VERSES TO HER SON. Ah, me! what do I mean To take my pen in hand? More meet it were for me to rest, For pleasure take I none But evermore methinks I hear My fatal bell to ring. Yet when the joyful news Did come unto my ear, That God had given to her a son, My heart was filled with joy, And from my old and barren brain Welcome, sweet babe, thou art Unto thy parents dear, Whose hearts thou filled hast with joy, As well it doth appear. The day even of thy birth, When light thou first didst see, Foresheweth that a joyful life Shall happen unto thee. For blessed is that day, And to be kept in mind; On which our Saviour Jesus Christ Grow up, therefore, in grace, And gave to thee a soul, Thy body to sustain, Which, when this life shall ended be, Love him with all thy heart, As Samuel did, whom of the Lord God grant that they may live That godless men do trace, Thou mayest yield up a blessed soul, And to thy mother dear Obedient be, and kind; Give ear unto her loving words, Thy father also love, He He was chosen leader of the colony formed in England to proceed to Massachusetts Bay, and, having converted an estate yielding an income of six or seven hundred pounds into cash, left England, and landed at Salem, June 12, 1630. Within five days he made, with a few companions, a journey of twenty miles through the forest, which resulted in the selection of the peninsula of Shawmut as the site of Boston. During the first winter, the colonists suffered severely from cold and hunger. The Governor endured his share of privation with the rest, living on acorns, ground-nuts, and shellfish. devoted himself with unsparing assiduity to the good of the commonwealth, and was annually elected Governor until 1634, and afterwards from 1637 to 1640, 1642 to 1644, and 1648 to his death, which occurred in consequence of a cold, followed by a fever, March 26, 1649. His administration of the government was firm and decided, and sometimes exposed him to temporary unpopularity. He bore opposition with equanimity, and served the state as faithfully in an inferior official or private position as when at its head. He opposed the doctrines of Anne Hutchinson and her followers, and was active in their banishment, but at the same time used his influence in the synod called to consider their doctrines, in favor of calm discussion and cool deliberation. His private character was most amiable. On one occasion, having received an angry letter, he sent it back to the writer with the answer: "I am not willing to keep by me such a matter of provocation." Soon after, the scarcity of provisions forced this person to send to buy one of the Governor's cattle. He requested him to accept it as a gift, upon which the appeased opponent came to him, and said, "Sir, your overcoming yourself hath overcome me.” During a severe winter, being told that a neighbor was making free with his woodpile, he sent for the offender, promising to "take a course with him that should cure him of stealing." The "course" was an announcement to the thief that he was to help himself till the winter was over. It was his practice to send his servants on errands to his neighbors at meal times, to spy out the nakedness of the land, for the benevolent purpose of relieving them from his own table. These lines are preserved in a Miscellany of Poetry of the time, now No. 1598 of the Harleian MSS. (British Museum). Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., Third Series, x. 152. Governor Winthrop left five sons, the eldest of whom John, born 12th February, 1605-6-was the founder of the colony at Saybrook, and obtained from Charles II. the charter of Connecticut, of which colony he was annually elected Governor for the fourteen years preceding his death, April 5, 1676. A Governor Winthrop's house-afterwards tenanted by the historian Prince-remained standing until 1775, when it was pulled down with many others by the British troops, for firewood. piece of ground, first allotted to him in laying out the town of Boston, became the site of the Old South Church.* Winthrop left a MS. Journal of the public occurrences in the Massachusetts colony from Easter Monday, March 29, 1630, to Jan. 11, 1649, which was consulted by Mather, Hubbard, and Prince. The manuscript was divided into three parts, the first two of which remained in the possession of the family until the Revolution, when Governor Trumbull procured them and copied a large portion of their contents. After the death of Trumbull, Noah Webster, in 1790, with the consent of the Winthrop family, published these, believing them to be the entire work, in an octavo volume. In 1816, the third part was discovered among a mass of "pamphlets and papers, where it attracted instant notice by its fair parchment binding, and the silken strings by which its covers were tied, and the whole work perfectly preserved" by Abiel Holmes, the author of American Annals. A transcript was made by Mr. James Savage, who also collated the volume printed in 1790 with the original volume, and published the whole with many valuable notes from his own hand in two volumes 8vo. in 1826, under the title of "The History of New England from 1630 to 1649." A new edition, with fresh annotations by the same editor, has been issued in 1853. Winthrop is also the author of "A Modell of Christian Charity, written on board the Arbella, on the Atlantic Ocean," which has been printed from the original MS. in the New York Historical Society in the Massachusetts Historical Society's Collections. We present two extracts, the first a passage of his Journals, the second, part of a speech which the Governor calls his "little speech," but which Grahame, in his History of the United States, has cited as a remarkable definition of true liberty, and which the Modern Universal History (vol. xxxix. 291, 2) says, “is equal to anything of antiquity, whether we consider it as coming from a philosopher or a magistrate." of those troubles and miseries, which they heard to have befallen those who departed. Much disputation there was about liberty of removing for outward advantages, and all ways were sought for an open door to get out at; but it is to be feared many crept out at a broken wall. For such as come together into a wilderness, where are nothing but wild beasts and beasts like men, and there confederate together in civil and church estate, whereby they do, implicitly at least, bind themselves to support each other, and all of them that society, whether civil or sacred, whereof they are members, how they can break from this without free consent, is hard to find, so as may satisfy a tender or good conscience in time of trial. Ask thy conscience, if thou wouldst have plucked up thy stakes, and brought thy family 3000 miles, if thou hadst expected that all, or most, would have forsaken thee there? Ask again, what liberty thou hast towards others, which thou likest not to allow others towards thyself; for if one may go, another may, and so the greater part: and so church and commonwealth may be left destitute in a wilderness, exposed to misery and reproach, and all for thy ease and pleasure, whereas these all, being now thy brethren, as near to thee as the Israelites were to Moses, it were much safer for thee, after his example, to choose rather to suffer affliction with thy brethren, than to enlarge thy ease and pleasure by furthering the occasion of their ruin. LIBERTY AND LAW. From Gov. Winthrop's Speech to the Assembly of Massachu setts in 1645. I am unwilling to stay you from your urgent affairs, yet give me leave (upon this special occasion) to speak a little more to this assembly. It may be of some good use, to inform and rectify the judg ments of some of the people, and may prevent such distempers as have arisen amongst us. The great questions that have troubled the country, are about the authority of the magistrates and the liberty of the people. It is yourselves who have called us to this office, and being called by you, we have our authority from God, in way of an ordinance, such as hath the image of God eminently stamped upon it, the contempt and violation whereof hath been vindicated with examples of divine vengeance. I entreat you to consider, that when you choose magistrates you take them from among yourselves, men subject to like passions as you are. Therefore, when you see infirmities in us, you should reflect upon your own, and that would make you bear the more with us, and not be severe censurers of the failings of your magistrates, when you have continual experience of the like infirmities in yourselves and others. We account him a good servant, who breaks not his covenant. The covenant between you and us is the oath you have taken of us, which is to this purpose, that we shall govern you and judge your causes by the rules of God's laws and our own, according to our best skill. When you agree with a workman to build you a ship or a house, &c., he undertakes as well for his skill as for his faithfulness, for it is his profession, and you pay him for both. But when you call one to be a magistrate, he doth not profess nor undertake to have sufficient skill for that office, nor can you furnish him with gifts, &c., therefore you must run the hazard of his skill and ability. But if he fail in faithfulness, which by his oath he is bound unto, that he must answer for. If it fall out that the case be clear to common apprehension, and the rule clear also, if he transgress here, the errour is not in the skill, but in the evil of the will; it must be required of him. But if the cause be doubtful, or the rule doubtful, to men of such understanding and parts as your magistrates are, if your magistrates should err here, yourselves must bear it. For the other point, concerning liberty, I observe a great mistake in the country about that. There is a two-fold liberty, natural (I mean as our nature is now corrupt) and civil or federal. The first is common to man with beasts and other creatures. By this man, as he stands in relation to man simply, hath liberty to do what he lists; it is a liberty to evil as well as to good. This liberty is incompatible and inconsistent with authority, and cannot endure the least restraint of the most just authority. The exercise and maintaining of this liberty makes men grow more evil, and in time to be worse than brute beasts: omnes sumus licentia deteriores. This is that great enemy of truth and peace, that wild beast, which all the ordinances of God are bent against, to restrain and subdue it. The other kind of liberty I call civil or federal, it may also be termed moral, in reference to the covenant between God and Man, in the moral law, and the political covenants and constitutions, amongst men themselves. This liberty is the proper end and object of authority, and cannot subsist without it; and it is a liberty to that only which is good, just, and honest. This liberty you are to stand for, with the hazard (not only of our goods, but) of your lives if need be. THOMAS MORTON. THE readers of Nathaniel Hawthorn cannot fail to remember "the May-pole of Merry. Mount.” The sketch, in its leading features, is a faithful presentation of a curious episode in the early history of New England. It has been narrated by the chief actor in the scene, "Mine Host of Ma-re Mount" himself, and his first telling of the "twice told tale" is well worth the hearing. Thomas Morton, "of Clifford's Inn, gent.," came to Plymouth in 1622, with Weston's party. Many of these returned the following year, and the remainder were scattered about the settlements. Our barrister says that they were very popular with the original settlers as long as their liquors lasted, and were turned adrift afterwards. Be that as it may, he remained in the country, and we hear of him a few years afterwards as one of the company of Captain Wollaston who came to America in 1625. Wollaston appears to have had a set of fellows similar to those of Weston. He carried a portion of them off to Virginia, leaving the remainder in charge of one Filcher, to await the summons to Virginia also. Morton was one of these, and persuaded his companions to drive away Filcher, place themselves under his leadership, and found a settlement at Mount Wollaston, This he effected, and he henceforward speaks of himself as mine host of Ma-re Mount." Here he set up a May-pole-but we shall allow him to be his own narrator. 66 The inhabitants of Pasonagessit (having translated the name of their habitation from that ancient savage name to Ma-re Mount; and being resolved to have the new name confirmed for a memorial to after ages), did devise amongst themselves to have it performed in a solemn manner with Revels and merriment after the old English custom, prepared to set up a May-pole upon the festival day of Philip and Jacob; and therefore brewed a barrel of excellent beer, and provided a case of bottles to be spent, with other good cheer, for all comers of that day. And because they would have it in a complete form, they had prepared a song fitting to the time and present occasion. And upon May-day they brought the May-pole to the place appointed, with drums, guns, pistols, and other fitting instruments, for that purpose; and there erected it with the help of salvages, that came thither of purpose to see the manner of our Revels. A goodly pine tree of 80 feet long, was reared up, with a pair of buck-horns nailed on, somewhat near unto the top of it; where it stood as a fair sea mark for directions; how to find out the way to mine Host of Ma-re Mount. There was likewise a merry song made, which (to make their Revels more fashionable) was sung with a corus, every man bearing his part; which they performed in a dance, hand in hand about the May-pole, whiles one of the company sung, and filled out the good liquor like gammedes and Jupiter. THE SONG. Drink and be merry, merry, merry boys, Make green garlons, bring bottles out; Nectar is a thing assign'd, By the Deities own mind, To cure the heart opprest with grief, And of good liquors is the chief. Then drink, &c. Io to Hymen, &c. Give to the Melancholy man, A cup or two of 't now and than, This physic will soon revive his blood, And make him be of a merrier mood. Then drink, &c. Io to Hymen, &c. This harmless mirth made by young men (that lived in hope to have wives brought over to them, that would save them a labour to make a voyage to fetch any over) was much distasted of the precise Separatists; that keep much ado, about the tithe of mint and cummin, troubling their brains more than reason would require about things that are indifferent; and from that time sought occasion against my honest Host of Ma-re Mount to overthrow his undertakings, and to destroy his plantation quite and clear. Such proceedings of course caused great scandal to the Plymouth colonist. Nathaniel Morton, the first chronicler of the colony, thus describes the affair. After this (the expulsion of Filcher) they fell to great licentiousness of life, in all profaneness, and the said Morton became lord of misrule, and maintained as it were, a school of Atheism, and after they had got some goods into their hands, and got much by traling with the Indians, they spent it as vainly in quaffing and drinking both wine and strong liquors in great excess, as some have reported ten pounds worth in a morning, setting up a May-pole, drinking, and dancing about it, and frisking about it like so many faries, or furies rather, yea and worse practices, as if they had anew revived and celebrated the feast of the Roman goddess Flora, or the beastly practices of the mad Bacchanalians. Morton was also charged, and it appears justly, with employing the Indians to hunt for him, furnishing them with, and instructing them in the use of, firearms for that purpose. The colonists, "fearing that they should get a blow thereby; also, taking notice that if he were let alone in his way, they should keep no servants for him, because he would entertain any, how vile soever,' met together, and after remonstrating with him to no effect, obtained from the governor of Plymouth the aid of Captain Miles Standish to arrest him. Morton was taken prisoner, but, according to his own story, which he makes an amusing one, effected his escape: נין Much rejoicing was made that they had gotten their capital enemy (as they concluded him), whom they purposed to hamper in such sort that he should not be able to uphold his plantation at Ma-re Mount. The conspirators sported themselves at my honest host, that meant them no hurt; and were so jocund that they feasted their bodies and fell to tippeling, as if they had obtained a great prize; like the Trojans when they had the custody of Hippeus' pine tree horse. Mine host feigned grief, and could not be persuaded either to eat or drink, because he knew emptiness would be a means to make him as watchful as the geese kept in the Roman capitol; whereon the contrary part, the conspirators would be so drowsy, that he might have an opportunity to give them a slip instead of tester. Six persons of the conspiracy were set to watch him at Wessaguscus, but he kept waking, and in the dead of night (one lying on the bed for further surety) up gets mine host and got to the second door that he was to pass, which (notwithstanding the lock) he got open; and shut it after him with such violence that it affrighted some of the conspirators. The word which was given with an alarm was, O, he's gone, he's gone, what shall we do, he's gone! The rest, half asleep, start up in a maze, and, like rams, run their heads one at another, full butt, in the dark. Their grand leader, Captain Shrimp, took on most furiously, and tore his clothes for anger, to see the empty nest and their bird gone. The rest were eager to have torn their hair from their heads, but it was so short that it would give them no hold. He returned to Ma-re Mount, where he soon afterwards surrendered, and was sent to England, coming back the next year to his old quarters, which during his absence had been visited by Endicott, who caused the may-pole to be cut down, "and the name of the place was again changed and called Dagon." The year following his return his house was searched on the charge of his having corn belonging to other persons in it. After they had feasted their bodies with that they found there, carried all his corn away, with some other of his goods, contrary to the laws of hospitality, a small parcel of refuse corn only excepted, which they left mine host to keep Christmas with. But when they were gone, mine host fell to make use of his gun (as one that had a good faculty in the use of that instrument) and feasted his body nevertheless with fowl and venison, which he purchased with the help of that instrument; the plenty of the country and the commodiousness of the place affording means, by the blessing of God; and he did but deride Captain Littleworth, that made his servants snap short in a country so much abounding with plenty of food for an industrious man, with great variety. Soon after Governor Winthrop's arrival, in 1630, he was again arrested, convicted, and sent to England, where he arrived, he says, 66 so metamorphosed with a long voyage, that he looked like Lazarus in the painted cloth."* His book,t from which our extracts are taken, bears date, Amsterdam, 1637. It was probably printed in London, this device being often resorted to at the time, with works of a libellous or objectionable character. With perseverance worthy of a better cause, he returned to New England, in 1643, and was arrested and imprisoned in Boston a year, on account of his book. His advanced age only, it is said, saved him from the whipping-post. He died in poverty, in 1646, at Agamenticus. His book shows facility in composition, and not a little humor. Butler appears to have derived one of the stories in Hudibras from it. Our brethren of New England use Of league, held forth by brother Patch, Between both churches, his and ours; Hang an old weaver that was bed-rid:‡ A common colloquial phrase of the period. It is used by Falstaff (a character somewhat akin to mine host) in the first part of Henry IV. "Ragged as Lazarus in the painted cloth." The painted cloth was used, like tapestry, for covering and decorating the walls of apartments. + New English Canaan, or New Canaan, containing an abstract of New England, composed in three Bookes. The first Booke, setting forth the originall of the Natives, their Manners and Customs, together with their tractable Nature and Love towards the English. The second Booke, setting forth the naturall Indowments of the Country, and what staple Commodities it yealdeth. The third Booke, setting forth what people are planted there, their prosperity, what remarkable accidents have happened since the first planting of it, together with their Tenents and practise of their Church. Written by Thomas Morton, of Clifford's Inne, gent., upon tenne yeares' knowledge and experiment of the Country. Printed at Amsterdam, By Jacob Frederick Stam, in the yeare 1637. The original edition of his "New England's Canaan" is extremely scarce. We are indebted for the use of a copy to the valuable American collection of the Rev. Dr. Hawks. It is reprinted in Col. Force's Historical Tracts. Hudibras, Part II., Canto II. 409-486. A young man, as Morton's story goes, was arrested for stealing corn from an Indian, and the following mode of dealing with the case was proposed by one of the general assembly of the community called to adjudge punishment. Says he: "You all agree that one must die, and one shall die. This young man's clothes we will take off, and put upon one that is old and impotent; a sickly person that cannot escape death; such is the disease on him confirmed, that die he must. Put the young man's clothes on this man, and let the sick person be hanged in the other's stead. Amen, says one, and so says many more." A large portion of the volume is devoted to the aborigines and the natural features of the country. He thus expatiates on his first impressions: And whiles our houses were building, I did endeavor to take a survey of the country; the more I looked, the more I liked it. When I had more seriously considered of the beauty of the place, with all her fair endowments, I did not think that, in all the known world, it could be paralleled. For so many goodly groves of trees; dainty, fine, round, rising hillocks; delicate, fair, large plains; sweet crystal fountains, and clear running streams, that twine in fine meanders through the meads, making so sweet a murmuring noise to hear, as would even lull the senses with delight asleep, so pleasantly do they glide upon the pebble stones, jetting most jocundly where they do meet, and hand in hand run down to Neptune's court, to pay the yearly tribute which they owe to him as sovereign lord of all the springs. Contained within the volume of the land, fowls in abundance; fish in multitude; and discovered besides, millions of turtle doves on the green boughs, which sate pecking of the full, ripe, pleasant grapes, that were supported by the lusty trees, whose fruitful load did cause the arms to bend, while here and there despersed, you might see lillies, and of the Daphnean tree, which made the land to me seem paradise, for in mine eye it was Nature's masterpiece, her chiefest magazine of all, where lives her store. If this land be not rich, then is the whole world poor. He is amusingly at fault in his natural history. The beaver, he says, sits "in his house built on the water, with his tayle hanging in the water, which else would over-heate and rot off." Another marvel is, "a curious bird to see to, called a humming-bird, no bigger than a great beetle; that out of question lives upon the bee, which he catcheth and eateth amongst Flowers; for it is his custom to frequent those places. Flowers he cannot feed upon by reason of his sharp bill, which is like the point of a Spannish needle but short." WILLIAM BRADFORD. WILLIAM BRADFORD was born at Ansterfield, in the north of England, in 1588. He was educated as a farmer, and inherited a large patrimony. Embracing at an early age the tenets of the Puritans, he connected himself with the congregation of the celebrated John Robinson, and at the age of nineteen, after two unsuccessful attempts, joined his associates at Amsterdam. He remained in Holland until 1620, when he formed one of the ship's company of the Mayflower. While exploring the bay in a small boat, for the purpose of selecting a place for settlement, his wife was drowned. After the death of Governor Carver, April 5, 1621, he was chosen his successor. He established by gentleness and firmness a good understanding with the Indians, and conducted the internal affairs of the colony with equal sagacity. He was annually re-elected for twelve years, and then, in the words of Governor Winthrop, "by importunity got off" from the cares of office for two years, when he was re-elected, and continued in power, with the exceptions of the years 1636, '38, and '44, until his death, May 9, 1657. He was twice married, and left two sons by his second wife, Alice Southworth. The eldest, William, was deputy-governor of the colony, and had nine sons and three daughters. Numerous anecdotes are related of Governor Bradford, indicative of ready wit and good common sense. When in 1622, during a period of great scarcity in the colony, Canonicus, Sachem of Narragansett, sent him a bundle of arrows tied with the skin of a serpent, the messenger was immediately sent back with the skin stuffed with powder and ball, which caused a speedy and satisfactory termination to the correspondence. Suspecting one Lyford of plotting against the ecclesiastical arrangements of the colony, he boarded a ship, which was known to have carried out a large number of letters written by him, after she had left port, examined them, and thus obtained evidence by which Lyford was tried and banished. William Bradfort Governor Bradford's reputation as an author is decidedly of a posthumous character. He left a MS. history, in a folio volume of 270 pages, of the Plymouth colony, from the formation of their church in 1602 to 1647. It furnished the material for Morton's Memorial, was used by Prince and Governor Hutchinson in the preparation of their histories, and deposited, with the collection of papers of the former, in the library of the Old South Church, in Boston. During the desecration of this edifice as a riding-school by the British in the Revolutionary war, the MS. disappeared.* A copy of a portion closing with the year 1620, in the handwriting of Nathaniel Morton, was discovered by the Rev. Alexander Young in the library of the First Church, at Plymouth, and printed in his Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers of the Colony of Plymouth, in 1841. A "letterbook," in which Bradford preserved copies of his correspondence, met with a similar fate, a portion only having been rescued from a grocer's shop in Halifax, and published in the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, in 1794, vol. iii. of the first series of Collections, with a fragment of a poem on New England. These, with two other specimens of a few lines each, first published by the same Society in 1838,† form, with the exception of some slight controversial pieces, the whole of his literary productions. "I commend unto your wisdom and discretion," he says in his will, "some small bookes written by my own hand, to be improved as you shall see meet. In special, I commend to you a It was given up for lost till 1855, when it was found complete in the Fulham Library, England. + Third Series, vil. |