C THE HISTORY OF NEW ENGLAND THE CIVIL AND ECCLESIASTICAL CONCERNS, THE GEOGRAPHY, SETTLE- A NEW EDITION, WITH ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS BY THE FORMER EDITOR. VOL. I. Sæpe audivi, Q. Maximum, P. Scipionem, præterea civitatis nostræ præclaros viros, solitos ita dicere, Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1853, by LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY. In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. PREFACE то THIS EDITION. FOR nearly six years Winthrop's History of New England has been out of print. Moved by the steadily increasing interest of liberal minds in studying the original materials of our country's story, I acknowledge the duty of supplying some addition and some correction to the results of my research, bestowed with so high delight on the former edition. Most of the corrections are, indeed, too slight to be set forth here, and may be passed, as they are generally introduced, in silence. Of some it may be better to speak. A change will be observed in the order of several of the family epistles, the most attractive part of the Appendix; and this may be approved, or not, as the judgment of the reader decides on the chronological arrangement, that depended on conjecture in a few cases, to which this change relates. Citation of authorities, in works of this character, is of prime importance; and how the references will be verified, should determine the manner in which they are to be presented. It seemed to me most respectful to students of these pages, who might prefer to search for themselves, to assume that such inquiries would be prosecuted in some public library, where the best editions of the authors to be consulted are to be found; and therefore my special citations from the Magnalia are to be sought in the original London folio, of MDCCII. Whatever value be set on that work of Mather, the learned author may justly claim, that his own division into seven books, with chapters and sections numbered, shall be obeyed, instead of quoting the page of volume I. or II. of a modern 8vo. which, in decency, must preserve the same books, chapter and sections, but otherwise may vary with every caprice. So too my respect for the History of Hutchinson, the great authority for the early annals of Massachusetts, led me to follow the pages of the London edition, though formerly I had cited one of the Boston editions, in which the enumeration is quite diverse from the other. Enlargement of the notes, both in number and substance, needs no specification. Some benefit hasfollowed from one or another in the preceding impression. To have been the means ́of correcting no trifling error in such widely respected authors, as honest Anthony Wood, the generous tory, and honest Andrew Marvell, the uncompromising republican, is some reason for rejoicing; but in charging, Vol. II. 241, the noble editor of Pepys's Memoirs with mistake in the affiliation of Downing, I am taught, by my own lapse, to rejoice with trembling. Emanuel is expressly called, by Hutchinson, Vol. II. 2, "father of Sir George Downing." More than a quarter of a century has been enjoyed the satisfaction of uniting my name, in however humble degree, with that of the ever honored first Governour of the colony of Massachusetts Bay; and I have not slighted the opportunities for enlarging our acquaintance with his early family relations, as they occurred in this country or in England. Want of knowledge about two of the Governour's sons, was especially regretted by his readers. That Mather, our first resort, commonly, for instruction as to the founders of New England, should give no light upon Forth, or the younger sons of the Governour, is less observable than his errors about the eldest, whom he particularly desired to honor, in his biography of the first Governour of the United Colony of Connecticut. |