HISTORICAL SKETCHES. 179 



general charge of illiteracy against the people, and also 

 a flat contradiction of the historian's own words. 



On page 38, Mr. Macy says: " It is not our purpose 

 to enter particularly into the proceedings of the pro- 

 prietors, or to record the rules, orders, and regulations 

 by which they governed themselves. A volume would 

 be required for this purpose. . . . Deeds of convey- 

 ance were made and recorded whenever there were 

 any purchasers." Does this look as though they were 

 ignorant or illiterate? And yet on page 39 he says, 

 " They were so illiterate that the little of their writ- 

 ings that have come down to us is hardly legible or in- 

 telligible." Now, if they were as illiterate as Macy 

 represents them to be on page 39, how could they 

 (page 38) have made rules, orders, and regulations, or 



others besides Peter Folger did know something; and the item 

 is given as his apology for the imputation that they knew noth- 



We despise the idea of exalting one man at the expense of 

 another; but according to a writer in the Nantucket Inquirer 

 and Mirror, we are guilty of that very thing. It seems that, 

 speaking recently about the Folger family, anent the treasury 

 appointment, we said that at one time the original Peter was the 

 only Nantucketer who could read and write. Against this state- 

 ment, it is claimed that the Macy, Coffin, Starbuck, Swain, and 

 Gardner who emigrated at the same period, had been previously 

 deputies in the General Court ; " wherefore," our critic con- 

 cludes, " they could not have been ignoramuses." This proof 

 appears to be conclusive. At any rate, we are ready to accept 

 it, for at that period it was doubtless a rule of the civil service 

 that office-holders should know something. We hasten to set 

 the matter right as soon as possible, because so many mistakes 

 have been made by the newspapers in speaking about Nantucket 

 that the islanders are beginning to suspect the existence of a 

 conspiracy to write them all down sea-dogs, and a curious kind 

 at that. — Albany Journal, 



