THE FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND

 TEXTBOOK EDITION

 THE CHRONICLES OF AMERICA SERIES ALLEN JOHNSON EDITOR

 GERHARD R. LOMER CHARLES W. JEFFERYS ASSISTANT EDITORS

 THE FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND

 A CHRONICLE OF THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTHS BY CHARLES M. ANDREWS

 [Illustration]

 NEW HAVEN: YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS TORONTO: GLASGOW, BROOK & CO. LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD OXFORD: UNIVERSITY PRESS

 _Copyright, 1919, by Yale University Press_

 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

 CONTENTS

 I. THE COMING OF THE PILGRIMS Page 1

 II. THE BAY COLONY " 21

 III. COMPLETING THE WORK OF SETTLEMENT	" 45

 IV. EARLY NEW ENGLAND LIFE " 72

 V. AN ATTEMPT AT COLONIAL UNION " 88

 VI. WINNING THE CHARTERS " 100

 VII. MASSACHUSETTS DEFIANT " 116

 VIII. WARS WITH THE INDIANS " 129

 IX. THE BAY COLONY DISCIPLINED " 147

 X. THE ANDROS RÉGIME IN NEW ENGLAND	" 166

 XI. THE END OF AN ERA " 194

 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE " 201

 INDEX " 205

THE FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND

CHAPTER I

THE COMING OF THE PILGRIMS

The Pilgrims and Puritans, whose migration to the New World marks thebeginning of permanent settlement in New England, were children of thesame age as the enterprising and adventurous pioneers of England inVirginia, Bermuda, and the Caribbean. It was the age in which thefoundations of the British Empire were being laid in the WesternContinent. The "spacious times of great Elizabeth" had passed, but thenew national spirit born of those times stirred within the Englishpeople. The Kingdom had enjoyed sixty years of domestic peace andprosperity, and Englishmen were eager to enter the lists for a share inthe advantages which the New World offered to those who would venturetherein. Both landowning and landholding classes, gentry and tenantfarmers alike, were clamoring, the one for an increase of their landedestates, the other for freedom from the feudal restraints which stilllegally bound them. The land-hunger of neither class could be satisfiedin a narrow island where the law and the lawgivers were in favor of themaintenance of feudal rights. The expectations of all were aroused byvisions of wealth from the El Dorados of the West, or of profit fromcommercial enterprises which appealed to the cupidity of capitalists andled to investments that promised speedy and ample returns. A desire toimprove social conditions and to solve the problem of the poor and thevagrant, which had become acute since the dissolution of themonasteries, was arousing the authorities to deal with the pauper and todispose of the criminal in such a way as to yield a profitable serviceto the kingdom. England was full of resolute men, sea-dogs and soldiersof fortune, captains on the land as well as the sea, who in times ofpeace were seeking employment and profit and who needed an outlet fortheir energies. Some of these continued in the service of kings andprinces in Europe; others conducted enterprises against the Spaniards inthe West Indies and along the Spanish Main; while still others, such asJohn Smith and Miles Standish, became pioneers in the work of Englishcolonization. 

But more important than the promptings of land-hunger and the desire forwealth and adventure was the call made by a social and religiousmovement which was but a phase of the general restlessness and populardiscontent. The Reformation, in which this movement had its origin, wasmore than a revolt from the organization and doctrines of the mediævalchurch; it voiced the yearning of the middle classes for a positioncommensurate with their growing prominence in the national life. Thoughthe feudal tenantry, given over to agriculture and bound by theconventions of feudal law, were still perpetuating many of the oldcustoms, the towns were emancipating themselves from feudal control, andby means of their wealth and industrial activities were winningrecognition as independent and largely self-sufficing units. The gild, aclosely compacted brotherhood, existing partly for religious andeducational purposes and partly for the control of handicrafts and theexchange of goods, became the center of middle-class energy, and inthousands of instances hedged in the lives of the humbler artisans. Thus it was largely from those who knew no wider world than the fieldswhich they cultivated and the gilds which governed their standards andoutput that the early settlers of New England were recruited. 

Equally important with the social changes were those which concernedmen's faith and religious organization. The Peace of Augsburg, which in1555 had closed for the moment the warfare resulting from theReformation, not only recognized the right of Protestantism to exist, but also handed over to each state, whether kingdom, duchy, orprincipality, full power to control the creed within its borders. Whoever ruled the state could determine the religion of his subjects, adictum which denied the right of individuals or groups of individuals todepart from the established faith. Hence arose a second revolt, notagainst the mediæval church and empire but against the authority of thestate and its creed, whether Roman Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, orCalvinist, a revolt in which Huguenot in France battled for his right tobelieve as he wished, and Puritan in England refused to conform to amanner of worship which retained much of the mediæval liturgy andceremonial. Just as all great revolutionary movements in church orstate give rise to men who repudiate tradition and all accretions due tohuman experience, and base their political and religious ideals upon thelaw of nature, the rights of man, the inner light, or the Word of God;so, too, in England under Elizabeth and James I, leaders appeared whodemanded radical changes in faith and practice, and advocated completeseparation from the Anglican Church and isolation from the religiousworld about them. Of such were the Separatists, who rejected theAnglican and other creeds, severed all bonds with a national churchsystem, cast aside form, ceremony, liturgy, and a hierarchy of churchorders, and sought for the true faith and form of worship in the Word ofGod. For these men the Bible was the only test of religious truth. 

The Separatists organized themselves into small religious groups, asindependent communities or companies of Christians, covenanted with Godand keeping the Divine Law in a Holy Communion. They consisted in themain of men and women in the humbler walks of life--artisans, tenantfarmers, with some middle-class gentry. Sufficient to themselves andknit together in the fashion of a gild or brotherhood, they believed ina church system of the simplest form and followed the Bible, Old and NewTestaments alike, as the guide of their lives. Desiring to withdraw fromthe world as it was that they might commune together in direct relationswith God, they accepted persecution as the test of their faith andwelcomed hardship, banishment, and even death as proofs of righteousnessand truth. Convinced of the scriptural soundness of what they believedand what they practised, and confident of salvation through unyieldingsubmission to God's will as they interpreted it, they became conspicuousbecause of their radical thought and peculiar forms of worship, andinevitably drew upon themselves the attention of the authorities, bothsecular and ecclesiastical. 

The leading centers of Separatism were in London and Norfolk, but theseat of the little congregation that eventually led the way across thesea to New England was in Scrooby in Nottinghamshire. There--in Scroobymanor-house, where William Brewster, the father, was receiver andbailiff, and his son, the future elder of the Plymouth colony, wasacting postmaster; where Richard Clayton preached and John Robinsonprayed; and where the youthful William Bradford was one of itsmembers--there was gathered a small Separatist congregation composed ofhumble folk of Nottinghamshire and adjoining counties. They were soondiscovered worshiping in the manor-house chapel, by the ecclesiasticalauthorities of Yorkshire, and for more than a year were subjected topersecution, some being "taken and clapt up in prison, " others having"their houses besett and watcht night and day and hardly escaped theirhands. " At length they determined to leave England for Holland. During1607 and 1608 they escaped secretly, some at one time, some at another, all with great loss and difficulty, until by the August of the latteryear there were gathered at Amsterdam more than a hundred men, women, and children, "armed with faith and patience. "

But Amsterdam proved a disappointing refuge. And in 1609 they moved toLeyden, "a fair and bewtifull citie, " where for eleven years theyremained, pursuing such trades as they could, chiefly weaving and themanufacture of cloth, "injoying much sweete and delightful societie andspiritual comfort togeather in the ways of God, under the able ministrieand prudente governmente of Mr. John Robinson and Mr. WilliamBrewster. " But at last new and imperative reasons arose, demanding athird removal, not to another city in Holland, but this time to the NewWorld called America. They were breaking under the great labor and hardfare; they feared to lose their language and saw no opportunity toeducate their children; they disapproved of the lax Dutch observance ofSunday and saw in the temptations of the place a menace to the habitsand morals of the younger members of the flock, and, in the influencesof the world around them, a danger to the purity of their creed andtheir practice. They determined to go to a new country "devoyd of allcivill inhabitants, " where they might keep their names, their faith, andtheir nationality. 

After many misgivings, the fateful decision was reached by the "majorparte, " and preparations for departure were made. But where to go becamea troublesome problem. The merits of Guiana and other "wild coasts" weredebated, but finally Virginia met with general approval, because therethey might live as a private association, a distinct body by themselves, similar to other private companies already established there. To thisend they sent two of their number to England to secure a patent fromthe Virginia Company of London. Under this patent and in bond ofallegiance to King James, yet acting as a "body in the most strict andsacred bond and covenant of the Lord, " an independent and absolutechurch, they became a civil community also, with governors chosen forthe work from among themselves. But the dissensions in the LondonCompany caused them to lose faith in that association, and, hearing ofthe reorganization of the Virginia Company of Plymouth, [1] which aboutthis time obtained a new charter as the New England Council, they turnedfrom southern to northern Virginia--that is, to New England--andresolved to make their settlement where according to reports fishingmight become a means of livelihood. 

But their plans could not be executed without assistance; and, cominginto touch with a London merchant, Thomas Weston, who promised to aidthem, they entered into what proved to be a long and wearisomenegotiation with a group of adventurers--gentlemen, merchants, andothers, seventy in number--for an advance of money to finance theexpedition. The Pilgrims entered into a partnership with the merchantsto form a voluntary joint-stock company. It was understood that themerchants, who purchased shares, were to remain in England; that thecolonists, who contributed their personal service at a fixed rating, were to go to America, there to labor at trade, trucking, and fishingfor seven years; and that during this time all profits were to remain ina common stock and all lands to be left undivided. The conditions werehard and discouraging, but there was no alternative; and at last, embarking at Delfthaven in the _Speedwell_, a small ship bought andfitted in Holland, they came to Southampton, where another and largervessel, the _Mayflower_, was in waiting. In August, 1620, the twovessels set sail, but the _Speedwell_, proving unseaworthy, put backafter two attempts, and the _Mayflower_ went on alone, bearing onehundred and two passengers, two-thirds of the whole, picked out asworthy and willing to undertake the voyage. The _Mayflower_ reached thewaters of New England on the 11th of November after a tedious course ofsixty-five days from Plymouth to Cape Cod; but they did not decide ontheir place of landing until the 21st of December. Four days later theyerected on the site of the town of Plymouth their first building. 

The coast of New England was no unknown shore. During the years from1607 to 1620, while settlers were founding permanent colonies atJamestown and in Bermuda, explorers and fishermen, both English andFrench, had skirted its headlands and penetrated its harbors. In 1614, John Smith, the famous Virginia pioneer, who had left the service of theLondon Company and was in the employ of certain London merchants, hadexplored the northern coast in an open boat and had given the region itsname. These many voyages and ventures at trading and fishing served toarouse enthusiasm in England for a world of good rivers and harbors, rich soil, and wonderful fishing, and to spread widely a knowledge ofthe coasts from Newfoundland to the Hudson River. Of this knowledge thePilgrims reaped the benefit, and the captain of the _Mayflower_, Christopher Jones, against whom any charge of treachery may bedismissed, guided them, it is true, to a region unoccupied by Englishmenbut not to one unknown or poorly esteemed. The miseries that confrontedthe Pilgrims during their first year in Plymouth colony were not due tothe inhospitality of the region, but to the time of year when theylanded upon it; and insufficiently provisioned as they were before theyleft England, it is little wonder that suffering and death should haveaccompanied their first experience with a New England winter. 

This little group of men and women landed on territory that had beengranted to the New England Council and they themselves had neitherpatent for their land nor royal authority to set up a government. Butsome form of government was absolutely necessary. Before starting fromSouthampton, they had followed Robinson's instructions to choose agovernor and assistants for each ship "to order the people by the way";and now that they were at the end of their long voyage, the men of thecompany met in the cabin of the _Mayflower_, and drew up a covenant inaccordance with which they combined themselves together into a bodypolitic for their better ordering and preservation. This compact, signedby forty-one members, of whom eleven bore the title of "Mister, " was aplantation covenant, the political counterpart of the church covenantwhich bound together every Separatist community. It provided that thepeople should live together in a peaceable and orderly manner undercivil authorities of their own choosing, and was the first of many suchcovenants entered into by New England towns, not defining a governmentbut binding the settlers to unite politically as they had already donefor religious worship. John Carver, who had been chosen governor on the_Mayflower_, was confirmed as governor of the settlement and given oneassistant. After their goods had been set on shore and a few cottagesbuilt, the whole body "mette and consulted of lawes and orders, both fortheir civil and military governmente, still adding therunto as urgentoccasion in severall times, and as cases did require. "

Of this courageous but sorely stricken community more than half diedbefore the first winter was over. But gradually the people becameacclimated, new colonists came out, some from the community at Leyden, in the _Fortune_, the _Anne_, the _Charity_, and the _Handmaid_, and thenumbers steadily increased. The settlers were in the main a homogeneousbody, both as to social class and to religious views and purpose. Amongthem were undesirable members--some were sent out by the Englishmerchants and others came out of their own accord--who played stool-ballon Sunday, committed theft, or set the community by the ears, as did onenotorious offender named Lyford. But their number was not great, formost of them remained but a short time, and then went to Virginia orelsewhere, or were shipped back to England by the Pilgrims asincorrigibles. The life of the people was predominantly agricultural, with fishing, salt-making, and trading with the Indians as alliedinterests. The partners in England sent overseas cattle, stock, andlaborers, and, as their profits depended on the success of thesettlement, did what they could to encourage its development. Theposition of the Pilgrims was that of sharers and partners with themerchants, from whom they received directions but not commands. 

But under the agreement of 1620 with their partners in London, whichremained in force for seven years, the Plymouth people could neitherdivide their land nor dispose of the products of their labor, and soburdensome became this arrangement that in 1623 temporary assignmentsof land were made which in 1624 became permanent. As Bradford said, andhis comment is full of wisdom:

 The experience that was had in this commone course and condition, tried sundrie years, and that amongst godly and sober men, may well evince the vanitie of that conceite of Platos and other ancients, applauded by some of later times; that the taking away of propertie, and bringing in communitie into a comone wealth, would make them happy and florishing; as if they were wiser then God. For this comunitie (so farr as it was) was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and retard much imployment that would have been to their benefite and comforte. For the yong-men that were most able and fitte for labour and service did repine that they should spend their time and streingth to worke for other mens wives and children, with out any recompence. The strong, or man of parts, had no more in devission of victails and cloaths, than he that was weake and not able to doe a quarter the other could; this was thought injuestice. The aged and graver men to be ranked and equalised in labours, and victails, cloaths, etc. , with the meaner and yonger sorte, thought it some indignitie and disrespect unto them. And for mens wives to be commanded to doe servise for other men, as dresing their meate, washing their cloaths, etc. , they deemd it a kind of slaverie, neither could many husbands well brooke it. 

During the two years that followed, so evident was the failure of thejoint undertaking that efforts were made on both sides to bring it toan end; for the merchants, with no profit from the enterprise, wereanxious to avoid further indebtedness; and the colonists, wearying ofthe dual control, wished to reap for themselves the full reward of theirown efforts. Under the new arrangement of small private properties, thesettlers began "to prise corne as more pretious than silver, and thosethat had some to spare begane to trade one with another for smallthings, by the quart, pottle, and peck, etc. , for money they had none. "Later, finding "their corne, what they could spare from thernecessities, to be a commoditie, (for they sould it at 6s. A bushell)[they] used great dilligence in planting the same. And the Gov[erno]rand shuch as were designed to manage the trade, (for it was retained forthe generall good, and none were to trade in particuler, ) they followedit to the best advantage they could; and wanting trading goods, theyunderstoode that a plantation which was at Monhigen, and belonged tosome marchants of Plimoth [England] was to breake up, and diverseusefull goods was ther to be sould, " the governor (Bradford himself) andEdward Winslow "tooke a boat and some hands and went thither. . . . Withthese goods, and their corne after harvest they gott good store oftrade, so as they were enabled to pay their ingagements against thetime, and to get some cloathing for the people, and had some comoditiesbeforehand. " Though conditions were hard and often discouraging, thePilgrims gradually found themselves self-supporting and as soon as thisfact became clear, they sent Isaac Allerton to England "to make acomposition with the adventurers. " As a result of the negotiations an"agreement or bargen" was made whereby eight leading members of thecolony bought the shares of the merchants for £1800 and distributed thepayment among the settlers, who at this time numbered altogether aboutthree hundred. Each share carried with it a certain portion of land andlivestock. The debt was not finally liquidated until 1642. 

By 1630, the Plymouth colony was fairly on its feet and beginning togrow in "outward estate. " The settlers increased in number, prosperedfinancially, and scattered to the outlying districts; and Plymouth thetown and Plymouth the colony ceased to be identical. Before 1640, thelatter had become a cluster of ten towns, each a covenanted communitywith its church and elder. Though the colony never obtained a charterof incorporation from the Crown, it developed a form of governmentarising naturally from its own needs. By 1633 its governor and oneassistant had become a governor and seven assistants, elected annuallyat a primary assembly held in Plymouth town; and the three parts, governor, assistants, and assembly, together constituted the governingbody of the colony. In 1636, a revision of the laws and ordinances wasmade in the form of "The Great Fundamentals, " a sort of constitution, frequently interspersed with statements of principles, which was printedwith additions in 1671. The right to vote was limited at first to thosewho were members of the company and liable for its debt, but later thesuffrage was extended to include others than the first-comers, and in1633 was exercised by sixty-eight persons altogether. In 1668, a voterwas required to have property, to be "of sober and peaceableconversation, " and to take an oath of fidelity, but apparently he wasnever required to take the oath of allegiance to the Crown. So rapidlydid the colony expand that, by 1639, the holding of a primary assemblyin Plymouth town became so inconvenient that delegates had to bechosen. Thus there was introduced into the colony a form ofrepresentative government, though it is to be noted that governor, assistants, and deputies sat together in a common room and never dividedinto two houses, as did the assemblies in other colonies. 

The settlement of Plymouth colony is conspicuous in New England historybecause of the faith and courage and suffering of those who engaged init and because of the ever alluring charm of William Bradford's _Historyof Plimouth Plantation_. The greatness of the Pilgrims lay in theirillustrious example and in the influence they exercised upon the churchlife of the later New England colonies, for to the Pilgrims was due thefact that the congregational way of organization and worship became theaccepted form in Massachusetts and Connecticut. But in other respectsPlymouth was vastly overshadowed by her vigorous neighbors. Her people, humble and simple, were without importance in the world of thought, literature, or education. Their intellectual and material poverty, lackof business enterprise, unfavorable situation, and defenseless positionin the eyes of the law rendered them almost a negative factor in thelater life of New England. No great movement can be traced to theirinitiation, no great leader to birth within their borders, and no greatwork of art, literature, or scholarship to those who belonged to thisunpretending company. The Pilgrim Fathers stand rather as an emblem ofvirtue than a moulding force in the life of the nation. 

FOOTNOTE:

[1] In 1606 King James had granted a charter incorporating twocompanies, one of which, made up of gentlemen and merchants in and aboutLondon, was known as the Virginia Company of London, the other as theVirginia Company of Plymouth. The former was authorized to plantcolonies between thirty-four and forty-one degrees north latitude, andthe latter between thirty-eight and forty-five, but neither was to planta colony within one hundred miles of the other. Jamestown, the firstcolony of the London Company, was now thirteen years old. The PlymouthCompany had made no permanent settlement in its domain. 

CHAPTER II

THE BAY COLONY

While the Pilgrims were thus establishing themselves as the firstoccupants of the soil of New England, other men of various sorts andmotives were trying their fortunes within its borders and were testingthe opportunities which it offered for fishing and trade with theIndians. They came as individuals and companies, men of wanderingdisposition, romantic characters many of them, resembling the rovers andadventurers in the Caribbean or representing some of the many activitiesprevalent in England at the beginning of the seventeenth century. ThomasWeston, former ally of the Pilgrims, settled with a motley crew of rudefellows at Wessagusset (Quincy) and there established a trading post in1622. Of this settlement, which came to an untimely end after causingthe Pilgrims a great deal of trouble, only a blockhouse and stockaderemained. Another irregular trader, Captain Wollaston, with some thirtyor forty people, chiefly servants, established himself in 1625 two milesnorth of Wessagusset, calling the place Mount Wollaston. With him camethat wit, versifier, and prince of roysterers, Thomas Morton, who, afterWollaston had moved on to Virginia, became "lord of misrule. " Dubbinghis seat Merrymount, drinking, carousing, and corrupting the Indians, affronting the decorous Separatists at Plymouth, Morton later became aserious menace to the peace of Massachusetts Bay. The Pilgrims felt thatthe coming of such adventurers and scoffers, who were none tooscrupulous in their dealings with either white man or Indian and weregiven to practices which the Puritans heartily abhorred, was a calamityshowing that even in the wilds of America they could not escape theworld from which they were anxious to withdraw. 

The settlements formed by these squatters and stragglers were quiteunauthorized by the New England Council, which owned the title to thesoil. As this Council had accomplished very little under its patent, SirFerdinando Gorges, its most active member, persisted in his efforts tofound a colony, brought about a general distribution of the territoryamong its members, and obtained for himself and his son Robert, thesection around and immediately north of Massachusetts Bay. An expeditionwas at once launched. In September, 1623, Robert Gorges with sixgentlemen and a well-equipped and well-organized body of settlersreached Plymouth, --the forerunners, it was hoped, of a large number tocome. This company of settlers was composed of families, the heads ofwhich were mechanics and farmers, and with them were two clergymen, Morrell and Blackstone, the whole constituting the greatest enterpriseset on foot in America by the Council. Robert Gorges, bearing acommission constituting him Governor-General over all New England, madehis settlement at Weston's old place at Wessagusset. Here he builthouses and stored his goods and began the founding of Weymouth, thesecond permanent habitation in New England and the first onMassachusetts Bay. Unfortunately, famine, that arch-enemy of all theearly settlers, fell upon his company, his father's resources in Englandproved inadequate, and he and others were obliged to return. Of thosethat remained a few stayed at Wessagusset; one of the clergymen, WilliamBlackstone, with his wife went to Shawmut (Boston); Samuel Maverick andhis wife, to Winnissimmet (Chelsea); and the Walfords, to Mishawum(Charlestown). Probably all these people were Anglicans; some laterbecame freemen of the Massachusetts colony; others who refused toconform returned to England; but Blackstone remained in his littlecottage on the south slope of Beacon Hill, unwilling to join any of thechurches, because, as he said, he came from England to escape the "LordBishops, " and he did not propose in America to be under the "LordBrethren. "

The colony of Massachusetts Bay began as a fishing venture with profitas its object. It so happened that the Pilgrims wished to secure a rightto fish off Cape Ann, and through one of their number they applied toLord Sheffield, a member of the Council who had shared in thedistribution of 1623. Sheffield caused a patent to be drawn, which thePlymouth people conveyed to a Dorchester company desiring to establish afishing colony in New England. The chief promoter of the Dorchesterventure was the Reverend John White, a conforming Puritan clergyman, inwhose congregation was one John Endecott. The company thus organizedremained in England but sent some fourteen settlers to Cape Ann in thewinter of 1623-1624. Fishing and planting, however, did not go welltogether, the venture failed, and the settlers removed southward toNaumkeag (Salem). Though many of the English company desired to abandonthe undertaking, there were others, among whom were a few Puritans orNonconformists, who favored its continuance. These men consulted withothers of like mind in London, and through the help of the Earl ofWarwick, a nobleman friendly to the Puritan cause, a patent was issuedby the Council to Endecott and five associates, for land extending fromabove the Merrimac to below the Charles. This patent, it will benoticed, included the territory already granted to Gorges and his sonRobert, and was obtained apparently with the consent of Gorges, whothought that his own and his son's rights would be safely protected. Under this patent, the partners sent over Endecott as governor withsixty others to begin a colony at Salem, where the "old planters" fromCape Ann had already established themselves. Salem was thus a plantationfrom September, 1628, to the summer of 1630, on land granted to theassociates in England; and the relations of these two were much the sameas those of Jamestown with the London Company. 

Endecott and his associates soon made it evident, however, that theywere planning larger things for themselves and had no intention, if theycould help it, of recognizing the claims of Gorges and his son. Theywanted complete control of their territory in New England, and to thisend they applied to the Crown for a confirmation of their land-patentand for a charter of incorporation as a company with full powers ofgovernment. As this application was a deliberate defiance of Gorges andthe New England Council, it has always been a matter of surprise thatthe associates were able to gain the support of the Crown in this effortto oust Gorges and his son from lands that were legally theirs. Nosatisfactory explanation has ever been advanced, but it is worthy ofnote that at this juncture Gorges was in France in the service of theKing, whereas on the side of the associates and their friends was theEarl of Warwick, himself deeply interested in colonizing projects andone of the most powerful men in England. The charter was obtained March4, 1629--how, we do not know. It created a corporation of twenty-sixmembers, Anglicans and Nonconformists, known as the Massachusetts BayCompany. 

But if the original purpose of this company was to engage in a businessenterprise for the sake of profit, it soon underwent a noteworthytransformation. In 1629, control passed into the hands of those membersof the company in whom a religious motive was uppermost. How far thecharter was planned at first as a Puritan contrivance to be used in caseof need will never be known. It is equally uncertain whether theparticular form of charter, with the place of the company's residenceomitted, was selected to facilitate a possible removal of the companyfrom England to America; but it is likely that removal was early in theminds of the Puritan members of the company. At this time a great manypeople felt as did the Reverend John White, who expressed the hope thatGod's people should turn with eyes of longing to the free and openspaces of the New World, whither they might flee to be at peace. But, when the charter was granted, the Puritans were not in control of thecompany, which remained in England for a year after it was incorporated, superintending the management of its colony just as other tradingcompanies had done. 

But events were moving rapidly in England. Between March, 1629, andMarch, 1630, Parliament was dissolved under circumstances of greatexcitement, parliamentary privileges were set aside, parliamentaryleaders were sent to the Tower, and the period of royal rule withoutParliament began. The heavy hand of an autocratic government fell on allthose within reach who upheld the Puritan cause, among whom was JohnWinthrop, a country squire, forty-one years of age, who was deprived ofhis office as attorney in the Court of Wards. Disillusioned as to lifein England because of financial losses and family bereavements, and nowbarred from his customary employment by act of the Government, he turnedhis thoughts toward America. Acting with the approval of the Earl ofWarwick and in conjunction with a group of Puritan friends--ThomasDudley, Isaac Johnson, Richard Saltonstall, and John Humphrey, --hedecided in the summer of 1629 to leave England forever, and in Septemberhe joined the Massachusetts Bay Company. Almost immediately he showedhis capacity for leadership, was soon elected governor, and was ableduring the following winter to obtain such a control of affairs as tosecure a vote in favor of the transfer of charter and company to NewEngland. The official organization was remodeled so that only thosedesiring to remove should be in control, and on March 29, 1630, thecompany with its charter, accompanied by a considerable number ofprospective colonists, set sail from Cowes near the Isle of Wight infour vessels, the _Arabella_, the _Talbot_, the _Ambrose_, and the_Jewel_, the remaining passengers following in seven other vessels aweek or two later. The voyages of the vessels were long, none less thannine weeks, by way of the Azores and the Maine coast, and the distressedPuritans, seven hundred altogether, scurvy-stricken and reduced innumbers by many deaths, did not reach Salem until June and July. Hencethey moved on to Charlestown, set up their tents on the slope of thehill, and on the 23rd of August, held the first official meeting of thecompany on American soil; but finding no running water in the place andstill pursued by sickness and death, they again removed, this time toBoston, where they built houses against the winter. With the founding ofthis colony--the colony of Massachusetts Bay--a new era for New Englandbegan. 

This grant of territory to the Massachusetts Bay Company and of thecharter confirming the title and conveying powers of government put acomplete stop to Gorges's plans for a final proprietorship in NewEngland. Gorges had acquiesced in the first grant by the New EnglandCouncil because he thought it a sub-grant, like that to Plymouth, in noway injuring his own control. But when in 1632, he learned the trueinwardness of the Massachusetts title and discovered that Warwick andthe Puritans had outwitted him by obtaining royal confirmation of agrant that extinguished his own proprietary rights, he turned onWarwick, declared that the charter had been surreptitiously obtained, and demanded that it be brought to the Council board. Learning that ithad gone to New England, he forced the withdrawal of Warwick from theCouncil, and from that time forward for five years bent all his effortsto overthrow the Puritan colony by obtaining the annulment of itsprivileges. 

In this attempt, he was aided by Captain John Mason, an able, energeticpromoter of colonizing movements who had already been concerned withsettlements in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, and who was zealous tobegin a plantation in the province of Maine. Mason had received grantsfrom the Council, both individually and in partnership with Gorges, andhad visited New England in the interest of his claims. Through theinfluence of Gorges, he was now made a member of the Council and joinedin the movement to break the hold of the Puritans upon New England. Heand Gorges found useful allies in three men who had been driven out ofMassachusetts by the Puritan leaders soon after their arrival atBoston--Thomas Morton of Merrymount, Sir Christopher Gardiner, apicturesque, somewhat mysterious personage thought to have been an agentof Gorges in New England, with methods and morals that gave offense toMassachusetts, and Philip Ratcliffe, a much less worthy character givento scandal and invective, who had been deprived of his ears by thePuritan authorities. These men were bitter in their denunciation of thePuritan government. 

The situation was perilous for the new colony, which was hardly yetfirmly established. In direct violation of the royal commands, hundredsof men and women were leaving England--not merely adventurers or humbleSeparatists, but sober people of the better classes, of mature years andsubstantial characters. When, therefore, Gorges and the others meetingat Gorges's house at Plymouth brought their complaints to the attentionof the Privy Council, they were listened to with attention, andinstructions were sent at once to stop the Puritan ships and to bringthe charter of the Massachusetts Company to the Council board. To checkthe Puritan migration and to institute further inquiry into the facts ofthe case a commission was appointed in 1634, with Archbishop Laud at itshead, for the special purpose, among others, of revoking charters"surreptitiously and unduly obtained. " Gorges and Morton appealed toLaud against the Puritans, and Morton wrote his _New England Canaan_, which he dedicated to Laud, in the hope of exposing the motives of thecolony and of arousing the Archbishop to action. Warwick threw hisinfluence on the side of Massachusetts, being always forward, asWinthrop said, "to do good to our colony"; and the colony itself, fearing attack, began to fortify Castle Island in the harbor and toprepare for defense. Endecott, in wrath, defaced the royal ensign atSalem, and so intense was the excitement and so determined the attitudeof the Puritans that, had the Crown attempted to send over aGovernor-General or to seize the charter by force, the colony would haveresisted to the full extent of its power. 

Gorges, believing that he could work better through the King and theArchbishop than through the New England Council, brought about thedissolution of that body in 1635, thus making it possible for the Kingto deal directly with the New England situation. Before its dissolutionthe Council had authorized Morton, acting as its lawyer, to bring thecase to the attention of the Attorney-General of England, who filed inthe Court of King's Bench a complaint against Massachusetts, as a resultof which a writ of _quo warranto_ was issued against the Company. 

The outlook was ominous for Puritanism, not only in New England but inold England as well. That year saw the flight of the greatest number ofemigrants across the sea, for the persecution in England was at itsheight, the Puritan aristocracy was suffering in its estates, andPuritan divines were everywhere silenced or dismissed. Even Warwick wasshorn of a part of his power. Young Henry Vane, son of a baronet, hadalready gone to America, and such men as Lord Saye and Sele, LordBrooke, and Sir Arthur Haslerigg were thinking of migrating and hadprepared a refuge at Saybrook where they might find peace. But the turnof the tide soon came. The royal Government was bankrupt, the resistanceto the payment of ship-money was already making itself felt, anddisturbances in the central and eastern counties were absorbing theattention and energies of the Government. Gorges, left alone to executethe writ against the colony, joined with Mason in building a ship forthe purpose of carrying the _quo warranto_ to New England, but thevessel broke in the launching, and their resources were at an end. Masondied in 1635, and Gorges, an old man of seventy, bankrupt anddiscouraged, could do no more. Though Morton continued the struggle, andthough, in 1638, the Committee of the Council for Foreign Plantations(the Laud Commission) again demanded the charter, the danger was past:conditions in England had become so serious for the King that thecomplaints against Massachusetts were lost to view. At last in 1639Gorges obtained his charter for a feudal propriety in Maine but nofurther attempts were made to overthrow the Massachusetts Bay colony. 

During the years from 1630 to 1640, the growth of the colony wasextraordinarily rapid. In the first year alone seventeen ships withtwo thousand colonists came over, and it is estimated that by 1641three hundred vessels bearing twenty thousand passengers had crossedthe Atlantic. It was a great migration. Inevitably many went back, but the great majority remained and settled in Boston and itsneighborhood--Roxbury, Charlestown, Dorchester, Cambridge, andWatertown, where in 1643 were situated according to Winthrop "near halfof the commonwealth for number of people and substance. " From the firstthe colonists dispersed rapidly, establishing in favorable placessettlements which they generally called plantations but sometimes towns. In these they lived as petty religious and civil communities, each underits minister, with civil officials chosen from among themselves. In thedecade following 1630 the number of such settlements rose to twenty-two. The inhabitants were almost purely English in stock, with here and therean Irishman, a few Jews, and an occasional negro from the West Indies. Nearly all the settlers were of Puritan sympathies, and of middle-classorigin--tenants from English estates, artisans from English towns, andmany indentured servants. A few were of the aristocracy, such as LadyArabella Johnson, daughter of the Earl of Lincoln, Sir RichardSaltonstall, Lady Deborah Moody, members of the Harlakenden family, young Henry Vane, Thomas Gorges, and a few others. Of "Misters" and"Esquires" there was a goodly number, such as Winthrop, Haynes, EmanuelDowning, and the like. The first leaders were exceptional men, possessed of ability and education, and many were university graduates, who brought with them the books and the habits of the reader and scholarof their day. They were superior to those of the second and thirdgeneration in the breadth of their ideas and in the vigor andoriginality of their convictions. 

Migration ceased in 1641, and a time of stress and suffering set in. Commodities grew scarce, prices rose, many colonists returned to Englandleaving debts behind, and as yet the colony produced no staples toexchange for merchandise from the mother country. Some of the settlers, discouraged, went to the West Indies; others, fleeing for fear of want, found their way to the Dutch at Long Island. Pressure was brought tobear at various times to persuade the people to migrate elsewhere as abody, to Old Providence and Trinidad in the Caribbean, to Maryland, andlater to Jamaica; but these attempts proved vain. The Puritan waswilling to endure hardship and suffering for the sake of civil andreligious independence, but he was not willing to lose his identityamong those who did not share his faith in the guiding hand of God orwho denied the principles according to which he wished to govern hiscommunity. At first the leaders of the migration were Nonconformists notSeparatists. Francis Higginson, Endecott's minister at Salem, haddeclared in 1629 that they did not go to New England as separatists fromthe Church of England but only as those who would "separate from thecorruption in it"; and Winthrop used "Easter" and the customary names ofthe months until 1635. But the Puritans became essentially Separatistsfrom the day when Dr. Samuel Fuller of Plymouth persuaded the Salemcommunity, even before the company itself had left England, to acceptthe practices of the Plymouth Church. Each town consequently had itschurch, pastor, teacher, and covenant, and became an independentCongregational community--a circumstance which left a deep impress uponthe life and history of New England. 

The government of the colony was never a democracy in the modern senseof the term. At first in 1630, control was assumed by the governor andhis assistants, leaving but little power in the hands of the freeman;but such usurpation of power could not last, and in 1634 the freemenwere given the right to elect officials, to make and enforce laws, raise money, impose taxes, and dispose of lands. Thus was begun thetransformation of the court of the company into a parliament, and thecompany itself into a commonwealth. So self-sufficient did the colonybecome in these early years of its history that by 1646 Massachusettscould assert that it owed only allegiance to England and was entirelyindependent of the British Parliament in all matters of government, inwhich affairs under its charter it had absolute power. Many denied thiscontention of the leaders, asserting that the company was only acorporation and that any colonist had a right of appeal to England. Winthrop refused definitely to recognize this right, and measures weretaken to purge the colony of these refractory spirits, among whom wereDr. Robert Child, one of the best educated men of the colony, WilliamVassall, and Samuel Maverick. All were fined, some clapped in irons, andmany banished. Child returned to England, Vassall went to Barbados, andthe rest were silenced. So menacing was the revolt that Edward Winslowwas sent to England to present the case to the parliamentarycommissioners, which he did successfully. 

But among those who upheld the freedom of the colony from Englishinterference and control there were many who complained of the form thegovernment was taking. The franchise was limited to church members, which debarred five-sixths of the population from voting and holdingoffice; the magistrates insisted on exercising a negative vote upon theproceedings of the deputies, because they deemed it necessary to preventthe colony from degenerating into "a mere democracy"; and the ministersor elders exercised an influence in purely civil matters that renderedthem arbiters in all disputes between the magistrates and the deputies. Until 1634, the general court had been a primary assembly, but in thatyear representation was introduced and the towns sent deputies, who soonbegan to complain of the meagerness of their powers. From this time on, the efforts of the deputies to reduce the authority of the magistratesand to increase their own were continuous and insistent. One bolddissenter was barred from public office in 1635 for daring to deny themagistrates' claim, and others expressed their fear that autocratic ruleand a governor for life would endanger the liberty of the people. Thedominance of the clergy tended to the maintenance of an intoleranttheocracy and was offensive to many in Massachusetts who, having fledfrom Laud's intolerance at home, had no desire to submit to an equalintolerance in New England. Between 1634 and 1638 the manifestations ofthis dislike became conspicuous and alarming. The Governor's son, theyounger John Winthrop, dissatisfied with the hard régime inMassachusetts, returned to England in 1634. Henry Vane, though electedGovernor in 1636, showed marked discontent, and when defeated the nextyear left the colony. The English aristocratic Puritans, Saye and Sele, Brooke, and others, who planned to leave England in 1635, foundthemselves so out of accord with the Massachusetts policy of limiting ofthe suffrage to church members--and to church membership as determinedby the clergy--that they refused to go to Boston, and persisted in theirplan for a settlement at Saybrook. The Massachusetts system had thusbecome not a constitutional government fashioned after the best liberalthought in England of that day, but a narrow oligarchy in which thepolitical order was determined according to a rigid interpretation oftheology. This excessive theocratic concentration of power resulted indriving from the colony many of its best men. 

More notorious even than the political dissensions were the moral andtheological disputes which almost disrupted the colony. The magistratesand elders did not compel men to leave the colony because of politicalheresy, but they did drive them out because of difference in matters oftheology. Even before the company came over, Endecott had sent John andSamuel Browne back to England because they worshiped according to theBook of Common Prayer. Morton and six others were banished in 1630 as animmoral influence. Sir Christopher Gardiner, Philip Ratcliffe, RichardWright, the Walfords, and Henry Lynn were all forced to leave in 1630and 1631 as "unmeete to inhabit here. " Roger Williams, the tolerationistand upholder of soul-liberty, who complained of the magistrates foroppression and of the elders for injustice and who opposed the closeunion of church and state, was compelled to leave during the winter of1635 and 1636. But the great expulsion came in 1637, when an epidemic ofheresy struck the colony. A synod at Newtown condemned eighty erroneousopinions, and the general court then disarmed or banished all whopersisted in error. 

A furor of excitement gathered about Anne Hutchinson, who claimed to bemoved by the spirit and denied that an outward conformity to the letterof the covenant was a sufficient test of true religion unlessaccompanied with a change in the inner life. She was a nonconformistamong those who, refusing to conform to the Church of England, had nowthemselves become conformists of the strictest type. To Mrs. Hutchinsonthe "vexatious legalism of Puritanism" was as abhorrent as had been thepractices of the Roman and Anglican churches to the Puritans, and, though the latter did not realize it, they were as unjust to her as Laudhad been to them. She broke from a covenant of works in favor of acovenant of grace and in so doing defied the standing authorities andthe ruling clergy of the colony. Her wit, undeniable power ofexhortation, philanthropic disposition, and personal attributes whichgave her an ascendency in the Boston church, drew to her a largefollowing and placed the supremacy of the orthodox party in peril. Aftera long and wordy struggle to check the "misgovernment of a woman'stongue" and to rebuke "the impudent boldness of a proud dame, " Mrs. Hutchinson was excommunicated and banished; and certain of those whoupheld her--Wheelwright, Coggeshall, Aspinwall, Coddington, andUnderhill, all leading men of the colony--were also forced to leave. InBoston and the adjoining towns dozens of men were disarmed for fear of ageneral uprising against the orthodox government. 

This discord put a terrible strain on the colony, and one marvels thatit weathered the storm. Only an iron discipline that knew neithercharity nor tolerance could have successfully resisted the attacks onthe standing order. The years from 1635 to 1638 were a critical time inthe history of the colony, and the unyielding attitude of magistratesand elders was due in no small part to the danger of attack fromEngland. Determined, on the one hand, to save the colony from the menaceof Anglican control, and, on the other, to prevent the admission ofliberal and democratic ideas, they struggled to maintain the rule of aminority in behalf of a precise and logically defined theocratic systemthat admitted neither experiment nor compromise. For the moment theywere successful, because the Cromwellian victory in England wasfavorable to their cause. But should independence be overthrown at home, should religion cease to be a deciding factor in political quarrels, andshould the monarchy and the Established Church gain ascendency oncemore, then Massachusetts would certainly reap the whirlwind. Theharvesting might be long but the garnering would be none the less sure. 

CHAPTER III

COMPLETING THE WORK OF SETTLEMENT

Through the portal of Boston at one time or another passed all or nearlyall those who were to found additional colonies in New England; and fromthat portal, willingly or unwillingly, men and women journeyed north, south, and west, searching for favorable locations, buying land of theIndians, and laying the groundwork for permanent homes and organizedcommunities. In this way were begun the colonies of Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Haven, and New Hampshire, each of which sprang in partfrom the desire for separate religious and political life and in partfrom the migratory instinct which has always characterized theEnglishman in his effort to find a home and a means of livelihood. Sometimes individuals wandered alone or in groups of two or three, butmore frequently covenanted companies of men and women of like mindsmoved across the face of the land, followed Indian trails, or voyagedby water along the coast and up the rivers, usually remaining where theyfirst found satisfaction, but often, in new combinations, taking up theburden of their journeying and moving on, a second, a third, and even afourth time in search of homes. Abraham Pierson and his flock migratedfour times in thirty years, seeking a place where they might find restunder a government according to God. 

The frontier Puritan was neither docile nor easily satisfied. He wasrestless, opinionated, and eager to assert himself and his convictions. The controversies among the elect regarding doctrines and morals oftenbecame so heated that complete separation was the only remedy; andwherever there was a migrating leader followers were sure to be found. Hence, despite the dangers from cold, famine, the Indian, and thewilderness, the men of New England were constantly shifting in theseearlier years as one motive or another urged them on. Land wasplentiful, and, as a rule, easily obtained; opportunities for tradepresented themselves to any one who would seek them; and the freedom ofearth and sky and of nature unspoiled offered an ideal environment fora closer communion with God. Owing to the many varieties of religiousopinion that prevailed among these radical pioneers, each new groupingand consequent settlement had an individuality of its own, determined bythe personality of its leader and by the ideas that he represented. ThusWilliams, Clarke, Coddington, and Gorton influenced Rhode Island;Hooker, Haynes, and Ludlow, Connecticut; Davenport, Eaton, and Pierson, New Haven; and Wheelwright and Underhill, New Hampshire. 

Roger Williams, the founder of Providence--the first plantation to besettled in what was later the colony of Rhode Island--was driven out ofBoston because he called in question the authority of the government, denied the legality of its land title as derived from the King, andcontested the right of the magistrates to deal with mattersecclesiastical. Making his way through the wilderness in the winter of1635-1636, he finally settled on the Mooshassuc River, calling the placeProvidence; and in the ensuing two years he gathered about him a numberof those who found the church system of Massachusetts intolerable andthe Erastian doctrines of the magistrates, according to which the sinsof believers were to be punished by civil authority, distressing totheir consciences. They drew up a plantation covenant, promising tosubject themselves "in active or passive obedience to all such orders oragreements" as might be made for the public good in an orderly way bythe majority vote of the masters of families, "incorporated togetherinto a town fellowship, " but "only in civill things. " Thus did the menof Providence put into practice their doctrine of a church separablefrom the state, and of a political order in which there were nomagistrates, no elders exercising civil as well as spiritual authority, and no restraint on soul liberty. 

A year or two later William Coddington, loyal ally of Anne Hutchinson, with others--Clarke, Coggeshall, and Aspinwall, who resented theaggressive attitude of Boston--purchased from the Indians the island ofAquidneck in Narragansett Bay and at the northern end planted Pocasset, afterwards Portsmouth, the second settlement in the colony of RhodeIsland. They, too, entered into a covenant to join themselves into abody politic and elected Coddington as their judge and five others aselders. But this modeling of the government after the practices of theOld Testament was not pleasing to a majority of the community, whichdesired a more democratic organization. After a few months, in thespring of 1639, Coddington and his followers therefore journeyedsouthward and established a third settlement at Newport. Here themembers adopted a covenant, "engaging" themselves "to bear equallcharges, answerable to our strength and estates in common, " and to begoverned "by major voice of judge and elders; the judge to have a doublevoice. " Though differing from the system as developed in Massachusetts, the Newport government at the beginning had a decidedly theocraticcharacter. 

The last of the Rhode Island settlements was at Shawomet, or Warwick, onthe western mainland at the upper end of the Bay. There Samuel Gorton, the mystic and transcendentalist, one of the most individual of men inan era of striking individualities, after many vicissitudes found anabiding place. He was of London, "a clothier and professor of themisteries of Christ, " a believer in established authority as the surestguardian of liberty, and an opponent of formalism in all its varieties. Arriving at Boston in 1637 at the height of the Hutchinsoniancontroversy, he had sought liberty of conscience, first in Boston, thenin Plymouth, and finally in Portsmouth, where he had become a leaderafter the withdrawal of Coddington. But in each place his instinct forjustice and his too vociferous denial of the legality of verdictsrendered by self-constituted authorities led him to seek further for ahome that would shelter him and his followers. No sooner, however, washe settled at Shawomet, than the Massachusetts authorities laid claim tothe territory, and it was only after arrest, imprisonment, and a narrowescape from the death penalty, followed by a journey to England and theenlisting of the sympathies of the Earl of Warwick, that he made goodhis claim. Gorton returned in 1648 with a letter from Warwick, as LordAdmiral and head of the parliamentary commission on plantation affairs, ordering Massachusetts to cease molesting him and his people, and henamed the plantation Warwick after his patron. 

Samuel Gorton played an influential and useful part in the later historyof the colony, and his career of peaceful service to Rhode Island beliesthe opinion, based on Winslow's partisan pamphlet, _HypocrasieUnmasked_, and other contemporary writings, that he was a blasphemer, a"crude and half-crazy thinker, " a "proud and pestilent seducer, " and a"most prodigious minter of exorbitant novelties. " He preferred "theuniversitie of humane reason and reading of the volume of visiblecreation" to sectarianism and convention. No wonder the Massachusettsleaders could not comprehend him! He questioned their infallibility, their ecclesiastical caste, and their theology, and for their ownself-preservation they were bound to resist what they deemed hisheresies. 

Thus Rhode Island at the beginning was formed of four separate andindependent communities, each in embryo a petty state, no one of whichpossessed at first other than an Indian title for its lands and aself-made plantation covenant as the warrant for its government. Tosettle disputes over land titles and to dispose of town lands, Providence established in 1640 a court of arbitration consisting of five"disposers, " who seem also to have served as a sort of executive boardfor the town. In all outward relations she remained isolated from herneighbors, pursuing a course of strictly local independence. Portsmouthand Newport, for the sake of greater strength, united in March, 1640, and a year later agreed on a form of government which they called "ademocratic or popular government, " in which none was to be "accounted adelinquent for doctrine. " They set up a governor, deputy governor, andfour assistants, regularly elected, and provided that all laws should bemade by the freemen or the major part of them, "orderly assembled. " Inthe system thus established we can see the influence of the oldercolonies and the beginning of a stronger government, but at best theexperiment was half-hearted, for each town reserved to itself completecontrol over its own affairs. In 1647 Portsmouth withdrew "to be as freein their transactions as any other town in the colony, " and the spiritof separatism was still dominant. 

But it soon became necessary for the four towns of what is now RhodeIsland to have something more legal upon which to base their right toexist than a title derived from their plantation covenants and Indianbargains. Massachusetts was extending her claims southward; EdwardWinslow was in England ready to show that the Rhode Island settlementswere within the bounds of the Plymouth patent; and certain individuals, traders and land-seekers, were locating in the Narragansett country andtaking possession of the soil. To combat these claims, Roger Williams, who had so vehemently denied the validity of a royal patent a few yearsbefore, but influenced now, it may be, by Gorton's insistence that alegal title could be obtained only from England, sailed overseas andsecured from the parliamentary commissioners in March, 1644, a charteruniting Providence, Portsmouth, and Newport, under the name ofProvidence Plantations in the Narragansett Bay, and granting them powersof government. For the moment even this document had no certain value, for, in spite of the fact that the parliamentarians were at war with theKing, Charles I was still sovereign of England and should he win in theCivil War the title would be worthless. However, the patent was not putin force until 1647, after the victory of Cromwell at Naseby had givencontrol into the hands of Parliament; and then a general meeting washeld at Portsmouth consisting of the freemen of Warwick, Portsmouth, andNewport, and ten representatives from Providence. The patent did notstate how affairs were to be managed, and the colonials, meeting insubsequent assemblies, worked out the problem in their own way. Theyrefused to have a governor, and, creating only a presiding officer withfour assistants, constituted a court of trials for the hearing ofimportant criminal and civil causes. No general court was created bylaw, but a legislative body soon came into existence consisting of sixdeputies from each town. Before this Portsmouth meeting of 1647adjourned, it adopted a code of laws in which witchcraft trials andimprisonment for debt were forbidden, capital punishment was largelyabolished, and divorce was granted for adultery only. In 1652, theassembly passed a noteworthy law against the holding of negroes inslavery. 

But the new patent did not bring peace to the colony. In 1649, RogerWilliams wrote to Governor Winthrop: "Our poor colony is in civildissension. Their last meeting [of the assembly] at which I have notbeen, have fallen into factions. Mr. Coddington and Captain Partridge, etc. , are the heads of one, and Captain Clarke, Mr. Easton, etc. , theheads of the other. " What had happened was this. Coddington, representing the conservative and theocratic wing of the assembly andopposing those who were more liberally minded, had evidently applied toMassachusetts and Plymouth for support in the effort to obtain anindependent government for Aquidneck. This plan would have destroyedwhat unity the colony had obtained under the patent, but Coddingtonwished to be governor of a colony of his own. Both Massachusetts andPlymouth were favorable to this plan, as they hoped to further their ownclaims to the territory of islands and mainland. Twice Coddington madeapplication to the newly formed Confederation of New England foradmission, but was refused unless he would bring in Aquidneck as part ofMassachusetts or Plymouth, the latter of which laid claim to it. Coddington himself was willing to do this but found the opposition tothe plan so vehement that he gave up the attempt and went to England tosecure a patent of his own. After long negotiations he was successful inhis quest and returned with a document which appointed him governor forlife with almost viceregal powers. But he had reckoned without thepeople whom he was to govern. Learning of the outcome of Coddington'smission and hearing that he had had secret dealings also with the Dutchat New Amsterdam, the inhabitants of the islands rose in revolt, hangedCaptain Partridge and compelled Coddington to seek safety in flight. Williams again went to England in 1651 and procured the recall ofCoddington's commission and a confirmation of his own patent, andCoddington in 1656 gave in his submission and was forgiven. The earlyhistory of Rhode Island thus furnishes a remarkable exhibition ofintense individualism in things religious and a warring of disruptiveforces in matters of civil organization. 

Connecticut was settled during the years 1634 to 1636 by people fromMassachusetts. Knowledge of the fertile Connecticut valley had comeearly to the Dutch, who had planted a blockhouse, the House of GoodHope, at the southeast corner of the land upon which Hartford nowstands. Plymouth, too, in searching for advantageous trade openings hadsent out one William Holmes, who sailed past the Dutch fort and tookpossession of the site of Windsor. In the autumn of 1634 a certain JohnOldham, trader and rover and frequent disturber of the Puritan peace, came with a few companions and began to occupy and cultivate landswithin the bounds of modern Wethersfield. Settlers continued to arrivefrom Massachusetts, either by land or by water, actuated by land-hungerand stirred to movement westward by the same driving impulse that foryears to come was to populate the frontier wherever it stretched. Theterritory thus possessed was claimed at first by Massachusetts, on thetheory that the southern line of the colony, if extended westward, would include this portion of the Connecticut River. It was also claimedby the group of English lords and gentlemen, Saye and Sele, Brooke, andother Puritans, who, as they supposed, had obtained through the Earl ofWarwick from the New England Council a grant of land extending west andsouthwest from Narragansett Bay forty leagues. These claims were ofcourse irreconcilable, but the English lords, in order to assert theirtitle, sent over in 1635 twenty servants, known as the Stiles party, whoreached Connecticut in the summer of that year. Thus by autumn therewere on the ground four sets of rival claimants: the Dutch, the Plymouthtraders, various emigrants from Massachusetts, chiefly from the town ofDorchester, and the Stiles party, representing the English lords andgentlemen. Their relations were not harmonious, for the Dutch tried todrive out the Plymouth traders, and the latter resented in their turnthe attempt of the Dorchester men to occupy their lands. 

The matter was to be settled not by force but by weight of numbers andsoundness of title. In 1635, a new and larger migration was underconsideration in Massachusetts, prompted by various motives: partlypersonal, as shown in the rivalries of strong men in a colony alreadyoverstocked with leaders; partly material, as indicated by the desirefor wider fields for cultivation and especially good pasture; and partlypolitical, as evidenced by the dislike on the part of many for the powerof the elders and magistrates in Massachusetts and by the stronginclination of masterful men toward a government of their own. ThomasHooker, the pastor of the Newtown church, John Haynes, the Governor ofMassachusetts in 1635, and Roger Ludlow, a former magistrate and deputygovernor who had failed of election to the magistracy in the same year, were the leaders of the movement and, if we may judge from later events, were believers in certain political ideas that were not findingapplication in the Bay Colony. Disappointed because of the rigidity ofthe Massachusetts system, they seem to have waited for an opportunity toput into practice the principles which they believed essential to thetrue government of a people. 

When the decision was finally reached and certain of the inhabitants ofNewtown, Watertown, and Roxbury were ready to enter on their removal, the question naturally arose as to the title to the territory. In June, 1635, Massachusetts had asserted her claim by exercising a sort ofsupervision over those who had already gone to Connecticut; but inOctober John Winthrop, Jr. , the Reverend Hugh Peters, and Henry Vanearrived from England with authority from the lords and gentlemen to pushtheir claim, and Winthrop actually bore a commission as governor of theentire territory, which included Connecticut. It is hardly possible thatHooker and Haynes would have ignored the demands of these agents, andyet to acknowledge Winthrop as their governor would have been to accepta head who was not of their own choosing. In all probability somearrangement was made with Winthrop, according to which the Englishmen'stitle to the lands was recognized but at the same time the Connecticutsettlers were to have full powers of self-government, and the questionof a governor was left for the moment undecided, Winthrop confining hisjurisdiction to Saybrook, the settlement which he was to promote at themouth of the river. This agreement was embodied in a commission whichwas drawn up by the Massachusetts General Court and issued in March, 1636, "on behalf of our said members and John Winthrop, Jr. , " and wasto last for one year. Who actually wrote this commission we do not know, but the Connecticut men said afterwards that it arose from the desire ofthe people who removed, because they did not want to go away without aframe of government agreed on beforehand and did not want to recognize"any claymes of the Massachusetts jurisdiction over them by vertew ofPatent. " Apparently the people going to Connecticut wanted to get as faraway from Massachusetts as possible. 

Armed with their commission, in the summer of 1636, members of theNewtown church to the number of about one hundred persons, led by ThomasHooker, their pastor, and Samuel Stone, his assistant, made a famouspilgrimage under summer skies through the woods that lay betweenMassachusetts and the Connecticut River. Bearing Mrs. Hooker in a litterand driving their cattle before them, these courageous pioneers, men, women, and children, after a fortnight's journeying, reached Hartford, the site of their future home, already occupied by those who hadforegathered there in number larger even than those who had newlyarrived. At about the same time, William Pynchon and others of Roxbury, acting from similar motives, took the same course westward, but insteadof continuing down the Connecticut River, as the others had done, stopped at its banks and made their settlement at Agawam (Springfield), where they built a warehouse and a wharf for use in trade with theIndians. The lower settlements, Hartford, Wethersfield, and Windsor, became agricultural communities; but Springfield, standing at thejunction of Indian trails and river communication, was destined tobecome the center of the beaver trade of the region, shipping furs andreceiving commodities through Boston, either in shallops around the Capeor on pack-horses overland by the path the emigrants had trod. Pynchon'ssettlement was one of the towns named in the commission and, for thefirst year after it was founded, joined with the others in maintainingorder in the colony. 

The commission government came to an end in March, 1637, and there isreason to think that during the last month, an election of committeestook place in Hartford, Wethersfield, and Windsor, which would show thatthe Connecticut settlers were exercising the privilege of the franchisemore than a year before Hooker preached his famous sermon declaring thatthe right of government lay in the people. There also is some reason tothink that the leaders were still undecided whether or not to come to anagreement with the English lords and gentlemen and to put themselvesunder the latter's jurisdiction. But as Winthrop's commission expired atthe end of a year and no new governor was appointed--the EnglishPuritans having become absorbed in affairs at home--the Connecticutcolony was thrown on its own resources and compelled to set up agovernment of its own. Pynchon at Springfield now cast in his lot withMassachusetts, and from this time forward Springfield was a part of theMassachusetts colony, but the men of Connecticut, disliking Pynchon'sdesertion, determined to act for themselves. On May 31, 1638, Hookerpreached a sermon laying down the principles according to whichgovernment should be established; and during the six months thatfollowed, the court, consisting of six magistrates and nine deputies, framed the Fundamental Orders, the laws that were to govern the colony. 

This remarkable document, though deserving all the encomiums passed uponit, was not a constitution in any modern sense of the word andestablished nothing fundamentally new, because the form of governmentit outlined differed only in certain particulars from that ofMassachusetts and Plymouth. It was made up of two parts, a preamble, which is a plantation covenant like that signed in the cabin of the_Mayflower_, and a series of laws or orders passed either separately ortogether by the court which drafted them. This court was a lawmakingbody and it made public the laws when they were passed. That this bodyof laws or, as we may not improperly call it, this frame of governmentwas ratified, as Trumbull says, by all the free planters assembled atHartford on January 14, 1639, is not impossible, though such actionwould seem unnecessary as the court was a representative body, andunlikely as the time of year was not favorable for holding amass-meeting at Hartford. Later courts never hesitated to change thearticles without referring the changes to the planters. The articlessimply confirmed the system of magistrates and deputies already inexistence and added provisions for the election of a governor and deputygovernor--who had not hitherto been chosen because of doubts regardingthe jurisdiction of the English lords and gentlemen. 

In matters of detail the Connecticut system differed from that ofMassachusetts in three particulars: it imposed no religious test forthose entitled to vote, but required only that the governor be a churchmember, though it is probable that in practice only those would beadmitted freemen who were covenanted Christians; it gave less power tothe magistrates and more to the freemen; and it placed the election ofthe governor in the hands of the voters, limiting their choice only to achurch member and a former magistrate, and forbidding reëlection untilafter the expiration of a year. Later the qualifications of a freemanwere made such that only about one in every two or three voted in theseventeenth century; the powers of the magistrates were increased; andthe governor was allowed to succeed himself. Connecticut was lessdemocratic than Rhode Island in the seventeenth century and, as theyears went on, fewer and fewer of the inhabitants exercised thefreeman's privilege of voting for the higher officials. By no stretch ofthe imagination can the political conditions in any of the New Englandcolonies be called popular or democratic. Government was in the hands ofa very few men. 

Two more settlements remain to be considered before a survey of thefoundations of New England can be called complete. When the ReverendJohn Wheelwright, the friend of Anne Hutchinson, was driven fromMassachusetts and took his way northward to the region of SquamscottFalls where he founded Exeter, he entered a territory of grants andclaims and rights of possession that render the early history of NewHampshire a tangle of difficulties. Out of a grant to Gorges and Masonof the stretch of coast between the Merrimac and the Kennebec in 1622, and a confirmation of Mason's right to the region between the Merrimacand the Piscataqua, arose the settlement of Strawberry Bank, orPortsmouth, and accompanying it a controversy over the title to the soilthat lasted throughout the colonial period. Mason called his territoryNew Hampshire; Gorges planned to call the region that he received NewSomersetshire; and both designations took root, one as the name of acolony, the other as that of a county in Maine. At an earlier date, merchants of Bristol and Shrewsbury had become interested in this partof New England and had sent over one Edward Hilton, who some time before1627 began a settlement at Dover. The share of the Bristol merchants waspurchased in 1633 by the English lords and gentlemen already concernedin the Connecticut settlement, for the purpose, it may be, of furnishinganother refuge in New England, should conditions at home demand theirwithdrawal overseas. But nothing came of their purchase except anunfortunate controversy with Plymouth colony over trading boundaries onthe Kennebec. 

The men established on this northern frontier were often lawless anddifficult to control, of loose habits and morals, and intent on theirown profit; and the region itself was inhospitable to organized andsettled government. Yet out of these somewhat nebulous beginnings, foursettlements arose--Portsmouth (Masonian and Anglican), Dover (Anglicanand Puritan), Exeter and Hampton (both Puritan), each with its civilcompact and each an independent town. The inhabitants were few innumber, and "the generality, of mean and low estates, " and littledisposed to union among themselves. But in 1638-1639, when Massachusettsdiscovered that one interpretation of her charter would carry hernorthern boundary to a point above them, she took them under herprotecting wing. After considerable debate this jurisdiction wasrecognized and the New Hampshire and Maine towns were brought withinher boundaries. Henceforth, for many years a number of these towns, though in part Anglican communities and never burdened with therequirement that their freemen be church members, were represented inthe general court at Boston. Nevertheless the Mason and Gorgesadherents--whose Anglican and pro-monarchical sympathies were hostile toPuritan control and who were supported by the persistent efforts of theMason family in England--were able to obtain the separation of NewHampshire from Massachusetts in 1678. Maine, however, remained a part ofthe Bay Colony to the end of the colonial period. 

The circumstances attending the settlement of New Haven were whollyunlike those of New Hampshire. John Davenport, a London clergyman of anextreme Puritan type, Theophilus Eaton, a London merchant in the Baltictrade and a member of the Eastland Company, Samuel Eaton and JohnLathrop, two nonconforming ministers, were the leaders of the movement. Lathrop never went to New Haven, and Samuel Eaton early returned toEngland. The leaders and many of their followers were men ofconsiderable property for that day, and their interest in trade gave tothe colony a marked commercial character. The company was composed ofmen and women from London and its vicinity, and of others who joinedthem from Kent, Hereford, and Yorkshire. As both Davenport andTheophilus Eaton were members of the Massachusetts Bay Company, theywere familiar with its work; and on coming to America in June, 1637, they stopped at Boston and remained there during the winter. Pressurewas brought upon them to make Massachusetts their home, but withoutsuccess, for though Davenport had much in common with the Massachusettspeople, he was not content to remain where he would be merely one amongmany. Desiring a free place for worship and trade, he sent Eatonvoyaging to find one; and the latter, who had heard of Quinnipiac on theConnecticut shore, viewed this spot and reported favorably. In March, 1638, the company set sail from Boston and laid the foundations of thetown of New Haven. 

This company had neither charter nor land grant, and, as far as we know, it had made no attempt to obtain either. "The first planters, " saysKingsley, "recognized in their acts no human authority foreign tothemselves. " Unlike the Pilgrims in their _Mayflower_ compact, they madeno reference in their plantation covenant to the dread sovereign, KingJames, and in none of their acts and statements did they express alonging for their native country or regard for its authority. Theirsettlement bears some resemblance to that of the Rhode Island towns, butit was better organized and more orderly from the beginning. Thesettlers may have drawn up their covenant before leaving Boston and mayhave reached Quinnipiac as a community already united in a common civiland religious bond. Their lands, which they purchased from the Indians, they laid out in their own way. The next year on June 4, 1639, they helda meeting in Robert Newman's barn and there, declaring that the Word ofGod should be their guide in families and commonwealth and that onlychurch members should be sharers in government, they chose twelve men asthe foundations of their church state. Two months later these twelveselected "seven pillars" who proceeded to organize a church byassociating others with themselves. Under the leadership of the seventhe government continued until October, when they resigned and agathering of the church members elected Theophilus Eaton as theirmagistrate and four others to act as assistants, with a secretary and atreasurer. Thus was begun a form of government which when perfected wasvery similar to that of the other New England colonies. 

While New Haven as a town-colony was taking on form, other plantationswere arising near by. Milford was settled partly from New Haven andpartly from Wethersfield, where an overplus of clergy was leading todisputes and many withdrawals to other parts. Guilford was settleddirectly from England. Southold on Long Island was settled also fromEngland, by way of New Haven. Stamford had its origin in a Wethersfieldquarrel, when the Reverend Richard Denton, "blind of one eye but not theleast among the seers of Israel, " departed with his flock. Branford alsowas born of a Wethersfield controversy and later received accessionsfrom Long Island. In 1643, Milford, Guilford, and Stamford combinedunder the common jurisdiction of New Haven, to which Southold andBranford acceded later with a form of government copied after that ofMassachusetts, though the colony was distinctly federal in character, consisting of "the government of New Haven with the plantations incombination therewith. " Though there was no special reservation of townrights in the fundamental articles which defined the government, yetthe towns, five in number, considered themselves free to withdraw at anytime if they so desired. 

We have thus reviewed the conditions under which some forty towns, grouped under five jurisdictions, were founded in New England. They weredestined to treble their number in the next generation and to suffersuch regrouping as to reduce the jurisdictions to four before the end ofthe century--New Hampshire separating from Massachusetts, New Havenbeing absorbed by Connecticut, and Plymouth submitting to the authorityof Massachusetts under the charter of 1691. In this readjustment we havethe origin of four of the six New England States of the present day. 

CHAPTER IV

EARLY NEW ENGLAND LIFE

The people who inhabited these little New England towns were from nearlyevery grade of English society, but the greater number were men andwomen of humble birth--laborers, artisans, and petty farmers--drawn fromtown and country, possessed of scanty education, little or no financialcapital, and but slight experience with the larger world. Some weremiddle-class lawyers, merchants, and squires; a few, but very few, wereof higher rank, while scores were of the soil, coarse in language andhabits, and given to practices characteristic of the peasantry ofEngland at that time. The fact that hardly a fifth of those inMassachusetts were professed Christians renders it doubtful how farreligious convictions were the only driving motive that sent hundreds ofthese men to New England. The leaders were, in a majority of cases, university men familiar with good literature and possessed of goodlibraries, but more cognizant of theology and philosophy than of the lawand order of nature. Some were professional soldiers, simple in thoughtas they were courageous in action, while others were men of affairs, whohad acquired experience before the courts and in the counting houses ofEngland and were often amazingly versatile, able to turn their hands toany business that confronted them. For the great majority there waslittle opportunity in these early years to practice a trade or aprofession. Except for the clergy, who could preach in America withgreater freedom than in England, and for the occasional practitioner inphysic or the law who as time went on found occasion to apply hisknowledge in the household and the courts, there was little else for anyone to do than engage in farming, fishing, and trading with the Indians, or turn carpenter and cobbler according to demand. The artisan became afarmer, though still preserving his knack as a craftsman, and expendedhis skill and his muscle in subduing a tough and unbroken soil. 

New England was probably overstocked with men of strong minds andassertive dispositions. It was settled by radicals who would never haveleft the mother country had they not possessed well-formed opinionsregarding some of the most important aspects of religious and sociallife. We may call them all Puritans, but as to the details of theirPuritanism they often differed as widely as did Roundheads and Cavaliersin England. Though representative of a common movement, they were farfrom united in their beliefs or consistent in their political practices. There was always something of the inquisitor at Boston and of the monkat Plymouth, and in all the Puritan colonies there prevailed aself-satisfied sense of importance as the chosen of God. Thecontroversies that arose over jurisdictions and boundaries and theniceties of doctrine are not edifying, however honest may have beenthose who entered into them. Massachusetts and Connecticut always showeda disposition to stretch their demands for territory to the utmost andto take what they could, sometimes with little charity or forbearance. The dominance of the church over the organization and methods ofgovernment and the rigid scrutiny of individual lives and habits, ofwhich the leaders, notably those of Massachusetts, approved, were hardlyin accord with democracy or personal liberty. Of toleration, except inRhode Island, there was none. 

The unit of New England life was the town, a self-governing community, in large measure complete in itself, and if left alone capable ofmaintaining a separate existence. Within certain limits, it wasindependent of higher authority, and in this respect it was unlikeanything to be found in England. At this period, it was at bottom areligious community which owned and distributed the lands set apart forits occupation, elected its own officials, and passed local ordinancesfor its own well-being. At first, church members, landholders, andinhabitants tended to be identical, but they gradually separated as timewent on and as new comers appeared and old residents migrated elsewhere. Before the end of the century, the ecclesiastical society, the board ofland proprietors, and the town proper, even when largely composed of thesame members, acted as separate groups, though the line of separationwas often vague and was sometimes not drawn at all. Town meetingscontinued to be held in the meeting-house, and land was distributed bythe town in its collective capacity. Lands were parceled out as theywere needed in proportion to contributions to a common purchase fund orto family need, and later according to the ratable value of a man'sproperty. The fathers of Wallingford in Connecticut, "considering thateven single persons industrious and laborious might through the blessingof God increase and grow into families, " distributed to the meanestbachelor "such a quantity of land as might in an ordinary way serve forthe comfortable maintenance of a family. " Sometimes allotments wereequal; often they varied greatly in size, from an acre to fifty acresand even more; but always they were determined by a desire to be fairand just. The land was granted in full right and could be sold orbequeathed, though at first only with the consent of the community. Withthe grant generally went rights in woodland and pasture; and even meadowland, after the hay was got in, was open to the use of the villagers. The early New England town took into consideration the welfare andcontentment of the individual, but it rated as of even greaterimportance the interests of the whole body. 

The settlements of New England inevitably presented great variations oflocal life and color, stretching as they did from the Plymouth truckingposts in Maine, through the fishing villages of Saco and York, and thoseon the Piscataqua, to the towns of Long Island and the frontiercommunities of western Connecticut--Stamford and Greenwich. Theinhabitants to the number of more than thirty thousand in 1640 were notonly in possession of the coast but were also pushing their way into theinterior. To fishing and agriculture they added trading, lumbering, andcommerce, and were constantly reaching out for new lands and wideropportunities. The Pilgrims had hardly weathered their first hard winterwhen they rebuilt one of their shallops and sent it northward on fishingand trading voyages; and later they sent one bark up the Connecticut andanother to open up communication with the Dutch at New Amsterdam. Pynchon was making Springfield the centre of the fur trade of theinterior, though an overcrowding of merchants there was reducing profitsand compelling the settlers to resort to agriculture for a living. Ofall the colonies, New Haven was the most distinctly commercial. StephenGoodyear built a trucking house on an island below the great falls ofthe Housatonic in 1642; other New Haven colonists engaged in ventures onDelaware Bay; and in 1645, the colony endeavored to open a direct tradewith England. But nearly every New Haven enterprise failed, and by 1660the wealth of the colony had materially diminished and the settlementhad become "little else than a colony of discouraged farmers. " Among allthe colonies in New England and elsewhere there was considerablecoasting traffic, and vessels went to Newfoundland and Bermuda, and evento the distant West Indies, to Madeira, and to Bilboa across the ocean. Ever since Winthrop built the _Blessing of the Bay_ in 1631, the firstsea-going craft launched in New England, Massachusetts had been theleading commercial colony, and her vessels occasionally made the longtriangular voyage to Jamaica, and England, and back to the Bay. Thevessels carried planks, pipe staves, furs, fish, and provisions, andexchanged them for sugar, molasses, household goods, and other wares andcommodities needed for the comfort and convenience of the colonists. 

The older generation was passing away. By 1660, Winthrop, Cotton, Hooker, Haynes, Bradford, and Whiting were dead; Davenport and RogerWilliams were growing old; some of the ablest men, Peters, Ludlow, Whitfield, Desborough, Hooke, had returned to England, and others lessconspicuous had gone to the West Indies or to the adjacent colonies. The younger men were coming on, new arrivals were creeping in, and aloosening of the old rigidity was affecting the social order. TheCambridge platform of 1648, which embodied the orthodox features of theCongregational system as determined up to that time, gave place to theHalf-Way Covenant of 1657 and 1662, which owed its rise to the coming tomaturity of the second generation, the children of the first settlers, now admitted to membership but not to full communion--a wide departurefrom the original purpose of the founders. Rhode Island continued to bethe colony of separatism and soul liberty, where Seeker, Generalist, Anabaptist, and religious anarchist of the William Harris type foundplace, though not always peace. Cotton Mather later said there had neverbeen "such a variety of religions together on so small a spot as therehave been in that colony. "

The coming of the Quakers to Boston in 1656, bringing with them as theydid some of the very religious ideas that had caused Mrs. Hutchinson andJohn Wheelwright to be driven into exile, revived anew the old issue androused the orthodox colonies to deny admission to ranters, heretics, Quakers, and the like. Boston burned their books as "corrupt, heretical, and blasphemous, " flung these people into prison with everymark of indignity, branded them as enemies of the established order inchurch and commonwealth, and tried to prove that they were witches andemissaries of Satan. The first-comers were sent back to Barbados whencethey came; the next were returned to England; those of 1657 werescourged; those of 1658, under the Massachusetts law of the previousyear, were mutilated and, when all these measures had no effect, underthe harsher law of October, 1658, four were hanged. One of these, MaryDyer, though reprieved and banished, persisted in returning to herdeath. The Quakers were scourged in Plymouth, branded in New Haven, flogged at the cart's tail on Long Island, and chained to a wheelbarrowat New Amsterdam. Upon Connecticut they made almost no impression; onlyin Piscataqua, Rhode Island, Nantucket, and Eastern Long Island did theyfind a resting place. 

To the awe inspired by the covenant with God was added the terroraroused by the dread power of Satan; and witchcraft inevitably took itsplace in the annals of New England Puritanism as it had done for acentury in the annals of the older world. Not one of the colonies, except Rhode Island, was free from its manifestations. Plymouth had twocases which came to trial, but no executions; Connecticut and New Havenhad many trials and a number of executions, beginning with that of AlseYoung in Windsor in 1647, the first execution for witchcraft in NewEngland. The witch panic, a fearful exhibition of human terror, appearedin Massachusetts as early as 1648, and ran its sinister course for morethan forty years, involving high and low alike and disclosing an amazingamount of credulity and superstition. To the Puritan the power of Satanwas ever imminent, working through friend or foe, and using the humanform as an instrument of injury to the chosen of God. The great epidemicof witchcraft at Salem in 1692, the climax and close of the delusion, resulted in the imprisonment of over two hundred persons and theexecution of nineteen. Some of those who sat in the court of trial latercame to their senses and were heartily ashamed of their share in theproceedings. 

The New Englander of the seventeenth century, courageous as he was andloyal to his religious convictions, was in a majority of cases giftedwith but a meager mental outfit. The unknown world frightened andappalled him; Satan warring with the righteous was an ever-presentmenace to his soul; the will of God controlled the events of his dailylife, whether for good or ill. The book of nature and the physiology andailments of his own body he comprehended with the mind of a child. Hebelieved that the planet upon which he lived was the center of theuniverse, that the stars were burning vapors, and the moon and cometsagencies controlling human destinies. Strange portents presaged disasteror wrought evil works. Many a New Englander's life was governedaccording to the supposed influence of the heavenly bodies; Bradfordbelieved that there was a connection between a cyclone and an eclipse;and Morton defined an earthquake as a movement of wind shut up in thepores and bowels of the earth. 

Of medicine the Puritans knew little and practised less. They swalloweddoses of weird and repelling concoctions, wore charms and amulets, foundcomfort and relief in internal and external remedies that could have hadno possible influence upon the cause of the trouble, and when all elsefailed they fell back upon the mercy and will of God. Surgery was amatter of tooth-pulling and bone-setting, and though post-mortems wereperformed, we have no knowledge of the skill of the practitioner. Thehealing art, as well as nursing and midwifery, was frequently in thehands of women, one of whom deposed: "I was able to live by mychirurgery, but now I am blind and cannot see a wound, much less dressit or make salves"; and Jane Hawkins of Boston, the "bosom friend" ofMrs. Hutchinson, was forbidden by the general courts "to meddle insurgery or physic, drink, plaisters or oils, " as well as religion. Themen who practised physic were generally homebred, making the greaterpart of their living at farming or agriculture. Some were ministers aswell as physicians, and one of them (Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes is sorryto say) "took to drink and tumbled into the Connecticut River, and soended. " There were a number of regularly trained doctors, such as JohnClark of Newbury, Fuller of Plymouth, Rossiter of Guilford, and others;and the younger Winthrop, though not a physician, had more than asmattering of medicine. 

The mass of the New Englanders of the seventeenth century had but littleeducation and but few opportunities for travel. As early as 1642, Massachusetts required that every child should be taught to read, andin 1647 enacted a law ordaining that every township should appoint aschoolmaster, and that the larger towns should each set up a grammarschool. This well-known and much praised enactment, which made educationthe handmaid of religion and was designed to stem the tide of religiousindifference rising over the colony, was better in intention than inexecution. It had little effect at first, and even when under itsprovisions the common school gradually took root in New England, theeducation given was of a very primitive variety. Harvard College itself, chartered in 1636, was a seat of but a moderate amount of learning andat its best had only the training of the clergy in view. In Hartford andNew Haven, grammar schools were founded under the bequest of GovernorHopkins, but came to little in the seventeenth century. In 1674, oneRobert Bartlett left money for the setting up of a free school in NewLondon, for the teaching of Latin to poor children, but the hope wasricher than the fulfilment. In truth, of education for the laity at thistime in New England there was scarcely more than the rudiments ofreading, writing, and arithmetic. The frugal townspeople of New Englandgenerally deemed education an unnecessary expense; the school laws wereevaded, and when complied with were more honored in the breach than inthe observance. Even when honestly carried out, they produced butslender results. Probably most people could sign their names after afashion, though many extant wills and depositions bear only the marks oftheir signers. Schoolmasters and town clerks had difficulties withspelling and grammar, and the rural population were too much engrossedby their farm labors to find much time for the improvement of the mind. Except in the homes of the clergy and the leading men of the largertowns there were few books, and those chiefly of a religious character. The English Bible and Bunyan's _Pilgrim's Progress_, printed in Bostonin 1681, were most frequently read, and in the houses of the farmers the_British Almanac_ was occasionally found. There were no newspapers, andprinting had as yet made little progress. 

The daily routine of clearing the soil, tilling the arable land, raisingcorn, rye, wheat, oats, and flax, of gathering iron ore from bogs andturpentine from pine trees, and in other ways of providing the means ofexistence, rendered life essentially stationary and isolated, and themind was but slightly quickened by association with the larger world. Alittle journeying was done on foot, on horseback, or by water, but thetrip from colony to colony was rarely undertaken; and even within thecolony itself but few went far beyond the borders of their owntownships, except those who sat as deputies in the assembly or engagedin hunting, trading, fishing, or in wars with the Indians. A Connecticutman could speak of "going abroad" to Rhode Island. Though in the largertowns good houses were built, generally of wood and sometimes of brick, in the remoter districts the buildings were crude, with rooms on onefloor and a ladder to the chamber above, where corn was frequentlystored. Along the Pawcatuck River, families lived in cellars along withtheir pigs. Clapboards and shingles came in slowly as sawmillsincreased, but at first nails and glass were rare luxuries. Conditionsin such seaports as Boston, where ships came and went and higherstandards of living prevailed, must not be taken as typical of the wholecountry. The buildings of Boston in 1683 were spoken of as "handsome, joining one to another as in London, with many large streets, most ofthem paved with pebble stone. " Money in the country towns wasmerchantable wheat, peas, pork, and beef at prices current. Time wasreckoned by the farmers according to the seasons, not according to thecalendar, and men dated events by "sweet corn time, " "at the beginningof last hog time, " "since Indian harvest, " and "the latter part of seedtime for winter wheat. "

New England was a frontier land far removed from the oldercivilizations, and its people were always restive under restraint andconvention. They were in the main men and women of good sense, sobriety, and thrift, who worked hard, squandered nothing, feared God, and honoredthe King, but the equipment they brought with them to America wasinsufficient at best and had to be replaced, as the years wore on, fromresources developed on New England soil. 

CHAPTER V

AN ATTEMPT AT COLONIAL UNION

The men who controlled the destinies of New England were deeplyconcerned not only with preserving its faith but also with guarding itsrights and liberties as they defined them, and reverentially preservingthe letter of its charters. For men who wished to sever their connectionwith England and to disregard English law and precedent as much aspossible, they displayed a remarkable amount of respect for thedocuments that emanated from the British Chancery. In fact, however, they valued these grants and charters, not as expressions of royalfavor, but as bulwarks against royal encroachment and outsideinterference, and in accepting such privileges as were conferred bytheir charters, they recognized no duty to be performed for the commonmother, no obligations resting upon themselves to consider the welfareof England or to coöperate in her behalf. 

The thoughts of these men were of themselves, their faith, and theirproblems of existence. The strongest ties were those that held togetherthe people of a town, closely knit in the bond of a civil and religiouscovenant. Next above these were the ties of the colony, with its generalcourt or assembly composed of representatives of the towns, its governorand other officials elected by the freemen, and its laws passed by theassembly for the benefit and well-being of all. Higher still was theloose bond of confederation that was fashioned in 1643 for themaintenance of order, peace, and security, in the form of a league ofcolonies. Highest, but weakest of all, was the bond that united them toEngland, recognized in sentiment but carrying with it no reciprocalobligations, either legal or otherwise. To the average inhabitant of NewEngland, the mother country was merely the land from which he had come, the home to which he might or might not return. He had practically noknowledge of England's plans or policy, no comprehension of her purposetoward her colonies or the place of the colonies in her own scheme ofexpansion. He was absorbed in his own affairs, not in those of England;in the commands of God, not in those of the King; and in the dangerswhich surrounded him from the foes of the frontier, not in those whichconfronted England in her relations with her continental rivals. He wasdominated by his instinct for self-government and by his compelling fearof the Stuarts and all that they represented. Even during the period ofthe Commonwealth and the Protectorate, England was three thousand milesaway, appeal to her was difficult and costly, and the English brethrenwere not always as sympathetic as they might have been with the aims andmethods of their co-religionists. 

This very isolation from the mother country, at a time when the NewEnglanders were pushing their fur-trading activities into the regionsclaimed by the Dutch and the French, rendered some sort of united actionnecessary and desirable. The settlers were of one stock and one purpose. Despite bickerings and disputes, they shared a common desire to enjoythe liberties of the Christian religion and to obtain from the newcountry into which they had come both subsistence and profit. Thedetermination to open up trading posts on the Penobscot, the Delaware, and the Hudson, and to utilize all waters for their fisheries broughtthem into conflict with their rivals, at New Amsterdam and in NovaScotia, and made it imperative, should any one colony--Plymouth, Massachusetts, Connecticut, or New Haven--attempt to pursue its plansalone, for all to band together in its support. The troubles alreadyencountered with the Dutch on the Delaware and the Connecticut and withthe French in Maine, in the competition for the fur trade of theinterior, had rendered the situation acute and led, very early, to theproposal that a combination be effected. 

But it was not until 1643 that anything was accomplished. In May of thatyear, at the suggestion of Connecticut and New Haven, commissioners fromthese colonies, and from Massachusetts and Plymouth also, met at Bostonand drafted a body of articles for a consociation or confederation to beknown as the United Colonies of New England, a form of union which founda precedent in the federation of the Netherlands and corresponded in thepolitical field to the consociation of churches in the ecclesiastical. Maine was not asked because, as a province belonging to Gorges, thepeople there (to quote from Winthrop's _Journal_) "ran a differentcourse from the other colonies, both in their ministry and civiladministration, . . . Had lately made Acomenticus (a poor village) acorporation, and had made a taylor their mayor, and had entertained oneHull, an excommunicated person and very contentious, for theirminister. " Rhode Island, as a seat of separatism and heresy, was notinvited and perhaps not even considered. For managing the affairs of theconfederation, the main objects of which were friendship and amity, protection and defense, advice and succor, and the preservation of thetruth and purity of the Gospel, eight commissioners were provided, to bechosen by the assemblies of the colonies and to represent the coloniesas independent political units. Meetings were to be held once a year inone or other of the leading towns and a full record was to be kept ofthe business done. The board thus established never did more than makerecommendations and offer advice, as it had no authority to execute anyof the plans that it might make; and although the records of itsmeetings are lengthy and give evidence of elaborate discussion ofimportant matters, the results of its deliberations cannot be said to beparticularly significant. 

The commissioners dealt with a number of local disputes of no greatmoment and considered certain internal difficulties that threatened todisturb the friendly intercourse among the colonies. For instance, Connecticut had levied tolls at Saybrook on vessels going up theConnecticut River to Springfield, and Massachusetts had retaliated bylaying duties on goods from other colonies entering her ports. Underpressure from the commissioners both the colonies receded from theirpositions. Again, the commissioners recommended the granting of aid toHarvard College, and that institution consequently received fromConnecticut and New Haven annually for many years a regular allowance, in return for which it presented the Connecticut colony with nearlysixty graduates in the ensuing half-century well equipped to combatlatitudinarianism and heresy. The commissioners fulfilled theirobligation as guardians of the purity of the Gospel, both in theirsupport of the synod of 1646-1648 and in their strenuous efforts tocheck the increase of religious discontent due to the narrow definitionof church membership--efforts which eventually resulted in that"illogical compromise, " the Half-Way Covenant. They recommended thedriving out of "Quakers, Ranters, and other Herritics of that nature, "and urged that the true Gospel might be spread among the Indians. Theyupheld the work of the Society for the Promoting and Propagating of theGospel of Jesus Christ in New England, and they directed and guided thelabors of its missionaries, most notable of whom was the famous JohnEliot, apostle to the Indians and translator of the Bible into theirlanguage. 

The most important business of the confederation concerned the defenseof New England against the Indians, the Dutch, and the French. TheIndians were an ever-present menace, near and far; the Dutch disputedthe English claims all the way from New Amsterdam to Narragansett Bay, and resented the attempts already made to encroach upon their tradinggrounds; and the French at this time were strenuously denying the rightof the English, particularly those of Plymouth, to establishtrading-posts at Machias and on the Penobscot, and were laying claim toall the Nova Scotian territory as far west as the Penobscot. 

Though the French, in their effort to drive out all the English settlerseast of Pemaquid in Maine, had destroyed two Plymouth posts in thatregion, the commissioners were called upon to decide not so much whatshould be done about this act of aggression, as which of the claimantsamong the French themselves it was wiser for the colonies to support. Acertain Charles de la Tour had been commissioned by the Governor-Generalof Acadia or Nova Scotia as lieutenant of the region east of the St. Croix, and another, Charles de Menou, Sieur d'Aulnay-Charnisé, aslieutenant of the region between the St. Croix and the Penobscot. Whenthe Governor-General died in 1635, a contest for the governorship tookplace between these two men, and not unnaturally volunteers fromMassachusetts aided La Tour, whose original jurisdiction was farthestremoved from their colony. Trade on these northeastern coasts was deemedessential to the prosperity of the New Englanders, and it was consideredof great importance to make no mistake in backing the wrong claimant. D'Aulnay, or more correctly Aulnay, had been partly responsible for theattack on the Plymouth trading-posts, but, on the other hand, he had thestronger title; and Massachusetts was a good deal perplexed as to whatcourse to pursue. In 1644, Aulnay sent a commissioner to Boston, whoconversed with Governor Endecott in French and with the rest of themagistrates in Latin and endeavored to arrange terms of peace. Twoyears later the same commissioner came again, with two others, and wascordially entertained with "wine and sweetmeats. " The matter wasreferred to the commissioners of the United Colonies, who decided, withconsiderable shrewdness, that the volunteers in aiding La Tour had actedefficiently but not wisely; and consequently a compromise was reached. Aulnay's commissioners abated their claims for damages, and GovernorWinthrop consented to send "a small present" to Aulnay in lieu ofcompensation. The present was "a fair new sedan (worth, " says Winthrop, "forty or fifty pounds, where it was made, but of no use to us), " havingbeen part of some Spanish booty taken in the West Indies and presentedto the Governor. So final peace was made at no expense to the colony;and later, after Aulnay's death in 1650, La Tour married the widow andcame to his own in Nova Scotia. 

The troubles with the Dutch were not so easily settled. England hadnever acknowledged the Dutch claim to New Amsterdam, and the New EnglandCouncil in making its grants had paid no attention to the Dutchoccupation. Though trade had been carried on and early relations hadbeen on the whole amicable, yet, after Connecticut's overthrow of thePequots in 1637 and the opening of the territory to settlement, thefounding of towns as far west as Stamford and Greenwich had renderedacute the conflict of titles. There was no western limit to the Englishclaims, and, as the colonists were perfectly willing to accept SirWilliam Boswell's advice to "crowd on, crowding the Dutch out of thoseplaces which they have occupied, without hostility or any act ofviolence, " a collision was bound to come. The Dutch, who in their turnwere not abating a jot of their claims, had already destroyed a NewHaven settlement on the Delaware, and had asserted rights ofjurisdiction even in New Haven harbor, by seizing there one of their ownships charged with evading the laws of New Amsterdam. Peter Stuyvesant, the Dutch Governor, famous for his short temper and mythical silver leg, visited Hartford in 1650, and negotiated with the commissioners of theUnited Colonies a treaty drawing the boundary line from the west side ofGreenwich Bay northward twenty miles. But this treaty, though ratifiedby the States General of Holland, was never ratified by England, and, when two years later war between the two countries broke out overseas, the question of an attack on New Amsterdam was taken up and debated withsuch heat as nearly to disrupt the Confederation. The absolute refusalof Massachusetts to enter on such an undertaking so prolonged thediscussion that the war was over before a decision was reached; butConnecticut seized the Dutch lands at Hartford, and Roger Ludlow, whohad moved to Fairfield from Windsor after 1640, began an abortivemilitary campaign of his own. The situation remained unchanged as longas the Dutch held New Netherland, and the region between Greenwich andthe Bronx continued to be what it had been from the beginning ofsettlement, a territory occupied only by Indians and a few stragglingemigrants. There the unfortunate Anne Hutchinson with her family wasmassacred by the Indians in 1643. 

The New England Confederation performed the most important part of itswork during the first twenty years of its existence, for although itlasted nominally till 1684, it ceased to be effective after 1664, andwas of little weight in New England history after the restoration of theStuarts. Owing to the fact that it had been formed without any authorityfrom England, the Confederation was never recognized by the Governmentthere, and with the return of the monarchy it survived chiefly as anoccasional committee meeting for debate and advice. 

CHAPTER VI

WINNING THE CHARTERS

The accession of Charles II to the throne of England provoked a crisisin the affairs of the Puritans and gave rise to many problems that theNew Englanders had not anticipated and did not know how to solve. With aStuart again in control, there were many questions that might be easilyasked but less easily answered. Except for Massachusetts and Plymouth, not a settlement had a legal title to its soil; and except forMassachusetts, not one had ever received a sufficient warrant for thegovernment which it had set up. Naturally, therefore, there wasdisquietude in Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Haven; and evenMassachusetts, buttressed as she was, feared lest the King might objectto many of the things she had done. Entrenched behind her charter andaware of her superiority in wealth, territory, and population, she hadtaken the leadership in New England and had used her opportunity tointimidate her neighbors. Except for New Haven, not a colony or group ofsettlements but had felt the weight of her claims. Plymouth andConnecticut had protested against her demands; the Narragansett townswith difficulty had evaded her attempt to absorb them; and thesettlements at Piscataqua and on the Maine coast had finally yielded toher jurisdiction. As long as Cromwell lived and the Government ofEngland was under Puritan direction, Massachusetts had little to fearfrom protests against her; but, with the Cromwellian régime at an end, she could not expect from the restored monarchy a favoring or friendlyattitude. 

The change in England was not merely one of government; it was one ofpolicy as well. Even during the Cromwellian period, Englishmen awoke toa greater appreciation of the importance of colonies as assets of themother country, and began to realize, in a fashion unknown to theearlier period, the necessity of extending and strengthening England'spossessions in America. England was engaged in a desperate commercialwar with Holland, whose vessels had obtained a monopoly of the carryingtrade of the world; and to win in that conflict it was imperative thather statesmen should husband every resource that the kingdom possessed. The religious agitations of previous years were passing away and the NewEngland colonies were not likely to be troubled on account of theirPuritanism. The great question in England was not religious conformitybut national strength based on commercial prosperity. 

Thus England was fashioning a new system and defining a new policy. Bymeans of navigation acts, she barred the Dutch from the carrying tradeand confined colonial commerce in large part to the mother country. Sheestablished councils and committees of trade and plantations, and, bythe seizure of New Netherland in 1664 and the grant of the Carolinas andthe Bahamas in 1663 and 1670, she completed the chain of her possessionsin America from New England to Barbados. A far-flung colonial world wasgradually taking shape, demanding of the King and his advisers aninterest in America of a kind hitherto unknown. It is not surprisingthat so vast a problem, involving the trade and defense of nearly twentycolonies, should have made the internal affairs of New England seem ofless consequence to the royal authorities than had been the case in thedays of Charles I and Archbishop Laud, when the obtaining of theMassachusetts Bay charter had roused such intensity of feeling inEngland. What was interesting Englishmen was no longer the matter ofreligious obedience in the colonies, but rather that of their politicaland commercial dependence on the mother country. 

As the future of New England was certain to be debated at Whitehallafter 1660, the colonies took pains to have representatives on theground to meet criticisms and complaints, to ward off attacks, and tobeg for favors. Rhode Island sent a commission to Dr. John Clarke, oneof her founders and leading men, at that time in London, instructing himto ask for royal protection, self-government, liberty of conscience, anda charter. Massachusetts sent Simon Bradstreet and the Reverend JohnNorton, with a petition that reads like a sermon, praying the King notto listen to other men's words but to grant the colonists an opportunityto answer for themselves, they being "true men, fearers of God and theKing, not given to change, orthodox and peaceable in Israel. "Connecticut, with more worldly wisdom, sent John Winthrop, the Governor, a man courtly and tactful, with a petition shrewdly worded and to thepoint. Plymouth entrusted her mission also to Winthrop, hoping for aconfirmation of her political and religious liberties. All protestedtheir loyalty to the Crown, while Massachusetts, her petition signed bythe stiff-necked Endecott, prostrated herself at the royal feet, cravingpardon for her boldness, and subscribing herself "Your Majesties mosthumble subjects and suppliants. " Did Endecott remember, we wonder, acertain incident connected with the royal ensign at Salem?

Against the lesser colonies no complaints were presented, except in thecase of New Haven, which was charged by the inhabitants of ShelterIsland with usurpation of their goods and territory; but forMassachusetts the restoration of the Stuarts opened a veritablePandora's box of troubles. In "divers complaints, petitions, and otherinformations concerning New England, " she was accused of overbearanceand oppression, of seizing the territory of New Hampshire and Maine, ofdenying the rights of Englishmen to Anglicans and non-freemen of thecolony, and of persecuting the Quakers and others of religious viewsdifferent from her own. She was declared to be seeking independence ofCrown and Parliament by forbidding appeals to England, refusing toenforce the oath of allegiance to the King, and in general exceeding thepowers laid down in her charter. The new plantations council, commissioned by the King in December, 1660, sent a peremptory letter thefollowing April ordering the colony to proclaim the King "in the mostsolemn manner, " and to hold herself in readiness to answer complaints byappointing persons well instructed to represent her before itself inEngland. At the same time, it begged the King to go slowly, givingMassachusetts an opportunity to be heard, and to write a letter "withall possible tenderness, " pointing out that submission to the royalauthority was absolutely essential. This the King did, confirming thecharter of Massachusetts, renewing the colony's rights and privileges, and in conciliatory fashion ascribing all derelictions of duty to theiniquity of the times rather than to any evil intention of the heart. Then declaring that the chief aim of the charter was liberty ofconscience, the King struck at the very heart of the Massachusettssystem, by commanding the magistrates to grant full liberty of worshipto members of the Anglican Church and the right to vote to all who were"orthodox" in religion and possessed of "competent estates. " Though thisorder was evaded by various definitions of "orthodox" and "competentestates" and was not to be fully executed for many years, yet itsmeaning was clear--no single religious body would ever again be allowed, by the royal authorities in England, to monopolize the government orcontrol the political destinies of a British colony in America orelsewhere. 

The policy thus adopted toward Massachusetts became even moreconciliatory when applied to the other colonies. It is not improbablethat the King's advisers saw in the strengthening of Connecticut andRhode Island an opportunity to check the power of Massachusetts and toreduce her importance in New England. However that may be, they lentthemselves to the efforts that Winthrop and Clarke were making to obtaincharters for their respective colonies. These agents were able, discreet, and broadminded men. Clarke, a resident in England for anumber of years, had acquired no little personal influence; andWinthrop, as an old-time friend of the English lords and gentlemen whosegovernor he had been at Saybrook, could count on the help of the onesurviving member of that group, Lord Saye and Sele, who was a privycouncillor, a member of the House of Lords and of the plantationscouncil, and, as we are told, Lord Privy Seal, a position that would beof direct service in expediting the issue of a charter. Winthrop hadpersonal qualities, also, that made for success. He was a universityman, had made the grand tour of the Continent, and was familiar withofficial traditions and the ways of the court. Soon after his arrival inEngland, he became a member of the Royal Society and served on severalof its committees, and thus had an opportunity of making friends and ofshowing his interest in other things than theology. If Cotton Mather wasrightly informed, Winthrop was accorded a personal interview withCharles II and presented the King with a ring which Charles I, as Princeof Wales, had given his grandfather, Adam Winthrop. 

Winthrop made good use of a good cause. Connecticut had behaved herselfwell and had incurred no ill-will. She had had no dealings with theCromwellian Government, had dutifully proclaimed the King, had beendiscreet in her attitude toward Whalley and Goffe, the regicides who hadfled to New England, and had aroused no resentment against herself amongher neighbors. With proceedings once begun, the securing of the charterwent rapidly forward. Winthrop at first petitioned for a confirmationof the old Warwick patent, which had been purchased of the English lordsand gentlemen in 1644, but later, encouraged it may be by friends inEngland, he asked for a charter. The request was granted. [2] Thedocument gave to Connecticut the same boundaries as those of the oldpatent, and conferred powers of government identical with those of theFundamental Orders of 1639. That the main features of the charter weredrawn up in the colony before Winthrop sailed is probable, though it isnot impossible that they were drafted in London by Winthrop himself. Allthat the English officials did was to give the text its proper legalform. 

After the receipt of the charter and its proclamation in the colony andafter a slight readjustment of the government to meet the few changesrequired, the general court of Connecticut proceeded to enforce the fullterritorial rights of the colony. The men of Connecticut had made uptheir minds, now that the charter had come, to execute its terms to theuttermost and to extend the authority of the colony to the farthestbounds, so that, next to the government of the Bay, Connecticut mightbe the greatest in New England. The court took under its protection thetowns of Stamford and Greenwich, and on the ground that the wholeterritory westward was within its jurisdiction warned the Dutch governornot to meddle. It accepted the petition of Southold on Long Island andof certain residents of Guilford, both of the New Haven federation, forannexation, and, sending a force to Long Island to demand the surrenderof the western towns there, it seized Captain John Scott, who wasplanning to establish a separate government over them, and brought himto Hartford for trial. It informed the towns of Mystic and Pawcatuck, lying in the disputed land between Connecticut and Rhode Island, thatthey were in the Connecticut colony and must henceforth conduct theiraffairs according to its laws. The relations with Rhode Island were tobe a matter of later adjustment, and no immediate trouble followed; butStuyvesant, the Dutch Governor, protested angrily against Connecticut'sclaim to Dutch territory and brought the matter to the attention of thecommissioners of the United Colonies. On one pretext or another, thelatter delayed action; and the matter was not settled until England'sseizure of New Amsterdam in 1664 brought the Dutch rule to an end andmade operative the royal grant of the territory to the Duke of York, thus stopping Connecticut in her somewhat headlong career westward andtaking from her the whole of Long Island and all the land west of theConnecticut River. If maintained, this grant would have reduced thecolony by half and would have materially retarded its progress; butConnecticut eventually saved the western portion of her territory as faras the line of 1650. However, her people could do no more crowding oninto the region beyond, for the province of New York now lay directlyacross the path of her westward expansion. 

But with New Haven her success was complete. That unfortunate colony, which had made an effort to obtain a patent in 1645, when the "greatship, " bearing the agent Gregson, had foundered with all on board, hadno friends at court, and had been too poor after 1660 to join the othercolonies in sending an agent to London. Consequently its right to existas an independent government was not considered in the negotiationswhich Winthrop had carried on. Serious complaints had been raisedagainst it; its rigorous theocratic policy had created divisions amongits own people, many of whom had begun to protest; it had been friendlywith the Cromwellian régime and had proclaimed Charles II unwillinglyand after long delay; it had protected the regicides until themessengers sent out for their capture could report the colony as"obstinate and pertinacious in contempt of His Majestie. " GovernorLeete, of the younger generation, was not in sympathy with Davenport'spersistent refusal of all overtures from Hartford, and would probablyhave favored union under the charter of 1662 if Connecticut had beenless aggressive in her attitude. As it was, the controversy becamepungent and was prolonged for more than two years, though the outcomewas never uncertain. The New Haven colony was poor, unprotected, anddivided against itself. Its population was decreasing; Indian massacresthreatened its frontiers; the malcontents of Guilford, led by BrayRossiter, were demanding immediate and unconditional surrender toConnecticut; and finally in 1664 the successful capture of NewNetherland and the grant to the Duke of York threatened the colony withannexation from that quarter. Rather than be joined to New York, NewHaven surrendered. One by one the towns broke away until in December ofthat year only Branford, Guilford, and New Haven remained. On December13, 1664, the freemen of these towns, with a few others, voted tosubmit, "as from a necessity . . . But with a _salvo jure_ of our formerright & claime, as a people who have not yet been heard in point ofplea. "

The New Haven federation was dissolved; Davenport withdrew to Boston, where he became a participant in the religious life of that colony; andthe strict Puritans of Branford, Guilford, and Milford, led by AbrahamPierson, went to New Jersey and founded Newark. The towns, left looseand at large, joined Connecticut voluntarily and separately, and the NewHaven colony ceased to exist. But the dual capital of Connecticut andthe alternate meetings of its legislature in Hartford and New Haven, marked for more than two hundred years the twofold origin of the colonyand the state. 

In the meantime Rhode Island had become a legally incorporated colony. Even before Winthrop sailed for England, Dr. John Clarke had received afavorable reply to his petition for a charter. But a year passed andnothing was done about the matter, probably owing to the arrival ofWinthrop and the feeling of uncertainty aroused by the conflictingboundary claims, which involved a stretch of some twenty-five miles ofterritory between Narragansett Bay and the Pawcatuck River. A thirdclaimant also appeared, the Atherton Company, with its headquarters inBoston, which had purchased lands of the Indians at various points inthe area and held them under the jurisdiction of Massachusetts. WhenClarke heard that Winthrop, in drawing the boundaries for theConnecticut charter of 1662, had included this Narragansett territory, he protested vehemently to the King, saying that Connecticut had"injuriously swallowed up the one-half of our colonie, " and demanding areconsideration. Finally, after the question had been debated in thepresence of Clarendon and others, the decision was reached to give RhodeIsland the boundaries and charter she desired, but to leave the questionof conflicting claims for later settlement. Evidently Winthrop, thoughnot agreeing with Clarke in matters of fact regarding the boundaries, supported Rhode Island's appeal for a charter, for Clarendon saidafterwards that the draft which Clarke presented had in it expressionsthat were disliked, but that the charter was granted out of regard forWinthrop. 

The Rhode Island charter passed the seals July 8, 1663, and was receivedin the colony four months later with great joy and thanksgiving. Itcreated a common government for all the towns, guaranteeing full liberty"in religious concernments" and freedom from all obligations to conformto the "litturgy, formes, and ceremonyes of the Church of England, ortake or subscribe the oathes and articles made and established in thatbehalfe. " This may have been the phrase that Clarendon, who was a HighChurchman, objected to when the draft was presented. The form ofgovernment was similar in all essential particulars to that ofConnecticut. 

Rhode Island's enthusiasm in obtaining a charter is not difficult tounderstand. That amphibious colony, consisting of mainland, islands, anda large body of water, was inhabited by "poor despised peasants, " asGovernor Brenton described them, "living remote in the woods" andsubject to the "envious and subtle contrivances of our neighbourcolonies round about us, who are in a combination united together toswallow us up. " The colony had not been asked to join the New EnglandConfederation, and its leaders were convinced that the members of theConfederation were in league to filch away their lands and, by drivingthem into the sea, to eliminate the colony altogether. Plymouth, seekinga better harbor than that of Plymouth Bay, claimed the eastern mainlandas well as the chief islands, Hog, Conanicut, and Aquidneck;Massachusetts claimed Pawtuxet, Warwick, and the Narragansett countrygenerally; while Connecticut wished to push her eastern boundary as farbeyond the Pawcatuck River (the present boundary) as she might be ableto do. Had each of these colonies made good its claim, there would havebeen little left of Rhode Island, and we do not wonder that the settlerslooked upon themselves as fighting, with their backs to the sea, fortheir very existence. Hence they welcomed the charter with the joy ofone relieved of a great burden, for, though the boundary questionremained unsettled, the charter assured the colony of its right to existunder royal protection. 

FOOTNOTE:

[2] The King's warrant was issued on February 28, the writ of Privy Sealon April 23, and the great seal was affixed on May 10, 1662. 

CHAPTER VII

MASSACHUSETTS DEFIANT

Massachusetts was yet to be taken in hand. The English authorities hadbecome convinced that a satisfactory settlement of all the difficultiesin New England could be undertaken not in England, where the facts werehard to get at, but in America. Lord Clarendon, the Chancellor, had beenin correspondence with Samuel Maverick, an early settler in New Englandand for many years a resident of Boston and New Amsterdam. As anAnglican, Maverick had sympathized with the opposition in Massachusettsled by Dr. Robert Child, and had been debarred from all civil andreligious rights in the colony; but he was a man of sobriety and goodjudgment, whose chief cause of offense was a difference of opinion as tohow a colony should conduct its government. The fact that he had beenable to get on with the Massachusetts men shows that his attitude hadnever been seriously aggressive, for though he certainly had no likingfor the policy of the colony, he does not appear to have been influencedby any hostility towards Massachusetts. 

Happening to be in England at this juncture, Maverick was called upon bythe Chancellor to state the case against the colony, and this he did inseveral letters, giving many instances of the colony's disloyalty andinjustice, and recommending that its privileges be taken away, just asit had taken away the privileges of others. To this suggestion Clarendonpaid no heed, for it was no part of the royal purpose to drive thecolonies to desperation at a time when the King was but newly come tohis throne and needed all his resources in the struggle with the Dutch. But to Maverick's further suggestions that New Netherland be reduced, that Massachusetts be regulated, and that commissioners be sent over toaccomplish these ends, he expressed himself as favorable, and all werefinally accepted by the Government. Maverick's opinion that Britishcontrol should be exercised over a British possession and that thegovernment of such a possession should not be conducted after thefashion of an ecclesiastical society happened to coincide with that ofthe King's advisers and, as Maverick had lived in America for thirtyyears, his advice was listened to with respect and approval. All thoughtthat, while Massachusetts might not be driven with safety, she couldprobably be persuaded to admit some alteration in her methods ofgovernment by tactful representatives. 

Had the Duke of York, to whom was entrusted the task of selecting thenew commissioners, chosen his men as wisely as Clarendon had shaped hispolicy, the results, as far as Massachusetts was concerned, might havebeen more successful. The trouble lay with the character of the work tobe done. On the one hand the Dutch colony was to be seized by force ofarms, a military undertaking involving boldness and executive ability;on the other, the Puritan colonies were to be regulated, a mission whichcalled for the utmost tact. The men chosen for the work were far fromthe best that might have been selected to bring back to the path of trueobedience and impartial justice a colony that was deemed wilful andperverse. They were Richard Nicolls, a favorite of the Duke of York andthe only commissioner possessed of discrimination and wisdom, but who, as governor of the yet unconquered Dutch colony, was likely to be takenup with his duties to such an extent as to preclude his sharingprominently in the diplomatic part of his mission; Colonel GeorgeCartwright, a soldier, well-meaning but devoid of sympathy and ignorantof the conditions that confronted him; Sir Robert Carr, the worst of thefour, unprincipled and profligate and without control either of histemper or his passions; and, lastly, Maverick himself, opposed to theexisting order in Massachusetts and convinced of the necessity ofradical changes in the constitution of the colony. Nicolls was liked andrespected; Cartwright and Carr were distrusted as soldiers andstrangers, and their presence was resented; whereas Maverick wasobjected to as a malcontent who had gone to England to complain and hadreturned with power to make trouble. When the colony heard of hisappointment, it sent a vigorous address of protest to the King. IfClarendon expected from the last three of these men the wisdom anddiscretion that he said were essential to the task, he strangelymisjudged their characters. He thought, to be sure, of adding othercommissioners from New England, but he did not know whom to select andwas fearful of arousing local jealousies. Yet considering the work tobe done, it is doubtful if any commissioners, no matter how wiselyselected, could have performed the task, for Massachusetts did not wantto be regulated. 

The general object of the commission was "to unite and reconcile personsof very different judgments and practice in all things, " particularlyconcerning "the peace and prosperity of the people and their jointsubmission and obedience to us and our government. " More specifically, the commissioners were to effect the overthrow of the Dutch, investigateconditions among the Indians, capture the regicides, secure obedience tothe navigation acts, look into the question of boundaries, and determinethe title to the Narragansett country, henceforth to be called theKing's Province. The commissioners were to make it clear that they werenot come to interfere with the prevailing religious systems, but todemand liberty of conscience for all, though Clarendon could not repressthe hope that ultimately the New Englanders might return to the Anglicanfold. The secret instructions were even more remarkable as evidence of acomplete misunderstanding of conditions in New England. Clarendon wishedto secure for the Crown the power to nominate or at least to approvethe governor of Massachusetts, to control the militia, and to examineand correct the laws--powers, it may be noted, which were exercised inevery royal colony as a matter of course. He suggested that thecommissioners interest themselves in the elections so far as "to gettmen of the best reputation and most peaceably inclined" chosen to theassembly, but he cautioned them to "proceed very warily" in some ofthese things. He had a hope that Massachusetts might be so wrought uponas to choose Nicolls for her governor and Carr for her major-general, but in this, as in the pious hope of a return of the Puritans to theChurch of England, he reckoned without a knowledge of the grimness ofthe Massachusetts temper. 

The commissioners reached Boston, _en route_ for New Amsterdam, late inJuly, 1664, asked for troops, and demanded the repeal of the franchiselaw. The magistrates took the precaution to conceal the charter; theywere also heartily glad when the commissioners departed on their errandof conquest and hoped they would not return. The general court, havingmodified the franchise law sufficiently to meet the letter of the King'scommand, wrote His Majesty that they wished he would recall hisemissaries; and when the magistrates discovered that this impertinentdemand not only failed of its object but drew down upon the colony aroyal rebuke, with characteristic shrewdness they shifted their groundand prepared to meet the commissioners in fair contest, wearing outtheir patience and thwarting their plans by every available device. Inthe meantime, the four men were completing the conquest and pacificationof New Netherland, and rearranging the boundary difficulties withConnecticut. Then Maverick and Cartwright passed on to Boston, wherethey were joined in February by Carr, Nicolls remaining in New York. Thethree men, making Boston their headquarters, visited Plymouth, Newport, and Hartford, where they were received, according to their account, "with great expressions of loyalty"--a statement which, if true, showshow successfully the colonists suppressed their deeper feelings. Havingtaken the King's Province under the royal protection, and postponed forlater consideration the question of the boundary line between RhodeIsland and Connecticut, with new complaints against Massachusettsringing in their ears, they returned to Boston to meet the defiantmagistrates. There Nicolls joined them in May. 

The Massachusetts mission was hopeless from the beginning. Themagistrates and general court would not admit the right of thecommissioners to interfere in any way with governmental procedure orwith the course of justice; and standing with absolute firmness on thepowers granted by the charter and pointing to the recent renewal by theKing as a full confirmation of all their privileges, they denied thevalidity of the royal mission and refused to discuss the question ofjurisdiction. The commissioners said very plainly that Massachusetts hadnot administered the oath of allegiance or permitted the use of the Bookof Common Prayer, as she had promised to do, and, as for the newfranchise law, they did not understand it themselves and did not believeit would meet the royal requirements. To none of these points did themagistrates make any sufficient reply, but, feeling convinced thatsafety lay in avoiding decisions, they preferred rather to leave thematter ambiguous than to attempt any clearing up of the points at issue. 

But when the commissioners took up the question of appeals and announcedtheir determination to sit as a court of justice, the issue was morefairly joined. The magistrates quoted the text of the charter to showthat the colony had full power over all judicial affairs, while thecommissioners cited their instructions as a sufficient warrant for theirright to hear complaints against the colony. A deadlock ensued, but inthe end the colony triumphed. After spending a month in fruitlessnegotiations, the commissioners gave up the struggle, preferring toleave the conduct of Massachusetts to be passed upon by the Crown ratherthan to prolong the controversy. For the time being, the Massachusettsmen had their own way; but they had raised a serious and dangerousquestion, that of their allegiance and its obligations, for, as thecommissioners said, "The King did not grant away his soveraigntie overyou when he made you a corporation. When His Majestie gave you power tomake wholesome lawes and to administer justice, he parted not with hisright of judging whether those laws are wholsom, or whether justice wasadministered accordingly or no. When His Majestie gave you authoritieover such of his subjects as lived within the limits of yourjurisdiction, he made them not your subjects nor you their supreamauthority. " Had the magistrates been wiser men, less homebred andprovincial, and possessed of wider vision, they would have foreseen thedangers that confronted them. But Bellingham and Leverett, the leadingrepresentatives of the policy of no surrender, were not men gifted withforesight, and they remained unmoved by the last threat of thecommissioners that it would be hazardous to deny the King's supremacy, for "'tis possible that the charter which you so much idolize may beforfeited. "

The magistrates were undoubtedly influenced by the character of thecommissioners and their rough and ready methods of procedure. Had allbeen as honorable and upright as Nicolls, who unfortunately took butlittle part in the negotiations, the outcome might have been different. But there is reason to think otherwise. The Massachusetts leaders tookthe ground that if they yielded any part they must eventually yield all, and they wanted no interference from outside in their government. Havingruled themselves for thirty years as they thought best, they were notdisposed to admit that the King had any rights in the colony; and theybelieved that by steady resistance or by dilatory practices they couldstave off intervention and that, with the danger once removed, thecolony would be allowed to continue in its own course. In a measure theywere justified in their belief. The King recalled the commissioners, and, though he wrote a letter declaring that Massachusetts had shown agreat want of duty and respect for the royal authority, he went nofurther than to command the colony to send agents to England to answerthere the questions that had not been settled during the stay of thecommissioners at Boston. But the colony did not take this commandseriously and sent no agents. Nicolls, always temperate in speech, wrotein 1666: "The grandees of Boston are too proud to be dealt with, sayingthat His Majesty is well satisfied with their loyalty. "

The "grandees" were playing a shrewd but none too wise a game. Affairsin England were not favorable to the pursuit of a rigorous policy atthis time. The Dutch war, the fire and epidemic in London, and theconsequent suspension of all outside activities, had thrown governmentalbusiness into disorder and confusion. Clarendon, whose influence waswaning, was soon to lose his post as Chancellor. The negotiations whichended in the treaty of Breda, and the threatening policy of Louis XIV, now beginning to take a form ominous to the Protestant states of Europe, distracted men's minds at home, and the Massachusetts problem was forthe moment lost sight of in the presence of the larger issues. Thecolony returned to its former position of independence and soonreasserted its former authority over New Hampshire and Maine. To allappearances the failure of the royal commissioners was complete, butappearances were deceptive. The issue lay not merely between a StuartKing and a colony seeking to preserve its liberties; it was part of thelarger and more fundamental issue of the place of a colony in England'snewly developed policy of colonial subordination and control. Neitherwas Massachusetts a persecuted democracy. No modern democratic statewould ever vest such powers in the hands of its magistrates and clergy, nor would any modern people accept such oppressive and unjustlegislation as characterized these early New England communities. In anycase, the contemptuous attitude of Massachusetts and her disregard ofthe royal commands were not forgotten; and when, a few years later, theauthorities in England took up in earnest the enforcement of the newcolonial policy as defined by acts of Parliament and royal orders andproclamations, the colony of Massachusetts Bay was the first to feel theweight of the royal displeasure. 

CHAPTER VIII

WARS WITH THE INDIANS

The period from 1660 to 1675, a time of readjustment in the affairs ofthe New England colonies, was characterized by widespread excitement anddeep concern on the part of the colonies everywhere. Scarcely a sectionof the territory from Maine to the frontier of New York and the towns ofLong Island but felt the strain of impending change in its politicalstatus. The winning of the charters and the capture of New Amsterdamwere momentous events in the lives of the colonists of Rhode Island andConnecticut; while the agitation for the annexation of New Haven and theacrimonious debate that accompanied it must have stirred profoundly thetowns of that colony and have led to local controversies, rivalries, andcontentions that kept the inhabitants in a continual state ofperturbation. On Long Island before 1664, the uncertainty as tojurisdiction, due to grave doubts as to the meaning of Connecticut'scharter, aroused the towns from Easthampton and Southold on the east toFlushing and Gravesend on the west, and divided the people intodiscordant and clashing groups. Captain John Scott, already mentioned, an adventurer and soldier of fortune who at one time or another seems tohave made trouble in nearly every part of the British world, appeared atthis time in Long Island and, denying Connecticut's title to theterritory, proclaimed the King. In January, 1664, he established agovernment at Setauket, with himself as president. This event set thetowns in an uproar; Captain Young from Southold, upholding Connecticut'sclaim, came "with a trumpet" to Hempstead; New Haven men crossed LongIsland Sound to support Scott's cause; and at last Connecticut herselfsent over officers to seize the insurgents. Though Scott said he would"sacrifice his heart's blood upon the ground" before he would yield, hewas taken and carried in chains to Hartford. 

Both Plymouth and Massachusetts sent letters protesting against thetreatment of Scott, and the heat engendered among the members of the NewEngland Confederation was intensified by the controversy over New Havenand the "uncomfortable debates" regarding the title to the Narragansettterritory. Massachusetts wrote to Connecticut in 1662, "We cannot alittle wonder at your proceeding so suddenly to extend your authority tothe trouble of your friends and confederates"; to which Connecticutreplied, hoping that Massachusetts would stop laying further temptationsbefore "our subjects at Mistack of disobedience to this government. " Thematter was debated for many years, and it was not until 1672 thatMassachusetts recognized Connecticut's title under the charter andyielded, not because it thought the claim just but because "it wasjudged by us more dangerous to the common cause of New England to opposethan by our forbearance and yielding to endeavour to prevent a mischiefto us both. "

In Rhode Island conditions were equally unsettled, for the inhabitantsof the border towns did not know certainly in what colony they weresituated or what authority to recognize; and though these doubtsaffected but little the daily life of the farmer, they did affect thetitle to his lands and the payment of his taxes, and threw suspicionupon all legal processes and transactions. The situation was even moredisturbed in the regions north of Massachusetts, where the status ofMaine and New Hampshire was undecided and where the coming of the royalcommissioners only served to throw the inhabitants into a new ferment. The claims of Mason and Gorges were revived by their descendants, andthe King peremptorily ordered Massachusetts to surrender the provinces. Agents of Gorges appeared in the territory and demanded anacknowledgment of their authority; the commissioners themselvesattempted to organize a government and to exercise jurisdiction there inthe King's name; but in 1668 Massachusetts, denying all otherpretensions, adopted a resolution asserting her full right of control, and, sending commissioners with a military escort to York, resumedjurisdiction of the province. The inhabitants did not know what to do. Some upheld the Gorges agents and the commissioners; others adhered toMassachusetts. Even in Massachusetts itself there were grave differencesof opinion, for the younger generation did not always follow the oldmagistrates, and the people of Boston were developing views both ofgovernment and of the proper relations toward England that were atvariance with those of the more conservative country towns anddistricts. 

The larger disputes between the colonies were frequently accompaniedwith lesser disputes between the towns over their boundaries; and bothat this time and for years afterwards there was scarcely an importantsettlement in New England that did not have some trouble with itsneighbor. In 1666 Stamford and Greenwich came to blows over theirdividing line, and in 1672 men from New London and Lyme attempted to mowthe same piece of meadow and had a pitched battle with clubs andscythes. Not many years later the inhabitants of Windsor and Enfield"were so fiercely engag'd" over a disputed strip of land, reported aneye-witness, that a hundred men met to decide this controversy by force, "a resolute combat" ensuing between them "in which many blows were givento the exasperating each party, so that the lives and limbs of hisMajesties subjects were endangered thereby. "

Though clubs and scythes and fists are dangerous weapons enough, theonly real fighting in which the colonists engaged was with the Indiansand with weapons consisting of pikes and muskets. Indian attacks were anever-present danger, for the stretches of unoccupied land between thecolonies were the hunting-grounds of the Narragansetts of easternConnecticut and western Rhode Island, the Pequots of Connecticut, theWampanoags of Plymouth and its neighborhood, the Pennacooks of NewHampshire, and the Abenaki tribes of Maine. Plague and starvation had sofar weakened the coast Indians before the arrival of the first coloniststhat the new settlements had been but little disturbed; but, unfortunately, as the first comers pushed into the interior, foundingnew plantations, felling trees, and clearing the soil, and the trappersand traders invaded the Indian hunting-grounds, carrying with themfirearms and liquor, the Indian menace became serious. 

To meet the Indian peril, all the colonies made provision for a supplyof arms and for the drilling of the citizen body in militia companies ortrain-bands. But in equipment, discipline, and morale the fighting forceof New England was very imperfect. The troops had no uniforms; there wasa very inadequate commissariat; and alarums, whether by beacon, drum-beat, or discharge of guns, were slow and unreliable. Weapons werecrude, and the method of handling them was exceedingly awkward andcumbersome. The pike was early abandoned and the matchlock soon gaveway to the flintlock--both heavy and unwieldy instruments of war--andcarbines and pistols were also used. Cavalry or mounted infantry, thoughexpensive because of horse and outfit, were introduced wheneverpossible. In 1675, Plymouth had fourteen companies of infantry andcavalry; Massachusetts had six regiments, including the Ancient andHonorable Artillery; and Maine and New Hampshire had one each. Connecticut had four train-bands in 1662 and nine in 1668, a troop ofdragoneers, and a troop of horse, but no regiments until the nextcentury. For coast defense there were forts, very inadequately suppliedwith ordnance, of which that on Castle Island in Boston harbor was themost conspicuous, and, for the frontier, there were garrison-houses andstockades. 

Though Massachusetts had twice put herself in readiness to repelattempts at coercion from England, and though both Connecticut and NewHaven seemed on several occasions in danger from the Dutch, particularlyafter the recapture of New Amsterdam in 1673, New England's chief dangerwas always from the Indians. Both French and Dutch were believed to beinstrumental in inciting Indian warfare, one along the southwesternborder, the other at various points in the north, notably in NewHampshire and Maine. But, except for occasional Indian forays and forhouse-burnings and scalpings in the more remote districts, there wereonly two serious wars in the seventeenth century--that against thePequots in 1637 and the great War of King Philip in 1675-1676. 

The Pequot War, which was carried on by Connecticut with a few men fromMassachusetts and a number of Mohegan allies, ended in the completeoverthrow of the Pequot nation and the extermination of nearly all itsfighting force. It began in June, 1637, with the successful attack byCaptain John Mason on the Pequot fort near Groton, and was brought to anend by the battle of Fairfield Swamp, July 13, where the survivingPequots made their last stand. Sassacus, the Pequot chieftain, wasmurdered by the Mohawks, among whom he had sought refuge; and during theyear that followed wandering members of the tribe, whenever found, wereslain by their enemies, the Mohegans and Narragansetts. An entire Indianpeople was wiped out of existence, an achievement difficult to justifyon any ground save that of the extreme necessity of either slaying orbeing slain. The relentless pursuit of the scattered and dispiritedremnants of these tribes admits of little defense. 

The overthrow of the Pequots opened to settlement the region fromSaybrook to Mystic and led to a treaty in 1638 with the Mohegans andNarragansetts, according to which harmony was to prevail and peace wasto reign. But the outcome of this impracticable treaty was a five years'struggle between the Mohegan chieftain, Uncas, actively allied with thecolony of Connecticut, and Miantonomo, sachem of the Narragansetts, which involved Connecticut in a tortuous and often dishonorable policyof attempting to divide the Indians in order to rule them--a policywhich led to many embarrassing negotiations and bloody conflicts andended in the murder of Miantonomo in 1643, by the Mohegans, at theinstigation of the commissioners of the United Colonies. This alliancebetween Uncas and the colony lasted for more than forty years. It placedupon Connecticut the burden of supporting a treacherous and graspingIndian chief; it created a great deal of confusion in land titles in theeastern part of the colony because of indiscriminate Indian grants; itstarted the famous Mohegan controversy which agitated the colony andEngland also, and was not finally settled until 1773, one hundred andthirty years later; and it was, in part at least, a cause of KingPhilip's War, because of the colony's support of the Mohegans againsttheir traditional enemies, the Narragansetts and Niantics. 

The presence of the Indians in and near the colonies rendered frequentdealings with them a matter of necessity. The English settlers generallypurchased their lands from the Indians, paying in such goods orimplements or trinkets as satisfied savage need and desire. In so doingthey acquired, as they supposed, a clear title of ownership, thoughthere can be no doubt that what the Indian thought he sold was not theactual soil but only the right to occupy the land in common withhimself. As the years wore on, the problems of reservations, trade, andthe sale of firearms and liquor engaged the attention of the authoritiesand led to the passage of many laws. The conversion of the Indians toChristianity became the object of many pious efforts, and inMassachusetts and Plymouth resulted in communities of "Praying Indians, "estimated in 1675 at about four thousand individuals. In contact withthe white man the Indian tended to deteriorate. He frequented thesettlements often to the annoyance of the men and the dread of the womenand children; he got into debt, was incurably slothful and idle, anddeveloped an uncontrollable desire to drink and steal. Where the Indianswere not a menace, they were a nuisance, and the colonies passed manylaws concerning the Indians which were designed to meet the onecondition as well as the other. 

But the real danger to New England came not from those Indians whooccupied reservations and hung around the settlements, but from thosewho, with savage spirit unbroken, were slowly being driven from theirhunting-grounds and nurtured an implacable hatred against the aggressiveand relentless pioneers. The New Englanders numbered at this time some80, 000 individuals, with an adult and fighting population of perhaps16, 000; while the number of the Indians altogether may have reached ashigh as 12, 000, with the Narragansetts, the strongest of all, mustering4, 000. The final struggle for possession of the main part of central andsouthern New England territory came in 1675, in what is known as KingPhilip's War. 

Scarcely had the fears aroused by the arrival of a Dutch fleet at NewYork and the capture of that city been allayed by the peace ofWestminster in 1674, when rumors of Indian unrest began to spreadthrough the settlements, and the dread of Indian outbreaks began toarouse new apprehensions in the hearts of the people. Hitherto no Indianchieftain had proved himself a born leader of his people. NeitherSessaquem, Sassacus, Pumham, Uncas, nor Miantonomo had been able toquiet tribal jealousies and draw to his standard against the Englishothers than his own immediate followers. But now appeared a sachem whowas the equal of any in hatred of the white man and the superior of allin generalship, who was gifted both with the power of appeal to theyounger Indians and with the finesse required to rouse other chieftainsto a war of vengeance. Philip, or Metacom, was the second son of oldMassasoit, the longtime friend of the English, and, upon the death ofhis elder brother Alexander in 1662, became the head of the Wampanoags, with his seat at Mount Hope, a promontory extending into NarragansettBay. Believing that his people had been wronged by the English, particularly by those of Plymouth colony, and foreseeing that he andhis people were to be driven step by step westward into narrower andmore restricted quarters, he began to plot a great campaign ofextermination. On June 24, 1675, a body of Indians fell on the town ofSwansea, on the eastern side of Narragansett Bay, slew nine of theinhabitants and wounded seven others. Though assistance was sent fromMassachusetts and Plymouth, the burning and massacring continued, extending to Rehoboth, Taunton, and towns northward. The settlementswere isolated before the troops could reach them, their inhabitants wereslain, cabins were burned, and prisoners were carried into captivity. The Rhode Islanders fled to the islands; elsewhere settlers gathered ingarrisoned forts and blockhouses and in new forts hastily erected. 

Though the authorities of Connecticut and Massachusetts sent agentsamong the Nipmucks hoping to prevent their alliance with Philip, theeffort failed, and by August the tribes on the upper Connecticut hadjoined the movement and now began a determined and systematicdestruction of the settlements in central New England. The famousmassacre and burning of Deerfield took place on September 12, thesurviving inhabitants fleeing to Hatfield, leaving their town in ruins. Hatfield, Northfield, Springfield, and Westfield were attacked in turn, and though the defense was sometimes successful, more often thedefenders were ambushed and killed. So widespread was the uprising thatduring the autumn, a desultory warfare was carried on as far north asFalmouth, Brunswick, and Casco Bay, where at least fifty Englishmen wereslain by members of the Saco and Androscoggin tribes. 

As yet the Narragansetts, bravest of all the southern New EnglandIndians, whose chief was Canonchet, son of the murdered Miantonomo, hadtaken no part in the war. But as rumor spread that they had welcomedPhilip and listened to his appeals and were probably planning to join inthe murderous fray, war was declared against them on November 2, 1675, and a force of a thousand men and horse from Plymouth and Massachusettswas drawn up on Dedham plain, under the command of General JosiahWinslow and Captain Benjamin Church. On December 19, the greater part ofthis force, aided by troops from Connecticut, fell on the Narragansettsin their swamp fort, south of the present town of Kingston, and after afierce and bloody fight completely routed them, though at a heavy loss. The tribe was driven from its own territory, and Canonchet fled to theConnecticut River, where he established a rallying point for new forays. His followers allied themselves with the Wampanoags and Nipmucks andbegan a new series of massacres. In February and March, 1676, they fellupon Lancaster, where they carried off Mrs. Rowlandson, who has left usa narrative of her captivity; upon Medfield, where fifty houses wereburned; and upon Weymouth and Marlborough, which were raided and in partdestroyed. Repeated assaults in other quarters kept the western frontierof Massachusetts in a frightful condition of terror; settlers wereambushed and scalped, others were tortured, and many were carried intocaptivity. Even the Pennacooks of southern New Hampshire were roused toaction, though their share in the war was small. Here a hundred warriorssacked a village; there Indians skulking along trails and on theoutskirts of towns cut off individuals and groups of individuals, shooting, scalping, and burning them. No one was safe. Again thecommissioners of the United Colonies met in council and ordered a morevigorous prosecution of the campaign. More troops were levied andgarrison posts fortified, but the first results were disastrous. Captain Pierce of Scituate was ambushed at Blackstone's River nearRehoboth, and his command was completely wiped out. Sudbury wasdestroyed in April, and a relieving force escaped only with heavy loss. 

But the strength of the Indians was waning. Canonchet, run to earth nearthe Pawtuxet River, was captured and sentenced to death, and hisexecution was entrusted to Oneko, the son of Uncas. His head was cut offand carried to Hartford, and his body was committed to the flames. Theloss of Canonchet was a bitter blow to Philip, who now saw his alliesfalling away and himself deserted by all but a few faithful followers. The campaign--at last well in hand and directed by that prince of Indianfighters, Benjamin Church, now commissioned a colonel by GeneralWinslow--was approaching an end. Using friendly savages as scouts, Colonel Church gradually located and captured stray bodies of Indiansand brought them as captives to Plymouth. Finally, coming on the trailof Philip himself, he first intercepted his followers, and then, relentlessly pursuing the fleeing chieftain from one point to another, tracked him to his lair at his old stronghold, Mount Hope. There thegreat chief who had terrorized New England for nearly a year was slainby one of his own race. His ornaments and treasure were seized by thesoldiers, and his crown, gorget, and two belts, all of gold and silverof Indian make, were sent as a present to Charles II. With the death ofPhilip, August 12, 1676, the whole movement collapsed, and the remaininghostile Indians, dispersed and in flight, with their leaders gone andstarvation threatening, sought refuge among the northern tribes. Thusthe last effort to check the English advance in southern and central NewEngland was brought to an end. From this time on, the Indians inMassachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut lingered for a century anda half, a steadily dwindling remnant, wards of the governments andoccupants of reservations, until they ceased to exist as a separatepeople. 

The havoc wrought by the war was a great blow to the prosperity of NewEngland. Probably more than six hundred whites had been slain orcaptured, and hundreds of houses and a score of villages had been burntor pillaged; crops had been destroyed, cattle driven off, andagriculture in many quarters brought to a complete standstill. In 1676, there was little leisure to sow and less to reap. Provisions becameincreasingly scarce; none could be had near at hand, for none of thecolonies had a surplus; and attempts to obtain them from a distanceproved unavailing. Staples for trade with the West Indies decreased; thefur trade was curtailed; and fishing was hampered for want of men. Toadd to the confusion, a plague vexed the colonies. It seemed to all asif the hand of God lay heavily upon New England, and days of humiliationand prayer were appointed to assuage the wrath of the Almighty. AMassachusetts act of November, 1675, ascribed the war to the judgment ofGod upon the colony for its sins, among which were included an excess ofapparel, the wearing of long hair, and the rudeness of worship, allmarks of an apostasy from the Lord "with a great backsliding. " ThePuritan fear of divine displeasure adds a relieving note to the generaldespondency and must have stiffened the determination of the orthodoxleaders to resist to the utmost all attempts to liberalize the life ofthe colony or to alter its character as a religious state patternedafter the divine plan. King Philip's War probably strengthened theposition of the conservative element in Massachusetts. 

CHAPTER IX

THE BAY COLONY DISCIPLINED

Except for the northern frontier, where Indian forays and atrocitiescontinued for many years longer, the last great struggle with theIndians in New England was finished. The next danger came from adifferent quarter and in a different form. In June, 1676, two monthsbefore the Indian War was over, one Edward Randolph arrived from Englandto make an inquiry into the affairs of Massachusetts. That colony hadscarcely weathered the ever-threatening peril of the New World when itwas called upon to face an attack from the Old which endangered thecontinuance of those precious privileges for which the magistrates atBoston had contended with a vigor shrewd rather than wise. As we haveseen, the position that Massachusetts assumed as a colony largelyindependent of British control was incompatible with England's colonialand commercial policy, a position that was certain to be called inquestion as soon as the authorities at home were able to give seriousattention to it. 

This opportunity did not arrive until, in 1674, the plantations councilwas dismissed, and colonial business was handed over to the PrivyCouncil and placed in the hands of a standing committee of that bodyknown as the Lords of Trade. This committee, which was more dignifiedand authoritative than had been the old council, at once assumed afirmer tone toward the colonies. It caused a proclamation to be issuedannouncing the royal determination to enforce the acts of trade, and itmade the King's will known in America by means of new instructions tothe royal governors there. It stated clearly the purpose of theGovernment to bring the colonies into a position of greater dependenceon the Crown in the interest of the trade and revenues of the kingdom, and it showed no inclination to grant Massachusetts, with all thecharges and complaints against her, preferential treatment. At the sametime it was not disposed to pay much attention to religious differences, minor misdemeanors, and neighborhood quarrels, if only the colony wouldconform to British policy in all that concerned the royal prerogativeand the authority of Parliament; but it made it perfectly plain thatcontinued infractions of parliamentary acts and royal commands would notbe condoned. 

Had the leaders of Massachusetts been more complaisant and less given toa policy of evasion and delay, it is not unlikely that the colony wouldhave been allowed to retain its privileges; and had they been lessabsorbed in themselves and more observant of the world outside, theymight have seen the changes that were coming over the temper and purposeof those in England who were shaping the relations between England andher colonies. But Massachusetts had grown provincial since theRestoration, looking backward rather than forward and moving in verynarrow channels of thought and life, so that she was wrapped up inmatters of purely local interest. The clergy were struggling to maintaintheir control in colony and college, while the deputies in thelegislature, representing in the main the conservative countrydistricts, were upholding the clerical party against some of themagistrates, who represented the town of Boston and were inclined totake a more liberal and progressive view of the matter. These countrymembers saw in England's attitude only the desire of a despotic Stuartrégime to suppress the liberties of a Puritan commonwealth, and failedto see that the investigation into the affairs of Massachusetts was butan effort to establish a colonial policy fundamental to England'swelfare and power. 

It cannot be said that, from 1660 to 1684, the Government in Englanddisplayed undue animus toward the colony. It allowed Massachusetts to doa great many things that in law she had no right to do, such as coiningmoney and issuing a charter to Harvard College. Its demand for abroadening of the Massachusetts franchise was in the interest of libertyand not against it, and the insistence on freedom of worship deserves noreproof. Its condemnation of many of the Massachusetts laws asoppressive and unjust shows that in some respects legal opinion inEngland at this time was more advanced than that in Massachusetts andConnecticut, and, even at its worst, English law did not go to theMosaic code for its precedents. There is a distinct note of cruelty andoppression in some of the Massachusetts and Connecticut legislation atthis time, and many of the Puritan measures were harsh and arbitrary andliable to abuse. Even the Government's support of the Mason and Gorgesclaims was not dishonorable, and while it may have been unwise and, inequity, unjust, it was not without excuse. The Government listened tocomplaints of persecution, as any sovereign power is required to do, andwas naturally impressed with the weightiness of some of the charges; yetso little inclined was it to tamper with Massachusetts that the colonymight have succeeded, for a longer time at least, in maintaining theintegrity of its control, had not the question of colonial trade broughtmatters to a crisis. 

Under Charles II, finances presented a difficult problem, for Parliamentin controlling appropriations took no responsibility for the collectionof money granted. To meet the deficit which during the earlier years ofthe reign was ever present, efforts were made to increase the revenuefrom customs, and so successful was this policy that, after 1675, thesecustoms revenues came to be looked upon as among England's greatestsources of wealth. Now, inasmuch as trade with the colonies was one ofthe largest factors contributing to this result, England, as she couldnot afford to maintain colonies that would do nothing to aid her, camemore and more to value her overseas possessions for their commercialimportance, classing as valuable assets those that advanced herprosperity, and treating as insubordinate those that disregarded theacts of trade and thwarted her policy. The independence thatMassachusetts claimed was diametrically opposed to the growing Englishnotion that a colony should be subordinate and dependent, should obeythe acts of trade and navigation, and should recognize the authority ofthe Crown; and, from what they heard of the temper of New England, English statesmen suspected that Massachusetts was doing none of thesethings. 

Edward Randolph, who was sent over in 1676 to make inquiry into theaffairs of the colony, was a native of Canterbury, a former student ofGray's Inn, and at this time forty-three years old. The fact that he wasconnected by marriage with the Mason family accounts for his interest inthe efforts of Gorges and Mason to break the hold of Massachusetts uponNew Hampshire and Maine. He was a personal acquaintance of Sir RobertSouthwell, the diplomatist, and of Southwell's intimate friend, WilliamBlathwayt, an influential English official interested in the colonies. He had been in the employ of the government, and now, probably at theinstance of Southwell and Blathwayt, he was selected to fill thedifficult and thankless post of commissioner to New England. That he hadability and courage no one can doubt, and that he pursued his coursewith a tenacity that would have won commendation in other and lesscontroversial fields, his career shows. His devotion to the interests ofthe Crown and his loyalty to the Church of England steeled him againstthe almost incessant attacks and rebuffs that he was called upon toendure, and his entire inability to see any other cause than his ownsaved him from the discouragements that must certainly have broken a manmore sensitive than himself. He exhibited at times some of the obduracyof the zealot and martyr; at others he displayed unexpected good sensein protesting against extremes of action that he thought unjust orunwise. He was honest and indefatigable in the pursuit of what hebelieved to be his duty, and was ill-requited for his labors, but he wasa persistent fault-finder and his letters are masterpieces of complaint. He was thrice married, his second wife dying at the height of histroubles in Massachusetts, and he had five children, all daughters, oneof whom proved a grievous disappointment to him. Though he held manyoffices, he was always in debt and died poor, at the age of seventy, inAccomac County in Virginia. He was far from being the best man to sendto New England, but his natural obstinacy and his determination toovercome difficulties were intensified by the discourteous and tactlessmanner in which he was received by the Puritans. He had no sympathy withthe efforts of the "old faction" to save the colony, and the people ofMassachusetts responded with a bitter and lasting hate. 

Randolph landed at Boston on June 10, and remained in the colony untilthe end of July, about six weeks altogether. He visited Plymouth, NewHampshire, and Maine, interviewed men in authority and all sorts ofother people, and he came to the conclusion that the majority of theinhabitants were discontented with the Boston régime. The magistratesignored his presence as much as they dared, refusing to recognize him asanything but an enemy representing the Mason and Gorges claims, andinsisting that though the King might enlarge their privileges he couldnot abridge them. Randolph, thoroughly nettled, returned to Englandprepared to do his worst. He sent several reports to the King andconstantly appeared before the Privy Council and the Lords of Trade, each time doing all the damage that he could. He had undoubtedly gotmuch of his information from prejudiced sources or from hearsay, and hewas as eager to retail it as had been the Massachusetts authorities toblast the moral character of the King's commissioners. He denounced the"old faction" as cunning, deceptive, overbearing, and disloyal; hecalled the clergy proud, ignorant, imperious, and inclined to sedition;and he denounced those in authority as "inconsiderable mechanicks, packed by the prevailing party of the factious ministry, with afellow-feeling both in the command and the profits. " His picture of thecolony, containing much that was near the truth, was at the same timedistorted, out of proportion, and in parts almost a caricature. His mosteffective reports were those which laid stress upon the failure of thecolony to obey the navigation acts and the royal commands, and upon itsuse of the word "Commonwealth, " as if the corporation were already anindependent state. These reports were accepted by the Englishauthorities as correct statements of fact, for they seemed to beconfirmed by the evidence of London merchants and by at least one WestIndian governor, who knew the colony and had no personal interests atstake. 

In October, 1676, Massachusetts sent over two of its leading men, William Stoughton, a magistrate, and Peter Bulkeley, speaker of theHouse of Representatives, to ward off, if possible, the attack on thecolony, but with characteristic short-sightedness gave them no authorityto discuss officially anything but the Mason and Gorges claims. For morethan two years these men, representative rather of the moderate partythan of the "old faction" in the colony, remained in England, frequentlyappearing before the Lords of Trade, where they were subjected to asearching examination at the hands of a not very sympathetic body ofmen. The meetings in the Council Chamber in Whitehall, where thecommittee sat, were occasions full of interest and excitement. At one ofthem, on April 8, 1677, Stoughton, Bulkeley, Randolph, Mason, and SirEdmund Andros, Governor of New York for the Duke, were all present, andthe agents must have found the situation awkward and embarrassing. Thecommittee expressed its resentment at the colony's habit of disobedienceand evasion, and showed no inclination to adopt a moderate policy, advocating, on the contrary, investigation "from the whole root. " Theposition of a Massachusetts agent in England during these trying yearswas most undesirable, and so many difficulties and discouragements didStoughton and Bulkeley encounter that several times they asked forpermission to return home and once, at least, had to go to the countryfor their health. But whatever were the troubles of an agent in England, they were trifling as compared with those which confronted him at homewhen he failed, as he almost invariably did fail, to obtain all that thecolony expected. Cotton Mather tells us that Norton died in 1663 ofmelancholy and chagrin, and that for forty years there was not one agentbut met "with some very froward entertainment among his countrymen. " Nowonder it was always difficult to find men who were willing to go. 

At first the Lords of Trade favored the sending of a supplementalcharter and the extending of a pardon to the colony; but as the evidenceagainst Massachusetts accumulated, they began to consider the revisionof the laws, the appointment of a collector of customs and a royalgovernor, and even the annulment of the charter itself. In short, theydetermined to bring Massachusetts "under a more palpable declaration ofobedience to his Majesty. " The general court of the colony, although ithad said that "any breach in the wall would endanger the whole, " was atlast frightened by the news from England and passed an order in October, 1677, that the laws of trade must be strictly observed, and latermagistrates and deputies alike took the oath of allegiance prescribed bythe Crown, promising to drop the word "Commonwealth" for the future. Themembers of the assembly wrote an amazing letter, pietistic and cringing, in which they prostrated themselves before the King, asked to benumbered among his "poore yet humble and loyal subjects, " and begged fora renewal of all their privileges. At best such a letter could have donelittle in England to increase respect for the colony, but any goodresults expected from it were completely destroyed by the seriousblunder which the colony made at this time in purchasing from the Gorgesclaimants the title to the province of Maine, which with New Hampshirehad recently been declared by the chief justices of the King's Bench andCommon Pleas to lie outside of the jurisdiction of Massachusetts. Thisattempt to obtain, without the royal consent, a territory which thelegal advisers of the Crown had decided Massachusetts could not have, only strengthened the determination of the authorities in England tobring the colony into the King's hand by the appointment of a royalgovernor. For the moment, however, the uprising of Bacon in Virginia andthe Popish Plot in England so distracted the Government that it wasobliged to slight or to postpone much of its business. It did succeed insettling the perplexing question of New Hampshire, for, having obtainedfrom Mason a renunciation of all his claims to the Government, thoughleaving him with full title to the soil, it organized that territory asa colony under the control of the Crown. 

With these matters out of the way or less exigent, the Lords of Tradereturned to the affairs of New England. They wished, before proceedingto extremes, to give Massachusetts another chance to be heard; so, indismissing the agents in the autumn of 1679, they instructed the colonyto send over within six months others fully prepared "to answer themisdemeanors imputed against them. " They also decided to send Randolphback as collector and surveyor of customs, with letters to all the NewEngland colonies, ordering them to enforce the acts of trade, andanother to Massachusetts requiring that she provide a minister for thosein Boston who wished an Anglican church. Randolph, who left for NewEngland for the second time, in December, 1679, has the distinction ofbeing the first royal official appointed for any of the northerncolonies. Almost his first task was to settle the province of NewHampshire under royal authority, with a government consisting of apresident, a council, and an assembly. Thus British control in NewEngland was making progress, and the worst fears of the "old faction" inMassachusetts were being realized. 

It is difficult to understand the attitude of Massachusetts. Her leadersprobably thought that with the settlement of the Mason and Gorges claimsthe most serious source of trouble with England was disposed of. Theybelieved, honestly enough, though the wish was father to the thought, that the colony lay beyond the reach of Parliament and that the laws ofEngland were bounded by the four seas and did not reach America. Hencethey deemed the navigation acts an invasion of their liberties and couldnot bring themselves to obey them. As to England's new colonial policy, it is doubtful if they grasped it at all, or would have acknowledged itas applicable to themselves, even if they had understood it. Theexperiences and reports of their agents in England seem to have taughtthem nothing and served only to confirm their belief that a Stuart was atyrant and that all English authorities were natural enemies. They hadlabored and suffered in the vineyard of the Lord and they wished to belet alone to enjoy their dearly won privileges. Randolph wrote, soonafter his arrival in New England, that the colony was acting "as high asever, " and that "it was in every one's mouth that they are not subjectto the laws of England nor were such laws in force until confirmed bytheir authority. " The colony neglected to send the agents demanded, alleging expense, the dangers of the sea, the difficulty of finding anyone to accept the post, and their belief that King and council were"taken up with matters of greater importance, " until finally inSeptember, 1680, the King wrote an exceedingly sharp letter, calling theexcuses "insufficient pretences, " and commanding that agents be sentwithin three months. Strange to say the colony even then allowed a yearto elapse before complying, and again instructed those whom they sent toagree to nothing that concerned the charter. 

Before the agents arrived in the summer of 1682, the royal patience wasexhausted. Randolph's continued complaints that he was obstructed inevery way in the performance of his duties; the act of the colony insetting up a naval office of its own; the revival of an old law imposingthe death penalty upon any one who should "attempt the alteration orsubversion of the frame of government"; the opinion of theAttorney-General that the colony had done quite enough to warrant theforfeiture of its charter; and the delay in sending the agents, whichseemed a further flouting of the royal commands--all these thingsbrought matters to a crisis. Therefore, when finally the Massachusettsagents reached England, they found the situation hopeless. "It is a hardservice we are engaged in, " they wrote; "we stand in need of help fromHeaven. " Their want of powers provoked the Lords of Trade to say thatunless they were procured, the charter would be forfeited at once. Randolph was called back in May, 1683, to aid in the legal proceedingswhich were immediately set on foot. Other charters were falling: that ofthe Bermuda Company was under attack; that of the City of London wasalready forfeited; and those of other English boroughs were in danger. On June 27, a writ of _quo warranto_ was issued out of the Court ofKing's Bench against the colony. The agents, refusing to defend thesuit, returned to New England, and the writ was given to Randolph toserve. He reached Boston in October, but owing to delays in the colonyand a tempestuous voyage back, he was unable to return it to Englandwithin the allotted time. The first attempt failed, but another was soonmade. By the advice of the Attorney-General, suit was brought in theCourt of Chancery by writ of _scire facias_ against the company, andupon the rendering of judgment for non-appearance the charter wasdeclared forfeited on October 23, 1684. 

Though the colony was given no opportunity to defend the suit, thecharter was legally vacated according to the forms of English law. Thecolony was but a corporation, its charter but a corporation charter, andin only one respect did it differ from other corporations, namely, itsresidence in America. The methods of vacating corporate charters inEngland were definite and in this case were strictly followed. HadMassachusetts been a corporation in fact as well as in law, it isdoubtful if the question of illegality would ever have been raised; butas this particular corporation was a Puritan commonwealth, the issue wasso vital to its continuance as to lead to the charge of unjust andillegal oppression. On moral grounds a defence of the colony is alwayspossible, though it is difficult to uphold the Massachusetts system. Itwas certainly neither popular nor democratic, tolerant nor progressive, and in any case it must eventually have undergone transformation fromwithin. The city of Boston was increasing in wealth and importance, andtrade was bringing it into ever closer contact with the outside world. There were growing up in the colony more open-minded and progressive menwho were opposing the dominance of the country party, which found itslast governor in Leverett, its chief advocates among the clergy, and itsstrength in the House of Representatives, and which wished to preservethings as they always had been. The leaders of this conservative party, Danforth, Nowell, Cooke, and others, struggled courageously against allconcessions, but they were bound to be beaten in the end. 

That the conservative members of the colony were thoroughly in earnestand thoroughly convinced of the absolute righteousness of theirposition, admits of no doubt. No man could speak of the loss of thecharter as a breach in the "Hedge which kept us from the Wild Beasts ofthe Field, " as did Cotton Mather, without expressing a fear of a Stuart, of an Anglican, and of a Papist that was as real as the terrors ofwitchcraft. To the orthodox Puritans, the preservation of theirreligious doctrines and government and the maintenance of their moraland social standards were a duty to God, and to admit change was a sinagainst the divine command. But such an unyielding system could notlast; in fact, it was already giving way. Though conjecture isdifficult, it seems likely that the English interference delayed ratherthan hastened the natural growth and transformation of the colony, because it united moderates and irreconcilables against a commonenemy--the authority of the Crown. 

CHAPTER X

THE ANDROS RÉGIME IN NEW ENGLAND

Without a charter Massachusetts stood bereft of her privileges and atthe mercy of the royal will. She was now a royal colony, immediatelyunder the control of the Crown and likely to receive a royal governorand a royal administration, as had other royal colonies. But the actualform that reconstruction took in New England was peculiar and renderedthe conditions there unlike those in any other royal colony in America. The territory was enlarged by including New Hampshire, which was alreadyin the King's hands, Plymouth, which was at the King's mercy because ithad no charter, Maine, and the Narragansett country. Eventually therewere added Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, and the Jerseys--eightcolonies in all, a veritable British dominion beyond the seas. For itsGovernor, Colonel Percy Kirke, recently returned from Tangier, wasconsidered, but Randolph, whose advice was asked, knowing that a manlike Kirke, "short-tempered, rough-spoken, and dissolute, " would notsucceed, urged that his name be withdrawn. It was agreed that theGovernor should have a council, and at first the Lords of Traderecommended a popular assembly, whenever the Governor saw fit; but inthis important particular they were overborne by the Crown. After debatein a cabinet council, it was determined "not to subject the Governor andcouncil to convoke general assemblies of the people, for the purpose oflaying on taxes and regulating other matters of importance. " Thisunfortunate decision was a characteristic Stuart blunder for which theDuke of York (afterwards James II), Lord Jeffreys (not yet LordChancellor), and other ministers were responsible. Kirke, Jeffreys, andthe Duke of York may well have seemed to Cotton Mather "Wild Beasts ofthe Field, " dangerous to be entrusted with the shaping of the affairs ofa Puritan commonwealth. 

The death of Charles II in February, 1685, postponed action in England, and in Massachusetts the government went on as usual, the electionstaking place and deputies meeting, though with manifesthalf-heartedness. Randolph was able to prevent the sending of Kirke, and finally succeeded in persuading the authorities that it would be agood plan to set up a temporary government, while they were making uptheir minds whom to appoint as a permanent governor-general of the newdominion. He obtained a commission as President for Joseph Dudley, sonof the former Governor, an ambitious man, with little sympathy for theold faction and friendly to the idea of broadening the life of thecolony by fostering closer relations with England. Randolph himselfreceived an appointment as register and secretary of the colony, and foronce in his life seemed riding to fortune on the high tide ofprosperity. In 1685, he obtained nearly £500 for his services and forhis losses up to that date; and when the following January he started onhis fifth voyage to New England, he bore with him not only the judgmentagainst the charter, the commission to Dudley as President, and twowrits of _quo warranto_ against Connecticut and Rhode Island, but also asheaf of offices for himself--secretary, postmaster, collector ofcustoms. He was later to become deputy-auditor and surveyor of thewoods. With him went also the Reverend Robert Ratcliffe, rector of thefirst Anglican church set up in Boston. Just a week after the arrivalof Randolph and Ratcliffe in Boston, the old assembly met for the lasttime, and on May 21, 1686, voted its adjournment with the pious hope, destined to be unfulfilled, that it would meet again the followingOctober. The Massachusetts leaders seem almost to have believed in amiraculous intervention of Providence to thwart the purposes of theirenemy. 

The preliminary government lasted but six months and altered the life ofthe people but little. For "Governor and Company" was substituted"President and Council, " a more modish name, as some one said, but notnecessarily one that savored of despotism. But however conciliatoryDudley might wish to be, his acceptance of a royal commission rankled inthe minds of his countrymen; and his ability, his friendly policy, hisdesire to leave things pretty much as they had been, counted for nothingbecause of his compact with the enemy. In the opinion of the old guard, he had forsaken his birthright and had turned traitor to the land of hisorigin. Time has modified this judgment and has shown that, howeverunlovely Dudley was in personal character and however lacking he was atall times in self-control, he was an able administrator, of a typecommon enough in other colonies, particularly in the next century, serving both colony and mother country alike and linking the two in acommon bond. Under him and his council Massachusetts suffered nohardships. He confirmed all existing arrangements regarding land, taxes, and town organization, and, knowing Massachusetts and the temper of herpeople as well as he did, he took pains to write to the King that itwould be helpful to all concerned if the Government could have arepresentative assembly. To grant the people a share in governmentwould, he believed, appease discontent on one side and help to fill anempty treasury on the other; but nothing came of his suggestion. 

Throughout New England as a whole, the daily routine of life was pursuedwithout regard to the particular form of government established inBoston. In Massachusetts the election of deputies stopped, but in otherrespects the town meetings carried on their usual business. In othercolonies no changes whatever took place. Men tilled the soil, went tochurch, gathered in town meetings, and ordered their ordinary affairs asthey had done for half a century. The seaports felt the change morethan did the inland towns, for the enforcement of the navigation actsinterfered somewhat with the old channels of trade and led to theintroduction of a court of vice-admiralty which Dudley held for thefirst time in July to try ships engaged in illicit trade. Over the fortsand the royal offices fluttered a new flag, bearing a St. George's crosson a white field, with the initials J. R. And a crown embroidered ingold in the center of the cross, that same cross which Endecott had cutfrom the flag half a century before. To many the new flag was the symbolof anti-Christ, and Cotton Mather judged it a sin to have the crossrestored; but others felt with Sewall, the diarist, who said of the fallof the old government: "The foundations being destroyed, what can therighteous do?"

Perhaps the greatest innovation--in any case, the novelty that arousedthe largest amount of curiosity and excitement--was the serviceaccording to the Book of Common Prayer, held at first in the libraryroom of the Town House, and afterwards by arrangement in the SouthChurch, and conducted by the Reverend Robert Ratcliffe in a surplice, before a congregation composed not only of professed Anglicans but alsoof many men of Boston who had never before seen the Church of Englandform of worship. The Anglican rector, by his somewhat unfortunate habitof running over the time allowance and keeping the waitingCongregationalists from entering their own church for the enjoyment oftheir own form of worship, caused almost as much discontent as did thedancing-master of whom the ministers had complained the year before, whoset his appointments on Lecture days and declared that by one play hecould teach more divinity than Mr. Willard or the Old Testament. Other"provoking evils" show that not all the breaches in the walls were dueto outside attacks. A list of twelve such evils was drawn up in 1675, and the crimes which were condemned, and which were said to be committedchiefly by the younger sort, included immodest wearing of the hair bymen, strange new fashions of dress, want of reverence at worship, profane cursing, tippling, breaking the Sabbath, idleness, overchargesby the merchants, and the "loose and sinful habit of riding from town totown, men and women together, under pretence of going to lectures, butreally to drink and revel in taverns. " The law forbidding the keeping ofChristmas Day had to be repealed in 1681. Mrs. Randolph, when attendingMr. Willard's preaching at the South Church, was observed "to make acurtsey" at the name of Jesus "even in prayer time"; and the colony wasthreatened with "gynecandrical or that which is commonly called Mixt orPromiscuous Dancing, " and with marriage according to the form of theEstablished Church. The old order was changing, but not withoutproducing friction and bitterness of spirit. The orthodox brethrenstigmatized Ratcliffe as "Baal's priest, " and the ministers from theirpulpits denounced the Anglican prayers as "leeks, garlick, and trash. "The upholders of the covenant were convinced that already "the WildBeasts of the Field" were assailing the colony. 

Randolph journeyed on horseback twice to Rhode Island, and once toConnecticut, serving his writs upon those colonies. Rhode Island agreedwillingly enough to surrender her charter without a suit, but theauthorities of Connecticut, knowing that the time for the return of thewrit had expired, gave no answer, debating among themselves whether itwould not be better, if they had to give in, to join New York ratherthan Massachusetts. Randolph attributed their hesitation to theirdislike of Dudley, for whom he had begun to entertain an intenseaversion. He charged Dudley with connivance against himself, interference with his work, appropriation of his fees, and too greatfriendliness toward the old faction in Boston. Before the provisionalgovernment had come to an end, he was writing home that Dudley was a"false president, " conducting affairs in his private interest, alukewarm supporter of the Anglican church, a backslider from hisMajesty's service, turning "windmill-like to every gale. " Such wasDudley's fate in an era of transition--hated by the old faction as anappointee of the Stuarts and by Randolph as a weak servant of the Crown. Writing in November, Randolph longed for the coming of the realgovernor, who would put a check upon the country party and bring to anend the time-serving and trimming of a president whom he deemed nobetter than a Puritan governor. 

The new Governor-General, who entered Boston harbor in the _Kingfisher_on December 19, 1686, was Sir Edmund Andros, a few years before the Dukeof York's Governor for the propriety of New York. Andros at this timewas forty-nine years old; he was a soldier by training and a man ofconsiderable experience in positions requiring executive ability. Hiscareer had been an honorable one, and no charges involving his honesty, loyalty, or personal conduct had ever been entered against him. When hewas in New York, he had been brought on several occasions into contactwith the Massachusetts leaders, and though their relations had neverbeen sympathetic, they had not been unfriendly. While in England from1681 to 1686, he had been freely consulted regarding the best method ofdealing with the problems in America and had shown himself in fullaccord with that policy of the Lords of Trade which attempted toconsolidate the northern colonies into a single government for theexecution of the acts of trade and defense against the encroachments ofthe French and Indians. He was probably fully aware of the difficultiesthat confronted the new experiment, but as a soldier he was ready toobey orders. His natural disposition and military training rendered himimpatient of obstacles, and his unfamiliarity with any form of populargovernment--for New York had been controlled by a governor and councilonly--made extremely uncertain his success in New England, where affairshad been managed by the easy-going, dilatory method of debate anddiscussion. As a disciplinarian, he could not appreciate the NewEnglander's fondness for disputation and argument; as a soldier, he wascertain to obey to the full the letter of his instructions; and, as anAnglican, he was likely to favor the church and churchmen of his choice. He was not a diplomat, nor was he gifted with the silver tongue oforatory or the spirit of compromise. He came to New England to execute adefinite plan, and he was given no discretion as to the form ofgovernment he was to set up. He and his advisory council were to makethe laws, levy taxes, exercise justice, and command the militia. He wasnot allowed to call a popular assembly or to recognize in any way thehighly prized institutions of the colony. 

On December 20, Andros, his officers, and guard, clad in the brilliantuniforms of soldiers of the British establishment, landed at Leverett'swharf and marched through the local militia up King's Street to the TownHouse, where he read his commission and administered the oaths. Exceptfor the royal commissioners of 1664, no British officer or soldier hadhitherto set foot on the streets of Boston. Redcoats had been sent toNew York and Virginia, but never before had they appeared in NewEngland, and this visible sign of British authority must have seemed tomany ominous for the future. 

Andros's early impressions of what he saw were not flattering to thecolony. He found the people still suffering from the devastating effectsof the late war and further harassed by bad harvests, disasters at sea, and two serious fires which had recently done much damage in the city. He found the fortifications in bad repair, almost all the gun-carriagesunserviceable, no magazines of powder or other stores of war, no smallarms, except a few old matchlocks, and those unsizable and in poorcondition, no storehouses or accommodations for officers or soldiers, and no adequate ramparts or redoubts. 

Now the work that Andros had come over to perform, and that which wasmost important in his eyes, was the defense of New England against theFrench. The contest between the two nations for control of the New Worldhad already begun. The territory between Hudson Bay and the St. Lawrenceand that between the Penobscot and the St. Croix were already indispute, and New Englanders had taken their part in the conflict. WhenGovernor of New York, Andros had become aware of the French danger, andhis successor Dongan had proved himself capable of holding the IroquoisIndians to their allegiance to the English and of extending the beavertrade in the Mohawk Valley. But at this juncture reports kept coming inof renewed incursions of the French, led by the Canadian nobility, intothe regions south of Lakes Erie and Ontario, and of new forts onterritory that the English claimed as their own. There was increasingdanger that the French would embroil the Indians of the Five Nationsand, by drawing them into a French alliance, threaten not only the furtrade but the colonies themselves. The French Governor, Denonville, declared that the design of the King his master was the conversion ofthe infidels and the uniting of "all these barbarous people in the bosomof the Church"; but Dongan, though himself a Roman Catholic, saw notruth in this explanation and demanded that the French demolish theirforts and retire to Canada, whence they had come. Just as this quarrelwith the French threatened to arouse the Indians in northwestern NewYork, so it threatened to arouse, as eventually it did arouse, theIndians along the northern frontier of New England. To the authoritiesin England and to Andros in America, this menace of French aggressionwas one of the dangers which the Dominion of New England was intended tomeet, and the substitution of a single civil and military head for theslow-moving and ineffective popular assemblies was designed to makepossible an energetic military campaign. 

Andros had no sooner organized his council and got his government intorunning order than he began to prosecute measures for improving thedefenses of the colony. He sent soldiers to Pemaquid to occupy andstrengthen the fort there, and himself began the reconstruction of thefortifications of Boston. He turned his attention to Fort Hill at thelower end of the town, erected a palisaded embankment with fourbastions, a house for the garrison, and a place for a battery; later heleveled the hill on Castle Island in the harbor, and built there asimilar palisade and earthwork and barracks for the soldiers. He took asurvey of military stores, made application to England for guns andammunition, endeavored to put the train-bands of the colony in as goodshape as possible, and in 1688 went to Pemaquid to inspect the northerndefenses as far as the Penobscot. He kept in close touch with GovernorDongan, and promised to send him, as rapidly as he could, men and moneyin case of a French invasion. 

To make his work more effective he took steps to bring Connecticutimmediately under his control. Rhode Island had already submitted andhad sent its members to sit with the council at Boston. But Connecticuthad avoided giving a direct answer, although a third writ of _quowarranto_ had been served upon her, on December 28, 1686. ConsequentlyAndros wrote to the recalcitrant colony, saying that he had beeninstructed to receive the surrender of the charter. To this letter, theGovernor and magistrates of Connecticut replied that they preferred toremain as they were, but that, if annexation was to be their lot, theywould be willing to join with Massachusetts, their old neighbor andfriend, rather than with New York. Dongan, perplexed by the heavyexpenses involved in the military defense of his colony and wishing tohave the use of additional revenues, had hoped that he might persuadethe Connecticut Government to come under the control of New York, butConnecticut preferred Massachusetts and had stated this preference inher letter. Andros and the Lords of Trade deemed the reply favorable, although in fact it was ingeniously noncommittal, and they took stepsto complete the annexation. 

On receiving a special letter of instructions from the King, Andros setout in person for Hartford, accompanied by a number of gentlemen, twotrumpeters, and a guard of fifteen or twenty redcoats, "with small gunsand short lances in the tops of them. " He journeyed probably by way ofNorwich, crossing the Connecticut River at Wethersfield, where he wasmet by a troop of sixty cavalry and escorted to Hartford. There, onOctober 31, 1687, the Governor, magistrates, and militia awaited hiscoming. Seated in the Governor's chair in the tavern chamber where theassembly was accustomed to meet, he caused his commission to be read, declared the old Government dissolved, selected two of those present asmembers of his council, and the next day appointed the necessaryofficials for the colony. Thence he went to Fairfield, New Haven, andNew London, commissioning justices of the peace for those counties andorganizing the customs service. No resistance was made to hisproceedings, though it was generally understood in the colony that thecharter itself had been spirited away and hidden in the hollow of an oaktree, henceforth famous as the Charter Oak. 

Connecticut and the other colonies became for the time beingadministrative districts of the larger dominion. Their assemblieseverywhere ceased to meet, that of Rhode Island for five years. Courts, provided by the act of December, 1687, were, however, generally held. The superior court for Connecticut sat four times in 1688 and the countycourts, quarter sessions and common pleas, where appeared the newlyappointed justices of the peace, sat for Hartford County, the one tentimes and the other thirteen times during 1688 and 1689. But thesurviving records of their meetings are few and references to their workvery rare. The ordinary business of everyday life was carried on by thetowns alone, which continued their usual activities undisturbed. InConnecticut, before Andros arrived, the assembly had taken theprecaution to issue formal patents of land to the towns and to grant thepublic lands of the colony to Hartford and Windsor to prevent theirfalling into the hands of the new Government. This act may at the timehave seemed a wise one, but it made a great deal of trouble afterwards. 

The Dominion of New England, which now extended from the Penobscot tothe borders of New York, was organized as a centralized government, with the old colonies serving as counties for administration and theexercise of justice. But as plans for an expedition against the Frenchbegan to mature, it became evident that, if the French were to besuccessfully met, a further extension of territory was necessary; so inApril, 1688, a second commission was issued to Andros, constituting himGovernor of all the territory from the St. Croix River to the fortiethparallel, and thus adding to his domain New York and the Jerseys. Delaware and Pennsylvania were excepted by special royal intervention. Dongan was recalled, and Francis Nicholson was appointedlieutenant-governor under Andros, with his residence in New York. 

Thus on paper Andros was Governor-General of a single territory runningfrom the Delaware River and the northern boundary of Pennsylvanianorthward to the St. Lawrence, eastward to the St. Croix, and westwardto the Pacific. There was an attempt here to reproduce, in size andorganization, the French Dominion of Canada, but the likeness was onlyin appearance. To organize and defend his territory, Andros had twocompanies of British regulars, half a dozen trained officers, the localtrain-bands, which were not to be depended on for distant service, anda meager supply of guns and ammunition. Instead of having under him abody of colonials, such as were the belligerent gentlemen of Canada, whowere eager to take part in raids against the English and who led theirsavage followers with the craft of the redskin and the intelligence ofthe white man, he had many separate groups of people. Averse to war andaccustomed to govern themselves, most of these distrusted him and wantedto be rid of him, and desired only the restoration of their oldgovernments without regard to those dangers which they were fullyconvinced they could meet quite as well themselves. 

Though Andros's authority stretched over such an enormous territory, hisactual government was confined to Massachusetts and the northernfrontier. He paid very little attention to Connecticut, Plymouth, andRhode Island. With but two or three exceptions, the meetings of hiscouncil were held in Boston; the laws passed affected the people of thatcolony; and the complaints against him were chiefly of Massachusettsorigin. Massachusetts was his real enemy, and it was Massachusetts thatfinally overthrew him. Andros was a soldier who never forgot the mainobject of his mission, and it is hardly surprising that he showedneither tact nor patience in his dealings with a colony that did littleelse but check and thwart the plans that had been entrusted to him forexecution. The people of Massachusetts charged him with tyranny anddespotism. Their leaders, many of whom were members of his council, complained of the council proceedings, which, they said, were controlledby Andros and his favorites, so that debate was curtailed, objectionswere overruled, and the vote of the majority was ignored. There is muchtruth in the charge, for Andros was self-willed, imperious, andimpatient of discussion. On the other hand the Puritan leadersinordinately loved controversy and debate. If Andros was peremptory, thePuritan councillors were obstructive. 

A more legitimate charge was the absence of a representative assemblyand the levying of taxes by the fiat of the council. But Andros had nochoice in this matter: he was compelled to govern according to hisinstructions. Not only was his treasury usually empty, but he was alwaysconfronted with the heavy expense of fortification and of protecting thefrontier. He does not appear to have been excessive in his demands, andin case of any unusual levies, as of duties and customs, he referredthe matter to the Crown for its consent. But, as Englishmen, the peoplepreferred to levy their own taxes and considered any other method ofimposition as contrary to their just rights. Andros consequently had agreat deal of trouble in raising money. Even in the council, tax lawswere passed with difficulty, and the people of Essex County, notably intown meetings at Topsfield and Ipswich, protested vigorously against thelevying of a rate without the consent of an assembly. John Wise, theIpswich minister, and others were arrested and thrown into jail, and ontrial Wise, according to his own report of the matter, was told byDudley, the chief-justice, "You have no more privileges left you than tobe sold as slaves. " Wise was fined and suspended from the ministry, andit is possible that his recollection of events was affected by thepunishment imposed. 

In the matter of property, land titles, quit-rents, and fees, thecolonists had warrant for their criticism and their displeasure. Many ofthose whom Andros associated with himself were New Yorkers who hadserved with considerable success in their former positions, but who hadall the characteristics of typical royal officials. To the averageEnglish officeholder of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, officewas considered not merely an opportunity for service but also anopportunity for profit. Hitherto Massachusetts had been free from men ofthis class, common enough elsewhere and destined to become more commonas the royal colonies increased in number. Palmer, the judge, Graham, the attorney-general, and West, the secretary, hardly deserve the stigmaof placemen, for they possessed ability and did their duty as they sawit, but their standards of duty were different from those held inMassachusetts. People in England did not at this time view public officeas a public trust, which is a modern idea. Appointments under the Crownwent by purchase or favor, and, once obtained, were a source of income, a form of investment. Massachusetts and other New England colonies werefar ahead of their time in giving shape to the principle that a publicofficial was the servant of those who elected him, but to such men asRandolph and West and the whole office-holding world of this period, such an idea was unthinkable. They served the King and for their servicewere to receive their reward, and such men in America looked on fees andgrants of land as legitimate perquisites. In New York they had beenable to gratify their needs, but in Massachusetts such a view of officeran counter to the traditions and customs of the place, and attempts toapply it caused resentment and indignation. The efforts of these men, among whom Randolph was the prince of beggars, to obtain grants of land, to destroy the validity of existing titles, to levy quit-rents, and toexact heavy fees, were a menace to the prosperity of the colony; whilethe further attempt to destroy the political importance of the towns byprohibiting town meetings, except once a year, was an attack on one ofthe most fundamental parts of the whole New England system. Androshimself, though laboring to break the resisting power of the colony, never used his office for purposes of gain. 

That the Massachusetts people should oppose these attempts to alter themethods of government which had been in vogue for half a century wasinevitable, though some of the means they employed were certainlydisingenuous. Their leaders, both lay and clerical, were unsurpassed ingenius for argument and at this time outdid themselves. When Palmer wasable to show that, according to English law, their land-titles were inmany cases defective, they fell back on an older title than that of theCrown and derived their right from God, "according to his Grand Charterto the Sons of Adam and Noah. " More culpable was the revival of theunfortunate habit of misrepresentation and calumny which had too oftencharacterized the treatment of the enemy in Boston, and the spreading ofrumors that Andros, who spent a part of the winter of 1688-1689 in Mainetaking measures for defense, was in league with the French and wasfurnishing the Indians with arms and ammunition for use against theEnglish. Such reports represent perhaps merely the desperate andhalf-hysterical methods of a people who did not know where to turn forthe protection of their institutions. A wiser and shrewder move was madein the spring of 1688, when a group of prominent men determined toappeal to England for relief and sent Increase Mather, the influentialpastor of the old North Church, across the ocean to plead their causewith the Crown. 

But relief was nearer than they expected. On November 5, 1688, Williamof Orange, summoned from Holland to uphold the constitutional libertiesof Protestant England, landed at Torbay, and before the end of the yearJames II had fled to France. Rumors of the projected invasion had cometo Boston as early as December, and reports of its success had reachedthe ears of the people there during the March following. Finally onApril 4, John Winslow, arriving from Nevis, brought written copies ofthe Prince's declaration, issued from Holland, and two weeks later, onApril 18, the leaders in the city, including many members of Andros'scouncil, supported by the people of Boston and its neighborhood, rose inrevolt, overthrew the government of Andros, and brought tumbling downthe whole structure of the Dominion of New England, which had never fromthe beginning had any real or stable foundation. Having armedthemselves, they seized Captain George, commander of the royal frigate, the _Rose_, lying in the harbor, as he came ashore to find out the causeof the noise and the tumult. Then they moved on to Fort Hill, whereAndros, Randolph, and others had taken refuge. Here they defied thesoldiers, who refused to fire, captured the fort, and carried theirprisoners off to be lodged in private houses or the common jail. On thefollowing day, they forced the Castle Island fort in the harbor tosurrender and then imprisoned its commander; they demanded of thelieutenant in charge the delivery of the royal frigate and carried offthe sails; and as nothing would satisfy the country people who camearmed into the town in the afternoon but the closer confinement ofAndros, they removed him from the private house where he had been lodgedto the fort in the town. So excited was the populace and so serious thedanger of injury to those in confinement, that West, Palmer, and Grahamwere sent to the fort on Castle Island for protection; Andros, after twofutile attempts at escape, was lodged in the same quarters, whileRandolph, as deserving of no consideration, was thrust ignominiouslyinto jail. On the third day a council of safety, consisting ofthirty-seven members, with the old Governor, Bradstreet, eighty-sixyears old, at its head, was organized to prepare the way for thereëstablishment of the former Government. The council summoned aconvention which, after hesitation and delay, authorized elections for aHouse of Representatives and the resumption of all the old forms andpowers. On June 6, the assembly met, and to all appearancesMassachusetts was once more governing herself as if the charter hadnever been annulled. 

The other colonies followed the example of Massachusetts, and miniaturerevolutions took place in Plymouth, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, wherethe Andros commissions offered few obstacles to the renewal of the oldforms. In a majority of cases the old officials were at hand, ready totake up their former duties. Plymouth, having no charter, simplyreturned to her old way of life, precarious and uncertain as it was; butRhode Island and Connecticut took the position that as their chartershad not been vacated by law, they were still valid and had not beenimpaired by the brief intermission in the governments provided by them. In this opinion the colonies were upheld by the law officers in England. Before the middle of the summer, practically all traces of the Androsrégime had disappeared, except for the prisoners in confinement atBoston and the bitterness which still rankled in the hearts of thepeople of Massachusetts. There was no such intensity of feeling in theother colonies, where the loss of the assembly was the main grievance, though in Connecticut the resumption of authority by the old leadersroused the animosity of a small but energetic faction which said thatthe charter was dead and could not be revived, and demanded a closerdependence on the Crown. Henceforth, that colony had to reckon with ahostile group within its own borders, one that deemed the institutionsand laws of the colony oppressive and unjust, and that for a timeresisted the authority of what its leaders called a "pretended"government. During the years that followed, these men made many effortsto break down the independence of the corporate government, and to thisextent the rule of Andros left a permanent mark upon the colony. 

CHAPTER XI

THE END OF AN ERA

But the future of the New England colonies was to be decided in Englandand not in America. If the orthodox leaders in the colony thought thatthe new King had levelling sympathies or would thrust aside the policyalready adopted by the English authorities for the defense of thecolonies and the maintenance of the acts of trade, they greatlymisjudged the situation. King William, though a Protestant, was no loverof revolution, and, though he had himself engaged in one, he couldassert the dignity of the prerogative with as much vigor as any Stuart. He was not a politician, but a soldier, and he was quite as likely tosee the necessity of organizing New England for defense against theenemy as he was to listen favorably to appeals from Massachusetts for arestoration of her charter. 

Increase Mather had gone to England in 1688 to petition James II forrelief from the burdens of the Andros rule. His impressive personality, his power as a ready and forcible speaker, his resourcefulness andenergy, and his acquaintance with influential men in England, bothAnglicans and Dissenters, made him the most effective agent who had evergone to England in the interest of the colony. He was able to bring thegrievances of Massachusetts to the personal attention of James II; andhe had received hope of a confirmation of land titles and permission tocall a general assembly, when the flight of the King brought his effortsto naught. He then turned to the new Parliament, hoping to save thecolony by means of a rider to the bill for restoring corporations totheir ancient rights and privileges; but the dissolution of this bodyended hopeful efforts in that direction also. A year's "Sisyphean labor"came to nothing. No remedy remained except an appeal to the new King, and during 1690 and 1691, the reconstruction of Massachusetts became oneof the most important questions brought before the Lords of Trade. William III and his advisers were agreed on one point: thatMassachusetts should never again be independent as she formerly hadbeen, but should be brought within the immediate control of the Crown, through a governor of the King's appointment. They took the ground that, with a French war already begun, it was no time to discuss colonialrights and privileges, for the demands of the empire took precedenceover all questions of a merely local character in America. 

Andros was now recalled and instructions were sent to Massachusetts torelease all her prisoners. With their arrival in England in February, 1690, the debate before the committee went on in a new and livelierfashion. Randolph renewed his complaints in every form known to hisinventive mind; Andros presented his defense and was relieved of allcharges of mal-administration; Mather and others contested every move oftheir opponents and sought to obtain as favorable terms as possible forMassachusetts; while Oakes and Cooke, sent over by the colony as itsofficial agents and representing the uncompromising Puritan wing, hindered rather than helped the cause by insisting that no concessionsshould be made and that Massachusetts should receive a confirmation ofall her former privileges. Mather's success was noteworthy. He could notprevent the appointment of a royal governor or the separation of NewHampshire from Massachusetts, nor could he obtain the right of coinagefor the colony; but he did secure the permanent annexation of Maine andthe Plymouth colony, and a large measure of appointive power andlegislative control for the people. In some ways most significant ofall, he obtained from the Crown the noteworthy concession that thecouncil of the colony should be chosen by the general assembly and notbe appointed from England, as was the case with all the other royalcolonies. Even New Hampshire eventually had the same governor asMassachusetts, thus preserving a union for all central and northern NewEngland, which was destined to last for forty-four years. 

The charter of 1691 was a compromise between the old government whichhad existed in Massachusetts since 1630 and that of a regular royalcolony, and as such it satisfied neither party. It was greeted inMassachusetts with vehement disapproval by the old faction, who chargedMather with flagrantly deserting his trust; and in England it was viewedas a shameful concession to the whims of the Puritans. This yokingtogether of parts of two systems, corporate and royal, was to give risein Massachusetts in the succeeding century to a struggle for controlthat deeply affected the course of the colony's later history. 

 * * * * *

In all the New England colonies, the fall of Andros and the close of thecentury marked the end of an era in which the dominant impulse was thereligious purpose that actuated the original colonists in coming toAmerica. The desire for a political isolation that would preserve theestablished religious system intact was exceedingly strong in theseventeenth century, but it ceased to be as strong in the century thatfollowed. The fathers gave way to the children; the settlements grewrapidly in size, increased their output of staple products beyond whatthey needed for themselves, and became vastly interested in trade andcommerce with all parts of the Atlantic world. Towns grew into largertowns and cities; and Portsmouth, Newbury, Salem, Marblehead, Boston, Newport, New London, Hartford, Wethersfield, Middletown, New Haven, Fairfield, and Stamford became, in varying degrees, centers of anincreasing population and of new business interests that brought NewEngland into closer contact with the other colonies, with the WestIndies, and with the Old World. England became involved in the longstruggle with France and not only called on the colonies to aid her inmilitary campaigns against the French in America, but endeavored tobring them within the scope of her colonial empire. All these influencestended to expand the life of New England and to force its people moreand more out of their isolation. Yet, despite this fact, the Puritancolonies--Connecticut and Rhode Island especially--continued to lie inlarge part outside the pale of British control and example, and theirinhabitants continued to accept religion and the Puritan standards ofmorals as the guide of their daily lives. 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

The standard authority on the subjects treated in the volume is J. G. Palfrey, _History of New England_, 5 vols. (1858-1864, 1875-1890), awork of broad scholarship and written in a not uninteresting style, butindiscriminating in its defense of Massachusetts and without anyunderstanding of the purpose and attitude of the English authorities. Insomewhat the same class are G. E. Ellis, _The Puritan Age_ (1888), a drybook but less given to special pleading, and Justin Winsor, _TheMemorial History of Boston_, 4 vols. (1880-1882), a series of essayswith elaborate notes and bibliographies, presenting in a fragmentary waythe conventional view of the period. Less frankly favorable to NewEngland is J. A. Doyle, _English Colonies in America: The PuritanColonies_, 2 vols. (1887), a work of value, but diffuse in style andoften confused in treatment, and, though written by an Englishman, displaying little interest in the English side of the story. Thechapters in Edward Channing, _History of the United States_, vol. I(1905), that relate to the subject, are scholarly and alwaysinteresting; while those in H. L. Osgood, _The American Colonies in theSeventeenth Century_, 3 vols. (1904-1907), contain the ablest accountswe have of the institutional characteristics of the period. 

There are few good histories of the individual colonies. Those deservingof mention are: Thomas Hutchinson, _History of Massachusetts Bay_, 2vols. (1764-1767); S. G. Arnold, _History of the State of Rhode Island_, 2 vols. (4th ed. 1894); Irving B. Richman, _Rhode Island_ (1904, American Commonwealth Series); B. Trumbull, _Complete History ofConnecticut_, 2 vols. (new ed. 1898); A. Johnson, _Connecticut_ (2d ed. 1903, American Commonwealth Series); E. Atwater, _History of the Colonyof New Haven_ (1881); W. H. Fry, _New Hampshire as a Royal Province_(1908); W. D. Williamson, _History of the State of Maine_ (1832); H. S. Burrage, _The Beginnings of Colonial Maine_ (1914). Hutchinson andTrumbull are classics; Arnold is one of the best of the state histories;Richman and Johnson are short and readable; Fry deals with theinstitutional life of the colony; Williamson is old-fashioned and poor;but Burrage is authoritative. 

Special works are: H. M. Dexter, _The England and Holland of thePilgrims_ (1905), a very valuable and learned account; C. F. Adams, _Three Episodes of Massachusetts History_, 2 vols. (1892), treating ofthe antecedents of Boston, the Antinomian Controversy, and church andtown government, the first essay especially being indispensable; R. M. Jones, _The Quakers in the American Colonies_ (1911), the fairestaccount of the Quakers in New England. W. De L. Love, _The ColonialHistory of Hartford_ (1914); W. E. Weeden, _Early Rhode Island_ (1910);and G. S. Kimball, _Providence in Colonial Times_ (1912), are in everyway excellent, that of Love being a minutely critical analysis of theConnecticut settlement. W. E. Weeden, _Social and Economic History ofNew England_, 2 vols. (1891), is a valuable collection of information. Certain chapters in Edward Eggleston's _Transit of Civilization_ (1901)treat of the mental outfit of the colonists; and M. W. Jernegan in the_School Review_, June, 1915, deals with the beginnings of publiceducation in New England; G. L. Beer, _Origins of the British ColonialSystem_, 1660-1688, 2 vols. (1912), and C. M. Andrews, _BritishCommittees, Commissions, and Councils of Trade and Plantations_, 1622-1675 (1908), concern British policy and administration in theseventeenth century. 

Biographies varying greatly in value and manner of treatment follow: R. C. Winthrop, _Life and Letters of John Winthrop_, 2 vols. (2d ed. 1869);G. L. Walker, _Thomas Hooker_ (1891, Makers of America Series); J. H. Twichell, _John Winthrop_ (1891, _id. _); A. Steele, _Elder Brewster_(1857); L. G. Jones, _Samuel Gorton_ (1896); A. Gorton, _The Life andTimes of Samuel Gorton_ (1907); O. S. Straus, _Roger Williams_ (1894);M. E. Hall, _Roger Williams_ (1917); T. W. Bicknell, _Story of Dr. JohnClarke_ (1915); J. M. Taylor, _Roger Ludlow_ (1900); J. K. Hosmer, _Young Sir Harry Vane_ (1888); _A Memoir of Sir John Leverett, Knt. _(1856); and in _American Biography_, 10 vols. , are lives of John Masonby G. E. Ellis, Roger Williams by William Gammell, Samuel Gorton by JohnM. Mackie, and Anne Hutchinson by G. E. Ellis, though none of them isparticularly satisfactory. 

The original sources for the period are: the _Acts of the Privy Council, Colonial_, vols. I, ii (1908-1910); _The Calendar of State Papers, Colonial_, vols. I-viii, 1574-1692 (1860-1901); and the colonial recordsof Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and NewHampshire. Collections of narratives and letters may be found in thepublications of the Prince Society [C. H. Bell, _John Wheelwright andhis Writings_ (1876); C. F. Adams, _Morton's New England Canaan_ (1883);C. W. Tuttle, _Capt. John Mason_ (1887); J. P. Baxter, _Sir FerdinandoGorges_, 3 vols. (1890); C. F. Adams, _Antinomianism in the Colony ofMassachusetts Bay_ (1894); R. N. Toppan, _Edward Randolph_, 7 vols. (1898-1909, last two volumes edited by A. T. S. Goodrick)]; and in the_Original Narratives of Early American History_ [W. T. Davis, _Bradford's History of Plymouth Plantation_ (1908); J. K. Hosmer, _Winthrop's Journal_, 2 vols. (1908); J. F. Jameson, _Johnson'sWonder-Working Providence of Sion's Saviour in New England_ (1911); C. H. Lincoln, _Narratives of the Indian Wars_ (1913); G. L. Burr, _Narratives of the Witchcraft Cases_ (1914); C. M. Andrews, _Narrativesof the Insurrections_ (1915)]. A sumptuous edition of Bradford's historyhas been edited for the Massachusetts Historical Society, by W. C. Ford, 2 vols. (1915). S. Sewall's _Diary_, 3 vols. (Mass. Hist. Soc. _Coll. _, 5th series, 1878-1882) and Cotton Mather's _Magnalia_, 2 vols. (1853)are important. W. Walker, _The Creeds and Platforms of Congregationalism_(1893) is of great value. C. W. Sawyer, _Firearms in American History_(1910), has an excellent chapter on firearms in colonial times. 

The articles on _Boston_, _New England_, _Massachusetts_, _Plymouth_, _Friends_ (_Society of_), etc. , in _The Encyclopædia Britannica_, 11thEdition, should be referred to for additional bibliographies. 

INDEX

 Agawam (Springfield), 61, 62

 Allerton, Isaac, 17

 _Ambrose, The_, ship, 29

 Amsterdam, Separatists gather at, 7

 "Ancient and Honorable Artillery, " 135

 Andros, Sir Edmund, takes part in case against Massachusetts, 156; Governor of Massachusetts, 174 _et seq. _; strengthens fortifications, 179-80; New York and New Jersey added to his domain, 183-84; attention confined to Massachusetts, 184-85; recalled, 196

 _Anne, The_, ship, 13

 Aquidneck, Island of, 48, 55

 _Arabella, The_, ship, 29

 Aspinwall, 48

 Augsburg, settlement of (1555), 4

 Aulnay-Charnisé, Charles de Menou, Sieur d', 95-96

 Bartlett, Robert, 84

 Bay Colony, _see_ Massachusetts Bay Colony

 Blackstone, William, 23, 24

 _Blessing of the Bay, The_, ship, 78

 Boston, Puritans from England settle at, 29; half the colonists live in or near, 35; treatment of Quakers in, 79-80; importance of, 164; grows into a city, 198; _see also_ Shawmut

 Boswell. Sir William, quoted, 97

 Bradford, William, in Scrooby, 7; quoted, 15-16; Governor of Plymouth, 17; _History of Plimouth Plantation_, 19; dead before 1660, 78

 Bradstreet, Governor of Massachusetts, 191

 Bradstreet, Simon, 103

 Branford, (Conn. ), 70

 Brenton, Governor, quoted, 114

 Brewster, William, father of William, elder of Plymouth, 6

 Brewster, William, Elder of Plymouth, 6, 8

 Browne, John, 41

 Browne, Samuel, 41

 Bulkeley, Peter, 156

 Cambridge platform (1648), 79

 Canonchet, Indian chief, 142, 143, 144

 Carr, Sir Robert, 119, 122

 Cartwright, George, Colonel, 119, 122

 Carver, John, Governor of Plymouth, 13

 _Charity, The_, ship, 13

 Charlestown (Mass. ), 29, 35

 Charter Oak, 181

 Child, Dr. Robert, 38, 116

 Church, Benjamin, Captain, 142

 Clarendon, Lord, Prime Minister of England, 113, 116, 117, 120-21, 126

 Clark, John, of Newbury, 83

 Clarke, Dr. John, 47, 48, 103, 106, 112, 113

 Clayton, Richard, 6

 Coddington, William, 43, 47, 48, 49, 54-55

 Coggeshall, one of founders of Portsmouth, 48

 Connecticut, leaders who influenced, 47; settled by Massachusetts people, 56; four claimants for, 57; migration from Massachusetts, 57-61; commission government, 60-61; government, 62-64; witchcraft in, 81; sends petition to England, 103-04; charter granted (1662), 108; extends authority of colony, 108-10; claims Long Island, 130; title under charter recognized by Massachusetts, 131; debates joining New York, 173; Andros endeavors to bring under control, 180; consents to join Massachusetts, 180-82; renews old forms, 192

 Cooke, a leader of conservatives in Boston, 164

 Cotton, John, 78

 Council for Foreign Plantations, Committee of the, 34

 Danforth, a leader of conservatives in Boston, 164

 Davenport, John, of New Haven, 47, 67, 68, 78, 111, 112

 Deerfield (Mass. ), massacre of, 141

 Delfthaven, Pilgrims embark at, 10

 Denonville, Marquis de, Governor of Canada, 178

 Denton, Richard, 70

 Desborough, 78

 Dongan, Colonel, Governor of New York, 178, 180, 183

 Dorchester (Mass. ), 35

 Dover (N. H. ), 65, 66

 Downing, Emanuel, 35

 Dudley, Joseph, 168, 169-70, 173-74

 Dudley, Thomas, 28

 Dyer, Mary, 80

 Eaton, Samuel, 67

 Eaton, Theophilus, 47, 67, 68, 69

 Education in New England, 83-85

 Eliot, John, 94

 Endecott, John, in congregation of Rev. John White, 24; sent as governor to Salem, 25; disregards claims of Gorges, 26; defaces royal ensign at Salem, 32; banishes colonists for religious differences, 41; signs petition to England, 104

 England, in early seventeenth century, 2 _et seq. _; awakes to importance of colonies, 101-102; new colonial policy, 102-103; affairs in seventeenth century, 126-27; attitude toward Massachusetts, 150; finances under Charles II. , 151-152; future of New England decided in, 194

 Exeter (N. H. ), 65, 66

 Fairfield (Conn. ), 198

 Feudal system in England, 2, 3

 _Fortune, The_, ship, 13

 Fuller, Dr. Samuel, 37, 83

 Fundamental orders, 62-64

 Gardiner, Sir Christopher, 31, 41

 George, Captain of the _Rose_, 190

 Gilds, 3-4

 Goodyear, Stephen, 77

 Gorges, Sir Ferdinando, 22-23, 25, 26, 29-30, 30-34, 65

 Gorges, Robert, 23, 25

 Gorges, Thomas, 35

 Gorton, Samuel, 49-51

 Graham, Attorney-General of Massachusetts, 187, 191

 "Great Fundamentals, The, " 18

 Greenwich (Conn. ), 109, 133

 Guilford (Conn. ), 70, 109

 Half-Way Covenant, 79, 93-94

 Hampton (N. H. ), 66

 _Handmaid, The_, ship, 13

 Hartford (Conn. ), 61, 198

 Harvard College, 84, 93

 Hawkins, Jane, 83

 Haynes, John, 35, 47, 58, 78

 Higginson, Francis, 37

 Hilton, Edward, 65

 Holmes, O. W. , quoted, 83

 Holmes, William, 56

 Hooke, 78

 Hooker, Thomas, 47, 58, 60, 61, 62, 78

 Hopkins, Edward, Governor, 84

 House of Good Hope, 56

 Humphrey, John, 28

 Hutchinson, Anne, 41-42, 48, 98

 Indians, trouble with, 133 _et seq. _; dealings with, 138-39; number in New England, 139

 _Jewel, The_, ship, 29

 Johnson, Lady Arabella, 35

 Johnson, Isaac, 28

 Jones, Christopher, captain of the _Mayflower_, 11-12

 King Philip's War (1675-76), 136, 138, 139, 140-46

 _Kingfisher, The_, ship, 174

 Kirke, Percy, Colonel, 166-67

 Lathrop, John, 67

 La Tour, Charles de, 95-96

 Laud, Archbishop, 32

 Laud Commission, 34

 Leete, Governor, 111

 Leyden, Separatists move to, 7

 London, as a center of Separatism, 6

 Long Island, uncertainty as to jurisdiction, 129-30

 Ludlow, Roger, 47, 58, 78, 98

 Lynn, Henry, 41

 Maine, settled, 65; under jurisdiction of Massachusetts, 66-67; status undecided, 132; military preparedness, 135; permanently annexed to Massachusetts, 197

 Marblehead (Mass. ), 198

 Mason, John, Captain, 30-31, 34, 65, 136

 Massachusetts Bay Colony, 21 _et seq. _; begins as fishing venture, 24; obtains patent for land, 25; founded, 29; Gorges attempts overthrow of, 30-34; growth (1630-40), 34-36; time of stress, 36; government, 37-40; religious intolerance, 41-43; commercial ventures, 78; leader among colonies, 100-01; sends petition to King, 103; restoration of Stuarts causes trouble for, 104-05; charter confirmed, 105; religious liberty defined by King, 105-06; inquiry into affairs by Clarendon, 116-18; commissioners sent to, 118 _et seq. _; franchise law modified, 121; defies commission, 123-126; recognizes Connecticut's title (1672), 131; asserts right to control Maine and New Hampshire, 132; military preparedness, 135; Randolph inquires into affairs, 147; new instructions to royal governors, 148-49; attitude of England toward, 148-52; inquiry by Randolph, 154-56; mission sent to England, 156-57; purchases title to Maine and estranges England further, 158-59; royal orders in regard to trade and religious liberty, 159-60; attitude toward England, 160-61; sends agents to England, 162; charter forfeited (1684), 163; grows more liberal, 164; territory enlarged, 166; a royal colony, 166 _et seq. _; preliminary royal government, 168-69; changes in life of people, 170-73; faults in royal government, 185-89; government of Andros overthrown, 190; resumes self-government, 191; sends Mather to England, 194-96; charter of 1691, 197

 Massachusetts Bay Company, charter granted (1629), 26; control passes to Puritans, 27

 Massachusetts Commission, personnel, 118-19; object, 120-121; failure, 123-26

 Mather, Cotton, quoted, 79

 Mather, Increase, 194-95, 196

 Maverick, Samuel, 23, 38, 116 _et seq. _

 _Mayflower, The_, ship, 10, 11

 Mayflower Compact, 12-13

 Merrymount, 22

 Middletown (Conn. ), 198

 Milford (Conn. ), 70

 Mishawum (Charlestown), 24

 Moody, Lady Deborah, 35

 Morrell, 23

 Morton, Thomas, 22, 31, 34, 41, 47

 Mount Wollaston, 22

 Mystic, taken into Connecticut, 109

 Naumkeag (Salem), 25

 New Amsterdam, seized by English, 110

 New England, people of, 72-73; settled by radicals, 73-74; lack of toleration in, 74; town life, 75-76; local color in various settlements, 76-78; witchcraft, 80-81; superstitions of people, 81-82; medicine and surgery, 82-83; education, 83-85; travel, 85-86; homes, 86; money, 86-87; reckoning of time, 87; respect for grants and charters, 88; attitude toward England, 88-90; organization in, 89; rivalry with Dutch and French, 90-91; confederation of colonies, 91 _et seq. _; trouble with the French, 94-96; trouble with the Dutch, 96-98; period of readjustment, 129 _et seq. _; Indian troubles, 133 _et seq. _; boundary disputes, 133; population, 139; menace from French, 177-79; Dominion of, 182-83; brought closer to English control, 199

 _New England Canaan_, Morton, 32

 New England Confederation _see_ United Colonies of New England

 New England Council, 9, 12, 22, 26, 30, 32-33

 New Hampshire, influential leaders in, 47; controversy over title, 65; under jurisdiction of Massachusetts, 66-67; separation from Massachusetts, 67, 71; status undecided, 132; military preparedness, 135

 New Haven, influential leaders in, 47; settled, 67-68; government, 68-70; combines other plantations under her, 70-71; absorbed by Conn. , 71; commercial ventures, 77-78; witchcraft in, 81; misfortunes of, 110-11; surrenders to Connecticut, 111-12; confederation dissolved, 112

 New London (Conn. ), 198

 New Netherlands, conquest of, 122

 New Somersetshire, 65

 Newark, founded, 112

 Newbury, 198

 Newport (R. I. ), 49, 198

 Nicholson, Francis, 183

 Nicolls, Richard, 118, 119, 122

 Norfolk, a center of Separatism, 6

 Norton, John, 103

 Nowell, a leader of conservatives in Boston, 164

 Oldham, John, 56

 Palmer, Judge, 187, 191

 Partridge, Captain, 54, 55

 Pawcatuck, taken into Connecticut, 109

 Pequot War (1637), 136-37

 Peters, Hugh, 59, 78

 Pierson, Abraham, 46, 47, 112

 Pilgrims, leave for Holland (1607-08), 7; reasons for leaving Holland, 8; decide to go to America, 8-9; conditions under which expedition was undertaken, 10; journey of the _Mayflower_, 10-12; draw up covenant, 12; life in Plymouth Colony, 14-19; greatness lies in religious influence, 19-20

 Plymouth Colony, founded, 12-20; secures right to establish fishing colony, 24; submits to authority of Massachusetts, 71; fishing and trading, 77; witchcraft in, 81; sends mission to England, 104; military preparedness, 135; renews old forms, 192; permanently annexed to Massachusetts, 197

 Plymouth, town of, 18

 Pocasset (Portsmouth), 48

 Portsmouth (N. H. ), 66, 198

 Portsmouth (R. I. ), 51-52; _see also_ Pocasset

 Protestantism, controlled by state, 4

 Providence, settled, 47-48; court of arbitration at, 51; charter unites with other settlements, 53; government under patent, 53-54

 Puritans, obtain control of Massachusetts Bay Company, 27; reach Salem (1630), 29; become Separatists, 37; characteristics of the frontier, 46-47

 Pynchon, William, 60, 62, 77

 Quakers, come to Boston (1656), 79; treatment, 79-80

 Quinnipiac, 68

 Randolph, Edward, 147, 152-156, 160, 161, 162, 163, 167, 168, 173, 174, 196

 Ratcliffe, Philip, 31, 41

 Ratcliffe, Robert, 168-69, 171, 173

 Reformation, The, 3

 Rhode Island, leaders in, 47; individualism in, 56; colony of separatism, 79; not included in Confederation of colonies, 92; applies for charter, 103; conflicting boundary claims, 113; charter granted, (1663), 113-14; rival claims to, 115; unsettled conditions, 131; surrenders charter, 173; sends council members to Boston, 180; renews old forms, 192

 Rhode Island settlements, Providence, 47-48; Pocasset, 48-49; Newport, 49; Shawomet or Warwick, 49

 Robinson, John, 6-7, 8

 Rossiter, Bray, of Guilford, 83, 111

 Rowlandson, Mrs. , 143

 Roxbury (Mass. ), 35

 Salem (Mass. ), 25, 198; _see also_ Naumkeag

 Salem witchcraft, 81

 Saltonstall, Sir Richard, 28, 35

 Saybrook, 33, 40

 Saye and Sele, Lord, 33, 106-07

 Scott, John, Captain, 109, 130

 Scrooby, Nottinghamshire, a center of Separatism, 6

 Separatists, 5 _et seq. _

 Setauket, 130

 Shawmut (Boston), 23

 Shawomet, 49

 Sheffield, Lord, 24

 Slavery forbidden in Rhode Island (1652), 54

 Smith, John, 3, 11

 Southold on Long Island, 70, 109

 _Speedwell, The_, ship, 10

 Springfield (Mass), becomes part of Mass. , 62; center of fur trade, 77; _see also_ Agawam

 Stamford (Conn. ), 70, 109, 133, 198

 Standish, Miles, 3

 Stiles party, 57

 Stone, Samuel, 60

 Stoughton, William, 156

 Stuyvesant, Peter, 97, 109

 _Talbot, The_, ship, 29

 Uncas, Indian chief, 137

 Underhill, 47

 United Colonies of New England, 91

 Vane, Henry, 33, 35, 40, 59

 Vassall, William, 38

 Virginia Company of London, 9

 Virginia Company of Plymouth, 9

 Walford, 24, 41

 Warwick, Earl of, 25, 26, 28, 30, 32

 Warwick, a Rhode Island settlement, 49

 Watertown (Mass. ), 35

 Wessagusset (Quincy), 21, 22, 23

 West, Secretary of Mass. , 187, 191

 Weston, Thomas, 10, 21

 Wethersfield (Conn. ), 61, 198

 Weymouth (Mass. ), 23

 Wheelwright, John, 47, 65

 White, Rev. John, 24, 27

 Whitfield, 78

 Whiting, 78

 Williams, Roger, driven from Boston, 47; locates at Providence, 47-48; obtains charter, 52-53; quoted, 54; goes to England to confirm patent, 55; in 1660, 78

 Windsor (Conn. ), 61

 Winnissimmet (Chelsea), 23-24

 Winslow, Edward, 17, 38, 50, 52

 Winslow, John, 190

 Winslow, Josiah, General, 142

 Winthrop, John, elected Governor of Mass. Bay Colony, 28; leader among the Puritans, 35; died before 1660, 78

 Winthrop, John, son of the Governor, 40, 59, 83, 103-04, 106-07

 Wise, John, 186

 Witchcraft in New England, 80-81

 Wollaston, Captain, 22

 Wright, Richard, 41

 Young, Alse, 81

 Young, Captain, 130

 +------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's Note: | | | | Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the | | original document have been preserved. | | | | Typographical errors corrected in the text: | | | | Page 16 potle changed to pottle | | Page 57 irreconciliable changed to irreconcilable | | Page 67 Hamsphire changed to Hampshire | | Page 205 Arbella changed to Arabella | | Page 205 Brenten changed to Brenton | | Page 209 characteristcs changed to characteristics | +------------------------------------------------------+