gave them the fortitude without which the prisons and graves of England would have had more attraction for them than the free wildernesses of America. Doubtless their story has been told often enough to meet the claims of historic truth, and to vindicate their own good name. Still, we have mistaken the spirit of much that has been said and written of late among us, if we have not rightly inferred that detraction has renewed its attacks upon them. It may be only that some have grown weary of the theme; but we submit that ridicule and sneers are not the most Christian, nor the most commendable, expressions of a distaste for the exaggerations and the fulsome and undiscriminating encomiums which have been spent upon the Pilgrim Fathers. Their story truly and simply told is praise enough, and never will weary a real lover of truth.

Only a small portion of the text of this volume appears here in print for the first time; but this fact hardly lessens the value of the collection. The documents composing it are twenty-four in number, all of them written by actual movers or participators in the settlements in Massachusetts Bay; not one of them is anonymous, or apocryphal, or questionable in its authorship. For the most part, they are printed from the original documents, and, except Governor Winthrop's Journal, they embrace every thing of a historical character which is now known to be extant, from the pens of the first planters. The documents are collected from all quarters, a few of them have never before been printed, and of those which were in print, some were inaccessible to the mass of readers, and others, through the carelessness or impatience of former transcribers of the manuscripts, were published in an inaccurate or imperfect form. They are all chronologically arranged, and accompanied by a body of notes serving to illustrate whatever, by the lapse of time or other causes, had become obscure or unintelligible. The biographical notices are numerous and condensed, requiring extensive inquiries for their preparation. Notes in some books and on some subjects are an intolerable nuisance to a reader, being sometimes more properly entitled to a place in the text, the continuity of which they interrupt, but more commonly not entitled to a place in any part of the volume. In Mr. Young's volumes, his abundant notes are absolutely essential. They give direct and sufficient answers to questions which rise naturally as we VOL. LXIII. - No. 132.

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read the text, and their completeness and variety double the value of the documents. We feel the more bound to say this, because, while first perusing the book, we felt hastily moved to say something to the contrary. When we were so often referred to the bottom or the middle of a page, to be informed of the population of English towns and cities, and their distances from London, from seaports, and from each other, we were tempted to ask, Why is this? But we now understand that their purpose is to remind or inform all readers, in an indirect way, of the characters and social position of the fathers of Massachusetts, of the bonds which linked their sympathies together while they lived wide apart at home, of the places where their views were entertained, and of the distances which they travelled to meet one another in their necessary arrangements, or to reach the seaports. Some of these travellers, like the famous ministers John Cotton and Richard Mather, were compelled not only to go long distances, but to conceal themselves from pursuivants.

A mere enumeration of the documents which compose this volume, with very brief remarks, followed, like the sermons of their authors, with a few suggestions by way of improvement, is the object which we now propose to ourselves. The first document, called The Planter's Plea, is from a small quarto volume written by the Rev. John White, of Dorchester, England, printed at London, 1630. Though he never came hither himself, Mr. White first moved our fathers to the enterprise. His intimacy with them and his knowledge of all their plans give to his record the highest authority. Yet, strange to say, his little book was not used or mentioned by either Mather, Prince, Hutchinson, Bancroft, or Grahame. Mr. Young takes this extract from it for the sake of its methodical and accurate statement of facts relating to the earliest attempts, made first in fishing and trading voyages, and then by a colony, to establish a permanent settlement in Massachusetts Bay. The second document is the preliminary narrative given in Hubbard's History, relating to the first settlements at Cape Ann and Salem. The whole history has been printed in the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society; but Mr. Young's extract, copied from the original manuscript, corrects many errors, and embraces the most original and valuable portion of its contents, which the Ipswich minister probably derived from the high

authority of Roger Conant. The third chapter or document in these Chronicles contains a complete manuscript, now first printed, of the original records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, up to the time when the charter was brought over by Governor Winthrop. The most trifling particulars recorded herein are of high interest. The meetings of the company in England, the names of those interested and present, their deliberations, plans, and efforts, the cautious and serious spirit which guided them, are fully presented. We have even the lists of articles for apparel, subsistence, and common use, which formed the freight of the first ships.

Next, we have, under date of February 16, 1629, a letter from Cradock, governor of the company in England, to Endicott, who presided over the first body of emigrants which came under its direction to Salem. The fifth and sixth chapters contain two general letters of instructions from the company to Endicott and his council. These are followed by four chapters, containing respectively the form of government for the colony, the allotment of lands, the oaths, and the agreement with the ministers. All these documents came from the meetings of the court of the company England, and show, in their exact method and careful elaboration, that serious work was thought to be in hand.

We find next the journal of his passage in 1629, kept by the Rev. Francis Higginson, of Salem, and his graphic description of the "commodities and discommodities" of the country, written, with some help of poetry, to draw others hither. The only specimen of humor which the whole volume affords is found in this latter piece of Higginson's. Writing about our Indians, he observes, "Their hair is generally black, and cut before, like our gentlewomen, and one lock longer than the rest, much like to our gentlemen, which fashion I think came from hence into England." It was probably under some conflict of sensations about the past and the present, that the good minister wrote, that "a sup of New England's air is better than a whole draught of Old England's ale." The next chapter is a curious paper, probably drawn up by Governor Winthrop, containing "General Considerations for the Plantation of New England; with an Answer to several Objections." This is followed by the shortest, though the most pregnant, document in the voluine;

"The True Copy of the Agreement at Cambridge [Old England], August 26, 1629," solemnly signed by honorable men pledging themselves to embark for the colony. Chapter fifteenth contains the company's letters to the ministers and Governor Endicott, relating to the affair of the Brownes, who wished to introduce the Common Prayer Book at Salem, and were summarily sent home. The records of the company abundantly prove that every effort was made to do strict justice in this case. Next follows a most tender and beautiful piece, entitled, The Company's Humble Request, written and signed by the exiles "late gone for New England" to win prayers and kind feelings from "the rest of their brethren in and of the Church of England."

Deputy-Governor Dudley's Letter to the Countess of Lincoln makes the seventeenth chapter. In his own words of touching eloquence addressed to that noble lady, whose children shared his wilderness fortune, he writes from New England, "I have, in the throng of domestic, and not altogether free from public business, thought fit to commit to memory our present condition, and what hath befallen us since our arrival here; which I will do shortly, after my usual manner, and must do rudely, having yet no table, nor other room to write in than by the fireside upon my knee, in this sharp winter." His whole letter accords with this purpose. Then comes the pious Autobiography of Captain Roger Clap, of Dorchester, written to kindle holy and grateful sentiments in the hearts of his posterity. The nineteenth document is a transcript from the earliest pages of the records of the town of Charlestown, which was settled at an earlier day than Boston. The description of Massachusetts in 1633, from William Wood's New England Prospect, making chapter twentieth, is far more accurate in its topography and other matters than are the works of ninety-nine out of every hundred of the tourists of the present day. A brief sketch of the life, and some of the original letters, of John Cotton; the Journal of Richard Mather, of Dorchester, which seems to have come to light just in season to pass from manuscript into print in this volume; the heartrending but beautifully written narrative of Anthony Thacher's shipwreck, on an island now bearing his name, written by himself; and the Autobiography of Thomas Shepard, of Cambridge, complete these Chronicles.

Such are the rich and varied contents of the second volume of Mr. Young's Chronicles. The original documents, taken in connection with his notes, make up a book which its possessors will highly prize. These are the authentic records of which Massachusetts may boast; no son of hers will wish to erase a line. We proceed to the improvement of them.

ers."

There is one particular in which we must qualify a previous remark as to the fulness and authenticity of our knowledge of the first occupation of New England by white men. There is a mystery hanging over the earliest English adventurers about Massachusetts Bay, which, so far as it concerns the individuals themselves, will probably never be removed. In all our early records, we meet with frequent mention of certain persons designated as "Old Planters." The first associated adventurers found those who answered to this title when they came here, and though they had every means of learning their history, they have left us no information concerning them. Roger Conant at Salem, Walford at Charlestown, Maverick at Noddle's Island, and Blackstone at Boston, were the persons who bore this designation of "Old PlantWe do not know the private history of either of these lonely wanderers, nor the time of their respective arrivals, nor the inducements which led them hither. There is certainly some little romance investing their wilderness experiences. With the exception of Walford, who appears to have been of loose and unscrupulous, if not of a positively immoral, character, all that is known of them is to their credit. They could not, therefore, have been refugees from justice; neither were they treasure-hunters seeking after mines and easy fortunes. Conant, Maverick, and Blackstone are uniformly mentioned with esteem, saving only that Maverick was thought to be too liberal in his hospitality, which was not wholly free from jollity. Conant made common cause with the associated emigrants at Salem, and joined their fellowship. He was the first actual occupant of Massachusetts Bay, the father of the first child born at Salem, and he received a grant of land when he was fourscore years of age, on the ground of his being "an ancient planter." He reached his eighty-seventh year, and died in 1679, having been more than half a century in the Bay.