CHAPTER IV
THE PURITANS IN PLYMOUTH AND MASSACHUSETTS
It has been customary to regard the members of the colony of Virginia as Cavaliers of the most ardent type, but, as has been shown, this is scarcely correct, and amongst the Virginians there were many who did not approve of either the actions of Laud or the dissimulation of Charles. In much the same way it would be erroneous to ascribe to the New England group a plebeian origin. The Virginian gentleman found his counterpart in the New England colonies of Plymouth and Massachusetts. It is, however, more true to describe these two colonies as the offspring and embodiment of Puritanism, than to describe Virginia as purely monarchical. In the northern colonies, congregationalism was the chief form of religious worship, and this, as was natural, determined their political form; it was no insurmountable step from a belief in congregations to a belief in republics. The men who found this step so easy were a very different pattern to the early ne'er-do-wells of Virginian colonisation. The northern colonies were founded by the yeoman and the trader, both of whom were patient, watchful, and ready to assert with an Englishman's doggedness all political rights. These men formed small organic communities filled with the very strongest sense of corporate life. Not that these forms took an absolutely exact line, for in some cases the community was a pure democracy with limitations and restrictions; in others there was a very wide and modified oligarchy. The men were the very best of settlers; they knew what they wanted, and were ready to work and even sacrifice their lives to gain that object. It is not surprising that in the New England colonies prosperity raised its head long before it had come to Virginia, though the soil of the latter was far more fertile than the sterile lands of the northern group.
The Plymouth Company had been formed at the same time as the London Company, but it had accomplished very little.[95] In 1607 it dispatched an expedition under George Popham and Raleigh Gilbert to the River Kennebec, in the territory afterwards called Maine. The climate, however, did not suit the adventurers, and owing to the mismanagement of the leaders and the indifference of the Company nothing came of the undertaking. For thirteen years the Plymouth Company made no further effort, but in 1620 it was entirely reorganised, placed upon a new footing, and renamed the New England Company. This may have been caused by two things. In the first place Captain John Smith had made a voyage to New England in 1614; it was indeed that resourceful but perhaps boastful adventurer who either gave the name by which the country was afterwards known, or gave currency to an already existing though not generally accepted title. "In the moneth of Aprill, 1614 ... I chanced to arrive in New-England, a parte of Ameryca at the Ile of Monahiggin, in 43½ of Northerly Latitude."[96] But even this voyage and the several others that followed would not have been sufficient to arouse the Plymouth Company. It was in truth a second and deeper cause that started the reorganisation of a corporation that had so long lain dormant. A new force had now entered into colonisation that was to do much for the establishment of the Anglo-Saxon race in America. Religion had sent men to convert the savages, but now religious persecution sent men to make homes amongst those barbarians.
It is unnecessary here to discuss the rise of the Puritans as an important sect in English history. They were those "whose minds had derived a peculiar character from the daily contemplation of superior beings and eternal interests."[97] They differed in nearly every respect from the ordinary Englishman of the Elizabethan period, and yet they were in many instances intellectual and well-bred. They saw, however, that "they could not have the Word freely preached and the sacraments administered without idolatrous gear," and so they concluded to break away from the Church. It was this separation that gained for them the name of Separatists, and brought upon them the punishment of the State. To avoid this some sought leave from Elizabeth to settle in the land "which lieth to the west," their object being to "settle in Canada and greatly annoy the bloody and persecuting Spaniard in the Bay of Mexico."[98] Such was the knowledge of geography about 1591, and it was very fortunate for the would-be-colonists that nothing came of the scheme. Two years later some Independents of London fled to Amsterdam, where they hoped to exercise their religion unmolested. Soon after the beginning of the seventeenth century the Nonconformists of Gainsborough took refuge in the Low Countries, to be followed in 1606 by the Congregationalists from Scrooby. They first found shelter in Amsterdam, and later, some, choosing John Robinson as their minister, moved to Leyden.
The laws of England had driven these men abroad, but they never forgot the fact that they were Englishmen. They found their families growing up around them and naturally imbibing foreign ideas. This fact deeply pained the parents, who looked back upon their own happy youths in Tudor England. They determined, therefore, to leave the Netherlands, and William Bradford, their faithful chronicler, tells in quaint but honest words why they were driven to this decision. "In y^e agitation of their thoughts, and much discours of things hear aboute; at length they began to incline to this new conclusion, of remooual to some other place. Not out of any new fanglednes, or other such like giddie humor, by which men are oftentimes transported to their great hurt & danger. But for sundrie weightie & solid reasons."[99] The most serious of these reasons "and of all sorowes most heauie to be borne; was that many of their children, by these occasions (and y^e great licentiousnes of youth in y^t countrie) and y^e manifold Temptations of the place, were drawne away by euill examples into extrauagante & dangerous courses, getting y^e raines off their neks & departing from their parents. Some became souldjers, others took vpon them farr viages by Sea; and other some worse courses ... so that they saw their posteritie would be in danger to degenerate & be corrupted."[100] It was for this reason, then, in particular, that the people of the congregation of Leyden turned their thoughts to the "countries of America which are frutful & fitt for habitation; being deuoyed of all ciuill Inhabitants; wher ther are only saluage & brutish men which range vp and downe, litle otherwise than y^e wild beasts of the same."[101] And yet though they sought a home for themselves where they might worship as they pleased, they were at the same time filled with that missionary spirit which had encouraged Columbus and many another adventurer to persevere. Their great aim was to lay "some good foundation or at least make some way thereunto, for y^e propagating & advancing y^e gospell of y^e Kingdom of Christ in those remote parts of y^e world; yea, though they should be but even as stepping stones unto others for y^e performing of so great a work."[102]
With these intentions the ever famous Pilgrim Fathers came to England, bringing with them a document admitting the supremacy of the State in religious matters. The wording of the clauses, however, was so artful that these Puritans proved that though gentle as doves they were not without the wisdom of the serpent. They obtained leave from James I. to set out on their voyage; but they were financed by certain London traders who were to receive all the profits for the first seven years, when the partnership was to be dissolved. Until this dissolution the whole band was to live as a community with joint property, trade, and labour. A few labourers were sent out by the London partners, but the group to which the term of Pilgrim Fathers strictly applies was composed of forty-one Puritan emigrants and their families, who had, as a friend said, "been instrumental to break the ice for others; the honours shall be yours to the world's end."[103] The voyage of the Mayflower is now one of the most familiar events in the history of the British Empire. The little vessel, accompanied by the Speedwell, which had to return, sailed from Plymouth in August 1620. The original intention of the emigrants had been to land on part of the shores of Virginia; but owing to storms, the fragile character of the vessel, and the obstinacy of the captain, they reached Cape Cod, "which is onely a headland of high hils of sand ouergrowne with shrubbie pines hurts and such trash."[104] While lying off this inhospitable promontory the emigrants with forethought bound themselves together by a social compact, thus forming a true body politic.
The Pilgrims landed at a spot "fit for habitation" in Cape Cod Harbour on the 22nd of December. Exploring expeditions were undertaken by the more adventurous under Miles Standish, a man after the type of Captain John Smith, but less boastful and of sterner religious character. No definite settlement was fixed upon and the people were therefore forced to remain in the neighbourhood of Cape Cod, where they faced the winter unprepared. Although their minister, John Robinson, had described them months before as "well-weaned from the delicate milk of the Mother country and inurred to the difficulties of a strange land,"[105] yet their sufferings during those wild and stormy months must have been terrible. Several of the party died, amongst them their first governor, William Carver. His successor was the already mentioned chronicler, William Bradford, who served the colony well and faithfully for twelve years. He was the first American citizen of English birth who was selected as governor by free choice. His strength of character, moral rectitude, and lofty public spirit made him worthy of the high office conferred upon him. Fortunately his first year of government was freed from the burden of Indian attacks. The truth was that the Pilgrim Fathers always preserved friendly relations with the neighbouring Redskins; partly because they had been so reduced in numbers by pestilence that they were never a serious danger, and partly owing to Edward Winslow, one of the ablest and most highly educated of the settlers, who had saved, by his knowledge of medicine, the Indian chief's life, thus establishing from the first amicable relations.