been (I hovering 11 upon the coast all the day; one of about four
hundred tons, and the other three hundred and fifty, and were
gone in to Cape Ann. But it proved to be only one ship of
eighty tons, bound for Richman's Isle, and the other a small
pinnace of ten tons.
30.] The governour and assistants sent for Mr. Williams.
*158 The occasion was, for that he had taught publicly, that a
magistrate ought not to tender an oath to an unregenerate
man, for that we thereby have communion with a wicked man
in the worship of God, and cause him to take the name of God
in vain. He was heard before all the ministers, and very clearly
112confuted 1|. Mr. Endecott was at first of the same opinion,
but he gave place to the 1 3 truth 11.
Mo. 3. 6.] A general court was held at Newtown, where
John Haynes, Esq., was chosen governour, Richard Bellingham, Esq., deputy governour, and Mr. Hough and Mr. Dummer
chosen assistants' to the former; and Mr. Ludlow, the late
deputy, left out of the magistracy. The reason was, partly, because the people would exercise their absolute power, etc., and
partly upon some speeches of the deputy, who protested
against the election of the governour as void, for that the deputies of the several towns had agreed upon the election before
they came, etc. But this was generally II 4discussed, 11 and the
election adjudged good.
Mr. Endecott was also left out, and called into question about
the defacing the cross in the ensign; and a committee was
chosen, viz., every town chose one, (which yet were voted by
all the people,) and the magistrates chose four, who, taking
the charge to consider of the offence, and the censure due to it,
Iheaving 11  112 confessed I1  IL3 teacher 1l  114 distrusted II
1 The other assistants were Winthrop, Dudley, Humfrey, Coddington, Pynchon, Nowell, Bradstreet, and Winthrop, jun.




1635.]                   JOHN    HAYNES.                          189
and to certify the court, after one or two hours 1 time, Ij made
report to the court, that they found his offence to be great, viz.,
rash and without discretion, taking upon him         more authority
than he had, and not seeking advice of the court, etc.; 11 2uncharitable,ll in that he, judging the cross, etc., to be a sin, did
content himself to have reformed it at Salem, not taking care
that others might be brought out of it also; laying a blemish
also upon the rest of the magistrates, as if they would suffer
idolatry, etc., and giving occasion to the state of England to
think ill of us; -  for which they adjudged him worthy admonition, and to be disabled for one year from bearing any public
office; declining any heavier sentence, because they were persuaded he did it out of tenderness of conscience, and not of any
evil intent.1
Some petitions of grievances were tendered to the court in
the beginning of it, but the court refused to hear any, or to
|1 they 11               112 unwarrantable 11
1 Had his conscience been as enlightened as it was tender, he would have
conformed to the harmless custom; but, next year, men of soberer judgment
were found ready to refuse compliance with bearing the standard of their
country, and almost willing to imitate the outrage of Endecott. A tract of
nearly thirteen pages, in defence of the cross, by the celebrated Hooker, is
among the MSS. of our Historical Society; but I have neither courage nor
curiosity enough to study it. We may not imagine, that our ancestors had
carefully scrutinized the ecclesiastical fable of the holy sign in Constantine's
vision, or were sufficiently instructed to repudiate the consecrated Labarum of
the first Christian emperour; and perhaps an Englishman of our times may presume, that there was as much policy, as abhorrence of idolatry, in their dread of
the banner of St. George. Yet this presumption would be unfounded. Though
there appears, in September preceding, something like prepared opposition to
expected tyranny, I do not discover, in these weak scruples about the ensign,
any affectation of independence, to which, a few years later, their circumstances
offered very powerful inducements.
In the flag of the United States are exhibited white stars in a blue field; but
the most punctilious imitator of the severe simplicity of the fathers of New England has never compared our service under it to the heathenish abomination of
worshipping the host of heaven. An anecdote of a politic use of these emblems
by Barlow, when negotiating at Algiers, proves that a diseased conscience might
entertain this scruple, because the imagination can thus apply the object. He
said to the Minister of the Dey, There ought to be friendship between our
countries, since you worship the moon, and we the stars.




190                      JOHN HAYNES.                     [1635.
meddle in any 1] courses |I but making freemen, until the elections were passed.' i The governour and deputy were elected
by papers, wherein their names were written;. but the assistants
were chosen by papers, without names, viz. the governour propounded one to the people; then they all went out, and came
in at one door, and every man delivered a paper into a hat.
Such as gave their vote for the party named, gave in a paper
with some figures or scroll in it; others gave in a blank.
The new governour, in his speech to the people, declared his
purpose to spare their charge towards his allowance this year,
partly in respect of their love showed towards him, and partly
for that he observed how much the people had been pressed
lately with public charges, which the poorer sort did much
groan under.2
A petition was preferred by many of Dorchester, etc., for
160 releasing the sentence against Mr. Stoughton the last
general court; but it was rejected, and the sentence
affirmed by the country to be just.
Divers jealousies, that had been between the magistrates and
deputies, were now cleared, with full satisfaction to all parties.
The matter of altering the cross in the ensign was referred to
the next meeting, (the court being adjourned for three weeks,)
it being propounded to turn it to the red and white rose, etc.,
and every man was to deal with his neighbors, to still their
minds, who stood so stiff for the cross, until we should fully
agree about it, which was expected, because the ministers had
11 causes 11
1 One of these petitions was on the matter of Endecott's censure. The wisdom
of this resolution of the court, in which was now assembled all the people entitled
to vote for governour and assistants, except those in towns which sent proxies,
was strongly exhibited two years later, when, in the contest for the election
between Vane and Winthrop, the precedent was followed. A full examination
of that subject, with others, may be found in four tracts preserved in Hutch.
Coll. 63-101.
2 The assessment at this court was ~200, only one-third of the amount in the
autumn before, and it was apportioned thus:- To Dorchester, Boston, and
Newtown, ~27. 6. 8, each; Roxbury and Watertown, ~20, each; Charlestown,
Salem, and Sagus, ~16, each; Medford, ~10; Ipswich and Newbury, ~8, each;
Wessaguscus, ~4. Col. Rec. I. 152.




1635.]               JOHN HAYNES.                    191
promised to take I1 pains 11 about it, and to write into England,
to have the judgments of the most wise and godly there.l
The deputies having conceived great danger to our state, in
regard that our magistrates, for want of positive laws, in many
cases, might proceed according to their discretions, it was agreed
that some men should be appointed to frame a body of grounds
of laws, in resemblance to a Magna Charta, which, being allowed by some of the ministers, and the general court, should
be received for fundamental laws.
At this general court, some of the chief of Ipswich desired
leave to remove to Quascacunquen, to begin a town there,
which was granted them, and it was named Newberry.
Also, Watertown and Roxbury had leave to remove whither
they pleased, so as they continued under this government.
The occasion of their desire to remove was, for that all towns
in the bay began to be much straitened by their own nearness
to one another, and their cattle being so much increased.
21.] A Dutch ship of one hundred and sixty tons arrived at
Marblehead. Capt. Hurlston came merchant. She came from
Christopher Island. She brought one hundred and forty tons
of salt, and ten thousand weight of tobacco.
[Blank.]
This island lies in eighteen degrees, and is about thirty miles
in compass, inhabited by two colonies, one English and another
French. There is in it about four thousand persons. They
have three English churches, but the people are very wicked, as
the merchant (who dwelt there five years) complained. The
salt is made with the sun in a 112 natural 1 pan, half a mile from
the sea. Their rain begins in September, and continues till
February.
Mo. 4. 3.] Here arrived two Dutch ships, who brought *161
twenty-seven Flanders mares, at t34 a mare, and three
horses; sixty-three heifers, at ~12 the beast; and eighty-eight
sheep, at 50s. the sheep. They came from the Tessell in five
II prayers II          I12 watering II
1 Answers of these "most wise and godly" in England have not fallen in my
way. The tract of Hooker, before mentioned, in note on page 158, from very
slight examination, appears to contain a temperate censure of Endecott.




192                   JOHN HAYNES.                   [1635.
weeks three days, and lost not one beast or sheep. Here
arrived also, the same day, the James, a ship of three hundred
tons, with cattle and passengers, which came all safe from
Southampton within the same time.   Mr. Graves was master,
who had come every year for these seven years.1 7. The Lord's
day there came in seven other ships,2 and one to Salem, and
four more to the mouth of the bay, with store of passengers and
cattle. They came all within six weeks.
For preventing the loss of time, and drunkenness, which
sometimes happened, by people's running to the ships, and the
excessive prices of commodities, it was ordered, that one in each
town should buy for all, etc., and should  retain 1 the same
within twenty days at five per hundred, if any came to buy in
that time. But this took no good effect; for most of the people
would not buy, except they might buy for themselves; and the
merchants appointed could not disburse so much money, etc.;
and the seamen were much discontented, yet some of them
brought their goods on shore and sold them there.
16.]  A bark of forty tons arrived, set forth with twenty servants, by Sir Richard Saltonstall, to go plant at Connecticut.
By a letter from the Lord Say, and report of divers passengers, it was certified to us, that Capt. Mason and others, the
adversaries of this colony, had built a great ship to send over
the general governour, etc., which, being launched, fell in sunder
in the midst.
It appeared likewise, by a copy of a petition sent over to us,
that they had divided all this country of New England, viz.
between St. Croix in the east, and that of Lord Bartimore,
called Maryland, into twelve provinces, disposed to twelve in
England, who should send each ten men to attend the general
governour coming over; but i 2the project [took] not effect.1|
The Lord frustrated their design.3
[1 return 11        112 this proved not effectual l
1 In the custom-house return of names of passengers by this ship, preserved
at the State Paper Office in Westminster, the name of the master for this voyage
is written, Cooper. Possibly, Graves was the owner.
2 Rev. Peter Hobart, wife, and four children, were in one of these.
3 This idle division of American provinces may be seen in Hubbard, 228.




1635.]              JOHN HAYNES.                   193
Two carpenters, going to wash themselves in the river
between Mount Woollaston and Wessaguscus, were carried
away with the tide, and drowned.
[Large blank.]
24.] Mr. Graves, in the James, and Mr. Hodges, in the q162
Rebecka, set sail for the Isle of Sable for sea-horse (which
are there in great number) and wild cows. Mr. John Rose,
being cast ashore there in the [Mary and Jane] two years since,
and making a small pinnace of the wreck of his ship, sailed
thence to the French upon the main, being thirty leagues off,
by whom he was detained prisoner, and forced to pilot them to
the island, where they had great store of sea-horse 1] teeth,[l and
cattle, and 11 2store [of] black foxes; adicdthey left seventeen
men upon the island to inhabit it. The island is thirty miles
long, two miles broad in most places, a mere sand, yet full of
fresh water in ponds, etc. He saw about eight hundred cattle,
small and great, all red, and the largest he ever saw, and many
foxes, whereof some perfect black. There is no wood upon it,
but store of wild peas and flags by the ponds, and grass. In
the middle of it is a pond of salt water, ten miles long, full of
plaice, 113soles, 1 etc. The company, which went now, carried
twelve landmen, two mastiffs, a 1' 4house, l and a shallop.
August 26.] They returned from their voyage. They found
there upon the island sixteen Frenchmen, who had wintered
there, and built a little fort, and had killed some black foxes.
They had killed also many of the cattle, so as they found not
above one hundred and forty, and but two or three calves.
They could kill but [I fewll sea-horse, by reason they were
forced to travel so far in the sand as they were too weak to stick
them, and they came away at such time as they used to go up!1'highest ll to eat green peas. The winter there is very cold,
and the snow above knee deep.
Mo. 5. 8.] At the general court, Mr. Williams of Salem was
summoned, and did appear. It was laid to his charge, that,
being under question before the magistracy and churches for
divers dangerous opinions, viz. 1, that the magistrate ought not
to punish the breach of the first table, otherwise than in such
I blankll  l 2 some 11  11 blank 11  114horsel  115five l  116heights l
VOL. I.               17




194                     JOHN HAYNES.                       [1635.
cases as did disturb the civil peace; 2, that he ought not to
tender an oath to an unregenerate man; 3, that a man ought
not to pray with such, though wife, child, etc.; 4, that a man
ought not to give thanks after the sacrament nor after meat,
etc.; and that the other churches were about to write to the
church of Salem to admonish him of these errors; notwithstanding the church had since called him to [the] office of a teacher.
Much debate was about these things.      The said opinions were
adjudged by all, magistrates and ministers, (who were desired
*163 to be present,) to be erroneous, and very dangerous, and the
calling of him to office, at that time, was judged a great contempt of authority. So, in fine, [1 time [1 was given to him and
the church of Salem    to consider of these things till the next
general court, and then either to give satisfaction to the court,
or else to expect the sentence; it being professedly declared by
the ministers, (at the request of the court to give their advice,)
that he who should obstinately maintain such opinions, (whereby a church might run into heresy, apostacy, or tyranny, and
yet the civil magistrate could not intermeddle,) were to be
removed, and that the other churches ought to request the
magistrates so to do.'
At this court Wessaguscus was made a plantation, and Mr.
Hull,2 a minister ~ in England,~ and twenty-one families with
him, allowed to sit down there -   after called Weymouth.
I theere 
1 We ought not to censure more the declaration of the clergy, than the policy
of the court in asking their advice. Church and state were too often playing
into each other's hands - if so irreverent a phrase may be allowed - and thus
sanctifying principles and conduct, which either would not have, singly, ventured
to adopt or enforce.
2 Of reverend Benjamin Hull further account can hardly be obtained, except
that, in the MS. journal of Hobart, first minister of Hingham, on 5 May, 1639,
I find " Mr. Hull gave his farewell sermon." Mather, in Magnalia, mentions
him as minister at the Isles of Shoals. Conf. Magn. book III. with 1 Hist. Coll.
VII. 254. Probably the same person, in this history, 3 month, 1643, is called
" an excommunicated person, and very contentious;" yet, in the Magnalia,
book VII. 65, Mather, describing the perils of Mrs. Heard, at the famous assault
by the Indians on Cocheco, in 1689, makes her " daughter of Mr. Hull, a
reverend minister, formerly living at Piscataqua." In our second volume, some
failure, in propriety, it will be seen, is attributed to his son.
A careful history of Weymouth is much wanted.




1635.]                    JOHN   HAYNES.                        i95
A plantation was likewise erected at Bear's Cove, after called
Ij Hingham.lJ 1
12.]  Mr. Luxon2 arrived here in a small pinnace.      He fished
at the Isle of Shoals, as he had done many years, and, re*164
turning to sell his fish at market, was taken in foggy
weather, and carried into the bay of Port Royal, and there
wrecked upon a small island about [blank] leagues from the
main. So he built a pinnace, and came hither in her.
[Blank.]
Salem men had preferred a petition, at the last general court,
for some land in Marblehead Neck, which they did challenge
as belonging to their town; but, because they had chosen Mr.
Williams their teacher, while he stood under question of authority, and so offered contempt to the magistrates, etc., their
petition was refused till, etc. Upon this the church of Salem
write to other churches, to admonish the magistrates of this as
a heinous sin, and likewise the deputies; for which, at the next
general court, their deputies were not received until they should
give satisfaction about the letter.3
Mo. 6. Aug. 16.] The wind having blown hard at S. and
S. W. a week before, about midnight it came up at N. E. and
|I Kingham 11
1 By this establishment, or erection, of a plantation, we must not understand,
that settlements were then first made at the spot, but that a municipal government was permitted there, or that the place was allowed to have deputies in the
general court. Wessaguscus had, at the last general court, been assessed; and,
at the same time, Joseph Andrews was " sworn constable of Barecove." Many
of the inhabitants were made freemen of the colony in the preceding year.
The spelling of the name varies between the Colony Records and this History,
and each, in different places, has different orthography. Perhaps it sometimes
was thought a natural resort of bears; perhaps sometimes the appearance of the
cove, at low water, regulated the letters used to express the same sound. The
new name was given by the general court, 2 September, 1635, because the
pastor and most of his flock came from Hingham, in Norfolk, England.
2 Josselyn sailed 15 Oct. 1639, from Boston, in the Fellowship, of 170 tons,
Luxon master, and arrived at Biddeford in Devon, 24 Nov., as he tells us.
3 This denial, or perversion of justice, by postponement of a hearing, on a
question of temporal right, for some spiritual deficiency in the church or pastor,
will not permit us to think, that the judges of Williams were free from all blame
in producing his schism.




196                     JOHN HAYNES.                     [1635.
blew with such violence, with abundance of rain, that it blew
down many hundreds of trees, ~near the towns,~ overthrew
some houses, [and] drave the ships from their anchors. The
Great Hope, of Ipswich, being about four hundred tons, was
driven on ground at Mr. Hoffe's Point, and brought back again
presently by a N. W. wind, and 11 ran [1 on shore at Charlestown.
About eight of the clock the wind came about to N. W. very
strong, and, it being then about high water, by nine the tide
was fallen about three feet. Then it began to flow again
about one hour, and rose about two or three feet, which was
conceived to be, that the sea was grown so high ~ abroad ~ with
the N. E. wind, that, meeting with the ebb, it forced it back
again.
~This tempest was not so far as Cape Sable, but to the south
more violent, and made a double tide all that coast~.
In this tempest, the James of Bristol, having one hundred
passengers,' honest people of Yorkshire, being put into the
Isle of Shoals, lost there three anchors; and, setting sail, no can*165 vas nor ropes would hold, but she was driven within a
cable's length of the rocks l12atll Pascataquack, when
suddenly the wind, coming to N. W., put them       back to the
Isle of Shoals, and, being there ready to strike upon the rocks,
they Il31etll out a piece of their mainsail, and weathered the
rocks.  In the same tempest a bark of Mr. Allerton's was cast
away upon Cape Ann, and twenty-one persons drowned;
among the rest one Mr. 1 4Avery, 12 a minister in Wiltshire, a
II came I     112 ofll     11I cut l    II  Anvey I1
1 Among the number were Richard Mather, with his wife and children, and
Jonathan Mitchell, the latter quite a youth, both famous names with the early
divines of Massachusetts. Mather, and some of the other passengers, were from
Lancashire. His original journal of the voyage, a very interesting document,
was first published in Young's Chron. of Mass.
2 This gentleman, whose fate was designed by his companion in adversity to
be forever remembered in the name given to the outer rock, Avery's Fall, was
cousin of Anthony Thacher, of whom slight notice is taken in the next note.
They came to Boston in the James from Southampton, arriving in June before.
From a folio page, in double column, of the Magnalia, book III. p. 77, we
learn no more of the life of Avery than his latest hours. His baptismal name
was John.




1635.]                    JOHN HAYNES.                           197
godly man, with his wife and six small children, were drowned.
None were saved but one Mr. Thacherl and his wife, who were
cast on shore, and preserved by a powder horn and a bag with
a flint, and a goat and a cheese, cast on shore after them, and a
truss of bedding, and some other necessaries: and the third
day after a shallop came thither to look for another shallop,
which was missing in the storm, and so they were preserved.
So as there did appear a miraculous providence in their preservation. The general court gave Mr. Thacher ~26.13.4, towards
his losses, and divers good people gave him besides. The man
was cast on shore, when he had been (as he I thought l) a
quarter of an hour beaten up and down by the waves, not being
able to swim one stroke; and his wife sitting in the scuttle of the
bark, the deck was broke off, and brought on shore, as she
stuck in it. One of the children was then cast dead on shore,
and the rest never found.
~Gabriel lost at Pemaquid;2 and Mr. Witheridge and the
I supposed |(
1 An admirable letter from this sufferer to his brother Peter, a clergyman of
the city of Salisbury, relates all the particulars of this shipwreck, one of the
most disastrous that ever afflicted the iron-bound coast of New England. It is
the first article in Increase Mather's Remarkable Providences, and gives to that
work its chief value. It is given by Young in the Chron. of Mass. The vessel was returning from Ipswich to Marblehead. Anthony's nephew, Thomas,
first pastor of the Third Church in Boston, who avoided the peril of his uncle
by coming round on land, was progenitor of most, I think, who have rendered
this name, in church and state, illustrious in Massachusetts. Of the late deceased pastor of the New South Church in this city, Samuel C. Thacher, the
companion and friend of my studies from childhood, no language is too powerful
to express my admiration. Animae dimidium mere. A memoir of his father,
the Rev. Dr. Peter Thacher, late of Brattle Street Church, drawn by one who
knew well his duty and his undertaking, contains very minute genealogical details. See 1 Hist. Coll. VIII. 277.
Anthony settled at Cape Cod, and from him descended the late George
Thacher, one of the Justices of our S. J. C.
2 This ship, we know, sailed from Bristol, but last from Milford Haven, 22
June preceding, in company with the James, as Mather, who calls her the Angel
Gabriel, tells in his journal. He says, she was of 240 tons, with 14 guns; and
mentions her loss with "most of the cattle, and other goods, with one seaman;
and 3 or 4 passengers did also perish therein, besides two of the passengers that
died by the way."
17*




198                     JOHN HAYNES.                     [1635.
Dartmouth ships cut all their masts at St. George. The tide
*166 rose at Naragansett fourteen feet higher than ordinary,
and drowned eight Indians flying from their wigwams.~ 
At this time a French ship came with commission from the
king of France, (as they pretended,) and took Penobscott, a
Plimouth trading house, and sent away the men which were in
it, but kept their goods and gave them bills for them, and bad
them tell all the plantations, as far as forty degrees, that they
would come with eight ships, next year, and displant them all.
But, by a letter which the captain wrote to the governour of
Plimouth, it appeared they had commission from Mons. Roselly,
commander at the fort near Cape Breton, called La Havre, to
displant the English as far as Pemaquid, and by it they professed all courtesy to us here.
Mr. Williams, pastor of Salem, being sick and not able to
speak, wrote to his church a protestation, that he could not
communicate with the churches in the bay; neither would he
communicate with them, except they would refuse          ] communion    with the rest; but the whole church was grieved
herewith.
[Large blank.]
The Dorchester men being set down at Connecticut, near the
Plimouth trading house, the governour, Mr. Bradford, wrote
to them, complaining of it as an injury, in regard of their possession and purchase of the Indians, whose right it was, and
the Dutch sent home into Holland for commission to deal with
our people at Connecticut.
September 1.] At this general court was the first grand
jury, who presented above one hundred offences, and, among
others, some of the magistrates.2
communication II
1 Hubbard has expanded this account of the tempest, 199-201. Morton's
Memorial informs us, that the marks were visible many years; but his " many
hundred thousands of trees" are by Hubbard reduced to "some thousands."
Though the more moderate number be generally preferable, we need not fear,
in this instance, to follow the original historian rather than'the copyer. Such
extent of devastation in the forest has been equalled within our memories,
especially from the gale at the autumnal equinox of 1815.
2 At this court the rate assessed is found in our Colony Records, I. 161, as




1635.]                     JOHN HAYNES.                           199
At this court Mr. Endecott made a protestation in justification  of the letter formerly      sent from   Salem    to  the  other
churches, against the magistrates and deputies, for which he
was committed; but, the same day, he came and acknowledged
his fault, and was discharged.'
Divers lewd servants (viz., six) ran away, and stole a *167
skiff and other things. A commission was granted, at
the general court, to Capt. Trask2 to fetch them and other such
from  the eastward.     He pursued them      to the Isle of Shoals,
and   so to Pascataquack, where, in       the night, he surprised
them in a house, and brought them to Boston. At next court
they were severely whipped, and ordered to pay all charges, etc.
At this court there was granted to Mr. Buckly3 and [blank]
follows:-Newtown and Dorchester, ~26.5, each; Boston, ~25.10; Watertown, ~1.9.10; Roxbury, ~19.5; Salem, ~16; Charlestown, ~ 15; Ipswich, ~14;
Sagus, ~11; Medford, ~9.15; Newbury, ~7.10; Hingham, ~6; Weymouth,
~4; in all, ~200.
1 Mention is made of the letter on a former page. To show the degree of
moderation, with which our civil rulers treated ecclesiastical subjects, I give an
extract from Col. Rec. I. 163: "Whereas Mr. Roger Williams, one of the
elders of the church of Salem, hath broached and divulged divers new and dangerous opinions, against the authority of magistrates; as also writ letters of
defamation, both of the magistrates and churches here, and that before any
conviction, and yet maintaineth the same without any retraction; it is therefore ordered, that the said Mr. Williams shall depart out of this jurisdiction
within six weeks now next ensuing; which, if he neglect to perform, it shall be
lawful for the governour and two of the magistrates to send him to some place
out of this jurisdiction, not to return any more without license from the court."
"Mr. Samuel Sharp is enjoined to appear at the next particular court, to
answer for the letter that came from the church of Salem, as also to bring the
names of those that will justify the same, or else to acknowledge his offence,
under his own hand, for his own particular."
2 He was of Salem, in the History of which town, 1 Hist. Coll. VI. 253, it is
related, that he was out in the Pequod war, by which we must, I suppose, understand not Stoughton's, but Endecott's, expedition. His baptismal name was
William, as the Colony Records give it among the deputies at all the general
courts, from the fourth to the tenth inclusive.
3 Such is the orthography of the original MS. though the head of this family
always spelt the name Bulkeley. The character of Rev. Peter Bulkley is so
well known by the reader of our early books, and the labors of Eliot and Allen
have so successfully transferred to their pages the truth, which a succession of
reverend descendants had preserved, that it were supererogation for me to en



200                   JOHN HAYNES.                   [1635.
merchant, and about twelve more families, to begin a town at
Musketaquid, for which they were allowed six miles upon the
river, and to be free from public charges three years; and it
was named Concord. A town was also begun above the falls
of Charles River.'
[Large blank.]
At the Dutchl plantation, this summer, a ship's long boat was
overset with a gust, and five men in her, who gat upon 1] her 11
keel, and were driven to sea four days, in which time three of
them dropt off and were drowned; and the fifth day the fourth,
being sore beaten, and 1 2pained 11 with hunger and thirst, wil*168 fully fell off and was drowned. Soon after the wind came
up at S. E. and carried the boat, with the fifth man, to
the Long Island, and, being only able to creep on shore, he was
found by the Indians, and preserved. He was grown very poor,
and almost senseless, with hunger and watching, and would
say, that he saw such and such come to give him meat, etc.2
The Plimouth men had hired the Great Hope, to go to displant the French, and regain their possession at Penobscott.
The master, Mr. j13 Girling, J1 was to have for it ~200. They
sent 11 4their bark |I with him and about twenty men; but when
they came, they found the French had notice, and had so strongly
intrenched themselves, (being eighteen,) as, having spent near
all their powder and shot, the bark left the ship there, and
came here to advise with us what further to do; for they had
lately lost another bark laden with corn, and could not spare
this to send back again. The general court, being assembled,
agreed to aid them with men and munition, and therefore wrote
to them to send one with commission to treat with us about it,
resolving to drive them out, whatsoever it should cost, (yet first
li the 11  112 parched j  11 3 Grig 11  14 her back I1
large this note. See President Stiles's opinion, in 2 Hist. Coll. II. 260. There
is a good letter of Bulkley in 3 Hist. Coll. I. 47. He came this season in the
Susan and Ellen.
1 It was afterwards named Dedham, and a very valuable history may he read
in three Centennial discourses of Rev. Alvan Lamson.
2 Mather, in book VI. of the Magnalia, appropriately called by him Thaumaturgus, has a little decorated this narrative of mental alienation.




1635.]                    JOHN    HAYNES.                         201
to put them to bear the charge, if it might be;) for we saw that
their neighborhood would be very dangerous to us.1
The next week they sent Mr. II Prence 112 and Capt. 1 2 Standish |[ to us, with commission to treat. Four of the commissioners gave them    a meeting, which grew to this issue, —       169
that they refused to deal further in it, otherwise than as a
common cause of the whole country, and so to contribute their
part. We refused to deal in it, otherwise than as in their aid,
and so at their charge; for indeed we had then no money in
the treasury, neither could we get provision of victuals, on the
sudden, for one hundred men, which were to be employed. So
we deferred all to further counsel.
Mo. 8. 6.] Two shallops, going, laden with goods, to Connecticut, were taken in the night with an easterly storm, and
cast away upon Brown's Island, near the Gurnett's Nose, and
the men all drowned.3
Here arrived two great ships, the Defence and the Abigail,
I Pierce 11                       II S       ----
1 Good union followed from the common danger of the two colonies, whose
preceding transactions evidently exhibit a mutual jealousy. I subjoin, from
Colony Records, 162, September court, all that is there found of this important
essay towards an alliance: " Agreed, that Plimouth shall be aided with men and
munition to supplant the French at Penobscot. And it was ordered, that Capt.
Sellanova shall be sent for, to confer with about this business, and recompensed
out of the treasury for his pains, if he be not employed." The hard name of
the engineer is quite strange to all our anticuaries of this age. It is manifestly
a foreign one, probably of some Dutchman, who had seen service at home, and
was now thought a fit antagonist for the enemies of the common religion. In a
letter of Gov. Winthrop to his son, John, June, 1636, in our Appendix, the
same person is mentioned as being arrived in the West Indies. I know not
whether he was employed. The expulsion of the French was reserved for the
vigorous administration of Cromwell, in 1654, when Sedgwick and Leverett
succeeded with little difficulty.
2 This distinguished gentleman, whose name, though commonly in books spelt
Prince, is always, as Judge Davis informed me, by himself written as Winthrop
has given it, was long governour of Plimouth colony. He will be forever remembered in the pages of the new edition of Morton's Memorial.  Every
author, who treats of New England, is full of his praise, and my humble efforts
are not needed to extend it.
3 A note in 1 Hist. Coll. VIII. 220, by the most accurate geographer of New
England, remarks, that this island is become a shoal.




202                      JOHN HAYNES.                        [1635.
with Mr. Wilson, pastor of Boston, Mr. Shepard,' Mr. Jones,2
and other3 ministers; amongst others, Mr. Peter,4 pastor of the
English church in Rotterdam, who, being persecuted by the
English ambassador, - who would have brought his and other
churches to the English discipline, - and not having had his
health these many years, intended to advise with the ministers
here about his removal.
The special 11 goodness 11 of the Lord appeared in this, that
the passengers came safe and hale in all [the] ships, though
some of them     long passages, -the Abigail ten weeks from`170  Plimouth, with two hundred and         twenty persons, and
many cattle, infected also with the small pox; yet, etc.5
There came also John Winthrop, the younger, with commisI providence ]
1 It would probably be a needless task, for me to add any thing about Shepard
to what is already known in Eliot and Allen, and the authors referred to by the
latter. With him, Shepard says, Wilson and Jones were in the Defence, which
was very rotten, unfit for such a voyage. His autobiography is now accessible
to all, in Young's Chron. of Mass.
2 Little could be expected from my diligent inquiries, respecting this person,
by one that finds nothing but his name known to Mather, who inserts it in his
first classis of ministers, or Trumbull, I. 494. Both seem to be ignorant of any
thing but what they learn from Winthrop. Before removing to Fairfield, Conn.
he was the pastor of Concord. See, in this History, 5 of 5 month, 1636, and 6
of 2 month, 1637.
3 Probably Flint, Carter, and Walton, mentioned by Johnson, lib. I. c. 31, as
coming over this year, are here intended. Perhaps, in his work, the name of
Walton is a misprint for lWaltham, as thus Mather calls a minister, who came
from England, with the prsnomen William, settled at Marblehead. Flint was
admitted of Boston Church 15 November, this year, a fortnight after Vane.
John Winthrop, the son of our author, and the son of Sir Henry Vane, came
in the Abigail, publicly.
4The unhappy celebrity of Hugh Peters, or Peter, as he wrote it himself, will
excuse me from giving more than a reference to some of the innumerable books
which furnish evidence of his labors, his errors, and his sufferings. He was
executed 16 October, 1660. I suppose he got on board the Abigail, privately,
in the Downs, coming from Holland.
5 But of these 220, the names of only 180 are preserved in the custom-house
list at London; and of the passengers by the Defence, only 89. No doubt,
excellent reason existed for the deficiency. No minister could embark but by
evasion. Flint, who came with Bulkley, was, no doubt, a subsidy man, and
therefore forbidden.




1635.]                JOHN HAYNES.                        203
sion' from the Lord Say, Lord Brook, and divers other great
persons in England, to begin a plantation at Connecticut, and
to be governour there. They sent also men and ammunition,
and ~2000 in money, to begin a fortification at the mouth of
the river.2
Here came also one Mr. Henry Vane,3 son and heir to Sir
Henry Vane, comptroller of the king's house, who, being a
young gentleman of excellent parts, and had been employed by
his father (when he was ambassador) in foreign affairs; yet,
being called to the obedience of the gospel, forsook the honors
and preferments of the court, to enjoy the ordinances of Christ
in their purity here. His father, being very averse to this way,
(as no way savoring the power of religion,) would hardly
have consented to his coming hither, but that, acquainting the
king with his son's disposition and desire, he commanded him
to send him hither, and gave him license for three years' stay
here.
This noble gentleman, having order from the said lords and
others, treated with the magistrates here, and those who were
to go to Connecticut,4 about the said design of the lords, to this
issue, -that either the three towns gone thither should give
place, upon full satisfaction, or else sufficient room must be
found there for the lords and their companions, etc., or else
they would divert their thoughts and preparations some other
ways.
[Large blank.]
November 1.] Mr. Vane was admitted a member of the
church of Boston.
1 See the commission in Trumbull, I. 497.
2 He brought his new wife, and his brother Deane, whose name is derived
from Sir John Deane, brother of his mother.
3 Few men have done less good with greater reputation than this statesman,
whose fame rings in history too loudly to require my aid in its diffusion. The
brief, but busy exercise of his faculties here, is exhibited with sufficient minuteness by our author, in whose page is found no deficiency of respect towards the
fanatic, who was too much honored, in his early years, when exalted as the
rival of the father of Massachusetts.
4 In the Appendix may be seen the propositions, of which the original draft
was preserved in the Historical Society's Library, Trumbull Papers, vol. XIX.
page 213, until the Court Street fire of 1825.




204                  JOHN HAYNES.                   [1635.
October.]  At this general court, Mr. Williams, the teacher
at Salem, was again convented, and all the ministers in the
bay being desired to be present, he was charged with the said
two letters, —that to the churches, complaining of the magis*171 trates for injustice, extreme oppression, etc., and the other
to his own church, to persuade them to renounce communion with all the churches in the bay, as full of antichristian
pollution, etc. He justified both these letters, and maintained
all his opinions; and, being offered further conference or disputation, and a month's respite, he chose to dispute presently.
So Mr. Hooker was appointed to dispute with him, but could
not reduce him from any of his errors. So, the next morning,
the court sentenced him to depart out of our jurisdiction within
six weeks, all the ministers, save one, approving the sentence;
and his own church had him under question also for the same
cause; and he, at his return home, refused communion with
his own church, who openly disclaimed his errors, and wrote
an humble submission to the magistrates, acknowledging their
fault in joining with Mr. Williams in that letter to the churches
against them, etc.
[Large blank.]
15.] About sixty men, women, and little children, went by
land toward Connecticut with their cows, 1[ horses, j and swine,
and, after a tedious and difficult journey, arrived safe there.
[Very large blank.]
The pinnace, which Sir Richard Saltonstall sent to take possession of a great quantity of land at Connecticut, was, in her
return into England, cast away upon the Isle Sable.' The men
were kindly entertained by the French there, and had passage
to Le Havre, some twenty leagues east of Cape Sable, where
Monsieur commander of Roselle was governour, who entertained
them very courteously, and furnished them with a shallop to
return to us, and gave four of their company passage into France,
but made them pay dear for their shallop; and in their return,
II heifers I1
Saltonstall attributes the loss to her detention, both at Boston and at Connecticut River. He thought he had a just claim for satisfaction. See his
interesting letter, copied for 2 Hist. Coll. VIII. 42, 3.




1635.]               JOHN HAYNES.                      205
they put into Penobscot, at such time as Girling's ship lay
there; so that they were kept prisoners there till the ship was
gone, and then sent to us with a courteous letter to our governour. A little before, our governour had written to him, (viz.
Mons. D'Aulnay,') to send them home to us; but they were
come before.
It is useful to observe, as we go along, such especial *172
providences of God as were manifested for the good of
these plantations.
Mr. Winslow, the late governour of Plimouth, being this year
in England, petitioned the council there for a commission to
withstand the intrusions of the French and Dutch, which was
likely to take effect, (though undertaken by ill advice, for such
precedents might endanger our liberty, that we should do
nothing hereafter but by commission out of England;) but the
archbishops, being incensed against him, as against all these
plantations, informed the rest, that he was a separatist, etc., and
that he did marry, etc., and thereupon gate him committed;
but, after some few months, he petitioned the board, and was
discharged.
[Very large blank.]
Another providence was in the voyage of Mr. Winthrop, the
younger, and Mr. Wilson into England, who, returning in the
winter time, in a small and weak ship, bound for Barnstaple,
were driven by foul weather upon the coast of Ireland, not
known by any in the ship, and were brought, through many
desperate dangers, into Galloway, where they parted, Mr. Winthrop taking his journey over land to Dublin, and Mr. Wilson
by sea, and being come within sight of Lundy, in the mouth
of Severn, they were forced back by tempest to Kinsale, where
some ships perished in their view. Mr. Wilson, being in Ireland, gave much satisfaction to the Christians there about New
England.
1 Enough, the reader will probably imagine, about the French governour of
that part of Acadia west of the St. Croix, or the eastern half of the present
State of Maine, will be found in this History, both of his disappointments and
ultimate success. A brief sketch of the whole subject of controversy between
him and La Tour, in which many of our people were unhappily involved, may
be seen in Hutchinson, I. 127-133. See also note 3 on page 117.
VOL. i.               18




206                     JOHN    HAYNES.                        [1635.
Mr. Winthrop went to Dublin, and from thence to Antrim in
the north, and came to the house of one Sir John Clotworthy,'
the evening before the day when divers godly persons were
appointed to meet at his house, to confer about their voyage to
New England, by whom they were thoroughly informed of all
things, and received great encouragement to proceed on in their
intended course. From thence he passed over into Scotland,`173   and so through the north of England; and all the way he
met with persons of quality, whose thoughts were towards
New   England, who      observed   his coming among them         as a
special providence of God.
November 3.]      At the court of assistants, John Pratt2 of
Newtown was questioned about the letter he wrote into England, wherein he affirmed divers things, which were untrue and
of ill report, for the state of the country, as that here was nothing but rocks, and sands, and salt marshes, etc.          He desired
respite for his answer to the next morning; then he gave it in
writing, in which, by making his own interpretation of some
1 This gentleman became a strenuous asserter of liberty in the long parliament, and, being too easily satisfied with deliverance from tyranny, to coincide
with the designs of Cromwell, was, by that hypocrite, with many other early
associates, committed to prison. From the text we may not conclude positively,
that Clotworthy was one of those who thought of coming to our country; though
many, of equal or higher rank and fortune, had such designs, in which most of
them were prevented by the government, that had good reason afterwards, says
Hume, to repent of such exercise of authority.
Of Huume's wise remark, however, the foundation is not solid, chiefly resting
on so poor authority as the Magnalia, I. c. 5, 7. Hutchinson, also, mistook the
weight of the document, to which he refers in Vol. I. 42. Too often he yields
to Mather, his relative, more than is right. In her Court of Charles I., Lucy
Aikin has settled the correct view. See her Vol. I. 472.
2 Notice of his death will occur in our second volume, sub an. 1645. The
answer, in the text alluded to, was so equivocal, that, in an epistle preserved in
Hutch. Coll. 106, Sir William Martin says to Winthrop, 29 March, 1636, owning receipt of a copy from Mr. Downing, " In the main I find little difference
therein from his letter."  This curious apology was transcribed by me fiom the
Colony Records, and printed in 2 Hist. Coll. VII. 126. Pratt had made a contract, in 1629, with our company in London, to come out as a surgeon for the
plantation, on a salary. He removed, with most other Newtown people, to
Connecticut, in company with Gov. Haynes, as I presume, from finding the
same name at their first assembly of deputies in 1639. See Trumbull, I. 103.
His death, by shipwreck, will be seen in a later year.




1635.]                 JOHN HAYNES.                       207
passages, and acknowledging his error in others, he gave satisfaction.  This was delivered in under his own hand, and the
hands of Mr. Hooker and some of the ministers, and satisfaction acknowledged under the hands of the magistrates.
Mr. Winthrop, jun., the governour appointed by the lords
for Connecticut, sent a bark of thirty tons, and about twenty
men, with all needful provisions, to take possession of the
mouth of Connecticut, and to begin some building.
9.]  About this time an open pinnace, returning from Connecticut, was cast away in Manemett Bay; but all the men
(being six) were saved, and came to Plimouth, after they had
wandered ten days in extreme cold and deep snow, not meeting with any Indian or other person.
26.] There came twelve men from Connecticut. They had
been ten days upon their journey, and had lost one of their
company, drowned in the ice by the way; and had been all
starved, but that, by God's providence, they lighted upon an
Indian wigwam.    Connecticut River was frozen up the 15th of
this month.
Mr. Hugh Peter, preaching at Boston and Salem, moved the
country to raise a stock for fishing, as the only probable means
to 11 free [1 us from that oppression, which the seamen and others
held us under.
28.]  Here arrived a small ~Norseyl~ bark, of twenty-five
tons, sent by the Lords Say, etc., with one Gardiner,2 an 1*74
expert engineer or work base,3 and provisions of all sorts,
11 save 11
1 I never saw this word before; but cannot doubt that it is the same gentilitial
as Norwegian, or, of the North Country. No'rse is common with the poets and
others.
2 From this person, whose name of baptism was Lyon, Gardner's Island and
Bay receive their names. Trumbull, I. 61, refers to manuscripts of his, and
they certainly might have assisted him with some important illustrations of the
origin of the war with the Pequods, during which he commanded the fort at
Saybrook. He is also spoken of with respect by Saltonstall, in the letter mentioned in our note on page 171, and by Mason in his History of that war.
Gardiner's own History of the same is worth looking into. He was equally
brave and intelligent.
3 The phrase is merely a synonym.




208                     JOHN HAYNES.                       [1635.
to begin a fort at the mouth of Connecticut. She came through
many great tempests; yet, through the Lord's great providence,
her passengers, ~ twelve men, two women ~1 and goods, all safe.
Mr. Winthrop had sent, four days before, a bark, with carpenters and other workmen, to take possession of the place,
(for the Dutch intended to take it,) and to raise some buildings.
A great shallop, coming from Pascataquack in a N. E. wind
with  snow, lost her way, and     was forced into Anasquam;
and going out with a N. W. wind, through the unskilfulness
of the men, was cast upon the rocks, and lost ~100 worth of
goods.
A shallop of William Lovell,2 laden with goods to Salem,
worth ~100, was, by foul weather, put into Plimouth, and,
coming out, the men went aboard a small bark by the way,
and their shallop brake loose and was lost, and, about two
months after, was found about Nawset,3 not much hurt, and the
goods were, most of them, saved by some Plimouth men, who
had notice of it by the Indians.4
[Large blank.]
-175     1Ober, 10.]  The ship Rebecka, about sixty tons, came
from Connecticut, and brought in her about seventy men
and women, which came down to the river's mouth to meet the
barks which should have brought their provisions; but, not
meeting them, they went aboard the Rebecka, which, two days
1 This addition to the text of the first edition is from Winthrop's margin.
2 He was, probably, of Dorchester, and from him Lovell's Island, in our harbor, I presume, receives its name.
3 Plimouth people settled there about nine years after, and it has been since
called Eastham. See I lIist. Coll. VIII. 163.
4 Of the kindness and justice, with which the colonists of Plimouth and Massachusetts had universally treated their uncivilized neighbors, this proof of the
honest and friendly conduct of the aborigines towards them is the stronger,
because indirect evidence. We ought not to forget, that the native inhabitants
of this very spot had indulged a peculiar hatred against the English name, on
account of the perfidious conduct, twenty years before, of Hunt, in kidnapping
twenty of their tribe, whom he transported for sale in Spain. See the narrative
in most of the books on the earlier affairs of America, from Purchas to
Holmes. The invaluable work of the latter annalist quotes I. Mather, sub an.
1675, to prove that Christian blood had not been shed in hostility, before that
time, in Massachusetts.




1635.]                JOHN HAYNES.                     209
before, was frozen twenty miles up the river, but a small rain
falling set her free; but coming out, she ran on ground at the
mouth of the river, and was forced to unlade. They came to
Massachusetts in five days, which was a great mercy of God,
for otherwise they had all perished with famine, as some did.
While the Rebecka lay there, the Dutch sent a 11 sloop I| to
take possession of the mouth of the river; but our men gate
two pieces on shore, and would not suffer them to land.
The 2d and 3d of this month fell a snow about knee deep,
with much wind from the N. and N. E.1
Mr. Norton,2 a godly man, and a preacher in England,
coming with his family to the Massachusetts, the ship, wherein
he was, was by contrary winds put into Plimouth, where he
continued preaching to them all the winter; and although Mr.
Smith, their pastor, gave over his place, that he might have it,
and the church used him with all respect, and large offers, etc.,
yet he left them and came to Massachusetts, alleging that his
spirit could not close with them, etc.
[Large blank.]
11 mo. January.]    The governour and assistants met at
Boston to consider about  ir. Williams, for that they were
credibly informed, that, notwithstanding the injunction laid
upon him (upon the liberty granted him to stay till the spring)
not to go about to draw others to his opinions, he did use to
entertain company in his house, and to preach to them, even of
such points as he had been censured for; and it was agreed to
send him into England by a ship then ready to depart. The
reason was, because he had drawn above twenty persons to his
opinion, and they were intended to erect a plantation about
the Naragansett Bay, from whence the infection would easily
spread into these churches, (the people being, many of them,
I ship 11
1 Such depth of snow, at so early a season, though common enough in the
interiour, among the hills, has not been known on the seacoast for many
years.
2 The history of church and state affords abundant materials for a biography
of John Norton, one of the most learned divines that came early to our country,
and it has been compiled by Dr. Eliot with more than usual felicity. Mather
and Emerson are more copious.
18*




210                  JOHN HAYNES.                   [1635.
much taken with the apprehension of his godliness). Where-176 upon a warrant was sent to him to come presently to Boston, to be shipped, etc. He returned answer, (and divers of
Salem came with it,) that he could not come without hazard of
his life, etc. Whereupon a pinnace was sent with commission
to Capt. Underhill, etc., to apprehend him, and carry him aboard
the ship, (which then rode at Natascutt;) but, when they came
at his house, they found he had been gone three days before;
but whither they could not learn.1
He had so far prevailed at Salem, as many there (especially
of devout women) did embrace his opinions, and separated
from the churches, for this cause, that some of their members,
going into England, did hear the ministers there, and when
they came home the churches here held communion with
them.
This month one went by land to Connecticut, and returned
safe.2
Mr. Hugh Peter went from place to place laboring,, both
publicly and privately, to raise up men to a public frame of
spirit, and so prevailed, as he procured a good sum of money
to be raised to set on foot the fishing business, to the value of
[blank,] and wrote into England to raise as much more. The
intent was to set up a magazine of all provisions and other
necessaries for fishing, that men might have things at hand, and
for reasonable prices; whereas now the merchants and seamen
took advantage to sell at most excessive rates, (in many things
two for one, etc.)
Mr. Batchellor of Sagus was convented before the magistrates. The cause was, for that, coming out of England with
a small body of six or seven persons, and having since received
in many more at Sagus, and contention growing between him
and the greatest part of his church, (who had, with the rest, received him for their pastor,) he desired dismission for himself
1 Abundant cause for rejoicing at the failure of this tyrannical order, by
which the services of Williams would have been transferred to England, is
found in the progress of the life of the founder of Providence.
2 If it be intended by the author to mention this as matter of felicitation, it
probably was because the journey was performed alone.




1635.]               JOHN HAYNES.                  211
and his first members, which being granted, upon supposition
that he would leave the town, (as he had given out,) he with the
said six or seven persons presently |1 renewed II their old 11 2covenant,ll intending to raise another church in Sagus; whereat
the I 3most l and chief of the town being offended, for that it
would cross their intentions of calling Mr. Peter or some other
minister, they complained to the magistrates, who, foreseeing
the distraction which was like to come by this course, had  177
forbidden him to proceed in any such church way, until
the cause were considered by the other ministers, etc. But he
refused to desist. Whereupon they sent for him, and upon his
delay, day after day, the marshal was sent to fetch him. Upon
his appearance and submission, and promise to remove out of
the town within three months, he was discharged.
18.] Mr. Vane and Mr. Peter, finding some distraction in
the commonwealth, arising from some difference in judgment,
and withal some alienation of affection among the magistrates
and some other persons of quality, and that hereby factions
began to grow among the people, some adhering more to the old
governour, Mr. Winthrop, and others to the late governour, Mr.
Dudley, —the former carrying matters with more lenity, and
the latter with more severity,-they procured a meeting, at
Boston, of the governour, deputy, Mr. Cotton, Mr. Hooker, Mr.
Wilson, and there was present Mr. Winthrop, Mr. Dudley, and
themselves; where, after the Lord had been sought, Mr. Vane
declared the occasion of this meeting, (as is before noted,) and
the fruit aimed at, viz. a more firm and friendly uniting of
minds, etc., especially of the said Mr. Dudley and Mr. Winthrop,
as those upon whom the weight of the affairs did lie, etc., and
therefore desired all present to take up a resolution to deal
freely and openly with the parties, and they each with other,
that nothing might be left in their breasts, which might break
out to any jar or difference hereafter, (which they promised to
do). Then Mr. Winthrop spake to this effect: that when it
pleased Mr. Vane to acquaint him with what he had observed,
of the dispositions of men's minds inclining to the said faction,
etc., it was very strange to him, professing solemnly that he
knew not of any breach between his brother Dudley and himself,
II removed 11  112 covert II  I 3rest l




212                 JOHN HAYNES.                 [1635.
since they were reconciled long since, neither did he suspect any
alienation of affection in him or others from himself, save that,
of late, he had observed, that some new comers had estranged
themselves from him, since they went to dwell at Newtown;
and so desired all the company, that, if they had seen any thing
amiss in his government or otherwise, they would deal freely
and faithfully with him, and for his part he promised to take it
in good part, and would endeavor, by God's grace, to amend it.
Then Mr. Dudley spake to this effect: that for his part he came
thither a mere patient, not with any intent to charge his brother
Winthrop with any thing; for though there had been formerly
some differences and breaches between them, yet they had been
healed, and, for his part, he was not willing to renew them
178 again; and so left it to others to utter their own complaints.
Whereupon the governour, Mr. Haynes, spake to this effect: that Mr. Winthrop and himself, had been always in good
terms, etc.; therefore he was loath to give any offence to him,
and he hoped that, considering what the end of this meeting
was, he would take it in good part, if he did deal openly and
freely, as his manner ever was. Then he spake of one or two
passages, wherein he conceived, that [he] dealt too remissly in
point of justice; to which Mr. Winthrop answered, that his
speeches and carriage had been in part mistaken; but withal
professed, that it was his judgment, that in the infancy of plantation, justice should be administered with more lenity than in
a settled state, because people were then more apt to transgress,
partly of ignorance of new laws and orders, partly through
oppression of business and other straits; but, if it might be
made clear to him, that it was an error, he would be ready to
take up a stricter course. Then the ministers were desired to
consider of the question by the next morning, and to set down
a rule in the case. The next morning, they delivered their
several reasons, which all 11 sorted 1[ to this conclusion, that strict
discipline, both in criminal offences and in martial affairs, was
more needful in plantations than in a settled state, as tending
to the honor and safety of the gospel. Whereupon Mr. Winthrop acknowledged that lie was convinced, that he had failed
in over much lenity and remissness, and would endeavor (by
I    II




1635.]               JOHN HAYNES.                    213
God's assistance) to take a more strict course hereafter.
Whereupon there was a renewal of love amongst them, and
articles drawn to this effect: 
1. That there should be more strictness used in civil government and military discipline.
2. That the magistrates should (as far as might be) ripen
their consultations beforehand, that their vote in public might
bear (as the voice of God).
3. That, in meetings out of court, the magistrates should
not discuss the business of parties in their presence, nor deliver
their opinions, etc.
4. That trivial things, etc., should be I1 ended 11 in towns, etc.
5. If differences fall out among them in public meetings,
they shall observe these rules:1. Not to touch any person differing, but speak to the
cause.
2. To express their difference in all modesty and due respect
to the court and such as differ, etc.
3. Or to propound their difference by way of question. *179
4. Or to desire a deferring of the cause to further time.
5. After sentence, (if all have agreed,) none shall intimate
his dislike privately; or, if one dissent, he shall sit down, without showing any further distaste, publicly or privately.
6. The magistrates shall be more familiar and open each to
other, and more frequent in visitations, and shall, in tenderness
and love, admonish one another, (without reserving any secret
grudge,) and shall avoid all jealousies and suspicions, each
seeking the honor of another, and all, of the court, not opening
the nakedness of one another to private persons; in all things
seeking the safety and credit of the gospel.
7. To honor the governour in submitting to him the main
direction and ordering the business of the court.
8. One assistant shall not seem to gratify any man in
undoing or crossing another's proceedings, without due advice
with him.
9. They shall grace and strengthen their under officers in
their places, etc.
10. All contempts against the court, or any of the magistrates,
II ordered 11




214                       JOHN HAYNES.                       [1635.
shall be specially noted and punished; and the magistrates shall
appear more solemnly in public, with attendance, apparel, and
open notice of their entrance into the court.1
[Very large blank.]
Mo. 12. 1.]   Mr. Shepherd, a godly minister, come lately out
of England, and divers other good Christians, intending to raise
a church2 body, came and acquainted the magistrates therewith,
who gave their approbation.      They also sent to all the neigh*1O8 Iboring churches for their elders to give their assistance, at
a certain day, at Newtown, when they should constitute
their body. Accordingly, at this day, there met a great assembly, where the proceeding was as followeth:
Mr. Shepherd and two others (who were after to be chosen
to office) sate together in the elder's seat. Then the elder of
them began with prayer.      After this, Mr. Shepherd prayed with
deep confession of sin, etc., and exercised out of Eph. v.- that
he might make it to himself a holy, etc.; and also opened the
cause of their meeting, etc.   Then the elder desired to know of
the churches assembled, what number were needful to make a
church, and how they ought to proceed in this action.       Whereupon some of the ancient ministers, conferring shortly together,
gave answer: That the scripture did not set down any certain
rule for the number. Three (they thought) were too few, be1 Though several principles of sound policy were established, the general
result of this conference must, I think, be regretted. When the administration
of Winthrop was impeached by Gov. Haynes for too great lenity, it seems
natural that such severe tempers as Dudley, and Vane, and Peter, should unite
in the attack; and as the rest of the clergy probably agreed with their ardent
brother Peter, the maxims of the first governour of the colony would be overruled; but when their united influence was strong enough to compel him to
acknowledge his remissness in discipline, we are bound, as in our early history
we often are, to lament the undue dictation of the church. It should be rememberec, that Haynes and Hooker were, at this very time, preparing to establish
themselves as the Moses and Aaron of a new plantation; and they might decently
have left Massachusetts to be governed by rules, which, though not always
observed, had been found beneficial by the earlier inhabitants.
2 As the former church preferred to remove to Connecticut in its corporate
state, a new church was gathered, of necessity, in their place, at Newtown.
The same formality, it will be seen, was followed at Dorchester. Yet I cannot
doubt, that several old members of both remained.




1635.]                  JOHN HAYNES.                      215
cause by Matt. xviii. an appeal was allowed from three; but
that seven might be a fit number.  And, for their proceeding,
they advised, that such as were to join should make confession
of their faith, and declare what work of grace the Lord had
wrought in them; which accordingly they did, Mr. Shepherd
first, then four others, then the elder, and one who was to be
deacon, (who had also prayed,) and another member.      Then
the covenant was read, and they all gave a solemn assent to it.
Then the elder desired of the churches, that, if they did approve
them to be a church, they would give them   the right hand of
fellowship.  Whereupon Mr. Cotton, (upon short speech with
some others near him,) in the name of their churches, gave his
hand to the elder, with a short speech of their assent, and desired
the peace of the II Lord Jesus l1 to be with them.  Then Mr.
Shepherd made an exhortation to the rest of his body, about
the nature of their covenant, and to stand firm to it, and commended them to the Lord in a most heavenly prayer. Then
the elder told the assembly, that they were intended to choose
Mr. Shepherd for their pastor, (by the name of the brother who
had exercised,) and desired the churches, that, if they had any
thing to except against him, they would impart it to them
before the day of ordination.    Then he gave the churches
thanks for their assistance, and so left them to the Lord.'
At the last general court, it was referred to the military commissioners to appoint colors for I2every l company; who did
accordingly, and left out the cross in all of them,2 appointing
the king's arms to be put into that of Castle Island, and  181
Boston to be the first company.
[Large blank.]
Lord's presence II              12 each 1I
1 Commemoration of this gathering of the present first church of Cambridge,
by Rev. William Newell, its pastor, after two hundred years, is duly furnished
in an admirable discourse, enriched with an appendix, containing the invaluable
Register of the members, by matchless Jonathan Mitchell, the successor of
Shepherd.
2 When the parliament, in arms against the king, continued the use of this
idolatrous emblem, by order of our court, in a few years, the red cross was
restored, " till the state of England shall alter the same, which we much desire."
Hazard, I. 554. I suppose the desire abated as the royal cause was depressed;
for the banner was the same of the godly and the malignants.




216                 JOHN HAYNES.                  [1635.
3.] Mr. John Maverick, teacher of the church of Dorchester,
died, being near sixty years of age. He was a [blank] man of
a very humble spirit, and faithful in furthering the work of the
Lord here, both in the churches and civil state.
24.] Mr. Winslow of Plimouth came to treat with those of
Dorchester about their land at Connecticut, which they had
taken from them. It being doubtful whether that place 1I were 11
within our patent or not, the Plimouth men, about three years
since, had treaty with us about joining in erecting a plantation and trade there. We thought not fit to do any thing
then, but gave them leave to go on. Whereupon they bought
a portion of land of the Indians, and built a house there, and
the Dorchester men (without their leave) were now setting
down their town in the same place; but, after, they desired to
agree with them; for which end Mr. 1 2 Winslow I came to treat
with them, and demanded one sixteenth part of their lands,
and ~100, which those of Dorchester not consenting unto, they
brake off, those of Plimouth expecting to have due recompense after, by course of justice, if they went on. But divers resolved to quit the place, if they could not agree with
those of Plimouth.1
[Large blank.]
25.]  The distractions about the churches of Salem and
Sagus, and the removal of other churches, and the great scarcity of corn, etc., occasioned a general fast to [be] proclaimed,
which, because the court was not at hand, was moved by the
elders of the churches, and assented unto by the ministers.
The church of Boston renewed their covenant this day, and
made a large explanation of that which they had first entered
into, and acknowledged such failings as had fallen out, etc.
Mo. 1. 8.] A man's servant in Boston, having stolen from
his master, and being threatened to be brought before the
magistrates, went and hanged himself. Herein three things
113werell observable: 1. That he was a very profane fellow,
given to cursing, etc., and did use to [go] out of the assembly,
was         12 I Wilson  I     aI  1  re
1 Some reasonable satisfaction to the Plimouth people, as we learn from Trumbull, I. 66, flowed from this high sense of equity.




1636.]               JOHN HAYNES.                  217
upon the Lord's day, to rob his master. 2. The manner 182
of his death, being with a small codline, and his knees
touching the floor of the chamber, and one coming in when he
was scarce dead, (who was a maid, and while she went to call
out, etc., he was past recovery). 3. His discontent, arising from
the long time he was to serve his master, (though he were well
used). The same day came a letter from his father, out of the
Bermuda, with money to buy out his time, etc.
The Rebecka came from Bermuda with thirty thousand
weight of potatoes, and store of oranges and Illimes, II which
were a great relief to our people; but their corn was sold to
the West Indies three months before. Potatoes were bought
there for two shillings and eight pence ~ the bushel, ~ and sold
here for two pence the pound.1
11.] Some occasions of difference had fallen out between
the church of Gharlton and Mr. James, their pastor. The
teacher, Mr. Simmes, and the most of the brethren, had taken
offence at divers speeches of his, (he being a very melancholick
man, and full of causeless jealousies, etc.,) for which they had
dealt with him, both privately and publicly; but, receiving no
satisfaction, they wrote to all the neighboring churches for their
advice and help in the case, who, sending chosen men, (most
elders,) they met there this- day, and finding the pastor very
faulty, yet because they had not proceeded with him in a due
order, - for of the two witnesses produced, one was the accuser,
-they advised, that, if they could not comfortably close, himself and such as stood on his part, (if they would,) should
desire dismission, which should be granted them, for avoiding
extremities; but if he persisted, etc., the church should cast
him out.
30.] Mr. Allerton returned in his pinnace from the French
at Penobscott. His bark was cast upon an island, and beat
out her keel, and so lay ten days; yet he gate help from Pemaquid, and mended her, and brought her home.
Mr. Wither, in a vessel of fifty tons, going to Virginia, was
cast away upon Long Island with a W. N. W. wind. The
I lemons[[
1 For so small a vessel, this was a very good adventure.
VOL. I.                  19




218                         JOHN HAYNES.                          [1636.
company (being about thirty) were, most of them, very profane
persons, and in their voyage did much reproach             our colony,
vowing they would hang, drown, or, etc., before they would
come hither again.        Seven were drowned in landing; some
gate in a small boat to the Dutch plantation; two were killed
by the Indians, who took all such goods as they left on shore.
*183   Those who escaped, went towards Virginia in a Dutch
bark, and were never heard of after; but were thought to
be wrecked, by some Dutch pails, etc., which were found by the
Indians thereabout.
Mo. 2. 1.]    Mr. Mathert and others, of Dorchester, intending
1 This was the father of Increase Mather, president of Harvard College, who
was father of the more celebrated Cotton Mather, a name that will forever be
perpetuated, while the strange contents of the Magnalia, in which are equally
striking his voracious appetite and ill digestion of learning, excite the curiosity
of antiquaries. Of all three sufficient accounts will be found in the Biographical Dictionary of Allen, and better still in that of Eliot. Three other sons of
Richard, the gentleman named in our text, were clergymen, and are mentioned
in these works,. as is also a great grandson, who was a minister in Boston; but
on them Allen is more minute than Eliot. Richard and his wife, Katharine,
were received into Boston church 25 October preceding. He married, in his
old age, the widow of the great Cotton, and his son, Increase, married a daughter, whence the author of the Magnalia obtained his name of baptism. From
the Records of Dorchester First Church I extract this notice: -
" Richard Mather. Anagram, A third Charmer.
Third in New England's Dorchester
Was this ordained minister;
Second to none for fruitfulness,
Ability and usefulness.
Divine his charms, years seven times seven,
Wise to win souls from earth to heaven.
Prophet's rewards he gains above,
But great's our loss by his remove.
Epitaph.
Sacred to God, his servant Richard Mather;
Sons like him, good and great, did call him father.
Hard to discern a difference in degree'Twixt his bright learning and high piety.
Short time his sleeping dust lies covered down;
So can't his soul, or his deserved renown.
From's birth six lustre's and a jubilee
To his repose; but labored hard in thee,




1636.]                JOHN HAYNES.                     219
to begin a new church there, (a great part of the old one
being gone to Connecticut,) desired the approbation of the
other churches and of the magistrates; and, accordingly, they
assembled this day, and, after some of them had given proof
of their gifts, they made confession of their faith, which was
approved of; but proceeding to manifest the work of God's
grace in themselves, the churches, by their elders, and the'184
magistrates, etc., thought them not meet, at present, to be
the foundation of a church; and thereupon they were content to
forbear to join till further consideration. The reason was, for
that most of them (Mr. Mather and one more excepted) had
1 builded I] their comfort of salvation upon unsound grounds,
viz., some upon dreams and ravishes of spirit by fits; others
upon the reformation of their lives; others upon duties and
performances, etc.; wherein they discovered three special errors: 1. That they had not come to hate sin, because it was
filthy, but only left it, because it was hurtful. 2. That, by
reason of this, they had never truly closed with Christ, (or
rather Christ with them,) but had made use of him only to
help the imperfection of their sanctification and duties, and not
made him their sanctification, wisdom, etc. 3. They expected
to believe by some power of their own, and not only and wholly
from Christ.
Those of Dorchester, who had removed their cattle to Connecticut before winter, lost the greatest part of them this winter; yet some, which came late, and could not be put over the
river, lived very well all the winter without any hay. The
people also were put to great straits for want of provisions.
They eat acorns, and malt, and grains. They lost near ~2000
worth of cattle.
7.] At a general court it was ordered, that a certain number of the magistrates should be chosen for life;1 (the reason
1 burdened 11
0 Dorchester, four more than thirty years.
His sacred dust with thee thine honor rears.
Obiit April 22, 1669."
Other lines, of equal value, may be seen in Johnson, lib. I. c. 32.
1 Only three years did this council for life subsist. The occasion of the estab



220                      JOHN HAYNES.                         [1636.
was, for that it was showed from the word of God, etc., that the
principal magistrates ought to be for life). Accordingly, the
25th of the 3d mo. John Winthrop and Thomas Dudley were
chosen to this place, and Henry Vane, by his place of governour, was president of this council for his year.' It was likewise ordered, that quarter courts should be kept in several
places for ease of the people, and, in regard of the II scarcity II
*1S5  of victuals, the remote towns should send their votes by
proxy2 to the court of elections; and that no church, etc.,
should be allowed, etc., that was gathered without consent of
the churches and the magistrates.
1Mr. Benjamin's8 house burnt, and ~100 in goods lost.
Il streights 11
lishment failed with the increase of the troubles in England; and though the
word of God showed its propriety, jealousy was caused against the body of the
magistrates, who easily avoided the unpopularity. See Hubbard, 244, who,
however, copied but partially the account furnished by our author of the proceedings of the court in May, 1639. The object of this change in the constitution, I discover, not in the holy scriptures, but in Cotton's epistle to Lord Say.
It was, to tempt over here some of the peers, and other leading men, who might
expect at home, in due season, to be raised to the upper house, by assuring them
of an equal tenure of power on this side of the ocean.
1 This sentence is in Winthrop's margin.
2 It should be remembered, that the general court, for choice of governour
and assistants, had formerly consisted of the whole body of the freemen of the
jurisdiction assembled at one place, but that proxies were directed at the court
in March preceding to be now received, as the Records show: " It is ordered,
that the general court to be holden in May next, for election of magistrates, etc.
shall be holden at Boston, and that the towns of Ipswich, Newbury, Salem,
Sagus, Weymouth, and Hingham, shall have liberty to stay so many of their
freemen at home, for the safety of their towns, as they judge needful; and that
the said freemen, that are appointed by the town to stay at home, shall have
liberty, for this court, to send their voices by proxy."
Another order, immediately following, is worth transcription: " Also it is
agreed, that all other towns that are nearer shall send ten of their members
out of each town to the said court, completely armed with muskets, swords,
shots, etc."
3 Of this person, who, from the title given him by Winthrop, and the amount
of his loss by the casualty, was, we may be certain, of some consideration in the
colony, I have no other information, but that he was admitted free of the company, 6 November, 1632, lived at Watertown, and died in June, 1645. His
will, made in that month, and proved in the next, is in our first volume of




1636.]               JOHN HAYNES.                       221
12.] The Charity, of Dartmouth, of one hundred and twenty
tons, arrived here, laden with provisions.  She came in with a
strong N. W. wind, and was in great danger to have been lost
between Allerton Point and Natascott; but the Lord, in mercy
to his people, delivered her, after she had struck twice, and upon
the 11 ebb. [  Mr. Peter bought all the provisions at fifty in the
hundred,' (which saved the country ~200,) and distributed them
to all the towns, as each town needed.
The church of Salem    was still infected with Mr. Williams
his opinions, so as most of them held it unlawful to hear in the
ordinary assemblies in England, because their foundation was
antichristian, and we should, by hearing, hold communion with
them; and some went so far as they were ready to separate
from the church upon it.   Whereupon the church sent two
brethren, and a letter, to the elders of the other churches, for
their advice in three points: 1. Whether (for satisfying the
weak) they might promise not to hear in England any false
church.  This was not thought safe, because then they    186
would draw them to the like towards the other churches
here, who were all of opinion, that it was lawful, and that hearing
was not 11 2church 1 communion. 2. If they were not better, to
grant them dismission to be a church by themselves. This was
also opposed, for that it was not a remedy of God's ordering;
neither would the magistrates allow them to be a church, being
but three men and eight women; and besides, it were dangerous to raise churches on such grounds. 3. Whether they ought
then to excommunicate them, if they did withdraw, etc. This
was granted, yet, withal, that if they did not withdraw or run
into contempt, they ought, in these matters of difference of
opinion in things not fundamental nor scandalous, etc., to bear
each with other.
[Very large blank.]
|| cliffll             12 holding II
Probate Records, and the inventory in the second. The eldest son is named
John, after his father. I presume the second or third generation removed to
Norwich, Connecticut, or its neighborhood, and perhaps the alderman of that
name, in this city, some years ago, was a descendant.
11 suppose fifty per cent. advance is meant. A letter, in the Appendix to
this volume, from our author to his son, John, of 26 of this month, takes notice
of this purchase, and the amoumt of provisions.
19*




222                    HENRY VANE.                   [1636.
Mo. 3. 15.] Mr. Peter, preaching at Boston, made an earnest
request to the church for [blank] things: 1. That they would
spare their teacher, Mr. Cotton, for a time, that he might go
through the Bible, and raise marginal notes upon all the knotty
places of the scriptures. 2. That a new book of i martyrs l
might be made, to begin where the other had left. 3. That a
form of church government might be drawn according to the
scriptures. 4. That they would take order for employment of
people, (especially women and children, in the winter time;)
for he feared that idleness would be the 112ruin 11 both of church
and commonwealth.
Here arrived a ship, called the St. Patrick, belonging to Sir
Thomas Wentworth,1 deputy of Ireland, one Palmer master.
When she came near Castle Island, the lieutenant of the fort
went aboard her, and made her strike her flag, which the master
took as a great injury, and complained of it to the magistrates,
who, calling the lieutenant before them, heard the cause, and
declared to the master that he had no commission so to do.
And because he had made them strike to the fort, (which had
then no colors 1 3 abroad 1|,) they tendered the master such satisfaction as he desired, which was only this, that the lieutenant,
aboard their ship, should acknowledge his error, that so all the
ship's company might receive satisfaction, lest the lord deputy
should have been informed, that we had offered that discourtesy
to his ship, which we had never offered to any before.
*187   25.]  Henry Vane, Esq., before mentioned, was chosen
governour; and, because he was son and heir to a privy
counsellor in England, the ships congratulated his election with
a volley of great shot. The next week he invited all the masters
(there were then fifteen great ships, etc.,) to dinner. After they
had dined, he propounded three things to them: 1. That all
ships, which should come after this year, should come to an
II blank 11    112 vice II    113 aboard 11
1 This friend of New England was afterwards the great Earl of Strafford,
with whose labors the king was better pleased than the commons. He expiated
his unpopularity on the scaffold; and the success of the unconstitutional means
employed for his destruction, gave encouragement to the illegal proceedings
against his master.




1636.]                   HENRY VANE.                        223
anchor before they came at the fort, except they did send
their boat before, and did satisfy the commander that they were
friends. 2. That, before they offered any goods to sale, they
would deliver an invoice, etc., and give the governour, etc.,
twenty-four hours' liberty to refuse, etc. 3. That their men
might not stay on shore (except upon necessary business) after
sunset. These things they all willingly condescended unto.
31.]  Mr. Hooker, pastor of the church of Newtown, and the
lmost l  of his congregation, went to Connecticut.     His wife
was carried in a horse litter; and they drove one hundred and
sixty cattle, and fed of their milk by the way.
The last winter Capt. Mason died.    He was the chief mover
in all the attempts against us, and was to have sent the general
governour, and for this end was providing shipping; but the
Lord, in mercy, taking him away, all the business fell on sleep,
so as ships came and brought what and whom          they would,
without any question or control.1
Divers of the ships this spring, both out of the Downs and
from Holland, came in five weeks; and Mr. Ball his ship went
from hence to England the 16th of January, and saw land there
in eighteen days.
One Miller, master's mate in the Hector, spake to some of
our people aboard his ship, that, because we had not the king's
colors at our fort, we were all traitors and 11 2rebels,li etc.  The
governour sent for the master, Mr. Ferne, and acquainted him
with it, who promised to deliver him to us. Whereupon we
sent the marshal and four sergeants to the ship for him, *188
but the master not being aboard, they would not deliver
I rest 11                      12 robbers 11
1 We must always be careful to distinguish between the opinions and the
principles of our fathers. The spirit of the age, in which religious controversy
had borne or was bearing all its evil fruits, was not a spirit of charity; and the
judgment of heaven was, by each party, perpetually invoked against the other.
In the wilderness the error increased, but it increased faster at home; and
much as we regret the fanaticism of the two first ages of New England, the
examples of its baleful influence are more numerous and more shocking, though
for a shorter season, in the native land of our ancestors. The disaster of Mason
will be mentioned hereafter in more detail. Perhaps his dying declaration, of
good will to our country, prevented a heavier condemnation at the tribunal of
our author, as it has and will do in the judgment of later times.




224                      HENRY    VANE.                      [1636.
him; whereupon the master went himself and brought him to
the court, and the words being proved against him by two
witnesses, he was committed. The next day the master, to
pacify his men, who were in a great tumult, requested he might
be delivered to him, and did undertake to bring him      before us
again the day after, which was granted him, and he brought
him to us at the time appointed. Then, in the presence of all
the rest of the masters, he acknowledged his offence, and set
his hand to a submission,1 and was discharged.           Then   the
governour desired the masters, that they would deal freely, and
tell us, if they did take any offence, and what they required of
us.   They answered, that, in regard they should be examined
upon their return, what colors they saw here, they did desire
that the king's colors might be |l spread |l at our fort. It was
answered, that we had not the king's colors. Thereupon two
of them did offer them freely to us. We replied, that for our
part we were fully persuaded, that the cross in the ensign was
idolatrous, and therefore might not set it in our ensign; but,
because the fort was the king's, and maintained in his name,
we thought that his own colors might be 11 2spread 1I there.     So
the governour accepted the colors of Capt. Palmer, and promI suspended 11                 112 suspended 11
1 If we should infer, from the language of this submission, that it was prepared
by some friendly hand, we may still derive, from the incident, strong illustration of the regular discipline or severe police maintained by our fathers over
the most refractory persons. I find it in Col. Rec. I. 179: "Whereas I,
Thomas Millerd, have given out most false and reproachful speeches against his
majesty's loyal and faithful subjects, dwelling in the Massachusetts Bay in
America, saying that they were all traitors and rebels, and that I would affirm
so much before the governour himself, which expressions I do confess (and so
desire may be conceived) did proceed from the rashness and distemper of my
own brain, without any just ground or cause so to think or speak, for which my
unworthy and sinful carriage being called in question, I do justly stand committed, - my humble request therefore is, that, upon this my full and ingenuous
recantation of this my gross failing, it would please the governour and the rest
of the assistants, to accept of this my humble submission, to pass by my fault,
and to dismiss me from further trouble; and this my free and voluntary confession I subscribe with my hand this 9th June, 1636. Thomas Millerd." A new
scribe appears in the Records for one or two pages preceding this, and the
change of the culprit's name might be charged to him as fairly as to our author.
But in another page he has given it like Winthrop.




1636.]              HENRY VANE.                   225
ised they should be set up at Castle Island. We had conferred
over night with Mr. Cotton, etc., about the point. The governour, and Mr. Dudley, and Mr. Cotton, were of opinion, that
they might be set up at the fort upon this distinction, q189
that it was maintained in the king's name. Others,1 not
being so persuaded, answered, that the governour and Mr.
Dudley, being two of the council, and being persuaded of the
lawfulness, etc., might use their power to set them up. Some
others, being not so persuaded, could not join in the act, yet
would not oppose, as being doubtful, etc.
Mo. 5. 9.] The governour, etc., went to Salem.
Many ships lying ready at Natascott to set sail, Mr. Peter
went down and preached aboard the Hector, and the ships
going forth met with an east wind, which put them in again;
whereupon he stayed and kept the sabbath with them.
5.] Mr. Buckly and Mr. Jones, two English ministers, appointed this day to gather a church at Newtown, to settle at
Concord. They sent word, three days before, to the governour and deputy, to desire their presence; but they took it in
ill part, and thought not fit to go, because they had not come
to them before, ~ (as they ought to have done, and as others had
done before,) ~ to acquaint them with their purpose.
[Very large blank.]
~ Mr. Winthrop, jun., gave ~5 towards the building of the
meeting-house at Charlton. I sent it by James Brown.~
20.] John.Gallop, with one man more, and two little boys,
coming from Connecticut in a bark of twenty tons, intending
to put in at Long Island to trade, and being 11 at 11 the mouth of
the harbor,.] 2were II forced, by a sudden change of the wind, to
bear up for Block Island or Fisher's Island, lying before
Naragansett, where they espied a small pinnace, which, drawing near unto, they found to be Mr. Oldham's (an old planter,
and a member of Watertown congregation, who had been
long out a trading, having with him only two English boys,
I near 1                     112 was11
1 Among these others, I am sorry to observe, was Winthrop himself. See
Addenda.




226                  HENRY VANE.                [1636.
and two Indians of Naragansett). So they hailed II him, 1I but
had no answer; and the deck was full of Indians, (fourteen in
all,) and a canoe was gone from her full of Indians and goods.
Whereupon they suspected they had killed John Oldham, and
the rather, because the Indians let slip and set up sail, being
two miles from shore, and the wind and tide being off the
shore of the island, whereby they drove towards the main at
Naragansett.  Whereupon they went ahead of them, and
having but two pieces and two pistols, and nothing but duck
shot, they bear up near the Indians, (who stood ready armed
with guns, pikes, and swords,) and let fly among them, and so
*190 galled them  s 2as 1] they all gate under hatches. Then they
stood off again, and returning with a good gale, they
stemmed her upon the quarter and almost overset her, which so
frightened the Indians, as six of them leaped overboard and
were drowned. Yet they durst not board her, but stood off
again, and fitted their anchor, so as, stemming her the second
time, they bored her 11[bow [I through with their anchor, and so
sticking fast to her, they made divers shot through her, (being
but inch board,) and so raked her fore and aft, as they must
needs kill or hurt some of the-Indians; but, seeing none of them
come forth, they gate loose from her and stood off again. Then
four or five more of the Indians leaped into the sea, and were
likewise drowned. So there being now but four left in her, they
boarded her; whereupon one Indian came up and yielded; him
they bound and put into hold. Then another yielded, whom
they bound. But John Gallop, being well acquainted with their
skill to untie themselves, if two of them  4be 1] together, and
having no place to keep them asunder, he threw him bound
into [the] sea; and, looking about, they found John Oldham
under an old seine, ~ stark naked, ~ his head cleft to the brains,
and his hand and legs cut as if they had been cutting them off,
and yet warm. So they put him into the sea; but could not
get to the other two Indians, who were in a little room underneath, with their swords.  So they took the goods which
were left, and the sails, etc., and towed the boat away; but
night coming on, and the wind rising, they were forced
11 them  1i  112 that 1  I1 boom 11  11were 1




1636.1                 HENRY VANE.                      227
to turn her off, and the wind carried her to the Naragansett
shore.'
26.]  The two Indians, which were with Mr. Oldham, and
one other, came from Canonicus, the chief sachem of Naragansett, with a letter from' Mr. Williams to the governour, to certify him what had befallen Mr. Oldham, and how grievously
they were afflicted, and that Miantunnomoh was gone, with
seventeen canoes and I] two hundred I 2 men, to take revenge,
etc. But, upon examination of the Indian who was brought
prisoner3 to us, we found that all the sachems of the Nara-  191
gansett, except Canonicns and Miantunnomoh, were the
contrivers of Mr. Oldham's death; and the occasion was, because he went to make peace, and trade with the Pekods last
year, as is before related. The prisoner said also, that Mr. Oldham's two Indians were acquainted with it; but, because they
were sent as messengers from Canonicus, we would not imprison them. But the governour wrote back to Mr. Williams to
let the Naragansetts know, that we expected they should send
us the two boys, and take revenge upon the islanders; and
withal gave Mr. Williams a caution to look to himself, if we
should have occasion to make war upon the Naragansetts, for
Block Island was under them.   And the next day, 27, he wrote
to Canonicus by one of those two Indians, and that he had
suspicion of him, etc., yet he had sent him back, because he was
a messenger, but did expect that, if he should send for the said
two Indians, he should send them to us to clear themselves.
30.]  Mr. Oldham's two boys were sent home by one of
Miantunnomoh his men, with a letter from Mr. Williams, signifying that Miantunnomoh had caused the sacher of Niantick
| twenty 11
1 Prince, though usually accurate in chronology to a proverb, in his introduction to Mason's History of the Pequot war, printed at Boston, 1736, republished in our 2 Hist. Coll. VIII. has, page 123, made the murder of Oldham a
year earlier.
2 It would have been no bold exertion of conjectural criticism, to change the
reading of the former edition in this place, since a fleet of seventeen sail, even
of canoes, would, by twenty persons, be weakly manned for warlike revenge;
but I assure the reader the MS. was plain.
3 He is, I presume, the one whom Gallop brought, the first taken, the next
being thrown overboard.




228                      HENRY VANE.                       [1636
to send to Block Island for them; and that he had near one
hundred fathom of wampom and other goods of Mr. Oldham's,
which should be reserved for us; and that three of the seven,
which were drowned, were sachems; and one of the two,
which were hired by the sachem      of Niantick, was dead also.
So we wrote back to have the rest of those, which were accessory, to be sent to us, and the rest of the goods, and that he
should tell Canonicus and Miantunnomoh, that we held them
innocent; but that six other under-sachems were guilty, etc.
Mo. 6. 3.]    Samuel Maverick, who had been in Virginia
near twelve months, now returned with two pinnaces, and
brought some fourteen heifers, and about eighty goats, (having
lost [I above II twenty goats by the way).,One of his pinnaces
was about forty tons, of cedar, built at I 2Barbathes,ll     and
brought to Virginia by Capt. Powell, who there dying, she
was sold for a small matter. There died in Virginia, (by
his relation,) this last year, above eighteen hundred, and corn
was there at twenty shillings the bushel, the most of the people having lived a great time of nothing but purslain, etc.
It is very strange, what was related by him and many others,
that, above sixty miles up James River, they dig nowhere
but they find the ground full of oyster shells, and fishes' bones,
etc.; 113yea, ll he affirmed that he saw  the bone of a whale
taken out of the earth (where they digged for a well) eighteen
feet deep.
*192    8.]  Lieutenant Edward Gibbons,' and John HigginII about 11      II2 blank I        II 3 yet Il
1 Edward Gibbons is named with honor in Eliot's, but not in Allen's Dictionary. He was early admitted into the Boston church, being No. 113, and his
piety was probably more approved, because he had belonged to the irregular
adventurers of Mount Wollaston. His name very frequently occurs in this
History. He was deputy, several years, for Boston, made major general of all
our forces, 1649, and in 1650,-not 1644, as Eliot has it,-attained to the
high rank of being an assistant. Death closed his services 9 December, 1654.
In our Probate Records, II. 147, the inventory of his estate shows a considerable fortune for those times,- ~535.6.7; yet the next information is of a special
commission, resembling much those of our days, on account of its insolvency.
Correction of error in amount of this inventory is offered in Ed. 2 of the Hist.
of the Art. Co., p. 60, as if it should be ~ 294.19.6, and the date of return is
made 15 of December, 1654. But the editor of that work should have seen on




1636.]                    HENRY VANE.                           229
son,' with Cutshamekin, the sagamore of Massachusetts, were
sent to Canonicus to treat with him     about the murder of John
Oldham. 13. They returned, being very well accepted, and
good success in their business.      They observed in the sachem
much state, great command over his men, and marvellous wisdom   in his answers and the carriage of the whole treaty, clearing himself and his neighbors of the murder, and offering assistance for revenge of it, yet upon very safe and wary conditions.2
25.]   The governour and council, having lately assembled the
rest of the magistrates and ministers, to advise with them about
doing justice upon the Indians for the death of Mr. Oldham, and
all agreeing that it should be attempted with expedition, did
this day send forth ninety men, distributed to four commanders, -  Capt. John Underhill, Capt. Nathaniel Turner,8 Ensign
Jenyson, and Ensign Davenport; and over them all, as general,
John Endecott, Esq., one of the assistants, was sent.         They
were embarked in three pinnaces, and carried two shallops
and two Indians with them. They had commission to put to
death the men of Block Island,4 but to spare the women and
the page beyond that at which he stopped that the return was on 30 December,
and my amount in the former edition was right within a half penny, of which I
confess the omission. Gibbons had been too adventurous in the great undertakings of La Tour, and was, beside, unfortunate in trade. An idle tale of his
being found in a great ship, 17 July, 1640, in the arctic ocean, near Behring's
Straits, when he was five days before in Boston, acting as a selectman, was used
by an able writer in the N. A. Rev. for Jan., 1839, p. 131, and explained in the
No. for April following, p. 559.
1 Of this gentleman, who became afterwards a minister of high respectability
in his father's place at Salem, and survived all of his generation in the pulpit,
good accounts are furnished by Eliot and Allen.
2 From the minuteness of his description of the Indian court, I think Johnson must have accompanied these ambassadors. See book II. c. 6, of the Wonder-working Providence.
3 He was representative, in the six first general courts, from Sagus or Lynn;
but we have not, except his disaster by fire, mentioned by our author under
date of January, 1636-7, any further account of him, than the present service
with Endecott.
4 No degree of veneration for our fathers can lead to hesitation in coinciding
with a remark I find in a copy of the first part of this History, formerly owned
by Dr. Belknap, that these were' sanguinary orders." The numbers of the
island must have been so small, that it was not matter of necessity; and perVOL..                       20




230                    HENRY VANE.                      [1636.
*193 children, and to bring them away, and to take possession
of the island; and from  thence to go to the Pequods to
demand the murderers of Capt. Stone and other English, and
one thousand fathom of wampom      for damages, etc., and some
of their children |I as I hostages, which if they should refuse,
they were to obtain it by force. No man was impressed for
this service, but all went voluntaries.
26.]  Miantunnomoh, sacher     of Naragansett, sent a messenger to us, with a letter from  Mr. Williams, to signify to us,
that they had taken one of the Indians, who had broken prison
and was escaped away, and had him       safe for us, when we
would send for him, (we had before sent to him 112toll that
end;) and the other (being also of Block Island) he had sent
away, (not knowing, as it seemed, that he had been our prisoner,) according to their promise, that they would not entertain
any of that island, which should come to them. But we conceived it was rather in love to him; for he had been his servant
formerly.
We sent for the two Indians. One was sent us; the other
was dead before the messengers came.
A ship of one hundred and twenty tons was built at Marblehead, and called the Desire.'
II for 1                           112 forll
haps we may attribute the cruel direction chiefly to the limited knowledge of
the new governour.
1 Being furnished with the original!bill of particulars for part of the outfits of
this ship, signed William Peirse, I transcribe it: " The ship Desire, or the owners thereof, are debited to account of the bark Warwick, or her owners, for
these particulars following, taken by order of the Gov. Winthrop: -
1636. Three falcons and one falconet, cwt. 38.3.0, with the old) ~21510
carriages, at 10s.6, per cwt......... 
An old poop lanthorn, 5s. and a small crow of iron, 2s.6.  7. 6
Two spindles for vanes, 18d. a pump bolt and a wooden  2. 2
brake, all.............
A small anchor stock, 4s. a pistol barrel, 6d. and three  5. 6
small tackle hooks, 12d. all is......
A copper funnel, 6s., 2 sponge staves, a rammer and a  1  0
ladle, all............
Eleven falcon shot, 4s. a small bell, 3s........    7. 0
A small anchor, esteemed at......                 2.0. 0
~24.19. 0




1636.]                     HENRY VANE.                          231
7ber, 8.] At a general court, a levy was made of ~1200 to
pay the country's debts.'
The trade of beaver and wampom was to be farmed, and all
others restrained from trading.
23.]   A new   church was gathered at Dorchester, with      *194
approbation of the magistrates and elders, etc.2
August 24.]    John Endecott, Esq., and four captains under
him, with twenty men a-piece, set sail. They arrived at Block
Island the last of the same.    The wind blowing hard at N. E.
there went so great a surf, as they had much to do to land;
and about forty Indians were ready upon the shore to entertain them with their arrows, which they shot |l oftll at our
men; but, being armed with |]2corslets, Il they had no hurt,
only one was lightly hurt upon his neck, and another near his
foot.  So soon as 11 one man 11 leaped on shore, they all fled.
The island is about ten miles long, and four broad, full of
small hills, and all overgrown with brush-wood of oak, —no
good timber 11 4in II it, -so as they could not march but in one
file and in the narrow paths.3 There were two plantations, three
miles in sunder, and about sixty wigwams, --       some very large
and fair, — and [15 above 11 two hundred acres of corn, some gath11 offil  112 croslets 11  113 our men were 11  114 on 11   115 about {[
1 The apportionment upon the several towns does not appear, it being left to
the discretion of a committee. So heavy a contribution could not be made at
once, and the order of court was, " one half at three months, and the other at a
time to be appointed at the next session."
2 Being written in the margin, with the day, but not the month, given, this
sentence left an uncertainty, from inspection, whether August, to which the
subsequent paragraph refers, or September, which had accidentally obtained
precedence, were the true date. But the Dorchester Records prove it to be
the earlier month. The author wished to bring into one view the whole story
of Endecott's expedition, and therefore, after the report of proceedings at September court, inserted the story of the campaign with the marginal date of the
day when the fleet departed. Hubbard, 274, copying it, made a careless transscript of the day of the court in the above recital, and neglected, as he usually
did, to seek collateral information.
3 Dr. Stiles, president of Yale College, one of the most diligent antiquaries
our country has furnished, made a hasty collation of some parts of the former
edition with the original MS. and in this place read passes. I am convinced of
the correctness of the text.




232                  HENRY VANE.                [1636.
ered and laid on heaps, and the rest standing. When they had
spent two days in searching the island, and could not find the
Indians, they burnt their wigwams, and all their matts, and
some corn, and staved seven canoes, and departed. They could
not tell what men they killed, but some were wounded and carried away by their fellows.
Thence they went to the mouth of the Connecticut, where
they lay wind-bound four days, and taking thence twenty men
and two shallops, they sailed to the Pequot harbor, where an
Indian came to them in a canoe, and demanded what they
were, and what they would have. The general told him,
he came from the governour of Massachusetts to speak with
their sachems. He told him, Sassacus was gone to Long
Island. Then he bade him go tell the other sachem, etc. So
he departed; and in the mean time our men landed, but with
much danger, if the Indians had made use of their advantage,
"195 for all the shore was high, rugged rocks, etc. Then the
messenger returned, and the Indians began to gather about
our men till there were about three hundred of them; and some
four hours past while the messenger went to and fro, bringing
still excuses for the sachem's not coming. At II last |l the general told the messenger, and the rest of the Indians near, the
particulars of his commission, and sent him to tell the sachem,
that if he would not come to him, nor yield to those demands,
he would fight with them. The messenger told him, that the
sachem would meet him, if our men would lay down their
arms, as his men should do their bows, etc. When the general
saw they did but dally, to gain time, he bad them be gone, and
shift for themselves; for they had dared the English to come
fight with them, and now they were come for that purpose.
Thereupon they all withdrew. Some of our men would have
made a shot at them, but the general would not suffer them;
but when they were gone out of musket shot, he marched after
them, supposing they would have stood to it awhile, as they
did to the Dutch. But they all fled, and shot at our men from
the thickets and rocks, but did us no harm. Two of them our
men killed, and hurt others. So they marched up to their town,
and burnt all their wigwams and matts, but their corn being
I1 length 11




1636.]                HENRY VANE.                     233
standing, they could not spoil it. At night they returned to
their vessels, and the next day they went ashore on the west
side of the river, and burnt all their wigwams, and spoiled their
canoes; and so set sail, and came to the Naragansett, where
they landed their men, and, the 14th of 7ber, they came all safe
to Boston, which was a marvellous providence of God, that not
a hair fell from the head of any of them, nor any sick or feeble
person among them.' As they came by Naragansett, Cutshamakin, an Indian, who went with them for an interpreter, who,
being armed with a Ilcorslet l and a piece, had crept into a
swamp and killed a Pequot, and having flayed off the skin of
his head, he sent it to Canonicus, who presently sent it to all
the sachems about him, and returned many thanks to the English, and sent four fathom of wampom to Cutshamakin.
The soldiers who went were all voluntaries, and had only
their victuals provided, but demanded no pay. The whole
charge of the voyage came to about ~200. The seamen had
all wages.
The Naragansett men told us after, that thirteen of the *196
Pequods were killed, and forty wounded; and but one of
Block Island killed.2
At the last general court, order was taken to restrain the
trade with the Indians, and the governour and council appointed
to let it to farm, for a rent to be paid to the treasury.
The inhabitants of Boston, who had taken their farms and
lots at Mount Woollaston, finding it very burdensome to have
their business, etc. so far off, desired to gather a church there.
Many meetings were about it. The great let was, in regard it
was given to Boston for upholding the town and church there,
which end would be frustrate by the removal of so many chief
1 croslet 1
Yet I find, at the general court in October, a grant of ~5 to " George
Munnings, in regard of the loss of his eye in the voyage to Block Island;" and
an addition to that grant was made, on the same day, of the fines imposed upon
members in that session of four days, for absence at the hour of meeting in the
morning, amounting to ~3 more.
2 One prisoner was, by order of court, made a slave for life. If a man, he
was preserved contrary to the instructions of the troops, and perhaps against his
own desire.
20*




234                     HENRY VANE.                       [1636.
men as would go thither. For helping of this, it was propounded, that such as dwelt there should pay six-pence the
acre, yearly, for such lands as lay within a mile of the water,
and three-pence for that which lay further off.
[Very large blank.]
A ship of Barnstaple arrived here with eighty heifers.
Another from   Bristol arrived, a fortnight after, with some
cattle and passengers; ~but she had delivered most of her
cattle and passengers ~ at Pascataquack for Sir Ferdinando
Gorge1 his plantation at Aquamenticus.
Canonicus sent word of some English, whom the Pequods
had killed at Saybrook; and      1r. Williams wrote, that the
Pequods and Naragansetts were at i| truce, 1 and that Miantunnomoh told him, that the Pequods had labored to persuade
them, that the English were minded to destroy all Indians.
Whereupon we sent for Miantunnomoh to come to us.
[Very large blank.]
Another windmill was erected at Boston, and one at Charlestown; and a watermill at Salem, and another at Ipswich, and
another at Newbury.2
[Very large blank.]
I|warll
1I take this opportunity of printing the name as Winthrop wrote it, though
usually spelt as two syllables. Probably the family had, in early times, as the
old books, and Collins's Peerage, give it occasionally, used the writing of
Gorge; and the old grammar, for the possessive case, employing the pronominal his, led them and all others to dignify it by the final s.
2 With this paragraph closes the regular sequence of narrative in the first
volume of MS. For the many happy hours and days spent upon it, no slight
share of veneration is by me felt and acknowledged.




~ A  CONTINUATION1                     *197
OF THE
HISTORY OF NEW ENGLAND.~
1636.
8ber.]  AFTER Mr. Endecott and our men were departed
from the Pequod, the twenty men of Saybrook lay wind-bound
there, and went to fetch some of the Indians' corn; and having
fetched every man one sackful to their boat, they returned for
more, and having loaded themselves, the Indians set upon them.
So they laid down their corn and gave fire upon them, and the
Indians shot arrows at them.  The place was open for the distance of musket shot, and the Indians kept the covert, save
when they 1] came 1| forth, about ten at a time, and discharged
their arrows. The English put themselves into a single file,
and some ten only (who had pieces II 2which 1I could reach them)
shot; the others stood ready to keep them    from breaking in
upon our men.    So they continued the most part of the afternoon. Our men killed some of them, as they supposed, and
hurt others; and they shot only one of ours, and he was armed,2
|iran I                           I11that 1
1 Deeply is the loss of the author's second volume of his MS. History'regretted
by me. On the thirteenth page of my next volume closes the perfect verification of the author's text by collation, though the notes for the lost part of it were
saved, when the text was destroyed by fire. Any inquisitive reader can verify
only that part of this work which is contained in the first and third volumes of
the original MS. of Winthrop, preserved in the Library of the Mass. Historical
Society.
2 The meaning is, with defensive armor. Back and breast pieces of iron were
then commonly worn. Those without arms had muskets.




236                   HENRY VANE.                    [1636.
all the rest being without arms. He was shot through the leg.
Their arrows were all shot compass, so as our men, standing
single, could easily see and avoid them; and one was employed
to gather up their arrows. At last they emptied their sacks,
and retired safe to their boat.
About two days after, five men of Saybrook went up the
river about four miles, to fetch hay in a meadow on Pequot
*198 side. The grass was so high as some Pequots, being hid
in it, set upon our men, and one, that had hay on his
back, they took; the others fled to their boat, one of them
having five arrows in him, (but yet recovered). He who was
taken was a godly young man, called [blank] Butterfield;
(whereupon the meadow was named Butterfield Meadow).1
About fourteen days after, six of Saybrook, being sent to keep
the house in their corn-field, about two miles from the fort,
three of them went forth on fowling, (which the lieutenant had
strictly forbidden them). Two had pieces, and the third only a
sword. Suddenly about one hundred Indians, 1 came l] out of
the covert, and 11 2set 11 upon them.  13 He 11 who had the sword
brake through them, (and received only two shot, not dangerous,) and escaped to the house, which was not a bow-shot off,
and persuaded the other two to follow him; but they stood still
till the Indians came and took them, and carried them away
with their pieces. Soon after they burnt down the said house,
and some outhouses and haystacks within a bow-shot of the
fort, and killed a cow, and shot divers others; but they all came
home with the arrows in them.2
21.] Miantunnomoh, the sachem of Naragansett, (being sent
for by the governour,) came to Boston with two of Canonicus's
sons, and another sachem, and near twenty sanaps. Cutshamakin gave us notice the day before. The governour sent
rose II       I12 shot l        I3the man l
1 Hubbard, 252, after faithful transcription of this narrative, of the fate of
Butterfield, has added from Ovid, Icarus Icariis nomina dedit aquis. We should
be well pleased, did other parts of his volume show equal attention to the
reader's gratification.
2 Lyon Gardiner's narrative is very animated; and his objection to the policy
of the war at that time, and animadversion on Endecott's conduct of it, show
much sound judgment. See 3 Mass. Hist. Coll. III. 136, and X. 173.




1636.]               HENRY VANE.                   237
twenty musketeers to meet him at Roxbury.  He came to
Boston about noon. The governour had called together most
of the magistrates and ministers, to give countenance to our
proceedings, and to advise with them about the terms of peace.
It was dinner time, and the sachems and their council dined by
themselves in the same room where the governour dined, and
their sanaps were sent to the inn. After dinner, Miantunnomoh
declared what he had to say to us in [blank] propositions, which
were to this effect: - That they had always loved the English,
and desired firm peace with us: That they would continue in
war with the Pequods and their confederates, till they were subdued; and desired we should so do: They would deliver our
enemies to us, or kill them: That if any of theirs should kill
our cattle, that we would not kill them, but cause them to make
satisfaction: That they would now make a firm peace, and
two months hence they would send us a present.
The governour told them, they should have answer the' 99
next morning.
In the morning we met again, and concluded the peace upon
the articles underwritten, which the governour subscribed, and
they also subscribed with their marks, and Cutshamiakin also.
But because we could not well make them understand the articles perfectly, we agreed to send a copy of them to Mr. Williams, who could best interpret them to them. So, after dinner,
they took leave, and were conveyed out of town by some musketeers, and dismissed with a volley of shot,
THE ARTICLES.
1. A firm peace between us and our friends of other plantations, (if they consent,) and their confederates, (if they will observe the articles, etc.,) and our posterities.
2. Neither party to make peace with the Pequods without
the other's consent.
3. Not to harbor, etc., the Pequods, etc.
4. To put to death or deliver over murderers, etc.
5. To return our fugitive servants, etc.
6. We to give them notice when we go against the Pequods,
and they to send us some guides.
7. Free trade between us.




238                  HENRY VANE.                 [1636.
8. None of them to come near our plantations during the
wars with the Pequods, without some Englishman or known
Indian.
9. To continue to the posterity of both parties.
The governour of Plimouth wrote to the deputy,' that we
had occasioned a war, etc., by provoking the Pequods, and no
more, and about the peace with the Naragansetts, etc. The
deputy took it ill, (as there was reason,) and returned answer
accordingly, and made it appear, 1. That there was as much
done as could be expected, considering they fled from us, and
we could not follow them  in our armour, neither had any
to guide us in their country. 2. We went not to make war
upon them, but to do justice, etc., and having killed thirteen
of them for four or five, which they had murdered of 11 ours, [1
and destroyed sixty wigwams, etc., we were not much behind
with them. 3. They had no cause to glory over us, when they
saw that they could not save ~themselves nor~ their houses
and corn from so few of ours. 4. If we had left but one hun*200 dred of them living, those might have done us as much
hurt as they have or are likely to do. 5. It was very likely they would have taken notice of our advantage against them,
and would have sitten still, or have sought peace, if God had
not deprived them of common reason.
About the middle of this month, John Tilley, master of a
bark, coming down Connecticut River, went on shore in a canoe, three miles above the fort, to kill fowl; and having shot
off his piece, many Indians arose out of the covert and took
him, and killed one other, who was in the canoe. This Tilley
was a very stout man, and of great understanding.2  They cut
off his hands, and sent them before, and after cut off his feet.
He lived three days after his hands were cut off; and themselves confessed, that he was a stout man, because he cried not
in his torture.
About this time two houses were burnt, and all the goods in
11 us1
1 Winthrop had not mentioned his own election to the second place.
2 Lyon Gardiner does not afford us much support of this character of Tilley.




1636.]                     HENRY VANE.                            239
them, to a great value; one was one Shaw at Watertown, and
the other one Jackson of Salem, both professors, and Shaw the
day before admitted of the former church. This was very observable in Shaw,' that he concealed his estate, and made show
as if he had been poor, and 11 was 1I not clear of some unrighteous passages.
One Mrs. Hutchinson,2 a member of the church of Boston,
a woman of a ready wit and bold spirit, brought over with her
two dangerous errors: 1. That the person of the Holy Ghost
dwells in a justified person. 2. That no sanctification can help
to evidence to us our justification. -From          these two grew
many branches; as, 1, Our union with the Holy Ghost, so as
a Christian remains dead to every spiritual action, and hath no
gifts nor graces, other than such as are in hypocrites, nor any
other sanctification but the Holy Ghost himself.
[Large blank.]
There joined with her in these opinions a brother of          r201
hers, one Mr. Wheelwright,3 a silenced minister sometimes in England.
[Large blank.]
1| went 11
1 In the original first stood both, instead of Slhaw; they, instead of he; -their,
instead of his; they, instead of he; and were, instead of was, in the progress of
the sentence. The alteration was made by Winthrop. We may therefore conclude, that the report against Jackson's character was unfounded, and that he
did not deserve to have his house and goods burnt by accident.
2 Being descended from this lady, the editor feels not at liberty to indulge his
pen in a memoir, of which all benefit is indeed anticipated by the more honorable labors of a nearer relative, the late Gov. Hutchinson. Time has abated all
the venom of the accusations against her, and the futility of most of them will
forever forbid the inquiry of reason. Mather, in the middle age, and Eliot, of
the present, 1 Hist. Coll. IX. 28-30, give her great credit, as in our text, for
powers of mind; and all are strengthened by the orthodox contemporary, Johnson, lib. I. c. 42, who calls her " the masterpiece of women's wit."
3 A just estimate of this distinguished gentleman may readily be formed from
the pages of this History and the volumes of Hutchinson and Eliot. His long
life afforded him a triumph over the injustice of intolerance, which attempted
hardly any other cure for his errors than banishment. Hubbard marks his
death about 1681.   Some pleasure may be derived from a jeu de mot of
Johnson, to whom we are usually obliged to refer for less valuable qualities. In
his verses to the honor of Wilson, alluding to the opposition he encountered




240                        HENRY VANE.                         [1636.
25.]   The   other ministers in     the bay, hearing     of these
things, came to Boston at the time of 11 a 11 general court, and
entered conference in private with them, to the end they might
know   the certainty of these things; that if need were, they
might write to the church of Boston about them, to prevent (if
it were possible) the dangers, which seemed hereby to hang
over that and    the rest of the churches.      At this conference,
Mr. Cotton was present, and gave satisfaction to them, so as he
agreed with them    all in the point of sanctification, and so did
Mr. Wheelwright; so as they all did hold, that sanctification
did help to evidence justification.    The same he had II 2delivered II plainly in public, divers times; but, for the indwelling of
the person of the Holy Ghost, he held that still,'as some others
of the ministers did,~ but not 113 union II with the person of the
Holy Ghost, *(as Mrs. Hutchinson and others did,)* so as to
amount to a personal union.
[Blank.]
*202     Mr. Cotton, being requested by the general court, with
some other ministers, to assist some of the magistrates
in compiling a body of fundametal laws, did this court, present a model of Moses his judicials, compiled in an             exact
II the I1       112 declared II      II 3very man 11
from the supporters of Mrs. Hutchinson, the author of Wonder-working Providence of Zion's Saviour says,
"They thee deprave, thy ministry despise;
By thy thick utterance seek to call men back
From hearing thee: but Christ for thee did rise,
And turned the wheel-right over them to crack."
From our Town Records I find, that a daughter of Wheelwright was, in
December, 1660, married to Samuel Maverick, soon after one of the royal commissioners to New England. Cotton Mather says, Belknap's New Hampshire,
III. Appendix 1., that a daughter of this pilgrim informed him, that her father
came in the same ship with Whiting of Lynn; and if this were his first appearance in our country, the authenticity of the famous Indian deed to him, for
which, in the same letter, the credulous author of the Magnalia argues, must be
rejected. That letter is well worth reading, as an admirable specimen of feeble
argument; but the other evidence in the cause is irresistible; and it is not
necessary to found an opinion on the incompetency of the advocate. Wheelwright and his wife, Mary, were admitted of Boston church 12 June, 1636,
which was soon after arrival.




1636.]               HENRY VANE.                   241
method, which were taken into further consideration till the
next general court.
30.] Some of the church of Boston, being of the opinion of
Mrs. Hutchinson, had labored to have Mr. Wheelwright to
be called to be a teacher there. It was propounded the last
Lord's day, and was moved again this day for resolution.
Onel of the church stood up and said, he could not consent,
etc. His reason was, because the church being well furnished already with able ministers, whose spirits they knew,
and whose labors God 11 had I[ blessed in much love and sweet
peace, he thought it not fit (no necessity urging) to put the
welfare of the church to the least hazard, as he feared they
should do, by calling in one, whose spirit they knew not, and
one who seemed to dissent in judgment, and instanced in two
points, which he delivered in a late exercise there; 1. That a
believer was more than a creature. 2. That the person of the
Holy Ghost and a believer were united. Hereupon the governour spake, that he marvelled at this, seeing Mr. Cotton had:
lately approved his doctrine. To this Mr. Cotton answered,
that he did not remember the first, and desired /Mr. Wheelwright to explain his meaning.  I-e denied not the points,
but showed upon what occasion he delivered them. Whereupon, there being an 11 2endeavor 1| to make a reconciliation, the
first replied, that, although Mr. Wheelwright and himself might
likely agree about the point, and though he thought reverendly
of his godliness and abilities, so as he could be content to live
under such a ministry; yet, seeing he was apt to raise doubtful disputations, he could not consent to choose him to that
place. Whereupon the church gave way, that he might becalled to a new church, to be gathered at Mount Woollaston,
3now 1 Braintree.2
Divers of the brethren took offence at the said speech
against Mr. Wheelwright; whereupon the same brother spake
in the congregation the next day to this effect: That, hearing
that some of the brethren were offended at his former speech,.
II hath 11    12 indication II   I near
1 This, we cannot doubt, was Winthrop himself.
2 A later hand, I suspect Mather's, wrote the two last words.
VOL. 1.               21




242                  HENRY VANE.                 [1636.
and for that offences were dangerous, he was desirous to give
satisfaction. The offence, he said, was in three things: 1. For
*203 that he had charged the brother in public, and for a thing
so long since delivered, and had not first dealt with him privately. For this he acknowledged it was a failing; but the occasion was, that, when he heard the points delivered, he took
them in a good sense, as spoken figuratively, seeing the whole
scope of his doctrine was sound, and savouring of the spirit
of God; but hearing, very lately, that he was suspected to
hold such opinions, it caused him to think, he spake as he
meant. The 2d cause of offence was, that in his speech appeared some bitterness.  For that he answered, that they
well knew his manner of speech II was t   always earnest in
things, which he conceived to be serious; and professed, that he
did love that brother's person, and did l2 honor II the gifts and
graces of God in him. The 3d was, that he had charged him
to have held things which he did not. For this he answered,
that he had spoken since with the said brother; and for the
two points, -that 11all believer should be more than a creature, and that there should be a personal union between the
Holy Ghost and a believer, -he had denied to hold either of
them; but by necessary consequence, he doth hold them both;
for he holds, (said he,) that there is a real union with the person of the Holy Ghost, and then of necessity it must be personal, and so a believer must be more than a creature, viz.,
God-man, even Christ Jesus. For though, in a true union, the
two terms may still remain the same, etc., as between husband
and wife, he is a man still, and she a woman, (for the union-is
only in sympathy and relation,) yet in a real or personal union
it is not. Now, whether this were agreeable to the doctrine of
the church or not, he left to the church to judge; hoping that
the Lord would direct our teacher to clear these points fully,
as he had well done, in good measure, already. Withal he
made this request to the 11 4brother, 11 (which he said he did seriously and affectionately,) that, seeing these II1 variances II grew
(and some estrangement withal) from some words and phrases,
which were of I6I human invention, [ and tended to doubtful
disputation, rather than to edification, and had no footing in
11as 1  112 know1 113 the 1114 teacher  15 uneasinesses 11 116 known intention 11




1636.]                     HENRY VANE.                            243
scripture, nor had been in use in the purest churches for three
hundred years after Christ, -that, for the peace of the church;
etc., they might be forborn; (he meant, person of the Holy
Ghost, and real union;) and concluded, that he did not intend
to dispute the matter, (as not having place or calling thereunto
then;) yet, if any brother desired to see what light he walled
by, he would be ready to impart;it to him.            How   this was
taken by the congregation, did not appear, for no man'204
spake to it.l
A day or two after, the same brother wrote his mind fully,
with such scriptures and arguments as came to hand, and sent
it to Mr. Cotton.
(9.) 8.]  A new    church was gathered at Sagus, now         Lynn.
The governour and deputy were not there, being letted by the
coming in of a ship, and other occasions. It held the company
two days, Mr. Whiting,2 who was to be the pastor, being very
1 On this subject the prudent advice of our author has, in general, prevailed
in New England; and the personality of the Holy Spirit, with other metaphysical or barbarous terminology "of human invention," has seldom, before the
last age, entered into the controversial labors of our divines, for whom the
language of the scriptures, in their original tongues, appeared sufficient. But
Winthrop was less judicious in his conduct than in advice; for, having obtained from Wheelwright a denial of his holding the two dangerous points, that
a believer was more than a creature, and that there was a personal union between the Holy Spirit and a believer, he should have been contented. Unhappily he proceeded to prove, that, by necessary consequence, both opinions were
maintained by the heresiarch of Braintree. We shall never have peace in the
church, if muddy-headed religionists are to be made answerable for inferences,
which themselves do not deduce from their dogmas. " Calvinism run to seed"
became, in the view of many Christians, a convenient periphrase for antinomianism; and the creed of the predestinarian, to which one or more of the articles of the Church of England makes near, and the catechism of the Westminster Assembly a nearer approach, is often charged with all the dangerous
absurdities of the heathen notions of fate.
2 We may be very confident, that this notion of our author, of the unskifizlness in church matters of the Rev. Samuel Whiting, is an error. He had been
in the country but a few months, and Winthrop probably contracted a prejudice against him from his going so soon to join the company of poor Bachellor,
which had been subjected to animadversion for its irregularities. It is strange,
that Eliot omitted him in his Dictionary; but his memory is duly honoured by
Hubbard, 194, Johnson, lib. I. c. 38, and, above all, Mather, III. 156. In the
great controversy about the Third, or Old South Church, in Boston, he and his




244                     HENRY VANE.                      [1636.
unskilful in church matters, and those who were to be members
not fit for such a work. At last six were accepted, with Mr.
Whiting, but with much ado.
12.] A commission was sent out of the chancery in England to some private men here, to examine witnesses in a cause
depending II there; 1] but nothing was done in it, nor any return
made.1
[Large blank.]
*205    17.]  Two ships arrived here from London, and one a
week before.    They were full of passengers, —men,
women, and children. One of them had been from London
twenty-six weeks, and between land and land        l2 eighteen I]
weeks; (the other two something less time;) their beer all spent
and leaked out a month before their arrival, so as they were
forced to stinking water (and that very little) mixed with sack
or vinegar, and their other provisions very short and bad.  Yet,
through the great providence of the Lord, they came all safe on
shore, and most of them sound and well liking. They had
continual tempests, and when they were near the shore, (being
brought two or three days with a l3strong l east wind,) the
weather was so thick all that time 14 as |I they could not make
land, and the seamen were in great perplexity, when on 11 5the 1
sudden the fog cleared, so as they saw Cape Ann fair on their
starboard bow, and presently grew thick again; yet by their
compass they made their harbor.       There were aboard that
ship two godly ministers, Mr. Nathaniel Rogers,2 and Mr.
1I here II  ||2 sixteen 11  113 stronger 11   14 that II  11a a
son, Samuel, the minister of Billerica, were much engaged. See Hutch. I.
270-274. He is miscalled Lambert by Neal, History of Puritans, II. 304. It
was from regard to Whiting, perhaps, that the town received its name of Lynn,
as he had been a preacher in the borough of Lynn Regis in Norfolk.
1 An unreasonable, though natural jealousy, may be imagined as the ground
of this neglect. It might have come to private men from any court of a foreign
nation.
2 Hubbard, 554, thinks " it might be honor enough to say, that he was the son
of Mr. John Rogers, the famous preacher of Dedham." His descent from one
of the most celebrated of that " noble army of martyrs" seems only a modern
tradition, not heard of by either Mather or Hubbard, the latter of whom was
likely to know of such a claim, for he married the only daughter of Rogers.




1636.]                     HENRY     VANE.                         245
Partridge,1 and many good people in that and the other -206
ships; and we had prayed earnestly for them; (for a small
pinnace of thirty tons, which came out with them, and was
come in three weeks before, brought us news of their coming).
In one of the other ships, the passengers had but half a pint of
drink for a day, fourteen days together; yet, through the Lord's
mercy, did all well.    One of the ships was overset in the night
by a sudden gust, and lay so half an hour, yet righted of
herself.
Cattle were grown to high rates; -      a good cow, ~25 or ~30;
Yet high veneration we must bestow on the amiable progenitor of a numerous list of men, who, in several generations, are esteemed among the worthies
of New England. His son, John, was president of Harvard College; and a
grandson and great grandson were ministers of the same church in Ipswich,
which was thus, by four degrees, supplied for over one hundred and twenty years.
Other descendants have been distinguished for useful services. Eliot, who is
very copious on this family of learned men, quoting the Magnalia, refers to a
particular publication of the first Nathaniel; but the highest subject of praise in
it is omitted. The tract is in the abundant collection at the Boston Athenaum.
It is a letter written from this country to a member of parliament, 17 December,
1643; and though, of course, it favored the cause of liberty and reformation,
yet it contains a few lines of merited censure against the dishonorable aspersions
on the king by Mercurius Britannicus. In that inflammatory gazette,  a perfect copy of which, containing 130 numbers, from 29 August, 1643, to 18 May,
1646, perhaps a unique in America, and certainly very rare in England,
was in my possession at the day of the great fire in Court Street, 1825, -the
number 46, 5 August, 1644, bestows some vulgar abuse on the moderation of
our peacemaker. Though Rogers's letter was printed under the authority of
parliament, being licensed by Calamy, one of the great Westminster divines,
the newspaper affects to consider it as part of an Oxford or royal plot, and
insinuates, that the king had agents in New England. Such is the reception of
truth and decency in a civil war. Mather's name is written in the first page of
this curious belligerent volume; but perhaps the author of the Magnalia, in his
Life of Rogers, thought it unworthy of the amiable pilgrim, to record with
honor the gentle remonstrance in favor of his sovereign.
2 This gentleman is honored in the Magnalia, Morton's Memorial, and Eliot's
and Allen's Dictionaries. He was the first minister of Duxbury, and needs
only the mention, which Judge Davis has given him. He left no son. Margaret, wife of John Marshall, and Elizabeth, wife of Rev. Thomas Thacher, were
his daughters. Johnson bestows on him and Rogers verses of less value for their
beauty than justice. An honorable descendant of George, who came the same
year with Rev. Ralph, and perhaps may be thought his brother, was well known
for his services in our revolutionary war.
21*




246                  HENRY VANE.                    [1636.
a pair of bulls or oxen, ~40.  Corn was [ nowll at 5s. the
bushel, and much rye was sown with the plough this year,
for about thirty ploughs were at work.  I 2Bread l1' was at 9
and 10s. the C.; carpenters at 3s. the day, and other 11 3workmen 11 accordingly.
Things went not well at Connecticut. Their cattle did, many
of them, cast their young, as they had done the year before.
[Large blank.]
Mons. D'Aulney, captain of Penobscott or Pentagonett,
returned answer to the governour's letter, wherein he professed,
that they claimed no further than to Pemaquid, nor would
unless he had further order; and that he supposed, that the
cause why he had no order, etc., was, that the English ambassador had dealt effectually with the cardinal of France for
settling the limits for our peace, etc.
The governour, Mr. Vane, a wise and godly gentleman, held,
with Mr. Cotton and many others, the indwelling of the person
of the Holy Ghost in a believer, and went so far beyond the
rest, as to maintain a personal union with the Holy Ghost;
but the deputy, with the pastor and divers others, denied both;
and the question proceeded so far by disputation, (in writing,
for the peace sake of the church, which all were tender of,) as
at length they could not find the person of the Holy Ghost in
scripture, nor in the primitive churches three hundred years
after Christ. So that, all agreeing in the chief matter of substance, viz. that the Holy Ghost is God, and that he doth dwell
207 in the believers, (as the Father and Son both are said also
to do,) but whether by his gifts and power only, or by
any other manner of presence, seeing the scripture doth not
declare it, —it was earnestly desired, that the word person
might be forborn, being a term of human invention, and tending
to doubtful disputation in this case.2
[Large blank.]
II near 11      112 Board II     II work I
1 made this alteration by conjecture; for the MS. looks very much like the
reading of the former edition, which Dr. Allen, in his Biographical Dictionary,
offers reason for preferring.
2 So much evil has not been caused in New England, as in most other Pro



1636.]                  HENRY VANE.                          247
10ber.]  The governour, receiving letters from his friends in
England, which necessarily required his presence there, imparted the same to the councilx and some others; and, being
thereupon resolved of his return into England, called a court of
deputies, to the end he might have free leave of the country, etc.
They, being assembled in court, and himself declaring the
necessity of his departure, and those of the council affirming
the reasons to be very urgent, though not fit to be imparted to
the whole court, they desired respite to consider thereof till the
morning; when one of the assistants using some pathetical
passages of the loss of such a governour in a time of such danger as did hang over us, from     the Indians and French, the
governour brake forth into tears, and professed, that howsoever
the causes propounded for his departure were such as did concern the utter ruin of his outward estate, yet he would rather
have hazarded all, than have gone from them at this time, if
something else had not pressed him more, viz. the inevitable
danger he saw of God's judgments to come upon us for these
differences and dissensions, which he saw amongst us, and the
scandalous imputations brought upon himself, as if he should
be the cause of all; and therefore he thought it best for him to
give place for a time, etc. Upon this the court concluded that
it would not be fit to give way to his departure upon these
grounds.   Whereupon he recalled himself, and professed,`208
that the reasons concerning his own estate were sufficient
to his own satisfaction for his departure, and therefore desired
testant countries, by the " terms of human invention," not found in the scriptures,
nor in the three earliest centuries of the Christian church. Our exemption is
chiefly owing to the separation of church and state, which gradually proceeded
after the second generation. The early forbearing of the personality of the
Holy Ghost in their technical theology, after examination of the ante-Nicene
fathers, is not more a proof of the learning than of the moderation of the clerical
leaders of Massachusetts.
1 Hubbard, 256, adds, " which at that time consisted but of two, besides himself." In this I doubt the historian of Ipswich is mistaken, and that Vane consulted with the body of assistants, not merely the standing council for life, who
were part of the council of assistants. When the house of deputies assembled,
as in the next sentence is told, " those of the council" must mean the men to
whom the governour imparted his letters; and no suggestion can be perceived,
that it was two, instead of ten or more, who had thus been honored.




248                   HENRY VANE.                    [1636.
the court he might have leave to go; as for the other passage,
it slipped him out of his passion, and not out of judgment.
Upon this the court consented, silently, to his departure. Then
the question was about supply of his place.   Some were of
opinion, that it should be executed by the deputy; but this
scruple being cast in, that if the deputy should die, then the
government would be vacant, and none have power to call any
court, or to preside therein, etc., it was agreed to call a court of
elections, for a new governour and deputy, in case the present
deputy should be chose governour; and an order was made,
(in regard of the season,) that such as would might send their
votes by proxy, in papers sealed up and delivered to the
deputies. And so this court was adjourned four days, and two
days after the court of elections was to assemble. These things
thus passed, divers of the congregation of Boston met together,
and agreed that they did not apprehend the necessity of the
governour's departure upon the reasons alleged, and sent some
of them to declare the same to the court; whereupon the governour expressed himself to be an obedient child to the church,
and therefore, notwithstanding the license of the court, yet,
without the leave of the church, he durst not go away.1
Whereupon a great part of the court and country, who
understood hereof, declared their purpose to continue him still
in his place, and therefore, so soon as the day of election came,
and the country were assembled, it was thought the best way
for avoiding trouble, etc., not to proceed to election, but to
adjourn the court to the great general court in May. And so
the court of deputies, etc., continued still, (for the other court
was not called).
At this court the elders of the churches were called, to advise with them about l discovering ll and pacifying the differences among the churches in point of opinion.2  The governour
11 discontinuing II
1 Hutchinson, I. 55, judiciously regards the conduct of Vane as dissimulation;
and though he followed the narrative as authority of Hubbard, not of Winthrop,
perhaps few admirers of the ardent republican, who opposed the tyranny of
Cromwell, can fail to unite in the opinion.
2 Notice of this consultation is not contained in the public records, and the




1636.]                 HENRY VANE.                     249
having declared the occasion to them, Mr. Dudley desired,
that men would be free and open, etc. Another of the magistrates spake, that it would much further the end they came for,
if men would freely declare what they held different from
others, as himself would freely do, in what point soever he
should be opposed. The governour said, that he would "209
be content to do the like, but that he understood the ministers were about it in a church way, etc., which he spake upon
this occasion: the ministers had met, a little before, and had
drawn into heads all the points, wherein they suspected Mr. Cotton did differ from them, and had propounded them to him, and
pressed him to a direct answer, affirmative or negative, to every
one; which he had promised, and taken time for. This meeting being spoke of in the court the day before, the governour
took great offence at it, as being without his privity, etc., which
this day Mr. Peter told him as I[ plainly 11 of, (with all due reverence,) and how it had sadded the ministers' spirits, that he
should be jealous of their meetings, or seem to restrain their
liberty, etc.  The governour excused his speech, as sudden
and upon a mistake.  Mr. Peter told him also, that *before he
came,* within less than two years since, the churches were in
peace, etc. The governour answered, that the 12light |[ of the
gospel brings a sword, and the children of the bondwoman
would persecute those of the freewoman.     Mr. Peter also
besought him humbly to consider his 11 3youth, II and short experience in the things of God, and to beware of peremptory conclusions, which he perceived him to be very apt unto. He
declared further, that he had observed, both in the Low Countries and here, three principal causes of new opinions and divisions thereupon: 1. Pride, new notions lift up the mind, etc.
2. Idleness. 3. [blank.]
Mr. Wilson made a very sad speech of the condition of our
churches, and the 11 4inevitable II danger of separation, if these
|I protimely 1  112 liberty 11   113 hasty 11   114 invoidable 11
community would, probably, have been more quiet, had the court done no more
than their secretary has preserved.
1 His speech was approved by the court, as from the record, (which luckily consists of only two lines, about the whole controversy,) at the next session,
appears.




250                  HENRY VANE.                  [1636.
differences and alienations among brethren were not speedily
remedied; and laid the blame upon these new opinions risen
up amongst us, which all the magistrates, except the governour
and two others, did confirm, and all the ministers but two.
In this discourse II one question II arose about sanctification.
Mr. Cotton, in his sermon that day, had laid down this ground,
that: evident sanctification was an evidence of justification, and
thereupon had taught, that in cases of 11 spiritual l] desertion,
true desires of sanctification was found to be sanctification;
and further, if a man were laid so flat upon the ground, as he
could see no desires, etc., but only, as a bruised reed, did wait
at the feet of Christ, yet here was matter of comfort for this, as
found to be true.`210   The question here grew, whether any of these, or evident sanctification, could be evidence to a man without a
concurrent sight of his justification. The governour and Mr.
Cotton denied it.
The speech of Mr. Wilson was taken very ill by Mr. Cotton and others of the same church, so as he and divers of them
went to admonish him. But Mr. Wilson and some others could
see no breach of rule, seeing he was called by the court
about the same matter with the rest of the elders, and 113 exhorted l to deliver their minds freely and faithfully, both for
discovering the danger, and the means to help; and the things
he spake of were only in general, and such as were under a
common 11 4fame. I1 And being questioned about his intent, he
professed he did not mean Boston church, nor the members
thereof, more than others. But this would not satisfy, but they
called him to answer publicly, 31; and there the governour
pressed it violently against him, and all the congregation, except
the deputy and one or two more, and many of them with
much bitterness and reproaches; but he answered them all
with words of truth and soberness, and with marvellous wisdom. It was strange to see, how the common people were led,
by example, to condemn him in that, which (it was very probable) divers.of them did not understand,1 nor the rule which
11 two questions 1I   112 special 11  113 expected 11  II[ form II
1 That the subject was not well understood,, may be, in our days, thought the




1636.]                    HENRY VANE.                           251
he was supposed to have broken; and that such as had known
him so long, and what good he had done for that church,
should fall upon him with such bitterness for justifying himself
in a good cause; for he was a very holy, upright man, and      *211
for faith and love inferior to none in the country, and most
dear to all men. The teacher joined with the church in their
judgment of him, (not without some appearance of prejudice,)
yet with much wisdom      and moderation.     They were eager to
proceed to present censure, but the teacher staid them from
that, telling them he might not do it, because some opposed it,
but gave him a grave exhortation.      The next day Mr. Wilson
preached, notwithstanding, and the Lord so assisted him, as
gave great satisfaction, and the governour himself gave public
witness to him.
One of the brethrenl    wrote to Mr. Cotton about it, and laid
before him divers failings, (as he supposed,) and some reasons
to justify Mr. Wilson, and dealt very plainly with him.         Mr.
Cotton made a very 11 loving II and gentle answer, clearing his
intentions, and persisting in his judgment of Mr. Wilson's ofIllong |
very occasion of the bitterness, as in theological controversies is often experienced. Charity should be expected rather from those, who well comprehend
any matter of doubt in the faith of the church; for only they know the reasons for both sides, and the difficulty of forming a judgment. Winthrop and
Cotton, on opposite sides, were moderate. Wilson's exculpation of himself, in
the text, that he did not mean the members of his own church, more than
others, appears something like equivocation; for that church was the only one
in the colony, wherein any considerable part of the worshippers held these
deadly, unintelligible opinions. Some palliation for his timidity is easily found
in the unhappy circumstance of all but two or three of the congregation being
vexed at his speech, and ready to proceed hastily to censure him for it. The
difference, it will be seen, in several passages of this History, was very slight
between the orthodox and heretical doctrine, even when men's wits were sharpened to discover that difference; and the indistinct shadows of meaning have,
in our time, almost wholly vanished. Perhaps the language of neither would
now be employed in definition of the nature or extent of divine influences on
the human soul. By then imputing to Cotton what he did not teach, -though
his gifted hearers, Vane and Mrs. Hutchinson, might so understand him, - opportunity was afforded, however, for a synod, to perform the important service
of settling, as they supposed, the faith of future generations.
1 Winthrop, by this periphrase, no doubt, means himself.




252                   HENRY VANE.                   [1636.
fence, laying down divers arguments for it. The said brother
replied to him in like loving manner, and desired leave to show
his letter to Mr. Wilson, which he readily assented unto. But
for answer to his arguments, he forbore to reply to Mr. Cotton,
(because he was overburdened with business,) but wrote to the
two ruling elders,' (whom the matter most concerned,) and, by
way of defence of Mr. Wilson, answered all Mr. Cotton's arguments.
Upon these public occasions, other opinions brake out publicly in the church of Boston, -as that the Holy Ghost dwelt
in a believer as he is in heaven; that a man is justified before
he believes; and that faith is no cause of justification.' And
others spread more secretly, - as that the letter of the scripture
holds forth nothing but a covenant of works; and that the
covenant of grace was the spirit of the scripture, which was
known only to believers; and that this covenant of works was
given by Moses in the 1[ ten commandments; 11 that there was a
seed (viz., Abraham's carnal seed) went along in this, and there
was a spirit and life in it, by virtue whereof a man might attain to any sanctification in gifts and graces, and might have
12 spiritualll and 113continual lj communion with Jesus Christ,
and yet be damned. After, it was granted, that faith was before justification, but it was only passive, an empty vessel, etc.;
but in conclusion, the ground of all was found to be assurance
by immediate revelation.
*212   All the congregation of Boston, except four or five,
closed with these opinions, or the most of them; but one
of the brethren wrote against them, and bore witness to the
truth; together with the pastor, and very few others joined
with them.
About this time the rest of the ministers, taking offence at
some doctrines delivered by Mr. Cotton, and especially at
some opinions, which some of his church did broach, and for
he seemed to have too good an opinion of, and too much fa1 tenth commandment 11  112 special 1|  113 blank ||
1 Unfortunately these elders, Oliver and Leverett, were infected with the
same hankering after what was called antinomianism, as the great majority of
their brethren.




1636.]                HENRY VANE.                    253
riliarity with those persons, drew out sixteen points, and gave
them to him, entreating him to deliver his judgment directly in
them, which accordingly he did, and many copies thereof were
dispersed about. Some doubts he well cleared, but in some
things he gave not satisfaction. The rest of the ministers replied to these answers, and at large showed their dissent, and
the grounds thereof; and, at the next general court, held 9th of
the 1st, they all assembled at Boston, and agreed to put off all
lectures for three weeks, that they might bring things to 1 some I
issue.'
One Mr. Glover of Dorchester, having laid sixty pounds of
gunpowder in bags to dry in the end of his chimney, it took
fire, and some went up the chimney; other of it filled the room
and passed out at a door into another room, and blew up a
gable end. A maid, which was in the room, having her arms
and neck naked, was scorched, and died soon after. A little
child, in the arms of another, was scorched upon the face, but
not killed. Two men were scorched, but not much. Divers
pieces, which lay charged in several places, took fire and went
off, but did no harm. The room was so dark with smoke, as
those in the house could neither find door nor window, and
when neighbors came in, none could see each other a good
time for smoke. The house was thatched, yet took not fire;
yet when the smoke was gone, many things were found burnt.
Another great providence was, that three little children, being
at the fire a little before, they went out to play, (though it were
a very cold day,) and so were preserved.
12 mo. 22.] The lieutenant 1 2of 11 Saybrook, at the mouth of
Connecticut, going out with nine men, armed with swords and
pieces, they started three Indians, whom they pursued till they
were brought into an ambush of fifty, who came upon them,
and slew four of their men, and had they not drawn their
(| an 11                        f|2at/
1 How injurious to the cause of the christian church, this disagreement between the able teacher and the meek pastor was, is evident by observing that
no admission of any member is given from 9 January, 1636-7, when No. 372
came in, before 30 )ecember, 1638, near two years. But soon after Cotton
came, 37 had joined in three months.
VOL. i.                   22




254                  HENRY VANE.                  [1636.
swords and retired, they had been all slain. The Indians were
so hardy, as they came close up to them, notwithstanding their
pieces.1
*213   (11.) 10.] Capt. Turner's house in Sagus took fire by
an oven about midnight, and was burnt down, with all
that was in it, save the persons. About fourteen days since,
a ship called the George of Bristol, laden with cattle and passengers, (having been some time at the Western Islands,) and
having spent her mainmast about Cape Cod, and after come
near Brewster's Islands, was, by N. W. winds, forced to put
into Plimouth.
20.] A general fast was kept in all the churches. The occasion was, the miserable estate of the churches in Germany;
the calamities upon our native country, the bishops making
havock in the churches, putting down the faithful ministers,
and advancing popish ceremonies and doctrines, the plague
raging exceedingly, and famine and sword threatening them;
the dangers of those at Connecticut, and of ourselves also, by
the Indians; and the dissensions in our churches.
The differences in the said points of religion increased more
and more, and the ministers of both sides (there being only Mr.
Cotton of one party) did publicly declare their judgments in
some of them, so as all men's mouths were full of them. And
there being, 12 mo. 3, a ship ready to go for England, and many
passengers in it, Mr. Cotton took occasion to speak to them
about the differences, etc., and willed them to tell our countrymen, that all the strife amongst us was about magnifying the
grace of God; one party seeking to advance the grace of God
within us, and the other to advance the grace of God towards
us, (meaning by the one justification, and by the other sanctification;) and so bade them tell them, that, if there were any
among them that would strive for grace, they should come
hither; and so declared some particulars. Mr. Wilson spake
after him, and declared, that he knew none of the elders or
1 Trumbull, I. 76, says it was in March, but he is wrong. We have the
report of Gardiner, the lieutenant, in 3 Mass. Hist. Coll. III. 143, giving the
same date as above. Only two of his men were killed. His narrative is very
amusing as well as exact.




1636.]               HENRY VANE.                   255
brethren of the churches, but did labor to advance the free
grace of God in justification, so far as the word of God required; and spake also about the doctrine of sanctification, and the
use and necessity, etc., of it; by occasion whereof no man
could tell (except some few, who knew the bottom of the matter) where any difference was: which speech, though it offended those of Mr. Cotton's party, yet it was very seasonable to
clear the rest, who otherwise should have been reputed to
have opposed free grace. Thus every occasion increased the
contention, and caused great alienation of minds; and the
members of Boston (frequenting the lectures of other ministers) did make much disturbance by public questions, and objections to their doctrines, which did any way disagree from
their opinions; and it began to be as common here to distinguish between men, by being under a covenant of grace or a
covenant of works, as in other countries between Protest-'214
ants and Papists.
February 6.] A man of Weymouth (but not of the church)
fell into some trouble of mind, and in the night cried out, " Art
thou come, Lord Jesus? " and with that leaped out of his bed
in his shirt, and, breaking from his wife, leaped out at a high
window into the snow, and ran about seven miles off, and
being traced in the snow, was found dead next morning.
They might perceive, that he had kneeled down to prayer in
divers places.
(1.) 9.] The general court began. When any matter about
these new opinions was mentioned, the court was divided;
yet the greater number far were sound.  They questioned
the proceeding against Mr. Wilson, for his speech in the last
court, but could not fasten upon such as had prejudiced him,
etc.; but, by the vote of the greater party, his speech was
approved, and declared to have been a seasonable advice, and
no charge or accusation.
The ministers, being called to give advice about the authority of the court in things concerning the churches, etc., did
all agree of these two things: 1. That no member of the
court ought to be publicly questioned by a church for any
speech in the court, without the license of the court. The
reason was, because the court may have sufficient reason that




256                    HENRY VANE.                    [1636.
may excuse the sin, which yet may not be fit to acquaint
the church with, being a secret of state.  The second thing
was, that, in all such heresies or errors of any church members
as are manifest and dangerous to the state, the court may
proceed without tarrying for the church; but if the opinions be
doubtful, etc., they are first to refer them to the church, etc.
At this court, when Mr. Wheelwright was to be questioned for a sermon, which seemed to tend to sedition, etc., near
all the church of Boston presented a petition to the court for
two things: 1. That as freemen they might be present in cases
of judicature. 2. That the court would declare, if they might
deal in cases of conscience before the church, etc.  This was
taken as a groundless and presumptuous act, especially at this
season, and was rejected with this answer: That the court had
never used to proceed ~judicially~ but it was openly; but for
matter of consultation and preparation in causes, they might
and would be private.
One Stephen II Greensmith, I1 for saying that all the minis*215 ters, except A. B. C.,2 did teach a covenant of works, was
censured to acknowledge his fault in every church, and
fined ~40.
Mr. Wheelwright, one of the members of Boston, preaching at the last fast, inveighed against all that walked in a
covenant of works, as he described it'to be,@ viz., such as
maintain sanctification as an evidence of justification, etc.3 and
called them antichrists, and stirred up the people against them
with much bitterness and vehemency. For this he was called
I 2into 1I the court, and his sermon being produced, he justified it,
and confessed he did mean all that walk in such a way.
Whereupon the elders of the rest of the churches were called, and asked whether they, in their ministry, did walk in
1[ Green 11                    112 before I1
1 Greensmith was a person of some consequence, as we should infer from
the names of his sureties, which may be seen in Addenda.
2 From the Records of the general court, I find the names to be, Cotton,
Wheelwright, "and, as he thought, Mr. Hooker." His sentence required
also sureties in ~100. Of the payment of the fine notice will appear in
Addenda.
3 This explanation was in the margin.




1636.]                    HENRY     VANE.                        257
such a way.      They   all acknowledged      they  did.   So, after
much debate, the court adjudged him        guilty of sedition, and
also of contempt, for that the court had appointed the fast as a
means of reconciliation of the differences, etc., and he purposely set himself to kindle and increase them.'       The governour and some few     more (who dissented) tendered a pro-`216
testation, which, because it wholly justified Mr. JI Wheel11 Wilson 1
1 In the archives of the Historical Society, I discovered, many years since,
the larger part, being the last thirty-three pages, of this inflammatory discourse,
which has never been printed, and probably not read more than once or twice
for two hundred years.  Having no acquaintance with the handwriting of
Wheelwright, though it is an ancient MS., I am not able to ascertain, whether
it be copy or original; yet it is probably original, for some comparatively modern preserver has written on a blank leaf, that it " was left in the hands of Mr.
John Coggeshall, who was a deacon of the church in Boston." The character
of the sermon is, however, of more importance; and I unhesitatingly say, that
it was not such as can justify the court in their sentence for sedition and contempt, nor prevent the present age from regarding that proceeding as an example and a warning of the usual tyranny of ecclesiastical factions. The author's
conduct is by himself judged with sufficient severity in two letters, which will
appear in this History sub an. 1644. Similar, and often much heavier artillery
of reproach, is too often employed in that fortress, within which the brave defenders fear no answer of an adversary's fire.
The followers of Cotton, supporters of Wheelwright, and admirers of Mrs.
Hutchinson, have been usually stigmatized as antinomians; and I am well satisfied, that the tendency of their doctrines was, by unscriptural representations
of grace, to disparage the value of good works. But by many the same opinion is entertained of the tendency in teaching of the great body of their antagonists. We should never impute conclusions from the premises of one party,
drawn by the adversary. With all his ardour against the errors of that time,
Winthrop, who well understood them, has not used this term of reproach,
though Welde and other inquisitors have trusted much to the influence of an
odious name. It is the most common artifice of the " exquisite rancour of theological hatred."  Though we may presume it was given, the deluded did not
adopt the denomination. I shall not be blamed for an extract from this sermon,
which Hutchinson, I. 57, I fear, without having read it, characterizes as " carrying antinomianism to the height." It contains this exhortation: "Thirdly, let
us have a care, that we do show ourselves holy in all manner of good conversation, both in private and public; and, in all our carriages and conversations, let
us have a care to endeavor to be holy as the Lord is; let us not give occasion
to those that are coming on, or manifestly opposite to the ways of grace, to suspect the way of grace; let us carry ourselves, that they may be ashamed to
22*




258                        HENRY    VANE.                      [1636.
wright, 1 and condemned the proceedings of the court, was rejected. The church of Boston also tendered a petition in his
behalf, justifying Mr. Wheelwrights sermon.           The court deferred sentence till the next court, and advised with the ministers, etc., whether they might enjoin his 1| silence, |l etc.   They
answered, that they were not clear in that point, but desired
rather, that he might be commended to the church of Boston to
take care of him, etc., which accordingly was done, and he enjoined to appear at the next court.      Much heat of contention
was this court between the opposite parties; so as it was
moved, that the next court might be kept at Newtown.             The
*217   governour refused to put it to the vote; the deputy was
loath to do it, except the court would require him, bell sentence 1[
blame us; let us deal uprightly with those with whom we have occasion to deal,
and have a care to guide our families and to perform duties that belong to us;
and let us have a care that we give not occasion to others to say, we are libertines or antinomians."
A perfect copy of this sermon, from the state house, with a great body of
other old papers, supposed formerly to have belonged to Gov. Hutchinson,
was presented to the Historical Society; and from this I find no reason to alter
the foregoing opinion. The text was, for the views of his party, admirably
chosen from Matt. ix. 15.
Mather, book VII. chap. iii. sect. 3, says, of Wheelwright, "he published a
vindication of himself against the wrongs, that by Mr. Welde and by Mr. Rutherford had been done unto him." The scarcity of this tract induces me to
enlarge my quotation from the Magnalia: "In this vindication, he not only
produces a speech of Mr. Cotton, I do conceive and profess, that our brother
Wheelwright's doctrine is according to God in the points controverted; but also a
declaration from the whole general court of the colony, signed by the secretary,
August 24, 1654, upon the petition of Mr. Wheelwright's church at Hampton,
in which declaration they profess, that, hearing that Mr. Wheelwright is, by
Mr. Rutherford and Mr. Welde, rendered, in some books printed by them, as
heretical and criminous, they now signify, that Mr. Wheelwright hath, for these
many years, approved himself a sound, orthodox, and profitable minister of the
gospel, among these churches of Christ."  Wheelwright's first tract is in the
British Museum, in answer to Welde.
1 By following the absurd reading of the first edition, substituting the chief
of one party for the head of the other, Emerson, History of First Church,
38, puzzled his readers in a maze, from which they may now easily be extricated.




1637.]                 HENRY VANE.                      259
cause he dwelt in Boston, etc. So the court put it to Mr. Endecott.1
21.]  Miantunnomoh, etc., sent twenty-six, with forty fathom
of wampom and a Pequod's hand. We gave four of the chief
11 each 1 a coat of l 2fourteen |l shillings price, and deferred to
return our present till after, according to their manner.
Mo. 2. 1.]  Those of Conhecticut returned answer to our
public letters, wherein they showed themselves unsatisfied
about our former expedition against the Pequods, and their
expectations of a further prosecution of the war, to which they
offer to send men, and signify their unpreparedness to declare
themselves in the matter of government, in regard of their
engagement to attend the answer of the gentlemen of Saybrook
about the same matter.
10.]  Capt. Underhill was sent to Saybrook, with twenty
men, to keep the fort, both in respect of the Indians, and
especially of the Dutch, who, by their speeches and supplies
out of Holland, gave 11 8cause 11 of suspicion that they had some
design upon it. The men were sent at the charge of the gentlemen of Saybrook, and lent by order of the council here, for fear
any advantage should be taken by the adverse party, through
*the weakness of the place.
6.] The church of Concord kept a day of humiliation at
Newtown, for ordination of their elders, and they chose Mr.
Buckly teacher, and Mr. Jones pastor. Upon a question moved
by one sent from the church of Salem, it was resolved by the
ministers there present, that such as had been ministers in
England were lawful ministers by the call of the people there,
notwithstanding their acceptance of the call of the bishops, etc.,
(for which they humbled themselves, acknowledging it their
sin,2 etc.,) but being come hither, they accounted themselves no
II sachems II    112 nineteen 11      I occasion I1
1 Boston was punished for its political contumacy, one hundred and thirty
years later, by a royal governour in the same manner.
2 Ordination by a bishop in England must have been thought valid, for by
that rite it was, that all the other ministers asserted their claims to office, as we
may see at the election, in August, 1630, of Wilson'to the first church of Boston.
The people also equally respected it. But how it should be a sin, yet a valid
entrance or admission to the Christian ministry, can be explained only by such




260                  HENRY VANE.                 [1637.
ministers, until they were called [ toll another church, and
that, upon election, they were ministers before they were
solemnly ordained.
The governour, and Mr. Cotton, and Mr. Wheelwright, and
the two ruling elders of Boston, and the rest of that church,
*218 which were of any note, did none of them come to this
meeting. The reason was'conceived to be, because they
accounted these as legal preachers, and therefore would not give
approbation to their ordination.
3. 2.] Mr. Haynes, one of our magistrates, removed with his
family to Connecticut.
12.] We received a letter from him and others, being then
at Saybrook, that the Pekods had been up the river at Weathersfield, and had killed six men, being at their work, and twenty
cows and a mare, and had killed three women, and carried
away two maids.
Mr. Winslow was sent from the governour and council of
Plimouth to treat with us about joining against the Pequods.
He declared first their willingness to aid us; but that they could
not do any thing till their general court, which was not till the
first Tuesday in the 4th month. Then he made some objections: as, 1. Our refusal to aid them against the French. 2.
Our people's trading at Kenebeck. 3. The injury offered them
at Connecticut by those of Windsor, in taking away their land
there. 4. Their own poverty, and our ability, which needed
not any help from them.
To this answer- was made by our governour and deputy:
that, 1. We did not desire them to afford aid unto us, but to
join against the common enemy, who, if he were not subdued,
would prove as dangerous to them as to us, and, he prevailing,
would cause all the Indians in the country to join to root out
all the English. 2. For our refusal to aid them against the
French, the case was not alike, for it was their private quarrel,
and they were supposed to have commission from the king of
Ilbyjj
timid casuists as humbled themselves for their act in submitting to it. Dr. Bacon,
in his delightful Historical Discourses, has, in some good degree, explained the
matter.




1637.]               HENRY VANE.                   261
France, and we thought it no wisdom for us to engage ourselves
in a war with the king of France; ~ yet we acknowledged some
failing in it. ~1 For our people's trading at Kenebeck, we answered, that we gave no allowance to it, nor had we heard of
more than a boat or two that had been there. For the injury
done them at Connecticut, we had dealt with them to give
satisfaction, but it was not in our power to do them justice in
it. j] He 11 alleged also, that this war did not concern them,
seeing the Pequods had not killed any of theirs. We answered,
that Capt. Stone, etc., for whom this war was begun, were none
of ours neither. 11 2  He 1 alleged further, that, in our first undertaking, they were not acquainted with it till two or three days
before our forces were to go forth. We answered, we *219
intended at the first to send only to Block Island, and for
that we thought it not needful to trouble them, and our sending
them thence to the Pequods was with hope to draw them to
parley, and so to some quiet end.  We concluded to write
further to them from our next court. And whereas they propounded to have us promise to aid them in all their occasions,
etc., we answered, that, seeing, when we now treated with them
about joining with us, they were at liberty and might withhold,
except they saw reason to move them; so we desired to be left
free, that we might judge of the reason of any such occasion as
might fall out. According hereunto we writ to them the 20th
of the 3d month, and gave them some considerations, why they
should join with us: as, 1. because, if we should be overcome,
it would cost them more to help us, and be less acceptable; 2.
if we should prevail without them, it would occasion ill thoughts
in our people towards theirs, etc. So we left it to them.
17.] Our court of elections was at Newtown. So soon as
the court was set, being about one of the clock, a petition was
preferred by those of Boston. The governour would have read
it, but the deputy said it was out of order; it was a court 11 3for ii
elections, and those must first be despatched, and then their
petitions should be heard.  Divers others also opposed that
course, as an ill precedent, etc.; and the petition, being about
hey              They l2Theyll  ofIl
I This clause was brought from the margin.




262                     JOHN WINTHROP.                       [1637.
pretence of liberty, etc., (though intended chiefly for revoking
the sentence given against Mr. Wheelwright,) would have spent
all the day in debate, etc.; but yet the governour and those of
that party would not proceed to election, except the petition
was read.    Much time was already spent about this debate,
and the people crying out for election, it was moved by the
deputy, that the people should divide themselves, and the greater
number must carry it. And so it was done, and the greater
number by I1 many 11 were for election. But the governour and
that side kept their place still, and would not proceed.   Whereupon the deputy told him, that, if he would not go to election,
he and the rest of that side would proceed. Upon that, he
came from    his company, and they went to election;1 and Mr.
Winthrop was chosen governour, Mr. Dudley deputy, and MIr.
*220  Endecott of the standing council;2 and Mr. Israel Stoughton and Mr. Richard      Saltonstall were called in to be
assistants; and Mr. Vane, Mr. Coddington, and Mr. Dummer,
(being all of 1l2that II faction,) were left quite out.
There was great danger of a tumult that day; for those of
that side grew into fierce speeches, and some laid hands on
others; but seeing themselves too weak, they           grew   quiet.
They expected a great advantage that day, because the remote
towns were allowed to come in by proxy;3 but it fell out, that
1] much 11                        12 the Il
1 A pleasant story of the exertion of Wilson to secure this election is told by
Hutchinson, I. 62.
2 He held this place, without re-election, till the change of the constitution
in 1639.
3 The admission of proxies was justified by experience at the election of the
former year, and at the general court in December preceding this course was
adopted, as by the record appears: " This court, taking into serious consideration the great danger and damage that may accrue to the state by all the freemen's leaving their plantations to come to the place of elections, have therefore
ordered it, that it shall be free and lawful for all freemen to send their votes for
elections by proxy, the next general court in May, and so for hereafter, which
shall be done in this manner: The deputies, which shall be chosen, shall cause
the freemen of their towns to be assembled, and then to take such freemen's votes
as please to send by proxy for every magistrate, and seal them up severally,
subscribing the magistrate's name on the back side, and so to bring them to the
court sealed, with an open roll of the names of the freemen that so send by proxy."




1637.]                  JOHN WINTHROP.                         263
there were enough beside. But if it had been otherwise, they
must have put in their deputies, as other towns had done, for
all matters beside elections. Boston, having deferred to choose
deputies till the election was passed, went home that night, and
the next morning they sent Mr. Vane, the late governour, and
Mr. Coddington, and Mr. Hoffe, for their deputies; but the
court, being grieved at it, found a means to send them       home
again, for that two of the freemen of Boston had not notice of
the election.  So they went all home, and the next morning
they returned the same gentlemen again upon a new choice;
and the court not finding how they might reject them, they
were admitted.
Upon the election of the new     governour, the serjeants, who
had attended the old governour to the court, (being all Boston
men, where the new      governour also dwelt,) laid down their
halberds and went home; and whereas they had been wont to
attend the former governour to and from     the meetings on the
Lord's days, they gave over now, so as the new governour was
fain to use his own servants to carry two halberds before him;
whereas the former governour had never less than four.1
Divers writings were -now published about these differ-`221
ences.   Among the rest, the magistrates Il set ll forth an
I|sent ll
1 Many writers, looking only to the tone of this paragraph in our author, have
considered that the officers showed a special discourtesy to him. A strict examination of the complaint, perhaps, may show that it was not very well founded,
and certainly exempt these sergeants from the obloquy. The Colony Records,
I. 145, instruct us, that, at the general court in March, 1635, it was ordered,
" that at every general court there shall be six men appointed by the governour
for the time being, out of the town where he lives, to attend with halberds and
swords upon the person of the governour, and the rest of the members of the
court, during the space of the first day of every general court; and that there
shall be two men appointed by the governour, to attend in like manner at every
particular court at the public charges." When Haynes was afterwards chosen,
the officers for this service, appointed by him, of course belonged to Newtown;
when Vane succeeded, he was required to appoint men of Boston; and at this
election, after Winthrop was sworn in, he might have appointed the same or
others of the same town. But those, whose office ceased with the authority of
Vane, are not, it seems to me, to be blamed for declining, without commission
anew, to wait on his successor.




264                   JOHN WINTHROP.                  [1637.
apology1 to justify the sentence of the court against Mr. Wheelwright, which the adverse party had much opposed and spoken
evil of, and did also set forth a remonstrance to that end, in
which they did not deal fairly; for, in abbreviating Mr. Wheelwright his sermon, they clear altered both the words and meaning of such passages in it, whereat the offence was taken, and
which were the ground of the court's sentence.
Mr. Wheelwright also himself set forth a small 1 tractate 
about the principal doctrine of his sermon, viz., about the covenant of grace, which was also differing from his sermon.
The other ministers also set out an answer to his sermon,
confuting the same by many strong arguments.
Mr. Cotton also replied to their answer very largely, and
stated the differences in a very narrow  scantling; and Mr.
Shepherd, preaching at the day of election, brought them yet
nearer, so as, except men of good understanding, and such as
knew the bottom of the tenents of those of the other party, few
could see where the difference was; and indeed it seemed so
small, as (if men's affections had not been formerly alienated,
when the differences were formerly stated as fundamental)
they might easily have come to reconciliation. For in these
particulars they agreed: 1. That justification and sanctification were both together in time; 2. That a man must know
himself to be justified, before he can know himself to be sanctified; 3. That the spirit never witnesseth justification without
a 11 2word 11 and a work.
The difference was, whether the first assurance be by an
absolute promise always, and not by a conditional also, and
whether a man could have any true assurance, without sight
*222 of some such work in his soul as no hypocrite could
attain unto.2
11 treatise I112 wonder II
1 It is printed in Welde's Rise, Reign, and Ruin.
2 Upon such a harmony of the creeds, without want of reverence for the wisdom and sincerity of our ancestors, we may well refer to the language of Solomon, Prov. i. 6, -" the words of the wise and their dark sayings." The simplicity of the gospel seems utterly obscured by this controversy about the
priority of sanctification or justification, which may be thought profound, or
only absurd, according to the reader's education and ability to " darken counsel by words without knowledge."




1637.]               JOHN WINTHROP.                     265
At the court Mr. Wheelwright, according as he was enjoined, did appear; but, because a general day of humiliation was
appointed, and it was agreed, that all the churches should
choose certain men to meet and confer about the differences,
the court gave him respite to the next session, (which was appointed the first Tuesday in August,) to bethink himself, that,
retracting and reforming his error, etc., the court might show
him favor, which otherwise he must not expect.   His answer
was, that if he had committed sedition, then he ought to be
put to death; and if we did mean to proceed against him, he
meant to appeal to the king's court; for he could retract nothing.  The court told him, that they were clear in the justice of
their proceeding, and should judge of his offence as they had
done, if it were to do again; but if, upon the conference among
the churches, the Lord should discover any further light to them
than as yet they had seen, they should gladly embrace it.
The intent of the court in deferring the sentence was, that,
being thus provoked by their tumultuous course, and divers
insolent speeches, which some of that party had uttered in the
court, and having now power enough to have crushed them,
their moderation and desire of reconciliation might appear
to all.
Having received intelligence from  Miantunnomoh, that the
Pequods had sent their women and children to an island for
their safety, we presently sent away forty men by land to the
Narigansetts, and there to take in Miantunnomoh, (and he
offered to send sixteen men with 11 ours, 11) and so, in the night,
to set upon them.
We also provided to send one hundred and sixty' more
II us l
1 Of this number, the proportion to be raised by the several towns was as
follows: Boston, 26; Salem, 18; Ipswich, 17; Sagus, 16; Watertown, 14;
Dorchester, 13; Charlestown, 12; Roxbury, 10; Newtown, 9; Newbury, 8;
Hingham, 6; Weymouth, 5; Medford, 3; Marblehead, 3. The note in Hutchinson, on I. 76, is wrong, by one figure, in the apportionment of Newtown,
many of whose chief men had then lately removed to Connecticut. It will be
seen, in a comparison of the several notes on this subject, that the relative population and wealth of our settlements frequently changed. At the general court,
in August following, a rate of ~400 was thus assessed: Boston, ~59.4; Salem,
VOL. i.                  23




266                     JOHN WINTHROP.                       [1637.
*223  after them   to prosecute the war; and Mr. Stoughton,
one of the magistrates, was sent with them, and Mr. Wilson, the pastor of Boston. These two were chosen thus in the
open court: Three magistrates were set apart, and one was
designed by a lot; also the elders set apart two; and a lot was
cast between them in a solemn public invocation of the name
of God.
*22.]   Miantunnomoh sent us word, that Capt. Mason, with
a company of the English upon the river, had surprised and
slain eight Pequods, and taken seven squaws, and with some
of them had redeemed the two English maids.*
24.]  By letters from  Mr. Williams we were certified, (which
the next day was confirmed by some who came from Saybrook,) that Capt. Mason1 was come to Saybrook with eighty
English and one hundred Indians; and that the Indians had
gone out there, and met with seven Pequods; five they killed;
one they took alive, whom the English put to torture; and set
all their heads upon the fort. The reason was, because they
had tortured such of our men as they took alive.2
~45.12; Dorchester, ~42.6; Charlestown, ~42.6; Ipswich, ~34.12; Watertown, ~30.8; PRoxbury, ~30.8; Newtown, ~29.12; Sagus, ~28.16; Medford,
~24.12; Newbury, ~16.18; Hingham, ~8.10; Weymouth, ~6.16. Property
and numbers, in a very short period, appear to have been quite unequally distributed between MIedford and Marblehead, the latter place having no assessment laid upon it, unless probably as a precinct of Salem, yet was before called
on for as many soldiers as the other.
1 An ample account of Mason is given by Allen, and it seems strange, that
Eliot omitted so distinguished a name. That he arrived in 1630, with the first
settlers of Dorchester, as Allen asserts, from Trumbull, I. 322, may be an error,
as his name is not found before December, 1632, when he went in the expedition after the pirate Bull, of which notice in this volume, 96, 97, may be compared with 2 Hist. Coll. VIII. 232. I presume he came in that year, and knolo,
that he was admitted a freeman 4 March, 1634-5. Prefixed to his own History
of the Pequot War, in which he deserves the principal honor, reprinted 2 Hist.
Coll. VIII. 120-153, is a life by the diligent hand of Prince, who would not
assign an earlier arrival. His son, John, a captain, was wounded, 19 December, 1675, in the great battle with the Narragansetts, and died in September
following. Descendants of this energetic warrior are found in New England, of
whom one was the great lawyer, Jeremiah Mason. Abundant correspondence
of his with J. Winthrop of Connecticut is preserved.
2 It was, probably, a mistaken policy, however justifiable the practice of retal



1637.]                  JOHN WINTHROP.                        267
The Dutch governour sent a sloop to Pequod to redeem        the
two English maids by what means soever, though it were with
breach of their peace with the Pequods.'        The sloop offered
largely for their ransom; but nothing would be accepted. *224
So the Dutch, having many Pequods aboard, stayed six of
them, (the rest leaped overboard,) and with them redeemed the
two maids, who had been well used by the Pequods, and no
violence offered them.2
The former governour and Mr. Coddington, being discontented that the people had left them out of all public service, gave
further proof of it in the congregation; for they refused to sit
in the magistrate's seat, (where Mr. Vane had always sitten
from his first arrival,) and went and sate with the deacons,
although the governour sent to desire them to come in to him.3
And upon the day of the general fast, they went from Boston
to keep the day at the Mount with Mr. Wheelwright.
Another occasion of their discontent, and of the rest of that
party, was an order, which the court had made, to keep out all
such persons as might be dangerous to the commonwealth, by
imposing a penalty upon all such as should retain any, etc.,
above three weeks, which should not be allowed by some of the
magistrates; for it was very probable, that they expected many
of their opinion to come out of England from        Mr. II Brierly I!
his church, etc.4
IIB.I
iation may be with nations of nearer similarity of manners. Savages are hardly
tamed by kindness; never by severity. I lament, that brave men should be
commanded to torture a prisoner of war.
1 This kindness of the Dutch I wish had been longer remembered by their
neighbors of Connecticut, especially as mutual charges, without proof, of incitement of the barbarians, are so fiequently made by all civilised nations. Of the
several causes of the war of 1812, an earnest supporter of the declaration,
afterwards President of the United States, speaking of the Orders in Council,
said, to " keep them out of sight, is like laying your finger over the unit before a
series of noughts, and then arithmetically proving, that they are all nothing."
2 No instance of the worst violence to woman has ever been told of our aborigines. Johnson, lib. II. c. 1, who makes them the " seed of the serpent," says the
Indians questioned these maids " to know whether they could make gunpowder."
3 As they ceased to be magistrates, by not being rechosen, they had no right
in the seats.
4 In Cotton's Way of Congregational Churches Cleared, in answer to Bayley,




268                  JOHN WINTHROP.                      [1637.
This order, and other differences between the new governour and them, was the cause, that, at his return to Boston,
none of them met him; and the serjeants, which had constantly attended the former governour to all public meetings with
four halberds, did now refuse to do any such office to the new,
alleging that they had done it to the former voluntarily, in respect of his person, not his place. To which it was answered,
that there was a double error; 1. Because the place drowns
the person, be he honorable or base; 2. In that any compliment of honor, being once conferred upon an office, (though
voluntarily,) cannot after be taken away without contempt and
injury. The country, taking notice of this, offered to send in
*225 some from    the neighboring towns to carry the halberds
by course; and upon that the town of Boston offered to
send some men, but not the serjeants; but the governour chose
rather to make use of two of his own servants.'
25.]  Our English from Connecticut, with their Indians, and
many of the Naragansetts, marched in the night to a fort of the
Pequods at Mistick, and, besetting the same about break of the
day, after two hours' fight they took it, (by firing it,) and slew
therein two chief sachems, and one hundred and fifty fighting
men, and about one hundred and fifty old men, women, and children, with the loss of two English,* whereof but one was* 2 killed
by the enemy.    Divers of the Indian friends were hurt by the
I English,ll3 *because they had not some mark to distinguish
II Pequods II
one of the assertors of Presbyterian divine right, he says, speaking of this arbitrary order: " I saw by this means we should receive no more members into our
church, but such as must profess themselves of a contrary judgment to what I
believed to be a truth." He designed to remove out of the jurisdiction with
Davenport, but was dissuaded.
Three tracts on this subject,- A Defence, The Answer, and Replication,are found in Hutchinson's Coll. 67-100.
1 By the extract from the Records, in a former note on this subject, five pages
back, it will be seen, that it was no part of the provision, that those who carried
the halberds should be of the rank of sergeants.
2 Mason says, two were killed outright; and thus our author corrects his first
relation.
3 The governour had erased English, and written Pequods; but that is




1637.]               JOHN    VINTHEOP.                    269
them from the Pequods, as some of them    had.s The story is
more fully described in the next leaf.'
Presently upon this came news from the Naragansett, that
all the English, and two hundred of the Indians, were cut off in
their retreat, for want of powder and victuals.   Three days
after, this was confirmed by a post from Plimouth, with such
probable circumstances, as it was generally believed.    But,
three days after, Mr. Williams, having gone to the Naragansetts
to discover the truth, found them mourning, as being confident
of it; but that night some came from    the army, and assured
them all was well, and that all the Pequods were fled, and had
forsaken their forts.  The general defeat of the Pequods at
Mistick happened the day after 11 our 11 general fast.
Mo. 4. 3.]  Two ships arrived here out of England, (Mr.
Peirce was one).  In them   came the copy of a commission,
from  the commissioners for New    England, to divers of the
magistrates here, to govern all the people in New England till
further order, etc., upon this pretence, that there was no,226
lawful authority in I| 2force 11 here, either mediate or immediate, from his majesty.
Upon the news from lMr. Williams, that the Pequods were
dispersed, and some come in and submitted to the Naragansetts,
(who would not receive them    11 before he 1| had sent to know
our mind,) the governour and council thought it needless to
send so many men, and therefore sent out 11 4warrants II only
for one half of the two hundred; but some of the people liked
not of it, and came to the governour to have all sent.  He took
it ill; and though three of the ministers came with them    to
debate the matter, he told them, that if any one, 11 5discerning II
an error in the proceedings of the council, had come, in a private
l the 11  12 form1  113 till they 1  [14 word 11  1 5 discovering ||
manifestly an error, if the following clause be part of the report, which was
probably false.
4 It will not be found, though the author intended to furnish an account.
This storming of the Indian fort at Mistick, between New London and Norwich,
was, an affair reflecting much credit on the commander, whose report, in the
History of the war, is very full, accurate, and animated; but he makes the loss
of the enemy six or seven hundred, " as some of themselves confessed," and
6; only seven taken captive, and about seven escaped."
23*




270                  JOHN WINTHROP.                   [1637.
manner, to acquaint |l him 1I therewith, etc., it had been well
done; but to come, so many of them, in a public and popular
way, was not well, and would bring authority into contempt.
This they took well at his hands, and excused their intentions.
So it was thought fit to send about forty men more, which was
yielded rather to satisfy the people, than for any need that
appeared.
Upon our governour's letter to Plirmouth, our friends there
agreed to send a pinnace, with forty men, to assist in the war
against the Pequods; but they could not be ready to meet us
at the first.
15.]  There was a day of thanksgiving kept in all the
churches for the victory obtained against the Pequods, and for
other mercies.
About this time came home a small pinnace of thirty tons,
which had been forth eight months, and was given for lost.1
She went to the Bermuda, but by continual tempests was kept
from  I 2thence,1l and forced to bear up for the West Indies,
and, being in great distress, arrived at Hispaniola, and not
daring to go into any inhabited place there, but to go ashore in
obscure places, and lived of turtles and hogs, etc. At last they
were forced into a harbor, where lay a French man-of-war with
9227 his prize, and had surely made prize of them   also, but
that the providence of God so disposed, as the captain,
one  1 3Petfree, l had lived at Pascataquack, and knew the
merchant of our bark, one Mr. Gibbons. Whereupon he used
them courteously, and, for such commodities as she carried,
j 4freighted |l her with tallow, hides, etc., and sent home with
her his prize, which he sold for a small price to be paid in New
them  I   II12 hence II   II3 Peterfore II  114 furnished 11
1 The marginal note is, " Capt. Gib. and Mr. Hill at WY. Indies." When we
recollect how minute Winthrop usually is in his narrative of such disasters, we
may judge how the tale of distress gained by frequent telling, till it grew up to
" the wonderful story of Major Gibbons" in the Magnalia, lib. VI. chap. i. ~ 3.
It would with difficulty be understood to refer to the same event in our text,
were not the sufferer's name, and his relief by a French pirate, sufficient marks
of identity t3 turn us from Mather's Thaumaturgus back to the first relation,
probably received from the adventurers' mouths.




1637.]                 JOHN WINTHROP.                         271
England.    He brought home an aligarto, which he gave the
governour.
20.]  Three ships arrived here from Ipswich, with three hundred and sixty passengers.1 The last being loath to come to an
anchor at Castle Island, though hailed by the Castle boat, and
required, etc., the gunner made a shot, intending to shoot before
her for a warning, but the powder in [l the 11 touch-hole being
wet, and the ship having fresh way with wind and tide, the
shot took place in the shrouds and killed a passenger, an honest
man.    The next day the governour charged an inquest, and
sent them aboard with two of the magistrates (one of them
being deputed coroner) to take view of the dead body, and who,
upon hearing all the evidence, etc., found that he came to his
death by the providence of God.
23.]   The governour went to Sagus, and so to Salem and to
Ipswich, at all which places the men of the towns met him, and
guarded him from town to town, (though not desired nor expected by him,) to show their respect to their governour, and
also for his safety, in regard it was reported the Pequods were
come this way.2     He returned again the 28th, being forced to
travel all the night by reason of the heat, which was so extreme,
as divers of those who were new come on shore, died in their
travel a few miles.
26.]  There arrived two ships from       London, the Hector,
I| her l
1 One of the ships was the John andl Dorothy, of which William Ancrews was
master. His son William was master of another, the Rose of Yarmouth. The
other was, I suppose, the Mary Ann, William Goose master. Account of 197 of
the passengers, who desired to go, of whom one, with wife and six children, was
forbidden by the useless tyranny of the Privy Council, may be read in 4 Mass.
Hist. Coll. I. 95-101. Michael Metcalf, a dornix weaver, with wife, nine children, and a servant, came in one of the two former ships. He was a freeman of'
the city of Norwich, and says he had attempted, in the former year, to escape
from the thraldom of Bp. Wren.
2 Fear of the enemy's enterprise may to us seem unreasonable, considering
the numerous plantations between Pequot and Salem; but the inhabitants were
few, except on the seaboard. Yet we may believe, that their apprehension for
his safety operated much less than a desire to show respect to the governour,
especially under the circumstances of slight from those less sound in the faith.




272                      JOHN   WINTHROP.                      [1637.'226  and   the   [blank].  In these came Mr. Davenport' and
another2 minister, and       Mr.   Eaton3    and    Mr.   Hop1 Of this celebrated divine, who had been a priest in one of the parishes of
London, ample memorials are preserved by all the writers on the early affairs
of our country. A sermon preached by him in 1629 is found at the Boston
Athenseum. His conduct in concealing the regicides, Whalley and Goffe, has
ever been eulogized in part of Connecticut, and was admired by many, who
dared not imitate it in Massachusetts. He succeeded Wilson in the First
Church of Boston, being the fourth minister in that place, all whose names were
John. But his coming fiom New Haven occasioned one of the most disagreeable controversies with which the affairs of the church have ever troubled our
country. The officers of the first church seem to have dealt too subtilely in the
affair, and near all the great names of the clergy - Higginson, Cobbet, Whiting,
Sherman, Mather, Symmes, and others, including Wilson, son of the former
pastor, and Seaborn Cotton, son of the great teacher of the same church - took
ground in opposition to Gov. Bellingham and the first church, and in favor of
the third church, now the Old South, formed by powerful seceders from the
first.  Hutchinson, 270-275, has well explained the long protracted agony.
Descendants of Davenport have often vindicated their claim to the enjoyment
of the talents of their progenitor.
2 We learn from Trumbull, who erroneously marks the arrival in July, instead
of June, that this other minister was Samuel, brother of Gov. Eaton. That
author might have read in Mather, that Samuel Eaton, after returning home,
died, 9 January, 1665, at Denton in Lancashire.
From the undue brevity of this note, in my former edition, the late Professor
J. L. Kingsley, of Yale College, was misled in note H of the Appendix to his
admirable Historical Discourse, as he wrote me in May, 1848, on receiving very
few words of explanation. His death, on 31 August last, left a void deeply
regretted by every student of American History and pure letters.
3 No character in the annals of New England is of purer fame than that of
Theophilus Eaton, governour of the colony of New Haven from its settlemeit
to his death, by twenty annual elections. That his talents were adequate to the
station, might be confidently concluded from the fact of his prior service, several
years, as representative of Charles I. at the court of Denmark; and the long
administration of an infant state without a rival, is irrefragable proof of his
prudence and virtue. All the original writers of our history are abundant in
his praise, and the later and more judicious inquirers are satisfied with their
evidence. The error of Trumbull, I. 99-100, and 231, in asserting that Eaton
was three years in the East Indies, and sometime deputy governour of the
company trading thither, arose probably from the appellation of East Country,
used by Mather, from the universal custom of England, at that time, for the
regions bordering on the Baltic. It had been avoided by Eliot, Holmes, and
Allen; but my respect for the venerable historiographer of Connecticut led me
unhesitatingly to adopt his authority, till I saw the cause of his mistake in the




1637.]                  JOHN WINTHROP.                           273
kins,1 two merchants of London, men of fair estate and of
great esteem   for religion, and wisdom in outward affairs.
Magnalia. On this pilgrim's character and death, Hubbard, 329, 330, is more
valuable and minute than about any other. His death was 7 January, 1657-8.
1 Edward Hopkins was son-in-law of Gov. Eaton, and, alternately with
Haynes, for many years governour of the colony of Connecticut, in which
station Eliot erroneously asserts he died. He went to England, probably, in
1652, whence he did not return; though, after the decease of Haynes, he was
again chosen governour, in 1654. The time of his death was March, 1657,
a few months before his friend Eaton. He was then serving in Oliver's parliament, and also as a commissioner of the army and navy. His liberality to New
England was abundantly shown in his will, made 7 or 17 March, 1656-7. Extracts will interest the present age:- " For my estate in New England, (the
full account of which I left clear in book there, and the care and inspection
whereof was committed to my loving friend, Capt. John Cullick,) I do in this
manner dispose: Item, I do give and bequeath unto the eldest child of Mrs.
Mary Newton, wife to Mr. Roger Newton, [first minister] of Farmington, and
daughter of Mr. Thomas Hooker, deceased, the sum of ~30; as also the sum
of ~30 unto the eldest child of Mr. John Cullick by Elizabeth his present wife,
[who was daughter of Col. Fenwick]. Item, I do give and bequeath to Mrs.
Sarah Wilson, the wife of Mr. John Wilson, preacher of the gospel, and daughter
of my dear pastor, Mr. Hooker, my farm at Farmington, with all the houses,
outhouses, buildings, lands, etc., belonging thereunto, to the use of her and
the heirs of her body forever. I do also give unto Mrs. Susan Hooker, the
relict of Mr. Thomas Hooker, all such debts as are due to me from her, upon the
account I left in New England. And the residue of my estate there I do hereby
give and bequeath to my father, Theophilus Eaton, Esq., Mr. John Davenport,
Mr. John Cullick, and Mr. William Goodwin, in full assurance of their trust
and faithfulness in disposing of it according to the true intent and purpose of
me the said Edward Hopkins, which is, to give some encouragement in those
foreign plantations for the breeding up of hopeful youths, both at the grammar
school and college, for the public service of the country in future times. For
the estate the Lord hath given me in this England, I thus dispose, and my wish
is, that ~150 per annum be yearly paid per my executor to Mr. David Yale,
brother to my dear distressed wife, for her comfortable maintenance, and to be
disposed of per him for her good, she not being in a condition fit to manage it
herself; and I do heartily entreat him to be careful and tender over her; and
my will is, that this be paid quarterly by ~37.10 each quarter, and to continue
to the end of the quarter after the death of my said wife, and that my executor
give good security for a punctual performance hereof. My will also is, that the
~30 given me per the will and testament of my brother Henry Hopkins, lately
deceased, be given to our sister Mrs. Judith [unknown,] during her natural
life, and that it be made up ~50 per annum during her life. I do give to my
sister Mrs. Margaret Thomson the sum of ~50, to be paid her within one year




274                     JOHN WINTHROP.                        [1637.
*229     In the Hector came also the Lord Ley, son and heir of
the Earl of Marlborough, being about nineteen years of
after my decease. I do give unto my nephew Henry Thomson ~800, whereof
~400 to be paid within sixteen months after my decease, and the other ~400
within six months after the decease of my wife. I do likewise give and bequeath to my niece Katherine Thomson, but now Katherine James, (over and
above the portion of ~500 formerly given her,) ~100. I do also give and
bequeath unto my nieces Elizabeth and Patience Dalley, unto each of them,
~200, provided they attend the direction of their brother or aunts, or such as
are capable to give them advice in the dispose of themselves in marriage. I
give unto my brother Mr. David Yale ~200; to my brother Mr. Thomas Yale
~200, and to my sister Mrs. Hannah Eaton ~200. [This was that maiden
daughter of Gov. Eaton, who went home with her mother, after his death, married, at London, William Jones, and came again to New Haven in 1660.] My
farther mind and will is, that, within six months after the decease of my wife,
~500 be made over into New England, according to the advice of my loving
friends Major Robert Thomson and Mr. Francis Willoughby, and conveyed
into the hands of the trustees before-mentioned, in farther prosecution of the
aforesaid public ends, which, in the simplicity of my heart, are for the upholding and promoting the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ in those parts of the
earth. I do farther give unto my beloved wife a bed, with all furniture belonging unto it, for herself to lie on, and another for the servant maid that waits
on her, and ~20 in plate for her present use, besides one third part of all my
household goods. I give unto Mr. John Davenport, Mr. Theophilus Eaton, Mr.
Cullick, each of them, ~20, to be made over to them into New England where
they are; and my will and pleasure is, that ~20 be put into a piece of plate, and
presented in my name to my honored friend Dr. Wright, to whom I owe more
than that, being much engaged, desiring him to accept it only as a testimony of
my respects. I do give unto my servant James Porter 10; unto my maid Margaret )~5; unto my maid Mary ~2. I do give unto my honored and loving friends
Major Robert Thomson and Mr. Francis Willoughby ~20 a piece, in a piece of
plate, as a token of my respects unto them; and I do give unto my servant Thomas Haytor ~20. I do give unto my sister Yale, the wife of Mr. David Yale, ~20;
as also to John Lollor, a youth now with my sister Eve, ~20, to farther him out to
be an apprentice to some good trade, and c~20 more at the time of his coming
to his own liberty, to encourage him to set up his trade, if he continue living so
long. I do give unto my nephew Henry Dalley, master of arts in Cambridge,
my land      in the county of Essex; and, for the payment of all debts, dues,
and legacies, do give unto him all my personal estate, and, by these presents,
renouncing and making void all other wills and testaments, do declare, constitute, and make him my sole executor, and my good friends Major Robert Thomson and Mr. Francis Willoughby overseers, of this my last will and testament.
Signed, sealed, declared, and published by the said Edward Hopkins, Esq., at
his house at London, on the 17th day of March in the year of our Lord 1657
to be his last will and testament."




1637.]                  JOHN WINTHROP.                           275
age, who came only to see the country. He was of very *230
sober carriage, and showed much wisdom and moderation
in his lowly and familiar carriage, especially in the ship, where
he was much disrespected and unworthily used by the master,
one Ferne, and some of the passengers; yet he bare it meekly
Mention of the distress of his wife, named Ann, daughter of the widow Ann
Yale, who had married Gov. Eaton, which was by loss of her reason, will occur
in our second volume. She died 17 December, 1698. Trumbull, I. 233, says,
Hopkins's estate, "given in New England, was estimated at about ~1000 sterling, and was appropriated to the support of the grammar schools in New Haven, IIartford, and Hadley. The money originally belonged to New Haven
and Hartford; but as a considerable number of the people of Hartford afterwards removed to Hadley, and were principal settlers of that town, they
received their proportion of the donation."
In six months after the wife's decease, which was above forty years later than
the testator's, the c~500 out of the English property should have been paid.
But the executor and residuary devisee being dead, process in chancery was
necessary against his executor. Under a final decree by Sir Simon Harcourt,
lord keeper, Harvard College has enjoyed, jointly with the grammar school in
Cambridge, since 1714, a fund, of which Gov. Dudley and other principal persons, civil and ecclesiastical, to the number of twenty-one, were made first trustees. As the direction from the chancery was to invest the same in lands, a
purchase was made, under authority of an act of the province, from the Natick Indians, being about thirteen thousand acres, comprising, with an additional
grant from the province, the flourishing town of Hopkinton in Middlesex
county, - having its name from this liberal benefactor of New England, - and
part of the town of Upton in the county of Worcester. The rent charge of
these lands, for many years secured by the commonwealth, amounted to $222,22
annually, until March, 1823, and from thence forward, forever, $666,67 annually, being at the rate of one penny sterling per acre for the first ninety-nine
years of the leases, and three pence sterling afterwards. Forever lasted but a
short time, for the enhanced rents could not be obtained from the tenants; and
by composition with the commonwealth, they were acquitted on receipt from the
public treasury, after long disputation, for less than half their legal value, by
the trustees. Being one of the trustees, the editor knows the faithful and judicious employment of this charity. The fund, which, notwithstanding the evils
of paper money, and occasional injurious denial of rent by some of the tenants,
has been increased, now exceeds the sum of thirty thousand dollars.  See
Quincy's Hist. of Har. Coll. I. 205.
Several letters of Gov. Hopkins to J. Winthrop, jun., were preserved, in vol.
XIX. of Trumbull MSS. before the Court street fire, and there is one to our
author, 21 June, 1648, printed in Hutchinson's Collection, 225, showing a disposition to return to England, controlled by affection towards his adopted country.
It is written with more perspicuity than is usually found in papers of that age.




276                    JOHN WINTHROP.                        [1637.
and silently.  When he came on shore the governour was from
home, and he took up his lodging at the common inn.         When
the governour returned, he presently came to his house.        The
governour offered him lodging, etc., but he refused, saying, that
he came not to be troublesome to any, and the house where he
*231 was, was so well governed, that he could be as private
there as elsewhere.
We had news of a commission granted in England to divers
gentlemen here for the governing of New England, etc.; but
instead thereof we received a commission from      Sir Ferdinando
Gorges to govern his province of New Somersetshire, which is
from  Cape Elizabeth to Sagadahoc, and withal to oversee his
servants and private Il affairs; 11 which was observed as a matter
of no good discretion, but passed in silence.    We excused our
not intermeddling, etc., because, being directed to six or five of
them, and one of their names being mistaken, and another removed to Connecticut, there were but four in the country; as
also for that it did not appear to us what authority he had to
grant such a commission.       As for the commission from      the
king, we received only a copy of it, but the commission itself
staid at the seal for want of paying the fees.1
Mo. 5.]    The  party, who    procured   the commission, one
George 112 Cleves, 12 brought also a protection under the privy
signet for searching out the great lake of Iracoyce, and for the
I officers 1                      112 Cheverl 
1 At the State Paper Office in London, I saw, eleven years since, a letter of
Gorges, in which he said, he was to be made Governour General of the New
England Colonies. It bore date, I think, of 1637.
2 Cleves was a person of some importance, as, in the second volume of this
History, will appear. He was agent or governour under Alexander Rigby, a
member of parliament; and in Hazard, I. 570, is a letter from Edward Rigby,
son of Alexander, to the inhabitants of Laconia, 19 July, 1652, taking notice of
Cleves being in England, and expressing a design to send him back. I should
consider it as an approbation, though Sullivan, History of laine, 315, says,
Cleves " was an equivocal character; and acted with great duplicity. He obtained a letter of agency from Sir Ferdinando Gorges, acted as deputy governour to both, and sold lands under the title of each, as appears from the registry
of deeds, which he executed."  On his next page he remarks on Cleves's unfaithfulness to the son, after the death of the father. I know not whether
Cleves lived in Maine afterwards.




1637.]               JOHN WINTHROP.                 277
sole trade of beaver, and the planting of Long Island, by
~articles of~ agreement between the Earl of Sterling, Viscount
Canada, and him. Thus this and other gentlemen in England
get large circuits of lands, etc., in this country, and are very
ready to grant them out to such as will become their tenants,
and, to encourage them, do procure commissions, protections,
etc., which cost them nothing, but will be at no charge in any
right way of plantation, which should be by coming themselves, or sending some of their children, etc.; but now, as
they adventure little, so they are sure to lose nothing but their
vain hope.'
Capt. Stoughton and his company, having pursued the Pequots beyond Connecticut, and missing of them, returned 0232
to Pequot River, where they were advertised, that one
hundred of them were newly come back to a place some twelve
miles off. So they marched thither by night, and surprised them
all. They put to death twenty-two men, and reserved two
sachems, hoping by them to get Sasacus, (which they promised). All the rest were women and children, of whom they
gave the Naragansetts thirty, and our Massachusetts Indians
three, and the rest they sent hither.
A pinnace, returning, took a canoe with four Indians near
Block Island. We sent to Miantunnomoh to know what they
were, and after we discharged all save one, who was a Pequod,
whom we gave Mr. Cutting to cairy into England.
[Large blank.]
The differences grew so much here, as tended fast to a
separation; so as Mr. Vane, being, among others, invited by
the governour to accompany the Lord Ley at dinner, *not
only' refused to come, (alleging by letter that his conscience
withheld him,)'but also, at the same hour, he went over to
Nottle's Island to dine with Mr. Maverick, and carried the Lord
Ley with him. *
1 This opinion of Winthrop has, in all succeeding times, been confirmed,
being not more founded on reason, than verified by experience.
2 I have no doubt, that every reader will be pleased with the preservation of
this anecdote, though erased by the governour; for it strengthens his remark
very much.
VOL. I.                 24




278                JOHN WINTHROP.               [1637,
6.] There were sent to Boston forty-eight women and children. There were eighty taken, as before is expressed. These
were disposed of to particular persons in the country. Some
of them ran away and were brought again by the Indians our
neighbors, and those 1| we 1I branded on the shoulder.
12.] Ayanemo, the sachem  of Niantick, came to Boston
with seventeen men. He made divers propositions, which we
promised to give answer unto the next day; and then, understanding he had received many of the Pequods, submitting to
him since the former defeat, we first demanded the delivery of
them, which he sticking at, we refused further conference with
him; but the next morning, he came and offered what we
desired. So the governour referred him to treat with our captains at the Pequod, and wrote instructions to them how to
deal with him, and received his present of ten fathom of wamnpom.   He was lovingly dismissed, with some small things
given him.
Here came over a brother' of Mrs. Hutchinson, and some
other of Mr. Wheelwright's friends, whom  the governour
thought not fit to allow, as others, to sit down among us, with*233 out some trial of them. Therefore, to save others from
the danger of the law in receiving of them, he allowed
them for four months. This was taken very ill by those of the
other party, and many hot speeches given forth about it, and
about their removal, etc.
13.] Mr. Stoughton, with about eighty of the English,
whereof Mr. Ludlow, Capt. Mason, and [blank,] of Connecticut, were part, sailed to the west in pursuit of Sasacus, etc. At
Quinepiack, they killed six, and took two. At a head of land
a little short they beheaded two sachems; whereupon they
called the place Sachem's Head. About this time they had
given a Pequod his life to go find out Sasacus. He went, and
found him not far off; but Sasacus, suspecting him, intended
to kill him, which the fellow perceiving, escaped in the night,
and came to the English. Whereupon Sasacus and Mononotto, their two chief sachems, and some twenty more, fled to
jJ men u
1 What ship he came in, who he was, or where he lived, are all unknown.




1637.]             JOHN WINTHROP.                  279
tihe Mohawks. But eighty of their stoutest men, and two hundred
others, women and children, were at a place within twenty or
thirty miles of the Dutch, whither our men marched, and, being
guided by a Divine Providence, came upon them, where they
had twenty wigwams, hard by a most hideous swamp, so thick
with bushes and so quagmiry, as men could hardly crowd into
it. Into this swamp they were all gotten. Lieut. Davenport
and two or three more, that entered the swamp, were dangerously wounded by the Indian arrows, and with much difficulty
were fetched out. Then our men surrounded the swamp, being
a mile about, and shot at the Indians, and they at them, from
three of the clock in the afternoon till they desired parley, and
offered to yield, and life was offered to all that had not shed
English blood. So they began to come forth, now some and
then some, till about two hundred women and children were
come out, and amongst them the sachem of that place, and
thus they kept us two hours, till night was come on, and then
the men told us they would fight it out; and so they did all the
night, coming up behind the bushes very near our men, and
shot many arrows into their hats, sleeves, and Il stocks, 1 yet
(which was a very miracle) not one of ours wounded. When
it was near morning, it grew very dark, so as such of them as
were left crept out at one place and escaped, being (as was
judged) not above twenty at most, and those like to be wounded;
for in the pursuit they found some of them dead of their wounds.'
Here our men gat some booty of kettles, trays, wampom,`234
etc., and the women and children were divided, and sent
some to Connecticut, and some to the Massachusetts. The
sachem of the place, having yielded, had his life, and his wife
and children, etc. The women, which were brought home,
reported that we had slain in all thirteen sachems, and that
there were thirteen more left. We had now slain and taken,
in all, about seven hundred. We sent fifteen of the boys and
two women to Bermuda, by Mr. Peirce; but he, missing it,
carried them to Providence Isle.2
I stockings |
1 For a larger account of this swamp fight, see Mason's History.
2 We cannot fail, I think, to lament this enslaving of the prisoners, by sale in




280                JOHN WINTHROP.                [1637.
Mo. 6.]  ir. Stoughton sailed, with some of his company,
from Pequod to Block Island. They came thither in the night,
yet were discovered, and our men having killed one or two of
them, and burnt some of their wigwams, etc., they came to
parley, and, submitting themselves to become tributaries in one
hundred fathom wampompeague, and to deliver any that should
be found to have any hand in Mr. Oldham's death, they were
all received, and no more harm done them.
3.] At our general court, one Greensmith, being censured
for saying that all the elders, etc., except two, did preach a
covenant of works, etc., he did appeal to the king; but the
court, notwithstanding, committed him till, etc.
The Lord Ley, being told that one Ewre had spoken treason
against the king, sent for the party, one Brooks, and inquiring
of him, he told him that Ewre had said, about twelve months
before, that, if the king did send any authority hither against
our patent, he would be the first should resist him. This
coming to the governour's knowledge, he sent for the parties,
and bound them over to the general court. When they came
there, Brooks brought his wife to witness with him; but her
testimony agreed not with his; also three others (whom he had
told it unto) reported it otherwise. So at length they all agreed,
and set it under their hands, that Ewre said, that, if there came
any authority out of England contrary to the patent, he would
withstand it. Now, because here was no mention of the king,
and because he never informed any of the magistrates of it,
and for that it was evident that he bare malice 1I to lI the said
Ewre, we saw no cause to take any other of the parties informing, (the rather because themselves did urge it, and she *235
refused longer to speak at all, except she might be put to
her oath,) nor any offence which deserved punishment, seeing
it is lawful to resist any authority, which was to overthrow the
lawful authority of the king's 112grant; 11 and so the governour
11 of 1               112 patent 1
a foreign country, however it might be excused by a pretended necessity. In
that day it was probably justified by reference to the practice or institution of' the
Jews. Yet that cruel people never sent prisoners so far.




1637.]             JOHN WINTHROP.                   281
did openly declare, in the court, as justifiable by the laws of
England.1
3.] The Lord Ley and -Mr. Vane went from Boston to the
ship, riding at Long Island, to go for England. At their
departure, those of Mr. Vane's party were gathered together,
and did accompany him to the boat, (and many to the ship;)
and the men, being in their arms, gave him divers vollies of
shot, and five pieces of ordnance, and he had five more at
the castle. But the governour was not come from the court,
but had left order with the captain for their honorable
dismission.
There was an old woman in Ipswich, who came out of
England blind and deaf, yet her son could make her understand
any thing, and know any man's name, by her sense of feeling.
He would write upon her hand some letters of the name, and by
other such motions would inform her. This the governour
himself had 1I trial of 1[ when he was at Ipswich.
5.] Mr. Hooker and Mr. Stone came, with Mr. Wilson, from
Connecticut by Providence; and, the same day, Mr. Ludlow,
Mr. Pincheon, and about twelve more, came the ordinary way
by land, and brought with them a part of the skin and lock of
hair of Sasacus and his brother, and five other Pequod sachems,
who, being fled to the Mohawks for shelter, with their wampom,
being to the value of 1 2five hundred pounds, ll2 were by them
surprised and slain, with twenty of their best men.'=Mononottoh was also taken, but escaped wounded. They brought news
also of divers other Pequods, which had been slain by other
Indians, and their heads brought to the English; so that now
there had been slain and taken between eight and nine hundred.
Whereupon letters were sent to Mr. Stoughton and the rest, to
call them all home.3
A woman of Boston congregation, having been in much "236
trouble of mind about her spiritual estate, at length grew
[ tried often 11                112 ~500 11
1 Here is perhaps to be understood an indirect censure of Lord Ley for his
interference, and a direct maintenance of the freedom of speech on such a topick.
2 Weight, not money, appears to me the meaning.
3 A despatch, from Stoughton on service, will be found in the Appendix,
letter D.
24*




282                   JOHN WINTHROP.                    [1637.
into 11 utter II desperation, and could not endure to hear of any
comfort, etc., so as one day she took her little infant and threw
it into a well, and then came into the house and said, now she
~was sure she should be damned, for she had drowned her child;
but some, stepping presently forth, saved the child.' See more
after.
Mr. Hooker and the rest of the elders, meeting divers days,
they agreed (with consent of the magistrates) upon a day of
humiliation to be kept in all the churches the 24th of this
month; the day for the conference to be the 30th day. At their
private meetings some reconciliation was made between Mr.
Cotton and Mr. Wheelwright and Mr. Wilson, he professing,
that, by his speech in the court, he did not intend the doctrine
of Mr. Cotton or Mr. Wheelwright delivered in the public congregation, but some opinions, (11 2naming I] three or four,) which
were privately carried in Boston and other parts of the country;
and accordingly Mr. Cotton declared so much in the congregation the Lord's day following. And for the rest of his speech,
it was agreed by all the elders to be inoffensive, considering his
call thereto by the court.  This sudden change was much observed by some, who were privy that Mr. Wilson had professed
as much before, both privately to the elders, and publicly in the
congregation, and that the said opinions had been delivered to
the elders of Boston in writing as those which Mr. Wilson
intended.
17.]  Mr. Davenport preached at Boston (it being the lecture
day) out of that in I Cor., I exhort you brethren, etc., that there
be no division among you, etc.; wherein, as he fully set forth
the nature and danger of 11 divisions, and the disorders II which
were among us, etc., so he clearly discovered his judgment
against the new opinions and bitter practices which were sprung
up here.
11 bitter 11  112 meaning II   1 3 disorders and the divisions 
1 In the margin is written, " Hett's wife distracted." A similar instance of
her insanity, in attempting to destroy another of her children, is found in this
History five years later, in Vol. II. 65. See also II. 129, for result.
2 Nothing is more refreshing, in the violence of these contests, which grew
more violent as the matter of contest was unintelligible to the many, and the




1637.]              JOHN WINTHROP.                  283
Mr. Cotton, expounding that in 2 Chron. [blank] of q237
the defection of the ten tribes from Rehoboam, and his
preparations to recover them by war, and the prophet's prohibition, etc., proved from that in Numbers, 27. 21, that the rulers of
the people should consult with the ministers of the churches
upon occasion of any war to be undertaken, and any other
weighty business, though the case should seem never so clear,
as David in the case of Ziglag, and the Israelites in the case of
Gibeah. Judges, etc.
26.]  The captain and soldiers returned all from Pequod,
having lost but one man, and he died of a flux, and another
fell sick of an old infirmity, an asthma. The Indians about
sent in still many Pequods' heads and hands from Long Island
and other places, and [blank] sachems of Long Island came
voluntarily, and brought a tribute to us of twenty fathom of
wampom, each of them; and Miantunnomoh sent here some
Pequod squaws, which had run from us.
31.] The Naragansetts sent us the |1 hands l of three Pequods, -one the chief of those who murdered Capt. Stone.
[Very large blank.]
Twenty men went in a pinnace to kill sea horse at the Isle
of Sable, and after six weeks returned home, and could not find
the island; but, after another month, viz., about the [blank] of
September, they set forth again with more skilful seamen, with
intent to stay there all winter.
Mr. Eaton, and some others of Mr. Davenport's company,
went to view Quinepiack, with intent to begin a plantation
there. They had many offers here and at P!imouth, and they
had viewed many places, but none could content.
[Large blank.]
Some of the magistrates and ministers of Connecticut being
here, there was a day of meeting appointed to agree upon
some articles of confederation, and notice was given to Plim| heads II
diversity of opinions not very striking to the few, than the same church retaining, for their Christian instructors, the heads of the opposite parties, Cotton and
Wilson. The fact proves, stronger than any argument, the prudence of the
pastor and the temper of the teacher.




284                     JOHN WINTHROP.                       [1637.
outh, that they might join in it, (but their warning was so short
as they could not come).       This was concluded after.        See
(3.) 1643.
[Very large blank.]
30.] The synod, called the assembly, began at Newtown.
There were all the teaching elders through the country, and
some I1 new 11 come out of England, not yet called to any place
here, as Mr. Davenport, etc.
The assembly began with prayer, made by Mr. Shepherd, the
pastor of Newtown.      Then the erroneous opinions, which were
*238  spread in the country, were read, (being eighty1 in all;)
next the unwholesome expressions;2 then the scriptures
abused.    Then they chose two moderators for the next day,
viz., Mr. Buckly and Mr. Hooker, and these were continued in
that place all the time of the assembly. There were about
eighty opinions, some blasphemous, others erroneous, and all
unsafe, condemned by the whole assembly; whereto near all
the elders, and others sent by the churches, subscribed their
names; but some few liked not subscription, though they consented to the condemning of them.
11 were j|
1 If any in our times have such insatiable curiosity, as to desire more particular information of the incomprehensible jargon contained in these errors, the
exact numeration of which was eighty-two, imputed to the followers of Cotton
and supporters of Wheelwright, with the antinomian explanations of Mrs.
Hutchinson, that she denied, the whole is written in " A short Story of the
Rise, Reign, and Ruin of Antinomians, Familists, and Libertines, that infected
the Churches of New England," by Thomas Welde, who was one of the chief
inquisitors. The edition, London, 1644, published by the author, is in the Boston Athenseum; a second edition, London, 1692, in Harvard College Library.
The work has not, I presume, been often quoted within a century. It was
relied upon in the famous " Testimony of the Pastors of the Churches in the
Province of Massachusetts Bay at the Annual Convention in Boston, 25 May,
1743," protesting against the spreading of many antinomian and familistical
errors, occasioned by the itinerant labors of Whitefield, Tennent, and their disciples, by which, for some years, was produced the greatest religious excitement
ever known in New England. It was happy that the government did not employ the same means of conversion as in 1637.
2 They amounted to nine, in stating which, with their confutation, three pages
of Welde's book is occupied.




1637.]               JOHN WINTHROP.                         285
Some of the church of Boston, and some others, were offended at the producing of so many errors, as if it, were a reproach
laid upon the country without cause; and called to have the
persons named, which held those errors.       To which it was
answered and affirmed by many, both elders and others, that
all those opinions could be proved, by sufficient testimony,
to be held by some in the country; but it was not thought fit
to name the ~ parties, because this assembly had not to do with ~
persons, but doctrines only. Yet this would not satisfy some,
but they oft called for witnesses; and, because some of the
magistrates declared to them, (when they refused to forbear
speech unseasonably, though the moderators desired them,)
that, if they would not forbear, it would prove ~a civil~ disturbance, and then the magistrate must interpose, they objected
against this, as if the magistrate had nothing to do in this assembly. So as he was forced to tell one of them, that, if he
would not forbear, but make trial of it, he might see it executed.  Upon this some of Boston departed from the assem-:239
bly, and came no more.1
After the errors condemned, there were five points in question, between Mr. Cotton and Mr. Wheelwright on the one
part, and the rest of the elders on the other part,'which were
after reduced to three,* and those after put into such expressions as Mr. Cotton and they agreed, but Mr. Wheelwright
did not:1.  The first was about our union with Christ. The question
was, whether we were united before we had active faith.    The
consent was, that there was no marriage union with Christ before actual faith, which is more than habitual.
1 Perhaps it may seem reasonable, to doubt the usefulness of such a declaration of errors, that might not, at least many of them, have entered into the
heads of the speculatists, unless they had been thus branded. But, "'tis glorious sport, to see the engineer hoist with his own petard."
In his' Way of Congregational Churches,' p. 63, Cotton, answering many gross
charges of Bailey's Dissuasive, as to his concurrence in Mrs. Hutchinson's errors, says with much force: " Such as endeavored the healing of these distempers did seem to me to be transported with more jealousies, and heats, and
paroxysms of spirit than would well stand with brotherly love, or the rule of
the gospel." Ten years after the agitations, this was his opinion; and it may
safely be taken for the judgment of all succeeding time.




286                   JOHN WINTHROP.                   [1637.
2.  The second was, about evidencing justification ~by sanctification.~  The consent was, that some saving sanctifications
(as faith, etc.) were coexistent, concurrent, and coapparent (or
at least might be) with the witness of the Spirit always.
3. That the new creature is not the person of a believer,
but a body of saving graces in such a one; and that Christ, as
a head, doth enliven or quicken, preserve and act the same, but
Christ himself is no part of this new creature.
4.  That though, in effectual calling, (in which the answer of
the soul is by active faith, wrought at the same instant by the
Spirit,) justification and sanctification be all together in them;
yet God doth not justify a man, before he be effectually called,
and so a believer.
5. That Christ and his benefits may be offered and exhibited
to a man under a covenant of works, but not in or by a covenant of works.1
In the first handling of these questions, either party delivered
their arguments in writing, which were read in the assembly,
and, after, the answers to them, which spent much time without any effect; but after they came to open dispute, the questions were soon determined; for so they came to understand
each other better.
Mo. 7.]  The last day of the assembly other questions were
debated and resolved: -
*240   1.  That though women might meet (some few together) to pray and II edify 11 one another; yet such a set assembly, (as was then in practice at Boston,) where sixty or
more did meet every week, and one woman (in a prophetical
way, by resolving questions of doctrine, and expounding scripture) took upon her the whole exercise, was agreed to be disorderly, and without rule.2
11 advise[
1 We must regret, rather than wonder, that consent in the faith, after a synod
on high points of doctrine, not deduced simply, perhaps not deducible, from the
scriptures, is generally obtained by expressing the propositions in language,
either unintelligible or designedly ambiguous. The peace of the church is
restored by darkness.
2 A prophetical way has been often followed, at meetings of women in Boston, and is, I think, in our days, without censure. The conduct of the female




1637.]                 JOHN WINTHROP.                         287
2.  Though a private member might ask a question publicly,
after sermon, for information; yet this ought to be very wisely
and sparingly done, and that with leave of the elders: but
questions of I| reference, 11 (then in use,) whereby the doctrines
delivered were reproved, and the elders reproached, and that
with bitterness, etc., was utterly condemned.
3. That a person, refusing to come to the assembly, to abide
the censure of the church, might be proceeded against, though
absent; yet it was held better, that the magistrates' help were
called for, to compel him to be present.
4.  That a member, differing from the rest of the church in
any opinion, which was not fundamental, ought not for that to
forsake the ordinances there; and if such did desire dismission
to any other church, which was of his opinion, and did it for
that end, the church whereof he was ought to deny it for the
same end.1
22.] The assembly brake up; and it was propounded by
the governour, that they would consider, that, seeing the Lord
had been so graciously present in this assembly, that matters
had been carried on so peaceably, and concluded so comfortably in all love, etc., if it were not fit to have the like meeting
once a year, or, at least, the next year, to settle what yet remained to be agreed, or if but to nourish love, etc.    This motion was well liked of all, but it was not thought fit to conclude it.2
I blank I
assembly in 1637, however, so much resembles party making, that the resolution
of the synod is approved by the editor, though it bears hard on his great, great,
great, great grandmother.
1 Such resolutions as the two last must, by modern Congregationalists, be
thought very tyrannical; and any proceedings of churches conformable to them
would be utterly disregarded by the aggrieved. The law would now protect
one, instead of compelling him, in case of refusal to go to church to hear his
own censure.
2 General experience in Christendom, since the council at Jerusalem in the
days of the apostles, has shown, that, instead of tending to "nourish love,"
synods have served only to engender strife and debate, to rend anew the
seamless coat of their master, and in his name to utter a new commandment, that men hate one another. If this first synod of New England produced peace, as we cannot but acknowledge it did, it was by the encourage



288                 JOHN WINTHROP.                   [1637.
*241    There was a motion made also by the governour, that,
whereas there was difference among the churches about
the maintenance of their ministers, it might be agreed what
way was most agreeable to the rule of the gospel; but the
elders did not like to deal in that, lest it should be said, that
this assembly was gathered for their private advantage.'
26.] Mr. Davenport (as he had been before requested by the
assembly) preached out of Phil. 3: 16, wherein he laid down
the occasions of differences among Christians, etc., and declared
the effect and fruit of the assembly, and, with much wisdom
and sound argument, persuaded to unity, etc.
The diet of the assembly was provided at the country's
charge, as also the fetching and sending back of those which
came from Connecticut. It came to, in all, [blank].2
[Large blank.]
28.]  Two men were hanged at Boston for several murders.
The one, John Williams, a ship-carpenter, who, being lately
come into the country, and put in prison for theft, brake out of
prison with one John Hoddy, I1 whom,ll  near the great pond, in
the way to Ipswich, beyond Salem, he murdered, and took
away his clothes and what else he had, and went in them to
Ipswich, (where he had been sent to prison,) and was there
again apprehended; and though his clothes were all bloody,
yet he would confess nothing, till about a week after, that the
body of Hoddy was found by the kine, who, smelling the blood,
made such a roaring, as the cow-keeper, looking about, found
the dead body covered with a heap of stones.
The other, William Schooler, was a vintner in London, and
had been a common adulterer, (as himself did confess,) and had
wounded a man in a duel, for which he fled into the Low
I when ]1
ment of the magistrate to the evangelical process of banishment, which was
soon inflicted by the civil arm, after the ecclesiastical head had failed in its
remedies.
1 This disinterested spirit of the assembly, when invited by the chief civil
authority of the colony to consider of their own maintenance, must never be
recollected without honor.
2 From the Colony Records, where we ought to look, I am unable to supply
this blank. The synod lasted twenty-four days.




1637.]             JOHN WINTHROP.                 289
Country, and from thence he fled from his captain and came
into this country, leaving his wife (a handsome, neat woman)
in England. He lived with another fellow at Merrimack, and
there being a poor maid at Newbury, one Mary Sholy,'242
who had desired a guide to go with her to her master,
who dwelt at Pascataquack, he inquired her out, and agreed,
for fifteen shillings, to conduct her thither. But, two days
after, he returned, and, being asked why he returned so soon,
he answered, that he had carried her within two or three miles
of the place, and then she would go no farther. Being examined
for this by the magistrates 11 at 11 Ipswich, and no proof found
against him, he was let go. But, about a year after, being
impressed to go against the Pequods, he gave ill speeches, for
which the governour sent warrant for him, and being apprehended, (and supposed it had been for the death of the maid,
II2some l spake what they had heard, which might occasion
suspicion,) he was again examined, and divers witnesses produced about it. Whereupon he was committed, arraigned, and
condemned, by due proceeding. The 113 effect JJ of the evidence
was this:1. He had 4lived II a vicious life, and now lived like an
atheist.
2. He had sought out the maid, and undertook to carry her
to a place where he had never been.
3. When he crossed Merrimack, he landed in a place three
miles from the usual path, from whence it was scarce possible
she should get into the path.
4. He said he went by Winicowett house, which he said
stood on the contrary side of the way.
5. Being, as he said, within two or three miles of Swamscote, 11'where 1I he left her, he went not thither to tell them of
her, nor staid by her that night, nor, at his return home, did tell
any body of her, till he was demanded of her.
6. When he came back, he had above ten shillings in his
purse, and yet he said she would give him but seven shillings,
and he carried no money with him.
7. At his return, he had some blood upon his hat, and on
11 of 1l   I  2 soon 11   11 estate II   ii led Ii   115 when| 
VOL. I.               25




290                JOHN WINTHROP.                  [1637.
his skirts before, which lie said was with a pigeon, which he
killed.
8. He had a scratch on the left side of his nose, and, being
asked by a neighbor how it came, he said it was with a bramble,
which could not be, it being of the breadth of a small nail; and
being asked after by the magistrate, he said it was with his
piece, but that could not be on the left side.
9. The body of the maid was found by an Indian, about
half a year after, in the midst of thick swamp, ten miles short
of the place he said he left her in, and about three miles from
the place where he landed by Merrimack, (and it was after seen
*243 by the English,) the flesh being rotted off it, and the
clothes laid all on an heap by the body.
10. He said, that soon after he left her, he met with a bear,
and he thought that bear might kill her, yet he would not go
back to save her.
11. He brake prison, and fled as far as Powder Horn Hill,
and there hid himself out of the way, for fear of pursuit, and
after, when he arose to go forward, he could not, but (as himself confessed) was forced to return back to prison again.
At his death he confessed he had made many lies to excuse
himself, but denied that he had killed or ravished her. He was
very loath to die, and had hope he should be reprieved; but the
court held him worthy of death, in undertaking the charge of a
shiftless maid, and leaving her (when he might have done otherwise) in such a place as he knew she must needs perish, if not
preserved by means unknown,  Yet there were some ministers
and others, who thought the evidence not sufficient to take
away his life.1
(8.) 7.] The Wren, a small pinnace, coming from Connecticut, was taken in a N. E. storm, and forced to anchor near
Conyhassett, where she drave upon the rocks, and was wrecked,
but all the men were saved.
12.] A day of thanksgiving kept in all the churches for
our victories Il against the Pequods, and for the success of the
II a victory II
X Doubts might reasonably be entertained; for the first and last circumstances,
to say nothing of more than half of the others, are of very uncertain tendency.




1637.]              JOHN WINTHROP.                   291
assembly; but, by reason of this latter, some of Boston would
not be present at the public exercises. The captains and sol
diers, who had been in the late service, were feasted, and, after
the sermon, the magistrates and elders accompanied them. to
the door of the house where they dined.
[Large blank.]
(9.) 1.] Miantunnomoh, the Naragansett sachem, came to
Boston. The governour, deputy, and treasurer, treated with
him, and they parted upon fair terms.  He acknowledged
that all the Pequod country and Block Island were ours, and
promised that he would not meddle with them but by our
leave. We gave him leave to right himself for the 11 wrongs 11
which I12Janemoh and Wequash Cook l had done him; and
for the wrong they had done us, we would right ourselves in
our own time.
A young man, coming alone in a skiff from Newtown, in a
N. E. storm of wind and snow, was found dead in his 244
boat, with a half-crown piece in his mouth.
One Jewell, master of a bark, was drowned. The manner
was this. He was bound to the Isle of Sable, to relieve our men
there. His bark had lain near a week at Natascott, waiting for
him, but he staid at Boston drinking, and could not be gotten
away. Mo. x. When he went, there was committed to his care
a rundlet of strong water, sent to some there, he promising, that
upon his life, it should not be touched; but, as he went down
in his bark's skif, he went on shore at the castle, and there
drank out about a gallon of it, and at night went away; but, it
being very cold and dark, they could not find their bark, and
Jewell his hat falling into the water, as they were 11 trowing 11
back to look for it, he fell into the water, near the shore, where
it was not six feet deep, and could not be recovered.
There was great hope that the late general assembly would
have had some good effect in pacifying the troubles and dissensions about matters of religion; but it fell out otherwise.1
11 injuries 11  112 J. and N. Cook 11  113 coming 11
1 By this generation, an erroneous zeal for God in their fathers should be
regarded with tenderness. We are not much endangered in this respect by
their example; yet it is proper to look at their conduct, for it may be a warning,




292                      JOHN WINTHROP.                         [1637.
For though Mr. Wheelwright and those of his party had been
*245   clearly confuted and confounded        in the assembly, yet
they persisted in their opinions, and were as busy in nourishing contentions (the principal of them) as before.         Whereupon the general court, being assembled in the 2 of the 9th
month, and finding, upon consultation, that two so opposite
parties could not II contain 11 in the same body, without apparent
hazard of ruin to the whole, agreed to send away some of the
principal; and for this a fair opportunity' was offered by the
1] continue II
If the state had left this obscure controversy, where it belonged, to the unsound
heads but pure hearts of the deluded, it might soon have subsided in silence.
Hutchinson, I. 73, thinks posterity might have been ignorant that such a woman
as his ancestor ever existed. The proceedings of the first council of Ephesus,
A. D. 431, which condemned Nestorius and his harmless errors, may be found
in Gibbon's Decline and Fall, chap. XLVII. Metaphysical doctrines then influenced, as they have often since, the concerns of the state, and the rights of
citizens were judged by their opinions on religion; while the supreme magistrate, instead of an impartial arbiter, became the furious leader or blind follower
of the dominant faction. " Ephesus, the city of the Virgin, was defiled with
rage and clamor, with sedition and blood; the rival synods darted anathemas
and excommunications from their spiritual engines; and the court of Theodosius
was perplexed by the adverse and contradictory narratives of the Syrian and'Egyptian factions. During a busy period of three months, the emperor tried
every method, except the most effectual means of indifference and contempt, to
reconcile this theological quarrel."
The deliberations at Ephesus terminated in the establishment of a dogma
about the double nature of the Founder of our religion; but this benefit, for
which the unholy assembly has since been venerated under the title of the third
aecumenical council, appears rather the result of passion than of argument, and
relies more on the fraud of man than the authority of scripture. Similar indecencies may not be found in the ecclesiastical assemblies of New England; but
there is some parallelism in the object and the result; and the sarcasms of the
adversary are in no small degree justified. For seventeen centuries, the
occasions to blaspheme are almost as numerous as the synods.
1 Pretence would have been as proper a word as opportunity, and a strange
pretence it seems. If by the remonstrance an indignity were offered to the
March court, by all rules of proceeding, either of reason or practice, the same
body, and not another, should have passed its animadversion on the contempt.
Yet a new court was chosen in May, and held, as our author shows, a second
session in August, without taking any notice of the previous offence. Perhaps
it might have been imprudent to punish, before Sir H. Vane and Lord Ley departed; and such a probable inference is fortified by a passage in Welde's pre



1637.]                  JOHN WINTHROP.                            293
remonstrance or petition, which they preferred to the court the
9th of the 1st month, wherein they affirm      Mr. Wheelwright to
be innocent, and that the court had condemned the truth             of
Christ, with divers other scandalous and seditious speeches, (as
appears at large in the proceedingsl of this court, which were
faithfully  collected  and published soon after the court brake
up,) subscribed by more than sixty of that faction, whereof one
11 William [1 Aspinwall, being one, and he that drew         the said
petition, being then sent as a deputy for Boston, was for the
same dismissed, and after called to the court and disfranchised
and banished.2     John Coggeshall was another deputy, who,
though his hand 1 were 11 not to the petition, yet, professing   *246
himself to approve it, etc., was also dismissed, and after
disfranchised.   Then the court sent warrant to Boston to send
other deputies in their room; b ut they intended to have sent
the same men again; but Mr. Cotton, coming amongst them,
]| Mr. ||                             ]|2 was |
face. There was still another general court, in September after the dissolution
of the synod, and Aspinwall was a mermber of that court; yet, though it must
have been known, that the foul spirit exhibited in the petition was not purged
away by the scientific confutation, the sleeping honor of the March legislature
remained without vindication.
1 Unless my opinions be as much perverted by prejudice as those of the majority of the court appear to me, this account of the remonstrance is very
unjust; but that every reader may form his own judgment of this " seditious
libel," as it was called by authority, I have transcribed it from Welde, p. 23-25,
and given it a place in the Appendix, E.
2 The petition was suddenly drawn up, as the audience withdrew from the
court, after their censure of Wheelwright; and sentence of banishment was
passed on Aspinwall, before it was known that he was the penman. Welde, 30,
considers it " an overruling hand of God; for, the next day, it was discovered,
that he was the man that did frame the petition, and drew many to subscribe to
it, and some had their names put to it without their knowledge, and in his first
draught there were other passages so foul, as he was forced to put them out, and
yet many had not subscribed but upon his promise, that it should not be delivered without advice of Mr. Cotton, which was never done." Perhaps the passages erased before presenting were an aggravation of the crime in the opinion
of the reverend casuist, whose judgment is so blinded by passion, that he seems
an unfortunate advocate, rather than an impartial reporter. Of the misrepresentation about Cotton, and of the forged sl-natures, no light is obtained from
Winthrop or the public records.
25*




294                     JOHN WINTHROP.                       [1637.
dissuaded them with much ado.'        Then the court sent for 1r.
Wheelwright, and, he persisting to justify his sermon, and his
whole practice and opinions, and refusing to leave either the
place or his public exercisings, he was disfranchised and banished. Upon which he appealed to the king, but neither called
witnesses, nor desired any act to be made of it. The court
told him, that an appeal did not 11 lie; |l for by the king's grant
we had power to hear and determine without any reservation,
etc. So he relinquished his appeal, and the court gave him
leave to go to his house, upon his promise, that, if he were not
gone out of 11 2our II jurisdiction within fourteen days, he would
render himself to one of the magistrates.2
The court also sent for Mrs. Hutchinson, and charged her
with divers matters, as her keeping two public lectures every
week in her house, whereto sixty or eighty persons did usually
resort, and for reproaching most of the ministers (viz., all except Mr. Cotton) for not preaching a covenant of free grace,
and that they had not the seal of the spirit, nor were able
ministers of the New     Testament; which were clearly proved
against her, though she sought to shift it off. And, after many
speeches to and fro, at last she was so full as she could not
contain, but vented her revelations; amongst which this was
Illay 11                         12thell
1 Coddington was the other representative of Boston, and probably did not:sign the remonstrance; yet he approved it, I suppose, as much as Coggeshall.
In place of Aspinwall and Coggeshall, the Town Records inform  us, that,.6 November, William Colbron and John Oliver were chosen; but, at the same
court, the latter was " dismissed from being a deputy for justifying the seditious
libel, called a remonstrance or petition." Col. Rec. I. 203. The town had
spirit enough to forbear further exercise of their right for that session; but
Oliver, and Hough, who was of the same party, were members of the two following courts. This John Oliver, I presume, was brother of Thomas, the
ruling elder.
2 Hubbard, 368, almost confesses, that the government " had overdone in passing the sentence."  This treacherous candor, had Wheelwright died thirty
years sooner, might not have been observed. At the end of his Mercurius
Americanus, London, 1645, in reply to Welde's virulent book of the year before, the sufferer says:" It was marvellous he got thither," that is, to Piscataqua, "at that time, when they expelled him, by reason of the deep snow in
which he might have perished."




1637.]                  JOHN WINTHROP.                          295
one, that sie had it revealed to her, that she should come into
New England, and should here be || persecuted, 11 and that God
would ruin us and our posterity, and the whobe state, for *247
the same. So the court proceeded and banished her;
but, because it was winter, they committed her to a private
house, where she was well provided, and her own friends and
the elders permitted to go to her, but none else.
The court called     also Capt. Underhill, and     some five or
six more of the principal, whose hands were to the said
petition; and because they stood to justify it, they were disfranchised, and    such  as had    public  places were put from
them.2
The court also ordered, that the rest, who had subscribed
the petition, (and would not acknowledge their fault, and which
near twenty3 of them      did,) and some others, who had been
1 presented l
1 It will be seen, a few pages onward, that this house was in Roxbury. The
Colony Record of her banishment, I. 203, informs us, that she " was committed
to Mr. Joseph Welde," one of the deputies from that town, and brother of the
clergyman there, Thomas, the sad historian of the controversy, who had shown
himself sufficiently desirous of convincing her of her errors, and was not a little soured by his ill success. To be taken from her husband, children, and
friends, and committed to a prison in another town, even at the house of so good
a man as Joseph Welde, might not be agreeable process of conversion; but
when subjected to the perpetual buzzing of the clerical tormentor, she must
have been more than woman, not to prove incorrigible.
2 Underhill excused himself like a soldier, but in vain.  "He insisted
much," says Welde, "upon the liberty which all states do allow to military
officers for free speech, etc., and that himself had spoken sometimes as freely to
Count Nassau."
3 Only ten names of those, who " acknowledged their sin in subscribing the
seditious writing, and desired to have their names crossed out," are found in the
Records of that session; and one of them, Ralph Mousall, a representative at
the court in September, 1638, " for speeches formerly spoken by him in approbation of Mr. Wheelwright, was dismissed from being a member of this court."
Rec. I. 227. We are left then to the supposition, that the governour enlarges
the number of the converts, or else that, at a future day, when the violence of
party was assuaged, reconciliation with the offended majesty of a dif'erent court
was encouraged, without noticing the fact in their proceedings. Yet there is
entered, so late as 13 May, 1640, the submission of " Mr. Henry Flint." But
the victory over him was well deserving of notice, as he was a distinguished




296                     JOHN WINTHROP.                        [1637.
chief stirrers in these contentions, etc., should be disarmed.
This troubled    some of them      very much, especially because
they were to bring them    in themselves; but at last, when they
saw no remedy, they obeyed.'
young man, then chosen minister at Braintree, where his settlement, which
should have taken place at the same time with Tompson's, 19 November, 1639,
was delayed till 17 March after. No doubt this postponement was, to afford
him liberal opportunity for this recantation. The commendation of him by
Johnson, lib. I. c. 37, and again, lib. II. c. 18, for his industry against the same
" sinful opinions" appears, to us who know the whole, rather ludicrous. Mather's biography of Flint, Magnalia, III. c. 19, is remarkable, even in him, for its
nothingness.
1 In no'part of the history of any of the United States, perhaps, can a parallel be found for this act, the remarkable circumstances of which justify a long
transcript from the Colony records, vol. I. 207-8.
" Whereas the opinions and revelations of Mr. Wheelwright and IMrs. Hutchinson have seduced, and led into dangerous errors, many of the people heare
in Newe England, insomuch as there is just cause of suspition, that they, as
others in Germany, in former times, may, upon some revelation, make some
suddaine irruption upon those that differ from them in judgment: for prevention whereof, it is ordered, that all those, whose names are underwritten, shall,
(upon warning given or left at their dwelling houses,) before the 30th day of
this month of November, deliver in at Mr. Cane's house at Boston all such guns,
pistols, swords, powder, shot, and match, as they shall bee owners of, or have in
their custody, upon paine of tenn pound for evry default to bee made thereof;
which armes are to bee kept by Mr. Cane till this court shall take further order
therein. Also it is ordered, upon like penalty of X6~, that no man; who is to
render his armes by this order, shall buy or borrow any guns, swords, pistols,
powder, shot, or match, untill this court shall take further order therein."
" The names of Boston men to bee disarmed: Capt. John Underhill, Mr.
Thomas Oliver, William Hutchinson, William Aspinwall, Samuel Cole, William
Dyer, Edward Rainsfoard, John Button, John Sanfoard, Richard Cooke, Richard Fairbanks, Thomas Marshall, Oliver Mellows, Samuel Wilbore, John Oliver, Hugh Gunnison, John Biggs, Richard Gridley, Edward Bates, William
Dinely, William Litherland, Mathewe Iyans, Henry Elkins, Zaccheus Bosworth, Robert Rice, William Townsend, Robert Hull, William Pell, Richard
Hutchinson, James Johnson, Thomas Savage, John Davy, George Burden, John
Odlin, Gamaliel Wayte, Edward Hutchinson, William Wilson, Isaack Grosse,
Richard Carder, Robert Hardings, Richard Wayte, John Porter, Jacob Eliot,
James Penniman, Thomas Wardell, William Wardell, Thomas Matson, William
Baulston, John Compton, 3/r. Parker, William Freeborn, Henry Bull, John
Walker, William Salter, Edward Bendall, Thomas Wheeler, Mr. Clarke, Mr.
John Coggeshall."




1637.]                   JOHN WINTHROP.                            297
All the proceedings of this court against these persons:248
were set down at large, with the reasons and other observations, and were sent into England to be published there, to the
"The like order is taken for other towns, changing the names of those who
shall deliver their armes, and keepe them.
"The names of Salem men to bee disarmed: Mr. Scrugs, Mr. Alfoot, Mr.
Commins, goodman Robert Moulton, goodman King, to deliver their arms to
Leift. Damfort.
" The names of Neweberry men to bee disarmed are Mr. Dummer, Mr. Easton, Mr. Spencer, to bee delivered to the cunstable of the towne.
" The names of Roxberry men to bee disarmed are Mr. Edward Denison,
Richard Morris, Richard Bulgar, and William Denison, Philip Sherman, to bee
delivered to goodman Johnson.
" The names of Ipswich men to bee disarmed are Mr. Foster and Samuel
Sherman, which are to deliver their armes to Mr. Bartholomewe.
" The names of Charlestowne men to be disarmed are Mr. George Bunker, and James Browne, who are to deliver their armes to goodman Thomas
Line."
"It was ordered, that if any that are to bee disarmed acknowledge their sinn
in subscribing the seditious libell, or do not justify it, but acknowledge it evill to
two magistrates, they shall bee thereby freed from delivering in their armes
according to the former order."
"' The towne of Roxberry is required to take order for the safe custody
of Mrs. Hutchinson, and if any charge arise, to be defrayed by her husband."
The full and overflowing measure of an honorable and Christian revenge,
for this indignity to the lineal ancestor of the editor, was enjoyed by him, little
more than thirty-seven years after, when he was commander in chief of all the
Massachusetts forces, in the beginning of King Philip's war, and the blood of his
sons was shed for his country. He was representative for Boston in 1654, and
very often after, as well as for Hingham, and Andover; speaker of the house
by five annual elections, and member of the council in 1680, and until his death,
14 February, 1682.
Another of these disarmed gentlemen, Edward Hutchinson, son of the
prophetess, and brother-in-law of Savage, representative for Boston, 1658, fell
by the mortal wound received in Indian ambuscade near Quaboag, at which
town he died, 19 August, 1675, in an honorable rank. His will is in our
Probate Records, Vol. VI. 95. His son, the Hon. Elisha Hutchinson, who died
10 December, 1717, aged 77, was father of Hon. Thomas, born 30 January,
1674, who died 3 December, 1739. This last was father of Thomas, born 9
September, 1711, H. C. 1727, the celebrated historian and unhappy governour
of Massachusetts, who died 3 June, 1780. Of this latter Eliot gives an account
more full and judicious than of any other in his admirable volume.




298                      JOHN    WINTHROP.                     [1637.`24Q9 end that'all' our godly friends might not be discouraged
from coming to us, etc.1
1 In the margin was written, in a hand I thought to be Cotton Mather's, " This
was printed by Mr. Wells about seven years after."  The misspelling of the
author's name is strange. From diligent examination of Welde's book, I think
he must be held answerable for 72 of its 85 pages; and that Gov. Winthrop
wrote what is printed from the top of p. 46 to the third line of p. 59. This is
entitled, " A Brief Apology in Defence of the General Proceedings of the Court,"
[probably Winthrop had written, Proceedings of the General Court,] " holden
at Boston, the ninth day of the first month, 1636, against Mr. J. Wheelwright,
a member there, by occasion of a Sermon," etc. etc. Welde, who went home
in 1641, did not until 1644 publish his " Short Story of the Rise, Reign, and
Ruin of the Antinomians, etc., that infected the churches of New England;
and how they were confuted by the assembly of ministers there; as also of the
magistrates' proceedings in Court against them  together with God's strange and
remarkable judgments from heaven upon some of the chief fomenters of these
Opinions, and the lamentable death of Mrs. Hutchinson; very fit for these
times, here being the same Errors amongst us, and acted by the same spirit.
Published at the instant request of sundry, by one that Wcas ans eye and ear
witness of the carriage of matters there."  Quotations follow from Ephes. 4: 14,
and 2 Peter, 3: 17. "London: printed for Ralph Smith, at the sign of the
Bible, in Cornhill, near the Royal Exchange, 1644." The book opens with a
short address, followed by sixteen very curious pages of preface, and a postscript,
to which is signed the name of T. Welde.
The intent of the address to the reader, is to convince him, that T. W. met
with the book, " newly come forth of the press," and was earnestly desired " to
perfect it by laying down the order and sense of this story, (which in the book
is omitted;") and that the names of the parties in our troubles thus being
4' already in print without any act of his," he thought it " requisite that God's
great works should be made known," whereupon he drew up the following
preface, "with some additions to the conclusion of the book."
No small reason to presume, that this is altogether a pretence on the part of
the virulent pamphleteer, would be drawn from inspection of the copy of the
work in the British Museum. It is in the wonderful collection, by Thomason,
of the pamphlets published from 1640 to 1660, of near thirty thousand pieces,
in almost two thousand volumes, and is found in Vol. 143 of the small quartos,
there marked 19 Feb. 1643, as the gatherer was careful, he says, " that the very
day is written upon most of them that they came out."
Very trifling importance would attach, however, to the question of Welde's
concern in the publication; and we might slightly regard his indication of
himself on the title-pagre, that does not bear his name, as "an eye and ear
witness of the carriage of matters," had not the over-cunning writer caused
another title-page to be affixed to the sanme work, omitting solely the address
and preface. It has every word, and part of a word, and abbreviation of names,




1637.]                   JOHN WINTHROP.                          299
After this, many of the      church   of Boston, being highly
offended with the governour for this proceeding, were earnest
with the elders to have him called to account for it; but they
were not forward in it, and himself, understanding their intent,
thought fit to prevent such a public disorder, and so took occasion to speak to the congregation to this effect:1.   That if he had been called, etc., he would have desired,
first, to have advised with the elders, whether the church had
power to call in question the proceedings of the civil court.
2.   He would have consulted with the rest of the court,
and exactly the same references and figures, on every page, as the former book,
from p. 1 to 66, and Finis inclusive. Yet, to mystify a heedless observer, it is
entitled, " Antinomians and Familists condemned by the Synod of Elders in
New England; with the proceedings of the Magistrates against them, and their
Apology for the same; together with a memorable example of God's judgments
upon some of those persons, etc.;" and most exact copy of the last words and
figures of the imprint," London: published for Ralph Smith at the sign of the
Bible, etc., 1644." It seems, as if the types had never been disturbed; and to a
skilful eye this test is decisive. My attention to this extraordinary instance of
bibliographical disingenuity was drawn in March, 1851, by Dr. Harris, the learned
librarian of our University, where it is preserved; but probably it imposed upon
nobody until within two or three years. Certainly, in some ancient chirography,
of which this substituted title-page is probably the sole possessor, as I presume no
other copy can be found in the world, (for Thomason had not heard of it, we
may be sure,) it is branded, " By Mr. Wells." What a sneaking device it was,
need not be argued. Nor can any one, it seems to me, hesitate to ask the
unanswerable question, What did Welde mean by acknowledging in his preface
" SOME ADDITIONS TO THE CONCLUSION OF THE BOOK," when not a word, or
letter, or comma, or figure, is added to the last six pages or any part of what, for
a shield of his own cowardice, he wished to have pass as a new edition of a work
heretofore issued from the press?
No doubt was ever expressed about the true title-page, " A Short Story, etc."
by Baylie, in Dissuasive, 1645; by Wheelwright, in Mercurius Americanus,
1645, both at London; or by Cotton, 1648; by our own General Court, 1654,
as in note to p. 216, ante; by the author of " A Glass for the People of New
England," 1676, as quoted by Hutchinson, 1. 72, charging Rev. Samuel Clark
of London with "taking the lie out of his brother Welde's Short Story" into
his book, " God's judgments against heresy;" or by Mather, or by the London
publisher of the second edition, 1692; or by the careful antiquary, Prince, in
Catal. of N. E. Library; or by Chauncey, or Eliot, or any other of our New
England divines; and perhaps the reader may think I have derived too much
gratification from disclosing the shameless infirmity or petty malice of the
ecclesiastical historian. Let it go for the least skilfll of all attempts at deception:




300                 JOHN WINTHROP.                  [1637.
whether he might discover the 11 counsels II of the court to this
assembly.
3. Though he knew, that the elders and some others did
know, that the church could not inquire into the justice and
proceedings of the court, etc.; yet, for the I 2satisfaction l of
such as did not, and were willing to be satisfied, he would
declare his mind herein.
4. He showed, that, if the church had such power, they must
have it from Christ, but Christ had disclaimed it in his practice
113 and 11 by rule, as Luke [blank,] Matt. [blank;] and the scripture holds not out any rule or example for it; and though
Christ's kingly power be in his church, yet that is not that
kingly power whereby he is King of kings and Lord of lords,
for by that kings reign and princes, etc. It is true, indeed, that
magistrates, as they are church members, are accountable to the
church for their failings, but that is when they are out of their
calling; for we have examples of the highest magistrates in the
same kind, as Uzzia, when he would go offer incense in the
*250 temple, the officers of the church called him to account, and
withstood him. But when Asa put a prophet in prison, and
when Salam put out Abiathar from the priesthood, (the one
being a good act and the other ill,) yet the officers of the church
did not call either of them to account for it. If a magistrate
shall, in a private way, take away a man's goods or his servants,
etc., the church may call him to account for it; but if he doth
thus in pursuing a course of justice, (though the thing be unjust,)
yet he is not accountable, etc.
5. For himself, he did nothing in the cases of the brethren,
but by the advice and direction of our teacher and other of the
elders. For in the oath, which was administered to him and
the rest, etc., there was inserted, by his advice, this clause,In all causes wherein you are to give your vote, etc., you are to
give your vote as in your judgment and conscience you shall
see to be most for the public good, etc.; and so for his part he
was persuaded, that it would be most for the glory of God, and
the public good, to pass sentence as they did.
1| concerns |[  112 sanctification[  II 3 as II
an anonymous title-page to a pamphlet, of which "additions to the conclusion,"
probably of seven pages, were before confessed.




1637.]                  JOHN WINTHROP.                        301
6.  He would give them one reason, which was 1I a I[ ground
for his judgment, and that was, for that he saw, that those
brethren, etc., were so divided from the rest of the country in
their judgment and practice, as it could not stand with the
public peace, that they should continue amongst us. So, by
the example of Lot in Abraham's family, and after Hagar and
Ishmael, he saw they must be sent away.1
Mo. 11.] The church at Roxbury dealt with divers of their
members, (who had their hands to the petition,) and spent many
days in public meetings to have brought them to see their sin
in that, as also in the corrupt opinions which they held, but
could not prevail with them.2     So they proceeded to two or
three admonitions, and, when all was in 112vainl1 they cast them
out of the church. In their dealing with them, they took some
of them in plain lies and other foul distempers.
[Blank.]
9.]  Divers of the elders went to Weymouth, to reconcile the
differences between the people and Mr. Jenner,3 whom they'251
had called thither with intent to have him their pastor.
They had good success of their prayers.
13.] About thirty persons of Boston going out in a fair day
to Spectacle Island to cut wood, (the town being in great want
t -the 1                         Il2 union ||
1 That such examples from the private history of the Jewish patriarchs were
alleged as justification of the intolerance of the ruling party, should not lessen
our esteem of the general prudence of Winthrop, which, on the main subject of
inquiry before the church, is exhibited with great happiness, and must have
satisfied, or silenced, all opponents.
2 Yet the mild and candid Thomas Welde was pastor there.
3 Thomas Jenner remained not long at Weymouth, though he represented
the town in general court, May, 1640; for, in Hutchinson's Coll. 111, is a letter,
and a good one, from him, early in 1641, at Saco. He had been made free of the
colony 8 December, 1636. Lechford, 45, speaks of him as residing in Maine.
Weymouth seems to have been peculiarly unfortunate in its ministers, the first
five having all been transplanted. Hull, Jenner, and Lenthall, appear in this
History; Newman removed to Rehoboth; and when they were happy with
Thacher, in the second generation, he was, in 1669, transferred to Boston. I
presume Jenner went home to England; for, in Hazard, 11. 78, a letter of
Edward Winslow, London, 17 April, 1651, speaks of a purchase of his library
for Harvard College, he being poor, and then living in Norfolk.
VOL. i.                    26




302                      JOHN WINTHIROP.                      [1637.
thereof,l) the next night the wind rose so high at N. E. with
snow, and after at N. W. for two days, and then it froze so hard,
as the bay was all frozen up, I[ save [I a little channel.   In this
twelve of them gate to the Governour's Garden, and seven more
were carried in the ice in a small skiff out at Broad Sound, and
kept among Brewster's Rocks, without food or fire, two days, and
then the wind forbearing, they gate to Pullin Point, to a little
house there of Mr. Aspenwall's.     Three of them    gate home the
next day over the ice, but their hands and feet frozen.       Some
lost their fingers and toes, and one died.    The rest went from
Spectacle Island to the main, but two of them fell into the ice,
yet recovered again.
In this extremity of weather, a small pinnace was cast away
upon Long Island by Natascott, but the men were |[ 2saved, [
and came home upon the ice.
[Large blank.]
16.]  The powder and arms of the country, which were kept
at Boston, were, by order of the last court, carried to Roxbury
and Newtown.2
This year a plantation was begun at Tecticutt by a gentlewoman, an ancient maid, one Mrs. Poole.3             She went late
except II                         112 found |[
1 It may seem strange, that a scarcity of wood should occur so soon after the
settlement of the town; but we must remember its narrow dimensions within
the peninsula, and presume that none was brought in from the country. By
the accident which befel one of elder Oliver's sons cutting wood on the neckc in
January, 1632-3, we see there was then wood enough for the occasions of the
people; and the Town Records, for three or four years later, contain frequent
regulations of the manner and quantity in which the inhabitants might there be
supplied. The forest was now probably exhausted; and in a letter, giving an
account of the same disaster recorded in the text, the governour says to his son,
" we at Boston were almost ready to break up for want of wood."  Still there
was plenty on the islands in the harbor. The continuance of our city has never
been materially endangered since 1637 for want of fuel.
2 We can assign no other reason for this measure than the religious opinions
of the majority of Boston, by which the condition of the other party was rendered unsafe. As their faith was so unsound as to require the government to
disarm them, there was little need of powder in the magazine.
3 She was probably encouraged in her perilous undertaking by the Rev.
William Hooke, a gentleman born, as the old phrase was, from Hampshire, who
was the spiritual guide of the new settlement until he removed to New Haven.




1637.]                  JOHN WINTHROP.                           303
thither, and endured much hardship, and lost much cattle.        252
Called, after, Taunton.1
[Blank.]
This was no long time, yet it is variously given, as are also the circumstances of
ordination or installation, by Trumbull, I. 280, 286, 296, 493.
Hooke was teacher at New Haven, after the return of Samuel Eaton, but
went home in 1656. I presume both of them were overshadowed by the powers
of Davenport, the pastor. Yet the talents of Hooke were respectable. A very
interesting letter from him to Winthrop of Connecticut, about the private intrigues and difficulties of Cromwell, with whom he was in great favor, is preserved in 3 Hist. Coll. I. 181, from Vol. XIX. of Trumbull MSS. Whalley, the
regicide, was, I find from MS., brother of his wife, which circumstance may partly
account for the devotion shown to him and Goffe at New Haven. Hooke died,
21 March, 1667, says Trumbull, but M/ather, on better authority, makes it 1678.
In the Records of Taunton proprietors, which I have examined, in setting out
Mrs. Poole's lot, May, 1639, reference is made to Hooke's lot. She was, I
think, accompanied by some relatives; for in the town books is found, " Timothy
Poole, the son of Mr. William Poole, died the 15th of December, 1667. He was
drowned in a little pond at Nesquabinausit, where it was thought he did swim
in after a goose which he had shot." In this most ancient town of Bristol
county, the curious traveller may see a fair slab, formerly laid over the grave of
this virgin mother of Taunton, now removed to the common burial-ground,
having this inscription:- 
" Here rest the remains
of MRs. ELIZABETH POOL,
a native of Old England,
of good family, friends, and prospects,
all which she left, in the prime of her life,
to enjoy the religion of her conscience
in this distant wilderness;
a great proprietor of the township
of Taunton,
a chief promoter of its settlement
and its incorporation 1639-40,
about which time she settled near this spot;
and, having employed the opportunity
of her virgin state
in piety, liberality,
and sanctity of manners,
died, May 21st, A. D. 1654, aged 65 
to whose memory
this monument is gratefully erected
by her next of kin,
John Borland, Esquire,
A. D. 1771."
X A town so early settled as Taunton should have some history; and as it is




304                  JOHN WINTHROP.                       [1637.
*253    Another plantation was begun (and called Sandwich)
about fifteen   miles beyond Plimouth, towards Cape
Cod, by many families, which removed from Sagus, otherwise
Lynn.1
[Blank.]
Upon occasion of the censures of the court upon Mrs.
Hutchinson and others, divers other foul errors were discovered, which had been secretly carried by way of inquiry, but
after were maintained by Mrs. Hutchinson and others; and so
many of Boston were tainted with them, as Mr. Cotton, finding
how he had been abused, and made (as himself said) their
stalking horse, (for they pretended to hold nothing but what
Mr. Cotton held, and himself did think the same,) did spend
most of his time, both publicly and privately, to discover those
errors, and to reduce such as were gone astray. And also the
magistrates, calling together such of the elders as were near,
did spend two days in consulting with them about the way to
help the growing evils.
Some of the secret opinions were these: -
That there is no inherent righteousness in a child of God.
That neither absolute nor conditional 1i promisesll belong to
a Christian.
That we are not bound to the law, not as a rule, etc.
That the Sabbath is but as other days.
That the soul is mortal, till it be united to Christ, and
then it is annihilated, and the body also, and a new given
by Christ.
1I praises I1
not included in Prince's list of deficiencies, I presume, that, in the immense
collection of that most diligent antiquary, more than a century since, one was
contained, but now gone, with his other MS. treasures, to the winds, the
worms, or the flames. The first volume of Bristol county's Registry of Deeds
contains a more recent confirmation of lands of Titicut, purchased in 1637, by
Mrs. Poole, in behalf of the town of Taunton.
1 If no other lover of the things of old will undertake to set in order the
annals of Sandwich, the public may well expect the favor from the historian
of Plimouth. The possession of the faculty is evidence of the call to such
a work.
Such was my hope, twenty-eight years ago. The beloved annalist of Plimouth died four years after its expression; and we do not know that the work is
begun by another.




1637.]                  JOHN WINTHROP.                         305
That there is no resurrection of the body.
[Very large blank.]
Mo. 12.]    Divers gentlemen and others, being joined in a
military company, desired to be made a corporation, etc. But
the council, considering (from the example of the Pretorian
band among the Romans, and the Templars in Europe) how
dangerous it might be to erect a standing authority of military
men, which might easily, in time, overthrow       the civil power,
thought fit to stop it betimes.    Yet they were allowed to be a
company, but subordinate to all authority.1
About this time the Indians, which were in our fami- 9254
lies, were much frightened with Hobbamock (as they call
the devil) appearing to them in divers shapes, and persuading
them to forsake the English, and not to come at the assemblies,
nor to learn to read, etc.
26.]   Mr. Peirce, in the Salem      ship, the Desire, returned
from  the West Indies after seven months.        He had been at
Providence, and brought some cotton, and tobacco, and negroes,2 etc., ~from thence, ~ and salt from Tertugos. Dry fish
and strong liquors are the only commodities for those parts.
He met there two men-of-war, set forth by the lords, etc., of
Providence with letters of mart, who had taken divers prizes
from the Spaniard, and many negroes.
A reason for this jealousy will appear in the course of a few paragraphs onward; but this company, now known as the Ancient and Honorable Artillery,
soon triumphed over such scruples, and has enjoyed, in a remarkable manner,
the countenance of the government of colony, province, and commonwealth.
The History of this military band was published, in 1820, by Zechariah G.
Whitman, Esq. Keayne, its first captain, was orthodox, as we see from the
order in a preceding note, page 248, that the arms of the disaffected of Boston
should be surrendered at his house. His creed was more correct than his practice, on which a few remarks by the historian, and some exemplification by the
editor, will appear.
2 Perhaps the unavoidable conclusion from this passage is, that slaves were
brought here for sale. It was an unhappy exchange for the Indians, - fifteen
boys and two women, -he had carried out, (see page 234;) though perhaps
the blacks were happier than their red brethren. A few years later, we shall
see a very honorable testimony of our fathers against the horrible practice of
taking the negroes from their native land.
26*




306                     JOHN WINTHROP.                      [1637.
Mo. 1.]   While MVrs. Hutchinson      continued   at Roxbury,
divers of the elders and others resorted to her, and finding
her to persist in maintaining those gross errors beforementioned, and many others, to the number of thirty or thereabout,
some of them wrote to the church at Boston, offering to make
proof of the same before the church, etc., 15; whereupon she
was called, (the magistrates being desired to give her license
to come,) and the lecture was appointed to begin at ten. (The
general court being then at Newtown, the governour and the
treasurer, being members of Boston, were permitted to come
down, but the rest of the court continued          at Newtown.)
When she appeared, the errors were read to her. The first
was, that the souls of men are mortal by generation, but, after,
made immortal by Christ's purchase.       This she maintained a
long time; but at length she was so clearly convinced by reason and scripture, and the whole church agreeing that sufficient
had been delivered for her conviction, that she yielded she had
been in an error. Then they proceeded to three other errors:
*255 1. That there was no resurrection of these bodies, and
that these bodies were not united to Christ, but every person united hath a new body, etc. These were also clearly confuted, but yet she held her 11 own;;1 so as the church (all but
two of her sons) agreed she should be admonished, and because her sons would not agree to it, they were admonished
also.'
error |
1 Bating what is incomprehensible, and may be rejected rather as nonsense
than heresy, we should easily imagine, that a construction in the mildest sense
would have found little damnable error in these opinions. It was well that the
projector of such novelties was not branded as an atheist, or Sadducee, denying
the resurrection and future life altogether. Controversialists easily impute to
the dogmas of their opponents consequences drawn only by the imputers, and
then fasten on the new doctrines the opprobrium of their false inferences.
The doctrine of resurrection of the body, apparently of heathen origin,
though incautiously asserted in words by Christians of many communions, I am
glad to find so early disputed in Massachusetts. The materialists have indeed
the majority on their side from a very early age of our religion, the Author and
Finisher of which, in giving instruction to the poor, deemed it unnecessary to
explain, what could hardly, in those times, be made intelligible, - the manner
of existence in the future state. This part of the creed is not taught in the




1637.]                   JOHN WINTHROP.                            307
Mr. Cotton     pronounced    the sentence of admonition         256
with great solemnity, and with much zeal and detestation
of her errors and pride of spirit. The assembly continued till
eight at night, and all did acknowledge the special presence of
God's spirit therein; and she was appointed to appear again
the next lecture day.
While the general court sate, there came a letter, directed
to the court, from John Greene1 of Providence, who, not long
scriptures. But, in his first letter to the church of Corinth, xv. 35-51, the
greatest of the apostles has illustrated, as far as the original and acquired ignorance of his correspondents could receive the explanation, the subject of a resurrection in a manner perfectly consistent with the refined intellectual philosophy
of the spiritualists. Yet he strongly marks the folly of the question, " How are
the dead raised, and with what bodies do they come?"
Hutchinson, I. 478, in a note to his chap. 6, which treats of the Indians,
quotes Roger Williams as saying, " that when he had discoursed of the creation, of the soul, of the danger of it, and the saving of it, they assented; but
when he spake of the resurrection of the body, they cried out, We will never
believe this." On that passage Mr. Jefferson, in his margin, had made a remark
like this: " This doctrine of the resurrection of the body is, it seems, so absurd
as to stagger even the credulity of Indians."  Having sent to Washington, for
the purpose of verifying this quotation, I find, from my friend's reply, that the
words " had been most carefully scratched out with a penknife."  To me it seems
a proof of more timid than useful friendship.
The future restoration of the flesh, as well as the soul, though asserted by
speculative expounders of our religion in the second or third age after the apostles, did not become a necessary symbol of faith before the middle of the fpurth
century. A dignitary of the church of England, higher in learning than station,
left, to be published after his death," An Enquiry when the Resurrection of
the Body, or Flesh, was first inserted into the public Creeds," London, 1757.
When the reader learns, that A. A. SYKES was the author, he will need no
other recommendation of this modest tract,
A profound and original philosopher, to whom revelation owes much for his
aid, in " The Light of Nature Pursued," vol. III. 425, offers a striking observation, which shall close this note: " As to the vulgar notion of a resurrection in
the same form and substance we carry about at present, the various ways in
which it has been expounded, and many difficulties raised upon them all, sufficiently declare it untenable: and the reason ordinarily given, because the body,
being partaker in the deed, ought to share in the reward, as well requires a resurrection of the sword a man murders with, or the bank note he gives to charitable uses; for our mind is the sole agent, and our hands are as much instruments as any thing we hold in them."
1 He is, probably, the same gentleman, of whom much will be found in our




308                    JOHN WINTHROP.                       [1637.
before, had been imprisoned and fined, for saying that the
magistrates had usurped upon the power of Christ in his
church, and had persecuted Mr. Williams and another, whom
they had banished for disturbing the peace by divulging their
opinions against the authority of the magistrates, etc.; but
upon his submission, etc., his fine was remitted; and now, by
his letter, he retracted his former submission, and charged the
court as he had done before.  Now, because the court knew, that
divers others of Providence were of the same ill affection to
the court, and were probably suspected to be confederate in
the same letter, the court ordered, that, if any of that plantation were found within our jurisdiction, he should be brought
before one of the magistrates, and if he would not disclaim the
charge in the said letter, he should be sent home, and charged
to come no more into this jurisdiction, upon pain of imprisonment and further censure.
At this court, divers of our chief military officers, who had
declared themselves favorers of the familistical persons and
opinions, were sent for, and being told, that the court having
257 "some jealousy of them for the same, and therefore did desire
some 1] good 1[ satisfaction from them, they did ingenuously
acknowledge, how they had been deceived and misled by the
pretence, which 11 2was 1f held forth, of advancing Christ, and
debasing the creature, etc., which since they have found to be
otherwise, and that their opinions and practices 11 3tended 1I to dis11 general b1 II had been 1                led Il
second volume, as a chief planter of Warwick, with Gorton and Holden; and
from whom the highly respectable family in Rhode Island, of which was the celebrated General Greene, derives its descent. Like most other dwellers in that
colony, he was subject to vexation from our government; for, in the Record of
proceedings at our court, 1 August, 1637, I observe, "Mr. John Greene of New
Providence, having spoken against the magistrates contemptuously, stands
bound, in one hundred marks, to appear at the next quarter court to be held
the first Tuesday of the 5th month ensuing;" and on 29th of that month he was
fined ~20, and forbid to come into this jurisdiction on pain of fine and imprisonment. His religious opinions seem not to have attracted the wrath of heaven
to shorten his days, for he lived long in the land; and his son of the same name
was deputy governour of the heterodox colony in 1700. See Callender, 35,
37, 43, 93.




1637.]              JOHN WINTHROP.                    309
turbance and delusions; apd so blessed God, that had so timely
discovered their error and danger to them.
At this court, a committee was appointed, of some magistrates, some ministers, and some others, to compile a body of
fundamental laws.
Also the elders (who had been requested to deliver their
judgments concerning the law of adultery, about which three
had been kept long in prison) returned their answer, with the
reasons thereof, to this effect: That, if the law had been suficiently published, they ought to be put to death. Whereupon
the court, considering that there had been some 11 defect |
in that point, and especially for that it had been oft questioned
among the deputies and others, whether that law were of force
or not, being made by the court of assistants by allowance of
the general court; therefore it was thought safest, that these
three persons should be whipped and banished; and the law
was confirmed and published.
The Castle Island being found to be very chargeable to
maintain the garrison there, and of little use, but only to have
some command of ships, which should come hither with passengers, etc., there was a committee appointed to dispose of the
ammunition there, etc.2
22.] Mrs. Hutchinson appeared again; (she had been licensed by the court, in regard she had given hope of her repentance,
to be at Mr. Cotton's house, that both he and Mr. Davenport
might have the more opportunity to deal with her;) and the
articles being again read to her, and her answer required, she
delivered it in writing, wherein she made a retractation of near
all, but with such explanations and circumstances as gave no
satisfaction to the church; so as she was required to speak
further to them. Then she declared, that it was just with God
I dispute 11
On pain of death for returning, the Colony Record has it.
2 The rate levied by this court, of ~1500, shows a considerable variance from
the proportions in August preceding:- Boston, ~233.10; Ipswich, ~180;
Salem, ~172.10; Dorchester, ~140; Charlestown, ~138; Roxbury, ~115;
Watertown, ~110; Newtown, ~106; Lynn, ~105; Newbury, ~75; Medford,
~52.10; Hingham, ~36; Weymouth, ~27; and Mr. Theophilus Eaton, ~20.




310                     JOHN WINTHROP.                       [1637.
"258 to leave her to herself, as he had done, for her slighting
his ordinances, both magistracy and ministry; and confessed that what she had spoken against the magistrates at the
court (by way of revelation) was rash and ungrounded; and
desired the church to pray for her.    This gave the church good
hope of her repentance; but when she was examined about
some particulars, as that she had denied inherent righteousness,
etc., she affirmed that it was never her judgment; and though
it was proved by many testimonies, that she had been of that
judgment, and so had persisted, and maintained it by argument
against divers, yet she impudently persisted in her affirmation,
to the astonishment of all the assembly.       So that, after much
time and many arguments had been spent to bring her to see
her sin, but all in vain, the church, with one consent, cast her
out.   Some moved to have her admonished once more; but, it
being for manifest evil in matter of conversation, it was agreed
otherwise; and for that reason also the sentence was denounced
by the pastor, matter of manners belonging properly to his
place.
After she was excommunicated, her spirits, which seemed
before to be somewhat dejected, revived again, and she gloried
in her sufferings, saying, that it was the greatest happiness, next
to Christ, that ever befel her.' Indeed, it was a happy day to
1 Welde, on his last page, calls her the American Jezabel, and is surprised,
in the simplicity of his bigotry, at her hardness of heart in slighting the excommunication, "as she is not affected with any remorse, but glories in it, and fears
not the vengeance of God, which she lies under; as if God did work contrary
to his own word, and loosed from heaven what his church had bound upon
earth." The sober story-teller, who thus " played the God an engine on his
foe," closes his book with these appropriate remarks. See my note beginning on
page 249. But the blood of this Jezabel - the reader will see the propriety of
this hard name, when, in a very few years, she and most of her family were
murdered by the Indians near Long Island, as the author of Rise, Reign, and
Ruin exultingly relates - the blood of this Jezabel, besides being licked by the
dogs, was, in two generations, mixed, by intermarriage, with the more orthodox
iwgq of Thomas Welde. His grandson, of the same name, first pastor of the
church of Dunstable, gathered 16 December, 1685, took to wife a great granddaughter of this same outcast from heaven and the church of Boston. The sin
of the progenitor was, I presume, exhausted by subdivision, or neutralized by
admixture; for their son, Habijah S. Welde, was minister of Attleborough. See
Alden's Collection of Epitaphs, I. 110, with III. 41.




1638.]                JOHN WINTHROP.                        311
the churches of Christ here, and to many poor souls, who had
been seduced by her, who, by what they heard and saw that
day, were (through the grace of God) brought off quite from
her errors, and settled again in the truth.
At this time the good providence of God so disposed, divers
of the congregation (being the chief men of the party, her husband being one) were gone to Naragansett to seek out a *259
new place for plantation, and taking liking of one in Plimouth patent, they went thither to have it granted them; but
the magistrates there, knowing their spirit, gave them a denial,
but consented they might buy of the Indians an island in the
Naragansett Bay.'
After two or three days, the governour sent a warrant to Mrs.
Hutchinson to depart this jurisdiction before the last of this
month, according to the order of court, and for that end set her
at liberty from  her former constraint, so as she was not to go
forth of her own house till her departure; and upon the 28th
she went by water to her farm       at the Mount, where she
was to take water, with Mr. Wheelwright's wife and family,
to go to Pascataquack; but she changed her mind, and went
by land to Providence, and so to the island in the Naragansett
Bay, which her husband and the rest of that sect had purchased
of the Indians, and prepared with all speed to remove unto.
For the court had ordered, that, except they were gone with
their families by such a time, they should be summoned to the
general court, etc.
30.]  Mr. Davenport and Mr. Prudden,2 and a brother of Mr.
1 The denial was matter of inference, for the adventurers were resolved to go
free of Plimouth as well as Massachusetts; and the consent was the advice of
equals, not the dictate of superiors. See Callender, 30, who informs us, that
these purchasers of Rhode Island formed their civil compact 7 March, and that
the cession by the Indian sachems was of the 24th of same month. As twelve of
these eighteen associates were members of the church of Boston, the advantage
taken of their absence, by " the good providence of God," would be thought, in
a day of less ferment, either disadvantageous to a cause, or dishonorable to its
supporters.
2 Peter Prudden, who was first minister of Milford, Conn., was useful in his
place, and of high esteem in the colony of New Haven, but nothing more can be
learned of him than Dr. Trumbull, I. 294, supplying in part the deficiency of
Mather, has told.




312                 JOHN WINTHROP.                   [1638.
Eaton, (being ministers also,) went by water to Quinepiack;
and with them many families removed out of this jurisdiction
to plant in those parts, being much taken with the opinion of
the fruitfulness of that place, and more safety (as they conceived) from danger of a general governour, who was feared to
be sent this summer; which, though it were a great weakening
to these parts, yet we expected to see a good providence of God
in it, (for all possible means had been used to accommodate
them  here; Charlestown offered them largely, Newbury their
whole town, the court any place which was free,) both for possessing those parts which lay open for an enemy, and for
strengthening our friends at Connecticut, and for making room
*260 here for many, who were expected out of England this
year, and for diverting the thoughts and intentions of such
in England as intended evil against us, whose designs might
be frustrate by our scatterings so far; and such as were now
gone that way were as much in the eye of the state of England
as we here.1
There came letters from Connecticut to the governour of the
Massachusetts, to desire advice from the magistrates and elders
here about Sequin and the Indians of the river, who had, underhand, (as was conceived,) procured the Pequods to do that
11 onslaught 11 at Weathersfield the last year.  The case fell out
to be this: Sequin gave the English land there, upon l 2contract I1 that he might sit down by them, and be protected, etc.
When he came to Weathersfield, and had set down his wigwam,
they drave him away by force. Whereupon, he not being of
strength to repair this injury by open force, he secretly draws
in the Pequods.  Such of the magistrates and elders as could
meet on the sudden returned this answer, viz.: That, if the
cause were thus, Sequin might, upon this injury first offered by
blank II                1I2 Connecticut 
1 An excellent letter of Davenport and Gov. Eaton, the fathers of New Haven
colony, giving the reasons of their removal, may be seen in the Appendix. It
was copied by me from the original, in the hand-writing of the first signer; and
is reprinted in 3 Mass. Hist. Coll. III. 165-7, with a very elaborate error of date.
See my reference in the preface, and correction of the mistake, eight years
before it was committed.




1638.]                JOHN WINTHROP.                        313
them, right himself either by force or fraud, and that by the
law of nations; and though the damage he had done them had
been one hundred times more than what he sustained from them,
that is not considerable in point of a just war; neither was he
bound (upon such an open act of hostility publicly maintained)
to seek satisfaction first in a peaceable way; it was enough,
that he had complained of it as an injury and breach of covenant. According to this advice, they proceeded and made a
new agreement with the Indians of the river.
Another plantation was now     in hand at Mattakeese,l six
miles beyond Sandwich. The undertaker of this was one Mr.
Batchellor, late pastor at Sagus, (since called Lynn,) being
about seventy-six years of age; yet he walked thither on foot
in a very hard season.
He and his company, being all poor men, finding the difficulty, gave it over, and others undertook it.
27.] The Indians of Block Island sent three men with "261
ten fathom of wampom for part of their tribute.
The wife2 of one William    Dyer, a milliner in the New Exchange, a very I[ properl and fair woman, and both of them
notoriously infected with Mrs. Hutchinson's errors, and very
censorious and troublesome, (she being of a very proud spirit,
and much addicted to revelations,) had been delivered of [a]
child some 1 2few 11 months before, ~ October 17, ~ and the child
buried, (being stillborn,) and viewed of none but Mrs. Hutchinson and the midwife, one Hawkins's wife, a rank familist
I promp II                        112 four II
1 " Now Yarmouth," is written in the margin. Of that town a collection of
Memorabilia is contained in 1 Hist. Coll. V. 54-60. Some correction of a
slight error in that tract will be found in a note on Marmaduke Matthews.
2 Her name was Mary. She had been, with her husband, admitted of Boston church 13 December, 1635. After long enjoying her revelations, in quiet,
at Rhode Island, she was unhappily led, about twenty-one years later, again to
visit Boston, probably bringing more light, when she was condemned to death.
as a Quaker. Winthrop, governour of Connecticut, our author's eldest son,..
inheriting the natural mildness of his father, attempted to save her life; but the
bigotry of the age had acquired a severer character, and, for a second return,
in June, 1660, she suffered. See Hutchinson, I. 184. Yet her son, at that
very time, held an important office in the neighboring colony. The influence
of such cruelty could not be favorable.
VOL. I.                    27




314                    JOHN WINTHROP.                     [1638.
also; and another woman had a glimpse of it, who, not being
able to keep counsel, as the other two did, some rumor began to spread, that the child was a monster. One of the
elders, hearing of it, asked Mrs. Hutchinson, when she was
ready to depart; whereupon she told him how it was, and said
she meant to have it chronicled, but excused her concealing of
it till then, (by advice, as she said, of Mr. Cotton,) which
coming to the governour's knowledge, he called another of the
magistrates and that elder, and sent for the midwife, and examined her about it.  At first she confessed only, that the head
was defective and misplaced, but being told that Mrs. Hutchininson had 11 revealed 11 all, and that he intended to have it taken
up and viewed, she made this report of it, viz.: It was a woman
child, stillborn, about two months before the just time, having
life a few hours before; it came hiplings till she turned it; it
was of ordinary bigness; it had a face, but no head, and the
ears stood upon the shoulders and were like an ape's; it had
no forehead, but over the eyes four horns, hard and sharp;
two of them were above one inch long, the other two shorter;
the eyes standing out, and the mouth also; the nose hooked upward; all over the breast and back full of sharp pricks and
scales, like a thornback; the navel and all the belly, with the
distinction of the sex, were where the back should be, and the
back and hips before, where the belly should have been; be9262 hind, between the shoulders, it had two mouths, and in
each of them a piece of red flesh sticking out; it had
arms and legs as other children; but, instead of toes, it had on
each foot three claws, like a young fowl, with sharp talons.1
II recalled 11
1 From this disgusting story we are authorized by Welde to derive profit,
less indeed for doctrine than for reproof. In his preface he favors us with the
means of deliverance from the antinomian heresy,- preaching, conferences, the
synod, the exertions of the magistrates in disfranchising, fining, or banishing
the deluded, and, lastly, the misfortunes of Mrs. Dyer and Mrs. Hutchinson.
He thus relates the ultimate cause of success:4 Then God himself was pleased to step in with his casting voice, and bring
in his own vote and suffrage from Heaven, by testifying his displeasure against
their opinions and practices, as clearly as if he had pointed with his finger, in
causing the two fomenting women, in the time of the height of the opinions, to




1638.]                 JOHN WINTHROP.                            315
The governour speaking with Mr. Cotton about it, he told
him the reason why he advised them to conceal it: 1. Because he saw a providence of God in it, that the rest of the women, which were coming and going in the time of her travail,
should then be absent.      2. He considered, that, if it had been
his own case, he should have desired to have had it concealed.
3. He had known other monstrous births, which had been concealed, and that he thought God might intend only the instruction of the parents, and such other to whom it was 11 known, 11
etc.  The like apology he made for himself in public, which
was well accepted.1
(2.)]  The governour, with advice of some other of the       *263
magistrates and of the elders of Boston, caused the said
monster to be taken up, and though it were much corrupted,
yet most of those things were to be seen, as the horns and
II shown 11
produce out of their wombs, as before they had out of their brains, such monstrous births, as no chronicle (I think) hardly ever recorded the like." He after
asserts, " He that runs may read their sin in these judgments."
This "suffiage from heaven" is introduced in the wrong place, by Welde,
unskilfully, as proxy or attorney of the Most High, such is the character he
claims; for it appears by the text, that Mrs. Dyer's premature delivery was between the time of the synod and that of the general court, possibly occasioned
by the result of the former and the expectation of the latter.
Another New England divine, of purer spirit as of greater name, has left a
sermon, to which we may often turn for refreshment, when sickened with these
uncharitable denunciations. See Buckminster, last of vol. I. In the foul records of ecclesiastical history, one is frequently shocked with discoveries of the
anger of Providence, asserted with higher presumption and directness than
even by the Temanite in his questions to his afflicted friend: " Remember, I
pray thee, who ever perished, being innocent? Or where were the righteous
cut off? "  This detestable spirit belongs not to any particular communion; and
that church, which must reproach itself with fewest instances, may still have
enough to regret. On occasion of the sudden death of Jovian, Cardinal Baronius, " as being one of the privy council of Heaven, declares, that this emperor
was taken out of the world by a divine judgment, because he had made a decent funeral for his predecessor Julian."  Jortin's Eccl. Hist.
1 Apology to Cotton ought to have been made for the inquiry, rather than
by him for the concealment, if the suspicion, under which he lay, had been
entertained by a people less jealous for the honor of God, and less careful to
vindicate it, as they supposed, by ascribing to his displeasure the cross accidents,
that befel their opponents.




316                     JOHN WINTHROP.                       [1638.
claws, the scales, etc.    When it died in the mother's body,
(which was about two hours before the birth,) the bed whereon
the mother lay did shake, and withal there was such a noisome savor, as most of the women were taken with ~extreme
vomiting and purging, so as they were forced to depart; and
others of them their children were taken with~ convulsions,
(which they never had before nor after,) and so were sent for
home, so as by these occasions it came to be concealed.'
Another thing observable was, the discovery of it, which
was just when Mrs. Hutchinson was cast out of the church.
For Mrs. Dyer going forth with her, a stranger asked, what
young woman it was. The others answered, it was the woman
which had the monster; which gave the first occasion to some
that heard it to speak of it. The midwife, presently after this
discovery, went out of the jurisdiction; and indeed it was time
for her to be gone, for it was known, that she used to give
young women oil of mandrakes and other stuff to cause conception; and she grew into great suspicion to be a witch, for it
was credibly reported, that, when she gave any medicines, (for
she practised physic,) she would ask the 1I party, 11 if she did
believe, she could help her, etc.2
1I patient I
With good conscience, we may concede, that the Governour acted in this
nauseous inquisition; yet if good taste had been allowed to stifle the conscience,
we should have thought better of the magistrate.
2 She did not go voluntarily, as by the text we might be led to infer; for our
Colony Rec. I. 219, looks very much like banishment: "Jane Hawkins, the
wife of Richard Hawkins, had liberty till the beginning of the third month,
called May, and the magistrates (if she did not depart before) to dispose of
her; and, in the mean time, she is not to meddle in surgery or physic, drink,
plaisters, or oils, nor to question matters of religion, except with the elders for
satisfaction." I suppose her oil of antinomianism was more dreaded than her
oil of mandrakes.
Her " suspicion to be a witch," is elegantly expanded, in the Short Story of
Welde, to " notorious for familiarity with the devil;" and I am very sorry to
remark, that Winthrop himself, at a later period, 1640, gives countenance to
the same absurdity. Such intercourse, however, was not made capital for several years, or Welde might then have enjoyed, as suspicion of such a crime is
hardly less than full proof, the delight imputed to some of his brethren of the
clergy, two generations after, in the delusion of 1692.




1638.]              JOHN WINTHROP.                  317
Another observable passage was, that the father of this monster, coming home at this very time, was, the next Lord's day,
~ by an unexpected providence, ~ questioned in the church for divers monstrous errors, as for denying all inherent right-'264
eousness, etc., which he maintained, and was for the
same admonished.
12.] A general fast was kept through all the churches, by
advice from the court, for seeking the Lord to prevent evil, that
we feared to be intended against us from England by a general
governour; for the safe arrival of our friends from thence, (very
many being expected;) and for establishment of peace and
truth amongst us.
21.] Owsamekin, the sachem of Acooemeck, on this side
Connecticut, came to the governour and brought a present of
eighteen skins of beaver from himself and the sachems of Mohegan beyond Connecticut and Pakontuckett. The occasion
was, (as he said,) it was reported, that we were angry with
him, and intended to war upon them; so they came to seek
peace. The governour received the present, and (having none
of the other magistrates at hand to advise with) answered
them, that if they had done no wrong to the English, nor aided
our enemies, we would be at peace with them; and accordingly
signified so much to the magistrates at Connecticut. They
took this answer well, and departed with the letter.
23.]  This was a very hard winter. The snow lay, from
November 4th to March 23d, I half all yard deep about the
Massachusetts, and a yard deep beyond Merrimack, and so
the more north the deeper, and the spring was very backward.
This day it did snow two hours together, (after much rain
from N. E.) with flakes as great as shillings. This was in the
year 1637.1
~24.] The governour and deputy went to Concord to view
some land for farms, and, going down the river about four
miles, they made choice of a place for one thousand acres for
each of them. They offered each other the first choice, but
I[one and an halfll
The writer meant, probably, that the long winter was that of 1637; and the
two hours falling of the great flakes of snow occurred on 23 April following.
27*




318                    JOHN WINTHROP.                     [1638.
because the deputy's was first granted, and himself had store
of land already, the governour yielded him the choice. So, at
the place where the deputy's land was to begin, there were
two great stones, which they called the Two Brothers, in remembrance that they were brothers by their children's marriage, and did so brotherly agree, and for that a little creek
near those stones was to part their lands. At the court in the
4th month after, two hundred acres were added to the governour's part.~1
*265    26.]   Mr. Coddington (who had been an assistant from
the first corning over of the ll government, [1 being, with his
wife, taken with the familistical opinions) removed to Aquiday
Island in the Naragansett Bay.
(3.) 2.] At the court of elections, the former governour, John
Winthrop, was chosen again.     The same day, at night, he was
taken with a sharp fever, which brought him    near death; but
many prayers were put up to the Lord for him, and he was restored again after one month.
This court the name of Newtown was altered, and it was
called Cambridge.2
The spring was so cold, that men were forced to I|2plant l
their corn two or three times, for it rotted in the ground; but,
when we feared a great dearth, God sent a warm season, which
brought on corn beyond expectation.
(4.) 1.] Between three and four in the afternoon, being
clear, warm  weather, the wind westerly, there was a great
earthquake.   It came with a noise like a continued thunder or
I governour ll                   112replant 11
1 This paragraph is marked by a line down the margin, and " This may be
left out" written in the same hand. I prefer to disregard the author's modesty,
for the anecdote is interesting, and derives importance from the act of the general court, adopting the name of the rocks given by the grantees on their selection of these lands. See Col. Rec. I. 222.
2 In compliment to the place, where so many of the civil and clerical fathers of New England had received their education, this venerable name (may
it ever be preserved!) was undoubtedly bestowed. There were probably, at
that time, forty or fifty sons of the University of Cambridge in Old England,one for every two hundred or two hundred and fifty inhabitants, - dwelling
in the few villages of Massachusetts and Connecticut. The sons of Oxford
were not few.




1638.]              JOHN WINTHROP.                     319
the rattling of coaches in London, but was presently gone. It
was at Connecticut, at Naragansett, at Pascataquack, and all
the parts round about. It shook the ships, which rode in the
harbor, and all the islands, etc. The noise and the shakings
continued about four minutes. The earth was unquiet twenty
days after, by times.1
5.] Unkus, alias Okoco, the Monahegan sachem in the twist
of Pequod River, came to Boston with thirty-seven men. He
came from  Connecticut with Mr. Haynes, and tendered the
governour a present of twenty fathom of wampom.   This was
at the court, and it was thought fit by the council to refuse it,
till he had given satisfaction about the Pequods he kept, etc.
Upon this he was much dejected, and made account we would
have killed him; but, two days after, having received good satisfaction of his innocency, etc., and he promising to sub- c266
mit to the order of the English touching the Pequods he
had, and the differences between the Naragansetts and him, we
accepted his present. And, about half an hour after, he came
to the governour, and entertained him with these compliments:
This heart (laying his hand upon his breast) is not mine, but
yours; Ihave no men; they are all yours; command me any
difficult thing, I will do it; I will not believe any Indians'
words against the English; if any man shall kill an Englishman, I will put him to death, were he never so dear to me. So
the governour gave him a fair, red coat, and defrayed his and
his men's I diet, II and gave them corn to relieve them homeward, and a letter of protection to all men, etc., and he departed very joyful.
Many ships arrived this year, with people of good quality
and estate, notwithstanding the council's order, that none
~such~ should come without the king's license; but God so
wrought, that some obtained ~ license, ~ and others came away
I due I
1 Johnson, lib. II. c. 12, gives very unsatisfactory accounts of this earthquake.
He was more engaged in the shaking of the people out of their antinomianism,
in which those of his party went, perhaps, as far from propriety as the others
from truth. Morton, in his Memorial, is more particular; yet it is evident his
pen was not so careful as modern accuracy requires, for he says, " about the
second of June."




320                  JOHN WINTHROP.                     [1638.
without.' The troubles which arose in Scotland about the book
of common prayer, and the canons, which the king would have
forced upon the Scotch churches, did so take up the king and
council, that they had neither heart nor leisure to look after
the affairs of New England; yet, upon report of the many
thousands, which were preparing to come away, the archbishops caused all the ships to be stayed.    But, upon the
petition of the masters, and suggestion of the great 1I damage I1
it would be to the commonwealth in hindering the Newfoundland trade, which brought in much money, etc., they were presently released. And in this and other passages it plainly appeared, that near all the lords of the council did favor this plantation; and all the officers of the custom house were very ready
to further it, for they never made search 11 2for 1I any goods, etc.,
but let men bring what they would, without question or control.
For I13sure the Lord awed their hearts, andll they and others
(who savoured not religion) were amazed to see men of all
conditions, rich and poor, servants and others, offering themselves so readily for New   England, when, for furnishing of
other plantations, they were forced to send about their stalls,
and when they had gotten any, they were forced to keep them
as prisoners from running away.
Mo. (6.) 3.]  In the night was a very great tempest or
hiracano at S. W. which drave a ship on ground at Charlestown, and brake down the windmill there, and did much other
harm.   It flowed twice in six hours, and about Naragansett it
*267 raised the tide fourteen or fifteen foot above the ordinary
spring tides, upright.2
Janemoh, the sachem   of Niantick, had gone to Long Island
danger [l  II2 ofll  I3 since the Lords avowed their party, etc. |
1 The number of the ships, and of the passengers brought this summer, will
be seen two pages onward. Much misapprehension has arisen on this subject.
It has been supposed, that the order in Council, for which see Rushworth, under date of 6 April, 1638, or in the abridged ed. vol. II. 496, was executed
according to its import, and for that mistake, above is sufficient explanation.
Neal, who is too often only the conduit of Mather, in vol. I. 168 of his History
of N. E. relies on Magn. for his passengers detained, and enlarges the number
I have shown the value of such a tradition in note on p. 172 foregoing.
Our storms in August are often the most violent of any in the year.




1638.]                  JOHN WINTHROP.                        321
and rifled some of those Indians, which were tributaries to us.
The sachem complained to our friends of Connecticut, who
wrote us about it, and sent Capt. Mason, with seven men, to
require satisfaction.   The governour of the       Massachusetts
wrote also to Mr. Williams to treat with Miantunnomoh about
satisfaction, or otherwise to bid them look for war.
Upon this Janemoh went to Connecticut, and made his
peace, and gave full satisfaction for all injuries.
Two ships, which came over this year much pestered, lost
many passengers, and some principal men, and many fell sick
after they were landed, and many of them died.1
Four servants of Plimouth ran from their masters, and, coming to Providence, they killed an Indian.    He escaped, after he
was deadly wounded in the belly, and gat to other Indians.
So, being discovered, they fled and were taken at the Isle Aquiday.   Mr. Williams gave notice to the governour of Massachusetts, and desired advice.    He returned answer, that, seeing
they were of Plimouth, they should certify Plimouth of them,
and, if they would send for them, to deliver them; otherwise,
seeing no English had jurisdiction in the place where the murder was committed, neither had they at the Island any 11 government 11 established, it would be safest to deliver the principal,
who was certainly known to have killed the party, to the
Indians his friends, with caution that they should not put
1 governour i
1 One of the ships so pestered was probably the Nicholas, of London, of 300
tons, chartered by Edward Tyng, arriving at Boston 3 July, in which came John
Josselyn, gentleman; for five of the passengers died on board. His book is a
curiosity, sometimes worth examining, but seldom to be implicitly relied on.
Where he speaks, page 20, of Boston as a village of " not above twenty or thirty
houses," I suspect the right-hand cipher was lost from his manuscript, or memory;
for he printed thirty-six years after. The population certainly required tenfold
the number of dwellings reported; and, in this eighth year of the town, the log
huts, that he might scorn to honor with the name of houses, were very few.
Another of the pestered ships probably was the Martin, coming nearly at the
same time with the Nicholas. I know, at least, that the nuncupative will of
Sylvester Baldwin, one of her passengers, who died on the ocean, was proved
13 July of this year, by Chad Brown, and other fellow-passengers, before Dep.
Gov. Dudley. His wife and children are named.




322                     JOHN WINTHROP.                        [1638.
him to torture, and to keep the other three to further consideration.'
*268     After this, Plimouth men sent for them, (but one had
escaped,) and the governour there wrote to the governour
here for advice, especially for that he heard they intended to
appeal into    England.     The   governour returned     answer of
encouragement to proceed notwithstanding, seeing no appeal
did lie, for that they could not be tried in England, and that the
whole country here were interested in the case, and would
expect to [I have 1[ justice done.  Whereupon they proceeded as
appears after.
Many of Boston and others, who were of Mrs. Hutchinson's
judgment and party, removed to the Isle of Aquiday; and
11 2others,ll who were of the rigid separation, and savored anabaptism, removed to Providence, so as those parts began to be
well peopled.
[Large blank.]
There came over this summer twenty ships, and at least
|8'three thousand 112 persons, so as they were forced to look out
i see 11      112 many ]|       II3 three hundred [
1 A directly opposite course of political motives is assigned by Morton. In
the Plimouth secretary's Memorial, our author's advice was not given because
the criminals belonged to Plimouth, nor because the English had not jurisdiction
where the murder was committed, nor because they of Rhode Island were without any government; but " the Massachusetts refused this trial, as being committed in the jurisdiction of Plimouth, and they of Rhode Island, having apprehended them, delivered them to the aforesaid jurisdiction of Plimouth on the
same grounds."  Both writers evidently desire to depreciate the new schismatic
colony, or colonies, if Providence and Rhode Island be counted two. Winthrop,
however, would not deny their independence. In 3 Hist. Coll. I. 171-173, is a
very full account, in the original letter of Williams, of all the circumstances of
this aggravated and cowardly murder.
2 Dr. Holmes, Ann. I. 305, of first edition, followed the Webster text without
scruple, though his excellent judgment must have observed the probability of
error in this number, since the governour immediately adds, all the established
plantations would not afford room for so many passengers. In the ship with
Josselyn were one hundred and sixty-four; and if the others were as full, the
corrected reading of our author, which is plain enough in his MS., is within the
limits. In the Diligent of Ipswich, John Martin master, arriving at Boston 10
August, were one hundred and thirty-five, among whom was Rev. Robert Peck,
of Old Hingham, as says Daniel Cushing, who, with his father, was of the




1638.]                 JOHN WINTHROP.                     323
new plantations.  One was begun at Merrimack, and another
four or five miles above Concord, and another at Winicowett.
[Large blank.]
The three prisoners, being brought to Plimouth, and there
examined, did all confess the murder, and that they did it to
get his wafnpom, etc.; but all the question was about the death
of the Indian, for no man could witness that he saw him dead.
But Mr. Williams and Mr. James' of Providence made oath,
that his wound was mortal, etc. At last two Indians, who,
with much difficulty, were procured to come to the trial, (for
they still feared that the English were conspired to kill all the
Indians,) made oath after this manner, viz.: that if he were`269
not dead of that wound, then they would suffer death.
Upon this they three were condemned and executed. Two of
them died very penitently, especially Arthur Peach, a young
man of good parentage and fair conditioned, and who had done
very good service against the Pequods.2
The fourth escaped to Pascataquack. The governour sent
after him, but those of Pascataquack conveyed him away, and
openly withstood his apprehension. It was their usual manner
(some of them) to countenance, etc., all such lewd persons as
fled from us to them.
(7.) The general court was assembled, in which it was
agreed, that, whereas a very strict order was sent from the
lords commissioners for plantations for the sending home our
patent, upon pretence that judgment had passed against it upon
a quo warranto, a letter should be written by the governour, in
number. The Bevis of Hampton, of only 150 tons, in which Richard Dummer,
this year, brought his family, had sixty-one passengers entered at the Southampton custom-house; and possibly a few others came without license. Hubbard,
242, when transcribing from this part of Winthrop, seems to have been afraid to
number either the ships or the passengers. He often avoids the most valuable
incidents of his story.
I know nothing more of this gentleman than Williams, in his letter, 3 Hist.
Coll. I. 172, mentions of his humane endeavors for the sufferer; and in another
letter in MS., early in 1649, he notices his return from England, with a full
cargo of goods, which were saved from the wreck of the vessel on Rhode Island.
2 He came a few years before, fiom Virginia. One of the men executed was
Thomas Jackson; the other, John Barnes.




324                 JOHN WINTHROP.                   [1638.
the name of the court, to excuse our not sending of it; for it
was resolved to be best not to send it, because then such of our
friends and others in England would conceive it to be surrendered, and that thereupon we should be bound to receive such
a governour and such orders as should be sent to us, and many
bad minds, yea, and some weak ones, among ourselves, would
think it lawful, if not necessary, to accept a general governour.
The copy of the letter is reserved, etc., in form of a petition.
See the after fol. 74.1
At this court a law was made about such as should continue
excommunicated six months, and for public thankgiving for
the arrival of the ships, and for the coming on of harvest beyond
expectation, etc. This law was after repealed.2
At this court, also, Capt. Underhill (being about to remove
to Mr. Wheelwright) petitioned for three hundred acres of land
promised him formerly; by occasion whereof he was questioned
about some speeches he had used in the ship lately, in his return out of England, viz., that he should say, that we were
zealous here, as the Scribes and Pharisees were, and as Paul
was before his conversion, etc., which he denying, they were
270 proved to his face by a sober, godly woman, whom he had
seduced in the ship, and [l drawn 1I to his opinions, (but
she was after freed again). Among other passages, he told her
how he came to his assurance, and that was thus: He had lain
under a spirit of bondage and a legal way five years, and could
get no assurance, till at length, as he was taking a pipe of tobacco, the Spirit set home an absolute promise of free grace
with such assurance and joy, as he never since doubted of his
good estate, neither should he, though he should fall into sin.
He would not confess nor deny this, but took exceptions at the
court for crediting one witness against him, etc., and withal
I drew 11
1 The reference is to the page of the governour's MS., where, unluckily, the
letter could not be found, nor in any other place.
2 A rate of ~400 was levied by this court in the following proportions: -
Boston, ~57.14.9; Ipswich, ~46.10; Salem, ~44.11.3; Dorchester, ~36.16.3;
Charlestown, ~35.13; Cambridge, ~34.17.6; Roxbury and Lynn, each, ~31;
Watertown, ~!29.1.3; Newbury, ~27.2.6; Hingham, ~11.2.10; Weymouth,
~7.15; and Medford, ~6.15.8.




1638.]             JOHN WINTHROP.                  325
said, that he was still of the same opinion he had been, etc.
Whereupon he was demanded, if he were of the same opinion
he had been in about the petition or remonstrance. He answered, yes, and that his retractation was only of the manner,
not of the matter. Whereupon his retractation (which he had
lately delivered to the governour, to be presented to this court)
was read, wherein he professeth how the Lord had brought him
to see his sin in condemning the court, and passing the bounds
of modesty and submission, which is required in private persons,
etc., and in what trouble of spirit he had been for it, etc. Upon
this, the court committed him for abusing the court with a show
of retractation, and intending no such thing; and the next day
he was called again and banished. The Lord's day following,
he made a speech in the assembly, showing that, as the Lord
was pleased to convert Paul as he was in persecuting, etc., so
he might manifest himself to him as he was taking the moderate
use of the creature called tobacco. He professed withal, that
he knew not wherein he had deserved the sentence of the court,
and that he was sure that Christ was his, etc. The elders reproved him for this speech; and Mr. Cotton told him, that he
brake a rule in condemning publicly the sentence of the court,
before he had privately convinced the magistrates, or some of
them; and told him, also, that, although God doth often lay a
man under a spirit of bondage, when he is walking in sin, as
Paul was, yet he never sends such a spirit of comfort but in an
ordinance, as he did to the same Paul by Ananias; and 11 ergo 11
advised him well to examine the revelation and joy which he
had.
The next Lord's cay, the same Capt. Underhill, having been
privately dealt with upon suspicion of incontinency with a
neighbors wife, and not hearkening to it, was publicly questioned, and put under admonition. The matter was, for that
the woman being young, and beautiful, and withal of a jovial
spirit and behavior, he did daily frequent her house, and was
divers times found there alone with her, the door being *271
locked on the inside. He confessed it was ill, because it
had an appearance of evil in it; but his excuse was, that the
woman was in great trouble of mind, and sore temptations, and
II so |
VOL. i.                 28




326                      JOHN WINTHROP.                     [1638.
that he resorted to her to comfort her; and that when the door
was found locked upon them, they were in private prayer together.  But this practice was clearly condemned also by the
elders, affirming, that it had not been of good report for any of
them to have done the like, and that they ought, in such case,
to have called in some brother or sister, and not to have locked
the door, etc. They also declared, that once he procured them
to go visit her, telling them that she was in great trouble of
mind; but when they came to her, (taking her, it seems, upon
the sudden,) they perceived no such thing. See the issue of
this after, (9,) 1638, and (10,) 13, 38.
[Large blank.]
Mrs. Hutchinson, being removed to the Isle of Aquiday, in
the Naragansett Bay, after her time was fulfilled, that she expected deliverance of a child, was delivered of a monstrous
birth, which, being diversely related in the country, (and, in the
open assembly at Boston, upon a lecture day, declared by Mr.
Cotton to be twenty-seven 11 several lumps of man's seed, without any alteration, or mixture of any thing from    the woman, 11
and thereupon gathered, that it might signify her error in denying inherent righteousness, but that all was Christ in us, and
nothing of ours in our faith, love, etc.) hereupon the governour
wrote to Mr. Clarke,1 a physician and a preacher to those of the
| singula frusta vel globulos seminis masculini sine ulla mutatione ant
mixtura de feminall
1 John Clarke was one of the most distinguished gentlemen of Rhode Island,
of which colony he was long agent in England, during the reigns of Oliver, of
Richard, and part of that of Charles II. The Baptist church of Newport owns
him for its father. He published, in 1652, a book, entitled " 11 News from New
England, or a Narrative of New England's persecution, wherein is declared,
that, while Old England is becoming New, New England is becoming Old,"
etc., etc., etc., in which he introduced the substance of a tract, issued the preceding year, called " A Brief Discourse touching New England, and particularly Rhode Island; as also a faithful and true relation of the prosecution of
Obadiah Holmes, John Crandall, and John Clarke, merely for conscience towards God, by the principal members of the church or commonwealth of the
Massachusetts in New England, which rules over that part of the world." This
tract was probably by the same hand.
Some light may be derived by us from a petition of the sufferer, of which the




1638.]                  JOHN WINTHROP.                           327
island, to know the certainty thereof, who returned him          272
this answer: Mrs. Hutchinson, six weeks before her delivery, perceived her body to be greatly distempered, and her spirits failing, and in that regard doubtful of life, she sent to me,
etc., and not long after (in l1 immoderato fluore uterino II) it was
brought to light, and I was called to see it, where I beheld, first
unwashed, (and     afterwards in warm      water,) several lumps,
every one of them    greatly confused, and if you consider each
of them according to the representation of the whole, they
were altogether without form; but if they were considered in
respect of the parts of each lump of flesh, then there was a rep1 immoderate fluor and urine l
original is preserved, from the colony files, in the Historical Society's library:
"To the honored court assembled at Boston. Whereas it pleased this honored
court, yesterday, to condemn the faith and order which I hold and practise
and, after you had passed your sentence upon me for it, were pleased to express,
I could not maintain the same against your ministers, and thereupon publicly
proffered me a dispute with them; be pleased by these few lines to understand,
I readily accept it, and therefore do desire you would appoint the time when,
and the person with whom, in that public place where I was condemned, I
might, with freedom, and without molestation of the civil power, dispute that
point publicly, where I doubt not but, by the strength of Christ, to make it
good out of his last will and testament, unto which nothing is to be added, nor
from which nothing is to be diminished. Thus, desiring the Father of lights to
shine forth by his power to expel the darkness, I remain your well wisher, John
Clarke. From the prison, this 1. 6. 51," i. e. 1 August, 1651.
In 1653 was published " The Civil Magistrate's Power in Matters of Religion
modestly debated, etc., etc., etc., with a brief answer to a certain slanderous
pamphlet, called Ill News from New England, etc., by Thomas Cobbett of
Lynn in N. E."  This was written in the violent temper of that day, thought
necessary for the orthodox, but now so universally reprobated. Clarke's book
is exceedingly rare. A copy was in Prince's New England library, but cannot
be found now; nor can I hear of more than one even in Rhode Island. Cobbett's answer, which might certainly be better spared, is preserved, but is very
scarce, only a single copy having ever fallen within my reach. Both are in the
British Museum; and Col. Aspinwall, our consul, has both. Clarke died, says
Benedict, I. 495, in 1676, in the sixty-sixth year of his age, without children.
Callender, who is very full in his account of Clarke, 2, 16, 21, 29, 45, 52, 62,
63, 93, marks his death 20 April of that year. From three of his brothers are
descended the large family in Rhode Island bearing that name. The article
CLARKE, JOHN, in Allen's Biographical Dictionary, is the best in that laborious
work.




328                   JOHN WINTIHROP.                   [1638.
re entation of innumerable distinct bodies in the form    of a
globe, not much unlike the swims of some fish, so confusedly
knit together by so many several strings, (which I conceive
were the beginning of veins and nerves,) so that it was impossible either to number the small round pieces in every lump,
much less to discern from whence every string did fetch its original, they were so snarled one within another. The small globes
I likewise opened, and perceived the matter of them   (setting
aside the membrane in which II it was involved, [I) to be partly
wind and partly water. Of these several lumps there were
about twenty-six, according to the relation of those, who more
9273 narrowly searched into the number of them.    I took notice of six or seven of some bigness; the rest were small;
but all as I have declared, except one or two, which differed
much fiom the rest both in matter and form; and the whole
was like the [blank] of the liver, being simular and every where
like itself.  When I had opened it, the matter seemed to be
II blood 11 congealed. The governour, not satisfied with this relation, spake after with the said Mr. Clarke, who thus cleared
all1 he doubts: The lumps were twenty-six or twenty-seven,
distinct and not joined together; th re came no secundine after
them; six of them were as great (s his fist, and one as great
as two fists; the rest each less than other, and the smallest
about the bigness of the top of his thumb.   The globes were
round things, included in the lumps, about the bigness of a
small Indian bean, and like the pearl in a man's eye.  The two
lumps, which differed from the rest, were like liver or congealed
blood, and had no small globes in them, as the rest had.  Mr.
Cotton, next lecture day, acknowledged his error, etc., and that
he had his information by a letter fiom her husband, etc.1
[ they were involumed 11         |2 hard [
1 Having been favored with the original letter of Clarke, I testify that the
author's transcription is sufficiently a..curate, and nearly literal. It might be
unrnec essary to add, on this offensive subject, the introduction of which, at a
religious lecture, it seems hardly possible to justify, that Clarke says, he was
sent to once and again, and that he considered her condition was both doubtful
and d(nogerous, and that he was somewhat unwilling to meddle, at least before
her delivery, but only advised to procure some medicines from the bay proper




1638.]                  JOHN WINTHROP.                            329
21.]   A  ship of Barnstaple arrived with about eighty passengers, near all western people. There came with them a godly
minister, one Mr. Matthews.'
Here arrived a small Spanish frigate with hides and           r274
tallow.   She was a prize taken by Capt. Newman, who
was set out with letters of mart by the lords, etc., of the Isle
of Providence.
This year there came a letter from       Mr. Thomas 11 Mewtis, I
clerk of the council in England, directed to Mr. Winthrop, (the
present governour,) and therein an order from        the lords commissioners for foreign plantations, (being all of the council,)
wherein they straightly required the patent to be sent home by
the first ship, etc.  This letter and order were produced at the
for the occasion; for " I conceived," he adds, " if it were a child, it was dead,
but rather that it was not, but such a thing as afterward it proved." It is
strange, that the word, which the governour leaves blank, is, plainly, lobe in the
original letter. On the margin of the letter, the governour has added what
Clarke told him, nearly as given in the text, with this slight variation: "the
globes were like pearls, about the bigness of a sloe."
1 Very diligent inquiry has been followed with some success in tracing the
course of this clergyman, of whom most of our early books take very slight notice. He was a Welshman, bred at Oxford, matriculated, in his 18th year, at
All Souls Coll. Lechford, 41, mentions him as living in Plimouth patent. He
was probably at Yarmouth, where there is a tradition, that he was one of their
first ministers. See 1 Hist. Coll. V. 59. The diligent author of that tract is
certainly mistaken in supposing, that Miller was the first, and Matthews (whose
given name was Marmaduke) the second minister there. Miller, who was at
Yarmouth when Johnson wrote, preached first at Rowley; and we may safely
conclude, that he did not go to Yarmouth before Matthews left it. I am quite
confident it was not before 1642. Matthews had removed from that place, and
spent some time at Hull, about the year 1650, whence, though, as Johnson says,
he " lost the approbation of some able, understanding men, among both magistrates and ministers, by weak and unsafe expressions in his teaching," he was,
nevertheless, called to the church at Malden. A very humble confession of his
darkness, and ignorance, and weak expressions, signed by him, though written
by another, of 28 October, 1651, is preserved in the archives of the Historical
Society, and, with other papers on the subject, of prior date, is printed in
3 Hist. Coll. I. 29-32. The hints of the author of Wonder-working Providence
are more expressive than his verses usually are, lib. III. c. 7. He was one of
the magistrates appointed for a scrutiny of the faith and doctrines of Matthews.
28*




330                 JOHN WINTHROP.                  [1o38.
general court last past, and there agreed not to send home the
patent, but to return answer to the lords by way of humble petition, which was drawn up and sent accordingly. These instruments are all among the governour's papers, and the effect
of them would be here inserted.1
25.] Being the third day of the week, and two days before
the change, the wind having blown at N. E. all the day, and
rainy in the night, was a mighty tempest, and withal the highest tide, which had been seen since our coming into this country; but, through the good providence of God, it did little
harm.  About fourteen days after, the wind having been at
N. W. and then calm   i here, 1] calme in the greatest eastern
sea, which had been in our time. Mr. Peirce (who came in
a week after) had that time a very great tempest three days
at N. E.2
A remarkable providence appeared in a case, which was
tried at the last court of assistants. Divers neighbors of Lynn,
by agreement, kept their cattle by turns. It fell out to the
turn of one Gillow to keep them, and, as he was driving them
forth, another of these neighbors went along with him, and
kept him so earnestly in talk, that his cattle strayed and gate
in the corn.  Then this other neighbor left him, and would not
help him recover his cattle, but went and told another how he
had kept Gillow in talk, that he might lose his cattle, etc. The
cattle, getting into the Indian corn, eat so much ere they could
be gotten out, that two of them fell sick of it, and one of them
*275 died presently; and these two cows were that neighbor's,
who had kept Gillow in talk, etc. The man brings his
action against Gillow for his cow, (not knowing that he had
witness of his speech ); but Gillow, producing witness, etc.,
barred him of his action, and had good costs, etc.
turn 
1 Hubbard, 268-271, has laid us under obligation by preserving both documents.
2 Emanuel Downing, a lawyer from London, with his wife and children, at
least those of them, who had not before joined their uncle, Winthrop, came, I
suppose, with Peirce, arriving early in October. IIe and Lucy his wife, the
sister of our author, were admitted of SAlem church 4 November next. She
was born 9 January, 1601.




1638.]                  JOHN WINTRROP.                          331
The court, taking into consideration the great disorder [1 general ]l through the country in costliness of apparel, and following new fashions, sent for the elders of the churches, and conferred with them    about it, and laid it upon Ihenm, as belonging
to them, to redress it, by urging it upon the consciences of their
people, which they promised to do.      But little was done about
it; for divers of the elders' wives, etc., were in some measure
partners in this general disorder.'
[Large blank.]
8ber.]   About two years since one Mr. Bernard, a minister
at Batcomb in Somersetshire in England, sent over two books
in writing, one to the magistrates, and the other to the elders,
wherein he laid down arguments against the manner of our
gathering our churches, etc., which the elders could not answer
till his time, by reason of the many troubles about Mrs. Hutchinson's opinions, etc.   Mr. Cotton also answered another book
sent over in defence of set form      of prayer.   This I suppose
was Mr. Ball's book.2
About this time was very much rain and snow, in six weeks
together; scarce two days without rain or snow.          This was
observed by some as an effect of the earthquake.3
(9.) 8.]  A church was gathered at Dedham with good approbation; and, 28th, Mr. Peck      ordained teacher at Hingham.
I proceeding jI
1 The wives of clergymen have been, since that day, generally exempt from
such charges.
2 It will not be expected, that an account of Bernard's books should be given
here, especially as they were not, I believe, printed, probably, being too good
for the character of the age. See Eliot, in 1 Hist. Coll. TX. 16. In his Lives
of the Puritans, Brook II. 458, has a good account of PRichard Bernard, who
died March, 16-1. He enumerates his works, among which are not these
tracts.
3 To mark the relation of cause and effect in atmospheric phenomena, is a
dangerous exercise of imagination. Example may, however, serve, better than
precept, to dissuade from such idle philosophy as that in the text. One of the
books, blending practical wisdom with amusement, by which Miss Edgeworth
favored the last age, makes a venerable observer of events regard " Tenderden
steeple as the cause of Goodwin sands." I think there is evidence, that this
anecdote belongs to the famous Sir Thomas More.
4 Little can be learned of this reverend gentleman, except from old records




332                      JOHN WINTHROP.                        [1638.
*276     By order of the last general court, the governour wrote
a letter to Mr. Burdet,1 Mr. Wiggin, and others of the
plantation of Pascataquack, to this effect: That, whereas there
had been good correspondency between us formerly, we could
not but be sensible of their entertaining and countenancing, etc.,
some that we had cast out, etc., and that our purpose was to
survey our utmost limits, and make use of them.       Mr. Burdet returned a scornful answer, and would not give the governour his
title, etc. This was very ill taken, for that he was one of our
body, and sworn to our government, and a member of the church
in Hingham, by which I find, he had been a preacher at Hingham in Norfolk
in Old England, whence came almost all of the progenitors of the present inhabitants of that ancient town, preserving the same name in Massachusetts.
The teacher was Robert Peck; but the contemporary MS. of Hobart, the pastor,
collated by me, informs, that, 27 October, 1641, he sailed for England, and,
another ancient writing adds, " with his wife and son Joseph." I presume he
found religion so free at home, that he had no inducement to return. I-Ie and
Joseph Peck, probably a brother, were made freemen here 13 March, 1638-9.
Both have the appropriate Mr. prefixed. Joseph was very soon after a representative in the general court. Notice of his remioval from the jurisdiction will
occur in our second volume.
Hubbard, 279, though literally extracting this paragraph, in his usual manner,
has thrown the chronology into strange confusion, making it 1640, by disregard
of Winthrop's arrangement of dates. Johnson, lib. II. c. 9, has made the gathering of Dedham church a year too early.
1 Of the few instances, in which any advantage is derived from Hubbard, our
acquaintance with this person is one. He was minister at Dover; and the historian of Ipswich informs us, 221, 353, that Burdet, " upon a pretended quarrel
with the bishops and ceremonies of the church of England, had, about the year
1634, left Yarmouth in England," and came " to Salem, where he was received
a member of their church, and was employed to preach among them for a year
or more, being an able scholar, and of plausible parts and carriage. But finding the discipline of the church as much too strict for his loose conscience as
the other was in pretence too large, he left his brethren at Salem, out of love to
his friends at Piscataqua, where he continued for some time in good esteem (at
least in appearance) with Mr. Wiggans, that had the power of a governour
thereabouts, until he declared himself of what sort he was." Our Records show
his admission as a freeman 2 September, 1635. The conclusion of his doings
in America will appear in this History, 1640. He had been silenced in England; and I marvel at the charge by Winthrop, that he had intelligence with
the prelatical party at home. His wife and children were in distress there, according to the county history of Bloomfield.




1638.]               JOHN WINTIIROP.                 333
of Salem;; so as the governour was purposed to summon him
to appear at our court to answer his contempt; but, advising
with hle deputy about it, he was dissuaded from it, the ralher
for that, if he should suffer in this cause, it would ingraatiate
him more with the archbishops, (with whom he had intlelligence, etc.) but his council was rather to underrnine him by
making himu thoroughly klown, etc., to his friends in Pascataquack, and to take them from him. WVhereupon the gover-lour
wrote to Edward Hilton, declaring his ill dealing, (and sent a
copy of his letter,) and advising them to take heed how they
put themselves 11 into II his power, etc., but rather to give us a
proof of their respect towards us, etc. -  -e intimated withal
how ill it would relish, if they should advance Capt. Un- 277
derhill, whom we had i 2t hrust II out for abusing the court
with 11 3feigning ll a retractation both of his seditious practice
and also of his corrupt opinions, and after denying it again,
and for casting reproach upon our churches, etc.; signifying
withal, that he was now found to have been an unclean person,
(for he was charged by a godly young woman to have solicited,
her chastity under pretence of Christian love, and to ha:ve confessed to her, that he had his will oftentimles of the cooper's
wife, and all out of strength of love,) and the church had sent
for him, and sent him a license to come and go, under the
hands of the governour and deputy; but he refused to corite,
excusing himself, by letters to the elders, that the license was
not sufficient, etc., and, by letters to the governour, that he hid
no rule to come and answer to any offence, except his banishment were released; but to the matter he was charged wilh,
he gave no answer, but sought an evasion. Pascataquack
men had chosen him their governour before the letter came to
them.
13.]  The governour went by water to Salem, where he was
entertained with all the respect that they could show him.
The 1 412 11 he returned by land, and they sent six of their chief
military officers with carbines to guard him to Boston.'
I under  [   2 Icast      franingi       4 14th 
1 Polh dates are plain in the MS., but it is not certain where the correction
should be made. The first edition, assuming the former to be correct, and. that




334                     JOHN WINTHROP.                        [1638.
17.]   Roger Herlakenden,l one of our magistrates, about
*278 thirty2 years of age, second son of [blank]       Herlakenden
of 11 Earl's Colne'll in Essex, Esq., died at Cambridge of
the small pox.     He was a very godly man, and of good use
both in the commonweath and in the church.           He was buried
with military honor, because he was lieutenant colonel.          He
left behind a virtuous gentlewoman and two daughters.             He
died in great peace, and left a sweet memorial behind him of
his piety and virtue.
~10. 2.]   Ezekiel Rogers,4 son of Richard Rogers of WeathIKarlscoke 
the governour returned next day, altered the second date to 14. To me it
seems more probable, that the day of return, being in the body of the paragraph,
is right. Perhaps he went on the 10th, and spent Sunday with Endecott,
returning on Monday, 12th, and writing the notice the next day.
1 The brother of this gentleman, Richard, is, by Dr. Holmes, from the Cambridge Records, 1 Hist. Coll. VII. 10, mentioned as one of the earliest proprietors. But he never came over. Roger had arrived in 1635, Hubbard, 233,
says, in the same ship with Vane. He was admitted freeman 3 March, 1635-6,
with Shepherd, Peter, Vane, and other distinguished men, and, on 25 May following, at the general election, chosen one of the assistants, to which place he
was re-elected in the two following years. It is proof of the solid judgment of so
young a man. In the questions about Mrs. Hutchinson he took a part, as appears
in that most curious and minute article of the Appendix to History of Massachusetts, II. 500. Some humble verses in honor of Hlarlackenden are afforded by
Johnson, lib. I. c. 32. His will, in our Probate Records, I. 13, without date, was
probably made two years or more before his death, since he makes Gov. Haynes
one of his executors with his brother Richard. In it he takes notice of his
estate in England, called " Colne Park, or the Little Lodge," and of one
daughter only, though provision is made for the probability of another child.
He was, I believe, a cousin of Lord Roper, and had probably been brought up
under the ministry of Shepherd in his native country. See Neal's Puritans, II.
282, and Shepherd's autobiography. To enjoy the spiritual aid of the same
gentleman, he purchased Dudley's estate at Newtown.
2 He was born 1 October, 1611, and was only 27 years old.
3 The father, born 22 July, 1568, was named Richard.
4 No inadequate notices of Ezekiel Rogers may be found in the progress of
our History, in Johnson, lib. II. 11, and, above all, in Mather's Magnalia. Eliot
and Allen have well abbreviated these authorities; but the former misdates his
death. He was a man of very high influence for a portion of his life, and his
epitaph on our Iooker is thought by Hubbard, 541, worthy of preservation.
The tardy justice of our age erected a monument to Rogers in 1805.




1638.]              JOHN WINTHROP.                    335
ersfield in Essex, a worthy son of so worthy a father, lying at
Boston with some who came out of Yorkshire with him, where
he had been a painful preacher many years, being desirous to
partake in the Lord's supper with the church of Boston, did first
impart his desire to the elders, and having given them satisfaction, they acquainted the church with it, and before the sacrament, being called forth by the elders, he spoke to this effect,
viz.: that he and his company (viz. divers families, who came
over with him this summer) had, of a good time, withdrawn
themselves from the church communion of England, and that
for many corruptions which were among them. But, first, he
desired, that he might not be mistaken, as if he did condemn all
there; for he did acknowledge a special presence of God there
in three things: 1, in the soundness of doctrine in all fundamental truths; 2, in the excellency of ministerial gifts; 3, in
the blessing upon the same, for the work of conversion and for
the power of religion, in all which there appeared more, etc., in
England than in all the known world besides. Yet there are
such corruptions, as, since God let them see some light therein,
they could not, with safe conscience, join any longer with them.
The first is, their national church; second, their hierarchy,
wholly antichristian; third, their dead service; fourth, their receiving (nay, compelling) all to partake of the seals; fifth, their
abuse of excommunications, wherein they enwrap many a godly
minister, by causing him to pronounce their sentence, etc., they
not knowing that the fear of the excommunication lies in that.
Hereupon they bewailed before the Lord their sinful partaking
so long in those corruptions, and entered a covenant 2.79
together, to walk together in all the ordinances, etc.
1639. 10. 3.] Being settled at Rowley,' they renewed their
church covenant, and their call [blank] of Mr. Rogers to the
office of pastor, according to the course of other churches, etc.~
(10.) 6.] Dorothy Talbye was hanged at Boston for murder1No doubt this name was adopted from the place in Yorkshire in Old England, where their pastor had labored, and most of themselves had enjoyed his
services. He had there long been well esteemed by Toby Matthews, the Archbishop of York.




336                   JOHIN TWINTHROP.                [1 38.
ing her own daughter, a child of three years old.1 She had been
a member of the church of Salem, and of good esteem for godliness, etc.; but, falling at difference with her husband, through
melancholy or spiritual delusions, she sometimes attempted to
kill him, and her children, and herself, by refusing 1 mreat,ll sayin, it was so revealed to her, etc.  After much patience, and
divers admonitions not prevailing, the church cast her out.
Whereupon she grew worse; so as the magistrate caused her
to be whipped.  W'hereupon she was reformed for a time, and
carried herself more dutifully to her husband,2 etc.; but soon
after she was so possessed with Satan, that he persuaded her
(by his delusions, which she listened to as revelations from
God) to break the neck of her own child, that she might free it
from  future misery. This she confessed upon her apprehension; yet, at her arraignment, she stood mute a good space, till
the governour told her she should be pressed to death, and then
she confessed the indictment.  When she was to receive judgment, she would not uncover her face, nor stand up, but as she
wTis forced, nor give any testimony of her repentance, either
then or at her execution. The cloth, which should have covered
her face, she plucked off and put between the rope and her neck.
She desired to have been beheaded, giving this reason, that
it was less painful and less shameful.  After a swing or two,
she catched at the ladder.  Mr. Peter, her late pastor, and
Mr. WVilson, went with her to the place of execution, but
could do no good with her. Mr. Peter gave an exhortation
to the people to take heed of revelations, etc., and of despising
the ordinance of excommunication as she had done; for when
it was to have been denounced against her, she turned her
back, and would have gone forth, if she had not been stayed by
force.
Iwater 1
1 This child was baptized at Salem, 25 December, 1635, by the strange name'of Difficultv.
2 The unfortunate husband, whose life had been attempted by her, was, after
her execution, excommunicated "for much pride and unnaturalness to his wife."
See the letter of Hugh Peter in Iutlchinson, I. 420. The original has been seen
by me. Perhaps Peter regretted his treatment of Talby, after his own wife was
distracted.




1638.]              JOHN WINTHROP.                    337
One Capt. Newman, being set forth with commission *280
from the Earl of Holland, governour of the Westminster
company, and the Earl of Warwick, and others of the same
company, to spoil the Spaniard within the limits of their grant
in the West Indies, after he had taken many of their small
vessels, etc., returned home by the Massachusetts in a small
pinnace, with which he had taken all 11 his 1| prizes, (for his
great ship was of no use for that purpose). He brought many
hides and much tallow. The hides he sold here for ~17.10
the 11 2score; 11 the tallow at 29s. the hundred; and set sail for
England (10,) 1. He was after cast away at 113 Christopher's 
with a very rich prize, in the great hyrracano, 1642.
13.] A general fast was kept upon the motion of the elders
to the governour and council. The chief occasion was, the
much sickness of pox and fevers spread through the country,
(yet it was to the east and south also,) the apparent decay of
power of religion, and the general declining of professors to the
world, etc. Mr. Cotton, in his exercise that day at Boston, did
confess and bewail, as the churches', so his own security, sloth,
and credulity, whereupon so many and dangerous errors had
gotten up and spread in the church; and went over all the particulars, and showed how he came to be deceived; the errors
being framed (in words) so 1 4near 11 the truths which he had
preached, and the falsehood of the maintainers of them, who
usually would deny to him what they had delivered to others,
etc. He acknowledged, that such as had been seducers of
others (instancing in some of those of the Island, though he
named them not) had been justly banished. Yet he said, that
such as had been only misled, and others, who had done any
thing out of a misguided conscience, (not being I lgrossly[l
evil,) should be borne withal, and first referred to the church,
and if that could not heal them, they should rather be imprisoned, fined, or, etc., than banished, 116 qcua it was likely no
other church would receive them.
I the 11   112 stone 11   113 blank 11   114 were 1  115 greatly 11  116 tho' 1
1 Having the printed copy before me, as I collated the MS., the error of the
former edition, it must be confessed, escaped me at two readings; but happening
to reflect on the extreme disproportion of price and value, a closer inspection of
VOL..               29




338                 JOHN WINTHROP.                 [1638.
Those who were gone with Mrs. Hutchinson to Aquiday fell
into new errors daily. One Nicholas Easton,1 a tanner, taught,
*281 that gifts and graces were that antichrist mentioned
Thess., and that which withheld, etc., was the preaching
of the law; and that every of the elect had the Holy Ghost
and also the devil indwelling. Another, one Herne, taught,
that women had no souls, and that Adam was not created in
true holiness, etc., for then he could not have lost it.
Those who went to the falls 1 at 11 Pascataquack, gathered a
church, and wrote to our church to desire us to dismiss Mr.
Wheelwright to them for an officer; but, because he desired it
not himself, the elders did not propound it. Soon after came
his own letter, with theirs, for his dismission, which thereupon
was granted. Others likewise (upon their request) were also
dismissed thither.
The governour's letter to Mr. Hilton, about Mr. Burdet and
Capt. Underhill, was by them  intercepted and opened; and
thereupon they wrote presently into England against us, ~ discovering what they knew of our combination to resist any
authority, that should come out of England against us, etc.; ~
for they were extremely moved 112at l the governour's letter,
but could take no advantage by it, for he made account, when
he wrote it, that Mr. Hilton would show it them. And, upon
this, Capt. Underhill wrote a letter to Mr. Cotton, full of high
and threatening words against us; but he wrote another, at the
same time, to the governour in very fair terms, entreating an
obliterating of all that was past, and a bearing with human
infirmities, etc., disavowing all purpose of revenge, etc. See
after, (1,) 1639.
The devil would never cease to disturb our peace, and to
raise up I1'instruments 11 one after another. Amongst the rest,
there was a woman in Salem, one Oliver his wife, who had
suffered somewhat in England for refusing to bow at the name
of Jesus, though otherwise she was conformable to all their
l of Il     112 by il      l insurgents 11
the original easily undeceived me, and led to the restoration of the true text,
though vexed with a bad chirography.
1,4 One Milton, a blind man," derogates nothing from the author of Paradise




1638.]                 JOHN WINTHROP.                        339
orders.  She was (for ability of speech, and appearance of zeal
and devotion) far before Mrs. Hutchinson, and so the fitter instrument to have done hurt, but that she was poor and`282
had little acquaintance.   She took offence at this, that
she might not be admitted to the Lord's supper without giving
public satisfaction to the church of her faith, etc., and covenanting or professing to walk with them   according to the rule
of the gospel; so as, upon the sacrament day, she openly called
for it, and stood to plead her right, though she were denied;
and would not forbear, before the magistrate, Mr. Endecott,
did threaten to send the constable to put her forth. This woman was brought to the court for disturbing the peace in the
church, etc., and there she gave such peremptory answers, as
she was committed till she should find sureties for her good
behavior. After she had been in prison three or four days,
she made II means 1I to the governour, and submitted herself, and
acknowledged her fault in disturbing the church; whereupon
he took her husband's bond for her good behavior, and discharged her out of prison. But he found, after, that she still
held her former opinions, which were very dangerous, as,
1. That the church is the heads of the people, both magistrates and ministers, met together, and that these have power
to ordain ministers, etc. 2. That all that dwell in the same
town, and will profess their faith in Christ Jesus, ought to
be received to the sacraments there; and that she was perII blank |
Lost. Nicholas Easton is distinguished, with only four others, out of a list of
fifty-four freemen admitted at a general court, 3 September, 1634, by the title
of respect. It may be seen, Colony Rec. I. 113, that the Rev. Messieurs
Parker and Noyes were admitted at the same time, and I conclude, that he accompanied them. In March after, Easton was deputy from Ipswich, and he
probably followed his spiritual guide to Newbury. From his occupation, mentioned in the text, no conclusion to his discredit can be drawn; for that employment, in a new country, is found the most useful and profitable for men
of good education and estate. Large capital is often invested in that business, and we need not suppose it was mere handicraft. He was governour
at Rhode Island four years, and the station was five years filled by one, whom
I presume to be his son, John Easton. See 1 Hist. Coll. VI. 144, 145, and
Callender, 42, 93.




340                     JOHN WINTHROP.                       [1638.
suaded, that, if Paul were at Salem, he would call all the inhabitants there saints. 3. That excommunication is no other
but when Christians withdraw private communion from one
that hath offended.'
About five years after, this woman was adjudged to be whipped for reproaching the magistrates.     She stood without tying,
and bare her punishment with a masculine spirit, glorying in
her suffering. But after (when she came to consider the reproach, which would stick by her, etc.) she was much dejected
about it.   She had a cleft stick put on her tongue half an hour,
for reproaching the elders, (6,) 1646.2
At Providence, also, the devil was not idle.    For whereas, at
*283 their first coming thither, Mr. Williams and the rest did
make an order, that no man should be molested for his
conscience, now men's wives, and children, and servants, claimed liberty hereby to go to all religious meetings, though never
so often, or though private, upon the week days; and because
one 1 Verin 1 8 refused to let his wife go to Mr. Williams so oft
as she was called for, they required to have him censured. But
there stood up one Arnold,4 a witty man of their own company,
cUdrinl|
1 A favorable construction would surely find no deadly errors in these
opinions; and certainly imprisonment appears not very appropriate means
for conviction. I doubt that the apostle pointed at much more blameable notions, and even practices, in the church of Corinth, than he would have
found at Salem, though he bestows the epithet saints on the members of the
former. Mrs. Oliver thought, probably, there was too much power assumed by
the elders.
2 This paragraph comes in where the author had long left a blank. I fear
more reproach attached to the elders, with all who pitied the sufferer, than if
her tongue had been left loose.
3 Of this unusual name I have met with no recurrence, except in Hutchinson,
I. 203, where he informs us of the trial and imprisonment of Philip Verin,
as a Quaker.
4 Benedict Arnold was governour of Rhode Island thirteen years. 1 Hist.
Coll. VI. 144, 145. In 1657, with Gov. Coddington, he purchased Cononicut
Island. 1 Hist. Coll. V. 217. He will often be mentioned in this History as a
great friend of Massachusetts, especially in negotiation with the Indians, whose
language was better known to him and his son, of the same name, than most
other of our people. I do not ascertain whether the anecdote in the text belongs to him or William Arnold. See Callender, 35, 43, 80, 93.




1638.]               JOHN WINTHROP.                    341
and withstood it, telling them that, when he consented to that order, he never intended it should extend to the breach of any ordinance of God, such as the ij subjection II of wives to their husbands, etc., and gave divers solid reasons against it.  Then
one Greene (who hath married the wife of one Beggerly,1
whose husband is living, and no divorce, etc., but only it was
said, that he had lived in adultery, and had confessed it) he replied, that, if they should restrain their wives, etc., all the
women in the country would cry out of them, etc.    Arnold
answered him thus: Did you pretend to leave the Massachusetts, because you would not offend God to please men, and
would you now break an ordinance and commandment ~of
God ~ to please women? Some were of opinion, that if
jl 2Verin l would not suffer his wife to have her liberty, the
church should dispose her to some other man, who would use
her better.  Arnold told them, that it was not the woman's
desire to go so oft from  home, but only Mr. Williams's and
others. In 11 3conclusion, 11 when they would have censured
11 4Verin, II Arnold told them, that it was against their own order, for IIVerin I did [l'that he did ll out of conscience; and
their order was, that no man should be censured for his conscience.
Another plot the old serpent had against us, by sowing
jealousies and differences between us and our friends at Connecticut, and also Plimouth.  This latter was about our *284
bounds. They had planted Scituate, and had given out
all the lands to Conyhassett.  We desired only so much of the
marshes there, as might accommodate Hingham, which being
denied, we caused Charles River to be surveyed, and found it
come so far southward as would fetch in Scituate and 117 more; 11
but this was referred to a meeting between us.2
submission1  112I Udrin I  I13 court after 11  I1 Udrin  5 Udrin I
1 6 that, and did it 11  117 Concord |[
1 The circumstances of the separation, which may be seen in Addenda, sub
an. 1636, will excuse our belief, that the charge against Greene is altogether
invidious.
2 Relative to this survey of Charles River, and the line between Plimouth
and Massachusetts colonies, which frequently was matter of controversy, the
29*




342                     JOHN WINTHROP.                       [1638.
The differences between us and those of Connecticut were
divers; but the ground of all was their 11 shyness II of coming
under our government, which, though we never intended to
make them    subordinate to us, yet they were very jealous, and
therefore, in the articles of confederation, which we propounded to them, and whereby order was taken, that all differences,
which might fall out, should be ended by a way of peace, and
never to come to a necessity or danger of force,-they did so
alter the chief article, as all would have come to nothing. For
whereas the article was, That, upon any matter of difference,
two, three, or more commissioners of every of the confederate
colonies should assemble, and have absolute power (the greater
number of them) to determine the matter, —they would have
them only to meet, and if they could agree, so; if not, then
to report to their several colonies, and to return with their advice, and so to go on till the matter might be agreed; which,
beside that it would have been infinitely tedious and extreme
chargeable, it would never have attained the end; for it was
very unlikely, that all the churches in all the plantations would
ever have accorded upon the same propositions.'
928.5    These articles, with their alterations, they sent to our
general court at Newtown, the [blank] of the 5th, by Mr.
1I sickness ll
earliest notice in our Colony Records, I. 228, is 6 September, 1638: " The town
of Dedham is desired to spare two that are most fit to go with goodman Woodward and goodman Johnson, (if he can spare time,) or another to be got in his
room, to lay out the most southermost part of Charles River, and to have five
shillings a day a piece." Woodward was often employed in such business, and,
at the same court, was ordered to survey the line north of Merrimack. He was
admitted of Boston church 8 December, 1633, being No. 194.
1 If the liability to disagreement in the consultations of the churches had
been regarded as an objection against submitting to them other matters of state,
we might not so frequently have to lament the proceedings of our fathers.
Whenever any course, that might proceed to a result of extreme injustice,
cruelty, or tyranny, was contemplated by the civil rulers, the sanction of the
churches or of the elders was usually solicited, and too often obtained. Such is
the consequence of uniting the wisdom of magistrates and ecclesiastics in concerns belonging exclusively to either. See the matter well stated by our author
in the last article of Addenda, next volume.




1638.]                  JOHN WINTHROP.                        343
Haynes, Mr. Pincheon, and John Steele.1       The court, finding
their alteration, and the inconveniences thereof, would take the
like liberty to add and alter; (for the articles were drawn only
by some of the council, and never allowed by the court). This
they excepted against, and would have restrained us of that
liberty, which they took themselves; and one of their three
commissioners, falling in debate with some of our deputies,
said, that they would not meddle with any thing that was
within our limits; which being reported to the court, they
thought it seasonable we should stand upon our right, so as,
though we were formerly willing that Agawam         (now  Springfield) should have fallen into their government, yet, seeing
they would not be beholden to us for any thing, we intended to
keep it; and accordingly we put it in as an article, that the line
between us should be, one way, the Pequod River, (viz. south
and north,) and the other way, (viz. east and west,) the limits
of our own grant. And this article we added: That we, etc.,
should have liberty to pass to and fro upon Connecticut, and
they likewise.   To these articles all their commissioners offered
to consent, but it was thought by our court, (because of the new
articles,) that they should first acquaint their own court with it.
And so their commissioners departed.
After this, we understood that they went on to exercise their
authority  at Agawam.      Whereupon the governour wrote to
I! them I1 to desire them to forbear until the line was laid out,
Ilhim ll
l Steele was one of the first settlers of Hartford, called Newtown, because
most of the early inhabitants went from that town with Hooker and Haynes;
but the Connecticut village changed its name very soon, probably before that in
our neighborhood. Windsor was first called Dorchester, and Weathersfield
Watertown, after the chief fountains of their blood in Massachusetts. This
gentleman was a deputy in our general court 4 March, 1634-5, and again in
September following; and was also one of those appointed by the authority of
Massachusetts to administer justice among the people of the new colony until
they formed a government for themselves. See Hutchinson, I. 99, from the
Colony Records. He was now one of the magistrates or assistants of Connecticut, and, when their first court of deputies assembled, in 1639, was one of that
body. Trumbull, I. 79, 103. The time of his death is unknown to me. I suppose descendants are numerous.




344                  JOHN WINTHROP.                  [1638.
with advice about some other things, as by the copy of the
letter appears. After a long time, Mr. Ludlow (in the name of
their court) returned answer, which was very harsh; and in
fine declared, that they thought it not fit to treat any further
before they had advice from the gentlemen of Saybrook, etc.
The governour acquainted the council and magistrates with this
*286 letter; and, because they had tied our hands (in a manner) from  replying, he wrote a private letter to Mr.
Haynes, wherein he lays open their mistakes (as he called them)
and the apparent causes of offence, which they had given us;
as by II disclaiming 1[ to their Naragansetts to be bound by our
former agreement with them, (which they would never make
till the wars were ended,) by making a treaty of agreement
with the Naragansetts and Monhigans, without joining us, or
mentioning us to that end, (though we had by letter given them
liberty to take us in,) and by binding all the Indians (who had
received any Pequods) to pay tribute for them all to them 11 at 11
Connecticut, etc. (All these things are clearly to be seen in the
letters.)  These and the like miscarriages in point of correspondency were conceived to arise from  these two errors in
their government: 1. They chose divers scores men, who had
no learning nor judgment, which might fit them for those affairs,
though otherwise men holy and religious. 2. By.occasion
hereof, the main burden for managing of state business fell
upon some one or other of their ministers, (as the phrase and
style of these letters will clearly discover,) who, though they
were men of singular wisdom and godliness, yet, stepping out
of their course, their actions wanted that blessing, which otherwise might have been expected.*'
15.] The wind at N. E., there was so great a tempest of
wind and snow all the night and the next day, as had not been
since our time. Five men and youths perished between MattaII disinclining II                   I2 ofll
1 These lines were so effectually erased, that, for some years, my desire of
decyphering them was baffled; but, after twice abandoning the task, I gradually
obtained, with the aid of a gentleman much skilled in reading difficult MS., a
sufficient confidence in all but one word.




1638.]                  JOHN    WINTHROP.                        345
pan and Dorchester,1 and a man and a woman2 between Boston
and Roxbury.      11 Anthony II Dick,8 in   a bark of thirty    9287
tons, cast away upon the head of Cape Cod. Three were
starved to death with the cold; the other two got some fire
and so lived there, by such food as they saved, seven weeks, till
an Indian found -them, etc.    Two vessels bound for Quinipiack
were cast away at Aquiday, but the people saved. Much other
harm was done in staving of boats, etc., and by the great tides,
II Arthur II
1 Our information cannot denote the line between the English and the Indian
places, the names of which are commonly applied indiscriminately. The historian of Dorchester leaves me to conjecture; and my supposition is, that the
neck, of old called Dorchester Neck, now annexed to the metropolis by the
designation of South Boston, was Mattapan. The early settlement of the English
was made near the present first church, and between that and South Boston the
face of the country was bad enough for one to be lost in without an extreme
tempest of snow. It is to be understood from the text, that the disaster occurred
by land, not water.
2 A very full relation of these persons perishing with cold on Boston Neck is
given by Johnson, with characteristic deficiency of precision as to date, against
which all readers should perpetually guard, lib. II. c. 15. " To end this year,
1639, the Lord was pleased to send a very sharp winter, and more especially in
strong storms of weekly snows, with very bitter blasts. And here the reader
may take notice of the sad hand of the Lord against two persons, who were
taken in a storm of snow, as they were passing from Boston to Roxbury, it being
much about a mile distant, and a very plain way. One of Roxbury sending to
Boston his servant maid for a barber-chirurgeon to draw his tooth, they lost their
way in their passage between, and were not found till many days after, and then
the maid was found in one place, and the man in another, both of them frozen to
death; in which sad accident this was taken into consideration by divers people,
that this barber was more than ordinary laborious to draw men to those sinful
errors, that were formerly so frequent, and now newly overthrown, - by the
blessing of the Lord upon the endeavor of his faithful servants with the word of
truth, - he having a fit opportunity, by reason of his trade, so soon as any were
set down in his chair, he would commonly be cutting of their hair and the truth
together; notwithstanding some report better of the man, the example is for the
living; the dead is judged of the Lord alone." The barber-surgeon was William
Dinely, whose name is on p. 248, with others of those disarmed for heresy. His
son, born ten days after his father perished, was baptized 6 January following,
by the name, Fathergone.
3 I know nothing more of this man than that he had come to Plimouth in
1623, that Capt. Clap, in his Memoirs, mentions his having been taken by the
pirate Bull, and that he received his information from Dick's own mouth.




346                    JOHN WINTHROP.                      [1638.
which exceeded all before.      This happened the day after a
general fast, which occasioned some of our ministers to stir us
up to seek the Lord better, because he seemed to discountenance the means of reconciliation. Whereupon the next general
court, by advice of the elders, agreed to keep another day, and
to seek further into the causes of such displeasure, etc.; which
accordingly was performed.
(11.) 14.] The earthquake, which had continued at times
since the 1st of the 4th, was more generally felt, and the same
noise heard in many places.
30.] A church was gathered at Weymouth with approbation
of the magistrates and elders. It is observable, this church,
having been gathered before, and so that of Lynn, could not
hold together, nor could have any elders join or hold with them.
The reason appeared to be, because they did not begin according to the rule of the gospel, which when Lynn had found and
humbled themselves for it, and began again upon a new foundation, they went on with a blessing.
The people of this town of Weymouth had invited one Mr.
I[ Lenthall 11' to come to them, with intention to call him to be
*288  their minister.  This man, though of good report in England, coming hither, was found to have drank in some of
Mrs. Hutchinson's opinions, as of justification before faith, etc.,
II Leathall 1
1 Hubbard, 275, carefully copies his master, but neglects to enlarge our
knowledge of this clergyman. I learn from Lechford, that he, soon after,
found him at Newport, "out of office and employment, and lives very poorly."
From the proceedings in our Colony Records, I. 241, we find his name of baptism was Robert. Callender, 62, gives all the further information that can be
obtained, and confirms my conjecture that he returned home: " They procured
[for a religious teacher] Mr. Lenthal of Weymouth, who was admitted a freeman here August 6, 1640. And, August 20, Mr. Lenthal was by vote called
to keep a public school for the learning of youth, and for his encouragement
there was granted to him and his heirs one hundred acres of land, and four more
for an house lot. It was also voted, that one hundred acres should be laid forth,
and appropriated for a school, for encouragement of the poorer sort to train up
their youth in learning; and Mr. Robert Lenthal, while he continues to teach
school, is to have the benefit thereof. But this gentleman did not tarry here
very long. I find him gone to England the next year but one." It seems, the
New Lights of Rhode Island were willing to have advantage of the old light.




1638.]              JOHN WINTHROP.                   347
and opposed the gathering of our churches in such a way of
mutual stipulation as was practised among us. From    the
former he was soon taken off upon conference with Mr. Cotton;
but he stuck close to the other, that only baptism was the door
of entrance into the church, etc., so as the common sort of
people did eagerly embrace his opinions, and some labored to
get such a church on foot as all baptized ones might communicate in without any further trial of them, etc. For this end
they procured many hands in Weymouth to a blank, intending
to have Mr. 1| Lenthall's 11 advice to the frame of their call; and
he likewise was very forward to become a minister to them in
such a way, and did openly maintain the cause.   But the
magistrates, hearing of this disturbance and combination,
thought it needful to stop it betimes, and 1 2ergo II they called
Mr. 11 3Lenthall,ll and some of the chief of the faction, to the
next general court in the 1 month, where Mr. 11 4Lenthall, l having before conferred with some of the magistrates and of the
elders, and being convinced both of his error in judgment, and
of his sin in practice to the disturbance of our peace, etc., did
openly and freely retract, with expression of much grief of heart
for his offence, and did deliver his retractation in writing, under
his hand, in the open court; whereupon he was enjoined to
appear at the next court, and in the mean time to make and
deliver the like recantation in some public assembly at Weymouth. So the court stopped for any further censure by fine,
or, etc., though it was much urged by some.
At the same court one Smith was convicted and fined ~20 for
being a chief stirrer in the business; and one Silvester o289
was disfranchised; and one Britton, who had spoken reproachfully of the answer, which was sent to Mr. Barnard his
book against our church covenant, and of some of our elders,
and had sided with Mr. 1I Lenthall, 11 etc., was openly whipped,
because he had no estate to answer, etc.
II Leathall's 1  I12 so 11  113 Leathall 11  114 Leathall 11  115 Leathall I|
1 Of this extraordinary tyranny (I can appropriate no milder word) all that
our court has left on record is here extracted from vol. I. 240:
" 13 of 1, 1638-9, John Smyth, for disturbing the public peace by combining
with others to hinder the orderly gathering of a church at Weymouth, and to




348                      JOHN WINTHROP.                         [1638.
Mo. 1.]    A printing house was begun at Cambridge by one
Daye, at the charge of Mr. Glover, who died on sea hitherward.    The first thing which was printed was the freemen's
oath;'the next was an almanac made for New              England by
Mr. William    Peirce, mariner; the next was the Psalms newly
turned into metre.1
~ A plantation was begun by Sandwich, and was called Yarmouth, in Plimouth jurisdiction.~
Another plantation was begun upon the north side of Merrimack, called Sarisbury, ~now      Colchester; ~ another at Winset up another there, contrary to the orders here established, and the constant
practice of all our churches, and for undue procuring the hands of many to a
blank for that purpose, is fined ~20, and committed during the pleasure of court
or the council.
" Richard Silvester, for going with Smyth to get hands to a blank, was disfranchised, and fined ~2.
"Mr. Ambrose Marten, for calling the church covenant a stinking carrion,
and a human invention, and saying he wondered at God's patience, feared it
would end in the sharp, and said the ministers did dethrone Christ and set up
themselves; he was fined ~10, and counselled to go to Mr. Mather, to be instructed by him.
"Mr. Thomas Makepeace, because of his novel disposition, was informed, we
were weary of him, unless he reform."
These two latter offenders are supposed by me to be among the conspirators
for a free church, because their offences and sentences are related next after
the former, and Mather was the minister nearest to Weymouth. It is observable, that nothing is said of Britton's crime or punishment. It was, probably,
thought unnecessary to burden the record with such a case, though we should,
in modern times, think very differently. Lechford says, "he was whipped
eleven stripes," and his guilt is by that author represented as " saying that some
of the ministers in the bay were Brownists."
Yet a very humane and judicious critic, in 3 Mass. Hist. Col. III. 403, the
late admirable James Bowdoin, doubted the soundness of this charge of " extraordinary tyranny."
1 The history of printing, at least in America, has been illustrated with exemplary diligence, in two amusing volumes, by Isaiah Thomas, who treats of his
own profession with equal skill and affection. The place, where it was first
practised in these English colonies, has been ever since devoted to the cause of
letters, by the establishment of a College, having the widest fame of any on
this side of the Atlantic, though long intervals have elapsed without the exercise of the press.




1638.]               JOHN WINTHROP.                      349
icowett, called Hampton, which gave occasion of [1 some I[ difference between us and some of Pascataquack, which *290
grew thus: Mr. Wheelwright, being banished from us,
gathered a company and sat down by the falls of Pascataquack,
and called their town Exeter; and for their enlargement they
dealt with an Indian there, and bought of him Winicowett,
etc., and then wrote to us what they had done, and that they
intended to lot out all these lands in farms, except we could
show a better title. They wrote also to those whom we had
sent to plant Winicowett to have them desist, etc. These letters coming to the general court, they returned answer, that
they looked at this their dealing as against good neighborhood,
religion, and common honesty; that, knowing we claimed Winicowett as within our patent, or as vacuum domicilium, and had
taken possession thereof by building an house there above two
years since, they should now go and purchase an unknown
title, and then come to 11 2inquire 11 of our right. It was in the
same letter also manifestly proved, that the Indians having
only a natural right to so much land as they had or could improve, so as the rest of the country lay open to any that could
and would improve it, as by the said letter more at large doth
appear.'
In this year one James I'Everell, 112 a sober, discreet man,
and two others, saw a great light in the night at Muddy River.
When it stood still, it flamed up, and was about three yards
square; when it ran, it was contracted into the figure of a
swine: it ran as swift as an arrow towards Charlton, and so up
and down about two or three hours. They were come down
II sore 11       112 deny 11         11E3 verett 11
1 From this paragraph my suspicion was first excited of the authenticity of
the Indian deed to Wheelwright, the first article in Appendix to Belknap's
New Hamp. I. The scrutiny has convinced me, that it is a forgery; but the
length of the inquiry renders it expedient to postpone it to the Appendix H.
2 He was a man of reputation, activity, and good estate in Boston many
years afterwards. With his wife, Elizabeth, he had been received into Boston church 20 of July, 1634, being Nos. 239, 240. His will, made 11 December, 1682, proved 2 February following, is found in our Probate Registry,
vol. VI. 400.
VOL. I,                 30




350                   JOHN WINTHROP.                    [1638.
in their lighter about a mile, and, when it was over, they found
themselves carried quite back against the tide to the place they
came from. Divers other credible persons saw the same light,
after, about the same place.'`291    The general court, in the 7th mo. last, gave order to the
governour to write to them of Pascataquack, to signify to
them, that we looked at it as an unneighborly part, that they
should encourage and advance such as we had cast out from
us for their offences, before they had inquired of us the cause,
etc.  (The occasion of this letter was, that they had aided Mr.
Wheelwright to begin a plantation there, and intended to make
Capt. Underhill their governour in the room   of Mr. Burdett,
who had thrust out Capt. Wiggin, set in there by the lords, etc.)
Upon this, Capt. Underhill (being chosen governour there)
wrote a letter to a young gentleman, (who sojourned in the
house of our governour,) wherein he reviles I] the 1t governour
with reproachful terms and imprecations of vengeance upon us
all. This letter being showed to the governour and council,
the governour, by advice, wrote the letter to Edward Hilton as
is before mentioned, page [blank,] mo. 10, 13. The captain
was so nettled with this letter, and especially because his
adulterous life with the cooper's wife at Boston was now discovered, and the church had called him to come and make answer to it; but he made many excuses, as want of liberty, being a banished man, (yet the governour and council had sent
him a safe conduct,) and upon his pretence of the insufficiency
of that, the general court sent him another for three months.
But, instead of coming, he procured a new church at Pascataquack of some few     loose men (who had chosen one Mr.
1 our 11
1 This account of an ignis fatuus may easily be believed on testimony less
respectable than that which was adduced. Some operation of the devil, or
other power beyond the customary agents of nature, was probably imagined by
the relaters and hearers of that age, and the wonder of being carried a mile
against the tide became important corroboration of such a fancy. Perhaps
they were wafted, during the two or three hours' astonishment, for so moderate
a distance, by the wind; but, if this suggestion be rejected, we might suppose,
that the eddy, flowing always, in our rivers, contrary to the tide in the channel,
rather than the meteor, carried their lighter back.




1638.]                  JOHN WINTHROP.                          351
Knolles,' a weak minister, lately come out of England, *292
and rejected by us for holding some of Mrs. Hutchinson's
opinions) to write to our church at Boston in his commendation, wherein they style him the right worshipful, their honored
governour; all which notwithstanding, the church of Boston
proceeded with him; and, in the mean time, the general court
wrote to all the chief inhabitants of Pascataquack, and sent
them a copy of his letters, (wherein he professeth himself to
be an instrument ordained of God for our ruin,) to know,
whether it were with their privity and consent, that he sent us
such a defiance, etc., and whether they would maintain him in
such practices against us, etc.
Those of Pascataquack returned answer to us by two several
letters. Those of the plantation disclaimed to have any hand
in his miscarriages, etc., and offered to call him to account, etc.,
whensoever we would send any to inform         against him.    The
others at the river's mouth     disclaimed likewise, and showed
their indignation against him for his insolences, and their readiness to join in any fair course for our satisfaction; only they
desired us to have some compassion of him, and not to send
any forces against him.
After this, Capt. Underhill's courage was abated, for the
chiefest in the river fell from him, and the rest little regarded
him, so as he wrote letters of retractation to divers; and, to
1 Hanserd Knollys is a name of considerable repute among the early Baptists in England, where, like the other divines of our first settlers, he had been
episcopally ordained. After a residence of a few years in our country, the
account of which, little creditable to his morals, will appear in other parts of
this History, he returned home. Something of his sufferings, for the new doctrines, at the hands of the persecuting parliament and Independents, during the
great age of anarchy, will be found in Toulmin's edition of Neal's Puritans, III.
551, 2, 3. He was persecuted by the other side, in the following age of prelatical domination, and his sufferings were probably of use to him. Hubbard, 356,
has preserved the famous Bastwick's play upon his name, - Absurdo Knowless.
His reputation was so much improved in his latter days, that Mather, III. calls
him godly, and assures us he died " a good man in a good old age."  Belknap,
N. H. I. 45, with precision, notices his years and death, " Sept. 19, 1691, 2Etat.
ninety-three." Eliot includes him, but Allen does not.
In his notice of Knollys, who left an autobiography, Brook had large materials, and seems to have well used them, Lives of the Puritans, MI. 491.




352                   JOHN WINTHROP.                        [1638.
show his wisdom, he wrote a letter to the deputy and the
court, (not mentioning the governour,) wherein he sent the
copies of some of the governour's letters to Pascataquack, supposing that something would appear in them either to extenuate his fault, or to lay blame upon the governour; but he
failed in both, for the governour was able to make good what
he had written.
[Large blank.]
16.] There was so violent a wind at S. S. E. and S. as the
like was not since we came into this land. It began in the
evening, and increased till midnight.    It overturned some new,
strong houses; but the Lord miraculously preserved old, weak
cottages.'  It tare down fences, -people |lran l out of their
houses in the night, etc. There came such a rain withal, as
raised the waters at Connecticut twenty feet above their
meadows, etc.
*293     The Indians near Aquiday being pawwawing in this
tempest, the devil came and fetched away five of them.
Quere.2
At Providence things grew     still worse; for a sister of Mrs.
Hutchinson, the wife of one Scott,3 being infected with Anabaptistry, and going last year to live at Providence, Mr. Williams was taken (or rather emboldened) by her to make open
profession thereof, and accordingly was rebaptized by one
I camell
1 If the new houses were higher, we may reasonably doubt the miracle. The
oak breaks and the willow bends, according to the laws of nature, not by their
suspension.
2 The last word seems to be of a later date. Perhaps the story staggered the
credulity of Mather. But if the author meant only, that a violent flood, raised
by the prince of the power of the air, carried off these natives and drowned
them, we may regret the consequence, at least as much as we deride the manner of expression. A greater loss from such cause is related in this volume,
166, August, 1635.
3 Richard Scott, shoemaker, had been admitted of Boston church 28 August,
1634, being No. 265, and is, I presume, the same person, who, with Greene,
Holliman, the two Arnolds, and others, derived title in the lands of Providence
under Williams. Callender, 43.




1638.]                 JOHN WINTHROP.                          353
Holyman,1 a poor man2 late of Salem.         Then Mr. Williams
rebaptized him and some ten more. They also denied the bap
tizing of infants, and would have no magistrates.3
At Aquiday, also, Mrs. Hutchinson exercised publicly, and
she and her party (some4 three or four families) would have no
magistracy. She sent also an admonition to the church of
Boston; but the elders would not read it publicly, because she
was excommunicated.       By these examples we may see how
dangerous it is to slight the censures of the church; for it was
apparent, that God had given them up to [1 strange 11 delu-:294
sions.  Those of Aquiday also had entertained two men,
whom the church of Roxbury had excommunicated, and one of
them did exercise publicly there. For this the church of Boston called in question such of them as were yet their members;
and Mr. Coddington, being present, not freely acknowledging
his sin, (though he confessed himself in some fault,) was solemnly admonished.
This is further to be observed in the delusions which this
people were taken with: Mrs. Hutchinson and          some of her
strong 11
1 Ezekiel Holliman, founder, with eleven others, of the first Baptist church in
America, is well spoken of, as a man of gifts and piety, by those who knew him
best. See Benedict. At our general court, March, 1637-8, being summoned,
" because he did not frequent the public assemblies, and for seducing many, he
was referred by the court to the ministers for conviction." Of the execution of
such a sentence, to the uttermost, we should in vain look for a record, and perhaps it may be thought a reward rather than a punishment. They who are
found guilty of entertaining other notions than the court are seldom in a good
temper for conviction after judgment. The dissenter thanked his judges, I
suppose, for the opportunity of a conference.
2 Hubbard, 338, in transcribing this passage, candidly changes "poor man"
into "mean fellow."  The ministers failed, probably, to enlighten his conscience.
3 If the like assertion of rejecting magistracy, which, in the text immediately
after, is made about Rhode Island, be untrue, as will be clearly proved, we may
doubt this alleged insanity of the people at Williams's plantation. When shall
we have a true history of Rhode Island, with the temper of Callender and the
opportunities of Hutchinson?
4 Save is given by Hubbard instead of: some;" but although the MS. has
not become more legible in the intervening hundred and forty years, I prefer
my eyesight to his, as may our readers the sense of the passage.
30*




354                 JOHN WINTHROP.                    [1639.
adherents happened to be at prayer when the earthquake was
at Aquiday, etc., and the house being shaken thereby, they
were persuaded, (and boasted of it,) that the Holy Ghost did
shake it in coming down upon them, as he did upon the
apostles.
[Blank.]
(2.)]  A plantation was begun between Ipswich and Newbury.  The occasion was this: Mr. Eaton and Mr. Davenport
having determined to sit down at Quinipiack, there came over
one Mr. Ezekiel Rogers, second son of that truly faithful servant
of God, Mr. Richard Rogers of Weathersfield in England, and
with him some twenty families, godly men, and most of them of
good estate.  This Mr. Rogers, being a man of special note in
England for his zeal, piety, and other parts,1 they labored by
all means to draw 1] with them 11 to Quinipiack, and had so far
prevailed with him, being newly come, and unacquainted with
the state of the country, as they had engaged him; yet, being a
very wise man, and considering that many of quality2 in England did depend upon his choice of a fit place for them, he
agreed upon such 1 2propositions 11 and cautions, as, though they
promised to fulfil them all, (whereupon he sent divers of his
people thither before winter,) yet, when it came to, they were
not able to make good what they had promised. Whereupon
he consulted with the elders of the bay, and, by their advice,
etc., holding his former engagement released, he and his people
took that place by Ipswich; and because some farms had been
granted by Ipswich and Newbury, which would be prejudicial
to their plantation, they bought out the owners, disbursing
II him  11                   112 proposals 11
1 In Oliver's History of Beverley in Yorkshire appears sufficient evidence of
the esteem in which Rogers was held. Complaint being made in Chancery of
gross misapplication of funds, by Queen Elizabeth bestowed on the church of
St. Mary in that borough, a commission was issued to inquire by a jury or otherwise. It was directed to the Archbishop of York, the Earl of Cumberland,
three baronets, six knights, eight esquires, and seven clergymen, of whom the
first named was our Richard Rogers.
2 Mather mentions two names of persons, Sir William Constable and Sir
Matthew Boynton, who designed to accompany him.




1639.]                 JOHN WINTHROP.                       355
therein about ~800; and he sent a pinnace to Quinipiack to
fetch back'the rest of his people; but Mr. Eaton and Mr.
Davenport, and others of Connecticut, (being impatient of the
loss of him and his people,) staid the pinnace, and sent a messenger with letters of purpose torecover him again. This q295
made him to desire the elders to assemble again, and he
showed them the letters they sent, (which wanted no arguments,
though some truth;1) but he made the case so clear, by letters
which had passed between them, etc., as they held him still free
from all engagement; and so he returned answer to them, and
went on with his plantation.
[Large blank.]
The Indians of Block Island sent, for their tribute this year,
ten fathom of wampompeak.
One Mr. Howe,2 of Lynn, a godly man, and a deputy of the
last general court, after the court was ended, and he had dined,
being in health as he used to be, went to pass over to Charlestown, and, being alone, he was presently after found dead upon
the strand, being there (as it seemed) waiting for the boat, which
came soon after.
(3.) 2.] Mr. Cotton, preaching out of the 8 of Kings, 8,
taught, that when magistrates are forced to provide for the
maintenance of ministers, etc., then the churches are in a declining condition. There he showed, that the ministers' maintenance should be by voluntary contribution, not by lands, or
revenues, or tithes, etc.; for these II have II always been accompanied with pride, contention, and sloth, etc.3
I things had 1
1 The exertions of the New Haven gentlemen, to acquire so important a confederate as Rogers, might lead to a little exaggeration; but the insinuation of
falsehood against such characters, as Eaton and Davenport, needs not to be
repelled. As they harmonized in symbols of doctrine and church forms with
our colonists, so rude a charge upon them is more extraordinary than many
suggestions we find against the lovers of episcopacy or the latitudinarians of
Rhode Island.
2 Edward Howe had been representative in all the courts the year preceding.
There was, in Lynn, another Howe, perhaps brother of Edward, named Daniel,
of whom, in the progress of this History, something will be told.
3 Cotton did not often preach more sound doctrine, though I am not satis



356                      JOHN WINTHROP.                       [1639.
11.] The two chief sachems of Naragansett sent the governour a present of thirty fathom      of wampom, and' Sequin, the
sachem of Connecticut, sent ten fathom.
At Aquiday the people grew       very tumultuous, and put out
Mr. Coddington and the other three magistrates, and chose Mr.
William   Hutchinson only, a man of a very mild temper and
weak parts, and wholly guided by his wife, who had been the
*296 beginner of all the former troubles in the country, and still
continued to breed disturbance.'
fied with the pertinency of the text, which was, undoubtedly, in the second
book.
1 Here I may redeem the pledge, given in note 3, on page 293, of showing
this relation erroneous. The Hon. Samuel Eddy, many years secretary of the
state of Rhode Island, and a consistent asserter of the doctrine of religious
liberty, for which his fellow-citizens may feel as great obligation, as I do for his
antiquarian diligence in furnishing the State Papers, 2 Hist. Coll. VII. 75-113,
besides other valuable information, has supplied the evidence. In a letter of
18 January, 1817, now before me, after quoting from Hubbard, 338, 9, what
that historian had copied from our text, he adds: " Now this, not to notice the
contradiction, is altogether without foundation, and contrary to the whole tenor
of the records, which admit of no such construction. On the first settlement of
the island, they chose Coddington (7th 1st month, 1638, the day of their incorporation) their judge. He remained sole judge until the 2d of the 11th month,
1638, when they chose three elders to his assistance, viz. Nicholas Easton, John
Coggeshall, and William Brenton. These all continued in office until the 12th
of the 1st month, 1640, when they ordered their chief magistrate to be called
governour, the next, deputy governour, and Easton, Coggeshall, William
Hutchinson, and John Porter assistants, for one year. This was the only time
that William Hutchinson was chosen to office. The four following years,
Coddington and Brenton were re-elected. 1641, Coggeshall, Robert Harding,
William Balston, and John Porter, were chosen assistants. The three following
years, they were all re-elected. In 1642, according to Hutchinson, (Vol. I. p.
72,) William Hutchinson died on Rhode Island. The same year, according to
Hubbard, Mrs. Hutchinson and family'removed to some place under the
Dutch,' and were destroyed by the Indians."
" The fact, in itself, is, to be sure, of not much importance; though it removes
from Mrs. Hutchinson a part of the evidence of her being a meddling and
troublesome woman. But, so far as it shows the materials from which the
historian composed his narrative, it is of considerable importance. Vague
reports ought never to be adopted in opposition to records. Neither ought they
to be adopted at all, but as such; and not then, until the proper sources of
information have been examined. I am apprehensive, that much of what has
been said, and continues to be said, of the first settlers of this state, is founded




1639.]                    JOHN WINTHROP.                          357
They also gathered a church in a very disordered way; *297
for they took some excommunicated persons, and others
on the same kind of authority. I purpose hereafter to show something of this in
the case of Gorton, who appears to have been the common butt of all the early,
and some late writers, than whom, I am persuaded, no one of the first settlers of
this country has received more unmerited reproach, nor any one suffered so
much injustice. His opinions on religious subjects were, probably, somewhat
singular, though certainly not more so than those of many at this day. But
that was his business; his opinions were his own, and he had a right to them."
My correspondent died before fulfilment of his promise about Gorton. But
he was told, that Hubbard is innocently chargeable with following materials from
which he did not so much compose, as compile, or rather copy, his work. To
prevent all succeeding writers from looking into the historian of Ipswich, as an
original authority, for any fact which Winthrop had related, I subjoin to this
protracted note two considerations, from which the just value of his book may
be ascertained.
1. Hutchinson, the most diligent and exact of all writers of colonial history,
since Winthrop, whose work he could not see, at the opening of his labors, mentions his apparatus: "among the rest a manuscript history of Mr. WILLIAM
HUBBAID, which is carried down to the year 1680, but, after 1650, contains
but few facts."  Now, our author's work brings the series of events to 1649,
when he died. Yet, though Hubbard was in the prime of life for the thirty
years following, he seems to have slighted most of the occurrences, in which he
should have felt the deepest interest, if he had not also felt his incapacity to
appear the relater of them. A small part of his volume was, certainly, compiled
from several scarce tracts relative to the discovery of our coast and the early
voyages to it; and, for any thing of date preceding 1630, his information is
sometimes authentic, and often curious. A collation with Morton's Memorial
will, however, prove the facility with which Hubbard transcribed whole pages
in succession, even from a printed book. But from the time when Winthrop
came to his aid, he generously relies on him, and deems the labor of copying
sufficient. So that more than seven eighths of his volume, between 1630 and
1650, is borrowed, usually by specific extracts, occasionally with unimportant
changes, from the text of the Father of Massachusetts. It must be acknowledged,
however, that, sometimes, he wisely abbreviates; though much more frequently
he slides over circumstances, as dates or numbers, in which the chirography of
the MS. would have given him too much trouble to be accurate. I would
recommend to any studious lover of our early history to go through from pages
128 to 536 of Hubbard, and in his margin to note the corresponding passages
from this History.
2. Dr. Holmes, in his invaluable Annals, a work which almost compensates
for our loss of the accuracy of Prince, referred, between pages 255 and 347
of Vol. I. in his first edition, narrating events within the limits of time, for which
Winthrop could and did afford assistance, not less than one hundred and seven
times to the MS. of Hubbard. Now fifty-six of these citations are of passages




358                      JOHN WINTHROP.                         [1639.
who   were   members of the       church   of Boston    and not dismissed.1
*298     6.]   The two regiments in the bay were mustered at
Boston, to the number of one thousand soldiers, able men,
and well armed and exercised. They were 11 led,lJ the one by
the governour, who was general of all, and the other by the
deputy, who was colonel, etc.          The captains, etc., showed
themselves very skilful and ready in divers sorts of skirmishes
and other military actions, wherein they spent the whole day.2
One of Pascataquack, having opportunity to go into Mr.
Burdet his study, and finding there the copy of his letter to the
archbishops, sent it to the governour, which was to this effect:
1 headed 1
taken literally by Hubbard from our History, and three fourths of the remaining
fifty-one are such as the Ipswich historian adopted, with alterations utterly
trivial, from the same authority. Printing, therefore, lamentably reduced the
value of that MS., as all antiquaries, it may be presumed, would acknowledge
higher veneration for written than printed evidence.  Yet the scrupulous
annalist may easily be absolved from censure; for, when his volumes were put
forth, it had never been considered, whence Hubbard derived his treasures.
Those which could not be found in the first edition of Winthrop, must have been
sought in Hubbard; and of the fourteen last citations by Dr. Holmes, within
the space above-mentioned, eleven will be seen, from the part of the History
now published, to be literal extracts. All this process of verification, the work
of a few hours, if not too easily credited by my readers, will afford, to any who
attempt it, sufficient amusement, and at the same time furnish infallible means
of ascertaining the relative value of the testimony furnished by each of the
witnesses, Hubbard and Winthrop.
1 Those members of Boston church who had been driven by intolerance to
the new region, if they gathered a church at all, must do it in a disordered
way; for they might well apprehend, that an application for dismission would
be rejected, and perhaps punished by excommunication. The anathema against
the outcasts, I suppose, belongs also to all who receive them. In 2 Hist. Coll. X.
184, is a long letter of Cotton, in the name of the church of Boston, to Francis
Hutchinson, at Aquettinck, or Rhode Island, refusing dismission, though it
appears to have been solicited on two grounds, of his remote situation rendering
it impossible for him to perform the duties of his covenant at Boston, and also
of his natural obligation to attend upon his parents.
2 Wonder-working Providence is chiefly valued for its account of the military
array of the people in their several settlements, lib. II. c. 26, the author having
been better acquainted with the use of the sword than the Bible, though so
frequently ambitious of exhibiting his dexterity in handling the word.




1639.]              JOHN WINTHROP.                359
That he did delay to go into England, because he would fully
inform himself of the state of the people here in regard of allegiance; and that it was not discipline that was now so much
aimed at, as sovereignty; and that it was accounted I[ perjury [1
and treason in our general courts to speak of appeals to the
king.
The first ships, which came this year, brought him letters
from the archbishops and the lords commissioners for plantations, wherein they gave him thanks for his care of his majesty's
service, etc., and that they would take a time to redress such
disorders as he had informed them of, etc., but, by reason of the
much business now lay upon them, they could not, at present,
accomplish his desire. These letters lay above fourteen days
in the bay, and some moved the governour to open them; but
himself and others of the council thought it not safe to meddle
with them, nor would take any notice of them; and it fell out
well, by God's good providence; for the letters, (by some
means) were opened, (yet without any of their privity or consent,) and Mr. Burdet threatened to complain of it to the lords;
and afterwards we had knowledge of the contents of, them by
some of his own friends.
The governour received letters from Mr. Cradock, and in
them another order from the lords commissioners, to this effect: That, whereas they had received our petition upon their
former order,l etc., by which they perceived, that we were
taken with some jealousies and fears of their intentions,
etc., they did accept of our answer, and did now declare their
intentions to be only to regulate all plantations to be sub- 299
ordinate to the said commission; and that they meant to
continue our liberties, etc., and therefore did now again peremptorily require the governour to send them our patent by the
first ship; and that, in the mean time, they did give us, by that
order, full power to go on in the government of the people until
we had a new patent sent us; and, withal, they added threats
of further course to be taken with us, if we failed.
This order being imparted to the next general court, some
1I piracy 11
1 See page 269.




360                 JOHN WINTHROP.                 [1639.
advised to return answer to it. Others thought fitter to make
no answer at all, because, being sent in a private letter, and not
delivered by a certain messenger, as the former order was,
they could not proceed upon it, because they could not have
any proof that it was delivered to the governour; ~and order was taken, that Mr. Cradock's agent, who delivered the
letter to the governour, etc., should, in his letters to his master,
make no mention of the letters he delivered to the governour, ~ seeing his master had not laid any charge upon him to
that end.
Mr. Haynes, the governour of Connecticut, and Mr. Hooker, etc., came into the bay, and staid near a month. It appeared by them, that they were desirous to renew the treaty of
confederation with us, and though themselves would not move
it, yet, by their means, it was moved I| to 11 our general court,
and accepted; for they were in some doubt of the Dutch, who
had lately received a new governour,1 a more discreet and
sober man than the former, and one who did complain much of
the injury done to them at Connecticut, and was very forward to hold correspondency with us, and very inquisitive how
things stood between us and them of Connecticut, which occasioned us the more readily to renew the former treaty, that the
Dutch might not take notice of any breach or alienation between us.
22.] The court of elections was; at which time there was a
small eclipse of the sun. Mr. Winthrop was chosen governour
again, though some laboring had been, by some of the elders
~and others~ to have changed, not out of any dislike of him,
(for they all loved and esteemed him,) but out of their fear lest
it might make way for having a governour for life, which some
had propounded as most agreeable to God's institution and the
practice of all well ordered states. But neither the governour
Ilby l
1 His name was William Kieft; and of him frequent notice will occur in the
interminable negotiations between the Dutch and our New England colonies.
It is hardly necessary to refer the reader, for amusement at his expense, to
Knickerbocker's New York.




1639.]                JOHN WINTHROP.                        361
nor any other attempted the thing; though some jealous- *300
ies arose which were increased by two occasions. The
first was, there being want of assistants, the governour and
other magistrates thought fit (in the warrant for the court) to
propound three, amongst which Mr. Downing, the governour's
brother-in-law, was one, which they conceived to be done to
strengthen his party, and therefore, though he were known to
be a very able man, etc., and one who had done many good
offices for the country for these ten years, yet the people would
not choose him.' Another occasion of their jealousy was, the
court, finding the number of deputies to be much increased
by the addition of new plantations, thought fit, for the ease both
of the country and the court, to reduce all towns to two deputies.2 This occasioned some to fear, that the magistrates intended to make themselves stronger, and the deputies weaker,
and so, in time, to bring all power into the hands of the magistrates; so as the people in some towns were much displeased
with their deputies for yielding to such an order. Whereupon,
at the next session, it was propounded to have the number of
deputies restored; and allegations were made, that it was an
infringement of their liberty; so as, after much debate, and
such reasons given for diminishing the number of deputies, and
clearly proved that their liberty consisted not in the number,
but in the thing, divers of the deputies, who came with intent
to reverse the last order, were, by force of reason, brought to
uphold it; so that, when it was put to the vote, the last order
1 It is by no means remarkable, that this measure caused some jealousy.
For the exact phraseology employed, on this occasion, by the assistants, see
Addenda. Yet I find this memorandum on the last page of our first volume
of Colony Records, in 1641: "Mr. Flint, Mr. Symonds, Mr. Dummer, Mr.
Tyng, Mr. Downing, and Mr. Pyncheon, are to be propounded to the towns for
new magistrates."
2 Foresight, rather than experience, must have led to the adoption of this
remedy; for the number of deputies, at the court in March preceding, amounted only to thirty-three, and had never been greater. But, in fact, the smaller
towns had not exercised their full right, and the change was probably made,
because two might represent either of the other towns as well as three. Perhaps it was thought, that not more than two fit men could be found in some
towns.
VOL. I,                    31




362                     JOHN WINTTHROP.                      [1639.
for two deputies only was confirmed.      Yet, the next day, a petition was brought to the court from    the freemen of Roxbury,
to have the I[ third deputy II restored.  Whereupon the reasons
of the court's proceedings were set down in writing, and all objections answered, and sent to such towns as were unsatisfied
with this advice, that, if any could take away those reasons, or
*301  bring us better for what they did desire, we should be
ready, at the next court, to repeal the said order.'
The hands of some of the elders (learned and godly men)
were to this petition, though suddenly drawn in, and without
due consideration, for the lawfulness of it may well be questioned: for when the people have chosen men to be their rulers, and to make their laws, and bound themselves by oath to
submit thereto, now to combine together (a lesser part of them)
in a public petition to have any order repealed, which is not
repugnant to the law of God, savors of resisting an ordinance
of God; for the people, having deputed others, have no power
I three deputies 1[
1 Early practice and law seem to have established the equality of representation from towns; though it was, after a few years, restricted in some degree.
Towns having less than twenty freemen were allowed but one deputy, and
those less than ten, none, though the freemen of such towns were permitted to
unite in election with the next towns. A " liberty of sending or not sending
deputies" was very early exercised by the towns, and allowed by the house. It
has constantly been enjoyed since, subject, however, to a discretion of the body
in imposing fines for neglect; and, though a little more restricted under the
provincial than the colony government, is perfectly well settled under our present constitution as an independent state. From the date in the text, Boston,
like most of the other towns, sent only two members. In 1680 the number was
increased again to three, and, after the first session under the charter of William and Mary, was raised to four. This was our complement, nearly ninety
years, till the commencement of our national independence. By the charter of
William and Mary, every town was authorized in the first house to have two
representatives; but that first general court was by the charter empowered to
declare and fix the apportionment to each town. In the exercise of this authority, leave was granted to towns of thirty freeholders to have one member;
towns of one hundred and twenty freeholders, two members; and Boston,
alone, four. A complete list of representatives from Boston to the commencement of the revolution in 1775 is given in 2 Hist. Coll. X. 23-29. Probably
one or two additions for vacancies might, however, be made to it, had I leisure
to spend as many hours as the formation of it cost.




1639.]                JOHN WINTHROP.                    363
to make or alter laws, but are to be subject; and if any such
order seem unlawful or inconvenient, they I1 were I[ better prefer
some reasons, etc., to the court, with manifestation of their desire to move them to a review, than peremptorily to petition to
have it repealed, which amounts to a plain reproof of those
whom   God hath set over them, and putting dishonor upon
them, against the tenor of the fifth commandment.
There fell out at this court another occasion of increasing
the people's jealousy of their magistrates, viz.: One of the
elders, being present with those of his church, when they were
to prepare their votes for the election, declared his judgment,
that a governour ought to be for his life, alleging for his authority the practice of all the best commonwealths in Europe, and
especially that of Israel by God's own ordinance.1 But.302
this was opposed by some other of the elders with much
zeal, and so notice was taken of it by the people, not as a
matter of dispute, but as if there had been some plot to put
it in practice, which did occasion the deputies, at the next
session of this court, to deliver in an order drawn to this effect:
That, whereas our sovereign lord, King Charles, etc., had, by
his patent, established a governour, deputy and assistants, that
therefore no person, chosen a counsellor *for life,* should
have any authority as a magistrate, except he were chosen in
the annual elections to one of the said places of magistracy
established by the patent. This being thus bluntly tendered,
(no mention being made thereof before,) the governour took
time to consider of it, before he would put it to vote. So,
when the court was risen, the magistrates advised of it, and
drew up another order to this effect: That whereas, at the
court in [blank,] it was ordered, that a certain number of magistrates should be chosen to be a standing council for life, etc.,
whereupon some had gathered that we had erected a new or|ihad 1
1 Who gave such impolitic counsel, supported by the preposterous analogies,
is unknown to me. The ministers were perpetually meddling with the regimen of the commonwealth; and we have frequent occasion to regret, that
their references to the theocracy of Israel were received as authority, rather
than illustration.




364                   JOHN WINTHROP.                    [1639.
der of magistrates not warranted by our patent, this court
doth therefore declare, that the intent of the order was, that
the standing council should always be chosen out of the magistrates, etc.; and therefore it is now ordered, that no such counsellor shall have any power as a magistrate, nor shall do any
act as a magistrate, etc., except he be annually chosen, etc., according to the patent; and this order was after passed by vote.
That which led those of the council to yield to this desire of
the deputies was, because it concerned themselves, and they
did more study to remove these jealousies out of the people's
heads, than to preserve apy power or dignity to themselves
above others; for till this court those of the council, viz., Mr.
Endecott, had stood and executed as a magistrate, without any
annual election, and so they had been 1| reputed [l by the elders
and all the people till this present. But the order was drawn
up in this form, that it might be of less observation and freer
from any note of injury to make this alteration rather by way
of explanation of the fundamental order, than without any
cause shown to repeal that which had been established by serious advice of the elders, and had been in practice two or
q303 three years without any inconvenience.1 And here may
be observed, how strictly the people would seem to stick
to their patent, where they think it makes for their advantage,
but are content to decline it, where it will not warrant such
liberties as they have taken up without warrant from thence, as
appears in their strife for three deputies, etc., when as the
patent allows them none at all, but only by inference, etc.,
voting by proxies, etc.
The governour acquainted the general court, that, in these
two last years of his government, he had received from the Indians, in presents, to the value of about ~40, and that he had
I reported 11
1 This appears a very idle scruple of the assistants. Since they consented to
give up the substance, it was unwise to permit any jealousy about the form.
Election for life has, in no other instance, I believe, obtained for any legislative
or executive office in our country. Annual choice gives admirable opportunity
for our people to show their stability; and a gentleman is much longer in office
usually in the New England states than in those where the people vote only at
periods of two or three years.




1639.]               JOHN WITHROP.                       365
spent about ~20 in entertainments of them and in presents to
their sachems, etc.   The court declared, that the presents
were the governour's due, but the tribute was to be paid to
the treasurer.'
[Blank.]
15.]  Mr. Endecott and Mr. Stoughton, commissioners for
us, and Mr. Bradford and Mr. Winslow for Plimouth, met at
tingham about deciding the difference between us concerning
our bounds.  Our commissioners had full power to determine,
etc.; but theirs had not, although they had notice of it long
before, and themselves had appointed the day.    Whereupon
the court ordered, that those of Hinghar  should make use of
all the land near Conyhassett to the II creek 11 next Scituate, till
the court should take further order; and a letter was directed
to the governour Il2oflj Plimouth to the same effect, with declaration of the reasons of our proceeding, and readiness to
give them a further meeting. The charges of their commissioners' diet 11 3Tas II defrayed by us, because they met us within
our own jurisdiction.
Those of Exeter replied to our answer, standing still to maintain the Indians' right, and their interest thereby. But, in the
mean time, we had sent men to discover Merrimack, and found
some part of it about Penkook to lie more northerly than *304
forty-three and a half. ~ So ~ we returned answer to them,
that, though we would not relinquish our interest by priority of
possession for any right they could have from the Indians, yet,
seeing they had professed not to claim any thing which should
fall within our patent, we would look no further than that in
respect of their claim.
One Mr. Ryall,2 having gotten a patent at Sagadahoc out of
|1 crook 1         112 at 1         113 were 1
1 A rate of ~1000, levied by this court, Rec. I. 250, was thus assessed:Boston, ~144.10.1; Ipswich, 111.18.11; Salem, ~111.1.11; Dorchester,
~93.7.9; Cambridge, ~91.19.9; Charlestown, ~85.15.10; Watertown, ~81.17.1;
Lynn, ~79.19.6; Roxbury, ~74.12.6; Newbury, ~67.8.3; Hingham, ~33.14.5;
Weymouth, ~23.2.
2 In a diligent search amidst all accessible stores of information, very little
knowledge on the subject of this gentleman's grant has been acquired, and, of
this little, not a word from Gorges, under whom the title was derived. Very
31*




366                    JOHN WINTHROP.                        [1639.
the grand patent,' wrote to our governour and tendered it to
our government, so as we would send people to possess it. The
governour acquainted the general court with it, but nothing was
done about it, for we were not ready for such a business, having
enough [| to do 11 at home.
[Large blank.]
26.]   Mr. Hooker being to preach at Cambridge, the governour and many others went to hear him, (though the governour
did very seldom go from his own congregation upon the Lord's
day).2   He preached in the afternoon, and having         gone on,
with much strength of voice and intention of spirit, about a
quarter of an hour, he was at a stand, and told the people, that
God had deprived him both of his strength and matter, etc., and
so went forth, and about half an hour after returned again, and
went on to very good purpose about two hours.
There was at this time a very great 11 2drouth 11 all over the
country, both east and west, there being little or no rain from
the 26th of the 2d month to the 10th of the 4th; so as the corn
generally began to wither, and great fear there was it would all
*305 be lost.   Whereupon the general court conferred with the
elders, and agreed upon a day of humiliation about a
week after. The very day after the fast was appointed there
fell a good shower, and, within one week after the day of hull besides 11                      112 dearth II
short and unsatisfactory reference is made to it in some proceedings under the
authority of President Danforth, acting by power from Massachusetts, above
forty years after, which may be seen in Sullivan's History of the District of
Maine, 182-4. The name of Royal's River in North Yarmouth is, probably,
deduced from this person, whose descendants, of the male line, pronouncing the
name as it is spelt in the text, I am informed, are still remaining in the neighborhood of their early domain.
1 By this grand patent is not intended, I presume, the original patent of 18
Jac. I., 3 November, usually called the Plimouth Charter, but one of much
narrower limits, 15 Car. I., 3 April, which may be found in Haz. I. 442-455.
Royal's letter must have been written immediately after the king's grant,
in anticipation of which he, probably, had made his arrangements with Gorges.
2 Gov. Winthrop's travelling on Sunday, for such a purpose, must not, I
suppose, be considered unnecessary.  His example would justify the many
others. Such instances are now almost unknown.




1639.]             JOHN WINTHROP.                  367
miliation was past, we had such store of rain, and so seasonably, as the corn revived and gave hope of a very plentiful
harvest. When the court and the elders were met about it,
they 1| considered 11 of such things as were amiss, which might
provoke God against us, and agreed to acquaint their churches
therewith, that they might be stirred up to bewail and reform
them.
(4.)] We were much afraid this year of a l 2 stop 1] in England,
by reason of the complaints which had been sent against us,
and the great displeasure which the archbishops and others, the
commissioners for plantations, had conceived and uttered against
us, both for those complaints, and also for our not sending home
our patent. But the Lord wrought for us beyond all expectation; for the petition, which we returned in answer of the order
sent for our patent, was read before the lords and well accepted,
as is before expressed; and ships came to us from England and
divers other parts with great store of people and provisions of
all sorts.
About this time our people came from Isle Sable. A bark
went for them, on the 2 of the 1 month, but by foul weather
she was wrecked there, and of her ruins they made a small
one, wherein they returned. It was found to be a great error
to send thither before the middle of the 2 month. They had
gotten store of seal oil and skins, and some horse teeth and
black fox skins; but the loss of the vessel, etc., overthrew the
hope of the design.
The island is very healthful and temperate. We lost not one
man in two years, nor any sick, etc.
(5.)] The rent at Connecticut grew greater, notwithstanding
the great pains Ij'which 11 had been )1 4taken JI for healing it; so
as the church of Weathersfield itself was not only divided from
the rest of the town, etc., but, of those seven which were the
church, four fell off; so as it was conceived, that thereby the
church was dissolved, which occasioned the church of Watertown here (which had divers of 11 their [ members there, not yet
dismissed) to send two of their church to look after their members, and to take order with them. But the contention and
alienation of minds was such, as they could not bring them to
II conferred II  112 step 11  1 3 we 11  114 taking 1  11I5 her 11




368                     JOHN WINTHROP.                       [1639.
any other accord than this, that the one party must remove to
some other place, which they both consented to, but still the
difficulty remained; for those three, who pretended themselves
*306 to be the church, pleaded that privilege for their stay, and
the others alleged their multitude, etc., so as neither would
give place, whereby it seemed, that either they minded not the
example of Abraham's offer to Lot, or else they wanted Abraham's spirit of peace and love.
This controversy having called in Mr. Davenport and others
of Quilipiack, for mediation, and they not according with those
of Connecticut about the case, gave advantage to Satan to
[1 sow   some seeds of contention between those        plantations
also; but, being godly and wise men on both parts, things were
easily reconciled.'
In this month there arrived two ships    2 at I| Quilipiack.  One
was of three hundred and fifty tons, wherein came Mr. Fenwick2
and his lady and family to make a plantation at Saybrook upon
the mouth of Connecticut. Two other plantations were begun
beyond Quilipiack, and every plantation intended a peculiar
government.
There were also divers new plantations begun this summer
here and at Plimouth, as Colchester3 upon Merrimack, Sudbury
I straw ll                            112ofl[
1 From Trumbull, I. 120, 1, it appears, the reconciliation was not very easy,
and was at last effected by the separation of the dissonant parts. Stamford was
settled in consequence.
2 George Fenwick, Esq., would surely deserve more consideration than he
has received from the writers about our country, neither Eliot nor Allen having
thought his name required insertion in their volumes, and even Trumbull
being apparently negligent of one of the principal fathers of Connecticut. This
probably resulted from his return to England, and there ending his days in
high office, of which some influence will appear in our second volume. Hutchinson, I. 100, 1, gives the fullest account of him and his friendly regards to our
country. He had come to Boston in May, 1636, but went home, probably, the
same year, after ascertaining the capacity and value of his colony at the mouth
of Connecticut. The two ships were the first, and, I suppose, the last, that ever
came from London to New Haven. His wife died at Saybrook, where her
monument is still extant. She was daughter, I believe, of Sir Arthur Haslerig.
He died early in 1657.
3 At the court of October, 1640, this place was ordered to be called Salisbury.
This seems, from page 289, to have been its first name.




1639.]             JOHN WINTHROP.                  369
by Concord, (Winicowett was named Hampton,) Yarmouth
and Barnstaple by Cape Cod.
[Large blank.]
Capt. Underhill, having been dealt with and convinced of
his great sin against God and the churches and state here, etc.,
returned to a better mind, and wrote divers letters to the
governour and deputy, etc., bewailing his offences, and craving
pardon. See after, (1,) 5, 39, and (7,) 3, 40.
There was sent to the governour I] the, 1 copy of a letter written into England by Mr. Hansard Knolles of Pascataquack,
wherein he had most falsely slandered this government, as that
it was worse than the high commission, etc., and that here was
nothing but oppression, etc., and not so much as a face *307
of religion. The governour acquainted one of Pascataquack, Mr. Knolles his special friend, with it. Whereupon Mr.
Knolles became very much perplexed, and wrote to the governour, acknowledging the wrong he had done us, and desired
that his retractation might be published. The governour sent
his letter into England, and kept a copy of it. See more of
this after, (12,) 20, 1639.
At Providence matters went after the old manner. Mr.
Williams and many of his company, a 11 2fewl months since,
were in all haste rebaptized, and denied communion with all
others, and now he was come to question his second baptism,
not being able to derive the authority of it from the apostles,
otherwise than by the ministers of England, (whom he judged
to be ill authority,) so as he conceived God would raise up
some apostolic power. Therefore he bent himself that way,
expecting (as was supposed) to become an apostle; and having, ||3a little I| before, refused communion with all, save his
own wife, now he would preach to and pray with all comers.
Whereupon some of his followers left him and returned back
from whence they went.
(6.) 27.] Here came a small bark from the West Indies, one
Capt. I14IJackson [l  in her, with commission from the Westminster company to take prize, etc., from the Spaniard.  He
brought much wealth in money, plate, indico, and sugar. He
II all   112 some  |  1 3no title I  I14 Sackett 11




370                     JOHN WINTHROP.                      [1639.
sold his indico and sugar here for ~1400, wherewith he furnished himself with commodities, and departed again for the
West Indies.1
A fishing trade was begun at Cape Ann by one Mr. 11 Maurice [| Tomson,2 a merchant of London; and an order was
made, that all stocks employed in fishing should be free from
public charge for seven years. This was not done to encourage
foreigners to set up fishing among us, (for all the gains would
be returned to the place where they dwelt,) but to encourage
our own people to set upon it, and in expectation that Mr.
Tomson, etc., would, ere long, come settle with us.
q308     (7.)]  Here was such store of exceeding large and fat
mackerel upon our coast this season, as was a great benefit to all our plantations.   Some one boat with three men
would take, in a week, ten 1 2hogsheads, II which was sold at
Connecticut for ~3.12 the 11 8hogshead. II
There were such swarms of small flies, like moths, came
from the southward, that they covered the sea, and came flying
like drifts of snow; but none of them were seen upon the
land.3
*(7.) 17.]  A church was gathered at the Mount.*
4.]  At the general court at Boston, one Mr. Nathaniel
I Maverick |      112hundreds 1l     113 hundred 11
1 Josselyn, in his Voyages, p. 26, mentions his finding at Boston, on arrival,
27 September of this year, captain Jackson in the Queen of Bohemia, a privateer.
2 Of this gentleman I know very little. Francis Kirby, in a letter to John
Winthrop, jun., 26 December, 1631, says: " Capt. B. who was employed by
my cousin, Maurice Thomson and company, for the trade of beaver in the
River of Canada, is now arrived here..... He hath brought in here about
three thousand pounds weight of beaver, and they are now hastening to set
forth a small ship only for that river, hoping to be there before Capt. Kirk, who
(I hear) is to fetch his men from Quebec, and yield up the castle again to
the French this next summer." Probably Thomson was not tempted to come
to New England, except for temporary purpose about this fishing establishment.
3 In 2 Hist. Coll. IV. 230, a large account of the mackerel fishery on the
south shore of Massachusetts Bay informs us, that the appearance of such insects is " a welcome herald to the fisherman." That memoir is worth consulting
by all the curious.




1639.]                  JOHN WINTHROP.                         371
Eaton,' brother to the II merchant [1 at Quilipiack, was convented and censured.     The occasion was this: He was a schoolmaster, and had many scholars, the sons of gentlemen and
others of best note in the country, and had entertained one
Nathaniel Briscoe,2 a gentleman born, to be his usher, and to
do some other things for him, which might not be unfit for a
scholar.  He had not been with him        above three days but he
fell out with him for a very small occasion, and, with reproachful terms, discharged him, and turned him out of his doors; but,
it being then about eight of the clock after the Sabbath, he told
him he should stay till next morning, and, some words growing
between them, he struck him      and pulled him    into his house.
Briscoe defended himself, and closed with        him, and, being
parted, he came in and went up to his chamber to lodge there.
Mr. Eaton sent for the constable, who advised him first to'309
admonish him, etc., and if he could not, by the power of
a master, reform him, then he should complain to the magistrate.  But he caused his man to fetch him a cudgel, which
was a walnut tree plant, big enough to have killed a horse, and
a yard in length, and, taking his two men with him, he went
I magistrate II
1 Slight mention of this unhappy man will be found in Addenda. He had
been admitted a freeman of our colony 9 June of the preceding year. What
became of him, after 1646, is known only from Mather, who says, he went from
Virginia to England, there lived privately until the restoration, then conformed
to the ceremonies of the church by law established, was settled at Biddeford,
persecuted the dissenters, from whom he had apostatized, and died in prison for
debt. He undoubtedly had very high encouragement to continue at the head of
the newly established college; for, in the Court Records, I. 252, of May preceding the date in the text, I find a grant " to Mr. Nathaniel Eaton five hundred acres, if he continue his employment for his life, to be to him and his
heirs." Further evidence of the resolution of the government in supporting
that institution, is found, at the same court, in two orders: 1. " That a letter
should be sent to Mr. Humfrey to send in the ~100, which is in his hand, to
further the college." 2. " Mr. Endecott, Mr. Downing, and Mr. Hawthorne are
to dispose of the house, which Mr. Peters bought, as they can, and return the
money for the college."
2 Of him I know nothing, unless he be the author of a very curious letter
from England, 7 Sept. 1652, on which proceedings more curious were had here
by our government. See 3 Hist. Coll. I. 32-35.




372                JOHN WINTHROP.                [1639.
up to Briscoe, and caused his men to hold him till he had given
him two hundred stripes about the head and shoulders, etc.,
and so kept him under blows (with some two or three short intermissions) about the space of two hours, about which time
Mr. Shepherd and some others of the town came in at the outcry, and so he gave over. In this distress Briscoe gate II out [1
his knife, and struck at the man that held him, but hurt him not.
He also fell to prayer, (supposing he should have been murdered,) and then Mr. Eaton beat him for taking the name of God
in vain. After this Mr. Eaton and Mr. Shepherd (who knew not
then of these passages) came to the governour and some other
of the magistrates, complaining of Briscoe for his insolent
speeches, and for crying out murder and drawing his knife, and
desired that he might be enjoined to a public acknowledgment,
etc., The magistrates answered, that they must first hear him
speak, and then they would do as they should see cause. Mr.
Eaton was displeased at this, and went away discontented, etc.,
and, being after called into the court to make answer to the information, which had been given by some who knew the truth
of the case, and also to answer for his neglect and cruelty, and
other ill usage towards his scholars, one of the elders (not suspecting such miscarriages by him) came to the governour, and
showed himself much grieved, that he should be publicly produced, alleging, that it would derogate from his authority and
reverence among his scholars, etc. But the cause went on notwithstanding, and he was called, and these things laid to his
charge in the open court. His answers were full of pride and
disdain, telling the magistrates, that they should not need to do
any thing herein, for he was intended to leave his employment.
And being asked, why he used such cruelty to Briscoe his
usher, and to other his scholars, (for it was testified by another of'is ushers and divers of his scholars, that he would give them
between twenty and thirty stripes at a time, and would not leave
till they had confessed what he required,) his answer was, that
he had this rule, that he would not give over correcting till he
had subdued the party to his will. Being also questioned about
the ill and scant diet of his boarders, (for, though their friends
gave large allowance, yet their diet was ordinarily nothing but
11at l




1639.]                  JOHN WINTHROP.                           373
porridge and pudding, and that very homely,) he put it off *310
to his wife.1 So the court dismissed him at present,
1 An examination of the lady followed, I presume, for the former secretary
of the commonwealth furnished me a paper, which can hardly refer to any other
transaction than this. Some overseer of the college, probably, either magistrate
or clergyman, wrote it from the confession or dictation of the accused party:
" For their breakfast, that it was not so well ordered, the flower not so fine as it
might, nor so well boiled or stirred, at all times that it was so, it was my sin of
neglect, and want of that care that ought to have been in one that the Lord
had intrusted with such a work. Concerning their beef, that was allowed them,
as they affirm, which, I confess, had been my duty to have seen they should
have had it, and continued to have had it, because it was my husband's command; but truly I must confess, to my shame, I cannot remember that ever
they had it, nor that ever it was taken from them. And that they had not so
good or so much provision in my husband's absence as presence, I conceive it
was, because he would call sometimes for butter or cheese, when I conceived
there was no need of it; yet, forasmuch as the scholars did otherways apprehend, I desire to see the evil that was in the carriage of that as well as in the
other, and to take shame to myself for it. And that they sent down for more,
when they had not enough, and the maid should answer, if they had not, they
should not, I must confess, that I have denied them cheese, when they have
sent for it, and it have been in the house; for which I shall humbly beg pardon
of them, and own the shame, and confess my sin. And for such provoking
words, which my servants have given, I cannot own them, but am sorry any
such should be given in my house. And for bad fish, that they had it brought
to table, I am sorry there was that cause of offence given them. I acknowledge my sin in it. And for their mackerel, brought to them with their guts in
them, and goat's dung in their hasty pudding, it's utterly unknown to me; but
I am much ashamed it should be in the family, and not prevented by myself or
servants, and I humbly acknowledge my negligence in it. And that they made
their beds at any time, were my straits never so great, I am sorry they were
ever put to it. For the Moor his lying in Sam. Hough's sheet and pillow-bier,
it hath a truth in it: he did so one time, and it gave Sam. Hough just cause of
offence; and that it was not prevented by my care and watchfulness, I desire
[to] take the shame and the sorrow for it. And that they eat the Moor's crusts,
and the swine and they had share and share alike, and the Moor to have beer,
and they denied it, and if they had not enough, for my maid to answer, they
should not, I am an utter stranger to these things, and know not the least footsteps for them so to charge me; and if my servants were guilty of such miscarriages, had the boarders complained of it unto myself, I should have thought it
my sin, if I had not sharply reproved my servants, and endeavored reform.
And for bread made of heated, sour meal, although I know of butonce that it
was so, since I kept house, yet John Wilson affirms it was twice; and I am
truly sorry, that any of it was spent amongst them. For beer and bread, that
VOL. I.                      32




374                     JOHN WINTHROP.                        [1639.
*311  and commanded him to attend again the next day, when,
being called, he was commanded to the lower end of the
table, (where all offenders do usually stand,) and, being openly
convict of all the former offences, by the oaths of four or five
witnesses, he yet continued to justify himself; so, it being near
night, he was committed to the marshall till the next day.
When the court was set in the morning, many of the elders
it was denied them by me betwixt meals, truly I do not remember, that ever I
did deny it unto them; and John Wilson will affirm, that, generally, the bread
and beer was free for the boarders to go unto. And that money was demanded
of them for washing the linen, it's true it was propounded to them, but never
imposed upon them. And for their pudding being given the last day of the
week without butter or suet, and that I said, it was miln of Manchester in Old
England, it's true that I did say so, and am sorry, they had any cause of offence
given them by having it so. And for their wanting beer, betwixt brewings, a
week or half a week together, I am sorry that it was so at any time, and should
tremble to have it so, were it in my hands to do again."
The above is an exact copy of all that is written by that hand; but on the
next page is found, in a more difficult, but uncommonly beautiful chirography,
" and whereas they say, that sometimes they have sent down for more meat,
and it hath been denied, when it have been in the house, I must confess, to my
shame, that I have denied them oft, when they have sent for it, and it have been
in the house."
In the archives of the State House it is not probable that any document
more minute or entertaining can be preserved; nor would this seem of importance and gravity appropriate to this work, were it not connected with the
history of the college, and highly illustrative of our author's text. That no
complaints against Mrs. Eaton had been brought down from antiquity, when her
husband suffered perpetual malediction, is perhaps owing to the gallantry of our
fathers. Her accomplishments as a housewife appear equal to the gentleness of
the head of the college. Her adherence to the religion in which she was educated, might have been as frail as his, had she not been lost on a voyage with
her children to Virginia the next year. The commons of the students have
often been matter of complaint, but, I believe, have never since occupied the
attention of the government of the state.
Of the two men referred to by Mrs. Eaton, Wilson was son of the pastor of
Boston, graduated in the first class, 1642, and, Mather says, " continued, unto
old age, a faithful, painful, useful minister of the gospel" in Medfield. Hough
was son of Atherton, the assistant, and was the second minister of Reading.
Why he received not the usual degree is unknown. See Johnson, lib. II. c. 25.
In our Town Records I find, " Mr. Samuel Haugh, pastor of the church at
Reading, deceased at Mr. Hezekiah Usher's house in Boston, 30 March, 1662."
The Moor was probably a slave.




1639.]             JOHN WINTHROP.                 375
came into the court, (it being then private for matter of consultation,) and declared how, the evening before, they had taken
pains with him, to convince him of his faults; yet, for divers
hours, he had still stood to his justification; but, in the end, he
was convinced, and had freely and fully acknowledged his sin,
and that with tears; so as they did hope he had truly repented,
and therefore desired of the court that he might be pardoned,
and continued in his employment, alleging such further reasons
as they thought fit. After the elders were departed, the court
consulted about it, and sent for him, and there, in the open
court, before a great assembly, he made a very solid, wise,
eloquent, and serious (seeming) confession, condemning himself in all the particulars, etc. Whereupon, being put aside,
the court consulted privately about his sentence, and, though
many were taken with his confession, and none but had a
charitable opinion of it; yet, because of the scandal of "312
religion, and offence which would be given to such as
might intend to send their children hither, they all agreed to
censure him, and put him from that employment. So, being
called in, the governour, after a short preface, etc., declared the
sentence of the court to this effect, viz.: that he should give
Briscoe ~30, fined 100 11 marks, l and debarred teaching of children within our jurisdiction. A pause being made, and expectation that (according to his former confession) he would have
given glory to God, and acknowledged the justice and clemency
of the court, the governour giving him occasion, by asking him
if he had ought to say, he turned away with a discontented
look, saying, " If sentence be passed, then it is to no end to
speak."  Yet the court remitted his fine to ~20, and willed
Briscoe to take but ~20.
The church at Cambridge, taking notice of these proceedings,
intended to deal with him. The pastor moved the governour,
if they might, without offence to the court, examine other witnesses. His answer was, that the court would leave them to
their own liberty; but he saw not to what end they should do
it, seeing there had been five already upon oath, and those
whom they should examine should speak without oath, and it
was an ordinance of God, that by the mouths of two or three
Ilblank 11




376                 JOHN WINTHROP.               [1639.
witnesses every matter should be established. But he soon
discovered himself; for, ere the church could come to deal with
him, he fled to Pascataquack, and, being pursued and apprehended by the governour there, he again acknowledged his
great sin in flying, etc., and promised (as he was a Christian
man) he would return with the messengers. But, because his
things he carried with him were aboard a bark there, bound to
Virginia, he desired leave to go fetch them, which they assented
unto, and went with him (three of them) aboard with him. So
he took his truss and came away with them in the boat; but,
being come to the shore, and two of them going out of the
boat, he caused the boatsmen to put off the boat, and because
the third man would not go out, he turned him into the
water, where he had been drowned, if he had not saved himself by swimming. So he returned to the bark, and presently
they set sail and went out of the harbor. Being thus gone, his
creditors began to complain; and thereupon it was found, that
he was run in debt about ~1000, and had taken up most of
this money upon bills he had charged into England upon his
brother's agents, and others whom he had no such relation to.
So his estate was seized, and put into commissioners' hands,
to be divided among his creditors, allowing somewhat for the
q313 present maintenance of his wife and children. And, being
thus gone, the church proceeded and cast him out. He
had been sometimes initiated among the Jesuits,' and, coming
into England, his friends drew him from them, but, it was very
probable, he now intended to return to them again, being at
this time about thirty years of age, and upwards. See after.
7. 17.] Mount Woollaston had been formerly laid to Boston;
but many poor men having lots assigned them there, and not
able to use those lands and dwell still in Boston, they petitioned
the town first to have a minister there, and after to have leave
to gather a church there, which the town at length (upon some
small composition) gave way unto. So, this day, they gathered
a church after the usual manner, and chose one Mr. Tomson,2
1 His cruelty and injustice might have been as great, if the Jesuits had had
no share in his education; though, I fear, the author intended to refer the
fruits to the soil, rather than the tree.
2 Satisfactory accounts of William Tompson may be seen in Eliot's and Allen's




1639.]                   JOHN WINTHROP.                          377
a very gracious, sincere man, and Mr.l Flint, a godly man also,
their ministers.1
Mo. 9.]   At a general court holden at Boston, great complaint
was made of the oppression used in the country in sale of foreign
commodities; and Mr. Robert Keaine, who kept a shop in           314
Boston, was notoriously above others observed and cornDictionaries, in the Magnalia, III., Johnson, lib. II. c. 7,. 10 and 18, and lib. III.
c. 1 and 11, larger in Morton, sub. an. 1666, the year of his death, and, best of
all, in the century sermon of Hancock, his successor in the church of Braintree,
now of Quincy. In our day, a later successor, Rev. W. P. Lunt, D. D., in two
very happy discourses on the second centenary, has supplied all that diligence
and affection could furnish. He had been some years in the country, perhaps;
for the Records of Dorchester, which I have inspected, according to the views
of the historian of that town, 1 Hist. Coll. IX. 191, reckon him among their
members in 1636. But I suspect that was two years before his admission.
The scrutinizing author must have concluded, that he was a different person
from the future minister of the adjoining town; for he adds, of him " I cannot
obtain any information."  He was admitted freeman 13 May, 1640. Most of
the materials used by later writers were found in our author, the most interesting event in his pilgrimage here being the mission to Virginia, of which a full
account will be found in the next volume. The first mention of him, after that
in the text, will show, that he " had been an instrument of much good at Acomenticus." The Braintree Records mention the birth of his son, Joseph, 1 May,
1640, Benjamin, 14 July, 1642, and death of his wife in January following.
Benjamin was graduated at Harvard College in 1662. Him I consider the
author of the verses in praise of Whiting, which are, probably, the best in the
Magnalia. A tribute in verse, of greater justice than beauty, is entered in the
Roxbury Church Records on the lamentable death of Tompson's wife, while he
was absent on the service of his master. It was supposed by John Farmer, the
assiduous genealogist, that the celebrated Benjamin Thomson, Count Rumford,
descended from this first pastor of Braintree; but he afterwards favored me
with evidence of a different derivation.
1 Our M3S. had first " their pastor," after " Tomson," and "teacher," to end
the sentence; and, as the alteration was made by the governour, I infer that
the distinction was disregarded at the election.
2 This gentleman is, probably, the same with one whose name is the last
signed to a letter of encouragement of the plantation at Plimouth, 7 April, 1624,
preserved by Gov. Bradford in 1 Hist. Coll. III. 28, and who united with others,
in all forty-two, in a loan of ~1800 sterling, by which its life was preserved. Ib.
48. Being received into Boston church 20 March, 1635-6, we may conclude, he had come over in the preceding autumn, probably with Wilson
in October. At the general election, in May following, he was admitted to
the freeman's oath, at the same time with Samuel Appleton, Henry Flint, and
32*




378                     JOHN    WINTHROP.                     [1639.
plained of; and, being convented, he was charged with many par*315 ticulars; in some, for taking above six-pence in the shilling
profit; in some above eight-pence; and, in some ~small~
Daniel Maude, who alone, out of sixty-two that day sworn, have the prefix of
respect.
Of the curious subject, introduced to our notice by the text, inquiry had, at
the former session of the same court, in September, been instituted; and, from
the language of the Record, I. 269, " Capt. Keayne was willed to return Sarah
King her necessary clothes again," we may presume, the case was a flagrant
one. It is evident, however, that much more tenderness was shown towards
him than delinquents usually received; for we find, at the assistants' quarter
court, four pages later, in the same volume, this note: " There is ~10 delivered
the governour by one that had failed by taking too great prices for his commodities. He hath satisfied the parties, whom he sold the commodities unto."
At the general court in May after the date in the text, I find, Col. Rec. I. 276,
" Mr. Robert Keayne had ~120 of his fine remitted him; so that there remains
only ~80 to be paid by him." He was not the only person of eminence liable
to this animadversion, though the proceedings against him went further than in
any other case within my knowledge. Indeed, the attempt to prevent demand
of high price for any commodity, however willing the purchaser may be to give
it, is preposterous and destructive to all commerce between man and man.
Sedgwick was admonished for a like frailty, in asking the money's worth for his
goods. Before this scandal, Keayne had been four times chosen from Boston to
the general court; and, after the evil report had passed over, was several times
elected, and became speaker in October, 1646, but only for one day. Unhappily, he fell under obloquy again: a less probable, though more injurious accusation was preferred, of which a very particular relation is, in subsequent pages,
given by our author. He certainly stood high in the estimation of the government; for, in May, 1639, a grant of four hundred acres had been made to him,
when others of no larger quantity were made to several gentlemen of the first
rank in the colony. He was brother-in-law of Wilson.
Keayne died 23 March, 1655-6. His will, proved 2 May after, written with
his own hand -for no other hand could have been so patient - at different
times, beginning 1 August, 1653, is a most extraordinary instrument, commencing on page 116 of our first volume of Records in Probate office, and filling one
hundred and fifty-eight folio pages. It would be an idle affectation to say, that
it has been all studied by me, though most parts were cursorily examined; for
no reader of this work would exact of its editor such an unprofitable labor.
An abridgment of several pages could easily be afforded here, for it was made;
but when thirty pages of the will are occupied about the animadversion of the
court on his extortion, as explained in our text, with inculpation of his prosecutor for cruel and unfounded allegations in that and another affair, and thirty
pages more given to explanation of his accounts in many different books, with
the order and reasons, plentiful enough, of dividing his estate, -the most




1639.]                   JOHN WINTHROP.                           379
things, above two for one; and being hereof convict, (as appears
by the records,) he was fined ~200, which came thus to pass:
The deputies considered, apart, of his fine, and set it at ~200;
the magistrates agreed but to ~100.     So, the courtbeing divided,
at length it was agreed, that his fine should be ~200, but he
should pay but ~100, and the other should be respited to the
further consideration of the next general court.      By this means
the magistrates and deputies were brought to an accord, which
otherwise had not been likely, and so much trouble might have
grown, and the offender escaped censure. For the cry of the
country was so great against oppression, and some of the elders
and magistrates had declared such detestation of the corrupt
practice of this man (which was the more observable, because
he was wealthy and sold dearer than most other tradesmen,
and for that he was of ill report for the like covetous practice
minute antiquary becomes weary with the trifles. Yet there are several curious
parts. The ample declaration of his correct faith, that fills two of the early
pages, hardly compensates, however, for the anxiously refined, but equivocal,
morality, by which, towards the end, he excuses himself. Between his only
child, Benjamin, and a daughter of Gov. Dudley, " an unhappy and uncomfortable match" is spoken of in this will; and that union, perhaps, with other disagreeable circumstances, compelled the son to return to the land of his fathers,
where he died, I presume, in 1668. In August of that year, administration of
the estate was granted, which he reckoned at ~4000. The male line ended
with Benjamin, whose only child, Ann, married Edward Lane, a merchant from
London, who died here; and she next married Nicholas Paige, to whom, in
1683, with his wife, was granted admin. de bonis non of Robert's estate. His
widow married Samuel Cole. Much amusement, and some knowledge, may be
gained from the abstract of his will in Genealog. Reg. VI. 89 and 152.
The chief claims of Robert to be remembered, must arise from his activity
in founding the Artillery Company, of which he was captain, and which is
fondly remembered in the endless testament. See the History of that institution for other particulars. A large 4to MS. of his is preserved in the archives
of the Historical Society, chiefly composed of the sermons or expositions of
Cotton, as taken, probably in church, by the owner. It contains, besides, two
very curious cases of ecclesiastical discipline, in which all the church members
deliver their opinions on the matters, -one against Mrs. Hibbins, the other
against Serjeant Richard Wait. The lady was cast out; the serjeant continued
in the affection of the body. The report of brethren sent to Rhode Island, to
warn the dwellers there of contumacy, is also given; and a few other trifles.
He left, among other liberal bequests, a large one to Harvard College, still preserved in their exhibit.




380                JOHN WINTHROP.                [1639.
in England, that incensed the deputies very much against him).
And I) sure II the course was very evil, especial circumstances
considered: 1. He being an ancient professor of the gospel:
2. A man of eminent parts: 3. Wealthy, and having but one
child: 4. Having come over for conscience' sake, and for the
advancement of the gospel here: 5. Having been formerly
dealt with and admonished, both by private friends and also by
some of the magistrates and elders, and having promised
reformation; being a member of a church and commonwealth
now in their infancy, and under the curious observation of all
churches and civil states in the world. These added much aggravation to his sin in the judgment of all men of understanding. Yet most of the magistrates (though they discerned of
*316 the offence clothed with all these circumstances) would
have been more moderate in their censure: 1. Because
there was no law in force to limit or direct men in point of
profit in their trade. 2. Because it is the common practice, in
all countries, for men to make use of advantages for raising the
prices of their commodities. 3. Because (though he were
chiefly aimed at, yet) he was not alone in this fault. 4. ~ Because all men through the country, in sale of cattle, corn, labor, etc., were guilty of the like excess in prices. 5.~ Because a certain rule could not be found out for an equal rate
between buyer and seller, though much labor had been bestowed in it, and divers laws had been made, which, upon experience, were repealed, as being neither safe nor equal. Lastly, and especially, because the law of God appoints no other
punishment but |l 2double 1] restitution; and, in some cases, as
where the offender freely confesseth, and brings his offering,
only half added to the principal. After the court had censured him, the church of Boston called him  also in question,
where (as before he had done in the court) he did, with tears,
acknowledge and bewail his covetous and corrupt heart, yet
making some excuse for many of the particulars, which were
charged upon him, as 11 3partly 1[ by pretence of ignorance of the
true price of some wares, and chiefly by being misled by some
false principles, as 1. That, if a man lost in one commodity, he
might help himself in the price of another. 2. That if, through
II since 11   112 two II    113 particularly II




1639.]             JOHN WINTHROP.                   381
want of skill or 11 other occasion, 11 his commodity cost him more
than the price of the market in England, he might then sell it
for more than the price of the market in New England, etc.
These things gave occasion to Mr. Cotton, in his public exercise the next lecture day, to lay open the error of such false
principles, and to give some rules of direction in the case.
Some false principles were these: -
1. That a man 11 2might 11 sell as dear as he can, and buy as
cheap as he can.
2. If a man lose by casualty 11 8of II sea, etc., in some of his
commodities, he may raise the price of the rest.
3. That he may sell as he bought, though he paid too dear,
etc., and though the commodity be fallen, etc.
4. That, as a man may take the advantage of his own skill
or ability, so he may of another's ignorance or necessity.
5. Where one gives time for payment, he is to take like
recompense of one as of another.
The rules for trading were these —
1. A man may not sell above the current price, i. e., such a
price as is usual in the time and place, and as another *317
(who knows the worth of the commodity) would give for
it, if he had occasion to use it; as that is called current money,
which every man will take, etc.
2. When a man loseth in his commodity for want of skill,
etc., he must look at it as his own fault or cross, and therefore
must not lay it upon another.
3. Where a man loseth by casualty of sea, or, etc., it is a
loss cast upon himself by providence, and he may not ease
himself of it by casting it upon another; for so a man should
seem to provide against all providences, etc., that he should
never lose; but where there is a scarcity of the commodity,
there men may raise their price; for now it is a hand of God
upon the commodity, and not the person.'
4. A man may not ask any more for his commodity than his
otherwise 1       I2 may I1 1a at l
1 Perhaps this excuse would usually be offered.




382                    JOHN WINTHROP.                       [1639.
selling price, as Ephron to Abraham, the land is worth thus
much.
[Large blank.]
The cause being debated by the church, some were earnest
to have him excommunicated; but the most thought an admonition would be sufficient.    Mr. Cotton    opened the causes,
which required excommunication, out of that in 1 Cor. 5. 11.
The point now in question was, whether these actions did declare him to be such a covetous person, etc. Upon which he
showed, that it is neither the habit of covetousness, (which is in
every man in some degree,) nor simply the act, that declares a
man to be such, but when it appears, that a man sins against
his conscience, or the very light of nature, and when it appears
in a man's whole conversation. But Mr. Keaine did not appear
to be such, but rather upon an error in his judgment, being
led by false principles; and, beside, he is otherwise liberal, as
in his hospitality, and in church communion, etc. So, in the
end, the church consented to an admonition.'
Upon this occasion a question grew, whether an admonition
did bar a man from the sacrament, etc.     Of this more shall be
spoken hereafter.
*318     Being now    about church matters, I will here insert
another passage in the same church, which fell out about
the same time. Their old meeting-house, being decayed and
too small, they sold it away, and agreed to build another, which
workmen undertook to set up for ~600.       Three hundred they
had for the old,2 and the rest was to be gathered by voluntary
1 For this unusual instance of moderation in the church, whose corrective
hand, in such an offence, had been more appropriately exercised than that of
the magistrate, we may find two reasons: 1, that Keayne's principal accuser
belonged to the country; the sympathies of Boston people, of whom many,
being traders, must have felt the futility of several of the allegations against
their craft, were therefore less strongly excited; 2. Wilson, the pastor of the
church, was his brother-in-law. Keayne, in his will, says, Winthrop was prejudiced against him, but changed his opinion on the matter shortly before his
death, and designed to have moved the court for restitution of the fine.
2 In our Registry of Deeds are found, Vol. III. 386, the depositions in perpetuam rei memoriam, taken July, 1660, before Endicott, Gov., and Bellingham, Deputy Governour, of William Colbron, aged 67, heretofore deacon, now




1639.]                JOHN WINTHROP.                      383
contributions, as other charges were. But there grew a great
difference among the brethren, where this new one should stand.
Some were for the green, (which was the governour's first lot,
and he had yielded it to the church, etc.;) others, viz., the
tradesmen, especially, who dwelt about the market place, desired it might stand still l near l the market, lest in time it
should divert the chief trade from thence.  The church referred
it to the judgment and determination of five of the brethren,
who agreed, that the fittest place (all things considered) would
be near the market; but, understanding that many of the
brethren were unsatisfied, and desired rather it might be put to
a lot, they declared only their opinions in writing, and respited
the full determination to another general meeting, thinking it
very unsafe to proceed with the discontent of any considerable
part of the church.  When the church met, the matter was debated to and fro, and grew at length to some earnestness, etc.;
but, after Ar. Cotton had cleared it up to them, that the removing it to the green2 would be a damage to such as dwelt by the
market, who had there purchased and built at great charge, but
it would be no damage to the 11 2rest 1[ to have it by the ~ market, because it would be no less, but rather more convenient
for them, than where the former stood, they all yielded to have
it set by the ~ market place; and, though some remained still in
their opinion, that the green were the fitter place, yet, for peace
sake, they yielded to the rest by keeping silence while it
passed.  This good providence and overruling hand of God
caused much admiration and acknowledgment of special mercy
II nearer I                       112 most II
ruling elder, James Penn, then one of the members, now a ruling elder, and
James Johnson, then one of the members, now one of the deacons, relative to
this sale to Robert Thompson, of London, merchant, now resident in Boston.
The price for the old meeting-house, and the land, with exact dimensions, was,
they say, ~160.
1 Instead of " five of the brethren," was originally written " the governour and
four others." We easily understand the cause of the change.
2 The green, the governour's first lot, was the corner of the street, part of
which was afterwards taken for the Third, or Old South Church. Prince, who
was minister of that church above a hundred years after, -Advertisement to
Annals, II. - says, Winthrop " deceased in the very house I dwell in."




384                JOHN WINTHROP.                 [1639.
to the church, especially considering how long the like contention had held in some other churches, and |I with what 11 difficulty they had been accorded.'
(7.) At the court of assistants, one Marmaduke Percy, of
*319 Salem, was arraigned for the death of one [blank,] his
apprentice. The great inquest found the bill for murder;
the jury of life and death could not agree; so they were
adjourned to the next court, and Percy was let to bail by the
governour and some other of the magistrates, after the court.
At the court in 10ber, the prisoner appeared, and the jury being
called, had further evidence given them, which tended to the
clearing of Percy; yet two of the jury dissented from the rest,
who were all agreed to acquit him. In the end it had this
issue, that these two were silent, and so the verdict was received.
The cause was this: The boy was ill disposed, and his master
gave him unreasonable correction, and used him ill in his diet.
After, the boy gate a bruise on his head, so as there appeared a
fracture in his skull, being dissected after his death. Now, two
things were in the evidence, which made the case doubtful; one,
the boy his charging his master, before his death, to have given
him that wound with his meatyard and with a broomstaff (for
he spake of both at several times;) the other was, that he had
told another, that his hurt came with the fall of a bough from a
tree; and other evidence there was none.
4.] At the general court, etc., the inhabitants of the upper
part of Pascataquack, viz. Dover, etc., had written to the governour to offer themselves to come under our government.
Answer was returned them, that, if they sent two or three-of
their company, with full commission, under all their hands, to
conclude, etc., it was like the court would agree to their propositions. And now, at this court, came three with commission
to agree upon certain articles annexed to their commission,
which being read, the court appointed three to treat with them;
but, their articles being not reasonable, they stood not upon
them, but confessed that they had absolute commission to con1| which without 11
1 The spot on which the new edifice was erected, is now covered by Joy's
buildings.




1639.]                 JOHN WINTHROP.                     385
elude by their discretion. Whereupon the treaty was brought
to a conclusion to this effect: That they should 1| be 1 as Ipswich and Salem, and have courts there, etc., as by the copy of
the agreement remaining with the recorder doth appear. This
was ratified under 11 2 ur 1[ public seal, and so delivered to them;
only they desired a promise from the court, that, if the people
did not assent to it, (which yet they had no fear of,) they might
be at liberty, which was granted them.1
Those of Exeter sent the like propositions to the court; but
not liking (it seems) the agreement, which those of Dover had
made, they repented themselves, and wrote to the court, 9320
that they intended not to proceed.
[Large blank.]
At this court there fell out some contestation between the
governour and the treasurer.2  Nicholas Trerice3 being defendant in a cause, wherein Mr. Hibbins,4 brother-in-law to the
treasurer, was plaintiff, for ~500, which the searchers took
from  him in the ship, whereof Trerice was master, and the
defendant having answered upon oath to certain interrogatories
ministered unto him, (and which were read to him before he
took his oath,) and the treasurer pressing him again with the
same interrogatory, the governour said, he had answered the
same directly before. The treasurer thereupon said, (angerly,)
Sir, I speak not to you.  The governour replied, that time was
very precious, and, seeing the thing was already answered, it
was fit to proceed. Thereupon the treasurer stood up, and
said, if he might not have liberty to speak, he would no longer
|i[fare 11                          112all
1 Much more of the terms, on which these settlements were taken under our
jurisdiction, will appear two or three years later.
2 The marginal note is, "Difference between the governour and Mr. Bellingham."
3 He was of Charlestown.
4 Of the services of William Hibbins much will appear in the progress of this
work. He was a deputy from Boston in the autumn of the following year,
though admitted only in May a freeman, and again in 1641 and 1643. In this
latter he was chosen an assistant. Hutchinson, I. 173, gives as much of his
character as can well be ascertained beyond the means furnished by Winthrop
He died 23 July, 1654.
VOL. I.                  33




386                     JOHN WINTHROP.                       [1639.
sit there. The governour replied, that it was his place to manage the proceedings of the court, etc. The treasurer then said,
You have no more to do in managing the business here than I.
At which the governour took offence, as at an injury done to
his place, and appealed to the court to declare, whether he
might not enjoin any of the magistrates silence, if he saw
cause. The deputy governour, at first apprehension, gainsaid
it; but, presently, both himself and the rest of the magistrates
(for the deputies were without, staying till this cause should be
ended) did agree, that he might so do for a particular time;
and if the party, so enjoined silence, were unsatisfied, he might
appeal to the whole court, who might give him liberty to speak,
though the governour had restrained him. So the governour
pressed it no further, yet expected that the court would not
have suffered such a public affront to the governour to have
passed without due reproof, etc. But nothing was done, save
only the secretary and some one other spake somewhat of their
^321 dislike of it; neither did it occasion       any   falling  out
between the governour and treasurer, for the governour
held himself sufficiently discharged, after he had referred it to
the consideration of the court, so as, if they did not look at it
as a public injury, he was willing to account of it accordingly.1
1 A strange and lamentable consequence of this controversy, in which Hibbins
was cast, may be seen in Hubbard, 574. Some have said, he remarks, that the
loss " so discomposed his wife's spirit, that she scarce ever was well settled in
her mind afterward, but grew very turbulent in her passion, and discontented,
on which occasions she was cast out of the church, and then charged to be a
witch, giving too much occasion, by her strange carriage, to common people so
to judge." The unhappy woman might, perhaps, have been early cured by a
ducking stool. A long controversy, in 1640, before the church, about some
scolding, which terminated in a public admonition and subsequent excommunication, is recorded in Keayne's MS. before mentioned; but to me it is not, and
to others would not probably appear, a very attractive subject. Hutchinson, I.
173, informs us, that, though the magistrates refused to accept the verdict, yet it
was the general court that condemned her for witchcraft; and the common
people afterwards, with their accustomed manner, implied the judgments of
God in the disasters of those who had given way, so unjustly, to the opinions of
the same people. For the facts in support of his remark, he is indebted to Hubbard, ut supra. She suffered the punishment of death for the ridiculous crime,
the year after her husband's decease; her brother, Bellingham, not exerting,




1639.]                  JOHN WINTHROP.                        387
There happened a memorable thing at Plimouth about this
time.   One Keysar, of Lynn, being at Plimouth in his boat,
and one Dickerson with him, a professor, but a notorious thief,
was coming out of the harbor with the ebb, and the wind
southerly, a fresh gale; yet, with all their skill and labor, they
could not, in three hours, get the boat above one league, so as
they were forced to come to an anchor, and, at the flood, to go
back to the town; and, as soon as they were come in, the said
Dickerson was arrested upon suspicion of a gold ring and some
other pieces of gold, which, upon search, were found about him,
and he was there whipped for it.1
The like happened at Boston about two years before.
Schooler, who was executed for murder, as before is mentioned, had broke prison and was escaped beyond Winisemett,
but there he was taken with such an astonishment, etc., as he
could go no further, but was forced to return to Boston. These
and many other examples of discovering hypocrites and         0322
other lewd persons, and bringing them under their deserved punishments, do (among other things) show the presence
and power of God in his ordinances, and his blessing upon
his people, while they endeavor to walk before him with
uprightness.
At Kennebeck, the Indians wanting food, and there being
store in the Plimouth trading house, they conspired to kill the
English there for their provisions; and some Indians coming
perhaps, his highest influence for her preservation. Her will, made in prison,
immediately follows, in the Records, that of Keayne, who could not have been
pleased with her. She had three sons by a former husband. Of her will, in
which she desired decent burial, near her late husband, abstract is given in
Genealog. Reg. VI. 287, 8. Six or seven of the most respectable gentlemen of
Boston were named by her overseers of it. Rev. John Norton said, she was
hanged for having more wit than her neighbors.
1 It is in vain to regret, that such paragraphs are preserved in this History.
The spirit of the age had prepared the people for such false impressions, and,
in the perpetual glooms of the wilderness, their imagination gradually stole away
the supremacy from judgment. The subsequent paragraph, remarking the
likeness of the event there related, which is natural enough, would induce us to
refer the astonishment, by which the escape of the criminal was prevented, to the
boat, rather than the offender.




388                     JOHN WINTHROP.                       [1639.
into the house, Mr. L  Willet,1 the master of the house, being
reading in the Bible, his countenance was more solemn than
at other times, so as he did not look cheerfully upon them, as
he was wont to do; whereupon they went out and told their
fellows, that their purpose was discovered.      They asked them,
how it could be. The others told them, that they knew it by
Mr. Willet's countenance, and that he had discovered it by a
book that he was reading.       Whereupon they gave over their
design.
The people had long desired a body of laws, and thought
their condition very unsafe, while so much power rested in the
discretion of magistrates. Divers attempts had been made at
former courts, and the matter referred to some of the magistrates and some of the elders; but still it came to no effect; for,
being committed to the care of many, whatsoever was done by
some, was still disliked or neglected by others.     At last it was
referred to Mr. Cotton and Mr. Nathaniel Warde,2 etc., and
each of them framed a model, which were presented to this
general court, and by them      committed to the governour and
deputy and some others to consider of, and so prepare it for the
court in the 3d month next. Two great reasons there were,
1 From New England's Memorial we learn, that Capt. Thomas Willet was
highly esteemed in Plimouth colony, being, in 1651, elected an assistant; and,
by the choice for thirteen successive years to the same office, in that most
strictly republican jurisdiction, we may be confident of his well deserving the
affections of the people. It is unnecessary for me to add more than a reference
to Judge Davis's edition of that work, in which his services with the Dutch, and
settlement afterwards at New York, are particularly related. Descendants are,
I believe, known in honorable stations.
2 In December, 1641, the labors of these legislators were perfected, as this
History will show. The result was printed in London immediately after. An
Abstract may be found by the curious in 1 Hist. Coll. V. 171-192, with an
account of a second edition by Aspinwall. We may be sure, that Winthrop
could not be mistaken in ascribing to Ward the principal honor of the work,
though Cotton has often enjoyed it. Perhaps any one of twenty, in the civil or
clerical line, had contributed as much as Cotton, though his name would carry
the greatest weight.
From a thorough examination of the whole subject, by Hon. F. C. Gray,
introductory to a reprint of the code, in 3 Hist. Coll. VIII. 191, it appears, that
the abstract was Cotton's; but the Laws and Liberties, a far more important
work, was prepared by Ward.




1639.]              JOHN WINTHROP.                  389
which caused most of the magistrates and some of the q323
elders not to be very forward in this matter. One was,
want of sufficient experience of the nature and disposition of
the people, considered with the condition of the country and
other circumstances, which made them conceive, that such laws
would be fittest for us, which should arise pro [1 re nata [1 upon
occasions, etc., and so the laws of England and other states
grew, and therefore the fundamental laws of England are called
||2customs, consuetudines.ll  2. For that it would professedly
transgress the limits of our charter, which provide, we shall
made no laws repugnant to the laws of England, and that we
were assured we must do. But to raise up laws by practice
and custom had been no transgression; as in our church discipline, and in matters of marriage, to make a law, that marriages should not be solemnized by ministers, is repugnant to the
laws of England; but to bring it to a custom by practice for
the magistrates to perform it, is no law made repugnant, etc.
At length (to satisfy the people) it proceeded, and the two
models were digested with divers alterations and additions, and
abbreviated and sent to every town, (12,) to be considered of
first by the magistrates and elders, and then to be published by
the constables to all the people, that if any man should think
fit, that any thing therein ought to be altered, he might acquaint
some of the deputies therewith against the next court.
[Large blank.]
By this time there appeared a great change in the church of
Boston; for whereas, the year before, they were all (save five
or six) so affected to Mr. Wheelwright and Mrs. Hutchinson,
and those new opinions, as they 113slighted [l the present governour and the pastor, looking at them as men under a covenant
of works, and as their greatest enemies; but they bearing all
patiently, and not withdrawing themselves, (as they were
strongly solicited to have done,) but carrying themselves lovingly and helpfully upon all occasions, the Lord brought about
the hearts of all the people to love and esteem them more than
ever before, and all 11 4breaches I1 were made up, and the church
was saved from ruin beyond all expectation; which could
rei natura  112 custos consuetusdinis 11  13 perceived 1  114 breeches l
33*




390               JOHN WINTHROP.                [1639.
hardly have been, (in human reason,) if those two had not been
guided by the Lord to that moderation, etc. And the church
(to manifest their hearty affection to the governour, upon occasion of some strait he was brought into through his bailiff's
unfaithfulness) sent him ~200.
There was now a church gathered at the Mount, and MVr.
*324 Tomson (a very holy man, who had been an instrument
of much good at Acomenticus) was ordained the pastor
the 19th of the 9th month.
(10.)] At the general court, an order was made to abolish
that vain custom of drinking one to another, and that upon
these and other grounds:
1. It was a thing of no good use.
2. It was an inducement to drunkenness, and occasion of
quarrelling and bloodshed.
3. It occasioned much waste of wine and beer.
4. It was very troublesome to many, especially the masters
and mistresses of the feast, who were forced thereby to drink
more oft than they would, etc. Yet divers (even godly persons)
were very loath to part with this idle ceremony, though (when
disputation was tendered) they had no 1 list,[ 1nor, indeed,
could find any arguments, to maintain it. Such power hath
custom, etc.
Mr. Ezekiel Rogers, of whose gathering of a church in England mention was made before, being now settled with his
company at 1[ 2Rowley,1 was there ordained pastor, etc.
3.] There were so many lectures now in the country, and
many poor persons would usually resort to two or three in the
week, to the great neglect of their affairs, and the damage of
the public. The assemblies also were (in divers churches) held
till night, and sometimes within the night, so as such as dwelt
far off could not get home in due season, and many weak bodies
could not endure so long, in the extremity of the heat or cold,
without great trouble, and hazard of their health. Whereupon
the general court ordered, that the elders should be desired to
give a meeting to the magistrates and deputies, to consider
about the length and frequency of church assemblies, and to
make return to the court of their determinations, etc. This was
1 life II                    I 2 Roxbury 1|




1639.]                 JOHN WINTHROP.                       391
taken in ill part by most of the elders and other of the churches,
so as that those who should have met at Salem, did not meet,
and those in the bay, when they met with the magistrates, etc.,
at Boston, expressed much dislike of such a course, alleging
their tenderness of the church's liberties, (as if such a precedent
might enthrall them to the civil power, and as if it would cast
a blemish upon the elders, which would remain to posterity,
that they should need to be regulated by the civil magistrate,
and also raise an ill savour of the people's coldness, that would
complain of much preaching, etc., —when as liberty for the
ordinances was the main end (11 professed ll) of our coming
hither). To which it was answered, 1. That the order 3295
was framed with as much tenderness and respect as might
be in general words, without mentioning sermons or lectures, so
as it might as well be taken for meetings upon other occasions
of the churches, which were known to be very frequent. 2. It
carried no command, but only an expression of a desire. 3. I 2 It I1
concluded nothing, but only to confer and consider.     4. The
record of such an order will be rather an argument of the zeal
and forwardness of the elders and churches, as it was of the
Israelites', when they offered so liberally to the service of the
tabernacle, as Moses was forced to restrain them.'   Upon this
interpretation of the court's intent, the elders were reasonably
satisfied, and the magistrates finding how hardly such propositions would be digested, and that, if matters should be further
pushed, it might make some breach, or disturbance at least,
(for the elders had great power in the people's hearts, which
was needful to be upheld, lest the people should break their
bonds through abuse of liberty, which divers, having [I 8surfeited
II proposed 1     11 Ill 1J I   3 forfeited 11
1 " Much more than enough for the service of the work which the Lord commanded," Exodus xxxvi. 5, was the occasion of the order by Moses to restrain
the free offerings. Yet it seems, from the history, they were brought only in
the morning. In the ten preceding chapters, the contribution exacted, under
that remarkable economy of the house of Israel, appears sufficiently burdensome.
Pious services were, however, by our ancestors, given, in many instances, with
greater liberality than by the chosen people; but the reference to their theocracy, in the text, will be thought, I presume, the most valuable and ingenious
of all those that occur in our early history.




392                JOHN WINTHROP.                 [1639.
of, l were very forward to incite others to raise mutinies and
foment dangerous and groundless jealousies of the magistrates,
etc., which the wisdom and care of the elders did still prevail
against; and indeed the people themselves, generally, through
the churches, were of that understanding and moderation, as
they would easily be guided in their way by any rule from
scripture or sound reason:) in this consideration, the magistrates and deputies, which were then met, thought it not fit to
enter any dispute or conference with the elders about the number of lectures, or for appointing any certain time for the continuance of the assemblies, but rested satisfied with their affirmative answer to these two propositions: 1. That their church
assemblies might ordinarily break up in such season, as people
that dwell a mile or two off might get home by daylight. 2.
That, if they were not satisfied in the declaration of our intentions in this order of court, that nothing was attempted herein
against the churches liberties, etc., they would truly acquaint
us with the reasons of their unsatisfiedness; or, if we heard not
*326 from them before the next court, we should take it for
granted, that they were fully satisfied. They desired, that
the order might be taken off the record; but for that it was
answered, that it might not be done without consent of the
general court; only it was agreed unto, that the secretary
might defer to enter it in the book till the mind of the court
might be known.
(12.) 20.]  One Mr. Hanserd Knolles, a minister in England,
who came over the last summer in the company of our familistical opinionists, and so being suspected and examined, and
found inclining that way, was denied residence in the Massachusetts; whereupon he went to Pascataquack, where he began
to preach; but Mr. Burdett, being then their governour and
preacher, inhibited him. But, he being after removed to Acomenticus, the people called Mr. Knolles, and in short time he
gathered some of the best minded into a church body, and
became their pastor, and Capt. Underhill being their governour,
they called 1| their II town Dover. But this Mr. Knolles, at his
first coming thither, wrote a letter to his friends in London,
wherein he bitterly inveighed against us, both against our
II this Il




1639.]             JOHN WINTHROP.                  393
magistrates and churches, and against all the people in general,
(as by the copy of his letter sent over to our governour may
appear). The governour gave him notice thereof, and, being
brought to a better judgment by further consideration and
more experience, he saw the wrong he had done us, and was
deeply humbled for it, and wrote to the governour to that effect,
and desired a safe conduct, that he might come into the bay to
give satisfaction, etc., for he could have no rest in his spirit
until, etc.; which being sent him under the governour his hand,
(with consent of the council,) ~he came,~ and, upon a lecture
day at Boston, (most of the magistrates and elders in the bay
being there assembled,) he made a very free and full confession
of his offence, with much aggravation against himself, so as the
assembly were well satisfied. He wrote also a letter to the
same effect to his said friends in England, which he left with
the governour to be sent to them.
Capt. Underhill, also, being struck with horror and remorse
for his offences, both against the church and civil state, could
have no rest till he had obtained a safe conduct to come and
give satisfaction; and accordingly, (1,) 5, at a lecture at Boston, (it being then the court time,) he made a public confession
both of his living in adultery with Faber's wife, (upon suspicion whereof the church had before admonished him,) and
attempting the like with another woman,1 and also the injury he
had done to our state, etc., and acknowledged the justice of the
court in their proceeding against him, etc. Yet all his 9327
confessions were mixed with such excuses and extenuations, as did not give satisfaction of the truth of his repentance,
so as it seemed to be done rather out of policy, and to pacify
the sting of his conscience, than in sincerity. But, however,
his offences being so foul and scandalous, the church presently
cast him out; which censure he seemed to submit unto, and,
for the time he staid in Boston, (being four or five days) he was
very much dejected, etc.; but, being gone back, he soon recovered his spirits again, or, at least, gave not that proof of a
broken heart, as he gave hope of at Boston. For (to ingratiate
himself with the state of England, and with some gentlemen
1 Jane, wife of Robert Holmes, of Cambridge, says our church record.




394                  JOHN WINTHROP.                 [1639.
at the river's mouth, who were very zealous that way, and had
lately set up common prayer, etc.) he sent thirteen men armed
to Exeter to fetch one Gabriel Fish, who was detained in the
officer's hands for speaking against the king, the magistrates
of Exeter being then in the bay to take advice what to do
with him; and besides, when the church and people of Dover
desired him to forbear to come to the next court, till they had
considered of his case, and he had promised so to do, yet,
hearing that they were consulting to remove him from his
government, he could not refrain, but came and took his place
in the court; and though he had offered to lay down his place,
yet, when he saw they went about it, he grew passionate, and
expostulated with them, and would not stay to receive his.dismission, nor would be seen to accept it, when it was sent after
him. Yet they proceeded, and chose one Roberts1 to be president of the court, and, soon after, they returned back Fish to
Exeter, which was considerately done ~of them,~ for it had
been a dangerous precedent against them, being a weak plantation, if the commissioners from the lords of the council, who
were daily expected, should have taken occasion to have done
the like by them, though they held themselves to be out of
that province, which was granted to Sir Ferdinando Gorges.
Besides this, in the open court he committed one of his fellow
magistrates for rising up and saying he would not sit with an
adulterer, etc. But the chief matter, [I which they produced [
against him, was, that, whereas he himself was the mover of
them to break off their agreement with us, he had written to
*328 our governour, and laid it upon the people, especially upon
some among them; and for this they produced against him
a letter from our governour, written to one of their commissioners in answer to a letter of his, wherein he had discovered the
captain's proceeding in that matter. Soon after this the captain came by water into the bay to tender (as he said) satisI for which they proceeded 
1 Of this gentleman nothing is known to me, unless he be the John Roberts
appointed marshal, in 1680, under the new administration by royal commission in that year, Belknap's N. H. Farmer's Ed., 91, and who next year resigned, or Thomas Roberts, one of the principal landholders of Dover. Ib. 122.




1639.]                   JOHN WINTHROP.                           395
faction to the church.     This was taken by some of the magistrates as a very presumptuous act, and they would have had
him imprisoned, supposing that his safe conduct would not bear
him out, having been once here and returned back again; but
that I] counsel 1 was not approved, because the time of his safe
conduct was not expired, and it was thought very dangerous to
our reputation to give the least occasion of reproach in this
kind, seeing it might be objected against us to our great prejudice, [ 2where || we should not have opportunity to clear our
innocency. But the church, not being satisfied of his repentance, would not admit him        to public speech.     So, after one
week, he returned home.
In this winter, in a close, calm day, there fell divers flakes of
snow of this form,, very thin, and as exactly pointed as art
could have cut them in paper, or, etc.
(1.) 24.]  The church of Boston        sent three brethren, viz.,
Capt. Edward Gibbons, Mr. Hibbins, and              Mr. Oliver1 the
II council 11                        112 when II
1 John, son of the ruling elder, is, probably, the gentleman intended. Notice
of his death will appear in our second volume, sub an. 1646. In Keayne's MS.
it appears, that, in our church, early in 1640," a motion was made by such as
have farms at Rumney Marsh, that our brother Oliver may be sent to instruct
their servants, and to be a help to them, because they cannot many times come
hither, nor sometimes to Lynn, and sometimes nowhere at all."  On this much
debate followed. His father spoke first: "'I desire what calling my son hath to
such a work, or by what rule of God's word may the church send out any of
her members to such as are not of the church."  Cotton answered, at some
length. Two of the lay brethren proposed objections, to which Wilson briefly
replied, and the subject was postponed. On 23 March, Wilson made a full
statement of the general consent of the church, and the candidate closed thus:
" Serjeant Oliver. I desire to speak a word or two to the business of Rumney
Marsh. I am apt to be discouraged in any good work, and I am glad, that there
is a universal consent in the hearts of the church; for if there should have
been variety in their thoughts, or compulsion of their minds, it would have been
a great discouragement. But, seeing a call of God, I hope I shall employ my
weak talent to God's service; and, considering my own youth and feebleness to
so great a work, I shall desire my loving brethren to look at me as their brother,
to send me out with their constant prayers." From his will, I find, he married
a daughter of John Newgate, and left three children, two sons, and a daughter,
who afterwards married a gentleman of the name of Wiswell. Rumney Marsh
is now Chelsea. It is a little strange, that a people settled on a spot so difficult




396                    JOHN WINTHROP.                         [1639.
*329  younger, with letters to Mr. Coddington and the rest of
our members at Aquiday, to understand their judgments
in divers points of religion, formerly maintained by all, or divers of them, and to require them to give account to the church
of their unwarrantable practice Ilin II communicating with excommunicated persons, etc.      When they came, they found that
those of them, who dwell at Newport, had joined themselves
to a church there newly constituted, and thereupon they refused to hear them as messengers of our church, or to receive
the church's letters.1   Whereupon, at their return, the elders
and most of the church would have cast them         out, as refusing
to hear the church; but, all being not agreed, it was deferred.
Il of l
to have religious instruction at the neighboring parishes, should have continued
so long a time out of church state. The first sentence of the Records of the
Chelsea parish is, October 19, 1715, "This day the church was gathered at
Rumney Marsh, and Mr. Thomas Cheever was ordained their pastor."  For
this information I was indebted to the kindness of the late pastor, Dr. Joseph
Tuckerman. Undoubtedly the population was small, as it continued until the
last twenty years.
1 By Keayne's MS. it appears, the place was called Portsmouth, a name since
appropriated to another town, of much less magnitude, on the island. Coggeshall, for the refractory brethren, it seems, inquired of these spiritual commissioners, "what power one church hath over another church? "  Oliver relates,
that " they denied our commission, and refused to let our letter be received;
and they conceive, one church hath not power over the members of another
church, and do not think they are tied to us by our covenant. So we were fain
to take all their answers by going to their several houses. Mr. Hutchinson told
us, he was more nearly tied to his wife than to the church: he thought her to
be a dear saint and servant of God. We came then to Mrs. Hutchinson, and
told her, that we had a message to do to her from the Lord and from our
church. She answered, There are lords many, and gods many; but I acknowledge but one Lord. Which lord do you mean? We answered, we came in
the name but of one Lord, and that is God. Then, saith she, so far we agree;
and where we do agree, let it be set down. Then we told her, we had a message to her from the church of Christ in Boston. She replied, she knew no
church but one. We told her, in scripture the Holy Ghost calls them churches.
She said, Christ had but one spouse. We told her, he had in some sort as many
spouses as saints. But for our church, she would not acknowledge it any
church of Christ."  The report of this unprofitable mission was made 16
March.




1639.]                   JOHN WINTHROP.                            397
18.]   Mr. Norris' was ordained teacher of the church of Salem, there being present near all the elders of the other`330
churches, and much people besides.
21.]   The White Angel, a small ship of Bristol, went from
hence, and arrived there in twenty-four days; and, the same
year, the Desire, a ship built at Marblehead, of one hundred
tons, went from    hence in the summer, and arrived at Gravesend, in the Thames, in twenty-three days.
Our neighbors of Plimouth had         procured from     hence, this
year, one Mr. Chancey,2 a great scholar, and a godly man,
1 Edward Norris is commemorated with due honors in Eliot's Biographical
Dictionary. Our regret, that so important a name eluded the search of Allen,
though a descendant of our age is well remembered for his pious liberality, will
not be vain, if the second edition of that gentleman's volume, which has been
long preparing, supply the deficiency, and go beyond his predecessor. Norris
arrived in our country, probably, the year before his ordination, which was
the period that the church had to form their estimate of his merit. He was not
admitted a freeman till May, 1640. He had been a minister in England, yet
Johnson has not named him. Much influence in the state was exerted by him,
of which evidence will appear in this History; and, four years after Winthrop's
death, in the famous schism of the commissioners of the four United Colonies,
he took side against the principles of the Massachusetts court, who resisted the
war with the Dutch. War had been raging two years between the respective
mother countries; yet our people were wise enough to keep at peace on this
side of the Atlantic. Those who hoped to gain by a war were very eager for
its declaration, and charged the pacific temper of Massachusetts to any thing
but its true cause. Norris was, happily, unsuccessful, though he quoted the
curse against Meroz, which religious or political enthusiasm has commonly found
effectual. See his letter of 3 May, 1653, in Hazard, II. 256. The president
of the council, the amiable Bradstreet, was averse to war; but Norris's parishioner, Hawthorne, the other commissioner of Massachusetts, was urgent for it.
Before the gradual influence of the false reports from New Haven and Connecticut had overcome the disinclination of Massachusetts to the unjust war, news
was received that in the third year hostilities were closed in Europe.
2 An excuse for neglecting great labor of inquiry about this celebrated
scholar, who, after the honor conferred on him of two professorships by his alma
mater, the University of Cambridge in England, became head of our own College, is afforded by the elaborate biography, written by a descendant of great
name, preserved in 1 Hist. Coll. X. 171. Perhaps, however, the ancestor's doctrines are a little softened in that tract. He was of Trinity College. Mather
mentions his verses on the death of Queen Ann, 1619. I have seen, in the
Boston Atheneum, the Cantabrigiensium Dolor et Solamen, on the'death of
VOL. i.                      34




398                     JOHN WINTHROP.                       [1639.
intending to call him to the office of a teacher; but, before the
fit time came, he discovered his judgment about baptism, that
the children ought to be dipped and not sprinkled; and, he being an active man, and very vehement, there arose much
trouble about it.   The magistrates and the other elders there,
and the most of the people, withstood the receiving of that
practice, not for itself so much, as for fear of worse consequences, as the annihilating our baptism, etc. Whereupon
the church there wrote to all the      other churches, both here
and at Connecticut, etc., for advice, and sent Mr. Chancey's
arguments. The churches took them into consideration, and
l returned l their several answers, wherein they showed their
dissent from him, and clearly confuted all his arguments, discovering withal some great mistakes of his about the judgment`331  and practice of antiquity.'    Yet he would not give over
his opinion; and the church of Plirouth, (though they
could not agree to call him to office, yet,) being much taken
with his able parts, they were very loath to part with him.      He
i wrote |
James and accession of Charles, 1625, containing his Greek and Latin verses,
signed Car. Chauncy, Coll. Trin. Bac. Theol. His two unimportant opinions,
relative to the time of celebrating the eucharist, and the mode of baptism, were
no obstacles to his advancement, even in that age of narrow and scrupulous
formality. It is a little remarkable, that the two first presidents of Harvard
College adopted opinions on the form of baptism adverse to that of all the other
divines and laicks of the colony.
1 If nothing of greater value, than these answers of the churches, were lost
by us, we should less regret the extent of our ignorance of the thoughts and
actions of our fathers. From Keayne's MS. it appears, that answer by Boston
church was made, 21 June, to a question and desire from the church of Plimouth, " whether it be lawful to use sprinkling in baptism, or rather dipping; Mr.
Chauncy being of the mind, that it is a violation of an ordinance to use sprinkling instead of dipping." In the illustrious descendant's Life of his ancestor,
there may be some mistake on this point. Yet an equal error is, perhaps, discernible in the text, as to the confutation, and finding mistakes about "the
judgment and practice of antiquity." Fortunately, it is a matter, on which little depends; and the churches here would do wisely to allow, as a large part of
the antipoedobaptists in England are liberal enough to do, that the substance of
Christianity is of infinitely higher importance than this form of expressing our
devotion to it, and that a controversy, which cannot be settled, had better be
dropped.




1639.]             JOHN WINTHROP.                   399
did maintain, also, that the Lord's supper ought to be administered in the evening, and every Lord's day; and the church at
Sandwich (where one Mr. Leveridge was minister) fell into the
practice of it; but that being a matter of no great ill consequence, save some outward inconvenience, there was little stir
about it. This Mr. Chancey was after called to office in the
church of Scituate.
One Palmer,l of Hingham, and two others, (being ancient
and skilful seamen,) being in a shallop of 11 ten 11 tons, in an
easterly wind, by Peddock's Island, were overset; yet one of
them had the sheet in his hand, and let fly; but it was too late,
having but little ballast in her; yet it pleased God, there came
by, soon after, a pinnace, which espied them sitting upon her
1 2side, 11 yet deep in the water, and took them up, but the shallop was not heard of after.
Many men began to inquire after the southern parts; and
the great advantages supposed to be had in Virginia and the
West Indies, etc., made this country to be disesteemed of many;
and yet those countries (for all their great wealth) have sent
hither, both this year and formerly, for supply of clothes and
other necessaries; and some families have forsaken both Providence and other the Caribbee Islands and Virginia to come live
here. And though our people saw what meagre, unhealthful
countenances they brought hither, and how fat and well liking
they became soon, yet they were so taken with the ease`332
and plenty of those countries, as many of them sold their
estates here to transport themselves to Providence; among
whom the chief was John Humfrey, Esq., a gentleman of special parts of learning and activity, and a godly man, who had
been one of the first beginners in the promoting of this plantation, and had labored very much therein. He, being brought
low in his estate, and having many children, and being well
known to the lords of Providence, and offering himself to their
service, was accepted to be the next governour. Whereupon he
II 100 1                    11 2shrouds I
1 Hingham Records show, that John Palmer came over in September, 1635,
and those of the colony, that he was made free 13 March, 1638-9. Nothing
more of him is known by me.




400                      JOHN WINTHROP.                      [1640.
labored much to draw men to join with him. This was looked
1) at, both II by the general court, and also by the elders, as an
unwarrantable course; for though it was thought very needful
to further plantation of churches in the West Indies, and all
were willing to endeavor the same; yet to do it with disparagement of this country, (for they gave out that they could not
subsist here,) caused us to fear, that the Lord was not with
them in this way. And, withal, some considerations were propounded to them by the court, which diverted some of them,
and made others to pause, upon three points especially: 1. How
dangerous it was to bring up an ill report upon this good land,
which God had found out and given to his people, and so to
discourage the hearts of their brethren, etc. 2. To leave a place
of rest and safety, to expose themselves, their wives and children, to the danger of a potent enemy, the Spaniard. 3. Their
subjection to such governours as those in England shall set
over them, etc. Notwithstanding these considerations, divers
of them persisted in their resolutions, and went about to get
some ship or bark to transport them; but they were still crossed
by the hand of God.'
Mo. 3.17.]   Joseph Grafton2 set sail from   Salem, the 2d day
in the morning, in a 112ketch II of about forty tons, (three men
and a boy in her,) and arrived at Pemaquid (the wind easterly)
upon the third day in the morning, and there took in some
1lupon 11                          112 Cavye 11
1 "That the Lord was not with them," in their design to draw off people from
Massachusetts to the West Indies for a permanent plantation, we may as confidently believe, as did Winthrop and the majority who remained; yet it is desirable to disavow the notion, that their difficulties in the attempt prove, that they
" were still crossed by his hand."
2 He had been made free at the general election in May, 1637. The relation
in the text proves the prosperity of the plantation at Pemaquid, no less than
the activity of Grafton. In the next volume it will be seen, that his vessel, carrying provisions to La Tour, was taken by D'Aulney, and the crew were very ill
treated. His son, Joseph, died at Barbados, February, 1671, leaving two children, of whom his father was made guardian, in Sept. following, until " they
come to age to choose a guardian to themselves." Descendants are known,
among whom is one of the same name in this city.




1640.]                JOHN WINTHROP.                      401
twenty cows, oxen, etc., with hay and water for them, and *333
came to an anchor in the bay the 6th1 day, about three
after noon.
It came over by divers letters and reports, that the Lord
Say did labor, by disparaging this country, to divert men from
coming to us, and so to draw them   to the West Indies; and,
finding that godly men were unwilling to come under other
governours than such as they should make choice of themselves, etc., they condescended to articles somewhat suitable to
our form of government, although they had formerly declared
themselves much against it, and for a 1] meer aristocratie, 11 and
an hereditary magistracy to be settled upon some great persons, etc.
The governour also wrote to the Lord Say about the report
aforesaid, and therein showed his lordship, how evident it was,
that God had chosen this country to plant his people in, and
therefore how displeasing it would be to the Lord, and dangerous to himself, to hinder this work, or to discourage men from
supplying us, by abasing the goodness of the country, which he
never saw, and persuading men, that here was no possibility of
subsistence; whereas there was a sure ground for his children's
faith, that, being sent hither by him, either he saw that the land
was a good land, and sufficient to maintain them, or else he
intended to make it such, etc. To this letter his lordship returned answer, (not denying that which was reported of him,
nor the evidence of the Lord's owning the work, but) alleging,
that this was a place appointed only for a present refuge, etc.,
and that, a better place being now found out, we were all called
to remove' thither.
[Very large blank.]
lmore aristocratic |
1 Days of the week are meant, the sixth being Saturday, and his voyage began on Monday. The same scruple, which led to change of the months, caused
the namles of the days to be offensive, and induced the fathers to reckon the
less, as well as greater divisions of time, by numerals. Adherence to this custom still distinguishes the Quakers. Still Winthrop felt no scruple about making this entry, on Sunday, of the quick despatch, of the vessel from Salem to
Pemaquid, and return with cargo, within the secular days.
34*








APPENDIX.
A lo
DEAR SON,
Though I have received no letters yet from you, I cannot pass by
any opportunity, without some testimony of my fatherly affection, and
care of your welfare, for which respect I am content to have you absent
from me in so far a distance; for I know, that, in respect of yourself,
patria ubicunque belle, and in respect of the Almighty, his power and
providence is alike in all places; and for mine own comfort, it shall be
in your prosperity and well-doing wheresoever.
Because I cannot so oft put you in mind of those things, which concern your good, as if you were nearer to me, it must be your care the
better to observe and ruminate those instructions, which I give you, and
the better to apply the other good means, which you have. Especially
labor, by all means, to imprint in your heart the fear of God, and let
not the fearful profaneness and contempt of ungodly men diminish the
reverent and awful regard of his Great Majesty in your heart. But
remember still, that the time is at hand, when they shall call the [mountains to] hide them from the face of Him, whom now they slight and
neglect, etc.
I have written to you more largely by one Mr. Southwell, and now
am at little leisure.'When you write back, let me know the state of
your college, etc., and how you like, etc., and remember my love to your
reverend tutor. Your grandfather, grandmother, and mother, salute and
bless you. Your brothers and sister are in health, (I praise God).
The Lord, in mercy, season your heart with his grace, and keep you
from the lusts of youth and the evil of the times. So I rest
Your loving father,
JOHN WINTHROP
Groton, August 6, 1622.
To my beloved Son, JOHN WINTHROP, }
at the College in Dublin, d'd. 




404                      APPENDIX.
A 2.
MY BELOVED SON,
I beseech the Lord to bless thee with grace and peace. I give him
thanks for thy welfare, and hope, through his mercy, that this infirmity,
which is now upon thee, shall turn to thy health. I received two letters from thee, written (I perceive) in haste; but they were welcome to
me and the rest, to your grandmother, mother, etc., who all rejoice in
your good liking. I sent you two letters, a good while since, which I
hope will not miscarry, though they be long in going. The further you
are from me, the more careful I am of your welfare, both in body and
soul; the chief means whereof lyeth in your own endeavor.  Your
friends may pray for you and counsel you, but your own diligence
and watchfulness must be added to make you blessed. God hath provided you a liberal portion of outward good things. You must labor to
use them soberly, and to consider, that your happiness lyeth not in
meat, drink, and bodily refreshings, but in the favor of God for your
part in a better life. I purposed to send you, by this bearer, such books
as you writ for; only Aristotle I cannot, because your uncle Fones is
not at London to buy it; and I know not whether you would have Latin
or Greek. I purpose also to send you some cloth for a gown and suit;
but for a study gown, you were best buy some coarse Irish cloth. I
shall (if God will) write to you again by Mr. Olmsted. For the carriage of such things as I send you by John Hutton, you must remember
to pay him, because I cannot tell here what they will come to. I have
written to your uncle to send over my gelding. If you see that he forget it, you may put him in mind. Your grandfather and grandmother
will write to you. Your mother salutes you with her blessings. We
are all in health, (I praise God). Remember my love to your good
tutor. The Lord in mercy bless and keep you, and direct and prosper
your study. Amen. So I rest
Your loving father,
JOHN WINTHROP.
Groton, August 31, 1622.
To my beloved Son, JOHN WINTHROP, }
at the College near Dublin.
A 3.
MY DEARLY BELOVED SON,
I do usually begin and end my letters with that, which I would have
the A and Q of all thy thoughts and endeavors, viz., the blessing of the
Almighty to be upon thee, not after the common valuation of God's




APPENDIX.                        405
blessings, like the warming of the sun to a hale, stirring body; but that
blessing, which faith finds in the sweet promises of God and his free
favor, whereby the soul hath a place of joy and refuge in all storms of
adversity. I beseech the Lord to open thine eyes, that thou mayest see
the riches of this grace, which will abate the account of all earthly vanities: and if it please him to give thee once a taste of the sweetness of
the true wisdom, which is fiom above, it will season thy studies, and
give a new temper to thy soul. Remember, therefore, what the wisest
saith, The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Lay this foundation, and thou shalt be wise indeed.
I am very glad to hear, that you like so well in Ireland. If your
profiting in learning may be answerable, it will much increase my comfort. I was not greatly troubled to hear that your body did break out,
but rather occasioned to bless God, that sent you so good a means of
future health. I must needs acknowledge the great care and kindness
of your uncle and aunt towards you. It may be much to your good, if
you be careful to make right use of it, as I hope you do; for I hear you
love your study well. You must have special care, that you be not ensnared with the lusts of youth, which are commonly covered under the
name of recreations, etc. I remember the counsel of a wise man,
Quidquid ad voluptatis seminarium pullulat, venenum puta. Think of
it, (dear son,) and especially that of Paul to Timothy, Exhort young
men that they be sober minded.
I sent you some books by J. Hutton. I could not then buy the rest,
nor such cloth, etc., which I would have sent you, because your uncle
Fones was not then in London; and I have no friend else, that I can
make bold with. I have now a piece of cloth to make your doublet and
hose, if I can send it by Mr. Olmested; if not, then desire your uncle
to fit you there; it is only some little more in the price; and I have
found, that, except one send by some friend, the carriage and custom
(besides the hazard) costs so much, as there will be little saved. You
may line your gown with some warm baize, and wear it out, for else
you will soon outgrow it; and if you be not already in a frieze jerkin, I
wish you to get one speedily; and howsoever you clothe yourself when
you stir, yet be sure to keep warm when you study or sleep. I send
you no money, because you may have of your uncle what you need. I
hope you will be honestly frugal, and have respect to my great charge
and small means, which I shall willingly extend to the utmost to do you
good. Your grandfather, grandmother, and mother salute and bless
you. We all, with your brothers and sister, are in health, (I praise
God). Forth is at Bury; but he fell so between two forms, as he had
like, between both, to have fallen back to Boxford.




406                       APPENDIX.
Your uncle Gostlin and aunt are in health, and he means to write to
you. Your good host and hostess at Bury inquire much of you, and
desire always to be remembered to you; so did your master there, when
I last saw him.
I purpose to write two or three lines to your good tutor, in token of
my thankful acceptance of his loving pains with you.
We are daily in expectation of Mr. Olmested's coming by us, who
appointed to have set forth on his journey above a fortnight since;
otherwise I had adventured some letters by London before this, though
we received none from you since John Hutton came to us. I hear not
yet of my gelding. It will be fit, that, at the quarter's end, (if your
uncle forget it,) you ask him money for your tutor. The Lord bless
you ever. So I rest
Your loving father,
JOHN WINTHROP.
October 16, 1622.
Commend me to Mr. Downes the stationer.
To my beloved Son, JOHN WINTHROP, at
Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, d'd. 1
A 4.
MY SWEET WIFE,
Blessed be God, by whose providence and protection I am come safe
to London. Here I find them all in health, and a great deal of kind
welcome; only thy company is wanting, which they much desire.
I doubt my brother's coming to Ipswich will be deferred till the
spring; for Mr. Hore (who should hire his house) and he are broken
off. Thus man purposeth, but God disposeth. 0, that we could learn,
at length, to trust his wisdom, love, power, etc., and cast our care upon
him, and leave our own carnal wisdom, fear, confidence, etc. Then
should it go well with us assuredly; then should we have our rest in
that true peace, which passeth understanding. But it is our wretched
infidelity that keeps good things from us. Let us, therefore, pray earnestly, and labor for this precious faith; it will recompense all our cost.
For such news as is here, this bearer can sufficiently inform you, and
so may spare my labor; and, besides, I am hasted into the city about
my business. When I shall return, I cannot yet tell, but thy love will
1 Thomas Gostlin married 5 January, 1612, Jane, sister of the author, who was
baptized at Groton, 17 June, 1592.




APPENDIX.                        407
make me lose no time. Therefore, for the present, with my brother's
and sister's kind salutations to thee and to my parents, to whom I commend my love and duty, I heartily commend thee and our little ones,
and all our family, to the gracious protection and blessing of the Lord.
So I rest
Thy faithful, loving husband,
JOHN WINTHROP.
London, October 19, 1622.
A 5.
MY DEAR SON,
I received your letters, with the bill of charges inclosed, etc. I bless
God for the continuance of your health, but especially for the good seed
of his true fear, which I trust is planted, and grows daily in you. I
perceive you lose not your time, nor neglect your study, which, as it
will be abundantly fruitful to my comfort, so much more to your own
future and eternal happiness, and especially to the glory of him, who
hath created you to this purpose. I pray continually, that God will
please to establish your heart, and bless these good beginnings. For
the money, which you have spent, I will pay it, and what else your
uncle shall appoint me, so soon as I receive my rents. And for your
expenses, seeing I perceive you are considerate of my estate, I will
have as great regard of yours; and so long as your mind is limited to a
sober course, I will not limit your allowance less than to the uttermost
of mine own estate. So as, if ~20 be too little, (as I always accounted
it,) you shall have ~30; and when that shall not suffice, you shall have
more. Only hold a sober and frugal course, (yet without baseness,)
and I will shorten myself to enlarge you. For your apparel, desire your
uncle to furnish you for this present; and, if I can find out a means to
send you things against winter at a more easy rate, I will provide for
you, as I would have done before this, but that I thought (the charges
of sending and hazard considered) you were as good provide them
there. Your mother is lately delivered of another son,1 (his name is
Deane,) and is reasonable well, (I praise God,) with your grandmother,
brothers, sister, uncle and aunt Gostlin, etc.; but your grandfather is
very weak, and (we fear) in his last sickness.2  They all salute you,
and rejoice in your welfare. Goodman Hawes was here, and salutes
1 Baptized two days before the date of this letter.
2 He was buried three days after.




408                        APPENDIX.
you also. Remember my love to your tutor, etc. The Lord bless you
always. Amen.
Your loving father,
J. WINTHROP.
I wrote to you lately, and to your uncle and aunt; and, since, I wrote
another letter to your aunt.
Mfarch 25, 1623.
To my beloved Son, JOHN WINTHROP, at Trinity (
College, in Dublin, d'd, Ireland....Rec'd April 26. 
A 6.
SON JOHN,
The blessing of the Lord be upon thee, and upon thy studies unto a
most happy success. I received divers letters from thee since Christtide, and I have written three. I hope thou hast received them before
this. I bless God, and am heartily refreshed to hear of thy health and
good liking; especially to see those seeds of the fear of God, which (I
hope and daily pray) will arise to timely fruit. He who hath begun
that good in you, will perfect it unto the day of the Lord Jesus; only
you must be constant and fervent in the use of the means, and yet
trust only to God's blessing.
I was purposed to defer writing to you till your uncle Gostlin should
have come; but his journey being put off on the sudden, I am enforced to borrow of the night to write these few lines unto thee. Concerning thy charges, I have written my mind in a former letter; but,
lest that hath miscarried, know that my good persuasion of thy tender
regard of my estate, and confidence of a sober course, shall make me to
extend myself to the farthest of my ability for thy good, be it ~30 per
annum, or more, if occasion be. And though I have sent over no
money all this time, it was not through my neglect of thee, but upon
that assurance, which I had of thy uncle and aunt their care of thee,
he himself willing me to send no money till he sent for it; and now,
since Mr. Good is dead, I know not to whom to pay it. But make you
no question, for (God willing) I will discharge every groat. And for
your apparel and books, I find it so difficult and troublesome, etc., to
send things over, as I would wish you to provide there for the present.
I have written to your uncle of the change, that it hath pleased the
Lord to make in our family.' The Lord give us and you to make a
1 This refers, probably, to the death of Gov. Winthrop's father.




APPENDIX.                        409
right use of it. Time will not permit me to write more. Your grandmother and mother salute and bless you. Remember me very kindly
to your good tutor and Mr. Downes, etc.
Your loving father,
J. WINTHROP.
April 20, 1623.
Send me word, in your next, how Mr. Olmsted and that plantation
prospers. I wish oft God would open a way to settle me in Ireland, if
it might be for his glory there.
Commend me to my little cousins, and to my god-daughter, Susannah
Mitton, to Richard, and the rest of the family.
To my loving Son, JOHN WINTnHROP, 
at the College in Dublin, Ireland.  5
A. 7.
MY IWELL BELOVED SON,
I received thy letters of the 26 of May this 26 of June; and, the
messenger being presently to return, I cannot satisfy myself in writing
to thee as I desire. Let it suffice for the present, that I humbly praise
our heavenly Father for his great mercy towards thee, in all respects;
especially for the hope, which I conceive, that he hath pleased to make
thee a vessel of glory for thy salvation in Christ Jesus. And I heartily
rejoice, that he hath withdrawn thy mind from the love of those worldly
vanities, wherewith the most part of youth are poisoned, and hath given
thee to discern of, and exercise thyself in, things that are of true worth"
I see by your epistle, that you have not spent this year past in idleness,
but have profited even beyond my expectations. The Lord grant that
thy soul may still prosper in the knowledge of Jesus Christ, and in the
strength of the Spirit, as thy mind is strengthened in wisdom and learning; for this gives the true lustre and beauty to all gifts, both of nature
and industry, and is as wisdom with an inheritance. I am sure, before
this, you have knowledge of that, which, at the time when you wrote,
you were ignorant of, viz. the departure of your grandfather; (for I
wrote over twice since). He hath finished his course, and is gathered
to his people in peace, as the ripe corn into the barn. He thought long
for the day of his dissolution, and welcomed it most gladly. Thus is he
1 Adam, born 10 August, 1548.
VOL. I.                   35




410                       APPENDIX.
gone before, and we must go after in our time. This advantage he hath
of us, he shall not see the evil, which we may meet with ere we go hence.
Happy those, who stand in good terms with God and their own conscience. They shall not fear evil tidings; and in all changes they shall
be the same.
The rest of us (I praise God) are in health. Your grandmother and
mother salute and bless you in the Lord. We all think long to see you;
and, it is like, myself shall (if it please God) go over to you, before I
shall be willing you should take so great a journey, and be so long withdrawn from your happy studies to come to us. It satisfieth me, that I
know you are well, and can want nothing, and that (I believe) God
blesses you. I shall continue to pray for you, and will not be wanting,
to my power, to further your good in every thing; and know this, that
no distance of place, or length of absence, can abate the affection of a
loving father towards a dutiful, well-deserving child. And in that I
have not sent you money all this time, it is upon that assurance, which I
have of your uncle's and aunt's care of you, and his free offer to forbear
me till he should send. But I have written to him to receive ~30, or
~40, of some of Dublin, who have occasion to use money in London,
and they shall not fail to receive it again at my brother Fones his
[house,] upon the first demand. For Cooper's Dictionary,1 I will send
it you as soon as I can; but it is so difficult and hazardable, (especially
now, since Mr. Good died,) as I cannot tell how to convey that, or any
thing else to thee. Remember my kind love to your good tutor. And
so, in haste, I end; and, beseeching daily the Lord Jesus Christ to be
with thee and bless thee, I rest
Your loving father,
JO. WINTHROP.
GROTON, June 26, 1623.
To my [torn off] JOIN WINTHROP, at Trinity 
College, in Dublin, Ireland. Rec'd Aug. the 1st. 
A. 8.
MY DEAR SON,
The Lord bless thee, and multiply his graces in thee, to the building
up of that good work, which (I well hope) is truly begun in thee, and
wherein I rejoice daily, and bless God, who hath pleased to call thee
1 This volume is now in the library of the Historical Society.




APPENDIX.                         411
and keep thee in that good course, which yields hope to all the friends
of thy future happiness. Be watchful, good son, and remember, that,
though it be true, in some cases, that principium est dimidium totius,
yet, in divinity, he who hath attained beyond the middest, must still
think himself to have but new begun; for, through the continual instigation of Satan, and our own proneness to evil, we are always in danger
of being turned out of our course; but God will preserve us to the end,
if we trust in him, and be guided by his will.
I received no letters from you since that in Latin, wherein you wrote
for Cooper's Dictionary, which I sent you since by London; and I have
wrote twice since. I purpose to send by this bearer, Samuel Gostlin, a
piece of Turkey grogram, about ten yards, to make you a suit; and I
shall have a piece of good cloth against winter, to make you a gown; all
my care is how to get it well conveyed. I would have sent you some
other things, with some remembrancers to your aunt and cousins, but
that the occasion of sending this messenger was so sudden as I could
not provide them. If your uncle come over to Chester, you may come
with him, and there I hope to see you. Be directed by him and your
tutor; for, though I much desire to see you, yet I had rather hear of
your welfare than hazard it. And if your uncle mean to come further
than Chester, I would wish you not to come over now, for I am not
willing you should come to Groton this year, except your uncle shall
much desire your company. Remember my kind love to your good
tutor, and to Mr. Downes, and excuse me to your aunt, that I write not
to her, for I have not leisure; and, if occasion be, impart my joy in her
safe deliverance, which we long much to hear of. What remains, this
bearer can inform you of all our affairs. Put him in mind (as from me)
to be sober, and beware of company. Your grandmother and mother
salute and bless you; your uncle Gostlin and aunt salute you; your
master at Bury,1 (to whom I wish you to write at leisure,) your good
host and hostess, salute you also. - Vale.
JOHN WINTHROP.
GROTON, Autguest 12, 1623.
You shall receive by Samuel a twenty-two shilling piece, if he have
not occasion to spend it by the way.
[The superscription of this letter is wanting.]
1 The grammar school at Bury St. Edmunds, where Forth was occupying the
room of John, has preserved, I believe, a good reputation to our day.




412                       APPENDIX.
A. 9.
MY WELL BELOVED SON,
I beseech our God and heavenly Father, through Christ, to bless
thee; and I humbly praise his holy name for his great mercy towards
thee hitherto, which is a great occasion of my rejoicing. For there is
nothing in this world, that can be like cause of private comfort to me as
to see the welfare of my children; especially when I may have hope,
that they belong to Christ, and increase his kingdom, and that I shall
meet them in glory, to enjoy them in life eternal, when this shade of life
shall be vanished. Labor (my dear son) to have in highest esteem the
favor of this God, whose blessing is better than life, and reacheth to
eternity. Make him thy joy, by trusting in him with all thy heart; and
nourish the peace of a pure conscience in an undefiled body. I am glad
also to hear, that thou declinest the evil company and manners of the
place thou livest in, and followest thy study with good fruit.  Go on,
and God will still prosper thee. To fall back will be far worse than
never to have begun; but I hope better of thee.' Your grandmother,
mother, brothers, and sister are in health, (I praise God). How we do
all here at London, this bearer can tell you. Your uncle (Fones)
wishes well to you. I would have you write him a Latin epistle at your
leisure. You must be careful to visit your aunt, and help her to be
cheerful in this time of your uncle's absence. Commend me heartily to
your reverend tutor; and think not of seeing England till you may
bring a hood at your back.
It shall satisfy me, in the mean time, to hear of your welfare, which
I daily pray for. And so I commend thee to the Lord, and rest
Your loving father,
JOHN WINTHROP.
LONDON, October 3d, 1623.
I send two books by Richard. One of them is for your aunt; the
other for yourself. Read it over and again, and God give a blessing
with it.
To my beloved Son, JOHN WINTHROP, at Trinity College, 
in Dublin, Ireland, d'd... Rec'dc Nov. 14, 1623. 




APPENDIX.                        413
A. 10.
[A fragment of a letter.]
I SENT you in January last the books, which you wrote for. Imagines
Deorum is very dear and hard to get. I could not find a second in
London. It is a book that may be of some use, for the praise and
antiquity of the monuments, abused by the superstition of succeeding
times; but you must read it with a sober mind and sanctified heart.
Your grandmother and mother are in health, (I bless God,) and do
salute and bless you. Your brothers and sister, and the rest of your
friends, are likewise in health; only Adam hath a sore ague. Let me
hear, by your next, how your aunt bears this long absence of your uncle,
and how things agree in Ireland, at Mont Wealy, and elsewhere; and
what success hath been of the proclamation. Our parliament here is
begun with exceeding much comfort and hope. The treaty about the
Spanish match is now concluded, by king, prince, and parliament, to be
at an end; and, it is very like, we shall not hold long with Spain. The
Duke of Richmond and Lenox died suddenly that morning the parliament should have begun. The Duke of Buckingham hath quit himself
worthily, and given great satisfaction to the parliament. God send a
good end to these happy beginnings. This bearer comes suddenly upon
me, and is but a stranger. Therefore I end; and, with loving salutations to your reverend tutor, and your kind friend, his substitute, with
Mr. Downes, your little cousins, Richard, etc., I rest
Your loving father,
JOHN WINTHROP.
GROTON, March 7, 1623.
To my loving Son, JoIIN WINTI-or, at Trinity College, }
in zDublin, Ireland, d'd.... Rec'd March 29, 1624.
A. 11.
MY GOOD SON,
I received your letter, and do bless God for the continuance of your
health, and of all our good friends at London; but I had no letters from
any of them. For the matter which you write of, I can give you no
advice; for I must deal plainly and faithfully with all men, and especially with my inward friends. So it is, that I have had lately some
speech with my cousin Waldegrave, about matching you with his
35*




414                       APPENDIX.
younger daughter, which I have referred to your own liking; but yet I
cannot in honesty enter treaty for another till he hath some determinate
answer. It is a religious and a worshipful family; but how the woman
will like you, I know not, for she is somewhat crooked. I will neither
persuade you to that, nor dissuade you from this or any other, which
you shall desire, that may be fitting for my estate, and hopeful of comfort to you, which is not to be judged of only by wealth and person, but
by meet parts and godly education. I trust you will mind well that
saying, Deliberandum est diu, quod statuendum est semel.
I praise God, we continue all in health, as you left us, and, when you
are weary of London, will be glad to see you and your sister at home;
but take your own time before the holidays. Your grandmother and
mother salute and bless you and your sister. Your mother thanks you
for the things which you sent her. Remember us very kindly to your
uncles and aunts, and to all our cousins and good friends. The good
Lord guide, protect, and bless you in all your ways.
Your loving father,
JOHN WINTHROP.
November 21, 1626.
I pray buy me a pair of stirrup stocks, the warmest you can get; and
when you go near the bridge, on Fish Street Hill dwells one, that sells
lines and packthread, - buy some lines to raise up the long net, and
some packthread to do it. A hair line were best for the leads.
To my loving Son, JOHN WINTHROP, d'd.
A. 12.
MY GOOD SON,
I wrote the last week so far as my paper would reach. I hope you
received my letters, which I desire to understand from you, for Jarvice
his man had them. I bless God for your health and welfare; but we
now think long to have you at home, for your brother 1 is to return to
Cambridge, and then we shall be alone; but if there be any good occasion to stay you still, I will not urge your hasty return. Touching the
1 Forth, who had, in April before, been admitted of Emanuel, and matriculated 4
July, in the rank of pensioner. He was buried at Groton, 23 November, 1630, having
-bden betrothed to Ursula Sherman.




APPENDIX.                           415
matter of Mr. Pettuall, (though I can give no direct answer where
nothing is propounded, yet) thus much in general, where I may have
more money, I can depart with the more land. I pray God give you
wisdom and grace to discern of meet gifts and disposition, that may
promise hope of a comfortable life in the fear of God; otherwise (if you
can so content your own mind) you were best live as you are.  But I
commit this, and all other our affairs, to the only wise providence of our
heavenly Father.
We have had much ado for a minister, since Mr. Simonds refused it.
Groton church did not afford such variety of gifts in divers years before.  We have many suitors, that would take it at a mean rate; but
for such as are worthy, all the difficulty is to get maintenance enough.
We are now (by God's providence) like to fasten upon a godly man,
one Mr. Lea,' a curate at Denston in Suffolk, a man of very good
parts, but of a melancholic constitution, yet as sociable and full of good
discourse as I have known. All the parish are very earnest with me to
take him; but I have taken a little respite, because he is but a stranger
to me, but well known to divers in the town.2  He was Mr. Simond's
pupil. I purpose to send up ~10 for my A. B. if I can hear of any
fit party; if not, you should receive some money of your uncle Downing for Mr. John Brande. Lay out ~10 of that, and I will restore it,
for I have the money by me.     Be not known to any body of any
money you receive for Mr. Brande; but fail not to write me word this
week of the receipt of it. You may speak to your uncle about it, lest
he should forget it. Mr. Rogers hath set forth a little book of faith.
Buy it. I want a pair of plain, ordinary knives, and some leaf tobacco
and pipes. You may buy these things at your leisure; as likewise
some packthread and lines, hemp ones, if you will. Your grandmother
1 He was afterwards settled there. The name was William Leigh. I have had
a letter of 13 May, 1628, from him at Groton "to the worshipful, his most loving
patron, John Winthrop, Esq., at London," announcing the birth of a son, and his
baptism, by the name of John, on Sunday preceding, at which Mrs. Winthrop, our
governour's wife, stood godmother. He was son of Ralph, and married Eliz. Newton, daughter of a fellow of St. Johns, Cambridge, and a preacher at Bury St. Edmunds. Of another William Leigh, fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge, Calamy
says, he was " a serious, single-hearted man, of good abilities, very laborious in the
work of the ministry; one of the classis of Manchester. He was grievously afflicted
with the stone, which at last cut him off in 1664, about fifty years of age. He wrote
an English elegy on the death of Dr. Samuel Bolton, and one in Latin on the death
of Mr. Bright of Emanuel."
2 The writer was patron of the living, which was in the diocese of Norwich, of which
Harsnet was Bishop.




416                       APPENDIX.
and mother salute and bless you. The good Lord bless you ever.
Farewell.
Your loving father,
JOHN WINTHROP.
January 9, 1626.
I should have sent up some fowls this week, if they had been fat.
To my loving Son, JOHN WINTHROP, at the Rouse 
of Mr. Downing, at the Sign of the Bishop, over
against the Conduit, in Fleet street, London, d'cld.
A. 13.
MY GOOD SON,
I received your letter from Gravesend, and do bless God for your
safe arrival there; but I heard not from you since, which I impute to
the sudden departure of your captain out of the Downs upon the duke's
coming thither. But I hope to hear from you soon, for I long to understand how you fare, and what entertainment you find with your captain,
that accordingly I may be stirred up to prayer for you, and to bless
God for his mercies towards you. I know not what further advice to
give you, than you have already received, and your own observation,
upon occasion, shall direct you. Only be careful to seek the Lord in
the first place, and with all earnestness, as he who is only able to keep
you in all perils, and to give you favor in the sight of those, who may be
instruments of your welfare; and account it a great point of wisdom, to
keep diligent watch over yourself, that you may neither be infected by the
evil conversation of any, that you may be forced to converse with, neither that your own speech or behavior be any just occasion to hurt or
ensnare you. Be not rash, upon ostentation of valor, to adventure yourself
to unnecessary dangers; but, if you be lawfully called, let it appear, that
you hold your life for him, who gave it you, and will preserve it unto
the farthest period of his own holy decree. For you may be resolved,
that, while you keep in your way, all the cannons or enemies in the
world shall not be able to shorten your days one minute. For my part,
as a father, who desires your welfare as mine own, I cease not daily to
commend you to God, beseeching him to preserve, prosper, and bless
you, that I may receive you again in peace, and have assurance of enjoying you in a better life, when your course here shall be finished.
Your friends here (I praise God) are all in health, and are daily mindful of you. Let me hear from you so soon and oft as you may con



APPENDIX.                           417
veniently.  Remember my love and service to your good captain. The
Lord bless you ever.  So I rest
Your loving father,
JO. WINTHROP.
LONDON, June 6, 1627.
To my loving Son, JOHN WINTHROP, attending l
upon Capt. Best, in his Mlajesty's Ship the
Due Repulse, at Portsmouth, dld.
[The Duke of Buckingham sailed from Portsmouth 27 June.]
A. 14.
MINE OWN DEAR HEART,
I praise God, we are all in health at Chelmsford this morning. My
son F. came to us last night about ten of the clock. Our two boys are
lusty travellers, and God's providence hath fitted them with so good
means for their carriage, as we could not desire better. I thank thee
for thy kind tokens. I have nothing to return thee but love and prayers for thee and thine. The blessing of the Lord be upon thee and
them. 3My son Hen. must go by Maplested.1 Pray him to call to my
brother Tindale 2 for ~100, and bring it with him. It is in gold.  Send
John Hardinge when thou wilt.   Commend us to all our friends, broth.
G. and sister, Mr. Leigh, goodwife Cole, all at Castleins, and all that
love us. We all here salute you all. You must divide it at leisure,
with my love and blessing to all our children and the rest in our family.
Farewell, my sweet wife, and be of good comfort.   The Lord is with
us.  He hath sent his servants to bless us, and we shall be blessed.
Kiss me, my sweet wife. Farewell.
Thy faithful husband,
JO. WINTHROP.
This Saturday morning.
Nov. 1627. To Mrs. MARG. WINTHROP,,
at Groton, wiith haste.  S
1 Soon after this letter Henry went to Virginia.
2 Sir John Tindal, a master in chancery, was, probably, the father of this gentleman and of Gov. Winthrop's third wife. He was assassinated 12 November, 1616,
for making a report against a suitor, in a cause of comparatively trifling amount.
The murderer was examined 16 November, and the next day hanged himself in
prison. See the Works of Bacon, Lord Chancellor, V. 452-455, and VI. 133.




418                       APPENDIX.
A. 15.
MOST DEAR AND LOVING HUSBAND,
I cannot express my love to you, as I desire, in these poor, lifeless
lines; but I do heartily wish you did see my heart, how true and
faithful it is to you, and how much I do desire to be always with you,
to enjoy the sweet comfort of your presence, and those helps from you
in spiritual and temporal duties, which I am so unfit to perform without
you. It makes me to see the want of you, and wish myself with you.
But I desire we may be guided by God in all our ways, who is able to
direct us for the best; and so I will wait upon him with patience, who
is all-sufficient for me. I shall not need to write much to you at this
time. My brother Gostling can tell you any thing by word of mouth.
I praise God, we are all here in health, as you left us, and are glad to
hear the same of you and all the rest of our friends at London. My
mother and myself remember our best love to you, and all the rest.
Our children remember their duty to you. And thus, desiring to be
remembered in your prayers, I bid my good husband good night.
Little Samuel thinks it is time for me to go to bed; and so I beseech
the Lord to keep you in safety, and us all here. Farewell, my sweet
husband.
Your obedient wife,
MARGARET WINTHROP.
[Probably late in 1627, because "Little Samuel" was born in August of that year.]
A. 16.
LOVING SON,
I received your letter, and I bless God for your welfare, begging of
him daily, that your soul may prosper as your body doth; and if this
care be in your heart, (as I hope it is,) you shall do well, for this rule
God hath set us to walk by, - first to seek the kingdom of heaven, then
will he see to us for other things. So as I dare avouch it for infallible
truth, that he who doth otherwise takes a preposterous course to happiness, and shall not prosper. Should not a man trust his Maker, and
rest upon the counsel of his Father, before all other things? Should
not the promise of the holy Lord, the God of truth, be believed above
all carnal, false fears and shallow ways of human wisdom? It is just
with God to harden men's hearts in their distrust of his faithfulness,
because they dare not rely upon him. But such as will roll their ways




APPENDIX.                         419
upon the Lord, do find him always as good as his word. I bless his
name, we all continue in health, and this day I expect your brother
from Cambridge. I wish you could meet with some safe means to send
to your brother Henry. I have found two sturdy youths, that would
go to him. If Capt. Powell return not soon, I shall fear he hath miscarried, and then shall we see God's providence, that your brother
returned not with him.
I cannot come up till the week after Easter; but you may know Mr.
Featherstone's resolution in the mean time.  I pray, inquire how
things go in the parliament, and write to me of them; but things
which are doubtful, let pass. If the commission for the navy be dissolved, what employment hath your captain then? for it seems he was
lately put into it. When you see him or her, commend me kindly to
them.
We want a little tobacco. I had very good, for seven shillings a
pound, at a grocer's, by Holburn Bridge. There be two shops together.
It was at that which is farthest from the bridge, towards the Conduit.
If you tell him, it is for him that bought half a pound of Verina and a
pound of Virginia of him last term, he will use you well. Send me
half a pound of Virginia. I would gladly hear of a chamber in the
Temple, or in some other convenient place;- for that I have is much too
dear.
I have many letters to write: therefore I end; and, with my love
and blessing to you, I commend you to the protection and good government of the Lord, and rest
Your loving father,
JO. WINTHROP.
Mlarch 18, 1627.
I think to send my brother Downing a greyhound.
To my loving Son, JOHN WINTHROP, at the House )
of Mr. Downing, near the Conduit, in Fleet Street,
London, d'd.                        )
A. 17.
SON JOHN,
I received your letter and the books you sent, for which I do thank
you. I bless God for the continuance of your health and welfare,
which, through his mercy, we all here also enjoy; only myself have a
sore hand, which makes me that I cannot write. For the note, which
you mentioned in your letter, I received it not. I desire to hear from




420                       APPENDIX.
you concerning TMr. Featherstone's resolution, and whether you have
inquired out a chamber for me, or else to take order, that I may have
that I had before. I pray send me down six of Mr. Egerton's cattle.
For the stuff for the gowns, you may buy it of some olive color, or such
like. Either let there be several colors, or else the velvet for the capes
of several colors. Remember us all to your uncles and aunts and the
rest of our friends. Pray your uncle Downing to send me an answer
of my last week's letter, and thank your aunt Downing for her kind
love and prayers, and excuse my not writing to them all, for my hand
is so as I am not able. Your grandmother and mother salute and bless
you. So, with my love and blessing to you, I commend you to the
protection, direction, and good providence of our heavenly Father, and
rest
Your loving father,
JOHN WINTHROP.
March 31, 1628.
To ny very lovin ASon, JOHN WINTHROP, 
d'd, London.
A. 18.
SON JOHN,
I received your letter, with the things you sent. I do praise God for
the continuance of your health and welfare. For myself, my hand is
so ill as I know not when I shall be able to travel. It hath pleased
God to make it a sharp affliction to me. I hope he will dispose it for
my good, and, in his due time, send me deliverance. For your journey
intended, seeing you have a resolution to go to sea, I know not where
you should go with such religious company, and under such hope of
blessing; only I am loath you should think of settling there, as yet, but
to be going and coming are best, and afterward to do as God shall offer
occasion. You may adventure somewhat in the plantation at the present, and hereafter more, as God shall give enlargement. If Mr. Featherstone will not deal, I will look no further; but your uncle Fones shall
have it, and the odd ~50 may be for your occasions. Commend me
heartily to all your uncles and aunts. Desire them to be mindful of
me in their prayers. Thank your aunt Downing for her kind letter.
Tell her I see she now means to work upon the advantage in setting
me upon the score for letters when I want my hand to free myself.
Put your uncle Downing in mind again of my chamber, and tell him,
that this day my brother Gostling and another shall go about the busi



APPENDIX.                         421
ness he did write of. Tell him also, that Peter Alston is dead. Commend me to Edward, and desire him to get me out a privy seal against
John Carver, Clarcke and Eliza his wife, at the suit of Mr. Attorney,
on the behalf of Thomas Foule. In the business concerning your voyage,1 I pray be advised by your uncle and other your worthy friends,
who are experienced in these affairs; but, above all, seek direction and
blessing from God. And so, being forced to use another's pen, so as I
am not at that freedom to write as I would, I end; and, with your
grandmother's and mother's salutation and blessing unto you, I commend you to the gracious providence, direction, and rich blessing of the
Almighty. Farewell.
Your loving father,
JOHN WINTHROP.
April 7, 1628.
As soon as I am able to stir about the house, I will look out those
geometrical instruments and books, and send them unto you, and any
thing else that you will write for.
To his lovin Son, Mr. JouIN WINTZIROP, at 1Mr. 
Fones's House in the Old Bailey, London, d'd. 
A. 19.
MY MOST SWEET HUSBAND,
How dearly welcome thy kind letter was to me, I am not able to express. The sweetness of it did much refresh me. What can be more
pleasing to a wife, than to hear of the welfare of her best beloved, and
how he is pleased with her poor endeavors! I blush to hear myself
commended, knowing my own wants. But it is your love that conceives
the best, and makes all things seem better than they are. I wish that
I may be always pleasing to thee, and that those comforts we have in
each other may be daily increased, as far as they be pleasing to God.
I will use that speech to thee, that Abigail did to David, I will be a servant to wash the feet of my lord. I will do any service wherein I may
please my good husband. I confess I cannot do enough for thee; but
thou art pleased to accept the will for the deed, and rest contented.
I have many reasons to make me love thee, whereof I will name two:
First, because thou lovest God; and, secondly, because that thou lovest
me. If these two were wanting, all the rest would be eclipsed. But I
1 To Turkey.
VOL. I.                     36




422                        APPENDIX.
must leave this discourse, and go about my household affairs. I am a
bad housewife to be so long from them; but I must needs borrow a little time to talk with thee, my sweet heart. The term is more than half
done. I hope thy business draws to an end. It will be but two or
three weeks before I see thee, though they be long ones. God will
bring us together in his good time; for which time I shall pray. I
thank the Lord, we are all in health. We are very glad to hear so
good news of our son Henry. The Lord make us thankful for all his
mercies to us and ours. And thus, with my mother's and my own best
love to yourself and all the rest, I shall leave scribbling. The weather
being cold, makes me make haste. Farewell, my good husband; the
Lord keep thee.
Your obedient wife,
MARGARET WINTHROP.
GROTON, November 22.1
I have not yet received the box; but I will send for it. I send
up a turkey and some cheese. I pray send my son Forth such a
knife as mine is. Mrs. Hugen would pray you to buy a cake for
the boys.
I did dine at Groton Hall yesterday; they are in health, and remember their love. We did wish you there, but that would not bring you,
and I could not be merry without thee. Mr. Lee and his wife were
there; they remember their love. Our neighbor Cole and goodman
Newton have been sick, but somewhat amended again. I fear thy
cheese will not prove so good as thou didst expect. I have sent it all,
for we could not cut it.
A. 20.
RIGHT HONORABLE,
After the exhibition of my service to your lordship and my lady, I
crave pardon, if these rude lines presume to kiss your honor's hands.
My duty and respect to your honor urgeth me to give some testimony
thereof; and your noble favors have obliged me to present this as a
small earnest of my thankfulness, and the service which I owe, and desire to perform, whensoever your lordship shall please to command.
1 It might seem as early as 1621 or 2, before the death of Adam, lord of the
manor of Groton; but the mention of Lee, or Leigh, would certainly make it as late
as 1627, and the news from Henry must make it 1628.




APPENDIX.                         423
Here is no news worth your honor's intelligence. We are this day setting sail from the Castles. So, wishing your honor a happy beginning,
and prosperous continuance of this new year, and many more to succeed, I humbly take my leave, resting, etc.
CASTLES OF HELLESPONT, Decemnber 26, 1628.
[The above is a rough draught of a letter " To Sir Peter Wich, Lord Ambassador
at Constantinople," found among papers of John Winthrop, jun. The same paper
contains, in cypher, probably the same words. It is mentioned, that he was sailing
"for Venice," which words are erased, that fact being known to his correspondent.
The writer had, no doubt, accompanied this very celebrated minister, either as secretary of legation, or private secretary; most likely the latter. He was now on his
return to England.
A. 21.
SON HENRY,
It is my daily care to commend you to the Lord, that he would please
to put his true fear into your heart, and the faith of the Lord Jesus
Christ, that you may be saved, and that your ways may be pleasing in
his sight. I wish also your outward prosperity, so far as may be for
your good. I have been sick, these seven or eight weeks, near unto
death; but the Lord hath had mercy on me to restore me; yet I am
not able to go abroad.
I sent you by Capt. Powell a letter, and in it a note of such things as
I likewise sent you by him, in a chest with two locks, whereof the keys
were delivered to his brother, who went master of the ship. The things
cost me about ~35; but, as yet, I have received nothing towards it. I
sent divers times to Capt. Powell about your tobacco, but my man could
never see it, but had answer, I should have it, or money for it. But
there was ten pounds of it, by your appointment, to be delivered to one
and the worth of four paid to another, which made me that I knew not
what course to take; besides, I found, by the rolls you sent to me and
to your uncles, that it was very ill-conditioned, foul, and full of stalks,
and evil colored; and your uncle Fones, taking the judgment of divers
grocers, none of them would give five shillings a pounds for it. I
desired Capt. Powell, (coming one day to see me,) that he would help
me with money for it, which he promised to do; but, as yet, I hear not
from him. I would have sent you some other things by Mr. Randall;
but, in truth, I have no money, and I am so far in debt already, to both
your uncles, as I am ashamed to borrow any more. I have disbursed a




424                       APPENDIX.
great deal of money for you, more than my estate will bear. I paid for
your debts since you went, above ~30, besides ~4.10s. to Annett and
Dixon, and now ~35. Except you send commodity to raise money, I
can supply you no further. I have many other children that are unprovided for, and I see my life is uncertain. I marvel at your great undertakings, having no means, and knowing how much I am in debt already.
Solomon saith, He who hasteth to be rich, shall surely come to poverty.
It had been more wisdom and better becoming your youth, to have contained yourself in a moderate course, for your three years; and by that
time, by your own gettings and my help, you might have been able to
have done somewhat. But this hath been always the fruit of your vain,
overreaching mind, which will be your overthrow, if you attain not more
discretion and moderation with your years. I do wonder upon what
ground you should be led into so gross an error as to think, that I could
provide ten such men as you write for, and disburse a matter of ~200,
(when I owe more already than I am able to pay, without sale of my
land,) and to do this at some two or three months' warning. Well, I will
write no more of these things. I pray God, make you more wise and
sober, and bring you home in peace in his due time. If I receive money
for your tobacco before Ir. Randall go, I will send you something else;
otherwise you must be content to stay till I can. Your brother (as I
wrote to you) hath been in the Levant above this half year, and I look not
for him before a year more. Your friends here are all in health. Your
uncles and aunts commend them to you; but they will take none of your
tobacco; only your uncle Tindale and aunt (whom you write your kinswoman upon the outside of your tobacco) thank you for theirs. I sent
you, also, two boys, (for men I could get none,) such as Capt. Powell
carried over; but I knew not what to do for their binding, being not able
then either to walk or write, and they being but youths. For news,
here is little but what, I suppose, this bearer can tell you. We shall
have peace with France. The Dutch have taken from the Spaniard, in
the West Indies, a very great prize of silver, gold, etc., and have brought
it safe home. The king of Bohemia, and his oldest son, going aboard
to see it, in their return were cast away. The king was saved, but the
prince and many others were lost.
Sir Nathaniel Barnardiston,' and Sir William Springe, are knights of
the parliament for Suffolk. All the gentlemen have been long since set
1 He was returned again, on the popular side, with Sir Philip Parker, in the great
reformation parliament of 1640.




APPENDIX.                          425
at liberty. Sir Francis Barrington is at rest in the Lord.  Sir Henry
Mildmay, of Graces, is sheriff of Essex, and Mr. Gurdon for Suffolk.
I have staid sending my letter above a week since I wrote it, expecting some money from Capt. Powell, according to his promise, that I
might have sent you some other things; but I hear of none. Therefore
I will end, and defer till some other occasion. So, again, I commend
you to the blessing, protection, and direction of the Lord, and rest
Your loving father,
JO. WINTHROP.
LONDON, this 30 of January, 1628.1
A. 22.
iMY GOOD SISTER,
I have been too long silent to you, considering mine own consciousness of that great debt, which I owe you for your love and much kindness to me and mine. But, I assure you, it is not through want of
good will to you; but having many letters to write weekly, I take my
ease, to include you in my brother's.
I partake with you in that affliction,2 which it pleaseth the Lord still
to exercise you and my good brother in. I know God hath so fitted
and disposed your mind to bear troubles, as your friends may take the
less care for you in them. I-He shews you more love, in enabling you to
bear them comfortably, than you could apprehend in the freedom from
them.  Go on cheerfully, (my good sister,) let experience add more
confidence still to your patience. Peace shall come. There will be a
bed to rest in, large and easy enough for you both. It is preparing in
the lodging appointed for you in your Father's house. He that vouchsafeth to wipe the sweat from his disciples' feet, will not disdain to wipe
the tears from those tender, affectionate eyes. Because you have been
one of his mourners in the house of tribulation, you shall drink of the cup
of joy, and be clothed with the garment of gladness, in the kingdom of
1 This letter was addressed to Virginia, whither the young adventurer had gone
fourteen months before, and whence he was then on his voyage home.
2 Referring, no doubt, to the last sickness of her husband. Fones made his will 14
April, 1629, and died next day. It was proved at Doctors' Commons on 29. I-is
wife Priscilla and John Winthrop were named Excors. His son, Samuel, and
daughters Eliz. and Martha were to be, by directions therein, brought up by John
Winthrop, and -   White, Esq., of the Temple; and daughter Mary by her mother
Priscilla. All the children were minors.
36"




426                       APPENDIX.
his glory. The former things, and evil, will soon be passed; but the
good to come shall neither end nor change. Never man saw heaven,
but would have passed through hell to come at it. Let this suffice as a
test of my true love to you, and of the account I make of the happiness of your condition. I commend you to his good grace, who is allsufficient; and so, with my mother's, my wife's, and mine own salutation
to yourself, and my good brother, and all my cousins, I rest
Your loving brother,
JO. WINTHROP.
2fMarch 25, 1628.1
I pray remember my love to your brother, Mr. Burgesse.
I pray tell my brother, that his tenant Gage desires him to forbear
him ~10 till Whitsuntide.
To my very loving Sister, Mrs. FONES, at her }
THouse in the Old Bailey, Londoi, d'cl.
A. 23.
[The date of this letter is, by probable conjecture, as late as 1629.]
MY GOOD WIFE,
I wrote to thee this week by Roger Mather, but shall expect no
other letter from thee, because of thy journey to Maplested, from
whence I hope thou art safely returned. Blessed be the Lord, our
good God, who watcheth over us in all our ways to do us good, and to
comfort us with his manifold blessings, not taking occasion by our sins
to punish us as we deserve. Through his mercy it is, that I continue
in health, and that, to my great joy, I hear well of thee and our family.
The Lord teach us the right use of all his blessings, and so temper our
affections towards the good things of this life, as our greatest joy may
be, that our names are in the book of life, that we have the good will of
our heavenly Father, that Christ Jesus is ours, and that by him we
have right to all things. Then, come what will, we may have joy and
confidence.
My sweet wife, -I am sorry that I cannot now appoint the time, that
I hope to return, which cannot be the next week; though, it is like, my
1 This was, certainly, the old year, but written by mistake. No doubt it was the
first day of 1629, by the lawful mode of reckoning.




APPENDIX.                           427
sister Fones,1 or some of her company, will come down then; but you
shall hear more the beginning of next week.
For news I have but one to write of, but that will be more welcome to thee than a great deal of other. M1y office is gone, and
m y chamber, and I shall be a saver in them   both. So, as I hope,
we shall now enjoy each other again, as we desire. The Lord
C   teach us to improve our time and society to more use for our mutual comfort, and the good of our family, etc., than before. It is now
bed time; but I must lie alone; therefore I make less haste. Yet I
must kiss my sweet wife; and so, with my blessing to our children, and
salutation to all our friends, I commend thee to the grace and blessing
of the Lord, and rest
Thy faithful husband,
JO. WINTHROP.
3My brother D. and sister, and sister F. commend them to thee.
To is very loving wife, Mr. WVINTHROP, 
at her Hoase in Groton.
A. 24.
MY G00nD WlFt,
Although I wrote to thee last week by the carrier of Hadleigh, yet,
having so fit opportunity, I must needs write to thee again; for I do
esteem one little, sweet, short letter of thine (such as the last was) to be
well worthy two or three from me. How it is with us, these bearers
can inform thee, so as I may write the less. They were married on
Saturday last, and intend to stay with thee till towards the end of the
term; for it will be yet six weeks before they can take their voyage.2
Labor to keep my son at home as much as thou canst, especially from
Hadleigh."  I began this letter to thee yesterday at two of the clock,
1 Thomas Fones, Apothecary at the Three Fawns, Old Bailey, married 20 Feb.
1604, Anna, sister of the author. She died 16 May, 1619, and he took another wife,
28 August, 1621, and died 15 April, 1629.
2 From this it is evident, that Henry, who had married his cousin, Eliz. Fones, on
25 April, 1629, designed to return to Virginia, with his new wife. His views,
probably, were changed by want of funds, and before the year ended, he undertook
with his fath r the New England scheme of colonization.
3 The nearest market town on the east, as Sudbury was on the west. Each five or
six miles from Groton.




428                       APPENDIX.
thinking to have been large, but was so taken up by company and
business, as I could get but hither by this morning. It grieves me that
I have not liberty to make better expression of my love to thee, who art
more dear to me than all earthly things; but I will endeavor that my
prayers may supply the defect of my pen, which will be of best use to
us both, inasmuch as the favor and blessing of our God is better than all
things besides. My trust is in his mercy, that, upon the faith of his
gracious promise, and the experience of his fatherly goodness, he will be
our God to the end, to carry us along through this course of our pilgrimage, in the peace of a good conscience, and that, in the end of our race,
we shall safely arrive at the haven of eternal happiness. We see how
frail and vain all earthly good things are.' There is no means to avoid
the loss of them in death, nor the bitterness which accompanyeth them
in the cares and troubles of this life. Only the fruition of Jesus Christ
and the hope of heaven can give us true comfort and rest. The Lord
teach us wisdom to prepare for our change, and to lay up our treasure
there, where our abiding must be forever. I know thou lookest for
troubles here, and, when one affliction is over, to meet with another;
but remember what our Saviour tells us: BE OF GOOD COMFORT, I
HAVE OVERCOME THE WORLD. See his goodness; He hath conquered
our enemies beforehand, and, by faith in him, we shall assuredly prevail
over them all. Therefore, (my sweet wife,) raise up thy heart, and be
not dismayed at the crosses thou meetest with in family affairs or otherwise; but still fly to him, who will take up thy burden for thee. Go
thou on cheerfully, in obedience to his holy will, in the course he hath
set thee. Peace shall come. Thou shalt rest as in thy bed; and, in
the mean time, he will not fail nor forsake thee. But my time is past;
I must leave thee. So I commend thee and all thine to the gracious
protection and blessing of the Lord. All our friends here salute thee;
salute thou ours from me. Farewell, my good wife. I kiss and love
thee with the kindest affection, and rest
Thy faithful husband,
JO. WINTHRO P.
Apr-il 28, 1629.
Let John Bluet 2 be satisfied for his horse.
1 His wife had, no doubt, written to him of the death of his mother a few days
before.
2 He was, two years before, steward of the manor of Groton, of which Winthrop
was lord, after his father's death.




APPENDIX.                         429
A. 25.
The largeness and truth of my love to thee makes me always mindful of thy welfare, and set me on work to begin to write before I hear
from thee. The very thought of thee affords me many a kind refreshing: What will then the enjoying of thy sweet society, which I prize
above all worldly comforts?
Yet, such is the fblly and misery of man, as he is easily brought to
contemn the true good he enjoys, and to neglect the best things, which
he holds only in hope, and both upon an ungrounded desire of some
seeming good, which he promiseth to himself. And if it be thus with
us, that are Christians, who have a sure word to direct us, and the holy
faith to live by, what is the madness and bondage of those, who are out
of Christ? Oh i the riches of Christ! Oh! the sweetness of the word
of grace  It ravishethl my soul in the thought hereof, so as, when I apprehend but a glimpse of the dignity and felicity of a Christian, I can
hardly persuade my heart to hope for so great happiness. Let men
talk what they will of riches, honors, pleasures, etc.; let us have Christ
crucified, and let them take all besides. For, indeed, he who hath
Christ, hath all things with him; for he enjoyeth an all-sufficiency,
which makes him abundantly rich in poverty, honorable in the lowest
abasements, full of joy and consolation in the sharpest afflictions, living
in death, and possessing eternity in this vale of misery. Therefore
bless we God for his free and infinite mercy, in bestowing Christ upon
us. Let us entertain and love him with our whole hearts; let us trust
in him, and cleave to him with denial of ourselves, and all things besides,and account our portion the best in the world; that so, being
strengthened and comforted in his love, we may put forth ourselves to
improve our life and means to do him service. There are very few
hours left of this day of our labor: then comes the night, when we
shall take our rest. In the morning we shall awake unto glory and immortality, when we shall have no more work to do; no more pain or
grief to endure; no more care, fear, want, reproach, or infirmity; no
more sin, corruption, or temptation.
I am forced to patch up my letters, here a piece and there another.
I have now received thine, the kindly fruits of thy most sweet affections.  Blessed be the Lord for the welfare of thyself and all our
family.
I received letters from my two sons with thee. Remember my love
and blessing to them, and to my daughter Winthrop, for whose safety I
give the Lord thanks. I have so many letters to write, as I cannot




430                       APPENDIX.
write to them now. Our friends here are in reasonable health, and desire to be kindly remembered to you all. Commend me to all my good
friends, my loving neighbors, goodman Cole, and his wife, to whom we
are always much beholden. I will remember M —      her gown and
petticoat, and the children's girdles. So, with my most affectionate
desires of thy welfare, and my blessing to all our children, I kiss my
sweet wife, and commend thee and all ours to the gracious protection of
our heavenly Father, and rest
Thy faithful husband,
still present with thee in his most unkind absence,
JO. WINTHROP.
1fity 8, 1629.
I am sorry for my neighbor Bluet's horse; but he shall lose nothing
by him. Tell my son Henry I will pay the money he writes of.
A. 26.
MOST LOVING AND GOOD HUSBAND,
I have received your letters. - The true tokens of your love and care
of my good, now in your absence, as well as when you are present,
make me think that saying false, Out of sight out of mind. I am sure
my heart and thoughts are always near you, to do you good and not
evil all the days of my life.
I hope, through God's blessing, your pains will not be altogether lost,
which you bestow upon me in writing. Those serious thoughts of your
own, which you sent me, did make a very good supply instead of a sermon. I shall often read them, and desire to be of God's family, to
whom so many blessings belong, and pray that I may not be one separated from God, whose conscience is always accusing them. I shall not
need to write to you of any thing this week. My son and brother
Gostling can tell you how we are. And I shall think long for your
coming home. And thus, with my best love to you, I beseech the Lord
to send us a comfortable meeting in his good time. I commit you to the
Lord.
Your loving and obedient wife,
MARGARET WINTHROP.
For my very loving Husband, JOHN WINTHROP, Esq., l
these deliver.
[Probably in May, 1629.]




APPENDIX.                         431
A. 27.
MY SWEET HUSBAND,
I rejoice in the expectation of our happy meeting; for thy absence
hath been very long in my conceit, and thy presence much desired.
Thy welcome is always ready; make haste to entertain it.
I was yesterday at a meeting at goodman Cole's, upon the going of
the young folk to Dedham, where many thanks were given to God for
the reformation of the young man, and amendment of his life. We
had also a part in their prayers. My dear husband, I will now leave
writing to thee, hoping to see thee shortly. The good Lord send us a
comfortable meeting. And thus, with my due respect to thyself, brother
and sister D., sister Fanny,1 son John, and the rest. MAy daughter
remembers her duty to you all; thinks long for her husband. I received
the things you sent, and thank you heartily for them. I will take order
with my man to buy some trimming for my gown. And so I bid my
good husband farewell, and commit him to the Lord.
Your loving and obedient wife,
MARGARET WINTHRC P.
I pray buy a Psalter for Deane.2  I can get none here.
To my very loving Husband \
these deliver. 
[Probably, 1629.]
A. 28.
SIIR,
My humble duty remembered to you and my mother, may you please
to understand, that I received your letters, that by William Ridley on
Wednesday, and your other yesterday, rejoicing much to hear of your
welfare, with the rest of our good friends, which I desire much with my
own eyes to behold. Therefore I purpose, God willing, to make all
haste down the next week, hoping to accept of Mr. Gurdon's kind offer,
if I can. For the business of New England, I can say no other thing,
but that I believe confidently, that the whole disposition thereof is of
the Lord, who disposeth all alterations, by his blessed will, to his own
1 Perhaps I mistook this name for Fones.
2 He was baptized 23 March, 1622-3.




432                          APPENDIX.
glory and the good of his; and, therefore, do assure myself, that all
things shall work together for the best therein.  And for myself, I have
seen so much of the vanity of the world, that I esteem no more of the
diversities of countries, than as so many inns, whereof the traveller
that hath lodged in the best, or in the worst, findeth no difference, when
he cometh to his journey's end; and I shall call that my country, where
I may most glorify God, and enjoy the presence of my dearest friends.
Therefore herein I submit myself to God's will and yours, and, with
your leave, do dedicate myself (laying by all desire of other employments whatsoever) to the service of God and the company herein, with
the whole endeavors, both of body and mind.        The CONCLUSIONS,
which you sent down, I showed my uncle and aunt, who like them well.
I think they are unanswerable; and it cannot but be a prosperous action, which is so well allowed by the judgments of God's prophets,
undertaken by so religious and wise worthies of Israel, and intended to
God's glory in so special a service.  My aunt Goulding remembereth
her love to you.   She saith, it is not yet discharged, that she knoweth.
Here is certain news, that the Dutch have taken Wesel.      So, desiring
your prayers and blessing, I commend you to the Almighty's protection,
and rest
Your obedient son,
JOHN WINTHROP.
LONDON, August 21, 1629.
I pray remember my love to my brothers and sisters and all our
friends, whom I hope shortly to see.
The father's letters, referred to by the son, are not preserved. From our own Colony Records we know, that, on 28 July preceding, at the meeting, or general court
of the company, in London, Gov. Cradock proposed, that, for the advancement of
the plantation, the inducing persons of worth and quality to transplant themselves
and families thither, and other weighty reasons, to transfer the government to those
who shall inhabit there, and not continue the same subordinate to the company here.
Prince, I. 189, 190; and see page 2, note 2. At the meeting, Aug. 28, a special committee was raised to debate this subject, pro and con, and, the next day, the resolution
was adopted, the benefit of which has been felt every day from that to the present.
The CoxCLUSIONs spoken of by the son were, no doubt, a paper of considerations for
the plantation, with an answer to several objections, printed in Hutchinson's Coll.
27-31, probably drawn by our author. I have had in my possession the larger part
of the original in the well known hand of the elder Gov. Winthrop. -That draft of
considerations was published, Mr. Felt says, Ann. I. 69, by Higginson before he embarked; which I regard as extremely improbable, for H. had enough to do between
the latter part of March, when he proposed to come over in the employment of the
Governour and company, he then living in the centre of England, and 25 April,
when with his large family he embarked. Very apparent is the connexion between




APPENDIX.                           433
A. 29.
MYv DEAR P WTIFE,
I praise the Lord that I hear of thy welfare, and of the rest of our
family. I thank thee for thy most kind letter, and especially that sweet
affection, from whence it flows. I am  sorry I cannot come down to
thee, as I hoped; but there is no remedy.  The Lord so disposeth as I
must stay yet (I doubt) a fortnight, but, assure thyself, not one day
more than I must needs.
I pray thee have patience.  God, in his due time, will bring us together in peace. We are now agreed with the merchants, and stay
only to settle our affairs. I have not one quarter of an hour's time to
write to thee. Therefore thou must bear with me, and supply all defects of remembrances. The Lord bless thee, my sweet wife, and all
ours. Farewell.
Thy faithful husband,
JO. WINTHROP.
Send not up my horses till I send for them.
October.
[Early in the month, and, no doubt, 1629.]
A. 30.
SON,
I received your letter, and do heartily bless the Lord for the continuance of your welfare, beseeching him to sanctify you more and more,
for his glory and your own salvation.
For the business you write of concerning your brother, I have conferred with him, and shall be as glad as any of his stay here, if he can
take any good order for his estate there. What he will do, I know not
yet; but I think he will be with you soon. I would gladly have you
this paper and the compact for emigration by a powerful company. Had so valuable a document been published more than four months prior to that meeting, we
should have some reference to the fact, at least, if not to the convincing argument of
the writer. An agreement to transport themselves and families to New Englanc,
was, on the Wednesday after this letter, made at Cambridge, by Sir Richard Saltonstall, Thomas Dudley, William Vassall, Nich. West, Isaac Johnson, John Humfrey,
Thomas Sharp, Increase Nowell, John Winthrop, William Pynchon, Kellam
Browne, William Colburn, which may be seen in Hutchinson's Coll. 25, or in
Young's Chron. of Mass. 281.
VOL. i.                    37




434                       APPENDIX.
here betimes next week; but, being it will be Monday sennight before
we shall get forth of town, it will be chargeable to keep all the horses
here so long. Therefore, if you can find any company to come up
with, you may be here on Tuesday or Wednesday; otherwise, you may
stay a day or two the longer, and let John come with you; for I would
not have you ride alone. I have sent down all the late news from New
England. I would have some of you read it to your mother, and let
Forth copy out the observations and all that follows from the t, and
the letter in the end, and show it Mr. Mott and others, that intend this
voyage.1 Your uncle and aunts are all in health, and salute you and
the rest of ours, etc. Commend me to your uncle G. and a. and all the
rest of our loving friends, that ask of me. So, with my love and blessing to yourself, your brothers and sister, salutations to our young company, I end, and rest
Your loving father,
JO. WINTHROP.
October 9, 1629.
[To] his loving Son, JOHN WINTHROP, l
at Groton, Suffolk, d'd.  }
A. 31.
MY DEAR WIrE,
I must needs write to thee by this bearer, though I can write little,
in regard of my much business. I praise God, I came safe hither,
where I found all in health, and so (through his mercy) we continue.
I have sent down my horses, because I am like to stay somewhat longer
than I made account of; but I shall make what haste I can back.
Here is much news: Divers great personages questioned and committed; but the cause yet uncertain. St. Christopher's is taken by the
Spaniard, and the English there honestly sent home. The same is
reported of the Barbethes, but not so certain; but, if it be, the people
are all safe. Some would discourage us with this news; but there is
no cause, for neither are we in the like danger: and, besides, God is
with us, and will surely keep us. I shall take time to write to thee
again in the end of the week. So, for this time, with all our hearty
salutations to thyself, my good sister Fones, and the rest of our friends,
1 Probably this refers to the letters received a few days before from Higginson.
See Young's Chron. of Mass. 235 et seq.




APPENDIX.                         435
with my love and blessing to all our children, I commend thee to the
Lord.  So I kiss my sweet wife, and rest
Thy faithful husband,
JO. WINTHROP.
November 11, 1629.
My son remembers his duty to thee and his aunt,1 and love to all, etc.
To his very loving Wife, Mrs. WINTHROP I
the elder, at'Groton, SLftLolk, dcd.
A. 32.
MY DEAR WrIFE,
I have many things to thank thee for this week, - thy most kind letter, fowls, puddings, etc.; but I must first thank our heavenly Father,
that I hear of thy health and the welfare of all our family; for I was
in fear, because I left thee not well. But thus is the Lord pleased still
to declare his goodness and mercy to his unworthy servants. Oh that
we could learn to trust in him, and to love him as we ought!
For my care of thee and thine, I will say nothing. The Lord knows
my heart, that it was one great motive to draw me into this course.
The Lord prosper me in it, as I desire the prosperity of thee and thine.
For this end, I purpose to leave ~1500 with thy friends, if I can sell
my lands, which I am now about, but, as yet, have done nothing. I
purpose (if God will) to be at home the next week. I am forced to
keep John here for my business, which now comes so heavy upon me,
as I can spare no time for aught else. The Lord in mercy bring us
well through all our troubles, as I trust he will. Thou must bear with
my brevity. The Lord bless and keep thee, and all our children, and
company. So I kiss my sweet wife, and rest
Thy faithful husband,
JO. WINTHROP.
My brother and sister2 salute you all. Let the cow be killed against
I come home; and let my son HIenry provide such peas as will porridge
well, or else none.3
Janzuary 15, 1629.
1 Probably Pones, but it may be Gostlin. F. was a widow, but G. had her own
family, and was less likely to be on a visit to Groton Hall; as, we know, sister F.
was, by subsequent letters of both husband and wife, in January after.
2 Downing, I doubt not.
3 In preparation for his projected voyage, with his father, to New England.




436                       APPENDIX.
A. 33.
MY DEAR WVIFE,
I praise God, we came safe to London, and continue in health, and
found all well here. Thus it pleaseth the Lord to follow us with his
blessings, that we might love him again. I find here so much to do, as
I doubt I shall not come down these three weeks; but, thou mayest be
sure, I will stay no longer than my occasions shall enforce me.
I must now begin to prepare thee for our long parting, which grows
very near. I know not how to deal with thee by arguments; for if thou
wert as wise and patient as ever woman was, yet it must needs be a
great trial to thee, and the greater, because I am so dear to thee. That
which I must chiefly look at in thee, for a ground of contentment, is thy
godliness. If now the Lord be thy God, thou must show it by trusting
in him, and resigning thyself quietly to his good pleasure. If now Christ
be thy Husband, thou must show what sure and sweet intercourse is
between him and thy soul, when it shall be no hard thing for thee to part
with an earthly, mortal, infirm husband for his sake. The enlargement
of thy comfort in the communion of the love and sweet familiarity of thy
most holy, heavenly, and undefiled Lord and Husband, will abundantly
recompense whatsoever want or inconvenience may come by the absence
of the other. The best course is to turn all our reasons and discourse
into prayers; for he only can help, who is Lord of sea and land, and hath
sole power of life and death.
It is now near eleven of the clock, and I shall write again ere long
(if God will). The good Lord bless thee and all thy company. My
broth. and sister salute you all. Commend my hearty love to my good
sister F. and all the rest. Tell her I wrote to Mr. Dummer so soon as
I came to town; and, if I can, I will speak with him, before John go
down. So I kiss my sweet wife, and rest
Thy frail, yet faithful husband.
JO. WINTHROP.
January 31, 1629.
A. 34.
MY MIOST DEAR HusBAND,
I should not now omit any opportunity of writing to thee, considering
I shall not long have thee to write unto. But, by reason of my unfitness
at this time, I must entreat thee to accept of a few lines from me, and




APPENDIX.                          437
not to impute it to any want of love, or neglect of my duty to thee, to
whom I owe more than I shall ever be able to express. My request
now shall be to the Lord to prosper thee in thy voyage, and enable thee
and fit thee for it, and give all graces and gifts for such employments as
he shall call thee to. I trust God will once more bring us together
before you go, that we may see each other with gladness, and take
solemn leave, till we, through the goodness of our God, shall meet in
New England, which will be a joyful day to us. I send thee here
enclosed letters from Mr. P.  Miy good sister F. remembers her love
to you, and, it seemeth, hath written so earnestly to Mr. P. not to come,
that he doth forbear to come till he hear more. I think she would have
you send him word to come as soon as he can, being desirous to speak
with him before you go; but it must not come from herself, for she will
write to him to stay still.1 She saith, that he shall not need to provide
any thing but a house, for she will furnish it herself. And thus, with
my best wishes to God for thy health and welfare, I take my leave,
and rest
Thy faithful, obedient wife,
MARGARET WINTHROP.
January the last.
[The superscription of this letter, written, without doubt, 1629-30, is wanting.]
A. 35.
MY SWEET WIFE,
The opportunity of so fit a messenger, and my deep engagement of
affection to thee, makes me write at this time, though I hope to follow
soon after.  The Lord our God hath oft brought us together with comfort, when we have been long absent; and, if it be good for us, he will
do so still. When I was in Ireland, he brought us together again. When
I was sick here at London, he restored us together again. How many
dangers, near death, hast thou been in thyself! and yet the Lord hath
granted me to enjoy thee still. If he did not watch over us, we need
1 This coquetry of Priscilla, the widow of Fones, is agreeable enough. She soon
after married this gentleman, the Rev. Henry Painter, of Exeter, who had, I think,
been husband of the mother of Ursula Sherman, to whom Forth, the third son of the
governour, was betrothed. See 3 Mass. Hist. Coll. IX. 231, for a letter of Painter to
Winthrop's eldest son, just before embarking with his mother.
37*




438                       APPENDIX.
not go over sea to seek death or misery: we should meet it at every
step, in every journey. And is not he a God abroad as well as at home?
Is not his power and providence the same in New England that it hath
a  been in Old England?  If our ways please him, he can command?  deliverance and safety in all places, and can make the stones of the? field and the beasts, yea, the raging seas, and our very enemies, to
be in league with us. But, if we sin against him, he can raise up evil
against us out of our own bowels, houses, estates, etc. My good wife,
trust in the Lord, whom thou hast found faithful. He will be better
to thee than any husband, and will restore thee thy husband with
advantage. But I must end, with all our salutations, with which I have
laden this bearer, that he may be the more kindly welcome. So I kiss
my sweet wife, and bless thee and all ours, and rest
Thine ever,
JO. WINTHROP.
February 14, 1629.
Thou must be my valentine, for none hath challenged me.
To MARG. WINTHROP, the }
elder, at Groton.   i
A. 36.
MINE OWN SWEET SELF,
I bless God, our heavenly Father, we are all come safe to Maplested,
where we find all in health. I have nothing to write to thee, but an
expression of my dearest and most faithful affection to thee, and my
dear children and friends with thee. Be comfortable and courageous,
my sweet wife. Fear nothing. I am assured the Lord is with us, and
will be with thee. Thou shalt find it in the needful time. Cleave to
thy faithful Lord and Husband, Christ Jesus, into whose blessed arms I
have put thee, to whose care I have and do commend thee and all thine.
Once again I kiss and embrace my sweet wife. Farewell; the Lord
bless thee and all thy company. Commend me to all, and to all our
good friends and neighbors, and remember Monday and Friday between
five and six.
Thy faithful husband,
JO. WINTHROP.
My son Henry must come by Maplested to seal a writing, which I
left there.
To my very loving Wife, Mrs. WINTHROP, )
at Groton.           f
[Dated, probably, latter part of February, 1629-30.]




APPENDIX.                        439
A. 37.
LONDON, Marchc 2, 1629.
MBINE OWN DEAR HIEART,
I must confess, thou hast overcome me with thy exceeding great love,
and those abundant expressions of it in thy sweet letters, which savour
of more than an ordinary spirit of love and piety. Blessed be the Lord
our God, that gives strength and comfort to thee to undergo this great
trial, which, I must confess, would be too heavy for thee, if the Lord
did not put under his hand in so gracious a measure. Let this experience of his faithfulness to thee in this first trial, be a ground to establish
thy heart to believe and expect his help in all that may follow. It
grieveth me much, that I want time and freedom of mind to discourse
with thee (my faithful yokefellow) in those things, which thy sweet
letters offer me so plentiful occasion for. I beseech the Lord, I may
have liberty to supply it, ere I depart; for I cannot thus leave thee.
Our two boys and James Downing, John Samford and Mary M. and
most of my servants, are gone this day towards South Hampton. The
good Lord be with them and us all. Goodman Hawes was with me, and
very kindly offers to bring his wife to Groton about the beginning of
April, and so stay till thyself and my daughter 1 be in bed; so as thou
shalt not need take care for a midwife. Ah, my most kind and dear
wife, how sweet is thy love to me I The Lord bless thee and thine with
the blessings from above and from beneath, of the right hand and the
left, with plenty of favor and peace here, and eternal glory hereafter.
All here are in health, (I praise God,) and salute thee. Remember my
love and blessing to our children, and my salutations to all as thou
knowest. So I kiss and embrace thee, and rest
Thine ever,
JO. WINTHROP.
A. 38.
MINE ONLY BEST-BELOVED,
I now salute thee from South Hampton, where, by the Lord's mercy,
we are all safe; but the winds have been such as our ships are not yet
come. We wait upon God, hoping that he will dispose all for the best
1I suppose this was Henry's wife. Her daughter Martha was baptized, at Groton,
9 May following.




440                       APPENDIX.
unto us. I supposed I should have found leisure to have written more
fully to thee by this bearer; but here I meet with so much company
and business, as I am forced to borrow of my sleep for this. I purpose
to redeem this loss before I go hence, and to write to divers of my
friends. I must entreat thee to supply this defect by remembering me
in the kindest manner to them all. And now (my dear wife) what shall
I say to thee? I am full of matter and affection toward thee, but want
time to express it. I beseech the good Lord to take care of thee and
thine; to seal up his loving kindness to thy soul; to fill thee with the
sweet comfort of his presence, that may uphold thee in this time of
trial; and grant us this mercy, that we may see the faces of each other
again in the time expected. So, loving thee truly, and tender of thy
welfare, studying to bestow thee safe, where I may have thee again, I
leave thee in the arms of the Lord Jesus, our sweet Saviour, and, with
many kisses and embracings, I rest
Thine only, and ever thine,
JO. WINTHROP.
SOUTIH -HAMPTON, allarch 14, 1629.
The good Lord bless our children and all thy company.
Do thou bless these here, and pray pray for us.
Give Mrs. Leigh many thanks for her horse, and remember to
requite it.
A. 39.
MY IDEAR WIFE,
I wrote to thee, when I went from South Hampton, and now I must
salute thee and take leave together from the ship. God be blessed, the
wind is come very fair, and we are all in health. Our childrenl remember their duties and desire thy blessing. Commend me to all our good
friends, as I wrote in my former letter, and be comfortable, and trust in
the Lord, my dear wife, pray, pray. He is our God and Father; we
are in covenant with him, and he will not cast us off. So, this once
more, I kiss and embrace thee and all my children, etc., etc.
Thy faithful husband,
JO. WINTHROP.
From aboard the Arbelia, riding at 
the CowES, JMarch 22, 1629. 
1 Henry, and, probably, Stephen.




APPENDIX.                        441
A. 40.
MY GOOD SON,
We are now going to the ship, under the comfort of the Lord's
gracious protection and good providence. I pray have care so to walk
with God in faith and sincerity, as, by his blessing, we may meet with
joy. There is newly come into our company, and sworn an assistant,
one Sir Brian Janson of London, a man of good estate, and so affected
with our society, as he hath given ~50 to our common stock, and ~50 to
the joint stock. He desires to be acquainted with you.
I pray pay Bulbrooke of Wenham guch money as his provisions cost
him, about 30 or 40s. and receive ~12 of goodman Pond for the rest of
his son's two cows, (I had ~10 before,) and ask him for their passage
~10. You shall receive ~5 for Edward Palsford, which John S. hath
order for. I pray pay MIr. Goffe such money as you shall receive
direction for from your uncle Downing.
We are now come safe (I praise God) to the Cowes. The wind is
now very fair, (God be praised,) and we are preparing to set sail this
night. The Lord in mercy send us a prosperous voyage. Farewell,
my dear son. The Lord bless you and all my children and friends.
Commend me to them all, as if I named them; for I am in great straits
of leisure. So I rest
Your loving father,
JO. WINTHROP.
laffrch 22, 1629.
To m y very loving Son, Mr. JonN WINTIHROP, 1
ct Groton, Suffolk, cl'd.
A. 41.
MY FAITHFUL AND DEAR WVIFE,
It pleaseth God, that thou shouldst once again hear from me before
our departure, and I hope this shall come safe to thy hands. I know it
will be a great refreshing to thee. And blessed be his mercy, that I
can write thee so good news, that we are all in very good health, and,
having tried our ship's entertainment now more than a week, we find it
agree very well with us. Our boys are well and cheerful, and have no
mind of home. They lie both with me, and sleep as soundly in a rug




442                        APPENDIX.
(for we use no sheets here) as ever they did at Groton; and so I do
myself, (I praise God). The wind hath been against us this week and
more; but this day it is come fair to the north, so as we are preparing
(by God's assistance) to set sail in the morning. We have only four
ships ready, and some two or three Hollanders go along with us. The
rest of our fleet 1 (being seven ships) will not be ready this sennight.
We have spent now two Sabbaths on shipboard very comfortably, (God
be praised,) and are daily more and more encouraged to look for the
Lord's presence to go along with us. Henry Kingsbury hath a child or
two in the Talbot sick of the measles, but like to do well. One of my
men had them at Hampton, but he was soon well again. We are, in all
our eleven ships, about seven hundred persons, passengers, and two
hundred and forty cows, and about sixty horses. The ship, which went
from Plimouth, carried about one hundred and forty persons, and the
ship, which goes from Bristowe, carrieth about eighty persons.2  And
now (my sweet soul) I must once again take my last farewell of thee in
Old England. It goeth very near to my heart to leave thee; but I know
to whom I have committed thee, even to him who loves thee much better
than any husband can, who hath taken account of the hairs of thy head,
and puts all thy tears in his bottle, who can, and (if it be for his glory)
will bring us together again with peace and comfort.  Oh, how it
refresheth my heart, to think, that I shall yet again see thy sweet face
in the land of the living! - that lovely countenance, that I have so
much delighted in, and beheld with so great content! I have hitherto
been so taken up with business, as I could seldom look back to my
former happiness; but now, when I shall be at some leisure, I shall not
avoid the remembrance of thee, nor the grief for thy absence. Thou
hast thy share with me, but I hope the course we have agreed upon
will be some ease to us both. Mondays and Fridays, at five of the
clock at night, we shall meet in spirit till we meet in person. Yet, if
all these hopes should fail, blessed be our God, that we are assured we
shall meet one day, if not as husband and wife, yet in a better condition. Let that stay and comfort thy heart. Neither can the sea drown
thy husband, nor enemies destroy, nor any adversity deprive thee of thy
husband or children. Therefore I will only take thee now and my
sweet children in mine arms, and kiss and embrace you all, and so leave
you with my God. Farewell, farewell. I bless you all in the name of
1 See page 2.
2 The ship from Plymouth was the Mary and John, which carried Maverick, Warham, and Roger Clap. From Bristol came the Lion, William Pierce master.




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APPENDIX.                         443
the Lord Jesus. I salute my daughter Winth. Matt.1 Nan.2 and the
rest, and all my good neighbors and friends. Pray all for us. Farewell.  Commend my blessing to my son John. I cannot now write to
him; but tell him I have committed thee and thine to him. Labor to
draw him yet nearer to God, and he will be the surer staff of comfort
to thee. I cannot name the rest of my good friends, but thou canst
supply it. I wrote, a week since, to thee and Mr. Leigh, and divers
others.
Thine wheresoever,
JO. WINTHROP.
From aboard the Arbella, riding at
the CowEs, iarch 28, 1630. 
I would have written to my brother and sister Gostling, but it is
near midnight. Let this excuse; and commend my love to them and
all theirs.
To MAIRG. WINTHROP, thle elder, at Groton.
A. 42.
MY LOVE, MY Joy, BIY FAITHFUL ONE,
I suppose thou didst not expect to have any more letters from me till
the return of our ships; but so is the good pleasure of God, that the
winds should not serve yet to carry us hence. HIe will do all things in
his own time, and that shall be for the best in the end. We acknowledge it a great mercy to us, that we went not out to sea on Monday,
when the wind was fair for one day; for we had been exposed, ever
since, to sore tempests and contrary winds. I praise God, we are all
in good health, and want nothing. For myself, I was never at more
liberty of body and mind these many years. The Lord make me
thankful and wise to improve his blessings for the furtherance of his
own work. I desire to resign myself wholly to his gracious disposing.
Oh that I had an heart so to do, and to trust perfectly in him for his
assistance in all our ways. We find him still going along with us.
He hath brought in the heart of the master of our ship to afford us all
good respect, and to join with us in every good action. Yesterday he
caused his seamen to keep a fast with us, wherein the Lord assisted us
1 presume this was Martha Fones, niece of the Governour, who married her
cousin John.
2 Possibly, Ann Gostlin, another niece.




444                         APPENDIX.
and our minister very comfortably; and when five of the clock came, I
had respite to remember thee, (it being Friday,) and to parley with
thee, and to meet thee in spirit before the Lord. After supper, we discovered some notorious lewd persons of our own company, who, in time
of our fast, had committed theft, and done other villanies, for which we
have caused them to be severely punished.
I am uncertain whether I shall have opportunity to send these to
thee; for, if the wind turn, we shall soon be gone. Therefore I will
not write much. I know it will be sufficient for thy present comfort, to
hear of our welfare; and this is the third letter I have written to thee,
since I came to Hampton, in requital of those two I received from thee,
which I do often read with much delight, apprehending so much love
and sweet affection in them, as I am never satisfied with reading, nor
can read them without tears; but whether they proceed fromi joy, sorrow, or desire, or from that consent of affection, which I always'hold
with thee, I cannot conceive. Ah, my dear heart, I ever held thee in
high esteem, as thy love and goodness hath well deserved; but (if it be
possible) I shall yet prize thy virtue at a greater rate, and long more to
enjoy thy sweet society than ever before. I am sure thou art not short
of me in this desire.  Let us pray hard, and pray in faith, and our
God, in his good time, will accomplish our desire. Oh, how loath am
I to bid thee farewell! but, since it must be, farewell, my sweet love,
farewell. Farewell, my dear children and family. The Lord bless you
all, and grant me to see your faces once again.  Come, (my dear,) take
him and let him rest in thine arms, who will ever remain,
Thy faithful husband,
JO. YVINTHROP.
Commend my love to all our friends at Castleins,'1 3r. Leigh and
his wife, my neighbor Cole and his wife, and all the rest of our good
friends and neighbors, and our good friends at Maplested, when you
see them, and those our worthy and kind friends at Assington,2 etc.
My brother Arthur   hath carried himself very soberly since he came
1 This was a manor house in Groton, then the seat of the family of Chopton, of
which William was head. See Sir John Cullum's History and Antiq. of Hawsted
and Hardwick in Co. Suff. The second wife of the Governour, who died 1616, was
Thomasine Chopton.
2 Assington was the residence of Brompton Gurdon, Esquire, Sheriff of the
county.
3 He was, perhaps, son of Sir John Tindall, father of the writer's wife; but what
became of him after this voyage, is not known. Probably he went home. An elder
brother was Deane Tindall, Esquire.




APPENDIX.                          445
self very soberly since he came on shipboard, and so hath Mr. Brand's
son,' and my cousin Ro. Sampson.2 I hope their friends shall hear
well of them.
From aboard the Arbella, riding before YARMOUTH, }
in the ISLE OF WIGHT, April 3, 1630. 
To my very lovrin Wife, Mrs. WINTHROP, 
the elder, at Groton, in Siffolkc, d'd. 
A. 43.
MY GOOD SON,
I received two letters from you since I came to Hampton, and this is
the second I have written back to you. I do much rejoice and bless
God for that goodness I find in you towards me and mine. I do pray,
and assuredly expect, that the Lord will reward it plentifully in your
bosom; for it is his promise to prolong their days, (which includes all
outward prosperity,) who give due honor to their parents. Trust him,
son, for he is faithful. Labor to grow into nearer communion and acquaintance with him, and you shall find him a good God, and a master
worth the serving. Ask of any who have tried him, and they will justify
him in his kindness and bounty to his servants. Yet we must not
look that he should always give us what we think might be good for us;
but wait, and let him take his own way, and the end will satisfy our
expectation.
Our ship and the Talbot are now at Yarmouth; but the Jewell and
Ambrose are put-back unto the Cowes. We have had very tempestuous weather, with the wind at S. W. so as some ships, which went out
at the Needles before us, are driven back again; and we intend not to
stir till we see the wind settled. I would wish women and children not
to go to sea till April, and then to take shipping at London. If we had
done so, it had eased us of much trouble and charge. There lie now at
Cowes two ships of Holland, bound, one to the Streights, and the other
1 The Brands were of Polstead Hall in Polstead or Eldwardston, parishes close to
Groton. I think this son applied to be made freeman in Oct. 1630, but he probably
went home. At least he never took the oath.
2 Sampson was an ancient knightly family of Sampson's Hall in Kersey, near
Groton. John, the father of "cousin Robert," married Bridget Clopton, sister of
the second wife of Winthrop. Most of the information on this page, and two or
three more, was given me in 1842 by Richard Almack, Esquire, a careful and liberal
antiquary of Long Melford.
VOL. i.                      38




446                       APPENDIX.
to the East Indies, of one hundred tons a piece, which, putting to sea in
February, spent their masts, and, with much difficulty, and loss of near
one hundred men, are come in hither. There came in lately by us a
ship from Virginia, laden with tobacco. The master came aboard us,
and told us, that they want corn there. She was fourteen weeks outward, and yet lost but one man. I pray certify me, by the next occasion, what the wine cost for the common use, and if you have laid out
any more in that kind, that I may perfect my account.
I pray prepare money so soon as you can, that I may be clear with
Mr. Goffe and others, and that my part in the joint stock may be
made up.
Sir Nath. Barnardiston desired to put in money into our joint stock.
Remember my love and respect to him, and if he will put in ~50, take
it as part of the ~200, which I have put in already, except you have
money enough to supply more.
Yesterday we kept a fast aboard our ship and in the Talbot. Mr.
Phillips exercised with us the whole day, and gave very good content
to all the company, as he doth in all his exercises, so as we have much
cause to bless God for him.
In the Talbot a woman was lately delivered of a son, and both like
to do well.
For other things, which concern my affairs at home, I refer them to
your care and the good providence of the Almighty.
Commend my love to all our good friends, as you have occasion, —
to my daughter Winthrop, your sister and cousin, and to Mr. Leigh,
Mr. Nutt and that family, and to all at Castleins, and the rest, whom I
can't now name; and the Lord bless, direct, and prosper you in all your
ways. So farewell, my good son.
Your loving father,
JO. WINTHROP.
From aboard the Arbella, riding before 
YARMOUTH, April 5, 1630. 
Our long stay here hath occasioned the expense of much more money
than I expected, so as I am run much in Mr. Goffe's debt. I pray get
up some money so soon as you can, and pay him ~150, or so much as
you can get.
To [my very loving Son,] Mr. [JOHN WINTHROP,] 
Groton, in Sitfolk, d'd.   S




APPENDIX.                         447
A. 44.
CHARLETON in NEW ENGLAND, JZdy 16, 1630.
My DEAR WIFE,
Blessed be the Lord, our good God and merciful Father, that yet
hath preserved me in life and health to salute thee, and to comfort thy
long longing heart with the joyfil news of my welfare, and the welfare
of thy beloved children.
We had a long and troublesome passage, but the Lord made it safe
and easy to us; and though we have met with many and great troubles,
(as this bearer 1 can certify thee,) yet he hath pleased to uphold us, and
to give us hope of a happy issue.
I am so overpressed with business, as I have no time for these or
other mine own private occasions. I only write now, that thou mayest
know, that yet I live and am mindful of thee in all my affairs. The
larger discourse of all things thou shalt receive from my brother Downing, which I must send by some of the last ships. We have met with
many sad and discomfortable things, as thou shalt hear after; and the
Lord's hand hath been heavy upon myself in some very near to me.
My son Henry! my son Henry! ah, poor child! Yet it grieves me
much more for my dear daughter. The Lord strengthen and comfort
her heart, to bear this cross patiently. I know thou wilt not be wanting to her in this distress. Yet, for all these things, (I praise my God,)
I am not discouraged; nor do I see cause to repent or despair of those
good days here, which will make amends for all.
I shall expect thee next summer, (if the Lord please,) and by that
time I hope to be provided for thy comfortable entertainment. My
most sweet wife, be not disheartened; trust in the Lord, and thou shalt
see his faithfulness. Commend me heartily to all our kind friends at
Castleins, Groton Hall, Mr. Leigh and his wife, my neighbor Cole, and
all the rest of my neighbors and their wives, both rich and poor. Remember me to them at Assington Hall, and Codenham Hall,2 Mr.
Brand, Mr. Alston, Mr. Mott, and their wives, goodman Pond, Charles
Neale, etc. The good Lord be with thee and bless thee and all our
children and servants. Commend my love to them all. I kiss and
embrace thee, my dear wife, and all my children, and leave thee in his
1 Some neighbor, or, perhaps, Revell, one of the assistants, who came in the Jewel,
and went back in the Lion, the first returning ship fiom this side.
2 It was in Boxford, adjoining Groton, the ancient seat of Sir Joseph Brand.




448                       APPENDIX.
arms, who is able to preserve you all, and to fulfil our joy in our happy
meeting in his good time. Amen.
Thy faithful husband,
JO. WINTHROP.
I shall write to my son John by London.
To my very loving Wife, Mrs. WINTHROP, the 1
elder, at Groton, in Szffblk, near Sudbury.
Fromn NEW ENGLAND. 
A 45.
MY GOOD SON,
The blessing of God all-sufficient be upon thee ever. Amen.
It hath pleased the Lord to bring us hither in peace, (blessed be his
name). For the course of our voyage, and other occurrents, you shall
understand them by a journal, which I send with my letters to your
uncle D. We had a comfortable passage, and I found that love and
respect from Capt. Milburne our master, as I may not forget. I pray
(if he be returned before you come hither) take occasion to see him,
and remember my kind salutations to him and his wife.
It is like you shall hear (before this come to you) how the Lord hath
disposed of your brother Hen. The Lord teach you and the rest by it
to remember your Creator in the days of your youth, and to improve
your time in his service, while it lasts.
The unexpected troubles and necessities, which are fallen upon us,
will bring a great deal of business and care upon thee; but be not discouraged. It is the Lord, who hath cast it upon thee, and he will uphold
and deliver thee.
We are forced to send to Bristowe for supply of provisions, by Mlr.
Peirce and Mr. Allerton, for which I have given them a bill of exchange.
You must needs take order, the money may be provided presently for
them, for they can't stay. If all means fail, Mr. Revel hath promised
to help me with ~100. He hath a bill also for money for provisions,
which I took up of him here; so have divers others, which you must
take care to see paid.
For the freight for the ships, you shall receive some bills from Sir
Richard, Mr. Johnson, and Mr. Dudley; but it is doubtful whether their
moneys will be ready. What you can provide of theirs and mine, be
sure the Talbot be first discharged, for they will not tarry. There is
much likewise to be paid to Mr. Beecher, which may stay awhile. There




APPENDIX.                        449
are other moneys to be paid to Mr. Peirce, which must be provided. If
all means fail, you may try Doctor Wright; but I hope you have sold
the land, and then that care is at an end. For Mr. Goffe, he hath failed
exceedingly in his undertaking, so as he is in debt to many of us, and
hath had a great deal more of me than his due. Therefore pay him no
more. I will send you the account for him and rest, whom I undertook
for.
I shall expect your mother and you and the rest of our company here
the next spring, if God will. For directions for your passage, I have
written about it to your uncle D. and your mother, and I am tired out
with writing and much business. Commend my love and blessing to
your brother Forth, and your sister M., my neice, Matt. and the rest of
our family, and my kind salutations to all my good friends and neighbors,
who inquire of us, and to Mr. Nicolson.
For your sister Winthrop,1 if she will come over, I will provide for
her as mine own; if not, she hath a bond of ~400. Yet you know there
is not so much due to her; for your brother had much money of me out
of the ~400 I had of him, besides what he ought to your sister Mary.
Yet, if it be to be had, I would pay it her, as it can be raised; but then
she must give me a general release.
If money be brought to you or your uncle Downing for goodman Lockwood, let Mr. Peirce be paid his bill of provisions for him, and bring the
rest with you.
For Forth's coming over, I leave it to my sister Painter2 her disposing. If they come, they shall be welcome. These afflictions we have
met with need discourage none, for the country is exceeding good, and
the climate very like our own; only people must come well provided,
and not too many at once. Pease may come, if he will, and such other
as you shall think fit, but not many, and let those be good, and but few
servants, and those useful ones.
Take order that a copy of my relation, etc., be sent to Sir Nath. Barnardiston, and my excuse of not writing to him and Sir WVm. Springe,
with my salutations to them both; and if Sir Nath. hath put in no money,
let him forbear still.
You must call to Mr. Andrews in Bowe Lane for ~20, which Mr.
Pincheon hath appointed for you, and you are to pay it, and ~30 more,
to Mr. Rich. Andrews, at the Mermaid in Cheapside; but you must first
inquire if it were lent to us, as we were promised at Hampton. It may
1 Widow of Henry.
2 Widow of Fones, who had married Rev. Mr. P. of Exeter; as to her daughter-inlaw, Ursula Sherman, Forth was then betrothed, by my conjecture.
38*




450                       APPENDIX.
be paid soon after Michaelmas next. There is also ~208 to be paid to
Mr. Cradock, or Mr. Woodward at his house in St. Bart]. near the
Exchange, September 8, for which Mr. Johnson and I stood bound;
but, if it be not ready, I think Mr. Cradock will get it continued.
Here is a barrel of neat of Bulbroke's of Wenham. If I did not pay
for it, let it be paid.
If you reckon with Mr. Wall, thus it stands: You receive of him by
Mr. Chamber (to whom I desire to be kindly remembered)
The passage for himself, his wife, and a servant, comes to ~16.10
For one cow,..........   15.02
For tonnage of his goods,........    11.00
42.12
Demand the rest of him, and certify me of it.
Henry Kingsbury hath appointed money to be paid to you by
[blank].
John Warren hath appointed money to be paid to you by the bond
he left with you. He owes beside ~10, beside his present provisions.
Demand of Stone and Bragge of Neyland, ~15. You have bond
for it.
Mr. Goffe's and my account stands thus:
He received of me in England at several payments.. ~642.00
More of me for my brother Downing......             107.02
You have paid him since, by my direction from Hampton
He is to discount for two mares and a horse, (one Mr.
Brand's,) which died by the way....... 27.00
He is allowed for ninety-six passengers, at ~4.... 384.00
For twenty-four cows, (ten being for my broth. D.). e  361.00
For thirty-two tons of goods, at ~3.
I must end. The Lord God Almighty bless you, and send you all
hither in peace. Farewell, my dear son.
Your loving father,
JO. WINTHROP.
Commend me to old Pond, and tell him both his sons are well, and
remember their duty to him. He must needs send his son John some
more provisions, for much of that he brought was spoiled by the way.
You must demand money of him. His reckoning stands thus:




APPENDIX.                         451
His passage and goods come to......   ~27.00
One cow......      o....   15.00
42.00
I had of him, ~10.04.
Rest due, ~. 32.00.
CHARLTON, July 23, 1630.
For the country itself, I can discern little difference between it and
our own. We have had only two days, which I observed more hot than
in England. Here is as good land as I have seen there, but none so bad
as there. Here is sweet air, fair rivers, and plenty of springs, and the
water better than in England. Here can be no want of any thing to
those, who bring means to raise out of the earth and sea.
To my very loving Son, Mr. JOHN WINTHROP, }
at Groton, in Suffolk, d'd. 
A. 46.
CHARLETON, in NEw ENGLAND, August 14, 1630.
MY GOOD SON,
I received your letters by Mr. Huson's ship, and do much rejoice, and
bless the Lord for the good news of all your welfares. For our condition here, and our voyage hither, I wrote to you, about a fortnight
since, by Mr. Revel, but more fully in a journal and relation, which I
sent to your uncle Downing; yet I could [not] make any perfect relation, for want of time and leisure, and I am still as much straitened as
before, so as I must refer you and all my friends to my former report as
it is. Withal I sent a card of our voyage at sea, which Capt. Milborne
drew for me. I wrote, also, how the Lord's hand had been very heavy
upon our people in these parts, and that which I conceived to be the
reason why so many fell sick, and so many died, and what course you
should take when your mother is to come hither, etc. I can now only
write a word or two for direction about our affairs; and so I shall leave
my blessing with you.1 First, for the land, (if it be not already sold,)
you must sell it speedily, for much debt will lie upon us. For Mr.
Appleton, take no money of him, for he can have no cows: there came
not on shore one half of them. I'had ~15 of Mrs. Sands for a cow for
1 Perhaps this letter went by the Arbella.




452                      APPENDIX.
her brother Goffe; but he could have none now: ergo, if she will not
have him have it at next return, let her have her money again.
Pay Mr. Goffe no more money, but require the remainder; and, if he
refuse to pay it, it were well his bond were put in suit. If you have
money to spare, send over some more cows and goats, and bring ~100
with you, or 2.
The beef we had of Mr. Stretton is as sweet and good as if it were
but a month powdered. You shall know of other things by your mother's
letters.' We have powder and pieces enough, but want flints and birdshot and store of chalk. But I must end. The Lord bless you, and
send you hither in safety. Farewell, my good son.
Your loving father,
JO. WINTHROP.
To my very loving Son, Mr. JOHN WINTHROP, }
at Groton, Suffolk, d'd.
A. 47.
MY DEAR WIFE,
The blessing of God all-sufficient be upon thee and all my dear ones
with thee forever.
I praise the good Lord, though we see much mortality, sickness, and
trouble, yet (such is his mercy) myself and children, with most of my
family, are yet living, and in health, and enjoy prosperity enough, if the
affliction of our brethren did not hold under the comfort of it. The
lady Arbella is dead, and good Mr. Higginson, my servant, old Waters
of Neyland, and many others. Thus the Lord is pleased still to humble
us; yet he mixes so many mercies with his corrections, as we are persuaded he will not cast us off, but, in his due time, will do us good,
according to the measure of our afflictions. He stays but till he hath
purged our corruptions, and healed the hardness and error of our hearts,
and stripped us of our vain confidence in this arm of flesh, that he may
have us rely wholly upon himself. The French ship, so long expected,
and given for lost, is now come safe to us, about a fortnight since, having
been twelve weeks at sea; and yet her passengers (being but few) all
safe and well but one, and her goats but six living of eighteen. So as
now we are somewhat refreshed with such goods and provisions as she
brought, though much thereof hath received damage by wet. I praise
God, we have many occasions of comfort here, and do hope, that our
1 We have not these letters.




APPENDIX.                        453
days of affliction will soon have an end, and that the Lord will do us
more good in the end than we could have expected, that will abundantly
recompense for all the trouble we have endured. Yet we may not look
at great things here. It is enough that we shall have heaven, though
we should pass through hell to it. We here enjoy God and Jesus Christ.
Is not this enough? What would we have more? I thank God, I like
so well to be here, as I do not repent my coming; and if I were to come
again, I would not have altered my course, though I had foreseen all
these afflictions. I never fared better in my life, never slept better,
never had more content of mind, which comes merely of the Lord's
good hand; for we have not the like means of these comforts here,
which we had in England. But the Lord is all-sufficient, blessed be
his holy name. If he please, he can still uphold us in this estate;
but, if he shall see good to make us partakers with others in more
affliction, his will be done. He is our God, and may dispose of us as
he sees good.
I am sorry to part with thee so soon, seeing we meet so seldom, and
my much business hath made me too oft forget Mtondays and Fridays. I
long for the time, when I may see thy sweet face again, and the faces of
my dear children. But I must break off, and desire thee to commend
me kindly to all my good friends, and excuse my not writing at this
time. If God please once to settle me, I shall make amends. I will
name now but such as are nearest to thee, my brother and sister
Gostlin, Mr. Leigh, etc., Castleins, my neighbor Cole and his good wife,
with the rest of my good neighbors, tenants, and servants. The good
Lord bless thee and all our children and family. So I kiss my sweet
wife and my dear children, and rest
Thy faithful husband,
JO. WINTHROP.
I would have written to Maplested, if I had time. Thou must excuse
me, and remember me kindly to them all.
This is the third letter I have written to thee from New England.'
September 9, 1630.
1 And much do we regret the absence of the second.




454                       APPENDIX.
A. 48.
MY GOOD SON,
The good Lord bless you ever.
I have written to your mother and to your uncle Downing at large of
all things here, to which I must refer you, in regard of my much business and little leisure here.
I shall expect your mother and you and the rest of my company here
next spring, (if God will). I pray take order (if it be possible) to
make even reckoning with all before you come over, and get a good
ship and forty hogsheads of meal at least, well cleansed from the bran,
and laid abroad three or four days before it be packed; peas and oatmeal, well dried, as much as you can; good store of dry, Suffolk cheese,
brought loose, or packed in very dry malt; butter and tried suet; sugar
and fruit; pepper and ginger; store of coarse rugs, both to use and
sell; a hogshead of wine vinegar, and another of verjuice, both in good
casks and iron-bound. We have lost much by bad casks. Bestow every
thing in even hogsheads, if you can; for it will save much in the charge
of freight. Bring some good oil, pitch, and tar, and a good piece of an old
cable to make oakum; for that which was sent is much lost. Some more
cows would be brought, especially two new milch, which must be well
mealed and milked by the way, and some goats, especially sheep, (if they
can be had). Bring some store of garlick and onions, and conserve of red
roses, alum, and aloes, oiled skins, both calf and sheep, and some
worsted ribbing of several sizes. This is the third letter I have written
to you from here. Commend me to all our friends. Miy love and
blessing to your brother and sisters, your sister Winthrop and cousin
Matt. My love and service to Mr. Gurdon and his wife. Salutations
to Mr. Jacy, Mr. Chamber, and the rest of the good ministers, Mr. Nott
and Mr. Brand. I laid out ~15 to Mr. Goffe for a cow for his son.
Commend me to all my good neighbors, Mr. Jarrold, William Pond,
and the rest. Those who were to have cows delivered here, and filed,
must have their money again, my cousin [blank] of Battlesden, ~20.
I can think of no other, but Mrs. Sands, ~15. Commend me to her;
and if you see them at Graces,' remember me to them. The Lord bless
you. Farewell.
Your loving father,
JO. WINTHROP.
September 9, 1630.
1 Where lived Henry Milclmay, not Sir Henry, the regicide.




APPENDIX.                        455
A. 49.
MY SWEET WIrE,
The blessing of the Almighty be upon thee and thine forever.
There is a ship arrived at Plimouth, some thirty miles from us, which
came from London the 10th of August, and was twelve weeks at sea
in such tempests as she spent all her masts; yet, of sixty passengers, she
lost but one. All the rest (through the Lord's great mercy) are safe
and in health. Edy of Boxted, who came in her, told me, a fortnight
since, that he had many letters in the ship for me; but I hear not yet
of them, which makes me now (having opportunity to send to Plimouth)
to write these few lines to thee, lest the ship should be gone before I
have received my letters, and can return answer to them. Thou shalt
understand by this, how it is with us since I wrote last, (for this [is] the
third or fourth letter I have written to thee since I came hither,) that
thou mayest see the goodness of the Lord towards me, that, when so
many have died, and many yet languish, myself and my children are yet
living and in health. Yet I have lost twelve of my family, viz. Waters
and his wife, and two of his children, Mr. Gager and his man Smith. of Buxall and his wife and two children, the wife of Taylor of
~  Haverill and their child: my son H. makes the twelve. And, beo  sides many other of less note, as Jeff. iuggle of Sudbury, and. divers others of that town, (about twenty,) the Lord hath stripped
us of some principal persons, Mr. Johnson and his lady, MIr. Rossiter, Mrs. Phillips and others unknown to thee. We conceive, that
t this disease grew from ill diet at sea, and proved infectious. I write
not this to discourage thee, but to warn thee and others to provide
~ well for the sea, and, by God's help, the passage will be safe and
easy, how long soever. Be careful (I entreat thee) to observe the directions in my former letters; and I trust that that God, who hath so graciously preserved and blessed us hitherto, will bring us to see the faces
of each other with abundance of joy. My dear wife, we are here in a
paradise. Though we have not beef and mutton etc., yet (God be
praised) we want them not; our Indian corn answers for all. Yet here
is fowl and fish in great plenty. I will here break off, because I hope
to receive letters from thee soon, and to have opportunity of writing
more largely. I will say nothing of my love to thee, and of my longing desires towards thee. Thou knowest my heart. Neither can I
mention salutations to my good friends, other than in general. In my
next, I hope to supply all. Now the Lord, our good God, be with thee
and all my children and company with thee. Grace and peace be with




456                       APPENDIX.
you all. So I kiss my sweet wife and all my dear children, and bless
you in the Lord. Farewell.
Thy faithful husband,
JO. WINTHROP.
BOSTON, inZ MATTACHUSETS, )
November 29, 1630. 
Thou must excuse my not writing to my son John and other of my
friends at this time; for I defer it till I receive my letters.
To MARG. WINTHROP, the elder,.
at Groton, d'd. 
A. 50.
MY DEAR WIFE,
I have small hope, that this should come to thy hands, in regard of
the long stay of the ship here, so as thou mayest be well onward of
thy way hither before these can come to England.1 Therefore I write
little to thyself and my son, and those whom I expect to see here shortly, if it shall so please the Lord. And blessed be his holy and glorious
name, that he hath so far magnified his mercy towards us, that, when so
many have been laid in their graves since we parted, yet he hath
pleased to preserve us unto this hope of a joyful meeting, that we may
see the faces of each other again, the faces of our children and sweet
babes. These things I durst scarce think of heretofore; but now I
embrace them oft, and delight my heart in them, because I trust, that
the Lord, our God, who hath kept me and so many.of my company in
health and safety among so many dead corpses, through the heat of the
summer and the cold of winter, and hath also preserved thee in the
peril of childbirth, and upheld thy heart in the midst of so many discouragements, with the life of all thy company, will, of his own goodness and free mercy, preserve us and ours still, that we shall meet in
joy and peace, which I daily pray for, and shall expect in the Lord's
good time; who still continue his favor and blessing upon thee and our
sweet babes and all thy company. For our little daughter, do as thou
thinkest best. The Lord direct thee in it. If thou bringest her, she
will be more trouble to thee in the ship than all the rest. I know my
1 Yet she came, with her family, in the same ship that carried her this advice, the
Lion, which got back 2 Nov. See p. 63.




APPENDIX.                        457
sister will be tender of her, till I may send for her. Bring Amy and
Ann Gostlin with thee, if thou canst. If they come not, they will much
wrong themselves. They need fear no want here, if they will be guided
by God's word; otherwise they can look to prosper nowhere. I praise
God, I want nothing but thee and the rest of my family. Commend my
love and blessing to them all, and to all my neighours and friends; but I
have desired my brother Gostlin to perform that. Remember to bring
juice of lemons to sea with thee, for thee and thy company to eat with
your meat as sauce. But of these things, my son hath direction. So
again I kiss thee my sweet wife, and commend thee and all ours to the
Lord, and rest
Thine,
iMarch 28, 1631.                         JO. WINTHROP.
A. 51b
MY GOOD SON,
The blessing of the Almighty be upon thy soul and life forever.
Among many of the sweet mercies of my God towards me in this
strange land, where we have met many troubles and adversities, this
is not the least, and that which affords much comfort to my heart, that he
hath given me a loving and dutiful son. God all-sufficient reward thee
abundantly for all thy care and pains in my affairs, and for all that love
and duty thou hast showed to thy good mother. I doubt not but thou
shalt find it in outward blessings, for thou art under the promise of
having thy dysprolona ged; but I desire especially thou mayest find it
in the manifestations of the good will of the Lord towards thee, and in
those spiritual blessings, which may fatten thy soul.
This ship staying so long here, I am almost out of hope, that my
letters should come to thy hands; for, though I think very long till I
see you all here, yet I would rather you stayed, though it were two or
three months, to come with Mr. Peirce, partly because of his skill and
care of his passengers, and partly that we might be the better provided
of housing, &c. to entertain you. For we are much straitened yet that
way, and we have had divers houses burnt, and now, within these two
days, Mr. Sharp and Mr. Colburne, both of our town, had their houses
burnt to the ground, and much goods lost. Thus it pleaseth the Lord
still to humble us. I doubt not but he will do us the more good at the last.
I have written to your uncle D. concerning all our business, fearing
VOL. 1.                  39




458                       APPENDIX.
you should be come away. I have sent the assignment sealed. I left
all my bonds and writings in my cupboard at Groton, or else at
London.
Bring no provision with you, but meal, and peas, and some oat-meal,
and sugar, fruit, figs, and pepper, and good store of saltpetre, and
conserve of red roses, and mithridate, good store of pitch, and ordinary
suet or tallow. Bring none but wine vinegar, and not much of that,
and be sure that the cask be good; store of oiled calves-skins of the
largest; and the strongest welt leather shoes and stockings for children;
and hats of all sizes. If you could bring two or three hundred sheepskins and lamb-skins, with the wool on, dyed red, it would be a good
commodity here; and the coarsest woollen cloth, (so it be not flocks,)
and of sad colours, and some red; millstones, some two foot and some
three foot over, with bracings ready cast, and rings, and mill-bills; store
of shoemakers' thread and hobnails; chalk and chalk-line; and a pair
or two, or more, of large, steel compasses; store of coarse linen; some
birdlime.
When you have cleared all things in England, if you have any
money left, you may bring some, with you, (not above ~100,) and the
rest leave with your uncle D. or dispose of it as your own occasions
may require. Anywise, Matt. must have ~400, and there will be much
due to your sister Winthrop, which were best to be left in England.
But you must advise with your uncle D. about these things; for I am so
full of business here, as I can't think of mine own affairs as I should.
You must also consider what you would have for yourself, and how you
would employ it.
I never had letter yet from your brother F. If he intends to come
hither, it were good he sold his land, and paid his sister her ~100,
which he promised when I put over his land to him.1 You shall need
bring no more cows, for I have enough. The good Lord bless you, and
bring you and all my company hither in safety. So I rest
Your loving father,
JO. WINTHROP.
MASSACHUSETTS, March 28, 1631.
I hope the Lord hath provided a good husband for your sister
1 Forth died so late in the preceding November, that Peirce, who left Bristol in the
Lion on Dec. first, had not brought the sad news to the Governor. He was buried
at Groton, 23 Nov. 1630.




APPENDIX.                          459
Winthrop.1 Mr. Coddington is well affected to her. If he proceed,
I wish you to further it; for he is a godly man, and of good estate.2
To my very loving Son, Mr. JOHN WINTHROP, 
at London, cdd.
If he be come away, my brother Downing may 
open this letter.
A. 52.
MY DEAn SON,
Blessed be our good God, who hath not failed us, but hath given us
cause of most unspeakable joy, for the good news, which we have heard
out of New England. Mr. Wilson had been with me before thy letters
came to my hands, but brought me no letter. He speaks very well of
things there, so as my heart and thoughts are there already. I want
but means to carry my body after them. I am now fully persuaded,
that it is the place wherein God will have us to settle in; and I beseech
him to fit us for it, that we may be instruments of his glory there. This
news came very seasonable to me, being possessed with much grief for
thee, hearing how things went concerning thy wife's jointure. But now
I have cast off that, and hope God will turn all to the best. If thou
canst but send me over when Mr. Wilson goeth back, I shall be very,
very glad of his company.3 If thy manifold employments will not
suffer thee to go with me, I shall be very sorry for it; for I would be
glad to carry all my company with me. But I will not say any more of
this till I hear from thee, how things may be done. I pray consider of
it, and give me the best counsel you can. Mr. Wilson is now in London,
and promised me to come and see you. He cannot yet persuade his
wife to go, for all he hath taken this pains to come and fetch her. I
marvel what mettle she is made of.4  Sure she will yield at last, or else
we shall want him exceedingly in New England. I desire to hear what
1 She came with her sister Martha, who had married 8 Feb. preceding her cousin,
John Winthrop, to whom this despatch is addressed; and here she married, very soon
after arrival, Robert Feake. See p. 69.
2 He remained in England, until April, 1633, but got a different wife to bring here
in his second visit.
3 Better than her desire was the action of her son, for he brought her above six
months before Wilson came away.
4 Her admission to Boston church is of 20 March, 1635-6. But she came in 1632
with her husband, and they had Mary, born 12, baptized 15 Sept. 1633, I believe
their only child born on our side of the water. She was wife of Rev. Samuel Danforth
of Roxbury,




460                      APPENDIX.
news my brother Downing hath; for my husband writ but little to me,
thinking we had been on our voyage. And thus, with my love to thyself,
my daughter, and all the rest of my good friends, I desire the Lord to
bless and keep you, and rest
Your loving Mother,
MARGARET WINTHROP.
I received the things you sent down by the carrier this week, and
thank my daughter for my band. I like it well. I must, of necessity,
make me a gown to wear every day, and would have one bought me of
some good strong black stuf, and Mr. Smith to make it of the civilest now
in use. If my sister Downing would please to give him some directions
about it, he would make it the better.
[May or June, 1631.]
A. 53.
MY WORTHY AND BELOVED BROTHER,
I am told by my mother,-and she showed me a letter, which you
have very kindly written to my father,-that you will repay certain
money, that was taken up in London, by reason of my troubles occasioned by God's providence in that my so much desired match with your
dearest brother, which the Lord otherwise ordered, and brought his
estate into your hands. The Lord prosper it unto you and yours. I
shall truly pray for you, and desire your prayers may be before the Lord
for me, who am left to pass through the miseries of a troublesome pilgrimage. I thank you for the continuance of your love. My father:and mother are very kind unto me, and will not be wanting, I know, in
their love. But, though the Lord should greatly increase your estate by
the loss of my dearest friend, and the lessening of my poor portion, and
laying other hindrances upon me, yet shall I never think my love ill
settled upon one, that loved me so dearly, though he could leave me
nothing but his prayers for me and the interest I have in your love,
whose kindness is so clearly manifested, like the kindness of Ruth, to
the living and to the dead.1 The ~30 you writ of was taken up of my
uncle Talley; besides which, the ~10 my father's man brought with him,
1 If our language can exhibit any letter of a female hand, earlier in date than this,
and more likely to be read with delight a thousand years after, it is not within my
recollection.




APPENDIX.                          461
and the ~5 of Mr. Brinscely, and ~8 from my uncle Downing, goeth
out of that sum of ~50 in his hands, which my father Paynter was
willing mother should add to my portion, which was but ~250 before,
for your brother. And now that is all spent, excepting very little.
But in all this I do submit myself patiently to the will of God, and take
it as the least part of that great affliction. I do not mention any of this
to press you, good brother; neither are you bound, but as the consideration of God's dealing, both with you and your brother and me, shall move
you. Your promises were your kindness. I could not deserve them,
forlorn and desolate as I was. Yet they were comfortable in that case,
and I still thank you, and pray the Lord to reward you.
The mare I confess I should desire to get down, if it might stand with
your good liking. I hope to ride to Sutton1 upon her shortly. Mr.
Brinscely knows how to send her down by the carrier. I am ashamed
to put all these things in a letter, which your well known love and ready
kindness would prevent me in, if I could but see you, nay, hath prevented. My father and mother desire to see you all, if it be possible,
though they have little hope, by reason of my father's employments.
Pray remember my unfeigned love to my sister your wife, and my sister
Elizabeth Winthrop. Pray certify her, that I received her loving
letter, and excuse me to her, that I have not now written to her. I
should be very thankful, if you would be pleased to let me hear from
you, the messenger of your welfare being always welcome, and much
rejoicing the heart of me.
Your ever-loving sister,
URSULA SHERMAN.
My mother remembereth her love to yourself and your wife, and
thanks you both for your kind tokens you sent her by me. She desires
to be excused for not writing you at this time.
From EXETER, Jtune 18, 1631.
To msy worthy and very loving Brother, Mr. JOHN WINTHROP, 
at Groton in Suffolk, d'd. 
This letter comes from a maiden betrothed to Forth,1 who was left in England, when
his father came over; and his first letter to John in England leaves it to his sister
Painter's disposing, whether Forth should come or not. Another, of March, 1631,
mentions him. He was third child of the Gov. by his first wife, Mary, daughter and
heir of John Forth, Esquire of Stondon in Essex; or as given on p. 64, Great
Stambridge. The correction is made on authority of Sir Charles Geo. Young, the
1 Near Plymouth.
2 A letter from Painter to John Winthrop, Jr., which is quite serviceable in explaining relations, is printed in 3 Mass. Hist. Coll. IX. 231.
39*




462                        APPENDIX.
present Garter in the Heralcl's College, furnished to Richard Almack, Esquire, of
Melford. I suppose it was the same Stondon Massey, of which Nathaniel Ward.
was rector, before he came to New England. It belongs to the diocese of Rochester.
Forth was entered, in April, 1626, of Emanuel College, Cambridge. Henry Painter,
of Exeter, one of the celebrated Assembly of Divines at Westminster, married the
mother of the above-mentioned lady.
A. 54.
MY DEAR SON,
I hope the Lord hath carried you safe to England, with our most
dear Mr. Warner,1 and the rest of our good brethren and friends. There
is nothing befallen since your departure, but Mr. Peirce came from
Naraganset, three days after, with five hundred bushels of corn only.
At the court it was informed, that some of Salem had taken out a piece
of the cross in their ensign; whereupon we sent forth an attachment to
bring in the parties at the next court, where they are like to be punished
for their indiscreet zeal, for the people are generally offended with it.
Mrs. Wv.2 was at first very much affected with her husband's departure,
but she is now well pacified. I intend to send this letter by Capt.
Underhill, who hath leave to go see his friends in Holland. If he come
to you, he can inform you of all things here. As I was writing this,
Richard came in and told me, the dogs had killed an old wolf this
morning in our neck.  She made more resistance than both the former.
I have many things to write to you about, for such necessaries as are to
be provided and sent over; but this occasion is sudden, and I can't think
of them, but shall write more largely by Mr. P. if the Lord will.
Yourself know what will be needful, and therefore may consider accordingly.  Remember copperas, white and green, and two or three pounds
of Paracelsus's plaister, and some East Indian bezoar, store of sail
cloth, nails, cordage, pitch, tallow and wick, steel spades and shovels,
two hand saws and small axes, the best of all, whatever they cost.
Commend us to all our good friends where you be come, Mr. W. and the
rest, your uncles, aunts, &c. Advise Mr. W. to keep close by all means,
and make haste back. The good Lord bless and prosper you, that we,may see your face with joy.  Your mother, &c. salute and bless you.
Farewell.
November 6, 1634.
To my loving Son, Mr. JOHN WINTHROP, d'dc. 
at Mr. Downinz his Chamiber, in the Inner
Temple Lane, London.
1 Undoubtedly Wilson is meant.  2 Perhaps this means Wilson's wife.




APPENDIX.                        463
A. 55.
MY GOOD SoN,
The Lord bless thee ever.
I wrote to you by Capt. Underhill, who went hence in Mr. Babb's
ship; since which time here arrived a ship from Barnstable of two
hundred tons, Ir. Packers master. She brought about twenty passengers and forty cattle. She lost but two, and yet was seventeen weeks
outward bound, whereof five in Ireland. She now returns empty with
Mr. Peirce, by whom I send these.
All things continue as when you left us; only Mrs. Warham is dead,
and Mr. Hooker's young son, (who died of the small pox, which are
very rife at Newtown,) and two men of our town, Willys and Doretye;
and two lads were cast away in a great tempest at N. E. on Friday,
November 21, in the night, between Noddle's Island and Boston, in a
small boat, which they had overladen with wood. Myself and divers
others were in the same tempest, not without some peril, but the Lord
preserved us. Mr. Sewall's boat was then in the cove at the head of
Cape Ann, and broken to pieces, but the men and goods saved. The
pestilent fever hath taken away some at Plimouth; among others, Mr.
Prence the governour his wife, and Mr. Allerton's wife.
We met the last week, to consider about the business of the ensign
at Salem, and have written a letter to my brother Downing, wherein,
under our hands, we signify our dislike of the action, and our purpose
to punish the offenders.1
I wrote to you in my former letter about divers things, which we
should have need of, which I will here insert also, with addition of
some others.
The Pekods sent two embassies to us. The first time, they went
away without answer. The next time, we agreed a peace with them,
(for friendly commerce only,) which was that they desired, having now
war with the Dutch and Narigansetts, upon these terms, viz., that they
should deliver us those men, who killed Capt. Stone, etc., and surrender
up to us their right in Conecticott, which they willingly agreed unto,
and offered us a great present of wampompeag, and beavers, and otter,
with this expression, that we might, with part thereof, procure their
peace with the Narigansetts, (themselves standing upon terms of honor,
not to offer any thing of themselves).
1 Six lines are here perfectly erased, possibly at the time of writing, but it may be
since.




464                       APPENDIX.
Winter hath begun early with us. The bay hath been frozen all
over, but is now open again; and we had a snow last week of much
depth in many places. It came with so violent a storm, as it put by
our lecture for that day. I wish that, in your return, you would observe the winds and weather, every day, that we may see how it agrees
with our parts.
Mr. Ward continues at your house this winter, and Mr. Clerk (to
give him content) in his own. Mr. Cl. finds much fault with your servants John and Sarah, and tells me they will not earn their bread, and
that Ned is worth them all.
Spades and shovels.
Felling axes, and other small axes.
Nails of 6, 10 and 20.
Piercer bitts.
Sithes for grass, and two brush sithes.
Copperas, white and green.
Emplastrum Paracelsi, two or three lb.
Emplastrum de mim.
Trading cloth, good store, if money may be had.
Brown thread, and hair buttons, and a hogshead of twine for herring nets.
Shoes, two soaled, strong, and the best Irish stockings and wash
leather stockings.
Strong cloth suits, unlinen and linen suits of canvas.
Suet, tallow, and wick.
A carpenter, and a husbandman, and a rope-maker, and a cooper.
Some muskets.
Store of brimstone.
A brake for hemp.
Bring the more of all necessaries, because this is the last we shall
have without custom.
If my brother Tindale would let you have ~100, you may give him
assurance of so much in cattle here, to be presently set out for my wife
and her children, with the increase, or for ~200, if he will.
Commend us to all our good friends, your aunt Downing, and uncle
G. and aunts, those at Maplested, Graces, Assington, Groton, CharterHouse, Sir Richard S. and his son, and all the rest, as you have occasion, Mr. Kirby, etc., and Mr. Howes; and make haste back. And if
there be any matter of importance, write by the first fishing ships.
Direct your letters to Capt. Wiggin, or Mr. Hilton. Your mother and




APPENDIX.                         465
the rest are in health, (I praise God). We all salute you. The good
Lord direct, keep and bless you. Farewell, my good son.
December 12, 1634.
To my clear Son, Mr. JoHN WINTHROP, at the House )
of' l]r. Downing, in Lincoln's Fields, near the
Goldcen Lion, Tavern, London, d'd.
A. 56.
SoN,
I went to Ten Hills this morning, with your mother and your wife,
to have seen goodman Bushnell; but the Lord had taken him away
half an hour before we came there. So I made haste down to send
you notice of it; but the ship was under sail before I came, which
gives me no time to write further to you, for I must send the boat presently after her. You shall receive of Mr. Hodges the key of one of
his chests, where the seeds are; the key of the other can't be found;
so you must break it open. There is in one of them a rundlet of honey,
which she desires may be sent to her against she lie down. She desires you to take an inventory of all he hath there. We are all in
health, I praise God for it. Your two men you left sick, your wife and
mother, and all of us, salute you and your good company. The Lord
bless and prosper you. Farewell, my good son.
This 28 of the 1 mo. 1636.
To my very loving Son, Mr. WINTHROP, Jun. }
Governour of Conecticott, d. 
A. 57.
SON,
Blessed be the Lord, who hath preserved and prospered you hitherto.
I received your letters by the Blessing, which arrived here the 14 of
this present, and is to return to you with Mr. Pincheon's goods, so soon
as she can be laden. By her I shall (God willing) write to you of
other things, which I may now omit. Your wife and all our family
(I praise God) are in health. I think you will have no letter from her
till the Blessing come. It hath been earnestly pressed to have her go




466                       APPENDIX.
to Virginia for Mr. Maverick and his corn; but I have no heart to it at
this season, being so perilous both to the vessel, (for worms,) and especially the persons. I will never have any that belong to me come there,
if I can avoid it; but Mr. Mayhew hath taken order the Rebecca shall
go, if she can be met with.
The Lord, in much mercy, sent us a ship 1 the 12 of this present with
provisions; but she had put in at Pascataqua, and sold much there; for
she brought only thirty-nine hogsheads of meal, twenty-five of peas,
eight of oatmeal, forty of malt, and some beef, and prunes, and aquavite, eighteen thousand of [unknown]. My brother Peter bought it
all, and divided it among all the
[Here about sixteen lines are gone, the paper being torn.]
Queen of Bohemia her eldest son is in England, and no speech of
any stop of shipping hither, nor of the general governour, more than
divers years before. This ship came in eight weeks from Dartmouth,
and saith, there had not been an easterly wind in England fourteen
weeks before.
For home news, - the general court hath ordained a standing council
for life, and quarterly courts to be kept at Ipswich, Salem, Newtown,
and Boston; and four courts in the year at Boston, for greater causes,
and for appeals. Mr. Allerton is returned, but had a very ill voyage.
HIis bark lay ten days upon the rock, and beat out all her keel; and so,
the second time, Mr. Mayhew and he could get but little provisions, and
at extreme rates, but six hogsheads of bread, and few peas. I can
get but one barrel of peas of Mr. Allerton, which I will send you.
Some pork they brought, but so lean as I have not seen the like salted.
The Indians killed up all their swine, so as Capt. Lovell had none; but
you shall have beef instead of it. I have sent to Ipswich for your cattle and your servant; for it will be great loss to keep them there. I
will take the others from Mr. Mayhew so soon as grass is up.
[The same deficiency as above-mentioned.]
I sent you two letters lately, one by Mr. lHodges, and the other by
Mr. Oldham, wherein I certified you of the death of goodman Bushnell,
one whom you will miss above all the rest. I had him down to Boston,
to do him what honor I could at his burial. Your carpenter and the
other fellow (who, I think, truly fears God) are recovering, and, I
hope, shall be able to come to you in the Blessing. I pray send me
some saltpetre; for I suppose it was a means, through God's blessing,
to save one of their lives, being far spent in a fever.
1 See p. 185 ante.




APPENDIX.                        467
I purpose to send you some milch goats and swine. The prunes I
suppose you may sell such of them as you can't spend. The butt cost
~10, and should weigh near one thousand pounds. The aquavite was
put aboard by my brother Peter's order, without my appointment. It
cost ~22. What you will not spend of it, you may sell to the Dutch
for profit enough.
I sent you two letters by Mr. Tilly. [A line and a half erased.]
Your brother Stephen was desirous to come to you. If you have any
employment for him, you may keep him; otherwise you may return
him back.
This ship is bound for the Isle of Sable. If you will send the Blessing with her, she may be here time enough a month hence. But two
things I fear: first, that here will be no men nor provisions to set her
forth with: the second, that both of them will not be of sufficient
strength against the French; for this ship hath not above fourteen men.
Neither would I send any of ours without taking leave of the French.
I think the bark goeth away in the morning. Therefore I here end,
with salutations to all our friends with you, Mr. Gardiner and his wife,
etc. Your mother saluteth you; your wife writes. The Lord in mercy
preserve, guide, prosper and, bless you in all your ways. Farewell, my
good son.
Mr. Hooker and his company intend to set forth three weeks hence.'
This 26 of the 2 mo. 1636.
This night we hear of a ship arrived at Pemaquid, and of twentyfour ships upon the seas, bound hither.
To my very lovinq Son, Mr. WINTHROP, Jun. Governor 
of the new Plantation uponl Connecticut, d'd.
A. 58.
QUENETICUT, Hlay 16, 1636.
SIR,
John Wood being returned without any corn, I shall now desire, that
I may be supplied, by the first shipping that arrive with any store of
provisions, with. ten or twelve hogsheads of meal, five or six hogsheads
1 But he did not for a fortnight later.




468                       APPENDIX.
of peas, two or three barrels of oatmeal, two hogsheads; of beef; for, if
we should want, I see no means to be supplied here; and a little want
may overthrow all our design.
I send home the Bachelor, and desire your help for her disposing. I
must, of necessity, have her return here, for I may shortly have much
use of her; but I desire they may go for shares, and victual themselves,
which John Wood and his company are willing to do. I cannot find,
that the miscarriage of his voyage was through his default, but contrary
winds. Therefore I am desirous he should and that company go still
in her, so they will go for shares, and victual themselves. The Blessing
I would sell, if any will buy her at ~160, or ~150- she cost ~145,
besides some new sail and rigging, and a new cable, above ~20 - the
cable is special good; except you should foresee any occasion, that she
should rather be kept still; or if there be employment to Sable for her.
But, if she continues still to go upon any design, I desire she should go
likewise for her share, the men to find themselves; otherwise I would
have her laid up at Boston till further occasion. The men I desire
should be discharged, as soon as ever they come ashore, and their wages
paid them. I thank you for the bread you sent. You write of eight
hundred, but there is not above three hundred and an half, at most,
delivered, besides one hundred they keep still aboard. The rest I cannot learn what become of it, but that it hath been wastefully spent.
They had, besides, half an hogshead of bread of their own, which was
likewise spent, and they were but two [torn,] eleven persons, they say,
most of that time [much torn;] for they pillaged her the time they had
her to Salem pitifully, that she hath neither blocks nor braces, nor running ropes, which the bolt Will saith, that Mr. IHolgrave cut them off.
He saw him. Therefore I have agreed with John Wood, Frederick and
George, to take her to thirds. Thus, with my duty remembered, I rest
Your obedient son,
JOHN WINTHROP.
A. 59.
SON,
Mr. Hooker went hence upon Tuesday the last of May, by whom I
wrote to you, and sent all your letters, with one from England, and all
such news as came to hand; and with that company, viz. by Tho. Bull
and a man of mine own, I sent six cows, four steers and a bull. I left
it to James and Thomas Skidmore to send such as might be fittest both




APPENDIX.                        469
for travel and for your use. I now send this by the Rebecca, in which
you shall find such provisions as are here expressed on the other side.
Mr. Fenwick of Gray's Inn (one of those who employ you) hath written
to you by Mr. Hooker, and intends, about a month hence, with my
brother P. to be with you. The gentlemen seem to be discouraged in
the design here; but you shall know more when they come to you.
I received a very loving letter from my Lord S. wherein he expresseth a great deal of satisfaction in your proceedings; but saith
withal, that those up the river have carved largely for themselves,
which, he thinks, they will after repent, when they see what helps they
have deprived themselves of. The ship, which went to Ireland for
sheep, lost all her sheep, being five hundred, and so bare up when she
was near this coast. Capt. Mason is dead; and thereupon all their
designs against us are (through God's great mercy) fallen asleep. But,
of all these things, you shall hear more fully when my other letters
come to you. Here are come for you, from my sister Downing, divers
chests of commodities, and many firkins of butter and suet, which I have
bestowed, till I hear what you will have done with them. There is a
great glut of all provisions, so as they are not like to fall in haste.
We had nine pieces of ordnance to the Rebecca her side; but all the
means could be used could not get one into her. Sir Math. Boynton
hath sent more cattle, and two servants. I intend to send his servants
to Ipswich to provide for them against winter; for here is not hay to be
had. His letters to you come by Mr. Hooker. Sir A. Hazlerig hath
refused my brother P. his bills, which is great damage both to him and
Mr. Endecott.
I pray deliver this letter enclosed to John Friend, and if he pay you
the money, deliver him his bill, (which is here also enclosed;) if not, I
pray return it to me again.
Here was an anvil, with a beak horn at the end of it, which I think
was carried to Con. If it be, I pray send it back, for it is challenged.
I paid iIr. Garsford of Salem ~5 for a buff coat for Mr. Gardiner,
which you must remember to put upon his account. Your wampompeak
I put off for ~30, to be paid in England for the provisions I send you.
Solling and his wife will come to you by the next, if he hear not to
the contrary. I know not what to write more on the sudden. I think
your wife writes, but she is now at the Garden with my cousins2 Mary..
The Lord bless and prosper you. Your mother salutes you.
1 Perhaps it should befail.  2 Means niece, daughter of his sister Downing.
VOL. Io                    40




470                       APPENDIX.
Provisions sent in the Rebecca.
A hogshead of oatmeal.
Two hogsheads of meal,...                  ~8.02
Five casks of peas,......... 10.08
Seven barrels of beef,.... e.    o..  14.14
A hogshead of pork, which my brother P. puts in,..e  14.07.7
A frail of figs, which I send to yourself, (in the barrel of raisins).
Two' kilderkins of butter, put in by Mr. Peirce for Serjeant Willes.
A barrel of raisins of the sun, (the figs are in the end that hath
your mark in black lead,) about two cwt. at 45s. the cwt. which is about
four pounds and a half.
Four barrels of meal.
A rundlet of sack, of [blank] gallons.
Biscuit in two great bags, at 30s. the cwt.
1 I have paid for them ~7.4.4, which he is to pay you.
This 10 of the 4 mo. 1636.
To my very loving Son, Mr. JOHN WINTHROP, Governor of 
the Plantation upon the mouth of the Conecticot, d'd.
A. 60.
SoN,
I wrote to you by Mr. Hooker, and sent you, withal, the letters out
of England, and six cows, four steers, and one bull. I wrote since by
Mr. Hodges in the Rebecca, and sent many provisions, as by my letter
did appear; since which time the Wren came in, and one brought me
your letter, but being very busy with divers friends, I desired him to
come to me again at dinner; but I never heard of him since, nor of any
other of that vessel, so as I know not what they intend to do with the
clay you sent. The potter saith, that you sent formerly is very good.
I shall take order with him about your store, etc. I have spoke with
Mr. Wilson and Mr. Coddington for money, but can get none. I will
send you what I have or can borrow by John Gallop, (~10,) and some
wether goats. The Bachelor is to come to you next week with Mr.
Peirce's goods, and the lighter, with some ordnance [in] Mr. Peirce his
pinnace. Mr. Fenwick, my brother Peter, etc., set forth on horseback
on the 27 of this month, and will expect your shallop at the upper
towns to carry them down the river, and so will go in Mr. Peirce's pinnace




APPENDIX.                        471
to Long Island, Hudson's River, etc. I would have sent you some ship
beer, but MIr. Fleming hath provided a butt brought in John Gallop.
Goodwife B. is delivered of a daughter, and abroad again in a week.
Your wife grows big, but as lively as any woman in the house, God be
praised.
I do not send you George, because they are speaking of putting off
servants, etc. I suppose, when they come to you, they will consider of
the widow Bushnell and of the other widows at Ten Hills, widow
Briskowe, who hath been sick ever since you went abroad, and is a
great burden to us.
We hear that Scilla Nova is at the West Indies; but we hear nothing
of the Pied Cow.'
I must end, with remembrance of mine own and your mother's love
and blessing to you and to Stephen. Farewell, my good son.
23 of the 4th mo. 1636.
I send you two small sugar loaves by J. Gallop.
Mr. W.'s debt is ~310. I showed him his bill, with all the several
sums, and of whom he received them. I have laid out, since you went,
in provisions, etc., and for seamen's wages, near ~200.
John Gallop hath a pair of stockings for Stephen, and shoes and
stockings for Hen. Smith.
Serjeant Willes's two kilderkins of B. cost 7.4.4, at 7d. the pound.
If you have more peas and beef than you need, you may send back
some.
If you write into England, send your letters by the first return, and
I shall convey them.
I have taken order with Mr. Coggeshall for Mr. Oldham, etc.
To my very loving Son, Mr. WINTHROP, Governor 
of the new Plantation upon Connecticut, d'd.  \
A 61.
DE AR IN MY THOUGHTS,
I blush to think how much I have neglected the opportunity of presenting my love to you. Sad thoughts possess my spirits, and I cannot repulse
1 She had come from London the year before, and perhaps was lost in her return.




472                       APPENDIX.
them; which makes me unfit for any thing, wondering what the Lord
means by all these troubles among us. Sure I am, that all shall work
to the best to them that love God, or rather are loved of him. I know
he will bring light out of obscurity, and make his righteousness shine
forth as clear as the noon day. Yet I find in myself an adverse spirit,
and a trembling heart, not so willing to submit to the will of God as I
desire. There is a time to plant, and a time to pull up that which is
planted, which I could desire might not be yet. But the Lord knoweth
what is best, and his will be done. But I will write no more. Hoping
to see thee to-morrow, my best affections being commended to yourself,
the rest of our friends at Newton, I commit thee to God.
Your loving wife,
MARGARET WINTHROP.
Sad BOSTON, 1637.
[Probably May, or other session of the general court, or at the synod.]
To her honored tHsbancl, 
these be delivered.
A. 62.
MY GoOD SON,
I received your letter, and heartily rejoice and bless the Lord for his
merciful providence towards us all, in delivering your wife fiom so great
a danger. The Lord make us truly thankful. And I hope it will teach
my daughter and other women to take heed of putting pins in the mouth,
which was never seasonable to be fed with such morsels. I can write
you no news, only we had letters from Conectacott, where they were
shut up with snow above a month since, and we at Boston were almost
ready to break up for want of wood, but that it pleased the Lord to open
the bay, (which was so frozen as men went over it in all places,) and
mitigate the rigor of the season; blessed be his name. On Friday was
fortnight, a pinnace was cast away upon Long Island by Natascott, and
Mr. Babbe and others, who were in her, came home upon the ice. We
have had one man frozen to death, and some others have lost their
fingers and toes. Seven men were carried out to sea in a little, rotten
skiff, and kept there twenty-four hours, without food or fire, and at last
gat to Pullen Point.
We have appointed the general court the 12 of the 1 month. We shall
expect you here before the court of assistants. So, with all hearty




APPENDIX.                        473
salutations from myself and your mother to yourself and wife, and
little Betty, and all our good friends with you, I commend you to the
blessing of the Lord, and rest
Your loving father,
JO. W.
I send you herein the warrant for Ipswich and Newbury. Commend
me to your brother and sister Dudley.
XIth, 22, 1637.
To his very loving Son, Mr. JoHN WINTHROP, }
at Ipswichl, d'd. 
A. 63.
MY DEAR WIFr,
When my brother Stephen went hence, I was not up, nor well, so that
I could not write to thee. I thank God I am now much better than I
was when he left me. Though I much desire to enjoy thy company, yet
I would not have thee cross thy intentions, in staying till that time be
past. I hoped to fetch thee home myself, but am yet prevented.
I can get no garden enclosed nor digged; but I hear, that, in new
ground, it is best to begin when the weeds are sprung up; for then they
will be all killed and grow no more that year. Put my brother Stephen
in mind to send me my carbine, as he promised me. So, with my best
affections and love to thee, I commend thee to the Lord, and rest
Thine, in my best affections,
J. WINTHROP.
From the Salt House, 2Monday Morning.
My duty to my mother; my love to my brothers and all friends;
forget not. My blessing to Betty and Fitz.
My brother Stephen hath promised to bring thee home, when thou
comest.
To ny clear Wife, Mrs. ELIZABETH WINTHROP, }
at Boston.
It can hardly be doubted, that it was written in May, 1638 or 1639, before the birth.
of any other children than Betty and Fitz.
40Q)




474                         APPENDIX.
A. 64.
SON,
I received your letter, and do bless the Lord for your recovery and
the welfare of your family. You must be very careful of taking cold
about the loins; and, when the ground is open, I will send you some
pepper-wort roots. For the flux, there is no better medicine than the
cup used two or three times, and, in case of sudden torments, a clyster
of a quart of water boiled to a pint, which, with the quantity of two or
three nutmegs of saltpetre boiled in it, will give present ease.
For the pills, they are made of grated pepper, made up with turpentine, very stiff, and some flour withal; and four or five taken fasting,
and fast two hours after.  But, if there be any fever with the flux, this
must not be used till the fever be removed by the cup. This bearer is
in great haste, and so am I. So, with our blessing to you and yours, and
salutations to all, etc. I rest
Your loving father,
JO. WINTHROP.
This bearer can tell you all the news, which is come from England by
the fishing ships, &c.
To my lovin Son, Mr. JOIN WINTHROP, atl
Ipswich.
Salutem tibi tumque plurimam in Christo Jesu. 
JOHN WILSON. J
No sufficient indication is found of the year in which this letter was written. Of
the season the evidence is clear. It was before the opening of spring. From our
author's History, II. 21, we might conjecture, that the news from Europe referred
to 1640; or guess its date to be near the end of February 1642-3 by the dim light
shed on p. 93 of the same volume.
B.
The Accompt of John WVinthrop, _Esq. late Governour.
Whereas, by order of the last general court, commissioners were
appointed, viz. Roger Ludlow, Esq. the deputy governour, and Mr.
Israel Stoughton, gent. to receive my accompt of such things as I have
received and disbursed for public use in the time of my government;
in all due observance and submission to the order of the said court, I do
make this declaratory accompt ensuing: —




APPENDIX.                           475
First, I affirm, that I never received any moneys or other goods committed to me in trust for the commonwealth, otherwise than is hereafter
expressed.
Item, I aclnowedge I have in my custody certain barrels of common
powder, and some match and drumheads, with some things belonging to
the ordnance; which powder, being landed at Charlestown, and exposed
to the injury of the weather, I took and bestowed first in a tent, which
I made of mine own broadcloth, (being then worth eight shillings the
yard, but in that service much spoiled). After, I removed it to my
storehouse at Boston, where it still remains, save that some of it hath
been spent in public service, and five barrels delivered to Dorchester,
and four to Roxbury, and three barrels I sold to some ships that needed
them, which I will allow powder or money for. The rest I am ready
to deliver up to such as shall be appointed to receive them. I received
also some meal and peas, from M1r. White of Dorchester in England,
and from Mr. Roe 1 of London, which was bestowed upon such as had
need thereof in the several towns; as also ~10 given by Mr. Thomson.
I received also from Mr. Humfrey, some rugs, frieze suits, shoes, and
hose, (the certain value whereof I must know from himself,) with letters
of direction to make use of the greatest part thereof, as given to help
bear out my charge for the public. I paid for the freight of these
goods, and disposed of the greatest part of them to others; but how, I
cannot set down. I made use, also, of two pair of carriage wheels,
which I will allow for: I had not meddled with them, but that they lay
useless for want of the carriages, which were left in England, For my
disbursements, I have formerly delivered to the now deputy a bill of
part of them, amounting to near ~300, which I disbursed for public
services divers years since, for which I have received in corn, at six
shillings the bushel, (and which will not yield me above four shillings,)
about ~180, or near so much. I disbursed also for the transportation of
1 Owen Rowe had a share in our Massachusetts company, and thought or talked
much of coming to live with us, as appears by his letter to Winthrop, Hutch. Coll.
59. Boston records of 20 June, 1636, prove that " Mr. Owyn Roe of London, having a
house and towns lot amongst us, and certain cattle, shall have laid out for him 200
acres of ground at Mount Woollystone." He was, also, a proprietor at New Haven,
yet staid in London, became a Colonel in the great civil war, was one of the regicides,
and his seal is affixed to the warrant for execution of Charles I. After the restoration, his sorrow for the deed, and rejoicing with all his countrymen at the incoming
of Charles II. and submission to accept the mercy of the sovereign, saved him from
the infliction of his sentence on conviction of the treason, and he died in the Tower
on Christmay day, 1661. See Noble's History of the Regicides, II.




476                       APPENDIX.
Mr. Phillips his family, which was to be borne by the government till
he should be chosen to some particular congregation.
Now, for my other charges, by occasion of my place of government,
it is well known I have expended much, and somewhat I have received
towards it, which I should have rested satisfied with, but that, being
called to accompt, I must mention my disbursements with my receipts,
and, in both, shall refer myself to the pleasure of the court.
I was first chosen to be governour without my seeking or expectation,
(there being then divers other gent. who, for their abilities every way,
were far more fit). Being chosen, I furnished myself with servants and
provisions accordingly, in a far greater proportion than I would have
done, had I come as a private man, or as an assistant only. In this
office I continued four years and near an half, although I earnestly
desired, at every election, to have been freed. In this time, I have
spent above ~500 per annum, of which ~200 per annum would have
maintained my family in a private condition. So as I may truly say, I
have spent, by occasion of my late office, above ~1200. Towards this
I have received, by way of benevolence, from some towns, about ~50,
and, by the last year's allowance, ~150, and, by some provisions sent by
Mr. Humlfrey, as is before-mentioned, about ~50, or, it may be,
somewhat more.
I also disbursed, at our coming away, in England, for powder and
great shot, ~216, which I did not put into my bill of charges formerly
delivered to the now deputy, because I did expect to have paid myself
out of that part of Mr. Johnson's estate, which he gave to the public; but,
finding that it will fall far short, I must put it to this accompt.
The last thing, which I offer to the consideration of the court, is, that
my long continuance in the said office hath put me into such a way of
unavoidable charge, as will be still as chargeable to me as the place of
governour will be to some others. In all these things, I refer myself to
the wisdom and justice of the court, with this protestation, that it repenteth me not of my cost or labor bestowed in the service of this commonwealth; but do heartily bless the Lord our God, that he hath pleased to
honor me so far as to call for any thing he hath bestowed upon me for
the service of his church and people here, the prosperity whereof, and
his gracious acceptance, shall be an abundant recompense to me. I conclude with this one request, (which in justice may not be denied me,)
that, as it stands upon record, that, upon the discharge of my office, I
was called to accompt, so this my declaration may be recorded also; lest




APPENDIX.                           477
hereafter, when I shall be forgotten, some blemish may lie upon my
posterity, when there shall be nothing to clear it, etc.
JOHN WINTHROP.
September 4th, 1634.
[The foregoing was copied for me by direction of Alden Bradford, Esq. then
secretary of the commonwealth. It is extremely interesting to observe the diffidence
of the author, and his prudence in guarding from imputations, when hle should be
forgotten, against his posterity. No distinct reference can be found, in the text of the
History, to the circumstances, by which I could have been justified in denoting the
place of this document in the Appendix.]
C. Page 170.
DEA1R IF rIEDS,
Whereas there is a patent granted to certain persons of quality
(friends to New England) of the River of Connecticut, with the places
adjoining, together with liberties and prerogatives as in such cases are
usual, so that, by virtue thereof, they conceive they have full power,
right, and authority to govern and dispose of all persons and affairs that
shall fall within the circuit and limits of the said grant; it is therefore
conceived requisite, by the agents of the said patentees now present in
New England, to lay forth the claims and rights of the said personages
to such as here in New England it may concern, to the end, if any
thoughts or designs of others have been heretofore, or may be hereafter
prejudicial or injurious to the right or possessions of the said patentees,
they may so far take notice of the same, as, whatever hath happened in
the bypast, or may befall for the future, any way derogating from the
former claims, may seasonably meet with a loving and friendly prevention; at least, every one that seems to be interested herein may declare
and give reasons of their titles and pretensions thereto, that so, in so
weighty an enterprise, the business may be carried an end with order,
justice, peace, and joint power and strength for the accomplishing of the
same, and fruition of it with blessing and love.
Upon consideration of the premises, we conceive, that the present face
of affairs of Connecticut, as it now appears, will admit or require a
punctual and plain answer to these necessary queries from the towns,
that are lately removed from the Massachlsetts Bay to take up plantation within the limits of the foresaid patent.
Imprimis, whether they do acknowledge the rights and claims of the
said persons of quality, and in testimony thereof will and do submit to




478                       APPENDIX.
the counsel and direction of their present governour, Mr. John Winthrop
the younger, established by commission from them in those parts.
Secondly, under what right and pretence they have lately taken up
their plantations within the precincts forementioned, and what government they intend to live under, because the said country is out of the
claim of the Massachusetts patent.
Item, what answer and reasons we may return to the said patentees,
if the said towns intend to intrench upon their rights and privileges, and
justify the same.
These things we tender to you as our truly respected brethren, and
do desire you earnestly to take them into your serious and Christian
consideration, with as much secrecy as may be, so that we may receive
your speedy and loving resolutions, that, by the present opportunities,
which now present themselves for returning your answers into England,
we discharge our trust, which we have lately been put in mind of. And
thus we commend you to the guidance and protection of our good God,
and remain
Your loving friends,
H. VANE, Jun.
JOHN WINTHROP.
HUGH PETER.
To our loving and much respected Friends, Mr. LuDLow,'
Mr. MAVERICIK, Mr. NEWBERRY, Mr. STOUGHTON, 
and the rest of our Friencls engaged in the business of C
Connecticut Plantations in the Town of Dorchester, d'c. )
D. Page 235.
SIR,
Yours by Robinson we have received, and careful we shall be (I trust)
to observe your instructions, and to hasten home as fast as the cause will
permit. We are now in a readiness for Block Island; only we wait for
a fair wind. We are informed of many Indians there; so we expect the
toughest work we have yet met. But we are assured our cause is good,
and so we commend ourselves to God's mercy and power. By reason
you sent for Mr. Wilson to come with Mr. Hooker, we being willing to
show our loyalty to you, and love to the common cause, we have, without gainsaying, dismissed hinm, albeit we conceived we had special interest in him, and count ourselves naked without him, and therefore expect
supply, if we be required to abide by it. Upon consideration that Mr.
TWilson going along in the vessel to Connecticut might the more engage
Wilson                                             ore enga




APPENDIX.                        479
Mr. Hooker and expedite his journey to you, and for that, being to go
to Block Island, we could enjoy him but one Sabbath more, we dismissed
him at first view of your letter.
We do thankfully acknowledge your care and tenderness toward us,
signified by your writings, and sending my provisions, etc., and desire
we may deserve it. For the hardship you conceive you put us to, and
pity us for, for my part, what I endure is so little thzougt of, that it is
not worthy pity, neither doth it trouble me, and therefore I desire it
may trouble none of my friends. It is what I have been acquainted
with in part before; and if I be never more put to it for God's cause
sake, it is much less than I have expected. Whiles we enjoy part in
what is there to be had, I hope we shall be satisfied.
We hear not of Miantonimo, nor any of the Narrigansets nor Nianticks that were with you, concerning the Pequids they have, or any
thing else, albeit we have sent for Miantonimo to come to us. The last
day of the week, (being to go to Block Island, and) wanting a guide, we
sent Tho. Stanton and twenty men, with Lieut. I-ow, towards the Narragansets to get one, who found divers people in Pequid corn, and
desired speech with some of them, but by no means could not obtain it,
for they ran all away. Still they endeavored after it, and to know the
reason of their running, especially seeing we had formerly expressly
told them, they must not use that, for we should then take them for
Pequids. At length, they told, that Englishmen had some of them in
prison in the bay, and they knew not what Englishmen meant towards
them. But we were also told by a squaw, that they were mixt, Pequids
and Narragansets together; and were besides signs of two rendezvous;
she said, one was the Pequids. So, there being twenty canoes, ours
brought two away, with one kettle and beans, that were at the Pequids'
rendezvous, but told them, let them come hither, and, if they were
Narragansets, they should have all without any damage.
We conceive you do well, in keeping them to strict, just terms, as also
in that you refer them to us in the matters specified; for we conceive,
being in the field, with our swords in our hands, we shall do better with
them than when the sword is sheathed, and all peace.
Concerning Pequids harbored by them, we have thoughts (after
return from Block Island) to require every one of them from those that
have them, for these reasons:
1. Their flying to them is no submission to us, but of purpose to avoid
it; so that they bear the same good will to us as formerly; that is, they
stand enemies, only use the Narragansetts and others as their covering.
2. Standing thus, we can expect no other but that they will do us




480                        APPENDIX.
mischiefs as opportunity serves; and, besides, be as spurs to the Narragansetts to provoke them to it, and as captains to aid and strengthen
them in it, when, etc.
3. Under the vizor of a Narragansett, they will come amongst us,
and do us mischiefs.
4. And when a mischief is done, then it will be fathered upon some
renegade Pecot, that will have no master to own him; but it will be
said, such a one did it, or such a one, etc.
Therefore, if they will not deliver all to us, according to their covenant, we cannot think their intentions to be good toward us, and shall
accordingly declare ourselves towards them; though we will not so use
like faith with them, but first advise with you, unless we be constrained.
And if God do harden their hearts, I doubt not but it will be to their
perdition. Only I pray for the contrary, if it be the Lord's will.
For Wequash, we fear he is killed; and if he be,'tis a mere wicked
plot, and, seeing he showed faithfulness to us, and for it is so rewarded,
it is hard measure to us-ward; and what is meet to be done therein,
is difficult to me to conclude; I shall therefore desire your speedy
advice.
After return from Block Island, we shall fall upon destroying corn.
Near to us it fails much by the weeds, and far from us it will do us little
good. The Naragansetts do gather beans in abundance, and we are
silent at it; yet, if they should turn enemy, it would be to our great
damage. But my opinion is, that they will be twice advised before they
will fall out witzh zs. Only they will let us bear their injuries as long
as we will, and, if they see us in good earnest, I believe they will think
upon it, especially whiles the terror of our sword and our God's doings
is upon them.
There be many Pequids yet living, and such as will do much mischief.
It will be found therefore necessary for one pinnace, one shallop, and
some sixty men, to abide here, to take opportunities, partly at Long
Island, and elsewhere upon the coasts, (for they lie mostly upon the
coast, except such as are under the wing of other Indians).  Else I see
not many need stay. For, for this place, it is scarce worthy much cost.
As for plantation, here is no meadow I see or hear of near; the upland
good, but rocky and unfit for ploughs for the most part. Indeed, were
there no better,'twere worthy the best of us, the upland being, as I judge,
stronger land than the bay upland.
But if you would enlarge the state, and provide for the poor servants
of Christ, that are yet unprovided, (which I esteem a worthy work,) I
must speak my conscience. I confess the place and places whither




APPENDIX.                          481
God's providence carried us, that is, to Quillipeage River, and so beyond
to the Dutch, is before this, or the bay either, (so far as I can judge,)
abundantly. But unless great necessity, or approved policy, require
such undertakings, I would be loath to have a hand in, or that my pen
should further them, for I affect not scattering, but would rather part
stakes at home; yet, so far as it may tend to public utility, and the
enlargement of Christ's kingdom, I hope I should not hinder so good a
work, though it be to self's disadvantage. It seems to me, God hath
much people to bring hither, and the place is too strait, most think.
And if so, then, considering, 1st, the goodness of the land, 2d, the fairness of the title, 3d, the neighborhood of Connecticut, 4th, the good
access that may be thereto, wherein it is before Connecticut, even in the
three forementioned considerations, (for the land Connecticut men so
judge,) and, 5th, that an ill neighbor may possess it, if a good do not,I should readily give it my good word, if any good souls have a good
liking to it.
I am willing, for my own particular, to stay here so long as yourself
and the council, or general court, shall see just cause to require me.
Yet I also am as willing to be at home so soon as it may be permitted;
and, for my part, when some few things more are over, I see nothing
against but that I may come home, and therefore shall wait to know
your minds tlerein.
Thus, with my due respect remembered to yourself, the honored council, and the rest of the magistrates, desiring your prayers, I humbly
commend you to God.
Yours, as in duty I am bound,
ISRAEL STOUGHTONo
From PEQUID, the 2d day of the }
6th week of our wafcare. 
To his much honored in the Lord, the Governozr 
and Council of the Mcssachusetts, these present. 
[This was probably written 14 August, 1637. They reached home 26th.1
E. Page 245.
[Remonstrance or Petition by Mfembers of Boston Chuzrch, in favor of
Wheelwright, March, 1637.  Copied from the Book of their Antagonist, Thomas Welde, pp. 23-5.]
We, whose names are underwritten, have diligently observed this
honored court's proceedings against our dear and reverend brother in
VOL. I.                     41




482                       APPENDIX.
Christ, Mr. Wheelwright, now under censure of the court for the truth
of Christ. We do humbly beseech this honorable court to accept this
remonstrance or petition of ours, in all due submission tendered to your
worships.
For, first, whereas our beloved brother, Mr. Wheelwright, is censured for contempt by the greater part of this honored court, we desire
your worships to consider the sincere intention of our brother to promote your end in the day of fast; for whereas we do perceive your
principal intention the day of fast looked chiefly at the public peace of
the churches, our reverend brother did, to his best strength, and as the
Lord assisted him, labor to promote your end, and therefore endeavored
to draw us nearer unto Christ, the head of our union, that so we might
be established in peace, which we conceive to be the true way, sanctified of God, to obtain your end, and therefore deserves no such censure,
as we conceive.
Secondly, whereas our dear brother is censured of sedition, we beseech your worships to consider, that either the person condemned must
be culpable of some seditious fact, or his doctrine must be seditious,
or must breed sedition in the hearts of his hearers, or else we know not
upon what grounds he should be censured. Now, to the first, we have
not heard any that have witnessed against our brother for any seditious
fact. Secondly, neither was the doctrine itself, being no other but the
very expressions of the Holy Ghost himself, and therefore cannot justly
be branded with sedition. Thirdly, if you look at the effects of his
doctrine upon the hearers, it hath not stirred up sedition in us, not so
much as by accident; we have not drawn the sword, as sometimes
Peter did, rashly, neither have we rescued our innocent brother, as
sometimes the Israelites did Jonathan, and yet they did not seditiously.
The covenant of free grace held forth by our brother hath taught us
rather to become humble suppliants to your worships; and, if we
should not prevail, we would rather with patience give our cheeks to
the smiters. Since, therefore, the teacher, the doctrine and the hearers
be most free from sedition, (as we conceive,) we humbly beseech you,
in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, your Judge and ours, and for the
honor of this court and the proceedings thereof, that you will be pleased
either to make it appear to us, and to all the world, to whom the knowledge of all these things will come, wherein the sedition lies, or else
acquit our brother of such a censure.
Farther, we beseech you, remember the old method of Satan, the
ancient enemy of free grace, in all ages of the churches, who hath
raised up such calumnies against the faithful prophets of God. Elijah




APPENDIX.                         483
was called the troubler of Israel, 1 Kings, 18. 17, 18. Amos was
charged for conspiracy, Amos 7. 10. Paul was counted a pestilent fellow, or mover of sedition, and a ringleader of a sect, Acts 24. 5; and
Christ himself, as well as Paul, was charged to be a teacher of new
doctrine, Mark 1. 27. Acts 17. 19. Now, we beseech you, consider,
whether that old Serpent work not after his old method, even in our
days.
Farther, we beseech you, consider the danger of meddling against
the prophets of God, Psalm 105. 14, 15; for what ye do unto them
the Lord Jesus takes as done unto himself. If you hurt any of his
members, the head is very sensible of it; for so saith the Lord of
Hosts, He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of mine eye, Zech. 2.
8. And better a millstone were hanged about our necks, and that we
were cast into the sea, than that we should offend any of these little
ones, which believe on him, Matt. 18. 6.
And, lastly, we beseech you consider, how you should stand in relation to us, as nursing fathers, which gives us encouragement to promote
our humble requests to you, or else we would say with the prophet,
Isa. 22. 4, Look from me, that I may weep bitterly; Labor not to comfort me, etc.; or as Jer. 9. 2, Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging
place of a way-faring man! - And thus have we made known our
griefs and desires to your worships, and leave them upon record with
the Lord and with you, knowing that, if we should receive repulse from
you, with the Lord we shall find grace.
F.
BELOVED BRETHRIIEN,
I met lately with the remonstrance subscribed by yourselves with
others. I must confess I saw it once before, but had not then time
to read it advisedly, as now I have. I hope soon (by God's assistance)
to make it appear, what wrong hath been done to the court, yea, and
to the truth itself, by your rash, unwarranted, and seditious delinquency.
In the mean time, I thought fit to advertise you of some miscarriages
therein; and though your countenancing of others in the like practice
leaves me small hope, that you will hearken to my counsel in this, yet,
in discharge of my duty and brotherly respect towards you, I have
given this attempt, and shall leave the success to God.
1. In this you have broke the ends of your calling, that you did publish such a writing, when you were no members of the court.
2. In that you tax the court with-injustice.




484                        APPENDIX.
3. In that you affirm, that all the acts of that major part of that
court are void, whereby you go about to overthrow the foundation of
our commonwealth and the peace thereof, by turning all our magistrates
out of office, and by nullifying all our laws.
4. In that you invite the body of the people to join with you in your
seditious attempt against the court and the authority here established,
against the rule of the apostle, who requires every soul to be subject to
the higher powers, and every Christian man to study to be quiet and
to meddle with his own business.
I earnestly desire you to consider seriously of these things, and if it
please the Lord to open your eyes to see your failings, it will be much
joy to me, and (I doubt not but) the court will be very ready to pass
them by, and accept of your submission, and it may be a means of a
further and firm reconciliation; which the Lord grant, and in his good
time effect. So I rest
Your loving brother,
J. W,
XIth, 15, 1637.
To 7ny worthy Friedcls - ac  beloved Bretlren, l
Mr. CODDINGTON, Mr. COGGESHALL, and
Mr. COLBUEN.                       )
No reference is made in my notes to this document, because no fit place was
afforded by the text. The exasperation of the controversy did not, as usual, turn to
gall Winthrop's gentleness of temper, though it seems to me to have had an injurious influence on his judgment.
G. Page 260.
It may please the worthy and much honored governour, deputy, and
assistants, and, with them, the present court, to take knowledge, that
our desire of staying within this patent was real and strong, if the eye
of God's providence (to whom we have committed our ways, especially
in so important an enterprise as this, which, we confess, is far above
our capacities) had guided us to a place convenient for our families and
for our friends. Which, as our words have often expressed, so, we
hope, the truth thereof is sufficiently declared by our almost nine
months' patient waiting in expectation of some opportunity to be offered
us, for that end, to our great charge and hindrance many ways. In all
which time we have, in many prayers, commended the guidance of our
apprehensions, judgments, spirits, resolutions, and ways into the good




APPENDIX.                        485
hand of the only wise God, whose prerogative it is to determine the
bounds of our habitations, according to the ends for which he hath
brought us into these countries; and we have considered, as we were
able, by his help, whatsoever place hath been propounded to us, being
ready to have, with contentment, accepted (if by our stay any public
good might be promoved) smaller accommodations, and upon dearer
terms (if they might be moderately commodious) than, we believe,
most men, in the same case with us, in all respects, would have done.
And whereas a place for an inland plantation, beyond Watertown, was
propounded to us, and pressed with much importunity by some, whose
words have the power of a law with us, in any way of God, we did
speedily and seriously deliberate thereupon, it being the subject of the
greatest part of a day's discourse. The conclusion was, that, if the upland should answer the meadow ground in goodness and desirableness,
(whereof yet there is some ground of doubting,) yet, considering that
a boat cannot pass from the bay thither, nearer than eight or ten miles
distance, and that it is so remote from the bay, and from any town, we
could not see how our dwelling there would be advantageous to these
plantations, or compatible with our conditions, or commodious for our
families, or for our friends. Nor can we satisfy ourselves, that it is
expedient for ourselves, or for our friends, that we choose such a condition, wherein we must be compelled to have our dwelling houses so far
distant from our farms as Boston or Charlestown is from that place,
few of our friends being able to bear the charge thereof, (whose cases,
nevertheless, we are bound to consider,) and some of them, that are
able, not being persuaded that it is lawful for them to live continually
from the greatest part of their families, as, in this case, they would be
necessitated to do. The season of the year, and other weighty considerations, compelled us to hasten to a full and final conclusion, which we
are, at last, come unto, by God's appointment and direction, we hope, in
mercy, and have sent letters to Connectacutt for a speedy transacting
the purchase of the parts about Quillypieck from the natives, which
may pretend title thereunto. By which act we are absolutely and irrevocably engaged that way; and we are persuaded, that God will order
it for good unto these plantations, whose love so abundantly, above our
deserts or expectations, expressed in your desire of our abode in these
parts, as we shall ever retain in thankful memory, so we shall account
ourselves thereby obliged to be any way instrumental and serviceable
for the common good of these plantations as well as of those, which the
divine providence hath combined together in as strong a bond of brotherly affection, by the sameness of their condition, as Joab and Abishai
41'




486                         APPENDIX.
were, whose several armies did mutually strengthen them both against
several enemies, 2 Sam. 10. 9, 10, 11, or rather they are joined
together, as Hippocrates his twins, to stand and fall, to grow and decay,
to flourish and wither, to live and die, together.  In witness of the
premises, we subscribe our names,
JOHN DAVENPORTE.
THEOPH. EATON.
The 12th day of the 1st month, 1638.
To the mutch honored, the Governoour, 
Deputy, and Assistants, etc. 
This letter has, since first published by me, been printed in 3 Mass. Hist. Coll.
III. 165, with erroneous date of 1639. Had Winthrop written on the same day, he
would have called it 1637. Many years before, I had in my original preface noted
the distinction. There can be no mistake. In Sept. 1637 Eaton went, as Winthrop
says, fiom Boston to explore the coast on the Sound, while Davenport was engaged
here in the more appropriate function of vindicating the truth against Cotton and
Wheelwright; and in April following the date of this letter, they established the beautiful city of New IIaven. Holmes, in his Annals, quoting Trumbull's Hist. I. 90,
says "1638 on the eighteenth of April they kept their first Sabbath in the place."
If the almanac of that year is correct, the day was Wednesday.
H.   Page 290.
Authenticity of the DEED of four Indian Sagamores to Rev. John
Yheelwright and others, 17 Mlay, 1629.
Before the 13th June, 1820, I had no more suspicion of the truth
of the deed to Wheelwright and four others, of 17 May, 1629, which is
the first article of Appendix in Belknap's NT. H., I. and may also be
seen in Hazard, I. 271 -274, than of the charter of 4 March, 1628-9, for
the colony of Massachusetts Bay, or of any other undisputed document.
On that day, casually perusing Gov. Winthrop's History, page 172 of
the Hartford edition, after having twice, in former years, collated the
whole with the original MS. without perceiving any inconsistency with
an instrument, that indeed had no necessary connection with my text, I
was struck with the improbability, that Wheelwright and his associates,
in 1639, should not have mentioned their ancient title, when so severely
censured by their former brethren of Massachusetts for now " dealing
with an Indian there, and buying Winicowet."    See page 290 of this
volume.




APPENDIX.                        487
To remove or confirm my doubts, I considered immediately several
circumstances, and on the same day wrote for advice to N. A. Haven,
jun. Esq. of Portsmouth, competent counsel in such a cause. To aid
him in supplying an early answer on some suspicious points, I mentioned, 1. The wretdhed argument of Cotton Miather, the first article of
Appendix in Belknap's N. H., III. 2. The names of the grantees, not
generally known, except Wheelwright, who did not probably come over
till seven years after, and Wentworth, who was probably too young. 3.
The absence of Samuel Sharp, on the ocean, just parted from England,
when he is made witness to the signing of the deed. 4. The seven
witnesses of delivery of possession, on the same day with execution, not
one of whom witnessed the signing; and the doubts raised in 1707,
when the handwriting of several, perhaps of all, these seven, could so
easily be proved. 5. The argument from History of Winthrop, which
seemed irrefragable. I asked, if the original deed were visible, that
my own eyes might judge, whether "it has almost as many marks of
1629 as there be years in the number," which was the authoritative
declaration of lather, without seeing the instrument, probably from the
overbearing impulses of a celestial vision. My further question was,
"When was it last seen? or heard of.?" In conclusion, I begged him to
inquire of Hon. Jeremiah Mason, or any other competent person, and
to answer every particular.
Mr. Haven replied, 20 July, 1820, "I cannot better answer your
letter of June 13, than by enclosing a communication from    Mr.
Nathaniel Adams, to which it gave occasion. Mr. Adams procured for
Belknap the copy of Wheelwright's deed, which had been filed among
the records of the superior court in 1707, in the case of Allen vs.
Waldron. The papers in this case he examined a few years ago, but
afterwards mislaid them in the office. They are not now on the regular
files. He remembers, that Dr. Belknap inquired in vain for the original
deed. If it exist at all, it must be among the heirs of Wheelwright,
their executors, administrators, or assigns. -
"Ignai hominumque locorumque,
Erramus."
The communication of Mr. Adams follows:
"PORTSMOUTH, July 3d, 1820.
"MY DEAR SIR,
"I have read with some attention Mr. Savage's letter upon the
Indian deed to Wheelwright, as well as the deed itself in the Appendix




488                       APPENDIX.
to Belknap's New Hampshire, vol. I. and cannot discover the many suspicious circumstances, with which Mr. Savage thinks it' pregnant;'
and as he is methodical in pointing out his objections, I will pursue the
same order in answering them.
"First, with respect to the grantees, three of whom, he says, are
unknown in his researches. It appears from the Records of Exeter,
that, in the year 1639, soon after the settlement of the town, the
brethren of the church there, and the other inhabitants, made a combination, as they called it, or form of government, which was signed by
all the inhabitants, and the names of all the grantees in the deed are
amongst them. When they came to this country does not appear.
William Wentworth was one of the first settlers in Exeter, and continued
there as long as their combination lasted, and then removed to Dover.
He assisted in defending Heard's garrison in 1689. If he was born
1609, he was twenty years old at the time of executing the deed, eighty
at the attack on Heard's, and eighty-eight when he died. Iis mode of
securing the gate at Heard's did not require more muscular strength
than many men of that age possess. I see nothing improbable in his
being one of the grantees, on account of his age.
"That Wheelwright was not in this country till 1636, is a mistake;
for Neal and Wiggin, in a letter to John Mason, Esq. dated August
13th, 1633, say,' We have treated with a gentleman, who has purchased
a trackt of land of the Indians at Squamscott Falls - the gentleman's
name being Wheelwright.' Belknap, vol. I. Appendix, No. 6.1 If
Mrs. Pierson's account is correct, that Mr. Wheelwright came over,
with his family, in the same ship with Samuel Whiting, in 1636, then,
as Cotton Mather says,'he might step over hither to see how the land
lay before his transportation. of his family.' Belknap, vol. III. Appendix, No. 1.
" 2d. Concerning the two English witnesses, Oldham and Sharp. It
is acknowledged, that Oldham was in the country at the time, and was
not killed till seven years afterwards. But Mr. Savage says,'that
Sharp was, that very day, on the ocean, just parted from England in
company with Higginson,' and refers to Prince's N. E. Chronology, I.
185. Prince does not any where assert, that Sharp came over with
Higginson. He says that, on the 30th of April, 1629, at a general
court of the Massachusetts company in London, it was ordered,'that
thirteen in their plantation shall have the sole ordering of the affairs
1 By Farmer rejected as a forgery, of which the evidence is palpable, and abundant, and intrinsic.




APPENDIX.                        489
and government there, by the name of the Governour and Council of
London's Plantation in the Massachusetts Bay in New England.' And,
at the same court, Sharp was elected a member of this council; but it
does not follow, that he was then in England. Endicott was, at the
same time, elected governour, although he was in Massachusetts; for he
came over in 1628, as appears from Prince's N. E. Chronology, 174;
and, as others were sent over with him to begin a plantation, probably
Sharp was one of them.
" 3d. As to the witnesses to the delivery of possession. This, in my
mind, is a corroborative circumstance of the authenticity of the deed.
The grantees, desirous of having every thing conducted in the most fair
and open manner, procured not only two very respectable witnesses to
the execution of the deed, but seven of the first characters in the neighboring plantations to witness the transaction, and to endorse on the deed
the delivery of the possession, which they supposed equivalent to the
endorsement of livery of seizin in England. Three of these very
witnesses, four years afterwards, recognize the deed in question, as
appears by Belknap, I., Appendix, No. 6, above referred to; and two
of them were directly interested in the suppression of it, if it had been
a forgery.
"A copy of the deed, certified by Jos. Hammond, register of deeds
for the county of York, was used in the trial of the cause Allen vs.
Waldron, in the year 1707, although it was not recorded there until 1713.
I cannot say why it was lodged in the register's office for the county of
York, unless it was, because the heirs of Wheelwright lived in that
county. After the record of the deed, his heirs took it into their possession; for, in the year 1720, the people, who settled at Londonderry,
then called Nutfield, purchased of Col. Wheelwright of Wells his
Indian right. The Rev. Mr. MIacgregore, in his letter to Gov. Shute,
says,'His deed, being of ninety years standing, and conveyed from the
chief sagamores between the Rivers Merrimack and Pascataqua, with
the consent of the whole tribes of the Indian nation, and well executed,
is the most authentic we have seen.' Belknap, III. Appendix, No. 4.
"I have not Gov. Winthrop's Journal; but as he did not arrive in
this country until 12th June, 1630, it is not surprising, that he did not
mention the transaction of Wheelwright's purchase, which took place
fifteen months before, and especially as it did not relate to the society,
over which he came to preside.
" I shall be gratified if the foregoing observations have any tendency
to investigate the truth. If I am mistaken., receive with candour the
attempt of             "Your friend,
"NATHANIEL ADAMS."




490                        APPENDIX.
On 1 August, 1820, I replied, with much fuller evidence of the falsity
of the deed, but not so full as shall be added to this article. Here the
matter rested until 22 November, 1823, when appeared in the Portsmouth Journal an article, under the editor's head, giving several reasons
for the opinion, that the deed "is, without doubt, a forgery." In the
Historical Collections of New Hampshire, I. 299-304, is a defence of
the instrument from the former governour of that state, which is here
copied.
"Remarks on the Authenticity of the }Wheelwright Deed.
"It has been recently affirmed, by a writer in one of our public
papers,' that this deed'is, without doubt, a forgery.' The reasons he
assigns in support of this opinion are, that Wheelwright was not heard
of in this country till 1636, seven years after the date of the deed; that
Samuel Sharpe, one of the subscribing witnesses, was then on the
ocean; that, of the seven witnesses to the delivery of possession, no
one of them witnessed the execution of the deed, though made the same
day; as some of these witnesses were officers and agents of Laconia,
it is incredible they should have lent their names to an act destructive
of their own title; that Wheelwright, in 1634, four years after the purchase from the Indians, claimed only about a mile square at Squamscott
Falls; that, when Wheelwright and the other gentlemen at Exeter
were censured, in 1639, by Massachusetts, for dealing with an Indian
and buying Winnicomett, they made no mention of the grant from the
four sagamores; that no trace of Augustine Story, Thomas Wite, and
Thomas Levitt is to be found in the history of Massachusetts or New
Hampshire; that William Wentworth, one of the supposed grantees,
died in 1697; if he was only twenty-one years old when the deed was
executed, he must have been eighty-one when he performed the astonishing feat of strength, that Belknap records of him; and that the original deed cannot now be found.
" Though these reasons may merit consideration, they do not, in my
opinion, prove that the deed from the four sagamores is a forgery.
We have no evidence, that Wheelwright did not come to this country
till the year 1636. Though he came with his family in that year to
New England, he might, before that time, have visited and resided in it
some time without his family, and that appears to be the opinion of
one of our early historians, Dr. Cotton Mather, as is expressed in his
1 Portsmouth Journal, November 22, 1823.




APPENDIX.                        491
letter of 1708 to Vaughan.' But we have more conclusive evidence to
this point: Neale and Wiggin, who laid out the four first towns in New
Hampshire, in their return to John Mason, of August 13, 1633, explicitly state the fact of Wheelwright's having previously purchased of the
Indians a tract of land at Squamscott Falls, which, when settled, was to
be called Exeter.2
" The second objection is, that Samuel Sharpe, one of the subscribing witnesses, was on the ocean the very day the deed is dated; and to
prove this, the reader is referred to 1 Prince's N. E. Chronology, 185.
But, in the passage referred to, there is no evidence that Sharpe was
on the ocean that day any more than that John Endicott was, who in
fact arrived in Massachusetts the preceding summer, and was then governour of that colony. All that Prince states is, that Endicott, on the
30th of April, 1629,3 was, by the company in England, appointed governour of Massachusetts, and Sharpe a member of the council in that
colony, and not that either of them were then in England, or on the
ocean. There is, however, better and more conclusive authority than
Prince. I will state the facts, though one of them favors the writer
upon the point under consideration. A letter from the council in England, dated April 17-21st, 1629, states, that, previous to its date, they
had received a letter from Gov. Endicott, written by him in New England, dated September 13th, 1628; and that they [the council in England] had re-appointed him governour, and appointed Samuel Sharpe
counsellor, etc., and that they then thought Sharpe, who had embarked
for New England, was detained, by bad weather, on the coast of England.4  But, what is of most importance, neither the letter last mentioned, Prince, or the writer in the Journal, afford any evidence that the
Samuel Sharpe to whom they refer was the same man who appears as
one of the subscribing witnesses. On the day that deed was executed,
Samuel Sharpe, the counsellor, was probably on the ocean; but another
man, of the same name, might then be in this country, and in fact subscribe as a witness. The writer appears to admit, that John Oldham,
the other English subscribing witness, was then in this country; for he
says he was murdered by the Indians in 1636.
"It is not objected to the witnesses of the delivery of possession, that
they were not then in this country, but that it was incredible that some
of them should be witnesses to a deed that was destructive of their own
1 "3 Belknap's N. H. Appendix, No. 1." 2 "Ditto, Appendix, No. 6."
3 " He and Sharpe were appointed at an early day, but probably some time in that
month."
4 "Hazard's State Papers, 256-268."




492                       APPENDIX.
title. I can see nothing incredible or improper in Neale, Vaughan, and
Gibbons, who were agents, and perhaps owners, under the Laconia
company, subscribing as witnesses to an Indian chiefs delivering possession of part of the tract which the company claimed. If they were
present when possession was delivered, they must know it, and their
certifying it in writing could not operate against them or their employers. Their act neither confirmed ~Wheelwright's title, or impaired that
of the company. Four years after the execution of the deed, two of
those witnesses, in their report to Mason, appear to consider Wheelwright's claim to the lands, or some part of them, as good.1 But the
writer, to evade the force of this fact, says, it was only about one mile
square; and cites Winthrop's Journal, p. 172, to shew, that, when Massachusetts, in 1639, complained of Wheelwright and his associates for
purchasing Winnicomett of the Indians, he did not then state his claim
to the large tract conveyed by the deed of 1629. But what necessity
was there for his doing it?  If a man is required to defend his title to
one tract of land, is he obliged to assert and vindicate his claim to two?
According to Winthrop, the complaint of Massachusetts against Wheelwright was not on account of the purchase and settlement of Exeter,
but Winnicomett, that is, Hampton. Wheelwright might, within four
years from the execution of the first deed, be induced, from motives,
which, after the lapse of near two, centuries, we are unable to discover,
to abandon his right to a great portion of the land described in the
deed. We have reason to believe, he had neither the means to settle
the whole, or support a controversy with Mason and others.
"Another objection to the authenticity of the deed is, that no trace
of three of the grantees named in the deed, to wit, Augustine Story,
Thomas Wite, and Thomas Levitt, can be found in the history of Massachusetts or New Hampshire, and that it is remarkable their names
should never again occur. Whoever reads the deed must be convinced,
that it was obtained by the labor and expense of Wheelwright, and not
by those of his associates, and that possession of the premises was delivered to him, and not them. But it is not a fact that we hear no more
of the associates; for, in the year 1639, an agreement was made by the
settlers at Exeter, for the government of themselves and their concerns.
This agreement is signed by thirty-five persons, of whom are John
Wheelwright, William Wentworth, and Thomas Levitt, three of the five
grantees; and, as to the other two, it is highly probable they also settled
at Exeter, and signed the contract, but spelled their names different
1     B 1 Belk. N. H. Appendix, No. 6."




APPENDIX.                         493
from what they were'written in the deed, a circumstance that frequently
occurs in the old documents relating to this country. In the deed, their
names were written Augustine Story and Thomas Wite, but, in signing
the agreement, Augustine Starr and Thomas Wright.l And the remark
respecting William Wentworth, that, if he had been but twenty-one
years of age at the time of the purchase in 1629, he must have been
eighty-one when he performed the extraordinary feat of strength
recorded in Belknap, does not appear to me to impair the authenticity
of the Indian deed. In the first place, there is no evidence, that Wentworth, in 1629, was twenty-one years old, for though minors are not
capable of giving, they are of receiving deeds. But, admitting he was
of that age, the feat of strength, which Belknap states Wentworth performed in 1689, was not greater, if so great, as what he affirms was
effected by Waldron, who, he says, was then' advanced in life to the
age of eighty years.'2  History affords many instances of men, older
than either of these, who performed greater feats of strength and
activity.
"The last objection is, that the original deed has disappeared. Considering the long period of time that has elapsed since it was given,
and the number of generations that have passed away, its preservation
would have been more extraordinary than its loss. The deed itself was
produced in court in 1707 and 1708, in the case of Allen vs. Waldron;
it was on the ancient files in the county of York on the 28th of January, 1713, and was then recorded in the records of deeds in that county.
" There are many other considerations, which support the authenticity of the deed, but it appears unnecessary to state them. I will only
add, that, if the deed was forged, Wheelwright must have been privy
to it; but the goodness of his character repels the charge: and, if it
was forged, it would be incredible, that a man of so much understanding
and knowledge as he possessed, should select the names of the officers
and agents of the company of Laconia as witnesses, who, of all others,
were most interested in detecting and exposing the fraud.
" WILLIAM     PLUMER."
My first remarks will be on the internal evidence.
1. No Indian deed, in my knowledge, and I have examined many,
was ever drawn so long, formal, and precise. Conveyances between the
English were not, for a long space of years, artificially written on our
side of the Atlantic. This deed was, it will be said, drawn by one of
the grantees. But who could have done it in so clerklike length and
1 " 1 Hazard's State Papers, 463."  2 " 1 Belknap's N. IH. 248, 249."
VOL. i.                      42




494                      APPENDIX.
beauty, more than a year before any lawyer, -except Thomas Morton of
Merry Mtount, came to the country, and half a century before any lawyers here drew such solemn assurances?
2. The names of the sachems are suspicious. Passaconaway was,
probably, not sagamore of Penecook alone, but of much more of the
country, confined however to the Merrimack, certainly superior lord of
Pentucket; yet the deed appears to show an equality with him of Runnaawit, sagamore of Pentucket, and of the two others. There is, in 2
iist. Coll. IV. 169, a true deed of Haverhill, 15 November, 1642, in
which Passaquo and Saggahew,' with the consent of Passaconaway,"
sell Pentucket, and they, without their paramount, affix their marks. I
know it may be objected, that, in this very instrument, the grantors
describe' Passaconaway our chief sagamore;" but this is one of the
strongest marks of fabrication. He was chief sagamore on the Merrimack, and Runnaawit, (whose name is not found, with any territorial
jurisdiction, in Drake's Book of the Indians,) sagamore of Pentucket,
had therefore done well to express his fealty; but he was not chief of
Squamscot, much less of Nuchawanuck, that ever I heard of, nor does
it appear from any other paper. The force of this remlark must not be
evaded, by referring the fact of his superiority, acknowledged apparently by Wahangnonawitt and Howls, only to the other grantor, because
the payment, annually, from each township within the limits, of " one
coat of trucking cloth," is reserved to the chief alone. Besides this
objection, the names of the other three sagamores are hardly known in
any other transaction. It may indeed be thought, that Howls is an easy
mistake of transcription for Knowles, who, it is known, was sachem of
Nuchawanack, and, in 1643, granted to -Iumphrey Chadbourne lands
still remaining in that family, and, in 1650, to Spencer. See Sullivan's
Maine, 143. I have two partial answers to this fact: One, that, in
these deeds, he takes no notice of his liege lord, Passaconaway; and
the other, that it is probably an English adopted name. But this
practice of taking our names was not, in 1629, used by the Indians.
WVahangnonawitt was the real, and only grantor to Wheelwright and
friends, nine years later.
3. In the preamble to the deed, the sachems are made to declare their
inclination " to have the English inhabit amongst us, as they are amongst
our countrymen in the Massachusetts Bay; by which means we hope,
in time, to be strengthened against our enemy, the Tarateens, who
yearly doth us damage." This is quite inconsistent with truth, but might
readily be suggested to an Englishman of a later age, composing a fictitious document. The shore Indians expressed such fear to Plimouth
people in 1621. The Tarrateens did, in 1631, surprise the Indians at




APPENDIX.                         495
Agawam on the sea-side; but what fear could the martial tribes of the
upper MBerrimack, of Squamscot, and of Nuchawanack, entertain of
such Zunknown enemies. The English settlements at Dover and Portsmouth, of six years standing, were their shields, if any could have been
needed. Yet this instrument refers to the humble settlement of Massachusetts Bay, i. e. Salem, eight months old, where Higginson cfterwards
found about ten houses and one hundred settlers.
4. The grantees, five in number, " all of the Massachusetts Bay,"
are each and all unheard of for some years; yet, if the men, women,
and children at Salem amounted but to one hundred, and there were
not, in which I am confident, half as many more in the bay, some one
of these five names should have appeared in the governour and company's
letters to Endecott, or in his to them. Especially does this apply to
Wheelwright, in the deed called "late of England, a minister of the
gospel."  We know the ships, in which most of our principal fathers
severally came, and the day of arrival of each. Remarkably is this
verified of the early ministers, except Blaxton. He, we know, was
not accordant with our Puritans; but Wheelwright was of the straitest
sect. This reverend gentleman did not visit Plimouth or Salem in their
destitute state, May, 1629, wanting the bread of life. Neither of these
harbors of refuge had then a minister. Did he leap, with his associates,
from the anchoring ground thirty miles into the country, without accepting congratulations of the settlers on the coast? and leap back from
Squamscot to England, without a farewell to his friends, coming and
going without being seen?
5. These four liberal sagamores "give, grant, bargain, sell, release,
ratify, and confirm unto J. W. etc. all that part of the main land bounded
by the River of Piscataqua, and the River of Merimack, that is to say, to
begin at Nuchawanack Falls in Pascataqua River aforesaid, and so down
said river to the sea, and so alongst the sea-shore to Merimack River,
and so up along said river to the falls at Pantucket aforesaid, and from
said Pantucket Falls, upon a north-west line, twenty English miles into
the woods, and from thence to run upon a straight line, north-east and
south-west, till [it] meet with the main rivers, that runs down to Pantucket Falls and Nuchawanuck Falls; and the said rivers to be the
bounds of the said lands from the thwart line, or head line, to the aforesaid falls, and the main channel of each river, from Pentucket and
Nuchawanack Falls to the main sea, to be the side bounds, and the main
sea, between Piscataqua River and Merimack River, to be the lower
bounds, and the thwart or head line, that runs from river to river, to be
the upper bounds; together with all islands within said bounds, as also




496                       APPENDIX.
the Isles of Shoals, so called by the English, together with all profits,
advantages, and appurtenances whatsoever, to the said tract of land belonging, or in any wise appertaining, reserving to ourselves liberty of
making use of our old planting land, as also free liberty of hunting, fishing, and fowling."  Now it may seem, that, after such a grant in 1629,
Passaconaway should not have consented to another sale of Pentucket in
1642, in a deed of 22 lines, by sachems, who acknowledged his sovereignty. But a much stronger objection is, that, at the very time, and
even above six and seven years before, according to the authentic history of the contemporary Gov. Winslow, settlements were made at Portsmouth and Dover, which both continued without interruption, under the
grants to Gorges, the whole of whose pretended rights, and those in
actual enjoyment, on the sea between Merimack and Piscataqua, and
up the river close to Nuchawanack, must be defeated by this deed. In
view of all the foregoing particulars, one can hardly avoid the conclusion,
that this deed, which, we may soon see reason to believe, was not made
for seventy years after its assumed date, was written with a special reference to the grant of the president and council of New England to John
MIason, 7 Nov. 1629, because its lines in the two rivers are the same,
and the Indian deed is made to include Isles of Shoals, which were embraced (not indeed by name) in Mason's, and had not been in Gorges's
grant. But the including those islands is a very strong objection to the
deed. What possible claim of title could these inland Indians have to
islands they never saw, or probably heard of? Wheelwright could not,
as an honest man, which he assuredly was, take their grant of lands of
great extent, of which the Hiltons and others at Dover, and the dwellers
at Portsmouth, had long been in peaceable enjoyment; but he must
have been as foolish as dishonest, to take in the isles of the ocean, to
which the sagamore of Ipswich, or Squidrayset, beyond Saco, had much
more reasonable claims than his supposed grantors.
6. Of the conditions, or provisoes, the bearing of most is to lessen the
credibility of the instrument. The first, that "the said John Wheelwright shall, within ten years after the date hereof, set down with a company of English, and begin a plantation at Squamsquott Falls," looks
more like accommodation of a pre-existent fact to a desired hypothesis,
than a real bargain by children of the forest. Savages are not accustomed to postpone enjoyment or revenge. It looks cunning, but it defeats itself. The plantation did begin in ten years, but ought not to
have been delayed as many months. -The second is of the same character. It was desirable, less than sixty years after, " that what other
inhabitants shall come and live on said tract of land, from time to time,




APPENDIX.                        497
and at all times, shall have and enjoy the same benefits as the said
Wheelwright."  But what reason could the grantors have for imposing
such a condition? Was not Wheelwright, like any other purchaser, to
sell out parcels of his right? -The third is altogether foreign from any
imaginable object of the Indians. - The fourth is still more so, and seems
borrowed from a habit, that grew a few years after in the Massachusetts
court in making grants. It has also a strong likeness to the erection of
townships designed in a letter of Neal and Wiggin, more than four years
after, which has been hastily thought to confirm this deed, though it
proved to be a more clumsy forgery, suggested by this monster fabrication. - The fifth seems utterly destructive of the verity of the transaction. Why should the Indians require, that their grantees, " to avoid
contentions amongst them," should be subject to "the government of the
colony of the Massachusetts, their neighbours, and to observe their laws
and orders until they have a settled government amongst themselves?"
What can be more irreconcilable to us, who know the precise circumstances of the colony, then covering only a few acres at Salem? Why
should orders by Capt. Endecott, who had not then his commission from
the governour and company, extend to regions far beyond the bounds of
the company's purchase of the preceding year, and confirmed by the
charter a few weeks before this date? Is it not apparent, that the penman of this deed knew the subsequent assertion and exercise of jurisdiction, by Massachusetts, over that region, but had forgotten, or hoped
others would forget, that it did not begin till twelve years after? - The
sixth is idle repetition of the reservation in the premises. People, who
could waste time in the wilderness for such forms, might as well have
settled there at once, and would soon have learned better employment.
-The seventh is divisible. The first member, providing, that each
township should pay to Passaconaway and his successors forever "one
coat of trucking cloth a year," " for an acknowledgment," seems indeed
to show a reasonable object of the grantors' care, though, as before
hinted, under the second head of these remarks, it leaves all but one
without any such equivalent. But what should have led to the second
member, "and also shall pay to Mr. John Wheelwright aforesaid, his
heirs and successors forever, two bushels of Indian corn a year?" Why
should the grantors have taken any care to enforce payment to their
grantee, by those who purchased of him?  It would be no difficult
matter, if the deed had been true, to show payment of this yearly " coat
of trucking cloth;" for the Indians were quite punctual, and always
have been so, in asking for their annuities.
7. After the habendum et tenendum, with warranty, come the seals
42 




498                        APPENDIX.
and signatures, with two Indian witnesses, whose names are less known
than those of the grantors. But the signing is the remarkable point.
All the six marks are different, yet not one is an Indian mark. Those,
who are conversant with the habits of the aborigines, in this particular,
know their pride is exhibited by animal or other devices, on the same
principle of human nature, that led civilized men to "the boast of
heraldry," to put family or fancy arms and mottoes on their seals. It
may be said, that exact copies of the marks should not be expected,
because we have only copy, not original of the deed, given by Belknap,
and that Hazard has not distinguished the marks. I should not insist
much on this circumstance, more than on Hazard's omission of the signature of one of the grantors, but that the copy, in Belknap, which has six
different marks, was " corrected by a copy on file, in the superior court
of New Hampshire, in the case of Alien vs. Waldron, which copy is
attested by the" register of the original deed. Could any one have
made for the supreme court a copy, without these imposing marks fiom
the original?
Perhaps the strongest circumstance of intrinsic evidence is the attestation, on the same "day of May, one thousand six hundred twenty and
nine, in the fifth year of our sovereign lord, Charles, king of England,
Scotland, France, and Ireland, defender of the faith," etc., by seven
English gentlemen of reputation, five of whom were afterwards directly,
and the two others indirectly, as agents of Gorges in another plantation, interested against the effect of said deed, that Wahangnonaway,
sagamore of Squamsquott, "in behalf of himself and the other sagamores then present," did " deliver quiet and peaceable possession of all
the lands mentioned in the within-written deed unto the within-named
John Wheelwright," and that the deed "was signed, sealed, and delivered in our presence." Yet there are two other English, gentlemen of reputation also, witnesses to signing, sealing, and delivering.
Now, why did not the seven, or some of them, sign as witnesses
to the first solemnity? Or why did not one or both of the witnesses
to the first solemnity sign as witnesses to the last?  Where was the
deed executed? in the wilderness of Squamscot? or in the English
settlements of Dover or Portsmouth? Wherever it was, it was all
one transaction. All the nine English are made to say, they saw it
signed, sealed, and delivered; yet seven only witness delivery of possession, not one of whom sign in the proper place as witnesses of
signing and sealing. All the sachems are said to be present at delivery
of possession, as well as at execution of the deed; yet the two English
witnesses of signing and sealing say nothing of possession. They were




APPENDIX.                          499
far from home, and might stay out the after ceremony as well as the
others. It is usual at Indian treaties for all parties and witnesses to
remain to the end of the solemnities, especially if they occupy but one
day.
I now turn to the extrinsic evidence.
A deed of 3 April, 1638, (near nine years later than the pretended
one,) to Wheelwright, Edward Colcord, and Darby Field of Piscataquack, Samuel Hutchinson, and Augustus, or Augustine, Story of Boston, John Compton of Roxbury, and Nicholas Needham of Mount Wollaston, of all his right, title and interest from Merrimack to the patents
of Piscataqua was made by Wehanownowit; and on the same day, and
perhaps on the same paper, the same sachem by deed gave to Wheelwright and Story only almost the same exact premises, yet having a
careful reservation for Massachusetts rights by the limit, " within three
miles on the northern side of the river Merrimack."  Colcord and Needham are witnesses, not grantees, of this deed. Both are of admirable
brevity, having no idle words, yet granting a decent extent of " thirty
miles square."  Farmer had these documents inserted, 1824, in Vol. I.
147 of New Hampsh. Hist. Coll. This transaction, an honorable one
on Wheelwright's part, furnished some instruction to the projector of
the spurious instrument, whose ingenuity was not, probably, called into
exercise before the death of Robert Mason, heir of the patentee, in 1688.
Mr. Adams says, the grantees were all here 4 October, 1639. This
is to him satisfactory proof of the genuineness, to me of the falsity, of
the instrument. There can be no doubt, that, if this deed be a forgery,
the maker knew of Exeter combination by thirty-five persons at that
time, as taken from their records by Hazard, I. 463; for his grantees'
names are those of the four first signers with the thirty-first. But it
is beyond credibility, that all five, there in October, 1639, were there,
and no others, in May, 1629; for in no other instance, in the whole
Atlantic coast of this union, will five men, on any spot at the first
opening of the country, be found on the same spot ten years after. At
Plimouth, half died in three months. Prince, I. 85, 86. At Salem, we
know, there was much mortal sickness in Endecott's little company the
first year, and worse the second, after Higginson's fleet of three ships
increased the colony. A melancholy tale is told by Winthrop of his
companions, in the letters, Appendix, A. 47 and 49. Of our twelve
first assistants in the summer of 1630, only five remained next spring,
Johnson being dead in less than three months, Rossiter in less than four,
Saltonstall, Coddington, Revell, T. Sharp, and Vassall gone to England.
Coddington and Vassall did indeed return to America; but the former,




500                       APPENDIX.
within the fatal ten years, had left Boston forever, to found a new state
at Rhode Island; and Vassall could not even live in AMassachusetts.
Ludlow and Pynchon, too, were gone within ten years. Though the
latter was within the jurisdiction, at Springfield, he was too remote to
continue in office. So that nine out of twelve were missing in less than
the same period that all our five grantees continue to enjoy life at Exeter.
But IMr. Adams supposes, that all the grantees were here in May,
1629, and that my proof of Wheelwright's coming in 1636, for the first
time, is a mistake. He refers to Neal and Wiggin's letter to John
Mason, 13 August, 1633, Belknap's N. H., I., Appendix, 6: " Because
you would have hour towns named as you desired, we have treated with
a gentleman, who has purchased a tract of land of the Indians of
Squamscut Falls, and your land running up to the said falls on one
side of the river from the falls about a mile downward, said gentleman
having a mind to said land on your side to a certain creek, and one mile
backward from the river, which we agreed on, and the creek is called
Wheelwright's, the gentleman's name being Wheelwright, and he was to
name said plantation (when settled) Exeter." This letter is verified,
seven days after, by Vines and Jocelyn.
But that it is a forged letter is clear as can any thing be. On the
day of its date at Northam, which probably was not the name of Dover
for seven years after, and then given in compliment to Rev. Mr. Larkham, who came from Northam in Devonshire, 1640; neither Neal, nor
Wiggin, was near that place. Wiggin was in England, and embarked
two or three days after in the James, Capt. Grant, and reached Salem
from  London, 10 Oct. 1633; while Neal embarked at Boston for
England on 6 August of that year, after having been here from his
government, says Winthrop, "above ten days."  See pages 106, and
115 of this vol. "In the lowest depth a lower deep," is the exclamation
of Satan in his troubles, which much resemble those of the contriver
of this deception, whose sole staff was a straw, and every step upon
quicksands. Of course the verification of Vines and Jocelyn for this
letter, one week after its date, was a shameless falsity; yet certainly
signed by neither of the pretended guarantors.
Mrs. Pierson, daughter of Wheelwright, "the more sensible and
capable of the two" " very incompetent witnesses to determine the time
of their father's first coming over into America," told Cotton Mather,
"that her father's coming over with his family was in the same ship
with Mr. Samuel Whiting the minister of Lynn, and others," and he
adds of them, "who, we are all sure, came in 1636;" and that she never
heard her father speak of visiting America before. Now I leave it to




APPENDIX.                         501
judges of probability, not to Mather, who, instead of weighing evidence,
had not discretion enough to be trusted to wipe the scales, whether
Wheelwright, who lived with his children forty-three years from 1636,
can be presumed to have mentioned particularly his coming in 1636,
when the country was comparatively thriving and well filled, and to
have omitted the fact of his coming, in 1628, to a wilderness, which he
saw, in his latter days, blossoming as the rose. I say 1628, not 1629,
for no vessel in this year had yet brought over men to make a treaty
with inland Indians. The minute information of the daughter was
accurate. Whiting left England in April, arrived 26 May, says MAather's
Life, in one of the "fifteen great ships," no doubt, mentioned by Winthrop, all in our harbor together.  On 12 of June, little more than a
fortnight after, our Church Records have " John Wheelwright and Mary
his wife" admitted, Nos. 354, 5. In October after, he is mentioned in
this History, as "a brother of Mrs. Hutchinson, one Mr. Wheelwright,
a silenced minister sometimes in England."  I should be pleased with a
probable explanation of this clergyman's neglect, either to join some of
our churches sooner, if he remained a few months after his purchase, or
to bring over his family earlier than 1636, if, as the exquisite casuist
suggests, "he had stepped over hither to see how the land lay, before
his transportation of them."  If he had gone back in 1629, why did he
not return, if not before, at least, in the ship with his sister, Mrs.
Hutchinson, and the Rev. Messieurs Lathrop and Symmes, with other
good company, arriving September, 1634?   See this History of that
date, compared with Symmes's evidence in Hutchinson, II. 493 and
510.
Passing over, for the present, several other remarks of Mr. Adams,
which will be amply answered hereafter, in the trial of the witnesses, I
observe his difficulty about copy and original. "A copy was used in
the trial of the cause in 1707," certified by the register, though the
original "was not recorded until 1713." Nowv, when we remember, that
this was the cause involving every title in the province, why was not the
original brought from the other side of the river, in York? Why should
the register, if the original was too precious to be trusted from one town
to the next, postpone six years the recording of such a valuable instrument? How he could certify, except from his record, or how he could
know the original, never heard of before, to be genuine, are questions of
very little concern in that time, when the jury would believe any thing,
and distinguish no more between copy and original, than if Mather had
been their foreman. The power of the court was, of course, nothing.
The language of Macgregore and others, settlers of Londonderry,
-~l            z n~uv~




502                       APPENDIX.
proves nothing but their innocence. They were not arrived till some
years after the death of Allen, when this or any other forged deed, pretending an age of ninety years, became as good as a true one, nobody
appearing to dispute, and every body asserting, its authenticity. The
Col. Wheelwright, of whom they purchased, was grandson of our John;
but he might believe the deed authentic. His right to grant may have
been under the purchase of 1639, or a later one; but, if it were not,
it is very clear, it could not be under the deed, of which his father
knew no more than he did of my present argument. I am as well
satisfied, that he was dead ten or twenty years before that deed was
made, as that he lived fifty years after its pretended date.
Mr. Adams wholly avoids or mistakes my argument about Governour
Winthrop's silence, which is not, that the governour said nothing about
the transaction, "which took place fifteen months before" his arrival;
but that Wheelwright and his associates, when, in March, 1638-9, complained of by our court for buying Winicowett of an Indian, knowing
that we claimed and had taken possession of it, "by building an house
there above two years since," said nothing about the transaction, did not
triumphantly reply, AWe bought, ten years since, all the lands of four
Indian sachems, from Merrimack to Piscataqua; we boulght, last month,
of this poor Indian, only his actual enjoyment of Winicowet, but from
the sovereigns of the soil more than thirty times Winicowet, before one
in seventy of your people came over the ocean. See page 290, and
compare it with page 303.. Who fabricated this deed, is not known to
me. It was heard of first in 1707, but not in any of the former numerous trials of the same title. The counsel for defendant were John
Pickering and Charles Story.  Was Story an heir of the grantee of
that name? On their side were court, witnesses, jury, and spectators,
with their ears open to hear all the pathetic obtestations of the tenant
for his cause and their own, and their eyes closed against any unpleasant
view of the adversary's strength, or their own weakness. For the
honor of God's people, and their protection against the Egyptians, this
imposition of a spurious deed, if known to a few, would seem no worse
than perjury, which every lawsuit, involving such interests, furnishes
like a hotbed.
In reply to the observations of Gov. Plumer, most of what is said
above, in answer to Mr. Adams, will be equally pertinent; and very
few remarks are necessary, before the following inquiries about the witnesses. Mr. Plumer's question, "If a man is required to defend his
title to one tract of land, is he obliged to assert and vindicate his claim
to two?" is very wide of the point. M3y complaint is, that he does not




APPENDIX.                         503
defend his title to the one tract, that is aVinicowet, as he would naturally
do, if this deed were in existence, by saying, Winicowet is in our great
purchase ten years ago. The elder title, and the larger quantity of
land, I say, would have been alleged. Again, Mr. Plumer says, " the
deed itself was produced in court in 1707."  Now this is contrary to
Mr. Adams, who says, "a copy of the deed, certified, etc., was used in
the trial." This is probable; for the copy is certified by the register
of York, not by the clerk of New Hampshire tribunal, in which original had been produced at the trial, but was now withdrawn. MIr.
Plumer's acquaintance with law processes will satisfy him, that a court
does not permit copy of a deed, after original has been used in a suit,
to be substituted for original, with the verification of register of a county
in a foreign province, instead of its own clerk. But, if it were original, not copy, that was used, I better understand the management,
which Mather piously considers " a remarkable display and instance of
the Providence of Heaven in the finding of this instrument just before
the sitting of your last court," so that scrutiny of signatures of men,
dead many years, could not be had. For so remarkable a gift of Providence, it would have been respectful to have incurred the expense of
recording; but it seemed dangerous, I suppose, for the next five years
and a half. Did those, whose title materially depended on it, expect
Providence to continue to favor them, by preserving the deed against
their own negligence; or did they think the evil of keeping it secret
was much less than that of showing it? Mr. Plumer, too, repeats,
from C. Mather, the assertion, "if the deed was forged, Wheelwright
must have been privy to it; but the goodness of his character repels
the charge." I presume the paper was forged ten or twenty years or
more after his death; but whether it were earlier or later, there is no
privity necessary, probable, presumable, or hardly possible. The character of Wheelwright is valued by me as highly as by Dr. lMather or
Gov. Plumer; and I think it is vindicated, by showing, that he was too
sensible, as well as too honest, to take or make such a conveyance.
But when the pretended deed is shown to be a forgery, and never heard
of till it was wanted, and could be in some degree safely produced,
a quarter of a century after he was in his grave, how can any stain
attach to his character? No doubt there is guilt somewhere, but it may
be too late to ascertain, whether it belong to the counsel in the cause,
or to the agent of the province, who applied to the ambiguous oracle at
Boston, or to some other dealer in such spells and necromancy. Mather
had doubts of its forgery, yet encouraged the use of it.
In the No. of the Genealogical Reg. for Oct. 1850, p. 321, the writer




504                       APPENDIX.
of Notes on the Wentworth Family, well known to be Hon. John Wentworth of Chicago, says he was " informed by S. G. Drake, Esq., of
Boston, that original documents have been exhibited to him, which conclusively prove the authenticity of this deed."  Ten quarterly Nos. of
that interesting periodical have appeared since, and the Editor has
given his readers not a word of those documents. However, in the
Dover Enquirer of 22 Oct. 1850, a writer under the signature of Passaconaway, who may be the same diligent Editor, complains, that the last
week's paper had said, that Edward Colcord first came over in 1631;
and to his own apparent conviction proves that he was here in 1629,
by the deed, I call spurious, made that year to Wheelwright and others.
He gives a deposition of Wheelwright, 13 Oct. 1663, that he, "with
some others that were set down at Exeter, did employ Edward Colcord to purchase, etc., of the Indians, for which they gave him ten or
twelve pounds in money, and had a grant thereof signed by some sagamores with their marks upon it, of which Runawit was one." It may
be, that the name of the Indian was Watchanowett, who on the back of
Wehanownowit's great deed, published by Farmer, as before said, gave
confirmation of that grant, 10 April, 1639, and therein specially granted
" all the meadows and grounds extending for the space of one.English
mile on the East side of Oyster river."  Such a mistake of a strange
name, after a lapse of four and twenty years, would not be surprising,
especially as the witness refers only to his memory. But it is necessary
for the support of this disputed deed to make the memory hold almost
ten years longer.
Gov. Plumer had ingeniously replied to the argument against the instrument, from the unlikelihood of Wentworth being a grantee, by reason
of his youth, that "though minors are not capable of giving, they are
of receiving deeds."  Still I feel confidence in the objection, for so
large a principality would hardly be given to four men, (as this case
shows,) of whom he, named the third in order, was only sixteen years
old. He died in 1697, and though we know not his precise years, he
had first of eight children, Samuel, born in 1640 or'41, and in 1693
had been, about eighty years of age, engaged to preach at Exeter, says
his descendant. But if Wentworth might be supposed to partake,
though a minor, in the benefit of that deed, what reason could Wheelwright and others have for employing EEdward Colcord in such very important transaction before 17 May, 1629, when he was younger than
Wentworth, indeed a mere stripling? Colcord died, we find, 10 Feb.
1682, aged 67. He was therefore born 1615 or'16; and certainly may
be thought hardly fourteen years old, when by the construction, to




APPENDIX.                        505
which Wheelwright's deposition is tortured, he obtained the pretended
grant.
Patiently I can wait for the coming of those "original documents,"
"which conclusively prove the authenticity of this deed," and easily conceive the delight that Mr. Drake must feel in correcting his long cherished error, as in the eighth edition of his Book of the Indians, III. 138,
Boston, 1841, he shows, that one of these grantors, Rowls, sachem of
Newichawanock " gave no such deed at the time specified."
Before the production of these documents, which may turn out, at
last, as several of the accessories of the 1629 deed were, only bold
forgeries, I would request him, and all others, that care enough for the
truth of this matter to take slight pains to reach it, to inquire of their
almanacs, what day of the week was the 17 May, 1629.
In his careful reply to the writer in the Portsmouth Journal of 22
Nov. 1823, who perhaps was my early departed friend, N. A. Haven,
Gov. Plumer said, hazardously, "it is not objected to the witnesses of
delivery of possession, that they were not then in this country."  Let
us examine the assertion in its several parts.
Of the nine English witnesses, in whose presence this deed is attested
to be signed, sealed, and delivered, 17 May, 1629, I believe we may
entertain very strong doubts, whether more than one was then in this
country.
1. John Oldham came in the Ann, 1623, to Plimouth, is first mentioned in 1624, by Bradford, in Prince, I. 149, and Morton's Memorial,
74, from which latter Hubbard, 92-94, takes his narrative. In 1625
he lived at Nantasket, (Hubbard, 107,) having, in March, undergone
ludicrous and severe punishment for his injurious treatment of Plimouth colony, (Bradford in Prince, I. 153). The next year his character, or at least his conduct, improved, " and we give him liberty," says
the Gov. Ib. 158, "to come and converse with us when he pleases."
So high did he stand, next year, with the saints he had formerly troubled, that Gov. Bradford, sending to his majesty's council, from Plimouth, 9 June, 1628, the letter about arrest and sending home of Morton,
the anarchist, says in it, " this bearer, Mr. John Oldham, who can give
your honors further information upon his oath, if need so require, whom
we have sent with the prisoner, and to attend your lordships' pleasures," 1 Hist. Coll. III. 63. Morton, we are told, came back next year;
but I shall now show, that Oldham, before June, at least, did not: 1.
It is highly improbable, from Sullivan's Maine, 219, reciting the grant
in 1629, from the Earl of Warwick, Lord Gorges, Sir Ferd. Gorges,
and Thomas Smith, of the territory between Cape Elizabeth and Cape
VOLo I,                   43




506                       APPENDIX.
Porpoise, to John Oldham and Richard Vines, of which livery of seizin
was given in 1630, in which grant their undertaking to transport fifty
persons thither, must imply their presence in England. 2. It is impossible; for, in our venerable Colony Records, then kept in London, at a
meeting of the governour and company, 2 March, 1628-9, is this passage: " Touching John Oldham, the governour was ordered to confer
with him upon any indifferent course, that might not be prejudicial to
the company." Three days after is this record: " 5 March. A new
proposition being made in the behalf of Mr. Oldham, to be entertained by
this company, it was deferred to farther consideration." On 10 of same
month, only five days later, the names are given of a large committee
"Conce more to confer with Mr. John Oldham."  On " 11 May, 1629.
This day Mr. Oldham propounded unto Mr. White, that he would have
his patent examined, and it's agreed by the court, not to have any treaty
with him about it, by reason it's thought, he doth it not out of love but
out of some sinister respect." Certainly John Oldham was all this time
in London. For these extracts, the New Hampshire gentlemen may
rely on my accuracy. But in -Hazard, I. 256-268, is the general letter
of our governour and company in London to their agent, John Endecott, at Salem, 17 April, 1629, from Gravesend, in which, page 258,
may be read, " Mr. John Oldham camne from New England not long
before your arrival there," [E. arrived September, 1628, and 0. had
carried the charges, from all our plantations, to his Majesty's council,
against Morton, as in Bradford is shown,] "by whom we have had no
small distraction in our business, having been cast behind, at the least,
two months time in our voyage, through the variety of his vast conceits of extraordinary gain," etc., etc. The voyage was that of the
three ships, with Skelton, H-igginson, Samuel Sharp, etc., by whom
came this letter. They proceed, "Finding him" [Oldham] "a man
altogether unfit for us to deal with, we have at last left him to his own
way; and, as we are informed, he, with some others, are providing a
vessel and is minded, as soon as he can despatch, to come for New England," etc., etc., through forty lines it cannot be necessary to transcribe.
There is a P. S. to said letter of 21 April, and from the postscript to
the P. S. page 268, probably by Gov. Cradock, I am sure every one
would infer, that Oldham was still there. Now, what becomes of the
confidence, that Oldham might have witnessed the deed 17 May of that
year? Our ships, that left him in England, arrived in the latter part
of June.
2. Samuel Sharp was passenger, with Samuel Skelton, in the George
Bonadventure, one of the abovementioned three ships, and she was de



APPENDIX.                        507
tained at the Isle of Wight till 4 May, and arrived at Salem 23 Juneo
See in the foregoing letter, in Haz. I. page 262, " We have caused a
common seal to be made, which we send you by Mr. Sharpe," and, page
265, "If, at the arrival of this ship, Mr. Endecott should be departed
this life, (which God forbid,) or should happen to die before the other
ships arrive, we authorize you, Mr. Skelton, and Mr. Samuel Sharpe, to
take care of our affairs, and to govern the people," etc. The P. S. is of
21 April, page 266, "The aforewritten is, for the most part, the copy of
our general letter, sent you, together with our patent, under the broad
seal, and the company's seal in silver, by Mr. Samuel Sharpe, passenger
in the George, who, we think, is yet riding in the Hope; but, by means
of stormy weather, the Talbot and the Lion's Whelp are yet at Blackwall. By these ships, that are to follow, we intend," &c. See, also, the
next letter of our governour and company, "London, 28 May, 1629/,
with P. S. Gravesend, 3 June, Haz. I. 277-285: " Our last unto you
was of the 17th and 21st April, sent by the last ships, viz. the George
Bonadventure, Thomas Cox master, who set sail from the Isle of Wight
the 4th of this month, and seconded by the Talbot, Thomas Beecher
master, and the Lion's Whelp, John Gibbs master, who set sail also from
the Isle of Wight about the 11th of this month," &c. This letter came
by a new expedition of three ships, in one of which, perhaps, John Oldham might have passage, though probably his views, adverse to our
company, led him to seek other conveyance, it may be in the vessel he
was providing. We have Higginson's own journal in print, kept with
the exactness of a log book for each day. It is republished in the invaluable Chronicles of Mass. 213-59, and the rare Collection of Hutchinson,
pages 32-44. The sailing "of the Talbot, in which he was embarked,
and the Lion's Whelp together, on 11 May, from the Isle of Wight, is
recorded; and on Tuesday, 30 June, " being come into the harbour " [of
Salem,] " we saw the George, to our great comfort, then," [quere there?]
"being come on Tuesday, which was seven days before us." Now Mr.
Plumer, as every body else, must see, that our Samuel Sharp, in the
George Bonadventure, coming from the Isle of Wight to Salem, between
4 May and 23 June, could not sign his name to this instrument 17 of the
same May. But I am filled with admiration at his suggestion against
the identity, that " another man of the same name might then be in this
country, and in fact subscribe as a witness." What! two Samuel Sharps
in New England before the first of July, 1629  I beg the gentlemen of
the other side to inquire, how few more on that day than eight hundred
English there were on the whole continent, between Newfoundland and
Virginia. The computation may take infant Salem, as the most popu



508                      APPENDIX.
lous, except Plimouth, then eight years and a half old, two hundred';
the rest of Massachusetts, one hundred and fifty, (Higginson, in Hutch.
Coll. 47, makes " in all, old and new planters, three hundred," and I give
in sixteen per cent.;) Plimouth, "near three hundred," is the boast of
their friends, Prince, I. 197; and there was less than one hundred and
fifty in the rest of one thousand miles of Atlantic coast, counting from
five to fifty at Pemaquid, Portsmouth, Dover, Cape Ann, Weymouth,
and any other cabin east of Virginia. There are now above two millions
and a half of people in New England alone, of whom I crave an enumeration of all that bear the exact name of Samuel Sharp. Will there be
four thousand? or four hundred? or forty? It is not, and never was, a
common English sirname; and the name of baptism is not, probably,
united with this sirname more than once in twenty. Of the representatives of New Hampshire in 1824, eleven in two hundred and eleven, are
Samuels. Mr. Plumer has no hesitation in proving John Wheelwright's
purchase in May, 1629, when there were not five hundred English
between Virginia and Canada, by a letter of Neal and Wiggin, (by Farmer ascertained to be a forgery, to aid the great one,) about Mlr. Wheelwright, 13 August, 1633, when there were near five thousand; but he
thinks a Samuel Sharp might have been a witness on that earlier
day, though we prove, that the only one of that name, heard of in our
first ten years' history, was then on the ocean. If it were to be regarded,
however, as a possibility, that there was a Samuel Sharp at Piscataqua
or its neighbourhood 17 May, 1629, how greatly multiplied are the
chances against another John Oldham, - a name of much rarer occurrence! Yet these are the formal witnesses to signing, sealing, and delivering a deed, when each was some thousands of miles distant. I say
each was absent, for the identity of both these, so well known persons,
must be presumed. How many hundreds of millions to one against the
presumption, is not a matter for my arithmetical powers. Something
like such a calculation may be seen in the letters of Herbert Marsh, the
late Bishop of Llandaff, and Margaret Professor of Divinity, to Travis,
the unhappy archdeacon, whose blunders were the occasion of calling
out from Porson the most extraordinary union of perspicacious argument, witty sarcasm, and profound erudition, that our language can
exhibit. Can an alibi be better made out? Can a forgery of near two
hundred years old be better detected?
3. "Walter Neal, governour," "came in the bark Warwick this
summer" [1630] "to Pascataqua, sent as governour there for Sir F.
Gorges and others."  See page 39 of this History, compared with page
7. It may be guessed, that he had been there before, and went back to




APPENDIX.                        509
England soon after 17 May, 1629. Might we not presume, he had not
before been "governour," the title of the verification?  I say, he had
never been there, though, unless he were governour, the deed must fall;
and quote the language, "humbly presented and submitted by the
governour and company of Massachusetts Bay to the king's most excellent majesty," 6 September, 1676, on the solemn subject of our exercise of jurisdiction over New Hampshire adverse to Gorges and Mason,
Belknap's N. H., I., Appendix, 14: " Our first exercise of jurisdiction
being in the year 1641, eight years after Capt. Neale, agent for Mr.
Mason, had wholly deserted the improvement of land and the government of the country, which, indeed, he never used but one year; for in
the year 1630 he first came over, and in the year 1634 he quitted the
place, and in the interim neglected the same, in making a voyage for
England," etc.
4. " George Vaughan, factor," seems liable to most of the objection
against Neal, governour. I know not when he came first to our country, but presume it was not so early. He left in August, 1634, and
there is nothing to be found, but this deed, to render it probable, he had
then passed three years here. The very next article to this famous
deed, in the Appendix, is a letter from Eyre, of the company of
Laconia, to Mr. Gibbons, theirfactor," dated last of May, 1631. Eyre's
letter informs Gibbons, that they now " send you a factor to take charge
of the trade goods."  Was not this factor, coming out in July, 1631,
George Vaughan? In the disputed attestation, Gibbons is called trader,
as Neal is governour, and Vaughan factor, "for the company of Laconia."  Now, if Neal were not sent governour by the company until
1630, it may be presumed, the factor and trader had not their appointments sooner. It appears probable, contrary to Belknap, N. H., I. 14,
that the company of Laconia was not formed till six months after the
date of this deed.
5. "Ambrose Gibbons, trader," came with Neal in the bark Warwick,
having written to Eyre, 8 April, 1630, from Plimouth in Old England,
21 July and 14 August, 1630, from Piscataqua. See Eyre's letter in
Belknap's N. H., I., Appendix, 2. I conclude, he then came for the
first time, because his "wife and children" were sent next year; and if
he had been here, with appointment from Mason or Gorges, in 1629,
then gone to England, and come back, he would, on his second voyage,
have brought them.
6 and 7. " Richard Vines, governour, and Richard Bonighton, assistant of the plantation at Saco."  What a goodly outside falsehood hath!
But this outside is decorated in such a manner as to lead to detection.
43*




510                       APPENDIX.
Had the names alone been given, some doubt might have remained about
these persons. But the offices and the residence are both fatal. Vines
was here, as an explorer, many years before any settlement, according
to Belknap, Amer. 1Biog. I. 354-356, and his back might be thought
broad enough to carry Bonighton, who is never heard of till long after
this deed. But Vines, with Oldham, was, I think, in England, in 1629,
taking grant of land here, not possession, till 1630. The appointment
of Vines as governour, and of Bonighton, as assistant, of the plantation,
which is the important point, was not made till 2 September, 1639. See
the commission in Hazard, I., 458-462. Sir Thomas Josselyn, who
stands before Vines, did not come over. I know, that that commission
from Sir F. Gorges is for the province of Maine "from the entrance of
Piscataqua harbor unto the River of Sagadahock;" but. I deny, that
Vines was governour and Bonighton assistant under any other commission. Further, Saco was not settled till some years after this deed.
See 2 Hist. Coll. IV. 187, and Hubbard, 214.
8. "Thomas Wiggin, agent," was not here, probably, for two years
after this signing his name. Hubbard, 221, makes him beyin his plantation in 1631; and when the exact truth is found out by the New Hampshire gentlemen, perhaps, it will show Hubbard's correctness.
9. " Edward Hilton, steward," was, probably, at Piscataqua, and the
only one of these nine witnesses, who, we may reasonably believe, was
there 17 May, 1629. But we may as reasonably doubt his signature, as
that of the others. If the other signatures are disbelieved, in any degree,
on account of the description given, by themselves, of themselves, in the
attestation, Hilton's is equally suspicious. His is the latest of the subscriptions to witness the delivery of a deed, that destroyed all his title to
estate, in the enjoyment of which he had peacefully lived six or seven
years; and he must have known that all the preceding eight signatures
were fictitious, that the ceremony he was called to verify was a fraud on
himself, and on unborn generations. It was false, that such grantors,
and grantees, and witnesses were present around him; and his hand
could only have been affixed in a mzesmeric sleep, before mesmerism was
invented. These shadowy platoons of Indians and English never were
mustered, before he had many years lain in his grave.  Our only
account of him, for several years, is from Hubbard, 214, and if Wiggin
and the others did not come before June, 1629, Hilton was entitled to
be called governour, instead of steward; for Mason had not sent over
any body superior to him.
As in the question about the date of Roger Williams's Charter,
mistaken by Callender, and twice misprinted by the Rhode Island




APPENDIX.                        511
Historical Society, which is stated in full on p. 193 of the next volume,
a recurrence to the almanac for the year settled the question; so the
aid of chronology decides this dispute.  Neither Wheelwright, nor
Wentworth, the purchasers, nor Sharp, nor Neal, nor Gibbons, nor
Wiggin, nor Hilton, the witnesses, could have partaken in such a transaction on 17 May, 1629, because that day was Sunday. We may almost
count this above all the rest of the testimony, certainly instar omnium.
On the Lord's day the execution of a deed, or of a criminal, would have
been as shocking to the sentiment of our fathers, as I trust it will ever
be to their descendants.
The writer, of the Dover Enquirer, "in the name of Passaconaway,"
deeply regrets that Mr. Farmer " should have so far acquiesced in the
mere assertion that the Wheelwright deed was a forgery, as to have
bent his otherwise very valuable edition of Dr. Belknap's History down
to it;" and to vindicate his phrase of mere assertion, he adds, "because
there never has been an argument against the validity of that deed, but
what was built upon ASSUMED PREMISES." Now ~these premises are the
following facts, which are, severally, independent, and indisputable, any
one of them inconsistent with the truth of that document:
1. By the almanac for 1629, the 17th day of May, the date of the
spurious deed, was Sunday.
2. John Oldham, the first English witness to signing, sealing, and
delivering of said deed, in the wilderness of New Hampshire, was six
days before in London, making proposition to our governour and
company.
3. Samuel Sharp, the only other English witness to the signing, etc.,
of said deed, was on board the ship at the Isle of Wight, with Rev. Mr.
Skelton, which was there detained, on 4 of the same month of May,
and, in the same ship, reached Salem on 23 June after.
4. Walter Neal, governour for Sir F. Gorges, first came over in 1630,
according to the declaration, made by our governour and company in
Sept. 1676, to the king in council; yet he is called the first witness to
delivery of possession on said 17 May, 1629.
5. Richard Vines, governour of the plantation at Saco, another witness,
by this designation of governour, etc., to the delivery of possession, was
not appointed such governour, until more than ten years had run, scil.
2 Sept. 1639.
6. Richard Bonighton, another witness to the delivery of possession
on 17 MIay, 1629, described as assistant of the plantation at Saco, was
not appointed to that ofice before Sept. 1639.
7. Wheelwright himself, in a deposition 15 April, 1668, printed by




512                       APPENDIX.
Farmer in Belknap, p. 7, swears to a totally different purchase of the
Indians, "when I, with others, first came to sit cown at Exeter;" and
Edward Colcorc and Samuel Dudley testify to the same, and, moreover
and above all, their purchase, so described, quadrates with the deed of
3 April, 1638.
From the foregoing not "ASSUMED PREIISES," but all inherent in
the instrument itself, we may justly look further to facts, that, however
collateral, are most intimately associated with that deed, being part of the
papers in the recorder's office of Rockingham county, published by Dr.
Belknap, as justificatory muniments of his work. Perhaps every body
would admit, certainly Passaconaway might boast, that the letter, purporting to be by Neal and Wiggin from Northam, 13 Aug. 1633, to their
friend and master, John Mason, governour of Portsmouth, Eng., relating
to division of lands at Piscataqua, had as intimate relation to the Wheelwright deed of May, 1629, as that of child to its parent. Now, Farmer,
in his Ed. of Belknap, p. 13, has, by five independent proofs, demonstrated that the letter " was fabricated for the purpose of supporting the
Indian deed." Yet it is a fact, that the New Hampshire adepts in
fraud, well knowing the value of this fabricated letter, show a deed
under the hands and seals of Richard Vines and Henry Jocelyn, SEVEN
DAYS AFTER, to verify by their act, and at the desire of said Neal and
Wiggin, (so many hundreds and thousands of miles that day distant,)
that same true copy compared with the original, " to LIE in our files of
records." Is there a man, competent to draw an inference, who will
doubt, that this deed of Vines and Jocelyn of 20 Aug. 1633, is a palpable
forgery? Still, it seemed good to the chief manager to have a little
more counterfeiting, and he can and does produce before us " an original
letter of G. Vaughan to Mr. Gibbens," of 20 Aug. 1634, just 365 days
later than Vines and Jocelyn's hands and seals. It is article X. of
appendix to Belkn. I., written from Boston, where he was waiting for a
wind to go to England, which did indeed favor the true George
Vaughan A YEAR LATER; and he incloses to his friend G. " the division of the towns, and the copy of what Neal and Wiggin wrote home."
What a splendid fabric of fraud! From the vast Cyclopsean walls that
encircle the larger part of New Hampshire, running through the depths
of the ocean to include Isles of Shoals, laid with diabolical skill 17 May,
1629, rises the graceful Ionic superstructure of frost work by Neal and
Wiggin, of 13 Aug. 1633, decorated, on 20 of the same month, with the
airy ornaments of Vines and Jocelyn, and at last the glory of the architeet is fixed forever by the halo pinnacle of petty forgery in G. Vaughan
20 Aug. 1634.




APPENDIX.                        513
If Passaconaway should visit Rome, he might find, among the archives
of the Vatican, a letter from Ovid, in his banishment on the Euxine,
earnestly imploring clemency of the emperor for a change at least in the
place of his exile, and suggesting the benefit of deportation to the milder
climate of Cayenne, or a preference for compulsory labors at Norfolk
Island, or in the workshops of our Charlestown penitentiary. Perhaps a
certificate is filed with it, in which George Psalmanazar and Eleazer
Williams assure him of the safe arrival of his two children by the last
steamer from Tomi, and that his request for their vaccination should be
forthwith obeyed; that the boys had indeed been in great peril at the
battle of Lepanto, of which they partook one morning in play hours,
and received so many shots between wind and water in their bark, as to
cause her to founder, when all their hard gingerbread was lost, but they
were taken off by a submarine boat, sent the week before from New
England, for this purpose, by Cotton Mather, under command of his
coxswain, William Phips. For the land speculation, in which he had
employed them, they rejoice to assure him, that one of the towns was
named Dauphiny, another Formosa, adjoining Cape Cod, which the
general court of Wisconsin had incorporated by the name of Gloucester,
out of regard to his uncle the duke, and the fourth town was to be called
Shanghae, from the beauty of its fowl meadows. Here was already established, they say, a noble amphitheatre for gladiatorial shows, with fine gaslight fixtures and anthracite furnaces, the whole to be superintended by
William Shakspeare and Dr. Franklin, who had each taken large share
in the stock; and they close their advice with promise to send him a
kraken and two poulicans to extend his profitable fisheries in the Black
Sea. Should a slight suspicion of the authenticity of poor Ovid's epistle
break in upon his mind from the water mark of the paper being London,
A. D. 1697, he must thereupon conclude that, although the doleful theme
belonged to the Tristia, the venerable new-found MS. should rather be
transcribed for the next edition of the Metamorphoses.
Degrees in confidence or disbelief ought to be marked by the amount
of examination bestowed on the subject of inquiry; yet in the whole
round of experience we see, that the quality of the affections, or the
state of the mind, does most materially affect, and sometimes wholly pervert, the judgment, after more or less of investigation. Whether my
final opinion on the authenticity of the Wheelwright deed be the result
of sober research, or inveterate prejudice, its origin is truly stated in the
opening sentences of this article; and that it received the concurrence
of Mason, Smith, Webster, Atherton, Haven, Cutter, Kelly, and Farmer,
men who could not, on such a subject at least, be clouded by interest or




514                       APPENDIX.
passion, was no ways unexpected, though not one nor all of them
strengthened my belief. A single opponent appears, but without giving
us the benefit of publishing his reasons. It seems to me, that no childlike trust in authority leads him to repose confidence in the integrity of
the document, but heroic hardihood of struggle against argument, and
manly resistance of conviction. Many people would derive benefit from
a moderate dose of skepticism, taken once a quarter; but how vainly
may his physician prescribe that course to a hero, whose ostrich stomach
can digest a New England gorgon, killed thirty years ago, and then two
hundred years old, as was told by the Journal of Portsmouth, where the
venomous monster was born and brought up. Still, the right of suspension of judgment is the more to be reverenced, as we find the power of
such suspension to be rare; yet to differ from every body else in opinion,
on a matter of fact, is but a slender claim to distinction. One gains
credit for it from a smaller number than that of those who doubt his
sincerity. Even if sincere, such credulousness is not always ludicrous;
much more when it is affected, should it be thought pitiable. His
intrepidity of belief will, indeed, excite a temporary surprise; still it
must not aspire to be preserved in memory of the present or the next
generation, with the same wonder as will ever attach to the impudence
of the forgery.
I close this examination without other remarks, though very much
more presumptive evidence of the fabrication, long after its date, could
easily be furnished, and may be imagined. An apology is, perhaps, due
to readers for its great length. But two gentlemen, at least, in New
Hampshire, could not have complained of the deference shown by me
to their opinions, nor slighted the labor bestowed in proving them
erroneous. Neither Gov. Plumer, nor Mr. Adams, to my knowledge,
made addition to their rejoinders, herein printed, or attempted ever to
rebut the facts and arguments they drew from me. Both were probably
convinced, if not by this tedious statement, as my former edition gave
it, by the brief, yet forcible, exhibition of the matter in Farmer's edition
of Belknap, 1831; and lived not long enough to change their belief.
END OF VOL. I.