“Mr. Neale accordant, that Sir Ferdinando hath besides threatened to send out ships to beat off from their free fishing, and restraineth the ships, ut supra.
“Sir Edward Coke, that the patent may be brought in; and Sir T. Wentworth, that the party may be sent for.
“Ordered, the patent shall be brought in to the Committee for Grievances upon Friday next, and Sir Jo. Bowcer [Bourchier, one of the patentees] and Sir Ferdinando his son, to be sent for, to be then there, if he be in town, Sir Ferdinando himself being captain of Portsmouth” (Plymouth).
On the 24th, “Neale moveth again concerning ... restraint of fishing upon the coasts of ... it may be brought in at the next ... for grievances and the Com....
“Ordered, the patent, or in the default thereof Journal of the House of Commons.
[526] See chapter viii.
[527] Two parts of the territory were to be divided among the patentees, and one third was to be reserved for public uses; but the entire territory was to be formed into counties, baronies, hundreds, etc. From every county and barony deputies were to be chosen to consult upon the laws to be framed, and to reform any notable abuses; yet these are not to be assembled but by order of the President and Council of New England, who are to give life to the laws so to be made, as those to whom it of right belongs. The counties and baronies were to be governed by the chief and the officers under him, with a power of high and low justice,—subject to an appeal, in some cases, to the supreme courts. The lords of counties might also divide their counties into manors and lordships, with courts for determining petty matters. When great cities had grown up, they were to be made bodies politic to govern their own private affairs, with a right of representation by deputies or burgesses. The management of the whole affair was to be committed to a general governor, to be assisted by the advice and counsel of so many of the patentees as should be there resident, together with the officers of State. There was to be a marshal for matters of arms; an admiral for maritime business, civil and criminal; and a master of ordnance for munition, etc. (Cf. the Council’s “Briefe Relation,” in 2 Mass. Hist. Coll., ix. 21-25; S. F. Haven’s Lecture before the Massachusetts Historical Society, Jan. 15, 1869, on The History of the Grants, etc., pp. 18, 19.)
[528] Tradition has preserved the name of “Winter Harbor” there, and this name appears on a map of the New England coast, which is one of the collection known as Dudley’s Arcano del Mare, issued at Florence in 1646, and of which a reduced fac-simile is given herewith. Dudley was an expatriated Englishman, of the Earl of Leicester, and had a romantic story, which has been told by Mr. Hale in the Amer. Antiq. Soc. Proc., 1873. Dudley’s first wife had been a sister of Cavendish, and he is otherwise connected with American exploration; but there is no evidence that he had much other material for this map than Smith and the Dutch. [Dudley and his cartographical labors are also brought under notice in chap. ii. of the present volume, and in chap. ix. of Vol. IV.—Ed.]
[529] Of thirty-six meetings recorded to have been held between May 31, 1622, and June 28, 1623, Sir F. Gorges was present at thirty-five meetings; Sir Samuel Argall, thirty-three; Goche, treasurer, twenty-two. The average attendance at a meeting was but four. One half the patentees originally named in the grant never attended a meeting.
[530] The record says that there was presented to the King “a plot of all the coasts and lands of New England, divided into twenty parts, each part containing two shares, and twenty lots containing the said double shares, made up in little bales of wax, and the names of twenty patentees by whom these lots were to be drawn.” The King drew for three absent members, including Buckingham, who had gone to Spain. There were eleven members present, who drew for themselves. Nine other lots were drawn for absent members.