The Colonies, 1492-1750

by Reuben Gold Thwaites

While the colonists were thus bravely making progress in laying the foundations of liberal institutions in America, there were troubles brewing both at home and abroad. The uncongenial spirits whom they had driven from Massachusetts Bay made complaints in England of the ill-treatment they had received, and carried to Archbishop Laud and other members of the Privy Council reports that the Puritans were setting up in America a practically independent state and church. As an immediate consequence, emigrants, early in 1634, were not permitted to go to New England without taking the royal oath of allegiance and promising to conform to the Book of Common Prayer.

Attack on the charter.

In April a royal commission of twelve persons was appointed, ostensibly to take charge of all the American colonies, secure conformity, and even to revoke charters; but it was well understood that Massachusetts was especially aimed at. The Massachusetts people were speedily ordered to lay their charter before the Privy Council. Their answer, however, was withheld, pending prayerful consideration. Meanwhile Dorchester, Charlestown, and Castle Island were fortified; a military commission was set to work to collect and store arms; militiamen were drilled; arrangements were made on Beacon Hill, in Boston, for signalling the inhabitants of the interior in case of an attack; the people were ordered on pain of death, in the event of war, to obey the military authorities, and no longer to swear allegiance to the Crown, but to the colony of Massachusetts.

The charter annulled.

But the men of the colony were politic as well as pugnacious, and despatched Winslow to England to make peace with the authorities. While he was in London, in February, 1635, the Plymouth Company surrendered its charter to the king, with the condition that the latter should annul all existing titles in New England, and partition the country in severalty among the members of the Plymouth council. In accordance with this arrangement, a writ of quo warranto was issued against the Massachusetts charter, it was declared null and void, and Gorges was authorized to be viceregal governor of New England.

Judgment suspended.

Winslow was imprisoned in England for four months for having broken the ecclesiastical law in celebrating marriages in the Plymouth colony, but upon his release did good diplomatic work and neutralized much of the opposition. Meanwhile, another and stricter order was sent out to the Massachusetts Company to surrender its charter. This again was met by silence and renewed military preparations. English Puritans were at this time attempting to leave for America in great numbers, on account of acts of royal tyranny. The difficulty with the Scotch Church ensued, and by 1640 the Long Parliament was in session. In the excitement occasioned by the Puritan rising in the mother-land, the day of punishment for Massachusetts was postponed.

54. Religious Troubles in Massachusetts (1636-1638).

Roger Williams.

The opposition at home, occasioned by differences in religious belief, was not, however, so easily thrust aside. Roger Williams, an able and learned, but bigoted young Welshman, a graduate from Pembroke College, Cambridge, came out to Plymouth in 1631. His tongue was too bold to suit the English ecclesiastical authorities, and to gain peace he had been obliged to depart for the colonies. In 1633 he went to Salem, where he became pastor of the church. Williams was fond of abstruse metaphysical discussion, and he was an extremist in thought, speech, and action; but while his arguments were phrased in such manner as often to make it difficult for us to understand him, the views he held were in the main what we style modern. He opposed the union of church and state, such as obtained in Massachusetts, where political power was exercised only by members of the congregation; he was opposed to enforced attendance on church, and would have done away with all contributions for religious purposes which were not purely voluntary. Such doctrines were, however, held to be dangerous to the commonwealth; and indeed expression of them would not at that time have been permitted in England nor in many parts of Continental Europe. But this was not all. Williams in a pamphlet pronounced it as his solemn judgment that the king was an intruder, and had no right to grant American lands to the colonists; that honest patents could only be procured from the Indians by purchase; and that all existing titles were therefore invalid. This was deemed downright treason, which he was compelled by the magistrates to recant. At Salem, Endicott, who was one of his disciples, became so heated under his pastor's teachings that, in token of his hatred of the symbols of Rome, he cut the cross of St. George from the English ensign. The General Court, greatly alarmed lest these proceedings should anger the king, reprimanded Endicott; and, because of his "divers new and dangerous opinions," ordered Williams (January, 1636) to return to England. The latter escaped, and passed the winter in missionary service among the Indians. In the spring, privately aided by the lenient Winthrop, the troublesome agitator passed south, with five of his followers, to Narragansett Bay, and there established Providence Plantation.