Source: “Will of Robert Keayne,” in Report of Record Commissioners of the City of Boston, Containing Miscellaneous Papers (Boston, 1886), pp. 1–54.

. . . I look up to His throne of grace and mercy in the blood of Jesus Christ with some hope and confidence. . . . In this faith alone I desire both to live and die and to continue therein to my life’s end.

This faith in the Lord Jesus Christ hath been most plainly and sweetly taught in these churches of New England, in which place, though I met with many and deep sorrows and variety of exercises of spirit and hard measures offered to me, yet with unrepentant thoughts I desire to acknowledge it for a great blessing and undeserved favor of God that he hath brought me hither to enjoy His presence in the beauties of holiness, and to see His walkings in his Holy sanctuary. And though there may be failings in both our civil government and churches. . . yet I do unfeignedly approve of the way of the churches of Jesus Christ and the civil government that God hath here set up amongst us, and rejoice therein. . . .

I am not ignorant that formerly there hath been many clamors and evil reports raised up against me here and elsewhere as if I had got my estate by unjust dealing and wronging of others. That all might take notice that I durst not allow myself in any such known wickedness as hath been falsely reported against me, I did in some of my former wills and also in my last before this, of anno 1649 . . . set apart two hundred pounds out of my own estate, that if any man or woman (not knowing but that I might have died long before this time) young or old, in Old England or New, could justly challenge or make it appear by good proof or reason that I had in anything unjustly wronged or defrauded them, that they might have had full satisfaction allowed them, though I know of no such things that can justly be laid to my charge, nor any pretense of show of it [which], if I were alive to answer for myself, I should [not] easily clear and remove. But having now lived in New England this 17 or 18 years where there is an open passage in church and commonwealth where any that are unjustly wronged may easily right themselves if I should obstinately refuse to do them right, and none such having appeared in so many years, I think it needless to continue any longer what I formerly sequestered out of my estate for such ends. If any should come with such pretenses after I am dead, the falseness of them may the more justly be suspected in that they came not while I was alive. I speak of debts and unjust frauds, not of human infirmities and failings which may be common to myself as to other men. . . .

I desire in this my will to give an account of my actions and endeavor to remove all jealousies as near as I can, these being as it were my last words that will live to speak for me when I am dead and in my grave. And God may be pleased so far to bless something or other that I have had occasion to express in this will, that such which have taken liberty to load me with diverse reproaches and long to lay me under a dark cloud may have cause to see that they have done amiss and now to be sorry for it, though they have not been so before.

The objections are these:

First, if I value my estate to be worth 4000 lb. or thereabouts, how could I get such an estate with good conscience, or without oppression in my calling, seeing it is known to some that I had no portion from my parents or friends to begin the world withal. If none did know of this, I am bound to acknowledge [it], that all may be attributed to the free mercy and kindness of God alone who raiseth up and pulleth down as he pleaseth. . . .

To which I answer, I have now traded for myself about 40 or 50 years and through the favor of God, though I had very little at first to begin with, yet I had good credit and good esteem and respect in the place where I lived so that I did ever drive a great trade not only since I came hither but especially in England.

Now to get 4000 lb. in 40 or 50 years is not 100 lb. a year clear gains, one year with another, which we account to be no great matter. . . . A tradesman or merchant that hath a full trade may get 100 lb. a year above his expenses and a great deal more very honestly without hurting his own conscience or wronging those that he deals with at all.

Since I came into New England . . . I have been no prodigal spender as I have been no niggardly sparer in things needful, as the account of my daily and weekly expenses will testify for me when those books come to be viewed over. . . .

For . . . I have undergone many censures since I came hither according to men’s uncharitable and various apprehensions, some looking at me as an oppressor in trading and getting unconscionably by what I sold and others as covetous and niggardly in housekeeping and not so liberal and bountiful as I should be. How those two contraries can justly be charged upon me and yet have increased my estate no more in so long a time, I yet see not, [unless] it be [charged] by such as care not what they say of other men though never so false, so [long as] they may lay others under reproach and magnify themselves and their ways by disgracing others. . . .

But some may further object [that] if I do value my estate at so much as before mentioned, how could I deal honestly in suffering myself to be valued in rates to the country but after a 1000 lb. estate at most, or sometimes less.

To which I answer, first, that I do not think a man is bound in conscience to make known his whole estate and suffer himself to be valued to the uttermost extent thereof if he can honestly prevent it. It is not so in any nation in the world that I have heard or read of, except in case of great extremity by an enemy in the country. . . .

I know myself and others here pay more to rates and public charges yearly than those that are three times of my estate in England in four or five years. . . . Here we are rated every year, and in some one year I have paid near twenty lb. to country rates. Therefore, though some may judge that men’s estates are undervalued, everyone seeking to ease themselves and lay the burden upon others, yet rates did rise so high upon the pound and came so fast about that men may be truly said in that respect to be rated far above and beyond their estates. . . .