broke forth in the three kingdoms, there were divers gentlemen in Scotland, who, being uneasie under the ecclesiastical burdens of the times, wrote unto New-England their enquiries, Whether they might be there suffered freely to exercise their Presbyterian church-government? And it was freely answered, "That they might." Hereupon they sent over an agent, who pitched upon a tract of land near the mouth of Merrimack river, whither they intended them to transplant themselves: but although they had so far proceeded in their voyage, as to be half-seas through; the manifold crosses they met withal, made them give over their intentions; and the providence of God so ordered it, that some of those very gentlemen were afterwards the revivers of that well-known solemn league and covenant which had so great an influence upon the following circumstances of the nations. However, the number of those who did actually arrive at New-England before the year 1640, have been computed about four thousand; since which time far more have gone out of the country than have come to it; and yet the God of Heaven so smiled upon the Plantation, while under an easie and equal government, the designs of Christianity in well-formed churches have been carried on, that no history can parallel it. That saying of Eutropius about Rome, which hath been sometimes applied unto the church, is capable of some application to this little part of the church: Nec Minor ab Exordio, nec major Incrementis ulla.* Never was any plantation brought unto such a considerableness, in a space of time so inconsiderable! an howling wilderness in a few years became a pleasant land, accommodated with the necessaries— yea, and the conveniences of humane life; the gospel has carried with it a fulness of all other blessings; and (albeit, that mankind generally, as far as we have any means of enquiry, have increased in one and the same given proportion, and so no more than doubled themselves in about three hundred and sixty years, in all the past ages of the world, since the fixing of the present period of humane life) the four thousand first planters, in less than fifty years, notwithstanding all transportations and mortalities, increased into, they say, more than an hundred thousand.

CHAPTER VI.

QUI TRANS MARE CURRUNT;†

OR, THE ADDITION OF SEVERAL OTHER COLONIES TO THE FORMER; WITH SOME OTHER CONSIDERABLES IN THE CONDITION OF THESE LATER COLONIES.

§ 1. It was not long before the Massachuset Colony was become like an hive overstocked with bees; and many of the new inhabitants entertained thoughts of swarming into plantations extended further into the country,

• Never was any thing more mean in inception or more mighty in progress.

"Those who cross the sea.

The colony might fetch its own description from the dispensations of the great God, unto his ancient Israel, and say, "O, God of Hosts, thou hast brought a vine out of England; thou hast cast out the heathen and planted it; thou preparedst room before it, and didst cause it to take deep root, and it filled the land; the hills were covered with the shadow of it, and the boughs thereof were like the goodly cedars; she sent out her boughs unto the sea." But still there was one stroak wanting for the complete accommodations of the description; to wit, "She sent forth her branches unto the river;" and this therefore is to be next attended. The fame of Connecticut river, a long, fresh, rich river, (as indeed the name Connecticut is Indian for a long river,) had made a little Nilus,* of it in the expectations of the good people about the Massachuset-bay: whereupon many of the planters belonging especially to the towns of Cambridge, Dorchester, Watertown and Roxbury, took up resolutions to travel an hundred miles westward from those towns, for a further settlement upon this famous river. When the learned Fernandius had been in the Indies, he did in his preface to his Commentaries afterwards published, give this account of it: Deo sic volente, prodii in remotissimos usque Indos, tam non avidus lucis et gloriæ, ut eam vere dixerim, ultro elegerim mei ipsius adhuc viventis verissimam Sepulturam. Reader, come with me now to behold some worthy, and learned, and genteel persons going to be buried alive on the banks of Connecticut, having been first slain by the ecclesiastical impositions and persecutions of Europe.

2. It was in the year 1635, that this design was first formed; and the disposition of the celebrated Mr. Thomas Hooker, with his people now in Cambridge, to engage in the design, was that which gave most life unto it. They then sent their agents to view the country, who returned with so advantageous a report, that the next year there was a great remove of good people thither: on this remove, they that went from Cambridge became a church upon a spot of ground now called Hartford; they that went from Dorchester, became a church at Windsor; they that went from Watertown, sat down at Wethersfield; and they that left Roxbury were inchurched higher up the river at Springfield, a place which was afterwards found within the line of the Massachuset-charter. Indeed, the first winter after their going thither, proved an hard one; and the grievous disappointments which befel them, through the unseasonable freezing of the river, whereby their vessel of provisons was detained at the mouth of the river, threescore miles below them, caused them to encounter with very disastrous difficulties. Divers of them were hereby obliged in the depth of winter to travel back into the Bay; and some of them were frozen to death in the journey.

However, such was their courage, that they prosecuted their Plantation

Nile.

+ By God's permission, I penetrated into the remotest parts of India, actuated less by curiosity or ambition, than by a desire to say, with truth, that I had voluntarily sought out a spot where I was in reality buried alive.

VOL. I.-6

work with speedy and blessed successes; and when bloody salvages in their neighbourhood, known by the name of Pequots, had like to have nipt the plantation in the bud, by a cruel war, within a year or two after their settlement, the marvellous providence of God immediately extinguished that war, by prospering the New-English arms, unto the utter subduing of the quarrelsome nation, and affrightning of all the other natives. § 3. It was with the countenance and assistance of their brethren in the Massachuset-bay, that the first Planters of Connecticut made their essays thus to discover and cultivate the remoter parts of this mighty wilderness; and accordingly several gentlemen went furnished with some kind of commission from the government of the Massachuset-bay, for to maintain some kind of government among the inhabitants, till there could be a more orderly settlement. But the inhabitants quickly perceiving themselves to be without the line of the Massachuset-charter, entered into a combination among themselves, whereby with mutual consent they became a body-politick, and framed a body of necessary laws and orders, to the execution whereof they chose all necessary officers, very much, though not altogether, after the form of the colony from whence they issued. So they jogged on for many years; and whereas, before the year 1644, that worthy gentleman, George Fenwick Esq., did, on the behalf of several persons of quality, begin a plantation about the mouth of the river, which was called Say-brook, in remembrance of those right honourable persons, the Lord Say and the Lord Brook, who laid a claim to the land thereabouts, by virtue of a patent granted by the Earl of Warwick; the inhabitants of Connecticut that year purchased of Mr. Fenwick this tract of land. But the confusions then embarrassing the affairs of the English nation, hindred our Connecticotians from seeking of any further settlement, until the restoration of K. Charles II., when they made their application to the King for a charter, by the agency of their honourable governour, John Winthrop, Esq., the most accomplished son of that excellent person who had been so considerable in the foundations of the Massachuset-colony. This renowned virtuoso had justly been the darling of New-England, if they had only considered his eminent qualities, as he was a Christian, a gentleman, and a philosopher, well worthy to be, as he was, a member of the Royal-Society; but it must needs further endear his memory to his country, that God made him the instrument of obtaining for them, as he did from the King of England, as amply priviledged a charter as was ever enjoyed perhaps by any people under the cope of heaven. Under the protection and encouragement of this charter they flourished many years; and many towns being successively erected among them, their churches had "rest, and walked in the fear of God, and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit."

§ 4. The church-order observed in the churches of Connecticut, has been the same that is observed by their sisters in the Massachuset-bay; and in

this order they lived exceeding peaceably all the eleven years that Mr. Hooker lived among them. Nevertheless there arose at length some unhappy contests in one town of the colony, which grew into an alienation that could not be cured without such a parting, and yet, indeed, hardly so kind a parting, as that whereto once Abraham and Lot were driven. However, these little, idle, angry controversies, proved occasions of enlarge ments to the church of God; for such of the inhabitants as chose a cottage in a wilderness, before the most beautiful and furnished edifice, overheated with the fire of contention, removed peaceably higher up the river, where a whole county of holy churches has been added unto the number of our congregations.

5. But there was one thing that made this colony to become very considerable; which thing remains now to be considered. The well-known Mr. Davenport, and Mr. Eaton, and several eminent persons that came over to the Massachuset-bay among some of the first planters, were strongly urged, that they would have settled in this Bay; but hearing of another Bay to the south-west of Connecticut, which might be more capable to entertain those that were to follow them, they desired that their friends at Connecticut would purchase of the native proprietors for them, all the land that lay between themselves and Hudson's River, which was in part effected. Accordingly removing thither in the year 1637, they seated themselves in a pleasant Bay, where they spread themselves along the scacoast, and one might have been suddenly as it were surprized with the sight of such notable towns, as first New-Haven; then Guilford; then Milford; then Stamford; and then Brainford, where our Lord Jesus Christ is worshipped in churches of an evangelical constitution; and from thence, if the enquirer make a salley over to Long-Island, he might there also have seen the churches of our Lord beginning to take root in the eastern parts of that island. All this while this fourth colony wanted the legal basis of a charter to build upon; but they did by mutual agreement form themselves, into a body-politick as like as they judged fit unto the other colonies in their neighbourhood; and as for there church-order, it was generally secundum usum Massachusettensem.* *

§ 6. Behold, a fourth colony of New-English Christians, in a manner stolen into the world, and a colony, indeed, constellated with many stars of the first magnitude. The colony was under the conduct of as holy, and as prudent, and as genteel persons as most that ever visited these nooks of America; and yet these too were tryed with very humbling circumstances. Being Londoners, or merchants and men of traffick and business, their design was in a manner wholly to apply themselves unto trade; but the design failing, they found their great estates sink so fast, that they must quickly do something. Whereupon in the year 1646, gathering together almost all the strength which was left them, they built one ship more,

• After the Massachusetts model.

which they fraighted for England with the best part of their tradable estates; and sundry of their eminent persons embarked themselves in her for the voyage. But, alas! the ship was never after heard of: she foundred in the sea; and in her were lost, not only the hopes of their future trade, but also the lives of several excellent persons, as well as divers manuscripts of some great men in the country, sent over for the service of the church, which were now buried in the ocean. The fuller story of that grievous matter, let the reader with a just astonishment accept from the pen of the reverend person who is now the pastor of New-Haven. I wrote unto him for it, and was thus answered:

"Reverend and DEAR SIR: In compliance with your desires, I now give you the relation of that APPARITION of a SHIP IN THE AIR, which I have received from the most credible judicious, and curious surviving observers of it.

"In the year 1647, besides much other lading, a far more rich treasure of passengers, (five or six of which were persons of chief note and worth in New-Haven) put themselves on board a new ship, built at Rhode-Island, of about 150 tuns; but so walty, that the master (Lamberton) often said she would prove their grave. In the month of January, cutting their way through much ice, on which they were accompanied with the Reverend Mr. Davenport, besides many other friends, with many fears, as well as prayers and tears, they set sail. Mr. Davenport in prayer, with an observable emphasis, used these words: 'Lord, if it be thy pleasure to bury these our friends in the bottom of the sea, they are thine: save them.' The spring following, no tidings of these friends arrived with the ships from England: New-Haven's heart began to fail her: this put the godly people on much prayer, both publick and private, 'that the Lord would (if it was his pleasure) let them hear what he had done with their dear friends, and prepare them with a suitable submission to his Holy Will.' In June next ensuing, a great thunder-storm arose out of the north-west after which (the hemisphere being serene) about an hour before sun-set, a SHIP of like dimensions with the aforesaid, with her canvas and colours abroad (though the wind northernly) appeared in the air coming up from our harbour's mouth, which lyes southward from the town, seemingly with her sails filled under a fresh gale, holding her course north, and continuing under observation, sailing against the wind for the space of half an hour.

"Many were drawn to behold this great work of God; yea, the very children cryed out, 'There's a brave ship!' At length, crowding up as far as there is usually water sufficient for such a vessel, and so near some of the spectators, as that they imagined a man might hurl a stone on board her, her main-top seemed to be blown off, but left hanging in the shrouds; then her mizzen-top; then all her masting seemed blown away by the board: quickly after the hulk brought unto a careen, she overset, and so vanished into a smoaky cloud, which in some time dissipated, leaving, as everywhere else, a clear air. The admiring spectators could distinguish the several colours of each part, the principal rigging, and such proportions, as caused not only the generality of persons to say, "This was the mould of their ship, and thus was her tragick end,' but Mr. Davenport also in publick declared to this effect, 'That God had condescended, for the quieting of their afflicted spirits, this extraordinary account of his sovereign disposal of those for whom so many fervent prayers were made continually.' Thus I am Sir, "Your humble servant,

"JAMES PIERPONT."

Reader, there being yet living so many credible gentlemen, that were eye-witnesses of this wonderful thing, I venture to publish it for a thing as undoubted as 'tis wonderful.