Some lost works of Cotton Mather / by George Lyman Kittredge.
- George Lyman Kittredge
- Date:
- 1912
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Some lost works of Cotton Mather / by George Lyman Kittredge. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.
17/74 page 425
![If Elizeus Burges's design of coming over Governor of Massachusetts was what brought Douglass to these shores, his first arrival in Boston, with letters of introduction to the min- isters,1 must have taken place in 1715 or (at the latest) in the early part of 1716.2 Thus we can easily reconcile the fact that 1 On Douglass's friendly reception by the Boston ministers, see the Quaere at the end of Increase Mather's tract Some Further Account from London, of the Small-Pox Inoculated (2d ed., Boston, i72i[-2], 7). Where Douglass got his medical degree is not known. I find his name, however (Gulielmus Douglass) under the year 1711 in the Album Studiosorum of the University of Utrecht (Utrecht, 1886, col. 113). That he studied in Paris and Leyden is ascertained from Summary, n. 21, note (see Jennison, 196; Bullock, 266). What Jennison says (196, 237, note 7) about Alexander Sandiland (misprinted Samdelande ) and James Stewart has misled Bullock (267, note 3). Douglass's friend and correspondent was Alexander (not James) Stuart. To him he wrote from Boston on September 21, i72i,on the subject of inoculation (see p. 423, note 5, supra), and the letter was read before the Royal Society on November 16th (Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, xrv. 103). For other letters from Douglass to Alexander Stuart see p. 457, note 4, infra. He twice refers to his former inti- macy with Stuart (Publications, as above, xrv. 106, note 3), and in the second instance (which occurs in the dedication of his Practical Essay concerning the Small Pox, Boston, 1730) he is rather specific: Our former Intimacy in the Universities in Holland and Hospitals in Flanders, inclined me to this Address. As for Dr. Alexander Sandilande (in [Isaac Greenwood's] Friendly Debate, 1, cf. 10), that is, I take it, merely Greenwood's (or Mather's) satirical nickname for Dr. Alexander Stuart, just as Sawny is their nickname for Douglass. 1 Burges's commission was dated March 17, 1714-15. He resigned in the following spring, not having come to New England at all. As early as April 12, 1716, his resignation was known in London, and by the 20th it was known there that his successor, Samuel Shute, had been appointed by the King (Boston News- Leltcr, June 11 and 16, 1716). Shute's commission was dated June 13 or 15, 1716. It had been approved by the Privy Council on May 17th (Acts of the Privy Council, Colonial, 1680-1720, 799). Between June 2 and 5, 1716, the news that Burges was not coming reached Boston (Massachusetts House Journal, 3, 6, 7). These facts I owe to Mr. Albert Matthews. From the letter to Colden (quoted in the text) it is clear that Douglass was in Boston when his disappointment took place, — that is, of course, when the news of Burges's resignation and Shute's succession arrived in June, 1716. And, indeed, we see by his weather record (Summary, n. 210) that he was here on June 26. Now he himself avers that Shute was appointed on March 14, 1715-16 (ib. 1. 479). Accurate or not, this statement (taken in connection with the letter) suffices to prove that Douglass had left Bristol and sailed for Boston before that date. The following extract from the Ms. Entry Book of the Scots Charitable Society of Boston, February 7, 1715-16 (furnished by the kindness of Mr. F. L. Gay), brings us still nearer to the date of his arrival: Dor Wm Douglas M:D: enters & gives £1 .. o .. o. In the Summary, 1. », Douglass speaks of his Thirty Years Residence in these Colonies. This passage was written in 1746 (see 1. 59, where 1746 is called this Year). Again (1. no) he refers to himself as having come to New Eng- land in his twenty-fifth year ( 25 y£t.) and as having pursued his investigations here for a Course of thirty Years. This passage appears to have been written 54](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21017633_0017.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
