Nine Years a Captive/Memoirs

MEMOIRS

OF ODD ADVENTURES, STRANGE DELIVERANCES, ETC., IN THE CAPTIVITY OF JOHN GYLES, ESQ., COMMANDER OF THE GARRISON ON ST. GEORGE RIVER, IN THE DISTRICT OF MAINE. WRITTEN BY HIMSELF.^[1]

Introduction.—These private memoirs were collected from my minutes, at the earnest request of my second consort, for the use of our family, that we might have a memento ever ready at hand, to excite in ourselves gratitude and thankfulness to God; and in our offspring a due sense of their dependence on the Sovereign of the universe, from the precariousness and vicissitudes of all sublunary enjoyments. In this state, and for this end, they have laid by me for some years. They at length falling into the hands of some, for whose judgement I had a value, I was pressed for a copy for the public. Others, desiring of me to extract particulars from them, which the multiplicity and urgency of my affairs would not admit, I have now determined to suffer their publication. I have not made scarce any addition to this manual, except in the chapter of creatures, which I was urged to make much larger. I might have greatly enlarged it, but I feared it would grow beyond its proportion. I have been likewise advised to give a particular account of my father, which I am not very fond of, having no dependence on the virtues or honors of my ancestors to recommend me to the favor of God or men; nevertheless, because some think it is a respect due to the memory of my parents, whose name I was obliged to mention in the following story, and a satisfaction which their posterity might justly expect from me, I shall give some account of him, though as brief as possible.

The flourishing state of New England, before the unhappy eastern wars, drew my father hither, whose first settlement was on Kennebeck River, at a place called Merrymeeting Bay, where he dwelt for some years; until, on the death of my grand parents, he, with his family, returned to England, to settle his affairs. This done, he came over with the design to have returned to his farm; but on his arrival at Boston, the eastern Indians had begun their hostilities. He therefore begun a settlement on Long Island. The air of that place not so well agreeing with his constitution, and the Indians having become peaceable, he again proposed to resettle his lands in Merrymeeting Bay; but finding that place deserted, and that Plantations were going on at Pemmaquid, he purchased several tracts of land of the inhabitants there. Upon his highness the Duke of York resuming a claim to those parts, my father took out patents under that claim; and when Pemmaquid^[2] was set off by the name of the county of Cornwall, in the province of New York, he was commissioned chief justice of the same by Gov. Duncan [Dongan.] He was a strict sabbatarian, and met with considerable difficuity in the discharge of his office, from the immoralities of a people who had long lived lawless. He laid out no inconsiderable income, which he had annually from England, on the place, and at last lost his life there, as will hereafter be related.

I am not insensible of the truth of an assertion of Sir Roger L'Estrange, that "Books and dishes have this common fate: no one of either ever pleased all tastes." And I am fully of his opinion in this: "It is as little to be wished for as expected; for a universal applause is, at least, two-thirds of a scandal." To conclude with Sir Roger, "Though I made this composition principally for my family, yet, if any man has a mind to take part with me; he has free leave, and is welcome;" but let him carry this consideration. along with him, "that he is a very unmannerly guest who forces himself upon another man's table, and then quarrels with his dinner."

↑ The name of Capt. John Gyles will not be found in Allen's American Biography or any similar work. where the names and memories of so many buckram Colonels and Captains are preserved. Yet his record was an honorable one. He was living at Roxbury, Mass., in the year 1753, and was then 73 years of age. He must therefore have been 9 years old at the time of his capture and 18 at the time of his liberation. Some of his public services are stated at the end of this narative. And that they were of great value to the government his constant employment would seem to indicate. The narrative of his Captivity was first published in Boston in 1736.
↑ Pemmaquid which was once an important settlement, is on the coast midway between the Kennebec and Penobscot rivers. Its outer harbor is large and safe and about five miles within it is Fort Point which is at the entrance of an inner harbor capable of containing ten ships of the line. There is there a natural quay or wharf where a ship of large burthen may lie afloat at all times of the tide. The fort of Pemmaquid was close to this natural wharf.

[1] The name of Capt. John Gyles will not be found in Allen's American Biography or any similar work. where the names and memories of so many buckram Colonels and Captains are preserved. Yet his record was an honorable one. He was living at Roxbury, Mass., in the year 1753, and was then 73 years of age. He must therefore have been 9 years old at the time of his capture and 18 at the time of his liberation. Some of his public services are stated at the end of this narative. And that they were of great value to the government his constant employment would seem to indicate. The narrative of his Captivity was first published in Boston in 1736.

[2] Pemmaquid which was once an important settlement, is on the coast midway between the Kennebec and Penobscot rivers. Its outer harbor is large and safe and about five miles within it is Fort Point which is at the entrance of an inner harbor capable of containing ten ships of the line. There is there a natural quay or wharf where a ship of large burthen may lie afloat at all times of the tide. The fort of Pemmaquid was close to this natural wharf.

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