The rule followed, therefore, in the present edition has been to reproduce the New Canaan as it appeared in the Amsterdam edition of 1637, correcting only the punctuation, and such errors of the press as are manifest and unmistakable. Very few changes have been made in the use of capitals, and those only where it is obvious that a letter of one kind in the copy was mistaken by the compositor for a letter of another kind. An example of this is found at the top of page *14, where “Captaine Davis’ fate,” in the author’s manuscript, is made to appear as “Captain Davis Fate,” in the original text. The compositor evidently mistook the small f, written with the old-fashioned flourish, for an initial capital. The spelling has in no case been changed except where the error, as in the case already cited of “muit” for “mint,” is manifestly due to printers’ blunders. Mistakes of the press, such as “legg” for “logg” (p. *77) and “vies” for “eies” (p. *152), have been made right wherever they could be certainly detected.
No conjectural readings whatever have been inserted in the text. The few passages, not more than four or five in number, in which, owing probably to the failure of the compositor to decipher manuscript, the meaning of the original is not clear, are reproduced exactly. No liberties whatever have been taken with the original edition in these cases, and all guesses which are indulged in as to the author’s meaning, whether by the editor or others, are confined to the notes. In a few places the text is obviously deficient. Words necessary to the meaning are omitted in printing. Wherever these have been conjecturally inserted, the inserted words are in brackets. In a very few cases, words, which could clearly have found their way into the original only through inadvertence, have been omitted. Attention is called in the notes to every such omission.
The effort in the present edition has, in short, been to make it a reproduction of the New Canaan; but the reproduction was to be an intelligent, and not a servile one.
NEW ENGLISH CANAAN
OR
NEW CANAAN.
Containing an Abstract of New England,
Composed in three Bookes.
The first Booke setting forth the originall of the Natives, their Manners and Customes, together with their tractable Nature and Love towards the English.
The second Booke setting forth the naturall Indowments of the Country, and what staple Commodities it yealdeth.
The third Booke setting forth, what people are planted there, their prosperity, what remarkable accidents have happened since the first planting of it, together with their Tenents and practise of their Church.