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Title: The Magazine of History with Notes and Queries, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1905
Author: Various
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Magazine of History with Notes and Queries, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1905" ***
NOTES AND QUERIES, VOL. I, NO. 4, APRIL 1905 ***
VOL. I NO. 4
THE
MAGAZINE OF HISTORY
WITH
NOTES AND QUERIES
APRIL 1905
WILLIAM ABBATT
281 FOURTH AVENUE, NEW YORK
Published Monthly $5.00 a Year 50 Cents a Number
THE MAGAZINE OF HISTORY
WITH NOTES AND QUERIES
VOL. I APRIL, 1905 NO. 4
CONTENTS
PAGE
THE LEXINGTON MINUTEMAN _Frontispiece_
PROGRESS OF DISCOVERY OF THE
MISSISSIPPI RIVER (First Paper) WARREN UPHAM 195
(Sec’y Minn. Historical Society)
BETWEEN TWO FLAGS KATHERINE PRENCE 203
CIVIL WAR SKETCHES (First Paper) WALTER L.
Confederate Finance in Alabama FLEMING 214
(Prof. of History, West Va. University)
THE PATROL AT BARNEGAT (_Poem MS._) WALT WHITMAN 220
EARLY LEGISLATIVE TURMOILS IN NEW
JERSEY WILLIAM NELSON 221
(Sec’y N. J. Historical Society)
HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED POEM OF EDGAR
ALLAN POE 231
WHEN WASHINGTON CAME TO SPRINGFIELD REV. NEWTON M.
HALL 232
LEXINGTON AND CONCORD HERBERT W.
(Dr. Fisk’s Bill.) KIMBALL
(Registrar,
Mass. S. A. R.) 239
THE DEAD OF PATRIOTS’ DAY 244
THE MEMORIAL TREES AT WASHINGTON 245
ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS
Letter from Benjamin Hawkins to
Governor Caswell 248
Letter from Silas Deane to Capt.
Joseph Hynson 251
MINOR TOPICS 252
GENEALOGY 253
_Copyright, 1905, by William Abbatt_
[Illustration:
THE FOUNTAIN AT LEXINGTON WITH STATUE OF THE MINUTE MAN.
]
THE MAGAZINE OF HISTORY
WITH NOTES AND QUERIES
═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
VOL. I APRIL, 1905 NO. 4
═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
THE PROGRESS OF DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER
I
THE VOYAGE OF VESPUCCI PAST THE MOUTHS OF THE MISSISSIPPI
According to the historical researches set forth in this first paper of
a series on the discoveries and explorations of the Mississippi in
various portions of its course, the river appears to have been earliest
discovered and mapped at its mouth in a voyage of Pinzon and Solis, with
Amerigo Vespucci as astronomer and cartographer, probably in March or
April, 1498, less than six years from the first landfall of Columbus.
Twenty-one years then passed before the Mississippi was next seen in the
voyage of Pineda, in 1519, being reached by ascending a bayou from Lakes
Pontchartrain and Maurepas. In 1528 one of the mouths of the Mississippi
was seen in the forlorn last voyage of Narvaez; and in 1541 the river
was crossed far above its mouth, by the ambitious but ill-fated
expedition of De Soto, and after his death it was descended by the
survivors in boats to the Gulf. Four times within a period of
forty-three years, the Spaniards reached by sea and by land the lower
part of the Mississippi. They sought gold or silver in vain, and the
extreme disasters of the last two expeditions caused them to abandon
their purpose of planting colonies and making this region a part of New
Spain. The entire river, excepting its sources, was to be explored and
owned by others, but much later, for acquiring wealth by commerce, and
for extending the dominion of France.
More than a hundred years after De Soto, the Mississippi was
re-discovered by Europeans, this time in its upper course, when
Groseilliers and Radisson in 1655, with many Indian canoes, ascended it
from near the Wisconsin river to Prairie Island, if I have rightly
understood the narrative of Radisson; and they crossed it higher, at or
near the site of Minneapolis, in 1660, when they went to visit the
Prairie Sioux at the farthest limit of their second western expedition.
Halfway in time between De Soto and these men, a Spanish expedition
under Oñate, coming from New Mexico in 1601, probably reached the
Mississippi near the mouth of the Arkansas river; but we have only
scanty records of this exploration, which some have ascribed to the year
1662, following a fictitious narrative that would make Peñalosa the
leader.
Eighteen years after Groseilliers and Radisson’s first trip, Joliet and
Marquette navigated the Mississippi for a long distance southward from
the Wisconsin river, to the Arkansas; and again, after seven years more,
in 1680, it was navigated between the Illinois and Rum rivers by
Hennepin, and also, above the Wisconsin, by Du Luth. In 1682 La Salle
led an expedition from the Illinois to the mouth of the Mississippi, and
there proclaimed its vast drainage area to be the property of France. A
few years later, about 1685–90, Le Sueur and his relative by marriage,
Charleville, canoed from Lake Pepin far upward beyond the Falls of St.
Anthony, probably to Sandy Lake; and in the last year of the seventeenth
century, just forty-five years after Groseilliers superintended
corn-raising by the Hurons on Prairie Island, Le Sueur and a large
mining party navigated the whole extent of the Mississippi from near its
mouth to the Minnesota river, and then advanced up that stream to the
Blue Earth river.
Without seeking or suggestion by himself, the name of Amerigo Vespucci
(also commonly known, in Latin, as Americus Vespucius) was bestowed upon
the New World, of which, next after Columbus, he was the most notable
discoverer in the sense of bringing to the knowledge of Europe what he
saw in four voyages. Though not in command of these expeditions,
Vespucci was a skilled geographer, and his services as astronomer and
pilot were required to determine and chart their courses, with the newly
discovered lands. His letters of description, written to friends without
expectation of publication, were printed and proved to be of such
popular interest that they passed through many editions and
translations, leading to the adoption of the name America, after his
death, on maps and globes. It was at first applied to Brazil, which
Vespucci coasted on his second, third, and fourth voyages, and was later
extended to both North and South America. In his first voyage, with four
vessels, leaving Spain May 10, 1497, and returning October 15, 1498, he
appears to have sailed along the shores of Honduras, Yucatan, the Gulf
of Mexico, Florida, and our southeastern seaboard north to Pamlico
Sound.
Between Vespucci and Columbus a cordial and mutual friendship existed,
and the Florentine pilot had no wish nor thought of taking away from the
Genoese admiral any part of the honor and gratitude due to him. Both
sailed in the service of Spain, but Vespucci also made two voyages for
Portugal. It was a Latin book by a German geographer, Waldseemüller,
published in the little college town of St. Dié, in a valley of the
Vosges mountains in northeastern France, April 25, 1507, which first
proposed the name America for the region described by Vespucci south of
the equator. There was at that time no intention to include under it the
countries farther north discovered and explored by Columbus, Cabot, and
other navigators. Winsor and Fiske have traced very instructively the
growth of European knowledge of the New World, whereby it was finally
learned that all the coasts explored from Labrador to the strait of
Magellan are connected parts of one vast continent, on which Mercator
bestowed the single name America in 1541, twenty-nine years after
Vespucci’s death.
Succeeding generations long imputed blame to Vespucci for this
supplanting of Columbus in the name of the new continent; but either
would have scorned to wrong the other, or to falsify or exaggerate
intentionally in the narrations of their voyages. The personal honor of
Vespucci has been vindicated by the researches of Alexander Humboldt and
the Brazilian historian, Varnhagen; and the latter, in 1865 and 1869,
well ascertained that Vespucci’s first voyage, made in 1497–98,
concerning which much doubt and misunderstanding remained because of the
lack of many details in the narration, was the source of the first
mapping of Yucatan, the Gulf of Mexico, and Florida. In Vespucci’s chart
of that very early date the Mississippi river was unmistakably
delineated, with a three-mouthed delta projecting into the Gulf.
Varnhagen’s luminous researches, published between thirty and forty
years ago, were brought more fully to the attention of readers of our
English language by Hubert Howe Bancroft in 1883 (_Central America_,
vol. I, pp. 99–107), and especially by John Fiske’s work, _The Discovery
of America_, published in 1892. No official reports nor chart of
Vespucci’s first voyage, which was probably under the commandership of
Pinzon and Solis, are preserved; but two very early maps, evidently
drafted in part from the chart of that expedition, still exist, and were
essentially reproduced ten years ago by Harrisse, Winsor, and Fiske, in
their elaborate discussions of the Columbian and later discoveries.
One of these two maps was drafted in 1502 by some unknown Portuguese
cartographer for Alberto Cantino, an Italian envoy at Lisbon, and hence
is called the Cantino map. It delineated crudely the southeastern coast
of the United States from the “Rio de los Palmas” (River of
Palms)—thought by Fiske to be the Apalachicola river—eastward around
Florida and onward north to Pamlico Sound, according to my
identification. The coast bears many names of rivers, capes, etc.; and
the end of the Florida peninsula is called “C. do fim do Abrill” (Cape
of the end of April), whence it is inferred that the expedition in which
Vespucci sailed on his first voyage, whose chart supplied this part of
the Cantino map, passed through the strait separating Florida from Cuba
at the end of April, 1498. The west edge of this map is at its River of
Palms, so that it fails to give any information of the part of the Gulf
of Mexico farther west.
Comparing the Cantino map with our southeastern coast line, to determine
how far Vespucci saw it, I recognize, in their order from south to
north, Jupiter Inlet or Indian River Inlet, Cape Canaveral, the St.
John’s river (or, probably better, Cumberland Sound and St. Mary’s
river, or St. Andrew’s Sound, or the Altamaha), then Warsaw and Tybee
capes and the Savannah river, Cape Romain, the Santee river, Winyah Bay
and the Pedee river, Cape Fear, New River Inlet, Cape Lookout, the Neuse
and Pamlico rivers, and Long Shoal Point (or Sandy or Stumpy Point),
extending into the north part of Pamlico Sound. The coast is represented
as wholly trending to the north, instead of its curvature to the
northeast. Entering Pamlico Sound by Ocracoke Inlet (or whatever passage
existed near there four hundred years ago), the ships were probably
repaired for the homeward voyage at some very favorable harbor among the
many along the exceedingly irregular landward side of this sound, or at
some distance up either of its large tributary rivers. The chart failed
to note the long beach ridge of sand which forms Cape Hatteras and
separates the sound (“mar vaano”) from the ocean.
Waldseemüller, the geographer at St. Dié, drafted the second of these
maps, at some date probably after 1504 and certainly not later than
1508. It was published at Strasburg in an edition of Ptolemy in 1513,
and was entitled “Tabula Terre Nove.” From its reference to a “former
Admiral,” probably Columbus, it has been often called “the Admiral’s
map.” This bears testimony that the expedition described by Vespucci as
his first voyage passed the Mississippi and charted its mouths; for west
of the Atlantic coast and Florida, where the shores and names are
closely like the Cantino map, Waldseemüller gave a distorted outline of
the Gulf of Mexico, with a large river emptying into it by three mouths,
pushing its delta far into the gulf, in which respect the Mississippi
surpasses any other river, this being indeed the most remarkable feature
of its embouchure. I cannot doubt, therefore, that Vespucci sailed past
the Mississippi delta early in the year 1498, surveying the mouths of
the river from the masthead, or very likely entering the river and
spending some time there.
The original “Letter of Amerigo Vespucci upon the Isles newly found in
his Four Voyages” was published in facsimile pages, with English
translation, under the editorship of George Young, in Philadelphia in
1893, forming a book entitled “The Columbus Memorial,” its earlier half
being occupied by facsimiles, translations, and notes of letters by
Columbus. Only a very scanty statement was given by Vespucci concerning
the voyage from some port on the west coast of the Gulf of Mexico,
probably that of Tampico, at the mouth of the Panuco river, to “a
harbour the best in the world,” which appears to have been on Pamlico
Sound or river, whence, after repairing their vessels, the expedition
returned to Spain. Vespucci wrote of the voyage between these ports: “We
navigated along the coast, always in sight of land, until we had run 870
leagues of it, still going in the direction of the maestrale
[northwest], making in our course many halts, and holding intercourse
with many peoples; and in several places we obtained gold by barter, but
not much in quantity, for we had done enough in discovering the land and
learning that they had gold.”
According to Varnhagen and Fiske, the direction of their sailing, noted
as northwestward, referred only to the first start from the port in
Mexico, after which they continued along the irregular coast line 870
leagues. It seems to me also noteworthy that they came to this Mexican
port by a northwestward course, and so perhaps Vespucci meant only that
they went directly onward along the coast, which in that part curves
very gradually to a nearly north course. From his statements of time,
with the date indicated by the maps for passing the south end of
Florida, it is probable that the expedition was at the Mississippi river
late in March or early in April, 1498. Our history of this river, as
known to Europeans, thus extends through four centuries.
As my study of the limit of this voyage of Vespucci on the coast of the
United States, regarded thus to be at Pamlico Sound, differs somewhat
from the conclusions of either Varnhagen or Fiske, it should be remarked
further that the Pamlico region had a considerable Indian population,
with many little villages, when it was described ninety years later by
Thomas Hariot (or Harriott), a member of the unfortunate colony founded
there in 1585 on Roanoke island, under the patronage of Sir Walter
Raleigh. The Indians at first were very friendly to these colonists, as
their forbears had been (if my identification of the locality is true)
to Vespucci and his companions. The translation of this part of
Vespucci’s narrative, given by Young, is as follows:
“We found an immense number of people, who received us with much
friendliness ... the land’s people gave us very great assistance, and
continually furnished us with their victuals, so that in this port we
tasted very little of our own, which suited our game well, for the stock
of provisions which we had for our return passage was little and of
sorry kind. Where [_i. e._ there] we remained 37 days, and went many
times to their villages, where they paid us the greatest honour: and
[now] desiring to depart upon our voyage, they made complaint to us how
at certain times of the year there came from over the sea to this their
land, a race of people very cruel, and enemies of theirs, and by means
of treachery or of violence slew many of them, and ate them; and some
they made captives, and carried them away to their houses or country;
and how they could scarcely contrive to defend themselves from them,
making signs to us that [those] were an island people and lived out in
the sea about a hundred leagues away.
“And so piteously did they tell us this that we believed them, and
promised to avenge them of so much wrong, and they remained overjoyed
herewith; and many of them offered to come along with us, but we did not
wish to take them for many reasons, save that we took seven of them on
condition that they should come [_i. e._ return home] afterwards in
canoes, because we did not desire to be obliged to take them back to
their country: and they were contented, and so we departed from those
people, leaving them very friendly towards us: and having repaired our
ships, and sailing for seven days out to sea between northeast and east,
at the end of the seven days we came upon the islands, which were many,
some [of them] inhabited, and others deserted: and we anchored at one of
them, where we saw a numerous people who call it Iti: and having manned
our boats with strong crews, and [taken] three guns in each, we made for
land, where we found [assembled] about 400 men and women, and all naked
like the former [peoples].”
Hard fighting ensued. Many of the natives of the islands were killed,
and at last the Spaniards put them to flight and returned to their
ships. The next day the natives came again to renew the contest, for
which the Spaniards landed.
“After a long battle,” wrote Vespucci, describing this second day, “[in
which] many of them [were] slain, we put them [again] to flight, and
pursued them to a village, having made about 250 of them prisoners; and
we burnt the village, and returned to our ships with victory and 250
prisoners, leaving many of them dead and wounded; and of ours there were
no more than one killed, and 22 wounded, who all escaped [_i. e._
recovered], God be thanked.
“We arranged our departure, and the seven men, of whom five were
wounded, took an island canoe, and with seven prisoners that we gave
them,—four women and three men,—returned to their [own] country full of
gladness, wondering at our strength: and we thereupon made sail for
Spain, with 222 captive slaves, and reached the port of Cadiz on the 15
day of October, 1498, where we were well received and sold our slaves.”
Varnhagen, in his discussion of Vespucci’s voyages, presented arguments
to show that the Bermudas were the group of islands thus occupied by a
warlike and cannibal people, whom he supposed to have been soon
afterwards exterminated by slavers, before the discovery of these
islands by Bermudez about the year 1522, when they were uninhabited.
Bancroft and Fiske inclined to the same view. It seems to me more
probable, however, that the Bermudas, distant fully six hundred miles
from any other land, had never been peopled until they were found by
Europeans. The extreme isolation and comparatively small extent of the
Bermuda group, far out in the sea, would make it practically impossible
for the savages, with any means of navigation that they possessed, to
pass back and forth in frequent war expeditions.
Instead, I believe that the islands visited by Vespucci on the return
voyage were the northern part of the Bahama group. Without going so far
from the coast and its inlets as to incur much danger of storms, or to
completely lose the course and the reckoning in cloudy weather, canoe
expeditions from the Bahamas could come frequently, as the narrative
says, to attack the Indians in the region of Pamlico Sound. These
Indians, too, sometimes pursuing their enemies homeward, might learn the
situation of their islands, and would thus be able to pilot the way for
Vespucci’s ships. According to this view, they sailed south from Pamlico
Sound to the Bahamas. The direction of east-northeast, given in the
narrative, must be a mistake, being applicable instead for the course
taken from the Bahamas to Spain. The larger islands of this very
extensive group had many inhabitants when discovered by Columbus; but
they were afterward wholly depopulated by the unspeakable cruelties of
slave-traders.
The journal and letters of Columbus show that the native people of the
Bahamas suffered much from the attacks of the man-eating Caribs, whom
they greatly feared but often doubtless bravely repelled. We have also
evidence from Vespucci that the Caribs advanced much farther north for
war and rapine, boldly navigating the sea in their great canoes, to
Pamlico Sound. Whether they had a permanent settlement on the
northwestern islands of the Bahama group, can probably never be known;
but I believe that either they or the more peaceable Bahama islanders
there were attacked, defeated, and many of them captured and sold into
slavery, by this Spanish expedition.
This discussion or explanation, though not directly relating to the
discovery of the Mississippi river, seems to me needful to set forth my
reasons for thinking that Vespucci’s narrative of his first voyage is a
true account, excepting mistakes of his memory or writing or of later
copying.
WARREN UPHAM.
ST. PAUL, MINN.
(_To be continued._)
BETWEEN TWO FLAGS.
I.
“To-morrow is Valentine’s Day. You are mine. I have chose you out among
the rest, the reason is I love you best—so, my Dear, God bless you. I
wish you Health and Happiness.”—Isabella Cleghorn to Capt. Joseph
Hynson, in a letter from London dated the 13th of February, 1777,
intercepted in the general post-office by the British Secret Service,
and now preserved among the Auckland _MSS._ in King’s College,
Cambridge.
Isabella Cleghorn? Who was she that her valentine fancies should weigh
with nations and be treasured in the archives of a State? A factor in
the birth of the American republic? Let those so minded review the
evidence and construct an answer to suit themselves.
When the events of our Revolutionary war destroyed commerce with the
mother country, it followed in nature, if obscurely, that Joseph Hynson,
a young Maryland sea-captain, employed in the London carrying trade,
should find his occupation gone. Beating about in search of a new one
suited to his taste, Hynson shortly betook himself to France, there to
solicit from the American Commissioners some maritime employment in the
service of Congress. Several well-known Marylanders in Paris at the time
vouched for the newcomer as an able seaman and an honest man. The
Commissioners, glad to find a trusty hand, enrolled him among their
elect, and Hynson soon received from them orders to cross over to Dover,
there secretly to purchase a good cutter-sloop. This vessel, he was
told, he should presently command on a voyage across the Atlantic,
bearing despatches to Congress.
Once arrived on English soil, it is far from strange that the lively
mariner should have longed for a glimpse of old haunts. The circumspect
gentlemen in Paris would hardly have smiled, however, upon their
emissary’s sally into the heart of London; and his visit to his friends
the Jumps, at their house in Stepney Causeway, spoke little for his
sense of responsibility.
Mrs. Jump, Hynson’s friend, received him with tender rejoicing. Robert,
her son, echoed the welcome, and pretty little Miss Cleghorn, neighbor
and intimate of the household, promptly surrendered her heart to the
handsome sailor. Hynson, “a lusty and a black-looking fellow,” with a
salt-water gallantry very potent in the feminine eye, warmed under
influences so generous. Discretion melted within him, and before his
departure for Dover he had acquainted his hostess with the secret in his
charge. Anxiety as great as her affection now filled the good woman’s
mind. Sympathizing in private with the American cause, she yet dreaded
so dangerous a service for one she loved. And when, in the newness of
her trouble, Mr. Vardill, an American clergyman supposedly
“disaffected,” chanced to call upon her, her distracted wits could not
conceal from his astuteness quite all that loyalty to Hynson demanded.
As Fate would have it, this Vardill, good rebel though he seemed to be,
lived, as a matter of fact, “chiefly on his Majesty’s bounty.” Windfalls
such as Mrs. Jump had provided might be turned to excellent use in his
own and his master’s interest. Lord North, to whose ante-chamber he
accordingly ran with his news, pronounced “the farther prosecution of
the business a matter of the utmost importance.” And from that instant
Joseph Hynson’s every act came under the surveillance of spies, agents
assailed him with every artifice of corruption, his most careless note
was scrutinized in its passage through the mails; and, finally, poor
Isabella’s innocent, schoolgirl love letters seldom came inviolate to
the eyes for which alone they were intended.
“My Lord, I take the liberty of sending to you the enclosed Letter
from Captain Hynson to his Mistress.... The writing on one side of the
Letter is part of a rough draft of a Letter which his Mistress wrote
to him,”
says Vardill to North, February 10, 1777. Hynson’s letter is a mere
impersonal account of his safe arrival in Dover, but Isabella’s “rough
draft,” scrawled on the back of her lover’s page, seems yet warm with
the pressure of the hand that wrote by the flicker of Mrs. Jump’s
firelight:
“——for my Part I have not slept one hour since your (departure).”
[Vardill, in his hasty theft, tore away the sheet so closely as to
sacrifice the end of each line.] “I come over (to the Jumps’) as often
as I can, but not with such (frequency) as I us’d, for I detest the
kitchen and the Arm chair (now). We all do. You will make (us) very
happy if you will (come) and fill it up again, for Gods Sake Come home
for I am (like) one out of their sences about you.... For Gods sake
write to me, ... for I am wreatched all (ways). Did you think that Id
spare a Groat for Postage. No, not even if I been distressed for it.
Mrs. Jump (would) lend it me, so don’t let that be your Excuse, as I
(think) you Cant have forgot me in a week. Write——, and send to Mrs.
Jump, and Come home——”
A second sad little letter, dated February 13, met another fate.
Intercepted and copied in the General Post-Office, it was then restored
scatheless to the mail and allowed to go its way. The copy alone is
found in the Auckland _MSS._
“To Captain Hynson, Ship Tavern, Dover:
“I rec’d your kind Letter which affords me great pleasure, as it
allways does to hear from them that I so dearly love. I should have
wrote to you before but Mrs. Jump said I must wait a Day or two, but
with great Anxiety I waited.... I have been in great distress about
you. Night and Day you are Never out of my Thoughts, my dear Hynson. I
must leave off, for I was not certain whether I should write or no....
My dear Hynson, write to me as often as you can, for that’s all the
happiness I have, to hear from you——”
Two days later, in a sudden access of fear of the dangerous adventure
the nature of which her lover was concealing from her, Isabella wrote
again:
“——Dear Hynson, I am afraid you are going to engage in such a thing
that will be a means for us to never met again. Oh Hynson, as you will
not be open and candid enough to tell me what plan you are upon, I
must submit—I long to see you.”
Others, writing to Hynson from the house in Stepney Causeway, confirm
Isabella’s account of her melancholy. “As to poor Bell, you have not
been out of her head since you have been gone,” Mrs. Jump wrote him,
while Robert added a postscript merely to say:
“Bell’s kind love (she bother’d me so I could not help it).”
In a letter of his own Robert wrote:
“As to my Sister Bell’s Behaviour, for Mamma has adopted her [as a]
daughter.... She has been nowhere but to Mrs. Hazelden’s and our house
since you went, and you have all this time engrossed all her Thoughts
and Discourses.”
And a casual visitor to the household contributed, banteringly:
“I am now sitting beside Mrs. Jump and your fair Isabella, who sends
off a Letter to you, and we shall all plague you till we have you
again by the Fireside with us, for we can’t spare You. You are a happy
Fellow to be so necessary to the Happiness of the Fair. I long to
crack a bottle with you once more, and could wish that the summer was
come, that we might have a little Junketting about the Country
together.”
Hynson himself, writing from Dover to Mrs. Jump, said teasingly, for
Isabella’s overhearing:
“You desire me to come back to be tormented by that little Girl, but
that is out of the question.”
Yet when a day or two passed without bringing news of the “little Girl,”
he grew uneasy, especially in view of the chance of having to quit the
country without a farewell message from her.
“Our vessel is not yet ready,” [he told Robert] “but I expect her
every minute, when I shall proceed to France, where I long to be.... I
am engaged in a manner very agreeable to myself. I shall have an
Opportunity now of exerting myself in my Country’s Cause, which is the
height of my Ambition.... _If I don’t get a letter from Bell this
evening I shall sit down in the morning and write her a Discharge._”
But the coveted letter, delayed, probably, by secret-service
Philistines, arrived in the nick of time to prevent so desperate a
measure:
“Dear Mother,” [wrote its recipient to Mrs. Jump], “I received your
kind Letter Thursday night ... and on Friday Night one from that
little Rogue Belle. I have been reading them ever since.... I have
wrote a long Letter to Bell, which I hope she will pay some attention
to, as I should not write in the manner I have done if she were
indifferent to me. Tell her to be a good Girl.... The reason of my
stiling you Mother, is, Bob says you have adopted Bell your Daughter,
and if she is a good Girl I must call her Sister—or something else.”
At last, after many vexatious delays, the vessel was secured and Hynson
set sail for France, the haven of his ambition. But his final thought
was for Isabella:
“I have enclosed a letter to my little Girl,” [he wrote to a friend,]
“which I shall desire your care of. You will take care it goes to Mrs.
Jump.”
And the first mail coming from Havre after Hynson’s arrival there
brought under the eye of the English agent a packet for “Miss Isabella
Cleghorn”—a long letter full of good-humored chatter about men, women,
and fashions, but ending very seriously with this significant passage:
“My Dear Girl: ... I don’t doubt but if I have success my present
situation will be very advantageous ... when I shall be able to
receive you with open arms. Till then I shall only wish to hear from
you. I shall lose no opportunity of writing to you.... Believe me to
be at all times, yours affectionately,
JOS. HYNSON.”
So, very simply, moved this obscure love-affair of long ago. Yet the
thought that its consequences might involve the destinies of nations may
often have passed through its hero’s mind—a mind essentially intriguing
and filled with keen ambition untrammelled by doubt. Nor was the man’s
assurance without its legitimate base. Trusted, on the one hand with an
important mission in his country’s service, promised the care of affairs
of yet greater weight, and cognizant of a multitude of secrets of state,
Hynson wielded no inconsiderable power. And when, on the other hand, the
chief ministers of the throne completed the circle of his influence by
making him an object of flattering solicitations, he felt that his hour
was indeed come, and wrote, in frank exultation:
“I now think myself a man of consequence, and am very happy.”
And now for the bias of the man. In the matter of politics, Hynson, like
many a greater statesman, hoped for reconciliation without separation.
Colonial independence thrown into the scale, his respect for the
integrity of the kingdom weighed heavily against it, and this delicate
balance of his public principles gave to his private interests a
possibly decisive importance. England, the centre of royal government,
commanded his abstract veneration. England, Isabella’s home, held his
heart and his pleasure. “He hopes ... to entitle Himself to a Competence
and to sit down in England, where he has a Connection which he is
anxious to resume,” the King learned from his agents. To that tune the
royal money-bags forthwith jingled cunningly.
II.
Though the name of neither Hynson or his sweetheart figures in any of
the serious histories of the day, only an unforeseen incident prevented
his, at least, from being there recorded. Isabella’s influence was to
change all his original program. It now remains to show how serious were
the results of Hynson’s uncertain faith, and with what measure of
plausibility Isabella Cleghorn may be called an actual though humble and
unconscious factor in the creation of the American republic.
Hynson, as has already been stated, was a man possessed of ambition,
self-confidence, and a love of intrigue. Half his heart’s desire was to
see an early reconciliation of mother-country and colony; the other half
to be himself the maker of the peace. His connection with the American
Commission to Versailles he consequently regarded purely as a means to
this end—his intimacy with the Commission’s affairs as a password to the
confidence of Downing Street. Never fearing to match his own wit against
that of two nations, he clung to the idea that England must be brought
to offer to America acceptable terms of compromise before the conclusion
of a Franco-American understanding should lend new courage to the
rebellious colony. And English diplomatists astutely upheld his faith in
his own powers of high accomplishment: “Ce Capitaine continue à voir le
Ld. Stormont, qui lui fait l’accueil le plus capable de le flatter,”
said Gérald, in his report of April 3, 1777. “Cet homme simple, honnête
mais bien intentionné, en a la tête tournee et se croit destiné â être
le pacificateur des deux nations.”
The first move in Hynson’s cloudy scheme involved the delivery to the
British of certain valuable despatches going from the Commissioners to
Congress. As bearer of these papers, which were to be placed in his
hands by Franklin in person, the agent lay under orders to sail from
Havre about March 10, in the cutter-sloop that he himself had smuggled
over from Dover for the purpose. Lords North and Suffolk, being informed
accordingly, despatched Lieut.-Col. Edward Smith to Havre, “furnished
with £800 on account, in case it should become necessary to make use of
money.” No sooner had Smith opened negotiations, however, than a new
feature of the scheme developed. Hynson’s complaisance had its limits,
and he utterly refused to turn over the despatches in simple barter.
“Persuasion hangs not on my tongue to attain it,” wrote Smith. The
precious papers must be forcibly wrested from their keeper, on the very
deck of his vessel. Every interest, therefore, turned to that vessel’s
capture.
“The sloop” [Smith told his principals across the Channel] “is hawl’d
up into the most private part of the harbour, and the King’s Dock. Men
are at work upon her with all expedition. I mean that she shall be
stuffed with everything that is good, to make her a better and more
valuable prize.... So tell your ships to be well apprized.... You had
better have sixty ships out than miss her.”
The Admiralty responded promptly. Vessels of war on Channel stations
received minute instructions toward effecting so important a capture. No
precaution was spared, yet in the event all proved vain, for Hynson was
balked of his commission.
“A Schooner arrived in the Mean Time at Nantz from Baltimore,”
[explained Smith] “with News of the Hessian Misfortune, which
determined Messrs. Deane and Franklin to wait for more Events ... to
send their Despatches ... and to employ Hynson, on whose Courage &
Seamanship they place great Confidence, in some other Service.”
Foiled in his first design, Hynson now proceeded upon a new one—that of
gathering from the Commission to Versailles such news of American
affairs as, placed in British hands, might serve his object. Some of
these gleanings he gave to Lord Stormont, in Paris, some he confided to
Smith, “whom he met as often as they found it convenient,” and some
travelled by post to England, under protection of the covers of Admiral
Rodney, Hynson’s fellow-lodger in a Parisian inn.
“In doing this,” said Smith, whose relations with Hynson were always
most friendly, “he found the Character & Situation of the several
People with whom he has to do very favorable to his Purpose. Franklin
lives at a little Distance from Paris, but seldom passes a Day without
seeing Deane; the latter appears to be the More active & efficient
Man, but less circumspect and Secret, his Discretion not being always
proof against the natural Warmth of his temper & being weakened also
by his own Ideas of the importance of his present Employment. His
Residence is at the Hotel d’Hombourg, where he keeps a regular Table
for such of his Countrymen as are engaged in the service of the
Congress (Carmichael, Weeks, Hynson, Nicholson, Moyland, Franklin’s
Grandson, and others).... Hynson, who is a free, easy Fellow, & in
good Graces of the whole Party, has a real regard for Carmichael &
labours hard to draw him into the same system with himself.... It is
certainly material, if he succeeds. For tho’ both Deane and Franklin
may be, & are, according to Carmichael’s, account, too ambitious &
Determined (or, in other Words, too malevolent against Great Britain,)
ever to adopt any line of conduct short of American Independence, yet
Deane and Franklin can, in themselves, individually, do little, & if
they are betrayed by those whom they must employ, their Agency will
soon come to Disgrace & Despair.”
No ships bearing arms or stores left France for America unknown to the
English Admiralty if Hynson’s diligence could prevent it. And Hynson’s
diligence seldom slept. During all this period, Deane’s confidence in
his agent never faltered. Toward the end of May, 1777, he wrote to John
Hancock concerning him:
“——I must in duty to my Country say, I believe he will render ... good
service in the Navy, being a good Seaman, & of a cool, sedate, and
Steady Temper of mind.”
Again, on the 5th of September, he says: “I can answer for his
fidelity,” of which confidence a conclusive proof shortly came forward.
On the 7th of October Deane informed Hynson, then in Havre de Grace:
“The Commissioners are sending a packet to America & by this
conveyance Capt’n Folger has been wrote to, to take the charge of it
if not otherwise engaged, but as it is of importance that this packet
goes by safe hands, ... if he cannot go, ... I must depend on your
executing the commission.”
The story of the packet’s arrival at the little lodging-house in Havre
where Folger and Hynson lived together is thus succinctly told by Lieut.
Col. Smith:
“Folger being ready and willing to sail away with them immediately,
Hynson took an opportunity of sending Folger out upon some business in
the Docks, while he, slipping off the string which was intended to
secure the end of the packett, gott possession of the despatches, ...
and then, making up paper equal in length and thickness to what he had
taken out, he dextrously filled up the vacancy, shutt up the end of
the bundle, passed back again the same string; and upon Folger’s
returning with a Mr. Moyland, he had the bundle well cover’d, put in a
bag, seal’d and deliver’d it to Folger in presence of Moyland, never
to be given again out of Folger’s hands (unless to be thrown overboard
in case of meeting with one of our ships, or into the hands of those
they are directed for).”
“Leaving behind an excuse for his absence, skilfully prepared to
hoodwink Deane, Hynson then hurried over to London, carrying the
precious papers with him. Official England delighted in the prettiness
of the trick.”
“Dear Eden,” [wrote the Earl of Suffolk]. “I am tickled with uncommon
pleasure ... at the neat manœuvre by which Hynson has ... proved
himself an honest Rascal. He well deserves his reward. I desire I may
communicate (the despatches) myself to Lord Mansfield.”
And Eden, in joy too great for formal phrases, informs the King’s self
that Hynson “is an honest Rascal, and no fool.”
So it happened that poor, gulled Folger eventually delivered to
Congress, with all due ceremony, a package of blank paper, and was cast
into prison for his pains. Duplicate despatches sent out by the
Commission soon after Folger’s departure were lost at sea, and in
consequence of the two calamities no official intelligence reached
Congress from France between May, 1777, and May 2, 1778, the day of the
arrival of the French treaty.
As to the effect of this circumstance, Deane is somewhat explicit.
Mentioning Hynson’s exploit as “the only instance of our having our
despatches intercepted,” he continues:
“At the time of making out the despatches our prospects both in France
and in America were extremely discouraging. The Court of France
appeared to view our cause as absolutely desperate, and even the
appearance of what little countenance they had before shown us they
gave the most unequivocal proofs of their resolution to disavow and
leave us to our fate.... The Commissioners were at that time refused
any access to the Minister, even in the most secret manner.
“... The Commrs. had not, for some time previous to this date, sent
any information of their situation to Congress, for they scarcely knew
what to write, and hitherto they had said nothing in a discouraging
style, but, on the contrary, had said everything they could ... to
encourage Congress to persevere, and ultimately to expect aid from
France. In these (Folger’s despatches), though, ... they could not
avoid the mention of facts from which the most unfavourable
conclusions must have been drawn by Congress had Folger arrived with
the dps. instead of blank paper....
“... On the other hand, the British Ministers, from the contents of
those despatches and letters, found in what state we were with the
Court of Versailles.... This encouraged them to prosecute the war with
vigour, confident that it must soon terminate successfully on their
part.”
The result of Hynson’s plot, if Deane’s conclusions be accepted, was,
therefore, directly contrary to his aim. By his diversion of the
despatches, British hopes were raised and British offers of concession
delayed until the critical moment had passed and America’s courage had
risen beyond all thought of compromise. Thanks to Hynson’s intervention,
“when the Commissioners on the part of Great Britain eventually
arrived in America to propose terms of accommodation to Congress, no
discouraging intelligence had been received ... from the Commissioners
in Paris, and they (Congress) still relied on the effect which the
victory at Saratoga was expected to have in their favour. They were
not, as the event has shown, deceived.”
“In every age of the world,” Deane reflects, “many, if not most of the
greatest events, have been produced from the most trifling causes.”
A defensible, if not a profitable, argument might be brought forward to
prove the “honest Rascal” the savior of the republic. And, to split a
hair still finer, Isabella Cleghorn might, by the same token, be hailed
as that savior’s inspiration.
Lord Stormont believed in Hynson’s sincerity as would-be conciliator of
the contending powers. Deane, despite heavy evidence, was never perhaps
wholly convinced of his agent’s venality. And Hynson himself again and
again protested to Smith:
“My motives are not interest,” or, “while ever there is a prospect of
the disputes being settled I shall still be in hopes.”
Is the secret of these contradictions to be found in Smith’s sly, early
hint:
“He has a connection in England which he is anxious to resume?”
And in Hynson’s own words to Isabella:
“My dear girl, if I have success I shall be able to receive you with
open Arms.”
Certainly the King’s gift of a round sum in cash, a pension of £200
yearly, and, if Deane be right, a rank in the English navy, placed that
consummation well within his reach, while his ensuing desertion of the
stirring life that his soul had loved and retirement into country
solitude pointed strongly toward a master motive satisfied. Samson was
shorn and drawn into paths of inglorious peace. “God knows what he
does!” said a wondering witness. “He dwells with his wife in a little
country house, a quarter of a mile out the town.”
KATHERINE PRENCE.
_Evening Post, N. Y._
CIVIL WAR SKETCHES.
CONFEDERATE FINANCE IN ALABAMA
BANKS AND BANKING
In a circular letter dated December 4, 1860, addressed to the banks,
Governor Moore announced that should the State secede from the Union, as
seemed probable, $1,000,000 in specie or its equivalent, would be needed
by the administration. The State bonds could not be sold in the North,
nor in Europe except at a ruinous discount, and a tax on the people at
this time would be inexpedient. Therefore he recommended that the banks
hold their specie. Otherwise there would be a run on them and should an
extra session of the Legislature be called to authorize the banks to
suspend specie payments, such action would produce a run and thus defeat
the object. He requested the banks to suspend specie payments, trusting
to the convention to legalize this action.[1] The Governor then issued
an address to the people stating his reasons for such a step. It was
done, he said, at the request and by the advice of many citizens whose
opinions were entitled to respect and consideration. Such a course, they
thought, would relieve the banks from a run during the cotton season,
enable them to aid the State, do away with the expense of a special
session of the Legislature, prevent the sale of State bonds at a great
sacrifice, and prevent extra taxation of the people in time of financial
crisis.[2]
Three banks—the Central, Eastern, and Commercial—suspended at his
request and made a loan of $200,000 in coin to the State. Their
suspension was legalized later by an ordinance of the convention. The
Bank of Mobile, and the Northern and the Southern Banks refused to
suspend, though they announced that the State should have their full
support. The Legislature passed an act in February, 1861, authorizing
the suspension, on condition that the banks subscribe for 10-year State
bonds at their par value. The bonds were to stand as capital, and the
bills issued by the banks upon these bonds were to be receivable in
payment of taxes. The amount which each bank was to pay into the
Treasury for the bonds was fixed, and no interest was to be paid by the
State on these bonds until specie payments were resumed. All the banks
suspended under these acts, and thus the government secured most of the
coin in the State.[3] In October, 1861, before all the banks had
suspended, State bonds at par to the amount of $975,066.68 had been
sold—all but $28,500 to the banks. By early acts specie payments were to
be resumed in May, 1862, but in December, 1861, the suspension was
continued until “one year after the conclusion of peace with the United
States.” By this law the banks were to receive at par the Confederate
Treasury notes in payment of debts, their notes being good for public
dues. The banks were further required to make a loan of $200,000 to the
State to pay its quota of the Confederate war tax of August 16, 1861.
(The privilege of suspension was evidently worth paying for.[4])
The banking law was revised by the convention so that a bank might
deposit with the State comptroller stocks of the Confederate States or
of Alabama, receiving in return notes countersigned by the comptroller
amounting to twice the market value of the bonds deposited. If a bank
had on deposit with the comptroller under the old law any stocks of the
United States, they could be withdrawn upon the deposit of an equal
amount of Confederate stocks or bonds of the State. The same ordinance
provided that none except citizens of Alabama and members of State
corporations might engage in the banking business under this law. But no
rights under the old law were to be affected. It was further provided
that subsequent legislation might require any “free” bank to reduce its
circulation to an amount not exceeding the market value of the bonds
deposited with the comptroller. The notes thus retired were to be
cancelled by the comptroller.[5] The suspension of specie payments was
followed by an increase of banking business; note issues were enlarged;
eleven new banks were chartered,[6] and none wound up affairs. They paid
dividends regularly of from six to ten per cent. in coin, or Confederate
notes, or in both. Speculation in government funds was quite profitable
to the banks.
ISSUES OF BONDS AND NOTES
The convention authorized the General Assembly of the State to issue
bonds to such amounts and in such sums as seemed best, thus giving the
Assembly practically unlimited discretion. But it was provided that
money must not be borrowed except for purposes of military defense,
unless by a two-thirds vote of the members elected to each house; and
the faith and credit of the State was pledged for the punctual payment
of principal and interest.[7]
The Legislature hastened to avail itself of this permission. In 1861, a
bond issue of $2,000,000 for defense, and not liable to taxation, was
authorized at one time; at another, $385,000 for defense besides an
issue of $1,000,000 in treasury notes receivable for taxes. Of the first
issue authorized only $1,759,500 was ever issued. Opposition to taxation
caused the State to take up the war tax of $2,000,000 (August 19, 1861),
and for this purpose $1,700,000 in bonds were issued, the banks
supplying the remainder. There was a relaxation in taxation during the
war; paper money was easily printed, and the people were opposed to
heavy taxes.[8]
In 1862, bonds to the amount of $2,000,000 were issued for the benefit
of the indigent. The Governor was given unlimited authority to issue
bonds and notes, receivable for taxes, to “repair the treasury,” and
$2,085,000 in bonds was issued under this permit. These bonds drew
interest at 6%, ran for 20 years, and sold at a premium of from 50% to
100%. Bonds were used both for civil and for military purposes, but
chiefly for the support of the destitute. Treasury notes to the amount
of $3,500,000 were issued, drawing interest at 5%, and receivable for
taxes. The Confederate Congress came to the aid of Alabama with a grant
of $1,200,000 for the defense of Mobile.[9] In 1863, notes and bonds for
$4,000,000 were issued for the benefit of indigent families of soldiers,
and $1,500,000 for defense; $90,000 in bonds was paid for the steamer
_Florida_, which was later turned over to the Confederate
government.[10] In 1864, $7,000,000 were appropriated for the support of
indigent families of soldiers and an unlimited issue of bonds and notes
was authorized.[11] In 1862, the Alabama Legislature proposed that each
State should guarantee the debt of the Confederate States in proportion
to its representation in Congress. This measure was opposed by the other
States, and failed.[12] A year later a resolution of the Legislature
declared that the people of Alabama would cheerfully submit to any tax,
not too oppressive in amount or unequal in operation, laid by the
Confederate government for the purpose of reducing the volume of
currency and appreciating its value. The Assembly also signified its
disapproval of the scheme put forth at the bankers’ meeting at Augusta,
Georgia—to issue Confederate bonds with interest payable in coin and to
levy a heavy tax of $60,000,000 to be paid in coin or in coupons of the
proposed new issue.[13]
The Alabama treasury had many Confederate notes received in taxes.
Before April 1, 1864, (when such notes were to be taxed one-third of
their face value), these could be exchanged at par for 20-year 6%
Confederate bonds. After that date the Confederate notes were fundable
at 33⅓% of their face value only.[14] After June 14, 1864, the State
treasury could exchange Confederate notes for 4% non-taxable Confederate
bonds, or one-half for 6% bonds and one-half for new notes. The Alabama
Legislature of 1864 arranged for funding the notes according to the
latter method.[15] The Alabama Legislature of 1861 had made it lawful
for debts contracted after that year to be payable in Confederate
notes.[16] Later, a meeting of the citizens of Mobile proposed to
ostracise those who refused to accept Confederate notes. Cheap money
caused a clamor for more, and the heads of the people were filled with
fiat money notions. The rise in prices stimulated more issues of notes.
On February 9, 1861, $1,000,000 in State Treasury notes was issued and
in 1862, there was a similar issue of $2,000,000 more. These State notes
were at a premium in Confederate notes, which were discredited by the
Confederate Funding Act of February 17, 1864. Confederate notes were
eagerly offered for State notes, but the State stopped the exchange.[17]
December 13, 1864, a law was passed providing for an unlimited issue of
State notes redeemable in Confederate notes and receivable for taxes.
Private individuals often issued notes on their own account, and an
enormous number was put into circulation. The Legislature, by a law of
December 9, 1862, prohibited the issue of “shin-plaster” or other
private money under penalty of $20 to $500 fine, and any person
circulating such money was to be deemed the maker. It was not
successful, however, in reducing the flood of private tokens; the credit
of individuals was better than the credit of the government.
Executors, administrators, guardians, and trustees were authorized to
make loans to the Confederacy, and to purchase and receive for debts due
them bonds and Treasury notes of the Confederacy and of Alabama, and the
interest coupons of the same. One-tenth of the Confederate $15,000,000
loan of February 28, 1861 was subscribed in Alabama.[18] In December
1863, the Legislature laid a tax of 37½% on bonds of the State and of
the Confederacy unless the bonds had been bought directly from the
Confederate government or from the State.[19] This was to punish
speculators. After October 7, 1864, the State Treasurer was directed to
refuse to receive for taxes (except at a discount of ⅓) Confederate
notes issued before the date of the Funding Act (Feb. 17, 1864). Later,
Confederate notes were taken for taxes at their full market value.[20]
Gold was shipped through the blockade at Mobile to pay the interest on
the State bonded debt held in London. It has been charged that this
money was borrowed from the Central, Commercial, and Eastern Banks and
was never repaid, recovery being denied on the ground that the State
could not be sued.[21] But the banks received State and Confederate
bonds under the new banking law in return for their coin. The exchange
was willingly made, for otherwise the banks would have had to continue
specie payments or forfeit their charters. And to continue specie
payments meant immediate bankruptcy.[22] After the war, the State was
forbidden to pay any debt incurred in aid of the war, nor could the
bonds issued in aid of the war be redeemed. The banks suffered just as
all others suffered, and it is difficult to see why the State should
make good the losses of the banks in Confederate bonds, and not make
good the losses of private individuals. To do either would be contrary
to the Fourteenth Amendment.
The last statement of the condition of the Alabama Treasury was as
follows:
Balance in Treasury, September 30, 1864 $3,713,959
Receipts, September 30, 1864 to May 24, 1865 3,776,188
---------
Total 7,490,147
Disbursements, September 30, 1864 to May 24, 1865 6,698,853
---------
Balance in Treasury 791,294
The balance was in funds as follows:
Checks on Bank of Mobile payable in Confederate notes $ 11,440
Certificate of deposit, Bank of Mobile, payable in Confederate notes 1,330
Confederate and State notes in Treasury 517,889
State notes, change bills (legal shin plasters) 250,004
Notes of State banks and branches 358
Bank notes 424
Silver 337
Gold on hand 497
Gold on deposit in Northern banks 35
---------
Balance $ 791,294
To dispose of nearly seven million dollars in small notes must have kept
the Treasury very busy during the last seven months of its existence. It
is interesting to note that the Treasury kept at work until May 24,
1865, six weeks after the surrender of General Lee.
THE PATROL AT BARNEGAT
[This famous poem—one of Whitman’s most vigorously descriptive, if not
his best in this form of composition—is written on a quarto sheet, and
signed: a few pencil corrections do not show in the print. The _MS._ was
sold in New York in 1903.]
[Illustration:
First Draught—May 1880 Walt Whitman
The Patrol at Barnegat
By Walt Whitman
Wild, wild the storm, and the sea high-running,
Steady the roar of the gale with incessant under tone muttering
Shouts of demoniac laughter fitfully piercing and pealing,
Waves, air, and midnight, their savagest trinity lashing,
Out in the shadows there, the milk-white combs careering,
On beachy slush and sand, spirts of snow fierce-slanting,
As, through the murk, the easterly death-wind breasting,
Through cutting swirl and spray, watchful and firm advancing,
(That in the distance! is that a wreck? is the red signal flaring?)
Slush and sand of the beach, tireless till daylight wending,
A group of dim, weird forms, snow-drift and night confronting,
Steadily, slowly, the hoarse roar never remitting,
Along the beach, by those milk-white combs careering,
That savage trinity warily watching
]
EARLY LEGISLATIVE TURMOILS IN NEW JERSEY
Pessimists point to the “frenzied politics” of our day as evidence of
the facilis descensus Averni from the purity, the lofty and unselfish
patriotism of the fathers; and they sigh over the decadence of the
statesmen of these modern times, lament the corruption and essential
dishonesty of parties and partisans in general, and yearn for a return
of the purity and patriotism and statesmanship of the Fathers. The
student of history, however, finds that human nature was and has been
much the same through all the ages. The business contracts between
merchants of Babylon, stamped on bricks five thousand years ago, and
brought to light but yesterday, are in much the same terms as those
settled in the courts to-day. The Code of Hammurabi, formulated 2200 B.
C., shows in every sentence that like questions of rights and wrongs of
persons and things were raised in that remote era as are discussed in
the luminous pages of Blackstone, and determined in our own day in the
fori of the several States, and in the Capitol at Washington. Is it
possible, then, that the development of mankind has been on entirely
different lines in the political arena? The thoughtful reader must say
no. Freeman’s remark has become trite: “History is past politics, and
politics past History.” The burning political issues of the Virginia and
Kentucky Resolutions of 1799; the purchase of Louisiana; the Embargo of
1807–09; the annexation of Texas; the Oregon question, with its alluring
alliteration “Fifty-four-forty or fight;” “Bleeding Kansas” and its
other expressions, “Free Speech, Free Soil, Free Men;” Anti-Slavery,
Abolitionism and Secession; the Greenback craze—not to speak of more
recent partisan shibboleths—all were “politics” of the intensest sort in
their day. All are now relegated to the background of “history,” to be
studied in the cold _chiaro-oscuro_ of the past. And the men who led the
forces marshaled against each other in those great conflicts.—Ah, “there
were giants in those days!” Yes, but to their contemporaries they were
merely politicians, too often opprobriously dubbed “political
tricksters,” or even “traitors to their country.” What a lot of truth
there is in the late Thomas B. Reed’s cynicism: “A statesman is a dead
politician.”
The lust for power is one of the deepest instincts of the human mind.
Civilization has not quenched it, but has merely directed it into new
channels. Instead of the savage chieftain who once impressed his will on
his fellow-tribesmen by tomahawk or flint-tipped arrow-head, or by
terrifying shamanism, we have the statesman—“politician,” if you
will—exercising his mastery by all the subtle arts which a keen
intellect and a profound knowledge of men and the influences to which
they are severally and collectively subject, can devise. Here is a
splendid field for the orator, to persuade by his burning eloquence; for
the leader, to show his mastery over men; for the partisan, to cajole
with the promise of sordid spoil, or to threaten the recreant with loss
of influence. There is a glorious zest in this pursuit of power, in this
forging to the front as a leader of men. Admirable ambition, if inspired
by worthy motives. Fascinating, most attractive, to every virile man.
What wonder, if in this eager thirst for eminence among his fellows, the
ardent leader becomes oblivious at times to the relative rights of meum
and tuum? Success is his aim. He _must_ win. The future of his party,
the welfare of his country, demands it. No time to palter over finical
questions of what is proper, of what is right. “The end justifies the
means.” Ah, facilis est descensus Averni, indeed.
All this by way of preliminary to a few gleanings from some old records
of New Jersey, illustrating “past politics” principally in the days of
that erstwhile Royal Province, under that unique Chief Executive, Lord
Cornbury, who was foisted on the people by his amiable cousin, Queen
Anne, doubtless glad enough of the chance to banish him by an ocean’s
broad expanse from her Court. For a score of years New Jersey had been
divided into two Provinces—East Jersey, largely controlled by the Scotch
proprietors and their settlers; and West Jersey, dominated by the
outwardly meek but inwardly determined Quakers. When the two Provinces
were reunited into one—New Jersey—the profligate courtier, the ruffling
gallant, the soldier of doubtful reputation, Lord Cornbury, of all men
was chosen as the solvent to blend these and all the other antagonistic
elements in the Province into one harmonious whole.
His troubles began with the first election of representatives to the
General Assembly, held between August 13 and September 9, 1703. That
body was to be composed of two members each from Perth Amboy and
Burlington, and ten from each Division—twenty-four in all. (So long ago
was ordained the exact political equality of East Jersey and West
Jersey, which has been scrupulously maintained for two centuries, at
least in the upper branch of the Legislature, regardless of the
overwhelming preponderance of population now concentrated in what was
formerly East Jersey). In the latter Division there appeared at the
polls forty-two qualified voters in the interest of the Scotch
Proprietors, a great part of them from New York and Long Island. “On
behalfe of the Country there appear’d betwixt three & four hundred men
qualifyed & had they thought necessary could have brought severall
Hundred more.” But the High Sheriff (Thomas Gordon) appointed in the
Scotch interest, “multiply’d Tricks, upon Tricks, till at last barefac’d
he made ye returne contrary to the choice of the Country.” So too in
West Jersey, the Quakers, though really in the majority only in
Burlington County, “by their usuall application & diligence” secured the
return of ten members. Lord Cornbury was intensely disgusted at so
adverse a result, and complained to the Lords of Trade that “Severall
persons very well qualified to serve, could not be elected, because they
had not a thousand Acres of Land, though at the same time, they had
twice the vallue of that Land, in money and goods, they being trading
men, [while] on the other hand some were chosen because they have a
thousand Acres of Land, and at the same time have not twenty shillings
in money, drive noe trade, and can neither read nor write, nay they can
not answer a question that is asked them, of this sort we have two in
the Assembly.” However, the Royal Governor was prejudiced against the
plebeian Jerseymen.
When the House met, November 10, 1703, a petition was presented,
complaining of an undue election of five of the members returned for the
Eastern Division. Sheriff Gordon, at his request, was furnished with a
copy of the petition, and time was given him to answer it, and to send
for such persons as he should find necessary for his defense. Gordon, by
the way, was a member of the House from Perth Amboy, and so had a great
advantage over his adversaries, as he could sit on his own case, and by
judicious logrolling could influence votes in his own behalf. Nor is
there anything in the records to show that he had the slightest
hesitation in availing himself of his opportunities. Apparently he had
doubts about the allegiance of one of his fellow-members, Richard
Hartshorne, for on November 16, Messrs. Gordon and Reid were given
permission to ask the Governor and Council whether Hartshorne was
qualified to sit in the House, and to give their opinion thereon. The
Governor advised Mr. Hartshorne to qualify himself as the law required
(by the ownership of a thousand acres of land), but in the meantime the
House ordered him to withdraw, until he should qualify himself, and he
left his seat. The complaint against Gordon was taken up on November 16,
and evidence produced on both sides on that and two succeeding days.
Hartshorne was unseated on the 17th, and on the 18th it was voted that
the evidence for the regularity and legality of the return made by Mr.
Gordon was sufficient, and the petition was dismissed. The House
declined, however, to allow the Sheriff his charges against the
petitioners. It was also voted not to take any action against the clerks
who took the poll at the election in Amboy, and who had refused to
deliver them to the Sheriff. It is quite apparent that the House was
pretty evenly divided between the friends and foes of the
Sheriff-Assemblyman. It is not unlikely that Gordon’s finesse in
unseating Hartshorne before the final vote was taken determined the
result.
Governor Cornbury found the First Assembly so recalcitrant that he
dissolved it, September 28, 1704, and a few days later issued writs for
the election of a new Assembly, to meet at Burlington on November 9,
1704. His enemies charged that “The writs were issued and the Elections
directed to be made, in such hast, that in one of the writs the
Qualifications of the persons to be elected was omitted, and the Sheriff
of one County not sworn till Three days before the Election, and many of
the Townes had not any (much less due) notice of the day of Election.”
Despite these extraordinary precautions of the Governor to have the
elections controlled by his friends there was an adverse majority in the
Second Assembly, when it met at Burlington on November 13, 1704, and
organized the next day. How was this to be overcome? The way was quickly
and readily devised. On November 15, Messrs. Thomas Revel and Daniel
Leeds, two of Cornbury’s staunchest supporters in the Council, presented
a petition to that body, questioning the right of Thomas Lambert, Thomas
Gardiner and Joshua Wright to sit in the House. The Governor thereupon
refused to swear in those three members-elect. The next day the
petitioners asked for fourteen days’ time in which to show that these
men lacked the requisite property qualification of 1,000 acres of land.
The object in asking this long time was to outwear the patience of the
Assembly. The same day (November 16) the members in question produced to
the House copies of returns of surveys of lands possessed by them, and
were given further time to make their qualifications more fully appear,
the result being that on December 6 the House decided that each of the
men owned a thousand acres of land, and voted unanimously to seat them.
Lord Cornbury, however, still declined to administer to them the
prescribed oath. The counties for which the three men were chosen to
serve, with several other representatives, delivered an address to his
Excellency for having them admitted, which, “mett with noe other
Reception, than being called a piece of Insolence, and Ill manners.” By
this exclusion a majority of one was gained for the Governor’s party,
and he having secured such legislation as he most desired adjourned the
Assembly, December 12, to meet April 27, 1705, leaving the three
members-elect in question to cool their heels on the outside.
The House did not meet again until October 17, 1705. The Governor sent
in a message commending sundry measures to be enacted. By this time the
Assembly was ready to lock horns with his Excellency, and to stand on
its rights. It was accordingly resolved that it should be “full” before
considering his suggestions, and a committee was appointed to wait on
him and ask him to admit the three excluded members. He parried the
issue, but the House would none of his evasions, and decided to do no
business until those three men were admitted. The Governor wanted an
appropriation for his support, and was compelled to yield and swear in
the men, who took their seats October 26, 1705. The Lords of Trade
disapproved of his course in a letter of April 20, 1705: “We think, your
Lordship will do well to leave the Determination about Elections of
Representatives to that House, and not to intermeddle therein otherwise
than by Issuing of Writs for any new Election.”
Does this incident remind one of the “Broad Seal War,” arising out of
the action of the Governor of New Jersey issuing his certificate of
election to five men as Members of Congress, in 1838, who were really in
the minority, on the ground that the returns from certain townships
(which would have changed the result) were not before him in due season?
Or does it in any way recall the attempt of ten members of the New
Jersey Senate to assume to be a majority of the twenty-one members of
that body, in 1894?
The Third Assembly, which met at Perth Amboy, April 5, 1707, was also
hostile to the Governor. Two of the members of his Council—the
pugnacious Lewis Morris and the imperturbable, hard-headed Samuel
Jenings, a Quaker—actually resigned from that body in order to be
elected to the Assembly, where they could the better harass his
Excellency. The Governor had assumed the right to appoint the Clerk of
the House, in the person of one William Anderson, who incurred their
dislike, and they resolved to get rid of him. How? By the simple
expedient of resolving themselves into a committee of the whole, wherein
from day to day they discussed the public business, and figuratively
“cussed” the Governor. Of course, the committee had a right to choose
its own clerk, and selected one of the members. Anderson did not like
this, and insisted on his right and duty to sit with them. He
imprudently admitted “y^t he was Sworn to discover Debates y^t were
dangerous to y^e Goverm^t, & y^t he did not know but y^e Comittee were
going to have such Debates, & y^rfore did turn him out.” The chairman
promptly caught him on this indiscretion, and exclaimed, “Then you
suppose we are going to have such Debates?” “It looks like it,” replied
the clerk. The committee indignantly resolved that his refusal to
withdraw from the committee of the whole was a “high Contempt, & a great
Interruption of y^e public Affairs of the Province,” and that his words
were a “Misdemeanor & a scandalous Reflection upon y^e Members of this
House.” Here was a new grievance whereof to complain to the Governor,
and in order to give him time to think it over the House adjourned for a
week, and then sent a committee to ask him to appoint another clerk, who
should be “a Residenter of this Province.” It may be readily imagined
that the Governor was loth to lose the services of so faithful a
henchman, but he was anxious for another appropriation and was obliged
to give way, and named a new clerk. How impatient he must have been to
get that Assembly “off his hands!” Have there not been Governors, yea,
even Presidents, similarly embarrassed within our own recollection?
Now the Assembly had another rod in pickle for the Governor. It was
whispered about that a fund had been raised to bribe him to favor
certain measures in the interest of the Proprietors, and that many
citizens had been virtually compelled to contribute toward this fund,
under threats of serious inconvenience in various ways. The House
determined to investigate these rumors, and sent out subpœnas for a
large number of witnesses. One of the parties implicated was Capt. John
Bowne, a member from Monmouth County. He was a man of resources, and
when a certain witness came to town to testify against him he had the
man arrested on a capias in a civil suit and sent to jail, where he was
detained, all bail being refused. Whereupon the House (April 30, 1707)
promptly expelled Bowne for “a Contempt and a breach of the privileges
of this House,” _nem. con._ They moved more quickly in those days than
even in this modern era of hustle.
The Governor’s exclusion of three members-elect from their seats was
still a sore grievance to the House, and finally that body expressed
itself in language the good sense and dignity of which excuse its
eccentric orthography:
“We are too Sensably touched with that procedure not to know what must
be the unavoydable Consequences of the Governor’s refusing to Sweare
which of the Members of an Assembly he thinks fitt; but to take upon
himselfe the power of Judging of the qualifications of Assemblymen, and
to keep them out of the house (as the Governour did the afores^d three
members nigh Eleven Months till he was satisfied in that point) after
the house had declared them qualified, is so great a violation of the
Lyberties of the people, So great a breach of the privileges of the
house of Representatives, So much an assuring to himselfe a negative
voyce to the freeholders Election of their Representatives, that the
Governour is Intreated to pardon us if this is a Different treatment
from what he expected; It is not the Effects of passionate heats or the
Transports of Vindictive Tempers, but the Serious Resentments of a House
of Representatives For a Notorious violation of the liberties of the
people to whom they could not be just nor answer the trust reposed in
them Should they declyne letting the Governor know they are Extremely
Dissatisfied at so unkind a treatment Especially when its Causes and
Effects Conspire to render it so disagreeable.”
Lord John Lovelace having succeeded Lord Cornbury as Governor of New
Jersey, ordered an election for a new Assembly, which met at Perth Amboy
March 3, 1708–9. They were not willing to forgive and forget, any more
than are modern partisans. A fulsome address to the Queen had been
adopted in 1707 by the gentlemen of the Council, praising Lord Cornbury,
and assailing the House, and particularly Lewis Morris and Samuel
Jenings, two of its members. The Assembly had got wind of this document,
and now requested a copy from the new Governor, who caused it to be
furnished to them and it was treasured up for future use.
The wheels of legislation rolled smoothly along for several weeks. There
was a sudden jolt, however, on June 11, 1709, when the Council had the
temerity to appoint a committee to inspect the journal of the House. The
latter body at once retorted in kind, by appointing a committee to
inspect the journal of the Council, and desired them to send their
journal to the committee that afternoon! The Council of course objected,
urging that their proceedings were secret; but the House insisted, and
desired to have the journal sent down at seven o’clock the next morning.
And that was the last that was heard of either house attempting to
“inspect” the minutes of the other. The Assembly—the representatives of
the people—had again triumphantly asserted and maintained their
independence.
The Fifth Assembly, which met and organized December 1, 1709, had a
number of contested elections before it, which were in general decided
in favor of the sitting members. The business of the session proceeded
steadily and with unusual monotony until January 2, 1710, when it was
enlivened by this incident: A certain bill having been referred to a
committee, Mr. Lawrence, one of the members, reported that “they had
blotted out the whole of the bill, except the title, which he thought
was the best amendment they could make to it.” This seemed to be quite a
joke, until the chairman complained that while the committee were
discussing the measure Mr. Lawrence “Did contrary to his Consent blot
out & Cancell the s^d bill and had left nothing remaining Except the
title. And that M^r Gershom Mott another of the s^d Committee forcibly
detained him when he would have departed the room whilst M^r Lawrence
was blotting and Cancelling some part of the said Bill.” The House voted
that the action of Messrs. Lawrence and Mott was a contempt, and ordered
them to be brought before the bar “and there ask forgiveness, with an
acknowledgement of the favour of the H^{os} that they were not Expelld
the H^{os} & rendered uncapable for ever Serving in this H^{os} againe &
other punish^{mts} which this H^{os} might inflict. And that they
promise for the Future to behave themselves as becomes Members of this
H^{os}.” The two practical jokers made the required amende and were
allowed to resume their seats.
There was another break in the tedium of the session on January 5, when
“M^r Sharp Complained that Cap^t George Duncan this morning, Early had
called him out privately & drew his Sword upon him unawares he being
unarmed, & made at him with his drawn Sword, upon which the said Sharp
fled & was pursued by the s^d Cap^t Duncan who hee believes had a
designe to kill him.
“And desired the protection of y^e h^{os}.”
Capt. Duncan was ordered into the custody of the sergeant-at-arms, and
to be kept disarmed until further orders. There he was detained for six
days, when, being apparently both sober and sorry, and having asked Mr.
Sharp’s forgiveness, he was brought before the House, made his apologies
all around and “promised to behave himself for the future as becom’s a
Loyall Subject and a good member of this House,” and was allowed to take
his seat.
The Assembly elected in 1716 was violently rent by factions for and
against the impatient and impetuous Governor Robert Hunter. Col. Daniel
Coxe, who had served for several years in the Council, was removed at
Hunter’s request, and forthwith set about getting even. To that end he
secured his election to the Assembly in 1714, having cleverly
manipulated the “Swedish vote” on his immense paternal estates in the
southern part of the Province. He was again chosen in February, 1716,
from both Gloucester County and the town of Salem, although Sheriff
William Harrison, of Gloucester, was accused of resorting to sharp
practice to secure his defeat, by removing the polls several miles from
the usual place of holding the election. Coxe declared to serve for
Gloucester, and being chosen Speaker on April 4, lodged a complaint
against Harrison, had him arraigned at the bar of the House, and by
order of that body publicly reprimanded him. Governor Hunter was
intensely disappointed at the result of the election, and prorogued the
Assembly until May 7. On that day the members in opposition stayed away,
to prevent a quorum, but after two weeks the friends of the Governor
managed to get together thirteen members—a bare majority,—and elected
John Kinsey Speaker in the absence of Coxe, and then proceeded to expel
Coxe and his whole party for non-attendance, and moreover declared them
incapable forever of sitting in that body. Several of them were
re-elected, nevertheless, and were gently but firmly again expelled.
I might speak of the action of the West Jersey Assembly in 1685–6, when
they “declared to y^e Governor y^t officers of State & Trust belong to
them to nominate and appoint.” And to that other assertion of their
independence when they refused to recognize the course of the
Proprietors in appointing John Tatham as Governor. Even in the opening
days of the Revolution, when the friends of the new government were
welded by the force of circumstances into a harmonious body, strongly
disposed to uphold the patriotic Governor, William Livingston, they
nevertheless enunciated an important construction of the constitution,
in 1778, in declaring void a patent granted by him, incorporating a
church, after the manner of his Royal predecessors, and asserting that
“the power of granting patents and charters of incorporation, under the
present constitution, is vested solely in the Legislature of the State.”
Something has been said in this paper of the scandalous conduct of
elections. It is gratifying to find a popular reaction as early as 1738,
at least in Quaker Burlington, where, though the election was so
vigorously contested as to require three days to conclude the polling,
it was, notwithstanding, managed “in such a candid and peaceable
Manner,” according to a newspaper of the day, “as gave no Occasion of
Reflection to each other, nor was there any reaping of Characters, or
using of Canes in a Hostile Manner on one another, being sensible that
such a Practice is inconsistent with the Freedom which ought to Subsist
in our Elections.” The inference is irresistible that the conduct of
this canvass was in violent contrast with the usual practices.
I might also mention the passage of an act by the Legislature seventy
years or so ago, providing for an increase in the membership of the
Supreme Court, and then the appointment by the same Legislature of one
of its own members to the office thus created! The appointee was an
honor to the Bench, and ranked then and for thirty years afterwards as
one of the most distinguished men in the land. But what would be thought
of such a procedure to-day?
And speaking of courts, I do not recall anything in recent times to
match the daring of the Monmouth County people, who on March 25, 1701,
captured the Governor of East Jersey, two of his Councillors and two of
his Justices, who were holding court for the trial of a townsman on a
charge of piracy, he having confessed that he had been on a voyage with
the famous Captain William Kidd, “as he sailed, as he sailed.” The
people would not “stand for” judicial interference in a little thing
like that, which brought plenty of “Arabian gold” to our coasts, and so,
with grim humor and determination, they kept the Governor and his Court
of Sessions, together with the Attorney-General and the Secretary of the
Province, in close confinement for four days. As nothing further is said
about the matter it is not unlikely that the prisoners were compelled to
promise immunity to their captors before being released.
“They didn’t know everything down in Judee,”
chuckled Hosea Biglow in self-satisfied complacency. But from the few
instances cited it is quite apparent that our honored forefathers, could
they “revisit the pale glimpses of the moon,” would have little to learn
from the modern “Boss” in the way of political audacity, chicanery or
finesse.
“For ways that are dark
And tricks that are vain,”
the modern politician is much the same as his predecessor of two
centuries ago. But in fact there has been a steady improvement in
political methods. What appears to have been common in New Jersey in the
early days of the eighteenth century—such as turning a Legislative
minority into a majority—is so exceptional to-day as to excite general
surprise, and more or less genuine indignation. In that State ten years
ago it caused a political revolution.
The golden age of American politics does not lie in the past. It looms
up brightly in the future.
All the patriots, all the statesmen who have ever lived in our land, are
by no means dead. To-day there are more with us than ever. Perhaps when
they have left this sublunary sphere as long as have Washington,
Hamilton, Jefferson, Marshall, Webster, Calhoun, Clay and Benton—nomina
clara et venerabilia!—future generations looking back upon the eminent
men of this day, through the haze of a century, may see our
contemporaries surrounded by as effulgent a glamour as that which to our
eyes enshrines the worthies who guided the first steps of the Nation
along the paths of sure and permanent progress. Let us have faith in the
Republic, and in our present leaders, following where they lead aright,
and leaving them when they go astray; remembering the golden rule in
government, embodied in those matchless words:
“That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their
Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
When the time comes that our people shall fully live up to that immortal
Declaration we shall see before us and within reach the iridescent
rainbow of our hopes, the harbinger of tranquility after the storms of
past conflicts; then we shall have attained indeed in our political
system and practices to the “golden age.”
WILLIAM NELSON.
PATERSON, N. J.
HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED POEM BY EDGAR ALLAN POE
[The MS. was recently sold at auction in New York.]
Elizabeth it is in vain you say
“Love not”—thou say’st it in so sweet a way:
In vain those words from thee or L. E. L.
Xantippe’s talents had enforced so well:
Ah! if that language from thy heart arise,
Breathe it less gently forth and veil thine eyes.
Endymion, recollect, when Luna tried
To cure his love—was cured of all beside—
His folly—pride—and passion—for he died.
_E. A. P._
WHEN WASHINGTON CAME TO SPRINGFIELD
In April, 1905, after the adjournment of Congress, Theodore Roosevelt,
President of the United States, started on a tour of the country. On
Thursday, October 15, 1789, George Washington, President of the United
States, Congress having adjourned, started on a tour of the New England
States. The contrasts brought out by the two journeys are so striking
that it may be of interest to recall the earlier tour, and some of the
conditions under which it was made. President Roosevelt began his trip
in the cab of a locomotive. President Washington started in his private
coach, with much ceremony, attended by six servants. President Roosevelt
travelled thousands of miles to Colorado and Texas, visiting territory,
the existence of which was not even dreamed of in 1789. Washington went
as far from New York as Portsmouth, N. H., and required a month in which
to cover the distance between the two cities. But it is not so much the
outward changes in conditions as the attitude of the people which is,
after all, of the chief interest. The fiction of the “good old days” is
so strongly intrenched in our minds that it is very difficult to break
away from it, yet the absence of bitterness to-day in the spirit of the
public toward the chief magistrate is no less marked a change than the
revolution in physical conditions. President Roosevelt was followed on
his journey by the good will of all the people. There might be a sly
hit, now and then, at his strenuous bear-hunting, rough-riding
proclivities, but the attitude of the people as a whole was respectful
and sympathetic. How the different classes of the people felt toward
Washington, together with some descriptive hints about his journey, I
have endeavored to set forth in the following letters, all drawn from
historic sources, which I suppose to have been written by the following
imaginary personages:—
John Adams, a young Springfield lawyer, recently from Boston.
Dorothy Coolidge of Boston, a society girl, a friend and former
playmate of John Adams.
Enoch Day, keeper of a general store in West Springfield.
Peter Colton, farmer of Longmeadow.
The first letter is addressed to William Armstrong of Pittsfield, and is
written by Peter Colton.
LONGMEADOW, MASS., _10th mo., 24th day, 1789_.
HONORED FRIEND:
It is going on a Year since I have writ a Letter to you, but you know
I have not forgot the man that saved my Life at Monmouth, and I hope
you have not forgot Yr old Sargeant of Co A. I hear you are growing
prosperous, and I am glad to hear it. I take my pen in hand to tell
you of the Visit w’ch our old General has made to Springfield. I thank
the Lord that these old Eyes has seen him once more before I die. I
knew he w’ld not stop in our Town, & so I harnessed up the old horse
and took my ten year old boy & started to Springf’ld. After I had
bought some Codfish & molases, I tied up my horse in the First Meeting
House Sheds & waited by Zenas Parsonses Tavern. The General was late,
it having rained hard in the Morning, and he did not reach town till
nearly Four. There was a crowd around the Tavern Steps, but no great
Cheers when the General stepped out of his Handsome Coach. There was
several Prominent Gentlemen to meet him, and Zenas, he was a-rubbing
his hands and a-bowing, with all the servants behind him. The boys
took the Horses around to the stables, & the General, he started to go
in, when he sees me standing by the door. What do you suppose he did?
There come over his face one of them smiles of his, like the sun
breaking through the clouds on a wintry day, & he steps up and shakes
my hand & he says, Why here’s my old Sargeant. And is this your Boy? a
Fine lad, says he, what is his Name? George Washington Colton, says I
as proud as a Peacock. He laughs, and pulls out a Silver Dollar, and
gives it to the Boy & it will be handed down to his Great grand
children, if he has any. Then the General says, Come up in the
Evening, says he, & sit with me and the other Gentlemen. Thank you
Sir, says I, saluting, I will, as soon as milking, and then he went
into the Tavern, for some of the fine Gentlemen was getting quite
impatient, seeing him stand talking so long with a plain farmer like
me. And yet there is some Sneaks who ought to be on the gallows, that
says that George Washington is cold and haughtey, and has no heed for
the common People. My paper is used up, so no more at present from.
Yr faithful friend,
PETER COLTON.
The second letter is from Enoch Day, proprietor of a general store in
West Springfield, to Joseph Mugridge, merchant, of Medford.
WEST SPRINGFIELD, _Oct. 22, 1789_.
COUSIN JOSEPH:—It is some time since I have seen you, & I hope that
your business is florishing, and that you & Cousin Elizabeth, and
little Betty are well. I would be getting on prety well if these
blustering returned Soldiers had any thing but their filthy
Continental Money to pay with. I had one put in Jail the other day,
old Job Smith, up on the Northampton Road. He came down from his High
Horse, after I got the Sheriff on his back & began to sniffle & whine,
and talk about a sick Wife, & how he had been wounded at Trenton. I
tell you, Joseph, it is our turn now, & we have gott these bare
footted heros on the Hip. That white livered Sneak & Coward, G.
Washington, was in Springfield, yesterday. A lot of Fools dressed up
in their best, and went over the river to see him. I hear he stopped
at Zene Parsons’ Tavern, and rode in a fine Coach, with four Horses,
and a whole company of Lackeys to bend & crouch & lick his Boots. He
is more like a King than a president, and they say he grows wors every
day. I hear he has already overdrawed his salary, & has stole $4,000,
and I can well believe it. What any one can see to worship in that
man, I cannot understand. He is treacherous in private Friendship, a
hypocrite in public life, and the World will be puzzled to know
whether he is an Apostate or an Imposter, whether he has abandoned his
principles or whether he ever had any. Posterity will say that the
Mask of political hypocricy has been worn by Caesar, by Cromwell, and
by Washington. This journey he is taking is to make political Capital.
He wants a second Term in Office, & he is catering to the vote of New
England. He is an aristocrat, a Monocrat, an Anglomaniac, & an
American Caesar. He ought to be the Servant of the People, but he
wants them to bow & treat him like a little King. We had one odious
King George, & now we are burdened with another. He is not the father,
but the Stepfather of the Country. A friend of mine in New York, tells
me for a fact, that this man comitted murder in his youth, & you have
doubtless heard of those letters of his which have been found, that
prove beyond the shadow of a Doubt, that this man, who is hailed as
the Saviour of the Country, was really a Coward, that he was at heart
as much of a Traitor as Benedict Arnold, only he lacked Arnold’s
Boldness & Courage to carry it out. I have just received a Pamphlet
written by one Valerius, which ought to be scattered abroad as a
patriotic Document. I will copy one particularly good paragraph for
you.
“With the Constitution in one hand, and the Word of God in
the other, George Washington swore to defend a republican
form of government, which abhors the insidious machinery of
royal imposture. Has he done so? What have been the fruits
of this solemn oath? The seclusion of a monk, and the
supercilious distance of a tyrant. Old habits have been on a
sudden thrown away. Time was, when he more than any other,
indulged the manly walk and rode the generous steed. Now to
behold him afoot or on horseback, is the subject of remark.
The concealing carriage drawn by supernumerary horses,
expresses the will of the President, and defies the will of
the people. He receives visits. He returns none. Are these
Republican virtues? Do they command our esteem?”
These words, dear cousin, filled with virtuous indignation, yet so
elegantly expressed, are no doubt your sentiments as well as mine.
Some of our West Springfield people, I am glad to say, have shown much
spirit in this matter. The last time an attempt was made to celebrate
the birthday of this odious tyrant, the swabs were stolen from the
cannon, so that no salute could be fired. It will be a happy day for
the Country, when G. Washington, Charlatan, political Trickster,
Apostate, and Coward, is removed from our midst.
Yr Cousin & ob’d’t Servant,
ENOCH DAY.
P. S. The last Rum you sent was of Prime quality. If you get any more
bargains in those slightly damaged Blankets from England, wch can be
sold for new, remember yr loving Cousin.
The next letter is from John Adams, to his friend and former playmate,
Dorothy Coolidge of Boston.
SPRINGFIELD, MASS., _October 22, 1789_.
MY DEAR FRIEND DOROTHY:—
I know that I ought not to write to you again this week, but my
clients are few, and time hangs heavily on my hands, out here in the
backwoods. You ask me if there are no handsome Springfield girls to
take my attention, and keep me from being lonely. There are some very
decent-looking young ladies, whom I see when I attend divine worship
in the First Church, but you know very well why I do not care to
cultivate their acquaintance. There is only One—no, I will not break
my promise which I made, not to propose for your hand again for six
months, but you know what I mean. I am going to tell you about the
visit which that noble Patriot & Friend of Mankind, President George
Washington, has just made to Springfield. He was here yesterday. About
four o’clock his coach came up the Main street, horses at a smart
trot, and drew up with a flourish in front of Zenas Parson’s Tavern.
There was a small crowd, and three cheers were give as the President
stepped from his coach, but no great enthusiasm, for I am bound to say
that Springfield is an anti-Federalist town, and there is already much
grumbling about the government. The general remained in the tavern but
a short time, when he came out, and mounting a horse set out with
several officers up the Boston road, to visit the Government Stores. I
learn that he was well satisfied with the location and the
improvements, and predicts that there will be here one day great
manufactories and warehouses for the making and storing of Munitions
of War. After supper he sat for a couple of hours, until ten o’clock,
with a company of gentlemen in the great room of the Tavern, before a
roaring fire, for the nights are chill. I was invited, no doubt on my
father’s account, for whom the General inquired kindly. There were,
among others in the company, Col Worthington, Col Williams, Adjt.
General of the State, Gen William Shepard, Mr Lyman, and many other
respectable gentlemen of the Town. I shall never forget that evening.
His Excellency talked more freely than is his wont. He is loth to
speak of his own achievements, but at the urgent solicitation of Col
Williams he told of his part in the Trenton campaign. He gave great
praise to our Massachusetts men, particularly to the Marblehead
fishermen, who ferried the army, men, horses and guns, across the
river, amid the floating ice. I can very well see, Dorothy, how some
men can worship him and others hate him. He is a gentleman, an
aristocrat, if you please, by nature; proud, self-contained, refined
in every sense of the word. Added to that he is afflicted—I think that
is the right word—with an abnormal shyness and reserve. His nature
suddenly draws in upon itself, leaving him silent, diffident, almost
glum. He cannot speak at such times. His lips close in a firm line; he
looks like a marble statue. This mood is what some men mistake for
hauteur, pride, arrogance. They call him Caesar, because he does not
smirk and grin, and slap every country Tom and Jerry on the back. And
yet, beneath that cold exterior, there is a nature which can be as
warm and as tender as Spring. Once or twice during the evening he
laughed as heartily as any one. I am convinced that the reserve and
apparent exclusiveness, which seems so offensive to some, is partly a
natural dignity, a respect for his position, and partly a disposition
which he cannot help.
But there is a quality about him which only the most superficial
observer can fail to notice. The sense of it grew upon me as I sat
there and watched the play of his features in the firelight. Dorothy,
he is a great man, the greatest, perhaps, that our country will ever
see. He is cast in the heroic mold. He belongs in the company of the
elect of all the ages. Only once in centuries does Nature form such a
man, and then, like Caesar and Cromwell, he must be misunderstood,
because he walks in a different atmosphere from the common throng.
When I was in college I went on a hunting trip in the New Hampshire
wilderness. Away up there in the Northland, suddenly, from a hilltop,
I saw that splendid mountain peak, which has just been rightly named
Washington. Gloriously, above its fellows, it soared into the sunset
sky, remote, inaccessible, companion of the stars, yet rooted in
mother earth, with running stream and birds and flowers about its
base. That is our Washington, and such he must ever be. Once he
alluded to the slanders and vituperations, which cannot but annoy him.
He spoke in a voice which had more of sadness than anger in it. “These
attacks,” he said, “are outrages on common decency. But I have a
consolation within that no earthly effort can deprive me of, and that
is, that neither ambition nor interested motives have influenced my
conduct. The arrows of malevolence, therefore, however barbed and well
pointed, can never reach the most vulnerable part of me, though while
I am up as a mark they will be continually aimed.” The truth is,
Dorothy, his public life is one continual martyrdom and
self-sacrifice. He does not care for public life. He loves his farm on
the Potomac—his horses and his dogs, his tobacco and his wheat, and he
would be happier there than in any office which the people can give
him. This talk about his being unrepublican is absurd. No man could be
more ardently republican. He went into the war from pure sentiment and
love of the country. He would have fought in the ranks, if his place
had not been in the saddle. He believes, as every man must, in a
strong central government, but monarchial institutions he abhors.
At the stroke of ten he arose, and we stood and remained standing as
he bade us a gracious good-night and left the room. There was no
laughter and loud talking as we went away. A spell seemed to be upon
us, the spell of his dignity and nobility and greatness. This morning
at seven he started for Boston. May God go with him.
I must say good-night, Dorothy. I wish I could see you. Could you not
write more often than once a week? It is very lonely here, but
Springfield is really a lovely place. The river, as it comes sweeping
down from the hills, is beautiful. There is a very pretty society here
for a small town, and some assemblies. I think you love the country. I
think that a girl, even one who had been brought up in Boston, might
under certain circumstances be happy here. Good-night, again, and
Farewell.
Ever your ob’d’t Servant and well-wisher,
JOHN.
The last letter is a reply to the preceding.
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, _Nov. 5, 1789_.
MY DEAR FRIEND JACK:—
You needn’t abuse me so, sir, because I have not written to you for
more than two Weeks. How could I write, with the President here, & so
many Balls and Assemblies. Besides, I write quite as often as is good
for you. I had thought of not writing any more to you, sir. I am
afraid that it may interfere with yr important Business. But I won’t
stop—just yet. I have seen yr Paragon, George Washington. He reached
here on Saturday after he was in Springfield, & it was a Gala-day for
Boston. There was a great Procession, Militia, marching very straight
and fine, trades-people, each guild with the Device of its Craft, and
many Gentlemen on horseback. Near the State-house was a triumphal
Arch, built acrost the street. On one side were the words, “The Man
Who Unites All Hearts.” On the Other “To Columbia’s Favorite Son.” On
the top of the Arch there was a stuffed Eagle. The school children
were drawn up in line, & saluted by rolling their writing quills in
their hands. The General rode a splendid white Horse, and looked every
inch the hero, in his blue and buff uniform. He held his Hat in his
hand, and bowed slightly to left and right. He went into the
State-house, and came out on the Balcony. Then the great throng below
went wild with Enthusiasm. By and by, when they could be heard, a
select Choir sang an Ode written for the occasion.
On Sunday morning his Excellency went to Church & sat in the Pew
behind ours. I had a new hat, which I think is very becoming. It has a
large brim, a gauze crown, & a broad bow with long ends at the back,
and it was trimmed with three Ostrich Feathers. What do you suppose
that ridiculous old anti-Federalist governor Hancock did? He refused
to call on the President, saying that it was the President’s place to
call upon his High Mightiness. The People were so angry, that threats
of violence were heard. You know that the President is stopping at the
Widow Ingersoll’s just opposite our house. Well, I was looking out,
when, about two o’clock, the Governor’s Coach drew up. His gouty legs
were done up in red Flannel & his lackeys carried him in, to see the
President. Later the President went and drank tea with him and Mrs
Hancock. I wouldn’t have returned such a call. My father was very much
pleased. He said that settled one thing forever, that the National
Government was supreme, and the States must take second place.
Wednesday night was the Assembly. I had a lovely pink Silk Gown, made
new for the great occasion, & I wore as all the young ladies did, a
broad white Satin sash, with G. W. in gold letters, with a laurel
Wreath around them. On one end of the sash was painted an American
Eagle, & on the other a Fleur-de-lis. I saw yr honored Mother, and she
was very gracious to me. She looked very Handsome & Stately, in a
beautiful Velvit gown, and the sash like ours, only black with gold
letters and Devices.
I had the honor of a Dance with his Excellency, and he was pleased to
be most charming in his Manner. He complimented my appearance, and
said that he had found our New England ladies quite as Handsome as
those in the South. I felt more complimented when he talked with me
about public Affairs here, & I know that I blushed when he praised my
knowledge of Politics. I admired yr description of him, & I know it is
true. I could feel his nobility and greatness of Soul. Oh, Jack, how
can anyone say such horrid things of him, when he is so Pure, so High
minded, when he is the Saviour of our Country. When he stood there on
the balcony of the State-house, with everybody cheering and shouting,
I could not help thinking of him as he was at Valley Forge, cold &
hungry, sacrificing everything for his soldiers, and the tears of
gratitude & affection came into my eyes. Well, he is gone, and I pray
he may return safely Home. I suppose he will not go through
Springfield on his way back. I asked him about Springfield, and he
said it was no great Town, but Lovely in situation, and that Zenas
Parson’s Tavern was a good one. I think—I am not sure—but perhaps,
under certain circumstances, a city girl might be happy in the
country. But this letter is too long. I meant to punish you by making
it short. You need not expect another for at least a Month. This is to
be a very gay winter, & I doubt not, I shall be much sought after, so
I shall have small time to write to my friends in the Country.
Yours, with some kindness,
DOROTHY.
The careful historical student may find some anachronisms in these
letters, yet in the main they give a true account of the time “when
Washington came to Springfield,” and rode, with his coach and four along
the New England highways, in the bright autumn weather.
SPRINGFIELD, MASS. NEWTON M. HALL.
(Read before the S. A. R., Springfield.)
LEXINGTON AND CONCORD
[We are indebted to Mr. Herbert W. Kimball, of Boston, Registrar of the
Massachusetts S. A. R., for the two accounts of the “shot heard round
the world.” The first was prepared for the Boston News-Letter, in 1826,
and the second, although written many years ago, was not printed until
1896, and then only in a newspaper, hence will probably be as new to
most of our readers as it is to the Editor. The bill of Dr. Fisk has
never been published or printed in any form, and is especially
interesting as showing, what we believe has not been stated by any
writer, that several of the British wounded who were left behind, were
cared for by the patriots. The detailed list of the killed and wounded
of the patriots was also prepared especially for the S. A. R., and
published in their Register, a few years ago.—ED.]
I
Between the hours of 12 and 1, on the 19th April, 1775, news was
received at Lexington by express from the Hon. Joseph Warren, at Boston,
that a large body of King’s troops, supposed to be about 1200 or 1500
were embarked in boats from Boston, and gone over to land on Lechmere
Point (now East Cambridge) probably to seize the military stores at
Concord.
On receipt of this intelligence, signal guns were fired, the bell rung,
and the militia of the town were ordered to meet at the usual place of
parade. About the same time two persons were sent express to Cambridge
to gain intelligence and watch the route of the enemy.
The Lexington train band, or militia, and the alarm men, consisting of
the aged and others exempted from military duty, except in case of
alarm, met according to order, on the commons near the meetinghouse, and
waited the return of the messengers. There were present when the roll
was called about 120 militia and alarm men together. Between three and
four A. M., one of the messengers returned, saying there was no
appearance of troops neither on the Cambridge or the Charlestown roads.
Put off their guard by this information, and the night being chilly and
uncomfortable on the parade ground, the privates were dismissed, to
appear again at the beat of drum. Some, who resided in the neighborhood,
went to their homes, others to the public house at the east corner of
the common. Messrs. Hancock and Adams had been persuaded to depart from
the town, as the seizure of their persons was probably one object of the
enemy. The return of the second messenger was anxiously awaited by the
officers who had continued at their posts, but he had been taken
prisoner by the enemy, as every other person had been who passed up or
down the road; so that, after every precaution, the British troops were
actually in the town, and upon a quick march towards the place of
parade, within half an hour after the company was dismissed. The
commanding officer, however, thought it proper to muster them in the
very face of the enemy; alarm guns were accordingly fired and the drum
beat to arms about 4:30 o’clock. Part of the company, to the number of
about sixty, were soon on the parade; others were hastening towards it,
when the attack was made. The Lexington company, as they hastily formed
on the rising ground to the north of the meetinghouse, were placed in
two ranks, ordered to load with ball, and as previously agreed, were
determined to offer no aggression, but to repel it if offered by the
British.
The British van, commanded by Major Pitcairn, had thus stolen upon the
militia unawares, while temporarily dismissed, and it was in sight of
the formidable body that the little band of Americans was forming their
ranks when the enemy halted at about twelve rods distance. Major
Pitcairn with his aids, hastily rode up the Bedford road to right of the
meetinghouse, and returned by the Concord road to the left; and having
thus reconnoitered this handful of men, drew his pistol and cried:
“Disperse, Rebels; throw down your arms and disperse,” gave orders to
fire, and fired his own pistol. The soldiers at the same time ran up
huzzaing, and fired, at first some scattering guns, which were
immediately followed by a general discharge, which did no injury,
excepting slightly wounding one man; and the fire was not returned; but
the second discharge was fatal to several Americans. They returned the
fire, as far as the confusion in their ranks from the number of killed
or wounded would permit. The militia dispersed immediately after firing,
but were shot at as they retreated. The British troops then resumed
their march to Concord.
II
This story of the Concord fight is taken from the original manuscript of
Thaddeus Blood, of Concord, and was first published in the Boston
Journal in 1896. He began as a minuteman, and later was a Lieutenant in
Captain Moses Barnes’ company, Lieut.-Col. Pierce’s regiment, stationed
part of the time in Rhode Island and part in Swanzey, as his own quaint
phraseology puts its. He says:
On the morning of the 19th of April, 1775, about 2 o’clock in the
morning, I was called out of bed by John Barrett, a Sergeant of the
militia company to which I belonged (I was 20 years of age the 28th of
May next following): I joined the company under Captain Nathan Barrett
(afterwards Colonel), at the old court-house, about 3 o’clock, and was
ordered to go to the Court House to draw ammunition. After the company
had all drawn their ammunition we were paraded near the meetinghouse
and I should suppose that there was 60 or 70 men in Capt. Barrett’s
company, and that the whole of the militia and minute-men of Concord
under arms that day was not less than 200. About 4 o’clock they were
joined by two companies from Lincoln: the militia commanded by Capt.
Pierce (afterwards Colonel) and the minute-men by Capt. William
Smith—the venerable and honorable Samuel Hoar of Lincoln was one of
his lieutenants—and were then formed, the minute-men on the right and
Capt. Barrett’s on the left, and marched in order to the end of
Meriam’s Hill, then so-called, and saw the British troops a-coming
down Brooks’ Hill: the sun was arising and shined on their red coats
and glis’ning arms. We retreated in order over the top of the hill to
the Liberty pole erected on the heights opposite the meetinghouse, and
made a halt; the main body of the British marched up in the road and a
detachment followed us over the hill, and halted in half gun-shot of
us, at the pole; we then marched over the burying-ground to the road
and then over the bridge to Hunt’s Hill, or Punkataisett so called at
that time, and were followed by two companies of the British. One
company went up to destroy stores at Colonel James Barrett’s, and they
tarried near the bridge; some of them went to Capt. David Brown’s,
some to Mr Ephraim Butterick’s. About 9 o’clock we saw smoke rise at
the Court House; it was proposed to march into town and were joined by
Westford and Acton companies, and were drawn up west of where Colonel
Jonas Butterick now lives. Colonel James Barrett rode along the line,
and having consulted with the officers, shouted, not to fire first;
then began their march—Robinson and Butterick led. Upon beginning to
march the company of British formed first on the causeway in platoons:
they then retreated over the bridge and took up three planks and
formed, part in the road and part on each side; our men the same time
marching in very good order along the road in double file. At that
time an officer rode up, and a gun was fired. I saw where the ball
threw up the water about the middle of the river; then a second and a
third shot, and cry of fire, fire, was made from front to rear: the
fire was almost simultaneous with the cry, and I think it was not more
than two minutes, if so much, till the British run, and the fire
ceased. Part of our men went over the bridge and myself among the
rest, and part returned to the ground they had left. After the firing,
every one appeared to be his own commander; it was thought best to go
the east part of the town and take them as they came back. Each took
his own station; for myself, I took my stand south of where Dr Minot
then lived; when I saw the British coming from Concord, their right
flank in the meadows, their left on the hill.
“When near the foot of the hill Col. Thompson of Billerica came up,
with three or four hundred men, and there was heavy firing, but the
distance so great that little injury was done on either side; at least
I saw but one killed, and a number wounded.”
The rest of the story is more familiar to us—the steady, running fight,
all the way, until Lord Percy’s welcome reinforcement saved the day—and
the exhausted British detachment reached once more the sheltering lines
of Boston, whence they had set out with so much confidence that early
morning. Of the patriots, 49 were killed, 39 wounded and 5 missing. Of
the British, 73 were killed, 174 wounded and 26 missing.
III
DR. FISK’S BILL
LEXINGTON, _April, 1775_.
The Province of Massachusetts, Debtor to Joseph Fisk, to
going to Woburn to dress one of the King’s troops; travel
three miles and dressing £0 3s. 6d.
April 19, to dressing one of King’s troops at Mr. Buckman’s
in Lexington; travel half a mile 2 0
April 20, to dressing seven of the King’s troops, at Mr
Buckman’s in Lexington; two days at one shilling per day
each 1 3 0
April 20, to going to Lincoln to Dress two of King’s
troops; travel three miles 3 6
April 20, to going to Ebenezer Fisk’s to dress three of the
King’s troops, two miles 3 6
April 23, to going to Cambridge to dress one of the King’s
troops; travel five miles 4 0
April 26, to dressing one of the King’s troops three times,
at Mr Buckman’s in s’d town 4 0
Lexington, June 6, 1775
Errors Excepted,
JOSEPH FISK.
[On Monument in Lexington.]
_In
memory of_
DR. JOSEPH FISK,
_Surgeon in the
Revolutionary Army and
member of the Mass.
Cincinnati Society,
who died Sept. 25, 1837,
Aged 84 Years_.
THE DEAD OF PATRIOTS’ DAY[23]
APRIL 19, 1775[24]
────────────────┬───┬─────────────────────┬─────────┬──────────────────
NAME │AGE│ WHERE KILLED │TOWN FROM│ WHERE BURIED
────────────────┼───┼─────────────────────┼─────────┼──────────────────
Ensign Robert │63 │Lexington Common │Lexington│Lexington Common
Munroe │ │ │ │
Jonas Parker │53 │ „ „ │ „ │ „ „
Jonathan │30 │ „ „ │ „ │ „ „
Harrington │ │ │ │
Isaac Muzzy │31 │Near Lexington Common│ „ │ „ „
Samuel Hadley │29 │ „ „ „ │ „ │ „ „
John Brown │25 │ „ „ „ │ „ │ „ „
Asahel Porter │ │ „ „ „ │Woburn │Woburn
Capt. Isaac │30 │Concord Bridge │Acton │Acton Centre
Davis │ │ │ │
Abner Hosmer │21 │ „ „ │ „ │ „ „
Capt. Jonathan │41 │N’r Brooks’ Tav’n, │Bedford │Bedford
Wilson │ │ Lincoln │ │
Daniel Thompson │40 │ „ „ „ │Woburn │Woburn
│ │ „ │ │
Nathaniel Wyman │25 │ „ „ „ │Lexington│Old Cemetery,
│ │ „ │ │ Lexington
Asahel Reed │22 │ „ Hartwell’s „ │Sudbury │Sudbury Centre
│ │ „ │ │
James Hayward │25 │Fiske’s Hill, │Acton │Acton Centre
│ │ Lexington │ │
Josiah Haynes │80 │Concord Hill │Sudbury │Sudbury Centre
Jedediah Munroe │54 │Lexington │Lexington│Old Cemetery,
│ │ │ │ Lexington
John Raymond │44 │N’r Munroe’s Tav’n, │ „ │„ „ „
│ │ Lex. │ │
Joseph Coolidge │45 │East Lexington │Watert’wn│East Watertown
Henry Jacobs │22 │Menotomy │Danvers │Danvers
Samuel Cook │33 │ „ │ „ │ „
Ebenezer │22 │ „ │ „ │ „
Goldthwait │ │ │ │
George Southwick│25 │ „ │ „ │ „
Benjamin Daland │25 │ „ │ „ │ „
Jotham Webb │22 │ „ │ „ │ „
Perley Putnam │21 │ „ │ „ │ „
Daniel Townsend │37 │ „ │Lynn │Lynnfield
Reuben Kennison │ │ „ │Beverly │Danvers, Ryal Side
William Flint │ │ „ │Lynn │Menotomy, now
│ │ │ │ Arl’gton
Thomas Hadley │ │ „ │ „ │ „ „ „
Jason Russell │59 │ „ │Menotomy │ „ „ „
William Polly │30 │Mill Pond, Op. │Medford │Medford
│ │ Menotomy │ │
Henry Putnam │70 │Menotomy │ „ │ „
Benjamin Peirce │37 │ „ │Salem │Menotomy
Lieut. John │54 │ „ │Needham │ „
Bacon │ │ │ │
Sergt. Elisha │40 │ „ │ „ │Needham
Mills │ │ │ │
Amos Mills │43 │ „ │ „ │Menotomy
Natheniel │57 │ „ │ „ │ „
Chamberlain │ │ │ │
Jonathan Parker │28 │ „ │Dedham │ „
Elias Haven │ │ „ │Dover │ „
Abednego │25 │ „ │Lynn │ „
Ramsdell │ │ │ │
Jabez Wyman │39 │ „ │Menotomy │ „
Jason Winship │45 │ „ │ „ │ „
Moses Richardson│53 │Cambridge │Camb’dge │Cambridge
John Hicks │50 │ „ │ „ │ „
William Marcy │ │ „ │ „ │ „
Isaac Gardner │49 │ „ │Brooklyn │Brooklyn
James Miller │65 │Charlestown │Cha’stown│Charlestown
Edward Barber │14 │Charlestown Neck │ „ │ „
────────────────┴───┴─────────────────────┴─────────┴──────────────────
THE MEMORIAL TREES AT WASHINGTON
How to identify memorial trees has become an interesting question with
the Washington authorities who have charge of the public grounds. While
this city has no elm under which Washington took command of the army,
and no oak that saved the charter of colonial liberties, it has not a
few trees about which exceedingly interesting history gathers.
The Russo-American oak, planted a year ago, by President Roosevelt,
assisted by Secretary Hitchcock, in the lawn near the west terrace of
the White House, has a novel history. It is a lineal descendant of a
native American oak, which overshadowed the old tomb of Washington at
Mount Vernon. Acorns from this oak were sent by Charles Sumner, while a
Senator, to the Czar of Russia. Secretary Hitchcock thus tells the rest
of the story:
“While ambassador at the court of St. Petersburg I made inquiry with
respect to the acorns that Charles Sumner, while Senator from
Massachusetts, sent to the Czar, and I found that they had been planted
on what is known as ‘Czarina Island,’ which is included in the superb
surroundings of one of the palaces of his Majesty, near Peterhof, and
there I found a beautiful oak with a tablet at its foot bearing a
Russian inscription which reads: ‘The acorn planted here was taken from
an oak which shades the tomb of the celebrated and never-to-be-forgotten
Washington; is presented to his Imperial Majesty, the Emperor of all the
Russias, as a sign of the greatest respect.—By an American.’
“I was fortunate at the time of my visit, which was in the fall of 1898,
in finding a number of acorns on the ground. Gathering a handful I sent
them home, and secured from the seed thus planted a few oak saplings,
one of which I planted, with the permission of President Roosevelt, in
the grounds of the White House, while another I planted near its
grandparent, which is still in existence at Mount Vernon. Both of these
young trees, I hope, will reach such age and strength as will, for years
to come typify the continued friendship of the Governments and people of
the United States and Russia.”
A superb specimen of the Oriental plane tree (_Platanus orientalis_)
originally planted in 1862, in the United States Botanic Garden by
direction of Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania, now forms one of the
chief attractions of Lincoln Park. Having suffered from an overflow of
the Potomac in 1870, which threatened its destruction, it was removed
from the Botanic Garden to Lincoln Park, then an unimproved Government
reservation. In 1872, when this park was improved with walks and
ornamental plantings, a part of the plan of improvement adopted was the
construction of an oval mound in the center, intended to form the site
of a colossal statue of Abraham Lincoln, if an appropriation could be
secured for that purpose. This tree was bare-stemmed, with a few small
branches near the top, about eight feet from the original ground
surface. The mound was made around it, and from this bare stem, which
subsequently was covered with earth, it speedily sent out roots, and
began a growth of phenomenal rapidity, which has continued till it is
now over seventy feet in height, with a nearly equal spread of branches.
Trees as well as statuary may serve as monuments. In the parks and
gardens of the cities of Europe there are many such trees. In
Washington, the official home of our Presidents, and the temporary
abiding place of so many distinguished statesmen and men of letters,
exceptional opportunities have been afforded, and there are many trees
notable for the historic interest attached to them.
In the grounds around the White House stands a stately American elm said
to have been planted by President John Quincy Adams. It forms a
conspicuous object, towering above the surrounding plantings on the
mound to the southeast of the White House. An American elm was planted
by President Hayes in March, 1878, near the west entrance of the north
roadway approach to the White House. A sweet-gum tree was planted by
President Harrison, in April, 1892, in the lawn northeast of the White
House. A scarlet oak was planted by President McKinley, March, 1898, in
the lawn west of the White House, bordering the walk now leading to the
executive offices.
The Cameron elm, one of the old trees in the Capitol grounds, south of
the south wing of the building, is made notable from the circumstance
that Simon Cameron, of Pennsylvania, while a member of the Senate
Committee on Public Buildings, intervened in its behalf and prevented
its destruction.
In the Botanic Garden are planted a large number of trees, memorials of
men prominent in the Nation’s history. These trees are both evergreen
and deciduous, and a number of them are splendid specimens. There is the
Crittenden tree, an overcup oak, planted in 1863 by J. J. Crittenden, of
Crittenden compromise fame. The acorns for this and a companion tree
planted at the same time by Robert Mallory, a personal friend of
Crittenden, were brought from Kentucky by them. Mr. Mallory’s tree was
planted on what was, prior to its incorporation in the Botanic Garden,
the towpath of the old Washington Canal.
The Garfield tree has this novel history: At the funeral ceremonies of
President Garfield a small seedling branchlet of acacia was placed on
his coffin by a member of the Masonic fraternity. After his burial this
seedling plant was brought to Washington, and planted in its present
location. Near this tree, on the opposite side of the walk, an acacia
tree has been planted as a memorial to Albert Pike, for so many years
the central figure of the Masonic fraternity in the United States. The
Hoar and Evarts memorial trees are two handsome specimens of the cedar
of Lebanon, planted by Senators Hoar and Evarts, close together. The
Holman tree is a superb Crimean fir, planted about thirty-eight years
ago by the Indiana economist, who is now almost forgotten. There are two
Wahoo, or winged elm trees, planted by Lot M. Morrill and Justin S.
Morrill during their terms of service in the United States Senate. These
somewhat rare trees are now handsome specimens of the garden.
A Chinese oak with a novel history grows near by; many years ago a
friend of Charles A. Dana, travelling in China, picked up a number of
acorns under a tree growing by the grave of Confucius, and brought them
to America for Mr. Dana, who planted them in his grounds. This tree was
grown from one of these acorns.
There are also a number of other memorial trees planted in these
grounds; among the most notable are a British oak commemorating the
settlement of the Alabama claims, and two American elms, seedlings from
the Washington elm growing at Cambridge. And there are many more.
_Evening Post, N. Y._
ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS
LETTER FROM BENJAMIN HAWKINS TO GOVERNOR CASWELL
[Benjamin Hawkins was a member of the Continental Congress, and
interpreter for Washington with the French officers. (Washington is said
to have greatly regretted the necessity for an interpreter, as it failed
to bring the French officers in proper touch with the commander.) The
letter is dated at “Bath” presumably in North Carolina, as the writer
refers to “this state.” It is addressed to Richard Caswell, the Governor
of North Carolina. The writer was born in N. C. in 1754, and died in
Georgia, 1816. A Princeton graduate, and proficient in modern languages,
his knowledge of French made him very useful to Washington. In 1780 he
was commissioned to buy arms abroad. These he shipped in a vessel
belonging to John Stanly a merchant of New Berne. After the Revolution
he became one of the Senators from N. C. In 1797 he was Indian
Superintendent, over all the tribes south of the Ohio, and held this
office through several administrations. Although rich he left home to
establish a settlement and manufactory in the Creek Nation, near what is
now Hawkinsville, Ga. (named in his honor).]
BATH, —— 1780.
DEAR SIR,
I have the pleasure of informing your excellency of my arrival here with
some muskets for this State; I ship’d eight hundred and seventy-eight
stand from St. Eustatius, I shall land five hundred stand at
Washington—the remainder which come in another bottom, will be at
Edenton.
I could not procure anything on the faith of the State, or by barter for
provisions or tobacco as was expected, they were taught to believe in
the West Indies that a bushel of salt would purchase one hundred weight
of tobacco, and that two and one-half, a barrel of pork. While they
entertain this idea (salt being of little value there) it will be
impossible to barter for more valuable articles, the exchange to be in
this State, as was suggested by some gentlemen in the assembly. The
price of tobacco had fallen in the West Indies about the time of my
arrival there, owing to the quantity just then imported from the
continent—which with the advise of Mr. Governeur, the continental agent
there determined me to reship the tobacco in Dutch bottoms to Europe, he
undertook to do it, and advanced for six hundred of the arms—the
remainder I purchased on my own credit on Interest for the State—the
arms are very good and purchased at the reasonable price of five and
five and a half pieces of eight per stand. Part of the tobacco I ship’d
was damaged, which can only be accounted for either by the negligence of
the inspector or the bad state of the warehouse where it was stored.
We were apprised of the sailing of the fleet from New York, which made
me assiduous in geting all the arms I could in St. Eustatia as I well
knew our situation. A large supply of arms and cloathing may be had by
this from the West Indies provided we can make remittances—three
thousand stand I am offered and one thousand suits of cloathing.
Should the present plan of importing necessaries still continue to be
countenanced by the general assembly, I shall prepair to remit as much
as possible, tho’ I doubt vessels cannot be procured—freighting at the
present extravigant prices will not be so advantageous as purchasing. If
the latter be practicable, I must draw on you for money—I will send you
the price currant of articles for the West India market by the next
opportunity.
A Continental brigantine was cut out from Saby by some British
privateers tho’ opposed by the fire from the fort, she has been since
demand(ed?) but refused—it was suggested that the Captain, —— Ashmead,
and some of his men went into the fort and assisted in protecting their
vessel, the answer of the governor of St. Kitts to the demand is
humourous; he congratulated the governor of Saby[25] on the restoration
of the island seized by the rebel Americans.
Part of the French fleet have arrived at Martinique, but we had no
account of the Count, some supposed he had sailed for Europe others to
South America.
We had various reports from Europe which as I recollect I send you—the
Dutch have been repeatedly solicited to take part with Britain, they
evade it as much as possible, it is said they have given as a reason
that they did not think the present plans & intention of the British
ministry to be to the interest either of Britain or her allies, but
manifestly to their ruin and discredit, and therefore although they were
and are at all times ready to act for the interest of great Britain, yet
for the reasons before named they must now declare themselves neuter and
protest against the proceedings of —— This is credited by some in St.
Eustatia. They further report that the dutch Embassador has ben recalled
from the British Court in consideration of a demand of some vessels
carried into the Texel by John Paul Jones; the governor of St. Eustatius
imagines that the Dutch will take part with Britain.
The grand convention will be held at Versailles in April—the King of
Prussia & Empress of Russia have promised their mediation, the British
fleet are in Torbay and do not expect to put to sea till April. John
Paul Jones who sailed from Brest in a fifty gun ship with some frigates
went north about and did infinite damage to the British vessels—he fell
in with the convoy from Norway and took the Seraphis, a new fifty gun
ship, and the Countess of Scarborough of 20—Jones engaged the Seraphis
two hours, and the whole time they were so near that the guns touched
the opposite vessel. Jones lost one hundred and Eighty two men, and
Pearson 189. Jones’ ship sunk the next day and he went with his prizes
into the Texel, there to refit them. Sir Joseph York demanded them,
which was so strenuously opposed by the French minister that his demand
was refused and repeatedly. Jones was received with every imaginable
mark of respect by the Dutch.
I expect the pleasure of seeing your excellency within a few days—excuse
the imperfection of my letter—I am with due respect—
Dear Sir,
Your most obed’t Serv’t
BENJAMIN HAWKINS.
[Illustration: Logo]
LETTER FROM SILAS DEANE TO CAPT. JOSEPH HYNSON.
[This letter, which was sold at auction in New York in May, came to
light very opportunely for our article. Its existence was before
unknown.—See article “Between Two Flags,” p. 203]
Paris, _27 August, 1777_.
CAPT. HYNSON—
SIR:
I wrote you on the 4th., the 15th., the 17th., & the 21st.,—on the 17th
I sent a copy of my letter of the 4th. I now have before me yours of the
24th., by which it does not appear that you have received any of my
Letters, this & the pretended Secrecy with which everything is conducted
convinces me of what I have been long since suspicious, (viz) that you
are in the hands of a very dishonest man—I once more enclose the copy of
my letter of the 4th and again insist, that before you leave Havre, you
see that every Bill is just, and that every thing has been conducted as
it ought to be, for I freely own to you, I have lost all confidence in
Eyries (?) You will then ask me why I have dealt with him at all for
this Vessel. I answer at once, to get my Money out of his hands, but if
he witholds anything from your knowledge quit him immediately. I have
wrote directly to Eyries by this post, & am with due respect,
Sir Your Most Obedt
& very hum; Servt.
S. DEANE.
I have repeatedly told you that you cannot be permitted to cruise in the
Channel, & were I to give you a Commission for that purpose it would be
fatal to me, therefore urge no more on that subject—I once more inclose
you the Orders I gave (on) the 4th and must insist that you see every
thing done to your satisfaction or that you instantly tell Eyries you
will have nothing to do in the affair.
MINOR TOPICS
WHAT DID WAYNE PLAN IN THIS ORDER?
Mad Anthony was not content with his success at Stony Point, but a short
time after issued this order:
Fishkill Landing, 4 Aug., 1779.
Dear Sir: You’ll please to order a detachment of one hundred and fifty
men, with two days’ provisions, under the command of Col. Butler. I
wish you to order Major Hull with him.
Interim believe me yours,
ANT’Y WAYNE. B. G.
N. B.—The detachment will move to-morrow morning early.
_To Mr. Nath’l Sackett._
It is evident that the contemplated movement was not to be far away,
as only two days’ provisions were called for. There was something to
be performed in the secrecy of the night. Col. Butler was probably
Col. Richard Butler, who was a capable officer of the 9th
Pennsylvania. Major Hull was later Gen. Hull, of the War of 1812.
Sackett had his home in the neighborhood near where Wayne was writing,
and had been very active in civil life. He graduated at Yale, and was
prominent in revolutionary committees. He brought to Fishkill the news
of the Battle of Lexington, organized local patriotic meetings, and
was associated with the leaders in that historic time. It seems that
Wayne looked to him to give him some important aid where nothing was
accomplished, because of some new turn for other action. Such are
familiar to the soldier. Many soldiers were quartered in Fishkill,
where those officers and men to be called must have been.
J. HARVEY COOK.
_Fishkill-on-Hudson._
THE LAST VETERAN GONE
Hiram Cronk, the last survivor of the War of 1812, died at the age of
105, at his home in Oneida County, N. Y., May 15, and was given a public
military funeral in New York City, May 18—the Society of the War of 1812
forming a part of the escort. The body lay in state over night at the
City Hall—an honor never before shown to a private soldier—and on May 19
was interred in Cypress Hills Cemetery, Long Island.
QUERY
_g._ MCPIKE—Have the ship registers been preserved, of arrivals of
emigrants at port of Baltimore, Maryland, _circa_ 1772, from Dublin,
Ireland, and London, England? My ancestor, James McPike, of Scotch
parentage, is said to have migrated from Dublin to Baltimore in 1772.
His son, John McPike, was born at Wheeling, W. Va., 4th or 5th February,
1795. Is there any local evidence of that fact which is recorded in
family Bible records?
GENEALOGICAL
All communications for this department (including genealogical
publications for review) should be sent to William Prescott Greenlaw,
address: Commonwealth Hotel, Bowdoin St., Boston, Mass.
[A limited number of queries will be inserted for subscribers free; to
all others a charge of one cent per word (payable in stamps) will be
made.]
16. _a._ BARTLETT—What was the maiden name of Abigail, wife of Richard
Bartlett of Newbury? She died 1687.
* * * * *
_b._ CROSBY—Who were the parents of Jane Crosby of Rowley, who married,
1644, John Pickard of Rowley and died 1715.
* * * * *
_c._ HOBBS—Wanted, the parentage of Mary Hobbs of Newbury, who married,
1665, John Kent. She died 1703.
* * * * *
_d._ PEARSON—What was the maiden name of Dorcas, wife of John Pearson of
Rowley? They were married about 1667.
* * * * *
_e._ RUST—Who were the parents of Mary Rust of Newbury or Ipswich, who
married, 1680, John Kent of Newbury.
* * * * *
_f._ WHEELER—What was the maiden name of Rebecca, wife of Nathan
Wheeler? He died 1741.
* * * * *
_g._ WHEELER—Who were the parents of Susanna Wheeler of Newbury, born
1730, died 1801, who married, 1749, William Coffin of Newbury.
* * * * *
_h._ WESTWOOD—What was the maiden name of Bridget, wife of William
Westwood of Hartford and Hadley? He died 1639.
* * * * *
_i._ TYNG—Wanted, the maiden name of Mary, wife of Edward Tyng of Boston
and Dunstable. He died 1681.
W. 1.
[Illustration: Logo]
ENGLISH PEDIGREE OF THE FIRST GABRIEL LUDLOW, OF NEW YORK
_By the late_ THOMAS W. LUDLOW, Esq., _of Ludlow, N. Y._
GEORGE LUDLOW, m. EDITH, third daughter of ANDREW, LORD WINDSOR,
of Hill Deverill, High Sheriff for | of Stanwell, Middlesex.
Wilts, 1567. Will proved Feb. 4, 1580. |
|
[See Herald’s Visitation to Wilts, in |
1565, made by Robert Harvey, Clarencieux |
King-at-Arms; Bodleian |
Libr., Oxon. Ms. B. 440, fol. 4] |
+-----------------------+--------------------+
| |
SIR EDMUND LUDLOW. THOMAS LUDLOW, m. JANE, sister of SIR GABRIEL PYLE, of Bapton.
| of Dinton and Baycliffe. |
| Died Nov., 1607. |
| Will proved June, 1608. |
SIR HENRY LUDLOW. |
| |
+---------+---------+
+------------------------------+--+-----------------+--------------------+
| | | | | |
Lt-Gen. HENRY LUDLOW, GABRIEL LUDLOW, LIEUT.-GOV. THOMAS LUDLOW, Colonel
SIR EDMUND LUDLOW, ancestor of the father of GABRIEL, ROGER LUDLOW, bapt. at Baverstock, GEORGE
LUDLOW,
the Regicide. Earls of Ludlow. who was of Massachusetts and March 3, 1593; of Virginia;
| killed at Newbury, 1644; Connecticut. married, at Warminster, d.
1637,
| went to New England, 1639. Bapt. at Dinton, February 15, 1634, at
Jamestown.
| March 7, 1590. JANE BENNETT,
| Landed at of Steeple Ashton.
This line became extinct. Nantasket, 1630; |
returned to England, 1654. |
+--------------------------+---------+
| |
THOMAS LUDLOW, GABRIEL LUDLOW, m.
MARTHA ...
m. of Frows. Baptised at |
SABAS SUTTON. Warminster, Aug. 27, 1634,
|
d. 1690. |
+---------------------------------------+
|
GABRIEL LUDLOW, of New York;
born at Castle Cary, Nov. 2, 1663;
arrived in New York Nov. 24, 1694;
m. SARAH HANMER, April 5, 1697.
Copy of the CERTIFICATE OF BAPTISM OF GABRIEL LUDLOW, of New
York.
“Christenings in the years 1663.
“December. The first day of this moneth GABRIEL the sonne of GABRIEL
LUDLOW
of froome and of MARTHA his wife was christened.”
Certified a true copy of an entry in the Register of Baptisms for
the Parish of Castle Cary, in the county of Somerset, by
10th day of March, 1883. A. W. GRAFTON, _Vicar_.
-----
Footnote 1:
Smith, _Debates_, pp. 38, 39.
Footnote 2:
Smith, _Debates_, pp. 37, 38.
Footnote 3:
In his message of Oct. 25, 1861, Gov. Shorter made a report showing
that the finances of the State for 1861 were in a good condition, and
advised against levying a tax to pay the State’s quota of the
Confederate tax. He stated that the banks had done good service to the
State; that, though in time of peace they were a necessary evil, now
they were a public necessity; that all the money used by the State in
carrying on the war had come from the banks.—Official Records, Ser.
IV, Vol. I, pp. 697–700.
Footnote 4:
O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. I, pp. 697–699; Acts of Gen’l. Assembly, Feb. 2,
Nov. 27 and 30, and Dec. 7 and 9, 1861; Patton’s Message, Jan. 16,
1866.
Footnote 5:
Ordinance No. 33, amending sections 1373, 1375, 1393 of the Code, Mar.
16, 1861.
Footnote 6:
In 1861, two banks were chartered, two in 1862, five in 1863, and two
in 1864. Several of there were savings banks.
Footnote 7:
Ordinance No. 18, Jan. 19, 1861; Nos. 35 and 36, Mar. 18, 1861.
Footnote 8:
Schwab, p. 302; Davis, Vol. I, p. 495; Journal of the Conv. of 1865,
p. 61; Acts of Ala., Jan. 29, Feb. 6 and 8, Dec. 10, 1861;
Stat.-at-Large Prov. Cong. C. S. A., Feb. 8, 1861; Miller, _Alabama_,
pp. 152, 157.
Footnote 9:
Journal of the Conv., 1865, p. 61; Acts of Ala., Nov. 8, Dec. 4, 8 and
9, 1862; Miller, p. 168.
Footnote 10:
Journal of the Conv. of 1865, p. 61; Acts of Ala., Aug. 29, Dec. 8,
1863; Miller, pp. 186, 189.
Footnote 11:
Miller, p. 215; Acts of Ala., Oct. 7, and Dec. 13, 1864.
Footnote 12:
Resolutions of Gen’l. Assembly, Dec. 1, 1862; Schwab, p. 50.
Footnote 13:
Resolutions, Dec. 8, 1863.
Footnote 14:
Confederate Funding Act, Feb. 17, 1864.
Footnote 15:
Acts of Ala., Oct 7, 1864; Schwab, pp. 73, 74.
Footnote 16:
Acts of Ala., Dec. 10, 1861.
Footnote 17:
Acts of Ala., passim. Notes of the State and of State banks were
hoarded while Confederate notes were distrusted.—Pollard, _Lost
Cause_, p. 421.
Footnote 18:
Acts of Ala., Nov. 9, 1861; Schwab, p. 8. It was considered a matter
of patriotism to invest funds in Confederate securities. Not many
other investments offered; there was little trade in negroes.—Pollard,
_Lost Cause_, p. 424.
Footnote 19:
Acts of Ala., Dec. 8, 1863.
Footnote 20:
Acts of Ala., Dec. 13, 1864.
Footnote 21:
Clark, Finance and Banking, in the _Memorial Record of Alabama_, Vol.
I, p. 341. Statement of J. H. Fitts.
Footnote 22:
Patton’s Message, Jan. 16, 1866.
Footnote 23:
The 19th of April is so known in New England, particularly in
Massachusetts.
Footnote 24:
Although this has been printed in all the histories of the Revolution,
it remained for the Massachusetts S. A. R. to make it complete by
adding the place where killed, the home, and the age of each of the
victims, and I am indebted to Mr. H. W. Kimball, the Society’s
Registrar, for the use of it.
Footnote 25:
San Saba.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in
spelling.
2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.
3. Re-indexed footnotes using numbers and collected together at the end
of the last chapter.
4. Enclosed italics font in underscores.
5. Denoted superscripts by a caret before a single superscript
character or a series of superscripted characters enclosed in
curly braces, e.g. M^r. or M^{ister}.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Magazine of History with Notes and Queries, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1905" ***
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