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thoughts touching that truth, and if the Lord will it may more fully appear." And in another letter, March, 1640, “Mr. Huit hath not answered our arguments against the beginning the Sabbath at morning.")

That everything approaching to an acknowledgment of the authority of the Pope, and his power of canonization, might be avoided, they never used the addition of saint when they spake of the apostles and the ancient fathers of the Christian Church, and even the usual names of places were made to conform. The island of Saint Christophers was always written Christophers, and by the same rule all other places to which saint had been prefixed. If any exception was made, an answer was ready: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had as good right to this appellation as Peter, James and John.

They laid aside the fasts and feasts of the Church of England, and appointed frequently, as occasion required, days of fasting and thanksgiving; but, besides these occasional fasts and thanksgivings, they constantly, every spring, appointed a day for fasting and prayer, to implore the divine blessings upon their affairs in the ensuing year; and in the fall, a day of thanksgiving and public acknowledgment of the favors. conferred upon them in the year past. If they more readily fell into this practice from the example of the people of God of old, yet they might well have been justified without any example. It has continued without interruption, I suppose, in any one instance, down to this day. This is a custom to which no devout person of any sect will take exception. By a law of the colony, every person absenting himself from the public worship, on these days, without sufficient excuse, was liable to five shillings fine. It would have been as well, perhaps, if this provision had been omitted.

These were the principal of the special ecclesiastical or religious customs. There were some attempts to introduce singularities into some of the churches; particularly Mr. Davenport, of New Haven, who afterward removed to Boston, required all his congregation to stand up whilst the text was naming; the principal reason which was given for it being that it was the word of God, and deserved peculiar honor; and Mr. Williams, of Salem, required all the women of his congregation to wear veils; but neither of these customs spread, or were of any long continuance. It was observed, as to the latter, that so uncouth an appearance, contrary to the practice of the English nation, would probably draw more eyes than if they were dressed like other women. Mr. Cotton, of Boston, happening to preach at Salem soon after this custom began, he convinced his hearers that it had no sufficient foundation in the Scriptures: the married women had no pretence to wear veils as virgins; neither married nor unmarried would choose to do it from the example of Tamar the harlot, nor need they do it for such purpose as Ruth did in

her widowhood. His sermon had so good an effect, that they were all ashamed of their veils, and never appeared covered with them afterward.

THE

THE CHARACTER AND RULE OF GOVERNOR BURNET.

[From the Same.]

HE resentment which had been raised ceased, with people in general, upon his death. Many amiable parts of his character revived in their minds. He had been steady and inflexible in his adherence to his instructions, but discovered nothing of a grasping, avaricious mind; it was the mode, more than the quantum, of his salary upon which he insisted. The naval office had generally been a post for some relation or favorite of the governor, but Colonel Tailer having been lieutenant-governor, and in circumstances far from affluent, he generously gave the post to him, without any reserve of the issues or profits. The only instance of his undue exacting money, by some, was thought to be palliated by the established custom of the government he had quitted. This did not justify it. In his disposal of public offices, he gave the preference to such as were disposed to favor his cause, and displaced some for not favoring it, and in some instances he went further than good policy would allow. He did not know the temper of the people of New England. They have a strong sense of liberty, and are more easily drawn than driven. He disobliged many of his friends by removing from his post Mr. Lynde, a gentleman of the house, esteemed by both sides for his integrity and other valuable qualities, and he acknowledged that he could assign no other reason except that the gentleman had not voted for a compliance with the instruction. However, an immoral or unfair character was a bar to office, and he gave his negative to an election of a counsellor, in one instance, upon that principle only. His superior talents and free and easy manner of communicating his sentiments made him the delight of men of sense and learning. His right of precedence in all companies facilitated the exercise of his natural disposition to a great share in the conversation, and at the same time "caused it to appear more excusable." His own account of his genius was, that it was late before it budded, and that, until he was nearly twenty years of age, his father despaired of his ever making any figure in life. This, perhaps, might proceed from the exact, severe discipline of the bishop's family, not calculated for every temper alike, and might damp and discourage his. To long and frequent religious services at home in his youth he would sometimes pleasantly attribute his indisposition to a very scrupu

lous exact attendance upon public worship; but this might really be owing to an abhorrence of ostentation and mere formality in religion, to avoid which, as most of the grave, serious people of the province thought, he approached too near the other extreme. A little more caution, and conformity to the different ages, manners, customs, and even prejudices of different companies, would have been more politic, but his open, undisguised mind could not submit to it. Being asked to dine with an old charter senator who retained the custom of saying grace sitting, the grave gentleman desired to know which would be more agreeable to his excellency, that grace should be said standing or sitting. The governor replied, "Standing or sitting, any way or no way, just as you please." He sometimes wore a cloth coat lined with velvet. It was said to be expressive of his character. He was a firm believer of the truth of revealed religion, but a bigot to no particular profession among Christians, and laid little stress upon modes and forms. By a clause in his last will he ordered his body to be buried, if he died at New York, by his wife; if in any other part of the world, in the nearest church-yard or buryingground, all places being alike to God's all-seeing eye.

The assembly ordered a very honorable funeral at the public charge. A motion at another time was made in the house for a grant to a governor to bear the expense of his lady's funeral. A dry old representative objected to a grant for a governor's lady: had the motion been for a grant to bury the governor, he should have thought the money well laid out.

THE TRAGEDY OF ACADIA.

[From the Third and Final Volume of The History of Massachusetts. First printed in 1828.]

THE French forts at Beau Sejour, Bay Verte and the river St. John,

in Nova Scotia, had been recovered. The state of that province was, notwithstanding, deemed very insecure, many thousand French inhabitants still continuing in it. They had been admitted by LieutenantGovernor Armstrong after that province was reduced, in the reign of Queen Anne, to such a sort of oath as to consider themselves rather in a neutral state between England and France than in subjection to either, and from thence they took the name of French neutrals. Being all Roman Catholics and great bigots, and retaining the French language, they were better affected to France than to England. In civil matters they had been more indulged by the English than they would have been by the French, being in a manner free from taxes; and a great part of them

were so sensible of it that they wished to avoid taking part on one side or the other. But the Indians, who were engaged on the part of the French, had constant intercourse with them, their houses being scattered, and where there were any number together to form a village, open to both French and Indians from Canada, without any sort of defence. And it was the general opinion that, if an attempt should be made by the French to recover the province of Nova Scotia, the whole body of the Acadians, some from inclination, others from compulsion, would join in the attempt.

The commander-in-chief of his majesty's ships, then at Halifax, as well as the governor of the province, supposed that the principle of selfpreservation would justify the removal of these Acadians; and it was determined to take them by surprise, and transport them all, men, women, and children, to the English colonies. A few days before the determination was executed, notice was given to the governors of the several colonies to prepare for their reception. Far the greatest part were accordingly seized by the king's troops, which had remained in the province, and hurried on board small vessels prepared to receive them, with such part of their household goods as there was room for; the remainder, with their stock of cattle, the contents of their barns, their farm utensils, and all other movables, being left behind and never recovered nor any satisfaction made for them.

In several instances, the husbands who happened to be at a distance from home were put on board vessels bound to one of the English colonies, and their wives and children on board other vessels, bound to other colonies remote from the first. One of the most sensible of them, describing his case, said "it was the hardest which had happened since our Saviour was upon earth."

About a thousand of them arrived in Boston, just in the beginning of winter, crowded almost to death. No provision was made in case government should refuse to take them under its care. As it happened, the assembly were sitting when they arrived; but several days were spent without any determination, and some aged and infirm persons, in danger of perishing, were received on shore in houses provided for them by private persons. At length, the assembly passed a resolve, that they should all be permitted to land, and that they should be sent to such towns as a committee appointed for that purpose should think fit; and a law of the province was passed to authorize justices of the peace, overseers of the poor, etc., to employ them in labor, bind them out to service, and in general provide for their support, in like manner as if they had been indigent inhabitants of the province.

Favor was shown to many elderly people among them, and to others who had been in circumstances superior to the rest, and they were allowed support without being held to labor. Many of them went through great

hardships, but in general they were treated with humanity. They fared the better because the towns where they were sent were to be reimbursed out of the province treasury, and the assembly was made to believe that the province would be reimbursed by the crown; but this expectation failed. It was proposed to them to settle upon some of the unappropriated lands of the province, and to become British subjects, but they refused. They had a strong persuasion that the French King would never make peace with England unless they were restored to their estates. A gentleman who was much affected with their sufferings prepared a representation proper for them to make to the British government, to be signed by the chief of them in behalf of the rest, praying that they might either have leave to return to their estates or might receive a compensation; and he offered to put it into the hands of a proper person in England to solicit their cause. They received the proposal thankfully, took the representation to consider of, and, after some days, returned it without having signed it. They were afraid of losing the favor of France, if they should receive or solicit for compensation from England. Despair of the free exercise of their religion was another bar to every proposal tending to an establishment.

The people of New England had more just notions of toleration than their ancestors, and no exception was taken to their prayers in their families, in their own way, which, I believe, they practised in general, and sometimes they assembled several families together; but the people would upon no terms have consented to the public exercise of religious worship by Roman Catholic priests. A law remained unrepealed, though it is to be hoped it would never have been executed, which made it a capital offence in such persons to come within the province. It was suspected that some such were among them in disguise; but it is not probable that any ventured. One of the most noted families, when they were dissuaded from removing to Quebec, lest they should suffer more hardship from the French there than they had done from the English, acknowledged they expected it; but they had it not in their power since they left their country to confess and to be absolved of their sins, and the hazard of dying in such a state distressed them more than the fear of temporal sufferings.

(When these unhappy persons despaired of being restored to their own estates, they began to think of a removal to places where they might find priests of their own religion, and other inhabitants of their own language. Many hundreds went from the New England colonies to Hispaniola, where, in less than a year, by far the greatest part died. Others went to Canada, where they were considered as an inferior race of Frenchmen, and they were so neglected that some of them wrote to a gentleman in Boston, who had patronized them, that they wished to return. In 1763, Monsieur Bougainville carried several families of them, who had found.

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