COLONEL
JOHN SCOTT
OF LONG ISLAND
1634
(?)-1696
BYWILBUR C. ABBOTT
PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN YALE
UNIVERSITYNEW HAVEN
YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS
LONDON HUMPHREY MILFORD OXFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
MDCCCCXVIII
COLONEL
JOHN SCOTT
OF LONG ISLAND
NOTE
This essay was prepared originally for the Society of Colonial Wars in the State of New York and read, in part, before the Society on November 8, 1917. In its present extended form it was printed by the Society for its members in August 1918, as Number 30 of their publications.
Owing to the wider interest of the subject a limited number of extra copies have been printed for independent sale.
page: [][View Page []] page: [][View Page []]PREFACE
If Daniel Defoe had known the subject of this sketch-- and it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that he did, for he knew many such--and had he written this biography, which he of all men could have done best, it would probably have borne some such title, dear to his age and pen, as this:
The Life and Strange, Surprising Adventures of John Scot, commonly called Colonel Scott; his early Experiences in America and the West Indies; his Career at Court; his Fortunes and Misfortunes as a Soldier; his Exploits as a Spy, Informer and Murderer; his Disgrace and Death; with some Notice of his Writings as Royal Geographer; and of the Glorious Restoration of his Reputation; together with Notes on his Fame as an Historian.
No one would have believed that it was less a work of fiction than Captain Jack, or Moll Flanders; every one would have recognized it as peculiarly typical of the picaresque character in which he and his contemporaries delighted. That the tale which follows happens to be true--however far it falls short of Defoe's art--detracts in no way from its curious interest and adds to its value in explaining certain sides of late seventeenth century English and colonial history. Colonel Scott, with all of his impossibilities, was not only a very real man and one of the most picturesque and far-wandering scoundrels of his time, but he was an admirable representative of a not inconsiderable class of men who contributed something of importance and a great deal of color to the affairs of his generation.
For the material contained in the following pages I am indebted to the sources quoted in the notes to be found at page: [][View Page []]the end of the essay. I am under particular obligations to Mr. James Truslow Adams, the historian of Southampton, Long Island, who furnished me with many details from the records of that town. I am further indebted to him and to Professor J. Franklin Jameson for reading the essay in manuscript; and above all to the authorities of the Society of Colonial Wars of the State of New York, whose unfailing kindness has given this little study its present form. I can only hope that those into whose hands it may fall may obtain from it some of the entertainment and enlightenment which it has afforded me in preparing it. W.C.A.
HANOVER, August, 1918.
