LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE EXPLAINED.

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them into errors, which it is easier to pardon than defend. Having served a regular apprenticeship in the school of persecution, it behoved them to show that they had become proficients in the art. They accordingly employed their leisure hours in banishing, scourging, or hanging, divers heretical papists, quakers, and anabaptists, for daring to abuse the liberty of conscience; which they now clearly proved to imply nothing more than that every man should think as he pleased in matters of religion-provided he thought right; for otherwise it would be giving a latitude to damnable heresies. Now as they (the majority) were perfectly convinced that they alone thought right, it consequently followed, that whoever thought dif ferent from them thought wrong-and whoever thought wrong, and obstinately persisted in not being convinced and converted, was a flagrant violator of the inestimable liberty of conscience, and a corrupt and infectious member of the body politic, and deserved to be lopped off and cast into the fire.

Now I'll warrant there are hosts of my readers ready at once to lift up their hands and eyes, with that virtuous indignation with which we always contemplate the faults and errors of our neighbours, and to exclaim at these well-meaning but mistaken people, for inflicting on others the injuries they had suffered themselves-for indulging the preposterous idea of convincing the mind by tormenting the body, and establishing the doctrine of charity and forbearance by intolerant persecution.

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PERSECUTION THE PALLADIUM OF LIBERTY.

But, in simple truth, what are we doing at this very day, and in this very enlightened nation, but acting upon the very same principle, in our political controversies. Have we not within but a few years released ourselves from the shackles of a government which cruelly denied us the privilege of governing ourselves, and using in full latitude that invaluable member, the tongue? and are we not at this very moment striving our best to tyrannise over the opinions, tie up the tongues, or ruin the fortunes of one another? What are our great political societies but mere political inquisitionsour pot-house committees but little tribunals of denunciation our newspapers but mere whippingposts and pillories, where unfortunate individuals are pelted with rotten eggs-and our council of appointment, but a grand auto da fé, where culprits are annually sacrificed for their political heresies?

Where then is the difference in principle betwen our measures and those you are so ready to condemn among the people I am treating of? There is none; the difference is merely circumstantial. -Thus we denounce, instead of banishing-we libel, instead of scourging-we turn out of office, instead of hanging-and where they burnt an offender in propria persona, we either tar or feather or burn him in effigy-this political persecution being, somehow or other, the grand palladium of our liberties, and an incontrovertible proof that this is a free country!

But notwithstanding the fervent zeal with which

ADVANTAGES OF BUNDLING.

201

this holy war was prosecuted against the whole race of unbelievers, we do not find that the population of this new colony was in any wise hindered thereby; on the contrary, they multiplied to a degree which would be incredible to any man unacquainted with the marvellous fecundity of this growing country.

This amazing increase may indeed be partly ascribed to a singular custom prevalent among them, commonly known by the name of bundlinga superstitious rite observed by the young people of both sexes, with which they usually terminated their festivities; and which was kept up with religious strictness, by the more bigoted and vulgar part of the community. This ceremony was likewise, in those primitive times, considered as an indispensable preliminary to matrimony; their courtships commencing where ours usually finish -by which means they acquired that intimate acquaintance with each other's good qualities before marriage, which has been pronounced by philosophers the sure basis of a happy union. Thus early did this cunning and ingenious people display a shrewdness at making a bargain, which has ever since distinguished them-and a strict adherence to the good old vulgar maxim about “buying a pig in a poke."

To this sagacious custom, therefore, do I chiefly attribute the unparalleled increase of the yanokie or yankee tribe; for it is a certain fact, well authenticated by court records and parish registers,

202

INCREASE OF POPULATION.

that wherever the practice of bundling prevailed, there was an amazing number of sturdy brats annually born unto the state, without the licence of the law or the benefit of clergy. Neither did the irregularity of their birth operate in the least to their disparagement. On the contrary, they grew up a long-sided, raw-boned, hardy race of whoreson whalers, wood-cutters, fishermen and pedlers, and strapping corn-fed wenches; who by their united efforts tended marvellously towards populating those notable tracts of country called. Nantucket, Piscataway, and cape Cod.

DESCRIPTION OF A YANKEE FARMER.

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CHAPTER VII.

How these singular barbarians turned out to be notorious squatters. How they built air castles, and attempted to initiate the Nederlanders in the mystery of bundling.

In the last chapter I have given a faithful and unprejudiced account of the origin of that singular race of people, inhabiting the country eastward of the Nieuw-Nederlandts; but I have yet to mention certain peculiar habits which rendered them exceedingly obnoxious to our ever-honoured Dutch

ancestors.

The most prominent of these was a certain rambling propensity, with which, like the sons of Ishmael, they seem to have been gifted by heaven, and which continually goads them on to shift their residence from place to place,so that a Yankee farmer is in a constant state of migration; tarrying occasionally here and there, clearing lands for other people to enjoy, building houses for others to inhabit, and in a manner may be considered the wandering Arab of America.

His first thought, on coming to the years of manhood, is to settle himself in the world-which means nothing more nor less than to begin his rambles. To this end he takes unto himself for a wife some buxom country heiress, passing rich in red ribands, glass beads, and mock tortoise