presented king George, in most of the other provinces. Theology boasts of her Edwards, and Philosophy of her

members, as when he led in their debates. He succeeded Mr. Sewal, as chief justice of Massachusetts, in 1761, and was lieutenant governor, from 1758 to 1770. He held, at the same time, these two offices, and that of counsellor and judge of probate, for the county of Suffolk, Paying a profound respect to the religious institutions of his country, and preserving a gravity of deportment, while he condescended to all classes of citizens, he acquired a great degree of public confidence. His discernment pointed out to him the way of preferment, among a religious and sober people. He was suspected of having forwarded the stamp act, by letters written upon the occasion. After the arrival of the stamps, a mob in Boston assaulted his house, August 26th, 1765, and either destroyed or carried off his plate, family pictures, most of his household furniture, wearing apparel, money, books, and manuscripts, which he had been thirty years collecting. This outrage was discountenanced the next day, by the town of Boston, and compensation made to him for his losses; but the suspicions of the people against him were never eradicated. In 1769, Hutchinson became commander in chief, and soon after was appointed governor. He now began to unmask, explicitly avowed his independence of the people, and informed the legislature, that his majesty had made ample provision for his support, without their aid. They immediately called upon him to relinquish the unconstitutional stipend, and to accept such a salary as should be given him, by the general assembly. He replied, that this would be a breach of his instructions from the king. The command of his sovereign was his constant apology, for every arbitrary step. He had been the means of bringing the regular troops to Boston, in 1768, and was inflexible in his determination to retain them, notwithstanding every argument which was used for their removal. In the year 1772, a number of his letters, written to the members of the British cabinet, were ob tained by Dr. Franklin, and sent to Massachusetts. They disclosed his whole character at once, and proved him the secret enemy of his country, who stimulated the ministry to enforce their plans, and who even declared to them, that "there must be an abridgment of English liberties, in colonial adminis tration." Immediately after this detection of his treachery, the general court voted an impeachment, and requested that his majesty would remove him from office forever: but as soon as he was informed of the determined measures, which they were adopting, he dissolved the assembly. Being superseded by governor Gage, in 1774, he sailed for England. Before his departure, a few partizans sent him an address, thanking him for his services. These men were long distinguished by the appellation of Hutchinson's addressers. His impeachment was without effect; and the lords of the privy council made a report highly in his favour: but he soon experienced the neglect of those, to the furtherance of whose plans he had largely sacrificed, and to whom he had been ready to yield the rights of his country. Becom VOL. I.

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Franklin, about the middle of the eighteenth century. The first volume of the transactions of the American Philosophical Society, held at Philadelphia, is the only work of general literature, produced in the colonies, prior to their revolution. Anterior to that event, the few philosophers in English America, published their ordinary lucubrations, in the newspapers of the country; and, such as were of a higher grade, through the medium of the Royal Society of London. Fourteen Americans, namely, four of the name of Winthrop,*

ing an object of disgust, with all parties, he lived many months in a state of chagrin and despondence, and died at Brampton, in the beginning of June, 1780, aged sixty-nine years.

Governor Hutchinson published a brief state of the claim of the colonies, &c. 1764; the history of the colony of Massachusetts Bay, from the first settlement thereof, in 1628, until the year 1750, in two volumes; and a collection of original papers, relative to the history of the colony of Massachusetts Bay, 8vo. 1769. These works are held in high estimation, by those who are searching into the early history of English America.

• Among the colonial literati of America, the name and family of Winthrop is distinguished. John Winthrop, governor of Connecticut, and son of the first governor of Massachusetts, was one of the founders of the Royal Society of London. He sent to it many specimens of American productions, with his remarks on them. By an order of the Royal Society, he was, in a particular manner, invited to take upon himself the charge of being their chief correspondent, in the west. His son, Fitz John, was also famous for his philosophical knowledge, and was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. John Winthrop, grandson of the first governor of Connecticut, was also a distinguished member of the Royal Society, and to him the fortieth volume of their transactions was dedicated, by Dr. Mortimer, their secretary. Another of the same name, son of Adam Winthrop, was more distinguished than any other of the family. In 1738, at the age of twenty-four, he was appointed Hollis Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, in Harvard College. He immediately entered upon the duties of this office, and discharged them with fidelity, and high reputation through life. In 1761, he sailed to St. John's, in Newfoundland, to observe the transit of Venus over the sun's disk, on the 6th of June, agreeably to the recommendation of Dr. Halley. When the day arrived, he was favoured with a fine clear morning; and enjoyed the inexpressible satisfaction of observing a phenomenon, which had never before been seen, excepting Messrs. Horrocks and Crabtree, in 1639, by any inhabitant of this earth. After having been a professor, for forty years, he died at Cambridge, May 3d, 1779, in the sixtyfifth year of his age. He was distinguished for his very intimate acquaintance with mathematical science. The most abstruse reasonings of Newton's

Paul Dudley, President Leverett, Thomas Brattle, Cotton Mather, Bejamin Franklin, doctors Boylston,* Mitchel,

Principia were familiar to him; and few philosophers, of his day, possessed greater vigour and penetration of mind. In the variety and extent of his knowledge, he has seldom been equalled. While he wrote Latin with purity and elegance, and studied the scriptures with critical attention, in their original languages, he was also versed in several of the modern languages of Europe. He had deeply studied the policies of different ages; had read the principal fathers; and was thoroughly acquainted with the controversy, between Christians and Deists. His firm faith in the Christian religion, was founded upon an accurate examination of the evidences of its truth, and the virtues of his life added a lustre to his powers and attainments. The day before his death, he observed to a friend that," the wise men of antiquity, by every plausible argument, endeavoured to prove the reality of a future state; but that the wise men, of modern times, had bent all their exertions, to weaken the proofs of our immortal existence, and to undermine the only hope, which can sustain us at the close of life." His accurate observations of the transit of Mercury, in 1740, were honourably noticed by the Royal Society of London, and recorded in the forty-second volume of their transactions. He published a Lecture on Earthquakes, 1755; Answer to Mr. Prince's Letter on Earthquakes, 1756; two Lectures on Comets, 1759; and an Account of several fiery Meteors, seen in North America.

* Zabdiel Boylston, F. R. S. an eminent physician, and the father of inoculation for the small pox, in America, was born at Brookline, Massachusetts, in the year 1680.

In the year 1721, the small pox prevailed in Boston, and was very fatal. The reverend Dr. Cotton Mather, who had read, in a volume of the Philosophical Transactions, two communications from the East, which gave an account of the mode of inoculation, for the small pox, conceived the idea of introducing a similar practice in Boston. He accordingly addressed a letter to the physicians of that place, enclosing an abridgment of the communications, in the Philosophical Transactions, and requesting them to meet and take the subject into consideration. As this request was treated with neglect, he wrote to Dr. Boylston separately, and sent him all the information which he had collected, in the hope, that he would be persuaded to embrace a new and favourable means, for the preservation of human life. Dr. Boylston determined to venture upon it. He first inoculated his own son, of the age of six years, and two of his servants. Encouraged by the success of this experiment, he began to enlarge his practice. The other physicians gave their unanimous opinion against inoculation, as it would infuse a malignity into the blood; and the selectmen of Boston forbade it. But these discour. agements did not quench the zeal and benevolence, which were now excited. They might have done it, and prejudice might have triumphed over reason, if the clergy had not stepped in to support the novel project. Six venerable

Morgan, Garden, and Rittenhouse, were admitted members of that society, in the colonial state of their country. These,

ministers of Boston gave their whole influence in its favour. The weight of their characters, the confidence reposed in their wisdom, and the deep reverence inspired by their piety, were hardly sufficient to preserve the growing light from extinction. They were abused; but they triumphed. In the year 1721, and the beginning of 1722, Dr. Boylston inoculated two hundred and forty-seven persons. Thirty-nine were inoculated by other physicians; making, in the whole, two hundred and eighty-six, of whom only six died. During the same period, of five thousand seven hundred and fifty-nine persons, who had the small pox, in the natural way, eight hundred and fortyfour died. The utility of the practice was now established, and its success contributed to its more general extension in England, in which country, it had been tried only upon a few persons; most or all of whom were convicts. In the prosecution of this good work, Boylston was assailed with the most virulent opposition. Dr Douglass bent his whole force to annihilate the practice. He asserted, that it was a crime, which came under the de. scription of poisoning and spreading infection, made penal by the laws of England. In the pamphlets which were published, in 1721, and 1722, various kinds of reasonings are found. The following extracts will give some idea of the spirit of them. "To spread abroad a mortal contagion, is to cast abroad arrows and death. If a man should wilfully throw a bomb into a town, burn a house, or kill a man, ought he not to die? I do not see how we can be excused from great impiety, when ministers and people, with loud and strong cries, made supplications to Almighty God, to avert the judgment of the small pox, and at the same time, some have been carrying about instruments of inoculation, and bottles of the poisonous humour, to infect all who were willing to submit to it; whereby, we might as naturally expect the infection to spread, as a man to break his bones, by casting himself headlong from the highest pinnacle. Can any man infect a family in the town, in the morning, and pray to God, in the evening, that the distemper may not spread?" It was contended, "that, as the small pox was a judgment from God, for the sins of the people, to endeavour to avert the stroke, would provoke him the more; that inoculation was an encroachment upon the prerogatives of Jehovah, whose right it was, to wound and to smite; and that, as there was an appointed time, to man upon earth, it would be useless to attempt to stay the approach of death." With these and similar arguments, calculated to operate on a religious people, was the new practice of inoculation for the small pox assailed, in Boston.

The people became so exasperated, that it was unsafe for Dr. Boylston to travel in the evening: but his cool and determined spirit, supported by his trust in God, enabled him to persevere. Believing that he was in the way of his duty, he did not tremble at the apprehension of the evils, which might come upon him.

with Morton, of Plymouth, Clayton, of Virginia, Bartram and Logan, of Pennsylvania, Colden, of New York, Brownrigg, of North Carolina, and Lining, of South Carolina, transmitted papers on philosophical subjects, which were read and published by that society, before the revolution. For more than a century after the first settlement of the colonies, such of their inhabitants, as were devoted to literature, gave an undue proportion of their time to the study of languages. Several of the early settlers of New England were well skilled in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew; and a few in the oriental languages. Their ministers excelled in know ledge of the Holy Scriptures, and all branches of Biblical learning, and wrote well on theological subjects.

In most of the middle and southern colonies, the lawyers and planters took the lead, as writers; but in New England, the clergy were their principal historians and public writers. To particularize them all, at the distance of Charleston, S. C. with all the assistance which public and private libraries afford, would be impossible. Some opinion of the multifarious literary labours of the New England clergy may be formed, from the following facts. There were, in or near Boston, between 1635 and 1785, four successive generations of the venerable name of Mather, namely, Richard, Increase, Cotton, and Samuel, all clergymen, and all authors. Increase Mather,

Had Dr. Boylston gone, at this time, to England, he might have accumu. lated an immense fortune, by his skill, in treating the small pox. He did not however visit that country, till 1725, when inoculation was common. He was then received with the most flattering attention; was chosen a member of the Royal Society; and was admitted to the intimacy and friendship of some of the most distinguished characters of the nation. After his return to his native country, he continued at the head of his profession, and engaged in a number of literary pursuits. His communications to the Royal Society were ingenious and useful.

After a long period of eminence, in his profession, he was induced from age and infirmity to retire to his patrimonial estate, in Brookline, on which he passed the remainder of his days. Dr. Boylston was the first British subject, who practised inoculation for the small pox, on a large scale; and he had the pleasure of seeing it introduced, into general use, and of knowing that he was himself considered as one of the benefactors of mankind. He died, March 1st, 1766, in the eighty-seventh year of his age.