EBENEZER.
“Behold, they come, those sainted forms,
Unshaken through the strife of storms;
Heaven’s darkest cloud hangs coldly down,
And earth puts on its rudest frown;
But colder, ruder was the hand,
That drove them from their own dear land.”
SPRAGUE.
“These are the living lights,
That from our bold, green heights,
Shall shine afar,
Till they who name the name
Of freedom, towards the flame
Come, as the Magi came
Towards Bethlehem’s star.”
PIERPONT.
While the Plymouth Pilgrims, through these initial years, were
engaged in a stern tussle with unkempt nature, in a wrestling-match
with froward men, and in an essay to survive the “thousand natural
ills that flesh is heir to” in new settlements, writing _victoria
sine clade_ on every page of the struggle, the Scripture party in
England was floundering in a “slough of despond.” Charles I. was
that most strange and baleful of anomalies, a treacherous moralist.
He was the painting of a virtue. Outwardly he was Cato; inwardly
he was Iago. “This prince,” says Bolingbroke, “had sucked in with
his mother’s milk those absurd principles which his father was so
industrious, and, unhappily, so successful in propagating.”[581] Back
of him stood a powerful faction, omnipotent in the church, regnant
in the state, as wedded as himself to the tenets of absolutism,
and eager to cry Amen to his most doubtful acts—often, indeed,
instigating them.
Both the king and his backers were enamoured of that formal
Pharisecism which made broad its phylactery, and wrote “holier
than thou” upon its forehead. Of course, then, they could not but
hate those godly Puritans, both inside and outside of the national
Establishment, who, like a reproving Nathan, constantly inveighed
against self-righteous ceremonialism, and sought to inaugurate a
purer and more spiritual ecclesiasticism. The Conformists had the
power, as they had the will. Elizabeth had commenced this crusade
against the “Gospellers;” James I. had continued the “harry;” but
Charles I. outdid Termagant, and he did out-Herod Herod. Puritanism
was girt with a penal code; and now, choked almost purple, it gazed
with an agony of interest across the water to America, to see if
haply it might here find an asylum. The chances of a successful
colonization of these Western wilds were ardently canvassed.
The progress of the Pilgrim settlement was closely watched, and
the spirits of the English Puritans were at high or ebb tide in
proportion as that test enterprise seemed to oscillate towards
success or eclipse. As yet only the low premonitory moanings of the
revolution of 1641 were heard. Throughout the island, godly men began
to think of seeking safety and freedom of conscience in exile; and in
this they were encouraged by the _experimentum crucis_ of Plymouth.
“I pray you,” wrote Shirley, the English agent of the Pilgrims,
“subordinate all temporal things to success, that you may disappoint
the hopes of our foes, and keep open an asylum into which we may all
soon crowd, unless things mend in this now stricken island.”[582]
But “things did not mend,” and multitudes began to prepare for
emigration. And here mark a singular fact. We have seen how
disastrously those enterprises failed which bottomed colonization
simply on the greed of gain. The victor’s bays were only for the
brow of moral pioneers. It was as though God had said, “No; I will
not plant men in New England who count religion only twelve and the
world thirteen.” The only successful colonists of the northeastern
coast-line of the Atlantic were men whose motive for emigration was
religion, and who based their action on an idea—faith.
It happened, in 1624, that Roger Conant, “a most religious, prudent,
worthy gentleman,” and a Puritan, but not a Separatist, somewhat
dissatisfied with the rigid rule of Bradford, left Plymouth in the
crisis of the Lyford muddle,[583] and entering his pinnace, sailed
across the bay to Nantasket.[584] Tarrying there but a twelvemonth,
he pushed on to Cape Ann; where, finding a knot of fishermen who
resided there permanently, occupying themselves in curing fish in
the absence of the smacks of their fellow-_voyageurs_, he resolved
to pause. While sojourning here, the English merchants who had sent
out these fishermen who here stood huddled together on the cape,
appointed Conant their agent; whereupon he, “not liking the present
site, transported his company to Naumkeag, some five leagues distant,
to the southwest of Cape Ann.”[585]
But neither removal nor Conant’s energy saved this venture from
financial collapse;[586] and the brave pioneer, in 1625, found
himself deserted by most of his companions and without an occupation,
in the midst of the tenantless huts of frustrated trade. Then
religious sentiment came to his rescue. “To the eye of faith,
mountains are crystal, distance may be shaken hands with, oceans are
nothing.” So now old John White of Dorchester, in England, “a famous
Puritan divine of great gravity, presence, and influence,” zealous
to “spread the gospel and to establish his way,” looking across the
Atlantic, descried Conant, a lonely sentinel of Puritanism on the
northern shore.[587] The sagacious pastor saw in Naumkeag a _point
d’appui_. He at once wrote Conant: “I have been apprized of the
failure of the merchants; but do not desert your post. I promise
that if you, with Woodbury, Balch, and Palfrey, the three honest and
prudent men lately employed in the fisheries, will stay at Naumkeag,
I will procure a patent for you, and likewise send you whatever you
write for, either men, or provisions, or goods wherewith to begin an
Indian trade.”[588]
Surprised and reinvigorated, Conant prevailed, though not without
difficulty, on his companions to remain with him, and they all
“stayed at the peril of their lives.”[589]
In 1627, Woodbury sailed for England in quest of supplies.[590]
Meantime “the business came to agitation in London; and being at
first approved by some and disliked by others, by dint of much
argument and disputation, it grew to be well known; insomuch that,
some men showing affection for the work, and offering the help of
their purses if fit men might be procured to go over, inquiry was
made whether any would be willing to engage their persons in the
voyage. Thus it fell out that at last they lighted, among others, on
John Endicott, a man well known to divers persons of good repute.
He manifested much willingness to accept of the offer as soon as it
was tendered, which gave great encouragement to such as were still
doubtful about setting on this work of erecting a new colony on an
old foundation.”[591]
Under the patronage of Dudley, and Saltonstall, and Eaton, and
Pyncheon, and Bellingham, men of substance and “gentlemen born,” men
willing and able to offer “the help of their purses,” reinforced
by the good wishes of Puritanism at large, the new scheme soon got
upon its working feet, and walked forward to success. But so far
the project rested on parchment. It must be vivified, and sheltered
beneath the _imprimatur_ of a hostile government. “Many riddles must
be resolved,” said old Shirley, “and many locks must be opened by the
silver, nay, the golden key.”[592] So they purchased of the Council
for New England “a strip of land, in width three miles, north of the
Merrimack, and three miles south of the Charles river, and running
back from the Atlantic to the Western ocean; so that they were not
likely to be crowded.”[593] Thus, though it might say as the chief
captain Lysias said to Paul, “With a great sum of money obtained I
this freedom,” the new colony had “a local habitation and a name” ere
it was launched.
It has been well said, that Endicott was just the man to lead this
venture; firm, rugged, hopeful, zealous, devout, he knew no such
word as fail. So on the 20th of June, 1628, he took his wife and
children, and “not much above fifty or sixty other persons,” and
plunged across the water.[594]
They reached New England in the autumn[595]—that hazy, glowing,
golden season, when the woods hang out their myriad-tinted banners to
the wind, when the streams gurgle most laughingly, when Nature claps
her hands with joy, and the
“Hills, rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun,”
smooth their wrinkled fronts into unwonted softness. Endicott must
have had quite a different idea of the western wilds from that which
stern, icy December daguerreotyped upon the minds of Bradford and his
coadjutors.
At once fraternizing with Conant’s sentinel squad—apprized of
their coming by Woodbury, who had returned ere Endicott sailed—the
new-comers proceeded to put up additional cottages; and they called
the nascent hamlet _Salem_, “for the _peace_ which they had and hoped
in it.”[596] Like their brothers at Plymouth, they immediately began
to explore the surrounding country. Imagine their surprise when, on
one occasion, they stumbled across “an English palisaded and thatched
house.” Approaching cautiously, they heard the ringing music of an
anvil. Here, in the heart of the wilderness, lived Thomas Walford, a
hermit smith who had won wide favor with the Indians by his skill in
working metals.[597]
From this and kindred incidents, historians have loved to draw a
moral, depicting the excess of individuality which marks the Teutonic
races. The Saxon inevitably individuates. He can stand alone; is
self-reliant and aggressive; asks only, with the old cynic, that
intruders shall get out of his sunlight. He does not gather into
cities because he is weak, nor because he is social. He is willing,
for a purpose, to go out from men, and to create a society patterned
on his own model. ’Tis a high quality when properly attempered,
making individuals kings and nations independent. It explores and
subdues unknown and dreaded continents, and is the father of that
marvellous enterprise which to-day realizes Puck’s prophecy, and
“puts a girdle round the earth in forty minutes.”
Walford’s hermitage was in Mishawam. The locality seemed favorable
for a settlement. The explorers returned to Salem with their report;
and ere long “a portion of the colonists established themselves
around the forge of the sturdy blacksmith; and with the old patriotic
feeling, which neither wrongs nor sufferings could altogether root
out, they named the new settlement _Charlestown_, in honor of a king
whose severities had driven them from the land of their fathers.”[598]
The report of Endicott’s successful colonization, which reached
England early in 1629, encouraged White, “the main promoter and
chief organizer of this business,” to plant the adventure upon a
broader, firmer foundation. The original company was but a voluntary,
unincorporated partnership.[599] This was now “much enlarged” by
recruits from the Puritans “disaffected to the rulers in church
and state.”[600] The next step was, to get a charter and an
incorporation. This was solicited, and after some little difficulty
and delay, obtained. On the 4th of March, 1629, Charles I. affixed
the royal seal to a parchment which erected White’s coterie into
a body politic, under the title of “The Governor and Company of
Massachusetts Bay, in New England.”[601]
“The patent passed the seals a few days only before Charles I., in a
public state paper, avowed his design of governing England without
a Parliament.”[602] It was cherished by the colonists for more than
half a century as a most precious boon; and the old charter[603]
is the germ of that “bright, consummate flower,” the later
constitution.[604]
“The administration of the affairs of this puissant corporation,”
remarks Bancroft, “was intrusted to a governor, a deputy, and
eighteen assistants, who were to be annually elected by a general
vote of the members of the body politic. Four times a year, or
oftener if desired, a general assembly of the freemen was to be held;
and to these assemblies, which were invested with the necessary
powers of legislation, inquest, and superintendence, the most
important matters were referred. No provision required the assent of
the king to render the acts of the colonial authorities valid. In his
eye it was but a trading corporation, not a civil government. Its
doings were esteemed as indifferent as those of any guild in England;
and if grave powers of jurisdiction in America were conceded, it was
only because successful trade demanded the concession.”[605]
Nothing was said of religious liberty. The crown may have relied on
its power to restrain it; the emigrants may have trusted to distance
or obscurity to protect it.[606] But enough was gained. The charter
necessitated full liberty. “If you plant an oak in a flower-vase,”
says Goethe, “either the oak must wither or the vase must crack.” The
Puritans meant to let it crack. It is singular that neither Charles
nor his lynx-eyed ministers should have detected the freedom or
scented the heresy which lurked in the broad terms of the glorious
old parchment.
In the old legend, a fisherman took a casket out of the sea, and
found on its cover the seal of Solomon. He broke it, and out of the
slender casket rose a giant till he lifted into colossal shape, and
raised his right hand to crash the interloper. So now Charles broke
the Solomon-seal of his coercion, and enabled this young giant of
the West to rise to its legitimate proportions, clutching in its
right hand the wholesome sceptre which should crush all obstacles to
progressive liberty. In the fable, the fisherman, by a cunning story,
lured the giant to go back into the casket, which he then tossed back
again into the sea. But neither Charles nor his successors could ever
persuade America to go back into the box.