USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Salem > Sketches about Salem people > Part 12
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V. The Fall of the Bible Commonwealth. Oligarchies do not perpetuate themselves. They must be supported by force, wealth, or public sentiment. The New England oligarchy lacked the necessary force to be thorough. Some of the early Puritan leaders like Dudley, Endecott, and Norton were not adverse to inflicting severe penal- ties. We have fines. whippings, and brandings in abun- dance and some hangings as examples to preserve the purity of the faith. If the leaders had been supported
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by an army their suppression might have been efficient, but under the circumstances it was irritating and helped create a public opinion in Massachusetts and in England hostile to the prestige of the government in New England.
Puritan brutality died in a large measure with the first generation. but it left as a legacy in England a firm belief among Anglicans and Nonconformists that the priestly rule in Massachusetts was tyranny. This opinion was freely communicated and in some measure shared by the disfranchised inhabitants of the Bay Col- ony. It has been estimated that three fourths of the inhabitants were not church members. It gradually dawned upon the Puritan leaders when the wave of reli- gious enthusiasm of the first generation failed to carry over into the second generation that the lack of posterity to carry on a Bible Commonwealth was a real danger. It so proved.
The keystone of the arch which supported the Bible Commonwealth was a suffrage restricted to Congrega- tional church members for the election of all colonial officers and members of the General Court. Every inhabitant, however, was allowed to give his opinion about the management of prudential affairs in town meet- ings, and later was allowed to vote for town officers and on levying rates, and to serve as a selectman. This experience in municipal affairs created a desire for a fuller partici- pation in government. Massachusetts was blamed at home and abroad for the limitation on the suffrage which made the state subordinate to the church. The practice met opposition. It had served a useful purpose in the first generation of Puritan enthusiasm but it was failing in the second generation through lack of popular support. It survived until the charter was revoked and a royal governor sent to rule Massachusetts.
During the term of Governor Andros, there was no meeting of the General Court and town meetings were abolished except for the election of town officers. Parti- cipation in government was denied to every citizen. In 1689 the colonists rose in rebellion, deposed the royal governor, and carried on the state for several years in
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the old way until a new charter was granted by King William III.
In 1689 the General Court of the de facto government passed a law basing suffrage upon property qualifications, thus voluntarily freeing Massachusetts from the strangle- hold of the clergy. Increase Mather was at this time the Puritan leader. He was in England as colonial agent to secure a new charter as favorable to the liberties of Massachusetts as his genius and diplomatic skill could persuade the King to grant. He had several interviews with James II and was invited by that monarch to sug- gest fundamentals for a new charter. Mather's proposi- tions were reduced to writing, signed by him, and are preserved among the state papers of England. One of the fundamentals suggested by him, and later written into the charter granted by King William, was religious freedom.
It is often said that the mission of Increase Mather to England was an attempt to secure the restoration of the old charter. The rule of the theocratic oligarchy of which he had been a part was a lost cause.
Cotton Mather, commenting on the new charter, wrote in his diary: "We have not the former charter but wee have a better in the room of it." The remark is signifi- cant. Under the Stuart kings the friendly and disgrace- ful relations between the French and English Courts offered some protection against the expanding power of France in the New World. A New England statesman may have welcomed the new charter as a superior instru- ment for mobilizing the forces of Massachusetts in the great struggle which he foresaw between the English and French for the possession of North America.
Whatever view one takes of the motives behind Mather's demands, the fact remains that the seeds of democracy unconsciously planted by Puritan leaders in church, state,. and towns were bearing fruit which the ripening mind of Mather recognized and offered as fundamentals in a. charter.
The Bible Commonwealth had outlived its usefulness. It was strangled in its home by sons of its Puritan
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founders. The emancipation of Massachusetts from cler- ical misrule was in a large measure due to an enlightened public opinion reforming the Commonwealth from within.
In accepting the charter of King William and the new political alignment it entailed, the Puritans did not yield an iota of their philosophy that perfection through con- formity to God's will was the test of salvation, and that consciousness of salvation was attainable by introspection and self-examination as to every detail of living.
Increase Mather and his associates did not surrender their religion. They agreed to take religion out of poli- tics, where it never belonged and where it had caused cen- turies of bloodshed and human misery. This emancipa- tion was the fruit of the Puritan experiment in Church and State. Bred in bigotry and intolerance it flowered and bore the double fruit of religious and political freedom.
The Puritans were not as black as painted. Every phase of their intolerance has been illustrated many times as if it were proof of one continuous strain of iniquity. With passing years Grace came to Massachusetts.
A great deal of nonsense has been written about the Puritans. The idea behind their Bible Commonwealth was an honest endeavor by the application of reason to discover the truth and to inculcate a passion to live the truth. They trusted overmuch the clergy who were obsessed with a belief that the Old Testament furnished models of government for all ages.
We have ceased to talk about a Bible Commonwealth, but the ideas which were behind the Bible Commonwealth are not dead. The Puritan spirit on its cultural side is a living past. It still speaks to us that we go forward, seeking to know and trying to live the truth. Veritas remains the legend on the seals of the two great schools of learning in New England. By that sign we conquer if we continue steadfast in the ancient desire to attain the truth in theory and practice.
PHILIP ENGLISH.
BY RALPH BERTRAM HARRIS.
The Isle of Jersey, anciently called Caeserea, is one of the largest and most important of the Channel Islands. It belongs to Great Britain and is about thirteen miles off the French coast. It is only twelve miles long and three or four miles wide, and has an area of forty-five square miles. Its soil is very fertile, and it trades freely with the Spanish and French coasts, as well as with Hol- land. It is a peculiar community, in that it has retained until recent years some of its ancient feudal customs; and though it is near the French coast, it has always repelled the French when they came to its shores as invaders.
For some reason, unknown to this generation, a youth by the name of Philippe L'Anglois left his home and family in the Island, and journeyed with others across the ocean to the English Colonies, landing at Salem some- where before 1670. Tradition has it that he ran away from home; some say, first to Virginia, and then to Salem. The date of his arrival is not definitely known. He was a descendant of the French Huguenots who, years before, had sought refuge in that island. Such at least is the tradition in his family.
His true name suffered a sea change in his transporta- tion to New England, and he became on the voyage Philip English, by which name he is known to us, and which he himself finally adopted. His baptismal certificate, which has been preserved, reads as follows: "Baptismal Register of the church of Trnity Parish in the Isle of Jersey. Philippe, son of Jean L'Anglois, was baptized on the 30th day of June in the year One Thousand Six hundred and Fifty one -Presented for Holy Baptism by Sir Phil- ippe de Carteret, Chevalier, Lord of St. Ouan (Ovan) and Madam his wife-given by copy (or duplicate) by me, J. DOREY, Secretary."
If by chance he was baptized in 1651 and came to Salem shortly before the year 1670, he must have been in the neighborhood of eighteen or nineteen years of age upon landing in Salem. Many of the accounts credit him at the time of his arrival with being a boy of twelve
(1)
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years. It seems much more reasonable to believe that a youth of eighteen or nineteen years should make this trip alone to unknown shores, full of the dangers and uncer- tainties that existed in those days, than a mere boy, imma- ture and unsophisticated.
There is a tradition in one branch of the family that he was the only son of a Huguenot Chevalier-that he came to New England to seek his fortune and was dis- inherited for marrying the lady of his choice. This rumor may have arisen from the fact that Philippe de Cartaret presented him for baptism. There are no family papers that throw any light upon this story, which is per- haps only a rumor and therefore unreliable.
There is another rather fanciful account that he fell in love with a Mary Hollingsworth, a girl of charm and refinement, a daughter of William Hollingsworth, and a neighbor, before he came to this country. By so doing he became a rival of his brother. This story states that he lived on a pleasant estate in one of the northern coun- ties of England. His mother was a Scotch lady. The early educational training of the two boys was strict but comprehensive. The boys were taught by the village priests until they had obtained an education which fitted them for their later years. Restless and deceived by his brother, he took ship for America, where he first landed in Virginia, and later made his way north to Salem. As this story carries his education to the age of twenty or twenty-one years, and as it is fairly well founded that he landed in Salem at about the age of eighteen or nineteen, at some time before the year 1670, we feel obliged to ยท abandon it for what seems to be the more stable account of his early life.
He came to Salem as a young adventurer, poor, friend- less, and without a cent in his pocket. Walking by the home of Mistress Hollingsworth, which one account cites as the Blue Anchor Tavern, he was invited in, and she, taking compassion on his loneliness, gave him a drink of beer in a silver mug. He was invited to make his home with her family while he lived in Salem. William Hol- lingsworth-the husband, and also the father of Mary- who, in 1675, was trading in Virginia, wrote home to his
PHILIP ENGLISH HOUSE, SALEM, 1685 From drawings made in 1823
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wife that he had found a very good husband for his daugh- ter, namely, one of his Virginia friends. Mrs. Hollings- worth promptly replied that he need give himself no trouble on that score, because she had already given her daughter to Philip English. They were married in 1675, about five years after English had landed at Salem. A little later, it was learned that Hollingsworth had been treacherously killed by the Indians.
Dr. Bentley, in a letter to Timothy Alden Jr., stated that Mary Hollingsworth, "the only daughter of Wm. Hollingsworth, a rich inhabitant of Salem, had received a better education than is common even at this day,. as proofs I hold sufficiently discover." One of the traditions of the family is that she had been a pupil of Madame Piedmont, who was a celebrated instructress of that day in Boston. Dr. Bentley further states, and it is also on the authority of Madame Susanna Harthorne, a grand- daughter of Philip English, that Philip English came young to America from the Isle of Jersey, lived in the family of William Hollingsworth, and married his daugh- ter Mary.
In the marriage record, English is styled "merchant." At this time he could not have been over twenty-four or twenty-five years of age, and therefore his business life had doubtless prospered beyond his dreams .* He seems to have stood at the head of the commercial class in his day, in successful enterprise. In some ways, however, he was inferior. He lacked the educational advantages and high manners of some of his associates. Mrs. English was far superior to him in these respects. She, a Hol- lingsworth, had been well educated and was, according to Dr. Bentley, the "ornament of her family." It has come down to us that she was haughty and aristocratic, but this may mean only that she shared in the lofty manner of the higher class of that tinie, when distinctions of rank were set up and regarded to a degree of which we can hardly, conceive.
Shortly after Mr. English's marriage, he set sail for the Isle of Jersey, commanding the ketch Speedwell from Maryland, and agreed to go to the Isle of Man to load * Dr. Bentley's Diary.
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with salt for New England, and return next year to some port in Biscaye or Bordeaux, Rochelle or Nantz. The papers concerning this agreement, being in ancient French chirography, are very hard to decipher. It is very prob- able that he loaded finally with French merchandise for New England; there was at that time a comparatively free trade in our Massachusetts Colony with all nations.
In looking over his papers there appear sundry agree- ments relating to bound servants, which may be interest- ing. He appears to have taken quite a number of girls from the Isle of Jersey as apprentices in his family, and quite a number of men from the same island to serve "by sea employ." The girls served as apprentices for seven years, but the men (probably young men) served only four years. Judging from the papers, these men were let out at sea service and their wages taken by their master. There is a paper giving the testimony of one Nicholas Chevallier, who in 1682-83 was bound to Philip English, "for ye term of four years" and to "sea employ." When Chevallier arrived in New England, he liked land service better, and by the consent of his master was bound to Mr. Joseph Lee of Manchester. He testifies that Mr. Philip English has treated him well and he acquits him of the original indenture. Such servants as these, when in "sea employ," hired out or were let out as sailors. This hiring out "to service" was not much better than the slav- ery apprentice system. There is a tradition in the Eng- lish family that Philip English had no less than fifteen bounden servents (male and female) in his own family; and considering the extent of his business and the profits of such service. it is by no means unlikely. Quite a num- ber of such indentures are found among his papers.
Among the Salem merchants who appear to have been prominent when Philip English flourished, judging by papers in the English family, were Colonel Turner, Ben- jamin Marston, James Lindall, Timothy Lindall, Thomas Plaisted, John Higginson, Stephen Sewall, Benjamin and William Pickman, Thomas Ellis, John Pickman, William Bowditch, William Pickering, Benjamin, Wil- liam, John and Samuel Browne.
English owned the easterly half of English Lane, down
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to the water front. In 1683 he had so flourished in busi- ness that he put up a fine mansion, the frame of which is reported to have been brought from England. It was one of those ancient mansion houses for which Salem was once noted-a venerable, many-gabled, solid structure, with projecting stories and porches. Down to 1753 it was known as "English's Great House." It stood until 1833,* when, long since tenantless and deserted, it had become dangerous to the tread of men and boys who had the curi- osity to explore it. It had been built on the eastern cor- ner of Essex Street and English Lane, now English Street. The picture in the Institute shows a little shop in the corner of the building on Essex Street. This may have been Mr. English's shop, or, quite as likely it was a variety shop kept by his wife. For, as Mr. Upham re- lates, "instances were not uncommon from an early period in this part of the country for matrons of the most respect- able families to conduct a business in little shops in the front rooms of houses. There were many such in Salem and they contributed largely to the thrift and prosperity of particular families."
When this house was torn down, it was found to con- tain a secret room in the garret, supposed to have been built after the witchcraft furor as a place of temporary concealment in case of a second outcry. This house linked the nineteenth century with the very early chapters of American history.
Bentley says of this house that the cellars were com- pletely furnished. The stone wall was built of as large stones as are now in use, which contradicts the opinion that they were generally built of small stones of choice, at that age. "There is a hearth, a very large oven, and; all conveniences. The rooms are the largest in town. The floors are laid in plank and are sound at this day, the sweep of the hearth where they are worn down, having a curious appearance. The upper part of the house, among the peaks, have curious gables and very much room. Even the cellars are plastered."
* In a footnote in Bentley's Diary, we learn that it was taken down some time before 1840, and was then known as the "forty- peaked house."
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Philip English in 1692 was at the height of his pros- perity. He owned fourteen buildings and twenty-one sail of vessels, besides a wharf and warehouse on the Point of Rocks (Neck). At that time (between 1670 and 1740) the population of Salem varied from about 1,600 to 4,500. This period embraces the whole business period of the life of Philip English, as well as of various other mer- chants of his time.
From the years 1676 to 1692 Philip English appears to have traded to Bilboa, Barbadoes, St. Christopher's, Jersey, Isle of Man, as well as several French ports. That trade was very probably based on catching fish, on the Banks (the coast of Nova Scotia), in the bays of New- foundland, and very likely in our own immediate bays, and sending them to Spain, Europe, and Barbadoes, and thence taking salt, dry goods, or West India produce back to New England.
There appear to have been two classes of vessels then employed in our commerce,-the regular fishing craft and the foreign traders,-both being about the same size. Though foreign traders seem sometimes to have gone up to Newfoundland after their fish cargo, there being prob- ably depots there of prepared fish, yet Winter Island in Salem was a large depot for cured fish, and almost, if not quite, monopolized that business in Salem. Vessels seem to have taken their cargoes of fish mainly from there. It is certain that the voyages of Mr. English from 1675-76 to 1692 were, in the main, profitable, since at the latter period he was wealthy and had probably quit going to sea himself some few years before.
When Philip English began business in Salem, say in 1670 or thereabouts, the town was already recovering from the "smite on all employments" that is mentioned by Hull in 1665. In 1664, Josselyn said that there were some rich merchants. It is not to be wondered at that our old town should have flourished. Admirably situated for the fishing trade and the foreign trade then connected with it, and the shipping needed for both trades; enjoying a comparatively free trade with the world, unhampered by the Plantation Act, without even a Custom House estab- lished by Parliament,-Salem might have been the envy
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of some of the British seaports, which had at home to con- form to the rules from which Salem, in common with our Massachusetts seaports, escaped. Having enjoyed so much commercial liberty, under both Charles the First and Cromwell, particularly the latter, and feeling a growing consciousness of strength, both through that long liberty and its attendant success, Salem in 1670 enjoyed a high position in commerce.
She was also one of the principal ports in the Colony for shipbuilding. From 1670 to 1676 Salem seems to have flourished greatly. After that, the havoc made by the French and Indians among her fishing fleet forced her to retrograde for a while. "Between these years we find Wayborne, Randolph, and the London merchants all endeavoring to restrict our trade, stating that our Massa- chusetts commerce is irregular, that we do not conform to the acts of trade, that we do not make England the magazine of trade, but go and come, and buy and sell where, and as, and when we please. This proves our commercial freedom."
Between the years 1676 and 1692 was more or less of a gloomy period for the colonies : the loss of the charter ; the dreaded loss by the Puritans of their Protestant privi- leges, or even of the titles to their very lands and houses as a consequence of the loss of the charter; the wars and rumors of wars which had gathered or were fast gather- ing; the public dread of James as the secret ally of France and the Indians against the colonies; the public and pri- vate calamities which were numerous; the belief in witch- craft and the growing belief throughout New England that Satan was let loose to do his will, especially in these colo- nies-all these causes contributed to render the public nerves morbid, the evil of men's imaginations acute,- until, as they drank off the successive draughts of these evils, temporal and spiritual, they themselves went finally mad in all the intoxication of calamity. Thus came upon the Colony the madness of 1692,-the witchcraft delusion.
The Salem witchcraft persecution is a study almost apart from the general history of that age; for its causes, existence, continuance, and effects seem to have been out- side the ordinary circle of human experience. A belief in
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witchcraft was no new thing with the men of 1692. From the earliest days of history, such a belief has haunted the minds and souls of men. Witchcraft was denounced in- deed in the Old Testament, but it was believed in that day to have been the forsaking of the true God to worship the false Gods, or Devils, of the heathen by whom the Israel- ites were surrounded.
In the days of Moses, deserts were considered the dwell- ing places of devils. The Saviour was led up into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. The two men pos- sessed of the devil, whom the Saviour met in the country, came out of the tombs exceeding fierce, and were dwellers no doubt in those lonely and desolate places. The old magicians retired to places destitute of inhabitants, where the Spirits told them the things which they should write. It is evident that solitudes, deserts, and waste places were ever believed to be the haunts of Spirits of a wide order and of various degrees.
At the time that the Pilgrims and Puritans sought these shores, the country was a wilderness of woods,-"The American Deserts," as Cotton Mather describes them,- and the natives were regarded as heathen and their gods as devils. This wilderness was now invaded by the Church of Christ. The solitudes which the devil had so long pos- sessed and been worshipped in, were now to resound with the songs of Zion, a hateful music to his rebellious ear.
The strict Puritanism of the early settlers was supposed to be peculiarly offensive to him; and when witchcraft was discovered in New England, it was thought not strange that the devil should endeavor to afflict a people who most hated him, and whom he most hated. At the date of 1692, there became mixed with the general belief in witch- craft, an awful belief in the darkest possible plot of Satan to destroy Salem and the colony.
Cotton Mather, who thought himself perhaps the cham- pion of the Lord against the sin of witchcraft in 1692, thus stated what reasons Satan had for vexing New Eng- land, and especially Salem, with his arts at that period. "The New Englanders are a people of God settled in those which were once the Devil's Territories, and it may easily be supposed that the Devil was exceedingly disturbed when
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he perceived such a people here accomplishing the promise of old, made unto our blessed Jesus, 'that he should have the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession.' The Devil, thus irritated, immediately tried all sorts of meth- ods to overturn this poor plantation." Mather goes on to say that "we have been advised by some credible Chris- tians yet alive, that a malefactor, accused of witchcraft as well as murder, and executed in this place [Boston] more than 40 years ago [before 1653], did then give notice of an horrible plot against the country, by witchcraft and a foundation of witchcraft then laid, which if it were not seasonably discovered, would probably blow up and pull down all the churches in the country. And we have now with Horror seen the discovery of such a witchcraft."
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