The opposition of the Virginia Company to the granting of this patent may be seen in their records as published by Neill., History of the Virginia Company of London, 1869, passim; also in Gorges’ Briefe Narration, pp. 22-31; in the Council’s Briefe Relation,[544] pp. 18-22; and in Brodhead’s Documents, iii. 4. The opposition of the House of Commons to the patent, after it had passed the seals, may be best seen in the printed Journals of the House for the sessions of 1621 and 1624. Chalmers’ extracts are to the point, but are not full. See also Gorges, and the Briefe Relation, as above. For the answer to the French ambassador, see also Sainsbury’s Calendar, Colonial, p. 61. The history of the transactions of the Council may be largely gathered from their extant records as published in Amer. Antiq. Soc. Proc., for April, 1867, and for October, 1875; from Gorges, and from the Briefe Relation. Cf. Palfrey, i. 193.
Probably no complete record exists of all the patents issued by the Council; and of those known to have been granted, the originals, or even copies of all of them, are not known to be extant. As full a list of these as has been collected may be seen in a Lecture read before the Massachusetts Historical Society, Jan. 15, 1869, by Samuel F. Haven, LL. D., entitled History of Grants under the Great Council for New England, etc.,—a valuable paper with comments and explanations, with which compare Dr. Palfrey’s list in his History of New England, i. 397-99.[545] Since Dr. Palfrey wrote, new material has come to light respecting some of these grants. The patent of Aug. 10, 1622, which Dr. Belknap supposed was the Laconia patent, and which he erroneously made the basis of the settlements of Thomson and of the Hiltons, and of later operations on the Piscataqua, is found not to be the Laconia patent, which was issued seven years later, namely, Nov. 17, 1629.[546] Later writers have copied him. Again, Dr. Palfrey refers the early division of the territory by the Council, from the Bay of Fundy to Cape Cod, among twenty associates, to May 31, 1622. By the recovery of another fragment of the records of the Council in 1875, we are able to correct all previous errors respecting that division, which really took place on Sunday, July 29, 1623. This fact has appeared since Dr. Haven wrote.[547]
An object of interest would be the map of the country on which the different patents granted were marked off. Some idea from it might be formed of the geographical mistakes by which one grant overlapped another, or swallowed it up entirely. I know of no published map existing at that time that would have served the purpose. The names of the places on the coast from Penobscot to Cape Cod, mentioned by Captain Smith in his tract issued in 1616, were rarely indicated on his map which accompanied the tract. They had been laid down on the manuscript draft of the map, but were changed for English names by Prince Charles.[548] Quite likely the Council had manuscript maps of the coast. Of the division of 1623, the records say it was resolved that the land “be divided according as the division is made in the plot remaining with Dr. Goche.” Smith, speaking of this division, says that the country was at last “engrossed by twenty patentees, that divided my map into twenty parts, and cast lots for their shares,” etc. Smith’s map was probably the best published map of the coast which existed at that time; but the map on which the names were subsequently engrossed and published was Alexander’s map of New England, New France, and New Scotland, published in 1624, in his Encouragement to Colonies, and also issued in the following year in Purchas, vol. iv. p. 1872. This record, as the fac-simile shows,[549] is a mere huddling together of names, with no indication as to a division of the country, as it was not possible there should be on such a map as this, where the whole New England coast, as laid down, is limited to three inches in extent, with few natural features delineated upon it.
The greatest trouble existed among the smaller patents. A large patent, like that to Gorges, for instance, at the grand division, with well-defined natural boundaries on the coast, between the Piscataqua and the Sagadahoc, or the Penobscot, would not be likely to be contested for lack of description; but there had been many smaller patents issued within these limits, which ran into and overlapped each other, and some were so completely annihilated as to cause great confusion.
Some of these smaller patents had alleged powers of government granted to the settlers,—powers probably rarely exercised by virtue of such a grant, and which the Council undoubtedly had no authority to confer.[550] The people of Plymouth, for instance, in their patent of 1630, were authorized, in the language of the grant, to incorporate themselves by some usual or fit name and title, with liberty to make laws and ordinances for their government. They never had a royal charter of incorporation during their separate existence, though they strove hard to obtain one. The Council for New England might from the first have taken the Pilgrims under their own government and protection; and Governor Bradford, in letters to the Council and to Sir Ferdinando Gorges, written in 1627 and 1628, acknowledges that relation, and asks for their aid.[551]
SEAL OF THE COUNCIL FOR NEW ENGLAND.
The records of the Council, so far as they are extant, contain no notice of the adoption of a common seal, and we are ignorant as to the time of its adoption. In the earliest patent known to have been issued by the Council, which was an indenture between them and John Peirce and his associates, dated June 1, 1621, the language is, “In witness whereof the said President and Council have to the one part of this present Indenture set their seals.” This is signed first by the Duke of Lenox, who I think was the first President of the Council, and by five other members of the Council, with the private seal of each appended to his signature. But in a grant to Gorges and Mason, of Aug. 10, 1622, which is also an indenture, the language is, that to one part “the said President and Council have caused their common seal to be affixed.” Here we have a “common seal” used by the Council in issuing their subsequent grants. But it is very singular, that of the many original grants of the Council extant no one of them has the wax impression of the seal intact or unbroken; usually it is wholly wanting. It is believed, however, that the design of the seal has been discovered in the engraving on the titlepage of Smith’s Generall Historie; and the reasons for this opinion may be seen in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., March, 1867, pp. 469-472.[552] A delineation of it is given herewith.
In the absence of any record of the organization of the Council, or of any rules or by-laws for the transaction of its business, we do not know what officers, or what number of the Council, were required for the issuing of patents, or for authorizing the use of the Company’s seal. The only name signed to the Plymouth Patent of Jan. 13, 1629/30 is that of the Earl of Warwick, who was then the President of the Council.