Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	day_n	good_a	great_a	2,831	5	2.5730	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A33345	A true and faithful account of the four chiefest plantations of the English in America to wit, of Virginia, New-England, Bermudus, Barbados : with the temperature of the air, the nature of the soil, the rivers, mountains, beasts, fowls, birds, fishes, trees, plants, fruits, &c. : as also, of the natives of Virginia, and New-England, their religion, customs, fishing, hunting, &c. / collected by Samuel Clarke ...	Clarke, Samuel, 1599-1682.	1670 (1670)	Wing C4558; ESTC R17743	124,649	128

Harbours are New-Plimouth Cape Anu Salem and Marvil-Head all which afford good ground for Anchorage being Land-lockt from Wind and Seas The chief and usual Harbour is the still Bay of Massechusets which is also aboard the Plantations it s a safe and pleasant Harbour within having but one secure entrance and that no broader than for three Ships to enter abreast but within there is Anchorage for five hundred Ships This Harbour is made by many Islands whose high Clifts shoulder out the boisterous Seas yet may easily deceive the unskilful Pilot presenting many fair openings and broad sownds whose Waters are too shallow for ships though Navigable for Boats and small Pinnases The entrance into the great Haven is called Nant●scot which is two Leagues from Boston From hence they may sail to the River of Wessaguscus Naponset Charles River and Mistick River on all which are seated many towns Here also they may have fresh supplies of Wood and water from the adjacent Islands with good Timber to repair their Weather-beaten Ships As also Masts or Yards there being store of such Trees as are useful for the purpose The places which are inhabited by the English are the best ground and sweetest Climate in all those parts bearing the name of New England the Air agreeing well with our English bodies being High Land and a sharp Air and though they border upon the Sea-Coast yet are they seldom obscured with Mists or unwholesome Foggs or cold Weather from the Sea which lies East and South from the Land And in the extremity of Winter the North-East and South-winds comming from the Sea produce warm weather and bringing in the Seas loosen the frozen Bayes carrying away the Ice with their Tides Melting the Snow and thawing the ground Only the North-west Winds coming over the Land cause extream cold weather accompanied with deep Snows and bitter Frosts so that in two or three dayes the Rivers will bear Man or Horse But these Winds seldom blow above three dayes together after which the Weather is more tollerable And though the cold be sometimes great yet is there good store of wood for housing and fires which makes the Winter less tedious And this very cold Weather lasts but eight or ten weeks beginning with December and ending about the tenth of February Neither doth the piercing colds of Winter produce so many ill effects as the raw Winters here with us in England But these hard Winters are commonly the forerunners of a pleasant Spring and fertile Summer being judged also to make much for the health of our English bodies The Summers are hotter than here with us because of their more Southerly Latitude yet are they tollerable being oft cooled with fresh Winds The Summers are commonly hot and dry there being seldom any Rain yet are the Harvests good the Indian Corn requiring more heat than wet to ripen it And for the English corn the nightly Dews refresh it till it grows up to shade its Roots with its own substance from the parching Sun The times of most Rain are in April and about Michaelmas The early Spring and long Summers make the Autumns and Winters to be but short In the Springs when the Grass begins to put forth it grows apace so that whereas it was black by reason of Winters blasts in a fortnights space there will be grass a foot high New England being nearer the Aequinoctial than Old England the days and nights be more equally divided In Summer the dayes be two hours shorter and in Winter two hours longer than with us Virginia having no Winter to speak of but extream hot Summers hath dried up much English blood and by the pestiferous Diseases hath swept away many lusty persons changing their complexions not into swarthiness but into Paleness which comes not from any want of food the Soil being fertile and pleasant and they having plenty of Corn and Cattel but rather from the Climate which indeed is found to be too Hot for our English Constitutions which New England is not In New England Men and Women keep their natural Complexions in so much as Seamen wonder when they arive in those parts to see their Countrey men look so Fresh and Ruddy neither are they much troubled with Inflammations or such Diseases as are increased by too much heat The two chief Messengers of Death are Feavours and Callentures but they are easily cured if taken in time and as easily prevented if men take care of their bodies As for our common Diseases they be Strangers in New England Few ever have the small Pox Measels Green-sickness Headach Stone Consumption c. yea many that have carried Coughs and Consumptions thither have been perfectly cured of them There are as sweet lusty Children born there as in any other Nation and more double births than with us here The Women likewise recover more speedily and gather strength after child-birth sooner than in Old England The Soil for the general is a warm kind of Earth there being little cold spewing Land no Moorish Fens nor Quagmires The lowest Grounds be the Marshes which are ovrflown by the Spring-Tides They are Rich Ground and yield plenty of Hay which feeds their Cattel as well as the best Upland Hay with us And yet they have plenty of Upland Hay also which grows commonly between the Marshes and the Woods And in many places where the Trees grow thin they get good Hay also And near the Plantations there are many Meddows never overflowed and free from all Wood where they have as much Grass as can be turned over with a Sithe and as high as a mans middle and some higher so that a good Workman will Mow three Loads in a day Indeed this Grass is courser than with us yet is it not sower but the Cattel eat and thrive very well with it and are generally larger and give more Milk than with us and bring forth young as well and are freer from diseases than the Cattel here There is so much Hay Ground in the Country that none need fear want though their Cattel should encrease to thousands there being some thousands of Acres that were yet never medled with and the more their Grass is Mowed the thicker it grows and where Cattel use to graze in the Woods the Ground is much improved growing more grassy and less full of Weeds and there is such plenty of Grass in the Woods that the Beasts need not Fodder till December at which time men begin to house their milch beasts and Calves In the Upland Grounds the Soil varies in some places Clay in others Gravel and some are of a Red Sand all which are covered with a black Mould usually a foot or little less deep The English Manure their ground with Fish whereof they have such plenty that they know not how otherwise to dispose of them yet the Indians being too lazy to catch Fish plant Corn eight or ten years in one place without any such help where they have yet a

the Mouth on a heat for the time violent but swallowed whole have the same operation with pepper The Sea-Feather is a Plant growing on the Rock in the bottom of the Sea in form of a Vine-leaf but far larger with veines of a palish Red interlaced and weaved each into the other There are also store of Indian Pompeons the water Melon and the Musk-Mellon the most delicate Pineapple Papawes c. Ambergriece is many times found upon the shoar The most troublesome things in these Islands are the Winds especially in the Spring and Autumn The Hurricanes have sometimes done much hurt Muskito's are very troublesome There is a certain Bugg which creeping into Chests by their illsented Dung defile all besides their eating There are Pismires or Ants in the Summer times so troublesome that they are forced to dry their Figgs upon high Frames anointing their feet with Tar which stops their passage Worms in the Earth are destructive to their Corn and Tobacco causing them much labour every morning to destroy them which else would derstoy all There have bee● large Lizards which are now destroyed by Cats Spiders are large by of beautiful colours as if adorned with Silver Gold and Pearl Their Webs in Summer woven from tree to tree are perfect raw silk both in substance and colour and so strong that Birds bigger than Blackbirds are snared in their Nets Of these Bermudus Islands there are many some say five hundred if we call all them Islands that lye by themselves compassed with the Sea of which some are larger and others less they lye all in the Figure of a Crescent within the circuit of six or seven Leagues at most the greatest of them is about sixteen miles in length from the East North-East to the West South-West standing in thirty two Degrees and twenty Minutes About these Islands are seen many Whales attended with the Sword-Fish and the Thresher The Sword-Fish with his sharp and needle-like Fin pricking him into the belly when he would dive and sink into the Sea and when he starts up from his Wounds the Thresher with his Club Fins beats him down again Here is also a kind of Web-footed Fowl of the bigness of our green Plovers which all Summer are not seen but in the darkest nights of November and December for in the night only they feed would come abroad making a strange hollow and harsh howling their colour is inclining to russet with white bellies and the long feathers of their wings are russet and white they breed in those of the Islands that are farthest in the Sea and there in the ground they have their burrows like Conies Of these the English at their first coming with a lighted bough have taken three hundred in an hour Afterwards they found out this devise to take them by standing on the Rocks or Sand by the Sea-side they would hollow laugh and make the strangest noise that possibly they could with which noise these birds would come flocking to the place and settle upon the very Armes and Head of him that so cryed still creeping nearer and answering that noise themselves by which means our men would weigh them in their hands and those that weighed heaviest and were best they took the other they let go and thus they have taken twenty dozen of the best of them in two hours space they are fat and plump like a Partridge and very well relished In January they gat great store of their Eggs which are as big and as well relished as our Hen Eggs These they call Sea-Owles because of their hooting they have crooked Bills and will bite shrewdly Not long after the English had planted in this Island which was about the year 1620. it pleased God to send a great Plague upon them by reason of a few Rats that came in a Meal Ship which though at first few in number yet within the space of two years they multiplyed so exceedingly that they did not only fill those places where they first landed but swimming from place to place they spread themselves all over the Country insomuch as there was no Island though severed by the Sea from all others and many miles distant from the place where they first began but was pestred with them they had their nests almost in every Tree and in all places had their Burrows in the ground like Conies to harbour in they spared not the Fruits of either Plants or Trees nay nor the Plants themselves but eat all up When the Planters had set their Corn they would come by troops the night following or as soon as it spict dig it up again and eat it If by diligent watching any of it escaped till it came to easing it would very hardly scape them yea it was a difficult matter when they had it in their Houses to save it from them for they became noysom even to the persons of Men. They used all diligence for the destroying of them nourishing many Catts wild and tame they used Ratsbane and many set the Woods on fire so that the fire ran half a mile or more before it was extinguished Every man in the Country was enjoyned to set twelve Traps and some voluntarily set neer an hundred which they visited twice or thrice in a night yea they trained up their Dogs to hunt them wherein they grew so expert that a good Dog in two or three hours space would kill ●●rty or fifty Rats Other means they also used yet nothing would prevail finding them still to encrease upon them This was a cause of great distress to the Planters for by this means they were kept destitute of bread for a year or two so as when they had it afterwards again they were so weaned from it that they would easily forget or neglect to eat it with their meat By this means they were so destitute of food that many died and the rest became very feeble and weak whereof some being so would not and others could not stir abroad to seek relief but dyed in their Houses And such as did go abroad were subject through weakness to be suddenly surprized with a disease called the Feages wherein they had neither pain nor sensible sickness but as it were the highest degree of weakness depriving them of power and ability to execute any bodily exercise as working walking c. Being thus taken if any body was present that could minister to them any relief they would strait wayes recover otherwise they died there About this time there came to these Islands a company of Ravens which continued with them all the time of this mortality and then departed from them Never any being seen there before or since But it pleased God at length that the extremity of their distress began to abate partly by supplies sent them out of England and partly by some rest and ease that they got thereby Yet the Rats continued for some time after notwithstanding all the devises