Abolition of communism. After two years of labor in common had brought the colony more than once to the verge of ruin, Bradford had the courage and wisdom to cut the knot he could not untie. During the scarce springtime of 1623, he assigned all the detached persons in the colony to live with families, and then temporarily divided the ancient Indian field on which the settlement had been made among the several families in proportion to their number, leaving every household to shift for itself or suffer want. "Any general want or suffering hath not been among them since to this day," he writes years afterward. The assignment was a revolutionary stroke, in violation of the contract with the shareholders, and contrary to their wishes. But Bradford saw that it was a life-and-death necessity to be rid of the pernicious system, even at the cost of cutting off all support from England. In his history he draws a very clear picture of the evils of communism as he had observed them. [Note 9.]
XIII.
Significance of Plymouth. Why should the historian linger thus over the story of this last surviving remnant of the "Brownists"? Why have we dwelt upon the little settlement that was never very flourishing, that consisted at its best of only a few thousand peaceful and agricultural people, and that after seventy years was merged politically in its more vigorous neighbor the colony of Massachusetts Bay? Historical importance does not depend on population. Plymouth was the second step in the founding of a great nation. When Bradford and the other leaders had at last successfully extricated the little settlement from its economical difficulties, it became the sure forerunner of a greater Puritan migration. This tiny free state on the margin of a wilderness continent, like a distant glimmering pharos, showed the persecuted Puritans in England the fare-way to a harbor.
Elucidations.
[Note 1, page 162.] Sir John Harington says: "The bishops came to the Kynge aboute the petition of the puritans; I was by, and heard much dyscourse. The Kynge talked muche Latin, and disputed wyth Dr. Reynoldes, at Hampton, but he rather usede upbraidinges than argumente; and tolde the petitioners that they wanted to strip Christe againe, and bid them awaie with their snivellinge: moreover, he wishede those who woud take away the surplice mighte want linen for their own breech. The bishops seemed much pleased and said his Majestie spoke by the power of inspiration. I wist not what they mean; but the spirit was rather foule mouthede." Nugæ Antiquæ, i, 181, 182. James took pains to put an example of his bad taste on paper. In a letter on the subject he brags in these words: "We haue kept suche a reuell with the Puritainis heir these two dayes as was neuer harde the lyke, quhaire I haue pepperid thaime as soundlie as ye haue done the papists thaire.... I was forcid at the last to saye unto thaime, that if any of thaim hadde bene in a colledge disputing with their skollairs, if any of their disciples had ansoured thaim in that sorte they wolde haue fetched him up in place of a replye, and so shoulde the rodde haue plyed upon the poore boyes buttokis." Ellis Letters, Third Series, iv, 162. The principal authorities on the Hampton Court Conference are, first, "The Svmme and Svbstance of the Conference, which it pleased his excellent Majestie to have," etc., "Contracted by William Barlovv, ... Deane of Chester"; second, Dr. Montague's letter to his mother, in Winwood's Memorials, ii, 13-15; third, the letter of Patrick Galloway to the Presbytery of Edinburgh, in Calderwood, vi, 241, 242; and, fourth, a letter from Tobie Mathew, Bishop of Durham, to Hutton, Archbishop of York, in Strype's Whitgift appendix, xlv. Compare Nugæ Antiquæ, 181, 182, and the king's letter to Blake, in Ellis's Letters, third series, iv, 161, which are both cited above. Mr. Gardiner has shown (History of England, i, 159) that this letter is addressed to Northampton. There are several documents relating to the conference among the state papers calendared by Mrs. Greene under dates in January, 1604. Of the vigorous action taken against the Puritans after the conference, some notion may be formed by the letter of protest from the aged Matthew Hutton, Archbishop of York, to Lord Cranborne, in Lodge's Illustrations of British History, iii, 115, and Cranborne's reply, ibid., 125.
[Note 2, page 168.] Stith has not the weight of an original authority, but he is justly famous for accuracy in following his authorities, and he had access to many papers relating to the history of Virginia which are now lost. Under the year 1608 he says: "Doctor Whitgift, Arch-Bishop of Canterbury, ... having died four Years before this, was succeeded to that high Preferment by Dr. Richard Bancroft.... He had very high Notions with Relation to the Government of both Church and State; and was accordingly a great Stickler for, and Promoter of, the King's absolute Power, and failed not to take all Occasions, to oblige the Puritans to conform to the Church of England. This Prelate's Harshness and Warmth caused many of that People to take the Resolution this Year of settling themselves in Virginia, and some were actually come off for that Purpose. But the Arch-bishop, finding that they were preparing in great Numbers to depart, obtained a Proclamation from the King, forbidding any to go, without his Majesty's express Leave." History of Virginia, 1747, p. 76.
[Note 3, page 168.] For Whitaker's filiation, Neill's Virginia Company, 78. Whitaker's Good Newes from Virginia is no doubt intended by the entry in the inventory of Brewster's goods, "Newes from Virginia." I know no other book with such a title. That Alexander Whitaker was himself touched with Puritanism, or at least was not unwilling to have Puritan ministers for colleagues, is rendered pretty certain from passages in his letters. For instance, he writes to Crashaw from Jamestown, August 9, 1611, desiring that young and "godly" ministers should come, and adds, "We have noe need either of ceremonies or bad livers." British Museum, Additional MSS., 21,993. (The letter is printed in Browne's Genesis, 499, 500.) In a letter given in Purchas and in Neill, 95, dated June 18, 1614, he says that neither subscription nor the surplice are spoken of in Virginia. It has escaped the notice of church historians that Whitaker's semi-Puritanism seems to have left traces for many years on the character and usage of the Virginia church. The Rev. Hugh Jones writes as late as 1724 in his Present State of Virginia, p. 68, that surplices were only then "beginning to be brought in Fashion," and that the people in some parishes received the Lord's Supper sitting.
[Note 4, page 173.] The late Dr. Neill was the first, I believe, to call attention to this fact, though he did not state it quite so strongly as I have put it in the text. It is worth while transferring Neill's remarks from the New England Genealogical Register, vol. XXX, 412, 413: "The action of the passengers of the Mayflower in forming a social compact before landing at Plymouth Rock seems to have been in strict accordance with the policy of the London Company, under whose patent the ship sailed. On June 9, 1619, O.S., John Whincop's patent was duly sealed by the Company, but this which had cost the Puritans so much labor and money was not used. Several months after, the Leyden people became interested in a new project. On February 2, 1619-'20, at a meeting at the house of Sir Edwin Sandys in Aldersgate, he stated to the Company that a grant had been made to John Peirce and his associates. At the same quarterly meeting it was expressly ordered that the leaders of particular plantations, associating unto them divers of the gravest and discreetest of their companies, shall have liberty to make orders, ordinances, and constitutions for the better ordering and directing of their business and servants, provided they be not repugnant to the laws of England." Bradford, in his Plimouth Plantation, 90, says they "chose or rather confirmed Mr. John Carver, ... their Governour for that year"—that is, for 1620. Mr. Deane, the editor of Bradford, has lost the force of this by misunderstanding a statement in Mourt's Relation, so called. See Deane's note, page 99, of Bradford. The statement in Mourt is under date of March 23d. I quote from the reprint in Young, 196, 197: "and did likewise choose our governor for this present year, which was Master John Carver," etc. Young applies Bradford's words, "or rather confirmed," to this event, and Deane also supposes that Bradford confuses two elections. Carver was no doubt chosen in England or Holland under authority of the charter to serve for the calendar year, and confirmed or rechosen after the Compact was signed. What took place on the 23d of March was that a governor was elected for the year 1621, which, according to the calendar of that time, began on the 25th of March. For the next year they chose Carver, who was already "governor for this present year," and whose first term was about to expire. Both Deane and Young failed to perceive the pregnant fact that Carver was governor during the voyage, and so lost the force of the words "or rather confirmed." Bradford, in that portion of his History of Plimouth Plantation which relates to this period, gives several letters illustrating the negotiations of the Pilgrims with the Virginia Company. The MS. Records of the Company in the Library of Congress, under dates of May 26 and June 9, 1619, and February 19, 1620 (1619 O.S.), contain the transactions relating to the Whincop Charter, which was not used, on account of Whincop's death, and the Pierce Charter, which the Pilgrims took with them.
[Note 5, page 174.] The charge against Sandys is in the Duke of Manchester's papers, Royal Historical MS. Commission viii, II, 45. It is remarkable that the dominant liberal faction in the Virginia Company is here accused of seeking to do what the Massachusetts Company afterward did—to wit, to found a popular American government by virtue of powers conferred in a charter. That liberal government in New England had its rise in the arrangements made with the London or Virginia Company before sailing, and not, as poets, painters, and orators have it, in the cabin of the Mayflower, is sufficiently attested in a bit of evidence, conspicuous enough, but usually overlooked. Robinson's farewell letter to the whole company, which reached them in England, is in Bradford, 64-67, and in Mourt's Relation. It has several significant allusions to the form of government already planned. "And lastly, your intended course of civill communitie will minister continuall occasion of offence." The allusion here seems to be to the joint-stock and communistic system of labor and living proposed. In another paragraph the allusion is to the system of government: "Whereas, you are become a body politik, using amongst your selves civill governmente, and are not furnished with any persons of spetiall emencie above the rest, to be chosen by you into office of governmente," etc., "you are at present to have only them for your ordinarie governours, which your selves shall make choyse of for that worke." That the government under the Virginia Company was to be democratic is manifest. The compact was a means of giving it the sanction of consent where the patent and the general order did not avail for that purpose.
[Note 6, page 176.] Winslow's Briefe Narration appended to his Hypocrisie Vnmasked is the only authority for Robinson's address. Dr. H. M. Dexter has with characteristic wealth of learning and ingenuity sought to diminish the force of these generous words of Robinson in his Congregationalism, 403 and ff. But the note struck in this farewell address was familiar to the later followers of Robinson's form of Independency. Five of the ministers who went to Holland in 1637 and founded churches, published in 1643 a tract called An Apologeticall Narrative Humbly Submitted to the Honourable Houses of Parliament. By Thomas Goodwin, Phillip Nye, Sidrach Simpson, Jer. Borroughs, William Bridge. London, 1643. From the copy in the British Museum I quote: "A second principle we carryed along with us in all our resolutions was, Not to make our present judgment and practice a binding law unto ourselves for the future which we in like manner made continuall profession of upon all occasions." On page 22 Robinson's words are almost repeated in the phrase "they coming new out of popery ... might not be perfect the first day." Robinson's early colleague, Smyth, the unpractical, much-defamed, but saintly "Anabaptist," says in a tract published after his death, "I continually search after the truth." Robinson wrote a reply to a portion of this tract. See Barclay's Inner Life, appendix to Chapter V, where the tract is given. This holding of their opinions in a state of flux, this liberal expectancy of a further evolution of opinion, was a trait to be admired in the early Separatists in an age when modesty in dogmatic statement was exceedingly rare.