Time has proved that the Quakers had the best of the controversy; and
their descendants can well afford to forget and forgive an error which
the Puritan governor shared with the generation in which he lived.
WEST OSSIPEE, N. H., 14th 9th Month, 1878.
JOHN WINTHROP.
On the anniversary of his landing at Salem.
I see by the call of the Essex Institute that some probability is
suggested that I may furnish a poem for the occasion of its meeting at
The Willows on the 22d. I would be glad to make the implied probability
a fact, but I find it difficult to put my thoughts into metrical form,
and there will be little need of it, as I understand a lady of Essex
County, who adds to her modern culture and rare poetical gifts the best
spirit of her Puritan ancestry, has lent the interest of her verse to the
occasion.
It was a happy thought of the Institute to select for its first meeting
of the season the day and the place of the landing of the great and good
governor, and permit me to say, as thy father's old friend, that its
choice for orator, of the son of him whose genius, statesmanship, and
eloquence honored the place of his birth, has been equally happy.
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