As a matter of fact, however, an expenditure was made of about £500; and, possibly as a result of the judicious disposal of this sum among the needy courtiers about the throne, Winthrop secured a charter so liberal in its terms as to serve as the constitution of colony and state until 1818.[[783]] It created a corporation upon the place, provided for exactly the form of government which the colonists already enjoyed, permitted them to erect courts and make laws, and defined their bounds as extending from “Narragansett river, commonly called Narragansett Bay,” to the Pacific Ocean.[[784]] These new limits not only included a large strip of Dutch territory and almost the whole of Rhode Island, but wiped out New Haven entirely.
The latter colony had made no effort to secure a patent since 1645, when the agent dispatched for that purpose had been drowned in the ill-fated and mysterious ship that had carried down with it, not only the political hopes, but the financial fortunes, of the colonists.[[785]] There had been a growing element in the colony, as in Massachusetts, which was opposed to its theocratical government, and about the time of the Restoration, this opposition was giving Davenport and his followers much trouble. To the demand of sundry non-freemen that the franchise be extended, the New Haven Court had replied that they could not commit “weighty civill or military trusts into the hands of either a crafty Achitophell or a bloody Joab,” and that any one who should make such suggestions would be considered “troublers of our peace and disturbers of our Israell.” They asserted that to grant a voice in the government to any but church members would be to defeat the main end of the plantation, from “which we cannot be perswaded to divert.”[[786]] This was exactly the stand and reasoning persisted in by the Massachusetts leaders at the same time. Both groups stood stubbornly with their backs toward the future, and their eyes on Judea, attempting to block the path to individual liberty with the whole strength of civil power and religious prejudice. They as little understood the new day which was dawning as did the restored Stuarts in England; and the New England theocrats and the English monarchs were at one in their resistance to the forces of freedom.
The disaffected element in New Haven, however, was large and important; and when Connecticut's imperialistic ambitions were gratified, and she obtained a charter which gave her all her neighbor's territory, a very large proportion of New Haven's inhabitants indicated that they preferred the “Christless rule” of Connecticut, with its property qualification for the franchise, to that of the New Haven churches. Throughout the whole process of absorption of the smaller colony by its now aggrandized neighbor, both the action and the manner of Connecticut are difficult to defend. New Haven, however, could not have stood alone much longer. Her commercial hopes had been proved without foundation; she had unnecessarily, but seriously, offended the English Crown; her theocratic government was inflexible; and her annexation by the more democratic and progressive commonwealth was wholly an advantage, then and later.[[787]]
In the ill-defined bounds of the Connecticut charter lay the seeds of many a future contest; but the effect upon Rhode Island was as immediate as upon New Haven. As we have already seen, the Narragansett country had for some time been a matter of controversy between the three adjoining colonies. As Connecticut now extended to the Bay, by royal grant, Massachusetts was seemingly excluded, and the contest lay between Rhode Island's patent rights and those conferred in her neighbor's new charter. John Clarke, in England at the same time as Winthrop, immediately petitioned the King for a new charter for Rhode Island.[[788]] This was granted, its governmental provisions being virtually the same as those of the Connecticut patent, except for the notable clause that, as the Rhode Islanders were then holding forth the “livelie experiment that a most flourishing civell state may stand and best bee maintained ... with a full libertie in religious concernments,” therefore no person in the colony should ever be “molested, punished, disquieted, or called in question, for any differences in opinione in matters of religion,” any law enacted in England notwithstanding.[[789]] This patent, like the Connecticut one, was so liberal, and so well drawn, that it remained the constitution of colony and state for one hundred and eighty years.[[790]]
While the issue of the charter was pending, Clarke and Winthrop had submitted the matter of the boundary between their two colonies to arbitration; and as a result, it had been agreed between them that the dividing line should be the Pawcatuck River, henceforth to be called the Narragansett.[[791]] In the Rhode Island charter, therefore, that colony's western boundary was made as agreed upon, the “clause in a late grant” to Connecticut notwithstanding.[[792]] Connecticut, however, which had now become even more reckless in its career of land-grabbing than Massachusetts, repudiated its agent's act, and undertook to enforce its claims to Rhode Island's richest territory.[[793]] Not only was Connecticut's attitude selfish and unjust, but the dispute could not fail to add another legitimate reason for the exercise of imperial control by England. As Sir Thomas Holdich points out, “It was the man with the spade,—the agriculturist,—who first found the necessity for definite boundaries”;[[794]] and while the fur trade or other activities of rival colonizing nations, or of separate colonies of the same nation, might give rise to disputes over frontiers, the extreme frequency and bitterness of such quarrels in New England were largely due to the type of political and economic life developed there. Without question, their adjustment demanded the intervention of the higher power of the home country.
At the time of Charles's return, Massachusetts was represented in England by John Leverett, as her agent, who immediately sent word of the complaints beginning to pour in against the colony. As a result, the General Court dispatched addresses both to the King and to Parliament, and appointed Richard Saltonstall and Henry Ashurst to assist Leverett in the controversy now imminent.[[795]] In the letter to Charles, the Court prayed that monarch, now “King over your British Israel, to cast a favorable eye upon your poore Mephibbosheth”; and defended themselves against sundry charges, particularly those concerning the killing of the Quakers. “Such was theire daingerous, impetuous and desperat turbulency,” the writers affirmed, that the magistrates had perforce had “to keepe the passage with the point of the sword held towards them”; and the Court unblushingly added that, had the Quakers not been restrained, “there was too much cause to feare that wee ourselves must quickly have died.”[[796]]
In the private instructions to the colony's agents, they were ordered to gain the interest of as many in Parliament and near the King as possible, to secure the renewal of the charter, to see that no superior power should be imposed, or appeals admitted, and even, if possible, to have the colony free from the English customs duties. If called upon to answer any charges embarrassing to the colony, they were instructed to plead lack of authority.[[797]] The agents seem, however, to have done nothing in England to aid the colony; and Leverett's remark that, if forced to admit appeals to the home country, the colonists would deliver New England to the Spaniards, although stupid enough, could hardly add to the government's idea of the colonists' loyalty or discretion.[[798]]
Although the King's answer to the address was conciliatory, the Massachusetts Court, upon its receipt, appointed a committee to determine what, in its opinion, were the legal relations between the colony and England. Their report, which we have already discussed in the preceding chapter, considered Massachusetts to be virtually an independent sovereign state, with the right to defend itself by force of arms against any “annoyance.”[[799]] The following spring, a thousand acres of land were granted to the Artillery Company of Middlesex, orders were issued for the better accommodation of the troopers of Essex, and work was ordered rushed in order to complete the fortifications on Castle Island.[[800]]
Meanwhile, “considering the weight of theire occasions in England,” the Court appointed Simon Bradstreet and the Reverend John Norton to present a second address to the King, and to “indeavor to take off all scandal and objections” against the colony.[[801]] Although their work in England was bitterly denounced as a failure, by some of the oligarchy, they seem, in reality, to have done fairly well, and the letter which the King next dispatched to the General Court was mild in tone and required nothing that did not make for the greater liberty of the individual colonist. After expressing himself as well pleased with the colony's agents, the monarch confirmed the charter, and granted pardon to all who had infringed its terms in the past, as well as to any in the colony who had committed offenses against him in the late Civil War. Although he partially withdrew his protection from the Quakers, he required that any person wishing to worship according to the Book of Common Prayer be allowed to do so, and that persons of good and honest lives be admitted to the Communion, and their children to baptism. The franchise was to be granted to all those of competent estate, orthodox in religion, and not vicious in their lives. He also required that the oath of allegiance be taken, and that justice be administered in his name.[[802]]
The results of an increase in religious liberty were as much dreaded by the leaders and their followers in the theocracy as was any limitation placed by England upon those powers which they had endeavored to make absolute. At a meeting of the General Court in October, at which the letter was read, the atrociously brutal law against the Quakers was immediately put in force again, and the only compliances with the King's requirements were the order that legal processes should run in his name, and the issuing of directions that his letter be published. Other action toward complying with its terms was postponed until the next meeting of the Court. At that meeting, seven months later, the letter was merely referred to a committee, which was to report again at the next meeting, five months later still; at which, again, nothing was done. It was the old policy, advised by the clergy nearly thirty years earlier, of “avoid or protract,” of ignoring and obstructing. However such a policy might fit an emergency under peculiar conditions, it obviously could not form the basis of permanent relations between organic parts of an empire.[[803]]