l6S HISTORY OF THE COUNTY OK WESTCHESTER. 



appeare to them as they are represented to this Court, they are desired 

 to take etlectuall course that the persons afoarsayd may have no opper- 

 tunety affoarded them to sowe the seeds of error among the people there ; 

 and allso they are to informe the people of Rye that this Court are re- 

 solued, if the sayd people's prudent considerations do not moue them, 

 to make such provisions of a suitable person, sownd and orthodox in his 

 principles and apt to teach, (so approued by Mr. Bishop, Mr. Handford, 

 Mr. Wakeman and Mr. Eliphalet Joanes.) the Court will, themselves, 

 procure and setle a preaching minister amongst them, and take sufficient 

 order that he may be mayntained by them, at their next session."' 



Mr. Baird thinks it possible that the persons above mentioned, Coe 

 and Smith, ' may have been of the Quaker persuasion ; and that for want 

 of a settled pastor, the inhabitants may have listened with favor to their 

 teachings.' 



' ; Rye and Westchester," says Humphreys, "as soon as they had fixed 

 the civil magistracy, they did establish a public worship of God ; and 

 suitable to this prudent, as well as religious procedure, the colony throve 

 apace, and hath now far outstripped all the others. But when the Inde- 

 pendents found themselves fixed in power, they began to exact a rigid 

 conformity to their manner of worship. Men of all persuasions, but 

 their own, were styled opprobriously sectaries ; and though they had de- 

 clared at first for moderation and a general liberty of conscience, they, 

 notwithstanding, banished and drove out of the country the Quakers, 

 the Antinomean and Familistical parties. However, there are many cir- 

 cumstances which alleviate and soften some particulars, which might 

 seem rigorous in their administration. New England was, at the begin- 

 ning, harrassed with various sectaries; who, under the umbrage of liberty 

 of conscience, took a great licentiousness in all religious and civil 

 matters."' 5 Among these he mentions the Antinomeans, Familist. Con- 

 formitants or Formalists, Seekers, Arians, Arminians, Quakers ; and the 

 most impudent of all, the Gortonists — so named from their vile ring- 

 leader, one Gorton — who set up to live in a more brutal manner than 

 then the wild Indian savages, &c." " After these sectaries had rose and 

 fallen, another sort of people appeared, professing themselves members 

 of the Church of England. These, too, were looked upon as sectaries, 

 with what degree of modesty or truth the reader must judge. It is true, 

 indeed, at the settling of the country, as hath been before observed, In- 

 dependents were the first planters, who removed from England, from 

 what they thought persecution; but since that time great numbers of 



a Public Rec. of Conn,, vol. ii, pp. 120, 121. Baird s Hist, of Rye, p. 273. 

 b Humphrey's Hist, of the Propagation Society, <Scc, p. 21. 



