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    Church at Rotterdam . It was probably while he resided here that he became acquaintqd with the learned John Forbes , Professor of Divinity in the University of Aberdeen . This celebrated man , who was eminent for

    his great knowledge of Hebrew , and such other learning , as peculiarly fitted him for theological inquiries , was educated at the University of Heidel * ber ^ , in the Palatinate , under the renowned David Pareus , and so great were his acquirements , that Bishop

    Buruet pronounced him to be the most learned man of the age in which he lived . In a pamphlet which Hugh Peters published in 1646 , entitled u PetersV Last Report of the English Wars , ' he speaks of his acquaintance

    with this great scholar , in the following terms : " I lived , " says he , " about six years near that famous Scotsman , Mr . John Forbes , with whom I

    travelled into Germany , and enjoyed his society 111 much love and sweetness constantly ; from whom I received nothing but encouragement , though we differed in the way of our churches . "

    Peters , while at Rotterdam , also acquired the . esteem and friendship of the learned Amesius , who relinquished a professorship in Friesland for the purpose of residing . with him , and was soon afterwards appointed to be his colleague and co-pastor of the

    Church at Rotterdam . That these men were of congenial dispositions and habits may be supposed from the circumstances already mentioned ; but more especially from the incident which Peters himself , in the pamphlet already alluded to , thus relates : " The learned . Aniesius breathed his last

    breath into my bosom . " Hugh Peters resided in the United Provinces only five or six years ; but in that short period he acquired so much reputation with the leading

    men in that country , that the government seem to have taken every opportunity of shewing him respect , as wilU appear by the sequel of the history . From Holland he removed about the

    year 16 S 6 , to New-England , jjist at the most interesting' period of * that important settlement , when many hundreds of the most conscientious ^ persons of tin ' s country were fleeing thither to avoid the tyranny of * hurley uud the persecutions of those

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    intolerant and cruel fanatics , who were patronized by that cold-hearted and unrelenting monarch . When Peters arrived in the New World , be took up his abode at Salem , a place which is now become the chief town of Essex County , and the most important sea-port of the state of

    Massachusetts , about eighteen miles from Boston . It may not be quite irrelevant to our purpose to remark , that the planters of the Massachus ' ett colony , made their first settlement in that place in the year 16 & 8 , * and that this was only about eight years before the arrival of Hugh Peters .

    Here a question naturally occurs , what could have induced Peters to leave the United States of Holland , where he had acquired so great a character , and where he was held in so much consideration , to reside in a new colony , where he could have had no associates but the wild Indians of

    the desert , or those unfortunate Europeans who were wanderers upon the face of the earth , and who had expatriated themselves for conscience * sake ? In my opinion , nothing could have determined him to have adopted such a measure , but an enthusiastic

    love of liberty ; an anxious desire to minister to the comforts of those who were suffering for having borne their testimony to the cause of truth ; and a heart glowing with piety to God and benevolence to man . And in

    reviewing the general tenor of the life of Hugh Peters , 1 think I am fully justified iu attributing to him such ex Jilted motives .

    When he arrived in New-England , it is probable that he resumed his former occupation , viz . that of a Christian minister of religion , and as he had been in the habit of consideringit not at all incompatible with that

    character , to be at the same time the undaunted advocate of the civil and religious rights of mankind , he would not fail to administer the comforts of religion to , and justify the conduct of those who had fled to the uninhabited

    parts of tlie earth , rather than forfeit their characters as men , by continuing to submit to the capricious ordinances of an unprincipled tyrant .

    * Neiil ' s . History of Ncvv-Eug-Iauil , 2 nd cdifiou , II . 21 ? . '

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    The Nonconformist . No . XIV . 529

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1819, page 529, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1776/page/5/