Yale University Library 39002006638325 "Igi Books I far the/outUimg ef a CoKegt tn .'Vj Celoiiy'' This book was digitized by Microsoft Corporation in cooperation with Yale University Library, 2008. You may not reproduce this digitized copy ofthe book for any purpose other than for scholarship, research, educational, or, in limited quantity, personal use. You may not distribute or provide access to this digitized copy (or modified or partial versions of it) for commercial purposes. THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH. HISTORICAL REVIEW OF THE PURITAN GOVERNMENT IN MASSACHUSETTS IN ITS CIVIL AND ECCLESIASTICAL RELATIONS FROM ITS RISE TO THE ABROGATION OF THE FIRST CHARTER. TOGETHER WITH SOME GENERAL REFLECTIONS ON THE ENGLISH COLONIAL POLICY, AND ON THE CHARACTER OF PURITANISM. BY THE LATE PETER OLIVER, OF IHE SDFFOLK BAR. BOSTON: LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY. M.DCCC.LVI. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by F. E. Oliver, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. Riverside, Cambridge, Printed by H. O. Houghton fy Co. PREFACE " The following pages have been wrought, at no little expense of time and labor, out of the mate rials at the author's command. The early history of New England, the stately commonwealth that sprang up under the shadow of the Puritan Church, the extraordinary virtues that were called into life by a colonization such as the world has seldom or never before witnessed, and the moral and political results of a new experience in a new world and in a superstitious age, are subjects of great interest, and which will well repay the inquirer. " I have entered upon this study con amore, and have found fresh interest at every step. The sub ject grew formidable, at last, from its variety; but doubts had arisen whether the whole truth had ever been spoken, and I determined to satisfy myself whether they were well founded. The result is before the reader. " I am aware that I have entered upon a field only partially explored. The labor was difficult, because it was obscure ; for it has been the fashion to bury the errors of our forefathers beneath their many vir tues, and to conceal the whole truth by expressing but a part. Every writer, from the earliest times, IV PREFACE. has done something to hide from our gaze those faults which would lead us to doubt the entire vir tue of our ancestors ; and so great have been the consequent mistakes, that the ridiculous proposition has been maintained, by both judges and historians, that the Puritans were lovers of religious freedom, and that civil liberty was a principle first understood upon the shores of Massachusetts Bay. " To question such doctrines is forbidding to those who write not so much to instruct, as to win popu larity ; and perhaps a certain degree of moral cour age is necessary, to encounter public opinion on a point where it is especially sensitive. It would be egotistical in me to claim more of this virtue than belongs to persons in general ; at the same time that I do not, in this instance, shrink from the per formance of a duty." The above forms a portion of a preface but par tially completed, which was found among the man uscripts of the author. The work to which it was designed to be an introduction, and the substance of which is contained in the present publication, was originally written during the leisure hours of a commencing professional life, for the pages of a review. But the author had determined to revise the whole, and prepare it for the press in a separate form, and was engaged in this undertaking when he was interrupted by death. The fact that he was unable to carry out his design, will explain to the reader the controversial tone of the work, and an occasional warmth of expression, which may be thought better suited to the character of periodical literature than to the more sustained dignity of his torical composition. PREFACE. The work is divided into chapters, and several of the chapters are subdivided into parts. Each chapter is distinct by itself, and independent of the others. The first is taken up with the history of the charter of The Massachusetts Bay Company; its nature, the ends it was intended to subserve, and its fraudulent . transfer to Massachusetts. The subject of the second chapter is " The Pu ritan Commonwealth ; " its construction, its failure to accomplish the end of all government, in the preservation of good order and the prevention of immorality, and its aggressive spirit toward the aboriginal tribes. The third chapter discusses "The Puritan Church;" its construction, its intolerance, as shown in the per secution of the Familists, Quakers, and Baptists, and its missionary claims, as compared with those of the Church of England and the Church of Rome. The fourth chapter is political in its character, and shows the spirit of discontent and rebellion that actuated the colonists from the first. The fifth, commencing with a succinct history of the Church down to the time of the Reforma tion in England, asserts the gradual degeneracy of the Puritans, after their separation from the great Catholic body. The sixth, and last, contains reflections on the English colonial policy, and on the general charac ter and tendencies of Puritanism. It is believed that, in the treatment of his sub ject, the author has brought to light many facts which have been hitherto passed over in silence by VI PREFACE. the historian, and has presented others, more fami liar to the general reader, in a way to excite new interest and attention. At any rate, the cause of truth can never suffer from discussion and inquiry; and it is in this confidence that the editor, in exe cuting a trust which circumstances seemed to have imposed upon him, submits the following pages to the candor of an impartial and discriminating public. f. e. o. Boston, July 23, 1856. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. The Charter of the Massachusetts Bay Company and King Charles the First. Grant of James I. to the Colonial Companies of London and Plymouth 7 The Northern Company but partially successful 8 Obtains a fresh Grant 9 But again fails 10 Formation of a new Company, which likewise fails 10 Rise of a Missionary Spirit •. 11 Which leads to a new Organization 12 Endecott appointed Superintendent 12 The Company obtains a Royal Charter 13 Cradock first Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Company 13 Endecott becomes a Brownist 16 Persecutes the Brownes 17 Transfer of the Charter proposed 20 Decided upon 21 Objects of this Measure 22 True Character and Object of the Charter 23 The Puritan State charged with Disloyalty, and with violating the Rights of the King's Subjects 34 Sir Christopher Gardiner 35 Thomas Morton 37 Philip Ratcliff 39 The Council orders an Investigation 40 Further Complaints against the Puritan State 41 Cradock ordered to exhibit the Charter 41 Appointment of a Royal Commission 44 Which directs its Attention to the Transfer of the Charter 45 • Orders the Transmission, of the Charter to England 48 The Order not complied with 48 Vindication of Charles I. 49 CHAPTER II. The Puritan Commonwealth. Part I. Nature of the Corporation Government 52 The Magistrates assume to be an Oligarchy 53 Vlll CONTENTS y A The Freemen claim to be a privileged Body _ ' ' ¦> Struggle between the Aristocratic and Liberal Parties "57 The General Court becomes a Legislature The Magistrates call the Elders to their Support bI ^TThe Elders establish a Council for Life ' 3 They erect the Magistrates into a Senate °° The Judicial Authority conferred by the Charter 7° The Puritan State claims the Common Law •"78 The Assistants claim to be Judges The Freemen demand a Body of Laws ° r The Criminal Code of the Puritan State 83 The Moral Influence of the Puritan State 9° Part II. y Moral Character of the Government of the Puritan State 99 As illustrated by its Treatment of the Aborigines 100 The Pequods. 1 06 The Murder of John Oldham 108 Leads to an Invasion of the Pequod Territory no The Pequods seek Alliance with the Narragansetts 112 Who enter into a Treaty with Massachusetts 113 Total Destruction of the Pequods 1 14 Fate of the Leaders of this Expedition, an Instance of Divine Retri bution 116 The Narragansetts 118 Intrigue of the Mohegans 120 Defeat and Capture of Miantonimo 122 His Fate 124 The Narragansetts seek the Aid of Massachusetts, to avenge his Death- 126 But without Success 127 The Treatment of their Deputation 129 Desperate Condition of this Tribe 130 A new Treaty extorted from them 131 Their Lukewarmness in its Observance, a Cause of Alarm 132 Preparations forWar ,,2, Destruction of the Narragansetts !-,., Heroism of Canonchet j,. The Wampanoags r,r Treachery and Death of Sausamon „„ Which leads to War j .0 Fall of Philip ;* War with the Tarranteens r . g The Puritans seek the Alliance of the Mohawks I4g Defeat of the Allies f[ Terrible Effects of the Puritan Wars *' CHAPTER III. The Puritan Church. Part I. The Fundamental Principle of Independency CONTENTS. IX ** The Puritans avow the Doctrines of Independency, but are false to / its Principles 156 Peculiar Position of the Elders 157 Practical Inconveniences of the Contract System 159 To remedy which, the Covenant is devised 162 Want of Unity and Vitality in the Church ¦ 165 The Antinomian Heresies 169 Condemned by a Synod 178 Banishment of the Antinomian Leaders 180 Subsequent Condition of the Puritan Church 182 Divisions on- the Subject of Baptism 184 Part II. Intolerant Spirit of the Puritan Church 191 Rise of the Familists 194 Persecution of Gorton 195 The Quakers 205 The Anabaptists '. 219 Persecutions in Massachusetts, Violations of the Charter and of the Laws of England 227 Inconsistent with the avowed Claims of Puritanism 228 Part III. Mode of Conducting the Puritan Missions 234 Thomas Mayhew 235 John Eliot - 237 Results of these Missions 242 Causes of their Failure 244 The Puritan Church not entitled to the Credit of their Establishment -249 The Missions in New England contrasted with those of Virginia ¦••¦251 With the Jesuit Missions in New France- ¦ .- 253 CHAPTER IV. The Elders Conspire against the Crown. Part I. The Elders and Magistrates feel the Insecurity of Puritanism in Mas sachusetts, in Consequence of its Illegality 261 Freeman's Oath 262 The Cross of St. George removed from the English Flag 264 The Civil Wars 267 The Long Parliament encourages the Trade of Massachusetts, and enlists the Puritan State in its Cause 269 Massachusetts openly renounces her Allegiance to King Charles 270 Acknowledges that she is represented in Parliament by the Knights and Burgesses of the Manor of East Greenwich 270 Makes' it a capital Offence to side with Charles, and sends Soldiers to join the English Rebels 272 Confederates with the other New England Colonies 273 X CONTENTS. , .... 277 Objects sought by this Union _ _ ' ' Frustrated by Parliament .' ' ' ' " '.' " Parliament asserts Authority over the Colonies, by attacking their Trade ' ' „ Massachusetts ordered to surrender her Charter 2*° Petitions Parliament and Cromwell 2°° Considers herself an Ally of Cromwell only "3 Effect of Cromwell's Death *85 Massachusetts refuses to acknowledge Charles II. 285 Reaction in the Colony ; • • "286 The Elders and Magistrates dissatisfied with the Answer of the King- 288 Part II. Declaration of Rights 289 Charles II. proclaimed 291 Special Mission to England 292 Agreeable Disappointment of the Agents • 293 Ingratitude of Massachusetts towards the Agents- • • ; 295 The two Parties of Prerogative and Freedom 296 King's Letter disregarded 296 The General Court secretes the Charter 298 The Royal Commissioners 299 The General Court again refuses to accede to the Royal Demands- • ¦ -301 Again addresses the King 302 Superstitious Fears of the Colonists 303 The Confederacy broken up by the Commissioners 304 111 Success of the Commission 305 Objections to the Legality of the Commission answered 314 Third Royal Letter to Massachusetts 3 15 The General Court again disobeys the King 316 The Policy of Massachusetts during the Wars with France and Hol land 317 Rapid Advance of Massachusetts in Wealth and Population 318 Fourth Royal Letter to the Colony 310 Conflicting Emotions of the Elders 327 Judgment against the Charter 330 Death of the King ,,2 Effect of the Judgment against the Charter 333 Part III. Fears concerning a Royal Governor Colonel Kirk '.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'. Dudley's Commission ¦" Its Reception by the General Court ' .^ o Intrigues against the Commission ' ' ^ The mild Nature of the Commission and its Government' '.'. '.'. '.'.'.'.'.'. Ill Colonial System or James II. i5" Its Merits examined ' ' * ' 341 The Arbitrariness of James compared with the Tyranny' under the'342 Charter. Arrival of Sir Edmund Andros ' ' 345 Character of his Administration \\ " 34^ Restraint upon Marriages ' ' ' 347 347 CONTENTS. XI Fees for Quitrents to Crown Lands 348 Levying of Taxes 350 Other arbitrary Acts of Andros 3^r Causes of his Unpopularity 352 The Colonists petition the King 354 Renewed War with the Eastern Indians 356 The humane Policy of Andros, frustrated by the Outrages of the Charter Government 357 Andros, kind as a General 358 The Elders excite Rebellion against him 359 Political Struggles between the Liberty and Prerogative Parties 361 Andros acquitted by King William 362 Conclusion. 363 CHAPTER V. Progress of the Elders from Schism to Sectarianism. Part I. Political Religionism • 365 The New England Puritans, Politico-Religionists 367 The Charter, not Puritan in its Character 368 Antiquity of the Church of England 370 The Saxon Church 371 Its Relation to the See of Rome 372 Its happy Influence 373 Effect of the Danish Invasions 375 Fall of the Scaldic Mythology 376 Condition of the English Church at the Time of the Norman Con gest. 377 Rise of the Papal Supremacy 378 The Papal Dominion, a System of Spiritual Feuds 380 Introduced into England 380 True Claims of the English Church 382 Iniquitous Character of English Dissent 383 Absence of any reasonable Ground for Complaint 384 Dissent, private Reasoning, in Opposition to Authority 385 Penal Laws, levelled at Railing, not at Honest Difference of Opinion. .386 The Conference at Hampton Court ' 389 Frustrates the Designs of the Puritans 392 Absurdity of Puritan Arguments 392 Ecclesiastical Policy of James 1 393 Causes of the Increase of Puritanism 395 It begins to embarrass the Government 396 Causes the arbitrary Acts of Charles 1 397 Develops rapidly under Abbot's Protection, during the King's Con tests with Parliament 398 Growth of Republicanism '. 399 Policy of the Royal Government 399 Part II. Motives of the Puritan Emigration 402 Grief manifested at leaving England 404 The "Humble Request" from Yarmouth 405 Xll CONTENTS. Ambiguity of the Farewell Assertion by the Puritans of a Catholic Ministry ! Their rapid Assimilation with the Independents 4 Renounce Catholic Orders as sinful • 4IZ Growing Enmity to the English Church, aided by Superstition 4r3 Promoted by Legislation 4'5 Influence of Harvard College , 4'° Samuel Maverick 41* Robert Child , 42o Gross Tyranny of the Magistrates 42 ' Child and Maverick, with others, petition 422 Trial of the Petitioners, for Sedition 428 The Petitioners denounced by the Elders for appealing • . .429 Church Feeling in Massachusetts at the Restoration 431 Alarm of the Elders at the Restoration of the Church 432 They assert the Divine Right of Puritanism 433 Refuse to allow the Use of the Common Prayer 434 Again refuse to allow Churchmen Liberty of Conscience 435 Randolph opens the Way for the Church 438 Presses for able and sober Ministers 440 Obstacles in the Way 440 Arbitrary Proposals of Randolph 442 Arrival of Robert Ratcliffe 443 Formation of the Parish of King's Chapel 444 Opposition of the Elders 444 Difficulties of Randolph 445 Andros entreats the Elders in Behalf of the Church 446 Arbitrary Act of Andros 447 Loyalty of the Church Party 449 CHAPTER VI. Some General Reflections on the English Colonial Policy, and on the Character of Puritanism. Erroneous Spirit of popular Historians 453 Rise of the English Colonies 454 Classes of Colonies 455 Conflict of Interests between the Crown and Charter Colonies 456 Commercial Policy of Charles I. 458 The Ordinance of 1651 - 459 Cromwell's Policy ' .464 The Navigation Laws of Charles II. 465 Their Fourfold Object 468 How received by the Colonies 468 Character of the restrictive System 470 Contrast between Virginia and Massachusetts 477 How accounted for T78 Character of Puritanism 1 Protestantism, the Triumph of Reason over Faith- • •' 7^7 Puritanism, the Protestantism of England 1"og Eminently superstitious *a Unfriendly to Literature 4 Hostile to Civil and Religious Liberty ^„ Advocates the indiscriminate Use of the Bible '^ ^ Which causes its Decline ' '49° 492 CHAPTER I. CHARTER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY COMPANY, AND KING CHARLES THE FIRST. Grant of James I. to the Colonial Companies of London and Plymouth — Northern Company unsuccessful — Obtains a fresh Grant — Formation of a new Company, which likewise fails — Rise of a Missionary Spirit — Which leads to a new Organization — Endecott appointed Superintendent — The Company obtains a Royal Charter — Cradock, the first Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Company — Endecott becomes a Brownist — Persecutes the Brownes — Transfer of the Char ter proposed — Decided upon — Objects of this Measure — True Char acter and Object of the Charter — The Puritan State charged with Disloyalty, and of violating the Rights of the King's Subjects — Sir Christopher Gardiner — Thomas Morton — Philip Ratcliff — The Council orders an Investigation — Further Complaints against the Puri tan State — Cradock ordered to exhibit the Charter — Appointment of a Royal Commission — Which directs its attention to the transfer of the Charter — Orders the transmission of the Charter to England — The Order not complied with — Vindication of Charles I. When King Charles, the Martyr, bestowed a franchise chai upon a company, mercantile in character but missionary in design, he little thought that he was planting the germ of Republicanism in the New World. Beholding, with the favor of a truly Catholic mind, the project that was then forming in the English Church to extend Her bor ders over his dominions in the West, he willingly added the weight of his prerogative to an enterprise which, it seemed, must draw down a benediction from Heaven. Had he foreseen that his gift would be perverted to a disloyal purpose, that in a few years the parchment which i. 2 CHARTER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY COMPANY, contained merely an act of incorporation would be sola into the hands of his enemies, and, borne over -the ocean into the wilderness, be set up as the constitution of an independent state, he would have hesitated ere he allowed the great seal of England to stamp it into life. But could he have looked further into futurity, and beheld the rising England of the New World perpetuating the glories of the mother country, protected by the laws of the Saxons, the Danes, and the Normans, and enlight ened by the religion which St. Augustine professed, doubtless the pious monarch would have furthered the schemes of the uneasy Puritans, and rendered their secret intrigues unnecessary. We, who are in a transition state, can see how good is finally to come out of evil. The Church is grasping in her embrace the great empire of the West, and her garments are unstained by the blood of the aborigines, while her reputation is untainted with the guilt of disloy alty. Puritanism has been working for her advantage. Fraud, violence, and cunning ; enterprise, daring, and self-sacrifice ; the vices and virtues of the Puritan pil grims, have prepared the way for the nobler, the only true Christianity. From the bigotry of a few have arisen the blessings of the many. The guiding wisdom of Omnipotence is now discernible beneath the shallow surface of human fanaticism. Regeneration, the voice that waked the pagan slumbers of the Old World, was to be the genius of a new creation here. The painted savage was no longer to tread his forests in the simple majesty of his nature and strength. His shrill war- whoop was to be echoed back by the thunder of cannon, and his native cunning was to become powerless before the art of civilization. His woods were to be prostrated his game annihilated, and his wigwam deserted ; and he AND KING CHARLES THE FIRST. C himself was to be driven before a power he understood chap. not, further and further towards the setting sun, until ' — ^ the waves of the Pacific received the last remnants of his race, and his existence had become but a name. A new day was to dawn upon the West, a day carrying with it all the blessings of Christianity. There was to be there a new heaven and a new earth, and the cross of a true faith was to be erected upon every spire, and reflected back to the sky by every lake and stream. Such is the philosophy taught by the true understand ing of the past. We search in vain for a reason for the bloody traces of civilization, unless it can be found here. The greatest achievement of art is but a poor equivalent for the happiness of a single family of savages, if it reaches no further than the external and material world. A civilization, crimson with blood and reeking with fraud, would be but little worth, if it comprehended nothing beyond the creations of steam and the magic of the telegraph. We propose to make some inquiry into the origin of the most energetic colonization the world ever beheld, that of Massachusetts Bay. That this subject has been curiously distorted alike by doctors of law and history*, the sequel will show ; and we think that our examination of the original authorities will prove that we are indebted for the groundwork of this fair New England picture, not to the magnanimity of Puritanism, but to the zeal of the English Church. Of the historians who have dealt with this subject, Grahame and Bancroft occupy the most false and partisan attitudes. Grahame, educated in the narrow school of the Scottish Kirk, possessed a mind so warped by prejudice and so infected with bigotry, that his prolix history is false alike in fact and principle. He beheld the world through a Calvinistic mist. The most t CHARTER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY COMPANY, chap, depraved exhibitions of Protestantism had attractions for ^~ him, and, with incredible assurance, he can assert that those fanatics, the Brownists, were the most loyal of the English people, as well as the most pious, virtuous, and courageous.1 He magnifies the virtues of the hardy pil grim, and distorts, with equal complacency, the faults of the government towards which the pilgrim displayed not disloyalty merely, but rancor and malice. He sneers, in execrable taste, at James I., for assuming the style of " sacred majesty ; " forgetting the anointed character of the princes who then sat upon the throne of England ; and, also, that not a successor of John Knox " beats the drum ecclesiastic" in his beloved kirk, who does not appropriate to himself with scrupulous care the title of " reverend." He carps at such " heathenish customs " as the drinking of healths, but passes over the atrocious crimes of Puritanism with gentle rebukes. He sees nothing excellent but in some form of dissent. He belongs to that class of Protestant writers who consider worldly prosperity as a sign of heavenly benediction. He fully believed in Cromwell's maxim, that the Lord's people are to be the head and not the tail, and that any means are justifiable to obtain this headship. A malig nant hater of the Stuarts, a bigoted enemy of the church, a zealous apologist for the crimes of Puritanism, and, with all this, neither an impartial, nor thorough, nor truth ful relator of facts, he was totally unfit for the high office he assumed, of teaching the world by examples. He wrote not for the world, but for New England ; not for the New England of the present, but for that which has long since passed away. And he had the bitter mortifi cation of living to see the America he so much wor- 1 Vol. i. p. 1 80, 2d edition. AND KING CHARLES THE FIRST. shipped repudiate his gift, and accept a more genial offering from one of her own sons. As Grahame sees nothing excellent except in secta rianism, so Bancroft acknowledges nothing to be bad unless it emanates from kingly institutions. He hates the Stuarts because they used, but more because they had, prerogatives. It is not the tyrant merely, but the King, which brings out the venom of his pen. Radical ism, pure and unadulterated, that species of radicalism which beholds nothing bad in the many, and little that is good in the few, seems to be the ruling impulse which animates his labors as an historian. To have gained his approbation, a king must have undermined his throne, and a bishop have broken his crook. The walls of a ballot-box are large enough for his philanthropy, and that species of liberty which consists in compelling the few to submit to the many, brings down his apotheosis. A " press free even to dissoluteness " is one of the merits which he claims for an advancing civilization.1 As he writes not to let the past speak for itself, but to bend it to support his own theories, so he does not scruple to identify himself with any party or system, however co* tradictory, if he can thereby promote his own ends. With the Quakers, he can "thee" and "thou;" with the Puritans, he out-Puritans Cromwell ; with the Ana baptists, he can kiss the dust under the feet of Roger Williams, with a more superstitious reverence than the humble Papist, in a better spirit, bestows on a nail-paring of St. Peter ; and, with those noble missionaries who bore the white lily and the cross among the terrible war riors of the Five Nations, he can condescendingly become a hero and a martyr. These do not contradict his favor- 1 Vol. ii. p. 270. 1* CHARTER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY COMPANY, ite philosophy. But, on the other hand, whatever is good and holy in the conservatism of the church, and whatever adds strength and grandeur to the pyramidal structure of civil and social communities, meets from him with untir ing assault. And thus it is with this writer that an apostolic faith becomes mouldy tradition ; that a kingly government and a loyal obedience are transformed into tyranny on the one hand and slavery on the other ; and that a gradual scale of social order is distorted into an odious antagonism between the few and the many. His hatred of loyal old England is the characteristic of his work, and he seeks, with unbecoming eagerness, oppor tunities for digression, in order to indulge in his favorite theme. So far is he carried away by this hostile spirit, that he perpetually violates the rule of the res gestce in his descriptions and illustrations, without making any allowance for the circumstances of time and place. Thus, in describing the Treaty of Utrecht, he refers those of its provisions relating to the slave-trade in favor of Eng land, to the promptings of bad hearts and unscrupulous avarice, rather than to the faults of the time.1 By the light of a clearer day, England was the first nation to repudiate the system which preyed upon helpless Africa, and, as if to show her shame for the past, she has gone to the other extreme. This is merely one instance of many, and we have not space, in this connection, to go more into detail. The candid inquirer, who is unaffected by that worst of all cant, the cant of New Englandisrh, will judge for himself, in spite of common-school false hoods and fourth of July hyperboles. He will not allow himself to be coaxed or threatened into the support of popular errors, even though they should be stamped with 1 Vol. iii. p. 232. AND KING CHARLES THE FIRST. 7 the counterfeit of truth by judicial decisions ; and, doubt- chap. less, his conviction will gain fresh strength, as he pro- ^ — '<-*• ceeds, that the history of the Western Republic is yet to be written. In the mean time, let us calmly review the character of the enterprise which led to that most impor tant event for Europe and the world, the settlement of Massachusetts Bay. The discoveries of Cabot had given England a title to Grant of the northeastern coasts of America, and her people were to the co- p n i 1 i • i (Y-ii i lonial Com- in possession or a held which afforded ample room for panies of i . • t-> London the most active enterprise. • But no individual effort was and plJm- sufficient to overcome the obstacles in the way of coloni zation, and combination was finally resorted to, as the only feasible method. The signal failures of Sir Walter Raleigh, in Virginia, seemed to prepare the public mind for those huge monopoly companies which shortly after engrossed nearly the whole of British America. King James divided all that part of North America between S4i° and 45° of latitude into two grand divisions, the southerly of which he bestowed upon a London Com pany, and the northerly upon a company formed in Plym- 1606. outh and Bristol. The forbidding nature of the soil and climate of New England was not at that time known. On the contrary, that territory, being within the same parallels • of latitude which comprise the southerly parts of France and the more northerly of Spain, was supposed to be as fertile in soil and as mild in climate.1 And this natural supposition became highly colored by the accounts received from adventurers. The romantic voyage of Gosnold, in particular, made under the favorable influence of the summer solstice, four years before, raised the 1602. 1 Gorges, in his Description of of the nearness of the sea, the mount- New England, accounts for the cold- ing of whose waves breaks the reflec- ness of its climate " partly by reason tion qf the sunbeams." 8 CHARTER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY COMPANY, expectations of the public, and excited the warmest hopes. His discoveries seemed to have revealed a land where beauty and plenty struggled for the mastery. As he entered Massachusetts Bay, he beheld it » encompassed all around, even to the very sea, with sweet-smelling woods," and many "monstrous fishes" sporting in its waters. Further on, the earth was splendid in its gay mantle of green, interwoven with berries and flowers; the woods teemed with " living creatures 'and wild fowl," who fearlessly made their homes in " these ends of the earth ; " the air sparkled with the plumage of beautiful insects and birds; while the landscape was musical with the distant sounds of running waters, to whose medicinal springs the halt and maimed might repair, and " leave their crutches upon the adjoining trees." Besides, who could tell what mines of precious ores lay hid in the bowels of the earth 1 ] Noi-them Such were the visions of the Northern Company, min- butnp?ar-y gled with hopes of the advancement of religion, the cessfui. enlargement of the empire, and the increase of trade, when King James, an ardent lover of colonization, with royal munificence, bestowed upon them the northerly part of his dominions in the New World. Yet the attempts made by this company to settle their territory were only partially successful. The stern band of Rob inson alone, disgusted with their quiet condition at Ley den, where they suffered the evils of exile without any of its glory, founded by singular chance the famous col ony of New Plymouth, in the territory of the Northern Company. Even the exiles of Leyden were influenced by the prevailing spirit of the times ; and some fancies 1 Hubbard. Neal. " The coun- those parts ; for here are many isles try of the Massachusetts," says Cap- all planted with corn, groves, mul- tain Smith, " is the paradise of all berries, and salvage gardens." AND KING CHARLES THE FIRST. 9 of suddenly acquired wealth cheered their farewell to chap. " dear England," and mingled with their hopes of •~-y~^ heaven.1 But failures could not discourage the ardent love of adventure which actuated all classes of society. Ship after ship spread its white wings for the West, freighted with ambitious dreams of vast wealth and growing empires. The subject assumed a new charm when the sea opened to view the great variety of its finny inhabitants^ equally pleasing to the eye and the palate. Hooks and lines were a more simple apparatus than charters and monopolies, and were within the reach of the poorest subject. The humble treasures of the ocean, if not so precious, were, at least, yielded with more readiness than the gold and silver of Mexico and Peru ; and the wondering eyes of the natives soon beheld the promontory of Cape Ann covered with stages, upon which were cured the vast numbers of fish that seemed to leap from the sea at the command of the English fish ermen. Encouraged by this new source of wealth, and jealous Obtains a of the violations of their monopoly, the Northern Com pany resolved to strengthen themselves by obtaining a fresh grant from the king. A new patent passed the seals, reorganizing the company as the Council for the 1620. affairs of New England, the corporate power of which was to reside in Plymouth. This " Grand Council of Plymouth " was no longer a mere company of mer chants ; it was composed of the great men of the king dom, whose resources it was supposed would enable them to overcome readily the obstacles of nature, and whose 1 Winslow's Brief Narrative, and charter ; and, on being told fishing, Morton's Memorial. What profits replied : " So God have my soul, do you intend ? asked James of the 'tis an honest trade ; 'twas the apos- .Pilgrims, when they applied for a tie's own calling." 10 CHARTER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY COMPANY, chap, names would be sufficient to inspire trespassers with -^-~ awe. The designs formed by this council were in the highest degree magnificent, but were wholly unsuited for the wilderness, and they illustrate very forcibly the little progress that had then been made in the principles of colonization. It is impossible, however, to predict with certainty what would have been the result of their under taking ; for their plans were frustrated by Sir Edward Coke, at that time Speaker of the House of Commons, and champion of "the liberties of the people." The aged lawyer, who was opposed to all monopolies, was especially hostile to the Council of Plymouth, and had sufficient influence to cripple their resources. They ad vanced no further in their plans than to send over Cap tain Robert Gorges, with " a modest and prudent priest,"1 who was to superintend the affairs of religion in the colony, and aid in protecting the poor natives from the wrongs and abuses that were already practised upon But again them by adventurers. But although Gorges was created a lieutenant-governor, endowed with a principality of three hundred square miles, and invested with large powers of office, he soon threw up a commission which 1623. had more of name than substance, and returned home in disgust. Formation Thwarted so soon in the extensive scheme they had company, formed for the establishment of a royal province in New wise fails. England, the Grand Council abandoned an undertaking which originated in imagination rather than reason. The failure of this enterprise must have had a chilling effect upon the romance of colonization, but it opened a door for schemes of a more humble and practicable nature. i Mr. Morel. Grahame says that he mean that he was consecrated by he had the office of a bishop. Does the " Grand Council ? " AND KING CHARLES THE FIRST. 11 In the same year in which Gorges returned home, some merchants in the West of England, who had fished for cod and bartered for furs in the region of Massachusetts Bay, conceived that a colony might be planted on that coast, "to further them in those employments."1 Such an expectation was not unreasonable. It appeared not only feasible, but prudent, to leave the supernumeraries of the fishing vessels, when the season was over, at some eligible point on the coast, where, until the next season commenced, they might barter with the Indians, and, by moderate cultivation of the soil, produce fresh provisions for the ships when they again arrived. A company on this basis was readily formed, and a capital of three thousand pounds subscribed. But the time had not yet arrived for the colonization of Massachusetts Bay, and, after repeated disasters, this company shared the fate of 1626. its predecessors. But now began to arise a new motive for action. The Eise of a t T • c i i i missionary success or the Jesuit missions in every part or the globe spirit. was the subject of general wonder and remark. The disciples of Loyola had penetrated the wilds of America, and reached the sources of the Ganges, while the ene mies of Rome were ridiculing holy-water and scoffing at relics. A rational fear began to be entertained that the pagan world, with its countless inhabitants and vast wealth, would soon acknowledge the sway of the Pope, while Europe was disputing whether he was the Man of Sin, against whom are directed the awful denunciations of the Holy Apostle. The reproach conveyed by reflections of this nature accompanied the enthusiast in his daily walks, and furnished ample topics for discussion in his social visits. The honor of the reformed religion ap- 1 White's Brief Relation. 1£ CHARTER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY COMPANY, chap, peared to be at stake, and why could not an effort be — < — - made to redeem its character 1 1 Which This subject had often been debated at Dorchester, a nTwo'gan- town which, from its maritime spirit, had been the source izalion' of much commercial adventure to America; and among its most active supporters was John White, a priest of the English Church.2 By his zeal, the cause of missions was united to hopes of gain, and though a connection so unnatural could promise but feeble results, yet funds were necessary for a trial of the scheme, and these could only be obtained by the inducement of profits. The gallant band of " knights, gentlemen, and merchants," which embarked in the project, six only in number, procured from the Grand Council of Plymouth a grant of terri tory extending from three miles north of the Merrimac to three miles south of the Charles rivers, and east and west from the Atlantic to the South Sea, for New Eng land was then supposed to be, like the Mother Country, an island. Having thus laid a sure foundation for the intended work, they "imparted their reasons, by letters 3 627. and messages, to some in London and the West Coun try." Although the disasters of former companies were still fresh in the public mind, yet such was the love of adventure then rife in the commercial world, that many capitalists offered to subscribe, if proper persons could be Endecott found " to undertake the voyage." Inquiries were ac- appointed ,. _ . -, supermten- cordmgly made, which led to a negotiation with " Master Endecott," one of the patentees, a man " well known to divers persons of good note," and who "manifested much willingness to accept the offers " that were made to him. The ready compliance of Endecott was a happy ' Mather. " General Considera- 2 White, though not an ultra tions for the Plantation of New churchman, conformed, says Wood, Lngland. Dudley's Letter to the "both before and when Archbishop Countess of Lincoln. Laud sat at the stern." AND KING CHARLES THE FIRST. 13 omen. Of moral reputation, and well acquainted with the forms of business, he appeared equally fitted to super intend the cause of missions, and to protect the interests of trade. No further difficulty was experienced in ob taining subscribers to an enterprise which was to raise up " a new colony upon an old foundation," and, in the fol lowing summer, Endecott was dispatched to New Eng- 1628. land, with a handful of servants, to lay a basis for future operations.1 But one thing- was wanting to give completeness and The com- , , pany obtain unity to this company with a double aspect. Composed a Royal of persons, some of whom had in view the eternal wel fare of the Indians, and others their own temporal gain, there was danger of imperfect action and misunderstand ings, in the prosecution of objects so dissimilar. To obviate such difficulties, and to quiet their title, which, owing to the former grants of the Grand Council, was somewhat clouded, they determined to obtain a royal charter of incorporation. King Charles, generally unfa vorable to the government of distant colonies by mercan tile companies, was impressed with the novelty of a design which comprehended the enlargement of his empire, the extension of the Church, and the advancement of the national commerce. Puritanism had not yet expressed itself as a separate spiritual system, and a successful mis sion would redound to the glory of the Church and the honor of the throne. With such generous expectations, " a patent was granted, with large encouragements every March. way, by his Most Excellent Majesty." 2 The appointment of officers, in the first instance, was Cradock reserved to the crown, and Matthew Cradock, who wasemorofthe . Massachu- more largely interested in the enterprise than, any other setts Bay ° J * Company. 'Chalmers. White's Brief Rela- 2 White's Brief Relation. Hutch- tion. inson. Mather. 14- CHARTER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY COMPANY, chap, stockholder, was nominated the first Governor of the Mas- -J^ sachusetts Bay Company. The accounts received from Endecott, whose expedition had been sent out as an exper iment, were of an encouraging nature. He had planted his little colony at the head of a noble harbor, of easy access from the sea, and central among the tribes, who were expected to resort thither for barter and instruction. Measures were at once taken to conduct the affairs of the company with vigor. The shares of the stockholders were proportioned, and new subscriptions were obtained. A reinforcement of planters and laborers was procured, and the services of several missionaries were engaged. Experts were enlisted who were skilled in minerals, and, throughout all the operations of the company, the same double aspect of religion and worldliness was curiously exhibited.1 Letters of instruction were addressed to En decott, advising him of these proceedings, and urging upon him, in singular connection, to promote the com mercial and fishing interests of the company, and to bring the Indians to the knowledge of the gospel. From these instructions, it appears that they placed little confidence in the morals of Endecott's servants, who were much addicted to drinking, smoking, and swearing, and whose example they feared would have a bad effect upon the Indians.2 Thus early was experienced the absurdity of carrying on at the same time, and by the same company, the sale of gin and the spreading of the gospel. In pursuance of the plans of the company, three hun dred persons, among whom were four missionaries, and several gentlemen who were to act as Endecott's council, sailed from the Isle of Wight in the month of May, and arrived safely at Salem in the latter part of June. But ' Early Records of the Company. 2 Letters to Endecott. Johnson. Prince. AND KING CHARLES THE FIRST. 15 Endecott soon found that his situation was not devoid of difficulty. In his dispatches to the company, he loudly complained of his interloping countrymen, and of their irregular trading with the Indians. His own authority being insufficient to check such violations of their mo nopoly, he begged the company to take the subject into consideration, and to use some speedy means for sup pressing the evil. Alarmed for the security of their rights, the stockholders determined to petition the King juiy. for a renewal of the royal proclamation of 1622, which forbade persons to intrude upon the franchise of the Plym outh Company, and, in the month of November, their •petition was granted, " with other beneficial clauses." 1 To this point we are able to bring the early history of the company, without discovering any claim made by its members to rights or privileges of a sectarian character. But a new source of trouble soon arose. From the earliest organization of the company under the charter, its mercantile seem to have predominated over its mis sionary interests. Out of a dozen or more meetings of the corporation and directors, not more than one or two had any reference to religious purposes. The stock holders seemed always more anxious to secure good sailors, fishermen, and mechanics, than zealous mission aries ; tod, while they sent out the former by hundreds, they commissioned but three or four of the latter. Still, there were members of the company who kept steadily and earnestly in view the chief end of the plantation. Differing in their religious sentiments at a time when such differences began to invade the family circle, as well as the district and parish, when even Abbot, the Primate of the Church, was infected with the growing J Hazard. Early Records of the Company. Prince. Hubbard. 16 CHARTER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY COMPANY, distemper, and gave open encouragement to Puritanism, unanimity of opinion could hardly have been expected among the candidates for the post of missionaries. The question of conformity or non-conformity was therefore an indifferent one to the company at large, provided nothing was done which could give offence to the King, and that no opportunities were afforded for "moving needless questions."1 In accordance with these views, their ministers, Bright, Higginson, Skelton, and Smith, represented all religious classes then of weight or im portance in the kingdom ; but, while Bright was a con formist, and was accepted without hesitation, Smith, who was a separatist, was obliged to enter into bonds not to disturb the colony or injure the company by " his rigid principles." 2 In conformity with this politic course, the agreements entered into between the company and the missionaries, bound the latter to no forms of worship or principles of faith. They were required to minister to the savages, and to give religious instruction to the ser vants of the company ; provided this was done, their employers would be content. And, as if to put this question beyond all cavil, the company, in their letter to Endecott, declare, " as for the manner of exercising their duties, we leave that to themselves." Endecott The emigrants who accompanied the missionaries were becomes a • . ^ • c, c • Brownist. as opposite in their views. Some were conformists, others non-conformists, others separatists, and others of no religion at all. Their motives for emigration were as different as their opinions were heterogenous. Of the first class, were John and Samuel Browne, who were sent over by the company to aid in administering the oath of office to Endecott, and to assist in his council. ' Letter to Endecott. 2 Hubbard. Hutchinson, &c. AND KING CHARLES THE FIRST. 17 Being gentlemen of fortune, and patentees, they were chap. specially recommended to Endecott, by the company, as - — r — persons entitled to " his favor and furtherance." 1 But Endecott, in the discharge of his arduous duties, " had corresponded with the Brownists at Plymouth, who sat isfied him that they were right." The scurvy had broken out in his little colony ; and they supplied him with a doctor, who was not merely skilled in medicine, but was also a zealous controversialist. In three months, he not only drove the scurvy from Naumkeag, but, with it, ban ished every vestige of the Church.2 Endecott, perhaps out of gratitude, fell a ready victim to the wiles of this cunning leech. He repudiated, without difficulty, every rule of the Church in the formation of his rehgious society, and, modelling himself upon his neighbors at Plym outh, put it to vote whether the missionaries sent over by the company should be the spiritual instructors of the company's servants.3 Although in his last letters from the company he had been particularly reminded " that the propagating the gospel was the chief thing they pro fessed above all," yet he and the missionaries, with the exception of Bright, who soon withdrew from so unprom ising a field, entirely neglected their duties. The relig ious affairs of the colony fell into the hands of a small faction of thirty, who signed a confession of faith drawn up by Higginson, in which, though they " covenanted " to be faithful towards their children and servants, they made only one cold allusion to the Indians.4 Thus early was the charter of the company robbed of its sacred char acter. The Brownes, astonished at these sudden develop- Persecutes . the ments, and unable to check them, met every Sunday, with Brownes. 1 Letter of Instructions, May, 3 Prince. 3 Hutchinson. 1628. Hazard. 4 Neal. Mather. 2* 18 CHARTER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY COMPANY, chap, their friends, to worship according to the venerable form J^ of the English Church. But, with the intolerance and tyranny characteristic of the sect which he had lately joined, Endecott cited the brothers to appear before him to answer to a charge of sedition. The defendants might well have declined to notice a summons at once insulting and illegal ; but, waiving all considerations of this nature, they appeared before the governor, and avowed it as their belief that the course he was pursuing had a tendency towards the lowest forms of sectarianism. For them selves, they declared their determination to adhere to the Church of England. This prediction, which was after wards remarkably fulfilled, had no weight with Endecott, who, finding that their resolution was unalterable, and making use of the power that was confided to him for far different purposes, forcibly seized upon their persons, and, notwithstanding the prejudice to their property, sent them compulsively to England.1 An outrage so gross and palpable, could not pass without notice, although the victims found, on their arrival in London, that the com pany had changed its character. They immediately peti- 1G29. tioned for redress, and umpires were chosen, to whom ep.em er. ^ whoje ag-ajr wa§ referre(i gut ^^jug further ap pears to have been done. The charter, as originally bestowed by the King, had passed into new hands, and great lukewarmness was manifested towards redressing wrongs with which its present proprietors could have but little sympathy. Indeed, their treatment of these unfor tunate gentlemen was, in the sequel, both wicked and contemptible. Fearing lest they should appeal to the King, they obtained possession of their private letters, and after violating the sacredness of their seals, voted to ' Mather. Hutchinson. Neal. AND KING CHARLES THE FIRST. 19 keep them to be made use of against the writers, as occa- chap. sion should offer.1 With this hold upon their actions, ¦ — ^ they openly treated their complaints as " slanders."2 But it seems that they were sensible of the imprudence of Endecott's conduct, although their ears were closed to the voice of justice. In their letters to the plantation, they rebuked the overseer and the ministers for "undi gested counsels too suddenly put in execution." For, said they, such proceedings may have " an ill-construction with the state, to which we must and will have an obse quious eye."3 In the mean time, by a striking coincidence, Endecott's conversion to Brownism had been followed by the perver sion of the charter. It was at a meeting of the stock holders, at Mr. Goffe's house, in London, that that July. extraordinary proposition was made, which entirely al tered the complexion of their affairs. Several Puritan gentlemen, of birth and fortune, alarmed at the suspen sion of Abbot, and at the measures which were adopted to suppress that disloyalty to the Church which he had been the chief instrument in fostering, determined to transport themselves and their families to the New World. Virginia was closed to the enemies of the Church, and they therefore decided to make application to the Massachusetts Company. But aware that such a movement, undertaken for such an end, would endanger the safety of the charter, they determined to make the removal of the corporation an indispensable condition of their own emigration. With the charter in their hands, three thousand miles away from the Star-Chamber and the King's Bench, they would feel comparatively safe. On sounding Cradock, the governor of the Company, ' Early Records of the Company. 2 Letter to Skelton and Higginson, 3 Early Records of the Company, in Hazard. 20 CHARTER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY COMPANY, chap, they were pleased to find that he was not averse to the - — ^ scheme, though from a different motive. Such had been the complaints of Endecott, concerning the violations of the company's monopoly, that it appeared for the best interests of the stockholders, that the corporation should transfer all its power to the plantation, since its presence on the spot would do more to prevent trespasses, than royal proclamations or empty threats. Cradock, there fore, assumed the difficult task of rendering this proposal palatable to his fellow corporators.1 Transfer of Assembled at the house of the Deputy Governor for the charter , . _ proposed, the transaction of their ordinary business, the General Court were astonished to hear from Mr. Cradock a pro posal that the charter and the corporation should be removed into another hemisphere. His proposition was couched in artful terms. To the speculators, he urged this scheme with all the force of one who cared more for his speculations than for the law ; and addressing himself to those members of the company who were touched with the disease of Puritanism, he represented how, " for cer tain weighty reasons," such a movement would redound to the interests of true religion. An idea so novel, for which there existed no known precedent, excited much debate. The chief opposition to the measure came from those who were largely interested in the pecuniary suc cess of the company, but who had no desire to leave the comforts of civilization, for doubtful prospects in the wilderness. Is such a transfer legal ] If so, how are the interests of those who do not choose to leave their native country to be adjusted ? But small returns have been received for the great outlays that have been made ; ' Chalmers's Annals. Early Rec- scure point of this intrigue, and the ords of the Company Hubbard, only point about which there is any Fnnce, *fc. Ihis is the most ob- uncertainty. AND KING CHARLES THE FIRST. 21 is the company, after all this expense, to surrender its chap. mercantile character, in order to become an engine of — ~ sectarianism 1 These embarrassing questions could not be disposed of in one session. A committee was there fore chosen to advise with counsel, and to report at the next meeting of the Court ; and, in the mean time, mem bers were desired to consider secretly of the proposal, and " to take care that the same be not divulged."1 Fortunately for the success of the scheme, the counsel Decided consulted by the committee was Mr. White, a Puritan up n lawyer, who was a member of the company, and favor able to the wishes of the applicants.2 " Great stress was laid upon his opinion ; " and, fortified as it was with the influence of Winthrop, Johnson, Dudley, and other distin guished persons, whose names were now for the first time divulged, it broke down the weight of opposition.3 In the month of August, " after a warm debate," the ques tion was put, whether the corporation should be removed to Massachusetts, or, in other words, whether the charter of the company should become the constitution of a state, and was decided in the affirmative by " a general rising of hands." Thus, the charter passed into the hands of the Puritans. But the decision was not unani mous. Some regret, perhaps, might have been enter tained, that a franchise, royally bestowed for a godly purpose, should so speedily be perverted. Perhaps, in some solitary breast, a pang of sorrow was felt, that not one of those pagans, whose lands they were appropriat ing, whose game they were wasting, and whose simple 1 Early Records, Sfc. Hubbard, displayed. The truth is, that the Hutchinson. Prince. parties interested made all this show 2 Graham says that eminent law- about counsel, in order to dissipate yers were consulted, and afterwards the scruples of the timid. wonders that such ignorance of the 3 Early Records, fyc. Hutchin- principles of law should have been son. 22 CHARTER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY COMPANY, chap, fisheries they were destroying, had been taught to chant ¦ — y — ¦ a Christian psean. Such generous emotions, however, if they existed at all, were soon drowned in apprehensions of pecuniary loss. The minority, doubtful of the operation of the October, transfer, or still fearful concerning its legality, proposed that the government of the company should wear a double aspect ; and that while " the government of per sons " should be established in Massachusetts, " the government of trade and merchandises" should be con tinued in England. Great resistance was made to this project, and the division was carried to such a length, that it was found necessary to obtain the intervention of counsel, committees, and umpires. Even Cradock him self appears to have favored this amendment to his prop osition, for he was chosen one of the committee on behalf of " the adventurers," to treat with the committee on be half of " the planters," for thus the two parties were designated. Finally, after a long and heated negotiation,, it was agreed that those members of the company who remained in England should retain a share in the stock and profits, for the term of seven years, and that, at the end of that period, the capital of the company, with such accumulations as had accrued, should be divided among all the stockholders, in proportion to their respective interests.1 >f- Objects of Such was the inglorious end of a noble franchise. this meas- rr . " ure. lhe salvation of the red men was made to yield to the interests of Puritanism. The new corporators, who effected this fraud upon the king and the church, had weightier objects in view than the propagation of the gospel. Their aspirations soared above the humble hori- l Early Records, &c. White's Brief Relation. Prince. Hutchinson. AND KING CHARLES THE FIRST. 23 zon of the charter ; and they would not discern the mei- chap. ancholy truth, that thus to alter its original purpose, • — ^— ' operated in fact to rob the Indians. Nothing obscured their mental vision but ceremonies and bishops. The hope that brightened the future with them had for its basis the abolition of surplices. If they could stand in prayer instead of kneeling, if they could do away with the sign of the cross, if they could elevate the pulpit above the altar, if they could degrade saints' days and revive the Jewish sabbath, if they could clothe the min istry in black instead of white robes, what mattered it to them how many victims they crushed under the wheels of their Puritan Juggernaut l Prejudice and ignorance, ever inseparable, have done True cim- much to obscure the true character of the charter ; and object of it is a common error to believe that the franchise be- ter. stowed by Charles the First upon the Massachusetts Bay Company was intended as an immunity to the Puritans ; that, from the beginning, the corporation enjoyed the same uninterrupted character. To combat this general idea is an easy, but may prove an invidious task. It can never be grateful to men to learn, that those whom they have been accustomed to reverence for a particular action are the rather open to censure. And, certainly, unless it can be shown that the charter was perverted to purposes far different from those intended by the king, the subse quent treatment of the company, by the crown, was cen surable and undeserved. To vindicate the honor of Charles on this point, a brief inquiry will suffice ; and it will be admitted that the law and facts, agreeing, together furnish a conclusive theory. The title of Europeans to the New World rested upon discovery. This is a principle which all civilized nations acknowledge. It derives its force from divine laws, for 24 CHARTER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY COMPANY, civilization must necessarily have preeminence over Na ture, whenever the two come in contact. It reaches not to the pillage of the natives, but gives only such territo rial rights as are not inconsistent with justice and equity'. If the claims of property are recognized by the abo rigines, it would be gross injustice to interfere therewith. If their laws and customs are, in the main, fair and equitable, there can be no justifiable plea for intrusion. How far interference may be defensible, depends upon the circumstances of each case. Vattel justly complains of the Spaniards, that they tried the Inca of Peru by the laws of Spain ; x but had the Peruvians been a people living without law or order, the Spaniards would have been open to censure, if they had neglected to substitute order for chaos. Such is the fostering care that Nature claims from Art. The title of the aborigines to the soil in America has been questioned. Whether, according to the definition of property given by Locke, such an occupancy of land was maintained by them as barred the claims of Europeans^ it is not worth while to inquire. But, waiving this view of the question, so harsh and inequitable as regards the rights of savages, the better opinion seems to be, that the relation existing between the aborigines and Euro peans, gave " to the government of the latter, by whose subjects or authority the discovery was made, the title to the country, and the sole right of acquiring the soil from the natives." Consequently, " the nations which estab lished colonies in America assumed the ultimate dominion to be in themselves, and claimed the exclusive right to grant a title to the soil, subject only to the right of occu pancy in the Indians."2 This qualified dominion, there- ' Le Droit des Gens, B. ii. ch. 4, § 55. a Kent's Com. vol. iii. p. 379. AND KING CHARLES THE FIRST. 25 fore, over the territory of New England, vested by right chap. of discovery in the English crown, in trust for the Eng- — « — - lish people ; and the laws of the kingdom, so far as they were applicable to the condition of the country, became immediately in force.1 Every Englishman who fixed his residence there continued to be an English subject, owing allegiance to his sovereign, and bound by the laws of the realm. And the obligation was reciprocal. The oath of coronation bound the sovereign equally in every part of his dominions. He could not grant rights in America forbidden by the laws he was sworn to execute, nor could he establish political and religious systems inconsistent with those erected by parliament. The oath so forcibly expressed in the ancient formula, " que il gar der a et meintenera les droitez et les franchises de seynt esglise," would never permit such an use of his prerogative as might endanger her best interests. Holding all discov ered countries as trustee for the benefit of his people, he would commit a fraud upon them, did he carve out val uable rights therefrom and bestow them upon a small sect, whose avowed principles were hostile to the laws of the land. His custody of national property extended not to absolute ownership. He could only grant those rights and privileges, which flowed from him as the fountain of honor and justice. And, if his object had been to set up in his dominions a franchise unknown to the law, he must have had recourse to parliament ; for in parliament alone rested supreme power.2 Those writers, therefore, who argue that the charter was expressly intended as an immunity to the Puritans, are supported neither by law nor fact. They can show no power in the king to offer such a premium to dissent, 1 Salk. 411, 666. 2 P. Wms. 75, Blackstone's Com. vol. i. p. 107. 16 Pick. Rep. p. 115. 2 1 Kyd, 61. Cro. Car. 73, 87. 26 CHARTER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY COMPANY, chap, nor were the subsequent acts of the grantees consistent J:-^ with such a theory. They did not emigrate with their wives and children, nor did they publish to the world a declaration which would have been read with wonder, and perhaps with admiration. On the contrary, all their religious enthusiasm was solely directed into the channel of propagation ; and when the overtures of the Puritans were made for the purchase of the charter, they met them with caution and secrecy. The argument is made complete and triumphant by an examination of the charter itself; and in a question so important, on the correct decision of which depends our capacity to judge of future events, a brief inquiry into the nature of this famous franchise will be pardoned. Was the charter of Massachusetts Bay the organization of a mercantile company, or the constitution of a Puritan State 1 There are five characteristics which distinguish corporations from all other legal bodies. First, they are perpetuities, have perpetual succession, and, of course, power, express or implied, of electing new members. Secondly, they may sue and be sued, grant and receive by their corporate names, and, in general, do all such acts as may be done by natural persons. Thirdly, they may purchase and hold lands for the benefit of them selves and their successors. Fourthly, they must have a corporate seal. Fifthly, they may make by-laws, or pri vate statutes, for the management of their affairs, provided these be not contrary to the laws of the land, for then they are void. These are the distinguishing features of corporations, and their powers are granted " for the advancement of religion, of learning, and of commerce." 1 Their property is subject to taxation, unless specially ' Blackstone's Com. vol. i. p. 467 . AND KING CHARLES THE FIRST. 27 exempted, and their members are not discharged from chap. their allegiance or loyalty. Their charters give them, on w~; — certain conditions, anomalous powers and rights ; but they do not remove one duty that they owe, in their cor porate or individual capacities, to their fellow-subjects, to the king, or to God. The application of these principles to the charter of the Massachusetts Bay Company will afford a sure key to its character. We find in that instrument no grants of powers sufficient for the establishment of a State ; no authority to levy taxes, without which a government would be lifeless ; no authority to assemble the represen tatives of the people, without which it would be impo tent ; no authority to erect courts of judicature, without which it would be lawless. In short, neither in the executive, legislative, nor judicial branch of government, is one power granted, one right yielded, or one office created, sufficient for political purposes. But, in its true design, as an act of incorporation simply, the charter is admirable and complete. It did not operate to create a provincial government, but it organized a mercantile company, conferring upon the stockholders the right to plant a colony. It granted all the powers which were necessary for the successful pursuit of commercial busi ness. It confirmed the sale, made by the Grand Council of Plymouth, of lands, waters, ports, havens, fisheries, mines, minerals, and precious stones ; reserving, how ever, to all English subjects, the right of exercising " the trade of fishing " upon the coast, and the necessary ease ments connected therewith. It granted even the royal mines of gold and silver, which were supposed to lie " hid in the bowels of the earth," reserving only to the crown one fifth part of the ore which might be obtained. It gave to the company a corporate name, under which 28 CHARTER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY COMPANY, to have perpetual succession, and by which to plead, prosecute, and answer all suits, quarrels, and actions, of what kind and nature soever. It gave to the company a common seal, " to be used in all their causes and occa sions," and full authority to break and alter the same. w It settled the nature of the government of the company ; providing therefor a governor, deputy governor, and a board of eighteen assistants or directors, any seven of whom, with the governor or his deputy, were to be a quorum, whose frequent meetings might tend to the better management of the company's business. It pro vided for four annual assemblies of all the members, or freemen of the company ; who, so assembled with the governor and assistants, were to constitute " great and general Courts." It granted to these courts the power of admitting new members to the franchise, of commission ing such officers as should be found necessary for the management of their business, and of making such regu lations for the benefit of their plantation, as should not be repugnant to the laws arid statutes of England. Lastly, it provided that oaths of office should be taken by the governor, deputy, and assistants, for the due and faithful performance of their several duties. Having thus organized the company, the charter pro ceeds to mention more particularly the objects contem plated by the corporators, and some peculiar privileges which the king, " of his especial grace," bestowed upon them. It was made lawful for the company to convey to their plantation in New England amy loyal subjects, who were willing to proceed there, together with such foreign ers as would live in allegiance to the English crown. They were further authorized to transport shipping, ar mor, ammunition, provisions, cattle, merchandise, and all other things necessary for the well being of the planta- I. AND KING CHARLES THE FIRST. tion, the defence of its inhabitants, and their trade with chap the natives.1 And, for " the further encouragement " of the company, the charter remitted all taxes upon their property in New England for seven years, and also upon any merchandise exported or imported thence, to and from England, for twenty-one years, reserving only the usual five per cent, custom upon such merchandise, due according to " the ancient trade of merchants." 2 It secured to the loyal servants of the company, who should inhabit the plantation, and to their children born there, the liberties and immunities of English subjects, to as full an extent as if they were resident at home ; and to the better attainment of this end, provided that the oaths of supremacy and allegiance should be administered by the governor and any two of the assistants, to all per sons who should at any time proceed to the plantation. For the peaceable and religious government of the col ony, in the hope that the example of its inhabitants might win the natives of the country to the knowledge and obedience of the only true God, which, " in our royal intention and the adventurers free profession, is the prin cipal end of this plantation" the charter granted full authority to the company in England to establish a magistracy for their planters and servants, to make rules and ordinances, and to impose " fines, mulcts, and inipris- onments, or other lawful corrections, according to the course of other corporations" in the realm. Finally, for " the special defence and safety " of the colony, it granted to those officers of the company, who were employed to 1 These two privileges were, in sons, viz : because he allowed his general, controllable by royal proc- subject to depart the realm, and lamation, and the charter operated carry his goods with him ; and be- as a license under the great seal. cause the king is bound to maintain 2 This was an ancient revenue all ports and havens, and to protect belonging to the king, for two rea- the merchant from pirates. 3* SO CHARTER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY COMPANY, chap, manage their affairs in New England, full authority to • — i — - resist, by force of arms, all military invasions, or other attempts made against the safety of the plantation and its inhabitants. Such was the charter of the Massachusetts Bay Com pany. As a legal instrument, its symmetry was per fect, its details minute, its scope expansive and free. Nothing appears wanting for the successful prosecution of missionary effort or mercantile adventure. But viewed as a political constitution, it becomes at once confused and objectless. The distinction between the company and the plantation is destroyed, and the relation of each to the other must be a source of endless speculation. What are the powers of the executive"? Where is the legislature, and where the judiciary 1 How is the gov ernment to be supported ? For the property of all cor porations is liable to taxation by parliament, and by-laws levying money on the subject, by a corporation, are void.1 Merge the company in a people, and how can the latter assemble four times in each year 1 Erect the board of directors into a council of state, and what limits their power, or defines their relation to the king] It will hereafter appear how awkwardly the charter fitted the purposes of government when the transfer was made; how taxes were levied by the assistants, against the con sent of the freemen; how the assistants, irresponsible, usurped all the powers of government, so that their tyranny led the people to clamor for a magna charta; how the corporate seal was entirely cast aside ; how the quarter-yearly meetings of the company were disused, as impossible customs; and how the General Court was 1 Case of ' %o Warranto, Treby's Arg. 29 ; Sawyer's Arg. 42 ; Player v. Vere, T. Ray. 328. AND KING CHARLES THE FIRST. 31 consequently resolved into a representative and parliamen- chap. tary body. >— v— The legal character of corporations being ascertained, a rule of law applies, which restrains any abuse of their privileges. Corporations can have no other rights than such as are "specifically granted." Being mere creatures of law, established for special purposes, their powers must be confined to the operations prescribed by their charters. And the Puritan pilgrim had no sooner estab lished his system in Massachusetts, than it became neces sary for him to set up some defence for an act which was " in contempt of the laws of England." Thrusting aside the two oaths of supremacy and allegiance, for the admin istration of which the charter expressly provided, he assumed that the true construction of that instrument gave him liberty to regulate his ecclesiastical affairs according to the dictates of his own conscience.1 Not withstanding penal laws were in force at this very time against the insane fanaticism which threatened both church and state, and soon accomplished their overthrow, it was insisted that the king had given a portion of his subjects liberty to set up in his dominions a religion utterly opposed to the national church, to himself as the head of the church, and which was soon to prove un friendly to the monarchy itself. But however inconsist ent such a construction of the charter was both with law and fact, it was equally opposed to common sense. For it is unreasonable to suppose that the king, knowing the applicants for this franchise to be Puritans, a sect prover bial for its turbulence and disloyalty, not only gave them a charter, but bestowed upon them special marks of his favor. It is insulting to common sense to assert that ' Cotton's Bloody Tenent. Mather. Neal, &c. 32 CHARTER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY COMPANY, Charles intended to encourage a plantation by the remis sion of its taxes, the avowed object of which was the establishment of a religion that, since the days of Queen Mary, had been striving for the overthrow of the church he so dearly loved and venerated. Weak and untenable indeed are all such arguments. They will not bear the most superficial examination. In fact, Grahame, the modern champion of Puritanism, has unwillingly abandoned these ancient strongholds of the New England fathers, venerable from their age and asso ciations. He wanders into the law, in search of some technicality which may aid an unsound theory, and drags up a maxim, in its legal acceptation equally the dictate of common sense and equity, which declares, that in cases where the import of a contract is doubtful, it shall be construed most strongly against the party from which it proceeds.1 The application of this maxim cannot help his cause. Though " drawn out of the depth of reason," it will be found that a critical inquiry into its meaning will limit its application to cases of " ambiguity of words," or where such an exposition is necessary " to give them lawful effect."2 Is there any " ambiguity of words " in the charter of the Massachusetts Bay Company % Was the establishment of Puritanism necessary for missionary effort among the Indians, or for the successful prosecution of trade and commerce % We might, were it necessary, pursue this discussion still further. We might show how such a mode of con struction can seldom be resorted to in contracts where the king is a party. We might ask under what denomina tion this anomalous corporation must be classified, and in ' Verba ambigua fortius accipiun- 2 Kent's Com. vol. ii. p. 556. tur contra proferentem. Bacon's Chitty on Cont. p. 21. Maxims of the Law, No. 3. AND KING CHARLES THE FIRST. 33 what manner it was to be visited. Since there are only chap. three classes of corporations aggregate known to the ¦ — ¦<-*> common law, ecclesiastical, eleemosynary, and civil ; since the first of these must be composed of spiritual persons, of whom a bishop is visitor ; since the second are insti tuted upon principles of charity, such as hospitals and colleges ; arid since the last are created for civil purposes only ; where is this monstrous phantasma of Puritanism to find either place or fellowship 1 As a question of law, then, the charter can have no such construction as the Puritan pilgrim contended for. It stands upon the same ground as do all other instru ments of a similar nature. It supposes the corporators to be good and loyal subjects, whose desires are bounded by the acquisition of wealth, and by the moral improve ment of the heathen, for whose benefit it was chiefly designed. It implies, that "the true Christian religion of the realm shall not suffer any prejudice for want of cer tain expression."1 It assumes, that the men who thus receive at their sovereign's hands such signal marks of favor can have no intent to abuse his kindness. It takes for granted that those " loving subjects," which are sur rendered to the management of the company, will be confirmed in their allegiance, and not taught principles destructive of all honor and loyalty. Finally, it expects, that in the wilderness thus to be peopled with English men, the true English heart will expand ; and that, should clouds and darkness gather about the throne and church, a steady and cheering light from New England will beam across the Atlantic, with healing on its wings. It was in the face of such generous hopes, and con- 1 In the royal grant of Maine to intent of the king, and his sense of Gorges, in 1639, these remarkable the doings of the Puritans of Mas- words are used, showing the real sachusetts. 34* CHARTER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY COMPANY, trary to all law and authority, that the missionary charter of Massachusetts Bay was converted into a political con stitution. Had the corporation remained in England, the visitatorial power possessed by the King's Bench would have easily remedied any perversions of its franchise. But, as we have seen, the infusion of Puritanism into the company was followed by a vote to transfer the char ter. Puritan lawyers were readily found, who sanctioned the legality of the proceeding; and an act, which was begun in secrecy and doubt, was consummated in unhesi tating violation of the law. "The whole structure of the charter presupposes the residence of the company in England, and the transaction of all. its business there," said a late distinguished jurist, and he but echoed the truths of history.1 Would it not have staggered the purpose of the Puritan pilgrims, if they could have fore seen that, among all their descendants, no jurist, histo rian, or moralist, would be found to justify — we wish we could say applaud — this, their greatest exploit 1 ThePuri- The caution, which marked every step in this transac- tan State . , - . . . „ . „ charged tion, saved the aspiring emigrants from interference. loyalty, They refused, while in England, to separate from the and of vi- • i 1 i ii . oiating the national church ; and, when they left its shores forever, rights of . the king's they bequeathed to "their dear Mother" an address, so subjects. . pathetic and humble, so modest and gentle, that it is diffi cult to believe they were the same unhappy children, who afterwards "loathed the milk they had sucked from her breasts." We have not space here to consider whether this famous address to the " Reverend Fathers " of the Church was a purely hypocritical offering, dictated by i Story's Comment, on Const, of from the office of governor of Mas- U. S. vol. i. § 67. See Kent's Com. sachusetts, was of the same opinion. ii. p. 36, n. Bancroft thinks that Vol. i. pp. 353, 384. Henry Vane, who ousted Winthrop AND KING CHARLES THE FIRST. 35 policy, or a sincere tribute to the Catholic Faith, forcibly extorted from them by the influence of the home and country they were abandoning. We must hurry on to the events which followed the transfer of the charter, and ascertain whether Charles, whose bounty had been so singularly perverted, suffered the company to proceed in its own way in Massachusetts, and beheld unmoved the establishment of a Puritan state on the ruins of a noble church mission. Eighteen months passed away from the departure of Winthrop's fleet, before his attention was specially called to New England. During this period, he was too much engaged with abuses of greater mo ment, which were slowly creeping around the footstool of the throne itself, to give heed to the transatlantic doings of a small company of malcontents, who departed with all the stealth of guilt from the kingdom, bearing with them a franchise which belonged to the Church. But this negligence, if it were so, was soon rebuked. Three vic tims of New England tyranny, — Sir Christopher Gar diner, Thomas Morton, and Philip Ratcliff, — all bearing marks of personal outrage and indignity, suddenly pre sented themselves before him as supplicants. Without 1632. manifesting any signs of guilt, or fear of the conse quences, they boldly charged the Puritan State with want of allegiance to the king, and with violating the rights of the subiect. Their stories are briefly told. Gardiner sir chris- ... „topher Gar- had been a great traveller, and claimed to be a knight or diner. the Holy Sepulchre. His adventures seem to have unfit ted him for the quiet pleasures of domestic life, and the wilderness had more charms for him than the city. But though he had wandered as far as the remote corners of the Turkish empire, probably the most unpleasant event of his life occurred not many miles from Boston. In 1630, he was sent to New England by Sir Ferdinando 36 CHARTER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY COMPANY, chap. Gorges, to protect the interests of his patron from any ¦— v^- intrusion by the Massachusetts Bay Company ; but, mak ing use of the questionable finesse often employed in more important diplomacy, he gave out that he forsook the world, in order to lead a godly life. Unhappily for his safety, he claimed descent from that Bishop of Win chester, who " was so great a persecutor of good Prot estants ; " and, perhaps more unhappily for his reputa tion, his household was graced by " a comely young woman," whom he called his cousin, but who was sus pected to be, " after the Italian manner," his concubine. Whether this suspicion was real or pretended, it is difficult to say. It was enough that he was considered a disguised papist, to make him an object of dislike, and all his advances towards friendly intercourse were conse quently repelled. He manifested no unwillingness " to take any pains for his living ; " and offered, on many occasions, to become " a member of the church." 1 But his sincerity was distrusted, and his offers were declined. Finally, the suspicion in which he was held increased to such an extent that his safety was endangered, and he fled from Massachusetts, and placed himself under the protection of a party of Indians near Plymouth. The fellowship, which was denied him by his countrymen* he found among the savages, who steadfastly resisted all attempts of the Puritan government to secure his person. But the assistance of Plymouth having been obtained, an older experience in the savage heart enabled the governor of that colony to suggest an expedient, which proved successful. Temptation, to the man of untutored pas sions, is almost identical with ruin. A reward was offered for the capture of Gardiner, and the Indians 1 Hubbard. Winthrop's Journal. AND KING CHARLES THE FIRST. 37 yielded to bribery what they had denied to menace. Shall we kill our guest? asked the corrupted savages. By no means, said the Plymouth governor ; bring him to us alive, if you would secure your reward. But, returned they, the Massachusetts Indians say, that we may kill him. No, was the reply of the humane Brad ford, watch your opportunity, and take him alive. When the astonished knight saw that his late friends had be come transformed into unrelenting enemies, he endeav ored to escape. But accidentally losing his canoe, his musket, and his sword, he had nothing to keep them at bay but a small dagger, which they soon beat out of his hands, so that " he was glad to yield." The treatment he had received was so rough, that " his hands and arms were swelled very sore." He was carried, an unresisting captive, to Plymouth, and soon found his way to a prison in Boston. His papers were confiscated, and his private letters opened ; and it did not cause an amelioration in his usage, that " a little private note-book," which, by some accident, slipped out of his pocket, contained the day on which he was reconciled to the pope, and the uni versity in which he " took his scapula and degree." It was soon ascertained in what relation he stood towards Gorges, which afforded an excuse for sending him a pris oner to England. But the afflictions of Gardiner were mild, compared Thomas with those suffered by Thomas Morton. This man, an attorney of Clifford's Inn, arrived in New England in 1622, and was subsequently concerned in the" company that endeavored to establish a trading-post at Mount Wollaston, in 1625, so named in honor of Captain Wol- laston, who was at the head of the enterprise. Finding that the project was unsuccessful, this gallant captain began to draft off his servants to Virginia, where, to use 4 38 CHARTER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY COMPANY, his own words, he " could turn them to better account," by selling them as slaves.1 Against such sordid villainy, Morton, a partner in the concern, protested, and excited the men to revolt ; who, having turned adrift the officer appointed to carry out the nefarious scheme of their patron, abandoned themselves, in the true revolutionary spirit, to wanton excesses. They named their fortress Merry Mount, and revelled, unrestrained, in the spirituous liquors which a corrupt civilization had designed for the weaker heads of the Indians. They taught the savages the use of fire-arms, contrary to an obsolete proclamation of King James, in order to avoid the trouble of provid ing their own food ; and they capped the climax of their enormities, when they erected a May-Pole on " Merry Mount," around which to dance and sing. All these scandals were beheld with pious horror from the neigh boring Plymouth Rock, and by the zealots at Naumkeag. Endecott, the director of a colony, whose general moral ity, to say the least, was questionable, visited " this school of profaneness," in 1628, cut down the May-Pole, and changed its name to Mount Dagon. But Morton, un- awed by this trespass, continued an establishment, which he doubtless found profitable as a trucking-post. The combination of all the plantations, shortly after, to effect his ruin, was equally futile. Plymouth, which had the chief part in the alliance, existed only by sufferance, as he probably knew ; and he was enough of a lawyer, also, to know, that even had he been within its imaginary jurisdiction, he was not amenable for trucking fire-arms with the Indians; since the proclamations of the late king, not declarative of any law, died with him. He i Neal. Bradford. Hubbard, &c. Blackwood's Magazine, vpl. xxvi. This species of kidnapping was not p. 607. uncommon in those days. See AND KING CHARLES THE FIRST. 39 therefore despised its menaces, resisted the formidable chap. Standish, vi et armis, and, when sent a captive to Eng- ' — * — ' land, returned again the next year, not only unpunished but unrebuked. But the arrival of Winthrop's fleet brought a more powerful and less scrupulous enemy. Having been detected in the act of taking a canoe from a party of Indians, he was arrested by order of the court of assistants, " set in the bilbowes," and afterwards con fined until he could be again sent a prisoner to England. In the mean time, his property was confiscated, to dis charge his debts and the expense of his passage, and his house was burnt to the ground, " to satisfy the Indians for the wrongs he had done them." 1 Such was the retribution paid by Morton, for unjustly taking a canoe. Had the wrongs inflicted by the Puritan State upon the Indians been weighed in the same balance, where could it have found gold and silver sufficient to satisfy the claims of justice ? Neither Gardiner- nor Morton were in any way con- Philip nected with the Company of Massachusetts Bay. They were free English subjects, amenable only to English courts of justice. The injuries, therefore, that they suf fered in their persons and property, were the fruits of unlawful tyranny. But with Philip Ratcliff' the case was different. He was a servant of Cradock, the former governor of the company, and was convicted of uttering 1631. " scandalous invectives " against the government, and " the church " in Salem. Of the nature of these " in vectives," we are ignorant ; but as his chief offence consisted, according to Morton, his fellow-sufferer, in demanding payment of his wages while sick, we may 1 Prince. Winthrop's Journal. England Brethren," told in Butler's Hubbard. Morton was the author Hudibras. See Sav. Winthrop, vol. of the ludicrous story of the " New i. p. 34, 11. 3. June. 40 CHARTER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY COMPANY, suppose that, in the suffering caused by disappointment, he inveighed against a company, which had undertaken to build without first counting the cost. Perhaps he was a humble follower in the path already trodden by the Brownes. But, however this may be, the punishment inflicted upon him by the court of assistants was utterly disproportioned to his offence, and probably made him insane, since he was afterwards called a " lunatic." 1 To impose upon a poor man, already in want, a fine of forty pounds, to whip him, to cut off his ears, and then to banish him from the limits of civilization into a wilder ness ; all these were surely exhibiting the worst phase of a Star-Chamber Court, since they were the exercise of the grossest tyranny, without even the color of justice. Thecoun- Such were the men, whom a short voyage changed cil ordsrs an inves- from malefactors into the victims of malefaction. Much indignation was expressed at the outrages which they had suffered ; and, as they mingled their complaints against the company with charges of " separation from the 1632. church and laws of England," an order in council issued, directing an investigation. But the complainants were not sustained. The principal stockholders of the original company, who still resided in England, having been sum moned before a committee of the council, it was argued by them, that the charges preferred against the corpora tion could only be proved by witnesses from the planta tion ; that they were on the point of despatching pro visions and merchandise thither, and should suffer great loss if these voyages were delayed to wait the issue of a prolonged investigation ; and that the faults of the direc tors, " if there were any," ought not to be charged upon the members of the company, but should be reserved for 1 Letter of Edward Howes to J. Wintlirop, Jr. Sav. Winthrop, i. p. 56, n. January. AND KING CHARLES THE FIRST. 41 future inquiry. This defence, artful, because it insinuated chap. the residence of the company in England ; dishonest, - — i — ¦ because the voyages they were planning to Massachusetts had partly for their object the transportation of " three famous non-conformist ministers," John Cotton, Thomas Hooker, and Samuel Stone, blinded the eyes of the com mittee. A favorable report was made ; and the lords in council thereupon declared that the company should not be held responsible for the acts of "particular men" which, " in due time, were to be further inquired into." And the defendants were assured that they " might go cheerfully on with their present undertakings, and, if things were carried as was pretended when the patents were granted, his majesty would maintain the liberties and privileges of the company." ' But suspicions were now awakened, that could not be Further wholly allayed. The attention of the king, which had against the been hitherto absorbed by affairs of a nearer interest, state. Cra- v at dock order- Was now divided by the sorcery that was. peopling JNew ed to extu- England. Complaints poured upon him, 'thick and fast ; charter. and the frequent emigration of persons " known to be ill- affected " towards the civil and ecclesiastical establish ments of the kingdom, was vouched in as corroboratory evidence.2 A year had scarcely elapsed from the first order in council, when a second order issued, requiring 1633. the stay of all ships about to proceed to Massachusetts, the production of all their passenger lists, and directing Cradock, the first governor of the company, to exhibit the royal charter.3 Hitherto, the removal of the corpora tion had been unnoticed, and this command to produce the patent filled the agents of the company with dismay. i Winthrop's Journ. Neal. Haz- 2 Winthrop's Journ. Neal. Hub- ard, &c. bard, &c. 3 See Hazard, vol. i. p. 341. 4. * 42 CHARTER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY COMPANY, The discomfiture of transatlantic Puritanism and the ruin of the colony, appeared alike inevitable. Fortunately for both, the charges made were so exaggerated by prejudice and enmity, that they could not be proved. The. com pany was not simply accused of resolving its charter into a constitution, but of open rebellion and want of alle giance. The accusation was not that the franchise had been perverted from its true missionary purpose, but that, under its protection, an utter separation from the English Church had been violently effected. Such charges, which only served to disguise the real mischief, were easily dis proved ; for the Puritan State had not yet lost all sense of loyalty in the selfish gratification of independence. Her agents could point the king to the letter from The Arabella, wherein the departing pilgrims prayed for the prosperity of their " dear Mother," the Church of Eng land, and promised to " enlarge her boundaries in the Kingdom of Jesus Christ." They could easily demonstrate the absurdity of rebellion on the part of a band of emi grants, without resources, and in a wilderness surrounded by savages and wild beasts. To produce the charter was indeed impossible, since it was three thousand miles away ; but even this difficulty was smqothed over by a promise to transmit the order forthwith to Massachusetts. These arguments, united with a plausible suggestion, that to encourage the plantation " would be very beneficial to England," since it was a country rich in natural produc tions, and afforded masts, cordage, and naval stores,1 gained the Puritan State another victory, and emigration thither was suffered to continue, though narrowly watched. The king even expressed anger at charges which seemed to dwindle, on investigation, into calumnies ; and he 1 Winthrop's Letter to Bradford, Prince, vol. ii. 89-91. Winthrop's Journal. Hubbard, &c. AND KING CHARLES THE FIRST. 43 threatened to punish those persons who thus " abused his governor and plantation." But the calm was mo mentary, and simply caused by revulsion of feeling. The best friends of the Puritan State felt that it was tottering upon the brink of a precipice, and they privately inti mated to the ruling oligarchy, that it would be unsafe to attract notice by neglecting the prayers for the king, or differing widely from the ritual of the Church of Eng land.1 One incident grew out of these proceedings, of a pecu liar nature. It is related by Puritan writers, that some members of the council assured the defendants, on their dismissal, that " his majesty did not intend to impose upon them the ceremonies of the Church of England ; for it was considered that it was the freedom from such things that made people come over to them."2 On this assertion, so totally irreconcilable with the order in coun cil, the strongest arguments in favor of New England Puritanism have been founded. But it is obvious that the position cannot be maintained. For the singular inconsistency is charged upon the king of having ordered, by charter, the administration of the oath of supremacy to the members and servants of the company, of having afterwards arrested the emigration of persons to their plantation known to be non-conformists, and, then, at the time when he was endeavoring to procure conformity from the Presbyterians of Scotland, of intimating that the encouragement of Puritanism was the very reason why he granted the franchise. The guarded manner in which this assertion reaches us proves, that, if made at all, it was an ex parte statement, resting solely on the 1 Kirby's Letter, Sav. Winthrop, * This assertion is found in Win- vol. i. p. 103, n. Also Letter of Ed- throp's Journal. ward Howes, lb. 44 CHARTER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY COMPANY, responsibility of certain meddlers, either friendly or un friendly, it is difficult to conjecture which, to the real interests of the colony. The assurance was not that the king had made such a declaration, but only that such was his view of the matter. Who were these " some of the council 1 " What authority had they to compromise Charles in so grave a matter] Were they the two archbishops, or the Earl of Manchester,, the Keeper ofthe privy seal, or the Earl of Dorset, queen's chamberlain, or Lord Cottington, chamberlain, or Mr. Secretary Cook, or Mr. Secretary Windebanke, or Thomas Meawtis, clerk of the council 1 These were the signatures affixed to the order in council, requiring the arrest of all sus picious vessels bound to the plantation, and the same names,- with one exception, were included in the royal commission shortly after established by King Charles, for the better regulation of the English colonies. Is it prob able that these high officers of state, who were so actively engaged in promoting the honor of their master, stooped to whisper a calumny against him "? And if no calumny, why all this stealth, and why was the royal intention not made known by proclamation, that all might hear and govern themselves accordingly ] Appoint- On the contrary, when it appeared that this species of a royal emigration continued, that the charter was not produced commis- . .. . r sion. in compliance with the order, and that complaints were not hushed by the reprimand of the king, more strenuous 1634. measures were adopted. A royal commission was issued to several lords of the council, among whom were the metropolitans of England, intrusting to them the protec tion and government of the English colonies. This com mission contained the amplest powers of supervision; and the lords commissioners were vested with legal authority to establish conformity in America, from the April. AND KING CHARLES THE FIRST. 45 banks of the Kennebec to the shores of Long Island chap. Sound. They could, " upon just cause" and with the ' — v-^ " royal assent," remove governors, punish delinquents, and constitute tribunals, civil and ecclesiastical. But the chief power intrusted to them related specially to Massa chusetts. Whereas, recites the preamble, we, by virtue of our royal authority, granted unto divers of our sub jects liberty " not only to enlarge the territories of our empire, but more especially to propagate the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ" we do give unto you all letters-patent and other writings whatsoever, by us or our predecessor granted, and if, upon view thereof, the same shall appear unto you to have been surreptitiously and unduly ob tained, or that any privileges or liberties therein granted are hurtful to the crown, you shall cause the same to be revoked, " according to the laws and customs of Eng land."1 Affairs now hastened rapidly to a crisis. The atten- which di- rpots its tion of the lords commissioners was directed exclusively attention to the transfer of the charter, and to the equivocal emi- transfer gration that was rapidly peopling New England. The charter. wardens of the Cinque Ports were directed not to suffer any persons who were subsidy men to embark for the plantations without license, nor any persons under that degree, without proper evidence that they had taken the oaths of supremacy and allegiance, and were in conformity with the Church of England. The oath of supremacy did not necessarily imply conformity, for both Robinson and Brewster, in . behalf of the Pilgrims, avowed their willingness to take it, if required.2 Thus surely and carefully did the commissioners proceed, where so much deceit had been practised. The Grand Council of Plym- 1 This important clause both Ban- 2 See their Letter, Hazard, vol. croft and Grahame omit. i. p. 365. 46 CHARTER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY COMPANY, chap, outh, from whom the Company of Massachusetts Bay ^r-~> derived their territory, were next called upon to declare by what authority and by whose procurement the transfer had been made. They denied all knowledge of the trans- 1635. action, showing their sincerity by surrendering their own AprU' patent to the king. They alluded to " the new laws and new conceits, both in matters of religion and temporal government," established by the Puritans of Massachu setts,- " whereby they did rend in pieces the first founda tion ofthe building" and they prayed the king " to take the whole business into his own hands," requesting only that those persons who had grants in New England might be confirmed in their titles, and " humbly dedicat ing to the foundation of a church ten thousand acres of land."1 The crown was now placed upon its strict legal rights. The franchise had been granted to further missionary effort, and to increase the prosperity of the kingdom. Neither of these objects had been attained. Not a soli tary missionary was laboring among the Indians, and instead of that general prosperity of the kingdom con templated by the charter, was a growing commonwealth, devoted to its own interests, utterly foreign in character as well as position, and the cause of endless confusion and complaint. The surrender by the Grand Council of Plymouth was followed by an order to the attorney gen eral to bring a quo toarranto in the King's Bench against the corporation, which was accordingly served upon those members who were resident in England. But it seems that they were wearied in defending the wrong, or had become disappointed in their expectations of wealth, for they appeared, to the number of fourteen, among whom 1 Hazard. AND KING CHARLES THE FIRST. 47 were Eaton, Saltonstall, Rosewell, Browne, Vassal, and chap. Foxcroft, and pleaded that they never usurped " the fran- chises in the information," nor did " they use or claim any of the same, but wholly disclaimed them." Judg ment was accordingly given, that they should be wholly excluded from the liberties usurped by the company. Cradock, the former governor, alone interpleaded, but he afterwards suffered default. Judgment, therefore, was entered up against him, that he was convicted of the usurpation charged in the information, and that the liber ties and franchises of the company should be seized into the king's hands. " The rest of the patentees stood out lawed." 1 Little further took place. The energies of the crown were required for other and more pressing duties. In 1637, initiatory measures were taken for the reconstruc- July. tion of the colonies, and Sir Ferdinando Gorges was appointed by the king general governor of New Eng land. But the real difficulty of the plan prevented its execution.2 In the mean time, Massachusetts was con tinually receiving an accession of numbers from Eng land, which encouraged her to more bold opposition when again summoned before the sovereign she had wronged. Two hundred and ninety-eight ships were estimated to have sailed for New England, from the time that the charter was granted down to the decline of the royal cause, and of these one only is said . to have miscarried.3 On board these ships, which bridged the Atlantic, poured the turbid yet vigorous stream of Puritanism that Eng land emptied into her colonies. In 1638 alone, three thousand persons forsook their native land for the sterile soil and ungenial climate of New England.4 Priests 1 Hazard. 3 Johnson, B. i. ch. 14. 2 Chalmers's Annals. 4 Winthrop's Journal. 48 CHARTER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY COMPANY, chap, apostatizing, and flying in disguise, people abandoning « — ^-w the Holy Mother which had borne and blessed them, and nourished them with her choicest food, present a spectacle sad enough ; but how awful does it become, when we consider that few of this recreant multitude could have left the kingdom tvithout first taking the oaths of supremacy and allegiance, and producing certi ficates that they were in communion with a church which they had abandoned ! Orders the It was not until 1638 that the lords commissioners, sion ofthe "calling to mind their former order to Mr. Cradock," England, and fortified by the judgment of the King's Bench, de- Aprii. spatched fresh orders to Massachusetts, requiring the governor, "or any others in whose power or custody" was the charter, to transmit the same forthwith to Eng land, and threatening, in the event of " further neglect and contempt," to " take a strict course against them." They were the more determined in this course, from the fact, that the colonial government already considered it " perjury and treason " for the freemen of the common wealth to speak of appeals to the king. The freeman's oath recognized no country, no church, no God, but The order those of Puritanism. The general court no sooner plied with, received this order than they voted an address to excuse September, their compliance with a demand founded " upon pretence that judgment had been passed against their charter upon a quo loarranto." An ingenious answer was accordingly prepared, wherein the general court declared, that if they had been notified of the quo warranto, no doubt they could have put in a sufficient plea to it: that, if they should transmit the charter to England, " they would be looked at as runagates and outlaws ; " that the common people would think that his majesty had cast them off; and that they would, for their safety, confederate them- AND KING CHARLES THE FIRST. 49 selves under a new government, which would be of danger ous example to other plantations. " We do not question your lordships' proceedings," said they, in conclusion ; "we only desire to open our griefs where the remedy is to be expected. And we are bold to renew our humble supplications to your lordships, that we may be suffered to live here in this wilderness, and that this poor planta tion, which hath found more favor with God than many others, may not find less favor with the king." A semi official reply was returned by the lords commissioners, 1639. through the medium of Mr. Cradock. They endeavored to allay the jealousies and fears, which the peremptory demand of the charter had occasioned, declared their only intentions to be the regulation of all the colonies accord ing to their commission, and promised to continue the liberties of the people of Massachusetts as English sub jects. They again called upon the corporation to send home the charter, and, as an earnest of their benevolent designs, authorized its present government to continue until a new patent passed the seals. The general court voted to take no notice of this last order; for, said the members, in their debates, it is unofficial ; and the lords commissioners cannot "proceed upon it," since they can obtain no proof that it was delivered to the governor. And, the better to insure this result, they directed Mr. Cradock's agent, when he again wrote to his principal, not to mention the receipt of Ms last letters} And thus ended the controversy. Puritanism in Eng- Vindiea- land had passed from the ideal to the actual, and Charles Charles I. was called upon to struggle for his crown over the totter ing ramparts of the Church. Ought we not to have gentle thoughts of his memory, when we consider that his last wishes for New England were, that the Holy 1 Winthrop's Journal. Hubbard. Hutchinson, &c. 5 50 CHARTER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY COMPANY, ETC. Faith, which had rendered the Mother Country glorious for eight centuries, might bless the colonies that had received her name 1 In his controversy with the Massa chusetts Bay Company, he has been represented by pop ular writers as harsh and tyrannical ; but not only have they shut their eyes to the circumstances under which he acted, but they have also forgotten, that, had he been a real tyrant, he would have avoided the forms of law, and with a single armed ship have obtained summary redress. In fact, the candid inquirer into the merits of this contro versy will admire the genius of English liberty. He will behold a great monarch defrauded by a portion of his subjects, and resorting for redress, like the humblest citizen, to the courts of law. He will carefully watch each step of this remarkable process, from the issue of the writ to the final decree ; and he will look in vain for any abuse of power, or even undignified menace. Calm, quiet, patient, yet determined, is each feature in the curi ous exhibition. And when the proper tribunal has pro nounced, at last, that a serious wrong has been inflicted by a party of malcontents upon their sovereign, he will find that no pomp or noise announces the royal triumph, but a simple order follows for the surrender of a per verted franchise, and a powerful corporation, the mere creature of law, becomes, ipso facto, resolved into its primary elements. We conclude with a single quotation. In their address to Charles II. , in 1664, the General Court of Massachu setts made use of the following remarkable language: " The deepest invention of man cannot find out a more certain way of consistence than to obtain a royal donation from a great prince, under his great seal, which is the greatest security that may be had in human affairs." What other or happier vindication does the honor of the royal martyr need ! CHAPTER II. THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH. Part I. Nature of the Corporation Government — The Magistrates assume to be an Oligarchy — The Freemen claim to be a Privileged Body — Struggle between the Aristocratic and Liberal Parties — The General Court be comes a Legislature — The Magistrates call the Elders to their Support — The Elders establish a Council for Life — They erect the Magistrates into a Senate — The Judicial Authority conferred by the Charter — The Puritan State claims the Common Law — The Assistants claim to be Judges — The Freemen demand a Body of Laws — The Criminal Code of the Puritan State — The Moral Influence of the Puritan State. " We had now fair, sunshine weather ; and so pleasant chap. a sweet air as did much refresh us, and there came a -^-r-— ¦ smell off the shore like the smell of a garden."1 Heaven seemed to smile upon the Puritan-Pilgrims. The Old World, with its mighty associations, was shut from their eyes forever, but, as if to make amends for the loss, Nature, in the New World, assumed her brightest colors; and the flowers of the forest, arrayed in superhuman glory, shed their richest perfume, to welcome the advent of Puritanism. But the transfer of the charter was only the forerunner of civil and religious usurpations. In England, a small bit of parchment, decorated with the great seal, and guarded by the courts of Westminster 1 Winthrop's Journal. 52 THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH. chap. Hall, could only mean a grant of privilege. In another - — ^ continent, removed beyond the long arm of the law, it was construed into a surrender of right. The governor, directors, and company resolved themselves into the gov ernor, council, and commonwealth. In the preceding chapter, we gave a brief account of the Massachusetts Bay Company, showing the curious nature of an organization, which was designed for the double purpose of commerce and religion. We now pro pose to follow the usurpers of that franchise into the wil derness, and, recalling the events which two centuries have failed to conceal, to watch each step of the progress, which began with a feeble band of emigrants and ended with a powerful commonwealth. We propose to ascer tain, whether the genuine principles of Puritanism were those of civil liberty ; whether the common people were gainers by exchanging the sceptre of their sovereign for the sway of an oligarchy; and whether the institutions, which were reared as if by magic on these sterile shores, were the free gifts of the elders and magistrates, or the defensive creations of the people. Nature of The charter provided, for the direction of the com- the corpo- , . . ration gov- pany s affairs, a governor, deputy governor, and eighteen assistants, to be elected annually by all the freemen, or members of the franchise, out of their own number. Any seven of these assistants, with the governor or his deputy, were to be the executive of the company, and, for the despatch of business, they were to meet at least once in every month. This board of directors, thus chosen, was authorized to carry into operation the laws and regula tions established by the general court. Certain powers were also intrusted to the assistants, suitable for the proper management of a distant plantation; but the charter did not contemplate that they should exercise THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH. 53 those supreme political rights which belonged only to the part king and parliament. -— ¦ v-^ Implying the residence of the corporation in England, the charter further provided for " four great, general, and solemn assemblies," to be held by the governor, assistants, and freemen, on every last Wednesday in Hil ary, Easter, Trinity, and Michaelmas Terms, respectively. These great and general courts were to have full power to admit new members to the franchise, to elect and com mission all suitable officers, and to make by-laws and ordinances for the company and its plantation, not con trary to the laws and statutes of England. The court of election was to be the general meeting, on the last Wednesday in Easter Term. To the governor was committed no extraordinary authority. He was to be simply the presiding officer of the board of assistants ; and the direct powers conferred upon him by charter consisted only of administering the oaths of office to the deputy governor and the assistants, and of calling a meeting of the freemen upon any special emergency. Such was the simple machinery of a corporation, whose avowed objects were missionary and mercantile enter prise ; and so strictly were its rights and privileges con strued at the outset, that, when Endecott was sent over to commence a plantation, he was left out of the board of assistants, because he was to reside " out of the land." But when the corporate body was transferred, confu- The mag- sion of affairs became inevitable; for the charter implied sume to be t-i i j an ou£ar" the residence of the franchise in England, and made no chy. provision for the contingencies arising from the establish ment of a commonwealth in a foreign land. For it is observable, that an antagonistic spirit between the magis trates and the freemen was continually in operation, dur ing the existence of the first charter. The former had 5* 54 THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH. set the example in the struggle for power, by converting themselves from the directors of a company into the rulers of a commonwealth. First perverting their legal powers, they then claimed to derive the authority they exercised from the charter, and not the freemen. As men of some rank and fortune, they were unwilling to lose, in the new country, the dignity and consideration they had enjoyed in the old. And in this natural ambi tion they were supported by the elders, so long as they continued true to the interests of Puritanism. The leading political idea of the Puritan Commonwealth was boldly proclaimed by the oligarchy themselves. " Democracy," wrote John Cotton, with pious horror, " I do not conceive that ever God did ordain as a fit government either for .church or commonwealth ; as for monarchy and aristocracy, they are both of them clearly approved and directed in the Scripture." J " The best part of a commonwealth," said John Winthrop, " is always the least, and of that best part the wiser is still less." 2 Such were the principles which actuated the rulers of Massachusetts, and the results were fruitful in troubles. The freemen were determined in their opposi tion to such assumptions ; and these mutually repelling forces were only kept in union by the powerful magnet ism of religion. The elders and the magistrates pre served their ascendency in the government by the use of the ingeniously contrived Covenant. The elders were sustained by the magistrates ; for who would undergo disfranchisement and indignity by raising his voice against the church 1 The magistrates were supported by the elders ; for who would subject himself to spiritual denun- 1 Cotton's Letter to Lord Say and a Belknap's American Biography. Seal, in Hutchinson, App. vol. i. THE PURITAN commonwealth. 55 ciation, and, perhaps, endanger his eternal welfare, by endeavoring to overthrow the power of the state % For the first few years after the transfer of the char ter, the magistrates were in possession of almost supreme authority. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts was ushered into existence as a pure oligarchy.1 Taking advantage of the feebleness and enthusiasm of the free men, nearly all of whom had accompanied the charter, the assistants obtained an unanimous vote, authorizing 1630. them to choose the governor and the deputy governor out of their own number, and leaving to the freemen only the election of the assistants, " when they tvere to be chosen." But this arrangement left open the question when the assistants were to be chosen ; and notwithstand ing the charter provided that eighteen of these officers should be annually elected by the company, those of them only who had come over from England, scarce twelve in number, continued quietly in office for nearly two years.2 Thus a precedent was, at the outset, obtained for violat ing the provisions of the charter; and though the free men soon recovered, in the ensuing struggle, their legal rights as electors, yet the court of assistants never after wards was composed of a legitimate number of members ; and the dignities, the emoluments, and, for a considerable time, the powers of the government, were monopolized by ten or twelve persons.3 This contempt for chartered right was accompanied by practical wrong. The board of directors, now meta morphosed into a council of state, took the affairs of the commonwealth entirely into their own hands ; levying taxes, making laws, and punishing with severity all vio lations of their authority. They " exercised all the pow- 1 See Chalmers's Annals, p. 157. 3 Hutchinson, i. p. 293, n. 2 Johnson, b. i. ch. 26. 56 the puritan commonwealth. chap, ers of parliament, king's bench, common pleas, chancery, ¦wy^ high commission, star-chamber, and all the other courts of England."1 At their first meeting after the transfer August, of the charter, they sat as a parliament, promulgating a number of laws for the regulation of the plantation. The operation of these and subsequent laws originating from the same source, afforded ample opportunity for the exercise of judicial powers, whether civil or criminal. As an ecclesiastical court of high commission, they ever maintained a jealous watch over the interests of the Puri tan establishment ; inflicting banishments, fines, whip pings, and imprisonments upon heretics, schismatics, and dissenters. As a court of star-chamber, they levied taxes on the people, without their consent, and punished with extreme severity those who questioned their authority, or treated them with disrespect.2 In fine, the court of assistants spared no rigor to advance their power and to compel obedience. Supreme authority was lodged in the hands of the few, irresponsible, and self-constituted; while the many, who had hugged themselves in the thought that they should enjoy the largest liberty in the wilderness, found that in their new position they were in danger of becoming vassals, at the same time that they became outlaws. The free- The magistrates having set the example in violating men claim , , . r ° tobeapri- the charter, the freemen were not slow to follow it. If vileged body. 1 Thomas Lechford, a " fractious be brought into bondage," and attorney," applied this language, at openly declared that they took the a subsequent period, to the general government " to be no other but as court; but it may with equal truth, a mayor and aldermen, who have no and with, a better analogy, be used power to make laws and levy taxes towards the courtof assistants. See tvitbout the people." One Stone Hutchinson, vol. i. p. 398. was banished the plantation, on pain 2 For example, read the story of of death, being first heavily fined, the inhabitants of Watertown, in because he called one of the assist- Winthrop's Journal, vol. i. p. 70. ants Just-ass, instead of Justice. These men feared that they " would the puritan commonwealth. 57 the former were exclusive and arbitrary, why could not part the latter be also a privileged body ? At the general ' — y~^ court held in May, the freemen proposed and carried 1631. that singular measure, to which must be referred many of the subsequent troubles of the colony. " To the end," says the order, " that the body of freemen may be pre served of honest and good men, none shall hereafter be admitted to the liberties of this commonwealth, but such persons as shall be members of some of the churches within its jurisdiction." 1 Hitherto, men, not " church mem bers," had been freely admitted to the franchise ; and only the year before, one hundred persons, some of whom were "old planters," had taken the freeman's oath.2 The consequences of this regulation were most important. Puritanism immediately seized hold of the infant com monwealth with an iron grasp. A large number of the inhabitants were not " church members ; " and no matter what their wealth or consideration, they became hope lessly a degraded caste, unless they consented to burden their consciences with the covenant. For the future, they could enjoy no security of life or estate ; they could have no voice in the election of their rulers ; and they were utterly prostrated at the feet of those whom bigotry would always incline to regard non-members of their church as adversaries of the state.3 Such was the dawn of republicanism on a Puritan horizon ; and, so harsh was the operation of this relentless law, that, so late as the year I676, five-sixths of the people were disfran chised."* But the freemen soon began to chafe under the vigor- struggle ° between ous sway of the oligarchy. A short time before the the aristo- J ° J cratic and liberal par ties. 1 Colony Laws. 3 See Lechford, in Hutch, vol. i. 2 Hutchinson. p. 30, n. 4 Story's Misc. p. 66. 58 THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH. chap, meeting of the court of election, the governor, foreseeing - — ^ the impending storm, announced to his fellow-magistrates 1 coo *¦ , that they would soon be called upon to surrender their usurped privileges. He told them, that the freemen not only would demand that the assistants should be " chosen anew every year," but that they would require that the governor himself should be elected by the general court. The magistrates were filled with alarm. One "grew into a passion," declaring that, in that event, there would be no government, and that he should return to Eng land.1 In his opinion, "the bigotry" of a Laud, and " the tyranny " of a Stuart, were preferable to a popular government. But the ever firm and wise Winthrop " answered and cleared the difficulty in the judgment " of his compeers. The mode of election " rendered their continuance in office almost certain ; " while, as a last resort, they could summon the powerful cooperation of May the elders. The general court soon after assembled, the great body of the freemen overflowing with jealousy, and prepared for an attack upon the oligarchy. The griev ances under which they labored were immediately taken up, and they demanded that the governor and assist ants should be chosen every year, by the whole court, according to the charter. The measure was carried with out difficulty or opposition ; but the event proved that, though the magistrates could not safely obstruct its pas sage, they incurred no immediate danger in yielding it their assent. For no sooner had the freemen resumed their legitimate rights, than " accordingly the old gover nor and all the rest as before were chosen." This attack upon the oligarchy was the beginning of a long and interesting struggle. Civil liberty, yet in its 1 Winthrop's Journal. THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH. 59 infancy, could look nowhere for sympathy. Sixteen centuries of Christianity had taught only the duty of obedience. On the shores of Massachusetts Bay, Puri tanism was made the unwilling teacher of a new dispen sation. The increase of the population, the continued expansion of the settlements, which, like slow spreading fires, were gradually lapping up the wilderness, gave a fresh impulse to the growing divisions between the mag istrates and the freemen. The general courts were falling into disuse, except as courts of election ; and the freemen, scattered loosely over the soil, found that they were subjected to a central power, which, at the same time, was the keeper and interpreter of the charter, the maker and enforcer of the law. Unwilling to lose their just rights, and ignorant of the true construction of the charter, which many of them probably had never seen, they " deputed two of each town " to meet at Boston, 1634. and consult respecting their anomalous position. The court of election was soon to be held, and it was con sidered necessary that this primitive caucus should make some preparation for an event which had hitherto met them too much in dishabille. The deputies had no sooner assembled than they demanded "a sight of the patent," and, reading therein that the- power of making laws was lodged with the general court, they repaired in a body to the governor for an explanation. The interview was unsatisfactory. They were told that the charter never contemplated so great an increase of freemen, and that, therefore, its provision concerning the lawmaking power was unfitted for " so great a body ; " that, as it was not possible for the freemen to make and execute the laws, it became necessary for them to intrust that duty to others ; that, though hereafter it might be proper for them to choose "a select company for the work," yet, in their April. 60 THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH. chap, present condition, they had not a sufficient number of ¦— -r-^ men qualified for so important a task ; but that, at the ensuing general court, they might make an order, that in every year, " upon summons from the governor," a cer tain number of the freemen should be delegated to revise the laws, to reform what should be amiss, and to see that no taxes were levied or lands disposed of without their consent. At the same time, they were cautioned that this " committee " df the freemen would be permitted to make no new laws, and that their grievances must be, in all cases, preferred to the court of assistants.1 The gen- Such was the arrogant manner in which the governor becomes treated the deputies of the freemen ; and his conduct, on tore. this memorable occasion, has been well likened to that of an absolute sovereign, deigning to grant a favor to his subjects.2 But the consultations of the deputies had their good effects, and prepared the freemen for concerted May. action. When the general court assembled, " twenty- four of the principal inhabitants appeared, as the repre sentatives of the people." The illegality of this pro ceeding was not for one moment considered. A ready apology was found in the impracticability of assembling, at one time and place, all the freemen of the state, and in the danger that would threaten so many families left exposed to the ravages of the Indians. In truth, the charter was the last thing thought of, at this agitated session of the court. The elders were engaged in preaching against rotation in office ; 3 while the deputies and the magistrates were fully occupied in struggling for their respective orders. But here, at least, the freemen had the advantage over the oligarchy. The deputies ivould hear of no elections until they had given expression ' Winthrop's Journal. 3 Winthrop's Journal. 2 Sav. Winthrop, vol. i. p. 129, n. THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH. 61 to the grievances under which their constituents labored, part They resolved, that it belonged to the general court to — ^ make laws, to appoint and remove officers, and to assign them their duties ; and also, that the general court alone had power to levy taxes, and to make grants of land. These resolutions were followed by the elections, and the general displeasure was exhibited by the choice of a new governor. The members of the court then resolved themselves into a " supreme legislative assembly," declar ing that the general court, consisting of magistrates and deputies, was the chief civil power of the commonwealth; that four yearly sessions should be held, to be summoned by the governor, but not to be dissolved without their own consent ; that it should be lawful for the freemen to meet, by their deputies, before each session, and confer together upon such business as should seem necessary to be brought to the notice of the court ; and that the repre sentatives of the freemen, duly chosen by them, should be entitled to the same privileges as by charter were con ferred upon their constituents, the elections only excepted. The elections, the source of all executive power, the free men reserved to themselves ; and a law was soon after passed, authorizing them to cast their votes in the several towns where they resided. Having thus resumed into their hands their legitimate rights, the deputies imposed fines upon the magistrates for the abuses of which they had been guilty.1 In this summary manner, the court of assistants was The magis- stripped of its exclusive legislative authority. Hence- the eiders . V • ,, , , , .to their torth, it could only act as a component part or the general support. court, so far as legislation was concerned. But, wiser by experience, the magistrates intrusted their cause for 1 Hutchinson, vol. i. p. 39. Sav. Winthrop, vol. i. p. 132. Colony Laws. gg THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH. the future to the powerful arm of their church. This step was the more necessary, when they began to be divided among themselves. In the year following, the magistrates, alarmed at the encroachments of the free men, were at issue on a question of public policy. In 1635. the elections for this year, they had been again made to feel, more unpleasantly than before, the indignation of the freemen, and symptoms of a republican spirit were breaking forth in the general court. There was a gen eral clamor for a Magna Charta} What was the wisest plan for arresting the progress of so foul a disease? One party, led by Winthrop, maintained that, " in the infancy of plantations," government should be adminis tered with lenity ; and others, with Dudley at their head, insisted that severity was the wiser course. The division was of an alarming nature ; for in a contest like theirs, the few against the many, unanimity is of the last im portance. The subject was finally referred to the elders, who gave their opinion, that " strict discipline " is more necessary in plantations than settled states, for the pres ervation of " the honor and safety of the gospel." To this decision, Winthrop submitted with much meekness, apologizing for , his former remissness, and promising, " by God's assistance, to take a more strict course." Harmony was restored, by a concession which stung the last hours of the humane Winthrop ; 2 and it was unani mously agreed that the government should be adminis tered with more rigor ; that the. magistrates should always consult together in private, before the sessions of the general court, in order that their " votes in public might bear as the voice of God ; " that, to the governor should be confided the main control of the court ; that 1 Sav. Winthrop, vol. i. pp. 155, 2 See Hutchinson, vol. i. p. I42i 158, 159, 160, &c. THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH. 63 all contempts of the court, or of the persons of the mag istrates, should be specially noticed and punished ; and that they should appear with more solemnity in public, and with "the attendance and apparel" befitting their rank.1 The determination to use more rigor in the govern- The eiders . . . iii establish a ment was, perhaps, the most unwise measure that could council for have been adopted, and was followed by a scheme equally imprudent. It began to be evident that the magistrates were contending against fearful odds ; and that they, who had, in all respects, made the greatest sacrifices for the common cause, were in danger of sinking into the com mon level of the freemen. Happily for their influence, they cast the burden of their support upon the elders ; though these could not arrest the huge principles that Puritanism had unwittingly set in motion, but were only able to modify their bearing, and to check their rapid progress. While, therefore, the Puritan leaders in the New World were struggling against the growth of civil liberty, it was gratifying to them to learn that they had the sym pathy of men of rank in England. Four months had not elapsed from the secret resolutions above mentioned, when the oligarchical longing of the magistrates took a bolder flight. Lord Say and Seal, Lord Brook, and other persons of quality, who were of the Puritan party in England, contemplated removing to New England, and addressed proposals to the government of Massachu setts, requiring, as an indispensable condition, the estab lishment of an hereditary oligarchy. To this stipulation, the magistrates, however anxious, were unable to accede ; but, in their reply, they acknowledged two distinct ranks to exist in every state, " from the light of nature and 1 Winthrop's Journal. Q4f THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH. Scripture ; the one of them called princes, or nobles, or elders, and the other the people." And fearing lest the rising preponderance of the freemen would discourage the applicants from coming over, the general court was prevailed upon, "by the advice and solicitation of the elders," to establish a standing council, who should be the active assistants of the governor, and hold office dur ing Ufe. The number that was to compose this council, was purposely left uncertain ; and only three were chosen at first, in order that " an open door might be kept for such desirable gentlemen as should come over." 1 Strengthened by union, and armed with their new dig nity, the oligarchy again flung themselves into the polit ical arena, to contend against the freemen. By charter, legislative acts required only the assent of a majority of the freemen, assembled in general court. On its floor, magistrates and freemen were supposed to meet, not as rulers and ruled, but as members of the same company, deliberating for the general welfare. Even the governor was but primus inter pares until 1641, when the general court conferred upon him a casting-vote in the assembly.3 Such a construction of the charter, however well adapted for a commercial company, was utterly opposed to the legislation of a commonwealth, and particularly to the pretensions of an aristocratic magistracy. This difficulty had been somewhat remedied in that bold measure, which authorized the freemen to appear in the general court, by their representatives. Still, the preponderance of the deputies was very great ; for each town was represented by three of its inhabitants, and, while the magistrates never exceeded twelve in number, the deputies could muster more than thirty. To remedy this inconvenience, 1 Hutchinson, vol. i. Appendix, 2 Colony Laws. p. 436. Winthrop's Journal. 1639. THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH. 65 which increased with the increase of population, the magistrates proposed " to reduce all towns to two depu ties." ] The effect of this measure, got up, doubtless, at May a private meeting of the assistants, before the session of the court, seems not to have been immediately apparent, and the order was carried with little opposition. But when the subject was discussed in the several towns of the jurisdiction, "the people were much displeased with their deputies, for yielding to such an order," and fear was entertained that " the magistrates intended to bring all power into their own hands." Whereupon, at the next session of the court, a petition was presented on behalf of the freemen, demanding the abrogation of the law. A warm debate arose upon the question, for " the hands of some of the elders were to this petition, though suddenly drawn in, and without due consideration." On the one hand, it was said that such a movement " savored of resisting an ordinance of God ; " on the other, it was alleged that the reduction of the deputies was an infringe ment of the liberty of the freemen. Finally, " such reasons were given " for the law, and such proofs afforded " that their liberty rested not in numbers, but the thing" that the petition was dismissed.2 The freemen were soon revenged. The standing council had been in existence for three years, and the noblemen, whose application suggested "the new order of magistrates," had relinquished all designs of emigra tion. But the oligarchy, far from being content with their acquisition, made it a plea for further advantage. The standing council had been won from the freemen by arguments " from the Word of God ; " possibly the same means would prove successful in demonstrating that l See Sav. Winthrop, vol. i. p. 300. 3 Ibid. pp. 300, 301. 6* 66 THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH. chap, not only "the principal magistrates," but the governor ^^ himself, should hold office during life ! This plot, gen erated, apparently, at one of the secret sessions ofthe assistants, before the meeting of the general court, was hatched in a sermon. An elder harangued the free men, as they were preparing their votes for the elections, declaring that, in his opinion, " a governor ought to be for life," and illustrating his position by a reference to " the best commonwealths in Europe, and especially that of Israel." Contrary to expectation, the bold idea en countered immediate hostility. The freemen suspected that " there had been some plot to put it in practice ; " and the deputies not only refused to listen to the pro posal, but immediately passed an order that " no person chosen a counsellor for life should have any authority as a magistrate, except he were chosen in the annual elec tions to one of the places of magistracy, established by the patent." Thus the standing council was virtually destroyed ; and though the magistrates, mortified by their double defeat, at first hesitated to give the vote their assent, they soon ratified it in substance, conscious that contention would only give color to the popular jealousy. They erect The principle of " the negative voice," was yet another the magis- e i • -in n tratesinto attempt of the magistrates to overpoise the freemen. So early as 1634, the question had arisen, whether the assist ants could negative a vote of the deputies. The former maintained the affirmative with much earnestness, in order " to balance the greater number " of the latter, and they endeavored to establish its legality by referring to the charter. Since it was therein provided, that every general court should include among its members the governor and at least six of the assistants, it was argued, that this provision made it necessary that these should THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH. 67 concur in every law, in order to render it valid. This construction of the charter the deputies resisted. A day of fasting was appointed "to seek the Lord," and Mr. Cotton preached a sermon, wherein he demonstrated that " the strength of the magistracy was their authority, of the people their liberty, and of the ministry their purity;" and he showed how each of these orders in a state has a negative voice on the others. But though the question was put to rest for the time, the deputies were not satis fied. A favorable opportunity only was wanting, to kindle fresh agitation. In 1642, a poor woman peti tioned the general court concerning her title to a sow, which, she alleged, was unjustly disputed. The sympa thies of the deputies were enlisted in her behalf, and a majority were in favor of granting her prayer. But the assistants, weighing the evidence more carefully, were otherwise minded. Seven magistrates and eight deputies prevailed against two magistrates and fifteen deputies ; and it was noised about the country, that the negative voice of the magistrates " had hindered the course of justice." The commonwealth was quickly in flames. In vain the magistrates declared that their negative voice had been established upon " serious consultation with the elders ; " the discussion was removed from the floor of the general court, and occupied the streets and market places, the fields and the woods. Again, in the short space of fourteen years, the sounds of the flail and of the axe were mingled with imprecations against the tyranny of the magistrates. Treatises and pamphlets were show ered about ; showing, on the one side, that the negative voice was a fundamental principle of all governments, and that, if removed, the commonwealth would become a democracy ; and, on the other, that such a power was an 68 THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH. usurpation, unknown to the charter, and dangerous to the liberties of the people. The question was " handled both scholastically and religiously," but the excitement did not abate. The freemen were agitated by a jealousy, which would yield neither to the finesse of the magistrate nor the sanctity of the elder. The commotion, caused by " the sow business," was increased by an unexpected event. One of the magis trates, who had no seat in the standing council, became suddenly convinced of its illegality, and prepared an anonymous treatise against " the sinful innovation," for the use of the deputies. Although this council existed now only in name, the oligarchy were careful to preserve the imaginary distinction it conferred ; and when " the reproachful and dangerous treatise " fell into their hands, they endeavored to have it publicly censured. But the court, persuaded of " the honest intentions " of its author, refused to entertain the subject, unless he was first acquit ted of all blame. At length, with some difficulty, the deputies were prevailed upon to submit the soundness of the book to the elders. The ecclesiastical decision, on a point of so much importance, was not hastily given ; and predetermined, therefore, as were the members of the sacred college, they went through the form of meeting in 1642. general assembly at Ipswich, in order to give their opin ion the solemnity of a synodical decree. The result was not long doubtful, and, indeed, must have been foreseen. The validity of the standing council was established, but with such admirable ingenuity, that it was deprived of all power independent of the court of assistants. At the same time, the dignity of the magistrates and the scruples of the freemen were equally cared for by the ambiguous opinion, that the council should be composed THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH. 69 of " select men, taken out from the assistants, or other freemen} n But the breach continued to widen on the question of " the negative voice," until at last it was proposed by the 1643. magistrates that this dispute should likewise be referred to the elders. To the apparent fairness of the proposal there could be no objection, and yet the success of the stratagem must have been foreknown. But there was no remedy ; for to have cast a shadow upon the purity of the elders, would have incurred certain and severe pun ishment. Before the meeting of the next general court, the elders settled, by a most singular construction of the charter, the legality of the negative voice, and thus for ever silenced the clamor of the deputies. Inch by inch, however, the deputies contested the ground ; and, as the validity of the negative voice could no longer be ques tioned, they determined that its operation should be mutual. An order was moved and carried, that hence- 1644. , . p. . . March. forth, on account of " the inconvenience or sitting to gether," the two branches of the legislature should hold their sessions by themselves, and that all bills should be sent for concurrence from one to the other. "This order determined the great contention."2 Such was the process by which the general court of a company was resolved into the legislature of a common wealth. The Corporation of Massachusetts Bay was now completely merged in the Puritan State ; and its simple machinery, well fitted for the business of trade and commerce, was adroitly moulded to the system of checks and balances. By their able management of this contest, in which they had not only to struggle against the magistrates, but to thwart the counsels of the elders, ' Sav. Winthrop, vol. ii. p. 89. 2 Colony Laws. Sav. Winthrop, vol. ii. pp. 159, 160. 70 THE* PURITAN COMMONWEALTH. the deputies of the freemen preserved the liberties of their constituents. The "negative voice" alone saved the power of the magistrates, or rather saved them from sinking into insignificance. Emboldened by success, the deputies aimed at greater results. Scarcely had the gen eral court been metamorphosed into an upper and lower house, than the deputies, aspiring to participate in the May. executive powers of the government, sent up to the court of assistants a bill, by which seven magistrates, three deputies, and one elder, were constituted a commis sion, " to order all the affairs of the commonwealth." The assistants immediately negatived the bill, alleging that such a measure would overthrow the foundation of the government and the liberties of the people. A con ference between the two bodies produced no agreement. It was said, on the one side, that such an executive com mission would recognize -the deputies as the source of all power, and would deprive several of the magistrates of their offices ; whereas the magistrates exercised their functions by patent and election. On the other side, it was urged that there were precedents where the magis trates had received orders from the general court, and had varied from the charter ; and it was further insisted, that they had no power out of court, except what was given them by the court. To this it was replied, that wrong examples are errors, and not precedents ; and that if the magistrates had, in any respect, varied from the charter, they had not impaired the foundation of the government. It was in vain that the deputies proposed to limit the commission to emergencies of war, and to include therein all the assistants ; the magistrates refused to accept any commission, but offered either to increase their own number, or to leave the subject to the elders. The proposition was unhesitatingly declined by the depu- THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH. 71 ties, who requested " that nothing might be done till the part court met again." The magistrates replied, " that if -~-y~~> occasion required, they must act according to the power and trust committed to them." The denial of this request produced so much bitter feeling, that the speaker of the deputies informed the magistrates that they would not be obeyed.1 The court adjourned without harmony, and was again assembled in a few days, in consequence of difficulties with the Indians. A high military office was to be immediately filled, and the embarrassing question pre sented itself, from whom was the incumbent to receive his instructions % The commission agreed upon referred him to the council of the commonwealth ; but would the deputies allow this to mean the court of assistants ! In this dilemma, the magistrates thought proper to sign a protest in maintenance of their authority, in which they denied the current imputations, that they were endeavor ing " to bring in an arbitrary government." The depu ties, afraid, perhaps, of the disfranchised class, desired that the declaration should not be published, and con sented that, " for the peace and safety of the colony," the magistrates should discharge their usual duties until the next session of the court, when they hoped that the question would be finally settled. To this arrangement the magistrates assented with alacrity. They could now foresee a favorable termination to the awkward contro versy. In all these popular outbreaks, " it was the magistrates' only care to gain time, that so the peoples heat might be abated, and that the advice of the elders might be interposed." Accordingly, when the general court again assembled, " all the elders were sent for to October. 1 Winthrop. Hutchinson. JQ THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH. reconcile the differences between the magistrates and deputies." They occupied but a single night in con sultation, and in the morning unanimously declared that the assistants were, by patent and election, the standing council of the commonwealth ; that with them was lodged the magistratical power ; that their authority was limited, in all ordinary cases, by the laws and charter, but was not derived from the freemen, whose only prov ince it was to designate such persons as were fit to exer cise it ; and that in extraordinary cases, where no express law was provided, the magistrates were only to be guided by the Word of God.1 As usual, the sacred oracles declared for the patricians ; and though some of the lead ing freemen continued " fixed upon their own opinions," and, from time to time, stirred up fresh troubles in the commonwealth, yet they never succeeded in dislodging the oligarchy from their final position. One more attempt was made to diminish the number of the deputies. Making use of the plea of economy, and, perhaps, with sincerity, the magistrates offered, in 1645. the following year, to surrender their negative voice, if the freemen would consent that their deputies should not exceed them in number, and that these should be " the prime men of the country," elected by the shires, instead of the towns. The proposition was declined, and prob ably never again brought forward.2 But, for a long series of years, the magistrates had no reason to be dis contented with their power and influence. The elders supported their every motion, and nearly anticipated their every wish. It was only when the successors of the old magistracy had waxed cold in the first love of their fathers, that the elders, whose hostility to the • church 1 Sav. Winthrop, vol. ii. p. 208. a Ib. p. 214. THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH. ^3 and throne had only increased with each year of their part unhappy schism, cast the weight of their influence in ' — v — • favor of the freemen. One of the last scenes presented to us by the colonial history of Massachusetts, is the remarkable one of the elders and deputies allied together in confronting the magistrates, who, in the form of a prerogative party, were endeavoring to surrender their franchise to the king. We now behold the Company of Massachusetts Bay a regularly organized commonwealth, with an executive, senate, and house of representatives. The charter has become a constitution, and the members of the franchise have usurped the dignity of citizens. We might pursue this branch of our inquiry further ; but enough has been said to establish our position, that the spirit of Puritan ism was hostile to the principles of liberty on the shores of Massachusetts Bay. We have shown that the Puritan Commonwealth was saved from absolute despotism only by the determined opposition of the freemen, and that the elders and magistrates were alike the enemies of popular freedom. The republican cast, into which the body politic was moulded, was forced upon it by the freemen, in spite of the elders and magistrates. The oligarchy shrunk from it with aversion. A more sum mary mode of redress would have been, doubtless, to have discontinued their rulers in office ; but apart from the consideration that this step would have brought down the thunder of a Puritan anathema, wealth, learning, a certain- prestige of rank, and, more than these, influence in high places at home, all conspired in favor of the aris tocratic magistracy. It was a wise reflection which taught the turbulent freemen that they were better fitted to break the pride of their rulers than to assume the responsibility of guiding their outlawed ship of state. 74 THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH. Nor let us waste our sympathy in behalf of the free men, as we read of their earnest and ingenious efforts against the oligarchy. They were not struggling for humanity, but only for self. They thought little and cared less for that large class of their fellow-subjects, who were disfranchised by their own unjust laws, and who far exceeded them in number. For, to ,such a length did they carry their illiberal prejudices, that the magistrates were afraid to deny openly "the aspersions cast upon them," lest the disfranchised population should side with them, and so render their cause, " though never so just, obnoxious to the common sort of freemen."1 Hopeless, indeed, was the condition of the " non-mem bers." They were subject to laws they did not make, and governed by rulers over whom they had no control. Including persons of different ranks in life, of various religious opinions, rich and poor, young and old, yet they were out of the pale of the Puritan Commonwealth, because they refused to enslave themselves to the Puritan Covenant. The most vulgar citizen, who knew nothing beyond his last or shears, could lord it over the scholar and the gentleman with impunity. Hear the voice of a contemporary writer, upon the condition of the disfran chised class : " The most of the persons at New England are not admitted of their church, and therefore are not freemen ; and when they come to be tried there, be it for life or limb, name or estate, or whatsoever, they must be tried and judged too by those of the church, who are, in a sort, their adversaries. How equal that hath been, or may be, some by experience do knoiv, others may judge."'2' Such was the spirit of New England Puritanism. Ut terly opposed to civil and religious liberty, yielding 1 Sav. Winthrop, vol. ii. p. 171. 3 Lechford, quoted in Hutch, vol. i. p. 30. THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH. J5 nothing to humanity excepting what humanity absolutely part forced from it, it barred, like a flaming sword, the path- -~^~~> way of human rights, to all but its own familiars and worshippers. However gratifying, then, it would be to applaud the motives of the freemen, in their struggle with the magis trates, our lips must be sealed. Had a noble, though mistaken idea of right, animated their efforts, we should readily pardon the mistake in our admiration at the motive. But when we see the selfish, arrogant, and censorious character displayed by these vain-glorious " church-members ; " when we behold them pushing their animosities into private life, and hanging a vener able lady for witchcraft, whose only protection was her gray hairs, and whose only fault, that she was the widow of a magistrate; when we read of the use made of the power they wrested from their rulers, and the unrelenting spirit with which they clung, to the last, to their exclusive religionism ; when we hear of their beard ing their sovereign, and bullying their political inferiors, deceiving the one, and outraging the other ; when we find that they could, on a common platform, join with the magistrates in distinguishing between " gentlemen " and " people of mean condition," even in articles of dress ; when, in short, we see that, in both church and state, they acted for a class, and not for the mass ; we shall be obliged to confess, that " the common sort of freemen," even, were utterly ignorant of the principles of liberty, and that in this ignorance they were encouraged by the genius of their religion. Surely it is a pleasing reflec tion, that churchmen were the first to raise their voices against the intolerance of Puritanism on these rude shores, and the first who were called upon to suffer from its tyrannical impostures. Nor should it be forgotten, ter. 76 THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH. paradoxical and incredible as it may seem, that the dis franchised people of Massachusetts Bay owed their final emancipation, not to the generous, voluntary sacrifices of enlightened Puritanism, but to the compulsory interposi tion of Charles Stuart the Second. The judi- Hitherto, our inquiries have been directed towards the rity con-0" manner in which the Republic of Massachusetts was thlchai- evolved from the Company of Massachusetts Bay. We now would call attention to a kindred subject, which we have only partially touched upon, and which is of great importance in this connection ; we refer to the judiciary and laws of the Puritan Commonwealth. It will be recollected that, by charter, the governor and freemen of the company, residing in England, were authorized to make by-laws, not contrary to the statutes of the realm, for their own regulation, and also for the management of their plantations. This distinction taken between the company and the plantations of the company, between the laws of England and the sub-laws of the corporation, which is breathed in almost every paragraph of the char ter, further proves, that originally a settlement was con templated in the New World, which, for certain purposes, was placed under the management of the company, but not so as to deprive the colonists of their rights or duties as subjects. The company was authorized to discipline its servants and to punish disobedience, but not to exer cise the prerogatives of sovereignty. By charter, also, the chief commanders, captains, superintendents, and other officers of the company, em ployed in the immediate management of the plantation, or " on the way thither by sea," were authorized to administer these by-laws, and to rule, punish, and pardon all such persons as were in the service of the corporation. It was to this class of officers, who, as the commanders THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH. 77 of a settlement in a savage country, were of a military part. rather than civil character, that the charter necessarily > — A~ confided the enforcement of discipline. The freemen, or stockholders of the company, not changing their domicile, were subject to no other regulations than those common to " other corporations in the realm." The board of assistants, which afterwards exercised such unlimited jurisdiction, was too far removed from the plantations to sit as a court of justice, or to punish violations of the law. The magistratical authority, which the assistants afterwards usurped, was as unknown as it was unneces sary. To be the general managers of the pecuniary interests of the company, to advise and assist the gov ernor in his executive duties, were all the powers that they claimed. It is true, that some flagrant cases of injustice were perpetrated by Endecott, while superin tending the plantation of the company ; but he acted without the assent, express or implied, of the board of assistants. " The colonists being then but an embryo, were willingly subject to, and governed by, those whole some and known laws of the kingdom of England, acknowledging only their willing obedience to such rules and ordinances as were by the corporation agreed upon as necessary for the carrying on of their present affairs, and yearly sent over from England." * The transfer of the charter rendered it necessary to change all this, and to assert a higher prerogative. We must distinguish, said the general court, in 1646, "be tween corporations within England, and corporations of, but not within, England. All that dwell within England are subject to the laws in general ; but foreign planta tions are subject only to some laws of state."2 Thus, 1 Hubbard. tion of Child, Maverick, et al., in 2 Committee's Answer to Peti- Winthrop's Journal. 7* 78 THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH. chap, taking advantage of their own wrong, the company ¦ — r-~ claimed by right both the law-making and law-enforcing power. The assistants clothed themselves in the ermine of magistrates, and erected their court into a forum of justice. Nor was this usurpation wholly without neces sity. For, when the company was converted into a commonwealth, and its members became a people, then, both a law to govern and a power to execute, more immediate than the far-off sovereignty of England, more complete than the petty police system suitable for the discipline of a semi-military settlement, became also necessary incidents. By common consent, therefore, the assistants were dubbed magistrates, and were authorized, without a murmur, to exercise the offices of the highest tribunals in the realm. How republican they were in the discharge of their extraordinary powers appears from the fact, that for two years they continued quietly in office, exercising, at the same time, the executive, legisla tive, and judicial functions, and dispensing with juries in nearly all cases, civil and criminal.1 The Puri- Fortunately for the cause of civil libertv, the freemen tan State •> \ ¦" claims the " claimed the common law, as their birthright," and common ° la^- boasted that the same breeze which spread the sails of their barks, bore upon its wings the genius of that splendid system. The common law, which, originating with the primitive Britons,- was handed down through successive dynasties and inhabitants, the Romans, the Picts, the Saxons, the Danes, and the Normans, borrow ing from both Pagan and Christian civilizations some wise customs and noble maxims, was transplanted by the fathers of New England, in order that it might bless their rising commonwealth. But they claimed only such 1 Hutchinson. Colony Laws. THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH. 79 portions of it as were applicable to their condition ; and, whenever it conflicted with this, it was violated without hesitation. Still, it formed the grand basis on which were erected the institutions which have made the wilder ness to blossom as the rose. The common law was the birthright of the freemen, as it became infused, more or less, into all their political acts. It saved them, perhaps, from despotism ; and by their wise precaution became, to the commonwealth, a permanent and healthy sanative. But, in the leading modifications it received, we can readily discover the action of two great principles, each struggling to neutralize the other. And these were the same which divided the state into aristocratic and repub lican parties. It was the republican spirit which abol ished the laws of primogeniture ; the oligarchical which preserved the system of entails. It was the former which swept away, at one blow, " the feudal burdens ; " the latter which preserved, in all its strictness, the relation of master and servant, and substituted slavery for villanage. It was the former which insisted upon the establishment of the trial by jury ; the latter which withheld from juries, with jealous care, the determination of the law. It was the former which caused the omission of the king's name in all legal process ; the latter which, denying the freemen as the source of power, substituted the name of the magis trates. Finally, it was the former which asserted that the forms of all civil government are " the ordinances of man ; " the latter which invested these forms with the majesty of divine right. Hereditary honors are to the feV, said the magistrates, what hereditary liberty is to the many.1 But the freemen, actuated by a wise sense of danger-, felt that the honor of the commonwealth 1 See Hutchinson, vol. i. Appendix, p. 433. 80 THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH. would be more safe with hereditary liberty than its liber ties with hereditary honors. The assist- The common law claimed by the Puritan pilgrims ants daim wa§ u ^ common ]aw 0f their natiVe country, as it was judges' amended or altered by English statutes in force at the time of their emigration." Comparing their common wealth to the then States of Burgundy and Flanders, and to the Hanse Towns of Germany, they acknowledged, at times, a quasi dependence upon the crown of England, but " not in point of government." 1 From the moment that they landed on the shores of Massachusetts Bay, they legislated for themselves. It is, therefore, particu larly to their original statutes and ordinances that we should refer, to obtain a just knowledge of the spirit of their laws. During the exclusive sway of the oligarchy, the court of assistants governed " according to their dis cretions," sitting, as we have said, both as a court of justice and as a legislature, and punishing ad libitum the violations of the laws which they had themselves estab lished. Equity, said Mr. Selden, in contempt, is accord ing to the conscience of the chancellor, and the con science of the chancellor is as uncertain as the length of his foot. One chancellor has a long foot, another a short foot, a third an indifferent foot ; it is the same with their consciences. This quaint old sarcasm of a common lawyer might have been used with admirable effect, in illustrating the jurisdiction of the Puritan magistrates. They professed to be governed by equity, according to the circumstances of the case ; and " as for authorities or precedents, they had none beyond the reason and under standing which God had given them." 2 The free- But the general court had no sooner assumed the 1 Sav. Winthrop, vol. ii. p. 279. 2 Hutchinson. THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH. 81 shape and powers of a legislative body, than the deputies part of the freemen, fully alive to the usurpations of the ' — v — ' magistrates, " conceived great danger to the state, for mand a want of positive laws," and demanded that a commission, laws. both clerical and lay, should " frame a body of laws, in 1635' resemblance to a Magna Charta." 1 The " wisest rulers of New England would have preferred not to have been tied up so strictly to the observance of particular laws;"'2' but the freemen, having enjoyed a taste of Puritan Equity, were not to be put off'. Accordingly, commit tees of elders and magistrates sat annually for some years, from time to time reporting laws, as emergencies arose, which received the sanction of the general court. Fortunately for the oligarchy, the deputies had little or no voice in these deliberations. Ignorance of law, or some feeling of general incompetency, restrained them from actively taking part in committees, whose reports were sanctified by the cooperation of the elders. But their general wishes were, in the main, understood, and much was yielded to their English prejudices. The trial by jury, established by Woden himself, and confirmed by the great charter of King John, was reluctantly adopted as a fundamental principle in the new system of laws. The commonwealth was also divided into counties, grand- 1641. juries were regularly established, and subordinate county courts were erected, composed partly of magistrates and partly of freemen. But the county courts thus created interfered but little with the extraordinary jurisdiction of the court of assistants. This court still retained original and exclusive jurisdiction in all cases of divorce, and in all criminal cases " extending to life, member, or banish ment." It sat as a court of appeal from the county ' Winthrop's Journal. 2 Hubbard. 82 THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH. courts, and thus continued to be the expounder of Puri tan Jurisprudence. It is true, that appeals lay, in some cases, from its decisions to the general court ; but these were, for the most part, where only a bare majority was in favor of convicting in capital trials. The original jurisdiction of the general court seems to have been chiefly confined to the delinqencies of the magistrates, though the elders thought even this an unwarrantable assumption of power. "We do not find," declared the sacred college, in 1644, " that power of judicature is granted to the freemen, or deputies in the general court, either by patent, or the elections of the people, or by any laws of the country."1 But though the court of assist ants was confirmed in its judicial usurpations, and though the criminal code set forth by the commission was severe in the extreme, the freemen, on the whole, gained by their timely outcries. They exchanged uncertainties for certainties, and the internal administration of justice 1648. became complete and systematic ; and in the same year in which the Puritan Church promulgated her " platform of discipline," th^ several reports of the commission were collected together, ratified by the general court, and made public.2 We have said that the freemen, having drunk at the fount of Puritan Equity, clamored for a Magna Charta. The great charter of King John merits the title it bears, chiefly because it protected every individual of the nation in the free enjoyment of life, liberty, and property.3 It was this protection, then, that the freemen sought in their anomalous situation. Their lives, liberties, and prop erty were held by uucertain tenures ; and since the char ter granted no authority either to take life, or to restrain 1 See Sav. Winthrop, vol. ii. p. 2 Hutchinson. 205- 3 Bl. Com. vol. iv. p. 417. THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH. 83 liberty, or to control individual property ; since the police part system authorized therein was intended not for the free- ' — * — ' men or stockholders of the company, but for their em ployees and servants residing out of the kingdom on a distant plantation ; since they had, by their own act, removed themselves out of the reach of their sovereign's protection, and, by abusing his kindness, had forfeited his favor; since, by renouncing their rightful allegiance, they had sold themselves to the slavery of Puritanism, which ruled them through their fears, and their hopes for this world and the next, with a rod of iron ; all these con siderations rendered a Magna Charta indispensable to - their security. Can we read aright the lesson taught by this remarkable scene ] Can we truly apprehend the moral, shining forth in this clamor for a great charter, by men who had forsaken all that ought to be most dear upon earth, at the beck of a false religion'? Are New Englanders capable of giving full credit to the truth, that civil and religious liberty were enjoyed in England, when they were not only forbidden, but were ignored, on the shores of Massachusetts Bay"? One branch of the New England Magna Charta, The crim- which Puritanism vouchsafed to "the inferior sort," was ofthePuri- a definite code of criminal law. This code had no anal ogies, either in the laws of England or the spirit of Christianity. On the contrary, its animus and tone were confessedly Mosaic. It was characterized by a san guinary severity. It allowed torture, in cases where a convicted felon was suspected of having confederates ; and it punished with death, idolatry, witchcraft, blas phemy, murder, bestiality, sodomy, adultery, man-steal ing, perjury in capital cases with intent to take life, conspiracy, rebellion, cursing or smiting of their parents by children, rebellion against their parents by children 84 THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH. over sixteen years of age, and rape. High treason, " the highest civil crime which any man can possibly commit," it will be seen, was ignored. In 1652, arson was made a capital felony, on account of its frequent occurrence ; and in 1678, half a century after the trans fer of the charter, and thirty years after the murder of Charles the First, the general court, stimulated by a sense of danger, acknowledged that it was the duty of all good subjects to provide for the safety of the person, crown, and dignity of their sovereign, and added treason to the list of capital offences. In crimes of a less heinous nature, the penalties inflicted by the Puritan code had, in all possible cases, their Levitical arche types.1 The mode of inflicting death for these various offences, we believe, was not specified by law, and, in some cases, the magistrates improved upon the terrible practice of Israel. In 1681, a negro, who had been convicted of arson, was publicly burned alive in Boston. One other instance only do we know of this fearful retribution in Massachusetts, and this was long after the Puritan Com monwealth had ceased to exist.2 But who of us can tell how often power may have been abused, during the sway of an irresponsible oligarchy"? Who can set bounds to the follies of religious fanaticism % When we consider that, in the early condition of " the Old Bay State," Puritanism muzzled the press, and sealed the lips of its victims and enemies, on- the plea of quelling sedition; when we reflect that it is only by peeping behind the cur tain, through the forbidden pass of private journals and manuscripts, never meant for the public eye, and which, 1 Hutchinson, vol. i. p. 388, n. Charlestown, was burned, for poi- 2 1° '7495 Phillis, colored ser- soning her master. vant of Captain John Codman, of THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH. 85 by accident, merely escaped the flames, that we can catch part a glimpse of the true moral machinery of this singular — * — ' system ; when we think of the nature of the deeds that Puritanism was not only capable of doing in public, but of glorying in as a meritorious ground for Divine favor, we surely shall be excused for shrugging our shoulders if told that it has a right to the reputation of innocence until proved guilty. Besides the several crimes above named, others were made capital on a second or third conviction. In 1647, a law was passed, banishing, on pain of death, Jesuits, or " any ecclesiastical persons ordained by the authority of the See of Rome." In the same year, burglary was made capital on a third conviction. In 1652, the pen alty for the denial of the canonical books of the Old and New Testaments was made banishment or death, on a second conviction, at the discretion of the magistrates. Thus, burglary was considered a lesser crime than liberty of conscience ! The credit, for this sanguinary code of criminal law, belongs to the elders ; and that it would have been more sanguinary had it depended upon them alone, is a startling fact. The hand of the civil magistrate struck six from the list of capital offences reported by Mr. Cotton, among which were profaning "the Sabbath," reviling the governor or the standing council, and incest within the Levitical degrees.1 We must, therefore, refer much of the severity of the criminal law to the elders, whose ideas were founded, not in the study of the science, not in the knowledge of the human heart, not on the real wants of the state, but were derived from a wrong-headed fanati cism, which refused to look beyond the pages of the 1 Hutchinson, vol. i. p. 390, u. 86 THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH. Old Testament, regardless of mutations and circum stances. Yet the sanguinary character of the Puritan laws has been made a subject for panegyric ; and Ban croft, with great ingenuity, attributes it to a concern for the purity of the marriage bed, that adultery was visited with death! More modest arguments in behalf of the Puritan lawgivers have urged, that their criminal code was more humane than that of England, because the number of its capital crimes was smaller. But this posi tion cannot be maintained. The great number of felonies in England grew up gradually, to supply the supposed wants of a populous kingdom. As wealth increased, further security for property was found necessary; and as vice and crime continually advanced with civilization, new checks were indispensable as new temptations were multiplied. But the Puritan Commonwealth, in all the bloom of its youth, and the strength of its boasted vir tue, promulgated, on the instant, a code of criminal law, whose sanguinary spirit could only be exceeded by its ille gality. The peculiarity of the Puritan law, as we have before intimated, was its attempt to graft upon Christian civili zation the abrogated statutes of the Hebrew Common wealth. As lawfully appointed agents, to enforce the laws which Divinity had given, the magistrates claimed a consecrated office, and considered themselves responsible alone to the Supreme Judge and Lawgiver. The same principle was even asserted among the democratic pilgrims of Plymouth ; and the people of that hardy race were taught to behold in their magistrates, " not the ordina riness of their persons, but God's ordinance for their good." i Thus, this favored class in the Puritan Com- 5 Robinson's Letter, Morton's Memorial. THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH. 87 monwealth made themselves a law to the freemen, or rather made their private fantasies assume the shape and terror of laws. The two tables of moral law, containing man's duty towards God and his duty towards his neigh bor, they reasoned, with partial truth, are binding upon humanity wherever it wanders. . Uttered by the voice of Jehovah, written with his own finger, and termed the Covenant, man, in every age and clime, is bound to their faithful observance. It needs no legislation to place the stone tables at the head of all codes of law, for they are obligatory alike on Christian and Pagan, and cannot be violated with impunity. Thus beholding in the moral law of Israel, not the seeds which were to bud forth and blossom under the influence of Christianity, but only ten distinct commands, as rigid and unexpansive as the marble letters in which they were written, the magis trates held, that, whether they assumed the form of Eng lish statutes or not, they were obligatory upon the Puri tan Commonwealth, and should be enforced by the arm of the civil power. Roger Williams first took the exception, that, in breaches of the first table, the magistrates were power less ; that they had no right to interfere between God and his creature ; and that their legitimate authority was confined to the oversight of man's duty towards his neighbor. But this, the first gleam of religious liberty in the Puritan Commonwealth, was immediately ob scured ; and, at a general court, both elders and magis- 1635. trates pronounced such opinions " to be erroneous and very dangerous," and Williams's " call to a church " in Salem was adjudged, in consequence, " a great contempt of authority." The banishment of this enthusiast did not, by any means, put to rest the waking principle he had roused ; nor did the manner in which the magis- 88 THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH. trates exercised their authority, tend to check the " inor dinate love of liberty." His persecution gained him many disciples; and the question of the first table con tinued a mooted point in Puritan jurisprudence, down to the synod of 1647, iQ which, after much debate, it was decided by the elders, that the civil magistrate is " custos utriusque tabulae" and has full power to com pel their observance, so far as respects the outward man.1 This decision ratified the inquisitorial authority, which, since the transfer of the corporation, had been usurped by the court of assistants, and, in the exercise of which, they had respected neither the charter nor the statutes of England, neither liberty of person nor freedom of con science. Deluded by a fanaticism, which taught that private reasoning was but little removed from inspiration; breaking away from the easy yoke of the church, to sur render their whole being to the iron slavery of Puritan ism, Christianity, as they endeavored to mould it, was only blackness and darkness and tempest. Thou shalt have no other God but me, declares the decalogue ; and Familists, Anabaptists, and Quakers, violate this law, added the elders, because they are not under our Cove nant. Nay, enter in, and possess this pleasant land, and drive out by fraud and violence the idolatrous natives, who worship an unknown God.2 Thou shalt not worship any graven image, continues the decalogue, nor the likeness of any thing in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth. And, reasoned the elders, is not the sign of the cross in baptism an idolatrous superstition \ Nay, may we lawfully live under a banner, upon whose folds is emblazoned the 1 Winthrop's Journal. Hubbard. 3 Ibid. THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH. 89 cross "? Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath Day, part said the Lord to stubborn Israel; I have sanctified the ' — -r-^ seventh day, and it shall be holy in your eyes. And this commandment the Puritan Commonwealth incorporated with the very essence of its Christianity. But though the seventh was the consecrated day of the Levitical Law, its sanctity was extracted by Puritanism, and infused into the first. Sunday, the Lord's Day, the great festival of the Catholic Church, was clad in the gloomy habili ments of the Sabbath of Israel. The gathering of our own sticks on the Sabbath Day, said the Ipswich assem bly of elders, it is lawful to punish with death ; but the 1644. theft of our neighbor's sticks on the ordinary days of the week, may be visited with a pecuniary mulct.1 Such, in brief, were the laws of the Puritan Common wealth; and it is only necessary to add, that, in those I cases where no express law was provided, the elders declared that the magistrates were to be governed only by the Word of God, or, in other language, by their con struction of it. It is useless to disguise the absurdity, I and, at the same time, the illegality of such a system of ( laws. It never was intended by the charter that the j assistants should sit as a court of justice, or that the company should erect a legislature. Far less was it con templated that the company should resort to Mount Sinai, in order to perfect its statute-book. Strictly speaking, : the legislation of the commonwealth was treasonable, and every capital punishment inflicted under its laws was murder. On the accession of William IIL, when the general court debated whether the charter he offered Massachusetts should be accepted, it was openly declared, that the old charter was defective, since it gave no power 1 Winthrop's Journal. Hubbard. 8* 90 THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH. chap, to take life in capital cases} This was a bold statement, ¦ — r^ when we consider what the Puritan Commonwealth had done under the protection of this same old tattered parch ment, which had required repeated patching and mending to enable it to survive the contests between the oligarchy and the freemen. It might have been added, that not in one single place did the charter give to the assistants their favorite title of magistrates. The moral Since the ultimate aim of all human government is to the Puritan secure the greatest amount of happiness, and since all municipal law is but the " rule of moral conduct," it may be proper, before we conclude, to ascertain how far the government we have imperfectly described answered the end for which it was established. The leading men of the commonwealth were gentlemen of liberal educa tion, and of unblemished lives ; nor was the title of good- man, the right of every honest freeman, a mere empty courtesy. Can the same be said of the great body of the people 1 Had Puritanism sufficient vitality, we will not say to increase, but even to preserve the morality of the people % The Puritan, from the beginning, greedily imbibed certain theological errors, which are fatal to the cause of morality and virtue, and which brought forth their proper fruits in the Puritan Commonwealth. " Doth the favor of God depend wholly upon our perfect walking % " was the question arrogantly asked by the self-constituted saints of Massachusetts. Did Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob never enjoy protection, when " found to be out of the way % " 2 The regicides of the old world, and the homicides of the new, were the same community of the elect, testifying their love to God by the destruction of his enemies. 1 Neal- 2 See Winthrop's Letter, Hazard, vol. i. p. 514. THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH. 91 Their rebellious consciences were quieted by these com fortable fallacies, whenever a period of adversity awak ened them to reflection. For, the elect of God, "although they may, through the temptation of Satan and the world, incur God's displeasure and grieve his Holy Spirit, have their hearts hardened, their consciences wounded, and hurt and scandalise others, yet they are and shall le kept, by the poiver of God, through faith unto salvation."^ Such was the basis of public morals furnished by the church to the commonwealth. Can we wonder, when we read of complaints that the butcherly expeditions against the Indians were " most shamefully discouraged, because the army was too much under a covenant of works ? " Could any possibility, short of a miracle, have kept sweet and clear an atmosphere so loaded with the seeds of moral impurity ] Puritanism did not emigrate with spotless garments. The fleet of Winthrop was often the scene of fantastic and severe punishment ; and Hutchinson has immor talized several culprits, who, when the commonwealth was " but just come to its birth," were whipped, fined, pilloried, and even banished, for such crimes as theft, drunkenness, adultery, and profane swearing. He adds, that a great number of similar cases might be stated. We will not mention the repeated perpetration of those crimes, which " the laws of England, with peculiar mod esty, assure us are not fit to be named." 2 One needs only to examine the public records, or to turn carelessly over the leaves of the early annals of the commonwealth, to become assured of the fact, that neither the restraints of religion nor fear of the laws were sufficient to pre vent the commission of the foulest crimes. A multi- ' Confession of Faith in 1680, Mather. 2 Chalmers. )2 THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH. chap, plicity of penal laws, always a sign of the growth of the *— ^ evils they are intended to check,1 distinguished the Puri tan statute-book; and we learn that the commonwealth had been in existence scarcely ten years, when, by the advice of the elders, the general court ordered a sol emn fast to be observed, on account of "the foul sins" which were appearing among the inhabitants.2 The first grand-jury of the commonwealth presented, in 1635, one hundred offenders ; and Hubbard, remarking upon this singular fact, declares that, had all " the following juries been as quicksighted, it might have prevented a great number of evils." Doubtless, the austere annalist was correct ; for, " as people increased so sin abounded, and especially the sin of uncleanness."3 Gambling, forgery, and fornication, were all made subjects for penal laws, ere the first synod of the elders had settled the articles of their faith ; and sixteen years had scarcely elapsed from the transfer of the charter, when it was found necessary to erect houses of correction in every county, in order " to redress many misdemeanors and evil practices daily increasing.4 Nor were these " evil practices " confined to the old , and hardened, who hovered in the rear of the Puritan Pilgrims like the rabble which follows the train of an army. Those whose beards had scarcely grown, whose only associations had been with the devout and learned from their earliest years, not infrequently evinced symp toms of the general disorder. In 1644, " two of our ministers' sons, about twenty years of age," students in Harvard College, were convicted of burglary, and igno- miniously punished.5 Winthrop, blessed with a son who, perhaps, was the brightest ornament of New Eng- i De Maistre. 2 Winthrop's Journal. 3 ibid. 4 Colony Laws. 5 Sav. Winthrop, vol. ii. p. 166.; THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH. 93 land Puritanism, generously abstained from writing the part names of these youthful culprits, even in his private — r^> journal. They were the first burglars punished in the Puritan Commonwealth, and it was not until three years after, .that this crime became known to its statute-book. But this was not all. Attracted by the vociferous sanc tity of Puritanism, "sundry gentlemen of quality" in England were early in the habit of sending over their unruly children to Massachusetts, in order that whole some discipline and correct example might " prevent their extravagant and riotous courses." It was a noble aspiration, this desire to make the New World a school of virtue and morality for the old. But the event proved how totally inadequate Puritanism was to exercise so important a vocation. These youthful prodigals found companions equally extravagant in the streets and alleys of pious Boston ; so that the general court, because of " the reproach of the country," was obliged to interfere, and to pass a law inflicting penalties upon such persons as 1647. encouraged them in "their riotous courses. '' It would be easy to summon forth from their obscurity many examples, in support of the preceding remarks, which were bewailed by the wise and good in the Puri tan Commonwealth. But we have space only to give a general outline. It may be also argued, that it is not among the emigrants themselves that we should look for the moral influence of Puritanism. Many brought over their vices with them, contracted under the institutions of the Old World. But on the virgin soil of Massachu setts, where Popery had not yet intruded, and where debauchery was all unknown, where, in short, the " true churches of Christ" had full scope to develop the perfect 1 Colony Laws. 94 THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH. Christian character, surely the second and third genera tions of the inhabitants should have exhibited a pleasing contrast. But how was the fact? In 1660, suicides became so frequent, that the general court passed a law ordering that the body of every felo de se should be denied Christian burial ; and that, after being interred in some common highway, " a cart-load of stones should be laid on the grave as a brand of infamy, and as a warn ing to others to beware of the like damnable practices."1 This act was, in a few years, followed by one of equal significance. In 1665, the general court, reciting that the crime of fornication was increasing, to the great dis honor of God and their profession of his holy name, empowered the proper court, when one of the guilty par ties was a freeman, to add disfranchisement to the penal ties of fine, whipping, and compulsory marriage, already provided by law.2 In 1670, the laws against gambling were revived, because " the great sin of gaming increas- eth within the jurisdiction, to the great dishonor of God and corrupting of youth." 3 But intemperance was the prevailing vice of the people. Spirits pf all kinds were abundant and cheap ; and wines especially, at first im ported without duty, were plentier than in England.4 It is but justice to say, that the elders and magistrates dis couraged the general use of these luxuries, by setting the example of self-denial. Yet it seems that they soon came into general use. The earliest duties levied in the com monwealth were small imposts upon " wines and strong waters," which proves that they were among the prom inent articles of trade ; and Johnson mentions the vint ners of Boston as being, at an early period, a class of very prosperous tradesmen. So early as 1641, the 1 Colony Laws. 2 Ibid. 3 ibid. 4 Johnson. THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH. 95 faithful journalist, Winthrop, records it as an extraor dinary fact, that, at " a great training of twelve hundred men" in that year at Boston, not one man was drunk, " though there was plenty of wine and strong beer in the town." This sobriety was so remarkable, that though these men were under the restraints of military discipline, it was considered worthy of special notice. If any hopes were excited by this unusual exhibition of temperance, they were destined to be transitory. Four years later, 1645. the importations had so increased, that it was determined to derive from them a revenue. Accordingly, the general court laid an impost of ten shillings sterling upon every butt of Spanish wine that should thereafter be brought into the commonwealth. But, notwithstanding this tariff", sixteen hundred hogsheads were imported the follow ing year, in English bottoms.1 The government were amazed. " It might truly have been said, as of old, in the time of Constantine, i hodie venenum effusum est in ecclesiam.' " 2 The ordinary penalties for drunkenness, such as the whipping-post and the pillory, were perceived to be utterly inadequate to neutralize such increasing temptations, and, as a last remedy, it was proposed to remove the evil by rendering it impossible. " Foras much," declared the general court, " as drunkenness is 1646. a vice to be abhorred of all nations, especially of those who hold out and profess the gospel of Jesus Christ, and seeing any strict law will not prevail unless the cause be taken away,", it is therefore ordered, that no person shall sell any wine under a quarter cask, nnless he shall be licensed by the court.8 But this, and other checks of a like nature, proved utterly inefficacious ; and the traffic continued to increase with the population, until 1 Winthrop's Journal. Hubbard. 3 Colony Laws. 2 Hubbard. 96 THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH. the country was filled with " the commodity, to the over flowing of luxury and other evils." 1 The preliminary symptoms of general decay were pre cipitated by superstition. While laws against profanity and " sabbath-breaking " were multiplying, the wrath of Heaven seemed to be gathering over the Puritan Com monwealth. Early in 1668, a bright meteor appeared in the horizon, in form like a spear. "It stood stoop ing, one end pointing towards the setting of the sun, and moved downwards, little by little, until it disappeared." " Visce per ccelum .concurrere acies, rutilantia arma, et subito nubium igne collucere templum." 2 The star, which Josephus says hung like a sword over Jerusalem, just before its destruction, could scarcely have excited more dismay. It was now observed, that the youth of the commonwealth had degenerated very much from " the 1670. strictness of their fathers ; " and letters missive were sent by the government to the elders of all the towns in the jurisdiction, apologizing for so unusual an interfer ence with their duties, but urging them " to be very diligent and careful" to catechize and instruct the people under their charge. Yet a few years later, and the sub ject assumed a more alarming aspect. " The people began to grow intolerably licentious in their morals."3 Pride, contention, profane swearing, drunkenness, litiga tion, sabbath-breaking, and neglect of family worship, were greatly on the increase. For the first time, laws were found necessary for the punishment of corrupt juries, and for the enlargement of the rights of creditors against their debtors. Commerce and trade were creat ing a love of money, and Puritanism was incapable of 1 Hubbard. 3 Neal. 2 Tacitus, Hist. Lib. v. sec. 13. THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH. 97 modifying the evils connected therewith.1 So rapidly were people emancipating themselves from " the strict ness of their fathers," that nothing but the law, rigorous to the last, prevented a general falling off' in the Puritan Church. " Discouragements," wrote Mr. Willard to Mr. Mather, during the administration of Andros, " increase upon the hearts of the ministers, by reason that a licen tious people take the advantage of a liberty to withhold maintenance from them." 2 Such indications of moral disease, accompanied by pestilence and war, by losses in agriculture and trade, and by the menacing position of the Mother Country, excited gloomy forebodings. In 1679, the general court assembled the elders in synod at Boston,' and proposed questions touching the causes and remedy of the accumu lating evils. This synod, called from its character the Reforming Synod, declared that, " besides a great and visible decay of the power of godliness among many pro fessors in their churches," many vices, " especially pride, intemperance, and worldly-mindedness, began to bud forth amongst them." The elders suggested, as a remedy for these evils, that the leading men in the commonwealth should reform their lives, for the sake of the example to the lower classes ; and, to prevent future apostasy, pro posed the renewal of the Covenant by the churches, and a revision of their old platform. It cannot be a matter of surprise, that the recom mendations of the Reforming Synod failed to produce the wished-for effect. So far from it, the general court, by a special ordinance, in 1689, reciting "the corruption of manners " and " the apostasies and degeneracies of the people," directed that the laws against vice, and all 1 See Dunton's Memoirs, i Mass. 2 Hutchinson, vol. i. p. 320, n. Hist. Coll. vol. ii. p. 100. 9 98 THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH chap, manner of profaneness and debauchery, " be faithfully -~^y — ' and vigorously put in execution, particularly the laws against blasphemy, cursing, profane swearing, lying, unlawful gaming, sabbath-breaking, idleness, drunken ness, uncleanness, and all the enticements and nurseries of such impieties." Three years after, the new charter arrived, and the Puritan Commonwealth ceased to exist. Thus, that " frightful dissolution " of morals, which reacted upon Puritanism in England, had its counterpart in Massachusetts. True, royalty did not gild vice in the Puritan Commonwealth, nor did letters encourage the spirit of licentiousness. But without the splendor of the one, and unembellished by the other, immorality stalked forth in the land in all its nakedness and deformity. Part II. Moral Character of the Government of the Puritan State — As illustrated by its treatment of the Aborigines — The Pequods — The Murder of John Oldham — Leads to an Invasion of the Pequod Territory — The Pequods seek Alliance with the Narragansetts — Who enter into a Treaty with Massachusetts — Total Destruction of the Pequods — Fate of the Leaders of this Expedition an Instance of Divine Retribution — The Narragansetts — Intrigues of the Mohegans — Defeat and Capture of Miantonimo — His Fate- — The Narragansetts seek the Aid of Massa chusetts — But without Success — The Treatment of their Deputation — Desperate Condition of this Tribe — A New Treaty extorted from them — Their Lukewarmness in its Observance a Cause of Alarm — Preparations for War — Destruction of the Narragansetts — Heroism of Canonchet — The Wampanoags — Treachery and Death of Sausamon —Which leads to War — Fall of Philip — The Tarranteens — The Puri tans seek the Alliance of the Mohawks — Defeat of the Allies — Ter rible Effects of the Puritan Wars. The Puritan Commonwealth, designed for the avowed purpose of establishing and perpetuating a pure religion, AND THE ABORIGINES. 99 was essentially an ecclesiastical state. Its citizens were all, in one sense, the high-priests of its faith, and none might presume to meddle with its politics, who were not members of the sacred order of the freemen. As the lesser is comprehended in the greater ; as faithful Christians must necessarily be faithful citizens, whether living under democratic or autocratic forms of government ; so it was reasoned that if the commonwealth were evolved from the church, political disease would lessen, and per haps vanish away. By making the church political, it was expected that the state would become religious. Were Christians good, and the church catholic, doubtless love of God and man would supplant the terrors of the law, and, by perfecting obedience, would do away with constraint. But as all political organizations imply hu man error and weakness, so, if we suppose a condition of things where error and weakness are not, we suppose necessarily therewith a state where government is need less. The Puritan Pilgrims founded their civil structure on Moral char- the idea that they were saints, and they intended to the govem- - . - i i n • i ¦ ment of the render its glory perpetual, by allowing none but saints to Puritan administer its affairs. The passport to the smallest priv ileges of citizenship was the Puritan Covenant. How well founded were the expectations of the designers of the commonwealth, we now propose to consider. Surely, if any human contrivance was ever ushered into existence under circumstances more favorable to the end contem plated, we have yet to learn how and when. If Puritan ism were a fit political teacher for mankind, either by precept or example ; if the policy it has suggested is worthy of imitation ; if the commonwealth it can animate may justly claim our admiration ; we shall certainly find these desiderata in their highest excellence in Puritan 100 THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH Massachusetts. Our space forbids us more than to allude to the general character acquired by the commonwealth, as a separate and independent power. In her treaties 1652. with the French ; 1 in her trade with buccaneers ; 2 in unhesitatingly violating the articles of the Puritan Con federacy, contrary to petitions " tendered by many pen- 1653. sive hearts," when "the dear saints of God" at New Haven were threatened by the Dutch ; 3 in maintain ing her intriguing agents in England with those funds which had been intrusted to her to evangelize the In- 1666. dians ; 4 in sending privateers from her prayerful havens, to prey upon the enemies of Charles IL, though none a greater enemy than herself ; 5 in these and similar trans actions, the Puritan Commonwealth acquired notoriety in the Old and New World. But her doings with the Aborigines speak more forcibly than them all, and, there fore, we shall now confine our remarks to this department of her history. As iiius- The origin of the North American Indians still re- ibftreat^ mains an unsolved problem. A reverend historian of tbTabo- New England says, that it is not possible to ascertain the point, " unless the astrologers can find it 'in the stars, or that it can be gathered from the motion of the celestial bodies that lighted them hither." 6 But he cites the opinion of another writer, which he thinks carries with it the greatest probability of truth, and which he com pares to an "oracle of God." " His conceit is, that zvhen the devil was put out of his throne in the other part of the toorld, and that the mouth of all his oracles was stopped in Europe, Asia, and Africa, he seduced a com- 1 See Hazard, vol. i. p. 502. 5 See 2 Mass. Hist. Coll. vol. viii. 2 Hutchinson. p. 109. 3 Hazard, vol. ii. pp. 270-283. 6 Hubbard. 4 Ibid. pp. 147, 175, 176, 232. ngines. AND THE ABORIGINES. 101 pany of silly wretches to follow his conduct into this unknown part of the world, where he might be hid, and not be disturbed in the idolatrous and abominable, or rather diabolical service, he expected from those his fol lowers." The sober indorsement of this opinion by the Puritan historian, tells, more forcibly than the words themselves, how a false Christianity misled its sincere disciples. Faith and hope are great virtues, but a greater than these is charity. " Charity is not easily puffed up, and thinketh no evil." But this prince of Christian graces scarcely governed the Puritan Commonwealth in its dealings with the helpless Indians. Hubbard was not alone in attributing to them a diabolical agency ; it was the common idea of the " elect saints " of Massachusetts, and it encouraged them to commit outrages which have rarely a parallel in history. Although famine and pestilence, those dreadful mes sengers of Providence, whose mission had been foretold in Europe by " the disappearance of a blazing star in the west," had opened in New England a special road for the advent of civilization, yet the results of their visitation were by no means satisfactory to that scrupulous sect, whose consciences were too tender to allow them either to obey their sovereign, or to continue loyal to the Church. " They deemed themselves commissioned, like Joshua of old, to a work of blood ; " and they sought an excuse for their uniform harshness to the Indians in those dreadful tragedies which were enacted, far back in primeval ages, on the shores of the Red Sea and the fertile plains of Palestine, and in which Almighty Wis dom saw fit to make the descendants of Israel the instru ments of his wrath. So early as 1632, the Indians " began to quarrel with the English about the bounds of 9* 102 THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH their land ; " J for the Puritan Pilgrims, maintaining that " the whole earth is the Lord's garden," and, there fore, the peculiar property of his saints, admitted the natural right of the aborigines to so much soil only as they could occupy and improve. In 1633, this principle was made to assume the shape of law; and, "for set tling the Indians' title to lands in the jurisdiction," the general court ordered, that "what lands any of the Indians have possessed and improved, by subduing the same, they have just right unto, according to that in Genesis, ch. i. 28, and ch. ix. I."2 Thus the argument used was, vacuum domicilium, cedit occupanti: and, by an application of the customs of civilization to the wil derness, it was held, that all land not occupied by the Indians as agriculturalists, " lay open to any that could or would improve it." 3 Accordingly, when Roger Wil liams, with honest indignation, compared the interest of the Indians in the soil to that of the nobility and gentry of England in their parks and preserves, it was replied, that it was not the intention of the patentees to take possession of the country by " murther or robbery," but only to occupy its void places ; that, if lands were taken from the Indians, it was by purchase or consent ; that, as the nobility enjoyed larger territories than most men, so they did greater service to the state, and that their parks and preserves were employed as well for timber and the nourishment of tame annuals as for wild beasts ; that the towns and settlements of the commonwealth did not disturb the hunting of the natives, but since they used traps, and not hounds, did rather preserve game the fitter 1 Johnson, b. i. ch. xxv. 3 Savage's Winthrop, vol. i. p. 2 Colony Laws. See, also, Haz- 290. ard, vol. i. p. 476. AND THE ABORIGINES. 103 for their taking ; that all aggressions on their rights were paid or compensated for ; and that, at all events, a title to so vast a continent, which consisted only in burning it up for pastime, and not in the proper cul tivation of its millions of acres, could not be founded in justice.1 That civilization is preeminent over nature, few will be disposed to question ; the manner in which this superior ity is exercised, is alone open to remark. " Now, it seemeth unto me," said Robert Cushman, one of Robin son's disciples, " we ought to endeavor to use the means to convert the heathen ; the means cannot be used, unless we go to them or they come to us ; our land is full, and they cannot come to us ; therefore, as their land is empty, we may go to them." 2 How this worthy pilgrim would have disposed of the difficulty had the desired lands been full, instead of empty, we can only conjecture ; but there seems much good sense in his remark. It has been the fashion, of late, to assert for the Puritans that they regarded European right, resting on discovery, to be a Popish doctrine, derived from Alexander VI. , and that they recognized the justice of the Indian claims. But this position cannot be maintained. The rude garden, which surrounded the savage wigwam, was alone con sidered as savage property. The boundless landscape, with its forests, fields, and waters, he was despoiled of, on the harsh plea of Christian right. In this way, Charlestown, Boston, Dorchester, Salem, Hingham, and other places, were intruded into by the Puritan Pil grims, without condescending to any inquiry concerning the Indian title. They were seized and settled, because they were not waving with fields of yellow corn, duly 1 Hubbard. 2 Young's Chronicles of the Pilgrims. 104 THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH fenced in with square-cut hawthorne.1 Savage jealousy and savage alarm were easily provoked by such whole sale appropriations ; and perhaps Christianity suffered more, in its influence upon the red men, from these than any other causes. The settlers of the town of Concord, who fairly purchased their lands of the Indians, seldom or never had any contests with them.2 Such examples, however, were very rare ; for even where lands were purchased by the settlers, the consideration paid therefor was not seldom inadequate.8 In a letter written by Gov ernor Winslow, in 1676, he declares that the English were of a "covetous disposition," and that the Indians, when in need, " were easily prevailed upon to part with their lands." For this reason, the General Court of Plymouth made the necks of land, to which the Wampa- noags were at last confined, inalienable by them.4 For similar reasons, in part, Sir Edmund Andros pronounced Indian deeds no better than "the scratch of a bear's paw." Not only was the consideration therefor too frequently inadequate, but, as a matter of equity, the savages could not comprehend how the rough outline of a hatchet on a shred of parchment, or the rude delineation of a bow and arrow, should forever deprive them of the lands of their fathers. Yet the wrongs suffered by the Indians, in regard to the soil, were not the greatest injuries inflicted upon them by the Puritan Commonwealth. What shall be said of that chiefest enemy of the red man, which destroyed his manhood and cursed his existence 1 Was he, whose " low and mean diet and fare " 5 had always preserved 1 Drake's Old Indian Chron. p. 3 See Hazard, vol. ii. p. 93. 155. 1 Mass. Hist. Coll. vol. viii. 4 Hubbard's Indian Wars. p. 4. Lincoln's Hingham, p. 159. 5 Hubbard. 2 1 Mass. Hist. Coll. vol. i. p. 241. AND THE ABORIGINES. 105 him from the lusts of the flesh, was he to be baptized into the vices of civilization by the sanctimonious hand of Puritanism'? The Reforming Synod declares, that the Indians were debauched by those calling themselves Christians ; and it appears from the Colony Laws, that, at first, the general court was accustomed to license the sale to them of rum, brandy, strong waters, wine, strong beer, cider, and perry. What an array was this for the undisciplined appetite of the child of nature ! He could not see his evil spirit, Abomacho, lurking in those beau tiful and variegated colors ! He could not realize that that intoxicating thrill, which inspired him to dance and sing, which seemed to transport his very being, was the beginning of his utter perdition ! His doom was sealed. Trucking-houses, those sentinel posts of civilization, , skirted the forests, and the Indians abandoned the chase for the pleasures of sense. Family after family dwin dled away into squalid and drunken groups, whose bleared eyes, and naked, shivering forms, exhibited a disease more fearful in its ravages than the smallpox. Orders were passed, from time to time, by the general court, for " the prevention of drunkenness among the Indians," but with little effect. It was not until 1657 mat me general court, reciting their debauched condition, and the frequent " mur ders and other outrages-" resulting therefrom, recalled all outstanding licenses, ordered the immediate demolition of the trucking-houses, and forbade the future barter to the Indians of strong liquors, under a heavy penalty. But the disease had progressed too far to be remediable ; and when the Reforming Synod assembled, twenty years later, the civilized and praying Indians partook of the general immorality.1 1 Hubbard. Mather. Colony Laws. 106 THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH chap. The neighboring aborigines of Boston were but the ¦ — ¦<-— ' shreds of a great and warlike tribe. Reduced and broken by pestilence, they became an easy prey to the vices of civilization.1 But the tribes further removed from the Puritan settlements preserved their integrity, and presented to the lures of artificial life a firm and unbroken front. True, a wondrous inferiority in the arts of peace and war must have been both felt and lamented ; but the kings of the red men were not devoid of wisdom, and the civilization that was offered them they refused, because it brought in its train the demoral ization of their people. Perhaps, too, some traditions lingered among their warriors of the infamous treachery of the early English navigators; and -their council-fires . may have been often animated by the marvellous rela tions of some returned slave, whose only knowledge of civilization had been acquired under the lash of a task master, or amid the hoots and the clamor of a curious rabble. The Pe- r , Of this class of the New England aborigines, were the : great tribes of the Pequods, the Narragansetts, the Wam- panoags, and the Tarranteens ; great, not as conquerors, nor in numbers, but preeminent for their patriotism. They were the determined enemies, not of Christianity, but of Puritanism. The gospel was exhibited before them, as a system which denied the necessity of good works, and which made a spiritual abstraction its fundamental prin ciple. They saw that Christianity did not prevent its believers from wronging the poor, nor from oppressing the weak ; and they drew direful conclusions as to its , probable effects upon their people, from the rapid demor alization of the natives near Massachusetts Bay. The 1 See Hutchinson, vol. i. p. 38, n. and p. 408. Johnson, b. i. ch. 10. quods. AND THE ABORIGINES. 107 Pequods, " seated on a brave river " at the easterly end part of Long Island Sound,1 were " the most warlike of all — ^ the Indians," and the first to fall victims to the grasping policy of the Puritan Commonwealth. Jealousy of the neighboring Dutch, and the glowing accounts which had reached the English of the fertility of the valley of the Connecticut, had long rendered the possession of that country an object of desire.2 The Pequods, however, avoided intercourse with the white settlements, and roused the enmity of avarice by turning away from glass beads, and grog, and worthless trinkets.3 But an event which happened in 1634, was eagerly seized upon by the Puri tan Commonwealth, to wrest from this tribe a treaty, which should enable its citizens to introduce a mutual trade, and give them a footing upon the soil. Captain John Stone, a man of dissolute character, who had been prosecuted for piracy, convicted of adultery, and only saved, by a technical blemish in the evidence, from an ignominious death, was banished from the Puritan Com- 1633. monwealth for abuse of one of the magistrates. He was slain in the following year by the Pequods. This man provoked his own fate. Outlawed by his own coun trymen, he assumed the character of an adventurer, and, in company with a small crew, roamed over the waters of New England, trading with the natives. During one of these excursions, he arrived at the mouth of the River Thames, and forcibly seized upon two straggling Pequods to serve as his pilots. The outrage was summarily revenged by the warriors of the tribe, who, watching their opportunity, killed Stone, and rescued his helpless captives. But in this affair they neither attempted sub terfuge nor evasion. In the true spirit of chivalry, they 1 Now called River Thames. 3 See Hubbard's Indian Wars, 2 Bancroft. P- '9- 108 THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH sent their rude ambassadors to Boston, with rich gifts of wampum and furs, to allay the resentment of the English. The death of the outlaw must have been regarded by his countrymen as the abatement of a nuisance, and could have caused the rigid Puritans little concern ; but, pre tending indignation where none was entertained, an amnesty was offered the Pequods, on condition they surrendered the executioners of Stone, would allow the English full permission to plant in their lands, and would consent, for the future, "to trade with them as their friends." This brave tribe, already threatened by the Dutch, and its hereditary enemies the Narragansetts, was unwilling to add the English to the number of its adver saries. For the sake of peace, therefore, the Pequod ambassadors consented to the two latter conditions ; but, as for the first, they declared that nearly all the warriors who killed Stone were dead of the smallpox ; that their powers did not extend so far as to enable them to deliver up the survivors ; but that, " if they were worthy of death," they would advise their sachem to surrender them into the hands of the English. The Puritan Common wealth was satisfied with this arrangement. Trade " was the chief thing aimed at,"1 and not satisfaction for the death of Stone. The valuable concessions obtained by this treaty were all that was desired ; and the Pequod ambassadors, proud of their diplomatic achievements, joy fully departed for their home on the banks of the River Thames. Murder This treaty did not prove satisfactory. The English oidham. found that " no advantage was to' be had by any trade " with the Pequods, and, as a consequence, little intercourse was maintained with them.2 Adventurers, however, were 1 Hubbard's Indian Wars. 2 Ibid. p. 27. AND THE ABORIGINES. 109 not wanting, who, throwing off the restraints of civiliza- part tion, wandered about in boats, from point to point and ' — *-— ' from river to river, seeking opportunity to barter their wares and trinkets for the rich furs and curiously wrought wampum of the Indians. Among these traders was one John Oldham, an " obstinate and violent man," and of a " factious spirit," who had been twice banished from the 1624-5. Colony of Plymouth, in " a summary and ignominious manner," for " stirring up factions." So furiously did he revile us, says Bradford, relating one of these occur rences, that even his own friends were ashamed of his outrage. " Upon which we appoint him to pass through a guard of soldiers, and every one with a musket to give him a blow upon his hinder part, then conveyed him to the water side, where is a boat ready to carry him away." Wherever he makes his abode, wrote the Massachusetts Company to Endecott, " all hope of quiet or comfortable subsistence " is destroyed.1 Such was the being let loose by civilization to prowl among the Indians. His career, as might have been expected, was short. In the year 1636, his vessel was discovered by an English bark in the possession of some Indians, near a small isle belong ing to the Narragansetts, still known as Block Island. The master of the bark, suspecting that all was not right, bore up for the Indians, and, having discharged all his fire-arms at them, he ran his bows into their quarter, and drove nearly all of them into the sea. On boarding his prize, he found the body of her late owner under an old sail, with " his head cleft to the brains." The death of Oldham, which, from his past life, we have the right to conclude was not unprovoked, could not be laid at the door of the Pequods. Block Island Letter of the Massachusetts Company, (April, 1629,) to Endecott. 10 110 ' THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH chap, belonged to the Narragansetts, and there the act was • — y — ¦ consummated. Even the inferior sachems of the Nar ragansetts, who contrived and executed the affair,1 must have had great provocation, for their tribe was then at peace with the English, and they could not have coolly and deliberately planned a murder, which would have brought down upon them the terrible anger of the whites. However this may be, one would naturally suppose that the dozen lives that were sacrificed in recap turing the vessel must have satisfied the justice of the English, and have appeased the manes of Oldham. But Puritanism measured justice by a singular system of ethics ; and, if the saints were bettered in their condition, the annihilation of hundreds of the heathen was consid ered a fair equivalent for the death of a single Christian outlaw. Leads to Canonicus and Miantonimo, the great sachems of the an lnvas- August. ion of the Narragansetts, disclaimed any participation in the trag- territory. edy, and their excuses were accepted by the Puritan Commonwealth, on condition that they assisted in reveng ing Oldham's death. The elders and magistrates soon after assembled in council, and agreed that "justice 1636. should be done with all expedition ; " and, ten years before the Puritan Pilgrims began to inquire whether the aborigines had souls to be saved, an armed expedi tion sailed from the harbor of Boston, on an errand of blood. Endecott, the general, received " sanguinary orders." He was directed to put to death the male inhabitants of Block Island, to take captive their wives and children, and to possess himself of their little islet. But this was not all. The military forces of the Puritan Commonwealth had lately been organized under veteran 1 Hubb. Ind. Wars. Winthrop. death to the Pequods ; an error for Hutch. Bancroft attributes Oldham's which we are at a loss to account. AND THE ABORIGINES. Ill commanders, who had served in the wars in Holland. Their musters were frequent, their drilling thorough, and their equipments complete ; and the whole were placed under the direction of a commission, whose powers of life and death rendered the system efficient and formid able.1 The occasion that now presented itself for com mencing hostilities with the Pequods was too good to be lost ; for Block Island lay near the Pequod country. Stone's death had not yet been fully atoned for, and, in resisting the trespasses of other marauders, the Indians had spilt the white man's blood.2 The pretext was plausible, the opportunity tempting ; and though this gallant tribe had broken no treaty, and violated no engagement with the Puritan Commonwealth, Endecott was directed, after seizing Block Island, to proceed to the Pequod territory, and to demand " the murderers " of the English, one thousand fathoms of wampum, and several children, the latter to be retained as hostages. If these requisitions were resisted, he was ordered to obtain them by force. On reaching Block Island, Endecott found forty naked Indians, with their bows and arrows, drawn up in battle array on the shore, to oppose the landing of his steel-clad troops. These he easily routed ; but the woods afforded them a ready asylum, and the valor of the Puri tan soldiery was forced to expend itself in burning their wigwams, destroying their corn, and staving their canoes. Having ravaged Block Island, Endecott sailed for the Pequod country, and landed his men without the slightest opposition ; although, from the nature of the shore, the undertaking would have been hazardous had the Pequods " made use of their advantage." But the Indians, a 1 See Sav. Winthrop, vol. i. p. pp. 28, 3 1 , for the kinds of trespass- 156, n. ing the Pequods were continually 2 See Hubbard's Indian Wars, subjected to. 112 THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH race proverbial for fidelity in keeping their treaties,1 were taken by surprise; and, relying upon the compact that had been ratified on the occasion of Stone's death, were totally unprepared for war. Endecott's demands were received with astonishment. Lay aside your arms, was the message of Sassacus, as my warriors shall their bows, and we will confer together in the spirit of peace. But the Puritan general, regarding the proposal as a plot " to gain time," bid the messengers " begone and shift for themselves," and even was obliged to prohibit his men from firing upon them. You have dared the Eng lish to fight with you, said he, and " now they have come for that purpose."2 On this abrupt termination of peace, the Indians precipitately retired, availing themselves of every thicket, rock, and tree, to protect their bodies against the fatal missiles of the English, and shooting their bone-pointed arrows at the iron corslets of the advancing enemy. The retreat of the Indians soon became a flight ; and, on reaching the wigwam capital of Sassacus, not a warrior was found to oppose its de struction — not a squaw to plead, by her helplessness, for the safety of her tribe. The Pe- Thus ended the expedition of Endecott, to the great amanceee dissatisfaction of the government.3 He brought home Narragan- wim him no wampum and no slaves, and the Pequods still kept possession of the land of their fathers. But the calumet had been smoked for the last time at their council-fires, and their pride and glory had fled forever. "Stirred and provoked" by this wanton outrage, they began the system of retaliation ; 4 and, burying their hereditary animosity against the Narragansetts, they ' Hutchinson, vol. i. p. 61. 4 Charge against Massachusetts, 2 Winthrop's Journal. by Connecticut Commissioners, Ha- 3 Hutchinson. zard, vol. ii. p. 4r6. AND THE ABORIGINES. 113 endeavored to rouse that numerous tribe to a sense of the precarious condition of the aborigines. The argu ments they used were " most cogent and invincible." The strangers, urged Sassacus, a chief whose patriotism was of "high order,"1 are encroaching upon our grounds, and are depriving us of our rights. If we allow them to destroy us in detail, the lapse of a few years will find them in possession of our country; but if we form a coalition, though our bows and tomahawks, our war- whoops and artifice, are powerless before their terrible superiority, we may avoid pitched battles, and, by firing their houses, killing their cattle, and ceaselessly lying in wait in field and wood, we may starve them with hunger, or force them to forsake our homes. Wherefore, let us be friends and allies, since mutual animosity now can only produce common destruction. The Narragansetts wavered. They felt the force of these arguments, urged with all the eloquence of Indian oratory; but Roger Williams, the Puritan emissary, having arrived at the Indian head-quarters, soon defeated the plans of the Pequod chief. The Sachem of the Narragansetts " en tertained him royally, nobly feasting him after giving him audience."2 For three days, this savage court was the theatre of diplomacy, less polished, but equally subtle with that of the old world. Yet the event was not long doubtful. English presents and promises, united with who enter the prospect of immediate vengeance upon their old ty with TWfl ^^jio nil— enemies, were too potent to be resisted by the Narragan- setts. setts. They listened to the voice of the tempter ; and soon after, in the presence of the elders and magistrates, at Boston, entered into a league with the Puritan Com monwealth, which stipulated, with ferocious meaning, 1 Felt's Salem, vol. i. pp. 104, 2 Johnson, b. ii. ch. 6. 105. 10* 114 THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH chap, that neither party should " make peace with the Pequods — v — ' without the consent of the other." The volley of mus ketry, which celebrated the ratification of this treaty, was fired over the yawning grave of aboriginal existence in New England. For the Indians, there was now, indeed, no morrow. Total de- The Pequods were now an isolated tribe, and coolly ofthePe- and deliberately the Puritan Commonwealth hemmed quods. t-, • them in on every side. Preparations were made, not for war but for butchery; and, in pursuance of this plan, Massachusetts called for assistance upon the neighboring colonies. Plymouth remonstrated, and even Connecticut wished for a more fitting season. But all in vain. Con science was the plea urged, and " in point of conscience" 1637. these three jurisdictions united their armed forces against the Pequods, for the purpose of achieving their " entire destruction." ' The soldiers were animated to a degree of ferocity by " the reverend ministers ; " and were en couraged to the utmost contempt of life by the assurance that, if any should fall in so good a work, it was " because earth's 'honors were too scant for them, and, therefore, the everlasting crown must be set upon their heads forth with." 2 Finally, to render their action harmonious, that there might be no wavering of purpose, no remembrance of the grace of charity in the work that was expected of them, "their ranks were purged of all persons whose religious sentiments did not fully correspond with the general standard of faith and orthodoxy. "3 The seal of the Puritan Church was set upon the expedition, by the administration of the Holy Communion. Late in the spring, the campaign commenced ; and, before the close \ Hazard, vol. i. p. 513. Sav. 2 Address of the Elders, Johnson, Winthrop, vol. i. p. 194. b. ii. ch. 6. 3 Grahame. AND THE ABORIGINES. 115 of summer, the Pequods were swept as by a whirlwind from the face of the earth. They made " a noble stand against the united forces of New England, and would certainly have defended their country," had the Narra gansetts listened to their solemn warning. But they had not a friend or an ally, and perished by their ancestral graves without sympathy or hope. When nearly all their warriors had been destroyed, and only a handful remained in "a hideous swamp," to make one more stand against their unrelenting foes, the terms of peace were offered them. The land had been conquered, would it not want slaves for cultivation1? Lay down your arms, was the proposal, and " surrender into our hands all of your number who have killed any of our countrymen." We will stand by one another, and sell our lives as dear as we can, was the heroic reply. And, during that dreadful night, the stars of heaven looked down upon a band of Christian men, whose lips were yet moist with the sacramental wine, and who poured, without ceasing, their shots into the mud and thicket, where were gathered the last remnants of the Pequod race, men, women, and children. The light of morning broke upon an awful scene. The Indians were discovered " sitting in heaps," the old men, the squaws, and the pappoose close together. The warriors were dead, dying, or heart-broken. They fought no more. Nor did these shuddering groups of humanity ask for quarter, or resist destruction. They received, unmoved, the shots of the Puritan troops, who surrounded the swamp, only twelve feet apart, whose pieces were " laden with ten or twelve pistol bullets at a time," and the muzzles of which were "put under the boughs, within a few yards of them." And thus, to the end, these " sullen dogs " preferred death to the tender mercies of Puritanism. Their rude fortresses were taken 116 THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH and burnt, and in them hundreds of their race. Such holocausts the world has rarely seen. They were pur sued into thicket and swamp ; they were hunted in val ley and hill ; and, before the summer had closed, eight hundred Pequod warriors were butchered by the Puritan forces. One hundred and eighty women and children remained, as trophies of the conquest ; and of these, the females were distributed as slaves among the English towns and the Narragansetts, while the male children were sold to the Bermudas. The male adults taken cap tive, old and young, were to a man beheaded.1 And so, " some burning, some bleeding to death by the sword, some resisting until they were cut off, some beaten down as they were flying," and a small remnant captured and enslaved, the noblest race of red men in New England perished. Their chief became a fugitive and outlaw; and the triumph of the Puritan Commonwealth was complete, when the scalp of Sassacus was paraded in Boston. Such was the end of a tribe, which, as Win- ' throp afterwards said, had done Massachusetts no in jury.2 Fate of the Finally, the expedition, which "that famous pastor," this expe- Mr. Hooker, had blessed and sanctified, was closed bv a dition, an J DivfneC apparently secure enjoyment of station and respectability, was in a moment blasted by a flash of lightning. Ensign Jennison, soon after the Pequod expedition, fell into dis grace, and only saved himself from ruin by the most abject humiliation. The list of officers is complete, and behold in what manner Heaven rewarded these sancti monious homicides ! We can only add here, to show how the Great Spirit of Nature taught the rude hearts of these heathen, that, in the midst of the desolation a false Christianity was inflicting upon them, two English maids, whom they captured, were " well treated," and were only asked whether they " could make gun powder." 1 One thing is discoverable in the policy pursued by the Puritan Pilgrims, which the Indians themselves must have both known and resented. If the red man raised his hand against the white, no matter if it were in defence of his life, family, or property ; no matter if the victim were an outlaw, hunted from society, disgraced and utterly abandoned ; it was an offence that the blood only of the offender could expiate. Thus, before the Pequod expedition returned, Block Island was visited, and two or three lives were sacrificed to the manes of Oldham, a man who, in his life, had been the torment of both Plymouth and Massachusetts. The xar- An aboriginal coalition, first suggested by the Pequod chief, and afterwards carried into such terrible effect by King Phillip, at this early period might have resulted in the extermination of the English ; and some solitary ship, afterwards touching at Massachusetts Bay, would have beheld the stillness of the wilderness where was 1 Johnson, vol. i. b. ii. c. i. Sav. Winthrop, vol. i. p. 224. ragansetts. AND THE ABORIGINES. 119 expected the busy hum of life, and have carried home part. the startling news, that transatlantic Puritanism had dis- *--<• — ' appeared. But Providence decreed otherwise ; for it was no part of the Divine scheme, that Nature should hold longer dominion over the vast regions of the New World. An awful retribution awaited the Narragansetts, for the part they took in the destruction of the Pequods. They had " preferred the present pleasure of revenge upon their enemies, to the future happiness of themselves and their posterity ; " 1 and their proud sachems, roman tic hunting-grounds, and cunningly-wrought wigwams, mats, and wampum, were all to pass away like a tale that is told. Giving free scope to their revengeful passions, they demanded, as a condition of their alliance with the English, that the Pequod nation should utterly perish. Their wishes were gratified. They enjoyed the pleasure " of dancing and whooping over their dying enemies." But they were now to feel, in all its bitterness, the force of that truth, which was urged by the Pequod king as a motive for aboriginal alliance. The friendship of the English could bring them nothing " but the favor of being last devoured." The treaty of 1637, between Massachusetts and the Narragansetts, was, as usual, entirely ex parte, with the exception of the article already named, relating to the destruction of the Pequods. Even the stipulation for free trade, which equally bound both parties, was unequal in its operation ; for, while all the simple stores and curious manufactures of this dexterous tribe lay open to the trade and barter of the English, those works of civilized art, which the Indians most coveted, and which were indispensable for their protection against civilized 1 Hutchinson. 120 THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH chap, marauders, namely, guns, powder, and shot, were, by an ¦ — » — ¦ early colony law, forbidden to be sold to them, under heavy penalties. At the same time, intrigues were car ried on with the Dutch, to prevent their trucking of these articles with the Indians ; and a law was finally passed, prohibiting both Dutch and French from violating this settled policy of the Puritan Commonwealth, under pen alty of confiscation. However unequal as was this treaty, which the Narragansett sachems, it seems, " did not well understand when they subscribed their marks,"1 it was assented to by both parties, and made binding on their posterity forever. Why was it that five years scarcely elapsed, before Miantonimo, the chief of this notable tribe, " the best friend and kindest benefactor the colony ever had,"2 received from his allies judgment of death? How did it chance that, before the maturity of another generation, the Narragansetts had vanished from the face of the earth ] The Mo- The Puritan Commonwealth ever regarded its Indian intrigue allies as dependants. The law of nations, which makes tfie Nar- no distinction between the greatest empires and the pet- ragansetts. . ..... i • 1 i .-, , , tiest principalities, which guards with equal care the rights of Pagan, Mohammedan, and Christian States, was entirely ignored by the Puritan Pilgrims, in their dealings with the aborigines. So that a measure was expedient for themselves, it little mattered whether it was offensive to the Indians.3 If they fought with the natives, they fought to exterminate and to enslave.4 If they treated with them, it was in order to oppress. In . 164-5, the Commissioners of the United Colonies de- ' Sav. Winthrop, vol. i. p. 199. * In 1641, a law was passed by 2 Gov. Steph. Hopkins, in 2 the general court, declaring that Mass. Hist. Coll. vol. ix. p. 202. there should be no bond slavery in 3 See Winthrop's Letter, Hazard, Massachusetts, except in cases of vol. i. p. 5 14. captives taken in 'wars. AND the aborigines. 121 clared, that they had always had "an awful respect to Divine rules in their treaties with the barbarous natives of the wilderness." 1 And what were these " Divine rules," by which the Puritan Pilgrims proposed to be governed % They were the same which, in the old time, whitened the land of Canaan with the bones of its wicked inhabitants, and crimsoned its streams with their blood. The Indians were presumptuously regarded as the chil dren of the devil ; and were, consequently, entitled to no mercy at the hands of the Christian Israel. They pos sessed the land, which of right belonged to the chosen people ; and the treaties entered into with them were little better than traps set for the simple by the cunning. And so Miantonimo soon learned. The Pequods were destroyed, but their land was not shared with him. Cap tives were taken, but he had no voice in their disposal. But, far worse than this, the friends for whom he had sacrificed so much began to regard him with coldness and suspicion. Uncas, Sachem of the Mohegans, by a complete submission to the English, " insinuated further than himself into their favor," and prejudiced their minds against the Narragansetts. The Mohegans, seated be tween the River Thames and the Connecticut, became jealous of the Narragansetts, and Miantonimo had now to suffer the same fate which he had made Sassacus undergo. Strange rumors began to circulate, of a gen eral conspiracy by the Indians, and somehow the Mohe gans were never included among the conspirators. Intel- 1642. ligence was forwarded from Connecticut to Boston, that the Narragansetts had formed a league with the Mohawks and other tribes, to cut off all the English after harvest time. The petty chiefs near Boston were immediately 1 Hazard, vol. ii. p. 45. 11 122 THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH chap, disarmed, and a summons was sent to Miantonimo to n. ¦ — » — • appear before the general court. He unhesitatingly obeyed the call, and, in the presence of his own counsel lors, whom, with great rectitude of purpose, he brought with him, to prevent the suspicions of his people, de manded the names of his accusers. He " showed good understanding in the principles of justice and equity;" and declared that, if his accusers could not make good their charges, they ought to suffer the same punishment that they were endeavoring to inflict upon him. The governor was forced to avow, that he did not know the authors of the rumor. Miantonimo then gave " divers reasons" why he could not be engaged in any conspiracy, and cleared himself to the satisfaction of the court. He affirmed his belief that the rumors were started by Uncas, and avowed his readiness to meet him in Connecticut or at Boston, and " prove to his face his treachery." He concluded by offering to renew his treaty with Massa chusetts, declaring that, " if any of the Indians, even those who were as his own flesh and blood, should do any wrong to the English, he would leave them to their mercy." His gravity of deportment, his wisdom, the nobleness of his sentiments, and the justness of his con clusions, won the respect of his stern and suspicious hearers ; and the princely pagan had the melancholy satis faction of wringing from his Christian allies that confi dence, which is the involuntary tribute paid by littleness to magnanimity. Defeat and Miantonimo, however, was unable to appear at Boston capture of . , _ 1 r Miantoni- with each new rumor that arrived. Every bark from Connecticut brought fresh alarms, and every letter from thence urged upon Massachusetts the necessity of active preparation. The " minds of men were filled with fear," and, during the watches of the night, the trembling in- AND THE ABORIGINES. 123 mates of the border cottages listened with apprehension part to every sound, and peered through their carefully closed ¦ — » — ¦ shutters into the darkness of the surrounding forest, dreading each moment to see the stealthy steps and fan tastic trappings of the Narragansett and Mohawk war riors. On one occasion, cries for assistance against a pack of wolves were distorted, by fear, into the terrible warwhoop, and roused the vigilance of the inhabitants from town to town, until the roll of the drum could be heard " in all the towns about the Bay." Such a moral epidemic as this, the result, it must have been, of guilty apprehensions, was not to be arrested by any defence, however complete ; and the year following Miantonimo 's 1643. public vindication at Boston, while he was dreaming ay' away his life in fancied security on the shores of Narra gansett Bay, while the Mohawks were returning from their distant hunting-grounds on the borders of the northwestern lakes, the four Puritan States of New England, led off by Massachusetts, united in a league, offensive and defensive, against their ally and friend. An occasion only was wanting now to renew the Pequod tragedy ; and there can be little doubt that, had one offered at this time, the Narragansetts would have joined the Pequods in the land of spirits. But the United Col onies were relieved from a dilemma by a fracas between the rival tribes. Uncas "had wronged Sequasson," a July. petty sachem on the Connecticut, and a dependant of Miantonimo's, by killing some of his men, burning his wigwams, and carrying away his goods. The Narra gansett chief espoused his cause, and asked permission of Massachusetts to make war upon Uncas. He was answered by a declaration of neutrality ; l and, confident i Sav. Winthrop, vol. ii. pp. 128, 129. 124 THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH chap. 0f the good faith of the Puritan Commonwealth, he led ¦ — « — ¦ one thousand of his warriors into the country of the August. Mohegans. "The battle is not always to the strong;" and Miantonimo had the mortification not only of suffer ing defeat, but of being delivered, by the treachery of two of his own captains, into the hands of his rival. The news of his capture was received with great satis faction throughout New England. The harvests were gathered in security, and no guilty fear was longer enter tained that, before the annual thanksgiving had arrived, the English would be exterminated by a Narragansett and Mohawk coalition. His fate. Uncas was at a loss how to dispose of his captive. The life of " a great king " was sacred in his eyes ; and such had been his disgust at the treason which placed Miantonimo in his power, that he slew the faithless Nar ragansetts on the spot. The captive sachem disdained to ask for his life, though repeatedly pressed by Uncas. Why do you not speak ] said the latter. " If you had taken me, I would have besought you for my life ! "* But the Narragansett continued mute ; so that Uncas was fain in his perplexity to carry him to Connecticut, and to beg the advice of its magistrates as to his dis posal. He was referred to the Commissioners of the United Colonies, who were soon to meet at Boston ; and, in the mean time, Miantonimo was detained a prisoner at Hartford. Though " very courteously treated," the royal captive did not enjoy the sympathy of his keepers ; nor did the magnanimity of his character, which led him to caution the English to guard against surprise from his people, who were plotting for his rescue,2 serve to destroy their unjust suspicions. In September, the commissioners 1 Sav. Winthrop, vol. ii. p. 131. 2 Ibid. p. 132, n. AND THE ABORIGINES. 125 assembled, and they dedicated the first business of the colonial union to an act of "perfidy and cruelty."1 Mian tonimo little dreamed that, while he was chafing in his bonds at Hartford, and longing, as a child of nature only can long, for the freedom of the forest, his Christian friends at Boston, so far from entertaining any such prop osition, were endeavoring to find some excuse for putting him to death. For an Indian to excite the suspicion of a Puritan was a heinous offence in itself; but Mianto nimo had capped the climax of his enormities, when he presumed, a short time before his capture, to give shelter to the Gortonian fanatics, who were so much the objects of virulent persecution by the Puritan Church. This was a crime not to be forgotten or forgiven. But the commissioners were much puzzled. It was not best to set him at liberty ; and there was no adequate ground for depriving of life a chief so much beloved by a pow erful tribe. The utmost ingenuity was tormented in vain for some pretext, which, if not honest, might at least appear plausible.2 At a loss to proceed, fearful of the responsibility their inclinations were urging them to assume, they " in this difficulty propounded the case to the elders." And with the elders truly there was no hesitation. From the teachers of Christianity, this noble pagan received sentence of death ; 3 and secretly, without a hearing, unstained by any crime, and still trusting in the honor of his allies, was consigned to an ignominious grave. Too cowardly to carry their own iniquity into execution, the commissioners cast the burden upon Un cas ; and, delivering Miantonimo into his hands, told him that he ought to die, since he had not only wronged 1 Sav. Winthrop, vol. ii. p. 132, n. 3 Trumb. Conn. vol. i. pp. 13*- 2 See Records of Commissioners, 134. in Hazard, vol. ii. p. 7. 11* 126 THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH him,1 but had endeavored to excite animosity against the English. Wherefore they advised him to carry his pris oner into his own country, and in a " humane" manner, " without torture," to put him to death. To strengthen his resolution for a deed at which Uncas himself shud dered, they promised him assistance in the event of his being molested. But, in case the Mohegan chief refused " to execute justice " upon the royal captive, provision was made for bringing him to Boston, and keeping him in " safe durance," to await the further action of the commissioners, which proves that he had done nothing worthy of death.2 And so perished the great sachem of the Narragansetts, and with him the independence of his tribe. No diligence of inquiry could detect the slightest evidence of his hostility to the English ; and the rumors of aboriginal coalitions, which had been rife every year since the landing of the Plymouth fathers, had been invariably traced " to opposite factions among the In dians." 3 It is needless to consider whether the law of nations, or the common principles of morality, were most violated in the case of this unhappy prince ; since so palpable was the injustice, and so unrighteous the policy, that mind and heart are equally amazed at the extent of human infirmity. The Nar- The death of Miantonimo plunged his people in de- ragansetts . i o r r seek the spair. ihey had paid Uncas "a great ransom" for his aidofMas- ,r» 4 , , . . . sachusetts lite, and had also given " in particular " to the commis- to avenge . ° l his death, sioners "about forty pounds." 5 Faithful to the last in trusting to the honor of their allies, they attributed the death of their chief to Uncas alone, and not to the Com- 1 See the wretched story trumped 3 Winthrop's Journal. Hubbard. up against Miantonimo in Johnson, Hutchinson. b. n. ch. 23. 4 Gorton's Simplicitie's Defence, 2 Hazard, vol. ii. p. 13. &c. p. 83. Haz. vol. ii. pp. 25, 39. 5 Hazard, vol. ii. p. 47. AND THE ABORIGINES. 127 missioners of the United Colonies, who had secretly part corrupted him. An outbreak between the Narragansetts ^-^ and the Mohegans consequently became imminent ; and Pesecus, the young brother and successor of the mur dered sachem, sent a rich present of furs and wampum to the Governor of Massachusetts, requesting neutrality in the expiatory war he felt bound to wage against Un cas. The petition was both just and proper, and had it been presented to clean hands and pure hearts would have met with applause. We have only to suppose the unhappy Miantonimo the head of a civilized state, to understand what was due to his offended and aggrieved nation. Alas, for the credulity of the poor Indians, ever trusting and ever betrayed ! The present of Pesecus was coldly received, and his But with- . . , , out success. petition was answered by a request to preserve peace. He again sent presents to the Puritan Magistrate, urging with many arguments that his reasonable petition might be granted. He was sternly refused, and told that " if the Narragansetts made war upon Tineas, the English would all fall upon them." Greatly incensed at this reply, he and his chiefs declared that they would not hear of peace until they had the head of Uncas ; and no longer trusting to their treaty with the Puritan Commonwealth, which they now saw in its true light, they took the advice of their Rhode Island friends, and put themselves under the protection of the King of England.1 They 1644. now pleaded the common relation of subjects to their taskmasters, and declared that if any differences occurred between them and the English, they should be submitted for adjustment to the throne. The policy was ingenious, but unwise. Charles himself had been wronged by these 1 See their deed of submission, in Gorton's Simplicitie's Defence. April. 128 THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH chap, same stern Puritans in his happier days, and was now • — y^" powerless over them ; and the Narragansett chiefs were told that those who counselled them to take this step were " evil men," unworthy of confidence. But they still avowed their determination to avenge the death of Miantonimo, and " marvelled that the English should he The Puri- against it." When it was discovered that their purpose tans make , . . n this move- was not to be shaken, active measures were taken to ment a pre- ... -, v , . text for reduce them to submission ; and, regarding their con- hostilities. „....„ ,, tempt of her wishes as " sufficient to justify a war, Massachusetts again raised her blood-red standard, and invited the cooperation of the other colonies. Men were impressed for this expedition, for none offered to volun teer ; x and the commanders were directed, " not only to aid the Mohegans but to offend the Narragansetts!' At the same time, orders were specially given, that all cap tives taken in the campaign should be " improved for the advantage of the colonies, whether men, women, or chil dren." 2 History can panegyrize few instances of nobler faith than that of these untutored Indians, who, up to this time, do not appear to have suspected their allies of having any part in the death of their chief. Proverbial for fidelity themselves, they could not understand treach- The Nar- ery in others. They were now undeceived, by the arrival fearing the of messengers from the commissioners, and the formid- ees, send a able preparations of Massachusetts brought vividly to to Boston, their remembrance the terrible fate of the Pequods. Sobered by reflection, intimidated by menace, and ener vated by terror, they finally signified their willingness to give up the chastisement of Uncas, and to send a depu tation to Boston. The messengers, softened by these marks of humiliation, " departed from their instructions," 1 Hutchinson, vol. i. p. 131. 2 Hazard, vol. ii. pp. 31, 34. AND THE ABORIGINES. 129 and, retaining the presents they had been sent to return, part despatched word to the commanders of the English forces — v — ' to stay the sword, for there was " prospect of peace." Will it be believed that this humane act " offended the commissioners \ " Can it be credited that the expecta tions and hopes of these pious Puritans reached beyond conquest to extermination ] 1 Arrived at Boston, the Narragansett chiefs were ac- Their un- ° just treat- cused of making war upon the ally of Massachusetts, and ment. of putting her to the expense of raising forces for defence. You have been the cause of all this outlay, it was said ; and it is, therefore, just that you should bear the charges. But we do not wish to be harsh, and, " to show our moderation," we shall only require you to pay two thou sand fathoms of wampum, to restore all the goods you have taken from Uncas, to keep perpetual peace with the English and their allies, and, as security for the faithful performance of these engagements, to leave with us some of your children as hostages. ? Such was the moderation of these stern taskmasters ! The tribute in wampum alone amounted to five hundred and sixty-six pounds ; nearly as much as the whole tax levied that year in the Puritan Commonwealth by the general court.3 But a harder requisition than this was the one which required them to remunerate Uncas, who had so treacherously murdered their sachem. Nevertheless, they had no choice. The Narragansett chiefs signed the treaty, de- August. livered their children as hostages, and silently tracked their way back to homes which they felt could not long be theirs. No " volleys of shot," like those which cele- 1 Hutchinson, vol. i. p. 132. ling. Hutchinson, vol. i. p. 113, n. 2 Hazard, vol. ii. p. 40. Two thousand fathoms were, there- 3 A fathom of wampum was val- fore, worth £566 13*. 4J. ued at five shillings eight pence ster- 130 THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH chap, brated the departure of Miantonimo, a few years before, - — !—> dismissed them on their way ; and, ere they quitted the limits of the English settlements, the breeze might have borne to their ears the sound of the Christian drums, beating thanksgiving to God for the substantial tokens of their humiliation. The day of fasting, which had been appointed to usher in another Puritan butchery, was changed into a thanksgiving, to commemorate another Puritan robbery.1 Desperate The future career of the Narragansetts was one of this tribe, sorrow and disaster. Unable to bear with fortitude the loss of their children, they plotted for their rescue, but with little method and no courage.2 The fingers of their squaws were not nimble enough to weave two miles of wampum in time to satisfy Puritan rapacity ; and, being " sharply rebuked " by the commissioners for their re missness, they sold all their kettles, and, in " grief of spirit," humbly laid the price at the feet of their oppress ors." 3 They were the unhappy objects of a perpetual and suspicious espionage. If they sent a present to a friendly tribe, it was construed into a bribe for a coali tion. If their young warriors took the war-path, to chastise an insult or an injury, the notes of hostile prep aration sounded in their ears, from the banks of the Merrimac to the shores of Long Island Sound. Driven to despair, they once more appealed to the English crown. The restoration of Charles the Second beheld the agents of this broken-hearted tribe mingled with the motley crowd at the foot of the throne ; and begging, in common with Quakers, Baptists, Familists, and others, for protection against the oppressions of Puritanism. The appeal was not in vain ; and the Narragansetts were 1 Hutchinson. 3 Sav. Winthrop, vol. ii. p. 263. 2 Ibid. vol. i. p. 133, n. AND THE ABORIGINES. 131 expressly mentioned in the instructions of the royal com- part missioners, who were shortly after sent over, as objects — r^-> for special inquiry. This commission of inquiry, as will be shown in another place, proved entirely abortive ; and, ere the English monarch could again turn his attention to their affairs, the people of Miantonimo had ceased to exist. They filled up the measure of their enormities, when they exhibited before their common sovereign the long catalogue of oppressions which stained the Puritan Commonwealth. In that patriotic struggle of the aborigines, which Anew trea- commenced in 1675, Massachusetts felt that she had tlomthem. forfeited all claim to the regard of the Narragansetts, and accordingly altered her policy. She no longer sent ambassadors to them, clothed in peaceful garb and breathing intoxicating promises, but all her forces, in martial array, were poured, without notice or provoca- July. tion, into their country. By " this wise piece of con duct," a fresh treaty was extorted from them, wherein it was stipulated that they should assist in destroying King- Philip, should make satisfaction for all injuries done by them at any time to the English, should confirm all their sales of land to the latter, should make use of their war riors as a guard about their country, for the protection of the white settlements, and should deliver hostages for the performance of these engagements. As a consideration for the compact, they were promised forty trucking coats for capturing King Philip alive, and twenty for taking his head ; and, for all captives that they should take alive, they were promised two coats, and, for every •scalp obtained, one coat. The bounty for living souls, who could be sold as slaves and converted into money, was double that which was offered for the proofs that their misery had terminated. 132 THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH But while the Puritan Commonwealth was endeavor ing to gratify the cupidity of its citizens at the same warmnesl6" ^me tnat it provided for their safety, allowance was not servance a uiade for that hatred of oppression, which is common to a?arm.°f &h classes of creatures. That great lukewarmness should have been exhibited by the Narragansetts, in observing a treaty extorted at the point of the bayonet, was no more than natural ; and although they did not openly violate its terms, their hearts were with King Philip, and they gladly sheltered his women and children while he was fighting for the disinthralment of his race. This hu mane act displeased the commonwealth, who endeavored in vain to prevent it. The Commissioners of the United Colonies soon became thoroughly alarmed at the signs of a general aboriginal movement ; and, fearful that the chiefs of the Narragansetts would join Philip, with their two thousand warriors, they " resolved to regard them as enemies," and to blot out the tribe from existence, although the ink with which they had ratified a treaty of peace was scarcely dry. In this resolution they were sustained by public sentiment, which was wrought to the highest pitch of zeal by the prophecies of the elders.1 The plan, Prepara- suddenly formed, was as suddenly put in execution. A tions for - . . war. thousand troops, gathered from all parts of the United December. Colonies, were mustered in the dead of winter, and departed by forced marches for the Narragansett country. Their enthusiasm was worthy of a better cause. Trained in the art of Indian war almost from their infancy, they encountered the severest obstacles without flinching. For an early colony law required all boys, between ten and sixteen years of age, to be taught the art of war, and instructed in the use of the musket, pike, and bow and 1 Mather's Indian Troubles, p. 60. AND THE ABORIGINES. 133 arroiv, by some one of the veteran officers of the Pequod part war.1 Thus, these men, educated soldiers as well as *-^~ Puritans, from the cradle, with special reference to Indian fighting, murmured not at hardships, which might have appalled the stoutest hearts ; but, keeping steadily in view the objects for which they were sent, and guided by a renegade Indian, they invaded the lands of the unhappy Narragansetts, blasting them with fire and sword. The warriors of Canonchet retreated before them, making no opposition until exasperated by repeated injuries. Their And their very entreaties for peace were met with derision. Finally, struotion. the whole tribe was driven into a stronghold, situated on a hill, in the midst of a swamp. This feeble post, forti fied by rude palisades and bushes, was carried by assault, in the space of two or three hours. Nine hundred war riors perished in the struggle ; and, when the fortress was fired by its conquerors, the number of old men, women, and children, that to ere burned alive, could never be ascer tained? In this fortress, the Narragansetts had collected their Heroism - . . T . . ,, of Canon- Stores and their treasures. It was their granary, as well dust. as their fort, and its loss proved fatal to the tribe. The horrors of famine now pursued Canonchet, and those of his warriors who escaped. Their lives were indeed miserable enough ; without homes, without food, without hope of any thing but revenge. Even this was denied them. The Puritan troops were everywhere upon their tracks, hunting them down with equal sagacity and hard iness; and early in the following spring, Canonchet, who, iG76. in a "romantic expedition," ventured his life to obtain food for his surviving followers, found himself a prisoner in the hands of his enemies. He was offered his life, on 1 Colony Law, 1645. ' Hubbard's Indian Wars. Ma ther. Hutchinson. 12 March. 134 THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH condition that he would sacrifice the independence of his shattered tribe, and place his people at the disposal of his captors. He refused the terms with indignation. He was then taunted with his boast, that he would not deliver up to the English " even the paring of a Wampanoag's nail ; " but he turned coldly away, and desired to hear no more. Heroic to the last, he received sentence of death with tranquil grandeur, only replying : " I like it well THAT I SHALL DIE BEFORE MY HEART GROWS SOFT, OR THAT I SHALL HAVE SAID ANY THING UNWORTHY OF myself." The " splendid dignity " of such a fall wrung from Puritan writers involuntary admiration ; and an historian of the times declared that, by a " Pythagorian metempsychosis, some old Roman ghost had possessed his body, like an Attilius Regulus."1 In another place, this pious annalist bestows upon the young Narragansett chief the epithet of " damned wretch ! " 2 With Canonchet fell the integrity of his nation ; but his grandeur of character will forever render the name of Narragansett illustrious. His attempt to rally his broken warriors, after " the great swamp fight," was worthy of a mind, which, in the most terrible reverses, maintained its fortitude. He fell none too soon. Life would have been torture ; since he would have been a king without subjects, a proprietor without lands, a hero without glory, and a man without rights. The glory of his death may well rank this great-hearted pagan chief with the royal martyrs of Christendom. He was the last sachem of the Narragansetts. Of the fate of the survivors of his shattered tribe, little is known. Some were captured and enslaved ; some amalgamated with other tribes ; and some perished in the noble ranks of King Philip. Their l Updike's History of Narragan- 2 Hubbard's Indian Wars. sett Church. Hubbard. AND THE ABORIGINES. 135 territory, already reduced in size to the present county of part Washington, in Rhode Island, by the sale of Providence ' — r^ to Roger Williams, in 1636, of Rhode Island to Cod dington, in 1638, and of Shawomet to Gorton, in 1643, was soon occupied by the thrifty English, although by a righteous retribution it long continued a bone of conten tion between the colonies ; and the soil which Mianto nimo had proudly occupied with the pomp of his bar barous court, a few years later, was famous throughout New England for the products of the dairy and loom. But what, then, was the condition of its former own ers ? In a sermon preached before the Society for the 1731. Propagation of the Gospel, Dean Berkeley remarked, that all the Indians in Narragansett were, for the most part, the servants of the English, who have contributed more to destroy their bodies, by the use of strong liquors, than by any means to improve their minds or save their souls. The manes of Sassacus were indeed appeased ; and let it ever be remembered that this, the gentlest of the New England races, once taunted by the Pequods as a nation of women, though they submissively bowed before the wondrous power of civilization, yet had a suffi ciency of moral courage to withstand the teachings of Puritanism. The religion of the Puritan Commonwealth they resolutely resisted to the last. Allusion has already been made to Philip, sachem of The Wam- the Wampanoags, who, perhaps, stands out in bold relief from all the other native chiefs. It was not in power that he excelled Canonchet, for the warriors of his own tribe were not nearly so numerous as those of the Narra gansett chief; it was not in their more warlike character that he had the advantage of Sassacus, for the Pequods were the terror of all the Indians in their vicinity. His superiority is to be attributed alone to his stern resolu- 136 THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH tion. His bold and active character soon made him an object of dislike to his neighbors of Plymouth; and he was charged with ambition, in aspiring to the sovereignty of a country which was his heritage ; with perfidy, for breaking promises which were extorted from him in du ress ; with impiety, for contemptuously declining to receive the gospel at the hands of the despoilers of his people. But Philip was neither ambitious, perfidious, nor wicked. He had the good sense to distinguish between fair, bond fide contracts, and those made by means of fraud and deception ; and he, without hesitation, repudiated the lat ter, as an oppression of the weak by the strong. The injuries inflicted by the Plymouth Colony upon Massasoit and his people are not attributable to Massa chusetts ; and it is beyond our purpose to detail the various treaties of submission and tribute, which, for a long series of years, were juggled by the disciples of Robinson from the sachems of Pokanoket. Though "even like lions" to the rest of their neighbors, yet to the starving, feeble band of Independents, who intruded upon their shores, the Wampanoags had been " like lambs, so kind, so submissive and trusty, as a man may . truly say many Christians are not so kind or so sincere." 1 But how were they requited 1 Suffice it that Massasoit, though called an " enemy to Christianity," continued a firm friend of the Plymouth settlers until his death; that his eldest son and successor, Wamsutta, renewed the league of amity, which existed between his father and Plymouth ; and, as if to seal the friendly compact, ac cepted from the governor of that colony the name of Alexander, which he retained during his brief career; that, a few years after, Alexander died of a broken heart, 1 See Hazard, vol. i. p. 148. AND THE ABORIGINES. 137 on account of his ignominious treatment by that colony, part which, without cause, suspected his fidelity ; 1 that his ^-^ brother, Metacom, who also had accepted the name of Philip, pardoning this outrage, ratified a compact, which 1662. was fast ruining the wild glory of his race ; and that these leagues or treaties were entirely of an ex parte nature, enuring favorably to the English, and being of no manner of benefit to the Indians. For, in what posi tion did Philip find his people, when called upon to direct their affairs 1 Their lands, formerly extending from the easterly boundary of the Narragansetts to the westerly limits of what is now the county of Plymouth, in Massachusetts, and comprehending generally the pres ent county of Bristol, were, for the most part, in the hands of the English, and the native proprietors were confined to a few tongues of land, jutting out into the sea, the chief of which is now known as Bristol, in Rhode Island. These necks of land were alone, of all their possessions, rendered by the Plymouth laws inalien able by the Indians ; partly, it was said, because they were "more suitable and convenient" for them, and partly because the English were of a " covetous disposition" and the natives, when in need, were " easily prevailed upon to part with their lands."'2 Here, then, Philip found his people huddled together, by the insidious policy of the Plymouth Colony, surrounded on three sides by the ocean, and, on the fourth, hemmed in by the ever-advancing tide of civilization. And this was all that forty years of friendship with " the Pilgrims " had benefited the Wam- panoags. i When seized, and threatened a prince, with his attendants and fol- with instant death if he did not ac- lowers." Neal, Hubbard. company his captors to Plymouth, a Winslow, in Hubbard's Indian he requested that he might " go like Wars. Plym. Col. Laws. 12* 138 THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH Nevertheless, during eight years, Philip continued in friendly correspondence with the Plymouth Colony. He smothered all bitter retrospections, and, pursuing the peaceful occupations of a hunter and fisherman, left wide open the door of his wigwam. Although, from his peculiar position, every movement was watched, and every action suspected ; although his people could neither grind their hatchets, nor repair the wretched guns sold them by the English, that the prying eye and pricking conscience of some neighboring marauder did not mark 1671. and misinterpret the act ; although, in one year, two sep arate submissions were obtained from him, in which he was made to acknowledge and promise whatever his oppressors chose to insert therein ; there was nothing that showed any deliberate plan on his part to make war upon Plymouth. He signed, if not with indifference, at least without remonstrance, the papers presented him by the English, hardly caring to know their contents ; and even on one occasion consented to surrender seventy muskets, his richest treasures, to satisfy their ground less suspicions. Once, only, the real light of his soul shone out with irresistible strength, when going volun tarily to Boston, he declared, in answer to the perpetual accusations of the Plymouth Colony, that though stripped of nearly all his territory, he was still an independent prince. " I am no subject of the Governor of Plym outh" said he; " my predecessors and myself have made amicable agreements with the English, but not for subjec tion." Praying Indians, he contemptuously added, are your subjects; "you appoint for them officers and magis trates." From this time, Philip began to awake to a full sense of the lost condition of the red men. He beheld that, wherever the English took root, they spread like a vine over the country, destroying, as noxious weeds, the AND THE ABORIGINES. 139 unhappy aborigines. He beheld the Puritan Colonies joined by a unity of interests against the Indians ; a unity, whose terrible power for destruction had more than once been felt by the natives. And he beheld, further, such a league among these colonies, that though Mas sachusetts acknowledged the absolute independence of Philip, and protested against the injustice of Plymouth, she yet united with that colony to force upon him a degrading servitude. Was Philip wrong, if, profiting by the hint, he endeavored to procure the same union among his countrymen 1 It is impossible to ascertain whether these brooding Treachery p ¦ f. th -t i i and death- tancies ot .riulip ever matured into any shape or con- 0f Sausa- sistency. Sausamon, a praying Indian, who had fled, for " some misdemeanor," to Philip, lived with him as a friend and confidant from 1662 to 1674, and, when enticed back to Natick, revealed that the Indians were " plotting." The chief evidence of the fact rests upon the statement of this poor wretch. Doubtless, he had often heard the subject discussed by the Wampanoags, and the probabilities of success nicely weighed. It is impossible that the scheme could have . progressed much further. At all events, the irreparable mischief produced by the betrayal of the trust reposed in him was summa rily punished by Philip, who ordered one or two of his men to put Sausamon to death. The warriors engaged 1675. in this transaction were soon after captured by the Plym outh colonists, and tried, condemned, and punished, under their laws, as felons. This gross outrage drove the iron into the soul of the sachem. No pains were taken by him to explain the accusations of -Sausamon, in expecta tion of which Plymouth anxiously waited ; but, gather ing his warriors about him, he lighted on Mount Hope the council-fire of the first Indian coalition in New June. war. 140 THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH England, half a century after the landing of the Pil grims. Which But Philip hardly realized the terrible superiority of leads to r 1 • r 1 civilized warfare, or his own unreadiness tor the ap proaching struggle. The Indians had no resources be yond their sinewy arms, no stores but the scanty crop of corn for a winter's consumption, no pleasant homes to cheer them after the hardships of a campaign. Many of the natives, too, whose assistance Philip implored, "were in a kind of maze, not knowing well what to do," while the Puritan Colonies were united by a common league, and stimulated by a common hope. The very position of the Wampanoag chief, on one of the necks of land to which his tribe was confined by the crafty policy of Plymouth, was, at the outset of hostilities, nearly fatal to his cause. The hanging of Sausamon's executioners was resented by killing cattle, and pillaging houses at Swansey, a small hamlet on the confines of the English settlements ; and this was, in turn, retaliated by the explosion of fire arms, and the shedding of Indian blood. In this way the war opened ; and though Philip is reported to have shed tears on learning that blood had been spilt,1 it is consistent with his character to suppose that his grief was owing to that fatal, precipitancy of action, which ruined his plans before they were complete. In the latter part of June, it became evident that the full tide of savage passion, pent up as it had been for years, was beginning to flow with irresistible force, and that the security of property and life in the English Colonies depended upon united and vigorous action ; and, in July, the forces of Plymouth and Massachusetts arrived sud denly at Pocasset, anxious by one blow to end the war. 1 Callender's Century Sermon. AND THE ABORIGINES. 141 Philip, unprepared for such celerity, was taken by sur- part prise, and hastily retreated into a swamp on the neck, - — ^ the only species of stronghold known to Indian warfare ; and such was the distress to which he was reduced, that, had the English been at this time ably commanded, their settlements would have escaped the horrors of the ensu ing year.1 But the timidity natural to raw militia enured to the advantage of Philip, so unpleasantly " brought into a pound." It was " ill fighting with a wild beast in his own den," they thought ; and, instead of scouring the narrow tongue of land in which the chief with his bravest warriors and their families sought refuge, they determined to starve them out. This plan saved the Indians. While the English were guarding the head of the neck, and singing quaint versions of the psalms in anticipation of victory, Philip, one dark night in the latter part of July, accompanied by his men, waded or swam over an arm of the sea, which separated him from the main land, and escaped into the woods. From this time commenced a new era in the lives of the red men. The Wampanoag chief retired rapidly towards the West, kindling the flames of war wherever his voice was heard. Early in August he joined the Nipnets, a small interior tribe, dependent upon his family, and publicly rewarded its sagamores for destroying the town of Brookfield, a few days before. And now, through the fall, winter, and spring, affairs went prosperously with the red men. King Philip had thoroughly aroused the slumbering wrath of his tawny countrymen. The Nipnets, the River Indians, the Nashaways, and the Nianticks, the hunters of the valleys of the Connecticut and Merrimac rivers, all joined in the coalition against the Puritan Colonies, and 1 Hubbard's Indian Wars. 142 THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH chap, shared in the patriotic designs of its leader. The Wam- — •. — panoag ambassadors uttered the stirring words of inde pendence at the council-fires of the Mohawks, and pleaded the cause of aboriginal freedom with the old men of the Narragansetts. East and West, North and South, the joys of liberty were proclaimed in the dialect of the Wam- panoags. The effect was sudden and appalling. The smiling valley of the Connecticut, from Northfield to Springfield, teemed with warriors, and rung with the strange and ter rible shouts of the warwhoop. At Concord, at Chelms ford, and Andover, the fertile banks of the Merrimac bore witness to the retaliating fury of the savage heart. Villages were laid in ashes, the hardy pioneers of civil ization perished by fifties, and their wives and children were led into heathen captivity. The immolation of the Narragansetts, so far from intimidating the savage war riors in this patriotic struggle, served only to increase their fury. It was in Vain that, for " the encouragement of volunteers," the Commissioners of the United Colo nies ordered " all plunder and spoil, whether goods or persons," to be appropriated to the use of the captors ; it was in vain that the praying Indians were stimulated October, to exertion by promise of rewards, for " men, women, and girls," brought in alive.1 The panic spread. None knew where the storm would break out next. All the western towns of Massachusetts suffered more or less, during the fall and early part of winter ; and, in the February following, Medfield, a village scarce twenty miles from Boston, was attacked and nearly destroyed. From thence the hurricane passed into the Plymouth Colony ; where Weymouth, and Plymouth, and Scituate, 1 See Hazard, vol. ii. p. 535. 10 70. AND THE ABORIGINES. 143 and Bridgewater, and Taunton, made each some atone- part ment for the wrongs of the aborigines. For the first — v — • time since the settlement of New England, the God of the Christians appeared to have deserted his mistaken worshippers. Appalled by such terrible reverses, the Puritans cel ebrated days of fasting and humiliation, and the elders preached an Indian crusade. Armed bands were sent out in every direction, to check the progress of a foe more rapid in movement than the fleetest troop of horse. No, mercy was shown on either side to such stragglers as were captured. It was a war of extermination and tor ture. Happily for the colonies, the Indians were con tending against destiny. Perfect unity of action might have gained them their cause ; but the Pequods were slaughtered ; the Narragansetts had just shared their fate ; the Mohegans continued their alliance with Con necticut ; the praying Indians, converts to zealous Puri tan missionaries, were made use of as bloodhounds against their countrymen ; and that " potent nation," the Mo hawks, could never be persuaded to take part in an enterprise, the results of which affected them but re motely. But when famine and disease became " the allies of the colonies," the cause of the aborigines grew utterly hopeless. Philip had been hurried into war with out stores or magazines ; and, in his rapid movements from point to point, much of his scanty provisions was wasted and destroyed. His warriors lived the lives of desperadoes. If they were successful in pillage, they feasted upon whatever they could find ; beef, milk, pork, eggs, and poultry, jumbled into a half-cooked, indiscrim inate mass. If they were unsuccessful, they subsisted on acorns, on ground nuts, on horseflesh, on any and every thing that would sustain the fierce fires that burned 144 THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH within them. Such a mode of life, so contrary to their simple habits, threw many of them into fluxes and fevers, which thinned their numbers, faster than the sword and bayonet. To remedy the evil, they endeavored in the spring to plant corn for the coming season, and separated into parties for this purpose ; but the English troops beat up their quarters so often, that the plan proved abortive. In the summer, therefore, they attempted to supply them selves with fish ; but their encampments by river and sea side were ferreted out and dispersed, — and this it was that finally disheartened the red men. Their cause declined as rapidly as it had grown in strength. So early as 1676. April, scarcely nine months from the commencement of the war, affairs began to indicate a change ; and though the struggle was prolonged, with various success, until July, the spirit of the Indians continued to droop. Small parties, prowling about in search of food, were continually met and destroyed by some of the bands of soldiers, who were scouring the country in every direction ; and many of them, discouraged and broken, voluntarily surrendered to the Puritan troops. The war ended as a hunt, and the roar of regular discharges of musketry was succeeded by the solitary dropping shots of the chase. Death of The closing scenes in the life of the master-spirit of this patriotic struggle were worthy of the man. After exciting the red men to arms, from the shores of the Atlantic nearly to the banks of the Hudson ; after utterly destroying twelve towns in the Puritan Colonies, and greatly injuring many more ; after having slain six hun dred of "the very flower of the country," so that not a family remained in Massachusetts or Plymouth but mourned the death of a relative or friend ; after having caused a loss of property to the amount of nearly a mil lion of dollars, the greatest misfortune of all, to the Philip. AND THE ABORIGINES. 145 thrifty inhabitants ; Philip had finished the work of Di vine retribution, and nought remained for him but to die. A short year before, he inspired his warriors at Mount Hope with that terrible courage, which is made up of despair and vengeance ; and fate now led him back to the grave of Massasoit, not again to rally his broken nation, not tamely to submit where hope had fled, but to end his career fittingly, as an independent chief. And this great-hearted savage, who struck to the earth one of his chosen friends for daring, in the depths of his misfor tunes, to hint at peace ; who, with a price upon his head, wandered from thicket to thicket and swamp to swamp, hunted by Christian white and red men, bore bravely up until his wife and child were captured by his enemies. " My heart breaks ; now I am ready to die ; " then fell from his quivering lips. He was soon after shot by a renegade Indian of his own tribe ; and the bullet that August. pierced his heart was kind in its mission, since it spared him the agony of seeing the tawny little prince, his son, the last of the race of Massasoit, that kindly and kingly entertainer of the Pilgrim Fathers, sent, like a brute with out a soul, to toil in slavery under the burning sun of the Bermudas. More merciful far would it have been, if the cold-blooded policy of the Puritan elders had been adopted, and this heathen child had been put to an igno minious death.1 The scheme was costly, and it was declined; but, in lieu thereof, the head of Philip was, like the scalp of the Pequod Sassacus, paraded as a trophy, and his skull was long preserved as a monument of orthodox vengeance.2 The death of Philip finally ended a war, which, pro voked by the aggressive acts of the Puritan Colonies, * 1 See Baylie's Plymouth, vol. iii. 2 Drake's Book of the Indians, pp 190, 191. p. 43. 13 146 THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH War with the Tar- ranteens. and continued, on their part, with solemn mockery of fastings and humiliations, was closed with thanksgiving and extermination. The General Court of Massachu setts, by a special proclamation, directed the people to glorify God, " that, of the several tribes that have risen up against us, which ivere not a few, there now scarcely remains a name or family of them within their former habitations." Such was the manner in which' the Puri tan Commonwealth carried out the beneficent designs of the Massachusetts Bay Company; and God was glori fied, as the author of all the wrongs that Puritan Chris tianity had heaped upon Pagan humanity. The cruelties, which were practised in Indian warfare, were amply retaliated by those whose religion should have taught them a better morality. Victory brought with it no ameliorating usages. The leading captives were slaugh tered to a man ; and the remainder, with their wives and children, were sold into slavery. The quarrel between Plymouth and Massachusetts for the conquered territory was a fitting termination to this barbarous war. Ere Massachusetts could lay aside her conquering army, one more work remained for her to do. There were no more nations left near her to exterminate ; but the Tarranteens, who were seated by the waters of Casco Bay, had offended, and were to be punished. From the beginning, the Indians in this region tvere treated " like slaves," and cheated by the lawless adventurers, who, from time to time, visited the country.1 But, though suffering every species of abuse from sailors, and traders, and set tlers, during fifty years, they " always carried it fair, and held good correspondence with the English, until the news came of Philip's rebellion." An universal uprising 1 Neal. Belknap's New Hampshire. AND THE ABORIGINES. 147 was the effect of this intelligence ; and such were their successes, that, in the summer of 1676, nearly all the plantations in Maine were deserted by the inhabitants, and even the settlements on the Piscataqua were threat ened. Terrified at these unexpected disasters, the Eng lish settlers applied to Massachusetts for assistance, al though the usurpations of that colony over Maine had been annulled by the commissioners of Charles II. ; and when Philip's coalition was finally crushed, an armed force was despatched from Boston, to chastise' the out break of the Tarranteens. The Puritan troops, made up of praying Indians and English, immortalized the cam paign with a " brilliant " exploit. Four hundred war riors, with whom a Major Waldron had made peace, were surrounded while his guests, on the pretext of a September. sham fight, and made prisoners. One half of them were liberated ; but the remainder were sent captives to Bos ton, on the plea that they had been participators in Philip's coalition, and, while six were hanged as ring leaders, the rest of them were sold as slaves in " foreign parts." This act was "highly applauded" by the Eng lish ; but the Indians deemed it " a breach of hospitality- and friendship, never to be forgotten or forgiven." 1 Waldron himself knew many of his victims to be true friends to the English, but, fearful of censure from the Puritan Commonwealth, he consummated an act of treachery which has scarcely a parallel. Many years afterwards, in King William's war, he was put to death by the Indians, with circumstances of horrible torture, having been first entrapped by an artifice more subtle than his own. He had nothing to complain of. He had sown the seeds of iniquity, and a just God allowed him to reap the harvest. 1 Belknap. 148 THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH chap. The successful perfidy of Waldron was the only glory •— ^ acquired in this expedition. But, in the ensuing winter, tentTeTk a fresh body °f English and praying Indians sailed from offteliT Boston for Casco Bay, having first observed a day of hawks. fasting and prayer for the success of the enterprise. The February, same unfairness characterized this expedition ; and, after some small successes, unworthy of honorable and Chris tian warfare, the Puritan troops returned to Boston, "without the loss of a man." Hostilities pursued with such utter disregard of humanity and justice could never produce peace, unless, at the same time, they effected extermination. The spirit of the instructions given by the Puritan Commonwealth was, " upon every oppor tunity, without delay, to pursue, and endeavor to take captive, kill, and destroy." The Indians became thor oughly exasperated, and their cause grew stronger as it grew more patriotic. The general court, perceiving that the successes of their arms had only the effect of remov ing the prospect of peace, discussed the propriety of inviting the cooperation of the Mohawks, supposed to be a cannibal tribe, who, though then at peace with •the Eastern Indians, cherished an hereditary animosity against them. But is it lawful, said a member of the court, to make use of the help of heathen % Certainly, it was urged in reply; for did not Abraham join in a confederacy with the Amorites, to rescue his kinsman Lot from the hands of their common enemy \ The argument was conclusive ; nor did it enter into the debate, whether it was righteous to foment deadly strife between two savage nations who were at peace. Mes sengers were accordingly despatched to the Mohawks, who received them with civility, and promised to pros ecute the Puritan quarrel " to the utmost of their power." AND THE ABORIGINES. 149 Late in March, the warriors of this " potent nation " appeared in the field ; but their alliance with the Puri tans resulted in disaster and disgrace. Everywhere it Jvheery "heesra was reported among the Eastern Indians, that the Mo- defeated- hawks threatened destruction to all without distinction, whether friendly or hostile to the Puritan cause. Nor was the report without " very plausible ground ; " since the Mohawks made no discrimination in their warfare, and even spent their fury chiefly upon the friendly In dians. The incursion of these formidable savages, there fore, seemed only to alienate all the natives from the cause of the colonies. Scattered parties of Indians, in June. every direction, spread death and destruction along the eastern seaboard, and menaced Portsmouth itself. To cripple the resources of the Indians became now the sole object of the Puritans. A third expedition, consisting of praying Indians and soldiers, was fitted out for this purpose at Boston, with orders to capture the stores of the enemy, contained in several forts at Taconick Falls, on the Kennebec River. At Black Point, where this force disembarked, was fought the first pitched battle in juiy. New England between the natives and their oppressors, in which the latter were defeated, with a loss of sixty killed and wounded, among whom was their commander. The victorious Tarranteens followed up this success by the capture of twenty fishing vessels on the coast ; and, before the close of the summer, they were the undis puted masters of the Province of Maine.1 The war was finished. The use made by these savages of their victories should have forced every Puritan to hang his head with shame. They were fighting, not for conquest, nor for 1 Gookin, in Belknap. 13* 150 THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH slaves ; and, being left unmolested, the tomahawk was buried, and the sound of the warwhoop was heard no more. They even set an example of magnanimity, which they could have learned neither from the precepts nor practices of their enemies. They restored to them their vessels, and a considerable number of captives, reserving the remainder only until peace had been formally made. Having prolonged the war for three years in vain, the Puritans successfully resorted to entreaty. It was a proud day for Squanto, the gallant chief of the Tarran- teens, when the English begged permission to occupy 1678. their old habitations, and, in a treaty formally drawn up for the occasion, agreed to pay him an annual tribute. And these were, in brief, the Indian wars of Massa chusetts under her first charter. When it is remembered that the facts in the above relation are wrung from the reluctant and scanty admissions of Puritan writers, and that the Indians had no Hubbards or Mathers to publish for them their tale of woe, who can say whether the half has been told ] We cannot enjoy the gleesome spirit in which Hubbard narrates the history of the Indian wars, nor can we sympathize with that system of religion, which led Mather, and, at a later date, Grahame, to gloat over the ruin of the hapless red men. Surely, when we shudder and sicken in reading the conquests of Cortes and Pizarro, we ought not to forget the sufferings of the people who once roamed in the smiling valleys of the North ! Tenibie Let us not be unjust, however, nor attribute the faults the Puri- of the New England Fathers to any other than the right cause. It was a kindly benevolence, which led Las Casas to substitute negro for native slavery in the West Indies ; it was the sordid love of riches, which induced Hawkins tan wars. AND THE ABORIGINES. 151 to introduce the slave-trade into English commerce ; and part . . 11. it was the spirit of a false faith, which taught the Puri- ' — ¦< — - tan Pilgrims , that heathen blood and lands are lawful motives, as well as lawful spoils, of Christian warfare. There was no inborn love of cruelty among them ; and frequently, when about to start upon one of their bloody excursions, they found it necessary to work themselves up to the necessary pitch, by communion, fasting, and prayer. To slaughter an Indian was a painful religious exercise, as much as to spend a day in bodily abstinence. For this reason, the Puritan soldiers were pitiless. The negation of works in their religion also cooperated to promote injustice in their policy; and where violence was not a Puritan rite, it was but too often a right of Puri tanism. Thus, between the two, the aborigines were wholly sacrificed ; and a system of religion, which con fessedly had an eye to the things of Csesar as well as to those of Heaven, in the short space of fifty years swept from New England one hundred thousand human beings. For these unhappy heathen souls, no Puritan historian, magistrate, or elder, then, or since, has expressed a word of pity, or breathed a penitential prayer. Unregenerate, they were sent into the presence of their dread Judge, owing nothing to Christianity but steel, gunpowder, and gin.1 And how did Puritanism find these red men ] Did 1 The following table, compiled by that worthy notable Major Gen eral Gookin, in 1674, will show what Puritanism did for the unhappy aborigines, in less than half a century. See Mass. Hist. Coll. vol. i. Tribe. Warriors formerly. Menini(>~i\. Pequods, 4,000 300 Narragansetts, 5,000 about 1,000 Wampanoags, 3,000 nearly extinct ' Massachusetts, 3,000 300 Pawtuckets, 3,000 250 And this table was compiled six months before the exterminating tuar of King Philip ! 152 THE PURITAN COMMONWEALTH they drink % Did they lie 1 Did they gamble 1 Did they thieve 1 Were they licentious in morals, or de praved in habits \ On the contrary, the simplicity of their habits attracted the notice of all Europeans ; and Gorges does not hesitate to say, that he " observed in them an inclination to follow the example of the better sort, and in all their carriages to manifest showes of great civility, far from the rudeness of our common people." Their drink was water, their pastime the chase, their property was enjoyed in common, and their fidelity was proverbial. Disease visited them only in the form of old age ; and when death released the hoary warrior, his treasures were buried with him in a common grave. Darkened as he was by Paganism, the great vice charged against the Indian by Puritanism was only his cruelty in war. This cruelty was amply retaliated by his Christian adversary ; and what the savage intended as a test of the heroism of his captive, was too often inflicted by the Eng lish from motives of revenge. Whatever were his rela tions to his oppressors, his condition was truly deplorable. If he was converted by the Puritan missionaries, he became not a Christian, but a praying Indian, despised by his coun trymen, and enslaved by his teachers. If he continued faithful to the religion of the forest, the mountain, and the waters, of whatever was the abode of the Great Spirit whom he ignorantly worshipped, he was accounted no better than a Canaanite, and a fit prey for the " poor servants of Christ." The crimson record made up by the historian closes with the fall of Philip. The welcomes of Massasoit and Masconomco had been given but a few years before;1 1 Massasoit, on Cape Cod, and their future destroyers, the English- Masconomco, on Cape Ann, both men. extended this friendly greeting to AND THE ABORIGINES. 153 and Massachusetts had stretched out the long arms of her beautiful bay to inclose and cherish the panting fugi tives, who, chased by phantoms, had fled three thousand miles. Had the red man warmed a serpent in his bosom, which fed upon his naked heart I Was his blood like water, that it flowed so many years to enrich the land of his fathers, and to redden its crystal streams I J 1 Some most honorable excep tions to all this are to be found in the annals of Puritanism. .We may mention, in particular, the Pynchon family, which was always regarded by the Indians with affection and respect. So late as 175 1, Jonathan Edwards, in a letter to Hon. Thomas Hubbard, mentions that the chiefs of the Mohawks had lately requested that Brigadier Dwight and Colonel Pynchon might be improved in fu ture interviews with them. " And as to Colonel Pynchon, in particular, they urged their acquaintance with his ancestors, and their experience of their integrity" Let it be a pleas ing heirloom in this family, that their name was cherished for more than a hundred years by the warriors of the fiercest Indian tribe, and may have been carried as a watchword to the western prairies, when the Mohawks left forever the homes of their fathers. CHAPTER III. THE PURITAN CHURCH. Part I. The Fundamental Principle of Independency' — The Puritans avow the Doctrines of Independency, but are false to its Principles — Peculiar Position of the Elders — Practical Inconveniences of the Contract Sys tem — To remedy which, the Covenant is devised — Want of Unity and Vitality in the Church — The Antinomian Heresies — Con demned by a Synod — Banishment of the Antinomian Leaders — Subse quent Condition of the Puritan Church — Divisions on the Subject of Baptism. chap. Having given some account of the political institu- ¦ f-~, tions reared by Puritanism in the home of its adoption, we now propose to consider, as briefly as we may, the true character of its great coordinate work, the Puritan Church. Religion is the aromatic which preserves sci ence from corruption, — the science of politics as well as all other sciences ; and, perhaps, the real condition of any national religion may be guessed by the moral aspect of the state which shelters it. Judging the Puritan Church of Massachusetts Bay by this standard, we are unable, in general, to assign it a high character. Either it was too weak to exert a wholesome influence in the commonwealth, or the influence it exerted was not such as to form a true Christian state. Those of our readers, who have followed us in our previous discussions of THE PURITAN CHURCH. 155 Puritanism, may have been enabled to form a tolerably part. correct opinion upon this subject. However this may be, ' — ¦< — ' whether the church was the menial servant of the com monwealth, or the commonwealth was the supple tool of the church, are questions which we do not find proposed, much less answered, by Puritan historians, but which every intelligent churchman of New England should know for himself. He need not turn over the brilliant pages of Bancroft, nor lose himself amidst the chaotic commonplace of Grahame, in the absurd expectation of arriving at the truth. He will be entertained, or wearied, according as he reads the happy fiction of the one, or yawns over the stupid inventions of the other ; but more he will not be. To solve such problems as these, he must turn his back alike upon the oracles of school-committees and meeting-houses, and with an unbiased mind resolutely search out the truth. Melius est petere fontes, quam sec- tare rividos. The fundamental principle of Independency is, that The mnd- Wp , i ,1 r amental ot persons, not less than seven, professing principle Christianity and voluntarily associating together, are a pendency. complete church, having no superior but Christ, and equal to any ecclesiastical act.1 This magic number of seven is drawn, by some mysterious process of divination, from the Acts of the Apostles ; and serves, by a mirac ulous efficacy, to . dispel the mists of ignorance and of prejudice, and to confer, instead thereof, the graces of piety, and the powers of Apostleship. Thus, seven can do as much as a million, but six are as powerless as one. In seven persons may lie the power of ordaining minis ters, of expounding the Scriptures, of framing covenants, and, in short, of representing, in all its fulness and com- ' Walker's History of Independency, Part iii p. 23. 156 THE PURITAN CHURCH. pleteness, a true Christian Church. And as this family, either great or small, whether composed of the wise or the foolish, whether enlightened by knowledge or debased by fanaticism, has no superior but Christ, so it may frame its own creeds, promulgate its own articles of faith, and smile or frown, according to its humor, upon the grave decrees of ecclesiastical synods. ThePuri- Pure Independency was despised by the colonists of theSdoc-W Massachusetts Bay, as being a system of disorganization. independ- Had they adopted, without any qualifications, the princi- are "false pies of Brownism, they would have stultified themselves cipies. whenever they resorted to persecution as a cure for relig ious differences. Pure Independency could have found no fault with the ravings of the Familists, or the blas phemies of the Quakers. Even Roman Catholics might have erected their altars in Boston, and bowed down before the Host, without the slightest fear of molestation, had our fathers maintained the perfect independence of every religious family. But this was far from being the case. They adopted the doctrines of the Independents, and established them by law in the Puritan Commonwealth. Thus the law became to the Puritan Church what the episcopate is to the Church Catholic, and uniformity was enforced by the strong arm of the civil power. Epis copacy, " that grand choke-weed of Christianity," it was said, was not of the Lord's planting, and, therefore, should be rooted up ; and, though the mitre was not tor- - tured into the liberty cap, as among the Independents, yet the pastoral crook was converted into the fasces of the magistrate, and sometimes into the bayonet of the soldier. In fact, though the stern religionists of Massa chusetts hated a prelatical, they at the same time despised a popular, church government ; and they encumbered the sacred magistracy of their commonwealth with a variety THE PURITAN CHURCH. 157 of officers, whose powers and duties were often conflict ing and ill defined. Thus, " they had pastors for teach ing, elders for ruling, and deacons for distributing." The ruling elder might not publicly teach, but he could privately admonish. The deacon might not give out the hymn, but he could hold a basin for the alms. Even the higher office of the ministry was divided between a pastor and a teacher; but where the duties of the one ended, and of the other began, was never satisfactorily understood. Moreover, it is to be considered that the elders, deriv- Peculiar m r ¦ position ing their orhces from their respective congregations, of the •t ¦• iti i Ciders. occupied a position which exposed them to the popular caprice. They descended from the dignified station of ambassadors of God, and became, instead, the hired ser vants of the people. Their admission to the high offices they claimed was by the same door as that of constables and selectmen. Thus, in one sense, every church- member assumed the powers of a bishop ; l and, while he patiently listened to discourses prolonged to an intermin able degree, judged for himself whether they came fully up to the proper orthodox standard. The ground was, that " the Lord has so dispensed his gifts, that,,when the one want, the other shall abound, both in temporal and spiritual."2 The reverence paid to an elder was not to the office, but to the man. He could not approach his flock with words of command, unless his talents had first led captive the strong wills of his sturdy hearers. Re sulting from all this was the curious relation between pastor and flock, which has grown up in New Eng land, arid belongs almost exclusively to it ; and which, in 1 Lechford says that, on coming church-member a bishop. Hutch- to New England, he found every inson, vol. i. p. 398, n. 2 Johnson. 14 158 THE PURITAN CHURCH. chap, these latter days, has swelled our books of law reports. — y — ¦ As one congregation had no power over another, nay, acknowledged the power of no synods except those of the general court and of public opinion, so the minister whom each congregation ordained had no rights, duties, or office, beyond his own people.1 He was an elder in his own pulpit, but out of it was as functionless as any private citizen. It is true, that this system was afterwards so far modified as to allow occasional ministe rial acts to be performed by the elders for neighboring destitute parishes ; but the reluctant change was owing partly to the extreme inconvenience of the first-established principle, and partly to the fact that Owen, and Goodwin, and other influential preachers and writers of the Independ ent school in England, avowed their belief and practice to be otherwise.2 In all its essentials, however, the rela tion between pastor and people was a legal contract, and not a divine ordinance ; and as there were only two par ties to this contract, the elder and the parish, so it could not enure to the benefit of other parishes, who were in nowise concerned therein. Retaining; therefore, their positions by force of talents, and by this alone, the elders of the Puritan Church were necessarily the ablest men in the commonwealth. In this respect, they differed from the magistrates, who were indebted for their influence partly to their property and family rank. But the elders were dependent upon their own abilities; and we consequently find that they were haughty and overbearing, and possessed of as much influ ence in the commonwealth as they had in the church. The pride engendered by this continual self-dependence was exhibited, sometimes, in a remarkable manner. For 1 New England Platform. 2 Neal. THE PURITAN CHURCH. 159 instance, to preach a sermon not composed by the preacher himself was considered disreputable, if not criminal.1 Even the Bible was read in public worship, not so much to instruct the congregation, as to while away the time until every one had arrived, so that the sermon might not be interrupted.3 The pulpit, that tremendous engine of modern rationalism and individual ism, stood out in the Puritan sanctuary like some pro digious idol of fantastic shape, surmounted by its wooden canopy, and elevated far up above the highest altar the Catholic Church had ever reared. Its wide-open, insati able jaws, swallowed up altar, priest, and sacrifice ; and those who came up to its temples two centuries ago paid it an homage, which may have been equalled in these latter days, but which has never been excelled. We may readily conceive that the " itching ears," which had been pampered by the proudest intellects of Puritanism, were proportionably arrogant in their demands ; and that no ordinary capacity, clothed however it might have been in the shining armor of Christian virtues, could have sufficed to marshal the ranks of the Puritan Church. The office of the elder was local, and not intrinsical ; it was the creation of man, and not the gift of God.3 Yet the elders were sufferers, in an important partic- Practical . . inconven- ular, bv reason of their novel relation to their parishes, iences of J *¦ the eon- They were scholars and gentlemen ; and at home, whether tract sys- as fellows of some college, or as priests, discharging parochial duties, had received an honorable support be- i Hutchinson, vol. i. p. 377, n, text in Acts vi. 3, to sanction the 2 Ibid. right of the people to elect their 3 A curious fact is mentioned by own ministers. The verse reads, D'Israeli, in his Curiosities of Lit- " Wherefore, brethren , look ye out, erature, concerning the Independ- &c, whom tue may appoint over ents in England. One Field, who you." In the Pearl BMes,ye was printed the Pearl Bibles, received substituted for avaricious. In their new position, however, as the hired servants of exacting masters, they were subjected to all the inconveniences of such a relation. Their annual sti pends depended upon the generosity or the illiberality of their employers. Cotton Mather, in his day, made bitter complaints against the effects of the contract system between the clergy and the laity ; saying that the former, worse off even than mechanics, ivere sometimes obliged to ploiv for a subsistence. Even the support contracted to be given was not infrequently poorly paid; and, in 1654, it was found necessary, by the general court, to pass a law compelling the due payment of the salaries of the ministers. Indeed,, so great did the evil become, that the elders revived the primitive custom of the offertory ; choosing rather to rely upon the weekly contribution of their hearers, made under the influence of religious emo tions, than the performance of their legal contracts. But the offertory in their hands was not an act of solemn worship ; it was an appeal to the purse only, and, as such, it seems to have gathered in but faint and shadowy supplies. In Boston, alone, was the evil at all remedied by this most venerable rite of the ancient Church ; 1 for here resided, for the most part, those gentlemen of the colony, whose education and means both inspired them with the inclination, and gave them the ability, to keep up the dignity of the pastoral office. As a general rule, however, the offertory proved insufficient to cure the dis ease ; 2 and the ludicrous disgust of Cotton Mather has perpetuated both the arrogance of the elders and the stubbornness of their people. The foreign relations of the Puritan Church of Mas- 1 See Hutchinson, vol. i. p. 376. 2 Mather. Neal. THE PURITAN CHURCH. 161 sachusetts were somewhat peculiar. Independency, in all its forms, was extremely odious to the Presbyterians. The disciples of Calvin and Beza protested against it, as preposterous, and, on the fall of the monarchy, established in England the domination of the Presbytery. Their parishes had a similar organization to those of the Inde pendents, but here all analogy ceased. The parochial eldership was subject to a classis, and the classis was subject to a provincial synod ; and the provincial synod to a national synod, and the national synod to parliament, except in Scotland, where the national synod would allow no superior in what they thought fit to call spirituals. This graduated scale of church government was better suited to the tone of an aristocratic faction, than the sim pler and more austere system of the Independents ; and the Presbyterians, forgetting that the founders of their religion had no other ordination than what was given to the ministers of the Independents, afid that the clergy of every dissenting body must adopt, in some form, the notion of Luther, that every baptized person is a priest, continued to treat the Independents as schismatics, not only during the rebellion, but until a year after the revo lution, when, " after many mighty and fervent prayers unto God," articles of agreement between them were 1692. drawn up and signed. .The sympathies of the Puritan Church of Massachusetts were chiefly with the Inde pendents, who returned the derision of the Presbyterians with interest, accusing especially the Scottish Kirk of " robbing the particular congregations of Christ of their just and lawful privileges."1 But the differences between the Puritan Pilgrims and the Presbyterians were chiefly on the subjects of government and discipline ; and though 1 Johnson. 14* 162 THE PURITAN CHURCH. chap, the elders of Massachusetts declined to take any part in - — v — • the doings of the Westminster Assembly, and crushed the attempt made by certain ministers, who came over in 1643, under the authority of that body, to set up in Massachusetts a Presbyterian Church government,1 yet they adopted, without hesitation or scruple, their cele brated Confession of Faith. The union in England, between the Presbyterians and Independents, existed but three years, on account of disputes between the parties on " high points of divinity." But the New England ministers received the articles of agreement with appro bation, and continued to act upon them. A half century of exile cooled the zeal which had converted a mission scheme of the Church of England into a bigoted and partisan religionism. To remedy To. correct the evils of the contract system in the Puri- coven'ant tan Church various plans were devised, chief among which was the famous Covenant. In this ordinance, the elders promised, in the presence of Christ, to rule faith fully and courageously; and the people covenanted to obey them, and to submit to them, according to the Word of God. This covenant,' by means of which the elder was able to overcome the timid, and to reassure the doubting,2 received a higher consideration in the Puritan Church than the sacrament of baptism. It was the only door which gave admission into the church, and, through that, into the commonwealth. To neglect entering into the covenant, says the New England Platform, might 1 Hutchinson, vol. i. p. 112. to a rich widow, who had left his 2 In the Preface to Grey's Hudi- society, said : " Did you not, before bras a story is told, illustrating the God and his angels, renew your use to which the Independent minis- baptismal covenant, and accept me ters put this covenant. _ One Dan- as your pastor ? Does not Christ iel Williams, who died in England command you to obey me, as having worth fifty thousand pounds, writing the rule over you f " is devised. THE PURITAN CHURCH. 163 produce the result, that Christ would have no visible, part political church. By it, the covenanter surrendered his > — v — ¦ spiritual liberty to his pastor, and excommunication fol lowed its non-observance. He left his conscience behind him, on his passage through the ecclesiastical, to reach the civil, franchise. The covenant was the foundation on which rested his freedom as a man, and his rights as a citizen. Since, however, externally, all power in the commonwealth was lodged in the hands of the civil mag istrates, to them the elders confided the custody of the covenant. The court of assistants, sitting as an ecclesi astical court, could whip, fine, imprison, and banish all those who presumed to doubt its reality, or to deny its truth. A Mr. Lenthall, who settled in the town of Wey mouth in 1637, at first taught the Catholic doctrine, that baptism is the true entrance into the visible church, and opposed " the custom of mutual astipulation." For this high offence, he was summoned, as " the chief of a faction," to appear before the general court ; and, doubt less, would have met with severe punishment, had he not recanted.1 In ways such as this, the elders enforced an equivocal unity in their church, and indirectly exercised all the powers of an inquisition ; for the magistrates sel dom had any separate will or understanding from them. The magistrates punished heresy, but to the elders they looked for the meaning of heresy ; they deposed illiterate and heterodox preachers, but not without the approving nod of a Cotton or a Hooker ; they enforced the observ ance of the two tables, but were encouraged by the anathemas of the pulpit. In principle, the exercise of these powers was perfectly analogous to the authority exerted by the high commission court of England ; the l Hubbard. 164 THE PURITAN CHURCH. only differences were, that in the one case the church acted directly, and in the other indirectly ; that the one was illegal, and inconsistent with the avowed principles of its supporters, the other was both legal and consist ent; in the one court were worn the plain garments of the Puritan magistrates, in the other, the lawn and the mitre. This curious scheme of the elders to preserve uni formity, at the same time that they allowed independence in the Puritan Church, received the name of Congrega tionalism.1 " No injunction" declared the law, " shall le put upon any church, in point of doctrine, discipline, or worship." Far otherwise was the practice. The court " entreated of the brethren and elders to consult and advise of one uniform order of discipline in the churches,' and then to consider how far the magistrates were bound to interpose for the preservation of that uniformity and peace in the churches."2. Accordingly, the annals of that day are replete with the various interpositions of the magistrates in this behalf, which, we may be sure, were never made without good advice. The church in Salem was a separate organization from the church in Boston ; yet the former was severely reprimanded by the civil authority, because it settled a teacher whom the great body of the elders considered to be heterodox.3 Like wise, Henry Dunster, President of Harvard College, was forced to resign his office, because he presumed to doubt the validity of infant baptism.4 Cases of this kind were not infrequent in the Puritan Church, nor were they con fined to matters strictly of a doctrinal nature. A jealous watch was maintained over all teachings from the pulpit ; and we read that the beloved Eliot was " dealt with " by l Hutchinson. 3 Sav. Winthrop. 2 Hazard. Colony Laws. 4 Hubbard. Mather. Neal. THE PURITAN CHURCH. 165 several of his brethren, because he "laid some blame upon part the ministry," in one of his sermons, for the part they took — v — • T ,. . . 2 1634. in an Indian treaty.1 Behold, then, this church, " like a silly poor maid, sit- Want of •ii ii-ii unity and tins: m the wilderness, compassed about with hungry vitality in i-ii i i i n n , the church. lions, wolves, boars, and bears, and all manner of cruel and hurtful beasts, and in the midst of many furious men assaulting her every moment."2 Propped up by the covenant on the one side, and by the civil authority on the other, the questions to be determined were, whether the unity of the churches was consistent with their inde pendence, and their independence with a sound state of religion and faith. Not ten years passed away before this unity was violently broken, and the faith, borne by the Puritan Church from the Old World to the New, was tampered with and defaced. The established creeds of the Church Catholic having been discarded, and her well- settled precedents cast aside, there were, at first, no stand ards of belief but the private opinions of the elders, of which there was every shade ; and when, at last, a Con fession of Faith was adopted in general assembly, it did not enure to uniformity of belief. " In almost every new lustre of years, the church sustained a new assault of extraordinary temptation."3 Experience demonstrated, that "every man would favor his own way of profes sion." 4 It was found that, " after men of the most unspotted piety had spent ivhole prenticeship of years in the faithful, watchful, painful service of the churches, and had served them day and night with prayers, with tears, with fastings, with their most studied sermons and writings, yet if any wolf in sheep's clothing came with a few good words among them, the simple souls of many 1 Sav. Winthrop. 3 Mather. 2 Mather, quoting Luther. 4 Johnson. 166 THE PURITAN CHURCH. woidd not only follow the wolf, but, on his account, bark at the shepherd." 1 The state was always ready to give its assistance in such emergencies, but was often at a loss. The question, at such times, was not what to do, but what to believe. Several laws against heresy stand out in blood-red letters on the statute-book of the com monwealth ; while not less than five synods were held, from the arrival of the charter down to the time of its abrogation, in which to settle disputed points of doctrine and discipline. To follow the progress of the Puritan Church, from its assumption of extraordinary purity to its acknowledgment of extraordinary weakness and ineffi ciency, is both curious and instructive. Ere it had left 1630. the embrace of its " dear mother," it declared that it was going forth into the wilderness to enlarge her au thority and to promote her glory.2 Hardly established 1633. in its new home, the Puritan Church avowed that its principles agreed with the faith of the Church of Eng land, and that it separated only from her ceremonies and discipline.3 Soon, the Antinomian controversies called 1637. for a synod of all the churches, to pronounce authorita tively upon the conflicting opinions, which distracted church and state, and threatened the dissolution of both.4 Yet a few years', and the famous synod of Cambridge, "taking into consideration the many heresies that were 1648. daily broached,"5 solemnly adopted the Confession of Faith promulgated by the Westminster Assembly, and, crushing the serpent that had crept into the churches of Christ,6 declared it to be " holy, orthodox, and judi cious." ' Fourteen years passed away, and the Puritan 1 Mather. 5 Gorges's Description of New 2 Such was the voice spoken from England. the cabin of the Arabella. 6 Winthrop's Journal. 3 Hubbard. Mather. 7 Hubbard, &c. I Ibid. THE PURITAN CHURCH. 167 Church was shaken to its centre by a doctrinal strife concerning baptism and communion. Another synod was assembled at Boston, by order of the general court; 1662. and the answers it returned to the questions, "who are the subjects of baptism 1 " and " what is the relation of the several churches to each other % " " were clogged by the dissent of several reverend and judicious persons," among whom were Chauncey, President of Harvard College, and Davenport.1 Again, the general laxity of morals, and " visible decay of the power of godliness," were the cause of the famous reforming synod, which, besides declaring that " a thorough and hearty reforma tion was necessary, in order to obtain peace with God," recommended a revision of the New England Platform, 1679. and the renewing of the covenant by the churches.2 Finally, the same synod, at a second session, promul gated a new Confession of Faith, varying, to some extent, 1680. from that of Westminster, and corresponding to the one set forth by the elders and messengers of the Congrega tional Churches assembled at the Savoy, in London, more than twenty years before.3 This last effort of the Puritan Church was soon followed by a general lament over the apostasy and unbelief of the times. These frequent meetings of the elders, or synods, although, by a fundamental principle of the Puritan Church, they could publish no authoritative decrees, show, from that very fact, a failure of the ostentatious experiment that Puritanism was trying in the New World ; not so much through any important change in the articles of belief, as in a perpetual necessity for resus citating and increasing them. The Puritan Church was always ready to crumble into a dozen sects ; and it there- 1 Mather. 2 Hubbard, &c. 3 Ibid. 168 THE PURITAN CHURCH. chap, fore became necessary that the various factions should ni- . . ¦ — y — ¦ confer together, and arrive at some common results, in order that they might be enforced and established by the civil authority. Most of these synods were called by order of the magistrates, who thereby professed themselves to be in distressing doubt concerning the vital truths of religion. Few of the opinions of these synods were unanimous, and none were universally regarded, for the people followed the elders in diversity of belief. "We do not clearly perceive what your covenants are," said Maverick and Child, in their manly petition to the gen eral court for religious freedom. " Every church has its covenant differing from the others ; some add, and some detract ; one church calls it a covenant of grace, a second, a branch of it, a third, a profession of the free covenant — whence abound an ocean of inconveniences, little profit by the ministry, and increase of Anabaptism, heresies, and schisms." ' These bold rebukes were the more ill- naturedly received as they were well founded in point of fact. It was not prejudice, which thus ascribed uncer tainty to the covenant, and an heretical tendency to the Puritan religion. The flood-gates of private opinion were open, and a plausible speaker of heresies was often supported by a strong party, in defiance of every effort to preserve orthodoxy. Indeed, it was no uncommon thing for learned brethren, on their admission to the religious franchise, " to entertain the churches with nota ble confessions of their own composing." And such was the arrogance generated by the chaotic dogmas of Puri tanism, that " young men of low degree " would not scruple, in religious discussions, to assault the positions assumed by the elders and magistrates,2 Thus, unlimited 1 New England's Jonas. 2 Mather. THE PURITAN CHURCH. 169 private judgment in the reading of Holy Scripture, and part in the formation of notions, (not principles,) prevented ^-y— ' uniformity in the Puritan Church, notwithstanding the rebukes of synods and the terrors of the law. The greatest trial sustained by the Puritan Church The Anti- ^ J # nomian was during " the storm of Antinomian heresies," which heresies. prevailed in " its second lustre " of years. The mist, which involved John Cotton and Henry Vane, the leading magistrates in church and state, rapidly spread through the commonwealth, and threatened it with a moral pesti lence. Cotton held by far the most influential position in the Puritan Church ; and Vane, " a young, inex perienced gentleman," by " the industry of some who thought to make a tool of him," had been elected gov ernor, had entirely supplanted Winthrop in the affections of the people, and was now their idol.1 Under the coun tenance of these dignitaries, and assisted by the active agency of Mrs. Hutchinson and Mr. Wheelwright, mon strous heresies crept into the community, compared with which the superstitions of Rome are mild and harmless. The strife thus produced was between the majority of the elders on the one hand, and a large number of " church members " on the other ; and for a long time it was uncertain which party would gain the ascendant. The magistrates were at first unable to act, because the governor was against them; and they were the more embarrassed when relieved of this difficulty, inasmuch as the position of Cotton was one of distressing ambiguity. Like all other schisms of a religious character, this was owing to private judgment. Cotton and Vane did not understand religious truth as did Wilson and Winthrop. Where resided the legitimate authority to expound, and, 1 Neal. Hubbard. 15 170 THE PURITAN CHURCH. at the same time, enforce, what the truth was] Why had not Cotton as good right to form and to proclaim his opinions as all the other elders ? It was an early custom in Boston among the people to meet together once a week, and discuss the sermons they had heard on the Lord's Day. Although by this practice they were often " entangled in doctrines too high for them," their example was soon followed by the women ; and Anne Hutchinson, a great admirer of Cot- 1636. ton, soon gathered weekly audiences at her house, where, acting upon the rule of the Apostle, that " the elder women are to teach the younger," she expounded the dis quisitions of her pastor. So long as these meetings were confined to exposition, little notice was taken of them. " All the faithful embraced her conference, and blessed God for her fruitful discourses."1 But they soon began to occupy the .broader field of censure and criti cism. Towards the close of the year, Mrs. Hutchinson, whose disciples had increased to one hundred persons, began to edify on her own account ; and, accusing the elders, with the exception of Cotton, of preaching a cov enant of works instead of a covenant of grace, announced to her admirers that no degree of sanctification was any evidence of justification, and that all genuine justification in a true believer consisted in a personal union with the Holy Ghost.2 This assertion clothed the opinions of her party with peculiar force and dignity, since it ascribed to their vagaries, however absurd and inconsistent, a divine origin and purpose, paramount to the written word. In the strength of this assumption, it was declared that "the spirit was not to be tried by the Scripture, but the Scrip ture by the spirit." 1 Cotton. See Hutchinson, vol. 2 Emerson's History of the First i- P- 57- Church. THE PURITAN CHURCH. 171 The " good women insinuated these fancies into their paet. husbands, screening them under the venerable name of ' — -^ Mr. Cotton ; " and they were soon noised throughout the Puritan Church. The elders, while " sounding their silver trumpets, heard the rattling sound of drums."1 These strange delusions " crept not only into families, but into the legislature itself;" and the elders, alarmed at the rapid progress they were making, assembled in Bos ton, to consult with the magistrates. Their anxiety increased, when they learned to whom the community was indebted for the new theological dogmas. They dis cussed the questions with Cotton, and his answers were full of " subtilty ; " they addressed themselves to Vane, and he not only defended Mrs. Hutchinson, but avowed it as his belief that a personal union existed between the Holy Ghost and a believer, similar to that between the divine and human natures of Christ. Nor was Vane alone even amongst the magistrates. Coddington, the wealthiest of his compeers, and Dummer, and Hoffe, were not ashamed to own Mrs. Hutchinson as their teacher. Anxious to compose the troubled state of their church, the elders racked their brains to meet subtilty with subtilty. They demonstrated that no such union in a believer was possible, since it would make him god- man; and, finding that this logic was ineffectual, they deliberately cast a shadow over the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, by sacrificing the personality of the Third Mem ber in the blessed Godhead. For it was agreed that the word person is a term of " human invention*" jmiL-that the personality of the Holy Spirit could not be found in the Primitive Churches, for three hundred years after Christ.2 But this pliability of the elders did not arrest 1 Johnson. imoaraanc, or subsistence, and not 2 It was said that the Greek word npooanov. Winthrop's Journ. Ma- used in the New Testament was ther. Neal. 172 THE PURITAN CHURCH. chap, the growing divisions. Other " crafty " questions grew • — y — ¦ out of the controversy, and it began to be maintained that no man could entertain a reasonable hope of salva tion, unless he had a divine revelation assuring him of acceptance. " It was incredible what a very calenture the devil raised on this odd occasion." The weakness of sectarianism was never more strikingly exhibited. All but three or four of the congregation of Boston drew off from the orthodox party, and ranged themselves in the ranks of the heretics. " People who had followed their ministers three thousand miles, through ten thousand deaths, now took up such prejudices, not only against their doctrines, but against their persons, that they did never care to hear them, or to see them any more." Nor were these Antinomian troubles confined to Massa chusetts ; to such a degree was the Colony of Plymouth affected, says Neal, that " they starved away all their old ministers, and set up mechanics in their room." A curi ous spectacle, truly, to see the Puritan Pilgrims, scarcely seven years after their farewell letter to the chief shep herds of the Church of England, divided among them selves, in relation to the very object for which they had sacrificed so much ! Here, then, was a crisis, when " the cracks and flaws of the new building portended a fall."1 Although " the ancient and received truth tvas darkened, God's name blasphemed, the church's glory diminished, many godly grieved, and many wretches hardened," the sectaries de clared that the doctrines they maintained were regularly deducible from the sermons of Cotton.2 Nor was Cotton able to clear his reputation. The supposed points of difference between him and the elders of the orthodox party, were reduced to sixteen heads, and his opinion 1 Shepherd's Lamentation. 3 Shepherd's Memoirs. Neal. THE PURITAN CHURCH. 173 upon them was requested ; and though " some doubts be well cleared," in others "he gave not satisfaction."1 The warmth of the contending parties increased, as the points of difference multiplied. " You are legal preachers," said the advocates of reform, sneeringly, to the elders ; whereas we are for free grace, and the teachings of the Spirit." We " have not heard," was the taunt, " a pure gospel sermon from any of you."2 No condition was too mean, no ignorance too glaring, to disqualify "church members" from taking an active part in the contest — "all men's mouths were full" of polemical divinity, from the butcher at his shambles to the magistrate in council. The whole church resolved itself into two parties ; the maxim of the one being the covenant of works, and, of the other, the covenant of grace.3 Even the army de signed for the destruction of the Pequods partook of the prevailing frenzy ; and refused to slaughter the Indians, because they were under a covenant of works.4 The beginning of the next year was ushered in by a 1637. general fast, in which, notwithstanding the slough that was apparently swallowing them up, the elders, with amusing arrogance, did not forget the " popish ceremo nies and doctrines " with which " the bishops were mak ing sad havoc in their native country."5 It fell to the lot of Wheelwright to preach upon this occasion, who, to the amazement and wrath of his brother elders, harangued against all persons who " walked in a covenant of works." He vehemently denounced them as Antichrists. He compared them to Jews, Herods, and Philistines, and exhorted his hearers to regard them as»their greatest enemies.6 But, while each party appealed to Heaven to 1 Winthrop's Journal. 4 Mather. Neal. Chalmers. 2 Johnson. 5 Winthrop's Journal. 3 Winthrop's Journal. Hubbard. 6 Weld's Rise, Sec. of Antino- Neal. mianism. 15* 174 THE PURITAN CHURCH. chap, enlighten the darkness of the other, neither neglected any '—-r^ human means to secure ultimate victory. Vane, who, doubtless, embarked in the contention more to secure the leadership of a party, than for any real interest he felt in the struggle, had, on the preceding December, resigned his office, on pretext of important letters of recall from England. Whether this movement on the Puritan chess board was owing to a certain political sagacity, which enabled him to foresee the final issue of the game, and so to save himself the mortification of defeat ; or whether it was an artful step to increase the general estimation of his worth, by pretending that he was wanted for more important duties at home, it is not easy to determine. The latter was the effect produced. With that dissimu lation which characterized him, Vane seized the oppor tunity, when one of his colleagues, friendly to his cause, " lamented the loss of such a governor in the time of such danger both from French and Indians," to enact a little scene in the general court, which, however sincere it may have seemed to the public, must have caused great annoy ance to the leaders in the opposition, who saw its trans parency. Bursting into tears, he declared that though his " outward estate " should be ruined by his remaining, he would have " hazarded it all rather than have gone from them at such a time," were it not that he feared the inevitable danger of God's judgments upon the common- wealth, for the differences and dissensions he saw among them, and the scandalous imputations brought upon him self. The general court was inclined to accept his resig nation ; but V the church " in Boston would not consent to lose him ; and, in a meeting held for that purpose, " agreed that it was not necessary for the measures alleged that he should depart." Vane pretended to be overpowered, and expressed himself to be an " obedient THE PURITAN CHURCH. 175 son of the church ; " and the general court thought it part advisable to allow him to recall his resignation. Such - — ^ manoeuvres would excite ridicule, were not their hypocrisy too profane.1 Meantime, it began to be evident that power would finally lodge with those who had the control of the gov ernment, and to triumph at the approaching elections both parties began to bend their energies. A ship being about to sail for England, Cotton seized the oppor- February. tunity to gather from the voyage some future advantage. " Tell our friends," said he to the passengers at a public meeting, " that all our strife is about magnifying the grace of God. Some seek to advance the grace of God towards us, and some the grace of God within us. The lovers, therefore, of the doctrines of grace will be here sure of a cordial reception." This artful solicitation for aid was not allowed by the "covenant of works" party to pass unnoticed. Wilson, their champion, spoke after Cotton, and so obscured the subject in the intricacies of sanctification and justification, that " no man could tell where any difference was, except some few who knew the bottom of the matter."2 This speech gave great offence to Cotton, and widened the breach between the two parties. At the general court in March, it was ascertained that " the greater number of the country members were sound," and the opportunity was seized by the " sober party " to show their resentment towards the disturbers of their peace. They heavily fined "one of the inferior sort," for .proclaiming that the elders preached a covenant of works ; and, though they durst not meddle with Cotton, they cited Wheelwright, who was of lesser note, to appear before the court, to answer 1 See the whole account of this in 2 Winthrop's Journal. Hutchinson, vol. i. pp. 55, 56. 176 THE PURITAN CHURCH. CHAP. IH. for his sermon delivered at " the last fast," and, " after much debate," adjudged him guilty of sedition. It was in vain that the governor protested against this decree ; it was in vain that the " church " in Boston called upon the legislature to beware what they were doing, and to remember that the Apostle, St. Paul, was called a pesti lent fellow, and a mover of sedition. The only indul gence yielded to this clamor was the postponement of Wheelwright's sentence.1 But the court of election was soon to take place ; and such were the bitter feelings engendered among the " church members " in Boston, that, " for fear of a riot," the conservatives moved an order that it should be held at Cambridge. This measure only served to exasperate "the faction" yet more; and Vane, beside himself with vexation, refused to put the motion, which duty was per formed by the deputy governor, Endecott. The motion was carried, however ; and nothing was left the other party but to canvass and electioneer during the short recess of the court. They made the best use of their oppor tunity, proclaiming loudly the unfair course pursued by their opponents, and insinuating, with great address, their wishes for "gospel magistrates."2 Nor were they wholly May. unsuccessful. The court of election was a scene of dis order and tumult. " Fierce speeches " were made, and some of the religious partisans even proceeded to blows. The governor attempted to introduce a petition from the freemen of Boston, in behalf of Wheelwright, which the court declined to hear until the elections were over. The court endeavored to act upon the elections, which the governor refused to countenance, unless the petition was first heard.3 While in this state of confusion, Wilson, l Winthrop. Neal. Mather. 3 Savage's Winthrop. Johnson. 2 Neal. I. THE PURITAN CHURCH. 177 elder of the " First Church " in Boston, harangued the part freemen, beseeching them to remember that they had assembled to use an honorable franchise, and not to riot like a mob.1 This reasonable sarcasm, though shouted from the top of a tree, was received by his party with applause ; and, drowning the angry remonstrances of " the faction " in loud cries for election, they proceeded, with the deputy governor at their head, to choose the offi cers of government. The result was decisive in their favor ; and Vane, Coddington, and Hoff'e, " the heretical magistrates," were left out of office. The freemen of Boston revenged themselves, by returning them as their representatives to the general court. Though provoked by repeated marks of indignity, the new government at first made use of no vigorous meas ures to suppress the prevailing anarchy. Their power was sufficient: the question was, how to use it. Cotton stood in the way, an insurmountable obstacle. Like its namesake in England, Boston in Massachusetts loved and reverenced its able teacher. Something, however, was to be done. Another day of fasting and humiliation was appointed ; and, to counteract the effect of Cotton's invi tation to " the lovers of grace," latvs were passed inflict ing penalties upon all citisens who entertained strangers from England, or allowed them the use of houses and lands, without license ! 2 The slaughter of the Pequods, which seems to have been regarded as a favorable sign from heaven by " the orthodox party,"3 inspired the gov ernment with fresh ardor. Vane sailed for England soon after his defeat, accompanied by a prophecy from an 1 Hutchinson. from acquiring the rights of citizen- 2 Hutchinson. Emerson's First ship. See Sav. Winthrop, vol. i. Church. Under this intolerant law, p. 232. emigrants were actually prevented 3 Shepherd's Memoirs. 178 THE PURITAN CHURCH. chap. " eminent minister," that he would sooner or later be — v — - hanged ; an event worthy to be noted, says the historian, and which had its accomplishment not long after, on Tower Hill, in London.1 His absence was sensibly felt by " the faction," which, however, lost none of its acri mony. Cotton was obscure ; Wheelwright was incorri gible ; and Mrs. Hutchinson, from an expounder of ser mons, had become a prophetess. Her disciples now denied, among other truths, the obligation of the moral law, the immortality of the soul, and the resurrection of the dead ; and a divine revelation had assured her of the utter destruction of the Puritan Commonwealth. Condemn- At this crisis, it was resolved to resort to rigorous ed by a ° synod. measures. The Puritan Church was in a state of chaos, and the truth had no legitimate channel by which to reach the ear of the state. All had quarrelled with her gentle precepts ; and elders and magistrates were alike uncer tain in position, and, consequently, powerless in action. As a first step towards order, a synod of all the elders was assembled, to determine, if possible, the orthodox faith, and to distinguish it from the prevailing errors that had crept into the community. In the Primitive Church, when faith was bright and strong, Christianity shrunk from the presence of a doubt. A single heresy, whenever it exhibited itself, was sufficient to summon from the four corners of Christendom a cloud of wit nesses, who, mighty in truth, would cast it forth as an unclean thing ! Behold these zealous Puritans, hardly yet weaned from the mother that bore them, and with August, the experience of scarcely " a lustre of years," sitting in judgment on "eighty-two blasphemous, heretical, and erroneous " principles, which, under their own system of i Hubbard. THE PURITAN CHURCH. 179 culture, had sprung up on the virgin soil of Massachu- part setts ! Three weeks of heated discussion were consumed ' — r^ by this synod. The angriness of disputation was re lieved only by the obscurity of expression. The contro versialists lost themselves in the most cloudy regions of abstruse theology, and dealt in terms as vague as they were incomprehensible. The delegation from the Boston Church contested the ground inch by inch. They denied the existence of so many errors, and called for witnesses and parties, which were refused, because the assembly " had nothing to do with persons, but with doctrines only." The former were reserved for the civil authori ties. The prevailing errors were finally condemned ; but the Boston delegates protested against the proceeding, as " a reproach upon the country," and, for the most part, departed from the assembly.1 The hardest task yet remained, which was to effect a compromise with Cotton. He had declined to join in the decree against the Antinomian opinions, although he pronounced many of them " absurd, heretical, and blasphemous." But, with Wheelwright, he maintained that "union to Christ preceded faith in him." This opinion was diligently combated by the assembly, and much time was spent in written arguments to show its fallacy on the one side, and to prove its truth on the other. But the pen was in the end superseded by the tongue, and elaborate logic by " open dispute." During one dark day, " questions, answers, replies, returns, and rejoinders," with all the subtilty of special pleading, flew thick and fast between the contending parties. They separated at night, with mutual anxiety. If Cotton continues obdurate, was, perhaps, the reflection of his 1 Hubbard. Mather. Neal. Winthrop's Journal. Johnson. Hutchinson. 180 THE PURITAN CHURCH. opponents, our church will lapse into heresy ; for " he has such an insinuating and melting way in his preach ing, that he usually carries his very adversary captive, after the triumphant chariot of his rhetoric." a On the other hand, this able man might well have feared that he was endangering his influence, by fruitless opposition to overwhelming numbers. He had no wish to carry his cause to the extent of a theological Marathon. Such considerations as these induced both parties to peace. Cotton made overtures, in mysterious terms, which were "greedily and joyfully" accepted by the synod; and, in language " unintelligible and ambiguous," was welcomed back to the bosom of the Puritan Church.2 Banish- The flight of Vane and the surrender of Cotton theAnti- restored the Puritan Church to a safe position. The leaders'. bold outlines of truth began again to appear through the breaking mists. The elders having now denounced the weekly assemblies of Mrs. Hutchinson, they were for- September. bidden by the magistrates ; and time was allowed, in order that the action of the synod might purify the moral atmosphere of the community. But when it was found that the faction " persisted in their opinions," and that neither Hutchinson nor Wheelwright would submit to the judgments of the synod, it was considered that the longer existence of their party was hazardous to the gen eral safety. Wheelwright, already under judgment for sedition, was disfranchised and banished ; and, in Decem ber, Mrs. Hutchinson underwent the same sentence, with several of the inhabitants of Boston, who had signed a seditious libel in Wheelwright's favor. Nor was this all. An appeal had been threatened to the king, by the prin cipal sufferers ; and, from fear that some violent move- 1 Hubbard. this retraction, is admitted by all his 2 The insincerity of Cotton, in admirers. THE PURITAN CHURCH. 181 ment might be made in their behalf, should it be pre sented, for such a thing was " accounted perjury " after the freeman's oath, about sixty of the chief citizens of Boston were disarmed, together with many inhabitants of the adjoining towns.1 Outlawed, but not disheartened, the leaders in this famous schism, with a long train of admirers, fled to the hospitable shelter of Roger Wil liams, whose soul was too large for persecution. There, under his protection, they colonized an island in the Nar ragansett Bay, and aided in founding the gallant little republic, which glories in having led the van of religious liberty in New England. But she, the " wretched Jeza- bel," who was regarded as the author of the Antinomian delusions ; whom Cotton blessed in prosperity, and anath ematized in adversity; whom Vane first reverenced, and then forsook ; whom " the church " in Boston once hon ored, and afterwards excommunicated ; she, whose stern and masculine mind carried Wheelwright an unwilling captive in her delusions,2 and triumphed over the tender affections of a wife and mother ; left behind her a name which was long regarded in Massachusetts with fear and trembling. For the vengeance of Heaven seemed to pursue her after she left the Puritan Commonwealth. Wonderful stories were whispered among the housewives of the "monstrous births" of which she was delivered in the place of her exile ; and her tragical end furnished many a godly father with a useful moral, on which to expatiate by his fireside during the howling of a New England winter. It had been a pleasing incident to relate, if Cotton, 1 By an early colony law, it was death, Wheelwright voluntarily re- required of all the inhabitants of the canted ; and, in a letter to the gov- commonwealth that they should be ernor, apologized for having " ad- provided with arms. hered to persons of a corrupt judg- 2 A year after Mrs. Hutchinson's ment." 16 182 THE PURITAN CHURCH. chap, who saved himself by insincerity, had soothed the exile * — y^ of his old parishioners, by extending to them his sym pathy. He had been partially instrumental in leading them astray ; and, in carrying out his doctrines to their legitimate results, " blasphemy and error," they but exer cised the same right which he claimed when he forsook England, and renounced the church which had nourished him in infancy, and intrusted him in manhood with the care of an important benefice. Alas for the weakness of 1638. human nature ! A year had scarcely elapsed from the banishment of the Antinomians, and the Puritan Church felt that it had received a serious blow. The " decay of religion," and the lassitude of " professors," were the reaction of strife, and the consequence of victory. A December, general fast was appointed ; and, as if to do penance for his former errors, Cotton ascended the sacred tribune, and .publicly bewailed his sloth and credulity. He took not upon himself the burden of his errors, but declared that, like the rest of the community, he had been deluded, and that " the faction " had been guilty of deceit in making him their stalking-horse. To banish such seducers, said he, was just ; but beware how you send forth with them those who have been misled, or who have sinned from a misguided conscience. Such persons should be referred to the church for treatment ; and, if their cases prove to be past remedy, let them be imprisoned ; for if you cast them out, ivho will receive them ? 1 Subse- Antinomianism was quelled, but church and state had quent con- A dition of nearly been rent in pieces. " The faction " revenged church, themselves by reproaching Cotton for his desertion, many of them maintaining to the last that they held nothing but what he taught. They called him a timorous man, 1 Winthrop's Journal. Mather. Neal. Hubbard, &c. THE PURITAN CHURCH. 183 and a deceiver, and one that had lost his insight into the gospel. One, " more witty than the rest," sent him a pound of candles, bidding his servant tell him that it was because he wanted light.1 This sorry joke shows that Cotton's insincerity had lost him the public confidence, which he never afterwards fully recovered. In truth, there seemed to be a want of that general trust, which alone marks a healthy state of the public mind. Vigilant sentinels were now posted in the Puritan camp, and a secret police spared no pains to prevent future disorders. Though the elders had no actual bond of spiritual unity, they were sufficiently united in a common enterprise to set their faces against dangerous innovations. By the continual multiplication of stringent laws, they succeeded in preserving their church from another division like the Antinomian. And that wound rapidly healed ; but the rapidity of its cure was the sign of internal unsound ness. A schism in religious bodies has seldom been rad ically cured by a synodical decree, or an act of the legis lature. The Puritan Church now presented a firm front against innovation ; but had any one been gifted with penetrating vision, he would have perceived that, beneath a fair outside, a general indifference to religion was grad ually spreading, which, sooner or later, would break out into open immorality. And from the Antinomian to the reforming synod, from the fierce discussion of dogmas to the general laxity of morals, was not quite half a century. The statute-book of the commonwealth, during this period, groaned under the severity of laws against error, heresy, and schism. Deaths, banishments, whippings, im prisonments, and fines, are scattered throughout its leaves, and meet the eye at every turn. And this was liberty 1 Neal. 184 THE PURITAN CHURCH. chap, of conscience ! This was the Gospel Church ! This • — v — ' was that new dispensation of truth, which went forth in its pride to the wilderness, uncorrupted by traditions and superstitions, and which, after years of anxious toil, could produce only the apples of Sodom as the fruit of its labors ! Divisions The Antinomian schism of the Puritan Church was on the sub- # ject of bap- the consequence of private judgment; but the questions tism. 1656. which arose a few years later, in relation to the sacra ment of baptism, were owing to an incomplete system of theology. The former divided elders from the people; the latter created discord among the elders themselves. Actuated by the same spirit, which had embraced with ferocious zeal the doctrines of Election and Perseverance, the Puritan Pilgrims denied the sacrament of baptism to the children of all persons who were not in covenant with some one of their churches. In the infancy of the commonwealth, this intolerant principle passed without opposition. Then, all were under the covenant who were freemen, and the freemen alone constituted the church. But, in process of time, when the first blush of enthusiasm had passed away, the state began to outgrow the church, and the nakedness of the former protruded through the garment that had once fitted it so well; People multiplied, and their native-born children began to grow into manhood, and to marry. Embarrassing questions now arose for the decision of the elders : Who are "the covenant seed" which are entitled to baptism1? Are the grandchildren of the Cottons and the Winthrops, the pious founders of New England Puritanism, to be denied the benefits of this ordinance, and their souls jeopardized, because their immediate parents have never "joined the churches," nor sought admission to the Lord's Supper "? If the affirmative issue were maintained, the THE PURITAN CHURCH. 185 Puritan Commonwealth would fall ; if the negative, the Puritan Church would abandon its first principles. This startling dilemma, which first embarrassed the church in Connecticut, soon became a source of uneasiness to the people throughout New England.1 It was necessary that this question should be speedily settled. Dissatisfaction began to arise, that the children of baptized persons were treated as without the pale of Christianity, because their parents had not subscribed the covenant, which was the only known entrance into the Puritan Church. An embassy was sent from Con necticut to Massachusetts, not to frame treaties of peace, nor to invite to a warlike coalition, but to negotiate some plan, by which Puritanism might be extricated from its perplexing position.2 The subject was discussed with great earnestness and zeal. It was important not only to unravel the present snarl, but also to anticipate the future differences that might occur, and clear them up " unto universal satisfaction." The question was viewed in every possible light, and the results of this singular conference between Massachusetts and Connecticut were twenty-one comprehensive questions, drawn up with elab orate precision, for the action of a synod. To meet this emergency, " the ablest ministers " of both colonies were assembled in Boston, where, after a session of two weeks, 1657. they returned answers to the questions proposed, more subtle than ingenuous, and more learned than intelligible. In genera], however, the strictness of the early usage was understood to be relaxed, and by the obscure fiction of a " deputy covenant," which supposed the immediate parent, on certain conditions, to be a sort of conduit, through whom the efficacy of the original covenant was i Hubbard. Mather. Neal. 2 Hubbard. 16* June. 186 THE PURITAN CHURCH. transmitted to his children, it was endeavored to answer the exigencies of the state, without violating the princi ples of the church. The cautious obscurity of this concession, however, did not prove effectual. The synod, which thus sat in solemn conclave, did not include all the elders who were inter ested in the discussion ; and the opinions it gave, even had they been satisfactory, were not binding. Many of those, who were "most forward and ready to promote" these opinions, " never durst adventure upon the practice" of them, for fear of making breaches in their parishes,1 and the font remained dry for all but the children of church members. The Puritan Church exhibited the curious phenomenon of a portion of the elders fearing to teach what they avowed to be the truth, lest they should create discord, or endanger their own places. No won der the Quakers, who were now suffering persecution, questioned the divine mission of a system that could so readily sacrifice truth to expediency ! No wonder the Anabaptists began to grow uneasy, and to calculate the value of an ordinance which, with every generation of elders, altered somewhat in character, and about which was displayed such a variety of opinions ! For, in truth, elder was divided against elder, pastor against people, and parish against parish. The synod of 1657 seemed to have little effect beyond increasing debate and creating confusion. People began to ask themselves whether, if children were refused baptism because their parents were not in full communion, the doors of heaven were not virtually closed upon their posterity forever.2 Many could, in such case, foretell the end of " the gospel church " before the close of the century that ' Hubbard. Mather. 2 Mather. Neal. THE PURITAN CHURCH. 187 had given it birth. While the Puritan Church was thus " strongly divided," the general court found it necessary to assemble a second synod, composed of the elders and 1661- messengers of all the churches in Massachusetts. Tell us, said the court, almost despairingly, " who are the subjects of baptism," and what manner of union ought to exist between the churches of Christ. But to answer these questions was no easy task. " There were scarce any of the congregational principles but what were layen at by some or other of the assembly." ! However, after a controversy " managed with too much animosity," a decis ion was obtained from this chaos of opinions and views, which settled that full communion of the parent was not necessary to the baptism of the child ; and that all the churches of Christ in New England ought to enter into solemn covenant to be united in the same faith and order, to walk by the same rule, and to exercise the same ordi nances for the same ends.2 That this decision should have been unanimous was impossible. It was the conclusion of a majority alone. Even freedom of debate was stifled by the tyranny of party. Those who upheld the strictness of the old rule, and who desired to preserve Puritanism consistent, even if thereby they destroyed its popularity, were borne down by force of numbers, and stigmatized as dissenters. Indignant at such usage, they resorted to their pens, and undertook to discredit the action of the synod " accord ing to its own principles." The President of Harvard College took the field, and published a dissenting work, which he boldly called Anti-Synodalia.3 That " reverend person," Mr. Davenport, also appeared in print as the 1 Letter of Eleazer Mather to a Hubbard. Mather. Neal. Mr. Davenport. See Hutchinson, 3 Ibid. vol. i. p. 206, n. 188 THE PURITAN CHURCH. champion of orthodox Puritanism. Not only was the decision of the first question proposed by the general court considered by the dissenters as an innovation " with out scripture warrant," but the answer to the second question was regarded by them as having " a direct tendency to undermine the liberty of the churches." 1 Indeed, so ably were these arguments managed, that it was thought advisable to check their circulation ; and a censorship of the only press in Massachusetts was estab- 1662. lished by the general court. The whole control of print- October. . - . iii ¦ -i ing was vested in one elder and one magistrate, without whose consent no work could be published in the Puritan Commonwealth, even though it issued from the halls of its solitary seat of learning.2 It hardly needed this rigorous measure to produce final harmony. By degrees, many of the refractory churches adopted the opinions of the synod, conscious, perhaps, that- any other decision would enure unfavorably for posterity, to whom, in bequeathing the ancient usage of their communion, they would also bequeathe an heri tage of discord and trouble. Yet, the gradual assimila tion to a more liberal theory, in this respect, was inter rupted by another remarkable strife, which once more threatened the Puritan Church with complete anarchy. Anxious to preserve the prestige of their society, the " First Church in Boston," ere the remains of their beloved pastor, Wilson, were cold in the grave, invited Davenport, of New Haven, to take his place, who, though in extreme old age, retained the rigidness of his faith, amid the growing degeneracies of advancing genera- i Hubbard. » Imitation of Christ," by Thomas- 2 Colony Laws. Hutchinson. a-Kempis, " it being luritten by a The press was wholly suppressed in Popish minister.'''' 1 668, for publishing the famous 1670. THE PURITAN CHURCH. 189 tions. His acceptance of this call produced an immediate schism, the younger portion of his new charge drawing off, and forming a separate society by themselves. Bitter contentions arose. Seventeen of the elders protested against Davenport and his colleagues, in whose proceed ings there does not seem to have been that fairness and simplicity which the gospel requires,1 and publicly charged them with artifice and fraud. A direct denial was given, so that, as usual, the general court was obliged to interfere, and a committee was appointed to inquire into the " cause of the prevailing evils." The report of this committee affords a curious illustration of the illiberal spirit of the prevailing religion. " Declension from the primitive foundation work," it declared " innovation in doctrine and worship, opinion and practice, an invasion of the rights, liberties, and privileges of churches, an usurpation of a lordly and prelatical power over God's heritage, a subversion of gospel order, and all this with a dangerous tendency to the utter devastation of these churches, turning the pleasant gardens of Christ into a wilderness, and the inevitable and total extirpation of the pillars and principles of the congregational way ; these are the leaven, the corrupting gangrene, the infecting, spreading plague, the provoking image of jealousy, set up before the Lord, the accursed thing, which hath pro voked divine wrath, and doth further threaten destruc tion." This bitter denunciation, which bears the marks of having been prepared by the magistrates, concluded by declaring the Third Church in Boston irregular, ille gal, and disorderly. The great body of the elders were extremely irritated at this presumptuous report, and, at mi. the next session of the court, "desired that it might be 1 Hutchinson. 190 THE PURITAN CHURCH. chap, remembered that the people were led forth into this wil- - — y — ' derness, not only by the hands of Moses, but also of Aaron." And, happily for them, the changes made by the freemen at this election showed that the influence of this powerful class, however- different from that exerted by their predecessors, continued unabated. The proceed ings of the last court were virtually condemned, and the Third Church was triumphantly established. We behold in this disunion spirit nothing that can excite surprise. A dissenting system of religion, whose very basis is the right of private judgment, cannot pre serve any settled faith entire. It must progress with the people Avho profess it, or it will soon become obsolete. Yet, doubtless, the bitterness of strife in the Puritan Church was somewhat softened by " the setting of many bright stars in New England's firmament." The great Cotton, first among his brethren, was slumbering in his grave at the time the ecclesiastical system, he did so much to build up and establish, was nearly rent in twain on the subject of baptism; and the aged Wilson, the revered Davenport, and the venerable Chauncey, upon whose heads had been laid the apostolic hands of the bishops they afterwards renounced, were in the next ten years, together with many of their younger brethren, "called from Christ's plough." A new generation of elders was rapidly succeeding the men of Oxford and Cambridge. The Puritan Church was falling into other and feebler hands; and the compatriots of Winthrop and Endecott and Vane and Dudley, they upon whose ample shoulders rested the glory and the shame of New England Puritan ism, were soon known in the land only by tradition, and by the quaint, uncouth epitaphs, that marked where their remains tranquilly reposed. THE PURITAN CHURCH. 191 Part II. Intolerant Spirit of the Puritan Church — Rise of the Familists — Perse cution of Gorton — The Quakers — The Anabaptists — Persecutions in Massachusetts, Violations of the Charter, and of the Laws of England — Inconsistent with the avowed Claims of Puritanism. We now invite attention to another department of the part subject under review, and, having shown the chaotic con- ¦ — » — • dition of the Puritan Theology, we shall proceed to the consideration of its intolerant practice. On this latter point, certainly, a wonderful harmony characterized the Puritan Church ; and though its elders loved to engage in " theological logomachies " among themselves, they were always ready for a friendly reconciliation over the ruins of a rival fanaticism. It is, indeed, curious to observe how men of a similar religious persuasion will, in times of external tranquillity, trouble the waters of their own repose ; so that, perhaps, there is. ground for the saying of Hobbes, that warfare is the natural condition of man kind. Thus, Dr. Owen and Richard Baxter entered into an endless controversy whether the death of Christ was solutio ejusdem, or only tantundem. But, though these famous Independent champions could afford to quarrel on, such an ideal battle-field as this, still, they would have doubtless been in perfect harmony on questions which pressed from without. And so, in Massachusetts, " the churches of Christ" were like a rope of sand, when undisturbed by external assault ; but, on the approach of an enemy or stranger, the rope of sand, as if by some magnetic power, became a bar of steel. The spirit of intolerance was displayed in Massachu- intolerant r . , spirit of setts before permanent places of worship were erected, the pmitan 192 INTOLERANCE OF Ere the Puritans had moulded their church into shape, while yet no standard of orthodoxy had been set up, and no conditions imposed upon those who "prophesied," relig ious liberty was, in effect, proclaimed to be the right of the majority only. Roger Williams was cast out into the wilderness, because he taught that it was unlawful even " to hear the godly ministers " of the Church of England. Harmless enough, truly, was this fanaticism in Massachusetts, at the time he spoke, and equally so were the letters of admonition which his flock in Salem sent abroad, warning " the churches " that, to hold any communion with Her of England, was a " heinous sin." But so to believe and so to teach, his conscience in structed him ; and, doubtless, he was sincere in so doing, at the same time that he was quite willing to allow a perfect toleration to those who differed from him. Cer tain it is, that Williams was no bloody inquisitor, no domineering enthusiast. He hated the Catholic Church in all its forms, and frankly avowed his abhorrence of a sacramental religion. But he also declared that the civil magistrate had no inherent power to enforce the observ ance of the first table ; and that the duty of a true Christian State was not to punish men for heresies, but to withdraw from them all manner of countenance. The question, whether the civil magistrate may law fully punish for heresy, first arose when Calvin burnt Servetus. Beza, the associate of Calvin, maintained the affirmative; and the English exiles, who fled their coun try in dread of the persecuting Mary, learned from the master spirits of the Reformation that the axe and fagot are lawful arguments in spiritual controversies. They carried these notions back to England, and from Eng land they were brought to the New World. And so the intolerance of the Puritan Church in Massachusetts was THE PURITAN CHURCH. 193 a marked feature in its character, yet not for this cause alone. The Puritan, firmly believing that he was elect of God, and that the saints must persevere, exercised but little charity towards those whom education and cir cumstances had taught another creed. To sacrifice his country for his religion, did not trouble the Puritan so much as that a saint should have been compelled to make a sacrifice. Even his faith, in so doing, hardly consoled him for his loss. Like Abraham, he had left every thing at God's command ; but then the former had exchanged his home for a land flowing with milk and honey, while the latter exiled himself to a wilderness.1 Thus, education and inclination united in forming an intolerant philos ophy. There is " no room in Christ's army for tolera- tionists," boldly declared Johnson, one of the earliest and sturdiest in the Puritan pilgrimage. Toleration, con tinued Cotton, made the world anti-Christian. The church never took hurt from the punishment of here tics.2 'Tis Satan's policy, echoed Shepard, in 1672, to plead for an indefinite and boundless toleration.3 Poly- piety is the greatest impiety in the world, said the Simple Cobbler of Agawam. " My heart hath naturally detested toleration of divers religions, or of one religion in segre- gant shapes. He that is willing to tolerate will, for a need, hang God's Bible at the devil's girdle." And, in like manner, thundered President ' Oakes, in 1673, "I look upon toleration as the first-born of all abomina tions." Such were the principles avowed by the Puritan Pilgrim. He was wrapped in himself, and in the ideal perfection his bosom revealed to him. He abhorred the Church of Rome, disliked the Church of England, and 1 Hubbard. 3 Eye Salve, an Election Ser- ! Bloody Tenet Washed, pp. mon, p. 14.. 132, 192. 17 194 INTOLERANCE OF chap, despised the low rabble of schismatics. How could the • — y^ soil he trod open its bosom, or its trees shoot forth their leaves, or its flowers put on their glory, to gladden the heart of the idolater, the Catholic, or the Quaker 1 His own vagaries had not been suffered in the land of his birth ; was he to tolerate the vagaries of others in the land of his choice, in the home of his liberty I Rise ofthe There were three great classes of fanatics in Massa chusetts, during the operation of the first charter ; and to some one of these, nearly every case of persecution by the Puritan Church may be reduced. They were all characterized by offensive qualities, and some of their peculiarities almost justify the extravagant language in which the Puritan historian was accustomed to clothe his relations. Ascribing the cause of all heresies to the active plotting of Satan, the elders felt that the inflicting of stripes, of banishment, and of death, while they caused mortification to the devil, redounded to the glory of God. Among the first victims of the Puritan Church were the Familists. These singular maniacs, who styled them selves " The Family of Love," owed their origin to David George, of Delft, an enthusiast, who believed himself the Messiah. They branched off into the various sects of Grindletonians, Familists of the Mountains, of the Val leys, of Cape Order, of the Scattered Flock, etc. They renounced the principal doctrines of Christianity, which they held to be superseded by the advent of David George, and are said to have practised among themselves the grossest libertinism.1 It is not easy to say under which denomination the Familists of Massachusetts should be ranked, though, perhaps, the wrongs they suffered may well entitle them to the appellation of "The 1 Scott's Woodstock. THE PURITAN CHURCH. 195 Scattered Flock." Something- of Familism had been part . n. brought into Massachusetts by Mrs. Hutchinson ; and, ¦ — •< — ¦ under the ripening influence of persecution, it soon increased in bulk and variety. It bewildered the heads of grave and learned men ; it crept into the church, divided the commonwealth, and threatened with ruin the fairest structure of the English dissenters. As may be imagined, the banishment of this sect did Persecu- not allay the resentment of the elders. They had been Gorton. bearded by a woman, and by a woman been made to tremble. The name Familist was rendered odious, wher ever the pulpit was erected. However inconsistent was the treatment of Mrs. Hutchinson with the Puritan cry for liberty of conscience, it had this excuse, that the gen eral tranquillity required that severe examples should be made. The sufferers were intruders upon the established religion. But the same cannot be said of Samuel Gor ton, who suffered a more extraordinary persecution than any before or after him. Mrs. Hutchinson crossed the path of the elders, and disputed their right to its use ; but, in the case of Gorton, the elders went out of their way to crush a harmless reptile. The principles of this enthusiast " were the very dregs of Familism."1 From his original position, as a clothier in London, he was suddenly transformed into a " profes sor of the mysteries of Christ," denying all magistracy, and all religion but his own.2 Emigrating to Massachu- 1636. setts while the Antinomian controversy was raging, and meeting with a cool reception, he retired first to Plym outh, where, disturbing the Church of "the Pilgrims," 1637. he was whipped and banished. From thence he fled to Rhode Island, and joined the Antinomian exiles, who, 1 Bloody Tenet Washed. Hutch- 2 Sav. Winthrop, vol. ii. p. J7, "• inson. 196 INTOLERANCE OF under Coddington, had recently organized themselves into a form of government. But they had not learned a lesson of toleration from their own sufferings, and, soon becoming displeased with Gorton, they banished him from their society with every mark of contempt. He now sought refuge with Roger Williams, and remained for a time near Providence, exercising that full and per fect liberty of conscience, which has rendered that little spot famous in the annals of New England. But his troubles had scarcely begun. Discontent arose among some of his followers, concerning the allotment of lands, 1642. and three " ill-affected persons " applied to the magis trates in Massachusetts for succor.1 Although this ap plication came from men of doubtful reputation, one of whom had already been branded as a notorious drunkard, and excommunicated from the Puritan Church, it was readily entertained. " The place was like to be of use to them," both as a field for operations against the In dians, and also as an outlet into Narragansett Bay. Moreover, ambition was coupled with bigotry, and the design was not only to strip Gorton of his lands, but also to punish him for his heresies.2 An encouraging answer was accordingly returned to the malcontents at Pawtucket. They were taken under the protection of Massachusetts ; and the governor issued October, his warrant, commanding all the inhabitants of Provi dence not to injure or molest those persons who had placed themselves and their property under the protection of the Puritan Commonwealth. To this mandate, Gor- November. ton returned, more rightfully than wisely, a " contempt- 1 If we are to believe Gorton, from them an acknowledgment of the Massachusetts' government, en- submission. raged to see their victims peaceably 2 Sav. Winthrop, vol. ii. p. 84. settling on their own soil, intrigued Simplicitie's Defence, etc. p. 22. with these malcontents to procure THE PURITAN CHURCH. 197 uous answer," denying that he was in any way amenable to the magistrates of Massachusetts, or that they could exercise any jurisdiction beyond the limits of their own patent. Nevertheless, Gorton felt his position to be unsafe. Massachusetts now claimed the lands he occu pied, as within her jurisdiction ; he was watched by her emissaries, and she easily found a pretext for the com mencement of hostilities. Therefore, " the preservation of peace," together with " the compassion he had for the wives and little ones" of his company, induced him to purchase a tract of land from the Narragansetts, at a greater distance from Providence, where he hoped, amid the solitude of the woods, and surrounded by savages, to find that rest which was denied him in the abodes of Christianity. Resisting the advice of his friends, to establish himself in some Dutch or Swedish settlement, out of the reach of the Puritan Commonwealth, with the manly avowal that he could not " go under a foreign prince, knowing that he had neither been false to his king nor his conscience," he shook the dust of civilization from his feet, and, accompanied by eleven trusty friends, equally fanatical and determined, he plunged into the forest, and commenced the life of a patriarch in the east ern borders of what is now the county of Kent in Rhode Island.1 But Gorton had hardly erected the rude cabins of his 1643. new home, when he found, with dismay, that his misfor tunes were not over. Two petty sachems, who disputed the title of his lands with the Narragansetts, and refused to ratify his purchase, although one of their signatures was affixed to the deed of conveyance, complained to the Massachusetts government that they had been wronged. June. 1 Simplicities Defence, etc. Hutchinson. 17* 198 INTOLERANCE OF chap. A ready ear was open to their complaint, and they were -^v^ promised immediate relief, provided they subjected them selves and their lands. A formal agreement to this effect was accordingly executed ; and Massachusetts, embold ened by the countenance of the United Colonies,1 again September, notified Gorton that he was living within her jurisdiction, and summoned him to appear before the court at Boston, and defend himself against the charge that had been made against him, of wronging her inhabitants. To this extraordinary requirement, Gorton replied, with much wisdom, that he owed allegiance to Old England alone, and that he might, with as good reason, " send for the chiefest" among his summoners to appear before him, and receive judgment at his hands. Indignant at this pre sumption, " it was determined to proceed with him by force," on the ground that the charter gave Massachu setts " full power to deal with enemies by force of arms ; " and forty armed volunteers were despatched against a dozen lunatics, to vindicate the zeal of Puri tanism.2 But although Gorton endeavored to protect himself from outrage, he made no objection to an inquiry into the charge which had been trumped up against him. He fortified his house as well as he was able, and then met the Puritan soldiers with an offer to submit his claims to arbitration. It is not right, he said, in the true spirit of English liberty, that my judges should be 1 Hazard, vol. ii. p. io. Winthrop's Journal. In all this busi- 2 " Our charter gives us full power ness, if we are to believe Gorton, to deal with them as enemies, by Massachusetts " wrought by her force of _ arms," was the wretched agents to insinuate themselves into excuse given afterward for this out- two or three Indians among us to rage. _ Remonstrance of Massachu- become her subjects, hereby with- setts, in answer to the Petition of drawing them from their lawful and Gorton_ to the Com. for Foreign natural prince, Miantonimo." Plantations. Hazard, vol. i. p. 547. THE PURITAN CHURCH. 199 wholly composed of those who are interested in the event part of the cause ; but let them be taken, in part, at least, • — v — from some other colony than Massachusetts, and I will surrender my cattle as security " to abide their order." This proposal, so creditable to the head and heart of this extraordinary fanatic, was communicated to the magis trates ; but, by the advice of the elders, it was peremp torily declined, because, even if " the ground of it was not false," in treating a sovereign state as a party to the cause, the blasphemous writings of these men could not be compounded by arbitrament, but must be purged away, either by public repentance, or else by public pun ishment.1 Thus, the elders boldly threw away the mask, and avowed their purpose. In pursuance of this counsel, orders were despatched to the leader of the expedition " to proceed " against Gorton without further parley ; and though he again offered to submit his rights to arbi tration, though he appealed from the prejudication of his enemies to the king, and, as a last resort, hung out over his feeble intrenchment " the colors of Old England," it was all in vain. They were ordered to surrender, or else " to prepare for slaughter." Some of the women of the settlement miscarried through fright ; and others escaped into the woods, preferring to trust themselves to the tender mercies of the savages rather than to their zealous countrymen. The western shores of Narragansett Bay, for the first time, echoed with the roar of musketry, and the wolf and the panther were disturbed in their hiding- places by a more unnatural combat than had yet dese crated these peaceful solitudes. A " fierce assault " was soon followed by a surrender, and, in a few days, Gor ton, with nine of his followers, was paraded in triumph 1 Sav. Winthrop. October. £00 INTOLERANCE OF through the streets of Boston, and imprisoned in the common jail.' The importance of this service,^ in the eyes of the elders and magistrates, may be conjectured from the facts, that a deputation went out of Boston to meet the returning volunteers, and that the governor personally blessed and thanked them, and gave them an entertainment at the Inn, Something more than an anx iety to do justice is discernible in all this display of feeling. These illiterate men, unable even to write their own thoughts with propriety, were now subjected to the moral discipline of the pulpit. They were forced to the meet ing house on the Sabbath, and compelled to receive the visits of the elders in their prison. Threats were fol lowed by entreaties, and entreaties again by threats. " Recant your opinions," said an elder to one of the prisoners ; " it shall be no disparagement to you ; for here is our reverend teacher, Mr. Cotton, who ordinarily preacheth that publicly one year that the next year he publicly repents of, and shows himself very sorrowful for it to the congregation." 2 But the elders were dealing with men as determined as themselves, and these Fam ilists could imitate the obscurity of Cotton, without copying his vacillation. They wallowed in the mire of fanaticism, and quoted Scripture after Scripture in defence of their vagaries. They even acted on the offensive, and attacked the Puritan Church. Your baptisms, said they, after a sermon by Cotton, are an abomination, and your Lord's Supper, the juice of a poor silly grape turned into Christ's blood by magicians. " You have cast off the errors in baptism ; but you should do well to cast off baptism itself."3 Your ordinances, your ministers, your 1 Winthrop. 3 Johnson. He likened their or- 2 Simplicitie's Defence. Hutch- dinances to " Moloch, and the star inson. of the idol Remphan." Ibid. THE PURITAN CHURCH. 201 sacraments, are men's inventions, designed for show and pomp. As for your magistracy, it is an idol, and a man may as well be a slave to his belly as to his own species.1 In the exasperation caused by these ravings, the claims of the defrauded Indians dwindled in importance. It was resolved to bring the Familists to an immediate trial, where the charge produced against them was, not that they had wronged the citizens of Massachusetts, but that they were blasphemous enemies of the true religion of Jesus Christ, and of the civil authority among God's people.2 But Gorton appeared to be insane only on the subject of religion, and his intuitive sagacity made him, in other respects, a formidable antagonist. In the grave presence of the elders and magistrates, who sat in judgment with the secrecy of an inquisition, the enthusiast conducted himself with admirable self-possession. Appealing from their jurisdiction to " the noble state of Old England," from which he declared his judges alone derived the authority they were abusing, he pleaded that, had he lived under the government of Massachusetts, he should have considered it his duty to support it ; and that, as for his religious views, he claimed that liberty of con science, which had been the grand principle in the emi gration of Puritanism. We require you to give up your heretical opinions, was the reply ; and, as for an appeal to the king, you must not dream or think of such a 1 Winthrop. Gorton would ac- without any trial. At one of the knowledge no other magistracy but interviews between the governor and such as was natural ; " as the father Gorton, the former announced to over his wife and children, and an the latter that " they had set their hereditary prince over his subjects; " subjects, the Indians, in their own denying virtually that the people are land." But, says Gorton, they the source of power. Sav. Win- never questioned in public whether throp, vol. ii. p. 143. it was right or wrong to take it 2 The land in dispute appears to from us. have been restored to the Indians 202 INTOLERANCE OF chap, thing, for no appeal will be allowed. Answer, therefore, ' — '—- ' " as in a case of life and death," whether the Fathers who died before Christ were justified by his blood? Whether the life and sufferings of Christ are the only price of our redemption 1 Who is the God whom you think we serve 1 And what is your meaning, when you say that we worship the star of our god Remphan, Chion, Moloch % x Such were the questions of the elders, suggested by a painful examination into the "deep mysteries" of Fam ilism. The dispute that followed terminated unfavorably for Gorton, who would " acknowledge no error or fault in his writings," and pompletely drowned all meaning and sense in extravagant effusions of Scripture and prophecy. It was a conflict between private reasoners ; and why did not the right to interpret Scripture belong as well to the Familist as to the Puritan 1 The elders soon gave up all hope of persuading Gorton that their opinions were the legitimate standard of orthodoxy, and nothing remained but to pronounce sentence upon him and his deluded followers. The magistrates, upheld by their spiritual teachers, decreed that this sentence should be death.2 Mercy alone rested with the people, who, through their deputies, refused to sanction a decision so harsh and unjust. A compromise was effected between the church and state, and it was finally ordered that these November, heretics should be dispersed through the towns of the jurisdiction, and, with irons upon their legs, should be kept in labor for their support ; but if they attempted to propagate their " blasphemous errors," or to escape from i Simplicities Defence. Win- what punishment was due by the throP- Word of God." Their answer was, 2 " The judgment of the elders in writing, that " their offence de- had been demanded about their served death by the law of God." blasphemous speeches and opinions, Winthrop, vol. ii. p. 146. THE PURITAN CHURCH. 203 bondage, they were to suffer death.1 To defray the expense attending their capture, trial, and imprisonment, men were sent once more to Shawomet, and eighty head of cattle, their only possessions, the humble wealth of the pasture and field, were seized and sold. Their lands, subsequently, became a bone of contention between Mas sachusetts and Plymouth.2 Even the very guns, which their humanity prevented them from using against their countrymen, were confiscated by the magistrates, two of which were bestowed upon the Indians who had been the means of gratifying the bigotry of the elders.3 Happily for Gorton, the cruelty of this treatment told his story far more eloquently than his own fantastic pen. People flocked from all parts of the Puritan State to behold the victims of an intolerant zeal, and their iron manacles won converts to Familism, in the very face of the elders and magistrates. The manifestation of popular sympathy was as unexpected as it was unwelcome ; and Gorton and his companions were soon released, because " they did corrupt many of the people, especially the women." They were allowed fourteen days to quit the limits of civilization, and were prohibited, on pain of death, from residing in Massachusetts, Providence, or Shawomet. An outcast from society, with the very wilderness shut upon him, Gorton fled to England, after enjoying for a short time the hospitalities of the Narragansetts.4 1 Exceptions were made in favor of one or two, who had lighter sen tences, and were let off on paying ransoms, as" captives of war. Win throp, vol. ii. p. 148. According to Bishop, Wilson was so indignant at this lenity, that he preached from the text, " Because thou hast let go the man whom I have appointed to destruction, thy life shall go for his life, and thy people for his people." N. E. Judged, p. 123. PART II. 2 Hazard, vol. ii. p. 201. 3 Winthrop. When besieged in his house, Gorton says: " We discharged notapiece, being loth to spill the blood of our countrymen, though we could easily have done them much hurt." See Simplicitie's Defence, p. 59 4 Winthrop. Hutchinson. Sim plicitie's Defence. The sentence of banishment, on pain of death, " was thought too light and favorable," says Winthrop, probably by the 1644. March. 204 INTOLERANCE OF Such was the persecution suffered by this extraordi nary fanatic, a man whom Puritanism persecuted for blas phemy, and whom the Liberalism of the present age may, with equal injustice, soon extol as a pioneer of religious freedom. Roger Williams was " divinely mad " in the seventeenth century, but, in the nineteenth, he is "the apostle of liberty; " and so it may yet be with Gorton, the shrewd man but illiterate enthusiast. When, years after his outlawry, he had wrung from his persecutors a scanty meed of justice, and was seated under his own vine and fig-tree in the evening of life, no longer at Shawomet, 1669. the place of suffering, but Warwick,1 the abode of peace and plenty, he might well say, in the bitterness of his heart, in answer to the ignominy that was heaped upon him by the Puritans : " I dare compare my conversation and life with those of any minister among you, that it has been as comely and innocent as his. Whose ox or whose ass have I taken, or when or where have I lived upon other men's labors, and not wrought with my own hands, for things honest in the sight of men, to eat my own bread ] " a Let me not omit here the lesson furnished by an interesting historical fact. Gorton had hardly com menced dragging about his iron bar in Charlestown, when Lord Baltimore, the papist proprietor of Maryland, himself a victim of Puritan intolerance at home, offered, through his correspondent at Boston, to give all persons who would settle upon his territory the privileges of cit izens, and guarantee to them perfect liberty of conscience under the very walls of his Roman churches.3 elders. But it was thought unwise 2 i Samuel, ch. xii. v. 3. See (perhaps unsafe) to inflict upon them Gorton's defence against charges in any thing more. Morton's Memorial, in Hutchinson, 1 He named Shawomet, War- vol. i. Appendix. wick, in honor of the earl of that 3 Winthrop, vol. ii. p. 148. name, by whose influence, in 1648, " Our people had no temptation that he was restored to his despoiled home, way," says Winthrop. THE PURITAN CHURCH. 205 The elders had manifested their zeal for " Christ's part religion," and now for some years they were compla- ¦ — re cently employed in moulding and shaping their discordant ™e Quak" system. Puritanism was triumphant in Old and New England, and the genius of dissent was set high up in the modern Babylon, like the golden image of Nebuchad nezzar, for the worship of the sons of men. And truly it received a willing homage. Nothing appeared profane or enormous, provided it was opposed to Popery and super stition. The principle seemed to be, to break loose from all that association had consecrated, or age rendered ven erable. The homage paid by ignorance to learning, by public opinion to legitimate authority, was suddenly with drawn, and, in its place, the ravings of madmen, the blasphemies of hypocrites, in a word, all the monstrous offspring of private judgment, were adorned by the lives of saints, and sealed by the blood of martyrs. It was during the sessions of the famous Westminster Assembly that the founder of Quakerism,1 hardly arrived at his majority, declared to some villagers in the North of England that he had received a divine inspiration. The written word, he announced to the gaping rabble, is not the sole medium of instruction, which God has vouchsafed to mankind, nor should they look to the church for comfort, whenever they are in doubt or diffi culty; for there is a "light of Christ" within each man's breast, superior to bibles and the so-called sacraments. Every man is a church in himself, and there dwells the Creator of the World in a temple not made with hands.2 But what rendered the new prophet peculiarly obnoxious, 1 Called Quakers, because " they 2 See Moehler's Symbolism. New quaked and trembled at the Word York Edit. 1844, pp. 456, 457. of the Lord." " Truth and Inno- Robertson's Translation. cency Defended," etc. 18 206 INTOLERANCE OF and gave him a distinctive character, were the external signs of his mission. He was divinely commanded not to take off his hat in the presence of his superiors ; to use the words " thee " and " thou," in addressing all per sons ; not to take an oath, though in a court of justice ; and never to bend the knee, even in the presence of his sovereign. Such were some of the inspirations of George Fox, received while bearing the shepherd's crook on the hills and commons of Leicestershire. The effects of the singular hallucination of this illiter ate youth, engendered by solitary musings in an age of national lunacy, were enhanced by a moral life, and the ardor with which he courted persecution. They were soon caught up by the capricious multitude, and even Penn and Barclay did not afterwards disdain to own Fox as their great master. But, in pointing his followers to the sacred spark within, as the only " lantern to their feet," the enthusiast unwittingly fired a train whose de structive agency he did not foresee. Curious discrepan cies arose in the divine communications. Decency was frequently outraged, and the moral sense of the public offended; and though Fox approved of "various instances of indecency in his own conduct, and of disgusting out rage in that of his followers," he was soon compelled to rebuke the inspirations of some of his disciples, whom he termed Ranters. But the latter, consulting the oracles within them, were far beyond the reach of the inventor of their faith, and they made up by enthusiasm what they wanted in sanity.1 Denying that the smallest edu- 1 Quakerism, says Bancroft, was Quakerism, asserts Grahame, was the aspiration of the human mind, " disgusting outrage " and " insane after a painful emancipation from frenzy," mingled with " profound the long reign of bigotry and super- piety" and "doctrinal truth." Such stition. It was impatience at the is the difference between the cant of tardy advances of intellectual liberty. Liberalism and that of Calvinism. THE PURITAN CHURCH. 207 cation was necessary to make them competent teachers, mechanics and artisans determined to proselyte an ignor ant world ; and some departed for the Sublime Porte, and others for the Vatican, to kindle the divine spark in the breasts of the Sultan and the Pope. With ardent zeal, and singular good fortune, they traversed all parts of Europe, and left the memory of their fanaticism in Sweden, Denmark, Germany, in Asia Minor, and Pales tine.1 For some years, the laws passed by the general court against heresies indicated a gradual tendency tow ards some new development of fanaticism. The Foxian frenzies were at their height in England, when a handful of these wretched fanatics, men and women, arrived in the " superstitious " colony of Massachusetts, with a ' "message from the Lord."2 They were not like the 1656. mild and unoffending followers of Penn ; they came to fight against " superstition" and " priestcraft ; " and were armed with nonsensical books and terrible prophecies. They attributed the most solemn ordinances of religion to the invention of the Pope, and their writings were filled with the " grossest collection of blasphemies and confusions." The very wantonness of their heresies terri fied the Puritan divines, who were unable to behold in them the natural results of private reasoning. They would not see the Puritan in the Quaker ; nor were they willing to understand that the latter, glowing with reve lations, quaking with the spirit, and boiling over with fanaticism, was but the former caricatured. "Their spirit of the hat, and their fopperies of thee and thou, were the least of those things " that gave offence. In their eyes, the Quakers were a " pernicious sect of heretics," and 1 New England Judged. ism exhibited itself in Salem, before 3 According to Mather, Quaker- it was known as a sect in England. 208 INTOLERANCE OF were treated accordingly. They were " made the sub jects of reproach, scorn, buffeting, scourges, torture, and death." They were " stripped of the clothes they wore, and robbed of the beds whereon they lay. The vessels in which they ate were forced from them, and their food itself reduced almost to nothing." a But, so far from being discouraged by this usage, they " courted persecu tion," and gloried in suffering. The elders could do nothing but advise the magistrates. The Quaker mis sionaries were far beyond the reach of Puritanism. They were not only heretics, but accursed. July. No sooner had these fanatics arrived in Massachusetts, than the court of assistants and the general court com menced their several tasks. The former led the way, by first imprisoning and then banishing the " messengers from the Lord,"2 and ordering their books to be burned by the common hangman, in the market-place of Bos ton.3 Even the master of the ship who brought them into the port was imprisoned, until he gave bonds to carry them away, free of charge.4 But, in this attempt to crush at once the dangerous novelties, the court proceeded under the general laws against heresy; for hitherto Quakerism had been a crime unknown to the statute-book of the state. It was determined to obviate the .necessity of future severities, by preventing Quakers from coming into the jurisdiction ; and the general court October, passed a law, prohibiting masters of vessels to land any of the " cursed sect " upon the shores of Massachusetts, or to import any books containing their " devilish opin ions." 5 But, notwithstanding this interdict, the evil ap- i Emerson's History of the First 5 Colony Laws. The first Quaker Church in Boston. victims were supposed to be pos- 2 Hutchinson. Mather. Neal. sessed by devils, and their bodies 3 New England Judged. were examined for marks of witch- 4 Ibid. craft. THE PURITAN CHURCH. 209 peared to increase by a "back door," and as the Quakers could not proclaim the divine commands in the streets and market-place, they sheltered themselves and their frenzies in the houses of their proselytes. At the same time, the colonies, in confederacy with Massachusetts, adopted similar regulations, and it was urged upon Rhode Island to do the like. But the authorities of that colony " wisely replied," that they could not persecute any man for difference of opinion, and that the Quakers already loathed Rhode Island, as a place where they could preach without contradiction, and revile without punishment.1 Quakerism soon began to gain a firm hold upon the imaginations of excitable women and weak-minded men, and the elders were frequently amazed at the denuncia tions of goodmen and goodwives, to whom, perhaps, but a short time before they had administered the ordinances of their communion. As soon as it was perceived that the disciples of Fox were, by some invisible method, increasing in numbers, the general court ordered that all 1657. persons who gave secret encouragement or hospitality to the " blasphemous heretics," should be heavily fined and imprisoned ; but, for the crime of being a Quaker, it was provided that, after a first conviction, the culprit, if male, should lose one of his ears, or, if female, be severely whipped; that, after a second conviction, these punish ments should be repeated ; and that, after a third, con viction, whether males or females, their tongues should be bored through with a red-hot iron.2 Quakerism now began to increase in strength and 1 Hutchinson, vol. i. Appendix, On the contrary, " he writ very p. 453. Hazard, vol. ii. p. 552. handsomely against their practices ; " Although the tolerant principles of and began, in consequence, to re- Williams forbade him to refuse the cover the good opinion of the elders Quakers an asylum, he was not by of Massachusetts. any means favorable to their tenets. 2 Hutchinson. Colony Laws. _. 18* 210 INTOLERANCE OF influence. The frenzies of madmen seemed in the pillory like the teachings of prophets ; they were soon to assume an almost holy aspect on the floor of the scaffold. Their followers continued to increase. " It was no rare thing for their leaders to make proselytes among the people, merely by stroking or breathing upon them."1 The prisons rapidly filled up with captives, who would neither work for their support nor pay the fees of their jailers ; to correct which evil the magistrates issued an order, that " the Quakers in prison be whipped twice a week if they refused to work, and the first time to add five stripes to the former ten, and each time to add three to them."2 They bore whipping with unexampled fortitude, but would not raise a finger in submission to the laws.3 Private meetings continued to be held by them in houses, in barns, in woods, and wherever they could assemble without fear of interruption and pour out their anathemas upon their persecutors. They established their head quarters at Rhode Island ; and no sooner was one party of Quakers dispersed than another detachment departed for the Puritan State, burning with zeal and eager for martyrdom. Their methods of prophesying had in them something disgusting and ludicrous. Women would go naked through the streets, shouting woes upon the elders and magistrates. On one occasion, a Quaker smashed two great glass bottles in the face of an assembled con gregation, saying, " thus will the Lord break you in pieces." A woman " smeared her face all over as black as a coal, and went into a meeting-house, using it as a l Mather. resolution. " They resolved to die 2 New England Judged. rather than to submit, and one of 3 In consequence of their refusing them was nearly whipped to death to work in prison, for their support, upon this order." Neal. The one the court of assistants ordered that here alluded to was William Brend, they should be whipped twice a mentioned by Bishop, the Quaker week. But this altered not their martyrologist. THE PURITAN CHURCH. 211 sign of the black pox," which was to come among the colonists.1 In consequence of these and other alarming manifesta tions, the magistrates increased their severity. It was made penal to listen to Quaker preaching, and a rigid 1658. system of espionage was established to ferret out secret meetings, which made it even unsafe for any person to absent himself from the usual public worship. The slightest deviation from the ordinary routine of life was considered a good ground for suspicion. A freeman was liable to arrest for wearing his hat when he should have been uncovered. No man could let his yea be yea, or his nay nay, without being marked and distrusted. The doors of private dwellings, in England sacred even to the king, were ruthlessly forced open on bare suspicion. But the "vagabond Quakers," those to whom the Puritan State was indebted for this unexampled trial of its faith, who would neither work in prison, nor remain out of the jurisdiction when banished, called forth the extreme rigor of the law. The elders displayed more than usual activity, insulted as they had been by the Quakers, who treated their persons and religion with galling contempt. Suppose, said Chauncey, at the Thurs day lecture, ye should catch wolves in a trap ; and ye cannot prove that they killed either sheep or lambs ; will ye let them go alive % 2 A bill was introduced into October. the court of assistants, reciting the many dangerous and horrid tenets of the Quakers, which were destructive of the respect due to the magistrates, and of the established 1 Neal. New England Judged, and elders by their Christian names. Hutchinson. They wore long hair. If confined in prison, their stirring They never bent their heads, nor appeals to their disciples gained new removed their hats. They thoued converts from the populace. and theed with stubborn obstinacy, 2 New England Judged. and addressed even the magistrates 212 INTOLERANCE OF forms of worship, and which were "insinuating them selves into the minds of the simpler." This bill provided that every person, not an inhabitant of the colony, con victed of being a member of this " cursed sect," should be banished on pain of death ; and, aware of the popular sympathy in behalf of the Quakers, the magistrates unanimously passed it without the clause of a trial by jury, providing simply that the accused party should be tried by a court consisting of three magistrates. To this arbitrary measure, however, the deputies, ever jealous of oligarchical usurpations, would, at first, by no means con sent.1 But the magistrates having prevailed upon two of the deputies to change sides, a majority of one was finally obtained in favor of the law, the speaker, with a large minority, entering their protest against it, as con trary to the spirit of English liberty. But even the two deputies who changed sides refused to do so with out an amendment, that the trials should be by a special jury.2 Still, in invisible streams, the "rogues and vagabonds" poured into the Puritan State, infesting alike town and country, and refusing to the elders and magistrates, whom they denounced as " the seed of the serpent," the slightest respect, either in word or manner. " Hardly a man banished the colony, by virtue of this severe law, but returned again in a few months, animated with new zeal for propagating his opinions."3 And the Quaker, too, could quote Scripture as well as the Puritan. 1 Neal. Mather. Colony Laws, were also to be banished on pain of The bill made a distinction in favor death. of the Quakers who were inhabit- 2 Hutchinson, vol. i. p. 182, 11. ants of the colony, the only effect of New England Judged. which, however, was to give them 3 Neal. They thoued and theed one month's imprisonment, in the with renewed emphasis, and addressed hope that, during that time, they the judges who tried them by their would recant. If they did not, they Christian names. THE PURITAN CHURCH. 213 " Where do you live % " asked the court of a female Ranter. " I live in God," was the reply ; " for in him we live, and move, and have our being." It was, surely, a sore trial for the magistracy to be thus bearded by rogues who feared not their laws, who reverenced not their persons, and who made light of all they considered so sacred. Such was, at length, the obstinacy of the Quakers in refusing obedience to the authorities, that an order passed to sell some of them into slavery, in any of 1659. the English plantations in Virginia or Barbadoes.1 But even the dread of this horrible fate made no manner of impression upon them. And now some terrible examples were to be made. The pillory was thrust aside, and in its place was reared the unsightly gibbet. Three vagabond Quakers, two males and a female, had been banished on pain of death, and were again arrested in the colony, while pursuing their mission as prophets. The woman was a second time banished, on the petition of her son ; but the men, who should have been treated as lunatics, were strangled, October. with circumstances of unusual barbarity, by the public executioner.2 Their requiem was the murmurs and groans of the populace, poured forth in dismal harmony with the creaking of their chains. Their bodies were cast into holes, stripped of their humble coverings ; and it was forbidden to fence the unhallowed spot, to protect them from the attacks of "ravenous beasts." Loud clam ors were uttered against the harshness of the magistrates, 1 Neal. The Pilgrim Puritans cut down, they were suffered to fall had more compassion for Quakers to the ground, with which, the skull than for Indians. When it was of W. Robinson was broke ... when found that they heard this sentence down, their shirts were ripped off unmoved, the order was never car- with a knife, and their naked bodies ried into effect. Hazard, vol. ii. cast into a hole of the earth." New P- 5*3- England Judged, p. 125. 2 " When their dead bodies were 214 INTOLERANCE OF and so great was the popular indignation, that the gen eral court thought it advisable to publish a proclamation, justifying the measures that had been taken. Therein they declared that the justice of these proceedings, sup ported as they are by the laws of God, ought rather to make them expect encouragement and commendation from all pious men, than to convince them of any neces sity of apologizing for what they have done. " Yet, for asmuch as men of weaker parts and perverser principles may be less satisfied, and may take occasion to calumniate us as bloody persecutors, we thought it requisite to declare that, upon serious consideration, according to the example of England in their provision against the Je suits, since no penalties were sufficient to restrain the impudent and insolent obtrusions of the Quakers, a law was made banishing such persons on pain of death." ] Two Quakers, proceeds the proclamation, have been executed under the law ; but a third, a woman, has been released by the clemency of the court, and has had liberty to depart. The sparing of this woman will manifestly evince, that we desire their lives absent rather than their deaths present.2 But the elders and magistrates found that the work increased on their hands. William Leddra, whom they offered life and liberty, on condition of his leaving the 1 This is one of the few instances, 2 Hubbard. Mather. Hazard. if not a solitary one, where the laws .This declaration is not entirely sup- of England were expressly referred ported by facts. Col. Temple and to, as furnishing analogy for their the younger Winthrop both endeav- own. The absurdity of the com- ored to prevent the execution of the parison is obvious. Neal, with some two men, and offered to take charge asperity, denies the force of the ap- of them, but without avail. New plication ; saying that, by a parity England Judged. H utchinson, vol. of reason, it might 'have been made i. p. 184, n. It was afterwards an- use of against the Presbyterians swered by Bishop, in a formidable themselves. In which he is undoubt- narrative of five hundred pages. edly right. r THE PURITAN CHURCH. 215 country, replied: "What! join with such murderers as you] Then let every man that meets me say, Lo, this is the man that hath forsaken the God of his salvation." " What have you gained by your cruel persecution 1 " said the condemned Christison ; " for the last man put to death, here are five come in his room ; and if you have power to take my life from me, God can raise up the same principle of life in ten of his servants, and send them among you in my room, that you may have tor ment upon torment." But when the form of Mary Dyer, " a comely, grave woman, and of a goodly person- 1660. age," 1 who a third time braved death, in obedience to an inward impulse, so that " she could not choose but come ' and do as formerly," was seen suspended from the gal- June. lows, and swaying to and fro in the wind, the compassion of the people could no longer be restrained. The women lifted up their voices and -wept; while the men assembled about the prison with fierce gestures and bitter impreca tions, and threatened its destruction. These signs of dissat isfaction, which were continually increasing, it was thought unsafe to disregard. One more execution only took place, 1661. when the general court declared that they were desirous May. of using all means, with as much lenity as was consistent with the common safety, to prevent the intrusions of the Quakers ; and ordered that vagabond Quakers should be delivered to the constable of the town in which they were arrested, and, under his directions, stripped naked from the middle upwards, tied to a " cart's tail," and whipped through the town, and so through every town, to the near est border of the settlement, where they were to be dis charged. If they returned thrice, they were to be branded on the left shoulder with the letter R ; and a fourth repe- 1 New England Judged. 216 INTOLERANCE OF tition of the offence was to render them liable to banish ment on pain of death, as formerly. As for those Quakers who should arise among the inhabitants of the colony, they were ordered to be imprisoned for one month ; and then, unless they retracted their opinions, or voluntarily left the colony, they were to be proceeded against in the same manner. And, for the better execution of these orders, the constables were empowered, as necessity might re quire, to impress carts, oxen, and assistants.1 This shocking gauntlet was run by only a few of the Quakers. Upwards of forty persons had appeared at the bar of the court of assistants and the general court, within the space of four years, and, being convicted of the crime of Quakerism, had been dismissed by their stern judges, some to the wilderness, some to the whip ping post, some to the pillory, and some to the gallows. The number that suffered corporal punishment, by order of the county courts, is unknown.2 The example thus set in Massachusetts was followed in Plymouth and New Haven ; though " in Connecticut there was little done, the governor being a tender man." Even in the little settlement of Martha's Vineyard the Quakers met with 1657. persecution, and, being thrust from the meeting-house by the constable, were delivered to an Indian, " to be carried in a small canoe to the main land, over a sea nine miles broad." But, to the honor of Mayhew's teachings be it spoken, the savage, with noble humanity, took them to his rude home, where they stayed three days, " waiting for a calm season ; " and he refused any consideration, l Colony Laws. Neal. Mather, name — an anomaly, at this time, in Hutchinson. _ Puritan jurisprudence. Bishop, in * As if to shift, in some measure, New England Judged, mentions sev- the responsibility of these persecu- eral cases, which Hutchinson says he tions, the warrants, in some cases at cannot find elsewhere. least, were issued in his Majesty's August THE PURITAN CHURCH. 217 saying that " they were strangers, and Jehovah taught part him to love strangers."1 The persecutions extended as ' — v^ far as the Dutch settlements. A wail now went up from the land that reached to Whitehall itself; and an order issued thence, requiring the immediate cessation of September. all capital and other corporal punishments of those of the king's subjects called Quakers, and directing that such as were obnoxious should be sent to England. It came almost at the eleventh hour. It could not erase the stains which indelibly rest upon the Puritan Church of Massachusetts. It could not prevent future historians from sitting in judgment on the intolerance and bigotry of those whom it would be the great object of their ambition to portray in brilliant and pleasing colors.2 It could not turn away the finger of derision, which the world was to point at the heroes of modern colonization.3 But it could and did check the further increase of crime. The prisons were emptied of their captives, and the ex ecution of the laws against Quakers, so far as regarded corporal punishments, was suspended during the pleasure of the court. And now Quakerism, as an antagonistic scheme, died away. Its only fuel had been opposition and persecu tion, and, these removed, it sunk into its appropriate place, harmless and insignificant. It is true that the old laws were illegally revived, so far as respected vagabond Quakers, " whose punishment was limited to whipping, and, as a further favor, through three towns only; "4 but 1662. little occasion offered for their exercise. Yet the few 1 New England Judged, p. 162. Quaker persecution is " much to be 2 Without mentioning the host of lamented." writers that have lauded the Pilgrim 3 The Quakers suffered most in Puritans, it will be sufficient to allude Plymouth and Massachusetts. to Bancroft, and even to Grahame, 4 Hutchinson. Hazard. Colony who is forced to exclaim that the Laws. 19 £18 INTOLERANCE OF cases of punishment that occurred, and these probably in consequence of a royal letter which was received from Charles, in which he declared that his parliament had been obliged to make a sharp law against the Quakers, and his willingness that Massachusetts, still breathing the spirit of a deep-rooted hostility, might do the same,1 fanned the dying antagonism of the Quakers into a feeble flame. In 1669, they presented a " broadside " to the king and parliament, wherein they complained of much barbarous usage on the part of the authorities in Massachusetts ; but no attention being paid to the com plaint, they adopted the wise course of ceasing to molest the rigid Puritans, who regarded their persons with horror, and denied that their inspirations were any other than those of Satan.2 The animosity against these fa natics was again manifested so late as 167-5; when a law was passed, ordering every person found at a Quaker's meeting to be committed to the house of correction, or to be fined.3 This was excused, on the ground that the toleration of the Quakers was one of the principal sins, which had brought on the Indian war as a chastisement.4 The mission of the Quakers was, however, fulfilled; nor was it, as these ignorant enthusiasts supposed, one of prophecy, but of warning.5 They may be considered, without drawing too far upon the imagination, as instru ments in the hand of Providence, to teach all who will 1 Grahame. This writer says, kind. New England Judged. Neal. with his usual carelessness, that " the This may be considered as a great royal invitation to persecute the triumph of Quakerism. Quakers was diregarded." 3 Truth and Innocency Defended, 3 During the reign of Queen etc. Anne, the Quakers prevailed upon * Chalmers's Annals, p. 399. the Dissenting ministers in England 5 If the Puritan Church is justi- to address their brethren in Massa- fied in their persecution by the plea chusetts in behalf of " Our Friends, that their principles were subversive the Quakers," wherein they forcibly of social order, that church stultified urged that liberty of conscience is itself in flying from England. one of the undoubted rights of man- THE PURITAN CHURCH. 219 heed the warning, that any system of religion, which is part founded in schism and nourished by spiritual pride, can- ¦ — -< — ¦ not win for itself the permanent respect of man, or the favor of God.1 Anabaptism was very nearly allied to Quakerism, and, The Ana- to some extent, prepared the way for it in Massachusetts ap 1S Bay. The descent from the one to the other was short and easy. Those new sectaries, says Hubbard, who go about to unchurch all others, do at last unchurch them selves ; and from Anabaptists become Separatists, then Seekers, and, at last, Ranters. The steps in this fanatical ladder were short, but not well defined ; and, in Rhode Island, the medley inhabitants were continually ascending and descending upon them, imagining themselves the saints of the Most High. It is difficult to say whether the vulgarity or profanity of the Anabaptists was most odious to the elders of Massachusetts. These " religious Jacobins " owed their origin to the furious Muncer, who, after his conversion to Lutheranism, preached equality and community of 1525. property, as well as the dogma of immersion. His prin ciples made rapid progress among the peasantry of upper Germany, who broke out into open insurrection, and were only crushed by the Landgrave of Hesse, after the most 1526. sanguinary resistance. The blow received by this sect in the loss of Muncer, and in its utter prostration in Cen tral Germany, scattered its remaining leaders towards the West, who retired into the Netherlands and West phalia. Two of these fanatics, John Mathias, a baker, and John Boccold, a tailor, the latter of whom had not 1 The elders most active in pro- use of the peculiar superstition of moting the Quaker persecution were the Puritans as a weapon against John Norton and John Wilson, them, attributed it to " the power of The death of the former was very the Lord." sudden, and the Quakers, making 220 INTOLERANCE OF yet obtained the first rank in his proper calling, fixed their residence in Munster, and there commenced the dissemination of their principles. Around that peculiar doctrine which gave the name to the sect, and which formed the nucleus of their tenets, they gathered others of a more alarming nature. They taught that Chris tians, who are guided by the Spirit of God, have no need of a civil magistrate ; that all inequalities of wealth or rank are contrary to the spirit of the gospel ; that the followers of Christ should own all things in common; and that the New Testament imposed no restraint in regard to the number of wives, which, like those of the patriarchs of the promised land, might be multiplied indefinitely. Maintaining these principles, which appeal to the lowest appetites of mankind, they gradually gained ground with the populace, and had no sooner acquired sufficient power, than they attempted to carry them into practical effect. They seized upon Munster, pillaged its churches, endeavored to destroy all books but the Bible, and confiscated the estates of its wealthy citizens. Ac quiring the mastery of this ancient fief of the Church, they gave it the name of Mount Sion, and abandoned themselves to the most unbridled licentiousness.1 The reformation of Munster seemed almost a carica ture of that of Wittemberg. From the first, none had been more enraged than Luther to see the great work in which he was engaged disfigured by his own followers, but a few years after he had been separated from the Christian world by a bull of excommunication, and had 1 ProphetEe et concionatorum auc- sa non fuerit. Lamb. Hortens. p. toritate juxta et exemplo, tota urbe 303. Nemo unS, contentus fuit ad rapiendas pulcherrimas quasque neque cuiquam extra eftbetas et viris foeminas discursum est. Nee intra immaturas continenti esse licuit. Ib. paucos dies, in tanta hominum turba p. 307. See Robertson's Charles V. fere ulla reperta est supra annum p. 539. See Moehler's Symbolism, decimum quartum quas stuprum pas- p. 430. THE PURITAN CHURCH. 221 declared the pope to be the Antichrist. Catholics and Protestants united in condemning the second struggle of Anabaptism, and, after a short triumph of scarce a year and a half, it was again subdued, and its last prophet, 1535. John Boccold, was put to death in lingering torments. But though the reign of these fanatics was short, it lasted sufficiently long to inspire universal disgust ; and they made so good use of their time, that they rendered the very name by which they were called, harmless enough in itself, a word of indefinable abhorrence for all coming ages. Until religious liberty became familiar to the nations of the earth, they were afterwards to be endured only on sufferance, and, in no case, unless they lived moral lives, and became obedient citizens.1 Though the leaders of this sect were forced to abandon the offen sive tenets of its founders, they continued, for the most part, to be of low origin and of illiterate pursuits. Indeed, they prided themselves on the obscurity of their birth, and so gave rise to the general impression among their followers, that meanness of condition, whether bod ily or mental, is rather a desirable qualification than otherwise for the ambassadors of God.2 A ready exam ple was found in the case of the Apostles, to whom, on occasion, they did not scruple to compare themselves ; forgetting that these holy men were unfitted for their great duties until they had been filled with the Holy Ghost, and given tongues of fire. 1 Some Anabaptists, who wan- 2 Cromwell held this opinion, in dered from Holland into England, common with the Anabaptists, if in the reign of Elizabeth, were seized, we may judge from his acts. Dur and two of them were condemned ing his usurpation, he employed a to the flames, and the rest banished, felon convict to root out the errors That "good old martyrologist," of Popery and Prelacy in Maryland. John Fox, earnestly implored that Wilberforce's History of American the slumbering fires of Smithfield Church. might not be rekindled with new victims, but without avail. 19* 222 INTOLERANCE OF Anabaptists " had been among the planters of Massa chusetts from the beginning,"1 but they had generally excited little notice, and, so long as they continued to conceal their peculiarities, they remained unmolested. With the exception of Roger Williams, who had been thought to favor the Anabaptists, and who is now claimed by this popular sect in the United States as at the same time the teacher of immersion and the champion of relig ious liberty, we learn little of that communion until the year 1640, when it appears " many were inclined that way," and apprehensions were expressed that " the num- 1644. Der Would increase." 2 A few years after, the tenets of Muncer began openly to exhibit themselves, and one man was whipped for refusing to let his child be baptized, bearing his punishment with much fortitude, and " boast ing," afterwards, that " God marvellously assisted him." 3 In the same year, a law was passed, with the approval of the elders, banishing such " incendiaries " from the col ony ; and also providing, that whoever should " openly condemn or oppose the baptizing of infants," or should " purposely depart the congregation at the administration of that ordinance," or should " deny the ordinance of the magistracy, and their lawful authority to make war, and to punish the breaches of the first table," all such persons should, on conviction, suffer the same sentence.4 In the 1645. year following, " many books in defence of Anabaptism " were brought into the colony, and an effort was made, without success, to procure liberty of conscience, and to make Massachusetts " a shelter for a general tolera tion." 5 1 Mather. 3 Hubbard. Winthrop. ¦* Letters of Mr. Hooker, cited 4 Colony Laws. Winthrop. in Hutchinson, vol. i. p. 208, n. 5 Hubbard. Winthrop. Sav. Winthrop. THE PURITAN CHURCH. 223 These stringent regulations for some time quelled the spirit of Anabaptism, which next showed itself in the Colony of Plymouth, in the persons of Obadiah Holmes 1651. and two or three of his companions. They were at once excommunicated by the Pilgrims, and were ordered neither to ordain ministers, nor to baptize, nor to break bread, nor to meet together on Sundays. They soon after wandered into Massachusetts, and were arrested on the Lord's Day, while worshipping God after their own manner. They were immediately forced into the assem bly of the regular congregation by the constable; but, instead of listening with reverence to the services, they put on their hats, and employed their time, during prayer, in reading books. For these insults to the established religion, they were sent prisoners to Boston, where they were tried, and sentenced to pay heavy fines, or to be whipped. Holmes chose to undergo the latter punish ment, in order that he might the better evince his loyalty to the principle of religious liberty; and when, being livid with the bruises of the lash, two or three of his friends took him by the hand in the market-place, and praised God for the fortitude he exhibited during his punishment, they were fined for reverencing that motive in the sufferer which alone rendered him respectable.1 The fate of Holmes and his comrades again put an end, for a time, to any further display of Anabaptism ; and the Quaker persecution, which soon after supervened, opened an ample field to such as were desirous of acquir ing the glory of martyrdom. Only one more sacrifice was made, to gratify the intolerance of the elders, in the person of Henry Dunster, the first President of Harvard 1 Clarke's Narrative. Neal. 224 INTOLERANCE OF College, who was forced to resign his office for denying the validity of infant baptism.1 It was during the period from 1656 to 1662, and while the Ranters were undergoing those inflictions which have rendered them immortal in Massachusetts, that the commonwealth was shaken to its centre by difficulties on the subject of baptism.2 The state was beginning to outgrow the church ; and many freemen were dissatisfied, because their children were excluded from the privileges of Christianity. To answer the exigencies of the times, the elders, as we have seen, began to devise methods whereby the strictness of their usages might be relaxed. But while they were groping in the mazes and mists of an artificial and incomplete system of religion, seeking for some rule to govern, or some analogy to guide, the antagonism of the dormant Anabaptists began to be aroused.3 The grass was green upon the grave of Dun- ster, to whose resting-place the fearful enthusiasts could repair, and, over his ashes, animate each other to declare the purpose that burned within them. Having finally acquired sufficient resolution, " an hon est shoemaker," with a half dozen of his fellows, publicly 1665. announced that their consciences would not suffer them to commune longer with " unbaptized men." They ac cordingly drew off from the congregation of Boston, and met by themselves for public worship.4 The astonish- 1 Dunster appears to have been a ster's successor, Chauncey, was " of man of considerable ability. The the contrary extreme in baptism ; it " pious Mitchel " was so much being his judgment not only to ad- influenced by his reasoning, that he mit infants to baptism, but to wash declared his confidence in Pedobap- or dip them all over." Hubbard. tism was much shaken, and refrained 2 See ante, p. 184. from hearing his sermons, fearing 3 Hubbard. they were prompted by " the Evil 4 Grahame has confounded this One." Mather. See Quincy's His- movement with the wanderings of tory of Harvard University. Dun- Holmes, who came into Massachu- THE PURITAN CHURCH. 225 ment of the elders at this audacity may be easily imag ined. The schismatics were not persons of education, wealth, or note. They were of " the inferior sort," and chose for their spiritual teachers not only the lowest of the people, but even persons excommunicate from the established communion for moral derelictions. A chasm immeasurable at once yawned between the Puritan Church and the sectaries. A few ignorant mechanics had pre sumed to question the divine mission of Puritanism, and to doubt the final salvation of all who had not been im mersed in the waters of baptism.1 But the elders were firm and united against this unex pected rebellion, and, with mingled feelings of pity and contempt, delivered the sectaries over to the civil magis trates. Quakerism, mutilated and disfigured, had just fled to the capacious bosom of Roger Williams, who was now to entertain another guest. In the plenitude of its power, the general court forbade the separation to con tinue, and ordered the Anabaptists to rejoin the established communion. To this command, they pleaded liberty of conscience, the same stirring cry which had been echoed in Great Britain, from the Orkneys to Land's End, against the conforming measures of the Stuarts, and which had given a faint glory to the Puritan emigration. But three thousand miles altered the aspect of freedom, and the elders proclaimed from their pulpits that liberty of conscience was little better than "impious ignorance "2 setts, from Plymouth, fourteen years in building of colleges." "Surely," before. says Hubbard, speaking of a " Wed- 1 The mixture of astonishment derdoped shoemaker," who endeav- and disgust, displayed by the elders ored to defend "the innocency" of on this occasion, was rather ludi- the Anabaptists, " he was not well crous. " Persons of liberal occa- aware of the old adage, ne sutor sion began to reflect," says Mather, ultra crepidam, or else he would not "that if Goodman Such-an-One or have made such botching work." Gaffer Such-an-One, were fit to be 2 Mather. Neal. ministers, we had befooled ourselves 226 INTOLERANCE OF chap. But the sectaries, encouraged by the declaration of the — v — ' royal commissioners, that " liberty should be given to all sorts and sects of men," 1 and who were, at this time, pur suing their unwelcome inquiries in the colonies, persisted in their schism with the usual-obstinacy of ignorance and fanaticism. Unfortunately for their tranquillity, the commissioners, shunned by the magistrates, had no means of enforcing the royal authority ; and, of the Anabaptists, some were flogged, some fined, and others imprisoned, while all that were freemen were disfran chised, and finally banished. Again did this persecution, as in the case of the Quakers, have the opposite effect to that desired. The faction was strengthened, and many 1668. of the principal inhabitants of Boston petitioned the gen eral court in favor of those who had been thus driven from their homes. The elders, however, were not to be moved by public opinion, and the leaders in this unwar rantable act were fined. The noise made by this fresh persecution soon reached England. The principles of religious liberty were there better understood ; 2 and the Owens and the Goodwins addressed a letter to the Governor of Massachusetts, deprecating any further outrages upon the rights of humanity. But this excellent letter made no impression. The prisoners were not released, nor was the execution of the laws suspended.3 Fear, alone, of the royal indig nation, and the long perseverance of the sectaries them selves, wrung from the elders, at last, not an open and 1 Letter of Increase Mather, were, in part, justified by the New Hutchinson, vok i. p. 208, n. England persecutions, and this soon 3 The Dissenters in England roused them, to prevent, if possible, were taught this lesson at much the use of such a weapon against personal inconvenience, nor did they them. See Hutchinson, vol. i. p. derive it from any thing peculiar in 209, n. their own faith. The proceedings 3 Neal. Mather. against them, on the Restoration, THE PURITAN CHURCH. 227 cordial toleration, but a silent and suspicious endurance. Their first meeting-house was erected by stealth,1 and "many honest people were ruined by fines and imprison- pi6.79*. ments," before they gained their point;2 and when, finally, the Anabaptists were left to the quiet enjoyment of their " exorbitances," they became, like the Quakers, utterly insignificant.3 I have thus sketched, in outline, a gloomy picture, Persecu- wherein the whip, the pillory, and the gallows, are exhib- Massacim- ited as weapons of offence in the hands of the elders of tions of the Massachusetts. I have explored the long-silent recesses and of the of the Puritan Inquisition, and repeopled its dungeons England. with the victims of a narrow and austere faith. I have exhibited those great principles of intolerance, which our ancestors recorded in their histories and enrolled among their laws. And, regarded simply in a legal view, it is a startling fact, that every execution was a murder ; every mutilation, a maiming ; every whipping, a battery ; every fine, an extortion ; every disfranchisement, an out rage ; and all were breaches of the charter. There were no laws in England for hanging, or mutilating, or flogging the king's subjects, because they did not profess the Puritan faith ; while, to disfranchise a member of the corporation for any cause unconnected with the objects for which the charter was given, was a clear violation of 1 Snow's History of Boston. It their animosity against them to a was this circumstance that probably late period. When the reforming gave occasion to the law passed the synod was held, in 1679, they attrib- same year, that no meeting-houses uted the general laxity of morals, in should be erected, without license of part, to those " false worshippers," the county court, and, in case the the Quakers and the Anabaptists, law should be transgressed, that all who had risen up " in opposition to such houses, with the land on which the churches of the Lord Jesus." they stood, should be forfeited to the Wherefore, it is concluded that these use of the county. Truth and In- things must necessarily be provoking nocency Defended, p. 102. to God, if they are not duly and 2 Neal. fully testified against. 3 The elders, however, retained 228 INTOLERANCE OF justice and authority.1 Unless, then, we lay aside abstract right and wrong, and disregard the nature of the charter, the liberty of the subject, the supremacy of parliament. the jurisdiction of the royal courts, the authority of the law, and the prerogative of the king, we cannot consider the persecutions of the elders of Massachusetts merely as acts of intolerance. They were, in any proper legal sense, violations of, and crimes against, the laws of Eng land. For the king did not bestow upon the grantees of the charter the power of removing from the kingdom his " loving subjects," in order that they might deprive them of their ears, or their liberties, for refusing to con form to a sectarian religion. Nor was the Familist, or the Quaker, or the Anabaptist, so much to blame as those who perverted a royal and sacred franchise to purposes which were hostile to the best interests of the empire. And, above all, it should be remembered that the Puritan Church is chiefly responsible for the guilt of these proceedings. The state was merely particeps crim- inis. For in all her doubts, and she entertained many as to her authority to act under the charter, she ever applied to the elders for counsel, and the elders uniformly sup ported her claims and removed her indecision.2 Persecu- Before closing this painful subiect, let us compare the tion incon- . . . r. sistentwith practice ot .runtanism in the western world with the 1 The old law was, that no free- that a corporation might remove a man of a corporation could be dis- member for a good cause. Tid- franchised by the act of the corpora- derlefs Case, i Sid. Rep. 14. And tion, unless the charter expressly this good cause was afterwards inter- conferred the power, or it existed preted to be some offence that has by prescription. Bagg's Case, 1 1 an immediate relation to the duties Co. 99, a. It was while the Quak- of the party as corporator. 1 Burn. ers were undergoing persecution in Rep. 517. See 2 Kent's Com. p. Massachusetts, a quarter of a cen- 297. Willcock on Mun. Corp. pp. tury after the banishment of Roger 271, 272. Williams, and twenty years after 2 Winthrop. Hubbard. Mather. the disfranchisement of Mr. Wheel- Neal, etc., etc., passim. wright, that Sir Matthew Hale held THE PURITAN CHURCH. 229 principles it avowed in England. It was the so-called intolerance of the English Church, which led to the establishment of sectarianism in the New World. Were ciaiml0ofed the authors of this movement consistent with their prin- ism.' an~ ciples 1 They, who fled their country to raise a purer altar in the wilderness, ought not to be lightly regarded. If not deserving of praise, they are, at least, entitled to respect, in case sincerity and consistency marked their conduct. For if sincerity does not render an act vir tuous, it strips it of its littleness ; and if consistency does not determine the quality of principles, it affects their fitness for moral action. And why did the fleet of Win throp cast off from the shores of Albion 1 Was it because of persecution 1 No. To suffer in a good cause is noble, but to endure without complaint is heroic. And it is easy to believe that Cotton and Hooker and Wilson would have given an undying glory to Puritanism, had they been called to suffer at the stake. They freighted their ships, not with anathemas against the Church of England, but with that which their posterity have con sidered as the most precious of human rights, liberty of conscience.1 They did not deem it incumbent upon them to conform to superstition and ceremonies, and they quietly bore away with them to other climes the right to think and worship as they pleased. It is this, and this alone, which makes an act, otherwise confessedly illegal, seem even brilliant and meritorious in the eyes of their descendants.2 Alas for the infirmity of human purpose ! There was some color for the proceedings of the courts of the star chamber and high commission. These were 1 Address of the General Court " in awaking the common people to to "The High and Mighty Prince freedom of mind." As a general Charles II.," 1660. Hubbard. rule, the faith and usages of its fol- 2 The avowed advocates of Puri- lowers are scoffed at over their very tanism claim for it no higher mis- graves. sion than that of being the agent 20 230 INTOLERANCE OF CrifP' at ^east Perf°rming a great and important duty to the — v ' church and state. Both prescriptive and statute laws required the unqualified obedience of the subject. It was not the fact, but the manner of presenting the fact, that rendered these high tribunals odious. But what plea could Puritanism offer in defence of persecution ? If Cotton was an Antinomian, if Dunster was an Anabap tist, if Chauncey was a Baptist, if Endecott was a Sep aratist, and Pynchon a heretic ; J if, in short, in the exercise of private judgment, there was exhibited, during the first charter, every shade of opinion concerning the most vital truths, by synods, elders, and magistrates, what pretext can be offered to excuse the persecution of those poor people, who but exercised the same priv ilege % Behold the three great classes of fanatics flying from the icy grasp of Puritanism to the hospitable colony of Roger Williams, himself a castaway. There, notwith standing the thunders of the pulpits of Massachusetts, the forests echoed with the shouts of liberty. Full and perfect freedom of conscience, the motto of the first set- 1663. tiers, afterwards guaranteed by royal charter, invited repose to the outlaw and fugitive.2 What though Roger Williams turned Seeker, after being twice bap tized ! 3 What though dissent revelled in its very wan tonness, until the grand discord deafened the ears of the Massachusetts elders ! 4 There the victims of persecu- 1 In 1650, Pynchon published in condition of the inhabitants of Rhode England a work on the nature of Island, at the close of the seven- redemption, justification, etc., of teenth century, as follows : " A which several copies were burnt in colluvies of Antinomians, Familists, the market-place, in Boston, by the Anabaptists, Anti-Sabbatarians, Ar- public executioner. minians, Socinians, Quakers, Rant- 2 Romanists alone were excepted, ers, and every thing but Roman 3 Hubbard. Mather. Catholics and good Christians." 4 Mather describes the religious THE PURITAN CHURCH. 231 tion could salute each other in safety ; and who will say part that their ravings, unmingled as they were with the dying - — ^-~ imprecations of the red men, were not as acceptable as the sober prayers of the grave Puritans 1 Part III. Mode of conducting the Puritan Missions — Thomas Mayhew — John Eliot — Results of these Missions — Causes of their Failure — The Puritan Church not entitled to the Credit of their Establishment — The Missions in New England contrasted with those of Virginia — With the Jesuit Missions in New France. The religious system of Massachusetts could not have claimed a missionary character. Even with their own countrymen, the Puritans were so rigorous that many were driven from their communion; and their peculiar views " exceedingly hindered the conversion of the poor pagans. God, in great mercy, having opened a door in these last times to a new world of reasonable creatures, for this end, above all, that the gospel might be preached to them, the principles and the practice of the Independ ents doth cross this blessed hope. What have they to do with those that are without 1 Their pastors preach not for conversion ! Of all that ever crossed the American seas, they are noted as most neglectful of this work." 2 In this reproach all emigrants of "the reformed relig ion " shared more or less, whether English, Scotch, French, or Dutch. Their " going thither was to small purpose for converting " the Indians.2 Send me some 1 Baylie's Errors of the Time, 2 Humble Petition to Parliament. p. 6o. Hazard, vol. i. p. 529. The States 232 the puritan church missionaries, wrote Philip Bell, Governor of Barba does, to John Winthrop, Governor of Massachusetts. 1643. My government is distracted by the turbulent practices of the Familists, who have sprung up here, and I earnestly desire some godly ministers, and other good people. Winthrop imparted this request to the elders, " but none would go thither." 2 Send us some ministers, wrote " sundry well-disposed people " of Virginia, nearly at the same time ; and the elders of Massachusetts, ever ready to show their zeal against the Church, " set a day apart in which to seek God," and despatched into Virginia three of their number, "which might most easily be spared." 2 The charter of the colony declared, as we have seen, that the principal object of the franchise was the winning of the natives of the country to a true knowledge of the Christian faith. It was not enough to pervert this royal grant ; for sixteen years, the conver sion of the natives continued a matter of the utmost indifference to the elders of Massachusetts Bay. They seemed to consider their religion as a peculiar system of salvation, set apart by Providence for the elect, and not intended for heretics, blasphemers, or heathen. As for the red men, they were castaways ; their worship was devil-worship, and their deity was Satan.3 In this way alone can we account for the extraordinary indifference they manifested towards the Indians.4 This was the General of Holland granted a char- 1 Winthrop. ter to the West India Company, 2 Winthrop. Hubbard. These which, though it gave a monopoly intruders upon the church were or- of trade on the African Coast, from dered to depart from Virginia upon the Tropic of Cancer to the Cape such a day, since they went thither of Good Hope, and, on the Ameri- not to do good, but to create trouble can, from the Straits of Magellan among churchmen. to " the remotest north," made not 3 Mather. the slightest allusion to, or provision 4 Johnson mentions that Wilson, for, the conversion of the savages, at the first coming of the English, See the Charter, Hazard, vol. i. p. visited their sick, and instructed 121. others, as they were capable to un- IN ITS MISSIONARY ASPECT. 233 reason why even Cotton himself so soon forgot the part advice he gave to the departing Pilgrims of the West. ¦ — ^ " Lastly," he said, " offend not the poor natives, but, as x you partake in their land, so make them partakers of your precious faith ; as you reap their temporals, so feed them with your spirituals ; win them to the love of Christ for whom Christ died." x Feeling as they did towards the aborigines of New England, the Pilgrim Puritans had little success in their feeble missionary efforts. Their spiritual labors among the natives, though well meant, produced nothing worthy of a divine and vital religious system. They commenced at the wrong end.2. To civilize these chil dren of the forest, to teach them to dig and to wear hats, and their women to spin and make bread, to exchange the religion of nature for cold abstractions, was only to degrade them. Metamora, clad in his wild regalia, at the head of his braves on the hunting-path, or presiding over the deliberations of his old men at the council-fire, was every inch the embodiment of a rude and savage royalty. But Metamora, with close-cropped hair and steeple-crowned hat, with mustache, ruff, and hose, would be a mere mountebank. To denationalize the red men at once, was to demoralize them. The ill success of the Puritan missionary may be traced not only to the falsity of his religion, but also to that ignorant zeal, which would turn the hunting-paths of the Indian into streets and squares, and convert his wigwams into houses. derstand him. But he seems soon 2 If Christianity be of such vital to have tired of his labors, for the importance, asked the natives, how historian immediately adds, that does it happen that, for twenty-six "very little was done that way." years, the English have said nothing 1 "God's Promise to His Planta- to us about it ? Hutchinson, vol. i. tion." See N. E. Hist, and Geneal. p. 150. Reg. Ap. 1848, p. 151. 20* 234 THE PURITAN CHURCH Mode of conduct-]ing the Puritanmissions. But the red man, though heathen, was not licentious. His morality in peace was more conspicuous than his cruelty in war. "Nothing unclean or filthy, like the heathen's feasts of Bacchus and Venus, was ever heard of amongst any of them." a His very religion, though incomplete, was gentle and harmonious. It was the religion of Nature. He saw the Great Spirit in all his glorious works, and they furnished him with an adequate ritual. And he, too, could find language in which to express his adoration of the mysterious God ; not invisi ble, for had he not expressed himself in flowers, in streams of running water, in the lightning and the tem pest1?2 He could worship and praise as well as his white brothers ; for the voice of Nature sounded fresh in his ears, and he echoed her truths in strains of glorious elo quence. But, with all this, he was heathen ; for revelation had not yet disclosed to him the harmony of her awful voice. His soul was yet dark, like his skin. The origin of mankind was traced by this simple-hearted people to " a man and woman, made by their great God, of stone, which, upon a dislike, he broke to pieces, and made another man and woman of a tree, which were the foun tains of all mankind."3 In such a condition, was this interesting people thrown, by God's Providence, upon the mercy of the Puritan elders. In reviewing the early missions of Massachusetts, it is necessary that we should regard the manner in which they were conducted, as well as the results obtained, in order to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion. It was in 1 Hubbard. appropriated, and so infused itself into 2 To the savage, " divinity was the heart of remotest tribes, that it broken, as it were, into an infinite came to be after considered as a por- number of fragments ; " yet faith in tion of their original faith." See the one Great Spirit, " when once Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 286. presented, was promptly seized and 3 Mather. IN ITS MISSIONARY ASPECT. 235 the year 1643, that " the gentle Mayhew," in the island part of Martha's Vineyard, broke ground, as the first Puritan - — A-- missionary in New England.1 He commenced his labors Mayhew. under peculiar advantages. By the zeal of a pious father, who obtained from the Earl of Stirling a grant of the 1641. islands of Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, and the Eliza beth Islands, a small settlement was formed, and the son 1642. was established as its minister.2 But "not feeling easy that his labors were confined to a handful of English," he studied the language of the natives, and commenced the arduous task of instructing them, in their own tongue, concerning the truths of revelation. One convert was easily made. Hiacoomes forsook the powwows of his 1643. tribe, and acknowledged himself a soldier of the cross. But here, for a time, Mayhew was forced to rest content. The savage is as sensitive to ridicule as the denizen of the town ; and all the other Indians " set up a great laughter " at their apostate countryman.3 Hiacoomes bore their insults with much fortitude, and was soon rewarded. A general sickness soon after swept over the 1645. island ; and " it was observed by the Indians, that they that did but give the hearing to good counsel did not taste so deeply of it," while he whom they had scoffed at as an Englishman entirely escaped its ravages.4 Hia coomes now became as a prophet to his tribe. He was sent for by the chief, to disclose to him " all that he knew and did in the ways of God." This interview was productive of fortunate results for 1 The Commissioners of the Unit- the Province Charter, and the elder ed Colonies, in writing to the Cor- Mayhew was governor as well as poration, in September, 1663, award proprietor of them. the honor of priority to Mayhew. 3 Mayhew's Letter to the Society See Hazard, vol. ii. p. 473. for Propagating the Gospel among 2 See Hutchinson, vol. i. p. 151, the Indians, 165 1, (quoted by Neal.) n. These islands were not in the Hubbard. jurisdiction of Massachusetts until i Neal. Hubbard. 236 THE PURITAN CHURCH Mayhew. The Indian chief began to reflect, whether the one great God of the English was not better than the thirty-seven deities acknowledged by his tribe, who had not preserved them from sickness. He desired May hew to visit him, and told him that " many years ago his people bad wise men, who taught them knowledge, but that these were dead, and their wisdom was buried with them ; and now the Indians lived in ignorance till they were whiteheaded, and descended without wisdom to their graves." He then requested Mayhew to fill the place left vacant by the deceased sages of his tribe. The eager missionary seized upon this occasion with joy, and, though opposed by all the powwows of the island, he established a little congregation of worshippers. He preached, he prayed, he sung psalms, and answered questions. " His talent lay in a sweet and affable way of conversation," by which he won the affections of his wild converts, and exercised great control over their passions.1 He did not attempt to interfere with the municipal regulations of the Indians, nor to break up the relation existing between sachem and subject. He allayed the jealousy of the chiefs, by the declaration that, in no event, would the English exercise any control over their people ; and he set an example of industry and obedience to the tribe, by laboring with his own hands for the support of his family.2 The force of example was irresistible. The red men might not have comprehended the cold abstractions of Puritanism, but they felt and valued the fruits of pious integrity. They would open their ears to the impossible dogmas of the preacher, because they beheld the golden 1650. life of the man. The Indians flocked to Mayhew by 1 Neal. Hubbard. Mather. a Whitfield's Collection of Let ters, cited in Neal. IN ITS MISSIONARY ASPECT. 237 whole families, and in one day fifty adults embraced the Puritan faith. While the elders and magistrates of Mas sachusetts were humbling the Narragansetts, by force of arms and cunningly-devised treaties, the solitary mission ary on Martha's Vineyard was endeavoring to elevate the condition of the natives, by imparting to them a knowl edge of the Gospel. His labors were crowded with signal success; and to him has been ascribed, by the Puritan historians, the glory of having produced "the greatest appearance of any saving work amongst any" of the abo rigines.1 The island was " in a manner leavened," with the principles of religion, when Mayhew, the first and most successful Puritan missionary in New England, sailed for 1657. his native country, and was never heard of more. He left behind him a name which his beloved proteges could never hear without emotion ; and let it be considered the fault of a defective religious system rather than his own, that Christianity, except in name, did not long linger, after his decease, in the islands of Cape Cod.2 The example of Mayhew may have had some effect John Eliot. upon the character of John Eliot. This zealous teacher was but a follower in the path of the former, and, perhaps, was roused to the work before him by observing, with mor tification, how brightly the labors of Mayhew, young in years and experience, contrasted with the apathy of the elders of Massachusetts. Having, after " indefatigable 1646. pains," acquired some knowledge of the Indian dialects,3 Eliot, at last, in the autumn of the year, assumed the office 1 Hubbard. Mather. Neal, etc. berforce's Hist, of Amer. Church. 2 Ibid. Bancroft. Thus, the expression, 3 The principal difficulty in ac- "Take away, Lord, my stony heart," quiring a mastery of the Indian became, in the Indian dialect, "Ama- tongues was in understanding their naomen, Jehovah, tahassen metagh." habit of clustering together, into So, " The day of asking questions," one word, the separate ideas, which, was, in Indian, " Natootomakteache- in the languages of civilization, are suck." Moore's Life of Eliot. expressed by distinct words. Wil- 238 THE PURITAN CHURCH of a missionary among the neighboring Indians of Rox bury. His first act was prophetic of failure. Instead of going into their forests and among their wigwams, and preparing their minds for spiritual truths, by showing to them the fading glory of the material world, a party of savages was conducted into a large apartment, or wigwam, where he plunged at once into the mysteries and ceremo nies of the Jewish law. He followed up this discourse by an account of our blessed Saviour, and how he would one day judge the world in a flaming fire. In the course of three hours, he had touched upon the creation of man, his fall, the greatness of God, the joys of heaven, the torments of hell, the necessity of repentance, and the advantages of a spiritual life ; to use his own expression, he "ran through all the principal matters of religion."1 The same thing was repeated a few days after, and, when the sermon was finished, some curious questions were put bv his wondering hearers, showing the effect of such appeals to the spiritual nature of the untutored savage. Can an old man, like me, so near death, repent 1 asked one, terrified at the prospect of the burning hell so glowingly described by Eliot. How, asked another and younger Indian, does it happen that sea water is salt and river water fresh 1 If, said a third, the water is higher than the earth, why does it not overflow all the earth 1 2 This company formed the nucleus of the Indian mis sions of Massachusetts. Eliot was untiring in his zeal, 1647. and, in the following year, had persuaded a small number to forsake " devil-worship," and to acknowledge the true God.3 So far, his system did not materially differ from that of Mayhew. But he soon planned that unhappy l Moore's Life of Eliot. 3 Hubbard. Neal. Mather. 2 Neal. Daybreaking of the Gos pel in New England. IN ITS MISSIONARY ASPECT. 239 scheme, which, more than any thing else, served to embitter the Indian chiefs against the tenets of Puritan ism. He determined to separate the wheat from the chaff, and not only to make his neophytes Christians, but to teach them the habits of civilization. For this pur pose, it was necessary to withdraw his converts from the allegiance they owed to their natural sovereigns. He applied to the general court for a grant of land, which, May. having obtained, he named Nonantum, or Rejoicing, and • there collected his little company. He drew up for them a simple code of laws, wherein they bound themselves to forsake the customs of the forest, and to till the ground instead of following the chase. In the same month, the general court extended its jurisdiction over them, and established for their benefit courts of justice, which before had been unneeded.1 Another small company of Indians soon followed the example of those of Nonantum, and established at Con cord a second community of Christian Indians. They abandoned powwowing, gave up howling, and greasing their bodies, and agreed to pray to the true God, and say grace before and after meat. These were the foundations laid by Eliot, on which he hoped to erect a structure that should rival the proudest achievements of Rome. A year had scarcely elapsed since he commenced his arduous work, and his converts, though few in number, seemed zealous and sincere. Their flexible limbs were growing accustomed to the shovel, the mattock, and the crow-bar ; and the hum of the spinning-wheel might have been heard in many a family, which had been famil iar only with the sound of the whoop. " Clear Sunshine of the Gospel upon the Indians " rapidly followed its 1 Clear Sunshine of the Gospel ther. Neal. Hutchinson. Colony upon the Indians. Hubbard. Ma- Laws. 1649. 240 THE PURITAN CHURCH " Daybreak." 1 The fame of Eliot and Mayhew was carried to England, and the parliament of that distracted country, but a short time after it had murdered its sov- Juiy. ereign, gave " glory to God for the beginning of. so glorious a propagation," and established a corporation in England for " furthering the work." 2 Collections were taken, by authority, in all the parishes in England, which produced a sum sufficient for an annual income, and which was dispensed by the greatest enemies the red men had, the Commissioners for the United Colonies.3 Eliot was now animated to increased exertions. Puri tanism spread along the banks of the Charles, and soon the praying Indians were strong enough to build a town 1651. for themselves, seventeen miles west of Boston, at Natick, or The Place of Hills. They laid out their new abode into three long streets, with house lots on both sides; and they had their rulers of tens, of fifties, and of hun dreds, according to the plan proposed by Jethro to Moses.4 But triumphs such as these related only to the l "Daybreak" was published in land. Neal. Mather. Hubbard. London, in 1647, and "Clear Sun- They subscribed the following cov- shine," at the same place, in the fol- enant: "We are the sons of Adam; lowing year. we and our forefathers have a long 2 Neal. Hutchinson. Hazard, time been lost in our sins, but now vol. i. p. 635. the mercy of the Lord beginneth to 3 Ibid. Hugh Peters, says Hutch- find us out again; therefore, the inson, was one of the collectors ; grace of Christ helping us, we do but the Corporation wrote to the give ourselves and our children unto Commissioners, that he not only re- God, to be his people. He shall fused to pay a penny himself, but rule us in all our affairs. The Lord discouraged others. See Hutchin- is our Judge, the Lord is our Law- son, vol. i. p. 155, n. Some writers giver, the Lord is our King. He have ascribed it to the influence of will save us, and the wisdom which Hugh Peters that the Pilgrim Puri- God has taught us in his book shall tans so neglected the spiritual wants guide us. O ! Jehovah ! teach us of the Indians. See 1 Mass. Hist, wisdom ; send thy Spirit into our Coll. vol. vi. p. 253. Eliot's Biog. hearts; take us to be thy people, Diet. p. 376. The Calendar News- and let us take thee to be our God." paper, Hartford, June 5, 1847. See Dunton's Mem. 2 Mass. Hist. 4 Manifestation of the Further Coll. vol. ii. p. 1 14. Progress of the Gospel in New Eng- IN ITS MISSIONARY ASPECT. ' 241 instincts of the savage, and the missionary longed for complete evidence of a growth in spiritual life. He had succeeded in breaking up powwowing among his followers, but few or none had exhibited signs of "true conver sion." What, then, must have been his joy, when, in the presence of an imposing assembly of the elders and magistrates of Massachusetts, fourteen or fifteen of the praying Indians made public profession of the Puritan 1652. faith]1 His highest ambition was yet to be gratified. The little band, that had thus avowed the deepest repent ance for their past sins, were still excluded from the ordinances of baptism and the Lord's Supper, by the scruples of their rigid audience. Further trials of their faith were thought necessary ; and it was not until eight years after, that Eliot, " being commissioned by his church 1660. in Roxbury," first baptized forty of the Natick Indians, and, when they had joined in the covenant, administered to them the Lord's Supper.2 Thus, this ardent missionary ushered into life the eldest offspring of his severe labors. Besides Natick, there were fourteen other towns, averaging fifty souls, who professed the God of the Christians ; and when King Philip's war broke out, there were eleven hundred In- 1674. dians who " yielded obedience to the Gospel." 3 But the Indian society at Natick continued dear as an only child, to the close of his life. Here he first administered to the Indians the communion of the Lord's Supper. He fed them not only with sermons, but with primers, cate- 1 Mr. Eliot noted these confes- 3 Gookin's Hist. Acct. of In- sions, and published them in 1653, dians. These towns were in Stough- under the title, " Tears of Repent- ton, Grafton, Marlborough, Tewks- ance." bury, Littleton, Hopkinton, Oxford, 2 Neal. Ten years after, the Woodstock, Worcester, Sterling, and number of communicants had not Uxbridge. reached fifty. Gookin's Hist. Acct. of Indians. 21 242 THE PURITAN CHURCH chisms, and other compositions, which he from time to time translated into the uncouth dialect of the Indians. 1664. And the crowning glory of his life was giving to his flock, in their own tongue, the Holy Bible ; a book which, by reason of private judgment, has puzzled the great and the learned, has been the means of shedding torrents of human blood, and which has torn the Chris tian world into shapeless fragments.1 Eliot lived to see some of his neophytes exercising ministerial functions; and his declining years were cheered by the strange spec tacle of the red hunters of the West discoursing in the Puritan pulpits upon the highest mysteries of the Chris tian religion.2 Results of While Mayhew and Eliot were proclaiming "glad these mis- .-..„... . , . T • i r> sions. tidings in their respective colonies, Leverich, .bourne, and others, commenced the same work in Plymouth, and Fitch and Pierson in Connecticut.3 As the results of all these efforts, there were, towards the close of the sev- 1687. enteenth century, in the whole of New England, but six Indian societies, regularly organized, and in communion with the established church.4 The number of catechu mens, or Indians in training, was much larger ; but these were more fond of the allurements of civilization than the mortification of those appetites which their new mode of life had called into active play. Such were the New England missions in their palmiest days. Their decline, hastened as it was by the shock received by the wars of King Philip, during which many praying towns 1 The Roman Catholics prepared 3 n0 Indian society was ever for the aborigines of Mexico twenty- gathered in Connecticut; some few four dictionaries and forty-five gram- were converted, but, in general, they mars. Thomas's Hist, of Printing, manifested great repugnance to the p. 193. Coit'sHist. of the Puritans, Blue Law Religion. Trumbull. P- 5 '5- 4 Letter of Increase Mather, cited 2 Mather. Neal. Hubbard. in Neal. Mather. IN ITS MISSIONARY ASPECT. 243 were entirely broken up, proved more rapid than their rise. The Indian converts found themselves neither happier nor wiser in their new condition. They were hated by their own race, and were despised and treated as inferiors by the whites.1 So little confidence did the people generally have in the praying Indians, that, during the wars above alluded to, it was openly threatened to slaughter them in cold blood. Gookin and Danforth, who protected them in this emergency, excited popular odium. " Some generous spirits " formed secret societies in Boston, to plot for their destruction ; and placards were posted about the streets, warning them to 1675. prepare for death.2 So long as the missionaries continued their zeal, they were able to maintain, in the hearts of the converted Indians, a doubtful enthusiasm. But, after' the death of Eliot, they soon grew weary of the fruitless task of endeavoring, by moral training, to eradicate those instincts which had been developing for centuries. The ardor of the missionaries, in consequence, declined, and the praying Indians were left more to themselves. A rapid decay of industry and morality was at once per ceptible among them ; and, before the dawn of the eighteenth century, their numbers were on the decrease.3 1695. Those that remained were, for the most part, " poor, ragged, mean, and contemptible." Not only did all efforts fail to train successfully the Indian youth for the " ministry," because of " their slothfulness and love of strong liquors," but the natives were " unable even to support a ministry." 4 So fond were they of spirituous 1 " From their color and other as equals." A candid admission qualities," says Grahame, " even from this writer. •when kindly treated, they were re- 2 See N. E. Hist. Gen. Reg. garded with little respect by the April, 1849, p. 125. white colonists, who considered them 3 Neal. rather as children and inferiors than 4 The " native preachers," some- 244 THE PURITAN CHURCH liquors, that they would sell all they possessed to procure them. To this vice, they added slothfulness. " They observed, indeed, one part of the fourth commandment, to keep holy the Sabbath day ; but they neglected the other, six days shalt thou labor."1 "There is a cloud, a dark cloud, upon the work of the Gospel upon the poor Indians," were the last words of the self-denying Eliot.2 Well might he thus say, in the spirit of prophecy. 1721. Thirty-one years after his death, not a trace of the " Indian Church " remained at Natick ; and the curious inquirer, who at that time visited " The Place of Hills," entered upon his record, that, " after the most diligent inquiry and research, he could find no records of any thing referring to the former church in Natick, nor who were the members of it, or baptized." 3 Causes of A more signal failure than these missions exhibited ure. has seldom been recorded. When we consider that the number of Indians destroyed in Massachusetts and Con necticut, by the votaries of Puritanism, has been esti mated at upwards of one hundred and eighty thousand,4 and that twelve thousand is a large estimate for the number, including catechumens, that acknowledged Chris tianity, we are dismayed at the result, and are led to inquire the cause of facts so startling. The melancholy times mentioned by the Puritan and, during twenty-nine years of writers, were not regularly licensed ministry, he admitted to his society ministers, but a sort of nondescript, thirty-five Indians. After his death, between schoolmasters and Sunday- little more attention was paid to school teachers. them, and, in 1822, one solitary de- 1 Mather. Neal. The Puritan scendant of Eliot's disciples walked writers mention it as a great tri- the streets of Natick. umph, that one Indian youth sue- 4 Hist, of Conn, cited in Wil- ceeded in obtaining a bachelor's berforce's Hist, of Amer. Church. degree at Harvard College. It was, Three thousand is the largest num- I believe, a solitary case. ber given, by the contemporary writ- 2 Moore's Life of Eliot. Ma- ers, of the praying Indians in their ther. best days, including catechumens, 3 Peabody. See Moore's Life of women, and children. Eliot. Mr. P. commenced de novo, IN ITS MISSIONARY ASPECT. 245 fruits of the Puritan missions, as exhibited by the pray ing Indians, reveal at once the secret of their ill success. They appealed to the spiritual nature of the savages alone. They attempted, at one blow, to substitute the ideal for the actual. A picture, a cross, the simplest work of art, would have aided their cause. But elec tion, justification by faith, and sanctification, were the constant themes of their discourse, and were never com prehended by the. savage. They considered him, from the first, as utterly and wholly fallen.1 The two great deities of the Indians were Kiehtan, the Good Being, and Hobomacko, or Abomacho, the Evil Being ; and because, finding more of pain. and evil in this life than good, they deprecated the ill-will of the Evil Being, the Puritans wrongfully ascribed to them devil-worship, and endeavored to substitute one invisible for another by abstract reasoning. To all this, their hearers gave an involuntary assent. Many converts continued to believe in the gods they formerly served, declaring them to be spirits of great power, and subordinate only to the God of the Christians. When threatened with " witch craft," by their powwows, for abandoning the religion of their fathers, some recanted ; while others replied, " We do not deny your power, but we serve a greater God, who is so much above your deities that he can defend us from them, and even enable us to trample upon them 1 The Commissioners of the Unit- before they were admitted to the ed Colonies intimated doubts to Mr. Eucharist. The possession of these Eliot of the full success of his labors, coveted articles had more influence so early as 1651 ; and, in 1655, they over their minds than all the horrors plainly declared to him that many of Paganism, and, at last, the evil of his converts proved " loose and became so apparent, that the com- false." Previously, they had, at his missioners interfered to check this request, distributed among the most novel mode of conversion, fearing zealous of his converts guns, pow- the consequences of placing arms in der, and shot, and they were thus the hands of so many doubtful con- taught the use of the musket long verts. See Haz. vol. ii. pp. 125,332. 21* 246 THE PURITAN CHURCH all."1 Such was the spiritual condition of the disci ples of Eliot and Mayhew, with perhaps a few rare exceptions. Another grand obstacle in the way of success was the force of example.2 The Indians saw but little unity among the Puritan Christians. They beheld, that while many of them differed as to the nature of religion, the stronger party in power would frequently determine the difference by the application of the whip, by imprison ments, banishments, and sometimes death. " We value not your Gospel, which shows so many roads to God," said some Connecticut Indians ; " some of them must be crooked, and lead to the Evil Spirit." These, and other kindred reasons, are amply sufficient to account for the deplorable condition of the praying Indians. But they will scarce explain the deadly hatred manifested by the true Indian patriot to the religion and life of the Puritans. The missions scarcely extended beyond the squalid groups who inhabited the woods near Boston, and the timid, isolated tribes that dwelt upon the islands of Cape Cod. Why was it that the great clans of the interior preferred, until the last, the howling dance of their powwows to the pulpit displays of the Puritan elders 1 The reason is obvious. It was not because of the abstractions of the Puritan religion, for of these they knew little or nothing; but because the independence of their several races, their habits, which they loved better than life, their lands, their sim ple glories, all vanished, like the morning dew, before 1 Neal. Mather. spirituous liquors ; by them the In- 2 Grahame has the assurance to dians were defrauded of their lands ; say, that the character and habits of and they filled up the ranks of those the lay colonists promoted the pious godly troops that slaughtered them exertions of the missionaries. From by tribes. them the Indians learned to love IN ITS MISSIONARY ASPECT. 247 the progress of a grasping and selfish system. The part missions were tainted with fraud and injustice. Eliot's ' — » — ' system was based on a species of treason, which, if he had practised towards the subjects of a civilized nation, would have rendered his life a just forfeit to the laws. His neophytes were taught a total disregard of all honor and fealty. If the sachems remonstrated with the mis sionary, and prohibited him from shaking the fidelity of their subjects, the reply was : " I am about the work of the great God, and my God is with me ; so that I fear neither you, nor all the sachems in the country ; I will go on, and do you touch me if you dare." x To become a Christian, he made it necessary to become a traitor.2 Where did the Puritan State procure its spies] Where its bloodhounds T Where its most effective auxiliaries in the patriotic struggle of King Philip 1 3 From the Christian town of Natick, where the psalm was sung, the sermon preached, and the prayer offered. No wonder " the Indian princes " complained that their converted subjects no longer paid tribute as for merly.4 No wonder that, when Eliot made " a tender of everlasting salvation " to King Philip, " the monster entertained it with contempt, and, taking a button from the coat of the reverend man, added, that he cared for his Gospel just as much as he cared for that button."5 1 Moore's Life of Eliot. See New England First Fruits, 1643, 2 See Hazard, vol. ii. p. 316. p. 7, by Mr. Shepherd. 3 Wequash was the first praying 4 Neal. Indian in Massachusetts. He guided 5 Mather. The spirit displayed the English forces against his tribe, by this writer seems sometimes to the Pequods, and was struck with contrast singularly with what one such admiration at the victory gained might expect from a minister of over them by the English, that he Christ. On relating the anecdote embraced the Christian religion, in the text, he adds, for the comfort This simple wretch owed his " change of his readers, that his own hand, of heart " to deeds that cannot be upon some occasion, " took off the thought of without a shudder. Neal. jaw from the exposed skull of that blasphemous leviathan." 24<8 THE PURITAN CHURCH chap. What need was there to translate the Bible into a dialect, ^~j-~> which the cruelty of its teachers was soon to make one of the dead languages of the earth 1 Until the grave closed over the last warrior, or the last chief had, from the deck of the slave-ship, bid the shores of New England farewell forever, the Pequods, the Narragansetts, the Wampanoags, and the Mohegans nourished a deadly hatred towards the religion of New England. The final words, uttered by the remnants of these tribes, as recorded by the historian, breathe the same spirit. One of the last sachems of a branch of the Nar ragansetts said to a missionary, in the beginning of the eighteenth century, who desired " to preach the Gospel " to his people, "go and make the English good first." He objected, further, that some of the English kept Saturday, others Sunday, and others no day at all for the worship of God, so that he did not know which was the true religion. Some said that the Indians who professed Christianity frequently left the English, and joined with their enemies ; which they would not do, if it were so excellent a thing as was pretended. Others said that they could not see that men were the better for being Christians ; for the English would defraud the Indians of their lands, and wrong them in other ways; and that their knowledge of books did but make them more cunning to cheat the simple.1 On the whole, those who pride themselves on their Puritan origin have good reason to blush for the missionary schemes of their ancestors. It does not appear that Christianity, as taught by them to the Indians, ennobled their characters, increased their sense of honor, or added to their self-respect. We find, in the extravagant relations of the Puritan writers, no pray- l Neal. IN ITS MISSIONARY ASPECT. 249 ing Indian who excites our sympathies as does King part Philip, who, true to the principles of his fathers, refused < — ^ the Puritan Gospel, and afterwards repudiated Puritan friendship. God only knows if he was wrong in so doing. A merciful Judge will consider the nature of his provocation. The labors of Eliot and Mayhew, unfortunate as were The Puri- their results, redeemed the Puritan communion from dis- not entitled grace. Yet it must be remembered that, while the latter it of these ii • -ii li-ii t • ut missions. had no connection with the established rehgion of Mas sachusetts, the efforts of both were voluntary and spon taneous. Eliot, as well as Mayhew, " began his work unpatronized."1 These zealous missionaries were not sent into the field by the elders or magistrates of Massachu setts ; they entered upon their labors on their own respon sibility, and the missions were supported, almost entirely, by funds from England. It is true that the general court, in 1646, passed an order to encourage the "hope ful work " among the Indians, and recommended the . subject to the attention of the elders ; but it does not appear that any thing was done in consequence, beyond granting the unhappy catechumens a tract of land.2 The Puritan Church maintained a profound indifference to the work, except as a subject of curiosity. The credit of supporting missionaries among the Indians is due to the Society for Propagating the Gospel. And though their charter was vacated on the accession of Charles II., they 1 Moore's Life of Eliot. English were jealous of the praying 2 An order passed the general Indians, and would have destroyed court, in May 26, 1647, to give them, had not Gookin and Eliot Eliot ten pounds, as a gratuity for prevented it. They had no confi- instructing the Indians in the knowl- dence in them, and appeared to be edge of God. This would seem to utterly indifferent to their welfare. show that he was not employed by Gookin's Hist. Acct. of Indians. the general court. In 1675, when Mass. Hist. Col. vol. i. King Philip's war broke out, the 250 THE PURITAN CHURCH obtained a new one from the king, with further priv ileges, and, while New England continued subject to the mother country, chose commissioners therein, to oversee the work and to distribute the charities.1 It may here lfi56. be mentioned, that expressions of surprise were often manifested by the society, that so few were engaged in this important work ; and the generous remittances made by its members to the order of the commissioners, were often accompanied with hints of the imputations under which the colonies labored in England.2 Perhaps the surprise would have been less, if they had known that the very year in which the commissioners were excusing themselves from such charges, they commended to the general courts of the several colonies the propriety of providing " mastiffe dogs," to be made use of against the Indians, in case of any disturbance with them.3 In the 1657. following year, the commissioners themselves complained that there was " much want of meet and pious instru ments to carry on the work."4 The reasons of the failure of the Puritan Missions have been briefly pointed out; and candor now demands that the system of Eliot be l These commissioners were, un- the small allowance he received from til the forfeiture of the charter, the the commissioners. Hazard, vol. ii. commissioners ofthe United Colo- pp. 21 r, 332. Mr. Peters "told nies -, afterwards, they were private Mr. Winslow in plain terms that the gentlemen of wealth or standing. work was but a cheat." In 1657, the 2 There is good reason to think, society rebuked the commissioners for from Randolph's Letters, in Hutch- paying the missionaries in commo- inson's Collection of Papers, that dities of native growth, instead of the funds of the society were not money, or goods in kind, according faithfully administered. So, in the to the price they cost in England. Records of the Commissioners of the Hazard, vol. ii. p. 375. Down to the United Colonies, it is painfully evident time of Gov. Hutchinson, mission- that the funds collected in England aries were supported among the were, in part, at least, expended in Indians, notwithstanding the utter arms and ammunition for the benefit failure of having produced any rad- of the colonies. See Hazard, vol. ical change or good effect. Hutch- ii. p. 298. That this was done to inson, vol. i. p. 155, n. the detriment of the mission, may 3 Hazard, vol. ii. p. 359. be gathered from the fact, that Mr. * Ibid. p. 371. Eliot repeatedly made complaint of IN ITS MISSIONARY ASPECT. 251 contrasted with other religious systems having the same end in view. In Virginia was established a mission of the Anglican The mis- Church ; and the question may be asked, what was done New Eng- there for the eternal welfare of the aborigines "? Manv lasted ... , i , i i • , . , with those expeditions had. been made to this country during the of Virginia. reign of Elizabeth, in all of which, " compassion of poor infidels," and " the honor of God," were conspicuous objects. But the charter of James I. established a per manent settlement in that fertile territory; and it was 160G- expressly ordered therein, that the worship of God should be conducted "according to the rite and doctrines of the Church of England, not only in the said colonies, but also, as much as might be, amongst the savages border ing upon them ; and that all persons should kindly treat the heathen in those parts, and. use all proper means to draw them to the true service and knowledge of God."1 And these were the principles upon which the settle ment was formed. The Indians were treated with kind ness and friendship. The corporation impressed upon its governors the importance of using "all probable means of bringing over the natives to the knowledge of God and his true religion; to which purpose, the example given by the English, in their own persons and families, will be of singular and chief moment." 2 But the mis sionaries made the mistake of the Puritans of New England, in endeavoring to eradicate at once that wild love of liberty, which was as hereditary with the Indian as the color of his skin. Instead of assuming the habits of the forest, and adopting the customs of the wilderness, they endeavored to civilize, at the same time that they converted them. As civilized men, they could be but 1 Stith, b. ii. 2 Ibid. b. iv. p. 210. 252 THE PURITAN CHURCH inferior ; and, as inferior, they must be degraded.1 Yet one illustrious example stands out, in these mission ary annals of Virginia, whose memorable act of hero ism adorns the history of that ancient commonwealth. Almost the first savage baptized into the Anglican Church was the heathen princess, Pocahontas. Did Whitaker, when he performed that touching ceremony, from a rude font, " hewn hollow, like a canoe," from the trunk of a tree, foresee that God would place upon it the seal of his approbation, and that the lapse of two centuries would find her blood in the veins of distinguished members of the church he was then founding 1 2 Proceeding on wrong, yet generous principles, the efforts of the Virginia Company were directed towards colleges and cultivation, rather than that happy blending of religion and nature which the Jesuits only accom plished. It is impossible to judge how far they would have been successful. The interests of the company conflicted with the duties of the church, and the alarm of the aborigines began to be roused by the rapid absorp tion of their lands. Civilization was snatching from them the empire of the forest, and the cavaliers of the Old World disdained to mingle their blood with that of the sachems of the New.3 Thus their territories were gradually passing away from their posterity forever, and who could say whether their children would dwell upon the fertile shores of Chesapeake Bay"? An Indian coa lition, formed for the deadliest purposes, proved how deeply the natives felt the insult to their race. The English Church had to learn the lesson, that, if she 1 See Stith, b. iv. p. 195. and they were "painfully stung "by 2 Hawk's Mem. of the Church the disdain with which the English in Virginia. Bancroft. treated their advances for such inter- 3 The destiny of Pocahontas had marriages. Beverly. Grahame. roused the ambition of the savages, IN ITS MISSIONARY ASPECT. 253 would improve the savage, she must stoop and accom- part modate herself to his rugged nature. Her labors of ' — ^ love were succeeded by a war of extermination ; and the colonists of Jamestown, who, in the infancy of their settlement, had been preserved from starvation by the generous donations of the Indians, were now obliged, having provoked their deadly hatred, to resort to an exter minating war. The failure of the Anglican Church is attributable, not to pride or indifference, not to a pharisa- ical spirit, which regarded God's ignorant creatures as the peculiar property of Satan ; but rather to the thought less pride of civilization, together with the fact that, for the first time using her limbs, after being cramped for centuries, she knew not her own power, and lacked the great art which experience alone can supply.1 Rome, the peculiar bugbear of Puritanism, was des- The Jes- . . . . uit mis- tiued to be preeminent in the missionary labors of the sions in New World. It may be worth while to pause a moment, France. and examine whether the red men had most cause to be grateful to the followers of Calvin or to the disciples of Loyola. Pure Romanism was, perhaps, never exhibited more gracefully than in the French and English settlements of the New World. Here, the fagot never burned, and the only inquisition used was one of mercy. The inquiry was not, are you a heretic, but are you a sinner. Not, are you rich, but are you poor. Not, whether you have scoffed at bits of the true cross, or ridiculed the sacred pomp of high mass, but are you willing to learn of that cross, and to glorify the Divine Man who suffered thereon 1 The English missions in the tanism, as exhibited in the Sandwich East Indies and the Pacific Islands Islands. It is to be hoped that her fully show what the Anglican Church missionaries will soon have courage can do, and present a pleasing con- to penetrate the vast territories of trast to the.wretched results of Puri- the Hudson's Bay Company. 22 254 THE PURITAN church for all mankind. Such was the spirit of Romanism in the forests of North America ! Such the flame that burned in the hearts of this zealous priesthood ! _>"'J The self-denial1 and the success of the Roman mis sionaries in New France are alike remarkable. Long before the May Flower entered Massachusetts Bay, the Franciscans had commenced their sacred labors on the coasts of Maine ; side by side, the cross and the fleur- de-lis moved into the wilderness, marching not to the sound of the drum, but to the solemn tones of the Gre gorian chant. The Jesuits, succeeding the Franciscans, carried on the holy work, unchecked by snows, or for ests, or torrents, until, within a few years, the vast basin of the St. Lawrence, from Quebec to Lake Supe rior, was dotted with rude chapels, in which the sacred wafer, " all that the church offered to the princes and nobles of Europe, was shared with the humblest savage neophytes." 2 And, five years before Eliot, the Indian apostle of New England, had commenced his labors among the neighboring tribes of Boston, the cross of the Gallican Church overlooked the valley of the Missis sippi.3 The order of Jesus had revived the magic of an apostolic age. 1 While the Puritan missionaries came to new and strange tribes, and received salaries, which, at this day, found that, years before, tbe Jesuits would be considered generous, and had preceded him in that wilderness. never abandoned the comfortable Traditions of the black robe still residences of civilization to penetrate lingered among the Indians. On the forest, the Roman priest com- some moss-grown tree, the wild menced his labor as one of self- hunter deciphered, carved side by denial. Eliot received fifty pounds side on its trunk, the emblem of our as missionary, also his salary as min- salvation and the lilies of the Bour- lster of his society, besides gratuities bons." Kip's Jesuit Missions. from private sources. See Hazard, Such was the jealousy and hatred vol. n. pp. 313, 314, 303. with which the Puritans viewed Bancroft. these missions, that they made it 3 " In the western wilds, they more meritorious to slay the con- were the earliest pioneers of civiliza- verts of Rome than the " devil wor- tion and faith. The adventurous shippers " of the woods. See Hutch- traveller, penetrating the forests, inson, vol. i. p. 158, n. IN ITS MISSIONARY ASPECT. 255 It is not difficult to discover the secret of this match less series of triumphs. The object of the Jesuit was to civilize, through the softening effects of religion ; of the Puritan, to make religious through the moral power of civilization. So, while the latter commenced his task by the forcible expulsion of the instincts and habits of the savage ; the other, conforming to his outward life, pos sessed himself of that key to all human action, the heart. The Indian proselyte loved the Jesuit. He felt towards him none of that awe that Puritanism was calculated to inspire. The man of learning, the scholar, and the gentleman became as a brother to the children of the wilderness.1 He lived in their wigwams, smoked their pipes, and ate of their venison.2 He shared their hardships, and sympathized with their joys. In a word, acting upon the apostolic rule, " with the weak he became as weak, in order that he might gain the weak." 3 Can we wonder that Rome succeeded, and that Geneva failed'? 'Is it strange that " the tawny pagans," " the rabid wolves," " the grim salvages," 4 fled from the icy em brace of Puritanism, and took refuge in the arms of the priest and Jesuit ] 5 But it is not alone because the Jesuit adopted the Indian habits, and became as one of the tribe he was proselyt ing, that he was blessed with success. This but fur nished him with his moral lever. Instead of demolishing 1 " Many of them were men * Such are some of the expres- who had stood high in courts and sions used by the Puritan writers camps." Kip's Jesuit Missions, concerning the Indians. " The priests went into their coun- 5 Eliot himself was aware of the try, and dwelt among them ; suffered importance of the missionaries' ac- them to retain their old customs, commodating themselves to the hab- and conformed to them themselves." its of the Indians ; and, for this Hutchinson. purpose, endeavored to train up 2 Colden's Five Nations, vol. i. Indian preachers, a scheme which p. 6o. miserably failed. Moore's Life of 3 i Corinthians, ch. ix. Eliot, p. 76. 256 the puritan church the natural religion of the Indians, he directed its energy, and inspired it with an object. In his eyes, it was the rough block, which he was to chisel into life and beauty. Nature furnished him with materials; it was his business to produce the image. And, with true knowledge of the world and the human heart, he saw that the savages, possessing uncultivated intellects, could only be thoroughly impressed through the medium of their senses. Accustomed, as they had been, to the greatness of the material world, they could not at once become spiritual in their aspirations.1 He therefore charmed them with the fascinating powers of music,2 and took extraordinary pains in the embellishment of the church and the altar. Fragrant woods of the forest furnished materials, which his own ingenuity carved into seraphs and saints. Fields, which had never been broken by the plough, surrendered to his pious exertions wild flowers and evergreens. Sweet-smelling gums exuded from trees, "which spread an odor equally agreeable with" that of incense."3 Simple Art and more simple Nature combined to decorate the log-built temple ; and the rays of the morning sun, pouring through the window of the little chancel, both gilded and sanctified the holy work. The Indians felt that the place was sacred ; that the Great Spirit, though everywhere present in his creations, 1 The Puritan made no allow- the intractable savages who inhabited ance for the simplicity of a nature that country, without any weapon that had been removed forages from but a lute, and, when he began to the influences of civilization. He chant In voi credo o Dio mio, men steeped the Indian at once in meta- and women gathered around him in physics, and was astonished to find silence. that, in this dyeing process, the leo- 3 Letter of Father Marest to pard did not change his spots. Father Germon, in Kip's Jesuit Mis- 2 De Maistre alludes to a singular sions. The Indians of Virginia had instance of the effect of music upon a singular custom of burning tobacco the savage, mentioned by Father in their sacred fires, which they sup- Salvaterra, who has been called the posed acceptable to their deity. apostle of California. He visited Stith. IN ITS MISSIONARY ASPECT. 257 was peculiarly present here, Invisible and Holy; and that the cross, which was the seal of baptism and the sign of devotion, which was symbolized in every moment of danger or deliverance, on lying down and on rising up, which sparkled in every constellation of the heavens, was indeed a holy emblem, significant of the Great Sacri fice, made far away in that eastern land, from which they derived light both for body and soul. In this way, the Jesuits " succeeded in teaching European virtues, and not teaching European vices."1 The earliest bulls of the popes, in reference to the New World, speak chiefly of the importance of converting the barbarous nations residing therein. With some excep- ! tions, the Church of Rome has, on the whole, won for j itself a new name in the New Hemisphere. Her enemies ! have admitted the singular success of her priesthood, in bringing over to the Christian Faith the mysterious abori gines of America. Wherever she has planted her foot, she has first planted the cross. While Protestants have eagerly sought for good trading-posts, she has more wisely looked for the best sites for churches./ Surely, with her mighty accumulation of relics and superstitions, the dusty shreds of a dozen centuries, with her aggressions and usurpations, her maxims and her infallibilities, she has yet found a short and simple road to the heathen heart.2 1 British Review, October, 1844. of an Indian chief, "she might have Every reflecting Protestant will ad- been of their faith." Mather. Bishop mit, continues the writer, that Pop- Berkeley, speaking in this connection, ery and priestcraft are elements of says: "Our reformed planters might less immediate destructiveness than learn from the Church of Rome, grooved rifles and gin ; and that the with respect to the natives and their Jesuits may be excused for introduc- slaves, how it is their interest and ing Romanism, where no other Eu- duty to behave. Both the French ropean had introduced any thing but and Spaniards take care to instruct the smallpox. both natives and negroes in the Pop- 2 "Had the English been as care- ish religion, to the reproach of those ful to instruct her in their religion who profess a better." Wilberforce as the French were," said the wife Amer. Church. 22* 258 THE PURITAN CHURCH. Let all honor, then, be paid to the memory of the Jesuit missionaries in America. By their devotion, their suffer ings, their Christian martyrdoms, they have done much to cleanse the escutcheon of their order from the many stains which disfigure it. They have set a noble example to their fellow-laborers in God's vineyard. They have illustrated, by their lives, the force of that thrilling com mand, " Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel , , , to every creature ; " and the promise, which accompa nied the command, was faithfully kept in every instance. Though " most of them were martyrs to their faith," 2 God was with them in all their sufferings and trials, and their deaths were scenes of peaceful triumph. But the monuments of their labors are fast passing away. Where are the Hurons, the Mohawks, and the Abenakisl Where are the mighty war-chiefs of the Five Nations \ The sun shines upon their graves-; their tomahawks are forever buried; the fire of their calumets forever extin guished. The wild forests of America no longer resound with hymns to the Virgin, chanted in languages unknown to civilization. The little bell of the chapel no more rings matins and even-song by the shore of the inland lake. They have all fled, and with them has fled away the glory of the Jesuit missions.2 But, wherever history is read, the names of Brebeuf and Jogues, Raymbault, Rasles, Marquette, Joliet, and Lallemand, shall be men- 1 Kip's Jesuit Missions. " Ibo et came from these Indians, who had non redibo," was the farewell of the learned it of their masters forty heart, if not always uttered in words, years before, although, from that when these pious men departed on time, they had enjoyed no kind of their distant expeditions. instruction. This curious fact is 2 There has been found lately, on given in the Mercure de prance, an island in the Penobscot, a colony 1806, and is mentioned in De of savages, who still chant a great Maistre's Essay on the Generative number of pious and instructive can- Principles of Human Government, tides, in Indian, to the music of the translated in 1847, by a gentleman church. One of the most beautiful of Boston. airs in use in the church in Boston IN ITS MISSIONARY ASPECT. 259 \ tioned with honor; and, wherever the Catholic faith is promulgated, these heroes shall have what they never sought, an earthly immortality. I cannot forbear inserting here, slightly altered, a beautiful tribute to these missionaries, from a noble countryman of their own.1 " These pacific conquerors, whom antiquity would have deified, have alone done what the civil power had not even dared to imagine. They alone have traversed the vast continent of America, in order to create there men." " They have preached in islands that none but Anson's crew ever heard of, and taught in tongues that no philosopher can understand." 2 " But the spirit of the eighteenth century, and another spirit, its accomplice, have possessed the power of .stifling, in part, the voice of justice, and even that of admiration. At some future day, perhaps, in the heart of an opulent city, founded on some old savannah, the father of these missionaries will have a statue. One may read on the pedestal : — TO THE CHRISTIAN OSIRIS. Whose Envoys have traversed the Earth, To pluck Men from Misery, From Brutishness, and Ferocity ; By teaching them Agriculture, By giving them Laws, By imparting to them the Knowledge and Service of God ; Thus taming the Hapless Savage, Not by Force of Arms, Of which they never had Need, But by Mild Persuasion, and Moral Songs, And the Power of Hymns, Insomuch that they were thought to be Angels." 1 De Maistre. 2 British Review, Oct. 1844. CHAPTER IV. THE ELDERS CONSPIRE AGAINST THE CROWN. Part I. The Elders and Magistrates feel the Insecurity of Puritanism in Massachu setts, in consequence of its Illegality — Freeman's Oath — The Cross of St. George removed from the English Flag — The Civil Wars — The Long Parliament encourages the Trade of Massachusetts, and enlists 'the Puritan State in its Cause — Massachusetts openly renounces her Alle giance to King Charles — Acknowledges that she is represented in Par liament by the Knights and Burgesses of the Manor of East Greenwich — Makes it a Capital Offence to side with Charles, and sends Soldiers to join the English Rebels — Confederates with the other New England Colonies — Objects sought by this Union — Frustrated by Parliament — Parliament asserts Authority over the Colonies, by attacking their Trade — Massachusetts ordered to surrender her Charter — Petitions Parlia ment and Cromwell — Considers herself an Ally of Cromwell only — Effect of Cromwell's Death — Massachusetts refuses to acknowledge Charles II. — Reaction in the Colony — The Elders and Magistrates dissatisfied with the Answer of the King. We are now prepared to grapple with facts which will uncover the policy of our ancestors and show where that bold and restless spirit resided which aimed at nothing short of independence. For the people of the Puritan State are not in the first instance chargeable with the sin of conspiracy ; and it was not until treason became the familiar language of the pulpit, that they learned to pro nounce anathemas against their lawful sovereign. THE ELDERS CONSPIRE AGAINST THE CROWN. 261 I have already had occasion, in a former chapter, to part consider the opposition offered by the elders and magis- ¦ — * — ' trates to the visitation of their franchise. Conscious that and magis- trfltGS fcGl the establishment of Puritanism in Massachusetts was the inse- unlawful from the beginning, and that " the surreptitious " Puritan- 1-11 1 ill c ii 'sm m ^as_ manner in which the charter had been transferred would sacimsetts, . . in conse- not bear the examination of the laws, thev resisted, and, quence of . » 'its illegal- for the time, successfully, the royal demand, that the ity- franchise should undergo the scrutiny of the king's bench. And this was the underpinning of the Puritan State. It had no better security than the rottenness of its foundation. It has been shown that the charter provided for the due administration of the oaths of supremacy and alle giance "to all and every person unu persons," who should at any time leave England, under the auspices of the company, to inhabit their plantations.1 In accordance with this provision, the first oaths of the company were framed, when to be one of its freemen meant simply to be a partaker of its legitimate franchise.2 It would have been a dangerous proceeding to have discussed the forma tion of a separate allegiance while in England ; and, indeed, until the transfer took place, there was no neces sity for such a measure. The company then stood in no antagonism to the king. It had nothing to fear from his 1 The oath of allegiance had they were denied the privileges of been administered upwards of five freemen by the general court, is hundred years ; the oath of suprem- the following remarkable language : acy was principally intended as a "We therefore desire that civil lib- renunciation ofthe authority of the erty and freedom be forthwith granted pope. See Blackstone Com. vol. i. to all truly English, without impos- p. 368. ing upon them any oaths or cove- 2 Not only does the preamble of nants, which cannot be warranted by the freeman's oath, framed after the the letters-patent, and seem not to transfer, admit the existence of concur with the oath of allegiance another oath, which had been used formerly enforced on all." New in England, but in the remonstrance England's Jonas. of Maverick, Child, et al., because 262 THE ELDERS CONSPIRE justice, or to protect from his claims. The use of the privileges he granted had reference entirely to the pecu niary prosperity of the corporators, a few among whom cherished a sincere desire to benefit the Indians. It was their interest, as well as their duty, to continue obe dient subjects. But when the principles of Puritanism were infused into the company, and the charter was transferred, the case was entirely altered. The corpo rators had now both a civil and religious system to pro tect from the vengeance of the law. Had these polities been really conferred by patent, they would have had no fears for their safety. It was the usurpation that created the doubt.1 Freeman's And now the alarm of insecuritv had hardlv been oath- • 11 V given, when measures were adopted for " consolidating their institutions," and making resistance.2 It was one 1634. year after the arrival of Cotton from England, and the same year in which was issued the royal commission to the Archbishop of Canterbury and others, for regulating the plantations, that a new freeman's oath was framed, suited to the novel position of the infant state. The one formerly in use was wholly inadequate to and insufficient for their new relations to each other and to the king.3 Allegiance to their own commonwealth was to be the great principle lisped by childhood and whispered by old age. Accordingly, " it was ordered that the former oath of freemen should be revoked," and that those who had 1 It should be remembered, that freeman was obliged to pledge his the word freeman, so often used in allegiance, not to King Charles, but the charter, is a legal and not a to Massachusetts. political term. To be free of a 3 See this oath in N. E. Hist. company, means simply to be enti- Gen. Reg. vol. iii. p. 89. The sim- tled to its corporate privileges. pie terms in which it is couched are 2 Bancroft. It was in this view, in strong contrast with the forcible says this writer, that the freeman's terms of the one which super- oath was appointed, by which every seded it. AGAINST THE CROWN. 263 taken it should stand no further bound thereby, than was consistent with the one substituted in its stead.1 This preamble was a significant introduction to the oath. " I do swear, by the great and dreadful name of the living God, that I will be faithful and true to this common wealth, that I will endeavor to maintain and preserve all its liberties and its privileges, that I will not plot or prac tise evil against it, nor consent that others shall do so ; and, moreover, I do bind myself in the sight of God, that when I shall be called to give my voice touching any matter, I will give my vote as I shall judge in mine own conscience will best conduce to the public weal of the body, without respect of persons, or favor of any man. So help me God in the Lord Jesus Christ." Such was the oath, the first fruits of the printing-press in New England, which, supported by the covenant, enabled the colony to strive successfully against the mother country for half a century. Under its operation the government was all powerful, and the weaker party, however oppressed, dared not threaten an appeal to the king, since such an act was construed into perjury and high treason.2 Writs and legal processes were issued, not in the king's name, but in the name of the common wealth ; and every monument was removed which could remind the freeman that he was not the citizen of a 1 Col. Laws, Appendix, p. 712. said that the government " was not 2 Bancroft. In 1645, a Mr. Hub- more than a corporation in Eng- bard, of Hingham, an elder who land," and that the magistrates had was "reported to be of a Presbyte- no power to put men to death by rial spirit," and, consequently, " was virtue of the patent, nor " to do other not approved of by the elders," was things that they did." For this speech fined one hundred pounds, for peti- he was tried, and the jury found that, tioning the general court. When having taken the oath of fidelity, he the marshal was sent to collect the was guilty of contempt and sedition, fine, Hubbard pronounced his war- fyc. New England's Jonas. Win- rant insufficient, because it was not throp. Hubbard. issued in his Majesty's name ; and he 264 THE ELDERS CONSPIRE chap, sovereign state, but only a member of an English cor- ^-y — - poration. The cross Not the least remarkable of these significant acts was George the alteration of the English ensign. While the elders removed ,, . . by the el- and magistrates were " sternly preparing to resist the ders from ° , i . 1 i the English r0yal authority, by moulding the transferred corporation into a complete and organized state, Roger Williams was preaching at Salem that the cross in the king's October, colors ought to be taken away,- " as a relic of Antichris tian superstition." The misguided zeal of Williams, who was actuated by fanaticism alone, had its effect, at last, on Endecott, the former governor of the plantation, who, with his own hands, tore the offensive symbol from the national ensign.1 At this period, when complaints were so bitter against the colony, and fears were enter tained that a general governor would be sent over, the publicity of the act was considered highly impolitic. The elders and magistrates fell, much uneasbifss, since they feared it would strengthen those proofs of their dis loyalty, which were already before the privy council, and thus be productive of serious consequences.2 To prevent this catastrophe, active measures were taken. They immediately wrote to the agent of the colony in Eng land, disavowing the act, "yet with as much wariness as they might, being doubtful of the lawful use of the cross." The nature of Endecott's offence, which came November, up before the court of assistants, was deferred until the l Sav. Winthrop. Hubbard. Gra- tive a quarter of the room bestowed hame, in relating this fact, calls the by his prototype, Winthrop, and leav- cross a crucifix. If their colors had ing out the most important facts. borne a crucifix, no doubt Endecott's Hubbard, however, was laboring in act would have been excusable, even his work under the unpleasant task in Lambeth Palace. 0f endeavoring to reconcile the prac- 2 Hubbard slurs over this singular tices ofthe Puritans with the princi- business in an equally singular man- pies of loyalty. ner : scarcely devoting to the narra- AGAINST THE CROWN. 265 meeting of the next general court, and, in the mean part time, a convocation of the elders was assembled, to an- > — * — swer these two questions, viz : whether, in case a gen- januar'r. eral governor should be sent over, they ought to receive him ; and whether it was lawful to carry the cross in the banners of the commonwealth. To the former of these questions the elders returned a negative answer ; saying it was the duty of the colonists to defend their lawful possessions if they were able, " otherwise to avoid or protract ; " but, " for the matter of the cross, they were divided." These opinions led the magistrates and depu ties " to hasten their fortifications," and, at the next court, Endecott was called up to answer for his offence. March. A majority, however, could not be obtained to condemn the act, and the cause was a second time deferred ; it being ordered, in the mean time, that " all the ensigns should be laid aside." : When the court again met, Endecott's case came up May. for the last time, " and a committee was chosen, to con sider of the offence, and the censure due to it." After a short conference, they reported that he had been guilty of ¦ rash and imprudent conduct, in not asking the advice of the court ; that he had been guilty of uncharitableness, in that, judging the cross to be a sin, he had confined his exertions for its removal to the town of Salem, and had not endeavored to provide for the purification of the other towns in the commonwealth ; that he had laid a blemish upon his fellow-magistrates, " as if they would suffer idolatry ; " and that, by his impolitic zeal, he had given the king occasion to question the loyalty of the colony. 1 Mr. Hooker was one of the tract on the subject, which contained elders who defended the use of the " a temperate censure of Endecott." cross in the ensign, and wrote a Sav. Winthrop. 23 266 THE ELDERS CONSPIRE chap. They therefore adjudged him worthy of admonition, and • — ¦,¦ — - sentenced him to be disabled from holding office for the term of one year.1 But the mutilation of the royal ensign started an important question, which could not be disposed of as easily as Mr. Endecott. What was to be done with the cross in the colors of the commonwealth ] The magis trates were willing to strike it from the flag, though anxious that it should be done in such a manner as not to attract the notice of the crown. But the measure was obnoxious to many of the people who had not yet lost their feelings of loyalty, and with whom the banner con secrated the cross, if not the cross the banner. The point was much debated by the members of the court, and it was even proposed to adopt the red and white roses, which, in former times, had distinguished the rival houses of York and Lancaster. It was a hazardous step ; but the adoption of the emblems of the Plantage- nets would at least serve, in some degree, to remove the suspicions, which the alteration of the national ensign • was calculated to rouse. Until the elders, however, had agreed among themselves, nothing could be determined ; and, as they had promised to write to their friends in England and obtain their advice, the court for the time adjourned the decision of the question, it being first incul cated upon every member " to deal with his neighbors, and to still their minds who stood so stiff' for the cross."2 The answers received by the elders seem to have been favorable to their wishes ; and when the court met, a few months after, it was ordered that all the military companies should discard the cross, and that " the king's 1 Sav. Winthrop. 2 Ibid. AGAINST THE CROWN. 267 arms," as a badge that this was private property of the part crown, should be placed, instead of the national colors, in — y — Castle Island.1 Massachusetts was making rapid strides towards inde- The civil pendence. While the king was vainly endeavoring to bring the charter that had been perverted before a legal tribunal, her agents were evading the royal demands, and her elders were promoting popular disloyalty. With her freeman's oath, her separate colors, her republican pulpits, her tyrannical oligarchy, and her bigoted people, she employed a series of bold and unequivocal stratagems, which showed that she considered herself bound to the mother country by the loosest ties. In the foreign rela tions of their commonwealth, magistrates and freemen alike took their cue from the elders. The former were bound to them by a community of interests, and the latter by the powerful operation of the covenant. All orders in the state respected them, as their wisest coun sellors and ablest men ; and the goodman who trem bled in his very slumbers, under the drowsy influence of a " painful preacher," deferred with a like submission to his godly monitions in questions of law and politics ; and the elders, ever active and zealous, successfully bearded their sovereigns, and bore the rising commonwealth on their stalwart shoulders, over tribes of slaughtered men, through the entanglements of political intrigue, in courts, in camps, and in the wilderness, crushing alike reptile 1 Savage says that he has never to fire upon him, he " hung out the met with the answers returned, and English colors, which they perceiv- we can only judge what they were ing shot the more violently, shooting by the final action on the question, the colors many times through and An amusing instance of the manner through." Simplicitie's Defence. in which the soldiers soon learned to " They disliked the cross in the regard the royal ensign occurred in banner as much as the people of the case of Samuel Gorton, see ante, Paris the lilies of the Bourbons, and p. 199. When the soldiers began for similar reasons." Bancroft. March. 268 THE ELDERS CONSPIRE and flower, until the last of that famous band of pilgrims had sunk into the grave. 1640. The Long Parliament commenced its session, an event which was as auspicious to New England as it was omin ous to the king. No sooner were these tidings known in Massachusetts, than the general court, " expecting 1641. great revolutions," despatched two elders and a deputy to England.1 It would naturally be supposed that they who had, but three years before, concluded a petition to the lords commissioners with their " earnest prayers to the King of kings for the long life and prosperity of his sacred majesty and his royal family," 2 would be, in the adversity of their sovereign, anxious to assure him of their undoubted attachment and loyalty ; and now, that the throne was in danger, would rally around it with such influence and ability as they possessed. Not so the fact. The instructions given to the agents were to negotiate for the interests of the colony, and " to further the work of reformation there which was now like to be attempted." But they were enjoined not to put the colony under the protection of parliament, since such a movement would make Massachusetts subject to its laws, which "might prove very prejudicial."3 At the same time a law was passed, ordering that no person should take any oath of " a public and civil nature," but 1 Hutchinson. Sav. Winthrop. written in 1779, wherein the gov- The notorious Hugh Peters was ernor quotes this fact as a triumph- one of these agents, and the others ant proof that the colony denied the were Thomas Weld and William right of parliament to legislate for Hibbins. her benefit. This bold assertion of 2 Hutchinson, vol. i. Appendix, the worthy governor, however, is p- 444- founded in ignorance ; and the con- 3 Savage takes pains to give a text shows that Massachusetts thus note on this passage in Winthrop's instructed her agents, because she Journal, in which he mentions a " expected great revolutions," and letter of the late Governor Trum- because parliament is no parliament bull to Baron van der Capellan, without the king be irresponsible. AGAINST THE CROWN. 269 such as was prescribed by the general court.1 Such was the salutation received by the unfortunate Charles from his "loving subjects" in New England. They had not a word of encouragement, not an expression of sympathy. They assured him, in the day of his strength and pride, that they were a people worthy of his favor and pro tection.2 Was Charles wrong when he doubted their professions 1 It will be remembered that the charter of the com- The Long r , . . c • i -i Parliament pany, tor the special encouragement ot its trade, remitted encourages ii l r l l ¦ r i 'he trade of all taxes upon the property or the plantation tor the Massachu- e j i in i setts' and space or seven years, and also remitted all customs and enlists the i • i • i • f Puritan duties upon their exports and imports, to and from any state in the cause. port of the British Channel, for the space of twenty-one years, excepting the five per cent, due upon their goods and merchandise, according to the ancient trade of mer- , chants. The agents of Massachusetts were so successful in their mission, that they obtained an ordinance of par- 1642. liament congratulating the colony that it was " likely to prove very happy for propagating the gospel " in the New World,3 and discharging the goods that should be exported from England to the colony, to be there used, or the natural products of the colony that should be imported thence into England, from paying any custom, subsidy, or taxation whatever, either inward or out ward.4 In return for these favors, Massachusetts boldly threw 1 Colony Laws. 3 Not a missionary had yet opened 2 Humble Petition to the Right his lips. Honorable the Lords Commissioners 4 Such was the commercial aspect for Foreign Plantations. Hutchin- Massachusetts was already assuming, son, vol. i. Appendix, p. 442. The that in 1641, while her agents were New England Colonies enjoy the in England, the general court passed unenviable distinction of having been laws for the encouragement of ship the only settlements in America who building. Colony Laws. deserted their sovereign. 23* March. 2/0 THE ELDERS CONSPIRE chap, off all disguise, and ardently embraced the parliamentary — -^ cause. The elders and magistrates, in pulpit and forum, setteopen- disseminated the seeds of rebellion. The oaths of office cUherau formerly administered to the governor and magistrates to^King6 were altered ; and, because " he had violated the privileges of parliament, made war upon the legislature, and thereby lost a good part of his kingdom and many of his sub jects," it was thought best to omit that they should swear to bear true faith and allegiance to their sovereign.1 In Old England, their agents were active in forwarding the rebellion, by "stirring up the war and driving it on;" and a committee, in behalf of Massachusetts, sat every Saturday at Cooper's Hall, for promoting this diabolical treason.2 Massachu- One little episode alone interrupted the pleasing har- knowledges mony now established between the parliament and Mas- knights sachusetts, which exhibited plainly the swelling hopes of gessesof the latter. A colonial commission, established in 1643, the manor . , 1 of East with powers of a most arbitrary and treasonable nature, Greenwich J dorepre- was authorized, under a parliamentary ordinance, to seize sent her in J -r» • i ti parliament, all vessels bound to or from the ports of Bristol, Barn stable, or Dartmouth, in any port or creek, which were supposed to be hostile to the parliamentary cause. In 1644. the year following, an armed ship from London arrived at Boston, and, finding in her harbor a Bristol ship, bound for Bilboa, seized upon her as lawful capture and prize. The seizure of this property, which belonged to persons of the king's party, created a tumult among the " bold malignants," who were, in consequence, confined, by orders of the governor. But it was deemed necessary that the point should be settled, whether such an act was not an infringement of the patent, and, therefore, illegal. 1 Sav. Winthrop. 2 Chalmers's Annals, p. 172. July. AGAINST THE CROWN. 271 This question was brought before an assembly of elders part and magistrates, then sitting at Salem ; and the major- -~-y^< ity1 of both orders declared that the government ought not to interfere, for the following reasons, viz : because this act could be no precedent for any real aggressions upon their liberty by any " foreign power," since parlia ment had taught them that salus populi is suprema lex ; because if they should, by their interference, offend par liament, they would become a prey to all men, since they had forsaken the king; because they could not legally deny the ppwer of parliament in this case, since in all privileged places, where the king's writs had no force,2 parliament might exercise its authority by its right of representation, and as they held their lands as of the manor of East Greenwich, the knights and bur gesses for that manor did represent her in parliament ; 8 because, if parliament should thereafter be of a "malig nant spirit," they could make use of the " salus populi " to withstand its authority ; because, if they should now oppose the authority of parliament they would set a bad example to the Virginian and West Indian Colonies, con firm them in their rebellious course, and so grieve their godly friends in England ; and, finally, because if any of the Puritans suffered by the seizure, it could not be doubted but that parliament would redress their losses.4 In this ingenious manner Massachusetts preserved the 1 A majority only, however. Some ment by Massachusetts that she was of the elders, less cautious than the represented in parliament, which is rest, " exhorted the magistrates " a sufficient answer to the letter of from their pulpits " to maintain the Trumbull, before mentioned. Is it people's liberties, which were, they ignorance of this fact that has pre- said, violated by this act." Sav. vented the writers of American his- Winthrop. tory from mentioning it ? The pro- 2 Such as the Counties Palatine, found silence of that prolific anno- the Cinque Ports, the royal fran- tator, Savage, on this fact, in Win- chise of Ely, etc., etc. See Black, throp's Journal, is significant. Com. vol. iii. p. 78. 4 See Sav. Winthrop, vol. ii. p. 3 Here is an express acknowledg- 182. 272 THE ELDERS CONSPIRE chap, protection of parliament, without sacrificing her own •^-v^ independence. She held herself ready, at a moment's a capital warning, on the plea of " salus populi," to throw off to^'ide her dependence on the legislature, as she had renounced Charles, g her allegiance to the king. Nor was this mere empty and sends _- . e her soldiers bravado. " lhe country was put in a posture or war, to English be ready on all occasions." Orders had already been issued by the general court for the manufacture of gun- 1642. powder ; and their fortifications in the harbor were brought, at an expense of several thousand pounds, to such a state of perfection, that no ships could approach Boston without " their good leave and liking." The greatest activity prevailed through the military depart ment of the government ; and, lest any " insolent persons should offer injury to the poor pilgrim people, certain signals of alarums " were established, which could " sud denly spread through the whole country."1 The king's cause was, indeed, marked. To express sympathy for Charles was regarded as an insult to the commonwealth ; to question the lawfulness of the parliamentary proceedings was considered a high misdemeanor. In one case, where the captain of a military company had doubted the propri ety of the war, which parliament was waging against the king, he was only • pardoned because " he had been a useful man,"2 and declared, upon his examination, that " those of the parliament side were the more godly and honest part of the kingdom ; " and that if the king, or any party from him, should attempt any thing against Massachusetts, he should make no scruple of spending life and estate in her defence.3 Still, as the royal cause grew more desperate at home, there were some " malig- 1 Johnson. Prince. Winthrop. 3 Sav. Winthrop. 2 Ensign Jennison, of Pequod memory. AGAINST THE CROWN. 273 nant spirits who began to stir," and to avow their sym- part pathy for the tottering throne. This manifestation of ^~r — sorrow, so natural to those who had not entirely sacrificed 1G45' their love of country, was met by the extraordinary law, that whoever should, by word, writing, or action, en- March. deavor to disturb the peace of the commonwealth, on pretence that they were for the king of England, should be accounted offenders of a high nature, and should suffer death, or otherwise, according to the degree and nature of their offence.1 Nor did the elders and magistrates confine the expression of their sentiments to acts of a negative nature. They " sent over useful men, to do acceptable service," and the ranks of the parliamentary army were swelled by the veteran butchers of the Pequod war.2 Well might Charles say : — " The fiercest furies that do daily tread Upon my grief, my gray, discrowned head, Are they who owe my bounty for their bread." 3 Meanwhile, the elders and magistrates, emboldened by confede- the triumphs of their party at home,4 and by the im- the other punity of the measures they had already adopted, led land Colo- the way in a more ambitious project than had yet been the exam- developed by their policy. In 1641, there were in New united 1 With the king's supremacy was this time, restored the cross to her abolished his legal rights. Escheats colors, " till the state of England went no longer to the crown, but to shall alter the same," which, pro file " public treasury." Col. Laws, ceeds the order, we much desire. " So," Johnson expresses it, "some As this order included the Castle, of the chief worthies of Christ turned it appears that they had even been back to the assistance of parlia- disused there. See Hazard, Hist. ment." Coll. vol. i. p. 554. They were re- 2 Sav. Winthrop. Hutchinson, moved, probably, when Massachu- See Hutchinson, vol. i. App. p. 449. setts renounced its allegiance to the 3 Lines written in Carisbrook king. Castle. Out of respect to parlia- 4 Johnson has it : " Taking into ment, who used the royal flag in consideration the contention begun their treasonable warfare against in our native country." Book ii. their sovereign, Massachusetts, about ch. 23. 274 THE ELDERS CONSPIRE chap. England the following colonies, viz : Plymouth, settled r~» — ' by Brownists, in 1 620 ; Massachusetts, settled by Puri- of Holland tans, in 1628; Providence, settled by the pioneers of Spain. religious liberty, at whose head was Roger Williams, in 1635; New Haven, settled by Puritans from England, in 1687; Connecticut, settled by Puritans from Massa chusetts, in 1636, and organized as a separate jurisdiction in 1641 ; Rhode Island, settled by Antinomians from Massachusetts, in 1637; Piscataqua, now New Hamp shire, settled by fishermen, under the government and patronage of Captain Mason, and several merchants in the West of England, and " swallowed up " x by Massachu setts, in 1641. A settlement also existed in Maine; but this was established under the auspices of Gorges, and, at this time, had nothing in common with the other colonies in New England.2 Of these various colonies, Massachu setts, Plymouth, New Haven, and Connecticut, were alike, in manners, religion, and customs, and though Plymouth was the oldest settlement, Massachusetts was by far the most powerful. She alone had a charter, while the rest were merely voluntary municipal associations ; she alone claimed to be " a state and government," of authority to commission the magistrates of other colonies, and of power to make her decrees respected.3 As for Prov idence and Rhode Island, they were heartily despised by their sister colonies, and, in general, returned this con- 1 This happy expression is in the there, and encouraged the inhab- Index to the first volume of Hutch- itants to submit to their jurisdic- mson. tion." Hutchinson, vol. i. p. 163. 2 It was united to Massachusetts 3 Jn 1635, the general court com- in 1652, and was erected into the missioned several persons " to gov- county of Yorkshire. At this time, era the people of Connecticut," the royalists had nothing to hope before John Winthrop, Jr., had ar- from their bitter enemies ; and, dur- rived from England. In this pro- ing the absence of Gorges, " Massa- ceeding, the court style their colony chusetts, who claimed the Province a state and government. See Haz- of Maine, as within her charter, ard, vol. i. p. 321. took advantage of the confusions AGAINST THE CROWN. 275 tempt by open defiance. Settled by the victims of Puritan tyranny, of every hue and shade, their motley inhabitants at least had this in common, that they ab horred the principles of their persecutors. Within their borders, the eccentric, the crazy, the fanatic, the outcast, and the heathen, found a sure refuge. And, as they differed from their neighbors in religion, so also did they in their laws. For while they claimed, against every power, civil and ecclesiastical, the right to. think for themselves on those points which alone concerned them selves, and expressly agreed " to hold forth liberty of conscience " in the midst of dissension and strife,1 yet, in general, they submitted to the laws and authority of the mother country, setting up no establishments of their own against her supreme power.2 A residence in Holland, with the Brownists, rendered the political union of states, on an offensive and defensive basis, a familiar principle to the minds of many of the leading Pilgrim Puritans. Since the year 1637, antici pated difficulties with the Dutch, their near neighbors, had made the people of Connecticut anxious for a con federacy like that which had annihilated Spanish rule in the lordships of the Netherlands. The feasibility of such an union of the Puritan States in New England was dis cussed for some years, and, at length, articles of alliance, 1643. offensive and defensive, were agreed upon by commis sioners assembled at Boston, and ratified by Massachu- May. setts, New Haven, Connecticut, and Plymouth, in the September. course of the same year. From the proposed benefits of this confederacy, Providence and Rhode Island were jeal ously excluded ; and though all the savage hordes of the wilderness should enter Narragansett Bay in their canoe 1 Hazard, vol. i. p. 465. 2 See Hubbard, p. 336. 276 THE ELDERS CONSPIRE fleets of war, though the air of those feeble settlements should hiss with the flight of tomahawks and fire-arrows, not a musket or praying Indian from the confederacy were they to expect, to help them fight their battles.1 The articles of confederation, which were based upon " the dangers to which the colonies of New England were exposed from domestic and foreign foes,"2 were twelve in number, and were agreed upon both for "preserving and propagating the truth and liberties of the gospel," and for their mutual safety and welfare. They provided that no other jurisdiction should ever be taken in as a distinct head or member of the confederacy, and that, according to the proportionate charges of each colony in any wars, " offensive or defensive," the whole advantage of such wars, if God should bless their endeavors, whether in lands, goods, or persons, should be divided among the United Colonies.3 They further provided for the imme diate assistance of the rest, when either colony was invaded by " any enemy whatever," and this, too, " with out meeting or expostulation ; " and that, upon any dan ger of invasion, a meeting of the commissioners might be summoned by any three magistrates of such plantation so in danger, to take measures to provide against it. The business of the confederacy was to be transacted by eight commissioners, two from each jurisdiction ; and a congress was to meet alternately in the colonies once a year, for the transaction of the public affairs. But it was expressly provided, that the commissioners should be in " church fellowship " with the freemen of Massa chusetts.4 l See Hazard, vol. ii. p. ioo. an absorption of the whole territory 2 Hutchinson. Hazard. of New England. 3 This provision for offensive 4 Neal. Hutchinson. Mather. wars, and a division of lands and Winthrop. The relative strength persons, must have had reference to of the colonies, at this time, can AGAINST THE CROWN. 277 These were the chief provisions of this important part federation. It is unquestionably the most prominent > — r — ¦ event in the history of Massachusetts during the opera- sought* tion of the first charter. The confederation was not for umon? a temporary purpose, but for themselves and " their pos terities." The interests and destinies of a country, com prehending the whole of New England, with its various tribes and nations, were intrusted to a handful of Puri tan magistrates ; and the inference is irresistible, that some object was concealed in its equivocal language, more important than protection against a few tribes of helpless Indians, whom a dozen muskets in the hands of her militia would always readily disperse.1 What, now, was the state of parties in England 1 Were not the king and the parliament both asserting the superiority of important principles, — the one endeavoring to preserve the integrity of the crown and the Catholicity of the Church, that sacred heritage bequeathed by the Tudors to the Stuarts, stripped of foreign usurpations ; the other striving to prostrate the former, and to change the latter into the " beauteous system of Geneva 1 " What chance was there that, in this momentous struggle, two or three insignificant colonies in another hemisphere should be watched and interfered with'? Was not Laud in the Tower 1 Was not Strafford sacrificed 1 Was not the privy council scattered 1 Was not the Church, held only in the unseen hand of God, tottering to its foundations 1 be ascertained from the fact, that, which makes them usually term by the agreement, Massachusetts themselves a state, call the people was to furnish one hundred men, there, subjects, unite four govern- and each of the other colonies ments together, without any author- forty-five men, in case of invasion, ity from the king and parliament, If a greater number were necessary, and then term themselves the United the commissioners were to meet. Colonies," etc. See New England's 1 " High conceits of a nation Jonas Cast Up, etc., p. 21. breeds high thoughts of themselves, 24 278 THE ELDERS CONSPIRE Were not the cannon of Essex menacing, with their deep-toned voices, the very gates of Oxford itself? Surely, the roar of battles, tbe fervent prayers of God's saints, and the loud oaths of "the malignants," would drown the whispers in which was settled the orderly compact of a few quiet Puritans. That Massachusetts had, even at this time, definite and determined notions of independence, it would be rash to assert ; that she had shadowy plans and bright hopes of such a future, it would be equally rash to deny. Did not the commissioners treat with each other as the representatives of independent sovereignties'? Is there throughout the articles one allusion, however faint, to the subordination of New England to the mother country? Did not the articles provide for the mutual defence of the several jurisdictions, not only against domestic but foreign enemies 1 J Did not Massachusetts, little more than a year after the ratification of the arti- 1644. cles of the confederation, enter into a treaty with the lieutenant-general of the French king in Acadia, stipulat- October. ing to observe firm peace with the dependencies of Louis XIV., and referring the ratification of the treaty, not to King Charles, or the parliament, but to the congress of 1648. the commissioners \ 2 Did not the commissioners repeat edly refuse to admit the loyal colony of Rhode Island to the confederacy, unless she first submitted to, and became incorporated with, the jurisdiction of Plymouth'? Did 1649. not the separate states of the confederacy levy customs 1 The meaning of the word " for- ration. So, in the seizure of the eign," in this connection, can only Bristol ship, before referred to, the be gathered from the res gesta. In elders and magistrates, referring to 1646, Child and Maverick, petition- parliament, speak of its commis- ing the general court, complain that sion, or other foreign power. the laws of England are by some 3 See Hazard, vol. i. p. 536, for styled foreign, and the state rather this treaty in the original Latin. a free state than a colony or corpo- AGAINST the crown. 279 and duties upon exports and imports, from and to each other, without the slightest reference to their condition as dependencies of a powerful kingdom % a And, as affairs grew darker in England, did not Massachusetts, begin ning to feel the corrupting influence of trade, by which she had become flooded with the bullion of the rovers of 1651. the Carribean Sea, with a longer stride than she had before taken, make use of that chiefest attribute of sov ereignty, the right of coinage 1 2 These acts, following each other in rapid succession, Frustrated ii- -i -ii byparlia- and keeping pace with events in the mother country, ment. have a deep significance. But, though all sense of loy alty had long since deserted the elders and magistrates, they were not allowed to forget so readily that they owed obedience to the parent state. They suffered their king to perish, without making a single effort for his deliver ance ; 3 and though, during the last ten years of treason and blood, which desecrated the Church and disgraced the nation, they had remained unmolested, they were now to 1 Connecticut, in order to support trade, or impart true dignity to com a-fort at the mouth of the river of merce ; and the best comment that that name, levied a tax upon all can be made on its character is the goods that passed the fort from the fact, that, although large sums were interior, on the ground that the fort coined, the very dates of the coinage protected the country. . Massachu- soon became falsehoods, and that setts, denying the right thus to levy now the coins themselves have so black mail, at the same time re- far disappeared, that specimens can torted by imposing customs on the alone be found on the shelves of the goods of her sister colonies, carried cabinet, side by side with Jewish by her fort in the bay. Hutchinson, shekels and Roman denarii. The vol. i. p. 145. Hazard, vol. ii. p. original date of the coin was 1652, 141. and, as large sums continued to be 2 Is it not a curious destiny that coined, the same date was used, for orders the price of blood ? The the obvious reason, that this act of ore, which the aborigines of Mexico sovereignty would not be so readily dug from the sides of the Cordille- discovered on its repetition. ras, stained by their blood and tears, 3 Even those of the inhabitants which was torn from the clutch of who disapproved of the " great the dying Spaniard by the bucca- act" of the regicides, regarded it neer, was illegally coined into money as the error of noble and generous by the pious and thrifty Puritan, minds. Grahame. Such a currency could never ennoble 280 THE ELDERS CONSPIRE chap, learn that the long arm of imperial power could easily ' — » — ' reach out and stay their progress. For them the morti fication was reserved of seeing those commissioners, who had fondly hoped one day to sit in diet like the represen tatives of the United Provinces, dwindle into the factors of the Society for Propagating the Gospel.1 Parliament A year had elapsed from the death of Charles the thority First, and Virginia, true to the principles of the Church, colonies, by acknowledged the fugitive prince, his son, as her lawful their trade, sovereign. Incensed at the stubborn loyalty of this col- 1650. ony, parliament issued an ordinance declaring its inhab itants "notorious robbers and traitors," prohibiting any connection with them, and forbidding any foreign na tions to trade with any of the English settlements in America.2 Massachusetts, hardly yet prepared for what was to come, pursued her usual course with quiet uncon cern. What, then, must have been her amazement, when, at the very time she was tampering with Maine, to procure from the people of Gorges a submission to 1651. her authority, a summons arrived from the Long Parlia- 0rder8 ment, ordering her to transmit her charter to England, settetosur- to accept of a new patent from the Keepers of the charter. er National Liberties, and to recognize, in all her acts and legal processes, her dependence upon the mother coun try.3 This order, accompanied by a proclamation pro hibiting trade with Virginia, Barbadoes, Bermuda, and Antigua, caused the greatest concern, and the alarm spread rapidly from the banks of the Merrimac to the shores of Long Island Sound. Massachu- Unprepared as Massachusetts was for this blow, she tiont par- did n°t venture to resist. The general court interdicted 1 See Hutchinson, vol. i. p. 120, n. 3 Hutchinson, vol. i. Appendix, 2 Scobell's Acts, 1650, c. 28. p. 448. Grahame, vol. i. p. 98. AGAINST THE CROWN. 281 the people from commercial intercourse with Virginia ; x part but, at the same time, they addressed a letter to parlia- ¦ — * — ment, setting forth their " carriage and demeanor " to and crom- that honorable body, since the beginning of the late troubles with the king ; that they had constantly adhered to the parliamentary cause in its gloomiest prospects, and had contributed to its success, by furnishing soldiers for its army ; that, by their public fastings and thanks givings, according as it was prosperous or otherwise, they had declared to the world that they were willing to rise or fall with the party they had espoused. For all this, proceeds the general court, we have gained the hatred of the other English Colonies ; and now, if you deceive our hopes, which God forbid, and' treat us more harshly than did our late sovereign, we shall sit down and sigh out our late repentance for coming hither ; for we are too old and too weak to seek a new corner of the world in which to lay our bones.2 On Cromwell, however, the elders and magistrates placed their greatest reliance. They could confidently appeal to the sympathies of that religious adventurer, who, in his adversity, had wished to join their ranks ; 3 in his prosperity thought only how to better their condi tion ; and who was soon to hold the commons of Eng land in the hollow of his broad and blood-stained hand. To Cromwell, therefore, the governor addressed a hum ble petition, asking his interference with parliament in their behalf, and praying that the " Captain of the Host of Israel might be with him in all his great enterprises, 1 Hazard. Hutchinson, vol. i. council, with a superstition that, Appendix, p. 448. sometimes, never leaves bad men, 2 Hutchinson. seized hold of the event as a mani- 3 Cromwell, whose intention of fest commission from Providence to joining the colony of Massachusetts watch over the destinies of that por- had been frustrated by an order in tion of his people. 24* 282 THE ELDERS CONSPIRE to the glory of God, the subduing of his enemies, and his everlasting peace." x And to his influence it must be ascribed that Massachusetts heard nothing further from, those parliamentary demagogues, whose treachery and tyranny were so conspicuous, that they broke without scruple the conditions on which Virginia alone consented to acknowledge their authority,2 compelled Maryland to recognize the authority of parliament in her official style, and suspended the form of government which they, at the earnest entreaty of Roger Williams, themselves had granted Rhode Island. What will they not do to the shrubs, said the half-repentant Fairfax, having cut down the cedars ! In all this wanton perfidy, Massachusetts remained undisturbed. Her charter continued in all its dusty dig nity, among the archives of the colony ; she neglected to recognize parliament in her official style; and the cele brated Navigation Act, which was levelled at the Dutch 1652. carrying trade,3 and which forbade the productions of Asia, Africa, or America to be imported into any port of the British empire, unless in British bottoms, nav igated by British crews, was utterly disregarded.4 As if to keep pace with the usurpations at home, Massachusetts grew bolder in her aggrandizing schemes. The general May. court voted, " upon perusal of the charter," that the northern boundary of their jurisdiction was three miles north of the most northerly point of the River Merrimac, and " thence upon a straight line east and west to each sea." To ascertain the extent of this novel discovery, October, surveyors, in part provided by Harvard College, were l Hutchinson, vol. i. Appendix. 3 Hume. 2 That they should have as free 4 Hutchinson. trade as the people of England. See Hazard, vol. i. p. 561. AGAINST THE CROWN. 283 commissioned, who traced the waters of the Merrimac to Lake Winnipiseogee. With jealous fidelity, they lost not a second of latitude, and returned, as the result -of their labors, a boundary which included Maine and New Hampshire on the east, and whose western extent was indefinite.1 The general court, at this date, assumed to themselves 1653. a higher style than they had yet adopted, and, in a dis pute with the Commissioners of the United Colonies, called themselves the " Supreme Governors of a Com monwealth," in confederacy with other nations.2 The elders and magistrates now had little more to fear. The aspiring Lord-General soon scattered the miserable fac tion which interposed between him and supreme power; and the remarkable spectacle was exhibited to the world, ef a church of an apostolic origin, and a throne of a dozen dynasties, crushed, for a time, under the weight of successful hypocrisy. That the throne of England should be filled by an Massachu- 1 C TIT 1 1 SettS COn" Independent was a loyful event lor Massachusetts, and, siders her- , i ^i n self an ally in an address voted bv the general court to Uromwell, only of J & Cromwell. they prayed that God would be pleased to lengthen his days, and to continue him " the Lord Protector of the 1654. three nations, and of the churches of Christ Jesus." And Cromwell always remained a fast friend of his New England allies, who presumed upon his forbearance. Though they steadily refused to gratify his wishes by colonizing Ireland or Jamaica,3 and though, in the war 1 See Hazard, vol. i. pp. 564, 570. pie of New England to go there." 2 Hazard, vol. ii. p. 272. "Which," says, Hutchinson, "it 3 Hutchinson, vol. i. p. 165. Ib. appears by Mr. Leverett's letter he Appendix. After conquering Ire- had much at heart." The colonists land, Cromwell was anxious to plant of New Haven, when suffering under there a colony from New England ; commercial disasters, at one time and, after conquering Jamaica, he gave up the idea of continuing in " renewed his invitation to the peo- the wilderness, and entered into trea- 284 THE ELDERS CONSPIRE IV. chap, that had been raging between the English and Dutch, they " considered themselves at liberty to continue in peace " with the enemies of England, and intimated to the Protector that " their own act was necessary to bring them into a state of war," 2 they ever retained the respect and confidence of the great usurper. England became formidable under his vigorous sway ; and the colonies he loved, without sacrificing their independence, partook of the general prosperity. Until the Restoration, the calm surface of their equivocal relations with the parent state was scarcely ruffled ; and, while they steadily increased in population and wealth, their iron soil, yielding to their indomitable energy, was abundantly blessed by God. The necessaries, and many of the elegances of life, were cheaper than in England. " Good white and wheaten bread was no dainty." Many an " ordinary man " was able to indulge his taste in " gay clothing," and gratify a " liquorish tooth after sack, sugar, and plums." In for? getting the claims of country and kindred, the people did not " forget the English fashion of stirring up their appetites," and abundant material was supplied for the table of the epicure, not only by the rich pastures of the farmer, but by the forests, which were alive with game, and the streams, which glistened with delicate fish.2 The edifices in the town of Boston were " large and beautiful, whose continual enlargement presaged some sumptuous city." 3 The Puritan State, with a line of sea-coast three hundred miles in length, and with a back country limited ties for the city of Galway, in Ire- officers might raise five hundred vol- land, though their designs were frus- unteers in the colony. Hazard, vol. trated. Perhaps Cromwell remem- i. p. 587. bered this. 2 Johnson, b. ii. ch. 21. 1 Although Massachusetts refused 3 Description of New England, to vote troops to aid Cromwell, yet Gorges. the general court consented that his against the crown. 285 only by the satiety of conquest, furnished room for the part gratification of the most boundless ambition. - — *-** The death of the Protector, therefore, was an event cal- Effect of culated to excite but little apprehension in Massachusetts, death. Strong in that moral courage, which had hitherto carried 1658. their rising commonwealth over every quicksand of state, the elders and magistrates, dreaming of no restoration or retribution, watched, without anxiety, the current of events in their former home. Neither Richard Cromwell, nor the parliament, nor the committee of safety, which, dur ing a short interregnum, rapidly displaced each other in power, could draw any positive declaration of attachment from the government of Massachusetts ; while, at the same time, not a single one of its acts could be construed as recognizing, in the slightest manner, the pretensions of Charles the Second. The news at last arrived, that the exiled prince was Massachu- about to return to the throne of his ancestors, and, by foJs to'ac- a singular accident, the ship which brought these glad chaSea H? tidings contained among her passengers two of the regi- 1660. cides, who thenceforth were to wander like Cains through the wilderness, and to expiate their crimes by obscure and wretched deaths.1 But "the king was not pro claimed in Massachusetts, nor was any alteration made in the forms of their public acts and proceedings."2 While the royal exile was ushered into his rightful heritage by bursts of enthusiasm at Breda, at Hague, at Dover, in 1 Goffe and Whalley, with their that time began that wretched ca- comrades, only illustrated the fact reer, which ended, for one, in a eel- apparent to every reader of history, lar, for the other, in a cave. See that regicides have rarely prospered. Hutchinson, vol. i. p. 197. The They were, at first, received with late Ezra Styles published a work on some civility in Massachusetts, but " The Judges," as he calls them, as soon as it became certain that which, for bitter prejudice and di- Charles II. would bring the colonies verting malignity, has rarely been to an account, "they were advised equalled. to think of removing ; " and from 2 Hutchinson. 286 THE ELDERS CONSPIRE Virginia, in the little colonies of Roger Williams ; by nobility and commons ; by Churchmen, by Quakers, by Anabaptists, by Seekers, and Ranters ; by all, in short, who " now hoped that, the winter of public sorrows. being over, the peaceful voice of the turtle would be heard in the flourishing spring approaching through all the lands of the English dominion ; " 2 the grave and stern Puritans alone remained unmoved. Notwithstand ing the royal declaration, that liberty of conscience should henceforth be the privilege of every Englishman,2 not a head was uncovered, not a knee bent, not a prayer whis pered, in grateful thanksgiving to the King of kings, who had thus, in his own good time, restored the out lawed Stuart to his home and country. On the contrary the elders and magistrates utterly rejected such languid attempts as were made in favor of their sovereign, and a October, motion made in the general court to address the king failed.3 It was hoped, at least, as conflicting news arrived from time to time, concerning the unsettled state of public affairs in England, that something would happen favor able to their permanent establishment, as one of the family of nations.4 Sudden But the Puritan State had reached its culminating reaction , ° in Massa- point. Authentic intelligence was soon received that the CI11a56llS-November, king was firmly seated on his throne, and held in his hand the globe as well as the sceptre, the symbol of dominion as well as that of authority. At the same time, advices from the colonial agent in London informed Hubbard. such an act 0f parliament, as, upon 2 " We do declare a liberty to mature deliberation, shall be offered tender consciences, and that no man to us, for the full granting that in stall be disquieted, or called in ques- dulgence." Southey's Book of the tion, for differences of opinion in Church. matters of religion, which do not 3 Hutchinson. disturb the peace of the kingdom ; 4 See Chalmers's Annals, p. 250. and we shall be ready to consent to AGAINST THE CROWN. 287 the elders and magistrates that petitions and complaints part from royalists and republicans, from Churchmen, Quak- ^-^ ers, and Anabaptists, to the prejudice of Massachusetts, were pouring in before the king in council.1 Complaints from the " heathen gentiles " were not wanting, to swell the hostile clamor ; and the " native princes," who had been entrusted to the care of the corporation, to be taught the knowledge of Christianity, now humbly requested King Charles to protect them from its rapacity and aggressions.2 A singular reaction immediately took place. Alarmed by the sinister nature of these tidings, aware that Independency was completely crushed, and that it would be useless to contend with the fleets and armies of England, the general court was immediately convened. Loyal addresses were voted to King Charles December. and the two Houses of Parliament, wherein it was declared that " the lot of Massachusetts in the late vicissitudes, after the example of the good old Nonconformists, had been to act only a passive part." 3 Letters of a private nature were also sent to several persons of quality, ask ing their intercession in behalf of the colony. Nor did 1661. this satisfy the momentary impulse. Mr. Eliot, the "Indian Apostle," was called upon to answer for an " odd kind of book," on the nature of civil government, March. published by him shortly after the murder of Charles the First, in which he undertook to prove that monarchical governments are contrary to the Word of God. This work, which had formerly met with their approbation, the elders and magistrates now declared "to be full of seditious principles, in relation to all established govern ments in the Christian world, and especially against the 1 Hutchinson. have required a pretty strong disbe- 2 Ibid. lief in the efficacy of good works 3 Hutchinson. Hubbard. It must to have made this unblushing avowal. 288 THE ELDERS CONSPIRE chap, government established in their native country." Eliot •^-y — ' was allowed time to disown his " Christian Common wealth ; " and, coming forward, he publicly retracted his opinions, acknowledging that they did scandalize the king, lords, and commons of England ; that they justified the " late innovations ; " and that monarchy was not only " a lawful, but eminent form of government."1 The eiders In the mean time, the king's answer to the address of trates dis- the general court was on its way to Massachusetts. It with the was found to be gracious, but general. He promised the king, that " he would not come behind any of his royal prede cessors, in a just encouragement of his loving subjects " in New England, nor forget to make all good people partakers of those blessings of liberty and moderation expressed in his declarations.2 Although a day of thanks- May, giving was appointed for the gracious answer of Charles, the elders were not satisfied. They saw nothing in it which assured them that the continuance of their usurpa tions would be overlooked ; for what equivocal meaning might there not be concealed in this promise of general liberty "? But their alarm was chiefly excited by the ac counts from their agent, which accompanied the king's letter. From him they learned that their charter was in imminent danger, and that rumors were rife in court cir cles that a general governor would be sent over, and their political system entirely subverted. " Episcopacy, Com mon Prayer, bowing at the name of Jesus, sign of the cross in baptism, the altar, and organs, are in use, and like to be more," wrote the astonished agent to his constit uents ; " the Lord keep and preserve his churches, that there may not be fainting in a day of trial." 3 l Hubbard. Hutchinson. This 2 Hubbard. was the second time that Eliot un- 3 Letter of John Leverett to Mas- derwent the displeasure of his fellow- sachusetts. elders. AGAINST THE CROWN. 289 Part II. Declaration of Rights — Charles II. proclaimed — Special Mission to England — Agreeable Disappointment of the Agents — Ingratitude of Massachusetts towards the Agents — The two Parties of Prerogative and Freedom — King's Letter disregarded — The General Court se crete the Charter — The Royal Commissioners — The General Court again refuses to accede to the Royal Demands — Again addresses the King — Superstitious Fears ofthe Colonists — The Confederacy broken up by the Commissioners — Objections to the Legality of the Commis sion answered — Third Royal Letter to Massachusetts — The General Court again .disobeys the King — The Policy of Massachusetts, during the Wars with France and Holland — Rapid Advance of Massachusetts in Wealth and Population — Fourth Royal Letter to the Colony — Conflicting Emotions of the Elders — Judgment against the. Charter — Death of the King — Effect of the Judgment against the Charter. The passage of the Navigation Act, which confined the carrying trade to Hritish ships, navigated by British crews, brought the alarm of the colony to a crisis. King ^E^ts0" Charles the Second had not yet been publicly proclaimed in Massachusetts, and the performance of this duty was further delayed until an assembly of elders and magis trates, which had been convened by the general court, could point out the proper policy to be pursued by "honest, prudent, and faithful men." This convention drew up a formal declaration, asserting the general rights June. of the corporation to admit freemen to its franchise, and to choose proper governors and other officers for the management of its affairs. They declared, also, that the colony owed allegiance to the king, since it was held of him as of his manor of East Greenwich ; that it was the duty of his subjects to " endeavor the preservation " of his Majesty's person and dominions ; and that the war rants for the apprehension of the regicides ought to be 25 290 THE ELDERS CONSPIRE faithfully executed by the authority of the court, because Massachusetts should not be a shelter for fugitives from, justice. To these very proper avowals they added the following questionable propositions, namely, that the gov ernor, assistants, and deputies had full legislative and executive powers, in all civil and ecclesiastical cases, with: out appeal, except where there was repugnancy to the laws of England ; that this government was authorized to resist, by force of arms, all persons who should at tempt to injure the plantation, or to abridge the privileges of its people ; that " any impositions prejudicial to the country and contrary to its laws, not repugnant to the laws of England," were infringements of charter right; that they ought to seek the prosperity of the king and nation, by punishing all breaches of the two tables of moral law, and by propagating and defending the " true Protestant religion," according to the faith given in the Holy Scriptures.1 Having passed through the alembic of the elders, this colonial manifesto was adopted by the general court. Thus the great principles of the future struggle began to develop themselves. It was no longer a simple question of law, involving the violation of a charter, the nature of an oath, or the justice of a whip ping. Such were the details that occupied the attention of Charles the First. But a grave step had been taken since his time, and the point now to be decided was, whether the citizens of Massachusetts were the subjects of the King of England. To compass their wishes, the elders and magistrates were willing to sacrifice their late friends, the regicides, and to give their sovereign the empty title of king, but further than this they would resist with force of arms. They " considered themselves 1 Hutchinson, vol. i. Appendix, p. 455. Hubbard. AGAINST THE CROWN. 291 entitled to the rights of Englishmen," without being under part any obligations to perform the duties of Englishmen. < — r — We cannot wonder at their alarm. The ships which King arrived from England brought no longer the cheering Second advices they were wont to receive during the protectorate, ed. Their loyalty, their integrity, their honor, their justice, their morality, were all impeached by their enemies at court. Since the accession of Charles the Second, he had heard nothing but endless complaints of the people of Massachusetts. There was no one to speak a good word for them ; and now, having asserted their rights and privileges-, as a matter of prudence, the king was publicly proclaimed, and an address was sent to Charles, August. abject in its terms, and profane in its expressions of loy alty.1 They style this address the Eucharistical approach unto the best of kings, and call their sovereign a God, Lord, and Saviour. Thus, a year after the exiled prince had returned to his country, Massachusetts, the first to desert the royal cause, was the last to welcome its rees- tablishment. But what a welcome ! Not the genuine outpouring of the patriotic heart, but wrung by stern necessity, like tears from the eyes of the strong man.2 What had become of those " loving subjects," whom the first Charles had surrendered to the Governor and Com pany of Massachusetts Bay, to be returned to the nation at a subsequent period, confirmed in loyalty and faith ] The day of the proclamation was like a day of mourn ing rather than of rejoicing. No allowance could be made, on an occasion of such ill omen to Puritanism, for the least excess of joy, if, perchance, it could be found in the colony. Strict orders were given for the prevention 1 Hazard, vol. ii. p. 593. mers, that the people of that juris- 2 The authority from which the diction might consider the whole king derived his kingship was care- as an election, recent, and provin- fully concealed, in order, says Chal- cial. Chalmers's Annals, p. 253. THE ELDERS CONSPIRE of all disorderly conduct, and it was distinctly announced that no person might expect the least indulgence for any breach of the laws. To drink the health of the king was forbidden ; a and no public thanksgiving consecrated the gloomy day, though it was always forthcoming when the elders and magistrates had been successful in finesse, or were receiving, instead of bestowing, a benediction and a blessing. The people of Massachusetts, a nation born as it were in a day, never, from the first, yielded grace fully to their sovereign, where it trenched upon their own independence. Special The proclaiming of the king was soon followed by a England, special mission to England. " Much opposition " was made to this measure, which could only have been car ried amid the distressing doubts which hung over their position at court.2 The general court were unable to distinguish their friends from their enemies, and they deemed it necessary that the cause of true religion should be represented at Whitehall. An elder and a magistrate December, were dispatched for this purpose ; 3 and while they were instructed to exhibit the colony as loyal and true, to endeavor to remove therefrom all "scandal and reproach," and to ascertain his Majesty's " apprehensions " concern ing them, they were also expressly forbidden to do any thing prejudicial to the charter, and were ordered to keep 1662 the general court informed of every occurrence. The_ February. agents sailed for England with many misgivings.4 1 The order announces that the 2 Letter of Mr. Pynchon to Mr. king has forbidden, in a special man- Davenport. See Hutchinson, vol. ner, that his health should be drunk, i. p. 202, n. This sumptuary regulation, which 3 John Norton and Simon Brad- was meant for hard-drinking coun- street. tries, sat awkwardly enough upon 4 They were very unwilling to the pious Puritans. Grahame echoes go, and required an indemnity for Cotton Mather,in abusing this harm- all damages they might sustain, in less custom of polite life, because it person and property. had a heathen origin. AGAINST THE CROWN. 293 Well might they tremble at the task thus imposed part upon them. They were required to satisfy the king - — «-^ that there existed loyalty, where they could only offer in proof the fruits of rebellion. Where were the oaths of supremacy and allegiance1? Did they send assist ance to their late sovereign or his destroyers, when the latter were hunting him with the fury of bloodhounds from one place to another I Did they proclaim a fast, when the armed clans of Scotland, drunk with fanati cism, sold their prince, himself a Scotchman, for twenty pieces of silver ? Did they weep or rejoice, when that hero of hypocrisy and treason, Oliver Cromwell, defying God and man, seated himself on the throne of England 1 Did they hail, with the enthusiasm of faithful servants, the return of the rightful heir from a strange land to the heritage of his fathers 1 Were their garments unspot ted with the blood of that helpless people, which was intrusted to their care, not to be slaughtered or pillaged or led captive, not to be converted to Puritanism, but to be taught the principles of true religion and civilization I Were they, even now, appearing before their sovereign, repentant of the past and promising better for the future, or had they not, but a few weeks previous, avowed a determination to defend their ragged and mutilated char ter by force of arms'? Were they not, at this very time, Iving in open defiance of the laws established by parlia ment for the regulation of trade and navigation \ Before such questions as these^ prompted by the deadly hatred of their enemies, the stoutest among the stout hearts of Massachusetts might well quail. To all this they could only answer by empty protestations of loyalty. They were pleasantly disappointed. While rumors Agreeable were circulating among their fearful constituents that mentPo°f the ', , agents. they were forcibly detained in England, and that one ot 25* 294< THE ELDERS CONSPIRE chap, them, the elder, was in the Tower,1 they were learning - — y — ¦ the amenities of life at the court of the swarthy Stuart. For Charles received them with kindness and indulgence, although the agent of the gallant little colony of Rhode Island met them before their sovereign, and challenged them to cite, in behalf of Massachusetts, one act of duty or loyalty to the kings of England.2 Go back to your country, said, in substance, the good-natured prince, and tell your friends that I have no wish to deprive them of their charter, so often violated, or of their privileges, so often perverted. Nay, more ; I will confirm their for feited rights, if they will only give me some substantial assurance that they will be faithful and loyal to me and my successors. I wish for no more empty protestations of loyalty. Let them show that they mean what they say, by revising all laws passed by the general court during the late usurpation, and repealing such as are repugnant to the royal authority ; 3 let the oath of alle giance be duly administered ; let justice be distributed in my name; since liberty of conscience was the cause of your transferring the charter, let all my subjects, who love the Church of England, use, without molestation, its sacred ritual ; restore the original intent of the char ter, at least by abolishing the absurd religious tests required of all the magistrates, and let the only qualifica tions of office be wisdom and integrity ; let all persons of honest lives and conversations be admitted to the ordinances of religion ; finally, let all freeholders of com petent estates, not immoral in their lives, have a share in 1 Hutchinson, vol. i. p. 202, n. nounced invalid. This is untrue. 2 Chalmers's Annals, p. 273. He only required those to be an- Q Grahame, with his usual want nulled, which were, as the charter of candor, says that the king required expresses it, repugnant to the laws all laws passed by the court, during of England. the abeyance of royalty, to be pro- AGAINST THE CROWN. 295 the election of those officers, civil and military, whom part they are obliged to obey. On these conditions, I will • — *-** waive the past ; I will graciously impute the violation of the charter to the iniquity of the times rather than to evil intention ; and, passing over the illegality of your constitution, will confirm your privileges to you and to your children forever.1 The kindness of the king won the hearts of the agents, ingratitude They began to take a healthier view of the relations chusetts existing between the mother country and the colony, and the agents. they bore to their constituents, with joyful hearts, the royal letter of indemnity. " They returned like Noah's September. dove-, with an olive-branch of peace in their mouths." 2 But their reception at home bitterly disappointed them. The favors they had obtained from Charles were regarded as " no more than might well have been expected," while the conditions annexed to them were considered as griev ances. Justly irritated by this unreasonableness, the agents declared to the court, that if they refused com pliance with the king's demands, " the blood that might be shed in consequence would lie at their door."3 This bold avowal was followed by a recriminating charge, that they had " laid a foundation of ruin to the liberties " of the colony, and they immediately lost the confidence of their countrymen.4 Sensibly affected by such ingrati tude, one of them, the elder, soon after died of a broken heart.5 But the mission of these gentlemen produced an im- 1 Hutchinson. Hubbard. Haz- 5 Bradstreet, the magistrate, was ard. a man of more phlegm, says Hutch- 2 Hubbard. inson. It was recollected of Norton, 3 Letter of Mr. Davis to Mr. probably, that he was the only elder, Davenport. Hutchinson, vol. i. p. who, on the news of the Restoration, 204, n. voted that Charles the Second should 4 Mather. be proclaimed in Massachusetts. 296 THE ELDERS CONSPIRE portant change in the politics of Massachusetts. The first blush of religious enthusiasm, which so highly col- the colony ored the transfer of the charter, had long since vanished. two parties Many of the pioneers of Massachusetts were sleeping in tive and their graves, and their descendants were becoming rich, and unfitted for the plain realities of the religion of their fathers. Boston, the renowned capital of trans-Atlantic Puritanism, was becoming famous as a metropolis of commerce ; trade was swelling the hearts of the few. The stern simplicity of republicanism dwelt only with the many. The reins of government were still nominally held in the shrivelled hands of nearly the last of the compeers of Winthrop ; 1 but the court of assistants, the renowned oligarchy of New England, were yielding the spirit of government to the representatives of the freemen. The former were willing to accustom them selves to the idea of a compromise with the crown. They were losing their faith in the exercises of the pulpit.2 But the latter remained true to the principles of their religion. To them the elders still remained the oracles of Heaven, and to them the elders were about to transfer the power of the state. The coalition, which had existed between the elders and magistrates, was breaking up, and henceforth the theatre of action was to be the' general court, not the secret council-chamber of the magistrates. The voice of the latter was no longer to " be as the voice of God." King's let- Meanwhile, the letter of the king: was published as the ter disre- . . or garded. royal order required, but with the caution, that "inas- 1 Endecott. paper, about the year 1681, " repre- 2 To show the change that had senting the great apostasy of both taken place in a few years, Peter magistrates and ministers." Hutch- Tilton, a " zealous deputy," was inson. concerned in the publication of a AGAINST THE CROWN. 297 much as it had influence upon the churches as well as the civil State," all action thereon should be suspended until it had received the full consideration of the parties concerned. It is a hard thing for a rich man to sell all that he has and give to the poor. The elders had heaped up a pile of civil and religious wealth which they could not dissipate without a struggle. They shuddered at the idea, that the treasures resulting from the severe labors of half a century, labors that had changed the face of the wilderness, converted a desert into a garden, and filled the broad bays and great rivers of New England with the fleets of a successful commerce, should be divided with Quakers, Anabaptists, and all the rabble of dissenters. They thought they were doing God service by disobey ing their lawful Prince, when, in fact, they were only gratifying their own pride and love of power. And how was it possible for them to allow the services of a popish religion to be said and celebrated in their midst ; to throw the protection of their laws, like a rich mantle of fine needlework, around the deformities and superstitions of the Catholic Church 1 Actuated by such impulses, the judicious requirements of the king were neglected. One thing only was sullenly yielded, where all had been improperly withheld, and it was ordered, for the first time in Massachusetts, that all process should be issued in the October. king's name. To the frank and generous letter of Charles, therefore, they found it convenient to return an evasive reply.1 November. Affairs now pursued their usual course, but " the prin- 1 Col. Laws. Mather. Hutch- dered to attach," &c. It was in inson, &c. The style of writs now this year that the general court au- was, "You are hereby ordered in his thorized a new coinage in the col- Majesty's name," &c. Heretofore, ony — that of two-penny pieces of it had been, "You are hereby or- silver. 2 Mass. Hist. Coll. vol. ii. 298 THE ELDERS CONSPIRE chap, cipal persons in Church and State were never without - — A~> fearful expectations of being deprived of their privi- Thegene- leges."1 The fact could not be disguised that they secrete'the were acting in a manner that neither their charter war- chartei. rante(j) nor thejr ^jng approved. No wonder, therefore, that they felt unsafe ! No wonder that the elders, find ing their burden grievous, hailed with gladness an acces sion of numbers in the arrival of several dissenting preachers, whom the statute of uniformity disabled at home.2 But their apprehensions increased, when the learned Puritan, Dr. Owen, and " some choice ones," 1663. checked this religious emigration, by declining the offer of their- hospitality, on the ground of their precarious situation.3 For it was now rumored in England, that since they had evaded the king's indulgent demands, his Majesty had determined to ascertain how far the terms of the charter had been observed.4 And true enough, surmise and suspense began soon to assume a more defi- 1664. nite shape. In the spring of the following year, intelli gence arrived that a royal fleet was preparing to sail for New England, containing, as passengers, several gentle men of distinction. Were they coming to reward the freemen of Massachusetts for their loyalty, or to punish their disobedience I Would their errand be one of mercy or of vengeance \ Active measures were imme diately adopted. Precautions were used to prevent the landing of armed men from the ships, and an apology was prepared to urge upon the officers of the fleet when it should arrive, why but a small number of the crew p. 274. This shows how far they 3 Gookin's Letter, cited in Hutch- were from even meeting the king inson. Neal says that the reason half-way. Owen did not emigrate, was because 1 Hutchinson. he was forbidden by the king. 2 Stats. 13 and 14 Charles II.,' * Grahame. c. 4. AGAINST THE CROWN. should be allowed to land at a time.1 A day of fasting and prayer was appointed throughout the colony, to in voke the Divine protection ; and the appeal to Heaven May. was accompanied by an order for the secretion of their charter.2 Thus, they coupled a great act of devotion with one, the ultimate object of which was illegal, and the tears of invocation were shed at the same moment that they were preparing for unlawful resistance. The arrival of the royal commissioners somewhat re- The royal assured them. They found that, as usual, distance had sioners. magnified the danger, and that, so far as the charter was juiy. concerned, their errand was rather one of inquiry than of execution. The commissioners were the bearers of a letter from the king, in which he declared that he had not "the least intention of violating or infringing the charter granted by his royal father." 3 In point of fact, the commission was of a mixed nature. War with the Dutch, the great rivals of the English in trade, now appeared inevitable, and various schemes were mooted for crippling this naval power. Among these, was the reduction of the Manhadoes ; and the task of effecting this object was assigned to Sir Robert Carr, Col. Rich ard Nichols, George Cartwright, and Samuel Maverick.4 This being accomplished, they were specially empowered 1 Hutchinson, vol. i. 210. first happy arrival in England ; and 2 I know of nothing which illus- we have had many reasons since to trates more forcibly than this the priv- confirm us in that resolution." ileges of an English subject at that Hubbard. Hazard. time, when liberty was not, in all 4 Hubbard says of the two lead- respects, so well understood as now. ing commissioners, Nichols and If the English sovereign had pos- Cartwright, that they were emi- sessed the power of a tyrant, what nently qualified with abilities fit for would he have cared for a square their important offices, nor wanting yard of engrossed parchment ? in resolution to carry on any honor- 3 Hutchinson, vol. i. App. p. 461. able' design for promoting his Maj- Hubbard, p. 578. " Seeing we can- esty's interest. Of Carr and Cart- not, in person, visit those our so dis- wright, Hutchinson says that they tant dominions, we have purposed to were very unfit for such a trust. send commissioners thither since our 300 THE ELDERS CONSPIRE to investigate and decide all complaints, disputes, and abuses that might exist among the colonies in New Eng land. For, in addition to her civil and ecclesiastical usurpations, Massachusetts, by her aggrandizing policy, had involved herself in disputes with Mason and Gorges, concerning the titles to Maine and New Hampshire;1 which, now that the royal cause was reestablished, these loyal proprietors were by no means disposed to forego. And, reads the commission, we have received some ad dresses from the great men and natives of those coun tries, " whose reduction to the true knowledge and fear of God, is the most worthy and glorious end of all those plantations," in which they complain of breach of faith, and acts of violence and injustice, which they have been forced to undergo from our subjects, whereby not only our government is traduced, but the reputation and credit of the Christian religion is brought into prejudice and reproach.2 It was also stated by the king, in his letter, that one object of the commission was " to extinguish those malicious calumnies which wicked spirits labor to infuse into the minds of men, that our subjects in those parts look upon themselves as independent upon us and our laws, and that we have no confidence in their affection and obedience." Such was the errand of the commissioners, as laid before the governor and magistrates a few days after their arrival. But, as in all military projects where rapidity of execution is one great element of success, the primary object now was to reduce the Dutch. Give us 1 The claims ofthe proprietors of their line threescore miles" beyond Maine and New Hampshire had their original bound, and had " en- been submitted, by royal order, to a deavored to model and contrive committee of the first lawyers in the themselves into a free state." Haz- kingdom, who unanimously reported ard, vol. ii. p. 577. that " the corporation of Boston, in 2 Hutchinson, vol. i. App. Haz- New England," had " stretched ard. AGAINST THE CROWN. 301 all the assistance you can for this purpose, said the com- part missioners, and when we have accomplished our military • — ^ tasks, we will return to you in the simple habiliments of peace, and discharge our other duties. In the mean time, we hope you will consider his Majesty's former pro posals to you, which your own agents procured at his hands, and to which you have returned unsatisfactory replies. Brought thus, for the first time, face to face with the representatives of the king, the magistrates re lieved themselves of all personal responsibility, by refer ring the whole subject to the general court, which they ordered to convene forthwith. And the commissioners, having repeated their advice, departed for the Man- hadoes. The general court assembled at an early day. The The gene- first resolution of the deputies exhibited the spirit which again rem- they had brought with them from the meeting-houses of cede to the . royal de- the colony. We will be loyal to our king, they declared, mands. but we will also adhere to our patent, " so dearly ob- August. tained and so long enjoyed." They then evinced their readiness to join in humbling their hated rivals, by voting a force of two hundred men, to be equipped and main tained by the colony.1 But here all concession stopped. • Although they nominally repealed the law which required "church membership" of all candidates for the dignity of freemen, yet they virtually rendered the repeal of no effect by substituting a provision which made it necessary for such candidates to be furnished with certificates from 1 Smith, in his history of New this. But it is certain that the corn- York, says, that the commissioners missioners thanked the general court complained to the secretary of state for their ready assistance, and there of the backwardness of Massachu- is every reason to think that the col- setts in furnishing assistance. As onists were glad of an opportunity their military capacity now was to humble the Dutch, who rivalled equal to 4000 foot and 400 horse, them in trade, and interfered mate- there seems some reason, at first, for rially with their Indian policy. 26 302 THE ELDERS CONSPIRE chap, the ministers of the places where they resided, that they - — y^ were " orthodox " in their religion, as well as moral in their lives. They postponed any further action until the return of the commissioners ; but knowing that there was little hope of a favorable issue, and conscious that their affairs would not bear investigation, they addressed The gene- themselves directly to the king. " Dread Sovereign," ral court J . . ° addresses they wrote, " as the high place you sustain on the earth October, doth number you here among the gods, so we hope you will imitate the God of Heaven in maintaining the cause of the afflicted and poor." With this preamble they set forth a brief history of their charter, and declared that, under its security, they did settle and fertilize the wilder ness ; that they had now, for more than thirty years, enjoyed the privilege of self-government as their un doubted right ; that they had received from his Majesty several letters full of gracious assurance, tending to con firm them in their enjoyments ; that they had endeavored to the utmost to satisfy the king in his demands, so far as was consistent with their duty towards God, and their just rights under the patent. They proceeded to say, that a royal commission now threatened their security, • whereby, instead of being governed by rulers of their own, they are likely to be subjected to the arbitrary power of strangers, one of whom is known to be their professed enemy.1 They enlarged on the poverty of the country by reason of the coldness of the winters, the bar renness of the soil, and the want of some staple com modity, and they averred its inability to reimburse the crown for the expense it would sustain in the mainte nance of the commission. They acknowledged that 1 Maverick. This gentleman was lege of worshipping God according a churchman, and, as will be shown to the ritual of his church. hereafter, had been denied the privi- AGAINST THE CROWN. 303 there had been discontents and divisions among their part number, but drew the inference therefrom that the great ^-v^ body of the people were satisfied with their present con dition, for " there is no government under Heaven where some discontented persons may not be found." They appealed to God for the truth of the assertion that their greatest ambition was to lead a poor and quiet life in a " corner of the world," and they concluded this able but partial paper in terms of much pathos. " Royal Sir, it is in your power to say of your people in New England, they shall not die. It was an honor to one of your royal ancestors, that he was called the poor man's king. It was Job's excellency, when he sat as king among his people, that he was a father to the poor. They are a poor people who now cry unto the Lord their king. Let our government live, our patent live, our magistrates live, our laws and liberties live, our religious enjoyments live, so shall we all yet have further cause to say from our hearts, let the king live forever." This most inge nious address, which contains no allusion, however re mote, to the extraordinary usurpations of the Puritan State, was dispatched to England, in company with pri vate petitions to several of the leading public men.1 While these epistles were on their way to their sev- Supersti- .... i-ii • i tious fears eral destinations, while the commissioners, having re- of the con duced the Manhadoes before assistance from Massachu setts had reached them,2 were pursuing their inquiries in other colonies of New England, and were gradually approaching Massachusetts, the superstitious minds of the freemen were disturbed by remarkable phenomena in 1 Mather. Neal. Hutchinson, came English subjects, retaining etc. See the address, at length, in their estates, and many of their priv- Hutchinson, vol. i. App. p. 460. ileges, and their governor also yield- 2 The Manhadoes surrendered ing allegiance to the English crown. August 27. The inhabitants be- 304 THE ELDERS CONSPIRE the physical world. For three successive years, the wheat harvests throughout the colony had been spoiled November, by blast and mildew ; x and, late in the autumn, a strange-looking comet appeared in the eastern horizon, portending danger from that quarter to the little com monwealth. The veteran Puritan, whose thoughts re verted to the palmy days of the colony, when the faith of its inhabitants was bright and strong, before bloody wars and religious persecutions had stained their innocence and weakened their moral character, beheld, with terror, the fiery wanderer of the skies, which, night after night, flew on its mysterious journey, until it rapidly sank in the west. The death of " that reverend and holy man of God," Mr. John Cotton, who had been the chief artificer of the Puritan structures in Massachusetts, was heralded by the appearance of a comet ; could another phenome non of this nature, so much more extraordinary, prog nosticate the overthrow of the institutions he had reared ? The con- The commissioners returned to Boston before the close broken up of winter. They had, in their progress, received the commis- submission to the king of the other New England Colo- sioners. . . ° mes, and any hopes of bringing the confederacy to 1665. bear at this crisis were necessarily frustrated.2 Besides, raary- Massachusetts, by her faithless course towards Connec ticut, had done much to weaken the spirit of colonial union. So indignant were the people of Connecticut at the perfidy of their sister colony, that their general court • ' Hutchinson. Mather. Neal. policy," endeavored to detach the etc. other New England States from "the 2 In Connecticut, New Plymouth, obnoxious " colony of Massachusetts. and Rhode Island, they " met with Connecticut and New Haven, now a success equal to their expecta- united by charter, and Rhode Island, tions." Chalmers's Annals, p. 389. "haying just experienced the royai There seems some reason to sup- favor, were disposed to receive the pose that the idea was or had been commissioners with courtesy," etc. entertained, Grahame remarks, that Pitkin. the commissioners, with " insidious AGAINST THE CROWN. 305 declared " that Massachusetts had broken the covenant with them, in acting directly contrary to the articles of confederation." x Even the descendants of the Pilgrims of Plymouth, but a few weeks after, submitted unreserv edly to the royal demands, avowing, " as in the presence May. of God," that they did not enter into the league with any intent to cast off their dependence upon England, a thing which they " utterly abhorred." 2 Massachusetts found herself, therefore, alone. But the spirit which the elders infused into her councils made the little common wealth equal to the emergency. The freeman never despaired so long as he could witness the sombre gown of his minister in the street, or listen to his oracular teachings from the pulpit. The commissioners found, on their return, that rumors in success „ . . . ii- „ ... of the com- ot a sinister nature, concerning the objects ot their mis- mission. sion, had been circulated among the people. It was charged that their commission had been " made under a hedge ; " 3 and it was the general belief that they had been sent by the king to raise a revenue for the crown, and that, to compass this end, all improved lands were to be charged with an annual rent of twelve pence per acre. To stop at once this fruitful source of trouble, they requested that all the freemen of the colony might be assembled at the next election day, to learn the kind ness and favor felt by the king towards his trans- Atlantic subjects. To this request the magistrates, with some thing of their old spirit, declined to accede ; saying that not only would it leave the families of the freemen 1 Pitkin, p. 53. Trumbull. and made divers determinations, 2 This reply is very insignificant, which " had no long effect." Hutch- See Hutchinson, vol. i. p. 214, n. inson. After visiting Plymouth, they went 3 Truth and Innocency Defended, among the Narragansetts, and made p. 95. inquiry into the titles of land there, 26* 306 THE ELDERS CONSPIRE exposed to the fury of the natives, but that they could not understand " the reason of such a motion." a The demand is so reasonable, said the hasty Cartwright, that treason must be at the bottom of refusing it. But the commissioners waived the point for the time, and, at the May. next session of the court, laid before the magistrates the slanders that were circulating concerning them among the freemen ; and requested that, as a refutation of these reports, the letters of the colony to the king, and his Majesty's answers thereto, might be published. They accompanied this request with assurances that the king felt great kindness towards a colony which had exhibited so good an example of sobriety and industry ; that, so far from wishing to abridge, his Majesty was ready to enlarge the privileges granted by his royal father, or to make any alterations that would enure to the prosperity of the colony ; that the chief object of their commission was to create a better understanding between the king and his subjects in New England ; that, in this way, a founda tion would be laid for mutual confidence, the designs of wicked and malicious persons would be frustrated, and Massachusetts, shaking off the aspersions that had been cast upon her loyalty, would be regarded by the king with the same affection and favor as any integral part of England itself. They added, that they hoped no just occasion would arise to hinder this prospective harmony, and requested that a map or plan of the colony might be furnished them, in order to facilitate their investigations of the border titles.2 To retrace, step by step, the progress of the Puritan State, until it resolved itself into the little company of " knights, gentlemen, and burgesses," that had, with pal- l Hubbard. Mather. Hutchin- 2 Hutchinson. son. Neal. AGAINST THE CROWN. 307 pitating hearts, first decided in the room of a private part house in London to transfer their charter to the wilder- • — » — ness, was any thing but palatable. They were " already hardened into a republic," 1 and the idea of any subser viency, however just and proper, was odious to their feel ings. Charles, however, had no wish to deprive these gallant soldiers of the wilderness of the legitimate spoils of their conquests. They had, in some respects, fought a good fight, and had proved themselves fitted for higher purposes than the trucking of skins and baubles with the Indians. Therefore, said he, but acknowledge me as your sovereign, and treat with proper respect those laws which are superior to us all, and I will even enlarge your privileges, if such be your desire. This communication was laid before the general court, but the deputies proceeded with much diplomatic caution. They seemed haunted by some fear that the commis sioners were endeavoring to overreach them in finesse. Before making any reply to their proposals, they required that the commissioners should divulge the full extent of their authority, and of his Majesty's commands. And when this was declined, until they had made answer to what they already knew,2 they replied with a reservation of liberty to enlarge upon their answer, if there should be future occasion. In their answer, they acknowledged with humble thanks his Majesty's expressions of favor towards them, and their readiness to seize every oppor tunity to display their loyalty in return. They avowed their willingness to confer with the commissioners con- 1 Clarendon's Communication to very ungracious manner, but he King Charles, in Pownal's Memo- does not say how. Perhaps they rial. Pitkin. were exceedingly irritated by the a Hutchinson, who is quite co- slanders that were circulated con- pious on this conference, remarks cerning the objects they had in that the commissioners declined in a view. 308 THE ELDERS CONSPIRE chap, cerning the best method of arresting all false rumors ; — y — ' and declared that copies of his Majesty's letters had been scattered about the country, according to their desire. They announced that a map of the colony was in prepara tion, and would soon be placed at their disposal. They concluded with the intimation, that confidence in his Majesty's grace and favor having been increased by the assurances of his commissioners, the colony would undoubt edly give further evidence of its attachment to the king, " according as it was bound by its patent." To these general assurances the commissioners rejoined in an equally general manner ; again expressing a hope that the royal letter of 1662, " which had so long slept in some hands," would at length receive such considera tion, that the general court, by " practical assertions of duty," would give his Majesty satisfaction. They quickly followed up this rejoinder by communicating the great body of their instructions, which were, in brief, to inquire into the condition of the neighboring Indian princes, and to ascertain the nature of the treaties that had been made with them; to inquire into the frame of government, civil and ecclesiastical ; the taxes and impositions ; the ship ping, the militia, and the fortified towns and ports; to inquire whether any persons attainted of high treason had been entertained in the colony, and, if they still re sided there, to cause their immediate apprehension; to inquire whether the act of navigation had been duly observed ; and to cause justice to be done in some indi vidual cases of hardship, which had come to his Majesty's notice. But these instructions, which were levelled at the supposed usurpations of Massachusetts, were not unaccompanied by proofs of the king's interest in their welfare. For Charles, or his advisers, beholding with admiration the genius which had done so much for the AGAINST THE CROWN. 309 Puritan Commonwealth,1 directed the commissioners also to inquire into the progress made for the establishment of schools, and the conversion of infidels, which the king "hoped would draw a blessing upon all their other under takings." These were the principal instructions given to the com missioners, and, to render the unpleasant discharge of such duties less forbidding, they were expressly com manded not to listen to accusations against men who had been in office, except they were preferred by persons of equal condition ; and that, as regarded magistrates, they should give ear to no complaints, unless in cases where the charter had been violated, or the principles of equity plainly disregarded. Yet, to carry into full effect their commission, it was obvious that they were to sit as a tribunal, before which must appear, not the Common wealth of Massachusetts, but the Corporation of Massa chusetts Bay. It must appear, like any other defendant, to answer for supposed derelictions, stripped of every disguise, naked as when born into legal existence, pro tected only by the merits of well doing. Upon our char ter we stand, said the colony ; by the charter alone shall you be judged, replied the king. But an objection was at once raised to this court of commissioners. We are willing to account to his Maj esty, wherever he requires it, said the deputies ; but it will be an enormous burden if the colony must stand on a level with every criminal upon whom it has passed sentence at " the bar of another tribunal." You are but a corporation, returned the commissioners, in substance, composed of persons who owe allegiance to Charles, as 1 " The king having taken abun- colony herein, which he hoped would dant satisfaction in the accounts he draw a blessing upon all their other had received of the designs of the undertakings." Hutchinson. 310 THE ELDERS CONSPIRE chap, his natural-born subjects. Our only object is to ascer- — y1^ § tain how far you have misused your corporate powers. We claim jurisdiction over you as a corporation, not with the intention of depriving you of what you have, but as a motive to induce you to adopt what you have not. These reasons for their authority were strengthened by the reply received by the colony about this time from Lord Clarendon, in answer to their letter of the preced ing autumn. " I know not what you mean," wrote the chancellor, " by saying the commissioners have power to exercise government there altogether inconsistent with your charter and privileges, since I am sure their com mission is to see and provide for the full and due observation of the charter, and that all the privileges granted by that charter may be equally enjoyed by all his Majesty's subjects." a Finding that there was no pretext for delay, the general court at length took notice of the charges and specifications set forth in the royal instruc tions. They charged the Indians with falsehood, in complaining of injuries when they were the aggressors, and threw all the responsibility of their ill-treatment, if such there had been, upon the Commissioners of the United Colonies. They declared that no persons at tainted of high treason had fled to the colony, excepting Goffe and Whalley ; that these had already departed, and that, immediately on the receipt of the royal procla mation against the regicides, agents were despatched for their apprehension. They claimed not to have been neglectful of the royal letter of 1662, averring that the court had openly resolved to bear true faith and alle giance to his Majesty, and to adhere to the privileges 1 Hutchinson, vol. i. Appendix. AGAINST THE CROWN. 311 conferred by their patent ; that many of all classes had taken the oath of allegiance before leaving their native country, and that the court had ordered the oath, in a form prescribed by itself,1 to be administered to all the freemen ; that so much of the said letter as referred to the civil liberties of the subject had been observed, the court only requiring the qualifications of the candidate " to be orderly evidenced to them ; " that, as to ecclesias tical privileges, they were governed by the Word of God, which has precedence even of a king's letter ; and that the navigation laws were, and had been for some years, observed in the colony.2 But, with all this subterfuge, they could point with feelings of honest pride to the college at Cambridge, which, though in its infancy, had already been the nursery of science and letters ; to the " small fabric of brick," which, reared by the liberality of the Society for Propagating the Gospel, now nestled under the walls of its more imposing neighbor ; to the schools, which were scattered throughout the length and breadth of the colony, in which the young Puritan was trained to principles of sobriety and virtue. Here, at least, was something where concealment was unnecessary, and triumph unblamable. The commissioners, in their reply, were " sorry to find that the court, in interpreting the charter, put more value upon their own conceptions than the wisdom of the king." To reduce " all the discourses upon this head to one question," they asked whether they would acknowl- 1 In this form, the oath is quali- 1677 that the general court passed a fied by being made to derive all its law, ordering "the acts of trade and force from the charter, which is navigation to be exactly and punc- made paramount to it. See Hutch- tually observed ; " " his Majesty's inson, vol. i. p. 222, n., and p. 231. pleasure therein not having before 2 Facts do not support the general been signified to us, either by express court in this assertion, as will appear from his Majesty, or any of his min- hereafter, (c. vi.) It was not until isters of state." Colony Laws. 312 THE ELDERS CONSPIRE °hap- edge the king's commission to be in full force. To this ' — « — ' inquiry the court declined to make any answer, intimat ing that the commissioners had been commanded not to interrupt the charter government, and declaring that they were always ready to furnish such evidence as would enable them to represent " their persons and actions " to the king. The commissioners again requested an un equivocal answer to their question ; and the court, after considering the matter two days, returned that it was their duty only to interpret the charter, and that it was beyond their province " to determine the power, intent, or purpose of his Majesty's commission." This answer effectually closed the conference. Nothing remained for the commissioners but to ascertain how far they would be permitted to exercise their authority. In the midst of insults and contumely, and thwarted by active opposition and slanderous reports, they organized their court, and summoned the Corporation of Massa chusetts Bay to appear before them, and plead to two cases, in which the said corporation was defendant, one of a civil and the other of a criminal nature. But " the Lord stirred up a mighty spirit of prayer," arid "put wisdom and courage into the hearts of his people."1 The general court, not content with neglecting the cita tion, proclaimed with the sound of a trumpet 2 their con tempt of the royal court, and that the jurisdiction claimed by the representatives of the king was a violation of the charter. The commissioners even found that it was unsafe for any individual to bring his case before them ; 3 1 Roger Clap's Memoirs. 3 Tn a ietter 0f King Charles, 2 This was done, says Hubbard, dated in April, 1666, he requires in order to make the matter more that all persons be immediately set public, and to prevent confusion, at liberty, who are imprisoned only which otherwise might have hap- for petitioning the commissioners. pened. AGAINST THE CROWN. 313 which closed their labors in Massachusetts. We shall lose no more of our time upon you, said they to the genera] court, but shall refer the whole subject to his Majesty, who is of power enough to make himself obeyed in all his dominions. The general court then offered to adjudicate the mooted cases, and invited the commission ers to be present ; but they declined, with indignation, saying that it was contrary to all the laws of Christen dom, that the same person should be judge and party in a cause. The most glorious, and, at the same time, most inef fectual object of the commission, was to proclaim liberty of conscience in the colony, where it of special right belonged. Yet no effort made by its members was more utterly despised than this. Religious persecutions were openly carried on, and the lash did its work with impu nity. The same order of men, who presumptuously and rudely interfered with the Saturday evening recreations of the commissioners, on the ground that they were in fringements of " the Sabbath," 2 who, by insincerity and evasions, thwarted the honest endeavors of King Charles to restore the supremacy of the law, also falsified their own professions by wanton and reckless persecutions in the immediate presence of the messengers of liberty. The commissioners, soon after their discomfiture, sepa rated, and retired to the other colonies, having first forwarded despatches to the king. While some of them were engaged in remodelling the governments of Maine 1 The commissioners were in the them. It is to be regretted that a habit of meeting, sometimes, at the writer of so much religious pretence Ship Tavern, in the northern part as Grahame should have allowed of the town, on Saturday evenings, himself to make so false a statement and enjoying their pipes and punch, concerning the affair. The story, which so shocked the Puritans, that as he relates it, (vol. i. p. 338, n. ^,) constables were sent forcibly to eject is clear fiction. 27 swered. 314, THE ELDERS CONSPIRE chap, and New Hampshire, over which Massachusetts had as- -^v^ sumed jurisdiction during the civil wars, they were interrupted by a message from the general court, who protested against these proceedings as a " disturbance of the public peace." A rough reply was returned; and Sir Robert Carr, menacingly alluding to the late rebel lion, said that the king's pardon was conditional, and depended upon their good behavior. Such was the unfortunate termination of this good-humored effort to restore the royal authority in Massachusetts. Objections It has been objected to the legality of the commission, gaiityof that it was an attempt to supersede the charter. But, mission an- granting that the charter had not been already super seded by the colonists themselves, a very superficial exam ination of the commission will show that it was in the nature of an inquisition merely. Some express judicial powers were given, but these had reference to individual cases of hardship which had been brought to the notice of the king. The fact that Nichols was to hold his office for life proves nothing, nor, if the principle of survivor ship had been made one of the elements of the commis sion, would the case have been altered ; for its members were elderly men, liable to disease and accidents, and it was but prudent to provide for contingencies. We send our trusty servants to you, was the royal message, to settle the complaints that are continually preferred before us, and " to the end we may be truly informed of the state and condition of our good subjects there, that so we may better know how to contribute to the further im provement of their happiness and prosperity." Even if it be maintained that this was an attempt to visit a civil corporation contrary to the rules of the common law, which vests such authority in the King's Bench alone, AGAINST THE CROWN. 315 yet it is to be remembered that this was an unsettled part point so late as the year 17-53, when it was decided after • — y-^ " several days' solemn debate." 1 The commissioners never again resumed their func- Third royal tions, and the subsequent misfortunes of two of their Maasachu- number were seized upon by the elders as express mani festations of divine displeasure.2 But the temporary vic tory which the Puritan State had gained was the cause of perpetual uneasiness ; and while Connecticut and Rhode Island, under their newly acquired charters, were se cured in the possession of " the same privileges and powers of self-government which they had enjoyed from their first settlement ; " 3 while the pilgrims of Plym outh were rendered happy by a letter from Charles, con trasting their " dutiful behavior " with the " contrary de portment" of their refractory neighbors, and promising them "constant protection and royal favor;"4 the sus pense which was suffered by the people of Massachusetts rendered their continued impunity anything but satis factory. " A new cloud is gathering, and a new storm preparing for us," wrote Gookins, one of the assistants ; 1666. yet the cloud and the storm existed only in their timo rous minds. Charles again addressed a letter to the gen eral court, but not a letter of reproach or menace. He no longer addressed them in terms of affection, but, an- April. nulling the authority of the commission, he ordered them, on their allegiance, to send delegates to his court, two of whom were to be magistrates whom he named,5 to the 1 Case of the College of Physi- pretty harsh usage, they putting a cians, cited in Black. Com. vol. i. gag in his mouth, which (it is said) p. 481, ch. 18. he threatened to some in New Eng- 2 Sir'Robert Carr was seized with land that pleased him not. Hub- sickness as soon as he landed in bard. England, which, in a few days, put 3 Pitkin. a period to his life. Col. Cart- 4 Hutchinson. wright fell into the hands of the 5 Bellingham and Hawthorne. Dutch, from whom he met with 316 THE ELDERS CONSPIRE end that he might personally hear their arguments in favor of that despotic bigotry which would exclude all persons but Puritans from the enjoyment of liberty and religion. He wished to make it appear to them how far he was from the least thought of " invading or infring ing " the royal charter of the colony, although they " believed that he had no jurisdiction over them." J The gene- This letter, a copy of which had been " surreptitiously by the ad- conveyed over to Massachusetts before the original,"2 vice of the 1 ¦ i i <» 1 l 1 eiders, was laid before a general court, convened expressly for again diso- . beys the the purpose, and the elders were desired to be present and to give their advice. Let us obey the king's order for conscience sake, timidly advanced some of the pre rogative party. No ! boldly replied others ; for, if the king sends for two of the magistrates, he may send for ten, and we, with as good reason, obey. Whereas, the civil magistrate being the minister of God, for the good of the people, none can assert that his absence from his charge will promote such good.3 Such had been the growth of distrust and suspicion in the breasts of the elders, since the unfortunate mission of Bradstreet and Norton, that they were unwilling to trust the magistrates with the destiny of their commonwealth, and resorted, as usual, to a perversion of Scripture, as an apology for dis obeying their sovereign. The liberty party prevailed. An address was agreed upon to the king's ministers, wherein the authenticity of the royal epistle is artfully called in question,4 and a doubt intimated whether, in any event, the ablest of the magistrates would be able to 1 Hutchinson, vol. i. App. xix. delivered to them by Maverick, the 2 Chalmers's Annals, p. 149. royal messenger. In fact, however, 3 Hutchinson. Letter of Mr. not a member of the court enter- Cobbett, cited in Hutchinson. tained any real doubt upon the sub- 4 The only ground for this was ject. See Hutchinson, vol. i. p- that a copy only of the letter was 232 and note. AGAINST THE CROWN. 317 explain the position of Massachusetts more fully or part clearly than had already been done. The court then v — v~~> adjourned, first passing a vote of censure upon certain citizens of Boston who had petitioned for a compliance with the royal command. Happily for Massachusetts, wars, domestic troubles, Policy of ... n • t 11 , Massachu- and court intrigues, tor some years, received all the setts during attention of the king. The general court, " thinking: it with Hoi- 1 ii i • b land and the part of good governors, as well as good judges, to France. amplify their jurisdiction," took advantage of the national troubles, to resume into their government the colonies of Maine and New Hampshire. And the more effectually to secure their interests in the settlement of Gorges, wherein was manifested considerable opposition to this usurpation, they reorganized its militia, and cancelled the commissions of the peace which had been issued by the royal commissioners.1 But they coupled these acts with others which might serve to blind the king. With ad mirable ingenuity, they seized hold of every occasion which would enable them to express the sentiments with out incurring the obligations of loyalty. The war with 1664-6. the Dutch and French, which called for a great increase of the British navy, afforded an opportunity for a gift, to the king, of a large number of spars, the freight of which alone amounted to sixteen hundred pounds. This magnificent present was soon followed by a contribution to victual the West Indian fleet, and the great fire in Lon don, which swept the metropolis from the Tower to Temple Bar, and left homeless a population of fifty thousand per sons, led to the exertion of a generosity as creditable to the heart as to the head.2 These instances of unexpected 1 Hubbard. ling. Letter of Mr. Seaman to Mr. 2 The little town of Charlestown Syms and Mr. Shephard, cited in contributed, alone, 105 pounds ster- Hutchinson. 27 * 1669. April. 318 THE ELDERS CONSPIRE liberality were graciously acknowledged by the king, whose good-nature and kindness of heart were never wholly ob literated by his habits of vice and self-indulgence. Rapid ad- It was again forgotten that the Massachusetts was but vance of . _ . . . Massachu- a corporation. The population of the commonwealth con- vii 3 in. wealth and tinued to increase in wealth and numbers.1 The genius population. they manifested for trade and commerce was allowed full scope, and the comforts and luxuries of all classes were greatly multiplied.2 It made no difference that the price paid for this prosperity was the open violation of the law. This sin sat lightly upon the consciences of the freemen, now that it had become for their interest to question the obligatory nature of statutes which they had 1672. no share in making. The act obstructing the trade of enumerated commodities among the plantations passed entirely unnoticed. They had no custom-house and no revenue officers. Their ships, free as air, traversed the globe. On land, they were extending their settlements further east than Maine, and the charter, originally con ferring territory extending from three miles north of the Merrimac to three miles south of the Charles, was used, like the taurinum tergum of ancient Carthage, to include tracts of land almost without limit. "All nations had free liberty to come into their ports and vend their com modities, and they presumed to give passports to ships, not only belonging to that colony, but also to England, 1 In 1673, New- England con- tions, whether from other colonies tained a population of 120,000 souls, orfrom foreign nations. Col. Laws. of whom 16,000 could bear arms, Ships of British and all foreign mer- and 5,000 persons, merchants and chants were taxed to support their planters, were worth, on an average, fortifications, and one penny in £3,000 each. Three fourths of the money was levied upon every twenty population and wealth belonged to shillings in value, although the Massachusetts. Chalmers. owners were not represented in the 2 The government began to de- general court. See Answers of the rive steady and permanent revenues Colonial Agents. Chalmers's An- from the duties levied on importa- nals, p. 438. Col. Laws. AGAINST THE CROWN. 319 making the world believe they were a free state."1 As if to revive the smouldering spark of independence, the confederacy between the colonies, which had outlived the proud hopes of its founders, and had existed, of late years, only to settle the quarrels it engendered, was re- 1672. newed with the equivocal provision of protection against the invasion of "any enemy whatsoever."2 Their aggran dizing policy, as we have seen, at length involved them in a war with the natives, the longest and the bloodiest they had ever experienced, and which, at one period, menaced them with utter destruction. But a righteous retribution was soon to follow. The ambition of the elders, and the grasping spirit of the freemen had brought Massachu- 1676. setts to her culminating point. So soon as the king found leisure to listen, renewed Fourth roy- .iii- c al letter to complaints against Massachusetts reminded him of the the colony. manner in which his last proposals had been treated. Mason and Gorges, the proprietors of New Hampshire and Maine, directed the royal attention to these helpless settlements which were reposing in the embrace of his troublesome colony. Charles immediately dispatched the March. famous Edward Randolph to Boston, with a letter order ing the general court, within six months, to send agents to England, " fully instructed and empowered " to appear and answer for the colony. Shall we obey the king, asked the court of the elders, or shall we, instead, send over our answers in writing1? You may send your agents to Whitehall, was the reply, provided " they be, with the utmost care and caution, qualified as to their in- 1 Answer of Randolph to the Holland, France, and Spain, arrived Committee of Plantations. Hutch- daily in the harbor of Boston, which inson's State Papers, p. 496. had now become " a magazine of all 2 Hazard, vol. ii. p. 521. See, commodities." Cleyborne's Rela- also, Cleyborne's Relation. Cbal- tion. Chalmers's Annals, p. 433. mers's Annals, p. 433. Ships from 320 THE ELDERS CONSPIRE structions, so that they may negotiate this affair with safety unto the country." 1 An elder and a deputy2 were accordingly commis sioned by the general court to represent Massachusetts in August. England, being expressly limited in their powers. In the hearing which was had before the lords' committee of the council, assisted by the Chief Justices of the King's 16 77. Bench and Common Pleas, the claim of Massachusetts to New Hampshire and Maine was declared to be un founded.3 All lands extending from three miles north of the Merrimac to the province of Maine, together with the four towns of Dover, Portsmouth, Exeter, and Hamp ton, were excluded ; the remainder of Mason's claim was held to be within the bounds of Massachusetts, and was confirmed by the king.4 The general court admitted the justice of the decision by covertly purchasing from the heirs of Gorges the proprietorship of Maine, and by reluctantly waiving all right to New Hampshire, which was placed under a royal governor. The latter step was not taken, however, before they had obtained the opinion of the attorney-general, Sir William Jones, which was given with admirable prudence.5 But though the king 1 Hutchinson. court, Sir William answered : If 2 William_ Stoughton and Peter Mason's estate do lie within the ju- Bulkley, a singular proof that the risdiction of the assembly which magistrates, as a body, were losing made this law, and that this assem- their influence. bly were rightly constituted, accord- 3 Chalmers's Annals, p. 396. ing to the powers given by charter, The judges decided that " the then he was bound by the law, etc. boundaries of Massachusetts cannot In 1660, Geoffrey Palmer reported be construed to extend further north- to the king, that Robert Mason, ward than three miles beyond the grandson and heir to Capt. John River Merrimac." Mason, had a good and legal title to 4 Hutchinson. Belknap. the province of New Hampshire. 5 To the question whether Ma- Belknap. This opinion was con- son's grants, informally made, and firmed by Sir William Jones in unaccompanied by seisin and pos- 1675 ; but, when retained by Mas- session, were valid to oust about sachusetts, "it seems," says Bel- fifty years' possession of a title ac- knap, " that he altered his opinion." quired under a law of the general Also, Hazard, vol. ii. 576. AGAINST THE CROWN. 321 did not disturb the questionable title acquired by this bargain to the seigniory of Maine,1 he was extremely an noyed at the disappointment it caused him, since he had been for some time maturing a plan for uniting, by purchase, the territories of Gorges and Mason, and be stowing them upon the Duke of Monmouth.2 Mortified and offended by this return for all his indulgence, " he required them to give up their purchase upon being re imbursed the price," a request with which " they silently declined to comply."3 The act of Massachusetts was impolitic; but, to forestall the king, was in the highest degree discourteous, and not the best manner of prepar ing the royal ear to listen to their excuses and evasions. Questions about boundaries were therefore but pre ludes to inquiries of a graver nature. Every inch of ground gained by the king, in favor of his just rights, was disputed with amazing obstinacy, and the least re laxation in his efforts became the signal for fresh en croachments. The navigation laws, the Puritan estab lishments, the disuse of the oaths of allegiance,4 the absence of the crime of treason, these and other delin quencies ferreted out by Randolph, now established in 1678. Massachusetts as an inspector of the customs, presented a curious knot of difficulties for the agents of the colony to unravel. They found themselves, indeed, unequal to the task, and soon sent home such assurances, that the general court hastened to palliate the anger of the king, by marks of partial submission. The crime of high trea- 1 As a legal question, it was made to "require all persons, as well doubted whether a lordship vested in as inhabitants and strangers, to take Gorges and his heirs was assignable the oath of fidelity to the country." to strangers. The purchase-money All persons who refused were not was £1,200. to have the privilege of recovering 2 Grahame. Belknap. their debts in courts of law, nor to 3 Chalmers's Annals, p. 397. have the protection of government. 4 In the year 1677, a law was Truth and Innocency Defended, etc. May. 322 THE ELDERS CONSPIRE chap, son now became known to the laws of Massachusetts for ^-f—' the first time since the transfer of the charter ; the oath of allegiance, unqualified by ambiguous expressions, was administered to all male persons of sixteen years of age and upwards; and the royal arms were reinstated in their legitimate place in all public buildings. With greater reluctance, the general court declared that no per son should be hindered from celebrating the ritual of the English Church. Even the acts of navigation, which, contrary to their former declaration, the general court now acknowledged had been constantly violated,1 were ordered to be enforced. We violated these laws, said the court, in a letter of instructions to the agents, be cause " the subjects of his Majesty inhabiting this colony, not being represented in parliament, we apprehended them to be an invasion of their rights, liberty, and prop erty." Such was the ease with which the general court could alter its relation to the crown, at one time avowing that they were a " privileged place," represented in par liament through the manor of East Greenwich, and, at another, to subserve another interest, declaring that they supposed they were not affected by laws they had no share in making.2 The agents urged a fuller compliance with the demands of the king. It was still unsafe for the surplice to be worn in public, and to say the Church burial-service at a grave was the signal for an affray.3 The number of assistants was only eight or ten, and, as the charter 1 Chalmers's Annals, p. 408. But gressed the acts of trade, when there for never more than .£5,000 a year, were no officers to see them duly ob- was the excuse made. served .' " Defence of New Eng- 2 Hutchinson. " Is it strange," land Charters. asked Jeremiah Dummer, in this 3 See J. Moodey's Letter to Ma- connection, rather contemptuously, ther, cited in Hutchinson, vol. i. p. "that merchants, whose business is 319, 11. gain, should have sometimes trans- AGAINST THE CROWN. 323 required eighteen, the court of assistants was an illegal body. It still remained impossible for all but "church members " to arrive at the dignity of freemen. Appeals from the courts of the colony were disallowed. " Pine- tree shillings " and sixpences, rightly stamped with the resemblance of a tree, whose presence is the sure indica tion of barrenness, with the gloss scarcely worn from their surfaces, were handed about in the royal circle, and examined with curious eyes by the king. In short, some new exposure was sent to England with every ship that left Massachusetts, and some new demand arrived with every vessel that entered her ports. It is useless to go into the tiresome detail. " By indirect means," the gen eral court was kept constantly informed of the memo rials presented to the committee of the colonies, and the secret councils of the king were known in Massachusetts in time for defensive preparation.1 The concessions that had already been made by the general court were accom panied by repeated days of fasting and prayer ; and as the dangers which menaced the state were aggravated by the growing immorality of the people, a synod of all the elders was assembled to ascertain the reason of "the 1679. Lord's judgments " upon New England, and the remedy that was necessary to cause their removal. Had the elders, even now, at the eleventh hour, counselled obe dience, the charter would have been saved ; but they recommended, instead, a revision of their old platform.2 In truth, the deliberations of the synod seemed to give fresh life to the wavering disloyalty of the general court. The agents of the colony, who, like their predecessors, had been convinced, while in England, of the sincerity and justice of the king, became unpopular, and were 1 Chalmers's Annals, p. 148. 2 Hubbard. Mather. May. 324 THE ELDERS CONSPIRE recalled.1 And though Charles only consented to their departure on the express condition that others should be sent to succeed them within six months, the general court chose rather to falsify the promise of their servants, than to yield to the wishes of their sovereign. The great fire in Boston, which " half ruined the whole colony," and destroyed " a considerable part of the warehouses belong- August. ing to the chiefest merchants in the town," did not dis turb the unconquerable spirit of the elders. So blind is prejudice, that they who regarded the nibbling of the leaves of a prayer book by mice as an omen of deep significance, could not discern the hand of a just and righteous God in the calamitous fire which destroyed their meeting-houses, and ruined their chiefest merchants, the " most woful desolation that Boston ever saw." 2 Partial compliances and empty professions marked the controversy to its close. Fresh weight was given to the royal cause, when Randolph, the only collector of cus toms which the crown ever sent to Massachusetts, and who had been commissioned by the king to swear the governor to observe the acts of trade and navigation, was resisted in the discharge of his duties. Every mode of annoyance was used that ingenuity could suggest or power execute. Attachments were brought against him and his officers, and he was compelled to deposit money in court before he could commence any legal process ; and appeals from the colonial courts to the king were stubbornly disallowed.3 By such means as these, Massa- l Hutchinson. Such, at least, ap- whom they thought to have been pears to have been the case. Hutch- too compliant." inson says that, upon their return, 2 Hutchinson, vol. i. p. 313, n. though no " mark of disapprobation In November, 1676, in August, of their conduct was shown by the 1679, and in 1682, Boston was vis- general court, yet many were dis- ited by great conflagrations. Hub- satisfied, especially with Stoughton, bard. 3 Chalmers's Annals, p. 411. AGAINST THE CROWN. 325 chusetts made this zealous officer her most zealous adver sary. He never tired of ferreting out and disclosing the usurpations of the colony, and "was always ready to reveal those things which the general court was desirous to conceal."1 Eight times, this indefatigable but ill- judging officer sailed from Massachusetts to England, in nearly the same number of years, carrying some new weapon that he had discovered among the secret treas ures of the colony, with which to enable the king to inflict a fresh wound upon the unlawful constitution which had been maturing since the transfer of the char ter. His discoveries kept alive the impatience of the king, who, though immersed in the intrigues of the cabal, and imagining " popish plots," had now too firm a hold upon Massachusetts to suffer another relapse. But the general court was too well skilled in evasions to under stand the merit of frankness and honesty.2 Each new demand from Charles was the occasion of a public fast in Massachusetts ; and while the interference of Heaven was invoked by these pious acts of humility, while every pulpit resounded with the fervid " exercises " of the elders, and every phenomenon in the heavens was watched 1680. with unutterable anxiety,3 the simple act of obedience was withheld. The closing act of this prolonged political drama was at hand. For twenty years Massachusetts had success- I Hutchinson. terleayed Almanac, in Hutchinson, 2 "On one point the colonists vol. i. p. 313, n. This comet has were determined, either entirely, or been supposed by astronomers to be as long as possible, to evade the the same which appeared forty-four royal will." Grahame. years before Christ, at which time 3 In 1680, another comet dis- Julius Csesar was murdered. It is turbed the cplonists. " Its appear- supposed also to have been the same ance was very terrible ; for, though which caused the deluge. Its nu- the head be small, yet the tail is cleus was calculated to have been near thirty degrees in length, and ten times as large as the moon. ascends almost to our zenith." In- 28 326 THE ELDERS CONSPIRE chap, fully bearded her sovereign by means unworthy of a • — y^ religious state. The clerks of his privy council were retained in constant pay by her agents, and "served them with true intelligence." The secrets of the court were known in Boston, before they transpired in Lon don. Her agents, expert in the mysterious dogmas of Puritanism, became equally so in intrigue ; sometimes complaining of the parsimoniousness of the general court, and yet protected by no scruples about the obligation of works, from tempting the fidelity of the king's servants by the wages of corruption. To " stop gaps by way of presents," and to resort to bribery with those who were base enough to be thus bought, such was the diplomacy of the Puritan State, and such the corrupt channels, which too often conveyed away those moneys, which should have been devoted to the grandeur of the nation.1 A year and a half had now passed away, and no one appeared, as had been promised, to represent the colony. The king's offers had been again slighted,2 and for the last time. The Lords Committee of Plantations formally 1681. addressed the governor and assistants, recapitulating the many offences of the colony, from the date of the charter. Defend yourselves, if you can, they said in substance, but submit you must. You have one of two alternatives before you ; either to accept from the king what he may propose in your case, or else to go before the stern tribunal of the king's bench, and receive there such judg-' ment as the law will award. On the one hand, the king is gracious, and disposed to be indulgent ; on the other, the law is strict and uncompromising. If your case will bear the investigation of the law of the land, and this be your choice, you are entitled to its benefits; l Hutch. Coll. p. 473. Chal- 2 Letter of 1680, under the king's mers's Annals, pp. 412, 413, 461. sign-manual. October. AGAINST THE CROWN. 327 but if you fear the results of a legal inquiry, and will part cordially appear before the throne, as good and faithful - — ^-— < subjects, the king will lend a favorable ear to your defence. But, one of these alternatives you must accept ; for if you reject the latter, a writ of quo warranto will immediately issue.1 What was to be done 1 Did not the command, with Conflicting ..... -,-. iii i emotions of which this address concluded, to " send agents empow- the eiders. ered to submit to regulations of government," mean agents empowered to surrender the charter 1 Where could Massachusetts find in her past history any guar antee for her future loyalty 1 A retrospect was, indeed, forbidding ! But the king's bench was the only alterna tive. At the formidable bar of this tribunal must appear the almost forgotten corporation of " The Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay, in New England," and the visitatorial authority possessed by the judges of the crown did not extend to the remission of forfeitures in those cases where the crown was a party. The scales seemed to be evenly balanced. It would be a painful spectacle for the elders to see their old enemies, the Quakers, the Anabaptists, and the Familists, triumphing over the downfall of trans-Atlantic Puritanism. It would be equally unpleasant to feel that the Church from which Cotton and Wilson and Hooker had fled, with a host of other worthies, could follow them with impunity to the wilderness, repeat its superstitious ritual, and swell the notes2 of its Te Deum, within sight of their hallowed 1 Chalmers. Pitkin. Hutchin- it,) without the formality of a quo son. So irritated was Charles about warranto. Of course, he was ad- this time, at the repeated slights hi vised not to pursue a course at once had received from Massachusetts, illegal and tyrannical. that he consulted with his attorney 2 Instrumental music was un- and solicitor-general, concerning the known to the Puritan communion feasibility of superseding the charter, in Massachusetts. Cotton Mather (not constitution, as Grahame has says, that as there is not a word in 328 THE ELDERS CONSPIRE dust. How could they bear to check the commercial prosperity of the people, by an unqualified submission to the acts of trade and navigation ! And how could the magistrates endure to lower their dignity, by ordering appeals from their decisions, even to the king himself! Actuated by such conflicting motives, the general court, at length, sent agents1 to England, but forbade them to consent to any proposition which should violate the liberties of their constituents, or infringe the provis ions of the charter. Go before the throne, said the court, and defend the institutions built up by the piety of our fathers, and now in jeopardy on account of the just judgments of God upon us, their degenerate descendants. While you are engaged in this sacred undertaking, we will clothe the colony in sackcloth, and appeal to the 1682. King of kings. Such was the spirit in which the last agents of Massachusetts under the first charter departed May. for the court of their sovereign. It was characterized by something of patriotism and something of pathos. The governor even waived his dignity as a Puritan mag istrate, and condescended to beseech Randolph to do nothing at this crisis "to the prejudice of the colony." But that zealous officer, little moved by the distress, which he believed to spring from disloyal hearts, prom ised to exert his good offices with the king, only on condition of " a full submission to his Majesty," and followed the agents to England, to see that they concealed nothing from the scrutiny that the colony was about to undergo. the New Testament authorizing the 1 Joseph Dudley and Mr. Rich- use of such aids to devotion, the ards. Stoughton was at first again Holy Ghost does in effect declare, elected, but two several times he " I will not hear the melody of thy positively refused to accept the trust, organs." How would this worthy be and Richards took his place. shocked at the change now to be seen. AGAINST the crown. When it was found that Massachusetts had refused to authorize her agents to make a full submission to the king, they were informed that unless their powers were speedily enlarged, his Majesty would give orders for the issuing of the quo warranto. The agents immediately sent despatches to the general court, declaring that " their case was desperate," and that, unless authority was con ferred upon them to submit to the king's pleasure, they would not be answerable for the consequences. But, added they, if the general court prefer to stand upon their rights, they will not stand alone. Many corporate bodies in England are in jeopardy ; among others, the franchises of the city of London, which were granted by three, and confirmed by fifteen monarchs of the Planta- genet, Tudor, and Stuart dynasties. And though most of them have submitted to the king's pleasure, yet Lon don and the Bermudas have refused.1 " Let us die by the hand of others, and not our own," said the elders, on the receipt of this intelligence ; and this sentiment, in the abstract so patriotic, found a willing response in the hearts of the people, who echoed it in enthusiastic terms upon the. general court.2 But the prerogative party prevented the full operation of an impulse so rash and hazardous, and a compromise address was prepared by the general court, which the agents were to present at 1 To compare the charters of the justice of the nation. Neal. London with the charter of Massa- Charters of London. This exertion chusetts was, in this regard, absurd, of power, though " strictly legal," The English corporations lost their was in summo jure, and highly arbi- charters because of the Presbyterian trary, which cannot be said of the influence in their counsels, of which course pursued against Massachu- Charles was jealous ; to which may setts. Blackstone. be added, in the case of London, a 2 Hutchinson. Among the most charge of illegal exaction of tolls in active of the elders was Increase the markets, and the framing of a Mather, who published reasons for scandalous petition, wherein they not surrendering the charter. Ibid. charged the king with obstructing 28* 330 THE ELDERS CONSPIRE their discretion, and in which were tendered some slight concessions. But they were again ordered to make no radical surrender of rights. Firm to the last in clinging to their beloved institu tions, the charter government would have expired with magnanimity, had its last throes been free from weakness and dishonesty. Deception, indeed, was almost second nature to the general court ; but one act was yet to be committed, for which, more than from any mere duplicity, they were to suffer the ridicule of their contemporaries, and the reproaches of their posterity. Now that they saw the end before them, after a prolonged truancy of more than fifty years, and were compelled to look their master in the face, and answer for the time in some respects so sadly misspent, they endeavored to gain his favor by offering him a paltry bribe. The agents were ordered not to surrender the charter, but to " tender, for his Majesty's private service," the sum of two thousand guineas. Let this error, however, be not too harshly regarded, which was not spontaneous with the general court, but arose from the advice of a false friend.1 It was not so much intended as a bribe to procure oblivion of the past, as an offer to purchase the control of the future. Judgment Although the king made a jest of this insult, he Eigsunst tn.6 iii charter, seemed to be touched by the earnestness which prompted it. The quo warranto issued, and, that nothing might be wanting to clothe it with dignity, was sent to Massa- 1 Cranfield, royal governor of New how we are ridiculed by our best Hampshire, staying at Boston, on friends at court, for the sham Cran- his way to England, proposed this field hath put upon you," wrote scheme to the court, and promised Dudley to Bradstreet. Cranfield af- his good offices. But though Hub- terwards repented of his treachery, bard says he was an " honorable and, in the capacity of collector of gentleman," in this case he played, customs at the Barbadoes, endeavored as Hutchinson says, an infamous by his attention to New England part. " It would grieve you to see traders, to make amends. Belknap. AGAINST THE CROWN. 331 chusetts in a frigate ; but, with it, was also transmitted a royal promise, "that if the colony, before prosecution, would make full submission and entire resignation to the king, he would regulate their charter x for his service and their good, and with no further alterations than should be necessary for the support of his government." The magistrates, made up chiefly of the prerogative party, were disposed to listen to this last summons from the king, and passed a resolution, declaring that, upon " se rious consideration," they would not presume to dispute with his Majesty in a course of law, but would submit to his pleasure. Not so the deputies. There was no flinching with them. Supported by the elders, they were equal to the spirit of their former declaration, that the glory of Puritanism should not pass away by a suicidal act. A fortnight's debate of this momentous question served only to strengthen their resolution, and the laconic but determined reply was sent up to the magistrates, November. "The deputies consent not." Immediate preparations were made to meet the impending crisis, and loyal ad dresses were sent to king Charles, in company with retainers to counsel to defend the charter. But it was without avail ; and that franchise which they might have saved, had they in any reasonable degree observed its 1684. terms, was soon torn from them by the powerful arm of Trinity t. the law.2 1 Chalmers's Annals. Grahame sufficient notice for twenty years has it, "compose their neiu char- past, and should have been prepared ter." This writer is never reliable to defend in court what she unjustly on such points. usurped out of it. Charles's last 2 It has. been thought that the message was received in 1683, with judgment in this case was arbitrary, the quo ivarranto ; scire facias is- because it issued before Massachu- sued in April, 1684. An al. sci. setts had time to appoint an attor- fac. issued in Trinity Term, on both ney to defend, etc., after receiving of which nichil was returned. Mo tte scire facias. This is highly ab- tion by counsel for Massachusetts surd, because Massachusetts had had argued for allowance of time to pro- 332 THE ELDERS CONSPIRE Ere Massachusetts had received formal notice that her charter was cancelled, king Charles the Second died. the king. Whatever the faults of this unhappy prince, however 1685' darkly the life he led contrasts with that of the first February. J . Charles, no reproach rests upon his name in the annals of Massachusetts. His last message to the people, who had wronged his father, and heaped insults upon himself, was one of kindness and indulgence. It was like that of a father to his wayward children.1 There was nothing arbitrary in his course towards Puritanism in the New World. For twenty years, he bore with it, listening to its excuses, forgiving its deceptions, and tendering the olive-branch. It was a long period for the endurance and patience of an arbitrary monarch. He claimed but his equitable rights, in a colony peopled by his subjects, supported by national wealth, on national territory. He repeatedly offered to preserve the charter, nay, to enlarge the privileges it conferred, for among these the right of transferring the corporation or of erecting a legislature did not exist. And, at last, he was compelled to reduce Massachusetts to a palpable dependence upon the crown, not by fleets and armies, but by the irresistible power of justice ; not because the colony withstood oppression, or clung to its charter, but because it claimed exemption from laws, which all other subjects, were they peers of the realm, were bound to obey, and that, too, by force of a franchise perverted from things religious to things po litical. And thus perished the Puritan Commonwealth. cure attorney, June t2, and judg- to diminish the infamy of their op- ment entered up for the king June pressor by sharing it with him." 1 8. Bancroft has it that judgment This statement, so disgraceful to the was given in Michaelmas Term, hand which penned it, and the heart which is an error. which conceived it, is hardly recon- 1 "The people," says Grahame, cilable with the attempt to bribe, "had acted well, and had now to which the same writer stigmatizes as suffer well, and disdainfully refused " unholy exertion." AGAINST THE CROWN. 333 The elders fought the battle to the last, and only sur- part rendered because they had exhausted every means of - — . — ' defence. When we consider the insignificance of so small a portion of the British empire, its utter weak ness, and its little service to the mother country, we are at a loss which to admire most, the patience which bore with the Puritans so long, or the mingled subtlety and resolution which contended for so many years with powers so vastly superior. The death of the king interrupted plans that were Effect of maturing for the government of Massachusetts, and left ment the affairs of the colony in abeyance. Letters were re- charter. •ceived from England no longer addressed to the governor or general court, for these had ceased to have any legal existence, and King James the Second was proclaimed in April. Boston before the magistrates were formally notified that judgment had been entered up against them, in favor of his deceased brother. "There were all the symptoms of an expiring constitution." A feeling of languor per vaded the general court, and many empty seats in the House of Deputies spoke eloquently, to the saddened few who still met together, of that " golden age of Puritan ism," when Massachusetts claimed tribute from savage nations, and dictated laws to New England. The popu lar resentment against a " degenerate magistracy," which had advised a surrender of the charter to the crown, was manifested by the dropping of names at the elections, dear to Massachusetts as associated with all that was glorious in her history, and substituting those of humbler origin, which were known only by their connection with the cause of liberty. The reward was, indeed, worthless now, but it was all that the freemen could offer to the defenders of Puritanism. Gloomy forebodings filled the colony. 334< THE ELDERS CONSPIRE Part III. Fears concerning a Royal Governor — Col. Kirk — Dudley's Commis sion- — Its Reception by the General Court — Intrigues against the Commission — The mild Nature of the Commission and its Govern ment — Colonial System of James II. — Its Merits examined — The Arbitrariness of James, compared with the Tyranny under the Charter — Arrival of Sir Edmund Andros — Character of his Administration — Restraint upon Marriages — Fees for Quitrents to Crown Lands — Levy ing of Taxes — Other arbitrary Acts of Andros — Causes of his Unpopu larity — The Colonists petition the King — Renewed War with the Eastern Indians — The humane Policy of Andros, frustrated by the Out-. rages of the Charter Government — Andros kind as a General — The Elders excite Rebellion against him — Political Struggles between the Liberty and Prerogative Parties — Andros acquitted by King William — Conclusion. Col. Kirk. This period of the history of Massachusetts, has been seized upon by modern writers as affording a theme for the severest comment upon the tyranny of the crown, as contrasted with the spirit of liberty in the colony. A transition was to be made, at once, from the privileges of freedom, to the caprices of despotism. Those who have attentively perused the foregoing pages, will see how little claim the Puritan State had to a glory which was acquired by Rhode Island alone. They will remember how earnestly the magistrates struggled to prevent the growing strength of the freemen, how successfully the freemen obstructed the acquisition of political rights by the people ; and how both magistrates and freemen, en couraged by the elders, pursued a series of religious per secutions, as bloody as they were illegal. Such was the nature of the freedom that was destroyed by the abroga tion of the charter. But what was to be substituted for this happy creation of Puritanism % " So eager was AGAINST THE CROWN. 335 Charles the Second to complete his long-cherished de signs," and, " as if he purposed to consummate his tyr anny and vengeance, by a measure that should surpass the darkest anticipations entertained in New England, he selected, as a delegate of his prerogative, the notorious Colonel Kirk, whose ferocious and detestable cruelty has secured him an immortality of infamy in the history of England." x It is unfortunate for the reputation of the writer here quoted, that he gave his prejudices greater play than the truth, and that, in publishing a history of the United States, he seemed only to be lecturing his countrymen from the elevation of a Scotch pulpit. Equally unjust to the king, and to Kirk, is this violent denunciation; and had he examined further than the pages of Hume, he would possibly have hesitated, ere he endeavored, so recklessly, to blacken the memory of a Scotch king, or consigned to an "immortality of infamy" the sullied name of a "soldier of fortune."2 Colonel Kirk was, indeed, selected by Charles II. as the first royal governor in New England, but this was before his campaign in the West of England, and the supposed enormities he there committed. On the accession of James, rumor also affirmed the confirmation of his ap pointment by the new king, and even proceeded so far as to settle the ship in which he was to sail, and the time of his embarkation.3 But this report proved to be 1 Grahame. Hinkley, cited in Hutchinson, vol. 2 Macaulay echoes Hume, in his i. p. 307, n. Kirk's character evi- history, as to the character of poor dently stood fair enough at the time Kirk, with additional hard names, he was appointed by Charles, except If all that has been said of Kirk be so far as he was a prerogative man. true, how did it happen that the pru- In the letter above alluded to, and dent and discreet usurper, William, which was written before " the cam- should have appointed him to a sta- paign," Kirk is mentioned without tion of honor and trust ? This fact any allusion being made to his "ruf- Macaulay is at a loss to explain. fianism," etc., which was not the 3 Letter of Mr. Rawson to Mr. case afterwards. 336 THE ELDERS CONSPIRE chap, erroneous ; for Kirk, unfortunately for himself, was de- — ^ puted by James to assist in putting down the treason able insurrection of the Duke of Monmouth. In this campaign, is laid the scene of his " ferocities " and his " ruffianism," and while these delinquencies have little to do with the history of Massachusetts, yet, as certain writers have dwelt upon them, in order to excite odium against the king, who could appoint such a monster to govern his meek subjects in Massachusetts, a brief allu sion to the character of this notorious individual will not be deemed out of place. Kirk was a zealous Tory, and this was a greater sin, in the eyes of Puritans, than the absence of " good works." They whose hands were red with the blood of slaughtered tribes could have little understood the sensations of disgust and loathing inspired by wanton cruelty. They dreaded Kirk chiefly because he was an ardent supporter of the crown. A late writer 3 has investigated, however, the authorities for the hateful character given by historians of Kirk, and his testimony, disinterested, and to the point, is too valuable, in this connection, to be omitted. " Among party nar ratives, the horrid tale of the bloody Colonel Kirk has been worked up by Hume with all his eloquence and pathos ; and, from its interest, no suspicion has arisen of its truth. Yet, so far as it concerns Kirk, or the reign of James the Second, it is, as Ritson too honestly ex presses it, ' an impudent and barefaced lie ' ! The simple fact is told by Kennet in a few words ; he probably was aware of the nature of this political fiction. The origin of this fable was probably a pious fraud of the Whig party, to whom Kirk had rendered himself odious ; at 1 D'Israeli's " Political Forgeries and Fictions." Curiosities of Lit erature, vol. iii. p. 149. AGAINST THE CROWN. 337 that moment, stories still more terrifying were greedily part swallowed,1 and, which Ritson insinuates, have become a • — v-^- part of the history of England. . . . Kirk was a soldier of fortune, and a loose liver, and a great blusterer, who would sometimes threaten to decimate his own regi ment ; but is said to have forgotten the menace the next day. Hateful as such men will always be, in the present instance Colonel Kirk has been shamefully calumniated by poets and historians." 2 So far was James the Second from entertaining any Dudleyscommis- wish to tyrannize over helpless Massachusetts, that the sio°- temporary direction of its affairs was committed to Joseph Dudley, who had been the agent of the colony at 1686- the English court, and was the son of a leading Puritan.3 With him were associated in office, as a council, several gentlemen of the colony, some of whom had been, and were, magistrates ; and among whom were to be found the venerated names of Winthrop and Bradstreet, of Pynchon, Saltonstall, and Stoughton. The colonies of Maine and New Hampshire, so long coveted .by the charter government, were comprised in the commission ; and, as if further to gratify the territorial pride of the people, the country of the annihilated tribe of the Narrar gansetts was also included. The powers delegated to the commissioners were mild and equitable ; the chief of them being to establish liberty of conscience, and to allow of appeals, in all cases, to the king. The commission was to be supported by a levy of the taxes previously imposed by the general court, for the support of the char ter government. 1 "The fiction of the warming- the origin of Hume's narrative of pan, inclosing the young Pretender, Kirk. brought more adherents to the cause 3 Dudley, no doubt, owed his of the Whigs than the Bill of office, in part, to the influence of Rights." Lord John Russell. Ib. Randolph, who warmly espoused his 2 See D'Israeli for an account of interest. 29 338 THE ELDERS CONSPIRE chap. The commission arrived late in the spring, during the — A-' annual session of the court of elections. A copy of his ofthe com- appointment was immediately laid, by Dudley, before the tTeSSgenebr^ court, " not as a Governor and Company, but as some of the principal gentlemen and chief inhabitants of the May. several towns of the Massachusetts." But while he announced this unpleasant truth to his late constituents, he also called their attention to the mild and easy terms of the commission, hoping that the spirit of this instru ment might serve, in some degree, to relieve the mortifi cation, which they would naturally feel at the loss of their corporate privileges, so justly forfeited, and now no longer recognized. The assembly was not so easily mol lified. Not all the relief they experienced on learning that the affairs of government were intrusted to some of their own number, could allay their resentment against Dudley, who had intrigued for his situation with the avowed enemies of Puritanism. They found fault with the commission, because it set forth no " determinate rule for the administration of justice ; " and because, also, " the subjects were abridged of their liberty, in matters of legislation and taxes." The one, it was said, . was too arbitrary, and the other unconstitutional. They declared, therefore, that it highly concerned Dudley " to consider whether such a commission was safe " for him or for them ; but finished by hoping that they should demean themselves as true and loyal subjects to his Maj esty. This dutiful hope was followed by measures for secreting all papers relating to the charter, and the titles to Indian lands, when the assembly adjourned until the ensuing October.1 Singular inconsistencies are often observable in the 1 Hutchinson. AGAINST THE CROWN. 339 conduct of mankind. The very men who " expressed part joy and satisfaction," when they saw, instead of Colonel ¦ — y^~> Kirk with a regiment of soldiers disembarking from the against68 ship of war that came on the service of the king, a small mission. package directed to Joseph Dudley and other principal colonists, soon "grew hardy," and endeavored, through the elders, to shake the firmness of the commissioners. In this, they were only partially successful. Saltonstall and the two Bradstreets alone wavered under this attack ; the others were firm, and avowed their intention not to abuse the confidence of their sovereign. Scarcely a week had elapsed since the arrival of the commission, and the elders were already plotting for the overthrow of a government, which the king had hoped would open the way to a better understanding between the mother coun try and the colony ; and the assembly " broke up with hopes that, either by some unhappy accidents in the affairs of state at home, or some dissension raised by i their artifices " among the commissioners, they might dissolve the new government, and reassume the charter.1 But " the persons only, not the government, were Mild nature 1 i ,, *-\ /~uo Warranto was issued against same, after resistance had become both colonies, but did not proceed futile. to judgment ; Rhode Island at once AGAINST THE CROWN. 343 would raise a shout in all the halls of legislation in New England. The plan formed by the king for correcting this evil would have been both just and proper, had it been legal. Assemblies, to use his own words, " would be of danger ous consequence, nothing being more known than the aptness of such bodies to assume to themselves many privileges, which prove destructive to the peace of gov ernment."1 But, true as this royal aphorism is, a prin ciple lay behind it of vital consequence to the liberties of the English subject ; and the opinion of Sir William Jones, that the king could no more levy taxes upon the inhabitants of Jamaica, although a conquered country, without their consent in an assembly, than they could discharge themselves of their allegiance to the crown,2 involves a truth as old as the English Constitution.3 I say involves a truth, although, in its broadest meaning, as applied to Massachusetts, it contradicted the tenure of colonial lands, the admissions of the colonial legislatures, and the maxims of English constitutional law. The House of Commons was the only other place, besides a colonial legislature, where the right of taxation resided. In that body, the people of Massachusetts were represented as well as the inhabitants of the Isle of Man. They were specially represented through the manor of East Greenwich, because they still held their lands by that . ' Letter of the Duke of York to Mass. State Papers. See, chiefly, Andros, Governor of New York, Revolution in New England Justi- 1677. Bancroft. fied, pp. 45, 46. 2 This language was made use of 3 " A tax granted by the parlia- by Sir William Jones to Charles ment of England shall not bind those IL, concerning the conquered island of Ireland, because they are not of Jamaica, although Grahame puts summoned to our parliament." But it into the mouth of Jones as a reply if they were expressly named, the to James II. , concerning the people case was different, because of the of Massachusetts. See Address of sovereign legislative power of par- the House of Representatives to the liament. Year Books. 20 Henry Earl of Shelburne, January 15, 1768, VI. 8. 1 Henry VII. 3. 344 THE ELDERS CONSPIRE chap. tenure, although the corporation was dissolved. They ' ' were generally represented by every commoner in parlia ment, whose duties are not local, but national.1 The acceptance of the indulgence bestowed by the charter, of being free from all taxes for the space of seven years, was an acknowledgment that the property of the corpo ration in New England was subject to the action of the English parliament. The subsequent admission, that the knights and burgesses of the manor of East Greenwich did represent them in parliament,2 was a confirmation of this truth. It was also admitted by the inhabitants of Ipswich, who refused to pay the assessments laid by Andros, on the ground that " it is against the privilege of English subjects to have money raised without their own consent, in an assembly or parliament."3 And the Bill of Rights, passed in the first year of William and Mary,4 enumerating the oppressive acts of James, added to its force, by declaring that the king had assumed and exercised a power of dispensing with and suspending the laws and the execution of the laws, " without the consent of parliament." Indeed, this was an undisputed prin ciple of the age ; and even in the charter of Pennsyl vania, drawn by William Penn, the Quaker advocate of 1681. civil and religious liberty, we find the right of taxation carefully guarded from the prerogative of the crown, by an express reservation to the provincial assembly and the parliament of England.5 After all, the importance of the principle at stake 1 Burke. tories of the United States. " The 2 See ante, p. 271. power of congress over the public 3 Hutchinson, vol. i. p. 327, n. territory," says the late Judge Story, 4 Stat. 1 Wm. & Mary, 2, c. 2. " is clearly exclusive and universal, 5 Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 363. In and their legislation is subject to no truth, this supreme power of parlia- control ; but is absolute and unlim- ment is analogous to that which is ited," etc. Comment, on Const. exercised by congress over the terri- Abr. § 668, p. 479. AGAINST THE CROWN. 345 alone rendered this a point of interest, and the principle part was equally applicable to the charter government. What - — y-^ right had the freemen of Massachusetts, sitting in the tmrmess of general court, to extort money from that large number of compared persons who were denied the right of citizenship 1 Yet. tyranny r . . hit under the for fifty years, the general court had compelled dissenters charter. from Puritanism, men without civil or religious privi leges, to contribute for the support of a system which they abhorred. With poor grace, indeed, do complaints of " arbitrary power " come from the lips and pens of the admirers of Puritanism. Nothing but the vindication of that national liberty, which the Puritans neither com prehended nor appreciated, prevents the last of the Stuart kings, Romanist as he was, arbitrary as he was, absolute as he tried to be, from receiving the unqualified homage of the New England historian at their expense. For, in other respects than this of the legislature, his system was grand and noble as compared with theirs. Although " the form of his instructions was arbitrary, their essence was altogether favorable to real freedom." x Political freedom and religious liberty were granted to all alike. Even the Indian and Negro began to feel, for the first time, that they were human beings ; and they learned with gladness, perhaps with surprise, that their sovereign valued the security of their lives, as well as that of his white subjects, and would regard their slayers as mur derers.2 Except in the restraint of the press, in which the example had been set, some years before, by the elders, " not one of the instructions " to Sir Edmund Andros " expressed a spirit of despotism ; " 3 and even 1 Chalmers's Annals, p. 421. his instructions in the following 2 Instructions to Andros. sweeping manner : " He was au- 3 Grahame. Bancroft sums up thorized to remove and appoint 346 THE ELDERS CONSPIRE in this respect, with more consideration than had been shown by the narrow and odious spirit of Puritanism, the press was, in fact, rarely, if ever, interfered with by the administration of Andros.1 An-ivai Seven months after the institution of the provisional mund An- government under Dudley, Sir Edmund Andros, " glit- 1686. tering in scarlet and lace," 2 arrived at Nantasket December. Roa(js -phe sober reign of Puritanism was at an end. Quakers began to take courage, and slaves even felt that they were under the protection of the law.3 But while the humbler classes of society rejoiced at the commence ment of a new era, the elders and the freemen were filled with dismal forebodings. They beheld the legislative and judicial powers vested in a board of counsellors who received their appointment from the governor, and who were responsible to the king alone. And though the letter of instructions from the king ordered the laws then in force to be respected, if not inconsistent with that higher respect due to the supreme authority; though it ordered commerce to be encouraged, life, liberty, and property to be held sacred, none to be promoted to office but colonists of moral character, and universal toleration of religion to be allowed ; nothing would compensate for members of his council, and, with slaves. There is every reason to their consent, to make laws, levy think that this humane provision taxes, and control the militia of the was loudly called for. One of the country. He was instructed to tol- earliest acts of Andros was to re- erate no printing press, to encourage buke, sharply, Hinkley, the late Episcopacy, and to sustain authority Governor of Plymouth, and now by force." This partakes rather of one of his council, for distraining the nature of libel than of history. the goods of Quakers, who refused 1 Grahame. to contribute for the support of the 2 Bancroft so says, but does not elders. Would it not be as rea- give his authority. It sounds well, sonable, wrote Randolph, that we and conceals a sneer. should rate your colony to pay our 3 One of the instructions to An-, minister of the Church of England ? dros was to restrain the excessive Hutchinson, vol. i. p. 319, n. severity of masters towards their AGAINST THE CROWN. 347 the deprivation of that highest privilege of an English part subject, the right of legislation through his lawfully elected ' — «-^ representatives. Unfortunately for the royal cause, Andros, though he character possessed sound judgment, was afflicted with an irritable ministra- temper ; and although he commenced his administration with the fairest promises and considerable popularity, he had not good-nature enough to withstand the perpetual opposition that he encountered at every step. One of the earliest measures of the new administration, the levying , of a tax upon articles of luxury, such as wines, brandies, 1687. and beer, to meet an unavoidable deficiency in the rev enue,1 was, from its nature, unpopular, and a cause of murmuring. The first blow, however, levelled at his government was in Connecticut,2 and the manner in which that colony treated his attempts to enforce his October. authority, gave him a disgust from which he never recov ered. Among his first acts was an endeavor to restrain Restraint the latitude which had crept into the community respect- riages. ing marriages. Since the systematizing of the Puritan religion, none but magistrates had been allowed to per form this ceremony ; and the elders willingly sacrificed this portion of their authority to the anti-Catholic preju dices of their followers, in order to preserve the remain der. But the long period, during which the marriage state was regarded in the light of a civil contract merely, had led to latitudinarian views ; and one of the earliest laws passed by the general court, in the subsequent reign,3 1695. 1 Chalmers's Annals. Chalmers's Annals, p. 419. In 2 Under his government were 1688, New York and the Jerseys united the several colonies of Mas- were added by commission, which sachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, passed in March. To the French, New Plymouth, Pemaquid, and this union would have been formid- Narragansett, over which discordant able had it been real. elements he was general and vice- 3 Stat, 7 Gul. III. c. 32. admiral during the royal pleasure. 348 THE ELDERS CONSPIRE chap, was for the " preventing of abominable dishonesty and ' — v — ' confusion, respecting unlawful marriages." Andros at tempted to correct this evil, by compelling all parties to enter into bonds, with .sureties, to be forfeited in case there should afterwards appear to have been any lawful impediment to their marriage. And though he did not interfere with the Puritan mode of celebrating the sol emn rite, this wholesome regulation was regarded as grievous.1 Fees for Another source of trouble experienced by Andros, to crown arose out of the condition of land titles. By the abro gation of the charter, the titles to all real estate became clouded. The corporation was dissolved, and its prop erty, in strict construction of law, vested in the king.2 But, besides this unpleasant reality, the colonists, by altering the original character of the corporation, by dis using the corporate seal, and making grants of record through the general court, had, for a long period of time, been giving worthless titles to the farmers and planters of Massachusetts. King James, aware of the immense power this gave him, was not disposed to abuse it, but directed Andros to grant to the inhabitants " their sev eral properties, according to their ancient records," de manding therefor only a moderate quitrent.3 But this insecurity of their estates touched the colonists in a tender point. They produced before Andros their care fully drawn deeds, executed with the rude signatures of Indian sachems, and the governor, with as much home liness as truth, pronounced them no better than the "scratch of a bear's paw."4 Their consciences could 1 Hutchinson. 3 Mather. Hutchinson. 2 Co. Litt. 13 b. 102 b. The 4 Revolution in New England expression in vogue was, says Hutch- Justified, p. 21. inson, that " the calf died in the cow's belly." AGAINST THE CROWN. 349 hardly gainsay the justice of the decree, and, abandoning this ground of defence, they placed themselves upon the force of their records. Again, it was replied, they are not "worth a rush."1 Possession was next pleaded; but it was answered, your possession cannot be pleaded against the king.2 Driven from point to point, by the acumen of Andros, they finally avowed that their lands were held " by the grand charter of God," and jumped, at once, from the common law to the Book of Genesis, declaring that God gave the earth to the children of men to be subdued and replenished.3 The slaughter of the natives ^rais thus the best title the colonists had to their estates. Nor did Andros attempt to refute this singular plea. Perhaps it served only to increase his rigor, for the quitrents demanded in some cases were exceedingly disproportioned to the value of the estates. They "varied according to circumstances, both of persons and estates," the rich paying more, and the poor less. Petitions poured in to the governor for deeds of confirmation. All classes, from the magistrate to the poor husbandman, threw themselves upon the clemency of Andros. But, amidst the anxiety of some and the despair of others, who was there throughout the length and breadth of New England, that thought that this might be a righteous retribution for the manner in which their lands had been acquired \ This, at least, may serve to moderate our indignation, though it cannot excuse the abuse of arbitrary power ; * of which, however, there is little evidence. 1 Rev. in New England Just. p. 2 Nullum tempus occurrit regi. 24. Town records were of course Co. Litt. 41. strictly worthless, for all the acts of 3 Rev. in New England Just. p. the general court, erecting towns, 19. counties, etc., were avoided by the 4 When we consider the large forfeiture of the charter, even if legal tracts of land acquired by the de- in the first instance. struction of the Pequods, the Narra- 30 350 THE ELDERS CONSPIRE But the invalidating of their titles was not the only hardship. " The governor, with four or five of his coun- tLaxVe^mg ° cil, laid what taxes they thought proper," and " this, the people complained of as their greatest grievance."1 Not . that the expenses of government were great ; on the con trary, the administration of Andros appears to have been economical, since the most diligent research, prompted by the bitterest zeal, has not been able to produce against him the charge of extravagance.2 The " scarlet and lace " in which he " glittered," on landing, is the only accusation of luxury in his habits, and this appears to have been invented. Aidros, on his first arrival, had promised that, in levying taxes, he would be governed by the former rates, and that the only difference should be, that the levies would be laid by an executive council, in stead of a general court.3 And there is no doubt that this promise would have been observed, had affairs con tinued in their usual condition. But, in " the second 1688. year of his administration, the public charge was greatly Summer, increased by a war with the Indians ; " i and the new burden this entailed upon a country not yet recovered from the exhaustion of King Philip's war, was severely felt by a people unused to heavy taxes, and who had been gansetts, and the Wampanoags, not 3 In despotic governments, says . to mention the fact that the deeds of Montesquieu, there is an equivalent the natives were as often given for for liberty, which is the lightness of the consideration of " good-will and taxes. Esprit des Lois, b. xiii. ch. affection," as for any other, our an- 12. In the next chapter, he asserts ger at the disturbance of such titles that taxes may be much increased in becomes somewhat mollified. free countries, since the people, by a 1 Hutchinson. natural self-deception, imagine that 2 " The charges of government, the payment of taxes, however great, over and above the fees of the sev- is a voluntary evil which may at any eral officers, were not excessive." time, by an exertion of their pre- Hutch. "The taxes, in amount rogative, cease. Whereas, in des- not grievous, were for public pur- potic. countries, power can only be poses." Bancroft. Grahame en- stretched without danger. deavors to make out a different * Hutchinson. story, but gives no authorities. AGAINST THE CROWN. 351 accustomed to support their military establishments, in part part at least, by the spoils of conquest.1 But this mode ¦ — r^ of warfare was now at an end, and when it became necessary to raise a military force, Andros represented to the king that the revenues of the old government were now insufficient, and begged for advice. The king re ferred him to his letter of instructions, and ordered the colonies to pay the expenses of wars which had been brought about by their own injustice.2 The odium of this just decree fell upon the instrument of its execution. Yet the manner in which it was enforced shows that the governor endeavored to lighten its weight. The amount to be raised was ascertained by the council, and it was left to the respective towns to determine, through their selectmen, the assessment upon each individual.3 The other arbitrary acts of this unhappy administra- other arbi- ii j • e J Tl trary acts tion are summed up in a tew words. Ine governor was 0f Andros. supreme ordinary, and he and his council, from which were selected the judges of the superior court, demanded high fees in the discharge of their duties. But it should be remembered that the uncertain and fluctuating profits thus derived, supported the judiciary of the province. There was no real cause of grievance. The salary of the governor was paid out of the royal treasury. Not a penny was levied upon the pockets of the colonists. But even a greater consideration than this was the fact, that the towns of Massachusetts were relieved of the burden of supporting their representatives in the general court. Andros encouraged the formation of a church in Boston, and the colonists menaced all tradesmen and mechanics who should frequent the services, with arrest or with- 1 See Declaration of the General 2 See Grahame, vol. i. p. 381. Court, in Hazard, vol. i. 427-8. 3 Hutchinson. Pitkin, etc. Also Hazard, vol. ii. 34, 540. 352 THE ELDERS CONSPIRE chap, drawal of their patronage.1 In return, the governor — y — - threatened to compel conformity from Casco Bay to Long Island Sound. He demanded one of the meeting houses for the Church services ; but Deacon Frairey ir reverently interrupted Mr. Ratcliffe, while performing the burial-service at the churchyard, and prevented the last rites of religion from being celebrated over the grave of the deceased churchman.2 The writ of habeas corpus was denied to John Wise, who was arrested, tried, and convicted of sedition ; but then John Wise was an elder, who, by his position, had necessarily great influence, and he had misused his liberty, by advising the people of Ipswich to resist the taxes levied by order of the king. He counselled resistance to the government, and, when arrested therefor, pleaded Magna Charta. Do not think, said the indignant Dudley, that the privi leges of Englishmen will follow you to the ends of the earth.3 The selectmen of Ipswich voted to pay no rates, until they had petitioned the king, declaring, with much truth, that " it is against the privilege of English subjects to have money raised without their own consent in an assembly or parliament;"4 and Andros, anxious for the consequences, ridiculed the opinion by demanding whether they really thought Joe and Tom may tell the king what money he may have.5 Causes of ^n these, and all other instances of a like kind, either uiSaritnyP°P" preserved by the scrupulous care of prejudice, or yet to be discovered by the jealous eye of the antiquarian, there is much to rebuke in Andros, but more to extenuate. A temperate view of his administration will convince the 1 Letter of Randolph to the Arch- Andros, as having been repeatedly bishop of Canterbury. made use of by him. 2 Hutchinson, vol. i. 319, n. 4 Hutchinson, vol. i. p. 327, u. 3 Grahame, with his usual reck- 5 p-eit) ;n Bancroft. lessness, imputes this language to AGAINST THE CROWN. 358 impartial mind that the causes of his unpopularity are to part be sought for rather in the contrast which the Church ^-»~~' presented to Puritanism, and which prerogative always must present to liberalism, than in any tyranny of the gov ernor. Certain it is, that no arbitrary tyranny can be ascribed to Andros, as Governor of New York. His administration there was unmarked by a despotic char acter ; and the historians of that province are forced to echo the writers of New England, when they attempt to prove him a "sycophantic tool," or an "arbitrary tyrant."1 So, afterwards, as Governor of Virginia, his character was irreproachable. His judgment was sound, his policy liberal, his deportment conciliating, and his generosity great ; 2 in a word, he was " a good moral man." 3 Whatever view, however, be taken of his character as a statesman, the weight of indignation should fall on his council rather than upon him. Forty persons were asso ciated with him, to advise, to check, to instruct, and to mediate.4 They all knew the characteristics of the people, the wants and the weaknesses of their fellow- colonists. Andros was a stranger ; a soldier, moreover, and one accustomed to command ; he was a courtier, whose bias was in favor of prerogative ; and a Church man, whom the events " of the past century had given violent prejudices against Puritanism, which, no doubt, were increased by the fact that he could not even attend the Puritan services without being marked out for denun- 1 See Manning's case, Smith's Randolph farmed his office to one History of New York, pp. 42-44. West, and was much disgusted at 2 Burk's Virginia, vol. ii. p. 316. the extortion of his farmer, who, as 3 Douglass's Summary, vol. ii. p. he said, rendered the administration 248. odious by his extortion. But he 4 Much of the obloquy heaped on intimates that it cannot be helped, Andros is more properly chargeable without honest attorneys. SeeHutch- upon some of his council. Thus, inson, vol. i. p. 321, n. 30* 354 THE ELDERS CONSPIRE chap, ciation from the pulpit.1 Had his council consisted of 1 — y~^ counsellors, the harsh features of his character would have softened, and, perhaps, have entirely disappeared. But they " had more of the willow than the oak in their constitutions," and, wavering between the administration and the people, they abandoned both, and retired to the obscurity of their inland homes. Sir Edmund was thus thrown for support upon those members of his council who resided near Boston ; and a majority of these shielded their cowardice at the board by the complaint, that " the governor had three or four of his creatures to say yes to every thing he proposed, after which no opposition was allowed."2 The candid inquirer will consider the value of a defence, the chief merit of which was timidity, and whose only force was the accusation of an absent enemy.3 mstsplti- ^he declaration, by King James, of general toleration kiTg!he throughout the British empire, quieted all fears concern ing the establishment of the Church in New England. Happy for Massachusetts that it was so ; for ¦ the elders, making use of nearly their last opportunity, " preached sedition and planned resistance."4 But they were spared . the infamy of kindling the flames of civil war, by reason of the utter disgrace into which Puritanism had fallen ; and the unexpected liberality of the king even led them to anticipate some further advantage from his clemency. The zealous Increase Mather, whose sacred character had not preserved him from the sin of defamation, to Coit. them publicly, during his adminis- 2 Hutchinson. tration. 3 These complaints must either 4 Bancroft. Willard, says this have been made sotto voce, or after searching writer, "goaded the peo- Andros was deprived. For, whether pie with the text, ' ye have not re- tyrant or not, it would have been sisted unto blood, warring against equally dangerous to have made sin.' " AGAINST THE CROWN. 355 avert the consequences of which he was then suffering part voluntary concealment,1 was smuggled by night on board ¦ — y^-> a ship, and, ere the morning dawned, was. on his way to ^l'. England. Arrived in London, Mather found there Samuel Nowell and Elisha Hutchinson, two of the old assistants under the charter, who joined with him in petitioning the king.2 Although a law against Roman ecclesiastics disgraced the statute-book of Massachusetts, written in letters of blood, the zealous Puritans did not hesitate to ingratiate themselves with the king's confes sor, and to excite that very principle in behalf of Puri tanism, which the latter had denounced as the essence of Antichrist. By such means, ready access was obtained to the royal ear.3 The petition contained no complaint against Andros, but begged that the inhabitants of New . England might be quieted in the possession of their property; and that no laws might be made, or moneys raised there, without the consent of a general assembly. The former of these requests was readily conceded by James ; but as to the latter he was inexorable. " Any thing but that, Sir William," said the monarch to Phips, who used his influence in behalf of his countrymen.4 The wrongs of his father and brother crowded upon the king's memory, and obscured his judgment. But the answer was not final. Some hope was held out of future privilege ; 5 and, in the mean time, a further peti tion was preferred, that, " until his Majesty should be graciously pleased to grant an assembly," the council 1 He accused Randolph of forg- 3 See Chalmers's Annals, p. 427. ing a letter from him, and an action * Grahame. was immediately brought by the lat- 5 " Since your lordships seem to ter, in which damages were laid at be of opinion that his Majesty vjill five hundred pounds. He recovered not at present grant an assembly," costs only. Hutchinson. etc. 2 Hutchinson. 356 THE ELDERS CONSPIRE chap, might consist of considerable landholders in the colo- IV. nies, and that all laws should receive the sanction of a majority. The petition was unsuccessful. Renewed In the mean time, the character of Andros was being the Eastern exhibited in more pleasing colors. During the troubles which arose between the English and French, in relation to the boundaries of their respective settlements, and April, soon after the expedition of Andros in The Rose frigate, in which the town of Castine was plundered and partially destroyed, the frontiers of the northeast were again exposed to the ravages of the Indians, and it became necessary to adopt some vigorous measures for the safety of the border inhabitants. Knowing that " this barbar ous people had never been civilly treated by the late . government, who made it their business to encroach upon their lands, and, by degrees, to drive them out of all," x and considering that the charter administration had " treated them with too great severity, if not injus tice," 2 Andros resolved to win the regard of the Indians by setting an example of humanity. " Good works and small courtesies," he thought, might be more efficacious in subduing the savage heart, than gunpowder and gin. The liberation of one Indian captive might teach a more practical lesson in Christianity, than mountains of bibles and myriads of tracts. A French trader,3 who had been adopted by an In dian tribe on the Penobscot, was plundered of his stores while absent, by the English 4 settlers in that rude neigh borhood. This outrage seems to have been caused by his furnishing the natives with ammunition ; for the English pursued the policy of preserving an ascendency l Letter of Randolph to William 3 Le Baron de Castine. Penn, November, 1688. 4 Hutchinson, vol. i. p. 326. 2 Hutchinson. AGAINST THE CROWN. 35J over the Indians, by carefully keeping from them fire- part arms and powder,1 while they liberally bartered fire- w-r^ waters and tracts. The Penobscot tribe, embracing the cause of their injured friend, and instigated by him, retaliated, by seizing some cattle at North Yar mouth. The next scene in the opening drama was the capture of a party of Indians near Saco, which was met by reprisals on some white families at New Dartmouth. By this time, the flames of war were lighted from the shores of the Penobscot to the mouth of the Piscataqua. Andros, who was then at New York, returned to Bos ton, and saved the captive Indians from slavery, by ordering their immediate release. Astonished at such unusual liberality, the Indians voluntarily returned, in exchange, several English captives. The first act of Christian warfare in the annals of New England, is justly attributable to a Churchman and a Jacobite.2 The humane policy of Andros was destined to be The hu- frustrated by the influence of former outrages. The icynof PAn- infamous treachery of Major Waldron had not yet been trated by forgotten, and some of the captives taken on that memo- rages of the rable occasion, having escaped from their bondage, had govem- returned to their tribes to keep alive the perpetual thirst for revenge.3 Other wrongs 4 had since been suffered by '"Whereas the French and Dutch, other occasions, was so contrary to and other foreign nations, do ordi- the policy of the Puritans, that they narily trade guns, powder, shot; etc., made it a charge against him,accus- with Indians, to our great prejudice ; ing him of stirring up the Indians it is therefore ordered that it shall not against the English. See Depo- be lawful for any Frenchman, Dutch- sitions in Rev. in New England man, ete., to trade with any Indian, Justified. etc., under penalty of confiscation, 3 Belknap's New Hampshire. etc. ; and it shall be lawful for any Letter of John Eliot to Robert person to make seizure of any such Boyle, 1683. Belknap, vol. i. ch. goods, one half whereof shall be for 10, p. 126, n. the proper use of the party seizing, 4 These are enumerated by B el and the other to the country." June, knap, who says that the complaints '650. Colony Laws. are well grounded. 8 Andros's humanity, on this and 358 THE ELDERS CONSPIRE chap, the Indians, for which they could obtain no redress ; and - — y^ when Andros published a proclamation, commanding October, them to set at liberty all his Majesty's subjects, and such as had been guilty of murder to surrender themselves for trial, he was surprised to find that it was treated with . contempt.1 The exchange of prisoners, he had hoped, was a sign of unwilling hostility ; the savage saw nothing in this extraordinary act but some ruse for securing a fresh supply of slaves. His confidence in the English was destroyed forever.2 Andros The continued hostilities of the Indians rendered active general, measures necessary. Andros put himself at the head of November, eight hundred men, who were impressed for the service, and marched through frost and snow into the eastern country. It was impossible to complain of the impress ment, for that was the common mode of raising troops under the charter.3 But forgetting the memorable Nar ragansett campaign, made in the depth of winter against a harmless ally of the Puritan Commonwealth ; forget ting the sufferings of the border inhabitants, who needed immediate succor ; the enemies of Andros seized the occasion to charge him with a design of freezing or starving his little army. Unhappily for the credit of these rumors, the governor shared all the hardships of the meanest of his troops ; and his conduct, during his voluntary command, wrung from his soldiers the praise 1 Hutchinson. Belknap. 3 Col. Laws. Hutchinson. Not 2 According to Grahame, Andros only was the impressment of soldiers was " disgraced," (I use his own authorized by the general court, but words,) by his humane conduct, be- also that of laborers for the " public cause it was unsuccessful. And he works of the commonwealth," who attributes its ill success not to the were placed at the mercy of one Puritan State, where it alone be- magistrate and an overseer, and were longs, but to the " insidious arti- to be paid such wages only as " they fices " and the " suppleness " of the shall judge the work to deserve." French. 1634- AGAINST THE CROWN. 359 of being " a kind and good general."1 The campaign, part though bloodless, effected its object. The Indians fled >— -y^ into their winter fastnesses ; and three forts, well garri soned, protected the inhabitants from a fate that many of them well deserved.2 • Whatever were the merits or demerits of the adminis tration of Andros, it was soon to close, and to remain a byword for centuries, in the schools and histories of New England. His enemies could see nothing praise worthy in his loyalty, nothing excusable in his ignorance, nothing hopeful in his natural kindness of heart. They visited upon him the weakness and the follies of his coun cil, composed of the gentry of the colonies. The eastern campaign was scarcely closed, when un- The eiders GXCltG '1 certain and varying' rumors from England created " a rebellion li- i i » t i • againstAu- general buzzing among the people. It was soon whis- dros. pered in Boston that the Prince of Orange had landed 1689. in England, and was actively engaged in dethroning the pn ' fated Stuart. A copy of the Dutchman's declaration, exhibited in the streets of Boston, inflamed the curiosity and excited the hopes of the elders and the people. It was in vain that Justice Foxcroft punished by imprison ment the bold revolutionist who brought this " traitorous and treasonable libel into the country." 3 " The preachers 1 Hutchinson. pating the Protestant religion. Per- a The Indians complained that haps Winslow deserved punishment. their fisheries had been obstructed, In his deposition, afterward taken, he their corn devoured by the cattle of said that he brought news of " the the English, their lands patented happy proceedings in England " into without their consent, and that they New England, because " he knew had been fraudulently dealt with in it would be very welcome to the trade. Belknap. people there, and on purpose to let 3 Hutchinson. The expression, the people understand what a speedy perhaps, was not too strong. The deliverance they might expect from Prince of Orange accused his father arbitrary power." When the paper of endeavoring to enslave his own was demanded of him, by the gov- kingdom, after which he would join ernor, he uttered a falsehood, saying with the French monarch in reduc- he did not know where it was ; be ing the United Provinces, and extir- cause he feared the people would be 360 THE ELDERS CONSPIRE °hap. had already matured the evil design," and the rebellion ' — * — ' that occurred was " not a violent passion of the rabble, but a long-continued piece of wickedness." 1 The elders of Massachusetts beheld nothing unnatural in the con duct of* Mary and her Dutch consort ; notwithstanding the dishonest letters of the one, and the falsehoods of the other, which lulled the unhappy father into a feeling of security that cost him his crown. Thus to dishonor her father and to rob her brother was not inconsistent with the code of morals of Mary of Orange, who could sleep quietly in the royal palaces of England, while the un happy James was seeking where to lay his head. The example set by a Protestant queen was readily imi tated by a Puritan ministry, who loved power more than obedience, and the preaching of revolution better than the practice of the gospel. No sooner had vague rumors expanded into shape and outline, than the people rose in a body against the administration. Startling reports, originating none knew how, that the governor's guards were about to massacre the inhabitants of Boston, circulated from mouth to mouth, and excited the fury of the populace.2 The zeal of the timid was inflamed by the rumor that King James 1689. had imposed upon the nation a spurious child, as Prince of Wales ; that a Popish succession threatened the Eng lish dominion, and that the destruction of the reigning dynasty was the only security for Protestantism. It was gravely whispered among the populace that Andros was about to fire the town at one end, and Captain George, of The Rose frigate, at the other ; and that, in the smoke and confusion, both were to embark and sail for deprived of the news, etc. See Dep- l Lambeth MSS. in Bancroft. osition of John Winslow. Rev. in 2 Belknap. New England Justified, p. n. AGAINST THE CROWN. 361 France. Little creditable as these motives were to the intelligence of the people, they effected the objects of the demagogues. George was arrested while quietly pur suing his own affairs, and thrust into jail.1 The roads leading to Boston swarmed with revolutionists, fresh from the communion-tables of the country meeting houses, and eager to show their valor in the cause of Puritanism.2 Andros was seized and imprisoned, and with him the " public robbers," 3 who had for so long a time triumphed over the downfall of the Puritan State, and protected Quakers from the rapacity of Pu ritan laws. Several of the most eminent of the liberty party associated themselves together as a committee of safety, and, by general consent, took .the government into their own hands. Bradstreet, venerable with the weight of more than fourscore years, was brought out from the retirement of his second childhood, and his gray hairs served to bind the memory of the past to the hopes of the future. The enthusiasm was complete when a long declaration, prepared by an elder of Bos ton,4 defending the insurrection as " a duty to God and the country," was read from the balcony of the town- house.5 Until the success of the revolution at home had be come certain, it was a delicate matter to arrange the provisional government.6 Should they resume the old PART III. Political struggles in Massachu setts, be tween the 1 See Letter of Captain George to the Secretary of the Admiralty. Chalmers's Annals, p. 469. 2 " The country people came ¦armed into the town in the after noon, in such rage and heat that it made vis all tremble to think what would follow," etc. Anon. Letter to the Governor of Plymouth. 3 Life of Cotton Mather. 4 Cotton Mather. 31 5 Neal. Hutchinson. 6 The Prince and Princess of Orange were not proclaimed, be cause it was not in their favor that the people had been excited to re bellion. Massachusetts, at this time, presented the singular spectacle of a colony without a mother country ; of a royal province without a king. Chalmers's Annals. 362 THE ELDERS CONSPIRE chap, charter, or should the committee of safety retain the — y^ power in their own hands ? The representatives of the andulerty several towns of Massachusetts met at Boston, and the ^May. question was laid before them. Two days were spent in violent dispute. Forty of the fifty-four towns of the commonwealth instructed their representatives to vote for reassumption ; but the influence of the prerogative party was strong, and they opposed the measure. On the one hand, were again aroused the hopes of independence, which had been slumbering in the breasts of the elders since the forfeiture of their beloved charter. On the other, were lingering fears of consequences, mingled with longings for the trappings of a royal province. It was a conflict between religion and ambition ; between the pride of the elder and the pride of the magistrate. Happily for the peace of Massachusetts, news soon arrived of the proclaiming of King William and Queen Mary ; and the representatives, no longer deterred by prudent coun sels or warnings, again assembled, and declared the old charter of Massachusetts to be once more the constitu tion of the state, and the guarantee of their freedom.1 Andros Enthusiasm of so doubtful a complexion was passed byqKing over in silence by King William, who merely ordered the government, thus suddenly restored, to continue its functions for the present, in the manner most conducive to his service, and the security and satisfaction of the people. Andros was sent home for trial, by order of the king, but, when brought before the privy council, it was found that the charges preferred against him were anony mous,2 and, though vouchers were called to attest their 1 Hutchinson. Mather. Neal. not tyranny, or oppressive taxation, 2 It is somewhat remarkable, that but " his endeavors to stifle the news when the agents were asked the rea- of the landing of the Prince of Or son of their opposition to Sir Edmund ange, and the imprisonment ofthe and his administration, they replied, person who brought over his decla- AGAINST THE CROWN. 86c truth, none were forthcoming.1 In return, Andros retal- part iated with such severity upon his enemies, that they were — v-^ obliged to abandon the offensive and to stand dumb before charges that were as unexpected as they were genuine. At this stage of the examination, the king, in compassion to Massachusetts, dissolved the proceedings ; 2 and An dros was soon after appointed Governor of Virginia, which honorable position he sustained with credit until his death.3 And here properly closes this narrative of more than conciu- half a century, of the hopes and fears, the glory and the shame, of the founders of the Puritan Commonwealth. Their work was soon to pass away forever, or rather to develop in a new form, which would have startled the primitive pilgrims of the wilderness ; who departed, " la menting with their last breath that they were born too soon to see New England in its zenith." The infant republic of the West owed its origin to the genius and energy of the elders of the Puritan religion.4 When a few aristo cratic gentlemen of England consented to leave their seats for a new world, and to mingle in the common mass of emigrants, the latter encouraged their resolution by giving them the authority of an oligarchy. On every question between the few and the many, the elders were ever to be found with the magistrates, and against the freemen. So long as the magistrates were true to Puritanism, the elders maintained their authority over the people. But, ration." See "Letter of Mr. Cooke," gusting picture of intrigue and du- quoted in Hutchinson, vol. i. p. plicity. This is not unlikely. 35°, u. They could not well accuse 3 Hutchinson. Some of his coun- him of disloyalty to his master, or cil were also appointed to distin- of inconsistency with his commis- guished colonial offices. Dudley sion. was made Chief Justice of New 1 See Chalmers's Annals, p. 463. York. 2 Grahame says that the conduct 4 " The chief leaders of the peo- of the British Court, on this occa- pie into the wilderness," says Neal, sion, presents a confused and dis- " were the Puritan ministers." 364- THE ELDERS CONSPIRE AGAINST THE CROWN. chap, in process of time, we have seen that the magistrates lost < — ir— ' their first love, and, in the form of the prerogative party, showed symptoms of a desire to return to the lap of their sovereign. Henceforth, the elders were to be found with the people, giving them the resolution and courage, which, in the golden age of the commonwealth, had belonged to another class. The seeds thus planted in the people were slowly maturing for a century, when they suddenly burst forth and blossomed in gorgeous colors, before the astonished gaze of the world. CHAPTER V. PROGRESS OF THE ELDERS FROM SCHISM TO SECTARIANISM. Part I. Political Religionism — The New England Puritans Politico-Religion ists — The Charter not Puritan in its Character — Antiquity of the Church of England — The Saxon Church — Its Relation to the See of Rome — Its Happy Influence — Effect of the Danish Invasions — Fall of the Scaldic Mythology — Condition of the English Church at the Time of the Norman Conquest — Rise of the Papal Supremacy — The Papal Dominion a System of Spiritual Feuds ¦ — Introduced into Eng land — True Claims of the English Church — Iniquitous Character of English Dissent — Absence of any Reasonable Ground for Complaint — Dissent, Private Reasoning, in Opposition to Authority — Penal Laws levelled at Railing, not at Honest Difference of Opinion — The Con ference at Hampton Court frustrates the Designs of the Puritans — ¦ Absurdity of Puritan Arguments — Ecclesiastical Policy of James I. — Causes of the Increase of Puritanism — It begins to embarrass the Government — Causes the Arbitrary Acts of Charles I. — Develops rapidly under Abbot's Protection, during the King's Contest with Parliament — Growth of Republicanism — Policy of the Royal Gov ernment. Those who are familiar with the writings of Pro- part fessor Stuart will remember the phrase, political religion- > — - — - ism. It expresses much in a little compass ; and the ™j^- reproach conveyed in its true significance affects, in a,sm- greater or less degree, all branches of the Church, and peculiarly attaches to all schismatical bodies. It is im- 31* 366 PROGRESS OF THE ELDERS chaf\ possible to explain the motives of individuals, who perse- • — y — ¦ cute and injure their fellow-men on religious grounds, unless they be referred to a love of power. The " unen lightened age " furnishes no apology. The religion of love and charity, so awfully exemplified on the cross, was the same three hundred years ago as now. It appealed as directly to men's consciences, it uttered the same music to their moral sense. The Emperor Charles ordered the heretics of the Low Countries to be burned alive ; but, if they recanted their heresies, he gave them not their lives, but the privilege of dying without pain. He feared that their loyalty was gone, and that the loss was irretrievable, even if they recanted. The Church of England points for her martyrdoms to the " Acts and Monuments " of Fox ; the Church of Rome retorts upon her sister, by exhibiting the " three curious folios " of Dodd.1 But it Was in the struggle between Catholicism2 and Protestant ism that the latter developed, with tremendous energy, the principles of political religionism. In England, dis sent clamored for toleration ; but, no sooner had it acquired power, than it cursed the principle of " intoler able toleration." "A toleration is against the nature of reformation," it was asserted. "A reformation and a toleration are diametrically opposite. A toleration is the grand design of the devil — his master-piece." 3 While the sword was in the hands of the Puritans and Presby terians, " more of the blood of Englishmen poured like water within the space of four years, than was shed in l Church History of England. therefrom. The Church of Eng- * By Catholicism is meant not land has never applied it to herself, Romanism necessarily, but the prin- or used it in any of her formula- ciples and faith of which Rome is ries. Palmer's Ch. History, p. i4«- but a partial exponent. The term 3 Edwards's Antapologia, p. 145, Protestant belongs properly to the cited in "Truth and Innocency De- Lutherans, and the sects sprung fended." FROM SCHISM TO SECTARIANISM. 367 the civil wars of York and Lancaster in the space of four part centuries." 1 The Long Parliament canted about intol- - — » — - erance and spiritual tyranny, but, when it had resolved itself into the state, what so intolerant and tyrannical as itself ! That " shameless act of perfidy," as a Scotch historian 2 styles the act of uniformity, deprived two thousand Presbyterian usurpers of their livings in the Church of England ; 3 while, during the reign of dissent in that fair island, full seven thousand of the established clergy were " imprisoned, banished, and sent a starving." Even among themselves, the Protestant sects displayed the same spirit of persecution. The Presbyterians, who contrived their covenant to dispossess Churchmen of their livings, were, in turn, distressed by the Independents, who enforced with jealous care their engagement to get rid of the Presbyterian incumbents.4 In the assaults made upon the Anglican Church by New Eng- Romanists and Puritans, the latter proved themselves its tans, Poiit- t-> • i 1 -1 ico-Relig- greatest enemies. Kome aimed merely at restoring the ionists. Papal supremacy, but Puritanism thirsted for the destruc tion of church and state. The one had in view the restoration of its spiritual power, the other, the ruin of the civil and ecclesiastical establishments.5 Romanism was compatible with the existence of the monarchy, 1 Heylin's History of the Puri- an Account of the Clergy of the tans and Presbyterians. Church of England." See D'ls- 2 Grahame. raeli, vol. iii. p. 230. 3 This act went into operation 4 D'Israeli, Art. Political Relig- on St. Bartholomew's day, and the ionism. Presbyterians compared it to that 5 Swift remarks in his Paper, day of blood in France. They " The Presbyterians Plea of Merit," were careful not to remember, says that it was a common charge laid at Southey, that the same day had been the door of Scottish Presbyterians, appointed for the former ejectment, that they hated the Established when four times as many of the Church worse than Popery. He loyal clergy were deprived for fidei- assigns as a reason, that the Angh- ity to their sovereign. Also Walk- can Church stood between them er's " Attempt towards Recovering and power, which Popery did not. 368 PROGRESS OF THE ELDERS chap, while monarchy and Puritanism could "no better exist •— r—> together than God and the devil."1 The truth of this last observation may serve to palliate its profanity. Its truth was as evident in the New World as in the Old ; on the shores of Massachusetts Bay, as on the banks of the Thames. The love of arbitrary power was the beset ting sin of our pious ancestors, and soon triumphed over its more showy rival, liberty of conscience. Like all other systems of dissent, New England Puritanism was clamorous for toleration when weak, and deaf to all entreaty when in power. It was, perhaps, the best illus tration of political religionism the world has ever seen ; because it was confessedly the development of a state through a religious medium. The elders used their cov enant, and the magistrates their freeman's oath, to retain power over the people ; but the freeman's oath was only the political agent of the covenant. Upon the latter was raised the whole civil structure ; without it, no one could be free in this world, or sure of happiness here after. The char- To illustrate the truth of the foregoing remarks, it Puritan iu may be worth while briefly to point out the antiquity of acter. the Church which Puritanism rashly denounced, and to deduce the events which led to Puritan emigration. But it is important to be borne in mind, that the charter was not Puritan in its character or origin. The erroneous impressions conveyed by Puritan writers now pass cur rent for facts, and have been dignified by a prominent place in history. In order to settle the point, that the transfer of the charter was not illegal, it has been assumed that it was granted for this purpose. In con sequence of this absurdity, the same uninterrupted char- 1 James I. FROM SCHISM TO SECTARIANISM. 369 acter has been ascribed to the charter from the beginning, part and the banishment of the Brownes by Endecott has been >— v— ' placed in the same category with the subsequent persecu tion of Child and Maverick. This is sad work. Ende cott, acting as the superintendent of the company's trad ing post, fell under the influence of the Pilgrims of Plymouth, and, imbibing their narrow tenets, became a Separatist,1 and abused his power by persecuting the members of his council who were Churchmen. His doings, as we have seen, were entirely unauthorized by the company that employed him, which was composed of Churchmen as well as Nonconformists. And there is abundant evidence hidden under the accumulated writ ings of two centuries, that the religious character of the company commenced with that meeting of the stock holders in London, which accepted the overtures of Win throp. Religion never makes men stocks, says an old Puritan writer.2 The enterprise, so solemn and so irrevocable, in which a handful of gentlemen were about to engage, was calculated to excite in their minds the most intense anxiety. Hitherto they had remained in the Catholic Church, into which they had been baptized. This Church was national. Its history was identified with all that was glorious in the English name and character. It had imparted dignity and equity to the laws. Its ritual was the familiar language of household worship. Its festivals and fasts were ^he periods for national rejoicing 1 It is very certain that Endecott would not .trouble the settlements of was not a Separatist when he left the country with his religious fan- England. Otherwise, he would not cies, viithout the leave of the gover- have received his appointment; for nor. Hutchinson, vol. i. p. 17. See this was made the express ground of ante, p. 16. requiring written pledges from Ralph 2 Hubbard. Smith, a Puritan minister, that he 370 PROGRESS OF THE ELDERS Antiquity of the Church of England. and mourning. Its articles of faith were, for the most part, pure and conservative ; and, wherever a blemish could be detected, it was owing to the spirit of indul gence towards Puritan prejudice. Its churches and cathedrals were the ornament and pride of hamlet and city. Its churchyards contained the ashes of friends, relatives, and ancestors. No wonder " their bowels yearned within them,"1 when they thought of bidding it farewell forever. What motive could prompt an under taking so vast, so unusual, so forbidding \ Did the spirit of ambition lurk in their enthusiastic dreams 1 The Church of England was no phantom, conjured up by the diseased imagination of a vicious monarch. Its chants were sung before the barbarians of the North had swept like a tempest over the fertile provinces of degenerate Rome. Tradition, revealing glimpses of truth through the darkness of those early ages, still delights to recount how the great Tentmaker himself carried the laws of Christianity not only to the Romans, but also to the Scythians, the Huns, and the Britons.2 Legends are still extant which relate how British kings, though vas sals to Rome, voluntarily submitted to a nobler servitude at the font of the Christian Church. And the venerable Bede narrates with pride the triumph of the first British martyr, ere the light of Christianity had dawned upon l Hubbard. 2 Theod. Serm. ix. de Leg. torn. iv. p. 6io, Paris, 1642. The most probable tradition, says Southey, is that it was Bran, the father of Ca ractacus, who, having been led into captivity by his son, and, hearing the word at Rome, received it, and became on his return the means of delivering his countrymen from a worse bondage. "There is also rea son to believe that Claudia, who is spoken of together with Pudens by th^ Apostle Paul, [2 Tim. iv. 21,] was a British lady of this illustrious household, because a British woman of that name is known to have been the wife of Pudens at that time." Loc. Cit. p. 6. Eusebius declares that some of the apostles passed over to the so-called British isles ; and Clement of Rome has the same tes timony. Epis. ad Corinth, sec. 5. FROM SCHISM TO SECTARIANISM. 371 the hearts of the Pagan masters of the world.1 Certain part it is that the sacred fires of the Druids, that mysterious ^^-~~- priesthood of ancient Britain, were quenched by the foun tains of living water that poured upon the Gentile world from the hills and plains of Judea. We know not cer tainly who were the agents that dared first to confront the Bards and the Druids of Britain ; but we may well be content with the knowledge, that bishops represented the Anglican Church in the ecclesiastical councils of the fourth century,2 and that they were strangers to the authority of the Bishop of Rome.3 The invasion of the Saxons and Angles scattered like The Saxon chaff the numerous kings of the Britons ; and, slowly 447-597. retiring before these ferocious tribes, Christianity aban doned its ancient seat, to illumine with a feeble twilight the mountains of Wales and the Highlands of Scotland. The worship of Odin was substituted for the religion of Christ, throughout the fairest portion of Britain. But the superstitious and bloody rites, which disgraced and polluted the noble Paganism of the Saxons, were soon to yield to the gentle influence of Christianity. The saintly Gregory, struck with the fair beauty of some English slaves,4 exposed for sale in the streets of Rome, inquired their name and country. On being told that they were 1 Southey's Book of the Church. Germanus and Lupus, and after- 2 There is evidence to show that, wards of Severus, is a significant fact, at the Council of Aries, A. D. 314, as showing the independence of the at the Council of Sardica, 347, and Church, at that period, of Roman at the Council of Arminium, 4^1 influence. No allusion is made, in there were bishops present from the account given by Bede, to the Britain. Usher's Brit. Ant. Eccl. Bishop of Rome. p. 104. 4 Vidit in foro Romano tres pue- 3 Blackstone's Com. vol. iv. p. ros Anglicos lactei candoris venales. 104, c. 8. The appeal of the Brit- Such is the testimony of William ish Church, in the year 429, to her Thorn, monk of St. Augustine's, sister church in Gaul, in conse- Canterbury. See Elstob's Anglo- quence of the progress of the Pela- Saxon Homily, ed. 1839, London, gian heresy, and which led to the visit p. 8, n. to Britain of the Gallican bishops 3J2 PROGRESS OF THE ELDERS called Angles, he replied that they were rightly called Angels, for they possessed their beauty, and it was fit they should be their companions.1 Henceforth, to con vert the blue-eyed denizens of England became the ardent desire of Gregory the Great. His elevation to the See of Rome, which shortly afterwards followed, served to increase his interest in the welfare of these benighted people ; and, soon after, a band of missionaries, 598. headed by Augustine, as abbot, issued from the gates of the Christian capital, in quest of the northern island. The labors of a few defenceless monks were crowned with singular success. The religion thus brought in, whose ceremonial alone rendered it peculiarly attractive,2 soon found its way to the heathen heart ; moreover, the rude warriors "admired the simplicity" of the mission aries, and the " sweetness of their heavenly doctrine." 3 And Augustine, consecrated " Archbishop of the Eng lish," by Virgilius, Archbishop of Aries, became the founder of the Metropolitan See of Canterbury. its relation Christianity was early embraced in the kingdoms of of Rome. Kent, Essex, East Anglia, Northumbria, Wessex, Mer- 680 cia, and Sussex. In less than a century from the landing of Augustine at the Isle of Thanet, the Saxon Heptarchy was ranked among the Christian nations of the earth. Great interest in the result of this mission was re tained by Gregory to the close of his life, and his letters l Elstob's Anglo-Saxon Homily. 3 Elstob's Anglo-Saxon Homily. Or, as another account has it, he " The ruins of the Saxon idolatry broke out with the exclamation, were not stained by the blood of one "Non Angli, sed Angeli forent si martyr." Waddington's Hist, of the essent Christiani." Church. The abuse bestowed so 2 Augustine, says Fuller, brought liberally by Jortin and others on St. in a religion " made luscious to the Augustine, being undeserved, and senses with pleasing ceremonies, so unsubstantiated by any proof, need that many who could not judge of not here be recapitulated. the goodness, were courted with the gaudiness thereof." FROM SCHISM TO SECTARIANISM. 373 to King- Ethelbert and Queen Bertha manifest the kind- part . i. est regard for the spiritual welfare of. his adopted chil- ^—'.-— dren. He rewarded the devotion of the royal couple, by assuring them that not only was it talked of in the streets of Rome, but that it had " reached as far as Constanti nople, to the most serene emperor." 1 But, although the Patriarch of Christendom guided with a wise hand the early career of the English Church, neither he nor his immediate successors undertook the exercise of unwar rantable authority. The incumbents of the Apostolic See were justly reverenced as the Primates of the Catholic World ; but, as " they claimed no civil authority in Eng land until the era of the Norman Conquest," 2 so in the young and* crude dioceses of the Anglo-Saxon Church they exercised only paternal oversight and care. The Patriarch of the West regarded the Metropolitan of England as a younger brother,3 and was honored, in return, as the elder. " Ordain bishops in the places that are subject to your dominion," was the direction of Gre gory to Augustine ; " but receive the pall of the arch bishopric from the Holy and Apostolic See." " To your brotherhood, by the permission of Jesus Christ, the whole British clergy shall be subject." • The English Church was scarcely well established, Happy m- when it was forced to undergo the severest trials. It the Angio- had changed the physical as well as the moral condition church. of the Anglo-Saxons, and made them wiser and better men. Every monastery founded in England became the seat of learning, the arts, manufactures, and agriculture. 1 Letter of Pope Gregory to Queen letter from Pope Gregory to Augus- Bertha. Regist. Epist. S. Gregorii, tine: "To our most reverend and lib. xi. Ep. 29. See Elstob's Anglo- most holy brother Augustine, our Saxon Homily, Appendix, p. 70. fellow-bishop, Gregory, servant of 2 Blackstone's Com. vol. iv. ch. 8. the servants of God." Epist. S. 3 The following is the style of a Gregorii, lib. xi. Ep. 65. 32 37-i PROGRESS OF THE ELDERS chap. The thirst for war yielded to the love of peace. Noble > — A— youths voluntarily relinquished their ambition for military glory, and bore the palm-branch, instead of the sword, among the barbarous nations of Germany. Architecture commenced her splendid triumphs, and the rude temple, " constructed of timber and thatched with reeds," was displaced by the more substantial productions of Chris tian art. Morasses were drained, slaves were freed, let ters were taught, and heathen altars overthrown. Every where the holy influence of Christianity changed and regenerated the Anglo-Saxon character, and taught a nation of barbarians how to live, as well as how to die. Kings, in admiration of a system of religion which wrought such wondrous changes, were seen by their subjects to abandon the throne for the happy retirement of the cloister. Queens followed the example of their husbands, and in some peaceful convent spent the evening of their days, in the exercise of those humble duties which religion alone inculcates, or in the calm tranquillity of meditation. Whatever progress was made in the state or society was due to the influence of the Church. Her monasteries fed the poor, healed the sick, improved agri culture, preserved learning, and cultivated the social vir tues.1 Tithes, willingly rendered as a moral duty of perpetual obligation, were distributed by the bishop, according to " the famous division " of Charlemagne.2 To support the clergy, to aid the poor, to entertain the stranger and pilgrim, and to repair churches, these were 1 Southey's Book of the Church, pastoral letters by Simplicius and 2 First established in France, A. Gelasius, bishops of Rome, as the D. 778. Esprit des Lois, b. 31, c. general law at that early period. 12. Black. Com. b. ii. c. 3. The This division was to maintain bish- most ancient division of ecclesiasti- ops, the inferior clergy, and the cal revenues, from which, perhaps, poor, and to support public worship. this was taken, obtained in the fifth See Gibbon's Dec. and Fall, ch. xx. century, and was mentioned in their n. 107. FROM SCHISM TO SECTARIANISM. 37-5 the objects to which was devoted one tenth of the increase part of lands and husbandry.1 Pauperism was scarcely known — v — in this happy creation of the Church ; and it is a fact most significant, that " the cost of hospitality was far greater than that of relieving the poor." 2 The invasions of the Danes, continued for many years Effect of with various success, resulted in great injury to the invasions. Anglo-Saxon Church. The sea-kings of the Baltic, whose territory consisted of ships, and whose subjects were composed of pirates, whose religion taught that death by violence was a sure pledge of future felicity, and that that felicity would consist in fighting and was sail, loved piracy as a sport, and welcomed death as the entrance upon eternal war. Attracted by the prosperity of the country, they swarmed upon the English coasts, 788-829. at first committing petty depredations, and afterwards growing bolder, until at length the whole kingdom was reduced to the most humiliating bondage.3 But the Church suffered more than the state. In her monas teries, " the only schools in England," were collected her books, her treasures, and " the wealth of the surrounding country." Upon these noble edifices, the whole fury of the ferocious invaders was directed, and, being first plun dered of their contents, they were devoted to destruction. The flames were pitiless. They deprived the Church of her richest treasures — books that were without price, from their rarity ; and the clergy of England, who had been famous for their learning throughout Christendom,4 1 These tithes were predial, of 3 Southey's Book of the Church. course. Selden, c. 8, § 2. Black- 3 It is a little singular that the stone says, that the first mention Danes should have first effected a made of tithes, in " written English settlement upon the Isle of Thanet, law," was in a constitutional decree where Augustine first landed.- made in a synod held A. D. 786; 4 Charlemagne was advised to 'though he intimates that they were send students to improve themselves coeval with the planting of Chris- at York. The students of a school tianity by St. Augustine. at Canterbury, founded by the fa- 376 PROGRESS OF THE ELDERS chap, became so degenerate, that, on the accession of Alfred, • — , — - this learned and accomplished prince complained, that he knew not one priest south of the Thames who could interpret the Latin prayers of the Church. Fail of the Yet, thoug-h the Church suffered greatly from the Scaldic ' & • t\ i v v mythology, rnde assaults of the ferocious Danes, her solidity and strength remained unimpaired. She had lost much of her ornament and her beauty, but she depended not on these for her stability. Faith was more important in those simple times than books. It has achieved more glorious triumphs than learning, and it was to achieve such triumphs for the Anglo-Saxon Church. The ter rible mythology of the Scalds, which contained all that could rouse the worst passions of barbarians, was brought into juxtaposition with the gentle teachings of Christianity. The " obscene and bloody ceremonies " of a barbarous superstition were contrasted with the solemn chant, the fervid prayer, and the fragrant censer. And more, per haps, than these, the material conquests of the Church over Nature, in promoting the arts, in perfecting agricul ture, in short, in developing the thousand improvements of civilization, had their gradual effect upon the fierce invaders, who learned first to respect, and afterwards to comprehend, the power and wisdom of Christianity. And thus, while the Danes conquered with the sword, the Anglo-Saxons gained a nobler victory over the human heart. Shorn, as the English Church was, of much of her comeliness, she retained her faith, which was her strength.1 Her missionaries penetrated the vast penin sula of Scandinavia, and erected the cross amid its mous ¦ Theodore, archbishop, are was Wulstan, Bishop of Worcester, stated by Bede to have been as fa- who was deprived by the Conqueror, miliar with the Latin and Greek as on the alleged ground of " insuf- with their own tongue. ficiency in learning." 1 An illustrious instance of this FROM SCHISM TO SECTARIANISM. 377 perpetual snows. At the time of the Norman Conquest, part those religions were extinguished which made war their - — y — ¦ principle, and which had resulted in so much misery to mankind. And in these victories the English Church shared with Charlemagne and Otho the Great, with the popes and the Benedictines. The- Saxon dynasty was extinguished by the battle of Condition Hastings; and the Church of England, after strup-o-liner ush Church * • i j i • i i t ta , , &to & at the time against the desolations caused by the Danes, had now to of the Nor- commence a more prolonged contest with the novel claims quest. of Rome. For so unequal a struggle she was not pre pared. She had resisted but feebly the efforts of St. Dunstan, who, as abbot of the new order of Benedictines in England, attempted to qualify her national independ ence. The " revolution in monachism," which occurred during that age, by reducing the regular clergy under one general, and subjecting them to the same discipline, rendered the monk a member of his order, and destroyed his citizenship. He was no longer an Italian, French man, or Englishman, but a Benedictine. The world renounced, the Church became all in all to the member of the religious franchise. And this abnegation of self, so praiseworthy and so effective for many purposes, was liable to abuse when unsupported by knowledge, and under the control of ambition. The introduction of this system into England the secular clergy opposed ; but they had not sufficient power to do so successfully. Dunstan was the exponent of the new system of mona chism ; and his zeal and talents, if they could have been preserved by one of his miracles for half a century, might have completely transformed the Church of Eng land. But the plans which he had formed were inter- 1013. rupted by renewed trouble with the Danes ; the monas teries were again plundered ; learning, revived by the 32* 37^ PROGRESS OF THE ELDERS chap, great Alfred, and carefully cultivated by the monks, was - — ^ again depressed ; and, at the time of St. Dunstan 's death, the independence of the Church was endangered by corruptions borrowed from the Saxons, Flemings, and Danes. The battle of Hastings was fought not -by England but by Harold. The defeat was not suffered by the former but by the latter, and the right acquired by the< Conqueror was only to possess the crown. Regarding the result of this memorable struggle as the manifest decision of Providence in favor of the Norman Duke,1 the Primate of England submitted to his claims, on behalf of the Church. But though the Conqueror 2 brought with him a consecrated banner from Pope Gre gory, the English Church made no decision in his favor until after his victory. Then, indeed, she acknowledged his authority ; and the Archbishop of York crowned him King of England, having first administered to him the usual oath to protect the Church and to observe the laws. Eiseofthe This independent action of the English Church was Papal Su- r ° premacy. not owing to a denial of Roman supremacy, but rather to the ignorance that any such supremacy existed. Had the fact of such supremacy been well established, the decision of the pope would at once have decided the Church. But the bishops of Rome, though honored as patriarchs,3 were not obeyed as pontiffs. They used cer- 1 William, in order to spare the 3 The origin of the Roman Pa- effusion of blood, sent an offer to triarchate is referable to the earliest Harold to determine their rival ages. First. It was the wealthiest claims by single combat ; but Har- church in the primitive days. Second. old refused, declaring that he would In the third century, the churches leave it to the God of battles to in Italy and the neighboring islands determine. placed themselves under its super- 2 The word Conquest, says Black- vision, which was approved by the stone, in its fcedal acceptation, signi- Nicene Synod. 3d. The appeals of fies no more than acquisition. Vol. St. Athanasius and other orthodox "• c. 4. bishops, when persecuted by the FROM SCHISM TO SECTARIANISM. 379 tain powers of presidency, few or none of supremacy, part They acted as the executive of a vast spiritual republic, • — r~^ which included all nations and tongues, every variety of habits and manners, and which stretched beyond the limits of the old Roman Empire.1 It was reserved for Hildebrand to modify the character of the Holy See. Fired with the ambition of reproducing, in a Christian form, the grandeur of Rome, his restless spirit, while yet restrained by the robes of an arch deacon, directed the affairs of the world. While Alex ander II. sought tranquillity in the retirement of Lucca and Monte-Cassino, those great claims were put forth by 1061-73. the Roman See, which shook the thrones of Europe. The ring and crosier were demanded of emperors and kings, as the emblems of investiture ; and a constitution of Alexander decreed the suspension of bishops, whose appointments had not received the confirmation of the pope.2 By this double stroke, the independence of the churches and nations of Christendom was placed in jeopardy ; and, possessed of these golden keys, the tem- Arians, to Julius, Bishop of Rome, 1 To illustrate the original inde-- and the consequent action of the pendence of national churches, a sin- Council of Sardica, which conferred gular fact may be adduced. When upon the Roman See the power of Gregory IV. entered France for the ordering a rehearing, in cases where purpose of encouraging the children it thought that bishops had been un- of Louis le Debonnaire in their re- justly condemned, etc. Palmer. The bellion, and threatened the bishops Bishop of Rome, says Hallam, was of the Gallican Church with excom- generally reckoned the first of the munication for adhering to the em- patriarchs. Some writers claim that peror, the menace was treated with the Roman Patriarchate originally contempt. " If he comes here to comprehended all the Western excommunicate," said they, "he Churches. Hallam, Mid. Ages, vol. shall depart hence excommunicated." i. c. 7. But it is certainly true that Hallam, Mid. Ages, vol. i. c. 7. they enjoyed a peculiar precedence 2 This singular usurpation is con- when " a thousand bishops adminis- sidered by Hallam to have been, tered the Eastern Church, and eight more than any thing else, instru- hundred the Western." See Wad- mental in creating the supremacy. dington's Hist, of Church, vol. i. Mid. Ages, vol. i. c. 7. p,84. 380 PROGRESS OF THE ELDERS chap, poralties and the spiritualties, Rome might well assert a *— -y — ' new dominion over the inhabitants of the earth. The Papal The machinerv bv which these principles were put in dominion a _ . 1 i T7 system of operation was entirely of a feudal nature, ror two hun- spiritual r J feuds. dred years, the military feuds of the northern barbarians, who poured into Europe during the decline of the Roman Empire, had been established wherever they had settled, until at last they prevailed over the whole continent. The wisdom of the oath of fealty was demonstrated by the admirable working of the system it was framed to protect. A scale of dependencies, which descended from the throne to the cottage, which embraced all classes and all interests, was too solid and comprehensive to be easily shaken. The Christian Primates condescended to borrow an analogy from Pagan institutions. As the great maxim of feudal tenures was, that all lands were holden me diately or immediately of the crown, so the principle was asserted, by analogy, that ecclesiastical dignities were holden in a similar manner of the pope.1 He was the lord to whom homage was to be rendered for the investi ture of spiritual preferment. introduced When William the Conqueror begged the countenance land. of the pope, in his projected invasion of England, he was far from entertaining any notion that the price de manded for this favor would be the independence of the. National Church. What, then, was his astonishment, when he was required to do fealty for his crown to the successor of St. Peter. The demand was treated with contempt ; and so exasperated did this prince become 1 Estates held under the feudal parish was denominated a benefice. system were frequently denominated See Blackstone, vol. iv. c. 8. We beneficia, because the original dona- find this principle expressly asserted tions were supposed to be gratuitous, by the fourth Lateran Council, A. So far was the analogy carried in the D. 1215. spiritual feuds, that the charge of a FROM SCHISM TO SECTARIANISM. 381 with the imperious policy of Hildebrand, that he prohib- part ited his clergy from leaving the kingdom,1 acknowledging ' — y — ¦ the pope, or excommunicating a noble without his con sent. But these and all other impulsive measures adopted by the Conqueror and his successors, to counteract the growing power of Rome, were powerless before the steady and uniform policy that characterized the Papal See. The usurpation of Stephen promoted the subjection 1135-54. of the Church. Holding the sceptre by the permission of the Roman Court, he yielded, without hesitation, to its demands. In the reign of Henry the First, the nom ination of bishops was wrested from the crown. " I am the door," said the Holy Father, " by me if any man enter in he shall be saved ; he that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber."2 The Papal dominion now took firm root, not to be eradicated until after the lapse of centuries. The Constitutions of Clarendon and the Statutes of Praemunire were alike ineffectual, although the usurpations of Rome were never sanctioned by the Church or nation.3 The measures of wise kings were made abortive by the weakness of foolish ones ; and Rome, by her " unwearying politics," ever watchful and active, steadily advanced in strength and influence. The canon law outstripped the common law in the race for power ; and, by the artful policy of the Roman Court,4 the ecclesiastical were separated from the civil tribunals, and spiritual causes and spiritual rights could alone be tried in the former.5 The rapid accumulation of mort- ] This prohibition was renewed 3 Eccl. Biography. Wordsworth, in the reign of Henry II. , to coun- vol. i. p. 23. teract the attachment of the clergy 4 Sacerdotes a regibus honorandi to Rome. Constitutions of Clar- sunt, non judicandi. Decret. Caus. endon, ch. iv. ii- qu. i. c. 41. 2 Southey. s Blackstone's Commentaries, vol. 382 PROGRESS OF THE ELDERS chap, main lands strengthened the power of the Papacy, and, ¦ — » — sinking under the united influence of art and wealth, the true character of the Church of England was hidden until the era of the Reformation.1 T™e , I have given this brief outline of history, to show that claims of o J the English tne Church decried by the Puritans was no offshoot of Church. ¦> Popery, though she acknowledged with gratitude her indebtedness to the Apostolic See of Rome. Neither, on the other hand, did she owe her origin to the haughty house of Tudor. Had either of these been her position, there would have been a show of reason for abandoning her communion, and submitting to the usurped authority of Geneva. But her character was eminently national, and her bishops, though assenting to Roman Primacy, had, for the most part, denied the Papal Supremacy. They claimed a Christian equality, they yielded an Apos tolical precedence. Henry the Eighth but restored the Church to her rightful position. The Church of Eng land, in the sixteenth century, was more like the same Church in .the eleventh, than at any intermediate period. She claimed her Catholic as well as her national charac ter. She asserted the principle, that spiritual despotism was inconsistent with national dignity, but that sectarian iii. c. 5. William the Conqueror and legate a latere by the pope ; was the instrument of the Roman because " it -was derogatory to the Church in making this separation, liberties of the English Church." In and was probably influenced by the a letter to the king, he declared that great numbers of foreign clergy " he was bound to oppose it by his whom he brought over. Wilkins, liegance, and also to quit himself to Leges Anglo-Sax. p. 230. God and the Church of this land, of 1 It is pleasing, during these dark which God and the king had made times, to read of such prelates as him governor." Bl. Com. b. iv. c. 8. Archbishop Chichele ; because it By a paper in the N. E. Hist. & shows that though a cloud veiled the Gen. Reg. it seems probable that the brightness of the Church, yet now Checkley family, distinguished in the and then its true light would burst history of Massachusetts, was de- forth. In the reign of Henry V., rived from the same stock as the he interfered to prevent the king's archbishop. See vol. ii. p. 349. uncle from being made a cardinal FROM SCHISM TO SECTARIANISM. 383 aggression was utterly opposed to Catholic unity and part truth. Nor was she to blame for the faults and vices of - — v — her champions. The vilest instruments are often made use of by a mysterious Providence to effect the noblest results ; and men, though frequently abandoned to the. dominion of their passions, are, at the same time co workers with God for the cause of truth and righteous ness. The monarch Henry was instrumental in founding the English Church, in the same way that the presbyter Arius was in building up the Catholic creeds. The faith existed before the heresy, but the heresy caused the faith to assume the form of law. It was while this noble and venerable Church was iniquitous struggling to regain her rightful position that she was of English basely betrayed by Protestant deserters. Choosing a time when she was least capable of vindicating her claims, her recreant children impeded her course and disarranged her order. It was in vain that, in the spirit of conciliation, she conceded to their shallow prejudices more than truth could justify, or posterity can allow. They hung upon her skirts, while she was boldly con fronting a more formidable enemy. They assumed a friendly garb, and crept into her ranks. They created discord and confusion in her councils. Her venerable antiquity was forgotten, in the petty brawls produced by ignorance or fanaticism. They professed to regard the Church of England as a sect reforming from Catholicity, not as a church reforming from Papal dominion. They endeavored to introduce into her system the right of pri vate reasoning, instead of the faith she had maintained for centuries. And thus, by fraud and treachery, Prot estantism endeavored to overthrow a church that was older than the monarchy, which had conferred upon Eng land the blessings of civilization, which had relieved the 3S4< PROGRESS OF THE ELDERS chap, harshness of the common law by the benign establish- v. . " ~-^ — - ment of equity, and which, above all, had converted a nation of barbarous idolaters to the knowledge of the blessed Gospel. Absence of In truth, the most ardent hater of Romanism had no able ground reasonable ground of complaint. The Church had scarce plaint. achieved her restoration when she commenced a system of vigorous reform. In the space of forty years, she renounced a monastic clergy, disclaimed the doctrine of purgatory, rejected the system of indulgences, removed the abuse of images, prohibited prayers to saints, admin istered the communion in both kinds, translated her ser vice into English,1 and abolished a host of relics, charms, and superstitions. A convocation of her clergy replaced, in their stead, the purest " formulary of doctrine " that Scripture and tradition could furnish ; and the liturgies of the Greek and Oriental Churches were ransacked for all that could embellish and perfect her newly-modelled ritual.2 Her creeds were Apostolic; her prayers were 1 This, however, was a reform councels, and just vuerkis ; gyve to not so much called for as some thi seruantis pees that the vjorld others. Plenty of very early MSS. may not geue,that in our h'ertis gouun are in existence, containing expo- to thi commaundementis , and the sitions of the Creed, the Lord's drede of our enemyes putt avuei, our Prayer, and the Ten Command- tymes be pesible through thi defend- ments, etc., in the vulgar tongue ; ynge ; Bi our lord iesu crist, thi thus showing, for the consolation of sone , that ivith the lyueth and regn- English Churchmen, that their fore- eth in the unite of the holi goost, God fathers were neither so ignorant nor by alle vjorldis of 'ivorldis . So be it." so uncared for as is often represented. 2 In the reconstruction of her In fact, they had in English almost ritual, she did no more than was all -parts of the service which we done by Augustine, according to now possess, excepting the Commu- . the sage advice of Gregory : "Choose nion office; and they offered up, day carefully whatever you find in the by day, the same prayers which are Roman, or Gallic, or any other daily offered by their posterity, church, most pleasing to God, and Take, for instance, the Collect For that which you can collect from Peace, as it appears in the English many churches infuse into the Prymer of the fourteenth cen- Church of England." Bede's Eccl. tury, reprinted by Maskell : " God, Hist. b. i. c. xxvii. Ch. Rev. vol. of tvhom ben hooli desiris, right i. p. 350. FROM SCHISM TO SECTARIANISM. 385 expressed in the purest language of devotion ; her priest hood, from the primate to the vicar, from the archbishop to the youngest deacon, was equally well adapted to the dignity of a splendid monarchy and the wants of a great people. Palace and cottage alike reposed in her maternal embrace. The sacrifices by which these benefits were obtained cannot be considered without a shudder. Sacrilege and robbery accompanied the renunciation of Popery, as fanaticism and error the reformation of abuses.1 But enough noble action was exhibited to satisfy any mind, not corrupted by the operation of pri vate reasoning or by the influence of selfish ambition. Not so, however, thought the disciples of Calvin and Dissent, Zuinglius, who returned after the disastrous reign of reasoning, Mary,2 to commence the era of Private Reasoning, tion to au- There had been, during the reign of Edward VI. , indi cations of strange doctrines, which, afterwards, in the reign of Elizabeth, assumed the name of Puritantism. Some of the royal proclamations of England's "young Josiah " were directed against those " who rashly at tempt, of their own wit and mind, not only to persuade the people from the old rites and ceremonies, but also themselves bring in new and strange orders, according to 1 " Private men's halls were hung chiefly by the poor. Previous to with altar-cloths, their tables and the Reformation, not a poor-house beds covered with copes, instead of disfigured the fertile landscapes of carpets and coverlets." " It was a England. Christ's poor were cared sorry house which had not some- for by Christ's Church ; but the de- what of this furniture, though it struction of the monasteries deprived were only a fair large cushion covered them of this resource, and the poor with such spoils, to adorn their win- were cast upon the cold charity of dows, or make their chairs have parliament and the parish. something in them of a chair of 2 Mary was sincere in her relig- state." Chalices were used for ion, although guilty of persecution. carousing cups, at the tables of the In other respects, she seems to have bolder plunderers ; and horses were been a good sovereign, and " many watered in the stone and marble salutary and popular laws, in civil coffins of the dead. Southey, vol. ii. matters, were made under her admin- p. 115. Perhaps the most perma- istration." Bl. Com. vol. iv. c. 33. • nent and striking change was felt Southey, vol. ii. p. 138. 33 386 PROGRESS OF THE ELDERS chap, their phantasies."1 Such attempts were then unorgan- ¦ — y^ ized and feeble, and the Church preserved the integrity of her communion with comparative ease. * But the Ma rian exiles were formidable, from their numbers and zeal. They opened upon the Church the floodgates of private reasoning.2 They declaimed against her faith as super stitious, and her episcopate as anti-Christian. They refused to tolerate what Calvin himself had pronounced to be " tolerable fooleries." The " beauteous system of Geneva," they affirmed, was alone pure and scriptural. In our age, such complaints as these would be regarded as the effects of ignorant prejudice ; but in an age when the principles of religious liberty were not understood, they were considered as a contempt of authority. Penal laws The Romanists and the Puritans became sectaries in railing, not England nearly at the same period. The former, be at honest • • r s-\ t->v difference cause of the excommunication of Queen Elizabeth by the 1569. pope ; the latter, because they were unable to extinguish 1572. the Catholicity of the Church. But it was not simple nonconformity that led to the enactment of penal laws. For these were levelled, not at the offence of holding opinions at variance with the doctrines of the Church of England, but for railing at the Church and her ordi- 1582. nances.3 The rise of the Brownists, and the gradual 1 Hooper, appointed Bishop of forsake the unity of Christ's Church, Gloucester, may have been one of and be " overwhelmed in the waters these strange innovators. When the of schism, sects, and divisions." Six Articles were enforced, he fled " Where did the dissenters from the to Switzerland, and brought back Catholic Church learn their doc- with him Calvinistic prejudices. He trine ?" asked the Bishop of Ches- refused to wear the episcopal habit ter ; " they must needs answer," at his consecration. Southey. said he, " from the Germans." " Of 2 When the bill for restoring the whom did the Germans learn it ? supremacy to the crown, on the ac- Of Luther. Well, then, of whom cession of Elizabeth, was debated did Luther learn it ? He shall an- in parliament, great fear was ex- swer himself," etc. Southey. pressed by the bishops, that, in for- 3 Blackstone's Com. vol. iv. c. 4. saking the See of Rome, they would FROM SCHISM TO SECTARIANISM. 387 development of political free thinking, were calculated to part cause considerable uneasiness ; for those countries which — v — had separated from the Catholic Church were republican in their character.1 When, therefore, the disciples of Calvin, unable to destroy the Church of their ancestors, imitated the controversial style introduced by the Reformers, and indulged in low and vulgar abuse,2 they were subjected to the severity of the law. The Court of High Com mission, erected to take the place of the larger jurisdic tion formerly exercised by the pope,3 and to vindicate the dignity of the Church, rigidly enforced its authority.4 Its power to correct abuses, and to reform all manner of errors, heresies, schisms, contempts, and enormities, was directed towards that class of revilers who endeavored to set up " the pattern in the Mount " by the destruction of the Church and monarchy.5 And, in truth, some cor rective seemed necessary. Clergymen were thrust from their churches for wearing the surplice ; and it was not uncommon for fanatics to spit in the faces of Church- 1 Holland, Geneva, and the Re- her bishops were likened to "bawds," formed Swiss Cantons. and were stigmatized as " pestilent 2 For example: " Your bishops usurpers," and "cogging and cozen- are cogging and cozening knaves ; ing knaves ; " when he who occu- they will lie like dogs." "Our lord pied the seat of St. Augustine was bishops, as John of Canterbury, with held up to execration as a most vile the rest of such swinish rabble, are and cursed tyrant, " and the very petty Antichrists, pettypopes, wretch- anti- Christian beast;" and when ed priests." Strype's Whitgift. In the renunciation of all these objects addressing Romanists, the style was of Puritan hatred was sealed with a similar. For example, referring to covenant, which had for its avowed Holy Orders, a Puritan controver- purpose the horrors of a revolution ; sialist remarks: " With all our heart then the justice of an insulted na- we abhor, defie, spit at, and detest tion began to exert its power. Col- your stinking, greasy, anti- Christian lier's Eccl. Hist. Strype's Whit- orders." Champney's Vacation of gift. Coit's Puritanism. Bishops, etc., p. 122, ed. 1616. 5 In the platform set down by 3 1 Eliz. c. 1. these new builders, said Parker, we 4 When the Church was pro- evidently see the spoliation of the nounced " Antichrist," her tradi- patrimony, of Christ, and a popular tions, " filthiness and pollution ; " state to be sought. Southey, vol. 11. when her clergy were called " pope- p. 294. lings, Antichrists, and dogs ; " when 388 progress of the elders men, to testify their abhorrence of conformity. The consecrated bread was sometimes snatched from the altar, because in the form of a wafer ; and dangerous maxims were circulated, mingled with foul ribaldry and ferocious libels. Even the Spanish Armada, whose object was the restoration of the Roman Supremacy, did not check the assaults of Puritanism ; and it became evident, before this formidable expedition could have reached England, that Puritanism was a more dangerous enemy. " So long as they left what they desired to the Providence of God and the authority of the magistrates, they had been borne with, except in cases of extreme contempt. But now when they affirmed that the consent of the magis trate was not to be attended ; when they combined them selves by classes and subscriptions ; when they descended into that vile and base means of defacing the government of the Church by ridiculous pasquils ; when they began both to vaunt of their strength and number of their partisans and followers, and to use comminations that their cause would prevail, though with uproar and vio lence ; then it appeared to be no more zeal, no more conscience, but mere faction and division." J The headlong fanaticism of the Puritans involved many loyal subjects and many discreet Dissenters in dis grace ; for though Separation had already commenced its unhallowed work, many "scrupulous" persons, actuated by timidity, or something worse, preferred the member ship of the Church to sectarian partisanship.2 Noncon formity, leading to such monstrous results, soon came itself to be considered a penal offence.3 The sovereign, 1 This language is Walsingham's, Southey's Book of the Church, vol. a minister who was disposed to re- ii. p. 298. gard them and their proceedings s Prince, vol. i. p. 235. more favorably than he ought. 3 Stat. 23 Elizabeth, c. 1, imposes FROM SCHISM TO SECTARIANISM. 389 from jealousy of the Papal dominion, being established part as the head of the English Church, the "impossible won- • — r — - ders " of the innovators were considered as treasonable.1 The Church had gone far enough in her reforms. She had no inclination to surrender her Catholic character, to be made the sport of fancy. Her altars, stripped of tinsel and superfluous ornament, remained altars still. Her liturgy still celebrated the triumph of the saint and the martyr. Her clergy, clad in the spotless robes of the sacrificial office, retained their character as an apos tolic priesthood. We are, declared an act of parliament, at the commencement of the Reformation, " obedient, devout, Catholic, and humble children of God and Holy Church, as any people be within any realm christened." 2 And these continued to be the sentiments of the Church men of England. Free from foreign usurpation, with a purified service, with her noble universities, her glorious cathedrals, her national characteristics, her devoted priest hood, the Church of England only differed from the primitive churches at the dawn of Christianity, as the wide-spreading oak, with its robust trunk and massive foliage, contrasts with the first feeble shoot of the acorn. The principle of supremacy is no more necessary to The con- Catholicism than that of despotism is to civil govern- Hampton ment ; and, generally, where either exists, it is by usurpa- a fine for not conforming to the es- 1 25 Henry VIII. c. 19. 1 Es tablished religion, a third part of abeth, c. 1. which was to be for the use of the 2 In the act for discontinuing the poor; but the offender was to be sums of money previously paid to discharged at any time after the the See of Rome, it is expressly complaint, if he made due acknowl- provided that the act should not be edgment. Stat. 35 Elizabeth, c. 1, interpreted to decline or vary from provided for the imprisonment of the congregation of Christ's Church, the Nonconformist; and if he did in any things concerning the very not conform at the end of three articles of the Catholic Faith of months, for his abjuration of the Christendom. 25 Henry VIII. c. realm. 21. 33* 390 PROGRESS of the ELDERS tion. This was the ground taken by the English Reformers. The English Church erected no new plat form ; she simply shook from her ancient foundations the throne of a pope. The firm stand of Queen Eliza beth smothered, for the time, private reasoning and polit- 1603. ical religionism ; 2 but, on the accession of James, they burst out with renewed vigor. He had scarce time to April, acquaint himself with his novel position, when he was greeted with " the humble petition of the thousand min isters," 2 desiring a new reformation of the Church. They had hopes of the " royal pedant," since he had been educated by Buchanan, under the wing of the kirk.3 1604. The " Millenary Petition " produced the famous Con- maiy. £erence at JJampton Court. Knewstubs requested the abolition of the cross and surplice, and Reynolds that of the functions of bishops. And, in reply, Bancroft knelt to the king, and begged that, as " it was a time of moving petitions, he might move two or three to his Majesty ; " since it was now come to pass, he said, that men thought it was the only duty of ministers to spend their time in the pulpit, he begged that there might be a praying min istry. I like your motion well, said the king ; and dislike the hypocrisy of our times, who place all their religion in the ear, while prayer is accounted as the least part of rehgion.4 This exaltation of the pulpit was not simply to degrade the altar, but to overlook the throne. Those who had not the honesty to renounce the priestly office, when its l Such was the reputation left by- says Southey, the subscription fell this able sovereign, that " pictures short of that amount by some hun- of her monument were hung up in dreds. Prince puts the number at most London, and in many country seven hundred and forty-six. Vol. i. churches; every parish being proud p. 7. of the shadow of her tomb." Sou- 3 Fuller. they, vol. ii. p. 304. 4 Southey's Book of the Church. 2 So called by courtesy ; though, Cardwell's History of Conferences. FROM SCHISM TO SECTARIANISM. 391 functions interfered with their consciences, remained in the Church, to foment trouble, in the guise of its clergy. We desire, said Reynolds, that the clergy may meet every three weeks, to discuss and to prophesy. If you aim at a Scottish Presbytery, returned the king, it agree- eth as well with monarchy as God and the devil. You declare for my supremacy now ; but how was it in Scot land \ a When Queen Mary restored the Papal Supre macy in England, Knox writes to the Queen Regent of Scotland, that she was the Supreme Head of the Church, and charged her, as she would answer it at God's tri bunal, to take care of Christ, his Evangil. But how long, trow you, did this continue 1 Even till by her authority the Popish bishops were suppressed, and Knox and his adherents were brought in. How they used the poor lady, my mother, is not unknown, and how they dealt with me in my minority. We desire, said Rey nolds, that the Bible may be new translated, because the Sabbath is profaned. The king agreed that no English translation was good, but added, that that of Geneva was worse ; and referred, in proof, to the marginal notes in that Bible, where disobedience to kings was encouraged. The purpose was too obvious. " All kings are the devil's bairns," said a Scotch preacher 2 from his pulpit ; 1 Such had been the alarming in- that he would suffer the curse that crease of the Presbyterian faction in fell upon Jeroboam, and die child- England, from November, 1572,10 less, and the last of his race. This September, 1590, that from one was on the occasion of his desiring small presbytery at Wandsworth, in the magistrates of Edinboro' to give Surrey, they had spread through an entertainment to the French ara- many of the English counties, and bassadors, before their departure from had begun to hold synods and classes. Scotland. Southey. The king's In consequence of this, the High tutor, Buchanan, if not the earliest, Commission and Star Chamber was the most celebrated, according Courts dissolved them, in 159 1. to Gibbon, of the Reformers who Prince, vol. i. p. 233. justified the theory of resistance. 2 One Scotch preacher was so See his Dialogue |' De jure regni imprudent as to denounce King apud Scotos." Gibbon, Dec. and James from the pulpit; declaring Fall, c. 20, n. 21. 392 PROGRESS OF THE ELDERS and James believed, if not his honesty, at least his sin cerity. Frustrates The Conference at Hampton Court became an era in the designs , ¦ i , of the Pu- the history of England. Those who had " wearied them- ritans. J ° . ,, - . 1 . selves with their private contrivements during the reign of Elizabeth, found their new sovereign a ready listener, 1604. but a determined defender of the Church.1 He heard what Dissent could offer in behalf of Innovation, and banished it from his presence. He settled the point, that, for that age at least, the Church and the State belonged to each other.2 He forbade Puritanism to hope any thing from the House of Stuart, or to claim fellowship with the Hierarchy of England. Thenceforth, efforts to modify were changed into efforts to destroy; and the determined purpose of Puritans to renounce the Catho licity of religion rendered them unfit for the ministrations of the Church. Many, who had till now remained under her banners, eating of her bread and partaking of her bounty, were deprived for their disloyalty.3 The ranks of the Nonconformists were gradually swelling, and the religious world of England was preparing for a terrible conflict. Absurdity There was great absurdity in the complaints of the arguments. Puritans concerning the usages of the Church. The only question seemed to be, whether they were Popish or not. To observe Christmas was wrong, because it was also observed in Rome. To keep the fast of Good Friday was scandalous, for on that day the Catholic 1 On meeting his parliament at ters in church livings either to con- Westminster, in March, after this form, or cease living on the Church. conference, James declared the Pu- Prince. ritans to be a sect not to be suf- 3 The number of Puritan minis- fered in any well-ordered common- ters deprived for not subscribing the wealth. canons was two hundred and seventy 2 In July, a royal proclamation Prince. issued, ordering all Puritan minis- FROM SCHISM TO SECTARIANISM. 393 world was clad in mourning, from the Hellespont to the part shores of the Atlantic. To wear a surplice was sinful, ' — v — • because it was a rag of Popery.1 The Puritan claimed merit for his system, simply because it was a system of opposites. But however ingenious this might have been, he certainly had no right to feel aggrieved that its wit was not perceived by the English Hierarchy or the king. Respect the prejudices of the weak brethren, said Knew- stubs, who are offended contrary to the counsels of the Apostle. " How long will such brethren be weak ] " replied the king ; " are not forty-five years sufficient for them to grow strong in ? Besides, who pretends this weakness % We require not subscriptions of laicks and idiots, but of preachers and ministers, who are not still, I trow, to be fed with milk." 2 The utter futility of the Puritan arguments on this Ecciesiasti- memorable occasion, carried on by the ablest champions of ,' of the faction, entirely satisfied the king. He had seen the working of the Presbyterian system in Scotland, the introduction of which, by Knox, had been favored by the Scotch nobility, on account of the facility it gave them for dividing the church property ; 3 and he bore into 1 Knewstubs, however, finding such s Southey. The same division of arguments as this unavailing, ob- church property seems to have been jected to the king that it was a gar- contemplated among the English ment worn by the priests of Isis. Puritans. The arguments used by "We ought, in ceremonies," said Dr. Preston to win over Bucking- CartWright, ¦" to conform to the ham, and, through him, the king, TurkS rather than the Papists." were of this nature. The king's Reynolds and his colleagues, being debts were to be paid out of the entirely Enable to answer the argu- foundations of deans and chapters. ments of the king, were silenced ; " If a crumb stick in the throat of and, in consequence, were disowned any considerable man that attempts by their party. The Puritans com- an opposition," said the zealous di- plained of them, that they argued as vine, " it will be easy to wash it if the ceremonies they objected to down with manors, woods, royalties, were indifferent instead of sinful. tythes," etc. Hacket. 2 Southey. Cardwell's History. 394 PROGRESS OF THE ELDERS chap. England a disgust, which the conference served but to ¦ — y~~ strengthen and confirm. My aphorism is, said James, No bishop, no king. " Take heed, my son," addressing Prince Henry, " of the Puritans ; very pests in the church and commonwealth, whom neither oaths nor prom ises bind, making their own imaginations the square of their conscience." 1 It was this private reasoning of which he so justly stood in fear, not the principles of Christian liberty. The Church was a firm supporter of his government ; Puritanism was not. The Church upheld order ; Puritanism, disorder. The Church was identified with the State ; Puritanism was a system of innovation. The Church was an old, familiar friend; might not Puritanism prove itself a bitter enemy 1 Yet something more than this had its influence upon the king's mind. He could not forget the glory associated with the Catholic Faith, and the long line of an illustrious priesthood, which stretched unbroken back to the Great High Priest of Christianity. " The ministry planted by Christ was a sweet rose, and so it continued for ages." It was not for James to suffer it to be choked by the nettles of Protestantism. This was why the king de clared, at the famous conference, " that there should not be such a general departure from the Papists, that every thing should be accounted an error wherein we agree with them." This was why he declared to his parlia- March. ment, not two months after, that the Roman Church was their Mother Church, " though defiled with some infirmi ties and corruptions," and that " he would be content to meet her in the midway." 2 The " temper of the na- 1 Basilicon Doron. 4to. London, 1604, and cited in 2 Cardwell's Hist, of Conferences. Prince. King James's Speech, printed in FROM SCHISM TO SECTARIANISM. 395 n," l and the lofty pretensions of Rome,2 alone pre- part nted this desirable reunion. — v — - James the First was the Defender of the English Causes of .... . . T~ , the increase nth, but he was not intolerant. If " every good man s of Pm-i- n " would make catechisms and preach, he might do , but not as a member of or against the Church. That ad of Puritans who fled from England to Holland, and 1608. ished their exploits on the Rock of Plymouth, reviled 1620. ? English Church as anti-Christian.3 It was liberty4 do this, that they sought among " licentious " 5 Dutch d " painted salvages." Libels, however, were punished th severity. The High Commission Court would not ow of abuse under the plea of liberty. Where insanity sumes a form dangerous to the welfare of society, straint is no longer considered as a loss of liberty, but rule of necessity. The same is true of fanaticism. it it cannot be doubted that the rigor with which libels Southey. more rigid Separatists, in r6o2," 1 On the discovery of the Gun- and these " rigidly renounced com- vder Plot, parliament thought it munion both with her and her offi- :essary to require from every Ro- cers, as Popish and anti-Christian, n Catholic the oath of allegiance, and even with those who held com- .e pope forbade this, as injurious munion with her." Prince. his authority. 4 It was not liberty for which the 1 " As for the government of the Puritans contended, but the substi- urch of England, the liturgy and tution of Puritanism for Catholi- ited prayers, yea, the constitution cism. Repeated instances can be the Church, as national, and so mentioned, where persons enjoying corrupt communion of the wor- their "harmless recreations" after with the unworthy, — these Divine service, on Sundays, were igs were never approved of him, attacked and maltreated for not ob- obinson,) but witnessed against serving the Sabbath. lis death, and by the church un- 5 The manners of the Dutch were him." Winslow's Ground of too licentious for them, says Hutch- .nting New England. It appears, inson. The " licentiousness of the vever, that afterward he allowed youth and the temptations of the le godly ministers" (Qu. Puri- place" corrupted their children. s ?) private communion with his They " taking to courses tending to :k. Prince, vol. i. p. 88, ii. dissoluteness and the danger of their Vhen he commenced his ministry souls." Prince, vol. i. p. 49- In Leyden, he was a rigid Brovun- Morton's Memorial, the further rea- " Grahame. " Mr. Robinson, son is assigned of the great neglect first, indeed, went off among the of the Lord's Day. 396 PROGRESS OF THE ELDERS chap, and slanders were visited by the Commission Court, in <-^y-^ the latter part of this reign, was imprudent and impolitic. Wherever punishment is disproportionate to the offence, the sufferer is honored and his cause promoted. While 1604-10. Bancroft presided over the Church, grave reproofs and mild sentences cleared up the lowering horizon ; but 16U-27. Abbot, his successor, an " over austere and rigid man,'' " grew indulgent to the Puritans," though " he showed no mercy to those of the Separation." By this unhappy course, Puritanism increased within the Church, and Sep aration without. And while sermons, performing the office of a corrupt press, stimulated the growing faction,1 a tribunal, of which " none but the guilty stood in fear," became a reproach to the state.2 Puritanism When Charles the First grasped the sceptre of the embarrass three kingdoms, Puritanism was sufficiently strong to ment. embarrass the State as well as to attack the Church. 1625. From the beginning, the end might have been pre dicted.3 Involved in a war with Spain, the king courted his parliament, and was repulsed ; he demanded supplies, and was refused. " Remember," said he, " that you were pleased to employ me to advise my father to break off the treaties with Spain. I came into this business willingly and freely, like a young man, and, consequently, rashly, but it was by your interest and your engagement."4 The frankness of youth was met by the cold reply, that one parliament is not bound by another parliament. 1 When Elizabeth wished to pre- with Puritans, that Williams, Bishop pare the nation for any of her mea- of Lincoln, would not meddle against sures, she began by " tuning the them ; and said he was sure they pulpits." This ingenious device was would carry all at last." Prince, borrowed by the Puritans from the vol. i. p. 234. crown, and turned against it. 4 Rushworth. Secret History of 2 Fuller. Southey. Prince. Charles I. and his First Parliaments, 3 According to Rushworth, " in by D'Israeli. 1626, the country was so overspread FROM SCHISM TO SECTARIANISM. 397 Urged to embark the kingdom in a war ere he had part ascended the throne, on the ground that it was necessary ¦ — -y-~~ to protect the Protestant cause in Europe, he was aban doned, on his accession, to carry it on as best he might. His entreaties for supplies were met by petitions for the " redress of grievances." And thus Charles, mocked by the party which had betrayed him, commenced his event ful reign. The assumption of a political character by Puritan- Causes the x 1 , J arbitrary ism ; the assertion of a partisan as well as a sectarian acts of 1 Charles I. principle, caused the overthrow of the throne and the Church. The maxim of the Stuart was, that " it is bet ter to be deceived than to distrust ; " a and it was not until repeated attempts had been made to soften the obstinacy of parliament, that the honor of the nation compelled him at last to assert the royal prerogative. Yet how gently was this done. " This is not the first time," he proclaimed, " that private helps have been af forded to the public service ; but since it is the first time that we have required any thing of this kind, we require but that sum which few men would deny a friend." 2 Nor did the king demand what he himself was unwilling to bestow. He practised the most humiliating economy. His coronation was almost private, in order " to save the charges for more noble undertakings." He mortgaged his lands in Cornwall to the Aldermen and Companies of London ; and even " all the tables at court were laid down, and the courtiers put on board wages." The fleets of England were to be victualled by the savings 1 Southey. was the mockery of an alms basket ! 2 "The highest sum assessed from Yet, with contributions and savings great personages, on the occasion of so trivial, the king was to send out this forced loan, was twenty pounds, a fleet with ten thousand men to All donations were received, from take Cadiz." D'Israeli's Sec. His- ten pounds to five shillings. This tory, etc. 34 398 PROGRESS OF THE ELDERS Develops rapidly un der Abbot's protection,during the king's con tests with parliament. of the royal kitchens ! Such was the origin of that arbitrary policy, which nearly lost the liberties of Eng land. It was forced upon the king, not sought by him ; for Charles wept with emotion, on the only occasion of liberality displayed by parliament during his reign, and declared himself to the messenger of the House of Com mons " more happy than any of his predecessors." 1 But while Charles was vainly endeavoring to soften the political asperity of Puritanism, while he was con tending against that factious spirit which impoverished his exchequer and dishonored his arms, the venom, " under the fatal protection of Abbot," was rapidly spreading in the Church. The preacher was regarded above the priest ; the sermon above the sacrament. Advowsons, which at the Reformation passed into " the hands of the spoilers," were used as unworthily as they had been obtained. Lectureships were established, to scatter the seeds of Puritanism in, the different market towns of the kingdom. Schoolmasters were appointed, to train the rising generation to principles of sectarian ism and disloyalty.2 Pamphlets were scattered broadcast through the land, full of impious and railing expressions.3 Even the Bible itself was at last made an instrument in this unnatural warfare, by unholy frauds. " The .small price of the Bible caused the small prizing of the Bible."4 l MSS. letter quoted in D'ls- raefi's Sec. Hist. Rushworth, vol. i. p. 525. This was a grant of sup plies by an unanimous vote of his third parliament. The king, how ever, might have spared his tears ; for the grant was subsequently with held, on the ground that the redress of grievances and supplies go hand in hand. " Had the concessions of Charles," said Dr. Johnson, " been related nakedly, without any detail of the circumstances which led to them, they would not have been believed." Tour to the Hebrides. 2 Southey. 3 Swift says, that in rummaging for old books in " Little Britain and Duck Lane, he found a great num ber of pamphlets, printed from 1630 to 1640, full of impious and railing expressions against the crown and bishops." See his Presbyterians Plea of Merit. i Fuller. FROM SCHISM TO SECTARIANISM. 399 Passages were interpolated, meanings falsified, and texts part omitted. And when the rule of the state passed from • — v — ¦ the Presbyterians to the Independents, the Bible began to swarm with faults, reducing its text to nonsense or blasphemy, and rendering its holy teachings contemp tible.1 This is but a hasty outline of the headlong and degen- Growth of . . republican- erate course of Puritanism. In the mean time, the prin- ism. ciples of republicanism generated by the Netherland wars were imported into England by soldiers of fortune. The commercial prosperity of the Dutch was attributed, by the trading community, to the form of their common wealth. And many of the higher classes, carried away by their love of the classics, were more impressed with the triumphs of the forum and the theatre than with the fickleness and barbarity which characterized the leading republics of the ancient world. And, moreover, men of all classes, actuated by the purest intentions, opposed the arbitrary rule which Puritanism had called forth. The rays of public opinion all tended to one focus, and that focus was innovation. Such were the clouds that settled early in the reign of Policy of mi • the roys-l Charles I. upon the Church and throne. The instru- govem- . ment. ments employed in the cause of religion and order were the courts of High Commission and Star Chamber. The puritanical Abbot, being- displaced from a position which 1627. fi i i i t i v T l October. he had disgraced, was succeeded by the catholic Laud, who endeavored to restore the Church to her rightful position. In this great work, he had the hearty coopera tion of the king. The object of these illustrious martyrs was to recover the unity of the Catholic Church, so far 1 This was particularly the case was corrupted by substituting ye for with the Independents. Acts vi. 3 toe. D'Israeli, Pearl Bibles. 400 PROGRESS OF THE ELDERS as was consistent with the national independence. They saw that the Church of England had nothing in common with the Protestantism of Germany or the Calvinism of Geneva ; that, in throwing off the yoke of foreign eccle siastics, she did not intend to renounce the authority of her own ; and that, in denying the pope to be her bishop, she did not intend to question his lawful dignity, or to lose one single article of faith. And, doubtless, the zeal of the- king was increased by the fact, that while Catholi cism taught, in her purest ages under the tyranny of Pagan Rome, the grand principle of obedience to the civil magistrate, Protestantism boldly attacked the doc trine of submission as superstitious, and confidently ap pealed to Heaven to smile upon rebellion and anarchy. Disgusted with parliaments, whose double object was to degrade the throne rather than elevate the nation, and to destroy the Church instead of promoting true religion,1 Charles resolved to try the fatal experiment of wrapping himself in his prerogatives, and reigning without a legis lature. While he, with the unfortunate Strafford, under took the administration of civil affairs, Laud was engaged in the unpleasing task of purifying the Church. In this work, he encountered the most violent opposition. " Libels of the foulest and most atrocious character " were poured upon his devoted head, and the severity with which tliese offences were visited by the Star Chamber attests the exciting nature of the contest.2 But we must 1 Of John Hampden, the best of 2 Among the pilloried saints of the English Puritans, a fact is related the Puritans were Leighton and which illustrates the spirit of the Prynne and Bostwick. Prynne's times. In speaking of the means punishment was quite severe, be- necessary to overthrow the Church cause his was a second offence. and State, he said, " we must fox Yet he declared in his old age, that the people with religion, as a stalk- "if the king had cut off his head ing horse." Lawson's Life of Laud, when he only cropt his ears, he had vol. ii. p. 375. See British Critic, done no more than justice, and had vol. x. p. 417. done God and the nation good ser- FROM SCHISM TO SECTARIANISM. 401 leave the future martyrs to their impossible tasks, and part follow a small company of their enemies to the wilder- - — v — - ness. Yet, though their administration was severe, we can leave them with no bitterness, when we reflect upon the greater tyranny that followed.1 Precedents were never wanting at their hands for the arbitrary acts which distinguished this disastrous reign, and it was more in sorrow than in anger that the king made use of them. Ever ready to throw himself upon the bosom of his people, ever prevented by parliament, he saw his friends snatched from him by the superior power he was oppos ing, and himself left solitary and friendless in a wilderness more dreadful than that which Puritanism had adopted, lighted only by the evil star of his family, filled with wild beasts more ferocious than those which roamed in the woods of New England, and bounded by the scaffold. The most ardent lovers of liberty will acknowledge the majesty of the martyr, although they condemn the faults of the king. Some there are, doubtless, who contemplate that " grey discrowned head " with feelings of more than reverence, and who console themselves for his untimely fate with the reflection, that, in submitting to the axe, he but added his name to that glorious company at the head of which shines the Cross.2 vice." Southey, vol. ii. p. 352. As that when he was in the hands of to the kind of libels then in vogue, his enemies he addressed a letter to see Ludlow's Letter to Dr. Holling- his son, respecting the interests of worth, cited in Neal. the Church : " If you never see my 1 It was the unhappy lot of Charles face again," said he, " I do require " to find among his people subjects and entreat you, as your father and more loyal than their representa- king, never to suffer your heart to tives." D'Israeli. The maxim of receive the least check against the Charles was, "Christ is the alone true religion established in the King of men's consciences." Church of England." Southey. 2 His the peculiar glory of Charles, 34* 402 PROGRESS OF THE ELDERS Part II. Motives of the Puritan Emigration — Grief manifested at leaving Eng land — The "Humble Request" from Yarmouth — Ambiguity of the Farewell — Assertion of a Catholic Ministry — Rapid Assimilation with the Independents — Renounce Catholic Orders as sinful- — Grow ing Enmity to the English Church, aided by Superstition — Promoted by Legislation — Influence of Harvard College — Samuel Maverick — Robert Child — Gross Tyranny of the Magistrates ¦ — Child and Mav erick, with others, petition — Spirit of the Petition — Indignation of the Elders — General Court answers the Petition — Trial of the Petitioners for Sedition — The Petitioners denounced by the Elders for appealing — Church Feeling in Massachusetts at the Restoration — Alarm of the Elders at the Restoration ofthe Church — They assert the Divine Right of Puritanism — Refuse to allow the Use of the Common Prayer — Again refuse to allow Churchmen Liberty of Conscience — Randolph opens the Way for the Church — Presses for able and sober Minis ters — Obstacles in the Way — Arbitrary Proposals of Randolph — Arrival of Robert Ratcliffe — Formation of the Parish of King's Chapel - — Opposition of the Elders — Difficulties of Randolph — Andros en treats the Elders in Behalf of the Church — Arbitrary Acts of Andros — Loyalty of the Church Party. It was while the Church yet remained under the sway of the puritanical Abbot, who was " almost the idol of that party," 1 that the plan was formed and put in emigration. 0perati0n of converting the savages of Massachusetts. We have seen how, for the purpose of forwarding this enterprise, it was thought best to connect it with the inducement of profits ; and we have seen how miserable was the failure in this novel attempt to connect the Church with the warehouse. Perhaps it was this failure that prepared the minds of some of the freemen to listen favorably to the overtures of those Churchmen, who, infected with Puritanism, were alarmed at the active 1 Le Bas's Life of Laud, cited in Coit's Puritanism. Motives of the Puritan FROM SCHISM TO SECTARIANISM. 403 measures which followed the suspension of Abbot. But the sale of the corporate property to the new company, for the accomplishment of a purpose so different from the original objects of the franchise, was obtained only after much debate, and even then with no unanimity. Some doubted its legality ; others were unwilling to forego the brilliant hopes which had induced them to embark a portion of their substance in a perilous enter prise. And a nobler feeling animated the breasts of many, who, by this transfer of the franchise, connected the wronging of the crown with the robbery of the savages. In thus separating from a church, which the Puritan could not conscientiously support, there was less offence than in promoting its ruin under the guise of friend ship. The experiment would have been honorable had it been honest. It was better to seek a country where no one would oppose the vagaries of fancy and opinion, than to continue where they were promotive of confusion and anarchy. Indeed, the world has been willing to applaud the act of self exile, and to merge its injustice in its heroism. Puritanism, flying from a country not its home, has been made godlike by the apotheosis of his tory. But history, pandering to the sympathies of man kind, is no longer a medium of truth. The surgeon whose skill is at the mercy of his heart is unworthy of support. Each stroke of his knife may inflict a mortal injury. It would have been noble indeed if Puritanism, however erroneous in itself, had, without spot or blemish, fled to the wilderness to enjoy the blessings of religious liberty. We might then have confided in its pious assertions, and have traced its subsequent degeneracy with feelings of earnest sympathy, But what can be seen in its career, as it was, more lofty than political religionism 1 404 PROGRESS OF THE ELDERS Preliminaries were at length adjusted. The ships that were to bear the Pilgrim Puritans to their new homes feted™tani" were riding at their anchors. Their stores and their Engiafd. cattle were all embarked, and they had arrived " at the pinch and upshot of the trial." An affecting scene now awaited them. They were for the last time to take by the hand those dear friends and countrymen, the com panions of their youth and manhood. Henceforth, their paths in life were to be separate. The same sun, indeed, was to shine over their heads ; but what else could the smiling landscapes of England have in common with the desolate wilderness to which they were going 1 A " sol emn feast" commemorated this pathetic farewell. With heavy hearts, they assembled around the social board to exchange once more the words of affection and hospital ity. The sadness of the occasion may be easily imagined. It fell to the lot of " that honorable and worthy gentle man, Mr. John Winthrop," to say what was becoming * to the assembled company ; but, in attempting to drink to the little party, he " brake into a flood of tears, and set them all a weeping." 1 Yet this trial, so honorable to their feelings, did not for one moment shake their pur pose ; their hearts were heavy, but their wills were inflex ible. The courage of one or two indeed failed, almost at the eleventh hour ; but their places were filled by others, more zealous and determined. The ranks of the forlorn hope remained unbroken. Their " dear native land " they could not allow to stand between them and their religion. They were not able to serve two masters, and they were flying from a superstitious bondage to an heritage of religious freedom. The pseans of Puritanism were to be raised in a land where persecution was un- 1 Hubbard. FROM SCHISM TO SECTARIANISM. 405 known, and a state was to be erected which would trans mit to their posterity the pure religion of the primitive ages of Christianity. The contemplated movement, however, could not pass The "hum- without remark. Its legality had already been ques- quest"~from tioned, and measures had been taken to shroud its object in mystery.1 The new company, fearful of the inter- 1629. ference of the government, had in the previous autumn rebuked Higginson and Endecott, for establishing a relig ious system after the pattern of the Plymouth Pilgrims. And now they were anxious to finish with credit what they had commenced at so great a sacrifice. Providence seemed specially to interfere for this purpose. Weighing anchor hastily on the morning of the twenty-ninth of March,2 they steered their reluctant course down the 1630. English Channel, but, encountering bad weather, they took refuge in the port of Yarmouth. Here they re lieved the burden upon their minds, by publishing their farewell to their brethren in and of the Church of Eng land, "for the obtaining of their prayers and the removal of their suspicions." " Reverend Fathers and Brethren, the general rumor of this solemn enterprise, wherein ourselves, with others, through the Providence of the Almighty, are engaged, as it may spare us the labor of imparting our occasion unto you, so it gives us the more encouragement to strengthen ourselves by the procure ment of the prayers and blessings of the Lord's faithful 1 See ante, ch. I. p. 19. so at very short notice, and neglected 2 It seems that The Arabella, to publish the interesting document The Talbot, The Ambrose, and in the text, which had been prepared The Jewel, were ready to sail before for them by Mr White, of Dor- the other vessels, and that Cradock, Chester. Had it not been for the who owned the last two, urged them rough weather they encountered, to depart without waiting tor them, possibly it would never have been Although they complied with his made public. Prince. Hubbard. entreaty, it seems probable they did 406 PROGRESS OF THE ELDERS servants. For which end we are bold to have recourse unto you, as those whom God hath placed nearest his throne of mercy ; which, as it affords you the more opportunity, so it imposeth the greater bond upon you to intercede for his people in all their straits. We beseech you, therefore, by the mercies of the Lord Jesus, to con sider us as your brethren, standing in very great need of your help, and earnestly imploring it. And howsoever your charity may have met with some occasional discour agement through the misreport of our intentions, or through the disaffection or indiscretion of some of us, or rather amongst us,1 for we are not of those who dream of perfection in this world ; yet we desire you would be pleased to take notice of the principals and body of our company, as those who esteem it our honor to call the Church of England, from whence we rise, our dear mother ; and cannot part from our native country, where she specially resideth, without much sadness of heart and many tears in our eyes, ever acknowledging that such hope and part as we have obtained in the common salva tion, we have received it in her bosom, and sucked it from her breasts. We leave it not, therefore, as loathing that milk wherewith we were nourished there ; but bless ing God for the parentage and education, as members of the same body shall always rejoice in her good, and unfeignedly grieve for any sorrow that shall ever betide her ; and, while we have breath, sincerely desire and endeavor the continuance and abundance of her welfare, with the enlargement of her bounds in the kingdom of Jesus Christ. " Be pleased, therefore, reverend fathers and brethren, to help forward this work now in hand ; which, if it 1 Does this expression refer to Endecott, Higginson, and others? FROM SCHISM TO SECTARIANISM. 407 prosper, you shall be the more glorious ; howsoever your judgment is with your Lord, and your reward with your God. It is an usual and laudable exercise of your char ity to commend to the prayers of your congregations the necessities and straits of your private neighbors. Do the like for a church springing out of your own bowels. We conceive much hope that this remembrance of us, if it be frequent and fervent, will be a most prosperous gale in our sails, and provide such a passage and welcome for us from the God of the whole earth, as both we who shall find it, and yourselves with the rest of our friends who shall hear of it, shall be much enlarged to bring in such daily returns of thanksgivings, as the specialties of his Providence and goodness may justly challenge at all our hands. You are not ignorant that the Spirit of God stirred up the Apostle Paul to make continual mention of the Church of Philippi (which was a colony from Rome) ; let the same Spirit, we beseech you, put you in mind, that are the Lord's remembrancers, to pray for us with out ceasing, (who are a weak colony from yourselves,) making continual request for us to God in all your prayers. " What we entreat of you, that are the ministers of God, that we also crave at the hands of all the rest of our brethren, that they would at no time forget us in their private solicitations at the throne of grace. " If any there be, who, through want of clear intelli gence of our course, or tenderness of affection towards us, cannot conceive so much of our way as we could desire, we would entreat such not to despise us, nor to desert us in their prayers and affections ; but to consider rather that they are so much the more bound to express the bowels of their compassion towards us ; remembering always that both nature and grace doth ever bind us to 408 PROGRESS OF THE ELDERS relieve and rescue, with our utmost and speediest power, such as are dear unto us, when we conceive them to be running uncomfortable hazards. " What goodness you shall extend to us, in this or any other Christian kindness, we, your brethren in Christ Jesus, shall labor to repay, in what duty we are or shall be able to perform ; promising, so far as God shall enable us, to give him no rest on your behalf, wishing our heads and hearts may be fountains of tears for your everlasting welfare, when we shall be in our poor cottages in the wilderness, overshadowed with the spirit of supplication, through the manifold necessities and tribulations which may, not altogether unexpectedly, nor we hope unprofit- ably, befall us. " And so commending you to the grace of God in Christ, we shall ever rest your assured friends and brethren." 1 Ambiguity Such was the farewell of the Puritan PiWims to the of the .... Farewell. Church of England. . And it is impossible but that public opinion should have been deceived by the gen erous and noble sentiments contained in this religious manifesto. Help us, was the entreaty ; because, if we prosper, you shall be the more glorious. When we con sider that the motive of the enterprise was to escape from the superstitious ceremonial of the Church, and 1 This most interesting letter was the slightest notice of this remark- signed by John Winthrop, Gov- able document. The latter particu- ernor, Charles Fines, George Phil- larly concealing its existence, enters ips, Richard Saltonstall, Isaac John- into a most bungling and faulty son, Thomas Dudley, William Cod- argument, to clear up the " doubts dington, etc., and was dated "from and difficulties," which he confesses Yarmouth, aboard The Arabella, beset his mind as to the reason of April 7, 1630." This Yarmouth, the non-interference of the king with a small place in the Isle of Wight, so extraordinary a movement. What must not be confounded with the is, perhaps, more singular, Winthrop Yarmouth in Norfolk. Bancroft is silent. Did his subsequent course scarcely alludes to the subject of tend to make him ashamed of this this letter, nor does Grahame take affectionate farewell ? FROM SCHISM TO SECTARIANISM. 409 that the sentiments expressed in the " humble request " were such as could have been entertained only by the ardent admirers of the Church, we are forced to acknowl edge that Jesuitism may exist among the bitterest enemies of Rome. Neither king nor bishop could have found any thing in the farewell of these Puritans to have excited the least alarm. Perhaps Laud prayed for their success and Charles smiled upon their enterprise. Their letter might have been read in every parish in the kingdom, to quiet that turbulent faction which was soon to overthrow the Church. For aught that appeared, the perverted fran chise promised, in the hands of the new company, to exhibit the Church in her brightest colors, and to extend her communion, by proselyting those " tawny salvages," whose benefit, says the charter, " is the chief end of the plantation." 1 Four months found the signers of this letter settled in Assertion their new home, and discussing the principles on which r,0 miniS- they were to erect their church. What form of ecclesi- ry' astical government should they adopt1? If they estab lished the system which Endecott had borrowed from the Pilgrims, would they not become Separatists 1 If they continued their communion with the Church of England, would they not be under an Episcopate 1 The ministers who accompanied and sanctioned the enterprise were priests of the Catholic Church ; should they retain office by virtue of their previous ordinations, or receive fresh authority to administer the ordinances of religion at the hands of the laity ! These questions were embarrassing. 1 " They avowed their intentions when applying for a patent .' It to be only a secession in point of was answered, that the power of place, but no departure from doc- making was in the Church. It trines or worship." McSparrow's must either be in the Church or America Dissected. Who shall from the pope, and the pope is Anti- make your ministers ? said Sir John christ. Hazard, vol. i. p. 366. Worsingham to the Leyden exiles, 35 410 PROGRESS OF THE ELDERS chap. By disregarding precedents, which centuries had conse- — ^ crated, they were left in chaos, unless they adopted prin ciples rendered odious by fanaticism. The " coyness of early schism " rendered it a perplexing position.1 Under this conflict of doubts and motives, a " solemn fast " was held ; and, having " sought the face of the Lord," they determined to occupy a middle ground.2 They had no advowsons or inductions ; the right, there fore, of exercising spiritual authority could only be acquired by election. They had no parishes or tithes, and the support of a ministry necessarily depended upon taxation and contribution.3 But although they elected their elders, and confirmed them in office by the "impo sition of hands," it was publicly protested that this ceremony should be considered only as a sign, and should not supersede the commission once received from the Catholic Church. The election was to operate as an installation, and not as an admission to Holy Orders.4 Upon this basis, leaning by strong sympathy rather tow ards their " dear mother," three thousand miles away, than the severe system of the rugged Independents, their near neighbors, the Puritans of Massachusetts reared their infant church. Rapid as- Starting from this Catholic point, a rapid and total with the severance of the ties that yet bound the Puritan Pilgrims ents. to the Mother Church soon created a difference as wide as the ocean that roared between them.5 A spirit of 1 Bradford. Prince. been the skeleton of the singular 3 Sav. Winthrop. Hubbard. town-parish system which exists in 3 It was not until August, 1654, Massachusetts. See Act of May, during the full triumph of Inde- 1660. pendency in England, that the gen- * Winthrop. Hubbard. Neal eral court ordered compulsory as- says that Wilson, although " an or- sessments to be levied on the inhab- dained minister of the Church of itants of every town for the support England, submitted to a reordina- and encouragment of ministers. Col- tion." This is a great mistake. ony Laws. This law seems to have 5 At first, " those holding forth FROM SCHISM TO SECTARIANISM. 411 rancor was fomented by the purging measures of Laud, and the gentle band of Winthrop was swelled into an angry and clamorous crowd by an accession of numbers from the ranks of the deprived ministers. Nearly eighty clergymen of the Church followed the pioneers of Puri tanism into the wilderness before ten years had elapsed, and two thirds of these lived and died in Massachusetts.1 Scattered through the length and breadth of the land, they fed the growing sympathy between the Puritans of Massachusetts and the Sectarians in England. They excited a hostile spirit in the breasts of the colonists against the crown. They led the Puritan State into that singular position, in which it suffered its king to perish without a murmur or protest, in the face of a declaration made shortly before, that the long life and health of his sacred Majesty was the subject of their continual prayers to the King of kings.2 They blended the principles of Separation with those of Puritanism, until at last the successors of Robinson and Wilson were considered as " bright stars in the same firmament." 3 The shores of Massachusetts Bay, from Cape Cod to Cape Ann, became lined with the watch-towers of Dissent ; and a feeble cry against superstition, caught up from the naked rock of Plymouth and passed along by the veterans of a common a profession of separation from the preachers of the word" at Plym- Church of England" were imme- outh and those in Massachusetts. diately checked by the elders. Ma- Winthrop tells us that he and Wil- ther, b. i, c. 3. son, the elder of Boston, visited 1 Mather. See, also, Sav. Win- Plymouth as early as October, 1632, throp, vol. ii. p. 388, for a list of and took part with Ralph Smith, names. the minister there, in religious exer- 2 Address of the General Court cises, although in 1629 the company to the Right Honorable the Lords had cautioned Endecott against him, Commissioners for Foreign Planta- on account of his Separatist pnnci- tions. Hutchinson, vol. i. Appen- pies. Sav. Winthrop, vol. 1. p. 91. dix, p. 442. It must have been a singular spec- 3 Mather and Hubbard, in their tacle to see the Separatists of Plym- ecclesiastical notices, make but lit- outh sitting in Synod with the proud tie if any distinction between " the Puritans of Massachusetts. 41£ PROGRESS OF THE ELDERS chap, cause, would have been echoed back in tones of thunder ' — » — ' from the wooded hills of Naumkeag. Renounce Perhaps the rapid growth of sectarianism was unper- Catholic . r \ ° ; n • j • orders, as ceived by the Puritan Church, continually occupied as it sinful. , • . _T ... was with preaching and persecution. Hostility against the Church Catholic might easily be disguised as zeal for the cause of God. The growth of bitter prejudice could readily be promoted by delusive harangues from the pulpit. In applying the lash to a Williams or a Wheel wright, fresh ardor would be acquired against the enor mities of unscriptural superstitions. A few years after the arrival of Winthrop, the question arose whether such as had been ministers in England, by virtue of Episcopal ordination, continued to be so in Massachusetts. The principle which had formed the subject of a solemn prot estation on the formation of the first society in the colony had been gradually relaxing in strictness, and was now considered worthy of discussion. The elders, assembled 1637. at Concord to take part in a religious exercise, unani mously resolved, in answer to an inquiry from Salem, that " the call of the people " alone had made them lawful ministers in England, notwithstanding " their acceptance of the call of the bishops, for which they humbled themselves, acknowledging it their sin ; " that in Massachusetts " they accounted themselves no minis ters until they were called by another church;" and that the act of election by the people alone made them minis ters, without any ceremony of ordination.1 This resolution, which even the mild Winthrop enters upon his journal without a word of disapprobation,2 1 Sav. Winthrop, vol. i. p. 217. rived from England. Perhaps they This occasion was the settlement of were smarting under some imaginary two elders at Concord, Mr. Bulkly wrongs. and Mr. Jones, who had lately ar- 2 Hubbard does not even notice FROM SCHISM TO SECTARIANISM. 4^.3 shows the alarming progress made by the Puritans since part their pathetic farewell to the Church from the Isle of ^~r—> Wight. It was the proclamation of Independency. Puritanism in Massachusetts had advanced much further than Puritanism in England. The Church of England was already considered as Antichrist ; x and her bishops, stigmatized as " biting beasts," and as " whelps of the Roman litter," were considered as leading " the fodorn hope of Antichrist's army."2 The principle was as serted, that the people were the source of spiritual, before it was even dreamed they were of political author ity.- The Puritan elders of Massachusetts could now justly claim no higher rank than the Familists they man acled, the Baptists they scourged, and the Quakers they hanged. Although they distinguished their system from Independency, by calling it Congregationalism,3 the dis tinction was only nominal. They abhorred fanaticism, and, therefore, would not fraternize with Seekers and Brownists.4 But they only stripped the system of Brown of its coarse and vulgar ornaments ; their fundamental principle was the same. An inward impulse was substi tuted for an objective truth, and was embodied by the power of the people instead of the authority of the Church. Fox and Muncer had " inward calls " as well as the teachers of Puritanism. It is a curious trait of the human mind, that it seeks Growing . . . . . T . . , enmity to refuge from uncertainty in superstition, it is a triumph the English the resolution, although it was cer- insonian Brownism, or Independency tainly a more important fact than without its enormities. the settlement of the two elders. * It may be useful to state, that 1 Johnson, b. iii. c. 12. this word "Independents" did not 2 Ibid. b. ii. c. 5. necessarily denote a particular sect, 3 Hutchinson says that the Con- but, in a general manner, included gregational was the middle way be- Anabaptists, Antinomians, Brown- tween Brownism and Presbyterian- ists, Quakers, Seekers, Familists, etc. ism. In other words, it was Rob- Mather. Hubbard. 35* 414 PROGRESS OF THE ELDERS of imagination over reason. A dream, a comet, the shape of a pebble, are oracles where revelation is for- aidedby saken or unknown. A ship without a rudder is at the tion!" ' mercy of the element she was designed to override ; and the mind unsteadied by principle, or wandering from the truth, may easily become the slave of superstition. So it was when the despairing Saul endeavored to rend the veil> which shielded the gloomy future from his bloodshot eye. So it is whenever the rustic maid crosses with silver the palm of the gipsy vagabond. To sources of a kindred nature, the Puritan Pilgrims applied for ex cuses to justify their schism. Looking steadfastly in one direction, absorbed by only one interest, they neglected the broad and beaming sun for the specks and motes which floated in his rays. Among the strange noises, the terrible meteors, and the sudden catastrophes, which abound in the early histories of Massachusetts, a more unpretending incident finds place, which exhibits an amusing picture of enmity and superstition, only ten 1640. years after Winthrop's fleet had unmoored in the harbor of Southampton. " About this time fell out a thing worthy of observation. One of the magistrates having many books in a chamber where there was corn of divers sorts, had among them one, wherein the Greek Testa ment, the Psalms, and the Common Prayer were bound together. He found the Common Prayer eaten with mice, every leaf of it, and not any of the two other touched, nor any other of his books, though there were above a thousand." 1 Had Puritanism been certain of a divine mission, it would never have embalmed such a fact as this, dug out of an old store-room, whose only occu- 1 Sav. Winthrop, vol. ii. p. 20. Cambridge by a cat," which shows This marvellous story is followed by that the worthy Winthrop was not a " Quere of the child killed at at all given to credulity. FROM SCHISM TO SECTARIANISM. 415 were a few starving mice and a mouldy heap of part corn and books. Truth needs no such auxiliaries, and < — r^ can always afford to be generous. Such an event as the foregoing was, without doubt, Promoted' noised through New England, and perhaps animated the tion.eg'sla" public mind with fresh zeal. Certain it is that the gen eral current of legislation, civil and ecclesiastical, here after, from whatever cause, set against the religious institutions of England. " A day of thanksgiving was observed in all the churches, for the great success of the 1641- parliament" against the king.1 Missionaries were sent to carry the " means of salvation " to the benighted peo- 1642- pie of Virginia. An English priest, exercising his sacred functions at Piscataqua, was arrested, and forced to leave 1642. the country.2 Maverick and Child;, who petitioned for the enjoyment of religious liberty, were fined and impris- 1645. oned. Marriages were degraded from their proper rank, 1646. as solemn ordinances of religion, and were, by express law, declared to be civil contracts only, to be celebrated by the civil authority alone. Episcopacy was declared, 1648. by the first great synod in Massachusetts, to be an inven tion of man, to the great dishonor of Jesus Christ.3 And, at last, it was ordered by the general court, that 1651. whoever should observe the holy days of the Church, either 1 Agents in England were active, ar," says Winthrop. I say forced, not only in promoting anarchy there, because fine and other punishment but also in tormenting the venerable was remitted, on the express under- primate, who was languishing in standing that he should leave, and close confinement. Laud's Trou- this only when he had submitted to bles, pp. 213, 214. Chalmers's " the favor of the court." Annals, p. 172. Chalmers's Rev. 3 This was stating it more gin- of Col. vol. i. p. 84. Peters bru- gerly than Milton, who, in his Let- tally proposed that he should be sent ter on the Reformation, concludes to New England, to gratify the insa- with saying, that the bishops will be tiable rancor of Puritanism, which spurned and trampled on by all the now began to predominate there. Le other damned in hell, and that they Bas's Laud, p. 300. will remain the basest and most s "One Richard Gibson, a schol down-trodden vassals of perdition. 416 PROGRESS OF THE ELDERS chap, by abstaining from labor, by feasting, or in any other — ' — way, should, for every such offence, be subject to fine.1 These laws, and others of a similar kind, were but the expressions of the public mind. There was, in truth, no more danger to be apprehended from the Church than from Jesuitism, against which the terrors of the law were also directed during this animating period.2 No church could be gathered without the sanction of the elders and magistrates ; or, if any freemen so far forgot their duty as practically to assert the independence of every religious society, they endangered their civil rights. But the fathers of our commonwealth, whilst legislating against the Catholic religion, were only warning their posterity of the consequences of schism. influence But preeminent among all the causes of Independency exerted by .„,- ic • <« tt ' .. Harvard m Massachusetts was the foundation of Harvard College. This famous " seat of the Muses," early established for " the education of English and Indian youth in knowl edge and godliness," 3 became the nursery of Puritan theology. Its rise was singularly rapid. Owing its origin to the honorable ambition of our ancestors, the 1636. infant seminary was early adopted by the general court, enriched by private and public bounty, raised to the rank 1637. of a college the year after it had commenced as a school,4 placed under the special care of the elders and magis- 1642. trates,6 and made a body corporate, with unprecedented privileges,6 ere forty graduates had left its halls,7 and 1 In 165 1, a law was also passed Jesuits, and other Roman ecelesias- preventing the landing of all Strang- tics, who might stray into the juris- ers, " of what quality soever," ex- diction, should be banished on pain cept they were immediately brought of death. before some of the magistrates, " to 3 Colony Laws, Act of 1650. give an account of their occasions 4 Hubbard. and business in the country." Col- 5 Colony Laws, Act of 1642. ony Laws. 6 Ibid. Act of 1650. 8 In 1647, it was ordered that all 7 See Catalogus Universitatis. FROM SCHISM TO SECTARIANISM. 417 while one individual discharged the multifarious duties part of. president, professor, tutor, and librarian.1 Such were ' — y-^ the caresses received by the posthumous offspring of John Harvard.2 Nor was its early promise spoiled by indulgence. It increased each year in public estimation. The theses of its first graduating class embraced a wide scope of academical learning,3 and exhibited the results of a training, which, if less showy, was more scholastic than can be obtained at present. And it is sufficient for the glory of the venerable university to say, that its existence was recognized in the republic of letters long before the more ambitious structure of its founders was known in the family of nations. Rising in homely grandeur in the midst of t-he wilder ness, the solitary Hall of Harvard soon became an object of more affectionate interest than the towers of Oxford and Cambridge. For its welfare, the elders prayed and the magistrates legislated. It was to train not only scholars but Puritans ; * and the future preachers of the colony were to go out from its shades, as well as the lawgivers and magistrates. But in such aspirations as these, the humble hopes of its early benefactors were forgotten. In becoming a Puritan college, it ceased to be a school for humanity. One lonely Indian youth wrung from its condescending liberality a bachelor's de gree. His name, uncouth and unadorned, stands at the 1 Henry Dunster. The college other progeny but this posthumous had overseers long before it had pro- university. Sav. Winthrop, vol. n. fessors. p- 87, n. 2. 2 The college was chiefly indebted 3 Hutchinson, vol. i. Appendix, to Rev. John Harvard, of Emman- p. 444. uel College, Cambridge. Savage, 4 Dunster, whose opinions on bap- in an interesting note, gives an ex- tism clashed with those entertained tract from an old almanac, by which by Puritans, had liberty, from this it appears that he gave seven hun- cause, to resign his office as presi- dred pounds, or half of his estate. He dent. Hubbard. Johnson, b. 11. left, says this diligent antiquary, no c. 19. 418 progress of the elders foot of his class, and tells a mingled story of bitterness and neglect.1 Far different was the lot of his more for tunate white brothers. From the establishment of the college to the abrogation of the charter, a period of forty- three years, two hundred and sixty-eight English names were enrolled among the graduates of Harvard. Of these, one hundred and thirty-eight, or more than one half, became teachers of Puritanism. Unlike their pred ecessors, receiving no ordination, both education and interest conspired to render them hostile to a church in which they had no part. Year after year, a fresh supply of zealots, burning with enthusiasm, leaped from the halls of the college into the broad arena of the wilderness. With no knowledge of the Church, except such as reached them through the distorted medium of prejudice or enmity, it became the business of their lives to preach a gospel which differed widely from her sacred teachings. The little communities, of which they became the centres, were guided far away into the paths of dissent ; and soon, under the influence they exercised, little difference could have been discovered between the schismatics of Massachusetts and the Separatists of Plymouth. Samuel Such were the chief causes which wrought an im portant change in the religious polity of Massachusetts. The resolution " to enlarge the boundaries " of the Church in the wilderness, in the short space of a dozen years faded into indifference, and disappeared. In its place was substituted the spirit of enmity, separatism, 1 This remarkably fortunate* sav- one Indian actually became a bach- age possessed the singular style, elor of arts. Whether the adverb, mingled of Hebrew and Indian, of in this sentence, refers to the conde- Caleb Cheeshahteaumuck. He was of scension of his instructors or to his the class of 1665, and died in 1666. own industry, it is hard for us to say, Bancroft, eulogizing the early Indian and perhaps would puzzle the his- missions, says, with amazement, that torian. FROM SCHISM TO SECTARIANISM. 419 and persecution. Allusion has already been made to Maverick and Child, whose case deserves a more ex tended notice, because it illustrates the principles which have previously been discussed. The arrival of Win throp's fleet found Samuel Maverick, a clergyman of the Church of England, already settled on a flourishing plan tation at Noddle's Island. Unconnected with the Puritan emigration, his motives for leaving his native country are at present a mystery, and the time when, and the manner in which he left, are also unknown.1 Perhaps his was a mission to the savage, for the glory of God and his Church ; for his kindness to the Indians, says Win throp, makes him "worthy of perpetual remembrance."2 Certain it is, that his wealth and hospitality3 procured for him many friends ; and, though he was " an enemy to the reformation in hand," and " strong for the lordly prelatical power," * he was made a freeman of the com pany, and his estate was confirmed to him by the general court. But these privileges were conferred before that monstrous alteration of the charter, which made the meanest privileges of citizenship entirely dependent upon membership with the established religion. His kindness of heart and his Christian philanthropy were not suffi cient to protect him from the proscription of the elders ; 1 Sav. Winthrop, vol. i. p. 27, hard mats to lie upon, and, " when n. 4. their pustules broke, they stuck to 2 This tribute from a Puritan, to their mats ; and every time they the memory of a Churchman, shows turned themselves some of their skin that it was well deserved. It was flayed off, till they were all a gore during the terrible visitation of the of blood, and then, being sore, they smallpox among the Indians, in the caught cold, and died like rotten latter part of 1633, that Maverick sheep." and his family rendered themselves 3 According to Josselyn, who vis- - so conspicuous in good works, going ited him in 1638, " he was the only " daily to them, ministering to their hospitable man in all the country, necessities, burying their dead," and giving entertainment to all comers, providing for their children. Neal gratis." says of the smallpox among the In- * Johnson, b. i. c. 17. dians, that they had nothing but 420 progress of the elders and, when their religious system was fairly in operation, he was stripped of those sacred privileges which the ambassadors of God are expressly sent to confer upon mankind. He was compelled to contribute to the sup port of the elders, but, with his family, was excluded from all participation in the solemn ordinances of relig ion. Had he exercised his functions as a Catholic priest, he would have been imprisoned or banished. Had he claimed for his children, from the truant ministers of the Church, the rite of baptism, he would have been denied. Such was the anomalous position of Maverick. A few chosen friends, among whom was William Vassal, one of the corporators named in the charter, and a faithful Churchman,1 alone rendered it endurable. Robert Ere long, their number was increased by the arrival 1644. of Dr. Robert Child, who, fresh from the universities in Europe, full of ardor and zeal, was by no means disposed tamely to submit to the robbery of his rights as an Eng lish subject, because he would not subscribe to tenets which education and habit made odious. Coming to Massachusetts for objects connected with science,2 he found himself immediately deprived of all religious lib erty, while his purse was at the mercy of a government which he had, and could have, no voice in constituting. He therefore determined to waive the pursuits of science and wealth, for the more generous enterprise of achiev ing civil and religious liberty. Had every mountain sparkled with precious ores, and every cavern been loaded with the richest minerals, they would have seemed like dross to the noble Child so long as the far greater bless ings were unattainable, for which life itself was alone 1 Baylie's Plymouth, part i. p. Hist. Coll. of Mass. vol. iv. p. 198. 230. Sav. Winthrop, vol. ii. p. 261, u. 1. 2 Letter of William White, 2 FROM SCHISM TO SECTARIANISM. 421 desirable. We cannot readily estimate the moral cour age necessary for such an undertaking. In a feebler state of the colony, Roger Williams, a " godly minister," had stood forth as the champion of religious liberty, and in less than one year had been driven, in the depth of winter, from the society of his countrymen into the wil derness, blasted in fortune and ruined in character. How much more serious was the attempt, when it had for its express object the establishment of the rights of the Churchmen of England. An occasion soon offered for the hardy enterprise of Gross tyr anny of Child. "Some agitations fell out" at the little town of the magis- , . . . trates. Hingham, in their military elections, which called for the interference of the civil authority. The magistrates, as 1644. usual, took part against the people, and the people peti tioned the general court, declaring that their liberties, as " English freeborn members of the state," were placed in jeopardy.1 The petitioners, instead of being redressed, were fined one hundred pounds ; for the deputies, though they struggled long against the arbitrary determination of the magistrates, were forced to yield when they threat ened to "call in the help of the elders."2 Foremost among these petitioners was Peter Hobart, the elder of Hingham, a man " of a Presbyterial spirit," 3 and, there fore, unpopular with his ministerial brethren. When called upon to pay his proportion of the fine, he desired 1645. to see the warrant, and thereupon raised weighty objec- 1 New England's Jonas, etc. power of the magistrates than them- 2 Sav. Winthrop, vol. ii. p. 227. selves well liked of." Further on, "They knew," says the worthy jour- he continues, "they did not dare to nalist, " that many of the elders un- trust the elders with the cause." derstood the cause, and were more 3 Hubbard. Of this elder, John- careful to uphold the honor and son lugubriously sings : — " Oh, Hubbard, why do'st leave thy native soile ? Is't not to war 'mongst Christ's true worthies here ? What, wilt give out ? Thou'lt loose thy former toyle, And starve Christ's flock, which he hath purchast deare." 36 422 PROGRESS OF THE ELDERS chap, tions. He objected that the warrant was insufficient, — r^ because it was not issued in his Majesty's name ; that the government in Massachusetts was " not more than a cor poration in England," and that it had no power to put men to death by virtue of the patent, nor " to do other things it did ; " that, for himself, " he had neither horn nor hoof of his own, nor any thing wherewith to buy his children clothes," but that, if " he must pay the fine, he would pay it in books ; " and that, having seriously con sidered what he had done, it did not seem to him amiss ; and that if he had broken any wholesome law, not repug nant to the laws of England, he was ready to submit to censure.1 For this temperate remonstrance, Mr. Hub- 1646. bard was tried and convicted of sedition,2 and, being Mfircli heavily fined, was ordered to give bonds for his future good behavior. child and These remarkable proceedings inspired Child with withother's, courage, and furnished him with a pretext. Through his May. active agency a petition was drawn up, addressed to the general court, which stated with glowing detail the griev ances under which the remonstrants and others labored. Thanking the government of the colony for its " constant vigilance and continual care " over the charge committed to them by the Almighty, the petitioners apologize for the liberty they are about to take, in spreading before " the honored court " the " many and great sins of the place." The Lord hath placed you, they declared, at the helm of these plantations, endowed with eminent gifts fit for such honorable callings. You are, therefore, able to foresee the clouds which hang over our heads, and the storms and tempests which threaten the poor handful i New England's Jonas, etc. was that he had taken the freeman's Sav. Winthrop. oath. 2 The great burden of his offence FROM SCHISM TO SECTARIANISM. 423 intrusted to your care. Notwithstanding, they proceed, we, who are under deck, although unfit for high employ ment, can perceive those leaks which will inevitably sink this weak and ill-compacted vessel, if not opportunely prevented. Having thus adroitly introduced themselves to the Pray for notice of the general court, they go on to detail the England. nature of the leaks which they think threaten the ship of state. And, first, they declare that the territory and immunities of the company were granted by " his Maj esty of England," who, besides incorporating the com pany, conferred upon the corporators the power of making laws not repugnant to the laws of the realm, and also provided for the administering of the oath of allegiance to all persons who should leave England to settle in this portion of his dominions. Nevertheless, they aver that, although they are Englishmen, they are not governed by the laws of England, nor by any body of laws which insures to them their lives, liberties, and estates, accord ing to their natural rights as freeborn subjects of Eng land. By reason of which, much fear is entertained lest an arbitrary government is intended ; many jealousies spring up on account of illegal commitments and impris onments, and they all live in uncertainty of the things they enjoy ; whether their lives, liberties, or estates. Wherefore they pray that the wholesome laws of their native country may be established, which are not only agreeable to their English tempers, but are binding on all by charter and the oaths of allegiance. For they cannot tell whether the Lord has blessed many in these parts with such eminent political gifts, that they can con trive better laws and customs than the wisest of their nation have with great care composed, and after many hundred years of experience found equal and just. 424 PROGRESS OF THE ELDERS They also desire that, since they are compelled to con tribute to the support of government, they may have that rivniib- civil liberty and freedom to which they are entitled as erty' Englishmen. And they request these rights, unshackled by oaths and covenants not warranted by charter, and which are in conflict with the oath of allegiance formerly enforced on all. They declare their willingness to take such oaths and covenants as are consistent with the duty they owe to God and the king, and are framed according to the customs of other English corporations ; but they are unwilling to be rent from their native country though far distant from it, and glory to be accounted but as rushes of that land, so that they may continue to write that they and theirs are English. As church- Finally, they desire that, since they are compelled to forr'eiig- contribute to the support of the elders, and are denied erty. ministrations of their own, they may, at least, partake of the benefit of their labors. They, like many others, are members of the Church of England, and neither their lives nor conversations are scandalous in the sight of men. Yet, though they are compelled, under heavy pen alties, to be present at the public worship established by law, they are denied all the privileges of the Gospel. Thus, the members of the Church of England are like sheep scattered in the wilderness, without a shepherd, in a sad and forlorn condition ; and, unless their pressing wants are speedily relieved, they will be compelled to petition parliament for redress. But, they conclude, if you grant us our humble requests, the blessing of God will rest upon the plantation. The Gospel, now much darkened, will break forth as the sun at noonday. Com merce and husbandry, now languishing, will go bravely on. Hands, hearts, and purses, now straightened, will be freely opened for public and honorable services. Strife FROM SCHISM TO SECTARIANISM. 425 and contentions, now rife, will be abated ; taxes and sesses will be lightened ; the burdens of the state will become a pleasure.1 Such was the spirit of this admirable paper. It Spirit of proceeded not from zealous Royalists or High Church- tion. men. " The petitioners were of a linsiwolsie disposi tion ; some for prelacy, some for presbytery, and some for plebsbytery." 2 With few exceptions, perhaps, the sig natures it received would have been affixed without a shudder to the death-warrants of Charles the First and William of Canterbury. There was no prayer for the introduction of ceremonies or superstitions. There was no allusion to bishops or surplices. The remonstrants simply begged for a participation in those solemn ordi nances, which the elders, as commissioned priests of the Church, had authority to celebrate. Without starting useless scruples and doubts as to the validity of their official acts, they wished to make the best of the circum stances in which they were placed. To further this object, they recalled to the minds of the magistrates the oath of allegiance, " once taken by all." They dwelt upon the danger of separation from the State as well as the Church, and showed how one would follow from the other. By touching allusions to their native country, by some, they say, already " stiled foreign," they endeavored to check the rampant spirit of Puritanism.3 But what reason had Child and Maverick to expect a better fate than Roger Williams'? True, they sought for that which belonged to them as freeborn subjects of 1 See the petition at length, in 2 Johnson. New England's Jonas Cast Up, etc. 3 The petition, says the liberal It was signed by Robert Child, Bancroft, was " the vjanton spirit of Thomas Fowle, Samuel Maverick, insult " .' .' .' Thomas Burton, David Yale, John Smith, and John Dand. 36* 426 PROGRESS OF THE ELDERS chap. England, while Williams could base his cause on charity -~~ y^ alone. The latter, at least as far as his religion was concerned, could only beg as a favor what the former demanded as a right. But the efforts of both were lev elled at the ambitious pride of the elders, who, had they listened to their entreaties, would have undermined their own power and influence. They did not sacrifice their comfortable livings in England for the purpose of ac knowledging fellowship with Separatists, or of sharing their newly-acquired spoils with Churchmen. indignation The petition " was very ill resented." 1 Preferred eiders. towards the end of the session of the general court, all action upon it was suspended, in order that it might be brought to the notice of the elders. It was impossible to take any action on a movement so important without consulting the oracles of the state. The petition con tained truths of a perplexing nature ; but the embarrass ment of the magistrates was soon relieved by the bold and unequivocal course of the elders. They inveighed against the petitioners, in public and private ; the sound ing boards of their pulpits reverberated with their bitter invectives. Their sermons were " eked out in defama tory declamations " against the " disturbers of the coun try," whom they compared to the " Sons of Belial, to Judases, and to the sons of Corah." The petition, they declared, was " full of malignancy, and subvertive both to Church and Commonwealth in their foundations." The magistrates readily fell in with these sentiments, and " spoke in the same key." 2 " One publicly declared it was a wicked petition, full of malignancy, and how far it reached he knew not, pointing at a capital law " against l Hubbard. 2 New England's Jonas, etc. Hutchinson. FROM SCHISM TO SECTARIANISM. 427 sedition and conspiracy.1 Their affecting farewell to the part Church of England was already forgotten ; their God- • — * — ' speeds had become anathemas. It was a pleasant thing to preside over the helm of a growing commonwealth, and to witness new institutions, new laws, and new cus toms budding forth in the wilderness, and presenting to the world new political combinations. Their zeal for the purity of the Gospel had degenerated into political religionism. When the court again met, a committee was appointed General 0 *¦ l court an- to answer a remonstrance which was unanswerable. Its swer the petition. effects upon the public mind were dreaded by the elders, November. and " a great deal of pains was taken in the answer, to make it evident to the world that the petitioners had no cause so to remonstrate." 2 " These are the champions," was the contemptuous reply, "who must represent the body of non-freemen. If this be their head, sure they have an unsavory head not to be seasoned with much salt." But the court did not confine its action to answer ing the " factious remonstrance." The committee were required not only to answer the petition, but to manufac ture out of it grounds for accusation. In the mean time, the petitioners were summoned to appear at their bar, and were required to enter into bonds to abide the judg ment of the court upon the forthcoming accusation. What is our crime 1 asked Child. Is it penal to peti tion in Massachusetts for the redress of grievances'? You shall know your offence in due season, was the 1 New England's Jonas, etc. tion. The language of Winthrop 2 Hubbard. A parallel was at- is remarkable. " A committee was tempted, says Hutchinson, between appointed to examine the petition, the fundamental laws of England and out of it to draiv a charge, which and those of the colony, which in was done," etc. Sav. Winthrop, some parts of it is liable to excep- vol. ii. p. 285. 428 PROGRESS OF THE ELDERS chap, reply of the puzzled Winthrop ; and, in the mean time, ^-v — - it is sufficient for you to learn that you have "laid a great scandal upon the country." We deny your juris diction, returned Child, and shall appeal to the commis sioners in England. But, said the governor, we allow of no appeal, nor is any allowed by the charter.1 Trial of the The trial soon took place. Out of the three heads of petitioners, r tionSedi remonstrance, contained in the petition, twelve long and formidable articles of accusation had been " drawn " by the committee.2 Scandal and sedition were worked up in every possible variety and combination, public and pri vate, express and implied. Had the scales been evenly balanced in this singular court of justice, an event which happened in the course of the trial would have caused an immediate preponderance against the petitioners. One of the defendants,3 going hastily with a copy of the accu sation to confer with Dr. Child, " fell down, and lay in the cold near half an hour." i This unhappy accident displayed in a signal manner the wrath of an offended Providence. The petitioners were convicted, and sen tenced to pay exorbitant fines. It was offered that, if they would confess the charge of sedition, and " ingen uously acknowledge their miscarriage," their fines should be remitted; but they indignantly refused, and declared their intention of appealing to parliament. The avowal of this determination caused much " alarm," and led to further action on the part of the elders. Child truly said, that " they were masters rather than ministers." Stirred up by their zeal, the magistrates rifled the trunks and papers of the discomfited Churchmen, and ordered 1 Sav. Winthrop. Hubbard. whom nothing is known except his 2 Sav. Winthrop, vol. ii. p. 285. agency in this movement. 3 This was Thomas Burton, of * Sav. Winthrop. Hubbard. FROM SCHISM TO SECTARIANISM. 429 the most active of their number to be closely imprisoned, until the opportunity that then offered for their departure to England had passed.1 The sequel of this persecution is only important as it The eiders > 1 i-i i i • • ¦ • n -i denounce throws further light upon the schismatic spirit of the the peti- _ . tioners, for "elders. Determined to bring the cause before parlia- appealing. ment, two of the petitioners sailed as speedily as possible for England. The object of the voyage could not have been concealed, even if it had been desirable ; and the occasion was seized by the elders to pour forth fierce invectives from their pulpits. They denounced the object of the complainants, as unholy ; they inveighed against the Church of England, calling it Egypt's Babylon ; and declared that from that Church none could go to heaven. They asserted that the only divine form of governing churches was Independency. And they called upon the shipmaster, with whom the appellants were to sail, to remember that if any of his passengers should carry writings or complaints against the people of God, they would be as Jonas in the ship. " I do not advise you to throw the persons overboard," said Cotton, " but their writings." 2 The prophecy contained in this warning was safe and sure. A winter's voyage across the Atlantic must al ways be stormy. The appellants encountered tempests and gales, and another extraordinary miracle was per formed in favor of the elders of Massachusetts.3 During 1 Sav. Winthrop. Hubbard. Two raft, which left Hingham for Boston of them were refused bail, because on a fast day specially appointed on " their offence was in nature cap- account of Dr. Child, was carried ital." away by a tempest ; the horse of 2 New England's Jonas, etc. Mr. Winslow, who was appointed 3 The number of miraculous in- agent of the colony to counteract terpositions, during the pendency of the appeal of Child to parliament, this cause, would have astonished a died as he was riding to Boston ; whole order in the Roman Church, and the series was concluded by the A man was lamed for months ; a one stated in the text. 430 PROGRESS OF THE ELDERS chap. " a sad storm at Land's End," the papers of one of the 1 — * — ' appellants, who was " as sick in his conscience for re morse as he was in his carcase for the working of the sea," were, by the entreaty of a "well-affected passenger," thrown overboard, and, soon after, the tempest ceased.1 Unhappily for the reputation of this wonder, the papers thus destroyed were of little importance in the case. William Vassal, the other appellant, who was " of a more resolved and tough humor," retained quietly his manuscripts ; and, though the remainder of the voyage was tempestuous, the ship finally reached England in safety. It is almost needless to add, that the appeal was ineffectual. Superstition was a powerful auxiliary to bigotry ; but the elders, too wise to trust wholly in mira cles, sent an agent to England, who, " by his prudent management," and the " credit and esteem he was in with many leading members of parliament," prevented the operation of justice.2 The only satisfaction obtained by the appellants was the publication of their papers at Lon don. To the amazement of the good people of Massa chusetts, the invective of their elders, in this instance at least, proved to be without the divine assent ; and the baffled complainants took the ludicrous revenge of giving the history of their sufferings and persecutions to the world, under the name of " New England's Jonas Cast Up at London."3 Such was the welcome which Massachusetts gave her " Dear Mother," after a separation of only sixteen years. In that short time, the elders had so leavened the whole lump of transatlantic Puritanism, that they hurled at her 1 Hubbard. "The Salamander;" pointing there- 2 Hutchinson. in, says Hubbard, at Mr. Vassal ; a 3 This was answered by Mr. man who never was at rest but when Winslow, in a pamphlet entitled he was in the fire of contention. FROM SCHISM TO SECTARIANISM. 431 words of reproach, abuse, and menace. Sir William part n. Berkeley, of Virginia, might well dread that class of ministers in a colony, who exhaust the capacity of relig ion in pulpit declamation. Independent of all ecclesias tical authority, possessing their places only by a controll ing influence over the people, and overflowing with that peculiar ambition which is generated by spiritual pride, the principles of religious conservatism can never receive protection from the ranks of the preachers. The Pulpit, unless sheltered by the Altar, becomes a democratic toy. Its strength alone consists in its power of affording nov elty ; and, deprived of this, it may become the stand of an auctioneer, or the throne of a caucus. From the period of this famous persecution until the church • 1 t» t» /r i feeling in Restoration, the Puritans of Massachusetts were unmo- Massachu- lested by Churchmen. They were occupied by the follies Restora- of Familists, the ravings of Baptists, and the " blas phemies " of Quakers. The scourge, the prison, and the gallows, shut out the view of the cross. The generation that beheld, from the eastern shores of New England, the return of the Stuarts, was better acquainted with the scarlet drapery of Rome than the decent adornments of the English Church. But of either they knew little, beyond the bloody provisions of a Puritan statute, or the severe denunciations of a Puritan pulpit. They had no literature but sermons, no theology but the Ten Com mandments, no history but the dealings of the Star- Chamber and Commission Courts, no saint but the ideal one of Puritanism. The ignorance of the people kept even pace with the prejudice of the elders ; and while the former had not so much as heard of the noble designs which begot their flourishing commonwealth, the latter learned to make but little distinction between the stately majesty of Rome and the bruised and outlawed Church 432 PROGRESS OF THE ELDERS chap, which had hardly a cathedral where it could chant a De ' — r~^ Profundis for its sad and fallen condition. The royal declaration from Breda was the death-knell of that intolerant system which had given birth to the colonies of New England. It was received in Massa chusetts with apathy, for the consequences it involved were not at once foreseen. The king was not yet seated upon his throne, and the Church was not reinstated in its Anglo-Saxon home. Something might *yet happen, which would show that the institutions of Massachusetts were under the divine protection.1 But such vague dreams were soon dispelled by unpleasant realities. While Massachusetts paused for further advices, Charles the Second ascended the throne of his ancestors, and began to turn his eyes towards- the western shores of the Atlan tic. He saw Virginia stretching out her arms to hail the return of her outlawed sovereign, while New Eng land remained cold, sullen, and forbidding. The Puri tans were hanging Quakers nearly at the same time that the Virginians were chanting Te Deums. From the one he heard shouts of loyalty and gladness ; from the other, complaints and lamentations. The eiders The hollow ceremony of a " loyal address " and " gra- the restora- cious answer" being finished, Puritanism buckled on its church. armor to contend with the Church. Alarming rumors sped across the ocean, of the restoration of the olden superstitions. " Episcopacy, Common Prayer, bowing at the name of Jesus, the sign of the cross in baptism, the altar, and organs," 2 were causing " fainting " in the hearts of the colonial agents at Whitehall. The throne was surrounded by the friends of the Church, and by the 1 Hutchinson, vol. i. p. 194. 2 Letter of John Leverett to Mas sachusetts. FROM SCHISM TO SECTARIANISM. 433 enemies of Puritanism. Nearly every class of so-called Christians in Protestant Christendom had something to employ the ingenuity of the agents from Massachusetts. Of these alarming facts the general court was kept in formed, and fears began to be entertained of " a change in the form of their government, both Church and state." 1 It was amid surmise and doubt that the king was pro- They assert claimed in the streets of Boston, and Eliot proscribed character for his work against monarchical forms of government.2 ism. ™ But these acts were accompanied by others of an equally decided nature, which materially qualified their operation. The general court appointed a committee, composed of elders, magistrates, and deputies, to declare the chartered rights of the colony ; and the committee reported a series of articles, which asserted a real independence in their civil and religious system. As for their liberties, they avowed that " any imposition prejudicial to the country, and contrary to their own laws not repugnant to the laws of England," would be an infringement of their rights. And, concerning their allegiance, they declared that they " ought to seek the peace and prosperity of the king, in propagating the Gospel, defending and upholding the true Christian or Protestant religion, according to the faith given by our Lord Jesus Christ in his Word." 3 Of the meaning of these propositions, they, of course, were to be the judges, and not the king or parliament. With their usual presumption, they made Christianity synony mous with Puritanism, and claimed theirs to be the true faith at the same moment that their communion was 1 Hutchinson. Letter of Lord 2 " The Christian Common- Say to the Governor and Magistrates wealth." of Massachusetts, July, 1661. 3 Hutchinson, vol. i. Appendix, PP- 455> 456- 37 434 PROGRESS OF THE ELDERS distracted with doubts concerning the only entrance into the Christian Church, the sacrament of Holy Bap tism.1 Refuse to Massachusetts soon received orders to send agents to use of the England, to make answer to the complaints which were Common • n c • 1 Prayer. continually preferred against the intolerance of her gov- 1662. ernment. An elder and a magistrate were selected for this delicate mission, who departed amidst the fears and anxieties of their constituents. But in a few months September, they returned with " the king's most gracious letter," pardoning the past, and establishing the Puritan construc tion of the charter on certain equitable conditions. In addition to the complete acknowledgment of his sov ereignty, he required " that freedom and liberty should be given to all such as desired, to use the Book of Com mon Prayer, and perform their devotions in the manner established in England, and that they might not undergo any prejudice thereby ; " and " that all persons of good and honest lives and conversations should be admitted to the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, according to the Book of Common Prayer, and their children to Bap tism." 2 Freedom and liberty of conscience were " the chief ground of the Plantation," said the trembling Puri tans, deprecating the royal anger ; and Charles " gra ciously " recalled to their minds the eternal justice of this principle, which had now become the law of his empire. But so far from recognizing the righteousness of the king's command, they expressly disobeyed his injunctions, considering them "grievous." Although they "readily granted " permission to French Calvinists to become members of their commonwealth,3 they, at the same time, 1 " Except a man be born of water 2 Hutchinson. Hubbard. 2 Mass. and of the Spirit, he cannot enter Hist. Coll. vol. viii. p. 52. into the kingdom of God." 3 Hutchinson, vol. i. p. 206. In FROM SCHISM TO SECTARIANISM. 435 denied the blessings of liberty to their own kindred and part countrymen. ^-^. The act of uniformity inundated Massachusetts with a Again fresh wave of Puritanism. The elders were strengthened allow ' in numbers and zeal. Month after month rolled away, men m>- and instead of diligently studying the great and wise conscience. principle which was asserting its prerogative in the Old World, they endeavored to prop up their spiritual des potism in the wilderness, by inviting over the most learned and influential of their party in England.1 But they were at length startled by the rumor that royal 1664. commissioners were about to visit the colonies, and that the investigation of affairs in Massachusetts would form a portion of their duties. A day of fasting and prayer was appointed, " to implore the mercy of God," and pre- May. cautions were adopted to prevent any surprise upon the liberties of the colony, by armed crews from the ships of war. The commissioners, one of whom had been before stigmatized as a " rank Papist," 2 and another of whom was a son of that Maverick, who, a few years before, had been deprived of religious liberty, followed close June. upon the rumor. There was no need for precautions against military stratagem. Their errand was more glorious. Armed only with the principles of justice and the law, they came to loose the bonds of a tyranny at once unrighteous and illegal. They came to open the way to the Font and the Altar, for those who were pre vented access to either. For, said they, "it is very scandalous that any persons should be debarred the exer- 1686, the French Protestants in Bos- 1 Hutchinson, vol. i. p. 207. 2 ton were numerous enough to organ- Mass. Hist. Coll. vol. i. Letter to ize a society, and they erected a small Dr. Owen. brick meeting-house in what is now 2 Sir Robert Carr. See Letter School Street. Em. Hist, of First of Norton. Hutchinson, vol. i. p. Church, p. 137, note. 207. 436 PROGRESS OF THE ELDERS cise of their religion according to the laws and customs of England, by those who are indulged with the liberty of being of what religion they please." x The success of this commission has been considered in another place. The Book of Common Prayer was viewed with as much distrust as a Roman missal. While the colonists made earnest professions of loyalty and sub mission, not a solitary privilege could be extorted from them in favor of the Church. They clung to their intol erance with such ardor, that had the king himself moved his capital from London to Boston, he would have been debarred the enjoyment of religious liberty. The gates of heaven were scrupulously guarded against all but the pre vailing sect. -The only reply vouchsafed by the general court to the royal command to make the rights of con science free as air was, that " they had commended to the ministry and people the Word of the Lord for their rule." 2 We supposed, was the keen retort, " that the king and the Church understood the Word of God as well as the Massachusetts Corporation." 3 But however natural was this supposition, its sarcasm was more palatable than its truth ; and, after enduring a variety of insults, the com missioners referred the whole subject to his Majesty's wisdom, and retired from the colony in disgust. Perhaps the rude treatment experienced by the com missioners was promoted by their contempt for the cold formalities of Puritanism. Much they saw in New Eng land to excite their warmest admiration. Every town numbering fifty householders was furnished with a common 1 " It sounds strange," says Green- n. Where is the arrogance in the wood, "to hear Charles II. reading style? a lesson on religious freedom to the 2 Hutchinson. Pilgrims ; but it was a good lesson, 3 2 Mass. Hist. Coll. vol. viii. though delivered in an arrogant p. 76. style." Hist, of King's Chapel, p. FROM SCHISM TO SECTARIANISM. 437 school, in order that " learning might not be buried in the graves of their forefathers." And where " the Lord had increased them to the number of one hundred," it was ordered that they should set up a grammar school, that youth might be fitted for the university.1 Trade was active, agriculture prosperous, and the marks of the wilderness were receding further and further towards the west. There was every outward sign of a happy and fortunate people, who, with the religion, had cast off the habits of the Old World, and who desired nothing more criminal than to remain unmolested. ' Unhappily, there was another view of this pleasing picture, which could not be obscured by the glories with which Puritanism had surrounded itself. If the schools trained fanatics, if commerce fattened on the violation of the laws, if agri culture was enriched by the blood of the Indian, if the meeting-house was the focus of disloyalty, and if all these held their place by usurpation from the Church and crown, there was cause enough for interference. And such was the tyrannical sway maintained by the elders, that the commissioners themselves were rudely assailed for not conforming to the Sabbatical fanaticism of their religion.2 The solitary priest who accompanied the commission, in the capacity of chaplain, may not have been confined on Sundays, like D'Aulney's friars, to the governor's garden,3 although he must have been an object of equal 1 Colony Laws, May, 1847. 3 See in Sav. Winthrop and in 2 The Puritan Sabbath com- Hubbard's History an account of menced at sunset on Saturday even- the reception of the embassy of ing. It was during one of these D'Aulney, who, "having the lib- evenings that the commissioners were erty of the governor's garden on the most rudely and inhospitably inter- Lord's Day," are represented to fered with by a constable, when en- have " carried themselves soberly. joying the converse of their friends. Hutchinson, vol. i. p. 232. 37* 438 PROGRESS OF THE ELDERS chap, curiosity to the people. There was no altar in New ' — y — ' England for his ministrations ; and the most solemn sacrament of the Church must have been celebrated by him in the parlor of some cosmopolitan citizen, or in the humble apartment of some inn. That he was self- denying, is evinced by his accompanying a dreaded com mission in an invidious task ; and that he was unambi tious, may be gathered from the facts, that his name is more obscure than that of the obscurest Quaker, and that his memory has been spared the denunciation of the Puritan historian. He was the last presbyter of the Church of England who visited the Puritan Common wealth. When next her ministers landed at the wharves in Boston, they planted their feet upon the soil of a royal province. Randolph The rights of the Church and the cause of liberty opens the ° J way for the continued to be urged bv the crown, without success. Church. . The sovereign asked as a favor what he was soon to command as simple justice. Religious liberty was begin ning to be enjoyed throughout all the British dominions, save in the Puritan Colonies only ; and the system which claimed to be peculiarly a system of and for the people, was the last to recognize the rights of conscience. With that blindness which is often the accompaniment of selfish ness, Massachusetts refused to see the folly and incon- 1676. sistency of her position. But the arrival of the zealous Randolph, bearing instructions " to inquire into the state of the colony," prepared the way for the introduction of the principles of liberty. Nothing escaped the penetra tion of this ardent loyalist. With activity that never wearied, with loyalty that never abated, and with courage that nothing could daunt, he " spied out " the glaring 1 Hutch. Coll. of Papers, p. 520. FROM SCHISM TO SECTARIANISM. 439 inconsistencies of Puritanism ; and, while his chief con cern was with the business of the crown, he was not unmindful of the interests of the Church. Such was the effect of his most difficult mission, that, in the year of his arrival in Boston, high treason was made a capital 1677 offence ; the oath of allegiance, which had been suspended for more than thirty years, was again annually pronounced in the town hall ; and last, though not least, a declaration was made by the general court, that " no persons should be hindered from performing divine service according to the Church of England." J The importance of this reluctant concession, forced from the general court by the active zeal of Randolph, cannot be over estimated. Had the Church been erected upon the ruins of the charter, the celebration of her holy sacraments might have been the signal for riots, and we at this day have been unknown to her sacred communion. Men would have confounded the erection of the cross with the overthrow of civil liberty, and the altar would have been regarded as the throne of despotism. Happily the sentiments of hereditary animosity were anticipated by the moral courage of Randolph. " Hundreds, whose children were not baptized," and "as many more who never, since they came out of England, had received the Sacrament " of the Eucharist, were famishing for the Bread of Life.2 The pressing wants of this helpless company appealed irresistibly to the kindly heart of the agent, who willingly encountered calumny and reproach to gratify their reasonable desires, and who consented to figure as infamous upon the pages of Puritan history, if he could shelter from intolerance his brethren of the Church. 1 Hutchinson. of London. Hutch. Coll. of Papers, 2 Randolph's Letter to the Bishop p. 538. 440 PROGRESS OF THE ELDERS Thus, before the destiny of the charter was known, the claims of religious liberty were acknowledged, and Puri tanism received its first lesson in freedom at the hands of an English Churchman. aMeSandf°r ^ut ** was no Part o1^ Ranu°lph's design to gain an sober min- empty triumph. Men less disinterested would have been isters. r J r satisfied with having broken the bonds of tyranny, and spared themselves the odium of encountering a violent prejudice. This loyal Churchman, however, sacrificing popularity and reputation, pursued the nobler course of completing, at all risks, the work he had commenced. The American Colonies, annexed by prescription to the See of London, formed a portion of that venerable dio cese, and were within the jurisdiction of its bishop. To 1682. that prelate x Randolph addressed his urgent entreaties for " able and sober ministers." He promised that they would be received by " all honest men with hearty Chris tian respects and kindness ; " and urged that the bishop had " good security for their civil treatment by the con trary party, so long as their agents are in England." 2 Obstacles It was unfortunate for the Colonial Church that the in the way. . English Episcopate was a part of the machinery of the state. In the ponderous movements of the body politic, the zeal which had carried the cross from Rome to Can terbury was in danger of growing cold. The cure of souls was sometimes forgotten in political intrigues ; and the crook and mitre dwindled in comparison with the mace and coronet. Distracted by sectarianism at home, the state was indifferent to the true glory of the Church ; and the latter, embarrassed by her connection with the state, abandoned the colonies to a jurisdiction, of which i Wilberforce's Hist, of Amer. 2 Letter to the Bishop of London. Church, p. 136. Hutch. Coll. of Papers, p. 538. FROM SCHISM TO SECTARIANISM. 441 none knew the origin or authority.1 As the care of the Colonial Church formed no part of the ordinary duties of the Bishop of London, his " power over these distant provinces was neither certain or well defined." And perhaps the uncertainty was the greater from the fact, that English America was more properly within the province of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who, as the Primate of the whole English Church, was guardian of her spiritualities, and bound to provide for the obscurest colony that claimed England as its mother country. At all events, such was the unhappy operation of the parlia mentary element in the Church, that no adequate provision could be made for the religious care of the colonies with out the cooperation of the State ; and such was the indif ference of the state, that the bishops were at last com pelled to form an association with their clergy and laity, and to apply, like a common company of traders, for an 1701. act of incorporation, to enable them to transact business.2 These difficulties, sufficient of themselves to dampen the zeal of the most ardent, were not all. A greater obstacle was in the colony itself. Massachusetts was essentially a hostile as well as a missionary field. A mission among the warlike tribes who roamed in the regions of the interior, would have promised a better harvest. Simple ignorance is a feeble adversary ; but, when fortified by prejudice, it becomes invulnerable. New England had grown up out of exile, superstition, bigotry, and blood- 1 Wilberforce says, that the most 2 Lord Clarendon once prevailed 'probable account attributes it to the on Charles II. to appoint a bishop hearty concurrence ofthe then Bishop for Virginia, with general jurisdic- of London, in the earliest schemes tion over the other colonies ; but a • of the Virginia Company, for estab- change of ministers cut short the lishing the Church amongst their set- scheme. See Mc Vicar's Life of tiers. This led to his being requested Hobart, pp. 177-218. Also Wil- to find and appoint their first clergy, berforce's Hist, of Amer. Church, etc. p. 15 '• 442 PROGRESS OF THE ELDERS chap, shed, and, as opposition descended from father to son, ¦ — y — it grew from dislike into hatred. There were no funds for the support of any other ministry than the congrega tional. The intolerant system of Puritanism licked up the substance of all alike to maintain the established re ligion. The Churchman was bound to contribute equally with the Quaker, the Baptist, and the Infidel, to support a ministry whose ordinations he knew to be invalid, and in whose questionable offices he was not allowed to par take. At a period in the English Church when self- denial had hardly become a fault, we cannot much wonder that the uninviting field in Massachusetts was for some time unoccupied. Arbitrary Randolph, however, did not cease his entreaties until Randolph, they had been in some measure answered. The main obstacle now in the way of his scheme was how a priest hood should be maintained.1 The few Churchmen, for whose benefit he was negotiating, had not the means adequate to the purpose, and he knew that any appeals to public sympathy would be worse than useless. Exas perated at the intolerance under which Churchmen and others 2 had labored, from the very settlement of the col ony, he urged to the Bishop of London, that " a sufficient maintenance might be raised for divers ministers out of the estates of those whose treasons had forfeited them to his Majesty." He also suggested that "a part of that money sent over hither, and pretended to be expended among the Indians, may be ordered to go towards that charge." And, as a further inducement to the undertak ing, he avowed the willingness of the people for whom 1 Letter to the Bishop of London, minister of the Church of England, 2 Perhaps, said Randolph to as to make the Quakers pay in your Hinckley, governor of Plymouth, colony. Letter to Hinckley. Hutch- it would be as reasonable to move inson, vol. i. p. 319, note. that your colony should pay our FROM SCHISM TO SECTARIANISM. 44(3 he was pleading to contribute largely for the maintenance of a ministry. But one thing, he added, will mainly help, " when no marriages hereafter shall be allowed lawful, except such as are made by the ministers of the Church of England." 1 These arbitrary plans of Randolph, provoked by his Arrival of indignation at the tyranny of the elders, were not des- RatcUffe. fined to be carried into operation. Schemes of retaliation are always impolitic in affairs of religion ; and it would have been better that the introduction of the Church should have been postponed, than that it should have afforded the slightest real cause of offence. The hopes of Randolph were not destined to be realized, until some one should be discovered who would consent to rest his support upon the gratitude of his people and the smiles of Providence. At length, the year after James the Second ascended the throne, and while yet the forfeiture of the charter rendered the future destiny of the colony uncertain, The Rose frigate arrived at Boston, bearing a 1686. commission to Dudley, as the head of a provisional gov ernment, and also the Reverend Robert Ratcliffe,2 with his surplice and Book of Common Prayer. The new administration was scarcely organized, when Ratcliffe waited on the council, formally announced the object of his mission, and requested that some place might be designated where he could immediately enter upon his sacred duties. Some members of the council, among whom was Randolph, suggested that one of the Congre- tional meeting-houses might be borrowed for this pur pose. But this was hardly the measure to render Dudley 1 Randolph's Letters. Hutch, timonials, brought with him a letter Coll. of Papers. from the Right Honorable the Lords 2, A sober man, recommended by Committee of Trade. Hutch. Coll. my Lord of London, to be our min- of Papers, p. 549. Randolph's Let- ister, who, besides his lordship's tes- ter to the Archbishop of Canterbury. 444 PROGRESS OF THE ELDERS popular with his jealous countrymen ; and the more mod est plan was substituted, of surrendering to the temporary occupation of the Church the library room in the east end of the town-house.1 Formation These preliminaries adjusted, a little parish of the parish of Church of England started at once into life. In less Chapel. than one month from the arrival of Ratcliffe, a complete June. Church was organized, with all its proper officers. A weekly offertory was established, to support its current expenses ; addresses were voted to the king, to implore his Majesty's favor ; and letters of similar import were sent to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London. A fortnight passed away, and the parish was July, able to promise Mr. Ratcliffe a salary of fifty pounds sterling, and also to engage that, if the chaplain of The Rose frigate would assist their rector, he should " receive for his pains twenty shillings a week." Measures were taken " to pass through the whole territory of his Maj esty in New England, and therein to receive all such volun tary donations, as all persons whatsoever shall be disposed to give us, for and towards the building of a church in Boston." And soon the growing company of worship pers, straitened within the narrow limits of the "little room in the town-house," was forced to move to the Exchange, where, in the presence of a curious rabble, services were celebrated on Sundays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and sacraments were administered as often as circumstances would allow.2 Opposition The strange and interesting spectacle presented on the eiders. Boston Exchange was not unattractive to the people, 1 Greenwood's Hist, of King's p. 549. Mr. Ratcliffe, says Dunton, Chapel. was an eminent preacher, and his ser- 2 Records in Greenwood. Letter mons were useful and well dressed. of Randolph to the Archbishop of 2 Mass. Hist. Coll. vol. ii. p. 97. Canterbury. Hutch. Coll. of Papers, FROM SCHISM TO SECTARIANISM. 445 though bitterly resented by the elders. The descendants of those Pilgrims, who declared that they did not sepa rate from the Church of England, were strangers to her communion, and viewed her rites with mingled curiosity and distrust. To counteract such chance impressions as might be received by wayward or wandering Puritan youth, "great affronts" were offered to the humble efforts of the Church. The . elders " railed in their pulpits against the English liturgy, in terms which few ministers would use now of the prayers of the most degraded heathen."1 They compared the courageous priest to the priests of Baal, and, with thundering denunciations, called the prayers and sacraments of the Church " leeks, garlic, and trash." Nor did they confine themselves to empty declamation. Persons were deprived of their means of subsistence for attending the superstitious ser vices of the Church ; and it was openly given out by the Puritans, that tradesmen and mechanics, who so far trespassed against the principles of Independency, should be arrested by their creditors, or turned out of employ ment.2 In. the mean time, President Dudley with his council Difficulties pursued the policy of compromise, and dissatisfied all doiph. parties. His administration neither protected the Church nor befriended its opponents. Feelings of discourage ment began to invade the mind of the indefatigable Randolph, " lest the small beginnings of the Church of England, settled here with great difficulty, should fall to the ground, and be lost for want of timely relief and countenance." 3 Many persons were prevented from 1 Greenwood. 3 Letter to the Archbishop of 3 Letters to the Archbishop of Canterbury. Canterbury. Hutch. Coll. of Papers. Hutch. Hist. vol. i. p. 319, note. 38 446 PROGRESS OF THE ELDERS chap, encouraging his efforts from fear of the consequences; ' — v — and he himself felt crippled in his resources, though standing at the head of four hundred Churchmen, when confronting the general grief and indignation of the col ony. His zeal was construed into hatred of liberty; and his abhorrence of Puritanism into hatred of its followers and supporters. Arbitrary as were some of his plans, they were gentleness itself when compared with that iron system of intolerance which instigated them. But they were rather suggestions for others, than intended for any action of his own. To Randolph the Church owed its very existence in Massachusetts ; and it was this, rather than schemes for its support, which rendered him odious in the colony. To have made Puritanism support the Church, however impolitic, would have been but a fair retaliation upon the former, which first embodied this principle in a precedent ; but to bring in " the liturgy and ceremonies " was the most enormous of crimes, since it was the greatest of innovations.1 Andros Seven months rolled rapidly away, and " the bigoted eiders in Papist," Andros, had superseded Dudley. The same day the church, that he landed at Boston, he exhibited anxiety for the welfare of the Church. His first act was to publish his commission ; his second, to negotiate, in a friendly man ner, for the better " accommodation of the Episcopal Society." In the library of the town house, he held a conference with the elders of Boston ; and, pointing out the homely wooden " forms," the humble desk which served as a pulpit, and the yet meaner table which was the only altar, appealed to their generosity, and requested that they would so arrange their services, that for a while, until the Church became able to "build a temple 1 Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury. FROM SCHISM TO SECTARIANISM. 447 for the Lord," one meeting-house might be used for two part congregations, and better accommodation be afforded to ^-y^-< the King's Chapel. Sir Edmund at this time little knew the spirit with which he had to contend. His request, suggested by his anxiety for friendly intercourse with those who, his instincts told him, were his natural ene mies, was churlishly refused ; 1 for so wide had now become the chasm between the Church of England and the schismatic Puritans, that the latter " could not, with a good conscience, consent that their meeting-houses should be used for the Common Prayer worship," when the former stooped to make the proposal.2 The Church, with its four hundred worshippers, the Arbitrary act of object of the prayers of many who dared not enter its Andros. humble portals, and at the head of which was the first royal governor of the colony, was forced to remain in " the small upper room." Already the duties of Rat cliffe had become so arduous that an assistant minister 3 had been obtained from England ; and sometimes in the open air, at others in low and narrow apartments, the liturgy was read and the sacraments were administered, amid the murmurs of the elders and the hoots of the rabble. Randolph had early called the attention of the English Primate to the importance of building a church, and his views were adopted by Andros. But here again the zealous Churchmen were disappointed. No one could be found, among the owners of the thousand acres which formed the peninsula of Boston, who would part with a small spot of land suitable for a site. The argument used was, that they "would not set up that which the 1 Mr. Mather and Mr. Willard not consent. See Greenwood's Hist. "thoroughly discoursed his excel- of King's Chapel, p. 38. lency about the meeting-houses, in 2 Sewall MSS. in Greenwood. great plainness, showing they could 3 Rev. Josiah Clarke. 448 PROGRESS OF THE ELDERS people of England came over to avoid."1 Goaded by the recollections of what the Church had suffered at the hands of the Puritans, on both sides of the Atlantic; remembering that Puritanism had acquired a foothold in Massachusetts only by a fraud upon the crown, and that it now owed all it possessed, its houses, lands, and wharves, to the clemency of the sovereign who was the temporal Head of the Church it so needlessly trampled 1687. on, Andros at last resolved to exert his power. On Wednesday in Passion Week, Randolph, at the request of the. governor, applied for the keys of the Old South, in order that the services of the Church might be cele brated with due solemnity ; and, the request being again refused, orders were issued to the sexton on Good Friday to throw open the doors, and ring the bell for " those of the Church of England."2. Thus was shown to the colonists what the forfeiture of their charter really meant. The king, in the eye of the law, was the owner of every meeting-house in Massachusetts. No quitrent deeds had been executed of this species of property; and if his Majesty was refused a spot of land whereon to build a church, it was lawful and right to take what was already his own. This peremptory act gained for Andros the execration of the colony. The manner in which it was committed was rather in accordance with the spirit of a state relig ion than that of the Catholic Church. The solemn fast of Good Friday, though observed in the humblest room of one of the faithful in Boston, would have been more profitable than when celebrated in the loftiest structure that Puritanism had erected. The act was prompted by anger rather than by the spirit of religion. On the 1 Sewall in Greenwood. 2 Greenwood. FROM SCHISM TO SECTARIANISM. 449 ensuing festival of Easter, the Holy Eucharist was admin istered from the lowly table that Puritanism had set apart for that sacred rite. But " 'twas a sad sight to see how full the street was with people, gazing and moving to and fro."1 The precedent once established, the meet ing house continued to be used from time to time, when the necessities of the Church required. Care was taken not to interfere with the regular hours of Puritan wor ship, and the services of the Church began only when the other services were ended.3 But nothing could compen sate for what the proprietors felt to be an injury, and the administration was denounced because it stooped to re venge. The solemn services of the Church were sacri- 1688- legiously interrupted at the very graves of its deceased members ; 3 and, perhaps, nothing but the soldiers, who were stationed as a guard, prevented a riot at the funeral of Lady Andros, who was buried from the " Old South February. Church " by torchlight, with all the pomp of religious and martial ceremony.4 But while Massachusetts was occupied by these petty Loyalty of , the Church tumults, and while both parties in the colony were won- party. dering at the apparent indifference of the mother country, England was in the midst of a crisis which was to stamp the character of the national church for more than a century. A Romanist king at the head of an Anglican kingdom, arbitrary where liberty was fast becoming the popular divinity, and a hater of Protestantism long before the Church was to shake it from her skirts, James II. , not in the spirit of an English Catholic,5 endeavored to l Sewall MSS. -in Greenwood. our approbation. Severe, but open, 2 Narrative, etc., in Hutchinson, in his enmities ; steady in his coun- 3 Letter of Moody to Mather. sels, diligent in his schemes, brave * Sewall MSS. in his enterprises, faithful, sincere, 5 " In domestic life, his conduct and honorable in his dealings with all was irreproachable, and is entitled to men ; such was the character with 38* 450 PROGRESS OF THE ELDERS purge his kingdom of that leaven which was fast cor rupting the national character. Pursuing an unwise policy, the Churchmen, the Tories, those to whom James chiefly owed his crown, were supplanted by Dissenters. Then was witnessed the extraordinary spectacle of Eng lish universities forced into a reluctant disobedience to their sovereign, and, more extraordinary yet, English bishops plotting against the head of their Church in favor of a Calvinistic prince, whose concern for their safety was so sincere, that he threatened to leave them to the ven geance of James, unless he was vested with the power and title of king. We need not read the pathetic story of the royal Lear, to rouse our imaginations with fictitious woes. The his tory of modern England furnishes an example of daugh ters as unfeeling as those whose unnatural conduct has been so wonderfully portrayed by the great dramatist. The world applauds William and Mary, because they were successful, but kindly forgives and forgets the man ner of their success. They have had their reward. Let it be King James's glory, that he did " sacrifice his three kingdoms for a mass," and that he died in exile. In the mean time, the feeble branch of the Church transplanted by the care of Randolph to the sterile soil of Massachusetts, began to exhibit signs of vigor. The toil, which had compassed sea and land in its behalf, was at length rewarded with success ; but not until those who prepared its foundations had been sacrificed to the which the Duke of York mounted ousy of national honor laudable. the throne of England. In that What, then, was wanting to make high station, his frugality of public him an excellent sovereign ? A due money was remarkable ; his industry regard and affection to the religion was exemplary, his application to and constitution of his country." naval affairs successful, his encour- Hume. agement to trade judicious, his jeal- 1688-89. FROM SCHISM TO SECTARIANISM. 451 fury of a popular insurrection. A church was erected in Boston, but not for Ratcliffe or Randolph or Andros. There it stood upon the high background of the town, a conspicuous object among the quaint old buildings scat tered around. As if to frown upon the spirit of its persecutors, a single spire surmounted its plain wooden tower, on which, just underneath the symbolical vane that warns of treason and apostasy, the crown of Eng land glittered in the rays of the sun. Upon that spire the eyes of all must rest for a moment, as they anx iously glance at the beacon erected upon the hill be yond ! The achievement of this obscure work in the metrop olis of New England Puritanism, was not the least remarkable event of the age. It was finished, just as the first blow was struck in England, at the union between Church and State. The principle of divine right, which had hovered for centuries over the throne like its guardian angel, and which was the safeguard provided by the Church for the State, had taken its flight ; but it rested for a moment, before disappearing forever, upon the altar of King's Chapel, in Boston. On the same record that transmits to their posterity the 1689. names of " the honest and well-disposed persons " who contributed " towards erecting a church for God's wor ship," is the following emphatic declaration : " Note, that on the 18th of April preceding began a most impious and detestable rebellion against the King's Majesty's government ; the governor and all just men to the same were brought into restraint." The unknown hand that traced these loyal lines, while Andros, Randolph, and Bullivant were imprisoned in the Castle, and months after their sovereign had become a fugitive from the land of his fathers, might well have written Laus Deo. There 45£ PROGRESS OF THE ELDERS, ETC. was reason for such praise ; not merely because of the humble structure which graced the quaint town of Bos ton, but because, surrounded by those stern old Puritans, hearts were still beating that cherished the honor of the Church and crown. CHAPTER VI. SOME GENERAL REFLECTIONS ON THE ENGLISH COLONIAL POLICY, AND ON THE CHARACTER OF PURITANISM. Erroneous Spirit of popular Historians — Rise of the English Colonies — Three Classes of Colonies — Conflict of Interests between the Crown and the Charter Colonies— Commercial Policy of Charles I. — The Ordinance of 165 1 — Cromwell's Policy — The Navigation Laws of Charles II. — Their Fourfold Object — How viewed by the Colonies — Character of the restrictive System — • Contrast between Virginia and Massachusetts — How accounted for — Character of Puritanism — Protestantism, the Triumph of Reason over Faith — Puritanism, the Protestantism of England — Puritanism eminently superstitious — Unfriendly to Literature — Hostile to Civil and Religious Liberty — Advocates the indiscriminate Use of the Bible — Which causes its Decline. We cannot view, without amazement, the fierceness with which certain writers have assailed the policy adopted by England towards her colonies, stigmatizing it as in f™£e°£s the highest degree tyrannical and uniust. We do notP?Pul?r o o J J historians. allude to that inferior order of literature, which swarms in the schoolhouses of New England. Historians of a high character and of solemn pretence have sought to win the applause of the multitude, by sacrificing the nobler aim of teaching by examples. They regard the prejudices of their countrymen rather than the praises of mankind. Such writers boldly assume the position, that the great nation from which we sprung kept her colonies for the mere purpose of oppressing them ; and that, 454 GENERAL REFLECTIONS whether under a king or parliament, the misery rather than the happiness of her offspring was the aim of the parent state.1 Candid writers, however patriotic, would assume a more elevated position. They would attribute the faults of the mother country not to unnatural tyr anny, but rather to mistaken notions of polity. If they could not approve of her measures, they would calmly ascribe her errors to inexperience, and not to design. Mad kings alone make merry over the ruin of their subjects. Rise ofthe In the beginning of the seventeenth century, England colonies, was without colonial possessions. She had but shortly before recovered from those great moral conflicts which had interrupted her maritime enterprises, and during which other nations, with the assistance of Rome, had been dividing the world. In the latter part of the happy reign of Elizabeth, she resumed the toils so auspiciously commenced by Cabot, anxious to have a share in the golden harvests of the West, if haply there yet remained one spot unclaimed by Europe, or unappropriated by the Pope. She found the fairest islands, the most fertile countries, the richest mines, and the best fisheries, already seized by her more fortunate neighbors. In the vast extent of the eastern coast of America, from Greenland to the great Southern Cape, there only remained for her share of the New World the alluvial plains of Virginia and the rocky promontories of New England.2 These 1 A few examples may not be fathers, but it long ceased to wear amiss. " England thrust them out, towards them a benign or paternal and only owned them to oppress countenance." Grahame. them." Bancroft. " The king, 2 Even here England hardly had however, seemed determined to fol- a fair chance. In 1603, Henry IV. low them into the wilderness, and of France, granted to Sieur de deprive them of those privileges, for Monts all the country from the for- the enjoyment of which they had tieth to the forty-sixth degree of lati- made such sacrifices." Pitkin. "Be- tude, by the name of Cadie, or Aca- hind them was the land of their die, which De Monts ranged and ON THE ENGLISH COLONIAL POLICY. 455 territories were soon grasped. She planted the Church chap. in the former, and the spirit of her people produced a < — ^ new creation in the latter. And, at the close of the eighteenth century, the genius and enterprise of the Eng lish character had gained for the mother country a more formidable colonial power than had yet graced the crown of a modern prince. Holding in her possession Virginia and New England, classes of by right of discovery,1 three classes of colonies grew up under the royal patronage ; charter, proprietary, and royal. The two latter were expressly established with certain powers of civil government, so understood by the king, and so guaranteed by the law. They were, the one mediately and the other immediately, under the direct supervision of the crown ; and could at any moment, on proper occasion, be resumed into the royal hands.2 But with the former the case was different. The charters, originally granted for mere purposes of incorporation, and containing certain powers suitable for great mercan tile companies, were perverted to protect civil and relig ious systems unknown to the English laws, and not in the legal power of the king to bestow.3 Thus, we have seen that the history of the first charter of Massachu setts presents scarcely a moment of repose, from the landing of Winthrop's company to the destruction of the English monarchy, and from the death of Cromwell to the English Revolution. The usurpations of the cor poration led to a continual contest between the king and the patentees, interrupted, on the part of the former, only took possession of? See Hutchinson, 3 The charter colonies were con- vol. i. p. io. If the French had fined to New England. Of the made good their title, they would other English colonies in America, have absorbed all the territory from Maryland, the Carolinas, New Jer- Pennsylvania upwards. sey, and Pennsylvania were proprie- 1 Hakluyt. Hutchinson. tary. Virginia, and afterwards New 2 Bl. Com. Introd. § 4. Pitkin. York, were royal. 456 GENERAL REFLECTIONS by domestic troubles and the frequent tender of the olive- branch. The colony, heedless of its false position, clung to an ideal charter, and, consequently, sacrificed the actual one. Indeed, had the terms of this grant been properly observed, the corporation might successfully have resisted any attempts at aggression on the part of the sovereign ; while perpetual violations of its letter and spirit made it a void parchment, as worthless, in any legal sense, as a cancelled deed or a forged note. And the falsity of the charge of tyranny, sometimes urged against the Stuarts for endeavoring to resolve an illegal combination into its primary elements, will not fail to appear to the candid observer, when he calls to mind how this royal grant, expressed on perishable substance with a " little black liquid," was respected by the crown, even after the muni ments it bestowed were justly forfeited. Some admira tion for the spirit of English liberty will be excited by the thought, that a powerful monarch dared not make any offensive movement against his* helpless colony, until he had received permission from the law ; and that a king of England appealed to a court of justice where a Bourbon would have resorted to the cannon and the bayonet. Conflict of It was m the charter colonies that those great princi- between ples were developed, which have since shaken the dynas- andThe™ ties of the Old World. Here was the field where an colonies, anomalous controversy was excited between the sovereign power and the people ; not the controversy of brute force, but that of distinct interests, growing out of the law. On the one hand was the king, the fountain of all privilege, the keeper of all prerogative, and the embodied majesty of all law, justice, and equity ; on the other was a corporation, which claimed its very being from these attributes of the sovereign, and whose only shield against ON THE ENGLISH COLONIAL POLICY. 457 his aggressions was a thin shred of parchment. It was for the interest of the former to make the corporation subservient to his power and grandeur ; it was for the interest of the latter to seek its own prosperity, irrespec tive of the power to which it owed its existence — to be a sun in the heavens, rather than a satellite. This clash ing of interests was the commencement of a struggle which ended in revolution. And where was the primum mobile of these conflict ing interests "? On the one side, England beheld other kingdoms whose colonies increased their wealth and ex tended their commerce. She saw no division of interests between Spain and the Mexicos, France and the Canadas, Portugal and the Brazils, or between Rome and them all. The grandeur of the nation and the glory of the Church was sought equally in the Old World and the New. The harmony was complete. Even the petty Republic of Holland rendered herself formidable, by means of her remote colonies. And England desired the same harmonious relations with her own foreign settlements. Nor was it an unreasonable desire, when confined to the royal and proprietary plantations. In the former, the Church was coeval with the first disembarka tion ; and principles of loyalty and veneration grew up with the first crops which gladdened the hearts of the planters. In the proprietary colonies, the same result was brought about in a different manner. Whether founded by Romanists, Quakers, or Latitudinarians, the crown was the necessary balancing power between the proprietors and the people ; being needful, on the one hand, to check the arbitrariness of government ; and equally important, on the other, to arrest the progress of faction.1 1 Accordingly, we find that the history of the proprietary colonies is 39 458 GENERAL REFLECTIONS chap. The charter colony stood alone. It could hope nothing v-^~-' from the king beyond what it already possessed, and more especially since this was the ground of abuse. Diversity of religion, of laws, and of customs, separated it from the mother country, which could only be useful as a protector in seasons of danger. Even this slender tie was almost totally dissolved between Massachusetts and England, during the abeyance of the monarchy ; and the colony, confident in its own strength and wisdom, boldly took the helm into its own hands. Such was the relation in which the charter colonies stood towards the parent state, and such the contrast they presented to the more quiet plantations of the South. But the diversity of interests afforded no plea for a diversity of policy which was not founded in right. England recognized but one people in America, and they were Englishmen and English subjects. To preserve colonial dependence, to make the colonies powerful accessions to the wealth, the dignity, and the grandeur of the nation, and, by this means, to add to the glory of the Church, and the expansion of true Christianity ; such were the noble objects sought by the crown in founding its Western Empire. commer- It has been shown, in another place,1 that the charter ofcharies of Massachusetts Bay incorporated a great commercial company, and not a band of Puritan devotees. To this end, King Charles the First bestowed upon the corpo rators certain advantages of trade ; and reserved to the crown, in lieu of its strict rights, one fifth part of "all ore of gold and silver," which might thereafter be discov- but little more than a relation of the power of the crown ; and, in the perpetual quarrels between the people end, most of them became royal gov- and the proprietors, each of whom ernments. See Pitkin, vol. i. p. 6o.$ sought refuge against the other in 1 Ante, p. 26. ON THE ENGLISH COLONIAL POLICY. 459 ered in the plantation. To stimulate the efforts of the chap. company, its goods and merchandise were, for certain — -y^- periods, exempt from all taxes, customs, and duties what soever.1 When the transfer of the charter was made, however, the company so changed its character and objects, that the original designs of the patentees were merged in the religious enthusiasm which had seized their successors. The corporation then assumed the dig nity of a state, and turned over, with disdain, the pur suits of commerce to individual enterprise. The king found, that so far from having increased the" prosperity of the nation, by establishing a commercial corporation which would minister to its wants and reflect glory upon the Church, he had unwittingly opened a door for the increase of dissent. To rectify the abuse of his grant, and to restore its legitimate purpose, Charles now directed his aim. He was the more resolved in this course, on reflecting that the abandonment of commercial enterprise by the company was not only an implied breach of the charter, which bestowed unusual privileges for the benefit of the national commerce, but that it might be the occa sion of great advantage to the Dutch, who, at this early period of the English colonies, enjoyed much of their carrying trade. The king was foiled in his efforts, and the cry ofTheordi- tyranny was echoed back by New England, to swell the lki. clamor of the miserable rabble which was assaulting the throne. The colony quietly grew in strength, while the sovereign power remained vigorous ; and now that the royal cause yielded to the external pressure, Massachu setts began to develop considerable trade, which was made subservient to her own interests.2 The celebrated 1 Ante, p. 29. 2 It is singular that the laws reg- 460 GENERAL REFLECTIONS ordinance of the Long Parliament first taught the colony that her commercial enterprise was subject to a higher 1651. power than her own. This ordinance, generally sup posed to have been the foundation of the English Colo nial System,1 was borrowed from the late king.'s Orders in Council, respecting the trade of Virginia with the Dutch. Of this commercial power, Charles was justly jealous. The duties laid upon tobacco, caused the Vir ginia Company to send that staple directly to Holland; and the orders of the king in council, that no tobacco, or other production of the plantation, should be exported to foreign countries, until they had been first landed in England and had paid the legal customs, were for some time disregarded.2 This illegal trade was in operation so early as 1619; and King James was alarmed to see the commerce of an article, the daily demand for which was rapidly increas ing, turned into a channel that tended to deprive the government of the duties, and to diminish the revenue. During the year 1621, no Virginia tobacco was imported into England, to the injury of the national trade; and, in October, an order was issued that no tobacco, or other production of the colonies, should be carried into foreign parts, until they were first landed in England, and the ulating trade and commerce, and cultivation in Virginia began, about their various branches, begun to be the year 1616, to be the favorite passed after the royal cause began pursuit of the Virginia planters. As to fail. Such were the acts encour- the most celebrated of the navigation aging ship-building, against forger- laws, a much earlier origin may be ies, respecting fisheries, etc., etc. ascribed to the spirit which led to its Until this time, the colony had adoption. By stat. 5 Rich. II., in enough to do in defending the trans- order to augment the English ma- fer of the charter. rine, it was ordained that none of 1 Scobell. Blacks. Comment. the king's liege people should ship 2 Tobacco was first introduced any merchandise out of or into the into England about the year 1586. realm, but only in ships of the king's In thirty years, the annual consump- liegance, on pain of forfeiture. 5 tion of this article averaged 142,085 Rich. II., u. 3. pounds weight. Stith. Robert. Its ON THE ENGLISH COLONIAL POLICY. 461 custom paid. These proclamations continued to be re newed and violated from time to time, but rarely without being accompanied by an order forbidding, under some new penalty or with more stringent language, the cultiva tion of tobacco anywhere but in the colonies.1 Yet these early restraints upon the trade of Virginia were not unac companied by special benefits ; and while the crown claimed those rights, which formed the consideration of her grants to the colony, orders were at the same time repeatedly issued, forbidding the cultivation of the colo nial staple within the limits of the three kingdoms.2 The charter of 1609 granted an immunity from customs and subsidies for twenty-one years ; but tobacco was a new article, not contemplated by the grant, and the Virginia Company yielded the point, by assenting to an annual duty, in consideration of a royal proclamation forbidding the cultivation of tobacco at home.3 It appears, from the royal proclamations of James and Charles,4 concerning tobacco, that both these kings only consented to "tolerate the use of" the Virginia tobacco in their dominions until they were able to grow more solid commodities in the colonies. It cannot*be proved, nor is it probable, as has been alleged,5 that these princes ' Chalmers's Annals, pp. 52, 53. the market, in which they partially 2 Hazard. Scobell's Acts. Chal- succeeded. In consideration of this mers's Annals. Art. xix. Stith's loss to the revenue, moderate duties Appendix. were imposed by parliament upon 3 Stith. There is another view of Virginia tobacco. Chalmers's An- this case. Spanish tobacco was of nals,p. 51. But there were perpetual finer quality, and more abundant discords and clamors among them- than that raised in Virginia, and selves until the dissolution of the paid reasonable duties to the crown, company, and no measures proposed when imported into England. But by themselves, or by the king, were if the latter paid no duties, it would adopted, or, if adopted, were of long undersell the former and drive it continuance. See Stith, b. v. from the market. Such a construe- * Hazard, vol. i. pp. 93, '93. 2°2> tion of the rights of the company 224. was absurd, and they made every 5 Bancroft. exertion to obtain a monopoly of 39* 462 GENERAL REFLECTIONS were sacrificing the welfare of the colonies to their own cupidity. On the contrary, their restrictions arose from a paternal, if mistaken interest in the morals of their 1634. people. Thus, in a commission issued by King Charles, he says, that, having " observed the great necessities and miseries " the planters have endured, by " the irregular planting and ordering of tobacco, and the unconscionable practices put upon them in the sale thereof," so " that they have been obliged to beg their bread from door to door in extreme necessity," and that " they are still likely to suffer under the burden of many oppressions, occa sioned by the secret and indirect trade of particular mer chants and shopkeepers, who make a prey of them and their labors," so that they " are forced to send their tobacco for foreign ports without payment of the ordi nary duties," he claims the future preemption of the tobacco, " at such rates and prices as shall be found fit, having respect to the support of the colonies," wherein " our aim is not for our own private profit, but for the support of our said colonies, and the preservation of our subjects who reside there." 1 The troth, now, however, began to reveal itself in a novel form, that self-interest is the predominant pas sion of every class of men, and that all revenue laws, that were supposed to restrict private gain, would be ingeniously evaded or openly disregarded. The charge of cupidity, which had been so universally preferred against the ecclesiastics for their absorption of the lands of the kingdom, might well have been retorted upon that new order of men, who, unlike the former, loved gain for itself, and not for the exercise of charities. The moral lesson involved in the evasion of the Orders in 1 Hazard, vol. i. p. 373. ON THE ENGLISH COLONIAL POLICY. 463 Council was not adequately understood. The immunities chap. of the Virginia Company had been bestowed by the ¦ — r^ king, with the implied understanding that " the colonists would apply themselves to such courses as would in corporate their plantation into his commonwealth ; " and the attention of the government was entirely directed in this channel, since " for that company to suffer a foreign trade was as inconsistent with the view in the planting of Virginia, as with just policy or the honor of the state." x This clashing of interests between the crown and the company occasioned considerable difficulty, which the downfall of the throne did not, by any means, tend to allay. One of the last of the royal instructions to Sir William Berkeley was, to suffer no ships laden with tobacco or other merchandise to depart from the planta tion, until bond with surety had been given, to secure the observance of the laws. The reason assigned for this order was, that " the king, after so great an expense upon that plantation, and transporting thither so many of his subjects, might not be defrauded of what is justly due for customs on the goods."2 Such were the grounds on which Charles based his policy. But, with parlia ment, the ease was different. Incensed at the loyalty of Virginia and the Sugar Islands, whose inhabitants were pronounced " notorious robbers and traitors," as well as at the gainful trade of the Dutch, they framed the rudi- 1650. ments of the Navigation Act, which was intended to mortify the one and clip the wings of the other.3 This act prohibited all ships of foreign nations from trading with any English plantations, without license from the 1 Chalmers's Annals, p. 53. 3 Mod. Un. Hist. Bl. Com. 2 Ibid. p. 120. 464 GENERAL REFLECTIONS council of state. And in the following year, by the influence of Cromwell, the prohibition was further ex tended, so as to restrict trade with all the plantations to English-built ships belonging to English subjects, or to the ships of the nation of which the merchandise im ported was the genuine growth or manufacture.1 Cromwell's The New England Colonies found themselves included policy. ° in this sweeping ordinance. The ten years preceding had been the golden period of Puritanism, during which it had formed a commonwealth, produced a system of laws, and established a quasi independence. Massachu setts had become a thrifty state. The timber wharves of her capital were thronged with vessels from France, Spain, Portugal, and Holland.2 Ships, ranging from one to four hundred tons, were launched from her ship yards, and carried the knowledge of the colony into the ports of the Old World.3 Wholly unprepared to yield any assent to the navigation laws, she violated them with perfect impunity by the free consent of Cromwell.4 • But the wily usurper was fully aware of the great advantage of prosperous and obedient colonies to the mother coun try, and he " had it much at heart" to draw off the hardy Puritans from their cold and sterile country, to people the fertile island he had lately conquered from Spain. In this he exhibited his usual sagacity. Temperate climes produce moral fruits, that cannot mature in the shade of colonial dependence, — energy, enterprise, am bition, and the bold spirit of liberty. The blazing sun of the equator, on the contrary, while it rapidly ripens 1 Scobell. Hutchinson. " Those who lived in the next age 2 Johnson. " This town is the speak of this as the aurea netas, in very mart of the land ; French, Por- which religion and virtue flourished." tugals, and Dutch come hither for Hutchinson. traffic." Johnson, b. i, c. 21. 4 Hutchinson. 3 New England's First Fruits. ON THE ENGLISH COLONIAL POLICY. 465 the richest productions of Nature, is but little calculated chap. to rouse the restless passions of the mind. The planter • — *^-> of the tropics, himself a petty despot, regards his fields as the only source of his wealth. He has little commerce, and less ship-building. Aristocratic in his tastes, and luxurious in his habits, he has no inclination • to involve himself in Utopian schemes, which have for their end the progress of humanity. He dreams away his life in social enjoyments, loyal to his king, who protects him and his property ; and always has the happiness to find him self half a century behind the rest of mankind. Was Cromwell unwise when he proposed to people Jamaica with the Puritans of Massachusetts 1 The intelligent Puritan easily foiled the usurper, and The navi- continued quietly, but steadily, to increase in wealth, and of Charles to violate the laws in the home of his choice. On the restoration of Charles the Second, he suffered, conse quently, the greater shock. The celebrated Navigation Acts of this reign erected a more shapely structure than had yet distinguished this department of the English gov ernment. The materials were furnished by the half-exe cuted conceptions of Charles the First and the Ordinance of the Long Parhament ; the design was borrowed from the colonial policy of foreign nations. It was ordered, under penalty of forfeiture, that no commodities should 1660. be imported into the English plantations, or exported thence, but in English-built vessels, three fourths of whose crews were English subjects. And it was further ordered, under the same penalty, that none but natural or natural ized subjects of the crown should exercise the occupation of merchant or factor in any of the colonies. Certain enumerated commodities, such as sugar, tobacco, cotton, wool, indigo, ginger, fustic and other dyeing woods, to which were afterwards added such further staples as 466 GENERAL REFLECTIONS became known in European markets, were forbidden to be shipped to any countries other than England, Ireland, Wales, or some one of the plantations themselves. These were the three leading features of this act, the enforce ment of which was provided for by requiring bonds with surety, at the several ports of lading.1 But the provis ions of this act, however harsh they may seem, were not in any sense one sided. For, to prevent all competition with the plantations, the most prominent of their staples was prohibited culture in Great Britain and Ireland.2 A few years later, when it was found that this act was 1663. evaded, a second act passed the English parliament, declaring that the English plantations were peopled by English subjects, and that, for maintaining a greater cor respondence and kindness between them and the mother country, for preserving the dependence of one upon the other, for rendering the former more beneficial to the latter, by the further employment and increase of English ship ping and seamen, by making the mother country a mar ket for colonial productions, and by furnishing a mart for her woollens and other manufactures, according to " the usage of other nations," no commodity, of the growth or manufacture of Europe should be imported into any of the plantations, unless it were first shipped in England, Wales, or the town of Berwick, in English bottoms, whose crews were three fourths English, and carried directly to the port of unlading. Certain articles, how ever, which were of the greatest importance to the col onies, such as salt for the fisheries of New England, 1 12 Charles II. c. 18. or Ireland, on penalty of forty shil- 2 12 Charles II. c. 34. "To de- lings for every rod or pole of land so fend, maintain, and protect the colo- planted. It seems from this statute nies, and to give them all possible that tobacco was at this time cul- encouragement,"tobaccoes were pro- tivated in England, and the statute hibited to be cultivated in England mentions it as not wholesome. VI. ON THE ENGLISH COLONIAL POLICY. 467 wines from the Azores and Madeira, and provisions, chap. servants, and horses from Scotland, were expressly ex cepted from the operation of this statute. At the same time, the penalties for planting tobacco in England, to "the discouragement of the colonies," were made very severe.1 And here the laws for the regulation of trade would have finished their work, had the colonists been content with moderate profits, in hope of better times. There still remained unobstructed the trade between the planta tions themselves; and the sugar and tobacco of the South could be purchased at far cheaper rates by the colonists of Massachusetts than by the people of England.2 Not a custom-house obstructed the channels of trade, from Maine to the Carolinas. But this privilege was made the ground of abuse. " Contrary to the express letter of the aforesaid laws,"3 the colonists disposed of their productions " to the shipping of other nations," and thereby defrauded the customs, and injured the naviga tion of the kingdom. This violation of the laws caused much indignation ; for the commercial rivals of England were thus illegally favored by the colonies, while, at the same time, the mother country was maintaining a greater marine to protect them from foreign aggression. Thus, the colonies, for the gratification of their own cupidity, were playing into the hands of their enemies ; and their commodities could be obtained cheaper in Holland or France than in the markets of England. To close the avenue to such monstrous results, a third act was passed 1672. by parliament,4 which required the same duties to be paid 1 15 Charles II. c. 7. 4 This was when parliament was 2 This was felt somewhat as a called together by Charles II. to grievance by the inhabitants of Eng- procure their assistance in the war land, who had to pay heavy customs against Holland. Chalmers's An- for all colonial productions. nals, p. 317. 3 Stat. 25 Charles II. c. 7. 468 GENERAL REFLECTIONS chap, on importations into one colony from another, as were > — y^> levied on similar importations from the colonies into the mother country. Fourfold These were the celebrated Navigation Laws, which object of the naviga- gained for England the reputation of tyranny, and for "^ ^-^ i* -f sy l ¦ -i -1 TTT1 • 1 the New England Colonies that of disloyalty. Which of these imputations is most just, it may be well to inquire. The advantages proposed by parliament in these enactments were fourfold : namely, the encouragement of English ship-building, the growth of English seamen, the prosperity of English commerce, and the advance ment of English manufactures. To all these objects, it was expected that the colonies would contribute ; and as this expectation was less than that formed by other nations, in regard to their colonies, it was not considered unreasonable.1 But the pioneers of the wilderness beheld with dismay a system which they did not comprehend. To curtail their profits was perilous, to restrict their trade, ruin. How re- The different manner in which these laws were received thecoio- in Virginia and Massachusetts illustrates very curiously the prevailing spirit in the leading colonies of England. The government of Virginia endeavored to enforce the laws, while it petitioned for their repeal. The officers 1672 appointed by the commissioners of customs, to collect September. the various duties, were there received with " the atten- 1 The colonial policy of England, which the colonies of France, Spain, " on the whole, was much less op- Portugal, and Denmark endured pressive and illiberal than that which from their respective parent states." any other nation of Europe had ever Grahame. It seems that a clandes- been known to pursue. While the tine traffic was carried on with a set- foreign trade of the colonies was tlement of the Dutch on Hudson's restrained for the supposed advan- River,, by the Virginians ; and no tage of England, they partook of doubt many of their productions her prosperity; and the restrictions found their way further north, and imposed on them were much less were shipped from the port of Bos- rigorous and injurious than those ton. ON THE ENGLISH COLONIAL POLICY. 469 VI. tion due to persons invested with legal powers from royal chap. authority ; " and acts were passed by the assembly to aid them in the discharge of their unpleasant duties. The example thus set by Virginia was followed by Mary land ; and the offices of governor and collector were sus tained by the same individual,1 not only without causing a murmur, but with approbation.2 If it were for his Maj esty's service, or the good of the subject, we would not repine, said Berkeley ; but, on my soul, it is the contrary for both.3 Royal and democratic parties were indeed formed among the planters ; the former of which, en couraged by the Church, and unwilling to raise the standard of rebellion because of " the low price of to bacco," rallied around their loyal governor, in hopes of better times ; while the latter, composed of a different class, secretly violated the laws, and openly embarrassed their execution.4 But only one sentiment prevailed in Massachusetts. That colony did not give herself the trouble either to petition or to obey. Indeed, so to tally were the Navigation Laws disregarded by the Pur itans, that the tax-paying interests of England loudly 1 George Calvert. chafed more under Cromwell than 2 Chalmers's Annals, pp. 320, under the Stuarts ; and, indeed, was 370. indebted to him for the ordinance of 3 Ibid. pp. 328, 349. 1651- The Dutch endeavored, in * Birkenhead's conspiracy to seize 1660, to establish a treaty of peace the government was made plausible and commerce with Virginia, in by the grievances under which the which they were partially successful. colony was said to labor ; but, so far But Berkeley would not wholly com- from countenancing this wretched mit himself. He declared himself rebellion, the assembly ordered the only aservant of the assembly, which, 13th of September to be kept holy, however, did not arrogate to itself as the day on which it was discon- any power further than the misera- certed. Ancient Laws, p. 63. ble distractions of England forced " The recent experience of the them to. " For when God shall be lenient and liberal policy of Crom- pleased, in his mercy, to dissipate well rendered the pressure of the the unnatural divisions of their na- burden more severe, and the inflic- tive country, they will immediately tion of it more exasperating." Gra- return to their own professed obe- hame. This unblushing statement dience." Berkeley's Letter to Stuy- is too ludicrous to mislead. Virginia vesant. Smith's New York, p. 10. 40 470 GENERAL REFLECTIONS chap, complained, while the Lords' Committee for the Colonies ^-^ inquired whether the Commissioners of the Customs con- 1675' sidered the acts of trade as extending to New England.1 Such a wanton violation of the laws staggered the credu lity of the committee. Had Massachusetts been selected, out of all the English Colonies, to suffer a burden unen- dured by the others, she might, perhaps, with some show of justice, have contemptuously declined all notice of the restrictions. But for twenty years the Puritan Colony had been favored beyond law and precedent, and now she was but required to share a burden common to all the colonies of England, and lighter by far than that endured by the colonies of other nations. There was no favor itism exhibited in the colonial scheme, unless towards Massachusetts. She, the most disloyal of all the colo nies, was placed on the same footing with the most loyal. The prosperity of Virginia, or of the Carolinas, or of the Sugar Islands, or of the Bermudas, was not more dear to England than that of the enterprising merchants of Massachusetts Bay. Their tobacco and sugar, it was expected, would contribute to the national wealth, as well as the naval stores and ship timber of the pine forests of the North. All the colonies were made markets for the English manufactures, and the difference of climate alone settled the destination of the woollens and linens of the mother country.2 character And now what can be urged in favor of the system, strictive stigmatized by Adam Smith as " mean and malignant," system. 1 Chalmers's Annals, pp. 262, in Greenwood's Hist, of King's 400. Chapel, p. 13, n. It was not until 2 No collector was sent to Mas- October, 1677, that the general sachusetts for many years ; and when court ordered the laws of trade and Randolph at last arrived, to execute navigation to be observed in Massa- the duties of that office, he was chusetts. Colony Laws. threatened with death. MSS. cited ON THE ENGLISH COLONIAL POLICY. 471 and which certain historians have pronounced tyrannical chap. and unjust? Where prejudice has assumed the province * — - — - of reason, persuasion and argument are equally futile. Fiction, resolutely persisted in and unwaveringly urged, will gradually assume the dignity of truth ; and that will be asserted as a grave reality which former generations would have deemed unworthy of refutation.1 It is now taken for granted, that because the restrictive system operated to the disadvantage of the colonies, it was neces sarily unjust and tyrannical ; that the colonies had rights equally broad with those of the mother country ; and that any infringement of the asserted claims justified an open violation of the law. But even where such bold and prejudiced assertions are made, to the detriment of truth and the peril of history, it may be insisted, in reply, that as the sin of the mother country was inexperience, so the privilege of the colonies did not transcend the limits of remonstrance. Political science was yet in its infancy, and no nation had advanced further than this, that her colonies, which had been peopled by her sub jects and protected by her arms, owed her a permanent debt of gratitude, both for their being and preservation. However erroneous was the principle of the parental relation, England is at least entitled to respect for claiming only a parent's rights, while other kingdoms abused a parent's authority. Perhaps the day is not far distant, when history and philosophy will combine to denounce as tyrannical the rule of the family circle, and nations will hold jubilees over the emancipation of women and children. Whatever force there may be in arguments of this nature, they would have come with peculiarly bad grace l Suppose the claims of Massa- had been urged to Charles I. in chusetts, under her charter in 1680, 163 1 ! 472 GENERAL REFLECTIONS from the Puritans of Massachusetts. An impassable barrier separated them from other English colonists. Originally a mercantile company, they resolved them selves into a commonwealth, transferred their charter, and perverted their franchise. On what plea could they take advantage of their own wrong 1 Could they thrust their charter into the houses of parliament, and then say, we have no voice in your deliberations, and, therefore, are not bound by your laws 1 Were not all corporations bound by the laws of the realm 1 Or had they rights and privileges which an omnipotent parliament could not reach ] x On what principle could " The Company of Massachusetts Bay " demand a special representation in parliament, any more than the ancient companies of " The Mercers," or " The Weavers," or " The Gold smiths," or " The Vintners " 1 Indeed, had they not voluntarily confessed, on other occasions, that they were specially represented in parliament through the manor of East Greenwich,2 it would be difficult to repress a smile at claims now put forth in their behalf, so utterly incon sistent not only with law and justice, but also with their own admissions. But the restrictive system stands on more elevated ground. As a question of right, there is much to be said in its favor. It was then believed, and has since been demonstrated, that such a system may enure to the benefit of the nation, even though it prove injurious to the rapid advance of the colony.3 It was held to be self-evident, that as the colonies were established for the extension of the national commerce, and not for the pro- 1 Parliament, says Blackstone, 2 See ante , p. 271. can do every thing which is not 3 See Ricardo's Examination of naturally impossible. This is the Adam Smith's Argument. Polit. advancement of a principle, not Econ. p. 405, 3d edit. merely the statement of a fact. ON THE ENGLISH COLONIAL POLICY. 473 motion of rivalry and competition, there was nothing chap. arbitrary in expecting a fulfilment of the contract.1 ' — r-^ Above all, it was found that the increase of the colonies in all parts of the world rendered larger armies and navies necessary for their defence, the burden of whose support fell chiefly, if not wholly, upon the mother coun try. The customs were a branch of revenue as old as Edward the First ; and, as commerce extended, it was just it should pay for its own protection. And, further, it was thought that, by the operation of a system which should lead the parent state to look to her colonies for wealth, and the colonies to rely upon the parent state for their nourishment and supplies, feelings of kindness would be promoted on the one side, and of loyalty on the other.2 It must be admitted, that if the colonies were estab lished for the extension of commerce, all who settled in them had notice of the fact, and, therefore, had no just cause for complaint. If the adequate protection of this commerce and of the colonies rendered a larger navy necessary, it was certainly fitting that the beneficiaries should encourage national ship-building.3 If the manning of the armed marine required a great increase of seamen, 1 Such is the ground taken by assumption, that colonial restrictions Montesquieu, in his Esprit des Lois, are injurious to the interests of the b. xxi. c. 17. And' Grahame ad- mother country. With this position mits its propriety, as regards Vir- granted, he may well triumphantly ginia, p. 113, ,1. ; but with Massa- ask, why spend so many millions to chusetts, he and Bancroft think the keep what are so worthless ? case was different. But, on their 3 The wars with 'the Dutch ren own ground, as a perpetual refer- dered increased attention to the ence is made in the Massachusetts navy necessary. At Cromwell's Charter to other corporations of the death, the English navy numbered kingdom, in order to point out its one hundred and fifty-four sail, of true intent and meaning, it is impos- which one third were of the line. sible to perceive that a band of Puri- And although carrying about six tans had any special rights unknown thousand guns, yet the French out- to the others. numbered them by about one thou- 2 Say's argument proceeds on the sand. See Black.. Mag. March, 40* 474< GENERAL REFLECTIONS chap, the commercial marine was the most proper nursery for VI. this purpose. Finally, if the burden of supporting the military establishments fell wholly upon the mother coun try, there was the greater reason why the colonies should encourage her manufactures, or whatever else added to her wealth, and thus diminished the burden. To place the colonies on perfectly equal ground with the mother coun try would have been impossible, since equal privileges are always accompanied by equal responsibilities. And, even had it been possible, it would have been as absurd as the bestowal upon the infant heir equality of privilege and precedent with those who gave him being, who protected his helplessness, who supplied his wants, and who taught him the true value of life. The obligation of obedience can only be laid aside on the attainment of majority. There is a manner of presenting this principle, which is in the highest degree unjust. The restrictive system was not one which compelled the colonies to sell in the cheapest and buy in the dearest markets. Such a policy has existence only in the profound speculations of polit ical economists. Historians, also, in exhausting the terms of denunciation, are fond of vague and general expres sions, and seldom condescend to practical details.1 Any system like this would rapidly have ruined the colonies, while, notwithstanding the restrictions, they continued to increase in wealth and prosperity.2 3 A simple fact will 1848, p. 309. In 1847, the United 2 At the English Revolution, the States navy had in commission forty- population of Virginia exceeded six- seven vessels, numbering twelve hun- ty thousand, and, in the course of dred guns, of which two or three 28 years, had more than dou- were of the line. The number bled. See Chalmers's Annals, pp. building, or in ordinary, was thirty. 125, 356. At the Restoration, Vir- Thus, a navy three times the size of ginia contained thirty thousand in- ours was required by England to habitants, and, at the Revolution, protect her colonies and commerce. more than sixty thousand ; showing 1 See Grahame's remarks on what that the population doubled in about he calls " the impolicy of the exclu- 20 years. sive system," vol. i. p. 109. 3 In Virginia, their very "thriving VI. ON THE ENGLISH COLONIAL POLICY. 475 often overthrow a profound theory. England had no chap. desire to bring ruin upon her colonies. On the con trary, their wealth and prosperity, provided they contin ued obedient and loyal, was her highest ambition.1 Nor should this have been deemed an unreasonable condition. They formed integral portions of the empire. They were members of the great body of the state. A gen eral bankruptcy in Boston would have caused distress on the Royal Exchange. The failure of tobacco crops in Virginia would have been severely felt in London. While the greater the wealth and prosperity of the colo- • nies, the larger would be the increase of English com merce and shipping, and the more extensive the demand for those articles which were the productions of English art. Unless, then, it can be demonstrated that the good of mankind will be secured by abandoning the system of protection, and that such good is clearly paramount to national prosperity,2 no parent state can be blamed for refusing to make her colonies a prey for the world. Until such proof is furnished by the advocates of free trade, their theories will be regarded, by the more enlightened statesmen, as the dreams of enthusiasts. And even should they succeed in showing that commerce would was their undoing." The richness put by them, profound and inge- of the soil insured crops profuse to nious, all lead them to opposite con- wantonness ; and, perhaps, by a elusions. Say proves that colonies righteous retribution, the importa- are injurious to the parent state, and tion of blacks so promoted cultiva- had better be relinquished altogether. • tion, that the market easily became B. i. c. 19. Adam Smith, on the glutted ; and the only staple the Vir- contrary, thinks that they are only ginia planters, produced against the injurious when suffering under the wishes of every sovereign they obey- monopoly of the mother country. ed, fell greatly in value. See Cul- Ricardo denies this proposition, and pepper's Statement in Chalmers's deduces from the very arguments of Annals, p. 357. Smith that the restrictions will ben- 1 See Letter of Charles II. Hub- efit the mother country, but that the bard, p. 561. good of mankind will be promoted 2 It is singular that theorists all by free trade. differ in opinion, and that the cases 476 GENERAL REFLECTIONS VI. chap, thrive better under the operation of their principles, some there are, doubtless, who will refuse to believe that the destiny of mankind would be accomplished by turning the earth into a vast market. These, in brief, are the pleas that may be urged in defence of the colonial system of England. When we are gravely told by historians, that the tyrannical policy of the mother country was bringing ruin upon the colonies, and justified their disobedience, we need but look to the rapid growth they exhibited for a suffi cient refutation of such assertions. The mother country profited by the relation ; but was she not the progenitor • of the colonies I Their productions increased her capital ; but this capital was expended for their welfare and pro? tection. By this wealth, England discharged a duty which properly belonged to Massachusetts, and supported teachers of Christianity among the tribes who owed nothing to the Puritans but revenge. Perfect reciprocity was more nearly obtained by the restrictive system than could have been acquired by free trade. The colonies had to contend against no foreign competition ; they were at all times sure of a market in which to buy and sell.1 The fact, that the merchant of London grew rich faster than the merchant of Boston, or that the English manu facturer heaped up more substance than the Virginia planter, could have been no cause for discontent to candid and generous minds. Who can forget that fable so finely told by Livy, which was invented by a Roman senator to quell a plebeian insurrection. The limbs and organs revolted against the belly, because while they toiled from morning to night, it lay at its ease amidst them all, and indolently grew fat upon their exertions. 1 Black. Mag. July, 1849, p. no. ON THE ENGLISH COLONIAL POLICY. 477 The members refused to perform their accustomed parts, and the teeth to chew the necessary food. But they soon found that, instead of mortifying the belly by these means, they only undid themselves, and that it was from the lazy and indolent belly that they derived strength to work, or courage to mutiny.1 The application of this story is obvious. England might have existed without the colonies, but Upon the former, the colonies depended for their nourishment and support. They had not strength to protect themselves, or capital sufficient to compete with foreign monopolies. Behind them was an unknown wilderness, filled with savage and hostile tribes. On the north were the settle ments of ambitious and warlike France. On the south lay the vast possessions of perfidious Spain. Before them rolled the limitless ocean, on whose bosom the commercial genius of the Dutch, ever active and cun ning, flew with a swift wing in search of the estrays of Europe. Hapless would have been the fate of the col ony, deserted by the parent state ere it had acquired sufficient strength to contend against the powers of the earth.2 Amidst this iarring of interests and of passions, we Contrast , • • jy Tt • • between are fortunately able to contrast the spirit ot Puritanism Virginia * _ _ and Massa- with that of the Church. Virginia and Massachusetts chusetts. stood side by side during the civil wars. Both beheld their sovereign struggling against fanaticism and rebel lion. Both owed this sovereign some measure of grati tude, beyond the mere duty of obedience. Their charters and immunities were, in many respects, analogous. But while Virginia only by compulsion abandoned the royal 1 Liv. b. ii. c. 32. 2 See " Humble Petition to Par liament," Hazard, vol. i. p. 5^9- 478 GENERAL REFLECTIONS chap, cause, and was the first portion of the empire to welcome ' — "-^ its restoration,1 we see Massachusetts foremost in the rebellion against her lawful sovereign, and the last to acknowledge the exiled Stuart. The very names of the Southern and Northern Colonies were significant. Vir ginia, called after the wisest sovereign " of kingly and loyal " England, maintained, until the Church was neg lected, firm and consistent fidelity. Even the acts of navigation only drew from her humble petitions ; for so the Church had taught her her duty. New England was equally well named. It had nothing in common with Old England but language. The literature and the arts of the mother country were as distasteful to Massachu setts as was her religion. The Puritans viewed them all through the morbid medium of prejudice. Old and New England were as unlike in character as they were in appearance. The very statutes of the former were repudiated, as far as possible, in Massachusetts. Instead thereof, the Puritans substituted the terrible code of Mount Sinai, and even punished all attempts to appeal therefrom to the crown. But the Assembly of Virginia, the first legislature in the New World, applied to the General Court of the Company for a digest of the laws of England, sanctioned by the king ; for, said they, " it is not fit that his subjects should be governed by any other rules than such as receive their influence from him." 2 Howac- We are not to seek for the cause of such contrasts, for. of which there are many, and which might be easily extended to other of the British possessions — to Roman Catholic Maryland, the most peaceful and the happiest of the English colonies, and to the Quaker province of 1 Chalmers Annals, pp. 124, 125. 2 Ibid. p. 44. ON THE ENGLISH COLONIAL POLICY. 479 Pennsylvania, which was the last to desert the fallen chap. dynasty of the Stuarts 1 — in the diversity of interests or • — A- pursuits. The leading men in both colonies were gentle men. Many of them had received, at English universi ties, the education suitable to their condition. Some had enjoyed the serene happiness of English country life ; and most of them could look back upon a boyhood, whose every association made familiar to their minds the cathedrals and the palaces, the histories and the tradi tions, the festivals and the fasts, the glories and the miser ies of their native country. But while Virginia retained the Church, which was the soul of England,2 and rejoiced in the grandeur of the nation from which she sprung, Massachusetts made it her chief merit before God, and her strongest plea before the king, that the enterprise which had converted the most rugged portion of the wilderness into a garden, was adverse to the Anglican Church. Perhaps we may imagine the conflicting feelings of the Pilgrim Puritan, when reposing in the home his own industry had created on the western shores of the Atlantic. In some leisure moment, he casts his eyes towards the kingdom founded by Egbert, and beholds it clad in sackcloth. For the first time since the landing of St. Augustine, an English king has been murdered for defending the holy Faith.3 He sees holy altars everywhere thrown down, holy Scriptures cor rupted in text and meaning, holy sacraments derided and trampled on, and the thrones of king and primate l Chalmers's Annals, pp. 373- might have preserved himself if he 654. would have sacrificed the Church. 2 In Virginia, "the manner of If Charles, in political matters, was the English was daily to have pray- " infirm of purpose," he never ers, with a psalm." Stith. showed weakness when his con- 3 It is generally conceded that, science was concerned. to all human appearance, Charles 480 GENERAL REFLECTIONS involved in a common ruin. A doubt arises in the mind of the reflecting Puritan, whether these are the legitimate fruits of pure religion. But such a reverie as this is treason to his state and a sin against his church. He withdraws his eyes from the Old World, and fixes them upon the New. He sees the rugged soil of Mas sachusetts blessed by Providence, and a New England springing up in another hemisphere. What matters it to him that the earliest charters of English kings to the enterprising navigators dedicated the lands they should discover to " the true Christian Faith professed in the Church of England I"1 He beholds with pride what twenty years have done for the Pilgrims ; and now come thronging upon his mind a host of fancies which his late misgivings had driven from his memory. He pictures to himself superstitions and ceremonies. He searches, in the past, for instances of royal and prelatic tyr anny. The king, whom he had almost looked upon as a martyr, becomes again, to his sobered mind, the per secutor of God's saints. The aged prelate, whose blood seemed but now to cry out of the ground for vengeance, no longer troubles his peace.2 The Church and the State appear as before to his disordered vision. The regicides are once more judges ; and the enemies of Catholicism, the elect of God. Shall he not willingly forget father and mother, forsake country and home, and follow, like Abraham, God's guidance into the wilder ness ] There, at least, he can build up institutions which shall be a terror to evil doers ; and he can go to his grave in peace, beholding afar off his own posterity as l Hazard, vol. i. pp. 27-36. his folly. Hugh Peters was the con- 2 It is a singular fact, that the triver of this piece of brutality, and Puritans wished to transport Laud he procured a motion in the House to New England, in order that the of Commons to that effect, which, Sectarians there might triumph over however, was rejected. Southey. ON THE ENGLISH COLONIAL POLICY. 481 the sand upon the sea-shore. Such may have been the chap. reverie of a Cotton or a Hooker, on the arrival of the v— ^ " high news about the king." Alas, for spiritual pride ! Its victim, beholding little but what is evil in others, complacently regards his own acts as prompted by the purest motives. It is equal to any emergency, and can assume any form. It is as impatient of restraint as it is fond of power. Whether rioting in the palace, or running wild in the forest ; whether wearing the robe of saint, or the sackcloth of sinner ; whether preaching of the sacred rights of the people, or seated at the right hand of despotic power; it is the same great enemy of the true interests of man kind. It enticed the freeborn subject of England to Massachusetts, and the freeman of Massachusetts it al lured to the still freer Rhode Island, leaving him there doubting and bewildered. The Conformist it made Separatist, the Separatist Anabaptist, the Anabaptist Quaker, and the Quaker infidel. It teaches that worst of all heresies, the supremacy of reason over faith. It exults over the achievements of the mind, and forgets or neglects the abasement of the soul. True religion never exalts this life above the next ; how different the teaching and influence of a false ! The latter is ever yearning for an earthly paradise, whose only divinity is liberty. While straining after this Uto pia, the troubles of a fleeting life are magnified into momentous calamities. Yet if man nobly contends with the difficulties of threescore and ten years ; if, true to his destiny, he sets an example of faith and moral cour age, being, like St. Paul, content with the situation in which it has pleased his Creator to place him, he will accomplish a gracious work. What matters it now to Brutus whether a Caesar still tyrannizes l What cares. 41 482 GENERAL REFLECTIONS Cromwell whether a Stuart still reigns'? The fragile, urn, which contains the ashes of the dead, has survived the proudest monuments of imperial Rome. The cross, which surmounts the spire of Canterbury, still glistens in the twilight that is settling upon the throne. One principle only is eternal, and that is obedience. The voice of Nature proclaims it with quiet majesty, and the truth is echoed in the despairing cries of a degenerate race. It is the only warning that reaches us from amid the flowers and groves of mysterious Eden. Popular obedience is the only sure test of national happiness and prosperity. It alone produces that har mony which unites individual enterprise with national effort. Amid arctic snows, in the industrial regions of the temperate zones, on the teeming plains of the equator, with Jew and Gentile, with Christian and Barbarian, the truth of this principle is equally exhib ited. The rule is illustrated by its numerous excep tions. In the Old and New World, we behold the misery which always attends upon a disobedient people, and the happiness and content with which every nation, in its own peculiar manner, enjoys the rewards of loy alty. Is it necessary to point to Italy, or Ireland, or the revolutionary republics of South America, on the one side ; and to Russia, to England, and to our own great Republic, on the other ] " It is the glory of the Anglican Church, that she inculcates due obedience to lawful authority, and has been, in her principles and prac tice, ever most unquestionably loyal." x On the day of the execution of the traitor Russell, the University of Oxford declared "submission and obedience, clear, abso lute, and without exception, to be the badge and character 1 Address of Bishops to James II. , 1687 ON THE " ENGLISH COLONIAL POLICY. 483 of the Church of England." • These are sentiments of chap. VI. the highest sublimity, for they are echoes of the voice - — < — of Jehovah. There have been exigencies where obe- dience ceased to be a virtue ; but these should have been occasions of sorrow, not the causes of popular rejoic ing. By God, kings reign ; and by his Spirit, princes decree justice. This awful declaration, confirmed by the practice of pious Israel when weeping by the waters of Babylon, as well as by the Primitive Church during the tyranny of the Caesars, is still regarded by the Catholic priesthood, whether groaning under the despotism of the East, or exulting in the freedom of the West. And so it must ever be. The Church can never consent to anarchy and civil war, over the price of cotton or tobacco or sugar. She contends for more enduring trophies than the whistle of the steam-engine or the exportation of calico. And her influence was most happily exerted in Vir ginia. That colony, in the space of twenty years, un- 1606-25. derwent frequent changes of government and policy, and its final success continued long uncertain. But the code of laws issued under the sign-manual, and coeval with its first charter, bestowed upon the colony, as a royal gift, the Church of the mother country. The landing of the- settlers of Jamestown was celebrated by the offer ing of the Holy Eucharist ; and in the rites of religion they remembered their far distant home. The Church was the sepulchre of animosities and dissensions; and, often as they changed their charters and their governors, whether trembling under the terrors of martial law, or expanding under the gentle sway of gubernatorial edicts ; whether enjoying the copious gains of a prosperous com merce, or reduced by restrictions to the brink of supposed ruin; their fidelity remained unshaken. "Lord bless 484 GENERAL REFLECTIONS chap. England, our sweet native country," was the burden of — r^< their thoughts and their frequent prayer. And the loy alty thus cherished in its infancy had a marked influence upon the subsequent history of Virginia. character And now what shall be said of Puritanism ? That it wm. erected one monument to the glory of God, or exempli fied the duty of obedience to the civil magistrate "? That its altar was set up in the wilderness, consecrated by the prayers and blessings of the savage ] That its usurped powers were used to quell strife, to . calm dissension, to strengthen peace, or to enforce equity 1 That it pre sented an example of humility and patience, for the guid ance of those simple ones who were fascinated by its solemn pretence'? That, in all its doings, it had only in view " Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and good-will to men " "? Or are the eulogies it has received from history like the epitaphs upon tomb stones ] Since the dawn of creation, the praises of the Supreme Being had been chanted in the wildernesses of New Eng land. The forests teemed with gorgeous life, and not a brook babbled its sportive way, but glistened with the gambols of innumerable fish. Nature, animate and inan imate, was full of joyous freedom, and the lord of the domain roved about unmindful of the glitter of gold or the splendor of courts. This system of Nature Puritan ism subverted ; but its power of substitution sprang from the muzzles of its guns, and not from the kindly affec tions of the heart. It subjugated Nature ; but the wild harmonies it destroyed were not replaced by the creations of Divine Art. It sought exclusively its own good, or, at least, it made that good paramount. Deriving its genius from the theocracy of stubborn Israel, it promised its disciples the prestige of temporal success and pros- ON THE CHARACTER OF PURITANISM. 485 perity. It had an eye to the things of Cajsar as well as chap. to tfiose of Heaven. Join my ranks, was its promise, > — »--<- and you shall be rich ; for the promised land belongs to the saints ; you shall be powerful, for God will fight your battles. Wherever it penetrated, its work was to destroy and create anew. It defaced the moral landscape of Catholicism, but was unable to substitute any thing so fair and so beautiful. The Church presented a vast area, on whose surface could be seen rocks and caverns and pitfalls; but then there were also quiet nooks and peaceful, gladsome vales, smiling in the brightness of an Eternal Sun. Puritanism was like a dreary waste over hung by a wintry sky, where, if a gleam of light were perchance discernible, it but irradiated desolation. Surveying:, at this distance of time, the wondrous events Protestant- . -, . . ' ism the of the sixteenth century, the mind is startled at the dar- triumph of J reason over ing and power of human reason. Systems that had been falth- maturing for a thousand years ; faith that had ascended from the dark horizon of Judea, until its beams reached the remotest corners of the earth ; and that wonderful unity, which joined into one great family the nations of Christendom ; these all were attacked, and either shattered or defaced. The freaks of mad popes were treasured in the armory of Protestantism, and used as weapons of attack against the claims of the Church. Reason, stirred up to action, confronted her great enemy, Faith, and taught pleasing heresies, while the latter inculcated un pleasing truths. Reason appealed to the instincts of the natural man ; Faith pointed to the consummation of the cross. Reason flattered ; Faith humiliated. The tri umphs of Reason were innovations ; the rewards of Faith, "¦ — every thing that speaks of hearts at ease, " And such old customs as the heart delights in, " Harmless observances and superstitions, "All kind and gentle." 41* 486 GENERAL REFLECTIONS Puritanism grew out of the English, as Protestantism out of the Roman Church. It fattened upon the infirmi- thePro"1" ties of bishops, as did the latter upon those of popes. of England. It was, in short, the Protestantism of England ; and it regarded the throne of the primate with the same horror with which Lutheranism viewed the chair of St. Peter. One sin committed by a bishop would have been worth more to Puritanism than all the law and the prophets. In truth, though it spread open the pages of Holy Writ to the curiosity or contempt of the people, its object was still further to prejudice their minds against Episcopacy. If texts were wanting, it did not scruple to invent them. It was restrained by no feeling of veneration, for it had no past to venerate. Unlike the holy Ezra, it sought not to reform the Church where God had placed his name, but to break it down. It set up the altar of Free Inquiry, and burned thereon strange incense. Appealing to popular passions, it taught the grievous error, that liberty is worth more to humanity than the discipline of obedience. Hating true liberty, and despising the true rights of the people, it at the same time professed to be the friend of both. It gave the richest treasure of the Church into the hands of the ignorant and profane, but condemned the recipients to the lowest perdition if they squandered this gift, or converted it to their own use. It passed from Old to New England, and the ravages it commenced in the former were consummated in the wilds and forests of the latter. In the one, its work was to destroy ; in the other, to create and make anew. " Men who have ceased to reverence, soon defy Their forefathers." Pmineanntism Puritanism was eminently superstitious ; but its super- tlouT1' stition was the offspring of fear, and not of veneration. ON THE CHARACTER OF PURITANISM. 487 It hovered not, like a perfumed mist, over the scenery of chap. . the past. It gave no refinement to manners, or grace to ' — * — ¦ literature. It did not nerve the arm in the day of battle, nor soften the heart in the hour of conquest. It abode not near the tomb of the saint and the hero ; it was unemblazoned by art, unconsecrated by tradition. Much of the early history of New England Puritanism is occu pied with the relation of marvels, sometimes shocking, generally childish, but never appealing to the nobler sen timents of the heart. The Puritans were inadequate to romance or poetry. The strange sounds they heard, the appalling sights they witnessed,1 the mysteries that en compassed their fields and waters, the witches who teased them by day, and the evil spirits which " peeped and muttered " by night, are mentioned in startling detail, and cold, matter-of-fact expression, which could neither point a moral nor adorn a tale. They derided the sign of the cross, but saw magic in a broomstick. They scorned the sacrificial service of the altar, but trembled before the senseless mummeries of old women. If the leaves of a prayer-book were gnawed by mice,2- they adored the wonder-working Providence of God ; but let the lightning blast one of their most famous destroyers of Indian life,3 and it was only a deplorable accident. Their superstition was selfish as well as blind. For them, and them alone, the earth revolved, the sun shone, comets flew in their eccentric orbits, seasons came and went with their manifold glories, plants and flowers were 1 Winthrop mentions, that on the the water in a dreadful manner, and 18th of January, 1643, the devil was shifted about from place to place. seen over against two islands in Bos- Hubbard, who wrote about 1682, ton harbor, in form like a man, and relates this fact ' with becoming emitting sparks and flames of fire. At gravity. the same time, a voice was heaid by 3 See ante, p. 414. persons who resided between Boston 3 Ante, p. 118. and Dorchester, which sounded upon 488 GENERAL REFLECTIONS chap, arrayed in superhuman beauty. For them, war, pesti- - — y — ' lence, and famine afflicted mankind. For them, the angel of death spread his wings, and swept from the earth kings, thrones, churches, and even whole nations. tonnteera-Iy Allied to this gross superstition was an utter contempt ture' for literature". Puritanism, arrayed in her brightest ar mor, with colleges and schools and bibles ad libitum, performed no literary feat worthy of outliving the leaves of an almanac.1 Her histories are valuable, not as acces sions to the republic of letters, not always as truthful annals of current events, but chiefly for the warning they afford their readers. The coloring of romance, which might so easily have been given to the Indian wars, and which would have served to disguise, partially at least, their amazing atrocity, is not to be found on the pages of the stern annalists of Plymouth or Massachu setts. True, there was but little encouragement in the wilderness for the cultivation of letters. The axe was a more useful implement than the pen ; and the reclaiming of one foot of sandy soil was of more importance to the colony than all the books in Christendom. It was not the want, but rather the contempt of literature, that is so remarkable. Even their lyrical poetry was purposely barbarous ; and they excused these uncouth compositions by the declaration, that " God's altars need not our pol- ishings." Their theology, more voluminous than their history, is now antiquated in the very places where, for merly, its teachings were inculcated by the aid of the scourge and the prison. The sermons of the famous elders would now excite derision, if preached from the 1 We learn from Dunton's Me- stances, if not rich. What did they moirs that in 1685 there were at sell ? See 2 Mass. Hist. Coll. vol. least four booksellers in Boston, ii. p. 102. who were in prosperous circum- ON THE CHARACTER OF PURITANISM. 489 pulpits they formerly occupied. In short, it may be said chap. that an ill-disguised contempt for the fruits of intellectual v—-* — < cultivation is one of the peculiarities that confers immor tality upon this singular system.1 Puritanism, it has been said, was the religion of the An enemy IT 1 1 • , l -r»t° c'vu an0- people. It was not over them, but with them. But religious such was not its theory or its practice. Like Protestant ism, generally, wherever it prevailed, it was established by the power of the state.2 True it is, that Protestantism led the way in the greatest movement that the world had yet witnessed; a movement which resulted in complete emancipation. Yet its concessions to popular liberty were obtained only by popular power. Who can recognize the Puritan of the sixteenth century in the Freethinker of the nineteenth % Yet they have the same unquestion able origin. Who can distinguish the Puritan creed in the Latitudinarian mist that now envelops Germany and Switzerland 1 Yet, without a doubt, this cloud overhangs the stream which was diverted by the great reformers. Indeed, it seems as if the two sciences of religion and 1 The following is a panegyric on " Thomas Dudley," who died in ifi53 : — Hold, Mast, We Dy. "When swelling gusts of Antinomian breath " Had well nigh wrecked this little bark to death ; "When oars 'gan crack, and anchors, then we cry, "Hold firm, brave mast, thy stand, or else we die. "Our orth'dox mast did hold, we did not die ; " Our mast now rolled by th' board, (poor bark) we cry. " Courage, our pilot lives, who stills the waves ; "Or midst the surges, still his bark he saves." This is a fair specimen of the poet- divines allow a power in the civil ical composition of "a reverend per- magistrate, not only in worldly Tegi son of the clergy." See Hubbard, ment, but also in spiritual^, tor the pp. 541, 552, 606. Johnson's preservation of the state." Hub- " Wonder Working Providence," bard. It was not until Protestant- etC, passim. ism had trained its children into infi- 2'The Protestants wove this fact delity, that it became able to re- into the form of a principle. Thus, nounce a state protection. says an old writer, " all Protestant 490 GENERAL REFLECTIONS chap, politics had changed places under the anomalous develop- ¦ — y-^ ments of Protestantism. Religion, which can never alter in faith or doctrine ; which, unchangeable as its great Founder, had always been preserved by fixed and vener able formularies and dispensed by legitimate authority,' has, in the hands of the people, been made to bend and cringe to every caprice of humanity. Whereas political science, which has reference entirely to the social order and temporal happiness of the race, and the economy of which must change with climates, circumstances, and progress ; which, to be healthy and sound, must grow up gradually with the genius of a nation, unhampered by forms and set rules, has, in the same hands, been reduced to stereotyped and fixed constitutions. The . decline of the one, and the almost total disregard of the other, are sufficiently significant of the operation of these novel principles. And it may be stated as a universal truth, that wherever " the form of sound words," en joined by the Apostle to be held fast,1 has been laid aside, religion has, in consequence, lost its fundamental truths ; and whenever it has been attempted to define political rights by written constitutions, the latter have, in opera tion, been found wholly useless. The genius of a nation can never be constrained by formularies, however equable and just. Advocates It is somewhat startling to reflect that these and other the indis- .....»-... - , criminate peculiarities ot Funtanism were more or less remotely Bible. connected with the unrestricted use of the Holy Scrip tures. Here was a compilation of sacred writings, which» had reposed in the bosom of the Church Catholic since the middle of the fourth century.2 The most impor- 1 2 Timothy, ch. i. v. 13. tioned by the Council of Nice. Eu- 2 It is supposed by many that the sebius, who lived A. D. 315, seems Bible, in its present form, was sane- to have been one of the first of the ON THE CHARACTER OF PURITANISM. 491 tant portions of the apostolic writings were collected chap. by the zeal of primitive Christians, authorized by prim- w-~^ itive councils, and deposited as a sacred trust in the Church, to be by her interpreted and administered.1 Under this system, all was harmony ; but when the sacred writings were torn from the custody of the Church, and given indiscriminately into the hands of the laity, confusion and opposition were the almost immediate consequences. That portion of the New Testament con sisting of the letters of apostles to various churches which they had established, affected by local circum stances and qualified by various accidents and contingen cies, were found by the private reasoner to involve diffi culties of so grave a nature, as to lead his mind to open skepticism or fanatical absurdities. Nor was this the case with the ignorant only. Luther himself struck the Epistle of St. James from the New Testament, because it did not correspond with his favorite theory of Justifica tion, and pronounced it an epistle of straw, fit only to be burned.2 The example thus set by the founder of private reasoning, was followed by his disciples generally. No theorist, in religion or politics, put forth his claims to the world, but found some text to support his system, or struck out some passage that was hostile to it. As the legitimate fruits of this evil, the Sacred Writings have been the cause of all manner of infidelity. Science has Christian authors whose catalogue which were, and which were not of the books of the New Testament canonical, resided in the Church. corresponds exactly with ours. Hist. * This was following out the Eccl. 1. 3, c. 25. St. Athanasius's command of our Saviour to his dis- catalogue'is equally complete; and ciples. These men (the Scribes) yet some authors who lived subse- sit in Moses's seat ; all, therefore, quently give 'imperfect catalogues, they bid you observe, that observe It seems, from the Apostolical Ca- and do. Math. ch. xxm. v. 2. No nons, that the list of canonical books Scripture is of any private mterpre- varied in different dioceses, which tation. 2 St. Peter, ch. 1. v. 20. shows that the power of declaring 2 See an able article on Luther in Christ. Rembr. Jan. 1848. 492 GENERAL REFLECTIONS ridiculed the Mosaic history, and scoffed at the not less marvellous acts which ushered in the new creation. Rea son has boldly questioned the mystery of the Eternal Godhead, and pointed with derision at, the awful consum mation of the cross. Ignorance and presumption, ever hand in hand, have united to break down that noble Tree planted by Christ himself, because, forsooth, it has borne some decayed branches. But, amidst all the desolation of the world, it still lives, exhibiting a miracle more wonderful than that performed at the humble cave in Bethany. ' For its roots are cherished by no mortal hand, and eternal sunshine lingers upon its fragrant foliage. Which Puritanism did not come behind other forms of Prot- cjiu^ss its decline, estantism in divesting the Sacred Scriptures of their true worth and dignity. It forced the Bible into the hands of the illiterate ; and persecuted the recipients, because some became Quakers, others Baptists, others Ranters, and still others open disbelievers. Thus Puritanism had no unity, and was like a house divided against itself. Its temples were shrines of division, its pulpits forums of debate. Its teachings were fiery arguments, . not gentle .exhortations ; and, as it was independent of. all spiritual authority, it was perpetually changing its posi tions, like the vanes upon its steeples. It received the truths of eternity, not from " mouldy tradition," not from " priestcraft," not from " Popery," not from " hier archies." Its oracles were the loudest declaimers and the most plausible disputants. It wrestled with the imaginations of its listeners rather than with the powers of darkness. It appealed to prejudice, fancy, reason, in short, to any and every thing, rather than Faith. And so that famous system, which had clothed a great nation in sackcloth, and which, fleeing to primeval forests ON THE CHARACTER OF PURITANISM. 493 for shelter, soon draped the very wilderness in mourning, fell by its own hands. In a religious sense, it left nothing behind it but warnings. The synods, the con fessions, the platforms, and the heresies which distin guish its reign in New England, are in marked contrast with that noble Church it presumptuously hoped to displace, and which, since the days of its Catholic de fenders, has neither altered an article of its creed nor a principle of its government. Puritanism, as a system, passed away from Massachu setts with the First Charter. ' Not so the principles which had grown up under its protection, and which remained in the minds of the people, like rocks when the flood subsides. The development of their character is the history of the great Western Republic, of the French Revolutions, of the new aspect of the world. Our coun try, reaching from sea to sea, received its first impulse in the homely meeting-houses of Puritanism. Each little band of Pilgrims, under its chosen shepherd, was a free and independent state. There was assembled the future caucus-loving nation. There preached the future patriot, and there listened the war-worn army of liberty. In a century, behold the meeting-house has swelled into the capitol, and church-members have become citizens of a stupendous empire ! But I cannot part from the old. Puritans of Massachu setts without a feeling of regret. The mildly firm Win throp, the fanatical Endecott, the aspiring Dudley, and the morose Bellingham seem almost like familiar friends, since I have passed so many pleasant hours in their " godly 'companie." And with them, too, that more ambitious band of Hooker and Wilson and Davenport, and Cotton, the greatest of them all. I can now behold their stalwart forms and austere countenances, as they 42 4"94i GENERAL REFLECTIONS, ETC. chap, tread the soil of their little domain, in the full conscious- — v — ¦ ness of their great mission. And I can join, too, in paying those marks of outward respect, which they claim from the goodmen and goodwives around them. Happy was it for their peace that futurity did not reveal to them the legitimate results of their principles ! More fortu nate, perhaps, for us, since Winthrop's fleet might never have ploughed the waters of Massachusetts Bay ! I N iv E X . A. Aborigines, treatment of the, by the Puri tans of Massachusetts, 98. Anabaptists, The, origin of, 219. Te nets of, 220. Laws against, in Massa chusetts, 222. Punishment of Obadiah Holmes, 223. Henry Dunster, 223. Schism produced by; 224. How treat ed by the Puritans, 225. Persecutions of, checked by influence from England, 226. Andros, Sir Edmund, arrival of, in Mas sachusetts, 346. Character of the ad ministration of, 347. Restraint upon marriages, 347. Fees for quitrents to crown lands, 348. Levying of taxes, 350. Other arbitrary acts of, 35 1, 447. Causes of the unpopularity of, 352. Character of, 353. Humane policy of, towards the Indians, frustrated by the outrages of the charter government, 357. Kind as a general, 358. The . elders excite a rebellion against, 359. Seizure and imprisonment of, 361. Acquitted by the king, 362. Ap pointed Governor of Virginia, 363. Entreats the elders in behalf of the Church, 446. Anglo-Saxon Church, 371. Its relation to the See of Rome, 372. Happy in fluence of, 373. Antinomianism, 169. Peculiar tenets of, 170. Not confined to Massachusetts, 172. Condemned by a synod, 1.78. Banishment of the leaders of, 180. Assistants, The, duties of, 52. Claim to be judges, 80. Augustine, mission of, to Britain, 372. First Archbishop of Canterbury, 372. B. Bancroft, as an historian, 5. Baptism, divisions on the subject of, in the Puritan Church, 184. Synod con cerning, 185. Second synod, 187. Berkeley, Dean, testimony of, with regard to the treatment of the Narragansetts by the Puritans, 135. Boston, great fire in, 324. Brook, Lord, 63. Browne, John and Samuel, 16. Perse cution of, by Endecott, 17. Petition for redress, 18. Canonchet, heroism of, 133. Charles I., object of, in promoting colo nization in the New World, the exten sion of the Church, 1. Grants a char ter to the Massachusetts Bay Company, 13. Appoints Cradock its first gov ernor, 13. Did not intend to encour age dissent, 32. Appoints a royal commission to protect and govern the colonies, 44. Vindication of, 49. Sym pathy for, not allowed to be expressed in Massachusetts, 272. Contests of, with parliament, 398. Policy of, dur ing the Puritan troubles, 399. Com mercial policy of, 458. Charles IL, address of the general court to, 50. Usurpations of Massachusetts over Maine, annulled by the commis sioners of, 147. Letter of, respecting the Quakers, 218. Massachusetts re fuses to acknowledge, 285. Loyal ad dress of the general court, 287. An swer of, to this address, 288. Answer 496 INDEX. of, to the agents' of Massachusetts, 294. Letter of, disregarded by Massachu setts, 296. Third letter of, 315. Fourth letter of, 3^. Dispatches Randolph to Boston, 319. The agents of Mas sachusetts offer to bribe, 330. Death of, 332. Kirk selected by, as Governor of New England, 335. The Naviga-, tion Laws of, 465. Their fourfold ob ject, 468. How received by the colo nies, 468. Charter of the Massachusetts Bay Com pany, grant of the, 13. Objects to be gained by its transfer, 19. Its transfer proposed, 20. Advocated by Cradock, 20. Reasons urged in favor of the transfer of, 20. The transfer decided upon, 21. The decision not unani mous, 21. Passes into the hands of the Puritans, 21. The objects of this measure, 22. Character and true ob ject of, 23. Not intended as an immu nity to the Puritans, 23, 25. Contains no grant sufficient for the establishment of a state, 27. As an act of incorpo ration complete, 27. The powers grant ed by, 27. As apolitical constitution, confused and objectless, 30. How con strued by the Puritans, 31. Not am biguous, 32. Presupposed the residence of the company ih England, 34, 53. Its transfer investigated by the commis sioners, 45. Transmission of, to Eng land, ordered, 48. The judicial au thority conferred by, 76. Effects of its transfer on the judiciary, 77. Surrender of, ordered, 280. Judgment against, 331. Effect of this measure, 333. Not Puritan in its character, 368. Child, Robert, 420. Efforts of, in behalf of religious liberty in Massachusetts, 422. With Maverick, petitions for the laws of England, 422. For civil liberty, 424. For religious liberty, 424. Spirit of the petition, 425. Indignation of the elders, 426. Answer of the general court to the petition, 427. Trial of, with the other petitioners, 428.. Appeal of the petitioners to parliament, 429. Denounced by the elders, for appealing, 429. Church, The English, antiquity of, 370. Represented in primitive councils, 371. Relation of, to the Roman See, 372. Condition of, at the time of the Norman Conquest, 377. Usurpation of Rome, not sanctioned by the early, 381. True claims of, 382. Catholicity of, testified to by parliament, 389. Absurdity of Puritan arguments against, 392. Con sidered as Antichrist by the Puritans, 413. Growing enmity to, in Massa chusetts, aided by superstition, 413. Promoted by legislation, 415. Penalty for observing1 the holy days of, 415. Randolph opens the way for, in Massa chusetts, 438. Obstacles to his suc cess, 440. Formation of the Society of King's Chapel, 444. Opposition of the elders to, 444. Andros entreats ' the elders in behalf of, 446. Loyalty of the members of; 449. Inculcates obedience to lawful authority, 482. Obedience declared, by the University of Oxford, to be the badge and charac ter of, 482. Influence of, in Virginia, Church, formation of the Third, in Bos ton, 189. Colonies, rise of the English, 454. Three classes of, 455. Conflict between the crown and charter, 456. Commissioners, The royal, alarm of the elders at the appointment of, 435. Ar rival of, in Massachusetts, 298. Errand of, 299. Depart for the Manhadoes, 301. The Confederation broken up by, 304. Rumors concerning, 305. Ap peal to the general court, 306. Reply ofthe general court to, 307. Rejoinder of, 308. Communicate their instruc tions to the general court, 308. Objec tions raised against the court of, 309. Reasons for their authority, urgad by, 309. Answer of the general court to charges made by, 310, 436. Reply of, 311. Organize their court, 312. The court of, hot recognized by Massachu setts, 312. Close their labors in Mas sachusetts, 313. Conference at Hampton Court, frustrates the designs of the Puritans, 392. Confederation, The, of the New England Colonies, 274. Providence and Rhode Island excluded from, -275. Articles of, 276. Objects of, 277. Frustrated by parliament, 279. Broken up by the royal commissioners, 304. Contract System, The, evils of, 159. Ob jections of Cotton Mather to, 160. Corporations, characteristics which distin guish, 26. Can have no rights but such INDEX. m as are specifically granted, 31. Three classes of, 33. Cotton, Rev. John, his view of democracy, 54. Sermon of, 67. Infected with Anti- nomianism, 169, 172. Speech of, to pas sengers about to sail for England, 175. Reconcilement of, 180. Public Con fession of, 182. No tolerationist, 193. Advice of, to the Puritan Pilgrims, on their departure for the New World, 233- Covenant, The, 54. Object of, 162. Cradock, Mathew, first Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Company, 13. Ad vocates the transfer of the charter, 20. Ordered to exhibit the charter, 41. Cromwell, Massachusetts petitions, 281. Effect of his death in Massachusetts, 285. Colonial policy of, 469. Cushman, Robert, 103. D. Davenport, Rev. John, 188. Called to the First Church, 188. Protest of the elders against, 189.. Dissent, English, iniquitous character of, 383. Did not arise from any reason able cause for complaint, 384. Pri vate reasoning, in opposition to author ity, 3»5- Dudley, Joseph, commission of, 337. Re sentment against, 338. Intrigues against the commission, 339. Policy of, 445. Dunstan, St., 377. Dunster, Rev. Henry, forced to resign his office, on account of his views on bap tism, 164, 223. Dyer, Mary, execution of,.2i5. E. Elders, The, with the magistrates, estab lish the covenant; 54. Establish a council for life, 63. Erect the magis trates into a senate, 66. Peculiar posi tion of, in the Church, 157. Anxiety of, concerning Antinomianism, 171. Eliot, Rev. John, missionary efforts of, 238. His zeal, 238. Establishes a settle ment at Nonantum, 239. Translates the Bible into the Indian tongue, 242. Commenced his missionary labors un- patronized, 249. Emigration, the Puritan, motives of, 402. Endecott, John, appointed superintendent 42* of the Massachusetts Bay Company, 12. Letter of instructions to, 14. Conv plains of the irregularities 'of the Eng lish, 15. Letter of the company to, 16. Becomes a Brownist, 16, 369! Expe dition of, against the Pequods, no. Ravages Block Island, in. Message of Sassacus to, 112, 113. Removes the cross from the English flag, 264. Trial and sentence of, 265. Episcopacy, declared, by the first Puritan synod in Massachusetts, an invention of man, 415. Europeans, title of, to the New World, 23. Familists, the rise of, 194. Origin of, '94; " Franciscans, The, labors of, in Maine, 254- Freemen, The, claim to be a privileged body, 56. Assert their rights, 58. Selfishness of, 74. Demand a body of laws, 81. G. Gaming, prevalence of, in the Puritan Commonwealth, 94. Gardiner, Sir Christopher, 35. Character .of, 36. Flies from Massachusetts, 36. Places himself under the protection of the Indians, 36. Taken captive, 37. Imprisonment of, 37. Gorton, Samuel, 195. Persecution of, 196. Trial of, with his followers, 200. Denied an appeal to the king, 202. Sentence of, 202. Flies to England, 203. Gorges, Sir Ferdinando, appointed Gov ernor General of New England, 47. Gosnold, voyage of, 7. Grahame, as an historian, 3, 32. Gregory, the Great, desire of, for the con version of the Angles, 371. H. Hampton Court, Conference at, 389. Frustrates the designs of the Puritans, 392. Harvard College, foundation of, 416. Influence of, 417. Hiacoomes, conversion of, by Mayhew, ^ 35-' 498 INDEX. High Treason, first recognized by Mas sachusetts, 322. Hildebrand, '379. Historians, erroneous spirit of, popular, 453- Hooker, Rev. Thomas, 41. Hutchinson, Anne, 169. Banishment of, 180. Inclined to Familism, 195. I. Independency, the fundamental principle of, 155. Independents, The, sympathies of the Pu ritans with, 161. Indians, origin of the. North American, 100. Become rapidly demoralized, un der the influence of Puritanism, 104. Intemperance in the Puritan Common wealth, 94. J- James I., grant of, to the London and Plymouth Companies, 7. Petition to, of the thousand ministers, 392. Eccle siastical policy of, 393-. James 1 1., commission of Dudley by, 337. Colonial system of, 341. Its merits examined, 342. Arbitrariness of, com pared with the tyranny under the char ter, 345. Treatment of, by Queen Mary, 360, 450. Jesuit Missions, in New France, 253. Jones, Sir William, opinion of, on taxa tion, 343. K. King's Chapel, formation of the parish of, 444. Kirk, Colonel, selected by Charles II.', as Governor of New England, 335.- Brief allusion to the character of, 336. L. Laws, the freemen demand a body of, 81. Lechford, Thomas, testimony of, on the condition of the disfranchised class, 74. Legislature, the general court becomes a, 60. The two branches of, first hold sessions by themselves, 69. M. Magistrates, The, assume to be an oli garchy, 53. Call the elders to their support, 61. The power of, in the punishment of heresy, analogous to that exercised by the court of high commis sion, 163. Marriage, declared to be a civil contract only, 415. Massachusetts, treaty of, with the Pe quods, 107. Invasion of the Pequod territory, no. The Narragansetts en ter into a treaty with, 113. Nature of this treaty, 119. Destruction of the Pequods, 114. Its Indian allies, how regarded by, 120. Miantonimo ordered to appear before the general court, 122. His defeat and capture,. 124. He is sentenced to death, 125. The Narra gansetts seek the aid of, to avenge his death, 126. Makes preparations for war with the Narragansetts, 128. Treat ment of the Narragansett deputation by, 129. Extorts a new treaty from them, 131. Becomes alarmed at their luke- warmness in its observance, 132. Pre pares for war, 132. Total destruction of the Narragansetts, 133. War with King Philip, 140. Proclamation of the general court at the close of the war, 146. War with the Tarran teens, 146. Seeks the alliance of the Mo hawks, 148. Defeat of the allies, 149. Conduct of, during the civil wars, 267. Sends a deputation to England, 268. The Long Parliament encourages the trade of, 269. Embraces the parlia mentary cause, 270. Acknowledges that she is represented in parliament, through the manor of East Greenwich, 27°' 343- Makes it a capital offence to side with King Charles, 272. Sends soldiers to join the English rebels, 273. Confederates with the other New Eng land Colonies, 273. Objects sought- by this union, 277. Exercises the right of coinage, 279. Ordered to surrender her charter, 280. Petitions-parliament and Cromwell, 281. Aggrandizing schemes of, 282. Considers herself an ally only of Cromwell, 283. Effect of Crom well's death in, 285. Refuses to ac knowledge Charles II. , 285. Sudden reaction in, 286. Loyal address of, to the king, 287. The elders and magis trates are dissatisfied with the king's answer, 288. Declaration of rights, 289. Charles II. proclaimed by, 291. INDEX. 499 Sends a special mission to England, 292. Agreeable disappointment of the agents, 293. Ingratitude of, towards her agents, 295. Effect of this mission, 296. The general court of, secretes the cbarter, 298. Arrival ofthe royal com missioners in, 299. Refuses to accede to the royal demands, 301. Addresses the king, 302. Answer of the general court to charges made by the commis sioners, 310. The court of commis sioners not recognized by, 312. The commissioners retire from, 313. Third letter of Charles II. to, 315. Again disobeys the king, 316. Policy of, dur ing the wars with Holland and France, 317. Gift of, to the king, 317. Rapid advance of, in wealth and population, 318, Fourth royal letter to, 319. Sends a deputation to England, 320. Pur chases the proprietorship of Maine, 320. Refuses to comply with a request of the king, to give up the purchase, 321. Difficulties of the agents, 321. First recognizes the crime of high treason, 322. Agents of, urge a fuller compli ance with the demands of the king, 322. Recalls her agents, 324. The Lords Commissioners of Plantations address the governor and assistants of, 326. Conflicting emotions ofthe elders, 327, Sends agents to England, 328. Offers a bribe to the king, 330. Judgment against the charter, 330. Effect of this measure, 333. Fears in, concerning a royal governor, 334. Dudley's com mission, 337. How received by, 338. Plots for the overthrow of the new gov ernment, 339. Mild nature ofthe com mission and its government, 339. How represented in parliament, 343. Sir Edmund Andros arrives in, 34.6. Char acter of his administration, 347. Re straint upon marriages, 347. Fees for .quitrents to crown lands, 348. Levy ing of taxes, 350. Petition to the king, 355. War with the Eastern Indians, 356. The elders excite a rebellion against Andros, 359. Political struggle in, between the liberal and prerogative parties, 361. Answer of the general court to the petition of Child and Mav erick, 427. Trial of the petitioners, for sedition, 428. Church policy in, at the Restoration, 431. The elders alarmed at the restoration of the Church, 432. Assert the Divine char acter of Puritanism, 433. Refuse to allow the use of the Common Prayer, 434. Again refuse to allow Church men liberty of conscience, 435. Nav igation Laws, how received by, 468. Contrast between Virginia and, 477. How accounted for, 478. Massachusetts Bay Company, The, forma tion of, 12. Obtains a grant, 12. En decott appointed superintendent of, 12. Obtains a royal charter, 13. Had no power to levy taxes, 27. Had no power to assemble representatives, 27. Or to erect courts of judicature, 27. Massasoit, 136. Mather, Rev. Cotton,- objections of, to the contract system, 160. Mather, Rev. Increase, goes to England, to avoid prosecution, 354. Together with Newell and Hutchinson, petitions the king, 355. Maverick, Samuel, petition of, 168. Fined and imprisoned, 415. Not connected with the Puritan emigration, 41 9. Kind ness of, to the Indians, 419. Excluded, by the elders, from all participation in the ordinances of religion, 420. Peti tions, with Child, for the laws of. Eng land, 422. For civil liberty, 424. For religious liberty, 424. Mayhew, Rev. Thomas, missionary labors of, 235. His success, 236. Miantonimo, summoned before the gen eral court, 122. Wins the respect of the English, by his bearing and mag nanimity, 122. His defeat and cap ture, 122. His fate, 124. Effect of his death on the tribe, 126. The Narra gansetts seek to avenge the death of, 126. Missionaries, credit of supporting, among the Indians, due to the Society for Prop agating the Gospel, 249. Missions, the Puritan, 231. Mode of conducting, 234. Results of, 242. Causes of their failure, 244. The Puritan Church not entitled to the cred it of, 249. The Anglican, in Virginia, 251. The Jesuit, in New France, 253. Causes of their success, 255. Mohawks, The, the Puritans seek the alliance of, 148. Morton, Thomas, 35. Character of, 37. Treatment of, 39. 500 INDEX. N. • Narragansetts, The, the Pequods seek the alliance of, 112. Treaty of, with Massachusetts, in reference to the Pe quods, 114. Its unfairness, 119. The Mohegans intrigue against, 120. Seek the aid of Massachusetts, to avenge the death of Miantonimo, 126. But with out success, 127. Send a deputation to Boston, 128. Their Unjust treatment, 129. Desperate condition of, 130. Pe tition the king for redress, 130. A new treaty extorted from them, 131. Their lukewarmness in its observance, a cause for alarm, 132. Preparations for war against, 132. Destruction of, 133. Berkeley's testimony, as to what this tribe owe the English, 135. New England's Jonas Cast Up at London, 43°- Nashaways, The, 141. Nianticks, The, 141. Nipnets, coalition of, with Philip, 141. O. Oldham, John, 108. Death of, 109. Ordinance of 1651, 459. P. Papal Supremacy, The, rise of, 378. Papal dominion, The, a system of spirit ual feuds, 380. Introduced into Eng land, 380.' Steady growth of, in Eng land, 381. Not sanctioned by the Church or nation, 381. Parliament, Massachusetts represented in, through the manor of East Greenwich, 270. Asserts the Catholicity of the English Church, 389. The Long, en courages the trade of Massachusetts, and enlists the Puritan State in its cause, 269. Attacks the trade of Massachu setts, 280. Orders Massachusetts to surrender her charter, 280. Massachu setts petitions, 281. Penal Laws, levelled at railing at the Church, not at honest difference of opinion, 386. --) j Persecution, spirit of, among the Protest ant sects, 367. Persecutions by the Puritans, violations of the charter, and of the laws of England, 227. Inconsistent with the claims of Puritanism, 229. Pequods, The, territory of, 107. Treaty of the Puritan Commonwealth with, 107. Captain John Stone put to death by, 107. The death of Oldham leads to invasion of the territory of, no. En decott's demands received by, with sur prise, 112. Seek the alliance of the Narragansetts, 112. Total destruction of, 1 14. Winthrop's testimony in favor of, 116. Fate of the leaders in the expedition against, 116. Pessecus, 127. Philip, King, character of, 135. Treaty of, with the English, 137. Forms a coalition, 139. His preparations for war, 140. Death of, 144. Interview of, with Eliot, 247. Plymouth Company, grant of James I. to, 7. Ill success of, 8. Obtains a fresh grant, 9. Again fails, 10. Grand Council of, called upon to answer for the transfer of the charter, 46. ¦ Denies all knowledge of the transaction, 46. Surrender of its rights, 46. Political Religionism, 365. Press, The, restraint of the liberty of, in Massachusetts, 188. Protestantism, the triumph of reason over faith, 485. Puritanism, in New England, not encour aged by the king, 43. Spirit of, as shown in Lechford's Letter, 74. Could not have claimed a missionary charac ter, 231. Insecurity of, in Massachu setts, felt by the elders, in consequence of its illegality, 261. The elders assert the Divine character of, 433. Causes of the increase of, in England, 395. Begins to embarrass the government, 396. Causes the arbitrary acts of Charles I., 3-97. Develops rapidly un der Abbot's protection; during the king's contests with parliament, 39/8. Character of, 484. The Protestantism , of England, 486. Eminently supersti tious, 486. Unfriendly to literature, 488. Hostile to civil and religious lib erty, 489. Advocates the indiscrim inate use of the Bible, 490. Which causes its decline, 492. Puritan Church, The, 154. Peculiar position of the elders in, 157. Prac tical inconveniences of the contract sys- INDEX. 501 tern, 159. To remedy which, the cov enant is devised, 162. Foreign relations of, 160. Sympathizes with the Inde pendents, 161. Want of- vitality and unity in, 165. The Antinomian here sies, 169. Condition of, subsequent to the Antinomian troubles, 182. Divis ion on the 'subject of baptism, 184. Synod convoked, 185. Second synod of, 187. Formation of the Third Church, 189. Intolerant spirit of, 191. Opposed to toleration, 193, 366. Rise of the Familists, 194. Persecution of Gorton, 195. Persecution of the Quak ers, 208. Of the Anabaptists, 222. These persecutions, violations of the charter, and of the laws of' England, 227. .The. mode of conducting the missions of, 234. Thomas Mayhew, 235. John Eliot, 237. Results of these missions, 249. These missions contrasted with those of Virginia, 251. With the Jesuit missions, in New France, 253. The elders conspire against the crown, 260. Progress of the elders from schism to sectarianism, 365. Assertion of a Catholic minis try, 409. Rapid assimilation of the Puritans with the Independents, 410. Renounces Catholic orders, as sinful, 412. Growing enmity to the English Church, aided by superstition, 413. Puritan Commonwealth, The, 51. Na ture of the government of, 52. The • magistrates assume to be an oligarchy, 53. The covenant, 54. The govern ment, at first, a pure oligarchy, 55. Power exercised by the board of direc tors, 55. The freemen claim to be a privileged body, 56. Struggle between the aristocratic and liberal parties, 57. The general court becomes a legisla ture, 60. The magistrates call the elders to their support, 61. The elders establish a council for life, 63. They erect the magistrates into a senate, 66. •The judiciary and laws of, 76. Claims -1 the common law, 78. The assistants '"' claim to be judges, 80. The freemen demand a body of laws, 81. The driminal code of, 83. Severity of this code, 84. Its laws based upon the statutes of the Hebrew Commonwealth, 86. Moral influence of, 90. Licen tiousness in, 96. Essentially an eccle siastical state, 99. Treatment of the aborigines by, 100. Puritans, The, the charter not intended as an immunity to, 25. Charged with disloyalty, and with violating the rights of the king's subjects, 34. Address of, to the Church, on leaving England, 34. Charges against, investigated, 40. Favorable termination of the investiga tion, 41. Further complaints against, 41. Nature ofthe corporation govern ment, 52. Right of the aborigines to their "native soil, how regarded by, 101. Grasping spirit of, as testified to by Winslow, 104, 137. Seek the alliance- of the Mohawks, in the war with the Tarranteens, 148. Terrible effects of the war of, 150. Avow the doctrines, but are false to the principles, of Inde pendency, 156. Opposed to toleration, 193, 366. Their want of zeal, in con verting the Indians, 231. Troubled by the appearance of a comet, 303. Polit ico-religionists, 367. The Conference at Hampton Court frustrates the designs of, 392. Grief of, at leaving England, 404. The "Humble Request" from Yarmouth, 405. Ambiguity of this farewell, 408. Assertion of a Catholic ministry by, 409. Rapid assimilation of, with the Independents, 410. Re nounce Catholic, orders, as sinful, 412. Quakers, The, origin of, 205. George Fox, 206. Arrive in Massachusetts, 207. How regarded by the Puritans, 207. Persecution of, 208. Frenzies of, 210. Laws respecting, 212. Ex ecution of, 213. Execution of Mary Dyer, 215. Persecuted in Plymouth, New Haven, and Martha's Vineyard, 216. Order from the king, requiring. a cessation of all corporal and capital punishment of,. 2 17. R. Randolph, Edward, dispatched to Boston by Charles IL, 319- Is resisted in the discharge of his duties, 324. Zeal of, against Massachusetts, 325. Follows her agents to England, 328. Opens the way for the Church, 438. Presses 502 INDEX. for able and sober ministers, 440. Ar bitrary proposals of, 442. Difficulties of, 445. Ratcliff, Philip, 35. Character of, 39. Punishment of, 40. Becomes a luna tic, 40. Ratcliffe, Rev. Robert, arrival of, 443. Republicanism, growth of, in England, during the religious conflicts, 399. Restrictive System, character of the, 470. Defence of the, 472. S. Sassacus, Message of Endecott to, 112, "3- Sausamon, treachery and death of, 139. Say and Seal, Lord, 63. Saxon Church, The, 371. Scaldic Mythology, fall of the, 376. Senate, erection of the magistrates, into a, 66. Sequasson, 123. Squanto, 150. Stone, Captain John, murder of, 107. Stone, Samuel, 41. T. Tarranteens, The, war with, 146. Suc cesses of, against the Puritans, 149. Magnanimity of, 150. Tobacco, duties upon, disregarded, 460. Toleration, the Puritans opposed to, 193, 366. U. V. Vane, Henry, 169. Resigns the office of governor, 174. Left out of office, 177. Sails for England, 177. Remarkable prophecy concerning, 178. Virginia, loyalty of, 478. How account ed for, 47 8 . W. Waldron, Major, treachery and fate of, 147. Wampanoags, The, 135. Kindness of, towards the colonists, 136. Treachery and death of Sausamon leads to war with, 140. Vigorous commencement of the war by, 142. Ultimately de feated, 144. Wamsutta, 136. Dies of a broken heart, from being suspected of treachery, 137. Wars, the Puritan, terrible effects of, in Massachusetts, 150. Wilson, Rev. John, 175. Winslow, Governor, Letter of, 104. Winthrop, John, 54, 58, 62, 92, 95, 136, 404. Wheelwright, Rev. John, 169. Sermon of, 173. Trial of, for sedition, 175. Banishment of, 180. Williams, Rev. Roger, 87, 102, 192. Wines, sale of, licensed by the general court, 95. U ncas, 121, 123, 124. Yarmouth, the ' from, 405. Y. " Humble Request " ERRATUM. On page 365, fifth line from bottom, for Stuart read Stewart. 3 9002 00663 8325 to to oo on