We have seen the intolerance of Massachusetts in various cases of unorthodox opinions. Neither sincerity nor purity of life could save the heretical believer from the merciless cruelty of her bigotry. In 1657, Clark, a “pure and tolerant baptist of Rhode Island, was fined, with his companion Holmes, for preaching in Lynn; and Holmes, refusing to pay his fine, was unmercifully whipped. The persecution from which the Pilgrims had fled in England was no whit behind that which now commenced in Massachusetts. Blasphemy was the highest crime in their calendar, and doubt of their faith was blasphemy. To deny that any single book of the Old or New Testament was the infallible word of God, subjected to fines and stripes, and in case of obstinacy, exile or death. Absence from the ministry of the word was punishable by fine.” With reference to this strict observance of the Sabbath, we may give an extract from Winthrop’s journal, on an occasion when a French deputation from Acadia arrived at Boston. “The Lord’s-day they were here,” says Winthrop, “the governor acquainted them with our manner, that all men either come to our public worship or keep themselves quiet in their houses; and finding the place where they were not convenient for them, invited them to his own house, where they continued private until sunset, and made use of such Latin and French books as they had, with the liberty of a private walk in his garden, and so gave no offence.” As we are on the subject of this French embassy, which was of considerable interest to the people of Boston, we may as well mention that Winthrop sent back by them, as a present to M. D’Aulney, governor of Acadia, a sedan chair, which had been given to him a few months before by a munificent freebooter, one Captain Cromwell, who having been, the former year, driven by stress of weather into Plymouth, came the next to Boston; “he and all his men having much money and great store of plate and jewels of great value.” We may suppose that buccaneering was not offensive to the consciences of the good people of Boston, for we find that, having taken up his lodging in a poor thatched house, he was offered the best in the town, which he refused, alleging that “in his mean state that poor man entertained him when others would not, and therefore he would not desert him now, when he might do him good.” On leaving the place, however, he presented Winthrop with the sedan chair we have mentioned, which had been originally designed as a present from the viceroy of Mexico to his sister.