Of course, the opposition encountered—first from the Virginia Company and then from the House of Commons, the latter representing largely the popular sentiment—was a serious hindrance to the operations of the Council for New England. The disputes with the former, the Council themselves say, “held them almost two years, so as all men were afraid to join with them.”
The records of the Council, so far as they are extant, begin on “Saturday, the last of May, 1622,” at “Whitehall,” at which there were seven persons present, “the Lord Duke of Lenox” heading the list. Some business was transacted before this date, as the first day’s record here refers to it. The record of the organization of the Council is wanting; and two persons named as present at this meeting—Captain Samuel Argall and Dr. Barnabe Goche—were not included in the list of the forty patentees. They must have been elected since, in the place of others who had resigned. Goche was now elected treasurer in the place of Sir Ferdinando Gorges. I think that the Duke of Lenox was the first president of the Council. In the patent granted to John Peirce, mentioned above as taken out on behalf of the Pilgrims, dated June 1, 1621,—which, I may add, was nearly a year before the date of any known record of the Council,—purporting to be signed by “the President and Counsell,” who have “set their seals” to the same, were the names of Lenox, Hamilton, Ro. Warwick, Sheffield, Ferd. Gorges, in the order here given, and one other name indistinct, with their separate seals.[526]
It is not improbable, therefore, that the business transactions of the Council, in this inchoate and uncertain period of its existence, were so few that they were preserved only in loose minutes, or files of papers, which were never recorded, and are now lost.
After they had freed their patent, they first considered how they should raise the means to advance the plantation, and two methods were suggested. One contemplated a voluntary contribution by the patentees; and the other, the ransoming the freedoms of those who were willing to partake of present profits arising by the trade or fishing on the coast. The patentees, in the one case, agreed to pay one hundred pounds apiece (the records say £110); in the other, inducements were offered to the western cities and towns to form joint-stock associations for trade and fishing, from which a revenue in the shape of royalty might be derived to the Council: and, in order to further this latter project, letters were to be issued to those cities, by the Privy Council, prohibiting any not free of that business from visiting the coast, upon pain of confiscation of ship and goods. This last scheme was not favorably received. The letters produced an effect contrary to what was expected, since the restraining of the liberty of free fishing gave alarm; and, as the Parliament of 1621 was about to meet, every possible influence was brought to bear against this great monopoly, with what effect we have already seen.
While the plan of voluntary associations failed, the business of exacting a tax from individual fishermen was prosecuted with vigor, and probably; in some instances with success. A proclamation against disorderly trading, or visiting the coasts of New England without a license from the Council, was issued. A grand scheme for settling the coast of New England by a local government was marked out, and the Platform of the Government was put into print.[527]
The project of laying out a county on the Kennebec River; forty miles square, for general purposes, and building a great city at the junction of the Kennebec and Androscoggin Rivers, was part of the great plan. A ship and pinnace had been built at Whitby, a seaport in Yorkshire, at large expense, for use in the colony; and others were contemplated. They were to lie on the coast for the defence of the merchants and fishermen, and to convoy the fleets as they went to and from their markets. Sir Ferdinando Gorges, who had been treasurer of the Council, was now chosen governor, and was destined for New England; but the Company were seriously embarrassed for funds, and finally were obliged to mortgage the ship to some of their individual members. The assessments of £110 each were not all paid in, and patentees who did not intend to pay were asked to resign, so that others might take their places. Constant complaints were made of merchants who were violating the privileges of the Company by sending out vessels for fishing and trading on the coast; and orders were passed for applying remedies. The plan for the new patent is constantly referred to in the records, and the present patentees are to be warned that they will have no place in it, unless they pay up their past dues. The inducement to be held out is, that all who actually pay £110 may have a place in the new grant, provided they “be persons of honor or gentlemen of blood, except only six merchants to be admitted by us for the service, and especial employments of the said Council in the course of trade and commerce,” etc. But their schemes were not realized.
In the Council’s prospectus already cited, issued in the summer of 1622, they say, “We have settled, at this present, several plantations along the coast, and have granted patents to many more that are in preparation to be gone with all conveniency.” The bare fact, however, is that the Pilgrims at Plymouth were the only actual settlers, and they had landed within the patent limits by the merest chance. There may have been some other bodies of men, in small numbers, living on the coast, such as Gorges used to hire, at large expense, to spend the winter there. His servant, Richard Vines, a highly respectable man, was sent out to the coast for trade and discovery, and spent some time in the country; and he is supposed to have passed one winter during a great plague among the Indians,—perhaps that of 1616-17,—at the mouth of the Saco River.[528] Vines and John Oldham afterward had a patent of Biddeford, on that river. Several scattering plantations were begun in the following year.
FROM DUDLEY’S ARCANO DEL MARE.
The complaints to the Council of abuses committed by fishermen and other interlopers, who without license visited the coast, and by their conduct caused the overthrow of the trade and the dishonor of the government, led to the selection of Robert Gorges, the younger son of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, and who was recently returned from the Venetian wars, to be sent to New England for the correction of these abuses. He was commissioned as lieutenant-general, and there were appointed for his council and assistants Captain Francis West as admiral, Christopher Levett, and the governor of Plymouth for the time being. Robert Gorges had but recently become a shareholder in the grand patent, and he had also a personal grant of a tract of land on the northeast side of Massachusetts Bay, ten miles along the coast, and extending thirty miles into the interior. This was made to him partly in consideration of his father’s services to the Company.