2. In the internal development of France, Richelieu proved himself a true builder. The founding of the French Academy and of the Jardin des Plantes, the building of the College of Plessis, and the rebuilding of the college of the Sorbonne, are among the monuments of this part-statesmanship. His, also, is much of that praise usually lavished on Louis XIV for the career opened in the seventeenth century to science, literature, and art. He was also a reformer, and his zeal was proved, when in the fiercest of the La Rochelle struggle he found time to institute great reforms not only in the army and navy, but even in the monasteries.

3. On the general progress of Europe, his work must be judged as mainly for good. Austria was the chief barrier to European progress, and that barrier he broke. But a far greater impulse to the general progress of Europe was given by the idea of toleration which he thrust into the methods of European statesmen. He, first of all statesmen in France, saw that in French policy—to use his own words—"A Protestant Frenchman is better than a Catholic Spaniard"; and he, first of all statesmen in Europe, saw that, in European policy, patriotism must outweigh bigotry.

4. His faults in method were many. His underestimate of the sacredness of human life was one; but that was the fault of his age. His frequent workings by intrigue was another; but that also was a vile method accepted by his age. The fair questions, then, are: did he not commit the fewest and smallest wrongs possible in beating back those many and great wrongs? Wrong has often a quick, spasmodic force, but was there not in his arm a steady growing force, which could only be a force of right?

5. His faults in policy crystallized about one; for while he subdued the serf-mastering nobility, he struck no final blow at the serf system itself.

Our running readers of French history need here a word of caution. They follow De Tocqueville, and De Tocqueville follows Biot in speaking of the serf system as abolished in most of France hundreds of years before this. But Biot and De Tocqueville take for granted a knowledge in their readers that the essential vileness of the system, and even many of its most shocking outward features, remained. Richelieu might have crushed the serf system, really, as easily as Louis X and Philip the Long had crushed it nominally. This Richelieu did not.

And the consequences of this great man's fault were terrible. Hardly was he in his grave when the nobles perverted the effort of the Paris Parliament for advance in liberty and took the lead in the fearful revolts and massacres of the Fronde. Then came Richelieu's pupil, Mazarin, who tricked the nobles into order; and Mazarin's pupil, Louis XIV, who bribed them into order. But a nobility borne on high by the labor of a servile class must despise labor; so there came those weary years of indolent gambling and debauchery and "serf-eating" at Versailles.

Then came Louis XV, who was too feeble to maintain even the poor decent restraint imposed by Louis XIV; so the serf-mastering caste became active in a new way, and their leaders in vileness unutterable became at last Fronsac and De Sade.

Then came "the deluge." The spirit of the serf-mastering caste, as left by Richelieu, was a main cause of the miseries which brought on the French Revolution. When the Third Estate brought up their "portfolio of grievances," for one complaint against the exactions of the monarchy there were fifty complaints against the exactions of the nobility.

Then came the failure of the Revolution in its direct purpose; and of this failure the serf-mastering caste was a main cause. For this caste, hardened by ages of domineering over a servile class, despite 4th of August renunciations, would not, could not, accept a position compatible with freedom and order; so earnest men were maddened, and sought to tear out this cancerous mass, with all its burning roots.

But for Richelieu's great fault there is an excuse. His mind was saturated with ideas of the impossibility of inducing freed peasants to work; the impossibility of making them citizens; the impossibility, in short, of making them men. To his view was not unrolled the rich newer world history, to show that a working class is most dangerous when restricted; that oppression is more dangerous to the oppressor than to the oppressed; that if man will hew out paths to liberty, God will hew out paths to prosperity. But Richelieu's fault teaches the world not less than his virtues.

At last on December 3, 1642, the great statesman lay upon his death-bed. The death-hour is a great revealer of motives, and, as with weaker men, so with Richelieu. Light then shot over the secret of his whole life's plan and work. He was told that he must die: he received the words with calmness. As the host, which he believed the veritable body of the Crucified, was brought him, he said: "Behold my Judge before whom I must shortly appear! I pray him to condemn me if I have ever had any other motive than the cause of religion and my country." The confessor asked him if he pardoned his enemies: he answered, "I have none but those of the state."

So passed from earth this strong man. Keen he was in sight, steady in aim, strong in act. A true man, not "non-committal," but wedded to a great policy in the sight of all men; seen by earnest men, of all times, to have marshalled against riot and bigotry and unreason, divine forces and purposes.



GREAT PURITAN EXODUS TO NEW ENGLAND

FOUNDING OF BOSTON

A.D. 1630

JOHN G. PALFREY

Whatever might have been the historic development of New England had it proceeded from the single plantation at Plymouth, it is certain that the growth and character of the new community were vitally affected by the large influx of English Puritans who ten years later followed the Pilgrims to these shores.

Soon after the departure of the Pilgrims from England, in 1620, King James I incorporated a successor to that Plymouth Company under whose patent Plymouth colony was founded. This new company is known as the Council for New England. The territory granted to the council extended from 40 deg. to 48 deg. north latitude, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The land was conferred in absolute property, with unlimited powers of legislation and government. Emigrants to New England were placed wholly under the authority of this corporation. The great privileges conferred upon the monopoly caused indignation among James' subjects, but nevertheless the council made numerous grants to settlers in New England.

Meanwhile, dissatisfaction in England increased; in 1625 James was succeeded by his son, Charles I; at Plymouth the Pilgrim colony was struggling for existence; at home the Puritans chafed under the growing despotism of Charles. Out of this unrest came the movement leading to the larger emigration to New England which Palfrey, the New England historian, describes.

The emigration of the Englishmen who settled at Plymouth had been prompted by religious dissent. In what manner Robinson, who was capable of speculating on political tendencies, or Brewster, whose early position had compelled him to observe them, had augured concerning the prospect of public affairs in their native country, no record tells; while the rustics of the Scrooby congregation, who fled from a government which denied them liberty in their devotions, could have had but little knowledge and no agency in the political sphere. The case was widely different with the founders of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay. That settlement had its rise in a state of things in England which associated religion and politics in an intimate alliance.

Years had passed since the severity of the government had overcome the Separatists, forcing them either to disband their congregations or flee from the kingdom. From the time when Bishop Williams was made keeper of the great seal, four years before the death of King James, the high-commission court again became active, and the condition of Puritans in the Church was day by day more uneasy. While some among them looked for relief to a happy issue of the struggle which had been going on in Parliament, and resigned themselves to await and aid the slow progress of a political and religious reformation in the kingdom, numbers, less confident or less patient, pondered on exile as their best resource, and turned their view to a new home on the Western continent. There was yet a third class, who, through feeble resolution or a lingering hope of better things, deferred the sacrifices which they scarcely flattered themselves they should ultimately escape, and, if they were clergymen, retained their preferments by a reluctant obedience to the canons. The coquetry of Buckingham with the Puritans, inspiring false hopes, was not without effect to excuse indecision and hinder a combined and energetic action.

Among the eminent persons who had reconciled themselves to the course of compromise and postponement was Mr. John White, an important name, which at this point takes its place in New England history. White, who since the second year of King James' reign had been rector of Trinity Church in Dorchester, was a man widely known and greatly esteemed, alike for his professional character and his public spirit. The subject of New England colonization, much canvassed everywhere among the Puritans, who were numerous in the part of the kingdom where he lived, was commended to his notice in a special form. Dorchester, near the British Channel, the principal town of the shire, furnished numbers of those who now made voyages to New England for fishing and trade; and they were often several months upon the coast without opportunity for religious worship and instruction. Mr. White interested himself with the ship-owners to establish a settlement where the mariners might have a home when not at sea, where supplies might be provided for them by farming and hunting, and where they might be brought under religious influences. The result of the conferences was the formation of an unincorporated joint-stock association, under the name of the "Dorchester Adventurers," which collected a capital of three thousand pounds.

The Dorchester company turned its attention to the spot on Cape Ann where now stands the town of Gloucester. The Council for New England, perpetually embarrassed by the oppugnation of the Virginia Company and the reasonable jealousy of Parliament, had recourse to a variety of expedients to realize the benefits vainly expected by its projectors. In carrying out one scheme, that of a division of the common property among the associates, the country about Cape Ann was assigned to Lord Sheffield, better known as a patriot leader under his later title of Earl of Mulgrave. Of him it was purchased for the people of New Plymouth by Edward Winslow, when in England on the business of that colony; and they in turn conveyed to White and his associates such a site as was wanted for their purposes of fishing and planting.

The Dorchester company had probably anticipated this arrangement by despatching a party of fourteen persons to pass the winter. They carried out live stock, and erected a house, with stages to dry fish and vats for the manufacture of salt. Thomas Gardner was overseer of the plantation, and John Tilley had the fishery in charge. Everything went wrong. Mishaps befell the vessels. The price of fish went down. The colonists, "being ill chosen and ill commanded, fell into many disorders and did the company little service." An attempt was made to retrieve affairs by putting the colony under a different direction. The Dorchester partners heard of "some religious and well-affected persons that were lately removed out of New Plymouth, out of dislike of their principles of rigid separation, of which number Mr. Roger Conant was one, a religious, sober, and prudent gentleman."

He was then at Nantasket, with Lyford and Oldham. The partners engaged Conant "to be their governor" at Cape Ann, with "the charge of all their affairs, as well as fishing and planting." With Lyford they agreed that he should "be the minister of the place," while Oldham, "invited to trade for them with the Indians," preferred to remain where he was and conduct such business on his own account. The change was not followed by the profits that had been hoped, and the next year "the adventurers were so far discouraged that they abandoned the further prosecution of this design, and took order for the dissolving of the company on land, and sold away their shipping and other provisions." Another seemed added to the list of frustrated adventurers in New England.

But Mr. White did not despair of its renewal. All along, it is likely, he had regarded it with an interest different from what had yet been avowed. At his instance, when "most part of the land-men returned," "a few of the most honest and industrious resolved to stay behind, and to take charge of the cattle sent over the year before. And not liking their seat at Cape Ann, chosen especially for the supposed commodity of fishing, they transported themselves to Nahumkeike, about four or five leagues distant to the southwest from Cape Ann."

White wrote to Conant, exhorting him "not to desert the business, faithfully promising that if himself with three others, whom he knew to be honest and prudent men, viz., John Woodbury, John Balch, and Peter Palfrey, employed by the adventurers, would stay at Naumkeag, and give timely notice thereof, he would provide a patent for them, and likewise send them whatever they should write for, either men, or provision, or goods wherewith to trade with the Indians." With difficulty Conant prevailed upon his companions to persevere. They "stayed to the hazard of their lives." Woodbury was sent to England for supplies.

"The business came to agitation afresh in London, and being at first approved by some and disliked by others, by argument and disputation it grew to be more vulgar; insomuch that some men, showing good affection to the work, and offering the help of their purses if fit men might be procured to go over, inquiry was made whether any would be willing to engage their persons in the voyage. By this inquiry it fell out that among others they lighted at last on Master Endicott, a man well known to divers persons of good note, who manifested much willingness to accept of the offer as soon as it was tendered, which gave great encouragement to such as were upon the point of resolution to set on this work of erecting a new colony upon the old foundation."

The scheme on foot was no longer one of Dorchester fishermen looking for a profitable exercise of their trade. It had "come to agitation in London," where some men had offered "the help of their purses," and a man of consequence, Humphrey, probably from a county as distant as Lincoln, was already, or very soon after, treasurer of the fund. Matters were ripe for the step of securing a domain for a colony, and the dimensions of the domain show that the colony was not intended to be a small one. A grant of lands extending from the Atlantic to the Western Ocean, and in width from a line of latitude three miles north of the River Merrimac to a line three miles south of the Charles, was obtained from the Council for New England by "Sir Henry Roswell and Sir John Young, knights, and Thomas Southcote, John Humphrey, John Endicott, and Simon Whitcomb, gentlemen," for themselves, "their heirs, and associates." Roswell and Young were gentlemen of Devon, Southcote was probably of the same county, and Whitcomb is believed to have been a London merchant.

Gorges, though not in the counsels of the patentees, supposed himself to understand their object. Having mentioned the angry dissolution by King Charles of his second Parliament, and his imprisonment of some of the patriot leaders, he proceeds to say that these transactions "took all hope of reformation of church government from many not affecting episcopal jurisdiction, nor the usual practice of the Common Prayers of the Church; whereof there were several sorts, though not agreeing among themselves, yet all of like dislike of those particulars. Some of the discreeter sort, to avoid what they found themselves subject unto, made use of their friends to procure from Council for the affairs of New England to settle a colony within their limits; to which it pleased the thrice-honored Lord of Warwick to write to me, then at Plymouth, to condescend that a patent might be granted to such as then sued for it. Whereupon I gave my approbation, so far forth as it might not be prejudicial to my son Robert Gorges' interests, whereof he had a patent under the seal of the Council. Hereupon there was a grant passed as was thought reasonable."

After three months Endicott, one of the six patentees, was despatched, in charge of a small party, to supersede Conant at Naumkeag as local manager. Woodbury had preceded them. They arrived at the close of summer. The persons quartered on the spot, the remains of Conant's company, were disposed to question the claims of the new-comers. But the dispute was amicably composed, and, in commemoration of its adjustment, the place took the name of Salem, the Hebrew name for peaceful. The colony, made up from the two sources, consisted of "not much above fifty or sixty persons," none of them of special importance except Endicott, who was destined to act for nearly forty years a conspicuous part in New England history.

Before the winter, an exploring party either began or made preparations for a settlement at Mishawum, now Charlestown. With another party, Endicott, during Morton's absence in England, visited his diminished company at Merry-Mount, or, as Endicott called it, Mount Dagon, "caused their Maypole to be cut down, and rebuked them for their profaneness, and admonished them to look there should be better walking." The winter proved sickly; an "infection that grew among the passengers at sea, spread also among them ashore, of which many died, some of the scurvy, others of an infectious fever." Endicott sent to Plymouth for medical assistance, and Fuller, the physician of that place, made a visit to Salem.

The New Dorchester Company, like that which had preceded it, and like the company of London Adventurers concerned in that settlement at Plymouth, was but a voluntary partnership, with no corporate powers. The extensive acquaintance of Mr. White with persons disaffected to the rulers in church and state was probably the immediate occasion of advancing the business another step. Materials for a powerful combination existed in different parts of the kingdom, and they were now brought together for united action. The company, having been "much enlarged," a royal charter was solicited and obtained, creating a corporation under the name of the "Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England."

This is the instrument under which the colony of Massachusetts continued to conduct its affairs for fifty-five years. The patentees named in it were Roswell and his five associates, with twenty other persons, of whom White was not one. It gave power forever to the freemen of the company to elect annually, from their own number, a governor, deputy-governor, and eighteen assistants, on the last Wednesday of Easter term, and to make laws and ordinances, not repugnant to the laws of England, for their own benefit and the government of persons inhabiting their territory. Four meetings of the company were to be held in a year, and others might be convened in a manner prescribed. Meetings of the governor, deputy-governor, and assistants were to be held once a month or oftener. The governor, deputy-governor, and any two assistants were authorized, but not required, to administer to freemen the oaths of supremacy and allegiance. The company might transport settlers not "restrained by special name." They had authority to admit new associates, and to establish the terms of their admission, and elect and constitute such officers as they should see fit for the ordering and managing of their affairs. They were empowered "to encounter, repulse, repel, and resist by force of arms, as well as by sea as by land, and by all fitting ways and means whatsoever, all such person and persons as should at any time thereafter attempt or enterprise the destruction, invasion, detriment, or annoyance to the said plantation or inhabitants." Nothing was said of religious liberty. The government may have relied upon its power to restrain it, and the emigrants on their distance and obscurity to protect it.

The first step of the new corporation was to organize a government for its colony. It determined to place the local administration in the hands of thirteen counsellors, to retain their offices for one year. Of these, seven besides the governor—in which office Endicott was continued—were to be appointed by the company at home; these eight were to choose three others; and the whole number was to be made up by the addition of such as should be designated by the persons on the spot at the time of Endicott's arrival, described as "old planters."

A proposal had just been accepted from certain "Boston men" to interest themselves in the adventure to the amount of five hundred pounds, being a hundred pounds in addition to what, it appears, they had previously promised, "and to provide able men to send over."

Unfortunately, no letter had been preserved of those sent by Endicott to England at this interesting juncture. There are, however, two letters addressed to him by the company, and one by Cradock, appointed in the charter to be its first governor. With various directions as to the details of his administration, they speak of the "propagation of the Gospel" as "the thing they do profess above all to be their aim in settling this plantation." They enjoin the keeping of "a diligent eye over their own people, and they live unblamable and without reproof." They forbid the planting of tobacco, except under severe restrictions. They order satisfaction to be given to the "old planters" by the offer of incorporation into the company and of a share in the lands. They speak of unsuccessful negotiations with Oldham, who asserted a claim under the patent of Robert Gorges, and give orders for anticipating him in taking possession of Massachusetts Bay. They direct that persons who may prove "not conformable to their government," or otherwise disagreeable, shall not be suffered "to remain within the limits of their grant," but be shipped to England. They prescribe a distribution of the servants among families, with a view to domestic order and Christian instruction and discipline. They enjoin a just settlement with the natives for lands. And they transmit a form of oaths to be taken by the governor and members of the council.

After the organization under the charter, no time was lost in despatching a reenforcement of colonists. Six vessels were prepared, and license was obtained from the lord treasurer for the embarkation of "eighty women and maids, twenty-six children, and three hundred men, with victuals, arms, and tools, and necessary apparel," and with "one hundred forty head of cattle, and forty goats." A committee of the company were careful "to make plentiful provision of godly ministers." Mr. Skelton, Mr. Higginson, and Mr. Bright, members of the Council, with Mr. Smith, another minister, sailed in the first three vessels, which reached Salem about the same time, and were soon followed by the residue of the fleet. Mr. Graves, another of the counsellors, was employed by the associates as an engineer. Immediately on arriving, he proceeded with "some of the company's servants under his care, and some others," to Mishawum, where he laid out a town. Bright, who was one of his party, returned to England in the following summer, dissatisfied, probably, with the ecclesiastical proceedings which had taken place. Smith went for the present to the fishing-station at Nantasket.

Higginson wrote home: "When we came first to Naumkeag we found about half-score houses, and a fair house newly built for the Governor. We found also abundance of corn planted by them, very good and well-liking. And we brought with us about two hundred passengers and planters more, which, by common consent of the old planters, were all combined together into one body politic, under the same Governor. There are in all of us, both old and new planters, about three hundred, whereof two hundred of them are settled at Naumkeag, now called Salem, and the rest have planted themselves at Masathuset's Bay, beginning to build a town there, which we do call Charleston, or Charlestown. But that which is our greatest comfort and means of defence above all other is, that we have here the true religion and holy ordinances of Almighty God taught among us. Thanks be to God, we have here plenty of preaching and diligent catechizing, with strict and careful exercise and good commendable orders to bring our people into a Christian conversation with whom we have to do withal. And thus we doubt not but God will be with us; and if God be with us, who can be against us?"

Meanwhile, a movement of the utmost importance, probably meditated long before, was hastened by external pressure. The state of public affairs in England in the spring and summer of this year had brought numbers to the decision which had been heretofore approached with sorrowful reluctance, and several persons of character and condition resolved to emigrate at once to the New World. It was necessary to their purpose to secure self-government as far as it could be exercised by British subjects.

Possibly events might permit and require it to be vindicated even beyond that line. At any rate, to be ruled in America by a commercial corporation in England, was a condition in no sort accordant with their aim. At a general court of the company, Cradock, the Governor, "read certain propositions conceived by himself, viz., that for the advancement of the plantation, the inducing and encouraging persons of worth and quality to transplant themselves and families thither, and for other weighty reasons therein contained (it is expedient) to transfer the government of the plantation to those that shall inhabit there, and not to continue the same in subordination to the company here, as now it is."

The corporation entertained the proposal, and, in view of "the many great and considerable consequences thereupon depending," reserved it for deliberation. Two days before its next meeting, twelve gentlemen, assembled at Cambridge, pledged themselves to each other to embark for New England with their families for a permanent residence, provided an arrangement should be made for the charter and the administration under it to be transferred to that country. Legal advice was obtained in favor of the authority to make the transfer; and on full consideration it was determined, "by the general consent of the company, that the government patent should be settled in New England." The old officers resigned, and their places were filled with persons of whom most or all were expecting to emigrate. John Winthrop was chosen governor, with John Humphrey for deputy-governor, and eighteen others for assistants. Humphrey's departure was delayed, and on the eve of embarkation his place was supplied by Thomas Dudley.

Winthrop, then forty-two years old, was descended from a family of good condition, long seated at Groton, in Suffolk, where he had a property of six or seven hundred pounds a year, the equivalent of at least two thousand pounds at the present day. His father was a lawyer and magistrate. Commanding uncommon respect and confidence from an early age, he had moved in the circles where the highest matters of English policy were discussed, by men who had been associates of Whitgift, Bacon, Essex, and Cecil. Humphrey was "a gentleman of special parts, of learning and activity, and a godly man"; in the home of his father-in-law, Thomas, third earl of Lincoln, the head in that day of the now ducal house of Newcastle, he had been the familiar companion of the patriotic nobles.

Of the assistants, Isaac Johnson, esteemed the richest of the emigrants, was another son-in-law of Lord Lincoln, and a land-holder in three counties. Sir Richard Saltonstall of Halifax, in Yorkshire, was rich enough to be a bountiful contributor to the company's operations. Thomas Dudley, with a company of volunteers which he had raised, had served, thirty years before, under Henry IV of France; since which time he had managed the estates of the Earl of Lincoln. He was old enough to have lent a shrill voice to the huzzas at the defeat of the armada, and his military services had indoctrinated him in the lore of civil and religious freedom. Theophilus Eaton, an eminent London merchant, was used to courts and had been minister of Charles I in Denmark. Simon Bradstreet, the son of a Non-conformist minister in Lincolnshire, and a grandson of "a Suffolk gentleman of a fine estate," had studied at Emanuel College, Cambridge. William Vassall was an opulent West-India proprietor. "The principal planters of Massachusetts," says the prejudiced Chalmers, "were English country gentlemen of no inconsiderable fortunes; of enlarged understandings, improved by liberal education; of extensive ambition, concealed under the appearance of religious humility."

But it is not alone from what we know of the position, character, and objects of those few members of the Massachusetts Company who were proposing to emigrate at the early period now under our notice, that we are to estimate the power and the purposes of that important corporation. It had been rapidly brought into the form which it now bore, by the political exigencies of the age. Its members had no less in hand than a wide religious and political reform—whether to be carried out in New England, or in Old England, or in both, it was for circumstances, as they should unfold themselves, to determine. The leading emigrants to Massachusetts were of that brotherhood of men who, by force of social consideration as well as of the intelligence and resolute patriotism, moulded the public opinion and action of England in the first half of the seventeenth century. While the larger part stayed at home to found, as it proved, the short-lived English republic, and to introduce elements into the English Constitution which had to wait another half-century for their secure reception, another part devoted themselves at once to the erection of free institutions in this distant wilderness.

In an important sense the associates of the Massachusetts Company were builders of the British, as well as of the New England, commonwealth. Some ten or twelve of them, including Cradock, the Governor, served in the Long Parliament. Of the four commoners of that Parliament distinguished by Lord Clarendon as first in influence, Vane had been governor of the company, and Hampden, Pym, and Fiennes—all patentees of Connecticut—if not members, were constantly consulted upon its affairs. The latter statement is also true of the Earl of Warwick, the Parliament's admiral, and of those excellent persons, Lord Say and Sele and Lord Brooke, both of whom at one time proposed to emigrate. The company's meetings placed Winthrop and his colleagues in relations with numerous persons destined to act busy parts in the stirring times that were approaching—with Brereton and Hewson, afterward two of the Parliamentary major-generals; with Philip Nye, who helped Sir Henry Vane to "cozen" the Scottish Presbyterian Commissioners in the phraseology of the Solemn League and Covenant; with Samuel Vassall, whose name shares with those of Hampden and Lord Say and Sele the renown of the refusal to pay ship-money, and of courting the suit which might ruin them or emancipate England; with John Venn, who, at the head of six thousand citizens, beset the House of Lords during the trial of Lord Strafford, and whom, with three other Londoners, King Charles, after the battle of Edgehill, excluded from his offer of pardon; with Owen Rowe, the "firebrand of the city"; with Thomas Andrews, the lord mayor, who proclaimed the abolition of royalty.

Sir John Young, named second in the original grant from the Council for New England, as well as in the charter from King Charles, sat in Cromwell's second and third Parliaments. Others of the company, as Vane and Adams, incurred the Protector's displeasure by too uncomplying principles. Six or seven were members of the high court of justice for the King's trial, on which occasion they gave a divided vote. Four were members of the committee of religion, the most important committee of Parliament; and one, the counsellor, John White, was its chairman.

A question had been raised, whether the company had a right, and was legally competent, to convey the charter across the ocean, and execute on a foreign soil the powers conferred by it. Certain it is that no such proceeding is forbidden by the letter of the instrument; and a not disingenuous casuistry might inquire, If the business of the company may be lawfully transacted in a western harbor of Great Britain, why not under the King's flag in a ship at sea or on the opposite shore? It cannot be maintained that such a disposition of a colonial charter would be contrary to the permanent policy of England; for other colonial charters, earlier and later, were granted—Sir William Alexander's, William Penn's, Lord Baltimore's, and those of Rhode Island and Connecticut—to be kept and executed without the realm.

As to the purpose of the grantor, those were not times for such men as the Massachusetts patentees to ask what the King wished or expected, but rather how much of freedom could be maintained against him by the letter of the law or by other righteous means; and no principle of jurisprudence is better settled than that a grant is to be interpreted favorably to the grantees, inasmuch as the grantor, being able to protect himself, is to be presumed to have done so to the extent of his purpose. The eminent Puritan counsellor, John White, the legal adviser of the company in all stages of this important proceeding, instructed them that they could legally use the charter in this manner. Very probably it had been drawn by his own hand, in the form in which it passed the seals, with a care to have it free from any phraseology which might interfere with this disposition of it. Certainly Winthrop and his coadjutors may be pardoned for believing that it was legally subject to the use to which they put it, since such was the opinion of the crown lawyers themselves, when, in the second following generation, the question became important. In the very heat of the persecution which at length broke down the charter, the Chief Justices, Rainsford and North, spoke of it as "making the adventurers a corporation upon the place," and Sawyer, attorney-general in the next reign, expressed the same opinion—"The patent having created the grantees and their assigns a body corporate, they might transfer their charter and act in New England."

He who well weighs the facts which have been presented in connection with the principal emigration to Massachusetts, and other related facts which will offer themselves to notice as we proceed, may find himself conducted to the conclusion that when Winthrop and his associates prepared to convey across the water a charter from the King which, they hoped, would in their beginnings afford them some protection both from himself and through him from the powers of Continental Europe, they had conceived a project no less important than that of laying, on this side of the Atlantic, the foundations of a nation of Puritan Englishmen, foundations to be built upon as future circumstances should decide or allow. It would not perhaps be pressing the point too far to say that in view of the thick clouds that were gathering over their home, they contemplated the possibility that the time was near at hand when all that was best of what they left behind would follow them to these shores; when a renovated England, secure in freedom and pure in religion, would rise in North America; when a transatlantic English empire would fulfil, in its beneficent order, the dreams of English patriots and sages of earlier times.

If such were the aims of the members of the Massachusetts Company, it follows that commercial operations were a merely incidental object of their association. And, in fact, it does not appear that, as a corporation, they ever held for distribution any property except their land; or that they ever intended to make sales of their land in order to a division of the profits among the individual freemen; or that a freeman, by virtue of the franchise, could obtain a parcel of land even for his own occupation; or that any money was ever paid for admission into the company, as would necessarily have been done if any pecuniary benefit was attached to membership. Several freemen of the company—among others the three who were first named in the charter as well as in the patent from the Council for New England—appear to have never so much as attended a meeting. They were men of property and public spirit, who, without intending themselves to leave their homes, gave their influence and their money to encourage such as were disposed to go out and establish religion and freedom in a new country.

The company had no stock, in the sense in which that word is used in speaking of money corporations. What money was needed to procure the charter, to conduct the business under it, and carry out the scheme of colonization was obtained neither by the sale of negotiable securities nor by assessment, but by voluntary contributions from individuals of the company, and possibly from others, in such sums as suited the contributors respectively.

These contributions made up what is called in the records the joint stock, designed to be used in providing vessels and stores for the transportation of settlers. It is true that these contributors, called Adventurers, had more or less expectation of being remunerated for their outlay; and for this purpose two hundred acres of land within the limits of the patent were pledged to them for every fifty pounds subscribed, in addition to a proportional share of the trade which the government of the company was expecting to carry on. But a share of the profits of trade, as of the land, was to be theirs, not because they were freemen, but because they were contributors, which many of the freemen were not, and perhaps others besides freemen were.

When the transfer of the charter and of the government to America had been resolved upon, it was agreed that at the end of seven years a division of the profits of a proposed trade in fish, furs, and other articles should be made among the Adventurers agreeably to these principles; and the management of the business was committed to a board consisting of five persons who expected to emigrate, and five who were to remain in England. But this part of the engagement appears to have been lost sight of; at least never to have been executed. It is likely that the commercial speculation was soon perceived to be unpromising; and the outlay had been distributed in such proportions that the loss was not burdensome in any quarter. The richer partners submitted to it silently, from public spirit; the poorer, as a less evil than that of a further expense and risk of time and money.

From the ship Arbella, lying in the port of Yarmouth, the Governor and several of his companions took leave of their native country by an address, which they entitled "The Humble Request of his Majesty's Loyal Subjects, the Governor and the Company late gone for New England, to the Rest of their Brethren in and of the Church of England." They asked a favorable construction of their enterprise, and good wishes and prayers for its success. With a tenacious affection which the hour of parting made more tender, they said: "We esteem it our honor to call the Church of England, from whence we rise, our dear mother, and cannot part from our native country where she specially resideth, without much sadness of heart, and many tears in our eyes. Wishing our heads and hearts may be as fountains of tears for your everlasting welfare, when we shall be in our poor cottages in the wilderness, overshadowed with the spirit of supplication, through the manifold necessities and tribulations which may not altogether unexpectedly nor, we hope, unprofitably, befall us, and so commending you to the grace of God in Christ, we shall ever rest your assured friends and brethren." The address is said to have been drawn up by Mr. White, of Dorchester.

The incidents of the voyage are minutely related in a journal begun by the Governor on shipboard off the Isle of Wight. Preaching and catechizing, fasting and thanksgiving, were duly observed. A record of the writer's meditations on the great design which occupied his mind while he passed into a new world and a new order of human affairs, would have been a document of the profoundest interest for posterity. But the diary contains nothing of that description. On the voyage Winthrop composed a little treatise, which he called A Model Christian Charity. It breathes the noblest spirit of philanthropy. The reader's mind kindles as it enters into the train of thought in which the author referred to "the work we have in hand. It is," he said, "by a mutual consent, through a special overruling Providence, and a more than an ordinary approbation of the churches of Christ, to seek out a place of cohabitation and consortship under a due form of government both civil and ecclesiastical." The forms and institutions under which liberty, civil and religious, is consolidated and assured, were floating vaguely in the musings of that hour.

The Arbella arrived at Salem after a passage of nine weeks, and was joined in a few days by three vessels which had sailed in her company. The assistants, Ludlow and Rossiter, with a party from the west country, had landed at Nantasket a fortnight before, and some of the Leyden people, on their way to Plymouth, had reached Salem a little earlier yet. Seven vessels from Southampton made their voyage three or four weeks later. Seventeen in the whole came before winter, bringing about a thousand passengers.

It is desirable to understand how this population, destined to be the germ of a state, was constituted. Of members of the Massachusetts Company, it cannot be ascertained that so many as twenty had come over. That company, as has been explained, was one formed mainly for the furtherance, not of any private interests, but of a great public object. As a corporation, it had obtained the ownership of a large American territory, on which it designed to place a colony which should be a refuge for civil and religious freedom. By combined counsels, it had arranged the method of ordering a settlement, and the liberality of its members had provided the means of transporting those who should compose it. This done, the greater portion were content to remain and await the course of events at home, while a few of their number embarked to attend to the providing of the asylum which very soon might be needed by them all.

It may be safely concluded that most of the persons who accompanied the emigrant members of the company to New England sympathized with them in their object. It may be inferred from the common expenditures which were soon incurred, that considerable sums of money were brought over. And almost all the settlers may be presumed to have belonged to one or another of the four following classes: (1) Those who paid for their passage and who were accordingly entitled on their arrival to a grant of as much land as if they had subscribed fifty pounds to the "common stock" of the company; (2) those who, for their exercise of some profession, art, or trade, were to receive specified remuneration from the company in money or land; (3) those who paid a portion of their expenses, and after making up the rest by labor at the rate of three shillings a day, were to receive fifty acres of land; (4) indented servants, for whose conveyance their masters were to be remunerated at the rate of fifty acres of land for each. All Englishmen were eligible to the franchise of the Massachusetts Company; but until elected by a vote of the existing freemen no one had any share in the government of the plantation or in the selection of its governors.

The reception of the new-comers was discouraging. More than a quarter part of their predecessors at Salem had died during the previous winter, and many of the survivors were ill or feeble. The faithful Higginson was wasting with a hectic fever, which soon proved fatal. There was a scarcity of all sorts of provisions, and not corn enough for a fortnight's supply after the arrival of the fleet. "The remainder of a hundred eighty servants," who, in the two preceding years, had been conveyed over at heavy cost, were discharged from their indentures, to escape the expense of their maintenance. Sickness soon began to spread, and before the close of autumn had proved fatal to two hundred of this year's emigration. Death aimed at the "shining mark" he is said to love. Lady Arbella Johnson, coming "from a paradise of plenty and pleasure, which she enjoyed in the family of a noble earldom, into a wilderness of wants," survived her arrival only a month; and her husband, singularly esteemed and beloved by the colonists, died of grief a few weeks after. He was a holy man and wise and died in sweet peace.

Giving less than a week to repose and investigations at Salem, Winthrop proceeded with a party in quest of some more attractive place of settlement. He traced the Mystic River a few miles up from its mouth, and, after a three days' exploration, returned to Salem to keep the Sabbath. When ten or eleven vessels had arrived, a day of public thanksgiving was observed in acknowledgment of the divine goodness which had so far prospered the enterprise.

After a sufficient pause for deliberation and conference concerning the forms of organization of the new society, the subject of an ecclesiastical settlement was the first matter to receive attention. On a day solemnized with prayer and fasting, the Reverend Mr. Wilson, after the manner of proceeding in the year before at Salem, entered into a church covenant with Winthrop, Dudley, and Johnson. Two days after, on Sunday, they associated with them three of the assistants, Mr. Nowell, Mr. Sharpe, and Mr. Bradstreet, and two other persons, Mr. Gager and Mr. Colburn. Others were presently added; and the church, so constituted, elected Mr. Wilson to be its teacher, and ordained him to that charge at Mishawum. At the same time Mr. Nowell was chosen to be ruling elder, and Mr. Gager and Mr. Aspinwall to be deacons. From the promptness of these measures, it is natural to infer that they had been the subject of consideration and concert before the landing. But there was some lingering scruple respecting the innovation on accustomed forms; and either for the general satisfaction or to appease some doubters, "the imposition of hands" was accompanied with "this protestation by all, that it was only as a sign of election and confirmation."

In the choice of a capital town, attention was turned to Mishawum, now Charlestown. Here, ten weeks after the landing, the first court of assistants on this side of the water was convened. The assistants present were Saltonstall, Ludlow, Rossiter, Nowell, Sharpe, Pynchon, and Bradstreet. Three others were in the country: Johnson, Endicott, and Coddington. The question first considered was that of provision for the ministers. It was "ordered that houses be built for them with convenient speed at the public charge. Sir Richard Saltonstall undertook to see it done at his plantation (Watertown) for Mr. Phillips, and the Governor at the other plantation for Mr. Wilson." Allowances of thirty pounds a year to each of these gentlemen were to be made at the common charge of the settlements, "those of Mattapan and Salem exempted," as being already provided with a ministry. Provision was also made for Mr. Gager as engineer, and Mr. Penn as beadle. It was ordained "that carpenters, joiners, bricklayers, sawers, and thatchers should not take above two shillings a day, nor any man should give more, under pain of ten shillings to taker and giver"; and "sawers" were restricted as to the price they might take for boards. The use or removal of boats or canoes, without the owner's leave, was prohibited, under penalty of fine and imprisonment. Saltonstall, Johnson, Endicott, and Ludlow were appointed to be justices of the peace, besides the Governor and deputy-governor, who were always to have that trust by virtue of their higher office. And "it was ordered that Morton, of Mount Woolison, should presently be sent for by process." Morton had lately been brought back to Plymouth by Allerton—who incurred much censure on that account—and, repairing to Mount Wollaston, had resumed his old courses.

A recital of the action of the board of assistants at their first meetings on this continent will explain the early exigencies of their administration, and the view entertained by them of their duties and powers. At a second court, held at Charlestown, the following business was transacted. It was agreed "that every third Tuesday there should be a court of assistants held at the Governor's house." It was "ordered that Thomas Norton, of Mount Wollaston, should presently be set into the bilboes, and after sent prisoner to England by the ship called the Gift, now returning thither; that all his goods should be seized upon to defray the charge of his transportation, payment of his debts, and to give satisfaction to the Indians for a canoe he unjustly took away from them; and that his house should be burned down to the ground, in sight of the Indians, for their satisfaction for many wrongs he had done them from time to time." Mr. Clarke was directed to pay to John Baker the sum of thirty-eight shillings, for cheating him in a sale of cloth. A stipend was granted to Mr. Patrick and Mr. Underhill, as military instructors and officers. The names of Boston, Dorchester, and Watertown were assigned to the places which still bear them. And it was ordered that no plantation should be made within the limits of the patent, without permission from a majority of the Board of Governor and Assistants, and that "a warrant should presently be sent to Agawam (Ipswich) to command those that are planted there forthwith to come away."

At a third court, also held at Charlestown, regulations were enacted against allowing the Indians the use of firearms, and against parting with corn to them, or sending it out of the jurisdiction, without a license. Constables were appointed for Salem and Dorchester. The wages of common laborers were fixed at sixpence a day, and those of mechanics who were employed in building at sixteen pence, in addition to "meat and drink." Order was given for the seizure of "Richard Clough's strong water, for his selling great quantity thereof to several men's servants, which was the occasion of much disorder, drunkenness, and misdemeanor." The execution of a contract between certain parties for the keeping of cattle was defined and enforced. Sir Richard Saltonstall was fined four bushels of malt for absenting himself from the meeting. Thomas Gray, for "divers things objected against him," was ordered "to remove himself out of the limits of this patent before the end of March next." "For the felony committed by him, whereof he was convicted by his own confession," John Gouldburn, as principal, and three other persons, as accessories, were sentenced "to be whipped, and afterward set in the stocks." Servants, "either man or maid," were forbidden to "give, sell, or truck any commodity whatsoever, without license from their master, during the time of their service." An allowance was made to Captains Underhill and Patrick for quarters and rations; and, for their maintenance, a rate of fifty pounds was levied, of which sum Boston and Watertown were assessed eleven pounds each, and Charlestown and Dorchester seven pounds each, Roxbury five pounds, and Salem and Mystic each only three pounds—a sort of indication of the estimated wealth of those settlements respectively.

The public business proceeded at the next two courts after the same manner. A restriction, which it seems had existed under Endicott's administration, on the price of beaver, was removed. A bounty was offered for the killing of wolves, to be paid by the owners of domestic animals in sums proportioned to the amount of their stock. Encouragement was given, by a legal rate of toll, to the setting up of a ferry between Charlestown and Boston. A servant of Sir Richard Saltonstall was sentenced to "be whipped for his misdemeanor toward his master"; and bonds were taken for good behavior in a case of "strong suspicion of incontinency." Sir Richard Saltonstall was fined five pounds for whipping two persons without the presence of another assistant. A man was ordered to be whipped for fowling on the Sabbath-day; another for stealing a loaf of bread; and another for breaking an engagement to pilot a vessel, with the privilege, however of buying off the punishment with forty shillings. The employers of one Knapp, who was indebted to Sir Richard Saltonstall, and of his son, were directed to apply half of their wages to the discharge of the debt. An assessment of sixty pounds was laid on six settlements for the maintenance of Mr. Wilson and Mr. Phillips, of which sum Boston and Watertown were to pay twenty pounds each, and Charlestown half as much; and Roxbury, Mystic, and Winnisimmet were charged with six pounds, three pounds, and one pound respectively.

An epidemic sickness at Charlestown was ascribed to the want of good water. An ample supply of it being found in Boston, a portion of the people removed to that peninsula; and there for the first time after their arrival on this continent, was held one of those quarterly general courts of the Company of Massachusetts Bay, which were prescribed in a provision of the charter.



TRIUMPH AND DEATH OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS AT LUETZEN

A.D. 1632

BENJAMIN CHAPMAN

No actor in the Thirty Years' War left a more brilliant name than Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden. His military reputation, which rests on solid achievement, was much enhanced by the victory at Luetzen, although the King early fell on the field. That triumph, which was won largely through the inspiration of his spirit and the shock of its untimely departure, contributed to the remarkable advancement of Sweden which his reign had already inaugurated.

Before the interference of Gustavus in the war, the Catholic party had defeated the Protestants in almost every engagement. The Protestant leaders, Christian IV of Denmark, Count Mansfeld, and Christian of Anhalt, had been no match for Tilly, commanding the force of the Holy League, and Wallenstein, leader of the Imperial army. When Gustavus joined in the conflict, Wallenstein had quitted the service of the Emperor Ferdinand II, and the great Swede's first opponent was Tilly, the imperial generalissimo. Tilly's ruthless sack of Magdeburg, in 1631, brought many hesitating Protestants to the side of Gustavus, and on the field of Leipsic or Breitenfeld, September 7, 1631, he completely overcame his strong enemy. In April following, Tilly, the victor in thirty-six battles, fell in another conflict with Gustavus. The Swedish King continued his campaign in Germany, and November 16, 1632, he met Wallenstein, who again commanded the Imperial forces, and his lieutenant, Count Pappenheim, on the fatal but glorious field of Luetzen. The King had gathered his forces at Erfurt, and there he bade farewell to his Queen, tenderly commending her to the care of the city magistrates.

On October 30th Gustavus sent Bernhard, Duke of Saxe-Weimar, forward with eleven thousand men to observe Pappenheim. The Duke took the road by Buttstadt to Freiburg, and from thence, after crossing the Saale, to Naumburg, where he arrived just in time to anticipate the enemy.

The next day the King gave the military command at Erfurt to Dupadel, and proceeded himself to Naumburg. Here the joy and confidence which his presence inspired, "as if he had been a god," far from elating him, awakened only in his mind a feeling of humility and a sorrowful presentiment that some disaster to himself would soon convince the Naumburgers of the frailty of the idol in whom they trusted.

On Sunday, November 14th, he learned, by an intercepted letter, that Pappenheim had been sent to Halle, and that the next day the Imperial army was to leave Weissenfels. He would now have attacked Wallenstein at once; but the dissuasions of Kniphausen—it is said—prevailed, and he agreed to defer the hazard of a battle until he should have been reenforced by Duke George of Luneburg and the Elector of Saxony.

Accordingly, having written to the Elector, who lay at Torgau, to meet him at Eilenburg, he was himself marching to Pegau, in that direction, when some gentlemen and peasants of the neighborhood brought him word that Wallenstein's troops were still quartered in the villages around Luetzen, and that he was not aware of the King's army being on the march. "Then," exclaimed Gustavus, "I verily believe the Lord has delivered him into my hand," and instantly darted toward his prey.

Luetzen was now in sight; the peasants said it was close at hand. But it proved more distant than this indefinite expression, or the measure of their own eager gaze, had led the Swedes to calculate. Moreover, a small river, the Rippart, that lay between the King and Luetzen, whose narrow bridge could be only passed by one or two at a time, impeded the advance full two hours—a skirmish with Isolani's cavalry, who were quartered at a village near the bridge, may also have occasioned some little loss of time—so that when the Swedish army had reached the fatal field it was nightfall, and too late to begin the battle.

Wallenstein made good use of the delay. On the first intelligence of the King's approach he had written to Pappenheim—the letter is still preserved in the archives of Vienna, stained with Pappenheim's blood—apprising him of the danger, and requiring him to join at daybreak, with every man and gun. During the night and early in the morning, which proved very misty, he mustered his troops, and made his dispositions, deepening the drains by the highroads to form intrenchments for his musketeers.

The King passed the night in his carriage, chiefly in conversation with his generals. Early in the morning he had prayers read to himself by his chaplain, Frabricius. The rest of the army sang Luther's hymn, "Our God is a strong tower"; and Gustavus himself led another hymn—"Jesus Christ our Saviour, he overcame death."

The King mounted his horse without having broken his fast. He wore a plain buff coat, without armor; replying, it is said, to some remark upon this deficiency, that "God was his harness." He addressed a few words of encouragement, first to the Swedes, then to Germans of his army, and to this effect: "My brave and beloved subjects!" he said to the Swedish regiments, "now is the time to prove your discipline and courage, confirmed in many a fight. Yonder is the enemy you have sought so long, not now sheltered by strong ramparts nor posted on inaccessible heights, but ranged in fair and open field. Advance, then, by God's help, not so much to fight as to conquer. Spare not your blood, your lives, for your king, your country, your God; and the present and eternal blessing of the Almighty, and an illustrious name throughout the Christian world, await you. But if, which God forbid, you prove cowards, I swear that not a bone of you shall return to Sweden. The Lord preserve you all!"

To the Germans he said: "My brave allies and fellow-soldiers, I adjure you by your fame, your honor, and your conscience; by the interests temporal and eternal now at stake; by your former exploits, by the remembrance of Tilly and the Breitenfeld—bear yourselves bravely to-day. Let the field before you become illustrious by a similar slaughter. Forward! I will this day not only be your general, but your comrade. I will not only command you, I will lead you on. Add your efforts to mine. Extort from the enemy, by God's help, that victory, of which the chief fruits will be to you and to your children. But if you shrink from the contest, remember that religion, liberty—all will be lost, and that by your remissness."

Having finished his addresses, to which both Swedes and Germans responded by hearty cheers and acclamations, the King cast up his eyes to heaven and said, "O my Lord Jesus! Son of God, bless these our arms, and this day's battle, for thine own glory and holy name's sake." Then, drawing his sword, and waving it over his head, advanced, the foremost of all his army.

The numbers of the two armies at this moment were probably nearly equal. Diodati, indeed, who carried to the Emperor from Wallenstein a verbal report of the battle, which by Ferdinand's order he afterward drew up in writing, stated the Swedish army to have been 25,000 strong, the Imperial 12,000 only. This is to be understood as referring to the beginning of the engagement, before Pappenheim had come up, at which time, on the other hand, Harte and Mauvillon estimate the Imperial force at from 28,000 to 30,000 men, Gfrorer at 25,000—estimates which are as certainly exaggerations as Diodati's diminution of the truth. Gustavus would not only have departed from his avowed maxims and previous practice, he would have run counter to every sound strategical principle, had he attacked without necessity an army numerically so superior. For that the Swedish force amounted in all to not more than 18,000 men there is as much proof almost as it is possible to attain in such a matter.

A rough calculation would make Wallenstein and Pappenheim's whole united force not more than 27,000, unless any reenforcements took place which have not been recorded, or which have escaped my notice. If we estimate Pappenheim's division at 10,000, this will give 17,000 Imperialists on the field before he joined again on the day of the battle. But the Swedish Intelligencer, whose information was derived from English officers about the person of Gustavus, conceives that Wallenstein must have had at this time full 20,000, or, as he afterward modifies his opinion, that he must have had 30,000 in all, of whom 10,000 or 12,000 were with Pappenheim.

According to these estimates, then, we may conclude that there were in the Imperial camp at Luetzen, on November 5th, from 15,000 to 18,000, or perhaps even 20,000, men. Such numbers offered to Gustavus, especially under the circumstances, a strong temptation to attack them; and, the Imperial army being so divided, he had a reasonable hope—a hope by which he was justified in forcing the engagement—that he should be able to defeat successively both divisions. Even as it was, Pappenheim's foot not arriving soon enough to support contributed in no small degree to the loss of the battle.

The field, which was intersected by a canal that unites the Saale and the Elster, called the Flossgraben, was almost a level; but of all the accidents afforded by such ground Wallenstein had taken advantage. Luetzen lay to his right a little in front. Between it and three windmills close to his right wing intervened some mud-walled gardens. These he made use of as forts, throwing into them little garrisons, and loopholing the walls. The mill hills he converted into batteries, and the dry ditches by the roadside into breastworks for his musketeers.

The fog having cleared off for a season, at ten o'clock the battle began. The wind and sun were in the King's favor; but Wallenstein had the advantage in weight of artillery and position. Gustavus did not long sustain the cannonade of the enemy before he gave the order to charge toward the highway and dislodge the musketeers who occupied the ditches on the side of it. This being effected, the whole line continued to advance, and the three infantry brigades of the centre took the batteries on the other side of the highroad, but, not being supported in time by their cavalry, who had been impeded by the wayside ditches, lost them again and were compelled to fall back.

When the King knew that the first battery was taken, he uncovered his head and thanked God, but soon after, learning that the centre had been repulsed, he put himself at the head of the Smaland cavalry and charged the Imperial cuirassiers, the "black lads," with whom he had just before told Stalhaske to grapple. Piccolomini hastened to support the cuirassiers; and the Swedes, being overmatched, retreated without perceiving—the fog having again come over—that they had left the King in the midst of the enemy. A pistol-ball now broke his arm; and as the Duke of Lauenburg was supporting him out of the battle, an Imperial cuirassier came behind him and shot him in the back. He then fell from his horse; and, other cuirassiers coming up, one of them completed the work of death.

It is added on the testimony of a young gentleman named Leubelfing, the son of Colonel Leubelfing, of Nuremberg, and page to the Lord Marshal Crailsham, that being near when the King fell, and seeing that his charger, wounded in the neck, had galloped away, he dismounted and offered him his own horse. Gustavus stretched out his hands to accept the offer; and the page attempted to lift him from the ground, but was unable. In the mean time some cuirassiers, attracted to the spot, demanded who the wounded man was. Leubelfing evaded the question or refused to answer; but the King himself exclaimed, "I am the King of Sweden," when he received four gunshot wounds and two stabs, which quickly released him from the agony of his broken arm, the bone of which had pierced the flesh and protruded. The Imperialist soldiers about the King, each anxious to possess some trophy, had stripped the body to the shirt, and were about to carry it off when a body of Swedish cavalry, charging toward the spot, dispersed them.

His death was immediately communicated, by one of the few who were about his person when he fell, to the Swedish generals. His charger, galloping loose and bloody about the field, announced to many more that some disaster had befallen him. The whole extent of the calamity, however, was not generally known; but a burning desire ran through the ranks to rescue him, if living; to avenge him, if dead. The noble Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar sustained and animated the enthusiasm. Having whispered to Kniphausen that Gustavus was dead, he asked him what was to be done? Kniphausen answered that his troops were in good order, and that retreat was practicable; to which the fiery Duke answered that it was not a question of retreat, but of vengeance in victory. This said, he assumed the command, and, upon Stenbock's lieutenant-colonel hesitating to advance when he ordered him, passed his sword through his body, and led on to the attack three other regiments, after a few words which gave fresh fuel to their ardor. Again the lost ground is won, the lost batteries are recovered. Wallenstein's ammunition explodes, and seven of his guns are captured.

Stalhanske rallies his Finlanders, drives back the Imperial cuirassiers, and bears away the King's body—easily distinguished from the rest of the slain by its heroic stature. But many still are the vicissitudes of that memorable day. Pappenheim brings fresh masses and fresh courage into the field. He is slain; content to die, since Gustavus, the foe of the Emperor and of his faith, breathes no longer; but Piccolomini and Tershy have inherited his spirit. The Swedes are beaten back; several standards and royal banners are won by the Imperialists. Count Brahe is mortally wounded; and of his division—the flower of all the army, the brave veterans "who have been so long accustomed to conquer that they knew not how to yield"—there remains but an inconsiderable fraction.

During all these vicissitudes the cool intrepidity of Kniphausen had kept the second line of the centre unbroken; and when, between three and four o'clock, the fog cleared off, and Duke Bernhard, who had expected a very different appearance, saw it standing firm and in good order, he raised his voice once more to renew the assault. This charge again changed the aspect of the battle; but the mist again spreading, again the Swedes are baffled when within a grasp of victory. The fifth and decisive charge was made just before sunset, when the arrival of Pappenheim's foot encouraged the Imperialists to make a final and desperate struggle. Kniphausen's fresh troops were now brought into action. The sharp ring of the musketry, the shouts of those full of life and hope, stifled once more the groans of the wounded comrades, in whom life was expiring and hope was dead. Both sides fought bravely, admirably; and, had strength and courage alone determined this last agony, doubtful indeed would have been its issue. But the Swedish cannon now again opened their flaming mouths upon the right flank and front of the Imperialists; and the effect was terrible: rank upon rank and file upon file fell beneath that crushing fire; so that when darkness thickened around the still contending armies, taking advantage of its cover, and leaving behind him the guns which had not been already captured, Wallenstein gave the signal to retreat, and drew off from the field.

Thus ended this day of mingled glory and sadness, the mists and confusion of which have in a great measure obscured its history. The numbers engaged, the order of battle on the side of the Imperialists, the number of the slain, the period of Pappenheim's arrival, what part of his forces were actually engaged; above all, the circumstances of the King's death, are perplexed amid the contrariety of contemporary narrations, representing partly the imperfection of human testimony and partly the different interests, jealousies, and suspicions of the times.

Among the last may be mentioned the imputation cast upon the Duke Francis Albert of Lauenburg, of having, according to previous compact with the Imperialists, murdered the King on the field of battle. This he is said to have effected as he was leading him away wounded, by placing a pistol behind him, and shooting him in the back. The Duke, who was now about thirty-two years of age, had served during the Mantuan war in the Imperial army, but, from some impression that he had been neglected, joined Gustavus two or three weeks before the battle of Luetzen, as a volunteer. After the King had fallen, supposing that all was lost, he ran away to Weissenfels, and did not appear again among the Swedish ranks until next morning, when the cool reception he received from the generals induced him probably to leave and go to Dresden, where he obtained from his relation, the Elector of Saxony, the rank of field-marshal under Arnim. Wallenstein courted his friendship by restoring to him without ransom some of his attendants captured at Luetzen. The Duke was not ungrateful, and took a zealous part in the negotiations between Wallenstein and the Elector of Saxony, and Duke Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar in January and February, 1634. On the night of Wallenstein's assassination he was arrested by Gordon and sent to Vienna, where he remained a year in imprisonment, but, at the expiration of that time, by embracing the Roman Catholic faith, obtained at once his freedom and a command in the Imperial army in Silesia. In the battle of Sweidnitz, May 30, 1642, he was wounded and taken prisoner. Torstenson rescued him with difficulty from the vengeance of the Swedish soldiers; and the next day he died of his wounds.

The story that he had murdered the King had at one time taken such a hold upon the Swedes that no historian of that nation could venture to treat it as a fable. But a full examination of the facts by Forster shows upon how slight a foundation the charge has rested. The motive of personal animosity arising out of a blow given by the King to the Duke is destroyed by the fact that the quarrel in which the insult is supposed to have been given was not with Duke Francis, but with his brother. The corroboration of his guilt, that he wore the device of Wallenstein's officers in the field, a green scarf, is annihilated by the answer that Wallenstein's officers did not wear green scarfs, but crimson. And the only direct evidence of his crime falls to pieces against counter-evidence of still greater weight. Even the Swedes themselves, if they still retain the convictions of their forefathers, have grown tolerant of opposite convictions; and Geijer has not scrupled to intimate, with tolerable plainness, that he considers the charge against the Duke of Saxe Lauenburg unproved.

Gustavus' body was brought on a powder-wagon to the hamlet of Meuchen, where it was placed for the night in the church, before the altar. The next day it was carried to the schoolmaster's house, until he, being joiner of the village also, constructed the simple shell in which it was conveyed to Weissenfels. There the body was embalmed by the King's apothecary, Caspar, who counted in it nine wounds. The heart, which was uncommonly large, was preserved by the Queen in a golden casket. A trooper, who had been wounded at the King's side, who remained at Meuchen until his wound was healed, assisted by some peasants, rolled a large stone toward the spot where he fell. They were unable, however, to bring the stone, now called the "Swede's Stone," to the exact spot, from which it stands some thirty or forty paces distant.

The death of Gustavus Adolphus cast a gloom over the whole of Europe. Even foes could lament the fall of so noble an enemy. To his subjects, to his allies, to the bondmen who looked to him for redress and deliverance, his loss was a heartrending sorrow. Grave and aged senators wrung their hands and sobbed aloud when intelligence reached Stockholm. In the unfortunate Frederick of Bohemia it produced, as we have seen, a depression that contributed probably to this death.

Nor was the grief shown by the many merely political or selfish, excited because the public or individual hopes centred in the King seemed to have perished with him. A heartfelt loyalty, a strong personal admiration and attachment, intermingled with other sources of regret and dignified the sorrow.

It would have been strange had it been otherwise. There were in Gustavus most of the advantages and amenities of person and character which make a popular king, a man admired and beloved. In his latter years, indeed, he no longer possessed the graceful form that had belonged to him when he was an ardent and favored suitor of Ebba Brahe; but the slight inclination to corpulency that grew with him as he advanced toward middle age detracted probably little, if at all, from the commanding dignity of his person. His countenance to the last retained its captivating sweetness and expressive variety. It was a countenance of which the most accomplished pencil could give in one effort only an inadequate idea, and which Vandyke—to whose portrait of the King none of the engravings which I have seen, probably, do justice—has represented only in repose.

But in the varying play of Gustavus' features men could read his kindness of heart, his large powers of sympathy, his quick intelligence, his noble, chivalrous nature. And these were infinitely attractive. There, too—it must not be concealed—they could often discern the flash of anger, to be followed quickly by the rough speech which gave pain and offence where a little self-control and consideration might have spared a pang and prevented a quarrel.

This propensity to anger diminished in some degree both the popularity and merit of Gustavus; yet he rarely permitted his anger to rage beyond a harsh expression, and with generous instinct he knew how to open the door of reconciliation, not only by frankly confessing his irritability, and by conferring fresh favors, but also by demanding fresh services from those noble natures which in his heat and rashness he had injured or pained.

In the field he shared the dangers of his soldiers with a courage liable, doubtless, to the charge of temerity, but to which, no less than to his participation in their hardships, his sympathy with their feelings, and his great military talents, he owed, under God, his success and renown. That his military fame was well founded, that no series of accidents could have produced success, at once so splendid and so uniform, we must have believed, though all professional authorities had been silent; but the special merit of no other commander has been more generally acknowledged by those of his own craft. His most celebrated living rival and the greatest conqueror of modern times have both set their seals to it. Wallenstein on two separate occasions pronounced him the greatest captain of his age; and among the eight best generals whom, in his judgment, the world had ever seen, Napoleon gave a place to Gustavus Adolphus.



RECANTATION OF GALILEO

A.D. 1633

SIR OLIVER LODGE

From Socrates to Galileo, as from the Church's early martyrs to its latest victims, runs the same story of conflict between the free human spirit and the repressive environment of custom acting through personal will or through constituted power.

When in 1633 Galileo, standing before the Inquisition at Rome, denied his own great work and swore that earth stood still, science staggered under the heavy blow. Galileo was being punished, not directly for the great astronomical discoveries he had made with his telescope, but for asserting that they proved, or that he believed in, the Copernican system. This declared that the earth moved, while the churchmen had interpreted the Bible to mean that it did not.

Thus science, threatened in the person of its greatest leader, terrified by his sufferings, no longer dared proclaim the thing it saw. Descartes and many another thinker, though throbbing with the eagerness of the new dawning light, hushed their voices, hid their views. They were philosophers, not martyrs. What this newly roused vigor of thought might have accomplished except for the repressive hand of the Church we cannot tell. As it was, the supremacy of intellect passed away from Catholic Italy, turned from the South to the North, from Galileo to Newton and Leibnitz. The forced recantation of the great astronomer thus stands out as one of the events which have changed the course of destiny.

In 1615 Pope Paul V wrote requesting Galileo to come to Rome to explain his views. He went, was well received, made a special friend of Cardinal Barberino—an accomplished man in high position, who became, in fact, the next Pope. Galileo showed cardinals and others his telescope, and to as many as would look through it he showed Jupiter's satellites and his other discoveries. He had a most successful visit. He talked, he harangued, he held forth in the midst of fifteen or twenty disputants at once, confounding his opponents and putting them to shame.

His method was to let the opposite arguments be stated as fully and completely as possible, himself aiding, and often adducing, the most forcible and plausible arguments against his own views; and then, all having been well stated, he would proceed to utterly undermine and demolish the whole fabric, and bring out the truth in such a way as to convince all honest minds. It was this habit that made him such a formidable antagonist. He never shrank from meeting an opposing argument, never sought to ignore it or cloak it in a cloud of words. Every hostile argument he seemed to delight in, as a foe to be crushed, and the better and stronger they sounded the more he liked them. He knew many of them well, he invented a number more, and, had he chosen, could have out-argued the stoutest Aristotelian on his own grounds. Thus did he lead his adversaries on, almost like Socrates, only to ultimately overwhelm them in a more hopeless rout. All this in Rome, too, in the heart of the Catholic world. Had he been worldly-wise, he would certainly have kept silent and unobtrusive till he had leave to go away again. But he felt like an apostle of the new doctrines, whose mission it was to proclaim them even in this centre of the world and of the Church.

Well, he had an audience with the Pope—a chat an hour long—and the two parted good friends, mutually pleased with each other.

He writes that he is all right now, and might return home when he liked. But the question began to be agitated whether the whole system of Copernicus ought not to be condemned as impious and heretical. This view was persistently urged upon the Pope and college of cardinals, and it was soon to be decided upon.

Had Galileo been unfaithful to the Church he could have left them to stultify themselves in any way they thought proper, and himself had gone; but he felt supremely interested in the result, and he stayed. He writes:

"So far as concerns the clearing of my own character, I might return home immediately; but although this new question regards me no more than all those who for the last eighty years have supported those opinions both in public and private, yet, as perhaps I may be of some assistance in that part of the discussion which depends on the knowledge of truths ascertained by means of the sciences which I profess, I, as a zealous and Catholic Christian, neither can nor ought to withhold that assistance which my knowledge affords, and this business keeps me sufficiently employed."

It is possible that his stay was the worst thing for the cause he had at heart. Anyhow, the result was that the system was condemned, and both the book of Copernicus and the epitome of it by Kepler were placed on the forbidden list,[33] and Galileo himself was formally ordered never to teach or to believe the motion of the earth.

He quitted Rome in disgust, which before long broke out in satire. The only way in which he could safely speak of these views now was as if they were hypothetical and uncertain, and so we find him writing to the Archduke Leopold, with a presentation copy of his book on the tides, the following:

"This theory occurred to me when in Rome while the theologians were debating on the prohibition of Copernicus' book, and of the opinion maintained in it of the motion of the earth, which I at that time believed: until it pleased those gentlemen to suspend the book, and declare the opinion false and repugnant to the Holy Scriptures. Now, as I know how well it becomes me to obey and believe the decisions of my superiors, which proceed out of more knowledge than the weakness of my intellect can attain to, this theory which I send you, which is founded on the motion of the earth, I now look upon as a fiction and a dream, and beg your highness to receive it as such. But as poets often learn to prize the creations of their fancy, so in like manner do I set some value on this absurdity of mine. It is true that when I sketched this little work I did hope that Copernicus would not, after eighty years, be convicted of error; and I had intended to develop and amplify it further, but a voice from heaven suddenly awakened me, and at once annihilated all my confused and entangled fancies."

This sarcasm, if it had been in print, would probably have been dangerous. It was safe in a private letter, but it shows us his real feelings. However, he was left comparatively quiet for a time. He was getting an old man now, and passed the time studiously enough, partly at his house in Florence, partly at his villa in Arcetri, a mile or so out of the town.

Here was a convent, and in it his two daughters were nuns. One of them, who passed under the name of Sister Maria Celeste, seems to have been a woman of considerable capacity—certainly she was of a most affectionate disposition—and loved and honored her father in the most dutiful way.

This was a quiet period of his life, spoiled only by occasional fits of illness and severe rheumatic pains, to which the old man was always liable. Many little circumstances are known of this peaceful time. For instance, the convent clock won't go, and Galileo mends it for them. He is always doing little things for them, and sending presents to the lady superior and his two daughters.

He was occupied now with problems in hydrostatics and on other matters unconnected with astronomy: a large piece of work which I must pass over. Most interesting and acute it is, however.

In 1623, when the old Pope died, there was elected to the papal throne, as Urban VIII, Cardinal Barberino, a man of very considerable enlightenment, and a personal friend of Galileo's, so that both he and his daughters rejoice greatly, and hope that things will come all right, and the forbidding edict be withdrawn.

The year after this election he manages to make another journey to Rome to compliment his friend on his elevation to the pontifical chair. He had many talks with Urban, and made himself very agreeable.

Encouraged, doubtless, by marks of approbation, and reposing too much confidence in the individual good-will of the Pope, without heeding the crowd of half-declared enemies who were seeking to undermine his reputation, he set about, after his return to Florence, his greatest literary and most popular work, Dialogues on the Ptolemaic and Copernican Systems. This purports to be a series of four conversations between three characters. Salviati, a Copernican philosopher; Sagredo, a wit and scholar, not specially learned, but keen and critical, and who lightens the talk with chaff; Simplicio, an Aristotelian philosopher, who propounds the stock absurdities which served instead of arguments to the majority of men.

The Aristotelians were furious, and represented to the Pope that he himself was the character intended by Simplicio, the philosopher whose opinions get alternately refuted and ridiculed by the other two, till he is reduced to an abject state of impotence.

The infirm old man was instantly summoned to Rome. His friends pleaded his age—he was now seventy—his ill-health, the time of year, the state of the roads, the quarantine existing on account of the plague. It was all of no avail; to Rome he must go, and on February 14th he arrived.

His daughter at Arcetri was in despair; and anxiety and fastings and penances self-inflicted on his account dangerously reduced her health.

At Rome he was not imprisoned, but he was told to keep indoors and show himself as little as possible. He was allowed, however, to stay at the house of the Tuscan ambassador instead of in jail.

By April he was removed to the chambers of the Inquisition and examined several times. Here, however, the anxiety was too much, and his health began to give way seriously; so, before long, he was allowed to return to the ambassador's house; and, after application had been made, was allowed to drive in the public garden in a half-closed carriage. Thus in every way the Inquisition dealt with him as leniently as they could. He was now their prisoner, and they might have cast him into their dungeons, as many another had been cast. By whatever they were influenced—perhaps the Pope's old friendship, perhaps his advanced age and infirmities—he was not so cruelly used.

Still, they had their rules; he must be made to recant and abjure his heresy; and, if necessary, torture must be applied. This he knew well enough, and his daughter knew it, and her distress may be imagined. Moreover, it is not as if they had really been heretics, as if they hated or despised the Church of Rome. On the contrary, they loved and honored the Church. They were sincere and devout worshippers, and only on a few scientific matters did Galileo presume to differ from his ecclesiastical superiors: his disagreement with them occasioned him real sorrow; and his dearest hope was that they could be brought to his way of thinking and embrace the truth.

This condition of things could not go on. From February to June the suspense lasted. On June 20th he was summoned again, and told he would be wanted all next day for a rigorous examination. Early in the morning of the 21st he repaired thither, and the doors were shut. Out of those chambers of horror he did not reappear till the 24th. What went on all those three days no one knows. He himself was bound to secrecy. No outsider was present. The records of the Inquisition are jealously guarded. That he was technically tortured is certain; that he actually underwent the torment of the rack is doubtful. Much learning has been expended upon the question, especially in Germany. Several eminent scholars have held the fact of actual torture to be indisputable—geometrically certain, one says—and they confirm it by the hernia from which he afterward suffered, this being a well-known and frequent consequence.

Other equally learned commentators, however, deny that the last stage was reached. For there are five stages all laid down in the rules of the Inquisition, and steadily adhered to in a rigorous examination, at each stage an opportunity being given for recantation, every utterance, groan, or sigh being strictly recorded. The recantation so given has to be confirmed a day or two later, under pain of a precisely similar ordeal.

The five stages are: (1) The official threat in the court; (2) the taking to the door of the torture-chamber and renewing the official threat; (3) the taking inside and showing the instruments; (4) undressing and binding upon the rack; (5) territio realis. Through how many of these ghastly acts Galileo passed I do not know. I hope and believe not the last.

There are those who lament that he did not hold out, and accept the crown of martyrdom thus offered to him. Had he done so we know his fate—a few years' languishing in the dungeons, and then the flames. Whatever he ought to have done, he did not hold out—he gave way. At one stage or another of the dread ordeal he said: "I am in your hands. I will say whatever you wish." Then was he removed to a cell while his special form of perjury was drawn up.