TEXT FLY WITHIN THE BOOK ONLY CD u< OU_1 58629 OSMAN1A UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 3* O^ ^ No. Call No. 'Accession & U o ^ M / I | Author V-\ ^otoxeV ) Title This book should be returned on or before the date last marked below. THE INDOMITABLE JOHN SCOTT by the same author JOURNALIST'S WIFE ARREST AND EXILE RIPTIDE OF AGGRESSION CONCERNING FRANCE THE UNITED STATES AND WORLD RELATIONS THE INDOMITABLE JOHN SCOTT: CITIZEN OF LONG ISLAND 1632-1704 By LILIAN T. MOWRER PREFACE BY HAROLD HULME Professor of History, New York University FARRAR, STRAUS AND CTTDAHY NEW YOF Copyright 1960 by Lilian T. Mowrer First printing, 1960 Library of Congress catalog card number: 60-12983 Published simultaneously in Canada by Ambassador Books, Ltd., Toronto Manufactured in the United States of America by American Book-Stratford Press, Inc. 'TIME WILL DO HIM GREAT RIGHT" Lady Vane TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface: DR. HAROLD HULME, New York University xi Author's Note xiii PART I I. CIVIL WAR 3 II. JOHN IS DEPORTED 12 III. THE SCOTTS OF SCOT'S HALL l(5 IV. SALEM 23 v. JOHN'S EDUCATION 32 VI. DIFFICULT YEARS 38 VII. WESTWARD HO! 43 VIII. LONG ISLAND 48 IX. LANDED PROPRIETOR 56 X. JOHN'S EARLY SUCCESSES Go XI. RESTORATION ENGLAND 9 xii. MASSACHUSETTS' SECRET AGENT? 82 XIII. THE SECOND HOMECOMING 95 xiv. THE PEOPLE'S CHOICE PRESIDENT SCOTT 103 XV. JOHN URGES THE DUTCH TO REVOLT 109 XVI. GOVERNOR WINTHROP STRIKES 124 XVII. CONDEMNED AND VINDICATED 128 XVIII. ENGLAND ACQUIRES NEW NETHERLAND 140 XIX. JOHN STANDS BY THE PEOPLE 145 xx. JOHN'S SACRIFICE FOR FREEDOM 150 vii Vlll f CONTENTS PART II XXI. GET-AWAY 165 XXII. EXPLORER OF THE SPANISH MAIN 171 XXIII. MAJOR-GENERAL SCOTT ON ACTIVE SERVICE l8l XXIV. THE BATTLE FOR ST. CHRISTOPHER l86 XXV. ROYAL GEOGRAPHER ig2 XXVI. COLONEL SCOTT IN HOLLAND 196 XXVII. DEBORAH EGMONT AND THE RECRUITING OFFICER 205 XXVIII. DISPONTEJN GOES TO JAIL 213 XXIX. JOHN IN THE THIRD DUTCH WAR 21Q XXX. THE SECRET DOINGS OF JOHN SCOTT 227 XXXI. BRITISH AGENT 236 XXXII. FRANCE LOSES AN ALLY AND JOHN LOSES A JOB 244 PART III XXXIII. A BOURBON AS PATRON 253 XXXIV. A CURIOUS EXPERIMENT 259 XXXV. YEARS OF MYSTERY 268 XXXVI. PEPYS APPROACHES JOHN 274 XXXVII. THE POPISH PLOT 278 xxxvni. "BUCKINGHAM'S JOHN'' 284 XXXIX. THE PLOT THICKENS 2g2 XL. JOHN WARNS KING LOUIS; AND RECEIVES A STRANGE CONFESSION 297 XH. JOHN ACCUSES PEPYS 306 XLII. COUNTER ATTACK 315 XLIII. THE AFFIDAVITS 325 XLIV. JOYNE'S JOURNAL 334 XLV. THE LEGEND OF JOHN SCOTT 344 XLVI. MURDER IN THE DARK 357 XLVII. LAST DAYS 370 CONTENTS f *x EPILOGUE 382 APPENDICES 39 1 BIBLIOGRAPHY AND ABBREVIATIONS 411 INDEX 4 2 9 PREFACE To THOSE versed in England's colonial and domestic history during the second half of the seventeenth century John Scott, a minor figure in that colorful time, is remembered as a no- torious but picturesque and piquant rascal. Loved by many in America, despised by a few in England, Scott's evil repute has rested largely on depositions which Samuel Pepys ob- tained but never used to blacken John, a leading and most damaging witness in the parliamentary investigation of that admiralty secretary. Wilbur Cortez Abbott, among others, in his writings of twenty-five to forty years ago on Scott, basing his work largely on the Pepysian papers, is chiefly responsible tor giving this seventeenth century character such a dis- reputable name among students of history. Now after a careful examination of these same documents Lilian Mowrer has found that the depositions against Scott were made by malevolently inventive witnesses whose evi- dence would have had little chance of acceptance even in the notorious English Restoration courts. Becoming deeply in- terested in John Scott she followed him back and forth across Long Island Sound, the Atlantic Ocean, the English Channel, the North Sea, and into the Caribbean. With the help of hundreds of papers and documents she has reconstructed his life from birth in 1632 to his death in 1704. This gifted, artful man with his widespread interests and far-flung activities Long Island landowner, West Indies buc- XI Xll t PREFACE cancer, Dutch Colonel, Royal Geographer, English officer and agent in the Low Countries, French gun caster, a coachman's murderer, and Speaker of the Assembly at Montserrat in the Leeward Islands Mrs. Mowrer has vividly brought back to historians. the same life in a style the envy of most stolid At time she has made excellent use of the historian's tools: rec- and ords, papers, and documents in New England, New York, Long Island communities, in England's British Museum, Pub- lic Record Office, and Bodleian Library, in France's record^ She has made repositories, and in Holland's archives. John II. has Scott a respectable, loyal subject of Charles She shown him to be a man of many and varied abilities. She has dis- closed a rough, at times crude, but charming personality in a man whose character was as straightforward and honest as that of most men of his day. She has followed his career with all the fascinating details at her disposal. All this Lilian Mowrer has done with imagination and insight and has soundly based her work on the finest materials the most me- ticulous historian could desire. This is a brilliant historical biography. I believe that it will rehabilitate John Scott in will the eyes of students of English and American history and instruct and delight the reader seeking knowledge and ad- venture. HAROLD HULME Professor of History New York University AUTHOR'S NOTE ABOUT 1950 I became interested in John Scott of Long Is- land, a colorful seventeenth century adventurer whom Mrs. Mary Van Rensselaer in her own two-volume History of Seventeenth Century New York considered long since well worth a full-length biography. I had read history at Liverpool University, at the Sorbonne in Paris, and at the old Sapienza in Rome. The bold specu- lative Seicento always interested me most, so my prospective hero fitted right into the period I knew best. From Wilbur C. Abbott's standard monograph on "Colo- nel" John Scott, I knew that Scott's testimony, at the time of the Popish Plot, had sent Samuel Pepys to the Tower of London for treason, and that the famous diarist (who was at that period Secretary of the British Admiralty) had, to save his head, collected a number of sworn statements, all de- signed to discredit his accuser and prove that he, Scott, was the traitor. Though biographers have leaned heavily on this material (or on others' work about it) none of the papers themselves have ever been published. They remain in the Bodleian Li- brary among the Rawlinson Collection. So to get firsthand the full Scott story I went to Oxford to examine just what Pepys* informers had charged. The massive brown leather folio volumes are a veritable treasure-trove of the alleged doings of "that arch scoundrel. xin xiv f AUTHOR'S NOTE that most unscrupulous and plotting adventurer" (as one writer, G. D. Scull, calls him), a series of charges culminating in the accusation of Scott's dismissal from the Dutch forces for embezzling seven thousand pounds sterling, and court- martial by the British Admiralty for cowardice in action! For weeks and weeks I pored over this rich mine, labori- ously copying out essential passages. But as I continued I was gradually struck by the similarity of the various affidavits and by the fact that few who testified to Scott's infamy had known him personally or possessed firsthand knowledge of the in- cidents they were writing about indeed, one sworn statement came from a patient in a London hospital whose barber had related what a friend of his knew of Scott's doings in Hol- land! I come from a long line of lawyers; talk of legal procedure was commonplace in our house. The credibility of witnesses was something we children learned immediately to ask about. And as I continued reading Pepys' affidavits I kept wondering about the people who had written them, and if it were not possible to check the charges against other testimony or proven fact. All the witnesses spoke of Scott as an inveterate traveller, in New England, Holland, France, the Caribbean. Such a notorious figure would surely have left traces behind him. My quest led me first to The Hague and to seventeenth cen- tury Dutch military files and army yearbooks. That John Scott served in the United Provinces forces was correct, his promotion to colonel a matter of official record. But neither desertion nor dismissal marred his career. The Civil Courts did, indeed, record an embezzlement case, but it was Scott who prosecuted another man for swindling army funds, and the sum was seven hundred guilders, not seven thousand pounds! Moreover, to my amazement, I found in Dr. H. Har- denberg, director of the Algemeen Rijksarchief (state ar- chives) an enthusiastic admirer of my subject. This distin- guished scholar did everything he could to further my work, AUTHOR'S NOTE f xv for he himself had once considered writing the "definitive" life of John Scott, a personage highly regarded throughout the Netherlands. But if Scott had not been "dismissed" by the Dutch and had never embezzled anything, what about the alleged court- martial? I hurried to the Public Record Office in London, as I had been advised that the Admiralty Papers there would the give the full record of action in the Caribbean, site of supposed trial. Failing to find any mention of it, I first con- cluded I must have simply overlooked the item in all this voluminous material.