The first American Ambassador to Great Britain, at the end of his
official service, comes to Massachusetts on an interesting errand. He
comes to deliver to the lineal successor of Governor Bradford, in the
presence of the representatives and rulers of the body politic formed by
the compact on board the "Mayflower," Nov. 11, 1620, the only authentic
history of the founding of their Commonwealth; the only authentic
history of what we have a right to consider the most important political
transaction that has ever taken place on the face of the earth.
Mr. Bayard has sought to represent to the mother country, not so much
the diplomacy as the good-will of the American people. If in this
anybody be tempted to judge him severely, let us remember what his great
predecessor, John Adams, the first minister at the same court,
representing more than any other man, embodying more than any other man,
the spirit of Massachusetts, said to George III., on the first day of
June, 1785, after the close of our long and bitter struggle for
independence: "I shall esteem myself the happiest of men if I can be
instrumental in restoring an entire esteem, confidence and affection,
or, in better words, the old good-nature and the old good-humor between
people who, though separated by an ocean and under different
governments, have the same language, a similar religion and kindred
blood."
And let us remember, too, the answer of the old monarch, who, with all
his faults, must have had something of a noble and royal nature stirring
in his bosom, when he replied: "Let the circumstances of language,
religion and blood have their natural and full effect."
It has long been well known that Governor Bradford wrote and left behind
him a history of the settlement of Plymouth. It was quoted by early
chroniclers. There are extracts from it in the records at Plymouth.
Thomas Prince used it when he compiled his annals. Hubbard depended on
it when he wrote his "History of New England." Cotton Mather had read
it, or a copy of a portion of it, when he wrote his "Magnalia." Governor
Hutchinson had it when he published the second volume of his history in
1767. From that time it disappeared from the knowledge of everybody on
this side of the water. All our historians speak of it as lost, and can
only guess what had been its fate. Some persons suspected that it was
destroyed when Governor Hutchinson's house was sacked in 1765, others
that it was carried off by some officer or soldier when Boston was
evacuated by the British army in 1776.
In 1844 Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford, afterward Bishop of
Winchester, one of the brightest of men, published one of the dullest
and stupidest of books. It is entitled "The History of the Protestant
Episcopal Church in America." It contained extracts from manuscripts
which he said he had discovered in the library of the Bishop of London
at Fulham. The book attracted no attention here until, about twelve
years later, in 1855, John Wingate Thornton, whom many of us remember as
an accomplished antiquary and a delightful gentleman, happened to pick
up a copy of it while he was lounging in Burnham's book store. He read
the bishop's quotations, and carried the book to his office, where he
left it for his friend, Mr. Barry, who was then writing his "History of
Massachusetts," with passages marked, and with a note which is not
preserved, but which, according to his memory, suggested that the
passages must have come from Bradford's long-lost history. That is the
claim for Mr. Thornton. On the other hand, it is claimed by Mr. Barry
that there was nothing of that kind expressed in Mr. Thornton's note,
but in reading the book when he got it an hour or so later, the thought
struck him for the first time that the clew had been found to the
precious book which had been lost so long. He at once repaired to
Charles Deane, then and ever since, down to his death, as President
Eliot felicitously styled him, "the master of historical investigators
in this country." Mr. Deane saw the importance of the discovery. He
communicated at once with Joseph Hunter, an eminent English scholar.
Hunter was high authority on all matters connected with the settlement
of New England. He visited the palace at Fulham, and established beyond
question the identity of the manuscript with Governor Bradford's
history, an original letter of Governor Bradford having been sent over
for comparison of handwriting.
How the manuscript got to Fulham nobody knows. Whether it was carried
over by Governor Hutchinson in 1774; whether it was taken as spoil from
the tower of the Old South Church in 1775; whether, with other
manuscripts, it was sent to Fulham at the time of the attempts of the
Episcopal churches in America, just before the revolution, to establish
an episcopate here,--nobody knows. It would seem that Hutchinson would
have sent it to the colonial office; that an officer would naturally
have sent it to the war office; and a private would have sent it to the
war office, unless he had carried it off as mere private booty and
plunder,--in which case it would have been unlikely that it would have
reached a public place of custody. But we find it in the possession of
the church and of the church official having, until independence was
declared, special jurisdiction over Episcopal interests in Massachusetts
and Plymouth. This may seem to point to a transfer for some
ecclesiastical purpose.
The bishop's chancellor conjectures that it was sent to Fulham because
of the record annexed to it of the early births, marriages and deaths,
such records being in England always in ecclesiastical custody. But this
is merely conjecture.
I know of no incident like this in history, unless it be the discovery
in a chest in the castle of Edinburgh, where they had been lost for one
hundred and eleven years, of the ancient regalia of Scotland,--the crown
of Bruce, the sceptre and sword of state. The lovers of Walter Scott,
who was one of the commissioners who made the search, remember his
intense emotion, as described by his daughter, when the lid was removed.
Her feelings were worked up to such a pitch that she nearly fainted, and
drew back from the circle.
As she was retiring she was startled by his voice exclaiming, in a tone
of the deepest emotion, "something between anger and despair," as she
expressed it: "By God, no!" One of the commissioners, not quite entering
into the solemnity with which Scott regarded this business, had, it
seems, made a sort of motion as if he meant to put the crown on the head
of one of the young ladies near him, but the voice and the aspect of
the poet were more than sufficient to make this worthy gentleman
understand his error; and, respecting the enthusiasm with which he had
not been taught to sympathize, he laid down the ancient diadem with an
air of painful embarrassment. Scott whispered, "Pray forgive me," and
turning round at the moment observed his daughter deadly pale and
leaning by the door. He immediately drew her out of the room, and when
she had somewhat recovered in the fresh air, walked with her across
Mound to Castle Street. "He never spoke all the way home," she says,
"but every now and then I felt his arm tremble, and from that time I
fancied he began to treat me more like a woman than a child. I thought
he liked me better, too, than he had ever done before."
There have been several attempts to procure the return of the manuscript
to this country. Mr. Winthrop, in 1860, through the venerable John
Sinclair, archdeacon, urged the Bishop of London to give it up, and
proposed that the Prince of Wales, then just coming to this country,
should take it across the Atlantic and present it to the people of
Massachusetts. The Attorney-General, Sir Fitzroy Kelley, approved the
plan, and said it would be an exceptional act of grace, a most
interesting action, and that he heartily wished the success of the
application. But the bishop refused. Again, in 1869, John Lothrop
Motley, then minister to England, who had a great and deserved
influence there, repeated the proposition, at the suggestion of that
most accomplished scholar, Justin Winsor. But his appeal had the same
fate. The bishop gave no encouragement, and said, as had been said nine
years before, that the property could not be alienated without an act of
Parliament. Mr. Winsor planned to repeat the attempt on his visit to
England in 1877. When he was at Fulham the bishop was absent, and he was
obliged to come home without seeing him in person.
In 1881, at the time of the death of President Garfield, Benjamin Scott,
chamberlain of London, proposed again in the newspapers that the
restitution should be made. But nothing came of it.
Dec. 21, 1895, I delivered an address at Plymouth, on the occasion of
the two hundred and seventy-fifth anniversary of the landing of the
Pilgrims upon the rock. In preparing for that duty, I read again, with
renewed enthusiasm and delight, the noble and touching story, as told by
Governor Bradford. I felt that this precious history of the Pilgrims
ought to be in no other custody than that of their children. But the
case seemed hopeless. I found myself compelled by a serious physical
infirmity to take a vacation, and to get a rest from public cares and
duties, which was impossible while I stayed at home. When I went abroad
I determined to visit the locality, on the borders of Lincolnshire and
Yorkshire, from which Bradford and Brewster and Robinson, the three
leaders of the Pilgrims, came, and where their first church was formed,
and the places in Amsterdam and Leyden where the emigrants spent
thirteen years. But I longed especially to see the manuscript of
Bradford at Fulham, which then seemed to me, as it now seems to me, the
most precious manuscript on earth, unless we could recover one of the
four gospels as it came in the beginning from the pen of the Evangelist.
The desire to get it back grew and grew during the voyage across the
Atlantic. I did not know how such a proposition would be received in
England. A few days after I landed I made a call upon John Morley. I
asked him whether he thought the thing could be done. He inquired
carefully into the story, took down from his shelf the excellent though
brief life of Bradford in Leslie Stephen's "Biographical Dictionary,"
and told me he thought the book ought to come back to us, and that he
should be glad to do anything in his power to help. It was my fortune, a
week or two after, to sit next to Mr. Bayard at a dinner given to Mr.
Collins by the American consuls in Great Britain. I took occasion to
tell him the story, and he gave me the assurance, which he has since so
abundantly and successfully fulfilled, of his powerful aid. I was
compelled, by the health of one of the party with whom I was
travelling, to go to the continent almost immediately, and was
disappointed in the hope of an early return to England. So the matter
was delayed until about a week before I sailed for home, when I went to
Fulham, in the hope at least of seeing the manuscript. I had supposed
that it was a quasi-public library, open to general visitors. But I
found the bishop was absent. I asked for the librarian, but there was no
such officer, and I was told very politely that the library was not open
to the public, and was treated in all respects as that of a private
gentleman. So I gave up any hope of doing anything in person. But I
happened, the Friday before I sailed for home, to dine with an English
friend who had been exceedingly kind to me. As he took leave of me,
about eleven o'clock in the evening, he asked me if there was anything
more he could do for me. I said, "No, unless you happen to know the Lord
Bishop of London. I should like to get a sight at the manuscript of
Bradford's history before I go home." He said, "I do not know the bishop
myself, but Mr. Grenfell, at whose house you spent a few days in the
early summer, married the bishop's niece, and will gladly give you an
introduction to his uncle. He is in Scotland. But I will write to him
before I go to bed."
Sunday morning brought me a cordial letter from Mr. Grenfell,
introducing me to the bishop. I wrote a note to his lordship, saying I
should be glad to have an opportunity to see Bradford's history; that I
was to sail for the United States the next Wednesday, but would be
pleased to call at Fulham Tuesday, if that were agreeable to him.
I got a note in reply, in which he said if I would call on Tuesday he
would be happy to show me "The Log of the Mayflower," which is the title
the English, without the slightest reason in the world, give the
manuscript. I kept the appointment, and found the bishop with the book
in his hand. He received me with great courtesy, showed me the palace,
and said that that spot had been occupied by a bishop's palace for more
than a thousand years.
After looking at the volume and reading the records on the flyleaf, I
said: "My lord, I am going to say something which you may think rather
audacious. I think this book ought to go back to Massachusetts. Nobody
knows how it got over here. Some people think it was carried off by
Governor Hutchinson, the Tory governor; other people think it was
carried off by British soldiers when Boston was evacuated; but in either
case the property would not have changed. Or, if you treat it as a
booty, in which last case, I suppose, by the law of nations ordinary
property does change, no civilized nation in modern times applies that
principle to the property of libraries and institutions of learning."
"Well," said the bishop, "I did not know you cared anything about it."
"Why," said I, "if there were in existence in England a history of King
Alfred's reign for thirty years, written by his own hand, it would not
be more precious in the eyes of Englishmen than this manuscript is to
us."
"Well," said he, "I think myself it ought to go back, and if it had
depended on me it would have gone back before this. But the Americans
who have been here--many of them have been commercial people--did not
seem to care much about it except as a curiosity. I suppose I ought not
to give it up on my own authority. It belongs to me in my official
capacity, and not as private or personal property. I think I ought to
consult the Archbishop of Canterbury. And, indeed," he added, "I think I
ought to speak to the Queen about it. We should not do such a thing
behind Her Majesty's back."
I said: "Very well. When I go home I will have a proper application made
from some of our literary societies, and ask you to give it
consideration."
I saw Mr. Bayard again, and told him the story. He was at the train when
I left London for the steamer at Southampton. He entered with great
interest into the matter, and told me again he would gladly do anything
in his power to forward it.
When I got home I communicated with Secretary Olney about it, who took a
kindly interest in the matter, and wrote to Mr. Bayard that the
administration desired he should do everything in his power to promote
the application. The matter was then brought to the attention of the
council of the American Antiquarian Society, the Massachusetts
Historical Society, the Pilgrim Society of Plymouth and the New England
Society of New York. These bodies appointed committees to unite in the
application. Governor Wolcott was also consulted, who gave his hearty
approbation to the movement, and a letter was dispatched through Mr.
Bayard.
Meantime Bishop Temple, with whom I had my conversation, had himself
become Archbishop of Canterbury, and in that capacity Primate of all
England. His successor, Rev. Dr. Creighton, had been the delegate of
John Harvard's College to the great celebration at Harvard University on
the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of its foundation, in 1886. He
had received the degree of doctor of laws from the university, had been
a guest of President Eliot, and had received President Eliot as his
guest in England.
He is an accomplished historical scholar, and very friendly in sentiment
to the people of the United States. So, by great fortune, the two
eminent ecclesiastical personages who were to have a powerful influence
in the matter were likely to be exceedingly well disposed. Dr. Benjamin
A. Gould, the famous mathematician, was appointed one of the committee
of the American Antiquarian Society. He died suddenly, just after a
letter to the Bishop of London was prepared and about to be sent to him
for signing. He took a very zealous interest in the matter. The letter
formally asked for the return of the manuscript, and was signed by the
following-named gentlemen: George F. Hoar, Stephen Salisbury, Edward
Everett Hale, Samuel A. Green, for the American Antiquarian Society;
Charles Francis Adams, William Lawrence, Charles W. Eliot, for the
Massachusetts Historical Society; Arthur Lord, William M. Evarts,
William T. Davis, for the Pilgrim Society of Plymouth; Charles C.
Beaman, Joseph H. Choate, J. Pierpont Morgan, for the New England
Society of New York; Roger Wolcott, Governor of Massachusetts.
The rarest good fortune seems to have attended every step in this
transaction.
I was fortunate in having formed the friendship of Mr. Grenfell, which
secured to me so cordial a reception from the Bishop of London.
It was fortunate that the Bishop of London was Dr. Temple, an eminent
scholar, kindly disposed toward the people of the United States, and a
man thoroughly capable of understanding and respecting the deep and
holy sentiment which a compliance with our desire would gratify.
It was fortunate, too, that Bishop Temple, who thought he must have the
approbation of the archbishop before his action, when the time came had
himself become Archbishop of Canterbury and Primate of all England.
It was fortunate that Dr. Creighton had succeeded to the see of London.
He is, himself, as I have just said, an eminent historical scholar. He
has many friends in America. He was the delegate of Emmanuel, John
Harvard's College, at the great Harvard centennial celebration in 1886.
He received the degree of doctor of laws at Harvard and is a member of
the Massachusetts Historical Society. He had, as I have said,
entertained President Eliot as his guest in England.
It was fortunate, too, that the application came in a time of cordial
good-will between the two countries, when the desire of John Adams and
the longing of George III. have their ample and complete fulfilment.
This token of the good-will of England reached Boston on the eve of the
birthday of the illustrious sovereign, who is not more venerated and
beloved by her own subjects than by the kindred people across the sea.
[Illustration: THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY.]
It comes to us at the time of the rejoicing of the English people at
the sixtieth anniversary of a reign more crowded with benefit to
humanity than any other known in the annals of the race. Upon the power
of England, the sceptre, the trident, the lion, the army and the fleet,
the monster ships of war, the all-shattering guns, the American people
are strong enough now to look with an entire indifference. We encounter
her commerce and her manufacture in the spirit of a generous emulation.
The inheritance from which England has gained these things is ours also.
We, too, are of the Saxon strain.
In our halls is hung
Armory of the invincible knights of old.
Our temple covers a continent, and its porches are upon both the seas.
Our fathers knew the secret to lay, in Christian liberty and law, the
foundations of empire. Our young men are not ashamed, if need be, to
speak with the enemy in the gate.
But to the illustrious lady, type of gentlest womanhood, model of mother
and wife and friend, who came at eighteen to the throne of George IV.
and William; of purer eyes than to behold iniquity; the maiden presence
before which everything unholy shrank; the sovereign who, during her
long reign, "ever knew the people that she ruled;" the royal nature that
disdained to strike at her kingdom's rival in the hour of our sorest
need; the heart which even in the bosom of a queen beat with sympathy
for the cause of constitutional liberty; who, herself not unacquainted
with grief, laid on the coffin of our dead Garfield the wreath fragrant
with a sister's sympathy,--to her our republican manhood does not
disdain to bend.
The eagle, lord of land and sea,
Will stoop to pay her fealty.
But I am afraid this application might have had the fate of its
predecessors but for our special good fortune in the fact that Mr.
Bayard was our ambassador at the Court of St. James. He had been, as I
said in the beginning, the ambassador not so much of the diplomacy as of
the good-will of the American people. Before his powerful influence
every obstacle gave way. It was almost impossible for Englishmen to
refuse a request like this, made by him, and in which his own sympathies
were so profoundly enlisted.
You are entitled, sir, to the gratitude of Massachusetts, to the
gratitude of every lover of Massachusetts and of every lover of the
country. You have succeeded where so many others have failed, and where
so many others would have been likely to fail. You may be sure that our
debt to you is fully understood and will not be forgotten.
The question of the permanent abiding-place of this manuscript will be
settled after it has reached the hands of His Excellency. Wherever it
shall go it will be an object of reverent care. I do not think many
Americans will gaze upon it without a little trembling of the lips and a
little gathering of mist in the eyes, as they think of the story of
suffering, of sorrow, of peril, of exile, of death and of lofty triumph
which that book tells,--which the hand of the great leader and founder
of America has traced on those pages.
There is nothing like it in human annals since the story of Bethlehem.
These Englishmen and English women going out from their homes in
beautiful Lincoln and York, wife separated from husband and mother from
child in that hurried embarkation for Holland, pursued to the beach by
English horsemen; the thirteen years of exile; the life at Amsterdam "in
alley foul and lane obscure;" the dwelling at Leyden; the embarkation at
Delfthaven; the farewell of Robinson; the terrible voyage across the
Atlantic; the compact in the harbor; the landing on the rock; the
dreadful first winter; the death roll of more than half the number; the
days of suffering and of famine; the wakeful night, listening for the
yell of wild beast and the war-whoop of the savage; the building of the
State on those sure foundations which no wave or tempest has ever
shaken; the breaking of the new light; the dawning of the new day; the
beginning of the new life; the enjoyment of peace with liberty,--of all
these things this is the original record by the hand of our beloved
father and founder. Massachusetts will preserve it until the time shall
come that her children are unworthy of it; and that time shall
come,--never.