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CHAPTER
VI.

CHAPTER VI.

NEW ENGLAND. COLONY OF NEW PLYMOUTH. LACONIA.

THE first charter of Virginia, it will be recollected,

contemplated the plantation of two colonies.

The per1606. sons mentioned in it, as members of the Company for planting the second, or northern colony, were Thomas Hanham, Raleigh Gilbert, younger son of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, William Parker, and George Popham. Sir John Gilbert, elder brother of Raleigh Gilbert, Sir John Popham, brother of George Popham, and lord chief justice of England, and Sir Ferdinando Gorges, governor of Plymouth, though not mentioned in the charter, were active and zealous members of the company.

1607.

But

A small vessel, with two captive Indians on board as guides and pilots, sent to explore the coasts of North Virginia, was unfortunately driven by a storm to the West Indies, where she was seized by the Spaniards. another ship, fitted out at the sole expense of Sir John Popham, and under command of Martin Pring, whom we have seen already a successful navigator on those coasts, brought back such favorable reports that it was resolved at once to commence a settlement.

Two ships were got ready, with forty-five colonists, accompanied by two of the Indians whom Weymouth had carried to England. With George Popham as president of the council, and Raleigh Gilbert as admiral, these colAugust. onists established themselves on a small island at the mouth of the Sagadahoc, or Kennebec, where they built

VI.

a fort called St. George. The winter proved unexpect- CHAPTER edly long and severe, and, in the depth of it, their storehouse was unfortunately burned. The president died; 1607. and a ship, which arrived in the spring with supplies, brought news of the death of Sir John Popham and Sir John Gilbert, the two chief patrons of the enterprise. It was necessary for Raleigh Gilbert to go home to look after the inheritance which his brother had left him. The discouraged colonists embarked also, and all returned to England.

No better success attended a company of adventurers 1610. for Newfoundland, got up by John Guy, a Bristol merchant, in which the celebrated Lord Bacon, and other persons of consequence, were interested as partners. A patent was obtained, and a colony was sent to Conception Bay; but the enterprise was soon abandoned.

Nothing further was attempted for several years, except a few fishing voyages to the coast of North Virginia, undertaken, it would seem, by the private enterprise of individual members of the company, among whom Sir Ferdinando Gorges was most zealous. Monhiggon, a small island some distance off the coast, between the Penobscot and the Kennebec, became the chief rendezvous of the fishermen.

Captain Smith, so conspicuous during the first years 1614. of the colony at Jamestown, not finding his services appreciated by the London Company, embarked on one of these voyages. While the ships lay at Monhiggon, employed in fishing, in a boat with eight men he explored the coast from Penobscot Bay to the extremity of Cape Cod. He gave to this coast the name of NEW ENGLAND, a name confirmed by the Prince of Wales, afterward Charles I., to whom Smith presented a map he had drawn, soon afterward published, with a description of

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CHAPTER the country. Hunt, master of one of these ships, kidnapped twenty-seven of the natives from the coast of 1614. Cape Cod, and carried them to Malaga with his cargo of fish, where he attempted to sell them as slaves; but some benevolent friars, learning the facts, took from him such as were left, to be instructed as missionaries. This exploration by Smith was cotemporaneous with that of the five Dutch vessels under Corstiaensen, Block, and Mey; the names New England and New Netherland both date from the same year.

1616. In the employ of several members of the Plymouth Company, Smith made an unsuccessful attempt at planting a little colony in New England. He was once driven back by a storm, and afterward left by his crew in the hands of pirates, from whom he escaped in an open boat. Not discouraged by these mishaps, he spent sev1618. eral months in visiting the gentry and merchants of the west of England, to stir them to new enterprises.

The Virginia Company, by their second charter, had already obtained a distinct and separate grant of territory, and the Plymouth Company now applied for a similar grant. They were warmly opposed by the Virginia Company and the private traders, who maintained the policy of leaving the New England fishery free; but, after a two years' solicitation, they succeeded in obtain1620. ing a charter from the king, known among New England historians as the "Great Patent." By this charter, the whole of North America, from the fortieth to the forty-eighth degree of north latitude, excepting, however, all places "actually possessed by any other Christian prince or people," was granted in full property, with exclusive rights of jurisdiction, settlement, and traffic, to forty noble, wealthy, and influential persons, incorporated as "The Council established at Plymouth, in the County

Nov. 3.

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of Devon, for the Planting, Ruling, Ordering, and Gov- CHAPTER erning of New England, in America." The whole of North America, as claimed by the English, was thus di- 1620. vided into the two provinces of New England and Virginia, by a line of demarkation very nearly coincident with that which still separates the slave-holding from the non-slave-holding states. Not, however, by the wealthy and powerful Council for New England, but by a feeble band of obscure religionists was the first permanent settlement made within the limits of this new province.

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At the dictation of Henry VIII., who took that way 1534. of vindicating his divorce from Queen Catharine and his marriage with Anne Boleyn, the English clergy had thrown off the supremacy of the pope. By degrees, so far as their tyrant allowed, they embraced the leading doctrines of the Reformation-doctrines which made a still greater progress among the more intelligent portion of the people. But the English, beyond any other Protestant Church, retained an hierarchical constitution, a multitude of Romish ceremonies, and a profound respect for ecclesiastical tradition. When the Liturgy and Church ceremonies were settled, in the reign of Edward 1549. VI., several bishops and others protested against them as altogether too popish. Among those who fled abroad during the persecution of Mary, a controversy broke out on the subject of ceremonials, which the returning exiles brought back with them to England.

As the other traditions of the Church fell more and 1558. more into contempt, the entire reverence of the people was concentrated upon the Bible, recently made accessible in an English version, and read with eagerness, not as a mere form of words, to be solemnly and ceremoniously gone through with, but as an inspired revelation, an indisputable authority in science, politics, morals,

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CHAPTER life. It began, indeed, to be judged necessary, by the more ardent and sincere, that all existing institutions in 1558. church and state, all social relations, and the habits of every-day life, should be reconstructed, and made to conform to this divine model. Those who entertained these sentiments increased to a considerable party, composed chiefly, indeed, of the humbler classes, yeomen, traders, and mechanics, but including, also, clergymen, merchants, landed proprietors, and even some of the nobility. They were derided by those not inclined to go with them as Puritans; but the austerity of their lives and doctrines, and their confident claim to internal assurance of a second birth and special election as the children of God, made a powerful impression on the multitude, while the high schemes they entertained for the reconstruction of society brought them into sympathy with all that was great and heroic in the nation.

The Puritans denounced the Church ceremonies, and presently the hierarchy; but they long entertained profound reverence for the Church itself, and a superstitious terror of schism. Some of the bolder and more ardent, whose obscurity gave them courage, took at length the 1582. decisive step of renouncing the English communion, and setting up a church of their own, upon what they conceived to be the Bible model. That, however, was going further than the great body of the Puritans wished or dared to follow, and these separatists remained for many years obscure and inconsiderable. They were known as Brownists, from one of their leaders, who presently, by renouncing his opinions and rejoining the English Church, forfeited, however, the canonization he might otherwise have obtained.

The setting up of a separate church was, indeed, in those days, a serious matter. The system of enforcing

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