Giving and taking strength reciprocal,
And making firm the whole with grace and beauty,
So that no part could be removed without
Infringement of the general harmony.”
Byron’s Doge of Venice.
The success of Endicott and the supplementary success of the detachments despatched to reinforce him—success which at the very outset had left the older settlement at Plymouth, plodding on under a heavy load of debt and odium, far behind—stirred English Puritanism as with the blast of a trumpet. So intense was the interest in the new colony, throughout the realm, that a tract descriptive of New England, written by Higginson, and sent over to England, in manuscript, was printed, and ran through three editions in as many months.[653] In every hamlet, on every street-corner, eager groups met and discussed the right and the policy of emigration; and the most scrupulous consciences met the query, “Is it permitted that men fly from persecution?” by responding, “Yes; for persecution may lead our posterity to abjure the truth.”
Soon this stir had an effect. Some of the purest, wealthiest, and best-educated men in England agreed to embark for America. One thing only had made them hesitate; the colonial government resided in England, and was only sifted into New England by delegation. The charter empowered the company, and not the colonists, to transport persons, establish ordinances, and settle government.[654] It was a chrysalis; it had the face of a commercial corporation, but was pregnant with the essence of an independent provincial government. Like the mermaid, it had a human head, but its body was the body of a fish. This puissant possibility—who should evoke it? Who should utter the talismanic words fit to set free the hidden spirit of self-government? Matthew Cradock, the governor of the company, pronounced the “open sesame.” He saw, as did other sagacious men, that the residence of the corporate authority in England embarrassed emigration, barred prosperity, and opened the door to discord. The colonists sighed for a real governor, not one in masquerade; and all began to realize that a government three thousand miles away could not successfully legislate for a settlement whose growing necessities came as quickly and changed as rapidly as the combinations of a kaleidoscope.
So Cradock, with generous self-abnegation, himself proposed the transfer of the charter to such of the freemen of the company as should themselves inhabit the colony.[655] A heated debate ensued. Both pros and cons had their say, and the formers of the project strengthened their argument by pointing to such men as Winthrop, Saltonstall, Johnson, Dudley, and Humphrey, all of whom had recently bound themselves at Cambridge to sail for Massachusetts Bay, accompanied by their families, provided the colonial government should be transferred to the Plantation.[656]
This decided the company, and a general assent was given to the alienation of the patent.[657] Then came an obstacle. The crown lawyers said, “It is not so nominated in the bond; you have no right, standing under this corporation charter in London, to transfer your power.” Our fathers replied: “King Charles has granted us certain authority, but our charter does not bind us to exercise that authority in England; locality is not specified. We choose to vote that emigrants shall be freemen, and to summon a meeting beyond the Atlantic. You say this was not contemplated; but where is it forbidden? If you can quibble, so can we. If we have not the right, we will create it. In the light of our success lawyers may read the reason and hunt up a precedent fifty years hence.”