A scene of revolutionary turbulence ensued, in the course of which a resolution was passed declaring the upper house to be useless, which continued in force until the restoration. Philip Calvert was then appointed governor by Lord Baltimore, and the ancient order of things was restored. The colony, notwithstanding these commotions, continued to flourish; and, at the restoration, its population was estimated at twelve thousand souls.
CHAPTER III.
First ineffectual attempts of the Plymouth company to settle the country.... Settlement at New Plymouth.... Sir Henry Rosewell and company.... New charter.... Settlements prosecuted vigorously.... Government transferred to the colonists.... Boston founded.... Religious intolerance.... General court established.... Royal commission for the government of the plantations.... Contest with the French colony of Acadié.... Hugh Peters.... Henry Vane.... Mrs. Hutchinson.... Maine granted to Gorges.... Quo warranto against the patent of the colony.... Religious dissensions.... Providence settled.... Rhode Island settled.... Connecticut settled.... War with the Piquods.... New Haven settled.
1606
The steps by which the first, or southern colony, advanced to a firm and permanent establishment, were slow and painful. The company for founding the second, or northern colony, was composed of gentlemen residing in Plymouth, and other parts of the west of England; was less wealthy, and possessed fewer resources than the first company, which resided in the capital. Their efforts were consequently more feeble, and less successful, than those which were made in the south.[47]
The first vessel fitted out by this company was captured and confiscated by the Spaniards, who, at that time, asserted a right to exclude the ships of all other nations from navigating the American seas. Not discouraged by this misfortune, 1607the company in the following year dispatched two other vessels, having on board about two hundred persons designed to form the proposed settlement. The colonists arrived safely on the American coast in autumn, and took possession of a piece of ground near the river Sagahadoc, where they built fort St. George. Their sufferings during the ensuing winter were extreme. Many of the company, among whom were Gilbert their admiral, and George Popham their president, sank under the diseases by which they were attacked; and the vessels which brought them supplies in the following spring, brought also the information that their principal patron, Sir John Popham, chief justice of England, was dead. 1608Discouraged by their losses and sufferings, and by the death of a person on whom they relied chiefly for assistance, the surviving colonists determined to abandon the country, and embark on board the vessels then returning to England. The frightful pictures they drew of the country, and of the climate, deterred the company, for some time, from farther attempts to make a settlement, and their enterprizes were limited to voyages for the purposes of taking fish, and of trading with the natives for furs. 1614One of these was made by captain Smith, so distinguished in the history of Virginia. Having explored, with great accuracy, that part of the coast which stretches from Penobscot to Cape Cod, he delineated it on a map; which he presented to the young Prince of Wales, with descriptions dictated by a sanguine mind, in which enthusiasm was combined with genius. The imagination of the Prince was so wrought upon by the glowing colours in which Smith painted the country, that he declared it should be called New England, which name it has ever since retained.[48]
The languishing company of Plymouth, however, could not be stimulated to engage in farther schemes of colonisation, the advantages of which were distant and uncertain, while the expense was immediate and inevitable. To a stronger motive than even interest, is New England indebted for its first settlement.
An obscure sect, which had acquired the appellation of Brownists from the name of its founder, and which had rendered itself peculiarly obnoxious by the democracy of its tenets respecting church government, had been driven by persecution to take refuge at Leyden in Holland, where its members formed a distinct society under the care of their pastor, Mr. John Robinson. There they resided several years in safe obscurity. This situation, at length, became irksome to them. Their families intermingled with the Dutch, and they saw before them, with extreme apprehension, the danger of losing their separate identity. Under the influence of these and other causes, they came to the determination of removing in a body to America.
1618