Elizabeth came to her inheritance. She was no more of a religion-monger
than her distinguished father had been; but she was, like him, jealous
of her authority, and a martinet for order and obedience at all costs.
A certain intellectual voluptuousness of nature and an artistic
instinct inclined her to the splendid forms and ceremonies of the
Catholic ritual; but she was too good a politician not to understand
that a large part of her subjects were unalterably opposed to the
papacy. After some consideration, therefore, she adopted the expedient
of a compromise, the substance of which was that whatever was handsome
and attractive in Catholicism was to be retained, and only those
technical points dropped which made the Pope the despot of the Church.
In ordinary times this would have answered very well; human nature
likes to eat its cake and have it too; but this time was anything but
ordinary. The reaction from old to new ways of thinking, and the
unforgotten persecutions of Mary, had made men very fond of their
opinions, and preternaturally unwilling to enter into bargains with
their consciences. At the same time loyalty to the Crown was still a
fetich in England, as indeed it always has been, except at and about
the time when Oliver Cromwell and others cut off the head of the First
Charles. Consequently when Elizabeth and Whitgift, her Archbishop of
Canterbury, set about putting their house in order in earnest, they
were met with a mixture of humble loyalty and immovable resistance
which would have perplexed any potentates less single-minded. But
Elizabeth and Whitgift were not of the sort that sets its hand to the
plow and then turns back; they went earnestly on with their banishments
and executions, paying particular attention to the Separatists, but
keeping plenty in hand for the Puritans also.--The Separatists, it may
be observed, were so called because their aim was to dispart themselves
entirely from the orthodox communion; the Puritans were willing to
remain in the fold, but had it in mind to purify it, by degrees, from
the defilement which they held it to have contracted. The former would
not in the least particular make friends with the mammon of
unrighteousness, or condone the sins of the Scarlet Woman, or of
anybody else; they would not inhale foul air, with a view to sending it
forth again disinfected by the fragrance of their own lungs. They took
their stand unequivocally upon the plain letter of Scripture, and did
away with all that leaned toward conciliating the lighter sentiments
and emotions; they would have no genuflexions, no altars, no forms and
ceremonies, no priestly vestments, no Apostolic Succession, no priests,
no confessions, no intermediation of any kind between the individual
and his Creator. The people themselves should make and unmake their own
"ministers," and in all ways live as close to the bone as they could.
The Puritans were not opposed to any of these beliefs; only they were
not so set upon proclaiming and acting upon them in season and out of
season; they contended that the idolatry of ritual, since it had been
several centuries growing up, should be allowed an appreciable time to
disappear. It will easily be understood that, at the bottom of these
religious innovations and inflammations, was a simple movement toward
greater human freedom in all directions, including the political. It
mattered little to the zealots on either side whether or not the secret
life of a man was morally correct; he must think in a certain
prescribed way, on pain of being held damnable, and, if occasion
served, of being sent to the other world before he had opportunity to
further confirm his damnation. The dissenters, when they got in motion,
were just as intolerant and bigoted as the conformists; and toward none
was this intolerance more strongly manifested than toward such as were
in the main, but not altogether, of their way of thinking. The Quakers
and the Independents had almost as hard an experience in New England,
at the hands of the Puritans, as the latter had endured from good Queen
Bess and her henchmen a few years before. But really, religion, in the
absolute sense, had very little to do with these movements and
conflicts; the impulse was supposed to be religion because religion
dwells in the most interior region of a man's soul. But the craving for
freedom also proceeds from an interior place; and so does the lust for
tyranny. Propinquity was mistaken for identity, and anything which was
felt but could not be reasoned about assumed a religious aspect to the
subject of it, and all the artillery of Heaven and Hell, and the
vocabulary thereof, were pressed into service to champion it.
But New England had to be peopled, and this was the way to people it.
The dissenters perceived that, though they might think as they pleased
in England, they could not combine this privilege with keeping clear of
the fagot or the gibbet; and though martyrdom is honorable, and perhaps
gratifying to one's vanity, it can be overdone.
They came to the conclusion, accordingly, that practical common sense
demanded their expatriation; and some of them humbly petitioned her
Majesty to be allowed to take themselves off. The Queen did not show
herself wholly agreeable to this project; womanlike, and queenlike, she
wanted to convince them even more than to be rid of them; or if they
must be got rid of, she preferred to dispose of them herself in the
manner prescribed for stubborn heretics. But the lady was getting on in
years, and was not so ardently loved as she had been; and her activity
against the heretics could not keep pace with her animosity. She had
succeeded in many things, and her reign was accounted glorious; but she
had won no glory by the Puritans and Separatists, and her campaign
against them had not succeeded. They were stronger than ever, and were
to grow stronger yet. It was remembered, too, by her servants, that,
when she was dead, some one might ascend the throne who was less averse
to nonconformity than she had been; and then those who had persecuted
might suffer persecution in their turn. So although the prayer of the
would-be colonists was not granted, the severity against them was
relaxed; and as Elizabeth's last breath rattled in her throat, the
mourners had one ear cocked toward the window, to hear in what sort of
a voice James was speaking.
Their fears had been groundless. The new king spoke Latin, and
"peppered the Puritans soundly." The walls of Hampton Court resounded
with his shrill determination to tolerate none of their nonsense; and
he declared to the assembled prelates, who were dissolving in tears of
joy, that bishops were the most trustworthy legs a monarch could walk
on. The dissenters, who had hoped much, were disappointed in
proportion; but they were hardened into an opposition sterner than they
had ever felt before. They must help themselves, since no man would
help them; and why not--since they had God on their side? They
controlled the House of Commons, and made themselves felt there, till
James declared that he preferred a hermitage to ruling such a pack of
malcontents. The clergy renewed their persecutions; the government of
England was a despotism of the strictest kind; and the fire which had
been repressed in Puritan bosoms began to emit sullen sparks through
their eyes and lips.
A group of them in the north of England established a church, and
called upon all whom it might concern to shake off anti-Christian
bondage. John Robinson and William Brewster gave it their support, and
their meetings were made interesting by the spies of the government.
Finally they were driven to attempt an escape to Holland; and, after
one miscarriage, they succeeded in getting off from the coast of
Lincolnshire in the spring of 1608, and were transported to Amsterdam.
They could but tarry there; their only country now was Heaven;
meanwhile they were wandering Pilgrims on the face of the earth, as
their Lord had been before them. From Amsterdam they presently removed
to Leyden, where they conducted themselves with such propriety as to
win the encomiums of the natives. But their holy prosperity did not
make them happy, or enable them to be on comfortable terms with the
Dutch language; they could not get elbow-room, or feel that they were
doing themselves justice; and as the rumors of a fertile wilderness
overseas came to their ears, they began to contemplate the expediency
of betaking themselves thither. It was now the year 1617; and
negotiations were entered into with the London Company to proceed under
their charter.
The London Company were disposed to consider the proposition favorably,
but the affair dragged, and when it was brought before the government
it was quashed by Bacon, who opined that the coat of Christ must be
seamless, and that even in a remote wilderness heretics must not be
permitted to rend it. The Pilgrims might have replied that if a coat is
already torn, it profits not to declare it whole; but they were not
students of repartee, and merely relinquished efforts to secure support
in that direction. They must go into exile without official sanction,
that was all. The king's law enjoined, to be sure, that if any
dissenters were discovered abroad they were straightway to be sent to
England for discipline; but inasmuch as the threat of exile was, at the
same time, held over the same dissenters at home, it would seem a
saving of trouble all round to go abroad and trust to God. "If they
mean to wrong us," they aptly remarked, "a royal seal, though it were
as broad as the house floor, would not protect us." A suggestion that
the Dutchmen fit them out for their voyage, and share their profits,
fell through on the question of protection against other nations; and
when they had prepared their minds to make the venture without any
protection at all, it turned out that there was not capital enough in
the community to pay for transport. Within three years, however, this
difficulty was overcome, and in July of 1620 two ships were hired--the
"Speedwell" and the "Mayflower"--and the progenitors of religious and
civil liberty in America were ready to set forth.
There was not accommodation for them all on the two vessels, the one of
sixty tons, the other of thrice as many; so a division was made,
Robinson remaining in Leyden with one party, until means could be had
to bring them over; and Brewster accompanying the emigrants, supported
by John Carver and Miles Standish. Robinson, one of the finest and
purest spirits of the time, died while waiting to join his friends; but
most of the others were brought over in due season.
The hymns of praise and hope which were up-lifted on the shores of
Delft Haven, in the hour of farewell between those who went and those
who stayed, though the faith which inspired them was stanch, and the
voices which chanted them musical and sweet, could not restrain the
tears that flowed at the severing of ties which had been welded by
exile, hardship, and persecution for conscience' sake; nor were the two
"feasts" which comforted the bellies of the departing ones able to
console their hearts. It is different with trips across the Atlantic
nowadays: and different, likewise, are the motives which prompt them.
The "Speedwell" turned back at Plymouth, England, and the "Mayflower"
went on alone, with her company of one hundred and two, including
women, some of whom were soon to be mothers. The Atlantic, though a
good friend of theirs, was rough and boisterous in its manners, and
tossed them on their way rudely; in that little cabin harrowing
discomfort must have been undergone, and Christian forbearance sorely
tried. The pitching and tossing lasted more than two months, from the
6th of September till the 7th of December, when they sighted--not the
Bay of New York, as they had intended, but the snow-covered sand mounds
of Cape Cod. It was at best an inhospitable coast, and the time of
their visit could not have been worse chosen.
But indeed they were to be tested to the utmost; their experiences
during that winter would have discouraged oak and iron; but it had no
such effect upon these English men and women of flesh and blood. The
New England winter climate has its reputation still; but these people
were not fit for the encounter. They had been living in the moist
mildness of Holland for thirteen years, and for more than sixty days
had been penned in that stifling "Mayflower" cabin, seasick, bruised
and sleepless. It sleeted, snowed, rained and froze, and they could
find no place to get ashore on; their pinnace got stove, and the icy
waves wet them to the marrow. Standish and some others made
explorations on land; but found nothing better than some baskets of
maize and a number of Indian graves buried in the snow-drifts. At last
they stumbled upon a little harbor, upon which abutted a hollow between
low hills, with an icebound stream descending through it to the sea.
They must make shift with that or perish. It was the 21st of December.
That date is inscribed on the front page of our history, and the
Pilgrim Fathers and their wives and daughters are celebrated persons,
though they were only a lot of English farmers in exile for heresy. But
no dreams of renown visited them then; they had nothing to uphold them
but their amazing faith. What that faith must have been their conduct
demonstrates; but it is difficult to comprehend such a spirit; we
remember all the persecutions, all the energy of new convictions, and
still it seems miraculous. Liberty to think as they pleased, and to act
upon their belief: that was all they had to fight with. It seems very
thin armor, an ineffective sword: but what a victory they won!
Before they disembarked, a meeting was held in the cabin for the
transaction of certain business. Since then, whenever a handful of
Yankees have been gathered together, it has been their instinct to
organize and pass resolutions. It is the instinct of order and
self-government, the putting of each man in his proper place, and
assigning to him his function. This meeting of the Pilgrims was the
prototype, and the resolutions they passed constitute the model upon
which our commonwealth is based. They promised one another, in the
presence of God, equal laws and fidelity to the general good: the
principles of a free democracy.
They disembarked on the flat bowlder known as Plymouth Rock and set to
work to make their home. With the snow under their feet, the dark,
naked woods hemming them in, and concealing they knew not what savage
perils; with the bitter waves flinging frozen spray along the shore,
and immitigable clouds lowering above them--memory may have drawn a
picture of the quiet English vales in which they were born, or of the
hazy Dutch levels, with the windmills swinging their arms slumberously
above the still canals, and the clean streets and gabled façades of the
prosperous Holland town which had sheltered and befriended them. They
thought of faces they loved and would see no more, and of the secure
and tranquil lives they might have led, but for that tooth of
conscience at their hearts, which would give them peace only at the
cost of almost all that humanity holds dear. Did any of them wish they
had not come? did any doubt in his or her heart whether a cold
abstraction was worth adopting in lieu of the great, warm, kindly
world? Verily, not one!
They got to work at their home-making without delay; but all were ill,
and many were dying. That winter they put up with much labor a few log
huts; but their chief industry was the digging of clams and of graves.
Half of their number were buried before the summer, and there was not
food enough for the rest to eat. John Carver, who had been elected
governor at landing, died in April, having already lost his son. But
those who did survive their first year lived long; it is wonder that
they ever died at all, who could survive such an experience.
Spring came, and with it a visitor. It was in March--not a salubrious
month in New England; but the trees were beginning to pat out brown
buds with green or red tips, and grass and shrubs were sprouting in
sheltered places, though snow still lay in spots where sunshine could
not fall. The trailing arbutus could be found here and there, with a
perfume that all the cruelty of winter seemed to have made only more
sweet. Birds were singing, too, and the settlers had listened to them
with joy; they had gone near to forget that God had made birds. On some
days, from the south, came the breathing of soft, fragrant airs; and
there were breadths of blue in the sky that looked as if so fresh and
tender a hue must have been just created.
The men, in thick jerkins, heavy boots, and sugarloaf hats, were busy
about the clearing; some, like Miles Standish, wore a steel plate over
their breasts, and kept their matchlocks within reach, for though a
pestilence had exterminated the local Indians before they came, and,
with the exception of one momentary skirmish, in which no harm was
done, nothing had been seen or heard of the red men--still it was known
that Indians existed, and it was taken for granted that they would be
hostile. Meanwhile the women, in homespun frocks and jackets, with
kerchiefs round their shoulders, and faces in which some trace of the
English ruddiness had begun to return, sat spinning in the doorways of
the huts, keeping an eye on the kettles of Indian meal. The morning
sunlight fell upon a scene which, for the first time, seemed homelike:
not like the lost homes in England, but a place people could live human
lives in, and grow fond of. The hope of spring was with them.
All at once, down the forest glade, treading noiselessly on moccasined
feet, came a tall, wild, unfamiliar figure, with feathers in his black
hair, and black eyes gleaming above his high cheekbones. An Indian, at
last! He had come so silently that he had emerged from the shadow of
the forest and was almost amid them before he was seen. Some of the
settlers, perhaps, felt a momentary tightening round the heart; for
though we are always in the hollow of God's hand, there are times when
we are surprised into forgetfulness of that security, and are concerned
about carnal perils. Captain Standish, who had taken a flying shot at
some of these heathen four or five months ago, caught up a loaded
musket leaning against the corner of a hut, and stood on his guard,
doubting that more of the savages were lurking behind the trees. He had
even thus early in American history come to the view long afterward
formulated in the epigram that the only good Indians are the dead ones.
But the keen, spare savage made no hostile demonstration; he paused
before the captain, with the dignity of his race, and held out his
empty hands. And then, to the vast astonishment of Standish and of the
others who had gathered to his support, he opened his mouth and spoke
English: "Welcome, Englishmen!" said he. They must have fancied, for an
instant, that the Lord had wrought a special miracle for them, in
bestowing upon this native of the primeval forest the gift of tongues.
There was, however, nothing miraculous about Samoset, who had picked up
his linguistic accomplishment, such as it was, from a fellow savage who
had been kidnapped and taken to England, whom he afterward introduced
to the colony, where he made himself useful. Samoset's present business
was as embassador from the great chief and sachem, Massasoit, lord of
everything thereabout, who sent friendly greetings, and would be
pleased to confer with the new comers, at their convenience, and
arrange an alliance.
These were good words, and they must have taken a weight from every
heart there; not only the dread of immediate attack, but the
omnipresent and abiding anxiety that the time would come when they
would have to fight for their lives, and defend the persecuted church
of the Lord against foes who knew nothing of conformist or
nonconformist, but who were as proficient as Queen Mary herself in the
use of fire and torture. These misgivings might now be dismissed; if
the ruler of so many tribes was willing to stand their friend, who
should harm them? So they all gathered round Samoset on that sunny
spring morning; the women observing curiously and in silence his
strange aspect and gestures, and occasionally exchanging glances with
one another at some turn of the talk; while the sturdy Miles, and
Governor Carver, pale with illness which within a month reunited him
with the son he had loved, and Elder Brewster, with his serious mien,
and Bradford, who was to succeed Carver, with his strong, authoritative
features and thoughtful forehead;--these and more than a score more of
the brethren stood eying their visitor, questioning him earnestly and
trying to make out his meaning from his imperfect English gruntings.
And they spoke one to another of the action that should be taken on his
message, or commented with pious exclamations on the mercy of the Lord
in thus raising up for them protectors even in the wilderness.
Meanwhile a chipmunk flitted along the bole of a fallen tree, a thrush
chirped in the brake, a deer, passing airy-footed across an opening in
the forest, looked an instant and then turned and plunged fleetly away
amid the boughs, and a lean-bellied wolf, prospecting for himself and
his friends, stuck his sinister snout through a clump of underbrush,
and curled his lips above the long row of his white teeth in an ugly
grin. This friendship boded no good to him.
The coming of Samoset was followed after a while by the introduction of
Squanto, the worthy savage who had enjoyed the refining influences of
distant England, whose services as interpreter were of much value in
that juncture; and after a short time Massasoit himself accepted the
settlers' invitation to become their guest during the making of the
treaty. He was received with becoming honor; the diplomatists proceeded
at once to business, and before twilight the state paper had been drawn
up, signed and sealed. Its provisions ran that both parties were to
abstain from harming each other, were to observe an offensive and
defensive alliance, and to deliver up offenders. These terms were
religiously kept for half a century; by which time the colonists were
able to take care of themselves. Its good effects were illustrated in
the case of the chief Canonicus, who was disposed to pick a quarrel
with the Englishmen, and sent them, as a symbol of his attitude, a
rattlesnake's skin wrapped round a sheaf of arrows. Bradford, to
indicate that he also understood the language of emblems, sent the skin
back stuffed with powder and bullets. Canonicus seems to have fancied
that these substances were capable of destroying him spontaneously, and
returned them with pacific assurances. Such weapons, combined with the
alliance, were too much for him. Canonicus was chief of the
Narragansetts; Massasoit, of the Wampanoags. In 1676 the son of
Massasoit, for some fancied slight, made war upon the settlers, and the
Narragansetts helped him; in this war, known as King Philip's, the
settlers suffered severely, though they were victorious. But had it
come during the early years of their sojourn, not one of them would
have survived, and New England might never have become what she is now.