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VIII.

Indies, added to the increased crop of Virginia and Mary- CHAPTER land, had reduced the price of this staple to threepence, about six cents, per pound. Alarmed at this reduction, 1639. the Virginia Assembly made fresh efforts, by diminishing the quantity, to raise the value. In order to bring down the total produce for the year to a million and a half of pounds. half the crop was ordered to be burned, and the crops of the two succeeding years were to be kept still smaller. But tobacco was the currency as well as the staple of the colony, and to obviate the difficulty in paying debts likely to arise from this diminished production, all creditors were required to take forty pounds for the hundred, and to be content, "during the stint," with receiving two thirds even of that reduced amount. Such was the first American stop law. The tobacco made the next year was not to be sold for less than a shilling a pound, nor that of the succeeding crop for less than two shillings, under pain of forfeiture. How this scheme succeeded we are not informed.

CHAPTER

CHAPTER IX.

PROGRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS. CONNECTICUT. PROVI-
DENCE. RHODE ISLAND. NEW HAVEN. NEW SOMERSET.
MAINE.

IMMEDIATELY after the election in Massachusetts, IX. at which the freemen had reclaimed their rights of legis1634. lation, three deputies from each of the eight principal May. plantations took their seats with the magistrates, and this

first representative court proceeded to the enactment of some important laws. The session was held in the Boston meeting-house, and lasted three days. It was ordered that jurors be selected in each town, and that all cases involving life or banishment be tried by jury or by the General Court. Rejecting that system of poll taxation which prevailed in Virginia, all rates and public charges were to be levied "according to every man's estate, and with consideration of all other his abilities, and not according to the number of his persons." A sea-fort was ordered to be built, to command the entrance into Boston harbor. The regulations respecting trespassing swine the immediate cause of the late political changewere repealed, and this matter was left to the several towns. It proved, however, an embarrassing subject, and was often afterward before the court. The next year the practice of impounding stray animals was introduced, much the same as exists at present. The year after, a special officer, called a "hog-reave," was ordered to be elected in each town, to look after those animals; but frequent changes afterward in the law upon this subject showed how difficult it was to reconcile the conflicting

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interests of the corn-growers and the pig-owners. A CHAPTER small matter, this, for history, but why smaller than other like conflicts of interest, of which so much of our politics 1634. consists ?

While the court was still sitting, six "great ships" arrived, "with store of passengers and cattle," followed within a month by fifteen more. John Humphrey, one of the original patentees of the colony, but who had hitherto remained at home, came out in one of these ships, with his wife, the Lady Susan, bringing with him a quantity of ordnance, muskets, and powder, a present from "godly people in England," who began now "to apprehend a special hand of God in raising this plantation." He brought, also, "propositions from some persons of great quality and estate, and of special note for piety," evincing an intention, if certain points were conceded, of joining the Massachusetts colonists.

To all friends, indeed, of civil and religious freedom, the state of things in England was exceedingly discouraging. Laud and the perfidious Wentworth, fit instruments of despotism, carried every thing their own way; and the king's proclaimed resolution to call no more Parliaments seemed to leave but little hope of redress. The Lords Say and Brooke, already mentioned, with Hampden, Pym, and others, who acted, a few years later, so conspicuous a part in English affairs, had obtained from the Earl of Warwick a conveyance of all that tract 1631. of New England, extending westward from Narraganset River a hundred and twenty miles along the coast, and thence to the Pacific. By what right Warwick made this conveyance does not distinctly appear. It was subsequently alleged by the people of Connecticut that he had a grant from the Council for New England, and a charter from the king; but no such documents are now

Mar. 17.

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CHAPTER in existence, and probably never were; at least, no such charter. Whatever the title of these lords and gentle1634. men might be, they entertained the project of removing to America, and of uniting themselves with the Massachusetts colony. But their ideas of government, as we shall presently see, did not correspond with those prevalent in Massachusetts.

At the same time came other less agreeable news. Notwithstanding a detailed answer by the magistrates to the complaints of Morton and others, and exculpatory certificates from the old planters, sent home the year before, a new petition to the Privy Council, on the part of Morton and his associates, had led to very alarming proceedings. The Council for New England, summoned to answer to this petition, as being in some sort responsible for the general oversight of all the territories within their patent, not only disclaimed having any hand in the matters complained of, but added new and serious charges of their own. They accused the Massachusetts Company of having "surreptitiously obtained a grant of lands previously conveyed to others," whose tenants and representatives they had "thrust out;" for which lands, without the privity of the Council for New England, they had obtained a royal charter, "whereby they wholly excluded themselves from the public government of the council authorized for those affairs, and made themselves a free people, and so framed unto themselves both new laws and new conceits of matters of religion, and forms of ecclesiastical and temporal orders and government; punishing diverse that would not approve thereof, some by whipping, and others by burning their houses over their heads, and some by banishing, and all this partly under other pretenses, though, indeed, for no other cause save only to make themselves absolute masters of the

IX.

country, and unconscionable in their new laws." The CHAPTER Council for New England represented themselves as wholly unable to redress these grievances, and they 1634. humbly referred the whole matter to their lordships of the Privy Council, to take such steps "as might best sort with their wisdoms;" upon which reference their lordships saw "a necessity for his majesty to take the whole business into his own hands."

A Commission, with Laud at its head, had been also appointed, to which was given full power over the American plantations to revise the laws, to regulate the Church, and to revoke charters. The members of the Massachusetts Company resident in England had been called upon by this commission to deliver up their patent, and Cradock had written to have it sent over. It had even been proposed to stop the ships bound for Massachusetts a measure only prevented by the urgency of the merchants who owned them. A letter from Morton to one of the old planters was communicated to the magistrates, in which he alleged that a governor general for New England was already commissioned.

This news produced the greatest alarm. The magistrates, with divers of the elders, met forthwith at Castle July. Island, at the entrance of the inner harbor of Boston, and agreed upon the erection of a fortification there, and to advance the means themselves until the meeting of the General Court. Dudley and Winthrop wrote private letters of intercession to England, while the governor and assistants, in a public letter to Cradock, excused themselves for not sending over the patent, as no steps could be taken in a matter so important before the meeting of the General Court.

When that body came together, it took active meas- Sept. 4. ures for defense. Money was voted for the fort in Bos

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