William Morrell's New England (1625):

1. An interesting example of the mind-set of early British American colonialism and travel is to be found in a short seventeenth-century tract written by an Anglican clergyman, William Morrell (fl.1625). He went to Massachusetts in 1623, bearing a commission from the ecclesiastical court to exercise superintendence over the churches that were, or might be, established in the New England colony. Discovering the religious life of the settlers already well organized, he found time to develop his scientific and anthropological interests, studying not only the flora and fauna, but also the rituals and traditions of Native Americans. Impressed by the abundant forests and streams, and by a new world culture in which the people were 'rul'd, taught, ordered, and lead', he wrote some elegant Latin hexameters extolling the virtues of this new-found paradise. He subsequently translated them into English couplets. The work was published in 1625 under the title: New England. Or a briefe enarration of the ayre, Earth, Water, Fish, and Fowles of that Country. With a Description of the Natures, Orders, Habits and Religion of the Natiues; in Latine and English Verse. The English version is preceded by a prose address to the reader, and then by an address to the city entrepreneurs and merchant venturers whose investment was necessary for the colony's success. Spurred on by the hope and optimism of the royal accession back home, he included a poetic epistle to King Charles, seeking his support, and a postscript showing the author's aspirations for future settlement. A copy is in the British Library. It was reprinted in 1792 in the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 1st series, vol. l; a facsimile of the 1625 edition was printed in 1895 in the Boston, Massachusetts, Club of Odd Volumes, Early America Poetry II; and it is also to be found on the LION Chadwyck-Healey American Poetry Database.

2. Morrell did not go to virgin territory. In 1620 an exiled congregation of religious Separatists (a radical faction of Puritanism), based in Leyden, Holland, had made terms with the Virginia Company and sailed for America in the Mayflower. Accident led them to disembark near Cape Cod, and they called their settlement New Plymouth. Fortunately, the Native Americans, alarmed by an outbreak of smallpox that followed close upon some outrages on previous settlers, had proved friendly. With their aid the newcomers had been able to cope through the first winter's severe hardships, though half their number died, and the following summer resulted in a good harvest, leading to a truly grateful Thanksgiving.

3. Two years later Morrell joined the company sent out there by the English Plymouth council. It was under the command of Captain Robert Gorges, whose father was the colonist, Ferdinando Gorges (c.1566-1647), of Ashton in Somerset. He had founded two Plymouth companies (1606-19 and 1620-35) and obtained a charter to develop the Council for New England – a proprietary grant covering a wide area of North American territory. His intention was to distribute land to fellow gentry who were members of the Council, and thus establish a settlement of aristocratic manors and fiefdoms. (Later, in 1639, he would receive a charter constituting him proprietor of Maine, and it was his grandson who sold his rights to Massachusetts in 1677.)

4. Life in the New England colony was arduous for new planters. The fledgling communities consisted of vigorous, Non-Conformist, middle-class enterprises, and the settlers were industrious in establishing their own self-sufficient farms, schools and churches. Their strict ways resulted in rigid controls over social, political and economic development, and they were not willing to be made subject to a take-over by the recently formed Council in Britain. They had, after all, received their charters directly from the crown.

5. The attempt by Governor Captain Gorges's company to form a gentrified settlement at Wessagussett (now Weymouth) therefore failed. Morrell, however, being an educated and enlightened clergyman, found himself welcome and decided not to return to England immediately. He held on for another year at New Plymouth, mainly out of curiosity to learn something more of the country. He made no use of his commission, nor even mentioned it till just before he sailed for England. His primary concern was a study of the land and its people, for he wished to return home with an informed enthusiasm for this rich territory in order to encourage others to emigrate and settle there.

6. The modest address to the reader of New England states that Morrell hoped his verse, being in both Latin and English, would create interest in others, enough for them to venture forth and propagate the Gospel in the new world: 'I onely now and ever desire that my best incense may for ever waite vpon all truely zealous and religious planters and adventurers, who seriously endevour the dilating of Christs kingdome.' He therefore saw the planters as missionaries, with their piety eventually leading to prosperity; but he recognised that newcomers needed guidance, with proper information and advice, which he could now offer from his own experience. The address that follows to the city venturers claims he states only the truth, and he genuinely felt that they had the sufficiency to succeed in profiting from their investment, in the way the Spanish and Dutch had benefited from their own flourishing plantations. The 14-line verse epistle compliments the new king on naming the colony 'New-England', and says that with his support he would, of course, now be seen as its sovereign. Morrell was thus looking forward to the final lines of his poem:

   If Heavens graunt these, to see here built I trust;
   An English Kingdome from this Indian dust. (357-8)

   The tract itself opens with an encomium to the glories of the place which is seen as a new-born 'Grand-childe to earth's paradise' [. . .] 'faire, rich, sweete, yet forlorne' (3-4). It needs to be peopled, and Morrell hopes his verse will bring settlers to its 'thousand leagues a spatious land' (21). The air is good, the sun shines. The gusty wind can sometimes be disturbing (27-44), but the earth is 'fruitfull and well watered' (47), enough to 'glad/All hearts' (47-8). In celebration of the abundance of Nature, which offers herself up in the fullness of her bounty, the poem proceeds in engaging, though clunky, couplets to mention the colony's plants and animals throughout the varying seasons (54-90):

   Ash, Oake, and Wal-nut, Pines and Iunipere;
   The Hasel, Palme, and hundred more are there.
   Ther's grasse and hearbs contenting man and beast,
   On which both Deare, and Beares, and Wolues do feast.
   Foxes both gray and blacke, (though blacke I never
   Beheld,) with Muscats, Lynces, Otter, Bever;
   With many others which I here omit,
   Fit for to warme vs, and to feede vs fit. (71-78)

   Birds and the treasures of the sea are listed; fish are noted for their size, variety, and profitability:

   The costly Codd doth march with his rich traine:
   With which the Sea-man fraughts his merry ship:
   With which the Merchant doth much riches get:
   With which Plantations richly may subsist:
   And pay their Merchants debt and interest (118-22)

   Altogether, it is a utopia of real estate, with peace and plenty which 'onely sinne and Heaven can ruinate' (128).

7. Morrell's encounter with the Native Americans ('Indians') must have opened his mind, for more than half the poem is devoted to a people whom he describes with a mixture of awe, respect and fear. They strike him as secretive, easily offended, and occasionally cruel: 'quickly displeasd, and hardly reconcild' (144); but he is, nevertheless, intrigued and moved by them. They are not, he finds, entirely savage, and the simplicity and organisation of their way of life flouts myths some Europeans have been keen to believe. He comments on their appearance and hair: 'the left side bound vp in a knott' (148), and speaks of their physical stature: 'Of body straight, tall, strong' (153). He notes their warm clothing over near-naked bodies (154-162), and the way in which they move homes according to the weather, leaving the land burnt clean and cleared for new planting (163-170). He is impressed by their social hierarchy (171-184; 201-212), their civility (185-194), and the education of their young braves (195-200). He particularly comments on their polygamy: 'By having many wiues, two things they haue' (215) – children and corn: 'he's most rich whose bed / Affords him children, profit, pleasure, bread.' (231-2). The women are seen to be of 'comely formes' (246), and 'sober aspect' (252), graceful, slender and strong. Most of all, as industrious workers, they are always occupied (254-270):

   Thus all worke-women doe, whilst men in play,
   In hunting, Armes, and pleasures, end the day.
   The Indians whilst our Englishmen they see
   In all things servile exercisd to be:
   And all our women freed, from labour all
   Vnlesse what's easie: vs much fooles they call,
   Cause men doe all things . . . (269-75)

   He therefore notes how the Native Americans mock the English men for apparently doing all the hard work themselves, and not leaving it to the women – a fact with which the women settlers themselves would certainly have disagreed!

8. There follows an analysis of the Native Americans' religious beliefs, which Morrell finds difficult to determine. He acknowledges their alarm at unknown gods, but their faith seems tied to two gods in particular, one beneficent and the other to be feared. There is a Creation story and an oral tradition by which they live (291-302), and he is impressed by their upholding a moral code without the ability to read or write: 'They keepe iust promise, and loue equitie' (304). It would appear they live by rules laid down by experience (303-314). They offer up sacrifice with shrieks and cries, but celebrate no festivals and have no special days, preferring to count time by the moon rather than by the sun with its seasonal days and year (315-24).

9. Morrell thus draws to a close with the main reason for writing his verse:

                                          .  .  . see here a people who
   Are full of knowledge, yet doe nothing know
   Of God aright . . . (329-31)

   For all their natural social ordering, the Native Americans are clearly seen as 'Other' and therefore with difference that requires change. They need conversion to Christian ways; and, for this to happen, the colony must have new settlers as missionaries. He calls on his countrymen to show their compassion and hurry to emigrate to this paradise of New-England:

   If these poore lines may winne this Country loue,
   Or kinde compassion in the English moue;
   Perswade our mightie and renowned State,
   This pore-blinde people to comiserate;
   Or painefull men to this good Land invite,
   Whose holy workes these Natiues may inlight
   If Heavens graunt these, to see here built I trust;
   An English Kingdome from this Indian dust. (351-8)

   In the prose postscript Morrell notes that the far distance of plantations led to many inconveniences for new settlers. Firstly, if a plantation had only twenty or thirty men it would be weak; it needed at least a thousand to make it strong and successful, and they needed to be ready to take up arms to defend themselves when necessary. Bearing in mind the trouble in getting enough women to settle in the colonies this may well also have been an attempt to encourage the flow of emigrants large enough to keep the colony going. Secondly, they had to be aware of the vagaries of the seasons, and how important it was to have sufficient provisions and supplies. Certain employments were particularly welcome, such as fishermen and engineers, chicken farmers, or those that worked with their hands. He emphasises the value of well-equipped boats: 'with all their furniture, as sayles, hookes, and lines, and other appendences, afford the painefull planter both varietie of comfort, and a sufficient competent, and an happie estate'. He recommends good dogs to help in the defence of a plantation, and says that pigs and goats were easy because they would eat anything that was available. He then finally announces his intention of publishing another book on the subject, in which he would provide full listings of everything that should be taken to a new colony. It must, however, have been a book he never finished for there is no record of it.

10. It is for this work alone that Morrell features in the forthcoming Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (NewDNB), and nothing more is heard of him. To what extent colonists were guided by his small piece, and how widely it was read, is not known, but there was a further big migration to Massachusetts organised by John Winthrop and the Massachusetts Bay Company in the 1630s. Unlike Virginia, which was supported by lotteries and collections in churches, Massachusetts was thought, by some, not to be entirely respectable. Heylin, Archbishop Laud's chaplain – hardly an unbiased commentator – described it as the spleen of the body politic, in which all the ill humours of the kingdom were gathered!

11. Settlement continued, however, and Morrell's advertisement of this utopia might have been partly instrumental in bringing his own countrymen as settlers, eventually to destroy the culture, traditions and livelihood of the Native Americans in whom he had shown so much gentle interest.

List of Works Cited

Morrell, William. 1625. New England. Or a briefe enarration of the ayre, Earth, Water, Fish, and Fowles of that Country. With a Description of the Natures, Orders, Habits and Religion of the Natiues; in Latine and English Verse. London: J. D[awson].

Also to be found in:

Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society. 1792. 1st series, vol. 1. Boston, Massachusetts.

Club of Odd Volumes, Early America Poetry II. 1895. Boston, Massachusetts.

American Poetry, Full Text – http://lion.chadwyck.co.uk