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Chapter III: Intercourse with England and English Literary Men.

IT is a mistake to think of New England colonists as practically cut off from the outside world, dwellers in a lonely desert place. Our popular histories have created this impression by their over-emphasis on the dramatic elements of the hardships of the first years of settlement, especially at Plymouth. The settlers of Plymouth had few friends in England and were, perhaps, isolated from the world until the Massachusetts Bay settlements were established. The latter, however, were always in close touch with England. John Josselyn, coming to Boston in 1638, presented his “respects to Mr. Winthorpe [sic] the Governour, and to Mr. Cotton the Teacher of Boston Church, to whom I delivered from Mr. Francis Quarles the poet, the Translation of the 16, 25, 51, 88, 113, and 137. Psalms into English Meeter, for his approbation.”¹ Mention has already been made of early graduates of Harvard who returned to England to engage in public life there.² Twenty-seven of the ministers who came to the colony in the early years returned to England, some of whom became colonists again at the Restoration.³ Business trips to England were such ordinary affairs as to call for no comment; in all of my reading I have found no reference to them either as difficult or as unusual.⁴

The colonists thought of themselves as Englishmen, further

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away from London, the heart of England, than if they had stayed in Old England, but still living in a part of England, New England. Edward Johnson, in his “Wonder-Working Providence,” used the phrase “our Countreymen” to refer to people in England,⁵ and seemed eager to have his readers think of himself and his colonial neighbors as interested essentially in the welfare of England.⁶ The affection felt by New England for Old England is also shown in Anne Bradstreet’s poem, “A Dialogue between Old England, and New England,” and by a statement of John Dunton in one of his letters. He spoke of his own love for England, adding, “And ’twas thus with the first Planters of this Country, who were, even to their 80th year, still pleasing themselves with hopes of their Returning to England.”⁷

During the period of the Commonwealth they felt perhaps even more strongly their ties to the mother country, for their friends, and in many cases their neighbors or members of their families, were taking an active part in English affairs. Dr. Palfrey writes,

Hugh Peter and Thomas Welde, sent over by Massachusetts to look after its affairs, both rose to influence with Cromwell, and

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the former, as his chaplain, walked by the Protector’s Secretary, John Milton, at his funeral.⁸

Hugh Peter married Mrs. Reade, the mother of the wife of John Winthrop, Jr.;⁹ her first husband, Edmund Reade, had been a colonel in the parliamentary army.¹⁰ Stephen Winthrop, brother of John Winthrop, Jr., and Fitz-John, the latter’s son, both served in that army. Stephen Winthrop, on a visit to England in 1646, accepted a commission in the Parliamentary army. He rose rapidly to the rank of colonel. Roger Williams, writing from England to John Winthrop, Jr., in 1656, mentioned the fact that “Your brother Stephen succeeds Major-General Harrison.” In this same year he represented Banff and Aberdeen in Parliament. He married one sister of Colonel Rainsborough of the Parliamentary army, another becoming the fourth wife of his father, Governor Winthrop.¹¹ Fitz-John Winthrop went to England in 1657, having been offered commissions by two of his uncles, Stephen Winthrop and Thomas Reade. He accepted a lieutenancy in Reade’s regiment of foot, rose to a captaincy, and at one time was governor of Cardross in Scotland.¹² Samuel Desborough, the first magistrate of Guilford, Connecticut, returned to England and became, under Cromwell, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of Scotland. His brother John had married Cromwell’s sister Jane.¹³ John Hoadley, also of Guilford, became one of Cromwell’s chaplains at Edinburgh, and afterwards chaplain to General Monck.¹⁴ Samuel Mather, brother of Increase, was chaplain to Thomas Andrews, Lord Mayor of

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London, and later was chosen to accompany the English Commissioners to Scotland. Still later Henry Cromwell took him as one of his chaplains on his Irish expedition.¹⁵ Francis Higginson, second son of the Reverend Francis Higginson of Salem, studied at Leyden, conformed to the Church of England, and spent his life as a vicar in Westmoreland.¹⁶ The two sons of Governor John Haynes by his first wife had stayed in England when he emigrated; both are said to have drawn “their swords in the great Civil War,—the elder for the King, the younger for the Parliament.”¹⁷ John Haynes, Jr., son of Governor Haynes by his second wife, after graduating from Harvard in 1656, went to England in 1657 with Fitz-John Winthrop. Instead of going into the army, he went to Cambridge, where he took the Master’s degree in 1660. He remained in England and, having conformed, spent his life as rector of the Church of England in Suffolk and Essex.¹⁸

Several others returned to enter the Parliamentary army. Major Robert Sedgwick of Charlestown rose to the rank of Major-General, and was employed by Cromwell in the expedition against the West Indies, succeeding General Fortescue as Governor of Jamaica.¹⁹ Captain George Cook, who had been active in the Massachusetts militia, became a colonel in Cromwell’s army.²⁰ Israel Stoughton, whose son William was lieutenant-governor under William and Mary, became a lieutenant-colonel among the Ironsides.²¹ Captain John Mason, hero of the Mystic fight, was urged by Sir Thomas Fairfax, his old comrade in arms, to join the army of Parliament, but he did not return to England.²²

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John Collins, Harvard 1649, was a chaplain in Monck’s army;²³ and William Hooke, of New Haven, was one of Cromwell’s chaplains, his wife, a sister of General Whalley, being a cousin of the Protector.²⁴ He was also probably Master of the Savoy.²⁵ Edward Hopkins, of New Haven, was active in public life during Cromwell’s régime.²⁶ Edward Winslow, having gone to England as agent of Massachusetts in 1646, remained in England and later became one of the Grand Commissioners of Cromwell’s expedition against Hispaniola.²⁷ Daniel Gookin, on his third visit to England, served for a time (1658-1659) as collector of customs at Dunkirk, being appointed later Deputy Treasurer of War there. He was acquainted with Cromwell, and it was through him that Cromwell gave his invitation to the New Englanders to remove to the balmier climate of Jamaica. On his return to Boston in 1660 he was accompanied by Goffe and Whalley, the regicides.²⁸

Mention has already been made of the friendship between John Winthrop, Jr., and Sir Kenelme Digby.²⁹ There are several references to this in letters to Winthrop from William Hooke, then in London. He wrote, April 13, 1657, “For Sir Kenelme Digby is in France, and when he will return I hear not.”³⁰ Again, April 16, 1658, “Sir Kenelme Digby is not, as yet, returned, & therefore I can give you no account of him.”³¹ And again, March 30, 1659, “As for Sir Kenelme Digby, I have not heard of him a long time. He is not (for ought I heare) in England. He is a greate schollar, but I

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heare no good of him by any.”³² One letter from Sir Kenelme himself gives further evidence of a friendship which would seem to have been close, to judge both by the eagerness with which Winthrop was making inquiry for Sir Kenelme through his London correspondent, and by Sir Kenelme’s evident desire to serve Winthrop. The opening sentences refer to his second gift to the Harvard Library.

Paris 26. Jan. 1656. new stile.

I beseech you present my most humble thankes to the President and fellowes of y^r college for the obliging Letter they haue bin pleased to send me. So small a present as j presumed to make them, deserued not so large a returne . . . . I haue searched all Paris for Blaise Viginere des Chiffres. I had it in my library in England: But att the plundering of my house, j lost it w^th many other good bookes. I haue layed out in all places for it: and when j gett it, it shall be for you by the first conueniency of sending it to you.³³

John Winthrop, F. R. S., grandson of John Winthrop, Jr., in a letter to Cotton Mather written in 1718, referred as follows to this friendship:

The famous & learned Sr Kenelme Digby (then at Paris) earnestly solicited my honrd granfather to returne back to England, urging that America was too scanty for so great a philosopher to stay long in. My good ancestor modestly answered, ‘Res angusta domi, my duty to a numerous family, will not permitt it.’³⁴

Hugh Peter would seem to have been acquainted with Sir Kenelme also, for it is he who first sent word to Winthrop that the knight was sending a great chest of books to Harvard.³⁵

Cromwell had a college mate in the colonies, John Wheelwright, B. A. of Sidney Sussex in 1614, and M. A. in 1618. Of him he later said,

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I remember the time when I was more afraid of meeting Wheelwright at foot-ball, than I have been since of meeting an army in the field, for I was infallibly sure of being tripped up by him.³⁶

Cromwell was also well acquainted with John Cotton, if we may judge from the friendly tone of a letter which has been preserved.³⁷ John Oxenbridge was another colonial friend of Cromwell, and of Milton and Marvell as well.³⁸ If conditions in England had differed upon one occasion, Cromwell himself would have come to New England. He told Lord Falkland in 1641 that if the Remonstrance had not passed, “he would have sold all he had the next morning, and never have seen England more.”³⁹ Cotton Mather mentions Cromwell, with “Mr. Hambden, and Sir Arthur Haselrig,” among those who were forcibly detained from coming.⁴⁰ This legend lacks satisfactory proof; in fact, at the time they were supposed to have been stopped, Hampden was in the midst of his legal contest against the ship-money, and it is hardly believable that he would have deserted in the heat of the fight. But that it was believed by the next generation and has been accepted quite generally ever since gives evidence of its truth in probability, if not in fact. New England did not seem far away to those who desired asylum from political oppression in England; nor, as we have seen, did England seem far away, when political conditions changed, to those on this side of the water who desired a larger field for action than the colonies seemed to afford. Chance, or beliefs, or both, had much more to do with determining who came than ability. The men who

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settled New England, it must be remembered, were not an inferior class.

The feeling of unity between New and Old England at the time of the Commonwealth is well illustrated by the behavior of the authorities of Massachusetts in the case of the burning, in 1650, of William Pynchon’s “The Meritorious Price of our Redemption.” When the General Court found it to be “erronyous and hereticale,” and ordered it to be burned, it was careful to issue a “Declaration” of its detestation of the heresy.

The “Declaration” was immediately sent to England to be printed and circulated there, in order that the Court might set itself right with its Christian brethren, while John Norton was entreated to answer Mr. Pynchon’s book with all convenient speed, and his answer was also to be sent to England to be printed.⁴¹

At the Restoration New England once more became the place of refuge for exiles from England. Cotton Mather mentions fourteen ministers who came to avoid persecution at this time,⁴² and refers also to “some eminent persons of a New-English original, which were driven back out of Europe into their own country again, by that storm.”⁴³ Among these exiles were some who, as the highest judges of England, had tried even a king. It is interesting at this point to speculate upon the possibility that, had he been accorded harsher treatment, Milton himself might have followed the Regicides to America, in which case “Paradise Lost” would have been written in New England,—or not at all. Which is the more probable of these two possibilities will be discussed elsewhere.⁴⁴ At least he would have found friends here; Roger Williams seems to have been on intimate

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terms with him during his visit to England from 1651 to 1654,⁴⁵ as was also the Reverend John Clarke of Newport, R. I.;⁴⁶ and Milton knew and corresponded with John Winthrop, Jr⁴⁷ Winthrop probably became acquainted with Milton through their mutual friend, Samuel Hartlib, author of many works on agriculture and natural history, to whom Milton addressed his tract “Of Education” with every evidence of close acquaintance, and with whom Winthrop had an extensive correspondence.⁴⁸

Theodore Haak, said to have been the founder of the “London Club, or Invisible College of Natural Philosophers,” from which the Royal Society developed, and Henry Oldenburg, for several years Secretary of the Royal Society, were also friends and correspondents of Winthrop, and friends of Milton.⁴⁸

It was through these friends that Winthrop became one of the early fellows of the Royal Society, being nominated as fellow in 1662,⁴⁸ when the Society was less than two years old.⁴⁹ Winthrop’s interest in science was evidently strong before he came to New England, as a reference to

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the titles of books sent him by his friends in England shows.⁵⁰ That theology was not the all-exclusive factor in colonial life that it is often pictured as being is shown by the fact that a busy colonial governor found the time to keep up his study of science after the experimental method newly discovered by Bacon, and was considered by English scientific men worthy to become their associate in research, and even to serve on two committees of the Royal Society in 1664.⁵¹ His friendship with Sir Kenelme Digby may easily have resulted from their common interest in alchemy. The letter of Sir Kenelme from which quotation has already been made was largely made up of explanations and discussions of wondrous liquids, potent medicines, and especially Digby’s favorite sympathetic powder.

Winthrop’s correspondence with scientific and literary men in England and on the Continent was extensive. Dr. Cromwell Mortimer, Secretary of the Royal Society, in dedicating the fortieth volume of the Transactions of the Society to John Winthrop, F. R. S., grandson of John Winthrop, Jr., referred to “the great Treasure of curious Letters on various learned Subjects” written to the earlier Winthrop and then in the possession of the younger, and listed over eighty of the writers of these letters.⁵²

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His friends of the Royal Society expected from him valuable contributions to knowledge, and were not disappointed. Henry Oldenburg, Secretary of the Society, wrote in 1667:

Sir,—So good an opportunity as this I could not let passe w^thout putting you in mind of y^r being a member of ye Royall Society, though you are in New-England; and that even at so great a distance you may doe that Illustrious Company great service. . . . . We know y^r ingenuity, experience, and veracity, y^e best qualities of a man and a Philosopher; . . . . And, since you have now been from us severall years, give us at last a visit by a Philosophicall letter.⁵³

In a postscript he discussed the value of the experimental method of searching “the works of God themselves.” Early in 1669 he wrote again in regard to scientific equipment in America, and requested certain experiments performed:

Giue me leaue . . . . to inquire . . . . Whether you haue any good Telescopes, to compare the Phænomena from that Coast w^th the Accompts of Hevelius, Ricciolo, Cassini, etc. What advance of Harverd Coll. in y^r Cambridge? Whether you are furnisht w^th the modern books of y^e most Ingenious and famous Philosophers and Mathematicians [of whom he gives a list] . . . 

I send you herew^th a Printed paper, w^ch contains ye predictions of M^r Bond for the variations of y^e Needle for several years to

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come. . . . . you will take notice . . . . how the variation varies in New England . . . . ⁵⁴

The next year Oldenburg wrote to thank Winthrop for a collection of curiosities sent to the Society with a written account of them:

Sir,—Y^r Kinsman, Mr. Adam Winthrop, hath acquitted himself faithfully of y^e trust you had reposed in him, in delivering into my hands both y^r letter and ye American Curiosities accompanying the same . . . . .His Maj^ty himselfe, hearing of some of y^e rarer things, would see y^m, and accordingly the Extraordinary Fish, the dwarf-oaks, y^e gummy fragrant Barke, w^th knobbs, y^e silken podds, y^e baggs w^th Title shells in them, etc., were carried to Whitehall, . . . . ⁵⁵

Winthrop’s account of these things was published soon after in the Transactions of the Society, with drawings of some of the curiosities including the “extraordinary fish,” which was a starfish.

In a letter to Henry Oldenburg written November 12, 1668, Winthrop mentioned sending seeds, roots, and such things to Robert Boyle, Lord Brereton, Charles Howard, Dr. Goddard, Dr. Merret, Dr. Whistler, Dr. Benjamin Worsley, and Dr. Kefller.⁵⁶

John Davenport also seems to have been interested in science, for he too was corresponding with Hartlib, receiving from him “bookes, & written papers . . . . wherein I finde sundry rarities of inventions. . . . . you [Winthrop] will finde some particularities among them, which may be advantagious to your private proffit, in the improvement of your Fishers Island.”⁵⁷ The last clause would indicate that some of these books and papers were on Hartlib’s favorite subject, scientific farming. In another letter to Winthrop,

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given on page 56, above, Davenport mentions four scientific books as “a few of many more which are sent to me.” These may have been from Hartlib.

Thomas Shepard thanked Winthrop for copies of the Transactions of the Royal Society, which he had passed on to others to enjoy,⁵⁸ and in the same letter reported some astronomical observations.

Besides all these who had a true interest in science (and the list could be extended, did more data survive), Connecticut boasted one genuine alchemist. Jonathan Brewster, who was glad to borrow books on chemistry from Winthrop, and willing to lend his own in return,⁵⁹ was searching to find the true elixir. He reported to Winthrop that the latter’s books had been of great service to him, enabling him to understand some operations “which before I understode not, . . . . as the head of the Crowe, Vergines milke, &c.” With this help he felt sure that his elixir, already well started, would be perfected in five years, provided that the Indians did not burn down his house or otherwise interfere with his work.⁶⁰ If the statement of Secretary Mortimer is accurate, it was only chance which prevented the founding of a colony of experimental scientists in Connecticut, to keep Winthrop and Brewster company. He writes:⁶¹

In Concert with these [Boyle, Wilkins, Oldenburg] and other learned Friends, (as he often revisited England) he was one of those, who first form’d the Plan of the Royal Society; and had not the Civil Wars happily ended as they did, Mr. Boyle and Dr. Wilkins, with several other learned Men, would have left England, and, out of Esteem for the most excellent and valuable Governor, JOHN WINTHROP, the younger, would have retied to his new-born Colony, and there have establish’d that Society for promoting Natural Knowledge, which these Gentlemen had formed, as it were, in Embryo among themselves; but which afterwards

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receiving the Protection of King CHARLES II. obtain’d the style of Rorke . . . .

Robert Boyle, member of the Royal Society and at one time its president, and, with the possible exception of Sir Isaac Newton, the most representative English scientist of his day, also had considerable correspondence with the leading men of New England. This was not primarily scientific, however, but rather missionary in character, Boyle being for years Governor of the Corporation for the Spread of the Gospel in New England.⁶²

There were other links between the colonists and the men in active life in England. Sir Thomas Temple, proprietor of Nova Scotia (together with Colonel William Crowne), resided here for several years during the Interregnum, acquiring property and business interests, part of which he sold in 1653 for £5500.⁶³ At about this time John Crowne, “Starch Johnny” Crowne (son of Colonel William), poet and dramatist of the Restoration period, was living in Boston. He resided for a time, at least, (about 1660) with the Reverend John Norton, and studied at Harvard.⁶⁴

It would seem certain, then, that the inhabitants of New England, during the first half century of their colonization, were able, as far as they desired, to keep in touch with political, scientific, and literary men and activities in England; and that, beyond any other of England’s colonies, at any time in her history, during the period of colonization, they felt a desire for these things. Their life may have been simple, or even rough; luxuries or comforts may have been lacking; but there is no evidence of any lack of intellectual eagerness or of the means to satisfy such eagerness.

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