Then he desired the governour to commend himself and the rest to God by prayer; which being done, they accompanied him to the boat, and so they went over to Charlestown to go by 1land Being the first deputy governour in the colony, many years governour, and, when he filled neither of these offices, one of the assistants, his history must be embodied in that of his country; and the diligence of Eliot has gleaned almost all that the Records omitted. A hardness in publick, and rigidity in private life, are too observable in his character, and even an eagerness for pecuniary gain, which might not have been expected in a soldier and a statesman. Gov. Belcher wrote an epitaph for him: Here lies Thomas Dudley, that trusty old stud, A bargain's a bargain, and must be made good. Dudley lost, in 1643, the wife he brought over, two of whose children are known, Samuel and Ann; but he married again the next year, and the celebrated Gov. Joseph was child of the second wife. Samuel married Mary, daughter of Gov. Winthrop, in 1633, I presume, as our First Church Records verify the baptisms of their children, Thomas, 9 March, 1634; John, 28 June, 1635; Samuel, 2 August, 1639. Why these children were baptized here, when the father was not a church member, though the mother was, must be referred to a liberality of practice much controverted in after times, and even to the present day. He was sometime at Salisbury, and deputy from that town 1641, settled at Exeter in 1650, where he was a preacher, and is called a person of good capacity and learning. Belknap's New Hampshire, I. 48, in note. His daughter, Ann, married, at sixteen years of age, to Bradstreet, before our colonists left England, bore him eight children. She is the most distinguished of the early matrons of our land by her literary powers, of which proof is given in a volume of poems, the second edition of which, printed at Boston, 1678, by John Foster, in a very respectable 12mo of 255 pages, is now before me. It does credit to her education, and is a real curiosity, though no reader, free from partiality of friendship, might coincide in the commendation of the funeral elogy by John Norton : Could Maro's muse but hear her lively strain, * . * * * * * Her breast was a brave palace, a broad street, The grandson, Thomas, was graduated at Harvard College in 1651, fourteen years before his uncle Joseph, and died in 1655. His will comes but a Of so few pages after that of his grandfather in our first volume of Records. distinguished descendants as the sons of the second governour, Paul, chief justice of the province, and William, speaker of the representatives, it cannot be necessary to speak. Eliot has done better than any one else will ever attempt. 1 That is, to Salem. Dudley's letter went by this ship, in which were embarked Coddington and Wilson, as well as Sharp and Saltonstall with three of his children. The two first returned soon; the others came no So many persons of distinction went in this vessel, that the court's order, of 1 March preceding, for the transportation of some unquiet spirits, I more. to the ship. This ship set sail from Salem April 1, and arrived at London (all safe) April 29.1 April.] The beginning of this month we had very much rain and warm weather. It is a general rule, that when the wind blows twelve hours in any part of the east, it brings rain or snow in great abundance. 4.] Wahginnacut, a sagamore upon the River Quonehtacut, which lies west of Naragancet, came to the governour at Boston, with John Sagamore, and Jack Straw, (an Indian, who had lived in England and had served Sir Walter Raleigh, and was now turned Indian again,) and divers of their sannops, and brought a letter to the governour from Mr. Endecott to this effect: That the said Wahginnacut was very desirous to have some Englishmen to come plant in his country, and offered to find them corn, and give them yearly eighty skins of beaver, and that the country was very fruitful, &c. and wished that there might be two men sent with him to see the country. The governour entertained them at dinner, but would send none with him. He discovered after, that the said sagamore is a very treacherous man, and at war with the Pekoath (a far greater sagamore.) His country is ||not above|| five days' journey from us by land. 12.] At a court holden at Boston, (upon information to the governour, that they of Salem had called Mr. Williams to the office of a teacher,) a letter was written from the court to Mr. Endecott to this effect: That whereas Mr. Williams had refus 66 at about imagine, could not be thoroughly executed. Mr. Aleworth, Mr. Weaver, Mr. Plastow, Mr. Shuter, Cobbet, Wormewood, Sir Chr. Gardiner and Mr. Wright, or so many of them as the ship can carry," were ordered to be sent to England "as persons unmeet to inhabit here." The knight, who caused so much uneasiness, and Plastow, are afterwards named in the Records. as present, though Hutchinson hastily gave Gardiner passage in this ship. 1 This sentence is by the governour given in the margin. 2 In opposition to this extraordinary interference, as we should now think it, of the civil power in election of a church officer, Bentley informs us, the congregation of Salem received him, on this same day, as teacher. He suc 'ceeded Higginson, the time of whose death is mistaken by that author, 1 Hist. Coll. VI. 244. Certainly it was not 15 March, 1630, unless Dudley, 1 Hist. Coll. VIII. 40, Hubbard, 120, and the Memorialist of Plimouth, are in a strange errour. Hubbard's precise date, 6 August, is probable, as it differs little, if at all, from Dudley, and is consistent with Morton. See mention of his death in a letter of our author, 9 September, 1630, in Appendix. At what time the violence of opposition, by such as had no real interest in the transaction, caused Williams to separate from his affectionate people, does not clearly appear; but in this History it will appear, that he was driven out of the jurisdiction, and had found refuge at Plimouth, before 25 October, 1632. ed to join with the congregation|| at Boston, because they would not make a publick declaration of their repentance for having communion with the churches of England, while they || lived there; and, besides, had declared his opinion, that the magistrate might not punish the breach of the Sabbath, nor any other offence, as it was a breach of the first 'table; therefore, they marvelled they would choose him without advising with the council; and withal desiring him, that they would forbear to proceed till they had conferred about it.2 13.] Chickatabot came to the governour, and desired to buy some English clothes for himself. The governour told him, that English sagamores did not use to truck; but he called his tailor and gave him order to make him a suit of clothes; 1 All, who are inclined to separate that connexion of secular concerns with the duties of religion, to which most governments, in all countries, have been too much disposed, will think this opinion of Roger Williams redounds to his praise. The laws of the first table, or the four commandments of the decalogue first in order, should be rather impressed by early education than by penal enactments of the legislature; and the experience of Rhode Island and other states of our Union is perhaps favourable to the sentiment of this earliest American reformer. By a restoration of the true reading in the text, the sentiment is made more distinct. Too much regulation was the errour of our fathers, who were perpetually arguing from analogies in the Levitical institutions, and encumbering themselves with the yoke of Jewish customs. 2 From the Records of the Colony, I. 71, I introduce another sentence of this court: "Thomas Walford of Charlton is fined £10, and is enjoined, he and his wife, to depart out of the limits of this patent before the 20th day of October next, under pain of confiscation of his goods, for his contempt of authority and confronting officers, &c." This severity must be regretted; for he was the first Englishman at that place, being by the Spragues (who went thither, in 1628, from Endecott's company at Salem) found there a smith; but it is not told for whom he was labouring. Prince, I. 175, from the Records of the town. Walford was, however, a valuable man at Piscataqua, being one of two trus. tees or wardens for the church property. Conf. Hubbard, 220, and 1 Hist. Coll. X. 64. In a record of the court, only a month later than that in the text, I observe, that, being fined £2, "he paid it by killing a wolf." But our rulers distrusted him; for, 3 September, 1633, “it is ordered, that the goods of Thomas Walford shall be sequestered and remain in the hands of Ancient Gennison, to satisfy the debts he owes in the bay to several persons." John Walford, probably a son of this person, was by the king named, in 1692, one of the council to Gov. Allen. Belknap's N. H. I. 193. One Jane Walford, perhaps the wife of Thomas, was, in 1656, persecuted by her neighbours as a witch, and, ten or twelve years later, recovered damages against one for calling her by that odious name. At the same court, in an action of battery by Thomas Dexter against Endecott, a jury was empanneled, and their names are given, whose verdict was £10 damages. For an account of this strange affair, see the very curious letter of the defendant, Hutchinson's Coll. 52, in which the meek ruler of Salem permits himself to say, "If it were lawful to try it at blows, and he a fit man for me to deal with, you should not hear me complain." whereupon he gave the governour two large skins of coat beaver, and, after he and his men had dined, they departed, and said he would come again three days after for his suit. 14.] *We began a court of guard upon the neck between Roxbury and Boston, whereupon should be always resident an officer and six men.* An order was made §last court,§ that no man should discharge a piece after sunset, except by occasion of alarm. 15.] Chickatabot came to the governour again, and he put him into a very good new suit from head to foot, and after he set meat before them; but he would not eat till the governour had given thanks, and after meat he desired him to do the like, and so departed. 21.] The house of John 'Page of Watertown was burnt by carrying a few coals from one house to another: a coal fell by the way and kindled in the leaves. One *Mr. Gardiner, (calling himself* Sir Christopher Gar 1 John Page is among the first freemen, admitted at the general court of all the company next month, when the number was 118, not 110, as Johnson, lib. I. c. 17, has it. He fell into another errour, in mistaking the desire to become freemen, expressed at the court in October preceding, for the admission. From Prince, II. 29, who makes only 116 take the oath of freemen, the reason of my differing is, that I count, in the original Record of the Colony, two more names, viz. Robert Coles and Thomas Dexter, which indeed were afterwards erased, but it is evident that they could not have been inserted by the secretary, unless justly entitled to the place. Besides, there is the old enumeration of the three columns of names, 44, 40 and 34, to make up my reckoning. We know, that Dexter was disfranchised some years after, and Coles probably was. Of Page, I know only what is given in the fine letter of Rogers on p. 47; that he was of Dedham in Old England, and had, on coming over, a wife and two children; and, from the Colony Records, that, at the first general court, in October, 1630, held at Boston, he was made constable of Watertown ; and, from the Watertown Records of Births, "Daniel, the son of John and Phebe Page, born 10 August, 1634." 2 I apprehend, that the original cause of dislike to Sir Chr. Gardiner by our colonists, or of his enmity to the company, must be forever left to uncertain conjecture. He arrived, probably, in 1630, but at which plantation, or in what vessel, our early writers leave us uninformed. ،، Some miscarriages, for which he should have answered," is the doubtful phrase, in which Morton assigns the reason of his flight from Massachusetts; and Hubbard, 149–153, who does some service by correcting the chronology of the Plimouth historian, has enlarged his slender narrative only by an humble sarcasm. The accusation mentioned in the text should have been supported by a warrant from England to arrest the culprit; but as no such legal cause of imprisonment is noted, and he seems to have escaped, on returning to England, any suspicion or even inquiry, we may safely conclude, that Gardiner's disaffection to the worship of our churches first rendered him obnoxious to the charge of popery, for which the evidence afterwards appeared sufficient. The letter of Winthrop to Bradford, 5 May, the day after the prisoner's arrival, preserved diner, knight of the golden ||melice,) being accused to have two wives in England, was sent for; but he had intelligence, and escaped, and travelled up and down among the Indians about a 2month; but, by means of the governour of Plimouth, he was taken §by the Indians§ about 1Ñamasket, and brought to Pli mouth, and from thence he was brought, by Capt. Underhill and his Lieut. 3Dudley, May 4, to Boston. 16.] There was an alarm given to all our towns in the night, by occasion of a piece which was shot off, (but where could not be known,) and the Indians having sent us word the day before, that the Mohawks were coming down against them and us. 417.] A general court at Boston. The former governour was chosen again, and all the freemen of the commons were sworn to this government. At noon, Cheeseborough's house was burnt down, all the people being present. in Prince, II. 27, was composed in a temper, the mildness of which scarcely comports with the writer's belief of the misconduct imputed to the knight by the later historian. 1 This name belonged to part of the tract, now included in Middleborough; but the lines of Indian geography were probably not very precise, or are forgotten. 2 Of John Underhill, his errours, fanaticism and hypocrisy, sufficient notice will be found in subsequent pages, and in most of the early histories of our country; but all, I think, derived from this work. He was early a member of our Boston church, being No. 57, and one of the first deputies in the general court. After removal from Massachusetts to Piscataqua, where he staid not long, he was living in good repute at New Haven colony, as is proved by his election as a representative from Stamford in 1643, Trumbull, I. 124, and by Gov. Welles's letter, eleven years later, in Hutchinson's Coll. 253. In 1655 he dwelt on Long Island, as appears in Haz. I. 341. 4 Prince, II. 28, remarks the errour of this date. The court was held on 18th. 5 William Cheeseborough, or Cheesbrough, was one of the earliest members of Boston church, and in 1634 chosen constable of the town. He moved soon after to Mount Wollaston, where he lived several years, and had a considerable estate. His character is known, by being one of the two appointed for Boston, to unite with committees from other towns in advising the governour and council about raising a publick stock, as hereafter mentioned in this History, May, 1632. That measure, as Prince supposed, was, undoubtedly, the natural introduction of a house of represen tatives. In October, 1640, he was deputy for Braintree, and is, I presume, |