Gorges and Mason lost no time in improving their victory. February 3, 1635, they secured a redivision of the coast of New England by the Council for New England, into twelve parts, which were assigned to as many persons. Sir William Alexander received the country from the river St. Croix to Pemaquid; Sir Ferdinando Gorges, the province of Maine from Penobscot to Piscataqua; Captain John Mason, New Hampshire and part of Massachusetts as far as Cape Ann, while the coast from Cape Ann to Narragansett Bay fell to Lord Edward Gorges, and the portion from Narragansett Bay to the Connecticut River to the marquis of Hamilton.[24 ]
April 25, 1635, the Council for New England issued a formal declaration of their reasons for resigning the great charter to the king, chief among which was their inability to rectify the complaints of their servants in America against the Massachusetts Company, who had "surreptitiously" obtained a charter for lands "justly passed to Captain Robert Gorges long before."[25 ] June 7 the charter was surrendered to the king, who appointed Sir Ferdinando Gorges "general governor." The expiring company further appointed Thomas Morton as their lawyer to ask for a quo warranto against the charter of the Massachusetts Company.
In September, 1635, judgment was given in Westminster Hall that "the franchises of the Massachusetts Company be taken and seized into the king's hands."[26 ] But, as Winthrop said, the Lord "frustrated their designs." King Charles was trying to rule without a Parliament, and had no money to spend against New England. Therefore, the cost of carrying out the orders of the government devolved upon Mason and Gorges, who set to work to build a ship to convey the latter to America, but it fell and broke in the launching,[27 ] and about November, 1635, Captain John Mason died.
After this, though the king in council, in July, 1637, named Gorges again as "general governor,"[28 ] and the Lords Commissioners for Plantations, in April, 1638, demanded the charter anew,[29 ] the Massachusetts general court would not recognize either order. Gorges could not raise the necessary funds to compel obedience, and the attention of the king and his archbishop was occupied with forcing episcopacy upon Scotland. In 1642 war began in England between Parliament and king, and Massachusetts was left free to shape her own destinies. It was now her turn to become aggressive. Construing her charter to mean that her territory extended to a due east line three miles north of the most northerly branch of Merrimac River, she possessed herself, in 1641, of New Hampshire, the territory of the heirs of John Mason; and in 1653-1658, of Maine, the province of Gorges.
When the Long Parliament met, in 1641, the Puritans in England found enough occupation at home, and emigration greatly diminished. In 1643 Massachusetts became a member of the New England confederation, and her population was then about fifteen thousand; but nearly as many more had come over and were distributed among three new colonies—Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Haven.
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[ Bradford, Plimoth Plantation, 332; Winthrop, New England, I., 36.]
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[ Force, Tracts, II., No. iv., 15.]