The English-American : a new survey of the West Indies, 1648 / Thomas Gage ; edited with an introduction by A.P. Newton.

  • Gage, Thomas, 1603?-1656.
Date:
1928
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The English-American : a new survey of the West Indies, 1648 / Thomas Gage ; edited with an introduction by A.P. Newton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    became more and more adverse to Catholic hopes. As he tells us with a somewhat odious mixture of piety and self-seeking, “ Upon this good purpose of mine I presently perceived the God of truth did smile with what I heard He was ordering in England by an army of Scotland raised for reformation and by a new Parlia¬ ment called to WeStminSter; at which I saw the PapiSts and Jesuits there began to tremble and to say it would blaSt all their designs and all their hopes of settling Popery. . . . With all this good news I was much heartened and encouraged to leave off my journey to France and to return to England where I feared not my brother nor any kindred nor any power of the PapiSts, but began to truSt on the protection of the Parliament which I was informed would reform religion and make such laws as should tend to the undermining of all the Jesuits’ plots and to the con¬ fusion of the Romish errors and religion.”1 The time had evidently come for a new attempt to swim to fortune with the Stream, and when Gage reached England again on Michaelmas Day 1640, his mind was made up for the plunge. Again we may let him speak for himself. “ My brother’s spirit I found was not much daunted with the new Parliament, nor some of the proudeSt PapiSts’, who hoped for a sudden dissolving of it. But when I saw their hopes frustrated by His MajeSty’s consent to the continuing of it,2 I thought the acceptable time was come for me, wherein I ought not to dissemble any further with God, the world and my friends, and so resolved to bid adieu to flesh and blood, and to prize Chriff above all my kindred, to own and profess him publicly maugre all opposition of Hell and kindred to the contrary.” But he had to wait nearly two years before he could convince the Anglican bishops of the sincerity of his conversion, and it was not until 1 English American, p. 397. 2 November 1640.