The establishment and progress of the New England states were watched with deep interest in the mother-country, where the colonists themselves had so many remaining ties, and where persecution still continuing unabated, prepared thousands to fellow, and to become heroes and adventurers for Christ’s sake. A letter from New England in those days, we are told, was regarded “as a sacred script, or as the writing of some holy prophet, and was carried many miles, when divers came to hear it, and to such it became the prophecy of hope.” At the time that to thousands of the nation at large these colonies were subjects of intense interest, the government disregarded them as too feeble and insignificant for notice, and by this disregard the salvation of the liberties of the infant states was confirmed. By degrees, however, the importance of the emigration which they occasioned, and the report of dissatisfied persons, or those who for various causes “had been thrust out” by the too exclusive and intolerant government of Massachusetts, forced themselves upon the attention of the ruling party at home.
In vain did the friends of Massachusetts in England—and she had able and powerful friends—obtain from the monarch an assurance that the people should not be interfered with; the complainants ceased not to clamour, and the high-church party was glad enough to listen. “Proofs were produced of marriages celebrated by civil magistrates, of the prohibition of the English liturgy, of a form of church discipline quite at variance with the established law in England; nay, even that the colony was about to disavow its allegiance to the English crown, and assume itself the sovereign power.”
Alarm and dissatisfaction were excited, and it was determined to bring the colony to obedience. In February, 1634, therefore, Archbishop Laud was made the head of a commission vested with both civil and ecclesiastical power over the American colonies, by which punishment might be inflicted, and even any charter revoked which he might deem derogatory to the royal prerogative. Sir Ferdinando Gorges was appointed governor-general. We have already stated the spirit in which these measures of the home government were viewed by Massachusetts. Poor as the colony yet was, it resolved to maintain, at any cost, those liberties which were dear to each individual as life; and £600 were immediately raised for fortifications.
Restraints were now put upon emigration in England; a law was passed, in 1634, that no one above the rank of a serving-man should leave the country without leave from the commission, and even those should first be compelled to take the oaths of supremacy and allegiance. Besides the jealousy of the supreme power in England, other causes were now operating against the colony at home. The grand council of Plymouth having long since made grants of all the lands included in their charter, and that two or three times over in some cases, and unable any longer to derive benefit from it, resigned their charter, and as a final act divided the whole coast, “from Acadia to beyond the Hudson,” into lots, which were distributed among the members of the defunct corporation. To divide the land by lots on paper was easy; to gain possession, was quite a different thing. A second strong power was, however, by this means raised up in England against the American colonies.
“Now was the season,” says Bancroft, “of greatest peril to the rising liberties of New England. The king and council, fearing the unbridled spirits of the Americans, the Court of King’s Bench issued a writ, in Trinity term, 1635, against the Massachusetts Bay Company; and the following term judgment was pronounced against such of the members as residing in England made their appearance, and they and the rest of the patentees were outlawed.” At this moment Mason, the proprietary of New Hampshire, as we have mentioned, and one of the prime movers in these unjust proceedings, suddenly died, and they went no further.
From 1635 to 1637 was an awful time of persecution in England. Fines, imprisonments, the bloody cruelties of the lash and the shears, the pillory, the red-hot firebrand and the gallows reigned triumphant; and the suffering were impelled “by heaps to leave their native country.” “Nothing,” says Milton, “but the wide ocean and the savage deserts of America could hide and shelter them from the fury of the bishops.” But even this last resource was attempted to be taken from them; and in 1637 the king again issued a proclamation against emigration, and the following year a squadron of eight ships, about to embark for New England, was forbidden to leave the Thames. It was on board some of these ships, tradition says, that Oliver Cromwell and Hampden were when this arbitrary prohibition compelled them to remain in England, where a greater work awaited them. This squadron was, however, allowed to sail after all, on a petition to the crown from the owners and passengers. Whilst we are on the subject of emigration, it may be mentioned, as evidencing the discriminating and uncompromising spirit of liberty in the New World, that when in 1635 several puritan noblemen, especially the Earl of Warwick and the Lords Brooke and Say and Seal, were contemplating a removal thither, they endeavoured to induce the colonies to establish hereditary nobility, and to make the magistracy perpetual to certain privileged families. To this proposal Cotton, in the name of the court of Massachusetts, very pertinently replied: “When God blesseth any branch of a noble or generous family with gifts fit for government, it would be taking God’s name in vain to put such a talent under a bushel, and a sin against the honour of the magistracy to neglect such in our public elections. But if God should not delight to furnish such of their posterity with gifts fit for magistracy, we should expose them rather to reproach and prejudice, and the commonwealth with them, than exalt them to honour, if we should call them forth whom God does not to public authority.” By these conclusive arguments New England preserved itself from any privileged class, and the English nobility remained at home.
But now to return to Massachusetts with the whole power of the English government arrayed against her. In 1638, the lords of the council wrote to Winthrop, demanding from him, by virtue of the writ already issued, the return of the patent, threatening that in case of refusal the king would immediately assume the government himself. Winthrop wrote back calmly, that the colony demanded a fair trial before condemnation. It was a cool, manly letter, and contained some remonstrance and some suggestions, but under all there was a tone of determined resistance.
But before this letter reached England, the cruel Laud and his royal master had more serious business in hand than the subjection of a contumacious colony. The people of England, no doubt considerably influenced by the spirit which pervaded America, had now risen in opposition to the government; civil war raged; the Solemn League and Covenant expressed the universal sentiment in Scotland. Liberty overpowered despotism; public opinion was mightier than ecclesiastical oppression; Laud in his turn was imprisoned, and a new era was at hand. The monarch, whose throne was endangered, had now no thoughts to spare for New England; nor if he had, need he any longer have prohibited emigration. The tide was turned every way, and numbers—among the rest Vane and Peters, the tragic deaths of whom are familiar to the reader of English history, who had fled for refuge to America—now returned to become actors in the great drama of events.
A change had taken place in the affairs of New England with the triumph of puritanism in the mother-country. The Long Parliament, in which were many members favourable to the New England settlements, “sought rather to honour than humble them.” Yet so jealous were the colonists of their precious liberties, that they refused any, even friendly interference in their affairs; and when in 1642 the Westminster Assembly of Divines invited over deputies in the persons of Hooker, Davenport, and Cotton, they declined, Hooker in particular, who stated that he saw “no sufficient excuse to leave their flocks in the wilderness.”
The states of New England, now freed from any anxiety from the home government, resolved on forming a union or confederacy among themselves, the reasons for which were, “the dispersed state of the colonies; the dangers to be apprehended from the Dutch, the French and the Indians; the commencement of civil discord in England; and the difficulty of obtaining aid thence in any emergency.” This confederacy included Massachusetts, Connecticut, Plymouth, and New Haven, Maine and Rhode Island being rejected, the former because “its people ran a different course both in religion and government, and the latter not only for the same reason, but because it refused to become a portion of the jurisdiction of Plymouth;” and under the name of the United Colonies this league existed for upwards of forty years. The terms of this union assured to each colony its separate existence, but each was bound to contribute its proportion, both of men and money, for the common defence. All matters relating to the common interests were to be decided in an annual assembly, composed of two delegates from each colony; which was to hold its meetings by rotation in each state, Massachusetts merely having a double privilege. This measure of colonial legislation was in fact an assumption of sovereign authority; it was the forerunner of American independence.