Curiosities of History: Boston, September Seventeenth, 1630-1880

1669. April 3. An earthquake.

1727. Oct. 29. An earthquake.

1730. April 12. An earthquake.

1732. Sept. 5. An earthquake.

1737. Feb. 6. An earthquake.

1744. June 3. The earthquake commemorated.

1755. Nov. 18. A very great earthquake. About one hundred chimneys thrown down, and other damage.

1757. July 8. An earthquake.

1761. March 12. An earthquake.

1761. Nov. 1. An earthquake.

1782. Nov. 29. An earthquake.

1783. Nov. 29. An earthquake.

1800. March 11. An earthquake.

1810. Nov. 9. An earthquake.

1817. Sept. 7. An earthquake.

DEBORAH: A BEE

Another broadside sheet, some seven by twelve, is entitled as above, and divided into paragraphs, numbered from one to twenty, in prose. It is a sort of sermon in which the Christian is compared to the Bee, or perhaps placed in competition with the industrious and self-supporting insect. Its positions, omitting most of the applications, are these: The bee is a laborious, diligent creature; so is the Christian. The bee is a provident creature; so is the Christian. The bee feeds on the sweetest and choicest foods; so does the Christian. The bee puts all into the common stock; so is the Christian of a generous, communicative temper. The bee is always armed; so is the Christian with respect to his spiritual armor. Bees are a sort of commonwealth; so Christians are likened to a city that is compacted together. The bee, as it always has a bag of honey, has also a bag of rank poison; so has the Christian, with the grace of God, a body of sin and corruption, &c. Lastly, the bee lies dormant all winter; so the Christian sometimes slumbers, &c. “Yet the hour is coming when all that are in the graves shall awake and come forth, they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; but alas, they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation!” Sold by Kneeland & Green, in Queen Street. Illustrated with a small fanciful engraving of a bee-hive, surrounded with horns of plenty and decorative carving.

PROPOSED POPISH INVASION

Every thing which occurred in England, or elsewhere, in fact, having any reference to Popery, however remote, was sure to interest the Puritans, and demand their attention; and, it would seem, was sometimes provocative of poetry. So when the “happy discovery of a cursed plot against the church of God, Great Britain and her King,” was announced by the King, on the 15th of February, 1743 (i.e., 1744), a large hand-bill was issued from the Boston press, to which the printer did not put his name, headed, “Good news from London, to the rejoicing of every christian heart.” This was the discovery of the plot “for bringing in a young Popish pretender.” The news was received by an arrival at Portsmouth, N.H., in twenty-six days from England, and included the message of the King to Parliament. The hand-bill contained the message in which the King declares that “having received undoubted intelligence that the eldest son of the pretender to his crown is arrived in France, and that preparations are making there to invade this kingdom, in concert with disaffected persons here,” &c., his Majesty acquaints the House of the matter in order that measures may be taken, &c.

This is followed by a long anonymous poem, beginning,—

“Behold the French and Spaniards rage,
And people with accord
Combine, to take away the life
Of George, our sovereign lord.
······
“When George the first came to the throne,
Their rage began to burn,
And now they fain would execute
The same upon his son.

“Their hellish breast being set on fire,
Even with the fire of Hell,
Nor Love, nor charms, nor clemency,
Can their base malice quell.”

······

And so on through three columns, and then comes the

CONCLUSION

“Let all that openly profess,
The ways of Christ our Lord,
Not spare to tell how much such things
Are by their souls abhor’d.

“Let every child of God now cry,
To the eternal one,
That George our sovereign lord and king
May ne’er be overcome.

“That all his Foes may lick the Dust,
And melt like Wax away,
That joy and peace and righteousness
May flourish in his day.”

The proposed expedition, it is well known, never landed in England. The combined fleet escaped an engagement, and the transports were wrecked and scattered by a storm in the English Channel.

THE SCOTTISH REBELLION

“A short history of the Grand Rebellion in Scotland, or a brief account of the rise and progress of Charles Stuart, the young pretender, and his associates; and his seasonable defeat by His Majesty’s Forces under the command of His Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland.”

This remarkable production is printed on one side of a single sheet of paper, seven by twelve, in verse, three columns. It begins,—

“From Rome the proud Pretender’s come
Flush’d with conceits of Britain’s Crown,
Imagining, poor silly Lad,
Those glorious Kingdoms to have had,
And all the churches of the Lord,
They’ve roll’d in seas of Purple Blood;
His grand commission from the Pope
Was Fire, Faggot, Sword, and Rope,
Or Boots, or Scourges, Cord and Whips,
For all poor vile Hereticks.”

The poet proceeds with the landing in Scotland, where the Popish priest demised to him the land; the joining of the disaffected, the robbing of the people:—

“They range about and seek for prey
Nor spare aught comes in their way;