LIFE OF MEMOIRS OF THE COLONEL HUTCHINSON. PREFACE. Ir is conceived to be necessary, for the satisfaction of the public, to prefix to this work some account of the manuscripts from which it has been printed, and of the manner in which they came into the hands of the editor; which we shall accordingly do, interweaving therewith such subsequent information as we have been able to collect respecting the families and descendants of Colonel and Mrs. Hutchinson. The Memoirs of the Life of Col. Hutchinson had been seen by many persons, as well as the editor, in the possession of the late Thomas Hutchinson, Esq. of Owthorpe, in Nottinghamshire, and of Hatfield Woodhall, in Hertfordshire; and he had been frequently solicited to permit them to be published, particularly by the late Mrs. Catharine Macaulay, but had uniformly refused. This gentleman dying without issue, the editor, his nephew, inherited some part of his estates which were left unsold, including his mansion-house of Hatfield Woodhall. In the library he found the following books, written by Mrs. Lucy Hutchinson:-1st. The Life of Col. Hutchinson. 2nd. A book without a title, but which appears to have been a kind of diary which she had kept, and afterwards made use of when she came to write the Life of Col. Hutchinson. 3rd. A fragment, giving an account of the early part of her own life. This book clearly appears to have been Mrs. Hutchinson's first essay at composition, and contains, besides the story of her life and family, several short copies of verses, some finished, some unfinished, many of which are above mediocrity. And, 4th, Two books treating entirely of religious subjects; in which, although the fancy may be rather too much indulged, the judgment still maintains the ascendancy, and sentiments of exalted piety, liberality, and benevolence, are delivered in terms apposite, dignified, and perspicuous. places in the body of the work, are declared by him to have been communicated by his grandmother, Lady Catharine; and as this lady dwelt in splendour at Nottingham, and had ample means of information; as there is only one instance wherein the veracity of the biographer is at all called in question, and even in this, it does not appear to the editor, and probably may not to the reader, that there was sufficient ground for objection; the opposition and the acquiescence of her grandson and herself seem alike to confirm the authenticity and faithfulness of the narrative. Col. Hutchinson left four sons, of which the youngest only, John, left issue two sons; and there is a tradition in the family, that these two last descendants of Col. Hutchinson emigrated, the one to the West Indies or America, the other to Russia; the latter is said to have gone out with the command of a ship of war given by Queen Anne to the Czar Peter, and to have been lost at sea. One of the female descendants of the former, the editor once met with by accident at Portsmouth, and she spoke with great warmth of the veneration in which his descendants in the new world held the memory of their ancestor Col. Hutchinson. Of the daughters little more is known than that Mrs. Hutchinson, addressing one of her books of devotion to her daughter Mrs. Orgill, ascertains that one of them was married to a gentleman of that name. The family of Mr. George Hutchinson likewise became extinct in the second generation. Charles Hutchinson, only son of Sir Thomas Hutchinson by Lady Catharine Stanhope, married one of the daughters and coheiresses of Sir Francis Boteler, of Hatfield Woodhall, Herts; which family being zealous royalists, and he solicitous to gain their favour, (which he did so effectually, as in the end to obtain nearly their These works had all been read, and marked in whole inheritance), it is probable that he gave several places with his initials, by Julius Hutchin- small encouragement or assistance to the elder son, Esq. of Owthorpe, the father of the late branch of the family while they suffered for their Thomas Hutchinson Esq. just mentioned, and son republican sentiments; on the contrary, it is of Charles Hutchinson, Esq. of Owthorpe, only certain that he purchased of Mrs. Hutchinson and son of Sir Thomas Hutchinson by his second wife, her son, after the death of Col. Hutchinson, their the Lady Catharine Stanhope. Lady Catharine estate at Owthorpe, which, joined to what his father Hutchinson lived to the age of 102, and is reported had given him, and what he obtained by his marto have retained her faculties to the end of her life.riage, raised him to more opulence than his father Some remarks made by the above-mentioned Julius had ever possessed; and he seems not to have Hutchinson, which will be found in their proper fallen short of him in popularity, for he repre VOL. I. 231 B |