UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES A LIBRARY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE Vol. II. A LIBRARY AMERICAN LITERATURE FROM THE EARLIEST SETTLEMENT TO THE PRESENT TIME COMPILED AND EDITED BY EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN AND ELLEN MACKAY HUTCH INSON IN ELEVEN VOLUMES VOL. II NEW-YORK CHARLES L. WEBSTER & COMPANY 1890 COPYRIGHT, 1888, BT CHARLES L. WEBSTER & COMPANY. (All rights reserved.) v.2, CONTENTS OF VOLUME Hater OTolomal Eiteratuve. MICHAEL WIOOLESWORTH. The Day of Doom O Vanity of Vanities . JONATHAN MITCHELL. On Looking up Steadfastly into Heaven JOSHUA SCOTTOW. The Nursing Fathers of the New World. Wn.i.i \M HrnnARD. Captain Mil.- Standish his Temper Taking of the Narraganset Fort ..... ^ Subtlety and Courage of the Friendly Indians ' 80 How au Indian bore himself under Torture 31 BENJAMIN TOMPSOX. On the Women Fortifyinir Boston Neck . . ... 8 The Alarming Progress of Luxury in New England In Praise of the Renowned Cotton Mather ... ..... 85 URIAN OAKES. Elegy on the Death of Thomas Shepard 36 A Contrite Spirit Better than Outward Seeming 43 JOHN ROGERS. Upon Mrs. Anne Bradstreet her Poems 44 JOHN XORTOX. Dirge for the Tenth Muse 46 CHARLES WOLLEY. Fellow-Passengers to England 48 Knickerbocker Customs in the Pleasant Olden Time 48 Ni-w York and the Prodigious Voyage Thither ....... 51 MART ROWLANDSON. Story of her Captivity, Sufferings and Restoration 5& I CONTENTS OF VOLUME II. BENJAMIN CHURCH. A Death-Grapple * The Death of King Philip ]~ Capture and Fate of the Great Annawon NATHANIEL BYFIELD. The Revolt against Sir Edmund Andros SAMUEL WILLARD. Authority must Take Pattern from On High. . ' 4 /-^INCREASE MATHER. r The Sign of the Blazing Star J5 Concerning Remarkable Judgments / The Daemon at William Morse his House That there be Daemons and Possessed Persons Of the Workings of Satan Of the Discovery of Witches DEODAT LAWSON. Witchcraft in Salem 106 COTTON MATHER. / Of Beelzebub and his Plot 114 The Trial of George Burroughs 120 How Martha Carrier was Tried 125 The Invisibilizing of Witches 127 \ The Story of Margaret Rule , 129 A City Helped of the Lord 1:58 ..Master Theophilus Eaton his Great Soul 1*0 How Captain Phips became a Ktiight of the Golden Fleece 143 -The Life ai,d Death of Master Thomas Hooker 149 The Exquisite Charity of Master John Eliot 15:i --The Voice of God in the Thunder 159 Of Abigail, his Wife 1C * The Last Days of Increase Mather 104 ROBERT CALEF. A Warning to the Ministers 167 Touching the Supposed Witchcraft in New England ....... 171 SAMUEL SEWALL. The Judge's Confession 188 An Early Anti-Slavery Tract 189 How Judge Sewall Courted Madam Winthrop 192 NICHOLAS NOTES. Datnon and Pythias at Newbury 201 A Consolatory Poem 206 JOHN MILLER. Evils and Inconveniences in New York 209 GABRIEL THOMAS. Pennsylvania and the City of Brotherly Love 210 George Keith's New Religion JONATHAN DICKINSON. The Capture of the Castaways . . 218 The Painful Journey to St. Augustine . 2'H ' CONTENTS OF VOLUME U. v ji WILLIAM PENN. P AOB A Letter to the Indians 227 On his Departure from America c 228 JOHN \\Vi:. f The Anglo-Saxon Hatred of Arbitrary Power 230 THOMAS BRIDGE. The Choice of Civil Officers 231 v THE SATBROOK PLATFORM. Cause and Manner of its Adoption 233 Tin- Heads of Agreement . 234 BENJAMIN WADSWORTH. The Character of William III ,^ ... 239 JOHN WILLIAMS. The Desolations of Deerfleld 241 Favors in the Midst of Afflictions 245 Among the French and Indians 246 AH KEMBLE KNIGHT. From Boston to New York in 1704 248 ROBERTA BEVERLY. A Royalist Governor in Virginia 265 The Pastimes of Colonial Virginia 270 EBCNEZER COOK. ( f Meeting a Godly Knave in Maryland. 272 JOHN LAWSON. Revels of the Carolina Indians 274 " Husquenawing " 276 FRANCIS YONOE. An Early Rebellion in South Carolina 277 HUGH JONES. Virginia in 1723 .... 279 SAMUEL PENHALLOW. The Strange End of a Great Expedition. 287 THOMAS SYMMI>. The Engagement at Pigwacket. 290 ANONYMOUS. Lovewell's Fight 294 BENJAMIN COI.F.MAN. A Quarrel with Fortune 298 The Ascent of the Saint 298 A Tale of Piracy 297 The Citizen's Obligations 301 WlI.I.I \M J'.YIM). Q The First Survey in the Dismal Swamp 302 v A Profitable Day 305 A VMt to Colonel Spotswood 306 CONTENTS OF VOLUME II. Ylll JOHN THOMPSON. 310 An Argument for Marrying a Clergyman THOMAS CHALKLEY. 312 The Doctor's Dream JOHN GYLES. 314 The Adventures of a Captive . . Superstitious of the Woods ... ROGER WOLCOTT. The Lesson of Life . 330 A Storm at Sea In the Fields . . GEORGE BERKELEY. A Glimpse of his Country House near Newport . ^ The View from Honeyman's Hill **" The Ideal Philosophy in Brief Greatness of Plato and the Ancient Schools THOMAS PRINCE. The Great Earthquake in Jamaica ... CADWALLADEK COLDEN. The Story of Piskaret 33 ANONYMOUS. On a Lady, Singing WILLIAM STITH. The Un-Solomonized James I 335 Richard Grenviile's Last Fight. . 336 The History of Captain John Smith 337 SIR JOHN RANDOLPH. Two Colonial Lawyers ...... 341 AQUILA ROSE. To his Companion at Sea 344 The Much-Loved Child ... 344 SAMUEL MATHER. The Home Life of Cotton Mather 346 JOHN SECCOMB. Father Abbey's Will ,..... .352 EBENF.ZER AND JANE TURELL. A Fair Puritan and her Poetry. ....... . 356 JOHN OSBORN. A Whaling Song 364 JOHN ADAMS. The Contented Man 366 Of Love and Beauty 3*57 As Glides the Pictured Dream. . '. '. '. . ' '. ', '. '. . 36S DAVID BRAINERD. How Brainerd found the Excellent Way of Salvation . . 363 A Savage Reformer CONTENTS OF VOLUME II. j x PAOE His Early and Rapturous Sense of Diviue Things That Material Existence IB Merely Ideal .......... 876 A Self-Trained Berkeleian ............ 377 Laplace Anticipated ........ ...... 379 A Young Christian's Directory ..... '. . .- . . . 380 Of Sarah Pierrepont, who afterward became his Wife ....... 881 A Child of the Covenant ....... '.....'. 383 Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God ..... ..... a>fr The Eternity of Hell Torments ........... 393 Why Saints In Glory will Rejoice to See the Torments of the Damned ... 395 That the Devil can Cite Scripture for his Purpose. . . ' ..... 397 Character of David Brainerd ..... ' ....... 399 . Concerning the Notion of Liberty, and of Moral Agency ...... 401 Whether any Event, or Volition, can Come to Pass without a Cause .... 404 The Secondary and Inferior Kind of Beauty ......... 407 JOHN CALLENDER. Liberty of Conscience In Rhode Island .......... 412 W i I.LI AX STEPHENS. Politics and Racing In Colonial Georgia .......... 414 The Old Governor's Sorrow ............ 415 CHARLES CHAUNCY. Some Oddities of Belief ............. 417 Clerical Epithets In the Eighteenth Century ......... 430 JAMES RALPH. The Prince's Vision .............. 431 The Griefs of Authors ..... . ....... 423 NATHANIEL AMES. The Waking of the Sun ............. 424 An Essay upon the Microscope ........... 425 A Prophecy for North America ........... 427 MATHER BTLES. The Teaching of the Grave ............ 428 The Delights of the Next World ....... .429 The Last Tempest .............. 43 To the Great Mr. Pope ............. Hymu Written during a Voyage ........... 433 JOSEPH GREEN The Parson's Psalm .......... ..... 433 Of Dr. Byles's Cat .............. ^ A Lamentation for Old Tenor Currency .......... 435 JOHN WINTHROP. The Effects oY the Earthquake. JOSEPH BELLAMY. The Sum of All Virtue ' A Picture of the Millennium *" ELIZA LUCAS. A Love-Letter of the Last Century An Essay in Criticism * 46 x CONTENTS OF VOLUME IL SAMUEL DAVIES. PAGE A Parson's Call to Arms . ... *<** ^ WILLIAM LIVINGSTON. The Wife ..* 460 The Career of a Colonial Dictator , . . -5:2 The Story of Braddock's Defeat 459 NICHOLAS SCULL. A War of Kings 462 SAMUEL NILES. The French on Block Island ....=,. 464 The Fall of Quebec 472 VERSE OF THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR. Song of Braddock's Men , 476 An Epitaph for Braddock , 477 The Death of Wolfe 477 WILLIAM SMITH. The Rule of Jacob Leisler and his Fate 478 Manners and Customs of Colonial New York. 484 An Anti-Semitic Excitement in New York . . 487 ANTHONY BENEZET. An Early Protest against the Slave-Trade ,490 THOMAS GODFREY. The Patriot 492 A Dithyrambic on Wine 493 The Wish 495 Amyntor '496 The Deaths of Evanthe and Arsaces ....... . 496 ELIZABETH GRAEME FERGUSON. The Country Parson > 500 NATHANIEL EVANS. To May . ^ PORTRAITS IN VOLUME II. x j STATE NORMAL SCHOOL LOS ANGELES, -:- CAL. $)orttatt0 in tijts Uolumc. ON STEEL. COTTON MATHER . FRONTISPIECE. JONATHAN KDWAUDS .......... Page 374 MISCELLANEOUS. Ixcur.ASK MATHER 76 S\M: LI. S;:\VALL ... 188 lll-IN.IA.MIX ('OLMAN 296 WlI.I.IA.M liVKI) 802 GEOUGE HI:I:KELEY. ...*........ 322 THOMAS PuixrK 328 ALLADEU COLDEN 330 (H\i:i.i> (IIAINCY 418 M v i -IIKR BYLES 428 JOSEPH GREEN 434 WILLIAM LIVINGSTON* 450 W i i.i.i AM SMITH . 478 LATER COLONIAL LITERATURE 1676-1764 ON THE PROSPECT OF PLANTING ARTS AND LEARNING IN AMERICA, THE Muse, disgusted at an age and cliaie Barren of every glorious theme, In distant lauds now waits a better tinij, Producing subjects worthy fame : In happy climes, where from the genial sun And virgin earth such scenes ensue, The force of art by nature seems outdone, And fancied beauties by the true : In happy climes, the seat of innocence, Where nature guides aud virtue rules, Where men shall not impose for truth aud sense The pedantry of courts aud schools : There shall be sung another golden age, The rise of empire aud of arts, The good and great inspiring epic rage, The wisest heads and noblest hearts. Not such as Europe breeds in her decay ; Such as she bred when fresh and young, When heavenly flame did animate her clay, By future poets shall be sung. Westward the course of empire takes its way; The four first Acts already past, A fifth shall close the Drama with the day ; Time's noblest offspring is the last. From the Oxford Text. GKORGB BERKELET - A D. 17- LATER COLONIAL LITERATURE. jHirtjacl BORJJ in England, 1631. DIED at Maiden, Mass., ITOSi THE DAY OF DOOM. \Th* Day of Doom ; or, a Poetical Description of the Great find Last Judgment. 1862.] SOUNDING OF THE LAST TRUMP. STILL was the night, Serene & Bright, when all Men sleeping lay ; Calm was the season, & carnal reason thought so 'twould last for ay. Soul, take thine ease, let sorrow cease, much good thou hast in store : This was their Song, their Cups among, the Evening before. Wallowing in all kind of sin, vile wretches lay secure : The best of men had scarcely then their Lamps kept in good ure. Viririns unwise, who through disguise amongst the best were number'd Had clos'd their eyes ; yea, and the wise through sloth and frailty slumber'd. Like as of old. when Men grow bold God's threatenings to contemn, Who stop their Ear, and would not hear, wln-:i Mercy warned them : The Security of the World before Christ's com- ing to Judg- ment. Luke 12.19. Mat. 25. 5. If at. 24. 37, a& MICHAEL WIGGLES WOR TH P676- L Thes. 5. 8. But took their course without remorse, till God began to powre Destruction the World upon in a tempestuous showre. They put away the evil day, and drown'd their care and fears, Till drown'd were they, and swept away by vengeance unawares : So at the last, whilst Men sleep fast in their security, Surpriz'd they are in such a snare as cometh suddenly. The Sudden- iii'ss. Majesty. & Terror of Christ's ap- pearing. Mat. 25. 6. 2 Pet. 3. For at midnight brake forth a Light, which turn'd the night to day, And speedily an hideous cry did all the world dismay. Sinners awake, their hearts do ake, trembling their loynes surprizeth ; Amaz'd with fear, by what they hear, each one of them ariseth. Mat. 24. 39, 30. 2 Pet. 3. 10. They rush from Beds with giddy heads, and to their windows run, Viewing this light, which shines more bright then doth the Noon-day Sun. Straightway appears (they see't with tears) the Son of God most dread; Who with his Train comes on amain to Judge both Quick and Dead. Before his face the Heav'ns gave place, and Skies are rent asunder, With mighty voice, and hideous noise, more terrible than Thunder. His brightness damps heav'ns glorious lamps and makes them hide their heads, As if afraid and quite dismay'd, they quit their wonted steads. Ye sons of men that durst contemn the Threatnings of Gods Word. How chear you now ? your hearts, I trow, are thrill'd as with a sword, Now Athist blind, whose brutish mind a God could never see, Dost thou perceive, dost now believe that Christ thy judge shall be ? -4764J MICHAEL VTIGGLESWORIH. Stout Courages, (whose hardiness could Death and Hell out-face) Are you as bold now you behold your Judge draw near apace ? They cry, no, no: Alas! and wol our courage all is gone : Our hardiness (fool hardiness) hath us undone, undone. No heart so bold, but now grows cold Rev. 6. 15. and almost dead with fear : No eye so dry, but now can cry, and pour out many a tear. Earth's Potentates and pow'rful States, Captains and Men of Might Are quite abasht, their courage dasht at this most dreadful sight. Mean men lament, great men do rent Mat. 24. 30. their Robes, and tear their hair : They do not spare their flesh to tear through horrible desppir. All Kindreds witil : all hearts do fail : horror the world doth fill With weeping eyes, and loud out-cries, yet knows not how to kill. Some hide themselves in Caves and Delves, Bev. 6. 15. 16. in places under ground Some rashly leap into the Deep, to scape by being drowu'd : Some to the Rocks (O senseless blocks !) and woody Mountains run, That there they might this fearful sight, and dreaded Presence shun. In vain do they to Mountains say, fall on us and us hide From Judges ire, more hot than fire, for who may it abide ? No hiding place can from his Face sinners at all conceal, Whose flaming Eye hid things doth 'spy and darkest things reveal. The Judge draws nigh, exalted high, Mat. 25. 21. upon a lofty Throne, Amidst the throng of Angels strong, lo, Israel's Holy One ! MICHAEL WIGGLESWORTH. [1676- Rev. 6. 14 The excellence of whose presence and awful Majesty, Ainazeth Nature, and every Creature, doth more than terrify. The Mountains smoak, the Hills are shook, the Earth is rent and torn, As if she should be clear dissolv'd, or from the Center bom. The Sea doth roar, forsakes the si i ore, and shrinks away for fear ; The wild beasts flee into the Sea, so soon as he draws near. Whose Glory bright, whose wondrous might, whose power Imperial, So far surpass whatever was in Realms Terrestrial ; That tongues of men (nor angels pen) cannot the same express, And therefore I must pass it by, lest speaking should transgress. 1 Thes. 4. 16. Resurrection of the dead. John 5. 28, 29. Before his Throne a Trump is blown, Proclaiming the clay of Doom : Forthwith he cries. Ye dead arise, and unto Judgment come. No sooner said, but 'tis obey'd ; Sepulchres opened are : Dead bodies all rise at his call, and's mighty power declare. Both Sea and Land, at his Command, their Dead at once surrender : The Fire and Air constrained are also their dead to tender. The mighty word of this great Lord links Body and Soul together Both of the Just, and the unjust, to part no more for ever. The living Changed. Luke 20. 36. 1 Cor. 15. 52. The same translates, from Mortal states to Immortality, All that survive, and be alive, i' th' twinkling of an eye : That so they may abide for ay to endless weal -or woe ; Both the Reuate and Reprobate are made to dy no more. -1764] MICHAEL W2GGLESWORTH. His winged Hosts flie through all Coasts, all brought to together gethering Both good and bad, both quick and dead, and all to Judgment bring. Out of their holes those creeping Moles, that hid themselves for fear, By force they take, and quickly make before the Judge appear. Thus every one before the Throne 2 Cor. 5. 10. of Christ the Judge is brought, separate? Both righteous and impious Goau. tb Mat. that good or ill hath wrought. 25. 32. A separation, and difFring station by Christ appointed is (To sinners sad) 'twixt good and bad, 'twixt Heirs of woe and bliss. THE HEATHEN'S VAIN DEFENCE. These words appall and daunt them all ; dismai'd, and all amort, Like stocks that stand at Christ's left hand and dare no more retort. Then were brought near with trembling fear a number numberless Of blind Heathen, and bruitish men, that did God's Laws transgress. Whose wicked ways Christ open layes, Heathen men and makes their sins appear, }Sritten f They making pleas their case to ease, Word, if not themselves to clear. Thy written Word (say they) good Lord, we never did enjoy : We nor refus'd nor it abus'd Oh, do not us destroy. You ne'r abus'd nor yet refus'd my written Word, you plead, That's true (quoth he) therefore shall ye ^ ^ the less be punished. Luke 12. 4a You shall not smart for any part of other rnens offence, But for your own transgression receive due recompence. MICHAEL WIGGLESWORTH. [1676- 1 Cor. 1. 21. And insuffici- ency of the Light of Na- ture. But we were blind, say they, in mind, too dim was Natures Light, Our only guide, as hath been try'd to bring us to the sight Of our estate degenerate, and curst by Adanrs fall ; How we were born and lay forlorn in bondage and in thrall. Mat. 11. 28. We did not know a Christ till now, nor how fain men be saved, Else would we not, right well we wot, have so our selves behaved. We should have mourn'd, we should have turu'd from sin at thy Reproof, And been more wise through thy advice, for our own Souls behoof. They are an- swered. But Natures Light shin'd not so bright to teach us the right way : We might have lov'd it, and well improv'd it, and yet have gone astray. The Judge most High makes this Reply, you ignorance pretend, Dimness of sight, and want of light your course Heav'nward to bend. Gen. 1.27. Eccl. 7. 29. Hos. 13. 9. How came your mind to be so blind ? I once you knowledge gave, Clearness of sight, and judgment right ; who did the same deprave ? If to your cost you have it lost, and quite defac'd the same ; Your own desert hath caus'd the smart, you ought not me to blame. Mat. 1.25 com- ..aredwith*,, Your selves into a pit of woe, your own transgression led : If I to none my Grace had shown, who had been injured ? If to a few, and not to you, I shew'd a way of life, My Grace so free, you clearly see, gives you no ground of strife. Tis vain to tell, you wot full well, if you in time had known, Your Misery and Remedy, your actions had it shown. -1764J Ml' 1L 1 EL WIGGLES WORTH. You, sinful Crew, have not been true, unto the Light of Nature, Nor done the good you understood, nor owned your Creator. Rom. 1. 20, 21, He that the Light, because 'tis Light, hath used to despize, Would not the Light shining more blight, be likely for to prize. If you had lov'd, and well improv'd your knowledge and dim sight, Herein your pain hud not been vain, your plagues had been more light. Rom. 2. 12, 15, &1.32. Mat. 12. 41. PLEA OF THE INFANTS. Then to the Bar, all they drew near Who dy'd in infancy, And never had or good or bad effected pers'nally. But from the womb unto the tomb were straightway carried, (Or at the least e'er they transgrest) who thus began to plead : If for our own transgression, or disobedience, We here did stand at thy left hand just were the Recompence : But Adam's guilt our souls hath spilt, his fault is charg'd on us : And that alone hath overthrown, and utterly undone us. Not we, but he ate of the Tree, whose fruit was interdicted : Yet on us all of his sad Fall, the punishment's inflicted. How could we sin that had not been or how is his sin our Without consent, which to prevent, we never had a pow'r ? Reprobate In- fants plead for them- selves. Rev. 20. 12, 15. compared with Rom. 5. 12, 14, & 9. 11, 13. Eaek. 18. 2. O great Creator, why was our Nature depraved and forlorn ? Why so defil'd, and made so vil'd whilst we were yet unborn ? 10 Psal. 51. 5. MICHAEL WIGGLESWORTH. If it be just, and needs we must transgressors reck'ned be, Thy Mercy Lord, to us afford, which sinners hath set free. [1676- Behold we see Adam set free, and sav'd from his trespass, Whose sinful Fall hath spilt us all, and brought us to this puss. Canst thou deny us once to try, or Grace to us to tender, When he finds grace before thy face, that was the chief offender ? Their Argu- ments taken Ezek. 18. 20. Rom. 5. !;>. 19. Then answered the Judge most dread, God doth such doom forbid, That men should dye eternally for what they never did. But what you call old Adam's Fall, and only his Trespass, You call amiss to call it his, both his and yours it was. 1 Cor 15. 48, 49. He was design'd of all Mankind to be a publick Head, A common Root, whence all should shoot, and stood in all their stead. He stood and fell, did ill or well, Not for himself alone, But for you all, w r ho now his Fall, and trespass would disown. If he had stood, then all his brood had been established In Gods true love never to move, nor once awry to tread : Then all his Race, my Fathers Grace, should have enjoy'd for ever, And wicked Sprights by subtile sleights could them have harmed never. Would you have griev'd to have receiv'd through Adam so much good, As had been your for evermore, if he at first had stood ? Would you have said, we ne'er obey'd, nor did thy Laws regard ; It ill befits with benefits, us, Lord, so to reward. -1764J MICHAEL WIQGLESWORTU. Since then to share in his welfare, you could have been content, You may with reason share in his treason, and in the punishment. Rom. 5. 12. Hence you were born in state forlorn, G^.' LV' with Natures so depraved : Death was your due, because that you had thus your selves behaved. You think if we had been as he, whom God did so betrust, We to our cost would ne'er have lost all for a paltry Lust. Had you been made in Adam's stead, Mat. 28. 80, 31. you would like things have wrought, And so into the self same wo, your selves and yours have brought. I may deny you once to try, or Grace to you to tender, Though he finds Grace before my face, ^hftree^tL who was the chief offender : Bom. 5. 15. Else should my Grace cease to be Grace ; for it should not be free, If to release whom I should please, I have no Ubcrtie. If upon one what's due to none I frankly shall bestow, And on the rest shall not think best, compassions skirts to throw, Whom injure I ? will you envy, and grudge at others weal ? Or me accuse, who do refuse your selves to help and heaL Am I alone of what's my own, no Master or no Lord ? Mat. 20. 15. O if I am, how can you claim what I to some afford ? Will you demand Grace at my hand, and challenge what is mine ? Will you teach me whom to set free, and thus my grace confine ? You sinners are, and such a share p gl & 3- as sinners may expect, GaPVio 3 ' Such you shall have ; for I do save Rom. 8. 29,30, none but my own Elect. ReV.'zi. 27. 12 Luk. 12. 4. 8. Mat. 11. 22. The wicked all convinced and put to si- lence. Rom. 8. 19. Mut. 22. 12. Behold the formidable estate of all the ungodly, as they stand hopeless and helpless be- fore an impar- tial Judge, ex- pecting their final Sen- tence. Rev. 6. 16, 17. MICHAEL WIGGLESWOHTH. Yet to compare your sin with their who liv'd a longer time, I do confess yours is much less, though every sin's a crime. A Crime it is, therefore in bliss you may not hope to dwell ; But unto you I shall allow the easiest room in Hell. The glorious King thus answering, they cease and plead no longer : Their Consciences must needs confess his Reasons are the stronger. [1676- Thus all mens Pleas the Judge with ease doth answer and confute, Until that all, both great and small, are silenced and mute. Vain hopes are cropt, all mouths are stopt, sinners have nought to say. But that 'tis just, and equal most they should be daum'd for ay. SENTENCE AND TORMENT OF THE CONDEMNED. 1 Cor. 6. 2. Where tender love mens hearts did move unto a sympathy, And bearing part of others smart in their anxiety ; Now such compassion is out of fashion, and wholly laid aside : No Friends so near, but Saints to hear their Sentence can abide. Compare Prov. 1. 26. with 1 John 3. 2, & 2 Cor. 5. 16. One natural Brother beholds another in his astonied fit, Yet sorrows not thereat a jot, nor pities him a whit. The godly wife conceives no grief, nor can she shed a tear For the sad state of her dear Mate, when she his doom doth hear. He that was erst a Husband pierc't with sense of Wives distress, Whose tender heart did bear a part of all her grievances, -17G4] MICHAEL W1GGLESWORTU. Shall mourn no more as heretofore because of her ill plight ; Although he see her now to be a damn'd forsaken wight. The tender Mother will own no other of all her numerous brood, But such as stand at Christ's right hand acquitted through his Blood. The pious father had now much rather his graceless son should ly In Hell with Devils, for all his evils, burning eternally. Lnk. 16. 25. Then God most high should injury, by sparing him sustain ; And doth rejoice to hear Christ's voice adjudging him to pain. Who having all both great and small, convinc'd and silenced, Did then proceed their Doom to read, and thus it uttered. Psal. 58. 10. Te sinful wights, and cursed sprights, that work iniquity, Depart together from me for ever to endless Misery ; Your portion take in yonder Lake, where Fire and Brimstone flameth : Suffer the smart, which your desert as it's due wages claimeth. The Judge pronounceth the Sentence of condemna- tion. Mat. 25. 41. Oh piercing words more sharp than swords I what, to depart from thee, Whose face before for evennore the best of Pleasures be ! What ? to depart (unto our smart) from thee Eternally : To be for aye banish'd away, with Devils company ! The terrour of it. What ? to be sent to Punishment, and flames of Burning Fire, To be surrounded, and eke confounded with Gods Revengeful ire ! What ? to abide, not for a tide these Torments, but for Ever : To be released, or to be eased, not after years, but Never. 14 MICUAEL WIGGLESWORTH. Oh fearful Doom ! now there's no room for hope or help at all : Sentence is past which aye shall last, Christ will not it recall. There might you hear them rent and tear the Air with their out-cries : The hideous noise of their sad voice ascendeth to the Skies. [1676- Luke 13. 28. Prov. 1. 26. They wring their hands, their caitiff-hands, and gnash their teeth for terrour ; They cry, they roar for anguish sore, and g'naw their tongues for honour. But get away without delay, Christ pities not your cry : Depart to Hell, there may you yell, and roar Eternally. It is put in Execution. Mat. 23. 46. That word, Depart, maugre their heart, drives every wicked one, With mighty pow'r, the self-same hour, far from the Judge's Throne. Away they're chast'd by the strong blast of his Death-threatning mouth : They flee full fast, as if in haste. although they be full loath. As chaff that's dry, and dust doth fly before the Northern wind: Mat. 13. 41, 42. Right so are they chased away, and can no Refuge find. They hasten to the Pit of Woe, guarded by Angels stout ; "Who to fulfil Christ's holy, will, attend this wicked Rout. HELL. Mat. 25. 30. Mark 9. 42. Isa. 30. 33. Rev. 21. 8. Whom having brought as they are taught, unto the brink of Hell, (That dismal place far from Christ's face, where Death and Darkness dwell : "Where God's fierce Ire kiudleth the fire, and vengeance feeds the flame With piles of Wood and Brimstone Flood. that uoae can quench the same.) Wicked Men and Devils cast into it for ever. Mat. 22. 13. & 25. 46. With Iron bands they bind their hands, and cursed feet together, And cast them all both great and small, into that Lake for ever, -1764 I MICHAEL W10GLESWORTH. 15 "Where day and night, without respite, they wail, and cry, and howl For tort'ring pain which they sustain in body and in Soul. For day and night, in their despight, their torments sinoak asceudeth. Their pain and grief have no relief, their anguish never eudeth. There must they ly, and never dy, though dying every day : There must they dying ever ly, and not consume away. Rev. 14.10,11. Dy fain they would, if dy they could, but death will not be had. God's direful wrath their bodies hath for ev'r Immortal made. They live to ly in misery, and bear eternal wo ; And live they must whilst God is just, that he may plague them so. But who can tell the plagues of Hell, and torments exquisite ? Who can relate their dismal state, and terrours infinite ? Who fare the best, and feel the least, yet feel that punishment Whereby to nought they should be brought, if God did not prevent. The insuffer- able torments of the damn- ed. Luk. 16. 24. Jude 7. ^/ The least degree of misery there felt's incomparable, The lightest pain they there sustain more than intolerable. But God's great pow'r from hour to hour upholds them in the fire, That they shall not consume a jot, nor by it's force expire. Isa.33. 14. Mark 9. 43, 44. THE SAINTS ASCEND TO HEAVEN. The Saints behold with courage bold, and thankful wonderment, To sec all those that were their foes thus sent to punishment : The Saints ro Judgn Judgment executed upon the wicked World. 16 Psal. 58. 10. Kev. 10. 1,2,3. MICHAEL WIG OLES WO it TIL Then do they sing unto their King a Soug of endless Praise : They praise his Name, and do proclaim that just are all his ways. [1676- They ascend with Christ into Heaven triumphing. Mat. 25. 40. Thus with great joy and melody to Heav'u they all ascend, Him tliere to praise with sweetest hi yes, and Hymns that never end. Where with long rest they shall be blest. and nought shall them annoy : Where they shall see as seen they be, and whom they love enjoy. 1 Joh. 3. 2. 1 Cor. 13. 12. Then; Eternal happiness and incomparable Glory there. O glorious Place ! where face to face Jehovah may be seen, By such as were sinners while here and no dark veil between. Where the Sun shine and light Divine, of Gods bright countenance, Doth rest upon them every one, with sweetest influence. O blessed state of the Renate ! O wond'rous Happiness, To which they're brought beyond what thought can reach, or words express ! Griefs water-course, and sorrows source, are turn'd to joyful streams. Their old distress and heaviness are vanished like dreams. Psal. 16. 11. For God above in arms of love doth dearly them embrace, And fills their sprights with such delights, and pleasures in his grace ; As shall not fail, nor yet grow stale through frequency of use : Nor do they fear Gods favour there, to forfeit by abuse. Heb. 12. 23. Rev. 1. 6, & 82.5. For there the Saints are perfect Saints, and holy ones indeed, From all the sin that dwelt within their mortal bodies freed : Made Kings and Priests to God through Christs dear loves transcendency, There to remain and there to reign with him Eternally. -1764] MICHAEL WIGQLE8WOHTH. VANITY OP VANITIES. [Appendetl .0 " The Day of Doom," Sixth Edition, 1715.] YTAIX, frail, short-liv'd, and miserable Man, * Learn what thou art when thy estate is best : A restless Wave o' th 1 troubled Ocean, A Dream, a lifeless Picture finely drest. A Wind, a Flower, a Vapour and a Bubble, A Wheel that stands not still, a trembling Reed, A trolling Stone, dry Dust, light Chuff and Stuff, A shadow of something but truly nought indeed. Learn what deceitful Toyes, and empty things, This World, and all its best Enjoyments be : Out of the Earth no true Contentment springs, But all things here are vexing Vanitie. For what is Beauty, but a fading Flower? Or what is Pleasure, but the Devils bait, Whereby he catcheth whom he would devour, And multitudes of Souls doth ruinate ? And what are Friends, but mortal men, as we, Whom Death from us may quickly separate ; Or else their hearts may quite estranged be, And all their love be turned into hate. And what are Riches to be doted on ? Uncertain, fickle, and ensnaring things ; They draw Mens Souls into Perdition, And when most needed, take them to their wings. Ah foolish man ! that sets his heart upon Such empty shadows, such wild Fowl as these, That being gotten will be quickly gone, And whilst they stay increase but his disease. As in a Dropsie, drinking draughts begets. The more he drinks, the more he still requires ; So on this World whoso affection sets, His Wealths cncrease, encreaseth his desires. O happy Man, whose portion is above, Where Floods, where Flames, where Foes cannot bereave him Most wretched Man that fixed hath his love Upon this World, that surely will deceive him. VOL. u. 2 17 18 MICHAEL WIOGLESWORTH. 11676- For what is Honour ? what is Sov'raignty, Whereto mens hearts so restlessly aspire ? "Whom have they Crowned with Felicity ? When did they ever satisfie desire ? The Ear of Man with hearing is not fill'd ; To see new Lights still coveteth the Eye : The craving Stomach though it may be still'd, Yet craves again without a new supply. All Earthly Things man's cravings answer not, Whose little heart would all the World contain, (If all the World should fall to one Man's Lott) And notwithstanding empty still remain. The Eastern Conquerour was said to weep, When he the Indian Ocean did view, To see his Conquest bounded by the Deep, And no more Worlds remaining to subdue. Who would that man in his Enjoyment bless, Or envy him, or covet his estate, Whose gettings do augment his greediness, And make his wishes more intemperate. Such is the wonted and the common guise Of those on Earth that bear the greatest sway ; If with a few the case be otherwise, They seek a Kingdom that abides for ay. Moreover they, of all the Sons of Men, That Rule, and are in Highest Places set, Are most enclin'd to scorn their Bretheren ; And God himself (without great Grace) forget. For as the Sun doth blind the gazers eyes, That for a time they nought discern aright ; So Honour doth befool and blind the Wise, And their own lustre 'reaves them of their sight. Great are their Dangers, manifold their Cares, Thro' which, whilst others sleep, they scarcely Nap, And yet are oft surprized unawares, And fall unwilling into Envies Trap. The mean Mechanick finds his kindly rest, All void of fear sleepeth the Country Clown, When greatest Princes often are distrest, And cannot sleep upon their Beds of Down. MICHAEL WIGGLESWORTH. Could Strength or Valour men Immortalize, Could Wealth or Honour keep them from decay, There were some cause the same to Idolize, And give the lie to that which I do say. But neither can such things themselves endure, Without the hazard of a Change one hour, Nor such as trust in them can they secure From dismal days, or Death's prevailing pow'r. If Beauty could the Beautiful defend From Death's dominion, then fair Absalom Had not been brought to sucli a shameful end : But fair and foul unto the Grave must come. If Wealth or Scepters could Immortal make, Then wealthy Croesus, wherefore art thou dead ? If Warlike-force which makes the World to quake, Then why is Julius Caesar perished ? Where are the Scipio's Thunder-bolts of War ? Renowned Pompey, Caesars Enemy ? Stout Hannibal, Rome's Terror known so far ? Great Alexander, what's become of thee ? If Gifts and Bribes Death's favour might but win, If Pow'r, if Force, or Threatnings might it fray, All these, and more had still surviving been : But all are gone, for Death will have no Nay. Such is this World with all her Pomp & Glory ; Such are the men whom worldly eyes admire, Cut down by time, and now become a story, That we might after better things aspire. Go boast thy self of what thy heart enjoys, Vain Man ! triumph in all thy Worldly Bliss : Thy best Enjoyments are but Trash and Toys, Delight thyself in that which worthless is. Omnia prcetereunt prceter amare Deum. 19 JONATHAN MITCHELL. [1670- jftitc^eil* BORN in Yorkshire, England, about 1625. DIED at Cambridge, Mass., 1668. ON LOOKING UP STEADFASTLY INTO HEAVEN. [A Discourse of the Glory to which God hath called Believers by Jesus Christ. 1677.] is no certainty of any thing in this world. Riches have J- wings, the top of honor is a slippery place, life itself is but a vapor. All things here lie within the reach of many devourers and destroyers, moth and rust, and thieves, pirates at sea, and other sons of violence at land. And what is saved from other destroyers is but reserved for the fire, that must be the end of all the possessions upon earth. All earthly possessions must turn into a blaze and end in smoke. At the great day of judgment there shall be an universal burning (all the earth on a light fire) in particular, previous days of judgment here (which are tastes and hansells of that) the Lord often contends by fire. Why, if men will not see by the light of the word, one would think they should see by the flames of devouring fire (though indeed seldom do men see by the latter, or by any destroying judgments, that have obstinately refused the light and voice of the former. But in itself it is a wonderful help to see, and it will be so to them that regard the word) the vanity, uncertainty and perishing nature of all things here. But to be sure our enjoyment of all things in this world (at best) hangs but upon the twine-thread of our life, which there are so many sharp edged tools (sicknesses, diseases, sad accidents) con- tinually ready to cut asunder, we are not sure to have it continued one hour longer. Had we not need be sure of something when all these things shall fail, as Luke xvi. 9 ? Paul knows what he hath to trust to when this world turns him out of doors (he hath then an house to hide his head in), IL Cor. v. 1. Oh, it is a comfortable thing, when temporal habitations fail, to be sure of eternal ones ! Imagine you were now to- die, this moment leaving the world, how glad would you be to be sure of Heaven and of a better life ! Why, that must be ere long, and you cannot think to be sure of it then, in a dying hour, if you do not labor to make it sure now in a time of health and peace. When David looks over the world and sees the vanity fading uncertainty of all portions (of riches, glory, honor, fair dwellings, etc.) here, what a thing is it to him to be sure of a God to receive him into arms of love and mercy when he dies, and of an happy waking in the morning of the Resurrection to eternal glory. When you see men stand in slippery places, and one tumbling down STATE NORMAL SCHOOL, LOS ANGELES, -:- CAL. -1764] JONATHAN MITCHELL. 21 after another (the rich tumbling into poverty, the great into contempt), then look to your feet and to your standing ; what foothold have you, what sure bottom and foundation have you to stand steady upon, as Psal. xxvi 12 ? The wicked stand in slippery places, but the godly that walk with God in integrity, stand in an even place. The covenant is sure, the state of grace is a sure standing. Indeed in regard of them- selves they would fall as soon as any, but they have a sure hand to hold them. Should not we make this use of the times we live in, to quicken us to make sure of Heaven ? May we not get this meat out of the eater, this good out of all the evils and troubles that are in the world ? Is it now a time to walk at peradventures with God, to live at uncertainties, to hang between Heaven and earth, to be to seek of a resting place when trouble fills the whole earth ? When the Lord's anger is burning up and down the world, and his fury poured out like fire everywhere, and the rocks thrown down by him. Had we not need make sure of his love, and be able to say, the Lord is good and my stronghold, etc.? When hypocrites cannot stand (as they cannot before God appearing in his dreadful and devouring wrath) had we need not make sure of sincerity of grace ? You may bear up your head for a time, and go up and down carelessly, but sooner or later, one way or other, there will come such a devouring fire, euch an appearance of wrath, such dreadful judgments as no false heart, no slight chaffy professor shall be able to stand before. He had need have gold tried in the fire, grace that is of golden solidity and purity. Dross and chaff will not bide the fire that is kindled in the day of God's judgments ; when He takes his fan into his hand to sever, purge out and burn up the chaff (the hypocrites and sinners in Sion) that is mixed with the wheat, and found on the floor of the visible church. When Jerusa- lem's sins are ripe for judgment and God hath waited his time upon ob- stinate sinners and despisers of the Gospel (as He did on the Jews in and after Christ's time), then a threshing and winnowing, fanning, and to the chaff a burning time comes. Then indeed the Lord will lose never a grain of sound wheat (it had need be sound and solid wheat that can bear the tossings of the fan and the blasts of the wind, and not be heaved and driven quite away). But chaffy hypocrites and sinners will not be able to stand or abide such a time, Amos, ix. 9, (" for I will fan the house of Israel as corn is fanned, tossed in a fan ") 10. Oh, we had need be sure to be good and sound wheat at such a time, be settled, strengthened, stablished in grace, well built and founded ; as Peter prays for them here in text, to a time of great afflictions, sufferings, and troubles, I. Pet. v. 9, 10, in a time when judgment was begun at the house of God, L Pet iv. 17, and of fiery trials, v. 12. Oh, at such a time it is a suitable and a precious thing to have a lively inheritance, as he 9 JOSHUA SCOTTOW. [1676- begins the Epistle, I Pet. i. 1-6. When the earth looks uncomfortably, when the face of things in this lower world hath terror, trouble, and blackness in it (and was it ever blacker than at this day ?), it is then seasonable to be looking up steadfastly into Heaven, and to get a clear sight of the glory there and of our interest in it Oh, we might make a gain of all the troubles of the times, did we turn them this way, to lift up our eyes to Heaven, and to awaken our souls to make sure of a por- tion there 1 BORN in England about 1615. DIED in Boston, Mass., 1698. THE NURSING FATHERS OF THE NEW WORLD. [ A Narrative of the Planting of the Massachusetts Colony. 1694. J MEN" of narrow spirits, of mean capacities and fortunes, had not been capable to officiate in so great a work, that such and so many gentlemen of ancient and worshipful families, of name and number, of character and quality, should combine and unite in so desperate and dangerous a design, attended with such insuperable difficulties and hazards in the plucking up of their stakes, leaving so pleasant and profit- able a place as their native soil, parting with their patrimonies, inheri- tances, plentiful estates, and settlement of houses well furnished, of land well stocked, and with comfortable ways of subsistence, which the first planters deserted ; and not a few did leave all their worldly hopes to come into this desert and unknown land, and smoky cottages, to the society of cursed cannibals (as they have proved to be), and at. best wild Indians. What less than a Divine Ardor could inflame a people thus- circumstanced to a work so contrary to flesh and blood ? Infinite wisdom and prudence contrived and directed this mysterious- work of Providence ; divine courage and resolution managed it ; super- human sedulity and diligence attended it, and angelical swiftness and dispatch finished it. Its wheels stirred not, but according to the Holy Spirit's motion in them ; yea, there was the involution of a wheel within a wheel. God's ways were a great depth, and high above the eagle or vulturous eye ; and such its immensity as man's cockle-shell is infinitely unable to empty this ocean. The leaders of this people, upon serious debate, drew up a determi- nation to settle the corporation and government upon the place ; and ac- cordingly made choice of a governor and deputy to abide there, which -1764] JOSHUA SCOTTOW. 93 being effected, and divinely directed in such a choice of the governor, the famous pattern of wisdom, justice, and liberality, and of a deputy governor who, by his experience at home and travels abroad, with his natural and acquired abilities, was a gentleman qualified above others for the chief rule and government, wherein, according to his just deserts, he shared more than others, the fame whereof being come abroad in the nation to such whose hearts God had touched, this being upon the wing, there wanted not number of persons of all occupations, skilled in all faculties needful for the planting of a colony, who filled up a fleet of eleven ships, of considerable burthen, besides their attenders ; some of them about four hundred tons, the rest not much inferior ; some carrying near two hundred passengers, the rest proportionably. The wheels of Providence were lifted up very high, and also were radiantly magnificent These tarting travellers' removal, carrying so great a resemblance of departure into another world, they were not stupid Stoics, but abounded with that which grace doth not destroy, but direct What showers of melting tears dropped into the bosoms of each other, whose souls as Jona- than and David clave one to another, yet alleviated with consideration ; though they were " absent in body, yet present in spirit," and of their mutual access to the Throne of Grace, and of "meeting at the assembly of the first-born and spirits of just men made perfect" Some of their choice friends, as the Reverend Mr. Cotton, and others, went along with them from Boston in Lincolnshire to Southampton, where they parted, and he preached his farewell sermon. That so many eminent persons, some of noble extract, should upon sea-bridges pass over the largest ocean in the Universe, by the good hand of their God upon them, having sought of him a right way for themselves, little ones, and substance ; yea, above three thousand in one year, and that above three hundred ships since that time, all laden with jewels of invaluable value, far above the gold of Ophir that each indi- vidual one should have a Celestial Convoy, under the flaming swords of flying Cherubims, turning every way, to keep them in their way, so as they all at their port safely arrived. Not one foundered in the sea, split upon rocks, were sucked in bv sands, overset by sudden gusts, nor taken and plundered by pirates or robbers, except one called the "Angel Gabriel," whose tutelar guardianship failed (if any aboard put trust therein). She was laden with passengers for Boston, but put in at Pem- iquid, where the ship and whole cargo perished, but not one soul of sea- men or passengers miscarried. They met with an hurricane, before or since not known in this country, raised by the power of him who holds the wind in his hand and commissioneth the Prince of the Air, by raising " stormy winds to fulfil his "Word." It's said the tide rose twenty foot perpendicular above its ordinary height. The same time another great 24 JOSHUA SCOTTOW. [1678- ship laden with passengers was wonderfully preserved, when as ready to be split in pieces upon rocks at the " Isle of Shoals ; " at the prayer of the distressed Saints aboard God caused the winds to veer a point or two about the compass, so as she cleared them, and they were saved. .... Our ancestors were men of God, made partakers of the divine nature ; Christ was formed and visibly legible in them ; they served God in houses of the first edition, without large chambers, or windows, ceiled with cedar, or painted with vermilion : a company of plain, pious, hum- ble and open-hearted Christians, called Puritans. When news was brought hither, that the church at Bermudas was banished thence into a desert island, and full of straits, forthwith they sent a vessel of good burthen to them, fully laden with provisions of all sorts, each striving who should be forwardest in so good a work ; which supply came unto them, when as all the meal in their barrels and oil in their cruise was spent; and it was brought to them upon a Lord's-day. when as their faithful pastor had finished his exhortation from Psalm xxiii.: " To trust upon Jehovah their Shepherd, who would not trust his flock to want ; " thus the Lord set his seal to their faith and progress. The gravity of their habit and calendar reformation, by Satan's policy, hath since been imitated by the Quakers, that our Fathers might be listed among those fanatics and enthusiasts ; but they owned no Spirit within them, but to be tried by the Word without them, and no Word without them, but accorded with the Spirit within them ; no word of promise to them without a work of grace upon them, neither without the Holy Spirit's dwelling in them and testifying to them. They minded the or- nament of the meek and quiet Spirit ; they were not acquainted with the toys and fancies of this age ; they were glorious within ; their clothing was of wrought gold : they were brought in unto the King in raiment of needle-work, wrought with tender pricks of conscience ; the least vain fashion, wanton, or wicked thought touched them to the quick. It's historied of our Pagan progenitors, that Gregory the Great, the last of the good, and first of bad Popes, seeing strange lads of a comely coun- tenance produced publicly to be sold, he inquired of what nation they were of. Being told they were Angli, " English," looking upon their fair faces, he said they were Angeli, Angels, and pitying them that they were vassals of Satan, he took order for the conversion of our nation to the Christian faith ; but as for us Nov Angli, " New English," by our smutty deformity and Hell's blackness, we have rendered ourselves Diaboli Vet- erani, Old Devils. New England will be called new Witch-land, Em- manuel's Land will be titled the Land of Abaddon; Salem Village and Andover will be called the Swedish Mohra and Bolcul ; the country whose native and natural smell was as of a field which the Lord hath blessed ; -1164] WILLIAM UUBBARD. .25 a promenade abroad, after rain, would have revived a man's spirits, as some have experienced it ; yea, the whole Continent which, long after our first coming hither, was so full, not only of internal, but of external flavor and sweet odor ; so as when ships were divers leagues distant and had not made land, so fragrant and odoriferous was the land to the mar- iners, that they knew they were not far from the shore ; such was the plenty of sweet fern, laurel, and other fragrant simples this land then abounded with, especially near the sea-side ; such was the scent of our aromatic and balsam-bearing pines, spruces, and larch trees, with our tall cedars, exceeding all in Europe. But our sweet scent is gone, we smell rank of hellebore, henbane, and poisonful hemlock, as if we were laid out to be the American Anticyra. OTtlltam BOKN in Essex, England, 1621. DIED at Ipswich, Mass., 1701 CAPTAIN MILES STANDISH HIS TEMPER. [History of New England. Completed 1680. J DURING this whole lustre of years, from 1625, there was little mat- ter of moment acted in the Massachusetts, till the year 1629, after the obtaining the patent ; the former years being spent in fishing and trading by the agents of the Dorchester merchants and some others of the west country. In one of the fishing voyages about the year 1625, under the charge and command of one Mr. Hewes, employed by some of the west country merchants, there arose a sharp contest between the said Hewes and the people of New Plymouth, about a fishing-stage, built the year before about Cape Anne by Plymouth men, but was now, in the absence of the builders made use of by Mr. Hewes his company ; which the other, under the conduct of Capt Standish, very eagerly and peremptorily de- manded. For the Company of New Plymouth, having themselves obtained a useless patent for Cape Anne about the year 1623, sent some of the ships, which their Adventurers employed to transport passengers over to them, to make fish there; for which end they built a stage there in the year 1624. The dispute grew to be very hot, and high words passed between them ; which might have ended in blows, if not in blood and slaughter, had not* the prudence and moderation of Mr. Roger Co- nant, at that time there present, and Mr. Peirce's interposition, that lay 9 g WILLIAM HUBBARD. [1678- just by with his ship, timely prevented For Mr. Hewes had barricadoed his company with hogsheads on the stage-head, while the demandants stood upon the land, and might easily have been cut off. But the ship's crew, by advice, promising to help them build another, the difference was thereby ended. Capt. Standish had been bred a soldier in the Low Countries, and never entered the school of our Saviour Christ, or of John Baptist, his harbinger ; or, if he was ever there, had forgot his first lessons, to offer violence to no man, and to part with the cloak rather than needlessly contend for the coat, though taken away without order. A little chimney is soon fired ; so was the Plymouth captain, a man of very little stature, yet of a very hot and angry temper. The fire of his passion soon kindled, and blown up into a flame by hot words, might easily have consumed all, had it not been seasonably quenched. TAKING OF THE NARRAGANSET FORT. [A Narrative of the Troubles with the Indians in New-England. 1677.] THE whole number of all our forces being now come, the want of provision with the sharpness of the cold minded them of expedi- tion ; wherefore the very next day, the whole body of the Massachusets. and Plimouth Forces marched away to Pettiquamscot, intending to engage the enemy upon the first opportunity that next offered itself : To the which resolution those of Connecticut presently consented, as soon as they met together, which was about five o'clock in the afternoon. Bulls House, intended for their general rendezvouz, being unhappily burnt down two or three days before, there was no shelter left either for officer or private soldier, so as they were necessitated to march on towards the enemy through the snow in a cold stormy evening, finding- no other defence all that night, save the open air, nor other covering than a cold and moist fleece of snow. Through all these difficulties they marched from the break of the next day, December 19th, till one of the clock in the afternoon, without either fire to warm them, or respite to take any food save what they could chew in their march. Thus having- waded fourteen or fifteen mile through the country of the old Queen, or Sunke Squaw of Narhaganset, they came at one o'clock upon the edge of the swamp, where their guide assured them they should find Indians- enough before night. Our forces chopping thus upon the seat of the enemy, upon the sud- den, they had no time either to draw up in any order or form of battle, nor yet opportunity to consult where or how to assault. As they -1784] WILLIAM HUBBARD. 27 marched, Capt Mosley and Capt Davenport led the van; Major Apple- ton and Capt Oliver brought up the rear of the Massachuset forces ; General Winslow with the Plimouth forces marched in the centre ; those of Connecticut came up in the rear of the whole body. But the fron- tiers discerning Indians in the edge of the 'swamp fired immediately upon them, who answering our men in the same language retired pres- ently into the swamp ; our men followed them in amain without staying for the word of command, as if every one were ambitious who should go first, never making any stand till they came to the sides of the fort, into which the Indians that first fired upon them betook them- selves. It seems that there was but one entrance into the Fort, though the enemy found many ways to come out ; but neither the English nor their guide well knew on which side the entrance lay, nor was it easy to have made another; wherefore the good providence of Almighty God is the more to be acknowledged, who, as he led Israel sometime by the Pillar of Fire and the Cloud of his Preference a right way through the wilder- ness, so did he now direct our forces upon that side of the Fort, where they might only enter, though not without utmost danger and hazard. The Fort was raised upon a kind of island of five or six acres of rising land in the midst of a swamp ; the sides of it were made of palisades set upright, the which was compassed about with an hedge of almost a rod thickness, through which there was no passing, unless they could have fired away through, which then they had no time to do. The place where the Indians used ordinarily to enter themselves was over a long tree upon a place of water, where but one man could enter at a time, and which was so way-laid that they would have been cut off that had ventured there. But at one corner there was a gap made up only with a long tree, about four or five foot from the ground, over which men might easily pass. But they had placed a kind of block-house right over against the said tree, from whence they sorely galled our men that first entered ; some being shot dead upon the tree, as Capt. Johnson, and some as soon as they entered, as was Capt Davenport, so as they that first entered were forced presently to retire and fall upon their bellies till the fury of the enemies' shot was pretty well spent, which some com- panies that did not discern the danger, not observing, lost sundry of their men ; but at the last, two companies being brought up besides the four that first marched up, they animated one another to make an- other assault, one of the commanders crying out, They run, they run; which did so encourage the Soldiers that they presently en- tered amain. After a considerable number were well entered, they presently beat the enemy out of a flanker on the left hand, which did a little shelter our men from the enemies' shot till more company came up, ^g WILLIAM HUBBARD. [1676- and so by degrees made up higher, first into the middle, and then into the upper end of the Fort, till at last they made the enemy all retire from their sconces and fortified places, leaving multitudes of their dead bodies upon the place. Connecticut soldiers marching up in the rear, being not aware of the dangerous passage over the tree in command of the block-house, were at their first entrance many of them shot down, although they came on with as gallant resolution as any of the rest, un- der the conduct of their wise and valiant leader, Major Treat. The brunt of the battle or danger that day lay most upon the com- manders, whose part it was to lead on their several companies in the very face of death, or else all had been lost ; so as all of them with great valor and resolution of mind, as not at all afraid to die in so good a cause, bravely led on their men in that desperate assault, leaving their lives in the place as the best testimony of their valor, and of love to the cause of God and their Country. No less than six brave captains fell that day in the assault, viz.: Capt. Davenport, Capt. Gardner, Capt. Johnson of the Massachusets, besides Lieutenant Upham, who died some months after of his wounds received at that time. Capt. Gallop also, and Capt. Siely, and Capt. Marshal were slain of those that belonged to Connecticut Colony. It is usually seen that the valor of the soldiers is much wrapped up in the lives of their commanders ; yet it was found here that the soldiers were rather enraged than discouraged by the loss of their commanders, which made them redouble their courage, and not give back after they were entered the second time, till they had driven out their enemies. So as after much blood and many wounds dealt on both sides, the English, feeling their advantage, began to fire the wigwams, where was supposed to be many of the enemies' women and children destroyed, by the firing of at least five or six hundred of those smoky cells. It is reported by them that first entered the Indians' Fort, that our soldiers came upon them when they were ready to dress their dinner ; but one sudden and unexpected assault put them besides that work, making their cook-rooms too hot for them at that time, when they and their mitchin fried together ; and probably some of them eat their sup- pers in a colder place that night, most of their provisions as well as their huts being then consumed with fire ; and those that were left alive forced to hide themselves in a cedar swamp, not far off, where they had nothing to defend them from the cold but boughs of spruce and pine trees. For after two or three hours' fight the English became masters of the place ; but not judging it tenable, after they had burned all they could set fire upon, they were forced to retreaUafter the day-light was almost quite spent, and were necessitated to re J e to their quarters, full ntteen or sixteen miles off, some say more, whifner with their dead and -1764] WILLIAM HUBBARD. 29 wounded men they were to march, a difficulty scarce to be believed, as not to be paralleled almost in any former age. It is hard to say who acquitted themselves best in that day's service, either the soldiers for their manlike valor in fighting, or the commanders for their wisdom and courage ; leading on in the very face of death. There might one have seen the whole body of that little regimental army, as busy as bees in a hive, some bravely fighting with the enemy, others hauling off and carrying away the dead and wounded men; which I rather note, that none may want the due testimony of their valor and faithfulness, though all ought to say, " Not unto us, but unto thy Name, O Lord," etc. For though there might not be above three or four hundred at any time within the Fort at once, yet the rest in their turns came up to do what the exigency of the service required in bringing off the dead and wounded men. The Major of the Massachusets regiment, together with Capt Mosely, was very serviceable ; for by that means the Fort being clear of the dead bodies, it struck a greater terror into the enemy to see but eight or ten dead bodies of the English left, than to meet with so many hundreds of their own slain and wounded carcasses. The number of the slain was not then known on the enemies side, because our men were forced to leave them on the ground; but our victory was found afterwards to be much more considerable than at the first was ap- prehended ; for although our loss was very great, not only because of the desperateness of the attempt itself (in such a season of the year, and at such a distance from our quarters, whereby many of our wounded men perished, which might otherwise have been preserved, if they had not been forced to march so many miles in a cold and snowy night, before they could be dressed) yet the enemy lost so many of their principal fighting men, their provision also was, by the burning of their wig- wams, so much of it spoiled at the taking of their Fort, and by sur- prising so much of their corn about that time also, that it was the occasion of their total ruin afterwards ; they being at that time driven away from their habitations and put by from planting for that next year, as well as deprived of what they had in store for the present winter. What numbers of the enemy were slain is uncertain ; it was confessed by one Potock a great councillor among them, afterwards taken at Road Island and put to death at Boston, that the Indians lost seven hundred fighting men that day, besides three hundred that died of their wounds the most of them ; the number of men, women and children, that perished either by fire, or that were starved with hunger and cold, none of them could telL There were above eighty of the English slain, and a hundred and fifty wounded that recovered afterwards. ,, WILLIAM HUBBAED. [1676- SUBTLETY AND COURAGE OF THE FRIENDLY INDIANS. [From the Same.] IT is worth noting, what faithfulness and courage some of the Chris- tian Indians with the said Capt Peirce showed in the fight [at Ab- bot's Bun]. One of them, Amos by name, after the Captain was shot in his leg or thigh, so he was not able to stand any longer, would not leave him, but charging his gun several times, fired stoutly upon the enemy, till he saw that there was no possibility for him to do any further good to Capt. Peirce, nor yet to save himself, if he stayed any longer ; therefore he used this policy, perceiving the enemy had all blacked their faces, he also stooping down, pulled out some blacking out of a pouch he carried with him, discolored his face therewith, and, so making him- self as like Hobamacko as any of his enemies, he ran among them a little while, and was taken for one of themselves, as if he had been searching for the English, until he had an opportunity to escape" away among the bushes ; therein imitating the cuttle-fish, which when it is pursued, or in danger, casteth out of its body a thick humor as black as ink, through which it passes away unseen by the pursuer. It is reported of another of these Cape Indians (friends to the English of Plimouth) that being pursued by one of the enemies, he betook him- self to a great rock, where he sheltered himself for a while ; at last per- ceiving that his enemy lay ready with his gun on the other side, to dis- charge upon him, as soon as he stirred never so little away from the place where he stood ; in the issue he thought of this politic stratagem to save himself and destroy his enemy (for as Solomon said of old, " Wisdom is better than Weapons of War "), he took a stick, and hung his hat upon it, and then by degrees gently lifted it up, till he thought it would be seen and so become a fit mark for the other that watched to take aim at him. The other taking it to be his head fired a gun, and shot through the hat; which our Christian Indian perceiving, boldly held up his head and discharged 'his own gun upon the real head, not the hat of his adversary, whereby he shot him dead upon the place, and so had liberty to march away with the spoils of his enemy. The like subtle device was used by another of the Cape Indians at the same time, being one of them that went out with Capt. Peirce ; for be- ing in like manner pursued by one of Philip's Indians, as the former was, he nimbly got behind the but-end of a tree newly turned up by the roots, which carried a considerable breadth of the surface of the earth along with it (as is very useful in these parts, where the roots of the trees lie very fleet in the ground) which stood up above the Indian's height m form of a large shield, only it was somewhat too heavy to be -1764] WILLIAM HUBBARD. 3^ easily wielded or removed ; the enemy-Indian lay with his gun ready to shoot him down upon his first deserting his station ; but a subtle wit taught our Christian Netop a better device ; for, boring a little hole through this his broad shield, he discerned his enemy, who could not so easily discern him ; a good musketeer need never desire a fairer mark to shoot at ; whereupon discharging his gun, he shot him down : what can be more just than that he should himself be killed, who lay in wait to kill another man? Neque enim Lexjustior ulla est, Quam necis Artifices arte perire sua. Instances of this nature show the subtility and dexterousness of these natives, if they were improved in feats of arms : and possibly if some of the English had not been too shy in making use of such of them as were well affected to their own interest, they need never have suffered so much from their enemies : it having been found upon late experience that many of them have proved not only faithful, but very serviceable and helpful to the English ; they usually proving good seconds, though they have not ordinarily confidence enough to make the first onset HOW AN INDIAN BORE HIMSELF UNDER TORTURE. [From the Same.} A MONGST the rest of the prisoners then taken was a young sprightly -^- fellow, seized by the Mohegans ; who desired of the English com- manders that he might be delivered into their hands, that they might put him to death, more majorum ; sacrifice him to their cruel Genius of Re- venge, in which brutish and devilish passion they are most of all de- lighted. The English, though not delighted in blood, yet at this time were not unwilling to gratify their humor, lest by a denial they might disoblige their Indian friends, of whom they lately made so much use ; partly also that they might have an ocular demonstration of the savage, barbarous cruelty of these Heathen. And indeed, of all the enemies that have been the subjects of the precedent discourse, this villain did most deserve to become an object of justice and severity ; for he boldly told them that he had with his gun dispatched nineteen English, and that he had charged it for the twentieth ; but not meeting with any of ours, and unwilling to lose a fair shot, he had let fly at a Mohegan and killed him, with which, having made up his number, he told them he was fully sat- isfied. But, as is usually said, justice vindictive hath iron hands, though 32 WILLIAM HUBBARD. [1676- leaden feet ; this cruel monster is fallen into their power, that will repay him seven-fold. In the first place, therefore, making a great circle, they placed him in the middle, that all their eyes might at the same time be pleased with the utmost revenge upon him. They first cut one of his fingers round in the joint, at the trunk of his hand, with a sharp knife, and then broke it off, as men used to do with a slaughtered beast before they uncase him ; then they cut off another and another, till they had dismembered one hand of all its digits, the blood sometimes spurting out in streams a yard from his hand, which barbarous and unheard of cruelty the English were not able to bear, it forcing tears from their eyes. Yet did not the sufferer ever relent, or show any sign of anguish ; for being asked by some of his tormentors, how he liked the war ? he might have replied, as the Scotch gentleman did after the loss of a battle, that being asked how he liked the match, sc. with our Prince of Wales (which then was the occasion of the quarrel), made answer, he liked the match well enough, but no whit liked the manner of the wooing written by such lines of blood. But this unsensible and hard-hearted monster answered, He liked it very well, and found it as sweet as Englishmen did their sugar. In this frame he continued, till his executioners had dealt with the toes of his feet as they had done with the fingers of his hands ; all the while making him dance round the circle and sing, till he had wea- ried both himself and them. At last they broke the bones of his legs, after which he was forced to sit down, which 'tis said he silently did till they had knocked out his brains. Instances of this nature should be in- centive unto us to bless the Father of Lights, who hath called us out of the dark places of the earth, full of the habitations of cruelty. When the Day-spring from on high shall visit those that sit in this region of darkness, another Spirit will be poured upon them, and then the feet of them that bring the glad tidings of gospel-salvation will appear more beautiful to them than at present they seem to do. And when these mountains of prey shall become the holy mountain of the Lord, they shall neither hurt, nor destroy, nor exercise cruelty therein. -1764] BENJAMIN TOMPS02T. 33 Benjamin Compgon. BOBS In Bralntree, Mass., 1643. Our first native Poet. DIED at Roxbury, Mass., 1714. ON THE WOMEN FORTIFYING BOSTON NECK. [New England s Crisis. About IG75.] A GRAND attempt some Amazonian Dames Contrive whereby to glorify their names, A ruff for Boston Neck of mud and turfe, Reaching from side to side, from surf to surf, Their nimble hands spin up like Christmas pyes, Their pastry by degrees on high doth rise. The wheel at home counts in an holiday, Since while the mistress worketh it may play. A tribe of female hands, but manly hearts, Forsake at home their pastry crust and tarts, To kneed the dirt, the samplers down they hurl, Their undulating silks they closely furl. The pick-axe one as a commandress holds, While t'other at her awk'uess gently scolds. One puffs and sweats, the other mutters wh/ Cant you promove your work so fast as I ? Some dig, some delve, and others' hands do feel The little wagon's weight with single wheel. And least some fainting-fits the weak surprize, They want no sack nor cakes, they are more wise. These brave essays draw forth male, stronger liumls, More like to dawbers than to macshal bands ; These do the work, and sturdy bulwarks raise, But the beginners well deserve the praise. THE ALARMING PROGRESS OF LUXURY IN NEW ENGLAND. [From the Same.] rpHE times wherin old Pompion was a saint, * Wlu-n men fared hardly yet without complaint, On vilest cates ; the dainty Indian maize Was eat with clamp-shells out of wooden trays, Under thatch'd hutts without the cry of rent, And the best sawcc to every dish, content. When flesh was food and hairy skins made coats, And men as well as birds had chirping notes. VOL. n. 3 BENJAMIN TOMPSON. t 1676 ~ 34 When Cimnels were accounted noble bloud ; Among the tribes of common herbage food. Of Ceres' bounty form'd was many a knack. Enough to fill poor Robin's Almanack. These golden times (too fortunate to hold) Were quickly sin'd away for love of gold. 'Twas then among the bushes, not the street, If one in place did an inferior meet, Good morrow, brother, is there aught you want ? " Take freely of me, what I have you ha'nt." Plain Tom and Dick would pass as current now, As ever since "Your Servant, Sir." and bow. Deep-skirted doublets, puritanic capes, Which now would render men like upright apes, Was comlier wear, our wiser fathers thought, Than the cast fashions from all Europe brought. 'Twas in those days an honest grace would hold Till an hot pudding grew at heart a cold. And men had better stomachs at religion, Than I to capon, turkey-cock, or pigeon ; When honest sisters met to pray, not prate, About their own and not their neighbour's state. During Plain Dealing's reign, that worthy stud Of the ancient planter's race before the flood, Then times were good, merchants ear'd not a rush For other fare than Jonakin and Mush. Although men far'd and lodged very hard, Yet innocence was better than a guard. 'Twas long before spiders and worms had drawn Their dungy webs, or hid with cheating lawne New England's beautyes, which still seem'd to me Illustrious in their own simplicity. 'Twas ere the neigbouring Virgin-Land had broke The hogsheads of her worse than hellish smoak. 'Twas ere the Islands sent their presents in, Which but to use was counted next to sin. 'Twas ere a barge had made so rich a freight As chocolate, dust-gold and bitts of eight. Ere wines from France and Muscovadoe to, Without the which the drink will scarsly doe. From western isles ere fruits and delicacies Did rot maids' teeth and spoil their handsome faces. Or ere these times did chance, the noise of war Was from our towns and hearts removed far. No bugbear cornets in the chrystal air Did drive our Christian planters to despair. No sooner pagan malice peeped forth But valour snib'd it. Then were men of worth Who by their prayers slew thousands angel-like ; Their weapons are unseen with which they strike. -1764] BENJAMIN TOXPSON. 35 Then had the churches rest ; as yet the coales Were covered up in most contentious souls : Freeness in judgment, union in affection, Dear love, sound truth, they were our grand protection Then were the times in which our councells sate, These gave prognosticks of our future fate. If these be longer liv'd our hopes increase, These warrs will usher in a longer peace. But if New England's love die in its youth, The grave will open next for blessed truth. This theame is out of date, the pcaccfull hours "When castles needed not, but pleasant bowers. Not ink, but bloud and tears now serve the turn To draw the figure of New England's urne. New England's hour of passion is at hand ; No power except divine can it withstand. Scarce hath her glass of fifty years run out, But her old prosperous steeds turn heads about, Tracking themselves back to their poor beginnings, To fear and fare upon their fruits of sinnings. So that the mirror of the Christian world Lyes burnt to heaps in part, her streamers furl'd. Grief sighs, joyes flee, and dismal fears surprize Not dastard spirits only, but the wise. Thus have the fairest hopes deceiv'd the eye Of the big-swoln expectant standing by : Thus the proud ship after a little turn, Sinks into Neptune's amis to find its urne : Thus hath the heir to many thousands born Been in an instant from the mother torn : Even thus thine infant cheeks began to pale, And thy supporters through great losses faiL This is the Prologue to thy future woe, The Epilogue no mortal yet can know. IN PRAISE OF THE RENOWNED COTTON MATHER. [Prefixed to the " Magnalia Christi Americana." 1702.] IS the bless 'd MATHER necromancer turn'd, To raise his country's fathers' ashes urn'd ? Elisha's dust, life to the dead imparts ; This prophet, by his more familiar arts, Unseals our heroes' tombs, and gives them air ; They rise, they walk, they talk, look wondrous fair ; Each of them in an orb of light doth shine, In liveries of glory most divine. URIAN OAKES. [167ft- When ancient names I in thy pages met, Like gems on Aaron's costly breastplate set, Methinks heaven's open, while great saints descend, To wreathe the brows by which their acts were penn'd. ftrian BORN in England, 1631-2. DIED at Cambridge, Mass., 1681. ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF THOMAS SHEPARD. {An Elegie upon The Death of the Reverend Mr. Thomas Shepard. 1677.] OH ! tli at I were a poet now in grain ! How would I invocate the Muses all To deign their presence, lend their flowing vein ; And help to grace dear Shepard's funeral ! How would I paint our griefs, and succours borrow From art and fancy, to limn out our sorrow ! Now could I wish (if wishing would obtain) The sprightliest efforts of poetick rage, To vent my griefs, make others feel my pain, For this loss of the glory of our age. Here is a subject for the loftiest verse That ever waited on the bravest hearse. And could my pen ingeniously distill The purest spirits of a sparkling wit In rare conceits, the quintessence of skill In elegiack strains ; none like to it : I should think ail too little to condole The fatal loss (to us) of such a soul. Could I take highest flights of fancy, soar Aloft ; if wit's monopoly were mine ; All would be much too low, too light, too poor, To pay due tribute to this great divine. All ! wit avails not, when th' heart's like to break, Great griefs are tongue-tied, when the lesser speak. Here need no spices, odours, curious arts, No skill of Egypt, to embalm the name 3f such a worthy : let men speak their hearts, They'l say, he merits an immortal fame. When Shepard is forgot, all must conclude, This is prodigious ingratitude. -1764J URIAN OAKES. But live he shall in many a grateful breast Where he hath rear'd himself a monument, A monument more stately than the best On which imiuensest treasures have been spent. Could you but into th' hearts of thousands peep, There would you read his name engraven deep. Oh ! that my head were waters, and mine eyes A flowing spring of tears, still issuing forth In streams of bitterness, to solemnize The obits of this man of matchless worth ! Next to the tears our sins do need and crave, I would bestow my tears on Shepard's grave. Not that he needs our tears : for he hath dropt His measure full ; not one tear more shall full Into God's bottle from his eyes ; Death stopt That water-course, his sorrows ending all. He fears, he cares, he sighs, he weeps no more : Her'.- past all storms, arriv'd at th' wished shoar. Dear Shepard ! could we reach so high a strain Of pure seraphick love, as to divest Ourselves, and love, of self respects, thy gain Would joy us, though it cross our interest. Then would we silence all complaints with this, Our dearest friend is doubtless gone to bliss. Ah ! but the lesson's hard, thus to deny Our own dear selves, to part with such a loan Of Heaven (in time of such necessity) And love thy comforts better than our own. Then let us moan our loss, adjourn our glee, Till we come thither to rejoice with thee. As when some formidable comet's blaze, As when portentous prodigies appear, Poor mortals with amazement stand and gaze, With hearts affrighted, and with trembling fear : So are we all amazed at this blow, Sadly portending some approaching woe. We shall not summon bold astrologers To tell us what the stars say in the case, (Those cousen-germans to black conjurers), We have a sacred Oracle that sayes, When th' righteous perish, men of mercy go, It is a sure presage of coming wo. He was (ah, woful won\ ! to say he was) Our wrestling Israel, second unto none, URIAN OAKES. [1676- 3o The man that stood i' th' gap, to keep the pass, To stop the troops of judgments rushing on. This man the honour had to hold the hand Of an incensed God against our Laud. "When such a pillar's fain (oh such an one !) When such a glorious, shining light's put out, When chariot and horsemen thus are gone, Well may we fear some downfal, darkness, rout. When such a bank's broke down, there's sad occasion To wail, and dread some grievous inundation. What ! must we with our God, and glory part ? Lord ! is thy treaty with New-England come Thus to an end ? And is war in thy heart That this embassadour is called home ? So earthly Gods (Kings), when they war intend, Call home their ministers, and treaties end. Oh for the raptures, transports, inspirations Of Israel's Singer, when his Jonathan's fall So tun'd his mourning harp ! what Lamentations Then would I make for Shepard's funeral ! How truly can I say, as well as he, "My dearest brother, I am distress'd for thee." How lovely, worthy, peerless, in my view ! How precious, pleasant hast thou been to me ! How learned, prudent, pious, grave, and true ! And what a faithful friend ! who like to thee ! Mine eye's desire is vanish'd : who can tell Where lives my dearest Shepard's parallel ? 'Tis strange to think : but we may well believe, That not a few, of different perswasions From this great worthy, do now truely grieve I' th' mourning crowd, and joyn their lamentations. Such powers magiietick had he to draw to him The very hearts, and souls, of all that knew him 1 Art, nature, grace, in him were all combin'd To shew the world a matchless paragon : In whom of radiant virtues no less shin'd Than a whole constellation : but hee's gone ! Hee's gone alas ! Down in the dust must ly As much of this rare person as could dy. If to have solid judgment, pregnant parts, A piercing wit, and comprehensive brain ; If to have gone the round of all the arts, Immunity from Death's arrest would gain, -1764J URIAN OAKES. Shepard would have been death-proof, and secure From that all-conquering hand, I'm very sure. If holy life, and deeds of charity, If grace illustrious, and virtue tried, If modest carriage, rare humility. Could have brib'd Deatli, good Shepnrd had not died. Oh ! but inexorable Death attacks The best men, and promiscuous havock makes. Come tell me, Criticks, have you ever known Such zeal, so temper/d well with moderation ? Such prudence, and such innocence met in one ? Such parts, so little pride and ostentation ? Let Momus carp, and Envy do her worst, And swell with spleen and rancour till she burst. To be descended well, doth that commend ? Can sons their fathers' glory call their own ? Our Shepard justly might to this pretend, (His blessed father was of high renown, Both Englands speak him great, admire his nanu-), But his own personal worth's a better claim. Great was the father, once a glorious light Among us, famous to an high degree: Great was this son : indeed (to do him right) As great and good (to say no more) as he. A double portion of his father's spirit Did this (his eldest) son, through grace, inherit. His look commanded reverence and ewe, Though mild and amiable, not austere : Well-humour'd was he as I ever saw , And rul'd by love and wisdome, more than fear, The Muses, and the Graces too, conspir"d To set forth this rare piece, to be admir'd, He govern'd well the tongue (that busie thing, Unruly, lawless and pragmatical), Gravely reserv'd, in speecli not lavishing, Neither too sparing, nor too liberal. His words were few, well season'd, wisely weigh'd, And in his tongue the law of kindness sway'd. Learned he was beyond the common size, Befriended much by nature in his wit, And temper (sweet, sedate, ingenious, wise), And (which crown'd all) he was Heavens favourite; On whom the God of all Grace did command, And show'r down blessings with a liberal hand. IRIAN OAKES. Wise he, not wily, was; grave, not morose '; Not stifle, but steady ; serious, but not sowre ; Conceru'd for all, as if he had no Foes ; (Strange if he had!) and would not wast an hour. Thoughtful and active for the common good: And yet his own place wisely understood. Nothing could make him stray from duty ; Death Was not so frightful to him, as omission Of ministerial work ; he fear'd no breath, Infectious, i' th' discharge of his commission. Rather than run from's work, lie chose to dy, Boldly to run on death, than duty fly. (Cruel Disease! that didst (like high-way-men) Assault the honest traveller in his way, And rob dear Shepard of his life (ah !) then, When he was on the road where duty lay. Forbear, bold pen ! 'twas God that took him thus, To give him great reward, and punish us.) Zealous in God's cause, but meek in his own ; Modest of nature, bold as any lion Where conscience was concern'd : and there were none More constant mourners for afflicted Sion : So general was his care for th' Churches all, His spirit seemed apostolical. Large was his heart, to spend without regret, Rejoycing to do good: not like those moles That root i' th' earth, or roam abroad, to get All for themselves (those sorry, narrow souls!) But lie, like th' sun (i' th' center, as some say) Diffus'd his rayes of goodness every way. He breath'd love, and pursu'd peace in his day, As if his soul were made of harmony : Scarce ever more of goodness croudcd lay In such a piece of frail mortality. Sure Father Wilson's genuine son was he, New-England's Paul had such a Timothy. No slave to th' world's grand idols ; but he flew At fairer quarries, without stooping down To sublunary prey: his great soul knew Ambition none, but of the heavenly crown : Now he hath won it, and shall wear 't with honour Adoring grace, and God in Christ, the donour. A friend to truth, a constant foe to errour, Powerful i' th' pulpit, and sweet in converse, -1764] URIAN OAKES. To weak ones gentle, to th' profane a tcrrour, Who can his vertues and good works rehearse ? The Scripture Bishop's character read o're, Say this was Shepard's : what need I say more ? I say no more ; let them that can declare His rich and rare endowments, paint this sun With all its dazzling rayes: but I despair, Hopeless by any hand to see it done. They that can Shepard's goodness well display Must be as good as he ; but who are they ? See where our Sifter Charlstown sits and moans ! Poor widow'd Charlstowu! all in dust, in tears ! Mark how site wrings her hands ! hear how she groans ! See how she weeps ! what sorrow like to hers ! Charlstown, that might for joy compare of late With all about her, now looks desolate. As you have seen some pale, wan, ghastly look, When grisly death, that will not be said nay, Hath seiz'd all for itself, possession took, And turn'd the soul out of its house of clay: So visag'd is poor Charlstown at this day; Shepard, her very soul, is torn away. Cambridge groans under this so heavy cross, And sympathizes with her Sister dear ; Renews her griefs afresh for her old loss Of her own Shepard, and drops many a tear. Cambridge and Charlstown now joint mourners are, And this tremendous loss between them share. Must Learnings friend (ah! worth us all) go thus? That great support to Harvard's nursery! Our Fellow (that no fellow had with us) Is gone to Heaven's great University. Ours now indeed's a lifeless Corporation, The soul is fled, that gave it animation! Poor Harvard's sons are in their mourning dress: Their sure friend's gone! their hearts have put on mourning; Within their walls arc sighs, tears, pensiveness; Their new foundations dread an overturning. Harvard ! where's such a fast friend left to thee ? Unless thy great friend LEVERET, it be. We must not with our greatest Soveraign strive, Who dare find fault with him that is most high ? That hath an absolute prerogative, And doth his pleasure : none may ask him, why ? URIAH OAKES. [1676- We're clay -lumps, dust-heaps, nothings in his sight: The Judge of all the earth doth always right. Ah ! could not prayers and tears prevail with God ! Was there no warding oil that dreadful blow ! And was there no averting of that rod ! Must Shepard dy! and that good angel go! Alas! Our heinous sins (more than our hairs) It seems, were louder, and out-cried our prayers. See what our sins have done! what mines wrought And how they have pluck'd out our very eyes! Our sins have slain our Shepard ! we have bought, And dearly paid for, our enormities. Ah, cursed sins ! that strike at God and kill His servants, and the blood of prophets spill. As you would loath the sword that's warm and red, As you would hate the hands that are embrued I' th' heart's-blood of your dearest friends: so dread, And hate your sins ; Oh ! let them be pursued : Revenges take on bloody sins: for there's No refuge-city for these murtherers. In vain we build the prophets' sepulchers, In vain bedew their tombs with tears, when dead; In vain bewail the deaths of ministers, Whilest prophet-killing sins are harboured. Those that these murtherous traitors favour, hide; Are with the blood of Prophets deeply dy'd. New-England! know thy heart-plague: feel this blow; A blow that sorely wounds both head and heart, A blow that reaches all, both high and low, A blow that may be felt in every part. Mourn that this great man's fain in Israel: Let it be said, "with him New-England fell ! " Farewell, dear Shepard ! Thou art gone before, Made free of Heaven, where thou shalt sing loud hymns Of high triumphant praises ever more, In the sweet quire of saints and seraphims. Lord! look on us here, clogg'd with sin and clay, And we, through grace, shall be as happy as they. My dearest, inmost, bosome-friend is gone ! Gone is my sweet companion, soul's delight ! Now in an hud'ling croud I'm all alone, And almost could bid all the world " Goodnight.' Blest be my Rock ! God lives : O let him be, As He is All, so All in All to me ! -1764] VRIAN OAKES. ^ A CONTRITE SPIRIT BETTER THAN OUTWARD SEEMING. [Sincerity and Delight in the Service of God. 1682.] MEN may do many duties and yet do none of them well, and con- sequently do none at all in God's estimation. Men may go the round of duty and plod on in a course of religious performances, and yet do nothing the while to any purpose. In all the duties of worship, it is not the bare outward action, but the manner of performance that gives the denomination and is regarded especially of the Lord. Hence Lu- ther's saying, that adverbs are of more account with God than verbs, meaning that the manner of our performances (which is commonly de- noted by this or that adverb) is more available with God than the bare performance of duty, which is usually expressed by some verb or other. There are many necessary requisites to, and essential ingredients in the true worship of God, which, if fhey be wanting, the external perform- ance of it is as a thing of naught in God's valuation. Though the wor- ship be materially good, not idolatrous, superstitious, uncommanded, or unlawful in itself, but such as God hath instituted and enjoined ; yet it may be formally evil and want such conditions and qualifications as would render it acceptable to God. Men may pray, hear, receive sacra- ments, be much in duties of worship, and yet do nothing from a princi- ple of grace, in obedience to God, with a due respect to his glory. And is not all this (think you) as good as nothing in point of acceptation with the Lord? A man may be doing every day, and yet do nothing in religion. All his prayers may be nothing else but the lazy wishings and wouldings of sinful sloth, the babblings of formality, the cravings, inordinate, selfish, greedy cravings of his lusts, the discontented murmurings and grumb- lings of the flesh, or howlings in a time of affliction. Yea, as the plow- ing of the wicked is sin, so is his praying also. " The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the lord," Prov. xv., 8. God looks with a gracious aspect on him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembles at his word : but he that, without these inward, holy dispositions of spirit, slayeth an ox, is as if he slew a man, etc. Of so little account with God is external worship without the internal, as He will hardly al- low it the name of invocation and worship, but gives it very hard names, importing that such invocation is indeed a great provocation of God. All the use that I would make of it is in these words : This may serve to check the pride and petulancy, to beat down the confidence and conceit of hypocrites, that glory in their performances and reckon God indebted to them for their services, that think they have done some great matter when they have prayed, fasted, heard God s ^ JOHN ROGERS. [167ft- word, done these or those duties, and bear themselves high upon the frequency of their external devotion, and think God doth them great wrong, i/He doth not consider and reward their diligence and dutifulness. No hypocrite acts beyond the sphere of the covenant of works, but thinks to win it and wear it, and is (whatever he professeth) of a mer- cenary spirit, and quarrels with God, if He do not hear his prayers and reward his services. So those supercilious, proud hypocrites: "Where- fore have we fasted " (saith they) " and thou seest not? 'Wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledge ? " Thus, they fly out and expostulate with God, because their external humiliations and hypocritical performances were not regarded and rewarded according to their mind. There is this saucy spirit in all hypocrites. Ah! poor proud man, thou mayest boast of thy prayers and duties, and quarrel with God that He doth not hear and reward, but thou hast no reason ; for take this home with thee : thou hast never prayed in thy life, never called upon God to this day, thou has dqe much in a way of duty, in thy kind and fond opinion of thyself, but as good as nothing in God's ac- count. Thou hast more reason to admire the patience and mercy of God, for not punishing thee for such simple, as well as insignificant perform- aaces, than expostulate with him and question his justice and faithful- ness, because He hath not rewarded them. BORN in Essex, England, about 1630. DIED at Cambridge, Mass., 1684. UPON MRS. ANNE BRADSTREET HER POEMS. [Prefixed to the Posthumous Edition of Anne BradstreeCs Poems. 1678.] ~AT~ADAM, twice through the Muses' grove I walked ; - Under your blissful bowers, I shrouding there, It seemed with nymphs of Helicon I talked : For there those sweet-lipped Sisters sporting were ; Apollo with his sacred lute sate by ; On high they made their heavenly sonnets fly ; Posies around they strewed, of sweetest poesy. Twice have I drunk the nectar of your lines, Which high sublimed my mean-born fantasy. Flushed with the streams of your Maronean wines, Above myself rapt to an ecstasy, Methought I was upon Mount Hybla's top, There where I might those fragrant flowers lop, Whence did sweet odors flow, and honey spangles drop -1764] JOHN ROGERS. To Venus' shrine no altars raised are, Nor venomed shafts from painted quiver fly, Nor wanton doves of Aphrodite's car Are fluttering there, nor here forlornly lie Lorn paramours, nor chatting birds tell news How sage Apollo Daphne hot pursues, Or stately Jove himself is wont to haunt the stews. Nor barking Satyr's breath, nor dreary clouds Exhaled from Styx, their dismal drops distil Within these fairy, flowery fields, nor shrouds The screeching night raven, with his shady quill : But lyric strings here Orpheus nimbly hits, Orion on his saddled Dolphin sits, Chanting as every humor, age, and season fits. Here silver swans with nightingales set spells, Which sweetly charm the traveller, and raise Earth's earthed monarchs from their hidden cells, And to appearance summon lapsed days ; There heavenly air becalms the swelling frays, And fury fell of elements allays By paying every one due tribute of his praise. This seemed the site of all those verdant vales And purled springs, whereat the Nymphs do play, With lofty hills, where Poets read their tales To heavenly vaults, which heavenly sounds repay By echo's sweet rebound ; here Ladies kiss, Circling, nor songs nor dance's circle miss ; But whilst those Siren's sung, I sunk in sea of bliss. Your only hand those poesies did compose, Your head the source whence all those springs did flow ; Your voice, whence change's sweetest notes arose ; Your feet, that kept the dance alone, I trow : Then vail your bonnets, Poetasters all ; Strike, lower amain, and at these humbly fall, And deem yourselves advanced to be her pedestal. Should all with lowly congies laurels bring, Waste Flora's magazine to find a wreath, Or Pineus' banks, 'twere too mean offering ; Your Muse a fairer garland doth bequeath To guard your fairer front ; here 'tis your name Shall stand immarbled ; this your little frame Shall great Colossus be, to your eternal fame. I'll please myself, though I myself disgrace, What errors here be found, are in Errata's place. JOHN NORTON. [1676- 4o 9!ol)n BORN 1651. Minister at Hingham, Mass. DIED there, 1716. DIRGE FOR THE TENTH MUSE. [Appended to the Posthumous Edition of Anne Bradsireet's Poems. 1678.] ASK not why hearts turn magazines of passions, And why that grief is clad in several fashions ; Why she on progress goes, and doth not borrow The smallest respite from th' extremes of sorrow. Here misery is got to such an height As makes the earth groan to support its weight ; Such storms of woe so strongly have beset her, She hath no place for w r orse, nor hope for better ; Her comfort is, if any for her be. That none can show more cause of grief than she. Ask not why some in mournful black are clad ; The sun is set, there needs must be a shade. Ask not why every face a sadness shrouds ; The setting sun o'er-cast us hath with clouds. Ask not why the great glory of the sky, That gilds the stars with heavenly alchemy, Which all the world doth lighten with his rays, The Persian God, the Monarch of the days, Ask not the reason of his ecstasy, Paleness of late, in midnoon majesty, While that the pale-faced Empress of the night Disrobed her brother of his glorious light. Did not the language of the stars foretell A mournful scene, when they with tears did swell ? Did not the glorious people of the sky Seem sensible of future misery ? Did not the lowering heavens seem to express The world's great loss, and their unhappiness ? Behold how tears flow from the learned hill, How the bereaved Nine do daily fill The bosom of the fleeting air with groans And woful accents, which witness their moans. How do the Goddesses of verse, the learned choir Lament their rival quill, which all admire ! Could Maro's Muse but hear her lively strain, He would condemn his works to tire again. Methinks I hear the Patron of the Spring, The unshorn Deity, abruptly sing. Some do for anguish w r eep, for anger I That Ignorance should live, and Art should die. -17MJ JOHN NORTON. 47 Black, fatal, dismal, inauspicious day, Unblest forever by Sol's precious ray, Be it the first of miseries to all, Or last of life, defamed for funeral. When this day yearly comes, let every one Cast in their urn the black and dismal stone, Succeeding years, as they their circuit go, Leap o'er this day, as a sad time of woe. Farewell, my Muse, since thou hast left thy shrine, I am unblest in one. but blest in nine. Fair Thespian Ladies, light your torches all, Attend your glory to its funeral, To court her ashes with a learned tear, A briny sacrifice, let not a smile appear. Grave Matron, whoso seeks to blazon thee, Needs not make use of wit's false heraldry ; Whoso should give thee all thy worth would swell So high, as 'twould turn the world infidel. Had he great Maro's Muse, or Tully's tongue, Or raping numbers like the Thraciau song, In crowning of her merits he would be Sumptuously poor, low in hyperbole. To write is easy ; but to write on thee, Truth would l>c thought to forfeit modesty. He'll seem a Poet that shall speak but true ; Hyperboles in others, are thy due. Like a most servile flatterer he will show, Though he write truth, and make the subject, You. Virtue ne'er dies, time will a Poet raise, Born under better stars, shall sing thy praise. Praise her who list, yet he shall be a debtor, For Art ne'er feigned, nor Nature framed, a better. Her virtues were so great, that they do raise A work to trouble fame, astonish praise, When ns her name doth but salute the ear, Men think that they perfection's abstract hear. 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's souls, to hers, dwelt in a lane. Beneath her feet pale envy bites her chain, And poison malice whets her Pting in vain. Let every laurel, every myrtle bough Be stripped for leaves to adorn and load her brow, Victorious wreaths, which, 'cause they never fade. Wise elder times for Kings and Poets made. Let not her happy memory e'er lack Its worth in Fame's eternal almanac, Which none shall read, but straight their loss deplore, And blame their fates they were not born before. CHARLES WOLLEY. [1676, Do not old men rejoice their fates did last, And infants too, that theirs did make such haste, In such a welcome time to bring them forth, That they might be a witness to her worth ? Who undertakes this subject to commend Shall nothing find so hard as how to end. O Ottolle^ BOBN in Lincolnshire, England. Chaplain of Fort James, New York, 1678-80. FELLOW-PASSENGERS TO ENGLAND. [A Two Years Journal in New- York. 1701.] LD GLAUS, the Indian, made me the owner of a couple of well- grown bear's cubs, two or three days before I took shipping for England, he thinking I would have brought them along with me ; which present I accepted with a great deal of ceremony (as we must every- thing from their hands) and ordered my negro boy about twelve years old to tie them under the crib by my horse, and so left them to any one's acceptance upon my going aboard. I brought over with me a gray squir- rel, a parrot and a rackoon. The first the Lady Sherard had some years- at Sapleford, the second, I left at London ; the last I brought along with me to Alford, where one Sunday in prayer time, some boys giving it nuts, it was choked with a shell. It was by nature a very curious cleanly creature, never eating anything but first washed it with its forefeet very carefully. The Parrot was a prattling familiar bird, and diverting com- pany in my solitary intervals upon our voyage home. As I was talking with it upon the quarter deck, by a sudden rolling of the ship, down drops Poll overboard into the sea and cried out amain, "poor Poll." The ship being almost becalmed, a kind seaman threw out a rope, and Poll seized it with his beak and came safe aboard again ; this for my own- diversion. KNICKERBOCKER CUSTOMS IN THE PLEASANT OLDEN TIME. [From the Same.} nnO return from the_ wilderness into New York, a place of as sweet -L and agreeable air 'as ever I breathed in, and the inhabitants, both English and Dutch, very civil and courteous, as I may speak by expe- -1764] CHARLES WOLLET. 49 rience, amongst whom I liave often wished myself and family, to whose tables I was frequently invited, and always concluded with a generous bottle of Madeira. I cannot say I observed any swearing or quarrelling, but what was easily reconciled and recanted by a mild rebuke, except once betwixt two Dutch Boors (whose usual oath is " Sacrament " ) which, abating the abusive language, was no unpleasant scene. As soon as they met (which was after they had alarmed the neighborhood) they seized each other's hair with their forefeet, and down they went to the sod, their vrows and families crying out because they could not part them ; which fray happening against my chamber window, I called up one of my acquaintance, and ordered him to fetch a kit full of water and discharge it at them, which immediately cooled their courage and loosed their grapples ; so we used to part our mastiffs in England. In the same City of New York where I was minister to the English, there were two other ministers, or dominies as they were called there, the one a Lutheran, a German, or High-Dutch, the other a Calvinist, an Hollander,, or Low-Dutchman; who behaved themselves one towards another so- shyly and uncharitably as if Luther and Calvin had bequeathed and entailed their virulent and bigoted spirits upon them and their heirs forever. They had not visited or spoken to each other with any respect for six years together before my being there ; with whom I being much acquainted, I invited them both with their vrows to a supper one night unknown to each other, with an obligation, that they should not speak one word in Dutch, under the penalty of a bottle of Madeira, alleging I was so imperfect in that language that we could not manage a sociable discourse; so accordingly they came, and at the first interview they stood so appalled as if the ghosts of Luther and Calvin had suffered a trans- migration, but the amaze soon went off with a salve tu quoque and a bot- tle of wine, of which the Calvinist dominie was a true Carouzer, and so we continued our Mensalia the whole meeting in Latine, which they both spoke so fluently and promptly that I blushed at myself with a passion- ate regret, that I could not keep pace with them ; and at the same time- could not forbear reflecting upon our English schools and universities, who indeed write Latine elegantly, but speak it as if they were confined to mood and figure, forms and phrases, whereas it should be their com- mon talk in their seats and halls, as well as in their school disputations, and themes. This with all deference to these repositories of learning. As to the Dutch language, in which I was but a smatterer, I think it lofty, majestic and emphatical, especially the German or High-Dutch r which as far as I understand it is very expressive in the Scripture, and so underived that it may take place next the Oriental languages and the Septuagint The name of the Calvinist was Newenhouse, of the Lu- theran, Bernhardus Frazius, who was of a genteel personage, and a very VOL. II. 4 50 CHARLES WOLLET. [1676- agreeable behaviour in conversation. I seldom knew of any lawsuits, for indeed attorneys were denied the liberty of pleading. The English observed one anniversary custom, and that without superstition, I mean the strenarum comrnercium, as Suetonius calls them, a neighbourly com- merce of presents every New- Years day : Totus ab auspicio, neforet annus iners. Ovid, Fastor. Some would send me a sugar-loaf, some a pair of gloves, some a bottle or two of wine. In a word, the English merchants and factors (whose names are at the beginning) were very unanimous and obliging. There was one person of quality, by name, Mr. Russell, younger brother to the late Lord Russell, a gentleman of a comely personage, and very obliging, to whose lodgings I was often welcome. But I suppose his fortune was that of a younger brother, according to Henry the VIII's constitution, who abolished and repealed the Gavelkind custom, whereby the lands of the father were equally divided among all his sons, so that ever since the Cadets or younger sons of the English nobility and gentry, have only that of the poet to bear up their spirits. Sum pauper, non cidpa men est, sed culpa parentum, Qui me fratre meo non genuere prius. In my rude English rhyming thus : I'm poor (my dad) but that's no fault of mine, If any fault there be, the fault is thine, Because thou didst not give us Gavelkine. The Dutch in New York observe this custom, an instance of which I remember in one Frederick Philips, the richest Myn Heer in that place, who was said to have whole hogsheads of Indian money or Wampam, who having one son and daughter, I was admiring what a heap of wealth the son would enjoy, to which a Dutchman replied, that the daughter must go halves, for so was the manner amongst them, they standing more upon nature than names ; that as the root communicates itself to all its branches, so should the parent to all his offspring, which are the olive branches round about his table, and if the case be so, the minors and infantry of the best families might wish they had been born in Kent, rather than in such a Christendom as entails upon them their elder brother's old clothes, or some superannuated incumbent reversion; but to invite both elder and younger brothers to this sweet climate of New York, when they arrive there, if they are induced to settle a plantation, they may purchase a tract of ground at a very small rate, in my time at two-pence or three-pence the acre, for which they have a good patent or deed from the governor. -1764; CHARLES WOLLET. 51 NEW YORK AND THE PRODIGIOUS VOYAGE THITHER. [From the Same.] fT^HE City of New York in my time was as large as some market towns * with us, all built the London way ; the garrison side of a high sit- uation and a pleasant prospect, the island it stands on all a level and champaign. The diversion especially in the winter season used by the Dutch is aurigation, i. e. riding about in wagons, which is allowed by physicians to be a very healthful exercise by land. And upon the ice it's admirable to see men and women as it were flying upon their skates from place to place, with markets upon their heads and backs. In a word, it's a place so every way inviting that our English gentry, mer- chants and clergy (especially such as have the natural stamina of a con- sumptive propagation in them; or an hypochondriacs! consumption) would flock thither for self-preservation. This I have all the reason to affirm and believe from the benign effectual influence it had upon my own constitution; but O the passage, the passage thither, hie labor, hoc opus est: there is the timorous objection. The ship may founder by springing a leak, be wrecked by a storm or taken by a pickeroon; which are plausible pleas to flesh and blood, but if we would examine the bills of mortality and compare the several accidents and diseases by the land, we should find them almost a hundred for one to what happens 1 y -ea, which deserves a particular essay, and, if we will believe the in- genious Dr. Carr in his Epistolce Medicinales, there is an " Emetic Vomi- tory " virtue in the sea-water itself, which by the motion of the ship operates upon the stomach and ejects whatever is offensive, and so extim- ulates and provokes or recovers the appetite, which is the chiefest defect in such constitutions : and besides, there is a daily curiosity in contem- plating the wonders of the deep, as to see a whale wallowing and spout- ing cataracts of water, to see the dolphin, that hieroglyphick of celerity, leaping above water in chase of the flying-fish, which I have sometimes tasted of as they flew aboard, where they immediately expire out of their element ; and now and then to hale up that Cannibal of the sea, I mean the shark, by the bait of a large gobbet of beef or pork ; who makes the deck shake again by his flapping violence, and opens his devouring mouth with double rows of teeth, in shape like a skate or flare as we call them in Cambridge ; of which dreadful fish I have often made a meal at sea, but indeed it was for want of other provisions. MARY ROWLANDSON. [1676- BOEN In Mass., about 1636. Wife of the Rev. Joseph Rowlandson. Made captive by the Indiana at the Destruction of Lancaster, Mass., Feb. 21, 1676. STORY OF HER CAPTIVITY, SUFFERINGS, AND RESTORATION. [Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Roulandson. 1682.] THE DOLEFUL ONSLAUGHT OF THE INDIANS. ON the 10th of February, 1675 [o. s.], came the Indians with great numbers upon Lancaster : their first coming was about sun-rising ; hearing the noise of some guns we looked out ; several houses .were burning, and the smoke ascending to heaven. There were five persons taken in one house, the father and mother and a suckling child they knocked on the head, the other two they took and carried away alive. There were two others, who, being out of their garrison upon occasion, were set upon, one was knocked on the head, the other escaped. An- other there was who, running along, was shot and wounded, and fell down ; he begged of them his life, promising them money (as they told me), but they would not hearken to him, but knocked him on the head, stripped him naked, and split open his bowels. Another seeing many of the Indians about his barn ventured and went out, but was quickly shot down. There were three others belonging to the same garrison who were killed ; the Indians, getting up upon the roof of the barn, had ad- vantage to shoot down upon them over their fortification. Thus these murtherous wretches went on burning and destroying all before them. At length they came and beset our house, and quickly it was the dolc- fulest day that ever mine eyes saw. The house stood upon the edge of a hill; some of the Indians got behind the hill, others into the barn, and others behind anything that would shelter them ; from all which places they shot against the house, so that the bullets seemed to fly like hail, and quickly they wounded one man among us, then another, then a third. About two hours (according to my observation in that amazing time) they had been about the house before they prevailed to fire it, (which they did with flax and hemp which they brought out of the barn, and there being no defence about the house, only two flankers at two opposite corners, and one of them not finished) they fired it once, and one ventured out and quenched it, but they quickly fired it again, and that took. Now is the dreadful hour come that I have often heard of (m time of the war, as it was the case of others) but now mine eyes see it Some in our house were fighting for their lives, others wallowing in blood, the house on fire over our heads,' and the bloody heathen ready to -1764] MART ROWLANDSON. 53 knock us on the head if we stirred out Now might we hear mothers and children crying out for themselves and one another, Lord, what shall we do ! Then I took my children (and one of my sisters hers) to go forth and leave the house : but, as soon as we came to the door and ap- peared, the Indians shot so thick that the bullets rattled against the house as if one had taken a handful of stones and threw them, so that we were forced to give back. We had six stout dogs belonging to our garrison, but none of them would stir, though at another time if an In- dian had come to the door, they were ready to fly upon him and tear him down. The Lord hereby would make us the more to acknowledge his hand, and to see that our help is always in him. But out we must go, the fire increasing, and coming along behind us roaring, and the Indians gaping before us with their guns, spears, and hatchets to devour us. No sooner were we out of the house, but my brother-in-law (being before wounded in defending the house, in or near the throat) fell down dead, whereat the Indians scornfully shouted and hallowed, and were presently ill Hin I"" 1 ? stripping off his clothes. The bullets flying thick, one went through my side, and the same (as would seem) through the bowels and hand of my poor child in my arms. One of my elder sister's children (named William) had then his leg broke, which the Indians perceiving they knocked him on the head. Thus were we butchered by those merciless heathens, standing amazed, with the blood running down to our heels. My eldest sister being yet in the house, and seeing those woful . tlu' infidels hauling mothers one way and children another, and some wallowing in their blood ; and her eldest son telling her that her son William was dead, and myself was wounded, she said, "and Lord, let me die with them ; " which was no sooner said, but she was struck with a bullet, and fell down dead over the threshold. I hope she is reaping the fruit of her good labors, being faithful to the service of God in her Jilurc. .... Oh ! the doleful sight that now was to behold at this house ! Come, "behold the works of the Lord, what desolations he has made in the earth. Of thirty-seven persons who were in this one house, none escaped either present death, or a bitter captivity, save only one, who might say as in Job i. 15 : " And I only am escaped alone to tell the newa" There A\-( -iv twelve killed, some shot, some stabbed with their spears, some knocked down with their hatchets. When we are in prosperity, Oh the little that we think of such dreadful sights, to see our dear friends and relations lie bleeding out their heart's-blood upon the ground. There was one who was chopped in the head with a hatchet, and stripped naked, and yet was crawling up and down. It was a solemn sight to see so Christians lying in their blood, some here and some there, like a any of sheep torn by wolves. All of them stripped naked by a com- g4 MART ROWLANDSON. [1676- pany of hell-hounds, roaring, singing, ranting, and insulting, as if they would have torn our very hearts out; yet the Lord, by his almighty power, preserved a number of us from death, for there were twenty-four of us taken alive and carried captive. I had often before this said, that if the Indians should come, I should choose rather to be killed by them than taken alive, but when it came to the trial, my mind changed ; their glittering weapons so daunted my spirit, that I chose rather to go along with those (as I may say) ravenous bears, than that moment to end my days. And that I may the better declare what happened to me during that grievous captivity, I shall par- ticularly speak of the several Removes we had up and down the wilder- ness. THE FIEST REMOVE. Now away we must go with those barbarous creatures, with our bodies wounded and bleeding, and our hearts no less than our bodies. About a mile we went that night, up upon a hill, within sight of the town, where we intended to lodge. There was hard by a vacant house (de- serted by the English before, for fear of the Indians ) ; I asked them whether I might not lodge in the house that night ? to which they an- swered, " What, will you love Englishmen still ? " This was the dole- f ulest night that ever my eyes saw. Oh, the roaring and singing, and dancing, and yelling of those black creatures in the night, which made the place a lively resemblance of hell. And miserable was the waste that was there made, of horses, cattle, sheep, swine, calves, lambs, roasting pigs, and fowls (which they had plundered in the town), some roasting, some lying and burning, and some boiling, to feed our merciless enemies ; who were joyful enough, though we were disconsolate. To add to the dolefulness of the former day, and the dismalness of the present night, my thoughts ran upon my losses and sad, bereaved condition. All was gone, my husband gone (at least separated from me, he being in the Bay ; and to add to my grief, the Indians told me they would kill him as he came homeward), my children gone, my relations and friends gone, our house and home, and all our comforts within door and without, all was gone (except my life), and I knew not but the next moment that might go too. There remained nothing to me but one poor, wounded babe, and it seemed at present worse than death, that it was in such a pitiful condi- tion, bespeaking compassion, and I had no refreshing for it, nor suitable things to revive it. Little do many think, what is the savageness and brutisbness of this, barbarous enemy, those even that seem to profess more than others among them, when the English have fallen into their hands. -1764J MART ROWLANDSON. 55 THE SECOND REMOVE. But now (the next morning) I must turn my back upon the town, and travel with them into the vast and desolate wilderness, I know not whither. It is not my tongue or pen can express the sorrows of my heart, and bitterness of my spirit, that I had at this departure ; but God was with me in a wonderful manner, carrying me along and bearing up my spirit, that it did not quite fail One of the Indians carried my poor wounded babe upon a horse ; it went moaning all along : "I shall die, I shall die." I went on foot after it, with sorrow that cannot be expressed. At length I took it off the horse, and carried it in my arms, till my strength failed and I fell down with it Then they set me upon a horse with my wounded child in my lap, and there being no furniture on the horse's back, as we were going down a steep hill, we both fell over the horse's head, at which they, like inhuman creatures, laughed, and re- joiced to see it, though I thought we should there have ended our days, overcome with so many difficulties. But the Lord renewed my strength still, and carried me along, that I might see more of his power, yea so much that I could never have thought of, had I not experienced it After this it quickly began to snow, and when night came on they stopped: and now down I must sit in the snow by a little fire, and a few boughs behind me, with my sick child in my lap and calling much for water, being now (through the wound) fallen into a violent fever. My own wound also growing so stiff that I could scarce sit down or rise up, yet so it must be, that I must sit all this cold winter night, upon the cold snowy ground, with my sick child in my arms, looking that every hour would be the last of its life ; and having no Christian friend near me, either to comfort or help me. Oh, I may see the wonderful power of God, that my spirit did not utterly sink under my affliction ; still the Lord upheld me with his gracious and merciful spirit, and we were both alive to see the light of the next morning. .... THE EIGHTH REMOVE. A VISIT TO KING PHILIP. On the morrow morning we must go over Connecticut river to meet with King Philip ; two canoes full they had carried over, the next turn myself was to go ; but as my foot was upon the canoe to step in, there was a sudden out-cry among them, and I must step back ; and instead of going over the river, I must go four or five miles up the river farther northward. Some of the Indians ran one way, and some another. The cause of this rout was, as I thought, their espying some English scouts who were thereabouts. In this travel up the river, about noon the com- Kg MARY ROWLANDSON. [167ft- pany made a stop and sat down, some to eat and others to rest them. As I sat amongst them, musing on things past, my son Joseph unex- pectedly came to me. We asked of each other's welfare, bemoaning our doleful condition and the change that had come upon us. We had husband and father, and children and sisters, and friends and relations, and house and home, and many comforts of this life ; but now we might say as Job, " Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return : The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord." I asked him whether he would read ? he told me he earnestly desired it. I gave him my Bible, and he lighted upon that comfortable scripture, Psalm cxviii. 17, 18 : "I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord : The Lord hath chastened me sore, yet he hath not given me over unto death." Look here, mother (says he), did you read this? And here I may take occasion to mention one prin- cipal ground of my setting forth these lines, even as the Psalmist says, to declare the works of the Lord, and his wonderful power in carying us along, preserving us in the wilderness while under the enemy's hand, and returning of us in safety again ; and his goodness in bringing to my hand so many comfortable and suitable scriptures in my distress. But to return : We traveled on till night, and in the morning we must go over the river to Philip's crew. When I was in the canoe, I could not but be amazed at the numerous crew of Pagans that were on the bank on the other side. When I came ashore, they gathered all about me, I sitting alone in the midst : I observed they asked one an- other questions, and laughed, and rejoiced over their gains and victories. Then my heart began to fail, and I fell a weeping ; which was the first time, to my remembrance, that I wept before them ; although I had met with so much affliction, and my heart was many times ready to break, yet could I not shed one tear in their sight, but rather had been all this while in a maze, and like one astonished ; but now I may say as Psal. cxxxvii. 1 : "By the river of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion." There one of them asked me why I wept? I could hardly tell what to say ; yet I answered, they would * kill me : No, said he. none will hurt you. Then came one of them, and gave me two spoonfuls of meal (to comfort me) and another gave me half a pint of peas, which was worth more than many bushels at another time. Then I went to see King Philip ; he bade me come in and sit down, and asked me whether I would smoke it ? (a usual compliment now a days, among the saints and sinners), but this no way suited me. For though I had formerly used tobacco, yet I had left it ever since I was first taken. It seems to be a bait the devil lays to make men lose their precious time. I remember with shame how formerly, when I had taken two or three pipes, I was presently ready for another ; such a be- -1764] MARY ROWLANDSON. 57 Bitching thing it is : but I thank God, He has now given me power over it ; surely there are many who may be better employed than to sit suck- ing a stinking tobacco-pipe. Now the Indians gathered their forces to go against Northampton. Over night one went about yelling and hooting to give notice of the de- sign. Whereupon they went to boiling of ground-nuts, and parching corn (as many as had it) for their provision : and in the morning away they went During my abode in this place, Philip spake to me to make a shirt for his boy, which I did ; for which he gave me a shilling. I offered the money to my mistress, but she bid me keep it, and with it I bought a piece of horse-flesli. Afterward he asked me to make a cap for his boy, for which he invited me to dinner ; I went, and he gave me a pancake, about as big as two fingers ; it was made of parched wheat, beaten and fried in bear's grease, but I thought I never tasted pleasanter meat in my life. There was a squaw who spake to me to make a shirt for her sannup ; for which she gave me a piece of beef. Another asked me to knit a pair of stockings, for which she gave me a quart of peas. I boiled my peas and beef together, and invited my master and mistress to dinner ; but the proud gossip, because I served them both in one dish, would eat nothing, except one bit that he gave her upon the point of his knife. Hearing that my son was come to this place, I went to see him, ami found him lying flat on the ground; I asked him how he could sleep so? he answered me, that he was not asleep, but at prayer ; and that he lay so, that they might not observe what he was doing. I pray God he may remember these things now he is returned in safety. At this place (the sun now getting higher) what with the beams and heat of the sun, and smoke of the wigwams, I thought I should have been Winded. I could scarce discern one wigwam from another. There was one Mary Thurston, of Medfield, who, seeing how it was with me, lent me a hat to wear ; but as soon as I was gone, the squaw that owned that Mary Thurston came running after me, and got it away again. Here was a squaw who gave me a spoonful of meal ; I put it in my pocket to keep it safe, yet notwithstanding somebody stole it, but put five in- dian corns in the room of it ; which corns were the greatest provision I had in my travel for one day. The Indians returning from Northampton brought with them some horses, and sheep, and other things which they had taken ; I desired them that they would carry me to Albany upon one of those horses, and sell me for powder ; for so they had sometimes discoursed. I was utterly helpless of getting home on foot, the way that I came. I could hardly bear to think of the many weary steps I had taken to this place 58 MARY ROWLANDSON. [1676- THE NINETEENTH REMOVE. A KOYAL PROMISE. They said, when we went out, that we must travel to Wachuset this day. But a bitter weary day I had of it, traveling now three days to- gether, without resting any day between. At last, after many weary steps, I saw Wachuset hills, but many miles off. Then we came to a great swamp, through which we traveled up to our knees in mud and water, which was heavy going to one tired before. Being almost spent, I thought I should have sunk down at last, and never got out ; but I may say as in Psalm xciv. 18. " When my foot slipped, thy mercy. O Lord, held me up." Going along, having indeed my life, but little spirit, Philip (who was in the company) came up, and took me by the hand, and said "two weeks more and you shall be mistress again." I asked him if he spoke true ? he said yes. and quickly you shall come to your master again, who had been gone from us three weeks. After many weary steps we came to Wachuset, where he was, and glad was I to see him. He asked me when I washed me? I told him not this month ; then he fetched me some water himself, and bid me wash, and gave me a glass to see how I looked, and bid his squaw to give me something to eat So she gave me a mess of beans and meat, and a little ground-nut cake. I was wonderfully revived with this favor showed me. Psalm cvi. 46 : " He made them also to be pitied of all those that carried them away captive." My master had three squaws, living sometimes with one and some- times with another. Onux, this old squaw at whose wigwam I was, and with whom my master had been these three weeks : Another was Wet- timore, with whom I had lived and served all this while. A severe and proud dame she was ; bestowing every day in dressing herself near as much time as any of the gentry of the land : powdering her hair and painting her face, going with her necklaces, with jewels in her ears, and bracelets upon her hands. When she had dressed herself, her work was to make girdles of wampum and beads. The third squaw was a younger one, by whom he had two papooses. By that time I was refreshed by the old squaw, Wettimore's maid came to call me home, at which I fell a weeping. Then the old squaw told me to encourage me, that when I wanted victuals, I should come to her, and that I should lie in her wig- wam. Then I went with the maid, and quickly I came back and lodged there. The squaw laid a mat under me, and a good rug over me; the first time that I had any such kindness showed me. I understood that Wettimore thought that, if she should let me go and serve with the old squaw, she should be in danger to lose (not only my service) but the redemption pay also. And I was not a little glad to hear this ; being by it raised in my hopes that, in God's due time, there would be an end of -1764] MART ROWLANDSON. 59 this sorrowful "hour. Then came an Indian and asked me to knit him three pair of stockings, for which I had a hat and a silk handkerchief. Then another asked me to make her a shift, for which she gave me an apron. Then came Tom and Peter with the second letter from the council, about the captives. Though they were Indians, I got them by the hand,' and burst out into tears ; my heart was so full that I could not speak to them ; but recovering myself I asked them how my husband did ? and all my friends and acquaintances ? They said they were well, but very melancholy. They brought me two biscuits and a pound of tobacco ; the tobacco I soon gave away. When it was all gone one asked me to give him a pipe of tobacco, I told him it was all gone ; then he began to rant and threaten ; I told him when my husband came I would give him some. Hang him, rogue, says he, I will knock out his brains, if he comes here. And then again at the same breath they would say that if there should come an hundred without guns they would do them no hurt So unstable and like madmen they were. So that fearing the worst, I durst not send to my husband, though there were some thoughts of his com- ing to redeem and fetch me, not knowing what might follow ; for there was little more trust to them than to the master they served. When the letter was come, the Saggamores met to consult about the captives, and called me to them, to enquire how much my husband would give to re- deem me. When I came I sat down among them, as I was wont to do, as their manner is. Then they bid me stand up, and said they were the general court They bid me speak what I thought he would give. Now knowing that all we had was destroyed by the Indians, I was in a great strait I thought if I should speak of but a little, it would be slighted and hinder the matter ; if of a great sum, I knew not where it would be procured ; yet at a venture I said twenty pounds, yet desired them to take less ; but they would not hear of that, but sent the message to Boston that for twenty pounds I should be redeemed. It was a praying Indian that wrote their letters for them. There was another praying Indian, who told me that he had a brother, that would not eat horse, his conscience was so tender and scrupulous, though as large as hell for the destruction of poor Christians, then, he said, he read that scripture to him, IL Kings vi. 25 : " There was a famine in Samaria, and behold they besieged it, until an ass's head was sold for fourscore pieces of silver, and the fourth part of a cab of dove's dung for five pieces of silver." He expounded this place to his brother, and shewed him that it was lawful to eat that in a famine, which it is not at another tima And now, says he, he will eat horse with any Indian of them all There was another praying Indian who, when he had done all the mischief that he could, betrayed his own father into the English's hands, thereby to purchase his own life. Another praying Indian was at Sudbury fight, 60 MARY ROWLAND80N. [1676- -though, as he deserved, he was afterwards hanged for it. There was another praying Indian, so wicked and cruel as to wear a string about his neck, strung with Christian fingers. Another praying Indian, when they went to Sudbury fight, went with them, and his squaw also with him, with her papoose at her back. .... RETURN TO HOME AND FRIENDS. But to return again to my going home ; where we may see a remark- able change of providence : At first they were all against it, except my husband would come for me; but afterward they assented to it, and seemed to rejoice in it. Some asking me to send them some bread, others some tobacco, others shaking me by the hand, offering me a hood and scarf to ride in ; not one moving hand or tongue against it Thus hath the Lord answered my poor desires, and the many earnest requests of others put up unto God for me. In my travels an Indian came to me and told me, if I were willing, he and his squaw would run away, and go home along with me. I told them no, I was not willing to run away, but desired to wait God's time that I might go home quietly, and with- out fear. And now God hath granted me my desire. Oh, the wonderful power of God that I have seen, and the experiences that I have had ! I have been in the midst of those roaring lions and savage bears, that feared neither God, nor man, nor the devil, by night and day, alone and in company ; sleeping all sorts together, and yet not one of them ever offered the least abuse of unchastity to me in word or action. Though some are ready to say I speak it for my own credit ; but I speak it in the presence of God, and to his glory. God's power is as great now as it was to save Daniel in the lion's den, or the three children in the fiery furnace. Especially that I should come away in the midst of so many hundreds of enemies, and not a dog move his tongue. So I took my leave of them, and in coming along my heart melted into tears, more than all the while I was with them, and I was almost swallowed up with the thoughts that ever I should go home again. About the sun's going down, Mr. Hoar, myself, and the two Indians, came to Lancaster, and a solemn sight it was to me. There had I lived many comfortable years among my relations and neighbors ; and now not one Christian to be seen, or one house left standing. We went on to a farm house that was yet standing, where we lay all night ; and a comfortable lodging we had, though nothing but straw to lie on. The Lord preserved us in safety that night, raised us up again in the morning, and carried us along, that etore noon we came to Concord. Now was I full of joy and yet not with- out sorrow : joy, to see such a lovely sight, so many Christians together, and some of them my neighbors. There I met with my brother, and -1764] MARY ROWLANDSON. 61 brother-in-law, who asked me if I knew where his wife was. Poor heart I he had helped to bury her and knew it not ; she, being shot down by the house, was partly burned, so that those who were at Boston at the deso- lation of the town, came back afterward and buried the dead, did not know her. Yet I was not without sorrow, to think how many were looking and longing, and my own children among the rest, to enjoy that deliverance that I had now Deceived ; and I did not know whether ever I should see them again. Being recruited with food and raiment, we went to Boston that day, where I met with my dear husband ; but the thoughts of our dear children, one being dead, and the other we could not tell where, abated our comfort in each other. I was not before so much hemmed in by the merciless and cruel heathen, but now as much with pitiful, tender-hearted, and compassionate Christians. In that poor and beggarly condition, I was received in, I was kindly entertained in several houses. So much love I received from several (many of whom I knew not) that I am not capable to declare it But the Lord knows them all by name ; the Lord reward them seven-fold into their bosoms of his spirituals, for their temporals. The twenty pounds, the price of my redemption, was raised by some Boston gentlewomen, and Mr. Usher r whose bounty and charity I would not forget to make mention of. . . . We were now in the midst of love, yet not without much and frequent heaviness of heart for our poor children and other relations, who were still in affliction. The week following, after my coming in, the governor and council sent to the Indians again, and that not without success ; for they brought in my sister and good wife Kettle. Their not knowing where our children were, was a sore trial to us still ; and yet we were not without secret hopes of seeing them again. That which Avas dead lay heavier upon my spirits, than those which were alive among the heathen j thinking how it suffered with its wounds, and I was not able to relieve it, and how it was buried by the heathen in the wilder- ness from among all Christians. We were hurried up and down in our thoughts, sometimes we should hear a report that they were gone this way and sometimes that ; and that they were come in this place or that ; we kept inquiring and listening to hear concerning them, but no certain news as yet About this time the council had ordered a day of public thanksgiving, though I had still cause of mourning ; and being unset- tled in our minds we thought we would ride eastward to see if we could hear anything concerning our children. As we were riding along be- tween Ipswich and Rowley, we met with William Hubbard, who told us our son Joseph and my sister's son were come into Major Waldren's ; I asked him how he knew it ? He said the Major himself told him so. So along we went till we came to Newbury; and, their minister being absent, they desired my husband to preach the thanksgiving for them ; but 62 MART ROWLAND SON. [1676- he was not willing to stay there that night, but he would go over to Salisbury to hear father, and come again in the morning, which he did, and preached there that day. At night when he had done one came and told him that his daughter was come into Providence. Here was mercy on both hands. Now we were between them, the one on the east, and the other on the west ; our son being nearest, we went to him first, to Portsmouth, where we met with him and witli the major also, who told us he had done what he could, but could not redeem him under seven pounds, which the good people thereabouts were pleased to pay. The Lord reward the major, and all the rest, though unknown to me, for their labor of love. My sister's son was redeemed for four pounds, which the council gave order for the payment of. Having now received one of our children, we hastened toward the other. Going back through Newbury, my husband preached there on the Sabbath Day, for which they rewarded him manifold. On Monday we came to Chaiiestown, where we heard that the gover- nor of Ehode Island had sent over for our daughter, to take care of her, being now within his jurisdiction ; which should not pass without our acknowledgments. But she being nearer Rehoboth than Rhode Island, Mr. Newman went over and took care of her, and brought her to his own house. And the goodness of God was admirable to us in our low estate, in that He raised up compassionate friends on every side, when we had nothing to recompense any for their love. The Indians were now gone that way, that it was apprehended dangerous to go to her ; but the carts which carried provision to the English army, being guarded, brought her with them to Dorchester, where we received her safe; blessed be the Lord for it. Her coming in was after this manner : She was traveling one day with the Indians, with her basket on her back ; the company of Indians were got before her and gone out of sight, all except one squaw. She followed the squaw till night, and then both of them lay down, having nothing over them but the heavens, nor under them but the earth. Thus she traveled three days together, having nothing to eat or drink but water and green whortleberries. At last they came into Providence, where she was kindly entertained by several of that town. The Indians often said that I should never have her under twenty pounds, but now the Lord hath brought her in upon free cost, and given her to me the second time. The Lord make us a blessing in- deed to each other. Thus hath the Lord brought me and mine out of the horrible pit, and hath set us in the midst of tender-hearted and com- passionate Christians. Tis the desire of my soul that we may walk worthy of the mercies received, and which we are receiving. -17647 BENJAMIN CHURCH. 13cnjamm BOBS In Plymouth, Mass., 1639. DIED at Little Compton, R. L, 171& A DEATH-GRAPPLE. [Entertaining Passages Relating to Philip's War. 1716.] IN this march, the first thing remarkable was, they came to an Indian town, where there were many wigwams in sight, but an icy swamp, lying between them and the wigwams, prevented their running at once upon it as they intended There was much firing upon each side before they passed the swamp. But at length the enemy all fled and a certain Mohegan, that was a friend Indian, pursued and seized one of the enemy that had a small wound in his leg, and brought him before the General, where he was examined. Some were for torturing of him to bring him to a more ample confession of what he knew concerning his countrymen. Mr. Church, verily believing he had been ingenuous in his confession, interceded and prevailed for his escaping torture. But the army being bound forward in their march, and the Indian's wound somewhat dis- enabling him for travelling, it was concluded he should be knocked on the head. Accordingly he was brought before a great fire, and the Mohegan that took him was allowed, as he desired to be, the execu- tioner. Mr. Church, taking no delight in the sport, framed an errand at some distance among the baggage horses, and when he had got some ten r<>'ls, or thereabouts, from the fire, the executioner fetching a blow with Is hatchet at the head of the prisoner, he, being aware of the blow, dodged his head aside, and the executioner missing his stroke, the hatchet flew out of his hand, and had like to have done execution where it was not designed. The prisoner upon his narrow escape broke from them that held him, and, notwithstanding his wound, made use of his legs, and happened to run right upon Mr. Church, who laid hold on him, and a close scuffle they had ; but the Indian having no clothes on slipped from him and ran again, and Mr. Church pursued [him], al- though being lame there was no great odds in the race, until the Indian stumbled and fell, and they closed again scuffled and fought pretty smartly, until the Indian, by the advantage of his nakedness, slipped from his hold again, and set out on his third race, with Mr. Church close at his heels, endeavoring to lay hold on the hair of his head, which was all the hold could be taken of him. And running through a swamp that was covered with hollow ice, it made so loud a noise that Mr. Church expected (but in vain) that some of his English friends would follow the noise and come to his assistance. But the Indian happened to run g4 BENJAMIN CHURCH. [1676- atliwart a mighty tree that lay fallen near breast high, where he stopped and cried out aloud for help. But Mr. Church being soon upon him again, the Indian seized him fast by the hair of his head, and endeavored by twisting to break his neck. But though Mr. Church's wounds had some- what weakened him, and the Indian a stout fellow, yet he held him well in play and twisted the Indian's neck as well, and took the advantage of many opportunities, while they hung by each other's hair, to give him notorious bunts in the face with his head. But in the heat of this scuffle they heard the ice break, with somebody's corning apace to them, which when they heard, Church concluded there was help for one o^ other of them, but was doubtful which of them must now receive the fatal stroke anon somebody comes up to them, who proved to be the Indian that had first taken the prisoner ; without speaking a word, he felt them out (for it was so dark he could not distinguish them by sight, the one being clothed and the other naked), he felt where Mr. Church's hands were fastened in the Netop's hair and with one blow settled his hatchet in between them, and ended the strife. He then spoke to Mr. Church and hugged him in his arms, and thanked him abundantly for catching his prisoner, and cut off the head of his victim and carried it to the camp, and, giving an account to the rest of the friend Indians in the camp how Mr. Church had seized his prisoner, etc., they all joined in a mighty shout. THE DEATH OF KIXG PHILIP. [From tlie Same.'} CHUKCH being now at Plymouth again, weary and > ' worn, would have gone home to his wife and family ; but the govern- ment being solicitous to engage him in the service until Philip was slain, and promising him satisfaction and redress for some mistreatment that he had met with, he fixes for another expedition. He had soon volunteers enough to make up the company he desired, and marched through the woods, until he came to Pocasset. And not- seeing or hearing of any of the enemy, they went over the ferry to Ehode Island, to refresh themselves. The Captain, with about half a dozen in his company, took horses and rid about eight miles down the island to Mr. Sanford's, where he had left his wife. Who no sooner saw him, but fainted with surprise ; and by that time she was a little revived, they spied two horsemen coming a great pace. Captain Church told his com- pany, that "Those men (by their riding) come with tidings." When they came up, they proved to be Major Sanford and Captain Golding. -1764] BENJAMIN CHURCH. gc Who immediately asked Captain Church, what lie would give to hear some news of Philip ? He replied that was what he wanted. They told him, they had rid hard with some hopes of overtaking him, and were now come on purpose to inform him, that there were just now tidings from Mount-hope, An Indian came down from thence (where Philip's camp now was) on to Sandy point, over against Trip's, and hallooed, and made signs to be fetched over. And being fetched over, he reported, that he was fled from Philip, " who (said he) has killed my brother just before I came away, for giving some advice that displeased him." And said, he was fled for fear of meeting with the same his brother had met with. Told them also, that Philip was now in Mount-hope Neck. Cap- tain Church thanked them for their good news, and said he hoped by to-morrow morning to have the rogue's head. The horses that he and his company came on, standing at the door (for they had not been un- saddled), his wife must content herself with a short visit, when such game was ahead. They immediately mounted, set spurs to their horses, and away. The two gentlemen that brought him the tidings told him, they would gladly wait upon him to see the event of this expedition. He thanked them, and told them he should be as fond of their company as any men's ; and (in short) they went with him. And they were soon at Trip's ferry, (with Captain Church's company) where the deserter was. Who was a fellow of good sense, and told his story handsomely. He offered Captain Church, to pilot him to Philip, and to help to kill him, that he might revenge his brother's death. Told him, that Philip was now upon a little spot of upland, that was in the south end of the miry swamp, just at the foot of the mount, which was a spot of ground that Captain Church was well acquainted with. By that time they were got over the ferry, and came near the ground, half the night was spent The Captain commands a halt, and bringing the company together, he asked Major Sanford's and Captain Golding's advice, what method was best to take in making the onset ; but they declined giving any advice ; telling him, that his great experience and success forbid their taking upon them to give advice. Thtn Captain Church offered Captain Golding that he should have the honor (if he would please accept of it) to beat up Philip's headquarters. He accepted the offer and had his allotted number drawn out to him, and the pilot. Captain Church's instructions to him were, to be very careful in his ap- proach to the enemy, and be sure not to show himself, until by daylight they might see and discern their own men from the enemy; told him also, that his custom in the like cases was, to creep with his company, on their bellies, until they came as near as they could ; and that as soon as the enemy discovered them, they would cry out, and that was the VOL. II. ,j gg BENJAMIN CHURCH. [167ft- word for his men to fire and fall on. He directed him, that when the enemy should start and take into the swamp, they should pursue with speed ; every man shouting and making what noise he could ; for he would give orders to his ambuscade to fire on any that should come silently. Captain Church, knowing that it was Philip's custom to be foremost in the flight, went down to the swamp, and gave Captain Williams of Scituate the command of the right wing of the ambush, and placed an Englishman and an Indian together behind such shelters of trees, etc., as he could find, and took care to place them at such distance that none might pass undiscovered between them ; charged them to be careful of themselves, and of hurting their friends, and to fire at any that should come silently through the swamp. But it being somewhat farther through the swamp than he was aware of, he wanted men to make up his ambuscade. Having placed what men he had, he took Major Sanford by the hand, and said, " Sir, I have so placed them that it is scarce possible Philip should escape them." The same moment a shot whistled over their heads, and then the noise of a gun towards Philip's camp. Captain Church, at first, thought it might be some gun fired by accident ; but, before he could speak, a whole volley followed, which was earlier than Tie expected. One of Philip's gang going forth to ease himself, when he had done, looked round him, and Captain Golding thought that the Indian looked right at him, (though probably it was but his conceit) ; so fired at him ; and upon his firing, the whole company that were with him fired upon the enemy's shelter, before the Indians had time to rise from their sleep, and so over-shot them. But their shelter was open on that side next the swamp, built so on purpose for the convenience of flight on O3casion. They were soon in the swamp, and Philip the foremost, who, starting at the first gun, threw his petunk and powderhorn over his head, catched up his gun, and ran as fast as he could scamper, without any more clothes than his small breeches and stockings ; and ran directly upon two of Captain Church's ambush. They let him come fair within shot, and the Englishman's gun missing fire, he bid the Indian fire away, and he did so to the purpose ; sent one musket bullet through his heart, and another not above two inches from it. He fell upon his face in the mud and water, with his gun under him. By this time the enemy perceived they were waylaid on the east side of the swamp, and tacked short about. 'One of the enemy, who seemed to be a great, surly old fellow, hallooed with a loud voice, and often called out, "lootash, lootash." Captain Church called to his Indian, Peter, and asked him, who that was that called so? He answered, it was old Annawon, Philip's great Captain; calling on his soldiers to -1764J BEXJAMI.\ CHURCH. gf stand to it, and fight stoutly. Now the enemy finding that place of the swamp which was not ambushed, many of them made their escape in the English tracks. The man that had shot down Philip ran with all speed to Captain Church, and informed him of his exploit, who commanded him to be si- lent about it and let no man more know it, until they had driven the swamp clean. But when they had driven the swamp through, and found the enemy had escaped, or, at least, the most of them, and the sun now up, and so the dew gone, that they could not easily track them, the whole company met together at the place where the enemy's night shelter was, and then Captain Church gave them the news of Philip's death. Upon which the whole army gave three loud huzzas. Captain Church ordered his body to be pulled out of the mire on to the upland. So some of Captain Church's Indians took hold of him by his stockings, and some by his small breeches (being otherwise naked) and drew him through the mud to the upland : and a doleful, great, naked, dirty beast he looked like. Captain Church then said that, for- asmuch as he had caused many an Englishman's body to lie unbaried, and rot above ground, not one of his bones should be buried. And, calling his old Indian executioner, bid him behead and quarter him. Accordingly he came with his hatchet and stood over him, but before he struck he made a small speech directing it to Philip, and said, " he had been a very great man, and had made many a man afraid of him, but so big as he was, he would now chop him to pieces." And so went to work and did as he was ordered. Philip, having one very remarkable hand, being much scarred, occa- sioned by the splitting of a pistol in it formerly, Captain Church gave the Lead and that hand to Alderman, the Indian who shot him, to show to such gentlemen as would bestow gratuities upon him ; and accordingly he got many a penny by it This being on the last day of the week, the Captain with his company, returned to the island, tarried there until Tuesday ; and then went off and ranged through all the woods to Plymouth, and received their pre- mium, which was thirty shillings per head, for the enemies which they had killed or taken, instead of all wages : and Philip's head went at the same price, Methinks it is scanty reward, and poor encouragement; though it was better than what had been some time before. For this march they received four shillings and sixpence a man, which was all the reward they had, except the honor of killing Philip. This was in the latter end of August, 1676. gg BENJAMIN CHURCH. [1676- CAPTURE AND FATE OF THE GEEAT ANNA WON. [From the Same.} THE Captain was now in great strait of mind what to do next ; he had a mind to give Annawon a visit, now he knew where to find him. But his company was very small, but half a dozen men beside him- self, and was under a necessity to send some body back to acquaint his. Lieutenant and company with his proceedings. However, he asked his small company that were with him, whether they would willingly go with him and give Annawon a visit ? They told him they were always ready to obey his commands, etc. ; but withal told him, that they knew this Captain Annawon was a great soldier; that he had been a valiant Captain under Asuhmequin, Philip's father; and that he had been Philip's chieftain all this war. A very subtle man, and of great resolu- tion, and had often said, that he would never be taken alive by the English. And moreover they knew that the men that were with him were resolute fellows, some of Philip's chief soldiers ; and therefore feared whether it was practicable to make an attempt upon him with so small a handful of assistants as now were with him. Told him further, that it would be a pity, after all the great things he had done, he should throw away his life at last. Upon which he replied, that he doubted not Annawon was a subtle and valiant man ; that he had a long time, but in vain, sought for him, and never till now could find his quarters, and he was very loath to miss of the opportunity ; and doubted not that, if they would cheerfully go with him, the same Almighty Providence that had hitherto protected and befriended them, would do so still, etc. Upon this with one consent they said they would go. Captain Church then turned to one Cook of Plymouth, (the only Englishman then with him) and asked him, what he thought of it? Who replied, "Sir, I am never afraid of going any where when you are with me." -Then Captain Church asked the old Indian, if he could carry his horse with him ? (For he conveyed a horse thus far with him.) He replied that it was impossi- ble for one horse to pass the swamps. Therefore, he sent away his new Indian soldier with his father, and the Captain's horse, to his Lieutenant, and orders for him to move to Taunton with the prisoners, to secure them there, and to come out in the morning in the Rehoboth Road, in which he might expect to meet him, if he were alive and had success. The Captain then asked the old fellow if he would pilot him unto Anna- won? He answered, that he having given him his life, he was obliged to serve him. He bid him move on then, and they followed. The old man would out-travel them so far sometimes that they were almost out of sight; looking over his shoulder, and seeing them behind, he would halt. -1764] BENJAMIN CHURCH. 69 Just as the sun was setting, the old man made a full stop and sat down ; the company coming up, also sat down, being all weary. Cap- tain Church asked, " What news ? " He answered, that about that time in the evening, Captain Annawon sent out his scouts to see if the coast were clear, and as soon as it began to grow dark, the scouts returned ; " and then " (said he) " we may move again securely." When it began to grow dark, the old man stood up again, and Captain Church asked him if he would take a gun and fight for him ? He bowed very low, and prayed him not to impose such a thing upon him, as to fight against Captain Annawon his old friend. " But,'' says he, " I will go along with you, and be helpful to you, and will lay hands on any man that shall offer to hurt you." It being now pretty dark, they moved close together; anon they heard a noise. The Captain stayed the old man with his hand, and asked his own men what noise they thought it might be ? They con- cluded it to be the pounding of a mortar. The old man had given Cap- tain Church a description of the place where Annawon now lay, and of the difficulty of getting at him. Being sensible that they were pretty near them, with two of his Indians he creeps to the edge of the rocks, from whence he could see their camps. He saw three companies of In- dians at a little distance from each other ; being easy to be discovered by the light of their fires. He saw also the great ANNAW ox and his company, who had formed his camp or kenneling place by falling a tree under the side of the great cliffs of rocks, and setting a row of birch bushes up against it ; where he himself, his son, and some of his chiefs hu