Biblical Readings and Literary Writings

in Early Modern England, 1558-1625

Victoria Brownlee
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BIBLICAL READINGS AND LITERARY
WRITINGS IN EARLY MODERN
E N G L A N D , 1 5 5 8 –1 6 2 5
 Biblical Readings and
Literary Writings in
Early Modern England,
1558–1625
VICTORIA BROWNLEE

1
 3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,
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First Edition published in 2018
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For Andy, with love
 Acknowledgements

The research for this book began during my doctoral work at Queen’s
University Belfast. This early research was generously funded by an
AHRC Doctoral Award and enriched by discussions with staff and post-
graduates in the School of English. I am deeply grateful to Adrian Streete
who was an outstanding supervisor to my doctoral research. In 2007 I was
privileged to be one of four students in an MA module convened by
Adrian on literature and religion. I can trace the idea for this project to that
class, and to my engagement with Adrian’s important research. Since then,
I have benefited enormously from Adrian’s wisdom, advice, and readings,
and I am grateful for his continuing support and interest in my work.
Mark Burnett and Ramona Wray were my chief encouragers as an
undergraduate at Queen’s. Their classes were a joy, and I was fortunate
to benefit from their insight throughout my graduate studies.
Without my year as an Irish Research Council post-doctoral fellow at
University College Dublin this book might yet be unfinished. During that
time Danielle Clarke was an enthusiastic and inspiring mentor, and an
endless source of knowledge and encouragement. Danielle’s rigorous
engagement with the arguments in this book, and her professional advice,
support, and friendship have been instrumental to the completion of
this project.
I am grateful for the support of my colleagues in the Department of
English at NUI Galway, especially Dan Carey, Marie-Louise Coolahan,
Lindsay Reid, Sean Ryder, and Elizabeth Tilley, as well as for conversa-
tions with colleagues further afield, particularly Dermot Cavanagh, Laura
Gallagher, Jane Grogan, Stephen O’Neill, Michele Osherow, Emma
Rhatigan, and Shelley Troope. I would also like to thank warmly the
two anonymous readers at Oxford University Press for the considerable
time invested in reading and commenting on these pages. This book is
better for their suggestions.
I am thankful for the assistance of the fantastic editors and staff at
Oxford University Press, and to the University of Chicago Press for
permission to reproduce material that appeared in ‘Literal and Spiritual
Births: Mary as Mother in Seventeenth-Century Women’s Writing’,
Renaissance Quarterly 68.4 (2015): 1297–1326, in Chapter 5 of this
book (© 2015 Renaissance Society of America. All rights reserved).
viii Acknowledgements
My deepest thanks are owed to my family. My mum, Roberta Brownlee,
impressed upon me the importance of reading at a young age, and provided
the resources for me learn. David Brownlee, Matthew Brownlee, Stephen
Carroll, and Adeline and Roy Fleming have, in different ways, inquired
about the progress of this project faithfully, and Naomi Reaney has listened
and encouraged on more occasions than I can recall. My greatest debt is
to Andy Carroll, who has cheered, consoled, discussed, and distracted
since the beginning, and whose support for this book has been unwavering.
To Reuben and Martha, you have provided joy and perspective in more
ways than you know.
Victoria Brownlee
 Contents

List of Illustrations xi
Note to the Reader xiii

Introduction 1
1. ‘The engrafted word’: Reading and Receiving the Scriptures
in Early Modern England 14
2. ‘Our King Salomon’: Biblical Typology and the Kingship
of Solomon in Tudor and Stuart England 49
3. A Tale of Two Jobs: Reading Suffering, Providence, and
Restoration in King Leir and King Lear 79
4. ‘By moste sweete and comfortable allegories’: Discerning
Spiritual Signs in the Song of Songs 113
5. Typologies of Marian Maternity: Literal and Spiritual Birth
in Seventeenth-Century Women’s Writing 143
6. Reading Revelations: Figuring the End in Post-Reformation
Literary Culture 169
Afterword 211

Select Bibliography 215

Index Locorum 247
Index 249
 List of Illustrations
2.1. ‘Regni Angloisraelitici Typus’, from Thomas Morton, Salomon or
A treatise declaring the state of the kingdome of Israel (1596 M88). 53
2.2. ‘Solomon and the Queen of Sheba’, c.1535, by Hans Holbein
the Younger. 60
3.1. ‘The burning of Martyr Laurence Saunders at Couentry’, from
John Foxe, Actes and Monuments (RB 59843). 91
6.1. The Whore of Babylon, from Martin Luther, Das Newe
Testament Deutzsch. 179
6.2. The Pope on the seven-headed beast, from Patrick Forbes, An
exquisite commentarie vpon the Reuelation of Saint Iohn (RB 20180). 181
 Note to the Reader

Original spelling and punctuation has been retained in quotations and in titles
of early printed works. Unless otherwise noted, all biblical references are to the
1587 edition of the Geneva Bible: The Bible that is, the Holy Scriptures contained in
the Olde and Newe Testament (London: Christopher Barker, 1587).
 Introduction

OH that I knew how all thy lights combine,

And the configurations of their glorie!
Seeing not onely how each verse doth shine,
But all the constellations of the storie.
This verse marks that, and both do make a motion
Unto a third, that ten leaves off doth lie:
Then as dispersed herbs do watch a potion,
These three make up some Christians destinie:
Such are thy secrets, which my life makes good,
And comments on thee: for in ev’ry thing
Thy words do finde me out, & parallels bring,
And in another make me understood.
Starres are poore books, & oftentimes do misse:
This book of starres lights to eternall blisse.1

For a book examining the relationship between biblical reading and the
literature of the early modern period, George Herbert’s ‘The Holy Scrip-
tures (II)’ is an evocative reminder of literary interest in matters of biblical
interpretation. Herbert’s sonnet ruminates on a core principle of reformed
hermeneutics, namely, that the Bible is a collection of constellated writ-
ings that speak of one story, ‘the storie’. The unifying metanarrative that
the sonnet’s opening quatrain celebrates is the life and death of Christ,
who identified himself in the Gospels as the one written of in ‘the Lawe of
Moses, and in the Prophets and in the Psalmes’ (Luke 24:44). Herbert’s
poetic meditation on scripture’s Christological ligatures conveys much to
us of early modern attitudes towards biblical reading. Of particular rele-
vance to this book is the case made for typological reading. The compari-
son of scripture with itself and with history reveals a ‘motion’, as Herbert
terms it, that stretches across biblical history and into the present.2

1
George Herbert, The Temple Sacred poems and private ejaculations (Cambridge: Thom.
Buck, and Roger Daniel, 1633), 50–1.
2
For an explanation of typology as a reading practice in this period, see pp. 28–35.
2 Biblical Readings and Literary Writings, 1558–1625
Read in this way, the scriptures speak of ‘Christians destinie’ and ‘me’, as
well as Christ.
The belief that the Bible’s narratives were prefigurative of the present
was a compelling one in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and it is
with this dominant supposition of early modern biblical reading that this
book is concerned. Biblical Readings and Literary Writings in Early Modern
England, 1558–1625 considers how the Bible was read and applied to
individual and national circumstances, and maps the connection between
these readings and various forms of writing.3 It argues that drama, poetry,
and life writings, as well as sermons and biblical commentaries, bear the
hallmarks of the period’s dominant reading practices, and do interpret-
ative work. In tracing the impact of biblical reading across a range of early
modern writing, this book also demonstrates that literary reimaginings of,
and allusions to, the Bible were common, varied, and ideologically evoca-
tive. As the chapters that follow illustrate the extent to which early modern
literature participated in theological debate and articulated innovative
programmes of exegesis, this book attests to the Bible’s extraordinary
impact on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century culture more generally.
The Bible was, as Hannibal Hamlin puts it, ‘the age’s most important
book’, and in recent decades the field of early modern studies has become
much more attuned to the precise nature of scripture’s profound influence.4
Investigations into the circulation of the Geneva Bible, printed in England
from 1576, and the 1611 Authorized Version Bible, have shown that the
Bible was the book most likely to be owned in English households, and
traced how the availability of the scriptures in the vernacular contributed to
significant developments in domestic reading practices.5 It is clear that
Bible-reading and attendance at sermons shaped the education, religious

3
The literary works considered by this book emerge during the reigns of Queen
Elizabeth I and King James I & VI; yet, I have endeavoured throughout, where appropriate,
to acknowledge how these writings engage with earlier and later traditions of biblical
interpretation. Equally, although the literary writings that I address were published or
performed in England, my discussion of the period’s exegetical culture frequently addresses
interpretative trends across Europe as a means of acknowledging the continuities, and
fissures, in post-Reformation readings of scripture.
4
Hannibal Hamlin, The Bible in Shakespeare (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 3.
5
William Sherman, Used Books: Marking Readers in Renaissance England (Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), 72; Femke Molekamp, Women and the Bible in
Early Modern England: Religious Reading and Writing (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2013), 11, 19–50. See also Gordon Campbell, Bible: The Story of the King James Version,
1611–2011 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010); Hannibal Hamlin and Norman
W. Jones, eds., The King James Bible after 400 Years: Literary, Linguistic, and Cultural
Influences (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010); Euan Cameron, ed., The New
Cambridge History of the Bible: Volume 3, From 1450 to 1750 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2016).
 Introduction 3
beliefs, and day-to-day routines of individuals, and that the devotional
habits of the laity could include various modes of reading.6 The growing
interest in early modern devotional practices has demonstrated the particu-
lar importance of writing to biblical reading habits in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries.7 Bible-reading frequently involved annotating
scripture’s margins, compiling commonplace books and note-making
on sermons and spiritual conversations. These kinds of active reading
habits were practised routinely by literate women, as well as men, as
Femke Molekamp’s study of female devotional habits has shown. ‘Private
Bible reading’, Molekamp explains, ‘was sometimes accompanied by
rigorous acts of writing . . . the literate reader might annotate the scrip-
tures and printed marginalia as she digested them.’8 Certainly, biblical
reading was generative in early modern England—those who could read
the Bible frequently did so with pen in hand.
The kinds of writing induced by Bible-reading in early modern England
were richly varied. Beyond markings and annotations, biblical read-
ing shaped the information recorded in diaries, life writings, and advice
manuals. Many such writings cite and encourage daily Bible-reading
habits and contain religious reflection. Others, like Richard Stonley’s
diary, capture habitual reading through the transcription of a portion of
biblical text before each entry.9 Cultures of biblical reading are also
traceable in the period’s poetic writings. The Bible informs the structure
and imagery of meditative poetry by writers including Anne Wheathill
and Robert Aylett, as well as Passion poems, devotional lyrics, and epics.
The Bible’s impact on poets such as Mary Sidney, George Herbert, and
John Milton has been established in several important studies, but there
remains a sizeable chunk of biblical verse that has been little explored.10

6
On daily habits of Bible-reading see Naomi Tadmor, The Social Universe of the English
Bible: Scripture, Society, and Culture in Early Modern England (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2010); Kate Narveson, Bible Readers and Lay Writers in Early Modern
England: Gender and Self-Definition in an Emergent Writing Culture (Farnham: Ashgate,
2012); Molekamp, Women and the Bible, 84–118; Alec Ryrie, Being Protestant in Reforma-
tion Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 259–92. For consideration of early
modern sermon culture see Arnold Hunt, The Art of Hearing: English Preachers and their
Audiences, 1590–1640 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010); Mary Morrissey,
Politics and the Paul’s Cross Sermons, 1558–1642 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011);
Peter McCullough, Hugh Adlington, and Emma Rhatigan, eds., The Oxford Handbook of
the Early Modern Sermon (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).
7
See Sherman, Used Books; Narveson, Bible Readers; Molekamp, Women and the Bible,
51–150.
8
Molekamp, Women and the Bible, 34.
9
Stonley’s diary is in the Folger Shakespeare Library, MS V.a.459–61.
10
Scholars who have considered the Bible’s influence on these poets include: Danielle
Clarke, The Politics of Early Modern Women’s Writings (Harlow: Longman, 2001), 127–47;
Hannibal Hamlin, Psalm Culture in Early Modern English Literature (Cambridge:
4 Biblical Readings and Literary Writings, 1558–1625
The Sidney Psalms aside, biblical verse paraphrase is particularly neglected
by literary scholars, despite the popularity of this genre among sixteenth-
and seventeenth-century poets and readers. One consequence of the
critical marginalization of biblical verse is the side-lining of a great deal
of writing by early modern women; another is a distorted impression of
the output of some prolific and popular writers.11 The paraphrases of
women including Mary Roper and Anne Southwell deserve further study,
as does the biblical poetry of William Baldwin and Frances Quarles.
Although the biblical paraphrases penned by Quarles in the 1620s have
been dismissed as pious, these poems, as Adrian Streete points out, make
up a significant portion of Quarles’ canon and warrant scrutiny alongside
his better-known Caroline works.12 Streete has shown that some of
Quarles’ biblical paraphrases offer sharp critique of the religious politics
at the end of James’ reign, while others, like Sions Sonets (1625), which
I consider in Chapter 4, confront complex questions about the represen-
tative process and the limitations of language.13
While there remains much work to do on the period’s explicitly biblical
literature, biblical drama has fared somewhat better than poetry in recent
critical history. Paul Whitfield White has demonstrated that biblical plays
addressing Old Testament patriarchs and the Passion narratives, as well as
parts of the Mystery Cycles, provided regular entertainment across rural

Cambridge University Press, 2004), 85–147; Michele Osherow, Biblical Women’s Voices in
Early Modern England (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), 11–43; Margaret P. Hanney, ‘Re-
revealing the Psalms: Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke and her Early Modern Readers’,
in Psalms in the Early Modern World, ed. Linda P. Austern, Kari B. McBride, and David
L. Orvis (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011), 219–34; Barbara K. Lewalski, Protestant Poetics and the
Seventeenth-Century Religious Lyric (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979); Alison
Knight, ‘ “This verse marks that”: George Herbert’s The Temple and Scripture in Context’,
in The Oxford Handbook of the Bible in Early Modern England, c.1530–1700, ed. Kevin
Killeen, Helen Smith, and Rachel Willie (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 518–32;
James H. Sims, The Bible in Milton’s Epics (Gainesville, FL: University of Florida Press,
1962); Mary Ann Radzinowicz, Milton’s Epics and the Book of Psalms (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1989); Philip J. Donnelly, Milton’s Scriptural Reasoning: Narrative and
Protestant Toleration (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).
11
Notable exceptions include Adrian Streete, ‘Frances Quarles’ Early Poetry and the
Discourses of Jacobean Spenserianism’, Journal of the Northern Renaissance 1.1 (Spring
2009): 88–108, and Sarah C. E. Ross, ‘Epic, Meditation, or Sacred History? Women and
Biblical Verse Paraphrase in Seventeenth-Century England’, in The Oxford Handbook of the
Bible, ed. Killeen, Smith, and Willie, 483–97.
12
See, for example, the comments about Quarles’ Jacobean poetry in Karl Josef Hölt-
gen, ‘Quarles, Francis (1592–1644)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, Jan. 2008), <http://www.oxforddnb.com/
view/article/22945>, accessed 30 Sept. 2016. For a useful overview of Quarles’ critical
history see Streete, ‘Frances Quarles’ Early Poetry’, 88–95.
13
See Streete, ‘Frances Quarles’ Early Poetry’, and pp. 130–6 in this volume.
 Introduction 5
England until the mid-seventeenth century.14 Inside London there was an
audience for biblical drama too. A flurry of plays reimagining biblical
narratives were performed on public stages at the turn of the sixteenth
century, and some of these plays, like George Peele’s The Love of King
David and Fair Bethsabe (c.1581–94), were replayed countless times.15
Michele Ephraim and Beatrice Groves’ attention to stage dramas devoted
to the narratives of Deborah, Esther, Rachel, and Jonah has illustrated the
cultural significance and political bent of some biblical plays, and Peele’s
play, which I explore in Chapter 2, is no exception.16 The representation
of court politics and succession in David and Bethsabe reminds that
although biblical dramas frequently appear, from their titles, to offer
straightforward retellings of scripture, these plays must be understood to
offer readings of scripture. The movement from biblical page to another
medium necessarily involves elements of reconstruction or renovation.
The act of rewriting the scriptures is, as this book explores, always an
interpretative one.
Biblical Readings and Literary Writings is interested in the interpretative
work undertaken in biblically inspired plays and poems, but also in biblical
readings that occur on a more subtle, ideological level in the period’s
writings. Biblical imagery and allusions are embedded regularly within
ostensibly secular narratives. This has been shown to be the case in much
of Shakespeare’s work, where the study of biblical allusion is an established
and vibrant field of study. Biblical and religious references in Shakespeare’s
plays have been catalogued, direct and indirect allusions to scriptural
imagery and language have been traced across individual plays, and the
Bible has also been discussed in the context of wider considerations of
Shakespeare’s religious beliefs and engagement with Christian doctrine.17

14
Paul Whitfield White, Drama and Religion in English Provincial Society, 1485–1660
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008).
15
For a list of these plays see pp. 17–19, and for more on Peele’s popular play, see pp. 73–8.
16
Michelle Ephraim, Reading the Jewish Woman on the Elizabethan Stage (Aldershot:
Ashgate, 2008); Beatrice Groves, ‘ “They repented at the preachyng of Ionas: and beholde, a
greater then Ionas is here”: A Looking Glass for London and England, Hosea and the
Destruction of Jerusalem’, in Early Modern Drama and the Bible: Contexts and Readings,
1570–1625, ed. Adrian Streete (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 139–59.
17
Some notable book-length studies that have considered biblical usage in Shakespeare
include Roland Mushat Frye, Shakespeare and Christian Doctrine (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1963); James H. Sims, Dramatic Uses of Biblical Allusions in Marlowe and
Shakespeare (Gainesville, FL: University of Florida Press, 1966); Naseeb Shaheen, Biblical
References in Shakespeare’s Plays (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1999); R. Chris
Hassel, Shakespeare’s Religious Language: A Dictionary (New York: Continuum, 2005);
Steven Marx, Shakespeare and the Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000); Beatrice
Groves, Texts and Traditions: Religion in Shakespeare, 1592–1604 (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 2004); Hamlin, The Bible in Shakespeare.
6 Biblical Readings and Literary Writings, 1558–1625
Most recently, Hamlin has argued in his book-length investigation into
biblical allusions in Shakespeare’s plays that ‘no book is alluded to more
often, more thoroughly, or with more complexity and significance than the
Bible’.18 Although scholarship addressing scripture’s literary impact in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries has focused disproportionately on
Shakespeare, the Bible’s influence on a wider range of commercial theatre
is becoming better established. We now know that playwrights including
Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Heywood, Philip Massinger, Thomas
Dekker, and John Webster invoked biblical imagery, narratives, and
text in their works in a variety of ways for different purposes.19 What
scholarship on the Bible in drama has made clear is that the scriptures
were ideologically evocative in early modern England—‘even a brief
allusion to a biblical story’, as Groves explains, ‘could open up a fund
of associations, ambiguities and analogies’ to audiences and readers.20
That there is a strong and discernible relationship between the Bible
and literature in this period is in no doubt, and yet there is still work to be
done on the particularities of this relationship. To this end, Biblical
Readings and Literary Writings examines not simply those passages of
scripture commonly read and used in literary writings, but how they
were read, reworked, and applied. Biblical interpretation, that is, the effort
to understand what the Bible means, was central to early modern under-
standing of the world and its effects are visible across a variety of contem-
porary thought. Since Deborah K. Shuger illuminated the shaping
influence of biblical scholarship on politics, gender, and subjectivity in
The Renaissance Bible (1994), others have shown how developments in
Christian humanism and the English language were indebted to the
vernacular scriptures, and traced the effect of biblical reading on science
and understanding of the natural world.21 Book-length studies by Chris-
topher Hill, Achsah Guibbory, Elizabeth Clarke, and Kevin Killeen have
illustrated the Bible’s pervasive presence in early modern politics.22 It is

18
Hamlin, The Bible in Shakespeare, 3.
19
See, for example, the essays gathered in Early Modern Drama and the Bible, ed.
Streete, as well as Victoria Brownlee, ‘Imagining the Enemy: Protestant Readings of the
Whore of Babylon in Early Modern England, c.1580–1625’, in Biblical Women in Early
Modern Literary Culture, ed. Victoria Brownlee and Laura Gallagher (Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 2014), 213–33.
20
Groves, Texts and Traditions, 25.
21
Deborah K. Shuger, The Renaissance Bible: Scholarship, Sacrifice, and Subjectivity
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994). See also Brian Cummings, The Literary
Culture of the Reformation: Grammar and Grace (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002);
Kevin Killeen and Peter Forshaw, eds., The Word and the World: Biblical Exegesis and Early
Modern Science (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).
22
Christopher Hill, The English Bible and the Seventeenth-Century Revolution (London:
Allen Lane; New York: Penguin Press, 1993); Achsah Guibbory, Christian Identity: Jews &
 Introduction 7
now clear that the scriptures invaded a large and diverse corpus of political
writings—sermons, tracts, and treatises, as well as poetry and plays—and
images too, as several chapters in this book attest, disseminated biblical-
political ideas to significant effect. Killeen’s neat summation that ‘the
scriptures provided both a sledgehammer and a scalpel for political ana-
lysis, amenable to subtle as well as crude deployment’ is applicable across a
variety of media.23 The amalgam of uses to which the Bible could be put is
clear in debates about female silence. Michele Osherow has argued that
early modern women and men found that the Bible authorized a ‘freedom
to resist’ and a means of celebrating the female voice through ‘the
rhetorically powerful women scattered throughout the Bible’s pages’.24
Certainly, Dorothy Leigh, whose maternal advice text, The Mothers Bless-
ing (1616), is examined in Chapter 5, looks to a catalogue of biblical
women to authorize her writing, but she also identifies with the apostle
Paul, using his words in Galatians to fashion her voice.25 Aside from
studies that have illustrated the Bible’s importance to women who wrote,
several Marian scholars have weighed the impact of the Gospels on early
modern ideas of suffering and grief, while Streete, Ephraim, and Guibbory
have demonstrated the extent to which the scriptures were enmeshed with
conceptualizations of identity and subjectivity in this period.26
My study builds on these approaches in recognizing that Bible-reading
fed into writing on almost all fields of knowledge in this period, and that
cultures of biblical reading were inflected by the concerns and circumstances

Israel in Seventeenth-Century England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010); Elizabeth

Clarke, Politics, Religion and the Song of Songs in Seventeenth-Century England (Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2011); Kevin Killeen, The Political Bible in Early Modern England
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016).
23
Kevin Killeen, ‘Hanging up Kings: The Political Bible in Early Modern England’,
Journal of the History of Ideas 72.4 (2011): 549–70 (551). See also Killeen’s ‘Chastising with
Scorpions: Reading the Old Testament in Early Modern England’, Huntington Library
Quarterly 75.3 (2010): 491–506.
24
Osherow, Biblical Women’s Voices, 9. For scripture’s importance to women writers
see also Molekamp, Women and the Bible; Clarke, Politics, Religion and the Song of Songs,
134–73.
25
Dorothy Leigh, The mothers blessing. Or the godly counsaile of a gentle-woman not
long since deceased (London: Iohn Budge, 1616), 9–12. For Leigh’s reading of biblical
women, see pp. 143–68.
26
On Mary see, for example, Helen Hackett, Virgin Mother, Maiden Queen: Elizabeth
I and the Cult of the Virgin Mary (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995); Gary Waller, The
Virgin Mary in Late Medieval and Early Modern English Literature and Popular Culture
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011); as well as the essays in Regina Buccola
and Lisa Hopkins, eds., Marian Moments in Early Modern British Drama (Farnham:
Ashgate, 2007). See too Ephraim, Reading the Jewish Woman; Adrian Streete, Protestantism
and Drama in Early Modern England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009);
Guibbory, Christian Identity.
8 Biblical Readings and Literary Writings, 1558–1625
of individual readers. The chapters that follow elucidate the extent to which
biblical interpretation was wedded to the realities of everyday life in early
modern England. Herbert’s sonnet speaks to this assumed relationship by
stating that reading the Bible involves ascertaining how scripture’s words
find ‘parallel’ with the circumstances of individual readers. The challenges
and blessings of the people of Israel, the sufferings of Job and the Psalmist,
and curses lavished on the enemies of God were for many readers the
normal means of understanding, and commenting upon, national, local,
domestic, and personal circumstances.
Christopher Hill’s now famous description of the Bible as a ‘huge
bran-tub from which anything might be drawn’ pithily captures scrip-
ture’s perceived relevance to all aspects of early modern life, and speaks to
the seemingly arbitrary nature of this applicatory process from a modern
standpoint.27 Yet, for early modern readers, the process by which scrip-
ture’s contemporary relevance was discerned was no haphazard lottery.
Indeed, so seriously was biblical reading taken in this period that some
individuals were willing to die for the right to read and interpret the
scriptures.28 Chapter 1 makes clear the seriousness with which Bible-
reading was undertaken in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Com-
plex calendars of reading, cross-referencing systems, memory aids, and the
tradition of scriptural commonplacing supported the painstaking effort of
many readers to discern scripture’s personal relevance. Of course, the fact
that readers understood the interpretative process to be divinely guided by
the Holy Spirit lent credibility to this interpretative pursuit, and meant
that a variety of applications could be brought to bear on a single text
without being considered contradictory. For early modern readers of
scripture, a single biblical narrative could contain concurrent identifica-
tions without difficulty.
This book investigates the diverse uses to which biblical texts were put
in this period and, to that end, is structured around five popularly
interpreted biblical narratives. In this regard, this book differs from the
majority of previous investigations of the relationship between literature
and the Bible that have clustered around a particular author or genre.29

27
Hill, The English Bible, 5.
28
For the relationship between Bible-reading and martyrdom in this period see James
Simpson, Burning to Read: English Fundamentalism and its Reformation Opponents
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), esp. 10–33.
29
See note 17 for a list of titles that have focused on drama, and particularly Shake-
speare’s work. Although research on the early modern Bible has disproportionately centred
on drama, scholarly awareness of biblical usage in other genres is growing. A number of
works have explored the relationship between poetry and the Bible, particularly the Book of
Psalms, such as Rivak Zim, English Metrical Psalms: Poetry as Praise and Prayer, 1535–1601
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987); Hamlin, Psalm Culture; Beth Quitslund,
 Introduction 9
Taking a biblical text or figure as my starting point in each chapter,
I explore scripture’s shared and varied applications by a range of writers
working across a variety of genres. My aim, however, is not to offer an
encyclopaedic record of biblical use. Rather, as suggested earlier, I am
interested in exploring the diverse ways that biblical texts were read and
applied, and in the interpretative practices that facilitate mapping the
biblical past on to the early modern present. The biblical texts and figures
addressed in Biblical Readings and Literary Writings received widespread
attention in the century of writing considered by this book, and this
popularity accounts, in part, for their inclusion in this study. My selec-
tions have been influenced by the work of previous critics too. I have not,
for example, considered the Book of Psalms, as recent scholarship has
made clear that the Psalms were sung, paraphrased, and rewritten with
staggering frequency across the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and
traced the wider influence of this biblical book on early modern culture.30
The biblical texts and figures selected for inclusion in this volume have
also been shaped by my desire to showcase the diverse fields of knowledge
that biblical reading informed. Biblical hermeneutics was a buoyant and
varied field of discussion that influenced most other intellectual discip-
lines. The chapters that follow demonstrate how interpretation of the
scriptures informed domestic politics and foreign policy, underpinned
how history and language were conceptualized, and shaped attitudes
towards bodily suffering and childbearing.
The Bible’s centrality to such discussions reinforces that early modern
readers did not approach scripture’s sacred narratives as remote histories.
Instead, the Bible was understood to record a history that was, as Killeen
observes, ‘omnipresent’.31 The narratives of scripture, although historical
in their own right, were understood to be prefigurative of the present. In
subsequent chapters I examine the exegetical principles that underpin the
shuffle between biblical past and early modern present, and facilitate the
recapitulation of the Bible’s narratives within myriad contemporary
debates and literary contexts. In this regard, biblical typology emerges as
an interpretative tool that was fundamental to the application of scripture

The Reformation in Rhyme: Sternhold, Hopkins and the English Metrical Psalter, 1547–1603
(Farnham: Ashgate, 2008). See also Thomas Luxon’s consideration of John Bunyan’s prose
writings, Literal Figures: Puritan Allegory and the Reformation Crisis in Representation
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), and Clarke’s Religion, Politics and the Song
of Songs.
30
See, for example, Zim, English Metrical Psalms; Hamlin, Psalm Culture; Quitslund,
The Reformation in Rhyme; Austern, McBride, and Orvis, eds., Psalms in the Early
Modern World.
31
Killeen, ‘Chastising with Scorpions’, 493.
10 Biblical Readings and Literary Writings, 1558–1625
to the present. This manner of reading the scriptures prioritized the
connectedness of the Old and New Testaments and sought to ascertain
the bonds between this sacred history and the present. My interest in the
use of typology to discern ‘constellations’ across Christian history has also
led to the scrutiny of a key hermeneutic principle of the reformers,
namely, that scripture has, as William Tyndale put it, but ‘one sence
which is ye literall sence’.32 Several of the chapters that follow suggest that
biblical typology was a more figural and contested reading practice than
the literally minded reformers claimed it to be. Figurative and highly
symbolic readings of the scriptures abound in Protestant commentary,
and allegory—a reading practice much maligned by reformers—could, as
Chapters 4 and 6 make clear, have its uses. With this in mind, Biblical
Readings and Literary Writings argues for a brand of Protestant literalism
that was much more flexible and capacious than the soundbites of
reformed hermeneutics imply.
Although many of the writers included in this book can be termed
‘Protestant’, or be said to be in broad agreement with the central tenets of
reformed theology, writers are addressed whose confessional stance is
ambiguous.33 Shakespeare is a case in point. He has been labelled Catholic
and Protestant, and, as Hamlin notes, identified as an atheist and a Jew.34
While the religious outlook of well-known writers is an avenue of study
that continues to pique critical interest, ascertaining the confessional
beliefs or doctrinal particularities of individual authors is not an objective
of this book. Early modern writers, irrespective of their religious beliefs,
can be familiar with, and influenced by, popular reformed interpretations
of scripture, and by the broader Protestant imperative to read and apply
the scriptures to the present. To this end, as this study considers how
various writers read Solomon, Job, and Christ’s mother, Mary, and the
narratives of the Song of Songs and Book of Revelation, it elucidates how

32
William Tyndale, The Obedie[n]ce of a Christian man and how Christe[n] rulers ought to
governe (Antwerp: J. Hoochstraten, 1528), R2v.
33
I use the terms ‘reformed’, ‘Protestant’, and ‘Protestantism’ in this book as a means of
referring to a religious outlook that, however fragmented by the understanding of the
Eucharist or the limits of free will, was theologically distinct from Catholicism. Reformed
theology, or Protestantism, maintained a belief in the key doctrines of justification by faith,
the power of grace to save the elect, sola scriptura, rejection of intermediaries between man
and God, and a broadly defined anti-Catholicism. This list is not designed to be exhaustive
but merely serves to demonstrate key points of general agreement in reformed thinking. For
this list of the central tenets of reformed theology I rely on Streete’s Protestantism and
Drama, 9.
34
Hamlin, The Bible in Shakespeare, 2, and see 3, 9–16 for an overview of these
arguments, and 43–76 for an overview of the various studies addressing Shakespeare’s
confessional beliefs.
 Introduction 11
Protestant interpretative practices shape literary constructions of a range
of theological, political, and social debates.
With the exception of the first chapter, which takes a broad look at the
reception and circulation of the Bible, the chapters have been ordered
according to biblical sequence. This format is designed to reflect how the
Bible was read typologically from Old Testament to New. That said,
individual chapters regularly cross-reference a variety of biblical texts in
line with trends in early modern exegetical practices. The conventions of
early modern Bible-reading and the influence of the period’s exegetical
culture are the subject of Chapter 1. Lay engagement with the scriptures in
this period could take place through traditional modes of Bible-reading, or
via non-textual media such as public sermons, catechizing, household
readings, as well as biblically inspired drama, ballads, and songs. The
question of how the Bible was to be read in early modern England is
central in the first chapter, which addresses the emphasis on sequential and
typological reading, and the complexity of the reformers’ literal claims.
The ideological scrutiny of reformed reading practices continues in
Chapter 2 as part of an investigation into the importance of King Solomon
to visual conceptions of monarchical authority after the break with Rome.
Although popular, figurations of England’s monarchs as antitypes of
Solomon were complex and exegetically demanding, not least because
Solomon ended his life as an idolater. Unsurprisingly, contemporary
applications of Solomon’s narrative use this biblical text selectively. Yet,
when scrutinized more closely, many such readings struggle to occlude
fully the unhappy death of scripture’s famously wise king. Attention turns
in Chapter 3 to the Old Testament figure of Job, and to a consideration of
the resonance of his biblical narrative amid a climate of religious persecu-
tion in Europe. Job’s narrative was typically understood to mark bodily
suffering as test of faith and, for many readers, affirmed that their suffer-
ing, like Job’s, was divinely authorized for a finite period of time. A wave
of theological and literary writings affirm the remarkable impact of the
Joban trajectory of suffering in early modern culture. Shakespeare’s King
Lear is no exception. Yet, instead of upholding the Joban paradigm of
eventual restoration, this play is notable for its deliberate disruption of the
typological process of promise and fulfilment, and for its shocking inver-
sion of established exegetical traditions of suffering more generally.
Chapter 4 concludes consideration of the Old Testament with the Song
of Songs. This biblical book, as a poetic dialogue between two lovers,
presented literally minded biblical commentators with a thorny exegetical
dilemma: either accept the presence of a purely erotic text in scripture, or
make the case for a literal reading that was figurative. Like early modern
exegesis of the Song, poetic recapitulations of this biblical book rely on
12 Biblical Readings and Literary Writings, 1558–1625
complex figural reading practices to substantiate a spiritual meaning not
directly implied by the biblical text. But this dependence on human words
to secure the relationship between sign and spiritually signified exposes
reformed anxieties about the inherently fallen nature of the human mind,
and the broader inadequacy of language to articulate spiritual truth.
In Chapter 5 focus shifts to the New Testament, and to female readings
of the fleshly connection between Christ and his mother, Mary. For
Aemilia Lanyer and Dorothy Leigh, Mary’s material labour had spiritual
consequences because, in delivering Christ, she delivered God’s plan for
salvation and inaugurated the new covenant which atones for Eve’s sin.
Yet a typological reading of the scriptures also allows these writers to
suggest that the new covenant initiates a form of maternity that has,
within the Christological dispensation, profound spiritual resonance. For
if, as Salve Deus and The Mothers Blessing advocate, the Bible is read
typologically, Mary’s maternity becomes a mechanism of deliverance for
all women, and inaugurates a form of maternity rich in spiritual issue and
consequence.
Fittingly, Biblical Readings and Literary Writings concludes with a
consideration of the end-point of typological history, apocalypse. The
discussion of the Book of Revelation in Chapter 6 focuses on the ways
in which the ongoing struggle between Protestantism and Catholicism was
filtered through an eschatological lens. Post-Reformation interpretation of
this biblical book claimed a special revelation, one that understood the
historic juncture of religious change as the final battle between good and
evil. Within this schema, the narratives and figures of this biblical book
became a mechanism to delineate Protestantism visually and ideologically
from Catholicism, and not just within sermons, biblical commentaries,
and woodcuts. The work of Spenser, Dekker, and Middleton illuminates
the extent to which drama and poetry participated in the extrapolation of
Revelation’s meaning for the present. Yet these literary interpretations also
point up the intrinsic difficulty of reading Revelation’s apocalypse in
relation to the early modern present, namely, the progression of time. In
revelations that are fractured, obscured, and stalled, these reimaginings of
apocalypse question if the final typological uncovering will be delayed
indefinitely.
Together these chapters showcase the extent to which Bible-reading was
rooted in the practical reality of early modern life. The words of scripture,
made available through public sermons, plays, and ballads, as well as
private study, were an instinctive means for many individuals of under-
standing the world around them. Bible-readers understood their rulers,
their enemies, and themselves through a series of ideologically inscribed
biblical narratives, and the prevalence of such associative readings reveals
 Introduction 13
the extent to which Protestantism, for all its insistence on literalism,
remained reliant on figures. The societal impact of the reformers’ inter-
pretative practices is detectable in the period’s cultural output, in which
the dominant reading strategies and principles of Protestantism contribute
to, and problematize, literary constructions of contemporary debates and
ideas. By re-examining the relationship between literature and biblical
interpretation, Biblical Readings and Literary Writings in Early Modern
England, 1558–1625 reminds that scrutiny of how the Bible was read can
transform our understanding of early modern culture.
 1
‘The engrafted word’
Reading and Receiving the Scriptures
in Early Modern England

The education of James Ussher, Archbishop of Armagh (1623–35),

begins, according to the seventeenth-century biographer Samuel Clarke,
with two women. Clarke records in A collection of the lives of ten eminent
divines (1662) that ‘James was taught first to read by two of his Aunts’.
That the early instruction of this prominent figure took place at the hands
of female relatives is certainly interesting, but what is extraordinary is that
these women were blind. Amidst his account of Ussher’s education,
Clarke pauses to note that the aunts ‘were blinde from their Cradles,
and so never saw letters, yet were they admirably versed in the sacred
Scriptures, being able suddenly to have given a good account of any part
of the Bible’.1 This momentary insight into the lives of these unnamed
women is revealing, for it makes clear that the ability to discern letters was
not a prerequisite for biblical literacy. Likely from listening to the Bible
read aloud and attending sermons, Ussher’s aunts apparently garnered
sufficient biblical knowledge to recall swathes of biblical text and, remark-
ably, teach a child to read.
The acquisition of this level of biblical knowledge among these women
is suggestive of the emphasis placed on individual engagement with the
scriptures during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. But familiarity
with the scriptures was not necessarily dependent on biblical ownership or
personal study. As this chapter explores, individuals could become con-
versant with biblical narratives through a variety of non-textual means, as
well as via more traditional modes of Bible-reading. Scripture’s words
could be heard in playhouses and taverns, as well as from pulpits and street
corners, and the Bible’s figures appeared in royally commissioned artwork
as well as in cheap print. Because each relocation of the Bible’s words and

1
Samuel Clarke, A Collection of the lives of ten eminent divines (London: William Miller,
1662), 190–1.
Another random document with
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leagues off. It proved to be the easternmost of the Mulgraves', for which we
run down on the following morning, and anchored on the lee shore, within
less than a cable's length of the surf, in six fathoms water.

The island was low, of coral formation, and, in all respects, resembled
Caroline, Clarence, York, Byron's, and Drummond's Islands. The inhabitants
were not numerous, and differed from all we had seen before in dress and
manners. They gave us a most kind and hospitable reception, freely offered
whatever any of us expressed a wish for, and in all respects acquitted
themselves in a manner highly satisfactory. Near our landing place we had
the satisfaction to find two or three old wells of water, which, after being
cleared out, would afford us a supply without much labour in getting it off,
the landing being tolerably good.

On the twenty-first and twenty-second of November, we filled our water-

casks, and, with several parties, explored the island. In our search we found
a whaler's lance, and several pieces of old canvass; but all our efforts to
obtain a knowledge, from whence they came, or of the persons who brought
them, were unavailing. Some of the natives came on board, all of whom
were neatly ornamented. They wore wreaths of flowers round their heads,
bracelets and necklaces of beautiful shells; a large roll of leaves, from one to
two inches in diameter, through slits in their ears, and as a covering for their
loins, two bunches of a kind of grass, that resembled hemp, hanging below
their knees, one bunch being behind, and the other before. Nothing was
stolen by them. They behaved in a most orderly manner, looking round the
deck inquiringly, or seated themselves, and chatted familiarly with our
people, taking pains to make themselves understood. In their look and action
they appeared to be lively and intelligent; but whenever the subject of our
visit was pressed upon them, by pointing to the whaler's lance, they became
silent, pretending to be ignorant of our meaning. The activity of our
exploring parties, in traversing all parts of the island, and our close
examination of every thing amongst them, that had belonged to the whites,
produced a sensible alarm by the third day; and, besides the desertion of
their habitations by some of them, a large canoe was missing, that had
departed from the island during the night.

Beyond us, to the south and west, was a range of islets, as far as we
could see from the masthead, and having thoroughly explored the island,
where we were anchored, completed our watering, and made such repairs
upon the vessel as were necessary, we determined to proceed further in that
direction. At our anchorage here the wind several times changed from
blowing off shore, which, as we had not room to ride in shore of our anchor,
made it, upon such occasions, necessary to get underway, and stand off. At
such times, we remarked, with particular satisfaction, the advantage we
possessed in our vessel, being schooner rigged, as none but a fore and after
could, with the same facility, have performed the delicate operation of
getting underway, and crawling off, when riding upon a lee shore, within a
few fathoms of the rocks, to have touched which would inevitably have been
attended with shipwreck.

Upon the island, besides cocoa-nut, there were a few bread-fruit trees,
growing in great luxuriance. The golden yellow fruit, with which the females
of Nooaheeva ornamented their necks, grew here in the greatest abundance,
and was eaten by the natives almost constantly, who called it bup. A species
of small rat, with a tuft of hair upon the tail, was very numerous, and so
tame, that hundreds of them were constantly feeding about the huts.

The first land we approached in proceeding to the southward and

westward, was a narrow islet, made up of dry reefs, and verdant spots, from
one to two miles long, and two hundred yards wide. On most of the islets
grew cocoa-nut, and bread-fruit trees,—the invariable indication of
inhabitants. They were, however, but thinly inhabited. Some of the reefs that
connected them were covered with water sufficiently for the passage of a
boat. The captain landed upon the eastern extremity, where he found a few
people, most of whom fled at his approach, and such as remained, were so
timid, that we could hardly look upon them as the countrymen and near
neighbours of the natives, who had treated us with so much kindness at our
anchorage.

A small canoe came off, paddled by one man, who ventured on board,
and looked round for a few minutes, when he departed, without seeming to
have had any other object in view than to gratify his curiosity. We should
have suspected him of being a spy, had we not believed these people too
simple, to adopt such an expedient of civilization. This we, however,
afterwards ascertained was the capacity in which he came, having been sent
by the principal chief of all the Mulgrave Group.
 The schooner coasted along the islands, keeping way with the captain,
who continued on to the westward, examining all parts of it. Beyond, in what
we afterwards ascertained was an inland sea of great extent; several large
sail canoes were discovered coming from a distant islet. The captain crossed
the reef into the inland sea, where he found the water smooth, but every
where filled with shoals of coral. Without indicating a wish to examine the
canoes, which might have caused them to put back, he soon afterwards
returned on board, and another boat was sent to continue the examination of
the islet, as we advanced. The officer prevailed upon some natives, that he
met with, to come near him, and one of them gave him, in return for a
present, some glass beads. Upon arriving at the western extremity of the
islet, the captain put off for the shore, where he found four large canoes
hauled up on the beach, and those he had seen before, coming over the
inland sea, just in the act of landing. As we afterwards ascertained, it was the
high chief of the Mulgrave Group, with from fifty to a hundred of his chiefs
and warriors, on a cruise of observation, to satisfy himself who, and what we
were, and what was the object of our visit to his lonely and unfrequented
isle. None of the chiefs had any thing to distinguish them, so that we knew
not but that they were here upon some ordinary pursuit, otherwise, their
presence would have excited in us a much more lively interest. As it was, we
were gratified to have an opportunity of seeing so many of the natives, with
their canoes, which we could examine, for proofs of the crew of the Globe
having landed upon these islands, of which we were already pretty well
satisfied from what we had seen. The fact was satisfactorily proved in a few
minutes afterwards, by our discovering upon the platform of their canoes the
lids of several sailors' chests. On a farther examination, pieces of cloth and
ash-spars were also found. The natives were watching our every look and
motion, and notwithstanding their pretended apathy and indifference, could
not conceal the intense excitement that our close examination produced
amongst them, It soon gave rise to an animated conversation, which was
accompanied with angry looks, and the only satisfaction they gave us, when
we pointed to the chest-lids, was a vacant stare, or a few words of their
island language not more intelligible. Not far from the beach was a pleasant
grove of cocoa-nut and bread-fruit trees, through which was scattered a
number of neat little Indian huts. One of them, near the shore, was
frequented by a great many of the natives, with whom our people freely
mingled. It was about ten feet high, and above the ground; had a small
garret, which was screened from observation by a floor of sticks, thickly
interwoven with leaves. Although most of the huts had been examined by
our men, it was our good or ill fortune, that this, where so many were
constantly assembled, should escape observation. We should there have
found one of the men, as he afterwards informed us, for whom we were so
anxiously looking; but the discovery might have been attended with
bloodshed, and, perhaps, fatal consequences to our shore party, than whom
the natives were much more numerous.

William Lay, one of the Globe's crew, had been brought to this islet, by
the chiefs, to be used as circumstances might suggest. He was concealed in
the garret of the hut, and guarded by a number of old women, who were
directed, the first whisper of noise that he made, to put him to death, the
chiefs having also denounced their heaviest vengeance upon him, if he
should, in any way, disclose the secret of his being there. He lay in this
unhappy situation for several hours, listening to the interchange of opinion
amongst his countrymen, from whose conversation he was informed of the
character of our vessel, and the object of her cruise.

Towards sun-down, when our parties were weary with the labour of the
day, they repaired on board for the night, and the natives, getting into their
canoes, took their departure from the islet, and steered away, over the inland
sea, until they were lost in the horizon. We stood off and on during the night,
and, at nine in the morning, anchored in nine fathoms water, near our place
of landing. Here there was a channel into the inland sea, having nearly water
enough for the schooner, and through which we made an unsuccessful
attempt to pass. Our situation was now becoming very unpleasant. It was
necessary for us to have parties on shore, exploring the islands, and the
remainder of the crew was quite insufficient to get the vessel underway,—an
expedient indispensable, whenever the wind came on shore, as the anchorage
hardly ever extended more than half a cable's length from it. That we might
lose nothing from delay or want of perseverance, however, soon after we
came to, an officer, with a party of eleven men, attended by a boat to take
them over the drowned reefs, was sent to march round, and explore the
islets, that formed a continued chain to the southward and westward of us.
We felt a conviction, from the conduct of the natives, that they were
unwilling to give us the intelligence we required, and that we must depend
entirely upon our industry and good fortune, for any discovery we might
make. In the evening we sent a boat to communicate with our party, but they
had advanced so far, that she returned without seeing any of them.

On the following day, November the twenty-fifth, the weather clear and
pleasant, a boat was sent with refreshments to our exploring party, who were
overtaken at the distance of ten miles from us, just commencing their
morning's march. The islets, thus far, were narrow, not averaging a quarter of
a mile in breadth, and but thinly inhabited. Our party were pleased with the
conduct of the natives they had seen. They gave them cocoa-nuts, without
receiving any thing in return, and in the evening, when they stopped to
repose for the night, provided them with huts to sleep in. The officer of the
party, in the course of the day's march, found a mitten, with the name of
Rowland Coffin marked on it, who, by referring to a list of the Globe's crew,
proved to be one of the boys left with the mutineers. From the place where
the party was found, the extent of the island could not be seen. I landed at
the settlement where we were anchored, and found the hats nearly all
deserted. Such of the natives, as remained, seemed disposed to be very
friendly, and followed me to the beach, where I shot a few sand-snipe, which
drew from them loud shouts of applause, on witnessing the effect of my
musket. Near the huts I observed a number of small white cranes, one of
which I shot, supposing them to be wild, but afterwards regretted it very
much, on learning that they were domesticated, and held in great reverence
by the natives.

At five in the morning, November the twenty-sixth, a squall arose from

the eastward, which struck the vessel adrift, in the direction of the trending
of the land, and, dragging off the bank, we hove the anchor up, and stood
along shore to the westward. When we had run fifteen or twenty miles, we
came up with our party, to whom we sent refreshments, and proceeded on,
passing several remarkable points.

At three, P.M., we came to, under a point, by which we were somewhat

protected from the sea, in ten fathoms of water, and about thirty fathoms
from the coral rocks, where there was but three feet. We were considerably
in advance of our party, whom we had now determined should march round
the whole circle of islets, if information of the mutineers should not sooner
be obtained. In front of us the islet was wider than any we had seen
elsewhere, and presented a noble forest of cocoa-nut, interspersed every
where with the broad green leaves of the bread-fruit tree, which indicated a
most luxuriant growth. Huts were scattered about through the trees, and
some close to the shore, forming a peaceful and romantic scene. The landing
was good at low water, and practicable at high tide. As far as we could see to
the westward, the land still continued.

The surgeon, who was very much debilitated, when we sailed from the
coast of Peru, had gradually, and almost imperceptibly, become more feeble,
and for some time past believed that he had a disease of the liver. Until
within two days of coming to our present anchorage, he discharged his
ordinary duties, in attending the sick, when his mind began to fail, and it was
evident to us that the period of his existence was near its close. He lay for a
time in a state of insensibility, receiving the little aid that his friends could
afford him; and at forty-five minutes after four, P.M., November the twenty-
seventh, breathed his last, deeply lamented by all the crew, to whom he had
greatly endeared himself, by kind and assiduous attentions, even when he
was extremely ill, and knew that he was fast hastening to the close of life. In
the morning, I took a party of men on shore, and in a grove, at the foot of a
wide-spreading bread-fruit tree, made the narrow bed of our departed
messmate. At nine, the vessel struck adrift, and dragged off the bank. When
she again stood in towards the shore, we landed, with as many of the officers
and men as could be spared to bury the doctor's remains, with the honours of
war. The natives assembled, to the number of twenty or thirty, and followed
us to the grave, watching all our motions with an expression of great
surprise. They were silent until the first discharge of musketry, when they
burst into loud shouts and laughter, for which we drove them back, with
threats of punishment, a considerable distance from us, where they
afterwards remained quiet. At the foot and head of the grave we planted
seeds of orange, lemon, and cheramoya, and upon the bread-fruit tree, at the
head of it, carved his name, rank, and the vessel to which he belonged.
Below this we spiked, firmly upon the tree, a brass plate, with his name, age,
the vessel to which he belonged, and the day of his death inscribed upon it.
A little to the eastward of the grave we had the satisfaction to find two
springs of excellent water.

On the following morning our party arrived, and, after receiving

refreshment, continued on to the northward and westward. They crossed a
long reef, that connected the islet abreast of us with another, at the distance
of a few miles, that had the appearance of a large settlement, from the
immense cocoa-nut forests that rose in that direction. Soon after crossing the
reef, and arriving at the extreme east end of the islet, where it was narrow
and sandy, they suddenly came to a place that was strewed with several
hundreds of staves of beef and pork barrels, and old pieces of canvass and
cloth. In advancing a little further, they found a skeleton, lightly covered
with sand, and a box, containing a few Spanish dollars. The natives, some of
whom had been constantly following our party, and occasionally mingling
with them, and administering, as well as they could to their wants, upon
approaching this place disappeared, or were seen at a distance, skulking
through the bushes. These discoveries excited the liveliest expectation of
soon making others more satisfactory, and proceeding a mile further, they
found an unoccupied hut, where, night approaching, they encamped. Early in
the morning they took up their line of march, and had not gone far, when it
was evident that the natives were preparing for hostilities. Groups of them
were frequently seen at a distance, armed with spears and stones, and
holding animated discussions. They were much more numerous than our
party, who, upon examining their ammunition, found it was wet, and that the
few arms they had, which were no other than a pistol, for each man, were
also wet, and unfit for immediate use. The officer, therefore, determined to
retreat to the place of his night's encampment, until he could despatch
information of his situation, and ask for a reinforcement and ammunition.
On arriving where he had spent the night, he found that the hut he had
occupied was gone, and also that a large sail canoe, he left there, had been
taken away. Not a single person was any where to be seen. Here he
remained, sending two of his party to the schooner, which was now several
miles from him. A little after meridian, we received them on board, and
heard, with great interest, the information they gave. There was no doubt in
our minds, that this was the place where the mutineers, and others of the
Globe's crew, had been left,—but where are they now?—was a question,
which naturally occurred to us. We had given the natives no cause, to excite
them to hostility; but, on the contrary, had taken every means that suggested
itself, to gain their confidence and esteem. If they wished to make war upon
us, opportunities had been frequently presented, when our exploring party
might have been assailed by overpowering numbers, with a prospect of
success, of which they had not availed themselves, and here they were now
apparently wavering between peace and war, just at the moment of our
discovering the place where our countrymen had been. We knew not how to
account for this change in their conduct, but by supposing that the mutineers
were amongst them, and that, from our near approach, they were becoming
alarmed for their safety, and had roused the natives to war, with the hope of
defending themselves by open combat. If this supposition were true, and it
seemed very probable, the situation of our party was very critical, and no
time was to be lost in giving them the aid they asked for, and renewing our
search with redoubled activity. The launch was hoisted out, and fitted with
all possible expedition, and at four, P.M., November twenty-ninth, sailed
with two officers and eleven men, together with the three belonging to the
party, being all that we were willing to spare from the schooner, as a bold
attempt upon her by a large party of the natives, led on by an enterprising
and desperate chief, might have placed her and the lives of all her crew in
the greatest jeopardy. I crossed the reef, which was sufficiently overflown by
the high tide, to admit of it, and ran down in the inland sea to the
encampment of our party, where I arrived at eight in the evening, and found
them all safe; but looking for our appearance, with the greatest anxiety. I
allowed the boat's crew to land, and get their supper in company with those
on shore, preparatory to commencing their night's work. When we were
prepared for our departure, and had embarked, I was greatly chagrined on
examining the boat, to find that the shore party, to whom I had brought fresh
arms and ammunition, had, in their over-anxiety to be well supplied,
deprived me of part of mine, and I was under the necessity of landing, and
searching, not only the men, but even the bushes, before I found them.

Our party had acquired no information since morning, but from the
discoveries that had already been made, we felt satisfied, that on the
following day, we should find other traces of the mutineers. In taking my
departure, I stretched off with a fine breeze, but it was blowing directly from
the point to which I wished to steer. I suffered the men to lay down and
refresh themselves with sleep, whilst midshipman S. and myself steered the
boat, and to my regret, in returning back towards the shore from whence I
had started, discovered that we had lost ground; besides, our boat being
clumsy and badly fitted, we found that we had to contend with a strong
current. I got the oars out, therefore, and pulled dead to windward until day-
light, when having proceeded about six miles, we again made sail to the
northward and eastward, close haul upon a wind; it gradually veered, until I
could head for an island eight or ten miles from us, which just appeared
above the horizon, and where I designed to land and give the men breakfast.
When within two or three miles of the island, I observed a number of canoes
leaving places nearer to me and landing upon it. Two canoes had put off
from thence, and were standing for me as I was beating with my clumsy boat
to weather an intervening coral reef; they were manned with about twenty
natives, all armed with spears and stones. When they had approached me
pretty near, and were passing under my lee, I ran alongside to examine them,
for which they gave us a great many cross looks. As soon as I suffered them
to depart, they immediately returned to the shore from whence they came,
and where I not long afterwards discovered about twenty canoes that would
carry from twenty to forty men each.

The canoes I had boarded, sailed at least three miles to my one, and I
now discovered the impossibility of possessing ourselves of the mutineers of
the Globe, whilst they, or the natives, if friendly, to them, had the disposal of
such fleet vessels, with which to avoid us whenever our too near approach
endangered their safety. I determined, therefore, to take possession of all that
were now assembled, even though I should be opposed by the natives, and
reduced to the necessity of measuring our strength with them.

The island was small, producing but few nut trees, and having but a
small number of huts upon it, notwithstanding which, there were several
hundreds of people assembled;—a great crowd, considering the thinly
populated state of the islands. But as this large assemblage could only have
been brought together from some extraordinary cause, I determined to land
and search their huts, and look round, before I made so wide a breach with
them, as must necessarily result from the seizure of their canoes. I was sorry
to see, on our coming near them, that they were sending their women and
children towards the huts, which were at a short distance from the
assemblage of natives; a movement that indicated a want of confidence in us
on their part, or what was still less agreeable to us, a disposition to hostility.

There was some surf on the shore where we were about to land near the
canoes, and that the boat might be the more readily at our disposal when we
should have occasion for her after landing, I dropped an anchor, and was in
the act of veering to through the surf, when, to my astonishment, a person
dressed and looking like a native, addressed us in our own language. He was
standing upon the beach thirty or forty yards distant, and half way between
us and the natives, all of whom had seated themselves. The first words that
we understood, were, "The Indians are going to kill you: don't come on
shore unless you are prepared to fight." The scene now presented to us,
inspired an indescribable sensation; for, although we were convinced that
this was one of the men we were so anxiously looking for, his sudden and
unexpected appearance, his wild attire, and above all, his warning, seemed
like an illusion of fancy. His hair was long, combed up, and tied in a knot on
the top of his head; round his loins, he wore a large mat, finely wrought, and
the use of cocoa-nut oil, and the action of a tropical sun, for nearly two
years, had made his skin almost as dark as that of the natives. He earnestly
repeated, several times, that we must not land unless we were prepared to
fight, and described the plan the natives had concerted with him, which was,
to prevail upon us to come on shore and seat ourselves amongst them, when,
at a given signal, they would all rise and knock us on the head with stones.
This statement was probable enough, but the suspicion that this was one of
the mutineers, very naturally occurred to our minds, with the questions,
"Why have we not found him before? and, why does he not now fly to us for
protection, if he is innocent?"—forgetting that our contemptible numbers
precluded all idea of safety to him, if opposed by the numerous assemblage
of natives by whom he was surrounded. I asked his name, which he told me
was William Lay, and that he was one of the crew of the Globe. His stature
and juvenile appearance, answered the description we had of him. I told him
to come to the boat, but he said that he was afraid of the natives, who had
directed him not to advance any nearer to us. I then directed him to run to us
and we would protect him; but he declined, saying, that the natives would
kill him with stones before he could get there. During all this time, they
thought he was arranging their plan for us to come on shore, and called out
frequently to him to know what we said; to which, he replied in a way
calculated to suit his purpose.

After discharging and re-loading our pistols, with one of which and a
cartridge-box each man was provided, we landed, and marched up to the
place where Lay was standing. Still doubting whether he were not more foe
than friend, and determined that, under any circumstances, he should not
escape, I received him with my left hand, presenting, at the same time, a
cocked pistol to his breast. I was not insensible to the sentiment my harsh
reception was calculated to inspire; but circumstanced as I was, I could not
risk every thing in preference to inflicting a momentary pang, keenly as it
might be felt. I repeated the question, "Who are you?" to which he replied, "I
am your man," and burst into tears. I told him then to say to the natives, that
if they rose from their seats, or threw a stone, we would shoot them all; but
the poor fellow, delirious with joy for the moment, knew not what he said,
and, instead of obeying my command, called out in half English, and half
Island language, in broken sentences, most of which was unintelligible to us;
amongst other things, he exclaimed, "they are going to kill me, they are
going to kill me." I ordered him to be silent, and then asked, why he told
them we were going to kill him.—Recollecting himself immediately, he
begged my pardon, declaring that he knew not what he was saying. By this
time, some of the natives had risen, and were becoming very animated and
violent in their conversation and gestures. Two or three of them advanced
towards us; I pointed my pistol at them, and made Lay repeat my threat,
which had the desired effect on all but one old man, who, unarmed,
advanced in defiance of me. Lay desired me to suffer him to approach,
which he did, and taking hold of Lay's hand with both of his, he asked what
his countrymen were going to do with him. Lay explained to him, in a few
words, as clearly as he could, at which the old man seemed much affected.
This was his benefactor, the person to whom he was indebted for life; and
the poor fellow seemed not wanting in sensibility or gratitude, at the moment
of their parting. He embraced him affectionately, told him that he would see
him again before he departed, and wept like a child. I was unwilling to
remain longer than was absolutely necessary, lest the natives, when they had
recovered from their first surprise, should conceive a contempt for our small
number, and make trial of our strength, in which I knew they would be much
superior to us, if they were determined and brave, as the first discharge of
our pistols would place us upon an equality with the same number as
ourselves. I therefore cut short Lay's interview with his friend, and hastened
him to the boat; there he wept for joy, and gave us several proofs of the
agitated state of his mind. His first impulse, which did great credit to his
heart, was, to inquire if his friends were well, and then recollecting that it
was probable none of us knew them, told us he belonged to East Saybrook,
Connecticut, and asked if any of us were acquainted in that section of the
country. He several times repeated the same questions, forgetful that he had
asked them before, and that we had replied in the negative. When his mind
was a little composed, we made inquiries of him respecting the rest of the
Globe's crew, who had been left on the island; to which he answered, that
they were all dead except Cyrus H. Huzzy, who was on an island a few miles
to windward of us, and now full in sight. He asked, with an expression of
great solicitude, if we would go for Huzzy, and when I told him we would, it
seemed to afford him not less pleasure than his own deliverance. He stated
that he and Huzzy both knew that we were in search of them, and that our
vessel was a man of war. He said that the chiefs had sent spies on board of
the schooner every day when it was practicable, who had communicated to
them the number of guns we carried, and, within a very few, the number of
which the crew consisted. They had apprised them of the force and conduct
of our exploring party, descending to the minutest particulars, and even
describing most of the individuals on board. They had seriously debated the
question of making war upon us several times, and always consulted Lay
and Huzzy as to the propriety of it, and what would probably be their
prospect of success. They dissuaded them from it, of course, and filled them
with apprehension, by declaring, repeatedly, that we were invincible, and
that there was scarcely any thing we could not accomplish with our six-
pounders; they even made them believe, trifling as our armament was, that
we could sink the islands with our cannon: so ready is the human mind to
receive for truth what it cannot comprehend, if recommended by superior
intelligence, though it may be at variance with every thing in nature or
reason.

The natives were told to let us go where we pleased, without molesting

us in any way, to give us whatever we asked for, and, at all times, to show
themselves friendly to us. They had strictly pursued the course of conduct
pointed out to them by the young white men, in whose superior knowledge
of us and our prowess, they placed every reliance; but still they doubted the
probability of conciliating our friendship in the sequel, and adhered
tenaciously to the idea of accomplishing our destruction in some way, to
make their own security the more certain. With this object, a variety of plans
were submitted at different times, to Lay and Huzzy, by those amongst the
chiefs esteemed the wisest and bravest, all of which were discouraged, and
the success of such an undertaking in any way, as frequently declared to be
utterly hopeless.

One of their plans was, to get alongside of us at night, unobserved, and

with some of the sharp instruments they had obtained from the Globe, make
a hole in the bottom of the vessel, and sink her; when, they very truly
believed, that those who were not drowned, would be an easy prey to them,
and that the party on shore, unaided by the schooner, might soon be
overcome and destroyed by their superior numbers.

Another of their plans, and the most plausible one, was, to assemble
secretly all the canoes of the islands, at some point not distant from us, and
approaching under cover of the night, surprise and board us.

If this last plan had been put into execution, in a dark night, it is possible
that it might have succeeded, as we could hardly have seen them in time to
use our cannon, and the fire of musketry which they had heard before, would
probably not have driven them back when they had advanced near to us,
particularly if, as might be apprehended, at night, the fire were not directed
effectively. They would not have found us entirely unprepared; for, under the
impression that the mutineers were still living, and on terms of friendship
with the natives, we were on the lookout for such an attempt being made, as
it seemed to be the only means by which they could possibly escape, and the
plan which would most naturally occur to desperate men in their situation.

In advancing towards the island where we expected to find Huzzy, Lay

told us that the island where we found him was a favourite place for fishing
at a particular season, when numerous shoals of fish swam upon its shore.
Our schooner was anchored at the place of residence of the high chief, who,
with those we found assembled upon the small island, had fled there to avoid
us. The boat's crew being oppressed with fatigue and hunger, I landed upon a
dry reef, after proceeding a few miles to give them rest and refreshment. It
was painful to witness Lay's anxiety to depart, who, fearing a messenger
might be despatched to the chief who had Huzzy in custody, kept his eyes
fixed upon us with an anxious, hurrying look, and several times expressed
his fears that the chiefs might have the boldness to attempt his rescue. On
finishing our frugal repast, we pulled up under an uninhabited point of
Lugoma's Island, (this was the name of Huzzy's chief,) which, having passed
without observation, an ample bay, upon the shore of which was situated the
village of the chief, opened to our view; and, to our great joy, the only sail
canoe in his possession, was seen hauled up on the beach. For a few
moments, no one was seen; but when we were in the act of landing, Lugoma
and several old women came walking down to the beach, attracted by the
strange and unexpected appearance of our boat. They were struck with the
utmost consternation at beholding Lay, who was still in his native dress; and
the old women began calling out, in a loud tone, demanding of him what he
was doing there, and what we wanted. Before he had time to reply to them, I
got out of the boat, and taking, hold of Lugoma, and pointing a pistol at him,
bade Lay say to him, that unless Huzzy was brought to me immediately, I
would kill him. He begged that I would not hurt him, and said Huzzy was
near and should come to me. The old women, alarmed for the safely of the
chief, instantly ran off, calling aloud for Huzzy. It was but a few minutes
before he appeared, walking towards us, with his fine yellow hair hanging in
ringlets about his shoulders, and his person quite naked, with the exception
of a piece of blanket, tied round his loins. When he had approached
sufficiently near, and I said to him, "Well, young man, do you wish to return
to your country?" his eyes filled with tears as he replied, "Yes, sir; I know of
nothing that I have done for which I should be afraid to go home."

As soon as Lugoma felt relieved from his apparently dangerous situation,

he began to express his solicitude for Huzzy, begging that I would not hurt
him; and when he was assured that no injury was intended towards his son,
as has called Huzzy, entreated me not to take him away. The old women
united with the chief in the expression of their wishes, and seemed, by their
loud talk and significant gestures, to insist upon the white man's remaining
with them. The scene was an interesting one, and we found a picturesque
group assembled on a beautiful lawn, in front of a number of huts,
surrounded by cocoa-nut and bread-fruit trees. Huzzy owed his life to the
native chief; he had been in the condition of a slave to him for two years. To
him he was indebted for many acts of kindness, some of which he had
requited by his industry in his service, and some had been cancelled by harsh
treatment; yet, still he stood in a delicate situation towards the chief. The
saving of his life alone, conferred an obligation upon him, which could
scarcely be repaid by long and faithful services. The chief evidently
appeared to regard him as his son, and when the moment of our departure
arrived, and he saw we were determined to take our countryman with us, he
joined tears to entreaties, saying he should weep long and bitterly for him.
He told Huzzy that he must come back again, and asked me if I would bring
him. As the only way in which I could get clear of so strange a petition,
urged with so much feeling, I promised to bring him back if his mother
consented to his return. With this, he appeared to be tolerably well satisfied,
and we were about returning to the boat, when Lugoma took Huzzy aside to
talk to him privately. When their interview was ended, I asked Huzzy what
the chief had been saying to him; to which he replied, that he had been
reminding him how difficult it would be for him to get along with his work
without him, and that he must return as soon as he could, and bring with him
some axes, guns, and cloths, such as his countrymen wore. "I have promised
to bring them," said he, "when I return, and he is quite satisfied." When we
were ready to depart, to conciliate the good will of the female part of
Lugoma's family, I presented them with a variety of trifles, such as finger-
rings, glass beads, &c., for which, in return, they loaded me with a profusion
of small mats, and rude shell ornaments, accompanied with many
expressions of thankfulness and regard. When I came to take leave of
Lugoma, I presented him with a jack-knife. With the exception of an axe, I
could have given him nothing more valuable, and it gained for me his
unreserved confidence. He immediately proposed going with me to the
schooner, and got into the boat with his son, a lad eight years old. Huzzy
took with him a musket and a Bible, the only things he had saved at the
massacre. The first had been preserved for him by the chief, who thought
that with this in Huzzy's hands, although he had no powder, he was a match
for all his enemies; and the Bible he had clung to himself, and had kept as
the companion of his lonely hours. The Bible was more an object of
curiosity to the natives than any thing else they found in the possession of
the white men: they often inquired of Huzzy what it was, its use, &c., and
his explanations seemed only to increase their superstition and aversion to it.
They were never pleased to see him retire to the garret of his little hut, to
read it, as was his custom; and invariably remonstrated with him against it.
They urged him frequently to destroy it, and when he refused, they
threatened to do it themselves. As the reason of their dislike, they said it
would bring spirits round the house that would kill or hurt some of the
family. Huzzy told them, that if they destroyed it, the Great Spirit would
come and kill them all; to which he was probably indebted for its
preservation.

I was walking, back of the huts, over a level green spot, enclosed by
cocoa-nut trees, when Lugoma came to me in great haste, and with a
disturbed look beckoned me to come away, at the same time saying to
Huzzy, that I must not go there: it was a place for the dead; my presence
would disturb them, and bring spirits round his huts; I indulged his
superstition, and walked off. Lugoma was about thirty years of age, of
moderate stature, square built, with low forehead, and flat nose; having an
expression of countenance that indicated intelligence and enterprize. Huzzy
gave him the character of being very passionate, inveterate in his enmities,
fierce and determined in his hostility, but firmly attached to his friends, and
possessing a benevolent heart. He often became offended with Huzzy, in
their ordinary occupation, and upon such occasions would use violent
language, and sometimes threaten to kill him; but, when his passion
subsided, would be very sorry for what he had said, and soothe Huzzy by
telling him not to be afraid; he would not hurt him. Once, however, in
working their canoe, when something went wrong, he raised a paddle and
struck Huzzy with it, upon which, the poor fellow, slave as he was, gave way
to his indignant feelings, and was in the act of repaying the chief's violence
with interest, who, seeing that he had gone too far with the high-spirited
white man, and that his life was menaced, begged him not to strike,
declaring that he would never again raise his hand against him; and the
quarrel was amicably settled by Huzzy's telling him, that if ever he did, he
would kill him. From this story, I thought there might be some truth in the
one which Huzzy told me was one day related to him by Lugoma's son, the
boy that was in the boat with us. We had a mulatto lad on board of the
schooner, and at the time our contemplated capture was spoken of amongst
the natives, this little boy told Huzzy that his father was going to save the
life of the mulatto boy, and then kill him as he was getting too large. The
mulatto boy was a great favourite amongst the natives, and upon several
occasions, quarrels had arisen amongst the chiefs who should have him,
when in the presence of Lay or Huzzy they were debating the question of our
capture.

The day was far advanced when we left Lugoma's Island, and stood
along the shores of the islets to intercept the land party whom we met at no
very great distance, making rapid marches. We landed to inform them of our
success, and that their labour was at an end, in which they could not but
rejoice with us, although they were extremely disappointed that they should
not themselves have been the fortunate persons, after all the toil they had
experienced in the search. We put off and made sail in both our boats, and as
the canoes were all still upon the beach of the island from whence we had
taken Lay, I intended to land and get his musket, which, in the hurry of our
departure, he had forgotten. No sooner, however, did the natives see both our
boats standing towards them, than they put off with all their canoes, and bore
away directly before the wind. We made all sail in chase, but soon perceived
that they were leaving us very fast; and, as night was coming on, we made
the experiment of a few musket shots, fired over their heads, with the hope
of bringing them to. Instead of answering the desired purpose, it served only
to increase their alarm, and the weather becoming squally, we suffered them
to depart without further pursuit. I had cause to regret that I had fired; for
from the first discharge, poor Lugoma was in the greatest agony, for fear we
were going to kill him, as well as the rest of the chiefs. All the explanations
that Lay and Huzzy could make, and all their assurances of my friendship,
could not quiet him. Several times he would have taken his son and jumped
overboard, had we allowed him to do so. Whenever I went to the stern of the
boat where he was sitting, he repeated to me again and again that he was my
good friend, and that I must not kill him; my replying that I would not hurt
him, that I was his friend, &c., had not the least effect; it only caused him
again to repeat what he had before told me of, his being my friend, and that I
must not kill him.

The numerous shoals of coral, with the violence of the wind, rendering it
somewhat dangerous to run in the dark, I determined to come to for the
night, as we were yet a long distance from the schooner. For this purpose, we
stood in towards the place where, on the preceding night, we had met the
exploring party. Lugoma no sooner found himself so near the shore, than he
became more earnest than ever in his petition to be permitted to land with his
son, although he was more than twenty miles from his home. I would have
allowed him to leave us, had I not been apprehensive of the hostility of his
countrymen; I knew not but by his aid in piloting them to our night's
encampment, we might be surprised before morning, and my resolution to
keep him was confirmed, when it was reported to me, by some omen who
had landed from the other boat, that one or more natives had been seen near
us, skulking through the bushes. We also determined, not to trust ourselves
on shore, but to lay in the boat, and make an awning of our sails, to screen us
from the heavy showers that were frequently coming over, in the best
manner we could.—When we had finished our repast, we hauled off and
anchored, but not to sleep. Our awning was but poorly calculated for shelter,
and the showers that constantly succeeded each other, kept us too wet and
cold for rest; besides this, I was frequently reminded of Lugoma's presence,
who made me pay dearly for his detention. He would lay no where else than
alongside of me, and during the whole night, not more than ten minutes
elapsed at any one time, that he did not move his hand over my face, and
when he thought my attention was sufficiently awakened, call out to me,
"Hitera;" a word that signified he was my good friend, nor would he suffer
me to rest a moment afterwards until I had replied to him "Hitera."

We were anchored but a short distance from the place where the chief
mutineer of the Globe and his murderous companions had landed—where he
had fallen by their hands, and where they, in their turn, had been killed by
savages. It was a spot, calculated to revive, in the minds of Lay and Huzzy,
the liveliest recollection of sorrows and sufferings, that no language could
describe; and as we all wished to hear an account of the mutiny, and of the
events that subsequently transpired, I desired Lay to favour us with the
relation. Lay's narrative was as follows: "The first that I heard of discontent
on board of the ship, was a few days previous to the mutiny. I went to the
maintop-mast-head, where I found Comstock; after a few moment's
conversation, he said to me, 'What shall we do, William? we have bad usage:
shall we take the ship, or run away?' To this I did not make much of any
answer. I do not now remember what I said; I was quite inexperienced, it
being my first voyage. In the afternoon, or the next morning, I heard him
talking to some of the men on the forecastle about running away with him
when we arrived at Funning's Island, for which, I believe, we were then
steering. This, I suppose, was for the purpose of sounding them, to find out
their disposition, and who would join him in the mutiny.—From what we
heard, we began to think that all was not right, and tried to get the news aft,
but unfortunately did not succeed. In the afternoon, before the night on
which the mutiny took place, we were on the main yard furling the mainsail,
and I tried then to tell the second mate, but Paine or Comstock was between
us, and I was afraid to say any thing. Comstock had, some days previous,
taken his cutlass from the cabin into the forecastle; he was a boat-steerer,
and used to eat in the cabin with the officers. I knew nothing more about it
until twelve or one o'clock on the night that the mutiny took place; I was
sleeping in the forecastle, when Rowland Coffin came and awoke me, saying
I must come upon deck, they had taken the ship. I got up and went aft, where
all the crew were mustered on the quarter-deck. When Comstock had told us
what he had done, and what his regulations were, he said, that such as would
not swear to stick by him, must go on the other side of the deck. I did not
know how many were engaged in the mutiny, and believing that we should
be killed if we did not swear, we all swore to stick by Comstock and obey
his orders. He then told us to haul the third mate up out of the cabin; I was
one that had to take hold of the rope made fast to him. We laid him in the
gangway, and I thought he was dead; but when Comstock was throwing him
overboard, he clung to the ship with his hands. Comstock told some one to
bring an axe and cut his hands off, when he let go and went overboard. I saw
him in the water astern, swimming after the ship for some time. We then
made sail; Comstock was the only navigator on board. We first went to the
Kingsmill Group, but did not like to stop there, as the natives were very
numerous and thievish; besides, Comstock had shot one of them for stealing
something; after which, he was afraid to stay amongst them. From
Drummond's Island, of the Kingsmill Group, we came directly to the
Mulgraves, and made this part of them, where we anchored and commenced
landing the stores.

"The crew of the Globe consisted of between twenty-five and thirty; but
the only persons engaged in the mutiny were Comstock, Paine, Oliver, and
the black steward, (Lilliston, who was one of the mutineers he did not
mention.) It was midnight, and previous to descending to the cabin, one of
the number was placed as a sentinel at the cabin door, with an axe,
Comstock saying to a young brother who was at the helm, that if he did not
keep the ship in her course, he would kill him as soon as he came on deck.
Comstock killed the captain by striking him on the forehead with an axe
whilst he was sleeping, having first locked the mates up in their state-rooms,
that they might not escape. He then went with the other mutineers, and, I
believe, cut the throats of the first and second mates, and shot the third mate.
I did not see any but the third mate, and was told that the others were thrown
out of the cabin windows.

"Not many days after the mutiny, the black steward was detected in the
cabin loading a pistol which was forbidden on pain of death; and on being
asked by Comstock what he intended doing with it, he replied, at first,
"Nothing;" but, when questioned more closely, he said that he had heard
Smith and some one else say, they intended to take the ship. Smith and the
other person named by the steward, were called up by Comstock, and asked
if they had threatened to take the ship; to which they replied in the negative,
insisting that they had never intimated or intended any thing of the kind.
Comstock declared that such an offence could not go unpunished, and that
the steward must be tried by a court martial; he thereupon told the steward to
choose one man, and said that he would choose another, and that the two
should sentence the steward to such punishment as the offence merited. The
two men were accordingly chosen, the steward selecting Rowland Coffin for
his advocate, and Comstock, Paine for his. After hearing the evidence, and
deliberating for a short time, they found the steward guilty, and sentenced
him to be hung at the yard-arm until he was dead. Immediately afterwards,
all hands were called to witness the execution; and the steward was taken
forward and given fourteen seconds to make his peace with God.[9] The
foretop-mast steering sail haulyards were overhauled down and tied round
the steward's neck, and Comstock, after making every body take hold of the
haulyards, held the fourteen second glass in one hand, and his cutlass in the
other. When the glass was out, he gave the signal for the people to run away
with the haulyards, by striking the ship's bell with his cutlass, and, in a
moment, the criminal was run up to the yard-arm.

"After the death of the officers, Comstock made us all live in the cabin
with him, where the mutineers used to sing, and carouse, and tell over the
story of the murder, and what they had dreamed. Paine and Oliver, who
could scarcely ever sleep, spoke with horror of their dreams, and of ghosts
that appeared to them at night; but Comstock always made light of it, and
appeared to exult in what he had done. He said once, that the captain came to
him with his wounded and bloody head, and showed him what he had done,
when he told the captain to depart and never come again, or he would kill
him a second time.

"After our arrival here, we made a raft of two whale-boats and some
spars, and on the first or second day, landed thirty or forty barrels of beef
and pork, sails, rigging, and a variety of other articles, when Comstock
having pitched a tent on shore, commenced with the mechanics to work on a
whale-boat that he was going to raise upon and make larger. Paine was
displeased with his doing this so soon, and sent word to him that he had
better discharge the ship, and then work upon the boats. This greatly enraged
Comstock, who hailed the ship for a boat, and on her being sent to him,
came on board. There he and Paine had a violent quarrel, and Paine dared
him to take a musket and go on shore with him and fight it out, which
Comstock refused to do. When he landed, being afraid that Paine and Oliver
would kill him if he slept in the tent, he went off to pass the night with the
natives; in his absence, Paine and Oliver agreed to shoot him when he came