Excerpt from Calendar of State Papers: Colonial Series, America and West Indies, 1699, Also Addenda, 1621 1698 In his preface to the Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Haw thorne has drawn a delightful picture of the patriarchal veterans, seated like Matthew at the receipt of Customs, but not very liable to be summoned thence, like him, for apostolic errands, whom he found under his charge at Salem, when he held othee as Surveyor. Honesty was not their foible, nor were their labours exacting. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.