"Oaths of Office for the Governor, Deputy Governor, and Council in New

England (ordered May 7th, 1629).

"The Oath of the Governor in New England." (The same to the Deputy

Governor.)

"You shall be faithful and loyal unto our Sovereign Lord the King's

Majesty, and to his heirs and successors. You shall support and

maintain, to the best of your power, the Government and Company of

Massachusetts Bay, in New England, in America, and the privileges of the

same, having no singular regard to yourself in derogation or hindrance

of the Commonwealth of this Company; and to every person under your

authority you shall administer indifferent and equal justice. Statutes

and Ordinances shall you none make without the advice and consent of the

Council for Government of the Massachusetts Bay in New England. You

shall admit none into the freedom of this Company but such as may claim

the same by virtue of the privileges thereof. You shall not bind

yourself to enter into any business or process for or in the name of

this Company, without the consent and agreement of the Council

aforesaid, but shall endeavour faithfully and carefully to carry

yourself in this place and office of Governor, as long as you shall

continue in it. And likewise you shall do your best endeavour to draw

the natives of this country called New England to the knowledge of the

true God, and to conserve the planters, and others coming hither, in the

same knowledge and fear of God. And you shall endeavour, by all good

unions, to advance the good of the Plantations of this Company, and you

shall endeavour the raising of such commodities for the benefit and

encouragement of the adventurers and planters as, through God's blessing

on your endeavours, may be produced for the good and service of the

kingdom of England, this Company, and the Plantations. All these

premises you shall hold and keep to the uttermost of your power and

skill, so long as you shall continue in the place of Governor of this

fellowship; so help you God." (The same oath of allegiance was required

of each member of the Council.) (Young's Chronicles of First Planters of

the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, from 1623 to 1636, pp. 201, 202.)]

PART III.

EVASIONS AND DENIALS OF THE ABOLITION OF EPISCOPAL, AND ESTABLISHMENT OF

CONGREGATIONAL WORSHIP AT MASSACHUSETTS BAY; PROOFS OF THE FACTS, THAT

THE COMPANY AND FIRST SETTLERS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY WERE PROFESSED

EPISCOPALIANS WHEN THE LATTER LEFT ENGLAND; LETTERS OF THE LONDON

COMPANY AGAINST THE INNOVATIONS WHICH ABOLISHED THE EPISCOPAL, AND

ESTABLISHED CONGREGATIONAL WORSHIP BY THE "ADVENTURERS" AFTER CROSSING

THE ATLANTIC; THIS THE FIRST SEED OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, AND OF

CRUEL PERSECUTIONS.

When the Browns arrived in England as banished "criminals" from the

Plantation to which they had gone four months before as members of the

Council of Government, and with the highest commendation of the London

General Court itself, they naturally made their complaints against the

conduct of Endicot in superseding the Church of England by the

establishment of a new confession of faith and a new form of worship. It

is worthy of remark, that in the Records of the Company the specific

subjects of complaint by the Browns are carefully kept out of

sight--only that a "dispute" or "difference" had arisen between them and

"Governor Endicot;" but what that difference was is nowhere mentioned in

the Records of the Company. The letters of Endicot and the Browns were

put into the hands of Goffe, the Deputy Governor of the Company; were

never published; and they are said to have been "missing" unto this day.

Had the real cause and subject of difference been known in England, and

been duly represented to the Privy Council, the Royal Charter would

undoubtedly have been forthwith forfeited and cancelled; but the

Puritan-party feeling of the Browns seems to have been appealed to not

to destroy the Company and their enterprise; that in case of not

prosecuting their complaints before a legal tribunal, the matter would

be referred to a jointly selected Committee of the Council to arbitrate

on the affair; and that in the meantime the conduct of Endicot in making

Church innovations (if he had made them) would be disclaimed by the

Company. To render the Browns powerless to sustain their complaints,

their letters were seized[44] and their statements were denied.

Nevertheless, the rumours and reports from the new Plantation of

Massachusetts produced a strong impression in England, and excited great

alarm among the members and friends of the Company, who adopted three

methods of securing themselves and their Charter, and of saving the

Plantation from the consequences of Endicot's alleged innovations and

violent conduct. Firstly--The Governor of the Company, Mr. Cradock,

wrote to Endicot, Higginson, and Skelton, professing doubts of the truth

of the charges made against them--disclaiming and warning them against

the reported innovations--thus protecting themselves in case of charge

from all participation in or responsibility for such proceedings.

Secondly--They positively denied the statements of the Browns as to

Endicot's alleged "innovations," and used every means to depreciate the

trustworthiness and character of the Browns, notwithstanding their

former commendation of them and their acknowledged respectability.

Thirdly--They prepared and published documents declaring their adherence

to the Church of England, and the calumny of the charges and rumours put

forth against them as being disaffected to it.

1. Their Governor, Mr. Cradock, wrote to Endicot in the name of the

Company. This letter, dated October 16, 1629, is given at length in a

note.[46] It will be seen by this letter how strongly the Company

condemned the innovations charged against Endicot by the Browns, and how

imperatively they direct him to correct them, while they profess to

doubt whether he could have been a party to any such proceedings. In

this letter is also the most explicit testimony by the Company of the

King's kindness and generosity to them, as well as a statement of the

clear understanding between the King and the Company as to the

intentions and spirit of the Royal Charter, and which the Company in

London expressed their determination to observe in good faith--a good

faith which was invariably and even indulgently observed by both Charles

the First and Second, but which was as constantly violated by the

Government of Massachusetts Bay, as will appear hereafter from the

transfer of the Charter there in 1630, to the cancelling of the Charter

under James the Second, in 1687. Endicot, confident in his ability to

prevent the transmission of any evidence to England that could sustain

the statements of the Browns, paid no heed to the instructions of the

Company, and persisted in his course of Church revolution and

proscription.

The letter addressed to Higginson and Skelton was signed not only by the

Governor, but by the chief members of the Company, and among others by

John Winthrop, who took the Royal Charter to Massachusetts Bay, and

there, as Governor, administered it by maintaining all that Endicot was

alleged to have done, continued to proscribe the worship of the Church

of England, allowed its members no elective franchise as well as no

eligibility for office, and persecuted all who attempted to worship in

any other form than that of the Church of Endicot, Higginson and

Skelton--a course in which he persevered until his energies began to

fail; for Mr. Bancroft says: "The elder Winthrop had, I believe,

relented before his death, and, it is said, had become weary of

banishing heretics; the soul of the younger Winthrop [who withdrew from

the intolerance of the Massachusetts Puritans, and was elected Governor

of Connecticut] was incapable of harbouring a thought of intolerant

cruelty; but the rugged Dudley was not mellowed by old age."[49]

The letter addressed to Higginson and Skelton expressed a hope that the

report made, in England as to their language and proceedings were "but

shadows," but at the same time apprised them of their duty to vindicate

their innocency or acknowledge and reform their misdeeds, declaring the

favour of the Government to their Plantation, and their duty and

determination not to abuse the confidence which the State had reposed

in them. This letter is given entire in a note.[50]

Nothing can be more clear, from the letters addressed by the Company

both to Endicot and the ministers Higginson and Skelton, that

renunciation of the worship of the Church of England was at variance

with the intentions and profession of all parties in granting and

receiving the Royal Charter, and that the only defence set up in England

of Endicot, Higginson, and Skelton was a positive denial that they had

done so. Dudley himself, Deputy Governor, who went to Massachusetts Bay

in the same fleet of eleven ships with Governor Winthrop, wrote to his

patroness, the Countess of Lincoln, several months after his arrival,

and in his letter, dated March 12, 1630, explicitly denies the existence

of any such changes in their worship as had been alleged; that they had

become "Brownists [that is, Congregationalists] in religion," etc., and

declaring all such allegations to be "false and scandalous reports;"

appealing to their friends in England to "not easily believe that we are

so soon turned from the profession we so long have made at home in our

native land;" declaring that he knew "no one person who came over with

us last year to be altered in judgment or affection, either in

ecclesiastical or civil respects, since our coming here;" acknowledging

the obligations of himself and friends to the King for the royal

kindness to them, and praying his friends in England to "give no credit

to such malicious aspersions, but be more ready to answer for us than we

hear they have been." Dudley's own words are given in note.[51] The only

escape from the admission of Dudley's statements being utterly untrue is

resort to a quibble which is inconsistent with candour and

honesty--namely, that the Brownist or Congregational worship had been

adopted by Endicot and his party before the arrival of Dudley; but the

scope and evident design of his letter was to assure the Countess of

Lincoln and his friends in England that no new Church worship had been

established at Massachusetts Bay, when the reverse must have been known

to Dudley, and when he, in support of the new Brownist or Congregational

worship, became a fierce persecutor, even to old age, of all who would

not conform to it; for, as Mr. Bancroft says, "the rugged soul of Dudley

was not mellowed by old age."

But while Dudley, in Massachusetts, was denying to his English friends

the existence of ecclesiastical changes there which all history now

declares to have taken place, the "Patriarch of Dorchester," the father

of the whole enterprise--the Rev. John White, a conformist clergyman of

the Church of England, even under Archbishop Laud--wrote and published a

pamphlet called "The Planters' Plea,"[52] in which he denied also that

any ecclesiastical changes, as alleged, had taken place in the

Massachusetts Plantation, and denounces the authors of such allegations

in no measured terms. This pamphlet contains a "Brief Relation of the

Occasion of the Planting of this Colony." After referring to the third,

or "great emigration under Winthrop,"[53] the author proceeds:

"This is an impartial though brief relation of the occasion of planting

the colony; the particulars whereof, if they could be entertained, were

clear enough to any indifferent judgment, that the suspicious and

scandalous reports raised upon these gentlemen and their friends (as if,

under the colour of planting a colony, they intended to raise a seminary

of faction and separation), are nothing than the fruits of jealousy of

some distempered mind or, which is worse, perhaps savour of a desperate

malicious plot of men ill affected to religion, endeavouring, by casting

the undertakers into the jealousy of the State, to shut them out of

those advantages which otherwise they might expect from the countenance

of authority. Such men would be entreated to forbear that base and

unchristian course of traducing persons under these odious names of

Separatists, and enemies of Church and State, for fear lest their own

tongues fall upon themselves by the justice of His hand who will not

fail to clear the innocency of the just, and to cast back into the bosom

of every slanderer the filth that he rakes up to throw into other men's

faces. As for men of more indifferent and better minds, they would be

seriously advised to beware of entertaining or admitting, much more

countenancing and crediting, such uncharitable persons as discover

themselves by their carriage, and that in this particular to be men ill

affected towards the work itself, if not to religion, at which it aims,

and consequently unlikely to report any truths of such as undertake

it."[54]

This language is very severe, not to say scurrilous; but it is the style

of all Puritan historians and writers in regard to those who complained

of the Puritan Government of Massachusetts. Not even Messrs. Bancroft

and Palfrey have thought it unworthy of their eloquent pages. But

imputation of motives and character is not argument, is most resorted to

for want of argument, much less is it a refutation of statements now

universally known to be true. The venerable author of this "Planters'

Plea" denied in indignant terms that Endicot and his friends had become

"Separatists" or "enemies of the Church" (he had doubtless been so

assured); the very thing in which Endicot gloried--setting up a

"Separatist" worship, forbidding the worship of "the Church," and

banishing its members who resolved to continue the use of its Prayer

Book, in public or in private.

This, however, is not all. Not only did the Company, in their letters to

Endicot, Higginson, and Skelton, disdain to forbid anything like

abolishing the Church of England and setting up a new Church, and the

use of language offensive to their Sovereign and the Established Church;

not only were there the most positive denials on both sides of the

Atlantic that anything of the kind had been done by Endicot; but on the

appointment of Winthrop to supersede Endicot as Governor, and on his

departure with a fleet of eleven ships and three hundred "Adventurers"

and "Planters," as they were called, a formal and affectionate address

to their "Fathers and Brethren of the Church of England" was published

by Winthrop from his ship _Arabella_, disclaiming any acts of some among

them (evidently alluding to what Endicot had been alleged to have done)

hostile to the Church of England, declaring their obligation and

attachment to it, their prayers for it, and entreating the prayers of

its members for the success of their undertaking. This address is said

to have been written by the Rev. John White, the "Patriarch of

Dorchester," and prime mover of the whole Plantation enterprise. It is

an imputation upon the integrity of the author, and upon all parties

concerned in the address, and absurd in itself, to suppose that the

prayers of the Church in England were solicited with a view to the

abolition of its worship in Massachusetts, and the establishment there

of a "Separatist" Church. This address--not to be found in any modern

history of the Massachusetts Puritans--speaks for itself, and is given

in a note as originally published.[55] It will be recollected that

Winthrop and the other signers of this address had the Royal Charter

with them, and now constituted the "principals" of the Company, whose

authority in England now ceased, and was henceforth to be exercised at

Massachusetts Bay. They beg that the "disaffection or indiscretion" of

some of the Company--evidently alluding to what Endicot was reported to

have done--might not be imputed to "the principals and body of the

Company." Their words are, addressing their Fathers and Brethren of the

Church of England: "And howsoever your charity may have met with some

occasional discouragement through the misreport of our intentions, or

through the disaffection or indiscretion of some of us, or rather

amongst us (for we are not of those who dream of perfection in this

world); yet we desire you would look at the _principals and body of_ our

_Company, as those who esteem it an honour to call the Church of

England, whence we rise, our dear Mother," &c._

It is passing strange that any man who respects himself could say, in

the face of these words and of the whole address, that Mr. Winthrop and

the "principals and body of the Company" did not profess to be members

of the Church of England, and did not assure their "Fathers and Brethren

in England" of their intention to remain so, and implore the prayers of

their Fathers and Brethren for their success. No darker stigma could be

inflicted upon the character of Winthrop and his Company, than the

assertion that at the very moment of making and publishing these

professions in England they intended to extinguish their "dear Mother"

in Massachusetts, and banish every one from their Plantation who should

use her Prayer Book, or worship as the "dear Mother" worshipped. Yet

such is the theory, or fallacy, of some Puritan writers.

It has also been pretended that there was no Church of England in

Massachusetts, and therefore the planters were free to set up what form

of worship they pleased. It may be asked in reply, what makes a Church

but the presence of members of it? An early Christian writer says that

"wherever there are two or three believers there is a Church." But were

not Endicot, and Higginson, and Skelton as much members of the Church of

England on their arrival at Massachusetts Bay as when they left England?

And were not the two latter as much clergymen of the Church of England

when they met Endicot at Naumkeag, or Salem, as when they engaged with

the Company in England to go out as ministers to the new Plantation?

Does crossing the sea change or annihilate the churchmanship of the

missionary, or the passenger, or the emigrant? There may not be a place

of worship, or a minister, but there are the members of the Church. Is a

missionary or agent of a Committee or Board of a particular Church in

London, no longer a member of that Church when he reaches the foreign

land to which he is sent because he finds no Church worship there, much

less if he finds members of his own Church already there? Yet such are

the pretences on which some Puritan writers, and even historians,

attempt to justify the conduct of Endicot, Higginson, and Skelton! But,

be it remembered, I make no objection to their renouncing their Church,

and establishing for themselves and those who chose to follow them, a

new Church confession and worship. The points of discussion are: 1. Was

it honest for them to do so without consulting those who employed and

settled them there, and provided for their religious instruction by

clergymen of the Church of England? 2. Was it right or lawful, and was

it not contrary to the laws of England, for them to abolish the worship

of the Church of England and banish its members from the Plantation, as

settlers, for continuing to worship according to the Church of England?

3. And can they be justified for denying to their friends in England,

and their friends denying to the public and to the King, on their behalf

and on their authority, what they had done, and what all the world now

knows they had done, at Massachusetts Bay? 4. And finally, was it not a

breach of faith to their Sovereign, from whom they had received their

Charter, and, as they themselves acknowledged, most kind treatment, to

commence their settlement by abolishing the established religion which

both the King and they professed when the Charter was granted, and when

they left England, and banish from the territory which the King had

granted them all settlers who would not renounce the form of worship

established in England from the Reformation, and adopt a new form of

worship, which was not then lawful in England?

The foregoing pages bear witness that I have not taken a sentence from

any writer adverse to the Puritans. I have adhered to their own

statements in their own words, and as printed in their Records. Their

eloquent apologist and defender, Mr. Bancroft, says: "The Charter

confers on the colonists the rights of English subjects; it does not

confer on them new and greater rights. On the contrary, they are

strictly forbidden to make laws or ordinances repugnant to the laws or

statutes of the realm of England. The express concession of power to

administer the oath of supremacy demonstrates that universal toleration

was not designed; and the freemen of the Corporation, it should be

remembered, were not at that time Separatists. Even Higginson, and

Hooker, and Cotton were still ministers of the Church of England."[56]

From this accumulation of evidence--which might be greatly increased--I

think it is as clear as day that the abolition of the worship of the

Church of England, and the establishment of a new form of worship, and a

new confession of faith, and a new ordination to the ministry at

Massachusetts Bay in 1629, was a violation of the Charter, an insult to

the King, and a breach of faith with him, notwithstanding his

acknowledged kindness to them, and a renunciation of all the

professions which were made by the Company in England.

This was the first seed sown, which germinated for one hundred and

thirty years, and then ripened in the American Revolution; it was the

opening wedge which shivered the transatlantic branches from the parent

stock. It was the consciousness of having abused the Royal confidence

and broken faith with their Sovereign, of having acted contrary to the

laws and statutes of England, that led the Government of Massachusetts

Bay to resist and evade all inquiries into their proceedings--to prevent

all evidence from being transmitted to England as to their proceedings,

and to punish as criminals all who should appeal to England against any

of their proceedings--to claim, in short, independence and immunity from

all responsibility to the Crown for anything that they did or might do.

Had Endicot and his party not done what they knew to be contrary to the

loyal Charter and the laws of England, they would have courted inquiry,

that the light of their fair and loyal acts might be manifest to all

England, in refutation of all statements made against them. Had the

Browns and their Church friends been permitted to worship after the

manner of their fathers and of their childhood, while Endicot and his

converts elected to worship in a new manner, there would have been no

cause of collision, and no spirit of distrust and hostility between the

Massachusetts settlement and the King, any more than there was between

either Charles the First or Second, and the settlements and separate

Governments of Plymouth, Rhode Island, or Connecticut. But Endicot, in

the spirit of tyranny and intolerance, would allow no liberty of worship

not of his own establishment; and to maintain which in the spirit of

proscription and persecution, caused all the disputes with the parent

Government and all the persecutions and bloodshed on account of religion

in Massachusetts which its Government inflicted in subsequent years, in

contradistinction to the Governments of Plymouth, Rhode Island,

Connecticut, and even Maryland.[57]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 44: The Company's Records on the whole affair are as

follows:--

"Sept. 19, 1629.

"At this Court letters[45] were read from Mr. Endicot and others of New

England. And whereas a difference hath fallen out betwixt the Governor

there and John and Samuel Brown; it was agreed by the Court that, for

the determination of those differences, John and Samuel Brown might

choose out any three of the Company on their behalf to hear the said

differences, the Company choosing as many."

From the Records of the Company, September 29, 1629:

"The next thing taken into consideration was the letters from John and

Samuel Brown to divers of their private friends here in England, whether

the same should be delivered or detained, and whether they should be

opened and read, or not. And for that it was to be doubted by probable

circumstances that they had defamed the country of New England, and the

Governor and Government there, it was thought fit that some of the said

letters should be opened and publicly read, which was done accordingly;

and the rest to remain in the Deputy's house (Goffe's), and the parties

to whom they are directed to have notice; and Mr. Governor and Mr.

Deputy, Mr. Treasurer, and Mr. Wright, or any two of them, are entreated

to be at the opening and reading thereof, to the end that the Company

may have notice if aught be inserted prejudicial to their Government or

Plantation in New England. And it is also thought fit that none of the

letters from Mr. Samuel Brown shall be delivered, but to be kept for use

against him as occasion shall be offered." (Young's Chronicles, &c., pp.

91, 92.)

"Upon the desire of John and Samuel Brown it is thought fit that they

should have a copy of the accusation against them, to the end they may

be better prepared to make answer thereto."

The accusation against the Browns seems to have been simply for sedition

and seditious speeches--a charge brought by persecutors for religion

against the persecuted since the days of our Lord and his Apostles--a

charge for being the victims of which the Puritans in England had loudly

complained in the reigns of James and Charles.

There is but one other record of the Company on the affair of Endicot

and the Browns, but the suppression of their letters shows clearly that

the publication of them would have been damaging to the Company.

The intercepting and seizure of private letters, after the example of

the Company in seizing private letters of the Browns and punishing their

authors, was reduced to a system by the Government of Massachusetts Bay,

whose officers were commanded to inspect all letters sent by each vessel

leaving their port, and to seize all suspected letters, which were

opened, and, if found to contain any complaint or statement against the

local authorities, were retained and the authors arraigned and punished.

Thus the Government and public in England were kept in perfect ignorance

of what was transpiring at Massachusetts Bay, except what the local

Government chose to communicate; and aggrieved persons in the

Plantations were deprived of all means of appealing to the higher

tribunals in England, and were condemned and punished for sedition in

attempting to do so. This practice continued (as will be shown

hereafter) until the death of King Charles and the usurpation of the

regicides in England.

The following extract from the Company's Records seems to explain the

manner in which the further proceedings of the Browns was stayed. In

order to get some compensation for their losses, they seem to have

agreed to the stipulations of the Company. But previous to this meeting

of the Company, their Governor had written to Endicot, Higginson, and

Skelton, in letters dated Oct. 18, 1629. These letters will be found in

a note on a subsequent page. The extract from the Company's Records,

dated February 10, 1630, is as follows:

"A writing of grievances of Samuel and John Brown was presented to the

Court, wherein they desire recompense for loss and damage sustained by

them in New England; and which this Assembly taking into consideration,

do think fit upon their submitting to stand to the Company's _final

order for ending all differences between them (which they are to signify

under their hands)_. Mr. Wright and Mr. Eaton are to hear their

complaint, and to set down what they in their judgments shall think

requisite to be allowed them for their pretended damage sustained, and

so to make a final end with them accordingly." (Young's Chronicles, &c.,

p. 123.)]

[Footnote 45: Note by the compiler of the Records--"Those letters are

unfortunately missing."]

[Footnote 46: The Company's letter to the Governor, dated October 16,

1629:--

"SIR,--We have written at this time to Mr. Skelton and Mr. Higginson

touching the rumours of John and Samuel Brown, spread by them upon their

arrival here, concerning some unadvised and scandalous speeches uttered

by them in their public sermons or prayers, so have we thought meet to

advertise you of what they have reported against you and them,

concerning some rash innovations[47] begun and practised in the civil

and ecclesiastical government. We do well to consider that the Browns

are likely to make the worst of anything they have observed in New

England, by reason of your sending them back, against their wills, for

their _offensive behaviour_, expressed in a _general letter_ from the

Company there;[48] yet--for we likewise do consider that you are in a

government newly formed, and want that assistance which the weight of

such a business doth require--we may have leave to think it is possible

some _indigested counsels have too suddenly been put in execution, which

may have ill construction with the State here, and make us obnoxious to

any adversary_. Let it therefore seem good unto you to be _very sparing

in introducing any laws or commands which may render yourself or us

distasteful to the State here, to which we must and will have an

obsequious eye. And as we make it our care to have the Plantation so

ordered as may be most to the honour of God and of our gracious

Sovereign, who hath bestowed many large privileges and royal favours

upon this Company, so we desire that all such as shall by word or deed

do anything to detract from God's glory or his Majesty's honour, may be

duly corrected, for their amendment and the terror of others_. And to

that end, if you know anything which hath been spoken or done, either by

the ministers (whom the Browns do seem tacitly to blame for some things

uttered in their sermons or prayers) or any others, we require you, if

any such there be, that you form due process against the offenders, and

send it to us by the first, that we may, as our duty binds us, use means

to have them duly punished.

"So not doubting but we have said enough, we shall repose ourselves upon

your wisdom, and do rest

"Your loving friends.

"To the Governor, Capt. Endicot."]

[Footnote 47: These innovations, I suppose, had reference principally to

the formation of the Church at Salem, the adoption of a confession of

faith and covenant by the people, and their election and ordination of

the ministers. Endicot, we know, sympathized fully with the Separatists

of New Plymouth.--_Note by the Editor of the Records._]

[Footnote 48: This letter has always been missing.]

[Footnote 49: History of the United States, Vol. I., pp. 486, 487.]

[Footnote 50: The Company's letter to the Ministers:--

"REVEREND FRIENDS,--

There are lately arrived here, being sent from the Governor, Mr. John

Endicot, as men of faction and evil-conditioned, John and Samuel Brown,

being brethren who since their arrival have raised rumours (as we hear)

of divers scandalous and intemperate speeches passed from one or both of

you in your public sermons and prayers in New England, as also of some

innovations attempted by you. We have reason to hope that their reports

are but slanders; partly, for your godly and quiet conditions are well

known to some of us; as also, for that these men, your accusers, seem to

be embittered against Captain Endicot for injuries which they have

received from some of you there. Yet, for that we all know that the best

advised may overshoot themselves, we have thought good to inform you of

what we hear, and if you be innocent you may clear yourselves; or, if

otherwise, you may be intreated to look back upon your miscarriage with

repentance; or at least to notice that we utterly disallow any such

passages, and must and will take order for the redress thereof, as shall

become us. But hoping, as we said, of your unblamableness herein, we

desire only that this may testify to you and others that we are tender

of the least aspersion which, either directly or obliquely, may be cast

upon the State here; to whom we owe so much duty, and from whom we have

received so much favour in this Plantation where you reside. So with our

love and due respect to your callings, we rest,

Your loving friends,

R. SALTONSTALL, THO. ADAMS,

ISA JOHNSON, SYM WHITCOMBE,

MATT. CRADOCK, _Governor_, WM. VASSAL,

THOS. GOFFE, _Deputy_, WM. PYNCHION,

GEO. HARWOOD, _Treasurer_, JOHN REVELL,

JOHN WINTHROP, FRANCIS WEBB.

London, 16th October, 1629."]

[Footnote 51: Extract from Deputy Governor Dudley's letter to the

Countess of Lincoln, dated November 12th, 1631:

"To increase the heap of our sorrows, we received from our friends in

England, and by the reports of those who came hither in this ship [the

_Charles_] to abide with us (who were about twenty-six), that they who

went discontentedly from us last year, out of their evil affections

towards us, have raised many false and scandalous reports against us,

affirming us to be Brownists in religion, and ill affected to our State

at home, and that these vile reports have won credit with some who

formerly wished us well. But we do desire and cannot but hope that wise

and impartial men will at length consider that such malcontents have

ever pursued this manner of casting dirt, to make others seem as foul as

themselves, and that our godly friends, to whom we have been known, will

not easily believe that we are so soon turned from the profession we so

long have made in our native country. And for our further clearing, I

truly affirm that I know no one person, who came over with us last year,

to be altered in judgment and affection, either in ecclesiastical and

civil respects, since our coming hither. But we do continue to pray

daily for our Sovereign Lord the King, the Queen, the Prince, the Royal

blood, the Council and whole State, as duty binds us to do, and reason

persuades us to believe. For how ungodly and unthankful should we be if

we should not do thus, who came hither by virtue of his Majesty's

letters patent and under his gracious protection; under which shelter we

hope to live safely, and from whose kingdom and subjects we now have

received and hereafter expect relief. Let our friends therefore give no

credit to such malicious aspersions, but be more ready to answer for us

than we hear they have been." (Young's Chronicles, &c., pp. 331, 332.)]

[Footnote 52: "'The Planters' Plea' was printed in London in 1630, soon

after the sailing of Winthrop's fleet [with Dudley]. It has generally

been ascribed to the Rev. John White, of Dorchester, England. 'The

Planters' Plea' appears to have been unknown to our historians. Neither

Mather, Prince, Hutchinson, Bancroft, nor Graham make any allusion to

it." (Young's Chronicles of the First Planters of the Colony of

Massachusetts, from 1623 to 1630, pp. 15, 16, in a note.)]

[Footnote 53: The _first_ emigration under the authority of the

Massachusetts Company was that under "Master Endicot, who was sent over

Governor, assisted with a few men, and arriving in safety there in

September, 1628, and uniting his own men with those who were formerly

planted there into one body, they made up in all not much above fifty or

sixty persons."

The second emigration was under Higginson, who says: "We brought with us

about two hundred passengers and planters more," arriving in June, 1629.

The third, or "great emigration," was under Winthrop, arriving in May,

1630.]

[Footnote 54: Young's Chronicles, &c., pp. 15, 16.]

[Footnote 55: This address is called "The humble Request of his

Majesties loyall subjects, the Governor and the Company late gone for

New England; to the rest of their Brethren in and of the Church of

England," and is as follows;

"REVEREND FATHERS AND BRETHREN,--

"The generall rumor of this solemne enterprise, wherein ourselves, with

others, through the providence of the Almightie, are engaged, as it may

spare us the labour of imparting our occasion unto you, so it gives us

the more incouragement to strengthen ourselves by the procurement of the

prayers and blessings of the Lord's faithful servants: For which end wee

are bold to have recourse unto you, as those whom God hath placed

nearest his throne of mercy; which, as it affords you the more

opportunitie, so it imposeth the greater bond upon you to intercede for

his people in all their straights. We beseech you, therefore, by the

mercies of the Lord Jesus, to consider us as your Brethren, standing in

very great need of your helpe, and earnestly imploring it. And howsoever

your charitie may have met with some occasion of discouragement through

the misreport of our intentions, or through the disaffection or

indiscretion of some of us, or rather amongst us, for wee are not of

those that dreame of perfection in this world; yet we desire you would

be pleased to take notice of the principals and body of our Company, as

those who esteeme it an honour to call the Church of England, from

whence we rise, our deare Mother, and cannot part from our native

countrie, where she specially resideth, without much sadness of heart

and many tears in our eyes, ever acknowledging that such hope and part

as we have obtained in the common salvation, we have received it in her

bosome, and suckt it from her breasts: Wee leave it not, therefore, as

loathing the milk wherewith wee were nourished there; but blessing God

for the parentage and education, as members of the same body shall

always rejoice in her good, and unfeignedly grieve for any sorrow that

shall ever betide her; and, while we have breath, sincerely desire and

endeavour the continuance and abundance of her welfare, with the

enlargement of her bounds in the kingdome of Christ Jesus.

"Be pleased, therefore, Reverend Fathers and Brethren, to helpe forward

this worke now in hand; which, if it prosper, you shall be the more

glorious; howsoever, your judgment is with the Lord, and your reward

with your God. It is an usuall and laudable exercise of your charity to

recommend to the prayers of your congregations the necessities and

straights of your private neighbours. Doe the like for a Church

springing out of your owne bowels. Wee conceive much hope that this

remembrance of us, if it be frequent and fervent, will bee a most

prosperous gale in our sailes, and provide such a passage and welcome

for us from the God of the whole earth, as both we which shall finde it,

and yourselves with the rest of our friends who shall heare of it, shall

be much enlarged to bring in such daily returns of thanksgivings, as the

specialties of his Providence and Goodnes may justly challenge at all

our hands. You are not ignorant that the Spirit of God stirred up the

Apostle Paul to make continuall mention of the Church of Philippi (which

was a colonie of Rome); let the same Spirit, we beseech you, put you in

mind, that are the Lord's Remembrancers, to pray for us without ceasing

(who are a weake Colony from yourselves), making continuall request for

us to God in all your prayers.

"What we entreat of you, that are the ministers of God, that we crave at

the hands of all the rest of our Brethren, that they would at no time

forget us in their private solicitations at the throne of grace.

"If any there be, who, through want of clear intelligence of our course,

or tendernesses of affection towards us, cannot conceive so well of our

way as we could desire, we would entreat such not to despise us, nor to

desert us in their prayers and affections; but to consider rather that

they are so much the more bound to expresse the bowels of their

compassion towards us; remembering alwaies that both Nature and Grace

doth binde us to relieve and rescue, with our utmost and speediest

power, such as are deare unto us, when we conceive them to be running

uncomfortable hazards.

"What goodness you shall extend to us, in this or any other Christian

kindnesse, wee, your Brethren in Christ Jesus, shall labour to repay, in

what dutie wee are or shall be able to performe; promising, so farre as

God shall enable us, to give him no rest on your behalfes, wishing our

heads and hearts may be as fountains of tears for your everlasting

welfare, when wee shall be in our poore cottages in the wildernesse,

overshadowed with the spirit of supplication, through the manifold

necessities and tribulations which may, not altogether unexpectedly nor

we hope unprofitably, befall us.

"And so commending you to the Grace of God in Christ, we shall ever rest

"Your assured Friends and Brethren."

Signed by JOHN WINTHROP, _Governor_;

Charles Fines, George Philips, Richard Saltonstall,

Isaac Johnson, Thomas Dudley, William Coddington,

&c., and was dated "From Yarmouth, aboard the _Arabella_,

April 7, 1630."]

[Footnote 56: History of the United States, Vol. I., p. 273.

In a note, Mr. Bancroft says:--"The Editor of Winthrop did me the

kindness to read to me _unpublished letters_ which are in his

possession, and _which prove that the Puritans in England were amazed as

well as alarmed at the boldness of their brethren in Massachusetts_."

(_Ib._)

Why have these letters remained unpublished, when every line from any

opposed to Endicot and his party, however private and confidential, has

been published to the world? The very fact that all the letters of

Endicot and the Browns, and of the Puritans who wrote on the subject,

according to Mr. Bancroft, have been suppressed, affords very strong

ground to believe that the Massachusetts Puritans violated the

acknowledged objects of the Charter and the terms of their settlement,

and committed the first breach of faith to their Sovereign, and

inculcated that spirit and commenced that series of acts which resulted

in the dismemberment of the British Empire in America.]

[Footnote 57: The General Assembly of the Province of Maryland passed an

Act in 1649 containing the following provision:

"No person whatsoever, in this province, professing to believe in Jesus

Christ, shall from henceforth be anywise troubled or molested for his or

her religion, or in the free exercise thereof, or any way compelled to

the belief or exercise of any other religion against his or her

consent."

Mr. Bancroft says: "Christianity was made the law of the land [in

Maryland], and no preference was given to any sect, and equality in

religious rights, no less than civil freedom, was assured."]

PART IV.

CONTEST BETWEEN KING CHARLES AND THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY PURITANS, DURING

TEN TEARS, FROM 1630 TO 1640; PROFESSIONS OF THE PURITANS ON LEAVING

ENGLAND; THEIR CONDUCT ON ARRIVING AT MASSACHUSETTS BAY; SUPPRESSION OF

PURITAN CORRESPONDENCE; COMPLAINTS TO ENGLAND OF THEIR CHURCH REVOLUTION

AND INTOLERANCE; MEMBERS OF THE NEW CONGREGATIONAL CHURCHES ALONE

ELECTORS AND ELIGIBLE TO OFFICE; FIVE-SIXTHS OF THE POPULATION

DISFRANCHISED; COMPLAINTS OF THE DISFRANCHISED AND PROSCRIBED TO

ENGLAND; SUPPRESSION OF CORRESPONDENCE AND THE DENIAL OF FACTS, AND THE

PROFESSIONS OF THE REPRESENTATIVES OF THE MASSACHUSETTS PERSECUTORS OF

EPISCOPALIANS OBTAIN A FAVOURABLE DECISION OF THE KING AND PRIVY

COUNCIL, AND THEY ARE ENCOURAGED IN THEIR SETTLEMENT AND TRADE; TRANSFER

OF THE CHARTER, PLAIN VIOLATIONS OF IT; RUMOURS OF THE APPOINTMENT OF A

GOVERNOR-GENERAL, AND APPOINTMENT OF A ROYAL COMMISSION OF INQUIRY AND

REGULATION; PREPARATION TO RESIST THE APPOINTMENT AT MASSACHUSETTS BAY;

ROYAL AND COLONIAL RESTRICTIONS ON EMIGRATION; IT CEASES; COLONIAL

PROPERTY AND TRADE DEPRESSED; REVIEW OF THE TREATMENT OF MASSACHUSETTS

BAY COLONY BY KING CHARLES THE FIRST, AND THEIR PROFESSIONS AND

TREATMENT IN RETURN; THE REAL AUTHORS AND PROMOTERS OF RELIGIOUS

TOLERATION AND LIBERTY IN ENGLAND.

It is well known that the Puritans in England objected to the ceremonies

enforced by Laud, as "corrupt and superstitious," and many ministers

were ejected from their benefices for nonconformity to them; but none of

the nonconformists who refused compliance with such "corrupt and

superstitious" ceremonies ever professed that the _polity_ and _worship_

of the Church was "corrupt and superstitious," and should therefore be

renounced, much less abolished, as did Endicot and his party at

Massachusetts Bay, and that twenty years before the death of Charles the

First and the usurpation of Cromwell.[58]

It might be confidently expected that Mr. Winthrop, after an address of

loyalty and affection to his "Fathers and Brethren of the Church of

England," from the very ship on which he left his native land, would, on

his arrival at Massachusetts Bay and assuming its government, have

rectified the wrongs of Endicot and his party, and have secured at least

freedom of worship to the children of his "dear Mother." But he seems to

have done nothing of the kind; he seems to have fallen in with the very

proceedings of Endicot which had been disclaimed by him in his address

to his "Fathers and Brethren of the Church of England," on embarking at

Yarmouth for his new government. American historians are entirely silent

on the subject. It is very clear that Mr. Winthrop had correspondence

with his English friends on these matters, as intimated by Mr. Bancroft

in words quoted on page 59. If this suppressed correspondence were

published, it would doubtless show how it was that Mr. Winthrop, like

Endicot, and to the astonishment of his Puritan friends in England,

changed from and suppressed the worship of his "dear Mother" Church, on

changing from one side of the Atlantic to the other. Mr. Hutchinson,

referring to the address of Governor Winthrop to his "Fathers and

Brethren of the Church of England," to remove suspicions and

misconstructions, says: "This paper has occasioned a dispute, whether

the first settlers in Massachusetts were of the Church of England or

not. However problematical it may be what they were while they remained

in England, they left no room to doubt after they arrived in

America."[59]

But though the Editor of Winthrop has suppressed the letters which would

explain how Mr. Winthrop changed from Episcopalianism to

Congregationalism on his assuming the government of Massachusetts Bay,

we are at no loss to know the character of his proceedings, since, in

less than a year after his arrival there, the worship of his "dear

Mother" Church not only continued to be suppressed, but its members were

deprived of the privilege of even becoming "freemen" or electors in the

new "Commonwealth," as it forthwith begun to call itself, and the

privileges of citizenship were restricted to members of the new

established Congregational Churches; for on May 18th, 1631, the newly

organized Legislature, or "General Court," as it was called, enacted

that, "To the end the body of the commons may be preserved of honest and

good men, it was ordered and agreed that for time to come, no man shall

be admitted to the freedom of this body politic but such as are members

of some of the churches within the limits of the same."

Mr. Bancroft, after quoting this extraordinary and unprecedented

enactment, remarks--"The principle of universal suffrage was the usage

of Virginia; Massachusetts, resting for its defence on its unity and its

enthusiasm, gave all power to the select band of religious votaries,

into which the avenues could be opened only by the elders [ministers].

The elective franchise was thus confined to a small proportion of the

whole population, and the Government rested on an essentially

aristocratic foundation. But it was not an aristocracy of wealth; the

polity was a sort of theocracy; the servant of the bondman, if he were a

member of the Church, might be a freeman of the Company."--"It was the

reign of the Church; it was a commonwealth of the chosen people in

covenant with God."[60]

It thus appears that the new Congregationalists of Massachusetts were

far behind the old Episcopalians of Virginia in the first principle of

civil liberty; for while among the latter the Episcopal Church alone was

the recognized Church, the elective franchise was not restricted to the

members of that Church, but was universal; while in the new Government

of Massachusetts, among the new Puritan Congregationalists, none but a

Congregational Church member could be a citizen elector, and none could

be a Church member without the consent and recommendation of the

minister; and thus the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Bay, at the very

beginning, became, in the words of Mr. Bancroft, "the reign of the

Church"--not indeed of the Church of England, but of the new

Congregational Church established by joining of hands and covenant

around the well-pump of Naumkeag--then christened Salem.

The New England historians assure us that on the settlement of the

Puritans at Massachusetts Bay, the connection between Church and State

ceased. It is true that the connection of the Church of England with the

State ceased there; it is true that there was not, in the English sense

of the phrase, connection between the Church and State there; for there

was no State but the Church; the "Commonwealth" was not the government

of free citizens by universal suffrage, or even of property citizens,

but was "the reign of the Church," the members of which, according to

Mr. Bancroft himself, constituted but "a small proportion of the whole

population"--this great majority (soon five-sixths) of the population

being mere helots, bound to do the work and pay the taxes imposed upon

them by the "reigning Church," but denied all eligibility to any office

in the "Commonwealth," or even the elective franchise of a citizen! It

was indeed such a "connection between Church and State" as had never

existed, and has never existed to this day, in any Protestant country.

"The reign of the Church"--the small minority over the great majority of

the "Commonwealth;" and this system of "the reign of the Church" over

the State--of the government of a Church minority of one-sixth over a

whole population of five-sixths--continued for sixty years (as will

hereafter appear), until suppressed by a second Royal Charter, which

placed all citizens upon equal footing before the law, and in respect to

the elective franchise. Though the Congregational Puritans of

Massachusetts Bay may have been the fathers of American independence of

England, they were far from being the fathers or even precursors of

American liberty. They neither understood nor practised the first

principles of civil and religious liberty, or even the rights of British

subjects as then understood and practised in England itself.

It is admitted on all sides, that, according to the express words of the

Royal Charter, the planter emigrants of Massachusetts Bay should enjoy

all "the privileges of British subjects," and that no law or resolution

should be enacted there "contrary to the laws and statutes of England."

Was it not, therefore, perfectly natural that members of the Church of

England emigrating to Massachusetts Bay, and wishing to continue and

worship as such after their arrival there, should complain to their

Sovereign in Council, the supreme authority of the State, that, on their

arrival in Massachusetts, they found themselves deprived of the

privilege of worshipping as they had worshipped in England, and found

themselves subject to banishment the moment they thus worshipped? And

furthermore, when, unless they actually joined one of the new

Congregational Churches, first established at Massachusetts Bay, August

6th, 1629, five months after granting the Royal Charter (March 4th,

1629), they could enjoy none of the rights of British subjects, they

must have been more or less than men had they not complained, and loudly

complained, to the highest authority that could redress their

grievances, of their disappointments, and wrongs as British subjects

emigrating to Massachusetts. And could the King in Council refuse to

listen to such complaints, and authorize inquiry into their truth or

falsehood, without violating rights which, even at that period of

despotic government, were regarded as sacred to even the humblest

British subject? And the leading complainants were men of the most

respectable position in England, and who had investments in New

England--not only the Messrs. Brown, but Capt. John Mason and Sir

Ferdinand Gorges, who complained that the Massachusetts Company had

encroached upon the territory held by them under Royal Charter--territory

which afterwards constituted portions of New Hampshire and Maine. Were

the King and Privy Council to be precluded from inquiring into such

complaints? Yet New England historians assail the complainants for stating

their grievances, and the King and Council for listening to them even so

far as to order an inquiry into them. The petitioners are held up as

slanderers and enemies, and the King and Council represented as acting

tyrannically and as infringing the rights of the Massachusetts Puritans,

and seeking the destruction of their liberties and enterprise even by

inquiring into complaints made. The actual proceedings of the King in

Council prove the injustice and falsity of such insinuations and

statements.

The pretence set up in Massachusetts was that the authority of the Local

Government was _supreme_; that to appeal from it to the King himself was

sedition and treason;[61] and the defence set up in England was that the

allegations were untrue, and that the Massachusetts Corporation was

acting loyally according to the provisions of the Charter and for the

interests of the King. The account of these proceedings before the

King's Privy Council is given in a note from Mr. Palfrey himself.[62]

In regard to these proceedings, the reader's attention is directed to

the following facts: 1. The principal charges of the complainants were

denied--resting to be proved by parties that must be called from that

place [Massachusetts], which required long, expensive time, "and were in

due time further to be inquired into;" and the Massachusetts Corporation

took effectual precaution against any documentary evidence being brought

thence, or "parties" to come, unless at the expense of their all, even

should the complainants be able and willing to incur the expense of

bringing them to England. The Privy Council therefore deferred further

inquiry into these matters, and in the meantime gave the accused the

benefit of the doubt and postponement. 2. The nominal Governor of the

Company in England, Mr. Cradock, Sir R. Saltonstall, &c., "appeared

before the Committee of Council on the Company's behalf, and _had the

address or good fortune_ to vindicate their clients," &c. This they did

so effectually as to prejudice the King and Council against the

complainants, and excite their sympathies in favour of the Company, the

King saying "he would have them severely punished who did abuse his

Governor and Plantations." But the question arises, And by what sort of

"address or good fortune" were Messrs. Cradock and Company able to

vindicate their clients "to the King's satisfaction and their complete

triumph?" Must it not have been by denying the charges which all the

world now knows to have been true? Must it not have been by appealing to

the address of Mr. Winthrop and Company to their "Fathers and Brethren

of the Church of England," declaring their undying attachment to their

"dear Mother?" and also by appealing to the letter of Deputy Governor

Dudley to the Countess of Lincoln, declaring in 1630 that no such Church

innovations as had been alleged had taken place at Massachusetts Bay?

Must it not have been by their assuring the King's Council that the

worship of the Church of England had not been abolished in

Massachusetts, much less had anyone been banished thence for continuing

to worship according to the Prayer Book of that Church? Must it not have

been by their declaring that they were faithfully and loyally carrying

out the intentions and provisions of the Charter, according to the

statutes and laws of England? 3. Let it be further observed that the

King, according to the statements of the very party who was imposing

upon his confidence in their sincerity, that throughout this proceeding

he evinced the same good-will to the Massachusetts Bay colony that he

had done from the granting of the Charter, and which they had repeatedly

acknowledged in their communications with each other, as quoted above.

Yet the Puritan historians ascribe to Charles jealous hostility to their

colony from the commencement, and on that ground endeavour to justify

the deceptive conduct of the Company, both in England and at

Massachusetts Bay. Had Charles or his advisers cherished any hostile

feelings against the Company, there was now a good opportunity of

showing it. Had he been disposed to act the despot towards them, he

might at once, on a less plausible pretext than that now afforded him,

have cancelled his Charter and taken the affairs of the colony into his

own hands.

It is a singular concurrence of circumstances, and on which I leave the

reader to make his own comments, that while the representatives of the

Company were avowing to the King the good faith in which their clients

were carrying out his Majesty's royal intentions in granting the

Charter, they at that very time were not allowing a single Planter to

worship as the King worshipped, and not one who desired so to worship to

enjoy the privilege of a British subject, either to vote or even to

remain in the colony. As Mr. Bancroft says in the American, but not in

the English edition of his History, men "were banished because they were

Churchmen. Thus was Episcopacy first professed in Massachusetts, and

thus was it exiled. The blessings of the promised land were to be kept

for Puritan dissenters."

But while the King and Privy Council were showering kindness and offers

of further help, if needed, to advance the Plantation, believing their

statements "that things were carried there as was pretended when the

patents were granted," complaints could not fail to reach England of the

persecution of members of the Church of England, and of the

disfranchisement of all Planters who would not join the Congregational

Church, in spite of the efforts of the dominant party in Massachusetts

to intercept and stifle them; and it at length came to the knowledge of

the King and Privy Council that the Charter itself had been, as it was

expressed, "surreptitiously" carried from England to Massachusetts, new

councillors appointed, and the whole government set up at Massachusetts

Bay instead of being administered in England, as had been intended when

the Charter was granted. This had been kept a profound secret for nearly

four years; but now came to light in 1634.

It has been contended that this transfer of the Charter was lawful, and

was done in accordance with the legal opinion of an able lawyer, Mr.

John White, one of the party to the transfer. I enter not into the legal

question; the more important question is, Was it honourable? Was it

loyal? Was it according to the intention of the King in granting it? Was

there any precedent, and has there ever been one to this day, for such a

proceeding? And when they conceived the idea of transferring the

management of the Company from London to Massachusetts, and Mr. Winthrop

and his friends refused to emigrate except on the condition of such

transfer of the Charter, did not fairness and duty dictate application

to the King, who granted the Charter, for permission to transfer it as

the best means of promoting the original objects of it? And is there not

reason to believe that their application would have been successful,

from the kind conduct of the King and Privy Council towards them, as

stated above by themselves, when complaints were made against them? Was

their proceeding straightforward? Was not the secrecy of it suspicious,

and calculated to excite suspicion, when, after more than three years

of secrecy, the act became known to the King and Privy Council?[63]

The complainants against the Company in 1632, who found themselves so

completely overmatched before the Privy Council by the denials,

professions, and written statements produced by Mr. Cradock, Sir R.

Saltonstall, and others, could not but feel exasperated when they knew

that their complaints were well-founded; and they doubtless determined

to vindicate the truth and justice of them at the first opportunity.

That opportunity was not long delayed. The discovery that the Charter

and government of the Company had been secretly transferred from London

to Massachusetts Bay excited suspicion and curiosity; rumours and

complaints of the proscriptions and injustice of the Colonial Government

began to be whispered on all sides; appeal was again made to the King in

Council; and the further inquiry indicated in the proceedings of the

Privy Council two years before, was decided upon; a Royal Commission was

appointed to inquire into these and all other complaints from the

colonies, and redress the wrongs if found to exist; the appointment of a

Governor-General over all the New England colonies, to see justice done

to all parties, was contemplated.

The complainants against the conduct of the government of Endicot and

Winthrop are represented by their historians as a few individuals of

malicious feelings and more than doubtful character; but human nature at

Massachusetts Bay must have been different from itself in all civilized

countries, could it have been contented or silent when the rights of

citizenship were denied, as Mr. Bancroft himself says, to "by far the

larger proportion of the whole population," and confined to the members

of a particular denomination, when the only form of worship then

legalized in England was proscribed, and its members banished from the

land claimed as the exclusive possession of Puritan dissenters. The most

inquisitorial and vigilant efforts of the Local Government to suppress

the transmission of information to England, and punish complainants,

could not prevent the grievances of the proscribed and oppressed being

wafted to England, and commanding attention, and especially in

connection with the startling fact now first discovered, that the Royal

Charter had been removed from England, and a government under its

authority set up at Massachusetts Bay.

Mr. Bancroft ascribes the complaints on these subjects as originating in

"revenge," and calls them "the clamours of the malignant," and as

amounting to nothing but "marriages celebrated by civil magistrates,"

and "the system of Colonial Church discipline;" confined, as he himself

says elsewhere, "the elective franchise to a small proportion of the

whole population," and "established the reign of the [Congregational]

Church." Mr. Bancroft proceeds: "But the greater apprehensions were

raised by a requisition that the Letters Patent of the Company should be

produced in England--a requisition to which the emigrants returned no

reply."

"Still more menacing," says Mr. Bancroft, "was the appointment of an

arbitrary Special Commission [April 10, 1634] for all the colonies.[64]

"The news of this Commission soon reached Boston [Sept. 19, 1634;] and

it was at the same time rumoured that a Governor-General was on his way.

The intelligence awakened the most intense interest in the whole colony,

and led to the boldest measures. Poor as the new settlements were, six

hundred pounds were raised towards fortifications; 'and the assistants

and the deputies discovered their minds to one another,' and the

fortifications were hastened. All the ministers assembled in Boston

[Jan. 19, 1635]; it marks the age, that their opinions were consulted;

it marks the age still more, that _they unanimously declared against the

reception of a General Governor_. 'We ought,' said the fathers of

Israel, 'to defend our lawful possessions, if we are able; if not, _to

avoid and protract_.'"

The rumour of the appointment of a Governor-General over all the New

England colonies was premature; but it served to develop the spirit of

the ruling Puritans of Massachusetts Bay in their determining to resist

the appointment of a general officer to which no other British colony

had, or has, ever objected.[65] The decision in their behalf by the

King in Council, in regard to the complaints made against them in 1632,

deserved their gratitude; the assurance in the recorded Minutes of the

Privy Council, that the King had never intended to impose upon them

those Church ceremonies which they had objected to in England, and the

liberty of not observing which they went to New England to enjoy, should

have produced corresponding feelings and conduct on their part. In their

perfect liberty of worship in New England, there was no difference

between them and their Sovereign. In the meeting of the Privy Council

where the Royal declaration is recorded that liberty of worship, without

interference or restriction, should be enjoyed by all the settlers in

New England, Laud (then Bishop of London) is reported as present.

Whatever were the sins of King Charles and Laud in creating by their

ceremonies, and then punishing, nonconformists in England, they were not

justly liable to the charge of any such sins in their conduct towards

the Puritans of New England. Throughout the whole reign of either

Charles the First or Second, there is no act or intimation of their

interfering, or intending or desiring to interfere, with the worship

which the Puritans had chosen, or might choose, in New England. In

Plymouth the Congregational worship was adopted in 1620, and was never

molested; nor would there have been any interference with its adoption

nine years afterwards at Massachusetts Bay, had the Puritans there gone

no further than their brethren at Plymouth had gone, or their brethren

afterwards in Rhode Island and Connecticut. But the Puritans at

Massachusetts Bay assumed not merely the liberty of worship for

themselves, but _the liberty of prohibiting any other form of worship,

and of proscribing and banishing all who would not join in their

worship_; that is, doing in Massachusetts what they complained so loudly

of the King and Laud doing in England. This was the cause and subject of

the whole contest between the Corporation of Massachusetts Bay and the

authorities in England. If it were intolerance and tyranny for the King

and Laud to impose and enforce one form of worship upon all the people

of England, it was equal intolerance and tyranny for the Government of

Massachusetts Bay to impose and enforce one form of worship there upon

all the inhabitants, and especially when their Charter gave them no

authority whatever in the matter of Church organization.[66] They went

to New England avowedly for liberty of worship; and on arriving there

they claimed the right to persecute and to banish or disfranchise all

those who adhered to the worship of the Church to which they professed

to belong, as did their persecutors when they left England, and which

was the only Church then tolerated by the laws of England.

When it could no longer be concealed or successfully denied that the

worship of the Church of England had been forbidden at Massachusetts Bay

and its members disfranchised; and when it now came to light that the

Charter had been secretly transferred from England to Massachusetts, and

a new Governor and Council appointed to administer it there; and when it

further became known that the Governor and Council there had actually

prepared to resist by arms the appointment of a General Governor and

Royal Commission, and had not only refused to produce the Charter, but

had (to "avoid and protract") not even deigned to acknowledge the Privy

Council's letter to produce it, the King was thrown upon the rights of

his Crown, either to maintain them or to have the Royal authority exiled

from a part of his dominions. And when it transpired that a large and

increasing emigration from England was flowing to the very Plantation

where the Church had been abolished and the King's authority set at

defiance,[67] it became a question of prudence whether such emigration

should not be restricted; and accordingly a Royal Order in Council was

issued forbidding the conveyance of any persons to New England except

those who should have a Royal license.

This Order has been stigmatized by New England writers as most

tyrannical and oppressive. I do not dispute it; but it was provided for

in the Royal Charter, and the writers who assail King Charles and his

Council for such an Act should remember that Cromwell himself and his

Rump Parliament passed a similar Act eighteen years later, in 1653, as

will hereafter appear; and it is a curious coincidence, that the same

year, 1637, in which the King ordered that no person should be conveyed

to New England without first obtaining a certificate that they had taken

the oath of allegiance and supremacy, and conformed to the worship of

the Church of England, the Massachusetts General Court passed an

ordinance of a much more stringent character, and interfering with

emigration and settlement, and even private hospitality and business to

an extent not paralleled in Colonial history. It was enacted "That none

shall entertain a stranger who should arrive with intent to reside, or

shall allow the use of any habitation, without liberty from the Standing

Council."[68]

The Charter having been transferred to Massachusetts, a new Council

appointed to administer it there, and no notice having been taken of the

Royal order for its production, the Commissioners might have advised the

King to cancel the Charter forthwith and take into his own hands the

government of the obstreperous colony; but instead of exercising such

authority towards the colonists, as he was wont to do in less flagrant

cases in England, he consented to come into Court and submit his own

authority, as well as the acts of the resistant colonists, to judicial

investigation and decision. The Grand Council of Plymouth, from which

the Massachusetts Company had first procured their territory, were

called upon to answer by what authority and at whose instigation the

Charter had been conveyed to New England. They disclaimed any

participation in or knowledge of the transaction, and forthwith

surrendered their own patent to the King. In doing so they referred to

the acts of the new patentees at Massachusetts Bay, "whereby they did

rend in pieces the foundation of the building, and so framed unto

themselves both new laws and new conceits of matter of religion, forms

of ecclesiastical and temporal orders of government, and punishing

divers that would not approve them," etc. etc., and expressed their

conviction of the necessity of his Majesty "taking the whole business

into his own hands."[69]

After this surrender of their Charter by the Grand Council of Plymouth

(England), the Attorney-General Bankes brought a _quo warranto_ in the

Court of King's Bench against the Governor, Deputy-Governor, and Council

of the Corporation of the Massachusetts Bay, to compel the Company to

answer to the complaints made against them for having violated the

provisions of the patent.[70] The patentees residing in England

disclaiming all responsibility for the acts complained of at

Massachusetts (except Mr. Cradock), and no defence having been made of

those acts, nor the authors of them appearing either personally or by

counsel, they stood outlawed, and judgment was entered against the

Company in the person of Mr. Cradock for the usurpation charged in the

information.

The Lords Commissioners, in pursuance of this decision of the Court of

King's Bench, sent a peremptory order to the Governor of Massachusetts

Bay, to transmit the Charter to England, intimating that, in case of

"further neglect or contempt," "a strict course would be taken against

them."[71] They were now brought face to face with the sovereign

authority; the contempt of silence; nor did they think it prudent to

renew military preparations of resistance, as they had done in 1634;

their policy now was to "avoid and protract," by pleading exile,

ignorance, innocence, begging pardon and pity, yet denying that they

had done anything wrong, and insinuating that if their Charter should be

cancelled, their allegiance would be forfeited and they would remove,

with the greater part of the population, and set up a new government. I

have not met with this very curious address in any modern history of the

United States--only glosses of it. I give it entire in a note.[72] They

profess a willingness to "yield all _due_ obedience to their Soveraigne

Lord the King's Majesty," but that they "are much grieved, that your

Lordships should call in our patent, there being no cause knowne to us,

nor any delinquency or fault of ours expressed in the order sent to us

for that purpose, our government being according to his Majestie's

patent, and wee not answerable for any defects in other plantations.

This is that which his Majestie's subjects here doe believe and

professe, and thereupon wee are all humble suitors to your Lordships,

that you will be pleased to take into _further consideration_ our

condition, and to afford us the _liberty of subjects, that we may know

what is laid to our charge_; and have leaive and time to _answer for

ourselves before_ we be condemned as a people unworthy of his Majestie's

favour or protection."

This profession and these statements are made in presence of the facts

that three years before the Royal Commissioners had in like manner

demanded the production of the patent in England, giving the reasons for

it, and the present "humble suitors to their Lordships" had "avoided and

protracted," by not even acknowledging the reception of the order, much

less answering the charges of which they were informed, but rather

preparing military fortifications for resisting a General Governor and

Royal Commissioners of Inquiry, and "for regulating the Plantations."

Yet they profess not to know "what is laid to their charge," and are

"grieved that their Lordships should now demand the patent," as if the

production of it had never before been demanded. It will be seen by the

letter of their Lordships, given in a note on p. 77, that they refer to

this treatment of their former order, and say, in the event of "further

_neglect and contempt_" a strict course would be taken against them.

The authors of the Address profess that the cancelling of their Charter

would involve the loss of their labours, their removal from

Massachusetts, the exposure of the country to the invasions of the

French and Dutch, the forfeiture of their allegiance, and their setting

up a new government. It was a mere pretext that the Plantation becoming

a Crown colony, as it would on the cancelling of the Charter, would not

secure to the planters the protection of the Crown, as in the

neighbouring Plymouth settlement, which had no Royal Charter. They knew

that, under the protection of the King and laws of England, their

liberties and lives and properties would be equally secure as those of

any other of his Majesty's subjects. They twice repeat the misstatement

that "nothing had been laid to their charge," and "no fault found upon

them;" they insinuate that they would be causelessly denied the

protection of British subjects, that their allegiance would be

renounced, and they with the greater part of the population would

establish a new government, which would be a dangerous precedent for

other colonies. These denials, professions, insinuations, and threats,

they call "opening their griefes," and conclude in the following

obsequious, plaintive, and prayerful words:

"If in any thing wee have offended his Majesty and your Lordships, wee

humbly prostrate ourselves at the footstool of supreme authority; let us

be made the objects of his Majestie's clemency, and not cut off, in our

first appeal, from all hope of favour. Thus with our earnest prayers to

the King of kings for long life and prosperity to his sacred Majesty and

his Royall family, and for all honour and welfare to your Lordships."

The Lords Commissioners replied to this Address through Mr. Cradock,

pronouncing the jealousies and fears professed in the Address to be

groundless, stating their intentions to be the regulation of all the

Colonies, and to continue to the settlers of Massachusetts Bay the

privileges of British subjects. They repeated their command upon the

Corporation to transmit the Charter to England, at the same time

authorising the present Government to continue in office until the

issuing of a new Charter. Mr. Cradock transmitted this letter to the

Governor of Massachusetts Bay, the General Court of which decided not to

acknowledge the receipt of it, pronouncing it "unofficial" (being

addressed to Mr. Cradock, who, though the Governor mentioned in the

Charter, and the largest proprietor, was not now Governor); that the

Lords Commissioners could not "proceed upon it," since they could not

prove that it had been delivered to the Governor; and they directed Mr.

Cradock's agent not to mention Lords Commissioners' letter when he wrote

to Mr. C.

At this juncture the whole attention of the King was turned from

Massachusetts to Scotland, his war with which resulted ultimately in the

loss of both his crown and his life.

In view of the facts stated in this and the preceding chapters, I think

it must be admitted that during the nine years which elapsed between

granting the first Charter by Charles and the resumption of it by _quo

warranto_ in the Court of King's Bench, the aggression and the hostility

was on the side of the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay. Their first act

was one of intolerance, and violation of the laws of England in

abolishing the worship of the Church of England, and banishing its

members for adhering to its worship. Their denials of it were an

admission of the unlawfulness of such acts, as they were also

dishonourable to themselves. Their maxim seems to have been, that the

end sanctified the means--at least so far as the King was concerned; and

that as they distrusted him, they were exempt from the obligations of

loyalty and truth in their relations to him; that he and his were

predestined reprobates, while they and theirs were the elected saints to

whom, of right, rule and earth belonged. They were evidently sincere in

their belief that they were the eternally elected heirs of God, and as

such had a right to all they could command and possess, irrespective of

king or savage. Their brotherhood was for themselves alone--everything

for themselves and nothing for others; their religion partook more of

Moses than of Christ--more of law than of Gospel--more of hatred than

of love--more of antipathy than of attractiveness--more of severity than

of tenderness. In sentiment and in self-complacent purpose they left

England to convert the savage heathen in New England; but for more than

twelve years after their arrival in Massachusetts they killed many

hundreds of Indians, but converted none, nor established any missions

for their instruction and conversion.

The historians of the United States laud without stint the Puritans of

Massachusetts Bay; and they are entitled to all praise for their

industry, enterprise, morality, independence. But I question whether

there are many, if any, Protestants in the United States who would wish

the views and spirit of those Puritans to prevail there, either in

religion or civil government--a denial of the liberty of worship to

Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Baptists, or Quakers; a denial of

eligibility to office or of elective franchise to any other than members

of the Congregational Churches; compulsory attendance upon

Congregational worship, and the support of that worship by general

taxation, together with the enforcement of its discipline by civil law

and its officers.

Had the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay understood the principles and

cherished the spirit of civil and religious liberty, and allowed to the

Browns and their Episcopalian friends the continued enjoyment of their

old and venerated form of worship, while they themselves embraced and

set up a new form of worship, and not made conformity to it a test of

loyalty and of citizenship in the Plantation, there would have been no

local dissensions, no persecutions, no complaints to England, no Royal

Commissions of Inquiry or Regulation, no restraints upon emigration, no

jealousies and disputes between England and the colony; the feelings of

cordiality with which Charles granted the Charter and encouraged its

first four years' operations, according to the testimony of the Puritans

themselves, would have developed into pride for the success of the

enterprise, and further countenance and aid to advance it; the religious

toleration in the new colony would have immensely promoted the cause of

religious toleration in England; and the American colonies would have

long since grown up, as Canada and Australia are now growing up, into a

state of national independence, without war or bloodshed, without a

single feeling other than that of filial respect and affection for the

Mother Country, without any interruption of trade or commerce--presented

an united Protestant and English nationality, under separate

governments, on the great continents of the globe and islands of the

seas.

I know it has been said that, had Episcopal worship been tolerated at

Massachusetts Bay, Laud would have soon planted the hierarchy there,

with all his ceremonies and intolerance. This objection is mere fancy

and pretence. It is fancy--for the Corporation, and not Laud, was the

chartered authority to provide for religious instruction as well as

settlement and trade in the new Plantation, as illustrated from the very

fact of the Company having selected and employed the first ministers, as

well as first Governor and other officers, for the two-fold work of

spreading religion and extending the King's dominions in New England.

The objection is mere pretence, for it could not have been dread of the

Church of England, which dictated its abolition and the banishment of

its members, since precisely the same spirit of bigotry, persecution,

and proscription prevailed, not only against Roger Williams, Mrs.

Hutchinson and her brother Wright and their friends, but in 1646 against

the Presbyterians, and in 1656 against the Baptists, as will hereafter

appear.

Their iron-bound, shrivelled creed of eternal, exclusive election

produced an iron-hearted population, whose hand was against every man

not of their tribal faith and tribal independence; but at the same time

not embodying in their civil or ecclesiastical polity a single element

of liberty or charity which any free State or Church would at this day

be willing to adopt or recognize as its distinctive constitution or

mission.

It was the utter absence of both the principles and spirit of true civil

and religious liberty in the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay, and in their

brethren under the Commonwealth and Cromwell in England, that left

Nonconformists without a plea for toleration under Charles the Second,

from the example of their own party on either side of the Atlantic, and

that has to this day furnished the most effective argument to opponents

against dissenters' pretensions to liberality and liberty, and the

strongest barrier against their political influence in England. They

were prostrate and powerless when the liberal Churchmen, guided by the

views of Chillingworth, Burnet, and Tillotson, under William and Mary,

obtained the first Parliamentary enactment for religious toleration in

England. It is to the same influence that religious liberty in England

has been enlarged from time to time; and, at this day, it is to the

exertions and influence of liberal Churchmen, both in and out of

Parliament, more than to any independent influence of Puritan

dissenters, that civil and religious liberty are making gradual and

great progress in Great Britain and Ireland--a liberty which, I believe,

would ere this have been complete but for the prescriptive, intolerant

and persecuting spirit and practice of the Puritans of the seventeenth

century.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 58: It appears that the cause of dissatisfaction among the

Puritan clergy of the Church, and of the emigration of many of them and

of their lay friends to New England, was not the Prayer Book worship of

the Church (abolished by Endicot at Massachusetts Bay), but the enforced

reading of the Book of Sports, in connection with "the rigorous

proceedings to enforce ceremonies;" for Rushworth, Vol. II., Second

Part, page 460, Anno 1636, quoted by the American antiquarian, Hazard,

Vol. I., p. 440, states as follows:

"The severe censures in the _Star Chamber_, and the greatness of the

fines and the rigorous proceedings to impose ceremonies, the suspending

and silencing of multitudes of ministers, for not reading in the Church

the Book of Sports to be exercised on the Lord's Day, caused many of the

nation, both ministers and others, to sell their estates, and set sail

for New England (a late Plantation in America), where they held a

Plantation by patent from the Crown."]

[Footnote 59: History of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, Vol. I., pp.

19, 20. It appears, however, that within a month after Mr. Winthrop's

arrival at Massachusetts Bay, both he and the Deputy-Governor Dudley

joined the new Endicot and Higginson Church; for Mr. Holmes in his

Annals says: "A fleet of 14 sail, with men, women and children, and

provisions, having been prepared early in the year to make a firm

plantation in New England, 12 of the ships arrived early in July [1630]

at Charlestown. In this fleet came Governor Winthrop, Deputy Governor

Dudley, and several other gentlemen of wealth and quality. In this fleet

came about 840 passengers." "On the 30th of July, a day of solemn prayer

and fasting was kept at Charlestown; when Governor Winthrop, Deputy

Governor Dudley, and Mr. Wilson first entered into Church covenant; and

now was laid the foundation of the Church of Charlestown, and the first

Church in Boston." (Vol. I., pp. 202, 203.)]

[Footnote 60: History of the United States, Vol. I., pp. 390, 391.

Referring to this order, May 18, 1631--not a year after Mr. Winthrop's

arrival--Mr. Hutchinson says: "None may now be a freeman of that Company

unless he be a Church member among them. None have voice in the election

of Governor, or Deputy, or assistants--none are to be magistrates,

officers, or jurymen, grand or petit, but freemen. The ministers give

their votes in all the elections of magistrates. Now the most of the

persons at New England are not admitted to their Church, and therefore

are not freemen; and when they come to be tried there, be it for life or

limb, name or estate, or whatsoever, they must be tried and judged too

by those of the Church, who are, in a sort, their adversaries. How equal

that hath been or may be, some by experience do and others may

judge."--In a note, quoted from the lawyer Lichford, Vol. I., p. 26.]

[Footnote 61: Examples of such pretensions and imputations will be given

in future pages.]

[Footnote 62: The malcontents had actually prevailed to have their

complaints entertained by the Privy Council. "Among many truths

misrepeated," writes Winthrop, "accusing us to intend rebellion, to have

cast off our allegiance, and to be wholly separate from the Church and

laws of England, that our ministers and people did continually rail

against the State, Church, and Bishops there, etc." Saltonstall,

Humphrey, Cradock (Ratcliff's master) appeared before the Committee of

the Council in the Company's behalf, and _had the address or good

fortune to vindicate their clients_, so that on the termination of the

affair, the King said "_he would have them severely punished who did

abuse his Governor and Plantation_;" and from members of the Council it

was learned, says Winthrop, "_that his Majesty did not intend to impose

the ceremonies of the Church of England upon us, for that it was

considered that it was freedom from such things that made the people

come over to us; and it was credibly informed to the Council that this

country would be beneficial to England for masts, cordage, etc., if the

Sound_ [the passage to the Baltic] _should be debarred_." "The reason

for dismissing the complaint was alleged in the Order adopted by Council

to that effect: '_Most of the things informed being denied, and resting

to be proved by parties that must be called from that place, which

required a long expense of time_, and at the present their Lordships

finding that the adventurers were upon the despatch of men, victuals,

and merchandise for that place, all which would be at a stand if the

adventurers should have discouragement, or take suspicion that the State

there had no good opinion of that Plantation,--their Lordships not

laying the fault, or fancies (if any _be_,) _of some particular men upon

the general government, or principal adventurers_, which in _due time

is_ further to be inquired into, have thought fit in the meantime to

declare that _the appearances were so fair, and the hopes so great, that

the country would prove both beneficial to this country and to the

particular adventurers, as that the adventurers had cause to go on

cheerfully with their undertakings, and rest assured, if things were

carried as was pretended_ when the patents were granted, and accordingly

as by the patents is appointed, his Majesty would not only maintain the

liberties and privileges heretofore granted, but supply anything further

that might tend to the good government of the place, and prosperity and

comfort of his people there."--Palfrey's History of New England, Vol.

I., Chap, ix., pp. 364, 365.]

[Footnote 63: The Congregational Society of Boston has published, in

1876, a new book in justification of the "Banishment of Roger Williams

from the Massachusetts Plantation," by the Rev. Dr. Henry M. Dexter, of

Boston. It is a book of intense bitterness against Roger Williams, and

indeed everything English; but his account of the origin and objects of

the Massachusetts Charter suggests, stronger than language can express,

the presumption and lawlessness of Endicot's proceedings in establishing

a new Church and abolishing an old one; and Dr. Dexter's account of the

removal of the Charter, and its secrecy, is equally suggestive. It is as

follows:

"Let me here repeat and emphasize that it may be remembered by and by

that this 'Dorchester Company,' originally founded on the transfer of a

portion of the patent of Gorges, and afterwards enlarged and

re-authorized by the Charter of Charles the First, as the 'Governor and

Company of Massachusetts Bay,' was in its beginning, and in point of

fact, neither more nor less than a private corporation chartered by the

Government for purposes of fishing, real estate improvement, and general

commerce, for which it was to pay the Crown a fifth part of all precious

metals which it might unearth. It was then more than this only in the

same sense as the egg, new-laid, is the full-grown fowl, or the acorn

the oak. It was not yet a State. It was not, even in the beginning, in

the ordinary sense, a colony. It was a plantation with a strong

religious idea behind it, on its way to be a colony and a state. In the

_original intent_, the Governor and General Court, and therefore the

Government, _were to be and abide in England_. When, in 1628, Endicot

and his little party had been sent over to Salem, his authority was

expressly declared to be 'in subordination to the Company here' [that

is, in London]. And it was only when Cradock [the first Governor of the

Company] found that so many practical difficulties threatened all

proceedings upon that basis, as to make it unlikely that Winthrop, and

Saltonstall, and Johnson, and Dudley, and other men whose co-operation

was greatly to be desired, would not consent to become partners in the

enterprise unless a radical change were made in that respect, that he

proposed and the Company consented, 'for the advancement of the

Plantation, the inducing and encouraging persons of worth and quality to

transplant themselves and families thither, and for other weighty

reasons therein contained, to transfer the government of the Plantation

to those that shall inhabit there,' &c. It was even a grave question of

law whether, under the terms of the Charter, this transfer were

possible." ... "They took the responsibility--so quietly, however, that

the Home Government seem to have remained in ignorance of the fact for

more than four years thereafter." (pp. 12, 13.)

In a note Dr. Dexter says: "I might illustrate by the Hudson Bay

Company, which existed into our time with its original Charter--strongly

resembling that of the Massachusetts Company--and which has always been

rather a corporation for trade charterers in England than a colony of

England on American soil." (_Ib._, p. 12.)

It is evident from the Charter that the original design of it was to

constitute _a corporation in England_ like that of the East India and

other great Companies, with powers to settle plantations within the

limits of the territory, under such forms of government and magistracy

as should be fit and necessary. The first step in sending out Mr.

Endicot, and appointing him a Council, and giving him commission,

instructions, etc., was agreeable to this constitution of the Charter.

(Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts Bay, Vol. I., pp. 12, 13.)]

[Footnote 64: History of the United States, Vol. I., pp. 439, 440.]

[Footnote 65: The New England historians represent it as a high act of

tyranny for the King to appoint a Governor-General over the colonies,

and to appoint Commissioners with powers so extensive as those of the

Royal Commission appointed in 1634. But they forget and ignore the fact

that nine years afterwards, in 1643, when the Massachusetts and

neighbouring colonies were much more advanced in population and wealth

than in 1634, the Parliament, which was at war with the King and

assuming all his powers, passed an Ordinance appointing a

Governor-General and Commissioners, and giving them quite as extensive

powers as the proposed Royal Commission of 1634. This Ordinance will be

given entire when I come to speak of the Massachusetts Bay Puritans,

under the Long Parliament and under Cromwell. It will be seen that the

Long Parliament, and Cromwell himself, assumed larger powers over the

New England colonies than had King Charles.]

[Footnote 66: "The Charter was far from conceding to the patentees the

privilege of freedom of worship. Not a single line alludes to such a

purpose; nor can it be implied by a reasonable construction from any

clause in the Charter." (Bancroft's History of the United States, Vol.

I., pp. 271, 272.)]

[Footnote 67: It has been seen, p. 45, that the London Company had

transmitted to Endicot in 1630 a form of the oath of allegiance to the

King and his successors, to be taken by all the officers of the

Massachusetts Bay Government. This had been set aside and a new oath

substituted, leaving out all reference to the King, and confining the

oath of allegiance to the local Government.]

[Footnote 68: Historians ascribe to this circumstance a remarkable

change in the political economy of that colony; a cow which formerly

sold for twenty pounds now selling for six pounds, and every colonial

production in proportion. (Chalmers' Annals, pp. 265, 266. Neal's

History of New England, Vol. I., Chap. ix., pp. 210-218.)]

[Footnote 69: Hazard, Vol. I.]

[Footnote 70: "At the trial, 'In Michas. T. XImo Carl Primi,' and the

patentees, T. Eaton, Sir H. Rowsell, Sir John Young, Sir Richard

Saltonstall, John Ven, George Harmood, Richard Perry, Thomas Hutchins,

Nathaniel Wright, Samuel Vassall, Thomas Goffe, Thomas Adams, John Brown

pleaded a disclaimer of any knowledge of the matters complained of, and

that they should not 'for the future intermeddle with any the liberties,

privileges and franchises aforesaid, but shall be for ever excluded from

all use and claim of the same and every of them."

"Matthew Cradock [first Governor of the Company] comes in, having had

time to interplead, etc., and on his default judgment was given, that he

should be convicted of the usurpation charged in the information, and

that the said liberties, privileges and franchises should be taken and

seized into the King's hands; the said Matthew not to intermeddle with

and be excluded the use thereof, and the said Matthew to be taken to

answer to the King for the said usurpation."

"The rest of the patentees stood outlawed, and no judgment entered

against them."

Collection of Original Papers relative to the Colony of Massachusetts

Bay (in the British Museum), by T. Hutchinson, Vol. I., pp. 114-118.]

[Footnote 71: The following is a copy of the letter sent by appointment

of the Lords of the Council to Mr. Winthrop, for the patent of the

Plantations to be sent to them:

"At Whitehall, April 4th, 1638:--

"This day the Lords Commissioners for Foreign Plantations, taking into

consideration the petitions and complaints of his Majesty's subjects,

planters and traders in New England, grew more frequent than heretofore

for want of a settled and orderly government in those parts, and calling

to mind that they had formerly given order about two or three years

since to Mr. Cradock, a member of that Plantation (alleged by him to be

there remaining in the hands of Mr. Winthrop), to be sent over hither,

and that notwithstanding the same, the said letters patent were not as

yet brought over; and their Lordships being now informed by Mr.

Attorney-General that a _quo warranto_ had been by him brought,

according to former order, against the said patent, and the same was

proceeded to judgment against so many as had appeared, and that they

which had not appeared were outlawed: 'Their Lordships, well approving

of Mr. Attorney-General's care and proceeding therein, did now resolve

and order, that Mr. Meawtis, clerk of the Council attendant upon the

said Commissioners for Foreign Plantations, should, in a letter from

himself to Mr. Winthrop, inclose and convey this order unto him; and

their Lordships hereby, in his Majesty's name and according to his

express will and pleasure, strictly require and enjoin the said

Winthrop, or any other in whose power and custody the said letters

patent are, that they fail not to transmit the said patent hither by the

return of the ship in which the order is conveyed to them, it being

resolved that in case of any further neglect or contempt by them shewed

therein, their Lordships will cause a strict course to be taken against

them, and will move his Majesty to resume into his hands the whole

Plantation.'" (_Ib._, pp. 118, 119.)]

[Footnote 72: "To the Right Honourable the Lords Commissioners for

Foreign Plantations.

"The humble Petition of the Inhabitants of the Massachusetts Bay, in New

England, of the Generall Court there assembled, the 6th day of

September, in the 14th year of the Reigne of our Soveraigne Lord King

Charles.

"Whereas it hath pleased your Lordships, by order of the 4th of April

last, to require our patent to be sent unto you, wee do hereby humbly

and sincerely professe, that wee are ready to yield all due obedience to

our Soveraigne Lord the King's majesty, and to your Lordships under him,

and in this minde wee left our native countrie, and according thereunto,

hath been our practice ever since, so as wee are much grieved, that your

Lordships should call in our patent, there being no cause knowne to us,

nor any delinquency or fault of ours expressed in the order sent to us

for that purpose, our government being according to his Majestie's

patent, and we not answerable for any defects in other plantations, etc.

"This is that which his Majestie's subjects here doe believe and

professe, and thereupon wee are all humble suitors to your Lordships,

that you will be pleased to take into further consideration our

condition, and to afford us the liberty of subjects, that we may know

what is layd to our charge; and have leaive and time to answer for

ourselves before we be condemned as a people unworthy of his Majestie's

favour or protection. As for the _quo warranto_ mentioned in the said

order, wee doe assure your Lordships wee were never called to answer it,

and if we had, wee doubt not but wee have a sufficient plea to put in.

"It is not unknowne to your Lordships, that we came into these remote

parts with his Majestie's license and encouragement, under the great

seale of England, and in the confidence wee had of that assurance, wee

have transported our families and estates, and here have wee built and

planted, to the great enlargement and securing of his Majestie's

dominions in these parts, so as if our patent should now be taken from

us, we shall be looked up as renegadoes and outlaws, and shall be

enforced, either to remove to some other place, or to returne into our

native country againe; either of which will put us to unsupportable

extremities; and these evils (among others) will necessarily follow.

(1.) Many thousand souls will be exposed to ruine, being laid open to

the injuries of all men. (2.) If wee be forced to desert this place, the

rest of the plantations (being too weake to subsist alone) will, for the

most part, dissolve and goe with us, and then will this whole country

fall into the hands of the French or Dutch, who would speedily embrace

such an opportunity. (3.) If we should loose all our labour and costs,

and be deprived of those liberties which his Majestie hath granted us,

and nothing layd to our charge, nor any fayling to be found in us in

point of allegiance (which all our countrymen doe take notice of, and

will justify our faithfulness in this behalfe), it will discourage all

men hereafter from the like undertakings upon confidence of his

Majestie's Royal grant. Lastly, if our patent be taken from us (whereby

wee suppose wee may clayme interest in his Majestie's favour and

protection) the common people here will conceive that his Majestie hath

cast them off, and that, heereby, they are freed from their allegiance

and subjection, and, thereupon, will be ready to confederate themselves

under a new Government, for their necessary safety and subsistence,

which will be of dangerous example to other plantations, and perillous

to ourselves of incurring his Majestie's displeasure, which wee would by

all means avoyd.

"Wee dare not question your Lordships' proceedings; wee only desire to

open our griefs where the remedy is to be expected. If in any thing wee

have offended his Majesty and your Lordships, wee humbly prostrate

ourselves at the footstool of supreme authority; let us be made the

object of his Majestie's clemency, and not cut off, in our first appeal,

from all hope of favour. Thus with our earnest prayers to the King of

kings for long life and prosperity to his sacred Majesty and his Royall

family, and for all honour and welfare to your Lordships, we humbly take

leave.

"EDWARD RAWSON, _Secretary_."

(Hutchinson's History of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, Vol. I.,

Appendix V., pp. 507, 508, 509.)]

CHAPTER IV.

THE GOVERNMENT OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY UNDER THE LONG PARLIAMENT, THE

COMMONWEALTH, AND CROMWELL.

Charles the First ceased to rule after 1640, though his death did not

take place until January, 1649. The General Court of Massachusetts Bay,

in their address to the King's Commissioners in September, 1637,

professed to offer "earnest prayers for long life and prosperity to his

sacred Majesty and his royal family, and all honour and welfare to their

Lordships;" but as soon as there was a prospect of a change, and the

power of the King began to decline and that of Parliament began to

increase, the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay transferred all their

sympathies and assiduities to the Parliament. In 1641, they sent over

three agents to evoke interest with the Parliamentary leaders--one

layman, Mr. Hibbins, and two ministers, Thomas Weld and Hugh Peters, the

latter of whom was as shrewd and active in trade and speculations as he

was ardent and violent in the pulpit. He made quite a figure in the

civil war in England, and was Cromwell's favourite war chaplain. Neither

he nor Weld ever returned to New England.

As the persecution of Puritans ceased in England, emigration to New

England ceased; trade became depressed and property greatly depreciated

in value; population became stationary in New England during the whole

Parliamentary and Commonwealth rule in England, from 1640 to 1660--more

returning from New England to England than emigrating thither from

England.[73]

The first success of this mission of Hugh Peters and his colleagues soon

appeared. By the Royal Charter of 1629, the King encouraged the

Massachusetts Company by remitting all taxes upon the property of the

Plantations for the space of seven years, and all customs and duties

upon their exports and imports, to or from any British port, for the

space of twenty-one years, except the five per cent. due upon their

goods and merchandise, according to the ancient trade of merchants; but

the Massachusetts delegates obtained an ordinance of Parliament, or

rather an order of the House of Commons, complimenting the colony on its

progress and hopeful prospects, and discharging all the exports of the

natural products of the colony and all the goods imported into it for

its own use, from the payment of any custom or taxation whatever.[74]

On this resolution of the Commons three remarks may be made: 1. As in

all previous communications between the King and the Colony, the House

of Commons termed the colony a "Plantation," and the colonists

"Planters." Two years afterwards the colony of Massachusetts Bay assumed

to itself (without Charter or Act of Parliament) the title and style of

"a Commonwealth." 2. While the House of Commons speaks of the prospects

being "very happy for the propagation of the Gospel in those parts," the

Massachusetts colony had not established a single mission or employed a

single missionary or teacher for the instruction of the Indians. 3. The

House of Commons exempts the colony from payment of all duties on

articles exported from or imported into the colony, _until the House of

Commons shall take further order therein to the contrary_,--clearly

implying and assuming, as beyond doubt, the right of the House of

Commons to impose or abolish such duties at its pleasure. The colonists

of Massachusetts Bay voted hearty thanks to the House of Commons for

this resolution, and ordered it to be entered on their public records as

a proof to posterity of the gracious favour of Parliament.[75]

The Massachusetts General Court did not then complain of the Parliament

invading their Charter privileges, in assuming its right to tax or not

tax their imports and exports; but rebelled against Great Britain a

hundred and thirty years afterwards, because the Parliament asserted and

applied the same principle.

The Puritan Court of Massachusetts Bay were not slow in reciprocating

the kind expressions and acts of the Long Parliament, and identifying

themselves completely with it against the King. In 1644 they passed an

Act, in which they allowed perfect freedom of opinion, discussion, and

action on the side of Parliament, but none on the side of the King; the

one party in the colony could say and act as they pleased (and many of

them went to England and joined Cromwell's army or got places in public

departments); no one of the other party was allowed to give expression

to his opinions, either "directly or indirectly," without being

"accounted as an offender of a high nature against this Commonwealth,

and to be prosecuted, capitally or otherwise, according to the quality

and degree of his offence."[76]

The New England historians have represented the acts of Charles the

First as arbitrary and tyrannical in inquiring into the affairs of

Massachusetts Bay, and in the appointment of a Governor-General and

Commissioners to investigate all their proceedings and regulate them;

and it might be supposed that the Puritan Parliament in England and the

General Court of Massachusetts Bay would be at one in regard to local

independence of the colony of any control or interference on the part of

the Parent State. But the very year after the House of Commons had

adopted so gracious an order to exempt the exports and imports of the

colony from all taxation, both Houses of Parliament passed an Act for

the appointment of a Governor-General and seventeen Commissioners--five

Lords and twelve Commoners--with unlimited powers over all the American

colonies. Among the members of the House of Commons composing this

Commission were Sir Harry Vane and Oliver Cromwell. The title of this

Act, in Hazard, is as follows:

"An Ordinance of the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament: whereby

Robert Earl of Warwick is made Governor-in-Chief and Lord High Admiral

of all those Islands and Plantations inhabited, planted, or belonging to

any of his Majesty the King of England's subjects, within the bounds and

upon the coasts of America, and a Committee appointed to be assisting

unto him, for the better government, strengthening and preservation of

the said Plantations; but chiefly for the advancement of the true

Protestant religion, and further spreading of the Gospel of Christ[77]

among those that yet remain there, in great and miserable blindness and

ignorance."[78]

This Act places all the affairs of the colonies, with the appointment

of Governors and all other local officers, under the direct control of

Parliament, through its general Governor and Commissioners, and shows

beyond doubt that the Puritans of the Long Parliament held the same

views with those of Charles the First, and George the Third, and Lord

North a century afterwards, as to the authority of the British

Parliament over the American colonies. Whether those views were right or

wrong, they were the views of all parties in England from the beginning

for more than a century, as to the relations between the British

Parliament and the colonies. The views on this subject held and

maintained by the United Empire Loyalists, during the American

Revolution of 1776, were those which had been held by all parties in

England, whether Puritans or Churchmen, from the first granting of the

Charter to the Company of Massachusetts Bay in 1629. The assumptions and

statements of American historians to the contrary on this subject are at

variance with all the preceding facts of colonial history.[79]

Mr. Bancroft makes no mention of this important ordinance passed by

both Houses of the Long Parliament;[80] nor does Hutchinson, or Graham,

or Palfrey. Less sweeping acts of authority over the colonies, by

either of the Charters, are portrayed by these historians with

minuteness and power, if not in terms of exaggeration. The most absolute

and comprehensive authority as to both appointments and trade in the

colonies ordered by the Long Parliament and Commonwealth are referred to

in brief and vague terms, or not at all noticed, by the historical

eulogist of the Massachusetts Bay Puritans,[81] who, while they were

asserting their independence of the royal rule of England, claimed and

exercised absolute rule over individual consciences and religious

liberty in Massachusetts, not only against Episcopalians, but equally

against Presbyterians and Baptists; for this very year, says Hutchinson,

"several persons came from England in 1643, made a muster to set

Presbyterian government under the authority of the Assembly of

Westminster; but the New England Assembly, the General Court, soon put

them to the rout."[82] And in the following year, 1644, these "Fathers

of American liberty" adopted measures equally decisive to "rout" the

Baptists. The ordinance passed on this subject, the "13th of the 9th

month, 1644," commences thus: "Forasmuch as experience hath plentifully

and often proved that since the first arising of the Anabaptists, about

one hundred years since, they have been the incendaries of the

Commonwealths and the infectors of persons in main matters of religion,

and the troubles of churches in all places where they have been, and

that they who have held the baptizing of infants unlawful, have usually

held other errors or heresies therewith, though they have (as other

heretics used to do) concealed the same till they spied out a fit

advantage and opportunity to vent them by way of question or scruple,"

etc.: "It is ordered and agreed, that if any person or persons within

this jurisdiction shall either openly condemn _or_ oppose the baptizing

of infants, _or_ go about secretly to seduce others from the approbation

or use thereof, _or_ shall purposely depart the congregation at the

ministration of the ordinance, _or_ shall deny the ordinance of

magistracy, or their lawful right and authority to make war, _or_ to

punish the outward breakers of the first Table, and shall appear to the

Court to continue therein after the due time and means of conviction,

_shall be sentenced to banishment_."[83]

In the following year, 1646, the Presbyterians, not being satisfied with

having been "put to the rout" in 1643, made a second attempt to

establish their worship within the jurisdiction of Massachusetts Bay.

Mr. Palfrey terms this attempt a "Presbyterian cabal," and calls its

leaders "conspirators." They petitioned the General Court or Legislature

of Massachusetts Bay, and on the rejection of their petition they

proposed to appeal to the Parliament in England. They were persecuted

for both acts. It was pretended that they were punished, not for

petitioning the local Court, but for the expressions used in their

petition--the same as it had been said seventeen years before, that the

Messrs. Brown were banished, not because they were Episcopalians, but

because, when called before Endicot and his councillors, they used

offensive expressions in justification of their conduct in continuing to

worship as they had done in England. In their case, in 1629, the use and

worship of the Prayer Book was forbidden, and the promoters of it

banished, and their papers seized; in this case, in 1646, the

Presbyterian worship was forbidden, and the promoters of it were

imprisoned and fined, and their papers seized. In both cases the victims

of religious intolerance and civil tyranny were men of the highest

position and intelligence. The statements of the petitioners in 1646

(the truth of which could not be denied, though the petitioners were

punished for telling it) show the state of bondage and oppression to

which all who would not join the Congregational Churches--that is,

five-sixths of the population--were reduced under this system of Church

government--the Congregational Church members alone electors, alone

eligible to be elected, alone law-makers and law administrators, alone

imposing taxes, alone providing military stores and commanding the

soldiery; and then the victims of such a Government were pronounced and

punished as "conspirators" and "traitors" when they ventured to appeal

for redress to the Mother Country. The most exclusive and irresponsible

Government that ever existed in Canada in its earliest days never

approached such a despotism as this of Massachusetts Bay. I leave the

reader to decide, when he peruses what was petitioned for--first to the

Massachusetts Legislature, and then to the English Parliament--who were

the real "traitors" and who the "conspirators" against right and

liberty: the "Presbyterian cabal," as Mr. Palfrey terms the petitioners,

or those who imprisoned and fined them, and seized their papers. Mr.

Hutchinson, the best informed and most candid of the New England

historians, states the affair of the petitioners, their proceedings and

treatment, and the petition which they presented, as follows:

"A great disturbance was caused in the colony this year [1646] by a

number of persons of figure, but of different sentiments, both as to

civil and ecclesiastical government, from the people in general. They

had laid a scheme for petition of such as were non-freemen to the courts

of both colonies, and upon the petitions being refused, to apply to the

Parliament, pretending they were subjected to arbitrary power,

extra-judicial proceedings, etc. The principal things complained of by

the petitioners were:

"1st. That the fundamental laws of England were not owned by the Colony,

as the basis of their government, according to the patent.

"2nd. The denial of those civil privileges, which the freemen of the

jurisdiction enjoyed, to such as were not members of Churches, and did

not take an oath of fidelity devised by the authority here, although

they were freeborn Englishmen, of sober lives and conversation, etc.

"3rd. That they were debarred from Christian privileges, viz., the

Lord's Supper for themselves, and baptism for their children, unless

they were members of some of the particular Churches in the country,

though otherwise sober, righteous, and godly, and eminent for knowledge,

not scandalous in life and conversation, and members of Churches in

England.

"And they prayed that civil liberty and freedom might be forthwith

granted to all truly English, and that all members of the Church of

England or Scotland, not scandalous, might be admitted to the privileges

of the Churches of New England; or if these civil and religious

liberties were refused, that they might be freed from the heavy taxes

imposed upon them, and from the impresses made of them or their children

or servants into the war; and if they failed of redress there, they

should be under the necessity of making application to England, to the

honourable Houses of Parliament, who they hoped would take their sad

condition, etc.

"But if their prayer should be granted, they hoped to see the then

contemned ordinances of God highly prized; the Gospel, then dark, break

forth as the sun; Christian charity, then frozen, wax warm; jealousy of

arbitrary government banished; strife and contention abated; and all

business in Church and State, which for many years had gone backward,

successfully thriving, etc.