CHAPTER III.

THE PLANTING OF NEW ENGLAND.

When Captain George Weymouth in the summer of 1605 sailed into the

harbour of Plymouth in Devonshire, with his five kidnapped savages and

his glowing accounts of the country since known as New England, the

garrison of that fortified seaport was commanded by Sir Ferdinando

Gorges. The Christian name of this person now strikes us as rather odd,

but in those days it was not so uncommon in England, and it does not

necessarily indicate a Spanish or Italian ancestry for its bearer.

Gorges was a man of considerable ability, but not of high character. On

the downfall of his old patron the Earl of Essex he had contrived to

save his own fortunes by a course of treachery and ingratitude. He had

served in the Dutch war against Spain, and since 1596 had been military

governor of Plymouth. The sight of Weymouth's Indians and the recital of

his explorations awakened the interest of Gorges in the colonization of

North America. He became one of the most active members of the Plymouth,

or North Virginia, Company established in the following year. It was he

who took the leading part in fitting out the two ships with which John

Smith started on his unsuccessful expedition in 1615. In the following

years he continued to send out voyages of exploration, became largely

interested in the fisheries, and at length in 1620 succeeded in

obtaining a new patent for the Plymouth Company, by which it was made

independent of the London Company, its old yoke-fellow and rival. This

new document created a corporation of forty patentees who, sitting in

council as directors of their enterprise, were known as the Council for

New England. The president of this council was King James's unpopular

favourite the Duke of Buckingham, and its most prominent members

were the earls of Pembroke and Lenox, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, and

Shakespeare's friend the Earl of Southampton. This council was empowered

to legislate for its American territory, to exercise martial law there

and expel all intruders, and to exercise a monopoly of trade within the

limits of the patent. Such extensive powers, entrusted to a company of

which Buckingham was the head, excited popular indignation, and in the

great struggle against monopolies which was then going on, the Plymouth

Company did not fail to serve as a target for attacks. It started,

however, with too little capital to enter upon schemes involving

immediate outlay, and began almost from the first to seek to increase

its income by letting or selling portions of its territory, which

extended from the latitude of Philadelphia to that of Quebec, thus

encroaching upon regions where Holland and France were already gaining

a foothold. It was from this company that the merchant adventurers

associated with the Mayflower Pilgrims obtained their new patent in

the summer of 1621, and for the next fifteen years all settlers in New

England based their claims to the soil upon territorial rights conveyed

to them by the Plymouth Company. The grants, however, were often

ignorantly and sometimes unscrupulously made, and their limits were so

ill-defined that much quarrelling ensued. [Sidenote: Sir Ferdinando

Gorges, and the Council for New England]

During the years immediately following the voyage of the Mayflower,

several attempts at settlement were made about the shores of

Massachusetts bay. One of the merchant adventurers, Thomas Weston, took

it into his head in 1622 to separate from his partners and send out a

colony of seventy men on his own account. These men made a settlement

at Wessagusset, some twenty-five miles north of Plymouth. They were a

disorderly, thriftless rabble, picked up from the London streets, and

soon got into trouble with the Indians; after a year they were glad

to get back to England as best they could, and in this the Plymouth

settlers willingly aided them. In June of that same year 1622 there

arrived on the scene a picturesque but ill understood personage, Thomas

Morton, "of Clifford's Inn, Gent.," as he tells on the title-page of

his quaint and delightful book, the "New English Canaan." Bradford

disparagingly says that he "had been a kind of petie-fogger of

Furnifell's Inn"; but the churchman Samuel Maverick declares that he

was a "gentleman of good qualitie." He was an agent of Sir Ferdinando

Gorges, and came with some thirty followers to make the beginnings of

a royalist and Episcopal settlement in the Massachusetts bay. He was

naturally regarded with ill favour by the Pilgrims as well as by the

later Puritan settlers, and their accounts of him will probably

bear taking with a grain or two of salt. [Sidenote: Wessagusset and

Merrymount]

In 1625 there came one Captain Wollaston, with a gang of indented white

servants, and established himself on the site of the present town

of Quincy. Finding this system of industry ill suited to northern

agriculture, he carried most of his men off to Virginia, where he sold

them. Morton took possession of the site of the settlement, which he

called Merrymount. There, according to Bradford, he set up a "schoole of

athisme," and his men did quaff strong waters and comport themselves "as

if they had anew revived and celebrated the feasts of ye Roman Goddes

Flora, or the beastly practices of ye madd Bachanalians." Charges of

atheism have been freely hurled about in all ages. In Morton's case the

accusation seems to have been based upon the fact that he used the Book

of Common Prayer. His men so far maintained the ancient customs of

merry England as to plant a Maypole eighty feet high, about which they

frolicked with the redskins, while furthermore they taught them the

use of firearms and sold them muskets and rum. This was positively

dangerous, and in the summer of 1628 the settlers at Merrymount were

dispersed by Miles Standish. Morton was sent to England, but returned

the next year, and presently again repaired to Merrymount.

By this time other settlements were dotted about the coast. There were

a few scattered cottages or cabins at Nantasket and at the mouth of the

Piscataqua, while Samuel Maverick had fortified himself on Noddle's

Island, and William Blackstone already lived upon the Shawmut peninsula,

since called Boston. These two gentlemen were no friends to the

Puritans; they were churchmen and representatives of Sir Ferdinando

Gorges.

The case was very different with another of these earliest settlements,

which deserves especial mention as coming directly in the line of

causation which led to the founding of Massachusetts by Puritans. For

some years past the Dorchester adventurers--a small company of merchants

in the shire town of Dorset--had been sending vessels to catch fish off

the New England coast. In 1623 these men conceived the idea of planting

a small village as a fishing station, and setting up a church and

preacher therein, for the spiritual solace of the fishermen and sailors.

In pursuance of this scheme a small party occupied Cape Ann, where after

two years they got into trouble with the men of Plymouth. Several grants

and assignments had made it doubtful where the ownership lay, and

although this place was not near their own town, the men of Plymouth

claimed it. The dispute was amicably arranged by Roger Conant, an

independent settler who had withdrawn from Plymouth because he did not

fully sympathize with the Separatist views of the people there. The

next step was for the Dorchester adventurers to appoint Conant as their

manager, and the next was for them to abandon their enterprise, dissolve

their partnership, and leave the remnant of the little colony to shift

for itself. The settlers retained their tools and cattle, and Conant

found for them a new and safer situation at Naumkeag, on the site of the

present Salem. So far little seemed to have been accomplished; one more

seemed added to the list of failures.

But the excellent John White, the Puritan rector of Trinity Church in

Dorchester, had meditated carefully about these things. He saw that

many attempts at colonization had failed because they made use of unfit

instruments, "a multitude of rude ungovernable persons, the very scum of

the land." So Virginia had failed in its first years, and only succeeded

when settled by worthy and industrious people under a strong government.

The example of Plymouth, as contrasted with Wessagusset, taught a

similar lesson. We desire, said White, "to raise a bulwark against the

kingdom of Antichrist." Learn wisdom, my countrymen, from the ruin which

has befallen the Protestants at Rochelle and in the Palatinate; learn

"to avoid the plague while it is foreseen, and not to tarry as they did

till it overtook them." The Puritan party in England was numerous and

powerful, but the day of strife was not far off and none might foretell

its issue. Clearly it was well to establish a strong and secure retreat

in the New World, in case of disaster in the Old. What had been done at

Plymouth by a few men of humble means might be done on a much greater

scale by an association of leading Puritans, including men of wealth and

wide social influence. Such arguments were urged in timely pamphlets, of

one of which White is supposed to have been the author. The matter was

discussed in London, and inquiry was made whether fit men could be found

"to engage their persons in the voyage." "It fell out that among others

they lighted at last on Master Endicott, a man well known to divers

persons of good note, who manifested much willingness to accept of the

offer as soon as it was tendered." All were thereby much encouraged, the

schemes of White took definite shape, and on the 19th of March, 1628, a

tract of land was obtained from the Council for New England, consisting

of all the territory included between three miles north of the Merrimack

and three miles south of the Charles in one direction, and the Atlantic

and Pacific Oceans in the other. [Sidenote: John White and his noble

scheme]

This liberal grant was made at a time when people still supposed the

Pacific coast to be not far west of Henry Hudson's river. The territory

was granted to an association of six gentlemen, only one of whom--John

Endicott--figures conspicuously in the history of New England. The

grant was made in the usual reckless style, and conflicted with various

patents which had been issued before. In 1622 Gorges and John Mason

had obtained a grant of all the land between the rivers Kennebec

and Merrimack, and the new grant encroached somewhat upon this. The

difficulty seems to have been temporarily adjusted by some sort of

compromise which restricted the new grant to the Merrimack, for in 1629

we find Mason's title confirmed to the region between that river and the

Piscataqua, while later on Gorges appears as proprietor of the territory

between the Piscataqua and the Kennebec. A more serious difficulty was

the claim of Robert Gorges, son of Sir Ferdinando. That young man had in

1623 obtained a grant of some 300 square miles in Massachusetts, and had

gone to look after it, but had soon returned discouraged to England

and shortly afterward died. But his claim devolved upon his surviving

brother, John Gorges, and Sir Ferdinando, in consenting to the grant to

Endicott and his friends, expressly reserved the rights of his sons. No

such reservation, however, was mentioned in the Massachusetts charter,

and the colonists never paid the slightest heed to it. In these

conflicting claims were sown seeds of trouble which bore fruit for more

than half a century. In such cases actual possession is apt to make nine

points in the law, and accordingly Endicott was sent over, as soon as

possible, with sixty persons, to reinforce the party at Naumkeag and

supersede Conant as its leader. On Endicott's arrival in September,

1628, the settlers were at first inclined to dispute his authority, but

they were soon conciliated, and in token of this amicable adjustment the

place was called by the Hebrew name of Salem, or "peace." [Sidenote:

Conflicting grants sow seeds of trouble] [Sidenote: John Endicot and the

founding of Salem]

Meanwhile Mr. White and the partners in England were pushing things

vigorously. Their scheme took a wider scope. They were determined to

establish something more than a trading company. From Charles I. it

was sometimes easy to get promises because he felt himself under no

obligation to keep them. In March, 1629, a royal charter was granted,

creating a corporation, under the legal style of the Governor and

Company of Massachusetts Bay in New England. The affairs of this

corporate body were to be managed by a governor, deputy-governor, and a

council of eighteen assistants, to be elected annually by the company.

They were empowered to make such laws as they liked for their settlers,

provided they did not contravene the laws of England,--a proviso

susceptible of much latitude of interpretation. The place where the

company was to hold its meetings was not mentioned in the charter. The

law-officers of the crown at first tried to insert a condition that

the government must reside in England, but the grantees with skilful

argument succeeding in preventing this. Nothing was said in the charter

about religious liberty, for a twofold reason: the crown would not have

granted it, and it was not what the grantees wanted; such a provision

would have been liable to hamper them seriously in carrying out their

scheme. They preferred to keep in their own hands the question as to how

much or how little religious liberty they should claim or allow. Six

small ships were presently fitted out, and upon them were embarked 300

men, 80 women, and 26 children, with 140 head of cattle, 40 goats, and

abundance of arms, ammunition, and tools. The principal leader of this

company was Francis Higginson, of St. John's College, Cambridge, rector

of a church in Leicestershire, who had been deprived of his living for

non-conformity. With him were associated two other ministers, also

graduates of Cambridge. All three were members of the council. By the

arrival of this company at Salem, Endicott now became governor of a

colony larger than any yet started in New England,--larger than Plymouth

after its growth of nearly nine years. [Sidenote: The Company of

Massachusetts Bay]

The time was at length ripe for that great Puritan exodus of which the

voyage of the Mayflower had been the premonitory symptom. The grand

crisis for the Puritans had come, the moment when decisive action could

no longer be deferred. It was not by accident that the rapid development

of John White's enterprise into the Company of Massachusetts Bay

coincided exactly with the first four years of the reign of Charles I.

They were years well fitted to bring such a scheme to quick maturity.

The character of Charles was such as to exacerbate the evils of his

father's reign. James could leave some things alone in the comfortable

hope that all would by and by come out right, but Charles was not

satisfied without meddling everywhere. Both father and son cherished

some good intentions; both were sincere believers in their narrow theory

of kingcraft. For wrong-headed obstinacy, utter want of tact, and

bottomless perfidy, there was little to choose between them. The

humorous epitaph of the grandson "whose word no man relies on" might

have served for them all. But of this unhappy family Charles I. was

eminently the dreamer. He lived in a world of his own, and was slow

in rendering thought into action; and this made him rely upon the

quick-witted but unwise and unscrupulous Buckingham, [5] who was silly

enough to make feeble attempts at unpopular warfare without consulting

Parliament. During each of Charles's first four years there was an

angry session of Parliament, in which, through the unwillingness of the

popular leaders to resort to violence, the king's policy seemed able

to hold its ground. Despite all protest the king persisted in levying

strange taxes and was to some extent able to collect them. Men who

refused to pay enforced loans were thrown into jail and the writ of

_habeas corpus_ was denied them. Meanwhile the treatment of Puritans

became more and more vexatious. It was clear enough that Charles meant

to become an absolute monarch, like Louis XIII., but Parliament began

by throwing all the blame upon the unpopular minister and seeking to

impeach him.

On the 5th of June, 1628, the House of Commons presented the most

extraordinary spectacle, perhaps in all its history. The famous Petition

of Right had been Passed by both Houses, and the royal answer had just

been received. Its tone was that of gracious assent, but it omitted the

necessary legal formalities, and the Commons well knew what this meant.

They were to be tricked with sweet words, and the petition was not to

acquire the force of a statute. How was it possible to deal with such a

slippery creature? There was but one way of saving the dignity of the

throne without sacrificing the liberty of the people, and that was to

hold the king's ministers responsible to Parliament, in anticipation

of modern methods. It was accordingly proposed to impeach the Duke

of Buckingham before the House of Lords. The Speaker now "brought an

imperious message from the king, ... warning them ... that he would not

tolerate any aspersion upon his ministers." Nothing daunted by this,

Sir John Eliot arose to lead the debate, when the Speaker called him to

order in view of the king's message. "Amid a deadly stillness" Eliot

sat down and burst into tears. For a moment the House was overcome

with despair. Deprived of all constitutional methods of redress, they

suddenly saw yawning before them the direful alternative--slavery or

civil war. Since the day of Bosworth a hundred and fifty years had

passed without fighting worthy of mention on English soil, such an era

of peace as had hardly ever before been seen on the earth; now half the

nation was to be pitted against the other half, families were to be

divided against themselves, as in the dreadful days of the Roses, and

with what consequences no one could foresee. "Let us sit in silence,"

quoth Sir Dudley Digges, "we are miserable, we know not what to do!"

Nay, cried Sir Nathaniel Rich, "we _must_ now speak, or forever hold our

peace." Then did grim Mr. Prynne and Sir Edward Coke mingle their words

with sobs, while there were few dry eyes in the House. Presently they

found their voices, and used them in a way that wrung from the startled

king his formal assent to the Petition of Right. [Sidenote: Remarkable

scene in the House of Commons]

There is something strangely pathetic and historically significant [6]

in the emotion of these stern, fearless men. The scene was no less

striking on the 2d of the following March, when, "amid the cries and

entreaties of the Speaker held down in his chair by force," while the

Usher of the Black Rod was knocking loudly at the bolted door, and the

tramp of the king's soldiers was heard in the courtyard, Eliot's clear

voice rang out the defiance that whoever advised the levy of tonnage and

poundage without a grant from Parliament, or whoever voluntarily paid

those duties, was to be counted an enemy to the kingdom and a betrayer

of its liberties. As shouts of "Aye, aye," resounded on every side, "the

doors were flung open, and the members poured forth in a throng." The

noble Eliot went to end his days in the Tower, and for eleven years no

Parliament sat again in England. [7]

It was in one and the same week that Charles I. thus began his

experiment of governing without a Parliament, and that he granted a

charter to the Company of Massachusetts Bay. He was very far, as we

shall see, from realizing the import of what he was doing. To the

Puritan leaders it was evident that a great struggle was at hand.

Affairs at home might well seem desperate, and the news from abroad was

not encouraging. It was only four months since the surrender of Rochelle

had ended the existence of the Huguenots as an armed political party.

They had now sunk into the melancholy condition of a tolerated sect

which may at any moment cease to be tolerated. In Germany the

terrible Thirty Years War had just reached the darkest moment for

the Protestants. Fifteen months were yet to pass before the immortal

Gustavus was to cross the Baltic and give to the sorely harassed cause

of liberty a fresh lease of life. The news of the cruel Edict of

Restitution in this same fateful month of March, 1629, could not but

give the English Puritans great concern. Everywhere in Europe the

champions of human freedom seemed worsted. They might well think that

never had the prospect looked so dismal; and never before, as never

since, did the venture of a wholesale migration to the New World so

strongly recommend itself as the only feasible escape from a situation

that was fast becoming intolerable. Such were the anxious thoughts of

the leading Puritans in the spring of 1629, and in face of so grave a

problem different minds came naturally to different conclusions. Some

were for staying in England to fight it out to the bitter end; some were

for crossing the ocean to create a new England in the wilderness. Either

task was arduous enough, and not to be achieved without steadfast and

sober heroism. [Sidenote: Desperate nature of the crisis]

On the 26th of August twelve gentlemen, among the most eminent in the

Puritan party, held a meeting at Cambridge, and resolved to lead a

migration to New England, provided the charter of the Massachusetts Bay

Company and the government established under it could be transferred to

that country. On examination it appeared that no legal obstacle stood in

the way. Accordingly such of the old officers as did not wish to take

part in the emigration resigned their places, which were forthwith

filled by these new leaders. For governor the choice fell upon John

Winthrop, a wealthy gentleman from Groton in Suffolk, who was henceforth

to occupy the foremost place among the founders of New England. Winthrop

was at this time forty-one years of age, having been born in the

memorable year of the Armada. He was a man of remarkable strength and

beauty of character, grave and modest, intelligent and scholarlike,

intensely religious and endowed with a moral sensitiveness that was

almost morbid, yet liberal withal in his opinions and charitable in

disposition. When his life shall have been adequately written, as it

never has been, he will be recognized as one of the very noblest figures

in American history. From early youth he had that same power of

winning confidence and commanding respect for which Washington was so

remarkable; and when he was selected as the Moses of the great Puritan

exodus, there was a wide-spread feeling that extraordinary results were

likely to come of such an enterprise.

In marked contrast to Winthrop stands the figure of the man associated

with him as deputy-governor. Thomas Dudley came of an ancient family,

the history of which, alike in the old and in the new England, has not

been altogether creditable. He represented the elder branch of that

Norman family, to the younger branch of which belonged the unfortunate

husband of Lady Jane Grey and the unscrupulous husband of Amy Robsart.

There was, however, very little likeness to Elizabeth's gay lover

in grim Thomas Dudley. His Puritanism was bleak and stern, and for

Christian charity he was not eminent. He had a foible for making verses,

and at his death there was found in his pocket a poem of his, containing

a quatrain wherein the intolerance of that age is neatly summed up:--

"Let men of God in courts and churches watch O'er such as do a

Toleration hatch, Lest that ill egg bring forth a cockatrice To poison

all with heresy and vice."

Such was the spirit of most of the Puritans of that day, but in the

manifestation of it there were great differences, and here was the

strong contrast between Dudley and Winthrop,--a contrast which shows

itself in their portraits. In that of Dudley we see the typical

narrow-minded, strait-laced Calvinist for whom it is so much easier to

entertain respect than affection. In that of Winthrop we see a face

expressive of what was finest in the age of Elizabeth,--the face of a

spiritual brother of Raleigh and Bacon.

The accession of two men so important as Winthrop and Dudley served to

bring matters speedily to a crisis. Their embarkation in April, 1630,

was the signal for a general movement on the part of the English

Puritans. Before Christmas of that year seventeen ships had come to

New England, bringing more than 1000 passengers. This huge wave of

immigration quite overwhelmed and bore away the few links of possession

by which Gorges had thus far kept his hold upon the country. In January,

1629, John Gorges had tried to assert the validity of his late brother's

claim by executing conveyances covering portions of it. One of these

was to John Oldham, a man who had been harshly treated at Plymouth, and

might be supposed very ready to defend his rights against settlers

of the Puritan company. Gorges further maintained that he retained

possession of the country through the presence of his brother's tenants,

Blackstone, Maverick, Walford, and others on the shores of the bay. In

June, 1629, Endicott had responded by sending forward some fifty persons

from Salem to begin the settlement of Charlestown. Shortly before

Winthrop's departure from England, Gorges had sent that singular

personage Sir Christopher Gardiner to look after his interests in the

New World, and there he was presently found established near the mouth

of the Neponset river, in company with "a comly yonge woman whom he

caled his cousin." But these few claimants were now at once lost in the

human tide which poured over Charlestown, Boston, Newtown, Watertown,

Roxbury, and Dorchester. The settlement at Merrymount was again

dispersed, and Morton sent back to London; Gardiner fled to the coast

of Maine and thence sailed for England in 1632. The Puritans had indeed

occupied the country in force.

Here on the very threshold we are confronted by facts which show that

not a mere colonial plantation, but a definite and organized state was

in process of formation. The emigration was not like that of Jamestown

or of Plymouth. It sufficed at once to make the beginnings of half a

dozen towns, and the question as to self-government immediately sprang

up. Early in 1631 a tax of £60 was assessed upon the settlements, in

order to pay for building frontier fortifications at Newtown. This

incident was in itself of small dimensions, as incidents in newly

founded states are apt to be. But in its historic import it may serve

to connect the England of John Hampden with the New England of Samuel

Adams. The inhabitants of Watertown at first declined to pay this tax,

which was assessed by the Board of Assistants, on the ground that

English freemen cannot rightfully be taxed save by their own consent.

This protest led to a change in the constitution of the infant colony,

and here, at once, we are introduced to the beginnings of American

constitutional history. At first it was thought that public business

could be transacted by a primary assembly of all the freemen in the

colony meeting four times in the year; but the number of freemen

increased so fast that this was almost at once (in October, 1630) found

to be impracticable. The right of choosing the governor and making the

laws was then left to the Board of Assistants; and in May, 1631, it was

further decided that the assistants need not be chosen afresh every

year, but might keep their seats during good behaviour or until ousted

by special vote of the freemen. If the settlers of Massachusetts had

been ancient Greeks or Romans, this would have been about as far as they

could go in the matter; the choice would have been between a primary

assembly and an assembly of notables. It is curious to see Englishmen

passing from one of these alternatives to the other. But it was only for

a moment. The protest of the Watertown men came in time to check these

proceedings, which began to have a decidedly oligarchical look. To

settle the immediate question of the tax, two deputies were sent from

each settlement to advise with the Board of Assistants; while the power

of choosing each year the governor and assistants was resumed by the

freemen. Two years later, in order to reserve to the freemen the power

of making laws without interfering too much with the ordinary business

of life, the colonists fell back upon the old English rural plan of

electing deputies or representatives to a general court. [Sidenote: The

question as to self-government raised at Watertown]

At first the deputies sat in the same chamber with the assistants, but

at length in 1644 they were formed into a second chamber with increased

powers, and the way in which this important constitutional change came

about is worth remembering, as an illustration of the smallness of the

state which so soon was to play a great part in history. As Winthrop

puts it, "there fell out a great business upon a very small occasion."

To a certain Captain Keayne, of Boston, a rich man deemed to be hard and

overbearing toward the poor, there was brought a stray pig, whereof he

gave due public notice through the town-crier, yet none came to claim it

till after he had killed a pig of his own which he kept in the same stye

with the stray. A year having passed by, a poor woman named Sherman came

to see the stray and to decide if it were one that she had lost. Not

recognizing it as hers, she forthwith laid claim to the slaughtered pig.

The case was brought before the elders of the church of Boston, who

decided that the woman was mistaken. Mrs. Sherman then accused the

captain of theft, and brought the case before a jury, which exonerated

the defendant with £3 costs. The captain then sued Mrs. Sherman for

defamation of character and got a verdict for £40 damages, a round

sum indeed to assess upon the poor woman. But long before this it had

appeared that she had many partisans and supporters; it had become a

political question, in which the popular protest against aristocracy was

implicated. Not yet browbeaten, the warlike Mrs. Sherman appealed to the

General Court. The length of the hearing shows the importance which

was attached to the case. After seven days of discussion, the vote

was taken. Seven assistants and eight deputies approved the former

decisions, two assistants and fifteen deputies condemned them, while

seven deputies refrained from voting. In other words, Captain Keayne has

a decided majority among the more aristocratic assistants, while Mrs.

Sherman seemed to prevail with the more democratic deputies. Regarding

the result as the vote of a single body, the woman had a plurality of

two; regarding it as the vote of a double body, her cause had prevailed

in the lower house, but was lost by the veto of the upper. No decision

was reached at the time, but after a year of discussion the legislature

was permanently separated into two houses, each with a veto power upon

the other; and this was felt to be a victory for the assistants. As for

the ecclesiastical polity of the new colony, it had begun to take

shape immediately upon the arrival of Endicott's party at Salem. The

clergymen, Samuel Skelton and Francis Higginson, consecrated each

other, and a church covenant and confession of faith were drawn up by

Higginson. Thirty persons joining in this covenant constituted the first

church in the colony; and several brethren appointed by this church

proceeded formally to ordain the two ministers by the laying on of

hands. In such simple wise was the first Congregational church in

Massachusetts founded. The simple fact of removal from England converted

all the Puritan emigrants into Separatists, as Robinson had already

predicted. Some, however, were not yet quite prepared for so radical a

measure. These proceedings gave umbrage to two of the Salem party, who

attempted forthwith to set up a separate church in conformity with

episcopal models. A very important question was thus raised at once, but

it was not allowed to disturb the peace of the colony. Endicott was a

man of summary methods. He immediately sent the two malcontents back to

England; and thus the colonial church not only seceded from the national

establishment, but the principle was virtually laid down that the

Episcopal form of worship would not be tolerated in the colony. For the

present such a step was to be regarded as a measure of self-defence on

the part of the colonists. Episcopacy to them meant actual and practical

tyranny--the very thing they had crossed the ocean expressly to get

away from--and it was hardly to be supposed that they would encourage

the growth of it in their new home. One or two surpliced priests,

conducting worship in accordance with the Book of Common Prayer, might

in themselves be excellent members of society; but behind the surpliced

priest the colonist saw the intolerance of Laud and the despotism of

the Court of High Commission. In 1631 a still more searching measure

of self-protection was adopted. It was decided that "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." Into the merits of

this measure as illustrating the theocratic ideal of society which the

Puritans sought to realize in New England, we shall inquire hereafter.

At present we must note that, as a measure of self-protection, this

decree was intended to keep out of the new community all emissaries of

Strafford and Laud, as well as such persons as Morton and Gardiner and

other agents of Sir Ferdinando Gorges.

By the year 1634 the scheme of the Massachusetts Company had so far

prospered that nearly 4000 Englishmen had come over, and some twenty

villages on or near the shores of the bay had been founded. The building

of permanent houses, roads, fences, and bridges had begun to go on quite

briskly; farms were beginning to yield a return for the labour of the

husbandman; lumber, furs, and salted fish were beginning to be sent to

England in exchange for manufactured articles; 4000 goats and 1500 head

of cattle grazed in the pastures, and swine innumerable rooted in the

clearings and helped to make ready the land for the ploughman. Political

meetings were held, justice was administered by magistrates after old

English precedents, and church services were performed by a score of

clergymen, nearly all graduates of Cambridge, though one or two had

their degrees from Oxford, and nearly all of whom had held livings in

the Church of England. The most distinguished of these clergymen, John

Cotton, in his younger days a Fellow and Tutor of Emmanuel College, had

for more than twenty years been rector of St. Botolph's, when he left

the most magnificent parish church in England to hold service in the

first rude meeting-house of the new Boston. From Emmanuel College came

also Thomas Hooker and John Harvard. Besides these clergymen, so many of

the leading persons concerned in the emigration were university men that

it was not long before a university began to seem indispensable to

the colony. In 1636 the General Court appropriated £400 toward the

establishment of a college at Newtown. In 1638 John Harvard, dying

childless, bequeathed his library and the half of his estate to the new

college, which the Court forthwith ordered to be called by his name;

while in honour of the mother university the name of the town was

changed to Cambridge.

[Illustration: Founding of Harvard College]

It has been said that the assembly which decreed the establishment

of Harvard College was "the first body in which the people, by their

representatives, ever gave their own money to found a place of

education." [8] The act was a memorable one if we have regard to all the

circumstances of the year in which it was done. On every side danger was

in the air. Threatened at once with an Indian war, with the enmity of

the home government, and with grave dissensions among themselves, the

year 1636 was a trying one indeed for the little community of Puritans,

and their founding a college by public taxation just at this time is a

striking illustration of their unalterable purpose to realize, in this

new home, their ideal of an educated Christian society. [Sidenote:

Threefold danger in the year 1636]

That the government of Charles I. should view with a hostile eye the

growth of a Puritan state in New England is not at all surprising. (1.

From the king, who prepares to attack the infant colony but is fueled by

dissensions at home.) The only fit ground for wonder would seem to be

that Charles should have been willing at the outset to grant a charter

to the able and influential Puritans who organized the Company of

Massachusetts Bay. Probably, however, the king thought at first that it

would relieve him at home if a few dozen of the Puritan leaders could

be allowed to concentrate their minds upon a project of colonization in

America. It might divert attention for a moment from his own despotic

schemes. Very likely the scheme would prove a failure and the

Massachusetts colony incur a fate like that of Roanoke Island; and at

all events the wealth of the Puritans might better be sunk in a remote

and perilous enterprise than employed at home in organizing resistance

to the crown. Such, very likely, may have been the king's motive in

granting the Massachusetts charter two days after turning his Parliament

out of doors. But the events of the last half-dozen years had come to

present the case in a new light. The young colony was not languishing.

It was full of sturdy life; it had wrought mischief to the schemes of

Gorges; and what was more, it had begun to take unheard-of liberties

with things ecclesiastical and political. Its example was getting to be

a dangerous one. It was evidently worth while to put a strong curb upon

Massachusetts. Any promise made to his subjects Charles regarded as

a promise made under duress which he was quite justified in breaking

whenever it suited his purpose to do so. Enemies of Massachusetts were

busy in England. Schismatics from Salem and revellers from Merrymount

were ready with their tales of woe, and now Gorges and Mason were

vigorously pressing their territorial claims. They bargained with

the king. In February, 1635, the moribund Council for New England

surrendered its charter and all its corporate rights in America, on

condition that the king should disregard all the various grants by which

these rights had from time to time been alienated, and should divide

up the territory of New England in severalty among the members of the

Council. In pursuance of this scheme Gorges and Mason, together with

half a dozen noblemen, were allowed to parcel out New England among

themselves as they should see fit. In this way the influence of the

Marquis of Hamilton, with the Earls of Arundel, Surrey, Carlisle, and

Stirling, might be actively enlisted against the Massachusetts Company.

A writ of _quo warranto_ was brought against it; and it was proposed to

send Sir Ferdinando to govern New England with viceregal powers like

those afterward exercised by Andros.

For a moment the danger seemed alarming; but, as Winthrop says, "the

Lord frustrated their design." It was noted as a special providence that

the ship in which Gorges was to sail was hardly off the stocks when it

fell to pieces. Then the most indefatigable enemy of the colony, John

Mason, suddenly died. The king issued his famous writ of ship-money and

set all England by the ears; and, to crown all, the attempt to read the

Episcopal liturgy at St. Giles's church in Edinburgh led straight to

the Solemn League and Covenant. Amid the first mutterings of the Great

Rebellion the proceedings against Massachusetts were dropped, and the

unheeded colony went on thriving in its independent course. Possibly too

some locks at Whitehall may have been turned with golden keys, [9] for

the company was rich, and the king was ever open to such arguments. But

when the news of his evil designs had first reached Boston the people of

the infant colony showed no readiness to yield to intimidation. In their

measures there was a decided smack of what was to be realized a hundred

and forty years later. Orders were immediately issued for fortifying

Castle Island in the harbour and the heights at Charlestown and

Dorchester. Militia companies were put in training, and a beacon was

set up on the highest hill in Boston, to give prompt notice to all the

surrounding country of any approaching enemy.

While the ill will of the home government thus kept the colonists in a

state of alarm, there were causes of strife at work at their very doors,

of which they were fain to rid themselves as soon as possible. Among all

the Puritans who came to New England there is no more interesting figure

than the learned, quick-witted pugnacious Welshman, Roger Williams. He

was over-fond of logical subtleties and delighted in controversy. There

was scarcely any subject about which he did not wrangle, from the

sinfulness of persecution to the propriety of women wearing veils in

church. Yet, with all this love of controversy, there has perhaps

never lived a more gentle and kindly soul. Within five years from the

settlement of Massachusetts this young preacher had announced the true

principles of religious liberty with a clearness of insight quite

remarkable in that age. Roger Williams had been aided in securing an

education by the great lawyer Sir Edward Coke, and had lately taken his

degree at Pembroke College, Cambridge; but the boldness with which he

declared his opinions had aroused the hostility of Laud, and in 1631 he

had come over to Plymouth, whence he removed two years later to Salem,

and became pastor of the church there. The views of Williams, if

logically carried out, involved the entire separation of church from

state, the equal protection of all forms of religious faith, the repeal

of all laws compelling attendance on public worship, the abolition of

tithes and of all forced contributions to the support of religion. Such

views are to-day quite generally adopted by the more civilized portions

of the Protestant world; but it is needless to say that they were not

the views of the seventeenth century, in Massachusetts or elsewhere. For

declaring such opinions as these on the continent of Europe, anywhere

except in Holland, a man like Williams would in that age have run great

risk of being burned at the stake. In England, under the energetic

misgovernment of Laud, he would very likely have had to stand in the

pillory with his ears cropped, or perhaps, like Bunyan and Baxter, would

have been sent to jail. In Massachusetts such views were naturally

enough regarded as anarchical, but in Williams's case they were further

complicated by grave political imprudence. He wrote a pamphlet in which

he denied the right of the colonists to the lands which they held in New

England under the king's grant. He held that the soil belonged to the

Indians, that the settlers could only obtain a valid title to it by

purchase from them, and that the acceptance of a patent from a mere

intruder, like the king, was a sin requiring public repentance. This

doctrine was sure to be regarded in England as an attack upon the king's

supremacy over Massachusetts, and at the same time an incident occurred

in Salem which made it all the more unfortunate. The royal colours under

which the little companies of militia marched were emblazoned with the

red cross of St. George. The uncompromising Endicott loathed this emblem

as tainted with Popery, and one day he publicly defaced the flag of the

Salem company by cutting out the cross. The enemies of Massachusetts

misinterpreted this act as a defiance aimed at the royal authority, and

they attributed it to the teachings of Williams. In view of the king's

unfriendliness these were dangerous proceedings. Endicott was summoned

before the General Court at Boston, where he was publicly reprimanded

and declared incapable of holding office for a year. A few months

afterward, in January, 1636, Williams was ordered by the General Court

to come to Boston and embark in a ship that was about to set sail for

England. But he escaped into the forest, and made his way through the

snow to the wigwam of Massasoit. He was a rare linguist, and had learned

to talk fluently in the language of the Indians, and now he passed the

winter in trying to instill into their ferocious hearts something of the

gentleness of Christianity. In the spring he was privately notified by

Winthrop that if he were to steer his course to Narragansett bay he

would be secure from molestation; and such was the beginning of the

settlement of Providence. [Sidenote: From religious dissensions; Roger

Williams]

Shortly before the departure of Williams, there came to Boston one of

the greatest Puritan statesmen of that heroic age, the younger Henry

Vane. It is pleasant to remember that the man and Anne who did so much

to overthrow the tyranny of Strafford, who brought the military strength

of Scotland to the aid of the hard-pressed Parliament, who administered

the navy with which Blake won his astonishing victories, who dared even

withstand Cromwell at the height of his power when his measures became

too violent,--it is pleasant to remember that this admirable man was

once the chief magistrate of an American commonwealth. It is pleasant

for a Harvard man to remember that as such he presided over the assembly

that founded our first university. Thorough republican and enthusiastic

lover of liberty, he was spiritually akin to Jefferson and to Samuel

Adams. Like Williams he was a friend to toleration, and like Williams

he found Massachusetts an uncomfortable home. In 1636 he was only

twenty-four years of age, "young in years," and perhaps not yet "in

sage counsel old." He was chosen governor for that year, and his

administration was stormy. Among those persons who had followed Mr.

Cotton from Lincolnshire was Mrs. Anne Hutchinson, a very bright and

capable lady, if perhaps somewhat impulsive and indiscreet. She had

brought over with her, says Winthrop, "two dangerous errors: first, that

the person of the Holy Ghost dwells in a justified person; second, that

no sanctification can help to evidence to us our justification." Into

the merits of such abstruse doctrines it is not necessary for the

historian to enter. One can hardly repress a smile as one reflects

how early in the history of Boston some of its characteristic social

features were developed. It is curious to read of lectures there in

1636, lectures by a lady, and transcendentalist lectures withal! Never

did lectures in Boston arouse greater excitement than Mrs. Hutchinson's.

Many of her hearers forsook the teachings of the regular ministers, to

follow her. [Sidenote: Henry Vane and Anne Hutchinson]

She was very effectively supported by her brother-in-law, Mr.

Wheelwright, an eloquent preacher, and for a while she seemed to be

carrying everything before her. She won her old minister Mr. Cotton, she

won the stout soldier Captain Underhill, she won Governor Vane himself;

while she incurred the deadly hatred of such men as Dudley and Cotton's

associate John Wilson. The church at Boston was divided into two hostile

camps. The sensible Winthrop marvelled at hearing men distinguished "by

being under a covenant of grace or a covenant of works, as in other

countries between Protestants and Papists," and he ventured to doubt

whether any man could really tell what the difference was. The

theological strife went on until it threatened to breed civil

disaffection among the followers of Mrs. Hutchinson. A peculiar

bitterness was given to the affair, from the fact that she professed to

be endowed with the spirit of prophecy and taught her partisans that it

was their duty to follow the biddings of a supernatural light; and there

was nothing which the orthodox Puritan so steadfastly abhorred as the

anarchical pretence of living by the aid of a supernatural light. In a

strong and complex society the teachings of Mrs. Hutchinson would have

awakened but a languid speculative interest, or perhaps would have

passed by unheeded. In the simple society of Massachusetts in 1636,

physically weak and as yet struggling for very existence, the practical

effect of such teachings may well have been deemed politically

dangerous. When things came to such a pass that the forces of the colony

were mustered for an Indian campaign and the men of Boston were ready to

shirk the service because they suspected their chaplain to be "under a

covenant of works," it was naturally thought to be high time to put Mrs.

Hutchinson down. In the spring of 1637 Winthrop was elected governor,

and in August Vane returned to England. His father had at that moment

more influence with the king than any other person except Strafford,

and the young man had indiscreetly hinted at an appeal to the home

government for the protection of the Antinomians, as Mrs. Hutchinson's

followers were called. But an appeal from America to England was

something which Massachusetts would no more tolerate in the days of

Winthrop than in the days of Hancock and Adams. Soon after Vane's

departure, Mrs. Hutchinson and her friends were ordered to leave the

colony. It was doubtless an odious act of persecution, yet of all

such acts which stain the history of Massachusetts in the seventeenth

century, it is just the one for which the plea of political necessity

may really be to some extent accepted.

We now begin to see how the spreading of the New England colonization,

and the founding of distinct communities, was hastened by these

differences of opinion on theological questions or on questions

concerning the relations between church and state. Of Mrs. Hutchinson's

friends and adherents, some went northward, and founded the towns of

Exeter and Hampton. Some time before Portsmouth and Dover had been

settled by followers of Mason and Gorges. In 1641 these towns were added

to the domain of Massachusetts, and so the matter stood until 1679, when

we shall see Charles II. marking them off as a separate province, under

a royal government. Such were the beginnings of New Hampshire. Mrs.

Hutchinson herself, however, with the rest of her adherents, bought

the island of Aquedneck from the Indians, and settlements were made at

Portsmouth and Newport. After a quarter of a century of turbulence,

these settlements coalesced with Williams's colony at Providence, and

thus was formed the state of Rhode Island. After her husband's death in

1642, Mrs. Hutchinson left Aquedneck and settled upon some land to the

west of Stamford and supposed to be within the territory of the New

Netherlands. There in the following year she was cruelly murdered by

Indians, together with nearly all her children and servants, sixteen

victims in all. One of her descendants was the illustrious Thomas

Hutchinson, the first great American historian, and last royal governor

of Massachusetts.

To the dangers arising from the ill-will of the crown, and from these

theological quarrels, there was added the danger of a general attack by

the savages. Down to this time, since the landing of the Pilgrims at

Plymouth, the settlers of New England had been in no way molested by the

natives. Massasoit's treaty with the Pilgrims was scrupulously observed

on both sides, and kept the Wampanoags quiet for fifty-four years. The

somewhat smaller tribe which took its name from the _Massawachusett_, or

Great Hill, of Milton, kept on friendly terms with the settlers about

Boston, because these red men coveted the powerful aid of the white

strangers in case of war with their hereditary foes the Tarratines, who

dwelt in the Piscataqua country. It was only when the English began

to leave these coast regions and press into the interior that trouble

arose. The western shores of Narragansett bay were possessed by

the numerous and warlike tribe of that name, which held in partial

subjection the Nyantics near Point Judith. To the west of these, and

about the Thames river, dwelt the still more formidable Pequots, a tribe

which for bravery and ferocity asserted a preeminence in New England

not unlike that which the Iroquois league of the Mohawk valley was fast

winning over all North America east of the Mississippi. North of the

Pequots, the squalid villages of the Nipmucks were scattered over the

beautiful highlands that stretch in long ridges from Quinsigamond to

Nichewaug, and beyond toward blue Monadnock. Westward, in the lower

Connecticut valley, lived the Mohegans, a small but valiant tribe, now

for some time held tributary to their Pequot cousins, and very restive

under the yoke. The thickly wooded mountain ranges between the

Connecticut and the Hudson had few human inhabitants. These hundred

miles of crag and forest were a bulwark none too wide or strong against

the incursions of the terrible Mohawks, whose name sent a shiver of fear

throughout savage New England, and whose forbearance the Nipmucks and

Mohegans were fain to ensure by a yearly payment of blackmail. Each

summer there came two Mohawk elders, secure in the dread that Iroquois

prowess had everywhere inspired; and up and down the Connecticut valley

they seized the tribute of weapons and wampum, and proclaimed the last

harsh edict issued from the savage council at Onondaga. The scowls that

greeted their unwelcome visits were doubtless nowhere fiercer than among

the Mohegans, thus ground down between Mohawk and Pequot as between the

upper and the nether millstone. [Sidenote: From the Indians: the Pequot

supremacy]

Among the various points in which civilized man surpasses the savage

none is more conspicuous than the military brute force which in the

highest civilization is always latent though comparatively seldom

exerted. The sudden intrusion of English warfare into the Indian world

of the seventeenth century may well have seemed to the red men a

supernatural visitation, like the hurricane or the earthquake. The

uncompromising vigour with which the founders of Massachusetts carried

on their work was viewed in some quarters with a dissatisfaction which

soon thrust the English migration into the very heart of the Indian

country.

The first movement, however, was directed against the encroachments of

the New Netherlands. In October, 1634, some men of Plymouth, led by

William Holmes, sailed up the Connecticut river, and, after bandying

threats with a party of Dutch who had built a rude fort on the site of

Hartford, passed on and fortified themselves on the site of Windsor.

Next year Governor Van Twiller sent a company of seventy men to drive

away these intruders, but after reconnoitring the situation the Dutchmen

thought it best not to make an attack. Their little stronghold at

Hartford remained unmolested by the English, and, in order to secure

the communication between this advanced outpost and New Amsterdam, Van

Twiller decided to build another fort at the mouth of the river, but

this time the English were beforehand. Rumours of Dutch designs may

have reached the ears of Lord Say and Sele and Lord Brooke--"fanatic

Brooke," as Scott calls him in "Marmion"--who had obtained from the

Council for New England a grant of territory on the shores of the Sound.

These noblemen chose as their agent the younger John Winthrop, son of

the Massachusetts governor, and this new-comer arrived upon the scene

just in time to drive away Van Twiller's vessel and build an English

fort which in honour of his two patrons he called "Say-Brooke."

Had it not been for seeds of discontent already sown in Massachusetts,

the English hold upon the Connecticut valley might perhaps have been

for a few years confined to these two military outposts at Windsor and

Saybrook. But there were people in Massachusetts who did not look with

favour upon the aristocratic and theocratic features in its polity. The

provision that none but church-members should vote or hold office was

by no means unanimously approved. We see it in the course of another

generation putting altogether too much temporal power into the hands of

the clergy, and we can trace the growth of the opposition to it until in

the reign of Charles II. it becomes a dangerous source of weakness to

Massachusetts. At the outset the opposition seems to have been strongest

in Dorchester, Newtown, and Watertown. When the Board of Assistants

undertook to secure for themselves permanency of tenure, together with

the power of choosing the governor and making the laws, these three

towns sent deputies to Boston to inspect the charter and see if it

authorized any such stretch of power. They were foremost in insisting

that representatives chosen by the towns must have a share in the

general government. Men who held such opinions were naturally unwilling

to increase the political weight of the clergy, who, during these early

disputes and indeed until the downfall of the charter, were inclined to

take aristocratic views and to sympathize with the Board of Assistants.

Cotton declared that democracy was no fit government either for church

or for commonwealth, and the majority of the ministers agreed with

him. Chief among those who did not was the learned and eloquent Thomas

Hooker, pastor of the church at Newtown. When Winthrop, in a letter to

Hooker, defended the restriction of the suffrage on the ground that "the

best part is always the least, and of that best part the wiser part is

always the lesser;" Hooker replied that "in matters which concern the

common good, a general council, chosen by all, to transact businesses

which concern all, I conceive most suitable to rule and most safe for

relief of the whole." It is interesting to meet, on the very threshold

of American history, with such a lucid statement of the strongly

contrasted views which a hundred and fifty years later were to be

represented on a national scale by Hamilton and Jefferson. There were

many in Newtown who took Hooker's view of the matter; and there, as

also in Watertown and Dorchester, which in 1633 took the initiative in

framing town governments with selectmen, a strong disposition was shown

to evade the restrictions upon the suffrage.

While such things were talked about in the summer of 1633 the

adventurous John Oldham was making his way through the forest and over

the mountains into the Connecticut valley, and when he returned to

the coast his glowing accounts set some people to thinking. Two years

afterward a few pioneers from Dorchester pushed through the wilderness

as far as the Plymouth men's fort at Windsor, while a party from

Watertown went farther and came to a halt upon the site of Wethersfield.

A larger party, bringing cattle and such goods as they could carry,

set out in the autumn and succeeded in reaching Windsor. Their winter

supplies were sent around by water to meet them, but early in November

the ships had barely passed the Saybrook fort when they found the river

blocked with ice and were obliged to return to Boston. The sufferings of

the pioneers, thus cut off from the world, were dreadful. Their cattle

perished, and they were reduced to a diet of acorns and ground-nuts.

Some seventy of them, walking on the frozen river to Saybrook, were

so fortunate as to find a crazy little sloop jammed in the ice. They

succeeded in cutting her adrift, and steered themselves back to Boston.

Others surmounted greater obstacles in struggling back through the snow

over the region which the Pullman car now traverses, regardless of

seasons, in three hours. A few grim heroes, the nameless founders of a

noble commonwealth, stayed on the spot and defied starvation. In the

next June, 1636, the Newtown congregation, a hundred or more in number,

led by their sturdy pastor, and bringing with them 160 head of cattle,

made the pilgrimage to the Connecticut valley. Women and children took

part in this pleasant summer journey; Mrs. Hooker, the pastor's wife,

being too ill to walk, was carried on a litter. Thus, in the memorable

year in which our great university was born, did Cambridge become, in

the true Greek sense of a much-abused word, the _metropolis_ or "mother

town" of Hartford. The migration at once became strong in numbers.

During the past twelvemonth a score of ships had brought from England

to Massachusetts more than 3000 souls, and so great an accession made

further movement easy. Hooker's pilgrims were soon followed by the

Dorchester and Watertown congregations, and by the next May 800 people

were living in Windsor, Hartford, and Wethersfield. As we read of these

movements, not of individuals, but of organic communities, united in

allegiance to a church and its pastor, and fervid with the instinct

of self-government, we seem to see Greek history renewed, but with

centuries of added political training. For one year a board of

commissioners from Massachusetts governed the new towns, but at the end

of that time the towns chose representatives and held a General Court at

Hartford, and thus the separate existence of Connecticut was begun. As

for Springfield, which was settled about the same time by a party from

Roxbury, it remained for some years doubtful to which state it belonged.

At the opening session of the General Court, May 31,1638, Mr. Hooker

preached a sermon of wonderful power, in which he maintained that "the

foundation of authority is laid in the free consent of the people,"

"that the choice of public magistrates belongs unto the people by God's

own allowance," and that "they who have power to appoint officers and

magistrates have the right also to set the bounds and limitations of

the power and place unto which they call them." On the 14th of January,

1639, all the freemen of the three towns assembled at Hartford and

adopted a written constitution in which the hand of the great preacher

is clearly discernible. It is worthy of note that this document contains

none of the conventional references to a "dread sovereign" or a

"gracious king," nor the slightest allusion to the British or any other

government outside of Connecticut itself, nor does it prescribe any

condition of church-membership for the right of suffrage. It was the

first written constitution known to history, that created a government,

[10] and it marked the beginnings of American democracy, of which Thomas

Hooker deserves more than any other man to be called the father. The

government of the United States today is in lineal descent more nearly

related to that of Connecticut than to that of any of the other thirteen

colonies. The most noteworthy feature of the Connecticut republic was

that it was a federation of independent towns, and that all attributes

of sovereignty not expressly granted to the General Court remained,

as of original right, in the towns. Moreover, while the governor and

council were chosen by a majority vote of the whole people, and by a

suffrage that was almost universal, there was for each township an

equality of representation in the assembly. [11] This little federal

republic was allowed to develop peacefully and normally; its

constitution was not violently wrenched out of shape like that of

Massachusetts at the end of the seventeenth century. It silently grew

till it became the strongest political structure on the continent, as

was illustrated in the remarkable military energy and the unshaken

financial credit of Connecticut during the Revolutionary War; and in the

chief crisis of the Federal Convention of 1787 Connecticut, with her

compromise which secured equal state representation in one branch of the

national government and popular representation in the other, played the

controlling part. [Sidenote: Connecticut Pioneers] [Sidenote: The first

written constitution]

Before the little federation of towns had framed its government, it had

its Indian question to dispose of. Three years before the migration led

by Hooker, a crew of eight traders, while making their way up the river

to the Dutch station on the site of Hartford, had been murdered by a

party of Indians subject to Sassacus, chief sachem of the Pequots.

Negotiations concerning this outrage had gone on between Sassacus and

the government at Boston, and the Pequots had promised to deliver up

the murderers, but had neglected to do so. In the summer of 1636 some

Indians on Block Island subject to the Narragansetts murdered the

pioneer John Oldham, who was sailing on the Sound, and captured his

little vessel. At this, says Underhill, "God stirred up the hearts" of

Governor Vane and the rest of the magistrates. They were determined to

make an end of the Indian question and show the savages that such things

would not be endured. First an embassy was sent to Canonicus and his

nephew Miantonomo, chief sachems of the Narragansetts, who hastened

to disclaim all responsibility for the murder, and to throw the blame

entirely upon the Indians of the island. Vane then sent out three

vessels under command of Endicott, who ravaged Block Island, burning

wigwams, sinking canoes, and slaying dogs, for the men had taken to the

woods. Endicott then crossed to the mainland to reckon with the Pequots.

He demanded the surrender of the murderers, with a thousand fathoms of

wampum for damages; and not getting a satisfactory answer, he attacked

the Indians, killed a score of them, seized their ripe corn, and burned

and spoiled what he could. But such reprisals served only to enrage the

red men. Lyon Gardiner, commander of the Saybrook fort, complained to

Endicott: "You come hither to raise these wasps about my ears; then

you will take wing and flee away." The immediate effect was to incite

Sassacus to do his utmost to compass the ruin of the English. The

superstitious awe with which the white men were at first regarded had

been somewhat lessened by familiar contact with them, as in Aesop's

fable of the fox and the lion. The resources of Indian diplomacy were

exhausted in the attempt to unite the Narragansett warriors with the

Pequots in a grand crusade against the white men. Such a combination

could hardly have been as formidable as that which was effected forty

years afterward in King Philip's war; for the savages had not as yet

become accustomed to firearms, and the English settlements did not

present so many points exposed to attack; but there is no doubt that

it might have wrought fearful havoc. We can, at any rate, find no

difficulty in comprehending the manifold perplexity of the Massachusetts

men at this time, threatened as they were at once by an Indian crusade,

by the machinations of a faithless king, and by a bitter theological

quarrel at home, in this eventful year when they laid aside part of

their incomes to establish Harvard College. [Sidenote: Origin of the

Pequot War]

The schemes of Sassacus were unsuccessful. The hereditary enmity of the

Narragansetts toward their Pequot rivals was too strong to be lightly

overcome. Roger Williams, taking advantage of this feeling, so worked

upon the minds of the Narragansett chiefs that in the autumn of 1636

they sent an embassy to Boston and made a treaty of alliance with the

English. The Pequots were thus left to fight out their own quarrel; and

had they still been separated from the English by the distance between

Boston and the Thames river, the feud might very likely have smouldered

until the drift of events had given a different shape to it. But as the

English had in this very year thrown out their advanced posts into the

lower Connecticut valley, there was clearly no issue from the situation

save in deadly war. All through the winter of 1636-37 the Connecticut

towns were kept in a state of alarm by the savages. Men going to their

work were killed and horribly mangled. A Wethersfield man was kidnapped

and roasted alive. Emboldened by the success of this feat, the Pequots

attacked Wethersfield, massacred ten people, and carried away two girls.

[Sidenote: Sassacus is foiled by Roger Williams] [Sidenote: The Pequots

take the warpath alone]

Wrought up to desperation by these atrocities, the Connecticut men

appealed to Massachusetts and Plymouth for aid, and put into service

ninety of their own number, under command of John Mason, an excellent

and sturdy officer who had won golden opinions from Sir Thomas Fairfax,

under whom he had served in the Netherlands. It took time to get men

from Boston, and all that Massachusetts contributed to the enterprise at

its beginning was that eccentric daredevil John Underhill, with a force

of twenty men. Seventy friendly Mohegans, under their chief Uncas, eager

to see vengeance wrought upon their Pequot oppressors, accompanied the

expedition. From the fort at Saybrook this little company set sail on

the twentieth of May, 1637, and landed in brilliant moonlight near Point

Judith, where they were reinforced by four hundred Narragansetts and

Nyantics. From this point they turned westward toward the stronghold of

the Pequots, near the place where the town of Stonington now stands. As

they approached the dreaded spot the courage of the Indian allies gave

out, and they slunk behind, declaring that Sassacus was a god whom

it was useless to think of attacking. The force with which Mason

and Underhill advanced to the fray consisted of just seventy-seven

Englishmen. Their task was to assault and carry an entrenched fort or

walled village containing seven hundred Pequots. The fort was a

circle of two or three acres in area, girdled by a palisade of

sturdy sapling-trunks, set firm and deep into the ground, the narrow

interstices between them serving as loopholes wherefrom to reconnoitre

any one passing by and to shoot at assailants. At opposite sides of

this stronghold were two openings barely large enough to let any one go

through. Within this enclosure were the crowded wigwams. The attack was

skilfully managed, and was a complete surprise. A little before daybreak

Mason, with sixteen men, occupied one of the doors, while Underhill made

sure of the other. The Indians in panic sought first one outlet and then

the other, and were ruthlessly shot down, whichever way they turned. A

few succeeded in breaking loose, but these were caught and tomahawked by

the Indian allies, who, though afraid to take the risks of the fight,

were ready enough to help slay the fugitives. The English threw

firebrands among the wigwams, and soon the whole village was in a light

blaze, and most of the savages suffered the horrible death which they

were so fond of inflicting upon their captives. Of the seven hundred

Pequots in the stronghold, but five got away with their lives. All this

bloody work had been done in less than an hour, and of the English there

had been two killed and sixteen wounded. It was the end of the Pequot

nation. Of the remnant which had not been included in this wholesale

slaughter, most were soon afterwards destroyed piecemeal in a running

fight which extended as far westward as the site of Fairfield. Sassacus

fled across the Hudson river to the Mohawks, who slew him and sent his

scalp to Boston, as a peace-offering to the English. The few survivors

were divided between the Mohegans and Narragansetts and adopted into

those tribes. Truly the work was done with Cromwellian thoroughness. The

tribe which had lorded it so fiercely over the New England forests was

all at once wiped out of existence. So terrible a vengeance the Indians

had never heard of. If the name of Pequot had hitherto been a name of

terror, so now did the Englishmen win the inheritance of that deadly

prestige. Not for eight-and-thirty years after the destruction of the

Pequots, not until a generation of red men had grown up that knew not

Underhill and Mason, did the Indian of New England dare again to lift

his hand against the white man. [Sidenote: And are exterminated]

Such scenes of wholesale slaughter are not pleasant reading in this

milder age. But our forefathers felt that the wars of Canaan afforded

a sound precedent for such cases; and, indeed, if we remember what

the soldiers of Tilly and Wallenstein were doing at this very time in

Germany, we shall realize that the work of Mason and Underhill would not

have been felt by any one in that age to merit censure or stand in need

of excuses. As a matter of practical policy the annihilation of the

Pequots can be condemned only by those who read history so incorrectly

as to suppose that savages, whose business is to torture and slay, can

always be dealt with according to the methods in use between civilized

peoples. A mighty nation, like the United States, is in honour bound to

treat the red man with scrupulous justice and refrain from cruelty in

punishing his delinquencies. But if the founders of Connecticut, in

confronting a danger which threatened their very existence, struck with

savage fierceness, we cannot blame them. The world is so made that it

is only in that way that the higher races have been able to preserve

themselves and carry on their progressive work.

The overthrow of the Pequots was a cardinal event in the planting of

New England. It removed the chief obstacle to the colonization of

the Connecticut coast, and brought the inland settlements into such

unimpeded communication with those on tide-water as to prepare the way

for the formation of the New England confederacy. Its first fruits were

seen in the direction taken by the next wave of migration, which ended

the Puritan exodus from England to America. About a month after the

storming of the palisaded village there arrived in Boston a company of

wealthy London merchants, with their families. The most prominent among

them, Theophilus Eaton, was a member of the Company of Massachusetts

Bay. Their pastor, John Davenport, was an eloquent preacher and a man of

power. He was a graduate of Oxford, and in 1624 had been chosen vicar

of St. Stephen's parish, in Coleman street, London. When he heard that

Cotton and Hooker were about to sail for America, he sought earnestly to

turn them from what he deemed the error of their ways, but instead he

became converted himself and soon incurred the especial enmity of Laud,

so that it became necessary for him to flee to Amsterdam. In 1636 he

returned to England, and in concert with Eaton organized a scheme of

emigration that included men from Yorkshire, Hertfordshire, and Kent.

The leaders arrived in Boston in the midst of the Antinomian disputes,

and although Davenport won admiration for his skill in battling with

heresy, he may perhaps have deemed it preferable to lead his flock

to some new spot in the wilderness where such warfare might not be

required. The merchants desired a fine harbour and good commercial

situation, and the reports of the men who returned from hunting the

Pequots told them of just such a spot at Quinnipiack on Long Island

Sound. Here they could carry out their plan of putting into practice

a theocratic ideal even more rigid than that which obtained in

Massachusetts, and arrange their civil as well as ecclesiastical affairs

in accordance with rules to be obtained from a minute study of the

Scriptures. [Sidenote: The colony of New Haven]

In the spring of 1638 the town of New Haven was accordingly founded.

The next year a swarm from this new town settled Milford, while another

party, freshly arrived from England, made the beginnings of Guilford. In

1640 Stamford was added to the group, and in 1643 the four towns were

united into the republic of New Haven, to which Southold, on Long

Island, and Branford were afterwards added. As being a confederation of

independent towns, New Haven resembled Connecticut. In other respects

the differences between the two reflected the differences between

Davenport and Hooker; the latter was what would now be called more

radical than Winthrop or Cotton, the former was more conservative.

In the New Haven colony none but church-members could vote, and this

measure at the outset disfranchised more than half the settlers in New

Haven town, nearly half in Guilford, and less than one fifth in Milford.

This result was practically less democratic than in Massachusetts where

it was some time before the disfranchisement attained such dimensions.

The power of the clergy reached its extreme point in New Haven, where

each of the towns was governed by seven ecclesiastical officers known as

"pillars of the church." These magistrates served as judges, and trial

by jury was dispensed with, because no authority could be found for it

in the laws of Moses. The legislation was quaint enough, though the

famous "Blue Laws" of New Haven, which have been made the theme of so

many jests at the expense of our forefathers, never really existed. The

story of the Blue Laws was first published in 1781 by the Rev. Samuel

Peters, a Tory refugee in London, who took delight in horrifying our

British cousins with tales of wholesale tarring and feathering done by

the patriots of the Revolution. In point of strict veracity Dr. Peters

reminds one of Baron Munchausen; he declares that the river at Bellows

Falls flows so fast as to float iron crowbars, and he gravely describes

sundry animals who were evidently cousins to the Jabberwok. The most

famous passage of his pretended code is that which enacts that "no woman

shall kiss her child on the Sabbath," and that "no one shall play on any

instrument of music except the drum, trumpet, or jewsharp." [Sidenote:

Legend of the "Blue Laws"]

When the Long Parliament met in 1640, the Puritan exodus to New England

came to an end. During the twenty years which had elapsed since the

voyage of the Mayflower, the population had grown to 26,000 souls. Of

this number scarcely 500 had arrived before 1629. It is a striking fact,

since it expresses a causal relation and not a mere coincidence, that

the eleven years, 1629-1640, during which Charles I. governed England

without a parliament, were the same eleven years that witnessed the

planting of New England. For more than a century after this there was no

considerable migration to this part of North America. Puritan England

now found employment for all its energies and all its enthusiasm at

home. The struggle with the king and the efforts toward reorganization

under Cromwell were to occupy it for another score of years, and

then, by the time of the Restoration the youthful creative energy of

Puritanism had spent itself. The influence of this great movement

was indeed destined to grow wider and deeper with the progress of

civilization, but after 1660 its creative work began to run in new

channels and assume different forms. [Sidenote: End of the Puritan

exodus]

It is curious to reflect what might have been the result, to America and

to the world, had things in England gone differently between 1620 and

1660. Had the policy of James and Charles been less formidable, the

Puritan exodus might never have occurred, and the Virginian type of

society, varied perhaps by a strong Dutch infusion, might have become

supreme in America. The western continent would have lost in richness

and variety of life, and it is not likely that Europe would have made a

corresponding gain, for the moral effect of the challenge, the struggle,

and the overthrow of monarchy in England was a stimulus sorely needed

by neighbouring peoples. It is not always by avoiding the evil, it

is rather by grappling with it and conquering it that character is

strengthened and life enriched, and there is no better example of this

than the history of England in the seventeenth century.

On the other hand, if the Stuart despotism had triumphed in England, the

Puritan exodus would doubtless have been swelled to huge dimensions. New

England would have gained strength so quickly that much less irritation

than she actually suffered between 1664 and 1689 would probably have

goaded her into rebellion. The war of independence might have been waged

a century sooner than it was. It is not easy to point to any especial

advantage that could have come to America from this; one is rather

inclined to think of the peculiarly valuable political training of the

eighteenth century that would have been lost. Such surmises are for the

most part idle. But as concerns Europe, it is plain to be seen, for

reasons stated in my first chapter, that the decisive victory of Charles

I. would have been a calamity of the first magnitude. It would have been

like the Greeks losing Marathon or the Saracens winning Tours, supposing

the worst consequences ever imagined in those hypothetical cases to have

been realized. Or taking a more contracted view, we can see how England,

robbed of her Puritan element, might still have waxed in strength, as

France has done in spite of losing the Huguenots; but she could not

have taken the proud position that she has come to occupy as mother of

nations. Her preeminence since Cromwell's time has been chiefly due to

her unrivalled power of planting self-supporting colonies, and that

power has had its roots in English self-government. It is the vitality

of the English Idea that is making the language of Cromwell and

Washington dominant in the world.