The plan now matured by Gorges was a large one. He had no idea of being balked of the prize which it had been the dream and the effort of his life to secure. He meant yet to grasp a government for himself, and an inheritance for his children, in New England. So far as the settlement of that country was concerned, what he for thirty years had been vainly ruining himself to bring about was now accomplishing itself; but it was accomplishing itself not only without his aid, but in a way which gravely threatened his interests. The people who were swarming to New England refused to recognize his title, and abused and expelled his agents. It was clear that the Council for New England was not equal to dealing with such a crisis. It was necessary to proceed through some other agency. The following scheme was, therefore, step by step devised.

The territory held under the great patent of the Council for New England extended from Maine to New Jersey. This whole region was, by the action of the Council, to be divided in severalty among its remaining members, and the patent was then to be surrendered to the King, who thereupon was to confirm the division just made.[121] The Council being thus gotten out of the way, the King was to assume the direct government of the whole territory, and was to appoint a governor-general for it. Sir Ferdinando Gorges was to be that governor-general.[122] He would thus go out to his province clothed with full royal authority; and the issue would then be, not between the settlers of Massachusetts, acting under the King’s charter, and that “carcass in a manner breathless,” the Council for New England, but between a small body of disobedient subjects and the King’s own representative. The scheme was a well-devised one. It was nothing more nor less than the colonial or New England branch of Strafford’s “Thorough.” It was a part, though a small part, of a great system.

The first step in carrying out the programme was to secure the appointment of the Commission of April 10. The influence of the Archbishop being assured, there was no difficulty in this. The board was composed of twelve members of the Privy Council. Laud himself was at the head of it, and with him were the Archbishop of York, the Earls of Portland, Manchester, Arundel and Dorset, Lord Cottington, Sir Thomas Edmunds, Sir Henry Vane, and Secretaries Cooke and Windebank. Any five or more of these Commissioners were to constitute a quorum, and their powers were of the largest description. They could revoke all charters previously granted, remove governors and appoint others in the places of those removed, and even break up settlements if they deemed it best so to do. They could inflict punishment upon all offenders, either by imprisonment, “or by loss of life or member.” It was in fact a commission of “right divine.” It embodied the whole royal policy of King Charles, as formulated by Wentworth and enforced by Laud. The new Commission was not slow in proceeding to its appointed work, and the potency of Gorges’s influence in it was shown by his immediate designation as governor-general.[123] How close Morton then stood to him may be inferred from the following letter, which shows also that he was well informed as to all that was going on.[124] It was written exactly three weeks after the appointment of the Commission, and was addressed to William Jeffreys at Wessagusset:—

My very good Gossip,—If I should commend myself to you, you reply with this proverb,—Propria laus fordet in ore: but to leave impertinent salute, and really to proceed.—You shall hereby understand, that, although, when I was first sent to England to make complaint against Ananias and the brethren, I effected the business but superficially, (through the brevity of time,) I have at this time taken more deliberation and brought the matter to a better pass. And it is thus brought about, that the King hath taken the business into his own hands. The Massachusetts Patent, by order of the council, was brought in view; the privileges there granted well scanned upon, and at the council board in public, and in the presence of Sir Richard Saltonstall and the rest, it was declared, for manifest abuses there discovered, to be void. The King hath reassumed the whole business into his own hands, appointed a committee of the board, and given order for a general governor of the whole territory to be sent over. The commission is passed the privy seal, I did see it, and the same was 1 mo. Maii sent to the Lord Keeper to have it pass the great seal for confirmation; and I now stay to return with the governor, by whom all complainants shall have relief:[125] So that now Jonas being set ashore may safely cry, repent you cruel separatists, repent, there are as yet but forty days. If Jove vouchsafe to thunder, the charter and kingdom of the separatists will fall asunder. Repent you cruel schismatics, repent.[126] These things have happened, and I shall see, (notwithstanding their boasting and false alarms in the Massachusetts, with feigned cause of thanksgiving,) their merciless cruelty rewarded, according to the merit of the fact, with condign punishment for coming into these parts, like Sampson’s foxes with fire-brands at their tails.[127] The King and Council are really possessed of their preposterous loyalty and irregular proceedings, and are incensed against them: and although they be so opposite to the catholic axioms, yet they will be compelled to perform them, or at leastwise, suffer them to be put in practice to their sorrow. In matter of restitution and satisfaction, more than mystically, it must be performed visibly, and in such sort as may be subject to the senses in a very lively image. My Lord Canterbury having, with my Lord Privy Seal, caused all Mr. Cradock’s letters to be viewed, and his apology in particular for the brethren here, protested against him and Mr. Humfrey, that they were a couple of imposterous knaves; so that, for all their great friends, they departed the council chamber in our view with a pair of cold shoulders. I have staid long, yet have not lost my labor, although the brethren have found their hopes frustrated; so that it follows by consequence, I shall see my desire upon mine enemies: and if John Grant had not betaken him to flight, I had taught him to sing clamavi in the Fleet before this time, and if he return before I depart, he will pay dear for his presumption. For here he finds me a second Perseus: I have uncased Medusa’s head, and struck the brethren into astonishment. They find, and will yet more to their shame, that they abuse the word and are to blame to presume so much,—that they are but a word and a blow to them that are without. Of these particulars I thought good, by so convenient a messenger, to give you notice, lest you should think I had died in obscurity, as the brethren vainly intended I should, and basely practised, abusing justice by their sinister practices, as by the whole body of the committee, una voce, it was concluded to be done, to the dishonor of his majesty. And as for Ratcliffe, he was comforted by their lordships with the cropping of Mr. Winthrop’s ears: which shows what opinion is held amongst them of King Winthrop with all his inventions and his Amsterdam fantastical ordinances, his preachings, marriages, and other abusive ceremonies, which do exemplify his detestation to the Church of England, and the contempt of his majesty’s authority and wholesome laws, which are and will be established in these parts, invitâ Minervâ. With these I thought fit to salute you, as a friend, by an epistle, because I am bound to love you, as a brother, by the gospel, resting your loving friend.

THOMAS MORTON.[128]

Dated 1 Mo. Maii, 1634.

Morton is always confused and inaccurate in his statements, and this letter afforded no exception to the rule. It is impossible to be quite sure of what particular occasions he refers to in it. He may in the same breath be speaking of different things. Whether, for instance, the hearing to which he alludes, at which the patent “was brought in view,” was the same or another meeting from that in which Cradock’s letters were produced, is not clear. It would seem as though he were speaking of the February hearing before the whole Council, and yet he may be describing a subsequent hearing in April before the Lords Commissioners. He speaks of the “council chamber” and of “the whole body of the Committee,” and then alludes to the presence of Saltonstall, Humfrey and Cradock. Now these persons were before the Council in the hearing of 1632, and they may all of them, as Cradock certainly was, have been before it in February 1634; but Humfrey could hardly have appeared before the Lords Commissioners, as he seems to have sailed for New England early in the month during which they were appointed. The meeting which Morton describes, therefore, was probably that of February 28, 1634; and it would seem to have savored strongly of the Star Chamber and High Commission. Cradock and Humfrey were apparently scolded and abused by Laud in the style for which he was famous, and the admission by the former, that the charter had gone to America, had led to his being called “an imposterous knave,” and sharply told to send for it back at once. The well-known foibles of the Primate had been skilfully played upon by accounts of Winthrop’s “Amsterdam fantastical ordinances, his preachings, marriages, and other abusive ceremonies;” and they had much the effect that a red flag is known to have on a bull. Nothing was now heard of the King’s intention of severely punishing those who abused “his governor;” but, on the contrary, Ratcliffe was “comforted with the cropping of Mr. Winthrop’s ears.” Gorges was governor-general, and with him Morton expected soon to depart.

Cradock’s letter, enclosing the order of the Council for the return of the charter, reached Boston in July. Winthrop was then no longer governor, having been displaced by Dudley at the previous May election. As is well known to all students of New England history, the famous parchment, still in the office of the secretary of the Puritan Commonwealth, was not sent back.[129] It is unnecessary, however, to here repeat the story of the struggle over it. Presently Governor Edward Winslow of Plymouth was despatched to England, as the joint agent of the two colonies, to look after their endangered interests. He reached London in the autumn of 1634, bringing with him an evasive reply to the demand contained in Cradock’s letter.

Winslow sailed in the middle or latter part of July, and a few days later, on the 4th of August,[130] Jeffreys came over from Wessagusset to Boston, bringing to Winthrop the letter which he had shortly before received from Morton. It was the first intimation the magistrates had of the Commission and of the appointment of a governor-general. Winthrop communicated the news to Dudley and the other members of the Council, and to some of the ministers; and, doubtless, for a time they all nursed an anxious hope that the exaggerations in the letter were even greater than they really were. The General Court met on the 25th of August. While it was still in session, vessels arrived bringing tidings which dispelled all doubt, and confirmed everything material that Morton had said. He whom the magistrates had so ignominiously punished, and so contemptuously driven away, was evidently in a position to know what those in authority intended. It began to be evident that the Massachusetts magistrates had underestimated an opponent.

A full copy of the Order in Council establishing the board of Lords Commissioners of Plantations, was now received, and the colonists were further advised, through their private letters, that ships were being furnished, and soldiers gotten ready for embarkation in them. It was given out that these troops and vessels were intended for Virginia, whither a new governor was about to be sent; but Winthrop wrote that in Massachusetts the preparation was “suspected to be against us, to compel us by force to receive a new governor, and the discipline of the church of England, and the laws of the commissioners.[131]”