Three Episodes of Massachusetts History; The Settlement of Boston Bay. the Antinomian Controversy. a Study of Church and Town Government Volume 1 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1892 edition. Excerpt: ...the details of which the pages of Winthrop and Bradford are unpleasantly replete. The early settlers of New England were a highly moral and correct race. They were none the less men and women; and " wikednes being here more stopped by strict laws, and the same more nerly looked unto, so as it cannot rune in a comone road of liberty as it would, and is inclined, it searches every wher, and at last breaks out wher it getts vente." (Bradford, 385.) The details of the Humphrey scandal are given in Winthrop (ii. 45). See, also, Lewis, Lynn (p. 75), in which there is a very droll plate, supposed to represent Lady Susan Humphrey in the act of parting from her children. As Gorges had learned to his cost three years before, when at a critical moment the charter had been evoked, as by swift magic, from the innermost recesses of the palace, the company of Massachusetts Bay was by no means without influence in high quarters; and now recourse was had to every means of privately influencing the members of the committee. These unseen agencies were, in the London of the time of Charles I., and at his court, far more potent than written answers or counter allegations; nor, in the present instance, did the friends of the company labor in vain, for, to the astonishment of every one, the result of the proceedings was, that Gorges and his associates took nothing by them. The committee reported against any interference at that time, somewhat sophistically attributing to the " faults or fancies of particular men " those grounds of complaint which did not admit of explanation, but which they declared 1632. "AN ABUNDANTE KEJOYSING." 267 l HI. Mass. Hist. Coll. viii. 320. were " in due time to be inquired into." This report, when made, was approved by King...