1
(return)
[ Bradford,
Plimoth Plantation, 112.]
2
(return)
[ Bradford,
Plimoth Plantation, 114-117.]
3
(return)
[ Mass. Hist. Soc.,
Collections, 4th series, II., 158-163.]
4
(return)
[ Bradford,
Plimoth Plantation, 130-133; Winslow, "Relation," in Young,
Chronicles of the Pilgrims, 280-284.]
5
(return)
[ Bradford,
Plimoth Plantation, 149-168;
Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1574-1660, p. 40.]
6
(return)
[ Gorges,
Description of New England
(Mass. Hist. Soc.,
Collections, 3d series, VI., 80).]
7
(return)
[
Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1574-1660, p. 33.]
8
(return)
[ Bradford,
Plimoth Plantation, 170.]
9
(return)
[ Maine Hist. Soc.,
Collections, 2d. series, VII., 73-76.]
10
(return)
[ Adams,
Three Episodes of Mass. Hist., I., 152.]
11
(return)
[ Bradford,
Plimoth Plantation, 238.]
12
(return)
[ Palfrey,
New England, I., 222, 285.]
13
(return)
[ Hubbard,
New England
(Mass. Hist. Soc.,
Collections, 2d series, VI., 110).]
14
(return)
[ Bradford,
Plimoth Plantation, 237;
Planters' Plea
(Force,
Tracts, II., No. iii.).]
15
(return)
[ Bradford,
Plimoth Plantation, 237-258.]
16
(return)
[ Ibid., 248.]
17
(return)
[ Hazard,
State Papers, I., 298.]
18
(return)
[ Bradford,
Letter-Book
(Mass. Hist. Soc.,
Collections, 1st series, III., 63);
Plimoth Plantation, 284-292.]
19
(return)
[ Bradford,
Letter-Book
(Mass. Hist. Soc.,
Collections, 1st series, III., 53).]
20
(return)
[ Bradford,
Plimoth Plantation, 350.]
21
(return)
[ Winthrop,
New England, I., 139.]
22
(return)
[ Bradford,
Plimoth Plantation, 395-401.]
23
(return)
[
Plymouth Col. Records, I., 133.]
24
(return)
[ Bradford,
Plimoth Plantation, 437-444.]
25
(return)
[ Palfrey,
New England, I., 223, II., 6; Hazard,
State Papers, I., 300.]
26
(return)
[ Bradford,
Plimoth Plantation, 459.]
27
(return)
[ Bradford,
Plimoth Plantation, 444.]
28
(return)
[ Ibid., 122.]
29
(return)
[ Ibid., 187.]
30
(return)
[ Palfrey,
New England, II., 8.]
31
(return)
[ Ibid. In August, 1643, the number of males of military age was 627.]
32
(return)
[ Brigham,
Plymouth Charter and Laws, 43, 244.]
33
(return)
[ Palfrey,
New England, II., 7; Howard,
Local Constitutional History, 50-99.]
34
(return)
[ Bradford,
Plimoth Plantation, 314, 418, 419.]
The abandonment, in 1626, of their colony at Cape Ann by the Dorchester adventurers, did not cause connection to be entirely severed either in America or in England. In America, Conant and three of the more industrious settlers remained, but as the fishery was abandoned, they withdrew with the cattle from the exposed promontory at Cape Ann to Naumkeag, afterwards Salem.1 In England a few of the adventurers, loath to give up entirely, sent over more cattle, and the enterprise, suddenly attracting other support, rose to a greater promise than had ever been anticipated.2
Among those in England who did not lose hope was the Rev. John White, of Dorchester, a merchant as well as a preacher, and his large figure stands on the threshold of the great commonwealth of Massachusetts. Thomas Fuller says that he had absolute command of two things not easily controlled—"his own passions and the purses of his parishioners." White wrote Conant and his associates to stick by the work, and promised to obtain for them a patent and fully provide them with means to carry on the fur trade. The matter was discussed in Lincolnshire and London, and soon a powerful association came into being and lent its help.
Other men, some of whom are historic personages, began to take a leading part, and there was at first no common religious purpose among the new associates. The contemporary literature is curiously free from any special appeal to Puritanic principles, and the arguments put forward are much the same as those urged for the settlement of Virginia. The work of planting a new colony was taken up enthusiastically, and a patent, dated March 19, 1628, was obtained from the Council for New England, conceding to six grantees, Sir Henry Rosewell, Sir John Young, Thomas Southcot, John Humphrey, John Endicott, and Simon Whitcombe, "all that Parte of New England in America aforesaid, which lyes and extendes betweene a greate River there comonlie called Monomack alias Merriemack, and a certen other River there, called Charles River, being in the Bottome of a certayne Bay there, comonlie called Massachusetts alias Mattachusetts, ... and ... lyeing within the Space of three English Myles on the South Parte of the said Charles River, ... and also ... within the space of three English Myles to the Northward of the said River called Monomack, ... throughout the Mayne Landes there, from the Atlantick and Westerne Sea and Ocean on the East Parte, to the South Sea on the West Parte."
The patent also gave to the company "all Jurisdiccons, Rights, Royalties, Liberties, Freedoms, Ymmunities, Priviledges, Franchises, Preheminences, and Commodities, whatsoever, which they, the said Council established at Plymouth, ... then had, ... within the saide Landes and Premisses."3 On account of the reckless manner in which the Council for New England granted away its territory, the patent conflicted with several others of an earlier date. In March, 1622, they had granted to John Mason a patent for all the land between Naumkeag and the Merrimac River. Then, in December, 1622, a part of this territory having a front of ten miles "upon the northeast side of Boston Bay," and extending thirty miles into the interior, was granted to Captain Robert Gorges.4 Next, at the division in June, 1623, the part of New England about Boston Bay fell to Lord Sheffield, the earl of Warwick, and Lord Edward Gorges, a cousin of Sir Ferdinando. The rights under the first and last of these grants were surrendered in 1629,5 but, according to Ferdinando Gorges, he, as one of the council, only sanctioned the patent to Rosewell and his partners on the understanding that the grant to his son should not be interfered with; and the maintenance of this claim was the occasion of dispute for some years.6
June 20, 1628, the new company sent out a party of emigrants under John Endicott, who arrived, September 6, at Naumkeag, where, with the number already on Boston Bay at their coming, they made about fifty or sixty persons. He found the remains of Conant's company disposed to question the claims of the new-comers, but the dispute was amicably arranged, and in commemoration Naumkeag was given the name of Salem, the Hebrew word for "Peaceful."7
For nearly a year little is known of the settlers except that in the winter some died of the scurvy and others of an "infectious fever."8 Endicott wrote to Plymouth for medical assistance, and Bradford sent Dr. Samuel Fuller, whose services were thankfully acknowledged. One transaction which has come down to us shows that Endicott's government early marked out the lines on which the Massachusetts colony travelled for many years afterwards. Endicott made it evident that he would make no compromise with any of the "ungodly" in Massachusetts. Morton's settlement fell within Endicott's jurisdiction, and he resolved to finish the work which the Plymouth people began. So, about three months after the first visit, Endicott, with a small party, crossed the bay, hewed down the abominable May-pole, and, solemnly dubbing the place Mount Dago, in memory of the Philistine idol which fell down before the ark of the Lord, "admonished Morton's men to look ther should be better walking."
In the mean time, important events were happening in England. John Oldham, having Thomas Morton in custody, landed at Plymouth, England, not long after Endicott left for America. Morton posed as a martyr to religious persecution, and Oldham, who remembered his own troubles with the Plymouth settlers, soon fraternized with him. They acted in connection with Ferdinando Gorges and his son John Gorges, who, instead of punishing Morton for illicit trading, made use of him and Oldham to dispute the title of the grant to Endicott and his associates. Robert Gorges was then dead, and his brother John was heir to his patent for the northeast side of Massachusetts Bay.
Accordingly, John Gorges, in January, 1629, executed two deeds—one to John Oldham and the other to Sir William Brereton—for two tracts of land out of the original grant to Robert Gorges. Oldham planted himself on his new rights, and tried to make his patent the means to obtain from the Massachusetts Company in England the exclusive management of the colony's fur trade, or the recognition of his rights as an independent trader. But the company had already set aside the profits of the fur trade as a fund for the defence of the colony and the support of the public worship, and they would make no concession.9 Instead, they took the best means to strengthen their title and suppress such disturbers as Oldham.
A royal charter was solicited, and March 4, 1629, one of liberal powers passed the seals, chiefly through the influence of the earl of Warwick.10 It created a corporation by the name of the "Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay in New England," and confirmed to them all the territory given by the patent from the Council for New England. The administration of its affairs was intrusted to a governor, deputy, and eighteen assistants, who were annually, on the last Wednesday of Easter term, to be elected by the freemen or members of the corporation, and to meet once a month or oftener "for despatching such business as concerned the company or plantation." Four times a year the governor, assistants, and all the freemen were to be summoned to "a greate generall, and solemne assemblie," and these "greate and generall courts" were invested with full power to choose and admit into the company so many as they should think fit, to elect and constitute all requisite subordinate officers, and to make laws and ordinances for the welfare of the company and for the government of the plantation.
The company was given the power to transport to its American territory all persons who should go willingly, but the corporate body alone was to decide what liberties, if any, the emigrants should enjoy. In fact, the only restrictions in the charter upon the company and its court of assistants were that they should license no man "to rob or spoil," hinder no one from fishing upon the coast of New England, and pass "no law contrary or repugnant to the lawes and statutes of England." Matthew Cradock was named in the charter the governor of the company.
One of the first steps taken by the company under the new charter was to organize a temporary local government for the colonists in Massachusetts. This was to consist of a governor, a deputy governor, and thirteen councillors, of whom seven were to be named by the company, three were to be chosen by these seven and the governor, and three more were to be appointed by the "old planters" found in Massachusetts at the arrival of Endicott. Land was allotted on a plan like that adopted by the London Company: each shareholder was to have two hundred acres for every £50 that he invested, and if he settled in that country, fifty more for himself and fifty more for each member of his family.11
A letter of instructions was draughted, April 17, to Governor Endicott, in which mention was made of the negotiations with Oldham, and orders given to effect an occupation of the territory covered by his grant from John Gorges. This letter was sent off by a special ship which reached Salem June 20, 1629, and Endicott promptly despatched three brothers of the name of Sprague, and a few others, who planted themselves at Mishawum, within the disputed territory, where they found but "one English palisadoed and thatched house wherein lived Thomas Walford, a smith." Other emigrants followed, and there, in July, was laid out by Endicott a town which was named Charlestown. This practically ended the difficulty with Oldham, who was kept in the dark till the ship sailed from England, and was then told by the company that they were determined, on advice of counsel, to treat his grant as void. As for Brereton, he was made a member of the company and did not give any real trouble.12
May 11, 1629, sailed from London five ships carrying about four hundred settlers, most of whom were servants, and one hundred and forty head of cattle and forty goats. They arrived at Salem, June 27, and about four weeks later the ecclesiastical organization of the colony was effected by John Endicott, who had already written to Bradford that the worship at Plymouth was "no other than is warranted by the evidence of the truth." He set apart July 20 for the work, and, after a portion of the morning spent in prayer, Samuel Skelton and Francis Higginson, two of the four ministers who accompanied the last arrivals, avowed their belief in the doctrines of the Independents, and were elected respectively pastor and teacher. A confession of faith and a church covenant were drawn up, and August 6 thirty persons associated themselves in a church.13
Two of the gentlemen emigrants, John and Samuel Browne, presumed to hold a separate service with a small company, using the Prayer Book. Thereupon the hot-headed Endicott arrested them, put them on shipboard, and sent them back to England. This conduct of Endicott's was a flagrant aggression on vested rights, since the Brownes appear in the charter as original promoters of the colony, and were sent to Massachusetts by the company in the high capacity of assistants or councillors to Endicott himself. The two brothers complained in England, and in October, 1629, the company sent Endicott a warning against "undigested counsels ... which may have any ill construction with the state here and make us obnoxious to an adversary."14
In another particular Endicott showed the summary character which distinguished him. When Morton arrived in London a prisoner, in 1628, Isaac Allerton was trying to secure from the Council for New England a new patent for Plymouth colony. In Morton he appears to have recognized a convenient medium for reaching Sir Ferdinando Gorges; at any rate, when Allerton returned to New England in the summer of 1629, he brought Thomas Morton back with him, to the scandal of the Plymouth community.15 After a few weeks at Plymouth, Morton repaired to Merry Mount and resumed the business of a fur-trader, but, as might have been expected, he was soon brought into conflict with his neighbors.
Endicott, it appears, not long after Morton's return, in pursuance of instructions from England, summoned all the settlers in Massachusetts to a general court at Salem. At this meeting, according to Morton, Endicott tendered to all present for signature articles binding them "to follow the rule of God's word in all causes as well ecclesiasticall as politicall." The alternative was banishment, but Morton says that he declined to subscribe without the words in the Massachusetts charter, "so as nothing be done contrary or repugnant to the Lawes of the Kingdome of England." Endicott took fire at the independent claims of Morton and sent a party to arrest him. They found Morton gone, whereupon they broke into his house and appropriated his corn and other property.16
Meanwhile, in England, an important determination had been reached by the leaders of the Massachusetts Company. At a general court, July 28, 1629, Cradock, the governor, read "certain propositions conceived by himself" for transferring the headquarters of the company to America.17 The matter was held in abeyance, and the members present were instructed to consider the question "privately and secretely." August 26 twelve of the most influential members, among whom were John Winthrop, Isaac Johnson, Thomas Dudley, and Richard Saltonstall, bound themselves by a written agreement at Cambridge to emigrate with their families to New England if a transfer of the government could be effected.18
Three days later the company held another meeting, when the removal was formally proposed and carried. Accordingly, such of the old officers as did not wish to take part in the emigration resigned their places, and for governor the choice fell upon John Winthrop, a wealthy gentleman of Groton, in Suffolk, and for deputy governor upon Thomas Dudley, who had been steward of the earl of Lincoln. The ultimate effect of this brilliant stroke was to convert the company into a colony.19
This change of policy was taken when affairs looked particularly dark in England, for it was about this time that King Charles, provoked at the opposition of Parliament, entered upon his policy of ruling without one. March 10, 1629, Parliament was dissolved, and no other was called for a space of eleven years. Several of the most eminent members were languishing in the Tower of London, and the king's proclamation of March 27 announced that he would "account it as a presumption for any to prescribe any time unto us for Parliaments, the calling, continuing, and dissolving of which is always in our power."20
The result was a general stir throughout England, and in a few months a thousand persons prepared to leave. They went in several parties in seventeen ships, and there was probably a greater proportion of men of wealth and solid respectability than ever had left England for America in any one year before. The colonists, though Puritans, were church of England men, and the idea of any separation from their old religious connections was expressly disclaimed in a pamphlet published in 1630, entitled the "Planters' Plea,"21 which has been, with good reason, assigned to Rev. John White. In this paper the writer appeals to the address of the colonists at their departure, wherein they termed the church of England "our dear mother."22 Apparently anxious to repel the imputation of nonconformity against "our New England colony," he adds the confident assertion that John Winthrop, the chosen governor, has been "in every way regular and conformable in the whole course of his practice"; and that "three parts of four of the men planted in New England are able to justify themselves to have lived in a constant conformity unto our church government and orders."
The party with which Winthrop sailed arrived at Salem June 12, 1630, after a nine weeks' voyage, in which they were exposed to stormy and boisterous weather. They found the colony of Endicott in "a sad and unexpected condition." More than a fourth part had died during the previous winter, and many of the survivors were weak and sick. There was a general scarcity of bread and corn, and the arrival of Winthrop and his emigrants did not improve matters, for many of the new-comers were suffering from scurvy, and a quantity of supplies which had been bought in England had by some mistake been left behind.23
1
(return)
[ Hubbard,
New England
(Mass. Hist. Soc.,
Collections, 2d series, V.), 107, 108.]
2
(return)
[
Planters' Plea
(Force,
Tracts, II., No. iii.).]
3
(return)
[ The patent is not preserved, but there is a recital of its main feature in the Massachusetts charter. Poore,
Charters and Constitutions, I., 932.]
4
(return)
[
Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1574-1660, pp. 25, 35; Gorges,
Description of New England
(Mass. Hist. Soc.,
Collections, 3d series, VI., 75).]
5
(return)
[
Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1661-1668, p. 347.]
6
(return)
[ Gorges,
Description of New England, 80.]
7
(return)
[ Hubbard, New England (Mass. Hist. Soc.,
Collections, 2d series, V., 109).]
8
(return)
[ Bradford,
Plimoth Plantation, 314.]
9
(return)
[ Young,
Chronicles of Massachusetts, 148; Adams,
Three Episodes of Mass. Hist., I., 216.]
10
(return)
[ See charter in Poore,
Charters and Constitutions, I., 932.]
11
(return)
[ Young,
Chronicles of Massachusetts, 192-200.]
12
(return)
[ Hutchinson,
Massachusetts Bay, I., 17; Adams,
Three Episodes of Mass. Hist., I., 216-220.]
13
(return)
[ Bradford,
Plimoth Plantation, 315, 316.]
14
(return)
[ Young,
Chronicles of Massachusetts, 89, 290.]
15
(return)
[ Bradford,
Plimoth Plantation, 302.]
16
(return)
[ Morton,
New English Canaan
(Force,
Tracts, II., No. v.), 106, 107.]
17
(return)
[
Mass. Col. Records, I., 49.]
18
(return)
[ Young,
Chronicles of Massachusetts, 282-284.]
19
(return)
[
Mass. Col. Records, I., 51.]
20
(return)
[ Rymer,
Foedera, XIX., 63.]
21
(return)
[ Force,
Tracts, II., No. iii.]
22
(return)
[ Palfrey,
New England, I., 312.]
23
(return)
[ Thomas Dudley, letter to the countess of Lincoln (Force,
Tracts, II., No. iv.).]
Winthrop's government superseded Endicott's; but Winthrop, not liking the appearance of the country around Salem, repaired to Charlestown with most of the new-comers. Here, as elsewhere, there was much sickness and death. Owing to the dearth of provisions it was found necessary to free all the servants sent over within the last two years at a cost of £16 or £20 each. The discouragement was reflected in the return to England within a few months of more than a hundred persons in the ships that brought them over.
The gloom of his surroundings caused Winthrop to set apart July 30 as a day of prayer, and on that day Rev. John Wilson, after the manner of proceeding the year before at Salem, entered into a church covenant with Winthrop, Dudley, and Isaac Johnson, one of the assistants. Two days later they associated with themselves five others; and more being presently added, this third congregational church established in New England, elected, August 27, John Wilson to be their teacher and Increase Nowell to be ruling elder.1
Still the guise of loyalty to the church of England was for some time maintained. In a letter to the countess of Lincoln, March 28, 1631, the deputy governor, Thomas Dudley, one of the warmest of the Puritans, repelled "the false and scandalous report," which those who returned "the last year" had spread in England that "we are Brownists in religion and ill affected to our state at home"; "and for our further cleareinge," he said, "I truely affirme that I know noe one person who came over with us the last yeare to be altered in his judgment and affection eyther in ecclesiasticall or civill respects since our comeinge hither."2
Winthrop and his assistants held their first formal session at Charlestown, August 23, 1630, and took vigorous measures to demonstrate their authority. Morton challenged attention on account not only of his religious views and his friendship for Gorges, but of his defiant attitude to the colony, and an order was issued that "Morton, of Mount Wolliston, should presently be sent for by process." Two weeks later his trial was had, and he was ordered "to be set into the bilboes," and afterwards sent prisoner to England. To defray the charges of his transportation, his goods were seized, and "for the many wrongs he had done the Indians" his house was burned to the ground,3 a sentence which, according to Morton, caused the Indians to say that "God would not love them that burned this good man's house."4
Death was still playing havoc with the immigrants at Charlestown. Several hundred men, women, and children were crowded together in a narrow space, and had no better protection than tents, wigwams, booths, and log-cabins. By December two hundred of the late arrivals had perished, and among the dead were Francis Higginson, who had taken a leading part in establishing the church at Salem, the first in Massachusetts.5 The severity of the diseases was ascribed to the lack of good water at Charlestown, and, accordingly, the settlers there broke up into small parties and sought out different places of settlement.
On the other side of the Charles River was a peninsula occupied by William Blackstone, one of the companions of Robert Gorges at Wessagusset in 1626. It was blessed with a sweet and pleasant spring, and was one of the places now selected as a settlement. September 7, 1630, the court of assistants gave this place the name of Boston; and at the same court Dorchester and Watertown began their career under legislative sanction.6 Before winter the towns scattered through Massachusetts were eight in number—Salem, Charlestown, Dorchester, Boston, Watertown, Roxbury, Mystic, and Lynn.7
October 19, 1630, a general court, the first in New England, was held in Boston. The membership consisted of the governor, deputy, eight assistants, and one or two others, for these were all at that time in Massachusetts possessing the franchise of the company.8 The former officers were re-elected, and a resolution was adopted that "the freemen should have the power to choose assistants when they are to be chosen, and the assistants to choose from among themselves the governor and his deputy." The rule implied a strong reluctance to leave out of the board any person once elected magistrate.
From the last week in December to the middle of February, 1631, the suffering in the colony was very great, especially among the poorer classes, and many died. Were it not for the abundance of clams, mussels, and fish gathered from the bay there might have been a "starving time," like that of Jamestown in 1609. Winthrop appointed a fast to be kept February 22, 1631; but February 5 the Lyon arrived with supplies, and a public thanksgiving was substituted for a public fasting.9
From this time the colony may be said to have secured a permanent footing. The court of assistants, who had suspended their sessions during the winter, now began to meet again, and made many orders with reference to the economic and social affairs of the colonists. There were few natives in the neighborhood of the settlement, and Chickatabot, their sachem, anxious to secure the protection of the English against the Taratines, of Maine, visited Boston in April and established friendly communications.10 At the courts of elections of 1631, 1632, and 1633 Winthrop was re-elected governor. His conduct was not deemed harsh enough by some people, and in 1634 Thomas Dudley succeeded him. In 1635 Jonn Haynes became governor, and in 1636 Henry Vane, known in English history as Sir Harry Vane, after which time the governorship was restored to Winthrop.
Puritanism entered the warp and woof of the Massachusetts colony, and a combination of circumstances tended to build up a theocracy which dominated affairs. The ministers who came over were among the most learned men of the age, and the influence which their talents and character gave them was greatly increased by the sufferings and the isolation of the church members, who were thus brought to confide all the more in those who, under such conditions, dispensed religious consolation. Moreover, the few who had at first the direction of civil matters were strongly religious men, and inclined to promote the unity of the church by all the means at hand.
We have noticed the turn of affairs given by Endicott at Salem, and how Winthrop followed his example on his arrival at Charlestown. After the court of assistants resumed their meetings in March, 1631, the upbuilding of the theocracy was rapidly pushed. Various people deemed inimical to the accepted state of affairs were punished with banishment from the colony, and in some cases the penalties of whipping, cropping of ears, and confiscation of estate were added. In some cases, as that of Sir Christopher Gardiner, a secret agent of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, there was reason for parting with these people; but in other cases the principle of punishment was persecution and not justice. There is a record of an order for reshipping to England six persons of whose offence nothing more is recorded than "that they were persons unmeet to inhabit here."11
The most decided enlargement of the power of the theocracy was made in the general court which met at Boston in May, 1631, when it was resolved that the assistants need not be chosen afresh every year, but might keep their seats until removed by a special vote of the freemen.12 The company was enlarged by the addition of one hundred and eighteen "freemen"; but "to the end that the body of the commons may be preserved of honest and good men," it was ordered that "for the time to come no man should be admitted to the freedom of this body politic but such as are members of some of the churches within the limits of the same."
These proceedings practically vested all the judicial and legislative powers in the court of assistants, whose tenure was permanent, and left to the freemen in the general court little else than the power of admitting freemen. Not only was citizenship based on church-membership, but the Bible was the only law-book recognized by the court of assistants. Of this book the ministers were naturally thought the best interpreters, and it thus became the custom for the magistrates to consult them on all questions of importance. Offenders were not merely law-breakers, but sinners, and their offences ranged from such as wore long hair to such as dealt in witchcraft and sorcery.
Fortunately, this system did not long continue without some modification. In February, 1632, the court of assistants assessed a tax upon the towns for the erection of a fortification at Newtown, subsequently Cambridge. The inhabitants of Watertown grumbled about paying their proportion of this tax, and at the third general court, May 9, 1632, it was ordered that hereafter the governor and assistants in laying taxes should be guided by the advice of a board composed of two delegates from every town; and that the governor and other magistrates should be elected by the whole body of the freemen assembled as the charter required.
Two years later a general court consisting of the governor, assistants, and two "committees," or delegates, elected by the freemen resident in each town, assembled and assumed the powers of legislation.13 This change, which brought about a popular representative body—second in point of time only to Virginia—was a natural extension of the proceedings of 1632. In 1644 the assistants and delegates quarrelled over an appeal in a lawsuit, and as a result the division of the court into two co-ordinate branches occurred.14
Nevertheless, the authority of the court of assistants, for several reasons, continued to be very great. In the first place, unlike the Council of Virginia, which could only amend or reject the action of the lower house, the assistants had the right of originating laws. Then the custom at the annual elections of first putting the names of the incumbents to the vote made the tenure of its members a pretty constant affair. Next, as a court, it exercised for years a vast amount of discretionary power. Not till 1641 was the first code, called the Body of Liberties, adopted, and this code itself permitted the assistants to supply any defect in the law by the "word of God," a phrase which to the followers of Calvin had especial reference to the fierce legislation of the Old Testament.
The course of the colonial authorities speedily jeopardized the charter which they obtained so readily from the king. Upon the arrival in England, in 1631, of Morton, Gardiner, and other victims of the court of assistants, they communicated with Gorges (now powerfully assisted by John Mason); and he gladly seized upon their complaints to accuse the ministers and people of Massachusetts of railing against the state and church of England, and of an evident purpose of casting off their allegiance at the first favorable opportunity. The complaint was referred, in December, 1632, to a committee of the council,15 before whom the friends of the company in London—Cradock, Saltonstall, and Humphrey—filed a written answer. Affairs bore a bad appearance for the colonists, but the unexpected happened. Powerful influences at court were brought to bear upon the members of the committee, and to the astonishment of every one they reported, January 19, 1633, against any interference until "further inquiry" could be made.16 King Charles not only approved this report, but volunteered the remark that "he would have them severely punished who did abuse his governor and the plantation."17
Though the danger for the present was avoided, it was not wholly removed. In August, 1633, Laud was made archbishop of Canterbury, and his accession to authority was distinguished by a more rigorous enforcement of the laws against Nonconformists. The effect was to cause the lagging emigration to New England to assume immense volume. There was no longer concealment of the purposes of the emigrants, for the Puritan preachers began everywhere to speak openly of the corruptions of the English church.18 In September, 1633, the theocracy of Massachusetts were reinforced by three eminent ministers, John Cotton, Thomas Hooker, and Thomas Shepard; and so many other persons accompanied and followed them that by the end of 1634 the population was not far short of four thousand. The clergy, now thirteen or fourteen in number, were nearly all graduates of Oxford or Cambridge.
This exodus of so many of the best, "both ministers and Christians,"19 aroused the king and Archbishop Laud to the danger threatened by the Massachusetts colony. Gorges, Mason, and the rest renewed the attack, and in February, 1634, an order was obtained from the Privy Council for the detention of ten vessels bound for Massachusetts. At the same time Cradock, the ex-governor of the company, was commanded by the Privy Council to hand in the Massachusetts charter.20 Soon after, the king announced his intention of "giving order for a general governor" for New England; and in April, 1634, he appointed a new commission for the government of the colonies, called "The Commission for Foreign Plantations," with William Laud, archbishop of Canterbury, at the head. Mr. Cradock transmitted a copy of the order of council, requiring a production of the charter, to Boston, where it was received by Governor Dudley in July, 1634.
This was a momentous crisis in the history of the colony. The governor and assistants made answer to Mr. Cradock that the charter could not be returned except by command of the general court, not then in session. At the same time orders were given for fortifying Castle Island, Dorchester, and Charlestown. In this moment of excitement the figure of Endicott again dramatically crosses the stage of history. Conceiving an intense dislike to the cross in the English flag, he denounced it as antichrist, and cut it out with his own hands from the ensign borne by the company at Salem. Endicott was censured by the general court for the act, but soon the cross was left out of all the flags except that of the fort at Castle Island, in Boston Harbor.21
Massachusetts, while taking these bold measures at home, did not neglect the protection of her interests in England. The government of Plymouth, in July, 1634, sent Edward Winslow to England, and Governor Dudley and his council engaged him to present an humble petition in their behalf.22 Winslow was a shrewd diplomat, but was so far from succeeding with his suit that upon his appearance before the lords commissioners in 1635 he was, through Laud's "vehement importunity," committed to Fleet Prison, where he lay seventeen weeks.23
Gorges and Mason lost no time in improving their victory. February 3, 1635, they secured a redivision of the coast of New England by the Council for New England, into twelve parts, which were assigned to as many persons. Sir William Alexander received the country from the river St. Croix to Pemaquid; Sir Ferdinando Gorges, the province of Maine from Penobscot to Piscataqua; Captain John Mason, New Hampshire and part of Massachusetts as far as Cape Ann, while the coast from Cape Ann to Narragansett Bay fell to Lord Edward Gorges, and the portion from Narragansett Bay to the Connecticut River to the marquis of Hamilton.24
April 25, 1635, the Council for New England issued a formal declaration of their reasons for resigning the great charter to the king, chief among which was their inability to rectify the complaints of their servants in America against the Massachusetts Company, who had "surreptitiously" obtained a charter for lands "justly passed to Captain Robert Gorges long before."25 June 7 the charter was surrendered to the king, who appointed Sir Ferdinando Gorges "general governor." The expiring company further appointed Thomas Morton as their lawyer to ask for a quo warranto against the charter of the Massachusetts Company.
In September, 1635, judgment was given in Westminster Hall that "the franchises of the Massachusetts Company be taken and seized into the king's hands."26 But, as Winthrop said, the Lord "frustrated their designs." King Charles was trying to rule without a Parliament, and had no money to spend against New England. Therefore, the cost of carrying out the orders of the government devolved upon Mason and Gorges, who set to work to build a ship to convey the latter to America, but it fell and broke in the launching,27 and about November, 1635, Captain John Mason died.
After this, though the king in council, in July, 1637, named Gorges again as "general governor,"28 and the Lords Commissioners for Plantations, in April, 1638, demanded the charter anew,29 the Massachusetts general court would not recognize either order. Gorges could not raise the necessary funds to compel obedience, and the attention of the king and his archbishop was occupied with forcing episcopacy upon Scotland. In 1642 war began in England between Parliament and king, and Massachusetts was left free to shape her own destinies. It was now her turn to become aggressive. Construing her charter to mean that her territory extended to a due east line three miles north of the most northerly branch of Merrimac River, she possessed herself, in 1641, of New Hampshire, the territory of the heirs of John Mason; and in 1653-1658, of Maine, the province of Gorges.
When the Long Parliament met, in 1641, the Puritans in England found enough occupation at home, and emigration greatly diminished. In 1643 Massachusetts became a member of the New England confederation, and her population was then about fifteen thousand; but nearly as many more had come over and were distributed among three new colonies—Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Haven.