CHAPTER VIII.
MASSACHUSETTS-BAY COLONY.
Whilst the Pilgrims were taking deep root and extending their borders, various attempts were being made, under grants derived from the Great Patent, to colonise the coast. Sir Ferdinando Gorges, whose name is already familiar to our readers, a friend of Sir Walter Raleigh and a steadfast advocate of colonisation, obtained a grant of territory on the north-west side of Massachusetts Bay, for his son Robert, who was sent over by the English patentees as lieutenant of New England, accompanied by an episcopalian clergyman as superintendent of ecclesiastical affairs; but no success attended him; and instead of establishing a seat of government, he was shortly compelled to retire to Weymouth, already deserted by the “unruly company” of Weston’s men, which he in an equally short time also abandoned. The same year Sir Ferdinando Gorges and John Mason obtained a grant of the whole extent of country included between the sea, the St. Lawrence, the Merrimac and the Kennebec rivers, and great mercantile settlements were projected on the banks of the Piscataqua; but again these attempts failed of success. The soil of New England was evidently not intended for the mere trader or adventurer. In 1628, Mason, alarmed at the progress already made by the Puritan settlers, obtained a new patent for the country between the Merrimac and the Piscataqua, which, without reference to any rights of the natives, was ceded at once to him. This was the patent under which New Hampshire was established. The town of Portsmouth was founded, but neither town nor colony flourished greatly; several years afterwards the town consisted but of about sixty families. In 1635 Mason died, and after his death New Hampshire was left to take care of itself.
From the year 1606, when Martin Pring and Weymouth first discovered the northern bays of New England, the ships of fishermen had visited their coasts, and by degrees had settled upon them permanent stations. In 1616, Gorges sent to these northern shores a colonising party under Richard Vines, who arrived in the country at the time when that pestilence was raging among the natives which depopulated so great an extent of territory, and which was regarded by the later pious settlers as an interposition of God, who thus “made way for his people by removing the heathen.” Vines and his company marched to the interior, holding familiar intercourse with the dying natives without themselves taking the infection, and finally settled at the mouth of the Saco river, the place being called by them Winter Harbour. The colonists pursued agriculture and fishing: the husbandmen taking up tracts of one hundred acres on long leases from Thomas Vines. It is said that farms are held to this day under these old leases, written in Latin, the tenure being very light—five shillings a year, perhaps, a few days’ work and a fat goose. Nevertheless colonisation was slow, spite of the attractive and poetical accounts of the beauty and desirableness of the country to emigrants, which were circulated in Old England. In 1636, when the first duly organised court was held within the State of Maine, the total number of inhabitants in the five different provinces, including the islands, amounted to about 1,500.
The first settlement of Nova Scotia was about contemporaneous with that of Maine. Gorges, who was jealous of the French becoming the ultimate possessors of these northern regions, invited over a number of Scottish emigrants, King James being favourable to the design, and these were planted in Nova Scotia.
Having thus slightly reviewed the efforts made to colonise the northern portion of New England, we will return to the colonies of Massachusetts Bay, which, instinct with the element of life, advanced at once into well-organised and flourishing states.
Persecution continuing in England, voluntary exiles for conscience-sake still cast their eyes beyond the great waters for the land of refuge. Among these was Roger Conant, who by the aid and advice of his friend, a puritan minister of Dorchester, named White, left England with a small company, and who, having endeavoured, but in vain, to establish themselves on Cape Ann, after incredible sufferings removed to Salem, on the Bay of Massachusetts. The scheme of this colony was in the meantime still further perfecting itself in the mother-country. Down in the south-west of England, and among the fens of Lincolnshire, the suffering for conscience-sake not only discussed it among themselves, but communicating together on the subject, determined to purchase from the unscrupulous council for New England a grant of territory. This was soon accommodated, and a portion of the land already conveyed to Gorges and Mason was assigned to them; and John Endicott, whose name alone seems to personify the stern spirit of puritanism, was, as “a fit instrument for this wilderness-work,” chosen leader of a company which embraced within its ranks some of the most distinguished men of the colony.
Endicott, with whom came his wife and family, settled down with his company, as Conant had done, in the dreary wilderness around Salem. Within a short time of their landing, three brothers of the name of Sprague, and four others, penetrated the forest, to a place called by the Indians Mishawum, where they found an Englishman, a smith, living, and here they settled, calling the place Charlestown. Tidings having reached England of the safe arrival of this company, “the men of Boston, and others,” decided on following their example; and the next year, “after much labour and great expense,” the patent of the council of Plymouth was confirmed by the king, Charles I., and the powers of government conveyed to them under the name of the Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay, in New England. It is a singular circumstance in this charter, that the government, while invested with all necessary powers of legislation, yet required no assent of the monarch to render its acts valid. Charles regarded it merely as a trading company, whose affairs were indifferent to the crown. Legislative and executive authority resided with the corporation in London. The freemen of Massachusetts, like the Virginians, were left without one valuable franchise, at the mercy of a corporation beyond the seas. “The history of Massachusetts,” says Bancroft, “is the counterpart to that of Virginia; the latter obtained its greatest liberty by the abrogation of the charter of its company. The former by a transfer of its charter, and a daring construction of its powers by the successors of the original patentees.”
Another remarkable fact in this patent was the strict injunction given to Endicott, the governor, to treat with the natives for the equitable purchase of their lands. “If any of the savages,” it is said, “pretend right of inheritance, we pray you endeavour to purchase their title; that no wrong or injury be done to the natives.”
This company of emigrants, amounting to about 300 persons, in five ships, with good store of cattle, horses and all necessaries, were accompanied by the excellent Francis Higginson, a nonconformist preacher, whose account of the voyage and the country, immediately sent over to England, excited a still greater enthusiasm for emigration. The seal of the infant colony was an Indian erect, with an arrow in his right hand, and the words, “Come over and help us!”
“Farewell, dear England!” said the minister, with his friends and children standing round him, as they lost sight of their native land; “farewell, the church of God in England, and all Christian friends there! We go not to New England as separatists from the church of England, but from her corruptions; we go to practise church reformation, and to propagate the Gospel in America.”