Papers of the Winthrop Family, Volume 2
1630-03-28
It pleaseth God that thou shouldest once againe heare from me before our departure, and I hope this shall come safe to thy hands, I knowe it wilbe a great refreshinge to thee: And blessed be his mercye, that I can write thee so good newes, that we are all in verye good health, and hauinge tryed our shipps entertainment now more then a weeke, we finde it agree very well with vs, our boyes are well and cheerfull, and haue no minde of home, they lye both with me, and sleepe as soundly in a rugge (for we vse no sheets heer) as euer they did at Groton, and so I doe my selfe (I prayse God). the winde hath been against vs this weeke and more, but this day it is come faire to the North, so as we are preparinge (by Godes assistance) to sett sayle in the morninge: we haue onely 4: shippes ready, and some 2: or 3: hollandes goe alonge with vs: the rest of our fleet 225(beinge 7: shippes) will not be ready this senight. we haue spent now 2: sabbaths on shipp board, very comfortably (God be praysed) and are daylye more and more incouraged to looke for the Lords presence to goe alonge with vs: Hen: Kingesburye hath a childe or 2: in the Talbott sicke of the measells, but like to doe well: one of my men had them at Hampton, but he was soone well againe. we are in all our 11: shippes, about 700: persons passengers; and 240 Cowes, and about 60: horses. the shippe which went from Plimouth carried about 140: persons, and the shippe which goes from Bristowe, carrieth about 80: persons.3 And now (my sweet soule) I must once againe take my last farewell of thee in old England, it goeth verye neere to my heart to leaue thee, but I know to whom I haue committed thee, euen to him, who loues the
Comende my blessinge to my sonne John. I cannot now write to him, but tell him I haue committed thee and thine to him, labour to drawe him yet nearer to God, and he wilbe the surer staffe of comfort to thee. I cannot name the rest of my good freinds, but thou canst supply it. I wrote a weeke since to thee and mr. Leigh and diuerse others. Thine wheresoever
I would haue written to my brother and sister Gostlinge, but it is neer midnight, let this excuse and commende my love to them and all theirs.
W. 1. 79; Savage (1825), I. 368–369; (1853), I. 441–443, with facsimile of the last page;
L. and L.
, I. 388–389; Twichell, Puritan Love-Letters
, 150–154.
See supra, pagenote 3note 2
The four ships ready for the voyage were the Arbella of 350 tons, admiral, Talbot, vice-admiral, Ambrose, rear-admiral, and Jewell, captain. The Mayflower, Whale, Hopewell, William and Francis, Tryal, Charles, and Success sailed from Southampton in May. “The shippe which went from Plimouth” on March 20 was the Mary and John, of 400 tons. The Bristol ship, the Lion, William Peirce, master, had sailed in February and arrived at Salem in May. Four other ships arrived in Massachusetts or Plymouth this year, among them the Gift, called by Winthrop “the French shippe,” the William and Thomas (see Journal for August 20 and October 29, 1630, and notes), and the Handmaid, for the Plymouth Colony. See the list of ships, with dates of sailings and arrivals, in Thomas Prince, Chronological History of New-England (1826), 329; in Young, Chronicles of Massachusetts, 311, and in Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, XII. 202–203 (1908). This list does not name the William and Thomas. On the Winthrop fleet and voyage, see, above all, Winthrop's Journal; also 1
Collections
, VIII. 36–47 (Thomas Dudley, “Letter to the Countess of Lincoln”); 1
Proceedings
, v. 93–96 (1860), and J. G. Bartlett, “Leaders in the Winthrop Fleet,” in New England Historical and Genealogical Register, LXXV. 236–237 (1921), both based on a “Note of the names of the principall undertakers for the plantation of the Mattachusetts bay in Newe England that are themselves gonne over with their wives and children,” preserved among the Colonial Office Papers in the Public Record Office at London; Horace E. Ware, “Winthrop's Course across the Atlantic,” Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, XII. 191–203 (1908), with a sketch map, and an additional note and revised sketch, ibid., XX. 278 (1919); C. E. Banks, The Winthrop Fleet (Boston, 1930); and, for the impression which the fleet and voyage made upon the English public at the time, John Stow, Annales, continued by Edmund Howes (London, 1631), 1045: “At the end of this moneth of February 1629Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, XXVII. for a description of the latter part of the voyage.
MS. “that.”
1630-03-31
I receiued your first letters but on friday night last weeke, it seemes either the Carrier or the porter had forgot it; wherein you writt that I knowe that the letters I sent you were not welcome: beleiue me it was more then I knew, for doe you thinke I would sell my frind for sight 227of a letter that concerned not me for so small a trifle; the truth is this, my Master2 he opened your letters supposing they had come from your father3 and seeing the contrarie presentlie sealed them vp againe. Your letters last weeke and those this weeke I haue sent to Exeter, and the other secundam formam. I was with mr. Kirbie he hath not receiued the monie but is promised he shall haue it to morrowe. As for the other quae obscurè latet,*
Omnib
Barbara desires mrs. Vrsula to remember the Ruffes and cuffs. Verte.
This morninge, being about to seale my lettre, there came an honest man a Chyrurgeon on of Mr. Welds7 perish in Essex and Mr. Haynes8 man, to speake with my Master they both Aboraoluggehite myolneerys fiotro9 N: England. I haue sent them to Onterlamysa,10 the Chyrurgeon is an auncient man; he purposeth to goe about Mich
W. 2. 163; 4
Collections
, VI. 471–472. On Edward Howes, student of law, alchemist and mystic, clerk to Emmanuel Downing, friend of the younger John Winthrop, see his letters printed in this series;
D. N. B.
; and interesting remarks by James Russell Lowell in the North American Review, cv. 609–613 (1867).
Emmanuel Downing.
At Southampton.
Mary Downing, daughter of Emmanuel and Anne (Ware) Downing, stepdaughter of Lucy (Winthrop) Downing.
Balneum Mariae, Bain Marie, or Mary's bath, in alchemy, chemistry, and cookery, an apparatus for heating through the medium of water more gradually than directly by fire.
The Philosopher's Stone, I suppose. The alchemical jargon which follows has some resemblance to that in “The Times of the Stone,” in Elias Ashmole's Fasciculus Chemicus (1650), 267–268: “Sol coming into Pisces the worke is black, blacker then black . . . Cancer addeth the greatest whitenesse and splendour, and doth perfectly fill up all the dayes of the Stone or white Sulphur, or the Lunar worke of Sulphur, Luna sitting and reigning gloriously in her House.”
Thomas Weld, famous Puritan clergyman, vicar of Terling, co. Essex, whom we shall meet in later volumes as first pastor of the church in Roxbury, a leader in the Antinomian controversy, and afterwards as agent of the Massachusetts Colony in England.
John Haynes, “a gentleman of great estate,” came over in 1633 in the Griffin with Cotton and Hooker, to be governor successively of Massachusetts and Connecticut.
This method of secret writing, of which we had an example in Vol. I. 376, is read by taking only the alternate letters: “they both brought money for New England.”
Nelms, Hornchurch, co. Essex, the seat of Sir Robert Naunton, often visited by Emmanuel Downing as one of the attorneys of the Court of Wards and Liveries. See Vol. I. 380, 390, 404.
“Mr. Weld hath sent thirty pounds.”