“No. 14. If any person turns Quaker, he shall be banished, and not suffered to return, on pain of death.”
I was walking in Philadelphia, when I perceived the name of Buffum, Hatter. Wishing to ascertain whether it was an English name or not, I went in, and entered into conversation with Mr Buffum, who was dressed as what is termed a wet Quaker. He told me that his was an English name, and that his ancestor had been banished from Salem for a heinous crime—which was, as the sentence worded it, for being a damned Quaker. The reason why Quakers were banished by the Puritans, was because they would not; go out to shoot the Indians! To continue:—
“No. 17. No one shall run of a Sabbath-day, or walk in his garden or elsewhere, except reverently to and from church.
“No. 18. No one shall travel, cook victuals, make beds, sweep houses, cut hair or shave on Sabbath-day.
“No. 19. No husband shall kiss his wife, and no mother shall kiss her child upon the Sabbath day.
“No. 31. No one shall read Common Prayer, keep Christmas or saints’-day, make mince-pies, dance, or play on any instrument of music, except the drum, the trumpet, and the jews-harp.”
I do not know any thing that disgusts me so much as cant. Even now we continually hear, in the American public orations, about the stern virtues of the pilgrim fathers. Stern, indeed! The fact is, that these pilgrim fathers were fanatics and bigots, without charity or mercy, wanting in the very essence of Christianity. Witness their conduct to the Indians when they thirsted for their territory. After the death (murder, we may well call it) of Alexander, the brother of the celebrated Philip, the latter prepared for war. “And now,” says a reverend historian of the times, “war was begun by a fierce nation of Indians upon an honest, harmless Christian generation of English, who might very truly have said to the aggressors, as it was said of old unto the Ammonites, ‘I have not sinned against thee; but thou doest me wrong to war against me.’” Fanaticism alone—deep, incurable fanaticism—could have induced such a remark. Well may it be said, “We deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”
And when the war was brought to a close by the death of the noble-minded, high-spirited Philip; when the Christians had slaked their revenge in his blood, exposed his head in triumph on a pike, and captured his helpless innocent child of nine years old; would it be credited, that there was council held to put this child to death, and that the clergy were summoned to give their opinion? And the clergy quoted Scripture, that the child must die! Dr Increase Mather compared it with the child of Hadid, and recommended, with his brother apostles, that it be murdered. But these pious men were overruled; and, with many others, it was sent to the Bermudas, and sold as a slave. Stern virtues!! Call them rather diabolical vices. God of Heaven! when shall we learn to call things by their right names? The next time Governor Everett is called up for an oration at Bloody Brook, let him not talk quite so much of the virtues of the pilgrim fathers.
This reminds me of a duty towards this gentleman, which I have great pleasure in performing. Every one who is acquainted with him must acknowledge his amiable manners, and his high classical attainments and power of eloquence. His orations and speeches are printed, and are among the best specimens of American talent. Miss Martineau, in her work upon America, states that she went up to hear the orator at Bloody Brook; and, in two pages of very coarse, unmeasured language, states “that all her sympathies were baffled, and that she was deeply disgusted;” that the orator “offered them shreds of tawdry sentiment, without the intermixture of one sound thought or simple and natural feeling, simply and naturally expressed.” I have the Address of Governor Everett before me. To insert the whole of it would be inconvenient; but I do most unequivocally deny this, as I must, I am afraid, to many of Miss Martineau’s assertions. To prove, in this one instance alone, the very contrary to what she states, I will merely quote the peroration of Governor Everett’s Address:—