Next to these, swine and poultry-fowls, ducks, geese, and turkeys were in common use earlier than other kinds of flesh-meat. The New-Englander of the present time, who, in whatever rank of life, would be at a loss without his tea or coffee twice at least in every day, pities the hardship of his ancestors, who, almost universally, for a century and a half, made their morning and evening repast on boiled Indian meal and milk, or on porridge or broth made of pease or beans and flavored by being boiled with salted beef or pork.2 Beer, however, which 1 "Apples, pears, and quince tarts, instead of their former pumpkin-pies. Poultry they have plenty and great rarity, and in their feasts have not forgotten the English fashion of stirring up their appetites with variety of cooking their food." (Wonder-Working Providence, Book II. Chap. XXI.) — Hasty-pudding, consisting of the boiled meal of maize or rye, and eaten with molasses and butter or milk, was a common article of diet. Succotash, composed of beans boiled with Indian corn in the milk, was a dish adopted from the natives, as were other preparations of corn, named samp and hominy. 2 Tea was scarcely in use before 1750, or coffee before 1770. A memorandum of the expenses, in 1745, of William Palfrey, my great-great-grandfather, contains entries of one pound eight shillings, and one pound ten shillings, paid for a pound of tea. I think it must have been for sickness; for, though in easy circumstances, he was frugal. The old local customs of baked beans, baked Indian pudding, and newly-baked rye and Indian bread on Wednesday, after the washing and ironing agonies of Monday and Tuesday; of" salt-fish "regularly on Saturdays; and boiled Indian pudding (with roasted sirloin of beef, for those who could get it) on Sundays,―have somewhat faded out, but must be distinctly in the remembrance of many of my readers. These dishes are historical. The practice of successive generations has improved them; but baked beans point to the time when it was desirable to make the most of the commonest vegetable by flavoring it with the flesh of the commonest animal. Ground Indian corn, sweetened with molasses as soon as molasses began to come from the West Indies to Boston, was Indian pudding in its primitive condition. In my youth I used to hear it said, that all over the country, and all over the world, New-England men kept up the ancient custom of eating salt-fish (cod-fish) on Saturday; not on Friday, which would have been Popish. Forty years ago I was so situated as to know uncommonly well the habits of different classes of people in different parts of the country, and my observation accorded with this statement. Till a later period than this, the most ceremonious Boston feast was never set out on Saturday (then the common dinnerparty day) without the dun-fish at one end of the table; abundance, variety, pomp of other things, but that unfailingly. It was a sort of New-England point of honor; and luxurious livers pleased themselves, over their nuts and wine, with the thought that, while suiting their palates, they had been doing their part in a wide combination to maintain the fisheries, and create a naval strength. was brewed in families, was accounted a necessary of life; and the orchards soon yielded a bountiful provision of cider. Wine and rum found a ready market, as soon as they were brought from abroad; and tobacco and legislation had a long conflict, in which the latter at last gave way. Amusements. Some accessories of social intercourse, elsewhere thought to add to its attractiveness, were here abjured. The sad experience of his native country had taught the fugitive Puritan a lesson which in its main import he laid religiously to heart, if he misconceived or exaggerated it in some particulars. All persons were forbidden so much as to possess cards, dice, or other instruments of gaming.1 Dancing was prohibited, not only as inconsistent with dignity of character, but because it was thought to be attended with provocatives to licentiousness.2 The absence of instruments of music from the inventories must be taken to indicate, either that the art was not much relished, or that the practice of it was not approved. Titles. The application of both official and conventional titles was a matter of careful observance. Only a small number of persons of the best condition had the designation Mr. or Mrs. prefixed to their names; this respect was always shown to ministers and their wives. Most of the Deputies are designated in the records by their names only, without a prefix, unless they were officers of the church or of the militia; in the latter case they received their appropriate title, through all the ranks from General to Corporal. Goodman and Goodwife were the appropriate addresses of persons above the condition of servitude and below that of gentility. The language written and spoken by the early colonists could be no other than the form of speech which they had been accustomed to hear and use; 1 Conn. Rec., I. 289, 527; Mass. Rec., I. 84. Speech. Mass. Rec., I. 233. and that was the common English of the realm, with such provincial peculiarities as belonged to the locality of their English homes, and with the distinctive phraseology of their religious sect. In recent times, collections have been made of words and phrases called Americanisms, and to many of them has been ascribed a NewEngland origin. Without doubt that representation is correct; for always and everywhere language is changing, and especially do the new circumstances of various kinds the new objects, devices, and experiences of a new country, produce a multiplication of new forms of speech. But as to many forms which have been supposed to be of New-England invention, because, when the comparison came to be made, they were not current in the mother country, it is certain that at the time of the emigration they belonged to the staple of the English tongue, and have simply been preserved in New England, while they have gone into disuse on the other side of the water. The vocal utterance of the New-Englander of the present day is criticised for an ungraceful nasal peculiarity. Probably this is one of his Puritan heirlooms. Perhaps it is an effect of climate. CHAPTER II. WHEN the Four Colonies of New England made their confederation, a few months only had passed since the breaking out of the war between Charles the First and his long-suffering subjects. It continued to be waged without important success on either side, till the second invasion from the North turned the tide against the King1 Marching from Dunbar through snow up to their knees, the Scots crossed the Tweed and entered 1644. England on the second day. The Marquis of Jan. 19. Newcastle, the King's general, with an army fourteen thousand strong, retreated slowly before them, till, having been joined by Parliamentary forces under Manchester, Fairfax, and Cromwell, they shut him up in May. York, with a garrison of six thousand troops. The city appeared to be reduced to extremity, when Prince Rupert, having overrun the western shires, arrived with twenty thousand men for its relief. The Parliamentary generals raised the siege, and advanced to meet him as far as Long-Marston-Moor, four miles distant. The Prince manoeuvred so as to pass them, crossed the river Ouse, and threw himself into York. July 1. Unfortunately for him, he was not satisfied with this success. In contempt of the better judgment of Newcas tle, he insisted on following it up with an attack on the 1 See Vol. I. 579. Rushworth, V. 603. Lingard thinks that the course taken by Rupert was required by the King's orders. (History, X. 251, 252; comp. Evelyn's Memoirs, II. App., 89; Warburton, Memoirs of Prince Rupert and the Cavaliers, II. 435, 445, 452.) But, on the other hand, see Guizot's English Revolution (II. 47), or Sandford's Studies and Illustrations of the Great Rebellion, &c. (591). Fight of Marston Moor. rebel force. The battle was fought from seven till ten o'clock in the bright twilight of a midsummer evening. About twenty-five thousand men were July 2. engaged on each side. The right wing of the Royalists, commanded by Rupert, was driven off the field by Cromwell's cavalry. The left wing, under Goring and Lucas, was on the point of being successful against Fairfax and Lambert, when Cromwell, returning from his pursuit of the Prince, fell upon it and threw it into irreparable disorder. More than three thousand royalists killed, fifteen hundred made prisoners, and all the artillery taken, were the fruits of this battle, the bloodiest of the war. York presently surrendered, and Prince Rupert, with the remains of his army, moved rapidly to the West, to obtain new enlistments. The Marquis of Newcastle, disgusted by that inattention to his warnings which had occasioned the great calamity, withdrew to the Continent, where he lived for the next sixteen years. In the autumn the Scots took the town of Newcastle by storm, and the whole North Country was lost to the King. October. Successes of the South. In the South he had better success. Eluding the two armies of Lord Essex and Sir William Waller, which had nearly enclosed him at Oxford, he moved norththe King in westwardly towards Worcester. He beat Waller, who had followed him, and then, in his turn, pursued Essex into Cornwall. There, having been joined by forces under his nephew, Maurice, and Sir Richard Granville, he compelled the Parliamentary infantry and artillery to capitulate, on the condition of being dismissed without their arms, ammunition, and baggage. The horse, taking advantage of a thick mist, escaped. Essex, with some of his officers, reached Plymouth by sea. His honor was untouched. The Parliament understood the difficulties which had proved too great for him, and, from a sense of justice or from policy, sent him a vote of thanks. |