HOPE LESLIE:
OR,
EARLY TIMES
IN
THE MASSACHUSETTS.
BY
CATHARINE MARIA SEDGWICK
AUTHOR OF
“THE LINWOODS,” “POOR RICH MAN,” “LIVE AND LET
LIVE,” “REDWOOD,” &c.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
NEW-YORK:
HARPER & BROTHERS, 82 CLIFF-ST.
1842.
[COPYRIGHT.]
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1842, by
Harper & Brothers,
In the Clerk’s Office of the Southern District of New-York.
[EPIGRAPH.]
Here stood the Indian chieftain, rejoicing in his glory!
How deep the shade of sadness that rests upon his story:
For the white man came with power--like brethren they met--
But the Indian fires went out, and the Indian sun has set!
And the chieftain has departed--gone is his hunting-ground,
And the twanging of the bowstring is a forgotten sound:
Where dwelleth yesterday? and where is Echo’s cell?
Where has the rainbow vanished?--there does the Indian dwell.--E.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
NOTES
ENDNOTES
HOPE LESLIE,
VOLUME I.
{3}
CHAPTER I.
“Virtue may be assail’d, but never hurt,
Surprised by unjust force, but not enthrall’d;
Yea, even that which mischief meant most harm,
Shall in the happy trial prove most glory.”
Comus.
William Fletcher was the son of a respectable country gentleman of
Suffolk, in England, and the destined heir of his uncle, Sir William
Fletcher, an eminent lawyer, who had employed his talents with such
effective zeal and pliant principle, that he had won his way to
courtly favour and secured a courtly fortune.
Sir William had only one child--a daughter; and possessing the common
ambition of transmitting his name with his wealth, he selected his
nephew as the future husband of his daughter Alice.
“Take good heed,” Sir William thus expressed himself in a letter to
his brother, “take good heed that the boy be taught unquestioning and
unqualified loyalty to his sovereign--the Alpha and Omega of political
duty. These are times when every true subject has his price. Divers of
the leaders of the Commons are secret friends of the seditious,
mischief-brewing Puritans; and Buckingham himself is {4} suspected of
favouring their cabals; but this _sub rosa_--I burn not my fingers
with these matters. ‘He who meddleth with another man’s strifes,
taketh a dog by the ear,’ said the wisest man that ever lived; and he,
thank God, was a king. Caution Will against all vain speculation and
idle inquiries: there are those that are forever inquiring and
inquiring, and never coming to the truth. One inquiry should suffice
for a loyal subject: ‘What is established?’ and that being well
ascertained, the line of duty is so plain, that he who runs may read.
“I would that all our youths had inscribed on their hearts that golden
rule of political religion, framed and well maintained by our good
Queen Elizabeth, ‘No man should be suffered to decline, either on the
left or on the right hand, from the drawn line limited by authority,
and by the sovereign’s laws and injunctions.’
“Instead of such healthy maxims, our lads’ heads are crammed with the
philosophy, and rhetoric, and history of those liberty-loving Greeks
and Romans. This is the pernicious lore that has poisoned our
academical fountains. Liberty! what is it? Daughter of Disloyalty, and
mother of all misrule, who, from the hour that she tempted our first
parents to forfeit Paradise, hath ever worked mischief to our race.
“But, above all, brother, as you value the temporal salvation of your
boy, restrain him from all confederacy, association, or even
acquaintance with the Puritans. If my master took counsel of me, he
would ship these mad canting fools to our New-England {5} colonies,
where their tender consciences would be no more offended, because,
forsooth, a prelate saith his prayers in white vestments, and where
they might enjoy with the savages that primitive equality about which
they make such a pother. God forefend that our good lad William should
company with these misdoers! He must be narrowly watched; for, as I
hear, there is a neighbour of yours, one Winthrop (a notable
gentleman, too, as they say, but he doth grievously scandalize his
birth and breeding), who hath embraced these scurvy principles, and
doth magnify them with the authority of his birth and condition, and
hath much weight with the country. There is in Suffolk, too, as I am
told, one Eliot, a young zealot, a fanatical incendiary, who doth find
ample combustibles in the gossiping matrons, idle maidens, and lawless
youth who flock about him.
“These are dangerous neighbours; rouse yourself, brother; give over
your idle sporting with hawk and hound, and watch over this goodly
scion of ours--ours, I say; but I forewarn you, no daughter or guinea
of mine shall ever go to one who is infected with this spreading
plague.”
This letter was too explicit to be misunderstood; but, so far from
having the intended effect of awakening the caution of the expectant
of fortune, it rather stimulated the pride of the independent country
gentleman. He permitted his son to follow the bent of accident, or the
natural course of a serious, reflecting, and enthusiastic temper.
Winthrop, the {6} future governor of Massachusetts, was the counsellor
of young Fletcher, and Eliot, the “apostle of New-England,” his most
intimate friend. These were men selected of Heaven to achieve a great
work. In the quaint language of the time, “the Lord sifted three
nations for precious seed to sow the wilderness.”
There were interested persons who were not slow in conveying to Sir
William unfavourable reports of his nephew, and the young man received
a summons from his uncle, who hoped, by removing him from the infected
region, to rescue him from danger.
Sir William’s pride was gratified by the elegant appearance and
graceful deportment of his nephew, whom he had expected to see with
the “slovenly and lawyer-like carriage” that marked the scholars of
the times. The pliant courtier was struck with the lofty independence
of the youth, who from the first showed that neither frowns nor favour
would induce him to bow the knee to the idols Sir William had served.
There was something in this independence that awed the inferior mind
of the uncle. To him it was an unknown, mysterious power, which he
knew not how to approach, and almost despaired of subduing. However,
he was experienced in life, and had observed enough of human infirmity
to convince him that there was no human virtue that had not some weak,
some assailable point. Time and circumstances were not long in
developing the vulnerability of the nephew. Alice Fletcher had been
the companion of his childhood. They now met without any of the
reserve that often prevents an intimate intercourse {7} between young
persons, and proceeds from the consciousness of a susceptibility which
it would seem to deny.
The intercourse of the cousins was renewed with all the frankness and
artlessness of the sunny season of childish love and confidence. Alice
had been educated in retirement by her mother, whom she had recently
attended through a long and fatal illness. She had been almost the
exclusive object of her love, for there was little congeniality
between the father and daughter. The ties of nature may command all
dutiful observances, but they cannot control the affections. Alice was
deeply afflicted by her bereavement. Her cousin’s serious temper
harmonized with her sorrow, and nature and opportunity soon
indissolubly linked their hearts together.
Sir William perceived their growing attachment, and exulted in it;
for, as he fancied, it reduced his nephew to dependance on his will
and whims. He had never himself experienced the full strength of any
generous sentiment, but he had learned from observation that love was
a controlling passion, and he now most anxiously watched and promoted
the kindling of the flame, in the expectation that the fire would
subdue the principles of civil and religious liberty with which he had
but too well ascertained the mind of his nephew to be imbued.
He silently favoured the constant and exclusive intercourse of the
young people: he secretly contrived various modes of increasing their
mutual dependance; and, when he was certain their happiness {8} was
staked, he cast the die. He told his nephew that he perceived and
rejoiced in the mutual affection that had so naturally sprung up
between him and his daughter, and he confessed their union had been
the favourite object of his life; and said that he now heartily
accorded his consent to it, prescribing one condition only--but that
condition was unalterable. “You must abjure, William, in the presence
of witnesses,” he said, “the fanatical notions of liberty and religion
with which you have been infected; you must pledge yourself, by a
solemn oath, to unqualified obedience to the king, and adherence to
the Established Church: you shall have time enough for the
effervescence of your young blood. God send this fermentation may work
off all impurities. Nay, answer me not now. Take a day--a week--a
month for consideration; for on your decision depends fortune and
love, or the alternative, beggary and exile.”
If a pit had yawned beneath his feet and swallowed Alice from his
view, William Fletcher could not have been more shocked. He was
soul-stricken, as one who listens to a sentence of death. To his eye
the earth was shrouded in darkness; not an object of hope or pursuit
remained.
He had believed his uncle was aware of what he must deem his political
and religious delinquency; but he had never spoken to him on the
subject: he had treated him with marked favour, and he had so
evidently encouraged his attachment to his cousin that he had already
plighted his love to her, and received {9} her vows without fearing
that he had passed even the limit of strict prudence.
There was no accommodating flexibility in his principles; his fidelity
to what he deemed his duty could not have been subdued by the fires of
martyrdom, and he did not hesitate to sacrifice what was dearer than
life to it. He took the resolution at once to fly from the temptation
that, present, he dared not trust himself to resist.
“I shall not again see my Alice,” he said. “I have not courage to meet
her smiles; I have not strength to endure her tears.”
In aid of his resolution there came, most opportunely, a messenger
from his father, requiring his immediate presence. This afforded him a
pretext for his sudden departure from London. He left a few brief
lines for Alice, that expressed without explaining the sadness of his
heart.
His father died a few hours before he arrived at the paternal mansion.
He was thus released from his strongest natural tie. His mother had
been long dead; and he had neither brother nor sister. He inherited a
decent patrimony, sufficient at least to secure the independence of a
gentleman. He immediately repaired to Groton, to his friend Winthrop;
not that he should dictate his duty to him, but as one leans on the
arm of a friend when he finds his own strength scarcely sufficient to
support him.
Mr. Winthrop is well known to have been a man of the most tender
domestic affections and sympathies; {10} but he had then been long
married--and thrice married--and probably a little dimness had come
over his recollection of the enthusiasm of a first passion. When
Fletcher spoke of Alice’s unequalled loveliness, and of his own
unconquerable love, his friend listened as one listens to a tale he
has heard a hundred times, and seemed to regard the cruel
circumstances in which the ardent lover was placed only in the light
of a providential opportunity of making a sacrifice to the great and
good cause to which this future statesman had even then begun to
devote himself, as the sole object of his life. He treated his
friend’s sufferings as in their nature transient, and concluded by
saying, “the Lord hath prepared this fire, my friend, to temper your
faith, and you will come out of it the better prepared for your
spiritual warfare.”
Fletcher listened to him with stern resolution, like him who permits a
surgeon to probe a wound which he is himself certain is incurable.
Mr. Winthrop knew that a ship was appointed to sail from Southampton
in a few days for New-England. With that characteristic zeal which
then made all the intentions of Providence so obvious to the eye of
faith, and the interpretation of all the events of life so easy, Mr.
Winthrop assured his friend that the designs of Heaven in relation to
him were plain. He said, “There was a great call for such services as
he could render in the expedition just about to sail, and which was
like to fail for the want of them; and that now, like a faithful
servant {11} to the cause he had confessed, he must not look behind,
but press on to the things that were before.”
Fletcher obeyed the voice of Heaven.
This is no romantic fiction. Hundreds in that day resisted all that
solicits earthly passions, and sacrificed all that gratifies them to
the cause of God and of man--the cause of liberty and religion. This
cause was not to their eyes invested with any romantic attractions. It
was not assisted by the illusions of chivalry, nor magnified by the
spiritual power and renown of crusades. Our fathers neither had, nor
expected their reward on earth.
One severe duty remained to be performed. Fletcher must announce their
fate to Alice. He honoured her too much to believe she would have
permitted the sacrifice of his integrity, if he would have made it.
He, therefore, had nothing to excuse; nothing but to tell the terrible
truth; to try to reconcile her to her father; to express, for the last
time, his love, and to pray that he might receive, at Southampton, one
farewell line from her. Accompanying his letter to Alice was one to
Sir William, announcing the decision to resign his favour and exile
himself forever from England.
He arranged his affairs, and in a few days received notice that the
vessel was ready to sail. He repaired to Southampton; and as he was
quitting the inn to embark in the small boat that was to convey him to
the vessel, already in the offing, a voice from an inner apartment
pronounced his name, and at the next moment Alice was in his arms. She
gently {12} reproved him for having estimated her affection at so low
a rate as not to have anticipated that she should follow him and share
his destiny. It was more than could have been expected from man that
Fletcher should have opposed such a resolution. He had but a moment
for deliberation. Most of the passengers had already embarked; some
still lingered on the strand, protracting their last farewell to their
country and their friends. In the language of one of the most honoured
of these pilgrims, “Truly doleful was the sight of that sad and
mournful parting, to hear what sighs, and sobs, and prayers did sound
among them; what tears did gush from every eye, and pithy speeches
pierced each other’s hearts.”
With the weeping group Fletcher left Alice and her attendants, while
he went to the vessel to prepare for her suitable reception. He there
found a clergyman, and bespoke his holy offices to unite him to his
cousin immediately after their embarcation.
All the necessary arrangements were made, and he was returning to the
shore, his eye fixed on the lovely being whom he believed Heaven had
interposed to give to him, when he descried Sir William’s carriage,
guarded by a cavalcade of armed men, in the uniform of the king’s
guards, approaching the spot where she stood.
He comprehended at once their cruel purpose. He exhorted the boatmen
to put forth all their strength; he seized the oars himself--despair
gave him supernatural power--the boat shot forward with the velocity
of light; but all in vain! he only approached {13} near enough to the
shore to hear Alice’s last impotent cries to him; to see her beautiful
face convulsed with agony, and her arms outstretched towards him, when
she was forced to the carriage by her father, and driven from his
sight.
He leaped on the strand; he followed the troop with cries and
entreaties; but he was only answered by the coarse jeering and profane
jests of the soldiery.
Notice was soon given that the boat was ready to return to the ship
for the last time, and Fletcher, in a state of agitation and despair,
almost amounting to insanity, permitted it to return without him.
He went to London, and requested an interview with his uncle. The
request was granted, and a long and secret conference ensued. It was
known by the servants of the household that their mistress, Alice, had
been summoned by her father to this meeting, but what was said or done
did not transpire. Immediately after, Fletcher returned to Mr.
Winthrop’s, in Suffolk. The fixedness of despair was on his
countenance; but he said nothing, even to this confidential friend, of
the interview with his uncle. The particulars of the affair at
Southampton, which had already reached Suffolk, seemed sufficiently to
explain his misery.
In less than a fortnight he there received despatches from his uncle,
informing him that he had taken effectual measures to save himself
from a second conspiracy against the honour of his family; that his
daughter Alice had that day been led to {14} the altar by Charles
Leslie; and concluding with a polite hope that, though his voyage had
been interrupted, it might not be long deferred.
Alice had, indeed, in the imbecility of utter despair, submitted to
her father’s commands. It was intimated at the time, and reported for
many years after, that she had suffered a total alienation of mind. To
the world this was never contradicted, for she lived in absolute
retirement; but those who best knew could have attested that, if her
mind had departed from its beautiful temple, an angelic spirit had
entered in and possessed it.
William Fletcher was in a few months persuaded to unite himself with
an orphan girl, a ward of Mr. Winthrop, who had, in the eyes of the
elders, all the meek graces that befitted a godly maiden and dutiful
helpmate. Fletcher remained constant to his purpose of emigrating to
New-England, but he did not effect it till the year 1630, when he
embarked with his family and effects in the ship Arbella, with
Governor Winthrop, who then, for the first time, went to that land
where his name will ever be held in affectionate and honourable
remembrance.