The powder and cannon stories appear to be singularly confused by Williamson. His misplaced footnote referring to the History of King Philip's War has misled us both. It is made as authority for the latter, when it should be for the former, and the tradition (I quote from memory) is from "an ancient mariner." As it is unsupported, it can hardly be claimed as history. As to the cannon story, one of our best antiquarians thinks that it has had no earlier mention than is found in Morse and Parish, about two centuries after its alleged occurrence, as derived from the Norridgewock Indians. Such a tradition is of very little account. If these stories had been true, it is marvellous that the "speechifying" Indians round about Arrowsic should not have told their prowess and their sufferings to the listening Jesuits in 1611. It may be well to know that a valued New Hampshire historian locates the narrative about the cannon at Dover, N. H., in the time of Waldron, when a large number of Indians were captured by stratagem. If the servants of the colony set dogs on the meddlesome Indians, the wise men in council in a later colony in New England, as Hazard gives it, decided to employ "mastiffe-dogs" to hunt down Indians in 1656. Why not blame both?
That portions of the population in Maine were corrupt, after settlements were dotted along the coast, is true. Deterioration often follows colonization. For all the influence for good that Massachusetts has spread, here and elsewhere, all ought to be glad, though here it was somewhat irregularly introduced. The celebrations at Sabino Head are not intended to detract from the merits of Plymouth Rock. They were many. It is no harm to wish that they had been more.
The letter of Mr. Kidder relative to the "pretty pynnace of about thirty tonne," is again referred to by your correspondent. What are we to understand by the few notices of her history? Simply this, that on "August 28," "the carpenters labored about the building of a small pinnace." Their first act was to prepare the timber from the surrounding forest,—not necessarily of "green pine," where the ridge bears oak, maple and spruce now, and perhaps did then,—and put it into shape for future use. It was left to season during the autumnal months. Then, after Captain Davies returned to England, with an account of the "forwardness of their plantation," on the 15th of December, the seasoned timber was "framed," and the craft completed, as the "Brief Relation" says, "notwithstanding the coldness of the season and the small help they had." For reasons satisfactory to the leaders of the colony, after Captain Davies returned to them, Strachey says "they all ymbarqued in the new arrived shipp and in the new pynnace, the Virginia, and sett saile for England." Gorges says they "all resolved to quit the place, and with one consent to [go] away." Sir William Alexander says, "Those that went thither ... returned back with new hopes." The "Briefe Relation" says the news from home "made the whole company to resolve upon nothing but their return with their ships; ... having built a pretty bark of their own, which served them to good purpose, as easing them in their returning;" and asserts "the arrival of these people here in England,"—of course, the same "people" who embarked, and in the same "ships" in which they commenced the voyage. Any other interpretation will be a violent perversion of language. As to any persons of the colony remaining to be rovers on the coast in another supposed pinnace, it will be time enough to consider that conjecture, when proof shall be brought to change it into history. It will be "credulity" to answer such a "demand" on our faith, as long as it is unsupported by evidence; and we shall still believe that "The Virginia" was not, perhaps the first craft of the Northmen, French, Basques, Dutch, or Indians, of whom we were not thinking—but was the pioneer ship of the English people in the new world, and was a striking proof of the skill and enterprise of the laboring colonists, with Digby, the London shipwright, as their head in her construction.
But, whatever may be said of the enterprise or its details, whether favorable or unfavorable, the true and single point for grave consideration is the prominent fact, that a colony was founded at the mouth of the Kennebec under the charter of James, 1606, which Popham "certainly was a chief instrument in procuring," and that this was the first thus laid in New England under English sway.
No personalities, no imputation of sinister and never existing motives, no disparagement of the character of the prime movers and later advocates,—for Gorges has been blamed as well as Popham,—no reproaches thrown upon the laboring colonists, and no finger of derision pointed at the failure of their purpose, should turn the reader of history away from this path. The leading minds in England, with the King as their friend, were actuated by the desire to turn to good account the discoveries of the early navigators; the reports of fishermen returning from our coast, and the more systematic researches of Gosnold, who, Strachey says, came "for discovery;" and Weymouth, whose narrative, and Pring, whose exact description pointed out the Kennebec as the place for speedy occupation. Emphasis was given to the determination of the associates, by their bearing with them a charter and a constituent code of laws, carrying out the principles of the English Constitution. An expedition of that nature, and at that time, required relatively much more of thought, energy and means than one of ten times its numbers and power would do at the present day. The fact, that it came directly to the Kennebec, shows that its course and destination did not depend on any capricious views of its commander; but were in accordance with a previously matured plan "for the seizing such a place as they were directed unto by the council of the colony." Its approach near to the claimed territory of France implies a previous knowledge of the coast, and a purpose to take possession within the chartered limits, fully up the undisputed boundary line. This occupation, and those made in the few following years, were called in the patent of 18 James, Nov. 3, 1620, the "actual possession of the continent;" thus showing how exalted a value was placed on these incipient, though feeble measures, by the highest authority in the mother land. The commercial purposes of the undertaking at Sagadahoc were not all. A religious purpose was connected therewith, and carried on during its continuance. Its great purpose was to secure title within the territory granted to the company. Signal disasters attended the later part of its life; and, though it failed commercially, Gorges "had no reason greatly to despair of means." In its historic influence, and in its opening the way for immediate and successive efforts, it was, in the words of Maine's most worthy and distinguished living historian, "one of the steps in the grand march of civilization."
As such, and as the first chartered "step" on our rock-bound coast by "English hearts and hands," we have thought it proper to do it honor; and this too as persons united in no one single denomination of Christians. We have taken pleasure in aiding to bring before the appreciative mind of the community "this initial point in the history of the settlement of New England," and its bearing on subsequent settlements along our shores. We have thought that the Charter of 1606 gave life to this and other enterprises. It was in harmony with its design and privileges, that "the King's Majesty and the bishops consented" to the wishes of the people at Leyden to remove to this land; and so far gave them the aid of the Church, which Mather says was not possessed with the spirit of persecution against them, though some of its members indulged that folly. The several documents following this leading instrument of title and occupation, such as the enlarged charters, "The First Plymouth Patent," and the patents issued for the benefit of Maine and Massachusetts, are traceable to this source, and to the able men concerned in its origination and provisions. So that, in a pure and great historical fact and its sequences, we have had enough to warrant our past commemorations. It is no fault of ours, that other colonies came earlier and later, and did not build a sea-going vessel in this northern latitude in the first year of their stay. We rejoice where they were successful, permanent, and a blessing to the world. But why cannot we be allowed to celebrate an event, one of the greatest of its times, without being taunted with sayings, which, while bearing bitterness, need the support of evidence; and with words which, however amiably they may have been intended, boldly represent us as culprits, "indictable at common law"?
In taking my leave of your columns, courteously allowed for this discussion, I regret that I have been compelled to occupy so much space. But much more would have been needed to rectify all the applications of the quotations from the old writers, who, so far as the colony of Sagadahoc is concerned, must be explained in harmony with the Charter of 1606, which provided only for "willing" men to join in the enterprise, and continued to them all the franchises of Englishmen at home. I wish now only to add, that I stand not alone in my opinions about the Popham Colony. Persons of the highest historical authority in the State and elsewhere support the same view. One of these, the late Bishop Burgess, had designed to write at length on this debated subject. He had been in correspondence with the present Duke of Somerset for information on one part of its history. He had already said, and patriotically too, of the chaplain of the colony, "Seymour was the first preacher of the Gospel in the English tongue, within the borders of New England, and of the free, loyal and unrevolted portion of these United States. Had he inherited all the honors of his almost royal grandsire, they would have given him a far less noble place than this, in the history of mankind." But the fatal illness of this eminent historical scholar has prevented the intended gift of his deliberate and final testimony in defence of the claims here set forth in behalf of "that northerne colony uppon the Sagadahoc."
Sabino.