Main currents in American thought An interpretation of American literature from the beginnings to 1920
to understand the first native New England generation, one cannot do
better than linger over the daily jottings of this lawyer-tradesman,
who knew his Calvin far better than his Coke, and who while busily
adding new acres to his holdings strove to keep the younger generation
uncontaminated by wigs and revels and other godless things, by the
sweet ravishment of the psalms, in the singing of which the voice of
the Judge was lifted up with pathetic earnestness.
For many years after his death fame dealt more than generously with
Samuel Sewall. The prosperity that came to him during his earthly
pilgrimage long provided for his memory, and made of him a greater
figure than either nature or good fortune created. Who does not know
Whittier’s tribute?
Stately and slow, with thoughtful air,
His black cap hiding his whitened hair,
Walks the Judge of the Great Assise,
Samuel Sewall, the good and wise.
His face with lines of firmness wrought,
He wears the look of a man unbought,
Who swears to his hurt and changes not;
Yet touched and softened nevertheless
With the grace of Christian gentleness;
The face that a child would climb to kiss;
True and tender and brave and just,
That man might honor and woman trust.
And a hundred and forty-eight years after the cold January day when
all that was mortal of him was “honorably Inter’d” in the Sewall tomb
whither so many of his family had gone before,[79] a brilliant student
of early American letters gave fresh currency to the stately Sewall of
tradition. “He was a man built, every way, after a large pattern. By
his great wealth, his great offices, his learning, his strong sense,
his wit, his warm human sympathy, his fearlessness, his magnanimity, he
was a visible potentate among men in those days.”[80]
That was before the diary was published and the lay figure of
tradition vanished in presence of the real man. We know Samuel Sewall
now and see him as he was. That he was a great man it is impossible to
make out; but that he was a small man by no means follows. Behind the
formal trappings of magistrate and councilor, we discover a capable,
middle-class soul, honest, simple-hearted, serving himself yet not
unmindful of his fellow townsmen, an excellent neighbor and citizen,
to whom the strongest appeal of life was the economic. Like those
kindred spirits, Defoe and Franklin, the dominant inspiration of his
life was prudential, as befitted the descendant of generations of
tradesmen. “Mr. Henry Sewall, my great Grandfather,” wrote the Judge in
old age, “was a Linen Draper in the City of Coventry in Great Britain.
He acquired a great Estate, was a prudent Man, and was more than once
chosen Mayor of the City.”[81] In turning Puritan the English burgess
did not change his nature, and Samuel Sewall was true to his breeding
in fashioning his life upon that of his great grandfather. To acquire
wealth and honors, to occupy a dignified position among his fellows,
was the dominant ambition of his life. With excellent thrift he fixed
his young affections upon the only child of a wealthy merchant, the
richest heiress in the colony; no penniless “waiting-woman,” for
Samuel Sewall, such as had contented the unworldly Thomas Hooker. He
understood how desirable it is to put money in one’s purse; so he made
a great alliance and proved himself a shrewd husbandman as well as a
kind husband.[82] From commerce and land speculation and money lending
and the perquisites of many offices, he accumulated steadily until his
wealth entitled him to be regarded as one of the first citizens of
Massachusetts. He did not forget his prudence even in his generosities,
but set down carefully in his diary what his benefactions cost, that
there might be no mistake when he came to make his reckoning with the
Lord. He knew his rights and upheld them stoutly; and in the petty
quarrels and litigations in which he found himself involved, he stuck
to the letter of the law and usually won his point. He did not misuse
his official position to feather his own nest, but what might be got
legally from public office he took care to get.
With abundant wealth the path of preferment was easy to him. From
his election to the privileges of a freeman in 1678, at the age of
twenty-six, to the end of a long life, he was continuously engaged
in public affairs. He sought office and was not backward in pushing
his claims upon a desirable post;[83] and by careful attention to
business rather than by exceptional parts, he rose to a place of
very great influence in the commonwealth. Like a competent man of
affairs, he was prompt in meeting engagements--“am, I think, the most
constant attender of Councils,” he remarked of himself approvingly.
He carried out to the letter the early advice given him: “Mr. Reyner
... Advised me not to keep overmuch within, but goe among men, and
that thereby I should advantage myself.”[84] Capable, industrious,
public-spirited, he led a busy and useful life that justified more than
commonly the responsibilities which came to him. His qualities might
be middle-class, but they were sterling and worthy of honor. It was a
fortunate star that led him out of Tory England, where he would never
have been more than a prosperous tradesman, to the new world where
kindred spirits were erecting a commonwealth after his own heart.[85]
Nevertheless with all his excellent qualities Samuel Sewall was not
a great or original nature. The evidence is convincing that he was a
capable executive and administrator rather than a creative thinker
or forceful leader; a Puritan embodiment of Defoe’s merchant ideal;
an example of the man who rises to civic honors by simple business
virtues. He was at home in the narrow round of routine, but for bold
speculation he reveals the incapacity of the practical soul. His
intellectual interests were few; his ready curiosity was that of the
uncreative mind, concerning itself with persons and happenings rather
than with ideas. To say that Sewall possessed either an economic
or political philosophy would be too generous an interpretation of
his opinions. The views which he upheld vigorously were little more
than prejudices. Of the several economic questions which engaged
the attention of the Council during his years of service, the most
insistent was the question of issuing bills of credit to supplement
the scanty currency. There was the usual class alignment, the wealthy
opposing the issues, and the poor generally favoring them. The
position of Sewall was clear. He vigorously opposed every issue, from
the conviction that the only honest money was hard money, even going
so far as to prefer barter to bills.[86] Nowhere does he reveal any
intelligent grasp of the economics of the problem, nor was he aware
that his judgment might have been influenced by his private interests
as a money lender.
In his political views he was equally unconcerned with broad
principles. He seems to have been wholly unread in political theory,
and like his fellow magistrates he never examined fundamentals. He
accepted without question the right of the godly to police society, and
he would have no meddling with affairs of state by tavern and fireside
politicians. As a member of the oligarchy he naturally approved
oligarchic rule. Although he would turn to the democracy for support
against the Lords of Trade, when the latter were moving to overturn
the theocracy, he put no trust in the political wisdom of the common
people. He was as magisterial as John Winthrop in his belief in the
principle of the stewardship of the elders. Stability of government
was the prime essential; there must be no criticism of government by
private individuals or by newspapers. On an occasion when Dudley’s
administration had been sharply attacked in a London paper, a copy of
which had been brought over and talked about, there was a great pother
in Council. Although Sewall was not willing to defend Dudley, he was
troubled.
At last the Council voted, it tended to the disturbance of
the Government. Lt. Govr. and Council order’d me to Reprimand
Mr. Dummer.... I told him how intolerable it was for privat
persons to print Reflections and Censures on the highest Acts of
Government.... Twas ill done of them who printed it in London, and
twas ill done by them that carried it on here.[87]
His characteristic attitude then comes out in the phrase: “I said
... I was for upholding Government whether in or out of it.” Samuel
Sewall was no rebel against authority. But if he was firm in support
of the _de facto_ government, he was insistent that it should be
honest. He protested to Governor Dudley against padding the muster
pay-rolls[88] and he dissented strongly against introducing the current
English practice of buying commissions in the army.[89] The scandalous
corruption of English politics must not be permitted to sully the
government of Massachusetts.
Sewall enjoyed in his lifetime the repute of a scholar. He was Latinist
enough to justify his Harvard degree of Master of Arts; he read a
good deal, and wrote and published books. But he seems to have cared
nothing for pure literature, and was unacquainted with the English
classics. His intellectual interest was in things either occult or
inconsequential. Biblical prophecy was his favorite study, and his
most ambitious work, _Phaenomena Quaedam Apocalyptica_, essayed to
prove that America was to be the final “rendezvous of Gog and Magog.”
Although long a magistrate and judge of the highest court, he was not
a lawyer. He received no preliminary training in the law, and there
are few indications in the _Diary_ that he read the literature of
the profession. His indifference seems to have given concern to his
friends, for on January 13, 1696, four years after he had been chosen
judge, he noted:
When were there at first, Mr. Danforth bad me look on the
Cupboard’s head for a book; I told him I saw there a Law-book,
Wingate on the Common Law. He said he would lend it me, I should
speak to Amsden to call for it; and if he died, he would give it
me. Again when took leave after prayer, He said he lent me that
Book not to wrap up but to read, and if misliked it, should tell
him of it.[90]
Primitive New England did not take kindly to lawyers, and in
administering a patriarchal justice by rule of thumb, Sewall was like
other New England magistrates. Neither did it take kindly to the spirit
of free speculation, and in his potterings over occultisms he was
confessing the sterility of intellectual interests.
If the kind-hearted Judge lacked capacity for bold and liberal thought,
he lacked capacity as well for emotional fervor. He was quite without
imagination. Despite his honest concern for his soul, and his sincere
desire for the advancement of God’s kingdom in New England, Sewall did
not possess a deeply religious nature. In his religious life he was
the same prudent, plodding soul, that stowed away in his strong-box
deeds to ample possessions during his pilgrimage through this vale of
tears. The natural man was strong in his two hundred and odd pounds
of flesh, and the religious mysticism that lurked in the heart of
primitive Puritanism found no response in his phlegmatic soul. He was
no Seeker, like Roger Williams, to be driven by a passionate fervor
along untried paths; nor was he a philosopher, like John Wise, to
concern himself with broad ecclesiastical principles. Instead, there
is more than a hint of the tradesman’s conception of religion--one has
only to understand the profitableness of salvation to be led to invest
in it. His religion must be orthodox; no untried methods or gambler’s
chances; a good business man will scrutinize title-deeds with due care,
and the title-deeds to salvation are of the first importance. How