NOTES TO BOOK I. 59

30 glass bottles, 30 pewter spoons, 100 awl blades, 300 tobacco pipes, 100 pounds tobacco, 20 tobacco tongs, 20 steels, 300 flints, 30 pairs scissars, 30 combs, 60 looking- glasses, 200 needles, 1 skepple salt, 30 pounds sugar, 5 gallons molasses, 20 tobacco boxes, 100 Jew’s ha1ps, 20 hoes, 30 gimblets, 30 wooden sc1ew-boxes, 100 strings of beads.”

NOTE B, page 9.

THE extravagances into which fanaticism will lead or drive the human passions, were never more conspicuous than in New Eng- land. The laws of this colony punished witchcraft, blasphemy, worshipping of images, &c., with death. The Quakers were first imprisoned, then most cruelly and severely whipped, and afterwards banished.

So far did those fanatical Puritans, men who would “ hang a cat ‘ on Monday, for killing a mouse on Sunday,’ go, that fo1 men to I wear their hair long was considered not only indecent and anti- sc1iptu1al, but a most offensive abomination to the Deity. A proclamation exists among the records of Massachusetts, which declares, that “ We, the magistrates, in our zeal for the purity of the faith, expressly condemn the impious custom of letting the hair grow, as indecent, dishonest, and horrible to sober-minded persons, inasmuch as it corrupts good manners, and as a custom introduced into England by the Papists, in sacrilegz'ous contempt of God, who declares in his holy word, that it is a shameful practice for any man, who has the least care for his soul, to wear long hair. We, therefore, being justly incensed against this scandalous custom, do desire, advise, and earnestly request, all elders of our continent, zealously to show their aversion from this odious practice, and to exert their utmost powers to put a stop to it, and especially to take care that the members of their church he not infected With it.” .

A Mrs Hutchison, the heroine of the female fanatical society of Boston, and at whose house meetings for theological disputes were held nightly, declared in her preachings that a “ radical change” in the worship of God was absolutely necessary before the colony could expect the smallest blessing, or the least favour, from the Deity.