Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 2.djvu/27

 CAPT. THOMAS BAKER AND MADAME CHRISTINE, HIS WIFE. 19

��in 1704, she was barely fifteen years old, and unmarried. Whether she saw him before or after her marriage, which oc- curred within the first two years after his capture, or whether she saw him at all in Canada, is equally uncertain. It is assumed that she did, because»certain it is that in the year 1715. being the next after her return, she is found at North- ampton as Capt. Baker's wife. At that time he had led his scouting party into " the Cohos country," had received his bounty and established his fame.

At Northampton Madame Christine re- nounced the Romish faith and united with the Congregational church, then under the pastoral care of Rev. Solomon Stoddard, from which time she seems to have been called by the English name of Christina. It would appear that tidings of this renunciation did not reach Can- ada for many years.

At length, on the 27th of June, 1727, at which time Mrs. Baker had been six years a resident of Dover, M. Seguenot, who had been her own and her mother's confessor at Montreal, prepared and for- warded to her a letter of remonstrance and entreaty, exhorting her to abjure the faith to which she had apostatized and return to the church of Rome. The let- ter was written in French, and contained an elaborate presentment of the claims of k * the Mother Church," and of the argu- ments commonly nsed ' against Protest- ant Christianity, chiefly composed of the calumnies and assumptions that had been used against Luther and Calvin. By this letter we learn that her mother, Madame Robitail, was then living, and that one of her own children, a daughter by Le Beau, had recently died. M. Seguenot advised her to show his letter to her min- isters, thinking, doubtless, that as it con- tained profuse references to ancient and unusual authorities, they would be as lit- tle able as herself to answer him.

At that time the Rev. Jonathan Clash- ing was pastor of the church in Dover. He was, in 1727, thirty-seven years of age, and in the tenth year of a pastorate which lasted fifty-two years, the last two of which he had Jeremy Belknap for a colleague. He was a graduate of Har-

��vard College, 1712, and a scholarly man in the learning of his time, but it is doubtful if he was acquainted with the French language, and altogether improb- able that he possessed the historical vol- umes needful to make a conclusive reply to M. Seguenot's letter. The letter was placed in the hands of some competent person who translated it into English.

The following year William Burnett was transferred from the governorship of New York and New Jersey to that of Massachusetts and New Hampshire. He was the eldest son of the celebrated Gil- bert Burnett, Bishop of Sarum, the his- torian of the Reformation in England and of his own time, the trusted minister and friend of William III., for whom his son was named by the king himself, who stood god-father at his baptism. Gover- nor Burnett was an accomplished schol- ar, possessed a clear head, ready wit and a majestic presence. He came to his go v- ernment in Boston on the 13th of July, 1728, but did not enter his Province of New Hampshire till, probably, April 19, 1729.* He died in Boston Sept. 7, fol- lowing. From certain causes, New Hampshire was high in his favor, and Massachusetts under his displeasure.

Gov. Burnett never had any personal acquaintance with Mrs. Baker, By some means he was made acquainted with the character of M. Seguenot's letter, and the circumstances to which it related. Al- though a churchman, he was by educa- tion and disposition of mind favorably inclined to the Calvinists. He expressed a desire to see the letter, which was ac- cordingly laid before him, and he pre- pared in French an equally elaborate re- ply, refuting the Romish priest's argu- ments, and exposing his falsifications of history. This was dated Jan. 2, 1729, and was addressed to Mrs. Baker, with leave to make such use of. it as she deemed best, but concealing himself as the writer, and subscribing himself her " unknown but humble servant." This

��*He made his speech to the Council and House of Representatives Tuesday, Apr. 22. Adams, Annals of Ports., says he visited N. H. Sept. 7, 1729; but that was the day he died in Boston.

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