CHAPTER III.
THE VOYAGE.
It is perhaps the fault of the seventeenth century and its firm belief that a woman's office was simply to wait such action as man might choose to take, that no woman's record remains of the long voyage or the first impressions of the new country.
For the most of them writing was by no means a familiar task, but this could not be said of the women on board the Arbella, who had known the highest cultivation that the time afforded. But poor Anne Bradstreet's young "heart rose," to such a height that utterance may have been quite stifled, and as her own family were all with her, there was less need of any chronicle.
For all details, therefore, we are forced to depend on the journal kept by Governor Winthrop, who busied himself not only with this, making the first entry on that Easter Monday which found them riding at anchor at Cowes, but with another quite as characteristic piece of work. A crowded storm-tossed ship, is hardly a point to which one looks for any sustained or fine literary composition, but the little treatise, "A Model of Christian Charity," the fruit of long and silent musing on the new life awaiting them, holds the highest thought of the best among them, and was undoubtedly read with the profoundest feeling and admiration, as it took shape in the author's hands. There were indications even in the first fervor of the embarkation, that even here some among them thought "every man upon his own," while greater need of unselfishness and self-renunciation had never been before a people. "Only by mutual love and help," and "a grand, patient, self-denial," was there the slightest hope of meeting the demands bound up with the new conditions, and Winthrop wrote—"We must be knit together in this work as one man. We must entertain each other in brotherly affection. We must be willing to abridge ourselves of our superfluities for the supply of others' necessities. We must uphold a familiar commerce together, in all meekness, gentleness, patience and liberality. We must delight in each other; make others' conditions our own; rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes, our commission and community in the work as members of the same body."
A portion of this body were as closely united as if forming but one family. The lady Arbella, in compliment to whom the ship, which had been first known as The Eagle, had been re-christened, had married Mr. Isaac Johnson, one of the wealthiest members of the party. She was a sister of the Earl of Lincoln who had come to the title in 1619, and whose family had a more intimate connection with the New England settlements than that of any other English nobleman. Her sister Susan had become the wife of John Humfrey, another member of the company, and the close friendship between them and the Dudleys made it practically a family party. Anne Bradstreet had grown up with both sisters, and all occupied themselves in such ways as their cramped quarters would allow. Space was of the narrowest, and if the Governor and his deputies indulged themselves in spreading out papers, there would be small room for less important members of the expedition. But each had the little Geneva Bible carried by every Puritan, and read it with a concentrated eagerness born of the sense that they had just escaped its entire loss, and there were perpetual religious exercises of all varieties, with other more secular ones recorded in the Journal. In the beginning there had been some expectation that several other ships would form part of the expedition, but they were still not in sailing order and thus the first entry records "It was agreed, (it being uncertain when the rest of the fleet would be ready) these four ships should consort together; the Arbella to be Admiral, the Talbot Vice-Admiral, the Ambrose Rear-Admiral, and the Jewel a Captain; and accordingly articles of consortship were drawn between the said captains and masters."
The first week was one of small progress, for contrary winds drove them back persistently and they at last cast anchor before Yarmouth, and with the feeling that some Jonah might be in their midst ordered a fast for Friday, the 2d of April, at which time certain light-minded "landmen, pierced a runlet of strong water, and stole some of it, for which we laid them in bolts all the night, and the next morning the principal was openly whipped, and both kept with bread and water that day."
Nothing further happened till Monday, when excitement was afforded for the younger members of the party at least, as "A maid of Sir Robert Saltonstall fell down at the grating by the cook-room, but the carpenter's man, who unwittingly, occasioned her fall caught hold of her with incredible nimbleness, and saved her; otherwise she had fallen into the hold."
Tuesday, finding that the wind was still against them, the captain drilled the landmen with their muskets, "and such as were good shot among them were enrolled to serve in the ship if occasion should be"; while the smell of powder and the desire, perhaps, for one more hour on English soil, made the occasion for another item: "The lady Arbella and the gentlewomen, and Mr. Johnson and some others went on shore to refresh themselves."
The refreshment was needed even then. Anne Bradstreet was still extremely delicate, never having fully recovered from the effects of the small-pox, and the Lady Arbella's health must have been so also, as it failed steadily through the voyage, giving the sorest anxiety to her husband and every friend on board.
It is evident from an entry in Anne Bradstreet's diary after reaching New England that even the excitement of change and the hope common to all of a happy future, was not strong enough to keep down the despondency which came in part undoubtedly from her weak health. The diary is not her own thoughts or impressions of the new life, but simply bits of religious experience; an autobiography of the phase with which we could most easily dispense. "After a short time I changed my condition and was married, and came into this country, where I found a new world and new manners at which my heart rose. But after I was convinced it was the will of God I submitted to it and joined to the church at Boston."
This rebellion must have been from the beginning, for every inch of English soil was dear to her, but she concealed it so thoroughly, that no one suspected the real grief which she looked upon as rebellion to the will of God. Conservative in thought and training, and with the sense of humor which might have lightened some phases of the new dispensation, almost destroyed by the Puritan faith, which more and more altered the proportions of things, making life only a grim battle with evil, and the days doings of absolute unimportance save as they advanced one toward heaven, she accepted discomfort or hardship with quiet patience.
There must have been unfailing interest, too, in the perpetual chances and changes of the perilous voyage. They had weighed anchor finally on the 8th of April, and were well under way on the morning of the 9th, when their journey seemed suddenly likely to end then and there. The war between Spain and England was still going on, and privateers known as Dunkirkers, were lying in wait before every English harbor. Thus there was reason enough for apprehension, when, "In the morning we descried from the top, eight sail astern of us…. We supposing they might be Dunkirkers, our captain caused the gun room and gun deck to be cleared; all the hammocks were taken down, our ordnance loaded, and our powder chests and fireworks made ready, and our landmen quartered among the seamen, and twenty-five of them appointed for muskets, and every man written down for his quarter.
"The wind continued N. with fair weather, and after noon it calmed, and we still saw those eight ships to stand towards us; having more wind than we, they came up apace, so as our captain and the masters of our consorts were more occasioned to think they might be Dunkirkers, (for we were told at Yarmouth, that there were ten sail of them waiting for us); whereupon we all prepared to fight with them, and took down some cabins which were in the way of our ordnance, and out of every ship were thrown such bed matters as were subject to take fire, and we heaved out our long boats and put up our waste cloths, and drew forth our men and armed them with muskets and other weapons, and instruments for fireworks; and for an experiment our captain shot a ball of wild fire fastened to an arrow out of a cross bow, which burnt in the water a good time. The lady Arbella and the other women and children, were removed into the lower deck, that they might be out of danger. All things being thus fitted, we went to prayer upon the upper deck. It was much to see how cheerful and comfortable all the company appeared; not a woman or child that shewed fear, though all did apprehend the danger to have been great, if things had proved as might well be expected, for there had been eight against four, and the least of the enemy's ships were reported to carry thirty brass pieces; but our trust was in the Lord of Hosts; and the courage of our captain, and his care and diligence did much to encourage us.
"It was now about one of the clock, and the fleet seemed to be within a league of us; therefore our captain, because he would show he was not afraid of them, and that he might see the issue before night should overtake us, tacked about and stood to meet them, and when we came near we perceived them to be our friends— the little Neptune, a ship of some twenty pieces of ordnance, and her two consorts, bound for the Straits, a ship of Flushing, and a Frenchman and three other English ships bound for Canada and Newfoundland. So when we drew near, every ship (as they met) saluted each other, and the musketeers discharged their small shot, and so (God be praised) our fear and danger was turned into mirth and friendly entertainment. Our danger being thus over, we espied two boats on fishing in the channel; so every one of our four ships manned out a skiff, and we bought of them great store of excellent fresh fish of divers sorts."
It is an astonishing fact, that no line in Anne Bradstreet's poems has any reference to this experience which held every alternation of hope and fear, and which must have moved them beyond any other happening of the long voyage. But, inward states, then as afterward, were the only facts that seemed worthy of expression, so far as she personally was concerned, and they were all keyed to a pitch which made danger even welcome, as a test of endurance and genuine purpose. But we can fancy the dismay of every house-wife as the limited supply of "bed matters," went the way of many other things "subject to take fire." Necessarily the household goods of each had been reduced to the very lowest terms, and as the precious rugs and blankets sunk slowly, or for a time defied the waves and were tossed from crest to crest, we may be sure that the heart of every woman, in the end at least, desired sorely that rescue might be attempted. Sheets had been dispensed with, to avoid the accumulation of soiled linen, for the washing of which no facilities could be provided, and Winthrop wrote of his boys to his wife in one of his last letters, written as they rode at anchor before Cowes, "They lie both with me, and sleep as soundly in a rug (for we use no sheets here) as ever they did at Groton; and so I do myself, (I praise God)."
Among minor trials this was not the least, for the comfort we associate with English homes, had developed, under the Puritan love of home, to a degree that even in the best days of the Elizabethan time was utterly unknown. The faith which demanded absolute purity of life, included the beginning of that cleanliness which is "next to godliness," if not an inherent part of godliness itself, and fine linen on bed and table had become more and more a necessity. The dainty, exquisite neatness that in the past has been inseparable from the idea of New England, began with these Puritan dames, who set their floating home in such order as they could, and who seized the last opportunity at Yarmouth of going on shore, not only for refreshment, but to wash neckbands and other small adornments, which waited two months for any further treatment of this nature.
There were many resources, not only in needlework and the necessary routine of each day, but in each other. The two daughters of Sir Robert Saltonstall, Mrs. Phillips the minister's wife, the wives of Nowell, Coddington and others made up the group of gentlewomen who dined with Lady Arbella in "the great cabin," the greatness of which will be realized when the reader reflects that the ship was but three hundred and fifty tons burden and could carry aside from the fifty or so sailors, but thirty passengers, among whom were numbered various discreet and reputable "young gentlemen" who, as Winthrop wrote, "behave themselves well, and are conformable to all good orders," one or two of whom so utilized their leisure that the landing found them ready for the marriage bells that even Puritan asceticism still allowed to be rung.
Disaster waited upon them, even when fairly under way. Winthrop, whose family affection was intense, and whose only solace in parting with his wife had been, that a greatly loved older son, as well as two younger ones were his companions, had a sore disappointment, entered in the journal, with little comment on its personal bearings. "The day we set sail from Cowes, my son Henry Winthrop went on shore with one of my servants, to fetch an ox and ten wethers, which he had provided for our ship, and there went on shore with him Mr. Pelham and one of his servants. They sent the cattle aboard, but returned not themselves. About three days after my servant and a servant of Mr. Pelham's came to us in Yarmouth, and told us they were all coming to us in a boat the day before, but the wind was so strong against them as they were forced on shore in the night, and the two servants came to Yarmouth by land, and so came on shipboard, but my son and Mr. Pelham (we heard) went back to the Cowes and so to Hampton. We expected them three or four days after, but they came not to us, so we have left them behind, and suppose they will come after in Mr. Goffe's ships. We were very sorry they had put themselves upon such inconvenience when they were so well accommodated in our ship."
A fresh gale on the day of this entry encouraged them all; they passed the perils of Scilly and looked for no further delay when a fresh annoyance was encountered which, for the moment, held for the women at least, something of the terror of their meeting with supposed "Dunkirkers."
"About eight in the morning, … standing to the W. S. W. we met two small ships, which falling in among us, and the Admiral coming under our lee, we let him pass, but the Jewel and Ambrose, perceiving the other to be a Brazilman, and to take the wind of us, shot at them, and made them stop and fall after us, and sent a skiff aboard them to know what they were. Our captain, fearing lest some mistake might arise, and lest they should take them for enemies which were friends, and so, through the unruliness of the mariners some wrong might be done them, caused his skiff to be heaved out, and sent Mr. Graves, one of his mates and our pilot (a discreet man) to see how things were, who returned soon after, and brought with him the master of one of the ships, and Mr. Lowe and Mr. Hurlston. When they were come aboard to us, they agreed to send for the captain, who came and showed his commission from the Prince of Orange. In conclusion he proved to be a Dutchmen, and his a man of war from Flushing, and the other ship was a prize he had taken, laden with sugar and tobacco; so we sent them aboard their ships again, and held on our course. In this time (which hindered us five or six leagues) the Jewel and the Ambrose came foul of each other, so as we much feared the issue, but, through God's mercy, they came well off again, only the Jewel had her foresail torn, and one of her anchors broken. This occasion and the sickness of our minister and people, put us all out of order this day, so as we could have no sermons."
No words hold greater force of discomfort and deprivation than that one line, "so as we could have no sermons," for the capacity for this form of "temperate entertainment," had increased in such ratio, that the people sat spell bound, four hours at a stretch, both hearers and speaker being equally absorbed. Winthrop had written of himself at eighteen, in his "Christain Experience": "I had an insatiable thirst after the word of God; and could not misse a good sermon, though many miles off, especially of such as did search deep into the conscience," and to miss this refreshment even for a day, seemed just so much loss of the needed spiritual food.
But the wind, which blew "a stiffe gale," had no respect of persons, and all were groaning together till the afternoon of the next day, when a device occurred to some inventive mind, possibly that of Mistress Bradstreet herself, which was immediately carried out. "Our children and others that were sick and lay groaning in the cabins, we fetched out, and having stretched a rope from the steerage to the main mast, we made them stand, some of one side and some of the other, and sway it up and down till they were warm, and by this means they soon grew well and merry."
The plan worked well, and three days later, when the wind which had quieted somewhat, again blew a "stiffe gale," he was able to write: "This day the ship heaved and set more than before, yet we had but few sick, and of these such as came up upon the deck and stirred themselves, were presently well again; therefore our captain set our children and young men, to some harmless exercises, which the seamen were very active in, and did our people much good, though they would sometimes play the wags with them."
Wind and rain, rising often till the one was a gale and the other torrents, gave them small rest in that first week. The fish they had secured at Yarmouth returned to their own element, Winthrop mourning them as he wrote: "The storm was so great as it split our foresail and tore it in pieces, and a knot of the sea washed our tub overboard, wherein our fish was a-watering." The children had become good sailers, and only those were sick, who, like "the women kept under hatches." The suffering from cold was constant, and for a fortnight extreme, the Journal reading: "I wish, therefore, that all such as shall pass this way in the spring have care to provide warm clothing; for nothing breeds more trouble and danger of sickness, in this season, than cold."
From day to day the little fleet exchanged signals, and now and then, when calm enough the masters of the various ships dined in the round-house of the Arbella, and exchanged news, as that, "all their people were in health, but one of their cows was dead." Two ships in the distance on the 24th of April, disturbed them for a time, but they proved to be friends, who saluted and "conferred together so long, till his Vice Admiral was becalmed by our sails, and we were foul one of another, but there being little wind and the sea calm, we kept them asunder with oars, etc., till they heaved out their boat, and so towed their ship away. They told us for certain, that the king of France had set out six of his own ships to recover the fort from them."
Here was matter for talk among the travellers, whose interest in all that touched their future heightened day by day, and the item, with its troublous implications may have been the foundation of one of the numerous fasts recorded.
May brought no suggestion of any quiet, though three weeks out, they had made but three hundred leagues, and the month opened with "a very great tempest all the night, with fierce showers of rain intermixed, and very cold…. Yet through God's mercy, we were very comfortable and few or none sick, but had opportunity to keep the Sabbath, and Mr. Phillips preached twice that day."
Discipline was of the sharpest, the Puritan temper brooking no infractions of law and order. There were uneasy and turbulent spirits both among the crew and passengers, and in the beginning swift judgment fell upon two young men, who, "falling at odds and fighting, contrary to the orders which we had published and set up in the ship, were adjudged to walk upon the deck till night, with their hands bound behind them, which accordingly was executed; and another man for using contemptuous speeches in our presence, was laid in bolts till he submitted himself and promised open confession of his offence."
Impressive as this undoubtedly proved to the "children and youth thereby admonished," a still greater sensation was felt among them on the discovery that "a servant of one of our company had bargained with a child to sell him a box worth three-pence for three biscuits a day all the voyage, and had received about forty and had sold them and many more to some other servants. We caused his hands to be tied up to a bar, and hanged a basket with stones about his neck, and so he stood two hours."
Other fights are recorded, the cause a very evident one. "We observed it a common fault in our young people that they gave themselves to drink hot waters very immoderately."
Brandy then as now was looked upon as a specific for sea-sickness, and "a maid servant in the ship, being stomach sick, drank so much strong water, that she was senseless, and had near killed herself."
The constant cold and rain, the monotonous food, which before port was reached had occasioned many cases of scurvy and reduced the strength of all, was excuse enough for the occasional lapse into overindulgence which occurred, but the long penance was nearly ended. On the 8th of June Mount Mansell, now Mt. Desert, was passed, an enchanting sight for the sea-sad eyes of the travellers. A "handsome gale" drove them swiftly on, and we may know with what interest they crowded the decks and gazed upon these first glimpses of the new home. As they sailed, keeping well in to shore, and making the new features of hill and meadow and unfamiliar trees, Winthrop wrote: "We had now fair sunshine weather, and so pleasant a sweet air as did much refresh us, and there came a smell off the shore like the smell of a garden."
Peril was past, and though fitful winds still tormented them, the 12th of May saw the long imprisonment ended, and they dropped anchor "a little within the islands," in the haven where they would be.
CHAPTER IV.
BEGINNINGS.
There are travellers who insist that, as they near American shores in May or early June, the smell of corn-blossom is on the wind, miles out at sea, a delicate, distinct, penetrating odor, as thoroughly American as the clearness of the sky and the pure, fine quality in the air. The wild grape, growing as profusely to-day on the Cape as two hundred years ago, is even more powerful, the subtle, delicious fragrance making itself felt as soon as one approaches land. The "fine, fresh smell like a garden," which Winthrop notes more than once, came to them on every breeze from the blossoming land. Every charm of the short New England summer waited for them. They had not, like the first comers to that coast to disembark in the midst of ice and snow, but green hills sloped down to the sea, and wild strawberries were growing almost at high-tide mark. The profusion of flowers and berries had rejoiced Higginson in the previous year, their men rowing at once to "Ten Pound Island," and bringing back, he writes: "ripe strawberries and gooseberries and sweet single roses. Thus God was merciful to us in giving us a taste and smell of the sweet fruit, as an earnest of his bountiful goodness to welcome us at our first arrival."
But no fairness of Nature could undo the sad impression of the first hour in the little colony at Salem, where the Arbella landed, three days before her companions reached there. Their own cares would have seemed heavy enough, but the winter had been a terrible one, and Dudley wrote later in his letter to the Countess of Lincoln: "We found the Colony in a sad and unexpected condition, above eighty of them being dead the winter before; and many of those alive, weak and sick; all the corn and bread amongst them all, hardly sufficient to feed them a fortnight, insomuch that the remainder of a hundred and eighty servants we had the two years before sent over, coming to us for victuals to sustain them, we found ourselves wholly unable to feed them, by reason that the provisions shipped for them were taken out of the ship they were put in, and they who were trusted to ship them in another, failed us and left them behind; whereupon necessity enforced us, to our extreme loss, to give them all liberty, who had cost us about L16 or L20 a person, furnishing and sending over."
Salem holding only discouragement, they left it, exploring the Charles and the Mystic Rivers, and finally joining the settlement at Charlestown, to which Francis Higginson had gone the previous year, and which proved to be in nearly as desperate case as Salem. The Charlestown records as given in Young's "Chronicles of Massachusetts," tell the story of the first days of attempt at organization. The goods had all been unshipped at Salem and were not brought to Charlestown until July. In the meantime, "The Governor and several of the Patentees dwelt in the great house which was last year built in this town by Mr. Graves and the rest of their servants. The multitude set up cottages, booths and tents about the Town Hill. They had long passage; some of the ships were seventeen, some eighteen weeks a coming. Many people arrived sick of the scurvy, which also increased much after their arrival, for want of houses, and by reason of wet lodging in their cottages, etc. Other distempers also prevailed; and although [the] people were generally very loving and pitiful, yet the sickness did so prevail, that the whole were not able to tend the sick as they should be tended; upon which many perished and died, and were buried about the Town Hill."
Saddest of all among these deaths must have been that of the Lady Arbella, of whom Mather in a later day, wrote: "She came from a paradise of plenty and pleasure, in the family of a noble earldom, into a wilderness of wants, and took New England in her way to heaven." There had been doubt as to the expediency of her coming, but with the wife of another explorer she had said: "Whithersoever your fatal destiny shall drive you, either by the waves of the great ocean, or by the manifold and horrible dangers of the land, I will surely bear you company. There can no peril chance to me so terrible, nor any kind of death so cruel, that shall not be much easier for me to abide, than to live so far separate from you."
Weakened by the long voyage and its perpetual hardships, and dismayed, if may be at the sadness and privations of what they had hoped might hold immediate comfort, she could not rally, and Anne Bradstreet's first experience of New England was over the grave, in which they laid one of the closest links to childhood and that England both had loved alike.
Within a month, Winthrop wrote in his journal: "September 30. About two in the morning, Mr. Isaac Johnson died; his wife, the lady Arbella, of the house of Lincoln, being dead about one month before. He was a holy man and wise, and died in sweet peace, leaving some part of his substance to the Colony."
"He tried
To live without her, liked it not and died."
Still another tragedy had saddened them all, though in the press of overwhelming business, Winthrop wrote only: "Friday, July 2. My son Henry Winthrop drowned at Salem," and there is no other mention of himself till July 16, when he wrote the first letter to his wife from America.
The loss was a heavy one to the colony as well as the father, for Henry Winthrop, though but twenty-two, had already had experience as a pioneer, having gone out to Barbadoes at eighteen, and became one of the earliest planters in that island. Ardent, energetic, and with his fathers deep tenderness for all who depended on him, he was one who could least be spared. "A sprightly and hopeful young gentleman he was," says Hubbard, and another chronicle gives more minute details. "The very day on which he went on shore in New England, he and the principal officers of the ship, walking out to a place now called by the Salemites, Northfield, to view the Indian wigwams, they saw on the other side of the river a small canoe. He would have had one of the company swim over and fetch it, rather than walk several miles on foot, it being very hot weather; but none of the party could swim but himself; and so he plunged in, and, as he was swimming over, was taken with the cramp a few roods from the shore and drowned."
The father's letter is filled with an anguish of pity for the mother and the young wife, whose health, like that of the elder Mrs. Winthrop, had made the journey impossible for both.
"I am so overpressed with business, as I have no time for these or other mine own private occasions. I only write now that thou mayest know, that yet I live and am mindful of thee in all my affairs. The larger discourse of all things thou shalt receive from my brother Downing, which I must send by some of the last ships. We have met with many sad and discomfortable things as thou shalt hear after; and the Lord's hand hath been heavy upon myself in some very near to me. My son Henry! My son Henry! Ah, poor child! Yet it grieves me much more for my dear daughter. The Lord strengthen and comfort her heart to bear this cross patiently. I know thou wilt not be wanting to her in this distress."
Not one of the little colony was wanting in tender offices in these early days when a common suffering made them "very pitiful one to another," and as the absolutely essential business was disposed of they hastened to organize the church where free worship should make amends for all the long sorrow of its search.
A portion of the people from the Arbella had remained in Salem, but on Friday, July 3Oth, 1630, Winthrop, Dudley, Johnson and Wilson entered into a church covenant, which was signed two days after by Increase Nowell and four others—Sharpe, Bradstreet, Gager and Colborne.
It is most probable that Anne Bradstreet had been temporarily separated from her husband, as Johnson in his "Wonder-working Providence," writes, that after the arrival at Salem, "the lady Arrabella and some other godly women aboad at Salem, but their husbands continued at Charles Town, both for the settling the Civill Government and gathering another Church of Christ." The delay was a short one, for her name stands thirteenth on the list. Charlestown, however, held hardly more promise of quiet life than Salem. The water supply was, curiously enough, on a peninsula which later gave excellent water, only "a brackish spring in the sands by the water side … which could not supply half the necessities of the multitude, at which time the death of so many was concluded to be much the more occasioned by this want of good water."
Heat was another evil to the constitutions which knew only the equable English temperature, and could not face either the intense sun, or the sudden changes of the most erratic climate the earth knows. In the search for running-water, the colonists scattered, moving from point to point, "the Governor, the Deputy-Governor and all the assistants except Mr. Nowell going across the river to Boston at the invitation of Mr. Blaxton, who had until then been its only white inhabitant."
Even the best supplied among them were but scantily provided with provisions. It was too late for planting, and the colony already established was too wasted and weakened by sickness to have cared for crops in the planting season. In the long voyage "there was miserable damage and spoil of provisions by sea, and divers came not so well provided as they would, upon a report, whilst they were in England, that now there was enough in New England." Even this small store was made smaller by the folly of several who exchanged food for beaver skins, and, the Council suddenly finding that famine was imminent "hired and despatched away Mr. William Pearce with his ship of about two hundred tons, for Ireland to buy more, and in the mean time went on with their work of settling."
The last month of the year had come before they could decide where the fortified town, made necessary by Indian hostilities, should be located. The Governor's house had been partly framed at Charlestown, but with the removal to Boston it was taken down, and finally Cambridge was settled upon as the most desirable point, and their first winter was spent there. Here for the first time it was possible for Anne Bradstreet to unpack their household belongings, and seek to create some semblance of the forsaken home. But even for the Dudleys, among the richest members of the party there was a privation which shows how sharply it must have fared with the poorer portion, and Dudley wrote, nine months after their arrival, that he "thought fit to commit to memory our present condition, and what hath befallen us since our arrival here; which I will do shortly, after my usual manner, and must do rudely, having yet no table, nor other room to write in than by the fireside upon my knee, in this sharp winter; to which my family must have leave to resort, though they break good manners, and make me many times forget what I would say, and say what I would not."
No word of Mistress Dudley's remains to tell the shifts and strivings for comfort in that miserable winter which, mild as it was, had a keenness they were ill prepared to face. Petty miseries and deprivations, the least endurable of all forms of suffering, surrounded them like a cloud of stinging insects, whose attacks, however intolerable at the moment, are forgotten with the passing, and either for this reason, or from deliberate purpose, there is not a line of reference to them in any of Anne Bradstreet's writings. Scarcity of food was the sorest trouble. The Charlestown records show that "people were necessitated to live upon clams and muscles and ground nuts and acorns, and these got with much difficulty in the winter-time. People were very much tried and discouraged, especially when they heard that the Governor himself had the last batch of bread in the oven."
All fared alike so far as possible, the richer and more provident distributing to the poor, and all watching eagerly for the ship sent back in July in anticipation of precisely such a crisis. Six months had passed, when, on the fifth of February, 1631, Mather records that as Winthrop stood at his door giving "the last handful of meal in the barrel unto a poor man distressed by the wolf at the door, at that instant, they spied a ship arrived at the harbor's mouth with provisions for them all." The Fast day just appointed became one of rejoicing, the first formal proclamation for Thanksgiving Day being issued, "by order of the Governour and Council, directed to all the plantations, and though the stores held little reminder of holiday time in Old England, grateful hearts did not stop to weigh differences. In any case the worst was past and early spring brought the hope of substantial comfort, for the town was 'laid out in squares, the streets intersecting each other at right-angles,' and houses were built as rapidly as their small force of carpenters could work. Bradstreet's house was at the corner of 'Brayntree' and Wood Streets, the spot now occupied by the familiar University Book- store of Messrs. Sever and Francis on Harvard Square, his plot of ground being 'aboute one rood,' and Dudley's on a lot of half an acre was but a little distance from them at the corner of the present Dunster and South Streets." Governor Winthrop's decision not to remain here, brought about some sharp correspondence between Dudley and himself, but an amicable settlement followed after a time, and though the frame of his house was removed to Boston, the town grew in spite of its loss, so swiftly that in 1633, Wood wrote of it:
"This is one of the neatest and best compacted Towns in New England, having many fair structures, with many handsome contrived streets. The inhabitants most of them are very rich and well stored with Cattell of all sorts."
Rich as they may have appeared, however, in comparison with many of the settlements about them, sickness and want were still unwelcome guests among them, so that Dudley wrote: "there is not a house where there is not one dead and in some houses many. The natural causes seem to be in the want of warm lodging and good diet, to which Englishmen are habituated at home, and in the sudden increase of heat which they endure that are landed here in summer, the salt meats at sea having prepared their bodies thereto; for those only these two last years died of fevers who landed in June and July; as those of Plymouth, who landed in winter, died of the scurvey, as did our poorer sort, whose houses and bedding kept them not sufficiently warm, nor their diet sufficiently in heart."
Thus far there were small inducements for further emigration. The tide poured in steadily, but only because worse evils were behind than semi-starvation in New England. The fairest and fullest warning was given by Dudley, whose letter holds every strait and struggle of the first year, and who wrote with the intention of counteracting the too rosy statements of Higginson and Graves: "If any come hither to plant for worldly ends that can live well at home, he commits an error, of which he will soon repent him; but if for spiritual, and that no particular obstacle hinder his removal, he may find here what may well content him, viz., materials to build, fuel to burn, ground to plant, seas and rivers to fish in, a pure air to breathe in, good water to drink till wine or beer can be made; which together with the cows, hogs and goats brought hither already, may suffice for food; for as for fowl and venison, they are dainties here as well as in England. For clothes and bedding, they must bring them with them, till time and industry produce them here. In a word, we yet enjoy little to be envied, but endure much to be pitied in the sickness and mortality of our people. And I do the more willingly use this open and plain dealing, lest other men should fall short of their expectations when they come hither, as we to our great prejudice did, by means of letters sent us from hence into England, wherein honest men, out of a desire to draw over others to them, wrote something hyperbolically of many things here. If any godly men, out of religious ends, will come over to help us in the good work we are about, I think they cannot dispose of themselves nor their estates more to God's glory and the furtherance of their own reckoning. But they must not be of the poorer sort yet, for divers years; for we have found by experience that they have hindered, not furthered the work. And for profane and debauched persons, their oversight in coming hither is wondered at, where they shall find nothing to content them."
This long quotation is given in full to show the fair temper of the man, who as time went on was slightly less in favor than in the beginning. No one questioned his devotion to the cause, or the energy with which he worked for it, but as he grew older he lost some portion of the old urbanity, exchanging it disastrously for traits which would seem to have been the result of increasing narrowness of religious faith rather than part of his real self. Savage writes of him: "a hardness in publick and ridgidity 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." That the impression was general is evident from an epitaph written upon him by Governor Belcher, who may, however, have had some personal encounter with this "rigidity," which was applied to all without fear or favor.
"Here lies Thomas Dudley, that trusty old stud,
A bargain's a bargain and must be made good."
Whatever his tendencies may have been they did not weigh heavily on his family, who delighted in his learning and devoted spirit, and whose affection was strong enough to atone for any criticism from outsiders.
Objectionable as his methods may sometimes have been—sour as his compatriots now and then are said to have found him, "the world it appears, is indebted for much of its progress, to uncomfortable and even grumpy people," and Tyler whose analysis of the Puritan character has never been surpassed, writes of them: "Even some of the best of them, perhaps, would have seemed to us rather pragmatical and disputatious persons, with all the edges and corners of their characters left sharp, with all their opinions very definitely formed, and with their habits of frank utterance quite thoroughly matured. Certainly … they do not seem to have been a company of gentle, dreamy and euphemistical saints, with a particular aptitude for martyrdom and an inordinate development of affability."
They argued incessantly, at home and abroad, and "this exacting and tenacious propensity of theirs, was not a little criticized by some who had business connections with them." Very probably Governor Belcher had been worsted in some wordy battle, always decorously conducted, but always persistent, but these minor infelicities did not affect the main purposes of life, and the settlement grew in spite of them; perhaps even, because of them, free speech being, as yet, the privilege of all, though as the answering became in time a little too free, means were taken to insure more discretion.
In the meantime Cambridge grew, and suddenly arose a complaint, which to the modern mind is preposterous. "Want of room" was the cry of every citizen and possibly with justice, as the town had been set within fixed limits and had nearly doubled in size through the addition in August, 1632, of the congregation of the Rev. Thomas Hooker at Chelmsford in the county of Essex, England, who had fallen under Laud's displeasure, and escaped with difficulty, being pursued by the officers of the High Commission from one county to another, and barely eluding them when he took ship for New England.
One would have thought the wilderness at their doors afforded sense of room enough, and that numbers would have been a welcome change, but the complaint was serious enough to warrant their sending out men to Ipswich with a view of settling there. Then for a time the question dropped, much to the satisfaction, no doubt, of Mistress Dudley and her daughter, to whom in 1633, or '34, the date being uncertain, came her first child, the son Samuel, who graduated at Harvard College in 1653, and of whom she wrote long after in the little diary of "Religious Experiences":
"It pleased God to keep me a long time without a child, which was a great greif to me, and cost mee many prayers and tears before I obtained one, and after him gave mee many more of whom I now take the care."
Cambridge still insisting that it had not room enough, the town was enlarged, but having accomplished this, both Dudley and Bradstreet left it for Ipswich, the first suggestion of which had been made in January, 1632, when news came to them that "the French had bought the Scottish plantation near Cape Sable, and that the fort and all the amunition were delivered to them, and that the cardinal, having the managing thereof, had sent many companies already, and preparation was made to send many more the next year, and divers priests and Jesuits among them—-called the assistants to Boston, and the ministers and captains, and some other chief men, to advise what was fit to be done for our safety, in regard the French were like to prove ill neighbors, (being Papists)."
Another change was in store for the patient women who followed the path laid open before them, with no thought of opposition, desiring only "room for such life as should in the ende return them heaven for an home that passeth not away," and with the record in Winthrop's journal, came the familiar discussion as to methods, and the decision which speedily followed.
Dudley and Bradstreet as "assistants" both had voice in the conclusions of the meeting, the record of which has just been given, though with no idea, probably, at that time, that their own movements would be affected. It was settled at once that "a plantation and a fort should be begun at Natascott, partly to be some block in an enemy's way (though it could not bar his entrance), and especially to prevent an enemy from taking that passage from us…. Also, that a plantation be begun at Agawam (being the best place in the land for tillage and cattle), least an enemy, finding it void should possess and take it from us. The governor's son (being one of the assistants) was to undertake this, and to take no more out of the bay than twelve men; the rest to be supplied, at the coming of the next ships."
That they were not essential to Cambridge, but absolutely so at this weak point was plain to both Dudley and Bradstreet, who forthwith made ready for the change accomplished in 1634, when at least one other child, Dorothy, had come to Anne Bradstreet. Health, always delicate and always fluctuating, was affected more seriously than usual at this time, no date being given, but the period extending over several years, "After some time, I fell into a lingering sickness like a consumption, together with a lameness, which correction I saw the Lord sent to humble and try me and do me Good: and it was not altogether ineffectual."
Patient soul! There were better days coming, but, self-distrust was, after her affections, her strongest point, and there is small hint of inward poise or calmness till years had passed, though she faced each change with the quiet dauntlessness that was part of her birthright. But the tragedy of their early days in the colony still shadowed her. Evidently no natural voice was allowed to speak in her, and the first poem of which we have record is as destitude of any poetic flavor, as if designed for the Bay Psalm- book. As the first, however, it demands place, if only to show from what she afterward escaped. That she preserved it simply as a record of a mental state, is evident from the fact, that it was never included in any edition of her poems, it having been found among her papers after her death.
UPON A FIT OF SICKNESS, Anno. 1632.
Aetatis suce, 19.
Twice ten years old not fully told since
nature gave me breath,
My race is run, my thread is spun, lo! here
is fatal Death.
All men must dye, and so must I, this cannot
be revoked,
For Adam's sake, this word God spake, when he
so high provoke'd.
Yet live I shall, this life's but small, in
place of highest bliss,
Where I shall have all I can crave, no life is
like to this.
For what's this life but care and strife? since
first we came from womb,
Our strength doth waste, our time doth hast and
then we go to th' Tomb.
O Bubble blast, how long can'st last? that
always art a breaking,
No sooner blown, but dead and gone ev'n as a
word that's speaking,
O whil'st I live this grace me give, I doing good
may be,
Then death's arrest I shall count best because
it's thy degree.
Bestow much cost, there's nothing lost to make
Salvation sure,
O great's the gain, though got with pain, comes
by profession pure.
The race is run, the field is won, the victory's
mine, I see,
For ever know thou envious foe the foyle belongs
to thee.
This is simply very pious and unexceptionable doggerel and no one would admit such fact more quickly than Mistress Anne herself, who laid it away in after days in her drawer, with a smile at the metre and a sigh for the miserable time it chronicled. There were many of them, for among the same papers is a shorter burst of trouble:
UPON SOME DISTEMPER OF BODY.
In anguish of my heart repleat with woes,
And wasting pains, which best my body knows,
In tossing slumbers on my wakeful bed,
Bedrencht with tears that flow from mournful head,
Till nature had exhausted all her store,
Then eyes lay dry disabled to weep more;
And looking up unto his Throne on high,
Who sendeth help to those in misery;
He chas'd away those clouds and let me see,
My Anchor cast i' th' vale with safety,
He eas'd my soul of woe, my flesh of pain,
And brought me to the shore from troubled Main.
The same brooding and saddened spirit is found in some verses of the same period and written probably just before the birth of her third child, the latter part containing a touch of jealous apprehension that has been the portion of many a young mother, and that indicates more of human passion than could be inferred from anything in her first attempt at verse.
All things within this fading world hath end,
Adversity doth still our joys attend;
No tyes so strong, no friends so dear and sweet
But with death's parting blow is sure to meet.
The sentence past is most irrevocable
A common thing, yet oh, inevitable;
How soon, my Dear, death may my steps attend,
How soon 't may be thy Lot to lose thy friend!
We both are ignorant, yet love bids me
These farewell lines to recommend to thee,
That when that knot's untyed that made us one,
I may seem thine, who in effect am none.
And if I see not half my dayes that's due,
What nature would, God grant to yours and you;
The many faults that well you know I have,
Let be interred in my oblivious grave;
If any worth or virtue were in me,
Let that live freshly in thy memory,
And when thou feel'st no grief as I no harms,
Yet love thy dead, who long lay in thine arms:
And when thy loss shall be repaid with gains
Look to my little babes my dear remains,
And if thou love thyself, or loved'st me,
These O protect from step-Dames injury.
And if chance to thine eyes shall bring this verse,
With some sad sighs honor my absent Herse;
And kiss this paper for thy love's dear sake
Who with salt tears this last farewell did take.
—A. B.
CHAPTER V.
OLD FRIENDS AND NEW.
In spite of the fits of depression evident in most of the quotations thus far given, there were many alleviations, as life settled into more tolerable conditions, and one chief one was now very near. Probably no event in the first years of Anne Bradstreet's life in the little colony had as much significance for her as the arrival at Boston in 1633, of the Rev. John Cotton, her father's friend, and one of the strongest influences in the lives of both English and American Puritans. She was still living in Cambridge and very probably made one of the party who went in from there to hear his first sermon before the Boston church. He had escaped from England with the utmost difficulty, the time of freedom allowed him by King James who admired his learning, having ended so thoroughly that he was hunted like an escaped convict. Fearless and almost reckless, the Colonial ministers wondered at his boldness, a brother of Nathaniel Ward saying as he and some friends "spake merrily" together: "Of all men in the world, I envy Mr. Cotton of Boston, most; for he doth nothing in way of conformity, and yet hath his liberty, and I do everything in that way and cannot enjoy mine."
The child born on the stormy passage over, and who in good time became Anne Bradstreet's son-in-law, marrying her daughter Dorothy in 1654, appeared with the father and mother at the first public service after his arrival, and before it was positively decided that he should remain in Boston. The baptism, contrary to the usual custom of having it take place, not later than ten days after birth, had been delayed, and Winthrop gives a characteristic picture of the scene: "The Lord's day following, he (Mr. Cotton) exercised in the afternoon, and being to be admitted, he signified his desire and readiness to make his confession according to order, which he said might be sufficient in declaring his faith about baptism (which he then desired for their child, born in their passage, and therefore named Seaborn). He gave two reasons why he did not baptize it at sea (not for want of fresh water, for he held sea-water would have served): 1st, because they had no settled congregation there; 2d, because a minister hath no power to give the seals, but in his own congregation."
Some slight question, as to whether Boston alone, or the colony at large should be taxed for his support was settled with little difficulty, and on Sept. 10, another gathering from all the neighboring towns, witnessed his induction into the new church a ceremony of peculiar solemnity, preceded by a fast, and followed by such feasting as the still narrow stores of the people admitted.
No one can estimate the importance of this occasion, who does not realize what a minister meant in those first days, when the sermon held for the majority the sole opportunity of intellectual stimulus as well as spiritual growth. The coming of John Cotton to Boston, was much as if Phillips Brooks should bestow himself upon the remotest English settlement in Australia, or a missionary station in northern Minnesota, and a ripple of excitement ran through the whole community. It meant keener political as well as religious life, for the two went side by side. Mather wrote later of New England: "It is a country whose interests were most remarkably and generally enwrapped in its ecclesiastical circumstances," and he added: "The gospel has evidently been the making of our towns."
It was the deacons and elders who ruled public affairs, always under direction of well-nigh supreme authority vested in the minister. There was reason for such faith in them. "The objects of much public deference were not unaware of their authority; they seldom abused it; they never forgot it. If ever men, for real worth and greatness, deserved such pre-eminence, they did; they had wisdom, great learning, great force of will, devout consecration, philanthropy, purity of life. For once in the history of the world, the sovereign places were filled by the sovereign men. They bore themselves with the air of leaderships; they had the port of philosophers, noblemen and kings. The writings of our earliest times are full of reference to the majesty of their looks, the awe inspired by their presence, the grandeur and power of their words."
New England surely owes something of her gift of "ready and commanding speech," to these early talkers, who put their whole intellectual force into a sermon, and who thought nothing of a prayer lasting for two hours and a sermon for three or even four. Nathaniel Ward, whose caustic wit spared neither himself nor the most reverend among his brethren, wrote in his "Simple Cobbler": "We have a strong weakness in New England, that when we are speaking, we know not how to conclude. We make many ends, before we make an end…. We cannot help it, though we can; which is the arch infirmity in all morality. We are so near the west pole, that our longitudes are as long as any wise man would wish and somewhat longer. I scarce know any adage more grateful than 'Grata brevitas'."
Mr. Cotton was no exception to this rule, but his hearers would not have had him shorter. It was, however, the personality of the man that carried weight and nothing that he has left for a mocking generation to wonder over gives slightest hint of reason for the spell he cast over congregations, under the cathedral towers, or in the simple meeting house in the new Boston. The one man alive, who, perhaps, has gone through his works conscientiously and hopefully, Moses Coit Tyler, writes of John Cotton's works: "These are indeed clear and cogent in reasoning; the language is well enough, but that is all. There are almost no remarkable merits in thought or style. One wanders through these vast tracts and jungles of Puritanic discourse—exposition, exhortation, logic- chopping, theological hair-splitting—and is unrewarded by a single passage of eminent force or beauty, uncheered even by the felicity of a new epithet in the objurgation of sinners, or a new tint in the landscape-painting of hell."
Hubbard wrote, while he still lived: "Mr. Cotton had such an insinuating and melting way in his preaching, that he would usually carry his very adversary captive, after the triumphant chariot of his rhetoric," but "the chariot of his rhetoric ceased to be triumphant when the master himself ceased to drive it," and we shall never know the spell of his genius. For one who had shown himself so uncompromising in action where his own beliefs were concerned, he was singularly gentle and humble. Followed from his church one day, by a specially sour and peevish fanatic, who announced to him with a frown that his ministry had become dark and flat, he replied:
"Both, brother—it may be both; let me have your prayers that it may be otherwise."
Such a nature would never revolt against the system of spiritual cross-questioning that belonged to every church, and it is easy to see how his hold on his congregation was never lost, even at the stormiest episode in his New England career.
The people flocked to hear him, and until the removal to Ipswich, there is no doubt that Anne Bradstreet and her husband met him often, and that he had his share in confirming her faith and stimulating her thought. Dudley and he remained friends to the end, and conferred often on public as well as private matters, but there are no family details save the record of the marriage in later years, which united them all more closely, than even their common suffering had done.
Health alone, or the want of it, gave sufficient reason for at least a shadow of gloom, and there were others as substantial, for fresh changes were at hand, and various circumstances had brought her family under a general criticism against which Anne Bradstreet always revolted. Minute personal criticism was the order of the day, considered an essential in holding one another in the straight path, and the New England relish for petty detail may have had its origin in this religious gossip. As usual the first trouble would seem to have arisen from envy, though undoubtedly its originator strenuously denied any such suspicion. The houses at Cambridge had gradually been made more and more comfortable, though even in the beginning, they were the rudest of structures, the roofs covered with thatch, the fire-places generally made of rough stones and the chimneys of boards plastered with clay. To shelter was the only requisite demanded, but Dudley, who desired something more, had already come under public censure, the governor and other assistants joining in the reproach that "he did not well to bestow such cost about wainscotting and adorning his house in the beginning of a plantation, both in regard to the expense, and the example."
This may have been one of the "new customs" at which poor Anne's "heart rose, for none of the company, not even excepting the governor, had come from as stately and well-ordered a home as theirs, the old castle still testifying to the love of beauty in its ancient owners." Dudley's excuse was, however, accepted, "that it was for the warmth of his house, and the charge was but little, being but clapboards nailed to the wall in the form of wainscot."
The disagreement on this question of adornment was not the only reason why a removal to Ipswich, then known as Agawam, may have seemed desirable. Dudley, who was some thirteen years older than the Governor, and whose capacity for free speech increased with every year, had criticised sharply the former's unexpected removal to Boston, and placable as Winthrop always was, a little feeling had arisen, which must have affected both families. The first open indication of Dudley's money-loving propensities had also been made a matter of discussion, and was given "in some bargains he had made with some poor members of the same congregation, to whom he had sold seven bushels and a half of corn, to receive ten for it after harvest, which the governor and some others held to be oppressing usury."
Dudley contested the point hotly, the governor taking no "notice of these speeches, and bore them with more patience than he had done upon a like occasion at another time," but the breach had been made, and it was long before it ceased to trouble the friends of both. With all his self-sacrifice, Dudley desired leadership, and the removal to Ipswich gave him more fully the position he craved, as simply just acknowledgment of his services to the Colony, than permanent home at Cambridge could have done. Objections were urged against the removal, and after long discussion waxing hotter and hotter Dudley resigned, in a most Puritan fit of temper, leaving the council in a passion and "clapping the door behind him." Better thoughts came to all. The gentle temper of both wife and daughter quieted him, and disposed him to look favorably upon the letter in which the council refused to accept his resignation, and this was the last public occasion upon which such scandal arose. But Ipswich was a safe harbor, and life there would hold fewer thorns than seemed sown in the Cambridge surroundings, and we may feel sure, that in spite of hardships, the long-suffering Anne and her mother welcomed the change, when it had once been positively decided upon.
The most serious objection arose from the more exposed situation of Ipswich and the fact that the Indians were becoming more and more troublesome. The first year, however, passed in comparative quiet. A church was organized, sermons being the first necessity thought of for every plantation, and "Mr. Wilson, by leave of the congregation of Boston whereof he was pastor, went to Agawam to teach the people of that plantation, because they had yet no minister," to be succeeded shortly by Nathaniel Ward, a man of most intense nature and personality, who must have had marked effect on every mind brought under his influence. A worker of prodigious energy, he soon broke down, and after two years of pastorship, left Ipswich to become a few years later, one of the commission appointed to frame laws for the Colony and to write gradually one of the most distinctive books in early American literature, "The Simple Cobbler of Agawam." That he became the strong personal friend of the Bradstreet family was natural, for not only were they of the same social status, but sympathetic in many points, though Simon Bradstreets' moderation and tolerant spirit undoubtedly fretted the uncompromising Puritan whose opinions were as stiff and incisive as his way of putting them. An extensive traveller, a man of ripe culture, having been a successful lawyer before the ministry attracted him, he was the friend of Francis Bacon, of Archbishop Usher and the famous Heidelberg theologian, David Pareus. He had travelled widely and knew men and manners, and into the exhortations and expoundings of his daily life, the unfoldings of the complicated religious experience demanded of every Puritan, must have crept many a reminiscence of old days, dear to the heart of Anne Bradstreet, who, no matter what theory she deemed it best to follow, was at heart, to the end of her life a monarchist. We may know with what interest she would listen, and may fancy the small Simon and Dorothy standing near as Puritan discipline allowed, to hear tales of Prince Rupert, whom Nathaniel Ward had held as a baby in his arms, and of whom he wrote what we may be sure he had often said: "I have had him in my arms; . . . I wish I had him there now. If I mistake not, he promised then to be a good prince; but I doubt he hath forgot it. If I thought he would not be angry with me, I would pray hard to his Maker to make him a right Roundhead, a wise-hearted Palatine, a thankful man to the English; to forgive all his sins, and at length to save his soul, notwithstanding all his God-damn-me's."
Even in these early days, certain feminine pomps and vanities had emigrated with their owners, and much disconcerted the energetic preacher. Anne Bradstreet had no share in them, her gentle simplicity making her always choose the least obtrusive form of speech and action, as well as dress, but she must have smiled over the fierceness with which weaker sisters were attacked, and perhaps have sought to change the attitude of this chronic fault- finder; "a sincere, witty and valiant grumbler," but always a grumbler, to whom the fashions of the time seemed an outrage on common sense. He devotes a separate section of his book to them, and the delinquencies of women in general because they were "deficients or redundants not to be brought under any rule," and therefore not entitled to "pester better matter with such stuff," and then announces that he proposes, "for this once to borrow a little of their loose-tongued liberty, and mis-spend a word or two upon their long-waisted but short-skirted patience." "I honor the woman that can honor herself with her attire," he goes on, his wrath rising as he writes; "a good text always deserves a fair margent, but as for a woman who lives but to ape the newest court- fashions, I look at her as the very gizzard of a trifle, the product of a quarter of a cipher, the epitome of nothing; fitter to be kicked, if she were of a kickable substance, than either honored or humored. To speak moderately, I truly confess, it is beyond the ken of my understanding to conceive how those women should have any true grace or valuable virtue, that have so little wit as to disfigure themselves with such exotic garbs, as not only dismantles their native, lovely lustre, but transclouts them into gaunt bar-geese, ill-shapen, shotten shell-fish, Egyptian hieroglyphics, or at the best into French flirts of the pastry, which a proper English woman should scorn with her heels. It is no marvel they wear trails on the hinder part of their heads; having nothing it seems in the forepart but a few squirrels' brains to help them frisk from one ill-favored fashion to another…. We have about five or six of them in our colony; if I see any of them accidentally, I cannot cleanse my fancy for a month after…. If any man think I have spoken rather merrily than seriously, he is much mistaken; I have written what I write, with all the indignation I can, and no more than I ought."
Let it be remembered, that these ladies with "squirrels brains," are the "grandmothers" whose degenerate descendants we are daily accused of being. It is an old tune, but the generations have danced to it since the world began, each with a profound conviction of its newness, and their own success in following its lead. Nor was he alone in his indignation, for even in the midst of discussions on ordnance, and deep perplexities over unruly settlers, the grave elders paused, and as Winthrop records:
"At the lecture in Boston a question was propounded about veils. Mr. Cotton concluded, that where (by the custom of the place) they were not a sign of the woman's subjection, they were not commanded by the apostle. Mr. Endecott opposed, and did maintain it by the general arguments brought by the apostle. After some debate, the governor, perceiving it to grow to some earnestness, interposed, and so it brake off." Isaiah had protested, before Nathaniel Ward or the Council echoed him, but if this is the attitude the sturdy preacher held toward the women of his congregation, he must have found it well to resign his place to his successor, also a Nathaniel, Nathaniel Rogers, one of the row of "nine small children," still to be seen in the New England Primer, gazing upon the martyr, John Rogers, the famous preacher of Dedham, whose gifts of mind and soul made him a shining mark for persecution, and whose name is still honored in his descendants.
Of less aggressive and incisive nature than Nathaniel Ward, he was a man of profound learning, his son and grandson succeeding him at Ipswich, and the son, who had accompanied him from England becoming the President of Harvard College. His sympathy with Simon Bradstreet's moderate and tolerant views, at once brought them together, and undoubtedly made him occasionally a thorn in the side of Governor Dudley, who felt then, precisely the same emotions as in later life were chronicled in his one attempt at verse:
"Let men of God in Courts and Churches watch,
O'er such as do a Toleration hatch,
Lest that ill egg bring forth a cockatrice
To poison all with Heresie and Vice."
Nathaniel Rogers has left no written memorial save a tract in the interest of this most objectionable toleration, in which, while favoring liberty and reformation, he censured those who had brought false charges against the king, and as a result, was accused of being one of the king's agents in New England. Anne Bradstreet's sympathies were even more strongly with him than those of her husband, and in the quiet listening to the arguments which went on, she had rarest opportunity for that gradual accumulation of real worldly wisdom to be found in many of her "Reflections" in prose.
At present there was more room for apprehension than reflection. Indian difficulties were more and more pressing, and in Sept., 1635, the General Court had included Ipswich in the order that no dwelling-house should be more than half a mile from the meeting- house, it being impossible to guard against the danger of coming and going over longer space. The spring of 1636-7 brought still more stringent care. Watches were kept and no one allowed to travel without arms. The Pequot war was the culmination for the time, the seed of other and more atrocious conflicts to come, and whatever the judgment of to-day may be on the causes which brought such results, the terror of the settlers was a very real and well- grounded fact. As with Deerfield at a later date, they were protected from Indian assaults, only by "a rude picketted fort. Sentinels kept guard every night; even in the day time, no one left his door-steps without a musket; and neighborly communication between the houses was kept up principally by underground passages from cellar to cellar."
Mr. Daniel Dennison, who had married Anne Bradstreet's sister, was chosen captain for Ipswich and remained so for many years. As the Indians were driven out, they concentrated in and about New Hampshire, which, being a frontier colony, knew no rest from peril day and night, but it was many years before any Massachusetts settler dared move about with freedom, and the perpetual apprehension of every woman who dreaded the horrible possibilities of Indian outrage, must have gone far toward intensifying and grinding in the morbid sensitiveness which even to-day is part of the genuine New England woman's character. The grim details of expeditions against them were known to every child. The same impatience of any word in their favor was shown then, as we find it now in the far West, where their treachery and barbarity is still a part of the story of to-day, and Johnson, in his "Wonder- Working Providence," gives one or two almost incredible details of warfare against them with a Davidic exultation over the downfall of so pestilent an enemy, that is more Gothic than Christian.
"The Lord in mercy toward his poor churches, having thus destroyed these bloody, barbarous Indians, he returns his people in safety to their vessels, where they take account of their prisoners. The squaws and some young youths they brought home with them; and finding the men to be deeply guilty of the crimes they undertook the war for, they brought away only their heads."
Such retribution seemed just and right, but its effect on Puritan character was hardly softening, and was another unconscious factor in that increasing ratio of hatred against all who opposed them, whether in religious belief, or in the general administration of affairs. In these affairs every woman was interested to a degree that has had no parallel since, unless it may be, on the Southern side during our civil war. Politics and religion were one, and removal to Ipswich had not deadened the interest with which they watched and commented on every fluctuation in the stormy situation at "home," as they still called England, Cotton taking active part in all discussions as to Colonial action.
It was at this period that she wrote the poem, "A Dialogue between Old England and New," which holds the political situation at that time. Many of the allusions in the first edition, were altered in the second, for as Charles II. had then begun his reign, loyalty was a necessity, and no strictures upon kings could be allowed. The poem, which is rather a summary of political difficulties, has its own interest, as showing how thoroughly she had caught the spirit of the time, as well as from the fact that it was quoted as authority by the wisest thinkers of the day, and regarded with an awe and admiration we are hardly likely to share, as the phenomenal work of a phenomenal woman.
A DIALOGUE BETWEEN OLD ENGLAND AND NEW, CONCERNING THEIR PRESENT TROUBLES. Anno, 1642.
NEW ENGLAND.
Alas, dear Mother, fairest Queen and best,
With honour, wealth and peace happy and blest;
What ails thee hang thy head and cross thine arms?
And sit i' th' dust, to sigh these sad alarms?
What deluge of new woes thus overwhelme
The glories of thy ever famous Realme?
What means this wailing tone, this mournful guise?
Ah, tell thy daughter, she may sympathize.
OLD ENGLAND.
Art ignorant indeed of these my woes?
Or must my forced tongue my griefs disclose?
And must myself dissect my tatter'd state,
Which mazed Christendome stands wond'ring at?
And thou a child, a Limbe, and dost not feel
My fainting weakened body now to reel?
This Physick purging portion I have taken,
Will bring Consumption, or an Ague quaking,
Unless some Cordial, thou fetch from high,
Which present help may ease my malady.
If I decease, dost think thou shalt survive?
Or by my wasting state dost think to thrive?
Then weigh our case, if't be not justly sad;
Let me lament alone, while thou art glad.