The next day his little child, being left
alone for some hours, was drowned in an uncovered well in the cellar of his
house. "The father freely, in open congregation, did acknowledge it the
righteous hand of God for his profaning his holy day."
Visitors and travellers from other countries were forced to obey the rigid
laws with regard to Saturday-night observance. Archibald Henderson, the
master of a vessel which entered the port of Boston, complained to the
Council for Foreign Plantations in London that while he was in sober Boston
town, being ignorant of the laws of the land, and having walked half an
hour after sunset on Saturday night, as punishment for this unintentional
and trivial offence, a constable entered his lodgings, seized him by the
hair of his head, and dragged him to prison. Henderson claimed L800 damages
for the detention of his vessel during his prosecution. I have always
suspected that the gay captain may have misbehaved himself in Boston
on that Saturday night in some other way than simply by walking in
the streets, and that the Puritan law-enforcers took advantage of the
Sabbath-day laws in order to prosecute and punish him. We know of
Bradford's complaint of the times; that while sailors brought "a greate
deale" of money from foreign parts to New England to spend, they also
brought evil ways of spending it--"more sine I feare than money.
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