of strong hostile
influence, such as Puritanism in New England, Quakerism in the Middle
Colonies, and the desire for untainted aristocratic blood in the South,
the evil progressed nevertheless, and was found in practically every
city throughout the colonies.

Among men there may not have been any more immorality than at present,
but certainly there was much more freedom of action along this line and
apparently much less shame over the revelations of lax living. Men
prominent in public life were not infrequently accused of intrigues with
women, or even known to be the fathers of illegitimate children; their
wives, families and friends were aware of it, and yet, as we look at the
comments made at that day, such affairs seem to have been taken too much
as a matter of course. Benjamin Franklin was the father of an
illegitimate son, whom he brought into his home and whom his wife
consented to rear. It was a matter of common talk throughout Virginia
that Jefferson had had at least one son by a negro slave. Alexander
Hamilton at a time when his children were almost grown up was connected
with a woman in a most wretched scandal, which, while provoking some
rather violent talk, did not create the storm that a similar
irregularity on the part of a great public man would now cause.
Undoubtedly the women of colonial days were too lenient in their views
concerning man's weakness, and naturally men took full advantage of such
easy forgiveness.

_XIV. Violent Speech and Action_

In general, however, offenses of any other kind, even of the most
trivial nature, were given much more notice than at present; indeed,
wrong doers were dragged into the lime-light for petty matters that we
of to-day would consider too insignificant or too private to deserve
public attention. The English laws of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries were exceedingly severe; but where these failed to provide
for irregular conduct, the American colonists readily created additional
statutes. We have seen the legal attitude of early America toward
witchcraft; gossip, slander, tale-bearing, and rebellious speeches were
coped with just as confidently. The last mentioned "crime," rebellious
speech, seems to have been rather common in later New England where
women frequently spoke against the authority of the church. Their speech
may not have been genuinely rebellious but the watchful Puritans took no
chance in matters of possible heresy. Thus, Winthrop tells u