THE ARBELLA.
“We will renew the times of truth and justice,
Condensing into a fair free commonwealth,
Not rash equality, but equal rights,
Proportioned like the columns of the temple,
Giving and taking strength reciprocal,
And making firm the whole with grace and beauty,
So that no part could be removed without
Infringement of the general harmony.”
BYRON’S _Doge of Venice_.
The success of Endicott and the supplementary success of the
detachments despatched to reinforce him—success which at the very
outset had left the older settlement at Plymouth, plodding on under a
heavy load of debt and odium, far behind—stirred English Puritanism
as with the blast of a trumpet. So intense was the interest in
the new colony, throughout the realm, that a tract descriptive of
New England, written by Higginson, and sent over to England, in
manuscript, was printed, and ran through three editions in as many
months.[653] In every hamlet, on every street-corner, eager groups
met and discussed the right and the policy of emigration; and the
most scrupulous consciences met the query, “Is it permitted that men
fly from persecution?” by responding, “Yes; for persecution may lead
our posterity to abjure the truth.”
Soon this stir had an effect. Some of the purest, wealthiest, and
best-educated men in England agreed to embark for America. One thing
only had made them hesitate; the colonial government resided in
England, and was only sifted into New England by delegation. The
charter empowered the company, and not the colonists, to transport
persons, establish ordinances, and settle government.[654] It was
a chrysalis; it had the face of a commercial corporation, but was
pregnant with the essence of an independent provincial government.
Like the mermaid, it had a human head, but its body was the body of
a fish. This puissant possibility—who should evoke it? Who should
utter the talismanic words fit to set free the hidden spirit of
self-government? Matthew Cradock, the governor of the company,
pronounced the “open sesame.” He saw, as did other sagacious men,
that the residence of the corporate authority in England embarrassed
emigration, barred prosperity, and opened the door to discord. The
colonists sighed for a real governor, not one in masquerade; and all
began to realize that a government three thousand miles away could
not successfully legislate for a settlement whose growing necessities
came as quickly and changed as rapidly as the combinations of a
kaleidoscope.
So Cradock, with generous self-abnegation, himself proposed the
transfer of the charter to such of the freemen of the company
as should themselves inhabit the colony.[655] A heated debate
ensued. Both _pros_ and _cons_ had their say, and the formers of
the project strengthened their argument by pointing to such men as
Winthrop, Saltonstall, Johnson, Dudley, and Humphrey, all of whom
had recently bound themselves at Cambridge to sail for Massachusetts
Bay, accompanied by their families, provided the colonial government
should be transferred to the Plantation.[656]
This decided the company, and a general assent was given to the
alienation of the patent.[657] Then came an obstacle. The crown
lawyers said, “It is not so nominated in the bond; you have no right,
standing under this corporation charter in London, to transfer
your power.” Our fathers replied: “King Charles has granted us
certain authority, but our charter does not bind us to exercise that
authority in England; locality is not specified. We choose to vote
that emigrants shall be freemen, and to summon a meeting beyond
the Atlantic. You say this was not contemplated; but where is it
forbidden? If you can quibble, so can we. If we have not the right,
we will create it. In the light of our success lawyers may read the
reason and hunt up a precedent fifty years hence.”
It was thus that Puritanism, strong in faith, bold in emergencies,
met the exigencies and trod down the difficulties of its epoch. “The
corporation did not sell itself—it emigrated. The patent could not
be assigned; but the patentees could call a legal meeting in the
metropolis, or on board ship in an English harbor; and why not in the
port of Salem as well as at the Isle of Wight? in a cabin or under a
tree at Charlestown as well as at the house of Goffe in London?”
Thus it was that a unique and daring construction transformed a
trading company into a municipality—a change fraught with momentous
consequences. Before this decision all hesitation fell. The
Cambridge friends announced their readiness to sail, and the old
authorities of the Company at once resigned, in order that their
offices might be filled by the chief emigrants.[658] John Winthrop
was elected governor; John Humphrey was appointed deputy; and these
were reinforced by eighteen assistants.[659] Just on the eve of
embarkation, Humphrey’s place was supplied by Thomas Dudley, he being
for a space unavoidably detained in England.[660]
Winthrop at once accepted the charge; and when he informed his son
of the decision, the younger Winthrop replied: “I shall call that
my country where I may most glorify God and enjoy the presence of
my dearest friends. Therefore herein I submit myself to God’s will
and yours, and dedicate myself to Heaven and the Company, with the
whole endeavors both of mind and body. The motives for emigration
are unimpeachable; and it cannot but be a prosperous action which is
so well allowed by the judgment of God’s prophets, undertaken by so
religious and wise worthies in Israel, and indented to God’s glory in
so special a service.”[661]
And now preparations for an extensive emigration were ardently
pushed. The finances of the Company were put on a new basis. All
contributors to the fund were _ipso facto_ entitled to a share in
the profits of the colonial trade and to a grant of Massachusetts
land.[662] “The outlay was distributed in such proportions that it
was not burdensome in any quarter. The richer emigrants submitted to
it joyfully, from public spirit; the poorer as a panacea for existing
evils.”[663]
Early in the spring of 1630, ten vessels were ready to weigh anchor.
Richer than the argosies of the old Venetian or Genoan merchants,
this fleet was freighted with the seed of a future empire; with the
planters of a renovated England, secure in freedom, firm in religion;
with the builders of a transatlantic Saxon state, bound to realize
in its beneficent order the noblest dreams of English patriots and
sages. Troops of ministering angels hovered round it to ward off
danger, and God’s own benediction sealed and sanctified the daring
venture.
Let us descend into the little cabin of the “Arbella,” and scan
the faces and take the hands—if we are worthy—of some of the most
famous personages of this august Company of devout _voyageurs_. The
cabin is long, and low, and dark. But ’tis lighted now, somewhat
dingily, indeed, yet still sufficiently to enable us to discern a
table covered with maps and legal parchments, round which are ranged
a score of deeply-interested talkers.
That tall, handsome, gentlemanly man, who sits at the head of the
table, is John Winthrop, the new governor. See what an easy grace
there is in his every movement; he has the port of one habituated
to command, yet he is very gentle withal. His hair is just touched
with silver, and he is in the prime of life—just forty-two, ripe
and mellow. Winthrop is not a needy, sour adventurer; he comes of
an ancient family long seated at Groton, in Suffolk, where he has
a property whose income yields him six or seven hundred pounds a
year—the equivalent of at least ten thousand dollars now-a-days.
Evidently he quits England from some higher motive than to fatten his
exchequer. This is he whom Cotton Mather terms the “Lycurgus of New
England;” “as devout as Numa, but not liable to any of his heathenish
madnesses; a governor in whom the excellences of Christianity made a
most imposing addition unto the virtues wherein even without these
he would have made a parallel for the great men of Greece and Rome
whom the pen of Plutarch has eternized.”[664] A calm, unobtrusive,
able gentleman, Winthrop had “studied that book, which, professing
to teach politics, had but three leaves, and on each leaf but one
word—MODERATION.” He had been initiated into the mysteries of
state-craft when a boy, for from his youth he had moved in the
circles where the highest questions of English policy were discussed
and elaborated by the familiar associates of Whitgift, and Bacon, and
Essex, and Cecil Burleigh.[665]
At the right of Winthrop and chatting pleasantly with him, stands
Thomas Dudley. He is short and thickset in stature, and stern in
expression; a man fit to lead a forlorn hope. Quick and irascible in
temper, uncompromising when he esteems himself in the right, every
word he utters has the ring of authority. He is a man who speaks
bullets. His head is grayer than Winthrop’s, but he is still robust,
and he walks with a martial air—and no wonder, for he is a soldier.
Thirty years before he had borne arms under Henri Quatre in the ranks
of the Huguenots, a service which had indoctrinated him in the love
of civil and religious liberty;[666] and he was old enough to have
seen Sir Philip Sidney, heard Spencer recite verses to Elizabeth, and
lent a shrill voice to the wild huzza at the defeat of the Spanish
Armada.[667]
But who is this that glides up to Winthrop, and, touching him upon
the shoulder, speaks a word in his ear? It is John Humphrey, “a
gentleman of special parts, of learning and activity, and a godly
man.”[668] He does not sail now, but is here to bid his friends
God-speed.
See, yonder, leaning with graceful negligence against the wainscot
of the cabin, lounges a pale, thoughtful, intellectual young man,
with a fine head and a face whose expression is that of lovable
seriousness. This is Isaac Johnson, the wealthiest of the Pilgrims,
a land-owner in three counties.[669] But profoundly impressed with
the importance of emigration, and aware of the necessity of an
example, he has risen from the lap of artificial and patrician life
and flung away the softness of a luxurious home to battle with the
rigors of a wilderness. Like Humphrey, who now approaches to shake
hands with him, he is a son-in-law of the earl of Lincoln, the head
in that day of the now ducal house of Newcastle,[670] and also, like
his relative, he has been the familiar companion of the patriotic
nobles.[671]
Johnson now goes out as one of Winthrop’s assistants, as does also
Sir Richard Saltonstall, of Halifax, in the West Riding of Yorkshire,
a bountiful contributor to the finances of the emigration.[672]
This little man, whose keen, searching eyes take in every thing
without an effort, as he sits quietly on the left side of the
table, is Theophilus Eaton, an eminent London merchant, but
accustomed to courts, as he had resided at Copenhagen as English
minister to Denmark.[673] That grave, sedate gentleman, directly
opposite Eaton, is Lucien Bradstreet, son of a dissenting minister
in Lincolnshire, and grandson of a “Suffolk gentleman of fine
estate,” and was graduated at Emanuel College, Cambridge. By his
side sits William Vassall, an opulent West India proprietor.[674]
These, and some others known to fame, now stood clustered in the
cabin of the “Arbella”—a little ship of three hundred and fifty tons
burden[675]—forming one of the grandest collections of friends on any
historic canvas.
Nor were they alone. Many of the settlers had their families
with them.[676] The enterprise was still further hallowed by the
unshrinking devotion of unselfish women. These, inspired by piety
and love, gave up all that is most dear and most essential to their
lives, “security and the comfort of homes in England, to brave the
stormy, frightful sea, to land on these bleak, wild shores, to front
the miseries and trials of pioneer life, and to sink into untimely
graves, as so many did. These were the martyrs who laid down their
lives for freedom and for us; to them, therefore, let us uncover our
heads.”[677]
“By fairy hands their knell is rung,
By forms unseen their dirge is sung;
There Honor comes, a Pilgrim gray,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay;
And Freedom shall awhile repair
To dwell, a weeping hermit there.”
Foremost among these noble women, in position, in culture, and in
sacrifice, stood the Lady Arbella[678] Johnson. Her heroism has
thrown a halo of poetry around a venture which needed no additional
ray to make it bloom in immortal verse. The daughter of Earl Lincoln,
the idol of her associates, she was yet a Puritan. Married to Isaac
Johnson, she was indeed a _helpmeet_, sharing in his feelings and
animating him to loftier exertions. When her husband resolved to
emigrate, she determined to share his peril, and though ill-fitted to
brave the rigors of an inclement wilderness by her delicate nature,
she answered all objections by saying, “God will care for me, and
I must do my duty.” An exile voyage was her wedding tour; and so
touched were the Pilgrims by her devotion, that they named their
vessel after her, the “Arbella.”[679]
Such was the character, such the home position, of Winthrop and his
coadjutors. Even the prejudiced and reluctant pen of that high Tory,
Chalmers, though essaying a sneer, had half of its curse turned into
a blessing, for he was compelled to write, “The principal planters
of Massachusetts were English country gentlemen of no inconsiderable
fortunes; of enlarged understandings, improved by liberal education;
of extensive ambition, concealed under an appearance of religious
humility.”[680]
On the 29th of March, 1630, the “Arbella” sailed from Cowes, off the
Isle of Wight, and speeding down the channel, stopped at Yarmouth
to join her consorts, the “Talbot,” the “Jewel,” the “Ambrose,” and
the rest.[681] Here the self-banished devotees penned a farewell to
their brothers in the faith who remained in England. Their noble
letter concludes thus: “Wishing our heads and hearts may be as
fountains of tears for your everlasting welfare, when we shall be in
our poor cottages in the wilderness, overshadowed by the spirit of
supplication, through the manifold necessities and tribulations which
may not altogether unexpectedly, nor, we hope, unprofitably, befall
us, we shall ever rest assured friends and brethren.”[682]
This done, all was done; then, in the early days of April, favored by
the breath of budding spring—fit season in which to sail—the flotilla
lifted anchor and left Yarmouth, where the feet of these Pilgrims
pressed the soil of their dear England for the last time.[683]
“Sadness was in their hearts, and tears dimmed their eyes, for they
loved the land of their fathers; they could not forget the tender
associations of youth, nor the holier associations of manhood, when
leaving it for ever. But ‘as the hart panteth for the water-brook,’
so their souls longed for Liberty and God, and they went out full of
hope. With a fair wind they passed the Needles, St. Albans, Portland,
Dartmouth, and the Eddystone, with its fiery eye, watching for ships
over the broad sea. The Lizard, and at last the Scilly Islands
disappeared, went down day by day in the blue distance, and were left
with the past, till, on Sunday, the 11th of April, 1630, the little
fleet stood out bravely into the stormy Atlantic.”[684]