John Winthrop was born in the County of Suffolk, England, in 1588, the year of the defeat of the Spanish Armada. He was a wealthy, well-educated Puritan, the owner of broad estates. As he paced the deck of the Arbella, the night before he sailed for Massachusetts, he knew that he was leaving comfort, home, friends, position, all for liberty of conscience. Few men have ever voluntarily abandoned more than Winthrop, or clung more tenaciously to their ideals.
After a voyage lasting more than two months, he settled with a large number of Puritans on the site of modern Boston. For the principal part of the time from his arrival in 1630 until his death in 1649, he served as governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Not many civil leaders of any age have shown more sagacity, patriotism, and tireless devotion to duty than John Winthrop.
His Journal is a record of contemporaneous events from 1630 to 1648. The early part of this work might with some justice have been called the Log of the Arbella.
[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF BEGINNING OF MS. OF WINTHROP'S "JOURNAL">[
TRANSLITERATION OF FACSIMILE OF WINTHROP'S "JOURNAL"
"ANNO DOMINI 1630, MARCH 29, MONDAY. "EASTER MONDAY.
"Riding at the Cowes, near the Isle of Wight, in the Arbella, a ship of 350 tons, whereof Capt. Peter Milborne was master, being manned with 52 seamen, and 28 pieces of ordnance, (the wind coming to the N. by W. the evening before,) in the morning there came aboard us Mr. Cradock, the late governor, and the masters of his 2 ships, Capt. John Lowe, master of the Ambrose, and Mr. Nicholas Hurlston, master of the Jewel, and Mr. Thomas Beecher, master of the Talbot."
The entry for Monday, April 12, 1630, is:—
"The wind more large to the N. a stiff gale, with fair weather. In the afternoon less wind, and our people began to grow well again. Our children and others, that were sick and lay groaning in the cabins, we fetched out, and having stretched a rope from the steerage to the main-mast, we made them stand, some of one side and some of the other, and sway it up and down till they were warm, and by this means they soon grew well and merry."
The following entry for June 5, 1644, reflects an interesting side light on the government of Harvard, our first American college:—