CENTURY READINGS FOR A COURSE IN AMERICAN LITERATURE EARLY REPORTS AND JOURNALS American literature, if we are to count as American literature all the writings in English made in the colonies during the period of the settlement, began with material produced with no literary intent.-business reports to the company at home, diary entries, and jottings, some of them as carefully made as histories. They were the work of earnest men who were living under intense strain, men who were saturated with the English Bible which they read in its strong early idioms, men who wasted no words and were tremendously impressed with the significance of their pioneer work in the new world. It is customary to place Captain John Smith at the head of the list of American authors when the time element alone is considered. American literature with him as its initial writer certainly had a picturesque beginning, for of all the characters in an age uniquely picturesque he was the most picturesque. His early adventures read like chapters from oriental romance. Returning from his Eastern campaigns he was just in time to join the Jamestown expedition, an adventure as romantic in the dreams of the England of 1606 as the fabulous exploit of Jason. By his energy and his unquestioned executive ability he became at length the leader of the expedition and doubtless more than once saved the colony from destruction. His report. A true Relation of such occurrences and accidents of noate as hath hapned in Virginia since the first planting of that Collony, etc., first printed in London in 1608, was the first literary product of note produced on American soil. It was followed a few months later by his second report A Map of Virginia, etc., published in 1612. His other works concerning America were written in England during the period between 1615 and 1631 when he had settled down in quietness to spend his declining years. The recorder of the earliest Puritan period was William Bradford, a man vastly different from the fiery Virginia Captain. It was his fortune to see the whole, of the Pilgrim adventure. He went with the exiles to Holland in 1608, he was active in the plans for the expedition to America, he sailed in the Mayflower, and shortly after the landing at Plymouth was made governor of the colony. From the first he seems to have realized the far-reaching significance of the Puritan foundations in America, and of his own responsibility as the leader of the movement, to record every detail of the period of beginnings that later generations might know of a surety of "the rock whence they were hewn." His journal, begun during the voyage of the Mayflower with a history of the early Puritan movement and continued as a complete record of all important happenings in the colony up to 1846, is of priceless value. For many years the work was known only by tradition. It had not been published and the manuscript, which had been a part of the Prince Library stored in the old South Church in Boston, disappeared during the British occupation of the city. In 1855, however, it was found in London and in 1897 was returned to Massachusetts with great ceremony and international rejoicing. The selections here used are after the text of the 1899 edition published by the State of Massachusetts. A careful journal of the first year of the Plymouth Colony, the joint work of Bradford and Edward Winslow, was published anonymously in 1622, and from the signature to the prefatory note, "G. Mourt." became generally known as "Mourt's Relation." It supplements Bradford's journal with many important details. What Bradford did for the Plymouth Colony John Winthrop did for the colony of Massachusetts Bay. His journal, which covers the first nineteen years of the settlements that centered about Boston, while undoubtedly inferior in many respects to Bradford's work is more human, more readable, far more important because of the greater importance of the colonies whose beginnings it records. In Bradford we see the brighter side of the Puritan character in Winthrop very often its darker side. He delighted in recording portents, remarkable "providences," monstrosities which showed God's displeasure with anti-Puritan views, and notorious cases of witchcraft which to him were exceedingly real things. The journal was published entire by the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1825-26 with the title The History of New England from 1630 to 1649. by John Winthrop, Esq., First Governour. of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay. The text in the following selections follows Hosmer's edition of 1908, which like earlier reprints is modernized in its spelling. SMITH IS CAPTURED BY THE [From A True Relation.] sage, which I cut in two. Heere the river became narrower, 8. 9. or 10. foote at a high water, and 6. or 7. at a lowe: the streame exceeding swift, and the bottom 5 hard cahnnell: the ground, most part a low plaine, sandy soyle. This оссаsioned me to suppose it might issue from some lake or some broad ford, for it could not be far to the head, but rather Our store being now indifferently wellow plaine, provided with corne, there was much adoe for to have the pinace goe for England, against which Captain Martin and my selfe stood chiefly against it: and in Io then than I would endanger the barge fine after many debatings pro et contra, by going up further, I resolved to [etc.]1 Yet to have beene able to resolve this doubt, and to discharge the imputation of malicious tungs, that halfe suspected I durst not, for so long delaying: some of the company as desirous as my self, we resolved to hier a Canow [canoe] and returne with the barge to Apocant, there to leave the barge secure, and put our selves upon the adventure: the country onely a vast and wilde wildernes, and onely that Towne: Within three or foure mile, we hired a Canow, and 2. Indians to row us the next day a fowling. Having made such provision for the barge as was need full, I left her there to ride, with express charge not to go ashore til my returne. Though some wise men may condemn this too bould attempt of too much indiscretion, yet if they well consider the friendship of the Indians in conducting me, the desolateness of the country, the probability of some lacke [lake] and the malicious judges of my actions at home [Jamestown] as also to have some matters of worth to incourage our adventurers in england, might well have caused any honest minde to have done the like, as well for his own discharge as for the public good: Having 2 Indians for my guide and 2 of our own company, I set forward, leavAt the end of forty miles, this river ing 7 in the barge: Having discovered invironeth many low Ilands at each high 45 20 miles further in this desart, the river water drowned for a mile, where it unit- stil kept his depth and bredth, but much eth it selfe at a place called Apokant, more combred with trees: Here we the highest towne inhabited. 10. miles went ashore (being some 12 miles higher higher, I discovered with a barge: in the then the barge had bene) to refresh our mid way, a greate tree hindered my pas- 50 selves, during the boyling of our vituals: 1 Several sections omitted. 4 |