AFTERNOON AND EVENING
IT was not in the little "hut" of former days that Portia awaited her
dearest friend. A statelier dwelling was theirs henceforth, the house
built by Leonard Vassall, a West India planter. It stood, and still
stands, in its ample grounds, under its branching elms. The original
building has received many additions, but it is the same house to which
John Adams came on that spring day of 1801; the home of his later life,
and of three generations of his descendants.
John Adams was now seventy-six years old, still in the fullness of
vigorous manhood. I seem to see him entering that door, a defeated and
disappointed man, yet holding his head as high, and looking forward with
as clear and steadfast a gaze as if he were come home in triumph. He
might be angry, he might be hurt; but no injury could bow the head, or
bend the broad shoulders, of him who had once been acclaimed as the
Atlas of Independence. Thus seeing him, I cannot but recall the summing
up of his character by another strong man, Theodore Parker, the
preacher.
"The judgment of posterity will be, that he was a brave man,
deep-sighted, conscientious, patriotic, and possessed of Integrity which
nothing ever shook, but which stood firm as the granite of his Quincy
Hills. While American Institutions continue, the People will honor
_brave, honest old John Adams_, who never failed his country in her hour
of need, and who, in his life of more than ninety years, though both
passionate and ambitious, wronged no man nor any woman.
"And all the people shall say Amen!"
In this peaceful and pleasant home, Mr. and Mrs. Adams were to pass the
rest of their days. They wasted no time in repining; they were thankful
to be at home, eager to enjoy the fruits of leisure and the quiet mind.
By early May, Mrs. Adams was setting out raspberry bushes and strawberry
vines, and working daily in her dairy. She sends word to her daughter
that she might see her at five o'clock in the morning, skimming her
milk.
She was not the only busy one. "You will find your father," she writes
to her son Thomas, "in his fields, attending to his hay-makers. . . .
The crops of hay have been abundant; upon this spot, where eight years
ago we cut scarcely six tons, we now have thirty."
Mr. Josiah Quincy, in his "Figures of the Past," gives us delightful
glimpses of Mr. and Mrs. Adams. He was a child of five when he used to
gaze in wonder at the second President in Quincy meeting-house.
"The President's pew was conspicuous in the reconstructed edifice, and
there the old man was to be seen at every service. An air of respectful
deference to John Adams seemed to pervade the building. The ministers
brought their best sermons when they came to exchange, and had a certain
consciousness in their manner, as if officiating before royalty. The
medley of stringed and wind instruments in the gallery--a survival of
the sacred trumpets and shawms mentioned by King David--seemed to the
imagination of a child to be making discord together in honor of the
venerable chief who was the centre of interest."
As Josiah Quincy recalls his childhood, so the old President loved to
recall his own. "I shall never forget," he would say, "the rows of
venerable heads ranged along those front benches which, as a young
fellow, I used to gaze upon. They were as old and gray as mine is now."
When he was six, Josiah Quincy was put to school to the Reverend Peter
Whitney, and, while there, was often asked to dine at the Adams house of
a Sunday. "This was at first," he says, "somewhat of an ordeal for a
boy; but the genuine kindness of the President, who had not the smallest
chip of an iceberg in his composition, soon made me perfectly at ease in
his society." With Mrs. Adams, he found "a shade more formality"; but
this wore off, and he became much attached to her. "She always dressed
handsomely, and her rich silks and laces seemed appropriate to a lady of
her dignified position in the town." He adds:
"I well remember the modest dinner at the President's, to which I
brought a school-boy's appetite. The pudding, generally composed of
boiled cornmeal, always constituted the first course. This was the
custom of the time,--it being thought desirable to take the edge off
one's hunger before reaching the joint. Indeed, it was considered wise
to stimulate the young to fill themselves with pudding, by the assurance
that the boy who managed to eat the most of it should be helped most
abundantly to the meat, which was to follow. It need not be said that
neither the winner nor his competitors found much room for meat at the
close of their contest; and so the domestic economy of the arrangement
was very apparent. Miss Smith, a niece of Mrs. Adams, was an inmate of
the President's family, and one of these ladies always carved. Mr. Adams
made his contribution to the service of the table in the form of that
good-humoured, easy banter, which makes a dinner of herbs more
digestible than is a stalled ox without it. At a late period of our
acquaintance, I find preserved in my journals frequent though too meagre
reports of his conversation. But of the time of which I am writing there
is not a word discoverable. I can distinctly picture to myself a certain
iron spoon which the old gentleman once fished up from the depths of a
pudding in which it had been unwittingly cooked; but of the pleasant
things he said in those easy dinner-talks no trace remains."
Henry Bradshaw Fearon, an Englishman who visited the Adamses in 1817,
gives this description of the dinner:
"1st course a pudding made of Indian corn, molasses and butter. 2nd,
veal, bacon, neck of mutton, potatoes, cabbages, carrots and Indian
beans, Madeira wine, of which each drank two glasses. We sat down to
dinner at one o'clock. At two nearly all went a second time to church.
For tea we had pound cake, wheat bread and butter, and bread made out of
Indian corn and rye. Tea was brought from the kitchen and handed round
by a neat white servant girl. The topics of conversation were various:
England, America, politics, literature, science and Dr. Priestley, Miss
Edgeworth, Mrs. Siddons, Mr. Kean, France, Shakespeare, Moore, Lord
Byron, Cobbett, American Revolution, the traitor, Gen. Arnold. . . . The
establishment of the political patriarch consists of a house two stories
high, containing, I believe, eight rooms; of two men and three
maidservants, three horses and a plain carriage."
Mrs. Adams' strength continued to decline, though her spirits never
flagged. She writes to her sister, Mrs. Shaw, in June, 1809:
"I was unable to reply to my dear sister's letter of May 19th when I
received it, being visited by St. Anthony, who scourged me most cruelly.
I am sure I wished well to the Spanish patriots, in their late struggle
for liberty, and I bore no ill-will to those whose tutelar saint, thus
unprovoked, beset me. I wish he had been preaching to the fishes, who,
according to tradition, have been his hearers; for so ill did he use
me, that I came near losing my senses. I think he must be a very bigoted
saint, a favorer of the Inquisition, and a tyrant. If such are the
penances of saints, I hope to hold no further intercourse with them. For
four days and nights my face was so swelled and inflamed, that I was
almost blind. It seemed as though my blood boiled. Until the third day,
when I sent for the doctor, I knew not what the matter was. It confined
me for ten days. My face is yet red; but I rode out today, and feel much
better. I think a little journey would be of service to me; but I find,
as years and infirmities increase, my courage and enterprise diminish.
Ossian says, 'Age is dark and unlovely.' When I look in my glass, I do
not much wonder at the story related of a very celebrated painter,
Zeuxis, who, it is said, died of laughing at a comical picture he had
made of an old woman. If our glass flatters us in youth, it tells us
truths in age. The cold hand of death has frozen up some of the streams
of our early friendships; the congelation is gaining upon vital powers
and marking us for the tomb. 'May we so number our days as to apply our
hearts unto wisdom.'
"The man is yet unborn, who duly weighs an hour.
"When my family was young around me, I used to find more leisure, and
think I could leave it with less anxiety than I can now. There is not
any occasion for detailing the whys and wherefores. It is said, if
riches increase, those increase that eat them; but what shall we say,
when the eaters increase without the wealth? You know, my dear sister,
if there be bread enough, and to spare, unless a prudent attention
manage that sufficiency, the fruits of diligence will be scattered by
the hand of dissipation. No man ever prospered in the world without the
consent and coöperation of his wife. It behoves us, who are parents or
grandparents, to give our daughters and granddaughters, when their
education devolves upon us, such an education as shall qualify them for
the useful and domestic duties of life, that they should learn the
proper use and improvement of time, since 'time was given for use, not
waste.' The finer accomplishments, such as music, dancing, and painting,
serve to set off and embellish the picture; but the groundwork must be
formed of more durable colors.
"I consider it as an indispensable requisite, that every American wife
should herself know how to order and regulate her family; how to govern
her domestics, and train up her children. For this purpose, the
all-wise Creator made woman an help-meet for man, and she who fails in
these duties does not answer the end of her creation.
Life's cares are comforts; such by Heaven designed;
They that have none must make them, or be wretched.
Cares are employments, and, without employ,
The soul is on a rack, the rack of rest.
I have frequently said to my friends, when they have thought me
overburdened with cares, I would rather have too much than too little.
Life stagnates without action. I could never bear merely to vegetate;
Waters stagnate when they cease to flow."
Some of the most delightful letters of her later years are addressed to
her granddaughter, Caroline Smith. The two following ones give a lively
picture of her daily life.
"Your letter, my dear Caroline, gave me pleasure. As all yours are
calculated to enliven the spirits, I take them as a cordial, which
during the residence of the bald-pated winter and a close confinement to
my chamber for several weeks, I have been much in want of. And now what
return can I make you? What can you expect from age, debility and
weakness?
"Why, you shall have the return of a grateful heart, which amidst
infirmities is not insensible to the many blessings which encompass it.
Food, raiment and fuel, dear and kind friends and relatives, mental food
and entertainment sufficient to satisfy the craving appetite, and the
hopes and prospect of another and better country, even an heavenly.
Eternal power! from whom these blessings flow,
Teach me still more to wonder--more to know,
Here round my home still lift my soul to thee,
And let me ever midst thy bounties raise
An humble note of thankfulness and praise.
"Although my memory is not so tenacious as in youth, nor my eye-sight so
clear, my hearing is unimpaired, my heart warm and my affections are as
fervent to those in whom 'my days renew' as formerly to those from 'whom
my days I drew.' I have some troubles in the loss of friends by death,
and no small solicitude for the motherless offspring, but my trust and
confidence are in that being who 'hears the young ravens when they cry.'
I do not know, my dear Caroline, that I ever gave you encouragement to
expect me at the valley, although I should rejoice to be able to visit
you--but I now look forward with the hope of seeing you here as an
attendant upon your mother as soon as the spring opens and the roads
will permit.
"We have snow by the cargo this winter. Not a bird flits but a hungry
crow now and then, in quest of prey. The fruit trees exhibit a mournful
picture, broken down by the weight of the snow; whilst the running of
sleighs and the jingle of bells assures us that all nature does not
slumber.
"As if you love me, proverbially, you must love my dog, you will be glad
to learn that Juno yet lives, although like her mistress she is gray
with age. She appears to enjoy life and to be grateful for the attention
paid her. She wags her tail and announces a visitor whenever one
appears.
"Adieu, my dear child--remember me with affection to your brother and
with kind affection to your honored father and also to your uncle whose
benevolent qualities I respect and whose cheerful spirits have made 'the
wilderness to smile and blossom as the rose.' Most affectionately,
"Your Grandmother,
"ABIGAIL ADAMS."
"Quincy, 19 November, 1812.
"MY DEAR CAROLINE:
"Your neat, pretty letter, looking small, but containing much, reached
me this day. I have a good mind to give you the journal of the day.
"Six o'clock. Rose, and, in imitation of his Britannic Majesty, kindled
my own fire. Went to the stairs, as usual, to summon George and Charles.
Returned to my chamber, dressed myself. No one stirred. Called a second
time, with a voice a little raised.
"Seven o'clock. Blockheads not out of bed. Girls in motion. Mean, when I
hire another manservant, that he shall come for _one call_.
"Eight o'clock. Fires made, breakfast prepared. L---- in Boston. Mrs. A.
at the tea-board. Forgot the sausages. Susan's recollection brought them
upon the table.
"_Enter_ Ann. 'Ma'am, the man is come with coals.'
"'Go, call George to assist him.' (_Exit_ Ann.)
"_Enter_ Charles. 'Mr. B---- is come with cheese, turnips, etc. Where
are they to be put?' 'I will attend to him myself.' (_Exit_ Charles.)
"Just seated at the table again.
"_Enter_ George with, 'Ma'am, here is a man with a drove of pigs.' A
consultation is held upon this important subject, the result of which is
the purchase of two spotted swine.
"Nine o'clock. _Enter_ Nathaniel, from the upper house, with a message
for sundries; and black Thomas's daughter, for sundries. Attended to
all these concerns. A little out of sorts that I could not finish my
breakfast. Note: never to be incommoded with trifles.
"_Enter_ George Adams, from the post-office,--a large packet from
Russia,[21] and from the valley also. Avaunt, all cares,--I put you all
aside,--and thus I find good news from a far country,--children,
grandchildren, all well. I had no expectation of hearing from Russia
this winter, and the pleasure was the greater to obtain letters of so
recent a date, and to learn that the family were all in health. For this
blessing give I thanks.
"At twelve o'clock, by a previous engagement, I was to call at Mr.
G----'s for Cousin B. Smith to accompany me to the bridge at
Quincy-port, being the first day of passing it. The day was pleasant;
the scenery delightful. Passed both bridges, and entered Hingham.
Returned before three o'clock. Dined, and,
"At five, went to Mr. T. G----'s, with your grandfather; the third visit
he has made with us in _the week_; and let me whisper to you he played
at whist with Mr. J. G----, who was as ready and accurate as though he
had both eyes to see with. Returned.
"At nine, sat down and wrote a letter.
"At eleven, retired to bed. We do not so every week. I tell it you as
one of the marvels of the age. By all this, you will learn that
grandmother has got rid of her croaking, and that grandfather is in good
health, and that both of us are as tranquil as that bald old fellow,
called Time, will let us be.
"And here I was interrupted in my narrative.
"I re-assume my pen upon the 22d of November, being this day sixty-eight
years old. How many reflections occur to me upon this anniversary!
"What have I done for myself or others in this long period of my
sojourn, that I can look back upon with pleasure, or reflect upon with
approbation? Many, very many follies and errors of judgment and conduct
rise up before me, and ask forgiveness of that Being, who seeth into the
secret recesses of the heart, and from whom nothing is hidden. I think I
may with truth say, that in no period of my life have the vile passions
had control over me. I bear no enmity to any human being; but, alas! as
Mrs. Placid said to her friend, by which of thy good works wouldst thou
be willing to be judged? I do not believe, with some divines, that all
our good works are but as filthy rags; the example which our great
Master has set before us, of purity, benevolence, obedience, submission
and humility, are virtues which, if faithfully practiced, will find
their reward; or why has he pronounced so many benedictions upon them in
his sermon on the mount? I would ask with the poet,
Is not virtue in mankind
The nutriment that feeds the mind,
Then who, with reason, can pretend
That all effects of virtue end?
I am one of those who are willing to rejoice always. My disposition and
habits are not of the gloomy kind. I believe that 'to enjoy is to obey.'
Yet not to Earth's contracted span,
Thy goodness let me bound;
Or think thee Lord alone of man,
Whilst thousand worlds are round."
This period of quiet retirement did not lack its thrills of interest,
public and private. Europe was in the throes of the Napoleonic Wars, a
conflict surpassed in bitterness only by that of our own day. In due
time came our own War of 1812, and for three years this country was in a
continual state of alarm. On December 30th, 1812, Mrs. Adams writes to
her friend of many years, Mrs. Mercy Warren:
"So long as we are inhabitants of this earth and possess any of our
faculties, we cannot be indifferent to the state of our country, our
posterity and our friends. Personally we have arrived so near the close
of the drama that we can experience but few of the evils which await the
rising generation. We have passed through one revolution and have
happily arrived at the goal, but the ambition, injustice and plunder of
foreign powers have again involved us in war, the termination of which
is not given us to see.
"If we have not 'the gorgeous palaces of the cloud-capp'd towers' of
Moscow to be levelled with the dust, nor a million of victims to
sacrifice upon the altar of ambition, we have our firesides, our
comfortable habitations, our cities, our churches and our country to
defend, our rights, privileges and independence to preserve. And for
these are we not justly contending? Thus it appears to me; yet I hear
from our pulpits and read from our presses that it is an unjust, a
wicked, a ruinous and unnecessary war. If I give an opinion with respect
to the conduct of our native State, I cannot do it with approbation.
She has had much to complain of as it respected a refusal of naval
protection, yet that cannot justify her in paralyzing the arm of
government when raised for her defence and that of the nation. A house
divided against itself--and upon that foundation do our enemies build
their hopes of subduing us. May it prove a sandy one to them.
"You once asked what does Mr. Adams think of Napoleon? The reply was, I
think, that after having been the scourge of nations, he should himself
be destroyed. We have seen him run an astonishing career. Is not his
measure full? Like Charles the XII of Sweden, he may find in Alexander
another Peter. Much, my friends, might we moralize upon these great
events, but we know but in part and we see but in part. The longer I
live, the more wrapt in clouds and darkness does the future appear to
me."
British cruisers patrolled the New England coast, and could frequently
be seen from the upper windows of the Quincy houses. If Mrs. Adams had
climbed Penn's Hill on June 1st, 1813, she could have watched the naval
duel between the _Chesapeake_ and the _Shannon_, as in 1776 she had
watched the burning of Charlestown.
A few months later, the neighborhood of Boston assumed once more the
military aspect of forty years before. "Troops from Berkshire were
quartered in Dorchester, at Neponset Bridge, generally considered the
last outpost toward the enemy, who, it was thought, would land on Mr.
Quincy's farm. One Sunday, a report came that the British had actually
landed at Scituate, and were marching up to Boston. The drums beat to
arms; and the elders, who remembered the Revolution, increased the
trepidation of their juniors by anecdotes of devastation. These
apprehensions were much exaggerated."[22]
In the midst of these alarms, John and Abigail Adams celebrated their
golden wedding. "Yesterday," she writes to a granddaughter on the 26th
of October, 1814, "yesterday completes half a century since I entered
the married state, then just your age. I have great cause of
thankfulness, that I have lived so long and enjoyed so large a portion
of happiness as has been my lot. The greatest source of unhappiness I
have known in that period has arisen from the long and cruel separations
which I was called, in a time of war and with a young family around me,
to submit to."
In the same house, their son, John Quincy Adams, and their grandson
Charles Francis Adams, were in time to celebrate their golden weddings;
a notable series of festivals.
A member of the Adams family tells me the Second President "has the
reputation in the family of being very high tempered, and it is said
that when he wrote letters which his wife thought unwise, she would hold
them back and give them to him a week or so later, saying she thought
perhaps he would prefer to change them! The singular thing was that he
apparently never resented the tampering with his correspondence."
There can be no stronger proof than this of the oneness of this
remarkable couple. President John may have been high tempered, but I
fancy there are few men of today who would receive with meekness such
action on the part of their wives.
The winter of 1814-15 opened gloomily enough. There seemed no immediate
prospect of peace. Accordingly, when, on the 14th day of February, 1815,
the bells began to ring, people merely said, "Fire!" and looked out of
window for the smoke. There was no smoke till the bonfires sprang up at
night. More and more joyfully the bells pealed, till all knew that the
war was over, that peace had been declared. Boston and Quincy and all
the other neighboring towns went mad with joy. "The whole population
were abroad, all classes congratulating each other on the happy tidings.
Almost every house displayed a flag. Drums beat; cannon fired; the
military were in motion. Sailors in large sleds, each drawn by fifteen
horses,--the word 'Peace' in capitals on the hat of the foremost
man,--greeted everyone with loud huzzas. The joy and exultation were in
proportion to the previous fear and despondency. It was a day never to
be forgotten."[23]
There were to be no more alarms for Abigail Adams; no more thunder of
cannon or marching of troops: the rest of her life was peace. She had
the joy of welcoming her eldest son, after his foreign service of eight
long years, and of seeing him appointed Secretary of State. This, her
grandson thinks, was the crowning mercy of her life. A few years more,
and she might have seen him exalted to the loftier office which his
father had held; but this was not to be. In October, 1818, she was
stricken with typhus fever; and on the 28th day of that month, she died.
In closing the record of such a life as this, one longs for some perfect
tribute which may fitly sum it up. I find this tribute, in the words of
Josiah Quincy: "Clear and shedding blessings to the last, her sun sank
below the horizon, beaming with the same mild strength and pure radiance
which distinguished its meridian."
Another beautiful word was that of President Kirkland of Harvard
University, spoken at Mrs. Adams' funeral:
"Ye seek to mourn, bereaved friends, as becomes Christians, in a manner
worthy of the person you lament. You do, then, bless the Giver of life,
that the course of your endeared and honored friend was so long and so
bright; that she entered so fully into the spirit of these injunctions
which we have explained, and was a minister of blessings to all within
her influence. You are soothed to reflect that she was sensible of the
many tokens of divine goodness which marked her lot; that she received
the good of her existence with a cheerful and grateful heart; that, when
called to weep, she bore adversity with an equal mind; that she used the
world as not abusing it to excess, improving well her time, talents, and
opportunities, and, though desired longer in this world, was fitted for
a better happiness than this world can give."
John Adams survived his dearest friend by eight years, preserving his
faculties to the last, clear-minded and vehement as on the day when he
signed the Declaration of Independence. At noon on the fiftieth
anniversary of the "day of deliverance," amid the "pomp and parade," the
"shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations," which
he had bespoken for it, his valiant spirit passed from earth. His last
words were, "Thomas Jefferson still survives!" This was not the case.
His ancient colleague, at one time his bitter opponent, but of late
years once more his affectionate friend, had died an hour before.
Husband and wife lie side by side, under the portico of the First Church
of Quincy, a building given by Mr. Adams to his beloved town. On the
walls of that church are inscribed their epitaphs, which may most fitly
close this simple record.
LIBERTATEM, AMICITIAM, FIDEM, RETINEBIS
D. O. M.
BENEATH THESE WALLS
ARE DEPOSITED THE MORTAL REMAINS OF
JOHN ADAMS.
SON OF JOHN AND SUZANNA (BOYLSTON) ADAMS,
SECOND PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES;
BORN 19/30 OCTOBER, 1735.
ON THE FOURTH OF JULY, 1776,
HE PLEDGED HIS LIFE, FORTUNE, AND SACRED HONOR
TO THE
INDEPENDENCE OF HIS COUNTRY.
ON THE THIRD OF SEPTEMBER, 1783,
HE AFFIXED HIS SEAL TO THE DEFINITIVE TREATY WITH
GREAT BRITAIN,
WHICH ACKNOWLEDGED THAT INDEPENDENCE,
AND CONSUMMATED THE REDEMPTION OF HIS PLEDGE.
ON THE FOURTH OF JULY, 1826,
HE WAS SUMMONED
TO THE INDEPENDENCE OF IMMORTALITY,
AND TO THE
JUDGMENT OF HIS GOD.
THIS HOUSE WILL BEAR WITNESS TO HIS PIETY;
THIS TOWN, HIS BIRTHPLACE, TO HIS MUNIFICENCE;
HISTORY TO HIS PATRIOTISM;
POSTERITY TO THE DEPTH AND COMPASS OF HIS MIND.
AT HIS SIDE
SLEEPS, TILL THE TRUMP SHALL SOUND,
ABIGAIL,
HIS BELOVED AND ONLY WIFE,
DAUGHTER OF WILLIAM AND ELIZABETH (QUINCY) SMITH;
IN EVERY RELATION OF LIFE A PATTERN
OF FILIAL, CONJUGAL, MATERNAL, AND SOCIAL VIRTUE.
BORN NOVEMBER 11/22, 1744,
DECEASED 28 OCTOBER, 1818,
AGED 74.
MARRIED 25 OCTOBER, 1764.
DURING AN UNION OF MORE THAN HALF A CENTURY
THEY SURVIVED, IN HARMONY OF SENTIMENT, PRINCIPLE,
AND AFFECTION,
THE TEMPESTS OF CIVIL COMMOTION;
MEETING UNDAUNTED AND SURMOUNTING
THE TERRORS AND TRIALS OF THAT REVOLUTION,
WHICH SECURED THE FREEDOM OF THEIR COUNTRY;
IMPROVED THE CONDITION OF THEIR TIMES;
AND BRIGHTENED THE PROSPECTS OF FUTURITY
TO THE RACE OF MAN UPON EARTH.
PILGRIM.
FROM LIVES THUS SPENT THY EARTHLY DUTIES LEARN;
FROM FANCY'S DREAMS TO ACTIVE VIRTUE TURN:
LET FREEDOM, FRIENDSHIP, FAITH, THY SOUL ENGAGE,
AND SERVE, LIKE THEM, THY COUNTRY AND THY AGE.
FOOTNOTES:
[21] John Quincy Adams was at this time Ambassador at St. Petersburg.
[22] "Memoir of S. E. M. Quincy."
[23] "Memoir of S. E. M. Quincy."
* * * * *
Transcriber's note:
Obvious punctuation errors were corrected.
Varied hyphenation was retained, such as "a-piece" and "apiece",
"bed-chamber" and "bedchamber", and "cox-comb" and "coxcomb."
Page 53, "cirumstances" changed to "circumstances" (singular
circumstances attended)
Page 109, "scarely" changed to "scarcely" (scarcely find a well person)
Page 119, "oclock" changed to "o'clock" (night by twelve o'clock)
Pages 124-125, "Engand" changed to "England" (banished altogether from
New England)
Page 136, "Filigre" changed to "Filigree" (Feather-work, Filigree and)
Page 171, "comander" changed to "commander" (Tucker, commander of the)
Page 191, "indipensably" changed to "indispensably" (manner that is
indispensably)