THE FIRST PERMANENT SETTLEMENTS
In 1606, in the obscure English village of Scrooby, in Nottinghamshire,
a little group of men, which included John Robinson, William Brewster,
and William Bradford, had for some years been meeting together in
Brewster's house for worship, and had formed themselves into an
Independent church. Robinson was a graduate of Cambridge, and had been a
Church of England clergyman in Norwich.[190] Brewster, after a short
attendance at Cambridge, had become connected, in some capacity, with
Davison, then Secretary of State, and had accompanied him to the Low
Countries in 1585. When Davison fell from power, Brewster's career at
court was ended, and at the time of the formation of the church in
Scrooby, he had, for some years, been occupying the position of
postmaster there, living in the old manor-house which had attracted the
covetous eyes of James the First.[191] A spiritually minded man of some
culture but of modest means, he was the most influential layman in the
little congregation, which, for the most part, was composed of the
untutored farmers and farm-hands of that remote rural district. With
little or no education, without even that sharpening of wits which comes
from mere contact in the more populous ways of life, they were, as their
own historian has said, only such as had been “used to a plaine countrie
life and the innocent trade of husbandry.”[192] That historian, William
Bradford, was himself of yeoman stock, and a mere lad of sixteen or so,
when the Scrooby church was formed.[193] Already one of the leaders in
the practical affairs of the church when scarcely more than a lad, he
developed into a man of sound judgment, as well as morals, and one whose
counsel was to be invaluable to the little colony in the New World, the
fortunes of which he was to share and chronicle. A student, and a writer
of a singularly pure English style, he seems also to have made himself
familiar with Dutch, French, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, if we may believe
Cotton Mather's statement, which is, in part, borne out by other
evidence.[194]
Footnote 190:
O. S. Davis, _John Robinson, the Pilgrim Pastor_ (Boston, 1903), pp.
62-74. _Cf._ also C. Burrage, _A Tercentenary Memorial_; Oxford, 1910;
and W. H. Burgess, _The Pastor of the Pilgrims_; New York, 1920.
Footnote 191:
Bradford, _History of Plymouth Plantation_, ed. by C. Deane (Boston,
1861), pp. 409 _ff._; H. M. Dexter, _The England and Holland of the
Pilgrims_ (Boston, 1905), pp. 216-320. Scrooby was a halting place on
the great northern post-road, and the duties of “postmaster” were more
varied and important then than now.
Footnote 192:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, p. 11; Dexter, _England and Holland_, pp. 379
_ff._
Footnote 193:
J. Hunter, _The Founders of New Plymouth_ (London, 1854), pp. 101-15.
Footnote 194:
Cotton Mather, _Magnalia Christi Americana_ (ed. Hartford, 1855), vol.
I, p. 113.
The persecution that the little band underwent before the year of their
attempt to emigrate to Holland was, in the main, from neither church nor
state, but only such as they had to suffer from the scoffs and jeers of
their more easy-going and more commonplace neighbors and companions. In
1607, however, some one or more of these latter, possibly from a
neighborly desire to pay off a grudge, apparently laid a complaint
before the ecclesiastical authorities, of which the Commissioners of the
Province of York had to take note; and in November, Neville, Brewster,
and seven others were cited to appear. Neville, who did so, was allowed
to testify without taking the usual oath, and, after a short
confinement, was released without further trial. Fines were imposed upon
the others for non-appearance, but beyond that no action seems to have
been taken, nor were any efforts made to apprehend them.
According to the standards of the day, they were treated with leniency,
and there is little to indicate that they were “harried from the land,”
or that either the civil or ecclesiastical authorities were anxious to
interfere with them.[195] Justly dreading, however, what might happen,
rather than what had happened, and, perhaps, partly influenced by some
of the motives which induced them to leave Holland later, they decided
to flee from England secretly, and to establish a church in Amsterdam,
whither a neighboring congregation had already gone. To take their
departure legally, it would have been necessary to get the consent of
the authorities—a matter having nothing more to do with religion than
the granting of passports to-day. Neither money nor goods were allowed
to leave England without governmental permit; and, as the Scrooby group
intended to take both without such authorization, they had to leave
clandestinely. About one hundred of them made the attempt, but were
betrayed to the customs officers by the captain of the ship that was to
transport them. A certain amount of the discomfort and unpleasant
notoriety to which these simple and modest folk objected was undoubtedly
of necessity incidental to the simultaneous arrest of so large a body of
law-breakers. They were temporarily placed in confinement, for this
purely secular offense, and were well treated by the magistrates, who
“used them courteously, and showed them what favour they could.”[196]
The Privy Council, which had to be advised of the attempt to evade the
customs laws, acted promptly; and, in spite of the slow communication in
those days, within a month all but seven, who were considered the
ringleaders of the fugitives, were released and sent to their homes. The
seven, of whom Brewster was one, were also freed later, apparently
without even having been tried.
Footnote 195:
R. G. Usher, _The Pilgrims and their History_ (New York, 1918), pp. 19
_ff._; F. J. Powicke, “John Robinson and the Beginning of the Pilgrim
Movement,” _Harvard Theological Review_, July, 1920, pp. 261 _f._ This
article contains a criticism of Usher's somewhat extreme position.
Footnote 196:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, p. 12.
Some of the party reached Holland safely that autumn, and others made
another attempt some months after. At the very moment of embarking from
an out-of-the-way place, they were surprised by some of the country
people, who notified the authorities, and such of the passengers as had
not got on board were again taken into custody. Although they were known
to be breaking the laws, apparently no justice or court could be found
to punish them; and, when again set at liberty, they finally reached
Holland in safety. Neither the Privy Council nor the ecclesiastical
authorities had taken any notice of the matter. Not only had there been
little or no religious persecution, but even when the refugees had
obviously committed civil crimes these were officially condoned.[197]
Footnote 197:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 13-15; Usher, _Pilgrims_, pp. 27-31; E.
Arber, _The Story of the Pilgrim Fathers_ (London, 1897), p. 93.
After about a year in Amsterdam, owing to the quarrels that marred the
life of the church earlier established, the newcomers decided to remove
to Leyden, where they remained until the eventful year 1620.[198] Their
life in the old university town, although hard in many ways, seems to
have been singularly peaceful, and wholly unmarred by any of those petty
bickerings and contentions so curiously characteristic of the
ultra-godly of the period. They seem, indeed, to have valued “peace and
their spirituall comforte above any other riches whatsoever,” and to
have lived together in “love and holiness,” as Bradford wrote. Robinson
was their minister, and Brewster their elder, the latter eking out his
income by teaching English and printing Puritan books. The company
generally set to trades and handicrafts, by which “at length they came
to raise a competente and comforteable living,” and won the deserved
respect of their Dutch hosts.[199] They seem, however, to have lived a
life apart, and to have been but little influenced by the nation with
which they had cast their lot. In spite of extravagant claims to the
contrary, direct Dutch influence in New England, as derived through the
Pilgrims' sojourn in Holland, can be traced in but one particular, that
of marriage by a civil magistrate instead of a clergyman.[200] At that
time, Holland was, in almost all respects, far ahead of England
intellectually. In the matter of religious toleration she was
immeasurably in advance of the rest of Europe. Dutch influence would
have been a noble one, indeed, in New England's history, but there is
virtually nothing to indicate its presence.[201]
Footnote 198:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 16 _ff._
Footnote 199:
_Ibid._, pp. 17, 19, 412; Arber, _Pilgrim Fathers_, p. 195. Brewster
taught in Latin.
Footnote 200:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 101, 330.
Footnote 201:
The claims put forward by Douglass Campbell, _The Puritan in Holland,
England and America_, are now generally considered as thoroughly
unsound. _Cf._ the article by the Dutch historian, H. T. Colenbrander,
“The Dutch Element in American History,” in _Annual Report of the
American Historical Association_, 1909, pp. 191-203. Also, in the same
report, Ruth Putnam, “The Dutch Element in the United States,” pp.
203-19.
Although there were other English in Leyden, and, therefore, the size of
Robinson's congregation is difficult to determine accurately, it seems
to have numbered about two hundred at the time that its members were
considering their third emigration, and had decided to leave
Holland.[202] The reasons for this decision, as given by Bradford, were
the difficulty, for many, of making a living, and the unlikelihood of
attracting others; the possibility that they would themselves disperse
in time; the temptations which beset their children; and their desire to
spread the gospel in the new world.[203] To these, Winslow, who had
joined the group about 1617, added their wish to remain Englishmen; the
inability to give their children as good an education as they themselves
had received; and the somewhat ambiguous reason, “how little good we did
or were like to do to the Dutch in reforming the sabbath.”[204] Their
motives were, therefore, partly patriotic, partly economic, and partly
religious, the same which, in shifting proportions and embodied in a
very varied assortment of personalities, we find as mainsprings of
colonization from the beginning. The one constant factor is the
economic. No matter what other motives may have induced any one, from
John Cabot to the last arrival at Ellis Island, to turn his face
westward, added to them has ever been the hope of bettering his economic
condition. America has always offered comparative material prosperity to
the most idealistic as well as to the most sordid. When this factor
ceases to operate, as in time, perhaps a short time, it must, American
history will enter upon a new phase.
Footnote 202:
Usher, _Pilgrims_, pp. 293-304; Dexter, _England and Holland_, pp. 601
_ff._
Footnote 203:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 22-24.
Footnote 204:
Winslow, in Young, _Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers_ (Boston, 1844),
p. 381.
The little group of Englishmen in Leyden, who thus desired to emigrate,
were without means for any such undertaking. Whatever their motives
might be, it was evident that no colony could be planted, in which they
were concerned, unless monied men, from the same or other motives, could
be induced to risk capital in what, so far, had constantly been proved a
very unprofitable business. English merchants and capitalists had
already spent vast sums in the attempt to turn America to account, with
but little success. The English-American balance-sheet showed a colossal
amount spent in exploration and attempted development on the one page,
and but a handful of people in Virginia, a feeble beginning in Bermuda,
and the Newfoundland fishing fleet, on the other.
At first, the Pilgrims did not seem to realize how inadequate their
resources were for such a project. Apparently, the question which they
discussed most was where they should go, rather than how they should get
there. Some of the more substantial and important members advocated
Guiana, as they might there grow rich with little labor—which was a very
human ambition.[205] Fear of tropical diseases and the Spaniard
negatived this otherwise alluring plan. Thought of possible persecution
vetoed the next proposition also, which was to settle somewhere near the
colony already established in Virginia. The final decision was to live
under the government of that company, but as a distinct body by
themselves, after a grant of religious freedom should have been procured
from the King. It is rather odd, in view of the persecution which they
thought they had undergone, and that which they constantly seemed to
fear, that they should have been so confident that the King would
consent in writing to an act so far in advance of English thought. The
fact that they had escaped any rigorous attack in England, and that
their illegal acts on leaving had been condoned by the authorities, may
have added to their hope of being so tenderly treated, which was
unreasonably held out to them by “some great persons of good rancke and
qualitie.”[206]
Footnote 205:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, p. 27.
Footnote 206:
_Ibid._, pp. 28 _f._
In the fall of 1617, John Carver and Robert Cushman were dispatched to
London to confer with Sir Edwin Sandys about the matter. Sandys was a
brother of Sir Samuel Sandys, at that time lessee of the Scrooby Manor,
in which Brewster had lived, and was favorably disposed toward the
Leyden people. He was also a member of the East India, Bermuda, and
Virginia companies, the last of which he was virtually managing at the
time of the emissaries' arrival, owing to the illness of that Company's
treasurer.[207] The “Seven Articles of the Church at Leyden,” which the
Pilgrims had carefully worded in the somewhat naïve expectation that
they might satisfy the authorities without committing themselves, were
privately submitted to some of the members of the Virginia Council, and
approved; so that Sandys wrote hopefully of the prospects to Robinson
and Brewster.[208] The upshot of the matter, however, was what might
have been expected, or was perhaps even more favorable than should
reasonably have been hoped for under the circumstances. The King would
not grant them toleration under his “broad seale, according to their
desires,” which would naturally have got him into serious difficulties
politically; but, apparently, he did agree to “connive at them, and not
molest them, provided they carried themselves peaceably.”[209] They
wisely decided that, if this were not enough, nothing would be, for, if
the King meant to wrong them “though they had a seale as broad as the
house floor, it would not serve the turne, for ther would be means enow
found to recall or revers it.”[210] With this and, perhaps, the vain
regret that they had not let sleeping dogs lie, they had to be content.
Footnote 207:
Brown, _Genesis_, pp. 991-94.
Footnote 208:
Correspondence in Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 31-38. The articles are
reprinted by E. D. Neill, _History of the Virginia Company of London_
(Albany, 1869), pp. 123 _f._; Arber, _Pilgrim Fathers_, pp. 280 _f._;
and elsewhere.
Footnote 209:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 29 _ff._
Footnote 210:
_Ibid._, p. 30.
The next step was to secure a patent, and find “adventurers,”—as men
were still called who invested in such enterprises,—who would supply the
necessary money. Owing to the dissensions in the Virginia Company, which
now became acute, the negotiations were delayed; but on April 19, 1619,
that company elected Sandys treasurer; and a patent, taken out in the
name of John Wincob, “comended to the Company by the Earle of Lincolne,”
received its seal June 9.[211] This was never made use of, and
apparently the one they intended to utilize was that previously granted
to John Pierce, on February 2, antedating a later one to the same
person.[212]
Footnote 211:
_Records of the Virginia Company of London_ (Washington, 1906), vol.
I, pp 221, 228. Its date was not known when Palfrey wrote. Bradford
gives few dates, and the exact sequence of events is much a matter of
inference. The Wincob patent has not been preserved, and its terms are
unknown.
Footnote 212:
_Records of the Virginia Company_, vol. I, p. 303. On Feb. 16, it was
stated at a meeting of the Company that Pierce's colonists did not
intend to sail for two or three months. _Ibid._, p. 311. This early
patent is connected with the Pilgrims by inference only, which,
however, seems reasonable.
During the following months, their efforts to raise money became known
both in Holland and in England. The Dutch, now become the most important
colonizing power, tried to induce them to settle either in Zealand or on
the Hudson River; and they also received offers from an English
merchant, Thomas Weston, who ran over from London on the scent of
business. He finally prevailed upon them to make an agreement with
himself and his associates. His own motives, as amply proved by events,
were wholly mercenary, as were those of most of the other outsiders who
financed the enterprise. The planting of the first permanent colony in
New England was due to the desire for gain on the part of these ordinary
business men, who risked a large sum, and made heavy losses, as well as
to the higher motives of some of the actual emigrants, whose character,
sense, and patience rescued the enterprise from disaster. The infant
colony was the child of two parents, and the share of each in its
creation must be recognized, even if one were vulgar and sordid, and
subsequently disinherited its offspring.
The agreement, which became the subject of bitter controversy, created a
joint stock, divided into shares of £10 each. Every person, over sixteen
years of age, who went as an emigrant received one share free, and a
second if he fitted himself out to that amount, or paid for his
transportation. On the one hand, the results of the entire labor of the
colonists were to go to this joint fund, and, on the other, all their
food, clothing, and other necessities were to be provided for them out
of the stock. At the end of seven years, the entire fund, with its
accumulations, including houses, lands, and cash on hand, was to be
divided, pro rata, among all the shareholders, the expectation being
that the profits would accrue mainly from fishing and the Indian trade.
The emigrants had anticipated that two days a week would be allowed them
for their own profit, and that, at the end of the seven-year period,
they would retain individual possession of their houses and improved
lands. Indeed, it was only after they were so far committed to the
scheme that many of them could not well turn back, that they found this
was not to be the case.[213] The merchants, however, can hardly be
blamed for refusing to allow so large a vent for possible profits to
slip through. It was the general custom at the time for any one going to
the colonies, who could not pay his way, to become an indentured servant
for seven years in exchange for his transportation.
Footnote 213:
The text of agreement and objections is in Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp.
45 _ff._
The suggestion of the emigrants that one third of their working time,
and the permanent improvements, as well as the land on which they lived,
should accrue to themselves, and in no part to those who were providing
the means, must have seemed as grasping to the Adventurers as their
attitude, in turn, seems to have been considered by the Pilgrims. The
exact amount put into the venture by the capitalists, during their
connection with it, cannot now be determined accurately; but according
to Captain John Smith, there were about seventy of them, and the joint
stock invested up to 1624 was about £7,000.[214] The greater part must
have been subscribed by the Adventurers, not by the emigrants; so that,
making all due allowances for the share contributed by the latter, and
for returns made subsequently by their efforts in America, the final
loss on the part of the capitalists was very heavy. Their judgment as to
the risk their money was running was thus unpleasantly justified. They
were not subscribing to foreign missions, but employing their capital in
a purely business venture, and the terms, as business was conducted at
that time, cannot be considered as at all harsh. Cushman, in London, who
was acting as agent for the Leyden people, fearing the failure of the
entire enterprise if the merchants' terms were not accepted, exceeded
his authority, and agreed to them, to the great resentment of his
principals, who refused to sign the revised contract.
Footnote 214:
Smith, _Works_, vol. II, p. 783.
Meanwhile, a small ship, the Speedwell, which it was intended to take to
Virginia and keep there, had been bought in Holland, and a larger one,
the Mayflower, chartered in London to carry the major part of the
colony.[215] The two vessels were to meet at Southampton, and make the
passage together. It had been decided that, if a majority of the
congregation voted to remain in Leyden, Robinson should stay with them,
Brewster becoming the spiritual leader of those who should go. As this
proved to be the case, the members of the little party which at last
sailed from Delft Haven there took their final leave of their beloved
pastor.[216] Their debt to him had been great. His gentle spirit, humble
seeking of ever more light, and broad tolerance of mind, shone almost
alone in that period of intolerant dogmatism and persecuting zeal, alike
of Churchman and Puritan. “We ought,” he wrote, “to be firmly persuaded
in our hearts of the truth, and goodness of the religion, which we
embrace in all things; yet as knowing ourselves to be men, whose
property it is to err and to be deceived in many things; and accordingly
both to converse with men in that modesty of mind, as always to desire
to learn something better, or further, by them, if it may be.”[217] He
recognized that “men are for the most part minded for, or against
toleration of diversity of religion, according to the conformity which
they themselves hold, or hold not, with the country, or kingdom, where
they live. Protestants living in the countries of Papists commonly plead
for toleration of religion: so do Papists that live where Protestants
bear sway: though few of either, _specially of the clergy_, as they are
called, would have the other tolerated, where the world goes on their
side.”[218] In his farewell address to his flock shortly before their
leaving, he dwelt particularly upon the need of their being open-minded,
for “he was very confident that the Lord had more truth and light yet to
break forth out of his holy word,” and so his followers should “follow
him no further than he followed Christ.”[219] It is unlikely that such
doctrines were wholly grasped by all his humble followers, but the
influence of his life and teaching were felt long after in the little
church of Plymouth; and the spirit which, in general, animated that
colony must have been derived in large measure from the rare
spirituality of its first pastor in the Old World.
Footnote 215:
The captain was Christopher Jones, and not the Captain Thomas Jones of
unsavory memory. J. R. Hutchinson, “The Mayflower, her Identity and
Tonnage,” _New England Historical and Genealogical Register_, vol.
LXX, pp. 337-42. Also Usher, _Pilgrims_, p. 72. The ship is thought to
have been in the wine trade for several years; and as a wine ship was
known among sailors as a “sweet” ship, this may have had something to
do with the remarkable health of the Pilgrims on the voyage. For
disease on shipboard during that period, _cf._ Oppenheim,
_Administration of the Royal Navy_, vol. I, p. 136. Drake on his
famous voyage lost 600 out of a crew of 2,300.
Footnote 216:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 42, 60.
Footnote 217:
John Robinson, _Works_ (Boston, 1851), vol. I, p. 39.
Footnote 218:
Robinson, _Works_, vol. I, p. 40. The italics are mine. _Cf._ Buckle,
_History of Civilization_, vol. I, p. 337: “In every Christian country
where it [toleration] has been adopted, it has been forced upon the
clergy by the authority of the secular classes.”
Footnote 219:
Winslow, in Young, _Chronicles_, p. 397. Dr. H. M. Dexter has
vigorously attacked the idea of Robinson's having been broad-minded in
the modern sense, and thinks his words refer only to church discipline
and not to belief. _Congregationalism in the last 300 Years_, pp. 400
_ff._ From a study of Robinson's writings, I cannot agree with him.
_Cf._ Davis (_John Robinson_, pp. 241-65), who also disagrees with
Dexter; and the very just estimate by H. H. Henson, _Studies in
Religion in the 17th Century_ (London, 1903), pp. 234 _ff._; and W. W.
Fenn, “John Robinson's Farewell Address,” _Harvard Theological
Review_, July, 1920, pp. 236 _ff._
In the latter part of July the Speedwell reached Southampton, where the
Mayflower had already arrived, and whither Weston had also gone for a
final conference. On finding it impossible to make the Pilgrims accept
the changes in the agreement, he left them, telling them “they must then
looke to stand on their own leggs,” and even refused to pay £100, which
was necessary to adjust matters in Southampton before their sailing.
Provisions were sold to settle the debt, and both ships cleared for
America early in August. Owing to the leakiness of the small Speedwell,
it was necessary to put back to Dartmouth, where repairs were made.
After a second start, the Speedwell still giving trouble, both vessels
put into Plymouth, where it was decided to leave some of the company
behind, and proceed in the Mayflower alone.[220] One hundred and two
passengers crowded into the little vessel, the company being made up of
thirty-five of the Leyden congregation and the remainder from
London.[221] Cushman stayed behind; but, on the other hand, an
invaluable accession was made in the person of Captain Myles Standish.
This little “Captain Shrimp,” as Morton of Merry Mount nicknamed him,
although not a Puritan, remained a staunch friend to the colonists, and
with his little “army” of a dozen or less, stood as a shield between
them and their enemies, white and red. He was short in stature and in
temper. “A little chimney is soon fired,” Hubbard wrote of him. But he
could also be as gentle as he was valiant; and the first service he
rendered the infant colony was not in fighting the Indians, but in
tenderly nursing his new friends through the sickness of the first
winter.
Footnote 220:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 68 _ff._
Footnote 221:
The list is in Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 447-55; _cf._ also Dexter,
_England and Holland_, p. 650.
Finally, their “troubles being blowne over, and now all being compacte
togeather in one shipe, they put to sea againe with a prosperous winde,”
heavily laden with passengers, a vast amount of ghostly furniture, and
the first consignment of the New England conscience. After falling in
with Cape Cod, on the 19th of November, they ran among dangerous shoals
in their effort to pass southward to reach Hudson's river, and so
resolved to put back, casting anchor two days later in the harbor of
Provincetown.[222] Much speculation has been indulged in as to their
reasons for not going farther; but the obvious ones would seem as good
as any, and there is no cause to suspect treachery on the part of
Captain Jones of the Mayflower, the Dutch, or others.[223]
Footnote 222:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, p. 77.
Footnote 223:
First suggested by Nathaniel Morton in his _Memorial_, 1669 (ed.
Boston, 1855), p. 22. The statement is now generally discredited,
though frequently repeated. Dr. Ames, _The Mayflower and her Log_, pp.
100 _ff._, attempted to revive it by identifying Christopher Jones
with the now discarded Thomas.
As has been noted, only about one third of the company were of the
Leyden people. The other sixty-seven were evidently a very mixed lot,
comprising undesirable characters, as well as some excellent ones. As it
was now decided to settle in the nearest suitable spot, they knew that
they would be outside the jurisdiction of the Virginia Company, and,
therefore, also outside the bounds of their own patent. Some of the
London element, taking advantage of that fact, boasted openly that they
did not intend to be ruled by anyone, but “would use their owne
libertie.”[224] It was evident to the more substantial members that, if
order were to be maintained on shore, some responsible government would
have to be created, backed by sufficient show of public opinion and
force to keep the unruly in subjection. Before anyone was permitted to
land, therefore, the famous Mayflower Compact was drawn up, by which the
signers agreed to combine themselves into a “civill body politick” for
their order and preservation, and by virtue of it to enact necessary
laws and to elect officers.[225] This short document, the body of which
is but seven lines, was not intended to be a new departure in state
constitutions, but was a perfectly simple extension of the ordinary form
of church covenant, with which they were familiar, to cover the crisis
in their civil affairs which they now faced. As events developed,
however, it came about that the Compact remained the only basis on which
the independent civil government in Plymouth rested, as the colonists
were never able to get a charter conferring rights of jurisdiction. It
was the first example of that “plantation covenant” which was to form
the basis of the river towns of Connecticut, of New Haven, and of so
many other town and colony governments in that land of covenants,
ecclesiastical and civil.[226] From the exigencies of the case, rather
than from any preconceived philosophical notions, the first settlers
thus established a pure democracy, which was subsequently modified. At
first, however, the entire male population met in a body which
constituted a General Court, and was the source of all local political
power and judicial decisions.
Footnote 224:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 89 _ff._
Footnote 225:
The compact is in Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 89 _f._; the list of
signers in Morton, _Memorial_, p. 26.
Footnote 226:
_Cf._ Osgood, _American Colonies_, vol. I, p. 291.
[Illustration:
Page from Bradford's History, on which is the Mayflower Compact
Original in State House, Boston
]
The document was signed by forty-one men, of whom only seventeen were
from Leyden. It may here be noted that the usual historical method of
approach to the settlement of Plymouth, which is by way of Scrooby and
Holland, is, to a certain extent, misleading. The capital, which made
the enterprise possible, was practically all subscribed in London. Of
the first emigrants but a third belonged to Robinson's congregation,
and, in the entire Pilgrim movement to America, only a dozen or so
persons, at most, can be even remotely traced to the neighborhood of
Scrooby.[227] It is true that the Scrooby leaven, in the persons of
Brewster and Bradford, and the influence of Robinson, leavened the whole
Plymothean mass; but, if we had the documents, which we have not, it
would be instructive to hear the story from the standpoint of the
Londoners, both capitalists and colonists.
Footnote 227:
Dexter, _England and Holland_, p. 650.
The first few weeks were occupied in searching for a site for
settlement; and it was only on the third expedition in their little
shallop that the exploring party finally landed at Plymouth, on
December 21.[228] Having found the harbor fit for shipping, and the
site possible for a settlement, they decided to search no farther. “It
was the best they could find, and the season, and their presente
necessitie, made them glad to accepte of it,” wrote Bradford, somewhat
unenthusiastically.[229]
Footnote 228:
The celebration of “Forefathers Day,” for many years, on Dec. 22, was
due to a mistake in transposing Old-Style dates into New. In any case,
there was, of course, no such “landing” of the whole company as
appears in popular tradition.
Footnote 229:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, p. 88.
Five days later, the Mayflower herself arrived from Provincetown, and
the people began the erection of the first common house for themselves
and their goods—a log hut about twenty feet square, with a thatched
roof. Soon, however, they abandoned building in common, and “agreed that
every man should build his own house, thinking that by that course men
would make more haste,” so promptly did human nature and winter's cold
assert themselves over theory. The season, though stormy, happily proved
unusually mild. Fortunately, also, the great sickness which had recently
decimated the Indians, had killed off almost the entire native
population about Plymouth and Massachusetts bays, and completely broken
the spirit of the remainder, though this was as yet unknown to the
settlers, who lived in constant fear of attack.[230] They occupied but a
clearing on the edge of the vast and unknown wilderness. Mysterious and
unexplored, it stretched interminably before them, while the midwinter
North Atlantic tossed as endlessly behind them. In the woods, Indian
yells had been heard, and an occasional savage had been seen skulking
behind cover. John Goodman, going for a walk one evening with his dog,
suddenly found the small beast taking refuge between his legs, chased by
two wolves. He threw a stick at them, whereupon “they sat both on their
tails grinning at him a good while.”
Footnote 230:
The nature of the disease is unknown. It was evidently neither yellow
fever nor smallpox, as some have thought, and white men were not
affected, even when they slept in the same huts with the Indians.
_Cf._ C. F. Adams, _Three Episodes in Massachusetts History_ (Boston,
1893), vol. I, pp. 1-4.
Soon, owing to exposure, many of the settlers fell ill; and so quickly
did the disease spread, and so fatal were its effects, that by the end
of March forty-four, or nearly one half of the little company, were
dead. Sometimes two or three died in a day, and but six or seven were
well enough to nurse the living and bury the corpses. Their kindness and
courage under these trials were beyond all praise. Before the arrival of
the first supply ship, in the following autumn, six more had died,
including the governor, Carver, so that only one half the company
remained. But the little colony was not to be crushed.
Bradford was elected in Carver's place, and in March, in spite of the
terrors which encompassed them, in spite of the graves of the dead,
which far outnumbered the homes of the living, Winslow could yet note
that “the birds sang in the woods most pleasantly.”
Suddenly, toward the end of that month, at the very moment when they
were debating questions of defense, an Indian walked boldly into the
settlement, and bade them welcome in English. The savage, Samoset by
name, proceeded to give them much useful information about the natives,
and from him, apparently, the settlers first learned of the great
mortaliy among them. After spending the night, he was dismissed with
gifts, promising to bring others of the natives with him on his return.
This he did a few days later, the savages bringing with them some tools
which they had stolen a while before, and which they now restored. A
week later, Samoset and another Indian, named Squanto, who was the only
survivor of the group which had dwelt where the Pilgrims had settled,
came to announce the arrival of the great sachem himself, Massasoit.
With him, the settlers made a treaty of peace and friendship, which was
honorably maintained on both sides for over half a century, the Indian
proving himself a loyal friend to the English until his death in
1662.[231]
Footnote 231:
The treaty is in Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 94 _ff._ The minor
incidents in connection with Plymouth in this chapter, when references
are not given, are all taken from Bradford, or Bradford and Winslow,
the latter as given in Young's _Chronicles_.
The sachem's visit was returned in July, Winslow and Hopkins making the
journey of forty miles, with the ever-useful Squanto as guide. During
the summer, the colonists were joined also by another Indian, Hobomack,
who made his home with them, and continued faithful during his life. In
spite of some minor troubles, due to the childish jealousy and desire to
appear important on the part of the two savages, the debt that the
settlers owed to them cannot be overestimated. They not only served as
interpreters and intermediaries with the other Indians, but taught the
colonists how to plant and manure the native corn and where to catch
fish, acted as guides about the country, and made themselves generally
invaluable. These services were not regarded wholly with favor by some
of the Indians who were opposed to the whites, and the settlers had to
teach the sachem Corbitant a sharp lesson, to make them leave their two
Indian friends alone.[232]
Footnote 232:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 102 _ff._; Young, _Chronicles_, pp. 202-14,
218-23.
The Mayflower, having been detained by the sickness of her crew, as well
as by that prevailing on shore, until the middle of April, had then
sailed for home, none of the planters abandoning the enterprise to sail
with her. Needless to say, there had been no opportunity to gather cargo
to send to the merchants in England before her sailing. With the summer,
however, health had returned, and there had been a moderate degree of
comfort, as well as abundance of food, at Plymouth; so that in
September, under the guidance of Squanto, the Pilgrims undertook their
first trading voyage, sailing to Massachusetts Bay. Their plan had been
both to explore the country and to make peace with the Indians of that
district, as well as to “procure their truck.” Although gone only four
days, the little party of thirteen, under command of Standish, were
eminently successful in all three objects, making the first beginning,
on any large scale, of that trade which was to prove their financial
salvation. In fact the Bible and the beaver were the two mainstays of
the young colony. The former saved its morale, and the latter paid its
bills; and the rodent's share was a large one. The original foundations
of New York, New England, and Canada all rest on the Indian trade, in
which the item of beaver-skins was by far the most important and
lucrative.
Having thus got together a good store of pelts and some clapboards, they
were able to despatch the Fortune, which had arrived in November, back
to England within a fortnight after her arrival, with their first
consignment, worth £500, all of which was lost to them by the capture of
the ship by the French.[233] A long letter from Weston, brought from
England by Cushman, complained bitterly and unreasonably of their having
returned no cargo in the Mayflower, and also brought word that a new
patent had been obtained for them from the Council of New England, in
the name of John Pierce and his associates.[234]
Footnote 233:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 105 _ff._; Young, _Chronicles_, pp. 234
_ff._
Footnote 234:
_Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, Series IV, vol. II, pp. 158 _ff._
There had also arrived on the Fortune thirty-five persons to remain in
the colony, evidently sent by the merchants, and with practically no
supplies of any kind. They were made welcome by the Pilgrims, who were
ever hospitable, not alone to those who differed from them in doctrine,
but even to their avowed enemies, so long as either needed their help.
Bradford noted that they were glad of this addition to their strength,
though he “wished that many of them had been of better condition, and
all of them better furnished with provisions.” The colonists, who had
but recently been congratulating themselves on having ample food for the
coming winter, due to their own efforts, had now to be put on very short
commons; and it was not until the gathering of the crops in the autumn
of the following year that they again had a sufficient supply.
The addition to their numbers, however, must have increased their
feeling of security in the Indian troubles which soon threatened them.
The powerful Narragansetts, who were hostile both to the Pilgrims and to
their native allies, and who had suffered but slightly from the plague,
sent them a challenge in the form of a bundle of arrows tied in a
snake-skin. Squanto having interpreted the message, they returned the
skin stuffed with powder and shot, with word to the natives that “if
they had rather have warr then peace, they might begin when they would.”
Nevertheless, in spite of their “high words and lofty looks,” Winslow
wrote, they were not a little anxious, and took all the precautions
possible, including the building of a palisade about the village.
Nothing came of the episode, however, except the anxiety of the
settlers, which was increased the following summer by the receipt of a
letter telling them of the great and sudden massacre at Jamestown.[235]
So greatly were they then worried that they faced another winter of
short rations more willingly than they did the savages, and took much
valuable time from the tilling of their crops for the building of a
fort.
Footnote 235:
The letter was sent to them by a stranger, John Hudlston, whose name
deserves to be remembered for his thoughtful kindness. It is in
Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 124 _f._
Until the great immigration into Massachusetts Bay, in 1630, Plymouth
continued to be the largest single settlement in New England; but, from
1622 onward, there were scattered beginnings at other points along the
coast, many of which proved permanent. Gorges endeavored to put new life
into colonization, and in that year published his “Briefe Narration” of
the efforts he had made heretofore.[236] In less than two months after
the granting of Pierce's patent for the benefit of the Pilgrims, another
grant was made to Captain John Mason of all the lands lying between the
Naumkeag and Merrimac rivers, and extending from their heads to the
seacoast, thus including the shore from Salem to Newburyport.[237] In
August, a third grant was passed, to Mason and Gorges jointly, of the
coast from the Merrimac eastward to the Kennebec, extending sixty miles
inland, and including all islands within fifteen miles of the shore, to
be called the Province of Maine.[238] Other grants were also made in the
same year,[239] and a small settlement may have been begun at
Nantasket.[240]
Footnote 236:
Reprinted in _Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, Series II, vol. IX, pp. 1-25.
Footnote 237:
Printed in C. W. Tuttle, _Capt. John Mason_ (Prince Soc., Boston,
1887), pp. 170-77. _Cf._ _Ibid._, pp. 45-52.
Footnote 238:
_Ibid._, pp. 177-83.
Footnote 239:
For list of grants _cf._ S. F. Haven, “History of Grants under the
Great Council for New England,” in _Lowell Lectures_, Boston, 1869;
also the two volumes of the _Farnham Papers_; Maine Historical
Society, Portland, 1901-2.
Footnote 240:
S. G. Drake, _The History and Antiquities of Boston_; Boston, 1856.
_Cf._ Winsor, _Memorial History_, vol. I, p. 79.
Of more immediate interest to the people of Plymouth than paper
principalities or small fishing stations, of which there were probably
many along the coast, used annually at certain seasons, was the attempt
made by their own financial backer, Thomas Weston, to establish a
private and rival trading colony almost at their very door. Profits not
having come in as rapidly as he had anticipated, he had sold out his
holdings in the enterprise to his associates, and now intended to plant
and trade for his own account, getting all he could from the Pilgrims.
Although he attempted to misrepresent the new relation which he now bore
toward them, it was not long before they learned the truth from their
friends at home. Toward the end of May, a small shallop arrived with
seven of his men, whom he had detached from a fishing vessel of his at
Damaris Cove, near Monhegan, and sent to Plymouth to be cared for. Soon
followed word of his having broken with the company, and of his having
procured a separate patent for himself. By the vessel which brought this
news arrived also sixty more of his colonists, who were set ashore at
Plymouth, by the Charity, which then proceeded to Virginia. Well and
sick, the whole sixty-seven remained a burden upon the Pilgrims, until,
the Charity having returned, they sailed in her to Wessagusset, now
Weymouth, where they seated themselves. An unruly crew, with no
leadership, and utterly unfitted for colonizing, they were soon short of
provisions. A joint voyage to the southward, made by some of them and of
the Pilgrims, resulted in securing but little corn, the expedition
having had to be abandoned on account of the death of Squanto, who, as
usual, was serving as guide.
As the winter passed, the Wessagusset men slowly starved. Their attitude
toward the natives was the height of folly, and the somewhat hostile
Massachusetts Indians, perceiving their plight, formed a plot to
exterminate both settlements at once. This was revealed to the Pilgrims
by Massasoit, who, at this most opportune moment, had been cured by them
of what his followers had thought a deadly sickness. The crisis was a
serious one, and the Pilgrims acted promptly. Feigning a trading voyage,
Standish and eight men went to Wessagusset, inveigled the ringleaders
into one of the houses, and there slew them. Pecksuot, who had
personally insulted Standish, was killed with his own knife, which the
captain snatched from around his neck; and, in all, six savages were
slain on the expedition. Three of Weston's men, who, in spite of
warnings, had gone to stay with the Indians, were murdered by them in
retaliation. Most of the remainder, refusing the Pilgrims' offer to care
for them at Plymouth, sailed for Monhegan, in the hope of finding
passage to England.[241] Weston himself, arriving soon after, found his
colony deserted, and himself ruined. On reaching Plymouth, after having
been robbed and stripped by the Indians, he unblushingly borrowed
capital from the compassionate Pilgrims in order to set himself up as a
trader.
Footnote 241:
Young, _Chronicles_, pp. 314-45.
Another of the capitalists also gave the Pilgrims trouble by trying the
same plan of planting a colony of his own. On the 30th of April, 1622,
Pierce, in whose name their patent stood, obtained another, which, on
the same day, he exchanged for a deed-pole, by which he became the owner
of the lands on which Plymouth was settled. Having thus cut the ground
from under the Pilgrims' feet, he proceeded to send out a hundred and
nine colonists for his own account. The ship was forced to turn back,
however; and finally, the Pilgrims, on making complaint to the Council
for New England, had their original rights confirmed, upon payment to
Pierce of £500.[242]
Footnote 242:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 138-41; Records of Council for New England,
_Proceedings American Antiquarian Society_, April, 1866, pp. 91-93.
These troubles, which occupied their minds in the early summer of 1623,
were soon followed by the arrival of Captain West, who had been
commissioned Admiral of New England, and sent to collect license fees
from the fishermen along the coast. These proved to be “stuborne
fellows,” however, and the only result of West's brief attempt at
authority was to bring up anew in Parliament the fight for free fishing
and the opposition to the monopoly created by the New England Council.
Robert Gorges also came over as Governor of New England, accompanied by
the Rev. William Morell, who was to superintend ecclesiastical affairs
in the interest of the Church of England; but, although Gorges spent the
winter at Weston's abandoned site, nothing more came of this
high-sounding scheme to govern the wilderness.
Among the passengers in the Anne, which arrived at Plymouth in the same
summer of 1623, were some few who were not to belong to the general
body, or be subject to the rules of joint trading, but came on “their
perticuler,” as Bradford describes it. An agreement was soon made with
them, debarring them from the Indian trade until the period of joint
trading should end, and otherwise defining their status in the
community. Such an anomalous group within the body politic naturally
tended to trouble, nor were leaders lacking who endeavored to fan the
sparks into a blaze. Among the “perticulers” was a rough-and-ready
trader named John Oldham, a man of considerable practical ability, but
heady, self-willed, and of an ungovernable temper. In the following
spring appeared also a canting hypocritical clergyman, John Lyford by
name, who seems to have been a sort of lascivious Uriah Heep. Pretending
great humility, he was honorably received by the Pilgrims, as they
thought befitting a clergyman, and was given a seat in the Governor's
Council. Soon, however, he and Oldham joined forces, and gathered
together the various malcontents of the colony, without any very clear
idea, apparently, beyond that of fishing in troubled waters, in the hope
of making some profitable catch. The waters were troubled enough at this
juncture, for the factions among the Adventurers at home were then at
their height. To the party there adverse to the Pilgrim interest, Oldham
and Lyford dispatched letters, containing matter distinctly inimical to
the established order. These were read and copied by Bradford, in the
cabin of the ship which was to bear them, unknown to the senders. The
latter, indeed, had some suspicions, and “were somewhat blanke at it,
but after some weeks, when they heard nothing, they were as brisk as
ever,” like boys relieved from the fear of having been caught in
mischief. In fact, they became so brisk that Oldham, when called upon to
do his turn of guard duty by Standish, refused and raised a tumult.
The grotesque effect of their next stroke was naturally lost upon people
who, with all their excellent qualities, were, unhappily for themselves,
very obviously lacking in the saving grace of humor. The curiously
assorted couple decided to set up a church of their own. The thought of
Oldham, “a mad Jack in his mood,” and the sniveling clergyman, whose
innumerable light loves had brought so many heavy sorrows, reforming the
Pilgrims' church is one of the bits which lighten the somewhat sombre
recital of those frontier days. A General Court was convened, and the
two were brought to trial. Both of them were sentenced to banishment,
Oldham to go at once, and Lyford to have six months' grace, although the
former seems to have been rather the more respectable, as he was much
the more masculine, of the two. Oldham went, but, having nursed his
wrath, he suddenly returned in March, for the sole purpose, apparently,
of exploding it upon the yet unreformed Pilgrims, who, however, merely
“committed him till he was tamer.” Lyford, meanwhile, had utilized his
reprieve to write home again, criticizing the government of the colony,
and making some just complaints, on the part of the large minority, of
the required conformity of worship. The sentence of banishment was then
enforced, and both rebels betook themselves temporarily to
Nantasket.[243]
Footnote 243:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 183 _ff._
In the same summer in which the Pilgrims had acquired Lyford and Oldham,
an addition of about sixty other persons had also been made to the
colony, some of them “very usefull” to the settlers, and some of them
“so bad, as they were faine to be at charge to send them home againe the
next year.”[244] Other settlements, too, continued to be planted along
the coast. Robert Gorges, who had received a grant of some three hundred
square miles on the northeast side of Massachusetts Bay, but who had
settled his men at Wessagusset, left some of them there when he returned
to England, and the permanent occupation of that section was begun.[245]
In 1623, David Thompson established himself at the mouth of the
Piscataqua; while Edward and William Hilton may soon after have settled
some miles up the river, thus founding the modern towns of Portsmouth
and Dover. Christopher Levett, who was one of Robert Gorges's Council,
made a short-lived plantation at York, and a permanent colony was
effected on Monhegan.[246] For the greater convenience of their fishing
operations, which were never successful, the Pilgrims had secured a
grant of land at Cape Ann, and erected a fishing stage there, although
the grant, which was derived from Lord Sheffield, was of questionable
validity.[247] A fishing company was formed of Dorchester men in
England, who made a little settlement on the Cape, holding it of the
Plymouth people.[248] Although the undertaking was unprofitable, and
always a source of trouble to the Pilgrims, it is of interest owing to
the connection with it of some of those who were later influential in
England in organizing the Massachusetts colony.
Footnote 244:
_Ibid._, p. 142.
Footnote 245:
Haven, _Lowell Lectures_, p. 154; Adams, _Three Episodes_, vol. I, p.
144; Hazard, _Historical Collections_, vol. I, p. 391. In regard to
the settlement by Thompson, we have documentary evidence in _New
Hampshire State Papers_, vol. XXV, pp. 715, 734; but there is no such
proof of the traditionary settlement by Hilton, until 1628, although
it is accepted by the earlier historians. _Cf._ W. H. Fry, _New
Hampshire as a Royal Province_ (New York, 1908), pp. 18, 32. Also, J.
G. Jenness, _Notes on the First Planting of New Hampshire_
(Portsmouth, 1878), pp. 4, 14 _ff._
Footnote 246:
Burrage, _Colonial Maine_, pp. 169-75; J. P. Baxter, _Christopher
Levett of York_, Gorges Society, Portland, 1893; Bradford, _Plymouth_,
p. 154.
Footnote 247:
J. W. Thornton, _The Landing at Cape Anne_ (Boston, 1854), pp. 31
_ff._
Footnote 248:
Smith, _Works_, vol. II, p. 783; Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 168, _f._;
John White, _The Planter's Plea_ (Force Tracts, Washington, 1838),
vol. II, pp. 38 _ff._; Wm. Hubbard, _History of New England_
(Cambridge, 1815), pp. 102 _ff._
About 1625, individuals also seem to have established themselves at
Shawmut, at Noddle's Island, and on the Mystic River; and, a year later,
Thompson removed from the Piscataqua, and settled on the island which
has since borne his name in Boston Harbor.[249] Farther eastward, John
Brown, by 1625, had founded a settlement at New Harbor, on the eastern
shore of Pemaquid; and in the next five years, eighty-four families had
located there, on St. Georges River, and at Sheepscot.[250] A station
had also been established at Old Orchard Bay, while the importance of
Monhegan as a centre for Indian trading is proved by large transactions
there as early as 1626.[251]
Footnote 249:
J. Winsor, _Memorial History_, vol. I, pp. 78, 83; C. F. Adams, “Old
Planters about Boston Harbor,” _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings_, Series
I, vol. XVI, p. 206.
Footnote 250:
Burrage, _Colonial Maine_, pp. 78, 83.
Footnote 251:
_Ibid._, pp. 183, 199.
Thus, the inhabitants of Plymouth, after the middle of the first decade
of their settlement, were evidently outnumbered by the other permanent
settlers, who were likewise founding New England. Some of these we know
to have been of the established Church, as were Gorges and Mason, the
proprietors of a large section of the territory; while of the majority,
we know only that they were traders and planters, who were quite
evidently in New England to make their fortunes, and for no other
reason.
In 1625, there sailed into Boston Bay and New England history, a certain
“man of pretie parts,” by name Captain Wollaston, a convivial sport
named Thomas Morton, and “a great many servants, with provisions and
other implements for to begine a plantation.” Among the implements was
obviously a prodigious supply of strong waters. They “pitched themselves
in a place” within the present town of Quincy, calling their settlement
Mt. Wollaston, after their leader. He, however, like some others before
and since, did not find life in New England to “answer his
expectations,” and carried off a number of his servants to Virginia,
where he sold them at a good figure, and took his exit from the stage of
history.
Thomas Morton, of Cliffords Inn, Gent., whose literary portrait has come
down to us in the somewhat unreliable form of an appreciation by
himself, supplemented by sundry exceedingly unflattering sketches by his
enemies, now proceeded to take control of the situation in a manner
entirely satisfactory to himself, the rest of the stranded Quincy band,
and, it was darkly rumored, the less virtuous of the Indian squaws. He
suggested to the remaining servants that, instead of allowing themselves
to be transported to Virginia, they should stay with him as copartners,
he having had a share in the enterprise; and that, together, they should
thrust out Wollaston's lieutenant. To this they willingly agreed, and
matters proceeded merrily. Morton, who, whatever his failings, was a
thorough sportsman and passionately fond of outdoor life, became a great
favorite with the Indians, and trade was brisk. It must have been, if
Bradford's report that they sometimes drank ten pounds' worth of liquor
in a morning is to be credited, as the liquor certainly was not. “They
also set up a May-pole,” wrote the scandalized Pilgrim, “drinking and
dancing aboute it many days togeather, inviting the Indian women, for
their consorts, dancing and frisking together like so many fairies or
furies” and revived “the beasley practicses of the madd
Bacchanalians.”[252]
Footnote 252:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 237 _ff._; Morton, _New English Canaan_
(Force Tracts), vol. II, 89 _ff._
The joy of life had, indeed, made one other feeble effort to acclimatize
itself in the frosty New England air on Christmas Day, in Plymouth, four
years before. Most of the then recent arrivals, constituting, perhaps, a
third of the entire community, had had the hardihood to wish to refrain
from work on that day, and to celebrate it “in the streete at play,
openly” with such ungodliness as pitching a bar and playing ball.[253]
That, however, with a certain show of grim humor, had been successfully
repressed, as was the May-pole of Merry Mount, on the arrival of
Endicott in Massachusetts.
Footnote 253:
The colony numbered about 85. The newcomers were 35, and Bradford says
(_Plymouth_, p. 112), “the most of this new-company” were guilty of
the attempt.
When the echoes of Morton's mad songs died for the last time among the
pines of Quincy, rigid conformity to the Puritanical code of manners and
morals had won its second victory. Repression and conformity, the two
key-notes of Puritan New England, were to continue to mould the life of
her people throughout the long “glacial age” of her early history. They
did not, indeed, produce universal morality, but they produced the
outward semblance of it, and a vast deal of hypocrisy. If they must
revel, Bradford told the ball-players, let them do it out of sight,
“since which time nothing hath been attempted that way, at least
openly.” Twenty years later, as he meditated upon the extraordinary
amount of crime of unnamable sorts, which, as he wrote, had developed in
New England “as in no place more, or so much, that I have known or heard
of,” the possibility did, indeed, occur to him that, among other
reasons, it might be “as it is with waters when their streams are
stopped or damed up, when they gett passage they flow with more
violence.”[254]
Footnote 254:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, p. 385.
In spite of the good which Puritanism did as a protest against the
prevailing immorality, it must be admitted also, that, in taking from
the laboring classes and others so much of their opportunity for
recreation of all sorts, it undoubtedly fostered greatly the grosser
forms of vice, and helped to multiply the very sins it most abhorred.
Those who lacked the taste or temperament to find their relief from the
deadly monotony of long hours of toil in theological exposition, and who
were debarred from their old-time sports, turned to drunkenness and
sexual immorality, both of which were frequent in Puritan New England.
The attempt to erect the moral opinion of a minority into a legal code
binding upon all was not, by any means, confined to that section alone
at the beginning of the seventeenth century. It was, and is, a
characteristic of Puritanism wherever found. At the very time that
Bradford was condemning the Christmas sports of Plymouth, the
authorities in Bermuda, for example, were passing laws requiring that
there should be haled to court all “Sabath breakers” who were such “by
absenting themselves from church, or leaving during service,” or “by
using any bodily recreation by gaminge, sportinge, or by doing any
servile work as travelling, fyshinge, cuttinge of wood, digginge of
potatoes, carryinge of burdens, beatinge of corne,” together with a long
list of other misdemeanors. New England Sabbatarian legislation never
went further. Even that petty spying upon one another, to detect sins to
be reported to the church, which must have been such an unpleasant form
of keeping one's brother in New England, was by no means indigenous
there. The “churchwardens and sydesmen,” continued the Bermudian law,
“shall dailie observe the carriage and lives of the people, and shall
forthwith informe the ministers of all such scandalous crymes as shall
be comitted by any of them.”[255] Such quotations from the statute books
of the other colonies could be multiplied almost indefinitely.
Footnote 255:
J. H. Lefroy, _Memorials of the Discovery and Early Settlements of the
Bermudas_ (London, 1877-79), vol. II, p. 320.
The Puritan seed was sown on many soils, and if it took root and
flourished so abundantly in New England as there to crowd out the
flowers of the field to a greater extent than elsewhere, it was due in
part to the nature of the actual soil which the Puritan himself had to
till. We have already noted how the geographical features of the region
fostered the classes of fishermen, small traders, subsistence farmers,
and townsmen; how it prevented the growth of a large land-owning or
slave-owning population; how, in a word, it produced a society which was
largely democratic and almost wholly middle-class. Moreover, in the
discussion of Puritanism, we noticed how that movement was strongest,
struck its roots deepest, and assumed its most uncompromising form, in
the very class which thus became almost synonymous with the New England
population.
To return to Merry Mount, however, it must be conceded that there were
more serious things wrong there than merely heavy drinking and loose
living. Morton, led by cupidity, had made the fatal error of selling
fire-arms to the Indians. Needless to say, the profits, in beaver, of
such a trade, were enormous; but it threatened the life of every white
man on the coast, and residents of the scattered settlements asked
Plymouth to join with them in suppressing the deadly mischief. Morton,
after a brief struggle, of which he gives an amusing account, was taken
into custody, and shipped to England with a complaint to the Council for
New England.
The cost of the expedition, which had been led by Standish, amounted to
a little over £12, borne by eight settlements, of which the inhabitants
of Plymouth outnumbered all the other seven together.[256] That colony,
however, contributed but one sixth of the money spent, for which several
reasons might be suggested. During the years of its existence, it had
received practically no help from the capitalists at home, subsequent to
the first fitting out, and the really great achievement of its leaders
had consisted in maintaining, for the first time, the existence of a
plantation in a wilderness by its own unaided efforts. The three main
points of interest in that connection were the abandonment of the
common-stock theory, the growth of trade, and the buying out of the
interest of the capitalists, which latter transaction foreshadowed the
transfer to America of the Massachusetts charter.
Footnote 256:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 240 _ff._; _cf._ also Bradford, _Letter
Book_, in _Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, Series I, vol. III, p. 63.
The theory of a common-stock as a necessity for the profitable operation
of colonies was the accepted one of the day, in spite of repeated
failures due to human nature. That failure had been as evident in
Plymouth as elsewhere. Young unmarried men objected to having the fruits
of their toil go to support other men's wives and children. Married men
disliked having their wives sew, cook, and wash for the others.
Hard-working men thought it unfair that they should support the more
idle or incapable. The older men, or those of the better class, declined
to work for the younger or meaner. The pinch of hunger, in 1623, finally
decided the colonists to set aside their agreement, in the interests of
the capitalists as well as their own, in the one particular of raising
food. The immediate result was a greatly increased production, so that
many had a surplus and trading began among themselves, with corn as
currency. The following year, one acre of land was confirmed to each
individual in severalty.[257]
Footnote 257:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 134, 167. The list of lots, with their
owners, is in _Plymouth Records_, vol. XII, pp. 1-6.
There was, however, no surplus of food for export, and lumber and beaver
were the only available commodities.[258] But the site that had been
chosen for the colony was in a poor location for the Indian trade, which
required access to the interior along some waterway; and the Pilgrims
were therefore forced to resort to coasting voyages for their main
supply of skins.
Footnote 258:
In 1626, it was decreed that no corn, beans or peas could be exported
without license from the governor and council. _Plymouth Records_,
vol. XII, p. 8.
Not only had the London merchants received almost no interest upon their
investment, but it began to seem evident to them that the principal
itself was lost. Quarrels among themselves over the character of the
colonists sent out, and mutual recriminations, completed the break-down
of the company. Finally, in December, 1624, some of them wrote to
Bradford and others that they had decided to abandon the venture and
lose what they had already expended rather than risk any more,
suggesting that the Pilgrims send over what they could to pay special
debts, amounting to £1400. Those writing the letter also sent out, on
their own account, some cattle and various useful commodities, to be
sold to the settlers at seventy per cent advance, to cover the profits
and risks. The latter were indeed great, insurance alone, at that time,
consuming about twenty-five per cent for the round trip;[259] and the
following year, Standish, who had been sent to London for the purpose,
could not borrow money, for the purchase of trading goods, at less than
fifty per cent. Goods and capital they must have, however, and the
profits, when made, were correspondingly great. While Standish was in
London, Winslow made a trip to the Kennebec, in a small vessel, laden
only with a little of that surplus corn which they had raised, and there
secured seven hundred pounds weight of beaver, besides other furs. In
1626, hearing that the trading station at Monhegan was going out of
business, Bradford and Winslow, accompanied by Thompson from Piscataqua,
went to attend the sale, at which the Pilgrims bought goods to the value
of £400. An additional stock, amounting to £100, was bought from the
wreck of a French ship in the ill-fated Damaris Cove, the purchases
being paid for with the beaver which they had accumulated the winter
before. The following spring, Allerton arrived from London with £200
more, which he had succeeded in raising at thirty per cent; so that
their capital was now ample.[260] The greatest advance which they made
in their trade with the Indians, however, was due to the friendly Dutch,
who sold them some wampum, and taught them its great value in dealing
with the savages. This appearance of the ubiquitous Dutch, helping a
struggling colony to achieve economic strength by valuable advice or yet
more valuable trading in needed goods, was a frequent one in the early
seventeenth century, and in all quarters of the globe. The Pilgrims at
Plymouth, the French at St. Christophers, and innumerable other little
settlements on secluded bays or on lonely islands, owed their prosperity
or preservation to the timely arrival of a “Dutch trading captain.” It
would be interesting to trace how many little bands of people, abandoned
by their own companies or governments, were thus nursed into strength by
the Holland traders, who sought them out, and knew their needs.[261]
Footnote 259:
Gerard Malynes writing in 1622, quotes rates of insurance to various
ports. He does not give New England, but quotes San Domingo as 12 per
cent each way, and the East Indies at 15 per cent. _Cf._ his
_Consuetude vel Lex Mercatoria_ (London, 1636), p. 108.
Footnote 260:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 198, 204, 209, 222, 234.
Footnote 261:
_Cf._ S. L. Mims, _Colbert's West Indian Policy_ (Yale Univ. Press,
1912), pp. 20 _f._
Assured now of sufficient food, and with the Indian trade well
established, the settlers felt that their position in these respects was
secure. There were, however, two matters which gave them cause for
anxiety. One was the interference by outsiders with their trade on the
Kennebec, and the other was their ill-defined situation in regard to the
Adventurers in London. In spite of the abandonment of the enterprise by
the latter, their claims would continue in existence unless legally
extinguished; and it was essential for the settlers to come to some
agreement with them, in order that their property and goods should not
be liable to seizure in the future. Negotiations, begun by Allerton in
1626, were completed by him on a second trip the year after, when he not
only secured a patent for a definite tract on the Kennebec from the
Council for New England, but consummated the deal with the Adventurers
by which all claims of every description were to be canceled by the
payment to them of £1800, in annual instalments of £200 each. The
payment of this sum, together with £600 of additional debt, was
undertaken by Bradford, Brewster, Standish, and Winslow, with four
others in the colony and four friends in England, in exchange for a
monopoly of the colony's trade for six years.[262]
Footnote 262:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 212, 221, 226.
By their purchase of all the Adventurers' interest, the Pilgrims had
thus practically eliminated the proprietary elements that had existed in
their organization, and the settlement became what, for all practical
purposes, it had been from the start—a corporate colony.[263] A new
patent for Plymouth, granted them in 1630, in the name of Bradford and
certain associates, assigned them a definite territory, which the
earlier ones had not done, and a confirmation of the Kennebec holdings
also straightened out boundary matters there. Their title-deeds,
therefore, were now secure. Their powers of government, however,
continued to rest solely upon the compact signed in the cabin of the
Mayflower ten years before; for, in spite of their efforts, they were
never able to obtain a royal charter with privileges similar to those
enjoyed by Massachusetts. But in four of the most important elements in
that larger migration,—the bringing of families to form permanent homes,
the peculiar form of church government, the individual ownership of
freely acquired land, and the severing of business and legal relations
with any company in England,—the Massachusetts leaders but followed the
ways laid out by the simple founders of Plymouth.
Footnote 263:
_Cf._ Osgood, _American Colonies_, vol. I, p. 290.