England in America, 1580-1652 Part 14

Fortunately, about this time another s.h.i.+p from Virginia, bearing the secretary of state, John Pory, arrived, and sold the colonists a supply of truck for trading; by which they bought from the Indians not only corn, but beaver, which proved afterwards a source of much profit.

Weston's people removed to Wessagusset (modern Weymouth), on Ma.s.sachusetts Bay, where they conducted themselves in so reckless a manner that they ran the double risk of starvation and destruction from savages. To save them, Bradford, in March, 1623, despatched a company under Captain Miles Standish, who brought them corn and killed several of the Indians. Then Standish helped Weston's "rude fellows"

aboard s.h.i.+p and saw them safely off to sea. Shortly after Weston came over to look after his emigrants, fell into the hands of the Indians, escaped to Plymouth, where the colonists helped him away, and returned in October, 1623, to create more disturbance.

Weston was not the only one of the partners that gave the colonists trouble. John Pierce took advantage of the prominence given him by the patent issued in his name for the benefit of all, to get a new one which made him sole actual owner of the territory. His partners resented this injustice, and the Council for New England, in March, 1623, was induced to revoke the grant to Pierce.[5]

About this time Bradford made a great change in the industrial system of the colony. At Plymouth, as at Jamestown, communism was found to breed "confusion and discontent," and he tried the experiment of a.s.signing to every family, in proportion to its size, a tract of land.

In July, 1623, arrived sixty other settlers, and the old planters feared another period of starvation. Nevertheless, when harvest-time arrived, the wisdom of Bradford's appeal to private interest was demonstrated, for instead of misery and scarcity there was joyfulness, and "plentie of corn." Later experience was equally convincing, for, as Bradford wrote many years after, "any general wante or famine hath not been known amongst them since to this day."

While the Pilgrim fathers were overcoming their difficulties in Ma.s.sachusetts, the Council for New England were struggling with the London Company to maintain the monopoly of fis.h.i.+ng and fur trading on the North Atlantic coast granted to them by their charter. The London Company complained to the king in 1620 and to Parliament in 1621, but the king refused any relief, and prevented Parliament from interfering by dissolving it.[6] Thereupon, the Council for New England, appreciating the danger, made a grand effort to accomplish something in America. As a preliminary step they induced the king to publish a proclamation, November 6, 1622, against all unlicensed trading and other infringements upon the rights granted them,[7] and shortly afterwards sent out Francis West as admiral to reduce the fishermen on the coast to obedience. West came to America, but found them "stuberne fellows,"[8] and he returned in about a year to England without effecting anything.

During his absence the Council for New England set to work to send out a colony under Robert Gorges, son of Sir Ferdinando; and, June 29, 1623, a division was made among twenty patentees, of the North Atlantic coast from the Bay of Fundy to Narragansett Bay.[9] In September, 1623, Gorges arrived at Plymouth attended by an Episcopal minister, William Morell, and a company of settlers, whom he planted at Wessagusset. He remained in New England throughout the winter, and in the effort to exert his authority had a long wrangle with Weston.

In the spring of 1624 he received news from his father that discouraged his further stay. It seems that in March, 1624, a committee of Parliament, at the head of which was Sir Edward c.o.ke, had reported the charter of the Council for New England as a national grievance, which so discouraged the patentees that most of them abandoned the enterprise, and it became, in the language of the elder Gorges, "a carca.s.s in a manner breathless."[10] After Robert Gorges'

departure most of his party dispersed, some going to England and some to Virginia, but a few remained at Wessagusset, which was never entirely abandoned.

The relations between the colony and the London merchant adventurers, never very pleasant, became more unsatisfactory as time went on. The colonists naturally wanted to bring over their friends at Leyden, but the partners regarded Robinson as the great leader of the Independents, and London was already rife with rumors of the heretical character of the rulers at Plymouth. It seemed to the partners evidently for their interest to introduce settlers of a different religious opinion from Bradford and Brewster, and to this was largely due the fact that the emigrants who came over after the Mayflower's return in 1621 had little in common with the original band of Pilgrims.

In January, 1624, arrived another miscellaneous cargo, including a minister named John Lyford. Upon his arrival he professed intense sympathy with the settlers, and when they received him as a member of their church he renounced, pursuant to the extreme tenets of Separatism, "all universall, nationall, and diocessan churches."[11]

Nevertheless, he joined with John Oldham, who came the year before, in a conspiracy to overturn the government; but was detected and finally banished from the colony. In March, 1625, Lyford and Oldham went to Wessagusset, from which they moved with Roger Conant and other friends to Nantasket, where, in the mean time, a new settlement had sprung up.

In the division of 1623, the region around Cape Ann fell to Lord Sheffield, and the same year he conveyed the country to Robert Cushman and Edward Winslow in behalf of the colonists at Plymouth.[12] The next year the new owners sent a party to establish a fis.h.i.+ng stage at Cape Ann, but they found other persons on the spot, for in 1623 some merchants of Dorchester, England, who regularly sent vessels to catch fish in the waters of New England, had conceived the idea of planting a colony on the coast, and in the summer of that year landed fourteen men at Cape Ann, soon increased to thirty-four.

For some months the two parties got along amicably together and fished side by side. An element of discord was introduced in 1625 when the Dorchester men invited Roger Conant and Rev. Mr. Lyford from Nantasket, and made the former manager and the latter minister of their settlement; while John Oldham was asked to become their agent to trade with the Indians. A short time after, the crew of a vessel belonging to the Dorchester adventurers, instigated, it is said, by Lyford, took from the Plymouth men their fis.h.i.+ng stage; whereupon Miles Standish came with soldiers from Plymouth, and the rival parties would have come to blows had not Conant interfered and settled the matter.[13] The Plymouth settlers built a new stage, but, as the war with Spain affected the sale of fish, they soon abandoned the enterprise altogether. The Dorchester men had no better fortune, and the discouraged merchants at home, in 1626, broke up their colony and sold their s.h.i.+pping and most of their other property.[14] Lyford went to Virginia, where he soon died, and all the other settlers, except Conant and three others, returned to England.

The colony at Plymouth, in the mean time, was signally prospering, and soon felt strong enough to dissolve the troublesome relations with the merchant partners, who had fallen into dissensions among themselves.

For this purpose the colonists made, in 1627, an agreement by which for 1800, to be paid in nine annual instalments of 200 each, the colonists were relieved from all va.s.salage under their original contract.[15]

Custodians of their own fortunes, they now established trading-posts at several places on the coast--at Manomet, on Buzzard's Bay (1627), at Kennebec (1628), and at Pen.o.bscot and Machias Bay (1629). In addition they made arrangements for reunion with their friends in Holland, one party of whom arrived in 1629 and another in 1630, though Robinson, the Moses of the Pilgrims, was never permitted to join them, having died March 1, 1626,[16] in Leyden.

They tried also to obtain a charter from the king, but they never could get anything better than a fresh patent from the Council for New England. This patent,[17] dated January 13, 1630, empowered Bradford and his a.s.sociates "to incorporate by some usual and fit name and t.i.tle him and themselves, or the people there inhabiting under him or them, with liberty to them and their successors from time to time to frame and make orders, ordinances, and const.i.tutions" not contrary to the laws of England or to any government established by the council.

The patent had the merit of defining the extent of territory belonging to the Plymouth settlers, and granted "all that part of New England in America aforesaid and Tracte and Tractes of Land that lye within or betweene a certaine Reuolett or Runlett there commonly called Coaha.s.sett alias Conaha.s.sett towards the North and the Riuer commonly called Narragansett Riuer towards the South and the great Westerne Ocean towards the East, and betweene, and within a Streight Line directly Extending up Into the Maine Land towards the west from the mouth of the said Riuer called Narragansett Riuer to the utmost bounds of a Country or place in New England Commonly called Pokenacutt als Sowamsett, westward, and another like Streight line Extending it Self Directly from the mouth of the said Riuer called Coaha.s.sett als Conaha.s.sett towards the West so farr up into the Main Land Westwards as the Vtmost Limitts of the said place or Country Commonly called Pokenacutt als Sowamsett Do Extend togeather with one half of the s^d Riuer called Narragansett and the s^d Reuolett or Runlett called Coaha.s.sett als Conaha.s.sett and all Lands Riuers waters hauens Ports Creeks ffihings fowlings and all hereditaments Proffitts Commodityes and Imoluments Whatsoeuer Scituate Lyeing and being or ariseing within or betweene the said Limitts or bounds or any of them." For trading purposes the patent also gave them a tract extending fifteen miles in breadth on each bank of the Kennebec.

Among the "scattered beginnings" in the neighborhood of Plymouth, the most interesting, because the most contrasted with the Puritan colony at Plymouth, was Captain Wollaston's settlement, established in 1625 a little north of Wessagusset. His men were, for the most part, servants, and Wollaston finding, soon after his arrival, that they could be used to better advantage in Virginia, transported some of them to that colony.

During his absence one Thomas Morton, a lawyer of Clifford's Inn, a.s.serted his authority, freed the rest of the settlers, and engaged in a successful traffic with the Indians for beaver and other skins. This circ.u.mstance was itself calculated to excite the jealousy of the Plymouth settlers, but the ceremonies and customs at "Merry Mount,"

which name Morton gave to the settlement in lieu of "Mount Wollaston,"

caused them to regard him with even greater disgust. He inst.i.tuted the Episcopal service and planted a May-pole eighty feet high, around which, for many days together, the settlers "frisked" hand-in-hand with the Indian girls.

As Morton was outside of the Plymouth jurisdiction, the colonists there had no right to interfere except in self-defence. But the Plymouth people a.s.serted that Morton sold arms to the Indians and received runaway servants. This made him dangerous, and all the other "straggling settlements," though, like Morton's, of the church of England, united with the people at Plymouth in suppressing Morton's settlement. In June, 1628, a joint force under Captain Miles Standish was sent against Merry Mount, and Morton was captured and s.h.i.+pped to England in charge of John Oldham, who had made his peace with Plymouth, and now took with him letters to the Council for New England and to Sir Ferdinando Gorges, in which Morton's offences were duly set forth.[18]

The settlements besides Plymouth which took part in the expedition were Piscataqua (Portsmouth); Nantasket (now Hull), then the seat of John Oldham; Naumkeag (now Salem); Winnisimmet (now Chelsea), where Mr. Jeffrey and Mr. Burslem lived; Cocheco, on the Piscataqua, where Edward Hilton lived; Thompson's Island, where the widow of David Thompson lived; and Shawmut (now Boston), where Rev. William Blackstone lived. Besides the settlements, there were in the neighborhood of Plymouth plantations of some solitary settlers whose names do not appear in this transaction. Thomas Walford lived at Mishawum (now Charlestown), and Samuel Maverick on Noddle's Island; Wessagusset also had probably a few inhabitants.

In 1627 De Rasieres, the secretary of state of the Dutch colony at New Netherland, opened a correspondence with Governor Bradford and a.s.sured him of his desire to cultivate friendly relations. Bradford gave a kind reply, but questioned the right of the Dutch on the coast, and invited Rasieres to a conference. He accepted the invitation, and in 1628 visited the Puritan settlement. A profitable exchange of merchandise succeeded, and the Dutch taught the Plymouth men the value of wampum in trading for furs, and sold them 50 worth of it. It was found useful both as a currency and commodity, and afterwards the settlers learned to make it from the sh.e.l.ls on the sea-sh.o.r.e.[19] It was not till five years later that this peaceful correspondence with the Dutch was disturbed.

Unfriendliness characterized, from the first, the relations with the French. They claimed that Acadia extended as far south as Pemaquid, and one day in 1631, when the manager of the Pen.o.bscot factory was away, a French privateer appeared in port and landed its crew. In the story, as told by Bradford, the levity of the French and the solemn seriousness of the Puritans afford a delightful contrast. The Frenchmen were profuse in "compliments" and "congees," but taking the English at a disadvantage forced them to an unconditional surrender.

They stripped the factory of its goods, and as they sailed away bade their victims tell the manager when he came back "that the Isle of Rhe gentlemen had been there."[20] In 1633, after Razilly's appointment as governor-general, De la Tour, one of his lieutenants, attacked and drove away the Plymouth men at Machias Bay,[21] and in 1635 D'Aulnay, another lieutenant, dispossessed the English at Pen.o.bscot.

The Plymouth people, greatly incensed, sent two armed s.h.i.+ps to punish the French, but the expedition proved a failure. Then they appealed to Ma.s.sachusetts for help, but the great men of that colony, hoping, as Bradford intimates, to arrange a trade with the French on their own account, declined to be at any expense in the matter,[22] and so the Pen.o.bscot remained in unfriendly hands for many years.

This appeal to Ma.s.sachusetts showed that another power had stepped to the front in New England. After John Winthrop set up his government in 1630 on Ma.s.sachusetts Bay the history of the Plymouth colony ceased to be of first importance, and therefore the remaining events in her annals need not take much s.p.a.ce. In 1633 the people of Plymouth established a fort on Connecticut River above the Dutch post, so as to intercept the Indian trade, and in 1639 they renewed the ancient league with Ma.s.sasoit.[23] In 1640 they had a dispute with Ma.s.sachusetts over the boundary-line, which was arranged by a compromise, and in 1641 William Bradford deeded to the freemen of the corporation of New Plymouth the patent of 1630, granted by the Council for New England to him as trustee for the colony.[24] Finally, in 1643, Plymouth became a member of the New England confederation.

A survey of these twenty-three years (1620-1643) shows that during the first eleven years the increase in population was very slow. In 1624 there were one hundred and eighty settlers and in 1630 but three hundred. The emigration to Ma.s.sachusetts, beginning in 1629, brought about a great change. It overflowed into Plymouth, and in twelve years more the population had increased to three thousand.[25] The new settlers were a miscellaneous set, composed for the most part of "unruly servants" and dissipated young men, whose ill conduct caused the old rulers like Bradford to question "whether after twenty years'

time the greater part be not grown worser."[26] Nevertheless, the people increased their "outward estate," and as they scattered in search of fertile land, Plymouth, "in which they lived compactly till now, was left very thin and in a short time almost desolate." In 1632 a separate church and town of the name of Duxbury was formed north of Plymouth; and eleven years later the towns of the Plymouth colony were ten in number: Plymouth, Duxbury, Scituate, Taunton, Sandwich, Yarmouth, Barnstable, Marshfield, Seeconck, or Rehoboth, and Nausett.[27]

At the first arrival the executive and judicial powers were exercised by John Carver, without any authorized adviser. After his death, in 1621, the same powers were vested in William Bradford as governor and Isaac Allerton as a.s.sistant.[28] In 1624 the number of a.s.sistants was increased to five and in 1633 to seven, and the governor was given a double voice.[29] The elective and legislative powers were vested in a primary a.s.sembly of all the freemen, called the "General Court," held at short intervals. One of these meetings was called the court of elections, and at this were chosen the governor and other officers of the colony for the ensuing year.

As the number of settlements increased, it became inconvenient for freemen to attend the general courts in person, and in 1638 the representative system was definitely introduced. Plymouth was allowed four delegates, and each of the other towns two, and they, with the governor and his council of a.s.sistants, const.i.tuted the law-making body of the colony. To be ent.i.tled to hold office or vote at the court of elections, the person had to be "a freeman"; and to acquire this character, he had to be specially chosen one of the company at one of the general courts. Thus suffrage was regarded as a privilege and not a right.[30]

Although the first of the colonies to establish a Separatist church, the Puritans of Plymouth did not make church-members.h.i.+p a condition of citizens.h.i.+p; still, there can be no doubt that this restriction practically prevailed at Plymouth, since up to 1643 only about two hundred and thirty persons acquired the suffrage. In the general laws of Plymouth, published in 1671, it was provided as a condition of receiving the franchise that "the candidate should be of sober and peaceable conversation, orthodox in the fundamentals of religion,"

which was probably only a recognition of the custom of earlier times.[31] The earliest New England code of statutes was that of Plymouth, adopted in 1636. It was digested under fifty t.i.tles and recognized seven capital offences, witchcraft being one.[32]

In the Plymouth colony, as in other colonies of New England, the unit of government was the town, and this town system was borrowed from Ma.s.sachusetts, where, as we shall see, the inhabitants of Dorchester set the example, in 1633, of coming together for governmental purposes. Ent.i.tled to take part in the town-meetings under the Plymouth laws were all freemen and persons "admitted inhabitants" of a town. They elected the deputies of the general court and the numerous officers of the town, and had the authority to pa.s.s local ordinances of nearly every description.[33]

During the early days, except for the short time of Lyford's service, Elder William Brewster was the spiritual guide for the people. For a long time they kept the place of minister waiting for Robinson, but when he died they secured, in 1628, the services of Mr. Rogers, who proved to "be crazed in his brain" and had to be sent back the following year. Then, in 1629, Mr. Ralph Smith was minister, and Roger Williams a.s.sisted him. Smith was a man of small abilities, and after enduring him for eight years they persuaded him to resign. After Smith's resignation the office of minister at Plymouth was filled by Rev. John Rayner.[34]

The educational advantages of the Plymouth colony were meagre, and the little learning that existed was picked up in the old English way by home instruction. This deficiency was due to the stern conditions of a farmer's life on Cape Cod Bay, where the soil was poor and the climate severe, necessitating the constant labor of the whole family.

Nevertheless, the Plymouth colony was always an example to its neighbors for thrift, economy, and integrity, and it influenced to industry by proving what might be done on a barren soil. Its chief claim to historical importance rests, of course, on the fact that, as the first successful colony on the New England coast, it was the cause and beginning of the establishment of the other colonies of New England, and the second step in founding the great republic of the United States.

[Footnote 1: Bradford, _Plimoth Plantation_, 112.]

[Footnote 2: Bradford, _Plimoth Plantation_, 114-117.]

[Footnote 3: Ma.s.s. Hist. Soc., _Collections_, 4th series, II., 158-163.]

[Footnote 4: Bradford, _Plimoth Plantation_, 130-133; Winslow, "Relation," in Young, _Chronicles of the Pilgrims_, 280-284.]

[Footnote 5: Bradford, _Plimoth Plantation_, 149-168; _Cal. of State Pap., Col._, 1574-1660, p. 40.]

[Footnote 6: Gorges, _Description of New England_ (Ma.s.s. Hist. Soc., _Collections_, 3d series, VI., 80).]

[Footnote 7: _Cal. of State Pap., Col._, 1574-1660, p. 33.]

[Footnote 8: Bradford, _Plimoth Plantation_, 170.]

[Footnote 9: Maine Hist. Soc., _Collections_, 2d. series, VII., 73-76.]

[Footnote 10: Adams, _Three Episodes of Ma.s.s. Hist._, I., 152.]

[Footnote 11: Bradford, _Plimoth Plantation_, 238.]

[Footnote 12: Palfrey, _New England_, I., 222, 285.]

[Footnote 13: Hubbard, _New England_ (Ma.s.s. Hist. Soc., _Collections_, 2d series, VI., 110).]

[Footnote 14: Bradford, _Plimoth Plantation_, 237; _Planters' Plea_ (Force, _Tracts_, II., No. iii.).]

[Footnote 15: Bradford, _Plimoth Plantation_, 237-258.]