After the failure of Sir Walter Raleigh’s attempts to colonize Virginia, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the spirit of discovery and settlement of the New World was greatly revived under the reign of King James. In the year 1606, that monarch granted two charters to companies of gentlemen, who united for the purpose, dividing the country into two districts, called North and South Virginia. The limits of the northern district were within thirty-eight and forty-five degrees of north latitude. This charter was granted to gentlemen of Plymouth and other towns in the west of England, who were denominated the Plymouth Company, and afterward, under a new modification of their charter, “The Council of Plymouth.”
Some of the first attempts by this company to colonize New England were very unsuccessful; the company soon grew discouraged, and were inactive a number of years. One member of the company, however, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, never “gave up the ship.” He alone remained undiscouraged by their ill success, and when the company would do nothing, he kept at work upon his own hook. He sent out vessels several times at his own expense, to explore the coast of New England with a view of making settlements. In 1616, one of his vessels, under the command of Richard Vines, wintered on the coast at the mouth of Saco river in Maine. The harbor which gave them shelter was afterward called Winter Harbor.
In 1620, the Plymouth Company received a new impulse. Their charter was renewed, their powers enlarged, and their boundaries extended from the fortieth to the forty-eighth degree of north latitude, and from sea to sea. This year the first permanent settlement was commenced in Massachusetts by the pilgrim band at Plymouth.
In 1622, the Council of Plymouth, as the company in England was now styled, made a grant to their active member, Sir F. Gorges, in company with John Mason, of all the territory between the Merrimac and Kennebec rivers, and under their auspices settlements now began to be scattered along the coast. In 1629, Mason and Gorges divided their possessions, and, like Abraham and Lot, one went to the right and the other to the left. Mason took that portion of the territory lying west of the Piscataqua river, to which he gave the name of New Hampshire, while the country east of the Piscataqua remained in the possession of Gorges, and was called for some years New Somersetshire, and afterward the Province of Maine.
After this, various grants were made along the coast of Maine to different individuals and companies, and the limits of these grants, often being very indefinite, led to many long and bitter controversies. In 1635, Gorges attempted to establish a General Court for the government of his province, and sent over commissions to several persons for that purpose. Understanding, however, that affairs were not well managed, a year or two after he sent over an order to the authorities of Massachusetts Bay “to govern his province of New Somersetshire, and to oversee his servants and private affairs.”
The authorities of Massachusetts Bay, however, declined interfering in the matter, and the province remained without a good and efficient local government till 1640, when Sir Ferdinando commissioned the following persons to be his counsellors for the administration of the government of his province: viz. “his trusty and well beloved cousin, Thomas Gorges, Esq., Richard Vines, Esq., his steward-general, Francis Champernoon, his loving nephew, Henry Jocelyn and Richard Bonython, Esqrs., and William Hook and Edward Godfrey, gentlemen.”
These persons constituted a General Court, with legislative, judicial, and executive powers, and in the name of “Sir Ferdinando Gorges, Knight, Lord Proprietor of the Province of Maine,” exercised entire control over all the affairs of the province. The first court was held at Saco, on the 25th of June, 1640; and another was holden in September following.
Among the earlier weighty matters that came under the cognizance of this court was the affair of Jane Andrews and her firkin of butter. The General Court was in session, and the judges, or the counsellors, as their commissions styled them, were seated round a long table, looking over some accounts that were in dispute between two neighbors, when Mr. Nicholas Davis came in, with a look and air of unusual agitation. He stood for a minute looking round the room, which was pretty well filled with spectators, and then he looked at the judges with an earnestness that showed he had something uncommon on his mind.
Mr. Davis was a short, thick man, inclined to be fleshy; the day was warm, and large drops of sweat stood upon his face. He drew a checked cotton handkerchief from his pocket and wiped and rubbed his face till it was as red as a boiled lobster. Then he stepped up to one of the judges and began to whisper in his ear. Presently the judge rolled up his eyes and looked astonished. Mr. Davis put his hand down into his right-hand coat pocket and pulled out a stone as large as his two fists. And then he drew another from his left-hand pocket, a little larger, and handed it to the judge. And then they whispered together again. The people looked wild, and the rest of the judges impatient. At last the judge turned round and whispered to the rest of the court for the space of two minutes. And then they called Mr. Constable Frost and told him to show Mr. Davis into the room with the grand jury.
After Mr. Davis had retired into the jury-room, the court seemed restless and unfitted to go on with business. One of the judges got up, and putting both hands into his coat pockets, walked gravely back and forth from one end of the table to the other. Two more sat whispering very earnestly to each other; and the rest were tipped back in their chairs, with a settled frown upon their brows, and looking unutterable things upon the multitude in the court-room. The people in low whispers began to speculate upon the mysterious business of Mr. Davis in the grand jury-room.