SAMUELL GORTON
The Rhode Island Series.
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1. MARY DYER OF RHODE ISLAND, THE QUAKER MARTYR THAT WAS HANGED ON
BOSTON COMMON JUNE 1, 1660. BY JUDGE HORATIO ROGERS.
2. A SUMMER VISIT OF THREE RHODE ISLANDERS TO THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY IN
1651: ITS INNOCENT PURPOSE AND ITS PAINFUL CONSEQUENCES. BY HENRY
MELVILLE KING.
3. SAMUELL GORTON: A FORGOTTEN FOUNDER OF OUR LIBERTIES; FIRST SETTLER
OF WARWICK. BY LEWIS G. JANES.
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IN PREPARATION:
4. THOMAS OLNEY, JUNIOR, TOWN CLERK. BY EDWARD FIELD.
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_Uniform, 12mo., cloth, $1.00 net each._
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SAMUELL GORTON:
A FORGOTTEN FOUNDER OF OUR LIBERTIES
FIRST SETTLER OF WARWICK, R. I.
BY
LEWIS G. JANES
AUTHOR OF “A STUDY OF PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY,”
ETC.
“More ideas which have become National, have emanated from the little
Colony of Rhode Island, than from all the other American States.”—GEORGE
BANCROFT, in Address before the New York Historical Society.
PROVIDENCE
PRESTON AND ROUNDS
1896
COPYRIGHT, 1896
BY
PRESTON AND ROUNDS
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
PRESS OF
E. L. FREEMAN & SONS, PROVIDENCE, R. I.
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PREFACE
It has been the misfortune of Rhode Island to have had its earlier
history written and read under the bias of prejudices engendered by the
controversies which led to its settlement. Justice has not yet been done
to the prescience and statesmanship of the remarkable men who were the
builders of the first Commonwealth in the world’s history dedicated to
Soul Liberty.
Among these men, none were possessed of a personality more striking and
picturesque than the subject of this paper, Samuell Gorton. The cordial
reception of this brief historical sketch by the distinguished audience
which gave it a hearing before the Rhode Island Historical Society has
induced me to consent to its publication. It has since been carefully
revised, and a few doubtful points have been cleared up as well as the
character of all available data will permit.
I am indebted to Mr. William D. Ely and Mr. Charles Gorton, of
Providence, and Mr. Adelos Gorton, of Philadelphia, for valuable aid and
suggestion in perfecting this revision. It is hoped that the publication
may stimulate further research in the interesting field of our Colonial
history. A native of Rhode Island, the writer traces his ancestry by two
distinct lines to the Mayflower, while the first of his family name in
America was one of the earliest settlers of the New Haven Colony. He is
therefore able to approach the subject without undue bias of ancestral
prejudice, and with the sole desire of vindicating the truth of
impartial history.
L. G. J.
BROOKLYN, N. Y., May 25, 1896.
SAMUELL GORTON:
A FORGOTTEN FOUNDER OF OUR LIBERTIES
FIRST SETTLER OF WARWICK, R. I.
I
WARWICK, NEW AND OLD
The town of Warwick, R. I., is not to-day of remarkable interest to the
antiquary or seeker after the venerable relics of bygone days. It has
“come out into the newness” of our nineteenth century life. Its streams
respond to the music of the flying shuttle and the turning wheel with a
dash and hurry almost human in their restlessness. Half a score of
flourishing manufacturing villages lend their potent aid to make it the
sixth town, in population, in the State having a larger number of
inhabitants to the square mile than any other in the American Union.
The old Colonial and Revolutionary dwellings were largely, doubtless, of
a humble sort, and have given place to the more prosperous farm-houses
and pretentious mansions of a generation that knows not the ways of the
fathers. The busy Pawtuxet and its tributary streams, partly excused
from the drudgery of mill-turning by the more potent substitutes of the
later day, are pumped away to quench the thirst of the distant city
whose contentions a quarter of a millenium ago drove Samuell Gorton[1]
and his colleagues to seek their homes in the Shawomet wilderness, there
to become the founders of a State.
Yet the Warwick of to-day, in its summer dress, well repays the visitor
who may chance upon its hospitable soil. All along its beautiful shores
arise pleasant homes and hostelries for the accommodation of the summer
visitor; while inland, the rolling hills, prosperous with growing grass
and coming harvests, are not without a quiet and restful beauty which
pleases the eye, and solaces the mind and heart. In the little hamlet of
Apponaug, close by Coweset Bay, the brave new Town Hall, one of the
finest in New England, testifies to the enterprise as well as to the
prosperity of the people. Its newness is in harmonious touch with the
prevalent appearance of the country around it. There is nothing old,
apparently, in old Warwick but the sub-soil and rocks, and here and
there a venerable tree antedating European occupation, beneath the
branches of which Pomham and Soccononocco, with their dusky braves, may
have sat and smoked the pipe of peace with the men of Massachusetts, or
taken counsel as to the best means of circumventing the united wiles of
the head-sachem of the Narragansetts, Miantonomi, and his persistent
allies, the pale-faced “Gortonoges.”
Yet old Warwick has a history surpassed in interest by none other of the
New England settlements. Its founder was a man of intellectual and moral
force, worthy to rank with Roger Williams, William Bradford, and the
other noble founders of our liberties. He was a man much misrepresented
in his day and generation, and but little remembered and understood even
in our own time, when history is being studied anew in the light of
evolution and a true historical method, and reconstructed on the
principles of enlightened scholarship and impartial justice. The later
history of Warwick also has much of interest for the patriotic American.
On its shores the first blow of our Revolutionary struggle was struck,
in the capture and destruction of the British schooner Gaspee; while the
heights of Warwick Neck were then crowned with a fort, long since
dismantled, for the protection of the settlements around Coweset Bay
from the attacks of the English.
It is the Warwick of the seventeenth century, not that of the eighteenth
or nineteenth, that I would fain call to the minds of my readers,—the
Warwick whose inland acres were covered with the primitive wilderness,
where wolves and Indians were at home,[2] and the white man was a
stranger; the Warwick which Samuell Gorton sought after being frozen out
of Boston, banished from Plymouth and Pocasset, and driven by
contentions from Providence and Pawtuxet.
Yonder, on Conimicut Point, he built his block-house,[3] and therein
defied for a day and a night the force of Puritans and savages in equal
numbers, aggregating more than four times his own, which Massachusetts
sent against him; finally surrendering to superior battalions to prevent
blood-shed. Farther south, at the head of Warwick Cove, a quiet arm of
the Narragansett, stood his humble homestead, where he passed his
declining years in the honorable service of the Town and Commonwealth
which he helped to found; the land surrounding which has remained in
unbroken succession in the hands of his descendants to the present day.
Near by, John Greene, John Wickes, Randall Holden and the other men,
good and true, who were his colleagues and supporters, cleared and
tilled their allotted acres, making the wilderness to blossom as the
rose.
Yes, there are after all some reminders of these primitive times besides
the sub-soil and the ancient cedar by the Potowomut River; for yonder,
at Rocky Point, the perennial clambake celebrates in aboriginal fashion
and in their native haunts, the shore-feasts of the Indians. And down on
Potowomut Neck which Warwick won for her own after long and litigious
struggles, once the favorite camping ground of the aborigines, you may
still pick up the flint arrow-heads which they fashioned and left behind
them three centuries ago. You may paddle up the Pawtuxet, under the
over-arching branches of noble trees, into quiet reaches of the river,
where the hum of cities and the bustle of civilization seem remote
indeed. And in the new Town Hall at Apponaug you may shut out the noises
of the day, and curiously con the ancient records of the Town;—you may
see the very pages on which these pioneers of a new civilization bore
testimony to their humble beginnings, and told, in part, the story of
the building of a State. I have searched these records faithfully—here,
and in the library of the Historical Society at Providence, where other
precious manuscripts are preserved. Some of these men I have come to
know. I have thought their thoughts after them in deciphering their
writings. I have felt their throbbing human hearts, laboring to lay the
foundations of a Commonwealth wherein liberty should be secure under the
protection of law; wherein the civil power should have no control over
the consciences of men. Something of this would I lay before the
impartial reader; in justice to these men who so labored that we might
enter into their labors and reap the ripe fruits thereof; in justice
also to ourselves, that we as American citizens may not remain ignorant
of this forgotten chapter in the noble story of the beginnings of our
National life.
II
SOURCES OF INFORMATION
The story of Samuell Gorton is in a large part the narrative of the
beginnings of the Commonwealth of Rhode Island. If I mistake not, it
also constitutes an important and hitherto unrecognized chapter in the
history of the beginnings of our National life. It is a story but little
known to the average American citizen. It has been briefly told by John
M. Mackie, in Sparks’ American Biography, and by Gov. Arnold in his
noble volumes of Rhode Island History. Certain phases of it have been
discussed and amplified in the interesting monographs of Judge Staples
and Judge Brayton.[4] William D. Ely has thrown important light upon
some salient points in Gorton’s history, in reports published in the
Proceedings of the R. I. Historical Society.[5] Palfrey has touched it
lightly and with scant justice in his History of New England, and Fiske,
in his Beginnings of New England, has given it inadequate treatment.[6]
Other historians have alluded to Samuell Gorton but to distort and
misrepresent his actions and opinions.
A mere rehash of the narratives of Mackie, Arnold, and Brayton would be
unworthy of the attention of this learned Society. To ignore their
conscientious efforts to do justice to the founder of Warwick and
co-worker with Roger Williams in the building of a Commonwealth
dedicated to the principle of Soul Liberty, would, on the other hand, be
unjust and impossible to one who would rightly sketch the history and
estimate the work of Samuell Gorton. In the light of all that these
just-minded sons of Rhode Island have written upon this subject, I have
studied it anew and independently, making use of all available printed
material, and also of valuable unpublished manuscripts and town records.
I have arrived at certain conclusions, quite unexpected when I commenced
my investigations, concerning Gorton’s political and religious
philosophy, which, if correct, will modify previously received opinions
of the man and his work, and which seem to me sufficiently vital and
important to merit the attention of all students of American history. It
is the main object of this paper to set forth the substance of these
conclusions, with some reference to the documentary evidence on which
they are based. For the instruction of those who have not made this
somewhat obscure episode in Rhode Island history a special subject of
investigation, some account of the leading facts of Samuell Gorton’s
career becomes a preliminary necessity.
III
THE MAN AND HIS WORK
Who was Samuell Gorton? What part did he play in our Colonial history?
These questions let us briefly answer before we attempt a somewhat
careful study of his religious and political opinions, about which there
has been so much misunderstanding. Samuell Gorton was born in the parish
of Gorton, England, a few miles from the present bustling city of
Manchester, about the year 1592.[7] He came of a good family, “not
entirely unknown,” says Judge Brayton, “to the heraldry of England.”[8]
Here, as Gorton himself declares, “the fathers of his body had dwelt for
generations.”
We know but little about his early life. Though he did not attend any of
the celebrated schools or universities of England, his education seems
to have been carefully conducted by private tutors.[9] As with many
other students of his day, the Bible was his principal text-book. He
could read it in the original: he was a master of both Greek and Hebrew.
And he brought to the reading a vigorous intellect and a more original
and independent judgment than is commonly applied to theological
studies.
Samuell Gorton probably dwelt in the vicinity of his birthplace until he
was about twenty-five years of age.[10] Here he made the acquaintance of
a Separatist Elder, afterwards connected with the church in Holland,
whence came the Mayflower Pilgrims. His mind readily assimilated the
spirit of the Puritan revolt against the degenerate formalism of the
times; yet his Puritanism was without taint of dogmatic narrowness. He
always retained an affection for the church of his fathers. “I drew my
tenets,” he says, “from the breasts of my mother, the Church of
England.”[11]
In his early manhood he left Gorton and went to seek his fortune in the
great English metropolis. In London he engaged in business, and built
for himself a home. In a certain conveyance signed during his residence
there, he is described as “Samuell Gorton, clothier,” and also as
“Professor of the misteries of Christ.” Religion and daily occupation
were never divorced in his consciousness. He would not make a trade of
the former, nor could he conduct the latter on a plane inconsistent with
those moral and religious principles which dominated his life. His
business as a “clothier,” in the phraseology of the day, was that of a
branch of manufacturing—the finishing of cloths after weaving. It is
doubtful whether he met with great pecuniary rewards in his chosen
industry. His enemies afterwards said that he left London in debt, to
avoid imprisonment threatened by his creditors. Of this there is no
valid evidence; we may dismiss it on the authority of his explicit
denial.[12] “I left my native country,” he said, “to enjoy libertie of
conscience in respect to faith towards God, and for no other end.”
Samuell Gorton arrived in Boston in March, 1636-7.[13] A few months
before, Roger Williams had been banished from Massachusetts Bay. The
Colonial authorities were now agitated by the heresies of Anne
Hutchinson and John Wheelwright.[14] They, in turn, were shortly
compelled to seek other dwelling places to secure opportunity for free
expression of opinion. Evidently, the liberty of conscience which Gorton
sought was not to be safely exercised in Boston. He turned his steps
toward Plymouth, the home of the Separatist Pilgrims, hoping there to
find the goal of his desires. In Plymouth he hired for four years a part
of the house of Ralph Smith, formerly the minister of the Plymouth
church, of whom Roger Williams for a brief time had been the colleague.
Here Gorton first met the founder of Rhode Island, while on a visit to
his former home. Gorton dwelt quietly in Plymouth[15] for a time, with
his family; his wife, Mary,[16] whom he married in London, of whom he
says: “She had been as tenderly brought up as any man’s wife then in
town,” his eldest son Samuell, a boy of six years when he left England,
his daughter Mary, and one or two other children; and one Mrs. Aldredge,
a worthy woman, a widow, and a servant of Mrs. Gorton’s.
It was the latter member of his household who got him into trouble with
the Plymouth authorities. She committed the unpardonable sin of smiling
in meeting, on what provocation we know not.[17] Samuell Gorton defended
her before the magistrates, and advised her not to appear in person to
answer to their charges, which were based upon no express allegations of
the violation of law. He vigorously denounced their action as in
opposition to those English precedents which the customs of many
generations had established for the legal protection of persons unjustly
accused of violations of the public peace. For his alleged contumacy and
mutinous behavior he was fined, held under bonds to keep the peace, and
sentenced to banishment from the Colony within fourteen days.[18]
From Plymouth, he made his way to Pocasset, the new settlement which the
followers of Anne Hutchinson had begun on the island of Aquidneck, in
Narragansett Bay, where he arrived, probably, some time in December,
1638. The weather was cold and the journey perilous. His wife, in
delicate health, had an infant at the breast, sick with measles, which
“struck in” under the exposure, nearly causing its death. At Pocasset
Gorton’s name appears as one of four out of fifty-nine freeholders to
which the title of “Mr.” is prefixed, then an indication of social
position and gentle birth.[19] The government of Pocasset was at first
theocratic, a judge and five elders constituting its magistrates, who
were bound to execute justice “according to the laws of God.” A majority
of the community desired a more democratic form of government; and
Coddington, the judge (afterwards Governor of the united Colony), with
the elders, and a few other free-holders, emigrated to the southern end
of the island, where they founded the town of Newport.[20] The remaining
free-holders, including Samuell Gorton, thus forsaken by their
magistrates, instituted a new town government, and changed the name of
the settlement to Portsmouth. This occurred in the spring of 1639. A
year later,[21] the two settlements were united under one government for
the transaction of affairs of common interest, and the influence of
Coddington and the Newport magistrates became potent throughout the
island. Gorton and his friends regarded this coalition as irregular and
illegally constituted. It seems never to have been sanctioned by a
majority of the free-holders. He appears to have declined to admit
allegiance to it, and to have permitted his citizenship to lapse, though
still retaining his residence.
It was not long before he became involved with the Portsmouth
authorities in a controversy concerning an alleged assault of his
servant on a woman who had trespassed on his land in pursuit of a cow
which was also a trespasser. Gorton again defended his servant, and
denied the legal constitution and jurisdiction of the court. “They did
not have the choice of the people,” he says, “but set up for themselves.
I know not any more that was present in their creation but the
clergieman who blessed them in their inauguration.” His language was
doubtless vigorous and not wholly parliamentary.[22] His keen sense of
justice was outraged by the proceeding, and his sympathetic nature led
him to severe retorts upon a witness who, in his opinion, swore falsely,
and the magistrates who were biased in favor of the prosecution. For his
alleged mutinous behavior he was imprisoned and again sentenced to
banishment. His enemies say that he was also whipped,[23] but the
Portsmouth records, which are explicit in reciting the charges and the
other penalties, make no mention of this infliction. There is evidence,
also, that he had many friends and sympathizers in the settlement. One
of these, John Wickes, for refusing to testify and denying the legality
and jurisdiction of the court, was placed in the stocks, and with four
others was banished and disfranchised.[24]
The little circle of congenial and independent souls was growing under
persecution. From Portsmouth they pressed on to Providence, and though
apparently seeking to avoid rather than to encourage controversy, they
soon became involved in disputes which had already divided that
settlement into two parties.[25] I shall not enter into the merits of
this controversy, which involved civil and not religious questions. As
in Portsmouth, Gorton denied the legality of the self-constituted town
government, and held that justice could not be maintained until the law
was administered under authority delegated by the Mother Country. He was
as anxious as any for liberty, but he would have liberty protected by
law. As an Englishman, dwelling in a community of Englishmen, he claimed
the protection of those principles of law and equity, which, since Magna
Charta, had been thrown around all British citizens. For a time his
vigorous maintenance of this doctrine brought him in conflict even with
Roger Williams, who, Winthrop says, accused Gorton of “bewitching and
bemadding poor Providence” with his new and radical opinions.[26]
Gorton and his friends purchased land and commenced a settlement at
Popaquinepaug, or Pawtuxet, within the jurisdiction of Providence; but
certain of his enemies who owned adjoining property determined to
prevent his peaceful occupancy. William Arnold and a few others, to
insure his expulsion, gave in their allegiance to Massachusetts, and
called on the government of that Colony to remove the intruders. This,
however, is by no means to be regarded as an official action of the town
of Providence, or as in accordance with the desires of a majority of her
citizens. It is probable, in fact, that a majority were sympathizers
with Gorton.[27] Nevertheless, not from mere pusillanimity, but out of a
desire for peace, and a disinclination to embroil Providence with her
more powerful neighbor, the Gortonists moved on, beyond the jurisdiction
either of Providence Plantations or of Massachusetts. Gorton purchased
of Miantonomi, head sachem of the Narragansetts, and of Pomham and
Soccononocco, under-sachems claiming local jurisdiction, a tract of land
south of Pawtuxet and west of Narragansett Bay, then known by the Indian
name of Shawomet.[28]
IV
TROUBLOUS TIMES AT SHAWOMET
Not yet, however, were the harassed Gortonists to be secure in their
possessions. Pomham and Soccononocco were induced by the enemies of
Gorton to repudiate their signatures to the deed of Miantonomi. They
made their submission to the government of Massachusetts and begged its
aid to expel the Gortonists from Shawomet.[29] There are some reasons to
believe that this action was not altogether disconnected from a possibly
more remunerative offer made them by the Atherton Company, an
organization which had been formed by the astute Commissioners of the
New England Confederation, for the purchase and sale of Indian
lands.[30]
Gorton and his companions were summoned to Boston to make answer to
Pomham’s claim.[31] Denying the jurisdiction of Massachusetts, in a
spicy correspondence, Gorton refused to obey the summons. Increase
Nowell, Secretary of the Colony, and the Boston Elders, discovered no
less than twenty-six instances of blasphemy, “or thereabouts,” in the
terms of Gorton’s epistle. The Gortonists were warned that if they
continued contumacious they would be regarded as “fitted for the
slaughter,”[32] and would be peremptorily dealt with by force of arms. A
company of twenty white men and an equal number of Indians, under the
command of Captain Cook, was dispatched to seize them and bring them to
Boston for trial. On their approach, the Gortonists sent their women and
children across the bay, retired to their block-house on Conimicut
Point, and awaited the invading force of the enemy. A company of
peace-makers from Providence[33] demanded a parley, and proposed the
arbitration of the matters in dispute, to prevent the shedding of blood.
The Gortonists appealed to the King and were willing to arbitrate, but
the proposition was sternly rejected by Gov. Winthrop. “You may do well
to take notice,” he said, “that besides the title to land between the
English and the Indians there, there are twelve of the English that have
subscribed their names to horrible and detestable blasphemies, who are
rather to be judged as blasphemous than they should delude us by winning
time under pretence of arbitration.”
The Gortonists stood siege for a day and a night,[34] and repelled the
attempt of the men of Massachusetts and their savage allies to set fire
to the block-house; then, to save bloodshed, under promise that they
would be treated as neighbors, and that their claims would be submitted
to fair judgment in Massachusetts, they surrendered to superior force,
and were taken to Boston for trial.[35] They speedily found, however,
that they were regarded as prisoners and not as “friends and neighbors”
seeking a just and amicable settlement of civil disagreements. The
soldiers, Gorton says, were ordered to knock down any one who should
utter a word of insolence, and to run any one through who might step
aside from the line of advance. When they arrived in Boston, “the
chaplain (of their captors) went to prayers in the open streets, that
the people might take notice that what they had done was done in a holy
manner, and in the name of the Lord.”[36]
There was no pretence of a judicial consideration of their rights as
settlers at Shawomet. They were regarded as criminal offenders, and were
examined and convicted on the charge of blasphemy. Gorton was placed on
trial for his life before the General Court and Convocation of Elders.
Four queries, referring to statements in his vigorous rejoinder to the
summons of the Massachusetts authorities, were propounded, and upon his
replies the decision of the Court was to be rendered:[37]
“1. Whether the Fathers, who died before Christ was born of the Virgin
Mary, were justified and saved only by the blood which hee shed, and the
death which hee suffered after his incarnation?
“2. Whether the only price of our redemption were not the death of
Christ on the cross, with the rest of his sufferings and obediences, in
the time of his life here, after hee was born of the Virgin Mary?
“3. Who was the God whom hee thinks wee serve?
“4. What hee means when hee saith, wee worship the starre of our God
Remphan, Chion, Moloch?”
The latter question may well have piqued the curiosity of the elders.
The others were evidently framed to secure conviction. His replies were
as wise and conciliatory as perfect sincerity would admit, but it was
foreordained that they should be unsatisfactory to his judges. All but
three of the elders voted for the penalty of death. The representatives
of the people, however, to the honor of Massachusetts, refused to assent
to this verdict[38]. Gorton suffered imprisonment in Charlestown, with a
ball and chain attached to his ankle; the other accused persons were
incarcerated in irons in other towns of the Colony. The next General
Court, some months later, set them at liberty,[39] but banished them
from all places within the jurisdiction of Massachusetts—the intention
being to include the disputed territory at Shawomet, which Massachusetts
claimed under the deed of Pomham.
As they went forth from their prison houses, the Gortonists recited
their wrongs in the public streets in Boston and elsewhere to crowds of
willing listeners and ready sympathizers. Palfrey admits that a majority
of the people in Massachusetts were to be counted in this category.[40]
The sufferings of these martyrs were the seeds of a new Commonwealth,
from which the persecuting spirit was at last eliminated. The Indians,
also, even in the vicinity of Boston, received them gladly. Cutshamekin,
the chief sachem of the neighborhood, to whose wigwam the liberated men
accidentally strayed, when asked by Gorton whether Capt. Cook, the
commander of their captors, was a good captain, replied, “I can not
tell; but the Indians regard those as good captains when a few stand out
against many.”
Their chief grievance during imprisonment seems to have been that they
were compelled to attend the Sunday services in the churches, and be
“preached at” by the Puritan ministers. “They brought us forth unto
their congregations to hear their ministers,” says Gorton, with a grim
humor, illuminated by some knowledge of natural history, “which was meat
to be digested, but only by the hearte or stomacke of an ostrich.”[41]
Pastor Ward, of Ipswich, who visited one of them—Richard Carder, an old
neighbor of his in England—while in prison, and urged him to recant his
heresies, said by way of encouragement, “it shall be no disparagement to
you, for here is our revered elder, Mr. Cotton, who ordinarily preacheth
that publickely one yeare, that the next yeare hee publickely repents
of, and shows him selfe to bee very sorrowful to the congregation.”[42]
As his sly dig at Mr. Cotton would indicate, Pastor Ward was entirely
sound in his own theology. This appears also in his “Simple Cobbler of
Agawam,” where, with a spicy use of capitals, and vigorous if not
elegant English, he denounces the brains of those who advocate “Libertie
of Conscience in matters of Religion,” as “parboiled in impious
ignorance.”
V
SHAWOMET BECOMES WARWICK
After his release, in the spring of 1643-44, Gorton returned through
Shawomet, where he was forbidden to linger, to Portsmouth, where he and
his friends were received with open arms, and where he was shortly
elected to a magistracy on the very scene of his former persecutions.
Thus far the Atherton Company appeared to have made substantial progress
in its efforts to obtain possession of the Shawomet lands, and
Massachusetts seemed likely to succeed in throwing a girdle of
unfriendly possessions around the Providence Plantations, thereby
separating them from the Aquidneck settlements, and securing a permanent
control over Narragansett Bay. By the submission of Arnold and the
malcontents of Providence, they had obtained a show of authority over
the Pawtuxet or Popaquinepaug territory. Winthrop had secured possession
of Prudence Island in Narragansett Bay by purchasing the half originally
owned by Roger Williams,[43] and now with a marvellous inconsistency,
held the whole by a title derived solely from Miantonomi, the chief
sachem of the Narragansetts. If he could maintain his denial of the
rights of Gorton to the Shawomet lands claimed by even a stronger title,
he would succeed in his efforts to divide the Narragansett settlements
and establish the claims of Massachusetts. With this end in view, the
Massachusetts authorities built a block-house for Pomham on Warwick
Neck, and temporarily succeeded in excluding the Gortonists from their
Shawomet possessions.
Gorton, however, was not idle. He had no thought of permanently
relinquishing the claim for which he had contended so bravely, and to
which he was justly entitled. Within forty days of his release from
prison, by a masterly piece of strategy and statesmanship, he
inaugurated measures which completely check-mated his opponents, and
gave him a permanent advantage in the contest for supremacy. On the 19th
of April, 1644, by the earnest advice and solicitation of Gorton, the
Narragansett Indians, in solemn conclave, constituted their “trusty and
well-beloved friends,” Samuell Gorton, John Wickes, Randall Holden and
John Warner, commissioners to convey their submission to the British
Government. The deed of submission, signed by the sachems Pessicus,
Conanicus, Mixan, Awoshosse and Tomanick, is preserved in the Historical
Cabinet at Providence. The tragical death of the head sachem,
Miantonomi, in the previous September, at the hands of his bitter
enemies, the Mohegans, with the consent of the Boston elders—a story so
well told by Dr. Fiske in his “Beginnings of New England” that I need
not repeat it here,—as well as the revolt of Pomham and Soccononocco,
were powerful arguments with the Narragansetts in favor of seeking the
protection of the British Government; while the return of Gorton and his
companions, unscathed, from the prisons of Massachusetts, convinced the
Narragansetts that the power of the Mother Country was on their side,
and had stood between them and their oppressors.
In August, 1645, the Commissioners of the United Colonies, in session in
Boston, declared war against the Narragansetts, and dispatched a
military force to Rhode Island; at the same time warning the General
Assembly of Providence Plantations, then in session at Newport, that if
they adhered to their declared determination of maintaining a position
of neutrality they would be regarded as enemies. They also forbade them
to exercise the powers of government under the charter obtained by Roger
Williams.
In response to this threatening action of “the Massachusetts,” Gorton,
Greene and Holden set sail, after vexatious delays, under authority of
Providence Plantations, from the Dutch settlement at Manhattan for
Holland, whence, after more delay, they obtained transportation to
England. The exact time of their arrival at London is unknown, but they
had been preceded by the agents of Massachusetts, and were compelled to
meet the charges already formulated by their enemies. Their answer,
prepared by Gorton in “Simplicities Defence,” was published in London on
the 3d of August, 1646. Soon after,[44] a patent was issued to Gorton
and his colleagues which granted the Shawomet lands to them and their
successors forever, and guaranteed them protection against all other
claimants. In the troublous times between the King and Parliament the
formal submission of the Narragansetts which Gorton had conveyed to
England, could not be delivered to King Charles in person, and Gorton
accordingly caused it to be published in London. By this admirable piece
of strategy and statesmanship he forever blocked the movements of
Massachusetts Bay for the control of the Narragansett country. Gorton
received safe-conduct from the Earl of Warwick, on his return, through
the domains of the enemy.[45]
Roger Williams, who had finally accepted Gorton’s theory of the true
foundations of the new government, had preceded him to England, and on
the 14th of March, 1643-44, had obtained a charter for the Colony which
united the northern and southern towns in one Commonwealth. Owing to the
opposition of the Coddington faction, government was not completely
organized under this charter until May, 1647.[46] In the same year, town
government was organized at Shawomet, the Town, in honor of its patron,
receiving the name of Warwick. Some further futile attempts were made by
Massachusetts to enforce her claims, but the Gortonists thereafter
retained possession, which gave them “nine points of the law,” and
finally complete victory. Pomham, for whom Massachusetts had erected a
block-house on Warwick Neck, lingered in the neighborhood a few years,
but at last saw that the “Gortonoges” had triumphed in their long
contest with the “Wattaconoges,”[47] and in 1665 sold out his dishonored
claim for £30 in peage,[48] paid him by Gorton and his associates. The
new Commonwealth was fairly launched upon the sea of History; the town
of Warwick and its founder were to play an honorable part in the story
of its beginnings.
VI
SAMUELL GORTON’S LATER CAREER
During the succeeding quarter of a century Samuell Gorton was active and
influential in shaping the destinies of the growing State. He occupied
the highest places of honor and responsibility at the gift of his
fellow-citizens, and was habitually called into service when sound
judgment, prompt and courageous action, and literary ability were
requisite. He represented Portsmouth in the Assembly at Newport in 1645.
He was chosen one of the Commissioners of the town of Warwick to the
General Assembly on his return from England, and served therein a
greater part of the time for the next two or three decades. He was
placed on the most important committees, and his pen was frequently
called into requisition to prepare State papers, and letters to the
magistrates of other Colonies, and to the representatives of the new
Commonwealth in England. Though absent in the Mother Country during the
first year of Colonial Government under the charter of 1643-44, his
political views were embodied in the remarkable Code of 1647, passed by
the first General Assembly of the United Colony, one of the earliest
compilations of law in American history. In the construction of this
Code, care was taken to avoid the errors of which Gorton had complained,
in the judicial procedure of the other Colonies, by making each section
conform to existing English law,[49] reference to the corresponding
English statute being placed at the end thereof.[50]
The provision respecting witchcraft is especially noteworthy as
indicating a prevailing scepticism in Rhode Island at a time when
Massachusetts was under the spell of the delusion, soon to break forth
in an appalling epidemic of persecution. The object of its introduction
is evidently the set purpose of conforming to English precedents rather
than a conviction of the legislators that the statute was demanded by
any real public necessity. The section reads:
“Witchcraft is forbidden by this present Assembly to be used in this
Colonie; and the Penaltie _imposed by the authoritie that wee are
subjected to, is felonie of death_.—I Jac. 12.”[51] The Code of 1647
also forbade imprisonment for debt, and is otherwise in advance of most
contemporary legislation. The temper of the Colony on the subject of
witchcraft is still further evidenced in the testimony of their
opponents,[52] who complained in an anonymous letter addressed to the
agent of Massachusetts in England a few years later, that the new
government was ignoring the English law. This epistle especially
stigmatized “some of them at Shawomet that cryeth out much against them
that putteth people to death for witches, for they say there be no other
witches upon earth, nor devils, but your own pasters and ministers, such
as they are.”[53] There was apparently never a prosecution in Rhode
Island under the statute against witchcraft.
Samuell Gorton’s literary style is clearly evident in the remarkable
statute against negro slavery, passed by the General Assembly in
1652—the first legislative edict of emancipation ever adopted in
America. This statute was passed during the Coddington secession of
1651-54, and consequently voices officially only the sentiment of
Providence and Warwick. Roger Williams was in England at the time of its
passage, and there can be little doubt that Samuell Gorton was its
author and principal advocate. Though it subsequently became a dead
letter, it was apparently never repealed, and merits perpetuation in the
annals of the anti-slavery conflict. It reads as follows:
“Whereas there is a common course practised amongst English men to buy
negers, to the end that they may have them for service or slaves
forever; for the preventinge of such practices among us, let it bee
ordered, that no blacke mankinde or white, being forced by covenant bond
or otherwise, to serve any man or his assigns longer than ten yeares, or
untill they come to bee twentie four yeares of age if they bee taken in
under fourteen, from the time of their cominge within the liberties of
this Collonie. And at the end or terme of ten yeares to sett them free
as the manner is with the English servants. And that man that will not
let them goe free, or shall sell them away elsewhere to that end that
they may bee enslaved to others for a long time, hee or they shall
forfeit to the Colonie forty pounds.”[54]
Samuell Gorton was elected General Assistant, a position corresponding
with that of Lieutenant Governor, in 1649, and in 1651, during the
Coddington secession, he was chosen to the highest position at the gift
of the Commonwealth—he became its President. During the following year,
he was Moderator or Speaker of the General Assembly, and he several
times subsequently served as General Assistant. He was also active in
the affairs of the Town of Warwick, being for many years a member of the
Town Council, and holding other positions of honor and responsibility.
“After the venerable founder of Providence,” says his biographer,[55]
“no man was more instrumental in establishing the foundations of equal
civil rights and ‘soul liberty’ in Rhode Island than Samuell Gorton.” He
was especially active in assuring the protection of the Colony for the
persecuted Quakers.[56] He sent them messages of sympathy when they were
in prison in Massachusetts, and was authorized by the General Assembly
to reply to the epistles of the Massachusetts authorities protesting
against their finding an asylum in Rhode Island. When Massachusetts
appealed to England, Samuell Gorton was designated to prepare a letter
on behalf of the Rhode Island Government to John Clarke, the
representative of the Colony in the Mother Country, to be presented to
the Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell. He requests Clarke “to plead our
case in such sorte as wee may not bee compelled to exercise any civill
power over men’s consciences, so long as humane orders in poynt of
civility are not corrupted and voyalated, which our neighbors aboute us
doe frequently practise, whereof many of us have large experience, and
doe judge it to bee no less than a poynt of absolute crueltie.”[57]
On the collapse of the Puritan Commonwealth in England, Samuell Gorton
was appointed on a Committee to select agents of the Colony in England,
and prepare an address to his Majesty, King Charles the Second.[58] As a
result of this action, and of the wise intercession of John Clarke, then
representing the Colony in England, the Charter of 1663 was secured, in
which Samuell Gorton was named as one of the incorporators of the new
Commonwealth. In 1663 he was also appointed by the Town Council
“overseer” of the will of John Smith, Deputy from Warwick, under the
curious provision by which the towns in Rhode Island made wills for
persons dying intestate, dividing their property according to the
communal sense of justice. In 1666, after the purchase of Pomham’s
claim, Mr. Gorton was assigned ten shares in Warwick Neck, and was still
further recognized in another division in the following year.[59] In
1675, during the storm and stress of King Philip’s war, tradition says
that Samuell Gorton’s life was saved by friendly Indians, who rowed him
across the Bay to a place of safety. He was always on amicable terms
with the aborigines, treating them justly, teaching and exhorting in
their settlements, and wisely advising them in various emergencies.
Warwick suffered severely in the contest with King Philip, which would
doubtless have been prevented had the policy of Roger Williams and
Samuell Gorton in dealing with the Indians been generally adopted. The
town was depopulated, the houses and barns were burned, and the cattle
driven into the wilderness. A pitched battle was fought in an open cedar
swamp in Warwick between the Indians under Canonchet and a company of
men from Plymouth.[60] Many of the colonists took refuge on Aquidneck,
the waters around which were patrolled night and day by a flotilla of
four boats, filled with armed men.
Judge Staples tells us that John Wickes, the friend and colleague of
Samuell Gorton, trusting too implicitly to the friendship of the
savages, remained and was slain; his head being set upon a pole as a
warning to others. In this, he must be mistaken, however, since the will
of John Wickes, dated the second day of March, 1688, and signed by
himself, though written and witnessed by Samuell Gorton, the younger,
may be seen to-day in the library of the Historical Society in
Providence. This interesting document also contains the signatures of
two others of the founders, of Warwick,—Randall Holden, the justice
before whom it was proved, and John Greene, who signs in behalf of
himself and the other members of the Town Council.
On the fourth day of June, 1677, probably the year of his death, Samuell
Gorton, Senior, was elected “to the Towne Counsell for the ensuing
yeare,” as the ancient records tell us, and his son, Capt. Samuell
Gorton, was at the same time chosen Town Treasurer. On the 20th of July
the father signed a deed of lands owned by him in the Narragansett
Country to his sons, his six daughters and their husbands also being
remembered in the disposition of this property; and on the 27th of
November of the same year, by another deed, he divided his entire
remaining estate among his three sons, Samuell, John and Benjamin.[61]
To the former, who was evidently a man after his own heart, and who had
aided in supporting the family, he gave his homestead at Old Warwick,
his household furniture, library and most precious literary possessions.
He also committed to him the care of his mother during her widow-hood,
providing that she should be maintained with convenient housing and
necessaries, and that means should be furnished for her “recreation in
case she desires to visit her friends.”[62] His lands at Coweset, beyond
the boundaries of the Shawomet grant, he gave in equal possession,
undivided, to his three sons. The document attesting the final division
of these lands by the surviving sons, Samuell and John, bears date on
the town records, Dec. 4, 1699, being executed, as it says, “according
to the expressed wish of our Ancient and Honored ffather, Mr. Samuell
Gorton, one of the first settlers of this Plantation of Warwick in New
England.” His son Benjamin, then deceased, had been one of the founders
of the new town of East Greenwich, the organization of which dates from
the year of the original bequest.
VII
SAMUELL GORTON’S POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
The enemies of Samuell Gorton charged that he was a practical
anarchist—a denier of all governmental authority. As the indictment of
the Massachusetts magistrates reads: “Upon much examination & serious
consideration of yo^r writings, & with yo^r answers about them, wee
doe charge yo^u to bee a blasphemous enemy of the true religion of o^r
Lord Jesus Christ and his holy ordinances, & also of all civil authority
among the people of God, perticulerly in this iurisdiction.”[63] To the
impartial student of this history, his entire career offers a sufficient
answer to this accusation. Even Gov. Arnold, his lineal descendant and
strenuous defender in many things, who regarded him as “one of the most
remarkable men who ever lived,”[64] falls into the error of stating that
“he denied the right of a people to self-government.”[65] What Samuell
Gorton really denied was the dogma of “squatter sovereignty,” that false
conception of popular government which holds that a majority of the
actual settlers in any given locality have a right to legislate and
govern as they please, without regard for the claims of the minority,
the law of civilized communities, or the principles of equity and
justice. Had he lived a generation ago he would have stood with Lincoln
and Sumner and Garrison in denouncing this mischievous dogma. His
doctrine was identical with that of the defenders of the Union against
the alleged right of secession. In his own day he held, simply, that no
Englishman expatriated himself by becoming a colonist in the possessions
of the Mother Country; that he did not by emigration to America forfeit
the rights of an Englishman, or the protection guaranteed by the long
line of statutes, decisions and precedents, beginning with Magna Charta,
which had become the heritage of Englishmen everywhere.