USA > Rhode Island > Early Rhode Island; a social history of the people > Part 20
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In 1758 the sloop Sally and her appurtenances were valued at £3000. In the following year one-half of the sloop " Daulfin " was sold for £1800.
If they had the means, they lived well, whatever their occupation. A farmer in 1759, with £2692.11.8. in per- 106 Prob. Rec., Vol. V., p. 144.
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1762]
Obadiah Brown's Inventory
sonal estate, had 50 oz. of plate at £6.13.4., or a value of £333.6.8.
Obadiah Brown, descended from Chad, an early settler, died in 1762, leaving real property and the large personal estate of £93,220.16.1. Old Tenor. 197 His way of living was easy, but moderate. Two large looking glasses at £265. went beyond those of his neighbors. Beds and bedding were ample, with four blankets at £60. and two at £40. We have 12 white stone plates at £10., 6 china cups at £7. (a small outfit), two large Delph bowls and four beaker glasses at £6. Among the first recorded earthen teapots are two at £2.10., and the first " stone chamberpott " at £1.10. There was the usual pewter, tin and wooden ware, with ten iron candlesticks and four brass at £17. The negro woman Eve and the girl Peggy at £1400., served in the house. Ilis library was business- like, rather than literary, consisting of Gordon's Geo- graphical Grammar at £8. and Brown's Estimate at £1. A large stock of goods in almost every variety. met the wants of his customers at retail. He owned five negroes, two at £1000. cach, one at £1050., one £1100. and one at £1250.
Mr. Brown succeeded to the joint business conducted with his brother James, and brought up his nephews, the four brothers, in the best mercantile ways of the time. In a distillery and in the manufacture of oil and candles, assisted by Dr. Vanderlight, he obtained merchandise for exchange with Philadelphia and other domestic ports. This interchanging commerce became more and more im- portant and increased largely. Beginning as a captain in the West Indian trade, on shore he continued in com- merce with those seas, becoming the largest merchant of Providence.
107 Prob. Rec., Vol. V., p. 312.
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The Commercial Growth of Providence
In contrast to the opulent merchant was "Manna Burnon "-Gabriel Bernon's freedman-the first caterer and signing with a +. He left wearing apparel worth £100. and £36. in pewter ware. Twenty-three drinking glasses afforded supply for his thirsty customers.
The Peace of Paris brought to an end the Seven Years' War, and it had been a most important period for the colonies. Rhode Island in particular-bad as was her financial management-was impelled by a great patriotic purpose in issuing her paper money. Larger ideas of government were fostered by such enforced experience. Trained by the sacrifices of war, by the severity of camp life, and in the ways of new taxation at home, the plant- ers were coming to be citizens. The time was fast approaching when Englishmen migrated across the seas would assume new relations toward the home government, for the British administration could not learn that they were dealing with brothers and not with aliens.
Business in Rhode Island had profited largely through the war. Smuggling was greatly stimulated, and privat- eering increased commerce through the inevitable trade it brought to our ports. A natural reaction followed the peace, but business soon adapted itself to the new condi- tions.
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CHAPTER VIII NEWPORT IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 1700-1776
A T the opening of the eighteenth century, the world was growing weary of war. The brutal rule of Spain had been overcome and the aggressive ambition of Louis XIV. was checked by the diplomatic skill of William of Orange; while the increasing sea-power of Great Britain was beginning to balance the continent.
The divine mission of Grotius in the previous century was bearing fruit, and, though France and England con- tended here and there, these struggles were not wars of extermination. Forces other than warlike were getting exercise and practice, and where was the opportunity bet- ter than in a new world, in Aquidneck, the isle of peace by the sea? Where did the new forms of civilization assert themselves better and in a more graceful form?
New England was just passing out of the ebb. The later seventeenth century had not developed citizens equal to the pioneers who had led the way, but stronger men were coming. In the eighties there was a marked in- crease of commerce, of which a large share came to New- port. With commerce came the opportunity for that expansion which the conditions of the place greatly favored. In his Century Sermon of 1738, Callender cited Neale in the statement "this is deservedly esteemed the Paradise of New England for the fruitfulness of the soil and the temperateness of the climate." Enthusiasts for this landscape and climate have magnified and illumined their theme, with every resource of rhetoric, as time has
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Newport in the Eighteenth Century
gone on. "It appeals to one's alertness rather than to a lazy receptivity. You miss its quality entirely if your faculties are not in a state of real activity. This does not exclude composure or imply excitement."
In winter, there might be difference of opinion. Mr. George Bradford, a true lover of nature, told me there was all the capricous, beguiling promise of the New Eng- land spring with double disappointments in effect. Yet a fine day can tempt a zealot in this wise. " The lotos- eating season is over, plainly, yet there is the same agree- able absence of demand on any specific energies as in summer. The envelope of color-that delightful garment that Newport never puts off-is as evident to the senses as in midsummer, though more silvery in quality." Rich- ard Greenough claimed it to be the American Venice, according to Dr. Hale.
Newport furnished the colony with one of its best gov- ernors, Samuel Cranston, an officer who would have been eminent in any country. Chosen in 1698 and at thirty successive elections, he was probably longer in office than any man ever subjected to an annual popular election. It was a season of severe trial, when the colony was exploring unknown paths of government and the executive head was sorely tested. His just views and inflexible firmness kept his constituency well in hand and gave him deserved popularity. In the paper money vexation, he acted as best he could. Toward the opposing religious sects he was judicial. He did not join or attend meeting with any sect, being in the words of Dr. Turner 1 a " Keep- at-home Protestant, an impartial and good man." In his administration the colony was threatened at home and abroad; he assured and protected the public weal.
In 1708, as he reported to the Board of Trade, the 1 Two Governors Cranston, p. 50.
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1729]
Dean Berkeley's Coming
267
commerce of Newport was growing, and after the Peace of Utrecht in 1713 it increased rapidly. " The metropo- lis of the government " then had a population of 2203, about half as many again as the town of Providence.
Conscious enlargement and the spirit of growth records itself in 1712, when John Mumford was ordered to sur- vey the streets and number them. "The town had grown to be the admiration of all and was the metropolitan," said the fond record.2 For the first three decades the expanding community was being prepared for the event which was greatly to affect it, and to influence all New. England. Rev. George Berkeley, Dean of Derry, had put forth his " Principles of Human Knowledge " in 1710. Flippant writers in these two centuries have laughed at the transcendent principles of Berkeley, but those laugh best who laugh last. The Dean only held firmly that the " universally acknowledged ultimate cause cannot be the empty abstraction called Matter. There must be living mind at the root of things. Mind must be the very sub- stance and consistence and cause of whatever is. In rec- ognizing this wondrous principle, life is simplified to
man." 3 Certainly the world of Knowledge has moved toward rather than away from the philosopher, since this was written. Here was the creative and impelling idea needed to lift commercial and material Newport out of pioneer life, and into communion with an older civiliza- tion and a more refined culture.
Berkeley, on his way to found a college at Bermuda, landed at Newport, January 23, 1729, by accident or design, as is disputed, and remained there about three years. Rev. James Honyman was preaching in Trinity church, founded at the beginning of the century, when
2 Rhode Island Historical Magazine, Vol. VI., p. 216.
3 Life and Letters of Berkeley, p. 41.
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Newport in the Eighteenth Century
the letter from Dean Berkeley, proposing to land, was received. He read it to the congregation, dismissing them with a blessing. The pastor and flock repaired to the wharf in time for the landfall. In this dramatic man- ner, the ideas of the old world were received into the new.
The philosopher confirms all our reports of the beauty and extraordinary, progressive character of the place, with its 6000 inhabitants. " The most thriving, flourish- ing place in all America for its bigness." 4 We shall note the sectaries, who " agreed in a rage for finery, the men in flaming scarlet coats and waistcoats, laced and fringed with brightest glaring yellow. The sly Quakers, not venturing on these charming coats and waistcoats, yet loving finery, figured away with plate on their side- boards." 5
Graduates from Harvard College were frequent, with an occasional native who had been educated at an English university. The girls were often sent to Boston for their schooling.
Dissenters naturally attracted the notice of this good- humored ecclesiast. "The inhabitants are of a mixed kind, consisting of many sorts and subdivisions of sects. Here are four sorts of Anabaptists, besides Presbyterians, Quakers, Independents, and many of no profession at all. Notwithstanding so many differences, here are fewer quar- rels about religion than elsewhere, the people living peace- ably with their neighbours of whatever profession. They all agree in one point, that the Church of England is second best." 6
This accommodating spirit noted by the Dean was enforced in most piquant manner by Captain William
4 Life and Letters of Berkeley, p. 160.
5 Ibid., p. 157.
6 Ibid., p. 160.
n
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RESIDENCE OF DEAN BERKELEY, MIDDLETOWN (NEAR NEWPORT, R. I.). Built in 1730.
269
1729]
. Wanton's Religious Compromise
Wanton, a Quaker and a son of a preacher. He courted Ruth Bryant, the beautiful daughter of a Presbyterian deacon in Scituate, Mass., who would not hear of such laxity in marriage, but the ardent groom solved the diffi- culty. "Ruth, I am sure we were made for each other ; let us break away from this unreasonable bondage. I will give up my religion and thou shalt give up thine and we will go to the Church of England and the devil to- gether." 7
Lodowick Updike gives his boyish impression of the liberal Dean in Trinity pulpit. " All sects rushed to hear him; even the Quakers, with their broad-brimmed hats, came and stood in the aisles.8 In one of his sermons he very emphatically said, ' give the devil his due, John Cal- vin was a great man.' " 9
Rev. James MacSparran, settled at St. Paul's Church in Narragansett in 1721, was not as tolerant toward the " pestilent heresy " of the Quakers. He stated that there was no established religion, " but the Quakers are, for the most part, the people in power." 10 George Fox came in 1672, on his powerful mission. William Penn said of him that he was " civil beyond all forms of breeding." His influence, working on the radical settlers of the Island and their descendants, must have had gracious effect. Historians and critics rooted in the established order of the sixteenth and following centuries, when judging dis- sent, can only see jangling differences ; for they are blindly 7 Annals of Trinity Church, p. 52n.
8 " In 1700, one-half the inhabitants were Quakers." Annals Trin- ity Church, p. 10. Roger Williams affected the Island settlement indirectly. He differed in doctrine from the Friends; while on the other hand, the system of laws established by Coddington and Clarke was adopted by the whole colony and enabled Providence to main- tain a cohesive government.
9 Updike, Narragansett Church, p. 120. 10 Ibid., p. 510.
الإنسان
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Newport in the Eighteenth Century
unconscious of the indestructible elements of beauty, grow- ing out of freedom from arbitrary control in religious and social matters. Good Dean Berkeley cited four varieties of Anabaptists among his new friends and neighbors. Anabaptism simply meant the worst form of anarchy to an ordinary Catholic or Calvinist of the differing centuries. Yet the conservative Erasmus could term them " a people against whom there is very little to be said." In some cases, goaded by severe laws, they were wild and fanatical, but were in general mystically sincere and pious. They were not necessarily historical Baptists, though the rite of baptism usually distinguished them.
In the great social influences forming the Newport of mid-eighteenth century, the Literary and Philosophical Society with the Redwood Library were powerful fac- tors. The first institution was formed in 1730; some claiming that it was originated by Berkeley. Mr. Mason, a competent and sympathetic authority, says it "owed something of its influence to him we may readily admit ; but when he came to Newport, intellectually, he found it no barren wilderness." 11 The people were chosen and elect, whether we consider Coddington, John Clarke and the disciples of Anne Hutchinson, or the friends of Roger Williams, or the converts of George Fox, or the enter- prising spirits gathered into "the most thriving place in all America." The Quaker Wanton and the high Puri- tan Ruth Bryant molded into genial Episcopalians were fair examples of this annealing culture.
They had books already, as will be shown later, and representatives of all the sects, Jacob the Quaker scien- tist ; Collins and Ward, Seventh Day Sabbatarians ; Cal- lender, a Baptist; Leaming, a Congregationalist; the Episcopal Honyman and others banded together. There 11 Annals Redwood Library, p. 2.
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1730]
Philosophical Society
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was an elaborate set of rules, with forfeits and fines for all sorts of neglect and misfeasance, as was common then ; some showing the earnest spirit of life prevailing.
The Society was to consider " some useful question in Divinity, Morality, Philosophy, History, etc.," but " noth- ing shall ever be proposed or debated which is a distin- guishing religious tenet of any one member. . Whoever shall make it an excuse to avoid giving his opinion, that he has not thought of the question, or has forgot what. the question is, shall forfeit one shilling. Whoever is unprovided of a proper question, on his turn to propound one, shall forfeit one shilling." 12
The first " authentic paper " is dated 1735, though there must have been earlier examples. The Society was conducted vigorously and continued until about 1747 and had some occasional members, among whom was Stephen Hopkins, of Providence. Rev. Dr. Samuel Johnson, an- other participant, lived at Stratford, Conn. He was an ardent disciple of Berkeley, visiting him soon after his arrival. As he was invited to the rectorate of Trinity in 1750, it shows the permanence of Berkeley's influence in the colony. Afterwards he was president of King's Col- lege, New York.
Newport was a favorite destination for Scotch immi- grants, and accordingly their influence was strong in the community. We get an inkling of the relative importance of the port from this statement of Dr. Waterhouse: " Be- tween the years 1746 and 1750 there came over from Great Britain to the English colonies a number of Scotch gentlemen. Some settled in Philadelphia, some in New York, but the greater part sat down in that pleasant and healthy spot, Rhode Island." 13
12 Annals Redwood Library, p. 14.
13 Ibid., p. 28.
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Newport in the Eighteenth Century
Edward Scott,14 the grand-uncle of Sir Walter, was for more than twenty years master of the grammar and classi- cal school. He was an active member of the Philosoph- ical Society and librarian of the Redwood.
There had been collections of books all through the century. Regulations of the Library of Trinity Church were recorded in 1709. Some of those volumes exist in fair preservation, stamped in gold letters " Belonging to y® Library in Rhode Island." 15 Bequests down to 1733 show small collections of good books. John Clarke in 1676 left a Concordance and Lexicon written by himself, also a Hebrew Bible. Benedict Arnold in 1733 left, be- sides Quaker books, Milton, Quarles, Fuller and Plutarch. In 1747, the Redwood Library was engrafted on the stock of the Philosophical Society. Abraham Redwood, a wealthy merchant and liberal Friend, gave £500. Henry Collins, a Seventh Day Baptist, furnished the land on which the Library stands. Born in 1699, he was a prod- uct and a maker of the culture we are studying. Doctor Benjamin Waterhouse, a close friend of Gilbert Stuart,- himself a graduate of the University of Leyden, finally professor of Medicine in Harvard College-called Collins the Lorenzo de Medici of Rhode Island. Hon. William Hunter said of him, " He loved literature and the fine arts ; had the sense of the beautiful in nature conjoined with the impulse to see it imitated and surpassed by art ; he was a merchant, enterprising, opulent and liberal. Smibert was the father of true painting in this country. Collins was fortunate enough to engage his earliest labors his own portrait, Clap, Callender, above all Ber- keley himself. " 16
14 Annals Trinity Church, p. 55.
15 Ibid., p. 19.
16 Ibid., p. 27.
i
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1750]
Book of the Time
The list of books 17 ordered from London is interesting, and we may glance at a name here and there, for we have the spirit of the time in black letter. There were 114 titles in folio. Barclay and Penn, Barrow, Burnet's Ref- ormation, a general dictionary of ten vols., Grotius, Wood's Laws of England, Sir William Temple. In quarto 73 titles, include dictionaries, Cudworth, Eusebius, Fluxions, Boyle, Bacon, and Rowe on Wheel Carriages. The octavos cover 95 standard classics, with an occasional Erasmus, Puffendorf or Johnson. History took 73 titles, Divinity and Morality 48, which varied from Sherlock, Butler, Warbuton to Mrs. Rowe's "Friendship in Death " or "Young Gentleman and Lady Instructed." Forty titles were in Physick, 24 in Law, 54 in Natural History, Mathematics, etc., 55 in Arts, Liberal and Me- chanical, 37 in Miscellanies, Politics, etc. In duodecimo, there were 135 examples of very good general reading, as we should phrase it.
These names embody the books they desired; perhaps we should scan more closely those given by several gentle- men ; for the volumes are such as they had. In folio 28 titles show Baxter, Beaumont, Fletcher, Chaucer, Herod- otus, Homer, Justin Martyr, the Rambler, Spenser. In 22 quarto, 54 octavo were Descartes, Middleton, Addison, Bolingbroke, Calvin's Institute in Latin, Douglass' Sum- mary from the author, Gentleman's Magazine for two years, twelve magazines from Philadelphia, Grey, Young's Night Thoughts, Roderick Random, Pope, Erasmus.
In a thriving and progressive community, accidents as well as incident, contribute to the vital increase. As the Scotch "Forty-five " sent out emigrating rebels to give needed strength to the new world, so the earthquake at Lisbon in 1755 sent more than sixty families of accom-
17 Annals Redwood Library, p. 494.
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Newport in the Eighteenth Century
plished Jews 18 who were generally wealthy merchants, attracted by liberal government and commercial oppor- tunity, to our little isle by the sea.
The Jew first embodied and represented in an individual the creative power of industry, flippantly characterized as the " Almighty Dollar." It is a fructifying idol, not almighty indeed, but powerful to enlist man with man, and to hold him subjected-not to a greater and sovereign man-but to citizen and people embodied in the State. Feudalism had been tested and found wanting, as it has been recently outgrown in Japan. Greater than the uni- versal imperial power of Egypt and Assyria, greater even than Rome, was the economic force of industry ; pledged to the State as a whole, but returning to each man in his own pocket, a universal tribute of mankind to man-the dollar. The philosophy of the eighteenth century, bap- tized in the blood and sacrifice of French feudal privilege, was necessary to garner in and bestow on each peasant or householder, this new tax, toll, impost and assessment of society, payable to its least and lowest member.
Meanwhile, England was so far ahead of its compeers in modern development that it had cut off the head of a king in the seventeenth century, by way of showing privi- lege and blind despotism, what was meant by the awaken- ing of the human mind. All this is frequently treated as being absolutely involved in constitutional government, expanding suffrage and parliamentary representation. Truly, it is a part of these great categories of human progress, but it is even more part and portion of the larger social movement ; by which not only is government parceled out by King, Kaiser and cabinet, by parliament, democratic party or aristocracy to render political rights fairly ; but also by which the economic dollar flowing out 18 Newport Historical Magazine, Vol. IV. p. 162.
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Rise of the Dollar
1750]
of capitalist's coffer or laborer's pocket can renovate and fructify the whole movement.
By this extraordinary exercise of social force in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the face of the world was rapidly changed, Napoleons being elevated, or in turn crushed, by the way. The greatest exponent, the largest interpreter of this universal social force, working through particular individuals, was the historic Jew. He was lit- tle comprehended then, he is not wholly understood to- day. Anyone can see that the new economic dispensation did not endow the feudal descendants of fabled Roland or historic Richard with new privilege; nor did it relegate to the robber dynasties of Napoleonic marshals the admin- istration of the new powers of society. It went to the Ghetto for new administrators, in the persons of shivering Shylocks and abject Isaacs of York. The scions and representatives of these new social financial administra- tors came out on the enlarged Rialto, the modern Bourse.
I hinted in the beginning, rather than affirmed, that Newport was a wayside product of the whole social eight- eenth century. The Jew, with his enlarged intelligence and creative skill, went into an appreciative and responsive atmosphere.
The " metropolitan " community, as it called itself in 1712, had come to be an important mart. Dr. MacSpar- ran and Douglass substantially agreed in reporting the commerce of 1750 to 1760. Butter and cheese, grain, fat cattle, fine horses, pipe staves and lumber were among the exports, largely to the West Indies. The Narragansett pacers were famous, pacing " a mile in little more than two minutes, a good deal less than three," 19 according to the worthy parson. There were above 300 vessels of 19 Updike, Narragansett Church, p. 514.
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Newport in the Eighteenth Century
sixty tons and more, including coasters, in the export trade. In 1749, there were 160 clearances for foreign voyages.20 In 1770, there were at least 200 vessels in foreign and 400 in the coasting trade,21 the population having grown to 12,000. After 1707, trade in sugar, rum, and negroes grew rapidly. Sugar and molasses were distilled at Boston and more at Newport. The slaves were generally carried to the West Indies, some- times to Newport or Boston. Much capital from Boston assisted in the business at Newport.22 Privateering in the French and Spanish wars was a stimulating element in commerce. Wantons, Ellerys, Malbones, indeed almost all the names are represented in this warring commerce.
Rev. James Honyman,23 Scotchman and rector of Trinity from 1704 until 1750, was conciliatory in his min- istry, drawing hearers from all the surrounding country. Dr. MacSparran, Irishman of Narragansett, learned, acute, disputatious, was a keen sectarian, believing in anybody's establishment, if he could not have his own. He found in 1721 " a field full of briars and thorns." " Here liberty of conscience is carried to an irreligious extreme." 24
We get a wider outlook and more judicial report from Arthur Brown, son of a rector of Trinity. He lived in Newport until seventeen years old, then entered Trinity College, Dublin, becoming Senior Proctor and Professor of Greek. He wrote:
" The innocence of the people made them capable of liberty. Murder and robbery were unknown. During
20 Rhode Island Historical Magazine, Vol. VI., p. 310.
21 Ibid., V. 7, p. 47.
22 Weeden, Economic and Social History of New England, Vol. II, pp. 455-469.
23 Annals Trinity Church, p. 94.
24 Updike, pp. 511, 514.
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