1. John Carver, in 1620, who died a few months afterwards;

2. William Bradford, 1621 to 1632, 1635, 1637, 1639 to 1643, 1645 to 1656;

3. Edward Winslow, 1633, 1636, 1644;

4. Thomas Prince, 1634, 1638, 1657 to 1672;

5. Josiah Winslow, 1673 to 1680;

6. Thomas Hinckley, 1681 to 1692;[12]

when the colony of Plymouth[13] (which had never increased in population beyond 13,000) was incorporated with that of Massachusetts Bay, under the name of the Province of Massachusetts, by Royal Charter under William and Mary, and by which religious liberty and the elective franchise were secured to all freeholders of forty shillings per annum, instead of being confined to members of the Congregational Churches, as had been the case down to that period under the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay—so that equal civil and religious liberty among all classes was established in Massachusetts, not by the Puritans, but by Royal Charter, against the practice of the Puritans from 1631 to 1692.

The government of the Pilgrims was of the most simple kind. At first the Governor, with one assistant, was elected annually by general suffrage; but in 1624, at the request of Governor Bradford, a Council of five assistants (increased to seven in 1633) was annually elected. In this Court, or Executive Council, the Governor had a double vote. In the third year, 1623, trial by jury was established. During eighteen years, from 1620 to 1638, the legislative body, called the General Court, or Court of Associates, was composed of the whole body of freemen. It was not until 1639 that they established a House of Representatives. The qualifications of a freeman were, that he "should be twenty-one years of age, of sober, peaceable conversation, orthodox in religion [which included belief in God and the Holy Scriptures, but did not include any form of Church government], and possess rateable estate to the value of twenty pounds."

In 1636—sixteen years after their landing at New Plymouth—the laws which they had enacted were first collected, prefaced by a declaration of their right to enact them, in the absence of a Royal Charter. Their laws were at various times revised and added to, and finally printed in 1671, under the title of "Their Great Fundamentals." They recognized the general laws of England, and adopted local statutes or regulations according to what they considered their needs.[14] Of their sense of duty as British subjects, and of the uniform mutual relations of friendship existing between them and their Sovereigns, their records and history furnish abundant proofs. The oath required of their Governors commenced in the following words: "You shall swear to be truly loyal to our Sovereign Lord King Charles, his successors and heirs." "At the Court held," (says the record,) "at Plymouth, the 11th of June, 1664, the following was added, and the Governor took the oath thereunto: 'You shall also attend to what is required by His Majesty's Privy Council of the Governors of the respective colonies in reference unto an Act of Parliament for the encouraging and increasing of shipping and navigation, bearing date from the 1st of December, 1660.'"

The oath of a freeman commenced with the same words, as did the oath of the "Assistants" or Executive Councillors, the oath of constables and other officers in the colony. It was likewise ordered, "That an oath of allegiance to the King and fidelity to the Government and to the several colonies [settlements] therein, be taken of every person that shall live within or under the same." This was as follows: "You shall be truly loyal to our Sovereign Lord the King and his heirs and successors: and whereas you make choice at present to reside within the government of New Plymouth, you shall not do or cause to be done any act or acts, directly or indirectly, by land or water, that shall or may tend to the destruction or overthrow of the whole or any of the several colonies [settlements] within the said government that are or shall be orderly erected or established; but shall, contrariwise, hinder, oppose and discover such intents and purposes as tend thereunto to the Governor for the time being, or some one of the assistants, with all convenient speed. You shall also submit unto and obey such good and wholesome laws, ordinances and officers as are or shall be established within the several limits thereof. So help you God, who is the God of truth and punisher of falsehood."

The Government of Plymouth prefaced the revised collection of their laws and ordinances as follows:

"A form to be placed before the records of the several inheritances granted to all and every of the King's subjects inhabiting with the Government of New Plymouth:

"Whereas John Carver, William Bradford, Edward Winslow, William Brewster, Isaack Alliston and divers others of the subjects of our late Sovereign Lord James, by the Grace of God, King of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, &c., did in the eighteenth year of his reigne of England, France and Ireland, and of Scotland the fifty-four, which was the year of our Lord God 1620, undertake a voyage into that part of America called Virginia or New England, thereunto adjoining, there to erect a plantation and colony of English, intending the glory of God and the enlargement of his Majesty's dominions, and the special good of the English nation."

Thus the laws and ordinances of the Plymouth Government, and the oaths of office from the Governor to the constable, freeman and transient resident, recognize their duty as British subjects, and breathe a spirit of pure loyalty to their Sovereign. The only reference I find in their records to the Commonwealth of England is the following declaration, made in 1658, the last year of Cromwell's government. It is the preface to the collection of the General Laws, revised and published Sept. 29, 1658, and is as follows:

"We, the associates of New Plymouth, coming hither as freeborn subjects of the State of England, endowed with all the privileges belonging to such, being assembled, do ordain, constitute and enact that no act, imposition, laws or ordinances be made or imposed on us at present or to come, but such as shall be made and imposed by consent of the body of the associates or their representatives legally assembled, which is according to the free libertie of the State of England."

At the first annual meeting of the Plymouth House of Representatives after the restoration of Charles the Second, the following declaration and order was made:

"Whereas we are certainly informed that it hath pleased God to establish our Sovereign Lord King Charles the Second in the enjoyment of his undoubted rights to the Crowns of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, and is so declared and owned by his good subjects of these kingdoms; We therefore, his Majesty's loyal subjects, the inhabitants of the jurisdiction of New Plymouth, do hereby declare our free and ready concurrence with such other of his Majesty's subjects, and to his said Majesty, his heirs and successors, we do most humbly and faithfully submit and oblige ourselves for ever. God save the King.

"June the fifth, Anno Dom. 1661.

"The fifth day of June, 1661, Charles the Second, King of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, &c., was solemnly proclaimed at Plymouth, in New England, in America." (This the Puritan Government of Massachusetts Bay refused to do.)

On the accession of James the Second we find the following entry in the Plymouth records: "The twenty fourth of April, 1685, James the Second, King of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, &c., was solemnly proclaimed at Plymouth according to the form required by his Majesty's most honourable Privy Council."

After the Revolution of 1688 in England, there is the following record of the proceedings of the Legislature of the Plymouth colony—proceedings in which testimony is borne by the colonists of the uniformly kind treatment they had received from the Government of England, except during a short interval under the three years' reign of James the Second:

"At their Majesties' General Court of Election, held at Plymouth on the first Tuesday in June, 1689.

"Whereas, through the great changes Divine Providence hath ordered out, both in England and in this country, we the loyal subjects of the Crown of England are left in an unsettled estate, destitute of government and exposed to the ill consequences thereof: and having heretofore enjoyed a quiet settlement of government in this their Majesties' colony of New Plymouth for more than threescore and six years, without any interruptions; having also been by the late kings of England from time to time, by their royal letters, graciously owned and acknowledged therein: whereby, notwithstanding our late unjust interruption and suspension therefrom by the illegal arbitrary power of Sir Edmond Andros, now ceased, the General Court held there in the name of their present Majesties William and Mary, King and Queen of England, &c., together with the encouragement given by their said Majesties' gracious declarations and in humble confidence of their said Majesties' good liking: do therefore hereby resume and declare their reassuming of their said former way of government, according to such wholesome constitutions, rules and orders as were here in force in June, 1686, our title thereto being warranted by prescription and otherwise as aforesaid; and expect a ready submission thereunto by all their Majesties' good subjects of this colony, until their Majesties or this Court shall otherwise order; and that all our Courts be hereafter held and all warrants directed and officers sworn in the name of their Majesties William and Mary, King and Queen of England, &c.

"The General Court request the Honourable Governor, Thomas Hinckley, Esq., in behalf of said Court and Colony of New Plymouth, to make their address to their Majesties the King and Queen of England, &c., for the re-establishment of their former enjoyed liberties and privileges, both sacred and civil."

We have thus the testimony of the Plymouth colony itself that there was no attempt on the part of either Charles the First or Second to interfere with the fullest exercise of their own chosen form of worship, or with anything which they themselves regarded as their civil rights. If another course of proceedings had to be adopted in regard to the Puritan Government of Massachusetts Bay, it was occasioned by their own conduct, as will appear hereafter. Complaints were made by colonists to England of the persecuting and unjust conduct of the Puritan Government, and inquiries were ordered in 1646, 1664, 1678, and afterwards. The nature and result of these inquiries will be noticed hereafter. At present I will notice the first Commission sent out by Charles the Second, in 1664, and which was made general to the several colonies, to avoid invidious distinction, though caused by complaints against the conduct of the Puritan Government of Massachusetts Bay. The Commissioners proposed four questions to the Governments of the several colonies of New England. I will give the questions, or rather propositions, and the answers to them on the part of the Pilgrim Government of Plymouth, as contained in its printed records:—

"The Propositions made by His Majesty's Commissioners to the General Court of (New Plymouth), held at Plymouth, for the jurisdiction of New Plymouth, the 22nd of February, Anno Dom. 1665.

"1. That all householders inhabiting in the colony take the oath of allegiance, and the administration of justice be in his Majesty's name.

"2. That all men of competent estates and civil conversation, though of different judgments, may be admitted to be freemen, and have liberty to choose and to be chosen officers, both civil and military.

"3. That all men and women of orthodox opinions, competent knowledge and civil lives (not scandalous), may be admitted to the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, and their children to baptism if they desire it; either by admitting them into the congregation already gathered, or permitting them to gather themselves into such congregations, where they may have the benefit of the sacraments.

"4. That all laws and expressions in laws derogatory to his Majesty, if any such have been made in these late troublesome times, may be repealed, altered, and taken off from the file."

THE COURT'S ANSWER.

"1. To the first we consent, it having been the practice of this Court, in the first place, to insert in the oath of fidelity required of every householder, to be truly loyal to our Sovereign Lord the King, his heirs and successors. Also to administer all acts of justice in his Majesty's name.

"2. To the second we also consent, it having been our constant practice to admit men of competent estates and civil conversation, though of different judgments, yet being otherwise orthodox, to be freemen, and to have liberty to choose and be chosen officers, both civil and military.

"3. To the third, we cannot but acknowledge it to be a high favour from God and from our Sovereign, that we may enjoy our consciences in point of God's worship, the main end of transplanting ourselves into these remote corners of the earth, and should most heartily rejoice that all our neighbours so qualified as in that proposition would adjoin themselves to our societies, according to the order of the Gospel, for enjoyment of the sacraments to themselves and theirs; but if, through different persuasions respecting Church government, it cannot be obtained, we could not deny a liberty to any, according to the proposition, that are truly conscientious, although differing from us, especially where his Majesty commands it, they maintaining an able preaching ministry for the carrying on of public Sabbath worship, which we doubt not is his Majesty's intent, and withdrawing not from paying their due proportions of maintenance to such ministers as are orderly settled in the places where they live, until they have one of their own, and that in such places as are capable of maintaining the worship of God in two distinct congregations, we being greatly encouraged by his Majesty's gracious expressions in his letter to us, and your Honours' further assurance of his Royal purpose to continue our liberties, that where places, by reason of our paucity and poverty, are incapable of two, it is not intended, that such congregations as are already in being should be rooted out, but their liberties preserved, there being other places to accommodate men of different persuasions in societies by themselves, which, by our known experience, tends most to the preservation of peace and charity.

"4. To the fourth, we consent that all laws and expressions in laws derogatory to his Majesty, if any sect shall be formed amongst us, which at present we are not conscious of, shall be repealed, altered, and taken off from the file.

"By order of the General Court For the jurisdiction of New Plymouth, Per me, NATHANIEL MORTON, Secretary."

"The league between the four colonies was not with any intent, that ever we heard of, to cast off our dependence upon England, a thing which we utterly abhor, intreating your Honours to believe us, for we speak in the presence of God."

"NEW PLYMOUTH, May 4th, 1665.

"The Court doth order Mr. Constant Southworth, Treasurer, to present these to his Majesty's Commissioners, at Boston, with all convenient speed."

The above propositions and answers are inserted, with some variations, in Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts, Vol. I., p. 214. The remark respecting the union between the colonies is not on the colony records—it was inserted at the close of the copy delivered to the Commissioners, in conformity to a letter from the Commissioners, written to Governor Prince after they had left Plymouth. The conditions expressed in the answer to the third proposition appeared so reasonable to the Commissioners, that when they afterward met the General Assembly of Connecticut, in April, 1663, their third proposition is qualified, in substance, conformably to the Plymouth reply. (Morton's Memorial, Davis' Ed., p. 417.)

It is thus seen that there was not the least desire on the part of King Charles the Second, any more than there had been on the part of Charles the First, to impose the Episcopal worship upon the colonists, or to interfere in the least with their full liberty of worship, according to their own preferences. All that was desired at any time was toleration and acknowledgment of the authority of the Crown, such as the Plymouth colony and that of Connecticut had practised from the beginning, to the great annoyance of the Puritans of Massachusetts.

Several letters and addresses passed between Charles the Second and the Pilgrim Government of Plymouth, and all of the most cordial character on both sides; but what is given above supersedes the necessity of further quotations.[15]

It was an object of special ambition with the Government of Plymouth to have a Royal Charter like those of Massachusetts Bay, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, instead of holding their land, acting under a Charter from the Plymouth Council (England) and Charles the Second. In his last address to Mr. Josiah Winslow, their Governor promised it to them in most explicit terms; but there was a case of quo warranto pending in the Court of King's Bench against the Puritan Government for the violation of their Charter, which delayed the issuing of a Royal Charter to Plymouth. Charles died soon after;[16] the Charter of the Massachusetts Corporation was forfeited by the decision of the Court, and James the Second appointed a Royal Governor and a Royal Commissioner, which changed for the time being the whole face of things in New England.

It, however, deserves notice, that the Massachusetts Puritans, true to their instinct of encroaching upon the rights of others, whether of the King or of their neighbours, white or tawny, did all in their power to prevent the Pilgrims of Plymouth—the pioneers of settlement and civilization in New England—from obtaining a Royal Charter. This they did first in 1630, again in the early part of Charles the Second's reign, and yet again towards its end. Finally, after the cancelling of the Massachusetts Charter, and the English Revolution of 1688, the agents of the more powerful and populous Massachusetts colony succeeded in getting the colony of Plymouth absorbed into that of Massachusetts Bay by the second Royal Charter granted by William and Mary in 1692. "The junction of Plymouth with Massachusetts," says Moore, "destroyed all the political consequence of the former. The people of Plymouth shared but few favours which the new Government had to bestow, and it was seldom indeed that any resident of what was termed the old colony obtained any office of distinction in the Provisional Government, or acquired any influence in its councils."[17]

This seems a melancholy termination of the Government of the Pilgrims—a princely race of men, who voluntarily braved the sufferings of a double exile for the sake of what they believed to be the truth and the glory of God; whose courage never failed, nor their loyalty wavered amidst all their privations and hardships; who came to America to enjoy religious liberty and promote the honour of England, not to establish political independence, and granted that liberty to others which they earned and had suffered so much to enjoy themselves; who were honourable and faithful to their treaty engagements with the aborigines as they were in their communications with the Throne; who never betrayed a friend or fled from an enemy; who left imperishable footprints of their piety and industry, as well as of their love of liberty and law, though their self-originated and self-sustained polity perished at length, by royal forgetfulness and credulity, to the plausible representations and ambitious avarice of their ever aggressive Massachusetts Puritan neighbours.

While the last act of the Pilgrims before leaving the Mayflower, in the harbour of Cape Cod, was to enter into a compact of local self-government for common protection and interests, and their first act on landing at New Plymouth was, on bended knees, to commend themselves and their settlement to the Divine protection and blessing, it is a touching fact that the last official act of the General Assembly of the colony was to appoint a day of solemn fasting and humiliation on the extinction of their separate government and their absorption into that of Massachusetts Bay.

It was among the sons and daughters of the Plymouth colony that almost the only loyalty in New England during the American Revolution of the following century was found. Most of the descendants of Edward Winslow, and of his more distinguished son, Josiah Winslow, were loyalists during that revolution.[18] In the councils of the mother country, the merits of the posterity of the Pilgrims have been acknowledged; as in her service some of them, by their talents and courage, have won their way to eminence. Among the proudest names in the British navy are the descendants of the original purchaser of Mattapoisett, in Swansey (William Brenton, afterwards Governor of Rhode Island);[19] to the distinguished title of one of the English peerage is attached the name of one of the early settlers of Scituate, in the Plymouth colony (William Vassall, who settled there in 1635.)[20]

"In one respect," says Moore, "the people of the Old Colony present a remarkable exception to the rest of America. They are the purest English race in the world; there is scarcely an intermixture even with the Scotch or Irish, and none with the aboriginals. Almost all the present population are descended from the original English settlers. Many of them still own the lands which their early ancestors rescued from the wilderness; and although they have spread themselves in every direction through this wide continent, from the peninsula of Nova Scotia to the Gulf of Mexico, some one of the family has generally remained to cultivate the soil which was owned by his ancestors. The fishermen and the navigators of Maine, the children of Plymouth, still continue the industrious and bold pursuits of their forefathers. In that fine country, beginning at Utica, in the State of New York, and stretching to Lake Erie, this race may be found on every hill and in every valley, on the rivers and on the lakes. The emigrant from the sandbanks of Cape Cod revels in the profusion of the opulence of Ohio. In all the Southern and South-Western States, the natives of the "Old Colony," like the Arminians of Asia, may be found in every place where commerce and traffic offer any lure to enterprise; and in the heart of the peninsula of Michigan, like their ancestors they have commenced the cultivation of the wilderness—like them originally, with savage hearts and savage men, and like them patient in suffering, despising danger, and animated with hope."[21]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 10: "The term PILGRIMS belongs exclusively to the Plymouth colonists." (Young's Chronicles of the Pilgrims, p. 88, note.)]

[Footnote 11: The only exception was by Prence, when elected Governor in 1657. He had imbibed the spirit of the Boston Puritans against the Quakers, and sought to infuse his spirit into the minds of his assistants (or executive councillors) and the deputies; but he was stoutly opposed by Josias Winslow and others. The persecution was short and never unto death, as among the Boston Puritans. It was the only stain of persecution upon the rule of the Pilgrims during the seventy years of their separate government, and was nobly atoned for and effaced by Josias Winslow, when elected Governor in the place of Prence.]

[Footnote 12: Massachusetts Historical Collections, 3rd Series, Vol. II., p. 226.]

[Footnote 13: "The colony of Plymouth included the present counties of Plymouth, Barnstaple, and Bristol, and a part of Rhode Island. All the Providence Plantations were at one time claimed by Plymouth. The boundaries between Plymouth and Massachusetts were settled in 1640 by commissioners of the united colonies." (Ib., p. 267.)]

[Footnote 14: The laws they intended to be governed by were the laws of England, the which they were willing to be subject unto, though in a foreign land, and have since that time continued of that mind for the general, adding only some particular municipal laws of their own, suitable to their constitution, in such cases where the common laws and statutes of England could not well reach, or afford them help in emergent difficulties of place. (Hubbard's "General History of New England, from the Discovery to 1680." Massachusetts Historical Collection, 2nd Series, Vol. I., p. 62.)

Palfrey says: "All that is extant of what can properly be called the legislation of the first twelve years of the colony of Plymouth, suffices to cover in print only two pages of an octavo volume." (History of New England, Vol. I., pp. 340, 341.)]

[Footnote 15: "Their residence in Holland had made them acquainted with the various forms of Christianity; a wide experience had emancipated them from bigotry; and they were never betrayed into the excesses of religious persecution, though they sometimes permitted a disproportion between punishment and crime." (Bancroft's History of the United States, Vol. I., p. 322.)

"The Plymouth Church is free from blood." (Elliott's History of New England, Vol. I., p. 133.)]

[Footnote 16: "Charles the Second, with a spirit that does honour to his reign, at that time meditated important plans for the reformation of New England." (Annals of the Colonies, pp. 88, 89.)]

[Footnote 17: Moore's Lives of the Governors of New Plymouth, p. 228.

The contest between the Pilgrims of Plymouth and the Puritans of Massachusetts, in regard to granting a separate charter to the former, was severe and bitter. The Plymouth Government, by its tolerance and loyalty, had been an "eyesore" to the other intolerant and disloyal Puritans of Massachusetts. Perhaps the Imperial Government of the day thought that the fusion of the two Governments and populations into one would render the new Government more liberal and loyal; but the result proved otherwise.]

[Footnote 18: "Most of his descendants were loyalists during the American Revolution. One of them was the wife of John S. Copley, the celebrated painter, and father of the late Lord Lyndhurst" (Moore.)]

[Footnote 19: Jahleel Brenton, grandson of Governor Wm. Brenton, had twenty-two children. His fourth son, born Oct. 22, 1729, entered the British navy when a youth, distinguished himself and rose to the rank of Admiral. He died in 1802. "His son Jahleel was bred to the sea, rose to be an Admiral, and was knighted in 1810." (Moore's Lives of the Governors of New Plymouth, p. 229.)]

[Footnote 20: In 1650 he removed to the West Indies, where he laid the foundation of several large estates, and where he died, in Barbadoes, in 1655. (Moore, p. 126.) "Thomas Richard, the third Lord Holland, married an heiress by the name of Vassall, and his son, Henry Richard Fox Vassall, is the present Lord Holland, Baron Holland in Lincolnshire, and Foxley in Wilts." (Playfair's British Family Antiquities, Vol. II., p. 182.)]

[Footnote 21: Moore's Lives of the Governors of New Plymouth, pp. 228-230.]



CHAPTER III.

THE PURITANS OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY COMPANY AND THEIR GOVERNMENT, COMMENCING IN 1629.

PART I.

FIRST SETTLEMENT—ROYAL CHARTER GRANTED.

English Puritanism, transferred from England to the head of Massachusetts Bay in 1629, presents the same characteristics which it developed in England. In Massachusetts it had no competitor; it developed its principles and spirit without restraint; it was absolute in power from 1629 to 1689, and during that sixty years it assumed independence of the Government to which it owed its corporate existence; it made it a penal crime for any emigrant to appeal to England against a local decision of Courts or of Government; it permitted no oath of allegiance to the King, nor the administration of the laws in his name; it allowed no elective franchise to any Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Baptist, Quaker, or Papist. Every non-member of the Congregational Churches was compelled to pay taxes and bear all other Puritan burdens, but was allowed no representation by franchise, much less by eligibility for any office.

It has been seen that the "Pilgrim Fathers" commenced their settlement at New Plymouth in 1620—nine years before the "Puritan Fathers" commenced their settlement on the opposite side of Massachusetts Bay, making Boston their ultimate seat of government. The Pilgrim Fathers and their descendants were professedly congregational separatists from the Church of England; they had fled by stealth, under severe sufferings, from persecution in England to Holland, where they had resided eleven years and upwards, and where they had learned the principles of religious toleration and liberty—the fruit of Dutch Arminian advocacy and suffering. The Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Company emigrated directly from England, on leaving which they professed to be members of the Church of England; their emigration commenced in 1628, the very year that Charles the First, having quarrelled with and dissolved the last of three Parliaments in less than four years, commenced his eleven years' rule without a Parliament. During that eleven years a constant current of emigration flowed from England to Massachusetts Bay, to the extent of 13,000, including no less than seventy clergymen of the Church of England, and many men of rank, and wealth to the amount of some L300,000. All these emigrants, or "adventurers," as they were called, left England with a stinging sense of royal and episcopal despotism, and with a corresponding hatred of royalty and episcopacy, but with no conception of the principles of religious toleration or liberty beyond themselves.

During the eight years' interval between the settlement of the Pilgrims at New Plymouth to that of the Puritans at Salem and Boston, trade had largely increased between England and Massachusetts Bay,[22] and the climate, fisheries, furs, timber, and other resources of northern New England became well known, and objects of much interest in England.

King James had divided all that part of North America, 34 deg. and 45 deg. of North latitude, into two grand divisions, bestowing the southern part upon a London Company, and the northern part upon a Company formed in Plymouth and Bristol. The Northern Company resolved to strengthen their interests by obtaining a fresh grant from the King. A new patent was issued reorganizing the Company as the Council for the Affairs of New England, the corporate power of which was to reside at Plymouth, west of England, under the title of the "Grand Council of Plymouth," with a grant of three hundred square miles in New England. The Company formed projects on too large a scale, and did not succeed; but sold that portion of its territory which constituted the first settlements of the Massachusetts Bay Company to some merchants in the west of England, who had successfully fished for cod and bartered for furs in the region of Massachusetts Bay, and who thought that a plantation might be formed there. Among the most active encouragers of this enterprise was the Rev. John White, a clergyman of Dorchester, a maritime town, which had been the source of much commercial adventure in America.[23] One special object of Mr. White was to provide an asylum for the ministers who had been deprived and silenced in England for nonconformity to the canons and ceremonies imposed by Laud and his associates. Through Mr. White the guarantees became acquainted with several persons of his religious sympathies in London, who first associated with them, and afterwards bought rights in their patent. Among these was Matthew Cradock, the largest stockholder in the Company, who was appointed its first president, with eighteen associates, including John Winthrop, Isaac Johnson, Sir Richard Saltonstall, and other persons of "like quality." The chief object of these gentlemen in promoting a settlement in New England was to provide a retreat where their co-religionists of the Church of England could enjoy liberty in matters of religious worship and discipline. But the proposed undertaking could not be prosecuted with success without large means; in order to secure subscriptions for which the commercial aspect of it had to be prominently presented.

The religious aspect of the enterprise was presented under the idea of connecting and civilizing the idolatrous and savage Indian tribes of New England. There was no hint, and I think no intention, of abolishing and proscribing the worship of the Church of England in New England; for Mr. White himself, the projector and animating spirit of the whole enterprise, was a conformist clergyman.[24] It was professedly a religio-commercial undertaking, and combined for its support and advancement the motives of religion and commerce, together with the enlargement of the Empire.

For greater security and more imposing dignity, the "adventurers" determined to apply for a Royal Charter of incorporation. Their application was seconded by Lord Dorchester and others near the Throne; and Charles the First, impressed with the novel idea of at once extending religion, commerce, and his Empire, granted a Royal Patent incorporating the Company under the name of "The Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay, in New England." But several months before the Royal Charter was obtained, or even application for it made, Endicot, one of the stockholders, was sent out with a ship of one hundred emigrants, and, in consequence of his favourable report, application was made for a Royal Charter.[25]

It was the conduct of Endicot, a few months after his arrival at Massachusetts Bay—first condemned and afterwards sustained and justified by the Directors of the Corporation in London—that laid the foundation of the future Church history of New England, and of its disputes with the mother country. Endicot and his one hundred emigrant adventurers arrived in the summer of 1628, and selected Naumkeag, which they called Salem, as their place of settlement, the 6th of September. Endicot was sent, with his company, by the Council for New England, "to supersede Roger Conant at Naumkeag as local manager."[26] "The colony, made up of two sources, consisted of not much above fifty or sixty persons, none of whom were of special importance except Endicot, who was destined to act for nearly forty years a conspicuous part in New England history."[27] The Royal Charter passed the seals the 4th of March, 1629, with Mr. Cradock as the first Governor of the Company. "The first step of the new Corporation was to organize a government for its colony. It determined to place the local administration in the hands of thirteen councillors, to retain their office for one year. Of these, seven, besides the Governor (in which office Endicot was continued), were to be appointed by the Company at home; these eight were to choose three others; and the whole number was to be made up by the addition of such as should be designated by the persons on the spot at the time of Endicot's arrival, described as "old planters."[28] A second embarkation of planters and servants was ordered by the Company at a meeting, April 30, 1629, shortly after its incorporation by Royal Charter. Five ships were provided for this embarkation; and four ministers were provided—Francis Higginson, Samuel Skelton, Francis Bright, and Ralph Smith.[29] Mr. Higginson says in his journal that he sailed from the Isle of Wight the 11th of May, and arrived at Cape Ann the 27th of June, and at Naumkeag (Salem) the 29th. They found at Naumkeag about one hundred planters and houses, besides a fair house built for Mr. Endicot. The old and new planters together were about three hundred, of whom one hundred removed to Charlestown, where there was a house built; the rest remained at Salem.

"Mr. Endicot had corresponded with the settlers at Plymouth, who satisfied him that they were right in their judgments of the outward form of worship, being much like that of the Reformed Churches of France, &c. On the 20th of July, Mr. Higginson and Mr. Skelton, after fasting and prayer, were first elected by the Company for their ministers—the first, teacher; the other, pastor. Each of them, together with three or four grave members, lay their hands on each and either, with solemn prayer. Nothing is said of any Church being formed; but on the 6th of August, the day appointed for the choice and ordination of elders and deacons, thirty persons entered into a covenant in writing, which is said to be the beginning of the Church, and that the ministers were ordained or instituted anew. The repetition of this form they probably thought necessary, because the people were not in a Church state before. It is difficult to assign any other reason. Messengers or delegates from the Church of Plymouth were expected to join with them, but contrary winds hindered them, so that they did not arrive until the afternoon, but time enough to give the right hand of fellowship.

"Two of the company, John and Samuel Brown, one a lawyer, the other a merchant, both men of good estates, and of the first patentees of the Council, were dissatisfied. They did not like that the Common Prayer and service of the Church of England should be wholly laid aside, and therefore drew off, with as many as were of their sentiments, from the rest, and set up a separate society. This offended the Governor, who caused the two members of his Council to be brought before him; and judging that this practice, together with some speeches they had uttered, tended to sedition, he sent them back to England. The heads of the party being removed, the opposition ceased."[30]

PART II.

THE QUESTION INVOLVING THE PRIMARY CAUSE OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, THE SETTING UP OF A NEW FORM OF WORSHIP, AND ABOLISHING AND PROSCRIBING THAT OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND; THE FACTS ANALYZED AND DISCUSSED; INSTRUCTIONS AND OATHS OF ALLEGIANCE ORDERED BY THE LONDON COMPANY AND DISREGARDED BY THE GOVERNOR AND COUNCIL AT MASSACHUSETTS BAY.

As the whole question of the future Church-state in Massachusetts, and the future relations of the colony to England, is involved in and resulted from this proceeding, it is necessary to examine it thoroughly in relation both to the state of things in the mother country and in the colony, as well as the provisions of the Royal Charter. To do this, several things are to be considered: 1. With what views was the Royal Charter granted, and with what professed views did the first Governor and his associates leave England under the provisions of the Charter, and carrying it with them to Massachusetts Bay? 2. What were the provisions of the Charter itself on the subject of religion? 3. What were the powers claimed and exercised under it by the Massachusetts Puritans? 4. How far the proceedings of the Massachusetts Puritans were consistent with their original professions, with good faith towards the Mother Country, and with the principles of civil and religious liberty in the colony?

A careful recollection of the collateral events in England and those of the colony, at the time and after granting the Royal Charter, is requisite to a correct understanding of the question, and for the refutation of those statements by which it was misrepresented and misunderstood.

1. The first question is, with what views was the Royal Charter granted, and with what professed views did the Governor and his associates leave England under the provisions of the Charter, and carrying it with them to Massachusetts Bay?

The theory of some New England historians is, that Puritanism in England was opposed to the Church of England, and especially to its Episcopal government—a theory true as respects the Puritanism of the Long Parliament after the second year of its existence, and of the Commonwealth and Cromwell, but which is entirely at variance with facts in respect to the Puritanism professed in England at the time of granting the Royal Charter to the Massachusetts Company in 1620, and for twelve years afterwards. In the Millenary Petition presented by the Puritan party in the Church to James the First, on his coming to the throne, presbytery was expressly disclaimed; and in the first three Parliaments of Charles the First, during which all the grievances complained of by the Puritans were stated and discussed in the Commons, not the slightest objection was made to Episcopacy, but, on the contrary, reverence and fidelity in regard to it was professed without exception; and when the Long Parliament first met, eleven years after the granting of the Royal Charter to the Massachusetts Bay Company, every member but one professed to be an Episcopalian, and the Holy Communion, according to the order of the Church, was, by an unanimous vote of the Commons, ordered to be partaken by each member. In all the Church, as well as judicial and political, reforms of this Parliament during its first session, Episcopacy was regarded and treated as inviolate; and it was not until the following year, under the promptings of the Scotch Commissioners, that the "root and branch" petition was presented to Parliament against Episcopacy and the Prayer Book, and the subject was discussed in the Commons. The theory, therefore, that Puritanism in England was hostile to the Church at the period in question is contradicted by all the "collateral" facts of English history, as it is at variance with the professions of the first Massachusetts Puritans themselves at the time of their leaving England.

This is true in respect to Endicot himself, who was appointed manager of the New England Company, to succeed Roger Conant, and in charge of one hundred "adventurers" who reached Naumkeag (which they called Salem) in September, 1628—seven months before the Royal Charter granted by Charles the First passed the seals. Within two months after the Royal Charter was granted, another more numerous party of "adventurers" embarked for New England, and among these two gentlemen, original patentees and members of the Council—John and Samuel Brown, and four ministers—Higginson, Skelton, Bright, and Smith. During the winter of 1628-9 much sickness prevailed among the emigrants who accompanied Endicot, who sent for a physician to the Plymouth settlement of the Pilgrim Fathers. A Doctor Fuller was sent, who, while he prescribed medicine for the sick of the newly-arrived emigrants, converted Endicot from Episcopalianism to Congregationalism—at least from being a professed Churchman to being an avowed Congregationalist. This is distinctly stated by all the historians of the times.[31]

It is therefore clear that Endicot had imbibed new views of Church government and form of worship, and that he determined not to perpetuate the worship of the Church of England, to which he had professed to belong when he left England, but to form a new Church and a new form of worship. He seems to have brought over some thirty of the new emigrants to his new scheme; and among these were the newly-arrived ministers, Higginson and Skelton. They were both clergymen of the Puritan school—professing loyalty to the Church, but refusing to conform to the novel ceremonies imposed by Laud and his party.[32] But within two months after their arrival, they entered into the new views of Endicot to found a new Church on the Congregational system. Their manner of proceeding to do so has been stated above (p. 29.) Mr. Hutchinson remarks—"The New England Puritans, when at full liberty, went the full length which the Separatists did in England. It does not follow that they would have done so if they had remained in England. In their form of worship they universally followed the New Plymouth Church."[33]

The question is naturally suggested, could King Charles the First, in granting the Charter, one declared object of which was converting the Indians, have intended or contemplated the superseding the Church for whose episcopacy he perished on the scaffold, by the establishment of Congregationalism in New England? The supposition is absurd, and it is equally unreasonable to suppose that those who applied for and obtained the Charter contemplated anything of the kind, as will appear presently.

It can hardly be conceived that even among the newly-arrived emigrants on the shores of Massachusetts, such a revolution as the adoption of a new form of worship could be accomplished without doing violence to the convictions and endeared associations of some parties. However they might have objected to the ceremonies and despotic acts of the Laudian school in England, they could not, without a pang and voice of remonstrance, renounce the worship which had given to England her Protestantism and her liberties, or repudiate the book which embodied that form of worship, and which was associated with all that had exalted England, from Cramner and Ridley to their own day. Congregationalism had done nothing for the Protestantism or liberties of England, and it would have been strange indeed had there not been some among the emigrants who would not consider their change of latitude and longitude as destroying their Church membership, and sundering the additional ties which connected them with their forefathers and the associations of all their past life. Endicot, therefore, with all his authority as local Governor, and all his energy and zeal, and canvassing among the two or three hundred new emigrants for a new Church, had not been able to get more than thirty of them, with the aid of the two newly-arrived ministers, to unite in the new Covenant Confession; but he had got the (if not coerced) majority of the local Councillors to join with him, and therefore exercised absolute power over the little community, and denounced and treated as mutinous and factious all who would not renounce the Church of their fathers and of their own profession down to that hour, and adopt the worship of his new community.

As only thirty joined with Endicot in the creation of his new Church organization and Covenant, it is obvious that a majority of the emigrants either stood aloof from or were opposed to this extraordinary proceeding. Among the most noted of these adherents to the old Church of the Reformation were two brothers, John and Samuel Brown, who refused to be parties to this new and locally-devised Church revolution, and resolved, for themselves, families, and such as thought with them, to continue to worship God according to the custom of their fathers and nation.

It is the fashion of several American historians, as well as their echoes in England, to employ epithets of contumely in regard to those men, the Browns—both of them men of wealth—the one a lawyer and the other a private gentleman—both of them much superior to Endicot himself in social position in England—both of them among the original patentees and first founders of the colony—both of them Church reformers, but neither of them a Church revolutionist. It is not worthy of Dr. Palfrey and Mr. Bancroft to employ the words "faction" and "factionists" to the protests of John and Samuel Brown.[34]

What is stated by Dr. Palfrey and Mr. Bancroft more than refutes and condemns the opprobrious epithets they apply to the Browns. On pages 29 and 30 I have given, in the words of Mr. Hutchinson, the account of the formation of the new Church, and the expulsion of the Browns for their refusal to conform to it. Dr. Palfrey states the transaction between Endicot and the Browns in the following words:

"The transaction which determined the religious constitution of New England gave offence to two of the Councillors, John and Samuel Brown. Considering the late proceedings, as well they might do, to amount to a secession from the national Establishment, they, with some others of the same mind, set up a separate worship, conducted according to the Book of Common Prayer. Endicot and his friends were in no mood to tolerate this schism. The brothers, brought before the Governor, said that the ministers 'were Separatists, and would be Anabaptists.' The ministers replied that 'they came away from the Common Prayer and ceremonies, and had suffered much for their nonconformity in their native land, and therefore, being placed where they might have their liberty, they neither could nor would use them, because they judged the imposition of these things to be sinful corruptions of God's worship.' There was no composing such strife, and 'therefore, finding these two brothers to be of high spirits, and their speeches and practice tending to mutiny and faction, the Governor told them that New England was no place for such as they, and therefore he sent them both back for England at the return of the ships the same year.'"[35]

Mr. Bancroft says: "The Church was self-constituted. It did not ask the assent of the King or recognize him as its head; its officers were set apart and ordained among themselves; it used no Liturgy, and it rejected unnecessary ceremonies; and reduced the simplicity of Calvin to a still plainer standard." "There existed even in this little company a few individuals to whom the new system was unexpected; and in John and Samuel Brown they found able leaders. Both were members of the Colonial Council, and they had been favourites of the Corporation in England; and one of them, an experienced and meritorious lawyer, had been a member of the Board of Assistants in London. They declared their dissent from the Church of Higginson; and at every risk of union and tranquillity, they insisted upon the use of the English Liturgy." "Finding it to be a vain attempt to persuade the Browns to relinquish their resolute opposition, and believing that their speeches tended to produce disorder and dangerous feuds, Endicot sent them back to England in the returning ships; and faction, deprived of its leaders, died away."[36]

It is clear from these statements—partial as they are in favour of Endicot and against the Browns—that Endicot himself was the innovator, the Church revolutionist and the would-be founder of a new Church, the real schismatic from the old Church, and therefore responsible for any discussions which might arise from his proceedings; while the Browns and their friends were for standing in the old ways and walking in the old paths, refusing to be of those who were given to change. Mr. Bancroft says that "the new system was unexpected" to them. Mr. Palfrey says that "John and Samuel Brown, considering the late proceedings, as well they might, to amount to a secession from the national Establishment, they, with some others of the same mind, set up a separate worship conducted according to the Book of Common Prayer." Or, more properly, they continued the worship according to the Book of Common Prayer, which they and their fathers had practised, as well as Endicot and Higginson themselves up to that day, refusing to leave the old Church of the Reformation, and come into a new Church founded by joining of hands of thirty persons, in a new covenant, walking around the place of the old town-pump of Salem. Mr. Endicot is sent from England as the manager of a trading Company, and invested with powers as their local temporary Governor, to manage their business and remove persons that might disturb or interfere with its operations; and he becomes acquainted with a Doctor Fuller, a deacon of a Congregational Church at New Plymouth, and imbibes his views; and forthwith sets himself to abolish the old Church, and found a new one, and proceeds at length to banish as seditious and mutinous those who would not forsake the old way of worship and follow him in his new way of worship.

Some of the above quoted language of Dr. Palfrey and Mr. Bancroft implies improper conduct on the part of the brothers Brown, for which they were banished. Even if that were so, their position of unchangeable loyalty to their post and of good faith to their Company might be pleaded in justification of the strongest language on their part. But such was not the fact; it was their position, and not their language or tempers. Mr. Bancroft himself says, in the American edition of his History, that "the Browns were banished because they were Churchmen. Thus was Episcopacy professed in Massachusetts, and thus was it exiled. The blessings of the promised land were to be kept for Puritan dissenters."[37] This statement of Mr. Bancroft is confirmed and the conduct of Endicot more specifically stated by earlier New England historians. In the "Ecclesiastical History of Massachusetts," reprinted by the Massachusetts Historical Society, the whole affair is minutely related. The following passages are sufficient for my purpose:

"An opposition of some consequence arose from several persons of influence, who had been active in promoting the settlement of the place. At the head of this were Mr. Samuel Brown and Mr. John Brown, the one a lawyer and the other a merchant, who were attached to the form and usage of the Church of England. The ministers [Higginson and Skelton], assisted by Mr. Endicot, endeavoured to bring them over to the practice of the Puritans, but without success." "These gentlemen, with others, were conscientious Churchmen, and desired to use the Liturgy, and for this purpose met in their own houses. The magistrates, or rather Mr. Endicot, sent to demand a reason for their separation. They answered, that as they were of the Church established by law in their native country, it was highly proper they should worship God as the Government required, from whom they had received their Charter. Surely they might be allowed that liberty of conscience which all conceived to be reasonable when they were on the other side of the water. But these arguments were called seditious and mutinous."

"Mr. Bentley imputes the errors of the ministers to the temper of Endicot, who was determined to execute his own plan of Church government. Inexperienced in the passions of men, and unaccustomed to consult even his friends, he was resolved to suffer no opposition; and as the Salem Church had disdained the authority of the Church of England, his feelings were hurt and his temper raised against those who preferred a Liturgy, and whose object might be, as he conceived, to cause a schism in the community."[38]

The Mr. Bentley referred to above was the historian of the town of Salem, in a book entitled "Description and History of Salem, by the Rev. William Bentley," and reprinted in the "Collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society," Vol. VI., pp. 212-277. Referring to Endicot's conduct to the Browns, Mr. Bentley says:

"Endicot had been the cause of all the rash proceedings against the Browns. He was determined to execute his own plan of Church government. Inexperienced in the passions of men, and unaccustomed to consult even his friends, he was resolved to admit of no opposition. They who could not be terrified into silence were not commanded to withdraw, but they were seized and banished as criminals. The fear of injury to the colony induced its friends in England to give private satisfaction, and then to write a reproof to him who had been the cause of the outrages; and Endicot never recovered his reputation in England." (p. 245.)

It is thus clear beyond reasonable doubt that the sole offence of the Browns, and those who remained with them, was that they adhered to the worship which they had always practised, and which was professed by all parties when they left England, and because they refused to follow Mr. Endicot in the new Church polity and worship which he adopted from the Congregational Plymouth physician, after his arrival at Salem, and which he was determined to establish as the only worship in the new Plantation. It was Endicot, therefore, that commenced the change, the innovation, the schism, and the power given him as Manager of the trading business of the Company he exercised for the purpose of establishing a Church revolution, and banishing the men who adhered to the old ways of worship professed by the Company when applying for the Royal Charter, and still professed by them in England. It is not pretended by any party that the Browns were not interested in the success of the Company as originally established, and as professed when they left England; it is not insinuated that they opposed in any way or differed from Endicot in regard to his management of the general affairs of the Company; on the contrary, it is manifest by the statement of all parties that the sole ground and question of dispute between Endicot and the Browns was the refusal of the latter to abandon the Episcopal and adopt the Congregational form of worship set up by Endicot and thirty others, by joining of hands and subscribing to a covenant and confession of faith around the well-pump of Naumkeag, then christened Salem.

The whole dispute, then, narrowed to this one question, let us inquire in what manner the Browns and their friends declined acting with Endicot in establishing a new form of worship instead of that of the Church of England?

It does not appear that Endicot even consulted his local Council, much less the Directors of the Company in England, as to his setting up a new Church and new form of worship in the new Plantation at Salem. Having with the new accession of emigrants received the appointment of Governor, he appears to have regarded himself as an independent ruler. Suddenly raised from being a manager and captain to being a Governor, he assumed more despotic power than did King Charles in England, and among the new emigrants placed under his control, and whom he seems to have regarded as his subjects—himself their absolute sovereign, in both Church and State. In his conferences with Fuller, the Congregational doctor from New Plymouth, he found the Congregational worship to answer to his aspirations as in it he could on the one hand gratify his hatred of King and Church, and on the other hand become the founder of the new Church in a new Plantation. He paused not to consider whether the manager of a trading Company of adventurers had any authority to abolish the worship professed by the Company under whose authority he was acting; how far fidelity required him to give effect to the worship of his employers in carrying out their instructions in regard to the religious instruction of their servants and the natives; but he forthwith resolved to adopt a new confession of faith and to set up a new form of worship. On the arrival of the first three chaplains of the Company, in June of 1629, several months after his own arrival, Endicot seems to have imparted his views to them, and two of them, Higginson and Skelton, fell in with his scheme; but Mr. Bright adhered to his Church. It was not unnatural for Messrs. Higginson and Skelton to prefer becoming the fathers and founders of a new Church than to remain subordinate ministers of an old Church. The Company, in its written agreement with them, or rather in its instructions accompanying them to Endicot, allowed them discretion in their new mission field as to their mode of teaching and worship; but certainly no authority to ignore it, much less authority to adopt a new confession of faith and a new form of worship.

Within three months after the arrival of these chaplains of the Company at Salem, they and Endicot matured the plan of setting up a new Church, and seemed to have persuaded thirty-one of the two hundred emigrants to join with them—a minority of less than one-sixth of the little community; but in that minority was the absolute Governor, and against whose will a majority was nothing, even in religious matters, or in liberty of conscience. Government by majorities and liberty of conscience are attributes of freedom.

Let it be observed here, once for all, that Endicot and his friends are not, in my opinion, censurable for changing their professed religious opinions and worship and adopting others, if they thought it right to do so. If, on their arrival at Massachusetts Bay, they thought and felt themselves in duty bound to renounce their old and set up a new form of worship and Church discipline, it was doubtless their right to do so; but in doing so it was unquestionably their duty not to violate their previous engagements and the rights of others. They were not the original owners and occupants of the country, and were not absolutely free to choose their own form of government and worship; they were British subjects, and were commencing the settlement of a territory granted them by their Sovereign; they were sent there by a Company existing and acting under Royal Charter; Endicot was the chief agent of that Company, and acting under their instructions. As such, duty required him to consult his employers before taking the all-important step of setting aside the worship they professed and establishing a new one, much less to proscribe and banish those who had adventured as settlers upon the old professed worship, and declined adopting the new. And was it not a violation of good faith, as well as liberty of conscience, to deny to the Browns and their friends the very worship on the profession of which by all parties they had embarked as settlers in New England? To come to New England as Churchmen, and then abolish the worship of the Church and set up a new form of worship, without even consulting his employers, was what was done by Endicot; and to come as Churchmen to settle in New England, and then to be banished from it for being Churchmen, was what was done to the Browns by Endicot.

This act of despotism and persecution—apart from its relations to the King, and the Company chartered by him—is the more reprehensible from the manner of its execution and the circumstances connected with it.

It appears from the foregoing statements and authorities, that the Browns were not only gentlemen of the highest respectability, Puritan Churchmen, and friends of the colonial enterprise, but that when Endicot resolved upon founding a new Church and worship, they did not interfere with him; they did not interrupt, by objection or discussion, his proceedings around the well-pump of Salem in organizing a new Church and in heretofore professing clergymen of the Church of England, and with its vows upon them, and coming as chaplains of a Church of England Corporation, submitting to a new ordination in order to exercise ecclesiastical functions. The Browns and their friends seem to have been silent spectators of these proceedings—doubtless with feelings of astonishment if not of grief—but determined to worship in their families and on the Sabbath in their old way. But in this they were interrupted, and haled before the new Governor, Endicot, to answer for their not coming to his worship and abandoning that which they and their fathers, and Endicot himself, had practised; were called "Separatists," for not acting as such in regard to their old way of worship; and were treated as "seditious and mutinous," for justifying their fidelity to the old worship before the new "Star Chamber" tribunal of Endicot. The early New England ecclesiastical historian above quoted says: "The magistrates, or rather Endicot, sent to demand a reason[39] for their separation. They answered that as they were of the Church established by law in their native country, it was highly proper they should worship God as the Government required from whom they had received their Charter. Surely they might be allowed that liberty of conscience which all conceived to be reasonable when they were on the other side of the water." But their arguments were called "seditious and mutinous." The first Congregational historian of Salem, above quoted, says: "Endicot had been the cause of all the rash proceedings against the Browns. He was determined to execute his plan of Church government. Inexperienced in the passions of men, and unaccustomed to consult even his friends, he was resolved to admit of no opposition. They who could not be terrified into silence were not commanded to withdraw, but were seized and transported as criminals."[40]

Such are the facts of the case itself, as related by the New England Puritan writers themselves. I will now for a short time cross the Atlantic, and see what were the professions and proceedings of the Council or "Grand Court" of the Company in England in regard to the chief objects of establishing the Plantation, their provision for its religious wants, and their judgment afterwards of Endicot's proceedings. In the Company's first letter of instructions to Endicot and his Council, dated the 17th of April, 1629, they remind him that the propagation of the Gospel was the primary object contemplated by them; that they had appointed and contracted with three ministers to promote that work, and instructed him to provide accommodation and necessaries for them, according to agreement. They apprise him also of his confirmation as "Governor of our Plantation," and of the names of the Councillors joined with him.[41] In their letter to Endicot, they call the ministers sent by them "your ministers," and say: "For the manner of exercising their ministry, and teaching both our own people and the Indians, we leave that to themselves, hoping they will make God's Word the rule of their actions, and mutually agree in the discharge of their duties." Such instructions and directions have doubtless been given by the Managing Boards of many Missionary Societies to missionaries whom they sent abroad; but without the least suspicion that such missionaries could, in good faith, on arriving at their destination, ignore the Church and ordination in connection with which they had been employed, and set up a new Church, and even be parties to banishing from their new field of labour to which they had been sent, the members of the Church of which they themselves were professed ministers when they received their appointment and stipulated support.

Six weeks after transmitting to Endicot the letter above referred to, the Company addressed to him a second general letter of instructions. This letter is dated the 28th of May, 1629, and encloses the official proceedings of the Council or "General Court" appointing Endicot as Governor, with the names of the Councillors joined with him, together with the form of oaths he and the other local officers of the Company were to take.[42] The oath required to be taken by Endicot and each local Governor is very full and explicit.[43] It is also to be observed that these two letters of instructions, with forms of oaths and appointments of his Council, were sent out three months before Endicot, Higginson, and Skelton proceeded to ignore and abolish the Church professed by the Company and themselves, and set up a new Church.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 22: Two years after the Plymouth settlement, "Thirty-five ships sailed this year (1622) from the west of England, and two from London, to fish on the New England coasts, and made profitable voyages." (Holmes' Annals of America, Vol. I., p. 179.) In a note on the same page it is said: "Where in Newfoundland they shared six or seven pounds for a common man, in New England they shared fourteen pounds; besides, six Dutch and French ships made wonderful returns in furs."]

[Footnote 23: "The Council of New England, on the 19th of March (1627), sold to Sir Henry Rowsell, Sir John Young, and four other associates, [Thomas Southwood, John Humphrey, John Endicot, and Simeon Whitcombe,] in the vicinity of Dorchester, in England, a patent for all that part of New England lying between three miles to the northward of Merrimack River, and three miles to the southward of Charles River, and in length within the described breadth from the Atlantic Ocean to the South Sea." (Holmes' Annals, Vol. I., p. 193.)]

[Footnote 24: The zeal of White soon found other powerful associates in and out of London—kindred spirits, men of religious fervour, uniting emotions of enthusiasm with unbending perseverance in action—Winthrop, Dudley, Johnson, Pynchon, Eaton, Saltonstall, Bellingham, so famous in colonial annals, besides many others, men of fortune and friends to colonial enterprise. Three of the original purchasers parted with their rights; Humphrey and Endicot retained an equal interest with the original purchasers. (Bancroft's United States, Vol. I., pp. 368, 369.)]

[Footnote 25: Bancroft says: "Endicot, a man of dauntless courage, and that cheerfulness which accompanies courage, benevolent though austere, firm though choleric, of a rugged nature, which the sternest forms of Puritanism had not served to mellow, was selected as a fit instrument for this wilderness work.' (History of the United States, Vol. I., pp. 369, 370.)

"When the news reached London of the safe arrival of the emigrants (under Endicot), the number of the adventurers had already enlarged. The Puritans throughout England began to take an interest in the efforts which invited the imagination to indulge in delightful visions. Interest was also made to obtain a Royal Charter, with the aid of Bellingham and White, an eminent lawyer, who advocated the design. The Earl of Warwick had always been a friend to the Company; and Lord Dorchester, then one of the Secretaries of State, is said to have exerted a powerful influence in behalf of it. At last [March 4th, 1629], after much labour and large expenditures, the patent for the Company of Massachusetts Bay passed the seals." (Ib., p. 379.)]

[Footnote 26: The precursor of this Company was a Joint Stock Association, established at Dorchester under the auspices of the Rev. Mr. White, "patriarch of Dorchester," and called the "Dorchester Adventurers," with a view to fishing, farming, and hunting; but the undertaking was not successful, and an attempt was made to retrieve affairs by putting the colony under a different direction. The Dorchester partners heard of some religious and well-affected persons that were lately removed out of New Plymouth, out of dislike of their principles of rigid separation, of which Mr. Roger Conant was one—a religious, sober, and prudent gentleman. (Hubbard's History of New England, Chap. xviii.) The partners engaged Conant to be their Governor, with the charge of all their affairs, as well fishing as planting. The change did not produce success. The Association sold its land, shipping, &c.; and Mr. Endicot was appointed under the new regime. (Palfrey's Hist. of New England, Vol. I., pp. 285-8.)]

[Footnote 27: Palfrey, Vol. I., p. 289.]

[Footnote 28: Ib., p. 292.]

[Footnote 29: Mr. Bright, one of these ministers, is said by Hubbard to have been a Conformist. He went, soon after his arrival, to Charlestown, and tarried about a year in the country, when he returned to England. Ralph Smith was required to give a pledge, under his hand, that he would not exercise his ministry within the limits of the patent, without the express leave of the Governor on the spot. Mr. Smith seems to have been of the separation in England, which occasioned the caution to be used with him. He was a little while in Nantasket, and went from thence to Plymouth, where he was their minister for several years. (Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts Bay, Vol. I., pp. 10, 11.)]

[Footnote 30: Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts Bay, Vol. I., pp. 11, 12.]

[Footnote 31: How much of the Church system thus introduced had already been resolved upon before the colonists of the Massachusetts Company left England, and how long a time, if any, previous to their emigration such an agreement was made, are questions which we have probably not sufficient means to determine. Thus much is certain—that when Skelton and Higginson reached Salem, they found Endicot, who was not only their Governor, but one of the six considerable men who had made the first movement for a patent, fully prepared for the ecclesiastical organization which was presently instituted. In the month before their arrival, Endicot, in a letter [May 11, 1629] to Bradford thanking him for the visit of Fuller, had said: 'I rejoice much that I am by him satisfied touching your judgments of the outward form of God's worship.'—Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, First Series, Vol. III., p. 65.]

[Footnote 32: Cotton Mather relates that, taking the last look at his native shore, Higginson said, 'We will not say, as the Separatists say, "Farewell, Babylon; farewell, Rome;" but we will say, "Farewell, dear England; farewell, Church of God in England, and all the Christian friends there. We do not go to New England as separatists from the Church of England, though we cannot but separate from the corruptions of it. But we go to practise the positive part of Church reformation, and propagate the gospel in America.'"—Magnalia, Book III., Part II., Chap. i., quoted by Palfrey, Vol. I., p. 297, in a note.

"They were careful to distinguish themselves from the Brownist and other Separatists. Had they remained in England, and the Church been governed with the wisdom and moderation of the present day, they would have remained, to use their own expression, 'in the bosom of the Church where they had received their hopes of salvation.'"—Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts Bay, Vol. I., p. 417.

Note by Mr. Hutchinson: "The son of one of the first ministers, in a preface to a sermon preached soon after the Revolution, remarks that 'if the bishops in the reign of King Charles the First had been of the same spirit as those in the reign of King William, there would have been no New England.'"]

[Footnote 33: History of Massachusetts Bay, Vol. I., Chap, iv., p. 418.]

[Footnote 34: "The Messrs. Brown went out with the second emigration, at the same time as Messrs. Higginson and Skelton, a few months after Endicot, and while he was the local Governor, several months before the arrival of the third emigration of eleven ships with Governor Winthrop. In the Company's first letter of instructions to Endicot, dated the 17th of April, 1629, they speak of and commend the Messrs. Brown in the following terms:

"'Through many businesses we had almost forgot to recommend to you two brethren of our Company, Mr. John and Mr. Samuel Brown, who though they be no adventurers in the general stock, yet are they men we do much respect, being fully persuaded of their sincere affections to the good of our Plantation. The one, Mr. John Brown, is sworn assistant here, and by us chosen one of the Council there; a man experienced in the laws of our kingdom, and such an one as we are persuaded will worthily deserve your favour and furthermore, which we desire he may have, and that in the first division of lands there may be allotted to either of them two hundred acres.'" (Young's Chronicles of the First Planters of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, from 1623 to 1636, p. 168.)]

[Footnote 35: History of New England, Vol. I., p. 298.]

[Footnote 36: Bancroft's History of the United States, Vol. I., p. 379.]

[Footnote 37: History of the United States, Am. Ed. 8vo, Vol. I., p. 350. These three sentences are not found in the British Museum (English) Edition of Mr. Bancroft's History, but are contained in Routledge's London reprint of the American Edition.]

[Footnote 38: "Ecclesiastical History of Massachusetts," in the Collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Vol. IX., pp. 3-5.]

[Footnote 39: It is clear, from these and other corresponding statements, that the Messrs. Brown had had no controversy with Endicot; had not in the least interfered with his proceedings, but had quietly and inoffensively pursued their own course in adhering to the old worship; and only stated their objections to his proceedings by giving the reasons for their own, when arraigned before his tribunal to answer for their not coming to his worship, and continuing in that of their own Church. The reasonings and speeches thus drawn from them were deemed "seditious and mutinous," and for which they were adjudged "criminals'" and banished. Looking at all the facts of the case—including the want of good faith to the Browns and those who agreed with them—it exceeds in inquisitorial and despotic prescriptive persecution that which drove the Brownists from England to Holland in the first years of James the First.]

[Footnote 40: Collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society.

Mr. F.M. Hubbard, in his new edition of Belknap's American Biography, iii. 166, referring to Endicot, says: "He was of a quick temper, which the habit of military command had not softened; of strong religious feelings, moulded on the sternest features of Calvinism; resolute to uphold with the sword what he had received as gospel truth, and fearing no enemy so much as a gainsaying spirit. Cordially disliking the English Church, he banished the Browns and the Prayer Book; and averse to all ceremonies and symbols, the cross on the King's colours was an abomination he could not away with. He cut down the Maypole on Merry Mount, published his detestation of long hair in a formal proclamation, and set in the pillory and on the gallows the returning Quakers."]

[Footnote 41: The words of the Company's letter are as follows:

"And for that the propagating of the Gospel is the thing we do profess above all to be our aim in settling this Plantation, we have been careful to make plentiful provision of godly ministers, by whose faithful preaching, godly conversation, and exemplary life, we trust not only those of our own nation will be built up in the knowledge of God, but also the Indians may, in God's appointed time, be reduced to the obedience of the Gospel of Christ. One of them, viz., Mr. Skelton, whom we have rather desired to bear a part in this work, for that we have been informed yourself formerly received much good by his ministry. Another is Mr. Higgeson (Higginson), a grave man, and of worthy commendations. The third is Mr. Bright, sometimes trained up under Mr. Davenport. We pray you, accommodate them all with necessaries as well as you may, and in convenient time let there be houses built for them, according to the agreement we have made with them, copies whereof, as of all others we have entertained, shall be sent you by the next ships, time not permitting now. We doubt not these gentlemen, your ministers, will agree lovingly together; and for cherishing of love betwixt them, we pray you carry yourself impartially to all. For the manner of exercising their ministry, and teaching both our own people and the Indians, we leave that to themselves, hoping they will make God's Word the rule of their actions, and mutually agree in the discharge of their duties.

"We have, in prosecution of that good opinion we have always had of you, confirmed you Governor of our Plantation, and joined in commission with you the three ministers—namely, Mr. Francis Higginson, Mr. Samuel Skelton, and Mr. Francis Bright; also Mr. John and Samuel Brown, Mr. Thomas Groves, and Mr. Samuel Sharpe."—The Company's First General Letter of Instructions to Endicot and his Council, the 17th of April, 1629. (Young's Chronicles of the First Planters of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, pp. 142-144.)

"A form of an oath for a Governor beyond the seas, and of an oath for the Council there, was drawn and delivered to Mr. Humphrey to show to the (Privy) Council." (Company's Records, Young, &c., p. 69.)]

[Footnote 42: The following is an extract of the Company's Second General Letter of Instructions to Endicot and his Council, dated London, 28th May, 1629:

"We have, and according as we then advised, at a full and ample Court assembled, elected and established you, Captain John Endicot, to the place of Governor in our Plantation there, as also some others to be of the Council with you, as more particularly you will perceive by an Act of Court herewith sent, confirmed by us at a General Court, and sealed with our common seal, to which Act we refer you, desiring you all punctually to observe the same, and that the oaths we herewith send you (which have been penned by learned counsel, to be administered to each of you in your several places) may be administered in such manner and form as in and by our said order is particularly expressed; and that yourselves do frame such other oaths as in your wisdom you shall think fit to be administered to your secretary or other officers, according to their several places respectively." (Young's Chronicles, &c., p. 173.)]

[Footnote 43: The form of oath, which had been prepared under legal advice, submitted to and approved of by the King's Privy Council, was as follows:

"Oaths of Office for the Governor, Deputy Governor, and Council in New England (ordered May 7th, 1629).

"The Oath of the Governor in New England." (The same to the Deputy Governor.)

"You shall be faithful and loyal unto our Sovereign Lord the King's Majesty, and to his heirs and successors. You shall support and maintain, to the best of your power, the Government and Company of Massachusetts Bay, in New England, in America, and the privileges of the same, having no singular regard to yourself in derogation or hindrance of the Commonwealth of this Company; and to every person under your authority you shall administer indifferent and equal justice. Statutes and Ordinances shall you none make without the advice and consent of the Council for Government of the Massachusetts Bay in New England. You shall admit none into the freedom of this Company but such as may claim the same by virtue of the privileges thereof. You shall not bind yourself to enter into any business or process for or in the name of this Company, without the consent and agreement of the Council aforesaid, but shall endeavour faithfully and carefully to carry yourself in this place and office of Governor, as long as you shall continue in it. And likewise you shall do your best endeavour to draw the natives of this country called New England to the knowledge of the true God, and to conserve the planters, and others coming hither, in the same knowledge and fear of God. And you shall endeavour, by all good unions, to advance the good of the Plantations of this Company, and you shall endeavour the raising of such commodities for the benefit and encouragement of the adventurers and planters as, through God's blessing on your endeavours, may be produced for the good and service of the kingdom of England, this Company, and the Plantations. All these premises you shall hold and keep to the uttermost of your power and skill, so long as you shall continue in the place of Governor of this fellowship; so help you God." (The same oath of allegiance was required of each member of the Council.) (Young's Chronicles of First Planters of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, from 1623 to 1636, pp. 201, 202.)]

PART III.

EVASIONS AND DENIALS OF THE ABOLITION OF EPISCOPAL, AND ESTABLISHMENT OF CONGREGATIONAL WORSHIP AT MASSACHUSETTS BAY; PROOFS OF THE FACTS, THAT THE COMPANY AND FIRST SETTLERS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY WERE PROFESSED EPISCOPALIANS WHEN THE LATTER LEFT ENGLAND; LETTERS OF THE LONDON COMPANY AGAINST THE INNOVATIONS WHICH ABOLISHED THE EPISCOPAL, AND ESTABLISHED CONGREGATIONAL WORSHIP BY THE "ADVENTURERS" AFTER CROSSING THE ATLANTIC; THIS THE FIRST SEED OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, AND OF CRUEL PERSECUTIONS.

When the Browns arrived in England as banished "criminals" from the Plantation to which they had gone four months before as members of the Council of Government, and with the highest commendation of the London General Court itself, they naturally made their complaints against the conduct of Endicot in superseding the Church of England by the establishment of a new confession of faith and a new form of worship. It is worthy of remark, that in the Records of the Company the specific subjects of complaint by the Browns are carefully kept out of sight—only that a "dispute" or "difference" had arisen between them and "Governor Endicot;" but what that difference was is nowhere mentioned in the Records of the Company. The letters of Endicot and the Browns were put into the hands of Goffe, the Deputy Governor of the Company; were never published; and they are said to have been "missing" unto this day. Had the real cause and subject of difference been known in England, and been duly represented to the Privy Council, the Royal Charter would undoubtedly have been forthwith forfeited and cancelled; but the Puritan-party feeling of the Browns seems to have been appealed to not to destroy the Company and their enterprise; that in case of not prosecuting their complaints before a legal tribunal, the matter would be referred to a jointly selected Committee of the Council to arbitrate on the affair; and that in the meantime the conduct of Endicot in making Church innovations (if he had made them) would be disclaimed by the Company. To render the Browns powerless to sustain their complaints, their letters were seized[44] and their statements were denied.