Early Adventurers.
In Queen Elizabeth's letters patent to Sir Humfrey Gilbert, "for the inhabiting and planting of our people in America," there is—together with a characteristic assertion of the royal prerogative—a provision that the laws of the Colonies "be not against the true Christian faith or religion now professed in the Church of England." A rough, ungovernable set composed the expedition, including "morris-dancers, hobby-horses, and May-like conceits to delight the savage people;" yet the captain of one of the vessels, named Haies, must have been a man of religious purpose, for after the melancholy misadventures which had befallen him and his companions in Newfoundland, he observes generally with respect to such enterprises: "we cannot precisely judge (which only belongeth to God) what have been the humours of men stirred up to great attempts of discovering and planting in those remote countries, yet the events do shew that either God's cause hath not been chiefly preferred by them, or else God hath not permitted so abundant grace as the light of His Word and knowledge of Him to be yet revealed unto those infidels before the appointed time."[473] The errors and sins of the first English adventurers and colonists have been exposed with an unsparing justice, if not with something more; but the religiousness of certain noble-minded men, amongst them, such as is illustrated by the facts just indicated, and by others of a similar kind, has been often most unfairly overlooked.
I. Charters which were granted by the English Crown before the Civil Wars for settlements in foreign lands, prove how extensive were our Colonial dominions even at that period. We have space to touch only upon those which were most important.
The charter for the plantation of Virginia, in the year 1606, bears witness to the arbitrary power of James I.; but it also distinctly recognizes as part of the proposed "noble work," the propagating of the Christian religion to such people as yet lived in darkness and in miserable ignorance of the true knowledge and worship of God. Robert Hunt, "an honest, religious, and courageous Divine," stands out amongst his companions as most conspicuous for his piety and goodness; and one of the first acts, performed under his influence by the whole company as they landed upon the new domains, was to receive together the Holy Communion. Captain John Smith—a young man at the time of his embarking for Virginia, possessed of great genius, and bearing a high character, whose heroism and romantic deliverance by the lovely and noble native girl, named Pocahuntas, is well known—has left the following relation of the first religious services which were conducted in the new-found home of the brave voyagers. "I have been often demanded by so many how we began to preach the Gospel in Virginia, and by what authority, what churches we had, our order of service, and maintenance for our ministers, therefore I think it not amiss to satisfy their demands, it being the mother of all our plantations, intreating pride to spare laughter, to understand her simple beginning and proceedings. When I first went to Virginia, I well remember, we did hang an awning (which is an old sail), to three or four trees, to shadow us from the sun, our walls were rails of wood, our seats unhewed trees, till we cut planks; our pulpit a bar of wood nailed to two neighbouring trees. In foul weather we shifted into an old rotten tent, for we had few better, and this came by way of adventure for new. This was our church, till we built a homely thing like a barn, set upon cratchets, covered with rafts, sedge, and earth, so was also the walls; the best of our houses of the like curiosity, but the most part far much worse workmanship, that could neither well defend wind nor rain, yet we had daily common prayer morning and evening, every Sunday two sermons, and every three months the Holy Communion, till our minister died. But our prayers daily, with an homily on Sundays, we continued two or three years after, till more preachers came. And surely God did most mercifully hear us, till the continued inundations of mistaken directions, factions, and numbers of unprovided libertines near consumed us all, as the Israelites in the wilderness."[474]
This passage shews the attachment of the Virginian colonists to the Established Church of the mother country; and as they were chiefly persons of the higher class—being noblemen, gentlemen, and merchants of London—they were in sympathy with the ruling powers; and, as might be expected, were zealous for the forms and orders of the English Episcopal communion. The pious Governor, Lord De la Warr, who, in 1610, revived the drooping colony, carefully procured "true preachers;" and his secretary reports, how he placed the church under the care of a sexton, causing it to be kept passing sweet, "and trimmed up with divers flowers;" how, as the chimes rang at ten o'clock in the morning, each man addressed himself to prayers, and how, every Sunday, the Governor—accompanied by all the gentlemen, and by a guard of halberdiers, dressed in his lordship's livery of "fair red cloaks"—sat in the quire, in a green velvet chair, with a velvet cushion spread on the table before him, at which he knelt. The type of piety cherished by the Virginian settlers may be inferred from the secretary's picture; and unhappily the governor was entrusted with a code called "Laws Martial," which were to be exercised whenever it should be necessary. These laws provided, that speaking against the Articles of the Christian faith should be capitally punished; that irreverent behaviour to a Christian minister should subject the offender to three public whippings; that absence from Divine service on week days and on the Sabbath should be accounted a State crime, deserving, if thrice repeated, of labour in the galleys for six months. Every one coming to the colony who refused to give an account of his faith to some minister of religion was to be whipt.[475] The absurdity of these laws soon appeared, from the impossibility of executing them. The articles of instruction given by the Home Government to Sir Francis Wyatt, who was appointed Governor in the year 1621, were of a different character. Nothing was said of penalties, and factions; but needless novelties tending to the disturbance of peace and unity were discouraged. These expressions, however, must have been intended solely for the purpose of conciliating such members of the Episcopal Church as might be jealous of Popish innovations; for to suppose they meant a liberal policy towards Nonconformists in general, would be an idea utterly inconsistent with all we know of the Stuart rule.[476] Puritans could not go to Virginia except by royal licence, and when they had reached their new home, the letter of the law—valid there, as well as in England—left them still liable to the scourge of persecution. Prudence for a while might induce the Virginian authorities to wink at Puritanism within their borders; but their history affords no signs of their righteously legislating upon that important subject. Indeed, on reaching the year 1629, we discover the sternest intolerance in the acts and orders of the Colonial Assembly. People who did not go to church were fined a pound of tobacco for every instance of neglect, and fifty pounds for every month's absence; and, in 1632, uniformity to the Church of England was vigorously enforced, a shilling fine being imposed in every case of non-attendance at worship.[477] Upon the outbreak of the Civil Wars, the loyal Virginians identified Nonconformists with Republicans, and forthwith banished all Dissenters outside their borders.
Bermudas.
The Bermudas were intimately connected with Virginia. By an extension of the charter granted to the latter Colony in the year 1612, these islands came into its possession. The Company again sold them to members of its own body, who were established as a new corporation, under the name of the Somers Islands' Company. The daughter Colony went beyond its parent state in the assertion of ecclesiastical uniformity, and angrily stood up in support of the Church of England "against all Atheists, Papists, Anabaptists, Brownists, and all other heretics and sectaries whatsoever."[478] Yet, when religious animosities arose, and the only two clergymen who were in the islands refused subscription to the Prayer Book as it was—the Governor, forced by circumstances into some sort of compromise, "bethought himself of the Liturgy of Guernsey and Jersey, wherein all the particulars they so much stumbled at were omitted."[479]
The original charter for Maryland bears date 1632, and was granted to Lord Baltimore, a Roman Catholic nobleman of high character and honourable renown. Upon condition of yielding two Indian arrows at Windsor Castle every Easter Tuesday, he received with the ownership of the lands the Governorship of the Colony. He also became invested with all advowsons, and with the power of licensing churches and chapels—to be consecrated according to the ecclesiastical laws of this kingdom. To the same Governor were further granted such royal rights "as any Bishop of Durham ever had." The inconsistency of granting such a charter to any individual who was a Roman Catholic, however excellent a man he might be, is obvious to every one. An establishment, according to Protestant law, thus came under the complete control of an individual of a perfectly different communion. Yet, though the procedure appears so inconsistent, it, in fact, happily proved the means of securing to the Maryland people the blessing of religious liberty to a greater extent than that in which it was enjoyed in any other Colony. An oath, which was required to be taken by the Governor and Council, in these words:—"I will not, by myself or any other, directly or indirectly, trouble, molest, or discountenance any person professing to believe in Jesus Christ, for or in respect of religion"[480]—was perhaps framed especially with the view of affording refuge for persecuted Roman Catholics on the shores of Chesapeake Bay; but it is pleasant to recollect that under its shadow and in harmony with its design Protestants also found shelter from Protestant intolerance.[481]