tenuates the crime, is itself in matters of literature a crime of the first order." Of this there can be no question when a writer has the material for obtaining a knowledge of the truth. Of course, if he has the knowledge and conceals it, he is outside the literary pale.

So much for the Dutch Puritans, and for the mode in which the historians of England and America have dealt with them. But their New England brethren have, in some respects, been equally unfortunate; not that they have been overlooked, but by some persons wofully misunderstood, if not wilfully misrepresented.

A leading literary journal of England, not many years ago, contained the following estimate of their character: "The savage brutality of the American Puritans, truthfully told, would afford one of the most significant and profitable lessons that history could teach. Champions of liberty, but merciless and unprincipled tyrants; fugitives from persecution, but the most senseless and reckless of persecutors; claimants of an enlightened religion, but the last upholders of the cruel and ignorant creed of the witch doctors; whining over the ferocity of the Indian, yet outdoing that ferocity a hundred fold; complaining of his treachery, yet, as their descendants have been to this day, treacherous, with a deliberate indifference to plighted faith such as the Indians have seldom shown the ancestors of the heroes of the Revolutionary and of the Civil War might be held up as examples of the power of a Calvinistic religion and a bigoted republicanism to demoralize fair average specimens of a race which, under better influences, has shown itself the least

PREFACE

xlvii cruel, least treacherous, least tyrannical of the master races of the world." *

This is a strong indictment drawn by our British cousins, whose opinions some of us are accustomed to hold in high respect when other people feel their lash. But whatever its source, it, without question, only slightly exaggerates the estimate of the New England Puritans held by a larger number of persons, both in Europe and in the United States. Whether this estimate is correct or not is a question forced on every one who cares for the truth of history; and from some points of view the question is to-day of practical importance.

One mode of meeting such charges is to deny, conceal, or gloss over the facts. How this is done can be seen by consulting some of the histories of New England, where many of the acts of intolerance and cruelty of the early Puritans are concealed, and others are softened down to a few trifling peccadillos. Of course, when the writer of such books is confronted with the records, he has no refuge except in silence. This will not answer. We cannot, by closing our eyes, seal the records to the world. The story which they tell is very dark, especially as to the Quakers and the Indians. It is almost pitiable to see the attempt at its emasculation by writers who, while trying to praise, seem to feel

* The Saturday Review, Jan. 29th, 1881.

+ All the histories are not, however, of this character. That of Hildreth is a notable exception, but it is little read. So, also, is "The Emancipation of Massachusetts," by Brooks Adams.

ashamed of their ancestors. I have sometimes tried to imagine to myself the effect produced among their de scendants if these same ancestors could for a brief time return to earth, and be invested with their old authority. Think of them reading our histories, or at a New England dinner listening to speeches which ascribe to them the virtues which they abhorred, at a sacrifice of those which they held in special honor. Rude and uncivilized enough they were in many things, but they trained up their children to tell the truth and respect their parents.

Such a mode of dealing with the question is not good for the living, nor just to the dead. The truth is always best. In this case it will vindicate Puritanism if the whole of it is told.

The essence of the charge made by the Saturday Review-and this publication, always unfriendly to everything American, is quoted simply because it is the representative of a large class of critics-is that Puritanism was responsible for the actions of some of the New England settlers; that is to say, they were intolerant and sometimes cruel, because they were Calvinists in religion and republicans in politics. But investigation will show that in this, the vital, the enduring question of the controversy, the facts of history do not bear out the charge. In support of this position, there are two entirely distinct lines of argument, each of itself conclusive.

The first deals with the Puritans of Holland. They were, like their New England brethren, Calvinists and republicans. They sealed their devotion to the faith by carrying through a war unparalleled in the history of

arms, and founding a republic which endured for over two centuries. No one who knows their history can question their zeal as Calvinists or their love of liberty as men; but neither at home nor in America do we find them, with their long training in self-government, exhibiting the traits of character which are charged to Puritanism in New England. This alone ought to settle the question forever. It shows that, whatever else may have been the cause, the faults of our New England ancestors are not chargeable to their theological tenets or their love for republican institutions.

The second line of argument is broader in its scope. Admitting all that can be said in truth about the New England Puritans, yet it can be shown from the records of England that their actions were simply those of the Anglo-Saxon race; that, on the whole, its American representatives were far in advance of the men who remained at home, and much earlier freed themselves from superstition and intolerance. In other words, that it was not the Puritan, but the Englishman, who perpetrated the offences against humanity which want of knowledge charges to popular government and a Calvinistic faith.

Thanks to the progress made in historical investigation during the past quarter of a century, the proofs for the establishment of this position are overwhelmingly abundant. They will not be found in the ordinary school histories, nor collected in any English book. Still the records are there, and they are supplemented by the observations of keen-eyed foreigners from all quarters, whose notes and comments have been brought to light

D

in the last few years. In the general rewriting of European history, now in progress, founded not only on new material, but on new modes of investigation, some chapters in that of England will have to be revised, at least for the American reader. Enough, however, has been already done to dispose of the illusion of the "good old times" when the Puritan came into existence. The brilliant fictions woven by the poet and the novelist about the Elizabethan age may make the next period of stern reality, in which the Puritan came into authority, seem harsh and forbidding; but when the light of truth is turned upon those early days, and we see them as they appeared to men living at that time, we shall begin to understand what the modern world owes to English Puritanism, with all its excesses and shortcomings.

It is in this mode of treatment, not by concealing their faults, but by telling the whole truth, and comparing them with their countrymen at home, who had not even the excuse of their intense convictions, that we should seek the vindication of the New England Puritans. Were they alive, they would approve of this course themselves. They asked for no false reputations when on earth. They were great enough, and have done enough for humanity, to stand forth and, like Cromwell, be painted without the concealment of a defect or the exaggeration of a virtue. In some directions they had not travelled very far. They had but faint ideas of civil or religious liberty, as we understand them after two centuries and a half of substantial selfgovernment, or even as they were understood among