an increased weight of the nation's burthens. To diminish the unproductive would be to ease the shoulders of the workers from a share of their toil; but to diminish the productive and leave the burthen alone, would increase its weight upon them.

The death of every experienced and good officer in an Indian army on the field, might, it is true, afford promotion to the inexperienced and worthless, if only such were left, but still it would impair the army's efficiency; and the death of five out of every twenty sound men, in a parish burdened with cretins, might leave the others under less competition for work, but under an increased weight of cretins to keep.

Mr. Eburne recommends the outsending of clergymen and schoolmasters with settlers, and the formation of parishes and dioceses; so that he was not far behind the wisdom of our enlightened time. He tells us, at p. 19, that many had of late years removed, to their and England's good, to Ireland. It seems, however, from what he writes elsewhere, that all did not better themselves, as he had heard men of good sense, and substance say, they would be willing to bestow out of their parish ten pounds a year towards the setting forth of some of the poor, "so as they might be assured they should not, after a yeare or two, as from the Irish some have done, come home againe, and encumber them worse than before. These emigrations to Ireland seem to have been those of the colonies founded in Donegal, Tyrone, Derry, Fermanagh, Cavan, and Armagh, by James I, when he took the lands from the Irish after the rebellion of the Earl of Tyrone (Tir-Oen), in 1595. In the sixth year of King James, 1609, the Earl of Tyrone, Sir John O'Dougherty, and others, lords of six counties, who were impatient of the sitting of the English judges and justices in their lordships, began to gather followers for rebellion against the English power; but being unsuccessful in their rising they fled to Spain, and the king confiscated their lands. The city of London bought a large share of them; and a great colony was set in Ulster, of English, Welsh, and Scots. The king took also a fourth of the lands of the Irish in Leinster; where they had expelled the older English settlers; and in the peace which followed these events, and lasted about forty years, many English became landowners and settlers in Ireland.

The plantations or colonies in hand in 1624, Mr. Eburne tells us, were Newfoundland, the Bermudas or Summer Islands, Virginia, Guiana, New England, and New Scotland.

Mr. Eburne recommended Newfoundland rather than other colonies, for the following among other reasons;

1st. Because it was one of the nearest to England, not more than fourteen or fifteen days' sail with a good wind.

2d. Because it was most out of the way of pirates.

3d. Because it was yearly visited by fishery ships.

4th. Because it was not over large.

5th. Because it was of temperate and healthy climate.

6th. Because its soil was good.

7th. Because it was rich in fish and fowl.

8th. Because, for the most part, it was utterly void of all inhabitants, salvages, or other.

Plantations had been begun in Newfoundland :

(1.) By the Right Hon. Henry Lord Cary, Vicount Falkland, then Lord Deputy of Ireland.

(2.) The Right Hon. Sir George Calvert, Knight, Secretary to the King's most Excellent Majesty, to whom Mr. Eburne dedicated the Second Part of his Dialogues, had "a goodly plantation there, of not above 5 or 6 yeeres undertaking."

(3.) Master John Slang, of London, Merchant, and some others with him, had a plantation in Newfoundland.

(4.) Divers worshipfull citizens of the city of Bristoll, owned a settlement there; and,

(5.) Another belonged to Master William Vaughan, of Tarrocod, in the county of Carmarthen, Doctor of the Civil Law.

Mr. Eburne's book might have helped to bring Poole, and some other places in the county of Dorset, into their trading connexion with Newfoundland. A great deal of swanskin, a thick and close kind of flannel for Newfoundland wear, was formerly woven at Starminster Newton; and some of the Poole shipping has long been engaged in the Newfoundland fish trade.

"You

Speaking of the ease of a summer voyage, Mr. Eburne says, may sit in your chaire, or lie in your bed at will, and passe along as delicately as doe our gentlemen that ride in their coach: " whence it seems that coaches were not uncommon; though in a "four-years" diary of a gentleman of the west of England, beginning eighty years later, we find only one mention of a coach. Respire hints, that the removing of a great number of people would be a great weakening and impoverishing to our land," to which Enrubie answers:

"No, none at all, since the multitude whose removall should chiefly be intended, is neither apt, for want of education, being of the ruder sort; nor able for want of means, being for the most part, of the poorer sort; to strengthen us. There may be more doubt of them, rather, lest in time of peace, they raise tumults, and fall to uproars for their bellies sake; and in time of warre, lest they joyne with the enemie; and take parts against us, for our pillage and livings sake."

Mr. Eburne tells his readers, that there are three ways of making a plantation:

(1.) By Composition, "When seeking to gaine a country already somewhat peopled, we doe upon faire conditions, as by profering them defence against their enemies, supply of their wants, namely, of apparell, armour, edge-tooles, and the like, allure and winne them to enter league with us, to agree that we shall dwell among them."

(2.) We plant by Preoccupation, he says, "when finding a country quite void of people, as no doubt in America yet there are many, as was the Bermudas, now called Summer Islands, for few yeeres past, and as is at this present, for the most part, New-foundland; we seize upon it, take it, possesse it, and as by the Lawes of God and Nations, lawfully we may hold it as our owne; and so, till and replenish it, with our people.'

(3.) A plantation by Invasion or a taking of a peopled land from its inhabitants by the sword.

The reasoning by which Mr. Eburne places Newfoundland among countries that may be planted by preoccupation, is not fully sound. "A land quite void of people," he says, "may be planted by preoccupation;" from which affirmative we may take the negative, that a land not quite void of people may not be planted by preoccupation: and as he allows that Newfoundland is only for the most part, and therefore not quite void of people, the conclusion is that it could not be planted by preoccupation. Mr. Eburne's definitions and his language upon Newfoundland, would show that it should have been colonized by composition.

ART. V. Remarkable Providences of the Earlier Days of American Colonisation.

An Essay for the recording of Illustrious Providences: wherein an Account is given of many remarkable and very memorable events which have happened in this last age; especially in New England. By INCREASE MATHER, Teacher of a Church at Boston, in New England. Printed at Boston, in New England, and are to be sold by George Calvert, at the sign of the Half-Moon, in Paul's Church-yard, London. 1684.

THE

HE early days of the history of the colony of New England were days of imagination and romance. The colonists were most of them men of profound piety, who had carried with them the strong and superstitious feelings which characterised their puritan brethren in England. They were few in number; settled in a wild and slightly populated country; exposed to dangers of every description; and

on precarious terms with the fierce and warlike Indian tribes who surrounded them. Like the monks of the earlier ages of Christianity, who settled in the wilderness, and believed that it was peopled with demons, the pious settlers in the far-west saw the agency of Satan and his imps in everything they suffered; and they were convinced that the immediate interference of God's providence was visible in every event of their daily life. Those events, indeed, were more than usually remarkable, and were not ill-calculated to foster the superstitious feeling they had brought over with them. Very imperfectly acquainted with the seas they had to navigate, they were constantly in perils from storms, which ignorance of the climate hindered them from foresceing. This very ignorance led them to magnify the dangers, and to attribute every thing to supernatural agency; and a passion for the marvellous led them to import, and study especially, all the treatises and narratives of witchcraft, which issued then abundantly from the press in England; until, in the latter half of the seventeenth century, the sorcery mania transplanted itself to their new land, and scattered its baleful influence in wildest mischief amongst them.

An extraordinary family of divines had been settled in New England, in the time of Charles I. Their name was Mather. Richard Mather, a native of Lancashire, fled from persecution in England, in 1635, and was made minister at Dorchester, in Massachusetts. Of his sons, two, Samuel and Nathaniel, returned to Europe, and were distinguished as ministers of the gospel in England and Ireland. Two others, Eleazer and Increase, were eminent in the same profession, in America. Dr. Increase Mather was one of the most distinguished of the American divines, was president of Harvard College (Cambridge, Massachusetts), and was the author of very numerous publications. His son, Dr. Cotton Mather, who was minister in Boston, was not less celebrated than his father; and he had a son also, Dr. Samuel Mather, who was well known by his preaching and his writings. The weakness and credulity of Cotton Mather contributed not a little to the spread of the sorcery mania, which caused so much mischief in the colony, from 1688 to 1693. Dr. Increase Mather seems not to have shared entirely in the credulity of his son; and it is said that he opposed the violent measures which were unfortunately adopted by the colonists. Nevertheless, he was by no means free from the superstitious feeling of his fellows, as is proved by his acts, and by some of his writings. We learn from him, that some of the most distinguished ministers

66

of the gospel, in England and Ireland, had, a little before the Restoration, projected the joint publication of a record of remarkable 'providences," which had occurred in those countries, or elsewhere. The course of events apparently caused the design to be laid aside; but some years afterwards, information of this design was communicated by Hartlib, the friend of Milton, to his accquaintance in New England, with some details of the plan. This plan, or one founded upon it, was thereupon laid before a general meeting of the ministers of New England, on the 12th of May, 1681, and it was resolved that it should be immediately acted upon. The plan laid before the ministers was this

"Some Proposals concerning the Recording of Illustrious Providences.

I. In order to the promoving of a design of this nature, so as shall be indeed for God's glory, and the good of Posterity, it is necessary that utmost care shall be taken that all and only Remarkable Providences be recorded and published.

II. Such divine judgments, tempests, floods, earth-quakes, thunders as are unusual; strange apparitions, or whatever else shall happen that is prodigious; witchcrafts, diabolical possessions, remarkable judgments upon noted sinners. Eminent deliverances, and answers of prayer, are to be reckoned among illustrious providences.

III. Inasmuch as we find in scripture, as well as in ecclesiastical history, that the ministers of God have been improved in the recording and declaring the works of the Lord; and since they are in divers respects under peculiar advantages thereunto, it is proposed that each one in that capacity may diligently enquire into, and record, such illustrious providences as have happened, or from time to time shall happen, in the places whereunto they do belong; and that the witnesses of such notable occurrences be likewise set down in writing.

IV. Although it be true, that this design cannot be brought unto perfection in one or two years, yet it is much to be desired that something may be done therein out of hand, as a specimen of a more large volume, that so this work may be set on foot, and posterity may be encouraged to go on therewith. V. It is therefore proposed, that the elders may concurre in desiring some one, that hath leisure and ability for the management of such an undertaking, with all convenient speed to begin therewith.

VI. And that therefore other elders do, without delay, make enquiry concerning the remarkable occurrences that have formerly fallen out, or may fall out hereafter, where they are concerned, and transmit them unto the aforesaid person, according to the directions above specified, in order to a speedy publication.

VII. That notice be given of these proposals unto our brethren, the elders of the neighbour colonies, that so we may enjoy their concurrence, and assistance herein.

VIII. When any thing of this nature shall be ready for the press, it appears on sundry grounds very expedient, that it should be read and approved of, at some meeting of the elders, before publication.'