a pound, "and all such as cannot pay his third part of his pay in English corn and prouision they shall pay In Indian corn at 2 shill' per bushell and the remainder of his pay In Indian corn at 3 shills per bushell his fire wood also aboue his eighty pound.

"And furder these persons here set down [Sergent Parker and eleven others] doe promise and Ingage to git Mr Willard hay mowing making and fetching home for eight shilling per load at a seasonable time viz in the midle of Jully."

May 11, 1670, Willard was made freeman.

Scarcely anything has been found pertaining to his ministry at Groton, except his account of the witchcraft case of Elizabeth Knapp, printed in the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, xxxviii. 555, and his Useful Instructions, published in 1673.

"His Master committed to his Pastoral Care a Flock in a more obscure part of this Wilderness:" says Pemberton, "But so great a Light was soon observed thro' the whole Land: And his Lord did not design to bury him in obscurity, but to place him in a more Eminent Station, which he was qualifyed for." The Indian assaults on Groton, 2–13 March, 1675-6, when, according to Hubbard, "there were about forty dwelling houses burnt besides other buildings, [were] followed with the breaking up of the town, and scattering of the Inhabitants, and removal of the Candlestick, after it had been there seated above twelve years.

Before the resettlement of Groton in 1678, and the ordination, 26 November, 1679, of Gershom Hobart, H. U. 1667, Willard was called to the Old South Church in Boston. He was installed 31 March, 1678, as colleague with Thomas Thacher, who died 15 October, 1678.

"The Providence that occasioned his Removal to this Place," says Pemberton, "was an Awful Judgment upon

the whole Land; yet was Eventually a Mercy in this respect, that it made way for the Translation of this Bright Star to a more Conspicuous Orb; where his Influence was more Extensive and Beneficial; and in this it was a great Blessing to this Congregation, to this Town, nay, to all New-England."

In 1681, in reply to a tract by John Russell, an uneducated Baptist preacher, who was a cobbler, he published "Ne Sutor ultra Crepidam." The Anabaptists, writes Willard, "are mistaken in the design of our first Planters, whose business was not Toleration: but were professed Enemies of it, and could leave the World professing they died no Libertines. Their business was to settle, and (as much as in them lay) secure Religion to Posterity according to that way which they believed was of God. If (therefore) this People parted with so much, and were at such charges for their liberties, why then do the Anabaptists trouble them, who had neither scot nor lot in that charge? let them go and do the like, and we shall not so molest their Churches, as they have shamefully done by ours."

May 29, 1682, Edward Randolph wrote to the Bishop of London: "We have in Boston, one Mr. Willard, a minister, brother to Major Dudley, he is a moderate man and baptiseth those who are refused by the other churches, for which he is hated."

John Dunton, who visited Willard in 1686, writes, "He's well furnish'd with Learning and solid Notion, has a Natural fluency of Speech, and can say what he pleases."

On the arrival of Sir Edmond Andros as governor, in 1686, he made a demand on Willard and his society to allow Episcopal worship in their meeting-house. "Indeed," at one time "he threatened to shut up the doors if he was refused, and to punish any man who gave two pence towards the support of a nonconformist minister."

"If the demand," writes Palfrey, "had been for the use of the building for a mass, or for a carriage-house for Juggernaut, it could scarcely have been to the generality of the people more offensive."

The details are given by Sewall and published in the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, xlv. From these and Wisner we learn that, on landing, 20 December, Andros "went to the Town-house, where his commission was read, and the Council sworn. The ministers of the town being present at the solemnity, he took them aside into the Library, and spoke to them about accommodation as to a Meeting House, the times of service to be so contrived as that one House might serve two assemblies. The next day at a meeting of the ministers and four of each church, . . . it was agreed, that they could not, with a good conscience, accede to his Excellency's proposal."

December 22, "Mr. Mather and Willard thorowly discoursed his Excellency about the Meeting-Houses in greate plainess shewing they could not consent."

"On the 23d of March, the Governor sent [Secretary] Randolph for the keys of the South Meeting House. The demand was not complied with; and six of the principal members of the church waited on his Excellency, and remonstrated against his occupying the House without the consent of the proprietors. On the 25th, the Governor sent orders to the sexton to ring the bell and open the House. The sexton was frightened into a compliance; and the Meeting House was occupied for the services for Good-Friday prescribed by the Church of England. On the next Sabbath, the Governor and his retinue again met in the Meeting House, having notified Mr. Willard that he might occupy it at half past one. The members of the South congregation, accordingly, assembled at that time; but were kept standing in the

street till past two." "So 'twas a sad sight to see how full the street was with people gazing and moving to and fro because [they] had not entrance into the House.” "From this time the Governor, when in town, occupied the House, at such times as he was pleased to say suited his convenience, (more than once changing the hours of meeting on the Sabbath, to the great annoyance of Mr. Willard and his people,) — probably till his deposition from the government in 1689."

Greenwood says: "In looking back on this event, we are obliged to consider it . . . as one of the most arbitrary acts ever perpetrated in this country, while it remained under the English government. No excuse is to be rendered for it. It was such a deliberate outrage on the common rights of property, to say nothing of conscience and liberty, that we may only wonder that Andros and his abettors . . . suffered no violence from the people. But none seems to have been offered; and the proprietors of the South meeting-house, finding that they could not resist the imposition, submitted to it as well as they could. Both parties, indeed, after the intrusion was effected, and regarded as a settled thing, evinced some desire to accommodate each other with regard to the hours of their several meetings, though Andros was still the dictator."

The counsel and spirit of Willard undoubtedly pervaded, if it did not guide, the proceedings of the Society.

"And it ought never to be forgotten," says Pemberton, "with what Prudence, Courage and Zeal he appeared for the good of this People, In that Dark and Mysterious Season [1692], when we were assaulted from the Invisible World. And how Singularly Instrumental he was in discovering the Cheats and Delusions of Satan, which did threaten to stain our Land with Blood, and to deluge it with all manner of Woes."

Thomas Brattle, H. U. 1676, in a letter dated 8 October, 1692, names Willard among the "men for understanding, judgment, and piety, inferior to few, if any, in N. E. that do utterly condemn" the proceedings in the witchcraft cases, "and do freely deliver their judgment. . . that these methods will utterly ruin and undo poor N. E." His "good affection to his country in general, and spiritual relation to three of the judges in particular, has made him very solicitous and industrious in this matter; and I am fully persuaded, that had his notions and proposals been hearkened to, and followed, when these troubles were in their birth, in an ordinary way, they would never have grown unto that height which now they have. He has as yet met with little but unkindness, abuse, and reproach from many men; but I trust that, in after times, his wisdom and service will find a more universal acknowledgment."

Calef says that, at the trials, 30 June, 1692, "one of the Accusers cried out publickly of Mr. Willard Minister in Boston, as afflicting of her, she was sent out of the Court, and it was told about she was mistaken in the person,' - that person being John Willard, then in prison.

In 1692 Willard published a Dialogue respecting Witchcraft.

William Bentley, H. U. 1777, writes, as already stated on page 376 of the first volume of these Sketches, that Willard and Joshua Moodey, H. U. 1653, visited Philip English and his wife in Boston, where they were confined in jail to await their trial at Salem, "and discovered every disposition to console them in their distress."

I find no other early sources of information which throw light on the part taken by Willard in the excitement. The Dialogue printed in 1692 was anonymous. Calef's and Pemberton's statements were not made till several years after the trials, and Brattle's letter was not printed nor