CHAPTER VIII. RELIGIOUS CHARACTER OF THE EARLY COLO As opening an asylum for persecuted Protestants of all nations, the project was well ant rights. NISTS.-FOUNDERS OF DELAWARE, AT FIRST Worthy of the great champion of Protest CALLED NEW SWEDEN. THOUGH of all the states Delaware has the smallest population, and is the least but one in territorial extent, yet its history is far from uninteresting. Fairly included within the limits of Maryland, it never submitted to the rule of Lord Baltimore's colony; subjected for a time to the dominion of the Quaker province of William Penn, from that it emancipated itself in time to be justly ranked among the original Thirteen States, which so nobly achieved their independence. This small province was claimed by the Dutch in right of discovery, as well as the country on the other side of Delaware River and Bay; and in 1631, a colony under De Vries actually left the Texel for the south shore of that bay, and settled near the present site of Lewestown, on lands acquired the year before by Godyn and his associates, Van Rensellaer, Bloemart, and De Lact. That colony, consisting of above thirty souls, was, in the absence of De Vries, utterly destroyed by the Indians towards the close of the following year; yet its priority in point of date saved it from being included in Lord Baltimore's charter, and secured for subsequent settlers the benefits of a separate colony and independent state. Before, however, it could be rescued from the Indians, and colonized a second time by the Dutch, it fell to the possession of a Scandinavian prince. Gustavus Adolphus, justly pronounced the most accomplished prince of modern times, and the greatest benefactor of humanity in the line of Swedish kings, had early comprehended the advantages of foreign commerce and distant colonization. Accordingly, in 1626, he instituted a commercial company, with exclusive privileges to trade beyond the Straits of Gibraltar, and with the right of planting colonies. The stock was open to all Europe. The king himself pledged 400,000 dollars from the royal treasury; the chief seat of business was Gottenburg, the second city in the kingdom, and the best situated for commerce in the open seas. The government of the future colonies was committed to a royal council, and emigrants were to be invited from all Europe. The New World was described as a paradise, and the hope of better fortunes on its distant shores was strongly excited in the Scandinavian mind. The colony proposed to be planted there was to be a place where "the honour of the wives and daughters" of those whom wars and bigotry had made fugitives might be safe; a blessing to the "common man," as well as to the "whole Protestant world."* * Argonautica Gustaviana, p. 11, 16. But Gustavus Adolphus did not live to carry his favourite scheme into effect. When the Protestant princes of Germany were compelled to defend their violated religious privileges by taking up arms against the emperor, they made the first offer of the command of their armies to Christian IV., of Denmark; but that prince proving unequal to the task, they turned their regards to the youthful King of Sweden, who hesitated not to accept their summons. Crossing the Baltic with his small army of 15,000 faithful Swedes, Finns, and Scotch, he put himself at the head of the confederate troops, and within eighteen months gained the series of splendid victories that have placed him in the highest rank of warrior-princes. Having driven the imperial troops from the walls of Leipsic to the southern extremity of Germany, he fell at last on the plains of Lützen, on the 16th of October, 1632, victory even there crowning his efforts, while his body, covered with wounds, lay even the toils and horrors of that war undistinguished among the slain. could not make the brave young monarch forget his favourite project. A few days before that last fatal battle, where it has been beautifully said that "humanity won one of her ablest defenders," he recomone of her most glorious victories, and lost mended to the people of Germany the colonial project, which he still continued to regard as "the jewel of his kingdom.' Yet The enterprise, however, which his premature death prevented Gustavus Adolphus from carrying into effect, fell into the hands of his minister Oxenstiern, the ablest statesman of that age. Emigrants for Delaware Bay, furnished with provisions for themselves, and with merchandise for traffic with the Indians, accompanied also by a religious teacher, left Sweden in 1638, in two ships, the Key of Calmar and the Griffin. Upon their arrival, they bought the lands on the Delaware from its mouth up to the falls where Trenton now stands; and near the mouth of Christiana Creek name, in honour of their youthful queen. they built a fort, to which they gave that Tidings of their safe arrival, and encouraging accounts of the country, were soon carried back to Scandinavia, and naturally inspired many of the peasantry of Sweden and Finland with a wish to exchange their rocky, unproductive soil for the banks of the Delaware. More bands of emigrants fain have gone were prevented only by soon went thither, and many who would the difficulty of finding a passage. The Bancroft's "History of the United States," vol. ii., p. 285. plantations gradually extended along the Delaware, from the site of Wilmington to that of Philadelphia. A fort constructed of huge hemlock logs, on an island a few miles below Philadelphia, defended the Swedish settlements, and became the headquarters of Printz, their governor. The whole country, as above described, was called New Sweden, and the few families of emigrants from New-England that happened to be within its boundaries, either submitted to the Swedish government, or else withdrew and established themselves elsewhere. administration of the Governor of NewYork; was afterward attached to Pennsylvania, but ultimately became first a separate colony, and then an independent state. Meanwhile, its population, composed of the descendants of Swedes, of Quakers who accompanied William Penn, of settlers from New-England, and of Scotch, Irish, and a few emigrants from other parts of Europe, steadily increased. Religion has ever had a happy, and not an inconsiderable influence, in this little commonwealth. It would, no doubt, have been greater still had slavery never existed in it. But though Delaware is a slaveholding state, it scarcely deserves the name, from the number of slaves being so small. CHAPTER IX. Meanwhile the Dutch reasserted their old claims to the country, planted a fort at Newcastle, and ultimately reduced New Sweden under their dominion by means of an expedition of six hundred men, under the famous Peter Stuyvesant, governor of New Netherlands. Thus terminated, in 1655, the power of Sweden on the American continent, after it had lasted above RELIGIOUS CHARACTER OF THE EARLY COLOseventeen years. The Swedish colonists, probably, did not much exceed seven hundred, and as their descendants, in the course of some generations, became widely scattered, and blended with emigrants of a different lineage, they are supposed to constitute one part in 200 of the present population of the United States.* NISTS. FOUNDERS OF PENNSYLVANIA. THE history of William Penn, the Quaker philosopher and lawgiver, is very generally known. The son of a distinguished English admiral, heir to a fortune considered large in those days, accustomed from his youth to mingle in the highest circles, educated at the University of Oxford, rich Interesting as this colony is from its in the experience and observation of manearly history, it becomes still more so be- kind acquired by much travel, and versed cause of its practical worth. The colo- in his country's laws, he seemed fitted for nists were invariably amiable and peace- a very different course from that which he able in their deportment; they maintained considered to be marked out for him in afthe best terms with the Indians; they ter life. He inherited from his parents a were frugal and industrious; they were rooted aversion to the despotism of a hieattentive to the education of their children, rarchy, and having, when a student at Oxnotwithstanding the want of schools and ford, ventured to attend the preaching of the difficulty of procuring books in their George Fox, he was for this offence exmother tongue; and, above all, they were pelled from the university. After his excareful in upholding religious institutions pulsion, from a desire to make himself acand ordinances. Lutherans, as their kin- quainted with the doctrines and spirit of dred in Sweden are to this day, they long the French Reformed churches, he spent preserved their national liturgy and disci- some time at Saumur, one of their chief pline, besides keeping up a most affection- seats of learning, and there he attended ate intercourse with the churches in their the prelections of the gifted and benevomother-country; and from these they often lent Amyrault. From that time he returnreceived aid in Bibles and other religious ed to England, and in 1666 visited Irebooks, as well as in money. Having es- land, where he heard Thomas Loe preach tablished themselves in the southern sub-on "the faith that overcomes the world," urbs of Philadelphia, previously to the colonization of Pennsylvania by William Penn, they have always had a church there, known as the "Swedes' Church" to this day, and which, with two or three more in Delaware and Pennsylvania, now belongs to the Protestant Episcopal communion. The late Dr. Colin was the last of the long line of Swedish pastors. Taken possession of by the Dutch in 1655, New Sweden was, nine years after that, ceded by them to the English. It was then placed for some time under the * Bancroft's "History of the United States." 66 whereupon he was immediately filled with peace, and decided upon following out his future plans of benevolence. In the autumn of that year he was imprisoned for conscience' sake. Religion," said he to the Irish viceroy, "is my crime and my innocence; it makes me a prisoner to malice, but my own free man. On returning to England, he became the butt of unmeasured ridicule from the witlings of the court, which was that of one of the most dissolute monarchs that ever lived. Driven penniless from his father's house, he found compassion where it takes up its last abode, if it ever leaves this world, in a mother's heart. Her bounty kept him above want, while he was preparing, in God's providence, to become an author, and a preacher of the doctrines of peace to princes, priests, and people. Experience of persecution had prepared him for the great mission of succouring those who suffer from the same cause. He could truly say, "Haud ignarus mali miseris succurrere disco." He had become a member of the ever"suffering kingdom" of righteousness. William Penn's personal interests, in the course of Providence, coincided with his benevolent views in leading him to think of founding the colony to which he at length so assiduously devoted himself. His father having a large sum due to him from the crown, this not very hopeful debt he left as a legacy to his son. But the son proposed to his royal debtor an easy mode of paying it the king had only to make him a grant of waste land in the New World; and the suggestion was favourably received, for the profuse and profligate Charles II. had been his father's friend. On the 5th of March, 1681, he received a title to a territory which was to extend from the Delaware River five degrees of longitude westward, and from the 39° to the 42° N. latitude. The whole of this, with the exception of a few previous grants, of no great extent, made by the Duke of York, was to be his; and thus all that remained of the territory claimed by the Dutch, but which they had been compelled to cede to the English, became not a place of refuge merely, but the absolute property and sure abode of a sect which had probably been loaded with as much contempt and ridicule as had ever fallen to the lot of any portion of the human race. Their peculiar dress and modes of speech, no doubt, so far invited this treatment, while their principles secured impunity to such as meanly chose to attack with such weapons what they deemed absurdity and fanaticism. return a third time, they are to be punished as felons."* After making all necessary arrangements, Penn left England for his ample domain in America, and arrived there on the 27th of October, 1682. Having landed at Newcastle, he went from that to Chester, and thence, by boat, up the Delaware, to the spot where now stands the city of Philadelphia. His first care was to acquire, by fair purchase, a title from the Indians to as much land, at least, as might be required for his projected colony, and this transaction took place at a famous council, held under a large elm-tree at Shakamaxon, on the northern edge of Philadelphia. There the hearts of the congregated chiefs of the Algonquin race were captivated by the simplicity and sincerity of Penn's manners, and by the language of Christian affection in which he addressed them. "We will live," said they, in reply to his proposals, "in love with William Penn and his children, and with his children's children, as long as the moon and sun endure." The year following was devoted by the philosopher to the founding of a city, to be called Philadelphia, between the Delaware and the Schuylkill Rivers, and to the establishing of a government for his people. Hardly could a pleasanter situation have anywhere been found than that which he selected for his capital, which was destined to become one of the largest and finest cities in America, and to be the birthplace of national independence, and where union among the liberated colonies was to be secured by the framing of a Federal Constitution for the whole. Nothing could have been more popular than the constitution laid down for his own colony, with the exception of his veto as Proprietary-which he could hardly have abandoned--and an acknowledgment of the supremacy of the English crown and government. Council, assembly, judges, and petty magistratesall were to be appointed by the colonists themselves. Nor was it only for the persecuted "Friends" in England that William Penn founded his colony; it was to be open also to members of the same society in America. Incredible as it may appear, they were persecuted in New-England by the very men who themselves had been driven thither by persecution. Twelve Quakers were banished from Massachusetts by order of the General Court in 1656, and four of these, who had returned, were actually executed in 1669. That same year an act was passed by the Legislature of Virginia, to the effect "that any commander of any shipp, or vessell, bringing into the collonie any person or persons called Quakers, is to be fined £100; and all Quakers apprehended in the collonie are to be imprisoned till they abjure this countrie, or give securitie to depart from it forthwith. If they * Hening's Collection of the Laws of Virginia. The first emigrants to Pennsylvania were, for the most part, Quakers; but the principle of unlimited toleration, upon which it was established, made it a resort for people of all creeds and of none. Swedes, Dutch, and New-Englanders had previously established themselves within its limits, and not many years had elapsed when the Quakers, whom Penn had specially contemplated as the future citizens of his colony, were found to be a minority. among the inhabitants. This, however, has not marred the harmony and tranquillity of the province. No act of persecution or intolerance has ever disgraced its statutebook. The rights of the Indians were al ways respected; their friendship was hard- | spots; a course almost indispensable in ly ever interrupted. Friends' meeting-houses, and churches of other denominations, soon increased with the population, which spread by degrees into the interior, and reached the most western limits of the colony within a century from its commencement. It were superfluous in me to pronounce any eulogium on the morality of the Quakers. The foundations of the colony of William Penn were laid in the religion of the Bible, and to the blessed influence of that religion it is unquestionably indebted for much of the remarkable prosperity which it has enjoyed. But the Quaker population now forms only a small minority in the State of Pennsylvania, especially in its central and western parts. I shall yet have occasion to show what was the religious character of the emigrants who constituted the early population of those parts. the case of those who could neither understand nor speak English. Hence we find that towards the close of the seventeenth century no fewer than six townships on the left bank of the Schuylkill were in the occupation of Welsh colonists.* The success of those earlier emigrations led to a steady and even copious transference of the inhabitants of the Principality to America, long after open persecution had ceased to drive them from their native hills and valleys. About the beginning of the present century a colony from Wales settled in the mountains of Pennsylvania, on a large tract of land which they had bought before they left home, and gave the name Cambria, the ancient appellation of Wales, to a whole county. A pretty large part of their settlement lies on a kind of table-land, in the centre of the Alleghany Mountains, and the chief villages are Armagh and Ebensburg, the latThus have I completed the notice of the ter of which is the seat of justice for the religious character of all the original colo- county. Two or three faithful pastors acnies, which, by settling on the Atlantic companied them from Wales, and to this slope, may be said to have founded the day, I believe, they conduct their religious nation, by founding its civil and religious services in Welsh. There are several institutions; or, rather, I should say, I have congregations, likewise, of Welsh Baptists spoken of the colonies that had territorial in the State of New-York, and throughout limits as such, and were established under the United States not fewer than twentycharters from the crown of England. I five churches of Calvinistic Welsh Methhave spoken of the bases-the lowest odists. strata, so to speak-of the colonization of I have no means of knowing how exthe United States. I have yet to speak of tensive the emigrations from Wales, from the superadded colonies, which dispersed first to last, have been; doubtless they themselves over the others, without hav-have been far from unimportant in point ing any territorial limits marked out to of numbers. What, however, is of most them by charters, but which settled here consequence is, that they have been good in or there as individuals or groups might point of character, and have already given prefer. It will be seen that this secondary, to America many distinguished men. The but still early colonization, exerted an im- Rev. Mr. Davies, of whom I shall have mense influence upon the religious char- some notice to give hereafter, probably acter of the country, and in many cases, the most eloquent preacher in America in through the wonderful providence of God, his day, and, at his death, president of the supplied what was wanting in the religious College of New-Jersey, was, if I mistake condition of the primary or territorial col- not, of Welsh ancestry. The Morris famonization. ily, so numerous, and in many of its members so distinguished, is of Welsh origin. So, also, are the Morgans. Besides these, we find many persons of the name of COLO-Jones, Owen, Griffiths, Evans, &c., all of Welsh descent, several of whom have risen to eminence in the Church and State. I may add that Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island, whom I have had occasion already to notice, was a native of Wales. CHAPTER X. RELIGIOUS CHARACTER OF THE EARLY NISTS. EMIGRANTS FROM WALES. PRESBYTERIANISM is said to have had many zealous adherents in Wales in the time of the Commonwealth, or from 1648 to 1660; and when the Restoration came, many Welsh Presbyterians, including both pastors and people, sought a refuge from the persecution that ensued by emigrating to America. On reaching the New World, many of these wandered over the country, RELIGIOUS CHARACTER OF THE EARLY COLO and were glad to avail themselves of a resting-place wherever it could be found. But a natural predilection for their own people, language, and customs, led others to keep together and settle on the same CHAPTER XI. NISTS OF AMERICA.-EMIGRANTS FROM SCOT NEXT to the Puritans of England we * Proud's "History of Pennsylvania,” vol. i., p. 221. must unquestionably rank the Scotch, as having largely contributed to form the religious character of the United States. A few words, then, as to the causes that have, at different times, led so many of the natives of Scotland to pass over to America, will not be out of place, and will prepare the reader for the remarks to be made on the religious character of emigrants from that part of the united kingdom. on his arriving among them, he subscribed the Covenant. The Scotch, thereupon, took up arms in his cause, but were defeated by Cromwell, so that Charles was driven a second time to the Continent. When restored, in 1660, to the crown of England, he voluntarily renewed his former promise to the Scotch, to whom he was greatly indebted for his restoration; but no sooner was he seated on the throne than his oaths and promises were all forgotten. Presbyterianism was almost im James I., before he left Scotland, when called to the throne of England in 1603, as-mediately abolished, and Episcopacy essured his countrymen of his love to their tablished in Scotland; and that, too, in the Church, and of his determination to sup- most repulsive form. The bishops were port it; but no sooner had he crossed the invested by royal mandate with the ut Tweed than he manifested a predilection most plenitude of prelatical power, and for Prelacy, and a decided aversion to a new law forbade speaking against the Presbytery, as being of an essentially re- king's ecclesiastical supremacy, or the govpublican tendency. Flattered and caress- ernment of the Church by bishops and ed by the aged Whitgift, by Bancroft, and archbishops. A court of High Commisother bishops, he soon learned to hate the sion, partly composed of prelates, and armPresbyterians of Scotland, as well as to ed with inquisitorial powers, was set up, despise the Puritans of England; nor was and was followed by scenes of persecuit long before he showed a fixed purpose tion and oppression, unparalleled except to change, if possible, the ecclesiastical by the worst doings of Rome. Numbers government of his northern kingdom, not- | of learned and pious ministers were ejectwithstanding that prudence and natural ed, and though their places were filled, for timidity deterred him from abrupt meas- the most part, by ignorant and ungodly men,* the people were compelled, under ures. * The author would not be understood, for a moment, to place in the same category all the prelates, and all the parish clergy, introduced into the Scottish Established Church by the measures mentioned in the text. He is well aware that among the former there was a Robert Leighton, who was forced, however, by the atrocities of his associates, to relinquish an office which his gentle spirit would no longer suffer him to hold, and a Henry Scougal among the latter. Such beautiful characters were It was otherwise with his unfortunate son. Charles I. resolved to snatch at results to which caution and cunning might, in time, have conducted his arbitrary, but timid father. He began with ordering the publication of a Book of Canons, essentially altering the constitution of the Church of Scotland, and these he tried to enforce by his own authority. He next caused a liturgy to be drawn up and published, cop-enough to redeem, if that were possible, the worthied, in a great measure, from that of the lessness of a whole generation, composed of such Church of England, but brought by Laud men as the greater number of the intruded clergy are known to have been. The author could not into a closer agreement with the Romish avoid referring to the arbitrary principles and horriMissal; and this he commanded all the ble cruelties of the Scottish prelates, and of the Scotch ministers to use on pain of suspen- statesmen who patronised them, and he has not done sion. These proceedings led, at last, to so with the intention of casting odium on Episcoopen resistance on political as well as re- and their principles, not to their office. Should it pacy in general; the odium being due to the men. ligious grounds; for they involved an as- be supposed that stronger terms than the truth of sumption of powers denied to the king by history will warrant have been employed in speakthe Scottish Constitution, and it was seening of those men and their doings, let the reader and felt that if he could introduce the Eng-consult Burnet's "History of his own Times;" Dr. lish Liturgy, he might, at some future time, Hallam's "Constitutional History of England." Let Cook's "History of the Church of Scotland;" or Mr. force upon them the Romish Mass. The two short extracts from the last of these authorities wrong attempted in Scotland roused the suffice: sympathy of England, and the upshot was, "The enormities of this detestable government as Hallam remarks, "the liberties of Eng-merated in this slight sketch, and, of course, most are far too numerous, even in species, to be enuland were preserved, but her monarchy instances of cruelty have not been recorded. The was overthrown." privy council was accustomed to extort confessions But Charles II. behaved a great deal by torture; that grim divan of bishops, lawyers, and worse than his father had done. When peers, sucking the groans of each undaunted enthuthat father was beheaded the son was a lead to the sacrifice of other victims, or at least warsiast, in the hope that some imperfect avowal might friendless fugitive. The Scotch offered to rant the execution of the present." And again: "It receive him as their king, and to assist was very possible that Episcopacy might be of aposhim in recovering the throne of England, tolical institution; but for this institution houses on his pledging himself, by oath, to main- had been burned and fields laid waste, and the Gostain their Presbyterian form of Church ministers had been shot in their prayers, and huspel had been preached in the wilderness, and its government. This he engaged to do, and, | bands had been murdered before their wives, and |
