is certainly known, except that he had lived at Norwich.1 Brewster-who "had attained some learning, viz. William the knowledge of the Latin tongue, and some Brewster. insight into the Greek, and spent some small time at Cambridge, and there been first seasoned with the seeds of grace and virtue"-at an early age "went to the court, and served that religious and godly gentleman, Mr. Davison, divers years when he was Secretary of State, who found him so discreet and faithful as he trusted him above all others that were about him, and only employed him in all matters of greatest trust and secrecy. He esteemed him rather as a son than as a servant, and for his wisdom and godliness in private he would converse with him more like a familiar than a master. He attended his master when he was sent in ambassage by the queen into the Low Countries (in the Earl of Leicester's time), as for other weighty affairs of state, so to receive possession of the cautionary towns."2

mouth who had done so since Bradford trod it last before his exile. I slept in a farm-house at Scrooby, and reconnoitred that village the next morning. Its old church is a beautiful structure. At the distance from it of a quarter of a mile, the dike round the vanished manor-house may still be traced, and a farmer's house is believed to be part of the ancient stables or dog-kennels. In what was the garden is a mulberrytree, so old that generations before Brewster may have regaled themselves with its fruit. The local tradition declares it to have been planted by Cardinal Wolsey during his sojourn at the manor for some weeks after his fall from power. The property belongs to Richard Milnes, Esq., of Bawtry Hall. There is a bridge over the Idle, at the place of a ford by which Bradford used to cross on his Sunday walk to Scrooby, coming from Austerfield through Bawtry.

1Even as when I lived with you,"

1585.

says Robinson in a dedication of the

66

.....

.....

People's Plea for the Exercise of Prophecy" (Works, III. 287) to his "Christian friends in Norwich and thereabouts." When Bradford says that, "after they had continued together about a year, they resolved to get over into Holland, which was in the years 1607 and 1608" (see the last note), he is perhaps to be understood as reckoning from the time of their being joined by Robinson, whom he had mentioned just before. The minister of Scrooby and of Leyden may have been the John Robinson who was matriculated at Christ College, Cambridge, in 1592, and became a Fellow in 1598. (Hunter, Collections; comp. Mass. Hist. Coll., XXXI. 113.) A Memoir of him by Mr. Robert Ashton is prefixed to the edition of his works published in 1851 by the Congregational Union of England. In respect to Robinson's early life, it is barren of facts.

2 Bradford, History of Plymouth

1587.

The conversation of Davison, who was one of the eminent Puritans of that time, may well have given a bias to the mind of his young dependent. When Davison had fallen into disgrace with the queen, in consequence of her simulated displeasure at his issue of a warrant for the execution of the Queen of Scots, Brewster appears to have retired to Scrooby, probably his birthplace; not, however, till he had remained with his patron "some good time after, doing him many faithful offices of service in the time of his troubles." Scrooby was a post-town on the great road from London -1607, Sept. to the north, and there he held the office of postmaster, or, as it was then called, post, for several years.1 Clifton's congregation "ordinarily met at his house on the Lord's day, and with great love he entertained them when they came, making provision for them to his great charge." Some such hospitality was the more needful, as they probably came together from considerable distances. William Bradford, one of Brewster's guests and fellow-worshippers, was a

1594, April 1

30.

William
Bradford.

led to the belief that it was Bradford's lost History, which on examination it proved to be. When Prince used it in 1736, it belonged to the library kept in the tower of the Old South Church in Boston. In 1775, that church was occupied as a riding-school for the British cavalry, and then it was, probably, that the book was taken away, and carried to England.

Plantation, 409, 410. This inestimable ford preserved by Morton and Prince, book, after being lost for nearly ninety years, was found in 1855, in the episcopal library at Fulham, and has since, through the kindness of the late Bishop of London, been published by the Massachusetts Historical Society, under the oversight of that very judicious and learned antiquary, Mr. Charles Deane. The manuscript was known to have been used by Morton, Prince, and Hutchinson in the composition of their works. What was its fate after Hutchinson's publication of his second volume, in 1767, remained unknown. In 1846, Bishop Wilberforce, in his History of the Protestant Episcopal Church in America, referred to a "manuscript history of the Plantation of Plymouth in the Fulham Library." The identity of his quotations from it with language of Brad

1 Hunter, Collections, 65. In the Postmaster-General's Office, Mr. Hunter found memoranda of accounts with "William Brewster, post of Scrooby," from April 1, 1594, to September 30, 1607, at which time another person succeeded him. How long Brewster had held the office before April, 1594, does not appear, as there is no earlier record of the names of postmasters on that route.

young man of decent condition and some little estate. Being of a feeble constitution, and left doubly an orphan in early childhood, he became precociously reflecting and wise; and the preaching of Mr. Clifton determined his character and his course of life.1

the Scrooby

The annoyances which, under Archbishop Bancroft's vigilant administration, distressed the Non-conformists in every part of England, became so intolerable to Resolution of this company of simple farmers, of whom few, congregation it is likely, had ever seen the sea, or till lately to emigrate. learned anything of other countries, that at length they resolved on the sad expedient of expatriation. They heard that in the Low Countries religious freedom was allowed, and that some of their persecuted countrymen had there found a refuge;2 and there they determined to seek a new home.3

1 "When he was about a dozen years old, the reading of the Scriptures began to cause great impressions upon him; and those impressions were much assisted and improved when he came to enjoy Mr. Richard Clifton's illuminating ministry, not far from his abode.” (Mather, Magnalia, Book II. Chap. II. § 2.) It is not my intention to appeal to Mather's authority in relation to any nice question of fact. But his opportunities for information respecting Bradford were good, his maternal uncle, the second John Cotton, having been minister of Plymouth, and so pastor of Bradford's family.

Babworth, where Clifton officiated while attached to the Established Church, was nine or ten miles from Austerfield, and Bradford would pass through Scrooby in going thither.

2 "Holland hath been a cage to these unclean birds." (Baylie, Dissuasive from the Errors of the Time, 8.)

3 "Some were taken and clapped up in prison, others had their houses beset and watched night and day, and hardly

escaped their hands; and the most were fain to fly and leave their houses and habitations, and the means of their livelihood. ..... Seeing themselves thus molested, and that there was no hope of their continuance there, by a joint consent they resolved to go into the Low Countries, where they heard was freedom of religion for all men, as also how sundry from London and other parts of the land, that had been exiled and persecuted for the same cause, were gone thither and lived at Amsterdam and other places of the land. ..... To go into a country they knew not but by hearsay, where they must learn a new language and get their livings they knew not how, it being a dear place and subject to the miseries of war, it was by many thought an adventure almost desperate, a case intolerable, and a misery worse than death; especially seeing they were not acquainted with trades nor traffic (by which the country doth subsist), but had only been used to a plain country life, and the innocent trade of husbandry. But these

1607.

But even this painful expedient they were not free to choose, and the design had to be prosecuted by stealth. Under color of a royal proclamation which had been obtained by Bancroft, forbidding the king's subjects to transport themselves to Virginia without his special license, or under some other pretence, the embarkation of the Scrooby people was obstructed. A party of them chartered a vessel to receive them and their effects near Boston in Lincolnshire, to which place they travelled by land fifty miles. The master did not keep his engagement, and when, "after long waiting and large expenses," they at last got on board, he betrayed them to "the searchers and other officers," who robbed them "of their money, books, and much other goods,” “and then carried them back into the town, and made them a spectacle and wonder to the multitude." There they were kept in prison, till an Order of Council released most of them, while Brewster and six others were detained for trial.1

1608.

"The next spring after, there was another attempt made, by some of these and others." They agreed with a Dutch shipmaster to take them on board at a place on the Humber between Grimsby and Hull, thirty miles distant from their home. The embarkation was interrupted by the appearance of an armed force of horse and foot; and the Dutchman, alarmed, put to sea with the movables and such of the party as had come on board. Of the rest, many of them separated from husbands and parents, and without clothing or money,- those who did not find a wretched safety in flight were apprehended, and "hurried from one place to another and from one justice to another, until in the end they knew not what to do with them; for to imprison so

things did not dismay them (although they did sometimes trouble them), for their desires were set on the ways of God, and to enjoy his ordinances. But

they rested on his providence, and knew whom they had believed." (Bradford, 10, 11.)

1 Ibid., 12.

many women and innocent children for no other cause (many of them) but that they would go with their husbands, seemed to be unreasonable, and all would cry out of them; and to send them home again was as difficult, for they alleged, as the truth was, they had no homes to go to, for they either had sold or otherwise disposed of their houses and livings."1

2

Their resi

Amsterdam.

At last the scattered flock collected at Amsterdam. Clifton made the passage after the unfortunate August. attempts which have been mentioned. Brewster, deceat released from his imprisonment, accompanied or followed him. The heroic wanderer had last traversed. the streets of that opulent city in the train of the ambassador of Elizabeth, and in charge of the keys of Dutch towns pledged to England. With humble associates he was now to earn a living by some humble daily labor. The lot of his companions, with their inferior resources, was harder yet; and, with his fellow-leaders in the enterprise, it belonged to him to cheer the sorrows of others while he struggled with his own. The imagina tion is tasked to picture the amazement and conscious helplessness of these north-country peasants, as they gazed on the palaces that bordered and the fleets that choked the long canals, and pushed their way through crowds gathered from all the countries of the globe. "They heard a strange and uncouth language, and beheld the different manners and customs of the people, with their strange fashions and attires; all so far differing from that of their plain country villages, wherein they were bred and had so long lived, as it seemed

1 Bradford, 14, 15. "Pitiful it was to see the heavy case of these poor women in this distress; what weeping and crying on every side; some for their husbands that were carried away in the ship; others not knowing what should become of them and their little ones; others melted in tears, seeing their poor

little ones hanging about them, crying for fear, and quaking with cold."

2 "When Mr. Robinson, Mr. Brewster, and other principal members were come over, for they were of the last, and stayed to help the weakest over before them," &c. (Ibid., 16.)