The Strange Death of Mistress Coffin by Robert J. Begiebing Page A

occasion with my husband and lend my support to his traffic. I saw, as a result, other lands and was no stranger to the Atlantic Islands. Indeed, it was while stopping at the Madeiras in 1643 that my dear husband was called back to the Lord, after grievous suffering of a plaguish fever. There I buried Mr. Pincheon, and there I stopped a whilelonger to look after our interests. Nor was I able to leave him, but made daily visits to his grave.
    There too it was that I first met Mr. Balthazar Coffin, lately of Antwerp, who eventually became my second husband. He had booked passage for America by way of the Islands and was awaiting his ship. He was a learned, vigorous, and handsome man and very comforting to me in my lonely trial. Having lived in London previously, he returned with me to that city while the lawyers settled my husband’s will and estate, a project that expended six months.
    I will record in few words only that we married in December of 1643, and, due to the disturbances in England and abroad, resolved to continue together my new husband’s intention to remove to America.
    I did earnestly look to God for His blessing upon this marriage—sensible that “Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.” As while I lived with my parents I esteemed it my happiness to be in subjection to them; so now I thought it must be a still greater benefit to be once again under the aid of a judicious and loving companion, who would rule well his own house. Just as it had been with my first husband.
    But God often disappoints the purposes of his creatures and suffers mankind sorely to afflict and oppress one another; and not only those who appear as open enemies—but sometimes those who pretend to be our friends, cruelly afflict. It is happy when such treatment is overruled to promote a greater good. Job’s afflictions did thus. The trials of Joseph but prepared the way for his greater exaltation. David, by being hunted and distressed by Saul, was prepared for the crown of Israel.
    But I rest not yet in my deliverance, nor, I confess, in my innocence. And as I am sorely in need of some person with whom to reflect on my recent life in America, to examine it, to searchit out, in order to see and perhaps to understand better the nature and failings of myself and others who share my adventure, I here take pen to paper for consolation and contemplation (even unto the yearnings, tribulations, and crosscurrents of my soul) of the events and errors of my recent days.
    June 5, 1645
    Having lived at Robinson’s Falls better than a year, and having spent all that time settling ourselves in keeping with the laws of this place, in planting, and in building our house, Mr. C. and I were so consumed with arranging our affairs and getting our living that if our affections remained steady, they did not deepen. Beyond our joint labors and that affection, we had not sufficient opportunity to know one another more deeply than upon our marriage day. It was as if the conduct of our affairs kept us from conducting our lives as true companions, and from exploring the extent and secret of ourselves.
    Indeed, my knowledge of Mr. C. has grown only since that first year at Robinson’s Falls—a place as beautiful (with its fresh and salt rivers, its meads and marshes, open groves and cathedral forests) as it is unforgiving. Planning the business of one’s livelihood from year to year is so exacting that there can be little tolerance for the common discords of community or breaches of law. The life of each depends upon the regulation of every other—from the granting and disposition of property, servants, and domestic animals, to the planting of fields and commons, and the management of woods, roads, trade, building, food surplus or storage. We manage better than we mismanage. This plantation is seven years old and thriving, as many others have not. The town now counts approximately three hundred