Separatists and probably neither the gov-yours, and dedicate myself to God and the ernment, nor the first patentees, foresaw company with the whole endeavours both how wide a departure from the economy of body and mind. The 'Conclusions' which of that Church would result from the emi- you sent down are unanswerable; and it gration that was about to take place under cannot but be a prosperous action which is its provisions. so well allowed by the judgments of God's prophets, undertaken by so religious and wise worthies in Israel, and indented to God's glory in so special a service."* Governor Winthrop had a fine estate which he sacrificed. Many others sacrificed what were considered good estates in England in those days. One of the richest of the colonists was Isaac Johnson, "the father of Boston." As a proof of his being a man of wealth, it may be mentioned that, by his will, his funeral expenses were limited to £250. His wife, the Lady Arabella, was a daughter of the Earl It is surprising that a charter which conferred unlimited powers on the corporation, and secured no rights to the colonists, should have become the means of establishing the freest of all the colonies. This was partly owing to its empowering the corporation to fix what terms it pleased for the admission of new members. The corporation could increase or change its members with its own consent, and not being obliged to hold its meetings in England, it was possible for it to emigrate, and thus to identify itself with the colony which it was its main object to found. | of Lincoln. In her devotedness to the This was actually done. As the corpora- cause of Christ," she came from a paration was entirely composed of Puritans, it dise of plenty into a wilderness of wants."t was not difficult, by means of resignations They were almost without exception godand new elections, to choose the govern-ly people, and when they embarked for or, deputy-governor, and assistants, from America were members of the Church of among such as were willing to leave Eng- England, being that in which they had been land as colonists. born and brought up. Though of the parThe first object of the new company, on ty that were opposed to what they considobtaining a royal charter, was to re-enforce ered Romish superstitions and errors, still the party which had gone out with Endi-cleaving in their conscientious convictions cot and settled at Salem. The re-enforce- to the National Church; and though they ment consisted of 200 emigrants, under could not in all points conform to it, yet the pastoral care of the Rev. Francis Hig- they had not separated from it, but sought ginson, an eminent Nonconformist minis- the welfare of their souls in its ministrater, who was delighted to accept of the in- tions, whenever they possibly could hope vitation to undertake that charge. By to find it there. They lamented what they their arrival, which happened in June, the regarded as its defects, but not in a spirit colony at Salem was increased to 300 per- of bitter hostility. This very plainly apsons; but diseases and the hardships inci- pears from the following letter addressed dent to new settlements cut off, during the to the members of the Church of England, following winter, eighty of that number, by Governor Winthrop and others, immewho died only lamenting that they were diately after their embarcation, and when not allowed to see the future glories of the they were about to bid a long farewell to colony. Among these was their beloved their native shores. It is conceived in a pastor, Mr Higginson, whose death was a noble spirit : great loss to the little community. "The humble request of his majesty's The year following, namely, 1630, was loyal subjects, the Governor and the Coma glorious one for the colonization of New-pany, late gone for New-England, to the England. Having first taken every pre- rest of their brethren in the Church of paratory measure required for self-trans- England. portation, the corporation itself embark- "Reverend Fathers and Brethren-The ed, accompanied by a body of from 800 to general rumour of this solemn enterprise, 900 emigrants, among whom were sev- wherein ourselves, with others, through the eral persons of large property and high providence of the Almighty, are engaged, standing in society. John Winthrop, one as it may spare us the labour of imparting of the purest characters in England, had our occasion unto you, so it gives us the been chosen governor. Taken as a whole, more encouragement to strengthen ourit is thought that no single colony could selves by the procurement of the prayers ever be compared with them. One may and blessings of the Lord's faithful serform some idea of the elevated piety that vants; for which end we are bold to have pervaded the higher classes among the Pu- recourse unto you, as those whom God ritans of that day from the language of the hath placed nearest his throne of mercy, younger Winthrop: "I shall call that my which, as it affords you the more opporcountry," said he to his father, “where Itunity, so it imposeth the greater bond upon may most glorify God, and enjoy the pres- you to intercede for his people in all their ence of my dearest friends. Therefore herein I submit myself to God's will and *Winthrop's Journal, i., p. 359, 360. the hands of all the rest of our brethren, that they would at no time forget us in their private solicitations at the throne of grace. ceive so well of our way as we could desire, we would entreat such not to despise us; nor to desert us in their prayers and affections, but to consider rather that they are so much the more bound to express the bowels of their compassion towards us, remembering always that both nature and grace doth ever bind us to relieve and rescue with our utmost and speediest power such as are dear to us, when we conceive them to be running uncomfortable hazards. straits we beseech you, therefore, by the mercies of the Lord Jesus, to consider us as your brethren, standing in very great need of your help, and earnestly imploring it. And howsoever your charity may have "If any there be who, through want of met with some occasion of discourage- clear intelligence of our course, or tenderment, through the misreport of our inten-ness of affection towards us, cannot contions, or through the disaffection or indiscretion of some of us, or, rather, among us-for we are not of those that dream of perfection in this world-yet we desire you would be pleased to take notice of the principles and body of our company, as those who esteem it our honour to call the Church of England, from whence we rise, our dear mother, and cannot part from our native country, where she specially resideth, without much sadness of heart, and many tears in our eyes; ever acknowledging that such hope and part as we have obtained in the common salvation, we have received in her bosom, and sucked it from her breasts; we leave it not, therefore, as loathing that milk wherewith we were nourished there, but, blessing God for the parentage and education, as members of the same body, shall always rejoice in her good, and unfeignedly grieve for any sorrow that shall ever betide her; and while we have breath, sincerely desire and endeavour the continuance and abundance of her welfare, with the enlargement of her bounds in the kingdom of Christ Jesus. "What goodness you shall extend to us on this or any other Christian kindness, we, your brethren in Christ Jesus, shall labour to repay in what duty we are or shall be able to perform, promising, so far as God shall enable us, to give Him no rest on your behalf, wishing our heads and hearts may be as fountains of tears for your everlasting welfare, when we shall be in our poor cottages in the wilderness, overshadowed with the spirit of supplication, through the manifold necessities and tribulations which may not altogether unexpectedly, nor, we hope, unprofitably befall us. And so commending you to the grace of God in Christ, we shall ever rest.' "Be pleased, therefore, fathers and brethren, to help forward this work now in The ships that bore Winthrop and his hand, which, if it prosper, you shall be the companions across the Atlantic reached more glorious; howsoever, your judgment Massachusetts Bay in the following June is with the Lord, and your reward with and July. After having consoled the disyour God. It is a usual and laudable ex-tresses and relieved the wants of the Salem ercise of your charity to commend to the colonists, the newly-arrived emigrants set prayers of your congregations the neces- about choosing a suitable place for a settlesities and straits of your private neigh- ment; a task which occupied the less time, bours do the like for a church springing as the bay had been well explored by preout of your own bowels. We conceive ceding visiters. The first landing was made much hope that this remembrance of us, if at the spot where Charlestown now stands. it be frequent and fervent, will be a most A party having gone from that place up prosperous gale in our sails, and provide the Charles River to Watertown, there such a passage and welcome for us from some of them resolved to settle; others the God of the whole earth, as both we preferred Dorchester; but the greater numwhich shall find it, and yourselves, with ber resolved to occupy the peninsula upon the rest of our friends who shall hear of it, which Boston now stands, the settlement shall be much enlarged to bring in such receiving that name from part of the colodaily returns of thanksgivings as the speci-nists having come from Boston in England. alities of His providence and goodness may justly challenge at all our hands. You are not ignorant that the Spirit of God stirred up the Apostle Paul to make continual mention of the Church of Philippi (which was a colony from Rome); let the same Spirit, we beseech you, put you in mind, that are the Lord's remembrancers, to pray for us without ceasing (who are a weak colony from yourselves), making continual request for us to God in all your prayers. "What we entreat of you that are the ministers of God, that we also crave at For a while they were lodged in cloth tents and wretched huts, and had to endure all kinds of hardship. To complete their trials, disease made its attacks, and carried off 200 of them at least before December. About a hundred lost heart, and went back to England. Many who had been accustomed in their native land to ease and plenty, and to all the refinements and luxuries of cultivated life, were now compelled to struggle with unforeseen wants and difficulties. Among those who sank under such hardships, and died, was the Lady Arabella Johnson. Her husband, too, "the greatest furtherer of the plantation," was two spiritual teachers, who were aftercarried off by disease; but "he died will-, ward to exercise a most extensive and ingly and in sweet peace," making "a most beneficial influence in the colonies. One godly end."* These trials and afflictions of these was the eminently pious and zealwere borne with a calm reliance on the ous Cotton, a man profoundly learned in goodness of God, nor was there a doubt the Holy Scriptures, as well as in the wrifelt but that in the end all would go well. tings of the fathers and the schoolmen; in They were sustained by a profound belief the pulpit rather persuasive than eloquent, that God was with them, and by bearing in and having a wonderful command over the mind the object of their coming to that judgments and hearts of his hearers. The wilderness. other was Hooker, a man of vast endowments, untiring energy, and singular benevolence; the equal of the Reformers, though of less harsh a spirit than that which marked most of those great men. These and other devoted servants of God were highly appreciated, not only for their works' sake, but also for their great personal excellences. Amid all this gloom, light began to break in at last. Health returned, and the blanks caused by death were filled up by partial arrivals of new emigrants from England in the course of the two following years. The colony becoming a little settled, measures were taken to introduce a more popular government, by extending the privileges of the charter, which had established a sort of close corporation. By it all fundamental laws were to be enacted by general meetings of the freemen, or members of the company. One of the first steps, accordingly, was to convene a General Court at Boston, and admit above a hundred of the older colonists to the privileges of the corporation; and from that they gradually went on, until, instead of an aristocratic government conducted by a governor, deputy-governor, and assistants, holding office for an indefinite period, these functionaries were elected annually, and the powers of legislation were transferred from general courts of all the freemen joined with the assistants, to a new legislature, or " general court," consisting of two branches, the assistants constituting the upper, and deputies from all the "towns" forming the lower branch. Within five years from the foundation of the colony, a Constitution was drawn up, which was to serve as a sort of Magna Charta, embracing all the fundamental principles of just government; and in fourteen years the colonial government was organized upon the same footing as that on which it rests at the present day. Before long the colony began to extend, in all directions, from Boston as a centre and capital; and as new settlements were made, additional churches were also planted; for the New-England fathers felt that nothing could be really and permanently prosperous without religion. Within five years a considerable population was to be found scattered over Dorchester, Roxbury, Watertown, Cambridge, Charlestown, Lynn, and other settlements. Trade was spreading wide its sails; emigrants were arriving from Europe; brotherly intercourse was opened up with the Plymouth colony, by the visits of Governor Winthrop and the Rev. Mr. Wilson. Friendly treaties were made not only with the neighbouring Indian tribes, the Nipmucks and Narragansetts, but also with the more distant Mohigans and the Pequods in Connecticut. God was emphatically honoured by the great bulk of the people, and everything bore the aspect of prosperity and happiness. Such was the origin of the colony of Massachusetts Bay-a colony destined to exercise a controlling influence over all the other New-England Planta tions. * Several of these new and feeble churches actu But with these colonists the claims of religion took precedence of all other con- ally supported two ministers, one called the "Pascerns of public interest. The New- Eng-tor," and the other the "Teacher." The distinction land Fathers began with God, sought his blessing, and desired, first of all, to promote his worship. Immediately after landing they appointed a day for solemn fasting and prayer. The worship of God was commenced by them not in temples built with hands, but beneath the widespreading forest. The Rev. Mr. Wilson, the Rev. Mr. Philips, and other faithful ministers, had come out with them; and for these, as soon as the affairs of the colony became a little settled, a suitable pro vision was made. In the third year of the settlement there came out, among other fresh emigrants, * Governor Winthrop's Journal. between these offices is not very easily expressed, and must have been more difficult to maintain in practice. Thomas Hooker, in his "Survey of the Summe of Church Discipline," &c., declares the scope of the pastor's office to be "to work upon the will and the affections;" that of the doctor or teacher, "to informe the judgment, and to help forward the work of illumination in the minde and underthat it may be settled and fastened on the heart." standing, and thereby to make way for the truth, The former was to "wooe and win the soul to the love and practice of the doctrine which is according to godlinesse;" the latter, to dispense "a word of of the ministerial office, though much liked by the knowledge." I need hardly say that this duplicate early colonists, did not long survive their day. CHAPTER IV. RELIGIOUS CHARACTER OF THE EARLY COLONISTS. FOUNDERS OF NEW-ENGLAND.COL ONIES OF CONNECTICUT, RHODE ISLAND, NEW-HAMPSHIRE, AND MAINE.- GENERAL REMARKS. PLYMOUTH Colony had been planted only three years when it began to have offshoots, one of which, in 1623, settled at Windsor, on the rich alluvial lands of the Connecticut, led thither, however, more by the advantages of the spot as a station for trading in fur, than by the nature of the soil. The report of its fertility having, at length, reached England, the Earl of Warwick bought from the Council for NewEngland, as we have seen that the Plymouth Company was sometimes called, the whole Valley of the Connecticut, which purchase was, the year following, transferred to Lord Say and Seal, Lord Brooke, and John Hampden. Two years later, the Dutch, who, in right of discovery, claimed the whole of the Connecticut territory, sent an expedition from their settlement at Manhattan up the River Connecticut, and attempted to make good their claim by erecting a blockhouse, called Good Hope, at Hartford. In 1635, the younger Winthrop, the future benefactor of Connecticut, came from England with a commission from the proprietors to build a fort at the mouth of the river, and this he did soon after. Yet, even before his arrival, settlers from the neighbourhood of Boston had established themselves at Hartford, Windsor, and Weathersfield. Late in the fall of that year, a party of sixty persons, men, women, and children, set out for the Connecticut, and suffered much from the inclement weather of the winter that followed. In the following June, another party, amounting to about a hundred in number, including some of the best of the Massachusetts Bay settlers, left Boston for the Valley of the Connecticut. They were under the superintendence of Hayes, who had been one year governor of Boston, and of Hooker, who, as a preacher, was rivalled in the New World by none but Cotton, and even Cotton he excelled in force of character, kindliness of disposition, and magnanimity. Settling at the spot where Hartford now stands, they founded the colony of Connecticut. They, too, carried the ark of the Lord with them, and made religion the basis of their institutions. Three years sufficed for the framing of their political government. First, as had been done by the Plymouth * Plymouth in America is often called New Plymouth by early writers, in speaking of New-Eng land. I prefer the name by which exclusively the town is now known. The context will always enable the reader to distinguish it from Plymouth in England. colony, they subscribed a solemn compact, and then drew up a Constitution on the most liberal principles. The magistrates and Legislature were to be chosen every year by ballot, the "towns" were to return representatives in proportion to their population, and all members of the "towns," on taking the oath of allegiance to the commonwealth, were to be allowed to vote at elections. Two centuries have since passed away, but Connecticut still rejoices in the same principles of civil polity. But before this colony had time to complete its organization, the colonists had to defend themselves and all that was dear to them against their neighbours, the Pequods. This was the first war that broke out between the New-England settlers and the native tribes, and it must be allowed to have been a just one on the part of the former, if war can ever be so. The Pequods brought it upon themselves by the commission of repeated murders. In less than six weeks, hostilities were brought to a close by the annihilation of the tribe. Two hundred only were left alive, and these were either reduced to servitude by the colonists, or incorporated among the Mohigans and Narragansetts. The colony of New-Haven was founded in 1638 by a body of Puritans, who, like all the rest, were of the school of Calvin, and whose religious teacher was the Rev. John Davenport. The excellent Theophilus Eaton was their first governor, and continued to be annually elected to that office for twenty years. Their first Sabbath, in the yet cool month of April, was spent under a branching oak, and there their pastor discoursed to them on the Saviour's "temptation in the wilderness." After spending a day in fasting and prayer, they laid the foundation of their civil government by simply covenanting that "all of them would be ordered by the rules which the Scriptures held forth to them." A title to their lands was purchased from the Indians. The following year, these disciples of "Him who was cradled in a manger" held their first Constituent Assembly in a barn. Having solemnly come to the conclusion that the Scriptures contain a perfect pattern of a commonwealth, according to that they aimed at constructing theirs. Purity of religious doctrine and discipline, freedom of religious worship, and the service and glory of God, were proclaimed as the great ends of the enterprise. God smiled upon it, so that in a few years the colony could show flourishing settlements rising along the Sound, and on the opposite shores of Long Island. While the colonization of Connecticut was in progress, that of Rhode Island commenced. Roger Williams, a Puritan minister, had arrived in Boston the year im Within twenty years from the planting of the colony at Plymouth, all the other chief colonies of New-England were founded, their governments organized, and the coast of the Atlantic, from the Kennebec River in Maine almost to the Hudson in New-York, marked by their various settlements. Offshoots from these original stocks gradually appeared, both at intervening points near the ocean, and at such spots in the interior as attracted settlers by superior fertility of soil or other physical advantages. From time to time, little bands of adventurers left the older homesteads, and wandered forth in search of new abodes. Carrying their substance with them in wagons, and driving before them their cattle, sheep, and hogs, these simple groups wended through the tangled forest, crossed swamps and rivers, and traversed hill and dale, until some suitable resting-place appeared; the silence of the wilderness, meanwhile, was broken by the lowing of their cattle and the bleating of their sheep, as well as by the songs of Zion, with which the pilgrims beguiled the fatigues of the way. Everywhere nature had erected bethels for them, and from beneath the overshadowing oak, morning and night, their orisons ascended to the God of their salvation. Hope of future comfort sustained them amid present toils. They were cheered by the thought that the extension of their settlements was promoting also the extension of the kingdom of Christ. mediately following its settlement by Winthrop and his companions; but he soon advanced doctrines on the rights of conscience, and the nature and limits of human government, which were unacceptable to the civil and religious authorities of the colony. For two years he avoided coming into collision with his opponents by residing at Plymouth; but having been invited to become pastor of a church in Salem, where he had preached for some time after his first coming to America, he was ordered, at last, to return to England; whereupon, instead of complying, he sought refuge among the Narragansett Indians, then occupying a large part of the present State of Rhode Island. Having ever been the steady friend of the Indians, and defender of their rights, he was kindly received by the aged chief, Canonicus, and there, in 1636, he founded the city and plantation of Providence. Two years afterward, the beautiful island called Rhode Island, in Narragansett Bay, was bought from the Indians, by John Clarke, William Coddington, and their friends, when obliged to leave the Massachusetts colony, in consequence of the part which they had taken in the “Antinomian controversy," as it was called, and of which we shall have occasion to speak. These two colonies of Providence and Rhode Island, both founded on the principle of absolute religious freedom, naturally presented an asylum to all who disliked the rigid laws and practices of the Massachusetts colony in religious This rapid advance of the New-England matters; but many, it must be added, fled settlements, during the first twenty years thither only out of hatred to the stern mo- of their existence, must be ascribed, in a rality of the other colonies. Hence Rhode great measure, to the troubled condition Island, to this day, has a more mixed pop- and lowering prospects of the motherulation, as respects religious opinions and country during the same period. The depractices, than any other part of New-Eng-spotic principles of Charles I. as a monland. There is, however, no inconsiderable amount of sincere piety in the state, but the forms in which it manifests itself are numerous. arch, still more, perhaps, the religious intolerance of Archbishop Laud and his partisans, so fatally abetted by the king, drove thousands from England to the colonies, As early as 1623, small settlements were and hurried on the Revolution that soon folmade, under the grant to Mason, on the lowed at home. The same oppressive and banks of the Piscataqua, in New-Hamp- bigoted policy, indeed, that was convulsing shire; and, in point of date, both Ports- Great Britain, threatened the colonies also; mouth and Dover take precedence of Bos- but in 1639, just as they were on the eve ton. Most of the New-Hampshire settlers of an open collision, the government of came direct from England; some from the that country found itself so beset with difPlymouth colony. Exeter owed its found-ficulties at home, that New-England, hapation to the abandonment of Massachusetts by the Rev. Mr. Wheelwright and his immediate friends, on the occasion of the "Antinomian controversy." pily for its own sake, was forgotten. Nor does the prosperity of the colonial settlements, during those twenty years, seem less remarkable than their multipliThe first permanent settlements made cation and extension over the country. on the Maine," as the continental part of The huts in which the emigrants first found the country was called, to distinguish it shelter gave place to well-built houses. from the islands—and hence the name of Commerce made rapid advances. Large the state-date as early, it would appear, quantities of the country's natural producas 1626. The settlers were from Plym- tions, such as furs and lumber, were exouth, and no doubt carried with them the ported; grain was shipped to the West religious institutions cherished in that ear-Indies, and fishing employed many hands. liest of all the New-England colonies. Ship-building was carried to such an ex |