Delphi Complete Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne (Illustrated)

by Hawthorne, Nathaniel

  Sewel relates [Footnote: History of the Quakers, I. 411, 412.] that “Anne Coleman and four of her friends were whipped through Salem, Boston, and Dedham by order of Wm. Hawthorn, who before he was a magistrate had opposed compulsion for conscience; and when under the government of Cromwell it was proposed to make a law that none shall preach without license, he publicly said at Salem that if ever such a law took place in New England he should look upon it as one of the most abominable actions that were ever committed there, and that it would be as eminent a Token of God's having forsaken New England, as any could be.” His famous descendant, alluding to this passage, [Footnote: See “The Custom House,” introductory to “The Scarlet Letter.”] says that the account of this incident “will last longer, it is to be feared, than any record of his better deeds, though these were many.” Yet it should not be overlooked that Hathorne is the only one among the New England persecutors whom Sewel presents to us with any qualifying remark as to a previous more humane temper. Sole, too, in escaping the doom of sudden death which the historian solemnly records in the cases of the rest. So that even if we had not the eminent example of Marcus Aurelius and Sir Thomas More, we might still infer from this that it is no less possible for the man of enlightened ability and culture, than for the ignorant bigot, to find himself, almost of necessity, a chief instrument of religious coercion. Doubtless this energetic Puritan denouncer of persecution never conceived of a fanaticism like that of the Friends, which should so systematically outrage all his deepest sense of decency, order, and piety, and — not content with banishment — should lead its subjects to return and force their deaths, as it were, on the commonwealth; as if a neighbor, under some mistaken zeal, were to repeatedly mix poison with our porridge, until his arrest and death should seem our only defence against murder. Perhaps he was even on the dissenting side, for a time, though there is no record of his saying, like one Edward Wharton of Salem, that the blood of the Quakers was too heavy upon him, and he could not bear it. Wharton received twenty lashes for his sensitiveness, and was fined twenty pounds, and subjected to more torture afterward. But, whatever Hathorne's first feeling, after five years of disturbance, exasperation was added to the responsibility of taking office, and he persecuted. It is easy to see his various justifications, now; yet one cannot wonder that his descendant was oppressed by the act. That he was so cannot be regretted, if only because of the authentic fact that his reading of Sewel inspired one of his most exquisite tales, “The Gentle Boy.”

  William Hathorne, however, — whatever his taste in persecution, — makes his will peacefully and piously in 1679-80: “Imprimis, I give my soul into the hands of Jesus Christ, in whom I hope to bind forevermore my body to the earth in hope of a glorious resurrection with him, whom this vile body shall be made like unto his glorious body; and for the estate God hath given me in this world…. I do dispose of as followeth.” Then he bequeaths various sums of money to divers persons, followed by “all my housing and land, orchard and appurtenances lying in Salem,” to his son John. Among other items, there is one devising his “farm at Groton” to “Gervice Holwyse my gr. ch. [grandchild] if he can come over and enjoy it.” Here, by the way, is another bit of coincidence for the curious. Gervase Helwyse is the name of the young man who appears in “Lady Eleanor's Mantle,” [Footnote: Twice-Told Tales, Vol. II.] bereft of reason by his love for the proud and fatal heroine of that tale. [Footnote: In the English Note-Books, May 20, 1854, will be found some facts connected with this name, unearthed by Mr. Hawthorne himself. He there tells of the marriage of one Gervase Elwes, son of Sir Gervase Elwes, Baronet of Stoke, in Suffolk. This Gervase died before his father; his son died without issue; and thus John Maggott Twining, grandson of the second Gervase through a daughter, came into the baronetcy. This Twining assumed the name of Elwes. “He was the famous miser, and must have had Hawthorne blood in him,” says Mr. Hawthorne, “through his grandfather Gervase, whose mother was a Hawthorne.” He then refers to William's devise, and says: “My ancestor calls him his nephew.” The will says, “gr. ch.”; and I suppose the mistake occurred through Mr. Hawthorne's not having that document at hand, for reference.] Captain Hathorne must have been well advanced in years when he led his troops against the Indians at Cocheco in 1676; for it was only five years later that he disappeared from history and from this life forever.

  His son John inherited, together with housing and land, a good deal of the first Hathorne's various energy and eminence. He was a freeman in 1677, representative from 1683 to 1686, and assistant or counsellor, from 1684 to 1712, except the years of Andros's government. After the deposition of Andros, he was called to join Bradstreet's Council of Safety pending the accession of William of Orange; a magistrate for some years; quartermaster of the Essex companies at first, and afterward, in 1696, the commander of Church's troops, whom he led against St. John. He attacked the enemy's fort there, but, finding his force too weak, drew off, and embarked for Boston. As his father's captaincy had somehow developed into the dignity of major, so John found himself a colonel in 1711. But in 1717 he, too, died. And now there came a change in the fortunes of the Hathorne line. Colonel John, during his magistracy, had presided at the witchcraft trials, and had shown himself severe, bigoted, and unrelenting in his spirit toward the accused persons. Something of this may be seen in Upham's volumes. One woman was brought before him, whose husband has left a pathetic record of her suffering. “She was forced to stand with her arms stretched out. I requested that I might hold one of her hands, but it was declined me; then she desired me to wipe the tears from her eyes, and the sweat from her face, which I did; then she desired that she might lean herself on me, saying she should faint. Justice Hathorne replied she had strength enough to torment these persons, and she should have strength enough to stand. I repeating something against their cruel proceedings, they commanded me to be silent, or else I should be turned out of the room.” [Footnote: Chandler's American Criminal Trials, I. p. 85.] It is not strange that this husband should have exclaimed, that God would take revenge upon his wife's persecutors; and perhaps he was the very man whose curse was said to have fallen upon the justice's posterity.

  From this time, at all events, the family lost its commanding position in Salem affairs. Justice Hathorne's son Joseph subsided into the quiet of farm-life. The only notable association with his name is, that he married Sarah Bowditch, a sister of the grandfather of the distinguished mathematician, Nathaniel Bowditch. But it is in the beginning of the eighteenth century that the Hathornes begin to appear as mariners. In the very year of the justice's death, one Captain Ebenezer Hathorne earned the gloomy celebrity attendant on bringing small-pox to Salem, in his brig just arrived from the Barbadoes. Possibly, Justice John may have died from this very infection; and if so, the curse would seem to have worked with a peculiarly malign appropriateness, by making a member of his own family the unwilling instrument of his end. By and by a Captain Benjamin Hathorne is cast away and drowned on the coast, with four other men. Perhaps it was his son, another Benjamin, who, in 1782, being one of the crew of an American privateer, “The Chase,” captured by the British, escaped from a prison-ship in the harbor of Charleston, S. C., with six comrades, one of whom was drowned. Thus, gradually, originated the traditional career of the men of this family, — ”a gray-headed shipmaster in each generation,” as the often-quoted passage puts it, “retiring from the quarter-deck to the homestead, while a boy of fourteen took the hereditary place before the mast.” But the most eminent among these hardy skippers is Daniel, the son of farmer Joseph, and grandfather of the author.

  Daniel Hathorne lived to be eighty-five, and expired only on April 18, 1796, eight years and a little more before his famous grandson came into the world. Something of the old prowess revived in him, and being a stout seafarer, and by inheritance a lover of independence, he became commander of a privateer during our Revolution; indeed, it is said he commanded several. His guns have made no great noise in history, but their reverberation
has left in the air a general tradition of his bravery. The only actual account of his achievements which I have met with is the following ballad, written by the surgeon of his ship, who was perhaps better able than any one else to gauge the valor of his countryman and commander, by the amount of bloodshed on his piratical craft: —

  BRIG “FAIR AMERICAN”: DANIEL HATHORNE, COMMANDER.

  The twenty-second of August, before the close of day,

  All hands on board our privateer, we got her under weigh.

  We kept the Eastern shore on board for forty leagues or more,

  When our departure took for sea, from the Isle of Monhegan

  shore.

  Bold Hathorne was commander, a man of real worth,

  Old England's cruel tyranny induced him to go forth;

  She with relentless fury was plundering all the coast,

  And thought because her strength was great, our glorious cause

  was lost.

  Now farewell to America, — farewell our friends and wives,

  We trust in Heaven's peculiar care, for to protect their lives,

  To prosper our intended cruise upon the raging main,

  And to preserve our dearest friends till we return again.

  The wind it being leading and bore us on our way,

  As far unto the Eastward as the Gulf of Florida,

  When we fell in with a British ship hound homeward from the main;

  We gave her two bow-chasers, and she returned the same.

  We hauled up our courses and prepared for fight;

  The contest held four glasses,[*] until the dusk of night;

  Then having sprung our mainmast, and had so large a sea,

  We dropped astern, and left our chase till the returning day.

  [* The time consumed in the emptying of a half-hour glass four times, — two hours.]

  Next day we fished our mainmast, the ship still being nigh,

  All hands was for engaging, our chance once more to try;

  But wind and sea being boisterous, our cannon would not bear;

  We thought it quite imprudent, and so we left her there.

  We cruised to the Eastward, near the coast of Portuigale:

  In longitude of twenty-seven we saw a lofty sail.

  We gave her chase, and soon perceived she was a British scow

  Standing for fair America with troops for General Howe.

  Our captain did inspect her with glasses, and he said: —

  ”My boys, she means to fight us, but be you not afraid;

  All hands repair to quarters, see everything is clear;

  We'll give him a broadside, my boys, as soon as she comes near.”

  She was prepared with nettings, and her men were well secured,

  And bore directly for us, and put us close on board,

  When the cannons roared like thunder, and the muskets fired amain;

  But soon we were alongside, and grappled to her chain.

  And now the scene is altered, — the cannon ceased to roar;

  We fought with swords and boarding-pikes one glass and something more;

  The British pride and glory no longer dared to stay,

  But cut the Yankee grappling, and quickly bore away.

  Our case was not so desperate, as plainly might appear,

  Yet sudden death did enter on board our privateer;

  Mahany, Clew, and Clemmans, the valiant and the brave,

  Fell glorious in the contest, and met a watery grave!

  Ten other men were wounded, among our warlike crew,

  With them our noble captain, to whom all praise is due.

  To him and all our officers let's give a hearty cheer!

  Success to fair America and our good privateer!

  This ballad is as long as the cruise, and the rhythm of it seems to show that the writer had not quite got his sea-legs on, in boarding the poetic craft. Especially is he to be commiserated on that unhappy necessity to which the length of the verse compels him, of keeping “the Eastern shore on board for forty leagues,” in the first stanza; but it was due to its historic and associative value to give it entire.

  Perhaps, after all, it was a shrewd insight that caused the Hathornes to take to the sea. Salem's greatest glory was destined for a term to lie in that direction. Many of these old New England seaports have magnificent recollections of a commercial grandeur hardly to be guessed from their aspect to-day. Castine, Portsmouth, Wiscasset, Newburyport, and the rest, — they controlled the carrying of vast regions, and fortune's wheel whirled amid their wharves and warehouses with a merry and reassuring sound. Each town had its special trade, and kept the monopoly. Portsmouth and Newburyport ruled the trade with Martinique, Guadaloupe, and Porto Rico, sending out fish and bringing back sugar; Gloucester bargained with the West Indies for rum, and brought coffee and dye-stuffs from Surinam; Marblehead had the Bilboa business; and Salem, most opulent of all, usurped the Sumatra, African, East Indian, Brazilian, and Cayenne commerce. By these new avenues over the ocean many men brought home wealth that literally made princes of them, and has left permanent traces in the solid and stately homes they built, still crowded with precious heirlooms, as well as in the refinement nurtured therein, and the thrifty yet generous character they gave to the town. Among these successful merchants was Simon Forrester, who married Nathaniel Hawthorne's great-aunt Rachel, and died in 1817, leaving an immense property. Him Hawthorne speaks of in “The Custom House”; alluding to “old King Derby, old Billy Gray, old Simon Forrester, and many another magnate of his day; whose powdered head, however, was scarcely in the tomb, before his mountain-pile of wealth began to dwindle.” But Nathaniel's family neither helped to undermine the heap, nor accumulated a rival one. However good the forecast that his immediate ancestors had made, as to the quickest and broadest road to wealth, they travelled long in the wake of success without ever winning it, themselves. The malediction that fell on Justice Hathorne's head might with some reason have been thought to still hang over his race, as Hawthorne suggests that its “dreary and unprosperous condition … for many a long year back” would show. Indeed, the tradition of such a curse was kept alive in his family, and perhaps it had its share in developing that sadness and reticence which seem to have belonged to his father.

  It is plain from these circumstances how the idea of “The House of the Seven Gables” evolved itself from the history of his own family, with important differences. The person who is cursed, in the romance, uses a special spite toward a single victim, in order to get hold of a property which he bequeaths to his own heirs. Thus a double and treble wrong is done, and the notion of a curse working upon successive generations is subordinate to the conception of the injury which a man entails to his own descendants by forcing on them a stately house founded upon a sin. The parallel of the Hathorne decline in fortune is carried out; but it must be observed that the peculiar separateness and shyness, which doubtless came to be in some degree a trait of all the Hathornes, is transferred in the book from the family of the accursed to that of Maule, the utterer of the evil prophecy. “As for Matthew Maule's posterity,” says the romancer, “to all appearance they were a quiet, honest, well-meaning race of people”; but “they were generally poverty-stricken; always plebeian and obscure; working with unsuccessful diligence at handicrafts; laboring on the wharves, or following the sea as sailors before the mast”; and “so long as any of the race were to be found, they had been marked out from other men — not strikingly, nor as with a sharp line, but with an effect that was felt, rather than spoken of — by an hereditary character of reserve. Their companions, or those who endeavored to become such, grew conscious of a circle round about the Maules, within the sanctity or the spell of which, in spite of an exterior of sufficient frankness and good-fellowship, it was impossible for any man to step.” The points of resemblance here may be easily distinguished. In the “American Note-Books” occurs an anecdote which recalls the climax of the romance. It concerns Philip English, who ha
d been tried for witchcraft by John Hathorne, and became his bitter enemy. On his death-bed, he consented to forgive him; “But if I get well,” said he, “I'll be damned if I forgive him!” One of English's daughters (he had no sons) afterward married a son of John Hathorne. How masterly is the touch of the artist's crayon in this imaginative creation, based upon the mental and moral anatomy of actual beings! It is a delicate study of the true creative art to follow out this romantic shape, and contrast it with the real creatures and incidents to which it has a sort of likeness. With perfect choice, the artist selects, probably not consciously, but through association, whatever he likes from the real, and deviates from it precisely where he feels this to be fitting; adds a trait here, and transfers another there; and thus completes something having a unity and inspiration of its own, neither a simple reproduction nor an unmixed invention, the most subtile and harmonious product of the creative power. It is in this way that “The House of the Seven Gables” comes to be not merely fancifully a romance typical of Salem, but in the most essentially true way representative of it. Surely no one could have better right to thus embody the characteristics of the town than Hawthorne, whose early ancestors had helped to magnify it and defend it, and whose nearer progenitors had in their fallen fortunes almost foreshadowed the mercantile decline of the long-lived capital. Surely no one can be less open to criticism for illustrating various phases of his townsmen's character and exposing in this book, as elsewhere, though always mildly, the gloomier traits of the founders, than this deep-eyed and gentle man, whose forefathers notably possessed “all the Puritanic traits, both good and evil,” and who uses what is as much to the disadvantage of his own blood as to that of others, with such absolute, admirable impartiality.