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CHAPTER Surrender of Acadie he had twice sent to La Tour to

XII. demand payment of his old debt, now swelled by inter1654. est and charges to more than £4000, but it does not Sept. appear that he met with any success.

At the next annual meeting of the Commissioners for the United Colonies, Bellingham having been this year chosen governor in Endicott's place, and the New Netherland question being now out of the way, Massachusetts yielded the disputed point of interpretation, and war was declared against Ninigret. Two hundred and seventy men were voted for an expedition against him, the choice of commander being left to Massachusetts, which was to furnish the greater part of the troops. Major Willard, appointed upon this service, marched with orders to compel Ninigret to give up those Pequod subjects of his for whom the tribute was in arrear; to give satisfaction for his past misconduct; to leave the Long Islanders in peace; and to pay the expenses of the present expedition. But Ninigret "swamped himself," and the troops presently returned, upon the strength of an illusive stipulation on his part to give up the Pequods. This bootless result gave great dissatisfaction in the other colonies, where it was even alleged that Massachusetts, by the choice of an incapable commander, if not, indeed, by secret instructions, had purposely defeated the object of the expedition.

The Lord Protector Cromwell had no sooner made peace with the Dutch than he declared war against Spain, and dispatched a fleet and army under Penn and Venables to attack the Spanish West Indies. Winslow, who had hitherto remained in England as agent for Massachusetts, in which office he was presently succeeded by Leverett, went in this fleet as one of Cromwell's commissioners to superintend the conquered countries. By volunteers from Barbadoes and the Leeward Islands, the

XII.

Oct.

army was raised to ten thousand men, the first of those CHAPTER great armaments, so many of which were subsequently sent from Europe to perish in the West Indies from the 1654. effects of the climate. St. Domingo was the object aimed at; but from that island the expedition was repulsed with disgrace. The fleet then proceeded to Jamaica, of which possession was taken. At the date of its conquest that island contained but a few thousand inhabitants, partly enervated descendants of the old Spanish colonists, partly negro slaves, who took that opportunity to escape into the interior, and to establish there an independent community, conspicuous afterward in the history of the island. Sedgwick, appointed by Cromwell to succeed Winslow, who had died shortly after the repulse from St. Domingo, found things, on his arrival at Jamaica, "in a sad, deplorable, and distracted condition;" the soldiers, a large part of them from the English West India settlements, "so lazy and idle as it can not enter into the heart of any Englishman that such blood should run in the veinst of any born in England." As the other commissioners were dead, in conjunction with the principal military officers, Sedgwick framed an instrument of government, constituting a Supreme Executive Council, with himself at the head. Cromwell was very anxious to people the island, possession of which he was determined to retain. A thousand girls and young men were ordered to be listed in Ireland and sent over. The administrators of the Scottish government were directed to apprehend all "known idle, masterless robbers and vagabonds, male and female," for transportation thither; and that there might be a due admixture of religion and energy, agents were dispatched to New England for emigrants. The people of New Haven, disappointed and unsuccessful in their mercantile undertakings, were impoverished, uneasy, and

CHAPTER disposed to remove.

They had entertained thoughts of

XII. transferring themselves to Ireland, where Cromwell had

1654. made extensive confiscations. The Protector was anxious they should remove to Jamaica; and, with his usual art, employed for that purpose arguments addressed to their peculiar religious ideas. But the magistrates opposed this migration, and very few went. Sedgwick was raised by Cromwell to the rank of major general, with the supreme command of the island, but died shortly after receiving the appointment. Vassall presently migrated thither, and established several valuable plantations.

1655. As the incursions of the Niantics into Long Island Sept. still continued, a vessel was fitted out by the Commissioners for the United Colonies to cruise in the Sound, to intercept their canoes. Uncas, presuming on the protection of his white allies, grew more turbulent and overbearing than ever. He soon became involved in quarrels with his neighbors, in which he strove to engage the colonists also; but this time they resolved to let the Indians fight it out. The Pequods who had been placed under Uncas's authority had repeatedly complained of his oppressions. At first these complaints had been very coldly received; but the misbehavior of Uncas became now so notorious, that the remnants of the Pequods, relieved from his yoke, were allowed to settle in two villages in what is now the southwest corner of Rhode Island, under rulers appointed for them by the magistrates of Massachusetts. Humphrey Atherton, Sedgwick's successor as major general of Massachusetts, was appointed superintendent of all the subject Indians, in which office he was presently succeeded by Daniel Gookin, whose emigration from Virginia has been formerly mentioned. The sale of horses or boats to the Indians was strictly prohibited, and the Commissioners for the

United Colonies suggested that, in case of war, "mastiff CHAPTER dogs might be of good use.",

XII.

The "great Cotton," now dead, was succeeded in the 1655. church at Boston by Norton; not, however, without loud reclamations on the part of the people of Ipswich, from whom he was thus taken away-complaints which it required the authority of the General Court and of several ecclesiastical councils to quiet. Hitherto, in Massachusetts, the settlement of ministers had been left to the zeal of the churches. But a law lately passed, though not 1654. without a good deal of opposition, required every town to support a minister, the burden to be laid upon the whole society jointly, whether in church order or not." This enactment would have troubled Cotton, who esteemed it an evident sign of a declining state of religion when law had to be resorted to for upholding the religious establishment.

It was also enacted that none should be allowed to sit as deputies in the General Court who did not hold to the orthodox creed. The laws against the Baptists were rigidly enforced. Dunster, the learned president of Harvard College, indicted, tried, and fined for the expression of Anabaptist opinions, was obliged to resign his office. Chauncey, his no less learned successor, was somewhat infected with the same errors; for, though he admitted infant baptism, he held to the practice of immersion. But he promised to keep his opinions to himself.

Massachusetts even undertook a supervision of her neighbors of Plymouth, whom she represented to the 1656. Commissioners for the United Colonies" as wanting to Sept. themselves in a due acknowledgment of, and encouragement to, ministers of the Gospel." Nor was this complaint without effect. The General Court of Plymouth passed a law the next year requiring the towns to tax 1657.

CHAPTER themselves for the support of ministers and grammar XII. schools-a policy warmly favored by Thomas Prince, 1657. successor to Bradford in the office of governor, which station Bradford had held ever since the foundation of the colony, five years excepted, in which "by importunity he got off, and Winslow and Prince supplied his place." Prince, like Bradford, was one of the original Plymouth Pilgrims, but more inclined than his predecessor to go the full length of the Massachusetts policy. He was annually re-elected for the next sixteen years.

Connecticut had lost the services of Haynes and Hopkins, so long alternate governors. Haynes was dead; Hopkins had gone to England, where he received high promotion from Cromwell. Thomas Wells was governor in 1655 and 1658; John Webster in 1656, and John Winthrop the younger in 1657, 1659, and the five following years, notwithstanding the law to the contrary.

After publishing in England a rejoinder to Cotton, "The Bloody Tenet yet more Bloody by Mr. Cotton's Attempt to wash it White," also a tract entitled "The Hireling Ministry none of Christ's," and leaving Clarke to guard the interests of Rhode Island at the court of the 1654. Protector, Roger Williams had returned to New England June. in Leverett's fleet, with a letter of safe-conduct from Cromwell's council, securing to him free passage at all times through all parts of the United Colonies.

The Narraganset plantations, meanwhile, had fallen into no little confusion. William Dyer, former secretary, had arrived about a year previously, with the order of the Supreme Council of State vacating Coddington's commission, and continuing the Providence charter in force till fur1653. ther order. Dyer took upon himself to call a convention Feb. 18. at Portsmouth to consider these letters. But some misun

derstanding arose as to whether the legislative and judi

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