in the deed as follows:  “All that parcel of ground, lying before the now dwelling-house of the said John Pickering, late in the occupation of John Endicott, Esq., with all the appurtenances thereunto belonging, abutting on the east and south on the river commonly called the South River, and on the west on the land of William Hathorne, and on the north on the Town Common.”  The deed is signed by Lucy Downing, and by Edmund Batter, acting for her husband in his absence.  On the 10th of February, 1644, he indorsed the transaction as follows:  “I do freely agree to the sale of the said Field in Salem, made by my wife to John Pickering:  witness my hand,” &c.  The attesting witnesses were Samuel Sharpe and William Hathorne.  This land was then called “Broad Field.”  On his estate, thus enlarged, Pickering, a few years afterwards, built a house, still standing.  The estate has remained, or rather so much of it as was attached to the homestead, in that family to this day, and is now owned and occupied by John Pickering, Esq., son of the eminent scholar and philologist of that name, and grandson of Colonel Timothy Pickering, of Revolutionary fame,—­the trusted friend of Washington.

Emanuel Downing was the father of Sir George Downing, one of the first class that graduated at Harvard College,—­a man of extraordinary talents and wonderful fortunes.  After finishing his collegiate course, in 1642, he studied divinity, probably under the direction of Hugh Peters; went to the West Indies, acting as chaplain in the vessel; preached and received calls to settle in several places; went on to England; entered the parliamentary service as chaplain to a regiment; was rapidly drawn into notice, and promoted from point to point, until he became scoutmaster-general in Cromwell’s army.  This office seems to have combined the functions of inspector and commissary-general, and head of the reconnoitering department.  In 1654, he was married to Frances, sister of Viscount Morpeth, afterwards Earl of Carlisle; thus uniting himself with “the blood of all the Howards,” one of the noblest families in England.  The nuptials were celebrated with great pomp, an epithalamium in Latin, &c.  All this, within eleven years after he took his degree at Harvard, is surely an extraordinary instance of rising in the world.  He was a member of Parliament for Scotland.  Cromwell sent him to France on diplomatic business, and his correspondence in Latin from that court was the beginning of a career of great services in that line.  He was soon commissioned ambassador to the Hague, then the great court in Europe.  Thurlow’s state papers show with what marvellous vigilance, activity, and efficiency he conducted, from that centre, the diplomatic affairs of the commonwealth.  At the restoration of the monarchy, he made the quickest and the loftiest somersault in all political history.  It was done between two days.  He saw Charles the Second at the Hague, on his way to England to resume