THE TRUE STORY OF JOHN SMYTH, THE SE BAPTIST, as told by Himself and His Contemporaries, with an Enquiry whether Dipping were a New Mode of Baptism in England in or about 1641, and Some Considerations of the Historical Value of Certain Extracts from the Alleged Ancient Records of the Baptist Church of Epworth, Crowle, and Butterwicke (Eng.), and Claimed to Suggest Important Modifications of the History of the 17th Century, with Collections toward a Bibliography of the First Two Generations of the Baptist Controversy. By HENRY MARTYN DEXTER. 4to, pp. 106. Boston: Lee & Shepard, 1881. Dr. Dexter in this work makes an inquiry into three separate points in the Baptist controversy: Was the Rev. John Smyth a Se Baptist, and were he and his followers baptized by immersion or by affusion? Was dipping a new mode of baptism in England in or about 1641? Are the alleged ancient records of the Baptist Society at Crowle genuine, and worthy of credence? To the first question he answers that John Smyth was a Se Baptist, but not an immersionist; to the second he says dipping was a new mode in England in 1641, and to the third that the ancient records were forgeries. He supports his conclusions with a great deal of learning, and will doubtless give the Baptists no little trouble to do away with the impression which the proofs and facts, until answered, will make. It is not ours to compose the strife, but Dr. Dexter's book has a bearing upon our early New England history. Many of his authorities were the men of the Mayflower, Bradford, Winslow, and others, and in the alleged "ancient records" they are represented as the chief actors. Carver, Bradford, Prince, Winslow, Brewster, Morton, Oldhain, and many other names are found in connection with alleged facts of more or less importance in the years from 1599 to 1620. Here is recorded the determination to go to Holland, and afterward the selling of their estates that they might "goe to Merica;" here we read of their persecutions, and how Governor Bradford "from Austerfield, wished to speak at Crowle Crosse, but ye parson prevented him, & flogged him with his horse-whip and set his bull-dogg at him; but he awed ye brute off with his staff." If these records were genuine they would be of great value. To this question Dr. Dexter has addressed himself in an exhaustive examination. He has considered the internal and the external evidence; has compared the records with the contemporary history; he has summoned every known witness on the one side and on the other, and his deliberate conclusion is that the Crowle Records are an unmitigated mass of rubbish, and “a howling wilderness

66

We

of lies," and, as Macaulay might do, he has in his essay placed them upon a gibbet of infamy from which they cannot be easily taken down. have little interest in the Baptist controversy, whether immersion or affusion prevailed, or whether wee baptise man and woman, not babys." Our concern is to preserve in their purity the sources of American history. When, therefore, we are told that Bradford, Brewster, and others signed a paper before going to Holland, agreeing to have "no commune with Robinson." because wee baptise man and woman, not babys," it is impossible to come to but one conclusion. Dr. Dexter, besides disposing of the "Crowle" record, gives a valuable bibliography of the Baptist Controversy in England, which is characterized by his customary patience and industry.

66

DOCUMENTS RELATING TO THE COLONIAL HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY. Vol. III., pp. 512. Edited by WILLIAM A. WHITEHEAD, Corresponding Secretary New Jersey Historical Society. Newark, 1881.

The first and second volumes of this valuable series of papers cover the early or proprietary period of New Jersey, from the year 1631 to 1703. The present volume includes the documents connected with the administration of the Colony under those crown governors who were intrusted with the affairs of New York as well as of New Jersey-a period which the editor distinguishes as theUnion Era." The fourth volume will continue this era from 1709 to its close in 1738, when the separate Provincial administration will be reached and brought down from the governorship of Lewis Morris through that of William Franklin to the Revolution.

Of the "Union " governors appointed by the crown, the memory of the first, or Lord Cornbury, is the least savory. A cousin of Queen Anne, he seems to have presumed upon his royal connections to conduct himself in a high-handed and shameless way, both publicly and privately. Chalmers, in his "History of the American Colonies," states that he was "illiterate, frivolous, and poor," his poverty being induced by extravagances at home; and that he grew to be unjust, oppressive, and corrupt in his public station is more than confirmed by the documents now before us, He fell out with the Jersey Assembly, with the Quakers, with popular leaders, demanded a high salary, received bribes, lived in New York most of the time and made "Extraordinarie charges for travelling back and forth between his two provinces. Appointed Governor in 1703, we find the Jersey Legislature petitioning the Queen, within four years, to relieve them of his "maleadministration," and in 1708 he was recalled. His vices and debts had as much to do with his removal as his public misconduct.

Cornbury's successor, the young Lord Lovelace, did not live long enough to feel the mortification of popular contest or the misery of dependent greatness.' He died May 6, 1709, of a cold of sickness he caught aboard the Man of War upon the Coast." But two or three new documents respecting his rule appear in the present volume. Lovelace was followed by Ingoldsby, his own and Cornbury's Lieutenant-Governor, and we have documents here illustrating the grievances and difficulties he had to make and fell into until the next governor, Hunter, was appointed, Ingoldsby himself failing to receive the appointment. Vol. IV. will be devoted to Hunter's times and those of his successors until Morris's administration. The papers of this series are collected from public and private sources, and will furnish the future historian of New Jersey with a fund of fact, incident, and reflection not within the possession of previous writers. The satisfaction of having done this service must be one of the rewards enjoyed by the editor, Mr. Whitehead, as compensation for the labor of compilation.

CAPTAIN NATHAN HALE. AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT GROTON, CONN., ON THE HALE MEMORIAL DAY, September 7, 1881. By EDWARD E. HALE. Pp. 22. Boston: A. WILLIAMS & CO.

The story of Nathan Hale will never cease to be one of the tenderest interest, and it was no more than an act of patriotic, almost pious remembrance on the part of the people of New London and Groton, at the centennial of Arnold's raid and massacre held last year, to devote one day of the exercises to the memory of the young martyr. spy of 1776. It was at New London that he was teaching school when the war broke out, and where he formed his resolution to enter the service. It was upon New London that Arnold wreaked his vengeance-a good place, then, to contrast the unselfish devotion of the one and despicable treachery of the other. It fell, fittingly, to the Rev. Edward Everett Hale, a grandson of the Captain's brother, to make the principal address on the occasion, and we find it the story of the hero's life and sacrifice, told in a touching way. There was not much new to bring outalthough we must except a valuable little journal kept by Captain Hale's brother, to which we hope to refer again-and yet the reader cannot but feel a new interest in the subject as treated in the pamphlet. It will be noticed, among other criticisms made by Mr. Hale, that he puts no faith in one of the stories current at the time, that the Captain was betrayed by a Tory relative who recognized him. "The fact," says the writer, "that the disgrace was now attached to one cousin, now to another, shows almost certainly

that it belongs to neither." This address is one to be preserved.

NEW JERSEY CONTINENTAL LINE IN THE VIRGINIA CAMPAIGN OF 1781. By WILLIAM S. STRYKER, Adjutant-General of New Jersey. 8vo, pp. 45. Trenton, N. J.

General Stryker's contributions to New Jersey history, which are well known to our historical writers, have brought out the fact that, for some unexplained reason, the records of that State from quite early times have been preserved in an unexpectedly complete shape. Can any of the original thirteen States, for instance, compile a full list of all its officers and men who served in the Revolution, as New Jersey has done through General Stryker? Probably not one, unless possibly Massachusetts.

another evidence of well-kept records, as it conIn the present pamphlet we have

tains a roster of all the officers and men who represented New Jersey at the surrender of Cornwallis and in the previous operations in Virginia under Lafayette. The two Continental regiments, commanded by Colonels Matthias Ogden and Elias Dayton, were there in force, mustering together 662 men and 43 officers, and in addition, a Light Infantry detachment of 145 men and 13 officers, which formed part of Lieutenant-Colonel Barber's Light Battalion under Lafayette. A list of the killed and wounded at the siege of Yorktown is also appended, making, so far as the documentary portion alone is concerned, a valuable contribution to the records of that famous campaign. The pamphlet, however, is far from being an array of names, General Stryker having lightened it with a clear and accurate account of the campaign, in which the particular service of the Jersey troops is noticed at every stage. It is to be hoped that the Trenton archives contain much more like material, which may be utilized in the same satisfactory way by the same pen.

THE

ANDREDS WEALD; OR, THE HOUSE OF MICHELHAM. A Tale of the Norman Conquest. By REV. A. D. CRAKE. With illustrations. 16mo, pp. 448. New York: J. B. YOUNG & Co.

The history of England, from the time of the accession of English Harold to the throne, including the battle of Hastings and the conquest by William the Normen, which purports to be told in the diary found clasped in the hand of Father Oswald, a monk of Saxon, or, as he prefers to be called, English lineage, who sought death in vain with his kindred at Senlac, and found it after seventy years at the foot of the high altar in the abbey erected on the spot where Harold's standard fell. The story is well told,