USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts. 1630-1880, Vol. II > Part 28
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A large share of the credit which in modern times has been awarded to Robert Calef grows out of the impression that, in an age when everybody else believed in witches and witchcraft, he was a disbeliever in the whole theory of diabolism. If we assume that his book was an honest expression of his opinions, - but the Boston ministers, whom he libelled, held that there was nothing honest in the book, - he was not a disbeliever in witch- craft. "Not but that there are witches," he says in his preface (p. 3), " such as the law of God describes." Again (pp. 17, 18) :-
" That there are witches is not the doubt ; the Scriptures else were in vain, which assign their punishment to be by death ; but what this witchcraft is, or wherein it does consist, seems to be the whole difficulty. . .. And [I] do further add, that as the Scriptures are full that there is witchcraft, so 'tis as plain that there are possessions ; and that the bodies of the possessed have hence been not only afflicted, but strangely agitated, if not their tongues improved to foretell futurities, etc., and why not to accuse the innocent as bewitching them, having pretence to divination to gain credence. This being reasonable to be expected from him who is the father of lies, to the end that he may thereby involve a country in blood, malice, and evil, surmising which he greedily seeks after, and so finally lead them from their fear and dependence upon God to fear him, and a supposed witch, thereby attaining his end upon mankind."
With this full avowal of his belief in the then popular idea of witchcraft, he had a whimsey on the brain that witches could not "commissionate " (this was a favorite word of his) devils to afflict and molest mortals. This proposition, years after the trials were at an end, and when the community was slowly recovering from the sad memories of 1692, Calef was constantly bringing to the attention of the ministers, and challenging them to discuss it with him. What he had to say against the injustice of the methods of trying witches by spectral testimony at Salem had all been said, and better said, by the two Mathers, Mr. Willard, and the other Boston ministers. The obvious intent of Calef and the several unknown contributors who aided him was to malign the Boston ministers and to make a sensation.
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
It is difficult to determine how much of the book was written by Calef himself, or what responsibility he had in its compilation. The early letters were probably his own; though he prints them, he says, " with some small variation or addition." The later controversial letters over his initials, if he wrote them at all, he doubtless had assistance in. A Scotchman named Stuart contributed two letters to prove the reality of witchcraft. The his- torical portions, which are full of errors or something worse, and the review of Mather's Life of Sir Wm. Phips, must have been furnished by a person more mature than Calef. The reports of the Salem trials were copied bodily from Mather's Wonders of the Invisible World.
The book was printed in London in 1700, eight years after witch prose- cutions in New England were forever at an end, and when the country was fully conscious of, and was mourning over, the dreadful scenes which had occurred at Salem. To religious minds it seemed like indecent sacrilege to tear open these healing wounds. For two years or more previous to the publication, Calef had been showing portions of his manuscript, and saying he should send it to England to be printed. The ministers were greatly annoyed thereby, for they knew they were misrepresented and slandered therein.1 When the book was printed and came back to Boston, there was naturally great excitement and indignation concerning it. This feeling had little relation to any opinions Calef had expressed, or any statements he may have made, on the matter of witchcraft. That was an old and worn-out theme. The book was denounced and hated because it was an untruthful and atrocious libel on the public sentiment of Boston, and on the conduct of its ministers. Dr. Eliot says Increase Mather publicly burned the book at Harvard College. Mr. Mather had resided in England for four years as a preacher, and four years as an agent of the Massachusetts Colony. He had many personal friends and correspondents in England, and he was especially sensitive as to his reputation there. Cotton Mather was enraged beyond expression at the abuse which his father and himself received in the book.2 Nothing so kindled the wrath of the son as abusive treatment of his father.
Besides the malicious innuendoes with which the book abounds, Calef directly charges both the Mathers with inciting, and being in full sympathy with, the Salem tragedies. " It is rather a wonder," he says, p .. 153, " that no more blood was shed; for if that advice of his [the Governor's] pastors
1 Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., 1858, p. 289.
2 The measure of Mr. Mather's indignation may be inferred from the means he took to re- press it. Nov. 5, 1700 (a copy of Calef's book had just arrived in Boston), he wrote in his Diary: "I set myself to beseech the Lord that he would assist me with his grace to carry it prudently and patiently, and not give way to any distemper under the buffets which are now likely to be given unto me, but imitate and represent the gentleness of my Saviour. And I resigned
the whole matter unto the Lord, praying that my opportunities to glorify my Lord Jesus Christ might not be prejudiced. Other supplications proper on this occasion I carried before the Lord; and a sweet calm was produced in my mind." Mr. Mather regarded himself as "the chief butt of his [Calef's] malice, though many other better servants of the Lord are most mali- ciously abused by him."- Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., 1858, p. 290.
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WITCHCRAFT IN BOSTON.
[the two Mathers] could have still prevailed with the Governor, witchcraft had not been so shammed off as it was." The book charges the Boston ministers, in their advice of June 15, 1692, with endorsing the Salem methods. It accuses Cotton Mather with immodest conduct in handling Margaret Rule, and praying with her alone. It arraigns Mr. Mather for his management in the case of the Goodwin children, and for " kindling those flames that, in Sir William [Phips]'s time, threatened the devouring this country,"- meaning Salem witchcraft. It misrepresents Mr. Willard's Some Miscellany Observations as " liable to a male (sic) construction, even to the endangering to revive what it most opposes, and to bring those practices again on foot which in the day thereof were so terrible to this whole coun- try" (p. 38). Calef, or some one using his initials, wrote to Mr. Wadsworth, pastor of the First Church, and later President of Harvard College, criti- cising a sermon preached Jan. 14, 1697, on the occasion of a public fast, observed on account of the errors committed in the time of the late witch- crafts, and said : " For a minister of the gospel (pastor of the old meeting) to abet such notions, and to stir up the magistrates to such prosecutions, and this without any cautions given, is what is truly amazing, and of most dangerous consequence " (p. 53).
It is obvious that a book of this character, printed while all the men maligned in it were living, would make a sensation; and the only mystery about it is, that in modern times the animus of the book has been so misunderstood, and that its historical value and the character of its author have been so over-rated.
8. Some Few Remarks upon a Scandalous Book against the Gospel and Ministry of New England, written by one Robert Calef, 1701. This publi- cation is an indignant reply, by seven members of the Second Church, to the charges which Calef's book had heaped upon their two ministers and the other clergymen of Boston. One of the writers was John Goodwin, the father of the children who had been strangely afflicted in 1688.1
On Dec. 4, 1700, Cotton Mather writes thus in his Diary : -
" My pious neighbors are so provoked at the diabolical wickedness of the man who has published a volume of libels against my father and myself, that they set apart whole days of prayer to complain unto God against him, and this day particularly."
Again, in February, he writes : -
"Neither my father nor myself thought it proper for us to publish unto the churches our own vindication from the vile reproaches and calumnies that Satan, by his instrument Calf, had cast upon us; but the Lord put it into the hearts of a con-
1 John Goodwin here tells again the story of his domestic afflictions. He replies to Calef's slanders by stating that Cotton Mather had nothing to do with the case until his children had been under their strange molestations for three months ; and then he invited Mr. Mather to his house, with other ministers, to pray for
them. " Never before," he says, "had I the least acquaintance with him ; he never advised me to anything concerning the law or trial of the accused persons," and " matters were inan- aged by me in prosecution of the supposed criminal wholly without the advice of any min- ister or lawyer, or any other person " (p. 46).
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
siderable number of our flock, who are in their temporal condition more equal unto our adversary, to appear in our vindication. . . . The book being hereupon printed, the Lord blesses it for the illumination of his people in many points of our endeavor to serve them, whereof they had been ignorant."
Calef made no reply in print, though Mr. Mather intimates in his Diary, April 5, that Calef was going on with his scribblings; and witchcraft soon ceased to be a subject of public comment in New England. 'Except for Calef's book the discussion would have ended six or eight years earlier.
The theory of witchcraft, after the methods of its treatment had been reformed, was as harmless as the doctrine of Foreordination in the West- minster Catechism. The belief, however, in the reality of witchcraft retained its hold on the popular mind for many years later. What has been called " the explosion of the witchcraft delusion," immediately following and in consequence of the Salem executions, is itself a delusion. Twenty years afterward, when the General Court reversed the attainders of the persons executed in 1692, and voted compensation to their families, the public act of the Court began thus: "Forasmuch as, in the year of our Lord 1692, two several towns within this' Province were infested with a horrible witch- craft or possession of devils,". etc .; and it assigns as the cause of those . errors " the influence and energy of the evil spirits, so great at that time, acting in and upon those who were the principal accusers and witnesses, proceeding so far as to cause a prosecution to be had of persons of known and good reputation." 1
As the men of that generation passed away, the opinion became preva- lent that the strange manifestations which had amazed the beholders were acts of fraud and deception on the part of the " afflicted children; " and when Governor Hutchinson wrote, seventy years later, this was his opinion, and largely that of the educated men of his day. A belief, however, in spiritual and diabolical agency has never wholly faded out from the minds of the masses.2 In our day it has been revived by a school or sect which claims to have six million adherents in the United States. Those who hold the doctrines of modern "Spiritualism" will see in the elevation of Margaret Rule from her bed, - which they call " levitation,"- and in the conduct of the " afflicted children," incidents which have occurred under their own eyes, or are recorded as verities in the books in which they have implicit confidence.
1 Woodward's Records of Salem Witchcraft, 1864, ii. 216.
2 Aug. 3, 1863, an aged deaf-and-dumb per- son, at Castle Hedingham, Essex County, Eng-
land, who was supposed to be a wizard, was subjected to the Hopkins water-test by a mob of small tradesmen, and died from his injuries. Annual Register, 1863, p. 147.
CHAPTER V.
LORD BELLOMONT AND CAPTAIN KIDD.
BY THE REV. EDWARD E. HALE, D.D., Minister of the South Congregational Church.
O N the 25th of August, 1695, the flag was out at the Castle almost all day for Pincarton. Pincarton was master of a merchantman in the Eng- lish trade; and in the evening his vessel and he came up the bay. Pincarton announced that the Earl of Bellomont was made Governor of New England, as successor to Sir William Phips.
He was the first live lord who had ever governed the independent little province, - and the last. And the independent little province was by no means indifferent to the honor of having a lord to be its governor. This was a very amiable lord. He was a lord who was willing to go to the Thursday lecture, and to make himself generally agreeable. He would drink a glass of good Madeira with the sturdiest Puritan there was left among them, and do the honors of the Province House affably to all comers. King William had not hit the popular sentiment when he appointed that blas- pheming old sailor, Sir William Phips, to govern these sensitive and jealous Independents. Their leaders were gentlemen, - and they were well pleased to have a gentleman at their head. They were not pleased to lose the old right of choosing their governor. But, next to that, it was a good thing to have a king who was not a Stuart, and to have a governor attached to the Liberal party, who had come from the House of Commons, in the place of an adventurer from their own frontier, promoted from the forecastle.
Pincarton's news was confirmed the next month, when Mr. Edward Brattle arrived, after a six weeks' run from Falmouth in England; but he reported that Lord Bellomont would edward Bralle hardly come over before spring. The other news he brought, as Judge Sewall reports it, was that the Confederates had had success against Namur, Cassel, etc .; and that the " Venetians have gained a great victory over the Turks in the Morea," - a scrap of intelli- gence which connects the politics of those days with those of to-day.
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
The news that Bellomont was to be appointed governor had thus leaked out early. In fact, it was more than a year after these notes of Sewall that the king directed the Board of Trade to prepare Bellomont's commission. He was to unite the governments of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and New York; and to hold the military command of their forces, and those of Rhode Island, Connecticut, and the Jerseys. Matters moved slowly. Bel- lomont's instructions were not finished till Sept. 9, 1697; his vessel, when he sailed, was blown off the coast of New York, and obliged to take refuge in Barbadoes, and he did not arrive in New York until April 2, 1698. It was in the period after he had been named as governor, before he sailed, that he concluded, in London, his celebrated agreement with William Kidd for the suppression of piracy, which led to the most interesting events in his American administration. It was not, as Macaulay supposed, a plan which suggested itself to Bellomont in New York after his arrival in his government.
When, at last, Lord Bellomont arrived at New York, the General Court of Massachusetts sent a delegation to present to him their resolutions of respect. Of this respect he was not unworthy. He was, according to Macaulay, "a man of eminently fair character, upright, courageous, and independent." In the few years of his American administration he did nothing to forfeit this character. "I send you, my Lord, to New York," said William, "because an honest and intrepid man is wanted to put these abuses down, and because I believe you are such a man." The abuses were those connected with privateering, which readily passed into piracy. Teach, or Blackbeard, Tew, Bradish, and Bellamy are names which still linger in bal- lads, or in the Pirate's Own Book ; 1 while other names of rascals less famous may be traced in the colonial records, or are preserved in the local annals of the sea-board towns.
As soon as Bellomont arrived in New York, he addressed himself heartily to this business of suppressing piracy; and his letters home show energy and spirit. He distinctly charges Fletcher, his predecessor, with issuing commissions to pirates in the Red Sea and the East Indies, and reports that Fletcher was on the most intimate terms with them when they returned with their plunder. These pirates, he says, were fitted out from Rhode Island and New York. Bellomont did not hesitate to call New York a " nest of pirates ; " and, what was worse, he proved it.
1 It is possible that no less a person than Benjamin Franklin is the author of the spirited lines, -
" Then each man to his gun, For the work must be done, With cutlass, sword, or pistol ; And when we no longer can strike a blow, Then fire the magazine, boys, and up we go. It is better to swim in the sea below Than to hang in the air, and to feed the crow, Said jolly Ned Teach of Bristol."
In naming his apprentice ballads, Franklin says : "The other was a sailor's song, on the tak- ing of Teach, or Blackbeard, the pirate. They were wretched stuff." Franklin's ballad has never been found, unless the verse above, which I owe to the accurate memory of Dr. George Hayward, be a part of it. The other ballad which Franklin names was the "Light House Tragedy," and was based on the loss of Captain Worthilake and his daughters. The history of the "Tragedy " belongs in another chapter.
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LORD BELLOMONT AND CAPTAIN KIDD.
To suppress these very piracies, Bellomont, as already stated, had in London associated himself with William Kidd of New York in fitting out the
.
KILBURN
Bellomont 1
1 [This cut follows a photograph given in ministration of Bellomont, 1879, as from a painting President de Peyster's Address on the Life and Ad- of the Governor. It does not, however, closely
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
" Adventure galley." Robert Livingston of New York introduced Kidd 1 to Bellomont, and recommended him as a suitable person for this business.2 Kidd had taken a manly part in the Leisler disturbances a few years before. We have the full contract between Kidd, Bellomont, and Livingston. At Bellomont's instance, a number of people of quality subscribed for the outfit of the galley. They formed what we should now call a "joint-stock com- pany." The king was to receive one tenth of whatever the vessel brought home, and Halifax, Somers, and Bellomont were among the subscribers. In this vessel Kidd sailed for New York, where he selected his crew. Fletcher, who was acting as Governor of New York, and himself commissioning the very pirates whom Kidd was to suppress, reported unfavorably of the expe- dition. He said as soon as they sailed, on June 22, 1697: " It is generally believed here they will have money, per fas aut nefas ; that if he miss the design intended it will not be in Kidd's power to govern such a horde of men under no pay." But Fletcher was in opposition, and there were other and good reasons for distrusting his opinion. Kidd's first destination was to be the Indian Ocean. Thither he sailed, and for a year nothing definite was heard of him.
In August, 1698, however, the new East India Company reported to the Government that, instead of suppressing the pirates, he had on several occa- sions turned pirate himself. Especially they complained that he had captured a ship belonging to the Great Mogul, with whom England was on friendly relations. This ship was called the " Quedah Merchant." The Government, therefore, sent to all the provinces of America a set of circulars to procure Kidd's arrest. This proved easy ; for in 1699 he appeared in Delaware Bay, in a sloop with fifty men. He had previously been heard from at Nevis. And at last he " sailed into the Sound of New York, and set goods on shore at several places there, and afterwards went to Rhode Island."
He established himself for a time at Gardner's Island, at the head of Long Island Sound, and sent word to Bellomont at Boston, by a man named Emmott, that he had with him ten thousand pounds worth of goods; that he had left the " Quedah Merchant " at Hispaniola, in a creek there, with a valuable cargo, and that he would prove his innocence of what he had been charged with.
Bellomont laid Kidd's letters before the Council on the 19th, and also informed them " that said Emmott had delivered unto his Excellency two
resemble a contemporary copper-plate engraving (412 by 61/2 inches), showing the Earl in full armor, with a flowing wig, and inscribed, " His Excellencie Richard Coote, Earle of Bellomont & Lord Coote Colooney, in the Kingdom of Ire- land ; Governor of New England, New York, New Hampshire, and Vice-Admirall of those seas," of which there is a copy in Harvard Col- lege Library .- ED.]
1 [Kidd had already appeared in Massachu- setts history, when, in 1691, he had been com- missioned by Bradstreet and the Council "to
suppress an enemy privateer now on this coast." - 3 Mass. Hist. Coll., i. 122 .- ED.]
2 The articles of agreement signed by Kidd with Bellomont and Livingston are in O'Calla- ghan's New York, iv. 762. It is, perhaps, worth notice that the partnership between another Robert Livingston with another New York ad- venturer, a hundred and ten years afterward, started another " Adventure galley," on a voyage from which has grown the steam navigation of the world. She was afterward called the "Clermont," and made her first voyage in August, 1807.
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LORD BELLOMONT AND CAPTAIN KIDD.
French passes found in two ships taken by the said Kidd's company by violence against his will." .In a letter home at the same time, Bellomont describes Kidd's messenger as " a cunning Jacobite, a fast friend of Fletch- er's, and my avowed enemy."
The council records of Massachusetts, recently copied in England for the State, give a full account of the transactions when this letter was presented. They also give in full Bellomont's letter in reply. Kidd relied upon it as a safe-conduct, or passport; and it must be confessed that its language is almost as strong as can be used. Bellomont was evidently conscious that his former relations with Kidd made it necessary for him to proceed with the utmost caution. He therefore drew this letter in the council chamber, while the Council was in session, submitted it to them, and received their approval.
The letter was in the following words : -
" I have advised with his Majesty's Council, and showed them this letter, and they are of opinion if your case be so clear as you (or Mr. Emmott for you) have said, you may safely come hither and be equipped or fitted out to go to fetch the other ship ; and I make no doubt but to obtain the, King's pardon for you and those few men you have left, which I understand have been faithful to you, and refused, as well as you, to dishonor the Commission you had from England. I assure you on my word and honor I will nicely perform what I have promised, and not to meddle with the least bitt of whatever goods or treasure you bring here, but that the same shall be left with such trusty persons as the Council shall advise until I receive orders from England how it shall be disposed of. Which letter being read was approved of by the Board."
This safe-conduct accounts for any audacity Kidd showed in coming to Boston. Livingston came here also. He told Bellomont that unless he gave up his bond for ten thousand pounds, Kidd would never give up the " Quedah Merchant " and her rich cargo. The council records give us the full account of what passed between the Governor and Kidd: -
" In Council, July 3, at his Excellency's House. Captain William Kidd, by com- mand of his Excellency, having been summoned to appear before his Excellency and Council this day at five o'clock, post meridiem, to give an account of his proceedings in his late voyage to Madagascar, the said Kidd accordingly appeared, and prayed his Lordship to allow him some time and he would prepare an account in writing of his proceedings, and present to his Lordship and the Board. Time was granted him to prepare and bring in his narrative until to-morrow at five o'clock, post meridiem, as also an invoice of the bill of lading on board the sloop and the ship, attested to by himself and some of his principal officers, with a list of the names of the men on board the sloop and ship, and of those who belonged to the ' Adventure Galley,' who, he alleges, refused to obey his commands, and evil entreated him and deserted the said ship. And the Council adjourned unto the said day and hour, after Captain Kidd had given a summary account of the lading on board his sloop now in port, and also on board the ship left at Hispaniola. His Excellency appointed Captain Hawes, Deputy-Collector, to put some waiters on board."
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
The next day Kidd appeared, but said he had not had time to prepare his account. The Council accordingly gave him till the next day, when he did not appear, and was sent for. When he arrived he said he had mistaken the hour, which he thought was to be in the evening at five o'clock. After he retired, "His Excellency communicated to the Lieut .- Governor and some others of the Council several letters which he had received from the Government in England, expressly commanding him to seize and secure the said Captain Kidd and his accomplices with their vessels and goods." It is to be observed that seventeen days had now elapsed since Bellomont sent the safe-conduct. It is possible that he had received these instructions since that time. But, as the alarm about Kidd's piracy had reached England eleven months before, it is more probable that these were the circular orders before alluded to, and that Bellomont had had them from the beginning. The record proceeds : "His Excellency having caused Captain Kidd to be seized and apprehended, said Kidd having neglected to give in a narrative in writing of his proceedings, etc., by the time set him, and some of the company being had upon examination before the Board, the same [i.e. the Board] was thereby hindered from going upon any business of the Court; and after some time spent in taking said examinations, adjourned to nine to-morrow." The next day, which was the 7th of July, Kidd was brought before them; and it was ordered that he be committed to prison by mittimus by some members of the Board who were justices of the peace. On July 11 -
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