Massachusetts Bay 



able every day. A church has been lately erected 

 at Cambridge, within sight of the college; which has 

 greatly alarmed the Congregationalists, who con- 

 sider it as the most fatal stroke that could possibly 

 have been levelled at their religion. The building 

 is elegant, and the minister of it (the Reverend Mr. 

 Apthorpe,) is a young man of shining parts, great 

 learning, and pure and engaging manners.* 



Arts and Sciences seem to have made a greater 

 progress here, than in any other part of America. 

 Harvard College has been founded above a hundred 

 years; and although it is not upon a perfect plan, 

 yet it has produced a very good effect. The arts are 

 undeniably forwarder in Massachusetts Bay than 

 either in Pennsylvania or New York. The public 

 buildings are more elegant; and there is a more gen- 

 eral turn for music, painting, and the belles lettres. 



The character of the inhabitants of this province 

 is much improved, in comparison of what it was: 

 but Puritanism and a spirit of persecution is not yet 

 totally extinguished. The gentry of both sexes are 

 hospitable, and good-natured; there is an air of 

 civility in their behaviour, but it is constrained by 

 formality and preciseness. Even the women, though 

 easiness of carriage is peculiarly characteristic of 



* This gentleman, I have heard, afterward met with so much 

 opposition and persecution from the Congregationalists, that he 

 was obliged to resign his cure, to quit the colony, and has since 

 lived in England upon a living, (I believe in Surrey) which was 

 given him by the late Archbishop Seeker. 



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