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MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS OF THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES.

=_John Winthrop, 1587-1649._= (Manual, p. 490.)

From his “Life and Letters.”

=_10._= TRUE LIBERTY DEFINED.

For the other point concerning liberty, I observe a great mistake in the country about that.  There is a twofold liberty,—­natural (I mean as our nature is now corrupt) and civil, or federal.  The first is common to man with beasts and other creatures.  By this, man, as he stands in relation to man simply, hath liberty to do what he lists:  it is a liberty to evil as well as to good.  This liberty is incompatible and inconsistent with authority, and cannot endure the least restraint of the most just authority.  The exercise and maintaining of this liberty makes men grow more evil, and, in time, to be worse than brute beasts.  This is that great enemy of truth and peace, that wild beast, which all the ordinances of God are bent against, to restrain and subdue it.  The other kind of liberty I call civil, or federal; it may also be termed moral, in reference to the covenant between God and man in the moral law, and the politic covenants and constitutions amongst men themselves.  This liberty is the proper end and object of authority, and cannot subsist without it; and it is a liberty to that only which is good, just, and honest.  This liberty you are to stand for, with the hazard not only of your goods, but of your lives, if need be.

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From “The History of New England.”

=_11._= PROPOSED TREATMENT OF THE INDIANS.

We received a letter at the General Court from the magistrates of Connecticut, and New Haven, and of Aquiday,[3] wherein they declared their dislike of such as would have the Indians rooted out, as being of the cursed race of Ham, and their desire of our mutual accord in seeking to gain them by justice and kindness, and withal to watch over them to prevent any danger by them, &c.  We returned answer of our consent with them in all things propounded, only we refused to include those of Aquiday in our answer, or to have any treaty with them.

[Footnote 3:  The original name of Rhode Island.]

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=_William Byrd,[4] 1674-1744._=

From “History of the Dividing Line between Virginia and North Carolina.”

=_12._= THE GINSENG AND SNAKEROOT PLANTS.

Though practice will soon make a man of tolerable vigor an able footman, yet, as a help to bear fatigue, I used to chew a root of ginseng as I walked along.  This kept up my spirits, and made me trip away as nimbly in my half jack-boots as younger men could in their shoes....  The Emperor of China sends ten thousand men every year on purpose to gather it....  Providence has planted it very thin in every country.  Nor, indeed, is mankind worthy of so great a blessing, since health and long life are commonly abused to ill purposes.  This noble plant grows likewise at the Cape of Good Hope.  It grows also on the northern continent of America, near the mountains, but as sparingly as truth and public spirit.