USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Salem > Reminiscences of Salem, Massachusetts : embracing notices of its eminent men known to the author forty years ago > Part 2
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Time would fail me if I named a moiety of the illustrious band which rises before my memory, though it would be pleasing to me to recount the excellences of the distinguished men of a town in whose honor I delight. The subject seems almost inexhaustible. Like Earl Percy, in the ballad of Chevy Chase, I cannot speak of one, but there comes before my memory's eye, " fifty more as good as he."
But, the Ladies of Salem : I am astonished that I have not men- tioned them before !- that I was capable of passing them by so- · long. Before I was seventeen years old, I had been in love four times !- and, had I not left the town at this time, there is no saying to what extent I should have been subdued by their charms. The air of Salem is remarkably favorable to female beau- ty. In no place, of equal size, can there be found fairer specimens of the various kinds of feminine attraction ; from the graceful and pensive Grecian, to the voluptuous developement of the English race : all the intermediate degrees are to be found at Salem. They were to be found in my day ; and I now perceive that the daughters have not degenerated. The very loveliest woman I ever saw in my life, was born in Salem. She was the belle of her time ; and would have been the belle of any time, or any country. She was tall and dark ; of admirable proportions ; and her eyes !- wherever she looked, she enveloped the object in a circle of light. . Her mind
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was of the same beauty as her person. In the largest room, filled with company, she could always be discovered, by a throng of admirers around her. I was very young ; but I really believe the first emotion of poetry I ever felt, was kindled by her enchanting smiles. It made my heart " collapse," although I smothered an explosion.
At the time the lady of whom I have been speaking, was so much admired, there were many others nearly as beautiful, and, to the taste of some, superior in loveliness,-not so dazzling, yet more al- luring : exhibiting that retiring grace which makes the violet nearly as much esteemed as the rose. In memory, I run over the line of beautiful women arrayed round the parlor, or ball room, and the graceful movements of the sylphs of the dance.
I said I left Salem at the age of sixteen : and now, when I call up before my mind's eye, the beautiful creatures I left behind, I won. der I was got out of Salem at all. Certainly, it could not have been done two years later !
But, the ladies of Salem were, and are, not only famed for their beauty, but for their talents and virtues : for their fidelity and prudence as wives. Wherever you go, over the U. States, if there is a lady in the place remarkable for her loveliness or talent, or for caring for her husband's interest and honor, in all probability she came from Salem! Yes: their " fame hath gone out into all lands," and all coincide in paying deference to their charms.
From the ladies, let us pass to the seamen,-their devoted admi- rers. Where shall be found seamen of superior enterprise, hardi- hood, courage, and indefatigable perseverance ? The qualities that built up the town, are still to be found, anywhere, among the popu- lation. In our ships of war, amidst the smoke of battle, the honor of Salem gleamed forth triumphantly. A Salem hand replaced the flag of our country, when shot away by the enemy. A Salem foot first alighted on his deck, when, after another sanguinary contest, the order was given to " board." The order. given? In one in- stance, the boarding preceded the order : a Salem tar showed it could be done, by leaping alone into the midst of the enemy. Ah !.. Lang ! I knew you ; and was not surprised when I heard of your most gallant action.
By a generous seaman I was saved from drowning, as I was strug- gling alone, and, as I supposed, out of hearing, in one of the most
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retired places near Derby wharf. By another, I was saved from being crushed to death, by a falling bale. By another, was dragged out from between a floating raft of spars, just as they were about to close over me forever. Indeed, most of the good I ever received in my youth, came from sea-faring men. I never see a blue-jacket, without a feeling of gratitude ; not only for their services to me, but for their generous services in the cause of their country. May a grateful country perceive and own their merits, and make their de- clining years peaceful and happy.
My friends and townsmen ! I have trespassed too long on your forbearance and patience. I must bid you adieu : thanking you for listening to me, with so much candor and kindness. If prayers can avail for your continued prosperity, you have mine. May your pro- gress in all that makes a thriving city, be sure and steadfast and rapid. And, wherever I may be, when the end which happens to all men, comes to me ;- you may be certain, that I shall remem- ber the home of my youth, last : " Moriens reminisitur Argos." I hope to live ; to see your back-bay a great natal depot : filled with the vessels of the U. States. Your harbor and wharves waving with " stars and stripes." To hear, at Salem, the roar of descending wa- ter, as it turns, the wheels of a row of factories. To see the cotton and woollen and duck manufactories, of Salem, filling the market ; and acknowledged to be unrivalled. To know that the same sober- ness, honor, patriotism, and piety, which distinguished the old race, are still more conspicuous in their descendants. May Heaven ex- tend its shield over you, bless all your labors ; and make you a name and a praise, throughout all lands. So that, proof of having been born in Salem, may be a passport into the confidence of honest men all over the world. As well as into the hearts of that better sex, whose applause is the best incentive to all manly excellence.
COMMEMORATION
OF THE
LANDING OF JOHN ENDICOTT,
AT SALEM,
SEPTEMBER, 1628. .
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ADDRESS
AT THE
COMMEMORATION
OF THE
LANDING OF JOHN ENDICOTT,
BEFORE
THE ESSEX INSTITUTE,
SEPT. 18, 1878.
Y
BY William C. Endicott.
SALEM : PRINTED AT THE SALEM PRESS. 1879.
ـيد
MOI HOMSMIMOO
ADDRESS.
WE are assembled to-day to commemorate the founding of a great State : and to recall the names, the characters, the deeds of the men who founded it; men to whom the words of Bacon may be fitly applied : "The true marshal- ling of the degrees of honor are these : In the first place are conditores imperiorum, the founders of States and Commonwealths." They are entitled also to other de- grees of honor named by Bacon, for they were not merely the founders of a State, but fathers of their country, who long reigned justly, making the times good wherein they lived, and lawgivers, governing by their ordinances after . they were gone.
The landing here two hundred and fifty years ago was. the first step in the establishment of the Colony of Mas- sachusetts. To say that it was an event momentous in its consequences to England and America, would be to apply terms equally applicable to all successful coloniza- tion by the children of the mother country. But the planting of this Colony had a significance peculiar to itself, for it was intimately connected with and a part of that great national movement, of that great change in the life and government of the English people then just be- ginning. To restore to Englishmen their civil liberties, to establish the right of the English nonconformist to worship according to the dictates of his own conscience,
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were the motives which led alike to the Great Rebellion and to the colonization of Massachusetts. Both were parts of the great Puritan work. The leaders of both movements were Puritans, not the Puritans of the Com- monwealth, and of Cromwell, but Puritans as they stood in 1628, not then pledged to separate from the national church, but to purge and purify it by the aid of political forces, under the existing forms of government. That determined band of statesmen who passed the Petition of Right in the parliament of 1628, and that no less deter- mined band who planned and established the Massachusetts Colony, were co-workers, friends and brothers embarked in the same cause, and struggling in different paths to accomplish the same ends. The one by wisdom in counsel and parliament, and if necessary by their swords in the field, intended to bring back to England the reign of order, liberty, and law ; the other to found another and a new England beyond the sea, where they and those who agreed with them might rest secure, and in which sacred asylum their brethren in England might find refuge if the cause there was hopeless or went out in fire and blood.
It would be interesting to trace, did time allow, the ties of lineage, of personal love and friendship, the bonds of common interests, civil and religious, the identity of views, purposes, and aims which united the Puritan leaders who came over, and those who remained to do their work in England, and made the cause of one the cause of both. As the struggle widened and deepened, the cause of one was not always the cause of the other ; the infant Colony had peculiar interests to be guarded and maintained at every cost; the progress of the civil war raised new leaders, educated in a new school, and issues never dreamed of in 1628 were to be met in England ; but at the outset they were banded together for a common
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purpose, and by concert of action in different fields they both sought to give civil and religious liberty to their countrymen.
The influences which led to this great crisis in the history of England, and produced that lofty type of char- acter, and that noble elevation of thought, which dis- tinguished the Puritan leaders of that day, cannot fail to enlist the attention and engage the study of all who would understand the period. A brief enumeration of some of the most important, may assist us at this moment.
During the century which had passed between the fall of Woolsey in 1529 and the embarkation of Endicott in 1628, the human mind had made wonderful progress. It was a century of change, in which old things had passed away and all things had become new ; yet at its close the English kings still claimed the right to tax without par- liament, and to persecute for heresy and nonconformity. The England of 1529, and of the stormy years that fol- lowed, was still Catholic England. All the safeguards of constitutional freedom were swept away under Thomas Cromwell. The right to tax, to imprison, to execute, at the will of the sovereign, was claimed and exercised almost without dispute. The powers of parliament, recognized and established under the Plantagenet and Lancastrian kings, were substantially extinguished under the first Tudors. The hopes of the new learning, with its schemes of social, religious, and political reform, which had begun to illumine England, fell before the fierce spirit of the times, and seemed to go out in darkness on the scaffold of Sir Thomas More. But the very violence with which the kingly power asserted itself may be in part explained by the great questions with which it was confronted, and by the new spirit that was abroad. For great elements were at work.
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In 1526, the first copies of Tyndale's New Testament appeared in London, and within ten years the whole Bible translated was in the hands of the English people .. It was a new revelation to the general mind of England, and was read, studied and committed to memory, as it never had been before. It was not merely read, but, in spite of the royal injunction, it was expounded and ex- plained in the pulpits, and was everywhere the theme of popular discussion. King Henry himself complained, "that it was disputed, rhymed, sung, and jangled in every tavern and alehouse" in the kingdom. It gave rise to new theories of government, of religion, of social duty ; it invested man himself with a new dignity and power, and gave another color to the times. Is it strange that it became at last the pillar of fire by night, the pillar of cloud by day, to guide the steps of the Puritan ; that, beside the authority of earthly rulers, and the vain counsels of fallible man, it should stand for him the store-house of all wisdom and truth- the one revelation of the will of God to man, dictating its law alike to the ruler of states and kingdoms and to the humblest of his subjects, and holding out to each, with an impartial hand, its blessed promises ?
If the Bible was a great teacher, so was the Reforma- tion itself. Steadily, amid all the turbulence and violence of the time, the revolution which struck down the church of Rome went on ; the great religious houses disappeared, one by one, and their wide lands became the property of the subject ; the Reformation, stayed for a time by the faggot and the block in the reign of Mary, finally tri- umphed under Elizabeth, and England became the great Protestant power, and the mistress of the sea. It was a period of intense excitement, of strange vicissitudes of fortune on sea and land, of dangers so overwhelming
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that at last men forgot the quarrels of politics and sect, and stood together to avert a common peril and to win a common victory. Such a struggle, extending through more than one generation of men, quickened all the intel- lectual faculties of the English nation, and gave to the people a feeling of strength, power and self-confidence never before known. It manifested itself in a spirit of adventure, that sent the ships of England to all quarters of the globe on voyages of trade and of discovery, and the tales that came back to every household, of the won- drous lands beyond the sea, first stirred that spirit of colonization, which has, even to the present time, sent yearly from the ports of England thousands of her chil- dren. That rich commerce which had called Venice from the Adriatic, and had studded the Mediterranean with great cities, sought her shores ; artisans and tradesmen, driven from the continent by its wars and persecutions, brought to England their skill and labor. She became rich and prosperous ; new arts, new industries sprung into life.
Nor did England acquire from foreign lands an added commercial and industrial power merely. There was a · revival of the ancient, and the foreign learning ; classical studies, which had well nigh disappeared in the turmoil of the Reformation, were again the pursuit of the English youth, and through the common schools, founded so nu- merously after the dissolution of the religious houses, reached a larger class than ever before. Such was the taste for the classical learning, it is said, that all the great ancient authors were translated into English before the close of the sixteenth century. And John Milton was not the first young Englishman who sought in foreign travel in Italy, and the great centres of the continent, larger opportunities for study and culture. He but fol-
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lowed the example of the preceding century, and carried with him directions of travel and maxims of prudence from Sir Henry Wotton. The traces of the classical and the foreign learning, with its grace and beauty, are to be seen in all the literature, the letters, and the oratory of the time. And that band of English exiles, who during the Marian persecution had listened to Calvin in Geneva, had there seen a church without a bishop, a state without a king. They doubtless brought back some new thoughts of civil and religious government, which they scattered among their countrymen. Perhaps, to their prophetic eyes already appeared the pillars of the coming republic, rising in the dim distance. Rufus Choate, in his noble address on the Age of the Pilgrims, says, "I ascribe to that five years at Geneva an influence which has changed the history of the world."
One fruit of this era of change, revolution and growth -this breaking up of the old limitations, this expansion of the horizon of thought and action-was the birth of that noble and splendid literature, which stands without a rival in modern times. The genius of its poets, drama- tists, and philosophers, has thrown into the shade the fame of the soldiers and statesmen of that eventful period. Born of the times, it was also the teacher of the times. While it reflected the national sentiment, it gave to it form and substance. But who can measure and estimate, within narrow limits, the influence of Sidney and Spenser and Shakspeare, of Hooker and Bacon, on the generations that knew them, and that were reared under this fresh inspiration ?
I have thus endeavored briefly to state the temper and spirit of the time, and some of the influences at work to mould and fashion the Englishmen destined to do so great a work both at home and in America. As the literature
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of the age was the fruit of the time, so were the men who in 1628 had determined, in the service of civil and religious liberty, to reform England and to found another England beyond the Atlantic., They formed that great political party known in the reigns of James I. and of Charles I. as the Puritan Party. "The rank, the wealth, the chivalry, the genius, the learning, the accomplish- ments, the social refinements and elegance of the time were largely represented in its ranks."1 A majority of the great middle class of Englishmen was also represented there, whom the age had rendered thoughtful and relig- ious ; of a bold, high, and independent spirit, they were ready to suffer all for conscience and country ; they pos- sessed moderate means, and had no political power, but later they filled the parliamentary armies, and the ships of Endicott, Higginson, and Winthrop.
The great controversy between popular and arbitrary principles, which was the legacy of the Tudors, continued through the reign of James ; it is spoken of by historians as the period of vital struggle, though the open conflict and result did not come till later. The accession of Charles gave little hope of better things; the French marriage of the King, his arrogant and repellent temper, his early efforts to govern without parliament, his relent- less hostility to the nonconformists in church worship, his forced loans and unlawful imprisonments, and the danger of a standing army, clearly indicated to all thoughtful men that the great conflict was at hand. "They saw that the time had come for determining whether the English people should live in future under an absolute or under a limited and balanced monarchy ; and they launched upon the course of measures which was to decide that momen- tous question."2
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11 Palfrey's Hist. N. E., 279.
2 1 Palfrey's Hist. N. E., 265.
الد ال الا
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The first two Parliaments of Charles were of a resolute disposition and were of short duration; and in March, 1628, the last Parliament, that was to meet at Westmin- ster until 1640, assembled. Its courageous spirit startled the King, and in his necessity he gave his assent to the famous Petition of Right, the second great charter of English liberty, which announced that forced loans, com- mitments without cause assigned, quartering of soldiers in private houses, and hearings before military tribunals of cases properly cognizable in courts of law, were con- trary to the liberties of the subject and the laws and stat- utes of the realm. This was afterwards violated by Charles, and Parliament, resenting his duplicity, and seeking to inquire into his conduct, was suddenly dis- solved in March, 1629.
The Petition of Right was the first gun in the great conflict which was to divide England. It is a singu- lar fact that within a few days after the King assented to it, Endicott sailed for these shores; and six days before Parliament was dissolved, for contesting the King's right to violate it, Charles signed the Colony Charter of Massachusetts, in March, 1629. Strange that the same hand to sign the Charter, which was to esta- blish the free State of Massachusetts, and thus give to the Puritan full scope to found his free government, should within one week dismiss a Puritan Parliament, because it sought to secure some guarantees of a free . government at home.
By these two acts the career of the Puritans was deter- mined in England and America. After years of arbitrary government and cruel persecution, they drew the sword in England ; the horrors of civil war followed, Charles fell upon the scaffold, but constitutional liberty was finally established by the Revolution of 1688: after years of
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toil, suffering and danger in America, they established on a firm and enduring foundation the Colony of Massa- chusetts.
. To consider properly the nature of the expedition that Endicott conducted, and the government that he after- wards exercised on this spot, will require some detail of subsequent events.
The colonial period, extending from September, 1628, to the extinction of the Charter, may be said to present three phases or forms of government. (1.) The govern- ment under Endicott and his associates from September, 1628, to the organization of the company under the Colony Charter granted by the King, March 4, 1629. (2.) The government by Endicott and his Council, under the Charter, entitled the Governor and Council of London's Plantation in the Massachusetts Bay in New England, until the arrival of Winthrop, who superseded him in 1630. (3.) The establishment of the colonial govern- ment here with the Charter under Winthrop and his successors till 1686. The distinction to be observed by these divisions is important to be kept in mind in con- sidering the nature and character of the authority ex- . ercised while Salem was the seat of government.
The "Great Patent of New England" as generally called, was a grant by James I, on November 3, 1620, to the Council established at Plymouth in the county of Devon, for the planting, ruling, ordering and governing of New England in America, of all that section of the continent, lying between the fortieth and forty-eighth degrees of latitude, that is from the northern line of Vir- ginia to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, to hold the same in free and common socage (an estate of the highest nature that any subject can hold under any government), with power to establish laws not contrary to the laws of Eng-
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land, and to correct, punish, pardon and rule all British subjects that should become colonists.3
Grants were made by the Council prior to 1628, some of which included territory afterwards embraced within the limits of Massachusetts.4 Attempts were made to occupy portions of this territory before 1628. Roger Conant, the leader of the principal effort in this direction, a man of singular energy aud determination, and some of his associates who formed a portion of the " Old Planters " as they were afterwards called, having abandoned their settlement at Cape Ann, came to. Naumkeag in 1626, where, hoping for suecor from England, they built houses and prepared land for cultivation, and were found by Endicott on his arrival two years later.5
On March 19, 1628, the Great Council of Plymouth granted to Sir Henry Roswell, Sir John Younge, Thomas Southcote, John Humphrey, John Endicott, and Simon Whetcombe, all that part of New England extending three miles north of every part of the Merrimack, and three miles south of every part of the Charles, from the At- lantic to the "South Sea." The original of this patent is not known to be in existence, but its substance is recited in the Charter obtained in the following year.6 All the rights, powers, and privileges of the Council to plant and rule this territory were conveyed to the patentees. Pre- cisely to what extent, or in what form the patentees had power to establish a government, appoint rulers, and enact laws, not repugnant to the laws of England, it is not important to inquire. No records of their adminis-
$ Plymouth Col. Laws, 1.
"A complete history of these grants by S. F. Haven, Esq., may be found in "Lowell Institute Lectures on the Early History of Massachusetts," by members of the Mass. Hist. Soc., pp. 129, 152.
Hubbard's Hist. of N. E., 107, 116.
6 1 Mass. Col. Rec., 3.
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tration are known to exist, and the acts of those who came over under their authority afford the only evidence of the powers they exercised ; and there is no doubt that the Patent thus granted, which extinguished the claim of the Council at Plymouth to this territory, was obtained for the purpose of enabling the patentees, if their enter- prise should prove successful, to procure the Royal Char- ter of the following year, which established a distinct and. well defined form of government. It was a step in the growth of the Massachusetts Colony.
The patentees, who acted in behalf of a large number of other persons, were in earnest and at once organized an expedition. Endicott, the only patentee who came over at that time, manifested much willingness to embark, which gave great encouragement to all interested in the scheme. He was well known to."divers persons of good note," and was selected as the leader.7 Little is known of his previous history. Yet we may assume, from the fact of his appointment to such a trust, that his qualities were well understood, and that he had already shown in . other fields of action, that power of command, that in- trepid courage, that zealous love of liberty, that devout and earnest spirit, which fitted him here for the wilderness work, and led him to take so conspicuous a part in the government of the Colony for nearly forty years. The confidence which put him at the head of affairs in the morning of the enterprise, continued to the end; and he was Governor of Massachusetts when, in 1665, at the ripe age of seventy-seven, death found him at his post. He sailed on the Abigail from Weymouth, June 20, 1628,
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