"Had he waited awhile, had only showed that he loved me,
Even this captain of yours—who knows?—at last might have won me,
Old and rough as he is, but now it never can happen."
John Alden pressed the suit in behalf of his soldier friend, secretly hoping, it is to be feared, that Priscilla would not take him too much in earnest, when, continues Longfellow:
"Archly the maiden smiled, and with eyes over-running with laughter.
Said, in a tremulous voice: 'Why don't you speak for yourself, John?'"
John did not speak for himself—at least not directly, on that occasion, but he did later on, and shortly afterward the marriage of John Alden and Priscilla Mullins was celebrated with all the display that the Plymouth settlers could afford. Captain Standish did not blame Alden, but he did not remain long near the scene of his disappointment, moving, in 1626, to Duxbury, Massachusetts. He lived to a hale old age, respected both for his private virtues and his public services.
The Puritan Immigration—Wealth and Learning Seek These Shores—Charter Restrictions Dead Letters—A Stubborn Struggle for Self-government— Methods of Election—The Early Government an Oligarchy—The Charter of 1691—New Hampshire and Maine—The New Haven Theocracy—Hartford's Constitution—The United Colonies—The Clergy and Politics—Every Election Sermon a Declaration of Independence.
John Endicott's settlement at Salem, and the large immigration which followed the granting of a royal patent to the Massachusetts Bay Company, together with the transfer of the charter and corporate powers of the company from England to Massachusetts, led to the growth of a powerful Puritan commonwealth which overshadowed and ultimately absorbed the feeble settlement at Plymouth. The natal day of New England was that on which John Winthrop landed at Salem, with nine hundred immigrants in the summer of 1630, bringing not merely virtue, muscle and brawn, such as carried the Pilgrims through their appalling experience, but wealth and substance, learning and art, men to command as well as men to obey. From that time, except during the season of depression which followed King Philip's war, New England went steadily forward in population, prosperity and political power. Her rulers were well able to meet and defeat their would-be oppressors in the field of diplomacy, and now defying, now ignoring and again pretending to yield to royal dictation, Massachusetts never gave up the principles which animated her founders, or the purpose which prompted them to abandon homes of comfort and even of luxury, and establish new institutions in a new world. The Massachusetts settlers were forbidden by the terms of their charter to enact any laws repugnant to the laws of England. This restriction was a dead letter from the very beginning. Indeed, literally construed, it would have defeated the very object of Puritan emigration—to escape from the rule of a hierarchy established under English laws. As Massachusetts was for many years the leading colony of the north of English origin, and probably made more of an impress than any other colony and State upon our national character, it may be of interest to quote here a sketch of its political institutions and their changes in the colonial period.