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Endicott and the Red Cross
Nathaniel Hawthorne
At noon of on autumnal day, more than two centuries ago, the English colors were
displayed by the standard-bearer of the Salem trainband, which had mustered for martial
exercise under the orders of John Endicott. It was a period when the religious exiles were
accustomed often to buckle on their armor, and practise the handling of their weapons of
war. Since the first settlement of New England, its prospects had never been so dismal. The
dissensions between Charles the First and his subjects were then, and for several years
afterwards, confined to the floor of Parliament. The measures of the King and ministry were
rendered more tyrannically violent by an opposition, which had not yet acquired sufficient
confidence in its own strength to resist royal injustice with the sword. The bigoted and
haughty primate, Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, controlled the religious affairs of the
realm, and was consequently invested with powers which might have wrought the utter ruin
of the two Puritan colonies, Plymouth and Massachusetts. There is evidence on record that
our forefathers perceived their danger, but were resolved that their infant country should not
fall without a struggle, even beneath the giant strength of the King's right arm.
Such was the aspect of the times when the folds of the English banner, with the Red Cross
in its field, were flung out over a company of Puritans. Their leader, the famous Endicott,
was a man of stern and resolute countenance, the effect of which was heightened by a
grizzled beard that swept the upper portion of his breastplate. This piece of armor was so
highly polished that the whole surrounding scene had its image in the glittering steel. The
central object in the mirrored picture was an edifice of humble architecture with neither
steeple nor bell to proclaim it--what nevertheless it was--the house of prayer. A token of the
perils of the wilderness was seen in the grim head of a wolf, which had just been slain
within the precincts of the town, and according to the regular mode of claiming the bounty,
was nailed on the porch of the meeting-house. The blood was still plashing on the doorstep.
There happened to be visible, at the same noontide hour, so many other characteristics of
the times and manners of the Puritans, that we must endeavor to represent them in a sketch,
though far less vividly than they were reflected in the polished breastplate of John Endicott.
In close vicinity to the sacred edifice appeared that important engine of Puritanic authority,
the whipping-post--with the soil around it well trodden by the feet of evil doers, who had
there been disciplined. At one corner of the meeting-house was the pillory, and at the other
the stocks; and, by a singular good fortune for our sketch, the head of an Episcopalian and
suspected Catholic was grotesquely incased in the former machine while a fellow-criminal,
who had boisterously quaffed a health to the king, was confined by the legs in the latter.
Side by side, on the meeting-house steps, stood a male and a female figure. The man was a
tall, lean, haggard personification of fanaticism, bearing on his breast this label,--A
WANTON GOSPELLER,--which betokened that he had dared to give interpretations of
Holy Writ unsanctioned by the infallible judgment of the civil and religious rulers. His
aspect showed no lack of zeal to maintain his heterodoxies, even at the stake. The woman
wore a cleft stick on her tongue, in appropriate retribution for having wagged that unruly
member against the elders of the church; and her countenance and gestures gave much
cause to apprehend that, the moment the stick should be removed, a repetition of the
offence would demand new ingenuity in chastising it.
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The above-mentioned individuals had been sentenced to undergo their various modes of
ignominy, for the space of one hour at noonday. But among the crowd were several whose
punishment would be life-long; some, whose ears had been cropped, like those of puppy
dogs; others, whose cheeks had been branded with the initials of their misdemeanors; one,
with his nostrils slit and seared; and another, with a halter about his neck, which he was
forbidden ever to take off, or to conceal beneath his garments. Methinks he must have been
grievously tempted to affix the other end of the rope to some convenient beam or bough.
There was likewise a young woman, with no mean share of beauty, whose doom it was to
wear the letter A on the breast of her gown, in the eyes of all the world and her own
children. And even her own children knew what that initial signified. Sporting with her
infamy, the lost and desperate creature had embroidered the fatal token in scarlet cloth, with
golden thread and the nicest art of needlework; so that the capital A might have been
thought to mean Admirable, or anything rather than Adulteress.
Let not the reader argue, from any of these evidences of iniquity, that the times of the
Puritans were more vicious than our own, when, as we pass along the very street of this
sketch, we discern no badge of infamy on man or woman. It was the policy of our ancestors
to search out even the most secret sins, and expose them to shame, without fear or favor, in
the broadest light of the noonday sun. Were such the custom now, perchance we might find
materials for a no less piquant sketch than the above.
Except the malefactors whom we have described, and the diseased or infirm persons, the
whole male population of the town, between sixteen years and sixty, were seen in the ranks
of the trainband. A few stately savages, in all the pomp and dignity of the primeval Indian,
stood gazing at the spectacle. Their flint-headed arrows were but childish weapons
compared with the matchlocks of the Puritans, and would have rattled harmlessly against
the steel caps and hammered iron breastplates which inclosed each soldier in an individual
fortress. The valiant John Endicott glanced with an eye of pride at his sturdy followers, and
prepared to renew the martial toils of the day.
"Come, my stout hearts!" quoth he, drawing his sword. "Let us show these poor heathen
that we can handle our weapons like men of might. Well for them, if they put us not to
prove it in earnest!"
The iron-breasted company straightened their line, and each man drew the heavy butt of his
matchlock close to his left foot, thus awaiting the orders of the captain. But, as Endicott
glanced right and left along the front, he discovered a personage at some little distance with
whom it behooved him to hold a parley. It was an elderly gentleman, wearing a black cloak
and band, and a high-crowned hat, beneath which was a velvet skull-cap, the whole being
the garb of a Puritan minister. This reverend person bore a staff which seemed to have been
recently cut in the forest, and his shoes were bemired as if he had been travelling on foot
through the swamps of the wilderness. His aspect was perfectly that of a pilgrim,
heightened also by an apostolic dignity. Just as Endicott perceived him he laid aside his
staff, and stooped to drink at a bubbling fountain which gushed into the sunshine about a
score of yards from the corner of the meeting-house. But, ere the good man drank, he turned
his face heavenward in thankfulness, and then, holding back his gray beard with one hand,
he scooped up his simple draught in the hollow of the other.
"What, ho! good Mr. Williams," shouted Endicott. "You are welcome back again to our
ads:
town of peace. How does our worthy Governor Winthrop? And what news from Boston?"
"The Governor hath his health, worshipful Sir," answered Roger Williams, now resuming
his staff, and drawing near. "And for the news, here is a letter, which, knowing I was to
travel hitherward to-day, his Excellency committed to my charge. Belike it contains tidings
of much import; for a ship arrived yesterday from England."
Mr. Williams, the minister of Salem and of course known to all the spectators, had now
reached the spot where Endicott was standing under the banner of his company, and put the
Governor's epistle into his hand. The broad seal was impressed with Winthrop's coat of
arms. Endicott hastily unclosed the letter and began to read, while, as his eye passed down
the page, a wrathful change came over his manly countenance. The blood glowed through
it, till it seemed to be kindling with an internal heat, nor was it unnatural to suppose that his
breastplate would likewise become red-hot with the angry fire of the bosom which it
covered. Arriving at the conclusion, he shook the letter fiercely in his hand, so that it rustled
as loud as the flag above his head.
"Black tidings these, Mr. Williams," said he; "blacker never came to New England.
Doubtless you know their purport?"
"Yea, truly," replied Roger Williams; "for the Governor consulted, respecting this matter,
with my brethren in the ministry at Boston; and my opinion was likewise asked. And his
Excellency entreats you by me, that the news be not suddenly noised abroad, lest the people
be stirred up unto some outbreak, and thereby give the King and the Archbishop a handle
against us."
"The Governor is a wise man--a wise man, and a meek and moderate," said Endicott,
setting his teeth grimly. "Nevertheless, I must do according to my own best judgment.
There is neither man, woman, nor child in New England, but has a concern as dear as life in
these tidings; and if John Endicott's voice be loud enough, man, woman, and child shall
hear them. Soldiers, wheel into a hollow square! Ho, good people! Here are news for one
and all of you."
The soldiers closed in around their captain; and he and Roger Williams stood together
under the banner of the Red Cross; while the women and the aged men pressed forward,
and the mothers held up their children to look Endicott in the face. A few taps of the drum
gave signal for silence and attention.
"Fellow-soldiers--fellow-exiles," began Endicott, speaking under strong excitement, yet
powerfully restraining it, "wherefore did ye leave your native country? Wherefore, I say,
have we left the green and fertile fields, the cottages, or, perchance, the old gray halls,
where we were born and bred, the churchyards where our forefathers lie buried? Wherefore
have we come hither to set up our own tombstones in a wilderness? A howling wilderness it
is! The wolf and the bear meet us within halloo of our dwellings. The savage lieth in wait
for us in the dismal shadow of the woods. The stubborn roots of the trees break our
ploughshares, when we would till the earth. Our children cry for bread, and we must dig in
the sands of the sea-shore to satisfy them. Wherefore, I say again, have we sought this
country of a rugged soil and wintry sky? Was it not for the enjoyment of our civil rights?
Was it not for liberty to worship God according to our conscience?"
"Call you this liberty of conscience?" interrupted a voice on the steps of the meeting-house.
It was the Wanton Gospeller. A sad and quiet smile flitted across the mild visage of Roger
Williams. But Endicott, in the excitement of the moment, shook his sword wrathfully at the
culprit--an ominous gesture from a man like him.
"What hast thou to do with conscience, thou knave?" cried he. "I said liberty to worship
God, not license to profane and ridicule him. Break not in upon my speech, or I will lay
thee neck and heels till this time tomorrow! Hearken to me, friends, nor heed that accursed
rhapsodist. As I was saying, we have sacrificed all things, and have come to a land whereof
the old world hath scarcely heard, that we might make a new world unto ourselves, and
painfully seek a path from hence to heaven. But what think ye now? This son of a Scotch
tyrant--this grandson of a Papistical and adulterous Scotch woman, whose death proved that
a golden crown doth not always save an anointed head from the block--"
"Nay, brother, nay," interposed Mr. Williams; "thy words are not meet for a secret chamber,
far less for a public street."
"Hold thy peace, Roger Williams!" answered Endicott, imperiously. "My spirit is wiser than
thine for the business now in hand. I tell ye, fellow-exiles, that Charles of England, and
Laud, our bitterest persecutor, arch-priest of Canterbury, are resolute to pursue us even
hither. They are taking counsel, saith this letter, to send over a governor-general, in whose
breast shall be deposited all the law and equity of the land. They are minded, also, to
establish the idolatrous forms of English Episcopacy; so that, when Laud shall kiss the
Pope's toe, as cardinal of Rome, he may deliver New England, bound hand and foot, into
the power of his master!
A deep groan from the auditors,--a sound of wrath, as well as fear and sorrow,--responded
to this intelligence.
"Look ye to it, brethren," resumed Endicott, with increasing energy. "If this king and this
arch-prelate have their will, we shall briefly behold a cross on the spire of this tabernacle
which we have builded, and a high altar within its walls, with wax tapers burning round it at
noonday. We shall hear the sacring bell, and the voices of the Romish priests saying the
mass. But think ye, Christian men, that these abominations may be suffered without a sword
drawn? without a shot fired? without blood spilt, yea, on the very stairs of the pulpit? No,--
be ye strong of hand and stout of heart! Here we stand on our own soil, which we have
bought with our goods, which we have won with our swords, which we have cleared with
our axes, which we have tilled with the sweat of our brows, which we have sanctified with
our prayers to the God that brought us hither! Who shall enslave us here? What have we to
do with this mitred prelate,--with this crowned king? What have we to do with England?"
Endicott gazed round at the excited countenances of the people, now full of his own spirit,
and then turned suddenly to the standard-bearer, who stood close behind him.
"Officer, lower your banner!" said he.
The officer obeyed; and, brandishing his sword, Endicott thrust it through the cloth, and,
with his left hand, rent the Red Cross completely out of the banner. He then waved the
tattered ensign above his head.
"Sacrilegious wretch!" cried the high-churchman in the pillory, unable longer to restrain
himself, "thou hast rejected the symbol of our holy religion!"
"Treason, treason!" roared the royalist in the stocks. "He hath defaced the King's banner!"
"Before God and man, I will avouch the deed," answered Endicott. "Beat a flourish,
drummer!--shout, soldiers and people!--in honor of the ensign of New England. Neither
Pope nor Tyrant hath part in it now!"
With a cry of triumph, the people gave their sanction to one of the boldest exploits which
our history records. And forever honored be the name of Endicott! We look back through
the mist of ages, and recognize in the rending of the Red Cross from New England's banner
the first omen of that deliverance which our fathers consummated after the bones of the
stern Puritan had lain more than a century in the dust.
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