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Cleves and those claiming authority under Gorges, to re- CHAPTER fer the matter to the Court of Assistants at Boston, and the case was regularly tried there before a jury. Rig- 1646. by's agent could only show a purchase by his principal of the rights of two out of six or eight patentees of Ligonia. On the other hand, the deputy of Gorges could not produce the original patent of Maine, but only a copy, "which was not pleadable in law." The jury could not agree on a verdict, but the magistrates persuaded the litigants to live in peace till the matter could be referred to England. Rigby easily obtained there, from the Parliamentary Commissioners for Plantations, a confirmation of his claim; and the coast from the Kennebec to the Saco was erected into the province of Ligonia, Maine being restricted to the tract from the Saco to the Piscataqua.

About this time Gorges died, and his son and heir 1647. having been repeatedly written to without answer, the inhabitants of the diminished province of Maine combined for the purpose of self-government, and chose Edmund Godfrey as their chief magistrate. It was against this province that the annexation projects of Massachusetts were first directed. Godfrey made a strenuous opposition, and got up a petition to the English Council of 1651. State; but Massachusetts meanwhile sent four commissioners to take possession. Kittery and Georgiana first submitted, an example presently followed by Wells, 1652. Cape Porpoise, and Saco. The newly-acquired towns were erected into a county called Yorkshire; the name of Georgiana was changed to York; and the municipal government exercised for ten years under the city charter now came to an end. To the inhabitants of this new county were granted the same privileges possessed by those of Norfolk, formed out of the New Hamp

CHAPTER shire towns. Church membership was not required XII. either as a qualification for voting or for representing 1652. the towns in the General Court-a politic concession, which served to reconcile the inhabitants to the new gov ernment.

The adjoining province of Ligonia was also in a state of confusion. Cleves, the deputy governor, having quarreled with his council, had gone to England with complaints. Rigby was dead; his heir sent a letter to the council forbidding them to act in his name, but he does not appear to have appointed any substitutes. This territory, too, was claimed as within the limits of the Massachusetts patent. The Episcopalian settlers made some opposition, but the above-mentioned concessions helped to disarm them. Black Point and Casco presently submitted, and in the course of five or six years the authority of Massachusetts was acknowledged as far as the Kennebec.

A few settlers were established at the mouth of that river, on the tract belonging to Plymouth colony, for 1654. whom an Assembly, presently held there under a commission from Plymouth, enacted a concise body of laws. The Indian trade, which grew gradually less and less, 1660. was farmed out to a company, to which, some years after, was sold also the patent for the lands.

East of the Kennebec, the little colony of Pemaquid, the oldest settlement on all that coast, still retained its separate existence. All east of Pemaquid was claimed by D'Aulney for the Company of New France, his trading house nearest the English being that on the east shore of the Penobscot, at or near the present site of Castine.

In consequence of D'Aulney's jealous exclusion of the 1648. English colonists from the French territories, a message

had been sent to the governor of Quebec, proposing free CHAPTER trade the first communication on record between New

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England and Canada. After a long delay, an answer 1651. was returned by two Canadian priests, whose principal object, however, was to obtain assistance in a bloody and disastrous war with the Five Nations in which Canada was then involved. This assistance was sought either by direct alliance, leave to enlist volunteers, or at least permission for war parties of the converted French Indians on the Penobscot to pass through the territories of the United Colonies on their way against the Five Nations. The French envoys described in moving terms the distress of their converts and the danger of their missions. They appealed to their neighbors by the endearing name of fellow-Christians; but what sympathy could there be between papists and Puritans? The application had no result; the commissioners for the United Colonies, calling to mind the recent case of D'Aulney and La Tour, declined to interfere, and the French messengers were dismissed with a civil refusal.

While extending her dominion toward the north by the annexation of Maine and Ligonia, Massachusetts was still eager for the dismemberment and partition of Williams's Narraganset Commonwealth. This scheme was favored by the conduct of Coddington, who had obtained from the English Council of State a commission for the separate government of Aquiday, by which he was constituted governor for life-a proceeding, however, not satisfactory to a part of the inhabitants.

Massachusetts still claimed the territory of Warwick by virtue of the, submission of the two sachems to whom it had originally belonged, backed by an alleged grant from Plymouth of any claim she might have under her patent. But the Plymouth commissioners, disgusted at

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CHAPTER the late overbearing conduct of Massachusetts in the matter of the impost levied at Saybrook fort, denied 1651. both the fact and the legality of any such alleged cession. At the same time they declined the invitation of their Massachusetts colleagues to claim jurisdiction on their own account. The people of Warwick complained that their Indian neighbors, dependents on Massachusetts, were guilty of constant annoyances and depredations, in which it was more than insinuated that Massachusetts encouraged them-conduct which might seem to give some color to part, at least, of an heretical opinion formerly charged against Easton, now governor of Rhode Island, "that the elect had the Holy Ghost and also the devil indwelling." Alleging the commands of the Parliamentary Commission for Plantations, the governor and assistants of Rhode Island applied to the Commissioners for the United Colonies, demanding protection and redress. But this application was very coolly received. There had lately been two executions for witchcraft, one at Hartford and another at Charlestown, against which, according to William Arnold, who acted as a sort of spy for Massachusetts, the people at Warwick loudly cried out, expressing their belief that there were no other witches upon the earth, nor devils, but the ministers of New England and such as they"-a new heresy which could not much recommend them to the good will of their neighbors.

As the Commissioners for the United Colonies would do nothing to protect them, and apprehending even danger to their independence, the people of Providence, Warwick, and Newport resolved on an appeal to England for the confirmation of their charter, protection against the depredations of the Indian vassals of Massachusetts, and the recall of Coddington's commission. A contribu

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tion was accordingly raised to send out agents, and Rog- CHAPTER er Williams and John Clarke were deputed for that purpose.

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Massachusetts meanwhile sought to procure from the Commissioners for the United Colonies aid, or, at least, sanction for subduing Warwick by force. The Com- Sept. missioners for Connecticut and New Haven admitted that the former proceedings against Gorton had been by their consent; but the Plymouth commissioners disclaimed any responsibility for those proceedings; and they specially protested against the Massachusetts claim of jurisdiction over Warwick by virtue of any cession from them. To such a pitch, indeed, did these differences rise, that a meeting of the commissioners, held at Plymouth the next year, was abruptly broken up on some 1652. alleged informalities, without proceeding to business. Sept. High words must have passed, perhaps something more, since the General Court of Massachusetts ordered a letter to be written to the Governor of Plymouth, demanding satisfaction for an alleged affront to one of their commissioners.

July.

Before embarking for England, Clarke, with two 1651. other delegates from the Baptist Church at Newport, paid a visit to a Baptist brother at Lynn, "who, by reason of his advanced age, could not undertake so great. a journey as to visit the church." They even ventured, on a Sunday morning, to give a public exhortation at his house; for which they were arrested in the act, and carried by force, in the afternoon, to hear the regular preacher, one Thomas Cobbett, author of "a large, nervous, and golden discourse" against the Baptists. The next day they were sent to Boston, where Clarke was sentenced to pay £20, $96, or be whipped. His neglect to take off his hat when forced into the

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