has nobly repaired the error of a moment by a long trial of skill and
energy and courage. I say courage, for it was a work of great peril;
and wherever danger was, there he was always foremost--under the
weight of the mass of machinery, and on the edge of the precipice....
I shall content myself with barely observing, as a proof of the skill
of applying the complicated machinery employed, that many engineers
had their doubts whether it could be so applied, and even when
erected, they doubted whether it would be efficient.
"The moment, therefore (on Friday last), when the men took their
stations at the capstans was an anxious one, and when, after twenty
minutes' toil, Lieut. Goldsmith announced from the stage, 'It moves,
thank God!' a shout of applause burst from all who beheld it.
Endeavour to conceive a group of rocks of the most grand and romantic
appearance, forming an amphitheatre, with multitudes seated on the
irregular masses, or clinging to its precipices: conceive a huge
platform carried across an abyss from rock to rock, and upon it three
capstans manned by British seamen. Imagine the lofty masts which are
seen rearing their heads, from which ropes are connected with chains
in many a fold and of massive strength. A flag waves over all: the
huge stone is in the midst. Every eye is directed to the monstrous
bulk. Will it break its chains? Will it fall and spread ruin? Or will
it defy the power that attempts to stir it? Will all the skill and
energy, and strength and hardihood, have been exerted in vain? We
shall soon know: expectation sits breathless; and at last it moves.
"All's well. Such was the first half-hour. In two hours it was
suspended in the air, and vibrated; but art was triumphant, and held
the huge leviathan fast.
"I will not detail the labour of two successive days; but come to the
last moment. At twenty minutes past four on Tuesday afternoon a signal
was given that the rock was in its place and that it logged again.
This was announced by a spectator. But where was Lieut. Goldsmith? Why
does not he announce it? He has called his men around him: his own and
their hats are off: he is addressing them first, and calling upon them
to return thanks to God, through whose aid alone the work had been
done--a work of great peril and hazard--and by His blessing without
loss of life or limb.
"After this appropriate and solemn act, he called upon them to join in
the British sailors' testimony of joy, three cheers; and then turned
with all his gallant men to receive the re-echoing cheers of the
assembled multitude. That Lieut. Goldsmith, whose character--like the
rock--is replaced on a firm basis, may have an opportunity of
exerting his great talents and brave spirit in the service of his
profession, is the sincere wish of all this neighbourhood."
Lieut. L. Edye, in his communication to the _Western Antiquary_ above
quoted, says: "The result of this foolhardy act was that Lieut.
Goldsmith was pecuniarily ruined, whilst the natives of the locality
reaped a rich harvest by pointing out the fallen stone to visitors."
The Cornish are a forgiving people, and it was actually proposed after
the re-erection of the stone to give to Lieut. Goldsmith a dinner and
a silver cup.
Lieut. Hugh Colvill Goldsmith had been born at St. Andrew's, New
Brunswick, 2nd April, 1789, so that he was aged thirty-five when he
performed this prank. He died at sea off S. Thomas, in the West
Indies, 8th October, 1841, without having obtained advancement.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] The letter is given in _Household Words_, 1852, p. 234.
HUGH PETERS, THE REGICIDE
The life and character of this man present unusual difficulties. On
one side he was unduly lauded, he was represented, especially by
himself, as a paragon of all virtues; on the other he was decried with
virulence, his past life raked over, and every scandal brought to the
surface and exposed to public view, and we cannot be at all sure that
all these scandals laid to his charge were true.
We do not know much about his origin, and why he was named Peters; he
was the son of a Thomas Dickwood, _alias_ Peters, and Martha, daughter
of John Treffry of Treffry. This Dickwood, _alias_ Peters, is said to
have been a merchant of Fowey, descended from Dutch ancestors who had
escaped from Antwerp for their adherence to the Reformed religion; and
Hugh Peters was born in 1599. But Dickwood is not a Flemish or Dutch
name. Henry Peters, M.P. for Fowey, who died in 1619, married Deborah,
daughter of John Treffry of Place, in 1610, and had one son, Thomas,
who was thrown into prison by Cromwell for his loyalty to King
Charles. Neither Hugh Peters nor his father with the _alias_ appears
in the well-authenticated pedigree of the family of Peters of Harlyn.
It may be suspected that the father of Hugh Peters was a bastard of
one of the Peters family.
Be that as it may, Hugh Peters was sent to Trinity College,
Cambridge, at the age of fourteen--his elder brother at the time was a
student at Oxford--and he took his degree of B.A. in 1616. For a time
he led a rather wild life and joined a party of comedians. Dr. William
Yonge says that "he joined a common society of players: when, after
venting his frothy inventions, he had a greater call to a higher
promotion, namely, to be a jester, or rather a fool, in Shakespeare's
Company of Players." Shakespeare died in 1616, so this must have been
his company continuing to bear his name. He, however, became converted
by a sermon he heard at S. Faith's, and "deserted his companions and
employments, and returning to his chamber near Fleet Conduit,
continued between hope and despair a year or more."
[Illustration: HUGH PETERS
_From an old engraving_]
He was ordained deacon 23rd December, 1621, and priest 8th June, 1623,
by Mountain, Bishop of London, and took his M.A. degree in 1622. He
was licensed to preach at S. Sepulchre's. He says of himself:--
"To Sepulchre's I was brought by a very strange providence; for
preaching before at another place, and a young man receiving some good,
would not be satisfied, but I must preach at Sepulchre's, once monthly,
for the good of his friends, in which he got his end (if I might not
show vanity), and he allowed thirty pounds per _ann._ to that lecture,
but his person unknown to me. He was a chandler, and died a good man,
and Member of Parliament. At this lecture the resort grew so great, that
it contracted envy and anger; though I believe above a hundred every
week were persuaded from sin to Christ; there were six or seven thousand
hearers, and the circumstances fit for such good work."
How six or seven thousand persons could be got into St. Sepulchre's
Church passes one's comprehension. According to his own account, he
got into trouble through Nonconformity. Ludlow, in his _Memoirs_, says
that Peters "had been a minister in England for many years, till he
was forced to leave his native country by the persecution set on foot,
in the time of Archbishop Laud, against all those who refused to
comply with the innovations and superstitions which were then
introduced into the public worship."
There is, however, another and less creditable explanation. He is said
to have become entangled in an intrigue with a butcher's wife. But how
far this is true, and whether it be malicious scandal, we have no
means of judging.
He had, however, married the widow of Edmund Read, of Wickford, Essex,
and mother of Colonel Thomas Read, afterwards Governor of Stirling,
and a partisan of Monk at the Restoration. Mrs. Edmund Read also had a
daughter, Elizabeth, who in 1635 married the younger Winthrop,
Governor of Connecticut.
From London Peters went to Rotterdam, where, if Yonge may be trusted,
he paid such court to and attempted such familiarities with a Mrs.
Franklyn, that she complained to her husband, whereupon Mr. Franklyn
"entertains Peters with crab-tree sauce."
At Rotterdam he became preacher in the English chapel. What had become
of his wife, whether she remained in England or accompanied him to
Holland, we are not informed.
It will be well here to say a few words on the condition of religion
in England at the time.
The plan of Henry VIII had been to make the Church of England
independent of the Pope, but to remain Catholic. At his death the
Protector and the Duke of Northumberland, after the fall of Somerset,
had encouraged the ultra-Protestants. The churches had been plundered,
chantries and colleges robbed, the Mass interdicted, and the wildest
fanaticism encouraged. As Froude says: "Three-quarters of the English
people were Catholics; that is, they were attached to the hereditary
and traditionary doctrines of the Church. They detested, as cordially
as the Protestants, the interference of a foreign power, whether
secular or spiritual, with English liberty."
A more disgraceful page of history has never been written than that
regarding the two protectorates during the minority of Edward VI. The
currency was debased, peculation was rife. "Amidst the wreck of
ancient institutions," says Froude, "the misery of the people, and the
moral and social anarchy by which the nation was disintegrated,
thoughtful persons in England could not fail to be asking themselves
what they had gained by the Reformation.
"The movement commenced by Henry VIII, judged by its present results,
had brought the country at last into the hands of mere adventurers.
The people had exchanged a superstition which, in its grossest abuses,
prescribed some shadow of respect for obedience, for a superstition
which merged obedience in speculative belief; and under that baneful
influence, not only the higher virtues of self-sacrifice, but the
commonest duties of probity and morality, were disappearing. Private
life was infected with impurity to which the licentiousness of the
Catholic clergy appeared like innocence. The Government was corrupt,
the courts of law were venal. The trading classes cared only to grow
rich. The multitude were mutineers from oppression.... The better
order of commonplace men, who had a conscience, but no special depth
of insight--who had small sense of spiritual things, but a strong
perception of human rascality--looked on in a stern and growing
indignation, and, judging the tree by its fruits, waited their
opportunity for action."
When Mary came to the throne there was an immense outburst of
enthusiasm, the time of the Protestant protectorates was looked back
on as a bad dream. In spite of the fact that England was under an
interdict, the Mass was restored, and no rector or vicar cared a straw
for the Papal bull, nor indeed did Mary, who heard Mass in the chapel
of the Tower, and afterwards in S. Paul's.
If Mary had only accepted the advice tendered to her by Charles V, she
would have reigned as a popular monarch, and have settled the
condition of the Church of England on lines that commended themselves
to nobles, commons, and clergy alike, Catholic but not Papal. But she
had looked too long to the see of Peter as her support, and she
managed completely to alienate the affections of her people. The fires
of Smithfield brought the fanatics who had been discredited in the
former reign into favour once more; and when Elizabeth came to the
throne, and had been deposed by Pope Pius V, and her subjects released
from allegiance to her, and plots formed for her assassination, under
favour of the Pope, the religious sentiment in England was cleft as
with a hatchet--some who loved the religion of their fathers were
constrained against their will and consciences to become Papists, and
others became wild and reckless fanatics in a Puritan direction.
Between these two parties sat the vast bulk of the English people,
looking this way, that way, and deeming all religion foolishness, and
self-interest the only thing to be sought after. All the foundations
of the religious world were out of course. The _via media_ is all very
well in theory and when well trodden, but when it is experimental,
and one road to the right leads to Rome and that to the left to
Geneva, the _via media_ may be taken to lead nowhere, and those who
tread it have to do so uncertainly. A session between two stools is
precarious, and the Church of England had been forced by the folly of
Mary to adopt this position. The consequence was that in the reigns of
Elizabeth and James and Charles I there was no enthusiasm in the
clergy of the Church. The bishops were grasping, self-seeking
worldlings. Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, was the best
among an ignoble crew. When he died, says Froude, "he left behind him
enormous wealth, which had been accumulated, as is proved from a
statement in the handwriting of his successor, by the same
unscrupulous practices which had brought about the first revolt
against the Church. No Catholic prelate in the old easy times had so
flagrantly abused the dispensation system. Every year he made profits
by admitting children to the cure of souls, for money. He used a
graduated scale in which the price for inducting an infant into a
benefice varied with the age, children under fourteen not being
inadmissible, if the adequate fees were forthcoming."[2]
The great majority of the nobility and gentry of England clung to the
doctrine and ceremonies of the ancient Church, and yet were united in
determination to oppose the Papal claims. Benefices in their
presentation were held by priests who said the Communion Service,
which was but the Mass in English, with the ancient vestments and
ritual; and others, next door, were held by men who could hardly be
compelled to wear even the surplice, and who celebrated the Eucharist
but once in the year.
The Church was a hodgepodge of conflicting doctrines and ceremonial.
As Froude says:--
"So long as a single turn of the wheel, a violent revolution, or the
Queen's death, might place a Catholic (Papist) on the throne, the
Established Church held a merely conditional existence. It had no root
in the nation, for every earnest man who was not a Puritan was a
Catholic; and its officers, for the most part, regarded their tenures
as an opportunity for enriching themselves, which would probably be
short, and should in prudence be made use of while it remained.
Benefices were appropriated to laymen, sold, or accumulated upon
favourites. Churches in many places were left unserved, and cobblers
and tailors were voted by the congregations into the pulpits. 'The
bishops,' said Cecil, 'had no credit either for learning, good living,
or hospitality.' The Archbishop of York had scandalized his province
by being found in bed with the wife of an innkeeper at Doncaster.
Other prelates had bestowed ordination 'on men of lewd life and
corrupt behaviour.' The Bishop of Lichfield had made seventy 'lewd and
unlearned ministers, for money,' in one day."[3]
Bishop Barlow, of S. David's, had torn the lead roof off his palace
and the castle at Lawhadden to provide dowers for his daughters, and
would have unroofed his cathedral had he not been prevented by
Elizabeth, because in it was the monument of Edmund, Earl of Richmond,
the father of Henry VII. When translated to Bath and Wells he
destroyed the lady chapel, the finest Perpendicular building in the
West of England, surpassing even Sherborne and Bath, and sold
it--lead, roof, stones, and all. Some of the clergy were mere
temporizers, without convictions, taking their colour from their
patrons, and ready to believe or pretend to believe this or that, as
suited their pockets. The majority were indifferent--ignorant--not
knowing where they stood. Many had thrust their way into Holy Orders
for the sake of the loaves and fishes that might be obtained in the
Established Church, with no work to do, without education, without
zeal, without convictions, and consequently totally without the least
enthusiasm, without any fixed principles.
Laud and the Star Chamber sought to produce conformity by cutting off
ears and slitting noses. But what Laud failed to see was that the only
men in religious England who knew their minds, who had any fixed
principles in religion, were the Papists and the Puritans. What they
should have done, but what probably they could not do, was to inspire
the clergy of the Church with zeal and enthusiasm. But the clergy
could not catch the fire from off the altar; they had entered Orders
for the sake of a rectory, a glebe and tithe, and cared for nothing
else. If one half--nay, one quarter--of the charges brought against
them by the Tryers be true, they were a most unworthy set. In
Elizabeth's reign there had been a difficulty in filling the
benefices, and any Jack and Tom who could gratify the bishop and could
read was ordained and appointed to a benefice. And these were the men
to maintain the doctrine of the Universal Church and Apostolic
tradition against fiery enthusiasts on one side who took their own
reading of Scripture for divine inspiration, and on the other against
the Papists who set their back against the Rock of Peter.
With churches picked bare, with sermons without fire, services
performed without dignity, often with indecorum, without religious
instruction from teachers who did not know what to teach, it is no
wonder that the people turned away to hot-gospellers and tub-thumpers
who, if they could not kindle in them love and charity, could set them
on fire with self-righteousness and religious animosities.
At Rotterdam Peters threw over creed and liturgy of the Church of
England, and leaving the English chapel, became co-pastor with Dr.
William Ames of an Independent meeting-house at Rotterdam, and Ames
died there in his arms. In Holland Peters made the acquaintance of
John Forbes, Professor of Divinity in the University of Aberdeen, a
great Hebraist. In a pamphlet published by Peters in 1646 he says: "I
lived about six years near that famous Scotsman, Mr. John Forbes, with
whom I travelled into Germany, and enjoyed his society in much love
and sweetness constantly; from whom I received nothing but
encouragement, though we differed in the way of our 'churches.'"
After Peters had spent six years in the United Provinces, he suddenly
threw up his pastoral charge and departed for New England, with five
hundred pounds in his pocket, which his friends furnished, and a young
waiting-maid, Mary Morell, whom he shortly after married to one Peter
Folger.
"In this year (1635)," says one account, "came over that famous
servant of Christ, Mr. Hugh Peters. He was called to office by the
Church of Christ at Salem, their former pastor, the Rev. Mr.
Higginson, having ended his labours resting in the Lord."
Salem had been planted but a few years before, the first colonists in
Massachusetts having settled there in 1628. Here he remained for over
seven years, combining his duties as a minister of religion and
trading, so that he was spoken of as "the father of our commerce and
the founder of our trade."
He was also a militant Christian, and was present in the fighting
against the Pequot Indians. Concerning the prisoners taken, Hugh
Peters wrote:--
"SIR,--Mr. Endicott and myself salute you in the Lord Jesus, etc.
[_sic_]. We have heard of a divisioning of women and children in the
Bay, and would be glad of a share, viz. a young woman or girl, and a
boy if you think good. I wrote to you for some boys to Bermuda.
"HUGH PETERS."
These prisoners were used as slaves, and sold just as were the negroes
later. Peters, we are informed, was not friendly to the notion of
converting the Indians to Christianity. He would entertain compunction
about enslaving them should they embrace the gospel. However, money
was sent over from England for this purpose, and--at the suggestion of
Peters. In the _Colonial State Papers_ (Saintsbury, America and West
Indies, 1661-8, p. 86), is this passage: "Through the motion of Hugh
Peters, England contributed nine hundred pounds per annum to
Christianize the Indians of New England; which money found its way
into private men's purses, and was a cheat of Hugh Peters."
In New England Peters married a second wife, in 1639, another widow,
by name Deliverance Sheffield.
In 1641 he left for England, deputed by the colony to act as ambassador
at the Court of Charles I, to endeavour to procure some mitigation of
the excise and customs duties, which weighed heavily on the colonists.
But on reaching England he found that the Crown and the Parliament
were at variance, and he did not care to return to America and to his
wife whom he had left there, but elected to be the stormy petrel of
the rebellion, flying over the land, and, as Ludlow says, advising the
people everywhere to take arms in the cause of the Parliament.
He was appointed chaplain to a brigade of troops sent into Ireland
against the rebels, and he had no hesitation in wielding the sword as
well as the tongue, the latter to animate the soldiers, the former to
extirpate the Baal-worshippers.
Then he hastened to Holland, where he collected thirty thousand pounds
for the relief of the Protestants of Ireland,[4] who had been
plundered and burnt out of their homes by the rebels.
When Peters had effected his various purposes in Ireland, he returned
to England, and made his report of the condition of affairs there to
Sir Thomas Fairfax and Cromwell.
In 1643 he was appointed, or thrust himself forward, to minister to
Chaloner on the scaffold, as that man had been condemned to death for
participation in Waller's plot. So again in 1644 he was on the
scaffold haranguing and praying for and at Sir John Hotham, who
probably would have preferred to die in quiet.
Peters was now engaged as chaplain to the Parliamentary forces, and
especially as a conveyer of despatches, for all which he received
liberal payment. He was with the Earl of Warwick at the taking of
Lyme, and was despatched by that nobleman to London to give an account
of the affair in Parliament. On another occasion he was entrusted with
letters from Sir Thomas Fairfax relating to the capture of Bridgwater,
on which occasion he was voted a sum of £100. In the same year, 1645,
he was commissioned by Sir Thomas to report the taking of Bristol. In
March of that year Hugh Peters was with the army in Cornwall, and
harangued at Bodmin against the Crown and the Church, and exhorted all
good men and true to adhere to the cause of the Parliament.
Peters had uniformly, since he had been in the Low Countries, postured
as an Independent hot and strong. Hitherto the Presbyterians had the
prevailing party in Parliament, and among the discontents in the
country, but now the Independents began to assert themselves and assume
predominance. Their numbers were greatly increased by the return of the
more fiery spirits who had, like Peters, abandoned England during the
supremacy of Laud. Many of these, coming back from New England, had
carried the doctrines of Puritanism to the very verge of extravagance,
and not the least fiery and extravagant of these was Hugh Peters. These
men rejected all ecclesiastical establishments, would admit of no
spiritual authority in one man above another, and allowed of no
interposition of the magistrate in religious matters. Each congregation,
voluntarily united, was an integral and independent church, to exercise
its own jurisdiction. The political system of the Independents was one
of pure republicanism. They aspired to a total abolition of monarchy,
even of the aristocracy, and projected a commonwealth in which all men
should be equal. Sir Harry Vane, Oliver Cromwell, Nathaniel Fiennes, and
Oliver St. John, the Solicitor-General, were regarded as their leaders,
and Hugh Peters as their prophet.
Peters brought the news to Parliament of the capture of Winchester
Castle, for which service he was paid £50. When Dartmouth was taken,
he hastened thence to London, laden with crucifixes, vestments,
papers, and sundry church ornaments, of which he had despoiled the
beautiful church of S. Saviour's; and received in recompense from the
Parliament an estate of which the House had deprived Lord Craven.
When the city of Worcester was besieged in the year 1646 by the
Parliamentary forces, the governor consented to surrender on condition
that passes were given to the soldiers and to the principal
inhabitants. Peters negotiated the surrender.