of importance enough to warrant a detailed examination. Vermont was not
settled till well into the Eighteenth Century. Maine had been fingered
by the French, and used as a base of operations by fishermen, long
before its connection with Massachusetts; the persistency of Gorges
complicated its position for more than forty years. After his death,
and in the irresponsiveness of his heirs, the few inhabitants of the
region were constrained to shift for themselves; in 1652 the
jurisdiction was found to extend three miles north of the source of the
Merrimack, and Massachusetts offering its protection in enabling a
government to be formed, and acting upon the priority of its grant,
annexed the whole specified region. But more than twenty years
afterward, in 1677, the English committee of the privy council examined
the charter, and found that Massachusetts had no jurisdiction over
Maine and New Hampshire (the separate existence of which last had
scarcely been defined). The direct object of this decision of the
committee was to provide the bastard son of Charles, Monmouth, with a
kingdom of his own; no one knew anything about the resources or
possibilities of the domain, and, omne ignotum pro magnifico, it was
surmised that it would yield abundant revenues. But Massachusetts did
not want the Duke for a neighbor; and while Charles was considering
terms of purchase, she bought up the Gorges claim for some twelve
hundred pounds. The Maine of that epoch was not, of course, the same as
that of to-day; the French claimed down to the Kennebec, and the Duke
of York, not content with New York, asserted his ownership from the
Kennebec to the Penobscot; so that for Massachusetts was left only what
intervened between the Kennebec and the Piscataqua. Being proprietor of
this, she made it a province with a governor and council whom she
appointed, and a legislature derived from the people; the province not
relishing its subordination, but being forced to submit. Two years
later, in 1679, New Hampshire was cut off from Massachusetts and made
the first royal province of New England. The people of the province
were ill-disposed to surrender any of the liberties which they saw
their neighbors in the enjoyment of; and disregarding the feelings of
the king's appointee, its representatives declared that only laws made
by the assembly and approved by the people should be valid. Robert
Mason, who had a patent to part of the region, finding himself opposed
by the colonists, got permission from England to appoint an adventurer,
Edward Cranfield, governor; Cranfield went forth with hopes of much
plunder; but they would not admit his legitimacy, and he took the
unprecedented step of dissolving the assembly; the farmers revolted,
and their ringleader, Gove, was condemned for treason, and spent four
years in the Tower of London. It was another attempt to convince the
spirit of liberty by "the worst argument in the world"; but it was
ridiculous as well as bad in Gove's case; he was but a hard-fisted
uneducated countryman, whose belief that the patch of land he had
cleared and planted among the New England mountains was his, and not
another's, was not to be dissipated by dungeons. The disputed
land-titles got into the law courts, where judges and juries were
fixed; but no matter which way the decisions went, the people kept
their own. Cranfield sent an alarmist report of affairs to London,
declaring that "factions" would bring about a separation of the colony
unless a frigate were sent to Boston to enforce loyalty. Nothing was
done. Cranfield tried to raise money through the assembly by a tale
about an invasion, which existed nowhere save in his own imagination;
the assembly refused to be stampeded. The clergy were against him, and
he attempted to overcome them by restrictive orders; but they defied
him; he imprisoned one of them, Moody; and succeeded in disturbing
church service; but the people would rather not go to meeting than obey
Cranfield. His last effort was to try to levy taxes under pretense of
an Indian war; but the people thwacked the tax collectors with staves,
and the women threatened them with hot water. A call for troops to
quell the disturbances was utterly disregarded. How was a governor to
govern people who refused to be governed?
Cranfield gave it up. He had been struggling three years, and had
accomplished nothing. He wrote home that he "should esteem it the
greatest happiness to be allowed to remove from these unreasonable
people"; and this happiness was accorded to him; it was the only
happiness which his appointment had afforded. New Hampshire was in bad
odor with the English government; but the farmers could endure that
with equanimity. They had demonstrated that the granite of their
mountains had somehow got into their own composition; and they were let
alone for the present, the rather since Massachusetts was enough to
occupy the king's council at that time.
The fight between Massachusetts and Charles began with the latter's
accession in 1660, and continued till his death, when it was continued
by James II. The charter of the colony was adjudged to be forfeited in
1684, twenty-four years after the struggle opened. While it was at its
height, the Indian war broke out to which the name of the Pokanoket
chief, King Philip, has been attached. Thus both the diplomacy and the
arms of the colony were tested to the utmost, at one and the same time;
the American soldiers were victorious, though at a serious cost of life
and treasure; the diplomatists were defeated; but Massachusetts had
learned her strength in both directions, and suffered less, in the end,
by her defeat than by her victory. The issue between England and her
colony had become clearly defined; the people learned by practice what
they already knew in theory--the hatefulness of despotism; and their
resolve to throw it off when the opportunity should arrive was not
discouraged, but confirmed. From the Indian war they gained less than a
wise peace would have given them, and they lost women and children as
well as men. Such conflicts, once begun, must be pushed to the
extremity; but it cannot but be wished that the people of Massachusetts
might have found a means of living with the red men, as their brethren
in Pennsylvania did, in peace and amity. The conduct of Indians in war
can never be approved by the white race, but, on the other hand, the
provocations which set them on the warpath always can be traced to some
act of injustice, real or fancied, wanton or accidental, on our part.
King Philip was fighting for precisely the same object that was
actuating the colonists in their battle with King Charles. Doubtless
the rights of a few thousand savages are insignificant compared with
the higher principles of human liberty for which we contended; but
Philip could not be expected to acknowledge this, and we should extend
to him precisely the same sympathy that we feel for ourselves.
A great deal of pains had been taken to convert and civilize these New
England tribes. John Eliot translated the Bible for them; and it was he
who made the first attempt to determine the grammar of their speech.
But though many Indians professed the Christian faith, and some evinced
a certain aptitude in letters, no new life was awakened in any of them,
and no permanent good results were attained. Meanwhile, the Pokanokets,
with Philip at their head, refused to accept the white man's God, or
his learning; and they watched with anxiety his growing numbers and
power. They had sold mile after mile of land to the English, not
realizing that the aggregate of these transactions was literally taking
the ground from under their feet; but the purchasers had the future as
well as the present in view, and contrived so to distribute their
holdings as gradually to push the Indians into the necks of land whence
the only outlet was the sea. It was the old story of encroachment, with
always a deed to justify it, signed with the mark of the savage, good
in law, but to his mind a device to ensnare him to his hurt. In 1674,
Philip was compelled to appear before a court and be examined, whereat
his indignation was aroused, and, either with or without his privity,
the informer who had procured his arrest was murdered. The murderers
were apprehended and sentenced to be hanged by a jury, half white and
half Indian. The tribe retaliated and war was begun.
Philip, or Metaconet the son of Massasoit, may at this time have been
about forty years old; he had been "King" for twelve years. The
portraits of him show a face and head that one can hardly accept as
veracious; an enormous forehead impending over a small face, with an
almost delicate mouth. But he was obviously a man of ability, and his
courage was hardened by desperation. His aim was to unite all the
tribes in an effort to exterminate the entire English population,
though this has been estimated to number in New England, at that time,
more than fifty thousand persons. The odds were all upon the colonists'
side; but they had not yet learned the Indian method of warfare, and
the woods, hills and swamps, and the unprotected state of many of the
settlements, gave the Indians opportunities to prolong the struggle
which they amply improved. Had they been united, and adequately armed,
the issue might have been different.
Captain Benjamin Church, a hardy pioneer of six and thirty, who had
watched the ways of the Indians, and learned their strategy, soon
became prominent in the war, and ended as its most conspicuous and
triumphant figure. At first the colonists were successful, and Philip
was driven off; but this did but enable him to spread the outbreak
among other tribes. From July of 1675 till August of the next year, the
life of no one on the borders was safe. The settlers went to the
meeting-house armed, and turned out at the first alarm. They were
killed at their plowing; they were ambuscaded and cut off, tortured,
slain, and their dissevered bodies hung upon the trees. At the brook
thereafter called Bloody Run, near Deerfield, over seventy young men
were surprised and killed. Women and children were not spared; it was
hardly sparing them to carry them into captivity, as was often done.
The villages which were attacked were set on fire after the tomahawking
and scalping were done. Horrible struggles would take place in the
confined rooms of the little cabins; blood and mangled corpses
desecrated the familiar hearths, and throughout sounded the wild yell
of the savages, and the flames crackled and licked through the crevices
of the logs.
In December, Church commanded, or accompanied, the little army which
plowed through night and snow to attack the palisaded fort and village,
strongly situated on an island of high ground in the midst of a swamp,
in the township of New Kingston. The Narragansetts were surprised; the
soldiers burst their way through the palisades, and the red and the
white men met hand to hand in a desperate conflict. Then the tomahawk
measured itself against the sword, and before it faltered more than two
hundred of the New Englanders had been killed or wounded, and the
village was on fire. The pools of blood which the frost had congealed,
bubbled in the heat of the flames. None could escape; infants, old
women, all must die. It was as ghastly a fight as was ever fought. The
victors remained in the charred shambles till evening, resting and
caring for their wounded; and then, as the snow began to fall, went
back to Wickford, carrying the wounded with them. It is said that a
thousand Indian warriors fell on that day.
At Hadfield had occurred the striking episode of the congregation,
surprised at their little church, and about to be overcome, being
rescued by a mysterious gray champion, who appeared none knew whence,
rallied them, and led them to victory. It was believed to be Goffe, one
of the men who sentenced Charles I. to be beheaded, who had escaped to
New England at the time of the Restoration, and had dwelt in retirement
there till the peril of his fellow exiles called him forth. The war was
full of harrowing scenes and strange deliverances. Annie Brackett, a
prisoner in an Indian party, crossed Casco Bay in a birch-bark canoe
with her husband and infant and was rescued by a vessel which happened
to enter the harbor at the critical moment.
Church hunted the Indians with more than their own cunning and
persistency; and at last it was he who led the party which effected
Philip's death. The royal Indian was hemmed in in a swamp and finally
killed by a traitor from his own side. The savages could fight no more;
they had caused the death of six hundred men, had burned a dozen towns,
and compelled the expenditure of half a million dollars. Scattered
alarms and tragedies still occurred in the East, and along the borders;
but the war was over. In 1678 peace was signed. And then Massachusetts
turned once more to her deadlier enemy, King Charles.
CHAPTER EIGHTH
THE STUARTS AND THE CHARTER
The cutting off of Charles I.'s head was a deed which few persons in
Massachusetts would have advocated; Cromwell himself had remarked that
it was a choice between the king's head and his own. History has upon
the whole accepted the choice he made as salutary. Achilles, forgetting
his heel, deemed himself invulnerable, and his conduct became in
consequence intolerable; Charles, convinced that his anointed royalty
was sacred, was led on to commit such fantastic tricks before high
heaven as made the godly weep. Achilles was disillusioned by the arrow
of Paris, and Charles by the ax of Cromwell. Death is a wholesome
argument at times.
But though a later age could recognize the high expediency of Charles's
taking off, it was too bold and novel to meet with general approbation
at the time, even from men who hated kingly rule. Prejudice has a
longer root than it itself believes. And the Puritans of New England,
having been removed from the immediate pressure of the king's
eccentricities, were the less likely to exult over his end. Many of
them were shocked at it; more regretted it; perhaps the majority
accepted it with a sober equanimity. They were not bloodthirsty, but
they were stern.
Neither were they demonstrative; so that they took the Parliament and
the Protector calmly, if cordially, and did not use the opportunity of
their predominance to cast gibes upon their predecessor. So that, when
the Restoration was an established fact, they had little to retract.
They addressed Charles II. gravely, as one who by experience knew the
hearts of exiles, and told him that, as true men, they feared God and
the king. They entreated him to consider their sacrifices and worthy
purposes, and to confirm them in the enjoyment of their liberties. Of
the execution, and of the ensuing "confusions," they prudently forbore
to speak. It was better to say nothing than either to offend their
consciences, or to utter what Charles would dislike to hear. Their
case, as they well knew, was critical enough at best. Every foe of New
England and of liberty would not fail to whisper malice in the king's
ear. They sent over an envoy to make the best terms he could, and in
particular to ask for the suspension of the Navigation Acts. But the
committee had small faith in the loyalty of the colony, and even
believed, or professed to do so, that it might invite the aid of
Catholic and barbarous Spain against its own blood: they judged of
others' profligacy by their own. The king, to gain time, sent over a
polite message, which meant nothing, or rather less; for the next news
was that the Acts were to be enforced.
Massachusetts thereupon proceeded to define her position. A committee
composed of her ablest men caused a paper to be published by the
general court affirming their right to do certain things which England,
they knew, would be indisposed to permit. In brief, they claimed
religious and civil independence, the latter in all but name, and left
the king to be a figurehead without perquisites or power. They followed
this intrepid statement by solemnly proclaiming Charles in Boston, and
threw a sop to Cerberus in the shape of a letter couched in
conciliating terms, feigning to believe that their attitude would win
his approbation. Altogether, it was a thrust under the fifth rib, with
a bow and a smile on the recover. Probably the thrust represented the
will of the majority; the bow and smile, the prudence of the timid
sort. Simon Bradstreet and John Norton were dispatched to London to
receive the king's answer. They went in January of 1662, and after
waiting through the spring and summer, not without courteous treatment,
returned in the fall with Charles's reply, which, after confirming the
charter and pardoning political infidelities under the Protectorate,
went on to refuse all the special points which the colony had urged.
Already at this stage of the contest it had become evident that the
question was less of conforming with any particular demand or command
on the king's part, than of admitting his right to exercise his will at
all in the premises. If the colony conceded his sovereignty, they could
not afterward draw the line at which its power was to cease. And yet
they could not venture to declare absolute independence, partly
because, if it came to a struggle in arms, they could not hope to
prevail; and partly because absolute independence was less desired than
autonomy under the English flag. England was as far from granting
autonomy to Massachusetts as independence, but was willing, if
possible, to constrain her by fair means rather than by foul.
Meanwhile, the tongue of rumor fomented discord. It was said in the
colony that England designed the establishment of the Episcopal Church
in Massachusetts; whereupon the laws against toleration of "heretics,"
which had been falling into disuse, were stringently revived. In London
the story went that the escaped regicides had united the four chief
colonies and were about to lead them in arms to revolt. Clarendon, to
relieve anxiety, sent a reassuring message to Boston; but its good
effect was spoiled by a report that commissioners were coming to
regulate their affairs. The patent of the colony was placed in hiding,
the trained bands were drilled, the defenses of the harbor were looked
to, and a fast day was named with the double purpose of asking the
favor of God, and of informing the colony as to what was in the wind.
Assuredly there must have been stout souls in Boston in those days. A
few thousand exiles were actually preparing to resist England!
The warning had not been groundless. The fleet which had been fitted
out to drive the Dutch governor, Peter Stuyvesant, from Manhattan,
stopped at Boston on its way; and we may imagine that its entrance into
the harbor on that July day was observed with keen interest by the
great-grandfathers of the men of Bunker Hill. It was not exactly known
what the instructions of the English officers required; but it was
surmised that they meant tyranny. The commission could not have come
for nothing. They had no right on New England soil. The fleet, for the
present, proceeded on its way, and Massachusetts voluntarily
contributed a force of two hundred men; but they were well aware that
the trouble was only postponed; and depending on their charter, which
contained no provision for a royal commission, they were determined to
thwart its proceedings to the utmost of their power. How far that might
be, they would know when the time came. Anything was better than
surrender to the prerogative. When, in reply to Willoughby, a royalist
declared that prerogative is as necessary as the law, Major William
Hawthorne, who was afterward to distinguish himself against the
Indians, answered him, "Prerogative is not above law!" It was not,
indeed.
Accordingly, while the fleet with its commissioners was overawing the
New Netherlanders, the Puritans of Boston Bay wrote and put forth a
document which well deserves reproduction, both for the terse dignity
of the style, which often recalls the compositions of Lord Verulam, and
still more for the courageous, courteous, and yet almost aggressive
logic with which the life principles of the Massachusetts colonists are
laid down. It is a remarkable State paper, and so vividly sincere that,
as one reads, one can see the traditional Puritan standing out from the
words--the steeple crowned hat, the severe brow, the steady eyes, the
pointed beard, the dark cloak and sad-hued garments. The paper is also
singular in that it remonstrates against a principle, without waiting
for the provocation of overt deeds. This excited the astonishment of
Clarendon and others in England; but their perplexity only showed that
the men they criticised saw further and straighter than they did. It
was for principles, and against them, that the Puritans always fought,
since principles are the parents of all acts and control them. The
royal commission was, potentially, the sum of all the wrongs from which
New England suffered during the next hundred years, and though it had
as yet done nothing, it implied everything.
Whose hand it was that penned the document we know not; it was probably
the expression of the combined views of such men as Mather, Norton,
Hawthorne, Endicott and Bellingham; it may have been revised by
Davenport, at that time nearly threescore and ten years of age, the
type of the Calvinist minister of the period, austere, inflexible,
high-minded, faithful. Be that as it may, it certainly voiced the
feeling of the people, as the sequel demonstrated. It is dated October
the Twenty-fifth, 1664, and is addressed to the king.
"DREAD SOVEREIGN:--The first undertakers of this Plantation did obtain
a Patent, wherein is granted full and absolute power of governing all
the people of this place, by men chosen from among themselves, and
according to such laws as they should see meet to establish. A royal
donation, under the Great Seal, is the greatest security that may be
had in human affairs. Under the encouragement and security of the Royal
Charter this People did, at their own charges, transport themselves,
their wives and families, over the ocean, purchase the land of the
Natives, and plant this Colony, with great labor, hazards, cost, and
difficulties; for a long time wrestling with the wants of a Wilderness
and the burdens of a new Plantation; having now also above thirty years
enjoyed the privilege of Government within themselves, as their
undoubted right in the sight of God and Man. To be governed by rulers
of our own choosing and laws of our own, is the fundamental privilege
of our Patent.
"A Commission under the Great Seal, wherein four persons (one of them
our professed Enemy) are impowered to receive and determine all
complaints and appeals according to their discretion, subjects us to
the arbitrary power of Strangers, and will end in the subversion of us
all.
"If these things go on, your Subjects will either be forced to seek new
dwellings, or sink under intolerable burdens. The vigor of all new
Endeavours will be enfeebled; the King himself will be a loser of the
wonted benefit by customs, exported and imported from hence to England,
and this hopeful Plantation will in the issue be ruined.
"If the aim should be to gratify some particular Gentlemen by Livings
and Revenues here, that will also fail, for the poverty of the People.
If all the charges of the whole Government by the year were put
together, and then doubled or trebled, it would not be counted for one
of these Gentlemen a considerable Accommodation. To a coalition in this
course the People will never come; and it will be hard to find another
people that will stand under any considerable burden in this Country,
seeing it is not a country where men can subsist without hard labor and
great frugality.