from the more private memoir, as well as the public record.
If such observations apply even to the old establishments of Europe and Asia, in which the series of public documents and private memoirs, has, in so many instances, been kept almost unbroken; it may easily appear, that the difficulties attending the often perilous work of colonization, succeeded by the alteration of character and pursuits in the descendants of original colonists, must enhance the labor of collecting materials for historical use.
Thus, for instance, in the settlement of New England, we should imagine that, engaged in as it was when science and literature had produced their wonders at Oxford, Cambridge, and other seats of learning in the mother country, no material fact would pass without observation, nor fail to be transmitted to our times. And it is, indeed, a subject for gratulation, that several of the actors in the busy scenes of that day were qualified by education and experience for the task. Thus was the illustrious Winthrop, first governor of Massachusetts, and so were several of his associates. But, not being at once intrusted to the press, for no press had been erected, their memorials, in their single preciousness, were exposed to the ravages of fire, the negligence and indifference of subsequent possessors of them,[1] and the innumerable "changes and chances" of an emigrant's fortunes.
The Rev. Dr. Cotton Mather prepared several memorials, especially of an ecclesiastical character, at a period tolerably early, while yet many of the first race of immigrants were alive. But his desultory manner of writing, much like a modern review, did not allow him to establish his narratives by a severe attention to dates and historical facts, nor to give attention to statistical details. Valuable as are many of the materials he has left us, we are grieved
- ↑ The fate, for instance, of the learned President Chauncy's mss. as related in Allen's Biographical Dictionary is in point. A member of the Historical Society, not many years ago, had been promised, on his application for that purpose, the indulgence of examining a barrel or two of ancient papers in a neighboring town, belonging to a family descended of the early settlers. "They are now," said the lad, "in the garret—an unfit place for you to enter;" and the inspection was deferred. On calling again, he had the mortification to learn, that, as the occupant had been repairing the house, these paper being found in the way, had the day before been committed to the flame!
