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Margaret Smith's Journal

by John Greenleaf Whittier · English · Gutenberg #9587 · 310,020 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Margaret Smith's Journal

Author: John Greenleaf Whittier


        
Release date: December 1, 2005 [eBook #9587]
                Most recently updated: January 2, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9587

Credits: This eBook was produced by David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARGARET SMITH'S JOURNAL ***




This eBook was produced by David Widger





              MARGARET SMITH'S JOURNAL TALES AND SKETCHES

                                   BY

                        JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER



The intelligent reader of the following record cannot fail to notice
occasional inaccuracies in respect to persons, places, and dates; and,
as a matter of course, will make due allowance for the prevailing
prejudices and errors of the period to which it relates.  That there are
passages indicative of a comparatively recent origin, and calculated to
cast a shade of doubt over the entire narrative, the Editor would be the
last to deny, notwithstanding its general accordance with historical
verities and probabilities.  Its merit consists mainly in the fact that
it presents a tolerably lifelike picture of the Past, and introduces us
familiarly to the hearths and homes of New England in the seventeenth
century.

A full and accurate account of Secretary Rawson and his family is about
to be published by his descendants, to which the reader is referred who
wishes to know more of the personages who figure prominently in this
Journal.

1866.





MARGARET SMITH'S JOURNAL IN THE PROVINCE OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY, 1678-9

TALES AND SKETCHES

     MY SUMMER WITH DR. SINGLETARY: A FRAGMENT

     THE LITTLE IRON SOLDIER
     PASSACONAWAY
     THE OPIUM EATER
     THE PROSELYTES
     DAVID MATSON
     THE FISH I DID N'T CATCH
     YANKEE GYPSIES
     THE TRAINING
     THE CITY OF A DAY
     PATUCKET FALLS
     FIRST DAY IN LOWELL
     THE LIGHTING UP
     TAKING COMFORT
     CHARMS AND FAIRY FAITH
     MAGICIANS AND WITCH FOLK
     THE BEAUTIFUL
     THE WORLD'S END
     THE HEROINE OF LONG POINT





MARGARET SMITH'S JOURNAL

IN THE PROVINCE OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY

1678-9.


BOSTON, May 8, 1678.

I remember I did promise my kind Cousin Oliver (whom I pray God to have
always in his keeping), when I parted with him nigh unto three months
ago, at mine Uncle Grindall's, that, on coming to this new country,
I would, for his sake and perusal, keep a little journal of whatsoever
did happen both unto myself and unto those with whom I might sojourn;
as also, some account of the country and its marvels, and mine own
cogitations thereon.  So I this day make a beginning of the same;
albeit, as my cousin well knoweth, not from any vanity of authorship,
or because of any undue confiding in my poor ability to edify one justly
held in repute among the learned, but because my heart tells me that
what I write, be it ever so faulty, will be read by the partial eye of
my kinsman, and not with the critical observance of the scholar, and
that his love will not find it difficult to excuse what offends his
clerkly judgment.  And, to embolden me withal, I will never forget that
I am writing for mine old playmate at hide-and-seek in the farm-house at
Hilton,--the same who used to hunt after flowers for me in the spring,
and who did fill my apron with hazel-nuts in the autumn, and who was
then, I fear, little wiser than his still foolish cousin, who, if she
hath not since learned so many new things as himself, hath perhaps
remembered more of the old.  Therefore, without other preface, I will
begin my record.

Of my voyage out I need not write, as I have spoken of it in my letters
already, and it greatly irks me to think of it.  Oh, a very long, dismal
time of sickness and great discomforts, and many sad thoughts of all
I had left behind, and fears of all I was going to meet in the New
England!  I can liken it only to an ugly dream.  When we got at last
to Boston, the sight of the land and trees, albeit they were exceeding
bleak and bare (it being a late season, and nipping cold), was like unto
a vision of a better world.  As we passed the small wooded islands,
which make the bay very pleasant, and entered close upon the town, and
saw the houses; and orchards, and meadows, and the hills beyond covered
with a great growth of wood, my brother, lifting up both of his hands,
cried out, "How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy habitations, O
Israel!"  and for my part I did weep for joy and thankfulness of heart,
that God had brought us safely to so fair a haven.  Uncle and Aunt
Rawson met us on the wharf, and made us very comfortable at their house,
which is about half a mile from the water-side, at the foot of a hill,
with an oaken forest behind it, to shelter it from the north wind, which
is here very piercing.  Uncle is Secretary of the Massachusetts, and
spends a great part of his time in town; and his wife and family are
with him in the winter season, but they spend their summers at his
plantation on the Merrimac River, in Newbury.  His daughter, Rebecca,
is just about my age, very tall and lady-looking; she is like her
brother John, who was at Uncle Hilton's last year.  She hath, moreover,
a pleasant wit, and hath seen much goodly company, being greatly admired
by the young men of family and distinction in the Province.  She hath
been very kind to me, telling me that she looked upon me as a sister.
I have been courteously entertained, moreover, by many of the principal
people, both of the reverend clergy and the magistracy.  Nor must I
forbear to mention a visit which I paid with Uncle and Aunt Rawson at
the house of an aged magistrate of high esteem and influence in these
parts.  He saluted me courteously, and made inquiries concerning our
family, and whether I had been admitted into the Church.  On my telling
him that I had not, he knit his brows, and looked at me very sternly.

"Mr. Rawson," said he, "your niece, I fear me, has much more need of
spiritual adorning than of such gewgaws as these," and took hold of my
lace ruff so hard that I heard the stitches break; and then he pulled
out my sleeves, to see how wide they were, though they were only half an
ell.  Madam ventured to speak a word to encourage me, for she saw I was
much abashed and flustered, yet he did not heed her, but went on talking
very loud against the folly and the wasteful wantonness of the times.
Poor Madam is a quiet, sickly-looking woman, and seems not a little in
awe of her husband, at the which I do not marvel, for he hath a very
impatient, forbidding way with him, and, I must say, seemed to carry
himself harshly at times towards her.  Uncle Rawson says he has had much
to try his temper; that there have been many and sore difficulties in
Church as well as State; and he hath bitter enemies, in some of the
members of the General Court, who count him too severe with the Quakers
and other disturbers and ranters.  I told him it was no doubt true; but
that I thought it a bad use of the Lord's chastenings to abuse one's
best friends for the wrongs done by enemies; and, that to be made to
atone for what went ill in Church or State, was a kind of vicarious
suffering that, if I was in Madam's place, I should not bear with half
her patience and sweetness.



Ipswitch, near Agawam, May 12.

We set out day before yesterday on our journey to Newbury.  There were
eight of us,--Rebecca Rawson and her sister, Thomas Broughton, his wife,
and their man-servant, my brother Leonard and myself, and young Robert
Pike, of Newbury, who had been to Boston on business, his father having
great fisheries in the river as well as the sea.  He is, I can perceive,
a great admirer of my cousin, and indeed not without reason; for she
hath in mind and person, in her graceful carriage and pleasant
discourse, and a certain not unpleasing waywardness, as of a merry
child, that which makes her company sought of all.  Our route the first
day lay through the woods and along the borders of great marshes and
meadows on the seashore.  We came to Linne at night, and stopped at the
house of a kinsman of Robert Pike's,--a man of some substance and note
in that settlement.  We were tired and hungry, and the supper of warm
Indian bread and sweet milk relished quite as well as any I ever ate in
the Old Country.  The next day we went on over a rough road to Wenham,
through Salem, which is quite a pleasant town.  Here we stopped until
this morning, when we again mounted our horses, and reached this place,
after a smart ride of three hours.  The weather in the morning was warm
and soft as our summer days at home; and, as we rode through the woods,
where the young leaves were fluttering, and the white blossoms of the
wind-flowers, and the blue violets and the yellow blooming of the
cowslips in the low grounds, were seen on either hand, and the birds all
the time making a great and pleasing melody in the branches, I was glad
of heart as a child, and thought if my beloved friends and Cousin Oliver
were only with us, I could never wish to leave so fair a country.

Just before we reached Agawam, as I was riding a little before my
companions, I was startled greatly by the sight of an Indian.  He was
standing close to the bridle-path, his half-naked body partly hidden by
a clump of white birches, through which he looked out on me with eyes
like two live coals.  I cried for my brother and turned my horse, when
Robert Pike came up and bid me be of cheer, for he knew the savage, and
that he was friendly.  Whereupon, he bade him come out of the bushes,
which he did, after a little parley.  He was a tall man, of very fair
and comely make, and wore a red woollen blanket with beads and small
clam-shells jingling about it.  His skin was swarthy, not black like a
Moor or Guinea-man, but of a color not unlike that of tarnished copper
coin.  He spake but little, and that in his own tongue, very harsh and
strange-sounding to my ear.  Robert Pike tells me that he is Chief of
the Agawams, once a great nation in these parts, but now quite small and
broken.  As we rode on, and from the top of a hill got a fair view of
the great sea off at the east, Robert Pike bade me notice a little bay,
around which I could see four or five small, peaked huts or tents,
standing just where the white sands of the beach met the green line of
grass and bushes of the uplands.

"There," said he, "are their summer-houses, which they build near unto
their fishing-grounds and corn-fields.  In the winter they go far back
into the wilderness, where game is plenty of all kinds, and there build
their wigwams in warm valleys thick with trees, which do serve to
shelter them from the winds."

"Let us look into them," said I to Cousin Rebecca; "it seems but a
stone's throw from our way."

She tried to dissuade me, by calling them a dirty, foul people; but
seeing I was not to be put off, she at last consented, and we rode aside
down the hill, the rest following.  On our way we had the misfortune to
ride over their corn-field; at the which, two or three women and as many
boys set up a yell very hideous to hear; whereat Robert Pike came up,
and appeased them by giving them some money and a drink of Jamaica
spirits, with which they seemed vastly pleased.  I looked into one of
their huts; it was made of poles like unto a tent, only it was covered
with the silver-colored bark of the birch, instead of hempen stuff.  A
bark mat, braided of many exceeding brilliant colors, covered a goodly
part of the space inside; and from the poles we saw fishes hanging, and
strips of dried meat.  On a pile of skins in the corner sat a young
woman with a child a-nursing; they both looked sadly wild and neglected;
yet had she withal a pleasant face, and as she bent over her little one,
her long, straight, and black hair falling over him, and murmuring a low
and very plaintive melody, I forgot everything save that she was a woman
and a mother, and I felt my heart greatly drawn towards her.  So, giving
my horse in charge, I ventured in to her, speaking as kindly as I could,
and asking to see her child.  She understood me, and with a smile held
up her little papoose, as she called him,--who, to say truth, I could
not call very pretty.  He seemed to have a wild, shy look, like the
offspring of an untamed, animal.  The woman wore a blanket, gaudily
fringed, and she had a string of beads on her neck.  She took down a
basket, woven of white and red willows, and pressed me to taste of her
bread; which I did, that I might not offend her courtesy by refusing.
It was not of ill taste, although so hard one could scarcely bite it,
and was made of corn meal unleavened, mixed with a dried berry, which
gives it a sweet flavor.  She told me, in her broken way, that the whole
tribe now numbered only twenty-five men and women, counting out the
number very fast with yellow grains of corn, on the corner of her
blanket.  She was, she said, the youngest woman in the tribe; and her
husband, Peckanaminet, was the Indian we had met in the bridlepath.  I
gave her a pretty piece of ribbon, and an apron for the child; and she
thanked me in her manner, going with us on our return to the path; and
when I had ridden a little onward, I saw her husband running towards us;
so, stopping my horse, I awaited until he came up, when he offered me a
fine large fish, which he had just caught, in acknowledgment, as I
judged, of my gift to his wife.  Rebecca and Mistress Broughton laughed,
and bid him take the thing away; but I would not suffer it, and so
Robert Pike took it, and brought it on to our present tarrying place,
where truly it hath made a fair supper for us all.  These poor heathen
people seem not so exceeding bad as they have been reported; they be
like unto ourselves, only lacking our knowledge and opportunities,
which, indeed, are not our own to boast of, but gifts of God, calling
for humble thankfulness, and daily prayer and watchfulness, that they be
rightly improved.



Newbery on the Merrimac, May 14, 1678.

We were hardly on our way yesterday, from Agawam, when a dashing young
gallant rode up very fast behind us.  He was fairly clad in rich stuffs,
and rode a nag of good mettle.  He saluted us with much ease and
courtliness, offering especial compliments to Rebecca, to whom he seemed
well known, and who I thought was both glad and surprised at his coming.
As I rode near, she said it gave her great joy to bring to each other's
acquaintance, Sir Thomas Hale, a good friend of her father's, and her
cousin Margaret, who, like himself, was a new-comer.  He replied, that
he should look with favor on any one who was near to her in friendship
or kindred; and, on learning my father's name, said he had seen him at
his uncle's, Sir Matthew Hale's, many years ago, and could vouch for him
as a worthy man.  After some pleasant and merry discoursing with us, he
and my brother fell into converse upon the state of affairs in the
Colony, the late lamentable war with the Narragansett and Pequod
Indians, together with the growth of heresy and schism in the churches,
which latter he did not scruple to charge upon the wicked policy of the
home government in checking the wholesome severity of the laws here
enacted against the schemers and ranters.  "I quite agree," said he,
"with Mr. Rawson, that they should have hanged ten where they did one."
Cousin Rebecca here said she was sure her father was now glad the laws
were changed, and that he had often told her that, although the
condemned deserved their punishment, he was not sure that it was the
best way to put down the heresy.  If she was ruler, she continued, in
her merry way, she would send all the schemers and ranters, and all the
sour, crabbed, busybodies in the churches, off to Rhode Island, where
all kinds of folly, in spirituals as well as temporals, were permitted,
and one crazy head could not reproach another.

Falling back a little, and waiting for Robert Pike and Cousin Broughton
to come up, I found them marvelling at the coming of the young
gentleman, who it did seem had no special concernment in these parts,
other than his acquaintance with Rebecca, and his desire of her company.
Robert Pike, as is natural, looks upon him with no great partiality, yet
he doth admit him to be wellbred, and of much and varied knowledge,
acquired by far travel as well as study.  I must say, I like not his
confident and bold manner and bearing toward my fair cousin; and he hath
more the likeness of a cast-off dangler at the court, than of a modest
and seemly country gentleman, of a staid and well-ordered house.
Mistress Broughton says he was not at first accredited in Boston, but
that her father, and Mr. Atkinson, and the chief people there now, did
hold him to be not only what he professeth, as respecteth his
gentlemanly lineage, but also learned and ingenious, and well-versed in
the Scriptures, and the works of godly writers, both of ancient and
modern time.  I noted that Robert was very silent during the rest of our
journey, and seemed abashed and troubled in the presence of the gay
gentleman; for, although a fair and comely youth, and of good family and
estate, and accounted solid and judicious beyond his years, he does,
nevertheless, much lack the ease and ready wit with which the latter
commendeth himself to my sweet kinswoman. We crossed about noon a broad
stream near to the sea, very deep and miry, so that we wetted our hose
and skirts somewhat; and soon, to our great joy, beheld the pleasant
cleared fields and dwellings of the settlement, stretching along for a
goodly distance; while, beyond all, the great ocean rolled, blue and
cold, under an high easterly wind.  Passing through a broad path, with
well-tilled fields on each hand, where men were busy planting corn, and
young maids dropping the seed, we came at length to Uncle Rawson's
plantation, looking wellnigh as fair and broad as the lands of Hilton
Grange, with a good frame house, and large barns thereon.  Turning up
the lane, we were met by the housekeeper, a respectable kinswoman, who
received us with great civility.  Sir Thomas, although pressed to stay,
excused himself for the time, promising to call on the morrow, and rode
on to the ordinary.  I was sadly tired with my journey, and was glad to
be shown to a chamber and a comfortable bed.

I was awakened this morning by the pleasant voice of my cousin, who
shared my bed.  She had arisen and thrown open the window looking
towards the sunrising, and the air came in soft and warm, and laden with
the sweets of flowers and green-growing things.  And when I had gotten
myself ready, I sat with her at the window, and I think I may say it was
with a feeling of praise and thanksgiving that mine eyes wandered up and
down over the green meadows, and corn-fields, and orchards of my new
home.  Where, thought I, foolish one, be the terrors of the wilderness,
which troubled thy daily thoughts and thy nightly dreams!  Where be the
gloomy shades, and desolate mountains, and the wild beasts, with their
dismal howlings and rages!  Here all looked peaceful, and bespoke
comfort and contentedness.  Even the great woods which climbed up the
hills in the distance looked thin and soft, with their faint young
leaves a yellowish-gray, intermingled with pale, silvery shades,
indicating, as my cousin saith, the different kinds of trees, some of
which, like the willow, do put on their leaves early, and others late,
like the oak, with which the whole region aboundeth.  A sweet, quiet
picture it was, with a warm sun, very bright and clear, shining over it,
and the great sea, glistening with the exceeding light, bounding the
view of mine eyes, but bearing my thoughts, like swift ships, to the
land of my birth, and so uniting, as it were, the New World with the
Old.  Oh, thought I, the merciful God, who reneweth the earth and maketh
it glad and brave with greenery and flowers of various hues and smells,
and causeth his south winds to blow and his rains to fall, that seed-
time may not fail, doth even here, in the ends of his creation, prank
and beautify the work of his hands, making the desert places to rejoice,
and the wilderness to blossom as the rose.  Verily his love is over
all,--the Indian heathen as well as the English Christian.  And what
abundant cause for thanks have I, that I have been safely landed on a
shore so fair and pleasant, and enabled to open mine eyes in peace and
love on so sweet a May morning!  And I was minded of a verse which I
learned from my dear and honored mother when a child,--

               "Teach me, my God, thy love to know,
               That this new light, which now I see,
               May both the work and workman show;
               Then by the sunbeams I will climb to thee."

When we went below, we found on the window seat which looketh to the
roadway, a great bunch of flowers of many kinds, such as I had never
seen in mine own country, very fresh, and glistening with the dew.  Now,
when Rebecca took them up, her sister said, "Nay, they are not Sir
Thomas's gift, for young Pike hath just left them."  Whereat, as I
thought, she looked vexed, and ill at ease.  "They are yours, then,
Cousin Margaret," said she, rallying, "for Robert and you did ride aside
all the way from Agawam, and he scarce spake to me the day long.  I see
I have lost mine old lover, and my little cousin hath found a new one.
I shall write Cousin Oliver all about it."

"Nay," said I, "old lovers are better than new; but I fear my sweet
cousin hath not so considered It."  She blushed, and looked aside, and
for some space of time I did miss her smile, and she spake little.



May 20.

We had scarcely breakfasted, when him they Call Sir Thomas called on us,
and with him came also a Mr. Sewall, and the minister of the church, Mr.
Richardson, both of whom did cordially welcome home my cousins, and were
civil to my brother and myself.  Mr. Richardson and Leonard fell to
conversing about the state of the Church; and Sir Thomas discoursed us
in his lively way.  After some little tarry, Mr. Sewall asked us to go
with him to Deer's Island, a small way up the river, where he and Robert
Pike had some men splitting staves for the Bermuda market.  As the day
was clear and warm, we did readily agree to go, and forthwith set out
for the river, passing through the woods for nearly a half mile.  When
we came to the Merrimac, we found it a great and broad stream.  We took
a boat, and were rowed up the river, enjoying the pleasing view of the
green banks, and the rocks hanging over the water, covered with bright
mosses, and besprinkled with pale, white flowers.  Mr. Sewall pointed
out to us the different kinds of trees, and their nature and uses, and
especially the sugar-tree, which is very beautiful in its leaf and
shape, and from which the people of this country do draw a sap wellnigh
as sweet as the juice of the Indian cane, making good treacle and sugar.
Deer's Island hath rough, rocky shores, very high and steep, and is well
covered with a great growth of trees, mostly evergreen pines and
hemlocks which looked exceeding old.  We found a good seat on the mossy
trunk of one of these great trees, which had fallen from its extreme
age, or from some violent blast of wind, from whence we could see the
water breaking into white foam on the rocks, and hear the melodious
sound of the wind in the leaves of the pines, and the singing of birds
ever and anon; and lest this should seem too sad and lonely, we could
also hear the sounds of the axes and beetles of the workmen, cleaving
the timber not far off.  It was not long before Robert Pike came up and
joined us.  He was in his working dress, and his face and hands were
much discolored by the smut of the burnt logs, which Rebecca playfully
remarking, he said there were no mirrors in the woods, and that must be
his apology; that, besides, it did not become a plain man, like himself,
who had to make his own fortune in the world, to try to imitate those
who had only to open their mouths, to be fed like young robins, without
trouble or toil.  Such might go as brave as they would, if they would
only excuse his necessity.  I thought he spoke with some bitterness,
which, indeed, was not without the excuse, that the manner of our gay
young gentleman towards him savored much of pride and contemptuousness.
My beloved cousin, who hath a good heart, and who, I must think, apart
from the wealth and family of Sir Thomas, rather inclineth to her old
friend and neighbor, spake cheerily and kindly to him, and besought me
privately to do somewhat to help her remove his vexation.  So we did
discourse of many things very pleasantly.  Mr. Richardson, on hearing
Rebecca say that the Indians did take the melancholy noises of the
pinetrees in the winds to be the voices of the Spirits of the woods,
said that they always called to his mind the sounds in the mulberry-
trees which the Prophet spake of.  Hereupon Rebecca, who hath her memory
well provided with divers readings, both of the poets and other writers,
did cite very opportunely some ingenious lines, touching what the
heathens do relate of the Sacred Tree of Dodona, the rustling of whose
leaves the negro priestesses did hold to be the language of the gods.
And a late writer, she said, had something in one of his pieces, which
might well be spoken of the aged and dead tree-trunk, upon which we were
sitting.  And when we did all desire to know their import, she repeated
them thus:--

         "Sure thou didst flourish once, and many springs,
          Many bright mornings, much dew, many showers,
          Passed o'er thy head; many light hearts and wings,
          Which now are dead, lodged in thy living towers."

         "And still a new succession sings and flies,
          Fresh groves grow up, and their green branches shoot
          Towards the old and still enduring skies,
          While the low violet thriveth at their root."


These lines, she said, were written by one Vaughn, a Brecknockshire
Welsh Doctor of Medicine, who had printed a little book not many years
ago.  Mr. Richardson said the lines were good, but that he did hold the
reading of ballads and the conceits of rhymers a waste of time, to say
nothing worse.  Sir Thomas hereat said that, as far as he could judge,
the worthy folk of New England had no great temptation to that sin from
their own poets, and did then, in a drolling tone, repeat some verses of
the 137th Psalm, which he said were the best he had seen in the
Cambridge Psalm Book:--

                   "The rivers of Babylon,
                    There when we did sit down,
                    Yea, even then we mourned when
                    We remembered Sion.

                    Our harp we did hang it amid
                    Upon the willow-tree;
                    Because there they that us away
                    Led to captivity!

                    Required of us a song, and thus
                    Asked mirth us waste who laid,
                    Sing us among a Sion's song
                    Unto us as then they said."

"Nay, Sir Thomas," quoth Mr. Richardson, "it is not seemly to jest over
the Word of God.  The writers of our Book of Psalms in metre held
rightly, that God's altar needs no polishing; and truly they have
rendered the words of David into English verse with great fidelity."

Our young gentleman, not willing to displeasure a man so esteemed as Mr.
Richardson, here made an apology for his jesting, and said that, as to
the Cambridge version, it was indeed faithful; and that it was no blame
to uninspired men, that they did fall short of the beauties and richness
of the Lord's Psalmist.  It being now near noon, we crossed over the
river, to where was a sweet spring of water, very clear and bright,
running out upon the green bank.  Now, as we stood thirsty, having no
cup to drink from, seeing some people near, we called to them, and
presently there came running to us a young and modest woman, with a
bright pewter tankard, which she filled and gave us.  I thought her
sweet and beautiful, as Rebecca of old, at her father's fountain.  She
was about leaving, when Mr. Richardson said to her, it was a foul shame
for one like her to give heed to the ranting of the Quakers, and bade
her be a good girl, and come to the meeting.

"Nay," said she, "I have been there often, to small profit.  The spirit
which thou persecutest testifieth against thee and thy meeting."

Sir Thomas jestingly asked her if the spirit she spoke of was not such
an one as possessed Mary Magdalen.

"Or the swine of the Gadarenes?" asked Mr. Richardson.

I did smile with the others, but was presently sorry for it; for the
young maid answered not a word to this, but turning to Rebecca, she
said, "Thy father hath been hard with us, but thou seemest kind and
gentle, and I have heard of thy charities to the poor.  The Lord keep
thee, for thou walkest in slippery places; there is danger, and thou
seest it not; thou trustest to the hearing of the ear and the seeing of
the eye; the Lord alone seeth the deceitfulness and the guile of man;
and if thou wilt cry mightily to Him, He can direct thee rightly."

Her voice and manner were very weighty and solemn.  I felt an awe come
upon me, and Rebecca's countenance was troubled.  As the maiden left us,
the minister, looking after said, "There is a deal of poison under the
fair outside of yonder vessel, which I fear is fitted for destruction."

"Peggy Brewster is indeed under a delusion," answered Robert Pike, "but
I know no harm of her.  She is kind to all, even to them who evil
entreat her."

"Robert, Robert!" cried the minister, "I fear me you will follow your
honored father, who has made himself of ill repute, by favoring these
people."--"The Quaker hath bewitched him with her bright eyes, perhaps,"
quoth Sir Thomas.  "I would she had laid a spell on an uncivil tongue I
wot of," answered Robert, angrily.  Hereupon, Mr. Sewall proposed that
we should return, and in making ready and getting to the boat, the
matter was dropped.



NEWBURY, June 1, 1678.

To-day Sir Thomas took his leave of us, being about to go back to
Boston.  Cousin Rebecca is, I can see, much taken with his outside
bravery and courtliness, yet she hath confessed to me that her sober
judgment doth greatly incline her towards her old friend and neighbor,
Robert Pike.  She hath even said that she doubted not she could live a
quieter and happier life with him than with such an one as Sir Thomas;
and that the words of the Quaker maid, whom we met at the spring on the
river side, had disquieted her not a little, inasmuch as they did seem
to confirm her own fears and misgivings.  But her fancy is so bedazzled
with the goodly show of her suitor, that I much fear he can have her for
the asking, especially as her father, to my knowledge, doth greatly
favor him.  And, indeed, by reason of her gracious manner, witty and
pleasant discoursing, excellent breeding, and dignity, she would do no
discredit to the choice of one far higher than this young gentleman in
estate and rank.



June 10.

I went this morning with Rebecca to visit Elnathan Stone, a, young
neighbor, who has been lying sorely ill for a long time.  He was a
playmate of my cousin when a boy, and was thought to be of great promise
as he grew up to manhood; but, engaging in the war with the heathen, he
was wounded and taken captive by them, and after much suffering was
brought back to his home a few months ago.  On entering the house where
he lay, we found his mother, a careworn and sad woman, spinning in the
room by his bedside.  A very great and bitter sorrow was depicted on her
features; it was the anxious, unreconciled, and restless look of one who
did feel herself tried beyond her patience, and might not be comforted.
For, as I learned, she was a poor widow, who had seen her young daughter
tomahawked by the Indians; and now her only son, the hope of her old
age, was on his death-bed.  She received us with small civility, telling
Rebecca that it was all along of the neglect of the men in authority
that her son had got his death in the wars, inasmuch as it was the want
of suitable diet and clothing, rather than his wounds, which had brought
him into his present condition.  Now, as Uncle Rawson is one of the
principal magistrates, my sweet cousin knew that the poor afflicted
creature meant to reproach him; but her good heart did excuse and
forgive the rudeness and distemper of one whom the Lord had sorely
chastened.  So she spake kindly and lovingly, and gave her sundry nice
dainty fruits and comforting cordials, which she had got from Boston for
the sick man.  Then, as she came to his bedside, and took his hand
lovingly in her own, he thanked her for her many kindnesses, and prayed
God to bless her.  He must have been a handsome lad in health, for he
had a fair, smooth forehead, shaded with brown, curling hair, and large,
blue eyes, very sweet and gentle in their look.  He told us that he felt
himself growing weaker, and that at times his bodily suffering was
great.  But through the mercy of his Saviour he had much peace of mind.
He was content to leave all things in His hand.  For his poor mother's
sake, he said, more than for his own, he would like to get about once
more; there were many things he would like to do for her, and for all
who had befriended him; but he knew his Heavenly Father could do more
and better for them, and he felt resigned to His will.  He had, he said,
forgiven all who ever wronged him, and he had now no feeling of anger or
unkindness left towards any one, for all seemed kind to him beyond his
deserts, and like brothers and sisters.  He had much pity for the poor
savages even, although he had suffered sorely at their hands; for he did
believe that they had been often ill-used, and cheated, and otherwise
provoked to take up arms against us.  Hereupon, Goodwife Stone twirled
her spindle very spitefully, and said she would as soon pity the Devil
as his children.  The thought of her mangled little girl, and of her
dying son, did seem to overcome her, and she dropped her thread, and
cried out with an exceeding bitter cry,--"Oh, the bloody heathen!  Oh,
my poor murdered Molly!  Oh, my son, my son!"--"Nay, mother," said the
sick man, reaching out his hand and taking hold of his mother's, with a
sweet smile on his pale face,--"what does Christ tell us about loving
our enemies, and doing good to them that do injure us?  Let us forgive
our fellow-creatures, for we have all need of God's forgiveness.  I used
to feel as mother does," he said, turning to us; "for I went into the
war with a design to spare neither young nor old of the enemy.

"But I thank God that even in that dark season my heart relented at the
sight of the poor starving women and children, chased from place to
place like partridges.  Even the Indian fighters, I found, had sorrows
of their own, and grievous wrongs to avenge; and I do believe, if we had
from the first treated them as poor blinded brethren, and striven as
hard to give them light and knowledge, as we have to cheat them in
trade, and to get away their lands, we should have escaped many bloody
wars, and won many precious souls to Christ."

I inquired of him concerning his captivity.  He was wounded, he told me,
in a fight with the Sokokis Indians two years before.  It was a hot
skirmish in the woods; the English and the Indians now running forward,
and then falling back, firing at each other from behind the trees.  He
had shot off all his powder, and, being ready to faint by reason of a
wound in his knee, he was fain to sit down against an oak, from whence
he did behold, with great sorrow and heaviness of heart, his companions
overpowered by the number of their enemies, fleeing away and leaving him
to his fate.  The savages soon came to him with dreadful whoopings,
brandishing their hatchets and their scalping-knives.  He thereupon
closed his eyes, expecting to be knocked in the head, and killed
outright.  But just then a noted chief coming up in great haste, bade
him be of good cheer, for he was his prisoner, and should not be slain.
He proved to be the famous Sagamore Squando, the chief man of the
Sokokis.

"And were you kindly treated by this chief?" asked Rebecca.

"I suffered much in moving with him to the Sebago Lake, owing to my
wound," he replied; "but the chief did all in his power to give me
comfort, and he often shared with me his scant fare, choosing rather to
endure hunger himself, than to see his son, as he called me, in want of
food.  And one night, when I did marvel at this kindness on his part, he
told me that I had once done him a great service; asking me if I was not
at Black Point, in a fishing vessel, the summer before?  I told him I
was.  He then bade me remember the bad sailors who upset the canoe of a
squaw, and wellnigh drowned her little child, and that I had threatened
and beat them for it; and also how I gave the squaw a warm coat to wrap
up the poor wet papoose.  It was his squaw and child that I had
befriended; and he told me that be had often tried to speak to me, and
make known his gratitude therefor; and that he came once to the garrison
at Sheepscot, where he saw me; but being fired at, notwithstanding his
signs of peace and friendship, he was obliged to flee into the woods.
He said the child died a few days after its evil treatment, and the
thought of it made his heart bitter; that he had tried to live peaceably
with the white men, but they had driven him into the war.

"On one occasion," said the sick soldier, "as we lay side by side in his
hut, on the shore of the Sebago Lake, Squando, about midnight, began to
pray to his God very earnestly.  And on my querying with him about it,
he said he was greatly in doubt what to do, and had prayed for some sign
of the Great Spirit's will concerning him.  He then told me that some
years ago, near the place where we then lay, he left his wigwam at
night, being unable to sleep, by reason of great heaviness and distemper
of mind.  It was a full moon, and as he did walk to and fro, he saw a
fair, tall man in a long black dress, standing in the light on the
lake's shore, who spake to him and called him by name.

"'Squando,' he said, and his voice was deep and solemn, like the wind in
the hill pines, 'the God of the white man is the God of the Indian, and
He is angry with his red children.  He alone is able to make the corn
grow before the frost, and to lead the fish up the rivers in the spring,
and to fill the woods with deer and other game, and the ponds and
meadows with beavers.  Pray to Him always.  Do not hunt on His day, nor
let the squaws hoe the corn.  Never taste of the strong fire-water, but
drink only from the springs.  It, is because the Indians do not worship
Him, that He has brought the white men among them; but if they will pray
like the white men, they will grow very great and strong, and their
children born in this moon will live to see the English sail back in
their great canoes, and leave the Indians all their fishing-places and
hunting-grounds.'

"When the strange man had thus spoken, Squando told me that he went
straightway up to him, but found where he had stood only the shadow of
a broken tree, which lay in the moon across the white sand of the shore.
Then he knew it was a spirit, and he trembled, but was glad.  Ever
since, he told nee, he had prayed daily to the Great Spirit, had drank
no rum, nor hunted on the Sabbath.

"He said he did for a long time refuse to dig up his hatchet, and make
war upon the whites, but that he could not sit idle in his wigwam, while
his young men were gone upon their war-path.  The spirit of his dead
child did moreover speak to him from the land of souls, and chide him
for not seeking revenge.  Once, he told me, he had in a dream seen the
child crying and moaning bitterly, and that when he inquired the cause
of its grief, he was told that the Great Spirit was angry with its
father, and would destroy him and his people unless he did join with the
Eastern Indians to cut off the English."

"I remember," said Rebecca, "of hearing my father speak of this
Squando's kindness to a young maid taken captive some years ago at
Presumpscot."

"I saw her at Cocheco," said the sick man.  "Squando found her in a sad
plight, and scarcely alive, took her to his wigwam, where his squaw did
lovingly nurse and comfort her; and when she was able to travel, he
brought her to Major Waldron's, asking no ransom for her.  He might have
been made the fast friend of the English at that time, but he scarcely
got civil treatment."

"My father says that many friendly Indians, by the ill conduct of the
traders, have been made our worst enemies," said Rebecca.  "He thought
the bringing in of the Mohawks to help us a sin comparable to that of
the Jews, who looked for deliverance from the King of Babylon at the
hands of the Egyptians."

"They did nothing but mischief," said Elnathan Stone; "they killed our
friends at Newichawannock, Blind Will and his family."

Rebecca here asked him if he ever heard the verses writ by Mr. Sewall
concerning the killing of Blind Will.  And when he told her he had not,
and would like to have her repeat them, if she could remember, she did
recite them thus:--

              "Blind Will of Newiehawannock!
               He never will whoop again,
               For his wigwam's burnt above him,
               And his old, gray scalp is ta'en!

              "Blind Will was the friend of white men,
               On their errands his young men ran,
               And he got him a coat and breeches,
               And looked like a Christian man.

              "Poor Will of Newiehawannock!
               They slew him unawares,
               Where he lived among his people,
               Keeping Sabhath and saying prayers.

              "Now his fields will know no harvest,
               And his pipe is clean put out,
               And his fine, brave coat and breeches
               The Mohog wears about.

              "Woe the day our rulers listened
               To Sir Edmund's wicked plan,
               Bringing down the cruel Mohogs
               Who killed the poor old man.

              "Oh! the Lord He will requite us;
               For the evil we have done,
               There'll be many a fair scalp drying
               In the wind and in the sun!

              "There'll be many a captive sighing,
               In a bondage long and dire;
               There'll be blood in many a corn-field,
               And many a house a-fire.

              "And the Papist priests the tidings
               Unto all the tribes will send;
               They'll point to Newiehawannock,--
               'So the English treat their friend!'

              "Let the Lord's anointed servants
               Cry aloud against this wrong,
               Till Sir Edmund take his Mohogs
               Back again where they belong.

              "Let the maiden and the mother
               In the nightly watching share,
               While the young men guard the block-house,
               And the old men kneel in prayer.

              "Poor Will of Newiehawannock!
               For thy sad and cruel fall,
               And the bringing in of the Mohogs,
               May the Lord forgive us all!"

A young woman entered the house just as Rebecca finished the verses.
She bore in her hands a pail of milk and a fowl neatly dressed, which
she gave to Elnathan's mother, and, seeing strangers by his bedside, was
about to go out, when he called to her and besought her to stay.  As she
came up and spoke to him, I knew her to be the maid we had met at the
spring.  The young man, with tears in his eyes, acknowledged her great
kindness to him, at which she seemed troubled and abashed.  A pure,
sweet complexion she hath, and a gentle and loving look, full of
innocence and sincerity.  Rebecca seemed greatly disturbed, for she no
doubt thought of the warning words of this maiden, when we were at the
spring.  After she had left, Goodwife Stone said she was sure she could
not tell what brought that Quaker girl to her house so much, unless she
meant to inveigle Elnathan; but, for her part, she would rather see him
dead than live to bring reproach upon his family and the Church by
following after the blasphemers.  I ventured to tell her that I did look
upon it as sheer kindness and love on the young woman's part; at which
Elnathan seemed pleased, and said he could not doubt it, and that he did
believe Peggy Brewster to be a good Christian, although sadly led astray
by the Quakers.  His mother said that, with all her meek looks, and kind
words, she was full of all manner of pestilent heresies, and did remind
her always of Satan in the shape of an angel of light.

We went away ourselves soon after this, the sick man thanking us for our
visit, and hoping that he should see us again.  "Poor Elnathan," said
Rebecca, as we walked home, "he will never go abroad again; but he is in
such a good and loving frame of mind, that he needs not our pity, as one
who is without hope."

"He reminds me," I said, "of the comforting promise of Scripture, 'Thou
wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee.'"



June 30, 1678.

Mr. Rawson and Sir Thomas Hale came yesterday from Boston.  I was
rejoiced to see mine uncle, more especially as he brought for me a
package of letters, and presents and tokens of remembrance from my
friends on the other side of the water.  As soon as I got them, I went
up to my chamber, and, as I read of the health of those who are very
dear to me, and who did still regard me with unchanged love, I wept in
my great joy, and my heart overflowed in thankfulness.  I read the 22d
Psalm, and it did seem to express mine own feelings in view of the great
mercies and blessings vouchsafed to me.  "My head is anointed with oil;
my cup runneth over.  Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the
days of my life."

This morning, Sir Thomas and Uncle Rawson rode over to Hampton, where
they will tarry all night.  Last evening, Rebecca had a long talk with
her father concerning Sir Thomas, who hath asked her of him.  She came
to bed very late, and lay restless and sobbing; whereupon I pressed her
to know the cause of her grief, when she told me she had consented to
marry Sir Thomas, but that her heart was sorely troubled and full of
misgivings.  On my querying whether she did really love the young
gentleman, she said she sometimes feared she did not; and that when her
fancy had made a fair picture of the life of a great lady in England,
there did often come a dark cloud over it like the shade of some heavy
disappointment or sorrow.  "Sir Thomas," she said, "was a handsome and
witty young man, and had demeaned himself to the satisfaction and good
repute of her father and the principal people of the Colony; and his
manner towards her had been exceeding delicate and modest, inasmuch as
he had presumed nothing upon his family or estate, but had sought her
with much entreaty and humility, although he did well know that some of
the most admired and wealthy Young women in Boston did esteem him not a
little, even to the annoying of herself, as one whom he especially
favored."

"This will be heavy news to Robert Pike," said I; "and I am sorry for
him, for he is indeed a worthy man."

"That he is," quoth she; "but he hath never spoken to me of aught beyond
that friendliness which, as neighbors and school companions, we do
innocently cherish for each other."

"Nay," said I, "my sweet cousin knows full well that he entertaineth so
strong an affection for her, that there needeth no words to reveal it."

"Alas!" she answered, "it is too true.  When I am with him, I sometimes
wish I had never seen Sir Thomas.  But my choice is made, and I pray God
I may not have reason to repent of it."

We said no more, but I fear she slept little, for on waking about the
break of day, I saw her sitting in her night-dress by the window.
Whereupon I entreated her to return to her bed, which she at length did,
and folding me in her arms, and sobbing as if her heart would break, she
besought me to pity her, for it was no light thing which she had done,
and she scarcely knew her own mind, nor whether to rejoice or weep over
it.  I strove to comfort her, and, after a time, she did, to my great
joy, fall into a quiet sleep.

This afternoon, Robert Pike came in, and had a long talk with Cousin
Broughton, who told him how matters stood between her sister and Sir
Thomas, at which he was vehemently troubled, and would fain have gone to
seek Rebecca at once, and expostulate with her, but was hindered on
being told that it could only grieve and discomfort her, inasmuch as the
thing was well settled, and could not be broken off.  He said he had
known and loved her from a child; that for her sake he had toiled hard
by day and studied by night; and that in all his travels and voyages,
her sweet image had always gone with him.  He would bring no accusation
against her, for she had all along treated him rather as a brother than
as a suitor: to which last condition he had indeed not felt himself at
liberty to venture, after her honored father, some months ago, had given
him to understand that he did design an alliance of his daughter with a
gentleman of estate and family.  For himself, he would bear himself
manfully, and endure his sorrow with patience and fortitude.  His only
fear was, that his beloved friend had been too hasty in deciding the
matter; and that he who was her choice might not be worthy of the great
gift of her affection.  Cousin Broughton, who has hitherto greatly
favored the pretensions of Sir Thomas, told me that she wellnigh changed
her mind in view of the manly and noble bearing of Robert Pike; and that
if her sister were to live in this land, she would rather see her the
wife of him than of any other man therein.



July 3.

Sir Thomas took his leave to-day.  Robert Pike hath been here to wish
Rebecca great joy and happiness in her prospect, which he did in so kind
and gentle a manner, that she was fain to turn away her head to hide her
tears.  When Robert saw this, he turned the discourse, and did endeavor
to divert her mind in such sort that the shade of melancholy soon left
her sweet face, and the twain talked together cheerfully as had been
their wont, and as became their years and conditions.



July 6.

Yesterday a strange thing happened in the meeting-house.  The minister
had gone on in his discourse, until the sand in the hour-glass on the
rails before the deacons had wellnigh run out, and Deacon Dole was about
turning it, when suddenly I saw the congregation all about me give a
great start, and look back.  A young woman, barefooted, and with a
coarse canvas frock about her, and her long hair hanging loose like a
periwig, and sprinkled with ashes, came walking up the south aisle.
Just as she got near Uncle Rawson's seat she stopped, and turning round
towards the four corners of the house, cried out: "Woe to the
persecutors!  Woe to them who for a pretence make long prayers!  Humble
yourselves, for this is the day of the Lord's power, and I am sent as a
sign among you!"  As she looked towards me I knew her to be the Quaker
maiden, Margaret Brewster.  "Where is the constable?" asked Mr.
Richardson.  "Let the woman be taken out."  Thereupon the whole
congregation arose, and there was a great uproar, men and women climbing
the seats, and many crying out, some one thing and some another.  In the
midst of the noise, Mr. Sewall, getting up on a bench, begged the people
to be quiet, and let the constable lead out the poor deluded creature.
Mr. Richardson spake to the same effect, and, the tumult a little
subsiding, I saw them taking the young woman out of the door; and, as
many followed her, I went out also, with my brother, to see what became
of her.

We found her in the middle of a great crowd of angry people, who
reproached her for her wickedness in disturbing the worship on the
Lord's day, calling her all manner of foul names, and threatening her
with the stocks and the whipping-post.  The poor creature stood still
and quiet; she was deathly pale, and her wild hair and sackcloth frock
gave her a very strange and pitiable look.  The constable was about to
take her in charge until the morrow, when Robert Pike came forward, and
said he would answer for her appearance at the court the next day, and
besought the people to let her go quietly to her home, which, after some
parley, was agreed to.  Robert then went up to her, and taking her hand,
asked her to go with him.  She looked up, and being greatly touched by
his kindness, began to weep, telling him that it had been a sorrowful
cross to her to do as she had done; but that it had been long upon her
mind, and that she did feel a relief now that she had found strength for
obedience.  He, seeing the people still following, hastened her, away,
and we all went back to the meeting-house.  In the afternoon, Mr.
Richardson gave notice that he should preach, next Lord's day, from the
12th and 13th verses of Jude, wherein the ranters and disturbers of the
present day were very plainly spoken of.  This morning she hath been had
before the magistrates, who, considering her youth and good behavior
hitherto, did not proceed against her so far as many of the people
desired.  A fine was laid upon her, which both she and her father did
profess they could not in conscience pay, whereupon she was ordered to
be set in the stocks; but this Mr. Sewall, Robert Pike, and my brother
would by no means allow, but paid the fine themselves, so that she was
set at liberty, whereat the boys and rude women were not a little
disappointed, as they had thought to make sport of her in the stocks.
Mr. Pike, I hear, did speak openly in her behalf before the magistrates,
saying that it was all along of the cruel persecution of these people
that did drive them to such follies and breaches of the peace, Mr.
Richardson, who hath heretofore been exceeding hard upon the Quakers,
did, moreover, speak somewhat in excuse of her conduct, believing that
she was instigated by her elders; and he therefore counselled the court
that she should not be whipped,



August 1.

Captain Sewall, R. Pike, and the minister, Mr. Richardson, at our house
to-day.  Captain Sewall, who lives mostly at Boston, says that a small
vessel loaded with negroes, taken on the Madagascar coast, came last
week into the harbor, and that the owner thereof had offered the negroes
for sale as slaves, and that they had all been sold to magistrates,
ministers, and other people of distinction in Boston and thereabouts.
He said the negroes were principally women and children, and scarcely
alive, by reason of their long voyage and hard fare.  He thought it a
great scandal to the Colony, and a reproach to the Church, that they
should be openly trafficked, like cattle in the market.  Uncle Rawson
said it was not so formerly; for he did remember the case of Captain
Smith and one Kesar, who brought negroes from Guinea thirty years ago.
The General Court, urged thereto by Sir Richard Saltonstall and many of
the ministers, passed an order that, for the purpose of "bearing a
witness against the heinous sin of man-stealing, justly abhorred of all
good and just men," the negroes should be taken back to their own
country at the charge of the Colony; which was soon after done.
Moreover, the two men, Smith and Kesar, were duly punished.

Mr. Richardson said he did make a distinction between the stealing of
men from a nation at peace with us, and the taking of captives in war.
The Scriptures did plainly warrant the holding of such, and especially
if they be heathen.

Captain Sewall said he did, for himself, look upon all slave-holding as
contrary to the Gospel and the New Dispensation.  The Israelites had a
special warrant for holding the heathen in servitude; but he had never
heard any one pretend that he had that authority for enslaving Indians
and blackamoors.

Hereupon Mr. Richardson asked him if he did not regard Deacon Dole as a
godly man; and if he had aught to say against him and other pious men
who held slaves.  And he cautioned him to be careful, lest he should be
counted an accuser of the brethren.

Here Robert Pike said he would tell of a matter which had fallen under
his notice.  "Just after the war was over," said be, "owing to the loss
of my shallop in the Penobscot Bay, I chanced to be in the neighborhood
of him they call the Baron of Castine, who hath a strong castle, with
much cleared land and great fisheries at Byguyduce.  I was preparing to
make a fire and sleep in the woods, with my two men, when a messenger
came from the Baron, saying that his master, hearing that strangers were
in the neighborhood, had sent him to offer us food and shelter, as the
night was cold and rainy.  So without ado we went with him, and were
shown into a comfortable room in a wing of the castle, where we found a
great fire blazing, and a joint of venison with wheaten loaves on the
table.  After we had refreshed ourselves, the Baron sent for me, and I
was led into a large, fair room, where he was, with Modockawando, who
was his father-in-law, and three or four other chiefs of the Indians,
together with two of his priests.  The Baron, who was a man of goodly
appearance, received me with much courtesy; and when I told him my
misfortune, he said he was glad it was in his power to afford us a
shelter.  He discoursed about the war, which he said had been a sad
thing to the whites as well as the Indians, but that he now hoped the
peace would be lasting.  Whereupon, Modockawando, a very grave and
serious heathen, who had been sitting silent with his friends, got up
and spoke a load speech to me, which I did not understand, but was told
that he did complain of the whites for holding as slaves sundry Indian
captives, declaring that it did provoke another war.  His own sister's
child, he said, was thus held in captivity.  He entreated me to see the
great Chief of our people (meaning the Governor), and tell him that the
cries of the captives were heard by his young men, and that they were
talking of digging up the hatchet which the old men had buried at Casco.
I told the old savage that I did not justify the holding of Indians
after the peace, and would do what I could to have them set at liberty,
at which he seemed greatly rejoiced.  Since I came back from Castine's
country, I have urged the giving up of the Indians, and many have been
released.  Slavery is a hard lot, and many do account it worse than
death.  When in the Barbadoes, I was told that on one plantation, in the
space of five years, a score of slaves had hanged themselves."

"Mr. Atkinson's Indian," said Captain Sewall, "whom he bought of a
Virginia ship-owner, did, straightway on coming to his house, refuse
meat; and although persuasions and whippings were tried to make him eat,
he would not so much as take a sip of drink.  I saw him a day or two
before he died, sitting wrapped up in his blanket, and muttering to
himself.  It was a sad, sight, and I pray God I may never see the like
again.  From that time I have looked upon the holding of men as slaves
as a great wickedness.  The Scriptures themselves do testify, that he
that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity."

After the company had gone, Rebecca sat silent and thoughtful for a
time, and then bade her young serving-girl, whom her father had bought,
about a year before, of the master of a Scotch vessel, and who had been
sold to pay the cost of her passage, to come to her.  She asked her if
she had aught to complain of in her situation.  The poor girl looked
surprised, but said she had not.  "Are you content to live as a
servant?" asked Rebecca.  "Would you leave me if you could?"  She here
fell a-weeping, begging her mistress not to speak of her leaving.  "But
if I should tell you that you are free to go or stay, as you will, would
you be glad or sorry?" queried her mistress.  The poor girl was silent.
"I do not wish you to leave me, Effie," said Rebecca, "but I wish you to
know that you are from henceforth free, and that if you serve me
hereafter, as I trust you will, it will be in love and good will, and
for suitable wages."  The bondswoman did not at the first comprehend the
design of her mistress, but, on hearing it explained once more, she
dropped down on her knees, and clasping Rebecca, poured forth her thanks
after the manner of her people; whereupon Rebecca, greatly moved, bade
her rise, as she had only done what the Scriptures did require, in
giving to her servant that which is just and equal.

"How easy it is to make others happy, and ourselves also!"  she said,
turning to me, with the tears shining in her eyes.



August 8, 1678.

Elnathan Stone, who died two days ago, was buried this afternoon.  A
very solemn funeral, Mr. Richardson preaching a sermon from the 23d
psalm, 4th verse: "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow
of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me; thy rod and thy
staff, they comfort me."  Deacon Dole provided the wine and spirits, and
Uncle Rawson the beer, and bread, and fish for the entertainment, and
others of the neighbors did, moreover, help the widow to sundry matters
of clothing suitable for the occasion, for she was very poor, and, owing
to the long captivity and sickness of her son, she hath been much
straitened at times.  I am told that Margaret Brewster hath been like an
angel of mercy unto her, watching often with the sick man, and helping
her in her work, so that the poor woman is now fain to confess that she
hath a good and kind heart.  A little time before Elnathan died, he did
earnestly commend the said Margaret to the kindness of Cousin Rebecca,
entreating her to make interest with the magistrates, and others in
authority, in her behalf, that they might be merciful to her in her
outgoings, as he did verily think they did come of a sense of duty,
albeit mistaken.  Mr. Richardson, who hath been witness to her gracious
demeanor and charity, and who saith she does thereby shame many of his
own people, hath often sought to draw her away from the new doctrines,
and to set before her the dangerous nature of her errors; but she never
lacketh answer of some sort, being naturally of good parts, and well
read in the Scriptures.



August 10.

I find the summer here greatly unlike that of mine own country.  The
heat is great, the sun shining very strong and bright; and for more than
a month it hath been exceeding dry, without any considerable fall of
rain, so that the springs fail in many places, and the watercourses are
dried up, which doth bring to mind very forcibly the language of Job,
concerning the brooks which the drouth consumeth: "What time they wax
warm they vanish; when it is hot they are consumed out of their place.
The paths of their way are turned aside; they go to nothing and perish."
The herbage and grass have lost much of the brightness which they did
wear in the early summer; moreover, there be fewer flowers to be seen.
The fields and roads are dusty, and all things do seem to faint and wax
old under the intolerable sun.  Great locusts sing sharp in the hedges
and bushes, and grasshoppers fly up in clouds, as it were, when one
walks over the dry grass which they feed upon, and at nightfall
mosquitoes are no small torment.  Whenever I do look forth at noonday,
at which time the air is all aglow, with a certain glimmer and dazzle
like that from an hot furnace, and see the poor fly-bitten cattle
whisking their tails to keep off the venomous insects, or standing in
the water of the low grounds for coolness, and the panting sheep lying
together under the shade of trees, I must needs call to mind the summer
season of old England, the cool sea air, the soft-dropping showers, the
fields so thick with grasses, and skirted with hedge-rows like green
walls, the trees and shrubs all clean and moist, and the vines and
creepers hanging over walls and gateways, very plenteous and beautiful
to behold.  Ah me I often in these days do I think of Hilton Grange,
with its great oaks, and cool breezy hills and meadows green the summer
long.  I shut mine eyes, and lo! it is all before me like a picture; I
see mine uncle's gray hairs beneath the trees, and my good aunt standeth
in the doorway, and Cousin Oliver comes up in his field-dress, from the
croft or the mill; I can hear his merry laugh, and the sound of his
horse's hoofs ringing along the gravel-way.  Our sweet Chaucer telleth
of a mirror in the which he that looked did see all his past life; that
magical mirror is no fable, for in the memory of love, old things do
return and show themselves as features do in the glass, with a perfect
and most beguiling likeness.

Last night, Deacon Dole's Indian--One-eyed Tom, a surly fellow--broke
into his master's shop, where he made himself drunk with rum, and,
coming to the house, did greatly fright the womenfolk by his threatening
words and gestures.  Now, the Deacon coming home late from the church-
meeting, and seeing him in this way, wherreted him smartly with his
cane, whereupon he ran off, and came up the road howling and yelling
like an evil spirit.  Uncle Rawson sent his Irish man-servant to see
what caused the ado; but he straightway came running back, screaming
"Murther!  murther!" at the top of his voice.  So uncle himself went to
the gate, and presently called for a light, which Rebecca and I came
with, inasmuch as the Irishman and Effie dared not go out.  We found Tom
sitting on the horse-block, the blood running down his face, and much
bruised and swollen.  He was very fierce and angry, saying that if he
lived a month, he would make him a tobacco-pouch of the Deacon's scalp.
Rebecca ventured to chide him for his threats, but offered to bind up
his head for him, which she did with her own kerchief.  Uncle Rawson
then bade him go home and get to bed, and in future let alone strong
drink, which had been the cause of his beating.  This he would not do,
but went off into the woods, muttering as far as one could hear him.

This morning Deacon Dole came in, and said his servant Tom had behaved
badly, for which he did moderately correct him, and that he did
thereupon run away, and he feared he should lose him.  He bought him,
he said, of Captain Davenport, who brought him from the Narragansett
country, paying ten pounds and six shillings for him, and he could ill
bear so great a loss.  I ventured to tell him that it was wrong to hold
any man, even an Indian or Guinea black, as a slave.  My uncle, who saw
that my plainness was not well taken, bade me not meddle with matters
beyond my depth; and Deacon Dole, looking very surly at me, said I was a
forward one; that he had noted that I did wear a light and idle look in
the meeting-house; and, pointing with his cane to my hair, he said I did
render myself liable to presentment by the Grand Jury for a breach of
the statute of the General Court, made the year before, against "the
immodest laying out of the hair," &c.  He then went on to say that he
had lived to see strange times, when such as I did venture to oppose
themselves to sober and grave people, and to despise authority, and
encourage rebellion and disorder; and bade me take heed lest all such
be numbered with the cursed children which the Apostle did rebuke: "Who,
as natural brute beasts, speak evil of things they understand not, and
shall utterly perish in their corruption."  My dear Cousin Rebecca here
put in a word in my behalf, and told the Deacon that Tom's misbehavior
did all grow out of the keeping of strong liquors for sale, and that he
was wrong to beat him so cruelly, seeing that he did himself place the
temptation before him.  Thereupon the Deacon rose up angrily, bidding
uncle look well to his forward household.  "Nay, girls," quoth mine
uncle, after his neighbor had left the house, "you have angered the good
man sorely."--"Never heed," said Rebecca, laughing and clapping her
hands, "be hath got something to think of more profitable, I trow, than
Cousin Margaret's hair or looks in meeting.  He has been tything of mint
and anise and cummin long enough, and 't is high time for him to look
after the weightier matters of the law."

The selling of beer and strong liquors, Mr. Ewall says, hath much
increased since the troubles of the Colony and the great Indian war.
The General Court do take some care to grant licenses only to discreet
persons; but much liquor is sold without warrant.  For mine own part, I
think old Chaucer hath it right in his Pardoner's Tale:--

         "A likerous thing is wine, and drunkenness
          Is full of striving and of wretchedness.
          O drunken man!  disfigured is thy face,
          Sour is thy breath, foul art then to embrace;
          Thy tongue is lost, and all thine honest care,
          For drunkenness is very sepulture
          Of man's wit and his discretion."



AGAMENTICUS, August 18.

The weather being clear and the heat great, last week uncle and aunt,
with Rebecca and myself, and also Leonard and Sir Thomas, thought it a
fitting time to make a little journey by water to the Isles of Shoals,
and the Agamenticus, where dwelleth my Uncle Smith, who hath strongly
pressed me to visit him.  One Caleb Powell, a seafaring man, having a
good new boat, with a small cabin, did undertake to convey us.  He is a
drolling odd fellow, who hath been in all parts of the world, and hath
seen and read much, and, having a rare memory, is not ill company,
although uncle saith one must make no small allowance for his desire of
making his hearers marvel at his stories and conceits.  We sailed with a
good westerly wind down the river, passing by the great salt marshes,
which stretch a long way by the sea, and in which the town's people be
now very busy in mowing and gathering the grass for winter's use.
Leaving on our right hand Plum Island (so called on account of the rare
plums which do grow upon it), we struck into the open sea, and soon came
in sight of the Islands of Shoals.  There be seven of them in all, lying
off the town of Hampton on the mainland, about a league.  We landed on
that called the Star, and were hospitably entertained through the day
and night by Mr. Abbott, an old inhabitant of the islands, and largely
employed in fisheries and trade, and with whom uncle had some business.
In the afternoon Mr. Abbott's son rowed us about among the islands, and
showed us the manner of curing the dun-fish, for which the place is
famed.  They split the fishes, and lay them on the rocks in the sun,
using little salt, but turning them often.  There is a court-house on
the biggest island, and a famous school, to which many of the planters
on the main-land do send their children.  We noted a great split in the
rocks, where, when the Indians came to the islands many years ago, and
killed some and took others captive, one Betty Moody did hide herself,
and which is hence called Betty Moody's Hole.  Also, the pile of rocks
set up by the noted Captain John Smith, when he did take possession of
the Isles in the year 1614.  We saw our old acquaintance Peckanaminet
and his wife, in a little birch canoe, fishing a short way off.  Mr.
Abbott says he well recollects the time when the Agawams were wellnigh
cut off by the Tarratine Indians; for that early one morning, hearing a
loud yelling and whooping, he went out on the point of the rocks, and
saw a great fleet of canoes filled with Indians, going back from Agawam,
and the noise they made he took to be their rejoicing over their
victory.

In the evening a cold easterly wind began to blow, and it brought in
from the ocean a damp fog, so that we were glad to get within doors.
Sir Thomas entertained us by his lively account of things in Boston, and
of a journey he had made to the Providence plantations.  He then asked
us if it was true, as he had learned from Mr. Mather, of Boston, that
there was an house in Newbury dolefully beset by Satan's imps, and that
the family could get no sleep because of the doings of evil spirits.
Uncle Rawson said he did hear something of it, and that Mr. Richardson
had been sent for to pray against the mischief.  Yet as he did count
Goody Morse a poor silly woman, he should give small heed to her story;
but here was her near neighbor, Caleb Powell, who could doubtless tell
more concerning it.  Whereupon, Caleb said it was indeed true that there
was a very great disturbance in Goodman Morse's house; doors opening and
shutting, household stuff whisked out of the room, and then falling down
the chimney, and divers other strange things, many of which he had
himself seen.  Yet he did believe it might be accounted for in a natural
way, especially as the old couple had a wicked, graceless boy living
with them, who might be able to do the tricks by his great subtlety and
cunning.  Sir Thomas said it might be the boy; but that Mr. Josselin,
who had travelled much hereabout, had told him that the Indians did
practise witchcraft, and that, now they were beaten in war, he feared
they would betake themselves to it, and so do by their devilish wisdom
what they could not do by force; and verily this did look much like the
beginning of their enchantments.  "That the Devil helpeth the heathen in
this matter, I do myself know for a certainty," said Caleb Powell; "for
when I was at Port Royal, many years ago, I did see with mine eyes the
burning of an old negro wizard, who had done to death many of the
whites, as well as his own people, by a charm which he brought with him
from the Guinea, country."  Mr. Hull, the minister of the place, who was
a lodger in the house, said he had heard one Foxwell, a reputable
planter at Saco, lately deceased, tell of a strange affair that did
happen to himself, in a voyage to the eastward.  Being in a small
shallop, and overtaken by the night, he lay at anchor a little way off
the shore, fearing to land on account of the Indians.  Now, it did
chance that they were waked about midnight by a loud voice from the
land, crying out, Foxwell, come ashore! three times over; whereupon,
looking to see from whence the voice did come, they beheld a great
circle of fire on the beach, and men and women dancing about it in a
ring.  Presently they vanished, and the fire was quenched also.  In the
morning he landed, but found no Indians nor English, only brands' ends
cast up by the waves; and he did believe, unto the day of his death,
that it was a piece of Indian sorcery.  "There be strange stories told
of Passaconaway, the chief of the River Indians," he continued.  "I have
heard one say who saw it, that once, at the Patucket Falls, this chief,
boasting of his skill in magic, picked up a dry skin of a snake, which
had been cast off, as is the wont of the reptile, and making some
violent motions of his body, and calling upon his Familiar, or Demon, he
did presently cast it down upon the rocks, and it became a great black
serpent, which mine informant saw crawl off into some bushes, very
nimble.  This Passaconaway was accounted by his tribe to be a very
cunning conjurer, and they do believe that he could brew storms, make
water burn, and cause green leaves to grow on trees in the winter; and,
in brief, it may be said of him, that he was not a whit behind the
magicians of Egypt in the time of Moses."

"There be women in the cold regions about Norway," said Caleb Powell,
"as I have heard the sailors relate, who do raise storms and sink boats
at their will."

"It may well be," quoth Mr. Hull, "since Satan is spoken of as the
prince and power of the air."

"The profane writers of old time do make mention of such sorceries,"
said Uncle Rawson.  "It is long since I have read any of then; but
Virgil and Apulius do, if I mistake not, speak of this power over the
elements."

"Do you not remember, father," said Rebecca, "some verses of Tibullus,
in which he speaketh of a certain enchantress?  Some one hath rendered
them thus:--

         "Her with charms drawing stars from heaven, I,
          And turning the course of rivers, did espy.
          She parts the earth, and ghosts from sepulchres
          Draws up, and fetcheth bones away from fires,
          And at her pleasure scatters clouds in the air,
          And makes it snow in summer hot and fair."

Here Sir Thomas laughingly told Rebecca, that he did put more faith in
what these old writers did tell of the magic arts of the sweet-singing
sirens, and of Circe and her enchantments, and of the Illyrian maidens,
so wonderful in their beauty, who did kill with their looks such as they
were angry with.

"It was, perhaps, for some such reason," said Rebecca, "that, as Mr.
Abbott tells me; the General Court many years ago did forbid women to
live on these islands."

"Pray, how was that?" asked Sir Thomas.

"You must know," answered our host, "that in the early settlement of
the Shoals, vessels coming for fish upon this coast did here make their
harbor, bringing hither many rude sailors of different nations; and the
Court judged that it was not a fitting place for women, and so did by
law forbid their dwelling on the islands belonging to the
Massachusetts."

He then asked his wife to get the order of the Court concerning her stay
on the islands, remarking that he did bring her over from the Maine in
despite of the law.  So his wife fetched it, and Uncle Rawson read it,
it being to this effect,--"That a petition having been sent to the
Court, praying that the law might be put in force in respect to John
Abbott his wife, the Court do judge it meet, if no further complaint
come against her, that she enjoy the company of her husband."  Whereat
we all laughed heartily.

Next morning, the fog breaking away early, we set sail for Agamenticus,
running along the coast and off the mouth of the Piscataqua River,
passing near where my lamented Uncle Edward dwelt, whose fame as a
worthy gentleman and magistrate is still living.  We had Mount
Agamenticus before us all day,--a fair stately hill, rising up as it
were from the water.  Towards night a smart shower came on, with
thunderings and lightnings such as I did never see or hear before; and
the wind blowing and a great rain driving upon us, we were for a time in
much peril; but, through God's mercy, it suddenly cleared up, and we
went into the Agamenticus River with a bright sun.  Before dark we got
to the house of my honored uncle, where, he not being at home, his wife
and daughters did receive us kindly.



September 10.

I do find myself truly comfortable at this place.  My two cousins, Polly
and Thankful, are both young, unmarried women, very kind and pleasant,
and, since my Newbury friends left, I have been learning of them many
things pertaining to housekeeping, albeit I am still but a poor scholar.
Uncle is Marshall of the Province, which takes him much from home; and
aunt, who is a sickly woman, keeps much in her chamber; so that the
affairs of the household and of the plantation do mainly rest upon the
young women.  If ever I get back to Hilton Grange again, I shall have
tales to tell of my baking and brewing, of my pumpkin-pies, and bread
made of the flour of the Indian corn; yea, more, of gathering of the
wild fruit in the woods, and cranberries in the meadows, milking the
cows, and looking after the pigs and barnyard fowls.  Then, too, we have
had many pleasant little journeys by water and on horseback, young Mr,
Jordan, of Spurwiuk, who hath asked Polly in marriage, going with us.
A right comely youth he is, but a great Churchman, as might be expected,
his father being the minister of the Black Point people, and very bitter
towards the Massachusetts and its clergy and government.  My uncle, who
meddles little with Church' matters, thinks him a hopeful young man, and
not an ill suitor for his daughter.  He hath been in England for his
learning, and is accounted a scholar; but, although intended for the
Church service, he inclineth more to the life of a planter, and taketh
the charge of his father's plantation at Spurwink.  Polly is not
beautiful and graceful like Rebecca Rawson, but she hath freshness of
youth and health, and a certain good-heartedness of look and voice, and
a sweetness of temper which do commend her in the eyes of all.  Thankful
is older by some years, and, if not as cheerful and merry as her sister,
it needs not be marvelled at, since one whom she loved was killed in the
Narragansett country two years ago.  O these bloody wars.  There be few
in these Eastern Provinces who have not been called to mourn the loss of
some near and dear friend, so that of a truth the land mourns.



September 18.

Meeting much disturbed yesterday,--a ranting Quaker coming in and
sitting with his hat on in sermon time, humming and groaning, and
rocking his body to and fro like one possessed.  After a time he got up,
and pronounced a great woe upon the priests, calling them many hard
names, and declaring that the whole land stank with their hypocrisy.
Uncle spake sharply to him, and bid him hold his peace, but he only
cried out the louder.  Some young men then took hold of him, and carried
him out.  They brought him along close to my seat, he hanging like a bag
of meal, with his eyes shut, as ill-favored a body as I ever beheld.
The magistrates had him smartly whipped this morning, and sent out of
the jurisdiction.  I was told he was no true Quaker; for, although a
noisy, brawling hanger-on at their meetings, he is not in fellowship
with the more sober and discreet of that people.

Rebecca writes me that the witchcraft in William Morse's house is much
talked of; and that Caleb Powell hath been complained of as the wizard.
Mr. Jordan the elder says he does in no wise marvel at the Devil's power
in the Massachusetts, since at his instigation the rulers and ministers
of the Colony have set themselves, against the true and Gospel order of
the Church, and do slander and persecute all who will not worship at
their conventicles.

A Mr. Van Valken, a young gentleman of Dutch descent, and the agent of
Mr. Edmund Andross, of the Duke of York's Territory, is now in this
place, being entertained by Mr. Godfrey, the late Deputy-Governor.  He
brought a letter for me from Aunt Rawson, whom he met in Boston.  He is
a learned, serious man, hath travelled a good deal, and hath an air of
high breeding.  The minister here thinks him a Papist, and a Jesuit,
especially as he hath not called upon him, nor been to the meeting.  He
goes soon to Pemaquid, to take charge of that fort and trading station,
which have greatly suffered by the war.



September 30.

Yesterday, Cousin Polly and myself, with young Mr. Jordan, went up to
the top of the mountain, which is some miles from the harbor.  It is not
hard to climb in respect to steepness, but it is so tangled with bushes
and vines, that one can scarce break through them.  The open places were
yellow with golden-rods, and the pale asters were plenty in the shade,
and by the side of the brooks, that with pleasing noise did leap down
the hill.  When we got upon the top, which is bare and rocky, we had a
fair view of the coast, with its many windings and its islands, from the
Cape Ann, near Boston, to the Cape Elizabeth, near Casco, the Piscataqua
and Agamenticus rivers; and away in the northwest we could see the peaks
of mountains looking like summer clouds or banks of gray fog.  These
mountains lie many leagues off in the wilderness, and are said to be
exceeding lofty.

But I must needs speak of the color of the woods, which did greatly
amaze me, as unlike anything I had ever seen in old England.  As far as
mine eyes could look, the mighty wilderness, under the bright westerly
sun, and stirred by a gentle wind, did seem like a garden in its season
of flowering; green, dark, and light, orange, and pale yellow, and
crimson leaves, mingling and interweaving their various hues, in a
manner truly wonderful to behold.  It is owing, I am told, to the sudden
frosts, which in this climate do smite the vegetation in its full life
and greenness, so that in the space of a few days the colors of the
leaves are marvellously changed and brightened.  These colors did remind
me of the stains of the windows of old churches, and of rich tapestry.
The maples were all aflame with crimson, the walnuts were orange, the
hemlocks and cedars were wellnigh black; while the slender birches, with
their pale yellow leaves, seemed painted upon them as pictures are laid
upon a dark ground.  I gazed until mine eyes grew weary, and a sense of
the wonderful beauty of the visible creation, and of God's great
goodness to the children of men therein, did rest upon me, and I said in
mine heart, with one of old: "O Lord! how manifold are thy works in
wisdom hast thou made them all, and the earth is full of thy riches."



October 6.

Walked out to the iron mines, a great hole digged in the rocks, many
years ago, for the finding of iron.  Aunt, who was then just settled in
housekeeping, told me many wonderful stories of the man who caused it to
be digged, a famous doctor of physic, and, as it seems, a great wizard
also.  He bought a patent of land on the south side of the Saco River,
four miles by the sea, and eight miles up into the main-land of Mr.
Vines, the first owner thereof; and being curious in the seeking and
working of metals, did promise himself great riches in this new country;
but his labors came to nothing, although it was said that Satan helped
him, in the shape of a little blackamoor man-servant, who was his
constant familiar.  My aunt says she did often see him, wandering about
among the hills and woods, and along the banks of streams of water,
searching for precious ores and stones.  He had even been as far as the
great mountains, beyond Pigwackett, climbing to the top thereof, where
the snows lie wellnigh all the year, his way thither lying through
doleful swamps and lonesome woods.  He was a great friend of the
Indians, who held him to be a more famous conjurer than their own
powahs; and, indeed, he was learned in all curious and occult arts,
having studied at the great College of Padua, and travelled in all parts
of the old countries.  He sometimes stopped in his travels at my uncle's
house, the little blackamoor sleeping in the barn, for my aunt feared
him, as he was reputed to be a wicked imp.  Now it so chanced that on
one occasion my uncle had lost a cow, and had searched the woods many
days for her to no purpose, when, this noted doctor coming in, he
besought him to find her out by his skill and learning; but he did
straightway deny his power to do so, saying he was but a poor scholar,
and lover of science, and had no greater skill in occult matters than
any one might attain to by patient study of natural things.  But as mine
uncle would in no wise be so put off, and still pressing him to his art,
he took a bit of coal, and began to make marks on the floor, in a very
careless way.

Then he made a black dot in the midst, and bade my uncle take heed that
his cow was lying dead in that spot; and my uncle looking at it, said he
Could find her, for he now knew where she was, inasmuch as the doctor
had made a fair map of the country round about for many miles.  So he
set off, and found the cow lying at the foot of a great tree, close
beside a brook, she being quite dead, which thing did show that he was a
magician of no Mean sort.

My aunt further said, that in those days there was great talk of mines
of gold and precious stones, and many people spent all their substance
in wandering about over the wilderness country seeking a fortune in this
way.  There was one old man, who, she remembered, did roam about seeking
for hidden treasures, until he lost his wits, and might be seen filling
a bag with bright stones and shining sand, muttering and laughing to
himself.  He was at last missed for some little time, when he was found
lying dead in the woods, still holding fast in his hands his bag of
pebbles.

On my querying whether any did find treasures hereabout, my aunt
laughed, and said she never heard of but one man who did so, and that
was old Peter Preble of Saco, who, growing rich faster than his
neighbors, was thought to owe his fortune to the finding of a gold or
silver mine.  When he was asked about it, he did by no means deny it,
but confessed he had found treasures in the sea as well as on the land;
and, pointing to his loaded fish-flakes and his great cornfields, said,
"Here are my mines."  So that afterwards, when any one prospered greatly
in his estate, it was said of him by his neighbors, "He has been working
Peter Preble's mine."



October 8.

Mr. Van Valken, the Dutchman, had before Mr. Rishworth, one of the
Commissioners of the Province, charged with being a Papist and a Jesuit.
He bore himself, I am told, haughtily enough, denying the right to call
him in question, and threatening the interference of his friend and
ruler, Sir Edmund, on account of the wrong done him.

My uncle and others did testify that he was a civil and courteous
gentleman, not intermeddling with matters of a religious nature; and
that they did regard it as a foul shame to the town that he should be
molested in this wise.  But the minister put them to silence, by
testifying that he (Van Valken) had given away sundry Papist books; and,
one of them being handed to the Court, it proved to be a Latin Treatise,
by a famous Papist, intituled, "The Imitation of Christ."  Hereupon, Mr.
Godfrey asked if there was aught evil in the book.  The minister said it
was written by a monk, and was full of heresy, favoring both the Quakers
and the Papists; but Mr. Godfrey told him it had been rendered into the
English tongue, and printed some years before in the Massachusetts Bay;
and asked him if he did accuse such men as Mr. Cotton and Mr. Wilson,
and the pious ministers of their day, of heresy.  "Nay," quoth the
minister, "they did see the heresy of the book, and, on their condemning
it, the General Court did forbid its sale."  Mr. Rishworth hereupon said
he did judge the book to be pernicious, and bade the constable burn it
in the street, which he did.  Mr. Van Valken, after being gravely
admonished, was set free; and he now saith he is no Papist, but that he
would not have said that much to the Court to save his life, inasmuch as
he did deny its right of arraigning him.  Mr. Godfrey says the treatment
whereof he complains is but a sample of what the people hereaway are to
look for from the Massachusetts jurisdiction.  Mr. Jordan, the younger,
says his father hath a copy of the condemned book, of the Boston
printing; and I being curious to see it, he offers to get it for me.

Like unto Newbury, this is an old town for so new a country.  It was
made a city in 1642, and took the name of Gorgeana, after that of the
lord proprietor, Sir Ferdinando Gorges.  The government buildings are
spacious, but now falling into decay somewhat.  There be a few stone
houses, but the major part are framed, or laid up with square logs.  The
look of the land a little out of the town is rude and unpleasing, being
much covered with stones and stumps; yet the soil is said to be strong,
and the pear and apple do flourish well here; also they raise rye, oats,
and barley, and the Indian corn, and abundance of turnips, as well as
pumpkins, squashes, and melons.  The war with the Indians, and the
troubles and changes of government, have pressed heavily upon this and
other towns of the Maine, so that I am told that there be now fewer
wealthy planters here than there were twenty years ago, and little
increase of sheep or horned cattle.  The people do seem to me less sober
and grave, in their carriage and conversation, than they of the
Massachusetts,--hunting, fishing, and fowling more, and working on the
land less.  Nor do they keep the Lord's Day so strict; many of the young
people going abroad, both riding and walking, visiting each other, and
diverting themselves, especially after the meetings are over.



October 9.

Goodwife Nowell, an ancient gossip of mine aunt's, looking in this
morning, and talking of the trial of the Dutchman, Van Valken, spake
of the coming into these parts many years ago of one Sir Christopher
Gardiner, who was thought to be a Papist.  He sought lodgings at her
house for one whom he called his cousin, a fair young woman, together
with her serving girl, who did attend upon her.  She tarried about a
month, seeing no one, and going out only towards the evening,
accompanied by her servant.  She spake little, but did seem melancholy
and exceeding mournful, often crying very bitterly.  Sir Christopher
came only once to see her, and Good wife Nowell saith she well remembers
seeing her take leave of him on the roadside, and come back weeping and
sobbing dolefully; and that a little time after, bearing that he had
gotten into trouble in Boston as a Papist and man of loose behavior, she
suddenly took her departure in a vessel sailing for the Massachusetts,
leaving to her, in pay for house-room and diet, a few coins, a gold
cross, and some silk stuffs and kerchiefs.  The cross being such as the
Papists do worship, and therefore unlawful, her husband did beat it into
a solid wedge privately, and kept it from the knowledge of the minister
and the magistrates.  But as the poor man never prospered after, but
lost his cattle and grain, and two of their children dying of measles
the next year, and he himself being sickly, and near his end, he spake
to her of he golden cross, saying that he did believe it was a great sin
to keep it, as he had done, and that it had wrought evil upon him, even
as the wedge of gold, and the shekels, and Babylonish garment did upon
Achan, who was stoned, with all his house, in the valley of Achor; and
the minister coming in, and being advised concerning it, he judged that
although it might be a sin to keep it hidden from a love of riches, it
might, nevertheless, be safely used to support Gospel preaching and
ordinances, and so did himself take it away.  The goodwife says, that
notwithstanding her husband died soon after, yet herself and household
did from thenceforth begin to amend their estate and condition.

Seeing me curious concerning this Sir Christopher and his cousin,
Goodwife Nowell said there was a little parcel of papers which she found
in her room after the young woman went away, and she thought they might
yet be in some part of her house, though she had not seen them for a
score of years.  Thereupon, I begged of her to look for them, which she
promised to do.



October 14.

A strange and wonderful providence!  Last night there was a great
company of the neighbors at my uncle's, to help him in the husking and
stripping of the corn, as is the custom in these parts.  The barn-floor
was about half-filled with the corn in its dry leaves; the company
sitting down on blocks and stools before it, plucking off the leaves,
and throwing the yellow ears into baskets.  A pleasant and merry evening
we had; and when the corn was nigh stripped, I went into the house with
Cousin Thankful, to look to the supper and the laying of the tables,
when we heard a loud noise in the barn, and one of the girls came
running in, crying out, "O Thankful!  Thankful!  John Gibbins has
appeared to us!  His spirit is in the barn!"  The plates dropt from my
cousin's hand, and, with a faint cry, she fell back against the wall for
a little space; when, hearing a man's voice without, speaking her name,
she ran to the door, with the look of one beside herself; while I,
trembling to see her in such a plight, followed her.  There was a clear
moon, and a tall man stood in the light close to the door.

"John," said my cousin, in a quick, choking voice, "is it You?"

"Why, Thankful, don't you know me?  I'm alive; but the folks in the barn
will have it that I 'm a ghost," said the man, springing towards her.

With a great cry of joy and wonder, my cousin caught hold of him: "O
John, you are alive!"

Then she swooned quite away, and we had a deal to do to bring her to
life again.  By this time, the house was full of people, and among the
rest came John's old mother and his sisters, and we all did weep and
laugh at the same time.  As soon as we got a little quieted, John told
us that he had indeed been grievously stunned by the blow of a tomahawk,
and been left for dead by his comrades, but that after a time he did
come to his senses, and was able to walk; but, falling into the hands of
the Indians, he was carried off to the French Canadas, where, by reason
of his great sufferings on the way, he fell sick, and lay for a long
time at the point of death.  That when he did get about again, the
savage who lodged him, and who had taken him as a son, in the place of
his own, slain by the Mohawks, would not let him go home, although he
did confess that the war was at an end.  His Indian father, he said, who
was feeble and old, died not long ago, and he had made his way home by
the way of Crown Point and Albany.  Supper being ready, we all sat down,
and the minister, who had been sent for, offered thanks for the
marvellous preserving and restoring of the friend who was lost and now
was found, as also for the blessings of peace, by reason of which every
man could now sit under his own vine and fig-tree, with none to molest
or make him afraid, and for the abundance of the harvest, and the
treasures of the seas, and the spoil of the woods, so that our land
might take up the song of the Psalmist: "The Lord doth build up
Jerusalem; he gathereth the outcasts of Israel; he healeth the broken in
heart.  Praise thy God, O Zion I For he strengtheneth the bars of thy
gates, he maketh peace in thy borders, and filleth thee with the finest
of wheat."  Oh! a sweet supper we had, albeit little was eaten, for we
were filled fall of joy, and needed not other food.  When the company
had gone, my dear cousin and her betrothed went a little apart, and
talked of all that had happened unto them during their long separation.
I left them sitting lovingly together in the light of the moon, and a
measure of their unspeakable happiness did go with me to my pillow.

This morning, Thankful came to my bedside to pour out her heart to me.
The poor girl is like a new creature.  The shade of her heavy sorrow,
which did formerly rest upon her countenance, hath passed off like a
morning cloud, and her eye hath the light of a deep and quiet joy.

"I now know," said she, "what David meant when he said, 'We are like
them that dream; our mouth is filled with laughter, and our tongue with
singing; the Lord hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad!'"



October 18.

A cloudy wet day.  Goody Nowell brought me this morning a little parcel
of papers, which she found in the corner of a closet.  They are much
stained and smoked, and the mice have eaten them sadly, so that I can
make little of them.  They seem to be letters, and some fragments of
what did take place in the life of a young woman of quality from the
North of England.  I find frequent mention made of Cousin Christopher,
who is also spoken of as a soldier in the wars with the Turks, and as a
Knight of Jerusalem.  Poorly as I can make out the meaning of these
fragments, I have read enough to make my heart sad, for I gather from
them that the young woman was in early life betrothed to her cousin, and
that afterwards, owing, as I judge, to the authority of her parents, she
did part with him, he going abroad, and entering into the wars, in the
belief that she was to wed another.  But it seemed that the heart of the
young woman did so plead for her cousin, that she could not be brought
to marry as her family willed her to do; and, after a lapse of years,
she, by chance hearing that Sir Christopher had gone to the New England,
where he was acting as an agent of his kinsman, Sir Ferdinando Gorges,
in respect to the Maine Province, did privately leave her home, and take
passage in a Boston bound ship.  How she did make herself known to Sir
Christopher, I find no mention made; but, he now being a Knight of the
Order of St. John of Jerusalem, and vowed to forego marriage, as is the
rule of that Order, and being, moreover, as was thought, a priest or
Jesuit, her great love and constancy could meet with but a sorrowful
return on his part.  It does appear, however, that he journeyed to
Montreal, to take counsel of some of the great Papist priests there,
touching the obtaining of a dispensation from the Head of the Church,
so that he might marry the young woman; but, getting no encouragement
therein, he went to Boston to find a passage for her to England again.
He was there complained of as a Papist; and the coming over of his
cousin being moreover known, a great and cruel scandal did arise from
it, and he was looked upon as a man of evil life, though I find nothing
to warrant such a notion, but much to the contrary thereof.  What became
of him and the young woman, his cousin, in the end, I do not learn.

One small parcel did affect me even unto tears.  It was a paper
containing some dry, withered leaves of roses, with these words written
on it "To Anna, from her loving cousin, Christopher Gardiner, being the
first rose that hath blossomed this season in the College garden.  St.
Omer's, June, 1630."  I could but think how many tears had been shed
over this little token, and how often, through long, weary years, it did
call to mind the sweet joy of early love, of that fairest blossom of the
spring of life of which it was an emblem, alike in its beauty and its
speedy withering.

There be moreover among the papers sundry verses, which do seem to have
been made by Sir Christopher; they are in the Latin tongue, and
inscribed to his cousin, bearing date many years before the twain were
in this country, and when he was yet a scholar at the Jesuits' College
of St. Omer's, in France.  I find nothing of a later time, save the
verses which I herewith copy, over which there are, in a woman's
handwriting, these words:

"VERSES

"Writ by Sir Christopher when a prisoner among the Turks in Moldavia,
and expecting death at their hands.

1.
"Ere down the blue Carpathian hills
The sun shall fall again,
Farewell this life and all its ills,
Farewell to cell and chain

2.
"These prison shades are dark and cold,
But darker far than they
The shadow of a sorrow old
Is on mine heart alway.

3.
"For since the day when Warkworth wood
Closed o'er my steed and I,--
An alien from my name and blood,--
A weed cast out to die;

4.
"When, looking back, in sunset light
I saw her turret gleam,
And from its window, far and white,
Her sign of farewell stream;

5.
"Like one who from some desert shore
Does home's green isles descry,
And, vainly longing, gazes o'er
The waste of wave and sky,

6.
"So, from the desert of my fate,
Gaze I across the past;
And still upon life's dial-plate
The shade is backward cast

7.
"I've wandered wide from shore to shore,
I've knelt at many a shrine,
And bowed me to the rocky floor
Where Bethlehem's tapers shine;

8.
"And by the Holy Sepulchre
I've pledged my knightly sword,
To Christ his blessed Church, and her
The Mother of our Lord!

9.
"Oh, vain the vow, and vain the strife
How vain do all things seem!
My soul is in the past, and life
To-day is but a dream.

10.
"In vain the penance strange and long,
And hard for flesh to bear;
The prayer, the fasting, and the thong,
And sackcloth shirt of hair:

11.
"The eyes of memory will not sleep,
Its ears are open still,
And vigils with the past they keep
Against or with my will.

12.
"And still the loves and hopes of old
Do evermore uprise;
I see the flow of locks of gold,
The shine of loving eyes.

13.
"Ah me! upon another's breast
Those golden locks recline;
I see upon another rest
The glance that once was mine!

14.
"'O faithless priest!  O perjured knight!'
I hear the master cry,

'Shut out the vision from thy sight,
Let earth and nature die.'

15.
"'The Church of God is now my spouse,
And thou the bridegroom art;
Then let the burden of thy vows
Keep down thy human heart.'

16.
"In vain!--This heart its grief must know,
Till life itself hath ceased,
And falls beneath the self-same blow
The lover and the priest!

17.
"O pitying Mother! souls of light,
And saints and martyrs old,
Pray for a weak and sinful knight,
A suffering man uphold.

18.
"Then let the Paynim work his will,
Let death unbind my chain,
Ere down yon blue Carpathian hill
The sunset falls again!"


My heart is heavy with the thought of these unfortunates.  Where be they
now?  Did the knight forego his false worship and his vows, and so marry
his beloved Anna?  Or did they part forever,--she going back to her
kinsfolk, and he to his companions of Malta?  Did he perish at the hands
of the infidels, and does the maiden sleep in the family tomb, under her
father's oaks?  Alas!  who can tell?  I must needs leave them, and their
sorrows and trials, to Him who doth not willingly afflict the children
of men; and whatsoever may have been their sins and their follies, my
prayer is, that they may be forgiven, for they loved much.



October 20.

I do purpose to start to-morrow for the Massachusetts, going by boat to
the Piscataqua River, and thence by horse to Newbury.

Young Mr. Jordan spent yesterday and last night with us.  He is a goodly
youth, of a very sweet and gentle disposition; nor doth he seem to me to
lack spirit, although his father (who liketh not his quiet ways and easy
temper, so contrary to his own, and who is sorely disappointed in that
he hath chosen the life of a farmer to that of a minister, for which he
did intend him) often accuseth him of that infirmity.  Last night we had
much pleasant discourse touching the choice he hath made; and when I
told him that perhaps he might have become a great prelate in the
Church, and dwelt in a palace, and made a great lady of our cousin;
whereas now I did see no better prospect for him than to raise corn for
his wife to make pudding of, and chop wood to boil her kettle, he
laughed right merrily, and said he should never have gotten higher than
a curate in a poor parish; and as for Polly, he was sure she was more at
home in making puddings than in playing the fine lady.

"For my part," he continued, in a serious manner, "I have no notion that
the pulpit is my place; I like the open fields and sky better than the
grandest churches of man's building; and when the wind sounds in the
great grove of pines on the hill near our house, I doubt if there be a
choir in all England so melodious and solemn.  These painted autumn
woods, and this sunset light, and yonder clouds of gold and purple, do
seem to me better fitted to provoke devotional thoughts, and to awaken a
becoming reverence and love for the Creator, than the stained windows
and lofty arched roofs of old minsters.  I do know, indeed, that there
be many of our poor busy planters, who, by reason of ignorance, ill-
breeding, and lack of quiet for contemplation, do see nothing in these
things, save as they do affect their crops of grain or grasses, or their
bodily comforts in one way or another.  But to them whose minds have
been enlightened and made large and free by study and much reflection,
and whose eyes have been taught to behold the beauty and fitness of
things, and whose ears have been so opened that they can hear the
ravishing harmonies of the creation, the life of a planter is very
desirable even in this wilderness, and notwithstanding the toil and
privation thereunto appertaining.  There be fountains gushing up in the
hearts of such, sweeter than the springs of water which flow from the
hillsides, where they sojourn; and therein, also, flowers of the summer
do blossom all the year long.  The brutish man knoweth not this, neither
doth the fool comprehend it."

"See, now," said Polly to me, "how hard he is upon us poor unlearned
folk."

"Nay, to tell the truth," said he, turning towards me, "your cousin here
is to be held not a little accountable for my present inclinations; for
she it was who did confirm and strengthen them.  While I had been busy
over books, she had been questioning the fields and the woods; and, as
if the old fables of the poets were indeed true, she did get answers
from them, as the priestesses and sibyls did formerly from the rustling
of leaves and trees, and the sounds of running waters; so that she could
teach me much concerning the uses and virtues of plants and shrubs, and
of their time of flowering and decay; of the nature and habitudes of
wild animals and birds, the changes of the air, and of the clouds and
winds.  My science, so called, had given me little more than the names
of things which to her were familiar and common.  It was in her company
that I learned to read nature as a book always open, and full of
delectable teachings, until my poor school-lore did seem undesirable and
tedious, and the very chatter of the noisy blackbirds in the spring
meadows more profitable and more pleasing than the angry disputes and
the cavils and subtleties of schoolmen and divines."

My cousin blushed, and, smiling through her moist eyes at this language
of her beloved friend, said that I must not believe all he said; for,
indeed, it was along of his studies of the heathen poets that he had
first thought of becoming a farmer.  And she asked him to repeat some of
the verses which he had at his tongue's end.  He laughed, and said he
did suppose she meant some lines of Horace, which had been thus
Englished:--

              "I often wished I had a farm,
               A decent dwelling, snug and warm,
               A garden, and a spring as pure
               As crystal flowing by my door,
               Besides an ancient oaken grove,
               Where at my leisure I might rove.

              "The gracious gods, to crown my bliss,
               Have granted this, and more than this,--
               They promise me a modest spouse,
               To light my hearth and keep my house.
               I ask no more than, free from strife,
               To hold these blessings all my life!"

Tam exceedingly pleased, I must say, with the prospect of my cousin
Polly.  Her suitor is altogether a worthy young man; and, making
allowances for the uncertainty of all human things, she may well look
forward to a happy life with him.  I shall leave behind on the morrow
dear friends, who were strangers unto me a few short weeks ago, but in
whose joys and sorrows I shall henceforth always partake, so far as I do
come to the knowledge of them, whether or no I behold their faces any
more in this life.




HAMPTON, October 24, 1678.

I took leave of my good friends at Agamenticus, or York, as it is now
called, on the morning after the last date in my journal, going in a
boat with my uncle to Piscataqua and Strawberry Bank.  It was a cloudy
day, and I was chilled through before we got to the mouth of the river;
but, as the high wind was much in our favor, we were enabled to make the
voyage in a shorter time than is common.  We stopped a little at the
house of a Mr. Cutts, a man of some note in these parts; but he being
from home, and one of the children sick with a quinsy, we went up the
river to Strawberry Bank, where we tarried over night.  The woman who
entertained us had lost her husband in the war, and having to see to the
ordering of matters out of doors in this busy season of harvest, it was
no marvel that she did neglect those within.  I made a comfortable
supper of baked pumpkin and milk, and for lodgings I had a straw bed on
the floor, in the dark loft, which was piled wellnigh full with corn-
ears, pumpkins, and beans, besides a great deal of old household
trumpery, wool, and flax, and the skins of animals.  Although tired of
my journey, it was some little time before I could get asleep; and it so
fell out, that after the folks of the house were all abed, and still, it
being, as I judge, nigh midnight, I chanced to touch with my foot a
pumpkin lying near the bed, which set it a-rolling down the stairs,
bumping hard on every stair as it went.  Thereupon I heard a great stir
below, the woman and her three daughters crying out that the house was
haunted.  Presently she called to me from the foot of the stairs, and
asked me if I did hear anything.  I laughed so at all this, that it was
some time before I could speak; when I told her I did hear a thumping on
the stairs.  "Did it seem to go up, or down?"  inquired she, anxiously;
and on my telling her that the sound went downward, she set up a sad
cry, and they all came fleeing into the corn-loft, the girls bouncing
upon my bed, and hiding under the blanket, and the old woman praying and
groaning, and saying that she did believe it was the spirit of her poor
husband.  By this time my uncle, who was lying on the settle in the room
below, hearing the noise, got up, and stumbling over the pumpkin, called
to know what was the matter.  Thereupon the woman bade him flee up
stairs, for there was a ghost in the kitchen.  "Pshaw!" said my uncle,
"is that all?  I thought to be sure the Indians had come."  As soon as I
could speak for laughing, I told the poor creature what it was that so
frightened her; at which she was greatly vexed; and, after she went to
bed again, I could hear her scolding me for playing tricks upon honest
people.

We were up betimes in the morning, which was bright and pleasant.  Uncle
soon found a friend of his, a Mr. Weare, who, with his wife, was to go
to his home, at Hampton, that day, and who did kindly engage to see me
thus far on my way.  At about eight of the clock we got upon our horses,
the woman riding on a pillion behind her husband.  Our way was for some
miles through the woods,--getting at times a view of the sea, and
passing some good, thriving plantations.  The woods in this country are
by no means like those of England, where the ancient trees are kept
clear of bushes and undergrowth, and the sward beneath them is shaven
clean and close; whereas here they be much tangled with vines, and the
dead boughs and logs which have fallen, from their great age or which
the storms do beat off, or the winter snows and ices do break down.
Here, also, through the thick matting of dead leaves, all manner of
shrubs and bushes, some of them very sweet and fair in their flowering,
and others greatly prized for their healing virtues, do grow up
plenteously.  In the season of them, many wholesome fruits abound in the
woods, such as blue and black berries.  We passed many trees, well
loaded with walnuts and oilnuts, seeming all alive, as it were, with
squirrels, striped, red, and gray, the last having a large, spreading
tail, which Mr. Weare told me they do use as a sail, to catch the wind,
that it may blow them over rivers and creeks, on pieces of bark, in some
sort like that wonderful shell-fish which transformeth itself into a
boat, and saileth on the waves of the sea.  We also found grapes, both
white and purple, hanging down in clusters from the trees, over which
the vines did run, nigh upon as large as those which the Jews of old
plucked at Eschol.  The air was sweet and soft, and there was a clear,
but not a hot sun, and the chirping of squirrels, and the noise of
birds, and the sound of the waves breaking on the beach a little
distance off, and the leaves, at every breath of the wind in the tree-
tops, whirling and fluttering down about me, like so many yellow and
scarlet-colored birds, made the ride wonderfully pleasant and
entertaining.

Mr. Weare, on the way, told me that there was a great talk of the
bewitching of Goodman Morse's house at Newbury, and that the case of
Caleb Powell was still before the Court, he being vehemently suspected
of the mischief.  I told him I thought the said Caleb was a vain,
talking man, but nowise of a wizard.  The thing most against him, Mr.
Weare said, was this: that he did deny at the first that the house was
troubled by evil spirits, and even went so far as to doubt that such
things could be at all.  "Yet many wiser men than Caleb Powell do deny
the same," I said.  "True," answered he; "but, as good Mr. Richardson,
of Newbury, well saith, there have never lacked Sadducees, who believe
not in angel or spirit."  I told the story of the disturbance at
Strawberry Bank the night before, and how so silly a thing as a rolling
pumpkin did greatly terrify a whole household; and said I did not doubt
this Newbury trouble was something very like it.  Hereupon the good
woman took the matter up, saying she had been over to Newbury, and had
seen with her own eyes, and heard with her own ears; and that she could
say of it as the Queen of Sheba did of Solomon's glory, "The half had
not been told her."  She then went on to tell me of many marvellous and
truly unaccountable things, so that I must needs think there is an
invisible hand at work there.

We reached Hampton about one hour before noon; and riding up the road
towards the meeting-house, to my great joy, Uncle Rawson, who had
business with the Commissioners then sitting, came out to meet me,
bidding me go on to Mr. Weare's house, whither he would follow me when
the Court did adjourn.  He came thither accordingly, to sup and lodge,
bringing with him Mr. Pike the elder, one of the magistrates, a grave,
venerable man, the father of mine old acquaintance, Robert.  Went in the
evening with Mistress Weare and her maiden sister to see a young girl in
the neighborhood, said to be possessed, or bewitched; but for mine own
part I did see nothing in her behavior beyond that of a vicious and
spoiled child, delighting in mischief.  Her grandmother, with whom she
lives, lays the blame on an ill-disposed woman, named Susy Martin,
living in Salisbury.  Mr. Pike, who dwells near this Martin, saith she
is no witch, although an arrant scold, as was her mother before her; and
as for the girl, he saith that a birch twig, smartly laid on, would cure
her sooner than the hanging of all the old women in the Colony.
Mistress Weare says this is not the first time the Evil Spirit hath been
at work in Hampton; for they did all remember the case of Goody
Marston's child, who was, from as fair and promising an infant as one
would wish to see, changed into the likeness of an ape, to the great
grief and sore shame of its parents; and, moreover, that when the child
died, there was seen by more than one person a little old woman in a
blue cloak, and petticoat of the same color, following on after the
mourners, and looking very like old Eunice Cole, who was then locked
fast in Ipswich jail, twenty miles off.  Uncle Rawson says he has all
the papers in his possession touching the trial of this Cole, and will
let me see them when we get back to Newbury.  There was much talk on
this matter, which so disturbed my fancy that I slept but poorly.  This
afternoon we go over to Newbury, where, indeed, I do greatly long to be
once more.



NEWBURY, October 26.

Cousin Rebecca gone to Boston, and not expected home until next week.
The house seems lonely without her.  R. Pike looked in upon us this
morning, telling us that there was a rumor in Boston, brought by way of
the New York Colony, that a great Papist Plot had been discovered in
England, and that it did cause much alarm in London and thereabout.
R. Pike saith he doubts not the Papists do plot, it being the custom of
their Jesuits so to do; but that, nevertheless, it would be no strange
thing if it should be found that the Bishops and the Government did set
this rumor a-going, for the excuse and occasion of some new persecutions
of Independents and godly people.



October 27.

Mr. Richardson preached yesterday, from Deuteronomy xviii. 10th, 11th,
and 12th verses.  An ingenious and solid discourse, in which he showed
that, as among the heathen nations surrounding the Jews, there were
sorcerers, charmers, wizards, and consulters with familiar spirits, who
were an abomination to the Lord, so in our time the heathen nations of
Indians had also their powahs and panisees and devilish wizards, against
whom the warning of the text might well be raised by the watchmen on the
walls of our Zion.  He moreover said that the arts of the Adversary were
now made manifest in this place in a most strange and terrible manner,
and it did become the duty of all godly persons to pray and wrestle with
the Lord, that they who have made a covenant with hell may be speedily
discovered in their wickedness, and cut off from the congregation.  An
awful discourse, which made many tremble and quake, and did quite
overcome Goodwife Morse, she being a weakly woman, so that she had to be
carried out of the meeting.

It being cold weather, and a damp easterly wind keeping me within doors,
I have been looking over with uncle his papers about the Hampton witch,
Eunice Cole, who was twice tried for her mischiefs; and I incline to
copy some of them, as I know they will be looked upon as worthy of,
record by my dear Cousin Oliver and mine other English friends.  I find
that as long ago as the year 1656, this same Eunice Cole was complained
of, and many witnesses did testify to her wickedness.  Here followeth
some of the evidence on the first trial:--

"The deposition of Goody Marston and Goodwife Susanna Palmer, who, being
sworn, sayeth, that Goodwife Cole saith that she was sure there was a
witch in town, and that she knew where he dwelt, and who they are, and
that thirteen years ago she knew one bewitched as Goodwife Marston's
child was, and she was sure that party was bewitched, for it told her
so, and it was changed from a man to an ape, as Goody Marston's child
was, and she had prayed this thirteen year that God would discover that
witch.  And further the deponent saith not.

"Taken on oath before the Commissioners of Hampton, the 8th of the 2nd
mo., 1656.

                                   "WILLIAM FULLER.
                                   "HENRY DOW.

"Vera copea:
           "THOS. BRADBURY, Recorder.

"Sworn before, the 4th of September, 1656,

"EDWARD RAWSON.


"Thomas Philbrick testifieth that Goody Cole told him that if any of his
calves did eat of her grass, she hoped it would poison them; and it fell
out that one never came home again, and the other coming home died soon
after.

"Henry Morelton's wife and Goodwife Sleeper depose that, talking about
Goody Cole and Marston's child, they did hear a great scraping against
the boards of the window, which was not done by a cat or dog.

"Thomas Coleman's wife testifies that Goody Cole did repeat to another
the very words which passed between herself and her husband, in their
own house, in private; and Thomas Ormsby, the constable of Salisbury,
testifies, that when he did strip Eunice Cole of her shift, to be
whipped, by the judgment of the Court at Salisbury, he saw a witch's
mark under her left breast.  Moreover, one Abra. Drake doth depose and
say, that this Goody Cole threatened that the hand of God would be
against his cattle, and forthwith two of his cattle died, and before the
end of summer a third also."


About five years ago, she was again presented by the Jury for the
Massachusetts jurisdiction, for having "entered into a covenant with the
Devil, contrary to the peace of our Sovereign Lord the King, his crown
and dignity, the laws of God and this jurisdiction"; and much testimony
was brought against her, tending to show her to be an arrant witch.  For
it seems she did fix her evil eye upon a little maid named Ann Smith, to
entice her to her house, appearing unto her in the shape of a little old
woman, in a blue coat, a blue cap, and a blue apron, and a white
neckcloth, and presently changing into a dog, and running up a tree, and
then into an eagle flying in the air, and lastly into a gray cat,
speaking to her, and troubling her in a grievous manner.  Moreover, the
constable of the town of Hampton testifies, that, having to supply Goody
Cole with diet, by order of the town, she being poor, she complained
much of him, and after that his wife could bake no bread in the oven
which did not speedily rot and become loathsome to the smell, but the
same meal baked at a neighbor's made good and sweet bread; and, further,
that one night there did enter into their chamber a smell like that of
the bewitched bread, only more loathsome, and plainly diabolical in its
nature, so that, as the constable's wife saith, "she was fain to rise in
the night and desire her husband to go to prayer to drive away the
Devil; and he, rising, went to prayer, and after that, the smell was
gone, so that they were not troubled with it."  There is also the
testimony of Goodwife Perkins, that she did see, on the Lord's day,
while Mr. Dalton was preaching, an imp in the shape of a mouse, fall out
the bosom of Eunice Cole down into her lap.  For all which, the County
Court, held at Salisbury, did order her to be sent to the Boston Jail,
to await her trial at the Court of Assistants.  This last Court, I learn
from mine uncle, did not condemn her, as some of the evidence was old,
and not reliable.  Uncle saith she was a wicked old woman, who had been
often whipped and set in the ducking-stool, but whether she was a witch
or no, he knows not for a certainty.



November 8.

Yesterday, to my great joy, came my beloved Cousin Rebecca from Boston.
In her company also came the worthy minister and doctor of medicine, Mr.
Russ, formerly of Wells, but now settled at a plantation near Cocheco.
He is to make some little tarry in this town, where at this present time
many complain of sickness.  Rebecca saith he is one of the excellent of
the earth, and, like his blessed Lord and Master, delighteth in going
about doing good, and comforting both soul and body.  He hath a
cheerful, pleasant countenance, and is very active, albeit he is well
stricken in years.  He is to preach for Mr. Richardson next Sabhath, and
in the mean time lodgeth at my uncle's house.

This morning the weather is raw and cold, the ground frozen, and some
snow fell before sunrise.  A little time ago, Dr. Russ, who was walking
in the garden, came in a great haste to the window where Rebecca and I
were sitting, bidding us come forth.  So, we hurrying out, the good man
bade us look whither he pointed, and to! a flock of wild geese,
streaming across the sky, in two great files, sending down, as it were,
from the clouds, their loud and sonorous trumpetings, "Cronk, cronk,
cronk!"  These birds, the Doctor saith, do go northward in March to
hatch their broods in the great bogs and on the desolate islands, and
fly back again when the cold season approacheth.  Our worthy guest
improved the occasion to speak of the care and goodness of God towards
his creation, and how these poor birds are enabled, by their proper
instincts, to partake of his bounty, and to shun the evils of adverse
climates.  He never looked, he said, upon the flight of these fowls,
without calling to mind the query which was of old put to Job: "Doth the
hawk fly by thy wisdom, and stretch her wings toward the south?  Doth
the eagle mount up at thy command, and make her nest on high?"



November 12, 1678.

Dr. Russ preached yesterday, having for his text 1 Corinthians, chap.
xiii. verse 5: "Charity seeketh not her own."  He began by saying that
mutual benevolence was a law of nature,--no one being a whole of
himself, nor capable of happily subsisting by himself, but rather a
member of the great body of mankind, which must dissolve and perish,
unless held together and compacted in its various parts by the force of
that common and blessed law.  The wise Author of our being hath most
manifestly framed and fitted us for one another, and ordained that
mutual charity shall supply our mutual wants and weaknesses, inasmuch
as no man liveth to himself, but is dependent upon others, as others be
upon him.  It hath been said by ingenious men, that in the outward world
all things do mutually operate upon and affect each other; and that it
is by the energy of this principle that our solid earth is supported,
and the heavenly bodies are made to keep the rhythmic harmonies of their
creation, and dispense upon us their benign favors; and it may be said,
that a law akin to this hath been ordained for the moral world,--mutual
benevolence being the cement and support of families, and churches, and
states, and of the great community and brotherhood of mankind.  It doth
both make and preserve all the peace, and harmony, and beauty, which
liken our world in some small degree to heaven, and without it all
things would rush into confusion and discord, and the earth would become
a place of horror and torment, and men become as ravening wolves,
devouring and being devoured by one another.

Charity is the second great commandment, upon which hang all the Law
and the Prophets; and it is like unto the first, and cannot be separated
from it; for at the great day of recompense we shall be tried by these
commandments, and our faithfulness unto the first will be seen and
manifested by our faithfulness unto the last.  Yea, by our love of one
another the Lord will measure our love of himself.  "Inasmuch as ye have
done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto
me."  The grace of benevolence is therefore no small part of our
meetness for the inheritance of the saints in light; it is the temper of
heaven; the air which the angels breathe; an immortal grace,--for when
faith which supporteth us here, and hope which is as an anchor to the
tossed soul, are no longer needed, charity remaineth forever, for it is
native in heaven, and partaketh of the divine nature, for God himself is
love.

"Oh, my hearers," said the preacher, his venerable face brightening as
if with a light shining from within, "Doth not the Apostle tell us that
skill in tongues and gifts of prophecy, and mysteries of knowledge and
faith, do avail nothing where charity is lacking?  What avail great
talents, if they be not devoted to goodness?  On the other hand, where
charity dwelleth, it maketh the weak strong and the uncomely beautiful;
it sheddeth a glory about him who possesseth it, like that which did
shine on the face of Moses, or that which did sit upon the countenance
of Stephen, when his face was as the face of an angel.  Above all, it
conformeth us to the Son of God; for through love he came among us, and
went about doing good, adorning his life with miracles of mercy, and at
last laid it down for the salvation of men.  What heart can resist his
melting entreaty: 'Even as I have loved you, love ye also one another.'

"We do all," he continued, "seek after happiness, but too often blindly
and foolishly.  The selfish man, striving to live for himself, shutteth
himself up to partake of his single portion, and marvelleth that he
cannot enjoy it.  The good things he hath laid up for himself fail to
comfort him; and although he hath riches, and wanteth nothing for his
soul of all that he desireth, yet hath he not power to partake thereof.
They be as delicates poured upon a mouth shut up, or as meats set upon a
grave.  But he that hath found charity to be the temper of happiness,
which doth put the soul in a natural and easy condition, and openeth it
to the solaces of that pure and sublime entertainment which the angels
do spread for such as obey the will of their Creator, hath discovered a
more subtle alchemy than any of which the philosophers did dream,--for
he transmuteth the enjoyments of others into his own, and his large and
open heart partaketh of the satisfaction of all around him.  Are there
any here who, in the midst of outward abundance, are sorrowful of
heart,--who go mourning on their way from some inward discomfort,---Who
long for serenity of spirit, and cheerful happiness, as the servant
earnestly desireth the shadow?  Let such seek out the poor and forsaken,
they who have no homes nor estates, who are the servants of sin and evil
habits, who lack food for both the body and the mind.  Thus shall they,
in rememering others, forget themselves; the pleasure they afford to
their fellow-creatures shall come back larger and fuller unto their own
bosoms, and they shall know of a truth how much the more blessed it is
to give than to receive.  In love and compassion, God hath made us
dependent upon each other, to the end that by the use of our affections
we may find true happiness and rest to our souls.  He hath united us so
closely with our fellows, that they do make, as it were, a part of our
being, and in comforting them we do most assuredly comfort ourselves.
Therein doth happiness come to us unawares, and without seeking, as the
servant who goeth on his master's errand findeth pleasant fruits and
sweet flowers overhanging him, and cool fountains, which he knew not of,
gushing up by the wayside, for his solace and refreshing."

The minister then spake of the duty of charity towards even the sinful
and froward, and of winning them by love and good will, and making even
their correction and punishment a means of awakening them to repentance,
and the calling forth of the fruits meet for it.  He also spake of self-
styled prophets and enthusiastic people, who went about to cry against
the Church and the State, and to teach new doctrines, saying that
oftentimes such were sent as a judgment upon the professors of the
truth, who had the form of godliness only, while lacking the power
thereof; and that he did believe that the zeal which had been manifested
against such had not always been enough seasoned with charity.  It did
argue a lack of faith in the truth, to fly into a panic and a great rage
when it was called in question; and to undertake to become God's
avengers, and to torture and burn heretics, was an error of the Papists,
which ill became those who had gone out from among them.  Moreover, he
did believe that many of these people, who had so troubled the Colony of
late, were at heart simple and honest men and women, whose heads might
indeed be unsound, but who at heart sought to do the will of God; and,
of a truth, all could testify to the sobriety and strictness of their
lives, and the justice of their dealings in outward things.  He spake
also somewhat of the Indians, who, he said, were our brethren, and
concerning whom we would have an account to give at the Great Day.  The
hand of these heathen people had been heavy upon the Colonies, and many
had suffered from their cruel slaughterings, and the captivity of
themselves and their families.  Here the aged minister wept, for he
doubtless thought of his son, who was slain in the war; and for a time
the words did seem to die in his throat, so greatly was he moved.  But
he went on to say, that since God, in his great and undeserved mercy,
had put an end to the war, all present unkindness and hard dealing
towards he poor benighted heathen was an offence in the eyes of Him who
respecteth not the persons of men, but who regardeth with an equal eye
the white and the red men, both being the workmanship of His hands.  It
is our blessed privilege to labor to bring them to a knowledge of the
true God, whom, like the Athenians, some of them do ignorantly worship;
while the greater part, as was said of the heathen formerly, do not,
out of the good pings that are seen, know Him that is; neither by
considering the works do they acknowledge the workmaster, but deem the
fire or wind, or the swift air, or the circle of the stars, or the
violent water, or the lights of heaven, to be the gods who govern the
world.

He counselled against mischief-makers and stirrers up of strife, and
such as do desire occasion against their brethren.  He said that it did
seem as if many thought to atone for their own sins by their great heat
and zeal to discover wickedness in others; and that he feared such might
be the case now, when there was much talk of the outward and visible
doings of Satan in this place; whereas, the enemy was most to be feared
who did work privily in the heart; it being a small thing for him to
bewitch a dwelling made of wood and stone, who did so easily possess and
enchant the precious souls of men.

Finally, he did exhort all to keep watch over their own spirits, and to
remember that what measure they do mete to others shall be measured to
them again; to lay aside all wrath, and malice, and evil-speaking; to
bear one another's burdens, and so make this Church in the wilderness
beautiful and comely, an example to the world of that peace and good
will to men, which the angels sang of at the birth of the blessed
Redeemer.

I have been the more careful to give the substance of Mr. Russ's sermon,
as nearly as I can remember it, forasmuch as it hath given offence to
some who did listen to it.  Deacon Dole saith it was such a discourse as
a Socinian or a Papist might have preached, for the great stress it laid
upon works; and Goodwife Matson, a noisy, talking woman,--such an one,
no doubt, as those busybodies whom Saint Paul did rebuke for
forwardness, and command to keep silence in the church,--says the
preacher did go out of his way to favor Quakers, Indians, and witches;
and that the Devil in Goody Morse's house was no doubt well pleased with
the discourse.  R. Pike saith he does no wise marvel at her complaints;
for when she formerly dwelt at the Marblehead fishing-haven, she was one
of the unruly women who did break into Thompson's garrison-house, and
barbarously put to death two Saugus Indians, who had given themselves up
for safe keeping, and who had never harmed any, which thing was a great
grief and scandal to all well-disposed people.  And yet this woman, who
scrupled not to say that she would as lief stick an Indian as a hog, and
who walked all the way from Marblehead to Boston to see the Quaker woman
hung, and did foully jest over her dead body, was allowed to have her
way in the church, Mr. Richardson being plainly in fear of her ill
tongue and wicked temper.



November 13.

The Quaker maid, Margaret Brewster, came this morning, inquiring for the
Doctor, and desiring him to visit a sick man at her father's house, a
little way up the river; whereupon he took his staff and went with her.
On his coming back, he said he must do the Quakers the justice to say,
that, with all their heresies and pestilent errors of doctrine, they
were a kind people; for here was Goodman Brewster, whose small estate
had been wellnigh taken from him in fines, and whose wife was a weak,
ailing woman, who was at this time kindly lodging and nursing a poor,
broken-down soldier, by no means likely to repay him, in any sort.  As
for the sick man, he had been hardly treated in the matter of his wages,
while in the war, and fined, moreover, on the ground that he did profane
the holy Sabhath; and though he had sent a petition to the Honorable
Governor and Council, for the remission of the same, it had been to no
purpose.  Mr. Russ said he had taken a copy of this petition, with the
answer thereto, intending to make another application himself to the
authorities; for although the petitioner might have been blamable, yet
his necessity did go far to excuse it.  He gave me the papers to copy,
which are as followeth:--


"To the Hon.  the Governor and Council, now sitting in Boston, July 30,
1676.  The Petition of Jonathan Atherton humbly showeth:

"That your Petitioner, being a soldier under Captain Henchman, during
their abode at Concord, Captain H., under pretence of your petitioner's
profanation of the Sabhath, had sentenced your petitioner to lose a
fortnight's pay.  Now, the thing that was alleged against your
petitioner was, that he cut a piece of an old hat to put in his shoes,
and emptied three or four cartridges.  Now, there was great occasion and
necessity for his so doing, for his shoes were grown so big, by walking
and riding in the wet and dew, that they galled his feet so that he was
not able to go without pain; and his cartridges, being in a bag,--were
worn with continual travel, so that they lost the powder out, so that it
was dangerous to carry them; besides, he did not know how soon he should
be forced to make use of them, therefore he did account it lawful to do
the same; yet, if it be deemed a breach of the Sabhath, he desires to be
humbled before the Lord, and begs the pardon of his people for any
offence done to them thereby.  And doth humbly request the favor of your
Honors to consider the premises, and to remit the fine imposed upon him,
and to give order to the committee for the war for the payment of his
wages.  So shall he forever pray. . . . "

11 Aug.  1676.--The Council sees no cause to grant the petitioner any
relief."




NEWBURY, November 18, 1678.

Went yesterday to the haunted house with Mr. Russ and Mr. Richardson,
Rebecca and Aunt Rawson being in the company.  Found the old couple in
much trouble, sitting by the fire, with the Bible open before them, and
Goody Morse weeping.  Mr. Richardson asked Goodman Morse to tell what he
had seen and heard in the house; which he did, to this effect: That
there had been great and strange noises all about the house, a banging
of doors, and a knocking on the boards, and divers other unaccountable
sounds; that he had seen his box of tools turn over of itself, and the
tools fly about the room; baskets dropping down the chimney, and the
pots hanging over the fire smiting against each other; and, moreover,
the irons on the hearth jumping into the pots, and dancing on the table.
Goodwife Morse said that her bread-tray would upset of its own accord,
and the great woollen wheel would contrive to turn itself upside down,
and stand on its end; and that when she and the boy did make the beds,
the blankets would fly off as fast as they put them on, all of which the
boy did confirm.  Mr. Russ asked her if she suspected any one of the
mischief; whereupon she said she did believe it was done by the seaman
Powell, a cunning man, who was wont to boast of his knowledge in
astrology and astronomy, having been brought tip under one Norwood,
who is said to have studied the Black Art.  He had wickedly accused her
grandson of the mischief, whereas the poor boy had himself suffered
greatly from the Evil Spirit, having been often struck with stones and
bits of boards, which were flung upon him, and kept awake o' nights by
the diabolical noises.  Goodman Morse here said that Powell, coming in,
and pretending to pity their lamentable case, told them that if they
would let him have the boy for a day or two, they should be free of the
trouble while he was with him; and that the boy going with him, they had
no disturbance in that time; which plainly showed that this Powell had
the wicked spirits in his keeping, and could chain them up, or let them
out, as he pleased.

Now, while she was speaking, we did all hear a great thumping on the
ceiling, and presently a piece of a board flew across the room against
the chair on which Mr. Richardson was sitting; whereat the two old
people set up a dismal groaning, and the boy cried out, "That's the
witch!"  Goodman Morse begged of Mr. Richardson to fall to praying,
which he presently did; and, when he had done, he asked Mr. Russ to
follow him, who sat silent and musing a little while, and then prayed
that the worker of the disturbance, whether diabolical or human, might
be discovered and brought to light.  After which there was no noise
while we staid.  Mr. Russ talked awhile with the boy, who did stoutly
deny what Caleb Powell charged upon him, and showed a bruise which he
got from a stick thrown at him in the cow-house.  When we went away,
Mr. Richardson asked Mr. Russ what he thought of it.  Mr. Russ said,
the matter had indeed a strange look, but that it might be,
nevertheless, the work of the boy, who was a cunning young rogue, and
capable beyond his years.  Mr. Richardson said he hoped his brother was
not about to countenance the scoffers and Sadducees, who had all along
tried to throw doubt upon the matter.  For himself, he did look upon it
as the work of invisible demons, and an awful proof of the existence of
such, and of the deplorable condition of all who fall into their bands;
moreover, he did believe that God would overrule this malice of the
Devil for good, and make it a means of awakening sinners and lukewarm
church-members to a sense of their danger.

Last night, brother Leonard, who is studying with the learned Mr. Ward,
the minister at Haverbill, came down, in the company of the worshipful
Major Saltonstall, who hath business with Esquire Dummer and other
magistrates of this place.  Mr. Saltonstall's lady, who is the daughter
of Mr. Ward, sent by her husband and my brother a very kind and pressing
invitation to Rebecca and myself to make a visit to her; and Mr.
Saltonstall did also urge the matter strongly.  So we have agreed to go
with them the day after to-morrow.  Now, to say the truth, I am not
sorry to leave Newbury at this time, for there is so much talk of the
bewitched house, and such dismal stories told of the power of invisible
demons, added to what I did myself hear and see yesterday, that I can
scarce sleep for the trouble and disquiet this matter causeth.  Dr.
Russ, who left this morning, said, in his opinion, the less that was
said and done about the witchcraft the better for the honor of the
Church and the peace of the neighborhood; for it might, after all, turn
out to be nothing more than an "old wife's fable;" but if it were indeed
the work of Satan, it could, he did believe, do no harm to sincere and
godly people, who lived sober and prayerful lives, and kept themselves
busy in doing good.  The doers of the Word seldom fell into the snare of
the Devil's enchantments.  He might be compared to a wild beast, who
dareth not to meddle with the traveller who goeth straightway on his
errand, but lieth in wait for such as loiter and fall asleep by the
wayside.  He feared, he said, that some in our day were trying to get a
great character to themselves, as the old monks did, by their skill in
discerning witcherafts, and their pretended conflicts with the Devil in
his bodily shape; and thus, while they were seeking to drive the enemy
out of their neighbors' houses, they were letting him into their own
hearts, in the guise of deceit and spiritual pride.  Repentance and
works meet for it were the best exorcism; and the savor of a good life
driveth off Evil Spirits, even as that of the fish of Tobit, at
Ecbatana, drove the Devil from the chamber of the bride into the
uttermost parts of Egypt.  "For mine own part," continued the worthy
man, "I believe the Lord and Master, whom I seek to serve, is over all
the powers of Satan; therefore do I not heed them, being afraid only of
mine own accusing conscience and the displeasure of God."

We are all loath to lose the good Doctor's company.  An Israelite
indeed!  My aunt, who once tarried for a little time with him for the
benefit of his skill in physic, on account of sickness, tells me that
he is as a father to the people about him, advising them in all their
temporal concerns, and bringing to a timely and wise settlement all
their disputes, so that there is nowhere a more prosperous and loving
society.  Although accounted a learned man, he doth not perplex his
hearers, as the manner of some is, with dark and difficult questions,
and points of doctrine, but insisteth mainly on holiness of life and
conversation.  It is said that on one occasion, a famous schoolman and
disputer from abroad, coming to talk with him on the matter of the
damnation of infants, did meet him with a cradle on his shoulder, which
he was carrying to a young mother in his neighborhood, and when the man
told him his errand,--the good Doctor bade him wait until he got back,
"for," said he, "I hold it to be vastly more important to take care of
the bodies of the little infants which God in his love sends among us,
than to seek to pry into the mysteries of His will concerning their
souls."  He hath no salary or tithe, save the use of a house and farm,
choosing rather to labor with his own hands than to burden his
neighbors; yet, such is their love and good-will, that in the busy
seasons of the hay and corn harvest, they all join together and help him
in his fields, counting it a special privilege to do so.



November 19.

Leonard and Mr. Richardson, talking upon the matter of the ministry,
disagreed not a little.  Mr. Richardson says my brother hath got into
his head many unscriptural notions, and that he will never be of service
in the Church until he casts them off.  He saith, moreover, that he
shall write to Mr. Ward concerning the errors of the young man.  His
words troubling me, I straightway discoursed my brother as to the points
of difference between them; but he, smiling, said it was a long story,
but that some time he would tell me the substance of the disagreement,
bidding me have no fear in his behalf, as what had displeasured Mr.
Richardson had arisen only from tenderness of conscience.




HAVERHILL, November 22.

Left Newbury day before yesterday.  The day cold, but sunshiny, and not
unpleasant.  Mr. Saltonstall's business calling him that way, we crossed
over the ferry to Salisbury, and after a ride of about an hour, got to
the Falls of the Powow River, where a great stream of water rushes
violently down the rocks, into a dark wooded valley, and from thence
runs into the Merrimac, about a mile to the southeast.  A wild sight it
was, the water swollen by the rains of the season, foaming and dashing
among the rocks and the trees, which latter were wellnigh stripped of
their leaves.  Leaving this place, we went on towards Haverhill.  Just
before we entered that town, we overtook an Indian, with a fresh wolf's
skin hanging over his shoulder.  As soon as he saw us, he tried to hide
himself in the bushes; but Mr. Saltonstall, riding up to him, asked him
if he did expect Haverhill folks to pay him forty shillings for killing
that Amesbury wolf?  "How you know Amesbury wolf?" asked the Indian.
"Oh," said Mr. Saltonstall, "you can't cheat us again, Simon.  You must
be honest, and tell no more lies, or we will have you whipped for your
tricks."  The Indian thereupon looked sullen enough, but at length he
begged Mr. Saltonstall not to tell where the wolf was killed, as the
Amesbury folks did now refuse to pay for any killed in their town; and,
as he was a poor Indian, and his squaw much sick, and could do no work,
he did need the money.  Mr. Saltonstall told him he would send his wife
some cornmeal and bacon, when he got home, if he would come for them,
which he promised to do.

When we had ridden off, and left him, Mr. Saltonstall told us that this
Simon was a bad Indian, who, when in drink, was apt to be saucy and
quarrelsome; but that his wife was quite a decent body for a savage,
having long maintained herself and children and her lazy, cross husband,
by hard labor in the cornfields and at the fisheries.

Haverhill lieth very pleasantly on the river-side; the land about hilly
and broken, but of good quality.  Mr. Saltonstall liveth in a stately
house for these parts, not far from that of his father-in-law, the
learned Mr. Ward.  Madam, his wife, is a fair, pleasing young woman,
not unused to society, their house being frequented by many of the first
people hereabout, as well as by strangers of distinction from other
parts of the country.  We had hardly got well through our dinner (which
was abundant and savory, being greatly relished by our hunger), when two
gentlemen came riding up to the door; and on their coming in, we found
them to be the young Doctor Clark, of Boston, a son of the old Newbury
physician, and a Doctor Benjamin Thompson, of Roxbury, who I hear is not
a little famous for his ingenious poetry and witty pieces on many
subjects.  He was, moreover, an admirer of my cousin Rebecca; and on
learning of her betrothal to Sir Thomas did write a most despairing
verse to her, comparing himself to all manner of lonesome things, so
that when Rebecca showed it to me, I told her I did fear the poor young
gentleman would put an end to himself, by reason of his great sorrow and
disquiet; whereat she laughed merrily, bidding me not fear, for she knew
the writer too well to be troubled thereat, for he loved nobody so well
as himself, and that under no provocation would he need the Apostle's
advice to the jailer, "Do thyself no harm."  All which I found to be
true,--he being a gay, witty man, full of a fine conceit of himself,
which is not so much to be marvelled at, as he hath been greatly
flattered and sought after.

The excellent Mr. Ward spent the evening with us; a pleasant, social old
man, much beloved by his people.  He told us a great deal about the
early settlement of the town, and of the grievous hardships which many
did undergo the first season, from cold, and hunger, and sickness.  He
thought, however, that, with all their ease and worldly prosperity, the
present generation were less happy and contented than their fathers; for
there was now a great striving to outdo each other in luxury and gay
apparel; the Lord's day was not so well kept as formerly; and the
drinking of spirits and frequenting of ordinaries and places of public
resort vastly increased.  Mr. Saltonstall said the war did not a little
demoralize the people, and that since the soldiers cause back, there had
been much trouble in Church and State.  The General Court, two years
ago, had made severe laws against the provoking evils of the times:
profaneness, Sabbath-breaking, drinking, and revelling to excess, loose
and sinful conduct on the part of the young and unmarried, pride in
dress, attending Quakers' meetings, and neglect of attendance upon
divine worship; but these laws had never been well enforced; and he
feared too many of the magistrates were in the condition of the Dutch
Justice in the New York Province, who, when a woman was brought before
him charged with robbing a henroost, did request his brother on the
bench to pass sentence upon her; for, said he, if I send her to the
whipping post, the wench will cry out against me as her accomplice.

Doctor Clark said his friend Doctor Thompson had written a long piece on
this untoward state of our affairs, which he hoped soon to see in print,
inasmuch as it did hold the looking-glass to the face of this
generation, and shame it by a comparison with that of the generation
which has passed.  Mr. Ward said he was glad to hear of it, and hoped
his ingenious friend had brought the manuscript with him; whereupon, the
young gentleman said he did take it along with him, in the hope to
benefit it by Mr. Ward's judgment and learning, and with the leave of
the company he would read the Prologue thereof.  To which we all
agreeing, he read what follows, which I copy from his book:--


"The times wherein old PUMPKIN was a saint,
When men fared hardly, yet without complaint,
On vilest cates; the dainty Indian maize
Was eat with clam-shells out of wooden trays,
Under thatched roofs, without the cry of rent,
And the best sauce to every dish, content,--
These golden times (too fortunate to hold)
Were quickly sinned away for love of gold.
'T was then among the bushes, not the street,
If one in place did an inferior meet,
'Good morrow, brother!  Is there aught you want?
Take freely of me what I have, you ha'n't.'
Plain Tom and Dick would pass as current now,
As ever since 'Your servant, sir,' and bow.
Deep-skirted doublets, puritanic capes,
Which now would render men like upright apes,
Was comelier wear, our wise old fathers thought,
Than the cast fashions from all Europe brought.
'T was in those days an honest grace would hold
Till an hot pudding grew at heart a-cold,
And men had better stomachs for religion,
Than now for capon, turkey-cock, or pigeon;
When honest sisters met to pray, not prate,
About their own and not their neighbors' state,
During Plain Dealing's reign, that worthy stud
Of the ancient planter-race before the Flood.

"These times were good: merchants cared not a rush
For other fare than jonakin and mush.
And though men fared and lodged very hard,
Yet innocence was better than a guard.
'T was long before spiders and worms had drawn
Their dingy webs, or hid with cheating lawn
New England's beauties, which still seemed to me
Illustrious in their own simplicity.
'T was ere the neighboring Virgin Land had broke
The hogsheads of her worse than hellish smoke;
'T was ere the Islands sent their presents in,
Which but to use was counted next to sin;
'T was ere a barge had made so rich a freight
As chocolate, dust-gold, and bits of eight;
Ere wines from France and Muscovado too,
Without the which the drink will scarcely do.
From Western Isles, ere fruits and delicacies
Did rot maids' teeth and spoil their handsome faces,
Or ere these times did chance the noise of war
Was from our tines and hearts removed far,
Then had the churches rest: as yet, the coals
Were covered up in most contentious souls;
Freeness in judgment, union in affection,
Dear love, sound truth, they were our grand protection.
Then were the times in which our Councils sat,
These grave prognostics of our future state;
If these be longer lived, our hopes increase,
These wars will usher in a longer peace;
But if New England's love die in its youth,
The grave will open next for blessed truth.

"This theme is out of date; the peaceful hours
When castles needed not, but pleasant bowers,
Not ink, but blood and tears now serve the turn
To draw the figure of New England's urn.
New England's hour of passion is at hand,
No power except Divine can it withstand.
Scarce hath her glass of fifty years run out,
Than her old prosperous steeds turn heads about;
Tracking themselves back to their poor beginnings,
To fear and fare upon the fruits of sinnings.
So that this mirror of the Christian world
Lies burnt to heaps in part, her streamers furled.
Grief sighs, joys flee, and dismal fears surprise,
Not dastard spirits only, but the wise.

"Thus have the fairest hopes deceived the eye
Of the big-swoln expectants standing by
So the proud ship, after a little turn,
Sinks in the ocean's arms to find its urn:
Thus hath the heir to many thousands born
Been in an instant from the mother torn;
Even thus thy infant cheek begins to pale,
And thy supporters through great losses fail.
This is the Prologue to thy future woe--
The Epilogue no mortal yet can know."

Mr. Ward was much pleased with the verses, saying that they would do
honor to any writer.

Rebecca thought the lines concerning the long grace at meat happy, and
said she was minded of the wife of the good Mr. Ames, who prided herself
on her skill in housewifery and cookery; and on one occasion, seeing a
nice pair of roasted fowls growing cold under her husband's long grace,
was fain to jog his elbow, telling him that if he did not stop soon, she
feared they would have small occasion for thankfulness for their spoiled
dinner.  Mr. Ward said he was once travelling in company with Mr.
Phillips of Rowley, and Mr. Parker of Newbury, and stopping all night at
a poor house near the sea-shore, the woman thereof brought into the room
for their supper a great wooden tray, full of something nicely covered
up by a clean linen cloth.  It proved to be a dish of boiled clams, in
their shells; and as Mr. Phillips was remarkable in his thanks for aptly
citing passages of Scripture with regard to whatsoever food was upon the
table before him, Mr. Parker and himself did greatly wonder what he
could say of this dish; but he, nothing put to it, offered thanks that
now, as formerly, the Lord's people were enabled to partake of the
abundance of the seas, and treasures hid in the sands.  "Whereat," said
Mr. Ward, "we did find it so hard to keep grave countenances, that our
good hostess was not a little disturbed, thinking we were mocking her
poor fare; and we were fain to tell her the cause of our mirth, which
was indeed ill-timed."

Doctor Clark spake of Mr. Ward's father, the renowned minister at
Ipswich, whose book of "The Simple Cobbler of Agawam," was much admired.
Mr. Ward said that some of the witty turns therein did give much offence
at the time of its printing, but that his father could never spoil his
joke for the sake of friends, albeit he had no malice towards any one,
and was always ready to do a good, even to his enemies.  He once even
greatly angered his old and true friend, Mr. Cotton of Boston.  "It fell
out in this wise," said Mr. Ward.  "When the arch-heretic and fanatic
Gorton and his crew were in prison in Boston, my father and Mr. Cotton
went to the jail window to see them; and after some little discourse
with them, he told Gorton that if he had done or said anything which he
could with a clear conscience renounce, he would do well to recant the
same, and the Court, he doubted not, would be merciful; adding, that it
would be no disparagement for him to do so, as the best of men were
liable to err: as, for instance, his brother Cotton here generally did
preach that one year which he publicly repented of before his
congregation the next year."

Mr. Saltonstall told another story of old Mr. Ward, which made us all
merry.  There was a noted Antinomian, of Boston, who used to go much
about the country disputing with all who would listen to him, who,
coming to Ipswich one night, with another of his sort with him, would
fain have tarried with Mr. Ward; but he told them that he had scarce hay
and grain enough in his barn for the use of his own cattle, and that
they would do well to take their horses to the ordinary, where they
would be better cared for.  But the fellow, not wishing to be so put
off, bade him consider what the Scripture said touching the keeping of
strangers, as some had thereby entertained angels unawares.  "True,
my friend," said Mr. Ward, "but we don't read that the angels came
a-horseback!"

The evening passed away in a very pleasant and agreeable manner.  We had
rare nuts, and apples, and pears, of Mr. Saltonstall's raising,
wonderfully sweet and luscious.  Our young gentlemen, moreover, seemed
to think the wine and ale of good quality; for, long after we had gone
to our beds, we could hear them talking and laughing in the great hall
below, notwithstanding that Mr. Ward, when he took leave, bade Doctor
Thompson take heed to his own hint concerning the:

               "Wines from France and Muscovado too;"

to which the young wit replied, that there was Scripture warrant for his
drinking, inasmuch as the command was, to give wine to those that be of
heavy heart.  Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his
misery no more; and, for his part, he had been little better than
miserable ever since he heard of Rebecca's betrothal.  A light, careless
man, but of good parts, and as brave a talker as I have heard since I
have been in the Colony.



November 24.

Mr. Ward's negro girl Dinah came for me yesterday, saying that her
master did desire to see me.  So, marvelling greatly what he wanted,
I went with her, and was shown into the study.  Mr. Ward said he had
sent for me to have some discourse in regard to my brother Leonard, who
he did greatly fear was likely to make shipwreck of the faith; and that
Mr. Richardson had written him concerning the young man, telling him
that he did visit the Quakers when at Newbury, and even went over to
their conventicle at Hampton, on the Lord's day, in the company of the
Brewster family, noted Quakers and ranters.  He had the last evening had
some words with the lad, but with small satisfaction.  Being sorely
troubled by this account, I begged him to send for Leonard, which he
did, and, when he did come into the room, Mr. Ward told him that he
might see by the plight of his sister (for I was in tears) what a great
grief he was like to bring upon his family and friends, by running out
into heresies.  Leonard said he was sorry to give trouble to any one,
least of all to his beloved sister; that he did indeed go to the
Quakers' meeting, on one occasion, to judge for himself concerning this
people, who are everywhere spoken against; and that he must say he did
hear or see nothing in their worship contrary to the Gospel.  There was,
indeed, but little said, but the words were savory and Scriptural. "But
they deny the Scriptures," cried Mr. Ward, "and set above them what they
call the Light, which I take to be nothing better than their own
imaginations."  "I do not so understand them," said Leonard; "I think
they do diligently study the Scripture, and seek to conform their lives
to its teachings; and for the Light of which they speak, it is borne--
witness to not only in the Bible, but by the early fathers and devout
men of all ages.  I do not go to excuse the Quakers in all that they
have done, nor to defend all their doctrines and practices, many of
which I see no warrant in Scripture for, but believe to be pernicious
and contrary to good order; yet I must need look upon them as a sober,
earnest-seeking people, who do verily think themselves persecuted for
righteousness' sake."  Hereupon Mr. Ward struck his cane smartly on the
floor, and, looking severely at my brother, bade him beware how he did
justify these canting and false pretenders.  "They are," he said,
"either sad knaves, or silly enthusiasts,--they pretend to Divine
Revelation, and set up as prophets; like the Rosicrucians and Gnostics,
they profess to a knowledge of things beyond what plain Scripture
reveals.  The best that can be said of them is, that they are befooled
by their own fancies, and the victims of distempered brains and ill
habits of body.  Then their ranting against the Gospel order of the
Church, and against the ministers of Christ, calling us all manner of
hirelings, wolves, and hypocrites; belching out their blasphemies
against the ordinances and the wholesome laws of the land for the
support of a sound ministry and faith, do altogether justify the sharp
treatment they have met with; so that, if they have not all lost their
ears, they may thank our clemency rather than their own worthiness to
wear them.  I do not judge of them ignorantly, for I have dipped into
their books, where, what is not downright blasphemy and heresy, is
mystical and cabalistic.  They affect a cloudy and canting style, as if
to keep themselves from being confuted by keeping themselves from being
understood.  Their divinity is a riddle, a piece of black art; the
Scripture they turn into allegory and parabolical conceits, and thus
obscure and debauch the truth.  Argue with them, and they fall to
divining; reason with them, and they straightway prophesy.  Then their
silent meetings, so called, in the which they do pretend to justify
themselves by quoting Revelation, 'There was silence in heaven;' whereas
they might find other authorities,--as, for instance in Psalm 115, where
hell is expressed by silence, and in the Gospel, where we read of a dumb
devil.  As to persecuting these people, we have been quite too
charitable to them, especially of late, and they are getting bolder in
consequence; as, for example, the behavior of that shameless young wench
in Newbury, who disturbed Brother Richardson's church with her antics
not long ago.  She should have been tied to the cart-tail and whipped
all the way to Rhode Island."

"Do you speak of Margaret Brewster?" asked Leonard, his face all
a-crimson, and his lip quivering.  "Let me tell you, Mr. Ward, that you
greatly wrong one of Christ's little ones."  And he called me to testify
to her goodness and charity, and the blamelessness of her life.

"Don't talk to me of the blameless life of such an one," said Mr. Ward,
in aloud, angry tone; "it is the Devil's varnish for heresy.  The
Manichees, and the Pelagians, and Socinians, all did profess great
strictness and sanctity of life; and there never was heretic yet, from
they whom the Apostle makes mention of, who fasted from meats, giving
heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils, down to the Quakers,
Dippers, and New Lights of this generation who have not, like their
fathers of old, put on the shape of Angels of Light, and lived severe
and over-strict lives.  I grant that the Quakers are honest in their
dealings, making great show of sobriety and self-denial, and abhor the
practice of scandalous vices, being temperate, chaste, and grave in
their behavior, and thereby they win upon unstable souls, and make
plausible their damnable heresies.  I warn you, young man, to take heed
of them, lest you be ensnared and drawn into their way."

My brother was about to reply, but, seeing Mr. Ward so moved and vexed,
I begged of him to say no more; and, company coming in, the matter was
dropped, to my great joy.  I went back much troubled and disquieted for
my brother's sake.



November 28, 1678.

Leonard hath left Mr. Ward, and given up the thought of fitting for the
ministry.  This will be a heavy blow for his friends in England.  He
tells me that Mr. Ward spake angrily to him after I left, but that, when
he come to part with him, the old man wept over him, and prayed that the
Lord would enable him to see his error, and preserve him from the
consequences thereof.  I have discoursed with my brother touching his
future course of life, and he tells me he shall start in a day or two to
visit the Rhode Island, where he hath an acquaintance, one Mr. Easton,
formerly of Newbury.  His design is to purchase a small plantation
there, and betake himself to fanning, of the which he hath some little
knowledge, believing that he can be as happy and do as much good to his
fellow-creatures in that employment as in any other.

Here Cousin Rebecca, who was by, looking up with that sweet archness
which doth so well become her, queried with him whether he did think to
live alone on his plantation like a hermit, or whether he had not his
eye upon a certain fair-haired young woman, as suitable to keep him
company.  Whereat he seemed a little disturbed; but she bade him not
think her against his prospect, for she had known for some weeks that he
did favor the Young Brewster woman, who, setting aside her enthusiastic
notions of religion, was worthy of any man's love; and turning to me,
she begged of me to look at the matter as she did, and not set myself
against the choice of my brother, which, in all respects save the one
she had spoken of, she could approve with all her heart.  Leonard goes
back with us o-morrow to Newbury, so I shall have a chance of knowing
how matters stand with him.  The thought of his marrying a Quaker would
have been exceedingly grievous to me a few months ago; but this Margaret
Brewster hath greatly won upon me by her beauty, gentleness, and her
goodness of heart; and, besides, I know that she is much esteemed by the
best sort of people in her neighborhood.

Doctor Thompson left this morning, but his friend Doctor Clark goes with
us to Newbury.  Rebecca found in her work-basket, after he had gone,
some verses, which amused us not a little, and which I here copy.

               "Gone hath the Spring, with all its flowers,
               And gone the Summer's pomp and show
               And Autumn in his leafless bowers
               Is waiting for the Winter's snow.

               "I said to Earth, so cold and gray,
               'An emblem of myself thou art:'
               'Not so,' the earth did seem to say,
               'For Spring shall warm my frozen heart.

               "'I soothe my wintry sleep with dreams
               Of warmer sun and softer rain,
               And wait to hear the sound of streams
               And songs of merry birds again.

               "'But thou, from whom the Spring hath gone,
               For whom the flowers no longer blow,
               Who standest, blighted and forlorn,
               Like Autumn waiting for the snow.

               "'No hope is thine of sunnier hours,
               Thy winter shall no more depart;
               No Spring revive thy wasted flowers,
               Nor Summer warm thy frozen heart.'"

Doctor Clark, on hearing this read, told Rebecca she need not take its
melancholy to heart, for he could assure her that there was no danger of
his friend's acting on her account the sad part of the lover in the old
song of Barbara Allen.  As a medical man, he could safely warrant him to
be heart-whole; and the company could bear him witness, that the poet
himself seemed very little like the despairing one depicted in his
verses.

The Indian Simon calling this forenoon, Rebecca and I went into the
kitchen to see him.  He looks fierce and cruel, but he thanked Madain
Saltonstall for her gifts of food and clothing, and, giving her in
return a little basket wrought of curiously stained stuff, he told her
that if there were more like her, his heart would not be so bitter.

I ventured to ask him why he felt thus; whereupon he drew himself up,
and, sweeping about him with his arms, said: "This all Indian land.  The
Great Spirit made it for Indians.  He made the great river for them, and
birch-trees to make their canoes of.  All the fish in the ponds, and all
the pigeons and deer and squirrels he made for Indians.  He made land
for white men too; but they left it, and took Indian's land, because it
was better.  My father was a chief; he had plenty meat and corn in his
wigwam.  But Simon is a dog.  When they fight Eastern Indians, I try to
live in peace; but they say, Simon, you rogue, you no go into woods to
hunt; you keep at home.  So when squaw like to starve, I shoot one of
their hogs, and then they whip me.  Look!"  And he lifted the blanket
off from his shoulder, and showed the marks of the whip thereon.

"Well, well, Simon," said Mr. Saltonstall, "you do know that our people
then were much frightened by what the Indians had done in other places,
and they feared you would join them.  But it is all over now, and you
have all the woods to yourself to range in; and if you would let alone
strong drink, you would do well."

"Who makes strong drink?"  asked the Indian, with an ugly look.  "Who
takes the Indian's beaver-skins and corn for it?  Tell me that,
Captain."

So saying, he put his pack on his back, and calling a poor, lean dog,
that was poking his hungry nose into Madam's pots and kettles, he went
off talking to himself.



NEWBURY, December 6.

We got back from Haverhill last night, Doctor Clark accompanying us,
he having business in Newbury.  When we came up to the door, Effie met
us with a shy look, and told her mistress that Mrs. Prudence (uncle's
spinster cousin) had got a braw auld wooer in the east room; and surely
enough we found our ancient kinswoman and Deacon Dole, a widower of
three years' standing, sitting at the supper-table.  We did take note
that the Deacon had on a stiff new coat; and as for Aunt Prudence (for
so she was called in the family), she was clad in her bravest, with a
fine cap on her head.  They both did seem a little disturbed by our
coming, but plates being laid for us, we sat down with them.  After
supper, Rebecca had a fire kindled in uncle's room, whither we did
betake ourselves; and being very merry at the thought of Deacon Dole's
visit, it chanced to enter our silly heads that it would do no harm to
stop the clock in the entry a while, and let the two old folks make a
long evening of it.  After a time Rebecca made an errand into the east
room, to see how matters went, and coming back, said the twain were
sitting on the same settle by the fire, smoking--a pipe of tobacco
together.  Moreover, our foolish trick did work well, for Aunt Prudence
coming at last into the entry to look at the clock, we heard her tell
the Deacon that it was only a little past eight, when in truth it was
near ten.  Not long after there was a loud knocking at the door, and as
Effie had gone to bed, Rebecca did open it, when, whom did she see but
the Widow Hepsy Barnet, Deacon Dole's housekeeper, and with her the
Deacon's son, Moses, and the minister, Mr. Richardson, with a lantern in
his hand!  "Dear me," says the woman, looking very dismal, "have you
seen anything of the Deacon?"  By this time we were all at the door, the
Deacon and Aunt Prudence among the rest, when Moses, like a great lout
as he is, pulled off his woollen cap and tossed it up in the air, crying
out, "There, Goody Barnet, did n't I tell ye so!  There's father now!"
And the widow, holding up both her hands, said she never did in all her
born days see the like of this, a man of the Deacon's years and station
stealing away without letting folks know where to look for him; and then
turning upon poor Mrs. Prudence, she said she had long known that some
folks were sly and artful, and she was glad Mr. Richardson was here to
see for himself.  Whereupon Aunt Prudence, in much amazement, said, it
was scarce past eight, as they might see by the clock; but Mr.
Richardson, who could scarce keep a grave face, pulling out his watch,
said it was past ten, and bade her note that the clock was stopped.  He
told Deacon Dole, that seeing Goody Barnet so troubled about him, he had
offered to go along with her a little way, and that he was glad to find
that the fault was in the clock.  The Deacon, who had stood like one in
a maze, here clapped on his hat, and snatched up his cane and went off,
looking as guilty as if he had been caught a-housebreaking, the widow
scolding him all the way.  Now, as we could scarce refrain from
laughing, Mr. Richardson, who tarried a moment, shook his head at
Rebecca, telling her he feared by her looks she was a naughty girl,
taking pleasure in other folk's trouble.  We did both feel ashamed and
sorry enough for our mischief, after it was all over; and poor Mistress
Prudence is so sorely mortified, that she told Rebecca this morning not
to mention Deacon Dole's name to her again, and that Widow Hepsy is
welcome to him, since he is so mean-spirited as to let her rule him
as she doth.



December 8.

Yesterday I did, at my brother's wish, go with him to Goodman Brewster's
house, where I was kindly welcomed by the young woman and her parents.
After some little tarry, I found means to speak privily with her
touching my brother's regard for her, and to assure her that I did truly
and freely consent thereunto; while I did hope, for his sake as well as
her own, that she would, as far as might be consistent with her notion
of duty, forbear to do or say anything which might bring her into
trouble with the magistrates and those in authority.  She said that she
was very grateful for my kindness towards her, and that what I said was
a great relief to her mind; for when she first met my brother, she did
fear that his kindness and sympathy would prove a snare to her; and that
she had been sorely troubled, moreover, lest by encouraging him she
should not only do violence to her own conscience, but also bring
trouble and disgrace upon one who was, she did confess, dear unto her,
not only as respects outward things, but by reason of what she did
discern of an innocent and pure inward life in his conversation and
deportment.  She had earnestly sought to conform her conduct in this,
as in all things, to the mind of her Divine Master; and, as respected my
caution touching those in authority, she knew not what the Lord might
require of her, and she could only leave all in His hands, being
resigned even to deny herself of the sweet solace of human affection,
and to take up the cross daily, if He did so will.  "Thy visit and kind
words," she continued, "have removed a great weight from me.  The way
seems more open before me.  The Lord bless thee for thy kindness."

She said this with so much tenderness of spirit, and withal with such an
engaging sweetness of look and voice, that I was greatly moved, and,
pressing her in my arms, I kissed her, and bade her look upon me as her
dear sister.

The family pressing us, we stayed to supper, and sitting down in silence
at the table, I was about to speak to my brother, but he made a sign to
check me, and I held my peace, although not then knowing wherefore.  So
we all sat still for a little space of time, which I afterwards found is
the manner of these people at their meat.  The supper was plain, but of
exceeding good relish: warm rye loaves with butter and honey, and bowls
of sweet milk, and roasted apples.  Goodwife Brewster, who appeared much
above her husband (who is a plain, unlearned man) in her carriage and
discourse, talked with us very pleasantly, and Margaret seemed to grow
more at ease, the longer we stayed.

On our way back we met Robert Pike, who hath returned from the eastward.
He said Rebecca Rawson had just told him how matters stood with Leonard,
and that he was greatly rejoiced to hear of his prospect.  He had known
Margaret Brewster from a child, and there was scarce her equal in these
parts for sweetness of temper and loveliness of person and mind; and,
were she ten times a Quaker, he was free to say this in her behalf.
I am more and more confirmed in the belief that Leonard hath not done
unwisely in this matter, and do cheerfully accept of his choice,
believing it to be in the ordering of Him who doeth all things well.



BOSTON, December 31.

It wanteth but two hours to the midnight, and the end of the year.  The
family are all abed, and I can hear nothing save the crackling of the
fire now burning low on the hearth, and the ticking of the clock in the
corner.  The weather being sharp with frost, there is no one stirring in
the streets, and the trees and bushes in the yard, being stripped of
their leaves, look dismal enough above the white snow with which the
ground is covered, so that one would think that all things must needs
die with the year.  But, from my window, I can see the stars shining
with marvellous brightness in the clear sky, and the sight thereof doth
assure me that God still watcheth over the work of His hands, and that
in due season He will cause the flowers to appear on the earth, and the
time of singing-birds to come, and-the voice of the turtle to be heard
in the land.  And I have been led, while alone here, to think of the
many mercies which have been vouchsafed unto me in my travels and
sojourn in a strange land, and a sense of the wonderful goodness of God
towards me, and they who are dear unto me, both here and elsewhere, hath
filled mine heart with thankfulness; and as of old time they did use to
set up stones of memorial on the banks of deliverance, so would I at
this season set up, as it were, in my poor journal, a like pillar of
thanksgiving to the praise and honor of Him who hath so kindly cared for
His unworthy handmaid.



January 16, 1679.

Have just got back from Reading, a small town ten or twelve miles out of
Boston, whither I went along with mine Uncle and Aunt Rawson, and many
others, to attend the ordination of Mr. Brock, in the place of the
worthy Mr. Hough, lately deceased.  The weather being clear, and the
travelling good, a great concourse of people got together.  We stopped
at the ordinary, which we found wellnigh filled; but uncle, by dint of
scolding and coaxing, got a small room for aunt and myself, with a clean
bed, which was more than we had reason to hope for.  The ministers, of
whom there were many and of note (Mr. Mather and Mr. Wilson of Boston,
and Mr. Corbet of Ipswich, being among them), were already together at
the house of one of the deacons.  It was quite a sight the next morning
to see the people coming in from the neighboring towns, and to note
their odd dresses, which were indeed of all kinds, from silks and
velvets to coarsest homespun woollens, dyed with hemlock, or oil-nut
bark, and fitting so ill that, if they had all cast their clothes into a
heap, and then each snatched up whatsoever coat or gown came to hand,
they could not have suited worse.  Yet they were all clean and tidy, and
the young people especially did look exceeding happy, it being with them
a famous holiday.  The young men came with their sisters or their
sweethearts riding behind them on pillions; and the ordinary and all the
houses about were soon noisy enough with merry talking and laughter.
The meeting-house was filled long before the services did begin.  There
was a goodly show of honorable people in the forward seats, and among
them that venerable magistrate, Simon Broadstreet, who acteth as Deputy-
Governor since the death of Mr. Leverett; the Honorable Thomas Danforth;
Mr. William Brown of Salem; and others of note, whose names I do not
remember, all with their wives and families, bravely apparelled.  The
Sermon was preached by Mr. Higginson of Salem, the Charge was given by
Mr. Phillips of Rowley, and the Right Hand of Fellowship by Mr. Corbet
of Ipswich.  When we got back to our inn, we found a great crowd of
young roysterers in the yard, who had got Mr. Corbet's negro man, Sam,
on the top of a barrel, with a bit of leather, cut in the shape of
spectacles, astride of his nose, where he stood swinging his arms, and
preaching, after the manner of his master, mimicking his tone and manner
very shrewdly, to the great delight and merriment of the young rogues
who did set him on.  We stood in the door a while to hear him, and, to
say the truth, he did wonderfully well, being a fellow of good parts and
much humor.  But, just as he was describing the Devil, and telling his
grinning hearers that he was not like a black but a white man, old Mr.
Corbet, who had come up behind him, gave him a smart blow with his cane,
whereupon Sam cried,--

"Dare he be now!" at which all fell to laughing.

"You rascal," said Mr. Corbet, "get down with you; I'll teach you to
compare me to the Devil."

"Beg pardon, massa!" said Sam, getting down from his pulpit, and rubbing
his shoulder.  "How you think Sam know you?  He see nothing; he only
feel de lick."

"You shall feel it again," said his master, striking at him a great
blow, which Sam dodged.

"Nay, Brother Corbet," said Mr. Phillips, who was with him, "Sam's
mistake was not so strange after all; for if Satan can transform himself
into an Angel of Light, why not into the likeness of such unworthy
ministers as you and I."

This put the old minister in a good humor, and Sam escaped without
farther punishment than a grave admonition to behave more reverently for
the future.  Mr. Phillips, seeing some of his young people in the crowd,
did sharply rebuke them for their folly, at which they were not a little
abashed.

The inn being greatly crowded, and not a little noisy, we were not
unwilling to accept the invitation of the provider of the ordination-
dinner, to sit down with the honored guests thereat.  I waited, with
others of the younger class, until the ministers and elderly people had
made an end of their meal.  Among those who sat at the second table was
a pert, talkative lad, a son of Mr. Increase Mather, who, although but
sixteen years of age, graduated at the Harvard College last year, and
hath the reputation of good scholarship and lively wit.  He told some
rare stories concerning Mr. Brock, the minister ordained, and of the
marvellous efficacy of his prayers.  He mentioned, among other things,
that, when Mr. Brock lived on the Isles of Shoals, he persuaded the
people there to agree to spend one day in a month, beside the Sabhath,
in religious worship.  Now, it so chanced that there was on one occasion
a long season of stormy, rough weather, unsuitable for fishing; and when
the day came which had been set apart, it proved so exceeding fair, that
his congregation did desire him to put off the meeting, that they might
fish.  Mr. Brock tried in vain to reason with them, and show the duty of
seeking first the kingdom of God, when all other things should be added
thereto, but the major part determined to leave the meeting.  Thereupon
he cried out after them: "As for you who will neglect God's worship, go,
and catch fish if you can."  There were thirty men who thus left, and
only five remained behind, and to these he said: "I will pray the Lord
for you, that you may catch fish till you are weary."  And it so fell
out, that the thirty toiled all day, and caught only four fishes; while
the five who stayed at meeting went out, after the worship was over, and
caught five hundred; and ever afterwards the fishermen attended all the
meetings of the minister's appointing.  At another time, a poor man, who
had made himself useful in carrying people to meeting in his boat, lost
the same in a storm, and came lamenting his loss to Mr. Brock.  "Go
home, honest man," said the minister.  "I will mention your case to the
Lord: you will have your boat again to-morrow."  And surely enough, the
very next day, a vessel pulling up its anchor near where the boat sank,
drew up the poor man's boat, safe and whole, after it.

We went back to Boston after dinner, but it was somewhat of a cold ride,
especially after the night set in, a keen northerly wind blowing in
great gusts, which did wellnigh benumb us.  A little way from Reading,
we overtook an old couple in the road; the man had fallen off his horse,
and his wife was trying to get him up again to no purpose; so young Mr.
Richards, who was with us, helped him up to the saddle again, telling
his wife to hold him carefully, as her old man had drank too much flip.
Thereupon the good wife set upon him with a vile tongue, telling him
that her old man was none other than Deacon Rogers of Wenham, and as
good and as pious a saint as there was out of heaven; and it did ill
become a young, saucy rake and knave to accuse him of drunkenness, and
it would be no more than his deserts if the bears did eat him before he
got to Boston.  As it was quite clear that the woman herself had had a
taste of the mug, we left them and rode on, she fairly scolding us out
of hearing.  When we got home, we found Cousin Rebecca, whom we did
leave ill with a cold, much better in health, sitting up and awaiting
us.



January 21, 1679.

Uncle Rawson came home to-day in a great passion, and, calling me to
him, he asked me if I too was going to turn Quaker, and fall to
prophesying?  Whereat I was not a little amazed; and when I asked him
what he did mean, he said: "Your brother Leonard hath gone off to them,
and I dare say you will follow, if one of the ranters should take it
into his head that you would make him a proper wife, or company-keeper,
for there's never an honest marriage among them."  Then looking sternly
at me, he asked me why I did keep this matter from him, and thus allow
the foolish young man to get entangled in the snares of Satan.  Whereat
I was so greatly grieved, that I could answer never a word.

"You may well weep," said my uncle, "for you have done wickedly.  As to
your brother, he will do well to keep where he is in the plantations;
for if he come hither a theeing and thouing of me, I will spare him
never a whit; and if I do not chastise him myself, it will be because
the constable can do it better at the cart-tail.  As the Lord lives, I
had rather he had turned Turk!"

I tried to say a word for my brother, but he cut me straightway short,
bidding me not to mention his name again in his presence.  Poor me!  I
have none here now to whom I can speak freely, Rebecca having gone to
her sister's at Weymouth.  My young cousin Grindall is below, with his
college friend, Cotton Mather; but I care not to listen to their
discourse, and aunt is busied with her servants in the kitchen, so that
I must even sit alone with my thoughts, which be indeed but sad company.

The little book which I brought with me from the Maine, it being the
gift of young Mr. Jordan, and which I have kept close hidden in my
trunk, hath been no small consolation to me this day, for it aboundeth
in sweet and goodly thoughts, although he who did write it was a monk.
Especially in my low state, have these words been a comfort to me:--

"What thou canst not amend in thyself or others, bear thou with patience
until God ordaineth otherwise.  When comfort is taken away, do not
presently despair.  Stand with an even mind resigned to the will of God,
whatever shall befall, because after winter cometh the summer; after the
dark night the day shineth, and after the storm followeth a great calm.
Seek not for consolation which shall rob thee of the grace of penitence;
for all that is high is not holy, nor all that is pleasant good; nor
every desire pure; nor is what is pleasing to us always pleasant in the
sight of God."



January 23.

The weather is bitter cold, and a great snow on the ground.  By a letter
from Newbury, brought me by Mr. Sewall, who hath just returned from that
place, I hear that Goodwife Morse hath been bound for trial as a witch.
Mr. Sewall tells me the woman is now in the Boston jail.  As to Caleb
Powell, he hath been set at liberty, there being no proof of his evil
practice.  Yet inasmuch as he did give grounds of suspicion by boasting
of his skill in astrology and astronomy, the Court declared that he
justly deserves to bear his own shame and the costs of his prosecution
and lodging in jail.

Mr. Sewall tells me that Deacon Dole has just married his housekeeper,
Widow Barnet, and that Moses says he never knew before his father to get
the worst in a bargain.



January 30.

Robert Pike called this morning, bringing me a letter from my brother,
and one from Margaret Brewster.  He hath been to the Providence
Plantations and Rhode Island, and reporteth well of the prospects of my
brother, who hath a goodly farm, and a house nigh upon finished, the
neighbors, being mostly Quakers, assisting him much therein.  My
brother's letter doth confirm this account of his temporal condition,
although a great part of it is taken up with a defence of his new
doctrines, for the which he doth ingeniously bring to mind many passages
of Scripture.  Margaret's letter being short, I here copy it:--

THE PLANTATIONS, 20th of the 1st mo., 1679.

"DEAR FRIEND,--I salute thee with much love from this new country, where
the Lord hath spread a table for us in the wilderness.  Here is a goodly
company of Friends, who do seek to know the mind of Truth, and to live
thereby, being held in favor and esteem by the rulers of the land, and
so left in peace to worship God according to their consciences.  The
whole country being covered with snow, and the weather being extreme
cold, we can scarce say much of the natural gifts and advantages of our
new home; but it lieth on a small river, and there be fertile meadows,
and old corn-fields of the Indians, and good springs of water, so that I
am told it is a desirable and pleasing place in the warm season.  My
soul is full of thankfulness, and a sweet inward peace is my portion.
Hard things are made easy to me; this desert place, with its lonely
woods and wintry snows, is beautiful in mine eyes.  For here we be no
longer gazing-stocks of the rude multitude, we are no longer haled from
our meetings, and railed upon as witches and possessed people.  Oh, how
often have we been called upon heretofore to repeat the prayer of one
formerly: 'Let me not fall into the hands of man.'  Sweet, beyond the
power of words to express, hath been the change in this respect; and in
view of the mercies vouchsafed unto us, what can we do but repeat the
language of David, 'Praise is comely yea, a joyful and pleasant thing it
is to be thankful.  It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord, to
sing praises unto thy name, O Most High! to show forth thy loving-
kindness in the morning, and thy faithfulness every night.'

"Thou hast doubtless heard that thy dear brother hath been favored to
see the way of truth, according to our persuasion thereof, and hath been
received into fellowship with us.  I fear this hath been a trial to
thee; but, dear heart, leave it in the hands of the Lord, whose work I
do indeed count it.  Nor needest thou to fear that thy brother's regard
for thee will be lessened thereby, for the rather shall it be increased
by a measure of that Divine love which, so far from destroying, doth but
purify and strengthen the natural affections.

"Think, then, kindly of thy brother, for his love towards thee is very
great; and of me, also, unworthy as I am, for his sake.  And so, with
salutations of love and peace, in which my dear mother joins, I remain
thy loving friend,  MARGARET BREWSTER.

"The Morse woman, I hear, is in your jail, to be tried for a witch. She
is a poor, weak creature, but I know no harm of her, and do believe her
to be more silly than wicked in the matter of the troubles in her house.
I fear she will suffer much at this cold season in the jail, she being
old and weakly, and must needs entreat thee to inquire into her
condition.
                      "M. B."



February 10.

Speaking of Goody Morse to-day, Uncle Rawson says she will, he thinks,
be adjudged a witch, as there be many witnesses from Newbury to testify
against her. Aunt sent the old creature some warm blankets and other
necessaries, which she stood much in need of, and Rebecca and I altered
one of aunt's old gowns for her to wear, as she hath nothing seemly of
her own. Mr. Richardson, her minister, hath visited her twice since she
hath been in jail; but he saith she is hardened in her sin, and will
confess nothing thereof.



February 14.
The famous Mr. John Eliot, having business with my uncle, spent the last
night with us, a truly worthy man, who, by reason of his great labors
among the heathen Indians, may be called the chiefest of our apostles.
He brought with him a young Indian lad, the son of a man of some note
among his people, very bright and comely, and handsomely apparelled
after the fashion of his tribe.  This lad hath a ready wit, readeth and
writeth, and hath some understanding of Scripture; indeed, he did repeat
the Lord's Prayer in a manner edifying to hear.

The worshipful Major Gookins coming in to sup with us, there was much
discourse concerning the affairs of the Province: both the Major and his
friend Eliot being great sticklers for the rights and liberties of the
people, and exceeding jealous of the rule of the home government, and
in this matter my uncle did quite agree with them.  In a special manner
Major Gookins did complain of the Acts of Trade, as injurious to the
interests of the Colony, and which he said ought not to be submitted to,
as the laws of England were bounded by the four seas, and did not justly
reach America.  He read a letter which he had from Mr. Stoughton, one of
the agents of the Colony in England, showing how they had been put off
from time to time, upon one excuse or another, without being able to get
a hearing; and now the Popish Plot did so occupy all minds there, that
Plantation matters were sadly neglected; but this much was certain, the
laws for the regulating of trade must be consented to by the
Massachusetts, if we would escape a total breach.  My uncle struck his
hand hard on the table at this, and said if all were of his mind they
would never heed the breach; adding, that he knew his rights as a free-
born Englishman, under Magna Charta, which did declare it the privilege
of such to have a voice in the making of laws; whereas the Massachusetts
had no voice in Parliament, and laws were thrust upon them by strangers.

"For mine own part," said Major Gookins, "I do hold our brother Eliot's
book on the Christian Commonwealth, which the General Court did make
haste to condemn on the coming in of the king, to be a sound and
seasonable treatise, notwithstanding the author himself hath in s

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