In the Plymouth colony, as in other colonies of New England, the unit of government was the town, and this town system was borrowed from Massachusetts, where, as we shall see, the inhabitants of Dorchester set the example, in 1633, of coming together for governmental purposes. Entitled to take part in the town-meetings under the Plymouth laws were all freemen and persons "admitted inhabitants" of a town. They elected the deputies of the general court and the numerous officers of the town, and had the authority to pass local ordinances of nearly every description.[33]

During the early days, except for the short time of Lyford's service, Elder William Brewster was the spiritual guide for the people. For a long time they kept the place of minister waiting for Robinson, but when he died they secured, in 1628, the services of Mr. Rogers, who proved to "be crazed in his brain" and had to be sent back the following year. Then, in 1629, Mr. Ralph Smith was minister, and Roger Williams assisted him. Smith was a man of small abilities, and after enduring him for eight years they persuaded him to resign. After Smith's resignation the office of minister at Plymouth was filled by Rev. John Rayner.[34]

The educational advantages of the Plymouth colony were meagre, and the little learning that existed was picked up in the old English way by home instruction. This deficiency was due to the stern conditions of a farmer's life on Cape Cod Bay, where the soil was poor and the climate severe, necessitating the constant labor of the whole family.

Nevertheless, the Plymouth colony was always an example to its neighbors for thrift, economy, and integrity, and it influenced to industry by proving what might be done on a barren soil. Its chief claim to historical importance rests, of course, on the fact that, as the first successful colony on the New England coast, it was the cause and beginning of the establishment of the other colonies of New England, and the second step in founding the great republic of the United States.

[Footnote 1: Bradford, Plimoth Plantation, 112.]

[Footnote 2: Bradford, Plimoth Plantation, 114-117.]

[Footnote 3: Mass. Hist. Soc., Collections, 4th series, II., 158-163.]

[Footnote 4: Bradford, Plimoth Plantation, 130-133; Winslow, "Relation," in Young, Chronicles of the Pilgrims, 280-284.]

[Footnote 5: Bradford, Plimoth Plantation, 149-168; Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1574-1660, p. 40.]

[Footnote 6: Gorges, Description of New England (Mass. Hist. Soc., Collections, 3d series, VI., 80).]

[Footnote 7: Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1574-1660, p. 33.]

[Footnote 8: Bradford, Plimoth Plantation, 170.]

[Footnote 9: Maine Hist. Soc., Collections, 2d. series, VII., 73-76.]

[Footnote 10: Adams, Three Episodes of Mass. Hist., I., 152.]

[Footnote 11: Bradford, Plimoth Plantation, 238.]

[Footnote 12: Palfrey, New England, I., 222, 285.]

[Footnote 13: Hubbard, New England (Mass. Hist. Soc., Collections, 2d series, VI., 110).]

[Footnote 14: Bradford, Plimoth Plantation, 237; Planters' Plea (Force, Tracts, II., No. iii.).]

[Footnote 15: Bradford, Plimoth Plantation, 237-258.]

[Footnote 16: Ibid., 248.]

[Footnote 17: Hazard, State Papers, I., 298.]

[Footnote 18: Bradford, Letter-Book (Mass. Hist. Soc., Collections, 1st series, III., 63); Plimoth Plantation, 284-292.]

[Footnote 19: Bradford, Letter-Book (Mass. Hist. Soc., Collections, 1st series, III., 53).]

[Footnote 20: Bradford, Plimoth Plantation, 350.]

[Footnote 21: Winthrop, New England, I., 139.]

[Footnote 22: Bradford, Plimoth Plantation, 395-401.]

[Footnote 23: Plymouth Col. Records, I., 133.]

[Footnote 24: Bradford, Plimoth Plantation, 437-444.]

[Footnote 25: Palfrey, New England, I., 223, II., 6; Hazard, State Papers, I., 300.]

[Footnote 26: Bradford, Plimoth Plantation, 459.]

[Footnote 27: Bradford, Plimoth Plantation, 444.]

[Footnote 28: Ibid., 122.]

[Footnote 29: Ibid., 187.]

[Footnote 30: Palfrey, New England, II., 8.]

[Footnote 31: Ibid. In August, 1643, the number of males of military age was 627.]

[Footnote 32: Brigham, Plymouth Charter and Laws, 43, 244.]

[Footnote 33: Palfrey, New England, II., 7; Howard, Local Constitutional History, 50-99.]

[Footnote 34: Bradford, Plimoth Plantation, 314, 418, 419.]



CHAPTER XI

GENESIS OF MASSACHUSETTS

(1628-1630)

The abandonment, in 1626, of their colony at Cape Ann by the Dorchester adventurers, did not cause connection to be entirely severed either in America or in England. In America, Conant and three of the more industrious settlers remained, but as the fishery was abandoned, they withdrew with the cattle from the exposed promontory at Cape Ann to Naumkeag, afterwards Salem.[1] In England a few of the adventurers, loath to give up entirely, sent over more cattle, and the enterprise, suddenly attracting other support, rose to a greater promise than had ever been anticipated.[2]

Among those in England who did not lose hope was the Rev. John White, of Dorchester, a merchant as well as a preacher, and his large figure stands on the threshold of the great commonwealth of Massachusetts. Thomas Fuller says that he had absolute command of two things not easily controlled—"his own passions and the purses of his parishioners." White wrote Conant and his associates to stick by the work, and promised to obtain for them a patent and fully provide them with means to carry on the fur trade. The matter was discussed in Lincolnshire and London, and soon a powerful association came into being and lent its help.

Other men, some of whom are historic personages, began to take a leading part, and there was at first no common religious purpose among the new associates. The contemporary literature is curiously free from any special appeal to Puritanic principles, and the arguments put forward are much the same as those urged for the settlement of Virginia. The work of planting a new colony was taken up enthusiastically, and a patent, dated March 19, 1628, was obtained from the Council for New England, conceding to six grantees, Sir Henry Rosewell, Sir John Young, Thomas Southcot, John Humphrey, John Endicott, and Simon Whitcombe, "all that Parte of New England in America aforesaid, which lyes and extendes betweene a greate River there comonlie called Monomack alias Merriemack, and a certen other River there, called Charles River, being in the Bottome of a certayne Bay there, comonlie called Massachusetts alias Mattachusetts, ... and ... lyeing within the Space of three English Myles on the South Parte of the said Charles River, ... and also ... within the space of three English Myles to the Northward of the said River called Monomack, ... throughout the Mayne Landes there, from the Atlantick and Westerne Sea and Ocean on the East Parte, to the South Sea on the West Parte."

The patent also gave to the company "all Jurisdiccons, Rights, Royalties, Liberties, Freedoms, Ymmunities, Priviledges, Franchises, Preheminences, and Commodities, whatsoever, which they, the said Council established at Plymouth, ... then had, ... within the saide Landes and Premisses."[3] On account of the reckless manner in which the Council for New England granted away its territory, the patent conflicted with several others of an earlier date. In March, 1622, they had granted to John Mason a patent for all the land between Naumkeag and the Merrimac River. Then, in December, 1622, a part of this territory having a front of ten miles "upon the northeast side of Boston Bay," and extending thirty miles into the interior, was granted to Captain Robert Gorges.[4] Next, at the division in June, 1623, the part of New England about Boston Bay fell to Lord Sheffield, the earl of Warwick, and Lord Edward Gorges, a cousin of Sir Ferdinando. The rights under the first and last of these grants were surrendered in 1629,[5] but, according to Ferdinando Gorges, he, as one of the council, only sanctioned the patent to Rosewell and his partners on the understanding that the grant to his son should not be interfered with; and the maintenance of this claim was the occasion of dispute for some years.[6]

June 20, 1628, the new company sent out a party of emigrants under John Endicott, who arrived, September 6, at Naumkeag, where, with the number already on Boston Bay at their coming, they made about fifty or sixty persons. He found the remains of Conant's company disposed to question the claims of the new-comers, but the dispute was amicably arranged, and in commemoration Naumkeag was given the name of Salem, the Hebrew word for "Peaceful."[7]

For nearly a year little is known of the settlers except that in the winter some died of the scurvy and others of an "infectious fever."[8] Endicott wrote to Plymouth for medical assistance, and Bradford sent Dr. Samuel Fuller, whose services were thankfully acknowledged. One transaction which has come down to us shows that Endicott's government early marked out the lines on which the Massachusetts colony travelled for many years afterwards. Endicott made it evident that he would make no compromise with any of the "ungodly" in Massachusetts. Morton's settlement fell within Endicott's jurisdiction, and he resolved to finish the work which the Plymouth people began. So, about three months after the first visit, Endicott, with a small party, crossed the bay, hewed down the abominable May-pole, and, solemnly dubbing the place Mount Dago, in memory of the Philistine idol which fell down before the ark of the Lord, "admonished Morton's men to look ther should be better walking."

In the mean time, important events were happening in England. John Oldham, having Thomas Morton in custody, landed at Plymouth, England, not long after Endicott left for America. Morton posed as a martyr to religious persecution, and Oldham, who remembered his own troubles with the Plymouth settlers, soon fraternized with him. They acted in connection with Ferdinando Gorges and his son John Gorges, who, instead of punishing Morton for illicit trading, made use of him and Oldham to dispute the title of the grant to Endicott and his associates. Robert Gorges was then dead, and his brother John was heir to his patent for the northeast side of Massachusetts Bay.

Accordingly, John Gorges, in January, 1629, executed two deeds—one to John Oldham and the other to Sir William Brereton—for two tracts of land out of the original grant to Robert Gorges. Oldham planted himself on his new rights, and tried to make his patent the means to obtain from the Massachusetts Company in England the exclusive management of the colony's fur trade, or the recognition of his rights as an independent trader. But the company had already set aside the profits of the fur trade as a fund for the defence of the colony and the support of the public worship, and they would make no concession.[9] Instead, they took the best means to strengthen their title and suppress such disturbers as Oldham.

A royal charter was solicited, and March 4, 1629, one of liberal powers passed the seals, chiefly through the influence of the earl of Warwick.[10] It created a corporation by the name of the "Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay in New England," and confirmed to them all the territory given by the patent from the Council for New England. The administration of its affairs was intrusted to a governor, deputy, and eighteen assistants, who were annually, on the last Wednesday of Easter term, to be elected by the freemen or members of the corporation, and to meet once a month or oftener "for despatching such business as concerned the company or plantation." Four times a year the governor, assistants, and all the freemen were to be summoned to "a greate generall, and solemne assemblie," and these "greate and generall courts" were invested with full power to choose and admit into the company so many as they should think fit, to elect and constitute all requisite subordinate officers, and to make laws and ordinances for the welfare of the company and for the government of the plantation.

The company was given the power to transport to its American territory all persons who should go willingly, but the corporate body alone was to decide what liberties, if any, the emigrants should enjoy. In fact, the only restrictions in the charter upon the company and its court of assistants were that they should license no man "to rob or spoil," hinder no one from fishing upon the coast of New England, and pass "no law contrary or repugnant to the lawes and statutes of England." Matthew Cradock was named in the charter the governor of the company.

One of the first steps taken by the company under the new charter was to organize a temporary local government for the colonists in Massachusetts. This was to consist of a governor, a deputy governor, and thirteen councillors, of whom seven were to be named by the company, three were to be chosen by these seven and the governor, and three more were to be appointed by the "old planters" found in Massachusetts at the arrival of Endicott. Land was allotted on a plan like that adopted by the London Company: each shareholder was to have two hundred acres for every L50 that he invested, and if he settled in that country, fifty more for himself and fifty more for each member of his family.[11]

A letter of instructions was draughted, April 17, to Governor Endicott, in which mention was made of the negotiations with Oldham, and orders given to effect an occupation of the territory covered by his grant from John Gorges. This letter was sent off by a special ship which reached Salem June 20, 1629, and Endicott promptly despatched three brothers of the name of Sprague, and a few others, who planted themselves at Mishawum, within the disputed territory, where they found but "one English palisadoed and thatched house wherein lived Thomas Walford, a smith." Other emigrants followed, and there, in July, was laid out by Endicott a town which was named Charlestown. This practically ended the difficulty with Oldham, who was kept in the dark till the ship sailed from England, and was then told by the company that they were determined, on advice of counsel, to treat his grant as void. As for Brereton, he was made a member of the company and did not give any real trouble.[12]

May 11, 1629, sailed from London five ships carrying about four hundred settlers, most of whom were servants, and one hundred and forty head of cattle and forty goats. They arrived at Salem, June 27, and about four weeks later the ecclesiastical organization of the colony was effected by John Endicott, who had already written to Bradford that the worship at Plymouth was "no other than is warranted by the evidence of the truth." He set apart July 20 for the work, and, after a portion of the morning spent in prayer, Samuel Skelton and Francis Higginson, two of the four ministers who accompanied the last arrivals, avowed their belief in the doctrines of the Independents, and were elected respectively pastor and teacher. A confession of faith and a church covenant were drawn up, and August 6 thirty persons associated themselves in a church.[13]

Two of the gentlemen emigrants, John and Samuel Browne, presumed to hold a separate service with a small company, using the Prayer Book. Thereupon the hot-headed Endicott arrested them, put them on shipboard, and sent them back to England. This conduct of Endicott's was a flagrant aggression on vested rights, since the Brownes appear in the charter as original promoters of the colony, and were sent to Massachusetts by the company in the high capacity of assistants or councillors to Endicott himself. The two brothers complained in England, and in October, 1629, the company sent Endicott a warning against "undigested counsels ... which may have any ill construction with the state here and make us obnoxious to an adversary."[14]

In another particular Endicott showed the summary character which distinguished him. When Morton arrived in London a prisoner, in 1628, Isaac Allerton was trying to secure from the Council for New England a new patent for Plymouth colony. In Morton he appears to have recognized a convenient medium for reaching Sir Ferdinando Gorges; at any rate, when Allerton returned to New England in the summer of 1629, he brought Thomas Morton back with him, to the scandal of the Plymouth community.[15] After a few weeks at Plymouth, Morton repaired to Merry Mount and resumed the business of a fur-trader, but, as might have been expected, he was soon brought into conflict with his neighbors.

Endicott, it appears, not long after Morton's return, in pursuance of instructions from England, summoned all the settlers in Massachusetts to a general court at Salem. At this meeting, according to Morton, Endicott tendered to all present for signature articles binding them "to follow the rule of God's word in all causes as well ecclesiasticall as politicall." The alternative was banishment, but Morton says that he declined to subscribe without the words in the Massachusetts charter, "so as nothing be done contrary or repugnant to the Lawes of the Kingdome of England." Endicott took fire at the independent claims of Morton and sent a party to arrest him. They found Morton gone, whereupon they broke into his house and appropriated his corn and other property.[16]

Meanwhile, in England, an important determination had been reached by the leaders of the Massachusetts Company. At a general court, July 28, 1629, Cradock, the governor, read "certain propositions conceived by himself" for transferring the headquarters of the company to America.[17] The matter was held in abeyance, and the members present were instructed to consider the question "privately and secretely." August 26 twelve of the most influential members, among whom were John Winthrop, Isaac Johnson, Thomas Dudley, and Richard Saltonstall, bound themselves by a written agreement at Cambridge to emigrate with their families to New England if a transfer of the government could be effected.[18]

Three days later the company held another meeting, when the removal was formally proposed and carried. Accordingly, such of the old officers as did not wish to take part in the emigration resigned their places, and for governor the choice fell upon John Winthrop, a wealthy gentleman of Groton, in Suffolk, and for deputy governor upon Thomas Dudley, who had been steward of the earl of Lincoln. The ultimate effect of this brilliant stroke was to convert the company into a colony.[19]

This change of policy was taken when affairs looked particularly dark in England, for it was about this time that King Charles, provoked at the opposition of Parliament, entered upon his policy of ruling without one. March 10, 1629, Parliament was dissolved, and no other was called for a space of eleven years. Several of the most eminent members were languishing in the Tower of London, and the king's proclamation of March 27 announced that he would "account it as a presumption for any to prescribe any time unto us for Parliaments, the calling, continuing, and dissolving of which is always in our power."[20]

The result was a general stir throughout England, and in a few months a thousand persons prepared to leave. They went in several parties in seventeen ships, and there was probably a greater proportion of men of wealth and solid respectability than ever had left England for America in any one year before. The colonists, though Puritans, were church of England men, and the idea of any separation from their old religious connections was expressly disclaimed in a pamphlet published in 1630, entitled the "Planters' Plea,"[21] which has been, with good reason, assigned to Rev. John White. In this paper the writer appeals to the address of the colonists at their departure, wherein they termed the church of England "our dear mother."[22] Apparently anxious to repel the imputation of nonconformity against "our New England colony," he adds the confident assertion that John Winthrop, the chosen governor, has been "in every way regular and conformable in the whole course of his practice"; and that "three parts of four of the men planted in New England are able to justify themselves to have lived in a constant conformity unto our church government and orders."

The party with which Winthrop sailed arrived at Salem June 12, 1630, after a nine weeks' voyage, in which they were exposed to stormy and boisterous weather. They found the colony of Endicott in "a sad and unexpected condition." More than a fourth part had died during the previous winter, and many of the survivors were weak and sick. There was a general scarcity of bread and corn, and the arrival of Winthrop and his emigrants did not improve matters, for many of the new-comers were suffering from scurvy, and a quantity of supplies which had been bought in England had by some mistake been left behind.[23]

[Footnote 1: Hubbard, New England (Mass. Hist. Soc., Collections, 2d series, V.), 107, 108.]

[Footnote 2: Planters' Plea (Force, Tracts, II., No. iii.).]

[Footnote 3: The patent is not preserved, but there is a recital of its main feature in the Massachusetts charter. Poore, Charters and Constitutions, I., 932.]

[Footnote 4: Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1574-1660, pp. 25, 35; Gorges, Description of New England (Mass. Hist. Soc., Collections, 3d series, VI., 75).]

[Footnote 5: Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1661-1668, p. 347.]

[Footnote 6: Gorges, Description of New England, 80.]

[Footnote 7: Hubbard, New England (Mass. Hist. Soc., Collections, 2d series, V., 109).]

[Footnote 8: Bradford, Plimoth Plantation, 314.]

[Footnote 9: Young, Chronicles of Massachusetts, 148; Adams, Three Episodes of Mass. Hist., I., 216.]

[Footnote 10: See charter in Poore, Charters and Constitutions, I., 932.]

[Footnote 11: Young, Chronicles of Massachusetts, 192-200.]

[Footnote 12: Hutchinson, Massachusetts Bay, I., 17; Adams, Three Episodes of Mass. Hist., I., 216-220.]

[Footnote 13: Bradford, Plimoth Plantation, 315, 316.]

[Footnote 14: Young, Chronicles of Massachusetts, 89, 290.]

[Footnote 15: Bradford, Plimoth Plantation, 302.]

[Footnote 16: Morton, New English Canaan (Force, Tracts, II., No. v.), 106, 107.]

[Footnote 17: Mass. Col. Records, I., 49.]

[Footnote 18: Young, Chronicles of Massachusetts, 282-284.]

[Footnote 19: Mass. Col. Records, I., 51.]

[Footnote 20: Rymer, Foedera, XIX., 63.]

[Footnote 21: Force, Tracts, II., No. iii.]

[Footnote 22: Palfrey, New England, I., 312.]

[Footnote 23: Thomas Dudley, letter to the countess of Lincoln (Force, Tracts, II., No. iv.).]



CHAPTER XII

FOUNDING OF MASSACHUSETTS

(1630-1642)

Winthrop's government superseded Endicott's; but Winthrop, not liking the appearance of the country around Salem, repaired to Charlestown with most of the new-comers. Here, as elsewhere, there was much sickness and death. Owing to the dearth of provisions it was found necessary to free all the servants sent over within the last two years at a cost of L16 or L20 each. The discouragement was reflected in the return to England within a few months of more than a hundred persons in the ships that brought them over.

The gloom of his surroundings caused Winthrop to set apart July 30 as a day of prayer, and on that day Rev. John Wilson, after the manner of proceeding the year before at Salem, entered into a church covenant with Winthrop, Dudley, and Isaac Johnson, one of the assistants. Two days later they associated with themselves five others; and more being presently added, this third congregational church established in New England, elected, August 27, John Wilson to be their teacher and Increase Nowell to be ruling elder.[1]

Still the guise of loyalty to the church of England was for some time maintained. In a letter to the countess of Lincoln, March 28, 1631, the deputy governor, Thomas Dudley, one of the warmest of the Puritans, repelled "the false and scandalous report," which those who returned "the last year" had spread in England that "we are Brownists in religion and ill affected to our state at home"; "and for our further cleareinge," he said, "I truely affirme that I know noe one person who came over with us the last yeare to be altered in his judgment and affection eyther in ecclesiasticall or civill respects since our comeinge hither."[2]

Winthrop and his assistants held their first formal session at Charlestown, August 23, 1630, and took vigorous measures to demonstrate their authority. Morton challenged attention on account not only of his religious views and his friendship for Gorges, but of his defiant attitude to the colony, and an order was issued that "Morton, of Mount Wolliston, should presently be sent for by process." Two weeks later his trial was had, and he was ordered "to be set into the bilboes," and afterwards sent prisoner to England. To defray the charges of his transportation, his goods were seized, and "for the many wrongs he had done the Indians" his house was burned to the ground,[3] a sentence which, according to Morton, caused the Indians to say that "God would not love them that burned this good man's house."[4]

Death was still playing havoc with the immigrants at Charlestown. Several hundred men, women, and children were crowded together in a narrow space, and had no better protection than tents, wigwams, booths, and log-cabins. By December two hundred of the late arrivals had perished, and among the dead were Francis Higginson, who had taken a leading part in establishing the church at Salem, the first in Massachusetts.[5] The severity of the diseases was ascribed to the lack of good water at Charlestown, and, accordingly, the settlers there broke up into small parties and sought out different places of settlement.

On the other side of the Charles River was a peninsula occupied by William Blackstone, one of the companions of Robert Gorges at Wessagusset in 1626. It was blessed with a sweet and pleasant spring, and was one of the places now selected as a settlement. September 7, 1630, the court of assistants gave this place the name of Boston; and at the same court Dorchester and Watertown began their career under legislative sanction.[6] Before winter the towns scattered through Massachusetts were eight in number—Salem, Charlestown, Dorchester, Boston, Watertown, Roxbury, Mystic, and Lynn.[7]

October 19, 1630, a general court, the first in New England, was held in Boston. The membership consisted of the governor, deputy, eight assistants, and one or two others, for these were all at that time in Massachusetts possessing the franchise of the company.[8] The former officers were re-elected, and a resolution was adopted that "the freemen should have the power to choose assistants when they are to be chosen, and the assistants to choose from among themselves the governor and his deputy." The rule implied a strong reluctance to leave out of the board any person once elected magistrate.

From the last week in December to the middle of February, 1631, the suffering in the colony was very great, especially among the poorer classes, and many died. Were it not for the abundance of clams, mussels, and fish gathered from the bay there might have been a "starving time," like that of Jamestown in 1609. Winthrop appointed a fast to be kept February 22, 1631; but February 5 the Lyon arrived with supplies, and a public thanksgiving was substituted for a public fasting.[9]

From this time the colony may be said to have secured a permanent footing. The court of assistants, who had suspended their sessions during the winter, now began to meet again, and made many orders with reference to the economic and social affairs of the colonists. There were few natives in the neighborhood of the settlement, and Chickatabot, their sachem, anxious to secure the protection of the English against the Taratines, of Maine, visited Boston in April and established friendly communications.[10] At the courts of elections of 1631, 1632, and 1633 Winthrop was re-elected governor. His conduct was not deemed harsh enough by some people, and in 1634 Thomas Dudley succeeded him. In 1635 Jonn Haynes became governor, and in 1636 Henry Vane, known in English history as Sir Harry Vane, after which time the governorship was restored to Winthrop.

Puritanism entered the warp and woof of the Massachusetts colony, and a combination of circumstances tended to build up a theocracy which dominated affairs. The ministers who came over were among the most learned men of the age, and the influence which their talents and character gave them was greatly increased by the sufferings and the isolation of the church members, who were thus brought to confide all the more in those who, under such conditions, dispensed religious consolation. Moreover, the few who had at first the direction of civil matters were strongly religious men, and inclined to promote the unity of the church by all the means at hand.

We have noticed the turn of affairs given by Endicott at Salem, and how Winthrop followed his example on his arrival at Charlestown. After the court of assistants resumed their meetings in March, 1631, the upbuilding of the theocracy was rapidly pushed. Various people deemed inimical to the accepted state of affairs were punished with banishment from the colony, and in some cases the penalties of whipping, cropping of ears, and confiscation of estate were added. In some cases, as that of Sir Christopher Gardiner, a secret agent of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, there was reason for parting with these people; but in other cases the principle of punishment was persecution and not justice. There is a record of an order for reshipping to England six persons of whose offence nothing more is recorded than "that they were persons unmeet to inhabit here."[11]

The most decided enlargement of the power of the theocracy was made in the general court which met at Boston in May, 1631, when it was resolved that the assistants need not be chosen afresh every year, but might keep their seats until removed by a special vote of the freemen.[12] The company was enlarged by the addition of one hundred and eighteen "freemen"; but "to the end that the body of the commons may be preserved of honest and good men," it was ordered that "for the time to come no man should be admitted to the freedom of this body politic but such as are members of some of the churches within the limits of the same."

These proceedings practically vested all the judicial and legislative powers in the court of assistants, whose tenure was permanent, and left to the freemen in the general court little else than the power of admitting freemen. Not only was citizenship based on church-membership, but the Bible was the only law-book recognized by the court of assistants. Of this book the ministers were naturally thought the best interpreters, and it thus became the custom for the magistrates to consult them on all questions of importance. Offenders were not merely law-breakers, but sinners, and their offences ranged from such as wore long hair to such as dealt in witchcraft and sorcery.

Fortunately, this system did not long continue without some modification. In February, 1632, the court of assistants assessed a tax upon the towns for the erection of a fortification at Newtown, subsequently Cambridge. The inhabitants of Watertown grumbled about paying their proportion of this tax, and at the third general court, May 9, 1632, it was ordered that hereafter the governor and assistants in laying taxes should be guided by the advice of a board composed of two delegates from every town; and that the governor and other magistrates should be elected by the whole body of the freemen assembled as the charter required.

Two years later a general court consisting of the governor, assistants, and two "committees," or delegates, elected by the freemen resident in each town, assembled and assumed the powers of legislation.[13] This change, which brought about a popular representative body—second in point of time only to Virginia—was a natural extension of the proceedings of 1632. In 1644 the assistants and delegates quarrelled over an appeal in a lawsuit, and as a result the division of the court into two co-ordinate branches occurred.[14]

Nevertheless, the authority of the court of assistants, for several reasons, continued to be very great. In the first place, unlike the Council of Virginia, which could only amend or reject the action of the lower house, the assistants had the right of originating laws. Then the custom at the annual elections of first putting the names of the incumbents to the vote made the tenure of its members a pretty constant affair. Next, as a court, it exercised for years a vast amount of discretionary power. Not till 1641 was the first code, called the Body of Liberties, adopted, and this code itself permitted the assistants to supply any defect in the law by the "word of God," a phrase which to the followers of Calvin had especial reference to the fierce legislation of the Old Testament.

The course of the colonial authorities speedily jeopardized the charter which they obtained so readily from the king. Upon the arrival in England, in 1631, of Morton, Gardiner, and other victims of the court of assistants, they communicated with Gorges (now powerfully assisted by John Mason); and he gladly seized upon their complaints to accuse the ministers and people of Massachusetts of railing against the state and church of England, and of an evident purpose of casting off their allegiance at the first favorable opportunity. The complaint was referred, in December, 1632, to a committee of the council,[15] before whom the friends of the company in London—Cradock, Saltonstall, and Humphrey—filed a written answer. Affairs bore a bad appearance for the colonists, but the unexpected happened. Powerful influences at court were brought to bear upon the members of the committee, and to the astonishment of every one they reported, January 19, 1633, against any interference until "further inquiry" could be made.[16] King Charles not only approved this report, but volunteered the remark that "he would have them severely punished who did abuse his governor and the plantation."[17]

Though the danger for the present was avoided, it was not wholly removed. In August, 1633, Laud was made archbishop of Canterbury, and his accession to authority was distinguished by a more rigorous enforcement of the laws against Nonconformists. The effect was to cause the lagging emigration to New England to assume immense volume. There was no longer concealment of the purposes of the emigrants, for the Puritan preachers began everywhere to speak openly of the corruptions of the English church.[18] In September, 1633, the theocracy of Massachusetts were reinforced by three eminent ministers, John Cotton, Thomas Hooker, and Thomas Shepard; and so many other persons accompanied and followed them that by the end of 1634 the population was not far short of four thousand. The clergy, now thirteen or fourteen in number, were nearly all graduates of Oxford or Cambridge.

This exodus of so many of the best, "both ministers and Christians,"[19] aroused the king and Archbishop Laud to the danger threatened by the Massachusetts colony. Gorges, Mason, and the rest renewed the attack, and in February, 1634, an order was obtained from the Privy Council for the detention of ten vessels bound for Massachusetts. At the same time Cradock, the ex-governor of the company, was commanded by the Privy Council to hand in the Massachusetts charter.[20] Soon after, the king announced his intention of "giving order for a general governor" for New England; and in April, 1634, he appointed a new commission for the government of the colonies, called "The Commission for Foreign Plantations," with William Laud, archbishop of Canterbury, at the head. Mr. Cradock transmitted a copy of the order of council, requiring a production of the charter, to Boston, where it was received by Governor Dudley in July, 1634.

This was a momentous crisis in the history of the colony. The governor and assistants made answer to Mr. Cradock that the charter could not be returned except by command of the general court, not then in session. At the same time orders were given for fortifying Castle Island, Dorchester, and Charlestown. In this moment of excitement the figure of Endicott again dramatically crosses the stage of history. Conceiving an intense dislike to the cross in the English flag, he denounced it as antichrist, and cut it out with his own hands from the ensign borne by the company at Salem. Endicott was censured by the general court for the act, but soon the cross was left out of all the flags except that of the fort at Castle Island, in Boston Harbor.[21]

Massachusetts, while taking these bold measures at home, did not neglect the protection of her interests in England. The government of Plymouth, in July, 1634, sent Edward Winslow to England, and Governor Dudley and his council engaged him to present an humble petition in their behalf.[22] Winslow was a shrewd diplomat, but was so far from succeeding with his suit that upon his appearance before the lords commissioners in 1635 he was, through Laud's "vehement importunity," committed to Fleet Prison, where he lay seventeen weeks.[23]

Gorges and Mason lost no time in improving their victory. February 3, 1635, they secured a redivision of the coast of New England by the Council for New England, into twelve parts, which were assigned to as many persons. Sir William Alexander received the country from the river St. Croix to Pemaquid; Sir Ferdinando Gorges, the province of Maine from Penobscot to Piscataqua; Captain John Mason, New Hampshire and part of Massachusetts as far as Cape Ann, while the coast from Cape Ann to Narragansett Bay fell to Lord Edward Gorges, and the portion from Narragansett Bay to the Connecticut River to the marquis of Hamilton.[24]

April 25, 1635, the Council for New England issued a formal declaration of their reasons for resigning the great charter to the king, chief among which was their inability to rectify the complaints of their servants in America against the Massachusetts Company, who had "surreptitiously" obtained a charter for lands "justly passed to Captain Robert Gorges long before."[25] June 7 the charter was surrendered to the king, who appointed Sir Ferdinando Gorges "general governor." The expiring company further appointed Thomas Morton as their lawyer to ask for a quo warranto against the charter of the Massachusetts Company.

In September, 1635, judgment was given in Westminster Hall that "the franchises of the Massachusetts Company be taken and seized into the king's hands."[26] But, as Winthrop said, the Lord "frustrated their designs." King Charles was trying to rule without a Parliament, and had no money to spend against New England. Therefore, the cost of carrying out the orders of the government devolved upon Mason and Gorges, who set to work to build a ship to convey the latter to America, but it fell and broke in the launching,[27] and about November, 1635, Captain John Mason died.

After this, though the king in council, in July, 1637, named Gorges again as "general governor,"[28] and the Lords Commissioners for Plantations, in April, 1638, demanded the charter anew,[29] the Massachusetts general court would not recognize either order. Gorges could not raise the necessary funds to compel obedience, and the attention of the king and his archbishop was occupied with forcing episcopacy upon Scotland. In 1642 war began in England between Parliament and king, and Massachusetts was left free to shape her own destinies. It was now her turn to become aggressive. Construing her charter to mean that her territory extended to a due east line three miles north of the most northerly branch of Merrimac River, she possessed herself, in 1641, of New Hampshire, the territory of the heirs of John Mason; and in 1653-1658, of Maine, the province of Gorges.

When the Long Parliament met, in 1641, the Puritans in England found enough occupation at home, and emigration greatly diminished. In 1643 Massachusetts became a member of the New England confederation, and her population was then about fifteen thousand; but nearly as many more had come over and were distributed among three new colonies—Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Haven.

[Footnote 1: Bradford, Plimoth Plantation, 332; Winthrop, New England, I., 36.]

[Footnote 2: Force, Tracts, II., No. iv., 15.]

[Footnote 3: Mass. Col. Records, I., 75.]

[Footnote 4: Morton, New English Canaan (Force, Tracts, II., No. v.), 109.]

[Footnote 5: Dudley's letter (ibid., No. iv.).]

[Footnote 6: Mass. Col. Records, I., 75, 77.]

[Footnote 7: Palfrey, New England, I., 323, 324]

[Footnote 8: Ibid., 323.]

[Footnote 9: Hubbard, New England (Mass. Hist. Soc., Collections, 2d series, V.), 138, 139; Winthrop, New England, I., 52.]

[Footnote 10: Winthrop, New England, I., 64.]

[Footnote 11: Mass. Col. Records, I., 82.]

[Footnote 12: Ibid., 87.]

[Footnote 13: Winthrop, New England, I., 84, 90, 152.]

[Footnote 14: Mass. Col. Records, II., 58, 59; Winthrop, New England, II., 115-118, 193.]

[Footnote 15: Cal. of State Pap., Col. 1574-1660, p. 158.]

[Footnote 16: Bradford, Plimoth Plantation, 356.]

[Footnote 17: Winthrop, New England, I., 122, 123.]

[Footnote 18: Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1574-1660, p. 174.]

[Footnote 19: Winthrop, New England, I., 161.]

[Footnote 20: Hazard, State Papers, I., 341.]

[Footnote 21: Winthrop, New England, I., 161, 163, 166, 186, 188, 224.]

[Footnote 22: Winthrop, New England, I., 163.]

[Footnote 23: Bradford, Plimoth Plantation, 393.]

[Footnote 24: Maine Hist. Soc., Collections, 2d series, VII., 183-188.]

[Footnote 25: Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1574-1660, pp. 200, 204.]

[Footnote 26: Hazard, State Papers, I., 423-425.]

[Footnote 27: Winthrop, New England, II., 12.]

[Footnote 28: Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1574-1660, p. 256.]

[Footnote 29: Hazard, State Papers, I., 432.]



CHAPTER XIII

RELIGION AND GOVERNMENT IN MASSACHUSETTS

(1631-1638)

The history of the beginnings of the Massachusetts colony shows that there was no real unity in church matters among the first emigrants. The majority were strongly tinctured with Puritanism, but nonconformity took on many shades of opinion. When it came to adopting a form of religion for Massachusetts, the question was decided by the ministers and the handful who then enjoyed the controlling power in the colony, and not by the majority of inhabitants. It was in this way that the Congregational church, and not the Presbyterian church, or a simplified form of the Anglican church, obtained its first hold upon the colony.

The adoption of the law of 1631 making membership in the Congregational church the condition of citizenship, and the arrival at a later day of so many talented ministers embittered by persecution against the Anglican church, strengthened the connection and made it permanent. "God's word" was the law of the state, and the interpretation of it was the natural function of the clergy. Thus, through church influence, the limitations on thought and religious practice became more stringent than in the mother-country, where the suffrage took in all freeholders, whether they were adherents of the established church or not.

In Massachusetts even Puritans who declined to acknowledge the form of church government prescribed by the self-established ecclesiastical authority were practically aliens, compelled to bear the burdens of church and state, and without a chance of making themselves felt in the government. And yet, from their own point of view, the position of the Puritan rulers was totally illogical. While suffering from persecution in England, they had appealed to liberty of conscience; and when dominant in America the denouncers of persecution turned persecutors.

A spirit of resistance on the part of many was the natural consequence of a position so full of contradiction. Instances of contumacy happened with such frequency and determination as should have given warning to those in control. In November, 1631, Richard Brown, an elder in the Watertown church, was reported to hold that "the Romish church was a Christian church." Forthwith the court of assistants notified the Watertown congregation that such views could not be allowed, and Winthrop, who went in person with the deputy governor, Dudley, used such summary arguments that Richard Brown, though "a man of violent spirit," thought it prudent to hold his tongue thereafter. In November, 1634, John Eliot, known afterwards so well for his noble work among the Indians, in a sermon censured the court for proceeding too arbitrarily towards the Pequots. He, too, thought better of his words when a solemn embassy of ministers presented the matter in a more orthodox light.

In March, 1635, Captain Israel Stoughton, one of the deputies from Dorchester to the general court, incurred the resentment of the authorities. This "troubler of Israel," as Governor Winthrop termed him, wrote a pamphlet denying the right of the governor and assistants to call themselves "Scriptural Magistrates." Being questioned by the court, the captain made haste, according to the record, to desire that "the said book might be burned as being weak and oppressive." Still unsatisfied, the court ordered that for his said offence he should for three years be disabled from bearing any office in the colony.[1]

The first great check which this religious despotism received proceeded from Roger Williams, who arrived in February, 1631, in the Lyon, which brought supplies to the famishing colonists of Massachusetts. He was the son of a merchant in London and a graduate of Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he took the degree of master of arts in 1627. In his mere religious creed Williams was harsher than even the orthodox ministers of Massachusetts. Soon after his arrival he was invited to become one of the ministers of the Boston church, but refused because that church declined to make a public declaration of their repentance for holding communion in the churches of England while they lived in the home country.

He was then invited to Salem, where he made himself very popular by his talents and eloquence. Nevertheless, within two months he advanced other "scrupulosities," denying the validity of land-titles proceeding from the Massachusetts government, and the right of the magistrates to impose penalties as to Sabbath-breaking or breaches of the laws of the first table. Winthrop and his assistants complained to the Salem church, and this interference prevented his intended ordination at Salem.[2]

Williams presently removed to Plymouth, where his peculiar views were indulged, and where he improved his time in learning the Indian language and cultivating the acquaintance of the chief sachems of the neighboring Indian tribes. When, two years later, in 1633, Williams returned to live at Salem for the purpose of assisting the minister, Mr. Skelton, who was sick, the rulers of the church at Plymouth granted him a dismissal, but accompanied it with some words of warning about his "unsettled judgment and inconsistency."[3]

Williams was soon in trouble in Massachusetts. While at Plymouth his interest in the Indians led him to prepare for the private reading of Bradford a pamphlet which argued that the king of England had no right to give away the lands of the Indians in America. The pamphlet had never been published, but reports of its contents reached Boston, and the court of assistants, following, as usual, the advice of the ministers, pounced upon the author and summoned him to answer for what it was claimed was a denial of their charter rights.

When Williams appeared for this purpose, in January, 1634, the objections of the court shifted to some vague phrases in the document which they construed to reflect upon the king. These expressions were readily explained by Williams, and he was promptly forgiven by the court on his professing loyalty and taking the usual oath of allegiance to his majesty.[4] Perhaps this singular behavior on the part of the court is explained by the apprehension generally felt that Ferdinando Gorges, in England, would succeed in his attempt to vacate the charter of Massachusetts. If the charter had been successfully called in, Williams's ground of the sufficiency of the Indian title to lands might have proved useful as a last resort.[5]

Nevertheless, in November, 1634, the authorities were on his track again. The pretext now was that Williams "taught publicly against the king's patent," and that "he termed the churches of England antichristian." This revamping of an old charge which had been explained and dropped was probably due to a change of attitude towards the English government. In May, 1634, the general court elected the intolerant deputy governor, Thomas Dudley, governor in the place of Winthrop; and when in July the news of the demand of the Lords Commissioners for Foreign Plantations for the surrender of the colony charter was received at Boston, the new governor took steps, as we have seen, to commit the colony to a fight rather than yield compliance.[6]

Nothing, however, resulted from the charges against Williams, and it was not until March, 1635, that he again excited the wrath of the government. Then his scruples took the shape of objections to the recent legislation requiring every resident to swear to defend the provincial charter. Williams declared that the state had no right to demand an oath of an "unregenerate man," for that "we thereby had communion with a wicked man in the worship of God and caused him to take the name of God in vain."

Williams was, accordingly, summoned to Boston in April, and subjected to confutation by the ministers, but positive action was deferred. While the matter remained thus undetermined, the church at Salem elected him teacher, and this action was construed as a contempt on the part of both Williams and the Salem church. Accordingly, when the general court met in July, 1635, Haynes now being governor, it entered an order giving them till next court to make satisfaction for their conduct. At the same court a petition of the Salem church for some land in Marblehead Neck was rejected "because they had chosen Mr. Williams their teacher."

Affairs had now drawn to a crisis. The Salem church wrote a letter to all the other churches protesting against their treatment, and Williams notified his own church that he would not commune with them unless they declined to commune with the other churches of the colony.

When the general court met in September, Salem was punished with the loss of representation, and thereupon gave way and submitted. Not so Williams. In October, 1635, he was again "convented," and on his refusing, in the presence of all the ministers of the colony, to renounce his opinions, he was banished from Massachusetts. The time given him to depart was only six weeks, and though some of the laymen in the church opposed the decree, every clerical member save one approved it.

Liberty to remain till spring was afterwards granted Williams, but he was admonished not to go about to draw others to his opinions. As Williams was one of those contentious people who must talk, this inhibition was futile. It is true that he no longer preached in his church, as the congregation had submitted to the will of those in power. But he conversed in private with some of his friends, and arranged a plan of establishing a new settlement on the shores of Narragansett Bay.

When information of this design reached Boston in January, 1636, the authorities, on the plea that an heretical settlement in the neighborhood might affect the peace of the colony, determined to get rid of Williams altogether by shipping him to England. An order was sent to him to come to Boston, which he declined to obey on account of ill-health. Captain Underhill was then sent to take him by force, but before the doughty captain could arrive, Williams, getting intelligence of his purpose, sick as he was, left his wife and two infant children and hurried away, and no one at Salem would give Underhill any information.[7]

Thirty-five years later Williams wrote, "I was sorely tossed for one fourteen weeks, in a bitter winter season, not knowing what bed or bread did mean." In this extremity he experienced the benefits of the friendly relations which he had cultivated with the Indians at Plymouth, for the Pokanokets received him kindly and gave him some land on the Seekonk River.

The long arm of the Massachusetts authorities reached out for him even here. He was soon advised by his friend, Governor Winslow, of Plymouth, that as his plantation was within the limits of the Plymouth colony he had better remove to the other side of the river, as his government was "loath to displease the Bay." So Williams, with five of his friends, who now joined him, embarked in his canoe and established his settlement in June, 1636, at Providence, where he was joined by many members of the church of Salem.[8] This was the beginning of Rhode Island, or, rather, of one of the beginnings of their complex colony.

The religion of the ruling class in Massachusetts, though bitterly hostile to the ritual of the English church, was a matter of strict regulation—there were rules regarding fast days, Sabbath attendance, prayer-meetings, apparel, and speech. The wrath of God and eternal punishment formed the substance of every sermon. In the church at Boston this rigid system found a standard exponent in the pastor, John Wilson; but the "teacher," John Cotton, a man of far greater ability, sometimes preached sermons in which he dwelt upon the divine mercy and love. The result was that the people crowded to hear him, and more persons were converted and added to the church in Boston in the earlier months of Cotton's residence than in all the other churches in the colony.[9]

Among the members of Cotton's church was Mrs. Anne Hutchinson, who knew Cotton in England and had crossed the sea to hear his teachings. After her arrival, in June, 1636, she made herself very popular by her ministrations "in time of childbirth and other occasions of bodily infirmities." Soon she ventured to hold open meetings for women, at which the sermons of the ministers furnished the subject of comment. From a mere critic of the opinions of others Mrs. Hutchinson gradually presumed to act the part of teacher herself, and her views on the questions of "a covenant of works" and "a covenant of grace" attracted much attention.[10] The former of these terms had been used by Protestants to designate the condition of the Catholic church, which imposed as the condition of salvation penances, confessions, pilgrimages, legacies to the church, etc.; while the latter expression described the condition of all true Protestant Christians who found peace in the consciousness of holiness of spirit and faith in Jesus Christ.

Mrs. Hutchinson gave an emotional rendering to the "covenant of grace," and held that the divine spirit dwelt in every true believer and no demeanor in life could evidence its existence. To the Massachusetts ministers this doctrine seemed like a claim to inspiration, and struck at the whole discipline of the church. But what disturbed them more than anything else was the report that she had singled out two of the whole order, John Cotton and her brother-in-law John Wheelwright, to praise as walking in "the covenant of grace."[11]

The quarrel began first in the bosom of the Boston church. Wilson, the pastor, resented Mrs. Hutchinson's preference of Mr. Cotton, the teacher, and began to denounce Mrs. Hutchinson's opinions. The congregation divided into two factions; on the one side was the pastor, supported by John Winthrop and a few others, and on the other were Mrs. Hutchinson, young Harry Vane, then governor, and the large majority of the members. Mr. Cotton was not identified with either side, but sympathized with the latter. Matters verged to a crisis when the Hutchinsonians announced their intention of electing Mr. Wheelwright, who had not long since arrived, as a second teacher in the church.

The election was to take place on Sunday, October 30, 1636; but October 25 the general court met and the ministers from other parts of the colony came to Boston and held a conference at which Cotton, Wheelwright, and Wilson were present, and there was a general discussion of all points in controversy. They agreed that "sanctification" (i.e., a holy deportment) did help to evidence "justification" (salvation); but there was more or less difference on the question of the "indwelling of the Holy Ghost." Mr. Wheelwright argued in its favor, but held that the indwelling referred to did not amount to "a personal union with God," as Mrs. Hutchinson and Governor Vane contended.

The conference instead of quieting aggravated the difficulty. Five days later, when Mr. Wheelwright's name was voted upon, Winthrop rose and hotly objected to him on the ground that he held unorthodox opinions respecting the indwelling of the Holy Ghost and was apt to raise "doubtful disputations." As a consequence the church would not elect Wheelwright in the face of an objection from so prominent a member as Winthrop. Next day Winthrop continued his attack, insisting that Wheelwright must necessarily believe in a "personal union."

At this juncture Governor Harry Vane unfortunately gave to the existing difficulties a political aspect. Vane was the son of one of the secretaries of state of England. Having taken a religious turn, he forsook all the honors and preferments of the court and obtained the consent of his parents to visit Massachusetts. Almost immediately after his arrival, he was elected, in May, 1636, when only twenty-four years of age, governor of the colony, with John Winthrop as deputy governor. After the quarrel in regard to the election of Wheelwright, Vane, who had become tired of the distractions in the colony, convened the general court, December 10, 1636, to tender his resignation upon the half-reason that his private affairs required his presence in England.

Next day one of the assistants very feelingly regretted the coming loss, especially in view of threatened attacks from the French and Indians. The remarks took Vane off his guard. Carried away by his feelings, he burst into tears and protested that, though his outward estate was really in peril, yet he would not have thought of deserting them at this crisis had he not felt the inevitable danger of God's judgments upon them for their dissensions. Thereupon the court, of which a majority were his opponents, declined to allow his departure on the grounds assigned. Vane saw his mistake and reverted to his private estate. The court then consented to his departure, and a court of elections was called for December 15 to supply the vacancy caused by his resignation.

Before this time arrived the religious drama took a new turn. The friends of Mrs. Hutchinson knew the value of having the head of the government with them, and would not dismiss Vane from the church, whereupon he withdrew his resignation altogether. Till the next election in May the colony was more divided than ever. Mr. Wheelwright was appointed to take charge of a church at Mount Wollaston, but his forced withdrawal from Boston was a source of irritation to his numerous friends. Mrs. Hutchinson remained and was the storm-centre, while Vane, who now sought a re-election, was freely accused of subterfuge and deception.

A day or two after December 15 the ministers and the court held a meeting at which very hot words passed between Governor Vane and Rev. Hugh Peter. Wilson, the pastor of Boston, also indulged in caustic criticisms directed at Governor Vane and the other friends of Mrs. Hutchinson. By this speech Wilson gave great offence to his congregation, who would have laid a formal church censure upon him had not Cotton interfered and in lieu of it gave his fellow-preacher a good scolding, under the guise of what Winthrop calls "a grave exhortation."

The clergy were very anxious to win over Mr. Cotton, and about a week later held a meeting at Boston and solemnly catechised Cotton on many abstruse points. The storm of theological rancor was at its height. Harsh words were hurled about, and by some orthodox ministers Mrs. Hutchinson and her friends were denounced as Familists, Antinomians, etc., after certain early sects who cherished the doctrines of private inspiration and had committed many strange offences. On the other hand, some of Mrs. Hutchinson's friends scornfully referred to the orthodox party as legalists and antichrists, "who walked in a covenant of works."

Harsh words are only one step removed from harsh measures. The legalists were in a majority in the general court, and they resolved to retaliate for the treatment Mr. Wilson had received at the hands of his congregation.[12] At the general court which convened March 9, 1637, Wilson's sermon was approved and Wheelwright was summoned to answer for alleged "seditious and treasonable words" that were used by him in a sermon preached in Boston on a recent fast day. This action brought forth a petition from the church of Boston in Wheelwright's behalf, which the court declared "presumptious" and rejected. Wheelwright himself was pronounced guilty, and thereupon a protest was offered by Vane, and a second petition came from Boston, which, like the first, went unheeded, and only served at a later day to involve those who signed it.

Amid great excitement the legalists carried a resolution to hold the May election at Newtown (Cambridge) instead of Boston, a partisan move, for Newtown was more subject to their influence than Boston. At this court in May the turbulence was so great that the parties came near to blows. Threats resounded on all sides, and Wilson was so carried away with excitement that he climbed a tree to harangue the multitude. The Vane forces struggled hard, but were badly defeated, and Winthrop was restored to his former office as governor, while the stern Thomas Dudley was made deputy governor. Vane and his assistants, Coddington and Dummer, were defeated and "quite left out," even from the magistracy.[13]

Secure in the possession of power, the legalists now proceeded to suppress the opposing party altogether. An order was passed commanding that no one should harbor any new arrival for more than three weeks without leave of the magistrates. This was to prevent any dangerous irruption of sympathizers with Mrs. Hutchinson from England, and it was applied against a brother of Mrs. Hutchinson and some others of her friends who arrived not long after.

August 3, 1637, Vane sailed for England, and thenceforward the Hutchinson faction, abandoned by their great leader, made little resistance. In the latter part of the same month (August 30) a great synod of the ministers was held at Newtown, which was the first thing of the sort attempted in America, and included all the teaching elders of the colony and some new-comers from England. This body set to work to lay hold of the heresies which infected the atmosphere of the colony, and formulated about "eighty opinions," some "blasphemous," but others merely "erroneous and unsafe." How many of them were really entertained by Mrs. Hutchinson's followers and how many were merely inferences drawn from their teachings by their opponents it is hard to say.

When these heresies were all enumerated and compared with the opinions of Cotton and Wheelwright, only five points of possible heterodoxy on their part appeared. Over these there was a solemn wrangle for days, till Cotton, shrinking from his position, contrived, through abundant use of doubtfull expressions, to effect his reconciliation with the dominant party. After a session of twenty-four days the synod adjourned, and Wheelwright, alone of the ministers, was left as the scapegoat of the Antinomians, and with him the majority determined to make short work.[14]

At the general court which met November 2, 1637, the transgressions of Wheelwright through his fast-day sermon were made the basis of operations. For this offence Wheelwright had been judged guilty more than nine months before, but sentence had been deferred; he was now sentenced to disfranchisement and banishment. Many of his friends at Boston, including William Aspinwall and John Coggeshall, delegates to the general court, experienced similar treatment for signing the petition presented to the court in March, 1637, after the verdict against Wheelwright.[15]

An order was passed for disarming Mrs. Hutchinson's followers, and finally the arch-heretic herself was sent for and her examination lasted two days. In the dialogue with Winthrop which began the proceedings, Mrs. Hutchinson had decidedly the best of the controversy; and Winthrop himself confesses that "she knew when to speak and when to hold her tongue." The evidence failed wretchedly upon the main charge, which was that Mrs. Hutchinson alleged that all the ministers in Massachusetts except Mr. Cotton preached "a covenant of works." On the contrary, by her own evidence and that of Mr. Cotton and Mr. Leverett, it appeared that Mrs. Hutchinson had said that "they did not preach a covenant of grace as clearly as Mr. Cotton did," which was probably very true.[16]

Her condemnation was a matter of course, and at the end of two days the court banished her from the colony; but as it was winter she was committed to the temporary care of Mr. Joseph Welde, of Roxbury, brother of the Rev. Thomas Welde, who afterwards wrote a rancorous account of these difficulties, entitled A Short Story. While in his house, Mrs. Hutchinson was subjected to many exhortations by anxious elders, till her spirits sank under the trial and she made a retraction. Nevertheless, it was not as full as her tormentors desired, and the added penalty of dismissal from church was imposed. After her excommunication her spirits revived, "and she gloried in her condemnation and declared that it was the greatest happiness next to Christ that ever befell her."

In this affair Winthrop acted as prosecutor and judge. Before the spring had well set in he sent word to Mrs. Hutchinson to depart from the colony. Accordingly, March 28, 1638, she went by water to her farm at Mount Wollaston (now Quincy), intending to join Mr. Wheelwright, who had gone to Piscataqua, in Maine, but she changed her mind and went by land to the settlement of Roger Williams at Providence, and thence to the island of Aquidneck, where she joined her husband and other friends.[17]

Such was the so-called Antinomian controversy in Massachusetts, and its ending had a far-reaching effect upon the fortunes of the colony. The suppression of Mrs. Hutchinson and her friends produced what Winthrop and the rest evidently desired—peace—a long peace. For fifty years the commonwealth was free from any great religious agitations; but this condition of quietude, being purchased at the price of free speech and free conscience, discouraged all literature except of a theological stamp, and confirmed the aristocratic character of the government. As one of its mouth-pieces, Rev. Samuel Stone, remarked, New England Congregationalism continued till the close of the century "a speaking aristocracy in the face of a silent democracy."[18] The intense practical character of the people saved the colony, which, despite the theocratic government, maintained a vigorous life in politics, business, and domestic economy.

[Footnote 1: Winthrop, New England, I., 70, 81, 113, 179, 185; Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1574-1660, p. 180.]

[Footnote 2: Winthrop, New England, I., 49, 63.]

[Footnote 3: Bradford, Plimoth Plantation, 370; Hubbard, New England (Mass. Hist. Soc., Collections, 2d series, V.), 203.]

[Footnote 4: Winthrop, New England, I., 145, 147.]

[Footnote 5: Eggleston, Beginners of a Nation, 282.]

[Footnote 6: Winthrop, New England, I., 163, 166, 180.]

[Footnote 7: Winthrop, New England, I., 188, 193, 198, 204, 209, 210.]

[Footnote 8: Mass. Hist. Soc., Collections, 1st series, I., 276.]

[Footnote 9: Winthrop, New England, I., 144.]

[Footnote 10: Adams, Three Episodes of Mass. Hist., I., 339.]

[Footnote 11: Winthrop, New England, I., 239; Hutchinson, Massachusetts Bay, I., 435.]

[Footnote 12: Winthrop, New England, I., 240-255; Mass. Col. Records, I., 185.]

[Footnote 13: Winthrop, New England, I., 256-263.]

[Footnote 14: Winthrop, New England, I., 261-288.]

[Footnote 15: Ibid., 291-296.]

[Footnote 16: Hutchinson, Massachusetts Bay, II., 423-447.]

[Footnote 17: Winthrop, New England, I., 296-312.]

[Footnote 18: Adams, Massachusetts: Its Historians and its History, 57.]



CHAPTER XIV

NARRAGANSETT AND CONNECTICUT SETTLEMENTS

(1635-1637)

The island of Aquidneck, to which Mrs. Hutchinson retired, was secured from Canonicus and Miantonomoh, the sachems of the Narragansetts, through the good offices of Roger Williams, by John Clarke, William Coddington, and other leaders of her faction, a short time preceding her banishment, after a winter spent in Maine, where the climate proved too cold for them.[1] The place of settlement was at the northeastern corner of the island, and was known first by its Indian name of Pocasset and afterwards as Portsmouth. The first settlers, nineteen in number, constituted themselves a body politic and elected William Coddington as executive magistrate, with the title of chief judge, and William Aspinwall as secretary.[2] Other emigrants swelled the number, till in 1639 a new settlement at the southern part of the island, called Newport, resulted through the secession of a part of the settlers headed by Coddington. For more than a year the two settlements remained separate, but in March, 1640, they were formally united.[3] Settlers flocked to these parts, and in 1644 the Indian name of Aquidneck was changed to Rhode Island.[4]

Not less flourishing was Roger Williams's settlement of Providence on the main-land. In the summer of 1640 Patuxet was marked off as a separate township;[5] and in 1643 Samuel Gorton and others, fleeing from the wrath of Massachusetts, made a settlement called Shawomet, or Warwick, about twelve miles distant from Providence.

The tendency of these various towns was to combine in a commonwealth, but on account of their separate origin the process of union was slow. The source of most of their trouble in their infancy was the grasping policy of Massachusetts. Next to heretics in the bosom of the commonwealth heretic neighbors were especially abhorrent. When in 1640 the magistrates of Connecticut and New Haven addressed a joint letter to the general court of Massachusetts, and the citizens of Aquidneck ventured to join in it, Massachusetts arrogantly excluded the representation of Aquidneck from their reply as "men not fit to be capitulated withal by us either for themselves or for the people of the isle where they inhabit."[6] And neither in 1644 nor in 1648 would Massachusetts listen to the appeal of the Rhode-Islanders to be admitted into the confederacy of the New England colonies.[7]

The desire of Massachusetts appeared to be to hold the heretics and their new country under a kind of personal and territorial vassalage, as was interestingly shown in the case of Mrs. Hutchinson and Samuel Gorton. Despite her banishment and excommunication the church at Boston seemed to consider it a duty to keep a paternal eye on Mrs. Hutchinson; and not long after her settlement at Portsmouth sent an embassy to interview her and obtain, if possible, a submission and profession of repentance.

The bearers of this message met with an apt reception and returned very much disconcerted. They found Mrs. Hutchinson, and declared that they came as messengers from the church of Boston, but she replied that she knew only the church of Christ and recognized no such church as "the church of Boston." Nevertheless, she continued to be annoyed with messages from Boston till, in order to be quiet and out of reach, she removed to a place very near Hell Gate in the Dutch settlement, and there, in 1643, she, with most of her family, perished in an Indian attack.[8]

The authority of Massachusetts over the banished was not confined to religious exhortations. Samuel Gorton, a great friend of Mrs. Hutchinson, was in many respects one of the most interesting characters in early New England history. This man had a most pertinacious regard for his private rights, and at Plymouth, Portsmouth, and Providence his career of trouble was very much the same. But he was not an ordinary law-breaker, and in Providence, in 1641, Gorton and his friends refused to submit to a distress ordained by the magistrates, for the reason that these magistrates, having no charter, had no better authority to make laws than any private person.[9]

The next year, 1642, thirteen citizens of Providence petitioned Boston for assistance and protection against him; and not long after, four of the petitioners submitted their persons and lands to the authority of Massachusetts.[10] Although to accept this submission was to step beyond their bounds under the Massachusetts charter, the authorities at Boston, in October, 1642, gave a formal notice of their intention to maintain the claim of the submissionists.[11] To this notice Gorton replied, November 20, 1642, in a letter full of abstruse theology and rancorous invective.

Nevertheless, he and his party left Patuxet and removed to Shawomet, a tract beyond the limits of Providence, and purchased in January, 1643, from Miantonomoh, the great sachem of the Narragansetts.[12] Gorton's letter had secured for him the thorough hatred of the authorities in Massachusetts, and his removal by no means ended their interference. The right of Miantonomoh to make sale to Gorton was denied by two local sachems; and Massachusetts coming to their support, Gorton was formally summoned, in September, 1643, to appear before the court of Boston to answer the complaint of the sachems for trespass.[13] Gorton and his friends returned a contemptuous reply, and as he continued to deny the right of Massachusetts to interfere, the Boston government prepared to send an armed force against him.[14]

In the mean time, a terrible fate overtook the friend and ally of Gorton, Miantonomoh, at the hands of his neighbors in the west, the Mohegans, whose chief, Uncas, attacked one of Miantonomoh's subordinate chiefs; Miantonomoh accepted the war, was defeated, and captured by Uncas. Gorton interfered by letter to save his friend, and Uncas referred the question of Miantonomoh's fate to the federal commissioners at Boston. The elders were clamorous for the death penalty, but the commissioners admitting that "there was no sufficient ground for us to put him to death," agreed to deliver the unhappy chieftain to Uncas, with permission to kill him as soon as he came within Uncas's jurisdiction. Accordingly, Miantonomoh was slaughtered by his enemy, who cut out a warm slice from his shoulder and declared it the sweetest morsel he had ever tasted and that it gave strength to his heart.[15] Thus fell Miantonomoh, the circumstances of whose death were "not at all creditable to the federal commissioners and their clerical advisers."[16]

Massachusetts sent out an armed force against the Gortonists, and after some resistance the leaders were captured and brought to Boston. Here Wilson and other ministers urged the death penalty upon the "blasphemous heretics." But the civil authorities were not prepared to go so far, and in October, 1643, adopted the alternative of imprisonment. In March, 1644, Gorton and his friends were liberated, but banished on pain of death from all places claimed to be within the jurisdiction of Massachusetts.

They departed to Shawomet, but Governor Winthrop forbade them to stay there; and in April, 1644, Gorton and his friends once more sought refuge at Aquidneck.[17] Gorton, having contrived to reach England, returned in May, 1648, with an order from the Parliamentary commissioners for plantations, directed to the authorities of Massachusetts, Plymouth, and Connecticut, to permit him and his friends to reside in peace at Warwick, which they were then permitted to do.[18] In 1652 Gorton became president of Providence and Warwick.[19]

In December, 1643, the agents of Massachusetts in England obtained from the Parliamentary commissioners for plantations a grant of all the main-land in Massachusetts Bay; and it appeared for the moment as if it were all over with the independence of the Rhode Island towns. Fortunately, Williams was in England at the time, and with indomitable energy he set to work to counteract the danger.

In less than three months he persuaded the same commissioners to issue, March 14, 1644, a second instrument[20] incorporating the towns of "Providence Plantations, in the Narragansett Bay in New England," and (in flat contradiction of the earlier grant to Massachusetts) giving them "the Tract of Land in the Continent of America called by the name of Narragansett Bay, bordering Northward and Northeast on the patent of the Massachusetts, East and Southeast on Plymouth Patent, South on the Ocean, and on the West and Northwest by the Indians called Nahigganeucks, alias Narregansets—the whole Tract extending about twenty-five English miles unto the Pequot River and Country." The charter contained no mention of religion or citizenship, though it gave the inhabitants full power "to rule themselves and such others as shall hereafter inhabit within any Part of the said Tract, by such a Form of Civil Government, as by voluntary consent of all, or the greater Parte of them, they shall find most suitable to their Estate and Condition."

Williams returned to America in September, 1644. On account of the unfriendly disposition of Massachusetts he was compelled, when leaving for England, to take his departure from the Dutch port of New Amsterdam. Now, like one vindicated in name and character, he landed in Boston, and, protected by a letter[21] from "divers Lords and others of the Parliament," passed unmolested through Massachusetts, and reached Providence by the same route which, as a homeless wanderer, he had pursued eight years before. It is said that at Seekonk he was met by fourteen canoes filled with people, who escorted him across the water to Providence with shouts of triumph.[22]

Peace and union, however, did not at once flow from the labors of Williams. The hostility of Massachusetts and Plymouth towards the Rhode-Islanders seemed at first increased; and the principle of self-government, to which the Rhode Island townships owed their existence, delayed their confederation. At last, in May, 1647, an assembly of freemen from the four towns of Portsmouth, Newport, Providence, and Warwick met at Portsmouth, and proceeded to make laws in the name of the whole body politic, incorporated under the charter. The first president was John Coggeshall; and Roger Williams and William Coddington were two of the first assistants.

Massachusetts, aided by the Plymouth colony, still continued her machinations, and an ally was found in Rhode Island itself in the person of William Coddington. In 1650 he went to England and obtained an order, dated April 3, 1651, for the severance of the island from the main-land settlements.[23] Fortunately, however, for the preservation of Rhode Island unity, an act of intemperate bigotry on the part of Massachusetts saved the state from Coddington's interference.

The sect called Anabaptists, or Baptists, opposed to infant baptism, made their appearance in New England soon after the banishment of Mrs. Hutchinson. Rhode Island became a stronghold for them, and in 1638 Roger Williams adopted their tenets and was rebaptized.[24] In 1644 a Baptist church was established at Newport.[25] The same year Massachusetts passed a law decreeing banishment of all professors of the new opinions.[26] In October, 1650, three prominent Baptists, John Clarke, Obadiah Holmes, and John Crandall, visited Massachusetts, when they were seized, whipped, fined, imprisoned, and barely escaped with their lives.[27]

The alarm created in Rhode Island by these proceedings brought the towns once more into a common policy, and Clarke and Williams were sent to England to undo the work of Coddington. Aided by the warm friendship of Sir Harry Vane, the efforts of the agents were crowned with success. Coddington's commission was revoked by an order of council in September, 1652, and the townships were directed to unite under the charter of 1644.[28] Coddington did not at once submit, and there was a good deal of dissension in the Rhode Island towns till June, 1654, when Williams returned from England. Then Coddington yielded,[29] and, August 31, commissioners from the four towns voted to restore the government constituted seven years before. The consolidation of Rhode Island was perfected when, in 1658, Massachusetts released her claims to jurisdiction there.[30]

Liberty of conscience as asserted by Roger Williams did not involve the abrogation of civil restraint, and when one William Harris disturbed the peace in 1656, by asserting this doctrine in a pamphlet,[31] Williams, then governor, had a warrant issued for his apprehension. When, in 1658, Williams retired to private life the possibility of founding a state in which "religious freedom and civil order could stand together" was fully proved to the world.[32]

Besides the Indian power, as many as six independent jurisdictions existed originally in the present state of Connecticut. (1) The Dutch fort of "Good Hope," established in 1633, on the Connecticut River, had jurisdiction over a small area of country. (2) The Plymouth colony owned some territory on the Connecticut River and built a fort there soon after the Dutch came. (3) Next was the jurisdiction of Fort Saybrook, the sole evidence of possession on the part of the holders of a patent from the earl of Warwick, president of the Council for New England, who claimed to own the whole of Connecticut. (4) A much larger jurisdiction was that of the Connecticut River towns, settled in 1635-1636, contemporaneously with the banishment of Roger Williams. (5) New Haven was settled in 1638, in the height of the Antinomian difficulties. (6) A claim was advanced by the marquis of Hamilton for a tract of land running from the mouth of the Connecticut River to Narragansett Bay, assigned to him in the division of 1635, but it did not become a disturbing factor till 1665.

The early relations between the Dutch and English colonies were, as we have seen, characterized by kindness and good-fellowship. The Dutch advised the Plymouth settlers to remove from their "present barren quarters," and commended to them the valley of the "Fresh River" (Connecticut), referring to it as a fine place both for plantation and trade.[33] Afterwards, some Mohegan Indians visiting Plymouth in 1631 made similar representations. Their chief, Uncas, an able, unscrupulous, and ambitious savage, made it his great ambition to attain the headship of his aggressive western neighbors, the Pequots. The only result had been to turn the resentment of the Pequots against himself; and he sought the protection of the Plymouth government by encouraging them to plant a settlement on the Connecticut in his own neighborhood.[34]

These persuasions had at length some effect, and in 1632 Edward Winslow, being sent in a bark to examine the river, reported the country as conforming in every respect to the account given of it by the Dutch and the Indians.[35] Meanwhile, the Indians, not liking the delay, visited Boston and tried to induce the authorities there to send out a colony, but, though Governor Winthrop received them politely, he dismissed them without the hoped-for assistance.[36]

In July, 1633, Bradford and Winslow made a special visit to Boston to discuss the plan of a joint trading-post, but they did not receive much encouragement. Winthrop and his council suggested various objections: the impediments to commerce due to the sand-bar at the mouth; the long continuance of ice in spring, and the multitude of Indians in the neighborhood. But it seems likely that these allegations were pretexts, since we read in Winthrop's Journal that in September, 1633, a bark was sent from Boston to Connecticut; and John Oldham, with three others, set out from Watertown overland to explore the river.[37]

Plymouth determined to wait no longer, and in October, 1633, sent a vessel, commanded by William Holmes, with workmen and the frame of a building for a trading-post. When they arrived in the river, they were surprised to find other Europeans in possession. The Dutch, aroused from their dream of security by the growth of the English settlement, made haste in the June previous to purchase from the Indians twenty acres where Hartford now stands, upon which they built a fort a short time after. When the vessel bearing the Plymouth traders reached this point in the river, the Dutch commander, John van Curler, commanded Holmes to stop and strike his flag. But Holmes, paying little attention to the threats of the Dutchman, continued his voyage and established a rival post ten miles above, at a place now known as Windsor.[38]

Meanwhile, the ship which Winthrop sent to Connecticut went onward to New Netherland, where the captain notified Governor Van Twiller, in Winthrop's name, that the English had a royal grant to the territory about the Connecticut River. It returned to Boston in October, 1633, and brought a reply from Van Twiller that the Dutch had also a claim under a grant from their States-General of Holland.[39] In December, 1633, Van Twiller heard of Holmes's trading-post and despatched an armed force of seventy men to expel the intruders. They appeared before the fort with colors flying, but finding that Holmes had received reinforcements, and that it would be impossible to dislodge him without bloodshed, they returned home without molesting him.[40]