CHAPTER IX.

NEW ENGLAND.

BY CHARLES DEANE, LL.D.,

_Vice-President of the Massachusetts Historical Society._

THE COUNCIL FOR NEW ENGLAND.—This body was incorporated in the

eighteenth year of the reign of James I., on the 3d of November, 1620,

under the name of the “Council established at Plymouth, in the County

of Devon, for the planting, ruling, ordering, and governing of New

England, in America.” The corporation consisted of forty patentees, the

most of whom were persons of distinction: thirteen were peers, some

of the highest rank. The patentees were empowered to hold territory

in America extending from the fortieth to the forty-eighth degree of

north latitude, and westward from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and

they were authorized to settle and govern the same. This charter is

the foundation of most of the grants which were afterward made of the

territory of New England.

This Company was substantially a reincorporation of the adventurers

or associates of the Northern Colony of Virginia, with additional

privileges, placing them on a footing with their rivals of the Southern

Colony, whose franchise had been twice enlarged since the issuing

of the original charter of April 10, 1606, which incorporated both

companies. A notice of this earlier enterprise will but briefly detain

us.

While the Southern Colony had attracted the wealth and influence of

leading adventurers who represented the more liberal party in the

government, and were enabled to prosecute their plans of colonization

with vigor to a good degree of success, the Northern Colony had

signally failed from the beginning. The former had established at

Jamestown, in 1607, the first permanent English Colony in America.

The latter produced no greater results than the abortive settlement

at Sabino, known as the Popham Colony.[522] The discouragement

following upon its abandonment prompted the withdrawal of many of the

adventurers, though the organization of the patentees still survived;

but of their meetings and records we have no trace. Sir Ferdinando

Gorges himself would not despair, but engaged his private fortune in

fishing, trading, and exploring expeditions, and in making attempts at

settlement. Many of these enterprises he speaks of as private ventures,

while the Council for New England, in their _Briefe Relation_, of 1622,

which I have sometimes thought was written by Gorges himself, speaks of

them in the name of the Company. The probability is that Gorges was the

principal person who kept alive the cherished scheme of settling the

country, and by his influence a few other persons were engaged, and the

name of the Council covered many of these enterprises.

* * * * *

Gorges now conceived the scheme of a great monopoly. King James had

reigned since 1614 without a parliament, and during the following

years down to the meeting of the next parliament, in January, 1620/21,

a large part of the business of the country had been monopolized by

individuals or by associations that had secured special privileges from

the Crown. Gorges was a friend of the King and of the “prerogative.”

Under the plea of desiring a new incorporation of the adventurers

of the Northern Colony, in order to place them on an equality of

privileges with the Southern Colony, Gorges had devised the plan of

securing a monoply of the fishing in the waters of New England for the

patentees of the new corporation, and for those who held or purchased

license from them. He had the adroitness to enlist in his favor a

large number of the principal noblemen and gentlemen. Relative to

his proceedings, Gorges himself says: “Of this, my resolution, I was

bold to offer the sounder considerations to divers of his Majesty’s

honorable Privy Council, who had so good liking thereunto as they

willingly became interested themselves therein as patentees and

councillors for the managing of the business, by whose favors I had

the easier passage in the obtaining his Majesty’s royal charter to be

granted us according to his warrant to the then solicitor-general,”

etc. The petition for the new charter was dated March 3, 1619/20; the

warrant for its preparation, July 23; and it passed the seals Nov. 3,

1620.

An inspection of the several patents granted by King James will show

that, in those of 1606 and 1609, among the privileges conferred is that

of “fishings.” But the word is there used in connection with other

privileges appertaining to and within the precincts conveyed, such as

“mines, minerals, marshes,” etc., and probably meant “fishings” in

rivers and ponds, and not in the seas. In the patent of Nov. 3, 1620,

a similar clause ends, “and seas adjoining,” which may be intended to

cover the alleged privilege. In this patent, as in the others, there is

no clause forbidding free fishing within the seas of New England; but

all persons without license first obtained from the Council are, in the

patent of Nov. 3, 1620, forbidden to visit the coast, and the clause of

forfeiture of vessel and cargo is inserted. This prevented fishermen

from landing and procuring wood for constructing stages to dry their

fish.

A few days after the petition of Gorges and his associates had been

presented to the King for a new charter, with minutes indicating the

nature of the privileges asked for, the Southern Colony took the

alarm, and the subject was brought before its members by the treasurer,

Sir Edwin Sandys, at a meeting on the 15th of March, 1619/20, at which

a committee was appointed to appear before the Privy Council the next

day, to protest against the fishing monopoly asked for by the Northern

Colony. The result of the conference, at which Gorges was present, was

a reference to two members of the Council,—the Duke of Lenox and the

Earl of Arundell, both patentees in the new patent; and they decided

or recommended that each colony should fish within the bounds of the

other, with this limitation,—“that it be only for the sustentation of

the people of the colonies there, and for the transportation of people

into either colony.” This order gave satisfaction to neither party.

The Southern Colony protested against being deprived of privileges

which they had always enjoyed. Gorges contended that the Northern

Colony had been excluded from the limits of the rival company, and he

only desired the same privilege of excluding them in turn. The matter

came again before the Privy Council on the 21st of July following, and

that board confirmed the recommendation of the 16th of March. Two days

later, on the 23d of July, the warrant to the solicitor-general for

the preparation of the patent was issued, and it passed the seals, as

already stated, on the 3d of November.

On the following day, November 4, Sir Edwin Sandys announced at a

meeting of the Southern Colony, or what was now known as the Virginia

Company, that the patent of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, containing certain

words which contradicted a former order of the Lords of the Council,

had passed the seals, and that the adventurers of the Northern Colony

by this grant had utterly excluded the Southern Colony from fishing on

that coast without their leave and license first sought and obtained.

By a general consent it was resolved to supplicate his Majesty for

redress, and Sir Thomas Roe was desired to present the petition which

had been drawn.

On the 13th Sir Thomas Roe reported that he had attended to that

duty, and that the King had said that if anything was passed in

the New England patent prejudicial to the Southern Colony, it was

surreptitiously done, and without his knowledge, and that he had been

abused thereby by those who pretended otherwise unto him. This was

confirmed by the Earl of Southampton, who further said that the King

gave command to the Lord Chamberlain, then present, that if this new

patent were not sealed, to forbear the seal; and if it were sealed and

not delivered, to keep it in hand till they were better informed. His

Lordship further signified that on Saturday last they had been with

the Lord Chancellor about it, when were present the Duke of Lenox, the

Earl of Arundell, and others, who, after hearing the allegations on

both sides, ordered that the patent should be delivered to be perused

by some of the Southern Colony, who were to report what exceptions

they found thereunto against the next meeting. Two days later it was

announced through the Earl of Southampton that, at a recent conference

with Gorges, it was agreed that for the present “the patent of Sir

Ferdinando Gorges should be sequestered and deposited in my Lord

Chancellor’s hands according to his Majesty’s express command.”

The Council for New England, in their _Briefe Relation_ (1622) of these

proceedings, recounting the opposition of the Virginia Company, say

that “lastly, the patent being passed the seal, it was stopped, upon

new suggestions to the King, and by his Majesty referred to the Council

to be settled, by whom the former orders were confirmed, the difference

cleared, and we ordered to have our patent delivered us.”

The modifications suggested or directed by the Privy Council appear

not to have been embodied in the instrument itself as it passed the

seals. Gorges’ friends were very strong in the council board, some of

the members being patentees in the grant, and they carried matters

with a high hand. But before the order came for the final delivery of

the patent, Gorges and his patentees were called to encounter a still

more formidable opposition. Gorges himself tells us that his rivals had

plainly told him that “howsoever I had sped before the Lords, I should

hear more of it the next Parliament;” and that this body was no sooner

assembled than he found it too true wherewith he had been formerly

threatened.

The Parliament met Jan. 16, 1620/21, it being the first time for more

than seven years, and at once adjourned to the 30th of that month. On

its assembling, the House of Commons immediately proceeded to present

the public grievances of the kingdom, prominent among which were the

monopolies that had sprung up like hydras during the last few years

under the royal prerogative. On the 17th of April “An Act for the freer

liberty of fishing voyages, to be made and performed on the sea-coast

and places of Newfoundland, Virginia, New England, and other the

sea-coasts and parts of America,” was introduced. On the 25th this was

repeated, and a debate followed, opened by Sir Edwin Sandys, who called

attention to the new grant obtained for what had now come to be called

New England, with a sole privilege of fishing; also to the fact that

the King, who had been made acquainted with it, had stayed the patent;

that the Virginia Company desired no appropriation of this fishing to

them; that it was worth one hundred thousand pounds per annum in coin;

that the English “little frequent this, in respect of this prohibition,

but the Dutch and French.” He therefore moved for “a free liberty for

all the King’s subjects for fishing there,” saying it was pitiful that

any of the King’s subjects should be prohibited, since the French and

Dutch were at liberty to come and fish there notwithstanding the colony.

The debate was continued. Secretary Calvert “doubteth the fishermen the

hinderers of the plantation; that they burn great store of woods, and

choke the havens;” that he “never will strain the King’s prerogative

against the good of the commonwealth;” and that it was “not fit to

make any laws here for those countries which not as yet annexed to the

Crown.”

The bill was committed to Sir Edwin Sandys, and a full hearing

advertized to all burgesses of London, York, and the port towns, who

might wish to testify, that day seven-night, in the Exchequer Chamber.

On the 4th of June Parliament adjourned to the 14th of November, and in

the intermission Sir Edwin Sandys was arrested and thrown into prison.

It is significant that, notwithstanding this opposition in the House of

Commons, the Privy Council, on the 18th, ordered that the sequestered

patent be delivered to Gorges, in terms which provided that each colony

(the Northern and the Southern) should have the additional freedom

of the shore for the drying of their nets and the taking and saving

of their fish, and to have wood for their necessary uses, etc.; also

that the patent of the Northern plantation be renewed according to the

premises, while those of the Southern plantation were to have a sight

thereof before it be engrossed, and that the former patent be delivered

to the patentees.

I have already remarked that the orders of the Privy Council early

directed certain modifications to be made in the proposed patent which

were not embodied in it when first drawn; nor were they ultimately

included, although Gorges himself admitted, when afterward summoned

before the Committee of the House of Commons, that the patent yet

remained in the Crown office, “where it was left since the last

Parliament” (he meant, since the last session of Parliament), “for

that it was resolved to be renewed for the amendment of some faults

contained therein.”

No doubt the intention was that a new patent should be drawn, and that

the delivery of the existing parchment was provisional only.[523] The

patent, however, never was renewed, though a scheme for a renewal of

a most radical character was seriously contemplated all through the

year following the dissolution of the Parliament in 1622; and Sir Henry

Spelman and John Selden were consulted in regard to land tenures, the

rights of the Crown, and the like, in reference thereto.

On the reassembling of Parliament in November, the subject was once

again approached in the Commons. It was charged that since the recess

Gorges had executed a patent. One had been issued, dated June 1, 1621,

to John Peirce for the Plymouth people. He had also, by patent or

by verbal agreement, by the King’s request, released to Sir William

Alexander all the land east of St. Croix, known as Nova Scotia,

confirmed to him by a royal charter September 10 of this year.[524]

It was also charged that Gorges was threatening to use force in

restricting the right to fish; and accordingly on the 20th an order

was passed directing his patent to be brought in to the Committee on

Grievances.[525]

The result was that on the 21st of December an Act for freer liberty

of fishing passed the Commons, while previously, on the 18th, “Sir

Ferdinando Gorges and Sir Jo. Bowcer, the patentees for fishing in and

about New England, to be warned to appear here the first day of next

Access, and to bring their patent, or a copy thereof.” Parliament then

adjourned to the 8th of February; but it was subsequently prorogued

and dissolved. Before the adjournment, in the afternoon, the Commons,

foreseeing their dissolution, entered on their records a protestation

in vindication of their rights and privileges; but the record is

here mutilated by having the obnoxious passage torn out by the hands

of the King, who sent for the Journal of the House and placed this

mark of his tyranny upon it. Gorges himself, at this session of the

Parliament, twice appeared before the Committee of the House, and had

a preliminary examination without his counsel. He was questioned by

Sir Edward Coke about his patent, which Coke called a grievance of

the commonwealth, and complained of as “a monopoly, and the color of

planting a colony put upon it for particular ends and private gain.”

Gorges says he was treated with great courtesy, but was told that “the

Public was to be respected before all particulars,” and that the patent

must be brought into the House. Gorges replied by defending the plan

of the adventurers, which he said was undertaken for the advancement

of religion, the enlargement of the bounds of the nation, the increase

of trade, and the employment of many thousands of people. He rehearsed

what had already been done in the discovery and seizure of the coast,

told of the failures and discouragements encountered, and explained the

present scheme of regulating the affairs of the intended plantation

for the public good. As for the delivery of the patent, he had not the

power to do it himself, as he was but a particular person, and inferior

to many. Besides, the patent still remained, for aught he knew, in the

Crown Office, where it was left for amendment. He was then told to be

prepared to attend further at a future day, and with counsel. In the

end, also, the breaking up of Parliament prevented the bill for free

fishing, which had passed the Commons, from becoming a law.

Of course, the opposition encountered—first from the Virginia Company

and then from the House of Commons, the latter representing largely the

popular sentiment—was a serious hindrance to the operations of the

Council for New England. The disputes with the former, the Council

themselves say, “held them almost two years, so as all men were afraid

to join with them.”

The records of the Council, so far as they are extant, begin on

“Saturday, the last of May, 1622,” at “Whitehall,” at which there were

seven persons present, “the Lord Duke of Lenox” heading the list. Some

business was transacted before this date, as the first day’s record

here refers to it. The record of the organization of the Council is

wanting; and two persons named as present at this meeting—Captain

Samuel Argall and Dr. Barnabe Goche—were not included in the list of

the forty patentees. They must have been elected since, in the place

of others who had resigned. Goche was now elected treasurer in the

place of Sir Ferdinando Gorges. I think that the Duke of Lenox was the

first president of the Council. In the patent granted to John Peirce,

mentioned above as taken out on behalf of the Pilgrims, dated June

1, 1621,—which, I may add, was nearly a year before the date of any

known record of the Council,—purporting to be signed by “the President

and Counsell,” who have “set their seals” to the same, were the names

of Lenox, Hamilton, Ro. Warwick, Sheffield, Ferd. Gorges, in the

order here given, and one other name indistinct, with their separate

seals.[526]

It is not improbable, therefore, that the business transactions of the

Council, in this inchoate and uncertain period of its existence, were

so few that they were preserved only in loose minutes, or files of

papers, which were never recorded, and are now lost.

After they had freed their patent, they first considered how they

should raise the means to advance the plantation, and two methods were

suggested. One contemplated a voluntary contribution by the patentees;

and the other, the ransoming the freedoms of those who were willing

to partake of present profits arising by the trade or fishing on the

coast. The patentees, in the one case, agreed to pay one hundred pounds

apiece (the records say £110); in the other, inducements were offered

to the western cities and towns to form joint-stock associations

for trade and fishing, from which a revenue in the shape of royalty

might be derived to the Council: and, in order to further this latter

project, letters were to be issued to those cities, by the Privy

Council, prohibiting any not free of that business from visiting the

coast, upon pain of confiscation of ship and goods. This last scheme

was not favorably received. The letters produced an effect contrary to

what was expected, since the restraining of the liberty of free fishing

gave alarm; and, as the Parliament of 1621 was about to meet, every

possible influence was brought to bear against this great monopoly,

with what effect we have already seen.

While the plan of voluntary associations failed, the business of

exacting a tax from individual fishermen was prosecuted with vigor,

and probably; in some instances with success. A proclamation against

disorderly trading, or visiting the coasts of New England without a

license from the Council, was issued. A grand scheme for settling the

coast of New England by a local government was marked out, and the

_Platform of the Government_ was put into print.[527]

The project of laying out a county on the Kennebec River; forty

miles square, for general purposes, and building a great city at the

junction of the Kennebec and Androscoggin Rivers, was part of the

great plan. A ship and pinnace had been built at Whitby, a seaport in

Yorkshire, at large expense, for use in the colony; and others were

contemplated. They were to lie on the coast for the defence of the

merchants and fishermen, and to convoy the fleets as they went to and

from their markets. Sir Ferdinando Gorges, who had been treasurer of

the Council, was now chosen governor, and was destined for New England;

but the Company were seriously embarrassed for funds, and finally were

obliged to mortgage the ship to some of their individual members. The

assessments of £110 each were not all paid in, and patentees who did

not intend to pay were asked to resign, so that others might take their

places. Constant complaints were made of merchants who were violating

the privileges of the Company by sending out vessels for fishing and

trading on the coast; and orders were passed for applying remedies. The

plan for the new patent is constantly referred to in the records, and

the present patentees are to be warned that they will have no place

in it, unless they pay up their past dues. The inducement to be held

out is, that all who actually pay £110 may have a place in the new

grant, provided they “be persons of honor or gentlemen of blood, except

only six merchants to be admitted by us for the service, and especial

employments of the said Council in the course of trade and commerce,”

etc. But their schemes were not realized.

In the Council’s prospectus already cited, issued in the summer of

1622, they say, “We have settled, at this present, several plantations

along the coast, and have granted patents to many more that are in

preparation to be gone with all conveniency.” The bare fact, however,

is that the Pilgrims at Plymouth were the only actual settlers, and

they had landed within the patent limits by the merest chance. There

may have been some other bodies of men, in small numbers, living on

the coast, such as Gorges used to hire, at large expense, to spend the

winter there. His servant, Richard Vines, a highly respectable man,

was sent out to the coast for trade and discovery, and spent some time

in the country; and he is supposed to have passed one winter during a

great plague among the Indians,—perhaps that of 1616-17,—at the mouth

of the Saco River.[528] Vines and John Oldham afterward had a patent of

Biddeford, on that river. Several scattering plantations were begun in

the following year.

[Illustration: FROM DUDLEY’S ARCANO DEL MARE.]

The complaints to the Council of abuses committed by fishermen and

other interlopers, who without license visited the coast, and by their

conduct caused the overthrow of the trade and the dishonor of the

government, led to the selection of Robert Gorges, the younger son of

Sir Ferdinando Gorges, and who was recently returned from the Venetian

wars, to be sent to New England for the correction of these abuses. He

was commissioned as lieutenant-general, and there were appointed for

his council and assistants Captain Francis West as admiral, Christopher

Levett, and the governor of Plymouth for the time being. Robert Gorges

had but recently become a shareholder in the grand patent, and he

had also a personal grant of a tract of land on the northeast side of

Massachusetts Bay, ten miles along the coast, and extending thirty

miles into the interior. This was made to him partly in consideration

of his father’s services to the Company.

West was commissioned in November, 1622; and his arrival at Plymouth,

in New England, is noticed by Bradford “as about the latter end of

June.” He had probably been for some time on the Eastern coast as he

related his experiences to Bradford, who says he “had a commission to

be admiral of New England, to restrain interlopers and such fishing

ships as came to fish and trade without a license from the Council

of New England, for which they should pay a round sum of money.

But he could do no good of them, for they were too strong for him,

and he found the fishermen to be stubborn fellows.... So they went

from hence to Virginia.” West returned from Virginia in August, and

probably joined Captain Gorges, who made his appearance in the Bay

of Massachusetts in August or September of this year, having “sundry

passengers and families, intending there to begin a plantation,

and pitched upon the place Mr. Weston’s people had forsaken,” at

Wessagusset. By his commission he and his council had full power “to

do and execute what to them should seem good, in all cases, capital,

criminal, and civil.”

This sending out of young Gorges with authority was probably a

temporary expedient for the present emergency, preparatory to the great

scheme of government set forth, a few months before he sailed, in the

Council’s _Briefe Relation_. Captain Gorges had a private enterprise to

look after while charged with these public duties. The patent which he

brought over, issued to himself personally, provided for a government

to be administered “acording to the great charter of England, and such

Lawes as shall be hereafter established by public authority of the

State assembled in Parliament in New England,” all decisions being

subject to appeal to the Council for New England, “and to the court of

Parliament hereafter to be in New England aforesaid.”

Gorges remained here but a short time,—probably not quite a

year,—having during his stay a sharp conflict with the notorious

Thomas Weston, whom Governor Bradford, in pity to the man, attempted

to shield from punishment. In speaking of Gorges’ return to England,

Bradford says that he “scarcely saluted the country in his government,

not finding the state of things here to answer his quality and

condition.” His people dispersed: some went to England, and some to

Virginia. Sir Ferdinando Gorges himself assigns another reason for

his son’s speedy abandoning the country. He says that Robert was sent

out by Lord Gorges and himself,—meaning, I suppose, that he came at

their personal charge,—and that he was disappointed in not receiving

supplies from “divers his familiar friends who had promised as much;

but they, hearing how I sped in the House of Parliament, withdrew

themselves, and myself and friends were wholly disabled to do anything

to purpose.” The report of these proceedings coming to his son’s ears,

he was advised to return home till better occasion should serve.

The records of the Council show that for the space of one year their

business was pursued with considerable vigor by the few members who

were interested.[529] Sir Ferdinando Gorges, of course, was the

mainstay of the enterprise. The principal business was to prepare to

put their plans into operation. The money did not come in, and a large

number of the patentees fell off. Much time was spent in inducing new

members to engage, and pay in their money; and the efforts to bring the

merchant fishermen to acknowledge the claims of the Council, and to

take out licenses for traffic and fishing, were untiring.

Finally, in the summer of 1623, the Council resolved to divide the

whole territory of New England among the patentees, “in the plot

remaining with Dr. Goche,” the treasurer. The reasons given for this

step are, “For that some of the adventurers excuse their non-payment

in of their adventures because they know not their shares for which

they are to pay, which much prejudiceth the proceedings, it is thought

fit that the land of New England be divided in this manner; viz., by

20 lots, and each lot to contain 2 shares. And for that there are not

full 40 and above 20 adventurers, that only 20 shall draw those lots.”

Provision was accordingly made that each person drawing two shares

should part with one share to some member who might not have drawn, or

some one else who shall thereafter become an adventurer, to the end

that the full “number of forty may be complete.” The meeting for the

drawing was held on Sunday, June 29, 1623, at Greenwich, at which the

King was present.[530]

The “plot” of New England, on which this division is shown, with the

names set down according as the lots were drawn, was published the

next year in Sir William Alexander’s _Encouragement to Colonies_; and

on page 31 of his book the writer speaks of hearing that “out of a

generous desire by his example to encourage others for the advancement

of so brave an enterprise he [Sir Ferdinando Gorges] is resolved

shortly to go himself in person, and to carry with him a great number

well fitted for such a purpose; and many noblemen in England (whose

names and proportions as they were marshalled by lot may appear upon

the map), having interested themselves in that bounds, are to send

several colonies, who may quickly make this to exceed all other

plantations.”

Alexander must have been well informed of the intentions of the

Company, certainly familiar with those of Gorges himself; and it must

have been with their knowledge and approbation that the act above

recorded was thus published.

[Illustration: ALEXANDER’S MAP, 1624.

[This is a fac-simile of a part of the map, as reproduced in Purchas’s

_Pilgrims_.—ED.]]

The meeting at which the division was made is the last of which we

have any record for a number of years, and the history of the Company

during these years must be gathered from other sources. The grand

colonial scheme intended to be put in operation never went into effect;

and at a late period the Council say, concerning this division, that

hitherto they have never been confirmed in the lands so allotted.

A new Parliament was summoned to meet February 12, 1623/24, and on

the 24th we find this minute: “Mr. Neale delivereth in the bill for

free liberty of fishing upon the coasts of America.” “Five ships of

Plymouth under arrest, and two of Dartmouth, because they went to

fish in New England. This done by warrant from the Admiralty. To have

these suits staid till this bill have had its passage. This done by

Sir Ferdinando Gorges his Patent. Ordered, that this patent be brought

into the Committee of Grievances upon Friday next.” March 15, 1623/24,

an Act for freer liberty of fishing, as previously introduced, was

committed to a large committee, of which Sir Edward Coke was chairman.

On the 17th, Sir Edward reported from this committee that they had

condemned one grievance, namely, “Sir Ferdinand Gorges his patent for

a plantation in New England. Their council heard, the exceptions being

first delivered them. Resolved by consent, that, notwithstanding the

clause in the patent dated 3d November, 18th Jac., that no subject

of England shall visit the coast upon pain of forfeiture of ship and

goods, the patentees have yielded that the Englishmen shall visit, and

that they will not interrupt any fisherman to fish there.” Finally it

was enacted by the House that the clause of forfeiture, being only by

patent and not by act of Parliament, was void.

Gorges himself gives a graphic picture of the scene when he, with

his counsel, was before the Committee of the House, and he spoke so

unavailingly in defence of his patent. This patent was the first

presented from the Committee of Grievances. “This their public

declaration of the Houses ... shook off all my adventurers for

plantation, and made many of the patentees to quit their interest;”

so that in all likelihood he would have fallen under the weight of

so heavy a burden, had he not been supported by the King, who would

not be drawn to overthrow the corporation he so much approved of, and

Gorges was advised to persevere. Still he thought it better to forbear

for the present, though the bill did not become a law of the realm.

Soon afterward the French ambassador made a challenge of all those

territories as belonging of right to the King of France, and Gorges was

called to make answer to him; and his reply was so full that “no more

was heard of that their claim.”

Being unable to enforce the claim whence was to come the principal

source of its income, and the larger part of the patentees having

abandoned the enterprise, the Great Council for New England, whose

patent had been denounced by the House of Commons as a monopoly and

opposed to the public policy and the general good, became a dead body.

In the following year, 1625, we hear of Gorges as commander of one of

the vessels in the squadron ordered by Buckingham to Dieppe for the

service of the King of France. Finding on his arrival that the vessels

were destined to serve against Rochelle, which was then sustaining a

siege, Gorges broke through the squadron, and returned to England with

his ship.

In the summer of 1625 the Plymouth people were in great trouble by

reason of their unhappy relations to the Adventurers in London, and

Captain Standish was sent over to seek some accommodation with them. At

the same time he bore a letter from Governor Bradford to the Council of

New England, urging their intervention in behalf of the colony “under

your government.” But Bradford says that, by reason of the plague which

that year raged in London, Standish could do nothing with the Council

for New England, for there were no courts kept or scarce any commerce

held.

Two years later, in the summer of 1627, Governor Bradford again wrote

to the Council for New England, under whose government he acknowledged

themselves to be, and also to Sir Ferdinando Gorges himself, advising

them of the encroachments of the Dutch, and also making complaints of

the disorderly fishermen and interlopers, who, with no intent to plant,

and with no license, foraged the country and were off again, to the

great annoyance of the Plymouth settlers.

After a patent to Christopher Levett, of May 5, 1623, the Council

appear to have made no grants of land till, in 1628, two patents

were issued,—one to the Plymouth people of land on the Kennebec

River, and one to Rosewell, Young, Endicott, and others, patentees of

Massachusetts. These were followed by a grant to John Mason, of Nov. 7,

1629, the Laconia grant of Nov. 17, 1629, that to Plymouth Colony of

Jan. 13, 1629/30, and sundry grants of territory in the present States

of Maine and New Hampshire.

The records of the Council, of which there is a hiatus of over eight

years in the parts now extant (and the latter portion is a transcript

with probably many omissions), begin on the 4th of November, 1631,

with the Earl of Warwick as president, and contain entries of sundry

patents granted, and of the final transactions of the Company during

its existence. Precisely when the Earl of Warwick was chosen president

we do not know. His name appears in the Plymouth patent of Jan. 13,

1629/30, as holding that office, and it is quite likely that he was

president when the Massachusetts patent was issued, he being chiefly

instrumental in passing that grant. The Council seem now to have

revived their hopes as they did their activity. As late as Nov. 6,

1634, divers matters of moment were propounded: “First, that the number

of the Council be with all convenient speed filled. [It appears by a

previous meeting that there were now but twenty-one members in all,

whereas the patent called for no less than forty.] Second, that a new

patent from his Majesty be obtained.” Also, that no ships, passengers,

nor goods be permitted to go to New England without license from the

President and Council; and that fishermen should not be allowed to

trade with savages, nor with the servants of planters, nor to cut

timber for stages, without license. This, surely, is a revival of the

old odious policy. We do not know if any of these orders were adopted.

There seems at this time to have arisen a serious misunderstanding or

quarrel between the Council and their President, the Earl of Warwick.

It first appears at a meeting held June 29, 1632. The President was

not present at this meeting, though it was held, as the meetings had

been held for some years past, at “Warwick House.” An order was adopted

“that the Earl of Warwick should be entreated to direct a course for

finding out what patents have been granted for New England.” At the

same meeting the clerk was sent to the Earl for the Council’s great

seal, which was in his lordship’s keeping; and word came back that

he would send it when his man came in. It was also ordered that the

future meetings of the Council be held at the house of Captain Mason,

in Fenchurch Street. But the seal was not sent, and two more formal

requests were made for it during the next six months. Captain John

Mason was chosen vice-president Nov. 26, 1632. The records for 1633

and 1634 are wanting. Early in 1635 the Council resolved to resign

their patent into the hands of the King; preparatory to which they

made a new partition of the territory of New England, dividing it

among themselves, or, according to the records, among eight of their

number. Of what precise number the Council consisted at this time we

have no means of knowing. The division was made at a meeting held

Feb. 3, 1634/35, and to the description of each particular grant the

members on the 14th of April affixed their signatures, each person

withholding his signature to his own share. In making this division it

was ordered that every one who had lawful grants of land, or lawfully

settled plantations, should enjoy the same, laying down his _jura

regalia_ to the proprietor of this division, and paying him some small

acknowledgment. A memorandum is also made that “the 22d day of April

several deeds of feoffment were made unto the several proprietors.”

The act of surrender passed June 7, 1635. Lord Gorges had been chosen

president April 18. The Company seem to have been kept alive till some

years later, as there is an entry as late as Nov. 1, 1638, at which

it was agreed to augment the grants of the Earl of Sterling and Lord

Gorges and Sir F. Gorges, the two latter to have “sixty miles more

added to their proportions further up into the main land.” Of course,

in making this division the whole patent of Nov. 3, 1620, was not

divided, for that ran from sea to sea. It was a division on the New

England coast, running back generally sixty miles inland. It was part

of the plan to procure from the King, under the great seal of England,

a confirmation of these several grants. Lord Sterling’s grant included

also Long Island, near Hudson’s River.

The intention in this division was to ride over the Massachusetts

patent of 1628, which had been confirmed the following year by a

charter of incorporation from the King, and legal proceedings were soon

afterward instituted by a writ of _quo warranto_ for vacating their

franchises. The notorious Thomas Morton was retained as a solicitor

to prosecute this suit. The grants issued in this division to Sir

Ferdinando Gorges and to John Mason are the only ones with which

subsequent history largely deals.[531]

The King, in accepting the resignation of the Grand Patent, resolved

to take the management of the affairs of New England into his own

hands, and to appoint as his general governor Sir Ferdinando Gorges,

who himself, or by deputy, was to reside in the country. But “the best

laid schemes o’ mice and men gang aft a-gley.” The attempt to vacate

the charter of Massachusetts Bay, a fundamental thing to be done, was

not accomplished. The patentees to whom several of the divisions of the

territory of New England were assigned appear to have wholly neglected

their interest, and, except in the case of Sir Ferdinando Gorges,

before referred to, royal charters were granted to none.

Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, and Connecticut were settled under

grants, or alleged grants, from the Council for New England. The grant

of the territory of Massachusetts Bay of March 19, 1627/28, was in the

following year confirmed by the Crown, with powers of government. The

grant to Sir Ferdinando Gorges in the general division of February,

1634/35, with an additional sixty miles into the interior subsequently

added, was confirmed by the Crown April 3, 1639, with a charter

constituting him Lord Proprietor of the Province of Maine, and giving

him extraordinary powers of government. The territory issued to John

Mason at the general division, which was to be called New Hampshire,

the parchment bearing date April 22, 1635, was never confirmed by the

King, nor were any powers of government granted. The first settlements

in Connecticut,—namely, those of the three towns on the river of

that name, in 1635 and 1636,—were made under the protection of

Massachusetts, as though the territory had been part of that colony.

But the inhabitants subsequently acquired a _quasi_ claim to this

territory, under what is known as the “old patent of Connecticut,”

impliedly proceeding from the Council for New England, through the

Earl of Warwick, to Lord Say and Sele and his associates. The settlers

of Quinnipiack, afterward called New Haven, in 1638 and 1639, had no

patent for lands, but made a number of purchases from the Indians.

Plymouth Colony, of which an account is given here by another hand,

received a roving patent from the Council, dated June 1, 1621, with no

boundaries; and another patent, dated Jan. 13, 1629/30, defining their

limits, but with no powers of government. The territory of Rhode Island

was not a grant from the Council to the settlers.

MASSACHUSETTS.—There were scattered settlements in Massachusetts Bay

prior to the emigration under the patent of 1627/28. Thomas Weston

began a settlement at what is now Weymouth Fore-River, in the summer

of 1622, which lasted scarcely one year. Robert Gorges, as we have

seen, took possession of the same place, in September, 1623, for his

experimental government, but the colony broke up the next spring,

leaving, it is thought, a few remnants behind, which proved a seed for

a continuous settlement. Persons are found temporarily at Nantasket

in 1625, and perhaps earlier; at Mount Wollaston the same year, and

at Thompson’s Island in 1626. The solitary William Blaxton, clerk, is

traced to Shawmut, (Boston) in 1625 or 1626, and the equally solitary

Samuel Maverick, at Noddles’ Island, about the same time; while

Walford, the blacksmith, is found at Charlestown in 1629. The last

three named are reasonably conjectured to have formed part of Robert

Gorges’ company at Weymouth, in 1623/24.

[Illustration]

The Dorchester Fishing Company, in England, of which the Rev. John

White, a zealous Puritan minister of that town, was a member, resolved

to make the experiment of planting a small colony somewhere upon the

coast, so that the fishing vessels might leave behind in the country

all the spare men not required to navigate their vessels home, who

might in the mean time employ themselves in planting, building, etc.,

and be ready to join the ships again on their return to the coast at

the next fishing season. Cape Ann was selected as the site of this

experiment, and in the autumn of 1623 fourteen men were left there to

pass the winter. In the latter part of the year 1625 Roger Conant,

who had been living at Plymouth and at Nantasket, was invited to join

this community as its superintendent, and he remained there one year.

The scheme proving a financial failure, the settlement broke up in the

autumn of 1626, most of the men returning home; but Conant and a few

others removed to Naumkeag (Salem), where they were found by Endicott,

who, under the authority of the Massachusetts patentees, arrived there

Sept. 6, 1628. These old settlers joined the new community.

Endicott was sent out as agent or superintendent of a large land

company, of which he was one of the proprietors, colonization being,

of course, a prominent feature in their plans. In the following year,

March 4, 1628-29, the patentees and their associates received a charter

of incorporation, with powers of government, and with authority to

establish a subordinate government on the soil, and appoint officers

of the same. This local government, entitled “London’s Plantation

in Massachusetts Bay in New England,” was accordingly established,

and Endicott was appointed the first resident governor. The charter

evidently contemplated that the government of the Company should

be administered in England. In a few months, however, the Company

resolved to transfer the charter and government from London to

Massachusetts Bay; and Matthew Cradock, who had been the first charter

governor, resigned his place, and John Winthrop, who had resolved to

emigrate to the colony, was chosen governor of the Company in his

stead. On the transfer of the Company to Massachusetts by the arrival

of Winthrop, the subordinate government, of which Endicott was the

head, was silently abolished, and its duties were assumed by its

principal, the corporation itself, which took immediate direction of

affairs. As the successor of Cradock, Winthrop was the second governor

of the Massachusetts Company, yet he was the first who exercised his

functions in New England.

[Illustration]

The Massachusetts charter was not adapted for the constitution of

a commonwealth; therefore, as the colony grew in numbers it became

necessary for it to assume powers not granted in that instrument.

Between the years 1630 and 1640 about twenty thousand persons arrived

in the colony, after which, for many years, it is supposed that more

went back to England than came thence hither. Previous to the year last

named the colony had furnished emigrants to settle the colonies of

Connecticut, New Haven, and Rhode Island.

The charter gave power to the freemen to elect annually a governor,

deputy-governor, and eighteen assistants, who should make laws for

their own benefit and for the government of the colony; and provision

was made for general courts and courts of assistants, which exercised

judicial as well as legislative powers. But at the first meeting of

the general court in Boston, in October, 1630, it was ordered that the

governor and deputy-governor should be chosen by the assistants out of

their own number. This rule was of short duration, as in May, 1632, the

freemen resumed the right of election, and the basis of a second house

of legislature was laid.

The colonists, though Puritans, were Church of England men, and were

fearful of rigid separation; but Winthrop and his party,—among whom

was John Wilson, a graduate of King’s College, Cambridge, and destined

to become their first minister,—found on their arrival a church

already established at Salem on the basis of separation. Thenceforward,

following that example, the Massachusetts colony became a colony of

congregational churches. It has been a favorite saying with eulogists

of Massachusetts, that the pious founders of the colony came over

to this wilderness to establish here the principle of civil and

religious liberty, and to transmit the same inviolate to their remotest

posterity. Probably nothing was further from their purpose, which was

simply to find a place where they themselves, and all who agreed with

them, could enjoy such liberty. This was a desirable object to attain,

and they made many sacrifices for it, and felt that they had a right to

enjoy it.

The banishment of Roger Williams, and of Mrs. Hutchinson and her

sympathizers, was no doubt largely due to the feeling that the peace

of the community was endangered by their presence. In the unhappy

episode of the Quakers, at a later period, the colonial authorities

were wrought into a frenzy by these “persistent intruders.” It seemed

to be a struggle on both sides for victory; but though four Quakers

were hanged on Boston Common, the Quakers finally conquered. In the

second year of the settlement, in order to keep the government in

their own hands, or, in the language of the Act, “to the end the body

of the commons may be preserved of honest and good men,” the Court

ordered that thenceforward no one should be elected a freeman unless

he was a member of one of the churches of the colony. Probably there

were as good men outside the churches as there were inside, and by and

by a clamor was raised by those who felt aggrieved at being denied

the rights of freemen; but the rule was not modified till after the

Restoration.

[Illustration:

[This portrait of the first minister of Boston hangs in the gallery

of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Its authenticity has been in

turn questioned and maintained. Cf. _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._ September,

1867, and December, 1880.—ED.]]

A few unsavory persons whom Winthrop and his company found here

and speedily sent away, on their arrival home failed not to make

representations injurious to the Puritan settlement, and they were

seconded by the influence of Sir Ferdinando Gorges and John Mason.

Attempts were made in 1632 to vacate the colony’s charter; but these

attempts proved unsuccessful. A more serious effort was made a few

years later, when the Council for New England resigned its franchises

into the hands of the King; but owing to the trouble which environed

the government in England, and to other causes not fully explained, the

colony then escaped, as it also escaped at the same time the impending

infliction of a general governor for New England.

In 1640 some of the colony’s friends in England wrote to the

authorities here advising them to send some one to England to solicit

favors of the Parliament. “But, consulting about it,” says Winthrop,

“we declined the motion, for this consideration,—that if we should put

ourselves under the protection of Parliament, we must then be subject

to all such laws as they should make, or at least such as they might

impose upon us; in which course, though they should intend our good,

yet it might prove very prejudicial to us.” From 1640 to 1660 the

colony was substantially an independent commonwealth, and during this

period they completed a system of laws and government which, taken as

a whole, was well adapted to their wants. Their “Body of Liberties”

was established in 1641, and three editions of Laws were published by

authority, and put in print in 1649, in 1660, and in 1672. The first

law establishing public schools was passed in October, 1647. Harvard

College had already, in 1637, been established at Cambridge.

[Illustration: QUAKER AUTOGRAPHS.

[This group gives the names of some of the victims of the judicial

extremities practised in Boston. See Bowden’s _Friends in America_, and

the _Memorial History of Boston_. Cf. the note on the treatment of the

early Quakers in New England, in chapter xii.—ED.]]

The ecclesiastical polity of the churches, embodied in the “Cambridge

Platform,” was drawn up in 1648, and printed in the following year, and

was finally approved by the General Court in 1651.

The community was obliged to feel its way, and adapt its legislation

rather to its exigencies than to its charter. The aristocratical

element in the society early cropped out in the institution of a

Council for life, which may have had its origin in suggestions from

England; but it met with little favor.

The confederation of the United Colonies, first proposed by

Connecticut, was an act of great wisdom, foreshadowing the more

celebrated political unions of the English race on this continent, for

they all have recognized the common maxim, that “Union is strength.”

The colonists were surrounded by “people of several nations and

strange language,” and the existence of the Indian tribes within the

boundaries of the New England settlements was the source of ceaseless

anxiety and alarm. The Pequot War had but recently ended, and it had

left its warning. It would have been an act of grace to admit the

Maine and Narragansett settlements to this union, but it was probably

impracticable.

[Illustration: DR. JOHN CLARK.

[This portrait of a leading physician of the colony hangs in the

gallery of the Massachusetts Historical Society, and is inscribed

“Ætatis suæ 66 ann. suo,” and purports to be a Dr. John Clark, and is

probably the physician of that name of Newbury and Boston, who died in

1664. His son John, likewise a physician, was also a prominent public

man in Boston, and died in 1690. That it is the former is believed by

Dr. Thacher in his _American Medical Biography_, and by Coffin in his

_History of Newbury_, both of whom give lithographs of the picture.

Dr. Appleton, who printed an account of the Society’s portrait in

its _Proceedings_, September, 1867, also took this view; while the

Rev. Dr. Harris, in the Society’s _Collections_, third series, vii.

287, finds the year 1675 in the inscription, which is not there, and

identifies the subject of the picture with another Dr. John Clark, who

was prominent in Rhode Island history. There was still a third Dr. John

Clark, son of John, and of Boston, who died in 1728. It is not probably

determinable beyond doubt which of the earlier two this is; and Savage,

in his _Genealogical Dictionary_, gives twenty-five John Clarks as

belonging to New England before the end of the first century; but of

these only four are physicians, as above named. Cf. _Massachusetts

Historical Society’s Proceedings_, July, 1844, p. 287.—ED.]]

The conversion of the Indian tribes to Christianity was a subject which

the colony had much at heart, and a number of its ministers had fitted

themselves for the work: the special labors of the Apostle Eliot need

only be mentioned. Through the instrumentality of Edward Winslow, a

society for propagating the gospel among the Indians was incorporated

in England in 1649, and the Commissioners of the United Colonies were

made the agents of its corporation as long as the union of the colonies

lasted.

The Massachusetts colonists were at first seriously tasked for the

means of subsistence; but these anxieties soon passed away. Industry

took the most natural forms. Agriculture gave back good returns. To

the invaluable Indian maize were added all kinds of English grain,

as well as vegetables and fruits. Some were indigenous to the soil.

English seeds of hay and of grain returned bountiful crops. All animals

with which New England farms are now stocked then well repaid in

increase the care bestowed upon them. The manufacture of clothing was

of slower growth. Thread and yarn were spun and knit by the women at

home; but in a few years weaving and fulling mills were set up, and

became remunerative. The manufacture of salt, saltpetre, gunpowder, and

glassware gave employment to many, while the brickmaker, the mason, the

carpenter, and indeed all kindred trades found occupation. The forests

were a source of income. Boards, clapboards, shingles, staves, and,

at a later period, masts had a ready sale. Furs and peltry, received

in barter from the Indians, became features of an export trade. The

fisheries should be specially enumerated as a source of wealth, and

this industry led to the building of ships, which were the medium of

commerce with the neighboring colonies, the West Indies, and even with

Spain.[532]

After the coin brought over by the settlers had gone back to England to

pay for supplies, the colony was greatly embarrassed for a circulating

medium, and Indian corn and beaver-skins were early used as currency,

while wampum was employed in trade with the Indians. The colony,

however, in 1652 established a mint, where was coined, from the Spanish

silver which had been introduced from the West Indies, and from

whatever bullion and plate might be sent in from any quarter, the New

England money so well known in our histories of American coinage.[533]

The relation of the colony to the surrounding New England plantations

is noticed further on in the brief accounts given of those settlements.

Events in England moved rapidly onward. The execution of King Charles

occurred about two months before the death of Winthrop, which happened

on the 26th of March, 1648/49, and it is certain that the latter never

heard of the tragic end of his old master. The colonists prudently

acknowledged their subjection to the Parliament, and afterward to

Cromwell, so far as was necessary to keep upon terms with both.

Hutchinson says that he had nowhere met with any marks of disrespect

to the memory of the late king, and that there was no room to suppose

they bore any disaffection to his son; and if they feared his

restoration, it was because they expected a change in religion, and

that a persecution of all Nonconformists would follow. Charles II. was

tardily proclaimed in the colony, owing, perhaps, to a lack of definite

information as to the state of politics in England, and to rumors that

the people there were in an unsettled condition.

[Illustration

[See note on this portrait in the _Memorial History of Boston_, i.

309.—ED.]]

A loyal address was finally agreed upon and sent; but he was not

proclaimed till August of the following year, 1661. The Restoration

brought trouble to the colony. Among those who laid their grievances

before the King in Council were Mason and Gorges, each a grandson

and heir of a more distinguished proprietor of lands in New England.

They alleged that the colony had, in violation of the rights of the

petitioners, extended its jurisdiction over the provinces of New

Hampshire and Maine. The Quakers and some of the Eastern people also

had their complaints to make against the colony.

To the humble address made to the King a benignant answer was received;

but an order soon afterward came that persons be sent over authorized

to make answer for the colony to all complaints alleged against it.

These agents on their return brought a letter from the King to the

colony, in which he promised to preserve its patent and privileges;

but he also required of the colony that its laws should be reviewed,

and such as were against the King’s authority repealed; that the oath

of allegiance and the forms of justice be administered in the King’s

name; that no one who desired to use the book of Common Prayer should

be prejudiced thereby as to the baptism of his children or admission to

the sacrament or to civil privilege.

These requirements were grievous to the people of Massachusetts; but

worse was to come. In the spring of 1664 intelligence was brought

that several men-of-war were coming from England with some gentlemen

of distinction on board, and preparations were made to receive them.

At the next meeting of the General Court a day of fasting and prayer

was appointed, and their patent and its duplicate were brought into

Court and committed to the charge of four trusty men for safe-keeping.

The ships arrived in July, with four commissioners having authority

for reducing the Dutch at Manhados, and for visiting the several New

England colonies, and hearing and determining all matters of complaint,

and settling the peace and security of the country. Proceeding on their

errand to the Manhados, the Dutch surrendered on articles.[534] In the

mean time an address was agreed upon by the Court to be sent to the

King, in which was recounted the sacrifices and early struggles of the

colonists, while they prayed for the preservation of their liberties.

Colonel Nichols remaining in New York, the other commissioners returned

to New England, and, having despatched their business elswhere, came

to Boston in May, 1665, after they had been joined by Colonel Nichols.

Governor Endicott had died the preceding March, and Mr. Bellingham,

the deputy-governor, stood in his place. The commissioners laid their

claim before the Court, and demanded an answer. There was skirmishing

on both sides. It is a long story, filling many pages of the colony

records. The envoys asked to have their commission acknowledged by

the government; but this would have overridden the charter of the

colony, and placed the inhabitants at the mercy of their enemies. In

short, the authorities refused to yield, and the commissioners, after

being defeated in other attempts to effect their purpose, were called

home. Several letters and addresses followed. Thus ended for a time

the contest with the Crown. For nearly ten years there was an almost

entire suspension of political relations between New England and the

mother country. But the projects of the Home Government were not given

over. Gorges and Mason persisted in their claims. In the mean time

New England was ravaged by an Indian war, known as Philip’s War. The

distress was great, and the loss of life fearful. During its progress

Edward Randolph, the evil genius of New England, appeared on the scene,

prepared for mischief.

[Illustration: MEETING-HOUSE AT HINGHAM.

[This is considered the oldest meeting-house in present use in New

England. It was erected in 1681. Cf. _The Commemorative Services of

the First Parish in Hingham on the Two Hundredth Anniversary of the

Building of its Meeting-House, Aug. 8, 1881_ (Hingham, 1882), with

another view of the building,—a photograph; also E. A. Horton’s

_Discourse_, Jan. 8, 1882. A meeting-house of similar type, erected

in Lynn in 1682, is represented in _Lynn, Her First Two Hundred and

Fifty Years_, p. 117.

[Illustration]

The annexed autographs, taken from a document in the _Trumbull

Manuscripts_, in the Massachusetts Historical Society’s Cabinet, and

dated 1690, represent some of the leading ministers of the colony

at the close of the colonial period. Morton was of Charlestown;

Allen of Boston; Wigglesworth, the author of the _Day of Doom_, a

sulphurous poem greatly famous in its day, was of Malden; Moodey was of

Portsmouth; Willard and Mather of Boston; and Walter of Roxbury.—ED.]]

He arrived in July, 1676, with a letter from the King and with

complaints from Mason and Gorges, and armed with a royal order for

agents to be sent to England to make answer. This was but the

beginning of the end. The legal authorities in England, before whom

the case was brought, decided that neither Maine nor New Hampshire was

within the chartered limits of Massachusetts, and that the title of the

former was in the grandson of the original proprietor. Whereupon the

agent of Massachusetts bought the patent of Maine from its proprietor

for £1,250, and stood in his shoes as lord paramount.

[Illustration]

This greatly displeased the King, and the hostility to the colony

continued. Additional charges, such as illegal coining of money,

violations of the laws of trade and navigation, and legislative

provisions repugnant to the laws of England and contrary to the power

of the charter, were now alleged against the colony. The agents of

the colony and the emissaries of the Crown crossed and recrossed the

ocean with apologies on the one hand and requisitions on the other;

but nothing would satisfy the Crown but the subjugation of the colony.

A _quo warranto_ against the Governor and Company was issued in 1683;

and finally, by a new suit of _scire facias_ brought in the Court of

Chancery, judgment against the Company was entered up Oct. 23, 1684.

Intelligence of this was not officially received till the following

summer. Meantime the new king, James II., was proclaimed, April 20,

1685. The government of the colony was expiring. The “Rose” frigate

arrived in Boston May 14, 1686, bringing a commission for Joseph Dudley

as President of the Council for Massachusetts Bay, New Hampshire,

and Maine, and the Narraganset country, or King’s Province. There

was no House of Deputies to oppose him. Dudley was succeeded by Sir

Edmund Andros on the 19th of December, who had arrived in the frigate

“Kingfisher,” with a commission for the government of New England. He

was detested by the colony, and the people only needed a rumor of the

revolution in England, which reached Boston in the spring of 1689, to

provoke a rising, and he was thrown into prison.[535] A provisional

government, with the old charter-officers, was instituted, and

continued till the new charter of 1691 was inaugurated.

MAINE.—There were many settlements on the coast of Maine prior to

the grant to Gorges from the Council in 1635, and consequently before

his subsequent charter from the King. Indeed, very little was done

by Gorges as Lord Proprietor of Maine. The patents from the Council

to the year 1633 had embraced the whole territory from Piscataqua to

Penobscot, thus including the territory on both sides the Kennebec,

which was claimed by the Pilgrims of Plymouth under their patent of

Jan. 13, 1629/30. In various places settlements had already been begun.

In the royal charter to Gorges, whose grant extended from Piscataqua to

Sagadahoc, the rights of previous grantees were reserved to them, they

relinquishing or laying down their _jura regalia_.

[Illustration]

The earliest permanent settlement in this State, on the mainland,

would seem to have been made at Pemaquid. One John Brown, of New

Harbor, bought land in that quarter of the Indians as early as July

15, 1625, the acknowledgment of the deed being taken by Abraham Shurt,

of Pemaquid, in the same month in the following year, if there is no

error in Shurt’s deposition. Shurt says that he came over as the agent

of the subsequent proprietors, Aldsworth and Elbridge, who had a grant

of Pemaquid from the Council, issued Feb. 29, 1631/32, and that he

bought for them the Island of Monhegan, on which a fishing settlement,

temporarily broken up in 1626, was made three years before.

The settlement at the mouth of the Saco River must have begun soon

after Richard Vines took possession of his grant there in 1630.

During the same year Cleeves and Tucker settled near the mouth of

the Spurwink; but in two years they removed to the neck of land on

which Portland now stands, and laid the foundation of that city. In

applications to the Council for grants of land made respectively to

Walter Bagnall and John Stratton, Dec. 2, 1631, the former represents

himself to have lived in New England “for the space of seven years,”

and the latter “three years last past.” Bagnall’s patent included

Richmond Island, where he had lived some three years at least. He was

killed by the Indians two months before the Council acted upon his

application. Stratton’s grant was located at Cape Porpoise. Bagnall

probably had been one of Thomas Morton’s unruly crew at Mt. Wollaston,

in Boston Harbor.

In 1630 what is known as the “Plough Patent” was issued by the Council.

The original parchment is lost, and it is nowhere recorded. The grant

was bounded on the east by Cape Elizabeth, and on the west by Cape

Porpoise, a distance of some thirty miles on the sea-coast. This

included the patents on the Saco River previously granted, against

which Vines protested. There was early a dispute as to its extent. The

holders of it came over in the ship “Plough,” in 1631. They went to the

eastward; but not liking the place, came to Boston. They subsequently

fell out among themselves, and, as Winthrop says, “vanished away.”

Afterward the patent fell into the hands of others, and played an

important part for a number of years in the history of Maine, of which

notice will be taken further on.

On Dec. 2, 1631, a grant of land of twenty-four thousand acres in

extent was made to a number of persons, including Ferdinando Gorges,

a grandson of Sir Ferdinando, then some three years of age. This

territory was on both sides of the Acomenticus River. Some settlements

were made here about this time, and April 10, 1641, after the

Gorges government was established, the borough of Acomenticus was

incorporated, and in the following March the place was chartered as the

city of “Gorgeana.”

There were other early settlements on the coast of Maine, but we have

no space for their enumeration. The inhabitants, really or nominally,

for the most part sympathized with the Loyalist party as well in

politics as in religion, and it was the policy of the proprietor of

Maine to foster no opposing views. They were subjected to no external

government until the arrival of Captain William Gorges, in 1636, as

deputy-governor, with commissions to Richard Vines and others as

councillors of the province, to which the name of “New Somersetshire”

was given. The first meeting of the commissioners was held at Saco,

March 25, 1636, where the first provincial jurisdiction in this section

of New England was exercised. The records of this province do not

extend beyond 1637, and it is uncertain whether the courts continued

to be held until the new organization of the government of Maine in

1640. In 1636 George Cleeves, a disaffected person who lived at Casco,

went to England, and next year returned with a commission from Sir

Ferdinando Gorges, authorizing several persons in Massachusetts Bay to

govern his province of New Somersetshire, and to oversee his servants,

etc. The authorities of the Bay declined the service, and the matter

“passed in silence.” Winthrop says they did not see what authority

Gorges had to grant such commissions.

The charter of Maine, which covered the same territory as New

Somersetshire, having been granted to Sir Ferdinando Gorges, he issued

a commission for its government. This included a number of his kinsmen,

with Thomas Gorges as deputy-governor. The first General Court under

this government was held at Saco, June 25, 1640, under an earlier

commission and before the arrival of the deputy-governor. This Court

exercised the powers of an executive and legislative, as well as of a

judicial, body, in the name of “Sir Ferdinando Gorges, Knight, Lord

Proprietor of the Province of Maine.” The second term of the Court was

held in September, when the Deputy-Governor was present. He made his

headquarters at Gorgeana. The records of the courts between 1641 and

1644, inclusive, are not preserved. Deputy-Governor Gorges sailed for

England in 1643, leaving Richard Vines at the head of the government.

At a meeting held at Saco in 1645, the Court, not having heard from

the proprietor, appointed Richard Vines deputy-governor for one year,

and if he departed within the year, Henry Josselyn was to take his

place. The civil war was raging in England at this time, and Sir

Ferdinando Gorges was active for the King, and was in Prince Rupert’s

army at the siege of Bristol. When that city was retaken by the

Parliamentary forces, in 1645, he was plundered and imprisoned. Under

these circumstances he had no time to give to his distant province.

In 1645 the Court ordered that Richard Vines shall have power to take

possession of all goods and chattels of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, and to

pay such debts as Gorges may owe.

But Gorges’ authority was not, meanwhile, without its rival. Not long

after the government under the charter of 1639 had been organized,

George Cleeves, of Casco, again went to England, and induced Alexander

Rigby, “a lawyer and Parliament-man,” from Wigan, Lancashire, to

purchase the abandoned Plough patent before mentioned, which he

did, April 7, 1643; and Cleeves received a commission from him,

as deputy, to administer its affairs. By the following January he

had returned, and, landing at Boston, he solicited the aid of the

Massachusetts Government against the authority of Gorges; but that

Government declined to interfere. Cleeves claimed that Casco was within

the bounds of his patent, and he immediately set up his authority

as “Deputy-President of the Province of Lygonia,” extending his

jurisdiction over a large part of the Province of Maine, which was

then under the administration of Richard Vines, as deputy for Gorges.

This produced a collision, and both parties appealed to Massachusetts,

which declined, as before, to act; but finally, in 1646, after Vines

had left the country, the Bay Government consented to serve as umpire;

but no conclusion was reached. Winthrop says that both parties failed

of proof; and as a joint appeal had been made to the Commissioners for

Foreign Plantations in England, they were advised in the mean time to

live peaceably together. Rigby’s position and influence in Parliament

secured a decision in his favor, while Gorges at that time was in no

position to protect his interests. The decision of the Commissioners,

which was given in 1646, terminated Gorges’ jurisdiction over that part

of Maine included in the Province of Lygonia, embracing the settlements

from Casco to Cape Porpoise, and including both. The last General Court

under the authority of Gorges, of which any record exists, was held at

Wells, in July of this year.

At length, in 1649, the inhabitants of the western part of this

province, between Cape Porpoise and Piscataqua River,—including

Wells, Gorgeana, and Piscataqua,—having had intelligence in 1647 of

the death of the proprietor (Gorges died in May of that year, and was

buried on the fourteenth of the month), and finding no one in authority

there, and having in vain written to his heirs to ascertain their

wishes, formed a combination among themselves. Mr. Edward Godfrey was

chosen governor, the style of the “Province of Maine” being still

retained. This state of things continued till 1652/53, when the towns

were annexed to Massachusetts. The inhabitants then living between

Casco and the Kennebec were few in number. Thomas Purchase, one of the

proprietors of the Pejepscot patent, had, in 1639, conveyed a large

tract to Massachusetts with alleged powers of government over it. The

people living within the Kennebec patent were regarded as belonging to

the jurisdiction of New Plymouth.

In the mean time the inhabitants under the Lygonia government quietly

submitted to its authority. Alexander Rigby died in August, 1650, and

the proprietorship of Lygonia fell to his son Edward. In brief, the

government was soon at an end. The inhabitants of Cape Porpoise and

Saco submitted to Massachusetts in 1652, and the remaining settlements

in 1658. Thus was accomplished what the Bay Colony had for some time

been aiming to effect,—the bringing of these eastern settlements under

her jurisdiction. Having decided that the northern boundary of her

patent extended three miles above the northernmost head of the Merrimac

River, the commissioners appointed on a recent survey showed that the

northern line, as run by them, terminated at Clapboard Island (about

three miles eastward of Casco peninsula); and this brought the Maine

settlements within the bounds of the Massachusetts charter. This state

of things continued till after the restoration of Charles II., when

the hopes of those favorable to the Gorges interest began to revive.

Young Ferdinando Gorges, the grandson and heir of the old proprietor,

petitioned the Crown to be restored to his inheritance. His agent,

Mr. Archdale, came into the province, and appointed magistrates to

act under his authority, but the Government of Massachusetts speedily

repressed all such movements. Charles II., however, soon directed his

attention to New England. He appointed four commissioners to proceed

thither, charged with important duties and clothed with large powers.

They, or three of them, visited the province in the summer of 1665, and

at York issued a proclamation to the inhabitants of Maine, requiring

them to submit to the immediate protection and government of the

King; and in his Majesty’s name forbidding the magistrates either

of Massachusetts or of the claimant to exercise jurisdiction there,

until his Majesty’s pleasure should be further known. A provisional

government was therefore established, and the revival of the Church of

England was encouraged.

In the previous year the Duke of York received a charter of the

Province of New York, and, embraced within the same document, was a

grant of the territories between the St. Croix and Pemaquid, which was

interpreted to include Pemaquid and its dependencies; and a government

was subsequently erected there under the name of Cornwall County.

After the Duke became King it was a royal province. This was beyond

the eastern bounds of the Province of Maine. There had scarcely been

even a pretence of a civil government here under the old patents. The

Royal Commissioners speak of the low moral condition of the people of

this region. “For the most part,” they say, “they are fishermen, and

share in their wives as they do in their boats.” The government under

the Duke of York was of an uncertain character, and was subject to

the contingencies of political changes; and in 1674 the Government of

Massachusetts, on the petition of the inhabitants, took them for a time

under its protection. During the Indian wars which scourged the eastern

settlements, in the latter part of that century, the Pemaquid country

was wholly depopulated.

[Illustration]

The Government established by the Royal Commissioners in the Province

of Maine never possessed any permanent principle or power to give

sanction to its authority, and in 1668 it had nearly died out; at this

time the inhabitants there looked to the wise and stable Government of

Massachusetts for relief, and so petitioned to be again taken under its

jurisdiction. Four commissioners, therefore, accompanied by a military

escort were sent from the Bay, and reaching York in July, 1668, assumed

jurisdiction “by virtue of their charter.” There were a few prominent

individuals who did not quietly submit, but they were summarily dealt

with. Renewed exertions were now made by the proprietor and his friends

for a recognition of his title, and at length they so far prevailed as

to obtain letters from the King, dated March 10, 1675/76, requiring

the Massachusetts Colony to send over agents with full instructions to

answer all complaints. The agents appeared within the time specified,

and after a full hearing the authorities decided that neither Maine nor

New Hampshire was within the chartered limits of Massachusetts, and

that the government of Maine belonged to the heir of Sir Ferdinando

Gorges. Soon after this decision an agent of Massachusetts made a

proposition for the purchase of the province, which was accepted; and

in March, 1677/78, Ferdinando Gorges transferred his title for £1,250,

and Massachusetts became lord-paramount of Maine. This proceeding was

a surprise to the inhabitants of the province, and, as might have been

expected, gave offence to the King, who ineffectually demanded that the

bargain should be cancelled. Massachusetts, as the lawful assign of

Ferdinando Gorges, now took possession of the province. A proclamation

to that effect was issued March 17, 1679/80; and a government was set

up at York, of which Thomas Danforth was deputed to be president for

one year. This state of things continued till the accession of James

II., when the events in Maine were shaped by the revolution which took

place in Massachusetts, and Danforth was in the end provisionally

restored, as Bradstreet had been in the Bay.

NEW HAMPSHIRE.—The first settlement in New Hampshire was made by David

Thomson, a Scotchman, in the spring of 1623, at Little Harbor, on the

south side of the mouth of Piscataqua River. He had received a patent

from the Council of New England the year before, and came over in the

ship “Jonathan,” of Plymouth, under an indentured agreement with three

merchants of Plymouth in England. He lived at Little Harbor till 1626,

when he removed to an island in Boston Harbor, which now bears his

name. By 1628 he had died, leaving a wife and child. There is reason

to believe that the settlement at Little Harbor was continued after

Thomson left the place.

Following Thomson,—perhaps about 1627,—came Edward Hilton, a

fishmonger of London, who settled six miles up the river, on a place

afterward called Hilton’s Point, or Dover Neck. Here he was joined by a

few others, including his brother William and his family, who had been

at New Plymouth. In 1630 Hilton and his associates received from the

Council a patent of the place on which he was settled. This was dated

March 12, 1629 (O. S.), and the whole or part of it they soon sold to

some merchants of Bristol in England. Two years later the patent, or a

large interest in it, was purchased by Lord Say, Lord Brook, and other

gentlemen friendly to Massachusetts. This latter agreement was effected

through the agency of Thomas Wiggin, who had gone over to England in

1632, and who in the following year returned, bringing with him a large

accession to the settlement, which included a “worthy Puritan divine,”

who soon left for want of adequate support. Other ministers came, and

some laymen, all of whom had been in bad repute in Massachusetts.

Although the inhabitants went through the form of electing magistrates,

there was no authorized government. The original proprietor of the

patent had left the place, and scenes of confusion, both civil and

ecclesiastical, sometimes highly amusing, characterized the settlement

for a number of years. In 1637 the people combined into a body politic,

which seems not to have received general sanction, and the notorious

George Burdett supplanted Wiggin, the former governor; but the troubles

which subsequently ensued led to a new combination, Oct. 22, 1640,

signed by forty-two persons, or nearly every resident. Massachusetts

had for some years desired to bring the several governments on the

Piscataqua and its branches under her jurisdiction, and had, by an

early revision of the northern boundary of her patent, decided that

it included them. The inhabitants here desired to be under a stable

government, and on June 14, 1641, they submitted to the Massachusetts

authorities, and the Act of Union was passed by that Government, Oct. 9

following.[536]

The next independent settlement was made by the Laconia Company in

1630. This company was formed soon after the Laconia patent of Nov.

17, 1629, was granted to Sir Ferdinando Gorges and John Mason. It was

an unincorporated association of nine persons, most of whose names

appear in a subsequent grant of land, to be presently mentioned. Some

of these associates had been members of the Canada Company, of which

Sir William Alexander was the head, who had undertaken the conquest of

Canada as a private enterprise, under the command of Sir David Kirke.

The fur-trade of that province was the tempting prize. The sudden peace

which followed the conquest, with the stipulation that all articles

captured should be restored, brought the Canada Company to grief. Ten

days after the return of the expedition, Sir Ferdinando Gorges and John

Mason took out the patent above mentioned. The purpose of the Company

was to engage in the fur-trade; to send cargoes of Indian truck-goods

to the Piscataqua and unlade them at their factories near the mouth of

the river, and thence to transport them in boats or canoes up the river

to Lake Champlain, to be bartered there for peltries for the European

market. Their patent was a grant of a vaguely bounded territory on

the lakes of the Iroquois, which they named Laconia. The first vessel

despatched to Piscataqua was the barque “Warwick,” which sailed from

London the last of March, 1630, and which by the first of June had

arrived, with Walter Neal, governor, and Ambrose Gibbons, factor, and

some others. They took possession of the house and land at Odiorne’s

Point, Little Harbor, which Thomson had left in 1626,—perhaps by

an agreement with his associates. In the following year others were

sent. Stations for the Company’s operations were also established at

Strawberry Bank (Portsmouth), and at Newichwaneck (South Berwick), on

the eastern side of the river. Captain Neal was charged with the duty

of penetrating into the interior of the country in search of the lakes

of Laconia. This he finally attempted, but without success. Hubbard

says that “after three years spent in labor and travel for that end,

or other fruitless endeavors, and expense of too much estate, they

returned back to England with a _non est inventa Provincia_.” The

Company also attempted to carry on, in connection with the peltry

business, the manufacture of clapboards and pipe-staves, and the making

of salt from sea-water. A fishing station was also set up at the Isles

of Shoals. Large quantities of truck-goods were sent over, which were

put off to advantage for furs brought to the factories by the Indians.

In order to afford the Company greater facilities, and to secure to

themselves what they had already gained, they had, on Nov. 3, 1631,

procured a grant from the Council of a tract of land on each side of

the Piscataqua River, in which the Isles of Shoals were included.

But success did not attend their operations. The returns were

inadequate to the outlay, and there was bad management and alleged bad

faith on the part of the employés; the larger part of the associates

became discouraged, and at the end of the third year they decided to

proceed no further till Captain Neal should return and report upon the

condition of affairs. Neal left Piscataqua July 15, 1633, and sailed

from Boston in August. His report was probably not encouraging, for

the Company proceeded later to wind up its affairs, and in December

following they divided their lands on the east side of the river. In

May, 1634, a further division was made, by which it appears that Gorges

and Mason, by purchase from their partners, had acquired one half

of the shares; and of this part Mason owned three fourths. Gibbons,

their factor, was now directed to discharge all the servants and pay

them off in beaver. Mason next sent over a new supply of men, and set

up two saw-mills on his own portion of the lands; but after this we

have no account of anything being done by him or by any other of the

adventurers on the west side. Neither have we seen evidence of any

division of lands having been made on the west side. Hubbard says that

in some “after division” Little Harbor fell to Mason, who mentions it

in his will. But Mason in that instrument claims and bequeaths his

whole grant of New Hampshire of April 22, 1635, which included the

part mentioned by Hubbard. Mason died before the close of the year

1635. What course was taken by his late partners or by the heirs of

Mason during the two following years, there are but few contemporary

documents to tell us. In 1638 Mrs. Mason, the executrix of John Mason’s

estate, appointed Francis Norton her general attorney to look after her

interests in those parts. But the expenses were found to be so great

and the income so small, and the servants were so clamorous for their

arrears of pay, that she was obliged to relinquish the care of the

plantation, and tell the servants to shift for themselves. Upon this

they shared the goods and cattle, while some kept possession of the

buildings and improvements, claiming them as their own. Charges were

afterward brought against her agents and servants for embezzling the

estate. Some years later suits were brought in her name and in that

of the other proprietors in the courts of Massachusetts against the

inhabitants of Strawberry Bank and of Newichwaneck, for encroaching

upon the lands in the Laconia patent. As a conclusion of this summary

sketch of the Laconia Company, it may be added that the records of the

old Court of Requests of London show that, on the dissolution of the

Company, suits sprang up among the adventurers themselves, which were

for a long time in litigation.

After Captain Neal went to England the Company appointed Francis

Williams to be governor in his place. As Strawberry Bank (the place was

not called Portsmouth till 1653) had no efficient government during

all this time, the inhabitants now by a written instrument, signed by

forty-one persons, formed a combination among themselves, as Dover had

done, and Francis Williams was continued governor. The people belonged

principally to the Church of England, and during this combination they

set apart fifty acres of land for a glebe, committing it in trust

to two church wardens.[537] Reference has already been made to the

successful attempts of the Massachusetts Government to bring all the

Piscataqua settlements under her jurisdiction. The people of Strawberry

Bank were as successfully wrought upon as those of Dover were, and the

same agreement of June 14, 1641, included the submission of both, and

certain proprietors named, in behalf of themselves and of the other

partners of the two patents, subscribed to the paper.

Of no one of the grants issued to John Mason, or in which he had a

joint interest, covering the territory of New Hampshire (except those

connected with the Laconia Company) did he make any improvement,—and

these grants were that of Aug. 10, 1622, with Gorges, between the

Merrimac and Sagadahoc; that of Nov. 7, 1629, between the Merrimac

and the Piscataqua; and that of April 22, 1635, between Naumkeag and

the Piscataqua. The territory now known as New Hampshire was never

called by that name, except by Mason in his last will, till 1661, when,

through the discussions consequent upon the claims of the heir of

Mason, this designation was introduced for the first time.

The independent settlement at Exeter was made in 1638 by John

Wheelwright and others; and of these pioneers Wheelwright himself with

some companions had been banished from Massachusetts in the previous

year. They bought their lands in April of that year from the Indians.

On the 5th of June, 1639, they formed a combination as a church and

as subjects of King Charles, promising to submit to all laws to be

made. It was signed by thirty-one persons, of whom fourteen made

their marks. In 1643 they came under Massachusetts. The order of the

General Court of that colony recites, under date of September 7, that,

finding themselves within the bounds of Massachusetts, the inhabitants

petitioned to be taken under her jurisdiction. Wheelwright then removed

to Wells, in the Province of Maine.

Hampton, where the “bound-house” was built by Massachusetts in 1636,

was considered from the first as belonging to the jurisdiction

of Massachusetts. A union having been thus formed between the

settlements on the Piscataqua River and its branches and the colony of

Massachusetts, their history for the next forty years is substantially

the same. These plantations were governed by the general laws of

Massachusetts, and the terms of union were strictly observed.[538]

But Massachusetts was destined to be arraigned by the heir of the old

patentee of New Hampshire, Robert Tufton Mason, who at the Restoration

pressed his claim on the attention of the Crown. Finally, after a long

struggle, the judges in 1677 advised that Mason had no right to the

government of New Hampshire, but that the four towns of Portsmouth,

Dover, Exeter, and Hampton were beyond the bounds of Massachusetts,

whose northern boundary was thereby driven back to its old limits,

while its charter of 1629 was held to be valid. In 1679 a revised

opinion was given by the attorney, Jones, to the effect that Mason’s

title to the soil must be tried on the spot, where the ter-tenants

could be summoned. A new government was now instituted by the Crown for

New Hampshire, and a commission was issued to John Cutt as president

for one year.

This form of government, the administration of which was arbitrary and

very unpopular throughout the province, continued till the time of

Dudley and Andros, whose commissions rode over all others preceding. On

the downfall of Andros New Hampshire was for a short time again united

to Massachusetts.

CONNECTICUT.—Connecticut was settled in 1635 and 1636 by emigrants

from three towns in Massachusetts,—namely, Dorchester, Watertown,

and Newtown (Cambridge); those from Newtown arriving in 1636. Their

places of settlement on the Connecticut River bore for a while the

names of the towns in Massachusetts whence the emigrants came; but

in February, 1637, the names of Windsor, Wethersfield, and Hartford

were substituted.

[Illustration]

The Rev. Thomas Hooker and the Rev. Samuel Stone accompanied the

people from Newtown. The Rev. John Warham joined his people at

Windsor, and the Rev. Henry Smith was chosen pastor of the church at

Wethersfield. These several communities, though beyond the borders

of Massachusetts, were instituted under her protection, and for one

year they were governed by a commission issuing from the General Court

of that colony. Springfield, settled in 1636, was in this commission

united with the lower plantations. This provisional arrangement was

found to be inconvenient, and at the end of the year the several

towns took the government into their own hands, and a General Court

was held at Hartford, May 1, 1637. Preparations were now made for the

impending Pequot war, which called out all the strength of the feeble

settlements. On its conclusion, after arrangements had been made for

future security from savage foes, and for the purchase of food till

the new fields should become productive, the inhabitants of these

towns—Springfield, now suspected, and soon afterward declared, to be

within the bounds of Massachusetts, excepted—formed a constitution

among themselves, bearing date Jan. 14, 1638/39. This instrument has

been called “the first example in history of a written constitution,—a

distinct organic law constituting a government and defining its

powers.”[539] It contained no recognition of any external authority,

and provided that all persons should be freemen, who should be admitted

as such by the freemen of the towns, and should take the oath of

allegiance. It continued in force, with little alteration, for one

hundred and eighty years.

[Illustration]

John Haynes[540] was the first governor; and he and Edward Hopkins

held the office during most of the time for the next fifteen years. In

1657 John Winthrop, son of the Massachusetts governor, was chosen, and

continued to serve till the acceptance of the new charter by New Haven,

when he was continued in that office.

[Illustration: J Winthrop

[This portrait hangs in the gallery of the Massachusetts Historical

Society. A heliotype of it will be found in the _Winthrop Papers_, Part

iv., and in Bowen’s _Boundary Disputes of Connecticut_.—ED.]]

Meanwhile, in October, 1635, this same John Winthrop, Jr., had returned

from England with a commission from Lord Say and Sele, Lord Brook, and

others, their associates, patentees of Connecticut, constituting him

“governor of the River Connecticut, with the places adjoining,” for

the space of one whole year. He was instructed to build a fort near

the mouth of the river, and to erect habitations; and he was supplied

with means to carry out this purpose. He brought over with him one

Lion Gardiner, an expert engineer, who planned the fortifications,

and was appointed lieutenant-governor of the fort. It was expected

that a number of “gentlemen of quality” would come over to the colony,

and some disposition was at first shown to remove the settlers of the

towns on the river who had “squatted” on the lands of the Connecticut

patentees.

In the summer of 1639 George Fenwick, who was interested in the

patent, and his family came over in behalf of the patentees, and took

possession of the place, intending to build a town near the mouth of

the river. A settlement was made, and named Saybrook, in honor of

the two principal patentees. The government of the town was entirely

independent of Connecticut till 1644/45, when Fenwick, as agent of the

proprietors, transferred by contract to that government the fort at

Saybrook and its appurtenances, and the land upon the river, with a

pledge to convey all the land thence to Narragansett River, if it came

into his power to convey it.

[illustration: John Davenport

[The editor is indebted to Professor F. B. Dexter, of Yale College, for

a photograph of the original picture, which is in New Haven, painted on

panel, and bears the inscription, “J. D. obiit, 1670.” Davenport left

Connecticut in 1668 to become the successor of John Wilson in Boston,

and died as the pastor of the First Church in Boston, March 11, 1670.

Cf. _Memorial History of Boston_, i. 193, and the important paper on

Davenport by Professor Dexter, printed in the _New Haven Historical

Society’s Papers_, vol. ii.—ED.]]

In 1638 a settlement was made at Quinnipiack, afterward called New

Haven, under the lead of John Davenport. The emigrants, principally

from Massachusetts,—like those of the river towns,—had no patent or

title to the land on which they planted, but made a number of purchases

from the Indians. Here, in April, under the shelter of an oak, they

listened to a sermon by Davenport, and a few days afterward formed a

“plantation covenant,” as preliminary to a more formal engagement,—all

agreeing to be ordered by the rule of Scripture. This colony, as well

as that just described, sympathized substantially in religious views

with Massachusetts.

On the 4th of June, 1639, all the free planters met in a barn “to

consult about settling civil government according to God.” Mr.

Davenport prayed and preached, and they then proceeded, by his advice,

to form a government. They first decided that none but church members

should be free burgesses. Twelve men were then chosen, who out of

their own number chose seven to constitute a church and on the “seven

pillars” thus chosen rested also the responsibility of forming the

civil government. On October 29 these seven persons met, and, after

a solemn address to the Supreme Being, proceeded to form the body of

freemen, and to elect their civil officers. Theophilus Eaton was chosen

to be governor for that year; indeed, he continued to be rechosen

to the office for nearly twenty years, till his death. This was the

original, fundamental constitution of New Haven. A few general rules

were adopted, but no code of laws established. The Word of God was to

be taken as the rule in all things.

[Illustration: CONNECTICUT RIVER, 1661.

[This is taken from a Dutch map which appeared at Middleburgh and the

Hague in 1666, in a tract belonging to the controversy between Sir

George Downing and the States General. It follows the fac-simile given

in the Lenox edition of Mr. H. C. Murphy’s translation of the _Vertoogh

van Nieu Nederland_. It also is found as a marginal map in the _Pas

Kaart van de Zee Kusten van Nieu Nederland_, published at Amsterdam

by Van Keulen, which shows the coast from Narragansett Bay to Sandy

Hook, where is also a portion of the map of the Hudson given in the

notes following Mr. Fernow’s chapter in Vol. IV. The _Pas Kaart_ is in

Harvard College Library (Atlas 700, No. 9). No. 10 of the same atlas is

_Pas Kaart van de Zee Kusten inde Boght van Nieu Engeland_, which shows

the coast from Nantucket to Nova Scotia.—ED.]]

This year settlements were made at Milford and at Guilford, each for a

time being independent of any other plantation. Connecticut had also

interposed two new settlements between New Haven and the Dutch, at

Fairfield and at Stratford.

In 1642 the capital laws of Connecticut were completed and put upon

record; and in May, 1650, a code of laws known as “Mr. Ludlow’s Code”

was adopted. In 1643 Connecticut and New Haven were both included in

the New England Confederation, as mentioned on an earlier page, and the

articles of union were printed in 1656, with the code of laws which was

adopted by New Haven, as drawn up by Governor Eaton, the manuscript

having been sent to England to be printed.

The old patent of Connecticut mentioned in the agreement with Fenwick

seems never to have been made over to the colony; and they were very

anxious, on the restoration of Charles II. in 1660, for a royal

charter, which would secure to them a continuance and confirmation

of their rights and privileges. Governor John Winthrop was appointed

as agent to represent the colony in England, for this purpose; and

in April, 1662, he succeeded in procuring a charter, which included

the colony of New Haven. The charter conveyed most ample powers and

privileges for colonial government, and confirmed or conveyed the

whole tract of country which had been granted to Lord Say and Sele

and others. Mr. Davenport and other leading men of that colony were

entirely opposed to a union with Connecticut; and the acceptance of the

new charter was resisted till 1665, when the opposition was overcome,

and the colonies became united, and at the general election in May of

that year John Winthrop was elected to be governor.

It is needless to say that the church polity of Connecticut and New

Haven, from the beginning, was substantially that of Massachusetts.

Their clergymen assisted in framing the Cambridge Platform in 1648,

which was the guide of the churches for many years. Hooker’s _Survey_

and Cotton’s _Way of the Churches Cleared_ (London, 1648) were

published under one general titlepage covering both works. After a few

years the harmony of the churches was seriously disturbed by a set

of new opinions which sprang up in the church at Hartford, and which

finally culminated in the adoption by a general council of Connecticut

and Massachusetts churches, held in Boston in 1657, of the “Half-Way

Covenant.” New Haven held aloof. Political motives lent their influence

in the spread of the new views; and while the government of Connecticut

attempted to enforce the resolutions of the synod, the churches long

refused to comply.[541]

The union of the two communities under one charter gave strength to

both, and the colony prospered, while Winthrop felt the strong control

of a robust spirit in John Allyn, the secretary of the colony.[542]

There were of course constant occasions of annoyance and dissension,

both civil and religious. Their wily foe, the Indian, did not cease

wholly to disturb their repose. But during Philip’s War, which was so

disastrous to Massachusetts, Plymouth, and Rhode Island, there was

less suffering in Connecticut. Conflicts of jurisdiction, both east

and west, growing out of the uncertain boundaries of its grant, though

it ran west to the South Sea, were of long duration. No sooner had the

commissioners, appointed by the King in 1683, made a favorable decision

for Connecticut in her controversy with Rhode Island in regard to the

Narragansett country, than a new claimant arose. At the division of

the grand patent in 1635, James, Marquis of Hamilton, had assigned

to him the country between the Connecticut and the Narragansett

rivers; but his claim slumbered only to be revived by his heirs at

the Restoration,—and now a second time, through Edward Randolph, the

watchful and untiring enemy of New England. The prior grant to Lord

Say and Sele, confirmed by the charter of April 23, 1662, and the

settlement of the country under it, was cited by Connecticut in their

answer; and, in an opinion on the case a few years later, Sir Francis

Pemberton said that the answer was a good one.

[Illustration]

When James II. continued the attacks on the New England charters begun

by the late king, with a view to bring all the colonies under the

crown, Connecticut did not escape. A _quo warranto_ was issued against

the Governor and Company in July, 1685, and this was followed by

notices to appear and defend; but the colony resisted, and petitioned,

and final judgment was never entered. The colony’s language to the King

in one of its addresses to him was, however, construed as a surrender.

Andros went from Boston to Hartford in October, 1687, and at a meeting

of the Assembly, which was prolonged till midnight, demanded its

charter. The story goes, that, by a bold legerdemain, the parchment,

after the lights were blown out, was spirited away and hidden in the

hollow of an oak-tree; nevertheless Andros assumed the government of

the colony, under his commission. Thus matters continued till the

Revolution of 1689, when the colony resumed its charter.

RHODE ISLAND.—Rhode Island was settled by Roger Williams in 1636, he

having been banished from Massachusetts the year before. Professor

George Washington Greene, in his _Short History of Rhode Island_,

remarks, that in the settlement of the New England colonies the

religious idea lay at the root of their foundation and development;

that in Plymouth it took the form of separation, or a simple severance

from the Church of England; in Massachusetts Bay it aimed at the

establishment of a theocracy and the enforcement of a vigorous

uniformity of creed and discipline; and that from the resistance to

this uniformity came Rhode Island and the doctrine of soul-liberty.

Williams was banished from Massachusetts principally for political

reasons. His peculiar opinions relating to soul-liberty were not fully

developed until after he had taken up his residence in Rhode Island.

Five persons accompanied him to the banks of the Mooshausic, and

there they planted the town of Providence. Williams here purchased,

or received by gift, a tract of land from the Indians, and he had

no patent or other title to the soil. Additions were soon made to

the little settlement, and he divided the land with twelve of his

companions, reserving for them and himself the right of extending the

grant to others who might be admitted to fellowship. An association

of civil government was formed among the householders or masters of

families, who agreed to be governed by the orders of the greater

number. This was followed by another agreement of non-householders or

single persons, who agreed to subject themselves to such orders as

should be made by the householders, but “only in civil things.” This

latter is the earliest agreement on the records of the colony. In

1639, to meet the wants of an increasing community, five disposers or

selectmen were chosen, charged with political duties,—their actions

being subject to revision by the superior authority of the town

meetings.

[Illustration]

Meanwhile two other colonies had been planted on the shores of

Narragansett Bay. The first, partly from the ranks of the Antinomians

of Massachusetts, led by William Coddington and John Clarke, who

settled at Pocasset (Portsmouth), in the northern part of the Island

of Aquedneck in March, 1637/38; and their number so increased that in

the following year, 1639, a portion of them moved to the south part

of the island, and settled the town of Newport. Like Roger Williams,

the settlers had no other title to the land than what was obtained

from the natives. Another colony was planted at Shawomet (Warwick),

in January, 1642/43, by Samuel Gorton,—a notorious disturber of the

peace,—with about a dozen followers, who also secured an Indian title

to their lands. Gorton had been in Boston, Plymouth, Portsmouth, and in

Providence, and was an unwelcome resident in all, and at Portsmouth he

had been whipped.

[Illustration]

About 1640, with some followers, he came to Pawtuxet, in the south

part of Providence, and, taking sides in some previous land quarrel

there, prevailed. The weaker party appealed to Massachusetts for

protection, and finally subjected themselves and their lands to that

government; upon which Gorton and his followers fled south to Shawomet.

Soon afterward, by the surrender to Massachusetts of a subordinate

Indian chief, who claimed the territory there, purchased by Gorton of

Miantonomi, that Government made a demand of jurisdiction there also;

and as Gorton refused their summons to appear at Boston, Massachusetts

sent soldiers, and captured the inhabitants in their homes, took them

to Boston, tried them, and sentenced the greater part of them to

imprisonment for blasphemous language to the Massachusetts authorities.

They were finally liberated, and banished; and as Warwick was included

in the forbidden territory, they went to Rhode Island. Gorton and two

of his friends soon afterward went to England.

The inhabitants on the island formed themselves into a voluntary

association of government, as they had done at Providence. The

community at Warwick was at first without any form of government.

Feeling a sense of a common danger, the little settlements of

Providence and Rhode Island sent Roger Williams to England, in 1643, to

apply for a charter. He found the King at open war with the Parliament;

but from the Parliamentary commissioners, with the Earl of Warwick

at their head, he procured a charter of “Incorporation of Providence

Plantations in the Narragansett Bay in New England,” dated March 14,

1643; that is, 1644 (N. S.). Three years were allowed to pass before

the charter was formally accepted by the plantations; but in May,

1647, the corporators met at Portsmouth, and organized a government;

and Warwick, whither Gorton and his followers had now returned,

though not named in the charter, was admitted to its privileges. This

franchise was a charter of incorporation, as its title indicates; but

it contained no grant of land. It recites the purchase of lands from

the natives; and the Government under it claimed the exclusive right to

extinguish the Indian title to lands still owned by the tribes within

its boundaries. The code of laws adopted when the charter was accepted

is an attempt to codify the common and statute laws of England, or such

parts as were thought binding or would suit their condition.

Williams’s principle of liberty of conscience was sometimes interpreted

in the community to mean freedom from civil restraint, and harmony did

not always prevail. This gave cause to his enemies to exult, while his

friends feared lest their hope of reconciling liberty and law should

fail.

The attempt of Massachusetts to bring the territory of the colony under

her jurisdiction was a source of great annoyance. During this contest

an appeal to the authorities in England resulted in the triumph of the

weaker colony. Then came the “Coddington usurpation,”—an unexplained

episode in the history of Rhode Island, by which the island towns in

1651 were severed from the government of the colony; and Coddington, by

a commission from the Council of State in England, was made governor

for life. This revolution seemed for a time successful; but the friends

of the colony did not despair. Williams and John Clarke were sent to

England as agents,—the one in behalf of the former charter, and the

other to ask for a revocation of Coddington’s commission. They were

both successful; and in the following year the old civil _status_ was

fully restored.

As civil dissensions ceased, there was danger of another Indian

war, which for the time was arrested by the sagacity of Williams.

The refusal of the United Colonies to admit Rhode Island to their

confederacy placed her at great disadvantage. Yet though causes of

dissension remained, the colony grew in industry and strength. Newport

especially increased in population and in wealth. Not every inhabitant,

however, was a freeman. The suffrage was restricted to ownership in

land, and there was a long process of initiation to be passed through

before a candidate could be admitted to full citizenship.

Changes were taking place in England. Cromwell died, and his son

Richard soon afterward resigned the Protectorship. The restoration of

Charles II. followed by acclamation. The colony hastened to acknowledge

the new King; the acts of the Long Parliament were abrogated, and a

new charter was applied for through John Clarke, who still remained in

England. This instrument, dated Nov. 24, 1663, was evidently drawn up

by Clarke, or was prepared under his supervision. It confirmed to the

inhabitants freedom of conscience in matters of religion. It recounted

the purchase of the land from the natives, but it equally asserted

the royal prerogative and the ultimate dominion of the lands in the

Crown,—a provision which Williams had strenuously objected to and

preached against in the Massachusetts charter. The holding was from

the King, as of the manner of East Greenwich. This gave the colony, in

English law, an absolute title to the soil as against any foreign State

or its subjects. It operated practically as a pre-emptive right to

extinguish the Indian title. The charter created a corporation by the

name of “The Governor and Company of the English Colony of Rhode Island

and Providence Plantations in New England in America.”

[Illustration: THE MASSACHUSETTS PROPRIETORS OF THE NARRAGANSETT

COUNTRY.]

This charter gave the whole of the Narragansett country to the colony,

which the year before had been given to Connecticut; but it did not

bring peace. That colony still clamored for her charter boundary;

while a body of land speculators from Massachusetts, known as the

Atherton Company, who had, in violation of Rhode Island law, bought

lands at Quidnesett and Namcook, now insisted upon being placed under

Connecticut jurisdiction. The King’s commissioners, who arrived in the

country in 1664, charged with the duty of settling all disputes, came

into Rhode Island. They received the submission of the Narragansett

chiefs to the King, confirmatory of the same act performed in 1644, and

they set apart the Narragansett country, extending from the bay to the

Pawcatuck River, and named it King’s Province, and established a royal

government over it. Some other matters in dispute were happily settled.

The royal commissioners were well satisfied with the conduct of Rhode

Island.

The colony still grew, but it continued poor. About the year 1663

schools were established in Providence,—a tardy following of Newport,

which had employed a teacher in 1640. The colony was kept poor by the

great expense incurred in employing agents to defend itself from the

surrounding colonies, that wished to crush it. But another trouble

arose. A fearful war was impending, the bloodiest which the colony

had yet waged with the Indians. We have no space for the story; but

Philip’s War fell most heavily on Rhode Island, which furnished troops,

but was not consulted as to its management. Peace was at length

restored, and the Indians subdued; though they were still turbulent.

Connecticut had not yet renounced her claims on the Narragansett

country. Rhode Island set up her authority in the province, and

appointed officers for its government. Both colonies appealed to the

King. Within the colony itself now arose a most bitter controversy

respecting the limits and extent of the original Providence and

Pawtuxet purchase, which was not finally settled till the next century.

It grew out of the careless manner in which Roger Williams worded the

deeds to himself from the Indians, and also those which he himself gave

to the colony.

[Illustration]

The appeal of Connecticut and Rhode Island to the King resulted in a

commission, in 1683, headed by the notorious Cranfield, Governor of New

Hampshire, and including the no less notorious Edward Randolph. They

quarrelled with the authorities of Rhode Island, and decided in favor

of Connecticut.

In due time Rhode Island was a common sufferer with the rest of New

England, under the imposition of Andros and his commission. He came

into Rhode Island, and was kindly received. He broke the colony

seal, but the parchment charter was put beyond his reach. The colony

surrendered, and petitioned the King to preserve her charter, and then

fell back upon a provisional government of the towns. At the revolution

she resumed her charter, and later it was decided in England that it

had never been revoked and remained in full force.

CRITICAL ESSAY ON THE SOURCES OF INFORMATION.

THE COUNCIL FOR NEW ENGLAND.—Chalmers, _Annals_, 1780, p. 99, says

concerning the great patent of Nov. 3, 1620, “This patent which has

never been printed because so early surrendered, is in the old entries

of New England in the Plant. off.” I saw the parchment enrolment of

this charter in her Majesty’s Public Record Office, in Fetter Lane,

London, and described it in full in _Amer. Antiq. Soc. Proc._, for

April, 1867, p. 54. It was first printed by Hazard, _Historical

Collections_, vol. i. 1792, pp. 103-118, probably from a manuscript

copy in the Superior Court files, N. H.[543]

The petition of the Northern Colony for a new charter, dated March

3, 1619/20, and the warrant to his Majesty’s Solicitor-General to

prepare such a patent, dated July 23, 1620, may be seen in Brodhead’s

_Documents_, etc., iii. 2-4. The warrant is also in Gorges’ _Briefe

Narration_, p. 21.

The opposition of the Virginia Company to the granting of this patent

may be seen in their records as published by Neill., _History of the

Virginia Company of London_, 1869, _passim_; also in Gorges’ _Briefe

Narration_, pp. 22-31; in the Council’s Briefe Relation,[544] pp.

18-22; and in Brodhead’s _Documents_, iii. 4. The opposition of the

House of Commons to the patent, after it had passed the seals, may be

best seen in the printed _Journals of the House_ for the sessions of

1621 and 1624. Chalmers’ extracts are to the point, but are not full.

See also Gorges, and the _Briefe Relation_, as above. For the answer

to the French ambassador, see also Sainsbury’s _Calendar, Colonial_,

p. 61. The history of the transactions of the Council may be largely

gathered from their extant records as published in _Amer. Antiq. Soc.

Proc._, for April, 1867, and for October, 1875; from Gorges, and from

the _Briefe Relation_. Cf. Palfrey, i. 193.