Chapter IX: New England (1)

BY CHARLES DEANE, LL.D.,

_Vice-President of the Massachusetts Historical Society._

THE COUNCIL FOR NEW ENGLAND.—This body was incorporated in the eighteenth year of the reign of James I., on the 3d of November, 1620, under the name of the “Council established at Plymouth, in the County of Devon, for the planting, ruling, ordering, and governing of New England, in America.” The corporation consisted of forty patentees, the most of whom were persons of distinction: thirteen were peers, some of the highest rank. The patentees were empowered to hold territory in America extending from the fortieth to the forty-eighth degree of north latitude, and westward from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and they were authorized to settle and govern the same. This charter is the foundation of most of the grants which were afterward made of the territory of New England.

This Company was substantially a reincorporation of the adventurers or associates of the Northern Colony of Virginia, with additional privileges, placing them on a footing with their rivals of the Southern Colony, whose franchise had been twice enlarged since the issuing of the original charter of April 10, 1606, which incorporated both companies. A notice of this earlier enterprise will but briefly detain us.

While the Southern Colony had attracted the wealth and influence of leading adventurers who represented the more liberal party in the government, and were enabled to prosecute their plans of colonization with vigor to a good degree of success, the Northern Colony had signally failed from the beginning. The former had established at Jamestown, in 1607, the first permanent English Colony in America. The latter produced no greater results than the abortive settlement at Sabino, known as the Popham Colony.[522] The discouragement following upon its abandonment prompted the withdrawal of many of the adventurers, though the organization of the patentees still survived; but of their meetings and records we have no trace. Sir Ferdinando Gorges himself would not despair, but engaged his private fortune in fishing, trading, and exploring expeditions, and in making attempts at settlement. Many of these enterprises he speaks of as private ventures, while the Council for New England, in their _Briefe Relation_, of 1622, which I have sometimes thought was written by Gorges himself, speaks of them in the name of the Company. The probability is that Gorges was the principal person who kept alive the cherished scheme of settling the country, and by his influence a few other persons were engaged, and the name of the Council covered many of these enterprises.

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Gorges now conceived the scheme of a great monopoly. King James had reigned since 1614 without a parliament, and during the following years down to the meeting of the next parliament, in January, 1620/21, a large part of the business of the country had been monopolized by individuals or by associations that had secured special privileges from the Crown. Gorges was a friend of the King and of the “prerogative.” Under the plea of desiring a new incorporation of the adventurers of the Northern Colony, in order to place them on an equality of privileges with the Southern Colony, Gorges had devised the plan of securing a monoply of the fishing in the waters of New England for the patentees of the new corporation, and for those who held or purchased license from them. He had the adroitness to enlist in his favor a large number of the principal noblemen and gentlemen. Relative to his proceedings, Gorges himself says: “Of this, my resolution, I was bold to offer the sounder considerations to divers of his Majesty’s honorable Privy Council, who had so good liking thereunto as they willingly became interested themselves therein as patentees and councillors for the managing of the business, by whose favors I had the easier passage in the obtaining his Majesty’s royal charter to be granted us according to his warrant to the then solicitor-general,” etc. The petition for the new charter was dated March 3, 1619/20; the warrant for its preparation, July 23; and it passed the seals Nov. 3, 1620.

An inspection of the several patents granted by King James will show that, in those of 1606 and 1609, among the privileges conferred is that of “fishings.” But the word is there used in connection with other privileges appertaining to and within the precincts conveyed, such as “mines, minerals, marshes,” etc., and probably meant “fishings” in rivers and ponds, and not in the seas. In the patent of Nov. 3, 1620, a similar clause ends, “and seas adjoining,” which may be intended to cover the alleged privilege. In this patent, as in the others, there is no clause forbidding free fishing within the seas of New England; but all persons without license first obtained from the Council are, in the patent of Nov. 3, 1620, forbidden to visit the coast, and the clause of forfeiture of vessel and cargo is inserted. This prevented fishermen from landing and procuring wood for constructing stages to dry their fish.

A few days after the petition of Gorges and his associates had been presented to the King for a new charter, with minutes indicating the nature of the privileges asked for, the Southern Colony took the alarm, and the subject was brought before its members by the treasurer, Sir Edwin Sandys, at a meeting on the 15th of March, 1619/20, at which a committee was appointed to appear before the Privy Council the next day, to protest against the fishing monopoly asked for by the Northern Colony. The result of the conference, at which Gorges was present, was a reference to two members of the Council,—the Duke of Lenox and the Earl of Arundell, both patentees in the new patent; and they decided or recommended that each colony should fish within the bounds of the other, with this limitation,—“that it be only for the sustentation of the people of the colonies there, and for the transportation of people into either colony.” This order gave satisfaction to neither party. The Southern Colony protested against being deprived of privileges which they had always enjoyed. Gorges contended that the Northern Colony had been excluded from the limits of the rival company, and he only desired the same privilege of excluding them in turn. The matter came again before the Privy Council on the 21st of July following, and that board confirmed the recommendation of the 16th of March. Two days later, on the 23d of July, the warrant to the solicitor-general for the preparation of the patent was issued, and it passed the seals, as already stated, on the 3d of November.

On the following day, November 4, Sir Edwin Sandys announced at a meeting of the Southern Colony, or what was now known as the Virginia Company, that the patent of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, containing certain words which contradicted a former order of the Lords of the Council, had passed the seals, and that the adventurers of the Northern Colony by this grant had utterly excluded the Southern Colony from fishing on that coast without their leave and license first sought and obtained. By a general consent it was resolved to supplicate his Majesty for redress, and Sir Thomas Roe was desired to present the petition which had been drawn.

On the 13th Sir Thomas Roe reported that he had attended to that duty, and that the King had said that if anything was passed in the New England patent prejudicial to the Southern Colony, it was surreptitiously done, and without his knowledge, and that he had been abused thereby by those who pretended otherwise unto him. This was confirmed by the Earl of Southampton, who further said that the King gave command to the Lord Chamberlain, then present, that if this new patent were not sealed, to forbear the seal; and if it were sealed and not delivered, to keep it in hand till they were better informed. His Lordship further signified that on Saturday last they had been with the Lord Chancellor about it, when were present the Duke of Lenox, the Earl of Arundell, and others, who, after hearing the allegations on both sides, ordered that the patent should be delivered to be perused by some of the Southern Colony, who were to report what exceptions they found thereunto against the next meeting. Two days later it was announced through the Earl of Southampton that, at a recent conference with Gorges, it was agreed that for the present “the patent of Sir Ferdinando Gorges should be sequestered and deposited in my Lord Chancellor’s hands according to his Majesty’s express command.”

The Council for New England, in their _Briefe Relation_ (1622) of these proceedings, recounting the opposition of the Virginia Company, say that “lastly, the patent being passed the seal, it was stopped, upon new suggestions to the King, and by his Majesty referred to the Council to be settled, by whom the former orders were confirmed, the difference cleared, and we ordered to have our patent delivered us.”

The modifications suggested or directed by the Privy Council appear not to have been embodied in the instrument itself as it passed the seals. Gorges’ friends were very strong in the council board, some of the members being patentees in the grant, and they carried matters with a high hand. But before the order came for the final delivery of the patent, Gorges and his patentees were called to encounter a still more formidable opposition. Gorges himself tells us that his rivals had plainly told him that “howsoever I had sped before the Lords, I should hear more of it the next Parliament;” and that this body was no sooner assembled than he found it too true wherewith he had been formerly threatened.

The Parliament met Jan. 16, 1620/21, it being the first time for more than seven years, and at once adjourned to the 30th of that month. On its assembling, the House of Commons immediately proceeded to present the public grievances of the kingdom, prominent among which were the monopolies that had sprung up like hydras during the last few years under the royal prerogative. On the 17th of April “An Act for the freer liberty of fishing voyages, to be made and performed on the sea-coast and places of Newfoundland, Virginia, New England, and other the sea-coasts and parts of America,” was introduced. On the 25th this was repeated, and a debate followed, opened by Sir Edwin Sandys, who called attention to the new grant obtained for what had now come to be called New England, with a sole privilege of fishing; also to the fact that the King, who had been made acquainted with it, had stayed the patent; that the Virginia Company desired no appropriation of this fishing to them; that it was worth one hundred thousand pounds per annum in coin; that the English “little frequent this, in respect of this prohibition, but the Dutch and French.” He therefore moved for “a free liberty for all the King’s subjects for fishing there,” saying it was pitiful that any of the King’s subjects should be prohibited, since the French and Dutch were at liberty to come and fish there notwithstanding the colony.

The debate was continued. Secretary Calvert “doubteth the fishermen the hinderers of the plantation; that they burn great store of woods, and choke the havens;” that he “never will strain the King’s prerogative against the good of the commonwealth;” and that it was “not fit to make any laws here for those countries which not as yet annexed to the Crown.”

The bill was committed to Sir Edwin Sandys, and a full hearing advertized to all burgesses of London, York, and the port towns, who might wish to testify, that day seven-night, in the Exchequer Chamber.

On the 4th of June Parliament adjourned to the 14th of November, and in the intermission Sir Edwin Sandys was arrested and thrown into prison. It is significant that, notwithstanding this opposition in the House of Commons, the Privy Council, on the 18th, ordered that the sequestered patent be delivered to Gorges, in terms which provided that each colony (the Northern and the Southern) should have the additional freedom of the shore for the drying of their nets and the taking and saving of their fish, and to have wood for their necessary uses, etc.; also that the patent of the Northern plantation be renewed according to the premises, while those of the Southern plantation were to have a sight thereof before it be engrossed, and that the former patent be delivered to the patentees.

I have already remarked that the orders of the Privy Council early directed certain modifications to be made in the proposed patent which were not embodied in it when first drawn; nor were they ultimately included, although Gorges himself admitted, when afterward summoned before the Committee of the House of Commons, that the patent yet remained in the Crown office, “where it was left since the last Parliament” (he meant, since the last session of Parliament), “for that it was resolved to be renewed for the amendment of some faults contained therein.”

No doubt the intention was that a new patent should be drawn, and that the delivery of the existing parchment was provisional only.[523] The patent, however, never was renewed, though a scheme for a renewal of a most radical character was seriously contemplated all through the year following the dissolution of the Parliament in 1622; and Sir Henry Spelman and John Selden were consulted in regard to land tenures, the rights of the Crown, and the like, in reference thereto.

On the reassembling of Parliament in November, the subject was once again approached in the Commons. It was charged that since the recess Gorges had executed a patent. One had been issued, dated June 1, 1621, to John Peirce for the Plymouth people. He had also, by patent or by verbal agreement, by the King’s request, released to Sir William Alexander all the land east of St. Croix, known as Nova Scotia, confirmed to him by a royal charter September 10 of this year.[524] It was also charged that Gorges was threatening to use force in restricting the right to fish; and accordingly on the 20th an order was passed directing his patent to be brought in to the Committee on Grievances.[525]

The result was that on the 21st of December an Act for freer liberty of fishing passed the Commons, while previously, on the 18th, “Sir Ferdinando Gorges and Sir Jo. Bowcer, the patentees for fishing in and about New England, to be warned to appear here the first day of next Access, and to bring their patent, or a copy thereof.” Parliament then adjourned to the 8th of February; but it was subsequently prorogued and dissolved. Before the adjournment, in the afternoon, the Commons, foreseeing their dissolution, entered on their records a protestation in vindication of their rights and privileges; but the record is here mutilated by having the obnoxious passage torn out by the hands of the King, who sent for the Journal of the House and placed this mark of his tyranny upon it. Gorges himself, at this session of the Parliament, twice appeared before the Committee of the House, and had a preliminary examination without his counsel. He was questioned by Sir Edward Coke about his patent, which Coke called a grievance of the commonwealth, and complained of as “a monopoly, and the color of planting a colony put upon it for particular ends and private gain.” Gorges says he was treated with great courtesy, but was told that “the Public was to be respected before all particulars,” and that the patent must be brought into the House. Gorges replied by defending the plan of the adventurers, which he said was undertaken for the advancement of religion, the enlargement of the bounds of the nation, the increase of trade, and the employment of many thousands of people. He rehearsed what had already been done in the discovery and seizure of the coast, told of the failures and discouragements encountered, and explained the present scheme of regulating the affairs of the intended plantation for the public good. As for the delivery of the patent, he had not the power to do it himself, as he was but a particular person, and inferior to many. Besides, the patent still remained, for aught he knew, in the Crown Office, where it was left for amendment. He was then told to be prepared to attend further at a future day, and with counsel. In the end, also, the breaking up of Parliament prevented the bill for free fishing, which had passed the Commons, from becoming a law.

Of course, the opposition encountered—first from the Virginia Company and then from the House of Commons, the latter representing largely the popular sentiment—was a serious hindrance to the operations of the Council for New England. The disputes with the former, the Council themselves say, “held them almost two years, so as all men were afraid to join with them.”

The records of the Council, so far as they are extant, begin on “Saturday, the last of May, 1622,” at “Whitehall,” at which there were seven persons present, “the Lord Duke of Lenox” heading the list. Some business was transacted before this date, as the first day’s record here refers to it. The record of the organization of the Council is wanting; and two persons named as present at this meeting—Captain Samuel Argall and Dr. Barnabe Goche—were not included in the list of the forty patentees. They must have been elected since, in the place of others who had resigned. Goche was now elected treasurer in the place of Sir Ferdinando Gorges. I think that the Duke of Lenox was the first president of the Council. In the patent granted to John Peirce, mentioned above as taken out on behalf of the Pilgrims, dated June 1, 1621,—which, I may add, was nearly a year before the date of any known record of the Council,—purporting to be signed by “the President and Counsell,” who have “set their seals” to the same, were the names of Lenox, Hamilton, Ro. Warwick, Sheffield, Ferd. Gorges, in the order here given, and one other name indistinct, with their separate seals.[526]

It is not improbable, therefore, that the business transactions of the Council, in this inchoate and uncertain period of its existence, were so few that they were preserved only in loose minutes, or files of papers, which were never recorded, and are now lost.

After they had freed their patent, they first considered how they should raise the means to advance the plantation, and two methods were suggested. One contemplated a voluntary contribution by the patentees; and the other, the ransoming the freedoms of those who were willing to partake of present profits arising by the trade or fishing on the coast. The patentees, in the one case, agreed to pay one hundred pounds apiece (the records say £110); in the other, inducements were offered to the western cities and towns to form joint-stock associations for trade and fishing, from which a revenue in the shape of royalty might be derived to the Council: and, in order to further this latter project, letters were to be issued to those cities, by the Privy Council, prohibiting any not free of that business from visiting the coast, upon pain of confiscation of ship and goods. This last scheme was not favorably received. The letters produced an effect contrary to what was expected, since the restraining of the liberty of free fishing gave alarm; and, as the Parliament of 1621 was about to meet, every possible influence was brought to bear against this great monopoly, with what effect we have already seen.

While the plan of voluntary associations failed, the business of exacting a tax from individual fishermen was prosecuted with vigor, and probably; in some instances with success. A proclamation against disorderly trading, or visiting the coasts of New England without a license from the Council, was issued. A grand scheme for settling the coast of New England by a local government was marked out, and the _Platform of the Government_ was put into print.[527]

The project of laying out a county on the Kennebec River; forty miles square, for general purposes, and building a great city at the junction of the Kennebec and Androscoggin Rivers, was part of the great plan. A ship and pinnace had been built at Whitby, a seaport in Yorkshire, at large expense, for use in the colony; and others were contemplated. They were to lie on the coast for the defence of the merchants and fishermen, and to convoy the fleets as they went to and from their markets. Sir Ferdinando Gorges, who had been treasurer of the Council, was now chosen governor, and was destined for New England; but the Company were seriously embarrassed for funds, and finally were obliged to mortgage the ship to some of their individual members. The assessments of £110 each were not all paid in, and patentees who did not intend to pay were asked to resign, so that others might take their places. Constant complaints were made of merchants who were violating the privileges of the Company by sending out vessels for fishing and trading on the coast; and orders were passed for applying remedies. The plan for the new patent is constantly referred to in the records, and the present patentees are to be warned that they will have no place in it, unless they pay up their past dues. The inducement to be held out is, that all who actually pay £110 may have a place in the new grant, provided they “be persons of honor or gentlemen of blood, except only six merchants to be admitted by us for the service, and especial employments of the said Council in the course of trade and commerce,” etc. But their schemes were not realized.

In the Council’s prospectus already cited, issued in the summer of 1622, they say, “We have settled, at this present, several plantations along the coast, and have granted patents to many more that are in preparation to be gone with all conveniency.” The bare fact, however, is that the Pilgrims at Plymouth were the only actual settlers, and they had landed within the patent limits by the merest chance. There may have been some other bodies of men, in small numbers, living on the coast, such as Gorges used to hire, at large expense, to spend the winter there. His servant, Richard Vines, a highly respectable man, was sent out to the coast for trade and discovery, and spent some time in the country; and he is supposed to have passed one winter during a great plague among the Indians,—perhaps that of 1616-17,—at the mouth of the Saco River.[528] Vines and John Oldham afterward had a patent of Biddeford, on that river. Several scattering plantations were begun in the following year.

The complaints to the Council of abuses committed by fishermen and other interlopers, who without license visited the coast, and by their conduct caused the overthrow of the trade and the dishonor of the government, led to the selection of Robert Gorges, the younger son of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, and who was recently returned from the Venetian wars, to be sent to New England for the correction of these abuses. He was commissioned as lieutenant-general, and there were appointed for his council and assistants Captain Francis West as admiral, Christopher Levett, and the governor of Plymouth for the time being. Robert Gorges had but recently become a shareholder in the grand patent, and he had also a personal grant of a tract of land on the northeast side of Massachusetts Bay, ten miles along the coast, and extending thirty miles into the interior. This was made to him partly in consideration of his father’s services to the Company.

West was commissioned in November, 1622; and his arrival at Plymouth, in New England, is noticed by Bradford “as about the latter end of June.” He had probably been for some time on the Eastern coast as he related his experiences to Bradford, who says he “had a commission to be admiral of New England, to restrain interlopers and such fishing ships as came to fish and trade without a license from the Council of New England, for which they should pay a round sum of money. But he could do no good of them, for they were too strong for him, and he found the fishermen to be stubborn fellows.... So they went from hence to Virginia.” West returned from Virginia in August, and probably joined Captain Gorges, who made his appearance in the Bay of Massachusetts in August or September of this year, having “sundry passengers and families, intending there to begin a plantation, and pitched upon the place Mr. Weston’s people had forsaken,” at Wessagusset. By his commission he and his council had full power “to do and execute what to them should seem good, in all cases, capital, criminal, and civil.”

This sending out of young Gorges with authority was probably a temporary expedient for the present emergency, preparatory to the great scheme of government set forth, a few months before he sailed, in the Council’s _Briefe Relation_. Captain Gorges had a private enterprise to look after while charged with these public duties. The patent which he brought over, issued to himself personally, provided for a government to be administered “acording to the great charter of England, and such Lawes as shall be hereafter established by public authority of the State assembled in Parliament in New England,” all decisions being subject to appeal to the Council for New England, “and to the court of Parliament hereafter to be in New England aforesaid.”

Gorges remained here but a short time,—probably not quite a year,—having during his stay a sharp conflict with the notorious Thomas Weston, whom Governor Bradford, in pity to the man, attempted to shield from punishment. In speaking of Gorges’ return to England, Bradford says that he “scarcely saluted the country in his government, not finding the state of things here to answer his quality and condition.” His people dispersed: some went to England, and some to Virginia. Sir Ferdinando Gorges himself assigns another reason for his son’s speedy abandoning the country. He says that Robert was sent out by Lord Gorges and himself,—meaning, I suppose, that he came at their personal charge,—and that he was disappointed in not receiving supplies from “divers his familiar friends who had promised as much; but they, hearing how I sped in the House of Parliament, withdrew themselves, and myself and friends were wholly disabled to do anything to purpose.” The report of these proceedings coming to his son’s ears, he was advised to return home till better occasion should serve.

The records of the Council show that for the space of one year their business was pursued with considerable vigor by the few members who were interested.[529] Sir Ferdinando Gorges, of course, was the mainstay of the enterprise. The principal business was to prepare to put their plans into operation. The money did not come in, and a large number of the patentees fell off. Much time was spent in inducing new members to engage, and pay in their money; and the efforts to bring the merchant fishermen to acknowledge the claims of the Council, and to take out licenses for traffic and fishing, were untiring.

Finally, in the summer of 1623, the Council resolved to divide the whole territory of New England among the patentees, “in the plot remaining with Dr. Goche,” the treasurer. The reasons given for this step are, “For that some of the adventurers excuse their non-payment in of their adventures because they know not their shares for which they are to pay, which much prejudiceth the proceedings, it is thought fit that the land of New England be divided in this manner; viz., by 20 lots, and each lot to contain 2 shares. And for that there are not full 40 and above 20 adventurers, that only 20 shall draw those lots.” Provision was accordingly made that each person drawing two shares should part with one share to some member who might not have drawn, or some one else who shall thereafter become an adventurer, to the end that the full “number of forty may be complete.” The meeting for the drawing was held on Sunday, June 29, 1623, at Greenwich, at which the King was present.[530]

The “plot” of New England, on which this division is shown, with the names set down according as the lots were drawn, was published the next year in Sir William Alexander’s _Encouragement to Colonies_; and on page 31 of his book the writer speaks of hearing that “out of a generous desire by his example to encourage others for the advancement of so brave an enterprise he [Sir Ferdinando Gorges] is resolved shortly to go himself in person, and to carry with him a great number well fitted for such a purpose; and many noblemen in England (whose names and proportions as they were marshalled by lot may appear upon the map), having interested themselves in that bounds, are to send several colonies, who may quickly make this to exceed all other plantations.”

Alexander must have been well informed of the intentions of the Company, certainly familiar with those of Gorges himself; and it must have been with their knowledge and approbation that the act above recorded was thus published.

[This is a fac-simile of a part of the map, as reproduced in Purchas’s _Pilgrims_.—ED.]]

The meeting at which the division was made is the last of which we have any record for a number of years, and the history of the Company during these years must be gathered from other sources. The grand colonial scheme intended to be put in operation never went into effect; and at a late period the Council say, concerning this division, that hitherto they have never been confirmed in the lands so allotted.

A new Parliament was summoned to meet February 12, 1623/24, and on the 24th we find this minute: “Mr. Neale delivereth in the bill for free liberty of fishing upon the coasts of America.” “Five ships of Plymouth under arrest, and two of Dartmouth, because they went to fish in New England. This done by warrant from the Admiralty. To have these suits staid till this bill have had its passage. This done by Sir Ferdinando Gorges his Patent. Ordered, that this patent be brought into the Committee of Grievances upon Friday next.” March 15, 1623/24, an Act for freer liberty of fishing, as previously introduced, was committed to a large committee, of which Sir Edward Coke was chairman. On the 17th, Sir Edward reported from this committee that they had condemned one grievance, namely, “Sir Ferdinand Gorges his patent for a plantation in New England. Their council heard, the exceptions being first delivered them. Resolved by consent, that, notwithstanding the clause in the patent dated 3d November, 18th Jac., that no subject of England shall visit the coast upon pain of forfeiture of ship and goods, the patentees have yielded that the Englishmen shall visit, and that they will not interrupt any fisherman to fish there.” Finally it was enacted by the House that the clause of forfeiture, being only by patent and not by act of Parliament, was void.

Gorges himself gives a graphic picture of the scene when he, with his counsel, was before the Committee of the House, and he spoke so unavailingly in defence of his patent. This patent was the first presented from the Committee of Grievances. “This their public declaration of the Houses ... shook off all my adventurers for plantation, and made many of the patentees to quit their interest;” so that in all likelihood he would have fallen under the weight of so heavy a burden, had he not been supported by the King, who would not be drawn to overthrow the corporation he so much approved of, and Gorges was advised to persevere. Still he thought it better to forbear for the present, though the bill did not become a law of the realm. Soon afterward the French ambassador made a challenge of all those territories as belonging of right to the King of France, and Gorges was called to make answer to him; and his reply was so full that “no more was heard of that their claim.”

Being unable to enforce the claim whence was to come the principal source of its income, and the larger part of the patentees having abandoned the enterprise, the Great Council for New England, whose patent had been denounced by the House of Commons as a monopoly and opposed to the public policy and the general good, became a dead body. In the following year, 1625, we hear of Gorges as commander of one of the vessels in the squadron ordered by Buckingham to Dieppe for the service of the King of France. Finding on his arrival that the vessels were destined to serve against Rochelle, which was then sustaining a siege, Gorges broke through the squadron, and returned to England with his ship.

In the summer of 1625 the Plymouth people were in great trouble by reason of their unhappy relations to the Adventurers in London, and Captain Standish was sent over to seek some accommodation with them. At the same time he bore a letter from Governor Bradford to the Council of New England, urging their intervention in behalf of the colony “under your government.” But Bradford says that, by reason of the plague which that year raged in London, Standish could do nothing with the Council for New England, for there were no courts kept or scarce any commerce held.

Two years later, in the summer of 1627, Governor Bradford again wrote to the Council for New England, under whose government he acknowledged themselves to be, and also to Sir Ferdinando Gorges himself, advising them of the encroachments of the Dutch, and also making complaints of the disorderly fishermen and interlopers, who, with no intent to plant, and with no license, foraged the country and were off again, to the great annoyance of the Plymouth settlers.

After a patent to Christopher Levett, of May 5, 1623, the Council appear to have made no grants of land till, in 1628, two patents were issued,—one to the Plymouth people of land on the Kennebec River, and one to Rosewell, Young, Endicott, and others, patentees of Massachusetts. These were followed by a grant to John Mason, of Nov. 7, 1629, the Laconia grant of Nov. 17, 1629, that to Plymouth Colony of Jan. 13, 1629/30, and sundry grants of territory in the present States of Maine and New Hampshire.

The records of the Council, of which there is a hiatus of over eight years in the parts now extant (and the latter portion is a transcript with probably many omissions), begin on the 4th of November, 1631, with the Earl of Warwick as president, and contain entries of sundry patents granted, and of the final transactions of the Company during its existence. Precisely when the Earl of Warwick was chosen president we do not know. His name appears in the Plymouth patent of Jan. 13, 1629/30, as holding that office, and it is quite likely that he was president when the Massachusetts patent was issued, he being chiefly instrumental in passing that grant. The Council seem now to have revived their hopes as they did their activity. As late as Nov. 6, 1634, divers matters of moment were propounded: “First, that the number of the Council be with all convenient speed filled. [It appears by a previous meeting that there were now but twenty-one members in all, whereas the patent called for no less than forty.] Second, that a new patent from his Majesty be obtained.” Also, that no ships, passengers, nor goods be permitted to go to New England without license from the President and Council; and that fishermen should not be allowed to trade with savages, nor with the servants of planters, nor to cut timber for stages, without license. This, surely, is a revival of the old odious policy. We do not know if any of these orders were adopted.

There seems at this time to have arisen a serious misunderstanding or quarrel between the Council and their President, the Earl of Warwick. It first appears at a meeting held June 29, 1632. The President was not present at this meeting, though it was held, as the meetings had been held for some years past, at “Warwick House.” An order was adopted “that the Earl of Warwick should be entreated to direct a course for finding out what patents have been granted for New England.” At the same meeting the clerk was sent to the Earl for the Council’s great seal, which was in his lordship’s keeping; and word came back that he would send it when his man came in. It was also ordered that the future meetings of the Council be held at the house of Captain Mason, in Fenchurch Street. But the seal was not sent, and two more formal requests were made for it during the next six months. Captain John Mason was chosen vice-president Nov. 26, 1632. The records for 1633 and 1634 are wanting. Early in 1635 the Council resolved to resign their patent into the hands of the King; preparatory to which they made a new partition of the territory of New England, dividing it among themselves, or, according to the records, among eight of their number. Of what precise number the Council consisted at this time we have no means of knowing. The division was made at a meeting held Feb. 3, 1634/35, and to the description of each particular grant the members on the 14th of April affixed their signatures, each person withholding his signature to his own share. In making this division it was ordered that every one who had lawful grants of land, or lawfully settled plantations, should enjoy the same, laying down his _jura regalia_ to the proprietor of this division, and paying him some small acknowledgment. A memorandum is also made that “the 22d day of April several deeds of feoffment were made unto the several proprietors.”

The act of surrender passed June 7, 1635. Lord Gorges had been chosen president April 18. The Company seem to have been kept alive till some years later, as there is an entry as late as Nov. 1, 1638, at which it was agreed to augment the grants of the Earl of Sterling and Lord Gorges and Sir F. Gorges, the two latter to have “sixty miles more added to their proportions further up into the main land.” Of course, in making this division the whole patent of Nov. 3, 1620, was not divided, for that ran from sea to sea. It was a division on the New England coast, running back generally sixty miles inland. It was part of the plan to procure from the King, under the great seal of England, a confirmation of these several grants. Lord Sterling’s grant included also Long Island, near Hudson’s River.

The intention in this division was to ride over the Massachusetts patent of 1628, which had been confirmed the following year by a charter of incorporation from the King, and legal proceedings were soon afterward instituted by a writ of _quo warranto_ for vacating their franchises. The notorious Thomas Morton was retained as a solicitor to prosecute this suit. The grants issued in this division to Sir Ferdinando Gorges and to John Mason are the only ones with which subsequent history largely deals.[531]

The King, in accepting the resignation of the Grand Patent, resolved to take the management of the affairs of New England into his own hands, and to appoint as his general governor Sir Ferdinando Gorges, who himself, or by deputy, was to reside in the country. But “the best laid schemes o’ mice and men gang aft a-gley.” The attempt to vacate the charter of Massachusetts Bay, a fundamental thing to be done, was not accomplished. The patentees to whom several of the divisions of the territory of New England were assigned appear to have wholly neglected their interest, and, except in the case of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, before referred to, royal charters were granted to none.

Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, and Connecticut were settled under grants, or alleged grants, from the Council for New England. The grant of the territory of Massachusetts Bay of March 19, 1627/28, was in the following year confirmed by the Crown, with powers of government. The grant to Sir Ferdinando Gorges in the general division of February, 1634/35, with an additional sixty miles into the interior subsequently added, was confirmed by the Crown April 3, 1639, with a charter constituting him Lord Proprietor of the Province of Maine, and giving him extraordinary powers of government. The territory issued to John Mason at the general division, which was to be called New Hampshire, the parchment bearing date April 22, 1635, was never confirmed by the King, nor were any powers of government granted. The first settlements in Connecticut,—namely, those of the three towns on the river of that name, in 1635 and 1636,—were made under the protection of Massachusetts, as though the territory had been part of that colony. But the inhabitants subsequently acquired a _quasi_ claim to this territory, under what is known as the “old patent of Connecticut,” impliedly proceeding from the Council for New England, through the Earl of Warwick, to Lord Say and Sele and his associates. The settlers of Quinnipiack, afterward called New Haven, in 1638 and 1639, had no patent for lands, but made a number of purchases from the Indians. Plymouth Colony, of which an account is given here by another hand, received a roving patent from the Council, dated June 1, 1621, with no boundaries; and another patent, dated Jan. 13, 1629/30, defining their limits, but with no powers of government. The territory of Rhode Island was not a grant from the Council to the settlers.

MASSACHUSETTS.—There were scattered settlements in Massachusetts Bay prior to the emigration under the patent of 1627/28. Thomas Weston began a settlement at what is now Weymouth Fore-River, in the summer of 1622, which lasted scarcely one year. Robert Gorges, as we have seen, took possession of the same place, in September, 1623, for his experimental government, but the colony broke up the next spring, leaving, it is thought, a few remnants behind, which proved a seed for a continuous settlement. Persons are found temporarily at Nantasket in 1625, and perhaps earlier; at Mount Wollaston the same year, and at Thompson’s Island in 1626. The solitary William Blaxton, clerk, is traced to Shawmut, (Boston) in 1625 or 1626, and the equally solitary Samuel Maverick, at Noddles’ Island, about the same time; while Walford, the blacksmith, is found at Charlestown in 1629. The last three named are reasonably conjectured to have formed part of Robert Gorges’ company at Weymouth, in 1623/24.

The Dorchester Fishing Company, in England, of which the Rev. John White, a zealous Puritan minister of that town, was a member, resolved to make the experiment of planting a small colony somewhere upon the coast, so that the fishing vessels might leave behind in the country all the spare men not required to navigate their vessels home, who might in the mean time employ themselves in planting, building, etc., and be ready to join the ships again on their return to the coast at the next fishing season. Cape Ann was selected as the site of this experiment, and in the autumn of 1623 fourteen men were left there to pass the winter. In the latter part of the year 1625 Roger Conant, who had been living at Plymouth and at Nantasket, was invited to join this community as its superintendent, and he remained there one year. The scheme proving a financial failure, the settlement broke up in the autumn of 1626, most of the men returning home; but Conant and a few others removed to Naumkeag (Salem), where they were found by Endicott, who, under the authority of the Massachusetts patentees, arrived there Sept. 6, 1628. These old settlers joined the new community.

Endicott was sent out as agent or superintendent of a large land company, of which he was one of the proprietors, colonization being, of course, a prominent feature in their plans. In the following year, March 4, 1628-29, the patentees and their associates received a charter of incorporation, with powers of government, and with authority to establish a subordinate government on the soil, and appoint officers of the same. This local government, entitled “London’s Plantation in Massachusetts Bay in New England,” was accordingly established, and Endicott was appointed the first resident governor. The charter evidently contemplated that the government of the Company should be administered in England. In a few months, however, the Company resolved to transfer the charter and government from London to Massachusetts Bay; and Matthew Cradock, who had been the first charter governor, resigned his place, and John Winthrop, who had resolved to emigrate to the colony, was chosen governor of the Company in his stead. On the transfer of the Company to Massachusetts by the arrival of Winthrop, the subordinate government, of which Endicott was the head, was silently abolished, and its duties were assumed by its principal, the corporation itself, which took immediate direction of affairs. As the successor of Cradock, Winthrop was the second governor of the Massachusetts Company, yet he was the first who exercised his functions in New England.

The Massachusetts charter was not adapted for the constitution of a commonwealth; therefore, as the colony grew in numbers it became necessary for it to assume powers not granted in that instrument. Between the years 1630 and 1640 about twenty thousand persons arrived in the colony, after which, for many years, it is supposed that more went back to England than came thence hither. Previous to the year last named the colony had furnished emigrants to settle the colonies of Connecticut, New Haven, and Rhode Island.

The charter gave power to the freemen to elect annually a governor, deputy-governor, and eighteen assistants, who should make laws for their own benefit and for the government of the colony; and provision was made for general courts and courts of assistants, which exercised judicial as well as legislative powers. But at the first meeting of the general court in Boston, in October, 1630, it was ordered that the governor and deputy-governor should be chosen by the assistants out of their own number. This rule was of short duration, as in May, 1632, the freemen resumed the right of election, and the basis of a second house of legislature was laid.

The colonists, though Puritans, were Church of England men, and were fearful of rigid separation; but Winthrop and his party,—among whom was John Wilson, a graduate of King’s College, Cambridge, and destined to become their first minister,—found on their arrival a church already established at Salem on the basis of separation. Thenceforward, following that example, the Massachusetts colony became a colony of congregational churches. It has been a favorite saying with eulogists of Massachusetts, that the pious founders of the colony came over to this wilderness to establish here the principle of civil and religious liberty, and to transmit the same inviolate to their remotest posterity. Probably nothing was further from their purpose, which was simply to find a place where they themselves, and all who agreed with them, could enjoy such liberty. This was a desirable object to attain, and they made many sacrifices for it, and felt that they had a right to enjoy it.

The banishment of Roger Williams, and of Mrs. Hutchinson and her sympathizers, was no doubt largely due to the feeling that the peace of the community was endangered by their presence. In the unhappy episode of the Quakers, at a later period, the colonial authorities were wrought into a frenzy by these “persistent intruders.” It seemed to be a struggle on both sides for victory; but though four Quakers were hanged on Boston Common, the Quakers finally conquered. In the second year of the settlement, in order to keep the government in their own hands, or, in the language of the Act, “to the end the body of the commons may be preserved of honest and good men,” the Court ordered that thenceforward no one should be elected a freeman unless he was a member of one of the churches of the colony. Probably there were as good men outside the churches as there were inside, and by and by a clamor was raised by those who felt aggrieved at being denied the rights of freemen; but the rule was not modified till after the Restoration.

[This portrait of the first minister of Boston hangs in the gallery of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Its authenticity has been in turn questioned and maintained. Cf. _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._ September, 1867, and December, 1880.—ED.]]

A few unsavory persons whom Winthrop and his company found here and speedily sent away, on their arrival home failed not to make representations injurious to the Puritan settlement, and they were seconded by the influence of Sir Ferdinando Gorges and John Mason. Attempts were made in 1632 to vacate the colony’s charter; but these attempts proved unsuccessful. A more serious effort was made a few years later, when the Council for New England resigned its franchises into the hands of the King; but owing to the trouble which environed the government in England, and to other causes not fully explained, the colony then escaped, as it also escaped at the same time the impending infliction of a general governor for New England.

In 1640 some of the colony’s friends in England wrote to the authorities here advising them to send some one to England to solicit favors of the Parliament. “But, consulting about it,” says Winthrop, “we declined the motion, for this consideration,—that if we should put ourselves under the protection of Parliament, we must then be subject to all such laws as they should make, or at least such as they might impose upon us; in which course, though they should intend our good, yet it might prove very prejudicial to us.” From 1640 to 1660 the colony was substantially an independent commonwealth, and during this period they completed a system of laws and government which, taken as a whole, was well adapted to their wants. Their “Body of Liberties” was established in 1641, and three editions of Laws were published by authority, and put in print in 1649, in 1660, and in 1672. The first law establishing public schools was passed in October, 1647. Harvard College had already, in 1637, been established at Cambridge.

[This group gives the names of some of the victims of the judicial extremities practised in Boston. See Bowden’s _Friends in America_, and the _Memorial History of Boston_. Cf. the note on the treatment of the early Quakers in New England, in chapter xii.—ED.]]

The ecclesiastical polity of the churches, embodied in the “Cambridge Platform,” was drawn up in 1648, and printed in the following year, and was finally approved by the General Court in 1651.

The community was obliged to feel its way, and adapt its legislation rather to its exigencies than to its charter. The aristocratical element in the society early cropped out in the institution of a Council for life, which may have had its origin in suggestions from England; but it met with little favor.

The confederation of the United Colonies, first proposed by Connecticut, was an act of great wisdom, foreshadowing the more celebrated political unions of the English race on this continent, for they all have recognized the common maxim, that “Union is strength.” The colonists were surrounded by “people of several nations and strange language,” and the existence of the Indian tribes within the boundaries of the New England settlements was the source of ceaseless anxiety and alarm. The Pequot War had but recently ended, and it had left its warning. It would have been an act of grace to admit the Maine and Narragansett settlements to this union, but it was probably impracticable.