Sicut patribus, sit Deus nobis.
(As with the Fathers, so may God be with us.)
Seal of Boston.
IN their personal visitation the colonial leaders had opportunity to confer on matters of mutual interest, before there was any thought of their respective territories becoming merged indissolubly into a noble Commonwealth. In 1630 Bradford had received in his name a patent, which ten years later the Plymouth court requested to have; but on his ready compliance, it returned the same at once to him, to whom and his heirs it had been made out by the authorities in England. This charter specified the area of the Old Colony, which, under the jurisdiction of Plymouth, extended from Scituate, considerably below Boston harbor, to Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island, with Cape Cod on the east. Not long after this it included ten towns.
Soon a decided forward step was taken, toward unity. In September 7, 1643, a confederation was formed, composed of the colonies of Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Connecticut and New Haven, and named The United Colonies of New England. Probably this coalition was in the minds of those who founded the United States of America. There are similarities in the very constitutions of the two governmental organizations, small and large. The four colonial sections were associated on a basis of political equality. A federal congress was formed, there being two representative delegates from every Colony, who were called commissioners, with one of them presiding. William Bradford was four times a commissioner from Plymouth; and twice he was chosen president, the second time in 1656, the last full year of his life.
The preamble to this federal constitution thus commences: "Wheras we all came into these parts of America with one and ye same end and aime, namly, to advance the kingdome of our Lord Jesus Christ, & to injoye ye liberties of ye Gospell in puritie with peace; and wheras in our setling (by a wise providence of God) we are further disperced upon ye sea coasts and rivers then was at first intended, so yt we cannot, according to our desires, communicate in one governmente & jurisdiction;—"
This union was highly desirable, from considerations foreign and domestic. The supreme home government was in a condition of uncertainty suggestive of either radical change or revolution itself; and so it would be less able to attend to its provinces in case of need. And need might be at any time, with rival neighboring colonies under other national flags, and with the growing realization of the savages that if they wished for their former independence they must fight for it, soon or never. These facts were plainly perceived in the English settlements, with their loose and informal interconnection of only national and religious sympathy.
The Massachusetts Bay Colony, beginning at Salem, had been powerfully augmented at Charlestown and Boston in the summer of 1630, by the arrival of its Governor John Winthrop and others who were soon followed by the New England fleet of no less than ten more vessels carrying about fifteen hundred colonists. The great natural facilities of Boston harbor and its environments encouraged a steady and numerous immigration, so that in 1643, the year of confederation, it is estimated that five times as many were found there as in the Old Colony. Connecticut comprised now about the same number as the latter, three thousand, and New Haven half a thousand less. Numerically, therefore, the English in New England were not yet strong. Yet they were constantly growing in this and every respect, having now nearly fifteen thousand acres of grain and a thousand acres in gardens and orchards, with two thousand cattle and three thousand sheep.
The limited body of legislators in this confederation, was composed, however, of truly representative men. And Bradford had much previous experience in law. The first few and simple statutes of Plymouth were revised and enlarged in 1636, when eight delegates, representing also Duxbury and Scituate, co-operated with the Governor and his seven assistants.