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Winthrop Family Papers

Papers of the Winthrop Family, Volume 4

Ann Hoskins to John Winthrop, Jr.

13 January 1638

John Winthrop to John Winthrop, Jr.

22 January 1638
John Winthrop to William Coddington, John Coggeshall, and William Colburn1
JW Coddington, William Coggeshall, John Colburn, William

1638-01-15
To my worthy friends and beloued brethren mr. Coddington, mr. Coxall and mr. Colburn
beloved Brethren,

I mett lately with the Remonstrance subscribed by yourselves with others I must confess I saw it once before, but had not then tyme to reade it advisedly, as now I have. I hope soon (by Gods assistance) to make it appear, what wrong hath been done to the Court yea and to the truth it self, by that rashe, unwarranted and seditious enterprise: In the mean tyme I thought fitt, to advertise you of some miscarriages therein: and though your Countenancing of others in the like practice leaves me small hope, that you will hearken to my counsel in this, yet in discharge of 9my duty and brotherly respect towards you, I have given this attempt, and shall leave the success to God.

1: In this you have broke the bounds of your calling, that you did publish such a writinge, when you were no members of the Court.

2: In that you tax the Court with iniustice.

3: In that you affirm that all the Acts of that maior part of that Court are voide, whereby you goe about, to overthrow the foundation of our Commonwealth and the peace thereof: by turning all our magistrates out of Office, and by nullifying all our Laws.

4. In that you invite the bodye of the people, to ioyn with you in your seditious attempt against the Court, and the Authority here established against the rule of the Apostle, who requires every soule to be subiect to the higher powers and every Christian man, to studye to be quiet, and to meddle with his own business.

I earnestly desire you, to consider seriously of these things: and if it please the Lord to open your eyes, to see your failings, it wilbe much ioy to me, and (I doubt not but) the Court wilbe very redy to pass them by, and accept of your submission, and it may be a meanes of a further and firmer reconciliation, which the Lord grant, and in his good tyme effect, so I rest your loving brother

J:W: XIth 15: 1637/38 2 1.

W. 1. 120; Savage (1825), 403–404; (1853), I. 483–484; L. and L. , II. 214–215. For Coddington, see D.A.B. ; Emily Coddington Williams, William Coddington of Rhode Island (Newport, R. I., 1941). For Coggeshall, see Savage, Genealogical Dictionary, I. 421. For Colburn, see ibid., 423.

 2.

The date of this letter arouses doubt as to whether Charles Francis Adams was correct in saying that it relates to the Remonstrance submitted to the Massachusetts General Court on behalf of John Wheelwright in March, 1636/37. Charles Francis Adams, Antinomianism in the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, 1636–1638 (Prince Society, Boston, 1894), 135n.–136n. Winthrop invariably used the old-style calendar. This date, therefore, is January 15, 1637/38. It indeed seems strange that Winthrop, writing ten months after the appearance of the Remonstrance, could, in view of all that had transpired during that period, say that he had only recently had time to read the document carefully. This difficulty would not be wholly avoided if it were to be assumed that Winthrop had dated this letter according to the new-style calendar; but certainly the date November 15, 1637, is more plausible because of its proximity to the date of the trial of Mrs. Hutchinson. If one accepts an old-style date for the letter, it seems more reasonable to assume that Winthrop was referring to some document, now lost, occasioned by some later phase of the Antinomian controversy, during all of which all three addressees were openly aligned on the side of Wheelwright and Mrs. Hutchinson.