PREFACE.

RELATING THE RISE, DESIGN, AND PROGRESS OF THIS COMPOSURE.

NEXT to the Sacred History, and that of the Reformation, I was from my early youth instructed in the history of this country. And the first book of this kind put into my hand, was The New-England Memorial, composed by Mr. Secretary Morton; being the History of Plymouth Colony from the beginning to 1668. Gov. Thomas Dudley's Letter to the countess of Lincoln, informed me of the beginning of the Massachusetts Colony. Mr. William Hubbard and Mr. Increase Mather's Narratives of the Indian Wars in 1637, 1675 and 1676, with Mr. Cotton Mather's History of the Indian Wars from 1688 to 1698, gave me a sufficient view of those calamitous times. Mr. Matthew Mayhew's Account of the Vineyard Indians, Mr. Increase Mather's Record of Remarkable Providences, Mr. Cotton Mather's Lives of Mr. Cotton, Norton, Wilson, Davenport, Hooker, Mitchel, Eliot, and Sir William Phipps, increased my knowledge; and much more was it advanced, upon the coming out of the last mentioned author's Ecclesiastical History of New England, in folio, in 1702.

Yet still I longed to see all these things disposed in the order of time wherein they happened, together with the rise and progress of the several towns, churches, counties, colonies, and provinces throughout this country.

Upon my entering into the College, I chanced in my leisure hours to read Mr. Chamberlain's account of the Cottonian Library; which excited in me a zeal of laying hold on every book, pamphlet, and paper, both in print and manuscript, which are either written by persons who lived here, or that have any tendency to enlighten our history.

When I went to England, I met with a great variety of books and pamphlets, too many here to name, relating to this country, wrote in ancient times, and which I could not meet with on this side the Atlantic. Among others, in a History of New England, from 1628 to 1651, printed in quarto, London, 1654, I found many particulars, of the beginning of our several churches, towns and colonies, which appear in no other writer. The running title of the book is Wonder Working Providence, &c; and in the genuine title-page, no author is named. Some of the books were faced with a false title-page; wherein the work is wrongly assigned to sir F. Georges; but the true author was Mr. Johnson of Woburn, in New-England, as the late Judge Sewall assured me, as of a thing familiarly known among the Fathers of the Massachusetts Colony.

In my foreign travels, I found the want of a regular history of this country every where complained of; and was often moved to undertake it, though I could not think myself equal to a work so noble as the subject merits. The extraordinary talents which Le Moyn and others require in an historian were enough to deter me. And yet I had a secret thought, that upon returning to my native country, in case I should fall into a state of leisure, and no other engaged, I would attempt a brief account of facts at least, in the form of annals.

But returning home in 1717, Providence was pleased soon to settle me in such a public place and circumstance, as I could expect no leisure for such a work, and gave it over. I could propose no other than to go on with my collections, and provide materials for some other hand; which I have been at no small expense to gather; having amassed above a thousand books, pamphlets, and papers of this kind in print, and a great number of papers in manuscript; so many indeed, that I have never yet had leisure enough to read them. For I should want at least as long a time as Dio; who

says he had been not only ten years in collecting for his history, but also twelve years more in compiling it; and yet by his book of Dreams and Prodigies, presented to Severus, one would think he had sufficient leisure.*

In 1720 came out Mr. Neal's History of New-England, which I was glad to see, and pleased both with his spirit, style, and method. I could wish nothing more than that he had all the helps this country affords. And though he has fallen into many mistakes of facts which are commonly known among us, some of which he seems to derive from Mr. Oldmixon's Account of New England in his British Empire in America; and which mistakes are no doubt the reason why Mr. Neal's History is not more generally read among us; yet considering the materials this worthy writer was confined to, and that he was never here, it seems to me scarce possible that any under his disadvantages should form a better. In comparing him with the authors from whence he draws, I am surprised to see the pains he has taken to put the materials into such a regular order; and to me it seems as if many parts of his work cannot be mended.

Upon the account of those mistakes as also many deficiencies which our written records only are able to supply; I have been often urged here to undertake our history, but as often declined for the reasons aforesaid. However, being still solicited, and no other attempting, at length in 1728 I determined to draw up a short account of the most remarkable transactions and events, in the form of a mere Chronology; which I apprehended would give a summary and regular view of the rise and progress of our affairs, be a certain guide to future historians, make their performance easier to them, or assist Mr. Neal in correcting his second edition; and which I supposed would not take above six or eight sheets, intending to write no more than a line or two upon every article. The design was this;

A summary and exact account of the most material occurrences relating to these parts of the world from their first discovery in the order of time in which they happened; wherein, besides the most

* Lib. 72, c. Xiphilino.

remarkable Providences; such as appearances of comets and eclipses, earthquakes, tempests, inundations, droughts, scarcities, fires, epidemical sicknesses, memorable accidents and deliverances, deaths of men of figure, with their age and places where they lived and died, as also of the most aged, with the number of their offspring; there will be brief hints of our historical transactions, as the rise and changes of governments, the elections of chief magistrates, the grants and settlements of towns and precincts, their Indian and English names, the formations of churches and counties, the ordinations and removals of ministers, building houses for public worship, forts and great bridges, erecting grammar schools and colleges, extraordinary public fasts and thanksgivings, propagation of the Gospel, remarkable laws and executions, as also wars, assaults, expeditions, battles, peace, &c. The different dates assigned to various occurrences, will be carefully compared and corrected, and the very years, months and days, if possible, ascertained. Together with an introduction, containing a brief account of the most remarkable persons, transactions and events abroad.

1. From the Creation to the birth of Christ, according to the computation of the best Chronologers.

2. From thence to the discovery of the New World by Christopher Columbus.

3. From thence to the discovery of New-England by Captain Gosnold.

The ministers throughout this country were desired to make their careful inquiries, and send in their accurate accounts as soon as possible; that such material passages might be preserved from oblivion, and so desirable a collection might be hastened to the public view.

Upon my publishing this design, I first engaged in the introduction; but quickly found, as Chambers in his Cyclopædia observes, Chronology to be vastly more difficult than one can imagine, who has not applied himself to the study; and as Alsted in his Thesaurus, says, that his other labors were but as play to this. In my prefaces to the several periods and the following notes, I observe the writers with whom I agree and differ, as also some of the greatest difficulties. And as I would not take the least iota upon

trust if possible, I examined the original authors I could meet with; and some of the articles were so perplexed, as it cost me a fortnight's thought and labor before I could be fully satisfied. The mere tables and calculations I was forced to make would compose a folio. To find out not only the year and month, but even the day of every article, I was obliged to search a great number of writers; and the knowing reader will see that so many precise points of time, are nowhere to be found, but by such a collection as I have for this intent perused.

As to the line of time, it is measured by the continued succession of patriarchs and sovereigns of the most famous kingdoms and empires. For the three first periods, viz. (1) Of the patriarchs, (2) Judges of Israel, and (3) Kings of Judah, to the destruction of the first Temple and of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar; I leave the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Septuagint and Josephus, which several writers both ancient and modern foliow; and I strictly keep to the Hebrew Bible, of which it is said, our old English Bede was the first who made it the rule of ancient Chronology. In the fourth period, viz. from thence through the reigns of the Babylonian, Persian, Grecian and Egyptian monarchs, to the Roman emperors; I keep to Ptolemy's famous Astronomical Canon, and give it exactly through the period. In the fifth and sixth periods from thence to the monarchs of England, I make use of Tacitus, Suetonius, Dio, Herodian, Eusebius, Evagrius, Socrates, Scholasticus, Calvisius, Helvicus, Petavius, &c. And in the seventh and last, from thence to the beginning of the reign of king James I. in England, when he became the first monarch of Great Britain, I keep to the ancient authors in Latin to the reign of Edward II.; of all which I am sorry that I could not find the Saxon Chronicle in this country.

But whereas in the times before the Christian era, I cite several authors; such as Calvisius, Helvicus, Alsted, Petavius, Usher, &c. as agreeing in the same year affixed to an article, though they called that year a different year of the world: I need not tell the learned, that in those articles those authors do not differ, as to the same real years, or years of the Julian period, or celestial characters assigned to them, or in their distance from the christian era. Thus for in