Transcriber's note: The original text contains many instances ofvariation in spelling and hyphenation, these have been preserved as theyappear. Inconsistent punctuation has also been preserved, althoughmissing punctuation have been added without comment.
In the description of Greenwich, the author hasomitted the number of miles from Stamford to Greenwich. The omittednumber is in this e-text represented by a thin dotted line.
A BRIEFE
DISCRIPTION OF NEW ENGLAND
AND THE
SEVERALL TOWNES THEREIN
TOGETHER WITH
THE PRESENT GOVERNMENT THEREOF.
[From a Manuscript written in 1660 by Samuel Maverick,and recently discovered in the
British Museum by Henry F. Waters, A.B.]
[1885]
BOSTON:
Press of David Clapp &Son.
By John Ward Dean.
The Committee on English Research of the New England HistoricGenealogical Society called attention in their last annual report to thefact that there were in England many important documents relating to theAmerican colonies, as well as manuscript maps hitherto unknown tohistorical investigators. They urged upon the society the desirabilityof having exact copies of them made now while we have in Mr. HenryFitz-Gilbert Waters an experienced American antiquary resident inLondon. This statement has been most strikingly verified by the recentdiscovery by Mr. Waters of the Winthrop map—one of the most valuablecontributions yet made to our early colonial history—notices of whichappeared in the Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society forJune, 1884, and in the Register for July, 1884(xxxviii. 342).
The manuscript "Description of New England," which is here printed,is a still more important discovery. Though it bears neither name nordate, there is internal evidence that it was written in the year 1660,after the return of Charles II., by Samuel Maverick, afterwards one ofthe 4king'scommissioners. Maverick, when Winthrop and his company arrived, wassettled at Noddle's Island, now East Boston, and was known to have beenhere some years before. The date of his arrival in New England hashitherto been unknown. This manuscript gives it as 1624. Maverick wasthen about twenty-two years old.
An account of New England by one of the first white men who ever settledon the shores of Massachusetts Bay, one of the "old planters" whom Gov.Winthrop found here, is certainly of extraordinary interest to allstudents of our colonial history. Its fortunate discovery emphasizes inthe strongest manner the great importance of the work which Mr. Watersis doing for us in England.
This paper clears up many obscurities in our early New England history,and gives us definite information which we have long desired to obtain.It was probably presented to Sir Edward Hyde, afterwards Earl ofClarendon, who was then Charles the Second's Lord High Chancellor. Itmay be the paper referred to by Maverick in his letter to the earl,printed in the Collections of the New York Historical Society for 1869,page 19. That letter and others in the same volume should be read inconnection with the present paper.