convenient shackles to pin him down to a slaver's deck in three feet three inches, or at the most three feet ten inches of sitting room and free ventilation.

A pound sterling at Sierra Leone in 1743 was equal to twelve bars of this iron, a negro slave when the Jolly Bachelor balanced accounts June 14, was worth sixty bars or £5. At about the same time, according to Mr. Mason's old Newport documents, he was worth £12 in "goods," i. e. rum, at Sierra Leone. We see the frightful scale by which merchandise ascends through rate after rate-paper priced rum, coast valued iron, sterling gold-while human flesh, sense, mind and spirit goes down in corresponding degradation.

The Romans were great but not humane, the Spaniards able and cruel, the English strong and sensible but selfish, the Americans followed in the footsteps of this civilization they inherited but did not create. The whole world in the eighteenth century, previous to the movement beginning in the American Revolution, which stirred the nations to their depths and shook thrones from their foundations, knew nothing of a refined humanity, knew but little even of the justice which should let men go free. The children of the world in their day are wiser than the children of light. Molasses and alcohol, rum and slaves, gold and iron, moved in a perpetual and unwholesome round of commerce. The most enterprising, alert and active ports only admitted the more of this fetid misery. All society was fouled in this lust, inflamed by this passion for wealth, callous to the wrongs of imported savage or displaced barbarian. The shallow sympathy expressed in the seventeenth century for Indians and native proprietors had expended itself. A new continent in possession, old Ethiopia must be ransacked, that the holders might enjoy it more speedily. Cool, shrewd, sagacious merchants vied with punctilious, dogmatic priests in promoting this prostitution of industry.

1 See MS., p. 38, ante.

THE FIRST SCHOLARSHIP AT HARVARD COLLEGE.

BY ANDREW MCFARLAND DAVIS.

In the Records of the Colony of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, under date of June 2, 1641, the following entry was made: "The Court doth intreat leave of the Church of Salem for Mr. Peters, of the Church of Roxberry for Mr. Wells, & of the Church of Boston for Mr. Hibbens, to go for England upon some weighty occations for the good of the Country, as is conceived.” What "the weighty occations for the good of the country "2 were appears in a general way from what they did when they reached England. A part at least of the work of this committee was to solicit aid for the Colony and for the cause of education, and although at a subsequent date a doubt was thrown by a committee of the General Court over the extent of the benefit which the Colony derived from the services of these gentlemen, yet it is clear that Harvard College, representing the cause of education and the advancement of learning," reaped some advantage from their labors. From the records of that institution we learn that Mr. William Hibbins, Mr. Thomas Welds & Mr. Hugh Peters procured from diverse gentlemen & merchants in England towards the furnishing of the Library with Books to the value of one hundred & fifty pounds." In the accounts of Tyng,3 the Country Treasurer, there is an entry in 1644 which recognizes the existence of a balance due the College for money remitted by Weld and Peters, although the amount

1 Mass. Rec., i., 332.

2 See Winthrop, ii., 25.

H. C. Records. See also Quincy, i., 455.

is not stated. Weld rendered an account to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England,1 of what money was paid himself and others, stating from whom the contributions were received and for what purposes they were given. This account covered all transactions from his first landing in England "until this present 10th of the 2nd mo. 1647.” A duplicate, containing no reference to the Society, but headed "Copie," is on file in the Massachusetts Archives. Under the heading "What I rec'd for the College & for the advancement of learning" are the following entries:

The Lady Moulsham gave mee for a Schollership £100, the revenue of it to bee imployed that way for ever for wh I entered covenant & am bound to have it performed

£100.

Mr Holbrook Schoolmaster gave me

22.

Given by a godly friend of myne who will have his name concealed

50.

231

The account from which this entry was taken was apparently submitted to a committee consisting of Increase Nowell, William Tynge and Edward Jackson, who on the 25th of the 8th mo., 1651, accepted and approved it.2

In a letter dated at Gates heade, January 2, 1649, Weld alludes to his collections for the College and to the scholarship as follows: 3

"Others gave to the Colledge and advance of learning which was paid, some little towarde y building of ye Colledge per Bill, some to the President for his greate laboure taken upon request of ye ffeoffees of the Colledge, some laid out for Utensils for the Colledge by their desires (as pewter, brass, Ironware, lynnen), some laid out in Bookes

1 N. E. Hist. and Gen. Reg., xxxix., 179.

2 Mass. Arch., lviii., fols. 3, 4, 5, 6. See also Quincy, i., 473, 474.

3 N. E. Hist. and Gen. Reg., xxxvi., 63.

to supply theire Library and for erecting a schoole att Roxbury, besides twoe Schollarships of £5 per annum, a piece settled for ever on the Colledge. And again he says: "Of ye lady, ye La. Moulsham who (out of Christian desire to advance good learning) gave an £100 to be improved in N. Enge. in y best way for ye help of some poore scholar, or scholars in ye Colledge, & to be settled for y1 use, Wch being given in upon account to ye state there & ye pious desire of ye Lady signified they settled £10 per annum for ever upon two poore scholars in ye Colledges £5 a piece."

It is with the £100 contributed by Lady Moulsham, or as she herself spells the name Lady Mowlson, that we have to deal. From the foregoing extracts we learn that the money was paid to Weld, that he entered into a covenant that it should be applied according to the wishes of the giver, that he paid it on "account to the State there," with a statement of the "pious desires of the Lady," and that the State" thereupon settled £10 per annum for ever upon two poore scholars in y Colledges £5 apiece." In the spring of 1645 the money had been received and the General Court ordered thanks to be returned to Lady Mowlson for her gift. Thus the first scholarship at Harvard was founded by a deposit of the money in the treasury of the Colony, and, according to Weld, an undertaking was entered into on the part of the Colony to meet the wishes of the founder by the payment of £5 apiece per annum to two poor scholars in the College.

By diligent search of the records of the Colony and of the College, Quincy collected the main facts concerning the history of this scholarship. It is not probable, however, that he saw the original document which was executed at the time of the payment of the money to Weld and which was forwarded to this country to show what the conditions were for the performance of which Weld had covenanted. This document was mounted in a scrap-book by

1" Innocency cleared." N. E. Hist. and Gen. Reg., xxxvi., 68. 2 Winthrop, ii., 212.

President Sparks, when he overhauled the College archives and had the manuscript papers collected, arranged and bound. It is engrossed upon parchment, and although by its terms it is an agreement on the part of Weld, it bears only the signature of Lady Mowlson. The fact of the gift was set forth in it, the terms on which the money was given, and a covenant on the part of Weld for the specific performance of those terms. It is evident that the attorney who prepared the instrument had two copies engrossed. One to be surrendered after execution to Lady Mowlson, the other to be forwarded to Massachusetts Bay. Through ignorance as to the proper manner in which to execute the papers, Weld probably signed one copy which was retained by Lady Mowlson, while she signed the copy which was kept by Weld. The misunderstanding on this point has preserved for us the precious signature of Ann Mowlson the founder of the first scholarship at Harvard College.

The following is a copy of the document:

Know all men by these p'sents that I Thomas Wells alls Weld Pastor of Roxbury in the Plantaton of New Engla[nd] doe by these p'sents acknowledge that I have received of the Lady Ann Mowlson of London Widdow the full & intire some of o[ne] hundred pounds current English mony the wch she hath freely given to Harvard's Colledge in New England to be imp[roved] by the feofees of the sd Colledge for the time being to the best yearly revenew that may be thought fitt in theire wisdome which yearly revenew according to her good & pious intention is to be & remaine as a ppetuall stipend for & towards yo per[petual] maintenance of some poor scholler which shalbe admitted into the sd Colledge by the sd feofees or the major pt of the[m] which poore scholler is to injoy the sd yearly stipend only till such time as such poore scholler doth attaine to ye degr[ee] of a master of Arts & no longer, and then the sd yearly stipend shall by the sd feofees be bestowed upon another poor scho[ller] of the sd colledge whom the sd feofees shall think best deserveing, and soe the sd stipend to goe in succession from [one] poor scholler to another therefor & towards theire yearly maintenance in perpetuum in manner & forme as afforesd And in case it shall fall out at such time