Note 88 — Chapter 5 OF STANDISH’S EXPEDITION AGAINST THE INDIANS OF WESSAGUSSET, AND THE BREAKING UP OF WESTON’S COLONY AT THAT PLACE.
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The notorious Thomas Morton, of Merry Mount, in his New English Canaan, b. iii. ch. 4, which was published in 1637, is the first writer who mentions a ludicrous fable connected with this execution, which has been made the occasion of some reproach on the first planters of New England. After relating the settlement of Weston’s colony at Weymouth, he mentions that one of them stole the corn of an Indian, and upon his complaint was brought before “a parliament of all the people” to consult what punishment should be inflicted on him. It was decided that this offence, which might have been settled by the gift of a knife or a string of beads, “was felony, and by the laws of England, punished with death; and this must be put in execution, for an example, and likewise to appease the salvage. When straightways one arose, moved as it were with some compassion, and said he could not well gainsay the former sentence, yet he had conceived within the compass of his brain an embryon, that was of special consequence to be delivered and cherished. He said that it would most aptly serve to pacify the salvage’s complaint, and save the life of one that might, if need should be, stand them in good stead, being young and strong, fit for resistance against an enemy, which might come unexpected, for any thing they knew. The oration made was like of every one, and he entreated to proceed to show the means how this may be performed. Says he, ‘You all agree that one must die; and one shall die. This young man’s clothes we will take off, and put upon one that is old and impotent, a sickly person that cannot escape death; such is the disease on him confirmed, that die he must. Put the young man’s clothes on this man, and let the sick person be hanged in the other’s stead.’ ‘Amen,’ says one, and so say many more. And this had liked to have proved their final sentence; but that one, with a ravenous voice, begun to croak and bellow for revenge, and put by that conclusive motion, alleging such deceits might be a means hereafter to exasperate the minds of the complaining salvages, and that by his death the salvages should see their zeal to justice; and therefore he should die. This was concluded;” and they “hanged him up hard by.”
This story of the unscrupulous Morton furnished Butler with the materials out of which he constructed the following fable in his Hudibras, part. ii. canto ii. line 409.
“Our brethren of New England use Choice malefactors to excuse, And hang the guiltless in their stead, Of whom the churches have less need; As lately happened. In a town, There lived a cobbler and but one, That out of doctrine could cut use, And mend men’s lives as well as shoes. This precious brother having slain, In times of peace, an Indian, (Not out of malice, but mere zeal, Because he was an infidel,) The mighty Tottipotymoy Sent to our elders an envoy, Complaining sorely of the breach Of league, held forth, by brother Patch, Against the articles in force Between both churches, his and ours; For which he craved the saints to render Into his hands, or hang the offender. But they, maturely having weighed, They had no more but him of the trade, A man that served them in a double Capacity, to teach and cobble, Resolved to spare him; yet to do The Indian Hoghgan Moghgan, too, Impartial justice, in his stead did Hang an old weaver, that was bed-rid.”
It will be observed that Morton mentions this substitution merely as the suggestion of an individual, which was rejected by the company. Even had it been adopted by them, and carried into execution, it would not have implicated the Plymouth people at all, nor cast the least slur on their characters or principles. For Weston’s colony was entirely distinct from theirs, and composed of a very different set of men. Their character, as portrayed by Weston himself, and by Cushman and Pierce, before they came over, may be seen in note [35] on page 77, to which the reader is particularly requested to refer. Morton himself calls “many of them lazy persons, that would use no endeavour to take the benefit of the country.” As Belknap says, “they were a set of needy adventurers, intent only on gaining a subsistence.” They did not come over from any religious scruples, or with any religious purpose. There is no evidence that they had any church at all; they certainly were not Puritans. Neal says, in his Hist. of New England, i. 102, that Weston obtained a patent under pretence of propagating the discipline of the Church of England in America.
Grahame, i. 198, falls into an error in attributing this execution to Gorges’s colony, which settled at the same place in the autumn of the same year; and Drake, b. ii. 34, errs in saying that Morton was one of Weston’s company. Morton did not come over till March, 1625, in company with Wollaston, and settled with him not at Weymouth, but in Quincy. See Prince, pp. 221, 231. The accurate Hutchinson, i. 6, should not have made a fact out of the careless Hubbard’s supposition, which the latter mentions as barely “possible.” See Mass. Hist. Coll. xv. 77.