[322] "James I. ranked among their party, as much as he was able by severe usage, all those who stood up in defense even of civil liberty."—Bolingbroke's Remarks upon English History, p. 283.
[323] "In memory of the hospitalities which the company had received at the last English port from which they had sailed, this oldest New England colony obtained the name of Plymouth. The two vessels which conveyed the Pilgrim fathers from Delft Haven were the Mayflower and the Speedwell. The Mayflower alone proceeded to America."—Bancroft, vol. i., p. 313.
[324] "Under the influence of this wild notion, the colonists of New Plymouth, in imitation of the primitive Christians, threw all their property into a common stock."—Robertson's America, book x. One of the many errors with which the volume of Robertson teems. There was no attempt at imitating the primitive Christians; the partnership was a consequence of negotiation with British merchants; the colonists preferred the system of private property, and acted upon it, as far and as soon as was possible.—Bancroft's History of the United States, vol. i., p. 306.
[325] "The remonstrances of the Virginia corporation and a transient regard for the rights of the country could delay, but could not defeat, a measure that was sustained by the personal favorites of the monarch. King James issued to forty of his subjects, some of them members of his household and his government, the most wealthy and powerful of the English nobility, a patent, which in American annals, and even in the history of the world, has but one parallel. The territory conferred on the patentees in absolute property, with unlimited jurisdiction, the sole powers of legislation, the appointment of all officers and all forms of government, comprised, and at the time was believed to comprise, much more than a million of square miles: it was, by a single signature of King James, given away to a corporation within the realm, composed of but forty individuals."—Bancroft, vol. i., p. 273.
[326] "The very extent of the grant rendered it of little value. The results which grew out of the concession of this charter form a new proof, if any were wanting, of that mysterious connection of events by which Providence leads to ends that human councils had not conceived."—Bancroft, vol. i., p. 273.
The Grand Council of Plymouth resigned their charter in 1635.
[327] "The circumstance which threw a greater luster on the colony than any other was the arrival of Mr. John Cotton, the most esteemed of all the Puritan ministers in England. He was equally distinguished for his learning, and for a brilliant and figurative eloquence. He was so generally beloved that his nonconformity to the ritual of the Established Church, of which he was a minister, was for a considerable time disregarded. At last, however, he was called before the ecclesiastical commission, and he determined upon emigration, 'Some reverend and renowned ministers of our Lord' endeavored to persuade him that the forms to which he refused obedience were 'sufferable trifles,' and did not actually amount to a breach of the second commandment. Mr. Cotton, however, argued so forcibly on the opposite side, that several of the most eminent became all that he was, and afterward followed his example. There went out with him Mr. Hooker and Mr. Stone, who were esteemed to make 'a glorious triumvirate,' and were received in New England with the utmost exultation. It was doubtless a severe trial to these ministers, who appear really to have been, as they say, 'faithful, watchful, painful, serving their flock daily with prayers and tears,' who possessed such a reputation at home and over Europe, to find that no sooner did any half-crazed enthusiast spring up or arrive in the colony, that the people could be prevented only by the most odious compulsion from deserting their churches and flocking to him in a mass. Vainly did Mr. John Cotton strive to persuade Roger Williams, the sectary, that the red cross on the English banner, or his wife's being in the room while he said grace, were 'sufferable trifles,' and 'Mrs. Hutchinson and her ladies' treated his advice and exhortations with equal disregard and contempt. One of them sent him a pound of candles to intimate his need of more spiritual light. This was then the freedom for which his church and his country had been deserted."—Mather; Neale; Hutchinson.
[328] "Robertson is astonished that Neale (see Neale, p. 56) should assert that freedom of religious worship was granted, when the charter expressly asserts the king's supremacy. But this, in fact, was never the article at which they demurred; for the spirit of loyalty was still very strong. It seems quite clear, from the confidence with which they went, and the manner in which they acted when there, that, though there was no formal or written stipulation, the most full understanding existed that very ample latitude was to be allowed in this respect. We have seen on every occasion the vast sacrifices which kings were willing to make in order to people their distant possessions; and the necessity was increased by the backwardness hitherto visible."—Murray's America, vol. i., p. 249.
[329] During the year 1635 we find the name of John Hampden joined with those of six other gentlemen of family and fortune, who united with the Lords Say and Brooke in making a purchase from the Earl of Warwick of an extensive grant of land in a wide wilderness then called Virginia, but which now forms a part of the State of Connecticut. That these transatlantic possessions were designed by the associates ultimately, or under certain contingencies, to serve as an asylum to themselves and a home to their posterity, there is no room to doubt; but it is evident that nothing short of circumstances constituting a moral necessity would have urged persons of their rank, fortunes, and habits of life to encounter the perils, privations, and hardships attendant upon the pioneers of civilization in that inhospitable clime. Accordingly, they for the present contented themselves with sending out an agent to take possession of these territories and to build a fort. This was done, and the town called Saybrook, from the united names of the two noble proprietors, still preserves the memory of the enterprise. They finally abandoned the whole design, and sold the land in 1636, probably.—Miss Aikin's Life of Charles I., p. 471. Bancroft, vol. i., p. 384.
[330] "In one of these embargoed ships had actually embarked for their voyage across the Atlantic two no less considerable personages than John Hampden and his kinsman, Oliver Cromwell."—Life of Hampden, by Lord Nugent, vol. i., p. 254. London, 1832.