Among the attempts at forming settlements at this time was one of a character as peculiar as it was undesirable. Captain Wollaston began a plantation, which he named after himself. One Morton, of Furnival’s inn, was of this company. He was not left in command, but contrived to make himself chief, changed the name of mount Wollaston to Merry mount, set all the servants free, erected a may-pole, and lived a life of dissipation, until all the stock intended for trade was consumed. He was charged with furnishing the Indians with guns and ammunition, and teaching them the use of them. At length, he made himself so obnoxious to the planters in all parts, that, at their general desire, the people of New Plymouth seized him by an armed force, and confined him, until they had opportunity of sending him to England.
The time was now at hand, when the causes which had induced the voluntary exile of the Leyden congregation, should produce an effect far more extensive. Applications to the Plymouth company from Puritan congregations were now becoming frequent; and, in the year 1628, the council of Plymouth sold to Sir Henry Roswell and others, their heirs andassociates, that part of New England which lies between two boundaries, one three miles north of the Merrimac, and the other three miles south of Charles river, from the Atlantic to the South sea. The same year Mr. Endicot, one of the patentees, came to New England, and planted himself, with a small colony, in Naumkeag, now Salem. The following year they were joined by about two hundred others, making three hundred in the whole, one hundred of whom, however, removed the same year, and settled themselves, with the consent of Mr. Endicot, governor of the colony, at Mishawum, now Charlestown. The second Salem company brought with them a considerable number of cattle, horses, sheep, and goats; which after a little period, became so numerous as to supply all the wants of the inhabitants. Powers of government were granted to these colonists by Charles I., which constituted them a corporation, by the name of The Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay, in New England, with power to elect annually a governor, deputy governor, and eighteen assistants; four great and general courts were to be held every year, to consist of the governor, or, in his absence, the deputy governor, the assistants, or at least six of them, and the freemen of the company.
The arbitrary proceedings of the British court, in affairs both of church and state, continued without any abatement, and induced many gentlemen of wealth and distinction to join the Plymouth company, and remove to New England. In 1629, many persons of this character, and among them the distinguished names of Isaac Johnson, John Winthrop, Thomas Dudley, and Sir Richard Saltonstall, proposed to the company to remove with their families, on condition that the charter and government should be transferred to New England. To this the company assented, and in the course of the next year, John Winthrop, who had been chosen governor, with about one thousand five hundred persons, embarked. The fleet consisted of ten sail, one of which was of three hundred and fifty tons, and, from lady Arabella Johnson, who sailed in her, was called the Arabella. Among the passengers were a number of eminent non-conformist ministers. The most highly esteemed was Mr. Wilson, the son of a dignitary of the church, who, by his connexions and talents, might have aspired to its highest honors, but chose to renounce all, in order to suffer with those whom he accounted the people of God. But the circumstance which threw a greater lustre on the colony than any other, was the arrival of Mr. John Cotton, the most esteemed of all the Puritan ministers in England. Becoming an object of the persecuting fury of Laud, he left Boston in disguise, and spent some time in London, seeking a proper opportunity to emigrate. There went out with him Mr. Hooker and Mr. Stone, who were esteemed to make a glorious triumvirate, and were received in New England with the utmost exultation. Mr. Cotton was appointed to preach at Boston, now the principal town in Massachusetts bay, and was mainly employed in drawing up the ecclesiastical constitution of the colony.
On the arrival of the principal ships of the fleet at Charlestown, the governor and several of the patentees, having viewed the bottom of the bay of Massachusetts, and pitched down on the north side of Charles river, took lodgings in the great house built there the preceding year, and the rest of the company erected cottages, booths, and tents, about the town hill. Their place of assembling for divine service was under a tree.When the fleet had safely arrived, a day of thanksgiving was kept in all the plantations. Early attention was paid to the great object of the enterprise. On the 30th of July, a day of solemn prayer and fasting was kept at Charlestown, when governor Winthrop, deputy governor Dudley, and Mr. Wilson, first entered into church covenant; and at this time was laid the foundation of the church of Charlestown, and of the first church in Boston. On the 27th of August, the congregation kept a fast, and chose Mr. Wilson their teacher. ‘We used imposition of hands,’ says governor Winthrop, ‘but with this protestation by all, that it was only a sign of election and confirmation, not of any intent that Mr. Wilson should renounce the ministry he received in England.’
The colony was now gaining strength from its numbers and organization; but it had also its trials to contend with, not the least of which was the sickness arising from the severity of the climate, or, more truly, from the means of counteracting the injurious tendencies of the climate not being yet properly understood. Among those who fell an early sacrifice, none were lamented more than lady Arabella Johnson and her husband, who had left the abodes of abundance and of social comfort for the American wilderness, purely from religious principle. As soon as the severity of the winter was abated sufficiently to admit of assemblies being convened, the colonists proceeded to enact laws for their internal regulation. It has been before observed, that those who so resolutely ventured to cross the ocean, and to brave the hardships attendant on clearing the American forests, sought rather to establish churches, than to found a kingdom; it will naturally be supposed, therefore, that their legislation partook largely of an ecclesiastical character. Indeed, the history of this colony presents more matter for the ecclesiastical than the civil historian. At the very first court of election a law was passed, enacting that none should hereafter be admitted freemen, or be entitled to any share in the government, or be capable of being chosen magistrates, or even of serving as jurymen but such as had been or should hereafter be received into the church as members. ‘This was a most extraordinary order or law,’ says Hutchinson, ‘and yet it continued in force until the dissolution of the government, it being repealed in appearance only after the restoration of king Charles II. Had they been deprived of their civil privileges in England by an act of parliament, unless they would join in communion with the churches there, it might very well have been the first in the roll of grievances. But such were the requisites to qualify for church-membership here, that the grievance was abundantly greater.’
The baneful influence of the erroneous principles of the union of the civil and ecclesiastical power, soon became apparent in the persecution of the most liberally minded man in the colony, Roger Williams. It is true that he enthusiastically supported some tenets which were deemed heterodox, and occasioned considerable excitement by inveighing against the use of the cross in the national flag. In consequence of the spread of his opinion, some of the troops would not act till the relic of popery, as they considered it, was cut out of the banner, while others would not serve under any flag from which it was erased. At length a compromise was entered into, by which it was agreed that the obnoxious emblem should be omitted from the banners of the militia, while it was retained in those of the forts. This, however, was only one of the errors chargedagainst Williams; it is said that he maintained that no female should go abroad unless veiled; that unregenerate men ought neither to pray nor to take oaths; that, indeed, oaths had better be altogether omitted; that the churches of New England should not acknowledge or communicate with the hierarchy from which they had separated; that infants should not be subjects of baptism; that the magistrate should confine his authority wholly to temporal affairs; and that James or Charles of England had no right at all to grant away the lands of the Indians without their consent. For the zealous propagation of these sentiments, he was deemed worthy of banishment from the colony of Massachusetts. The order of the court was, that he should be transported to England; but he escaped the limits of their jurisdiction, repaired to the Narraganset country, and became the founder of a new colony.
During the year 1635, no less than three thousand persons arrived in New England. Among them was Henry Vane, a young man of noble family, animated with a devotion to the cause of religion and liberty, which induced him to relinquish all his hopes in England, and settle in an infant colony which as yet afforded little more than a bare subsistence to its inhabitants: he was naturally received in New England with high regard and admiration, and was instantly complimented with the freedom of the colony. Enforcing his claims to respect by the address and ability which he showed in conducting business, he was elected governor in the year subsequent to his arrival, by the universal consent of the colonists, and with the highest expectations of an advantageous administration. These hopes, we shall find in the sequel, were by no means realized. He entered too deeply into polemical theology, to allow him to devote the energies of his mind to the civil and political duties which afforded so abundant a field for their exercise.
A brief period elapsed after the expulsion of Roger Williams, before the repose of the colony was again interrupted by religious dissensions. The Puritans had transported, with their other religious practices, that of assembling one evening in the week to converse over the discourses of the preceding Sabbath; a proceeding well calculated to keep alive that zeal which arises from the vigorous exercise of private judgment, but not to promote the subserviency requisite to a quiet submission to the uniformity of authorized opinions. These meetings had been originally confined to the brethren; but Mrs. Hutchinson, a lady of respectable station in life, of considerable native talent, and of affable manners, deemed it desirable that the sisters should also exercise a similar privilege. Unfortunately, it was not long before this lady and her associates discovered that there would be much more propriety in their instructing their ministers than in the reverse process, which had hitherto prevailed. They adopted that most convenient dogma, that good works are no evidence of being a true Christian, or one of the elect; and that the only testimony to a state of justification, was the overpowering assurance of the mind, produced by the immediate influence of the divine Spirit.
The disturbance occasioned by the propagation of these offensive sentiments, was aggravated by the circumstance of the governor, Mr. Vane, being their decided advocate. Vehement discussions and bitter accusations abounded; but the antinomian party, though most zealous, were least numerous; and at the annual election, Mr. Vane was displaced by Mr. Winthrop,by a very decided majority. After various measures had been resorted to, in order to bring the dissentients within the pale of orthodoxy, a synod was called, which determined that the sentiments of Mrs. Hutchinson and her followers were grievously erroneous, and, as they still refused submission, the favorite measure of banishment was had recourse to. Another accession was thus made to the ‘alluvies,’ as Mather terms it, of Rhode Island; but not finding that land of liberty perfectly to her taste Mrs. Hutchinson removed to a Dutch plantation, where, not long after, she was basely murdered, with many of her family, by the Indians.
It does not fall within our plan to follow out the details of the ecclesiastical persecutions that disfigure the early history of New England. Although themselves fugitives from the terrors of persecution, the Puritans entertained no particular toleration for the tenets of those who came to different conclusions. They whipped, banished, and imprisoned Anabaptists, Quakers and others, whose obstinacy was equal to their own, and whose power was unfortunately less. Like many other enthusiasts, they entertained a strong predilection for the phraseology and manners of the Hebrews, whose laws they ill understood. Lying, drunkenness and dancing were punished with public whipping; and for a man to have long hair was considered an abomination, and inconsistent with the care of the soul.