COLONIZATION OF MASSACHUSETTS. 339 .IX. feeble influence compared with the consequences of CHAP. the attempt at a permanent establishment near Cape Ann; for White, a minister of Dorchester, a Puritan, 1624. but not a separatist, breathed into the enterprise a higher principle than that of the desire of gain. Roger Conant, having already left New Plymouth for Nantasket, through a brother in England, who was a friend of White, obtained the agency of the adventure. 1625. A year's experience proved to the company, that their speculation must change its form, or it would produce no results; the merchants, therefore, paid with honest liberality all the persons whom they had employed, and abandoned the unprofitable scheme. But Conant, a man of extraordinary vigor, "inspired as it were by some superior instinct," and confiding in the active friendship of White, succeeded in breathing a portion 1626. of his sublime courage into his three companions; and, making choice of Salem, as opening a convenient place of refuge for the exiles for religion, they resolved to remain as the sentinels of Puritanism on the Bay of Massachusetts.1 The design of a plantation was now ripening in the mind of White and his associates in the south-west of England. About the same time, some friends in Lincolnshire fell into discourse about New England; im- 1627. agination swelled with the thought of planting the pure gospel among the quiet shades of America; it seemed better to depend on the benevolence of uncultivated nature and the care of Providence, than to endure the constraints of the English laws and the severities of the English hierarchy; and who could doubt, that, at the voice of undefiled religion, the wil 1 Hubbard, 102. 106-108. Prince, 224. 229. 231. 235, 236. Cotton Mather, b. i. c. iv. s. 3. 340 COLONIZATION OF MASSACHUSETTS. CHAP. derness would change to a paradise for a people who IX. lived under a bond with the Omnipresent God? After some deliberation, persons in London and the West Country were made acquainted with the design.1 1628. The council for New England, itself incapable of Mar. the 19. generous purpose of planting colonies, was ever ready to make sale of patents, which had now become their only source of revenue. Little concerned even at making grants of territory which had already been purchased, they sold to Sir Henry Roswell, Sir John Young, Thomas Southcoat, John Humphrey, John Endicot, and Simon Whetcomb, gentlemen of Dorchester,3 a belt of land, stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, extending three miles south of the River Charles and the Massachusetts Bay, and three miles north of every part of the River Merrimac. The zeal of White sought and soon found other and powerful associates in and about London,5 kindred spirits, men of religious fervor, uniting the emotions of enthusiasm with unbending perseverance in action,-Winthrop, Dudley, Johnson, Pynchon, Eaton, Saltonstall, Bellingham, so famous in colonial annals, besides many others, men of fortune, and friends to colonial enterprise, who desired to establish a plantation of "the best" of their countrymen on the shores of New England, in a safe seclusion, which the corruptions of human superstition might never invade. Three of the Dudley to the countess of Lincoln, in i. Mass. Hist. Coll. viii. 37. The countess of Lincoln, to whom Dudley wrote, was "the approved Lady Briget," daughter of Lord Say, the sister-in-law, and not the mother, of the Lady Arbella. Savage on Winthrop, i. 2. Walpole's Royal and Noble Authors, ii. 272-275. The mother of Arbella was an authoress. 2 Chalmers, 135. 3 Hubbard, 108. 4 Prince, 247. The charter repeats the boundaries. 5 Hubbard, 109. iv. s. 3. Mather, i. c. COLONIZATION OF MASSACHUSETTS. 341 IX. original purchasers parted with all their rights; Hum- CHAP. phrey, Endicot, and Whetcomb, retained an equal interest with the new partners.1 June 28. The company, already possessing the firmness of religious zeal and the resources of mercantile opulence, and having now acquired a title to an extensive territory, immediately prepared for the emigration of a colony; and Endicot-a man of dauntless courage, and that cheerfulness which accompanies courage; benevolent, though austere; firm, though choleric; of a rugged nature, which the sternest form of Puritanism had not served to mellow-was selected as "a fit instrument to begin this wilderness work."2 His wife and family 1628. were the companions of his voyage, the hostages of his fixed attachment to the New World. His immediate attendants, and those whom the company sent over the same year, in all, not far from one hundred in number, were welcomed by Conant and his faithful associates to gloomy forests and unsubdued fields. Yet, even then, the spirit of enterprise predominated over the melancholy which is impressed upon nature in its savage state; and seven or more threaded a path through the woods to the neck of land which is now Charlestown. English courage had preceded them; they found there one English hovel already tenanted.1 Sept. 13. 13. When the news reached London of the safe arrival 1629. Feb. of the emigrants, the number of the adventurers had already been much enlarged. The "Boston men" next lent their strength to the company; and the Mar. Puritans throughout England began to take an inter 1 Prince, 247. Col. Records. 2 Johnson, b. i. c. ix. Hutchinson's Coll. 51, 52. 3 Hubbard, 110. Higginson's N. E. Plantation, in i. Mass. 5 Hist. Coll. i. 123. Dudley's Letter. 5 Colony Records. 2. 342 IX. CHARTER FOR THE MASSACHUSETTS COLONY. CHAP. est in the efforts which invited the imagination to indulge in delightful visions. Interest was also made to obtain a royal charter, with the aid of Bellingham and of White, an eminent lawyer, who advocated the design. The earl of Warwick had always been the friend of the company; Gorges had seemed to favor its advancement;' and Lord Dorchester, then one of the secretaries of state, is said to have exerted a powerful influence in its behalf. At last, after much labor 1629. and large expenditures," the patent for the Company 4. of the Massachusetts Bay passed the seals; a few days only before Charles I., in a public state-paper, avowed his design of governing without a parliament. Mar. The charter, which bears the signature of Charles I., and which was cherished for more than half a century as the most precious boon, established a corporation, like other corporations within the realm. The associates were constituted a body politic by the name of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England. The administration of its affairs was intrusted to a governor, deputy, and eighteen assistants, who were to be annually elected by the stockholders, or members of the corporation. 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 superin. tendence, the most important affairs were referred. No provision required the assent of the king to render the acts of the body valid; in his eye it was but a 1 Prince, 254. Gorges' Descrip- 2 Document in Chalmers. 4 The patent is at the State House in Boston, and is printed in Colony Laws, in Hutchinson's Coll., and in Hazard. CHARTER FOR THE MASSACHUSETTS COLONY. 343 IX. trading corporation, not a civil government; its doings CHAP. were esteemed as indifferent as those of any guild or company in England; and if powers of jurisdiction in America were conceded, it was only from the nature of the business in which the stockholders were to engage. For the charter designedly granted great facilities for colonization. It allowed the company to transport to its American territory any persons, whether English or foreigners, who would go willingly, would become lieges of the English king, and were not restrained "by especial name." It empowered, but it did not require, the governor to administer the oaths of supremacy and allegiance; yet the charter, according to the strict rules of legal interpretation,' was far from conceding to the patentees the privilege of freedom of worship. Not a single line alludes to such a purpose; nor can it be implied by a reasonable construction from any clause. The omission of an express guaranty left religious liberty unprovided for and unprotected. The instrument confers on the colonists the rights of English subjects; it does not confer on them new and greater rights. On the contrary, they are strictly for bidden to make laws or ordinances repugnant to the laws and statutes of the realm of England. The express concession of power to administer the oath of supremacy, demonstrates that universal religious toleration was not designed; and the freemen of the corporation, it should be remembered, were not at that time separatists. Even Higginson, and Hooker, and Cotton, were still ministers of the church of England; nor could the patentees foresee, nor the English government anticipate, how wide a departure from English 1 Story's MS. Opinion. |