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Old Mens Tears For Their Own Declensions, Mixed With Fears Of Their And Posterities Further Falling Off From New-England’S Primitive Constitution., Joshua Scottow, Paul Royster , Editor

Joshua Scottow Papers

This is an online edition of Scottow’s popular tract, published in Boston in 1691, based on the first edition. Later editions were published in Boston in 1715, 1733, and 1749, and in New London in 1769. It is a searchable PDF document. The characteristics of Scottow’s original text (spelling, punctuation, capitalization, italics, etc.) have been retained. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected, and a list of emendations is included at the end. Its typographic design is based on that of the original.

The work decries the falling off of New England from the purity and purpose of its original founding, …

The Widdow Ranter, Or, The History Of Bacon In Virginia (1690), Aphra Behn, Paul Royster , Editor

Electronic Texts in American Studies

The Widdow Ranter, or, The History of Bacon in Virginia was probably written in 1688, first performed in late 1689, and published in 1690. It is a highly fictionalized drama of Bacon’s Rebellion of 1676 in Virginia, when Nathaniel Bacon (c.1640-1676), commander of a volunteer force of Indian fighters, succeeded for several months in overthrowing the government of Sir William Berkeley, who had declared Bacon a rebel and refused to countenance or commission his actions against the Indians. Mrs. Behn’s play casts Bacon as a classical hero, motivated by “Honour,” and in love with an Indian princess. A variety of …

An Arrow Against Profane And Promiscuous Dancing Drawn Out Of The Quiver Of The Scriptures, Increase Mather

Electronic Texts in American Studies

When a dancing master arrived in Boston in 1685 and offered lessons and classes for both sexes during times normally reserved for church meetings, the Puritan ministers went to court to suppress the practice. Increase Mather (1639-1723) took the leading part, writing and publishing this tract, which compiles arguments and precedents for the prohibition of “Gynecandrical Dancing, [i.e.] Mixt or Promiscuous Dancing, viz. of Men and Women … together.” These justifications were certainly shared with the court, which found the dancing master guilty, fined him £100, and allowed him to skip town.

Mather’s tract on dancing is an overwhelming compendium …

An Earnest Exhortation To The Inhabitants Of New-England (1676), Increase Mather, Reiner Smolinski , Editor

Electronic Texts in American Studies

The work reprinted here, An Earnest Exhortation to the Inhabitants of New-England to Hearken to the Voice of God in His Late and Present Dispensations As Ever They Desire to Escape Another Judgement, Seven Times Greater Then Any Thing Which as Yet Hath Been (1676), is transcribed from the copy held by the American Antiquarian Society. It is Mather's theological explication of King Philip’s War (1675-76) as God’s punishment of his people for their backsliding. Characteristic of the homiletic tradition of the jeremiad is Increase Mather’s paradigmatic response to the war with the Indian Sachem Metacom and his action plan …

The Life And Death Of That Reverend Man Of God, Richard Mather, Teacher Of The Church In Dorchester In New-England. A Facsimile Reprint With An Introduction ..., Increase Mather, Benjamin Franklin V, William K. Bottoroff

Electronic Texts in American Studies

We most often turn to American Puritan prose to glean historicalor biographical data. If we seek a biography that spans the evolution of American Puritanism from its nadir in England through its zenith in the New England of the 1630's to 1650's, and to the beginning of its decline as symbolized by the "Half-Way Covenant" in 1662, we may turn to Increase Mather's biography of his father, The Life and Death of That Reverend Man of God, Mr. Richard Mather. It includes the background for the elder Mather's decision to emigrate to New England (events leading to his suspension from …

A Sermon Preach’D At The Election Of The Governour, At Boston In New-England May 19th 1669., John Davenport, Paul Royster , Editor

Electronic Texts in American Studies

John Davenport’s A Sermon Preach’d at the Election is a notable and fascinating document on numerous counts. As a statement of Puritan political theory, it outlines the rights of the governed to self-preservation from abusive authority—a subject that would be more extensively explored in the years leading up to the Revolution. But as a document of its specific place and time—Boston in 1669—it bore a large part in the politico-theological controversies that followed the Synod of 1662 that recommended the adoption of the so-called Half-Way Covenant. Davenport’s long digression on the proper role of the state in convening “Councils” on …

God’S Controversy With New-England (1662, 1871), Michael Wigglesworth, Reiner Smolinski , Editor

Electronic Texts in American Studies

Presented here is Wigglesworth’s manuscript poem "God’s Controversy with New-England" (1871)—courtesy of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Composed in 1662 on the occasion of a terrible drought, the poem is a versified jeremiad bewailing the backsliding of the rising generation. Thus, God uses nature’s drought as a secondary cause to punish the exsiccation of the spirit among the offspring of New England’s patriarchs, whose children were either unable (or unwilling) to accept the Half-Way Covenant (1662) governing church admission. More than that, "God’s Controversy" encapsulates the Federal Covenant between God and Saints, whose chastisement, paradoxically, is a sign of God’s loving …

A Declaration Of The Sad And Great Persecution And Martyrdom Of The People Of God, Called Quakers, In New-England, For The Worshipping Of God (1661), Edward Burrough, Paul Royster , Editor

Electronic Texts in American Studies

From 1656 through 1661, the Massachusetts Bay Colony experienced an “invasion” of Quaker missionaries, who were not deterred by the increasingly severe punishments enacted and inflicted by the colonial authorities. In October 1659, two (William Robinson and Marmaduke Stevenson) were hanged at Boston; in June 1660, Mary Dyar (or Dyer) became the third; in March 1661, William Leddra became the fourth (and last) to suffer capital punishment or “martyrdom” for their Quaker beliefs.

While members of the Society of Friends rushed to Massachusetts to test the harsh sentences under the newly enacted laws, other Friends in England simultaneously petitioned Parliament …

Relation Of The Pequot Warres (1660), Lion Gardener, W. N. Chattin Carlton , Editor

Electronic Texts in American Studies

Lion Gardener (1599-1663) was an English military engineer, formerly in the service of the prince of Orange, who was hired by members of the Connecticut Company in 1635 to oversee construction of fortifications for their new colony. On arriving in Connecticut in early 1636, his first assignment was to finish and garrison Saybrook Fort, at the mouth of the Connecticut River. In August 1636, the area was visited by a punitive military expedition from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, led by John Endicott, intent upon intimidating the Pequot and Niantic tribes and demanding delivery of the killers of a group of …

[The Case Of Ann Hibbins, Executed For Witchcraft At Boston In 1656], William F. Poole, Justin Winsor, Paul Royster (Depositor)

Joshua Scottow Papers

This selection on the case of Ann Hibbins and her trial for witchcraft relates to Joshua Scottow in three ways:
1) he was among those appointed by her to be adminstrators of her estate (along with Thomas Clarke, Edward Hutchinson, Wil¬liam Hudson, Peter Oliver, Edward Johnson, and Edward Rawson);
2) his apology written to the General Court in 1657 regarding his actions in the case is quoted; and
3) his autograph signature is reproduced.

Milk For Babes. Drawn Out Of The Breasts Of Both Testaments. Chiefly, For The Spirituall Nourishment Of Boston Babes In Either England: But May Be Of Like Use For Any Children (1646), John Cotton B.D., Paul Royster , Editor

Electronic Texts in American Studies

John Cotton’s Milk for Babes (also known as Spiritual Milk for Babes), a beginning catechism for children and young Christians, was first published in the 1640s and remained in print continuously for over 200 years. In a series of 64 questions and answers, it rehearses sin and the law, the ten commandments, the role of the Church, the nature of grace, the covenant, salvation, the sacraments, and the last judgment. It is annotated with 203 marginal Bible references on which Cotton based his statement of the fundamental Puritan credo. In its 13 small pages, Cotton’s catechism encompasses the Reformed …

Newes From America; Or, A New And Experimentall Discoverie Of New England; Containing, A Trve Relation Of Their War-Like Proceedings These Two Yeares Last Past, With A Figure Of The Indian Fort, Or Palizado, John Underhill, Paul Royster , Editor

Electronic Texts in American Studies

John Underhill’s Newes from America was the most complete contemporary published account of the Pequot War of 1636-1637. Underhill was one of the Massachusetts commanders in the expedition against Block Island in August 1636 and in the force that destroyed the fortified Pequot village at Mystic in May 1637.

The expansion of English settlements into the Connecticut River valley and the northern shore of Long Island Sound brought them into contact and conflict with new groups of Native inhabitants and into competition with the Dutch from New Netherlands. In July 1633, the trader John Oldham was killed off Block Island …

A True Relation Of The Late Battell Fought In New England, Between The English, And The Salvages: With The Present State Of Things There. (1637), Philip Vincent [P. Vincentius], Paul Royster , Editor

Electronic Texts in American Studies

This brief account of the major engagement of the Pequot War appeared about six months after the Mystic Massacre of May 26, 1637. Its authorship is attributed to Philip Vincent, of whom little is known, including whether he was a witness or even in America, or, if not, who his informant was. The work obviously enjoyed some popularity, going through three separate editions in 1637–38.

The Pequots occupied the region on the north shore of Long Island Sound around present-day New London, Connecticut. Hostilities began in late summer of 1636, when the Massachusetts authorities sent a punitive expedition under John …

Gov. Thomas Dudley's Letter To The Countess Of Lincoln. March 1631., Thomas Dudley, John Farmer , Editor (1834 Edition), Paul Royster , Depositor

Joshua Scottow Papers

The following copy of the Letter of Thomas Dudley to the Countess of Lincoln, written in March 1631, is the earliest complete printing of the text. It appeared in the New Hampshire Historical Collections, volume 4 (1834), pages 224-249. It was also issued separately in Concord, N.H., by Marsh, Capen and Lyon that same year.

Approximately three-quarters of the letter had previously appeared in 1696, in the volume published in Boston titled Massachusetts, or The First Planters, possibly compiled and edited by Joshua Scottow.

This present text was printed from a manuscript discovered “by one of the Publishing Committee” …

Gods Promise To His Plantation (1630), John Cotton, Reiner Smolinski , Editor

Electronic Texts in American Studies

The work reprinted here, in an online electronic text edition, is Cotton’s famous farewell sermon preached at the departure of the Winthrop fleet in Southampton in 1630. Gods Promise to His Plantation (1630)—courtesy of the American Antiquarian Society—is an ideological justification for engaging in such a risky venture, a promotional tract to encourage emigration, and a typological argument for possessing the wilderness. Like Winthrop’s famous A Model of Christian Charity (1630), John Cotton’s sermon is central to the Puritan experiment in the New World.

New-England Or A Briefe Enarration Of The Ayre, Earth, Water, Fish And Fowles Of That Country. With A Description Of The Natures, Orders, Habits, And Religion Of The Natives; In Latine And English Verse, William Morrell, Andrew Gaudio , Editor

Electronic Texts in American Studies

This text, a Latin poem in dactylic hexameter with an accompanying English translation in heroic verse stands as the earliest surviving work of poetry about New England and the second oldest poem whose origins can be traced directly to the British American colonies. Only two copies of the original 1625 edition are known to survive; one is held at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California, and the other is housed at the British Museum. The Latin portion comprises 309 lines and praises the geographic features, flora and fauna of New England, and spends a majority of its verses describing …

A Description Of New England (1616): An Online Electronic Text Edition, John Smith , Captain & Admiral, Paul Royster , Editor

Electronic Texts in American Studies

John Smith (1580-1631) made one voyage to the coast of Massachusetts and Maine in 1614, and attempted a second one the following year, only to be captured by French pirates and detained for several months near the Azores before escaping and making his way back to England. This book is the story of these two voyages.

Smith went to the coast of America north of Virginia to explore the opportunities for fisheries, fur trading, and settlement. Smith was a veteran soldier, sailor, traveller, explorer, cartographer, and colonist: he had fought the Spanish in France and Italy, the Turks in Hungary …

A Brief And True Report Of The New Found Land Of Virginia (1588), Thomas Hariot, Paul Royster , Editor

Electronic Texts in American Studies

This is an online electronic text edition of the first book published by an English colonist in America. Its author, Thomas Hariot or Harriot, was a cartographer, mathematician, astronomer, linguist, and philosopher, who was a participant in Sir Walter Ralegh’s first attempt to establish a colony in “Virginia,” on Roanoke Island in modern-day North Carolina, from June 1585 until June 1586. Hariot had learned the rudiments of the Algonkian language from two natives brought back to England from an earlier exploratory voyage, and he served as interpreter and liaison with the native peoples of the surrounding region. His Brief and …