This man was a brother to the father of John Stevens of Virginia, and though he had Spanish blood in his veins, he was a Puritan.

The Puritan of Massachusetts was, at this time, the straitest of his sect, an unflinching egotist, who regarded himself as eminently his "brother's keeper," whose constant business it was to save his fellow-men from sin and error, sitting in judgment upon their belief and actions with the authority of a divinely appointed high priest.

His laws, found on the statute books of the colony, or divulged in the records of court proceedings, exhibit the salient points in his stern and inflexible character, as a self-constituted censor and a conservator of the moral and spiritual destiny of his fellow-mortals.

A fine was imposed on every woman wearing her hair cut short like a man's; all gaming for amusement or gain was forbidden, and cards and dice were not permitted in the colony.

A father was fined if his daughter did not spin as much flax or wool as the selectmen required of her.