princely and gracious intention in betrusting them with such a
commission." The Court held the vantage-ground, and the commissioners
were unable to dislodge them. The end of the matter was, that the
power of the commissioners was completely broken down. They
ingloriously gave up the contest, and went home to England.

The instance of John Porter, Jr., to which such extraordinary
publicity and prominence were given by the circumstances now related,
does not bear against what I have said of the general prevalence, in
the rural community of Salem Village, of parental authority and filial
duty, as he was early withdrawn from it to pursuits that led him into
totally different spheres of life. He had been engaged in trade, and
exposed to vicious influences in foreign ports. In voyages to
"Barbadoes, and so for England, he had prodigally wasted and riotously
expended about four hundred pounds." Besides this, he had run himself,
by his vicious courses, into debts which his father had to pay in
order to release him from prison abroad. He came back the desperate
character described by the General Court. His punishment was severe,
but absolutely necessary, in the judgment of the whole community, for
the safety of his parents and the preservation of domestic and public
order.

Although living in humble dwellings on plain fare, working with their
hands for daily bread, clad in rude garments, and practising a frugal
economy, there was a certain style of things about the people I am
describing unlike what is ordinarily associated with our ideas of
them. The men wore swords or rapiers as a part of their daily apparel.
Their wives had domestic servants. Every farmer had his hired
laborers, and many of them had slaves. The relation of servitude,
however, differed from that on Southern plantations in many respects.