Yale Uniyersitif Librarif 39002008647886 y%'""-'Vvv 1 i 1 ' > - n V, 'i>"^^. ^}'J^^^J^-:.^! € 3^S<. lli^^i i NEW ENGLAND LEGENDS v^frgV* it^' ¦''a .. -¦^ f?^: *W^* 13 Ay New- En GLAND Legends. BY HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS. BOSTON : JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY, (Late Ticknor & Fields, and Fields, Osgood, & Co.) 187I. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, By HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. Cq i- i SO HAND, AVERY, & FRTE, PRISTEKS, 3 CORNHILL, BOSTON. The following hastily-prepared sketches, originally published in less permanent form, are collected at the request of indulgent readers, and offered with all due apology for their incom pleteness. H. P. S. Newburypoft, Mass., Aug. i, 1871. CONTENTS. The Tkue Acoodnt op Captain Kidd paob. . I Charlestown . 8 Saleh ........ . 15 NEWBimTPOBT ....... . 24 DOTBB . ... . 29 POBTBMOUTB ....... . 36 ILLUSTRATIONS. Kidd kills William Moore ........ Escape of the Mysterious Lady from the Ursuline Convent on Mt. Benedict Ruins of the Ursuline Context ^ . Eev. George Burroughs accused op Witchcraft Capt. Boardman orders the British Flag to be struck Geand-d.vughter of Major Waldron alone in the Woods Frances Deering making Signal .... page. . 3 . II 13 . 17 . 2.5 . 3337 THE TRUE ACCOm^ OF CAPTAIN KIDD. The Islands about the harbors of all our New England rivers are so wild, and would seem to bave offered so many advantages, that they have always been supposed, by the ruder popu lation, to be the hldlng-plaoe of piratical treas ures, and particularly of Captain Eidd's ; and the secretion, among rocks and sands, of chests of Jewels stripped from noble Spanish ladles who have walked the awful plank, with shot- bags fiill of diamonds, and ingots of pure gold. Is one of the tenets of the vulgar faith. This belief has ranged up and down the whole shore with more freedom than the pirates ever did, and the legends on the subject are legion — ttom the old Frenchman of Passamaquoddy Bay to the wild stories of the Jersey and Caro lina sandbars too countless for memory, the Flreshlp off Newport, the Shrieking Woman of Marblehead, and the Lynn Mariner who, while burying his treasure In a cave, was sealed up alive by a thunderbolt that cleft the rock, and whom some one, under spiritual Inspiration, spent lately a dozen years In vain endeavor to unearth. The parties that have equipped them selves with hazel-rods and spades, and pro ceeded, at the dead of night. In search of these riches, without turning their heads or uttering the Divine Name, and, digging till they struck metal, have met with all manner of ghostly ap pearances, from the little naked negro sitting and crymg on the edge of the hogshead of doubloons, to the ball of fire sailing straight up the creek, till It hangs trembling on the tide just opposite the excavation into which it shoots with the speed of lightning, so terrify ing and bewildering' the treasure-seekers that when all Is over they fall to find again the place of their late labor — ^the parties that have met with these adventures would, perhaps, cease to waste much more of their time In such pursuits In this part of the country if they knew that Captain Kidd had never landed north of Block Island until, with fatal temerity, he brought his vessel into Boston, and that every penny of his gains was known and was accounted for, while as to Bradish,Tew, and the rest of that gentry, they wasted everything as they went In riotous living, and could never have had a dol lar to hide, and no disposition to hide It If they had ; and whatever they did possess they took with them when, quietly abandoning their ships lu the officers of the law, they went up th«4 creeks and rivers in boats, and dispersed them selves throughout the country. Ever since tbe time of Jason there have been sea-robbers, and at one period they so Infested. the Mediterranean — owning a thousand galleys and four hundred cities. It Is said — that Pompey was Epnt out with a fleet and a fbrce of soldiery to extirpate them. In later times there were tribes of lawless men associated together In hunting the cattle of the West Indian Islands, curing the flesh, and exchanging It in adjacent settlements ; they held all property In common, and were called Buccaneers, ttom the word "boucan," a Carib term for preserved meat. By the mistaken policy of the viceroys of the Islands, who, In order to reduce them to less lawless lives, exterminated all the cattle, these men were driven to the sea, and became in time the celebrated fireebooters, or " Brethren of the Coast." The bull of Pope Alexander yi., by authority of which Spain and Portugal claimed all American discoveries, caused Eng land, France and the Netherlands to combine In tile Western Hemisphere, whatever quarrels came to hand in the Eastern, and to ravage the common enemy — so that letters-of-marque were ' constantly Issued by them to all adventurers, without requiring any condemnation of prizes or account of proceedings, by which means these countries virtually created a system of piracy, and Sir Francis Drake's sack of St. Do mingo, and the subsequent pillage of Pernam- buco, were In nowise different from the ex ploits of the brutal Olonois, Van Horn, and Brodely, upon the opulent Spanish cities of the Main. As the trade with the East and West In dies Increased, these freebooters ceased to sail under any color but their own, the black flag ; no longer left their ships to march through tropical swamps and forests, to float on rafts down rivers of a hundred cataracts, to scale mountains, and fall, as if out of the clouds, on the devoted cities of the Isthmus of Darien, the silver and gold of whose cathedrals, palaces and treasure-houses were worth the labor ; nor did they confine themselves on sea to overhaul ing the Spanish galleon sitting deep in tbe wa ter with her lading tcom the Mexican and Peru vian mines ; but they made their attacks on the great slow ship of the Asiatic waters, and when their suppression became vital to com merce, and all powers united against them, THE TEUE ACCOUNT OP CAPTAIN KIDD. they possppsed themselves of sumptuous re treats in Madagascar and the Indian Ocean, where tl^ey had their seraglios, and lived in fabulous splendor and luxury. As this race, hunted oif sea and enervated on land, died out, their place was taken by others, and expedi tions came gradually to be fitted out ftom the colonies of New England, whUe Virginia, the Carollnas, and even the Quakers of Philadel phia, aflorfled them a market for their rob beries. When these also in their time aban doned their profession, they made their homes, some in the Carollnas, some in Rhode Island, and some on the south shore of Long Island, where their descendants are among the most respectable of the community. To none of these did Captain EIdd belong ; and, previous to the last two years of his life, he was esteemed a good, citizen, and as honest a sea-captain as ever sailed out of New York, to which place he belonged, and wheie. In the Surrogate's otfice, is still preserved bis marriage certificate, that classifies him as Gentleman. During the war with France he had been mas ter of a ship in the neighborhood of the Carib bean Sea, and had valiantly come to the assist ance of a British man-of-war, and the two together had vanquished a fleet of six French fr.gates ; it was testified upon his trial that he had been a mighty man in the West Indies, and that he had refused to go a pirateering, upon which his men had seized his ship ; and It was on account of his public services there that tbe General Assembly of New York had paid him a bounty of one hundred and fifty pounds — a great sum in those days ; and the probability Is, that, being made a bone of contention be tween political parties, exactly what he was applauded for doing at one time he was hung for doing at another. The American seas being greatly troubled by pirates, early in 1695 the King sum moned the Earl of Bellomont before him, and told him that, having come to the determination to put an end to tbe Increasing piratical tendencies of his colonies, he had chosen him as the most suitable person to be invested with the govern ment of New York and New England. The earl at once set about devising the readiest means for the execution of the King's purpose, and Robert Livingston, chancing then to be In London, and being acquainted with the earl, introduced to him William Kidd, who, having left his wl.e and children In New York, was ako then In London, as a person who had se cured some fame In en^^agements with the French, a man of honor and Intrepidity, and one who, knowing the haunts of the pirates, was very fit to command the expedition against them which Bellomont and others were plan ning. Livingston became Kidd's surety, a kindness that the latter always remembered, as he threatened, on his return two years afterward, to sell his sloop, and Indemnify Livingston out of the proceeds. If Bellomont did not surrender the bond. It was at first proposed that EIdd should have a British ft-igate, but hardly daring to give him that — which hesitation in itself Indi cates how far tbe great lords were really impli cated In his transactions — a ship was purchased for six thousand pounds, Kidd and Livingston* being at one-fllth of the expense, and the rest being borne by the Earls of Bellomont and Bomney, tbe Lord Chancellor Somers, the Lor^ High Admiral, the Duke of Shrewsbury, and Sir Edward Harrison, ana they agreed to give the King, who entered into it vrry heartily, a tenth of the profits of the affair. Kidd was somewhat averse to the plan, and si-riously de murred. It is believed, but was threatened by the men of power that bis own ship should be detained and taken from him If he persisted, and accordingly he yielded, and In 1696 was regularly commissioned under two separate parchments, one to cruise against the French, and the other — an extraordinary one, but Issued under the Great Seal, empowering him to pro ceed against the pirates of the American seas, and really given for the purpose of atithorizing him to dispose of such property as he might capture. He had orders to render his accounts to the Earl of Bellomont, remotely and securely In New England ; and the Adventure Galley, a private armed ship of thirty guns and eighty men, was brought to the buoy In the Nore at the latter end of February, aud on the 23d of April, 1696, he sailed in her from Plymouth, reaching New York in July, and bringing In a French ship, valued at three hundred and fifty pounds, which he had taken on tbe passage, and which he there condemned. In New York he invited men to enter his ser vice, by notices posted in the streets and pre senting large oflers of booty after forty shares for himself and the ship should be deducted ; and increasing his crew to more than one hun dred and fifty men, he went to Madeira, then to several of the West Indian ports, and after ward to Madagascar, tbe coast of Malabar, and to Bab's Key, an island at ihe entrance of the Red Sea, where he lay In wait for the Mocha fleet, then preparing to sail. It is evident that he went outside of his nominal instructions by thus leaving the American for the Asiatic wa ters ; but it is also evident that he understood he was to be supported by the people of power who were behind him at home, and beUeved himself to be only following out their inten- tioEB ; and the man who had been encouraged to rob one ship had not, perhaps, sufficient re finement of discrimination to think any difiTer- ent matter of robbing another. Moreover, having come across and captured no vessel since leaving New York, be might naturally have felt that his owners were expecting more of him, and thus have resolved on something desperate. At any rate he did not consider himself to be going outside of his duty, or to be appearing In any questionable light, when, on his voyage out, he met the ship carrying the ambassador to the Great Mogul, and exchanged courtesies therewith. Tired out with his want of success, when an chored at Bab's Key, he sent boats to brimg the first news of the sailing of the Mocha fleet, es tablished a lookout on the hills of the island, and told his men that now he would freight tbe Adventure Galley with gold and silver when the fieet came out, though it was found that many of its ships belonged to friendly nations, and it was convoyed by an English and a Dutch man-of-war. Kidd, however, sailed into the midst of the fleet, which fired at him first, and returning the flre with oue or two ineffectual shots, he. hauled off and left; it to pursue its course Sailing then for the coast of Malabar, a couple of months afterward Kidd took a Moor ish vessel belonging, to Aden, but commanded by an Englishman, and finding but little ot THE TEUE ACCODNr OP CAPTAIN KIDD. " KIDD SNATCHED UP AN IRON-BOUND BUCKET AND STRUCK WILLIAM MOOBE A BLOW ON THE BEAD, OF WHICH HE DIED NEXT DAY." value in t'.ie prize, he had her men hoisted by the arms and beaten with tbe flat of a cutlass to make them reveal what ihey had done with their money— a punishment which, whether se vere or not for that semt-barbarous era, was, with two exceptions, the only act of personal cruelty of which he was ever accused ; and peo ple whom, if the general idea of him were true, he would have dispatched with a bullet, he simply kept in the hold till, inquiry for them being over, he dismissed them. He obtained from thie vessel some coffee, pepper, and Ara bian gold, and some myrrh, with which the ex travagant rogue pitched his ship. Going further out to sea again, he next encountered a Portu guese man-of-war, but after a brief engagement withdrew with ten men woundet", and returned presently to the coast of Malabar. Here, his cooper having been ki;:cd by the natives, he "served them in pretty much the same way," says one writer, "as the officers of our late South Sea Exploring Expedition served the Fijians, burning their houses and shooting one of the murderers." This, however, was one of the other instances of cruelty to which refer ence has just been made, the murderer being bound to a tre^ and shot at In turn by all the retaliators. Shortly after this. Captain Kidd fell in with the ship Royal Captain, which he visited, and wl)0=e officers he entertained on board the Adventure Galley; but some of her crew hating told that there were Greeks and others on board with much wealth of precious stones, the piratical spirit of his men led to THE TEUE ACCOUNT OP CAPTAIN KIDD. mntlnons desires and expressions ; and. In a rage with those who had wished to board and rob the Royal Captain, Kidd snatched up an Iron-bound bucket, and struck William Moore, the gunner and chief grumbler, a blow on the head, of which he died next day^ Kidd re marked to his surgeon that the death of the gunner did not trouble him so much as other passages of his voyage, as he had friends in England who could easily bring him off for that ; and he himself had it urged as a virtuous act rather than otherwise, since done to pre vent both piracy and mutiny. Still on the coast of Mal^^ar, In November he ran across another Moorish vessel, and artrully hoisted the French colors, upon which the Moor did the same. " By 1 have I catched you ?" he cried ; " you are a tree prize to England !" and making easy conquest of her, he. caused one Le Roy, a French passenger, to act the part of master, and to show a pretended French pass, upon which he declared her formally a prize to England, as if observing again tbe pre scribed forms, and Intending to claim for his conduct, should he ever need to do so, the pro tection of the commission authorizing him to take French ships. In the course of the next month, December, he captured a Moorish ketch of fifty tons, and turned her adrift ; took about four hundred pounds' worth ft'om a Portuguese, and sunk her near Calcutta; and then made prize of an Armenian vessel of tour hundred tons, called tbe Quedtigh Merchant, and son^e- tlmes the Scuddee, and commanded by an Englishman — the entire value ofthe latter cap ture being sixty-four thousand pounds, ot which Kidd's share was about sixteen thousand. Kidd then went to Madagascar, where, having ex changed all the equipments of the Adventure Galley for dust and bar gold and silver, silks, gold-cloth, precious stones,' and spices, he burned that ship, which was leaking badly, and took to the Quedagh Merchant, revising a ran som of thirty thousand rupees which the Arme nians came, crying and wringing their hands, to offer him. Here, too, be Is said to bave met with one of the East India Company's ships. Captain Culllford, turned pirate. It was clearly bis duty,' under his commission, to offer oattle at once ; but, instead of anything of the kind, it was testified on the trial that when the pi rates, with bated breath, sent out a boat to in quire concerning his Intentions, he drank with them, in a kind of lemonade called " bomboo," damnation to his own soul If be ever harmed them, and exchanged gifts with Culllford, re ceiving some silk and four hundred pounds In return for some heavy ordnance. Kidd denied that he had ever been aboard of Culllford, and declared that, wheo he proposed to attack him, his men said tbey would rather fire two shots Into iilm than one into Culllford ; that they stole his Journal, broke open his chest and rifled It, plundered his ammunition, and threatened his life so that he was obliged to barricade him self in his cabin — ^hls statement being borne out In some degree by the fact that here ninety-five of his men deserted to Captain Culllford, as if their own master were not sufficiently piratical, whereupon, recruiting a handfhl of men, he sailed Immediately for the West Indies. He de clared further that he did not go on board the Quedagh Merchant until after the desertion of these men, which left only about a dozen in his crew — not enough to keep his leaking craft fl'om sinking. But the capture of the Quedagh Merchant had been reported home by the East India Company, and directions had been issued to all the Ame rican governors and viceroys to seize him wherever he should appear. At Anguilla he I learned that he had been officially proclaimed a pirate, and falling to obtain any piovisiona either there or at St. Thomas, at which latter place he was not even allowed to land, he went to Curagoa, firom whence intelligence of bis whereabouts was forwarded to England, and the man-of-war Queensborough was sent Id pur suit of him. Kidd was aware that he had been upon a hazardous enterprise, so far as the risks at home were considered, to say nothing of the risks at sea; and whether he was conscious that he had exceeded his Instrdctlons, too eagerly misinterpreting them, or whether he knew tbat it is a way with the great to sacrifice those who compromise them too seriously, he prepared himself for any fortune : he deter mined to go to New York, and prove for him self what protection and countenance he now had to expect from Bellomont and the others ; but he also determined to venture as little as possible, and he accordingly bought the sloop Antonia — though excusing this afterward to the earl by saying that bis men, Mghtened by the proclamation, had wished to fun the ship ashore, and so many of them left him that again he had not enough to handle tbe ropes, which must have been untrue — loaded her with his silks, muslins. Jewels, bullion and gold-dust (the rest of his booty, consisting of bales of coarse goods, sugar, iron, rice, wax, opium, saltpetre and anchors, be. left in the Quedagh Merchant, moored on the south side of Hispar niola, with twenty guns in the hold and thirty mounted, and twenty men, with his mate in command) — and sailed in her for New York; intltbating, by his action, a doubt of his re ception, though that might well be accounted for by a knowledge of the King's proclamation, 'but Just as plainly Intimating that be bad reason to rely on the promises of Bellomont and the rest of that royal stock company In piracy. Meanwhile Bellomont had been delayed from entering upon his official life by one thing and another, nntll two years had elapsed fl'om the time of Kidd's departure from England. On arriving in New York, he heard ofthe rumorc'l career which Kidd was mnnlng, and presently the news having reached England, and an ac count of the public sentiment about it there being returned to him, Bellomont felt that very active measures were necessary in order to ex culpate himself, the Ministry and the King from the popular accusation of participating In Kidd's robberies, and took every step necessary for his apprehension. Needing some repairs before reaching his destination, Kidd very cautiously put Into Dela ware Bay, where he landed a chest belonging to one Glllam, an Indubitable pirate, who had been a Mohammedan, and who now returned, a passenger ftom Madagascar. The news spreading up the coast, an armed sloop went after Kidd, but failed to find him, .and he reached the eastern end of. Long Island with out being overhauled. Entering the Sound, he dispatched a letter to Bellomont, and itom Oyster Bay sent loving greeting to his family. THE TEUE ACCOUNT OP CAPTAIN KIDD. and a lawyer, by the name of Emot, came down from New York and went on board the An tonia, Learning that the Earl of Bellomont was in Boston, Kidd altered his course for Rhode Island, and, arriving there, sent Mr. Emot to Boston to secure a promise of safety from Bellomont If he should land ; a promise granted on condition of its proving that Emot told the truth — he having asserted that Kidd's men locki^d him up while they committed pi racies. Kirid then went to Block Island, and wrote to Bellomont again, protesting his Inno cence, urging the care he had taken of the owner's Interests, and sending Lady Bellomont a present of Jewels of the value of sixty pounds, v/hich BeUomout had her keep lest she should offend the giver and prevent the devel opments that he desired, though afterward surrendering and adding them to tbe general in ventory of Kidd's effects. While at Block Island he was joined by his wife and children, under the care of a Mr. Clark ; he then gratefully went out of his way in order to land Mr. Clark on Gardiner's Island, as that gentleman wished to return to New York ; and although Kidd him self did not go ashore at the latter place, he left with Mr. Gardiner a portion of his treasure afterward abandoned to the Commissioners sent tor it by the Governor. While lying here, three sloops flrom New York came down and were loaded with goods, which were, however, all recovered — Kidd maintaining, with so much paueity oi invention as to resemble the truth, that it was .his men and not he who shipped them off. Meanwhile the earl sent down Dun can Campbell, the postmaster at Boston, to In vite Captain Kidd to that port, telling him that if innocent he might lately come in, and he would intercede for his pardon ; and Kidd straightwaiy headed the Antonia for Boston, reaching there on the 1st of July and appear ing publicly upon the streets. Hearing of his arrival, the earl sent for him, and, refusing to see him without witnesses, examined him be fore the Council, dhrected him to draw up a nar rative of tiis proceedings, and dismissed him. Bellomont, however, kept a watch upon bis movements, as he both desired and needed his arrest, but thought It expedient to use friendly means in order to discover the extent of bis outrages and the disposition of the property acquired tlirough them. At the end of the week, Kidd showing no intention to unbosom liimself in that wise, and It being feared that he meant to make off, he was arrested and committed to prison, though not till he had made a valiant opposition and, had drawn his sword upon the King's officers — the arrest taking place near the door of the earl's lodg ings, into which Kidd rushed aud ran toward him, followed by the constables. His sloop, on that, was immediately appraised, its contents taken possession of by certain Commissioners appointed for that purpose, his papers, contain ing accounts of his buried treasure and of tbat in Mr. Gardiner's hands, were opened, and all the property was finally delivered to the earl, with an inventory of one thousand one hun dred and eleven ounces of gold, two thousand three hundred and fifty-three ounces of silfer, three-score jewels, and bags, bales and pieces of goods about as valuable as the precious metals, Mrs. Kind's property, which Included several pieces of plate, nearly three hundred dollars of her own and twenty-five crowns of her maid's, was taken out of her temporary lodgings in the house of Duncan Campbell, at the time when search was made for a bag of . gold-dust and ina;ot8 of the value of a thousand pounds, that Kidd had intended for a gift to Lady Bellomont, and that was found between two sea-beds ; but on petition the Governor and Council restored to Mrs. .Kidd her own. His wife — to whom he had been but a few years married— accompanying him with her children, her maid and aU '^hat she possessed, shows that Kidd had no intention of being siu*- prised and overmastered ; but on the contrary, If worse came to worst, that he had meant to take her back to tlie Quedagh Merchant and find a home in some place beyond the pale of British Justice ; while retaining her affection, and caring to r^ain it, is in itself a sort of testimony that he was hardly so black as he has been painted. Ten days after bis arrest news came that the mate of the Quedagh Mer chant, left in command, had taken out her cargo, removed it to Curagoa, and had then set her on flre, and the mariner who brought »the intelligence had seen her burning^ That was a dark day, doubtless, to Captain Kidd, but not so dark as others yet to come. A shlp-of-war had now been dispatched fl-om England to take Captain Kidd over there, but being delayed by Inclement weather, and putting back in a storm after he was on board, by the lime it arrived in the Thames all Eng land was in a state of excitement over his alleged partnership with several of the Minis ters, and their apparent determination not to bring him to Justice ; and from ' a common malefactor he became the lofty subject of a state trial. On his arrival the House of Commons ad- diessed the King, asking to have Kidd's trial postponed until the next Parliament, that there might be time for the traiismiasion of all the existing documents having any relation to his affairs ; and he was accordingly conhned in Newgate until the next year, when the papers were laid before the House, together with a petition from Cogi Baba, on behalf of himself and other Afmenians, subjects of the King of Persia, setting for'h all the tacts of the Quedagh Merchant's capture, and praying for Kidd's examination and their own relief Cogi Baba was ordered before tbe House, and Kidd himself was produced at the bar, and afterward remanded to prison, A motion was then made in the House to declare void the grant made to the Earl of Bellomont aud others of all the treas ure taken by KidJ, but it was negatived, and the House of Commons then requested the King to have Kidd proceeded against according to law, and he was brought to trial at the Old Bailey, in 1701, for murder and piracy upon the high seas. At the same time, the House of Commons was proceeding upon an Impeachment of the Earl of Oxford and Lord Somers, for certain high crimes and misdemeanors, one of which was t'heir connection with Kidd, and their agency in passing the commi-isions aud grant to him, as prejudicial to public si-rvice and private trade, anS dishonorable to the King, contra y to the law of England and to the Bill of Rights. It was urged in reply that a pirate was hostis humani generis, and his goods be longed to whomsoever it might be that ae- stroyed him, and the King granted title only to THE TEUE ACCOUNT OP CAPTAIN KIDD. that tor which no owner was to be found. Be fore tne lords were acquitted Bellomont was dead, and KiJd was hung ; while popular feel ing ran high, parties took sides in the affair ; there were accusations afloat that these lords, now on their own trial, had set the Great Seal of England to the pardon of the arch-pirate ; and as the anti-Ministerial side was determined to hang Kidd in order »o prove the complicity and giult of the Ministers with him, the Minis ters themselves were, of course, determined to hang him to prove their own innocence. Kidd made a very good appearance upon his trial, ijjnorant as he was of all the forms of law ; he insisted on his innocence, and that he had only captured ships with Fri.'nch passes or sailing under thj French flag, and he fouglit manfully, but to no purpose. Of the men that were tried with him, several plead that they surrendered themselves upon a certain procla mation of the King's pardon, but the Court de- cldea that, not having surrendered themselves to the designated peisons. they did not come within its provisions, and they must swing for it, and^o tliey did. A couple of servants were- acquitted ; but to Kidd himself no mercy was shown. Justice Turton, Dr. Newton, Advocate for the Admiralty, and the Lord Chief Baron, all made elaborate arguments against him, while no one spoke for him ; and all his pre vious plunderings were ailovvjd to be cited in the Court, in order to prove that he plundered the Queclagh Merchanti When he desired to have counsel assigned him. Sir Salathiel Lovell, the Recorder, wonderingiy asks him, " What would you ¦ have counsel for ?" And Dr. Ox- enden contemptuously inquires, " What matter of law can you have V" But as Kidd quietly answers, " There be matters of law, my lord," the Recorder asks ag.:ln, " Mr. Kidd, do you know wiiat you mean by matters of law ?" Whereupon Kidd replies as quietly as before, " I know wliat I mean ; I desire to put off my trial as long as I can, till I can set my evi dence ready." He has had but a fortnight's notice of his trial, and knowing how important a delay would be to him in which the popular feeling might die out or abate, 8e urges, " I beg your lordships' patience till I can procure my papers, I had a couple of French passes, which I must make use of to my justification," and presently adds, "I beg your lordships I may have counsel admitted, and that my trial may be put off; I am not really prepared for it." To which the Recorder rudely replies, " Nor never will. If you can help it." Kidd still contended for counsel, and at last it was assigned to him. It then appeared tbat he had already petitioned for money to carry on bis trial, and though it had, as a matter of course, been granted to him, as to any prisoner, it had been put into his hands only on the night be fore. His counsel, for whose services he had so exerted himself, made one or two timid re marks, but, alter the jury were sworn, although the Solicitor-General plied the witnesses with leading questions, the cowardly lawyers never cross-examined, made any plea, or opened their Ups. The indictment for murder, upon which Kidd was first tried, portrayed, with great particu larity, the blow struck the gunner, saying that of that mortal bruise "the aloresaid William Moore, fl-om' the thirtieth day of October * » * until the one-and-thirtieth day * • * did languish, and languishing did live," but on the one-and-thlrtleth day did die, and declaring that William Kidd feloniously, voluntarily and of malice aforethought did kill and murder him; to all of which Kidd plead not guilty, constantly Interrupting the Court wi h his exclamations and explanations. " Tne passes were seized by my Lord Bellomont ; that we will prove as clear as the day !" cries he. When invited to find cause for exception in the jury, he either adroitly or Ingenuously answers, " I shall chal lenge none ; I know nothing to the contrary but they are iionest men." The time coming for his defense, he told in an earnest manner a short and simple story, but one in which, by comparison of the various witnesses, severi discrepancies with the truth were found. "My lord," said he, " I will tell you what the case was. I was coming up within a league of the Dutchman, and some of my men were making a mutiny about taking her, and my gunner told the people he could put the captain in a way to take the ship and be safe. Says I, ' How will you do that V The gunner answered, ' We will get the captain and men aboard.' ' And what then V ' We will go aboard the ship and plun der her, and we will have it under their hands that we did not take her,' . Says I, ' This is Judas-like, I dare not do such a thing.' Says he, ' We may do it, we are beggars already.' ' Why,' says I, ' may we take this ship because we are poor ?' Upon tbat a mutiny arose, so I took up a bucket and just throwed it at him, and said, ' You are a rogue to make such a mo tion.' This I can prove, my lord." But he did not prove it, and though he strug gled hard to do so, and though his faithful servant Richard Barlico^n, also on trial for his life, must have committed a hundred perjuries in his behalf, the Court could not find evidence of any mutiny for more than a month before the gunner's death, and decided tbat WilUam Moore's outcry that Kidd had brought him and many others to ruin was not suliicient provoca tion for the killing. And though Kidd plead that striking the man in a passion, with so rude and unpremeditated a weapon as the first slush- bucket at hand, if not Justifiable as a prevent ive 01 mutiny, was, at furthest, no more than manslaughter, and exclaimed that " it was not designedly done, but in his passion, for which he was heartily sorry," yet, it being deter mined to hang him at all odds, tbe lawyers were given hints, the witnesses were brow beaten, and tbe jury were instructed, after tedious Iteration, to bring him in guilty ; which was done, , At the trial next day on the Indictments for piracy, Kidd did not lose heart. There were but two Important witnesses produced against him. Palmer, one of bis crew, and his ship's surgeon, Bradlnham, who, though both of them sharers In his adventures, had become evi dence for the Crown on the promise of their own safety. Kidd himself cross-questioned them, but Idly, their replies being always straightforward and consistent. His only de fense was that he had taken French passes fl^om every capture, that the Earl of Bellomont had seized tliem, and that his men, unce catching sight of a French pass when a ship was over hauled, would not let that sliip go, and for the rest answered with indiffereuoe, " That is what these witnesses say," as If such depraved testi mony could really be worth nothing. " Did you THE TEUE ACCOUNT OP CAPTAIN KIDD. hear me say so ?" he demanded of Palmer once, " I heard you say so," was the reply. " I am sure," said Kidd then, contemptuoufly, "you never heard me say such a word to such a log gerhead as you.'' But matters going beyond his patience soon, " Hear me !" he cried indig nantly, but was sileuced by the Court, only to break out again presently on Palmer with, " Certainly you have not the impudence to say that !" and to adjure him to " speak true." By-and-by the question of one of the passes be ing up, " Palmer, did you see that pass »" he eagerly asks ; and, the old subordinate manner returning to the other man, he answers, " In deed, captain, I did not ;" whereupon, like one who throws up bis hands in despair, Kidd ex claims, "What boots It to* ask him any ques tions? We bave no witnesses, and what we say signifies nothing." With Bradlnham be Is less contemptuous and more enra^ied. "This man contradicts liimself in a hundred places I" he declared. " He tells a thousand lies * * * There was no such thing in November; he knows no more of these things than you do. This fellow •>-'i ESCA-PS OF THB * MYSTERIOUS LADY " FROM THB UBSULINB CONVENT OF MT, BENEDICT.— "HBB NERVOUS EXCITEMKNT CULMINATING IN DELIBTUM, SHB SLIPPED OCT OF THB CONVENT. ' 12 CHARLESTOWN. tl;ought, that, in nncharity, conld have been put upon this affair, would have been that, never of very strong mind, and now worn out with tl»e unceasing recurrence of her labors, she had suddenly imagined the life unbearable, and in a wild moment had escaped from it only to find herself grown unused to the world, and more unhappy there than over her old tasks in the convent. But that was truth beside the calumnies that instantly sprang into being upon tiie foundation o! this unfortunate occurrence. It was remembered, too, that another young woman had lett Mount Benedict not long pre viously, and the atrocious slanders upon the sisterhood which she scattered wherever she went were revived with added burden, and there was hardly any scandal possible to be in vented but was repeated and believed, till the stately brick edifice on the hill was honestly re garded far and near, by the bigoted and narrow- minded of the untaught population, as a den of wickedness and filth ; and a conspiracy for its suppression was hurriedly formed, not only in Cliar:estown, but throughout other towns and extending into other States. Matters probably were greatly bistened then by the appearance in one of the neighboring newspapers of a para graph entitled "The Mysterious Lady," and containing the Items of local gossip about Miss Harrison's escapade, magnified and exagge rated into the flight of a nun brought back by force, and either murdered, secreted in the nnderground vaults, or sent away for some awful punishment in remoter regions ; ami this was only the vi.sibie aid audible expression of what appears to have been In the minds of nearly all, if not in their mouths ; and the first manner in which the general feeling outcropped was by waylaying the convent-gardener and beating him within an inch of his life, wreak ing in a vicarious way the vengeance that could not yet arrive at his employers. A few days after Miss Harrison's return to Mount Benedict, the Lady Superior, whom Dr. Thompson, a Charles' own physician, has men tioned as "thoroughly educated, dignified in her person, and elegant in her manners, pure in her morals, of generous and magnanimous feelings, and of high religious principles," was rude y waited on by one of the Selectmen ofthe town — the Siime whose kind intentions respect ing the farmhouse have been mentioned— and Informed, that the convent would be destroyed if the Mysterious Lady could not be seen. Tbe Superior had already told this gentleman the state of Miss Harrison's health, and the Inci dents leading to her temporary aberration of mind, and she knew it was quite in his power to contradict any wrong Impression abroad, and til quell any uneasiness without troubling her turthcr ; but, it being Sunday, she now ap pointed Monday, the next day, for the five Se lectmen to be shown over the establishment, and included in her invitation two neighbors who had been insirumental in increasing the popular prejudice. On Monday the visitors came, and ferreted the house through from 'cellar to cupola, occupying three hours, look ing even into the paint-boxes, searching every closet, opening every drawer, assisted by the Mysttrious Lady, Miss Harrison, herself, in per son. Their errand done, they declared them selves satisfied that not only was there notlilng to censure in the least, but, on the other hand, much to praise, and they adjourned to the house of one of their number to prepare a proniincla mento to that purpose for the morning papers They had but little more than left tlie building just before sunset, when a group of mei gathered about the gates of the avenue, usinj Impertinent language , but, upon the Superior'i noti^ng the Selectmen, she was assured then was not the least prospect of the occurrence o: anything disagreeable. It was shortly aftei nine in the evening when she became more seriously alarmed by a great noise on the Med- ford road, made by an advancing mob, with cries of " Down w ith the convent ! Down with the convent !" With much presence of mind, she instantly aroused the Community, telling them she feared they were in danger- the riot ers on the road, meanwhile, constantly Increas ing in force with new arrivals, on foot and in wagons, from every quarter. After waking those that were a ieep, she went into the se cond story of the building, and, throwing up a window, asked the party of forty or jSfty gathered outside what they desired, adding that they were disturbing the slumbers of the pupils, some of whom were the children of their most respected fellow-citizens. They re plied that they did not mean to hurt the chil dren, but they must see the nun that had run away. The Superior went to fetch her, but found tbat she had fainted with fright, and lay insensible in the arms of four of the Sifters, The Superior then returned to tell the people that this was the case ; she asserted to them tbat the estabiishmenl had that day been visited by the Selectmen, who had been pleased with ail they saw, and would assure them of it, and that If they would call on the next day, at a suitable hour, they should have every satisfac tion. They asked her If she were protectted," and she answered, " Yes, by legions !" Invok ing the celestial guardians. But other parties having come to swell their numbers, they re plied in indecent terms, calling her an old figurehead made of brass, telling her that she was lying, and that they had one of the Select men with them who had opened the gates to them. The Selectman then came forward, and advised the Superior to throw herself on his protection, but as' he was the same Selectman whose officiousnees had already produced much of the trouble, the Superior, after asking him ,lf he had secured the attendance of any other members of the board, refused to trust her es tablishment to his safe-keeping, telling him, if he wished to befriend her, first to disperse the mob. This he feebly attempted, deterring the rioters from firing the building, when they called for torcfies, by telling them that If lights were brought tbey would be recognized and detected- after which noble efl'ort lie returned to Ills house, and valiantly went to bed. The mob then fired a gun in the labyrinth under the wiUow-trees, possibly as a token of some sort to their accomplices, and withdrew a little, Willie waiting for the fresh arrivals. At about eleven o'clock the fences were torn up and a bonfire kindled, which is believed to have been a conceited' signal for the presence of all the conspirators, ana the bells being rung as for an alarm of fire, both in Charlestown and Boston, multitudes pressed to the spot. Several fire-engines also appeared — the Charles town ones halting opposite the bonfire, aud one from Boston passing up to the front of the mansion, where it was seized upon by the mob CHARLESTOWN. 13 and prevented from doing any service when needed, if so inclined. Rumor still runs that at this poipt, when Boston would have sent other engir,es and further means to subdue the disturbance-', the drawuridges were lifted, and it was found to be impossible to get them down. The arrival of the engine from Boston was, however, instantly followed by an assault upon the building in tlie sh.ipe of a shower of brick bats and clubs again 4 the windows, after which the bold assailants waited to see lf,any defense was to 6e m.vde, or any resentment manifested to this attack, which iliey knew might kill or inalm many of the helpless inmates. This brief pause allowed the Lady Superior opportunity to marshal iier little flock, whom she had refused previously to allow to leave the building, lest that should be only betraying It to its destruc tion, and under convoy of t'\-3 terrified Sisters to secure tl.eir retreat down the garden, into the summer-house, and over the fence into the adjoining grounds, wiiere they were safe till they could be collected in a friendly liouse : there had been sixty children to be taken cate cf, and of the nuns that night one was in the last stages of pulmonary consumption, one was in convulsive fits, and Miss Harrison had been wrought, by the agitation < f the evening, to a ravinsi delirium. The Superior, having per formed this duty, lingered herself, with' the true spirit of a leader in sucii situation,- open ing the doors of every room and looking into every dormitory, calling every child by name, to be suie that none were left behind, and then, last of all, descending to her owu room to secure the valuables tliere, together wiiU a thousand dollars belonging to ttie revenue of ' the institution ; but betore the last of th" children l;ad left the btuloing the varlets had poured in, and as she herself fled from it they were but ten feet behind her. In a mo ment afterward the house was filled with the mob, shouting, yelling, aud blaspheming; torchej snatcliCJ from the engines lighted the way for them, they ransacked every room, rifled every trunk, broke open every drawer, stole watches, thrust the costly jewelry of the Spanish children into tlieii- pockets, split up the piano-fortes, shattered the splendid harps, and even made way with the alt.ir ornaments presented by the good Archbishop of Bordeau^. Having satis led taelr curiosity and greed, they piled up the furniture, curtains, books, pic tures, in the cei\tre of the several rooms, and deliberately set flre to every heap, threw In the altar vestments, thd Biile and the cross, and, the act of virtue consummated, left the building in flames. After this, the bishop's lodge experienced a similar ' fate, the farm house belonging to the inttitute followed, and the grand demonttration of proper religious sentiment ^t-ound up with tearing open the tomb of the pl.ice, pillaging the sacred vessels there, stealing tlie coffln-plate.-, and scattering the ashes of the do'ad to the four winds. Not a hand -was liftid to stay these abomina^ ble proceedings, by any one of the vast multi tude outside; te firemen, who declared fre quently that they could prevent the flames if allowed, were liindered Iriim acting — although their sincerity may be suspected from the fact that an engine returned to Boston decked with the fiowers ftolen from the altar; the magis trates neither made any re i onstrance, nor read the rlot^act, nor demanded help of neigh- LEGLSD OF CHAKLESTUVV.s'. RUINS OF THE URSULINE CONVENT OP MT. BENEDICT. boring towns, nor asKed for the services of the marines at the Navy Yard, nor made a single arrest during all the seven hours of the riot. And though ilie outside multitude, who look no pait in the crime, were all Protestants, not one of them dared to protest against this out rage, not only upon weakness and detenteless- ness, but upon civil liberty, rnd ail remained paralyzed until the end, duubttui jerhaps if there were enough disapprovers among them to be of any avail, and entirely lorgetfui tliat a stream from a single engine-hose v ould have dispersed tiie whole mob more quickly than a battel y could hate done. Mean-while tht^ nuns, escaping with difficulty, and ^^lth yet greater diflScuity supporting the young consumptive, Sister Mary at. Henry, and getting her across the fence at the gaukn's foot, had found a kindly shelter, and were shortly afterward invited by old General Dear born to his seat in Roxbury, called Brinley Place, vhere they found once more a home, although, before they were fairly settled there, Mary St. Henry died, at the age ot twi nty. Though an invalid, this young woman had been able to give a lestou on the day of the tehtiue- tion of tlie convent ; all that night she lay in a cold rigor, and eleven days afterward she was dead. Her funeral was one of unusual pomp; every Catholic in the vicinity made an object of attending, half the citizens of Boston were organized iuto a special police through expect ation of some requital, and so deeply roused were the feelings of the injured party, that it is probable nothing but t e most unremitting exer tions of their clergy j revented severe retaliation. The matter, however, did not end here im mediately. Loud expressions cf disaiiprobation were heard from all portions of the St- te, and a seir-constituted Committee, ofthe best names in Boston, including such as Robert C. Wln- throp, William Appleton, Horace Mann, The- ophilus Parsons, and Thomas Motle.v, prepared at once to investigate the affair, and Iring, if 14 OHAELESTOWN. possible, the miscreants to Justitse They ex amined more than one hundred and forty per sons, and, chiefly by their exertions, thlrte chimneys like distant thunder, tbe volumes of flames wallowing upward from the ruins and filling the air with a shower of fire into which the birds fluttered and dropped, the weird re flection in the river, the lowing of the cattle, the cries of distress from the people, made the scene cruelly memorable ; and though after ward that portion of the town was rebuilt with brick, Newburyport never recovered from the shock and loss. Some years subsequently a boy of seventeen was convicted of another arson, and In spite of much exertion to the contrary, expiated the penalty of the law. But a flaming Nemesis fell npon the town, perhaps for having allowed the boy's execution, and ever since that time other Incendiaries, emu lous of his example, have constantly made it their victim ; one, in particular, being so fre quent In his attempts, that on a windy or stormy night the blaze was so sure to burst forth that the citizens could not sleep in their beds ; he appeared to be the subject of a mania for burning churches, almost all of the sixteen In town having been fired, sometimes two to gether, and on several occasion successfully ; and no dweller In Newburyport will easily for get the night on which the old North Church was burned, when every flake ofthe wild snow storm seemed to be a s.iark of fire, and more than one superstitious wretch, plunging out Into the gale, cotdd find no centre to the uni versal glare, and shuddered with firlgbt In belief that tbe Day of Judgment bad come at last. But one extraordinary thing or another Is always happening in Newburyport; if it is not a fire. It is a gale ; and if it is not a gale, it Is an earthquake. The situation of the town is very fine. As you approach It by land, bleak fields and licbened boulders warn you of the inhospitable sea-coast ; but once past their bar rier, and you are in the midst of gardens. The town lies on a gentle hillside, with such slope and gravelly bottom that an hour after the heaviest rains its streets afford good walking. Behind it lies an excellent glacial moraine and a champaign country, shut in by low h'dls, and once, most probably, the bed of the river. Its adjacent territory Is netted In rivers and rivu lets ; the broad Merrimack, with Its weird and strange estuary, imprisoned by Plum Island ; the Artichoke, a succession of pools lying in soft, semi-shadows beneath the overhanging growth of beech and oak, and feathery elms lighting the darker masses, each pool enfolded In such wl e that one sees no outlet, but slides along with the slow tide, lifts a bough, and slips into the next, where some white-stemmed birch perhaps sends a perpetual rustle through tbe slumberous air, a wild grape-vine climbs from branch to branch, or an early reddening tupelo shakes Its gay mantle in the scattered sun, and with its reflex In the dark trans parency, wakens one from half the sleepy spell of tLe enchantment there ; these streams, with the Quascacunquen or Parker, the Little, Pow- .wow. Back, and Rowley rivers, with their slender, but foaming black and white affluents, all make it a place of meadows ; and he who desires to see a meadow iu perfection, full of em-raid and golden tints, and claret shadows, withdrawing into distance till lost in the spar kle of the sea, must seek it here, where Heade found material for his exquisite and dainty marsh and meadow views. The scenery around the town, it may thus be imaj^ined, is something of unusual beauty ; on oneside are to be had the deciduous woods of the Stackyard Gate, where the carriage-wheels crackle through winding miles of fragrant brake and fern, and on the other the stately pines and hemlocks of FoUymill. the air sweet as an orange-grove with resinous perfume, while the river-road to Haverhill, with West Amesbury swathed in azure mist upon the op posite bill, and sapphire reaches of the stream unfolding one after Another, is a series of rap tures. The people, well acquainted with tbe 28 NE'WBURYPOET. beauty tbat surrounds them, are very fond of their chief river ; it is the scene of frolicking the summer long, and In winter its black and ice- edged tides seem to be the only pulses of the frozen town. To some the life upon this riVer is only play, to others it is deadly earnest, for a large portion of those who live along tbe banks on the Water street, the most picturesque of the highways, are fishermen and their house holds, famiUar with all the dangers of the seas — tbe babies there rocked In a dory, the men, sooner or later, wrecked upon the Georges ; meanwhile tbe men mackerel all summer down in tbe Bay of Chaleurs, pilot off and on tbe coast dark nights and dreary days, run the bar and the bieakers with a storm following the keel ; many of them, as they advance in life, leave their seafaring and settle down at shoe- making, or buy a plot of land and farm it in an untaught way, but Just as many find their last home in a grave rolled between two waves. When a storm comes up, and the fog-banks sweep In from sea, hiding the ray of the twin harbor-lights, and the rote upon the beach- which every night is heard through the quiet streets beating like a heart, swells into a sullen and unbroken roar— when the shipyards are afioat, the water running bieast-hlgh across the wharves, the angry tides rising knee-deep In the lower lanes, and the spray tossed over the tops of the houses there whose foundations begin to tremble and whose dwellers fiy for safety, then the well-sheltered people up In the remo e High street, where nothing is known of tbe storm but the elms tossing their bouffhs about, may have sorry fancies of some vessel driving on Plum Island, of parting decks and of unpitled cries m the horror of blackness and breaker— may even hear the minute-guns in pauses of the gale ; but the stress of weather falls upon tbe homes and hearts of these watchers on the Water street, for to them eacd swell and burst of the blast means danger to their own roof and the life snatched from a husband's or a father's lips. Mrs. E. Vale Smith in her history of Newburyport makes thrilling mention of these storms, with the wrecks of the Primrose, the Pocahontas, the Argus, and others, and every resident of the place has bad before his eyes the picture which she draws of " the heavy moaning of the sea — a bark vainly striving to clear the breakers^— blinding snow — a slippery deck — stiff and glazed ropes - hoarse commands that the cruel winds seize and carry far away from the ear of the sailor — a crash of tons of falling water beating in tbe hatches — shrieks which no man heard, and ghastly corpses on the deceittul, shitting sands, and the great ocean-cemetery still holding iu awful silence the lost bodies of the dead." Such things, of course, make the place the home of romance, and Mr. George Lunt, a poet of no mean pretensions and a native of the town, has founded his novel of " Eastford " on the incidents its daily Ute affords. Newburyport has also known the effects of other convulsions of nature ; a hailstorm, with a deposit twelve inches in depth, is still sp jken of there, together with snowstorms tunneled from door to door, a northeaster that blew the spray of the sea a do^n miles inland and loaded the orchard boughs with salt crystals, »ud whirlwinds mighty enough to blow down one meeting-house and to lift another with all the people In it and set It in a different spot- whirlwinds coming a quarter of a century too soon, as, If they had but moved a meetlng-bouse there at a later day, a parish would not have been so divided on the question of location as straightway to become, one-half of them. Epis copalians for whom Queen Anno endowed a chapel. But worse than whirlwinds, storms, fires, or the devastating yellow-fever that once nearly decimated the place, were the earth- quakes that for more than a hundred years, at one period, held high carnival there, and are still occasionally felt. The first of these oc curred in 1638, on the noon of a summer day, as tbe colonists, assembled in town-meeting, were discussing their unfledged affairs. We can well imagine their consternation. Just three years established, their houses built, woods felled, fields largely cleared, and the June corn Just greenly springing up, to find that their en campment on this spot, so rich in soil, so con- venleiit to the sea, so well guarded from the Indian, had left them the prey to an enemy whose terrors were so much worse than all others In the degree in which they partook of the dark, unknown, and infinite. It was not long before another earthquake followed the first, its trembling and vibration and sudden shocks preceded, as that bad been, by a roar like the bursting of great guns, while bfrds for^ sook their nests, dogs howled, and the whole brute creation manifested the extreme of terror; by-and-by there came one that lasted a week, with six or eight shocks a day, then one where the shocks were repeated for half an hour with out any cessation, and presently others where the ground opened and left fissures a foot in width, wiiere sailors on tne coast supposed their vessels to bave struck, the sea roared and swelled, flashes ot flre ran along the grormd, amazing noises were heard like peals and claps of thunder, walls and chimneys fell, cellars opened, floating islands were formed, springs were made dry In one site and burst out in an other, and tons of fine white sand were thrown up, which, being cast upon the coals, burnt like brimstone. Various causes have been assigned to these earthquakes, not the least absurd of which was the supposition of a cave reaching from tbe sea to the headwaters of the MeiTi- mack, filled with gases, iuto which the high tides rushing made the occurrence of the phenomena ; but as they have always appeared in connection with more tremendous disturb ances in other parts of the world, it is probable that they are but the same pulsations of the old eartli's arteries, fell in Vesuvius or Peru with more terrible effect. Although there have been more than two hundred of these convul sions, nobody was ever seriously injured by their means, and so used to them did the peo ple become, that finally they are spoken of in' their records merely as " the earthquake," as one would speak of any natural event, of the tide or of the moon. For the last century, however, their outbursts have been of very in frequent occurrence, aud have nowise marred the repose of the sweet old place, which now and then awakens to storm or fever sufficient to prevent stagnation, but for the most part slumbers on serenely by its riverside, the ideal of a large and ancient country-town, peaceful ' enough, antf almost beautiful enough, for Par adise. DOVER. A DOZEN miles above Portsmouth lies the old town o.' Dover, on the route to the White Mountains, which bills, as it has been said, were first explored by a party from the place, and always previously believed (both by the Indians and many of the settlers) to be haunted by powerful and splendid spirits. Dover is the old est town in the State, and though Portsmouth may have the first church-organ, Dover has the hncor of having possessed the first church- edllice, strongly palisaded in the days of primi tive worship there. This town Is the Cocheco of the early settlers, and Is situated upon a str-am of that name, a branch of the Pisca- taqua, wbich by its cascades — one of more than thirty-two feel; — offered good opportunity of mill-sites to the first fellers of the forest, allow ing them to clear their ground and manufacture their lumber at once. Of these 'opportunities later generations bave not been slow to take advantage, and the flow of water now turns the ponderous machinery of multitudes of looms, the yards of whose manufacture are numbered only by millions, while an enofmous backwater exists In the reserve of the neighboring town of Stratford, sufficient at any time to drown out a drouth. Of all the manufacturing towns of New Eng land, Dover is one ofthe most picturesque, and, from some of the loftier points within its limits, meadow, lake, river and phantom mountain-ranges combine to make a varied view of pSbtoral beauty. But there are other views to the full as interesting for tbe lover of humanity, when at night all the mill-windows blaze out and are repeated in the river, or when at noon the thousands of operatives pour forth from the factory-gates, and busy Peace seems half disguised. Still It is Peace, and Prosperity beside her; and much it would amaze some ghost of the dead and gone could he, without losing bis thin and impalpable essence altogether, obtain a noonday glimpse ofthe scene of his old troubles. For the place has not been In the past a haunt of Peace — from the time, during the last war with England, when the ships, kept from going to sea by the American powers, were drawn up the river to Dover lest they should be destroyed at the wharves of Portsmouth by the British powers, to the time, a hundred and seventy-tive years before, when the foUowers of Mrs. Ann H iit«h- Inson, with their Antinomian heresies, stirred up sedition among a people for whose preserva tion from English tyranny on the one hand, and Indian cruelty on the other, perfect unan imity of heart and mind was necessary— rwith all the troubles in the meantime occasioned by Mason, who made claim, by royal grant, to the land the settlers had purchased of the Aborigines and all the troubles wilii the Abori gines themselves. Dover is more peculiarly the scene ofthe old Indian outrages than any other New England town can be considered, inasmuch as it was not only there that the famous Waldron Massacre occurred, but the place was also the stage of most of the events that, during a dozen years, led up to that terrific night's work, and that constitute a bit of interesting history never faithfully written out, and which now probably never will be, several of the Unks being lost, and remaining only to be conjecttu-ed from their probabilities. In 1640 there were four distinct settlements on the Piscataqua and its confiuent streams ; but each having an Individual and voluntary management, and all of them being too much divided in opinion to establish a government of mutual concessions among ttiemselves, and hope of any protection from the King, then in sorry phght himself, being out of tlie question, the four settlements agreed in one thing, aud unanimously requested permission to come under the jurisdiction of the Massachusetts Colony — a request very gladly granted, as, while reserving rights of property to the owners, it afforded tbat Colony better oppor tunity to establish the boundaries, three miles north ofthe Merrimack and any branch thereof, which she had always claimed ; and in return for this opportunity she allowed deputies who were not Church-memBers to sit in the General Court— a privilege she had not given her own people, but which was perhaps necessary where but few, as in New Hampshire, were of the Puritan persuasion. Under this arrangement, Richard Waldron was for more than twenty years a deputy, and several years Speaker of the Assembly ; he was also a Justice, and the Sergeant-Major of the Militia in that part of the country ; and when the connection with 80 DOVER. Massachusetts had been severed, he was, for a time, the Chief Magistrate of the Province. He had married in England ; and, being a person of some wealth, on his arrival' here he had bought large tracts of land, received large grants for Improvement, had built the first saw-mill on the Cocheco, followed it with others, and established a trading-post with the Indians. He was evidently a man of remark able characer, respected by bis neighbors for his uprightness, and everywhere for his ability. Whatever he did was done with a will ; as a magistrate he persecuted the Quakers to the extent of the law, tliough he was known to shed tears when passing sentence of death upon an offender; as a landlord he fought ttie claims of Mason and bis minions persistently, lieing thrice suspended from tlie Council, and twice sentenced to fines which he paid only after an arrest of his body ; while as a soldier he was no less zealous in behalf of the public interest than in private capacity he had proved himself In behalf of his own. He appears to have exercised a certain lascination on the Indians of the locality, being able for many years to do with them as be would, and Cocheco having long been spared, by tbem when the wiir-whoop resounded over almost every other settlement in the land — a circumstance aptly illustrating the adage that tilings are what you make them, since, so long as the Indians were treated like brothers, they fulfilled the law ot love, iu rude but faithiiil manner; but once trapped like wild beasts, and wild beasts they became. - These Indians were chiefly the Pennacooks, a tribe belonging to tbe region of the Merri mack and its tributaries, who traded their pelts at Waldron's post for ammunition, blan kets, flneries, and such articles as they were allowed to have, and who on more than one occasion showed their capability lor gratitude just as strongly as they subsequently showed it for revenge. They sometimes took advantage of Waldron's absence to procure from bis part ner the liquor which he would not sell to tbem ; but in the main they seemed to have a wholesome fear of him, not unmixed with affection and trust in bis honor. This tr:be bad been almost annihilated by the Moliawks, or Men-eaters, of whom t'hey tntertained a deadly terror, and by an ensuing pestilence-; and being once accused of unfriendly int. n- tlons. by messengers sent from the settlements, they did not scruple to disarm suspicion by be traying their own weakness, and averring that they consisted of only twenty-four warriors, with tlieir squaws and pappooses ; while their wise old sachem, Passaconaway, whose people believed that he could make water burn, raise a. green leaf from the ashes of a dry one, and metamorphose himself into a living flame, had early seen the futility of attempts upon the English, had always advised his subjects to peace, and had imbued his son, Wouuelancet, so strongly with his opinions, tbat the latter never varied his rule Irom that wbich his father's had been. When the war with King Philip of the Wampanoags broke out, a body of soldiery was sent to tbe Pennacooks to as certain the part tbey intended to play ; but seeing so large a company approaching, tbe Indians, who had had no idea of Joining the war, concealed theUiSelves ; upon which. In mere wantonness, the soldiery burned their wigwams and provisions. Instead of reveng ing this injury, they only withdrew further away, to the headwaters of the Connecticut, and passed a quiet winter in their usual pur suits. In the meanwhile, however, the other tribes — Tarratines, Ossipees, and Pequawkets — became restless, and presently commenced hos tilities upon tlie outlying points ; and Fal mouth, Saco, Scarborough, Weils, Woolwich, Kittery, Durham, Salmon Falls, and other sputs, were red with slaughters, and in three months eighty men were killed between tbe Piscataqua and the Kennebec. With the winter there came a tremendous fall of snow, and that, to gether with the severity of the season and the famine that distressed them, occasioned these Indians to sue for peace ; and, coming to Majsr Waldron, they expressed sorrow for their conduct, and made repeated promises of better behavior for the future. But, this being done, tbe survivors among King Philip's men, who, Jtt his death, feaiing total extirpation, had ned from their own forests and dissemi nated themselves among the northern tribes, inflamed them anew with memory of wrong and outrage, endured doubtless, as well as com mitted, aud the hostilities began again by a de monstration at Falmouth, and were continued, the savages burning tbe homesteads as the dwellers abandoned them, till between Casco Bay and the Penobscot not a single English Settlement was lelt. At this time, the Penna cooks, who had not been concerned in the butcheries at all, seem to have been used by Major Waldron to secure a peace which he almost despaired of obtaining in any other way ; and it was through their agency, it may be supposed, tbat some fonr hundred of the Eastern Indians, of all tribes, with thefr women and children, assembled in Cocheco, on the 6tb of September, 1676, to sign a full treaty of peace wHh Major Waldron, whom, the his torian Belknap says, they looked upon as a friend and father. At this instant a body of soldiery, that had been dispatched to the northward, with orders to report to Major Waldron, the various settle ments on theii way being directed to reinforce them as. they might be able, arrived at Cocheco; and, obediently to the Instructions which they brought, Major Waldron had no choice but to surround and seize the whole four hundred of, the confiding Indians. To Major Waldron this must hate been an exceedingly trying moment: his pligj^ted word, his honor, bis friendship for this poor people whom he knew so well, all his sentiments as a man and a Christian, must have drawn lilm one way, while his duty as a soldier compelled him the other. To resign his command in the face of the enemy and under such instructions would doubtless have Involved him in most serious difficulties ; to disobey these instruc tions imposed upon blm a too fearful responsi bility In case of future depredations by those whom he should have spared against his or ders ; he was a soldier, and his first duty was obedience ; and, for the rest, the young cap tains of the force sent by the Governor were on fire with eagerness, and it was with difii' culty he could restrain their martial spirit while he took counsel with bimHeif. In this strait the Major unfortunately thought of a stratagem that misht be used, and baving. It is DOVEE. 31 said, assured the Indians, who had been a little alarmed by tbe arrival of the soldiery, that they had nothing to apprehend, be proposed to them a sham fight with powder, but without balls,. and on the signal of the discharge of their guns — making that a pretext for considering that the Indians had violated the understanding — the soldiery surrounded tbem, by an arttul mili tary movement, and with one or two exceptions made prisoners of the whole body. One of these exceptions was a young Indian who, escaping, sought and found refuge with Mrs. Elizabeth Heard, and in bis thankfulness pro mised bei a recompense of future safety, and one day redeemed tbe pledge. Although the Pennacooks were Immediately separated from the other prisoners and dis charged, upon which Major Waldron had per haps relied for his own , exculpation with them, and only half of the whole number were sent to Boston, where some six or eight, being con victed of old murders, were hanged, and the rest s^d into foreign slavery, yet they, together with ail other Indians both far and near, re garded It as a treachery upon Major Waldron's part that absolved them from all ties and de manded a bitter reparation. It is said that there is no sufficient Evidence of their having been Invited to treat for more definite peace, and that they had no guarantee of protection in their assemblage at Cocheco ; but the mere lact of their quiet presence In that number, an un usual if not unprecedented thing with them. Implies that the occasion was a special one, and that they must have had Major Waldron's verbal jiromise of safety at least, while, if It had been otherwise, it would have been absurd and Impossille for them to regard the affair as so signal and abominable a treachery of his, worthy to be remembered with such undying hatred and«explated in his own person with such torture. This view of the facts Is forti fied, moreover, by tbe subsequent action ofthe Pennacooks. That tbey should bave fancied themselves so peculiarly aggrieved as tbey did, should so long in all their wanderings have cherished their rancor, and should at last have executed vengeance through their own tribe. In itself testifies sufficiently that they had been used by Major Waldron to allure tbe other In dians Into the treaty under promises of protec tion, and felt the course which they pursued to be a necessary vindication of their honor as well as a gratification of their passions. They were not, however, in any situation to pay their debt at once, and on being set at liberty they withdrew to their hunting-grounds, and as season after season rolled away had apparently forgotten all about it. A grandson of old Passaconaway at last ruled them— Kan- camagus, sometimes called John Hagkins. He was a chief of different spirit from the previous sachems, and the injuries his people had re ceived from the English rankled in his remem brance ; his thinned and suffering tribe, his Stolen lands, bis old wrongs, were perpetual stings ; and when finally the English, dispatch ing emissaries to the Mohawks, Engaged their co-operation against the Eastern Indians, no thing but impotence restrained his wrath. It Is possible that even then, by reason of his dis tresses, he might have been appeased, if the En dish could ever have been brought to con sider tbat the Indian's nature was human nature, and to treat him with anything but violence when he was strong and contempt when he was weak. Several letters which Kancamagus sent to the Governor of New Hampshire, and which are curiosities, are ad duced to prove his amenable disposition at this time: " Mat 15th, 1685, " Honor Governor my friend You my friend, I desire your worship and your power, because I hope you can do some great matters — this one. I am poor and naked and I have no men at my place because I afraid aliways Mohogs he will kill me every day and night. If your wor ship when please pray help me you no let Mohogs kill me at my place at Malamake Rever called Paniikkog and Natukkog, I will submit your worship and your power. — And now I want ponder and such alminishun, shatt and guns, because I have forth at my home aud I plant theare. "This all Indian hand, but pray you do con sider your humble servant, John Haukins." This letter was written for Kancamagus by an Indian teacher, who signed it, together with King Hary, Old Robin, Mr. Jorge Rodiinno- nukgus, and some dozen others, bv making their respective marks. The next letter is a much more complicated affair In style ; it Is dated on tbe same day. " Honor Mr. Governor : " Now this day 1 com your house, I want se you, and I bring my hand at before you I want shake hand to you if your worship when please then you receive my hand then shake your hand and my hand. You my friend because I remember at old time when live my grant father and grant mother then Englishmen com this country, then my grant father and English men tliey make a good govenant, they friend allwayes, my grant father leving at place called Maiaimake Rever, other name chef Natukkog and Panukkog, that one rever great many names, and I bring you this few skins at Ihis , first time I will give you my friend. This all Indian hand. John Hawkins, Sagamore." These letters winning no notice from the contemptuous official, on the same day were followed by another : "Please your Worship — I will intreat you matther, you my friend now ; this. If my Indian he do you long, pray you no put your law, be cause som my Indians fooll, some men much love drunk then he no know what he do, maybe he do mischif when he drunk, if so pray you must let me know what he done because I will ponis him what have done, you, you my friend, if you desire my busini ss then sent me I will help you If I can. Mr. John Hookins." None of these letters having produced any efi'ect, the sachem abandoned the one-sided cor respondence, and on the next morning Indited anotlier epistle to Mr. Mason, the claimant of the Province. " Mr. Mason - Pray I want speake you a few words if your worship when please, because I com parfas. I will speake this governor but be go away so he say at last night, and so far I understand this governor his power that your power now, so he speak his own mouth. Pray it you take what I want pray come to me because I want go hom at this day. "Your bumble servant, JouN Haukuis, Indian Sogmon." Iti DOVEE. There was something toncl Ing in these let ters, to any but an early settler ; but appa rently tbey were quite disregarded, and Kan camagus had every right to feel ill-used by the neglect which his petition for protection from the Mohawks met, and it is probable that this waiting at rich men's gates only deepened the old grudge. At the close of the summer various affronts were put upon the settlers at Saco, and their dogs were killed ; alter which the Indians gathered tlieii own corn and re moved their families lo some unknown place. This resembling a warlike menace, messengers were sent, to discover its meaning, who were Informed that the Pennacooks had received threats from the Mohawks, and had withdrawn from the settlements that the English might not suffer on their account — far too plausible a reply and too magnanimous action for the truth. But an agreement of friendship was then made, and was signed, among the rest, by Kancamagus anti another chief named Mesandouit. Kancamagus had no intention of making this anything but a brief truce, and he improved the time to gather around Itimself the little band of the sullen Pennacooks, and to strike hands with the Pequawkets, aud the rem nant ofthe more northerly tribes, while several of the Strange Indians, who were among the four hundred prisoners of that 6th of Sep tember, escaped from their slavery, returned to New England, found their way to the haunts of the Pennacooks and Ossipees, and with the recital of their sufferings assisted him in fan ning the steadily smoldering fires of hate to a fury against their betrayer on that unforgotten day. Nor had Major Waldron endeavored at all to pacify the Indians, in the meantime. His prominent position alone would have ke|;t bis great misdeed fresh in their remembrance, even without his accustomed hot-headed en ergy of action". No little act of bis that could embitter one savage remained untold by an other ; they fancied deceit in all his dealings now, and used to tell that in buying their peltry he would say his own hand weighed a pound, and would lay it on the other scale. He had been in command, too, on a frontier expedition, .where, a conference being held with arms laid aside, Waldron, suspecting foul play, seized the point of a lance which he espied hid be; neatli a board, and, drawing it forth, advanced brandishing it toward the other part^, who had probably concealed it there to be used only in case of a second act of treachery on his own part, and the conference broke up in a skirmish, in which several of the Indians, including a powerful chieftain, were killed, a canoe-full drowned, and five were captured, together with a thousand pounds of dried beef — and another mark was made on the great score which at some time the Indians meant to cross out. Sir Edmund Andros was the Governor of New England now, and in the spring of 1688, fired with ambitious projects or with cupidity, he sailed down the coast in a man-ot'-war, and failing to achieve any other doughty action, plundered, in the absence of its master, the house of the Baron de St. Castine, a French officer, who had married the daughter of the great Tarratinr chief, Modokawando. Castine, uuruiiig with indignaUou, immediately used all his influence, and It was great, to excite the Indians to avenge the injury and insult ; and .from unheeded complaints that their fisheries were obstructed, their corn devoured by cattle, their lands patented without consent, and their trading accounts tampered with, they pro ceeded to reprisal, and the old difficulties broke out afresh. They were all at an end, however, before the next summer. The crop* were in. the Indians went peaceably to and fro through the settlements, their wrongs seemed to be righted, their wounds to be healed ; thir teen years had elapsed since the capture of tne four hundred, the settiers no longer re membered it, the Indians themselves never made allusion to it; Waldron, now nearly eighty years old, but full of vigor, relied securely on his power over the savages, his acquaintance with their character, and his long-acknowledged superiority ; the village, with its five gari ison-houses, into which the neighboring families withdrew at night, but kept no watch, feeling safe behind th% bolted gates of the great timber walls, reposed \Ty an atmosphere of tranquillity and contentment, and no one suspected any guile. It was while affairs were in this comfort able condition that, oibthe 27th of June, 1689, the Indians were observed rambling through the town, on one errand and another, in far more frequent numbers than usual ot than seemed necessary for trade. Many strange laces were among them ; and it was noticed that their sidelong glances scrutinized the de fenses very closely. To more than one house wife a kindly squaw muttered hints of mischief, but so darkly as to give only a vague sense of danger. As night drew near, one or two of the people, a little alarmed, whispered to Major Waldron a fear that evil was in the air. Waldron laughed at them, told them to go and plant their pumpkins, and he would let them know when Ihe Indians were going to break out ; and being warned again at a later liour by a young man, who assured him there was great uneasiness in the settlement, he said he knew the Indians perfectly, and there was not the least occasion for concprn. That night tbe sachem, Mesandouit, was hospitably enter tained at Waldron's table. " Brother Waldron," said he, " what would you do it the Strange Indians were to come now ?" and Waldron carelessly answered that he could assemble a hundred men by tlie lifting of his finger. It is not said whether Mesandouit remained in the garrison-house or not ; but on the same even ing a couple of squaws' requested a night's lodging on the hearth, telling the Major that a company of Indians were encamped a few miles ofl", who were coming to trade their beaver on the next day. Several of the house hold objected to the society of the squaws that night, tiut it being dull weather, Waldron com passionately said, ''Let the poor creaturea lodge by the fire ;" and by-and-by, in total un- suspiclon, setting no watch, and thinking no harm, the family retired to bed, while at three of the remaining garrison-bouses other squaws had obtained entrance and shelter on a similar pretense. Five days before. Major Hinchman, of Chelms ford,* having heard from two friendly Indians a strange story of hostile intentions against Cocheco, had dispatched an urgent letter to ihe Governor acquainting him with the rumor. DO'VEE, 33 At the same time, he -wrote to Mr. Danforth of the Council, and Mr. Danforth instantly for warded the letter, and begged the Governor to lose no time, but to send to Cocheco " on pur pose rather than not at all ;" yet for some imexplained reason — whether the Governor re garded the rumor as Idle, or could do nothing till his Council could be gathered — although Major Hinchman's letter was datedon the 223 of June — it was not till the 27th that any attempt was made to apprise Waldron of his danger. "Boston, 27th Juno, 1G89. "Honorable Sir — The Governor and Council having this day received a letter from Major Hinchman, of Chelmsford, that some Indians are come into them, who report that there Is a gathering of Indians in or about Pennacook, with design of mischief to the English. Among the said Indians one Hawkins is said to be a principal designer, and that they have a par ticular design against yourself and Mr. Peter Coffin, which the Council thought it necessary presently to dispatch advice thereof, to give you notice, that you take care of your own safe guard, they intending to endeavor to betray you on a pretension of trade. " Please forthwith to signifjrthe imnort hereof to Mr. Coffin and others, as you shall think ne cessary, and advise of what Information you may at any time receive of the Indians' motions. " By order in Council, " ISA Addington, ^ec'y. "To Major Richard Waldron and Mr. Peter Coffin, or either of them, at Coebeco ; these with all possible speed.'' "THB INrlANS STOT.B OPP IN THB MOBNINO AND LEFT THE tTTriE GBANDDAUGtrTEE OP MAJOE WAIDBON' COViBED BT TJB BNOW, A10.'