|
|
Powandas Directory 02
Page 03
As nearly all the launches in the place belonged to the Government, I had then to apply to the Commandante of the flotilla of the Government boats. It will be easily understood that my anxiety was great to go and rescue my men; so that on leaving the palace I immediately proceeded to the private house of this gentleman--a great friend of the Governor, I learned afterwards. On sending in my card at five o'clock in the afternoon I was kept waiting a little time, then there appeared a yellow-faced individual in his pyjamas, muttering words which I should not like to repeat.
So early as 1631 this colony decreed to admit none as freemen who were not also church members. Thus Church and State were made one, the government a theocracy. The Massachusetts settlers, though in many things less extreme than the Pilgrims, were decided Puritans, sincere but formal, precise, narrow, and very superstitious. They did not, however, on coming hither, affect or wish to separate from the Church of England, earnestly as they deprecated retaining the sign of the cross in baptism, the surplice, marriage with ring, and kneeling at communion. Yet soon they in effect became Separatists as well as Puritans, building independent churches, like those at Plymouth, and repudiating episcopacy utterly.
|
