lock in the evening. The gate (was) hung between 2 trees which
were scarcely wide enough to admit it. We were treated with great
hospitality and civility by the major and his wife who were plain
people and made every effort to make our stay as agreeable as
possible."

"May 19th. This morning was lowering and looked like rain--we
were entreated to stay all day but to no effect we had made our
arrangements & it was impossible.... Majr Snowden accompanied us
10 or a dozen miles to show a near way and the best road.... We
proceeded as far as Spurriers ordinary and there refreshed
ourselves and horses.... Mrs. Washington shifted herself here,
expecting to be met by numbers of gentlemen out of
B----re--(Baltimore) in which time we had everything in
reddiness, the carriage, horses, etc., all at the door in
waiting."[164]

The story of that journey, now made in a few hours, is filled with
interesting light upon the ways of the day:--the numerous accidents to
coaches and horses, the dangers of crossing rivers on flimsy ferries,
the hospitality of the people, who sent messengers to insist that the
party should stop at the various homes, the strange mingling of the
uncouth, the totally wild, and the highly civilized and cultured.
Probably at no other time in the world's history could so many stages of
man's progress and conquest of nature be seen simultaneously as in
America of the eighteenth century.

_IV. New England Social Life_

Turning to New England, we find of course that under the early Puritan
regime amusements were decidedly under the ban. We have noted under the
discussion of the home the strictness of New England views, and how this
strictness influenced every phase of public and private life. Indeed, at
this time life was largely a preparation for eternity, and the ethical
demands of the day gave man an abnormally tender and sensitive
conscience. When Nathaniel Mather declared in mature years that of all
his manifold sins none so stuck upon him as that, when a boy, he
whittled on the Sabbath day, and did it behind the door--"a great
reproach to God"--he was but illustrating the strange atmosphere of
fear, reverence, and narrowness of his era.

And yet, those earlier settlers of Plymouth and Boston were a kindly,
simple-hearted, good-natured people. It is evident from Judge Sewall's
_Diary_ that everybody in a community knew everybody else, w