ART. IX.-PALFREY'S HISTORY OF NEW ENGLAND.

The History of New England. By JOHN GORHAM PALFREY. Vol. I. Boston: Little, Brown & Co. 1858. Vol. II. 1860.

Two volumes of Dr. Palfrey's History are now before the public. It is a pleasure to commend such a work. In the first volume, the author, already widely known as a scholar of exact and various learning, achieved a position among the foremost of living historians. All the range of his former studies and employments seemed to have fitted him for the great work which he announced as that which was to occupy the remainder of his life. In his second volume, there is no falling off of enthusiasm on the part of the writer; while the power with which he holds and charins his readers is the greater as the narrative proceeds, and the unity of its subject becomes more evident. The chief peculiarity of his style, if not more conspicuous in the second volume than in the first, seems more effective; we mean the freedom and skill with which he studiously incorporates into his narrative the language of contemporary documents. It is more and more a satisfaction to find the actors in the story speaking so often for themselves, not, after the fashion of ancient historians, in orations and dialogues purely imaginary, but in their own words recorded at the time. The conviction of the author's indefatigable thoroughness in tracing everything back to the original sources of information, and in distinguishing between the authentic and the merely traditionary or conjectural, grows upon the reader in all the progress of the work.

Dr. Palfrey professes, in the preface to his first volume, that his religious sympathies are not with the heroes of his story. He intimates that, with the belief which he entertains, he "could not have been admitted into any church established by the Fathers," and that an attempt to propagate his inter

pretations of the Gospel would have made him "an exile from their society." Yet he writes with the undissembled feeling of a New England man who is not ashamed of his ancestry, or of these old Puritan commonwealths. In his case "blood is thicker than water;" and the history which he gives us is the better for the partial feeling which gives it warmth and color. He does not pretend to have divested himself of all patriotic sympathies, and for that reason we have the more confidence in him. He writes not with serene and absolute indifference, still less with cynical disparagement of character and motives after the manner of Mr. Hildreth, but with a healthy glow of natural affection toward his natal soil, and toward the men whose heroic labors redeemed it from the wildness of nature.

Inasmuch, then, as we make no objection to the fact that this history of New England is written with New England sympathies, we will not complain too loudly if we find the learned author sometimes biased by his sympathies as a Massachusetts man in his account of questions that arose of old between Massachusetts and the neighboring colonies. Those questions have long since ceased to be of any practical consequence, or to have any other than an antiquarian interest. What if the men of Massachusetts, two hundred years ago, were sometimes overbearing toward the weaker colonies in the little Puritan confederation? What if they were not? The question concerns no living person's rights or welfare. Anything like a controversy over it would be almost as preposterous as the disputes between Mr. Jonathan Oldbuck and Sir Arthur Wardour, in the Antiquary. We can therefore afford to be charitable towards any errors into which our author may have fallen under the bias of his special sympathy with his own state. To antiquaries and the active members of State Historical Societies, certain questions in New England history are as fresh to-day, and as far from being settled, as when they were first debated among the fathers of these Puritan colonies. Some of these questions Dr. Palfrey has occasion to discuss in the progress of his second volume; and uniformly, if we mistake not, it happens that his

decision is for Massachusetts against the other colonies. A friend of ours, who is eminently learned in all those questions, and familiar with the documents pertaining to them, and whose sensitiveness to the honor of his own state has been a little roused by the perusal of the work before us, assures us that though the first volume was so far impartial as to produce some discontent in certain circles, the second volume is less successful in that respect. While agreeing with us in our admiration of the work, he refers us to several instances of what seems to him partiality in judgment-and particularly to the matter of the "Saybrook impost," and to the controversies about a war with the Dutch at the Manhadoes. Without committing ourselves very zealously on either side, we may venture to examine Dr. Palfrey's account of the part taken by Massachusetts in those two affairs now so far bygone.

As to the "Saybrook impost," the acknowledged facts on which the controversy rests, are these:

In 1643, the four New England colonies of Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven, entered into "a firm and perpetual league of friendship and amity, for offense and defense, mutual advice, and succor upon all just occa sions, both for preserving and propagating the truth and liberties of the Gospel, and for their own mutual safety and welfare." "For the managing and concluding of all affairs, proper to and concerning the whole confederation," they instituted a yearly congress of two "Commissioners" from each of the four colonies, who were to be invested with "full power, from their several General Courts respectively, to hear, examine, weigh and determine all affairs of war or peace”—“ and all things of like nature which are the proper concomitants or consequences of such a confederation for amity, offense, and defense." And in the eighth of the twelve " Articles of Confederation" it was distinctly "agreed that the Commissioners for this confederation, hereafter at their meetings, whether ordinary or extraordinary, do endeavor to frame and establish agreements and orders in general cases of a civil nature, wherein all the plantations are interested, for preserving peace

among themselves, and preventing (as much as may be) all occasions of war or differences with others,-as about the free and speedy passage of justice, in each jurisdiction, to all confederates equally as to their own," &c.

2. At the time when the confederation was instituted, the fort at the mouth of Connecticut river was held by George Fenwick, the agent of certain noblemen and gentlemen in England. In 1645, the authorities of Connecticut made an agreement with Fenwick, by which his pretence to a separate jurisdiction was extinguished, and the fort at Saybrook-to the building and support of which Connecticut had previously contributed-became the property of that colony. A part of the consideration to Fenwick, for the surrender of his claims, was that certain duties should be paid to him for ten years, on all beaver, grain and biscuit exported from the river. To facilitate the payment of these duties, one man was appointed at Windsor, one at Hartford, and one at Wethersfield, "their houses being near the waterside," who should give to the master of every vessel going down the river a certificate of the quantity of grain or biscuit on which he was to pay the stipulated duties.

3. Of the then existing settlements on the river, one town, Springfield, was within the jurisdiction of Massachusetts. The traders of Springfield, of whom the chief was William Pynchon, refused to pay those duties, arguing that as dwelling within the jurisdiction of another colony they ought not to be taxed for the benefit of Connecticut. It had been provided that any attempt to evade the payment of the duties should be punished by a forfeiture of the goods; but, on the complaint of the Springfield traders, the execution of that provision was postponed in their case, till the whole question could be referred to the assembled Commissioners of the united colonies.

4. Thus the question as to the payment of the duties, instead of being a private controversy between Pynchon and Fenwick, who seem to have been the parties immediately concerned, became a controversy between the colony of Massachusetts, which was greater in wealth and strength than all the rest of the confederation, and the comparatively feeble colony of Connecticut. As a question between two of the confederated

governments, it was confessedly a question to be decided by the Commissioners. In other words, the decision was to be made by the representatives of two colonies, New Haven and Plymouth, acting as arbitrators between the other two. After repeated hearings and protracted consideration, the decision, first and last, was, that the Saybrook impost ought to be paid by the Springfield traders, as well as by those of the towns within the jurisdiction of Connnecticut.

5. Upon the first rendering of this decision, (July, 1617,) with the proviso that the whole question might be reconsidered at the next meeting if Massachusetts or Springfield should so desire, the General Court of Massachusetts not only expressed its discontent and asked for another hearing of the case, but indulged itself in a remarkable manifestation of what Dr. Palfrey calls "the painful feeling that had been excited in that colony." It found fault with the whole system of the con federation as dangerous to liberty and as needing a thorough revision that might remedy its inconveniences. In modern phrase "the union was in danger," unless Massachusetts could have her way. Nothwithstanding all this manifestation of "painful feeling," the Commissioners, (July, 1648,) Theophilus Eaton and Stephen Goodyeare from New Haven, and William Bradford and John Brown from Plymouth, "found not sufficient cause to reverse what was done the last year." But inasmuch as Connecticut had claimed in the argument, that Springfield was of right, as at the first settlement of that town it was supposed to be, within the boundaries of Connecticut, and that boundary question was beginning to be a serious one; and inasmuch as no copy of the order or enactment requiring the payment of duties from the Springfield people had been exhibited; they desired that the order might "be brought and presented to the Commissioners for further consideration, if there were cause, the next year," and that in the meantime the two contending colonies "would agree upon some equal and satisfying way of running the Massachusetts line."

6. After this second rendering of the decision respecting the Saybrook impost, the question was again revived by Mas