The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5)

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{1606}

The steps by which the first, or southern colony, advanced to a firm
and permanent establishment, were slow and painful. The company for
founding the second, or northern colony, was composed of gentlemen
residing in Plymouth, and other parts of the west of England; was less
wealthy, and possessed fewer resources than the first company, which
resided in the capital. Their efforts were consequently more feeble,
and less successful, than those which were made in the south.[47]

[Footnote 47: Robertson.]

{1607}

{1608}

{1614}

The first vessel fitted out by this company was captured and
confiscated by the Spaniards, who, at that time, asserted a right to
exclude the ships of all other nations from navigating the American
seas. Not discouraged by this misfortune, the company in the following
year dispatched two other vessels, having on board about two hundred
persons designed to form the proposed settlement. The colonists
arrived safely on the American coast in autumn, and took possession of
a piece of ground near the river Sagahadoc, where they built fort St.
George. Their sufferings during the ensuing winter were extreme. Many
of the company, among whom were Gilbert their admiral, and George
Popham their president, sank under the diseases by which they were
attacked; and the vessels which brought them supplies in the following
spring, brought also the information that their principal patron, Sir
John Popham, chief justice of England, was dead. Discouraged by their
losses and sufferings, and by the death of a person on whom they
relied chiefly for assistance, the surviving colonists determined to
abandon the country, and embark on board the vessels then returning to
England. The frightful pictures they drew of the country, and of the
climate, deterred the company, for some time, from farther attempts to
make a settlement, and their enterprizes were limited to voyages for
the purposes of taking fish, and of trading with the natives for furs.
One of these was made by captain Smith, so distinguished in the
history of Virginia. Having explored, with great accuracy, that part
of the coast which stretches from Penobscot to Cape Cod, he delineated
it on a map; which he presented to the young Prince of Wales, with
descriptions dictated by a sanguine mind, in which enthusiasm was
combined with genius. The imagination of the Prince was so wrought
upon by the glowing colours in which Smith painted the country, that
he declared it should be called New England, which name it has ever
since retained.[48]

[Footnote 48: Robertson. Chalmer. Hutchison.]

The languishing company of Plymouth, however, could not be stimulated
to engage in farther schemes of colonisation, the advantages of which
were distant and uncertain, while the expense was immediate and
inevitable. To a stronger motive than even interest, is New England
indebted for its first settlement.

An obscure sect, which had acquired the appellation of Brownists from
the name of its founder, and which had rendered itself peculiarly
obnoxious by the democracy of its tenets respecting church government,
had been driven by persecution to take refuge at Leyden in Holland,
where its members formed a distinct society under the care of their
pastor, Mr. John Robinson. There they resided several years in safe
obscurity. This situation, at length, became irksome to them. Their
families intermingled with the Dutch, and they saw before them, with
extreme apprehension, the danger of losing their separate identity.
Under the influence of these and other causes, they came to the
determination of removing in a body to America.

{1618}

They applied to the London company for a grant of lands; and, to
promote the success of their application by the certainty of their
emigrating, they said, "that they were well weaned from the delicate
milk of their mother country, and inured to the difficulties of a
strange land. That they were knit together in a strict and sacred
bond, by virtue of which they held themselves bound to take care of
the good of each other, and of the whole. That it was not with them,
as with other men, whom small things could discourage, or small
discontents cause to wish themselves at home again." The only
privilege on which they insisted, was a license under the great seal,
to practise and profess religion in that mode, which, under the
impulse of conscience, they had adopted. This reasonable and moderate
request was refused. James had already established the church of
England in Virginia; and, although he promised to connive at their
non-conformity, and not to molest them while they demeaned themselves
peaceably, he positively refused to give that explicit and solemn
pledge of security, which they required. This, for a short time,
suspended their removal; but the causes of their discontent in Holland
continuing, they, at length, determined to trust to the verbal
declarations of the King, and negotiated with the Virginia company for
a tract of land within the limits of their patent.[49]

[Footnote 49: Robertson.]

{1620}

[Sidenote: Settlement at New Plymouth.]

In September, they sailed from England, with only one hundred and
twenty men, in a single ship. Their destination was Hudson's river;
but the first land they made was Cape Cod. They soon perceived that
they were not only beyond their own limits, but beyond those of the
company from which they derived their title; but it was now the month
of November, and consequently too late in the season again to put to
sea in search of a new habitation. After exploring the coast, they
chose a position for their station, to which they gave the name of New
at New Plymouth. On the 11th of November, before landing, a solemn
covenant was signed by the heads of families, and freemen, in which,
after reciting that they had undertaken to plant a colony for the
glory of God, and for the honour of their King and country, and
professing their loyalty to their sovereign Lord King James, they
combined themselves into a body politic, for the purpose of making
equal laws for the general good.[50]

[Footnote 50: Robertson. Chalmer. Hutchison.]

Having thus formed a compact, the obligation of which all admitted,
they proceeded to the choice of a governor for one year; and to enable
him the better to discharge the trust confided to him, they gave him
one assistant. In 1624, three others were added; and the number was
afterwards increased to seven. The supreme power resided in, and,
during the infancy of the colony, was exercised by, the whole body of
the male inhabitants. They assembled together, occasionally, to
determine on all subjects of public concern; nor was a house of
representatives established until the year 1639. They adopted the laws
of England as a common rule of action, adding occasionally municipal
regulations. Some of the changes in their penal code strongly marked
their character and circumstances. While only a moderate fine was
imposed on forgery, fornication was punished with whipping, and
adultery with death.[51]

[Footnote 51: Robertson. Chalmer. Hutchison.]

Misguided by their religious theories, they fell into the same error
which had been committed in Virginia, and, in imitation of the
primitive Christians, threw all their property into a common stock,
laboured jointly for the common benefit, and were fed from the common
stores. This regulation produced, even in this small and enthusiastic
society, its constant effect. They were often in danger of starving;
and severe whipping, administered to promote labour, only increased
discontent.

The colonists landed at a season of the year which was unfavourable to
the establishment of a new settlement. The winter, which was intensely
cold, had already commenced; and they were not in a condition to
soften its rigours. Before the return of spring, fifty of them
perished with maladies increased by the hardships to which they were
exposed, by the scarcity of food, and by the almost total privation of
those comforts to which they had been accustomed. The survivors, as
the season moderated, encountered new difficulties. Their attention to
the means of providing for their future wants was interrupted by the
necessity of taking up arms to defend themselves against the
neighbouring savages. Fortunately for the colonists, the natives had
been so wasted by pestilence, the preceding year, that they were
easily subdued, and compelled to accept a peace, on equitable terms.

The colonists were supported, under these multiplied distresses, by
the hope of better times, and by that high gratification which men
exasperated by persecution and oppression, derived from the enjoyment
of the rights of conscience, and the full exercise of the powers of
self-government. From their friends in England, they received
occasional but scanty supplies; and continued to struggle against
surrounding difficulties, with patience and perseverance. They
remained in peace, alike exempt from the notice and oppression of
government. Yet, in consequence of the unproductiveness of their soil,
and their adherence to the pernicious policy of a community of goods
and of labour, they increased more slowly than the other colonies;
and, in the year 1630, amounted to only three hundred souls.

Until the year 1630, they possessed no other title to their lands than
is derived from occupancy. In that year they obtained a grant from the
New Plymouth company, but were never incorporated as a body politic by
royal charter. Having received no powers from the parliament or King,
and being totally disregarded by the Plymouth company, they remained a
mere voluntary association, yielding obedience to laws, and to
magistrates, formed and chosen by themselves. In this situation they
continued undisturbed, and almost unknown, more tolerant and more
moderate than their neighbours, until their union with a younger, and
more powerful sister, who advanced with a growth unusually rapid to a
state of maturity.[52]

[Footnote 52: Robertson. Chalmer. Hutchison.]

The original company of Plymouth, having done nothing effectual
towards settling the territory which had been granted to them, and
being unable to preserve the monopoly of their trade and fisheries,
applied to James for a new and more enlarged patent. On the 3d of
November, he granted that territory which lies between the 40th and
48th degrees of north latitude to the Duke of Lenox, the Marquis of
Buckingham, and several others, in absolute property; and incorporated
them under the name of "the council established at Plymouth, for
planting and governing that country called New England;" with
jurisdiction and powers similar to those which had before been
conferred on the companies of south and north Virginia, and especially
that of excluding all other persons whatever from trading within their
boundaries and fishing in the neighbouring seas. This improvident
grant, which excited the indignation of the people of England, then
deeply interested in the fur trade and fisheries, soon engaged the
attention, and received the censure of parliament. The patentees were
compelled to relinquish their odious monopoly; and, being thus
deprived of the funds on which they had relied to furnish the expense
of supporting new settlements, they abandoned the design of attempting
them. New England might have remained long unoccupied by Europeans,
had not the same causes, which occasioned the emigration of the
Brownists, still continued to operate. The persecution to which the
puritans were exposed, increased their zeal and their numbers. In
despair of obtaining at home a relaxation of those rigorous penal
statutes under which they had long smarted, they looked elsewhere for
that toleration which was denied them in their native land.
Understanding that their brethren in New Plymouth were permitted to
worship their creator according to the dictates of conscience, their
attention was directed towards the same coast; and several small
emigrations were made, at different times, to Massachusetts bay; so
termed from the name of the Sachem who was sovereign of the country.

{1627}

[Sidenote: Sir Henry Rosewell and others.]

Mr. White, a non-conforming minister at Dorchester, formed an
association of several gentlemen, who had imbibed puritanical
opinions, for the purpose of conducting a colony to the bay of
Massachusetts, and rendering it an asylum for the persecuted of his
own persuasion. In prosecution of these views, a treaty was concluded
with the council of Plymouth for the purchase of part of New England;
and that corporation, in March 1627, sold to Sir Henry Rosewell and
others, all that part of New England lying three miles to the south of
Charles river, and three miles north of Merrimack river, and extending
from the Atlantic to the South sea. A small number of planters and
servants were, soon afterwards, dispatched under Endicot, who, in
September, laid the foundation of Salem, the first permanent town in
Massachusetts.[53]

[Footnote 53: Robertson. Chalmer. Hutchison.]

{1628}

The purchasers perceived their inability to accomplish the settlement
of the extensive regions they had acquired, without the aid of more
opulent partners. These were soon found in the capital; but they
required that a new charter should be obtained from the crown,
comprehending their names, which should confirm the grant to the
council of Plymouth, and confer on the grantees the powers of
government. So seldom is man instructed by the experience of others,
that, disregarding the lessons furnished by Virginia, they likewise
required that the supreme authority should be vested in persons
residing in London. The proprietors having acceded to these
requisitions, application was made to Charles for a patent conforming
to them, which issued on the 4th day of March, 1628.

This charter incorporated the grantees by the name of "The governor
and company of Massachusetts bay in New England."

The whole executive power was vested in a governor, a deputy governor,
and eighteen assistants; to be named, in the first instance, by the
crown, and afterwards elected by the company. The governor, and seven,
or more, of the assistants, were authorised to meet in monthly courts,
for the dispatch of such business as concerned the company, or
settlement. The legislative power was vested in the body of the
proprietors, who were to assemble four times a year in person, under
the denomination of the general court; and besides electing freemen,
and the necessary officers of the company, were empowered to make
ordinances for the good of the community, and the government of the
plantation and its inhabitants; provided they should not be repugnant
to the laws of England. Their lands were to be holden in free and
common soccage; and the same temporary exemption from taxes, and from
duties on exports and imports, which had been granted to the colony of
Virginia, was accorded to them. As in the charter of Virginia, so in
this, the colonists and their descendants were declared to be entitled
to all the rights and privileges of natural born subjects.

The patent being obtained, the governor and council engaged with
ardour in the duties assigned them. To support the expenses of a fresh
embarkation, it was resolved that every person subscribing fifty
pounds, should be entitled to two hundred acres of land as the first
dividend. Five vessels sailed in May, carrying about two hundred
persons, who reached Salem in June. At that place they found Endicot,
to whom they brought a confirmation of his commission as governor. The
colony consisted of three hundred persons, one hundred of whom removed
to Charlestown.

Religion, which had stimulated them to remove from their native land,
became the first object of their care in the country they had adopted.
Being zealous puritans, they concurred in the institution of a church,
establishing that form of policy, which has since been denominated
independent. A confession of faith was drawn up to which the majority
assented; and an association was formed in which they covenanted with
the Lord, and with each other, to walk together in all his ways, as he
should be pleased to reveal himself to them. Pastors, and other
ecclesiastical officers, were chosen, who were installed into their
sacred offices, by the imposition of the hands of the brethren.[54]

[Footnote 54: Robertson.]

A church being thus formed, several were received as members who gave
an account of their faith and hope as Christians; and those only were
admitted into the communion, whose morals and religious tenets were
approved by the elders.[55]

[Footnote 55: Robertson.]

{1629}

Pleased with the work of their hands, and believing it to be perfect,
they could tolerate no difference of opinion. Just escaped from
persecution, they became persecutors themselves. Some few of their
number, attached to the ritual of the church of England, were
dissatisfied with its total abolition; and, withdrawing from communion
with the church, met apart, to worship God in the manner they deemed
most proper. At the head of this small number were two of the first
patentees, who were also of the council. They were called before the
governor, who, being of opinion that their non-conformity and
conversation tended to sedition, sent them to England. The opposition
ceased when deprived of its leaders.[56]

[Footnote 56: Robertson. Chalmer. Hutchison.]

[Sidenote: Government transferred to Massachusetts bay.]

The following winter brought with it the calamities which must be
uniformly sustained by the first emigrants into a wilderness, where
the cold is severe, and the privations almost universal. In the course
of it, nearly half their number perished, "lamenting that they did not
live to see the rising glories of the faithful." The fortitude,
however, of the survivors, was not shaken; nor were their brethren in
England deterred from joining them. Religion supported the colonists
under all their difficulties; and the intolerant spirit of the English
hierarchy diminished, in the view of the puritans in England, the
dangers and the sufferings to be encountered in America; and disposed
them to forego every other human enjoyment, for the consoling
privilege of worshipping the Supreme Being according to their own
opinions. Many persons of fortune determined to seek in the new world
that liberty of conscience which was denied them in the old; but,
foreseeing the misrule inseparable from the residence of the
legislative power in England, they demanded, as preliminary to their
emigration, that the powers of government should be transferred to New
England, and be exercised in the colony. The company had already
incurred expenses for which they saw no prospect of a speedy
reimbursement; and although they doubted the legality of the measure,
were well disposed by adopting it, to obtain such important aid. A
general court was therefore convened, by whom it was unanimously
resolved "that the patent should be transferred, and the government of
the colony removed from London to Massachusetts bay." It was also
agreed that the members of the corporation remaining in England,
should retain a share in the trading stock and profits for the term of
seven years.[57]

[Footnote 57: Robertson. Chalmer. Hutchison.]

{1630}

[Sidenote: Boston founded.]

Such was the effect of this revolution in the system of government,
that, early in the following year, fifteen hundred persons, among whom
were several of family and fortune, embarked, at an expense of upwards
of twenty thousand pounds, and arrived at Salem in July. Dissatisfied
with this situation, they explored the country in quest of better
stations; and, settling in many places around the bay, they laid the
foundation of several towns, and, among others, of Boston.

{1631}

The difficulty of obtaining subsistence, the difference of their food
from that to which they had been accustomed, the intense cold of the
winter, against which sufficient provision was not yet made, were
still severely felt by the colonists, and still carried many of them
to the grave; but that enthusiasm which had impelled them to emigrate,
preserved all its force; and they met, with a firm unshaken spirit,
the calamities which assailed them. Our admiration of their fortitude
and of their principles, sustains, however, some diminution from
observing the sternness with which they denied to others that civil
and religious liberty which, through so many dangers and hardships,
they sought for themselves. Their general court decreed that none
should be admitted as freemen, or permitted to vote at elections, or
be capable of being chosen as magistrates, or of serving as jurymen,
but such as had been received into the church as members. Thus did men
who had braved every hardship for freedom of conscience, deny the
choicest rights of humanity, to all those who dissented from the
opinion of the majority on any article of faith, or point of church
discipline.

{1633}

The numerous complaints of the severities exercised by the government
of Massachusetts, added to the immense emigration of persons noted for
their enthusiasm, seem, at length, to have made some impression on
Charles; and an order was made by the King in council, to stop the
ships at that time ready to sail, freighted with passengers for New
England. This order, however, seems never to have been strictly
executed, as the emigrations continued without any sensible
diminution.

{1634}

Hitherto the legislature had been composed of the whole body of the
freemen. Under this system, so favourable to the views of the few who
possess popular influence, the real power of the state had been
chiefly engrossed by the governor and assistants, aided by the clergy.
The emigration, however, having already been considerable, and the
settlements having become extensive, it was found inconvenient, if not
impracticable, longer to preserve a principle which their charter
enjoined. In the year 1634, by common consent, the people elected
delegates who met the governor and council, and constituted the
general court. This important improvement in their system, rendered
familiar, and probably suggested, by the practice in the mother
country, although not authorised by the charter, remained unaltered,
so long as that charter was permitted to exist.[58]

[Footnote 58: Robertson. Chalmer. Hutchison.]

[Sidenote: Commission for the government of the plantations.]

{1635}

The colony of Massachusetts having been conducted, from its
commencement, very much on the plan of an independent society, at
length attracted the partial notice of the jealous administration in
England; and a commission for "the regulation and government of the
plantations" was issued to the great officers of state, and to some of
the nobility, in which absolute power was granted to the archbishop of
Canterbury and to others, "to make laws and constitutions concerning
either their state public, or the utility of individuals." The
commissioners were authorised to support the clergy by assigning them
"tithes, oblations, and other profits, according to their discretion;
to inflict punishment on those who should violate their ordinances; to
remove governors of plantations, and to appoint others; and to
constitute tribunals and courts of justice, ecclesiastical and civil,
with such authority and form as they should think proper;" but their
laws were not to take effect until they had received the royal assent,
and had been proclaimed in the colonies. The commissioners were also
constituted a committee to hear complaints against a colony, its
governor or other officers, with power to remove the offender to
England for punishment. They were farther directed to cause the
revocation of such letters patent, granted for the establishment of
colonies, as should, upon inquiry, be found to have been unduly
obtained, or to contain a grant of liberties hurtful to the royal
prerogative.[59]

[Footnote 59: Chalmer. Hutchison.]

From the first settlement at Salem, the colony of Massachusetts had
cultivated the friendship of their neighbours of New Plymouth. The
bonds of mutual amity were now rendered more strict, not only by some
appearances of a hostile disposition among the natives, but by another
circumstance which excited alarm in both colonies.

The voyages for discovery and settlement, made by the English and
French, to the coast of North America, having been nearly
cotemporaneous, their conflicting claims soon brought them into
collision with each other. The same lands were granted by the
sovereigns of both nations; and, under these different grants, actual
settlements had been made by the French as far south and west as St.
Croix, and, by the English, as far north and east as Penobscot. During
the war with France, which broke out early in the reign of Charles I.,
that monarch granted a commission to captain Kirk for the conquest of
the countries in America occupied by the French; under which, in 1629,
Canada and Acadie were subdued; but, by the treaty of St. Germains,
those places were restored to France without any description of their
limits; and Fort Royal, Quebec, and Cape Breton, were severally
surrendered by name. In 1632, a party of French from Acadie committed
a robbery on a trading house established at Penobscot by the people of
New Plymouth. With the intelligence of this fact, information was also
brought that cardinal Richelieu had ordered some companies to Acadie,
and that more were expected the next year, with priests, Jesuits, and
other formidable accompaniments, for a permanent settlement. The
governor of Acadie established a military post at Penobscot, and, at
the same time wrote to the governor of New Plymouth stating, that he
had orders to displace the English as far as Pemaquid. Not being
disposed to submit quietly to this invasion of territory, the
government of New Plymouth undertook an expedition for the recovery of
the fort at Penobscot, consisting of an English ship of war under the
command of captain Girling, and a bark with twenty men belonging to
the colony. The garrison received notice of this armament, and
prepared for its reception by fortifying and strengthening the fort;
in consequence of which Girling, after expending his ammunition and
finding himself too weak to attempt the works by assault, applied to
Massachusetts for aid. That colony agreed to furnish one hundred men,
and to bear the expense of the expedition by private subscription; but
a sufficient supply of provisions, even for this small corps, could
not be immediately obtained, and the expedition was abandoned. Girling
returned, and the French retained possession of Penobscot till 1654.
The apprehensions entertained of these formidable neighbours
contributed, in no small degree, to cement the union between
Massachusetts and Plymouth.[60]

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