The Lord's day after, he made a speech in the
assembly, showing that as the Lord was pleased to convert Paul as he was
persecuting &c, so he might manifest himself to him as he was making
moderate use of the good creature called tobacco." A week later "he was
privately dealt with upon suspicion of incontinency ... but his excuse
was that the woman was in great trouble of mind, and some temptations,
and that he resorted to her to comfort her." He went to the Eastward,
and, having run himself out there, thought it best to come back to Boston
and reinstate himself by eating his leek. "He came in his worst clothes
(being accustomed to take great pride in his bravery and neatness)
without a band, in a foul linen cap pulled close to his eyes, and,
standing upon a form, he did, with many deep sighs and abundance of
tears, lay open his wicked course, his adultery, his hypocrisy &c. He
spake well, save that his blubbering &c. interrupted him." We hope he was
a sincere penitent, but men of his complexion are apt to be pleased with
such a tragi-comedy of self-abasement, if only they can be chief actors
and conspicuous enough therein. In the correspondence before us Underhill
appears in full turkey-cock proportions. Not having been advanced
according to his own opinion of his merits, he writes to Governor
Winthrop, with an oblique threat that must have amused him somewhat: "I
profess, sir, till I know the cause, I shall not be satisfied, but I hope
God will subdue me to his will; yet this I say that such handling of
officers in foreign parts hath so far subverted some of them as to cause
them turn public rebels against their state & kingdom, which God forbid
should ever be found once so much as to appear in my breast.
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