NEW ENGLAND AND THE GREAT MIGRATION
During the years that the Pilgrims had thus been struggling to found a
tiny commonwealth on an inhospitable bit of the long American
coast-line, events had been moving rapidly on the more crowded stage of
the Old World. In France, the power of the Huguenots had been hopelessly
crushed by the fall of Rochelle in 1628; while in England, affairs were
evidently approaching a crisis, due to the incompetence of the
government of Charles, with its disgraceful military failures abroad,
and its illegal financial exactions at home. No one was safe from the
ruin of his fortune or the loss of his freedom. The nobility and gentry,
subject to the imposition of forced loans, faced imprisonment if they
refused to pay; and those below the rank of gentleman were the unwilling
hosts of a horde of ruffians, the unpaid and frequently criminal
soldiery returned from unsuccessful foreign ventures, and billeted upon
them by the government. The laws, against Catholics were largely
suspended to please the Queen, who was of that faith, and the prospects
were daily growing darker for the Puritan and patriot elements, both
within and without the Church. Religious toleration as an avowed
governmental policy was not, as yet, seriously considered by any
considerable body of men outside of Holland, the notable example of
which country had failed to influence England, where the control of the
church was evidently passing into the hands of Laud and his party. The
time had thus come when the King must face a united opposition of the
soundest men in the country—of those who feared alike for their
property, their liberty, and their religion.
The formation of the Puritan party, drawing into its fold men animated
by any or all of these motives, in varying proportions, coincided with
the beginning of the great increase in emigration to Massachusetts,
which was to carry twenty thousand persons to the shores of New England
between 1630 and 1640. But if attention is concentrated too exclusively
upon the history of the continental colonies in North America, and, more
particularly, of those in New England, the impression is apt to be
gained that this swarming out of the English to plant in new lands was
largely confined to Massachusetts and its neighbors, and to the decade
named. The conclusion drawn from these false premises has naturally been
that Puritanism, in the New England sense, was the only successful
colonizing force. We do not wish to minimize the value of any deeply
felt religious emotion in firmly planting a group of people in a new
home. Such value was justly recognized by one of the wisest practical
colonizers of the last century,[264] who was not himself of a religious
temperament, but who, to secure the firm establishment of his colony,
would “have transplanted the Grand Lama of Tibet with all his prayer
wheels, and did actually nibble at the Chief Rabbi.”[265] The Puritan
colonies, nevertheless, not only were far from being the only permanent
ones, but themselves were not always equally successful; and it is well
to point out that many elements, besides peculiarity of religious
belief, entered into the success of the New England colonies, as
contrasted with the conspicuous failure of the Puritan efforts in the
Caribbean.
Footnote 264:
Gibbon Wakefield. _Cf._ pp. 156-163 of his _View of the Art of
Colonization_; Oxford, ed. 1914.
Footnote 265:
Dr. Garnett, cited by H. E. Egerton, _Origin and Growth of Greater
Britain_ (Oxford, 1903), p. 107.
At the beginning of the increased emigration to Massachusetts,
colonizing, indeed, had ceased to be a new and untried business. To say
nothing of the numerous large and small French, Dutch, and Spanish
settlements firmly established in the New World, and the English already
planted on the mainland, the latter nation had successfully colonized
the islands of Bermuda in 1612, St. Kitts in 1623, Barbadoes and St.
Croix in 1625, and Nevis and Barbuda three years later. By the time John
Winthrop led his band to the shores of Massachusetts Bay, besides the
five hundred Dutch in New Amsterdam, ten thousand Englishmen were
present, for six months of each year, in Newfoundland, engaged in the
fisheries there; nine hundred had settled permanently in Maine and New
Hampshire; three hundred within the present limits of Massachusetts;
three thousand in Virginia; between two and three thousand in Bermuda;
and sixteen hundred in Barbadoes; while the numbers in the other
colonies are unknown.[266] The figures are striking also for the year
1640, or slightly later, at which date the tide is too often considered
as having flowed almost wholly toward the Puritan colonies of New
England for the preceding ten years. The number in Massachusetts at that
time had risen to fourteen thousand, in Connecticut to two thousand, and
in Rhode Island to three hundred. Maine and New Hampshire however,
contained about fifteen hundred, Maryland the same number, Virginia
nearly eight thousand, Nevis about four thousand, St. Kitts twelve to
thirteen thousand, and Barbadoes eighteen thousand six hundred. There
are no contemporary figures for Barbuda, St. Croix, Antigua, Montserrat,
and other settlements.[267] At the end, therefore, of what has often
been considered a period of distinctly Puritan emigration, we find that
approximately only sixteen thousand Englishmen had taken their way to
the Puritan colonies, as against forty-six thousand to the others; which
latter figure, moreover, is undoubtedly too low, owing to the lack of
statistics just noted. Nor does the above statement take into account
the thousands of Englishmen who emigrated to Ireland during the same
period, and whose motives were probably similar to those animating the
emigrants to the New World, however different their destinations may
have been. There had, indeed, been a “great migration,” resulting in an
English population in America and the West Indies, by 1640 or
thereabout, of over sixty-five thousand persons; but it is somewhat
misleading to apply the term solely to the stream of emigrants bound for
the Puritan colonies, who were outnumbered three to one by those who
went to settlements where religion did not partake of the “New England
way.” Although young John Winthrop might write of his brother that it
“would be the ruine of his soule to live among such company” as formed
the colony of Barbadoes in 1629,[268] nevertheless, the population of
that island had risen to nearly nineteen thousand in another decade,
whereas that of Massachusetts had reached only fourteen thousand.
Footnote 266:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1574-1660_, p. 26; _A Century of Population
Growth_ (Census Bureau, 1909), p. 9; C. P. Lucas, _Historical
Geography of the British Colonies_ (Oxford, 1905), vol. II, pp. 13,
179.
Footnote 267:
_Century of Population_, p. 9; F. B. Dexter, “Estimates of Population
in American Colonies,” _American Antiquarian Society Proceedings_,
1889, vol. V, pp. 25, 32; Lucas, _Historical Geography_, pp. 142 _f._
181. In 1645, there were 18,300 effective men in Barbadoes, which
would indicate a much larger population. The population is given as
30,000 whites in 1650. F. W. Pitman, _Development of the British West
Indies_ (Yale Univ. Press, 1917), p. 370.
Footnote 268:
Winthrop Papers, _Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, Series V, vol. VIII, p. 22.
[Illustration: Streams of Emigration from England, 1620 to 1642]
If, in addition, we recall the fact that, approximately, not more than
one in five of the adult males who went even to Massachusetts was
sufficiently in sympathy with the religious ideas there prevalent to
become a church member, though disfranchised for not doing so, we find
that in the “great migration” the Puritan element, in the sense of New
England church-membership, amounted to only about four thousand persons
out of about sixty-five thousand. In the wider sense, indeed,
Puritanism, in its effect on legal codes and social usages, is found
present, in greater or less degree, in almost all the colonies, island
and mainland, but the influence of the form that it took in New England
was to be wholly disproportionate upon the nation which evolved from the
scattered continental settlements.
If, however, we shift from our usual point of view and, instead of
studying the English emigration of the time in the light of the leaders
who reached New England, consider the great body of those who left the
shores of England, we shall have to account for those fourteen emigrants
out of every fifteen, who, although willing to leave their homes and all
they had held dear, yet shunned active participation in the Bible
Commonwealths. It is evident that other causes, besides the quarrels in
the Church and the tyranny of Laud, must have been operative on a large
scale, to explain the full extent of the movement. It seems probable
that the principal cause that induced such an extraordinary number of
people, from the ranks of the lesser gentry and those below them, to
make so complete a break in their lives as was implied by leaving all
they had ever known for the uncertainties of far-off lands, was
economic. They came for the simple reason that they wanted to better
their condition. They wanted to be rid of the growing and incalculable
exactions of government. They wanted to own land; and it was this last
motive, perhaps, which mainly had attracted those twelve thousand
persons out of sixteen thousand who swelled the population of
Massachusetts in 1640, but were not church members; for the Puritan
colonies were the only ones in which land could be owned in fee simple,
without quit-rent or lord, and in which it was freely given to
settlers.[269]
Footnote 269:
B. W. Bond, Jr., _The Quit-rent System in the American Colonies_ (Yale
Univ. Press, 1919), pp. 15, 35.
The local sources in England of the great migration, and the relations
of that movement to local economic conditions, have not received
adequate treatment as yet, and the subject is somewhat obscure; but
apparently it was the eastern and southeastern counties that furnished
the main supply of immigrants for the New World. It was in these
counties that the artisans from Flanders had sought refuge, when driven
abroad by Alva, as well as the Huguenots from France. In these counties,
also, the enclosures, which were of such far-reaching economic
influence, had taken place earlier than elsewhere, while wages there
showed a lower ratio to subsistence than in the north.[270] The special
area in which the inhabitants were most disposed to seek new homes was
that around the low country draining into the Wash; and throughout the
early seventeenth century economic and agrarian agitation was notably
constant in that particular region,[271] the period of heaviest
emigration—that between 1630 and 1640—marking, perhaps, its years of
greatest economic readjustment and strain. The rise in rents and
land-values had, indeed, been enormous during the preceding
half-century.[272] But this agricultural prosperity had been so closely
bound up with the great expansion of the cloth industry, that in this
section it may be said to have been wholly dependent upon it.[273] From
1625 to 1630, however, the business of the clothiers suffered a very
severe decline, which continued for some years, and the effects of which
were very marked in the agricultural industries as well.[274] In
Norwich, for example, the Mayor and Aldermen complained that, owing to
the dearth of food, and to the great increase of unemployment due to bad
trade conditions, the amount necessary for poor relief had to be
doubled.[275] Moreover, as is always the case in periods of great
economic alteration, the change had not affected all classes in the
community alike. The yeomanry, who were less influenced by the rapidly
rising scale of living, and so could save a much larger proportion of
their increased gains from the high agricultural prices, were improving
their position at the expense of the gentry.[276] Enterprising traders,
in the cloth and other industries, who had acquired fortunes, but who
naturally were not of the old families, were pushing in and buying
country estates, and, like all _nouveaux riches_, were asserting their
new and unaccustomed position by raising the scale of living.[277] Many
of the gentry, on the other hand, unable to adjust themselves to the new
economic conditions or to take advantage of them, and yet unwilling to
give up their comparative position in the county, found themselves
“overtaken,” as a contemporary writer says, “with too well meaning and
good nature,” and so were “inforced sometimes to suffer a revolution” in
their domestic affairs.[278] About the years of the emigration, however,
there seem to have been financial difficulties and economic unrest among
all the classes, due to the immediate crisis in the cloth trade, as well
as to the more general conditions of the time.
Footnote 270:
Cunningham, _English Industry_, vol. II, pp. 36, 38; W. A. S. Hewins,
_English Trade and Finance, chiefly in the 17th Century_ (London,
1892), p. 108; R. H. Tawney, _The Agrarian Problem, in the 16th
Century_ (New York, 1912), p. 405; W. J. Ashley, _Introduction to
English Economic History and Theory_ (London, 1893), vol. II, pp.
286-88; G. Slater, “The Inclosure of Common Fields considered
geographically,” _Geographical Journal_ (London), vol. XXIX, pp. 39
_f._; M. Aurosseau, “The Arrangement of Rural Populations,”
_Geographical Review_, vol. X, pp. 321 _f._
Footnote 271:
Newton, _Puritan Colonisation_, p. 79.
Footnote 272:
_Victoria History of County of Lincoln_ (London, 1906), vol. II, p.
334.
Footnote 273:
_Victoria History of County of Suffolk_ (London, 1911), vols. I, pp.
661, 676, and II, p. 268.
Footnote 274:
_Ibid._, vol. II, p. 266.
Footnote 275:
_Cal. State Pap., Domestic, 1629-31_, p. 419. _Cf._ also, _Ibid._, pp.
8, 403, 419. A few years earlier, Sir Wm. Pelham, writing to his
brother-in-law, said: “Our country was never in that wante that now
itt is, and more of munnie than Corne, for theare are many thousands
in thease parts whoo have soulde all thay have even to theyr bedd
straw, and cann not get worke to earne any munny. Dogg's flesh is a
dainty dish,” etc. _Lincolnshire Notes and Queries_, vol. I, p. 16.
Footnote 276:
“Our yeomanry, whose continuall under living, saving, and the
immunities from the costly charge of these unfaithfull times, do make
them so as to grow with the wealth of this world, that whilst many of
the better sort, as having past their uttermost period, do suffer an
utter declination, these onely doe arise, and doe lay such strong,
sure, and deep foundations that from thence in time are derived many
noble and worthy families.” Robt. Reyce, _Suffolk Breviary_, 1618 (ed.
London, 1902), p. 58.
Footnote 277:
_History of Suffolk_, vol. I, p. 673.
Footnote 278:
Reyce, _Breviary_, p. 60.
The district in which these economic changes were at work was also the
one in which Puritanism had taken its strongest hold, and the leaders
both of the Puritan movement at home and of colonization abroad “formed
a veritable clan, intimately bound together by ties of blood, marriage,
and neighborhood, acting together in all that concerned colonization on
the one hand and autocratic rule on the other.”[279] We have already
seen, in an earlier chapter, how the trading companies had brought into
working contact the great nobles, city merchants, and country gentlemen,
and accustomed them to act together as, perhaps, nothing else could have
done, thus paving the way for the formation of the Puritan party.
Footnote 279:
C. M. Andrews, Introduction to Newton, _Puritan Colonisation_, p.
viii. Robert Reyce, writing of the gentry, in 1618, says: “So againe
what with the enterlacing of houses in marriage (a practise at this
day much used for the strengthening of families therby) such is the
religious unity wherewith in all good actions they doe concur, that
whatsoever offendeth one displeaseth all, and whosever satisfieth one
contenteth all.” _Breviary_, p. 60.
In addition to this foundation, the leaders were united by ties based
upon social and blood-relationship, many of which were of great
importance in the affairs of both Old and New England. Among many such,
we may note that John Endicott was a parishioner of the Reverend John
White, who was interested in the Cape Ann fishing company with John
Humphrey. Humphrey, in turn, was a brother-in-law of the Earl of
Lincoln, one of the most earnest of the Puritan peers, and son-in-law of
Viscount Say and Sele. Lincoln's other brothers-in-law were Isaac
Johnson and John Gorges, the latter a son of Sir Ferdinando. Lincoln's
steward, Thomas Dudley, was a parishioner of John Cotton. The Earl of
Holland was a brother of the Earl of Warwick, who was the leader of the
Puritans. The latter's interests in Parliament were attended to by Lord
Brooke, while his man of business was Sir Nathaniel Rich. The Riches and
the Barringtons were neighbors and close friends. Lady Joan Barrington,
who was a correspondent of many of the New England emigrants, was an
aunt of John Hampden and Oliver Cromwell, and Roger Williams at one time
applied for the hand of her niece. Many of these were deeply interested
in the attempt to found a Puritan colony in the Caribbean, as were also
Gregory Gawsell, John Gurdon, and Sir Edward Moundeford, who were all
three country neighbors and intimate friends of John Winthrop and his
family circle.[280]
Footnote 280:
Newton, _Puritan Colonisation_, pp. 61 _ff._; E. J. Carpenter, _Roger
Williams_ (New York, 1909), pp. 16-21.
At the time that our story has now reached, there were two projects for
Puritan settlement in which members of this clan were particularly
interested, that of the island of Old Providence in the Caribbean Sea,
and that of the remnants of the Cape Ann fishing attempt, which was
mentioned in the preceding chapter. The latter somewhat ill-judged
effort, in 1623, to combine as a single enterprise an agricultural
colony on land and a fishing business at sea, had been abandoned two
years later, with a loss of £3000.[281] Most of the men had been
withdrawn, but Roger Conant, with a few others, decided to remain in
America, transferring their homes to the location of what was in a few
years to be known as Salem. Thinking that something might still be saved
from the wreck, a few of the Adventurers in England plucked up courage,
and having interested fresh capitalists, including Thomas Dudley,
secured the services of John Endicott as local governor, and, in 1628,
were granted a patent from the Council for New England.[282] The Puritan
character of the new undertaking would be sufficiently evidenced by the
names of White and his parishioner Endicott, Humphrey, and Dudley, did
we not know also that the Earl of Warwick, who seven years before had
secured the patent for the Pilgrims, now acted in obtaining that for the
New England Company.[283] Sir Ferdinando Gorges, to whom Warwick
applied, gave his consent, provided that the new patent should not be
prejudicial to the interests of his son Robert, and distinctly stated
that the new colony was to found a place of refuge for Puritans.[284]
The grant, which extended from three miles north of the River Merrimac
to three miles south of the Charles, conflicted with that bestowed on
Gorges and Mason in 1622, as well as with that of Robert Gorges of
similar date. As the same limits were confirmed in the royal charter to
the Company of Massachusetts Bay in 1629, the seeds of future discord
were sown in these conflicting titles.[285]
Footnote 281:
J. White, _The Planter's Plea_ (Force Tracts), p. 39.
Footnote 282:
White, _Planter's Plea_, p. 43; T. Dudley, “Letter to the Countess of
Lincoln,” in Young's _Chronicles of the first Planters of
Massachusetts_ (Boston, 1846), p. 310; _cf._ Osgood, American
Colonies, vol. I, p. 130.
Footnote 283:
There was no uniform designation until the issue of the charter of
1629, the company being variously styled “the New England Company,”
“the Company of Adventurers for New England in America,” etc.
Thornton, _Landing at Cape Anne_, p. 57 _n._
Footnote 284:
Gorges, _Briefe Narration_, p. 80 (written many years later).
Footnote 285:
Haven, _Lowell Lectures_, pp. 153 _f._
Endicott was at once dispatched, with a few followers, to take
possession, and to prepare the way for a larger body to be sent in the
succeeding year. The little band, with which he arrived in September,
1628, together with the old settlers already on the spot, made up a
company of only fifty or sixty people, most of whom seem to have done
little but “rub out the winter's cold by the Fire-side,” “turning down
many a drop of the Bottell, and burning Tobacco with all the ease they
could,” while they discussed the progress they would make in the
summer.[286] There was, however, much sickness among them, which may
have accounted in part for their close hearth-keeping. From what we know
of Endicott's harsh manners and lack of wisdom in dealing with delicate
situations, it may be assumed that his superseding of Conant in the
office of local governor was not made more palatable by any grace in his
announcement of the fact; and, in any case, ill-feeling developed
between the old and new planters. This, however, was smoothed over by
Conant's own tact, and affairs were adjusted “so meum and tuum that
divide the world, should not disturb the peace of good Christians.”[287]
Morton, owing to his unsympathetic neighbors, the Pilgrims, was
temporarily in England, and so absent from his crew at Merry Mount; but
Endicott promptly visited that very un-Puritan and somewhat dangerous
settlement, and having hewn down the offending May-pole, “admonished
them to look ther should be better walking.”[288] It is possible that,
before winter set in, preparations may have been made for a second
settlement at Charlestown to forestall the claims of Oldham in that
locality.[289]
Footnote 286:
White, _Planter's Plea_, p. 43; E. Johnson, _Wonder-working Providence
of Sions Saviour in New-England_ (ed. New York, 1910), p. 45.
Footnote 287:
W. Hubbard, _History of New England_ (1815), p. 110.
Footnote 288:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, p. 238.
Footnote 289:
The Robert Gorges claim had been sold in two parts, one to Sir Wm.
Brereton and one to John Dorrell and John Oldham. J. G. Palfrey,
_History of New England_ (Boston, 1859), vol. I, p. 294; _cf._ T.
Prince, _Chronological History of New England_ (Arber reprint, London,
1897), p. 483; and Cradock's instructions in Young, _Chron. Mass._,
pp. 147 _ff._, 171.
Endicott's whole mission at this time, indeed, seems to have been merely
to prepare the way for others; and in the following year, six ships were
dispatched, carrying over four hundred people, with cattle and
additional supplies.[290] Four clergymen, including Skelton and
Higginson, were also sent, for the spiritual welfare of the colony, and
the conversion of the Indians, which latter object, at this stage of the
enterprise, was officially declared to be the main end of the
plantation.
Footnote 290:
Prince, _New England_, p. 489; Young, _Chron. Mass._, pp. 132, 216.
The number included 35 of the Leyden congregation bound for Plymouth.
Meanwhile, the number of those in England interested in the venture
continued to grow, and a royal charter, under the broad seal, was
granted March 4, 1629, in the names of Sir Henry Rosewell, Sir John
Younge, Thomas Southcott, John Humphrey, John Endicott, and their
associates, the total membership of the company being about one hundred
and ten.[291] The grant followed somewhat closely that received by the
Virginia Company in 1609, the patentees being joint proprietors of the
plantation, with rights of ownership and government similar to those
enjoyed by the earlier London Company. A General Court, to meet
quarterly, was provided for, and annually, at the Easter session, this
court was to elect a governor, deputy governor and a board of
assistants, consisting of eighteen members. By an important clause, six
of the latter, together with the governor or his deputy, constituted a
quorum, and were therefore required to be present at the sittings of the
court. The General Court, consisting of the members of the Company,
known as freemen, was also given the power to add to its number, and to
make such necessary laws and ordinances as should not be repugnant to
the laws of England. The first governor was Mathew Cradock, with Thomas
Goffe as deputy, the Assistants including Sir Richard Saltonstall, Isaac
Johnson, John Humphrey, John Endicott, Increase Nowell, Theophilus
Eaton, and John Browne. It was this charter of a proprietary company,
skillfully interpreted to fit the needs of the case, and constantly
violated as to its terms, which formed the basis of the commonwealth
government of Massachusetts for over half a century.
Footnote 291:
_Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New
England_ (ed. N. B. Shurtleff, Boston, 1853), vol. I, p. 5 (hereafter
cited as _Massachusetts Records_). The charter is given on pp. 1-20.
S. F. Haven, prefatory chapter to the Company's Records, in
_Archeologia Americana_, 1857, vol. III, pp. cxxxiv-cxxxvi.
The company, so organized, proceeded to arrange for a local government
in Massachusetts, confirming Endicott as governor, and associating with
him a council of thirteen. This was to include the three clergymen then
there, the two Brownes, and two of the old planters, if the latter group
should desire such representation. Efforts were made to conserve as
equitably as possible the rights of those former settlers, and other
instructions for the conduct of the company's affairs were forwarded to
Endicott a few weeks after the grant of the charter.[292] Writing home,
at the end of the first summer, Higginson stated that, on their arrival,
they had found “aboute a half score houses, and a fair house newly built
for the Governor,” and that, including the newcomers and old settlers,
about three hundred people were planted in the colony, of whom two
thirds were at Salem and the remainder at Charlestown.[293] “But that
which is our greatest comfort and means of defence above all others,” he
continued, “is that we have here the true religion and holy ordinances
of Almighty God taught amongst us. Thanks be to God, we have here plenty
of preaching, and diligent catechising, with strict and careful
exercise.”
Footnote 292:
Young, _Chron. Mass._, pp. 141-71.
Footnote 293:
F. Higginson, _New England's Plantation_; Young, _Chron. Mass._, pp.
258 _f._
[Illustration:
Original Share in Massachusetts Bay Company
Massachusetts Historical Society
]
As we noted in an earlier chapter, many writers have insisted greatly
upon the rigid distinction between the Pilgrims, as Separatists, and the
Puritans, as mere Nonconformists. Not only, however, were the members of
the several communities by no means agreed as to what constituted
Separatism and Nonconformity, but, in the American wilderness, such
distinctions rapidly ceased to have any but a disputatious value, with,
at intervals, political reverberations in England. The Pilgrims, at the
time of their emigration from Holland, may have been strict Separatists
or on the way to becoming mere non-Separatist Independent Puritans;[294]
and the leaders of the churches of Massachusetts for many years denied
any Separatism on their own part or that of the Pilgrims. John Cotton
wrote categorically, in 1647, that “for New England there is no such
church of the Separation at al that I know of.”[295] On the other hand,
many, of all shades of religious belief, refused to acknowledge this
view of the matter. They found it impossible to answer Roger Williams's
query as to “what is that which Mr. Cotton and so many hundreths fearing
God in New England walk in, but a way of separation?”[296] Indeed, in
view of the open and patent facts, the only possible answer was the
casuistical one of Cotton and the other leaders, that they had
separated, “not from the Churches in Old England, as no Churches, but
from some corruptions found in them.”[297] As these corruptions were
held to include the polity and ritual of the English Church, and as
members of the New England churches, though they might listen to its
preaching, were not allowed to be in communion with it, and as no Church
of England services were permitted on New England soil, the point as to
whether or not the New England Puritans were Separatists is a mere
matter of terms. It depends upon the question how far a minority of any
organization, social, political, or religious, can go in denying the
validity of its ideas, in refusing to conform to its practices, and in
not allowing them to be used, and still consider themselves as being in
the organization. Opinions will always differ, and it is as impossible
to decide to-day whether the Puritans became Separatists as it was for
themselves and their critics to decide at the time.
Footnote 294:
C. Burrage, _English Dissenters_, vol. I, p. 357.
Footnote 295:
_Master John Cotton's Answer to Master Roger Williams_ (_Narraganset
Club Publications_, Providence, 1867, vol. II, p. 203).
Footnote 296:
R. Williams, _Mr. Cotton's Letter examined and answered_ (_Narraganset
Club Publications_, vol. I, p. 109).
Footnote 297:
_Narraganset Club Publications_, vol. II, p. 234.
The question of terms is not especially important, but the question of
polity, as it was developed in the little church at Salem, is immensely
so, for it undoubtedly gave a very great impetus to the growth of
Congregationalism in Massachusetts, and, indeed, has been called “the
chief point of departure in the ecclesiastical history of New England,”
which was so inextricably interwoven with its political history. In no
other part of the country has a more distinct and persistent type of
thought and character been developed than in that section; and in this
regard we have already noted the important influences of the geographic
environment. But the impress of its institutional life was no less
effective upon the minds of its people. It was not Puritanism alone that
developed the type; for, we repeat, the Puritan strain may be traced in
the legislation and social life of many of the English settlements, and
the Puritanism of any individual to-day may derive quite as directly
from an ancestral Bermudian, Georgian, Jamaican Commonwealth man,
Carolinian Scotch Covenanter, or Pennsylvanian Ulsterite, as from a
settler in Salem or Plymouth. But wherever we find Congregationalism,
town government, and the village school, we may trace the triple
influence straight to New England.
It is impossible to say what may have been the precise ideas as to
church government held by the groups which emigrated with Endicott and
in the following year, but the evidence seems clear that, at least as
far as Endicott was concerned, they were identical with those of the
Pilgrims, or were unconsciously derived from them after arrival. Dr.
Fuller, who visited Salem during the sickness of the first winter, was
not only a physician but a deacon of the Plymouth church. With him
Endicott discussed the question of church polity, and, as a result,
wrote to Governor Bradford that “I am by him satisfied touching your
judgments of the outward forme of Gods worshipe. It is, as farr as I can
gather, no other than is warranted by the evidence of truth, and the
same which I have proffessed and maintained ever since the Lord in
mercie revealed him selfe unto me.”[298] A few weeks later, after the
arrival of Skelton and Higginson, the Salem church was organized, with
the former as pastor, and the latter as teacher, the members being
united by a church covenant, which became one of the essential features
of the New England church system.[299] In that system, every local
church was independent, choosing and ordaining its own pastor, teachers,
and ruling elders, and was composed of such Christians only as could
satisfy the other church members of their converted state.[300] “The
stones that were to be laid in Solomon's temple,” wrote Cotton, with
characteristic far-fetched use of Old Testament texts, “were squared and
made ready before they were laid in the building ... and, wherefore so,
if not to hold forth that no members were to be received into the Church
of Christ, but such as were rough-hewn, and squared, and fitted to lie
close and levell to Christ and to his members?”[301]
Footnote 298:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, p. 265; Burrage thinks the Pilgrim influence
slight, differing from most authorities. _English Dissenters_, vol. I,
pp. 360 _ff._ _Cf._ W. Walker, _History of Congregational Churches in
U. S._ (New York, 1894), pp. 101 _ff._
Footnote 299:
Bradford, _Plymouth_, pp. 265 _f._ The covenant of 1629 and the
enlarged one of 1636 are in W. Walker, _Creeds and Platforms of
Congregationalism_ (New York, 1893), pp. 116 _ff._ _Cf._ C. Burrage,
_The Church Covenant Idea_ (Philadelphia, 1904), pp. 88 _ff._
Footnote 300:
_Cf._ T. Lechford, “Plain dealing or Newes from New England”; _Mass.
Hist. Soc. Coll._, Series III, vol. III, pp. 63-75.
Footnote 301:
John Cotton, _The Way of the Churches of Christ in New England_
(London, 1645), p. 54.
Although the church government was democratic in form, and thus of
influence in fostering democratic beliefs as to government in general,
it must be remembered that at probably no period during the life of the
charter, did the number of church members include more than a very
distinct minority of the population. Lechford's statement, that three
quarters of the people were outside the pale of the church in 1640,
seems borne out by other testimony, and this proportion appears not to
have been greatly changed till near the end of the century.[302] The
influence of this democratic form of church organization, however, was
clearly foreseen by King James in his dictum, “No bishop, no king”; and
of even greater effect in its logical political consequence was the
employment of the covenant. In defending its use in the church, Cotton,
in the volume already quoted, was forced onto broader ground. “It is
evident,” he wrote, “by the light of nature, that all civill Relations
are founded in Covenant. For, to passe by naturall Relations between
Parents and Children, and violent Relations between Conquerors and
Captives; there is no other way given wherby a people (sui Juris) free
from naturall and compulsory engagements, can be united or combined
together into one visible body.”[303]
Footnote 302:
Lechford, _Plain Dealing_, p. 143; A. E. McKinley, _Suffrage Franchise
in the Thirteen English Colonies_ (University of Pennsylvania
Publications, 1905), p. 313.
Footnote 303:
Cotton, _The Way of the Churches_, p. 4.
It is difficult to overestimate the influence which, in time, these two
ideas, of a democratic church polity and a voluntary covenant as the
only basis for a civil government, would come to exert upon those
holding them; but for the moment, the result was the forcible expulsion
from the community of two members who did not hold them. John and Samuel
Browne, both men of good estate, the one a merchant and the other a
lawyer, and both original patentees of the Company, had left England for
Salem in the spring of 1629, with high recommendation to Endicott from
the Company at home, as men much trusted and respected.[304] When the
Salem church was organized, the two brothers, who were both on the
council, objected, accusing the ministers of having become Separatists,
which they denied. As the Brownes refused to give up the use of the
prayer-book, and held private services with their followers, Endicott,
either from personal feeling or from a real fear that the trouble would
disrupt the colony, took a strong stand, and shipped them back to
England.[305] There is no contemporary account of the details, and it is
therefore as unwise, perhaps, to condemn Endicott, as it is
unjustifiable to speak of the Brownes as “anarchical,” or, with an odd
lack of humor, as “Schismatical.”[306] Endicott was mildly censured by
the Company in England, who wrote that they conceived that “it is
possible some undigested councells have too sudainely bin put in
execution, wch may have ill construccion with the state heere;” while
the ministers were asked to clear themselves if innocent, or else to
look back upon their “miscarriage wth repentance.” In time the Brownes
seem to have been settled with satisfactorily on a cash basis.[307]
Footnote 304:
T. Hutchinson, _History of Massachusetts_ (Salem, 1795), vol. I, p.
19; Young, _Chron. Mass._, p. 168.
Footnote 305:
Hutchinson, _History_, vol. I, p. 19; Morton, _New England's
Memorial_, pp. 100 _f._
Footnote 306:
Young's epithets, in _Chron. Mass._, p. 160 _n._
Footnote 307:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. I, pp. 409, 407, 52, 54, 61, 69.
While progress was thus being made in the establishment of the
Massachusetts Bay colony, another project for a Puritan settlement was
rapidly taking form. After the dissolution of the Virginia Company, the
quarrel between the Sandys and Warwick factions was continued in the
courts of the Somers Islands, or Bermuda Company, and its affairs were
going from bad to worse, largely owing to the frequent changes in the
person of the governor as the two factions succeeded each other in power
at home. In April, 1629, Sir Nathaniel Rich received a long letter from
Governor Bell, in regard to various matters, in the course of which he
described two islands lying in the Caribbean, in either of which he
thought one year would “be more profitable than seven years here,” and
placed the disposition of both islands in Warwick's hands.[308]
Footnote 308:
Newton, _Puritan Colonisation_, pp. 32 _f._
It was a momentous time. Hardly more than a few days before, Parliament
had been angrily dissolved by the King, not to meet again for eleven
years. Eliot, Selden, and seven other of the popular leaders had been
committed to the Tower. In every direction, Puritans of distinction, and
even such lesser men as John Humphrey and John Winthrop, were made to
feel the hostility of the court. The recent successful colonization of
St. Kitts and Barbadoes by the Earls of Carlisle and Marlborough, both
members of the court party, and hostile to the Warwicks and Riches,
combined with the flattering report of the new-found islands by Bell,
induced Warwick, whose affairs had not been going well, to make an
immediate counter-move. With Rich, Gawsell, and others, he provided
£2000, and dispatched two ships for the Caribbean under letters of
marque. They arrived at Providence about Christmas, the company
beginning to make ready for the larger body which was to arrive in the
spring, precisely as Endicott had done at Salem. “The aim and desire
above all things,” wrote the promoters of the enterprise, “is to plant
the true and sincere Religion and worship of God, which in the Christian
world is now very much opposed.” At first, the utmost secrecy was
maintained as to the real aims of Warwick and his associates; and it was
only in December of the following year, after the main body of the
colonists had already been planted, that letters-patent for the islands
were procured from the King.[309]
Footnote 309:
_Ibid._, pp. 48, 50, 53, 95, 86. This island had been confused, until
recently, with New Providence in the Bahamas.
There can be no doubt, however, that the matter was well known to
Winthrop and others of those who were contemplating emigration in the
summer of 1629. Not only was Gawsell a neighbor and friend of Winthrop,
but all steps taken by the Massachusetts group seem to have been talked
over with Warwick and Rich.[310] John Winthrop, now in his forty-third
year, who was living the life of a country squire at Groton, in Suffolk,
and was a small office-holder under government, had been anxiously
watching the course of affairs. Of a sensitive and deeply religious
nature, strongly attached to the Puritan cause, he could not but regard
the future with the greatest anxiety. “The Lord hath admonished,
threatened, corrected and astonished us,” he wrote to his wife in May,
1629, “yet we growe worse and worse, so as his spirit will not allwayes
strive with us, he must needs give waye to his fury at last.... We sawe
this, and humbled not ourselves, to turne from our evill wayes, but have
provoked him more than all the nations rounde about us: therefore he is
turninge the cuppe toward us also, and because we are the last, our
portion must be, to drinke the verye dreggs which remaine. My dear wife,
I am veryly persuaded, God will bringe some heavye Affliction upon this
lande, and that speedylye.”[311] In addition to his fear that all hope
of civil, as well as of even a moderate degree of religious, liberty was
rapidly fading, Winthrop was also much troubled by the prospects for his
personal social and financial position. A few months earlier, he had
written to his son Henry, at that time a settler in Barbadoes, that he
then owed more than he was able to pay without selling his land; and
throughout all his letters and papers of the period runs the same strain
of anxiety over money matters.[312] Although possessed of a modest
estate, which, when subsequently sold, realized £4200,[313] the demands
of a large family, and the increased cost of living, were more than he
could meet. In June, he was, in addition, deprived of his office under
the Master of the Wards, and wrote to his wife that “where we shall
spende the rest of or short tyme I knowe not: the Lorde, I trust, will
direct us in mercye.”[314]
Footnote 310:
_Ibid._, p. 47.
Footnote 311:
R. C. Winthrop, _Life and Letters of John Winthrop_ (Boston, 1869),
vol I, p. 296.
Footnote 312:
_Ibid._ vol. I, p. 286.
Footnote 313:
Letter from J. Winthrop, Jr.; _Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, Series V, vol.
VIII, p. 28. Winthrop had appraised it at £5760. R. C. Winthrop, _J.
Winthrop_, vol. II, p. 78.
Footnote 314:
_Ibid._, vol. I, pp. 214 _ff._, 301 _f._
With the discussion then going on in Puritan circles as to Endicott's
settlement at Salem, and with his neighbors actively interested in the
colony at Providence, it was natural that Winthrop should seriously
consider the thought of emigrating. Just at this time, a paper
consisting of arguments for and against settling a plantation in New
England was being circulated among the group of Puritans mentioned
earlier in this chapter. The reasons given in favor of it were mainly
religious and economic. The first dwelt upon the glory of opposing
Anti-Christ, in the form of the French Jesuits in Canada, and of raising
“a particular church” in New England, while the second referred to the
supposed surplus population at home, and to the standard and cost of
living which had “growne to that height of intemperance in all excesse
of Riott, as noe mans estate allmost will suffice to keepe saile with
his aequalls.”[315]
Footnote 315:
R. C. Winthrop, _J. Winthrop_, vol. I, pp. 308, 328.
The document, which has come down to us in at least four different
forms, was possibly drafted by Winthrop himself, though the evidence is
only inferential, and it has also been attributed to the Reverend John
White and others.[316] It is interesting to note that John Hampden wrote
to Sir John Eliot, then in prison, for a copy of it.[317] Whether or not
Winthrop was the author, several copies, one of them indorsed “May,
1629,” contain memoranda of “Particular considerations in the case of J.
W.,” in which he wrote that the success of the plan had come to depend
upon him, for “the chiefe supporters (uppon whom the rest depends) will
not stirr wthout him,” and that his wife and children are in favor of
it. “His meanes,” moreover, he wrote, “heer are so shortened (now 3 of
his sonnes being com to age have drawen awaie the one half of his
estate) as he shall not be able to continue in that place and imployment
where he now iss, his ordinary charg being still as great almost as when
his meanes was double”; and that “if he lett pass this opportunitie,
That talent wch God hath bestowed uppon him for publicke service is like
to be buried.”[318] “With what comfort can I live,” he added in one
version, “wth 7 or 8 servts in that place and condition where for many
years I have spent 3: or 400 li yearly and maintained a greater
chardge?”[319] The prospects in England, for his wife and children, lay
heavily on his mind. “For my care of thee and thine,” he wrote to the
former, after the die was cast, “I will say nothing. The Lord knows my
heart, that it was one great motive to draw me into this course.”[320]
Footnote 316:
The editor of this life of Winthrop (vol. I, pp. 308, 318) naturally
claims it for his ancestor. Channing thinks it probable (_History_,
vol. I, p. 327); but Doyle does not (_Puritan Colonies_, vol. I, p.
85). _Cf._ _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings_, Series I, vols. VIII, pp.
413-30, and XII, pp. 237 _ff._
Footnote 317:
Letter of Dec. 8, 1629; _Ibid._, vol. VIII, p. 427.
Footnote 318:
_Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings_, Series I, vol. VIII, p. 420. The
wording is slightly different in the version in R. C. Winthrop, _J.
Winthrop_, vol. I, p. 327.
Footnote 319:
_Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings_, Series I, vol. XII, p. 238.
Footnote 320:
Letter of Jan. 15, 1630; R. C. Winthrop, _J. Winthrop_, vol. I, p.
366.
His judgment regarding the ending of the opportunity for a public career
for such as himself in England was obviously wrong, as events developed
there. The England which retained a Pym, a Hampden, an Eliot, and a
Cromwell, may well have offered scope for the talents of a Winthrop. As
our eyes are usually fastened on this side of the water, we are apt to
think of the Pilgrims, Puritans, and other immigrants as starting their
careers by coming here. We rarely consider them in the light of leaving
behind them other possible careers in England. It is no disparagement of
the courage with which they faced the wilderness, to think of them, for
a moment, as Englishmen, abandoning their place in the struggle at home,
and to consider the type of mind which thus preferred to exchange the
simplifications of unpeopled America for the complexities of the
situation in England. Is it, perhaps, altogether fanciful, to attribute,
in slight part, that deeply ingrained feeling of Americans, that they
wish to have nothing to do with the problems of the world at large, to
this choice of the founders in abandoning their place in the struggles
of Europe for a more untrammeled career on a small provincial stage?
Winthrop's reasons have been thus dwelt upon, because, in the motives
given by him who was the purest, gentlest, and broadest-minded of all
who were to guide the destinies of the Bay Colony, we presumably find
the highest of those which animated any of the men who sought its
shores. As we descend the scale of character, the religious incentives
narrow and disappear, as does also the desire for honorable public
service, and the economic factor alone remains.
In July, a few weeks after Winthrop lost his office, Isaac Johnson, a
brother-in-law of the Earl of Lincoln, wrote to Emanuel Downing, a
brother-in-law of Winthrop, asking them to meet at Sempringham, the
Earl's seat in Lincolnshire, whither they both went on the 28th.[321]
There they undoubtedly met Dudley, Johnson, Humphrey, and others of that
family and social group. All those gathered there, so far as we know,
were keenly interested in the project for Massachusetts. As they were
also in close touch with Warwick, Rich, and others of those who were
just at the moment planning to send out the colony to Providence in
September, it is probable that both places were considered, and Warwick
continued for years to urge Winthrop and his group to move to the
southern colony. The decision, however, was in favor of Massachusetts;
and, a few weeks later, on August 26, Saltonstall, Dudley, Johnson,
Humphrey, Winthrop, and seven others, signed an agreement by which they
bound themselves to be ready, with their families and goods, by the
first of the following March, to embark for New England, and to settle
there permanently.[322]
Footnote 321:
_Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, Series IV, vol. VI, pp. 29 _f._ Sempringham
is a tiny hamlet, and of the beautiful house of the Earls of Lincoln,
only the garden wall remains. W. F. Rawnsley, _Highways and Byways in
Lincolnshire_ (London, 1914), p. 38. The house is mentioned in
Camden's _Brittania_ (ed. London, 1806), vol. II, p. 334.
Footnote 322:
R. C. Winthrop, _J. Winthrop_, vol. I, pp. 344 _f._
There was one clause in the agreement, of incalculable importance.
“Provided always,” so it read, “that before the last of September next,
the whole Government, together with the patent for the said plantation,
be first, by an order of court, legally transferred and established to
remain with us and others which shall inhabit upon the said
Plantation.”[323] Possibly as a result of consultation with the
Cambridge signers, Governor Cradock, at a meeting of the court of the
Company a month earlier, had read certain propositions, “conceived by
himself,” which anticipated this condition. They seem to have struck
those present as serious and novel, and of such importance in their
possible consequences as to call for deferred consideration in great
secrecy. The matter was brought up at a number of successive meetings,
and it was only after much debate, objections on the part of many, and
the taking of legal advice, that the court finally voted that the
charter and government might be removed to America.[324] By such
transfer, and the use made of the charter in New England, what was
intended to be a mere trading company, similar to those which had
preceded it, became transformed into a self-governing commonwealth,
whose rulers treated the charter as if it were the constitution of an
independent state. Such an interpretation could not legally be carried
beyond a certain point, and the attempt was bound to break down under
the strain.
Footnote 323:
_Ibid._, p. 345.
Footnote 324:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. I, pp. 49-52, 55.
The step, in its far-reaching consequences, was one of the most
important events in the development of the British colonies, but its
story remains a mystery. It was a completely new departure, but may have
been suggested to the leaders by the act of the Pilgrims in buying out
their English partners and thus in effect, though without any legal
authority, constituting themselves a self-governing community. There has
been much discussion as to whether the absence in the original charter
of any words indicating that the corporation was to remain in England
was due to accident or design. It is impossible to prove the point
either way, for Winthrop's statement, of somewhat uncertain application
and written many years later, does not seem conclusive against the other
facts and probabilities.[325] The proceedings at the meetings of the
court show clearly, at least, that many of the most active patentees had
had no inkling of any such conscious alteration of the document at the
time of issue, nor does it seem likely that Charles I would have
knowingly consented. If the charter were intentionally so worded as to
create “the Adventurers a Corporation upon the Place,”[326] for the
purpose the wording was later made to serve, then such of the leaders as
arranged the matter consciously hoodwinked both the government and many
of their own associates.
Footnote 325:
R. C. Winthrop, _J. Winthrop_, vol. II, p. 443; C. Deane, in _Mass.
Hist. Soc. Proceedings_, Series I, vol. XI, pp. 166 _ff._; Mellen
Chamberlain, _Ibid._, Series II, vol. VIII, p. 110; J. Parker in
_Lowell Lectures_, pp. 365 _ff._; and Osgood, _American Colonies_,
vol. I, pp. 145 _ff._, 183.
At length, however, the consent of the patentees was obtained, after
their counsel had approved the legality of the step; and in October, in
contemplation of the removal of the government to America, Winthrop was
elected Governor, and Humphrey, Deputy, in place of those who were to
remain behind.[327] Eight months later, in the early summer of 1630,
Winthrop and a band of between nine hundred and a thousand immigrants
landed in America, and settled what were later known as the towns of
Charlestown, Boston, Medford, Watertown, Roxbury, Lynn, and
Dorchester.[328] Eighty of the inhabitants already planted at Salem
under Endicott had died during the winter, and of those who formed the
present settlements, about two hundred succumbed between the time of
leaving England and the end of December, including Johnson, his wife the
Lady Arbella, the Reverend Mr. Higginson, and other important members of
the colony.[329]
Footnote 326:
Decision of the English Chief Justices in 1677; _Acts Privy Council,
Colonial_, vol. I, p. 724. _Cf._ _Ibid._, p. 841.
Footnote 327:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. I, pp. 59 _f._ At the last moment, as
Humphrey's sailing was delayed, Dudley was elected in his place.
_Ibid._, p. 70.
Footnote 328:
The ships did not all arrive together. Some were delayed until the
first week in July. John Winthrop, _History of New England_ (ed.
Boston, 1853), vol. I, p. 34. _Cf._ Young, _Chron. Mass._, pp. 310
_ff._
Footnote 329:
Dudley's Letter, in Young, _Chron. Mass._, pp. 311, 319.
The settlers, apparently, did not have time to house themselves properly
before winter came on, and many, particularly of the poor, had to face
the icy winds of a New England January with no better shelter than a
canvas tent.[330] Provisions, even in England, were exceedingly scarce
and dear that year, partly, some claimed, because of the large
quantities taken out by emigrants to New England and the other
plantations.[331] Massachusetts had evidently not received her share, if
such had been the case, and famine soon faced the settlers, who were
forced to live partly on mussels and acorns.[332] Even upon their
arrival in the summer, food had been so scarce that they had been forced
to give their liberty to a hundred and eighty servants, entailing a loss
of between three and four hundred pounds.[333] The cold, which had held
off until December 24, suddenly came on in extreme severity, and “such a
Christmas eve they had never seen before.” The contrast with the
Christmas Day which the Warwick settlers were passing at Providence, in
the Caribbean, was complete; and Humphrey and Downing, who were in
frequent conference with the earl and with Rich, kept writing to advise
Winthrop to move the colony farther south, if only to the Hudson
River.[334] At a critical moment, the ship Lion, which Winthrop had had
the foresight to send at once to England for provisions, arrived with a
new supply; but so deep was the discouragement, that many returned in
her to the old home, never to come back. Others, however, were of
sterner stuff, and took passage in the same boat to fetch their
families.[335]
Footnote 330:
J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I, p. 52.
Footnote 331:
_Cal. St. Pap., Dom., 1628-9_, p. 266; _Acts Privy Council, Colonial_,
vol. I, p. 154.
Footnote 332:
R. Clap, Memoirs, in Young, _Chron. Mass._, p. 352.
Footnote 333:
Dudley's Letter, _Ibid._, p. 312.
Footnote 334:
Letters in _Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, Series IV, vol. VI, pp. 3, 8, 38.
Footnote 335:
Hutchinson, _History_, vol. I, p. 29. For details of the first winter,
as noted by one of the poorer emigrants, _cf._, Letter to Wm. Pond
from his son, _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings_, Series II, vol. VIII,
pp. 471 _ff._
At last the winter passed, and with the summer came renewed hope. The
public business had been temporarily managed by the Assistants only, and
the first General Court was not held until October. At that session the
charter was violated in an important point, in that the freemen
relinquished their right to elect the governor and the deputy.
Thereafter, it was ruled, these were to be elected by the Assistants
only, with whom they were to have the power of making laws and
appointing officers.[336] The extent of this limitation of the right of
election, which was revoked, however, at the next General Court, is
evident from the fact that in March, in contemplation of the probability
of there being less than nine Assistants left in the colony, it was
agreed that seven should constitute a court. In fact, the charter was
continually violated in that regard, as the number of Assistants, for
over fifty years, was never more than about one half of the required
eighteen.[337]
Footnote 336:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. I, pp. 73, 78, 79.
Footnote 337:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. I, p. 84; Hutchinson, _History_, vol. I,
p. 293 _n._ _Cf._ _Acts Privy Council, Colonial_, vol. I, p. 842.
The Assistants, into whose hands the control of the government now
passed, were probably a majority of the entire voting population of the
colony. According to the terms of the charter only members of the
Company, or the so-called freemen, had the right to vote at its
meetings. After the “sea-change” which was presumed to have altered that
document into “something rich and strange” in the way of political
constitutions, those meetings became the political assemblies of the
colony, and the freemen of the Company became the only enfranchised
voters of the state. While two thousand persons were settled in
Massachusetts about the time of that October meeting, it is probable
that not more than sixteen to twenty members of the Company had crossed
the ocean, of whom a number had returned or died.[338] If the charter
were indeed the written constitution of a state, it was unique among
such instruments in that it thus limited all political rights, in a
community of two thousand persons, to a tiny self-perpetuating
oligarchical group of not more than a dozen citizens. Ninety-nine and
one half per cent of the population was thus unenfranchised and
unrepresented, and even denied the right of appeal to the higher
authorities in England.
Footnote 338:
Palfrey, _History_, vol. I, pp. 313, 323.
Such was the situation, brought about with full knowledge and intention,
and as long as possible persisted in, by the Puritan leaders. Those
leaders, as we have such clear proof in the case of the noblest of them,
John Winthrop, seem to have come to Massachusetts with three distinct
and clearly understood objects. They wished, first, to found and develop
a peculiar type of community, best expressed by the term
Bible-Commonwealth, in which the political and religious elements, in
themselves and in their relations to one another, should be but two
aspects of the same method of so regulating the lives of individuals as
to bring them into harmony with the expressed will of God, as
interpreted by the self-appointed rulers. Secondly, both as religious
zealots, who felt that they had come into possession of ultimate truth,
and as active-minded Englishmen, desirous of an outlet for their
administrative energies, they considered themselves as the best
qualified rulers and the appointed guardians for the community which
they had founded. Lastly, having been largely determined by economic
considerations in venturing their fortunes in the enterprise, they
looked with fear, as well as jealousy, upon any possibility of allowing
control of policy, of law and order, and of legislation concerning
person and property, to pass to others.
In such a church-state, no civil question could be considered aside from
its possible religious bearings; no religious opinion could be discussed
apart from its political implications. It was a system which could be
maintained permanently only by the most rigid denial of political free
speech and religious toleration. Fortunately, however, it contained
within itself the seeds of its own dissolution. Apart from other
factors, the church-covenant idea, brought by the Pilgrims, accepted by
Endicott, and indorsed by the three churches formed by the Winthrop
colonists, in 1630, at Dorchester, Charlestown, and Watertown, was the
seed of a democratic conception of the state, which grew so persistently
as to defy all efforts of its own planters to destroy it. The attitude
of the two most influential Massachusetts leaders, lay and
ecclesiastical, is not a matter of inference. “Democracy,” wrote
Winthrop, after stating that there “was no such government in Israel,”
is “amongst civil nations, accounted the meanest and worst of all forms
of government.” To allow it in Massachusetts would be “a manifest breach
of the 5th. Commandment.”[339] “Democracy,” wrote John Cotton to Lord
Say and Sele, “I do not conceive that ever God did ordeyne as a fit
government eyther for church or commonwealth. If the people be
governers, who shall be governed?”[340] We have already quoted Gooch's
statement that “democracy is the child of the Reformation, not of the
Reformers.” The democracy of Massachusetts, slow in developing, was the
child of the church-covenant and of the frontier, not of the Puritan
leaders.
Footnote 339:
R. C. Winthrop, _J. Winthrop_, vol. II, p. 430. I have modernized the
spelling.
Footnote 340:
Hutchinson, _History_, Appendix, vol. I, p. 437.
While the latter were thus attempting to found and maintain an
aristocracy or oligarchy to guard a church polity which was
unconsciously but implicitly democratic,[341] their position was
rendered precarious at the very outset, and increasingly so as time went
on, by the necessary presence in the colony of that large unenfranchised
class which was not in sympathy with them. As we have seen, even under
strong social and political temptation, three quarters of the
population, though probably largely Puritan in sentiment and belief,
persistently refused to ally themselves with the New England type of
Puritan church. Their presence in the colony was undoubtedly due to
economic motives, more especially, perhaps, the desire to own their
lands in fee. It must also have been due to economic considerations on
the part of the Puritan rulers. The planting of a Bible-Commonwealth
might have been possible without these non-church members, but the
creation of a prosperous and populous state was not, as was evidenced by
statistics throughout its life. Even of the first thousand who came with
Winthrop, it is probable that many were without strong religious
motives; that few realized the plans of the leaders; and it is
practically certain that the great bulk of them had never seen the
charter.
Footnote 341:
_Cf._ H. L, Osgood, “Political Ideas of the Puritans”; _Political
Science Quarterly_, vol. VI, p. 21.
Many of the more active soon wished to have some voice in the management
of their own affairs; and at the October meeting of the General Court,
one hundred and eight, including Conant, Maverick, and Blackstone among
the old planters, requested that they be made freemen.[342] It became
evident to the dozen or so men who alone possessed the governing power,
that some extension of the franchise would be necessary if the leading
spirits among their two thousand subjects were not to emigrate again to
other colonies, or to foment trouble at home. On the other hand, the
extension of the franchise was, in their minds, fraught with the perils
already indicated. The decision to extend the franchise, but to limit
its powers, and to violate the terms of the charter by placing the
election of the governor and deputy in the hands of the Assistants
instead of the freemen, was probably the result of an effort to solve
this problem. Before the next meeting of the General Court in the
following May, at which the new freemen were to be admitted, further
thought had evidently been devoted to the question, and another solution
arrived at. Winthrop was chosen Governor, not by the Assistants, as
voted at the preceding meeting, but by “the general consent of the
Court, according to the meaning of the patent”; and the momentous
resolution was adopted that “noe man shall be admitted to the freedome
of this body polliticke, but such as are members of some of the churches
within the lymitts of the same.”[343] The first attempt on the part of
its unenfranchised subjects to secure a larger share of political
liberty had resulted merely in establishing, more firmly than before,
the theocratical and oligarchical nature of the government.
Footnote 342:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. I, pp. 79, 80.
Footnote 343:
_Massachusetts Records_, vol. I, p. 87.