AUGUST-SEPTEMBER, 1644 man, whereupon he was put in prison with intent to have put him to death, but he escaped, and the woman recovered, but lost her senses. ‘A good time after the Indians brought another Indian whom they charged to have committed that fact, and he upon examination con- fessed it, and gave the reason thereof, and brought forth some of the clothes which he had stolen.“ Upon this the magistrates of New Haven, taking advice of the elders in those parts and some here, did put him to death, The executioner would strike off his head with a falchion,® but he had eight blows at it before he could effect it, and the Indian sat upright and stirred not all the time . . [September]. At the court of assistants, Thomas Morton was called forth presently after the lecture, that the country might be satisfied of “6 There was laid to his charge the justice of our proceeding against him. his complaint against us at the council board, which he denied. Then we (showed that] Morton had set forth a book against us, and had threatened us, and had prosecuted a quo warranto against us, which he did not deny. [Then] his letter was produced, written [in 1634] to Mr. [William] Jeffery, his old acquaintance and intimate friend, in these words. My Very Good Gossi You shall hereby understand that although, when I was first sent to England to make complaint against Ananias and the brethren,” I ef 44. The Indian’s name was Busshege. His attack was one of a series of ambushes triggered by Kieli’s War in New Netherland. The Indians were aiming to kill Dutchmen, but the English in border towns like Stamford were also vulnerable. 45. sword with a curving blade. 46. Morton had been deported to England by the MBC (see 30 Sept. 1630, above), and had worked to revoke the MBC charter. One of his letters against the MBC was intercepted (ee 4 Aug. 1634, above), and in 1637 he published The New English Canaan, attacking the Puritan colonists, Nevertheless, Morton returned to New England in 1643, spending the winter of 1643-1644 at Plymouth, He was arrested by the Massachusetts government around June 1644. 47. Ananias was struck dead for lying (Acts 5:1~ Puritan colleagues are “the brethren.” ). To Morton, JW is Ananias and his 257THE JOURNAL OF JOHN WINTHROP fected the business but superficially (through the brevity of time), I have at this time taken more deliberation and brought the matter to a better pass. And it is thus brought about, that the king hath taken the business into his own hands. The Massachusetts Patent by order of the council was brought in views the privileges there granted well scanned upon, and at the council board in public and in the presence of Sir Richard Saltonstall and the rest it was declared, for manifest abuses there discovered, to be void. The king hath reassumed the whole busi- ness into his own hands, appointed a committee of the board, and given order for a general governor of the whole territory to be sent over. The commission is passed the privy seal, I did see it, and the same was 1 mo. Maii sent to the Lord Keeper to have it pass the great seal for confirmation; and I now stay to return with the governor, by whom all complainants shall have relief:* So that now Jonas being set ashore may safely cry, repent you cruel separatists, repent, there are as yet but forty days.” If Jove vouchsafe to thunder, the charter and kingdom of the separatists will fall asunder. Repent you cruel schismatics, repent . . . And as for Ratcliffe,” he was comforted by their lordships with the cropping of Mr, Winthrop’s ears: which shows what opinion is held amongst them of King Winthrop with all his inventions and his Am- sterdam fantastical ordinances, his preachings, marriages, and other abusive ceremonies, which do exemplify his detestation to the church of England, and the contempt of his majesty’s authority and wholesome 48. Morton is exaggerating the vigor of the royal attack on the New England Puritans. As of May 1634, when this letter was written, the king had only authorized Archbishop Laud’s Commission for Regulating Plantations to supervise the Puritan colonies more closely. This body opened suit for repeal of the MBC charter in 1635 and secured a judgment gaint the company in 1637, whereupon Charles I announced his appointment of Sir Ferdi- nando Gorges as royal governor. But this judgment was invalid, because the MBC officers in America were neither summoned nor convicted, and the king never sent an expeditionary force to New England. See July 1634, June 1635, Sept. 1638, and June 1639, above, 49. Jonah 3:4. 0. Philip Ratcliffe had been banished by the Massachusetts government, and had his ears cropped; see 14 June 1631, above, 258SEPTEMBER, 1644 laws, which are and will be established in those parts. Resting your loving friend. ‘Thomas Morton. Dated 1. mo. Maii, 1634. Having been kept in prison about a year, in expectation of further evidence out of England, he was again called before the court, and after some debate what to do with him he was fined 100 pounds, and set at liberty. He was a charge to the country, for he had nothing, and we thought not fit to inflict corporal punishment upon him, being old and crazy, but thought better to fine him and give him his liberty, as if it had been to procure his fine, but indeed to leave him opportunity to go out of the jursidiction, as he did soon after, and he went to Acomenticus, and living there poor and despised, he died within two years after... [September] 17. The lady La ‘Tour arrived here from London in a ship commanded by Captain Bayley. They had been six months from London, having spent their time in trading about Canada, etc. They met with D’Aulnay near Cape Sable and told him they were bound for the Bay, and had stowed the lady and her people under hatches, so he not knowing it was Captain Bayley, whom he earnestly sought for to have taken or sunk him, he wrote by the master to the deputy governor to this effect: That his master the king of France, understanding that the aid La Tour had here the last year was upon the commission he showed from the Vice Admiral of France, gave him in charge not to molest us for it, but to hold all good correspondency with us and all the English, which he professed he was desirous of, so far as might stand with his duty to his master. Here arrived also Mr. Roger Williams of Providence, and with him 51. Frangoise-Marie Jacquelin, madame de La Tous, had been in France trying to plead her husband's cause. Forbidden to return to Acadia, she went to England and paid Capt. Jolin Bayley and Alderman William Berkeley to take her to her husband's Fort St. Jean. 259THE JOURNAL OF JOHN WINTHROP two or three families.” He brought with him a letter from divers lords and others of the parliament, the copy whereof ensueth. Our Much Honoured Friends: Taking notice, some of us long time, of Mr. Roger Williams his good affections and conscience, and of his sufferings by our common enemies and oppressors of God's people, the prelates, as also of his great industry and travail in his printed Indian labors in your parts, the like whereof we have not seen extant from any part of America, and in which respect it hath pleased both houses of parliament freely to grant unto him and friends with him a free and absolute charter of civil government for those parts of his abode: and withal sorrowfully re- senting, that amongst good men (our friends) driven to the ends of the world, exercised with the trials of a wilderness, and who mutually give good testimony each of other as we observe you do of him and he abundantly of you, there should be such a distance; we thought it fit, upon divers considerations, to profess our great desires of both your utmost endeavours of nearer closing, and of ready expressing of those good affections which we perceive you bear each to other, in the actual performance of all friendly offices, Your true and faithful friends, Northumberland [and eleven other signatures]... 52. Williams had been in England in 1643~1644, and had obtained a patent from Par- liament creating the colony of Providence Plantations—defeating efforts by Thomas Weld, the MBC agent, to annex the Narragansett Bay region to Massachusetts. Before returning home, Williams also secured a letter of safe conduct from 12 members of Parliament, copied here by JW. This letter was necessary to Williams, since he stood under sentence of banishment in Massachusetts. 53. Williams had just published his Key into che Language of America (London, 1643), the first systematic effort by a New England Puritan to interpret the Algonquian language. He also published his famous plea for religious toleration, The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution {for cause of Conscience (London, 1644)—in answer to A Short Story of the Rise, reign and ‘rine of the Antinomians, Familists & Libertines, that infected the Churches of New England (London, 1644), which was a collection of documents gathered by JW seven years earlier to justify the MBC’s persecution of Anne Hutchinson. 54. The MBC dared not quarrel with the 12 men who signed this parliamentary passport.