Genealogical notes of Barnstable families - citizen hylbom blog

GENEALOGICAL NOTES OF BARNSTABLE FAMILIES. 257
institutions established by the Puritans. There was also another
class—disappointed politicians—like George Barlow of Sandwich,
of which I have had occasion to speak in no complimentary
terms.
The effect on the churches was disastrous. The Barnstable
Church was rent in twain, and the difficulties did not end till the
settlement of Mr. Walley in 1662. There were divisions in the
old Plymouth Church, in fact in almost every church in the
colony.
A large majority of those known as first comers, then surviving,
sympathized with Mr. Cudworth. Seituate was very
nearly unanimous in his support, so were a large majoi-ity in Sandwich
and in Barnstable. Of the state of feeling in other towns
at that period, I have no means of correctly ascertaining.
Such was the state of public feeling in the colony in the summer
of 1657 ; yet such was the reverence of the people for the
institutions first established, that the magistrates and representatives
hesitated in passing the laws recommended by the commissioners.
They simply ordained, says Mr. Cudworth, that the
word "and" in an old law, should be changed to "or." This
apparently small and unimportant alteration changed, as will be
seen, a salutary or harmless law, into an instrument of tyranny.
This change would have been inoperative if there had not
been men in the colony in whom the spirit of persecution only
slumberedj who were ready to catch at every straw and urge the
people on to acts of madness. Of this class was George Barlow
of Sandwich, and as he was the type of the class, some account
of him will not be out of place, in order to show what kind of
men Cudworth, Hatherly and Robinson, had to contend with.
The four years from 1657 to 1661, have been called the dark
ages of the colony. It is unpleasant to
those years—to be forced to admit that
recount the events of
such excellent men as
Thomas Hinckley, Josiah Winslow, Thomas Prence, John Alden,
and others, adjured, for the time being, the liberal principles of
civil polity which the fathers professed, and were led astray by a
senseless clamour from without, and by factious and ambitious
men within. That they unwillingly consented to enact laws
restraining political and religious freedom is evident, from the
and that
statements in the letter of Mr. Cudworth to Mr. Brown ;
they lived to regret their hasty and inconsiderate action, is verified
by their subsequent acts ; but that unwillingness, and that regret
does not blot from the memory, or from the statute book, the
unjust laws which they sanctioned and enforced. The precedents
established in Massachusetts and Connecticut are no excuse, they
and their associates were the rulers of a free and independent