VI. This patent gave a title to the soil; but prerogatives CHAPTER of government, according to the ideas of the English lawyers, could only be exercised under a charter from 1630. the crown. A considerable sum was spent in the endeavor to obtain such a charter, but without success. Relying, however, upon their original compact, the colonists gradually assumed all the prerogatives of government; even the power, after some hesitation, of capital punishment. No less than eight capital offenses are enumerated in the first Plymouth code, including trea- 1636. son or rebellion against the colony, and "solemn compaction or conversing with the devil." Trial by jury was early introduced, but the punishments to be inflicted on minor offenses remained for the most part discretionary. For eighteen years all laws were enacted in a general assembly of all the colonists. The governor, chosen annually, was but president of a council, in which he had a double vote. It consisted first of one, then of five, and finally of seven counselors, called assistants. So little were political honors coveted at New Plymouth, that it became necessary to inflict a fine upon such as, being chosen, declined to serve as governor or assistant. None, however, were to be obliged to serve for two years in succession. The constitution of the Church was equally democratic. For the first eight years there was no pastor, unless Robinson, still in Holland, might be considered in that light. Lyford, sent out by the London partners, was refused and expelled. Brewster, the ruling elder, and such private members as had the gift of prophecy, officiated as exhorters. On Sunday afternoons a question was propounded, to which all spoke who had any thing to say. Even after they adopted the plan of a pastor, no minister, it was observed, stayed long at New Plymouth. CHAPTER VII. CHAPTER VII. COLONY OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. NEW HAMPSHIRE. BESIDES the settlements mentioned in the previous White, a clergyman of Dorchester, in the west of England, a Puritan, though not a separatist, had per1624. suaded several merchants of that city to attempt a settlement in New England in conjunction with the fishing business. The rocky promontory of Cape Anne, which forms the north shore of Massachusetts Bay, was fixed upon for this purpose; and Lyford and Conant, the same who had been expelled from New Plymouth by the zeal of the stricter separatists of that colony, were taken into employ, the first as preacher or chaplain, the other as general manager. This undertaking, like other similar enterprises, proved more expensive and less profitable than had been expected. It was presently 1626. abandoned; Lyford removed to Virginia; but Conant, relying upon the further co-operation of White, betook himself, with three companions, and a flock of cattle sent out by his employers, to Naumkeag, a fitter place, in his judgment, for a settlement. White exerted himself to find new adventurers, and not without success. The English Puritans, for years past, had been growing more and more uneasy. Many VII. clergymen of that cast had been silenced or deprived of CHAPTER their cures for nonconformity, and the present fashion. of colonization in America, as well as the example of 1628. the Plymouth colony, had suggested the idea of a Puritan refuge across the Atlantic. With this view, John Humphrey, a brother-in-law of the Earl of Lincoln, John Endicott, and four others, gentlemen of Dorchester, obtained, at White's instigation, from the Council for New England, a grant of the coast between Laconia on the March 19. one side, and the Plymouth patent on the other, including the whole of Massachusetts Bay. This grant extended westward to the Pacific, coterminate in that direction with the New England patent itself; north and south it was bounded by two parallel lines, the one three miles north of "any and every part" of the Merrimac, the other three miles south of "any and every part" of Charles River, one of the streams flowing into the head of Massachusetts Bay, and so named on Smith's map of New England. Part of this tract on the seacoast had been conveyed some years before to Mason, under the name of Mariana, as already mentioned, and another smaller portion to Robert Gorges, the late lieutenant general. He was dead; but his brother and heir had conveyed a part of this tract to Oldham, the exile from Plymouth, who had established himself as an Indian trader at Nantasket. The rest had been transferred to Sir William Brereton, who about this time sent over indented servants, and began a settlement, probably at Winnissimet, now Chelsea. The Earl of Warwick appears also to have had a claim to this ter ritory, or a part of it-perhaps under the incomplete partition mentioned in the previous chapter; but, whatever it was, he presently relinquished it to the Massachusetts patentees. Those patentees, indeed, for some CHAPTER reason not very apparent, seem to have regarded all the VII. previous grants as void against them. 1628. New partners were soon found. John Winthrop, of Groton, in Suffolk, educated a lawyer, a gentleman of handsome landed property, Sir Richard Saltonstall, and other wealthy Puritans in London and the vicinity, became interested in the enterprise; and, to prepare the way for a larger migration, John Endicott, "a fit instrument to begin this wilderness work," indefatigable, undaunted, austere, yet of a " sociable and cheerful spirit," was dispatched at once, with sixty or seventy people, to make the commencement of a settlement. Welcomed Sept. 14. at Naumkeag by Conant, in conformity with his instructions, he soon dispatched a small party by land, to explore the head of Massachusetts Bay, where it had been resolved to plant the principal colony.. The peninsula between Charles and Mystic Rivers, called on Smith's map Charleton or Charlestown, was found in possession of one Walford, a smith. The opposite peninsula of Shawmut was occupied by another lonely settler, one Blackstone, an eccentric non-conforming clergyman. The island, now East Boston, was inhabited by Samuel Maverick, an Indian trader, who had a little fort there, with two small cannon. On Thompson's Island, more to the south, dwelt David Thompson, already mentioned as one of the original settlers on the Piscataqua. Oldham still had an establishment at Nantasket, though at this moment he was in England, negotiating with the Massachusetts Company. There were a few settlers, it is probable, at Winnissimet, servants of Brereton; some, also, at Wissagusset, and a few more at Mount Wollaston. Endicott sent home loud complaints of these "old planters," especially in relation to the Indian trade, which formed their chief business. They came, in fact, CHAPTER VIL in direct conflict with the new patentees, who claimed an exclusive right of Indian traffic within the limits of their 1628. patent. The importance of this trade was very much exaggerated. There dwelt on the shores of Massachusetts Bay only four or five petty sachems, each with some thirty or forty warriors, of whom Cutshamiquin, sagamore of Massachusetts, seems to have been the chief. Only to these tribes, with the Pawtuckets at the falls of the Merrimac, and the Nipmucks, some forty miles in the interior, would the Massachusetts monopoly extend. The chief tribes of the New England coast dwelt either north or south of the Massachusetts limits. Yet, at Endicott's suggestion, the company obtained a renewal of the royal proclamation of 1622 against irregular trading with the Indians. New associates, meanwhile, had joined the company in England, including several from Boston and its vicinity, in Lincolnshire; among them, Isaac Johnson, another brother-in-law of the Earl of Lincoln; Thomas Dudley, the earl's steward; Simon Bradstreet, steward to the dowager Countess of Warwick, and son-in-law of Dudley; William Coddington, a wealthy merchant of Boston; and Richard Bellingham, bred a lawyer-all conspicuous in the subsequent history of Massachusetts. A very warm interest was taken in the enterprise by the Lady Lincoln, a daughter of Lord Say, a conspicuous Puritan nobleman, himself active, as we shall presently see, in American colonization. The company, thus reenforced, and sustained by money and influential friends, easily obtained a royal Charter confirming their grant, 1629. and superadding powers of government. This charter, modeled after that of the late Virginia Company, vacated by Quo Warranto five years before, March. |