482 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 295. 



they were the most tolerant of their age, and that that 

 Tirtue was a doctrine not then dreamed of by the great 

 mass of mankind ; even now, many are they who fall far 

 short of its christian requirements. We must also admit 

 that it is not just to judRe that generation by the standard 

 of the present. We believe that this is almost the only 

 country ever settled that the lower motive of gold, plunder, 

 or conquest was not its paramount object. 



" But time will not permit us to go into a lengthened 

 iistory of those men ; suffice it to say they loved their 

 native land, sung of its sacred memories and prayed for 

 its true glory ; they had great contempt of terrestrial 

 distinctions, and felt assured, that ' if their names were 

 jiot found in the register of heralds, they were recorded in 

 the book of life.' This state of things continued untill they 

 thought that encroachments were made on their chartered 

 rights ; these they endeavoured to remedy with all the 

 skill of practised diplomatists, but nothing could prevent 

 a final separation ; in the fulness of time the breach was 

 made, and might indeed be called ' manifest destiny ; ' 

 about thirty-six years subsequent another little misunder- 

 standing occurred, but the lapse of time has healed all 

 breaches and all misunderstandings, and we claim you as 

 brethren beloved, and recall the time when our fathers 

 sat side by side, gloried in the same country, and looked 

 forward to the same destiny. It was meet that the 

 separation should come, and the great doctrine of ' West- 

 ward the Star of Empire takes its way,' should be fulfilled ; 

 that Star has reached its culminating point, and planted 

 its banner by the setting sun ; henceforth civilisation 

 must travel east, and Asia and Africa be its field of opera- 

 tion. It is supposed that this town was called Dorchester 

 on account of the great respect of its early settlers to Rev. 

 John White, a clergyman of your place at that time, and 

 an active instrument in promoting its settlement and 

 procuring the charter. They sailed from Plymouth, 

 England, March 20, and arrived May 30, 1630 ; they came 

 in the ship Mary and John, Capt. Squeb, and were finally 

 settled down here as a body politic about June 17, 1630 ; 

 they were reinforced from time to time, and many re- 

 mained here only for a short period, and then went to other 

 places and made new homes ; it is estimated that there 

 are now living in this countrj' two hundred thousand 

 persons who are descendants of the earlv settlers of this 

 town. A little previous to the year 1700, Oct. 22, 1695, 

 a Church was organised in this town which went to South 

 Carolina and planted another Dorchester, so that in civil 

 affairs you have children and grandchildren in this 

 Western World. A large number of persons of the follow- 

 ing names, decendants of the earh' settlers of this town, 

 are now living here or in this vicinity, viz. : Baker, Bird, 

 Blackman, Blake, Bradlee, Billings, Capen, Clapp, Daven- 

 port, Foster, Glover, Holmes, Hall, Hawes, How, Hewins, 

 Humphreys, Jones, Leeds, Lyon, Moseley, Minet, Pierce, 

 Payson, Preston, Pope, Robinson, Spur, Sumner, Tileston, 

 Toiman, Vose, White, Withington, Wales, and Wiswall. 

 Any information concerning any of these would be very 

 interesting to us, appreciated, and treasured up for 

 posterity. The inhabitants of this town propose to cele- 

 brate the seventy-ninth anniversary of our birthda}-, as a 

 nation, on the coming July 4th. Hon. Edward Everett, 

 a native of this place, and late minister plenipotentiary to 

 Great Britain, will address the assembly; the sons and 

 daughters of the town, wherever scattered, are invited to 

 come to their ancestral home, and unite with us on this 

 occasion. It is too much for us to ask that a delegate 

 might be sent from your borough to add to the interest of 

 this festival ; but should one or more of your citizens, whom 

 Tou would approve, be in the countrj', it would give us 

 great pleasure to have him attend as our guest. Dorchester 

 adjoins Boston on the south, contains about 8000 inhabit- 



ants, and for its size is one of the .wealthiest towns in the 

 country. Its valuation last year was 10,182,400 dols. ; 

 but its location is one of great interest, and its founders 

 had an eye for the beautiful when they pitched their tents 

 upon this land of promise; their hands cultivated these 

 stubborn fields, and ' helped to subdue a wilderness which 

 now blossoms like the rose.' Within the last generation 

 science has subdued the elements, and made them appli- 

 cable to the purposes of man ; distance is computed by 

 time and not by space, so that you seem neighbours as 

 well as friends, and by this epistle we reach forth across 

 the ocean, offer you the right hand of fellowship, and in 

 imagination look forward to that future, when the only 

 question asked by all nations will be, how does it stand 

 related to eternal truth ? 

 " With great respects, your friends, 



" Edmund P. Tileston, 

 Wm. B. Trask, 

 Edmund S. Baker, 

 Ebend. Clapp, Jr., 

 William D. Swann, 

 Nathl. W. Tilezton, 

 Samuel Blake, 

 Wji. F. Richardson, 

 Edward Holden, 

 James Swann, 

 Charles M. S. CiiunciiiLL. 

 " To the Miiyor and Aldermen of ilie Borough 



of Dorchester, County of Dorset, Great 



Britain." 



iffttnar -^Mti. 



John Von Goch, alias Pupper : " De Lihertate 

 Christiana." — A convent for women, called Thabor, 

 was established in the Mill Street, Malines, in 

 1459, by John Von Gocb, better known afterwards 

 as John Puppev. He entered early into the move- 

 ment which preceded the Reformation, and died 

 in 1475. His works were collected by his friend 

 and disciple Cornelius Graphreus, and published in 

 1521. The energy and talent displayed in his 

 writings brought them soon after under the notice 

 of the Council of Trent, and they were ordered to 

 be burnt. His principal work, Libertate Christiana, 

 was printed at Antwerp, in which he chiefly in- 

 sisted in his arguments, " that only the holy ca- 

 nonical books of the Scripture are an un<loubted 

 guide in faith, and are an irrefragable authority 

 in matters of religion." So inveterate was the 

 search after the copies of this work, that one only 

 is believed to have escaped the fire, and remains 

 to the present day preserved in the library of the 

 mother church of Emden in Hanover. 



HeNKI DAVESEr. 



Norwich. 



Captain Cuttle. — Capt. Cuttle Is mentioned by 

 Pepys more than once. Poor Capt. Cuttle, of the 

 " Hector," was killed in an action with the Dutch. 

 (See Diary, Sept. 10, 1665.) He may have been 

 godfather to Mr. Dickens' admirable creation. 



Anon. 



