Anne Bradstreet and Her Time Part 24

Evidently no hint of a possible and coming Restoration found slightest credence with them, and thus they laid up a store of offences for which they were suddenly to be called to account.

When at last the Restoration had been accomplished and Charles II, whose laughing eyes had held less mockery for William Penn than any among the representatives of sects he so heartily despised, turned to question how Quakers had fared in this objectionable and presumptuous Colony of New England, the answer was not one to propitiate, or to incline to any favor. The story is not one that any New Englander will care to dwell upon, even to-day, when indifference is the rule toward all theological dissension, past or present. It is certain that had Winthrop lived, matters could never have reached the extremity they did. It is equally certain that the non-combatants conquered, though the victory was a b.l.o.o.d.y one. Two sides are still taken to-day, even among New England authorities. For Quakers, there is of course but one, yet in all their statements there seems to be infinitely less bitterness than they might reasonably have shown. That one or two wild fanatics committed actions, which could have no other foundation than unsettled minds, cannot be denied by even the most uncompromising advocate of the Quaker side. But they were so evidently the result of distempered and excited brains, that only a community who held every inexplicable action to result from the direct influence of Satan, could have done anything but pa.s.s them by in silent forbearance.

Had John Cotton been alive in the year in which the Quakers chose Boston as their working ground, his gentle and conciliating nature, shown so fully in the trial of Anne Hutchinson, would have found some means of reconciling their theories with such phases of the Puritan creed as were in sympathy with them. But a far different mind held his place, and had become the leading minister in the Colony. John Norton, who had taken Nathaniel Ward's place at Ipswich, was called after twenty years of service, to the Boston church, and his melancholy temperament and argumentative, not to say pragmatical turn of mind, made him ready to seize upon the first cause of offence.

News of the doings of the obnoxious sect in England had been fully discussed in the Colony, and the law pa.s.sed as a means of protection against the heresies of Anne Hutchinson and her school, and which had simply waited new opportunity for its execution, came into exercise sooner than they had expected.

It is difficult to re-create for our own minds, the state of outraged susceptibility--of conviction that Jehovah in person had received the extremity of insult from every one who dared to go outside the fine points for a system of belief, which filled the churches in 1656. The "Inward Light" struck every minister upon whose ears the horrid words fell, as only less shocking than witchcraft or any other light amus.e.m.e.nt of Satan, and a day of public humiliation had already been appointed by the General Court, "to seek the face of G.o.d in behalf of our native country, in reference to the abounding of errors, especially those of the Ranters and Quakers."

The discussion of their offences was in full height, when in July, 1656, there sailed into Boston harbor a ship from the Barbadoes, in which were two Quaker women, Mary Fisher and Anne Austin.

Never were unwelcome visitors met by a more formidable delegation.

Down to the wharf posted Governor and Deputy-Governor, four princ.i.p.al Magistrates, with a train of yeoman supplemented by half the population of Boston, who faced the astonished master of the vessel with orders which forced him to give bonds to carry the women back to the point from whence they came. This might have seemed sufficient, but was by no means considered so. The unhappy women were ordered to goal till the return of the vessel; a few books brought with them were burned by the executioner, and from every pulpit in the Colony came fierce denunciations of the intruders.

They left, and the excitement was subsiding a little when a stronger occasion for terror presented itself in another vessel, this time from England, bearing eight more of the firebrands, four men and four women, besides a zealous convert made on the way from Long Island, where the vessel had stopped for a short time. Eleven weeks of imprisonment did not silence the voices of these self- elected missionaries, and the uncompromising character of their utterances ought to have commended them to a people who had been driven out of England for the identical cause. A people who had fallen to such depths of frenzied fanaticism as to drive cattle and swine into churches and cathedrals and baptize them with mock solemnity, who had destroyed or mutilated beyond repair organs, fonts, stained gla.s.s and every article of priestly use or adornment, might naturally have looked with understanding and sympathetic eyes on the women who, made desperate by suffering, turned upon them and p.r.o.nounced their own preachers, "hirelings, Baals, and seed of the serpent."

The Quakers frowned upon Church music, but not before the Puritan Prynne had written of choirs: "Choirsters bellow the tenor as it were oxen; bark a counterpart, as it were a kennel of dogs; roar out a treble, as it were a sort of bulls; and grunt a ba.s.s, as it were a number of hogs." They arraigned bishops, but in words less full of bitterness, than those in which one of the n.o.blest among Puritan leaders of thought, recorded his conviction. Milton, writing of all bishops: "They shall be thrown down eternally, into the darkest and deepest gulf of h.e.l.l the trample and spurn of all the other d.a.m.ned ... and shall exercise a raving and b.e.s.t.i.a.l tyranny over them ... they shall remain in that plight forever, the basest, the lowermost, the most dejected and down-trodden va.s.sels of perdition."

No word from the most fanatical Quaker who ever appeared before tribunal of man, exceeded this, or thousands of similar declarations, from men as ready for martyrdom as those they judged, and as obstinately bent upon proving their creed the only one that reasonable human beings should hold. The wildest alarm seized upon not only Ma.s.sachusetts but each one of the confederated colonies. The General Court pa.s.sed a series of laws against them, by which ship-masters were fined a hundred pounds if a Quaker was brought over by them, as well as forced to give security for the return of all to the point from whence they came.

They enacted, also, that all Quakers who entered the Colony from any point should "be forthwith committed to the House of Correction, and at their entrance to be severely whipped, and by the master thereof to be kept constantly to work, and none suffered to converse or speak with them during the time of their imprisonment."

No Quaker book could be imported, circulated or concealed, save on penalty of a fine of five pounds, and whoever should venture to defend the new opinions, paid for the first offence a fine of two pounds; for the second, double that amount and for the third, imprisonment in the House of Correction till there should "be convenient pa.s.sage for them to be sent out of the land."

Through the streets of Boston went the crier with his drum, publishing the law which was instantly violated by an indignant citizen, one Nicholas Upsall, who, for "reproaching the honored Magistrates, and speaking against the law made and published against Quakers," not only once but with a continuous and confounding energy, was sentenced to pay a fine of twenty pounds, and "to depart the jurisdiction within one month, not to return, under the penalty of imprisonment."

Then came a period in which fines, imprisonments, whippings and now and then a cropping of ears, failed to lessen the numbers who came, with full knowledge of what the consequences must be, and who behaved themselves with the aggressiveness of those bent upon martyrdom. More and more excited by daily defiance, penalties were doubled, the fine for harboring a Quaker being increased to forty shillings an hour, and the excitement rising to higher and higher point. Could they but have looked upon the insane freaks of some of their visitors with the same feeling which rose in the Mohammedan mind, there would have been a different story for both sides. Dr. Palfrey describes the Turk's method, which only a Turk, however, could have carried out: "Prompted by that superst.i.tious reverence which he (the Turk) was educated to pay to lunatics, as persons inspired, he received these visitors with deferential and ceremonious observance, and with a prodigious activity of genuflections and salams, bowed them out of his country. They could make nothing of it, and in that quarter gave up their enterprise in despair."

The General Court was the despairing body at this time. Months had pa.s.sed, and severity had simply multiplied the numbers to be dealt with. But one remedy remained to be tried, a remedy against which Simon Bradstreet's voice is said to have been the only one raised, and the General Court, following the advice of Endicott and Norton, pa.s.sed the vote which is still one of the darkest blots on the old records--

"Whereas, there is an accursed and pernicious sect of heretics lately risen up in the world who are commonly called Quakers, who take upon them to be immediately sent of G.o.d and infallibly a.s.sisted; who do speak and write blasphemous things, despising government and the order of G.o.d in church and commonwealth, speaking evil of dignities, reproaching and reviling magistrates and the ministers of the Gospel, seeking to turn the people from the faith, and to gain proselytes to their pernicious ways; and whereas the several jurisdictions have made divers laws to prohibit and restrain the aforesaid cursed heretics from coming amongst them, yet notwithstanding they are not deterred thereby, but arrogantly and presumptuously do press into several of the jurisdictions, and there vent their pernicious and devilish opinions, which being permitted, tends manifestly to the disturbance of our peace, the withdrawing of the hearts of the people from their subjection to government, and so in issue to cause division and ruin if not timely prevented; it is therefore propounded and seriously commended to the several General Courts, upon the considerations aforesaid, to make a law that all such Quakers formerly convicted and punished as such, shall (if they return again) be imprisoned, and forthwith banished or expelled out of the said jurisdiction, under pain of death; and if afterwards they presume to come again into that jurisdiction, then to be put to death as presumptuously incorrigible, unless they shall plainly and publicly renounce their cursed opinions; and for such Quakers as shall come into any jurisdiction from any foreign parts, or such as shall arise within the same, after due conviction that either he or she is of that cursed sect of heretics, they be banished under pain of severe corporal punishment; and if they return again, then to be punished accordingly, and banished under pain of death; and if afterwards they shall yet presume to come again, then to be put to death as aforesaid, except they do then and there plainly and publicly renounce their said cursed opinions and devilish tenets."

This was not the first time that death had been named as the penalty against any who returned after banishment, and it had proved effectual in keeping away many malcontents. But the Quakers were of different stuff, the same determined temper which had made the Puritan submit to any penalty rather than give up his faith, being the common possession of both.

In an address made to the King, partly aggressive partly apologetic in tone, the wretched story sums itself up in a single paragraph: "Twenty-two have been banished upon pain of death.

Three have been martyred, and three have had their right ears cut.

One hath been burned in the hand with the letter H. Thirty-one persons have received six hundred and fifty stripes. One was beat while his body was like a jelly. Several were beat with pitched ropes. Five appeals made to England were denied by the rulers of Boston. One thousand, forty-four pounds' worth of goods hath been taken from them (being poor men) for meeting together in the fear of the Lord, and for keeping the commands of Christ. One now lieth in iron fetters condemned to die."

That Ma.s.sachusetts felt herself responsible for not only her own safety but that of her allies, and that this safety appeared to be menaced by a people who recognized few outward laws, was the only palliation of a course which in time showed itself as folly, even to the most embittered. The political consequences were of a nature, of which in their first access of zeal, they had taken no account. The complaints and appeals of the Quakers had at last produced some effect, and there was well-grounded apprehension that the sense of power which had brought the Colony to act with the freedom of an independent state, might result in the loss of some of their most dearly-prized privileges. The Quakers had conquered, and the magistrates suddenly became conscious that such strength as theirs need never have dreaded the power of this feeble folk, and that their inst.i.tutions could never fall before an attack from any hands save those of the King himself, toward whom they now turned with an alarmed deprecation. The Puritan reign of terror for New England was over, its story to this generation seeming as incredible as it is shameful. Brutality is not quite dead even to-day, but there is cause for rejoicing that, for America at least, freedom of conscience can never again mean whipping, branding and torturing of unnamable sorts for tender women and even children. Puritan and Quaker have sunk old differences, but it is the Quaker who, while ignoring some phases of a past in which neither present as calm an expression to the world as should be the portion of the infallibility claimed tacitly by both sides, is still able to write:

"The mission of the Puritans was almost a complete failure. Their plan of government was repudiated, and was succeeded by more humane laws and wiser political arrangements. Their religion, though it long retained its hold in theory, was replaced by one less bigoted and superst.i.tious. It is now a thing of the past, a mere tradition, an antiquated curiosity. The early Quakers, or some of them, in common with the Puritans, may ill.u.s.trate some of the least attractive characteristics of their times; but they were abreast, if not in advance, of the foremost advocates of religious and civil freedom. They were more than advocates--they were the pioneers, who, by their heroic fort.i.tude, patient suffering and persistent devotion, rescued the old Bay Colony from the jaws of the certain death to which the narrow and mistaken policy of the bigoted and sometimes insincere founders had doomed it. They forced them to abandon pretentious claims, to admit strangers without insulting them, to tolerate religious differences, and to incorporate into their legislation the spirit of liberty which is now the life-blood of our inst.i.tutions. The religion of the Society of Friends is still an active force, having its full share of influence upon our civilization. The vital principle--'The Inward Light'--scoffed at and denounced by the Puritans as a delusion, is recognized as a profound spiritual truth by sages and philosophers."

Through it all, though Simon Bradstreet's name occurs often in the records of the Court, it is usually as asking some question intended to divert attention if possible from the more aggressive phases of the examination, and sooth the excited feelings of either side. But naturally his sympathies were chiefly with his own party, and his wife would share his convictions. There is no surprise, therefore, in finding him numbered by the Quakers as among those most bitterly against them.

It is certain that Simon Bradstreet plead for moderation, but some of the Quaker offences were such as would most deeply wound his sense of decorum, and from the Quaker standpoint he is numbered among the worst persecutors.

In "New England Judged by the Spirit of the Lord," a prominent Quaker wrote: "Your high-priest, John Norton, and Simon Bradstreet, one of your magistrates, ... were deeply concerned in the Blood of the Innocents and their cruel sufferings, the one as advising, the other as acting," and he writes at another: point "Simon Bradstreet, a man hardened in Blood and a cruel persecutor."

There is a curious suggestiveness in another count of the same indictment. "Simon Bradstreet and William Hathorn aforesaid were a.s.sistant to Denison in these executions, whose Names I Record to Rot and Stink as of you all to all Generations, unto whom this shall be left as a perpetual Record of your Everlasting Shame."

William Hathorn had an unwholesome interest in all sorrow and catastrophe, the shadow of these evil days descending to the representative Nathanael Hawthorne, whose pen has touched Puritan weaknesses and Puritan strength, with a power no other has ever held, but the a.s.sociation was hardly more happy for Bradstreet then, than at a later day when an economical Hathorn bundled him out of his tomb to make room for his own bones.

CHAPTER XVI.

HOME AND ABROAD.

In the midst of all this agitation and confusion Anne Bradstreet pursued her quiet way, more disposed to comment on the misdoings of the Persians or Romans than on anything nearer home, though some lines in her "Dialogue between Old England and New," indicate that she followed the course of every event with an anxious and intelligent interest. In 1657, her oldest son had left for England, where he remained until 1661, and she wrote then some verses more to be commended for their motherly feeling than for any charm of expression:

UPON MY SON SAMUEL HIS GOEING FOR ENGLAND, NOVEM. 6, 1657.

Thou mighty G.o.d of Sea and Land, I here resigne into thy hand The Son of prayers, of vowes, of teares, The child I stayed for many yeares.

Thou heard'st me then and gave'st him me; Hear me again, I give him Thee.

He's mine, but more, O Lord thine own, For sure thy Grace is on him shown.

No friend I have like Thee to trust, For mortall helps are brittle Dust.

Preserve O Lord, from stormes and wrack, Protect him there and bring him back; And if thou shall spare me a s.p.a.ce, That I again may see his face, Then shall I celebrate thy Praise, And Blesse thee for't even all my Dayes.

If otherwise I goe to Rest, Thy Will bee done, for that is best; Perswade my heart I shall him see Forever happefy'd with Thee.

There were others of much the same order on his return, in 1661, but her feelings centered then on the anxieties and dangers of the course which had been resolved upon. The enemies of the Colony were busy in London, and the King was strongly inclined to take very decisive measures for its humiliation. Explanations must be made by some one who had had personal experience in every case now used against them, and after long and troubled consultation the Colonial Government reluctantly decided to send two Commissioners to England, selecting John Norton and Simon Bradstreet as best capable of meeting the emergency.

There was personal peril as well as political anxiety. The King const.i.tutionally listened to the first comer rather than the second, and had already sided with the Quakers. To Norton it seemed a willful putting of his head into the lion's jaws, and he hesitated, and debated, and at last, from pure nervousness fell violently ill. The ship which was to carry them waited, and finally as it seemed impossible for him to rally his forces, began unlading the provisions sent on board. The disgusted Government officers prepared explanatory letters, and were on the point of sending them when Mr. Norton came to his senses, and announced that the Lord had "encouraged and strengthened his heart," and he went decorously on board.

The mission, though p.r.o.nounced by some Quaker historians a failure, was in reality after many delays and more hard words a tolerable success. The King was still too uncertain of his own position to quarrel with as powerful a set of friends as the Ma.s.sachusetts Colony were now disposed to prove themselves, and the Commissioners returned home, bearing a renewal of the charter, though the letters held other matters less satisfactory to the Puritan temper. The King required an oath of allegiance from all, and that "all laws and ordinances ... contrary or derogative to his authority and government should be annulled and repealed."

Toleration was made obligatory, and one clause outraged every Puritan susceptibility; that in which it was ordered that, "in the election of the Governor or a.s.sistants, there should be only consideration of the wisdom and integrity of the persons to be chosen, and not of any faction with reference to their opinion or profession."

Governor Dudley's shade must have looked with amazed dismay and wrath upon this egg, which could hardly fail to "a Toleration hatch," filled with every evil his verses had prophesied, and there were many of the same mind. But popular dissatisfaction in time died away, as no ill results came from the new methods, which were ignored as often as possible, and the working of which could not be very effectually watched in England. Simon Bradstreet, though censured by many, pursued his quiet way, thankful to be safely at home again with his head in its proper place, and his wife rejoiced over him in various poems which celebrated the letters he wrote, and every detail of his coming and going.

The summer of 1666 brought one of the sharpest trials her life had ever known, the destruction of her house by fire taking place in July. Each change of location to one of her tenacious affections and deep love of home, had been a sharp wrench, and she required long familiarity to reconcile her to new conditions. Though the first and greatest change from England to America would seem to have rendered all others trivial and not to be regarded, she had shrank from each as it came, submitting by force of will, but unreconciled till years had past. In Andover she had allowed herself to take firm root, certain that from this point she would never be dislodged, and the house had gradually become filled not only with treasured articles of furniture and adornments, but with the a.s.sociations to which she always clung. There were family portraits and heirlooms brought from the old home in Lincolnshire; a library of nearly eight hundred volumes, many of them rare editions difficult to replace, as well as her own special books and papers.

For these last there was no hope of renewal. Many of them were the work of her early womanhood; others held the continuation of her Roman Monarchy; small loss to the world at large, but the destruction of a work which had beguiled many hours of the bodily suffering from which she was seldom free. The second edition of her poems, published after her death, held an apology found among her papers, for the uncompleted state of this monarchy, in which she wrote:

To finish what's begun was my intent, My thoughts and my endeavors thereto bent; Essays I many made but still gave out, The more I mus'd, the more I was in doubt: The subject large my mind and body weak, With many more discouragements did speak.

All thoughts of further progress laid aside, Though oft persuaded, I as oft deny'd, At length resolv'd when many years had past, To prosecute my story to the last; And for the same, I, hours not few did spend, And weary lines (though lanke) I many pen'd: But 'fore I could accomplish my desire My papers fell a prey to th' raging fire.

And thus my pains with better things I lost, Which none had cause to wail, nor I to boast.

No more I'le do, sith I have suffer'd wrack, Although my Monarchies their legs do lack: No matter is't this last, the world now sees Hath many Ages been upon his knees.

The disaster finds record in the Rev. Simon Bradstreet's diary:

"July 12, 1666. Whilst I was at N. London my father's house at Andover was burnt, where I lost my Books and many of my clothes, to the valieu of 50 or 60 pounds at least; The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken, blessed bee the name of the Lord. Tho: my own losse of books (and papers espec.) was great and my fathers far more being about 800, yet ye Lord was pleased gratiously many wayes to make up ye same to us. It is therefore good to trust in the Lord"

The "newe house" built at once and furnished with the utmost elegance of the time, Simon Bradstreet's prosperity admitting the free expenditure he always loved, could by no means fill the place of the old. She looked about each room with a half-expectation that the familiar articles with which so much of her outward life had been a.s.sociated, must be in the old places, and patiently as she bore the loss, their absence fretted and saddened her. One of her latest poems holds her sorrow and the resignation she came at last to feel:

"In silent night when rest I took, For sorrow neer I did not look, I waken'd was with thundring nois And Piteous shreiks of dreadfull voice; That fearfull sound of fire and fire, Let no man know is my desire.

I, starting up the light did spye, And to my G.o.d my heart did cry To strengthen me in my Distress And not to leave me succourlesse, When coming out, beheld a s.p.a.ce, The flame consume my dwelling place.