Family-histories and genealogies : containing a series of ...

^i^tfsibiolir
Body and Mind. Lame yet vigorous. Cart^ 400 Loads Dung, sea weed &c., last
year. At close of Gov' had 40 Head Cattle, and cut 40 or 50 Loads Hay only. Has
50 acres Salt Marsh ;
18 or 20 stacks Hay now round his Barn, 3 or 4 Tons each."
On a subsequent leaf is the following Memorandum :
"Gov'' Griswold's Farm Stock, 1790.
23 Hogs, 8 yoke Oxen, 17 Fat Cattle, 25 Cows, 3000'" cheese, 400'" Butter, 8000'"
Beef sale or 17 Fat Cattle, 400 Bush' Oats, 500 do. Ind. corn, 100 Loads Eng. Hay,
80 do. salt do., 500"^ Flax, 45 Bush' Wheat, 120 do. Rye, 105 sheep."
The Griswold family-archives also contain a paper entitled " Remarks
on Liberty and the African Trade," by Governor Griswold, dated July i''
1795, and apparently intended for publication. Domestic slaves appear to
have been owned in the Griswold family from the earliest times, as was the
case in most New England families of the higher class. But the oppor-
tunity is a rare one to know by his own words, in a somewhat lengthy
argument, how the subject was viewed by one of the Revolutionary
patriots of New England. There are several drafts of this paper, differing
slightly ; we
use that which seems the most finished. The whole course
of thought will be made clear by the following abstract and quotations :
Man was created in absolute dependence upon the Almighty, and, for
his good, was originally placed under laws, obedience to which " fixes the
subject in the highest Liberty." But he willfully disobeyed, whereupon,
instead of exacting the full penalty, God allowed "fallen man to Incor-
porate into 'a state of Civil Government ... as the Circumstances of
Each Common Wealth sho'd Require . . ." the power of the State
being limited to temporal rights and properties, exclusive of " matters of
Conscience and a Superintending Power. ..."
" So that upon the ground of Creation, Preservation and Redemption every man
is Born under the most Inviolable Subjection of obedience to the Divine Law, and
also under Subjection to the Civil Laws of the Common Wealth where he happens to
be, that are not Contrary to the Divine Law. .
Civil Society than using a Licentious Liberty. . . ."
68
. . Nothing is more injurious to