laws, and as likely to have punishment for their crimes as other people; this may answer all our objections. And to retain them in perpetual servitude, without just cause for it, will produce effects, in the event, more grievous than setting them free would do, when a real love to truth and equity was the motive to it.

There is a principle which is pure placed in the human mind, which in different places and ages hath had different names; it is, however, pure, and proceeds from God. It is deep and inward, confined to no forms of religion, nor excluded from any, where the heart stands in perfect sincerity. In whomsoever this takes root and grows, of what nation soever, they become brethren, in the best sense of the expression. Using ourselves to take ways which appear most easy to us, when inconsistent with that purity which is without beginning, we thereby set up a government of our own, and deny obedience to Him whose service is true liberty.

He that hath a servant, made so wrongfully, and knows it to be so, when he treats him otherwise than a free man, when he reaps the benefit of his labor without paying him such wages as are reasonably due to free men for the like service, clothes excepted, these things though done in calmness, without any show of disorder, do yet deprave the mind in like manner and with as great certainty as prevailing cold congeals water. These steps taken by masters, and their conduct striking the minds of their children whilst young, leave less room for that which is good to work upon them. The customs of their parents, their neighbors, and the people with whom they converse, working upon their minds, and they, from thence, conceiving ideas of things and modes of conduct, the entrance into their hearts becomes, in a great measure, shut up against the gentle movings of uncreated purity.

Negroes are our fellow-creatures, and their present condition amongst us requires our serious consideration. We know not the time when those scales in which mountains

are weighed may turn. The Parent of mankind is gracious, his care is over his smallest creatures, and a multitude of men escape not his notice. And though many of them are trodden down and despised, yet he remembers them; he seeth their affliction, and looketh upon the spreading increasing exaltation of the oppressor. He turns the channels of power, humbles the most haughty people, and gives deliverance to the oppressed at such periods as are consistent with his infinite justice and goodness. And wherever gain is preferred to equity, and wrong things publicly encouraged to that degree that wickedness takes root and spreads wide amongst the inhabitants of a country, there is real cause for sorrow to all such whose love to mankind stands on a true principle and who wisely consider the end and event of things.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. FOR FURTHER ILLUSTRATION

Bradstreet: The Works of Anne Bradstreet in Prose and Verse. Edited by John Harvard Ellis, Charlestown, 1867.

Cairns, W. B.: Selections from Early American Writers. (16071800.)

Carpenter, G. R.: American Prose.

Duyckinck, E. A. and G. L.: Cyclopædia of American Literature. Ford, Paul Leicester: The New England Primer. History of its Origin and Development.

Stedman and Hutchinson: Library of American Literature. (Vols. I and II.)

Trent and Wells: Colonial Prose and Poetry. (Vols. I, II, III.) Woolman, John: John Woolman's Journal with Introduction by J. G. Whittier.

II. FOR THE PERIOD

Austin, Mrs. J. G.: Standish of Standish.
Hawthorne, N.: The Scarlet Letter.

Hemans, Mrs.: The Landing of the Pilgrims.

Holmes, O. W.: The Deacon's Masterpiece.
The Broomstick Train.

Johnston, Mary: To Have and to Hold.

Lamb, Charles: A Quakers' Meeting.

Longfellow, H. W.: The Courtship of Miles Standish.

The Phantom Ship.

Shore, W. Teignmouth: John Woolman: His Life and Our Times. Stimson, F. J.: King Noanett.

Stowe, H. B.: The Mayflower.

Whittier, J. G.: The Prophecy of Samuel Sewall.

The Garrison of Cape Ann.

(See also General Bibliography, supra, p. 3.)

CHAPTER II

THE REVOLUTIONARY ERA

I. Orations and State Papers

Most of the writings of the Revolutionary era savored of the life of the times. Pamphlets and essays, embodying petitions, appeals, or speeches, were the popular form in which the literature of the day reflected the political struggle of the age. Among the defenders of liberty of the Revolutionary and post-Revolutionary periods were James Otis, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Patrick Henry, Thomas Paine, Alexander Hamilton, and Thomas Jefferson. The writings of these men bear no mean comparison with the speeches and political pamphlets of the great contemporary English statesmen, Chatham, Fox, and Burke.

I. James Otis (1725-1783) was a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, and a delegate to the Stamp Act Congress in 1765. He is known as the Patrick Henry of New England. His argument against Writs of Assistance, delivered before the Superior Court in Boston in 1761, is often called the Prologue to the Revolution. John Adams, who likened Otis to a flame of fire, said that in this oration American independence was born.

IN OPPOSITION TO WRITS OF ASSISTANCE

(From Otis's Speech)

May it please your honors, I was desired by one of the court to look unto the books, and consider the question

now before them concerning writs of assistance. I have, accordingly, considered it, and now appear not only in obedience to your order, but likewise in behalf of the inhabitants of this town, who have presented another petition, and out of regard to the liberties of the subject. And I take this opportunity to declare that, whether under a fee or not (for in such a cause as this I despise a fee), I will to my dying day oppose with all the powers and faculties God has given me all such instruments of slavery on the one hand, and villainy on the other, as this writ of assistance is.

It appears to me the worst instrument of arbitrary power, the most destructive of English liberty and the fundamental principles of law, that ever was found in an English law book. I must, therefore, beg your honors' patience and attention to the whole range of argument that may, perhaps, appear uncommon in many things, as well as to points of learning that are more remote and unusual; that the whole tendency of my design may the more easily be perceived, the conclusions better descend, and the force of them be better felt.

Your honors will find in the old books concerning the office of a justice of the peace precedents of general warrants to search suspected houses. But in more modern books, you will find only special warrants to search such and such houses, specially named, in which the complainant has before sworn that he suspects his goods are concealed; and will find it adjudged that special warrants only are legal. In the same manner I rely on it, that the writ prayed for in this petition, being general, is illegal. It is a power that places the liberty of every man in the hands of every petty officer. I say I admit that special writs of assistance, to search special places, may be granted to certain persons on oath; but I deny that the writ now prayed for can be granted, for I beg leave to make some observations on the writ itself, before I proceed to other Acts of Parliament.