11. p. 14), written in 1650, says: “Nor are Pipestaves and Clapboard
a despicable commodity, of which one man may with ease make fifteen
thousand yearely, which in the countrey itselfe are sold for 4 l. in
the _Canaries_ for twenty pound the thousand, and by this means the
labour of one man will yeeld him 60 l. _per annum_, at the lowest
Market.”
[289] Probably _Fraxinus Americana_, although two other species of Ash
are common in Massachusetts, the Red and the Black Ash (_F. pubescens_
and _sambucifolia_).
[290] It is interesting to note that, at this early day, two forms of
our one species of Beech were distinguished by the color of the wood,
a distinction which has often been adopted by Botanists and is still
considered by mechanics and woodsmen.
[291] This refers, no doubt, to our different species of Hickory,
although the Butternut (_Juglans cinerea_) is common in Massachusetts.
[292] Both the White and the Pitch Pine (_Pinus strobus_, and _rigida_)
are probably referred to.
[293] “For I have seene of these stately high growne trees, ten miles
together close by the River side, from whence by shipping they might
be conveyed to any desired Port.” (Wood’s _New England’s Prospect_, p.
15.)
[294] The Red Cedar (_Juniperus virginia_).
[295] This is clearly a contemptuous reference to Wood, who in his
_Prospect_ (p. 15) had said, “The Cedar tree is a tree of no great
growth, not bearing above a foote and a halfe square at the most,
neither is it very high. I suppose they be much inferiour to the Cedars
of _Lebenon_, so much commended in holy writ.”
[296] _Supra_, 173.
[297] The White Cedar (_Chamaecyparis thyoides_); or perhaps Arbor-Vitæ
(_Thuja occindentalis_), which is the “more bewtifull tree.”
[298] A misprint for Gerard, whose _Herball, or Generall Historie of
Plants_, was published in 1597, and Johnson’s edition of it in 1633.
[299] This probably includes both the Black Spruce (_Picea nigra_) and
the Hemlock (_Truga canadensis_).
[300] “Spruce is a goodly Tree, of which they make Masts for Ships,
and Sail Yards: It is generally conceived by those that have skill in
Building of Ships, that here is absolutely the best Trees in the World,
many of them being three Fathom about, and of great length.” (Josselyn,
_Rarities_, p. 63.) “At _Pascataway_ there is now a Spruce-tree brought
down to the water-side by our Mass-men of an incredible bigness, and so
long that no Skipper durst ever yet adventure to ship it, but there it
lyes and Rots.” (_Two Voyages_, p. 67.)
[301] [whether.] See _supra_, 111, _note_ 1.
[302] Probably the Sugar, Red and White Maples are intended: _Acer
saccharinum_, _rubrum_ and _dasycarpum_. It is singular that no
reference to the manufacture of maple sugar by the Indians occurs.
[303] (Elder) _Sambucus Canadensis_.
[304] Wood (_Prospect_, p. 15) says, “Two sorts, Red and White.” None
of our native Grape vines bear White grapes.
[305] _Supra_, 173.
[306] Perhaps our little Beach plum (_P. maritima_) is intended. The
wild American Plum-tree is probably not a native of Massachusetts,
although it was early cultivated by the aborigines and settlers.
[307] (_Sassafras officinale._)
[308] The Ginseng (_Aralia quinquefolia_), or the Wild Sarsaparilla
(_Aralia nudicaulis_).
[309] In Chapter IX. of this Book (_infra_, *94) Morton again refers to
the growth of hemp in New England, as evidence of the fertility of the
soil. He declares “that it shewteth up to be tenne foote high and tenne
foote and a halfe.” Thomas Wiggin, also, in writing of New England
in November, 1632, says: “As good hempe and fflax as in any parte of
the world, growes there naturally.” (III. _Mass. Hist. Coll._, vol.
viii. p. 322.) Hemp, however, is not native to New England or America.
That spoken of must have been grown from seed brought over by the
colonists. Morton may have seen it growing in garden soil at Plymouth
and Wessagusset, but that any field of it ever reached a height of ten
or ten and a half feet in eastern Massachusetts is very questionable.
[310] Professor Gray of Harvard University has furnished me the
following note on this chapter:--
“Unlike Josselyn, the author evidently was not an herbalist, and
wrote at random. His pot-marjoram, thyme and balm, though not to be
specifically identified, and none of them of the same species as in
England, must be represented by our American pennyroyal (_Hedeoma
pulegioides_), a native mint (_Mentha borealis_), wild basil
(_Pycnanthemum_), and a species of _Monarda_, sometimes called balm,
all sweet herbs of the New England coast. Alexander is hardly to
be guessed. Angelica as a genus occurs here, but not the officinal
species. Wild sarsaparilla (_Aralia nudicaulis_) was probably in view.
Purslane is interesting in this connection, adding as it does to the
probability that this plant was in the country before the settlement.
There are no Anniseeds in New England, and it is impossible to guess
what the author meant. It was probably a random statement founded
on nothing in particular. The Honeysuckles were doubtless the two
species of _Azalea_ to which the name is still applied.” Wood also says
(_Prospect_, pp. 11, 12), “There is likewise growing all manner of
Hearbes for meate and medicine, and not only in planted Gardens, but in
the woods, without either the art or helpe of man, as sweete Marjoram,
Purselane, Sorrell, Peneriall, Yarrow, Myrtle, Saxifarilla, Bayes, &c.”
See also Mr. Tuckerman’s introductory matter and notes, in his edition
of _New England’s Rarities_ [1865], and Professor Gray’s chapter (vol.
i. ch. ii.) on the Flora of Boston and vicinity, and the changes it has
undergone, in the _Memorial History of Boston_.
[311] For the greater part of the notes to this chapter, and for all
those of a technical character, I am indebted to Mr. William Brewster,
of Cambridge. To his notes I have added a few references to, and
extracts from, other early works more or less contemporaneous with the
_New Canaan_.
[312] Probably the Whistling Swan (_Cygnus Americanus_), now a rare
visitor to New England. Wood, also, in his poetical enumeration of
birds and fowls (_Prospect_, p. 23), speaks of
“The Silver Swan that tunes her mournfull breath,
To sing the dirge of her approaching death.”
Further on (p. 26) he says, “There be likewise many Swannes which
frequent the fresh ponds and rivers, seldome consorting themselves with
Duckes and Geese; these be very good meate, the price of one is six
shillings.” In his enumeration of birds of New England, Josselyn (_Two
Voyages_, p. 100) mentions “_Hookers_ or wild-_Swans_.” This bird is
not included in Peabody’s _Report on the Ornithol. of Massachusetts_
(1839).
[313] The Brant (_Bernicla brenta_), common at the present day.
[314] The Snow Goose (_Anser hyperboreus_), now rare in New England,
although common throughout the West.
[315] The Canada Goose (_Bernicla Canadensis_).
[316] The Black Duck (_Anas obscura_), still abundant. The identity
of the other two is doubtful: the Pide Duck may have been the Pied or
Labrador Duck (_Camptolæmus Labradorius_), a species formerly common
but now nearly if not wholly extinct; the Gray Duck is probably the
Pintail (_Dafila acuta_).
[317] The Green-winged Teal (_Querquedula Carolinensis_) and the
Blue-winged Teal (_Querquedula discors_), both noted for the delicacy
of their flesh.
[318] Probably the American Widgeon, or Baldpate (_Mareca Americana_).
The name Widgeon is sometimes applied to other species, however.
[319] Probably some species of web-footed bird, but exactly what is not
clear. Mr. Merriam, in his _Review of the Birds of Connecticut_ (pp.
104-5), identifies Morton’s Simpe as the American Woodcock (_Philohela
minor_), but in this he is doubtless in error. In the first place,
it is not likely that a keen sportsman like Morton would have shot
woodcock merely out of curiosity, and “more did not regard them;” in
the second place, Josselyn, in enumerating the different sorts of
ducks, speaks of “_Widgeons_, _Simps_, _Teal_, Blew wing’d and green
wing’d.” (_Two Voyages_, p. 101.) But for the reference in the next
paragraph in the text, and the disparaging manner in which the bird in
question is alluded to, it would be inferred that Simpes was a natural
misprint for Snipes. That, however, is clearly not the case.
[320] The Sanderling (_Calidris arenaria_), a common Sandpiper,
peculiar in lacking the usual hind toe. The context indicates that
other shore birds were included under this name. “There are little
Birds that frequent the Sea-shore in flocks called _Sanderlins_, they
are about the bigness of a _Sparrow_, and in the fall of the leaf will
be all fat; when I was first in the Countrie the _English_ cut them
into small pieces to put into their Puddings instead of suet. I have
known twelve score and above kill’d at two shots.” (Josselyn’s _Two
Voyages_, p. 102.) To precisely the same effect Wood says (_Prospect_,
p. 27), “I myselfe have killed twelve score at two shootes.”
[321] Neither the Whooping Crane (_Grus Americana_) nor the Sandhill
Crane (_Grus pratensis_) is now found in New England. The latter
is probably the species referred to here. Our large Heron (_Ardea
herodias_) is often called Crane by country people, but it does not eat
corn, and “in a dishe” would hardly be considered “a goodly bird.”
[322] The Wild Turkey (_Meleagris gallipavo Americana_) is mentioned by
all the early writers as an abundant bird; but it disappeared almost as
rapidly as the Indians, before the encroachment of the white settlers.
Peabody, writing in 1839 (_Report on the Fishes, Reptiles, and Birds of
Massachusetts_, p. 352), says: “It is still found occasionally in our
western mountains, and also on the Holyoke range, where some are taken
every year.” Its total extinction probably occurred only a few years
later.
[323] Probably an exaggeration, although Audubon mentions one that
weighed thirty-six pounds; the ordinary weight of the full-grown male
is from fifteen to twenty pounds, a gobbler weighing twenty-five pounds
being an unusually large bird. Yet Morton’s statement is fully borne
out by other contemporary authorities. Wood says, “The Turky is a very
large bird, of a blacke colour, yet white in flesh; much bigger then
our English Turky. He hath the use of his long legs so ready, that he
can runne as fast as a Dogge, and flye as well as a Goose: of these
sometimes there will be forty, three-score and an hundred of a flocke,
sometimes more and sometimes lesse; their feeding is Acorns, Hawes, and
Berries, some of them get a haunt to frequent our _English_ corne: In
Winter when the Snow covers the ground, they resort to the Sea-shore
to looke for Shrimps, and such small fishes at low tides. Such as love
Turkie hunting must follow it in Winter after a new falne Snow, when
he may follow them by their tracts; some have killed ten or a dozen
in halfe a day; if they can be found towards an evening, and watched
where they peirch, if one came about ten or eleaven of the clocke,
he may shoote as often as he will, they will sit, unlesse they be
slenderly wounded. These Turkies remain all the yeare long. The price
of a good Turkie cocke is foure shillings: and he is well worth it, for
he may be in weight forty pound; a Hen two shillings.” (_New England’s
Prospect_, p. 24.) So also Josselyn: “I have heard several credible
persons affirm, they have seen _Turkie Cocks_ that have weighed forty,
yea sixty pounds; but out of my personal experimental knowledge I
can assure you, that I have eaten my share of a _Turkie Cock_, that
when he was pull’d and garbidg’d, weighed thirty pound.” He adds,
however, that even then [1670] “the _English_ and the _Indians_ having
now destroyed the breed, so that ’tis very rare to meet with a wild
_Turkie_ in the Woods.” (_New England’s Rarities_, p. 9.) See also _Two
Voyages_, p. 99, where the same writer says: “If you would preserve the
young Chickens alive, you must give them no water, for if they come to
have their fill of water, they will drop away strangely, and you will
never be able to rear any of them.” John Clayton, in his _Letter to
the Royal Society_ [1688], says of Virginia: “There be wild Turkies
extream large; they talk of Turkies that have been kill’d, that have
weigh’d betwixt 50 and 60 Pound weight; the largest that ever I saw,
weigh’d something better than 38 Pound.” (III. _Force’s Tracts_, No.
12, p. 30.) Williams, in his _Virginia_ [1650], speaks of “infinites
of wilde Turkeyes, which have been knowne to weigh fifty pound weight,
ordinarily forty.” (III. _Force’s Tracts_, No. 11, p. 12.) See also
Strachey’s _Historie_, p. 125; Young’s _Chron. of Mass._, p. 253.
[324] In regard to this expression Mr. Trumbull writes: “_Metawna_
is _mittànnug_ (R. Williams), _muttannunk_ (Eliot),--Englished by ‘a
thousand;’ but to the Indians less definite, ‘a great many,’ more
than he could count. _Neent_ is possibly a misprint for _necut_
(_nequt_, Eliot), ‘one,’--but, more likely, stands for ‘I have,’ or its
equivalent, ‘there is to me.’ Roger Williams (p. 164) puts the numeral
first, _nneesnneánna_, ‘I have killed two,’--_shwinneánna_, [‘I have
killed] three,’” &c.
[325] The Pheasant of Morton and other early writers has been
supposed by ornithologists to be the Prairie Hen or Pinnated Grouse
(_Cupidonia cupido_), a species which, however, has dark not “white
flesh,”--“formerly ... so common on the ancient busky site of the city
of Boston, that laboring people or servants stipulated with their
employers, not to have the _Heath-Hen_ brought to table oftener then
a few times in the week.” (Nuttall’s _Ornithology_, vol. i. p. 800.)
There is good evidence that this bird once ranged over a large part of
Southern New England; it is still found on Martha’s Vineyard, where it
is carefully protected and is not uncommon. Elsewhere it does not now
occur much to the eastward of Illinois.
[326] The Ruffed Grouse (_Bonasa umbella_).
[327] The American Partridge, Quail, or Bob White (_Ortyx Virginiana_).
[328] Of doubtful application. Our Horned Lark (_Eremophila alpestris_)
is the nearest North American ally of the English Skylark, but it is
so differently colored that Morton probably had in mind some other
species, perhaps the Titlark (_Anthus ludovicianus_).
[329] Three species of Crows are found in New England: the Raven
(_Corvus carnivorus_), now confined to the northern parts of Maine,
New Hampshire, and Vermont; the Common Crow (_Corvus Americanus_);
and the Fish Crow (_Corvus ossifragus_), which occasionally wanders
to Massachusetts from its true home in the Middle and Southern
States. The latter may have been the Rook. “Kight” is a dubious
appellation, possibly referring to the Swallow-tailed Kite (_Nauclerus
furcatus_), now a rare straggler from the South, but formerly, as some
ornithologists believe, of regular occurrence in New England.
[330] The descriptions given for these Hawks are too vague to be of
much use in determining species. A clew is often furnished by familiar
terms of falconry, which, we may assume, would be naturally applied
to American representatives of Old World forms. Morton, however,
uses these terms very loosely, or, perhaps, with a regard to fine
distinctions of meaning not now understood. In such a case nothing can
be done beyond pointing out their accepted significance and probable
application.
[331] The male of _Falco lanarius_, a Falcon found in the southern
and south-eastern parts of Europe, as well as in Western Asia and the
adjoining portions of Africa. An American variety, the Prairie Falcon
(_Falco lanarius polyagrus_), has a wide range in the West, but is not
known to have occurred to the eastward of Illinois. The bird referred
to by Morton is doubtless the Duck Hawk (_Falco peregrinus_), an allied
species not uncommon in New England.
[332] In the records of the Council for New England, under date of
the 26th of November, 1635, or about the time that Morton was writing
the _New Canaan_, is the following entry: “The Hawks brought over by
Capt. Smart are to be presented to his Majesty on Saturday next, by
the Lords of those Provinces. And the said Captain to be recommended
to his Majestys service upon occasion of employments for his care and
industry used to bring them over, and for other his services done in
those parts.”
[333] The Cockchafer.
[334] _I. e._, like the Buzzard-Hawks of the genus _Buteo_, a sluggish
tribe of _Raptores_.
[335] Properly of general application to the genus _Falco_; if used
specifically here there is no clew to its precise meaning.
[336] Usually written _tercel_, and sometimes _tiercel_ or _tiërcel_.
The male of any hawk, so termed because he is a third smaller than the
female, or, as some have thought, because it was believed that every
third bird hatched was a male. The name, as used in falconry, almost
always refers to the male Goshawk (_Astur palumbarius_), while with the
addition of _gentil_, or _gentle_, it indicated the female or young of
this species. The bird alluded to here is probably the American Goshawk
(_Astur atricapillus_).
[337] The American Sparrow Hawk (_Falco sparverius_), a small and
richly colored Falcon, would be likely to be used for such a purpose.
[338] If not applied to the male Goshawk (see note on “tassel
gentles”), perhaps referring to Hawks of the genus _Buteo_, represented
in New England by three species, _Buteo borealis_, _B. lineatus_ and
_B. Pennsylvanicus_.
[339] If Morton always uses _tassel_ in its commonly accepted sense
(see preceding notes), another application must be sought for the
present name. The accompanying text may relate to the Marsh Hawk
(_Circus cyaneus Hudsonius_), the adult male of which is our whitest
New England Hawk, and the young or female perhaps the reddest. The
Marsh Hawk does not prey on full-grown poultry, but it may have been
credited with depredations committed by other species, a piece of
injustice by no means uncommon at the present day.
[340] The Pigeon Hawk (_Falco columbarius_) is the New England
representative of the European Merlin (_Falco regulus_).
[341] Probably the Crow Blackbird (_Quiscalus purpureus æneus_).
[342] The Sharp-shinned Hawk (_Accipiter fuscus_), a common New England
species closely allied to the European Sparrow Hawk (_Accipiter
nisus_). Our Cooper’s Hawk (_Accipiter cooperi_) also may be referred
to under this name.
[343] The Ruby-throated Humming-bird (_Trochilus colubris_), our only
New England species. The Humming-birds are peculiar to the New World;
hence the wonder and interest with which they were regarded by the
early explorers and colonists. There is a letter from Emanuel Downing
to John Winthrop, Jr., of the 21st of November, 1632, in which is this
paragraph: “You have a litle bird in your contrie that makes a humminge
noyse, a little bigger then a bee, I pray send me one of them over,
perfect in his fethers, in a little box.” (IV. _Mass. Hist. Coll._,
vol. vi. p. 40^e.) There are many descriptions of this bird in the
earlier writers, though none that I have found so early as Downing’s
letter. Wood says: “The Humbird is one of the wonders of the Countrey,
being no bigger than a Hornet, yet hath all the dimensions of a Bird,
as bill and wings, with quils, Spider-like legges, small clawes: For
colour, shee is glorious as the Raine-bow; as shee flies, shee makes
a little humming noise like a humble bee: wherefore she is called the
Humbird.” (_New England’s Prospect_, p. 24.) Josselyn’s description
is especially good: “The _Humming Bird_, the least of all Birds,
little bigger than a _Dor_, of variable glittering Colours, they feed
upon Honey, which they suck out of Blossoms and Flowers with their
long Needle-like Bills; they sleep all Winter, and are not to be seen
till the Spring, at which time they breed in little Nests, made up
like a bottom of soft, Silk-like matter, their Eggs no bigger than a
white Pease, they hatch three or four at a time, and are proper to
this Country.” (_New England’s Rarities_, p. 6.) See also Clayton’s
_Letter_, &c. (III. _Force’s Tracts_, No. 12, p. 33).
[344] For all the technical and scientific notes to this chapter I am
indebted to Mr. Joel A. Allen, of the Museum of Comparative Zoölogy of
Harvard College. To the matter contributed by him I have merely added,
as in the immediately preceding chapters, extracts from other writers,
more or less contemporaneous with Morton, which seemed to me to be
illustrative of the text, or in the same spirit with it. This chapter
of Morton’s is more complete, though probably of less value, than
Wood’s and Josselyn’s chapters on the same subject.
[345] The _Elke_ here mentioned is the Moose (_Alces malchis_) of
American writers; it is specifically the same as the elk of Northern
Europe. From Wood’s account (_New England’s Prospect_, p. 18), it would
seem that the moose in Morton’s time ranged into eastern Massachusetts,
though not found now south of northern Maine. The moose has but a
single fawn at a birth, not three as stated in the text.
Mr. Allen then adds to the above note: “I have met with no published
record of the occurrence of the American Elk, or Wapiti Deer (_Cervus
Canadensis_), in eastern Massachusetts. Since publishing a statement
to this effect (_Mem. Hist. Boston_, vol. i. p. 10), however, I have
learned through the kindness of a correspondent (Henry S. Nourse,
Esq., of South Lancaster, Mass.,) that early in the eighteenth century
sixteen elk were seen near a brook in South Lancaster, one of which
was killed. The tradition is supported by the fact that the antlers of
the individual killed were preserved in the family of the lucky hunter
(Jonas Fairbanks) for a long period, and afterwards placed on the top
of a guide-board, where they still remain, moss-grown and weather-worn
by eighty years of sun and storm. Since the receipt of Mr. Nourse’s
letter (dated Feb. 25, 1882), his account has been corroborated by
information from another source. That the antlers mentioned belonged to
an elk and not to a moose is beyond question.”
[346] “The _English_ have some thoughts of keeping them tame, and to
accustome them to the yoake, which will be a great commoditie: First,
because they are so fruitfull, bringing forth three at a time, being
likewise very uberous. Secondly, because they will live in Winter
without any fodder. There be not many of these in the _Massachusetts
Bay_, but forty miles to the Northeast there be great store of them.”
(_New England’s Prospect_, p. 18.) There are very good descriptions of
the Moose, and the methods pursued in hunting them, in Gorges’s _Brief
Relation_ (II. _Mass. Hist. Coll._, vol. ix. p. 18) and in Josselyn’s
_Two Voyages_, (pp. 88, 137). See, also, _New England’s Rarities_, p.
19.
[347] The common Virginian Deer (_Cariacus Virginianus_), formerly more
or less abundant throughout the eastern half of the United States.
[348] The number of fawns produced at a birth is commonly two,
sometimes one, and still more rarely three; although three is stated
to be the usual number in various seventeenth-century accounts of the
natural productions of New England, Virginia, &c.
[349] Mourt, in his _Relation_ (p. 8), records how Governor William
Bradford, of Plymouth, was caught in one of these traps, and “horsed up
by the leg,” when the first party from the _Mayflower_ was exploring
Cape Cod in November, 1620. Wood says: “An _English_ Mare being strayed
from her owner, and growne wild by her long sojourning in the woods
ranging up and down with the wild crew, stumbled into one of these
traps which stopt her speed, hanging her like _Mahomet’s_ tombe,
betwixt earth and heaven; the morning being come the _Indians_ went to
looke what good successe their Venison trapps had brought them, but
seeing such a long scutted Deere, praunce in their Meritotter, they
bade her good morrow, crying out, what cheere what cheere, _Englishmans
squaw_ horse; having no better epithete than to call her a woman horse,
but being loath to kill her, and as fearefull to approach neere the
friscadoes of her Iron heeles, they posted to the _English_ to tell
them how the case stood or hung with their squaw horse, who unhorsed
their Mare, and brought her to her former tamenesse, which since hath
brought many a good foale, and performed much good service.” (_New
England’s Prospect_, p. 75.) Williams, in his _Key_ (ch. xxvii.),
describes how the deer caught in these traps were torn and devoured
by wolves before the Indians came to secure them. See, also, Colonel
Norwood’s _Voyage to Virginia_. (III. _Force’s Tracts_, No. 10, p. 39.)
[350] _Wesil_, obsolete for _weasand_.
[351] The “third sort of Deere,” of which the author evidently had no
personal knowledge, is doubtless a myth, as the Virginia Deer is the
only species of small deer found in the United States, _south_ of New
England, east of the Mississippi River. The statement that it is “lesse
then the other” (_i. e._ Virginian Deer), together with the southern
habitat assigned it, preclude reference to the Caribou of northern New
England, which the name “rayne deare” otherwise suggests.
[352] “They desire to be neare the Sea, so that they may swimme to
the Islands when they are chased by the Woolves.” (_New England’s
Prospect_, p. 18.) Deer Island is consequently a very common name along
the New England coast; and of the island bearing that name in Boston
harbor, now the site of the city reformatory institutions, Wood says:
“This Iland is so called, because of the Deare which often swimme
thither from the Maine, when they are chased by the woolves: some have
killed sixteene Deere in a day upon this Iland.” Young’s _Chron. of
Mass._, p. 405. See, also, Shurtleff’s _Description of Boston_, p. 464.
[353] The Beaver (_Castor fiber_). The account of the way “they draw
the logg to the habitation appoynted” is a fanciful exaggeration,
hardly less ridiculous than the preceding statement about the
precaution the animal takes in winter to preserve his tail!
_Cunny_, mentioned in the first paragraph, is doubtless a
seventeenth-century barbarism for _cony_, a name at this time commonly
applied to the rabbit. The context, both here and in the account of
the _muskewashe_, seems to imply this, although the word is correctly
written _cony_ in the paragraph relating to Hares. In some of the early
accounts of Virginia, published in the first half of the seventeenth
century, _hares_ and _cunnies_ are enumerated in the lists of animals,
where the latter name evidently means _cony_ or _rabbit_. _Serat_, in
the same paragraph, is a term of much greater obscurity of application.
[354] “The tail, as I have said in another Treatise, is very fat and
of a masculine vertue, as good as _Eringo’s_ or _Satyrion_-Roots.”
(Josselyn’s _Two Voyages_, p. 93.)
[355] Bradford, writing of the year 1636, gives the following prices:
“The coat beaver usualy at 20_s._ per pound, and some at 24_s._; the
skin at 15 and sometimes 16. I doe not remember any under 14. It may
be the last year might be something lower” (p. 346). In 1671 Josselyn
says: “A black Bears Skin heretofore was worth forty shillings, now you
may have one for ten.” (_Rarities_, p. 14.) The following prices were
named as ruling in Virginia in 1650; (III. _Force’s Tracts_, No. 11, p.
52.)
“Sables, from 8_s._ the payre, to 20_s._ a payre.
“Otter skins, from 3_s._ to 5_s._ a piece.
“Luzernes, from 2_s._ to 10. a piece.
“Martins the best, 4_s._ a piece.
“Fox skins, 6_d._ a piece.
“Muske Rats skins, 2_s._ a dozen.
“Bever skins that are full growne, in season, are worth 7_s._ a piece.
“Bever skins, not in season, to allow two skins for one, and of the
lesser, three for one.
“Old Bever skins in mantles, gloves or caps, the more worne the better,
so they be full of fur, the pound weight is 6_s._” See _infra_, 207,
_note_ 4, and also *80.
[356] The servant here referred to was probably Walter Bagnall, of
Richmond Island, who was killed by Indians, Oct. 3, 1631. See _infra_,
218, _note_ 1.
[357] The common Otter (_Lutra Canadensis_), now of rare occurrence in
the more settled parts of southern New England.
[358] The _Luseran_, or _Luseret_, is the Bay Lynx, or Wild-cat (_Lynx
rufus_).
“The Ounce or the wild Cat, is as big as a mungrell dogge; this
creature is by nature feirce, and more dangerous to bee met withall
than any other creature, not feering either dogge or man; he useth to
kill Deere which he thus effecteth: Knowing the Deeres tracts, he will
lie lurking in long weedes, the Deere passing by he suddenly leapes
upon his backe, from thence gets to his necke, and scratcheth out his
throate: he hath likewise a devise to get Geese, for being much of the
colour of a Goose, he will place himselfe close by the water, holding
up his bob taile, which is like a Goose necke; the Geese seeing this
counterfeiting Goose, approch nigh to visit him, who with a sudden
jerke apprehends his mistrustlesse prey.” (_New England’s Prospect_,
pp. 19, 20.) Josselyn says: “I once found six whole Ducks in the belly
of one I killed by a Pond side.” (_Rarities_, p. 16.)
[359] The _Martin_. Under this name are doubtless confounded the
Marten (_Mustela Americana_) and the Fisher (_M. Pennanti_). The size,
however, even in case the Fisher alone were referred to, is greatly
overstated.
[360] The _Racowne_ is the common well-known Raccoon (_Procyon lotor_).
[361] Josselyn says of the Raccoon: “their grease is soveraign for
wounds with bruises, aches, streins, bruises; and to anoint after
broken bones and dislocations.” (_Two Voyages_, p. 85.) A little
further on (p. 92) he notes: “One Mr. _Purchase_ cured himself of the
_Sciatica_ with _Bears_-greese, keeping some of it continually in his
groine.”
[362] The _Redd Fox_ is our common Red Fox (_Vulpes vulgaris_,
var. _Pennsylvanicus_). The _Gray Fox_ is doubtless the Virginian
or Gray Fox (_Urocyon cinereoargentatus_) of the South and West,
an animal formerly occurring in New England but long since nearly
extirpated. This is inferred from Josselyn’s account of the _Jaccal_
(_New England’s Rarities_, p. 22), rather than from any clew given
in Morton’s text. The absence of strong scent referred to relates
to the Gray Fox, a character mentioned by Josselyn in his brief but
sufficiently explicit description of his Jaccal.
[363] “The Indians say they have black foxes, which they have often
seen, but never could take any of them. They say they are Manittóoes,
that is Gods, spirits, or divine powers, as they say of every thing
which they cannot comprehend.” (Williams’s _Key_, ch. xvii.) The black
fox-skin, Josselyn says (_Rarities_, p. 21), “heretofore was wont to be
valued at fifty and sixty pound, but now you may have them for twenty
shillings; indeed there is not any in _New England_ that are perfectly
black, but silver hair’d, that is sprinkled with gray hairs.” The black
wolf’s skin, he says (_ib._ p. 16), “is worth a _Beaver_ Skin among the
_Indians_, being highly esteemed for helping old Aches in old people,
worn as a Coat.” Of the foxes Wood remarks: “Some of these be blacke;
their furre is of much esteeme.” (_Prospect_, p. 19.) Elsewhere he says
that the fur of a black wolf was “worth five or sixe pounds Sterling.”
(_Ib._ 20.)
See, also, _supra_, 205, _note_ 2.
[364] The _Wolf_ is the large Gray Wolf (_Canis lupus_), formerly
abundant throughout New England, and well known to vary in color as
mentioned by Morton.
[365] “They be made much like a Mungrell, being big boned, lanke
paunched, deepe breasted, having a thicke necke and head, pricke
eares, and long snoute, with dangerous teeth, long staring haire, and
a great bush taile.... It is observed that they have no joynts from
their head to the taile, which prevents them from leaping or sudden
turning.” (_New England’s Prospect_, p. 20.) See Josselyn’s _Rarities_,
p. 14, and _Two Voyages_, p. 83. He says: “They commonly go in routs,
a rout of Wolves is 12 or more, sometimes by couples.” Of the Virginia
species, Clayton says: “Wolves there are great store; you may hear a
Company Hunting in an Evening, and yelping like a pack of Beagles;
but they are very cowardly, and dare scarce venture on anything that
faces them; yet if hungry will pull down a good large Sheep that flies
from them. I never heard that any of them adventured to set on Man or
Child.” (III. _Force’s Tracts_, No. 12, p. 37.) According to Strachey,
these Virginia wolves were “not much bigger then English foxes.”
(_Historie_, p. 125.) Wood, however, says that the Massachusetts wolves
cared “no more for an ordinary Mastiffe, than an ordinary Mastiffe
cares for a Curre; many good dogges have been spoyled by them.” Shortly
after the landing from the _Mayflower_ at Plymouth, John Goodman,
one evening in January, “went abroad to use his lame feet, that were
pitifully ill with the cold he had got, having a little spaniel with
him. A little way from the plantation two great wolves ran after the
dog; the dog ran to him and betwixt his legs for succour. He had
nothing in his hand, but took up a stick and threw at one of them and
hit him, and they presently ran both away, but came again. He got a
pale-board in his hand; and they set both on their tails grinning at
him a good while; and went their way and left him.” (Young’s _Chron. of
Pilg._, p. 178.)
[366] _Supra_, 205, _note_ 2, and 207, _note_ 4.
[367] The common Black Bear (_Ursus Americanus_).
[368] “For Beares they be common, being a great black kind of Beare,
which be most fierce in Strawberry time, at which time they have young
ones; at this time likewise they will goe upright like a man, and clime
trees, and swim to the Islands: which if the _Indians_ see, there
will be more sportful Beare bayting than Paris Garden can afford. For
seeing the Beares take water, an _Indian_ will leape after him, where
they goe to water cuffes for bloody noses, and scratched sides; in the
end the man gets the victory, riding the Beare over the watery plaine
till he can beare him no longer.” (_New England’s Prospect_, p. 17.)
“He makes his Denn amongst thick Bushes, thrusting in here and there
store of _moss_, which being covered with snow and melting in the
daytime with heat of the Sun, in the night is frozen into a thick coat
of Ice; the mouth of his Den is very narrow, here they lye single,
never two in a Den all winter. The _Indian_ as soon as he finds them,
creeps in upon all four, seizes with his left hand upon the neck of
the sleeping _Bear_, drags him to the mouth of the Den, where with a
club or small hatchet in his right hand he knocks out his brains before
he can open his eyes to see his enemy.” (_Two Voyages_, p. 91.) Wood
adds that bear’s flesh was “accounted very good meete, esteemed of
all men above Venison.” Clayton says that “their flesh is commended
for a very rich sort of Pork.” (_Virginia_, III. _Force’s Tracts_ No.
12, p. 37.) “Beares there be manie towardes the sea-coast, which the
Indians hunt most greedily; for indeed they love them above all other
their flesh, and therefore hardly sell any of them unto us, unles upon
large proffers of copper, beads and hatchetts. We have eaten of them,
and they are very toothsome sweet venison, as good to be eaten as the
flesh of a calfe of two yeares old; howbeit they are very little in
comparison of those of Muscovia and Tartaria.” (Strachey’s _Historie_,
p. 123.) See, also, Josselyn’s _New England’s Rarities_, pp. 13-14, and
_Two Voyages_, pp. 91-2.
[369] The well-known Muskrat or Musquash (_Fiber zibethicus_) of our
ponds. The “stones” are the oder glands. In respect to _Cunny_, see
_supra_ 204, _note_ 2.
[370] The _Porcupine_ is the Canadian Porcupine (_Erethizon dorsatus_).
[371] The _Hedgehogg_ is the same as the Porcupine, the author being
in error in regarding it as “of the like nature to our English
Hedgehoggs.” The English Hedgehog belongs to a very different order of
mammals, and has no representative in America.
[372] The _Conyes_ are Hares, the small ones of the “Southerne parts”
being the little Gray Hare or Wood Rabbit (_Lepus sylvaticus_) of
southern New England. Those of “the North” are the Varying Hare (_Lepus
Americanus_), or White Rabbit, which is brown in summer and white in
winter. The reference to _black_ ones is an error, wild black hares
being unknown except in cases of Melanism, which are of extremely rare
occurrence. We have no _species_ of hare which is black. Rabbit, it may
be added, is a name not strictly applicable to any indigenous mammal of
America, it being the vernacular specific designation of an Old World
species of hare.
[373] The “_Squirils_ of three sorts” are (1) the Gray Squirrel
(_Sciurus Carolinensis_); (2) the Red Squirrel, or Chickaree (_S.
Hudsonius_); (3) the Flying Squirrel (_Sciuropterus volucellus_). A
fourth kind, the Striped Squirrel, or Chipmunk (_Tamias striatus_) is
not mentioned. The “batlike winges” are of course neither batlike, nor
even wings at all, but merely a narrow furred membrane extending along
the sides of the body, from the fore to the hind limbs.
[374] [and] See _supra_, 111, _note_ 1.
[375] “1639. _May_, which fell out to be extream hot and foggie, about
the middle of _May_, I kill’d within a stones throw of our house, above
four score Snakes, some of them as big as the small of my leg, black
of colour, and three yards long, with a sharp horn on the tip of their
tail two inches in length.” (Josselyn’s _Two Voyages_, pp. 22-3.)
[376] Mr. J. H. Trumbull writes: “Morton’s _ascowke_ is Eliot’s
_askook_, R. Williams’s _askùg_, ‘a snake.’ In Zeifberger’s Delaware,
_achgook_; whence (through Heckewelder) Cooper’s _Chingachgook_, ‘the
Great Serpent,’ in the _Last of the Mohicans_.”
[377] Williams, in his _Key_, gives the name as _Sések_. See, also,
Mr. Trumbull’s note in his edition of the _Key_ (p. 130), in the
publications of the Narragansett Society. Wood gives it as _seasicke_.
(_Prospect_, p. 86.)
[378] The stories first told in Europe of the Rattlesnake (_Crotalus
durissus_) were of the most exaggerated kind. He was described as a
reptile of prodigious size, which could fly, and which poisoned by
its breath. (_New England’s Prospect_, p. 39.) The first mention of
this snake in Massachusetts is found in Higginson’s _New England’s
Plantation_ [1630]. It is as follows: “This country being very full of
woods and wildernesses, doth also much abound with snakes and serpents,
of strange colors and huge greatness. Yea, there are some serpents,
called rattlesnakes, that have rattles in their tails, that will not
fly from a man as others will, but will fly upon him and sting him so
mortally that he will die within a quarter of an hour after, except
the party stinged have about him some of the root of an herb called
snake-weed to bite on, and then he shall receive no harm.” (Young’s
_Chron. of Mass._, p. 255.) Wood gives an admirable description of the
rattlesnake (_Prospect_, pp. 38-9), and also speaks of “the Antidote
to expel the poyson, which is a root caled Snake weede, which must
be champed, the spittle swallowed, and the roote applied to the
sore.... Five or six men have been bitten by them, which by using of
snakeweede were all cured, never any yet losing his life by them.”
Josselyn, in his _Rarities_ (p. 39), says: “The _Indians_ when weary
with travelling, will take them up with their bare hands, laying hold
with one hand behind their Head, with the other taking hold of their
Tail, and with their teeth tear off the Skin of their backs, and feed
upon them alive; which they say refresheth them.” He further says that
the heart of the rattlesnake “swallowed fresh” (_Rarities_, p. 39),
or “dried and pulverized and drunk with wine or beer” (_Voyages_, p.
114), is an antidote against its poison. In Clayton’s _Virginia_ (III.
_Force’s Tracts_, No. 12, p. 39), there is a very entertaining passage,
too long to extract, on Rattlesnakes, and the use of East India
snake-stones “that were sent [to Virginia] by King _James_ the Second,
the Queen, and some of the Nobility, purposely to try their Virtue and
Efficacy,” at curing the bite of vipers, &c.
[379] The _Mice_, which our author found in “good store,” belong
chiefly to three species,--namely, the common short-tailed Meadow
Mouse (_Arvicola riparius_), the White-footed Mouse, or Deer Mouse
(_Hesperomys leucopus_), and the Long-tailed Jumping Mouse, or Kangaroo
Mouse (_Zapus Hudsonius_). The common House Mouse (_Mus musculus_)
is an exotic pest, which doubtless had not at that time made its
appearance. Morton is quite right in stating: “but for Rats, the
Country by Nature is troubled with none.” The Black Rat (_Mus rattus_)
was quite early introduced, but the Gray, Wharf, or Norway Rat (_Mus
decumanus_) probably did not make its appearance till fully a century
after Morton wrote his _New English Canaan_.
[380] Morton, as was natural for a keen sportsman who had himself been
in the tropics, was wiser on the subject of Lions than other Englishmen
in New England. From the first landing at Plymouth, when John Goodman
and Peter Browne, getting lost in the woods, heard “two lions roaring
exceedingly,” down to 1639, when Josselyn heard “of a young Lyon (not
long before) kill’d at Pascataway by an Indian,” there were vague
stories of these animals having been either seen or heard in the New
England woods. Josselyn argued on the great probability that there were
lions because there were jackals (_Rarities_, p. 21); and Wood said
that “the Virginians saw an old Lyon in their Plantation, who having
lost his Iackall, which was wont to hunt his prey, was brought so poore
that he could goe no further.” (_Prospect_, p. 17.) Strachey speaks of
having found the skins and claws of lions in the hands of the Indians.
(_Historie_, p. 124.) The animal referred to in all these cases was
doubtless the Panther or Catamount (_Felis concolor_). On this subject
see also Young’s _Chron. of Pilg._, p. 176, _note_; Tuckerman’s _New
England’s Rarities_, p. 57, _note_; and the _Mem. History of Boston_,
vol. i. p. 9.
[381] For the scientific and technical notes to this chapter I am
indebted to Professor N. S. Shaler of Harvard University. As in the
three preceding chapters, certain other notes of my own have been
added, which are of a wholly different character, and will readily be
distinguished from Professor Shaler’s.
[382] The marble of Marble Harbor, or Marblehead, is not, in the
present sense of the word, a marble at all, but is, in fact, a
porphyry. In the old sense of the word it designated any smooth-striped
or spotted stones, such as are found there.
[383] No limestone, good or bad, is known to exist on the Monatoquit
now; the nearest limestone is at Bear (or Bare) Hill, in Stoneham.
[384] There is a locality in East Braintree, included in the Wainwright
estate, at the foot of Wyman’s Hill and facing the Weymouth Fore-river,
into which the Monatoquit flows, where is a quarry from which stone
bearing some external resemblance to limestone was formerly taken for
ballast. This place has always been locally called the Quaw, though the
origin and meaning of the name have never been known. It would seem
that this must be the place referred to in the text, and that Quaw, or
Quor, is a corruption of the Indian Attaquatock.
[385] There are no “chalke stones” at Squanto’s Chapelle, _i.e._,
Squantum, or anywhere else in this part of the world. Morton may
possibly have mistaken pebbles of decayed felspar for chalk.
[386] There is some slate in Quincy and Weymouth that _might_ be used
for roofing, and a quarry of it was long worked for material for
gravestones, &c., on Squantum Bay, a mile or so from Mount Wollaston;
but it is slate of a very poor sort. The nearest workable slate is in
Vermont and Maine.
[387] This passage is more than usually confused, even for Morton.
It is difficult to say whether he is perpetrating a clumsy joke, or
indulging in a malicious insinuation. John Billington was hanged at
Plymouth in September, 1630, being apparently the second person so
executed in what is now Massachusetts, the first having been executed
at Weymouth during the winter of 1622-3. (_Infra_, *108-10.) The
man shot by Billington, and for whose murder he was hung, was John
New-comin (Bradford, p. 277), whence Morton’s play upon the name.
Billington had two sons, but he was by no means “beloved.” As Bradford,
writing about him as early as 1625, said, “he is a knave,” adding
prophetically “and so will live and die.” (Savage’s _Winthrop_, vol. i.
p. *36). Why Morton should have called him “Ould Woodman” is not clear.
From his immediately going on to talk of the “woodden prospect,” and
the wish of its author to secure for himself a monopoly of the Richmond
Island whetstones, which “Ould Woodman labored to get a patent of,”
it would seem as if he had intended to convey the idea that William
Wood, the author of the _New England’s Prospect_, was one of the “many
sonnes” of “Old Woodman,” who had been hanged at Plymouth. That such
was Morton’s intention, however, is not clear. The passage is muddled,
but not necessarily malicious.
[388] The words quoted are not Ovid’s, but Virgil’s. _Eclogues_, viii.
43.
[389] _Supra_, 124.
[390] Josselyn, in his _Two Voyages_ (p. 202), speaks of the “excellent
whetstones” then (1670) found at Richmond Island.
“There is a species of slate quite abundant on Richmond’s Island, and
some other Islands in Casco Bay, which has been used for oil-stones.
Josselyn, in his _Voyages_, says that ‘tables of slate could be got out
long enough for a dozen men to sit at.’” See a communication on this
passage of the _New Canaan_, signed J. P. B., in the _Portland Press_
of January 2, 1883. Professor Shaler adds: “It is interesting to note
the fact that Morton saw that whetstones could be made the basis for
trade. Stones suitable for this purpose are rare in Europe, and to-day
a New Hampshire company ships large quantities to Europe and even to
Australia.”
[391] Richmond Island lies directly south-east of Cape Elizabeth and
close to it. From what Morton says in the next chapter and elsewhere
(_infra_, *149), it would seem that before his arrest by Standish in
June, 1628,--that is, in the summer of 1627,--he had a fur station on
the coast of Maine. (_Supra_, 23.) Winthrop, writing under date of
October 22, 1631, mentions the murder of “Walter Bagnall, called Great
Watt, and one John P---- who kept with him,” by the Indians at Richmond
Island. He adds: “This Bagnall was sometimes servant to one in the bay,
and these three years had dwelt alone in the said isle, and had gotten
about £400 most in goods. He was a wicked fellow, and had much wronged
the Indians.” (Winthrop, vol. i. p. *63). Bagnall would, from this,
appear to have been one of Morton’s servants at Mount Wollaston, as he
alone in “the bay,” at that time, had any number of servants, or was
engaged in trade on the Maine coast. As Bagnall was killed in 1631, and
had then lived alone at Richmond Island three years, he seems to have
taken up his abode there in 1628, the time of the breaking up of the
company at Mount Wollaston by Standish and Endicott, and the settlement
at Richmond Island was thus the Maine offshoot of that at Merry-mount.
Bagnall was probably that one of Morton’s servants who, he says, was
reputed, when he died, to have made a thousand pounds in the fur trade
in five years, “whatsoever became of it.” (_Supra_, *78). Morton’s
expression here of “five years” agrees with Winthrop’s “three years,”
and confirms this surmise. Bagnall had died in 1631. Morton had gotten
control at Mount Wollaston in 1626. (_Supra_, 15.) Bagnall had remained
there as his servant two years, until 1628; then had been frightened
away and gone to Richmond Island, where he had lived three years more,
as Winthrop says,--making in all Morton’s five years. In his phrase
“whatsoever became of it” Morton characteristically throws out an
insinuation in regard to Bagnall’s possessions. He probably meant to
imply some underhand proceeding to get hold of them on the part of the
Massachusetts Bay people. Recently a theory has been advanced in the
Maine press, that Bagnall was an Episcopalian, and competitor in trade
of the Massachusetts Company; and that Winthrop and his associates,
not being able otherwise to get rid of him, compassed his death by
indirect means. (See a letter of S. P. Mayberry in _Portland Press_ of
Jan. 9, 1883.) Winthrop says that most of the possessions in question
were in goods. A portion would naturally be in the form of money, and
it was left for the present generation to form a most plausible surmise
as to “whatsoever became” of some of this money. On May 11, 1855, an
old stone pot was turned up by the ploughshare, on Richmond Island,
containing fifty-two coins; and Mr. Willis, the historian of Portland,
then took occasion, in a letter to the Massachusetts Historical Society
(_Proceedings_, May 1857, pp. 183-8), to “express the belief that the
money [was] connected with the fate of Walter Bagnall, who was killed
by Sagamore Squidraket and his party, Oct. 3, 1631.” There was nothing
to show that any of the coins were of a later date than 1631. A patent
for Richmond Island, together with fifteen hundred acres on the main
land, was issued to Bagnall by the Council for New England, Dec. 2,
1631, just three months after his death. (_Records of the Council_, pp.
51-2.) Morton was then in England, and unquestionably in communication
with Gorges. (_Supra_, 49.)
[392] Doubtless the magnetic iron oxides. None of these are known to me
nearer than in the mountains forming the westerly part of the Berkshire
Hills, from New York City to the Adirondacks, except in Cumberland, R.
I., where there is some iron of this nature.
[393] No ironstones are known around Massachusetts bay; the nearest
deposits are in Rhode Island.
[394] Small quantities of galena ore have been found in Woburn and that
vicinity. There are some localities near Newburyport where the savages
may have found small quantities of galena.
[395] Black leade is doubtless plumbago, or graphite; it is found in
Wrentham and in Worcester, Mass., as well as at various points in Rhode
Island.
[396] Red leade is doubtless an ochre, such as may have been found near
Cranston, R. I.
[397] Boll armoniack is the _Bolus armeniaca_ of the old apothecaries.
_Bolus_ is the prefix to several old pharmacopial names, having lost
its original special signification and come to be a given term for all
lumpy substances. Here it means a sort of reddish clay, such as may
be used for marking,--a clayey ochre such as may have come from about
Providence, R. I.
[398] Vermilion oxide of mercury is not known to occur this side of the
Rocky Mountains. It is likely that he mistook some brilliant ochre for
true vermilion. It may be, however, that the aborigines traded for it
with western tribes. Their copper implements probably came from Lake
Superior. Many evidences of almost as wide a commerce could be adduced.
[399] Brimstone, or sulphur, does not exist in its metallic state this
side of the Cordilleras. He may have seen some pyrite-bearing schists,
such as occur in Maine, which in dumping give a sulphuric smell.
[400] Tin does not occur in this region. Some localities are known in
Maine and elsewhere in New England, but they could hardly have been
found by the Savages, or known to Morton.
[401] Copper in its metallic state, the only form in which he would
have recognized it, does not occur about Massachusetts Bay. A very
little of it has been found in Cumberland, R. I., in the valley of the
Blackstone River.
[402] No silver, except when combined with lead and zinc ore, has ever
been found in this district. Some occurs in the district from Woburn to
Newburyport. Metallic silver could not have been known to the natives.
The nearest localities for metallic gold are the streams of Vermont,
New Hampshire, and western Maine, in which district placer gold occurs
in considerable quantities, and some auriferous quartz veins are known.
Professor Shaler adds to his foregoing notes: “The general impression
which I get from the writer is that he was a bad observer, but not more
untruthful than most of the seventeenth century travellers. He does not
say that gold or silver had been seen by him, and limits his hearsay
evidence to a single mine. Except for the extraordinary stuff about
the whetstones,--wherein we may perhaps see something of the _Maypole_
humor,--it is, for its time, a rather sober and reasonable story.”
[403] This is the name by which Morton invariably designates John
Endicott. For reasons which have been explained in the preliminary
matter to this edition of the _New Canaan_ (_supra_, pp. 38-42), its
author felt--and, as will be seen, never missed an opportunity to
express--a peculiar bitterness towards Endicott.
[404] For the notes to this chapter I am indebted to Theodore Lyman,
of the Massachusetts Fish Commission. Higginson, in his _New England’s
Plantation_, has a passage on Fish (Young’s _Chron. of Mass._, pp.
248-51), and Williams, in his _Key_, devotes a chapter (xix.) to the
same subject. Wood again, in his _Prospect_ (pp. 27-31), deals with
it in his peculiar manner, and Josselyn, both in his _Voyages_ (pp.
104-15) and in his _Rarities_ (pp. 22-37), devotes a good deal of
space to the enumeration of the different kinds of New England fishes,
their peculiarities, and the methods of taking them. In editing the
_Rarities_, Mr. Tuckerman remarked that he had “little to offer in
elucidation of the list [of fishes], which, indeed, in good part,
appears sufficiently intelligible,”--a remark equally applicable to the
present chapter of the _New Canaan_.
[405] Portland Harbor. See _supra_, 218, _note_ 1.
[406] This proves that the _local_ Cod, _i. e._, those that breed close
to the shore, have much decreased; and this partly by over-fishing, and
partly by the falling-off of their food in the form of young fishes
coming to the sea from rivers and brooks.
[407] This is perhaps the first mention in America of cod-liver oil,
now so much used in medicine.
[408] The Striped Bass (_Labrax_). The Bass mentioned four paragraphs
below, as chasing mackerel “into the shallow waters,” may perhaps be
the Bluefish (_Temnodon_).
[409] This is either an expression which has wholly passed out of
use, or else a misprint. Probably the latter. It may, however, also
be surmised that Morton characteristically coined a word from the
Latin, and here meant to refer to the various large fish in New England
waters, such as the Horse Mackerel (_Thynnus secundo dorsalis_), the
Mackerel Shark (_Lamna punctata_), and the common Dogfish (_Acanthias
Americanus_), all of which follow schools of mackerel, bass, &c., into
shoal waters and prey upon them.
[410] “These Macrills are taken with drailes, which is a long small
line, with a lead and a hooke at the end of it, being baited with
a peece of a red cloath.” (_New England’s Prospect_, p. 30.) This
instrument still bears the same name and is used in the same way.
[411] When caught in the Thames, within the jurisdiction of the Lord
Mayor of London, the Sturgeon (_Acipenser_) is a royal fish reserved
for the sovereign. “The Sturgeon is a Regal fish too, I have seen of
them that have been sixteen foot in lenghth.” (Jossel., _Two Voyages_,
p. 105.)
[412] But little attention has been paid as yet in the United States to
the Sturgeon fisheries, in spite of their great abundance.
[413] [jieele.] See _supra_, 111, _note_ 1.
[414] “There be a greate store of Salt water Eeles, especially in such
places where grasse growes: for to take these there be certaine Eele
pots made of Osyers, which must be baited with a peece of Lobster,
into which the Eeles entering cannot returne backe againe; some take
a bushell in a night in this maner, eating as many as they have neede
of for the present, and salt up the rest against Winter. These Eeles
be not of so luscious a tast as they be in England, neither are they
so aguish, but are both wholsom for the body, and delightfull for the
taste.” (_New England’s Prospect_, p. 30.)
[415] Morton confounds the Shad (_Alosa præstabilis_), or Allize
(corruption of the French _Alose_), with the smaller Alewife. This,
with the Smelt and the Eel, are among the few shore fishes that are
still found in comparative plenty. The Menhaden is used in our time to
set corn.
[416] At the present time the Halibut (_Hippoglossus_) is seldom
caught near the shore or in shoal water. It is taken by the Gloucester
fishermen along the outer banks, in depths of a hundred to two hundred
fathoms. The New England Turbot (_Lophopsetta_) of our coasts is a
different fish, and rarely ventures to the north of Cape Cod. The
fishermen frequently sell our turbot as chicken-halibut.
[417] The Flounder (_Pseudopleuronectes_), whereof there are several
species.
[418] Hake (_Phycis_) are still somewhat common.
[419] Morton probably means the Menhaden (_Brevoortia_). The European
Pilchard, the adult of the Sardine, is not found on our coast.
[420] Probably the Double-crested Cormorant (_Phalacrocorax dilophus_).
The Common Cormorant (_P. carbo_) also occurs in New England, but it
is rare to the southward of Maine. Both species breed abundantly on
rocky shores about the Gulf of St. Lawrence and northward, visiting New
England waters during the autumn and winter. While with us they are
exclusively maritime, frequenting by choice the vicinity of outlying
ledges and small, rocky islands. When passing from place to place, they
often fly in large flocks, which are usually arranged in long lines or
single files. They live on fish, which they capture by diving.
[421] This paragraph, and the one on clams immediately following
it, throw considerable light on the formation of the shell-heaps, a
question which has been recently much discussed. See the paper of
Professor F. W. Putnam, read at the meeting of the Maine Historical
Society in Portland, in December, 1882, which will appear in the report
of the proceedings of that meeting in the Collections of the Society.
[422] We, in this country, have not retained the European taste for
mussels and for razor-shells (_Solen_).
[423] The eating of scallops (_Pecten_) has been revived within a few
years.
[424] A strong spirit of emulation existed in the early years of
the seventeenth century, between the advocates of New England and
those of Virginia, as sites for colonization. Morton was always a
stanch New Englander, and in this chapter, as well as in those which
immediately precede and follow it, he loses no opportunity to assert
the superiority of the Massachusetts climate and products over those
of the country further south. It is needless to point out that his
advocacy led him into ludicrously wild statements.
[425] There is no natural spring of any kind at Mount Wollaston, though
water is easily obtained by digging.
[426] Winnisimmet, the Indian name of Chelsea. Upon the significance
of the name Mr. Trumbull writes: “I have my doubts about Morton’s
Weenasemute, but am inclined to believe that his interpretation is
founded on fact. _Ashim_ (= _asim_, in local dialect) is once used by
Eliot (_Cant._ iv. 12) for ‘fountain.’ It denotes a place from which
water (for drinking) is taken. _Winn’ashim_, or _Winn’asim_, means ‘the
good fountain,’ or spring; and _Winn’asim-ut_ (or _et_) is ‘at the good
spring.’ The efficacy of the water ‘to cure barrenness’ may have been
Morton’s embellishment, but not improbably was an Indian belief.”
[427] Squantum, in Quincy.
[428] This is a gross exaggeration. Thomas Wiggin, in November,
1622, wrote: “For the plantation in Mattachusetts, the English there
being about 2000 people, yonge and old.” (III. _Mass. Hist. Coll._,
vol. viii. p. 322.) Writing on May 22, 1634, about the time Morton
referred to (_Supra_, 78), Governor Winthrop says: “For the number
of our people, we never took any surveigh of them, nor doe we intend
it, except inforced throughe urgent occasion (David’s example stickes
somewhat with us) but I esteeme them to be in all about 4000: soules
and upwarde.” (_Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc._, Dec. 14, 1882.) So in the
_New England’s Prospect_ (p. 42), Wood speaks of the population of
Massachusetts as “foure thousand soules.” In the spring of 1634 there
may have been five hundred persons in the Plymouth colony, and as many
more in New Hampshire and Maine, making a total New England population
of five thousand at the time Morton was writing. When the _New Canaan_
was published, however, in 1637, the population undoubtedly was as
large as 12,000.
[429] _Supra_, 187, _note_ 4.
[430] This astounding proposition was in the early days of the
settlement not peculiar to Morton. Higginson, in his _New Englands
Plantation_, speaks of the “extraordinary clear and dry air, that is
of a most healing nature to all such as are of a cold, melancholy,
phlegmatic, rheumatic temper of body,” and concludes what he has to
say on the subject with his often-quoted sentiment that “a sup of
New-England’s air is better than a whole draught of Old England’s
ale.” (Young’s _Chron. of Mass._, pp. 251-2.) Williams, too, says
in his _Key_ (ch. xiii.): “The _Nor-West_ wind (which occasioneth
_New-England_ cold) comes over the cold frozen Land, and over many
millions of Loads of Snow: and yet the pure wholesomnesse of the Aire
is wonderfull, and the warmth of the Sunne, such in the sharpest
weather, that I have often seen the Natives Children runne about starke
naked in the coldest dayes.” Again, in the pamphlet entitled _New
England’s First Fruits_, printed in London in 1643, it was stated,
in reply to the objection of extreme winter cold, that “the cold
there is no impediment to health, but very wholsome for our bodies,
insomuch that all sorts generally, weake and strong, had scarce ever
such measure of health in all their lives as there.... Men are seldome
troubled in winter with coughes and Rheumes.” (I. _Mass. Hist. Coll._,
vol. i. p. 249.) Josselyn, however, writing nearly thirty years later,
remarks: “Some of our _New-England_ writers affirm that the _English_
are never, or very rarely, heard to sneeze or cough, as ordinarily they
do in _England_, which is not true.” (_Two Voyages_, p. 184.)
[431] _Supra_, 201, _note_ 2.
[432] _Supra_, *17.
[433] Wood in his _Prospect_ (p. 2), referring to the approach to
Boston Bay from Cape Anne, had said: “The surrounding shore being high,
and showing many white Cliffes, in a most pleasant prospect.”
[434] The Second Book of the _New Canaan_, it would seem, originally
ended with this chapter. The next chapter was an afterthought of the
author, written before December, 1635, as is evident from the allusions
in it to events then taking place. (_Supra_, 78.) Wood’s _Prospect_ was
published in 1634, and the constant references to it in the first two
books of the _New Canaan_ show that they were both written subsequent
to its publication, probably during that year. In the Third Book there
are no allusions to the _Prospect_, and the reference to the Third
Book in the Second (_Supra_, *51), to which attention has already been
called, show that it must have been written before the others, and
probably during the year 1633. It would seem to have been completed in
May, 1634. There is, however, also a reference to be found in the Third
Book to the Second (_Infra_, *120), but it was probably interpolated
during a revisal of the manuscript.
[435] Now Lake Champlain. “By the Indians north of the St. Lawrence
and the Lakes, it was called the Lake of the Iroquois, as likewise the
River Richelieu, connecting it and the River St. Lawrence, they called
the River of the Iroquois. Champlain discovered the lake in 1609, and
gave it his own name. (_Voyages_, Prince Soc. ed., vol. ii. pp. 210-20;
Parkman’s _Pioneers of France_, p. 316.) On some of the early maps it
is put down ‘Lake Champlain or Irocoise.’ It is so called in Purchas’s
_Pilgrims_ (vol. iv. p. 1643). The region about the lake was sometimes
called Irocosia. The Iroquois lived on the south of the lake, and, as
their enemies on the north approached them through this lake, they
naturally called it the Lake of the Iroquois.” (_MS. letter of Rev. E.
F. Slafter._)
[436] The measurement and distance here given are very nearly correct.
Lake Champlain is 126 miles long by about 14 in width at its broadest
part. Burlington is not far from 240 miles from Boston.
[437] In regard to the imaginary attractions and advantages of Laconia
and its great lake, see Belknap’s _American Biography_, vol. i. p. 377.
[438] The two brothers, William and Emery de Caen, became prominent
in the history of Canadian settlement in 1621, and remained so for a
number of years. They did not, however, plant a colony of French in
America, nor was the name of Canada, or of its famous river, derived
from their name. On this point see Parkman’s _Pioneers of France_,
pp. 184, _note_, and 391-5. Morton’s derivation of the name Canada
is entitled to much the same weight as his derivation of the names
Pantucket and Mattapan. (_Supra_, 124.) It was not, however, peculiar
to him as, forty years later, Josselyn also speaks (_Rarities_, p. 5)
of “the River _Canada_, (so called from Monsieur _Cane_).”
[439] On the breaking out of the war between England and France
in 1627, under the influence of Buckingham, Sir William Alexander
had been instrumental in organizing an expedition to seize the
French possessions in America. At its head were three Huguenots of
Dieppe,--David, Louis and Thomas Kirk, brothers. The expedition was
successful, and on the 20th of July, 1629, Champlain surrendered Quebec
to Louis Kirk. Daniel Kirk, the admiral of the expedition, returned to
England in November of the same year; but his brother Thomas remained
in Canada and held Quebec as an English conquest until July, 1632,
when, in accordance with the conditions of the peace of April 14, 1629,
it was restored to France. See Kirke’s _First English Conquest of
Canada_, pp. 63-93; Parkman’s _Pioneers of France_, pp. 401-11; also
Mr. Deane’s note in _Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc._ for 1875-6, pp. 376-7.
[440] The number of beaver-skins really carried to England by Kirk was
seven thousand. (Kirke’s _First English Conquest of Canada_, p. 85.)
[441] It is unnecessary to say that Morton was here writing at random.
He confounds the Potomac with the Hudson, though, a few paragraphs
further on (_Infra_, *99), he states the facts in regard to the latter
river correctly; and the latitude he gives has no significance, being
that of Poughkeepsie, on the Hudson, and Cleveland, on Lake Erie. The
Potomac nowhere flows so far north as 40°. The falls referred to are
probably those of Niagara. They had not then been discovered (Parkman’s
_Jesuits in North America_, p. 142), though vague reports concerning
them had reached the French through the Indians, and they are plainly
indicated on Champlain’s map of 1629. (_Voyages_, Prince Soc. ed.,
vol. i. p. 271, _note_.) Some loose stories in regard to the rivers,
falls, lakes and islands of the interior had been picked up by Morton,
probably in his talks with seamen and others who had taken part in
Kirk’s expedition. He certainly fell in with these in London, and it
is more than likely that at the house of Gorges he saw Champlain’s
map of 1629; though upon that the falls are placed at 43-1/2 degrees
of latitude, instead of at 41-1/2. In 1634 there was no other map. On
the strength of the information thus gathered, he made the statements
contained in this chapter. The little he knew had been obtained in
England, after his return there in 1631; for the Massachusetts Indians
can hardly have known much of the remote interior, and in 1630 no
attempts even at exploration away from the seashore had been made by
the straggling occupants of the New England coast.
[442] The stories here referred to probably came from the Indians of
Connecticut and Maine, and referred to the rivers and lakes of New
England, but were afterwards supposed to have had a wider significance.
[443] Williams (_Key_, 64) gives _Macháug_ as the Indian word for _No_,
but it really signifies _no-thing_ (_Key_, 182). _Matta_, as Morton
gives it, is the simple negative.
[444] Henry Josselyn was a brother of John Josselyn, author of _New
Englands Rarities_ and the _Two Voyages to New England_, frequently
quoted in the notes to this edition of the _New Canaan_. He came out
from England in the interest of Mason, as stated in the text, in 1634,
and passed the remainder of his life in Maine, living at Black Point
in the town of Scarborough. He died in 1683. He was deputy-governor of
the province, and one of the most active and influential men in it,
holding, through all changes of proprietorship and government, the
most important offices. See Mr. Tuckerman’s Introduction to the _New
Englands Rarities_; _Hist. of Cumberland County, Maine_, p. 362.
[445] Of Captain John Mason of New Hampshire and the Laconia
enterprise, it is not necessary to speak at length in this connection.
Mason was the most prominent character in the early history of New
Hampshire, and the loss which his death, in December 1635, entailed
on the projects of Gorges and Morton has already been referred to
(_Supra_, 76). The late Charles W. Tuttle, of Boston was at the
time of his death engaged in preparing a life of Mason, which would
unquestionably have been a valuable addition to the history of the
settlement of New England. The material he had collected is now in the
possession of his family. In regard to the Laconia Company and its
projects, see Belknap’s _American Biography_, under the title _Gorges_,
and Mr. Deane’s note in the _Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc._, 1875-6, pp.
376-80.
[446] Wood’s statement here referred to is found on the first page of
the _Prospect_, and is as follows: “The Place whereon the _English_
have built their Colonies, is judged by those who have best skill in
discovery, either to bee an Island, surrounded on the North side with
the spacious River _Cannada_, and on the South with _Hudsons_ River, or
else a _Peninsula_, these two Rivers overlapping one another, having
their rise from the great Lakes which are not farre off one another, as
the _Indians_ doe certainly informe us.”
[447] In 1631 no less than 15,174 skins, the greater portion beaver,
were exported from the New Netherlands, valued at about £12,000.
(O’Callaghan’s _New Netherland_, p. 139.)
[448] The Nipmucks, or Nipnets, inhabited the present county of
Worcester. (_Hist. of Worcester County_, vol. i. p. 8.)
[449] This is a confused, rambling account of the familiar Indian
incidents which took place during the first year after the landing at
Plymouth. There is nothing of historical value in it, and nothing which
has not been more accurately and better told by Bradford, Winslow,
Mourt and Smith.
[450] Captain Thomas Hunt, who commanded one of the vessels of Smith’s
squadron, in his voyage of 1614. (Bradford, p. 95.)
[451] Morton, in this chapter, confounds Samoset with Squanto. It was
Squanto who was kidnapped by Hunt and had been in England, but it was
Samoset who walked into the Plymouth settlement, on the 26th of March
[N. S.], 1621, and saluted the planters with “wellcome in the English
phrase.” Squanto was a native of Plymouth, but Samoset belonged at
Pemaquid, in Maine. (Mourt, Dexter’s ed., _note_ 295, p. 83.) Hence
Morton speaks of his having been detained by Massasoit as a captive. He
apparently came to Massachusetts the year before on Captain Dermer’s
vessel, in company with Squanto. Dr. Dexter is seriously in error in
his account of Squanto in _note_ 315 of his edition of Mourt. Squanto
could not have been one of the Weymouth captives of 1605.
[452] This is the familiar anecdote of Squanto. (Bradford, p. 113;
Young’s _Chron. of Pilg._, p. 292.)
[453] See _supra_, 133, _note_.
[454] The most connected account of Thomas Weston and his abortive
plantation at Wessagusset, already referred to (_Supra_, 2), is
that contained in Adams’s _Address on the 250th Anniversary of the
Settlement of Weymouth_, pp. 5-22. Winslow in Young’s _Chron. of
Pilg._, Bradford, and Phinehas Pratt (IV. _Mass. Hist. Coll._, vol.
iv.) are the original authorities.
[455] This is a wholly confused and misleading account of the skirmish
which took place between the Plymouth party, under command of Miles
Standish, and the Massachusetts Indians living near Wessagusset,
immediately after the killing of Pecksuot and Wituwamat, in March,
1623. The correct account of the affair is in Young’s _Chron. of
Pilg._, p. 341. Why Morton speaks of it as a battle between the English
and the French is inexplicable.
[456] See _supra_, pp. 11, 162, 170. The Plymouth people may have
despoiled the grave of Chickatawbut’s mother of its bear-skins during
some one of their earlier visits to Boston Bay. Their last visit to
those parts, prior to the “battle” spoken of in this chapter, was
in November, 1622 (Young’s _Chron. of Pilg._ p. 302), when they got
little in the way of supplies, and heard nothing but complaints from
the Indians of Weston’s people, who had then been several months at
Wessagusset. It is far more probable that these latter stripped the
grave at Passonagessit. In any event there can be little doubt that
Morton himself had visited the spot while taking his “survey of the
country” during the previous summer (_Supra_, 6), and it is quite clear
that the despoiling the grave had no connection with the subsequent
“battle,” in which Chickatawbut took no part.
[457] “Insomuch as our men could have but one certain mark, and then
but the arm and half face of a notable villain, as he drew [his bow] at
Captain Standish; who, together with another both discharged at once at
him, and brake his arm.” (Young’s _Chron. of Pilg._, p. 341.)
[458] This is the famous Wessagusset hanging which Butler introduced
into his poem of _Hudibras_ (Canto II. lines 409-36), in the passage
already referred to (_Supra_, 96). It is as follows:--
“Our Brethren of New-England use
Choice malefactors to excuse,
And hang the Guiltless in their stead,
Of whom the Churches have less need;
As lately ’t happen’d: In a town
There liv’d a Cobler, and but one,
That out of Doctrine could cut Use,
And mend men’s lives as well as shoes.
This precious Brother having slain,
In times of peace an Indian,
(Not out of malice, but mere zeal,
Because he was an Infidel),
The mighty Tottipottymoy
Sent to our Elders an envoy,
Complaining sorely of the breach
Of league held forth by Brother Patch,
Against the articles in force
Between both churches, his and ours,
For which he craved the Saints to render
Into his hands, or hang th’ offender;
But they maturely having weigh’d
They had no more but him o’ th’ trade,
(A man that served them in a double
Capacity, to teach and cobble),
Resolv’d to spare him; yet to do
The Indian Hoghan Moghan too
Impartial justice, in his stead did
Hang an old Weaver that was bed rid.”
That a man was hung at Wessagusset, in March 1623, for stealing corn
from the Indians, there can be no doubt. There is equally little
doubt that it was the real thief who was hung. (Pratt’s _Relation_,
IV. _Mass. Hist. Coll._, vol. iv. p. 491; Young’s _Chron. of Pilg._,
p. 332; Bradford, p. 130.) I have already (_Supra_, 96) given my own
theory as to how the incident came to take the shape it did in Butler’s
poem. He wrote, I think, from a vague recollection of an amusing
traveller’s-story, which he had heard told somewhere years before.
There is no reason to suppose that he had ever seen the _New Canaan_.
It has always been assumed that Butler’s version of the affair,--the
vicarious execution version,--coming out as it did in 1664, at a period
of violent reaction against Puritanism, and when the New England
colonies were in extreme popular disfavor,--obtained a foothold in
English popular tradition; much such a foothold, in fact, as the
Connecticut Blue Laws. It was an intangible something, always at
hand to be cast as a mocking reproach in the face of a sanctimonious
community. As such it was sure to be resented and disproved; but never
by any disproof could it be exorcised from the popular mind, or finally
set at rest. This may have been the case, and the references to the
matter in Hutchinson (vol. i. p. 6, _note_), in Hubbard (p. 77), and in
Grahame (Ed. 1845, vol. i. p. 202, _note_), certainly look that way.
I do not remember, however, to have myself ever met this particular
charge among the many and singular charges, much more absurd, which
English writers have from time to time gravely advanced against
America. In Uring’s _Voyages_ (p. 116-8) there is a singular account of
a similar vicarious execution, which never could have met the eye of
the author of _Hudibras_, inasmuch as it was not published until 1726;
but it shows that either some such event did take place, or that its
having taken place was at one period a stock traveller’s-tale.
[459] Three of Weston’s company were among the Massachusetts Indians
at the time of the Wessagusset killing; one of the three had
before domesticated himself with them; the other two, disregarding
Standish’s orders, had straggled off, the day before the massacre,
to a neighboring Indian village. After the massacre the savages put
all three to death by torture. (Pratt’s _Narrative_, IV. _Mass. Hist.
Coll._, vol. iv. p. 486; Young’s _Chron. of Pilg._, p. 344.)
[460] Will Sommers was the famous jester and court fool of Henry VIII.
His witticisms are frequently met with in the plays and annals of the
period; and the portrait, said to be by Holbein and of him, looking
through a window and tapping on the glass, was formerly a prominent
feature in the gallery at Hampton Court. It is very questionable,
however, whether the story alluded to in the text belongs to Sommers.
He had been dead eighty years or more when Morton wrote, and the
stories connected with him had been gotten together by Armin, and
printed in his _Nest of Ninnies_, in 1608. This book Morton had
probably seen. In it there is a story of another famous fool, Jack
Oates, of an earlier period, which is probably the one Morton had in
mind. Oates is represented as giving an earl, the guest of his patron,
Sir William Hollis, “a sound box on the ear,” for saluting Lady Hollis,
and then excused himself on the ground of “knowing not your eare from
your hand, being so like one another.” (Doran’s _Court Fools_, p.
182.) Remembering this story in the _Nest of Ninnies_, Morton, with
his well-developed faculty for getting everything wrong, seems to have
fathered it on the most famous and popular of the occupants of the
_Nest_.
[461] For the detailed account of the Wessagusset killing, see
Winslow’s _Relation_ in Young’s _Chron. of Pilg._, pp. 336-41; Adams’s
_250th Anniversary of Weymouth_, pp. 18-22.
[462] Mr. Trumbull, in a note (125) to Williams’s _Key_ (p. 59).
explains a blunder here made by Morton. The correct word is
_wotawquenauge_, which means “coat-men,” or men wearing clothes, the
_waútacone-nûaog_ of Williams. This, Morton confounded with another
name for Englishmen, _chauquaqock_, meaning, “knife- [_i. e._, sword-]
men,” which he understood to mean “cut-throats.”
[463] Weston, in 1622, got into serious trouble with the English
government, in regard to some ordnance and military stores, which he
had obtained a license to send to New England, and had then sold to
the French, with whom the English were at war. (Bradford, p. 150.)
He seems to have been in hiding in consequence of this transaction;
and early in 1623 went on board of one of the fishing-vessels in the
disguise of a blacksmith, and came out in her to the stations on the
Maine coast. There he must have learned of the extreme straits, if not
of the abandonment, of his plantation at Wessagusset, and he set out,
with a companion or two, in an open boat, for Massachusetts Bay. He was
wrecked near the mouth of the Merrimac, and barely escaped with his
life. The savages there stripped him to his shirt, and in this plight
he reached Thomson’s plantation at Piscataqua. Thence he found his way
to Plymouth, arriving there, not as Morton says, “with supply and means
to have raised [his company’s] fortunes,” but in absolute destitution.
Bradford’s account of his reception and of what ensued (pp. 133-4,
149-53) is very different from that given in the text; and, it is
hardly necessary to add, reads much more like the truth.
[464] _Supra_, 14.
[465] The incident here alluded to was the seizure of the _Swan_,
under a warrant issued by Captain Robert Gorges, acting as Lieutenant
of the Council for New England, in November, 1623. The _Swan_ was a
small vessel of 30 tons measurement, which Weston had sent out with
his expedition, in 1622. His plan was, when the larger vessel--the
_Charity_, in which his company went out--returned to England,
to have the _Swan_ remain in New England, to be used for trading
purposes. Accordingly, all through the winter of 1622-3, it had been
at Wessagusset, except when employed by the people there in obtaining
supplies in connection with the Plymouth people. When, in March, 1623,
Wessagusset was abandoned, the company went in the _Swan_ to the Maine
fishing-stations. Here Weston found the vessel in the course of the
following summer, and recovered possession of her. He then began to
trade along the coast. Meanwhile, in September, Captain Robert Gorges
arrived, and immediately set out to look for Weston, in order to
call him to account for the ordnance transactions referred to in the
preceding note, and also for the disorderly conduct of his people at
Wessagusset during the previous winter. Starting for the eastward,
he was driven into Plymouth Harbor by heavy weather, and while he
was lying there the _Swan_ made its appearance with Weston on board.
Bradford’s account of what ensued, including the seizure of the vessel,
differs _toto cœlo_ from that in the text. He says that Captain Robert
Gorges, acting as governor-general under his commission from the
Council for New England, at once organized a sort of a court,--he,
Bradford, acting as an assistant in it,--and proceeded to arraign and
try Weston. As a result of the whole proceedings Gorges threatened to
send Weston under arrest back to England. Through the intercession of
Bradford, however, he was mollified, and finally Weston was released
on his own promise to appear when called for. Gorges then went to
Wessagusset, leaving Weston with the _Swan_ at Plymouth. After a time
Gorges seems to have concluded that it would be very convenient for him
to have control of the _Swan_, at any rate for that winter. Accordingly
he sent a warrant to Plymouth for its seizure and the arrest of
Weston. Bradford, not liking this proceeding, took some exception to
the warrant, and refused to allow it to be served. At the same time
it was intimated to Weston that he had better take himself and his
vessel off. This he would not do. Apparently his crew was mutinous and
unruly, their wages being long in arrears, and the _Swan_ destitute of
supplies. He seems to have looked upon arrest and seizure as the best
way out of his difficulties. Presently a new warrant came from Gorges,
and both vessel and prisoner were removed to Wessagusset. This was
in November. There they passed the winter of 1623-4. Towards spring
Gorges went in the _Swan_ to the eastward, Weston accompanying him,
apparently as a pilot. The tidings received there led the disappointed
young Lieutenant of the Council to decide on immediately returning
to England. Accordingly he came back to Wessagusset, and thence went
probably to the fishing-stations, very possibly in the _Swan_. Before
leaving he effected some sort of a settlement with Weston,--Bradford
intimates much to the advantage of the latter,--who was released
from arrest, had his vessel restored to him, and was compensated
for whatever loss he had sustained. Weston thereupon reappeared at
Plymouth, and thence went to Virginia. He seems to have traded along
the coast for some years, but finally drifted back to England, where in
1645 he died, at Bristol, of the plague. (Bradford, pp. 140-53. Young’s
_Chron. of Pilg._, pp. 296-8, 302.)
[466] This chapter relates to incidents of no apparent consequence,
and of which there is no other record. It is not easy even to fix the
time at which they occurred, and it would seem as if Morton, in his
rambling, incoherent way, had confused the events of one year with
those of another. The only time when “35 stout knaves” were landed,
at all in the way described, at Plymouth, was in July, 1622, when the
_Charity_ brought in there Weston’s company. Yet Morton speaks of there
then being “three cows” at Plymouth, which would indicate that Morton’s
arrival, referred to in the text, was not in July 1622, but at some
time subsequent to the spring of 1624, when Winslow brought over “three
heifers and a bull, the first beginning of any cattle of that kind in
the land.” (Bradford, p. 158.) Yet Weston, again, had no “barque” at
Plymouth after 1623. The chapter seems to have been introduced simply
for the purpose of working on the church prejudices of Laud against
the Puritans. (See _supra_, 93-4.) There is in it a combination of
“the booke of common prayer” and “claret sparklinge neate,” which is
suggestive of the _Book of Sports_ as well as of “the Word of God.”
[467] Bradford, p. 158.
[468] Facilis descensus Averno. _Æneid_, vi. 127.
[469] A _killock_ is a small anchor. The phrase in the text means that
the wind caused the boat to drag her anchor, and she went ashore and
was stove in.
[470] The episode of Lyford and Oldham, in the history of the Plymouth
plantation, is told in detail by Bradford. The account in the text
differs from Bradford’s account only in that it is the other side of
the story. (See Bradford, pp. 172-88.)
[471] See _infra_, 324, _note_. Though Lyford frequently exercised in
the Plymouth church, as an elsewhere ordained brother, he was never
installed as its pastor. When admitted to it, Bradford says he made
“a large confession,” saying, among other things, “that he held not
himself a minister till he had a new calling.” (Bradford, pp. 181, 185,
188.)
[472] _Supra_, 24.
[473] This chapter and Chapter XIII. (pp. 273-6) relate to the same
matter. It is impossible to venture a surmise even as to their meaning.
It would seem clear that they have no historical value, but relate
rather to some humorous incident--having the full seventeenth-century
flavor of coarseness--which occurred in the settlement of Boston
Bay. Apparently, judging by the expressions, “this goodly creature
of incontinency” (_Infra_, *129), “that had tried a camp royal in
other parts” (*121), some English prostitute found her way out to
Mount Wollaston, in company with one of the adventurers there, and
subsequently went on to Virginia. She may have come with Wollaston, and
been left in Boston Bay when her companion went to Virginia, and then
followed him, giving birth to a child on the way. This would explain
the allusion to Phyllis and Demophoön subsequently made (p. *129). It
is, however, a mere surmise on a subject not worth puzzling over.
[474] It does not need to be said that this is one of Morton’s
preposterous statements. As the settlement of Virginia dated from 1607,
the twenty-seven years he speaks of was equivalent to saying, “up to
the time at which he was writing,” viz. 1634. Virginia was then not
only a much older settlement, but it had a population largely in excess
of that of New England.
[475] _Supra_, 229, _note_ 3.
[476] This chapter and Chapter XII. are, historically speaking, as
inexplicable as Chapters IX. and XIII. There is nothing in any of
the contemporaneous records to indicate who is referred to under the
pseudonym of Bubble.
[477] One of the smallest of the islands in Boston Bay, still called
by the same name. It lies off Mount Wollaston, and a mile or so away,
and between it and Pettuck’s Island. (See Shurtleff’s _Description of
Boston_, p. 360.)
[478] [view] See _supra_, 111, _note_ 1.
[479] Nipnet, or Worcester County; see _supra_, 240, _note_.
[480] [present] See _supra_, 111, _note_ 1.
[481] Squanto is apparently referred to here. (_Supra_, 244, _note_
2.) There is no incident in Squanto’s life--of which there is a quite
detailed account to be gathered from the early Plymouth records--which
is suggestive of the events described in the text.
[482] The first part of _Don Quixote_ was published in 1605, and the
second part in 1615. It was first translated into English by Thomas
Skelton, in 1612-20.
[483] The reference here is to the story of Demophoön and Phyllis,
told by Ovid (_Heroides_, II.) Demophoön, son of Theseus and Phædra,
accompanied the Greeks to Troy; and on his return, Phyllis, the
daughter of the Thracian king Sithon, fell in love with him, and he
consented to marry her. But before the nuptials were celebrated, he
went to Attica to settle his affairs at home, and as he tarried longer
than Phyllis had expected, she began to think that she was forgotten,
and put an end to her life. She was metamorphosed into a tree. (See
Smith’s _Dictionary_, title _Demophoön_.)
[484] _Supra_, 17-19.
[485] _Supra_, 14, _note_ 4.
[486] John Scogan was the famous court buffoon, attached to the
household of Edward IV., whose head Justice Shallow makes the youthful
Falstaff break at the court gate (_Henry IV._ Part II. act iii. sc. 2),
though Falstaff is represented as having died at least twenty years
before Scogan could have been born. In regard to him, see Doran’s
_Court Fools_, pp. 123-30. “Scogan’s choice,” in Morton’s day, seems to
have been a popular expression, signifying that a choice of some sort
is better than no power to choose at all. It was derived probably from
the story of Scogan, that he was once ordered to be hanged, but allowed
the privilege of choosing the tree. He escaped the penalty by being
unable to find a tree to his liking. Morton uses the expression again,
see _infra_, *137. But the reference here is as obscure as “the poem.”
[487] _Infra_, 348, _note_.
[488] _Supra_, 278, _note_ 1.
[489] “Ye Roman Goddes Flora.” (Bradford, p. 237.)
[490] In regard to the arrest of Morton by Standish, in June, 1628, see
_supra_, 27-9.
[491] See _infra_, 291, _note_.
[492] Morton here confounds his experience in Boston, two years later,
with that at Plymouth in 1628. In 1630 the master of the _Gift_ refused
to carry him back to England. (_Supra_, 44.) In the spring of 1628,
however, no vessel seems to have arrived at Plymouth from England,
as Allerton then brought over an assortment of goods, and came in
a fishing-vessel by way of the Maine stations. (Bradford, p. 232.)
Allerton returned to London in the course of the succeeding summer or
autumn, but it is not probable then any vessel left Plymouth in June,
1628, bound for England. (_Supra_, 29.)
[493] It was not until towards the close of the summer of the next
year that Morton returned to Massachusetts in company with Allerton.
(_Supra_, 36-7.)
[494] Morton implies above that the “Poem” which follows was written
shortly after the events to which it relates occurred, and before his
return to New England in 1629. It was then, it seems, “in use” in
London. The name of Ben Jonson appears in the margin of the original
edition, as of this reprint, and opposite the first two lines, as
above. Exactly what this signifies it is impossible now to say. Some
critics that I have consulted are inclined to think that Jonson, who
was then about fifty-five years old and at the height of his fame, may
have written all the verses. Others suggest that Morton, by putting
the name in the margin, meant to imply that Jonson wrote them all,
and that this was another of the unscrupulous tricks of the author of
the _New Canaan_. Neither explanation commends itself to my judgment.
The first five verified lines are a paraphrase of five lines at the
beginning of one of Jonson’s productions, for a poem it is not. In his
published works (Gifford’s ed. [1816], vol. viii. p. 241) they appear
as follows:--
“I sing the brave adventure of two wights,
And pity ’tis, I cannot call them knights:
One was; and he for brawn and brain right able
To have been styled of king Arthur’s table.
The other was a squire, of fair degree.”
With the last of the foregoing lines the paraphrase stops, and the
rest of the verses in the _New Canaan_ are, it must in justice be
said, not only more cleanly, but in other respects superior to those
to be found in Jonson’s works. Indeed, where the latter are not
unintelligible, they are almost unequalled for the nastiness in which
the writer seems to revel. Gifford not too strongly remarks of them,
“I dislike the subject.” Morton, it appears to me, abandoning, at
the sixth line, the paraphrase with which he began, went on with a
production of his own, but very properly put Jonson’s name opposite the
lines he borrowed from him. The remainder is in his own style, and not
inferior to the mass of the contemporary verse. He himself explains
it. The “nine worthy wights” are Standish and his party, who were sent
to arrest him. The “prodigeous birth,” was the establishment of the
Mount Wollaston plantation. The “seven heads” were the seven persons
composing the company at Mount Wollaston at the time of the arrest. The
“forked tail” was the Maypole, with its antlered top. The fear that
the Hydra of Ma-re Mount would devour “all their best flocks” refers
to the apprehended competition in the fur trade. The “Soll in Cancer”
indicates the season; the “thundering Jove” the storm, in which Morton
made his escape from his captors at Wessagusset. The arrest at Mount
Wollaston is passed over very lightly. Then follows the discussion
among the magistrates at Plymouth, as to the disposition to be made of
the prisoner. Standish would seem to be designated under the name of
Minos. He recommends death. Eacus is more difficult to identify. In the
preceding chapter (_Supra_, 288), Morton speaks of him as being the one
whose “voice was more allowed of then both the others.” My supposition
is that, by Eacus, Morton meant Dr. Samuel Fuller, who then apparently
(Bradford, pp. 264, _note_, 306, _note_) stood, next to Standish,
at the head of the assistants. Morton says that he “confounded all
the arguments that Eacus could make;” and he afterwards, in the _New
Canaan_, refers to Fuller with peculiar bitterness. (_Infra_, 298.)
“Sterne Radamant” is clearly Bradford, “the cheif Elder.” The remainder
of the poem calls for no explanation; and the whole of it is much less
unintelligible than is usual with Morton.
[495] [what] See _supra_, 111, _note_ 1.
[496] “Brave Christmas gambols” were, it may be remarked, not greatly
in vogue in the Plymouth of 1628. (See Bradford, p. 112.)
[497] _Supra_, 163, _note_ 1.
[498] The personage referred to, in this amusing but extremely
scurrilous chapter, is Dr. Samuel Fuller. There is a notice of Dr.
Fuller in Young’s _Chron. of Pilg._ (p. 222, _note_), and in Eliot’s
_Biog. Dict._ He was one of those who came over in the _Mayflower_;
but that he was born in the County of Somerset, and bred a butcher,
appears only from the statement in the text. At Plymouth, besides
being the physician of the colony, he was a magistrate and a deacon of
the church. He died there, of an infectious fever, in 1633, and his
best possible epitaph is read in Bradford (p. 314): “A man godly, and
forward to do good, being much missed after his death.”
[499] _Infra_, 345, _note_.
[500] Paul’s Walk, as the central nave of old St. Paul’s was called,
was in the reign of Charles I. much what a business arcade is now.
There is a vivid description of it, with extracts from writers of the
time, in W. H. Ainsworth’s romance, _Old St. Paul’s_ (B. II. ch. 7).
See also, Gardiner’s _Charles I._ (vol. ii. p. 11).
[501] The visit of Dr. Fuller to Salem, referred to in the text, may
have taken place in 1628. Though he was also there in 1629; and again
in 1630, when he likewise visited Charlestown. (Young’s _Chron. of
Pilg._, p. 222, _note_.)
[502] This description of the usual effect of sea-sickness I take to be
peculiar to Morton.
[503] Endicott’s first wife was Anna Gover, a cousin of Governor
Cradock. Little is known of her. She came to New England with her
husband, and died during the very early days of the settlement, as
she seems to have been in failing health in September, 1628. Endicott
was married to his second wife August 18, 1630; on the 17th of the
following month he sat among the magistrates at Boston in judgment upon
the author of the _New Canaan_, who had been “sent for” just five days
after the marriage, which seems to have taken place at Charlestown.
(Winthrop, vol. i. p. *30; Young’s _Chron. of Mass._, pp. 131, 292;
_Supra_, 43-4.)
[504] This was the case of Roger Clerk, of Wandsworth, attached in the
chamber of the Guildhall of London, before the mayor and aldermen, on
the 13th of May, 1382, on a plea of deceit and falsehood as to Roger
atte Hacche. The record is to be found in Riley’s _Memorials of London
and London Life_ (pp. 464-6), and is very curious as illustrating
English manners in the time of Richard II. Morton’s reference would
indicate that the case had then been handed down as a tradition for two
hundred and fifty years. It seems that Clerk gave Hacche a bit of old
parchment, rolled up in “a piece of cloth of gold,” asserting that it
was very good for the ailments with which his wife was afflicted. Upon
being arraigned, Clerk contended that upon the parchment was written
“a good charm for fevers.” Upon examination, no word of the alleged
charm was found in the paper. The court then told the prisoner “that
a straw beneath his foot would be of just as much avail for fevers,
as this charm of his was; whereupon, he fully granted that it would
be so. And because that the same Roger Clerk was in no way a literate
man, and seeing that on the examinations aforesaid, (as well as others
afterwards made,) he was found to be an infidel, and altogether
ignorant of the art of physic or of surgery; and to the end that the
people might not be deceived and aggrieved by such ignorant persons
etc.; it was adjudged that the same Roger Clerk should be led through
the middle of the City, with trumpets and pipes, he riding on a horse
without a saddle, the said parchment and a whetstone, for his lies,
being hung about his neck, an urinal also being hung before him, and
another urinal on his back.”
The punishment of the “pillory and the whetstone,” as it was called,
was that ordinarily imposed on those telling falsehoods. In another
case in the same volume (p. 316) it is thus given in detail: “The said
John shall come out of Newgate without hood or girdle, barefoot and
unshod, with a whetstone hung by a chain from his neck, and lying on
his breast, it being marked with the words,--‘A false liar;’ and there
shall be a pair of trumpets trumpeting before him on his way to the
pillory.”
[505] The person referred to in this chapter was probably the Rev.
Francis Bright, of whom very little is known. He was one of the three
ministers sent over by the Massachusetts Company in 1629, Higginson
and Skelton being the other two. In June of that year, when Graves
and the Spragues were sent by Endicott to effect a settlement at
Charlestown, Bright accompanied them as “minister to the Company’s
servants.” (Young’s _Chron. of Mass._, pp. 316, 376.) As such, he was
the Caiaphas, or high-priest, of that region, and it naturally devolved
on him to “exercise his guifts on the Lords day at Weenasimute.” Morton
further says that the person he refers to had been a silenced minister
in England. That Bright had been silenced is not known, but both
Skelton and Higginson had been (_Magnalia_, B. I. ch. iv. § 4; Neal’s
_Hist. of Puritans_, vol. ii. p. 229); and, though Hubbard intimates
that Bright was a conformist (p. 113), yet, in the Company’s letter to
Endicott, the three ministers are stated to have “declared themselves
to us to be of one judgment, and to be fully agreed on the manner how
to exercise their ministry.” (Young’s _Chron. of Pilg._, p. 160.)
Winthrop, Morton adds, “spied out Caiphas practise; and he must be
packing.” Bright returned to England shortly after Winthrop’s arrival.
Johnson says (_Wonder-working Providence_, p. 20) that he “betooke him
to the Seas againe,” when he saw that “all sorts of stones would not
fit in the building.”
Samuel Skelton is referred to by Morton a few pages further on
(_Infra_, 306) as “Pastor Master Eager,” which name may be taken to
imply “covetousness” in him. But, though Skelton might be termed the
“Caiphas” of the country, he was not silenced by Winthrop. He can,
therefore, hardly be the person here aimed at.
[506] [courteousnesse] See _supra_, 111, _n._ 1.
[507] _Supra_, 229, _note_ 3, and 300, _note_ 1.
[508] Iosua Temperwell. Under this name Morton always designates
Governor John Winthrop.
[509] Caiaphas was the high-priest of the Jews; Jonas, or Jonah, was
the first Hebrew prophet sent to a heathen nation. The propriety of
these two Biblical allusions in this connection is, therefore, apparent
enough. The allusion to Demas is more obscure, as he is only mentioned
by Paul as a fellow-disciple who had forsaken him, “having loved this
present world, and is departed unto Thessalonica.” (II. _Timothy_ iv.
10.)
[510] _Supra_, *144, *151.
[511] _Supra_, 30.
[512] _Supra_, 35.
[513] _Supra_, 37.
[514] By this name Morton designates Matthew Cradock, the first
Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Company, though he never came to
America. Cradock was a wealthy London merchant, and as such subscribed
largely to the funds of the company. In regard to him, see Dr. Young’s
note in _Chron. of Mass._ (p. 137).
[515] It is not clear who Morton may have intended to designate by
this name. John Washburne was the secretary and “collector for the
company” at the time Endicott was sent over, but of him nothing is
known. (Young’s _Chron. of Mass._, p. 55.) It would seem more probable
that Increase Nowell was the person Morton had in mind. Nowell was one
of the original patentees, contributing money to forward the purposes
of the company, serving on committees, &c. (_Ib._ p. 262.) He came
to New England with Winthrop, and was among the magistrates who were
present at the trial of Morton in September, 1630. (_Records_, vol. i.
pp. 73, 75.) He was the first ruling-elder of the Charlestown church.
He is described as having been “a worthy pious man” (Eliot); and if he
was the person intended by Morton,--which is not at all clear,--the
propriety of calling him Ananias, if it rests on anything, is not
apparent from the record.
[516] The “covered case,” in which Governor Winthrop is supposed to
have brought over the charter of 1629, is still to be seen in the
office of the Secretary of the Commonwealth at the State House in
Boston; and that in which Endicott brought over the patent of 1628
was, it may be inferred from the text, similar in appearance. It very
much resembles the case for “some instrument of musick,” being a flat,
narrow box, 2 feet 10 inches long, by 3-1/2 inches wide and 3 inches
deep. It has a species of circular annex, so to speak, at its middle,
intended to contain the seal. This annex, like the box, is of wood, and
is 7 by 8 inches in surface, and the same in depth as the main case,
of which it is a part. The whole is covered with stamped leather, now
brown and mouldered with age. There are, however, some things about
this case which suggest doubts as to its having been made quite so
early as the time of Charles I.
[517] In regard to this meeting at Salem, and the action taken at it,
see _supra_, 38-40. No record or other mention of it, except that
contained in the text, has come down to us.
[518] See _supra_ 300, _note_ 1.
[519] This refers to the famous Salem ordination of Skelton and
Higginson, July 20 and August 6, 1629; in regard to which see Palfrey,
vol. i. pp. 295-6.
[520] _Supra_, 41-2.
[521] [converted] See _supra_ 111, _note_ 1.
[522] The arrival of Winthrop’s fleet in June, 1630, is here referred
to. It has already been stated that Iosua Temperwell is intended for
Governor Winthrop. It will be noticed that Morton, much as he disliked
him, always refers to Winthrop, if not with respect, yet with a certain
restraint of tone and insinuation which he did not show to others, such
as Endicott, Fuller and Standish.
[523] _Supra_, *156.
[524] _Supra_, 47. See, also, the petition of Winslow, while a prisoner
in the Fleet, to the Lords of the Council. (_Proc. of Mass. Hist. Soc._
1860-2, p. 133.)
[525] _Supra_, 43-5.
[526] T. W. Higginson, who in 1866 published a translation of
Epictetus, furnishes me the following note on this allusion: “The
phrase ‘bear and forbear’ has always been received as the formula
especially characteristic of Epictetus. It is most explicitly preserved
to us in the _Noctes Atticæ_ of Aulus Gellius (B. XVII. ch. xix. §§
5-6). Gellius says: ‘Verba duo dicebat: Ἀνέχου καὶ ἀπέχου,’ having
previously explained their meaning. There was in 1634 no English
translation of any portion of Epictetus containing the phrase; nor
was he an author then much read at the English universities. Morton
probably, therefore, got the quotation from the Latin of Aulus Gellius;
if, indeed, he did not pick it up in listening to the talk of some more
scholarly man,--possibly Ben Jonson.”
[527] Ille hæc ludibria fortunæ, ne sua quidem putavit, quæ nos
appelamus etiam bona. (_Paradoxa_, I. 1.)
[528] I am unable to suggest any explanation of the allusions contained
in this chapter. There is no apparent clew either to the “zealous
Professor” whose conscience did not permit him to cut tombstones,
or to the “gentleman newly come into the land,” who “incurred the
displeasure” of Governor Winthrop and was degraded.
[529] “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness
of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath,
or that is in the water under the earth.”
[530] “Antonomasia (_Rhet._). The use of the name of some office,
dignity, profession, science or trade, instead of the proper name
of the person; as where _his majesty_ is used for a king, or _his
lordship_ for a nobleman, or when, instead of Aristotle, we say _the
philosopher_; or, conversely, the use of a proper name instead of an
appellative, as where a wise man is called a _Cato_, or an eminent
orator a _Cicero_, the application being supported by a resemblance in
character.” (_Webster._)
[531] The phrase “them that are without [the church]” calls for no
explanation. It was common in early New England, and both Lyford and
Bradford are found using it (Bradford, pp. 184, 187) exactly as Morton
uses it, who probably picked it up at Plymouth.
[532] Innocence Fairecloath is the name under which Morton alludes to
Philip Ratcliff. This man was a servant or agent of Governor Matthew
Cradock. He got into trouble with Endicott and the members of the Salem
church, and, according to Winthrop, “being convict, _ore tenus_, of
most foul, scandalous invectives against our churches and government,
was censured to be whipped, lose his ears, and be banished the
plantation, which was presently executed.” (p. *56.) Another authority
speaks of the offence as a “most horible blasphemy.” (III. _Mass.
Hist. Coll._, vol. viii. p. 323.) In the _Records of Massachusetts_
(p. 88), under date of June 14 (24 N. S.), 1631, the sentence read
as follows: “It is ordered, that Philip Ratcliffe shall be whipped,
have his ears cut off, fined 40 l., and banished out of the limits
of this jurisdiction, for uttering malicious and scandalous speeches
against the government and the church of Salem, &c., as appeareth by a
particular thereof, proved upon oath.” The severity of this sentence
caused much scandal in England after Ratcliff returned there, and
in April of the next year Edward Howes wrote out to John Winthrop,
Jr.: “I have heard diverse complaints against the severitie of your
Government especially Mr. Indicutts, and that he shalbe sent for over,
about cuttinge off the Lunatick mans eares, and other grievances.”
(III. _Mass. Hist. Coll._, vol. ix. p. 244.) In regard to Ratcliff’s
subsequent connection with the Gorges-Mason attacks on the company
before the Privy Council, see _supra_, 50-2, 62, and _Proceedings of
Mass. Hist. Soc._, vol. xx., January meeting, 1883.
[533] See _supra_ 304, _note_ 2.
[534] The first two deacons of the church at Charlestown were Robert
Hale and Ralph Monsall. The Charlestown church, however, was not
organized until November, 1632, sixteen months after Ratcliff’s
punishment. (Budington’s _First Church of Charlestown_, pp. 31, 34.)
The Boston church in June, 1631, had but one deacon, William Aspinwall
(Ellis’s _First Church of Boston_, p. 328), in regard to whom there is
a detailed note in Savage’s _Winthrop_ (p. *32). He was the deacon of
the Charlestown church at the time Morton was arraigned and punished,
and it is possible that Morton refers to him as Shackles. Aspinwall was
a man of prominence in the settlement; but it must be remembered that,
thirteen years later, “two of our ministers’ sons, being students in
the college, robbed two dwelling-houses in the night of some pounds.
Being found out, they were ordered by the gouvernours of the college
to be there whipped, which was performed by the president himself--yet
they were about 20 years of age.” (Winthrop, vol. ii. p. *166.) If the
president of the college could officiate at the whipping-post in 1644,
in a case of what Winthrop calls “burglary,” there seems no good reason
why the deacon of the church should not have officiated there in 1631
in a case which the same authority calls “foul, scandalous invectives
against our churches.”
[535] _Supra_, 319.
[536] The character of the _New Canaan_ as a political pamphlet of
the time, intended to effect a given result in a particular quarter,
has already been referred to. (_Supra_, pp. 68-9.) In this respect
the present chapter is the most significant one in the book. It was
intended to act on the well-known prejudices of Archbishop Laud, the
head and controlling spirit of that Board of Lords Commissioners of
Foreign Plantations which then had supreme authority over the colonies.
To that Board Morton dedicated his book; and at the time he was writing
it the Lords Commissioners, and especially the Archbishop, were taking
active measures to vacate the Massachusetts charter and to assume the
direct government of the colonies. It is its connection with these
facts which alone gives any great degree of historical value to the
present chapter. In itself it is not deserving of careful annotation,
as it contains nothing that is new, and the ground is much better
covered by Lechford in his _Plaine Dealing_. Like Morton, Lechford was
a lawyer; and, unlike Morton, he was by nature a devout man. A member
of the Church of England he has given in his book a remarkably vivid
and fair-minded description of the practice of the New England churches
during the earliest days of the settlement. Mr. Trumbull’s very learned
and elaborate notes to his edition of the _Plaine Dealing_, which is
the edition referred to in the notes to the present chapter, have
cleared up Lechford’s text wherever it is obscure; and they obviate
the necessity of any careful annotation of the present chapter, except
where it is desirable to call notice to the special bearing any
particular assertion made may be supposed to have had on Archbishop
Laud’s idiosyncrasies.
[537] “Teaching in the church publicly,” was, it will be remembered,
one of the offences charged against Winslow before the Lords
Commissioners at the hearing of 1634, for which, at Archbishop Laud’s
“vehement importunity,” he was committed to the Fleet. (_Supra_, 69;
_Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc._, 1860-2, p. 131.) On the real practice of the
New England churches in regard to the exercise of their gifts by lay
members, see _Plaine Dealing_, p. 42.
[538] “I suppose the first preacher that ever thus preached with notes
in our New-England was the Reverend Warham.” (_Magnalia_, B. III.
part 2, ch. xviii.) In regard to John Warham, first of Dorchester and
subsequently of Windsor, Connecticut, see Dr. Young’s note in _Chron.
of Mass._, p. 347.
[539] There probably never was any regularly chosen deaconess in
New England. The office was recognized as having come down from the
primitive churches (Dexter’s _Congregationalism_, p. 69); and Robert
Browne in his definitions, in the _Life and Manners of all true
Christians_, says: “The _widow_ is a person having office of God to
pray for the church, and to visit and minister to those which are
afflicted and distressed in the church; for the which she is tried and
received as meet.” (Bacon’s _Genesis of the New England Churches_,
p. 84.) Bradford in his _Dialogue_, written in 1648, speaking of
the Separatist church at Amsterdam, says, that besides the pastor,
teacher, elders and deacons, there was “one ancient widow for a
deaconess, who did them service many years, though she was sixty
years of age when she was chosen. She honored her place and was an
ornament to the congregation. She usually sat in a convenient place
in the congregation, with a little birchen rod in her hand, and kept
little children in great awe from disturbing the congregation. She
did frequently visit the sick and weak, especially women, and, as
there was need, called out maids and young women to watch and do them
other helps as their necessity did require; and if they were poor, she
would gather relief for them of those that were able, or acquaint the
deacons; and she was obeyed as a mother in Israel and an officer of
Christ.” (Young’s _Chron. of Pilg._, p. 455.) It would be inferred from
the passage quoted that there had in 1648 never been a deaconess in
the Plymouth church, as in this _Dialogue_ the old men are supposed to
be describing to the young men events strange to the latter, as having
occurred long before. Lechford says, speaking of the Massachusetts
colony: “No church there has a Deaconesse, as far as I know.” (_Plaine
Dealing_, pp. 24, 40) “I have not met with an instance of [the] actual
institution [of the office of deaconess] in New England.” (Palfrey,
vol. ii. p. 37, _note_.)
It does not seem, however, to have been even theoretically one of the
functions of the deaconess “to use her gifts at home,” as Morton says,
“in an assembly of her sex, by way of repetition, or exhortation.”
This would rather have pertained to the office of teacher. Meetings of
females, such as those described, were held in the parishes during the
early days, and played an important part in the Antinomian controversy.
The deaconess did not, however, officiate at them. The character of
these meetings appears in the following passage at the trial of Mrs.
Hutchinson:
“COURT. ... What say you to your weekly public meetings? Can you find
a warrant for them?
MRS. HUTCHINSON. I will show you how I took it up. There were such
meetings in use before I came; and because I went to none of them, this
was the special reason of my taking up this course. We began it with
but five or six, and, though it grew to more in future time, yet, being
tolerated at the first, I knew not why it might not continue.
COURT. There were private meetings indeed, and are still in many
places, of some few neighbors; but not so public and frequent as yours;
and are of use for increase of love and mutual edification. But yours
are of another nature. If they had been such as yours they had been
evil, and therefore no good warrant to justify yours. But answer by
what authority or rule you uphold them?
MRS. H. By Titus ii. 3-5, where the elder women are to teach the
younger.
COURT. So we allow you to do, as the Apostle there means, privately
and upon occasion. But that gives no warrant of such set meetings for
that purpose. And, besides, you take upon you to teach many that are
older than yourself. Neither do you teach them that which the Apostle
commands, viz: to keep at home.
MRS. H. Will you please to give me a rule against it, and I will yield.
COURT. You must have a rule for it, or else you cannot do it in faith.
Yet you have a plain rule against it,--‘I suffer not a woman to teach.’
(I. Tim. ii. 12.)
MRS. H. That is meant of teaching men.”
(Weld’s _Short Story_, pp. 34-5.) See also the version to the same
effect in Hutchinson’s _Massachusetts_, vol. ii. pp. 484-7.
[540] _Supra_, 262, _note_ 3, and 306, _note_ 3. The effect such a
statement as that in the text would have upon Archbishop Laud is
apparent. The real practice of the early New England churches in the
matter of ordination can be found in the _Plaine Dealing_, pp. 13, 16,
17.
[541] “There hath been some difference about jurisdictions, or
cognizance of causes: Some have held that, in causes betweene brethren
of the Church, the matter should be first told the Church, before
they goe to the civill Magistrate, because all causes in difference
doe amount, one way or other, to a matter of offence; and that all
criminall matters concerning Church members, should be first heard by
the Church. But these opinionists are held, by the wiser sort, not to
know the dangerous issues and consequences of such tenets.” (_Plaine
Dealing_, p. 34.)
[542] There was no minister at Plymouth in the spring of 1628, when
Morton was there. William Brewster was the ruling elder in the church
and officiated in its pulpit, where, from the beginning, he had “taught
twice every sabbath, and that both powerfully and profitably, to the
great contentment of the hearers, and their comfortable edification.”
(Young’s _Chron. of Pilg._, p. 467; Bradford, pp. 187-8.) In the summer
of 1628, but after Morton had been sent to England, Allerton brought
over Mr. Rogers as a preacher, who soon proved to be “crased in his
braine” (Bradford, p. 243), and the next season was sent home. In the
autumn, apparently, of 1629, and while Morton may have been at Plymouth
at Allerton’s house (_Ib._ p. 253), before his final return to Mount
Wollaston, the Rev. Ralfe Smith, who had come over with Skelton and
Higginson in the previous June (Young’s _Chron. of Mass._, p. 151),
was found at Nantasket and brought down to Plymouth. (Bradford, p.
263.) He was not, however, chosen into the ministry there until a
later time. (_Ib._) It is unlikely that Morton here refers to Plymouth
personages. He was at Salem in 1629 (_Supra_, 306), and in Boston,
where as a prisoner he was undoubtedly made regularly to attend divine
service, from early September to the end of December, 1630. (_Supra_,
45; Young’s _Chron. of Mass._, p. 321.) At Salem he had come in contact
with Skelton and Higginson; and it has been seen (_Supra_, 300, _note_
1) that he probably knew something of Francis Bright of Charlestown.
The only other ministers then in the colony were John Warham and John
Maverick at Dorchester, George Phillips at Watertown, and John Wilson
at Boston.
[543] It is scarcely necessary to point out that the three following
pages are largely the fruit of Morton’s imaginative powers, and were
intended for the special edification of Archbishop Laud. As Plymouth
was much less well supplied with preachers than the towns of the
Massachusetts colony, it is altogether probable--as Dr. John Eliot
surmised, in his review of the _New Canaan_, in the _Monthly Anthology_
for July, 1810--the allusions to the church-practises in this chapter
found their largest basis of fact in incidents which Morton had been a
witness of in the Plymouth meeting-house. It is safe to add, however,
that he could have had no agreeable recollections of the meeting-houses
at Boston and Charlestown.
[544] Oliver Le Daim, barber of Louis XI., created by him Comte de
Meulan, and sent in 1477 on a confidential mission to Mary of Burgundy
at Ghent. The account of his experiences is to be found in the
_Memoires de Commines_, L. v. ch. xiv.
[545] _Supra_, 302, _note_ 1.
[546] I am indebted to Mr. Lindsay Swift, of the Boston Public Library,
for the following explanation of this, to me, very perplexing allusion:
“_Nic_, or, more correctly, _nick_,--namely, ‘a raised or indented
bottom in a beer-can, by which the customers were cheated, the nick
below and the froth above filling up part of the measure.’ I take
this definition from Wright’s _Dictionary of Obsolete and Provincial
English_. That the expression was a common one the following quotations
prove:--
‘We must be running up and downe
With cannes of beere (malt sod in fishes broth),
And those they say are fil’d with nick and froth.’
(Rowland’s _Knave of Harts_.)
‘From the nick and froth of a penny pot-house.’
(Fletcher.)
‘Our pots were full quarted,
We were not thus thwarted
With froth-canne and nick-pot,
And such nimble quick shot.’
(Spurious lines added to Rand’s 1624 edition of Skelton’s _Elynour
Rummynge_.) Most of this information I have taken from Nares’s
_Glossary_ and Halliwell-Phillipp’s _Dictionary of Archaic and
Provincial Words_, second edition.”
[547] The reference here is apparently to the running footmen much
in use in the eighteenth century, and also, judging by the text, as
early as the reign of Charles I. Their duty was to run before and
alongside the cumbrous coaches then in use, to notify innkeepers of
the coming guests. They carried long poles to assist them in clearing
obstacles, and to help pry the carriages out of the sloughs in which
they frequently got stuck. (Brewer’s _Dict. of Phrase and Fable_, p.
773; Macaulay’s _England_, vol. i. pp. 374-8.)
[548] It was one of the doctrines of Pythagoras that the souls of the
dying passed into the air, and thence into the living bodies of other
men, taking controlling possession of them. That the nimbleness of the
father’s feet might thus account for the volubility of the son’s tongue
is, it is needless to say, a purely Mortonian deduction.
[549] “_May_ 12. [1621] was the first marriage in this place, which,
according to the laudable custome of the Low-Countries, in which
they had lived, was thought most requisite to be performed by the
magistrate, as being a civill thing, upon which many questions aboute
inheritances doe depende, with other things most proper to their
cognizans, and most consonante to the scripturs. Ruth 4. and no wher
found in the gospell to be layed on the ministers as a part of their
office.” (Bradford, p. 101.) The marriage here referred to was that of
Edward Winslow to Mrs. Susannah White. It took place in May, Winslow’s
wife having died seven weeks before, and Mrs. White’s husband,
William, twelve weeks before. That he had married people was, it will
be remembered, the other of the two charges advanced against Winslow
himself, at the Privy Council hearing just referred to. (_Supra_,
322, _note_ 2.) The practice of civil marriage already prevailed in
the Massachusetts colony also, as, a week before the arrest of Morton
was ordered, Governor Endicott, on August 18, 1630, was married, at
Charlestown apparently, “by the governour and Mr. Wilson.” (Winthrop,
vol. i. p. *30. See also _Plaine Dealing_, pp. 86-7.) There are few
more edifying examples of the casuistical skill of Winthrop and his
associates than is afforded by his method of dealing with the question
of civil marriages, as explained in detail in his _Journal_ (vol. i. p.
*323). “In our church discipline, and in matters of marriage, to make a
law that marriages should not be solemnized by ministers is repugnant
to the laws of England; but to bring it to a custom by practice for the
magistrates to perform it, is no law made repugnant, etc.” The charter
of 1629 empowered the General Court of the colony “to make, ordeine,
and establishe all Manner of wholesome and reasonable Orders, Lawes,
Statutes, and Ordinances, Directions, and Instructions, not contrary to
the Lawes of theis our Realme of England.” (Hazard, vol. i. p. 252.)
[550] At the conference between the Bishops and the Puritans, held in
presence of James I. at Hampton Court in January, 1603, one of the
practices of the English Church especially excepted to as a “relique
of popery” by Dr. John Reynolds, the spokesman of the Puritans, was
the ring in marriage. (Neal’s _Hist. of Puritans_, vol. ii. p. 42.)
Among the reasons urged against its use I have not elsewhere found the
“diabolical circle” argument. It seems rather to have been associated
in the Puritan mind with the Romish traditions. (Jones’s _Finger-Ring
Lore_, pp. 288-90.) This count, in Morton’s indictment, was based on
good grounds. “In the Weddings of [early] New England the ring makes
none of the ceremonies.” (Mather’s _Ratio Disciplinæ_, p. 116.)
[551] This refers to churching practice of the English Church. At the
Hampton Court conference, referred to in the preceding note, another of
the “reliques of popery,” specifically excepted to by Dr. Reynolds, was
“the churching of women by the name of _purification_.”
[552] This count in the indictment was well laid. The children of the
non-communicants in early New England could not be baptized; though
they might be if either one of the parents was a member of the church.
At a later period this became one of the leading causes of political
agitation in the colony, and is referred to in the Dr. Robert Childs
petition of 1646. In 1670 from four fifths to five sixths of the adult
male inhabitants of Massachusetts were without the franchise, as being
non-communicants. (Lechford’s _Plaine Dealing_, pp. 47, 48, 151; _Mem.
Hist. of Boston_, vol. i. p. 156; Palfrey, vol. ii. p. 8, vol. iii. p.
41.)
[553] _Supra_, 316, _note_ 2.
[554] This was the favorite epithet employed by the early reformers
in referring to the Mass. Calvin called it “an execrable idol;”
Hooper, “a wicked idol.” Bradford--not Governor William, but John,
the Smithfield martyr of Queen Mary’s time--terms it an “abominable
idol of bread;” and again, “the horriblest and most detestable
device that ever the devil brought out by man.” Bland, rector of
Adishan, repeated the familiar figure, calling it a “most blasphemous
idol;” and Latimer improved upon this by adding the words, “full of
idolatry, blasphemy, sacrilege against God and the dear sacrifice
of His Christ.” (Blunt’s _Reformation of the Church of Eng._, vol.
ii. pp. 399-402.) The derivation of the Book of Common Prayer, in
many of its parts, from the Missal was unmistakable; and naturally
the next race of religious reformers applied to the former the same
earnest epithets of theological dissent which had before been applied
to the latter. Accordingly, in Barrowe’s _Brief Discovery of the
False Church_, we find the Book of Common Prayer referred to as “a
detestable idol, ... old rotten stuff ... abstracted out of the pope’s
blasphemous mass-book, ... an abominable and loathsome sacrifice in
the sight of God, even as a dead dog.” Barrowe was one of the three
Separatist martyrs, and as such held in deepest veneration at Plymouth.
(Young’s _Chron. of Pilg._, pp. 427-34.) The Book of Common Prayer
was therefore undoubtedly looked upon and referred to at Plymouth as
Morton says. Indeed, the Lyford schism was in some degree due to its
use. (Bradford, p. 181.) That it was, in the early days, also so looked
upon and so referred to at Salem and at Boston, is not clear. It is
true that in 1629 it was again the cause of the Browne dissension at
Salem (Young’s _Chron. of Mass._, p. 287), in consequence of which
Skelton and Higginson both declared openly “that they came away from
the Common Prayer and ceremonies, ... and therefore, being in a place
where they might have their liberty, they neither could nor would use
them, because they judged the imposition of these things to be sinful
corruptions in the worship of God.” (Morton’s _Memorial_, p. 147.) The
Puritans of Boston, however, were not Separatists, and it is open to
question whether they at first felt towards the Common Prayer as the
Plymouth people felt towards it, and as Morton says. In 1640 Governor
Winthrop, it is true, noted it as a thing worthy of observation that
his son “having many books in a chamber where there was corn of divers
sorts, had among them one wherein the Greek testament, the psalms and
the common prayer were bound together. He found the common prayer eaten
with mice, every leaf of it, and not any of the two other touched, nor
any other of his books, though they were above a thousand.” (Winthrop,
vol. ii. p. *20.) When Governor Winthrop tried and sentenced Morton,
however, he was anxious to preserve his connection with the Church of
England, and it is very doubtful whether he then looked upon its Book
of Prayer as “an idol.” (_Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc._, vol. xviii. p. 296.)
As one count in Morton’s indictment of the people of New England, that
in the text now under consideration was not only sufficiently well
founded, but it was peculiarly calculated to excite Archbishop Laud’s
anger. It is unnecessary to say that he was the special champion of
the Church of England ritual. To enforce exact conformity to it he
regarded as his mission. When the ships loaded with emigrants for New
England were, in March, 1634, stopped in the Thames by order of the
Privy Council, they were not allowed to proceed on their voyage until
the masters bound themselves to have the Book of Common Prayer used at
morning and evening service during the voyage. (_Council Register_,
Feb. 21, 28, 1634; Gardiner’s _Charles I._, vol. ii. p. 23.) This was
Laud’s act, and it is more than probable that he was as much influenced
by Morton on that occasion as he was subsequently in the matter of
Winslow’s imprisonment for having performed the marriage ceremony.
(_Supra_, 69, 93.)
[555] “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay
tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier
matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith.” (_Matt._ xxiii. 23.)
“But woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye tithe mint and rue and all manner
of herbs, and pass over judgment and the love of God.” (_Luke_ xi. 42.)
The significance of the text referred to lay, of course, in Morton’s
mind, rather in its indirect than its direct application,--more in its
denunciatory than in its contributory portions. The clergy in early
Massachusetts were supported by the voluntary contributions in Boston,
and by a regular town-tax levy outside of Boston. (_Plaine Dealing_,
pp. 48-50; _Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc._, 1860-2, p. 116.)
[556] _Supra_, Ch. XXV. pp. 316-20.
[557] “_Wink_, _v. n._ 1. to shut the eyes. _obs._” (_Worcester._)
[558] Edward Howes, in writing from London to John Winthrop, Jr.,
in November, 1632, describes how, on going home at noon one day, he
met the master of a vessel which had just arrived from New England,
together with three others who had come over with him. The master
passing into the house on some matter of business, Howes had a talk
with one of the other men, whom he describes as an “egregious knave.”
The report given by this man of the Massachusetts community strikingly
resembles that given by Morton in this chapter. He would, writes Howes,
“give none of you a good word, but the governor [Winthrop]; he was a
good man and kept a good table, but all the rest were Hereticks, and
they would be more holy than all the world; they would be a peculiar
people to God, but go to the Devil; that one man with you being at
confession, as he called it, said he believed his father and mother and
ancestors went all to Hell; and that your preachers, in their public
prayers, pray for the governor before they pray for our king and state;
... that you never use the Lord’s prayer; that your ministers marry
none; that fellows which keep hogs all the week preach on the Sabbath;
that every town in your plantation is of a several religion; that you
count all men in England, yea all out of your church, in the state of
damnation. But I believe and know better things of you; but here you
may partly see how the Devil stirs up his instruments.” (IV. _Mass.
Hist. Col._, vol. vi. p. 485.)
[559] Mr. Swift (_Supra_, 328, _note_) suggests that Morton here
alludes to the scene in Ben Jonson’s _Tale of a Tub_ (act iv. sc. 1),
where Justice Preamble says:
“And what say you now, neighbor Turfe?”
Turfe answers him:
“I put it
Even to your worship’s bitterment, hab, nab.”
Here the Countryman makes the remark, and not the Justice; but a wholly
correct allusion by Morton is not to be looked for. (_Supra_, 123,
_note_ 2.) The meaning of _hab, nab_ is, of course, “hit or miss, at a
venture, at random,” and is probably derived from _habbe, nabbe_,--“to
have or not to have.” (See Nares’s _Glossary_.)
[560] _Supra_, 44-5.
[561] _Supra_, 319, _note_.
[562] By the General Court of May, 1644, it was ordered, that
“Nantascot shall be called Hull.” (_Records_, vol. ii. p. 74.) Mr.
Savage, in his notes to Winthrop (vol. ii. p. *175), and Mr. Whitmore
(_Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc._ 1871-3, p. 397), think it was so called
from Hull in Yorkshire. It would appear from the text that it had
been locally known by that name among the “old planters” before the
settlement of Boston.
[563] Sir Christopher Gardiner suddenly appeared in Massachusetts
in May, 1630, and returned to England in 1632, arriving there in
August. He is supposed to have come out as an agent, or emissary, of
Sir Ferdinando Gorges. I had begun the preparation of a note on Sir
Christopher, and “how hee spedd amongst the Seperatists,” for insertion
at this point; but the subject developed on my hands until it assumed
the shape of a study by itself. It can be found in the _Proceedings of
the Mass. Hist. Soc._ for January, 1883, vol. xx.
[564] Machiavelli died in 1527, and _The Prince_ was published in 1532.
The reputation of the man and of the book were as well established in
Morton’s day as they are now.
“Nick Machiavel had ne’er a trick,
(Tho’ he gave his name to our old Nick.)”
(_Hudibras_, p. III. can. i. lines 1313-4.)
This derivation is not accepted by the authorities. See Brewer’s
_Dict._, p. 614.
[565] _Supra_, Ch. XXV. pp. 316-20.
[566] As Saint Michael is one of the Azores, it may have been during
this voyage that Morton visited the Isle of Sal and the tropics, as
mentioned in the first chapter of the _New Canaan_. (_Supra_, 117.)
If the voyage did last nine months, it was August or September, 1631,
before he got back to England.
[567]
“Cum canerem reges et prœlia, Cynthius aurem
Vellit, et admonuit:...”
(Virgil, _Eclogues_, vi. 3-4.)
There are in the _New Canaan_ (_Supra_, 280, 297) two references to
certain imaginary or special gifts from “Phaos box,” which in editing
I had been unable to explain. Mr. Lindsay Swift (_Supra_, 328, _note_)
now supplies me with a reference, which, if it is indeed, as seems most
probable, the allusion which Morton had in mind, seems to indicate
that his familiarity with classic authors was greater than I have
been disposed to give him credit for. The reference is to the _Varia
Historia_ of Ælianus (lib. XII. cap. xviii.), and reads as follows:
“Phaonem, omnium hominum formosissimum, Venus in lactucis abscondit.
Alii dicunt, eum portitorem fuisse, et habuisse hoc vitæ genus.
Veniebat autem aliquando Venus, trajicere volens; ille vero, nesciens
quænam esset, libenter recepit, magnaque cura, quoquo voluerat, eam
vexit. Pro quibus meritis Dea alabastrum ei donavit, et erat in eo
unguentum, quo unctus Phaon speciosissimus hominum evasit, atque adeo
amarunt eum Mitylenensium feminæ. Tandem vero deprehensus in adulterio,
trucidatus est.”
* * * * * *
Transcriber's Note
The following apparent errors have been corrected:
p. 18 (note) "Strutt s" changed to "Strutt’s"
p. 23 (note) "_Infra_ *149." changed to "_Infra_, *149."
p. 83 (note) "_State Papers_.," changed to "_State Papers_,"
p. 98 "repects" changed to "respects"
p. 102 (note) "humming-bird”" changed to "“humming-bird”"
p. 130 (note) "pp, 70" changed to "pp. 70"
p. 133 (note) "1869.," changed to "1869,"
p. 137 (note) "‘eat.”" changed to "‘eat.’”"
p. 140 (note) "lxxxix" changed to "lxxxix."
p. 147 (note) "Hemlock-Bark" changed to "Hemlock-Bark”"
p. 148 (note) "_nanwetee_’" changed to "_nanwetee_"
p. 152 (note) "lxxxiv-lxxxvii" changed to "lxxxiv.-lxxxvii."
p. 158 (note) "together”" changed to "together.”"
p. 185 (sidenote) "3. & 4" changed to "3. & 4."
p. 196 (note) "linarius" changed to "lanarius"
p. 213 (note) "_Chingachgook_" changed to "_Chingachcook_"
p. 217 (note) "he got" changed to "be got"
p. 218 (note) "vol," changed to "vol."
p. 226 (note) "_Psendopleuronectes_" changed to "_Pseudopleuronectes_"
p. 269 "the rest" changed to "the rest,"
p. 314 "handsomely" changed to "handsomely."
p. 326 (sidenote) "despised" changed to "despised."
p. 348 "cured" changed to "cured."
p. 355 "N. Y." changed to "N.Y."
p. 356 "N. Y." changed to "N.Y."
p. 356 "R. I." changed to "R.I."
p. 358 "N. Y." changed to "N.Y."
p. 359 "Prospect" changed to "Prospect."
p. 359 "Whitmore, A.M" changed to "Whitmore, A.M."
p. 363 "131, _n._;" changed to "131, _n._,"
p. 365 "Canonicus" changed to "Caunoŭnicus"
p. 366 "196, _n._," changed to "196, _n._;"
p. 369 "186," changed to "186."
p. 371 "_Kantantowwit_" changed to "Kantántowwit"
p. 371 "_Kodliep Kēn_" changed to "_Kodtup Kēn_"
p. 372 "description of, 200;" changed to "description of, 206;"
p. 374 "205, _n._" changed to "205, _n._;"
Inconsistent spelling, punctuation and typography have otherwise been
left as printed.
The following possible errors have been left as printed:
p. 19 beasly
p. 123 originlly
p. 125 probality
p. 127 this Cost
p. 132 strenght
p. 144 lenght
p. 148 uncivilizied
p. 154 fuond
p. 164 giude
p. 210 oder glands
p. 219 Blacklead.
p. 223 (note) lenghth
p. 230 Mattachusetts
p. 231 ageed
p. 261 doubdt
p. 281 strenght
p. 287 worties
p. 365 Cithyrea
p. 365 fire-brand
p. 366 Colchos
p. 366 Powows
p. 366 luzerans
p. 367 Drails
p. 367 luzeran
p. 368 luzeran
p. 371 Lannerets
p. 371 Leadstones
p. 375 Newcomein
p. 376 Pawtucket
p. 376 Phlegethon
p. 376 Phœbus
p. 377 Rhadamanthus
p. 379 Chappel: chalkstones
p. 379 Stubbs
p. 380 Wampumpeack
p. 381 Auld