LETTER.
New York, October 3,185&
My Dear Mb. Moore :—Agreeably to your request, I enclose a copy of the " Seven Artikells which ye Church of Leyden sent to yff Counsell of England to bee considered of in respeckt of their judgments occationed about theer going to Virginia." As far as I know, they have never been published. The account of the principles of the Pilgrims, to which the author of the New England Chronology refers, is a different paper; and none of the successors of Prince seem to have been aware of the existence of this document. It escaped the notice of Bishop Wilberforce, to whom America is deeply indebted for the discovery of the original manuscript of Bradford's History of the Plymouth Colony; and of Mr. Anderson, who more distinctly announced to the world that the original manuscript of that long lost work was in the library of the Bishop of London.
We have now from Mr. Charles Deane of Boston, under the auspices of the Massachusetts Historical Society, an admirable edition of Bradford's History, illustrated witH equal diligence and fidelity. On pages 30 and 31 of that volume, you will find a reference to the Seven Articles, which, however, were not inserted in the History, even in an abstract They seem to have slumbered unnoticed for more than two centuries among the Virginia volumes in the State Paper Office in Westminster. The copy I send you was made for me by Mr. Sainsbury, a clerk in that office, in whose accuracy I have entire confidence.
For the just interpretation of the articles, the purpose of the Pilgrims must be borne in mind; and also the contemporaneous work of John Eobinson, called "A just and necessary Apology of certain Christians, no less contumeliously they commonly called Brownists or Barrowists."