No. LXXV.
While attempting to rectify the supposed mistakes of other men, we sometimes commit egregious blunders ourselves. In turning over an old copy of John Josselyn’s Voyages to New England, in 1638 and 1663, my attention was attracted, by a particular passage, and a marginal manuscript note, intended to correct what the annotator supposed, and what some readers might suppose, to be a blunder of the printer, or the author. The passage runs thus—“In 1602, these North parts were further discovered by Capt. Bartholomew Gosnold. The first English that planted there, set down not far from the Narragansetts Bay, and called their Colony Plimouth, since old Plimouth, An. Dom., 1602.” The annotator had written, on the margin, “gross blunder,” and, in both instances, run his indignant pen through 1602, and substituted 1620. There are others, doubtless, who would have done the same thing. The first aspect of the thing is certainly very tempting. The text, nevertheless, is undoubtedly correct. It is altogether likely, that the matter, stated by Josselyn, can be found, so stated by no other writer. In 1602, Gosnold discovered the Elizabeth Islands, and built a house, and erected palisades, on the “Island Elizabeth,” the westernmost of the group, whose Indian name was Cuttyhunk. In 1797, Dr. Jeremy Belknap visited this interesting spot. “We had the supreme satisfaction,” says he, Am. Biog. ii. 115, “to find the cellar of Gosnold’s store-house!”
Hutchinson, i. 1, refers expressly to the passage, in Josselyn; and after stating that Gosnold discovered the Elizabeth Islands, in 1602, and built a fort there, and intended a settlement, but could not persuade his people to remain, he adds, in a note—“This, I suppose, is what Josselyn, and no other author, calls the first colony of New Plimouth, for he says it was begun in 1602, and near Narragansett Bay.”
The writer of a “Topographical Description of New Bedford,” M. H. C., iv. 234, states, that the island, on which Gosnold built his fort and store-house, was Nashaun, and refers to Dr. Belknap’s Biography. The New Bedford writer is wrong, in point of fact, and right, in point of reference. Dr. Belknap published the first volume of his Biography, in 1794, containing a short notice of Gosnold, in which, p. 236, he says—“The island, on which Gosnold and his companions took up their abode, is now called by its Indian name, Nashaun, and is the property of the Hon. James Bowdoin, of Boston, to whom I am indebted for these remarks on Gosnold’s journal.” The writer of the description of New Bedford published his account, the following year, and relied on Dr. Belknap, who unfortunately relied on his informant, who, it seems, was entirely mistaken.
Dr. Belknap published his second volume, in 1798, with a new and more extended memoir of Gosnold, in which, p. 100, he remarks—“The account of Gosnold’s voyage and discovery, in the first volume of this work, is so erroneous, from the misinformation, which I had received, that I thought it best to write the whole of it anew. The former mistakes are here corrected, partly from the best information which I could obtain, after the most assiduous inquiry; but principally from my own observations, on the spot; compared with the journal of the voyage, more critically examined than before.”
Here is abundant evidence of that scrupulous regard for historical truth, for which that upright and excellent man was ever remarkable. With most writers, the pride of authorship would have revolted. The very thought of these vestigia retrorsum, would not have found toleration, for a moment. Some less offensive mode might have been adopted, by the employment of errata, or appendices, or addenda. Not so: this conscientious man, however innocently, had misled the public, upon a few historical points, and nothing would give him satisfaction, but a public recantation. His right hand had not been the agent, like Cranmer’s, of voluntary falsehood, but of unintentional mistake, like Scævola’s; and nothing would suffice, in his opinion, but the actual cautery.
In this second life of Gosnold, p. 114, after describing “the island Elizabeth,” or Cuttyhunk, Dr. Belknap says—“To this spot I went, on the 20th day of June, 1797, in company with several gentlemen, whose curiosity and obliging kindness induced them to accompany me. The protecting hand of nature had reserved this favorite spot to herself. Its fertility and its productions are exactly the same, as in Gosnold’s time, excepting the wood, of which there is none. Every species of what he calls ‘rubbish,’ with strawberries, pears, tansy, and other fruits, and herbs, appear in rich abundance, unmolested by any animal but aquatic birds. We had the supreme satisfaction to find the cellar of Gosnold’s store-house.”
“We had the supreme satisfaction to find the cellar of Gosnold’s store-house!”—A whole-souled ejaculation this! I reverence the memory of the man who made it. It is not every other man we meet on ’Change, who can estimate a sentiment like this. My little Jew friend, in Griper’s Alley, entirely mistakes the case. Never having heard of Bart Gosnold before, he takes him, for the like of Kidd; and the venerable Dr. Jeremy Belknap, for a gold-finder. What supreme satisfaction could there be, in discovering the cellar of a store-house, nearly two hundred years old, unless hidden treasures were there concealed! How, in the name of two per cent. a month, and all the other gods we worship, could a visit down to Cuttyhunk ever pay, only to stare at the stones of an ancient cellar!
Dr. Belknap’s ejaculation reminds one of divers interesting matters—of Archimedes, when he leaped from his bath, and ran about naked, for joy, with eureka on his lips, having excogitated the plan, for detecting the fraud, practised upon Hiero.—It also recalls—parvis componere magna—Johnson’s memorable exclamation, upon walking over the graves, at Icolmkill—“To abstract the mind from all local emotion would be impossible, if it were endeavored, and would be foolish, if it were possible. Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses; whatever makes the past, the distant or the future predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings. Far from me and from my friends be such frigid philosophy, as may conduct as indifferent and unmoved over any ground, which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery or virtue. That man is little to be envied, whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plains of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona.”
Dr. Jeremy Belknap was a Boston boy, born June 4, 1744. He learned his rudiments, under the effective birch of Master Lovell; graduated A. M. at Harvard, 1762, S. T. D. 1792. He was ordained pastor of the church in Dover, N. H. 1767; and in 1787, he became pastor of the church in Berry Street, formerly known as Johnny Moorehead’s, who was settled there in 1730, and succeeded, by David Annan, in 1783, and which is now Dr. Gannett’s.
Dr. Belknap was the founder of the Massachusetts Historical Society, and one of the most earnest promoters of the welfare of Harvard College.
Dr. Belknap published sermons, on various occasions; a volume of dissertations, on the character and resurrection of Christ; his history of New Hampshire in three volumes; his American Biography, in two volumes; and the Foresters, an American Tale, well worthy of republication, at the present day. He wrote extensively, in the newspapers, and published several essays, on the slave trade, and upon the early settlement of the country.
I have the most perfect recollection of this excellent man; for I saw him often, when I was very young; and I used to wonder, how a man, with so rough a voice, could bestow such a benign and captivating smile, upon little boys.
The churchman prays to be delivered from sudden death. Dr. Belknap prayed for sudden death—that he might be translated “in a moment”—such were his words. Yet here is no discrepancy. No man, prepared to die, will pray for a lingering death—and to him, who is not prepared, no death, however prolonged, can be other than sudden and premature. On the ninth of February, 1791, Dr. Belknap was called to mourn the loss of a friend, whose death was immediate. Among the Dr.’s papers, after his decease, the following lines were found, bearing the date of that friend’s demise, and exhibiting, with considerable felicity of language, his own views and aspirations:—
“When faith and patience, hope and love
Have made us meet for Heav’n above;
How blest the privilege to rise,
Snatch’d, in a moment, to the skies!
Unconscious, to resign our breath,
Nor taste the bitterness of death!
Such be my lot, Lord, if thou please
To die in silence, and at ease;
When thou dost know, that I’m prepared,
Oh seize me quick to my reward.
But, if thy wisdom sees it best,
To turn thine ear from this request;
If sickness be th’ appointed way,
To waste this frame of human clay;
If, worn with grief, and rack’d with pain,
This earth must turn to earth again;
Then let thine angels round me stand;
Support me, by thy powerful hand;
Let not my faith or patience move,
Nor aught abate my hope or love;
But brighter may my graces shine,
Till they’re absorbed in light divine.”
The will of the Lord coincided with the wish of this eminent disciple; and his was the sudden death, that he had asked of God. At 4 o’clock in the morning of June 20, 1798, paralysis seized upon his frame, and, before noon, he was no more.
Personal considerations of the flesh cannot be supposed, alone, to have moved the heart of this benevolent man. Who would not wish to avoid that pain, which is reflected, for days, and weeks, and months, and years, from the faces of those we love, who watch, and weep, about the bed of disease and death! Who can imagine this veteran soldier of the cross, with his armor of righteousness, upon the right hand and upon the left, awaiting the welcome signal to depart—without adopting, in the spiritual, and in the physical, sense, the language of the prophet—“Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his.”