NEW ENGLAND, a province of the British empire in America, bounded on the north-east by Nova Scotia, on the west by Canada, on the south by New York, and on the east by the Atlantic ocean. It lies between 41 and 49 degrees of north latitude, and between 67 and 74 of west longitude; extending in length 550 miles, and in breadth about 200.
This country was discovered in the beginning of the last century, and called North Virginia; but no Europeans settled there till the year 1608. The first colony, which was weak and ill-directed, did not succeed; and, for some time, there were only a few
adventurers who came over at times in the summer, built themselves temporary huts for the sake of trading with the savages, and, like them, disappeared again for the rest of the year. At last some English presbyterians, who had been driven from their own country, and had taken refuge in Holland, resolved to found a church for their sect in the new hemisphere. They therefore purchased, in 1521, the charter of the English North Virginia company. Forty-one families, making in all 120 persons, landed in the beginning of a very hard winter, and found a country entirely covered with wood, which offered a very melancholy prospect to men already exhausted with the fatigues of their voyage. Near one half perished either by cold, the scurvy, or other distress. The courage of the rest was beginning to fail; but it was revived by the arrival of 60 savage warriors, who came to them in the spring, headed by their chief. The old tenants assigned for ever to the new ones all the lands in the neighbourhood of the settlement they had formed, under the name of New Plymouth; and one of the savages who understood a little English, staid to teach them how to cultivate the maize, and instruct them in the manner of fishing upon their coast.
This kindness enabled the colony to wait for the companions they expected from Europe, with seeds, with domestic animals, and with every assistance they wanted. At first these succours arrived but slowly; but the persecution of the puritans in England increased the number of proselytes to such a degree in America, that, in 1630, they were obliged to form different settlements, of which Boston soon became the principal. These first settlers were not merely ecclesiastics, who had been deprived of their preferments on account of their opinions; nor those sectaries influenced by new opinions, that are so frequent among the common people. There were among them several persons of high rank, who, having embraced puritanism, had taken the precaution to secure themselves an asylum in these distant regions. They had caused houses to be built, and lands to be cleared, with a view of retiring there, if their endeavours in the cause of civil and religious liberty should prove abortive.
The inhabitants of New England lived peaceably for a long time, without any regular form of policy. Their charter had indeed authorized them to establish any mode of government they might choose; but these enthusiasts were not agreed among themselves upon the plan of their republic, and government did not pay sufficient attention to them to urge them to secure their own tranquillity. At length they grew sensible of the necessity of a regular legislation; and this great work, which virtue and genius united have never attempted but with diffidence, was boldly undertaken by blind fanaticism. It bore the stamp of the rude prejudices on which it had been formed. Three was in this new code a singular mixture of good and evil, of wisdom and folly. No man was allowed to have a share in the government except he were a member of the established church. Witchcraft, perjury, blasphemy, and adultery, were made capital offences; and children were also punished with death, either for cursing or striking their parents. Marriages, however, were to be solemnized by the magistrate. The price of corn was fixed at 2 s. 11 d. per bushel. The savages who neglected
glected to cultivate their lands were to be deprived of them; and Europeans were forbidden under a heavy penalty to sell them any strong liquors or warlike stores. All those who were detected either in lying, drunkenness, or dancing, were ordered to be publicly whipped. But at the same time that amusements were forbidden equally with vices and crimes, one might be allowed to swear by paying a penalty of 11½ d. and to break the sabbath for 2 l. 19 s. 9½ d. Another indulgence allowed was, to atone, by a fine, for a neglect of prayer, or for uttering a rash oath. But it is still more extraordinary, that the worship of images was forbidden to the puritans on pain of death; which was also inflicted on Roman Catholic priests, who should return to the colony after they had been banished; and on Quakers who should appear again after having been whipped, branded, and expelled. Such was the abhorrence for these sectaries, who had themselves an aversion for every kind of cruelty, that whoever either brought one of them into the country, or harboured him but for one hour, was liable to pay a considerable fine.
Those unfortunate members of the colony, who, less violent than their brethren, ventured to deny the coercive power of the magistrate in matters of religion, were persecuted with still greater rigour. This was considered as blasphemy by those very divines who had rather chosen to quit their country than to shew any deference to episcopal authority. This system was supported by the severities of the law, which attempted to put a stop to every difference in opinion, by inflicting capital punishment on all who dissented. Those who were either convicted, or even suspected, of entertaining sentiments of toleration, were exposed to such cruel oppressions, that they were forced to fly from their first asylum, and seek refuge in another. They found one on the same continent; and as New England had been first founded by persecution, its limits were extended by it.
This intemperate religious zeal extended itself to matters in themselves of the greatest indifference. A proof of this is found in the following public declaration, transcribed from the registers of the colony.
“ It is a circumstance universally acknowledged, “ that the custom of wearing long hair, after the man- “ ner of immoral persons and of the savage Indians, “ can have been introduced into England only in “ sacrilegious contempt of the express command of “ God, who declares that it is a shameful practice for “ any man who has the least care for his soul to wear “ long hair. As this abomination excites the indig- “ nation of all pious persons; we, the magistrates, in “ our zeal for the purity of the faith, do expressly and “ authentically declare, that we condemn the impious “ custom of letting the hair grow; a custom which we “ look upon to be very indecent and dishonest, which “ horribly disguises men, and is offensive to modest “ and sober persons, in as much as it corrupts good “ manners. We, therefore, being justly incensed a- “ gainst this scandalous custom, do desire, advise, and “ earnestly request all the elders of our continent, zeal- “ ously to shew their aversion for this odious prac- “ tice, to exert all their power to put a stop to it, and “ especially to take care that the members of their “ churches be not infected with it; in order that those “ persons, who, notwithstanding these rigorous pro-
“ hibitions, and the means of correction that shall “ be used on this account, shall still persist in this cu- “ tom, shall have both God and man at the same time “ against them.”
This severity soon exerted itself against the Quakers. They were whipped, banished, and imprisoned. The behaviour of these new enthusiasts, who in the midst of tortures and ignominy praised God, and called for blessings upon men, inspired a reverence for their persons and opinions, and gained them a number of proselytes. This circumstance exasperated their persecutors, and hurried them on to the most atrocious acts of violence; and they caused five of them, who had returned clandestinely from banishment, to be hanged. This spirit of persecution was, however, at last suppressed by the interposition of the mother-country, from whence it had been brought. Charles II. moved with the sufferings of the quakers, put a stop to them by a proclamation in 1661; but he was never able totally to extinguish the spirit of persecution that prevailed in America.
The colony had placed at their head Henry Vane, the son of that Sir Henry Vane who had such a remarkable share in the disturbances of his country. This obdurate and enthusiastic young man had contrived to revive the questions of grace and free-will. The disputes upon these points ran very high; and would probably have plunged the colony into a civil war, if several of the savage nations united had not happened at that very time to fall upon the plantations of the disputants, and to massacre great numbers of them. The colonists, heated with their theological contentions, paid at first very little attention to this considerable loss. But the danger at length became so urgent and so general, that all took up arms. As soon as the enemy was repulsed, the colony resumed its former dissensions; and the phrenzy which they excited, broke out in 1692 in a war, marked with as many atrocious instances of violence, as any ever recorded in history.
There lived in a town of New England, called Sa-
lem, two young women who were subject to convul-
sions, accompanied with extraordinary symptoms. Their father, minister of the church, thought that they were bewitched; and having in consequence cast his suspicions upon an Indian girl, who lived in this house, he compelled her by harsh treatment to confess that she was a witch. Other women, upon hearing this, immediately believed, that the convulsions, which proceeded only from the nature of their sex, were owing to the same cause. Three citizens, casually named, were immediately thrown into prison, accused of witchcraft, hanged, and their bodies left exposed to wild beasts and birds of prey. A few days after, 16 other persons, together with a counsellor, who, because he refused to plead against them, was supposed to share in their guilt, suffered in the same manner. From this instant, the imagination of the multitude was inflamed with these horrid and gloomy scenes. Children of ten years of age were put to death, young girls were stripped naked, and the marks of witchcraft searched for upon their bodies with the most indecent curiosity; and those spots of the scurvy which age impresses upon the bodies of old men, were taken for evident signs of the infernal power. In default of these, torments were employed to extort confessions dictated by the execu-
tioners.
tioners themselves. If the magistrates, tired out with executions, refused to punish, they were themselves accused of the crimes they tolerated; the very ministers of religion raised false witnesses against them, who made them forfeit with their lives the tardy remorse excited in them by humanity. Dreams, apparitions, terror, and consternation of every kind, increased these prodigies of folly and horror. The prisons were filled, the gibbets left standing, and all the citizens involved in gloomy apprehensions. The most prudent quitted the country stained with the blood of its inhabitants; and nothing less than the total and immediate subversion of the colony was expected, when, on a sudden, all eyes were opened at once, and the excess of the evil awakened the minds which it had first stupefied. Bitter and painful remorse was the immediate consequence; the mercy of God was implored by a general fast, and public prayers were offered up to ask forgiveness for the presumption of having supposed that heaven could have been pleased with sacrifices with which it could only have been offended.
Posterity, will, probably, never know exactly what was the cause or remedy of this dreadful disorder. It had, perhaps, its first origin in the melancholy which those persecuted enthusiasts had brought with them from their own country, which had increased with the scurvy they had contracted at sea, and had gathered fresh strength from the inconveniences and hardships inseparable from a change of climate and manner of living. The contagion, however, ceased like all other epidemical distempers, exhausted by its very communication. A perfect calm succeeded this agitation; and the Puritans of New England have never since been seized with so gloomy a fit of enthusiasm.
But though the colony has renounced the persecuting spirit which hath stained all religious sects with blood, it has preserved some remains if not of intolleration, at least of severity, which reminds us of those melancholy days in which it took its rise. Some of its laws are still too severe.
New England had, however, some remedy, against bad laws, in the constitution of its mother-country, where the people who have the legislative power in their own hands are at liberty to correct abuses; and it has others derived from its situation, which open a vast field to industry and population.
The clearing of the lands in this colony is not directed by chance as in the other provinces. This matter from the first was subjected to laws which are still religiously observed. No citizen whatever has the liberty of settling even upon unoccupied land. The government, desirous of preserving all its members from the inroads of the savages, and of placing them in a condition to share in the protection of a well-regulated society, hath ordered that whole villages should be formed at once. As soon as 60 families offer to build a church, maintain a clergyman, and pay a school-master, the general assembly allot them a situation, and permit them to have two representatives in the legislative body of the colony. The district assigned them always borders upon the lands already cleared, and generally contains 60,000 square acres. These new people choose the situation most convenient for their habitation, which is usually of a square figure. The church is placed in the centre; the colonists divide the land among them-
selves, and each incloses his property with a hedge. Some woods are reserved for a common; and thus New England is constantly enlarging its territory, though it still continues to make one complete and well constituted province.
Though the colony is situated in the midst of the temperate zone, yet the climate is not so mild as that of some European provinces which are under the same parallel. The winters are longer and colder; the summers shorter and hotter. The sky is commonly clear, and the rains are more plentiful than lasting. The air is grown purer since its circulation has been made free by cutting down the woods; and malignant vapours, which at first carried off numbers of the inhabitants, are no longer complained of.
The country is divided into four provinces, which at first had no connection with one another. The necessity of maintaining an armed force against the savages, obliged them to form a confederacy in 1643, when they took the name of the United Colonies. In consequence of this league, two deputies from each establishment used to meet in a stated place to deliberate upon the common affairs of New England, according to the instructions they had received from the assembly by which they were sent. This association laid no constraint upon the right of every individual to act entirely as he pleased, without either the permission or approbation of the mother-country. All the submission required of these provinces was merely to acknowledge the kings of England for their sovereigns. Charles II. wished to make them more dependent. The province of Massachusetts bay, which, though the smallest, was the richest and the most populous of the four, being guilty of some misdemeanour against government, the king seized that opportunity of taking away its charter in 1684; and it remained without one till the revolution; when it received another, which, however, did not answer its claims or expectations. The crown reserved to itself the right of nominating the governor, and appointing to all military employments, and to all principal posts in the civil and juridical departments: it allowed the people of the colony their legislative power, and gave the governor a negative voice and the command of the troops, which secured him a sufficient influence to enable him to maintain the prerogative of the mother-country in all its force. The provinces of Connecticut and Rhode-Island by timely submission prevented the punishment which that of Massachusetts had incurred, and retained their original charter. That of New-Hampshire had been always regulated by the same mode of administration as the province of Massachusetts bay. The same governor presides over the whole colony, but with regulations adapted to the constitution of each province. According to the most exact calculations, the number of inhabitants in New England, before the commencement of the present war, was computed at 400,000; but the southern parts of the colony are better peopled than the northern, where the soil is less fertile. Among such a number of citizens, there are few proprietors wealthy enough to leave the care of their plantations to stewards or farmers: most of them are planters in easy circumstances, who live upon their estates, and are employed in the labours of the field. This equality of fortune, joined to their religious principles, and to the nature of the government, gives this people
English. people a more republican cast than is to be observed in the other colonies.
No European fruits have degenerated in New England; it is even said, that the apple is improved, at least has multiplied exceedingly, and made cyder a more common drink there than in any other part of the world. All European roots and garden-stuffs have equally prospered; but the seeds have not thriven quite so well. Wheat is apt to be blighted, barley grows dry, and oats yield more straw than grain. In default of these, the maize, which is commonly used in making beer, is the drink of the common people. There are large and fruitful meadows, which are covered with numerous flocks.
The arts, though carried to a greater degree of perfection in this colony than in any of the others, have not made near the same progress as agriculture. Before the commencement of the disputes with the mother-country, there were not more than four or five manufactures of any importance.