In spite of their own heavy loss, the Pilgrims had clung to the Penobscot until, in 1635, d'Aulnay, acting under orders from the French King to clear the coast of the English as far as Pemaquid, seized the post, and shipped the local agents back to Plymouth. The Pilgrims hired a vessel, and dispatched an armed force to try to regain possession; but, owing to the conduct of the man whom they had engaged to effect the enterprise, it failed miserably, and they merely entailed upon themselves a heavy additional loss. Massachusetts, when called upon for help, though she realized the danger to herself from the increasing aggressiveness of the French, refused aid unless the infinitely poorer Plymouth colony would bear the entire expense. That colony was, therefore, obliged to desist, and Bradford bitterly complained that not only did the Bay people thus do nothing to defend the common frontier, but that, owing to their cupidity, they even sold food and ammunition to the French, and so increased the menace both from them and their Indian allies.[[437]]
In Mason's province of New Hampshire, settlement, though more peaceful, was also proceeding but slowly beyond the Dover and Portsmouth plantations already noted. As the settlers of those two places were Episcopalians, and as an opportunity was offered to buy out the Hilton interest in the former, the Massachusetts leaders urged some of their friends in England to acquire it, with the result that Lords Say and Brook, Sir Richard Saltonstall, and others came into possession, and sent out additional colonists.[[438]] This pouring of new wine into the old Dover bottle produced a series of explosions, which subsequently prepared the way for annexation by Massachusetts. Mason died in 1635, and bequeathed his province to his family.[[439]] Two years later occurred the Antinomian controversy in Massachusetts, and the expulsion of Wheelwright, whom, when discussing that episode, we left on his way to New Hampshire. He succeeded in making the winter trip to the settlements on the Piscataqua, and the following spring, with a few associates and the help of his new hosts, he founded the town of Exeter, the inhabitants entering into a written compact for their self-government.[[440]] That the Massachusetts authorities would have preferred that he should die alone in the winter's snow is hardly a charitable supposition; but just what they did wish for is uncertain; for they wrote a letter of remonstrance to the New Hampshire people, saying that they “looked at it as an unneighborly part” that they should help any one expelled by themselves.[[441]]
One of these northern towns, from its first settlement, had been considered by Massachusetts as under its own jurisdiction. In March, 1637, the General Court had ordered that a plantation should be started at Wenicunnett,—the name being later changed to Hampton,—a little more than three miles north of the Merrimac.[[442]] It was thus slightly outside of the bounds of the patent, if that were construed, as it had been construed to that time, to include only such land north of the river as lay within three miles of it.[[443]] The project may mark, however, the first tentative step toward the colony's later, and wholly unwarranted, interpretation of that instrument, so as to include all the territory lying south of a line drawn due east from a point three miles north of the most northerly part of that stream, to the ocean, thus including practically all of New Hampshire and a large part of Maine. About a year and a half after the “bound house” was built, a group of colonists went to take possession of the new site. The Exeter men at once objected to this encroachment of Massachusetts on their neighborhood; but the General Court replied that the new settlement was within their patent, and that they looked upon the protest as “against good neighborhood, religion and common honesty.” They did, however, quietly send out a surveying party, and having found that the part above Pennacook was north of the line of 43½ degrees, they phrased a new answer to Exeter's renewed protest, saying that, while they relinquished none of their rights, nevertheless, as the Exeter men did not profess to claim anything which might fall within the Massachusetts patent, the matter would be allowed to rest. The way was thus left open for future aggression, and the Court immediately proceeded to erect the new settlement into a legal town.[[444]]
The frontier north of Massachusetts had thus, for the most part, come into being without any action on her part, except in the two settlements last noted. Owing to the location between the French and English, and the uncompromising geographic factors of soil and climate, the vast forested area, comprising over two thirds of all New England, increased but little in population throughout the century; and by 1700 New Hampshire had but six thousand souls, or less than that of the Bay Colony at the time that Wheelwright left it. The northern provinces, unhappily for themselves, were destined to play the part of buffer states between the French, with their savage allies, and the more safely located colonies in the south.
In tracing the foundations of the latter, we find the influence of Massachusetts far more potent, for they were being laid mainly by men who found scant room in that increasingly reactionary commonwealth. The founders of Rhode Island and Connecticut alike condemned the religious and political policy that the Bay Colony had now definitely made its own; and the more democratic and tolerant forms of government, which developed in the two former, “represented more nearly the principles which underlie the government of the United States to-day than any other of the British colonies.”[[445]] The seeds of both political and religious liberty had been brought to America by the Massachusetts colonists; but the leaders, partly from a dread of losing their own influence, and partly from a genuine fear of noxious weeds, had done their best to interfere with their growth. The founders of Rhode Island and Connecticut, with less desire for personal power, and greater courage as to tares in the wheat, watered and nursed the seeds of liberty, which bore an abundant harvest. In Rhode Island, indeed, the weeds flourished riotously; but the faith of the founders was justified in both colonies, and their commonwealths marched with Holland at the head of those struggling for human freedom, while England and Massachusetts yet lagged and nagged.
The lands around Narragansett[Narragansett] Bay had been known for some time to be attractive as sites for colonizing, when Williams made his way thither after his banishment, in the winter of 1636. In spite of frequent trading with the Indians, however, only one settler had as yet located there permanently. William Blackstone, who had left England because he disliked the tyranny of the Lord-bishops, and who had, as we have seen, an equal aversion for that of the Lord-brethren, had quietly left his plantation in Massachusetts, and betaken himself to the wilderness north of Providence.[[446]] A lover at once of peace, of books, and of freedom, there is something singularly attractive in his little known personality. He called his new home “Study Hill”; and there in his orchard grew the first “yellow sweetings” ever known, which, later, when he occasionally preached to the newcomers, he handed around, “to encourage his younger hearers.”
Thus, while, owing to the great services Williams was to render the colony, he is entitled to the name of its founder, he was not its first settler, nor was the little band that planted Providence with him in 1636 the only one to lay the foundations of the future commonwealth. Nor had he himself, apparently, any intention of doing so. “It pleased the most high,” he wrote, many years afterward, “to direct my steps into this Bay, by the loving private advice of that very honored soul Mr. John Winthrop the Grandfather, who, though he was carried with the stream for my banishment, yet he personally and tenderly loved me to his last breath. It is not true, that I was imployed by any, made covenant with any, was supplied by any, or desired any to come with me into these parts.”[[447]] The others came, however, and the leading idea of the settlement was reiterated four years later in the proposals for a form of government, when the “arbitrators” noted that they agreed “as formerly hath bin the liberties of the town, so still, to hould forth liberty of conscience.”[[448]]
In 1638, another group, of eighteen persons, including William Coddington, settled the town of Portsmouth; and in the following year, that little hamlet planted an offshoot at Newport, while a few individuals from both Providence and Portsmouth organized Warwick.[[449]] These four towns were absolutely independent of each other, and of any superior government of any sort, except England. Although Newport and Portsmouth partially combined in 1640, it was not until seven years later, when the charter of 1644 finally went into effect, that there was any colony of Rhode Island, or a united government over the several settlements.[[450]] It thus offered a great contrast to the Massachusetts colony, in which the towns were the creatures of the General Court; and it was this extreme looseness of organization, combined with religious toleration, which formed the leading characteristic of the Rhode Island political experiment. Although the settlers at Providence had signed an agreement to unite for purposes of government, there were no town officers, and practically no organization, until four years later. The agreement was merely to yield obedience to such orders “as shall be made for public good of the body in an orderly way, by the major consent of the present inhabitants, masters of families, incorporated together in a Towne fellowship, and others whom they shall admit unto them only in civil things.” These masters of families met once a fortnight, discussed their common affairs, and decided them by majority vote.[[451]] The government was thus almost a pure democracy, only women, minors, and bachelors being excluded. Even when the towns were united, and a more elaborate governmental machinery was set up, the extremely democratic trend of thought was evidenced in the remarkable provision that the General Assembly could not initiate legislation, but that laws were first to be considered in each town, and that only after all four had considered them, were they to be sent to be acted upon by the Assembly, all legislative initiative thus being retained in the hands of the people.[[452]]
With such looseness of organization, and extreme individuality of thought and action, another characteristic was bound to be lack of harmony, with frequent bickerings and disputes. These were soon in evidence, and it was found also that a pure democracy and absence of restraint were not compatible with orderly living. As the commonwealth grew, the difficulties were met in the spirit of men who, believing in liberty and toleration, were yet forced to make concessions to human nature; while, on the other hand, the Massachusetts authorities met their difficulties in the spirit of men who honestly disbelieved in democracy and toleration, and whose concessions were forced by a growing demand for things in which they had no faith. In Connecticut, also, the leaders were, happily, on the side of that part of the people, important in all the colonies, who were struggling upward toward a larger liberty, and who, even in Massachusetts, were slowly bringing it into being.
Knowledge of the existence of the Connecticut River, and of the advantages of its rich bottoms as sites both for trading and for planting, seems to have been first acquired by the English through information given to the Pilgrims by the Dutch. Friendly intercourse between Plymouth and New Amsterdam had been opened by the latter as early as 1626; and the Dutch not only taught the Pilgrims the value of wampum in the Indian trade, but, seeing how barren a site they had chosen for their settlement, told them of the Connecticut, and “wished them to make use of it.” However, “their hands being full otherwise, they let it pass” until, having been solicited by Indians who had been driven from their homes there by invading Pequots from the West, they dispatched several exploring and trading expeditions in 1633.[[453]] The same Indians had also earlier requested the Massachusetts people to make a settlement, but they had declined.[[454]] The Pilgrims, having made up their minds to erect a permanent trading post on the river, also asked the Bay people to join them; and when the latter refused, alleging their poverty, they even offered to provide the capital for both if Massachusetts would assume half the responsibility. This, likewise, being refused, the Pilgrims went on with the project alone, after telling the Bay authorities that they could have no cause to complain, as they had now had ample opportunity to join; to which they assented.[[455]] This was in the middle of July, and although the Massachusetts leaders had done their best to discourage the Pilgrims, by telling them the place was “not fit for plantation,” and by picking other flaws in the project, nevertheless, four weeks later, they had themselves dispatched a bark to Connecticut to trade, and John Oldham, going overland, had also spied out the resources of the place, and trafficked with the Indians there.[[456]] In view of all their actions, then and subsequently, it would seem difficult to avoid the conclusion that the Massachusetts authorities, having been offered by their neighbors a chance to share in a profitable opportunity, deliberately tried, by fraud and force, not only to obtain all the profits for themselves, but to prevent the very people whose enterprise it was from retaining any share in it. Not possessing the interpretative advantages of a New England ancestry, one is, perhaps, limited to remarking that the business dealings of ultra-religious people are often peculiar.