They reached New England in the autumn[595]—that hazy, glowing, golden season, when the woods hang out their myriad-tinted banners to the wind, when the streams gurgle most laughingly, when Nature claps her hands with joy, and the
“Hills, rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun,”
smooth their wrinkled fronts into unwonted softness. Endicott must have had quite a different idea of the western wilds from that which stern, icy December daguerreotyped upon the minds of Bradford and his coadjutors.
At once fraternizing with Conant’s sentinel squad—apprized of their coming by Woodbury, who had returned ere Endicott sailed—the new-comers proceeded to put up additional cottages; and they called the nascent hamlet Salem, “for the peace which they had and hoped in it.”[596] Like their brothers at Plymouth, they immediately began to explore the surrounding country. Imagine their surprise when, on one occasion, they stumbled across “an English palisaded and thatched house.” Approaching cautiously, they heard the ringing music of an anvil. Here, in the heart of the wilderness, lived Thomas Walford, a hermit smith who had won wide favor with the Indians by his skill in working metals.[597]
From this and kindred incidents, historians have loved to draw a moral, depicting the excess of individuality which marks the Teutonic races. The Saxon inevitably individuates. He can stand alone; is self-reliant and aggressive; asks only, with the old cynic, that intruders shall get out of his sunlight. He does not gather into cities because he is weak, nor because he is social. He is willing, for a purpose, to go out from men, and to create a society patterned on his own model. ’Tis a high quality when properly attempered, making individuals kings and nations independent. It explores and subdues unknown and dreaded continents, and is the father of that marvellous enterprise which to-day realizes Puck’s prophecy, and “puts a girdle round the earth in forty minutes.”
Walford’s hermitage was in Mishawam. The locality seemed favorable for a settlement. The explorers returned to Salem with their report; and ere long “a portion of the colonists established themselves around the forge of the sturdy blacksmith; and with the old patriotic feeling, which neither wrongs nor sufferings could altogether root out, they named the new settlement Charlestown, in honor of a king whose severities had driven them from the land of their fathers.”[598]
The report of Endicott’s successful colonization, which reached England early in 1629, encouraged White, “the main promoter and chief organizer of this business,” to plant the adventure upon a broader, firmer foundation. The original company was but a voluntary, unincorporated partnership.[599] This was now “much enlarged” by recruits from the Puritans “disaffected to the rulers in church and state.”[600] The next step was, to get a charter and an incorporation. This was solicited, and after some little difficulty and delay, obtained. On the 4th of March, 1629, Charles I. affixed the royal seal to a parchment which erected White’s coterie into a body politic, under the title of “The Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay, in New England.”[601]
“The patent passed the seals a few days only before Charles I., in a public state paper, avowed his design of governing England without a Parliament.”[602] It was cherished by the colonists for more than half a century as a most precious boon; and the old charter[603] is the germ of that “bright, consummate flower,” the later constitution.[604]
“The administration of the affairs of this puissant corporation,” remarks Bancroft, “was intrusted to a governor, a deputy, and eighteen assistants, who were to be annually elected by a general vote of the members of the body politic. Four times a year, or oftener if desired, a general assembly of the freemen was to be held; and to these assemblies, which were invested with the necessary powers of legislation, inquest, and superintendence, the most important matters were referred. No provision required the assent of the king to render the acts of the colonial authorities valid. In his eye it was but a trading corporation, not a civil government. Its doings were esteemed as indifferent as those of any guild in England; and if grave powers of jurisdiction in America were conceded, it was only because successful trade demanded the concession.”[605]
Nothing was said of religious liberty. The crown may have relied on its power to restrain it; the emigrants may have trusted to distance or obscurity to protect it.[606] But enough was gained. The charter necessitated full liberty. “If you plant an oak in a flower-vase,” says Goethe, “either the oak must wither or the vase must crack.” The Puritans meant to let it crack. It is singular that neither Charles nor his lynx-eyed ministers should have detected the freedom or scented the heresy which lurked in the broad terms of the glorious old parchment.