SOURCE: De Costa, B. F. “Morton of Merry Mount.” The Magazine of American History VIII, No. 2 (February 1882): 81-94.

[In the following essay, De Costa paints a sympathetic portrait of Morton—whom he finds to be one of the most interesting and misunderstood figures in the history of New England—using information gleaned from William Bradford's History of Plymouth Plantation, John Winthrop's History of New England, and Morton's own New English Canaan.]

Historic truth often contains elements stranger and more dramatic than fiction, yet writers of romance incline to fling their opportunities away. Motley did this, when dealing with the character of Thomas Morton, in his maiden effort called Merry Mount; while Hawthorne, in his Twice Told Tales, was still more heedless of the true value of the same theme. These attractive writers, therefore, have made the general reader familiar with Morton's name, but little more. Prompted by a vague, and as yet undeveloped historic instinct, Motley offered a half apology for the doubtful character of his performance, but the reader searches in vain on the page of Hawthorne for some proper indication, that the picture of Morton is not the offspring of an imagination every way weird, morbid, and grotesque. Who, therefore, was Morton of Merry Mount, that he should present such an aspect in early New England history?

Thomas Morton was a London lawyer, who, about the year 1622, established himself upon Mount Wollaston, or “Merry Mount,” an eminence in the present town of Quincy, overlooking Massachusetts Bay, being twice sent back to England, whence he finally returned to be cast into prison and die. Yet this statement is too brief. Let us, then, go back to Morton's cotemporaries, though in examining some historical writers we shall find their statements as unreliable as the unqualified romance. It is, therefore, necessary to hear what such men as Bradford have to say, as the grim Governor of Plymouth, after declaring that Morton obtained Mount Wollaston by violence and fraud, alleges that he fell into a licentious life, “powering out into all profaneness.” According to this magnate, “Morton became the lord of misrule, and maintained (as it were) a Schoole of Athisme.” He and his friends were also guilty both of “quaffing” and “drinking” wine and strong waters in “great exsess.” One gossip reported the quantity to be ten shillings worth “in a morning.” They also set up a “May-pole.” Probably Morton did not know the signification of the May-pole, but he and his men fell to “dancing aboute” it all the same, and not once only, but for “many days togeather;” also “inviting the Indean women for their consorts, dancing and frisking together (like so many fairies, or furies rather), and,” the virtuous old chronicler solemnly adds, “worse practices.” What these “practices” were, the Governor does not disclose, though they must have been very bad, coming, as they did, after the May-pole. Still he gives a hint, and says, that it was “as if they had anew revived and celebrated the feasts of y^e Roman Goddes Flora, or the beastly practices of y^e madd Bachanalians.” Yet even this was not the worst, for this Morton of Merry Mount presumed to write “poetrie,” even verses that tended to “lasciviousness,” and to “destruction and scandall.” They “chainged allso the name of their place,” and, instead of Mount Wollaston, called it “Merie mounte, as if the jolity would have lasted ever.” This state of things continued until Endicott visited “those partes,” when he cut the May-pole down, and admonished them to see that there was “better walking.”¹ Similar language might be quoted from other old writers, who, with modern historians, have put Morton and his friends before the public in a false light. Even one who left Morton's character better than he found it, and evidently wrote without prejudice, speaks of him as probably wholly devoid of principle.² Thomas Morton forms one of the most picturesque yet least understood characters in early New England history. It has been considered well-nigh a proof of loyalty to treat his memory with scorn.

Of Morton's history prior to his arrival in New England, little is known. Upon the title-page of his book, he describes himself as of “Clifford's Inn, Gent.” Bradford says, that he “had been a kind of petie-fogger of Furnifell's Inn.” Dudley adds, that he “had beene an Attorney in the Weste Countreyes.” On this point Morton volunteers no information, but Maverick speaks of him as a “gentleman of good qualitie.” Morton begins the account of his proceedings by saying that, in the month of June, Anno Salutis, 1622, it was “my chaunce to arrive in the parts of New England, with 30 Servants, and provisions of all sorts fit for a plantation” (p. 59). He may have come with Weston's colony in the Charity. It is clear enough that Morton was in New England at Michaelmas, 1622.

In 1625 Wollaston came to Massachusetts with thirty men. This individual is described by Bradford as “a man of pretie parts,” and possessed of an abundance of the supplies required to establish a colony. He also says that when Wollaston went to Virginia he left one Fitcher as his deputy, whom Morton overcame with drink, and then persuaded the servants to rebel. The falsity of this story, however, lies upon its face. Such an act must inevitably have become the subject of proceedings. The fact that no proceedings were hinted at by those who employed every pretext for annoying the master of Merry Mount, shows that the act complained of never took place, and that Morton was first on the ground at Wollaston, while Mr. Adams, who has generously exonerated him from some charges, admits that Wollaston “had neither charter nor grant of land,” while Bradford allows that Morton had an “interest” in the enterprise. The story of Bradford may, therefore, be left to take care of itself, though, before passing from the subject, it will be proper to state what does not appear to have been recognized by any writer heretofore, namely, that Morton actually had a patent. No early writer utters a syllable which indicates that Morton's right to the soil was questioned. His settlement was commenced at a place known by the Indians as “Passonagesset,” which was changed to “Mount Wollaston,” and afterward by Morton to “Ma-re Mount,” intended for “Merry Mount,” though, to the ear, it might suggest the Latin of the Mount by the Sea. Here on this beautiful elevation, amid scenes that lifted the mind up “from Nature to Nature's God,” Thomas Morton, the London lawyer, we are told, set up “as it were,” a “Schoole of Athisme.” But what kind of atheism was taught? The reader may judge, from the fact that the text-books used were the Bible and Common Prayer. Speaking of himself, Morton writes: “Our Master [of Ma-re-Mount] say they, reades the Bible and the Word of God, and useth the booke of Common Prayer.”³ Nevertheless we are told that he set up a “Schoole of Athisme.” It is undeniable that Morton became an object of aversion largely for the reason that he used the Prayer Book. The answer to Bradford and all those who have fallen into the notion that Morton was a Bohemian, without law or morals, and believing in nothing, is found in Morton's own work, a book denounced the most severely by those who know it best by its back. Let us therefore glance at The New English Canaan, a quaint little quarto, forming a bibliographical nut that librarians have long essayed to crack.⁴

The New English Canaan is divided into three books, the first and second of which describe the country and the aborigines, while the third is devoted to Morton's connection with the men of Plymouth and Boston. At the end of the second book is an Epilogue, “New Canaan's Genius,” which may show that originally his intention was to end there. This Epilogue finds New Canaan's genius in Lake Champlain, and probably forms the earliest existing example of lake poetry in connection with America. Morton saw that great commercial advantages might be derived from

Th' admired Lake of Erocoise.

New English Canaan, upon the whole, is a remarkable work to proceed from a “Madd Bachanalian.” With reference to the author's style, it may be admitted that the work belongs to Morton's age rather than to ours. If he had lived in the present day, Morton might have been an admirer of Swinburne. There are several phrases that could have been left out, but no one who has the perseverance to go through the book will be offended, unless a prude. Yet the book is not disfigured by the coarseness of Shakspeare, and the reader who is sufficiently well grounded in the history of the period to comprehend the third part, may enjoy a hearty laugh. Morton was indeed too rude, and was unmercifully severe. This is easily recognized by the reader who to-day is smarting under no terrible wrong. Yet there is something besides sarcasm in the New English Canaan. The first and second books show the groundwork of Morton's character, while his enemies knew him only by the exterior of his life. They were unfitted to appreciate his best qualities, even as Morton failed to recognize what was superior in them, not distinguishing between deep religiousness and the surface deposit of grotesque, selfish fanaticism obscuring that wealth of character which the impartial student is ready to recognize and admire.

The language of the book may be obscure, but Morton's cotemporaries understood it, and writhed under it; while, respecting his verses, it may be said that poorer lines have been praised. Of Morton's fancy the reader can judge from the quaint pictures scattered on his pages.

In turning over the leaves of the New English Canaan, which recounts the story of wilderness life, the mind reverts to As You Like It, a play laid amid forest scenes. Though Morton did not, with the banished Duke in the Forest of Arden, essay the rôle of Robin Hood, the proprietor of Passonagessit, at least, had “merry men with him.” Whoever visits Merry Mount to-day, will search in vain for any primeval forest, but around the open hill-top there once spread a little Arcadia, wherein, breathing the free air of the forest, Morton and his companions made labor light, while festival and song often attended the passing hour. There was doubtless method in what Bradford called madness, and if all the circumstances of the case were known, we might, possibly, esteem Morton wise. Whoever reads the history of colonization often comes face to face with men dying on foreign shores of mere ennui and homesickness, the wilderness being depressing, and life shorn of all zest.

Morton may have found an example of cheerfulness thought quite worthy of imitation on the page of Nouvelle France, a work which appeared in 1609, from the pen of one who was a lawyer like himself. This work was written by the witty Parisian advocate, Mark Lescarbot. The two lawyers were of different religions, but they possessed many tastes in common, though Lescarbot, in the community at Port Royal, in 1606-7, had none of those sad conflicts which led Morton to dip his pen in gall. Morton and Lescarbot were both fond of jests; both wrote poetry, or at least, verses; and, as laymen, conducted religious services; while both believed in good fellowship and lofty cheer. These two men, fighting hardship and privation in the wilderness, had the highest of all authority for trying to make life cheerful. It is very reasonable to suppose, therefore, that Morton had read Lescarbot's New France. If so, he would have discovered that his brother at Port Royal was a prominent member of the order of “Bon Temps.” In the French “Acadie,” poesy added to the glory of a cuisine worthy, at least in its aims, of the famous Parisian restaurant in the Rue aux Ours.

Lescarbot called the country “New France,” but Morton styled it the “New Canaan.” Morton found in New England “a kind of paralell” to the “Canaan of Israel,” because it lay along the sea; and Champlain's Lake of the Iroquois he called Gennesaret. The object of these two lawyers was to overcome hardship by giving to wilderness life all the animation and cheerfulness possible. Morton has been stigmatized as a bad man, yet a man of his tastes, possessing as he did such reverence for nature, and such a deep sympathy with all her moods, could not be thoroughly bad.

The opening of Morton's work sounds like some ancient hymn of praise, recognizing as he does “the wise Creator of the universal Globe,” using such language as “the secret wisdom of Almighty God,” and demonstrating, by appeals to the beauties of nature that lay around Merry Mount, “the wondrous wisdome and love of God!” (page 11). Yet Bradford is so carried away by passion as to declare that he set up a school of atheism, and actually wrote a book full of profane calumnies “against ye ways of God.” Bradford is unworthy of trust where the “Sachem of Passonagesset” is concerned.

Morton indeed formed a composite character, but even in his jesting, which was not convenient, he appears to have had an object in view. Like Jaques, in the Forest of Arden, he said to himself:

                                                            I must have liberty
Withal, as large a charter as the wind
To blow on whom I please!

Yet, like that eccentric individual, it would also appear that he proposed to

Cleanse the foul body of the infected world,

if it would patiently receive his medicine.

Morton was a keen sportsman, but in this, as in other respects, he was guided by the utilities. He pursued the chase with no idle mind. He knew the beasts and birds. He hunted the beaver, and understood his ways from the Blue Hills to the banks of the Kennebec. He had scarcely landed when his practised eye told him he could make merchandise of the hawks that, like Shakespeare's crows and choughs at Dover, midway cleaved the clear, crisp air, one sup of which, in New England, some of the visitors thought, was better than a barrel of Old England's beer. He writes: “At my first arrival in those parts [I] practised to take a lannaret, which I reclaimed, trained, and made flying in a fortnight, the same being a passenger at Michaelmas.” Motley, in his Merry Mount, enjoys this phase of Morton's life; but it was, after all, less a pastime than the novelist supposed. The practical character of the man excited deep envy among his less skillful neighbors. However much they may have condemned his mirthfulness, they never wrote a line to suggest that he was indolent, as he should have been had other charges proved true. He was not slothful, like the man condemned by the wise king, because he failed to roast that which he took in hunting. They saw that he was a diligent man, whose substance daily grew. In fact, those solemn magnates who ruled the Bay were terribly annoyed by the sight of free living joined to prosperity; yet this man, who, according to their account, did nothing but drink and carouse, went on piling his storehouse with beaver.

In training the hawks, Morton looked sharply to the profits. As early as 1503, Henry VII. records this item of the privy purse: “To one that brought hawks from the Newfound Island, £1.” In 1609 Richard Gyfford was licensed to import hawks into England from America. Again, as it appears from the Colonial Manuscripts, that, in 1635, the Massachusetts hawks were highly prized. The Council for New England presented the king with some specimens brought to London by one Captain Smart, while the bringer was recommended for promotion. The eagle is the royal bird, as Motley causes Morton to explain; yet Charles I. considered a New England hawk fit for a king, little dreaming, perhaps, that a bird of another feather, in the person of Peters, the regicide, was then in New England, preparing to stoop and find a quarry in his own royal person.

Of the precise order of events at Merry Mount it may be impossible to speak, as Morton does not deal in dates. It is nevertheless certain that he was arrested and banished twice. Ostensibly, the first arrest was based upon the charge of selling firearms to the Indians; but, realizing that the charge was too feeble, they claimed that he intended to send to England for more. Morton, being a lawyer, replied that the proclamation respecting firearms was not a law; further, he was not subject to the jurisdiction of his opponents. In defiance of the law, they resolved to get rid of him. Herbert Spencer says that the “abject submission of the weak to the strong, however unscrupulously enforced, has in some times and places been necessary,” and the principle underlying this dictum has been pleaded, saying that self-preservation is the first law of nature, and that, being endangered by Morton, his enemies had a right to proceed in the absence, and even in defiance, of the law. The truth is that they were in no danger, and that they did not and could not prove their charge. As the Colonial Manuscripts show, the harm was done and the proclamation was issued before Morton arrived in New England. At the most, he could not have disposed of more than half a dozen guns. Bradford simply makes himself ridiculous. Lamenting that Morton initiated the red men into so many useful arts, he says: “Could they attaine to make saltpeter they would teach them to make powder. O the horiblnes of this vilanie!”

This charge was a cover for something else. Their opposition was based upon the fact that he was “a maine enemy of theire Church and State,” which he had a right to be; therefore every opportunity was improved, and, therefore, his May-pole was cut down. This pole, eighty feet high, and surmounted by a pair of antlers, had been planted with the aid of the Indians and his friends. Here he had kept the revels in good old English style, showing suitable hospitality to all comers. This alone was enough for Bradford, who, on Christmas Day, 1621, had put a stop to the athletic sports and innocent games inaugurated at Plymouth. At Merry Mount they may or may not have indulged to excess. It was no concern of Bradford's, if they did. There may have been bad fellows in the company, yet we hear of none who fought duels, indulged in the horrible profanity rebuked by Bradford, nor of any who, for thieving, were “well whipt,” like those who came under the lash at Plymouth. Of the people of Merry Mount he knew little, except by the reports of paid spies, who abused the hospitality of the merry Sachem of Passonagesset. Nevertheless, it was resolved that the industrious and enterprising Morton, who was fast monopolizing the trade in beaver, “must go.” Accordingly the Plymotheans sent doughty Miles Standish to make the arrest. Standish pounced upon his victim at Weymouth, where he happened to be making a visit; but in the night, while Standish and his men were drowsy with drink, he managed to escape. During a severe thunderstorm, he made his way back to Merry Mount. Thither he was pursued by nine armed men, under the diminutive Standish, designated by Morton as “Captain Shrimp,” and, through the window of his stronghold, a treaty was made, in accordance with which Morton surrendered. The latter makes “Shrimp” appear as ridiculous as possible, while Bradford employs the account of some “swashbuckler,” representing mine host of the Mount in his own fashion, and says that one of his men was “so drunke y^t he rane his own nose upon y^e point of a sword y^t one held before him as he entred y^e house.” According to the same chronicler, Morton had filled his carbine half full of powder and shot, being determined on desperate deeds; while Captain Shrimp, described as one of those little chimneys easily fired, threatened to shoot his captive with a pistol.

From the Mount Morton was taken on board a shallop, and conveyed to the “inchaunted Castle at Plymouth,” being afterward carried to the Isles of Shoals. There he was left in the winter, thinly clad, being relieved by the Indians, who provided for his wants, and brought bottles of “strong liquor,” such as Plymotheans, even, under the name of “aqua vitæ,” loved unwisely and too well. Morton concludes the account by saying, thus “full of humanity are these infidels before these Christians.”

After much difficulty, a captain was found to take him to England, where, notwithstanding the fact that the Plymouth purse was at the disposal of the prosecutor, no attorney could be found to risk his reputation by undertaking a suit. He had used the Book of Common Prayer, and had scored his enemies with his tongue, but in England these things were not crimes. No one, therefore, was found to interfere with Morton. The charge to which he was really open was that of indiscretion. He knew the opinions and the temper of the men against whom he levelled his stinging satires, and should have been cautious.

All proceedings having failed, he returned the next year to New England. To the infinite scandal of Bradford, he landed at Plymouth. What made it worse, he came out with the Plymouth agent, the highly respected Mr. Allerton, thus refuting the charge of Bradford, that Morton was despised by “ye meanest servants.” The men of Plymouth, too, knew the groundlessness of their old charges, and did not venture to rearrest him. Bradford complains that Allerton brought Morton to “ye towne, as it were, to nose them.” This does not appear to be an unreasonable view of the question. They had violated every principle of law, and deserved to be “nosed.” But Allerton was just. He knew Morton's rights, and felt bound to respect them. He accordingly entertained him in his own house, as his secretary, and utilized his literary talents. Finally, however, the opposition of his neighbors was more than he could support, and Bradford gleefully remarks, that Allerton was obliged “to pack him away,” whereupon Morton “wente to his olde neste in y^e Massachusetts.” This “nest” he held by patent, and no one at that time interfered with his rights. If Morton had been discreet, he might have passed his life there. Quincy was the Ultima Thule, and Morton was a remote barbarian, who had nothing to do but to hold his tongue. That, however, he did not do, and, as the result, he was called upon by Endicott to sign certain articles, the tenor of which was that, in ecclesiastical and political matters, the people should follow “the rule of God's word.” This aimed at freedom of worship. He refused to sign, unless he could add the proviso, that nothing should be done contrary to the laws of England. Boston, however, was resolved, and accordingly they invented the charge of cruelty against the Indians, as well as insinuations respecting his treatment of their women, whom, in reality, he had sought to instruct in the principles of religion. Indeed, his life had been marked by a wise consideration and kindness, and a desire to make the red man his friend. He succeeded well. He had entertained them at Merry Mount, taught them a superior woodcraft, showed them how to hunt, and retained them in his service in a kindly, feudal spirit. He made himself so loved, trusted, and popular, that, though near Weymouth, where the whites had been massacred, he lived in security, having, like the merry men in the Forest of Arden,

                    No enemy but winter
And rough weather.

Nevertheless, at Charlestown, September 17, 1630, the court decreed, “that Thomas Morton, of Mount Wolliston, shall presently be sett into the bilbowes and after sent prisoner into England by the shipp called the Gifte, nowe returning thither; that all his goods shall be seazed vpon to defray the charge of his transportation, payment of his debts, and to give satisfaction to the Indians for a cannoe he had vnjustly took away from them; and that his howse, after the goods are taken out, shalbe burnt doune to the ground in the sight of the Indians for their satisfaction, for many wrongs hee hath done them from time to time.”

Morton was skilled in the law, and he stood bravely upon his defence, yet the charges, though manufactured, were pressed. That they were false is as certain as that they caused Morton's condemnation; and at this late day we have the testimony of Samuel Maverick, one of the most upright, enterprising, and responsible men of Boston, to prove the general charge false. He not only testifies that Morton had a patent for his land, but that the firing of the gun upon the Indians, not mentioned in the sentence but charged, was accidental, and that no one was seriously hurt, while the Indians lamented when they saw Morton's house in flames. The offence against the savages consisted in getting their good-will, in sharing his food with them, and in dissuading them from the improper use of strong drink, assuring them that the aqua vitæ they demanded was the exclusive “drink of Sachems.” If he had been guilty of the charge brought against him, he was entitled at least to a fair trial. But his case was decided without law. Before the court he had no counsel, and when he endeavored to speak in his own defence his voice was drowned by the cry, “Hear the Governour!” The government, however, had organized itself into a mob, and Morton, viewing the whole procedure with a legal eye, saw that the demonstration was nothing more than a “riot.” No one would lend an ear either to justice or mercy. It was a procedure which no sophistry can defend. The sentence of the court was executed to the letter. There was also a refinement in their cruelty, and Maverick says, that it was ordered that Morton should “saile in sight of his howse” and view the conflagration.

Having thus condemned and punished him without a trial, for a crime of which he was innocent, one might suppose that they would rest satisfied. But the next step was to order him to England a prisoner. Yet, for what? Bradford says that he was sent in response to a requisition from the Lord Chief Justice, to answer for a murder of which he was “vehemently suspected.” The captain of the Gift, to whom they applied, refused to carry him, evidently having not heard of the alleged “warrante” which existed only in imagination, otherwise he would not have refused. As it remained, it required three months to find a man who would do their work. Morton finally sailed on the Handmaid.

Mr. Adams, who approved the first prosecution, would go no farther. He says, “The charges alleged against him were certainly not of a character to justify the extremely harsh sentence inflicted, for they amounted to nothing more than taking an Indian canoe, and a vague suggestion of other offences. Had he continued the illicit trade in firearms after his return, or even kept up his may-pole revels, we may feel very sure that emphasis would be given to the fact. Nothing of the sort was even intimated.” The conclusion, in the words of the writer just quoted, is that “these were high-handed acts of unmistakable oppression;” adding, “the probabilities in the case would seem to be that the Massachusetts magistrates had made up their minds in advance to drive this man out of Massachusetts.”

In this manner Morton was, nevertheless, treated, and after being well-nigh starved on the voyage, he was lodged in Exeter jail; but there being no charge against him, he was set at liberty; and none of his enemies repeated the base insinuation of Bradford. Morton was more than acquitted.

The spirit of Morton, therefore, was not yet broken, and in England he set himself at work to secure the punishment of his oppressors. Winslow, of Plymouth, was then in England, and Morton went so far as to persuade Laud to throw him into jail for performing the marriage service in New England. It was a mean act, and one unworthy of the generous and hospitable master of Merry Mount, even though Winslow had sought to prejudice the Privy Council against him. Morton, like his enemies, was human. At this period his chief efforts were directed to securing the vacation of the Massachusetts charter, the only course, in his opinion, that promised a remedy. In 1634, he was so confident of success that he sent Jeffrey that unfortunate letter beginning, “My very good gossip,”⁵ in which he refers to “Annanias and his brethren,” and saying that the king had declared the patent void. Morton already saw Winthrop's ears cropped. Action, nevertheless, was delayed, and in 1644 he returned, when he was greeted with a dramatic surprise, his letter to Jeffrey being flaunted in his face. In court Morton was charged with bringing a complaint before the Council accusing the leaders in Massachusetts of treason and rebellion. This Morton denied, having being summoned by Sir Christopher Gardiner simply as a witness.⁶

Finally, Winthrop says Morton had set forth a book against us, and had threatened us, and had prosecuted a quo warranto against us.” Bradford also says that for this book, written against “y^e ways of God,” and for “other things,” he was imprisoned at Boston, “being grown old in wickednes.”

The institution of proceedings, ten years after the book was published, and at a time when the waning power of the king gave them nothing to fear, showed a vindictiveness with which Morton, notwithstanding his prejudice, did not credit them. Otherwise he would not have trusted himself in their power. But time had not mollified their resentment. Morton, however, in the whole business, had simply availed himself of his constitutional rights as an Englishman. He violated no law in arguing for the vacation of the charter, and was guilty of no misdemeanor in publishing a book. The fault was to be found in the fact that the book was tolerably true, though disrespectful and needlessly severe.

Winthrop says that Morton did not deny the authorship of New English Canaan, while Maverick says “he confessed not.” Being a lawyer, and knowing his rights as an accused man, he probably refused to acknowledge the book as testimony, and threw the burden of proof upon his enemies, who knew the weakness of their case, and comprehended the fact that, whoever may have written the book, neither its composition nor its publication constituted a crime. Conscious of this fact, Morton was put in jail, to gain time and rake up something else. At all events, they were resolved what they would ultimately do, and Mr. Adams admits that “had he been as pure as ice and chaste as snow he would not have escaped calumny.” It is also admitted as being more than probable that in the second prosecution “complaints were trumped up” against him. In connection with the third arrest, the conduct of the Governor and his associates appears still worse. Let Winthrop tell the story. The Governor says: “Having been kept in prison about a year, in expectation of further evidence out of England [sic!], he was again called before the court, and after some debate what to do with him, he was fined £100 and set at liberty. He was a charge to the country, for he had nothing, and we thought not fit to inflict corporal punishment upon him, being old and crazy, but thought better to fine him and give him his liberty, as if it had been to procure his fine, but indeed to leave him opportunity to go out of the jurisdiction, which he did soon after, and went to Acomenticus, and living there poor and despised, he died within two years after” (II., p. 190).

Here we have a “crazy” man treated as a felon, and turned out, robbed of all that he possessed, to wander away into the wilderness and die. But this is not all, for Maverick, in writing to the Earl of Clarendon, after reciting that Morton was a gentleman of good quality, who had been sent a prisoner to England, not in obedience to any warrant of the Chief Justice, but on the false charge of firing intentionally upon the Indians, says: “He wrote a book entitled New Canaan, a good description of the Cuntery as it then was, only in the end of it he pinched to closely on some in authoritie there, for which some yeares after cominge over to looke after his land for which he had a patent many yeares before, he found his land disposed of and made a towneship, and himself shortly after apprehended, put into the goale without fire or beddinge, no bayle to be taken, where he remained a very cold winter, nothing laid to his charge but the writing of this booke, which he confessed not nor could they prove; he died shortly after, and as he said and many well supposed, on his hard vsage in prison.”⁷ This turns the case into something nearly akin to judicial murder.

Thus the able, accomplished, and merry-hearted Sachem of Passonagesset disappeared under a cloud. Of the closing scenes in his career the accessible records afford no description beyond what is found in the two writers just quoted. The “Accomenticus” of Winthrop is the “Agamenticus” of the present day. The name is now affixed to a beautiful green hill on the coast of Maine, near Cape Neddock, which salutes the voyager from afar. In this pleasant region, outside the jurisdiction of Massachusetts, this “gentleman of good qualitie” sought an asylum. Winthrop says that he was “despised.” What was worse, he was “poor,” and unable to pay Boston the hundred pounds. If, however, he was not poor, the men of the Bay were not to blame; while if he was not despised, it was hardly because they had not employed all their arts to render his appearance despicable. But there is no proof that he was despised by any except his foes. As respects Bradford, he contradicted himself; while, after Morton's second banishment, the authorities at home appointed him solicitor in connection with the proposed vacation of the charter.

Morton went to Maine, but, so far as is known, not to be despised. Clearly he must have had the possession of his faculties, and in Maine he would be free from persecution. In 1641-42 charters were drawn up for a city to be called “Agamenticus,” Edward Godfrey being designated as Mayor. It was to be a prosperous and right cheerful place. Two fairs were to be “held or kept” in the Agamenticus “every year forever upon the festivals of SS. James and Paul.” The good old feasts of “merrie England” were to be celebrated there. Those who cared to frolic around an innocent May-pole might freely enjoy the sport; and there, too, would be lawyers, courts being held in “the town hall.” The Christmas and Whitsuntide holidays would resound with mirth. Morton, beyond doubt, had heard of the proposed city, which promised to be an attorney's paradise; and toward “Agamenticus,” then only a “poore village,” he dragged his way, racked with pain and dying, yet hoping to live. There, he trusted, he might find friends. He certainly, however, could not hope for much enjoyment, but the phantom of Pleasure led the way, and his ruling passion was strong. Still, the projected city was not built. It remained as unsubstantial as the famous “Norumbega,” searched for by the French on the Penobscot, and described by early visionaries as having houses with pillars of crystal and silver, and roofs resplendent with gold. To-day no affluent commerce seeks the shelter of the silent port, where only a few small craft come and go with the lazy lapse of the idle tide. There, in the infant settlement, Thomas Morton died. What were his last thoughts and final consolation no man, perhaps, can tell. Did he relent respecting his enemies, and, in a penitential spirit, address to himself some portion of the merciless severity that he often poured upon others? It is impossible to say. It is not unreasonable, however, to think that the end of his life may have been in harmony with the trustful and reverent beginning of his book; that the sternness of his resentment may have been softened by some degree of the charity so consistent with his generous heart, and that, as “Agamenticus” failed, another city, “Urbs Zion Mystica,” a city with foundations, rose upon his gladdened view.

To-day the ashes of the Lord of “Merry Mount” rest in some unknown spot, under the shadow of “Mount Agamenticus,” yet the imperishable chronicle will keep his memory alive; while, when the ideal history of New England is written, with an exact analysis of motives, and a supreme fealty to truth, doing simple justice alike to Churchman and Nonconformist, Thomas Morton will appear, with all his imperfections, yet in his real character and true place.

Notes

1. Bradford's History. Mass. Coll., S. 4. Vol. III., pp. 236-242.

2. See the valuable articles of Mr. Adams in the Atlantic Monthly, May and June, 1877.

3. In referring to this objection against him, he quotes his opponents, who say of the Book, “but this is not the meanes; the answere is: the meanes they crie; alas, poore soules, where is the meanes? how can you be stayed from fallinge headlonge to perdition. Facilis descensus averni: the booke of Common Prayer sayd they, what poor thing is that, for a man to read in a booke. … Give me a man hath the guifts of the Spirit, not a booke in hand.” New English Canaan, p. 116.

4. Morton says that he wrote the book upon ten years' knowledge and experience of the country, which would place its composition in 1632-33. It was actually entered for copyright November 18, 1633. Peter Force reprinted the work in 1838, and his copy bears upon the title-page, “Printed by Charles Green. 1632.” Yet, since Morton quotes from Wood's New England's Prospect, printed in 1634, it has been argued that his work was printed subsequent to Wood's. Possibly, however, Morton had seen Wood's manuscript. The copy used by Force in reprinting wants the title-page, which he evidently made up from the title as given by Bishop Kenneth (Bibliotheca Americanæ Primordis, London, 1817), who, however, says, “Printed for Charles Green.” The Bishop of Peterborough puts the date in the margin as 1632. Clearly his copy was without a printed date. Such is actually the case with the copy in the Library of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, which has the date 1632 written in, while “nowhere else,” writes the Secretary, “is there a date mark of any kind.” The title-page of the Society's copy says, “Printed for Charles Greene, and are sold in Paul's Churchyard.”

   The edition in possession of the New York Historical Society, says, “Printed at Amsterdam, by Jacob Frederick Stam, In the yeare 1637.” It is, therefore, clear that two editions of the book were printed, and that one was without date, though there is nothing in the edition of 1637, beyond the imprint, favoring the theory that this edition, and not that of Green, was printed in Amsterdam. Also, if the book was printed in Amsterdam by Stam, why did the printer blunder on the name, which, according to the present testimony, should have read “Jan” instead of “Jacob”? Lowndes also states that the North and the Gordonstoun sales contained copies with the date of 1634. This is an error with respect to Gordonstoun, as is probably the case with the North catalogue. There seems to have been two editions, neither of which had the date 1632. Both may have been printed at London. The facts, so far as known, seem to point to the conclusion, that the work was written in 1633, and revised after the author had seen Wood's Prospect. The subject is discussed in Harvard College Bulletin, No. 10, where it is said, “Now that the Force copy fails, it is not known that a single copy of title and date, corresponding to White Kennet's 1632 entry is in existence; and that one such did exist rests upon his entry alone.” We have shown, however, that the copy described by Bishop Kennet has no date. The Clarendon Papers also show that when Morton was accused of writing the book they could not prove it. Now would this have gone on record, unless the copy produced was without the author's name? This, perhaps, leads to the consideration of the question, whether or not an edition was published without the author's name, as well as without the date.

5. Found in Winthrop's History of New England, vol. II., p. 190, ed. 1826.

6. It is curious to observe how the ground was changed at this point, for they at once brought forward the irrelevant statement, that Gardiner had no cause to complain, as “he was kindly used and dismissed in peace, professing much engagement for the great courtesy he found here.” Bradford, however, shows the error of Winthrop's statement, where he writes that Gardiner was charged with gross immorality, accused of being a “Papist,” and was beaten with poles at his arrest, while his capture in this barbarous fashion was “taken thankfully” by the Governor of Massachusetts.

7. N. York Collections, 1869, p. 40. The neglected Clarendon Papers are of no little importance.