To trample on one dead and gone, with his debauchèd stories.
A certain tribe of Indians would not allow the burial of any one until some person could speak a word in his praise. On one such occasion, silence long reigned, when a squaw arose and said, “He was a good smoker.” What can we say of Peter Pratt, that the right of sepulture may be granted him? This may be said: He at one time thought he had discovered the “wonderful art of longitude,” by which he expected to be made famous the world over, and presented his scheme to the faculty of Yale College, who regarded it as the product of an hallucinated mind. Upon this, Pratt gave up the fallacy, which should be spoken to his praise. The following testimony which he gave in his book regarding John Rogers, 2d, and incidentally in favor of John Rogers senior, should also be put to his credit:—
My near alliance to John Rogers (then junior) who is my brother, viz., the son of my mother, proved an unhappy snare to me. He being, naturally, a man as manly, wise, facetious and generous perhaps as one among a thousand, I was exceedingly delighted in and with his conversation. He also endeared himself to me very much by his repeated expressions of complacency in me, by which I was induced to be frequently in his company and often at his house, where his father would be entertaining me with exhortations to a religious life, warning me of the danger of sin, and certainty of that wrath which shall come on all that know not God. I would sometimes, for curiosity, be inquiring into his principles, and othertimes, for diversion, be disputing a point with him; but I knew not that the dead were there, Prov. ix, 18. I was not religious enough to be much concerned about his principles, but pitiful enough to be extremely moved with the story of his sufferings. I had also a reserve in his favor, that it was possible he might be a good man (the strangeness of his doctrine notwithstanding), especially seeing all his sufferings were not able to shake his constancy, or oblige him to recede from the least part of his religion.
And here a just tribute may be paid to John Rogers, 2d, from whom we have so largely quoted. The appreciative reader will agree with us in saying he was a son worthy of the father, in defence of whose honor he wrote. Clear in his statement of facts, conclusive in his reasoning, and abundantly supplied with authority in proof of his assertions, his words bear the sacred impress of truth. Malice has raised no aspersions against his character. “Notwithstanding,” says Miss Caulkins, “his long testimony and his many weary trials and imprisonments, he reared to maturity a family of eighteen children, most of them, like their parents, sturdy Rogerenes.” As soon as he was able to make choice for himself, about the age of sixteen, he left the home of his grandfather, Matthew Griswold of Lyme, the ancestor of many noted men, and chose to live with his father. His sister did the same thing at the age of fourteen, and was married at her father’s house. A purer, sweeter, and higher tribute could scarcely be paid to that heroic defender of religious liberty and great sufferer for conscience’ sake.
John Rogers, 2d, was the author of several other books besides his “Reply to Peter Pratt,” each of them being of the same able character.
CHAPTER V.
“Nine and twenty knives.”—Ezra i, 9. It would take more than that number of knives to sever the many threads of falsehood and malice wound about the name of John Rogers, a name that may yet emerge as the royal butterfly from its chrysalis, to dwell in the light and atmosphere of heaven.
We must now charge the Rev. Gurdon Saltonstall, governor of the State of Connecticut, and judge of its Superior Court, with concocting a plan whereby he and his ecclesiastical accomplices might incarcerate John Rogers in the Hartford jail, exclude him from the light, and hide him from the public thought. Had this nefarious scheme succeeded, Rogers would doubtless have been held a close prisoner for life; but he was apprised of it and enabled to make his escape, like as St. Paul was let down in a basket from the wall of Damascus to elude the fury of his enemies. The governor’s suit against him for slanderous words—not slanderous in law—for which a subservient jury awarded him damages in the sum of £600, proves with what malign purpose Roger’s conduct was watched by him.
Here follows an account of the above mentioned plot and other matters, in Roger’s own words, copied from his address to the civil authorities and particularly to Gov. Saltonstall, in which he recounts some of the atrocious wrongs he had received from them,—wrongs which could hardly gain credence had they not been openly published at the time, during the life of Gov. Saltonstall, and not denied by him.
The last fine you fined me was ten shillings. All that I did was expounding upon a chapter in the Bible between your meetings, after the people were gone to dinner, which you call a riot. I went into no other seat but that which I was seated in by them whom the town appointed to seat every one. The building of the meeting-house cost me three of the best fat cattle I had that year and as many sheep as sold for thirty shillings in silver money. For which said fine of ten shillings, the officer took ten sheep, as some told me that helped to drive them away. The sheep were half my son’s. They were marked with a mark that we marked creatures with that were between us, which said mark had been recorded in the town book, I suppose for above twenty years. And after they were sold, the officer went into my son’s pasture, unbeknown to him, and took a milch cow which was between us (my part he hired), all upon the same fine of ten shillings. Such things as these have been frequently done upon us; but my purpose is brevity, and such things as these would contain a great volume; therefore I think to mention but one more. I was fined £20 by a Superior Court for charging an Inferior Court with injustice for trying upon life and death without a jury. The judge of the Superior Court that fined me was this present Governor, who also denied me a jury, though I chose the jury then panelled. For which £20 and the charges, an execution was laid upon land which I bought for my son, with his own money, and after it was taken away by said execution, he went and bought it of you this present Government, and gave you the money down for it, and you gave him a patent for it I think as substantial as your patent from the crown of England for your Government, upon all accounts, being sealed with your seal and with your present Governor’s hand and your Secretary’s to it. The patent cost 19s. to the Governor for signing it. And when you had got his money for it, and given him said patent, then you took this very individual land from him, and kept his money also, and left him nothing but said patent in his hand; for said Governor kept the deed which the man of whom I bought it gave, and keeps it to this day, I think for that end that my son may not help himself of said deed; for the man of whom I bought it lives in another Government.