Amidst that pilgrim band;
Why had they come to wither there,
Away from their childhood's land?
"There was woman's fearless eye,
Lit by her deep love's truth;
There was manhood's brow, serenely high,
And the fiery heart of youth."
REASONS FOR FAMILY REMOVALS.
To understand the reasons why thirty-five thousand loyal and respectable
subjects of Charles I should leave Old England for the New, in family
relations, between 1620 and 1625, let us look, if we can, through a
chink in the wall, into the state of affairs, civil, social, and
religious, as they existed in the best land, and under the best
government, the sun then shone upon.
Charles I succeeded his father, James I of Scotland, in 1624. The great,
good act of James was the translation of our English Bible, known as
King James's Version, a work which, for the exercise of learning,
scholarship, and a zealous religious faith, has not been surpassed in
any age. Take him all in all, James was a bigot, a tyrant, a conceited
fool. He professed to be the most ardent devotee of piety, and at the
same time issued a proclamation that all lawful recreations, such as
dancing, archery, leaping, May-games, etc., might be used after divine
service, on Sundays. An advocate of religious freedom, he attempted to
enforce the most abject conformity in his own Scottish home, against the
well-known independence of that section of his realm, and drove the
Puritans to seek an asylum in Holland, where they might find liberty to
worship God.
In the county of Somerset, the old king consented to an act of tyranny
which would grace the age of Henry VIII. One Reverend Edmund Peacham, a
clergyman in Somersetshire, had his study broken open, and a manuscript
sermon being there found in which there was strong censure of the
extravagance of the king and the oppression of his officers, the
preacher was put to the rack and interrogated, "before torture, in
torture, between torture, and after torture," in order to draw from him
evidence of treason; but this horrible severity could wring no
confession from him. His sermon was not found treasonable by the judges
of the King's Bench and by Lord Coke; but the unhappy man was tried and
condemned, dying in jail before the time set for his execution. Just
about this time was the State murder of Overbury, and the execution of
Sir Walter Raleigh, one of England's noblest sons, brave and chivalric,
who, at the executioner's block, took the axe in his hand, kissed the
blade, and said to the sheriff: "'Tis a sharp medicine, but a sound cure
for all diseases." These and kindred acts serve to illustrate the
history of a king whose personal and selfish interests overruled all
sentiments of honor and regard for his subjects, and who publicly
declared that "he would govern according to the good of the commonweal,
but not according to the common will." With such a king as James on the
throne, is it a wonder that the more intelligent and conscientious of
his subjects--like the Pilgrims and Puritans--sought a home on this side
the Atlantic, where wild beasts and savage men were their only
persecutors?
We are told that "the face of the Court was much changed in the change
of the king" from James to Charles I; "that the grossness of the Court
of James grew out of fashion," but the people were slow to learn the
difference. Of the two evils, James was to be preferred. Charles ascends
the throne with flattering promises, attends prayers and listens to
sermons, pays his father's debts and promises to reform the Court. Let
us see what he does. The brilliant but profligate Buckingham is retained
as prime minister. Charles marries the beautiful Henrietta Maria, the
Roman Catholic princess of France. He fits out fleets against Spain and
other quarters, and demands heavy taxes to meet his heavy expenses.
Parliament is on its dignity, and demands its proper recognition. He
dissolves it, and calls another. That is more rebellious, and that he
summarily dissolves. Men of high and low degree go to prison at the
king's behest, and the disobedient were threatened with severer
penalties.
The people of England are aroused, as the king of the earth sets himself
against their claims in behalf of the royal prerogative. The king and
the people are at war. Which will come off conquerer? There is only one
answer to that question, for the battle is one between the pigmy and the
giant. The contest grows sharper as the months go on, and the people are
in constant alarm. Murders are common, and even Buckingham, the favorite
minister, dies at the point of the assassin's knife, and the murderer
goes to the Tower and the scaffold accompanied by the tumultuous cheers
of London. Soon comes the Parliament of 1629, in which the popular
leaders make their great remonstrance against the regal tyranny. In that
House sat a plain young man, with ordinary cloth apparel, as if made by
an old-country tailor, "his countenance swollen and reddish, his voice
sharp and untonable," with "an eloquence full of fervor." That young man
is yet to be heard from. His name is Cromwell, known in history as
Oliver Cromwell. His briefly-reported speech of six lines is destined to
be weightier than the edicts of a king. The session was brief. Popery
and Arminianism, unjust taxation and voluntary payment of taxes not
ordered by Parliament, were declared treasonable and hostile principles
in Church and State,--so said Parliament. "You are a Parliament of
vipers,"--so said the king; and, on the tenth of March, Parliament was
dissolved, not to meet again in the old historic hall for eleven long
years; until, in 1640, the majesty of an outraged people rises superior
to the majesty of an outraging ruler. Now follow the attempted riveting
of the chains of a despotic and unscrupulous power, which does not
understand the temper of the common people, nor the methods of
counteracting a great popular upheaval in society.
It is not easy to resist the iron pressure of a tyrant; but, to our
ancestors, it was far better than to accept the peace and profit which
might follow abject submission. To borrow the words of De Tocqueville:
"They cling to freedom for its native charms independent of its
gifts,--the pleasure of speaking, acting, and breathing without
restraint, under no master but God and the Law." The Englishmen of the
first half of the seventeenth century were the fathers of the men who
fired shots at Lexington and Concord, "heard round the world."
But how do the royal prerogatives affect our ancestors in England? Our
fathers were of common mould, and feel the unjust demand of the
tax-gatherer and the insolent demeanor of the Crown officers, who
threaten fines and imprisonment for a refusal to obey. The people are
aroused and are united; some are hopeless, some hopeful. The Crown seems
to have its sway, but the far-sighted see the people on the coming
throne of righteous judgement. What troubles our ancestors most is the
interference with their religious life. Archbishop Laud is now supreme,
and the Pope never had a more willing vassal. Ministers are examined as
to their loyalty to the government, their sermons are read to private
judges of their orthodoxy, the confessional is established, and the
alter-service is restored. It is a time when earnest men and women
cannot be trifled with on soul concerns. Their property may perish or be
confiscated, but the right to unmolested worship is older than Magna
Charta, and as inalienable as life itself. What is to be done?
Resistance or emigration--which? Resist and die, say Cromwell and
Wentworth, Eliot and Hampden. Emigrate and live, say the men and women
who came by thousands from all parts of England during the reign of this
monarch, and made possible the permanent establishment of a new society,
on the basis of social order and family life.
* * * * *
AN INCIDENT OF SIXTEEN HUNDRED AND EIGHTY-SIX.
BY THE HON. MELLEN CHAMBERLAIN.
On the afternoon of the twenty-sixth of May, 1686, two horsemen were
riding from Boston to Cambridge. By which route they left the town is
now known; but most probably over the Roxbury Neck, following the path
taken by Lord Percy when he went to the relief of Lieutenant-Colonel
Smith's ill-starred expedition to seize the military stores at Concord,
on the nineteenth of April, 1775. Of the nature of their errand--whether
peaceful or hostile,--of the subject of their conversation, as they rode
along the King's highway, neither history nor tradition has left any
account. But when they had reached Muddy River, now the beautiful suburb
of Brookline, about two miles from Cambridge, they were met by a young
man riding in the opposite direction, who, as he came against them,
abruptly and without other salutation, said: "God save King James the
Second!" and then rode on. But soon turning his horse towards the
travelers he most inconsequentially completed his sentence by adding,
"But I say, God curse King James!" and this malediction he repeated so
many times and with such vehemence, that the two horsemen at last turned
their horses and riding up to him, told him plainly that he was a rogue.
This expression of their opinion produced, however, only a slight
modification of the young man's sentiments, to this form: "God curse
King James and God bless Duke James!" But a few strokes of their whips
effected his complete conversion, and then, as a loyal subject, he
exclaimed: "God curse Duke James, and God bless King James!"
Such is the unadorned statement of facts as sworn to the next day in the
Council by these riders, and their oath was attested by Edward Randolph,
the "evil genius of New England." I present it in its legal baldness of
detail. The two horsemen are no reminiscence of Mr. James's celebrated
opening, but two substantial citizens of Boston, Captain Peter Bowden
and Dr. Thomas Clarke; and the young man with somewhat original
objurgatory tendencies was one Wiswell, as they called him--presumably
not a son of the excellent Duxbury parson of the same name; and for the
same reason, even less probably, a student of Cambridge University, as
it was at that early day sometimes called.
The original paper in which the foregoing facts are recorded has long
been in my possession; and as often as my eye has rested on it, I have
wondered what made that young man swear so; and by what nicety of moral
discrimination he found his justification in blessing the Duke and
cursing the King--"unus et idem"--in the same breath. Who and what was
he? and of what nature were his grievances? Was there any political
significance in that strange mingling of curses and blessings? That his
temper was not of martyr firmness was evident enough from the sudden
change in the current of his thoughts brought about by the tingling of
the horsewhip. All else was mystery. But the commonest knowledge of the
English and colonial history of those days was sufficient to stimulate
conjecture on these points. At the date of the incident recorded James
II had been on the throne more than a year, and for a long time both as
duke and king had been hated and feared on both sides of the ocean. The
Duke of Monmouth's ill-fated adventure for the Crown had failed at
Sedgemoor, and his young life ended on the block, denied expected mercy
by his uncle, the king: ended on the block: but not so believed the
common people of England. They believed him to be still living, and the
legitimate heir to the British crown, and that his unnatural uncle was
only Duke James of England. In those days English affairs were more
closely followed by the colonists than at present, and for obvious
reasons; and it is quite open to conjecture at least that the feelings
of English yeomen and artisans were known to, and shared by, their
cousins in Massachusetts Bay, and that Master Wiswell only gave
expression to a sentiment common to people of his class on both sides
the water.
This, however, is mere conjecture. But there are important facts. On the
preceding day, in the Town House, which stood at the head of State
Street, where the old State House now stands, events culminated, in
comparison with which the causes which led to the war of the Revolution
sink into utter insignificance. On the twenty-third of October, 1684, in
the High Court of Chancery of England, judgment was entered on the writ
of _scire facias_, by which the charter of Massachusetts Bay was
vacated; and as a consequence, the title to the soil, with all
improvements, reverted to the Crown, to the ruin of those who had
wrested it from the wilderness, and guarded it from the savage foe. The
old government, so endeared to the people, and defended against kingly
assault with the truest courage, was swept away by arbitrary power, and
in its place a new one established, under the presidency of Joseph
Dudley, and he a recreant son of the colony. It was the inauguration of
this government which had taken place on the day before Captain Bowden
and Dr. Clarke encountered John Wiswell, Jr., on their ride to
Cambridge. There ceremonies of the inauguration were not without
circumstances of pomp, and are set forth in the Council records at the
State House, from which I transcribe the following incidents: When the
new government, the president, and Council were assembled, the
exemplification of the judgment against the charter of the late governor
and company of the Massachusetts Bay, in New England, publicly (in the
court where were present divers of the eminent ministers, gentlemen, and
inhabitants of the town and country) was read with an audible voice. The
commission was read and the oaths administered, and the new president
made his speech, after which, proclamation was openly read in court, and
commanded to be published by beat of drum and trumpet, which was
accordingly done.
The people in the Forum heard these drum and trumpets--young Wiswell,
doubtless, with the rest--and knew what they signified: the confiscation
of houses and lands; the abrogation of existing laws; taxes exacted
without consent or legislation; the enforced support of a religion not
of the people's choice; and navigation laws ruinous to their foreign
commerce, then beginning to assume importance; and from these
consequences they were saved only by the revolution, which two years
later drove James II from his throne. It is difficult to credit these
sober facts of history, and still more to fully realize their
destructive import; but they should always be borne in mind; for if any
one reflecting on the causes assigned by the leaders of the great
Revolution, as justifying the violent partition of an empire, is led for
a moment to question their sufficiency, let him then consider that they
were assigned by a people full of the traditions of the long struggle
against kingly injustice, in the days of the second Charles and the
second James.
A few words--the result of later investigation--as to the actors in the
events of this ride to Cambridge. When Bowden and Clarke had attested
their loyalty by horsewhipping young Wiswell, they took him in charge to
Cambridge, and vainly tried to persuade Nathaniel Hancock, the
constable, to carry him before a magistrate. This refusal brought
_him_ into difficulty with Council; but his humble submission was
finally accepted and he was discharged on payment of costs, on the plea
that upon the change of the government there was no magistrate
authorized to commit him to prison. Not quite so fortunate was John
Wiswell, Jr., for on the third of August the grand jury found a true
bill against him for uttering "these devilish, unnatural, and wicked
words following, namely, _God curse King James_." That he was
brought to trial on this complaint I cannot find. And so the actors in
these scenes pass away. Of Bowden and Clarke I know nothing more; and
the little which appears of John Wiswell's subsequent life is not wholly
to his credit, I am sorry to say, and the more so, as I have recently
discovered that he was once a townsman of mine, and doubtless a playmate
of my kindred at Rumney Marsh.
These actors have all gone, and so has gone the old Town House; not so,
as yet, let us heartily thank God, has gone the old State House which
stands where that stood; on the one spot--if there is but one--which
ought to be dear to the heart of every Bostonian, and sacred from his
violating hand. For here, on the spot of that eastern balcony, looking
down into the old Puritan Forum, what epochs in our history have been
announced: the abrogation of the First Charter--the deposition of
Andros--the inauguration of the Second Charter--the death and accession
of English sovereigns--the Declaration of Independence, and the adoption
of the Constitution of the United States; and here still stands the
grandest historic edifice in America, and within it?--why add to the
hallowing words of old John Adams?--"Within its walls Liberty was born!"
* * * * *
ONE SUMMER. A REMINISCENCE.
BY ANNIE WENTWORTH BAER.
It was a beautiful morning in June. The sun was just peeping through the
pines fringing the eastern horizon; fleecy mists were rising, like
"ghosts of the valley," from every brook and low place in field and
pasture, betokening a warm, fair day. As I opened the heavy front door
of Mr. Wetherell's old gambrel-roofed house, and stepped out onto the
large flat stone at the door-sill, every blade of grass was glistening
with dew-drops; such a sweetness pervaded the air as one only realizes
when the dew is on the grass and bushes. At my right, close to the
door-stone, a large bush of southern-wood, or man's-first-love, was
growing; just beyond it and under the "middle-room" windows two large,
white-rose bushes were bending beneath the weight of a multitude of
roses and buds. A large yellow-rose bush claimed the left, and spread
itself over the ground. Single red roses were standing guard at the
corner of the house. A rod or more below the front door the garden fence
stood and looked as if it had been standing for many a year. It was made
of palings, pointed; I should think it was five feet high. The posts had
begun to lean into the garden and the palings were covered with a short
green moss, which seemed soft and growing in the dew. The old gate swung
itself to after me with a bang, and I noticed that a string with a brick
fastened to it and tied to the gate at one end, and twisted around a
stake driven into the ground a few feet from the gate, was the cause of
its closing so quickly. Red-cherry trees loaded with small green
cherries were growing on one side of the garden; purple-plum trees
skirted the other side; and I knew full well how two months later those
creased, mouldy-looking plums would be found hiding in the short, green
grass beneath the trees.
Peach-trees were leaning over the fence in the southeast corner; a long
row of red-currant bushes ran through the middle of the garden; English
gooseberry bushes threw out their prickly branches laden with round,
woolly fruit at the north end. Rows of hyssop, rue, saffron, and sage,
and beds of lettuce, pepper-grass, and cives, all had their place in
this old-fashioned garden. In the southwest corner an immense
black-currant bush was growing on both sides of the fence. Out in the
field below the garden two Bell-pear trees, as large as elms, were
bending their branches, loaded with fruit, a luscious promise for the
autumn-time. A button-pear tree, just beyond, was making up in quantity
what its fruit lacked in quality.
While I was exploring this well-cultivated spot, Mrs. Wetherell called
me to breakfast. The kitchen was a large room, running across one end of
the house; it had four windows in it, two east and two west. All this
space was filled with the fragrance of coffee and cornmeal bannocks.
Mrs. Wetherell said: "I don't know as you will like your coffee
sweetened in the pot, but I always make ours so."
I assured her I should.
During breakfast Mr. Wetherell passed me some cheese, and I asked Mrs.
Wetherell if she made cheese.
"Not this month," she replied, "in July and August I shall. I am packing
butter now."
"Do you think you are going to be contented back here?--you won't see as
much going on as you do at home," Mr. Wetherell asked me.
"O, yes," I answered; "I expect to enjoy myself very much."
Samanthy, the daughter, now well advanced in life, seemed very solemn
and said very little. I wondered if she were sick, or unhappy. A little
later in the day, while I was watching Mrs. Wetherell salt a churning of
butter in the back porch, she said to me: "You mustn't mind Samanthy,
she isn't quite right in her head: a good many years ago she had a sad
blow." She hesitated; I disliked to ask her what it was, so I said "Poor
woman!" "Yes," said her mother, "she is a poor soul. She was expecting
to be married to Eben Johnson, a young man who worked on our new barn.
She got acquainted with him then, and after a year or so they were
promised. Eben was a good fellow, a j'iner by trade. He lived in the
village. In the fall before they would have been married, in the spring,
he had typhoid fever, and they sent for Samanthy. She went and took care
of him three weeks, and then he died. She came home, and seemed like one
in a maze. After a little while she was took with the fever, and liked
to died, and my two girls, Margaret and Frances, both had it and died
with it. Samanthy has never been the same since she got well. Her health
has been good, but her mind is weak." I had noticed that Mrs. Wetherell
seemed very much broken in health and spirits, and after hearing this
story I did not wonder that the blows of Providence had weakened her
hold on life.
Samanthy was very shy of me at first, but after a few days she would
talk in her disjointed way with me.
One morning I was out in the well-house. The well was very deep, and by
leaning over the curb, and by putting one's arms around one's head, one
could see the stars mirrored in the bottom of the dark old well.
Samanthy came out for some water, while I was star-gazing in this way.
She said: "What you lost?"
"O, nothing. I am only looking at the stars."
Samanthy looked as if she thought I might be more profitably engaged. I
took hold of the handle of the windlass, swung off the great oaken
bucket, and watched it descend its often-traveled course, bumping
against the wet, slippery rocks with which the well was stoned.
Samanthy said: "You can't pull that up; it's heavy."
"Let me try," I said. "I never drew water with a windlass."
I had a much harder task than I supposed, but succeeded in swinging the
bucket onto the platform of the curb, and turned the water into
Samanthy's pail. I never asked permission to draw another bucketful.
I noticed below the well a large mound, grass-grown, with an apple-tree
growing on its very top. I wondered how it came there, and one day asked
Mr. Wetherell.
He said: "That's where we threw the rocks and gravel out of the well
fifty years ago; we never moved it. It grassed over, and the apple-tree
came up there; it bears a striped apple, crisp and sour."
I thought, What a freak of Nature! and I wished that many more piles of
rubbish might be transformed into such a pretty spot as this.
Below the mound stood the old hollow tree; its trunk was low and very
large, one side had rotted away, leaving it nearly hollow. Still there
was trunk enough left for the sap to run up; and every year it was
loaded with fruit.
Close by the path across the field to the road stood the Pang
apple-tree. This tree was named Pang because a dog by that name was
sleeping his last sleep beneath the tree. He was much beloved by the
family. I thought, What a pretty place to be buried in! and a living
monument to mark his grave. From the stories I heard of Pang, I know he
must have been a fine dog, and I should have liked to have known him.
Just back of the house stood the cider-house. At this season of the year
the wood for summer use was stored there, but in autumn all the
neighbors brought their apples, and ground them into cider. Samanthy
told me how she used to clean the cider nuts with a shingle; this was
when she was small.
She said: "A cousin of mine, living at Beech Ridge, got his arm caught
while cleaning the pummy out, and ground it all up. After that father
was afraid for we children to do it."