menu_book Chapter 7

chapter six part two of epochs of american history the colonists 1492 to 1750 by reuben thwaites this librivox recording is in the public domain The colonization of New England, 1620-1643, continued. Fifty-four religious troubles in Massachusetts, 1636-1638. The opposition at home, occasioned by differences in religious belief, was not, however, so easily thrust aside. Roger Williams, an able and learned but bigoted young Welshman, a graduate from Pembroke College, Cambridge, came out to Plymouth in 1631.

His tongue was too bold to suit the English ecclesiastical authorities, and to gain peace he had been obliged to depart for the colonies. In 1633 he went to Salem, where he became pastor of the church. Williams was fond of abstruse metaphysical discussion, and he was an extremist in thought, speech, and action. But while his arguments were phrased in such manner

as often to make it difficult for us to understand him, the views he held were, in the main, what we style, modern. He opposed the union of church and state, such as obtained in Massachusetts, where political power was exercised only by members of the congregation.

He was opposed to enforced attendance on church and would have done away with all contributions for religious purposes which were not purely voluntary. Such doctrines were, however, held to be dangerous to the Commonwealth, and indeed expression of them would not at that time have been permitted in England nor in many parts of continental Europe. But this was not all. Williams, in a pamphlet, pronounced it as his solemn judgment that the king was an intruder and had no right to grant American lands to the colonists, that honest patents could only be procured from the Indians by purchase, and that all existing titles were therefore invalid. This was deemed downright treason, which he was compelled by the magistrates to recant. At Salem, Endicott, who was one of his disciples, became so heated under his pastor's teachings

that, in token of his hatred of the symbols of Rome, he cut the cross of St. George from the English ensign. The general court greatly alarmed, lest these proceedings should anger the king reprimanded Endicott, and because of his diverse new and dangerous opinions, ordered Williams, January 1636, to return to England. The latter escaped and passed the winter in missionary service among the Indians. In the spring, privately aided by the lenient Winthrop, the troublesome agitator

passed south with five of his followers to Narragansett Bay and their established Providence plantation. Mrs. Anne Hutchinson arrived in Boston from England in the autumn of 1634. She was a woman of brilliant parts, but impetuous and indiscreet, and by instinct an agitator. Her religious views are described by Winthrop as containing two dangerous errors. First, that the person of the Holy Ghost dwells in a justified person. Second, that no sanctifications

can help to evidence to us our justification. This is cloudy to a modern layman. The theory is styled antinomian by its enemies and was substantially as follows. Any person in a state of grace or justification

is at that same time sanctified. Since he is both justified and sanctified, the person of the Holy Ghost dwells in his heart and his acts cannot in the nature of things partake of sin. Therefore he need have no great concern about the outward aspect of his works.

This doctrine was contrary to that entertained by the Puritans, who believed that a person must be first justified by faith and then sanctified by works. They thought the antinomian dogma open to pernicious interpretation and not conducive to the welfare of society, its advocacy through Boston into a great ferment.

Mrs. Hutchinson soon had a large following, among whom were Wheelwright, John Cotton, and Thomas Hooker of the Ministers, while among laymen who were well inclined towards her doctrine was the younger Henry Vane, then governor of the colony, who was in later years to become prominent as one of the leaders in the English Commonwealth. In the conditions then existing in Massachusetts, Mrs. Hutchinson's teachings were considered dangerous to the state. They opposed the authority of the ecclesiastical rulers, and this tended to breed civil dissension.

One of her supporters, Greensmith, was fined forty pounds by the general court, March 1637, for publicly declaring that all the preachers except Cotton, Wheelwright, and Thomas Hooker taught a covenant of works instead of a covenant of grace. The difference between which the layman Winthrop said, no man could tell except some few who knew the bottom of the matter.

At the same time, Wheelwright was found guilty of sedition because, in a sermon, he had counseled his hearers to fight for their liberties, but with weapons spiritual, not carnal. When the Boston Church supported their minister, the court responded by voting to hold its next meeting at Newtown, Cambridge, where it might deliberate amid quieter surroundings than at Boston. When the court of election met at Newtown May 1637, Vane and his friends were, in the course of a tumultuous session, dropped out of the government. Winthrop was again chosen governor and the uncompromising, heretic-hater, deadly deputy governor. Bain departed for England in disgust, never to return. For a time it seemed as if peace had come under the politic Winthrop,

and the Hutchinsonians gave evidences of a desire to compromise. In a few months, however, the court reopened the whole controversy by legislating against all newcomers who were tainted with heresy. The old warfare broke out again. The charges of sedition against Wheelwright were renewed.

he was banished and fled with a few adherents to the Piscataqua. Mrs. Hutchinson was placed on trial November 1637 and commanded to leave the colony, which she did, in March following and went to Rhode Island. Seventy-six of her followers were disarmed, some were disfranchised, others fined, and still others desired and obtained license to remove themselves and their families out of the jurisdiction. Quiet once more prevailed. Wheelwright recounted after a time and was permitted to resume

his habitation in Boston, and many others of the disaffected were finally restored to citizenship. The little commonwealth had been shaken to its foundations by a controversy which today, when religion and politics are separated, to the advantage of both would be considered a small moment, even in one of our rural villages. But the state and the church were one in the colony of Massachusetts, and ecclesiastical contumacy was political contumacy as well. Under such

conditions there could safely be neither liberty of opinion nor of speech, the welfare of a government thus constituted lay in stern repression. The suppression and banishment of Roger Williams of Mrs. Hutchinson were eminently successful in restoring order and public security in the train of which came increased immigration and greater prosperity. 55 Indian Wars 1635 to 1637 While these things were going on in Boston and Newtown, warfare of another sort was in progress

to the south. In 1635, residents of Massachusetts made a settlement on the Connecticut River on the side of Windsor, above the Dutch fort at Hartford, and later in the same year another party, under John Winthrop the Younger, built Saybrook at the mouth of the stream. These Connecticut settlements formed an outpost in the heart of the Indian country, and trouble was inevitable. At last, the attitude of the Pequods, the tribe occupying the lower portion of the Connecticut Valley,

became unbearable. They interfered with immigrants going overland and rendered trade by sea dangerous. They endeavored to enlist the sympathy of the Narragansetts in their forays. Could these tribes have formed a coalition, it seems likely that the New England colonists, then few and weak, must have been driven into the sea. Roger Williams, bearing no malice towards his old enemies in Massachusetts averted this calamity. As the result of great exertions on his part,

the Narragansetts were induced to disregard the overjures of their old enemies the Pequots and the Connecticut Indians went alone upon the warpath. They made life a burden to the settlers in the little towns of Saybrook, Hartford, Windsor, and Wethersfield. An appeal for aid went from the colonists in the Connecticut Valley to Massachusetts and Plymouth and was promptly answered. In the little inter-colonial army of some 300 men, Captains John Mason of Windsor and

John Underhill of Massachusetts were the leading figures. The Pequots were surprised in their chief town, May 20, 1637, the walls of which were burned by the whites, while volleys of musketry were poured into the crowd of savages who huddled together in great fear. Says Underhill, it is reported by themselves that there were about 400 souls in this fort, and not above five of them escaped out of our hands. Others report that 700 Pequots fell on that terrible day. Of the

besiegers, but two were killed, though a quarter of the force were wounded. From this scene of slaughter, the victorious colonists marched through the rest of the enemy's territory, burning wigwams and granaries, taking some of the survivors' prisoners to be sold into slavery, and so thoroughly scattering the others that the Pequot tribe never reorganized. The expedition had thoroughly uprooted it.

56. Laws and Characteristics of Massachusetts, 1637-1643 For more than ten years after the planting of Massachusetts, the magistrates dispensed justice according to their understanding of right and wrong. There were no statutes, neither had the English common law been officially recognized except so far as it was understood that Englishmen carried the law of their land with them in emigrating to America.

In the year 1634, says Hutchinson, the plantation was greatly increased, settlements were extended more than 30 miles from the capital town, and it was thought high time to have known established laws, that the inhabitants might no longer be subject to the varying uncertain judgments which otherwise would be made concerning their actions.

The ministers and some of the principal laymen were consulted with about a body of laws suited to the circumstances of the colony, civil and religious. Committees of magistrates and elders were appointed from year to year by the general court, but it was not until 1641 that a body of statutes was finally adopted. The influence of the clergy is well illustrated in the fact that the two codes finally submitted

were the work of ministers John Cotton of Boston and Nathaniel Ward of Ipswich. The latter's plan, in which he received the aid of Winthrop and others of the elders, was adopted in 1641 under the title of the Body of Liberties. In England, Ward had at one time been a barrister and was well read in the common law, on which his code was mainly based, although it also contained many features of the law of Moses.

Equal justice was vouchsafed to all, old or young, free man or foreigner, master or servant, man or woman. Persons and property were to be inviolable except by law. Brutes were to be humanely treated. No one was to be tried twice for the same offense. Barbarous or cruel punishments were forbidden.

Public records were to be opened for inspection. Church regulations were to be enforced by civil courts and church officers and members were amenable to civil law. The scriptures were to overrule any custom or prescription. The general rules of judicial proceedings were defined, as were also, the privileges and duties of free men and the liberties and prerogatives of the churches.

Public money was to be spent only with the consent of the taxpayers. There shall be no bond, slavery, villainage, or captivity amongst us unless there be lawful captives taken in just wars and such strangers as willingly sell themselves or are sold to us. But all such were to be allowed, all the liberties and Christian usages

which the law of God established in Israel. Notwithstanding this enlightened provision, persons continued to be born and to live and die as slaves within the boundaries of the commonwealth down to 1780. Servants fleeing from the cruelty of their masters were to be protected

and there was to be appeal from parental tyranny. Every married woman shall be free from bodily correction or stripes by her husband, unless it be in his own defense upon her assault. The capital offenses selected from the Scriptures

were twelve in number. Among them were, Two, if any man or woman be a witch, that is, hath or consulteth with a familiar spirit, they shall be put to death.

And twelve, if any man shall conspire and attempt any invasion, insurrection, or public rebellion against our commonwealth, or shall treacherously and perfidiously attempt the alteration and subversion of our frame of polity or government fundamental, he shall be put to death. The essence of this body of liberties was afterwards incorporated into the formal law of the colony. It was the foundation of the

Massachusetts Code. Massachusetts was the first large colony in New England. Its people were educated and as a rule of a higher social grade than those of Plymouth. Under a charter which contained many very liberal provisions, a highly organized government was developed which served as a model to the other colonies and had a wide influence in the building of a nation founded on the principles of self-government. Plymouth had, after 16 years, separated into

towns, but when organized town and church governments moved bodily from Massachusetts to found Connecticut, Massachusetts became the first mother of colonies. Massachusetts was bolder, more aggressive, and more tenacious of her liberties than any other of the American colonies. Her people took firm, sometimes obstinate, stand for their rights as Englishmen and were often alone in their early contentions for principles upon which, in after years, the Revolution was

based. In their treatment of the Indians, they were inclined to be more imperious than their neighbors. 57. Connecticut founded 1633 to 1639. In 1633, Plymouth built a fur trading house on the side of Windsor on the Connecticut River. A party of Dutch traders from New York was already planted at Hartford in a rude earthwork with two guns and strenuously objected to this intrusion, but the Plymouth men found trade with the Indians profitable and stood their ground.

The same year the overland route to the Connecticut was explored by the Massachusetts traitor John Oldham, who was afterwards slain by the Pequots at Block Island. The favorable reports which Oldham carried back induced a number of people in Newtown, Cambridge, Dorchester, and Watertown in the Massachusetts colony to move to the Connecticut and set up an independent state. hearing of ye fame of Connecticut River they had a anchoring mind after it ostensibly they sought better past reach for their cattle to prevent the Dutch from gaining a permanent hold on the country and to plant an outpost in the Pequod country but there also appeared to have been some differences of opinion between these people and the Massachusetts authorities going out of the taxation of Watertown in 1631, and no doubt there ministers and elders, among whom were such strong men as Thomas Hooker Samuel Stone and Roger Ludlow, were desirous of greater recognition than they obtained at home.

These differences were not so grave but that Massachusetts, after a spasm of opposition formally permitted the migration gave to the outgoing colonists a commission and lent to them a cannon and some ammunition

During the summer of 1635 a Dorchester party planted a settlement at Windsor around the walls of the Plymouth Post Plymouth did not approve of this cavalier treatment of her prior rights

by the Massachusetts pioneers but was obliged to submit with what grace she might, as she had in many controversies with her domineering neighbor to the north. That same autumn, 1635, John Winthrop, Jr., appeared at the mouth of the Connecticut with a commission as governor issued by Lord Brooke, Lord Say, and Seal, and their partners to whom, in 1631, Lord Warwick, as president of the Council for New England, had granted all the country between the Narragansett River and the Pacific Ocean.

Winthrop had just thrown up a breastwork when a Dutch vessel appeared on its way to Hartford with supplies for the traders and was ordered back. Thus were the new Amsterdam people cut off from a profitable commerce on the Connecticut and from territorial expansion eastward, although their Hartford colony lived for many years. The migration from Massachusetts to the Connecticut continued vigorously during 1636,

and by the spring of 1637, the colony had a population of 800 souls, grouped in the three towns of Windsor, Hartford, and Wethersfield. Winthrop's establishment at Seabrook, being but a military station, which had no connection with the Massachusetts settlements up the river until 1644. The Pequod War in 1637 stirred Connecticut to its center.

A force of about 115 Massachusetts and Connecticut men under the command of Captain John Mason of Windsor was handled with much skill and soon nearly annihilated the Pequod tribe. The Indians' crushed immigration was renewed and prosperity became general throughout the valley.

58, the Connecticut government, 1639 to 1643. During the first year, the Connecticut towns were still claimed by the parent colony and were controlled by a commission from Massachusetts. At the end of that time, 1637, there was held a general court in which each town was represented by two magistrates, this body adopting such local regulations as were of immediate necessity. In January 1639, the three towns adopted a constitution in which Massachusetts acquiesced, thus practically abandoning her claims of sovereignty over them. This Connecticut constitution was undoubtedly, as Fisk says, the first written constitution known to history that created a government. The Mayflower Compact being rather an agreement to accept a constitution, while Magna Carta did not create a government.

Bryce characterizes the Connecticut document as the oldest truly political constitution in America. It is noticeable for the fact that it made no reference to the king or to any charter or patent. It was simply an agreement between colonists in neighboring towns, independent of any but royal authority as to the manner of their local and general self-government. the governor and six magistrates another name for assistance were to be elected by a majority of the whole body of freemen but later with the spread of the colony voting by proxies was allowed the governor alone need be a church member and he was not to serve for two years in succession but this restriction on re-election was abolished in the favor of the younger winthrop in

each town might admit freemen by popular vote and it is noticeable that despite the fact that the original settlers of connecticut came as organized congregations with their ministers and elders it was ordained there should be no religious restriction on suffrage which was thus made almost unrestricted the towns were to be represented in the general court by two deputies each the practical administration was in the hands of the governor and his assistants who were also members of the general court In time, the system became bicameral, the deputies forming the lower and the council of the upper house. The towns were allowed, all powers not expressly granted to the Commonwealth, the affairs of each being executed by a board of chief inhabitants acting as magistrates. The government of Connecticut was on the whole somewhat more liberal and democratic than that of Massachusetts and was the model upon which many American states were afterwards built.

More than to any other man, the credit for this epoch-making constitution belongs to the Reverend Thomas Hooker of Hartford, the leading spirit of the colony. he argued that the foundation of authority is laid in the free consent of the people, that the choice of public magistrates belongs unto the people by God's own allowance, and that they who have power to appoint officers and magistrates have the right also to set the bounds and limitations of the power

and place unto which they call them. These are truisms today, but in 1638 they were the utterances of a political prophet. Under her liberal constitutional government, based upon the voice of the people, Connecticut was from the first a practically independent republic. The public officers were plain, honest men who acceptably administered the affairs of the colony with small cost.

The colonists were shrewd in political management, frugal in their expenditures, hardworking and ingenious. Education flourished as severe morality obtained and religious persecution was unknown. Connecticut was noted among the colonies for its prosperity, independence, and enlightenment. 59, New Haven founded 1637-1644. Theophilus Eden was a London merchant of fair estate and of great esteem for religion and wisdom in outward affairs. He was at one time an ambassador to the Danish

court and had been one of the original assistants of the Massachusetts Company, although not active in its affairs. John Davenport had been an ordained minister in London. He turned Puritan and on his resignation in 1633 went to Holland. These two men formed a congregation composed for the most part of middle-class Londoners who resolved to migrate to America there to set up a state founded on scriptural models. The Plymouth and Massachusetts men had started out

with this same idea, but as the result of circumstances had made compromises which Eden and Davenport could not countenance. In July 1637, the two leaders arrived in Boston with a small company of their disciples, among whom were several men of wealth and good social position, but extremely narrow and bigoted in religious faith. They have been styled the Brahmins of New England Puritanism. They did not deem it practicable to settle in Massachusetts,

and the following spring, March 1638, sailed to Long Island Sound and established an independent settlement on the site of New Haven, thirty miles west of the Connecticut River. For a year, their only bond of union was a plantation covenant to obey the scriptures in all things. In October of 1639, there was adopted a constitution in the making of which Davenport had the chief hand. The governor and four magistrates were to be elected by the freemen who were, as in Massachusetts, church members.

Trial by jury was rejected because it lacked scriptural authority, and it was formally declared that the word of God shall be the only rule attended unto in ordering the affairs of government. Eden was chosen governor until the office by annual election, until his death twenty years later. The neighborhood of New Haven was soon settled by other immigrants, most of whom were also strict constructionists of the scriptures,

while a few others were as liberal in their ideas as the people of the Connecticut Valley. Guilford was established 1639, seventeen miles to the north, and Milford, 1639, 11 miles westward, Stamford, 1640, well on towards New York, followed while Southhold was boldly planted, 1640, on Long Island, opposite Guilford Inn territory claimed by the Dutch. As each town was as well a church, these were for some years little independent communities

founded on the New Haven model. In 1643, however, they formed a union with New Haven and a system of representation was introduced. Each town sent up deputies to the general court, in which also sat the governor, deputy governor, and assistants elected by the whole body of freemen. Yet a majority of either the deputies or the magistrates might veto a measure. Local magistrates, seven to each town, known as pillars of the church, tried petty cases, but important suits were passed upon

by the assistants. The seven pillars were the autocrats of their several towns, and colonial affairs were also practically in the hands of the select few who control the church. At the meeting of the general court in April 1644, the magistrates in the Confederation were ordered to observe the judicial laws of God as they were delivered by Moses. This injunction afterwards gave rise to an absurd report circulated in 1781 by Reverend Samuel Peters,

a Tory refugee, that the New Haven statutes were of peculiar quaintness and severity. For nearly 100 years, Peters' fable of the New Haven Blue Laws was accepted as historic truth. At first, New Haven failed to prosper, but after a few years, with the increase of trade, better times prevailed, and by the close of the century the town was noted for the wealth of its inhabitants and their fine houses. Education was greatly encouraged, and there were considerable

shipping interests, but the ecclesiastical system was peculiar and suffrage greatly restricted. There were, in consequence, frequent outbursts of dissatisfaction among the people. The colony thus had conspicuous elements of weakness, and was finally absorbed by Connecticut. 60 Rhode Island founded 1636 to 1654 in 1636 with five of his disciples Roger Williams driven from Massachusetts as a reformer of a dangerous type established the town of Providence at the head of Narragansett Bay The following year, 1637, a party of Anne Hutchinson's followers, also expelled from Massachusetts because of heretical opinions, settled on the island of Aquadneck, afterwards Rhode Island, 18 miles to the south.

Mrs. Hutchinson joined them in 1638, and the town was eventually called Portsmouth. Both communities at once attracted from Massachusetts people who had either been expelled from that colony or were not in entire harmony with it, and by the close of 1638 Providence contained 60 persons and Portsmouth nearly as many. The next year, 59 of the Portsmouth people, headed by the Chief Magistrate Cuddington, dissenting from some of Mrs. Hutchinson's new heresies, withdrew to the southern end of the island and settled Newport, but the two towns reunited in 1640 under the name of Rhode Island,

with Cuddington as governor. Each of these colonies, Providence and Rhode Island, was at first an independent body politic. It is interesting to note their original compacts, The Providence Agreement, 1636, signed by Roger Williams and twelve of his sympathizers, was as follows. we whose names are here under desirous to inhabit in the town of Providence do promise to subject ourselves in active or passive obedience to all such orders or agreements

as shall be made for the public good of the body in an orderly way by the major assent of the present inhabitants, masters of families incorporated together into a town fellowship and such others whom they shall admit unto them only in civil things. five freemen called arbitrators

managed public affairs and for some years there appeared to have been no fixed rules for their guidance at Portsmouth the people united in the following

declaration we do here solemnly in the presence of Jehovah incorporate ourselves into a body politic and as he shall help will submit

our persons lives and estates unto our Lord Jesus Christ the King of Kings and Lord of Lords and to all those perfect and most absolute laws of his, given us in his holy words of truth to be guided and judged thereby. The freemen conducted public affairs in town meeting with a secretary, a clerk, and a chief magistrate.

Newport was similarly organized, but when Newport and Portsmouth reunited, a more complex government was instituted. A general court was then established, in which sat the governor, the deputy governor, and four assistants, one town choosing the governor and two of the assistants, and the other the deputy governor and the remaining assistants. The freemen composed the body of the court and settled even the most trivial cases. In 1641 it was declared that it is in the power of the body of the freemen, orderly assembled,

or the part of them to make and constitute just laws by which they shall be regulated, and to depute from among themselves such ministers as shall see them faithfully executed between man and man. At the same session an order was adopted, that none be accounted a delinquent for doctrine, provided it be not directly repugnant to the government or laws established.

By the other colonies, Providence and Rhode Island were deemed hotbeds of anarchy, persons holding all manner of Protestant theological notions flocked thither in considerable numbers, numbers, and it is true that for many years there were hot contentions between them, often to the disturbance of public order. Despite these years of bickering, Providence and Rhode

Island prospered. Through the exertions of Roger Williams, Providence, Portsmouth, and Newport, with a new town called Warwick, were united under one charter, 1644, as the colony of Providence plantations. This liberal document issued by the Parliamentary Committee on the Colonies gave to the inhabitants along Narragansett Bay authority to rule themselves by such form of civil government as by the voluntary consent of all or the greatest part of them shall be found most serviceable to

their estate and condition. Larger power could not have been wished for. By a curious provision adopted in 1647. A law had to be proposed at the general court. It was then sent round to the towns for the freemen to pass upon it, thus giving the voters a voice in the conduct of affairs without the necessity of attending court. A majority of freemen in any one town could defeat the measure, a code of laws resembling the common laws of England, and with few references to biblical

precedents passed safely through the ordeal in 1647. One important section provided that all men may walk as their conscience persuades them. The following year, Coddington, as the head of a faction, obtained a separate charter for Newport and Portsmouth, much to the disgust of many of the inhabitants of those as well as of other towns. A bitter feud lasted until 1654, when Williams once more appeared as peacemaker and secured the reunion of all the towns under the General Charter of 1644 with himself as president.

The old law code was restored. Rhode Island was founded by a religious outcast and always remained as an asylum for those sectaries who could find no home elsewhere. The purpose was noble, and Williams persisted in his policy, despite the fact that life was often made uncomfortable for him by his ill-assorted fellow colonists who were continually bickering with each other. Throughout the 17th century, Rhode Island was a hotbed of disorder. Fanaticism not only expressed itself in religion, but in politics and society, and no scheme was so wild as to find no adherence in this confused medley.

The condition of the colony served as a warning to its neighbors, seeming to confirm the wisdom of their theocratic methods. 61. Maine, founded 1622-1658 Sir Ferdinando Gorgias, governor of Plymouth in England, became interested in New England, we have seen, as early as 1605. 105. Ten years later he assisted John Smith in organizing an unsuccessful voyage to the northern coast. In 1620 we find him a member of the Council of the Plymouth Colony. In 1622, he and John Mason, not the hero of the Pequod War, both of them churchmen and strong friends of the king, obtained a grant of the country lying between the Merrimack and Kennebec rivers, and it was Gorgias who sent out Maverick to settle on Noddles Island and Blackstone to hold the Boston Peninsula.

Later, 1629, Mason obtained an individual grant from the Plymouth Council of the Territory between the Merrimack and the Piscataqua, New Hampshire, and Gorgias that from the Piscataqua to the Kennebec, Maine. These grants were similar in character to the charter of the Massachusetts Bay Company. When the Plymouth Company threw up its charter in 1634 and New England was parceled out, 1635, among the members of the council, Gorgias and Mason secured a confirmation of their former personal grants. Mason died a few months later, leaving the settlements in his tract to be annexed to Massachusetts in 1641. In April 1639, Gorgias obtained a provincial charter from the king, conferring upon him the title of Lord Proprietor of the province or County of Maine, his domain to extend as before from the Kennebec to the Piscataqua and backward 120 miles from the coast. He received almost absolute authority over the people of his province, who were then but three hundred in number.

Sacko, established by him about the year 1623, was the principal settlement and contained one half of the population, while a half-dozen smaller hamlets, chiefly of his creation, were scattered along the neighboring shore inhabited by fishermen, hunters, and traders. The greater part of these people were adherents of the king and the established church. Notwithstanding Gorgias' long-sustained effort to attract men of wealth to his plantations, the province was not as flourishing as its neighbors to the south.

Gorgias amused his old age by drafting a cumbersome constitution for his people. He was to make laws in conjunction with the freemen. The laws of England were to prevail in cases not covered by the statutes. The Church of England was to be the state of religion. All Englishmen were to be allowed fishing privileges.

The proprietor was to establish manorial courts, and he was also empowered of his own motion to levy taxes, raise troops, and declare war. In examining the official machinery which Gorgias sought to erect in Maine, we are reminded of Locke's constitution for the Carolinas. The proprietor was to be represented by a deputy governor, under whom was to be a long line of officers with high-sounding titles, these to form the council.

With them were to meet the deputies selected by the freeholders. The provinces were to be cut up into bailiwicks or counties, hundreds, parishes, and tithings. Justice in each bailiwick was to be administered by a lieutenant and eight magistrates, the nominees of the proprietor or his deputy. and under each was a staff of minor functionaries. There were almost enough officers provided for in Gorgias' plan

to give every one of his subjects a public position. The proprietor himself never visited America. He was represented by his son Thomas as deputy governor. It was impossible for the latter, however, to carry all of his father's plans into effect and gradually the province sank into disorder and neglect.

Its towns were finally absorbed by Massachusetts, 1652 to 1658. The settlers brought out to people Maine, worthy servants of individuals or companies, having a tract of land to be occupied, and cultivated fisheries to conduct and fur trade to prosecute. They did not come to found a church or build a state, and such institutions as they developed were the immediate outcome of their necessities.

they had little sympathy or communication with their neighbors of Massachusetts and Plymouth. 62. New Hampshire founded 1620-1685 We have seen that John Mason was given a grant in 1629 of the country between the Merrimack and the Piscataqua. In a scheme for colonizing the tract, Gorgias was associated with him, But David Thompson and three Plymouth fur traders had already gained a footing at Rye in 1622 under a grant from the Plymouth Council. Dover had been founded before 1628 by the Brothers Hilton Puritan fish dealers in London, and some of Mrs. Hutchinson's adherents, exiles from Massachusetts, founded Exeter and Hampton.

In 1630, Neale, as colonizing agent of Mason and Gorges, settled at Portsmouth on the Piscataqua with a large party of farmers and fishermen, all of them Church of England men, and it is probable that this colony absorbed the neighboring settlement at Rye. By the time the proprietors dissolved partnership in 1635, considerable property had been accumulated by them here, as in the inventory of their possessions at Portsmouth. We find 22 cannons, 250 small arms, 48 fishing boats, 40 horses, 44 goats, nearly 200 sheep, and over 100 cattle. This argues a large establishment. Upon the death of Mason, later in the year, the Piscataqua colony was left to its own guidance.

All of the New Hampshire towns were from the first independent communities, governed much after the fashion of the other English towns to the south of them. The beginnings of New Hampshire were the results of commercial enterprise in England and theological dissensions in Massachusetts. The inhabitants of the several towns had little in common and held different political and religious views. Planted under various auspices, when they grew to importance, they were the subject of long struggles for jurisdiction.

It would be tiresome to trace the history of these disputes. Suffice it to say that after many changes, the settlements on or near the Piscataqua were, 1641 to 1643, incorporated with Massachusetts, which ruled them with marked discretion and refrained from meddling with their religious views. in 1679 as a result of disputes growing out of the revival of the mason claim in england new hampshire was turned into a royal province but in 1685 was reunited to massachusetts as to the character of the people of new hampshire what has been said in regard to those of maine may in a great measure also be applied to them end of chapter six part two