[Pg i]

From 1620 to 1816.

Chief Superintendent of Education for Upper Canada from 1844 to 1876.

TORONTO:
WILLIAM BRIGGS, 80 KING STREET EAST;
JAMES CAMPBELL & SON, AND
WILLING & WILLIAMSON.
MONTREAL: DAWSON BROTHERS.
1880.

[Pg ii]

Entered, according to the Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year One thousand eight hundred and eighty, by the Rev. Egerton Ryerson, D.D., LL.D., in the Office of the Minister of Agriculture.

[Pg iii]

As no Indian pen has ever traced the history of the aborigines of America, or recorded the deeds of their chieftains, their "prowess and their wrongs"—their enemies and spoilers being their historians; so the history of the Loyalists of America has never been written except by their enemies and spoilers, and those English historians who have not troubled themselves with examining original authorities, but have adopted the authorities, and in some instances imbibed the spirit, of American historians, who have never tired in eulogizing Americans and everything American, and deprecating everything English, and all who have loyally adhered to the unity of the British Empire.

I have thought that the other side of the story should be written; or, in other words, the true history of the relations, disputes, and contests between Great Britain and her American colonies and the United States of America.

The United Empire Loyalists were the losing party; their history has been written by their adversaries, and strangely misrepresented. In the vindication of their character, I have not opposed assertion against assertion; but, in correction of unjust and untrue assertions, I have offered the records and documents of the actors themselves, and in their own words.[Pg iv] To do this has rendered my history, to a large extent, documentary, instead of being a mere popular narrative. The many fictions of American writers will be found corrected and exposed in the following volumes, by authorities and facts which cannot be successfully denied. In thus availing myself so largely of the proclamations, messages, addresses, letters, and records of the times when they occurred, I have only followed the example of some of the best historians and biographers.

No one can be more sensible than myself of the imperfect manner in which I have performed my task, which I commenced more than a quarter of a century since, but I have been prevented from completing it sooner by public duties—pursuing, as I have done from the beginning, an untrodden path of historical investigations. From the long delay, many supposed I would never complete the work, or that I had abandoned it. On its completion, therefore, I issued a circular, an extract from which I hereto subjoin, explaining the origin, design, and scope of the work:—

E. RYERSON.

"Toronto, Sept. 24th, 1879."

[Pg vi]

(1775.)

[Pg xxi]

(1775, Continued.)

(1775, Continued.)

(The Year 1775 and beginning of 1776.)

[Pg 1]

Introduction.—Two Classes of Emigrants—Two Governments for Seventy Years—The "Pilgrim Fathers"—Their Pilgrimages and Settlement.

In proceeding to trace the development and characteristics of Puritanism in an English colony, I beg to remark that I write, not as an Englishman, but as a Canadian colonist by birth and life-long residence, and as an early and constant advocate of those equal rights, civil and religious, and that system of government in the enjoyment of which Canada is conspicuous.

In tracing the origin and development of those views and feelings which culminated in the American Revolution, in the separation of thirteen colonies from Great Britain, it is necessary to notice the early settlement and progress of those New England colonies in which the seeds of that revolution were first sown and grew to maturity.

The colonies of New England resulted from two distinct emigrations of English Puritans; two classes of Puritans; two distinct governments for more than sixty years. The one class of these emigrants were called "Pilgrim Fathers," having first fled from England to Holland, and thence emigrated to New England in 1620, in the Mayflower, and called their place of settlement "New Plymouth," where they elected seven Governors [Pg 2]in succession, and existed under a self-constituted government for seventy years. The other class were called "Puritan Fathers;" the first instalment of their emigration took place in 1629, under Endicot; they were known as the Massachusetts Bay Company, and their final capital was Boston, which afterwards became the capital of the Province and of the State.

The characteristics of the separate and independent government of these two classes of Puritans were widely different. The one was tolerant and non-persecuting, and loyal to the King during the whole period of its seventy years' existence; the other was an intolerant persecutor of all religionists who did not adopt its worship, and disloyal from the beginning to the Government from which it held its Charter.

It is essential to my purpose to compare and contrast the proceedings of these two governments in relation to religious liberty and loyalty. I will first give a short account of the origin and government of the "Pilgrim Fathers" of New Plymouth, and then the government of the "Puritan Fathers" of Massachusetts Bay.[1]

In the later years of Queen Elizabeth, a "fiery young clergyman," named Robert Brown, declared against the lawfulness of both Episcopal and Presbyterian Church government, or of fellowship with either Episcopalians or Presbyterians, and in favour of the absolute independence of each congregation, and the ordination as well as selection of the minister by it. This was the origin of the Independents in England. The zeal of Brown, like that of most violent zealots, soon cooled, and he returned and obtained a living again in the Church of England, which he possessed until his death; but his principles of separation and independence survived. The first congregation was formed about the year 1602, near the confines of York, Nottingham, and Leicester, and chose for its pastor John Robinson. They gathered for worship secretly, and were compelled to change their places of meeting in order to elude the pursuit of spies and soldiers. After enduring many cruel sufferings,[Pg 3] Robinson, with the greater part of his congregation, determined to escape persecution by becoming pilgrims in a foreign land. The doctrines of Arminius, and the advocacy and sufferings of his followers in the cause of religious liberty, together with the spirit of commerce, had rendered the Government of Holland the most tolerant in Europe; and thither Robinson and his friends fled from their persecuting pursuers in 1608, and finally settled at Leyden. Being Independents, they did not form a connection with any of the Protestant Churches of the country. Burke remarks that "In Holland, though a country of the greatest religious freedom in the world, they did not find themselves better satisfied than they had been in England. There they were tolerated, indeed, but watched; their zeal began to have dangerous languors for want of opposition; and being without power or consequence, they grew tired of the indolent security of their sanctuary; they chose to remove to a place where they should see no superior, and therefore they sent an agent to England, who agreed with the Council of Plymouth for a tract of land in America, within their jurisdiction, to settle in, and obtained from the King (James) permission to do so."[2]

During their twelve years' pilgrimage in Holland they were good citizens; not an accusation was brought against any one of them in the courts; they were honourable and industrious, and took to new trades for subsistence. Brewster, a man of property, and a gentleman in England, learned to be a printer at the age of forty-five. Bradford, who had been a farmer in England, became a silk-dyer. Robinson became noted as a preacher and controversialist against Arminianism.

Bradford, the historian of their colony and its Governor for eleven years, gives the chief reasons for their dispute in Holland and of their desire to remove to America.[3]

As to what particular place these Pilgrims should select for settlement in America, some were for Guiana, some for Virginia; but they at length obtained a patent from the second or Northern Virginia Company for a settlement on the northern[Pg 4] part of their territory, which extended to the fortieth degree of North latitude—Hutchinson Bay. "The Dutch laboured to persuade them to go to the Hudson river, and settle under the West India Company; but they had not lost their affection for the English, and chose to be under their government and protection."[4] Bancroft, after quoting the statement that "upon their talking of removing, sundry of the Dutch would have them go under them, and made them large offers," remarks: "But the Pilgrims were attached to their nationality as Englishmen, and to the language of their times. A secret but deeply-seated love of their country led them to the generous purpose of recovering the protection of England by enlarging her dominions. They were restless with the desire to live once more under the government of their native land."[5] It appears from Bradford's History, as well as from his Letter Book, and other narratives, that there were serious disputes and recriminations among the Pilgrim exiles and their friends in England, before matters could be arranged for their departure. But only "the minor part [of Robinson's congregation], with Mr. Brewster, their elder, resolved to enter upon this great work." They embarked at Delft Haven, a seaport town on the River Maeser, eight miles from Delft, fourteen miles from Leyden, and thirty-six miles from Amsterdam. The last port from which they sailed in England was Southampton; and after a tempestuous passage of 65 days, in the Mayflower, of 181 tons, with 101 passengers, they spied land, which proved to be Cape Cod—about 150 miles north of their intended place of destination. The pilot of the vessel had been there before and recognised the land as Cape Cod; "the which," says Bradford, "being made and certainly known to be it, they were not a little joyful."[6] But though the Pilgrims[Pg 5] were "not a little joyful" at safely reaching the American coast, and at a place so well known as Cape Cod; yet as that was not their intended place of settlement, they, without landing, put again to sea for Hudson river (New York), but were driven back by stress of weather, and, on account of the lateness of the season, determined not to venture out to sea again, but to seek a place of settlement within the harbour.

As the Pilgrims landed north of the limits of the Company from which they received their patent, and under which they expected to become a "body politic," it became to them "void and useless." This being known, some of the emigrants on board the Mayflower began to make "mutinous speeches," saying that "when they came ashore they would use their own liberty, for none had power to command them." Under these circumstances it was thought necessary to "begin with a combination, which might be as firm as any patent, and in some respects more so." Accordingly, an agreement was drawn up and signed in the cabin of the Mayflower by forty-one male passengers, who with their families constituted the whole colony of one hundred and one.[7] Having thus provided against disorder and[Pg 6] faction, the Pilgrims proceeded to land, when, as Bradford says, they "fell upon their knees and blessed the God of heaven who had brought them over the vast and furious ocean, and delivered them from all the perils and miseries thereof, again to set their[Pg 7] feet on the firm and stable earth, their proper element."[8] Of the manner of their settlement, their exposures, sufferings, labours, successes, I leave the many ordinary histories to narrate, though they nearly all revel in the marvellous.[9]

I will therefore proceed to give a brief account of the Plymouth government in relation to religious liberty within its limits and loyalty to the Mother Country.

[Pg 11]

The Government of the Pilgrim[10] Fathers during Seventy Years, from 1620 to 1692, as distinct from that of the Puritan Fathers.

Two Governments.—Difference between the Government of the Pilgrims and that of the Puritans.—Most historians, both English and American, have scarcely or not at all noticed the fact that within the present State of Massachusetts two separate governments of Puritan emigrants were established and existed for seventy years—two governments as distinct as those of Upper and Lower Canada from 1791 to 1840—as distinct as those of any two States of the American Republic. It is quite natural that American historians should say nothing of the Pilgrim government, beyond the voyage and landing of its founders, as it was a standing condemnation of the Puritan government, on which they bestow all their eulogies. The two governments were separated by the Bay of Massachusetts, about forty miles distant from each other by water, but still more widely different from each other in spirit and character. The government of the Pilgrims was marked from the beginning by a full and hearty recognition of franchise rights to all settlers of the Christian faith; the government of the Puritans denied those rights to all but Congregational Church members for sixty years, and until they were compelled to do otherwise by Royal Charter in 1692. The government of the Pilgrims was just and kind to the Indians, and early made a treaty with the neighbouring tribes, which remained inviolate on both sides during half a century, from 1621 to 1675; the government of the [Pg 12]Puritans maddened the Indians by the invasion of their rights, and destroyed them by multitudes, almost to entire extermination. The government of the Pilgrims respected the principles of religious liberty (which they had learned and imbibed in Holland), did not persecute those who differed from it in religious opinions,[11] and gave protection to many who fled from the persecutions of neighbouring Puritans' government, which was more intolerant and persecuting to those who differed from it in religious opinions than that of James, and Charles, and Laud had ever been to them. The government of the Pilgrims was frank and loyal to the Sovereign and people of England; the government of the Puritans was deceptive and disloyal to the Throne and Mother Country from the first, and sedulously sowed and cultivated the seeds of disaffection and hostility to the Royal government, until they grew and ripened into the harvest of the American revolution.

These statements will be confirmed and illustrated by the facts of the present and following chapters.

The compact into which the Pilgrims entered before landing from the Mayflower, was the substitute for the body politic which would have been organized by charter had they settled, as first intended, within the limits of the Northern Virginia Company. The compact specified no constitution of government beyond that of authority on the one hand, and submission on the other; but under it the Governors were elected annually, and the local laws were enacted during eighteen years by the general meetings of the settlers, after which a body of elected representatives was constituted.

The first official record of the election of any Governor was in 1633, thirteen years after their settlement at Plymouth; but, according to the early history of the Pilgrims, the Governors were elected annually from 1620. The Governors of the colony were as follows:—

[Pg 13]

1. John Carver, in 1620, who died a few months afterwards;

2. William Bradford, 1621 to 1632, 1635, 1637, 1639 to 1643, 1645 to 1656;

3. Edward Winslow, 1633, 1636, 1644;

4. Thomas Prince, 1634, 1638, 1657 to 1672;

5. Josiah Winslow, 1673 to 1680;

6. Thomas Hinckley, 1681 to 1692;[12]

when the colony of Plymouth[13] (which had never increased in population beyond 13,000) was incorporated with that of Massachusetts Bay, under the name of the Province of Massachusetts, by Royal Charter under William and Mary, and by which religious liberty and the elective franchise were secured to all freeholders of forty shillings per annum, instead of being confined to members of the Congregational Churches, as had been the case down to that period under the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay—so that equal civil and religious liberty among all classes was established in Massachusetts, not by the Puritans, but by Royal Charter, against the practice of the Puritans from 1631 to 1692.

The government of the Pilgrims was of the most simple kind. At first the Governor, with one assistant, was elected annually by general suffrage; but in 1624, at the request of Governor Bradford, a Council of five assistants (increased to seven in 1633) was annually elected. In this Court, or Executive Council, the Governor had a double vote. In the third year, 1623, trial by jury was established. During eighteen years, from 1620 to 1638, the legislative body, called the General Court, or Court of Associates, was composed of the whole body of freemen. It was not until 1639 that they established a House of Representatives. The qualifications of a freeman were, that he "should be twenty-one years of age, of sober, peaceable conversation, orthodox in religion [which included belief in God and the Holy Scriptures, but did not include any form of Church government], and possess rateable estate to the value of twenty pounds."

[Pg 14]

In 1636—sixteen years after their landing at New Plymouth—the laws which they had enacted were first collected, prefaced by a declaration of their right to enact them, in the absence of a Royal Charter. Their laws were at various times revised and added to, and finally printed in 1671, under the title of "Their Great Fundamentals." They recognized the general laws of England, and adopted local statutes or regulations according to what they considered their needs.[14] Of their sense of duty as British subjects, and of the uniform mutual relations of friendship existing between them and their Sovereigns, their records and history furnish abundant proofs. The oath required of their Governors commenced in the following words: "You shall swear to be truly loyal to our Sovereign Lord King Charles, his successors and heirs." "At the Court held," (says the record,) "at Plymouth, the 11th of June, 1664, the following was added, and the Governor took the oath thereunto: 'You shall also attend to what is required by His Majesty's Privy Council of the Governors of the respective colonies in reference unto an Act of Parliament for the encouraging and increasing of shipping and navigation, bearing date from the 1st of December, 1660.'"

The oath of a freeman commenced with the same words, as did the oath of the "Assistants" or Executive Councillors, the oath of constables and other officers in the colony. It was likewise ordered, "That an oath of allegiance to the King and fidelity to the Government and to the several colonies [settlements] therein, be taken of every person that shall live within or under the same." This was as follows: "You shall be truly loyal to our Sovereign Lord the King and his heirs and [Pg 15]successors: and whereas you make choice at present to reside within the government of New Plymouth, you shall not do or cause to be done any act or acts, directly or indirectly, by land or water, that shall or may tend to the destruction or overthrow of the whole or any of the several colonies [settlements] within the said government that are or shall be orderly erected or established; but shall, contrariwise, hinder, oppose and discover such intents and purposes as tend thereunto to the Governor for the time being, or some one of the assistants, with all convenient speed. You shall also submit unto and obey such good and wholesome laws, ordinances and officers as are or shall be established within the several limits thereof. So help you God, who is the God of truth and punisher of falsehood."

The Government of Plymouth prefaced the revised collection of their laws and ordinances as follows:

"A form to be placed before the records of the several inheritances granted to all and every of the King's subjects inhabiting with the Government of New Plymouth:

"Whereas John Carver, William Bradford, Edward Winslow, William Brewster, Isaack Alliston and divers others of the subjects of our late Sovereign Lord James, by the Grace of God, King of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, &c., did in the eighteenth year of his reigne of England, France and Ireland, and of Scotland the fifty-four, which was the year of our Lord God 1620, undertake a voyage into that part of America called Virginia or New England, thereunto adjoining, there to erect a plantation and colony of English, intending the glory of God and the enlargement of his Majesty's dominions, and the special good of the English nation."

Thus the laws and ordinances of the Plymouth Government, and the oaths of office from the Governor to the constable, freeman and transient resident, recognize their duty as British subjects, and breathe a spirit of pure loyalty to their Sovereign. The only reference I find in their records to the Commonwealth of England is the following declaration, made in 1658, the last year of Cromwell's government. It is the preface to the collection of the General Laws, revised and published Sept. 29, 1658, and is as follows:

"We, the associates of New Plymouth, coming hither as freeborn subjects of the State of England, endowed with all the[Pg 16] privileges belonging to such, being assembled, do ordain, constitute and enact that no act, imposition, laws or ordinances be made or imposed on us at present or to come, but such as shall be made and imposed by consent of the body of the associates or their representatives legally assembled, which is according to the free libertie of the State of England."

At the first annual meeting of the Plymouth House of Representatives after the restoration of Charles the Second, the following declaration and order was made:

"Whereas we are certainly informed that it hath pleased God to establish our Sovereign Lord King Charles the Second in the enjoyment of his undoubted rights to the Crowns of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, and is so declared and owned by his good subjects of these kingdoms; We therefore, his Majesty's loyal subjects, the inhabitants of the jurisdiction of New Plymouth, do hereby declare our free and ready concurrence with such other of his Majesty's subjects, and to his said Majesty, his heirs and successors, we do most humbly and faithfully submit and oblige ourselves for ever. God save the King.

"June the fifth, Anno Dom. 1661.

"The fifth day of June, 1661, Charles the Second, King of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, &c., was solemnly proclaimed at Plymouth, in New England, in America." (This the Puritan Government of Massachusetts Bay refused to do.)

On the accession of James the Second we find the following entry in the Plymouth records: "The twenty fourth of April, 1685, James the Second, King of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, &c., was solemnly proclaimed at Plymouth according to the form required by his Majesty's most honourable Privy Council."

After the Revolution of 1688 in England, there is the following record of the proceedings of the Legislature of the Plymouth colony—proceedings in which testimony is borne by the colonists of the uniformly kind treatment they had received from the Government of England, except during a short interval under the three years' reign of James the Second:

"At their Majesties' General Court of Election, held at Plymouth on the first Tuesday in June, 1689.

"Whereas, through the great changes Divine Providence hath ordered out, both in England and in this country, we the loyal[Pg 17] subjects of the Crown of England are left in an unsettled estate, destitute of government and exposed to the ill consequences thereof: and having heretofore enjoyed a quiet settlement of government in this their Majesties' colony of New Plymouth for more than threescore and six years, without any interruptions; having also been by the late kings of England from time to time, by their royal letters, graciously owned and acknowledged therein: whereby, notwithstanding our late unjust interruption and suspension therefrom by the illegal arbitrary power of Sir Edmond Andros, now ceased, the General Court held there in the name of their present Majesties William and Mary, King and Queen of England, &c., together with the encouragement given by their said Majesties' gracious declarations and in humble confidence of their said Majesties' good liking: do therefore hereby resume and declare their reassuming of their said former way of government, according to such wholesome constitutions, rules and orders as were here in force in June, 1686, our title thereto being warranted by prescription and otherwise as aforesaid; and expect a ready submission thereunto by all their Majesties' good subjects of this colony, until their Majesties or this Court shall otherwise order; and that all our Courts be hereafter held and all warrants directed and officers sworn in the name of their Majesties William and Mary, King and Queen of England, &c.

"The General Court request the Honourable Governor, Thomas Hinckley, Esq., in behalf of said Court and Colony of New Plymouth, to make their address to their Majesties the King and Queen of England, &c., for the re-establishment of their former enjoyed liberties and privileges, both sacred and civil."

We have thus the testimony of the Plymouth colony itself that there was no attempt on the part of either Charles the First or Second to interfere with the fullest exercise of their own chosen form of worship, or with anything which they themselves regarded as their civil rights. If another course of proceedings had to be adopted in regard to the Puritan Government of Massachusetts Bay, it was occasioned by their own conduct, as will appear hereafter. Complaints were made by colonists to England of the persecuting and unjust conduct of the Puritan Government, and inquiries were ordered in 1646, 1664, 1678, and afterwards. The nature and result of these inquiries will be[Pg 18] noticed hereafter. At present I will notice the first Commission sent out by Charles the Second, in 1664, and which was made general to the several colonies, to avoid invidious distinction, though caused by complaints against the conduct of the Puritan Government of Massachusetts Bay. The Commissioners proposed four questions to the Governments of the several colonies of New England. I will give the questions, or rather propositions, and the answers to them on the part of the Pilgrim Government of Plymouth, as contained in its printed records:—

"The Propositions made by His Majesty's Commissioners to the General Court of (New Plymouth), held at Plymouth, for the jurisdiction of New Plymouth, the 22nd of February, Anno Dom. 1665.

"1. That all householders inhabiting in the colony take the oath of allegiance, and the administration of justice be in his Majesty's name.

"2. That all men of competent estates and civil conversation, though of different judgments, may be admitted to be freemen, and have liberty to choose and to be chosen officers, both civil and military.

"3. That all men and women of orthodox opinions, competent knowledge and civil lives (not scandalous), may be admitted to the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, and their children to baptism if they desire it; either by admitting them into the congregation already gathered, or permitting them to gather themselves into such congregations, where they may have the benefit of the sacraments.

"4. That all laws and expressions in laws derogatory to his Majesty, if any such have been made in these late troublesome times, may be repealed, altered, and taken off from the file."

THE COURT'S ANSWER.

"1. To the first we consent, it having been the practice of this Court, in the first place, to insert in the oath of fidelity required of every householder, to be truly loyal to our Sovereign Lord the King, his heirs and successors. Also to administer all acts of justice in his Majesty's name.

"2. To the second we also consent, it having been our constant practice to admit men of competent estates and civil conversation, though of different judgments, yet being otherwise orthodox,[Pg 19] to be freemen, and to have liberty to choose and be chosen officers, both civil and military.

"3. To the third, we cannot but acknowledge it to be a high favour from God and from our Sovereign, that we may enjoy our consciences in point of God's worship, the main end of transplanting ourselves into these remote corners of the earth, and should most heartily rejoice that all our neighbours so qualified as in that proposition would adjoin themselves to our societies, according to the order of the Gospel, for enjoyment of the sacraments to themselves and theirs; but if, through different persuasions respecting Church government, it cannot be obtained, we could not deny a liberty to any, according to the proposition, that are truly conscientious, although differing from us, especially where his Majesty commands it, they maintaining an able preaching ministry for the carrying on of public Sabbath worship, which we doubt not is his Majesty's intent, and withdrawing not from paying their due proportions of maintenance to such ministers as are orderly settled in the places where they live, until they have one of their own, and that in such places as are capable of maintaining the worship of God in two distinct congregations, we being greatly encouraged by his Majesty's gracious expressions in his letter to us, and your Honours' further assurance of his Royal purpose to continue our liberties, that where places, by reason of our paucity and poverty, are incapable of two, it is not intended, that such congregations as are already in being should be rooted out, but their liberties preserved, there being other places to accommodate men of different persuasions in societies by themselves, which, by our known experience, tends most to the preservation of peace and charity.

"4. To the fourth, we consent that all laws and expressions in laws derogatory to his Majesty, if any sect shall be formed amongst us, which at present we are not conscious of, shall be repealed, altered, and taken off from the file.

"By order of the General Court

"For the jurisdiction of New Plymouth,

"Per me, Nathaniel Morton, Secretary."

"The league between the four colonies was not with any intent, that ever we heard of, to cast off our dependence upon England, a thing which we utterly abhor, intreating your Honours to believe us, for we speak in the presence of God."

[Pg 20]

"New Plymouth, May 4th, 1665.

"The Court doth order Mr. Constant Southworth, Treasurer, to present these to his Majesty's Commissioners, at Boston, with all convenient speed."

The above propositions and answers are inserted, with some variations, in Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts, Vol. I., p. 214. The remark respecting the union between the colonies is not on the colony records—it was inserted at the close of the copy delivered to the Commissioners, in conformity to a letter from the Commissioners, written to Governor Prince after they had left Plymouth. The conditions expressed in the answer to the third proposition appeared so reasonable to the Commissioners, that when they afterward met the General Assembly of Connecticut, in April, 1663, their third proposition is qualified, in substance, conformably to the Plymouth reply. (Morton's Memorial, Davis' Ed., p. 417.)

It is thus seen that there was not the least desire on the part of King Charles the Second, any more than there had been on the part of Charles the First, to impose the Episcopal worship upon the colonists, or to interfere in the least with their full liberty of worship, according to their own preferences. All that was desired at any time was toleration and acknowledgment of the authority of the Crown, such as the Plymouth colony and that of Connecticut had practised from the beginning, to the great annoyance of the Puritans of Massachusetts.

Several letters and addresses passed between Charles the Second and the Pilgrim Government of Plymouth, and all of the most cordial character on both sides; but what is given above supersedes the necessity of further quotations.[15]

It was an object of special ambition with the Government of Plymouth to have a Royal Charter like those of Massachusetts Bay, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, instead of holding their land, acting under a Charter from the Plymouth Council (England)[Pg 21] and Charles the Second. In his last address to Mr. Josiah Winslow, their Governor promised it to them in most explicit terms; but there was a case of quo warranto pending in the Court of King's Bench against the Puritan Government for the violation of their Charter, which delayed the issuing of a Royal Charter to Plymouth. Charles died soon after;[16] the Charter of the Massachusetts Corporation was forfeited by the decision of the Court, and James the Second appointed a Royal Governor and a Royal Commissioner, which changed for the time being the whole face of things in New England.

It, however, deserves notice, that the Massachusetts Puritans, true to their instinct of encroaching upon the rights of others, whether of the King or of their neighbours, white or tawny, did all in their power to prevent the Pilgrims of Plymouth—the pioneers of settlement and civilization in New England—from obtaining a Royal Charter. This they did first in 1630, again in the early part of Charles the Second's reign, and yet again towards its end. Finally, after the cancelling of the Massachusetts Charter, and the English Revolution of 1688, the agents of the more powerful and populous Massachusetts colony succeeded in getting the colony of Plymouth absorbed into that of Massachusetts Bay by the second Royal Charter granted by William and Mary in 1692. "The junction of Plymouth with Massachusetts," says Moore, "destroyed all the political consequence of the former. The people of Plymouth shared but few favours which the new Government had to bestow, and it was seldom indeed that any resident of what was termed the old colony obtained any office of distinction in the Provisional Government, or acquired any influence in its councils."[17]

This seems a melancholy termination of the Government of the [Pg 22]Pilgrims—a princely race of men, who voluntarily braved the sufferings of a double exile for the sake of what they believed to be the truth and the glory of God; whose courage never failed, nor their loyalty wavered amidst all their privations and hardships; who came to America to enjoy religious liberty and promote the honour of England, not to establish political independence, and granted that liberty to others which they earned and had suffered so much to enjoy themselves; who were honourable and faithful to their treaty engagements with the aborigines as they were in their communications with the Throne; who never betrayed a friend or fled from an enemy; who left imperishable footprints of their piety and industry, as well as of their love of liberty and law, though their self-originated and self-sustained polity perished at length, by royal forgetfulness and credulity, to the plausible representations and ambitious avarice of their ever aggressive Massachusetts Puritan neighbours.

While the last act of the Pilgrims before leaving the Mayflower, in the harbour of Cape Cod, was to enter into a compact of local self-government for common protection and interests, and their first act on landing at New Plymouth was, on bended knees, to commend themselves and their settlement to the Divine protection and blessing, it is a touching fact that the last official act of the General Assembly of the colony was to appoint a day of solemn fasting and humiliation on the extinction of their separate government and their absorption into that of Massachusetts Bay.

It was among the sons and daughters of the Plymouth colony that almost the only loyalty in New England during the American Revolution of the following century was found. Most of the descendants of Edward Winslow, and of his more distinguished son, Josiah Winslow, were loyalists during that revolution.[18] In the councils of the mother country, the merits of the posterity of the Pilgrims have been acknowledged; as in her service some of them, by their talents and courage, have won their way to eminence. Among the proudest names in the British navy are the descendants of the original purchaser of Mattapoisett, in Swansey (William Brenton, afterwards Governor[Pg 23] of Rhode Island);[19] to the distinguished title of one of the English peerage is attached the name of one of the early settlers of Scituate, in the Plymouth colony (William Vassall, who settled there in 1635.)[20]

"In one respect," says Moore, "the people of the Old Colony present a remarkable exception to the rest of America. They are the purest English race in the world; there is scarcely an intermixture even with the Scotch or Irish, and none with the aboriginals. Almost all the present population are descended from the original English settlers. Many of them still own the lands which their early ancestors rescued from the wilderness; and although they have spread themselves in every direction through this wide continent, from the peninsula of Nova Scotia to the Gulf of Mexico, some one of the family has generally remained to cultivate the soil which was owned by his ancestors. The fishermen and the navigators of Maine, the children of Plymouth, still continue the industrious and bold pursuits of their forefathers. In that fine country, beginning at Utica, in the State of New York, and stretching to Lake Erie, this race may be found on every hill and in every valley, on the rivers and on the lakes. The emigrant from the sandbanks of Cape Cod revels in the profusion of the opulence of Ohio. In all the Southern and South-Western States, the natives of the "Old Colony," like the Arminians of Asia, may be found in every place where commerce and traffic offer any lure to enterprise; and in the heart of the peninsula of Michigan, like their ancestors they have commenced the cultivation of the wilderness—like them originally, with savage hearts and savage men, and like them patient in suffering, despising danger, and animated with hope."[21]

[Pg 24]

The Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Company and their Government, commencing in 1629.

FIRST SETTLEMENT—ROYAL CHARTER GRANTED.

English Puritanism, transferred from England to the head of Massachusetts Bay in 1629, presents the same characteristics which it developed in England. In Massachusetts it had no competitor; it developed its principles and spirit without restraint; it was absolute in power from 1629 to 1689, and during that sixty years it assumed independence of the Government to which it owed its corporate existence; it made it a penal crime for any emigrant to appeal to England against a local decision of Courts or of Government; it permitted no oath of allegiance to the King, nor the administration of the laws in his name; it allowed no elective franchise to any Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Baptist, Quaker, or Papist. Every non-member of the Congregational Churches was compelled to pay taxes and bear all other Puritan burdens, but was allowed no representation by franchise, much less by eligibility for any office.

It has been seen that the "Pilgrim Fathers" commenced their settlement at New Plymouth in 1620—nine years before the "Puritan Fathers" commenced their settlement on the opposite side of Massachusetts Bay, making Boston their ultimate seat of government. The Pilgrim Fathers and their descendants were professedly congregational separatists from the Church of England; they had fled by stealth, under severe sufferings, from persecution in England to Holland, where they had resided eleven years and upwards, and where they had learned the principles of religious toleration and liberty—the fruit of Dutch[Pg 25] Arminian advocacy and suffering. The Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Company emigrated directly from England, on leaving which they professed to be members of the Church of England; their emigration commenced in 1628, the very year that Charles the First, having quarrelled with and dissolved the last of three Parliaments in less than four years, commenced his eleven years' rule without a Parliament. During that eleven years a constant current of emigration flowed from England to Massachusetts Bay, to the extent of 13,000, including no less than seventy clergymen of the Church of England, and many men of rank, and wealth to the amount of some £300,000. All these emigrants, or "adventurers," as they were called, left England with a stinging sense of royal and episcopal despotism, and with a corresponding hatred of royalty and episcopacy, but with no conception of the principles of religious toleration or liberty beyond themselves.

During the eight years' interval between the settlement of the Pilgrims at New Plymouth to that of the Puritans at Salem and Boston, trade had largely increased between England and Massachusetts Bay,[22] and the climate, fisheries, furs, timber, and other resources of northern New England became well known, and objects of much interest in England.

King James had divided all that part of North America, 34° and 45° of North latitude, into two grand divisions, bestowing the southern part upon a London Company, and the northern part upon a Company formed in Plymouth and Bristol. The Northern Company resolved to strengthen their interests by obtaining a fresh grant from the King. A new patent was issued reorganizing the Company as the Council for the Affairs of New England, the corporate power of which was to reside at Plymouth, west of England, under the title of the "Grand Council of Plymouth," with a grant of three hundred square miles in New England. The Company formed projects on[Pg 26] too large a scale, and did not succeed; but sold that portion of its territory which constituted the first settlements of the Massachusetts Bay Company to some merchants in the west of England, who had successfully fished for cod and bartered for furs in the region of Massachusetts Bay, and who thought that a plantation might be formed there. Among the most active encouragers of this enterprise was the Rev. John White, a clergyman of Dorchester, a maritime town, which had been the source of much commercial adventure in America.[23] One special object of Mr. White was to provide an asylum for the ministers who had been deprived and silenced in England for nonconformity to the canons and ceremonies imposed by Laud and his associates. Through Mr. White the guarantees became acquainted with several persons of his religious sympathies in London, who first associated with them, and afterwards bought rights in their patent. Among these was Matthew Cradock, the largest stockholder in the Company, who was appointed its first president, with eighteen associates, including John Winthrop, Isaac Johnson, Sir Richard Saltonstall, and other persons of "like quality." The chief object of these gentlemen in promoting a settlement in New England was to provide a retreat where their co-religionists of the Church of England could enjoy liberty in matters of religious worship and discipline. But the proposed undertaking could not be prosecuted with success without large means; in order to secure subscriptions for which the commercial aspect of it had to be prominently presented.

The religious aspect of the enterprise was presented under the idea of connecting and civilizing the idolatrous and savage Indian tribes of New England. There was no hint, and I think no intention, of abolishing and proscribing the worship of the Church of England in New England; for Mr. White himself, the projector and animating spirit of the whole enterprise, was[Pg 27] a conformist clergyman.[24] It was professedly a religio-commercial undertaking, and combined for its support and advancement the motives of religion and commerce, together with the enlargement of the Empire.

For greater security and more imposing dignity, the "adventurers" determined to apply for a Royal Charter of incorporation. Their application was seconded by Lord Dorchester and others near the Throne; and Charles the First, impressed with the novel idea of at once extending religion, commerce, and his Empire, granted a Royal Patent incorporating the Company under the name of "The Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay, in New England." But several months before the Royal Charter was obtained, or even application for it made, Endicot, one of the stockholders, was sent out with a ship of one hundred emigrants, and, in consequence of his favourable report, application was made for a Royal Charter.[25]

It was the conduct of Endicot, a few months after his arrival at Massachusetts Bay—first condemned and afterwards sustained and justified by the Directors of the Corporation in London—that laid the foundation of the future Church history of New[Pg 28] England, and of its disputes with the mother country. Endicot and his one hundred emigrant adventurers arrived in the summer of 1628, and selected Naumkeag, which they called Salem, as their place of settlement, the 6th of September. Endicot was sent, with his company, by the Council for New England, "to supersede Roger Conant at Naumkeag as local manager."[26] "The colony, made up of two sources, consisted of not much above fifty or sixty persons, none of whom were of special importance except Endicot, who was destined to act for nearly forty years a conspicuous part in New England history."[27] The Royal Charter passed the seals the 4th of March, 1629, with Mr. Cradock as the first Governor of the Company. "The first step of the new Corporation was to organize a government for its colony. It determined to place the local administration in the hands of thirteen councillors, to retain their office for one year. Of these, seven, besides the Governor (in which office Endicot was continued), were to be appointed by the Company at home; these eight were to choose three others; and the whole number was to be made up by the addition of such as should be designated by the persons on the spot at the time of Endicot's arrival, described as "old planters."[28] A second embarkation of planters and servants was ordered by the Company at a meeting, April 30, 1629, shortly after its incorporation by Royal Charter. Five ships were provided for this embarkation; and four ministers were provided—Francis Higginson, Samuel Skelton, Francis Bright,[Pg 29] and Ralph Smith.[29] Mr. Higginson says in his journal that he sailed from the Isle of Wight the 11th of May, and arrived at Cape Ann the 27th of June, and at Naumkeag (Salem) the 29th. They found at Naumkeag about one hundred planters and houses, besides a fair house built for Mr. Endicot. The old and new planters together were about three hundred, of whom one hundred removed to Charlestown, where there was a house built; the rest remained at Salem.

"Mr. Endicot had corresponded with the settlers at Plymouth, who satisfied him that they were right in their judgments of the outward form of worship, being much like that of the Reformed Churches of France, &c. On the 20th of July, Mr. Higginson and Mr. Skelton, after fasting and prayer, were first elected by the Company for their ministers—the first, teacher; the other, pastor. Each of them, together with three or four grave members, lay their hands on each and either, with solemn prayer. Nothing is said of any Church being formed; but on the 6th of August, the day appointed for the choice and ordination of elders and deacons, thirty persons entered into a covenant in writing, which is said to be the beginning of the Church, and that the ministers were ordained or instituted anew. The repetition of this form they probably thought necessary, because the people were not in a Church state before. It is difficult to assign any other reason. Messengers or delegates from the Church of Plymouth were expected to join with them, but contrary winds hindered them, so that they did not arrive until the afternoon, but time enough to give the right hand of fellowship.

"Two of the company, John and Samuel Brown, one a lawyer, the other a merchant, both men of good estates, and of the first patentees of the Council, were dissatisfied. They did not like that the Common Prayer and service of the Church of England[Pg 30] should be wholly laid aside, and therefore drew off, with as many as were of their sentiments, from the rest, and set up a separate society. This offended the Governor, who caused the two members of his Council to be brought before him; and judging that this practice, together with some speeches they had uttered, tended to sedition, he sent them back to England. The heads of the party being removed, the opposition ceased."[30]

THE QUESTION INVOLVING THE PRIMARY CAUSE OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, THE SETTING UP OF A NEW FORM OF WORSHIP, AND ABOLISHING AND PROSCRIBING THAT OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND; THE FACTS ANALYZED AND DISCUSSED; INSTRUCTIONS AND OATHS OF ALLEGIANCE ORDERED BY THE LONDON COMPANY AND DISREGARDED BY THE GOVERNOR AND COUNCIL AT MASSACHUSETTS BAY.

As the whole question of the future Church-state in Massachusetts, and the future relations of the colony to England, is involved in and resulted from this proceeding, it is necessary to examine it thoroughly in relation both to the state of things in the mother country and in the colony, as well as the provisions of the Royal Charter. To do this, several things are to be considered: 1. With what views was the Royal Charter granted, and with what professed views did the first Governor and his associates leave England under the provisions of the Charter, and carrying it with them to Massachusetts Bay? 2. What were the provisions of the Charter itself on the subject of religion? 3. What were the powers claimed and exercised under it by the Massachusetts Puritans? 4. How far the proceedings of the Massachusetts Puritans were consistent with their original professions, with good faith towards the Mother Country, and with the principles of civil and religious liberty in the colony?

A careful recollection of the collateral events in England and those of the colony, at the time and after granting the Royal Charter, is requisite to a correct understanding of the question, and for the refutation of those statements by which it was misrepresented and misunderstood.

1. The first question is, with what views was the Royal Charter granted, and with what professed views did the Governor and his associates leave England under the provisions of the Charter, and carrying it with them to Massachusetts Bay?

[Pg 31]

The theory of some New England historians is, that Puritanism in England was opposed to the Church of England, and especially to its Episcopal government—a theory true as respects the Puritanism of the Long Parliament after the second year of its existence, and of the Commonwealth and Cromwell, but which is entirely at variance with facts in respect to the Puritanism professed in England at the time of granting the Royal Charter to the Massachusetts Company in 1620, and for twelve years afterwards. In the Millenary Petition presented by the Puritan party in the Church to James the First, on his coming to the throne, presbytery was expressly disclaimed; and in the first three Parliaments of Charles the First, during which all the grievances complained of by the Puritans were stated and discussed in the Commons, not the slightest objection was made to Episcopacy, but, on the contrary, reverence and fidelity in regard to it was professed without exception; and when the Long Parliament first met, eleven years after the granting of the Royal Charter to the Massachusetts Bay Company, every member but one professed to be an Episcopalian, and the Holy Communion, according to the order of the Church, was, by an unanimous vote of the Commons, ordered to be partaken by each member. In all the Church, as well as judicial and political, reforms of this Parliament during its first session, Episcopacy was regarded and treated as inviolate; and it was not until the following year, under the promptings of the Scotch Commissioners, that the "root and branch" petition was presented to Parliament against Episcopacy and the Prayer Book, and the subject was discussed in the Commons. The theory, therefore, that Puritanism in England was hostile to the Church at the period in question is contradicted by all the "collateral" facts of English history, as it is at variance with the professions of the first Massachusetts Puritans themselves at the time of their leaving England.

This is true in respect to Endicot himself, who was appointed manager of the New England Company, to succeed Roger Conant, and in charge of one hundred "adventurers" who reached Naumkeag (which they called Salem) in September, 1628—seven months before the Royal Charter granted by Charles the First passed the seals. Within two months after the Royal Charter was granted, another more numerous party of [Pg 32]"adventurers" embarked for New England, and among these two gentlemen, original patentees and members of the Council—John and Samuel Brown, and four ministers—Higginson, Skelton, Bright, and Smith. During the winter of 1628-9 much sickness prevailed among the emigrants who accompanied Endicot, who sent for a physician to the Plymouth settlement of the Pilgrim Fathers. A Doctor Fuller was sent, who, while he prescribed medicine for the sick of the newly-arrived emigrants, converted Endicot from Episcopalianism to Congregationalism—at least from being a professed Churchman to being an avowed Congregationalist. This is distinctly stated by all the historians of the times.[31]

It is therefore clear that Endicot had imbibed new views of Church government and form of worship, and that he determined not to perpetuate the worship of the Church of England, to which he had professed to belong when he left England, but to form a new Church and a new form of worship. He seems to have brought over some thirty of the new emigrants to his new scheme; and among these were the newly-arrived ministers, Higginson and Skelton. They were both clergymen of the Puritan school—professing loyalty to the Church, but refusing to conform to the novel ceremonies imposed by Laud and his party.[32] But within two months after their arrival, they[Pg 33] entered into the new views of Endicot to found a new Church on the Congregational system. Their manner of proceeding to do so has been stated above (p. 29.) Mr. Hutchinson remarks—"The New England Puritans, when at full liberty, went the full length which the Separatists did in England. It does not follow that they would have done so if they had remained in England. In their form of worship they universally followed the New Plymouth Church."[33]

The question is naturally suggested, could King Charles the First, in granting the Charter, one declared object of which was converting the Indians, have intended or contemplated the superseding the Church for whose episcopacy he perished on the scaffold, by the establishment of Congregationalism in New England? The supposition is absurd, and it is equally unreasonable to suppose that those who applied for and obtained the Charter contemplated anything of the kind, as will appear presently.

It can hardly be conceived that even among the newly-arrived emigrants on the shores of Massachusetts, such a revolution as the adoption of a new form of worship could be accomplished without doing violence to the convictions and endeared associations of some parties. However they might have objected to the ceremonies and despotic acts of the Laudian school in England, they could not, without a pang and voice of remonstrance, renounce the worship which had given to England her Protestantism and her liberties, or repudiate the book which embodied that form of worship, and which was associated with all that had exalted England, from Cramner and Ridley to their own day.[Pg 34] Congregationalism had done nothing for the Protestantism or liberties of England, and it would have been strange indeed had there not been some among the emigrants who would not consider their change of latitude and longitude as destroying their Church membership, and sundering the additional ties which connected them with their forefathers and the associations of all their past life. Endicot, therefore, with all his authority as local Governor, and all his energy and zeal, and canvassing among the two or three hundred new emigrants for a new Church, had not been able to get more than thirty of them, with the aid of the two newly-arrived ministers, to unite in the new Covenant Confession; but he had got the (if not coerced) majority of the local Councillors to join with him, and therefore exercised absolute power over the little community, and denounced and treated as mutinous and factious all who would not renounce the Church of their fathers and of their own profession down to that hour, and adopt the worship of his new community.

As only thirty joined with Endicot in the creation of his new Church organization and Covenant, it is obvious that a majority of the emigrants either stood aloof from or were opposed to this extraordinary proceeding. Among the most noted of these adherents to the old Church of the Reformation were two brothers, John and Samuel Brown, who refused to be parties to this new and locally-devised Church revolution, and resolved, for themselves, families, and such as thought with them, to continue to worship God according to the custom of their fathers and nation.

It is the fashion of several American historians, as well as their echoes in England, to employ epithets of contumely in regard to those men, the Browns—both of them men of wealth—the one a lawyer and the other a private gentleman—both of them much superior to Endicot himself in social position in England—both of them among the original patentees and first founders of the colony—both of them Church reformers, but neither of them a Church revolutionist. It is not worthy of Dr. Palfrey and Mr. Bancroft to employ the words "faction" and "factionists" to the protests of John and Samuel Brown.[34]

[Pg 35]

What is stated by Dr. Palfrey and Mr. Bancroft more than refutes and condemns the opprobrious epithets they apply to the Browns. On pages 29 and 30 I have given, in the words of Mr. Hutchinson, the account of the formation of the new Church, and the expulsion of the Browns for their refusal to conform to it. Dr. Palfrey states the transaction between Endicot and the Browns in the following words:

"The transaction which determined the religious constitution of New England gave offence to two of the Councillors, John and Samuel Brown. Considering the late proceedings, as well they might do, to amount to a secession from the national Establishment, they, with some others of the same mind, set up a separate worship, conducted according to the Book of Common Prayer. Endicot and his friends were in no mood to tolerate this schism. The brothers, brought before the Governor, said that the ministers 'were Separatists, and would be Anabaptists.' The ministers replied that 'they came away from the Common Prayer and ceremonies, and had suffered much for their nonconformity in their native land, and therefore, being placed where they might have their liberty, they neither could nor would use them, because they judged the imposition of these things to be sinful corruptions of God's worship.' There was no composing such strife, and 'therefore, finding these two brothers to be of high spirits, and their speeches and practice tending to mutiny and faction, the Governor told them that New England was no place for such as they, and therefore he sent them both back for England at the return of the ships the same year.'"[35]

[Pg 36]

Mr. Bancroft says: "The Church was self-constituted. It did not ask the assent of the King or recognize him as its head; its officers were set apart and ordained among themselves; it used no Liturgy, and it rejected unnecessary ceremonies; and reduced the simplicity of Calvin to a still plainer standard." "There existed even in this little company a few individuals to whom the new system was unexpected; and in John and Samuel Brown they found able leaders. Both were members of the Colonial Council, and they had been favourites of the Corporation in England; and one of them, an experienced and meritorious lawyer, had been a member of the Board of Assistants in London. They declared their dissent from the Church of Higginson; and at every risk of union and tranquillity, they insisted upon the use of the English Liturgy." "Finding it to be a vain attempt to persuade the Browns to relinquish their resolute opposition, and believing that their speeches tended to produce disorder and dangerous feuds, Endicot sent them back to England in the returning ships; and faction, deprived of its leaders, died away."[36]

It is clear from these statements—partial as they are in favour of Endicot and against the Browns—that Endicot himself was the innovator, the Church revolutionist and the would-be founder of a new Church, the real schismatic from the old Church, and therefore responsible for any discussions which might arise from his proceedings; while the Browns and their friends were for standing in the old ways and walking in the old paths, refusing to be of those who were given to change. Mr. Bancroft says that "the new system was unexpected" to them. Mr. Palfrey says that "John and Samuel Brown, considering the late proceedings, as well they might, to amount to a secession from the national Establishment, they, with some others of the same mind, set up a separate worship conducted according to the Book of Common Prayer." Or, more properly, they continued the worship according to the Book of Common Prayer, which they and their fathers had practised, as well as Endicot and Higginson themselves up to that day, refusing to leave the old Church of the Reformation, and come into a new Church founded by joining of hands of thirty persons, in a new covenant,[Pg 37] walking around the place of the old town-pump of Salem. Mr. Endicot is sent from England as the manager of a trading Company, and invested with powers as their local temporary Governor, to manage their business and remove persons that might disturb or interfere with its operations; and he becomes acquainted with a Doctor Fuller, a deacon of a Congregational Church at New Plymouth, and imbibes his views; and forthwith sets himself to abolish the old Church, and found a new one, and proceeds at length to banish as seditious and mutinous those who would not forsake the old way of worship and follow him in his new way of worship.

Some of the above quoted language of Dr. Palfrey and Mr. Bancroft implies improper conduct on the part of the brothers Brown, for which they were banished. Even if that were so, their position of unchangeable loyalty to their post and of good faith to their Company might be pleaded in justification of the strongest language on their part. But such was not the fact; it was their position, and not their language or tempers. Mr. Bancroft himself says, in the American edition of his History, that "the Browns were banished because they were Churchmen. Thus was Episcopacy professed in Massachusetts, and thus was it exiled. The blessings of the promised land were to be kept for Puritan dissenters."[37] This statement of Mr. Bancroft is confirmed and the conduct of Endicot more specifically stated by earlier New England historians. In the "Ecclesiastical History of Massachusetts," reprinted by the Massachusetts Historical Society, the whole affair is minutely related. The following passages are sufficient for my purpose:

"An opposition of some consequence arose from several persons of influence, who had been active in promoting the settlement of the place. At the head of this were Mr. Samuel Brown and Mr. John Brown, the one a lawyer and the other a merchant, who were attached to the form and usage of the Church of England. The ministers [Higginson and Skelton], assisted by Mr. Endicot, endeavoured to bring them over to the practice of the Puritans, but without success." "These gentlemen, with[Pg 38] others, were conscientious Churchmen, and desired to use the Liturgy, and for this purpose met in their own houses. The magistrates, or rather Mr. Endicot, sent to demand a reason for their separation. They answered, that as they were of the Church established by law in their native country, it was highly proper they should worship God as the Government required, from whom they had received their Charter. Surely they might be allowed that liberty of conscience which all conceived to be reasonable when they were on the other side of the water. But these arguments were called seditious and mutinous."

"Mr. Bentley imputes the errors of the ministers to the temper of Endicot, who was determined to execute his own plan of Church government. Inexperienced in the passions of men, and unaccustomed to consult even his friends, he was resolved to suffer no opposition; and as the Salem Church had disdained the authority of the Church of England, his feelings were hurt and his temper raised against those who preferred a Liturgy, and whose object might be, as he conceived, to cause a schism in the community."[38]

The Mr. Bentley referred to above was the historian of the town of Salem, in a book entitled "Description and History of Salem, by the Rev. William Bentley," and reprinted in the "Collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society," Vol. VI., pp. 212-277. Referring to Endicot's conduct to the Browns, Mr. Bentley says:

"Endicot had been the cause of all the rash proceedings against the Browns. He was determined to execute his own plan of Church government. Inexperienced in the passions of men, and unaccustomed to consult even his friends, he was resolved to admit of no opposition. They who could not be terrified into silence were not commanded to withdraw, but they were seized and banished as criminals. The fear of injury to the colony induced its friends in England to give private satisfaction, and then to write a reproof to him who had been the cause of the outrages; and Endicot never recovered his reputation in England." (p. 245.)

It is thus clear beyond reasonable doubt that the sole offence of the Browns, and those who remained with them, was that[Pg 39] they adhered to the worship which they had always practised, and which was professed by all parties when they left England, and because they refused to follow Mr. Endicot in the new Church polity and worship which he adopted from the Congregational Plymouth physician, after his arrival at Salem, and which he was determined to establish as the only worship in the new Plantation. It was Endicot, therefore, that commenced the change, the innovation, the schism, and the power given him as Manager of the trading business of the Company he exercised for the purpose of establishing a Church revolution, and banishing the men who adhered to the old ways of worship professed by the Company when applying for the Royal Charter, and still professed by them in England. It is not pretended by any party that the Browns were not interested in the success of the Company as originally established, and as professed when they left England; it is not insinuated that they opposed in any way or differed from Endicot in regard to his management of the general affairs of the Company; on the contrary, it is manifest by the statement of all parties that the sole ground and question of dispute between Endicot and the Browns was the refusal of the latter to abandon the Episcopal and adopt the Congregational form of worship set up by Endicot and thirty others, by joining of hands and subscribing to a covenant and confession of faith around the well-pump of Naumkeag, then christened Salem.

The whole dispute, then, narrowed to this one question, let us inquire in what manner the Browns and their friends declined acting with Endicot in establishing a new form of worship instead of that of the Church of England?

It does not appear that Endicot even consulted his local Council, much less the Directors of the Company in England, as to his setting up a new Church and new form of worship in the new Plantation at Salem. Having with the new accession of emigrants received the appointment of Governor, he appears to have regarded himself as an independent ruler. Suddenly raised from being a manager and captain to being a Governor, he assumed more despotic power than did King Charles in England, and among the new emigrants placed under his control, and whom he seems to have regarded as his subjects—himself their absolute sovereign, in both Church and State. In his [Pg 40]conferences with Fuller, the Congregational doctor from New Plymouth, he found the Congregational worship to answer to his aspirations as in it he could on the one hand gratify his hatred of King and Church, and on the other hand become the founder of the new Church in a new Plantation. He paused not to consider whether the manager of a trading Company of adventurers had any authority to abolish the worship professed by the Company under whose authority he was acting; how far fidelity required him to give effect to the worship of his employers in carrying out their instructions in regard to the religious instruction of their servants and the natives; but he forthwith resolved to adopt a new confession of faith and to set up a new form of worship. On the arrival of the first three chaplains of the Company, in June of 1629, several months after his own arrival, Endicot seems to have imparted his views to them, and two of them, Higginson and Skelton, fell in with his scheme; but Mr. Bright adhered to his Church. It was not unnatural for Messrs. Higginson and Skelton to prefer becoming the fathers and founders of a new Church than to remain subordinate ministers of an old Church. The Company, in its written agreement with them, or rather in its instructions accompanying them to Endicot, allowed them discretion in their new mission field as to their mode of teaching and worship; but certainly no authority to ignore it, much less authority to adopt a new confession of faith and a new form of worship.

Within three months after the arrival of these chaplains of the Company at Salem, they and Endicot matured the plan of setting up a new Church, and seemed to have persuaded thirty-one of the two hundred emigrants to join with them—a minority of less than one-sixth of the little community; but in that minority was the absolute Governor, and against whose will a majority was nothing, even in religious matters, or in liberty of conscience. Government by majorities and liberty of conscience are attributes of freedom.

Let it be observed here, once for all, that Endicot and his friends are not, in my opinion, censurable for changing their professed religious opinions and worship and adopting others, if they thought it right to do so. If, on their arrival at Massachusetts Bay, they thought and felt themselves in duty bound to renounce their old and set up a new form of worship and Church[Pg 41] discipline, it was doubtless their right to do so; but in doing so it was unquestionably their duty not to violate their previous engagements and the rights of others. They were not the original owners and occupants of the country, and were not absolutely free to choose their own form of government and worship; they were British subjects, and were commencing the settlement of a territory granted them by their Sovereign; they were sent there by a Company existing and acting under Royal Charter; Endicot was the chief agent of that Company, and acting under their instructions. As such, duty required him to consult his employers before taking the all-important step of setting aside the worship they professed and establishing a new one, much less to proscribe and banish those who had adventured as settlers upon the old professed worship, and declined adopting the new. And was it not a violation of good faith, as well as liberty of conscience, to deny to the Browns and their friends the very worship on the profession of which by all parties they had embarked as settlers in New England? To come to New England as Churchmen, and then abolish the worship of the Church and set up a new form of worship, without even consulting his employers, was what was done by Endicot; and to come as Churchmen to settle in New England, and then to be banished from it for being Churchmen, was what was done to the Browns by Endicot.

This act of despotism and persecution—apart from its relations to the King, and the Company chartered by him—is the more reprehensible from the manner of its execution and the circumstances connected with it.

It appears from the foregoing statements and authorities, that the Browns were not only gentlemen of the highest respectability, Puritan Churchmen, and friends of the colonial enterprise, but that when Endicot resolved upon founding a new Church and worship, they did not interfere with him; they did not interrupt, by objection or discussion, his proceedings around the well-pump of Salem in organizing a new Church and in heretofore professing clergymen of the Church of England, and with its vows upon them, and coming as chaplains of a Church of England Corporation, submitting to a new ordination in order to exercise ecclesiastical functions. The Browns and their friends seem to have been silent spectators of these proceedings[Pg 42]—doubtless with feelings of astonishment if not of grief—but determined to worship in their families and on the Sabbath in their old way. But in this they were interrupted, and haled before the new Governor, Endicot, to answer for their not coming to his worship and abandoning that which they and their fathers, and Endicot himself, had practised; were called "Separatists," for not acting as such in regard to their old way of worship; and were treated as "seditious and mutinous," for justifying their fidelity to the old worship before the new "Star Chamber" tribunal of Endicot. The early New England ecclesiastical historian above quoted says: "The magistrates, or rather Endicot, sent to demand a reason[39] for their separation. They answered that as they were of the Church established by law in their native country, it was highly proper they should worship God as the Government required from whom they had received their Charter. Surely they might be allowed that liberty of conscience which all conceived to be reasonable when they were on the other side of the water." But their arguments were called "seditious and mutinous." The first Congregational historian of Salem, above quoted, says: "Endicot had been the cause of all the rash proceedings against the Browns. He was determined to execute his plan of Church government. Inexperienced in the passions of men, and unaccustomed to consult even his friends, he was resolved to admit of no opposition. They who could not be terrified into silence were not commanded to withdraw, but were seized and transported as criminals."[40]

Such are the facts of the case itself, as related by the New[Pg 43] England Puritan writers themselves. I will now for a short time cross the Atlantic, and see what were the professions and proceedings of the Council or "Grand Court" of the Company in England in regard to the chief objects of establishing the Plantation, their provision for its religious wants, and their judgment afterwards of Endicot's proceedings. In the Company's first letter of instructions to Endicot and his Council, dated the 17th of April, 1629, they remind him that the propagation of the Gospel was the primary object contemplated by them; that they had appointed and contracted with three ministers to promote that work, and instructed him to provide accommodation and necessaries for them, according to agreement. They apprise him also of his confirmation as "Governor of our Plantation," and of the names of the Councillors joined with him.[41] In their letter to Endicot, they call the ministers sent by them "your ministers," and say: "For the manner of exercising[Pg 44] their ministry, and teaching both our own people and the Indians, we leave that to themselves, hoping they will make God's Word the rule of their actions, and mutually agree in the discharge of their duties." Such instructions and directions have doubtless been given by the Managing Boards of many Missionary Societies to missionaries whom they sent abroad; but without the least suspicion that such missionaries could, in good faith, on arriving at their destination, ignore the Church and ordination in connection with which they had been employed, and set up a new Church, and even be parties to banishing from their new field of labour to which they had been sent, the members of the Church of which they themselves were professed ministers when they received their appointment and stipulated support.

Six weeks after transmitting to Endicot the letter above referred to, the Company addressed to him a second general letter of instructions. This letter is dated the 28th of May, 1629, and encloses the official proceedings of the Council or "General Court" appointing Endicot as Governor, with the names of the Councillors joined with him, together with the form of oaths he and the other local officers of the Company were to take.[42] The oath required to be taken by Endicot and[Pg 45] each local Governor is very full and explicit.[43] It is also to be observed that these two letters of instructions, with forms of oaths and appointments of his Council, were sent out three months before Endicot, Higginson, and Skelton proceeded to ignore and abolish the Church professed by the Company and themselves, and set up a new Church.

[Pg 46]

EVASIONS AND DENIALS OF THE ABOLITION OF EPISCOPAL, AND ESTABLISHMENT OF CONGREGATIONAL WORSHIP AT MASSACHUSETTS BAY; PROOFS OF THE FACTS, THAT THE COMPANY AND FIRST SETTLERS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY WERE PROFESSED EPISCOPALIANS WHEN THE LATTER LEFT ENGLAND; LETTERS OF THE LONDON COMPANY AGAINST THE INNOVATIONS WHICH ABOLISHED THE EPISCOPAL, AND ESTABLISHED CONGREGATIONAL WORSHIP BY THE "ADVENTURERS" AFTER CROSSING THE ATLANTIC; THIS THE FIRST SEED OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, AND OF CRUEL PERSECUTIONS.

When the Browns arrived in England as banished "criminals" from the Plantation to which they had gone four months before as members of the Council of Government, and with the highest commendation of the London General Court itself, they naturally made their complaints against the conduct of Endicot in superseding the Church of England by the establishment of a new confession of faith and a new form of worship. It is worthy of remark, that in the Records of the Company the specific subjects of complaint by the Browns are carefully kept out of sight—only that a "dispute" or "difference" had arisen between them and "Governor Endicot;" but what that difference was is nowhere mentioned in the Records of the Company. The letters of Endicot and the Browns were put into the hands of Goffe, the Deputy Governor of the Company; were never published; and they are said to have been "missing" unto this day. Had the real cause and subject of difference been known in England, and been duly represented to the Privy Council, the Royal Charter would undoubtedly have been forthwith forfeited and cancelled; but the Puritan-party feeling of the Browns seems to have been appealed to not to destroy the Company and their enterprise; that in case of not prosecuting their complaints before a legal tribunal, the matter would be referred to a jointly selected Committee of the Council to arbitrate on the affair; and that in the meantime the conduct of Endicot in making Church innovations (if he had made them) would be disclaimed by the Company. To render the Browns powerless to sustain their complaints, their letters were seized[44] and their statements were denied.

[Pg 47]

Nevertheless, the rumours and reports from the new Plantation of Massachusetts produced a strong impression in England, and excited great alarm among the members and friends of the[Pg 48] Company, who adopted three methods of securing themselves and their Charter, and of saving the Plantation from the consequences of Endicot's alleged innovations and violent conduct. Firstly—The Governor of the Company, Mr. Cradock, wrote to Endicot, Higginson, and Skelton, professing doubts of the truth of the charges made against them—disclaiming and warning them against the reported innovations—thus protecting themselves in case of charge from all participation in or responsibility for such proceedings. Secondly—They positively denied the statements of the Browns as to Endicot's alleged "innovations," and used every means to depreciate the trustworthiness and character of the Browns, notwithstanding their former commendation of them and their acknowledged respectability. Thirdly—They prepared and published documents declaring their adherence to the Church of England, and the calumny of the charges and rumours put forth against them as being disaffected to it.

1. Their Governor, Mr. Cradock, wrote to Endicot in the name of the Company. This letter, dated October 16, 1629, is given[Pg 49] at length in a note.[46] It will be seen by this letter how strongly the Company condemned the innovations charged against Endicot by the Browns, and how imperatively they direct him to correct them, while they profess to doubt whether he could have been a party to any such proceedings. In this letter is also[Pg 50] the most explicit testimony by the Company of the King's kindness and generosity to them, as well as a statement of the clear understanding between the King and the Company as to the intentions and spirit of the Royal Charter, and which the Company in London expressed their determination to observe in good faith—a good faith which was invariably and even indulgently observed by both Charles the First and Second, but which was as constantly violated by the Government of Massachusetts Bay, as will appear hereafter from the transfer of the Charter there in 1630, to the cancelling of the Charter under James the Second, in 1687. Endicot, confident in his ability to prevent the transmission of any evidence to England that could sustain the statements of the Browns, paid no heed to the instructions of the Company, and persisted in his course of Church revolution and proscription.

The letter addressed to Higginson and Skelton was signed not only by the Governor, but by the chief members of the Company, and among others by John Winthrop, who took the Royal Charter to Massachusetts Bay, and there, as Governor, administered it by maintaining all that Endicot was alleged to have done, continued to proscribe the worship of the Church of England, allowed its members no elective franchise as well as no eligibility for office, and persecuted all who attempted to worship in any other form than that of the Church of Endicot, Higginson and Skelton—a course in which he persevered until his energies began to fail; for Mr. Bancroft says: "The elder Winthrop had, I believe, relented before his death, and, it is said, had become weary of banishing heretics; the soul of the younger Winthrop [who withdrew from the intolerance of the Massachusetts Puritans, and was elected Governor of Connecticut] was incapable of harbouring a thought of intolerant cruelty; but the rugged Dudley was not mellowed by old age."[49]

The letter addressed to Higginson and Skelton expressed a hope that the report made, in England as to their language and proceedings were "but shadows," but at the same time apprised them of their duty to vindicate their innocency or acknowledge and reform their misdeeds, declaring the favour of the Government to their Plantation, and their duty and determination not[Pg 51] to abuse the confidence which the State had reposed in them. This letter is given entire in a note.[50]

Nothing can be more clear, from the letters addressed by the Company both to Endicot and the ministers Higginson and Skelton, that renunciation of the worship of the Church of England was at variance with the intentions and profession of all parties in granting and receiving the Royal Charter, and that the only defence set up in England of Endicot, Higginson, and Skelton was a positive denial that they had done so. Dudley himself, Deputy Governor, who went to Massachusetts Bay in the same fleet of eleven ships with Governor Winthrop, wrote to his patroness, the Countess of Lincoln, several months after his arrival, and in his letter, dated March 12, 1630, explicitly denies the existence of any such changes in their[Pg 52] worship as had been alleged; that they had become "Brownists [that is, Congregationalists] in religion," etc., and declaring all such allegations to be "false and scandalous reports;" appealing to their friends in England to "not easily believe that we are so soon turned from the profession we so long have made at home in our native land;" declaring that he knew "no one person who came over with us last year to be altered in judgment or affection, either in ecclesiastical or civil respects, since our coming here;" acknowledging the obligations of himself and friends to the King for the royal kindness to them, and praying his friends in England to "give no credit to such malicious aspersions, but be more ready to answer for us than we hear they have been." Dudley's own words are given in note.[51] The only escape from the admission of Dudley's statements being utterly untrue is resort to a quibble which is inconsistent with candour and honesty—namely, that the Brownist or Congregational worship had been adopted by[Pg 53] Endicot and his party before the arrival of Dudley; but the scope and evident design of his letter was to assure the Countess of Lincoln and his friends in England that no new Church worship had been established at Massachusetts Bay, when the reverse must have been known to Dudley, and when he, in support of the new Brownist or Congregational worship, became a fierce persecutor, even to old age, of all who would not conform to it; for, as Mr. Bancroft says, "the rugged soul of Dudley was not mellowed by old age."

But while Dudley, in Massachusetts, was denying to his English friends the existence of ecclesiastical changes there which all history now declares to have taken place, the "Patriarch of Dorchester," the father of the whole enterprise—the Rev. John White, a conformist clergyman of the Church of England, even under Archbishop Laud—wrote and published a pamphlet called "The Planters' Plea,"[52] in which he denied also that any ecclesiastical changes, as alleged, had taken place in the Massachusetts Plantation, and denounces the authors of such allegations in no measured terms. This pamphlet contains a "Brief Relation of the Occasion of the Planting of this Colony." After referring to the third, or "great emigration under Winthrop,"[53] the author proceeds:

"This is an impartial though brief relation of the occasion of planting the colony; the particulars whereof, if they could be entertained, were clear enough to any indifferent judgment, that[Pg 54] the suspicious and scandalous reports raised upon these gentlemen and their friends (as if, under the colour of planting a colony, they intended to raise a seminary of faction and separation), are nothing than the fruits of jealousy of some distempered mind or, which is worse, perhaps savour of a desperate malicious plot of men ill affected to religion, endeavouring, by casting the undertakers into the jealousy of the State, to shut them out of those advantages which otherwise they might expect from the countenance of authority. Such men would be entreated to forbear that base and unchristian course of traducing persons under these odious names of Separatists, and enemies of Church and State, for fear lest their own tongues fall upon themselves by the justice of His hand who will not fail to clear the innocency of the just, and to cast back into the bosom of every slanderer the filth that he rakes up to throw into other men's faces. As for men of more indifferent and better minds, they would be seriously advised to beware of entertaining or admitting, much more countenancing and crediting, such uncharitable persons as discover themselves by their carriage, and that in this particular to be men ill affected towards the work itself, if not to religion, at which it aims, and consequently unlikely to report any truths of such as undertake it."[54]

This language is very severe, not to say scurrilous; but it is the style of all Puritan historians and writers in regard to those who complained of the Puritan Government of Massachusetts. Not even Messrs. Bancroft and Palfrey have thought it unworthy of their eloquent pages. But imputation of motives and character is not argument, is most resorted to for want of argument, much less is it a refutation of statements now universally known to be true. The venerable author of this "Planters' Plea" denied in indignant terms that Endicot and his friends had become "Separatists" or "enemies of the Church" (he had doubtless been so assured); the very thing in which Endicot gloried—setting up a "Separatist" worship, forbidding the worship of "the Church," and banishing its members who resolved to continue the use of its Prayer Book, in public or in private.

This, however, is not all. Not only did the Company, in their letters to Endicot, Higginson, and Skelton, disdain to forbid [Pg 55]anything like abolishing the Church of England and setting up a new Church, and the use of language offensive to their Sovereign and the Established Church; not only were there the most positive denials on both sides of the Atlantic that anything of the kind had been done by Endicot; but on the appointment of Winthrop to supersede Endicot as Governor, and on his departure with a fleet of eleven ships and three hundred "Adventurers" and "Planters," as they were called, a formal and affectionate address to their "Fathers and Brethren of the Church of England" was published by Winthrop from his ship Arabella, disclaiming any acts of some among them (evidently alluding to what Endicot had been alleged to have done) hostile to the Church of England, declaring their obligation and attachment to it, their prayers for it, and entreating the prayers of its members for the success of their undertaking. This address is said to have been written by the Rev. John White, the "Patriarch of Dorchester," and prime mover of the whole Plantation enterprise. It is an imputation upon the integrity of the author, and upon all parties concerned in the address, and absurd in itself, to suppose that the prayers of the Church in England were solicited with a view to the abolition of its worship in Massachusetts, and the establishment there of a "Separatist" Church. This address—not to be found in any modern history of the Massachusetts Puritans—speaks for itself, and is given in a note as originally published.[55] It will be recollected that[Pg 56] Winthrop and the other signers of this address had the Royal Charter with them, and now constituted the "principals" of the[Pg 57] Company, whose authority in England now ceased, and was henceforth to be exercised at Massachusetts Bay. They beg that the "disaffection or indiscretion" of some of the Company—evidently alluding to what Endicot was reported to have done—might not be imputed to "the principals and body of the Company." Their words are, addressing their Fathers and Brethren of the Church of England: "And howsoever your charity may have met with some occasional discouragement through the misreport of our intentions, or through the disaffection or indiscretion of some of us, or rather amongst us (for we are not of those who dream of perfection in this world); yet we desire you would look at the principals and body of our Company, as those who esteem it an honour to call the Church of England, whence we rise, our dear Mother," &c.

It is passing strange that any man who respects himself could say, in the face of these words and of the whole address, that Mr. Winthrop and the "principals and body of the Company" did not profess to be members of the Church of England, and did not assure their "Fathers and Brethren in England" of their intention to remain so, and implore the prayers of their Fathers and Brethren for their success. No darker stigma could be inflicted upon the character of Winthrop and his Company, than the assertion that at the very moment of making and publishing these professions in England they intended to extinguish their "dear Mother" in Massachusetts, and banish every one from their Plantation who should use her Prayer Book, or worship as the "dear Mother" worshipped. Yet such is the theory, or fallacy, of some Puritan writers.

[Pg 58]

It has also been pretended that there was no Church of England in Massachusetts, and therefore the planters were free to set up what form of worship they pleased. It may be asked in reply, what makes a Church but the presence of members of it? An early Christian writer says that "wherever there are two or three believers there is a Church." But were not Endicot, and Higginson, and Skelton as much members of the Church of England on their arrival at Massachusetts Bay as when they left England? And were not the two latter as much clergymen of the Church of England when they met Endicot at Naumkeag, or Salem, as when they engaged with the Company in England to go out as ministers to the new Plantation? Does crossing the sea change or annihilate the churchmanship of the missionary, or the passenger, or the emigrant? There may not be a place of worship, or a minister, but there are the members of the Church. Is a missionary or agent of a Committee or Board of a particular Church in London, no longer a member of that Church when he reaches the foreign land to which he is sent because he finds no Church worship there, much less if he finds members of his own Church already there? Yet such are the pretences on which some Puritan writers, and even historians, attempt to justify the conduct of Endicot, Higginson, and Skelton! But, be it remembered, I make no objection to their renouncing their Church, and establishing for themselves and those who chose to follow them, a new Church confession and worship. The points of discussion are: 1. Was it honest for them to do so without consulting those who employed and settled them there, and provided for their religious instruction by clergymen of the Church of England? 2. Was it right or lawful, and was it not contrary to the laws of England, for them to abolish the worship of the Church of England and banish its members from the Plantation, as settlers, for continuing to worship according to the Church of England? 3. And can they be justified for denying to their friends in England, and their friends denying to the public and to the King, on their behalf and on their authority, what they had done, and what all the world now knows they had done, at Massachusetts Bay? 4. And finally, was it not a breach of faith to their Sovereign, from whom they had received their Charter, and, as they themselves acknowledged, most kind treatment, to commence their settlement by abolishing the established[Pg 59] religion which both the King and they professed when the Charter was granted, and when they left England, and banish from the territory which the King had granted them all settlers who would not renounce the form of worship established in England from the Reformation, and adopt a new form of worship, which was not then lawful in England?

The foregoing pages bear witness that I have not taken a sentence from any writer adverse to the Puritans. I have adhered to their own statements in their own words, and as printed in their Records. Their eloquent apologist and defender, Mr. Bancroft, says: "The Charter 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 forbidden to make laws or ordinances repugnant to the laws or statutes of the realm of England. The express concession of power to administer the oath of supremacy demonstrates that universal 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."[56]

From this accumulation of evidence—which might be greatly increased—I think it is as clear as day that the abolition of the worship of the Church of England, and the establishment of a new form of worship, and a new confession of faith, and a new ordination to the ministry at Massachusetts Bay in 1629, was a violation of the Charter, an insult to the King, and a breach of faith with him, notwithstanding his acknowledged kindness to[Pg 60] them, and a renunciation of all the professions which were made by the Company in England.

This was the first seed sown, which germinated for one hundred and thirty years, and then ripened in the American Revolution; it was the opening wedge which shivered the transatlantic branches from the parent stock. It was the consciousness of having abused the Royal confidence and broken faith with their Sovereign, of having acted contrary to the laws and statutes of England, that led the Government of Massachusetts Bay to resist and evade all inquiries into their proceedings—to prevent all evidence from being transmitted to England as to their proceedings, and to punish as criminals all who should appeal to England against any of their proceedings—to claim, in short, independence and immunity from all responsibility to the Crown for anything that they did or might do. Had Endicot and his party not done what they knew to be contrary to the loyal Charter and the laws of England, they would have courted inquiry, that the light of their fair and loyal acts might be manifest to all England, in refutation of all statements made against them. Had the Browns and their Church friends been permitted to worship after the manner of their fathers and of their childhood, while Endicot and his converts elected to worship in a new manner, there would have been no cause of collision, and no spirit of distrust and hostility between the Massachusetts settlement and the King, any more than there was between either Charles the First or Second, and the settlements and separate Governments of Plymouth, Rhode Island, or Connecticut. But Endicot, in the spirit of tyranny and intolerance, would allow no liberty of worship not of his own establishment; and to maintain which in the spirit of proscription and persecution, caused all the disputes with the parent Government and all the persecutions and bloodshed on account of religion in Massachusetts which its Government inflicted in subsequent years, in contradistinction to the Governments of Plymouth, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and even Maryland.[57]

[Pg 61]

CONTEST BETWEEN KING CHARLES AND THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY PURITANS, DURING TEN TEARS, FROM 1630 TO 1640; PROFESSIONS OF THE PURITANS ON LEAVING ENGLAND; THEIR CONDUCT ON ARRIVING AT MASSACHUSETTS BAY; SUPPRESSION OF PURITAN CORRESPONDENCE; COMPLAINTS TO ENGLAND OF THEIR CHURCH REVOLUTION AND INTOLERANCE; MEMBERS OF THE NEW CONGREGATIONAL CHURCHES ALONE ELECTORS AND ELIGIBLE TO OFFICE; FIVE-SIXTHS OF THE POPULATION DISFRANCHISED; COMPLAINTS OF THE DISFRANCHISED AND PROSCRIBED TO ENGLAND; SUPPRESSION OF CORRESPONDENCE AND THE DENIAL OF FACTS, AND THE PROFESSIONS OF THE REPRESENTATIVES OF THE MASSACHUSETTS PERSECUTORS OF EPISCOPALIANS OBTAIN A FAVOURABLE DECISION OF THE KING AND PRIVY COUNCIL, AND THEY ARE ENCOURAGED IN THEIR SETTLEMENT AND TRADE; TRANSFER OF THE CHARTER, PLAIN VIOLATIONS OF IT; RUMOURS OF THE APPOINTMENT OF A GOVERNOR-GENERAL, AND APPOINTMENT OF A ROYAL COMMISSION OF INQUIRY AND REGULATION; PREPARATION TO RESIST THE APPOINTMENT AT MASSACHUSETTS BAY; ROYAL AND COLONIAL RESTRICTIONS ON EMIGRATION; IT CEASES; COLONIAL PROPERTY AND TRADE DEPRESSED; REVIEW OF THE TREATMENT OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY COLONY BY KING CHARLES THE FIRST, AND THEIR PROFESSIONS AND TREATMENT IN RETURN; THE REAL AUTHORS AND PROMOTERS OF RELIGIOUS TOLERATION AND LIBERTY IN ENGLAND.

It is well known that the Puritans in England objected to the ceremonies enforced by Laud, as "corrupt and superstitious," and many ministers were ejected from their benefices for nonconformity to them; but none of the nonconformists who refused compliance with such "corrupt and superstitious" ceremonies ever professed that the polity and worship of the Church was "corrupt and superstitious," and should therefore be renounced, much less abolished, as did Endicot and his party at Massachusetts Bay, and that twenty years before the death of Charles the First and the usurpation of Cromwell.[58]

[Pg 62]

It might be confidently expected that Mr. Winthrop, after an address of loyalty and affection to his "Fathers and Brethren of the Church of England," from the very ship on which he left his native land, would, on his arrival at Massachusetts Bay and assuming its government, have rectified the wrongs of Endicot and his party, and have secured at least freedom of worship to the children of his "dear Mother." But he seems to have done nothing of the kind; he seems to have fallen in with the very proceedings of Endicot which had been disclaimed by him in his address to his "Fathers and Brethren of the Church of England," on embarking at Yarmouth for his new government. American historians are entirely silent on the subject. It is very clear that Mr. Winthrop had correspondence with his English friends on these matters, as intimated by Mr. Bancroft in words quoted on page 59. If this suppressed correspondence were published, it would doubtless show how it was that Mr. Winthrop, like Endicot, and to the astonishment of his Puritan friends in England, changed from and suppressed the worship of his "dear Mother" Church, on changing from one side of the Atlantic to the other. Mr. Hutchinson, referring to the address of Governor Winthrop to his "Fathers and Brethren of the Church of England," to remove suspicions and misconstructions, says: "This paper has occasioned a dispute, whether the first settlers in Massachusetts were of the Church of England or not. However problematical it may be what they were while they remained in England, they left no room to doubt after they arrived in America."[59]

[Pg 63]

But though the Editor of Winthrop has suppressed the letters which would explain how Mr. Winthrop changed from Episcopalianism to Congregationalism on his assuming the government of Massachusetts Bay, we are at no loss to know the character of his proceedings, since, in less than a year after his arrival there, the worship of his "dear Mother" Church not only continued to be suppressed, but its members were deprived of the privilege of even becoming "freemen" or electors in the new "Commonwealth," as it forthwith begun to call itself, and the privileges of citizenship were restricted to members of the new established Congregational Churches; for on May 18th, 1631, the newly organized Legislature, or "General Court," as it was called, enacted that, "To the end the body of the commons may be preserved of honest and good men, it was ordered and agreed that for time to come, no man shall be admitted to the freedom of this body politic but such as are members of some of the churches within the limits of the same."

Mr. Bancroft, after quoting this extraordinary and unprecedented enactment, remarks—"The principle of universal suffrage was the usage of Virginia; Massachusetts, resting for its defence on its unity and its enthusiasm, gave all power to the select band of religious votaries, into which the avenues could be opened only by the elders [ministers]. The elective franchise was thus confined to a small proportion of the whole population, and the Government rested on an essentially aristocratic foundation. But it was not an aristocracy of wealth; the polity was a sort of theocracy; the servant of the bondman, if he were a member of the Church, might be a freeman of the Company."—"It was the reign of the Church; it was a commonwealth of the chosen people in covenant with God."[60]

[Pg 64]

It thus appears that the new Congregationalists of Massachusetts were far behind the old Episcopalians of Virginia in the first principle of civil liberty; for while among the latter the Episcopal Church alone was the recognized Church, the elective franchise was not restricted to the members of that Church, but was universal; while in the new Government of Massachusetts, among the new Puritan Congregationalists, none but a Congregational Church member could be a citizen elector, and none could be a Church member without the consent and recommendation of the minister; and thus the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Bay, at the very beginning, became, in the words of Mr. Bancroft, "the reign of the Church"—not indeed of the Church of England, but of the new Congregational Church established by joining of hands and covenant around the well-pump of Naumkeag—then christened Salem.

The New England historians assure us that on the settlement of the Puritans at Massachusetts Bay, the connection between Church and State ceased. It is true that the connection of the Church of England with the State ceased there; it is true that there was not, in the English sense of the phrase, connection between the Church and State there; for there was no State but the Church; the "Commonwealth" was not the government of free citizens by universal suffrage, or even of property citizens, but was "the reign of the Church," the members of which, according to Mr. Bancroft himself, constituted but "a small proportion of the whole population"—this great majority (soon five-sixths) of the population being mere helots, bound to do the work and pay the taxes imposed upon them by the "reigning Church," but denied all eligibility to any office in the "Commonwealth," or even the elective franchise of a citizen! It was indeed such a "connection between Church and State" as had never existed, and has never existed to this day, in any[Pg 65] Protestant country. "The reign of the Church"—the small minority over the great majority of the "Commonwealth;" and this system of "the reign of the Church" over the State—of the government of a Church minority of one-sixth over a whole population of five-sixths—continued for sixty years (as will hereafter appear), until suppressed by a second Royal Charter, which placed all citizens upon equal footing before the law, and in respect to the elective franchise. Though the Congregational Puritans of Massachusetts Bay may have been the fathers of American independence of England, they were far from being the fathers or even precursors of American liberty. They neither understood nor practised the first principles of civil and religious liberty, or even the rights of British subjects as then understood and practised in England itself.

It is admitted on all sides, that, according to the express words of the Royal Charter, the planter emigrants of Massachusetts Bay should enjoy all "the privileges of British subjects," and that no law or resolution should be enacted there "contrary to the laws and statutes of England." Was it not, therefore, perfectly natural that members of the Church of England emigrating to Massachusetts Bay, and wishing to continue and worship as such after their arrival there, should complain to their Sovereign in Council, the supreme authority of the State, that, on their arrival in Massachusetts, they found themselves deprived of the privilege of worshipping as they had worshipped in England, and found themselves subject to banishment the moment they thus worshipped? And furthermore, when, unless they actually joined one of the new Congregational Churches, first established at Massachusetts Bay, August 6th, 1629, five months after granting the Royal Charter (March 4th, 1629), they could enjoy none of the rights of British subjects, they must have been more or less than men had they not complained, and loudly complained, to the highest authority that could redress their grievances, of their disappointments, and wrongs as British subjects emigrating to Massachusetts. And could the King in Council refuse to listen to such complaints, and authorize inquiry into their truth or falsehood, without violating rights which, even at that period of despotic government, were regarded as sacred to even the humblest British subject? And the leading complainants were men of the most respectable position in[Pg 66] England, and who had investments in New England—not only the Messrs. Brown, but Capt. John Mason and Sir Ferdinand Gorges, who complained that the Massachusetts Company had encroached upon the territory held by them under Royal Charter—territory which afterwards constituted portions of New Hampshire and Maine. Were the King and Privy Council to be precluded from inquiring into such complaints? Yet New England historians assail the complainants for stating their grievances, and the King and Council for listening to them even so far as to order an inquiry into them. The petitioners are held up as slanderers and enemies, and the King and Council represented as acting tyrannically and as infringing the rights of the Massachusetts Puritans, and seeking the destruction of their liberties and enterprise even by inquiring into complaints made. The actual proceedings of the King in Council prove the injustice and falsity of such insinuations and statements.

The pretence set up in Massachusetts was that the authority of the Local Government was supreme; that to appeal from it to the King himself was sedition and treason;[61] and the defence set up in England was that the allegations were untrue, and that the Massachusetts Corporation was acting loyally according to the provisions of the Charter and for the interests of the King. The account of these proceedings before the King's Privy Council is given in a note from Mr. Palfrey himself.[62]

[Pg 67]

In regard to these proceedings, the reader's attention is directed to the following facts: 1. The principal charges of the complainants were denied—resting to be proved by parties that must be called from that place [Massachusetts], which required long, expensive time, "and were in due time further to be inquired into;" and the Massachusetts Corporation took effectual precaution against any documentary evidence being brought thence, or "parties" to come, unless at the expense of their all, even should the complainants be able and willing to incur the expense of bringing them to England. The Privy Council therefore deferred further inquiry into these matters, and in the meantime gave the accused the benefit of the doubt and postponement. 2. The nominal Governor of the Company in England, Mr. Cradock, Sir R. Saltonstall, &c., "appeared before the Committee of Council on the Company's behalf, and had the address or good fortune to vindicate their clients," &c. This they did so effectually as to prejudice the King and Council against the complainants, and excite their sympathies in favour of the Company, the King saying "he would have them severely punished who did abuse his Governor and Plantations." But the question arises, And by what sort of "address or good fortune" were Messrs. Cradock and Company able to vindicate their clients[Pg 68] "to the King's satisfaction and their complete triumph?" Must it not have been by denying the charges which all the world now knows to have been true? Must it not have been by appealing to the address of Mr. Winthrop and Company to their "Fathers and Brethren of the Church of England," declaring their undying attachment to their "dear Mother?" and also by appealing to the letter of Deputy Governor Dudley to the Countess of Lincoln, declaring in 1630 that no such Church innovations as had been alleged had taken place at Massachusetts Bay? Must it not have been by their assuring the King's Council that the worship of the Church of England had not been abolished in Massachusetts, much less had anyone been banished thence for continuing to worship according to the Prayer Book of that Church? Must it not have been by their declaring that they were faithfully and loyally carrying out the intentions and provisions of the Charter, according to the statutes and laws of England? 3. Let it be further observed that the King, according to the statements of the very party who was imposing upon his confidence in their sincerity, that throughout this proceeding he evinced the same good-will to the Massachusetts Bay colony that he had done from the granting of the Charter, and which they had repeatedly acknowledged in their communications with each other, as quoted above. Yet the Puritan historians ascribe to Charles jealous hostility to their colony from the commencement, and on that ground endeavour to justify the deceptive conduct of the Company, both in England and at Massachusetts Bay. Had Charles or his advisers cherished any hostile feelings against the Company, there was now a good opportunity of showing it. Had he been disposed to act the despot towards them, he might at once, on a less plausible pretext than that now afforded him, have cancelled his Charter and taken the affairs of the colony into his own hands.

It is a singular concurrence of circumstances, and on which I leave the reader to make his own comments, that while the representatives of the Company were avowing to the King the good faith in which their clients were carrying out his Majesty's royal intentions in granting the Charter, they at that very time were not allowing a single Planter to worship as the King worshipped, and not one who desired so to worship to enjoy the privilege of a British subject, either to vote or even to remain[Pg 69] in the colony. As Mr. Bancroft says in the American, but not in the English edition of his History, men "were banished because they were Churchmen. Thus was Episcopacy first professed in Massachusetts, and thus was it exiled. The blessings of the promised land were to be kept for Puritan dissenters."

But while the King and Privy Council were showering kindness and offers of further help, if needed, to advance the Plantation, believing their statements "that things were carried there as was pretended when the patents were granted," complaints could not fail to reach England of the persecution of members of the Church of England, and of the disfranchisement of all Planters who would not join the Congregational Church, in spite of the efforts of the dominant party in Massachusetts to intercept and stifle them; and it at length came to the knowledge of the King and Privy Council that the Charter itself had been, as it was expressed, "surreptitiously" carried from England to Massachusetts, new councillors appointed, and the whole government set up at Massachusetts Bay instead of being administered in England, as had been intended when the Charter was granted. This had been kept a profound secret for nearly four years; but now came to light in 1634.

It has been contended that this transfer of the Charter was lawful, and was done in accordance with the legal opinion of an able lawyer, Mr. John White, one of the party to the transfer. I enter not into the legal question; the more important question is, Was it honourable? Was it loyal? Was it according to the intention of the King in granting it? Was there any precedent, and has there ever been one to this day, for such a proceeding? And when they conceived the idea of transferring the management of the Company from London to Massachusetts, and Mr. Winthrop and his friends refused to emigrate except on the condition of such transfer of the Charter, did not fairness and duty dictate application to the King, who granted the Charter, for permission to transfer it as the best means of promoting the original objects of it? And is there not reason to believe that their application would have been successful, from the kind conduct of the King and Privy Council towards them, as stated above by themselves, when complaints were made against them? Was their proceeding straightforward? Was not the secrecy of it suspicious, and calculated to excite suspicion, when, after more[Pg 70] than three years of secrecy, the act became known to the King and Privy Council?[63]

[Pg 71]

The complainants against the Company in 1632, who found themselves so completely overmatched before the Privy Council by the denials, professions, and written statements produced by Mr. Cradock, Sir R. Saltonstall, and others, could not but feel exasperated when they knew that their complaints were well-founded; and they doubtless determined to vindicate the truth and justice of them at the first opportunity. That opportunity was not long delayed. The discovery that the Charter and government of the Company had been secretly transferred from London to Massachusetts Bay excited suspicion and curiosity; rumours and complaints of the proscriptions and injustice of the Colonial Government began to be whispered on all sides; appeal was again made to the King in Council; and the further inquiry indicated in the proceedings of the Privy Council two years before, was decided upon; a Royal Commission was appointed to inquire into these and all other complaints from the colonies, and redress the wrongs if found to exist; the appointment of a Governor-General over all the New England colonies, to see justice done to all parties, was contemplated.

The complainants against the conduct of the government of Endicot and Winthrop are represented by their historians as a few individuals of malicious feelings and more than doubtful character; but human nature at Massachusetts Bay must have been different from itself in all civilized countries, could it have been contented or silent when the rights of citizenship were denied, as Mr. Bancroft himself says, to "by far the larger proportion of the whole population," and confined to the members of a particular denomination, when the only form of worship then legalized in England was proscribed, and its members banished from the land claimed as the exclusive possession of Puritan dissenters. The most inquisitorial and vigilant efforts of the Local Government to suppress the transmission of information to England, and punish complainants, [Pg 72]could not prevent the grievances of the proscribed and oppressed being wafted to England, and commanding attention, and especially in connection with the startling fact now first discovered, that the Royal Charter had been removed from England, and a government under its authority set up at Massachusetts Bay.

Mr. Bancroft ascribes the complaints on these subjects as originating in "revenge," and calls them "the clamours of the malignant," and as amounting to nothing but "marriages celebrated by civil magistrates," and "the system of Colonial Church discipline;" confined, as he himself says elsewhere, "the elective franchise to a small proportion of the whole population," and "established the reign of the [Congregational] Church." Mr. Bancroft proceeds: "But the greater apprehensions were raised by a requisition that the Letters Patent of the Company should be produced in England—a requisition to which the emigrants returned no reply."

"Still more menacing," says Mr. Bancroft, "was the appointment of an arbitrary Special Commission [April 10, 1634] for all the colonies.[64]

"The news of this Commission soon reached Boston [Sept. 19, 1634;] and it was at the same time rumoured that a Governor-General was on his way. The intelligence awakened the most intense interest in the whole colony, and led to the boldest measures. Poor as the new settlements were, six hundred pounds were raised towards fortifications; 'and the assistants and the deputies discovered their minds to one another,' and the fortifications were hastened. All the ministers assembled in Boston [Jan. 19, 1635]; it marks the age, that their opinions were consulted; it marks the age still more, that they unanimously declared against the reception of a General Governor. 'We ought,' said the fathers of Israel, 'to defend our lawful possessions, if we are able; if not, to avoid and protract.'"

The rumour of the appointment of a Governor-General over all the New England colonies was premature; but it served to develop the spirit of the ruling Puritans of Massachusetts Bay in their determining to resist the appointment of a general officer to which no other British colony had, or has, ever[Pg 73] objected.[65] The decision in their behalf by the King in Council, in regard to the complaints made against them in 1632, deserved their gratitude; the assurance in the recorded Minutes of the Privy Council, that the King had never intended to impose upon them those Church ceremonies which they had objected to in England, and the liberty of not observing which they went to New England to enjoy, should have produced corresponding feelings and conduct on their part. In their perfect liberty of worship in New England, there was no difference between them and their Sovereign. In the meeting of the Privy Council where the Royal declaration is recorded that liberty of worship, without interference or restriction, should be enjoyed by all the settlers in New England, Laud (then Bishop of London) is reported as present. Whatever were the sins of King Charles and Laud in creating by their ceremonies, and then punishing, nonconformists in England, they were not justly liable to the charge of any such sins in their conduct towards the Puritans of New England. Throughout the whole reign of either Charles the First or Second, there is no act or intimation of their interfering, or intending or desiring to interfere, with the worship which the Puritans had chosen, or might choose, in New England. In Plymouth the Congregational worship was adopted in 1620, and was never molested; nor would there have been any interference with its adoption nine years afterwards at Massachusetts Bay, had the Puritans there gone no further than their brethren at Plymouth had gone, or their brethren afterwards in Rhode Island and Connecticut. But the Puritans at Massachusetts Bay assumed not merely the liberty of worship for themselves,[Pg 74] but the liberty of prohibiting any other form of worship, and of proscribing and banishing all who would not join in their worship; that is, doing in Massachusetts what they complained so loudly of the King and Laud doing in England. This was the cause and subject of the whole contest between the Corporation of Massachusetts Bay and the authorities in England. If it were intolerance and tyranny for the King and Laud to impose and enforce one form of worship upon all the people of England, it was equal intolerance and tyranny for the Government of Massachusetts Bay to impose and enforce one form of worship there upon all the inhabitants, and especially when their Charter gave them no authority whatever in the matter of Church organization.[66] They went to New England avowedly for liberty of worship; and on arriving there they claimed the right to persecute and to banish or disfranchise all those who adhered to the worship of the Church to which they professed to belong, as did their persecutors when they left England, and which was the only Church then tolerated by the laws of England.

When it could no longer be concealed or successfully denied that the worship of the Church of England had been forbidden at Massachusetts Bay and its members disfranchised; and when it now came to light that the Charter had been secretly transferred from England to Massachusetts, and a new Governor and Council appointed to administer it there; and when it further became known that the Governor and Council there had actually prepared to resist by arms the appointment of a General Governor and Royal Commission, and had not only refused to produce the Charter, but had (to "avoid and protract") not even deigned to acknowledge the Privy Council's letter to produce it, the King was thrown upon the rights of his Crown, either to maintain them or to have the Royal authority exiled from a part of his dominions. And when it transpired that a large and increasing emigration from England was flowing to the very Plantation where the Church had been abolished and the King's authority[Pg 75] set at defiance,[67] it became a question of prudence whether such emigration should not be restricted; and accordingly a Royal Order in Council was issued forbidding the conveyance of any persons to New England except those who should have a Royal license.

This Order has been stigmatized by New England writers as most tyrannical and oppressive. I do not dispute it; but it was provided for in the Royal Charter, and the writers who assail King Charles and his Council for such an Act should remember that Cromwell himself and his Rump Parliament passed a similar Act eighteen years later, in 1653, as will hereafter appear; and it is a curious coincidence, that the same year, 1637, in which the King ordered that no person should be conveyed to New England without first obtaining a certificate that they had taken the oath of allegiance and supremacy, and conformed to the worship of the Church of England, the Massachusetts General Court passed an ordinance of a much more stringent character, and interfering with emigration and settlement, and even private hospitality and business to an extent not paralleled in Colonial history. It was enacted "That none shall entertain a stranger who should arrive with intent to reside, or shall allow the use of any habitation, without liberty from the Standing Council."[68]

The Charter having been transferred to Massachusetts, a new Council appointed to administer it there, and no notice having been taken of the Royal order for its production, the Commissioners might have advised the King to cancel the Charter forthwith and take into his own hands the government of the obstreperous colony; but instead of exercising such authority towards the colonists, as he was wont to do in less flagrant cases in England, he consented to come into Court and submit his own authority, as well as the acts of the resistant colonists, to[Pg 76] judicial investigation and decision. The Grand Council of Plymouth, from which the Massachusetts Company had first procured their territory, were called upon to answer by what authority and at whose instigation the Charter had been conveyed to New England. They disclaimed any participation in or knowledge of the transaction, and forthwith surrendered their own patent to the King. In doing so they referred to the acts of the new patentees at Massachusetts Bay, "whereby they did rend in pieces the foundation of the building, and so framed unto themselves both new laws and new conceits of matter of religion, forms of ecclesiastical and temporal orders of government, and punishing divers that would not approve them," etc. etc., and expressed their conviction of the necessity of his Majesty "taking the whole business into his own hands."[69]

After this surrender of their Charter by the Grand Council of Plymouth (England), the Attorney-General Bankes brought a quo warranto in the Court of King's Bench against the Governor, Deputy-Governor, and Council of the Corporation of the Massachusetts Bay, to compel the Company to answer to the complaints made against them for having violated the provisions of the patent.[70] The patentees residing in England disclaiming all responsibility for the acts complained of at Massachusetts[Pg 77] (except Mr. Cradock), and no defence having been made of those acts, nor the authors of them appearing either personally or by counsel, they stood outlawed, and judgment was entered against the Company in the person of Mr. Cradock for the usurpation charged in the information.

The Lords Commissioners, in pursuance of this decision of the Court of King's Bench, sent a peremptory order to the Governor of Massachusetts Bay, to transmit the Charter to England, intimating that, in case of "further neglect or contempt," "a strict course would be taken against them."[71] They were now brought face to face with the sovereign authority; the contempt of silence; nor did they think it prudent to renew military preparations of resistance, as they had done in 1634; their policy now was to "avoid and protract," by pleading exile, ignorance, innocence, begging pardon and pity, yet denying that they [Pg 78]had done anything wrong, and insinuating that if their Charter should be cancelled, their allegiance would be forfeited and they would remove, with the greater part of the population, and set up a new government. I have not met with this very curious address in any modern history of the United States—only glosses of it. I give it entire in a note.[72] They profess a willingness[Pg 79] to "yield all due obedience to their Soveraigne Lord the King's Majesty," but that they "are much grieved, that your Lordships should call in our patent, there being no cause knowne to us, nor any delinquency or fault of ours expressed in the order sent to us for that purpose, our government being according to his Majestie's patent, and wee not answerable for any defects in other plantations. This is that which his Majestie's subjects here doe believe and professe, and thereupon wee are all humble suitors to your Lordships, that you will be pleased to take into further consideration our condition, and to afford us the liberty of subjects, that we may know what is laid to our charge; and have leaive and time to answer for ourselves before we be condemned as a people unworthy of his Majestie's favour or protection."

This profession and these statements are made in presence of the facts that three years before the Royal Commissioners had in like manner demanded the production of the patent in England, giving the reasons for it, and the present "humble suitors to their Lordships" had "avoided and protracted," by not even acknowledging the reception of the order, much less[Pg 80] answering the charges of which they were informed, but rather preparing military fortifications for resisting a General Governor and Royal Commissioners of Inquiry, and "for regulating the Plantations." Yet they profess not to know "what is laid to their charge," and are "grieved that their Lordships should now demand the patent," as if the production of it had never before been demanded. It will be seen by the letter of their Lordships, given in a note on p. 77, that they refer to this treatment of their former order, and say, in the event of "further neglect and contempt" a strict course would be taken against them.

The authors of the Address profess that the cancelling of their Charter would involve the loss of their labours, their removal from Massachusetts, the exposure of the country to the invasions of the French and Dutch, the forfeiture of their allegiance, and their setting up a new government. It was a mere pretext that the Plantation becoming a Crown colony, as it would on the cancelling of the Charter, would not secure to the planters the protection of the Crown, as in the neighbouring Plymouth settlement, which had no Royal Charter. They knew that, under the protection of the King and laws of England, their liberties and lives and properties would be equally secure as those of any other of his Majesty's subjects. They twice repeat the misstatement that "nothing had been laid to their charge," and "no fault found upon them;" they insinuate that they would be causelessly denied the protection of British subjects, that their allegiance would be renounced, and they with the greater part of the population would establish a new government, which would be a dangerous precedent for other colonies. These denials, professions, insinuations, and threats, they call "opening their griefes," and conclude in the following obsequious, plaintive, and prayerful words:

"If in any thing wee have offended his Majesty and your Lordships, wee humbly prostrate ourselves at the footstool of supreme authority; let us be made the objects of his Majestie's clemency, and not cut off, in our first appeal, from all hope of favour. Thus with our earnest prayers to the King of kings for long life and prosperity to his sacred Majesty and his Royall family, and for all honour and welfare to your Lordships."

The Lords Commissioners replied to this Address through Mr. Cradock, pronouncing the jealousies and fears professed in the[Pg 81] Address to be groundless, stating their intentions to be the regulation of all the Colonies, and to continue to the settlers of Massachusetts Bay the privileges of British subjects. They repeated their command upon the Corporation to transmit the Charter to England, at the same time authorising the present Government to continue in office until the issuing of a new Charter. Mr. Cradock transmitted this letter to the Governor of Massachusetts Bay, the General Court of which decided not to acknowledge the receipt of it, pronouncing it "unofficial" (being addressed to Mr. Cradock, who, though the Governor mentioned in the Charter, and the largest proprietor, was not now Governor); that the Lords Commissioners could not "proceed upon it," since they could not prove that it had been delivered to the Governor; and they directed Mr. Cradock's agent not to mention Lords Commissioners' letter when he wrote to Mr. C.

At this juncture the whole attention of the King was turned from Massachusetts to Scotland, his war with which resulted ultimately in the loss of both his crown and his life.

In view of the facts stated in this and the preceding chapters, I think it must be admitted that during the nine years which elapsed between granting the first Charter by Charles and the resumption of it by quo warranto in the Court of King's Bench, the aggression and the hostility was on the side of the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay. Their first act was one of intolerance, and violation of the laws of England in abolishing the worship of the Church of England, and banishing its members for adhering to its worship. Their denials of it were an admission of the unlawfulness of such acts, as they were also dishonourable to themselves. Their maxim seems to have been, that the end sanctified the means—at least so far as the King was concerned; and that as they distrusted him, they were exempt from the obligations of loyalty and truth in their relations to him; that he and his were predestined reprobates, while they and theirs were the elected saints to whom, of right, rule and earth belonged. They were evidently sincere in their belief that they were the eternally elected heirs of God, and as such had a right to all they could command and possess, irrespective of king or savage. Their brotherhood was for themselves alone—everything for themselves and nothing for others; their religion partook more of Moses than of Christ—more of law[Pg 82] than of Gospel—more of hatred than of love—more of antipathy than of attractiveness—more of severity than of tenderness. In sentiment and in self-complacent purpose they left England to convert the savage heathen in New England; but for more than twelve years after their arrival in Massachusetts they killed many hundreds of Indians, but converted none, nor established any missions for their instruction and conversion.

The historians of the United States laud without stint the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay; and they are entitled to all praise for their industry, enterprise, morality, independence. But I question whether there are many, if any, Protestants in the United States who would wish the views and spirit of those Puritans to prevail there, either in religion or civil government—a denial of the liberty of worship to Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Baptists, or Quakers; a denial of eligibility to office or of elective franchise to any other than members of the Congregational Churches; compulsory attendance upon Congregational worship, and the support of that worship by general taxation, together with the enforcement of its discipline by civil law and its officers.

Had the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay understood the principles and cherished the spirit of civil and religious liberty, and allowed to the Browns and their Episcopalian friends the continued enjoyment of their old and venerated form of worship, while they themselves embraced and set up a new form of worship, and not made conformity to it a test of loyalty and of citizenship in the Plantation, there would have been no local dissensions, no persecutions, no complaints to England, no Royal Commissions of Inquiry or Regulation, no restraints upon emigration, no jealousies and disputes between England and the colony; the feelings of cordiality with which Charles granted the Charter and encouraged its first four years' operations, according to the testimony of the Puritans themselves, would have developed into pride for the success of the enterprise, and further countenance and aid to advance it; the religious toleration in the new colony would have immensely promoted the cause of religious toleration in England; and the American colonies would have long since grown up, as Canada and Australia are now growing up, into a state of national independence, without war or bloodshed, without a single feeling[Pg 83] other than that of filial respect and affection for the Mother Country, without any interruption of trade or commerce—presented an united Protestant and English nationality, under separate governments, on the great continents of the globe and islands of the seas.

I know it has been said that, had Episcopal worship been tolerated at Massachusetts Bay, Laud would have soon planted the hierarchy there, with all his ceremonies and intolerance. This objection is mere fancy and pretence. It is fancy—for the Corporation, and not Laud, was the chartered authority to provide for religious instruction as well as settlement and trade in the new Plantation, as illustrated from the very fact of the Company having selected and employed the first ministers, as well as first Governor and other officers, for the two-fold work of spreading religion and extending the King's dominions in New England. The objection is mere pretence, for it could not have been dread of the Church of England, which dictated its abolition and the banishment of its members, since precisely the same spirit of bigotry, persecution, and proscription prevailed, not only against Roger Williams, Mrs. Hutchinson and her brother Wright and their friends, but in 1646 against the Presbyterians, and in 1656 against the Baptists, as will hereafter appear.

Their iron-bound, shrivelled creed of eternal, exclusive election produced an iron-hearted population, whose hand was against every man not of their tribal faith and tribal independence; but at the same time not embodying in their civil or ecclesiastical polity a single element of liberty or charity which any free State or Church would at this day be willing to adopt or recognize as its distinctive constitution or mission.

It was the utter absence of both the principles and spirit of true civil and religious liberty in the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay, and in their brethren under the Commonwealth and Cromwell in England, that left Nonconformists without a plea for toleration under Charles the Second, from the example of their own party on either side of the Atlantic, and that has to this day furnished the most effective argument to opponents against dissenters' pretensions to liberality and liberty, and the strongest barrier against their political influence in England. They were prostrate and powerless when the liberal Churchmen, guided by[Pg 84] the views of Chillingworth, Burnet, and Tillotson, under William and Mary, obtained the first Parliamentary enactment for religious toleration in England. It is to the same influence that religious liberty in England has been enlarged from time to time; and, at this day, it is to the exertions and influence of liberal Churchmen, both in and out of Parliament, more than to any independent influence of Puritan dissenters, that civil and religious liberty are making gradual and great progress in Great Britain and Ireland—a liberty which, I believe, would ere this have been complete but for the prescriptive, intolerant and persecuting spirit and practice of the Puritans of the seventeenth century.

[Pg 85]

The Government of Massachusetts Bay under the Long Parliament, the Commonwealth, and Cromwell.

Charles the First ceased to rule after 1640, though his death did not take place until January, 1649. The General Court of Massachusetts Bay, in their address to the King's Commissioners in September, 1637, professed to offer "earnest prayers for long life and prosperity to his sacred Majesty and his royal family, and all honour and welfare to their Lordships;" but as soon as there was a prospect of a change, and the power of the King began to decline and that of Parliament began to increase, the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay transferred all their sympathies and assiduities to the Parliament. In 1641, they sent over three agents to evoke interest with the Parliamentary leaders—one layman, Mr. Hibbins, and two ministers, Thomas Weld and Hugh Peters, the latter of whom was as shrewd and active in trade and speculations as he was ardent and violent in the pulpit. He made quite a figure in the civil war in England, and was Cromwell's favourite war chaplain. Neither he nor Weld ever returned to New England.

As the persecution of Puritans ceased in England, emigration to New England ceased; trade became depressed and property greatly depreciated in value; population became stationary in New England during the whole Parliamentary and Commonwealth rule in England, from 1640 to 1660—more returning from New England to England than emigrating thither from England.[73]

[Pg 86]

The first success of this mission of Hugh Peters and his colleagues soon appeared. By the Royal Charter of 1629, the King encouraged the Massachusetts Company by remitting all taxes upon the property of the Plantations for the space of seven years, and all customs and duties upon their exports and imports, to or from any British port, for the space of twenty-one years, except the five per cent. due upon their goods and merchandise, according to the ancient trade of merchants; but the Massachusetts delegates obtained an ordinance of Parliament, or rather an order of the House of Commons, complimenting the colony on its progress and hopeful prospects, and discharging all the exports of the natural products of the colony and all the goods imported into it for its own use, from the payment of any custom or taxation whatever.[74]

On this resolution of the Commons three remarks may be made: 1. As in all previous communications between the King and the Colony, the House of Commons termed the colony a[Pg 87] "Plantation," and the colonists "Planters." Two years afterwards the colony of Massachusetts Bay assumed to itself (without Charter or Act of Parliament) the title and style of "a Commonwealth." 2. While the House of Commons speaks of the prospects being "very happy for the propagation of the Gospel in those parts," the Massachusetts colony had not established a single mission or employed a single missionary or teacher for the instruction of the Indians. 3. The House of Commons exempts the colony from payment of all duties on articles exported from or imported into the colony, until the House of Commons shall take further order therein to the contrary,—clearly implying and assuming, as beyond doubt, the right of the House of Commons to impose or abolish such duties at its pleasure. The colonists of Massachusetts Bay voted hearty thanks to the House of Commons for this resolution, and ordered it to be entered on their public records as a proof to posterity of the gracious favour of Parliament.[75]

The Massachusetts General Court did not then complain of the Parliament invading their Charter privileges, in assuming its right to tax or not tax their imports and exports; but rebelled against Great Britain a hundred and thirty years afterwards, because the Parliament asserted and applied the same principle.

The Puritan Court of Massachusetts Bay were not slow in reciprocating the kind expressions and acts of the Long Parliament, and identifying themselves completely with it against the King. In 1644 they passed an Act, in which they allowed perfect freedom of opinion, discussion, and action on the side of Parliament, but none on the side of the King; the one party in the colony could say and act as they pleased (and many of them went to England and joined Cromwell's army or got places in public departments); no one of the other party was allowed to give expression to his opinions, either "directly or indirectly," without being "accounted as an offender of a high[Pg 88] nature against this Commonwealth, and to be prosecuted, capitally or otherwise, according to the quality and degree of his offence."[76]

The New England historians have represented the acts of Charles the First as arbitrary and tyrannical in inquiring into the affairs of Massachusetts Bay, and in the appointment of a Governor-General and Commissioners to investigate all their proceedings and regulate them; and it might be supposed that the Puritan Parliament in England and the General Court of Massachusetts Bay would be at one in regard to local independence of the colony of any control or interference on the part of the Parent State. But the very year after the House of Commons had adopted so gracious an order to exempt the exports and imports of the colony from all taxation, both Houses of Parliament passed an Act for the appointment of a Governor-General and seventeen Commissioners—five Lords and twelve Commoners—with unlimited powers over all the American colonies. Among the members of the House of Commons composing this Commission were Sir Harry Vane and Oliver Cromwell. The title of this Act, in Hazard, is as follows:

"An Ordinance of the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament: whereby Robert Earl of Warwick is made Governor-in-Chief and Lord High Admiral of all those Islands and Plantations inhabited, planted, or belonging to any of his Majesty the King of England's subjects, within the bounds and upon the coasts of America, and a Committee appointed to be assisting unto him, for the better government, strengthening[Pg 89] and preservation of the said Plantations; but chiefly for the advancement of the true Protestant religion, and further spreading of the Gospel of Christ[77] among those that yet remain there, in great and miserable blindness and ignorance."[78]

[Pg 90]

This Act places all the affairs of the colonies, with the appointment of Governors and all other local officers, under the direct control of Parliament, through its general Governor and Commissioners, and shows beyond doubt that the Puritans of the Long Parliament held the same views with those of Charles the First, and George the Third, and Lord North a century afterwards, as to the authority of the British Parliament over the American colonies. Whether those views were right or wrong, they were the views of all parties in England from the beginning for more than a century, as to the relations between the British Parliament and the colonies. The views on this subject held and maintained by the United Empire Loyalists, during the American Revolution of 1776, were those which had been held by all parties in England, whether Puritans or Churchmen, from the first granting of the Charter to the Company of Massachusetts Bay in 1629. The assumptions and statements of American historians to the contrary on this subject are at variance with all the preceding facts of colonial history.[79]

Mr. Bancroft makes no mention of this important ordinance[Pg 91] passed by both Houses of the Long Parliament;[80] nor does Hutchinson, or Graham, or Palfrey. Less sweeping acts of[Pg 92] authority over the colonies, by either of the Charters, are portrayed by these historians with minuteness and power, if not in terms of exaggeration. The most absolute and comprehensive authority as to both appointments and trade in the colonies ordered by the Long Parliament and Commonwealth are referred to in brief and vague terms, or not at all noticed, by the historical eulogist of the Massachusetts Bay Puritans,[81] who, while they were asserting their independence of the royal rule of England, claimed and exercised absolute rule over individual consciences and religious liberty in Massachusetts, not only against Episcopalians, but equally against Presbyterians and Baptists; for this very year, says Hutchinson, "several persons came from England in 1643, made a muster to set Presbyterian government under the authority of the Assembly of Westminster; but the New England Assembly, the General Court, soon put them to the rout."[82] And in the following year, 1644, these "Fathers of American liberty" adopted measures equally decisive to "rout" the Baptists. The ordinance passed on this subject, the "13th of the 9th month, 1644," commences thus: "Forasmuch as experience hath plentifully and often proved that since the first arising of the Anabaptists, about one hundred years since, they have been the incendaries of the Commonwealths and the infectors of persons in main matters of religion, and the troubles of churches in all places where they have been, and that they who have held the baptizing of infants unlawful, have usually held other errors or heresies therewith, though they[Pg 93] have (as other heretics used to do) concealed the same till they spied out a fit advantage and opportunity to vent them by way of question or scruple," etc.: "It is ordered and agreed, that if any person or persons within this jurisdiction shall either openly condemn or oppose the baptizing of infants, or go about secretly to seduce others from the approbation or use thereof, or shall purposely depart the congregation at the ministration of the ordinance, or shall deny the ordinance of magistracy, or their lawful right and authority to make war, or to punish the outward breakers of the first Table, and shall appear to the Court to continue therein after the due time and means of conviction, shall be sentenced to banishment."[83]

In the following year, 1646, the Presbyterians, not being satisfied with having been "put to the rout" in 1643, made a second attempt to establish their worship within the jurisdiction of Massachusetts Bay. Mr. Palfrey terms this attempt a "Presbyterian cabal," and calls its leaders "conspirators." They petitioned the General Court or Legislature of Massachusetts Bay, and on the rejection of their petition they proposed to appeal to the Parliament in England. They were persecuted for both acts. It was pretended that they were punished, not for petitioning the local Court, but for the expressions used in their petition—the same as it had been said seventeen years before, that the Messrs. Brown were banished, not because they were Episcopalians, but because, when called before Endicot and his councillors, they used offensive expressions in justification of their conduct in continuing to worship as they had done in England. In their case, in 1629, the use and worship of the Prayer Book was forbidden, and the promoters of it banished, and their papers seized; in this case, in 1646, the Presbyterian worship was forbidden, and the promoters of it were imprisoned and fined, and their papers seized. In both cases the victims of religious intolerance and civil tyranny were men of the highest position and intelligence. The statements of the petitioners in 1646 (the truth of which could not be denied, though the petitioners were punished for telling it) show the state of bondage and oppression to which all who would not join the[Pg 94] Congregational Churches—that is, five-sixths of the population—were reduced under this system of Church government—the Congregational Church members alone electors, alone eligible to be elected, alone law-makers and law administrators, alone imposing taxes, alone providing military stores and commanding the soldiery; and then the victims of such a Government were pronounced and punished as "conspirators" and "traitors" when they ventured to appeal for redress to the Mother Country. The most exclusive and irresponsible Government that ever existed in Canada in its earliest days never approached such a despotism as this of Massachusetts Bay. I leave the reader to decide, when he peruses what was petitioned for—first to the Massachusetts Legislature, and then to the English Parliament—who were the real "traitors" and who the "conspirators" against right and liberty: the "Presbyterian cabal," as Mr. Palfrey terms the petitioners, or those who imprisoned and fined them, and seized their papers. Mr. Hutchinson, the best informed and most candid of the New England historians, states the affair of the petitioners, their proceedings and treatment, and the petition which they presented, as follows:

"A great disturbance was caused in the colony this year [1646] by a number of persons of figure, but of different sentiments, both as to civil and ecclesiastical government, from the people in general. They had laid a scheme for petition of such as were non-freemen to the courts of both colonies, and upon the petitions being refused, to apply to the Parliament, pretending they were subjected to arbitrary power, extra-judicial proceedings, etc. The principal things complained of by the petitioners were:

"1st. That the fundamental laws of England were not owned by the Colony, as the basis of their government, according to the patent.

"2nd. The denial of those civil privileges, which the freemen of the jurisdiction enjoyed, to such as were not members of Churches, and did not take an oath of fidelity devised by the authority here, although they were freeborn Englishmen, of sober lives and conversation, etc.

"3rd. That they were debarred from Christian privileges, viz., the Lord's Supper for themselves, and baptism for their children, unless they were members of some of the particular[Pg 95] Churches in the country, though otherwise sober, righteous, and godly, and eminent for knowledge, not scandalous in life and conversation, and members of Churches in England.

"And they prayed that civil liberty and freedom might be forthwith granted to all truly English, and that all members of the Church of England or Scotland, not scandalous, might be admitted to the privileges of the Churches of New England; or if these civil and religious liberties were refused, that they might be freed from the heavy taxes imposed upon them, and from the impresses made of them or their children or servants into the war; and if they failed of redress there, they should be under the necessity of making application to England, to the honourable Houses of Parliament, who they hoped would take their sad condition, etc.

"But if their prayer should be granted, they hoped to see the then contemned ordinances of God highly prized; the Gospel, then dark, break forth as the sun; Christian charity, then frozen, wax warm; jealousy of arbitrary government banished; strife and contention abated; and all business in Church and State, which for many years had gone backward, successfully thriving, etc.

"The Court, and great part of the country, were much offended at this petition. A declaration was drawn up by order of the Court, in answer to the petition, and in vindication of the Government—a proceeding which at this day would not appear for the honour of the supreme authority. The petitioners were required to attend the Court. They urged their right of petitioning. They were told they were not accused of petitioning, but of contemptuous and seditious expressions, and were required to find sureties for their good behaviour, etc. A charge was drawn up against them in form; notwithstanding which it was intimated to them, that if they would ingenuously acknowledge their offence, they should be forgiven; but they refused, and were fined, some in larger, some in smaller sums, two or three of the magistrates dissenting, Mr. Bellingham,[85] in particular, desiring his dissent might be entered. The petitioners[Pg 96] claimed an appeal to the Commissioners of Plantations in England; but it was not allowed. Some of them resolved to go home with a complaint. Their papers were seized, and among them was found a petition to the Right Honourable the Earl of Warwick, etc., Commissioners, from about five and twenty non-freemen, for themselves and many thousands more, in which they represent that from the pulpits[86] they had been reproached and branded with the names of destroyers of Churches and Commonwealths, called Hamans, Judases, sons of Korah, and the Lord entreated to confound them, and the people and magistrates stirred up against them by those who were too forward to step out of their callings, so that they had been sent for to the Court, and some of them committed for refusing to give two hundred pounds bond to stand to the sentence of the Court, when all the crime was a petition to the Court, and they had been publicly used as malefactors, etc.

"Mr. Winslow, who had been chosen agent for the colony to answer to Gorton's complaint, was now instructed to make defence against these petitioners; and by his prudent management, and the credit and esteem he was in with many members of the Parliament and principal persons then in power, he prevented any prejudice to the colony from either of these applications."[87]

[Pg 97]

Mr. (Edward) Winslow, above mentioned by Mr. Hutchinson, had been one of the founders and Governors of the Plymouth colony; but twenty-five years afterwards he imbibed the persecuting spirit of the Massachusetts Bay colony, became their agent and advocate in London, and by the prestige which he had acquired as the first narrator and afterwards Governor of the Plymouth colony, had much influence with the leading men of the Long Parliament. He there joined himself to Cromwell, and was appointed one of his three Commissioners to the West Indies, where he died in 1655. Cromwell, as he said when he first obtained possession of the King, had "the Parliament in his pocket;" he had abolished the Prayer Book and its worship; he had expurgated the army of Presbyterians, and filled their places with Congregationalists; he was repeating the same process in Parliament; and through him, therefore (who was also Commander-in-Chief of all the Parliamentary forces), Mr. Winslow had little difficulty in stifling the appeal from Massachusetts Bay for liberty of worship in behalf of both Presbyterians and Episcopalians.

But was ever a petition to a local Legislature more constitutional, or more open and manly in the manner of its getting up, more Christian in its sentiments and objects? Yet the petitioners were arraigned and punished as "conspirators" and "disturbers of the public peace," by order of that Legislature, for openly petitioning to it against some of its own acts. Was ever appeal to the Imperial Parliament by British subjects more justifiable than that of Dr. Child, Mr. Dand, Mr. Vassal (progenitor of British Peers), and others, from acts of a local Government which deprived them of both religious rights of worship and civil rights of franchise, of all things earthly most valued by enlightened men, and without which the position of man is little better than that of goods and chattels? Yet the respectable men who appealed to the supreme power of the realm for the attainment of these attributes of Christian and[Pg 98] British citizenship were imprisoned and heavily fined, and their private papers seized and sequestered!

In my own native country of Upper Canada, the Government for nearly half a century was considered despotic, and held up by American writers themselves as an unbearable tyranny. But one Church was alleged to be established in the country, and the government was that of a Church party; but never was the elective franchise there confined to the members of the one Church; never were men and women denied, or hailed before the legal tribunals and fined for exercising the privilege of Baptism, the Lord's Supper, or public worship for themselves and families according to the dictates of their own consciences; never was the humblest inhabitant denied the right of petition to the local Legislature on any subject, or against any governmental acts, or the right of appeal to the Imperial Government or Parliament on the subject of any alleged grievance. The very suspicion and allegation that the Canadian Government did counteract, by influences and secret representations, the statements of complaining parties to England, roused public indignation as arbitrary and unconstitutional. Even the insurrection which took place in both Upper and Lower Canada in 1837 and 1838 was professedly against alleged partiality and injustice by the local Government, as an obstruction to more liberal policy believed to be desired by the Imperial Government.

But here, in Massachusetts, a colony chartered as a Company to distribute and settle public lands and carry on trade, in less than twenty years assumes the powers of a sovereign Commonwealth, denies to five-sixths of the population the freedom of citizenship, and limits it to the members of one Church, and denies Baptism, the Lord's Supper, and worship to all who will not come to the one Church, punishes petitioners to itself for civil and religious freedom from those who were deprived of it, and punishes as "treason" their appeal for redress to the English Parliament. Though, for the present, this unprecedented and unparalleled local despotism was sustained by the ingenious representations of Mr. Winslow and the power of Cromwell; yet in the course of four years the surrender of its Charter was ordered by the regicide councillors of the Commonwealth, as it had been ordered by the beheaded King Charles and his Privy Council thirteen years before. In the meantime tragical events[Pg 99] in England diverted attention from the colonies. The King was made prisoner, then put to death; the Monarchy was abolished, as well as the House of Lords; and the Long Parliament became indeed Cromwell's "pocket" instrument.

It was manifest that the government of Massachusetts Bay as a colony was impossible, with the pretensions which it had set up, declaring all appeals to England to be "treason," and punishing complainants as "conspirators" and "traitors." The appointment by Parliament in 1643 of a Governor-General and Commissioners had produced no effect in Massachusetts Bay Colony; pretensions to supremacy and persecution were as rife as ever there. Dr. Child and his friends were punished for even asking for the administration that appointed the Governor-General and those Commissioners; and whether the Government of England were a monarchy or republic, it was clear that the pretensions to independence of the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay must be checked, and their local tyranny restrained. For this purpose the Long Parliament adopted the same policy in 1650 that King Charles had done in 1637; demanded the surrender of the Charter; for that Parliament sent a summons to the local Government ordering it to transmit the Charter to England, to receive a new patent from the Parliament in all its acts and processes.

This order of Parliament to Massachusetts Bay Colony to surrender its Charter was accompanied by a proclamation prohibiting trade with Virginia, Barbadoes, Bermuda, and Antigua, because these colonies continued to recognize royal authority, and to administer their laws in the name of the King. This duplicate order from the Long Parliament was a double blow to the colony of Massachusetts Bay, and produced general consternation; but the dexterity and diplomacy of the colony were equal to the occasion. It showed its devotion to the cause of the Long Parliament by passing an Act prohibiting trade with the loyal, but by them termed rebel colonies;[88] and[Pg 100] it avoided surrendering the Charter by repeating its policy of delay and petition, which it had adopted on a similar occasion[Pg 101] in 1638 to King Charles; and its professions of loyalty to Charles, and prayers for the Royal Family, and the success of the Privy Council, it now repeated for the Long Parliament and its leaders, supporting its petition by an appeal to its ten years' services of prayers and of men to the cause of the Long Parliament against the King. I will, in the first place, give in a note Mr. Bancroft's own account of what was claimed and ordered by the Long Parliament, and the pretensions and proceedings of the Legislature of Massachusetts Bay, and then will give the principal parts of their petition to the Long Parliament in their own words. The words and statements of Mr. Bancroft involve several things worthy of notice and remembrance: 1. The Congregational Church rulers of Massachusetts Bay denied being British subjects, admitting no other allegiance to England than the Hanse Towns of Northern Germany to the Empire of Austria, or the Normandy ducal kings of England to the King of France; or, as Mr. Palfrey says, "the relations which Burgundy and Flanders hold to France." 2. Mr. Bancroft calls the petitioners "disturbers of the public security," and Mr. Palfrey calls them "conspirators"—terms applied to the Armenian remonstrants against the persecuting edicts of the Synod of Dort—terms applied to all the complainants of the exclusive and persecuting policy of the Tudor and Stuart kings of England—terms applied to even the first Christians—terms now applied to pleaders of religious and civil freedom by the advocates of a Massachusetts Government as intolerant and persecuting as ever existed in Europe. The petition of these impugned parties shows that all they asked for was equal religious and civil liberty and protection with their Congregational oppressors. Opprobrious names are not arguments; and imputations of motives and character are not facts, and are usually resorted to for want of them. 3. Mr. Bancroft designates as "usurpations of Parliament" the proceedings of the Long Parliament in appointing a Governor-General and Commissioners for the colonies, and in exercising its right to receive and decide upon appeals from the colonies; and terms the support of the Parliament in the colony "domestic treachery;" and the one member of the Legislature who had the courage to maintain the supremacy of the Mother Country is called the "faithless deputy," who was forthwith turned out of the House,[Pg 102] which then proceeded, "with closed doors," to discuss in secret conclave its relations to England, and concluded by declaring "against any assertion of paramount authority" on the part of the English Parliament. This was substantially a "Declaration of Independence;" not, indeed, against an arbitrary king, as was alleged sixteen years before, and a hundred and thirty years afterwards, but against a Parliament which had dethroned and beheaded their King, and abolished the House of Lords and the Episcopal Church! All this Mr. Bancroft now treats as maintaining the Charter, of which he himself had declared, in another place, as I have quoted above: "The Charter on which the freemen of Massachusetts succeeded in erecting a system of independent representative liberty did not secure to them a single privilege of self-government, but left them as the Virginians had been left, without any valuable franchise, at the mercy of the Corporation within the realm." Who then were the "usurpers," and had been for twenty years, of power which had not been conferred on them—the new Church and the persecuting Government of Massachusetts Bay, or the supreme authority of England, both under a King and under a professed republican commonwealth? 4. Mr. Bancroft says: "Had the Long Parliament succeeded in revoking the patent of the Massachusetts Bay,[90] the tenor of American history would have been changed." I agree with him in this opinion, though probably not in his application of it. I believe that the "tenor of American history" would have led to as perfect an independence of the American States as they now enjoy—as free, but a better system of government, and without their ever having made war and bloodshed against Great Britain.

The facts thus referred to show that there were Empire Loyalists in America in the seventeenth, as there were afterwards in the eighteenth century; they then embraced all the colonies of New England, except the ruling party of Massachusetts Bay; they were all advocates of an equal franchise,[Pg 103] and equal religious and civil liberty for all classes—the very reverse of the Massachusetts Government, which, while it denied any subordination to England, denied religious and civil liberty to all classes except members of the Congregational Churches.

It is a curious and significant fact, stated by Mr. Bancroft, that these intolerant and persecuting proceedings of the Massachusetts Bay Legislature were submitted to the Congregational ministers for their approval and final endorsement. The Long Parliament in England checked and ruled the Assembly of Westminster divines; but in Massachusetts the divines, after a day's consideration, "approved the proceedings of the General Court." No wonder that such divines, supported by taxes levied by the State and rulers of the State, denounced all toleration of dissent from their Church and authority.

Before leaving this subject, I must notice the remarks of Mr. Palfrey,—the second, if not first in authority of the historians of New England.

Mr. Palfrey ascribes what he calls "the Presbyterian Cabal" to Mr. William Vassal, who was one of the founders and first Council of the colony of Massachusetts Bay, whose brother Samuel had shared with Hampden the honour of having refused to pay ship-money to Charles, and who was now, with the Earl of Warwick,[91] one of the Parliamentary Commissioners for the colonies. It appears that Mr. Vassal opposed from the beginning the new system of Church and proscriptive civil government set up at Massachusetts Bay, and therefore came under Mr. Bancroft's category of "disturbers of the public security," and Mr. Palfrey's designation of "conspirators;" but was in reality a liberal and a loyalist, not to King Charles indeed, but to the Commonwealth of England. I give Mr. Palfrey's statements, in his own words, in a note.[92]

[Pg 104]

The spirit and sentiments of Mr. Palfrey are identical with those which I have quoted of Mr. Bancroft; but while Mr. Bancroft speaks contemptuously of the authors of the petition[Pg 105] for equal civil and religious rights, Mr. Palfrey traces the movement to Mr. William Vassal, one of the founders and first Council of the Massachusetts Colony, and progenitor of the famous Whig family of Holland House. Nor does Mr. Palfrey venture to question the doctrine or one of the statements of the petitioners, though he calls them "conspirators."

Mr. Palfrey—very unfairly, I think—imputes to the petitioners a design to subvert the Congregational worship and establish the Presbyterian worship in its place; and to give force to his imputations says that a numerous party in the[Pg 106] English Parliament "were bent on setting up Presbytery as the established religion in England and its dependencies." There is not the slightest ground for asserting that any party in the Long Parliament, any more than in Massachusetts, designed the setting up of Presbytery as the established worship in the "dependencies of England." King Charles the First, on his first sitting in judgment on complaints against the proceedings of the Massachusetts Bay Council, declared to his Privy Council, in 1632, that he had never intended to impose the Church ceremonies, objected to by the Puritan clergy of the time, upon the colonists of Massachusetts. Charles the Second, thirty years afterwards, declared the same, and acted upon it during the quarter of a century of his reign. The Long Parliament acted upon the same principle. There is not an instance, during the whole sixty years of the first Massachusetts Charter, of any attempt, on the part of either King or Commonwealth, to suppress or interfere with the Congregational worship in New England; all that was asked by the King, or any party in Massachusetts, was toleration of other forms of Protestant worship as well as that of the Congregational. The very petition, whose promoters are represented as movers of sedition, asked for no exclusive establishment of Presbyterianism, but for the toleration of both the Episcopal and Presbyterian worship, and the worship of other Protestant Churches existing in England; and their petition was addressed to a Legislature of Congregationalists, elected by Congregationalists alone; and it was only in the event of their reasonable requests not being granted by the local Legislature that they proposed to present their grievances to the Imperial Parliament. The plea of fear for the safety of Congregational worship in Massachusetts was a mere pretence to justify the proscription and persecution of all dissent from the Congregational establishment. The spirit of the local Government and of the clergy that controlled it was intolerance. Toleration was denounced by them as the doctrine of devils; and the dying lines of Governor Dudley are reported to have been—

"Let men of God, in Court and Church, watch
O'er such as do a toleration hatch."[94]

There is one other of Mr. Palfrey's statements which is of[Pg 107] special importance; it is the admission that a majority of the population of Massachusetts were excluded from all share in the Government, and were actually opposed to it. Referring to the petition to the local Legislature, he says: "The demand was enforced by considerations which were not without plausibility, and were presented in a seductive form. It was itself an appeal to the discontent of the numerical majority not invested with a share in the government."[95]

[Pg 108]

It is thus admitted, and clear from indubitable facts, that professing to be republicans, they denied to the great majority of the people any share in the government. Professing hatred of the persecuting intolerance of King Charles and Laud in denying liberty of worship to all who differed from them, they now deny liberty of worship to all who differ from themselves, and punish those by fine and imprisonment who even petition for equal religious and civil liberty to all classes of citizens. They justify even armed resistance against the King, and actually decapitating as well as dethroning him, in order to obtain, professedly, a government by the majority of the nation and liberty of worship; and they now deny the same principle and right of civil and religious liberty to the great majority of the people over whom they claimed rule. They claim the right of resisting Parliament itself by armed force if they had the power, and only desist from asserting it, to the last, as the salus populi did not require it, and for the sake of their "godly friends in England," and to not afford a pretext for the "rebellious course" of their fellow-colonists in Virginia and the West Indies, who claimed the same independence of Parliament that the Government of Massachusetts claimed, but upon the ground which was abhorrent to the Congregational Puritans of Massachusetts—namely, that of loyalty to the king.

I will now give in a note, in their own words, the principal parts of their petition, entitled "General Court of Massachusetts Bay, New England, in a Petition to Parliament in 1651,"[97][Pg 109] together with extracts of two addresses to Cromwell, the one enclosing a copy of their petition to Parliament, when he was Commander-in-Chief of the army, and the other in 1654, after he had dismissed the Rump Parliament, and become absolute—denying to the whole people of England the elective franchise, as his admiring friends in Massachusetts denied it to the great[Pg 110] majority of the people within their jurisdiction. Chalmers says they "outfawned and outwitted Cromwell." They gained his support by their first address, and thanked him for it in their second. Having "the Parliament in his pocket" until he threw even the rump of it aside altogether, Cromwell caused Parliament to desist from executing its own order.

It will be seen in the following chapter, that ten years after these laudatory addresses to Parliament and Cromwell, the same General Court of Massachusetts addressed Charles the Second in words truly loyal and equally laudatory, and implored the continuance of their Charter upon the ground, among other reasons, that they had never identified themselves with the[Pg 111] Parliament against his Royal father, but had been "passive" during the whole of that contest. Their act against having any commerce with the colonies who adhered to the King indicated their neutrality; and the reader, by reading their addresses to the Parliament and Cromwell, will see whether they did not thoroughly identify themselves with the Parliament and Cromwell against Charles the First. They praise Cromwell as raised up by the special hand of God, and crave upon him the success of "the Captain of the Lord's hosts;" and they claim the favourable consideration of Parliament to their request upon the ground that they had identified themselves with its fortunes to rise or fall with it; that they had aided it by their prayers and fastings, and by men who had rendered it valuable service. The reader will be able to judge of the agreement in their professions and statements in their addresses to Parliament and Cromwell and to King Charles the Second ten years afterwards. In their addresses to Parliament and Cromwell they professed their readiness to fall as well as rise with the cause of the Parliament; but when that fell, they repudiated all connection with it.

In the year 1651, and during the very Session of Parliament to which the General Court addressed its petition and narrated its sacrifices and doings in the cause of the Parliament, the latter passed the famous Navigation Act, which was re-enacted and improved ten years afterwards, under Charles the Second, and which became the primary pretext of the American Revolution. The Commonwealth was at this time at war with the Dutch republic, which had almost destroyed and absorbed the shipping trade of England. Admiral Blake was just commencing that series of naval victories which have immortalized his name, and placed England from that time to this at the head of the naval powers of the world. Sir Henry Vane, as the Minister of the Navy, devised and carried through Parliament the famous Navigation Act—an Act which the colony of Massachusetts, by the connivance of Cromwell (who now identified himself with that colony), regularly evaded, at the expense of the American colonies and the English revenue.[98] Mr. Palfrey says:

[Pg 112]

"The people of Massachusetts might well be satisfied with their condition and prospects. Everything was prospering with them. They had established comfortable homes, which they felt strong enough to defend against any power but the power of the Mother Country; and that was friendly. They had always the good-will of Cromwell. In relation to them, he allowed the Navigation Law, which pressed on the Southern colonies, to became a dead letter, and they received the commodities of all nations free of duty, and sent their ships to all the ports of continental Europe."[99]

But that in which the ruling spirits of the Massachusetts General Court—apart from their ceaseless endeavours to monopolise trade and extend territory—seemed to revel most was in searching out and punishing dissent from the Congregational Establishment, and, at times, with the individual liberty of citizens in sumptuary matters. No Laud ever equalled them in this, or excelled them in enforcing uniformity, not only of doctrine, but of opinions and practice in the minutest particulars. When a stand against England was to be taken, in worship, or[Pg 113] inquisition into matters of religions dissent, and woman's apparel, Endicot became Governor (according to the "advice of the Elders" in such matters), and Winthrop was induced to be Deputy Governor, although the latter was hardly second to the former in the spirit and acts of religious persecution. He had been a wealthy man in England, and was well educated and amiable; but after his arrival at Massachusetts Bay he seems to have wanted firmness to resist the intolerant spirit and narrow views of Endicot. He died in 1649. Mr. Palfrey remarks: "Whether it was owing to solicitude as to the course of affairs in England after the downfall of the Royal power, or to the absence of the moderating influence of Winthrop, or to sentiments engendered, on the one hand by the alarm from the Presbyterians in 1646, and on the other by the confidence inspired by the [Congregational] Synod in 1648, or to all these causes in their degree, the years 1650 and 1651 appear to have been some of more than common sensibility in Massachusetts to danger from Heretics."[100]

In 1650, the General Court condemned, and ordered to be publicly burnt, a book entitled "The Meritorious Price of our Redemption, Justification, etc., Clearing of some Common Errors," written and published in England, by Mr. Pynchion, "an ancient and venerable magistrate." This book was deficient in orthodoxy, in the estimation of Mr. Endicot and his colleagues, was condemned to be burnt, and the author was summoned to answer for it at the bar of the inquisitorial court. His explanation was unsatisfactory; and he was commanded to appear a second time, under a penalty of one hundred pounds; but he returned to England, and left his inquisitors without further remedy.

"About the same time," says Mr. Palfrey, "the General Court had a difficulty with the Church of Malden. Mr. Marmaduke Matthews having 'given offence to magistrates, elders, and many brethren, in some unsafe and unsound expressions in his public teaching,' and the Church of Malden having proceeded to ordain him, in disregard of remonstrances from 'both magistrates, ministers, and churches,' Matthews was fined ten pounds for assuming the sacred office, and the Church was summoned to make its defence" (Massachusetts Records, III., 237); which[Pg 114] "failing to do satisfactorily, it was punished by a fine of fifty pounds—Mr. Hathorne, Mr. Leverett, and seven other Deputies recording their votes against the sentence." (Ibid. 252; compare 276, 289.)

But these reputed fathers of civil and religious liberty not only held inquisition over the religious writings and teachings of magistrates and ministers, and the independence of their Congregational Churches, but even over the property, the income, and the apparel of individuals; for in this same year, 1651, they passed a Sumptuary Act. Mr. Holmes justly remarks: "This sumptuary law, for the matter and style, is a curiosity." The Court, lamenting the inefficacy of former "Declarations and Orders against excess of apparel, both of men and women," proceed to observe: "We cannot but to our grief take notice, that intolerable excess and bravery hath crept in upon us, and especially among people of mean condition, to the dishonour of God, the scandal of our profession, the consumption of estates, and altogether unsuitable to our poverty. The Court proceed to order, that no person whose visible estate should not exceed the true and indifferent sum of £200, shall wear any gold or silver lace, or gold and silver buttons, or have any lace above two shillings per yard, or silk hoods or scarves, on the penalty of ten shillings for every such offence." The select men of every town were required to take notice of the apparel of any of the inhabitants, and to assess such persons as "they shall judge to exceed their ranks and abilities, in the costliness or fashion of their apparel in any respect, especially in wearing of ribbands and great boots," at £200 estates, according to the proportion which some men used to pay to whom such apparel is suitable and allowed. An exception, however, is made in favour of public officers and their families, and of those "whose education and employment have been above the ordinary degree, or whose estates have been considerable, though now decayed."[101]

[Pg 115]

It will be recollected by the reader that in 1644 the Massachusetts Bay Court passed an act of banishment, etc., against Baptists; that in 1643 it put to "the rout" the Presbyterians, who made a move for the toleration of their worship; that in 1646, when the Presbyterians and some Episcopalians petitioned the local Court for liberty of worship, and in the event of refusal expressed their determination to appeal to the English Parliament, they were punished with fines and imprisonment, and their papers were seized. The above acts of censorship over the press, and private opinions in the case of Mr. Pinchion, and their tyranny over the organization of new Churches and the ordinations of ministers—fining both Church and ministers for exercising what is universally acknowledged to be essential to independent worship—are but further illustrations of the same spirit of intolerance. It was the intolerance of the Massachusetts Bay Government that caused the settlement of Connecticut, of New Haven, as well as of Rhode Island. The noble minds of the younger Winthrop, of Eaton, no more than that of Roger Williams, could shrivel themselves into the nutshell littleness of the Massachusetts Bay Government—so called, indeed, by courtesy, or by way of accommodation, rather than as conveying a proper idea of a Government, as it consisted solely of Congregationalists, who alone were eligible to office and eligible as electors to office, and was therefore more properly a Congregational Association than a civil government; yet this association assumed the combined powers of legislation, administration of government and law, and of the army—absolute censorship of the press, of worship, of even private opinions—and punished as criminals those who even expressed their griefs in petitions; and when punished they had the additional aggravation of being told that they were not punished for petitioning, but for what the petitions contained, as if they could petition without using words, and as if they could express their griefs and wishes without using words for that purpose. Yet under such pretexts was a despotism established and maintained for sixty years without a parallel in the annals of colonial history, ancient or[Pg 116] modern; under which five-sixths of the population had no more freedom of worship, of opinion, or of franchise, than the slaves of the Southern States before the recent civil war. It is not surprising that a Government based on no British principle, based on the above principle of a one Church membership, every franchise under which was granted, or cancelled, or continued at the pleasure of Elders and their Courts—such a Government, un-British in its foundation and elements, could not be expected to be loyal to the Royal branch of the constitution.

It is not surprising that even among the Puritan party themselves, who were now warring against the King, and who were soon to bring him to the block, such unmitigated despotism and persecutions in Massachusetts should call forth, here and there, a voice of remonstrance, notwithstanding the argus-eyed watchfulness and espionage exercised by the Church government at Massachusetts Bay over all persons and papers destined for England, and especially in regard to every suspected person or paper. One of these is from Sir Henry Vane, who went to Massachusetts in 1636, and was elected Governor; but he was in favour of toleration, and resisted the persecution against Mrs. Anne Hutchinson and her brother, Mr. Wheelwright. The persecuting party proved too strong for him, and he resigned his office before the end of the year. He was succeeded as Governor by Mr. Winthrop, who ordered him to quit Massachusetts. He was, I think, the purest if not the best statesman of his time;[102] he was too good a man to cherish resentment against Winthrop or against the colony, but returned good for evil in regard to both in after years. Sir Henry Vane wrote to Governor Winthrop, in regard to these persecutions, as follows:

"Honoured Sir,—

"I received yours by your son, and was unwilling to let him return without telling you as much. The exercise of troubles which God is pleased to lay upon these kingdoms and the inhabitants in them, teaches us patience and forbearance one with another in some measure, though there be no difference in our opinions, which makes me hope, that from the experience[Pg 117] here, it may also be derived to yourselves, lest while the Congregational way amongst you is in its freedom, and is backed with power, it teach its oppugners here to extirpate it and roote it out, and from its own principles and practice. I shall need say no more, knowing your son can acquaint you particularly with our affairs.

"&c., &c.,

H. Vane.[103]

June 10, 1645."

Another and more elaborate remonstrance of the same kind was written by Sir Richard Saltonstall, one of the original founders, and of the first Council of the Company—one who had appeared before the King in Council in 1632, in defence of Endicot and his Council, in answer to the charges of Church innovation, of abolishing the worship of the Church of England, and banishing the Browns on account of their adhering to the worship which all the emigrants professed on their leaving England. Sir R. Saltonstall and Mr. Cradock, the Governor of the Company, could appeal to the address of Winthrop and his eleven ships of emigrants, which they had delivered to their "Fathers and Brethren of the Church of England" on their departure for America, as to their undying love and oneness with the Church of England, and their taking Church of England chaplains with them; they could appeal to the letter of Deputy Governor Dudley to Lady Lincoln, denying that any innovations or changes whatever had been introduced; they could appeal to the positive statements of the Rev. John White, "the Patriarch of Dorchester," a Conformist clergyman, and the first projector of the colony, declaring that the charges of innovations, etc., were calumnies. Doubtless all these parties believed what they said; they believed the denials and professions made to them; and they repeated them to the King's Privy Council with such earnestness as to have quite captivated the Judges, to have secured even the sympathies of the King,[Pg 118] who was far from being the enemy of the colony represented by his enemies. Accordingly, an order was made in Council, January 19, 1632, "declaring the fair appearances and great hopes which there then were, that the country would prove beneficial to the kingdom, as profitable to the particular persons concerned, and that the adventurers might be assured that if things should be carried as was pretended when the patents were granted, and according as by the patent is appointed, his Majesty would not only maintain the liberties and privileges heretofore granted, but supply anything further which might tend to the good government, prosperity, and comfort of the people there." According to the statement of some of the Privy Council, the King himself said "he would have severely punished who did abuse his Governor and Plantation."

Mr. Palfrey well observes: "Saltonstall, Humphrey, and Cradock appeared before a Committee of the Council on the Company's behalf, and had the address or good fortune to vindicate their clients."[104] It was certainly owing to their "address or good fortune," and not to the justice of their case, that they succeeded in deceiving the King and Council. The complainants had unwisely mixed the charge of disloyal speeches, etc., with Church innovations. It was to parry the former, by assuming the statements to be ex parte, and at any rate uttered by private individuals, who should be called to account for their conduct, and for whose words the Company could not be justly held responsible. On the main charge of Church innovations, or Church revolution, and proscription of the worship of the Church of England, positive denials were opposed—the profession of Winthrop with his company and chaplains on leaving England, the positive statement of the "Patriarch of Dorchester," and that of Deputy Governor Dudley, who went to Massachusetts with Winthrop, and wrote to the Countess of Lincoln the year after his arrival, denying that any innovations had been made. To all this the complainants had only to oppose their own words—their papers having been seized. They were overwhelmed by the mass of authority arrayed against them. But though they were defeated for the time, they were not silenced; and the following two years were [Pg 119]productive of such a mass of rumours and statements, all tending to prove the Church revolutionary and Church proscriptive proceedings of the Massachusetts Corporation, that the King and Council found it necessary to prosecute those inquiries which they had deferred in 1632, and to appoint a Royal Commission to proceed to Massachusetts Bay and inquire into the disputed facts, and correct all abuses, if such should be found, on the spot. This was what the Massachusetts Bay persecutors most dreaded. As long as the inquiry should be conducted in London, they could, by intercepting papers and intimidating witnesses, and with the aid of powerful friends in England—one or two of whom managed to retain their place in office and in the Privy Council, even when Charles ruled without a Parliament—with such advantages they could laugh to scorn the complaints of the persecuted, and continue their proscriptions and oppressions with impunity. But with a Royal Commission sitting on the spot, these acts of concealment and deception would be impossible. They therefore changed their ground; they now denied the right of the King to inquire into their proceedings; they invoked, as was their wont, the counsel of their ministers, or "Elders," who preached warlike sermons and gave warlike advice—"to resist if they were strong enough;" but if not strong enough to fight, "to avoid and delay." For the former purpose they forthwith raised £800 to erect a fort to protect the entrance of their harbour, and organized and armed companies; and in pursuance of the latter, they delayed a year even to acknowledge the receipt of the Royal orders to answer the charges preferred against them, and then, when a more imperative and threatening Royal demand was sent, they pleaded for another year to prepare for their defence, and thus "avoided and delayed" from time to time, until the King, getting so entangled with his Scottish subjects and Parliament, became unable to pursue his inquiries into the proceedings of the Massachusetts Bay Plantation; and the Congregational Church rulers there had, for more than twenty years, the luxury of absolute rule and unrestricted persecution of all that dissented from their newly set up Church polity and worship.

Sir Richard Saltonstall, as well as Sir Henry Vane, and doubtless many others of the Puritan party in England, could[Pg 120] not endure in silence the outrageous perversions of the Charter, and high-handed persecutions by the Congregational rulers of Massachusetts Bay.[105] Sir R. Saltonstall therefore wrote to Cotton and Wilson, who, with Norton, were the ablest preachers among the "Elders," and were the fiercest persecutors. The letter is without date, but is stated by Mr. Hutchinson, in his Collection of Massachusetts State Papers, to have been written "some time between 1645 and 1653." Sir R. Saltonstall's indignant and noble remonstrance is as follows:

"Reverend and deare friends, whom I unfaynedly love
and respect:

"It doth not a little grieve my spirit to heare what sadd things are reported day by day of your tyranny and persecutions in New England as that you fine, whip and imprison men for their consciences. First, you compell such to come to your[Pg 121] assemblys as you know will not joyne, and when they show their dislike thereof or witness against it, then you stirre up your magistrates to punish them for such (as you conseyve) their publicke affronts. Truly, friends, this your practice of compelling any in matters of worship to do that whereof they are not fully persuaded, is to make them sin, for so the apostle (Rom. xiv. 23) tells, and many are made hypocrites thereby, conforming in their outward man for feare of punishment. We pray for you and wish you prosperity every way; we hoped the Lord would have given you so much light and love there, that you might have been eyes to God's people here, and not to practise those courses in the wilderness, which you went so far to prevent. These rigid ways have laid you very lowe in the hearts of the saints. I do assure you I have heard them pray in the public assemblies that the Lord would give you meeke and humble spirits, not to strive so much for uniformity as to keepe the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace."

Addressed: "For my reverend and worthyly much esteemed friends, Mr. Cotton and Mr. Wilson, preachers to the Church which is at Boston, in New England."[106]

[Pg 122]

It is seen that Sir R. Saltonstall's letter was addressed to the two principal Congregational ministers of Boston. It has been shown that the preachers were the counsellors and prompters of all violent measures against dissenting Baptists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and Quakers—a fact further illustrated and confirmed by Mr. Bancroft, who, under the date of 1650 and 1651, says: "Nor can it be denied, nor should it be concealed, that the Elders, especially Wilson and Norton, instigated and sustained the Government in its worst cruelties."[107]

During this first thirty years of the Massachusetts Bay Government, it evinced, in contrast with all the other British American colonies, constant hostility to the authorities in England, seizing upon every possible occasion for agitation and dispute; perverting and abusing the provisions of the Royal Charter to suppress the worship of the Church of England, and banishing its adherents; setting up a new Church and persecuting, by whipping, banishment and death, those who refused to conform to it; seeking its own interests at the expense of the neighbouring colonies; sacrificing the first principles of civil and religious liberty in their legislation and government; basing eligibility to office, and even the elective franchise, upon the condition of membership in a Congregational Church—a condition without a precedent or a parallel in any Protestant country.

I cannot better conclude this review of the first three decades of the Massachusetts Bay Puritan Government, than in the words of the celebrated Edmund Burke, who, in his account of the European settlements in America, after describing the form of government established at Massachusetts Bay, remarks that: "From such a form as this, great religious freedom might, one would have imagined, be well expected. But the truth is, they[Pg 123] had no idea at all of such freedom. The very doctrine of any sort of toleration was so odious to the greater part, that one of the first persecutions set up here was against a small party which arose amongst themselves, who were hardy enough to maintain that the civil magistrate had no lawful power to use compulsory measures in affairs of religion. After harassing these people by all the vexatious ways imaginable, they obliged them to fly out of their jurisdiction." "If men, merely for the moderation of their sentiments, were exposed to such severe treatment, it was not to be expected that others should escape unpunished. The very first colony had hardly set its foot in America, when, discovering that some amongst them were false brethren, and ventured to make use of the Common Prayer, they found means to make the country so uneasy to them, that they were glad to fly back to England. As soon as they began to think of making laws, I find no less than five about matters of religion; all contrived, and not only contrived, but executed in some respects with a rigour that the persecution which drove the Puritans out of England, might be considered lenity and indulgence in the comparison. For, in the first of these laws, they deprive every man who does not communicate with their Established Church, of the right to his freedom, or a vote in the election of their magistrates. In the second, they sentence to banishment any who should oppose the fourth commandment, or deny the validity of infant baptism, or the authority of the magistrates. In the third, they condemn Quakers to banishment, and make it capital for them to return; and not stopping at the offenders, they lay heavy fines upon all who should bring them into the province, or even harbour them for an hour. In the fourth, they provide banishment, and death in case of return, for Jesuits and Popish priests of every denomination. In the fifth, they decree death to any who shall worship images. After they had provided such a complete code of persecution, they were not long without opportunities of reading bloody lectures upon it." "In short, this people, who in England could not bear to be chastised with rods, had no sooner got free from their fetters than they scourged their fellow-refugees with scorpions; though the absurdity as well as injustice of such proceeding in them might stare them in the face!"[108]

[Pg 124]

Mr. Palfrey observes, that "the death of the Protector is not so much as referred to in the public records of Massachusetts." If this silence even as to the fact of Cromwell's death was intended to disclaim having had any connection or sympathy with the Protector, it was a deception; if it was intended as preparatory to renouncing the worship of the setting sun of Cromwell, and worshipping the rising sun of Charles the Second, it was indeed characteristic of their siding with the stronger party, if they could thereby advance their own interests. But I think every candid man in this age will admit, that there was much more dignity of sentiment and conduct of those loyal colonies who adhered to their Sovereign in his adversity as well as in his prosperity, who submitted to compulsory subjection to the Cromwell power without acknowledging its legitimacy, and were the first to recognize and proclaim the restored king.[109]

The reader will be better able to appreciate the professions of the Massachusetts Bay Government, in regard to the restored king, after reviewing its professions and relations to the Government of the Long Parliament and of Cromwell.

[Pg 125]

It has been shown above, that when obstinate silence could not prevent the inquiry by a Royal Commission into the oppressive and disloyal proceedings complained of, and that resistance was fruitless, the Massachusetts Bay Government, September 1638, transmitted to the Lords Commissioners for the Colonies a petition in which it professed not to question the authority of their Lordships' proceedings, but only to open their griefs; that if they had offended in anything, they prostrated themselves at the foot of authority. They begged for time to answer, before condemnation, professed loyalty to the King and prayers for his long life, and the happiness of his family, and for the success of the Lords of his Council. Two years after, when the King's power began to wane, the Massachusetts Bay Government sent home a Commission, headed by the notorious Hugh Peters,[110] to conciliate the support of the leading members of the Commons against the King's commission, and to aid the opposition to the King. In 1644, the General Court of Massachusetts Bay enacted, "that what person so ever shall draw a party to the King, against the Parliament, shall be accounted a high offender against this Commonwealth, and shall be punished capitally." (See this Act, quoted at large in a previous page.) This proceeding was as decisive as possible against the King and all who adhered to the monarchy.

Again, in the Massachusetts General Court's address to Parliament, in 1651, occur the following words:

"And for our carriage and demeanour to the honourable Parliament, for these ten years, since the first beginning of your differences with the late king, and the war that after ensued, we have constantly adhered to you, not withdrawing ourselves in your weakest condition and doubtfullest times, but by our fasting and prayers for your good success, and our thanksgiving after the same was attained, in days of solemnity set apart for that purpose, as also by our over-useful men (others going voluntarily from us to help you), who have been of good use and[Pg 126] done good acceptable service to the army, declaring to the world hereby that such was the duty and love we bear unto the Parliament that we were ready to rise and fall with them; for which we have suffered the hatred and threats of other English colonies, now in rebellion against you, as also the loss of divers of our ships and goods, taken by the King's party that is dead, by others commissioned by the King of Scots [Charles II.] and by the Portugalls."[111]

An address of the same General Court, in the same year, 1651, and on the same occasion (against the order of Parliament to recall the old and grant the new Charter), to Oliver Cromwell, concludes in the following words:

"We humbly petition your Excellence to be pleased to show[Pg 127] us what favour God shall be pleased to direct you unto on our behalf, to the most honourable Parliament, unto whom we have now presented a petition. The copy of it, verbatim, we are bold to send herewith, that if God please, we may not be hindered in our comfortable work of God here in this wilderness. Wherein, as for other favours, we shall be bound to pray, that the Captain of the host of Israel may be with you and your whole army, in all your great enterprises, to the glory of God, the subduing of his and your enemies, and your everlasting peace and comfort in Jesus Christ."

Likewise, August 24th, 1654, after Cromwell had not only put the King to death, but abolished the House of Lords, excluded by his soldiers 154 members of Parliament, then dismissed the remaining "rump" of the Parliament itself and become sole despot, the General Court of Massachusetts Bay concluded an address to him as follows:

"We shall ever pray the Lord, your protector in all your dangers, that hath crowned you with honour after your long service, to lengthen your days, that you may long continue Lord Protector of the three nations, and the Churches of Christ Jesus."[112]

[Pg 128]

The documentary evidence which I have adduced, shows, I think, beyond reasonable doubt, that the rulers of Massachusetts Bay Colony were disaffected to the King from the beginning, and so displayed that feeling on every occasion except one, in 1638, when they professed humiliation and loyalty in order to avert the investigation which they dreaded into their proceedings; that the King, whatever may have been his misdoings towards his subjects in England, treated his subjects in the colonies, and especially in Massachusetts Bay, with a kindness and consideration which should have secured their gratitude; that the moment, in the matters of dispute between the King and his Parliament (and in which the colonies had no concern), the scale appeared to turn in favour of the Parliament, the rulers of Massachusetts Bay renounced their allegiance to the King, and identified themselves as thorough partizans of the war against the King—that they suppressed, under the severest penalties, every expression of loyalty to the King within their jurisdiction—offered prayers for and furnished men in aid of the Parliamentary army—denounced and proscribed all recognition, except as enemies, the other American colonies who adhered to their[Pg 129] oaths of allegiance to the King; that when Cromwell had obliterated every landmark of the British constitution and of British liberty—King, Lords, and Commons, the freedom of election and the freedom of the press, with the freedom of worship, and transformed the army itself to his sole purpose—doing what no Tudor or Stuart king had ever presumed to do—even then the General Court of Massachusetts Bay bowed in reverence and praise before him as the called and chosen of the Lord of hosts.[113]

But when Cromwell could no longer give them, in contempt to the law of Parliament, a monopoly of trade against their fellow-colonists, and sustain them in their persecutions; when he ceased to live, they would not condescend to record his demise, but, after watching for a while the chances of the future, they turned in adulation to the rising sun of the restored Charles the Second.

The manner in which they adjusted their denials and professions to this new state of things, until they prevailed upon the kind-hearted King not to remember their past transgressions, and to perpetuate their Charter on certain conditions; how they evaded those conditions of toleration and administering the government, and resumed their old policy of hostility to the Sovereign and of persecution of their Baptist and other brethren who differed from them in worship, and in proscribing them from the elective franchise itself, will be treated in the following chapter.

[Pg 130]

Government of Massachusetts Bay and other Colonies, during Twenty Years, under Charles the Second.

The restoration of Charles the Second to the throne of his ancestors was received in the several American colonies with very different feelings; the loyal colonies, from the Bermudas to Plymouth, hailed and proclaimed the restored King without hesitation; Virginia proclaimed him before he was proclaimed in England;[114] the rulers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony alone stood in suspense; hesitated, refused to proclaim him for a year,[Pg 131] until ordered to do so. When it was ascertained that the restoration of the King, Lords, and Commons had been enthusiastically ratified by the people of England, and was firmly established, the General Court of Massachusetts Bay adopted a most loyal address to the King, and another to the two Houses of Parliament, notwithstanding the same Court had shortly before lauded the power which had abolished King, Lords, and Commons. The Court also thought it needful to give practical proof of the sincerity of their new-born loyalty to the monarchical government by condemning a book published ten years before, and which had been until now in high repute among them, written by the Rev. John Eliot, the famous apostle to the Indians. This book was entitled "The Christian Commonwealth," and argued that a purely republican government was the only Christian government, and that all the monarchical governments of Europe, especially that of England, was anti-Christian. It appears that this book had been adduced by the complainants in England against the Massachusetts Bay Government as a proof of their hostility to the system of government now restored in England. To purge themselves from this charge, the Governor and Council of Massachusetts Bay, March 18, 1661, took this book into consideration, and declared "they find it, on perusal, full of seditious principles and notions relative to all established governments in the Christian world, especially against the government established in their native country." Upon consultation with the Elders, their censure was deferred until the General Court met, "that Mr. Eliot might have the opportunity in the meantime of public recantation." At the next sessions, in May, Mr. Eliot gave into the Court the following acknowledgment under his hand:

"Understanding by an Act of the honoured Council, that there is offence taken at a book published in England by others, the copy whereof was sent over by myself about nine or ten years since, and that the further consideration thereof is commended to this honoured Court now sitting in Boston: Upon perusal thereof, I do judge myself to have offended, and in way of satisfaction not only to the authority of this jurisdiction, but also to any others that shall take notice thereof, I do hereby acknowledge to this General Court, that such expressions as do too manifestly scandalize the Government of England, by King,[Pg 132] Lords and Commons, as anti-christian, and justify the late innovators, I do sincerely bear testimony against, and acknowledge it to be not only a lawful but eminent form of government.

"2nd. All forms of civil government, deduced from Scripture, I acknowledge to be of God, and to be subscribed to for conscience sake; and whatsoever is in the whole epistle or book inconsistent herewith, I do at once and most cordially disown.

"John Eliot."[115]

It must have been painful and humiliating to John Eliot to be brought to account for and compelled to recant the sentiments of a book which had been in circulation eight or nine years, and much applauded by those who now arraigned and made a scapegoat of him, to avert from themselves the consequence and suspicion of sentiments which they had held and avowed as strongly as Eliot himself.

It has been said that the Government of Massachusetts Bay had desisted from acknowledging and addressing Charles the Second as King, until they found that their silence endangered their interests. Mr. Holmes, in his Annals, speaking under the date of May, 1661 (a year after Charles had entered London as King), says: "Charles II., had not yet been proclaimed by the colony. The Governor (Endicot), on receiving intelligence of the transactions that were taking place in England to the prejudice of the colony, judged it inexpedient longer to delay that solemnity. Calling the Court together, a form of proclamation was agreed to, and Charles was acknowledged to be their sovereign Lord, and proclaimed to be the lawful King of Great Britain, France and Ireland, and all other territories thereto belonging." An address to the King was agreed to, and ordered to be sent to England.[116]

[Pg 133]

In this remarkable address (given in a note) the reader will be struck with several things which appear hardly reconcilable with words of sincerity and truth.

First, the reason professed for delaying nearly a year to recognise and address the King after his restoration. Nearly thirty years before, they had threatened the King's Royal father with resistance, since which time they had greatly increased in wealth and population; but now they represent themselves as "poor exiles," and excuse themselves for not acknowledging the King because of their Mephiboseth lameness of distance—as if they were more distant from England than the other American colonies. Their "lameness" and "ineptness" and "impotence" plainly arose from disinclination alone. It is amusing to hear[Pg 134] them speak of themselves as "exanimated outcasts," hoping to be animated by the breath of Royal favour. Their "script" was no doubt "the transcript of their loyal hearts" when they supplicated the continuance of the Royal Charter, the first intentions and essential provisions of which they had violated so many years.

Secondly. But what is most suspicious in this address is their denial of having taken any part in the civil war in England—professing that their lot had been the good old nonconformists',[117] "only to act a passive part throughout these late vicissitudes," and ascribed to the favour of God their "exemption from the temptations of either party." Now, just ten years before, in their address to the Long Parliament and to Cromwell, they said:

"And for our carriage and demeanour to the honourable Parliament for these ten years, since the first beginning of your differences with the late King, and the war that after ensued, we have constantly adhered to you, notwithstanding ourselves in your weakest condition and doubtfullest times, but by our fasting and prayers for your good success, and our thanksgiving after the same was attained, in days of solemnity set apart for that purpose, as also by our sending over useful men (others also going voluntarily from us to help you) who have been of good use and have done good acceptable service to the army, declaring to the world hereby that such was the duty and love we bear unto the Parliament that we were ready to rise and fall with them: for which we suffered the hatred and threats of other English colonies now in rebellion against you," etc.[118]

Whether this address to Parliament (a copy of it being enclosed with an address to Cromwell) had ever at that time been made public, or whether King Charles the Second had then seen it, does not appear; but it is not easy to conceive statements and words more opposite than those addressed by the General Court of Massachusetts Bay to the Parliament in 1651, and to the King, Charles the Second, in 1661.

[Pg 135]

On the contrasts of acts themselves, the reader will make his own remarks and inferences. The King received and answered their address very graciously.[119] They professed to receive it gratefully; but their consciousness of past unfaithfulness and transgressions, and their jealous suspicions, apprehended evil from the general terms of the King's reply, his reference to his Royal predecessors and religious liberty, which above all things they most dreaded, desiring religious liberty for themselves alone, but not for any Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Baptist, or Quaker. They seem, however, to have been surprised at the kindness of the King's answer, considering their former conduct towards him and his Royal father, and towards the colonies that loyally adhered to their King; and professed to have been excited to an ecstasy of inexpressible delight and gratitude at the gracious words of the best of kings.[120] Their[Pg 136] address presented a curious mixture of professed self-abasement, weakness, isolation, and affliction, with fulsome adulation not surpassed by anything that could have been indited by the most devout loyalist. But this honeymoon of adulation to the [Pg 137]restored King was not of long duration; the order of the King, September 8, 1661, to cease persecuting the Quakers, was received and submitted to with remonstrance; and obedience to it was refused as far as sending the accused Quakers to England for trial, as that would bring the Government of Massachusetts Bay before the English tribunals.[121]

But petitions and representations poured in upon the King and Council from Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Baptists, etc., from Massachusetts Bay, and their friends in England, complaining that they were denied liberty of worship, the ordinance of Baptism and the Lord's Supper to their families and themselves, that they were deprived of even the elective franchise because of their not being members of the Congregational Church, and praying for the redress of their grievances.[122]

[Pg 138]

The leaders of the colony had, however, warm and influential advocates in the Council of the King: the Earl of Manchester, formerly commander of the Parliamentary army against Charles the First, until supplanted by Cromwell; Lord Say, a chief founder of Connecticut; and Mr. Morrice, Secretary—all Puritans.[123] Under these influences the King sent a letter to the colony,[Pg 139] which had been avowedly at war in connection with Cromwell, against his royal father and himself (and by which they had justly forfeited the Charter, apart from other violations of it), pardoning the past and assuring them he would not cancel but restore and establish their Charter, provided they would fulfil certain conditions which were specified. They joyously accepted the pardon of the past, and the promised continuance of the Charter as if unconditional, without fulfilling the conditions of it, or even mentioning them; just as their fathers had claimed the power given them in the Royal Charter by Charles the First in 1628, to make laws and regulations for order and good government of the Massachusetts Bay Plantation, concealing the Charter, claiming absolute power under it, and wholly ignoring the restrictive condition that such laws and regulations were not to be "contrary to the laws of England"—not only concealing the Charter, but not allowing their laws and regulations to be printed until after the fall of Charles the First, and resisting all orders for the production of their proceedings, and all Commissions of Inquiry to ascertain whether they had not made laws or regulations and performed acts "contrary to the laws of England." So now, a generation afterwards, they claimed and contended that Charles the Second had restored their Charter, as if done absolutely and unconditionally without their recognising one of the five conditions included in the proviso of the King's letter. Nothing could have been more kindly and generously conceived than the terms of the King's letter, and nothing could be more reasonable than the conditions contained in its proviso—conditions with which all the other British colonies of America readily complied, and which every province of the Dominion of Canada has assumed and acted upon as a duty and pleasure from the first establishment of their respective Governments. Of all the colonies of the British Empire for the last three centuries, that of Massachusetts Bay is the only one that ever refused to acknowledge this allegiance to the Government from which it derived its existence and territory. The conditions[Pg 140] which Charles the Second announced as the proviso of his consenting to renew and continue the Charter granted by his Royal father to the Company of Massachusetts Bay, were the following:

"1. That upon a review, all such laws and ordinances that are now, or have been during these late troubles, in practice there, and which are contrary or derogatory to the King's authority and government, shall be repealed.

"2. That the rules and prescriptions of the said Royal Charter for administering and taking the oath of allegiance, be henceforth duly observed.

"3. That the administration of justice be in the King's name.

"4. That since the principle and formation of that Charter was and is the freedom of liberty of conscience, we do hereby charge and require you that freedom of liberty be duly admitted and allowed, so that they that desire to use the Book of Common Prayer and perform their devotion in the manner that is established here, be not denied the exercise thereof, or undergo any prejudice or disadvantage thereby, they using the liberty peaceably, without any disturbance to others.

"5. That all persons of good and honest lives and conversations be admitted to the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, according to the said Book of Common Prayer, and their children to Baptism."[124]

[Pg 141]

Nothing could be more kind and assuring than the terms of the King's letter, notwithstanding the former hostility of the Massachusetts Bay rulers to him and his Royal father,[125] and[Pg 142] nothing could be more reasonable than the five conditions on which he assured them of the oblivion of the past and the continuance of the Royal Charter; but with not one of these conditions did they take a step to comply for several months, under the pretext of affording time, after publishing it, that "all persons might have opportunity to consider what was necessary to be done," though the "all persons" referred to included only one-sixth of the population: for the term "Freeman of Massachusetts" was at that time, and for thirty years before and afterwards, synonymous with member of one of the Congregational Churches. And it was against their disloyalty and intolerance that the five conditions of the King's pardon were chiefly directed. With some of these conditions they never complied; with others only as they were compelled, and even complained of them afterwards as an invasion of their chartered privileges,[126] though, in their first order for public thanksgiving[Pg 143] for the King's letter, they spoke of it as assuring "the continuance of peace, liberties and the gospel." Though the agent of Rhode Island met the agents of Massachusetts Bay Colony before the King, and challenged them to cite, in behalf of Massachusetts, one act of duty or loyalty to the kings of England, in support of their present professions as loyal subjects; yet the King was not disposed to punish them for the past, but continue to them their privileges, as they desired and promised they would act with loyalty and tolerance in the future.[127]

[Pg 144]

The King's promised oblivion of the past and recognition of the Charter was hailed and assumed as unconditional, while the King's conditions were ignored and remained a dead letter. The elective franchise and eligibility for office were still, as heretofore, the exclusive prerogative of Congregational Church members; the government of the colony was still in the hands alone of Congregational ministers and magistrates, and which they cleaved to as for life; their persecutions of those who did not worship as they did, continued without abatement; they persisted in their theocratic independence, and pretended to do all this under a Royal Charter which forbade their making laws or regulations contrary to the laws of England, acting also in the face of the King's conditions of pardoning their past offences, and perpetuating their Charter privileges.

The King's letter was dated the 28th of June, 1662, and was presented by Mr. Bradstreet and Mr. Norton to the Governor and General Court at Boston, 8th of October, 1662;[128] but it was not until a General Court called in August, 1664, that "the said letter was communicated to the whole assembly, according[Pg 145] to his Majesty's command, and copies thereof spread abroad."[129] In the meantime they boasted of their Charter being recognised by the King, according, of course, to their own interpretation of it, while for twenty-two months they withheld the King's letter, against his orders, from being published; concealing from the victims of their proscription and persecution the toleration which the King had announced as the conditions of his perpetuating the Charter.

It is not surprising that those proscribed and persecuted parties in Massachusetts Bay Colony should complain to the King's Government that the local Government had denied them every privilege which his Majesty had assured to them through their friends in England, and by alleged orders to the Government of Massachusetts Bay, and therefore that the King's Government should determine to appoint Commissioners to proceed to the New England colonies to investigate the complaints made, and to regulate the affairs of the colonies after the disorders of the then recent civil war, during which the Massachusetts Bay Government had wholly identified itself with Cromwell, and acted in hostility to those other American colonies which would not renounce their allegiance to the Throne, and avow allegiance to the usurper.

It was not till the Government of Massachusetts Bay saw that their silence could no longer be persisted in with safety, and that a Royal Commission was inevitable,[130] that they even published the King's letter, and then, as a means of further procrastination and delay, they appended their order that the conditions prescribed in the Royal letter, which "had influence upon the Churches as well as the civil state, should be suspended until the Court should take action thereon"—thus [Pg 146]subordinating the orders of the King to the action of the Massachusetts Bay Court.

From the Restoration, reports were most industriously circulated in the Bay Colony, designed to excite popular suspicion and hostility against the Royal Government, such as that their constitution and Church privileges were to be suppressed, and superseded by a Royal Governor and the Episcopal hierarchy, etc.; and before the arrival of the Royal Commissioners the object of their appointment was misrepresented and their character assailed; it was pretended their commission was a bogus one, prepared "under an old hedge,"[131] and all this preparatory to the intended resistance of the Commissioners by the Governor and Council of Massachusetts Bay.

The five conditions of continuing the Charter, specified in the King's letter of the 28th of June, 1662, the publication of which[Pg 147] was suppressed by the Massachusetts Bay Court for nearly two years, and the intolerance and proscription which it was intended to redress being still practised, were doubtless among the causes which led to the appointment of the Royal Commissioners; but that Commission had reference to other colonies as well as Massachusetts Bay, and to other subjects than the intolerant proscriptions of that colony.[132]

[Pg 148]

All the New England colonies except that of Massachusetts Bay respectfully and cordially received the Royal Commissioners, and gave entire satisfaction in the matters which the Commissioners were intended to investigate.[133] The Congregational rulers of[Pg 149] Massachusetts Bay alone rejected the Royal Commissioners, denied their authority, and assailed their character. In the early history of Upper Canada, when one Church claimed to[Pg 150] be established above every other, and the local Government sustained its pretensions as if authorized by law, it is known with what tenacity and denunciation the Canadian ecclesiastic-[Pg 151]civil government resisted all appeals, both to the Local Legislature and to England, for a liberal government of equal laws and equal rights for all classes of the King's subjects in Canada. But the excluded majority of the Canadians had little to complain of in comparison of the excluded majority of his Majesty's subjects of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, where the only avenue to office, or even the elective franchise, was membership in the Congregational Church, and where no dissenter from that Church could have his children baptized, or worship God according to his conscience, except under pain of imprisonment, fine, banishment, or death itself.

The "Pilgrim Fathers" crossed the Atlantic to Plymouth in 1620, and the "Puritan Fathers" to Massachusetts Bay in 1628, professedly for the same purpose, namely, liberty to worship God without the imposition of ceremonies of which they disapproved. The "Pilgrim Fathers," as true and consistent friends of liberty, exercised full liberty of worship for themselves, and left others to enjoy the same liberty of worship which they enjoyed; but the "Puritan Fathers" exercised their liberty not only by abandoning the Church and worship which they professed when they left England, and setting up a Congregational worship, but by prohibiting every other form of worship, and its adherents with imprisonment, fine, exile, and death. And under this pretext of liberty of worship for themselves, they proscribed and persecuted all who differed from them in religious worship for fifty years, until their power to do so was taken from them by the cancelling of the Charter whose provisions they had so persistently and so cruelly abused, in contradistinction to the tolerant and liberal conduct of their brethren and neighbours of the Plymouth, Rhode Island, and Connecticut colonies. In note on page 148, I have given extracts of the Report of the Royal Commissioners relative to these colonies and their conduct and[Pg 152] treatment of the Commissioners; and in the lengthened extract of the report relative to Massachusetts Bay Colony, it is seen how different was the spirit and government of the rulers of that colony, both in respect to their fellow-colonists and their Sovereign, from that of the rulers of the other New England colonies, which had, indeed, to seek royal protection against the oppressions and aggressions of the more powerful domineering Government of Massachusetts Bay. The rulers of this colony alone rejected the Royal Commissioners. For nearly two years the King's letter of the 28th of June, 1662 (given in note on page 140), pardoning their acts of disloyalty and assuring them of the continuance of their Charter on certain conditions, remained unpublished and unnoticed; but on the appointment of the Royal Commissioners, in 1664, they proceeded to acknowledge the kindness of the King's letter of 1662, and other Royal letters; then changing their tone, they protest against the Royal Commission. They sent a copy of their address to the King, to Lord Chancellor Clarendon, who, in connection with the Earl of Manchester and Lord Say, had befriended them. They also wrote to others of their friends, and among others to the Hon. and celebrated Robert Boyle, than whom no man had shown himself a warmer or more generous friend to their colony. I will give, not in successive notes, but in the text, their address to the King, the King's reply, Lord Clarendon's and the Hon. Robert Boyle's letters to them on the subject of their address to the King, and their rejection and treatment of the Royal Commission. I will then give the sentiments of what is called the "Petition of the minority" of their own community on the subject, and their own answers to the chief propositions of the Royal Commissioners. From all this it will appear that the United Empire Loyalists were the true liberals, the advocates of universal toleration and of truly liberal government; while the rulers of Massachusetts Bay were the advocates of religious intolerance and persecution of a government by a single religious denomination, and hostile to the supreme authority of England, as well as to their more tolerant and loyal fellow-colonists.

I will first give their characteristic address, called "Petition" or "Supplication," to the King. I do so without abridgment, long as it is, that I may not be chargeable with unfairness. It is as follows:—

[Pg 153]

Copy of the Address of the Massachusetts Colony to King Charles the Second, in 1664:

"To the King's Most Excellent Majestie.—The humble Supplication of the General Court of the Massachusetts Colony, in New England.

"Dread Sovereign,

"Iff your poor subjects, who have removed themselves into a remote corner of the earth to enjoy peace with God and man, doe, in this day of their trouble, prostrate themselves at your Royal feet, and beg your favour, we hope it will be graciously accepted by your Majestie, and that as the high place you sustain on earth doth number you here among the gods, for you well imitate the God of heaven, in being ready to maintain the cause of the afflicted, and the right of the poor,[135] and to receive their cries and addresses to that end. And we humbly beseech your Majestie with patience and clemency to heare and accept our plain discourse, tho' of somewhat greater length than would be comely in other or lesser cases. We are remote,[136] and can speake but seldom, and therefore crave leave to speake the more at once. Wee shall not largely repeat how that the first undertakers for this Plantation, having by considerable summs purchased the right thereof granted to the Council established at Plimouth by King James, your Royal grandfather, did after obtain a patent given and confirmed to themselves by your Royal father, King Charles the First, wherein it is granted to them, and their heirs, assigns and associates for ever, not only the absolute use and propriety of the tract of land therein mentioned, but also full and absolute power of governing[137] all the people of this place, by men chosen from among themselves, and according to such lawes as they shall from time to time see meet to make and establish, being not[Pg 154] repugnant to the laws of England (they paying only the fifth part of the ore of gold and silver that shall here be found, for and in respect of all duties, demands, exactions, and service whatsoever), as in the said patent is more at large declared. Under the encouragement and security of which Royal Charter this people did, at their own charges,[138] transport themselves, their wives and families, over the ocean, purchase the lands of the natives, and plant this colony, with great labour, hazards, cost and difficulties, for a long time wrestling with the wants of a wilderness and the burdens of a new plantation; having, also, now above 30 years enjoyed the aforesaid power and priviledge of government within themselves, as their undoubted right in the sight of God and man,[139] and having had, moreover, this further favour from God and from your Majestie, that wee have received several gracious letters from your Royal selfe, full of expressions tending to confirme us in our enjoyments, viz., in your Majestie's letter bearing date the 15th day of February, 1660, you are pleased to consider New England as one of the chiefest of your colonies and plantations abroad, having enjoyed and grown up in a long and orderly establishment, adding this royal promise: 'Wee shall not come behind any of our royal predecessors in a just encouragement and protection of all our loving subjects there.' In your Majestie's letter of the 28th of June, 1662, sent us by our messengers, besides many other gracious expressions, there is this: 'Wee will preserve and do hereby confirme the patent and Charter heretofore granted unto them by our Royal father of blessed memory, and they shall freely enjoy all the privileges and liberties granted unto them in and by the same.'[140] As for[Pg 155] such particulars, of a civil and religious nature, as are subjoined in the said letter, we have applyed ourselves to the utmost to satisfy your Majesty, so far as doth consist with conscience, of our duty toward God and the just liberties and privileges of our patent.[141] Wee are further bound, with humble thankfulness, to acknowledge your Majestie's gracious expressions in your last letter we have received, dated April 23, 1664, as (besides other instances thereof) that your Majestie hath not the least intention or thought of violating, or in the least degree infringing, the Charter heretofore granted by your Royal father with great wisdom, and upon full deliberation, etc.

"But what affliction of heart must it needs be unto us, that our sins have provoked God to permit our adversaries to set themselves against us by their misinformations, complaints and solicitations (as some of them have made it their worke for many years), and thereby to procure a commission under the great seal, wherein four persons (one of them our knowne and professed enemy) are impowered to hear, receive, examine and determine all complaints and appeals, in all causes and matters as well military as criminal and civil, and to proceed in all things, for settling this country according to their good and sound discretion, etc., whereby, instead of being governed by rulers of our owne choosing (which is the fundamental privilege of our patent), and by lawes of our owne, wee are like to be subjected to the arbitary power of strangers, proceeding not by any established law, but by their own discretion. And whereas our patent gives a sufficient royal warrant and discharge to all officers and persons for executing the lawes here made and published, as is therein directed, we shall now not be discharged, and at rest from further molestation, when wee have so[Pg 156] executed and observed our lawes, but be liable to complaints and appeales, and to the determinations of new judges, whereby our government and administrations will be made void and of none effect. And though we have yet had but a little taste of the words or actings of these gentlemen that are come over hither in this capacity of Commissioners, yet we have had enough to confirm us in our feares that their improvement of this power, in pursuance of their commission (should the same proceed), will end in the subversion of our all. We should be glad to hope that your Majesty's instructions (which they have not been pleased to impart to us) may put such limitations to their business here as will take off our fear; but according to the present appearance of things, we thus speak.

"In this case (dread Sovereign), our refuge under God is your royal selfe, whom we humbly address ourselves unto, and are the rather emboldened therein because your Majesty's last gracious letter doth encourage us to suggest what, upon the experience we have had, and observations we have made, we judge necessary or convenient for the good and benefit of this plantation, and because we are well persuaded that had your Majestie a full and right information of the state of things here,[142] you would find apparent reason to put a stop to these proceedings, which are certainly discervient to your Majesty's interest and to the prosperity and welfare of this place.

"If these things go on (according to the present appearance), your subjects here will either be forced to seek new dwellings, or sink and faint under burdens that will to them be intolerable. The rigour of all new endeavours in the several callings and occupations (either for merchandise abroad or for subduing this wilderness at home) will be enfeebled, as we perceive it already begins to be, the good of converting the natives obstructed, the inhabitants driven to we know not what extremities, and this hopeful plantation in the issue ruined. But whatever becomes of us, we are sure the adversary cannot countervail the King's damages.

"It is indeed a grief to our hearts to see your Majesty put[Pg 157] upon this extraordinary charge and cost about a business the product whereof can never reimburse the one half of what will be expended upon it. Imposed rulers and officers will have occasion to expend more than can be raised here, so as nothing will return to your Majesty's exchequer; but instead thereof, the wonted benefit of customs, exported and imported into England from hence, will be diminished by discouragement and diminution of men's endeavours in their several occupations; or if the aim should be to gratify some particular by livings and revenues here that will also fail, where nothing is to be had, the King himself will be loser, and so will the case be formed here; for such is the poverty and meanness of the people (by reason of the length and coldness of the winters, the difficulty of subduing a wilderness, defect of staple commodity, the want of money, etc.), that if with hard labour men get a subsistence for their families, 'tis as much as the generality are able to do, paying but very small rates towards the public charges; and yet if all the country hath ordinarily raised by the year for all the charges of the whole government were put together and then doubled or trebled, it would not be counted, for one of these gentlemen, a considerable accommodation.[143]

"It is true, that the estates men have in conjunction with hard labour and vigorous endeavours in their several places do bring in a comfortable subsistence for such a mean people (we do not diminish our thankfulness to God, that he provides for us in a wilderness as he doth), yet neither will the former stand or the latter be discouraged, nor will both ever answer the ends of those that seek great things.

"We perceive there have been great expectations of what is to be had here raised by some men's informations. But those informations will prove fallacious, disappointing them that have[Pg 158] relied upon them; and if the taking of this course should drive the people out of the country (for to a coalition therein they will never come), it will be hard to find another people that will stay long or stand under any considerable burden in it, seeing it is not a country where men can subsist without hard labour and great frugality.

"There have also been high representations of great divisions and discontents among us, and of a necessity of sending commissioners to relieve the aggrieved, etc.; whereas it plainly appears that the body of this colony are unanimously satisfied in the present government, and abhorrent from change, and that what is now offered will, instead of relieving, raise up such grievances as are intolerable. We suppose there is no government under heaven wherein some discontented persons may not be found; and if it be a sufficient accusation against a government that there are some such, who will be innocent? Yet, through the favour of God, there are but few amongst us that are malcontent, and fewer that have cause to be so.

"Sir, the all-knowing God knows our greatest ambition is to live a poor and quiet life, in a corner of the world, without offence to God or man. We came not in this wilderness to seek great things for ourselves; and if any come after us to seek them here, they will be disappointed. We keep ourselves within our line, and meddle not with matters abroad; a just dependence upon and subjection to your Majesty, according to our Charter, it is far from our hearts to disacknowledge. We so highly prize your favourable aspect (though at so great a distance), as we would gladly do anything that is within our power to purchase the continuance of it. We are willing to testify our affection to your Majesty's service, by answering the proposal of your honourable Commissioners, of which we doubt not but that they have already given your Majesty an account. We are carefully studious of all due subjection to your Majesty, and that not only for wrath, but for conscience sake; and should Divine Providence ever offer an opportunity wherein we might, in any righteous way, according to our poor and mean capacity, testify our dutiful affection to your Majesty, we hope we should most gladly embrace it. But it is a great unhappiness to be reduced to so hard a case, as to have no other testimony of our subjection and loyalty offered us but this, viz., to destroy our own[Pg 159] being, which nature teacheth us to preserve; or to yield up our liberties, which are far dearer to us than our lives, and which, had we had any fears of being deprived of, we had never wandered from our fathers' houses into these ends of the earth, nor laid our labours or estates therein; besides engaging in a most hazardous and difficult war, with the most warlike of the natives, to our great charge and the loss of some of the lives of our dear friends. Neither can the deepest invention of man find out a more certain way of consistence than to obtain a Royal donation from so great a prince under his great seal, which is the greatest security that may be had in human affairs.

"Royal Sir, it is in your power to say of your poor people in New England, they shall not die. If we have found favour in the sight of our King, let our life be given us at our petition (or rather that which is dearer than life, that we have ventured our lives, and willingly passed through many deaths to obtain), and our all at our request. Let our government live, our patent live, our magistrates live, our laws and liberties live, our religious enjoyments live; so shall we all yet have further cause to say from our hearts, let the King live for ever. And the blessing of them that were ready to perish shall come upon your Majesty; having delivered the poor that cried, and such as had none to help them. It was an honour to one of your royal ancestors that he was called the poor man's king. It was Job's excellency that he sat as king among his people—that he was a father to the poor. They are a poor people (destitute of outward favour, wealth and power) who now cry to their lord the King. May your Majesty please to regard their cause and maintain their right. It will stand among the marks of lasting honour to after generations. And we and ours shall have lasting cause to rejoice, that we have been numbered among your Majesty's most humble servants and suppliants.

"25th October, 1664."

As the Massachusetts Governor and Council had endorsed a copy of the foregoing petition to the Earl of Clarendon, then Lord Chancellor (who had dictated, with the Puritan ministers of the King, his generous letter of the 28th of June, 1662), I will here insert Lord Clarendon's reply to them, in which he vindicates the appointment of the Commissioners, and exposes[Pg 160] the unreasonableness of the statements and conduct of the Massachusetts Court. The letter is as follows:

Copy of a letter from the Earl of Clarendon to the Massachusetts Colony in 1664:—

"Mr. Governor and Gentlemen,

"I have received yours of the 7th of November, by the hands of Mr. Ashurst, a very sober and discreet person, and did (by his communicating it to me) peruse the petition you had directed to his Majesty; and I do confess to you, I am so much a friend to your colony that if the same had been communicated to nobody but myself, I should have dissuaded the presenting the same to his Majesty, who I doubt will not think himself well treated by it, or the singular care he hath expressed of his subjects in those parts sufficiently acknowledged; but since I found by your letter to my Lord Chamberlaine and Mr. Boyle, that you expect some effect from your petition, upon conference with them wee all agreed not to hinder the delivery of it, though I have read to them and Mr. Ashurst every word of the instructions the Commissioners have; and they all confessed that his Majesty could not expresse more grace and goodness for that his plantation, nor put it more out of their power in any degree to invade the liberties and privileges granted to you by your Charter; and therefore wee were all equally amazed to find that you demand a revokation of the Commission and Commissioners, without laying the least matter to their charge of crymes or exorbitances. What sense the King hath of your addresse to him, you will, I presume, heare from himself, or by his direction. I shall only tell you that as you had long cause to expect that the King would send Commissioners thither, so that it was absolutely necessary he should do so, to compose the differences amongst yourselves of which he received complaint, and to do justice to your neighbours, which they demand from his royall hands. I know not what you mean by saying, the Commissioners have power to exercise government there altogether inconsistent with your Charter and privileges, since I am sure their commission is to see and provide for the due and full observation of the Charter, and that all the privileges granted by that Charter may be equally enjoyed by all his Majesty's subjects there. I know they are expressly inhibited from intermeddling with or obstructing the [Pg 161]administration of justice, according to the formes observed there; but if in truth, in any extraordinary case, the proceedings there have been irregular, and against the rules of justice, as some particular cases particularily recommended to them by his Majesty, seeme to be, it cannot be presumed that his Majesty hath or will leave his subjects of New England without hope of redresse by any appeale to him, which his subjects of all his other kingdoms have free liberty to make. I can say no more to you but that it is in your owne power to be very happy, and to enjoy all that hath been granted to you; but it will be absolutely necessary that you perform and pay all that reverence and obedience which is due from subjects to their king, and which his Majesty will exact from you, and doubts not but to find from the best of that colony both in quality and in number. I have no more to add but that I am,

"Gentlemen,

"Your affectionate servant,

"Clarendon, C.

"Worcester House, 15 March, 1665."

To Lord Clarendon's letter I will add the letter of the Honourable Robert Boyle to Governor Endicot. The Hon. Robert Boyle was not only distinguished as the first philosopher of his age, but as the founder of the Royal Society and the President of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England—the Society which supported John Eliot, the apostle to the Indians of New England—for the Massachusetts Bay Government neither established nor supported his mission to the Indians. New England never had a warmer and more benevolent friend than the celebrated Robert Boyle, who, in a letter dated March 17th, 1665, and addressed to the Governor Endicot and the Massachusetts Court, after acknowledging their resolution of thanks, through Mr. Winthrop, to him for his exertions on their behalf, proceeds as follows:

"I dealt very sincerely with Mr. Winthrop in what I informed him concerning the favourable inclinations I had found both in his Majesty and in my Lord Chancellor toward the united colonies of New England; and though his lordship again repeats and confirms the assurances he had authorized me to give to your friends in the city, yet I cannot but acquaint you with this, observing that in your last addresses to his Majesty, and[Pg 162] letters to his lordship, there are some passages that were much more unexpected than welcome; insomuch that not only those who are unconcerned in your affairs, but the most considerable persons that favour you in England, have expressed to me their being unsatisfied in some of the particulars I am speaking of. And it seems generally unreasonable that when the King had so graciously remitted all that was past, and upon just and important inducements, sent Commissioners to promote the welfare of your colony, you should (in expressions not over manly or respectfully worded) be importunate with him to do an action likely to blemish his wisdom or justice, or both, as immediately to recall public ministers from so remote a part of the world before they or any of them be so much as accused of any one crime or miscarriage.

"And since you are pleased I should concern myself in this business, I must deal so ingenuously with you as to inform you, that hearing about your affairs, I waited upon my Lord Chancellor (and finding him, though not satisfied with your late proceedings, yet neither your enemy, nor indisposed to be your favourer as before). His lordship was pleased, with a condescending and unexpected freedom, to read himself, not only to me, but to another good friend of yours that I brought along with me, the whole instructions and all the other papers that were delivered to the Commissioners, and by the particulars of those it appeared to us both that they had been so solicitous, viz., in the things that related to your Charter, and especially to the liberty of your consciences, that I could not but wonder at it, and add to the number of those that cannot think it becomes his Majesty to recall Commissioners sent so far with no other instructions than those, before they have time to do any part of the good intended you by themselves, and before they are accused of having done any one harmful thing, even in your private letters either to me or (as far as I know) to any of your friends here, who will be much discouraged from appearing on your behalf; and much disabled to do it successfully so long as such proceedings as these that relate to the Commissioners supply others with objections which those that wish you well are unable to answer.

"I should not have taken this liberty, which the honour of your letter ought to have filled with little less than [Pg 163]acknowledgment, if the favourable construction you have made of my former endeavours to do you good offices did not engage me to continue them, though in a way which (in my poor apprehension) tends very directly to serve you, whether I do or no to please you; and as I presume you will receive, both from his Majesty and my Lord Chancellor, express assurances that there is nothing intended in violation to your Charter, so if the Commissioners should break their instructions and endeavour to frustrate his Majesty's just and favourable intentions towards you, you may find that some of your friends here were not backward to accuse the Commissioners upon general surmises that may injure you, than they will be ready to represent your grievances, in case they shall actually oppress you; which, that they may never do, is not more the expectation of them that recommended them to you than it is the hearty wish of a person who, upon the account of your faithfulness and care of so good a work as the conversion of the natives among you, is in a peculiar manner concerned to shew himself, honoured Sir, your most affectionate and most humble servant,[144]

"Ro. Boyle."

But in addition to the benevolent and learned Robert Boyle and their other friends in England, besides Lord Clarendon and the King, who disapproved of their pretentious spirit and proceedings, there were numbers of their own fellow-colonists who equally condemned the assumptions and conduct of Governor Endicot and his Council. It has been shown in a previous chapter that in connection with the complete suppression of the freedom of the press, petitioners to the Governor and Court were punished for any expressions in their petitions which complained of the acts or proceedings of the Court. It therefore required no small degree of independence and courage for any among them to avow their dissent from the acts of rulers so despotic and intolerant. Yet, at this juncture of the rejection of the Royal Commission, and the denial of the King's authority, there were found United Empire Loyalists and Liberals, even among the Congregational "freemen" of Massachusetts Bay, who raised the voice of remonstrance against this incipient separation movement. A petition was prepared and signed by[Pg 164] nearly two hundred of the inhabitants of Boston, Salem, Newbury, and Ipswich, and presented to the Court. The compiler of the "Danforth Papers," in the Massachusetts Historical Collection, says: "Next follows the petition in which the minority of our forefathers have exhibited so much good sense and sound policy." The following is an extract of the Boston petition, addressed "To the Honourable General Court now assembled in Boston:"

"May it please the Hon. Court:

"Your humble petitioners, being informed that letters are lately sent from his Majesty to the Governor and Council, expressive of resentment of the proceedings of this colony with his Commissioners lately sent hither, and requiring also some principal persons therein, with command upon their allegiance to attend his Majesty's pleasure in order to a final determination of such differences and debates as have happened between his Majesty's Commissioners and the Governor here, and which declaration of his Majesty, your petitioners, looking at as a matter of the greatest importance, justly calling for the most serious consideration, that they might not be wanting, either to yourselves in withholding any encouragement that their concurrence might afford in so arduous a matter, nor to themselves and the country in being involved by their silence in the dangerous mistakes of (otherwise well united) persons inclining to disloyal principles, they desire they may have liberty without offence to propose some of their thoughts and fears about the matter of your more serious deliberation.

"Your petitioners humbly conceive that those who live in this age are no less than others concerned in that advice of the wise man, to keep the King's commandment, because of the oath of God, and not to be tardy to go out of his sight that doth whatever pleaseth him; wherefore they desire that seeing his Majesty hath already taken no little displeasure against us, as if we disowned his Majesty's jurisdiction over us, effectual care be taken, lest by refusing to attend his Majesty's order for clearing our pretences unto right and favour in that particular, we should plunge ourselves into great disfavour and danger.

"The receiving of a Charter from his Majesty's royal predecessor for the planting of this colony, with a confirmation of the same from his royal person, by our late address, sufficiently[Pg 165] declares this place to be part of his dominions and ourselves his subjects. In testimony of which, also, the first Governor, Mr. Matthew Cradock (as we are informed), stands recorded juratus de fide et obedientia, before one of the Masters in Chancery; whence it is evident that if any proceedings of this colony have given occasion to his Majesty to say that we believe he hath no jurisdiction over us, what effectual course had need be taken to free ourselves from the incurring his Majesty's future displeasure by continuance in so dangerous an offence? And to give his Majesty all due satisfaction in that point, such an assertion would be no less destructive to our welfare than derogatory to his Majesty's honour. The doubtful interpretations of the words of a patent which there can be no reason to hope should ever be construed to the divesting of the sovereign prince of his Royal power over his natural subjects and liege people, is too frail a foundation to build such transcendent immunity and privilege upon.

"Your petitioners earnestly desire that no part will so irresistibly carry on any design of so dangerous a consequence as to necessitate their brethren equally engaged with them in the same undertaking to make their particular address to his Majesty, and declaring to the world, to clear themselves from the least imputation of so scandalous an evil as the appearance of disaffection or disloyalty to the person and government of their lawful prince and sovereign would be.

"Wherefore your petitioners do here humbly entreat that if any occasion hath been given to his Majesty so to resent any former actings as in his last letter is held forth, that nothing of that nature be further proceeded in, but contrariwise that application be made to his Majesty, immediately to be sent for the end to clear the transactions of them that govern this colony from any such construction, lest otherwise that which, if duly improved, might have been a cloud of the latter rain, be turned into that which, in the conclusion, may be found more terrible than the roaring of a lion.

"Thus craving a favourable interpretation of what is here humbly presented, your petitioners shall ever be obliged to, etc."[145]

[Pg 166]

The following is the King's letter, referred to by Lord Clarendon, evidently written on the advice of the Puritan Councillors, whom the King retained in his government, and to whom the management of New England affairs seems to have been chiefly committed, with the oversight of the Lord Chancellor Clarendon. This letter, in addition to a previous letter from the King of the same kind, together with the letters of Lord Clarendon and the Hon. Robert Boyle, left them not a shadow of pretext for the inflammatory statements they were putting forth, and the complaints they were making, that their Charter privileges and rights of conscience were invaded, and was a reply to the petition of the Massachusetts Bay Governor and Council (inserted above at length, pages 153-159), and shows the utter groundlessness of their statements; that what they contended for under the pretext of conscience was the right of persecuting and proscribing all who did not conform to the Congregational worship; and that what they claimed under the pretence of Charter rights was absolute independence, refusing to submit even to inquiry as to whether they had not encroached upon the rights and territories of their white and Indian neighbours, or made laws and regulations and performed acts contrary to the laws of England and to the rights of other of the King's subjects. This letter breathes the spirit of kindness and forbearance, and contends for toleration, as did all the loyal colonists of the time, appealing to the King for protection against the intolerance, persecution and proscription of the Massachusetts Bay Congregational Government. The letter is as follows:

Copy of a Letter from Secretary Morrice to the Massachusetts Colony:

"Sirs,

"His Majesty hath heard this petition[146] read to him, and hath well weighed all the expressions therein, and the temper and spirit of those who framed it, and doth not impute the same to his colony of Massachusetts, amongst whom he knows the major part consists of men well affected to his service and[Pg 167] obedient to his government, but he hath commanded me to let you know that he is not pleased with this petition, and looks upon it as the contrivance of a few persons who have had too long authority there, and who use all the artifices they can to infuse jealousies into his good subjects there, and apprehensions as if their Charter were in danger, when it is not possible for his Majesty to do more for the securing it, or to give his subjects there more assurance that it shall not in any degree be infringed, than he hath already done, even by his late Commission and Commissioners sent thither, who are so far from having the least authority to infringe any clause in the said Charter, that it is the principal end of their journey, so chargeable to his Majesty, to see that the Charter be fully and punctually observed. His Majesty did expect thanks and acknowledgments from that his colony, of his fatherly care in sending his Commissioners thither, and which he doubts not he shall receive from the rest of the colonies in those parts, and not such unreasonable and groundless complaint as is contained in your petition, as if he had thereby intended to take away your privileges and to drive you from your habitations, without the least mention of any misdemeanour or miscarriage in any one of the said Commissioners or in any one particular. Nor can his Majesty comprehend (except you believe that by granting your Charter he hath parted with his sovereign power over his subjects there) how he could proceed more graciously, or indeed any other way, upon so many complaints presented to him by particular persons of injustice done contrary to the constitution of that government: from the other colonies, for the oppression they pretend to undergo by the conduct of Massachusetts, by extending their bounds and their jurisdiction further than they ought to do, as they pretend; from the natives, for the breach of faith and intolerable pressures laid upon them, as they allege, contrary to all kind of justice, and even to the dishonour of the English nation and Christian faith, if all they allege be true. I say, his Majesty cannot comprehend how he could apply proper remedies to these evils, if they are real, or how he could satisfy himself whether they are real or no by any other way or means than by sending Commissioners thither to examine the truth and grounds of all the allegations, and for the present to compose the differences the best they can, until, upon a full and clear [Pg 168]representation thereof to his Majesty, who cannot but expect the same from them, his Majesty's own final judgement and determination may be had. And it hath pleased God so far already to bless that service that it's no small benefit his Majesty and his English colonies in those parts have already received by the said Commissioners in the removal of so inconvenient neighbours as the Dutch have been for these late years, and which would have been a more spreading and growing mischief in a short time if it had not been removed. To conclude, I am commanded by his Majesty to assure you again of your full and peaceable enjoyment of all the privileges and liberties granted to you by his Charter, which he hath heretofore and doth now again offer to renew to you, if you shall desire it; and that you may further promise yourselves all the protection, countenance, and encouragement that the best subjects ever received from the most gracious Prince; in return whereof he doth only expect that duty and cheerful obedience that is due to him, and that it may not be in the power of any malicious person to make you miserable by entertaining any unnecessary and unreasonable jealousies that there is a purpose to make you so. And since his Majesty hath too much reason to suspect that Mr. Endicot,[147] who hath during all the late revolutions continued the [Pg 169]government there, is not a person well affected to his Majesty's person or his government, his Majesty will take it very well if at the next election any other person of good reputation be chosen in the place, and that he may no longer exercise that charge. This is all I have to signify unto you from his Majesty, and remain,

"Your very humble servant,

Will. Morrice.

"Whitehall, February 25th, 1665."

But this courteous and explicit letter had no effect upon the Governor and Council of Massachusetts Bay in allaying opposition to the Royal Commissioners, whose authority they refused to acknowledge, nor did it prevent their persecution of their brethren whom they termed "Sectaries"—the "Dissenting party." The Commissioners having executed the part of their commission relative to the Dutch and Indians, and finding their authority resisted by the Governor and Council of Massachusetts Bay, reported the result to the King's Government, which determined to order the attendance of representatives of the Massachusetts Bay Government, to answer in England the complaints prepared against them, and for their conduct to the Commissioners. The letter which the King was advised to address to that pretentious and persecuting Government speaks in a more decisive but kindly tone, and is as follows:

Copy of a letter from King Charles II. to the Massachusetts Colony, April, 1666:

"Charles R.

"His Majesty having received a full information from his Commissioners who were sent by him into New England, of their reception and treatment in the several colonies and provinces of that plantation, in all which they have received great satisfaction but only that of Massachusetts; and he having likewise been fully informed of the account sent hither by the Counsell of the Massachusetts, under the hand of the present Governor, of all the passages and proceedings which have been there between the said Commissioners and them from the time of their first coming over; upon all which it is very evident to his Majesty, notwithstanding many expressions of great affection and duty, that those who govern the Colony of Massachusetts do believe that the commission given by his Majesty[Pg 170] to those Commissioners, upon so many and weighty reasons, and after so long deliberation, is an apparent violation of their Charter, and tending to the dissolution of it, and that in truth they do, upon the matter, believe that his Majesty hath no jurisdiction over them, but that all persons must acquiesce in their judgments and determinations, how unjust soever, and cannot appeal to his Majesty, which would be a matter of such a high consequence as every man discernes where it must end. His Majesty, therefore, upon due consideration of the whole matter, thinks fit to recall his said Commissioners which he hath at this present done, to the end he may receive from them a more particular account of the state and condition of those his plantations, and of the particular differences and debates they have had with those of the Massachusetts, that so his Majesty may pass his final judgment and determination thereupon. His Majesty's express command and charge is, that the Governor and Counsell of the Massachusetts do forthwith make choice of five or four persons to attend upon his Majesty, whereof Mr. Richard Bellingham and Major Hathorn are to be two, both which his Majesty commands upon their allegiance to attend, the other three or two to be such as the Counsell shall make choice of; and if the said Mr. Bellingham be the present Governor, another fit person is to be deputed to that office till his return, and his Majesty will then, in person, hear all the allegations, suggestions, or pretences to right or favour that can be made on the behalf of the said colony, and will then make it appear how far he is from the least thought of invading or infringing, in the least degree, the Royal Charter granted to the said colony. And his Majesty expects the appearance of the said persons as soon as they can possibly repair hither after they have notice of this his Majesty's pleasure. And his further command is, that there be no alterations with reference to the government of the Province of Maine till his Majesty hath heard what is alledged on all sides, but that the same continue as his Majesty's Commissioners have left the same, until his Majesty shall further determine. And his Majesty further expressly charges and commands the Governor and Counsell there, that they immediately set all such persons at liberty who have been or are imprisoned only for petitioning or applying themselves to his Majesty's [Pg 171]Commissioners. And for the better prevention of all differences and disputes upon the bounds and limits of the several colonies, his Majesty's pleasure is, that all determinations made by his Majesty's said Commissioners with reference to the said bounds and limits may still continue to be observed, till, upon a full representation of all pretences, his Majesty shall make his own final determination; and particularly the present temporary bounds set by the Commissioners between the colonies of New Plymouth and Rhode Island, until his Majesty shall find cause to alter the same. And his Majesty expects that full obedience be given to this signification of his pleasure in all particulars.

"Given at the Court at Whitehall, the 10th day of April, 1666, in the eighteenth year of his Majesty's reign.

"Will. Morrice."

Before noticing the proceedings of the Massachusetts Bay Court in reference to this letter of the King, it may be proper to pause a little and retrospect past transactions between the two Charleses and the Congregational rulers of Massachusetts Bay, and the correspondence of the latter with the Royal Commissioners, so prominently referred to in the above letter.

The foregoing documents which I have so largely quoted evince the Royal indulgence and kindness shown to the Massachusetts Bay Colony after the conduct of its rulers to the King and his father during the twenty years of the civil war and Commonwealth; the utter absence of all intention on the part of Charles the Second, any more than on the part of Charles the First, to limit or interfere with the exercise of their own conscience or taste in their form or manner of worship, only insisting upon the enjoyment of the same liberty by those who preferred another form and manner of worship. However intolerant and persecuting the Governments of both Charles the First and Second were to all who did not conform to the established worship and its ceremonies in England, they both disclaimed enforcing them upon the New England colonies; and I repeat, that it may be kept in mind, that when the first complaints were preferred to Charles the First and the Privy Council, in 1632, against Endicot and his Council, for not only not conforming to, but abolishing, the worship of the Church of England, the accused and their friends successfully, though falsely, denied having abolished the Episcopal worship; and the [Pg 172]King alleged to his Council, when Laud was present, that he had never intended to enforce the Church ceremonies objected to upon the New England colonists. The declarations of Charles the Second, in his letters to them, confirmed as they were by the letters of the Earl of Clarendon and the Honourable Robert Boyle, show the fullest recognition on the part of the Government of the Restoration to maintain their perfect liberty of worship. Their own address to the King in 1664 bears testimony that for upwards of thirty years liberty of worship had been maintained inviolate, and that King Charles the Second had himself invariably shown them the utmost forbearance, kindness, and indulgence.[148]

[Pg 173]

Yet they no sooner felt their Charter secure, and that the King had exhausted the treasury of his favours to them, than they deny his right to see to their fulfilment of the conditions on which he had promised to continue the Charter. The Charter itself, be it remembered, provided that they should not make[Pg 174] any laws or regulations contrary to the laws of England, and that all the settlers under the Charter should enjoy all the rights and privileges of British subjects. The King could not know whether the provisions of the Royal Charter were observed or violated, or whether his own prescribed conditions of continuing the Charter were ignored or fulfilled, without examination; and how could such an examination be made except by a Committee of the Privy Council or special Commissioners? This was what the King did, and what the Governor and Court of Massachusetts Bay resisted. They accepted with a profusion of thanks and of professed loyalty the King's pardon and favours, but denied his rights and authority. They denied any other allegiance or responsibility to the King's Government than the payment of five per cent. of the proceeds of the gold and silver mines. The absurdity of their pretensions and of their resistance to the Royal Commission, and the injustice and unreasonableness of their attacks and pretended suspicions, are well exposed in the documents above quoted, and especially in the petition of the "minority" of their own fellow-colonists. But all in vain; where they could not openly deny, they evaded so as to render nugatory the requirements of the King as the conditions of continuing the Charter, as will appear from their correspondence with the Royal Commissioners. I will give two or three examples.

They refused to take the oath of allegiance according to the form transmitted to them by the King's order, or except with limitations that neutralized it. The first Governor of their[Pg 175] Corporation, Matthew Cradock, took the oath of allegiance as other officers of the Crown and British subjects, and as provided in the Royal Charter; but after the secret conveyance of the Charter to Massachusetts Bay and the establishment of a Government there, they, in secret deliberation, decided that they were not British subjects in the ordinary sense; that the only allegiance they owed to the King was such as the homage the Hanse Towns paid to Austria, or Burgundy to the Kings of France; that the only allegiance or obligation they owed to England was the payment of one-fifth per cent. of the produce of their gold and silver mines; that there were no appeals from their acts or decisions to the King or Courts of England; and that the King had no right to see whether their laws or acts were according to the provisions of the Charter. When the King, after his restoration, required them to take the oath of allegiance as the first condition of continuing the Charter, they evaded it by attaching to the oath the Charter according to their interpretation of it. Any American citizen could at this day take the oath of allegiance to the Sovereign of England if it were limited to the Constitution of the United States. First of all, they required of every freeman the oath of fidelity to the local Government; and then, after three years' delay and debating about the oath of allegiance to the King, the Massachusetts Bay Court adopted the following order:

"May 16th, 1665.

"It is ordered by this Court and by the authority thereof, that the following oath be annexed unto the oaths of every freeman, and oath of fidelity, and to the Governor, Deputy Governor and Assistants, and to all other public officers as followeth. The oaths of freemen and of fidelity to run thus: 'Whereas, I, A.B., an inhabitant within this jurisdiction, considering how I stand to the King's Majesty, his heirs and successors, by our Charter, and the Government established thereby, do swear accordingly, by the great and dreadful name of the ever living God, that I will bear faithful and true allegiance to our Sovereign Lord the King, his heirs and successors; and so proceed as in the printed oaths of freemen and fidelity.'"[149]

[Pg 176]

On this, Col. Nichols, Chairman of the Royal Commission, addressing the Court, remarks as follows:

"You profess you highly prize the King's favour, and that offending him shall never be imputed to you; and yet you, in the same paper, refuse to do what the King requires should be done—that all that come into this colony to dwell should take the oath of allegiance here. Your Charter commands it; yet you make promises not therein expressed, and, in short, would curtail the oath, as you do allegiance, refusing to obey the King. It is your duty to administer justice in the King's name; and the King acknowledgeth in his letter, April 23, that it is his duty to see that justice be administered by you to all his subjects here, and yet you will not give him leave to examine by his Commissioners."

Referring to this subject again, Col. Nichols remarks:

"Touching the oath of allegiance, which is exactly prescribed in your Charter, and no faithful subject will make it less than according to the law of England. The oath mentioned by you was taken by Mr. Matthew Cradock, as Governor, which hath a part of the oath of allegiance put into it, and ought to be taken in that name by all in public office; also in another part of the Charter it is expressly spoken of as the oath of allegiance; and how any man can make that in fewer words than the law of England enjoins, I know not how it can be acceptable to his Majesty."[150]

As a sect in the Jewish nation made void the law by their traditions, so the sect of Congregational rulers in Massachusetts Bay thus made void the national oath of allegiance by their additions. On the subject of liberty of worship according to the Church of England, these sectarian rulers express themselves thus:

"Concerning the use of the Common Prayer Book and ecclesiastical privileges, our humble addresses to his Majesty have fully declared our ends, in our being voluntary exiles from our dear native country, which we had not chosen at so dear a rate, could we have seen the word of God warranting us to perform our devotions in that way; and to have the same set[Pg 177] up here, we conceive it is apparent, that it will disturb our peace in our present enjoyments; and we have commended to the ministry and people here the word of the Lord for their rule therein, as you may find by your perusal of our law book, title 'Ecclesiastical,' p. 25."

To this the King's Commissioners reply as follows:

"The end of the first Planters coming hither was (as expressed in your address, 1660), the enjoyment of the liberty of your own consciences, which the King is so far from taking away from you, that by every occasion he hath promised and assured the full enjoyment of it to you. We therefore advise that you should not deny the liberty of conscience to any, especially where the King requires it; and that upon a vain conceit of your own that it will disturb your enjoyments, which the King often hath said it shall not.

"Though you commend to the ministers and people the word of the Lord for their rule, yet you did it with a proviso that they have the approbation of the Court, as appears in the same page; and we have great reason both to think and say that the King and his Council and the Church of England understand and follow the rules in God's word as much as this Corporation.

"For the use of the Common Prayer Book: His Majesty doth not impose the use of the Common Prayer Book on any, but he understands that liberty of conscience comprehends every man's conscience as well as any particular, and thinks that all his subjects should have equal rights; and in his letter of June 28, 1662, he requires and charges that all his subjects should have equally an allowance thereof; but why you should put that restraint on his Majesty's subjects that live under his obedience, his Majesty doth not understand that you have any such privileges.

"Concerning ecclesiastical privileges, we suppose you mean sacraments, baptisms, etc. You say we have commended the word of the Lord for our rule therein, referring us to the perusal of the printed law, page 25. We have perused that law, and find that that law doth cut off those privileges which his Majesty will have, and see that the rest of his subjects have."[151]

[Pg 178]

I now resume the narrative of questions as affecting the authority of the Crown and the subjection of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. That colony was the most populous and wealthy of all the New England colonies. Its principal founders were men of wealth and education; the twelve years' tyranny of Charles the First and Laud, during the suspension of Parliament, caused a flow of more than twenty thousand emigrants to Massachusetts Bay, with a wealth exceeding half a million sterling, and among them not less than seventy silenced clergymen. During the subsequent twenty years of the civil war and Commonwealth in England, the rulers of that colony actively sided with the latter, and by the favour and connivance of Cromwell evaded the Navigation Law passed by the Parliament, and enriched themselves greatly at the expense of the other British colonies in America, and in violation of the law of Parliament. In the meantime, being the stronger party, and knowing that they were the favourites of Cromwell, they assumed, on diverse grounds, possession of lands, south, east, north, and west, within the limits of the neighbouring colonies, and made their might right, by force of arms, when resisted; and denied the citizenship of freemen to all except actual members of the Congregational Churches, and punished Dissenters with fine, imprisonment, banishment, and death itself in many instances.

On the restoration of Charles the Second to the throne of his ancestors, it was natural that the various oppressed and injured parties, whether of colonies or individuals, should lay their grievances before their Sovereign and appeal to his protection; and it was not less the duty of the Sovereign to listen to their complaints, to inquire into them, and to redress them if well founded. This the King, under the guidance of his Puritan Councillors, proceeded to do in the most conciliatory and least offensive way. Though the rulers of Massachusetts Bay did not, as did the other New England as well as Southern colonies, recognize and proclaim the King on the announcement of his restoration, but observed a sullen silence until they saw that the monarchy was firmly established; yet the King took no offence at this, but addressed them in terms the most conciliatory, assuring them that he would overlook the past and secure to them the privileges of their Charter, and the continued freedom[Pg 179] of their worship, upon the conditions of their taking the oath of allegiance, administer their laws as British subjects, and grant to all their fellow-colonists equal freedom of worship and of conscience with themselves. They professed, as well they might, to receive the King's declaration of oblivion for past offences and irregularities, and promise of perpetuating their original Charter, with feelings of inexpressible gratitude and delight; but they did not publish the King's letter for nearly two years, notwithstanding his command to do so; and when they did publish it, they appended an order that the conditions were not to be acted upon until their further order.

The King's proclamation of pardon of the past, and promise of the future, produced no other effect than a profusion of wordy compliments and a vague intimation of doing as the King required, as far as their Charter and conscience would permit. Their policy of proscription and ignoring the Royal authority in their laws and government remaining unchanged, and the complaints of oppressed colonies and individuals multiplying, the adoption of further measures became necessary on the part of the Crown; and it was decided to appoint a Royal Commission, which should be at once a Court of Inquiry and a Court of Appeal, at least in the first instance, reporting the results of their inquiries and their decisions in cases of appeal for the information and final decision of the highest authority in England, to which any dissatisfied party could appeal against the report or decision of the Commissioners. The address or "Petition" to the King, dated 1664, and given above, pp. 153-9, in all its tedious length and verbiage, shows how grossly they misrepresented the character and objects of the Commission, preparatory to resisting and rejecting it, while the King's letter in reply, also given above at length, p. 166, completely refutes their misstatements, and duly rebukes their unjust and offensive insinuations.

On receiving the report of the Commissioners, together with the statements and pretensions of the Massachusetts Bay Court, the King might have employed ships and soldiers to enforce his just and reasonable commands, or have cancelled the Charter, as the conditions of its continuance had not been fulfilled, and have established Massachusetts Bay Plantation as a Royal colony; but he was advised to adopt the milder and more for[Pg 180]bearing course of giving them opportunity of answering directly the complaints made against them, and of justifying their acts and laws. He therefore, in the Royal letter given above, dated April 6, 1666, required them within six months to send five of their number to England to answer and to disprove if they could complaints made against them, and to furnish proof of the professions and statements they had made in their address and petition. They could no longer evade or delay; they were brought face to face with the authority of King and Parliament; they could adduce nothing but their own assertions in their justification; facts were against their words; they adopted their usual resource to evade all inquiry into their laws and acts by pleading the immunity of their Charter, and refused to send representatives to England. They wished the King to take their own words alone as proofs of their loyalty to the Crown and equity to their fellow-colonists. In place of sending representatives to England to meet their accusers face to face and vindicate their acts, they sent two large masts, thirty-four yards long, which they said they desired to accompany with a thousand pounds sterling as a present to his Majesty, but could get no one to lend them that sum, for the purpose of thus expressing their good-will to the King, and of propitiating his favour. Their language of adulation and profession was most abject, while they implored the Royal clemency for refusing to obey the Royal commands. Their records state that "11, 7mo., 1666, the General Court assembled on account of a signification from his Majesty requiring the Council of this colony to send five able and meet persons to make answer for refusing jurisdiction to his Commissioners last year; whereof Mr. Richard Bellingham and Mr. Hawthorne to be two of them, whom he requires, on their allegiance, to come by first opportunity. The Court met and agreed to spend the forenoon of the next day in prayer.

"12, 7mo., 1666. The Court met and sundry elders, and spent the forenoon in prayer.

"13, 7mo., 1666. The Court met and the elders were present after lecture and some debate had in Court concerning the duty we owe to his Majesty in reference to his signification."

On the 14th sundry petitions were presented from the "minority" in Boston, Salem, Ipswich, and Newbury, in favour of compliance with the King's requirement; and the subject[Pg 181] was debated in Council some days, when, on the 17th, the Court adopted an answer to the "King's signification," containing the following words addressed to the King's Secretary of State, Mr. Morrice:

"We have, in all humility, given our reasons why we could not submit to the Commissioners and their mandates the last year, which we understand lie before his Majesty. To the substance thereof we have nothing to add; and therefore can't expect that the ablest persons among us could be in a capacity to declare our case more fully.

"We must therefore commit this our great concernment unto Almighty God, praying and hoping that his Majesty (a prince of so great clemency) will consider the estate and condition of his poor and afflicted subjects at such a time, being in imminent danger, by the public enemies of our nation, by sea and land, and that in a wilderness far remote from relief; wherefore we do in this wise prostrate ourselves before his Majesty, and beseech him to be graciously pleased to rest assured of our loyalty and allegiance according to our former professions. Thus with our humble service to your Honour, and earnest prayers to God for his Majesty's temporal and eternal happiness, we remain your Honour's humble servants.

"17, 7mo., 1666."[152]

[Pg 182]

But even in their Council, where the "elders" or ministers and their nominees were supreme, both to rule and to persecute, and to maintain which they were plotting and struggling with the intensity of the Papacy of late years against the Government of Italy, there were yet among their number men of distinction, who contended for the rights of the Crown, to decide questions of appeal from the colony, and to appoint a special commission for that purpose, such as Mr. Simon Bradstreet, who had been Governor, and as their Commissioner to England, with Mr. Norton, had obtained the famous letter of Charles the Second, dated 10th of June, 1662, which filled the Court of Massachusetts Bay with inexpressible joy; and Mr. Dudley, son of a former Governor, and himself first Governor appointed by the Crown after the cancelling of the Charter; and Major Dennison, a man of mark, also in their Council.

In Mr. Danforth's notes of the debate on the answer to the King's signification, Mr. Bradstreet is reported to have said: "I grant legal process in a course of law reaches us not in an ordinary course; yet I think the King's prerogative gives him power to command our appearance, which, before God and men,[Pg 183] we are to obey." Mr. Dudley: "The King's commands pass anywhere—Ireland, Calais, etc.—although ordinary process from judges and officers pass not. No doubt you may have a trial at law when you come to England, if you desire it, and you may insist upon and claim it. Prerogative is as necessary as law, and it is for the good of the whole that there be always power in being able to act; and where there is a right of power, it will be abused so long as it is in the hands of weak men, and the less pious the more apt to miscarry; but right may not be denied because it may be abused."

After the Court had adopted its answer of refusal to the King's signification, Mr. Bradstreet said: "I fear we take not a right course for our safety. It is clear that this signification is from his Majesty. I do desire to have it remembered that I do dissent, and desire to have it recorded that I dissent, from that part of it as is an answer to the King's signification." Major Dennison declared his dissent from the letter to Mr. Morrice, as not being proportionate to the end desired, and he hoped, intended, and desired it might be entered—namely, due satisfaction to his Majesty, and the preservation of the peace and liberty of the colony.[153]

It is clear from the foregoing facts that the alleged invasion of chartered rights and privileges put forth by the ruling party of Massachusetts Bay was a mere pretext to cover the long-cherished pretensions (called by them "dear-bought rights") to absolute independence; that is, the domination of the Congregationalist Government, to the exclusion of the Crown, to proscribe from the elective franchise and eligibility to office all but Congregationalists, and to persecute all who differed from them in either religious or political opinion, including their control and suppression of the freedom of the press.[154][Pg 184] They persisted in the cruel persecution of their Baptist brethren as well as of the Quakers, notwithstanding the King had established the fullest religious liberty by Royal Charter, granted in 1663 to the Colonies of Connecticut and Rhode Island, and had by his letters in 1662 and 1664, and subsequently, forbidden religious persecution and prescribed religious toleration as a condition of the continuance of the Charter in Massachusetts Bay Colony.[155]

I will give in a note, from the records of their own Court, their persecuting proceedings against certain Baptists in April, 1666, six years after the Restoration.[156]

[Pg 185]

The Puritan historian, Neal, writing under date three years later, 1669, says: "The displeasure of the Government ran very high against the Anabaptists and Quakers at this time. The Anabaptists had gathered one Church at Swanzey, and another at Boston, but the General Court was very severe in putting the laws in execution against them, whereby many honest people were ruined by fines, imprisonment, and banishment, which was the more extraordinary because their brethren in England were groaning under persecution from the Church of England at the same time. Sad complaints were sent over to England every summer of the severity of the Government[Pg 186] against the Anabaptists, which obliged the dissenting ministers in London to appear at length in their favour. A letter was accordingly sent over to the Governor of Massachusetts, signed by Dr. Goodwin, Dr. Owen, Mr. Nie, Mr. Caryl, and nine other ministers, beseeching him to make use of his authority and interest for restoring such to their liberty as were in prison on account of religion, and that their sanguinary laws might not be put in execution in future." [Mr. Neal gives the letter, and then proceeds.] "But the excellent letter made no impression upon them; the prisoners were not released, nor the execution of the laws suspended; nay, so far from this, that ten years after, in the year 1679, a General Synod being called to inquire into the evils that provoked the Lord to bring his judgments on New England, they mention these among the rest, 'Men have set up their thresholds by God's threshold, and their posts by God's post; Quakers are false worshippers, and such Anabaptists as have risen up among us, in opposition to the Churches of the Lord Jesus,' etc., etc."

"Wherefore it must needs be provoking to God if these things be not duly and fully testified against by every one in their several capacities respectively."[158]

The present of two large masts and a ship-load of timber; successive obsequious and evasive addresses; explanations of agents; compliance in some particulars with the Royal requirements in regard to the oath of allegiance, and administering the law, so far appeased the King's Government that further action was suspended for a time in regard to enforcing the granting of the elective franchise, eligibility to office, and liberty of worship to other than Congregationalists,[159] especially as the attention of[Pg 187] Charles was absorbed by exciting questions at home, by his war with Holland, which he bitterly hated, and his intrigues with France, on which he became a paid dependant. But the complaints and appeals to the King from neighbouring colonies of the invasion of individual and territorial rights by the Court of Massachusetts Bay, and from the persecuted and proscribed inhabitants of their own colony, awakened at last the renewed attention of the King's Government to the proceedings of the Massachusetts Bay rulers. The letter which the King was advised to address to them is kind and conciliatory in its tone; but it shows that while the King, as he had declared in his first letter, addressed to them seventeen years before, recognized the "Congregational way of worship," he insisted on toleration of the worship of Episcopalians, Baptists, etc., and the civil rights and privileges of their members,[161] denied by these "fathers of[Pg 188] American liberty" to the very last; until then, power of proscription and persecution was wrested from them by the cancelling of their Charter.

The chief requirements of this letter were, as stated by Mr. Hutchinson:

"1. That agents be sent over in six months, fully instructed to answer and transact what was undetermined at that time.

"2. That freedom and liberty of conscience be given to such persons as desire to serve God in the way of the Church of [Pg 189]England, so as not to be thereby made obnoxious, or discountenanced from their sharing in the government, much less that they, or any other of his Majesty's subjects (not being Papists) who do not agree in the Congregational way, be by law subject to fines or forfeitures or other incapacities.

"3. That no other distinction be observed in making freemen than that they be men of competent estates, rateable at ten shillings, according to the rules of the place, and that such in their turns be capable of the magistracy, and all laws made void that obstruct the same.

"4. That the ancient number of eighteen assistants be observed, as by Charter. (They had been limited to eight or ten.)

"5. That all persons coming to any privilege, trust or office, take the oath of allegiance.

"6. That all military commissions as well as proceedings of justice run in his Majesty's name.

"7. That all laws repugnant to, and inconsistent with, the laws of England for trade, be abolished."[164]

There were certain injunctions in regard to complaints from neighbouring colonies; but the necessity for such injunctions as those above enumerated, and stated more at large in the King's letter, as stated in note on p. 187, given for the third or fourth time the nineteenth year after the Restoration, shows the disloyal proscriptions and persecuting character of the Government of Massachusetts Bay, and the great forbearance of the King's Government in continuing the Charter while the conditions of its proposed continuance were constantly violated.

Dr. Palfrey speaks of these requirements, and the whole policy[Pg 190] of the King's Government, as "usurpations" on the chartered rights of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. But let any reader say in which of the above seven requirements there is the slightest "usurpation" on any right of a British subject; whether there is anything that any loyal British subject would not freely acknowledge and respond to; requirements unhesitatingly obeyed by all the colonies except that of Massachusetts Bay alone, and which have been observed by every British Province of America for the last hundred years, and are observed by the Dominion of Canada at this day.

Dr. Palfrey, referring to this period (1676-82), says: "Lord Clarendon's scheme of colonial policy was now ripe," but he does not adduce a word from Lord Clarendon to show what that policy was only by insinuations and assertions, and assumes it to have been the subversion of the rights and liberties of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Lord Clarendon, in his letter to the Governor Endicot, given above, pp. 160,161, explains his colonial policy, which was not only to maintain the Charter in its integrity, but to see that its provisions and objects were not violated but fulfilled, and that while the Congregational worship should not be interfered with, the Congregational Government should not proscribe from the elective franchise and liberty of worship the members of other Protestant denominations. The Hon. Robert Boyle, the philosopher and benefactor of New England, and President of the New England Society for Propagation of the Gospel among the Indians, expressed the same views with Lord Clarendon, and there is not a shadow of proof that Lord Clarendon ever entertained any other policy in regard to New England than that which he expressed in his letter to Governor Endicot in 1664.

Dr. Palfrey and other New England historians occupy four-fifths of their pages with accounts of the continental proceedings of the Governments of the Stuarts, and their oppressions and persecutions of Nonconformists in England, and then assume that their policy was the same in regard to the New England Colonies, and that the Massachusetts Bay Colony was therefore the champion defender of colonial liberties, in denying responsibility to the Imperial Government for its acts, and refusing the usual oaths, and acts of allegiance to the Throne; whereas their assumptions (for they are nothing else) are [Pg 191]unsupported by a single fact, and are contradicted, without exception, by the declarations and acts of the Government of Charles the Second, as well as by those of his royal father. Language can hardly exaggerate or reprobate in too strong terms the cruel persecutions of dissenters from the Established Episcopal Church in England, by both Charles the First and Charles the Second; but the Congregational Government of Massachusetts Bay exceeded that of the Charleses in proscribing and persecuting dissenters from their Established Congregational Churches in that colony; and as well might Messrs. Palfrey, Bancroft, and other New England historians maintain that, because Congregationalists contended for liberty of worship for themselves in England, they practised it in regard to those who did not agree with them in worship in Massachusetts Bay. The proscription and persecution of Congregationalists and Baptists by Episcopalian rulers in England were outrivalled by the Congregational rulers in their proscriptions and persecutions of Episcopalians and Baptists in Massachusetts.

It is also assumed by the New England historians referred to that the King's advisers had intimated the intention of appointing a Governor-General over the Colonies of New England to see to the observance of their Charters and of the Navigation Laws; but wherein did this infringe the rights or privileges of any Colonial Charter? Wherein did it involve any more than rightful attention to Imperial authority and interests? Wherein has the appointment or office of a Governor-General of British North America, in addition to the Lieutenant-Governor of each province, ever been regarded to this day as an infringement of the rights and privileges of any Legislature or British subject in the colonies? Wherein has the right of appeal by any colony or party to the Supreme Courts or authorities of England, against the decisions of local Courts or local executive acts, been regarded as an infringement of colonial rights, or other than a protection to colonial subjects? When has the right of appeal by parties in any of the neighbouring States, to the Supreme Court at Washington, been held to be an invasion of the rights of such States?

The rulers of Massachusetts Bay Colony concealed and secreted their Charter; they then represented it as containing[Pg 192] provisions which no Royal Charter in the world ever contained; they represented the King as having abdicated, and excluded himself from all authority over them as a colony or as individuals; they denied that Parliament itself had any authority to legislate for any country on the western side of the Atlantic; they virtually claimed absolute independence, erasing the oath of allegiance from their records, proscribing and persecuting all nonconformists to the Congregational worship, invading the territories of other colonies and then maintaining their invasions by military force, denying the authority of Great Britain or of any power on earth to restrict or interfere with their acts. The New England historians referred to are compelled to confess that the Royal Charter contained no such provisions or powers as the rulers of Massachusetts Bay pretended; yet their narratives and argumentations and imputations upon the British Government assume the truth of the fabulous representations of the Charter, and treat not only every act of the King as royal tyranny, but every suspicion of what the King might do as a reality, and the hostility of the Massachusetts Bay Government as a defence of constitutional rights and resistance of royal despotism. But in these laboured and eloquent philippics against the Government of the Restoration, they seem to forget that the Parliament and Government of the Commonwealth and Cromwell asserted far larger powers over the colonies than did the Government and Parliament of Charles the Second (as is seen by their Act and appointments in their enactments quoted above, pp. 88-90).

The Commonwealth appointed a Governor-General (the Earl of Warwick), Commissioners with powers to remove and appoint Colonial Governors and other local officers; whereas the Commissioners appointed by Charles the Second had no authority to remove or appoint a single local Governor or other officer, to annul or enact a single law, but to inquire and report; and even as a Court of Appeal their proceedings and decisions were to be reported for final action in England.

The famous Act of Navigation itself, which ultimately became the chief ground of the American revolutionary war, was passed by the Commonwealth, though, by a collusion between Cromwell and the rulers of Massachusetts Bay, its provisions were[Pg 193] evaded in that colony, while rigorously enforced in the other colonies.[165]

In the first year of Charles the Second this Act was renewed, with some additional provisions.[166]

But to return to the correspondence between the King's Government and the rulers of Massachusetts Bay. It may be supposed that after the King had promised, in 1662, to forget past offences and continue the justly forfeited Royal Charter upon certain conditions, and that those conditions were evaded by various devices during nearly twenty years, the Royal patience would become exhausted, and that, instead of the gentle instructions and remonstrances which had characterized his former letters, the King would adopt more severe and imperative language. Hence in his next letter, September 30, 1680, to the Governor and Council of the Massachusetts, he commences in the following words:

"Charles R.

"Trusty and well beloved, we greet you well. When by our Royal letter, bearing date the 24th day of July, in the one and thirtieth year of our reign, we signified unto you our gracious[Pg 194] inclination to have all past deeds forgotten, setting before you the means whereby you might deserve our pardon, and commanding your ready obedience to several particulars therein contained, requiring withall a speedy compliance with the intimations of your duty given to your late agents during their attendance here, all which we esteem essential to your quiet settlement and natural obedience due unto us. We then little thought that those marks of our grace and favour should have found no better acceptance among you, but that, before all things, you should have given preference to the execution of our commands, when after so many months we come to understand by a letter from you to one of our principal Secretaries of State, dated the 21st of May last, that very few of our directions have been pursued by your General Court, the further consideration of the remaining particulars having been put off upon insufficient pretences, and even wholly neglecting your appointment of other agents which were required to be sent over unto us within six months after the receipt of our said letters, with full instructions to attend our Royal pleasure herein in relation to that our Government."

Among other matters, the King "strictly commanded and required" them, "as they tendered their allegiance," to despatch such agents within three months after their reception of the order, and with full powers to satisfy his Majesty on the subjects of complaint; and "he ended the letter," says Mr. Palfrey, "with a very definite injunction:"

"That the due observance of all our commands above mentioned may not be any longer protracted, we require you, upon receipt thereof, forthwith to call a General Court, and therein to read these our letters and provide for our speedy satisfaction, and in default thereof we shall take the most effectual means to procure the same. And so we bid you farewell."[167]

This letter led to the calling of a "Special General Court," January, 1681, in which very protracted debates ensued on the revision of the laws, so long delayed, and the election of agents to England according to the King's command. Samuel Nowell and John Richards were elected agents to England, but were restricted by instructions which forbade conceding anything[Pg 195] from their original Charter pretensions, and therefore rendered their agency an insult to the Government and the King, and hastened the catastrophe which they so much dreaded, the cancelling of their Charter.

In the meantime, to appease the displeasure of the Crown, they passed several Acts which had the appearance of obedience to the Royal commands, but which they were careful not to carry into effect.[168] I will give two or three examples.

They enacted "that the Acts of Trade and Navigation should be forthwith proclaimed in the market-place of Boston by beat of drum, and that all clauses in said Acts relating to this Plantation should be strictly taken notice of and observed." This appears very plausible, and is so quoted by Dr. Palfrey; but he does not add that care was taken that it should not be carried into effect. And to accomplish their purposes, and to assert the subordination of the Royal authority to their own local authority, "they constituted naval officers, one for Boston, the other for 'Salem and adjacent parts,' to be commissioned by the Governor, and to exercise powers of a nature to control the Collector appointed in England."[169]

After nearly twenty years' delay and evasions, they enacted, in 1679, "that the Governor, Deputy Governor, and Magistrates should take the oath of allegiance 'without any reservation,' in[Pg 196] the words sent them by his Majesty's orders; but instead of the 'reservation' in their form of oath in former Acts, they virtually neutralized the oath by an Act requiring a prior preliminary oath of fidelity to the local Government,[170] an Act which the Board of Colonial Plantations viewed as 'derogatory to his Majesty's honour, as well as defective in point of their own duty.'"

They instructed their agents in England to represent that there was no colonial law "prohibiting any such as were of the persuasion of the Church of England." The design of this statement plainly was to impress upon the mind of the King's Government that there was no obstruction to the worship and ordinances of the Church of England, and that the elective franchise and privilege of worship were as open to Episcopalians as to Congregationalists—the reverse of fact. After repeated letters from the King in favour of toleration as one of the conditions of continuing their Charter, notwithstanding their past violation of it, they professed to comply with the royal injunctions, but their professed compliance amounted practically to nothing, as they had evidently intended. The King's Commissioners had said to the Massachusetts Bay Court on this subject: "For the use of the Common Prayer Book: His Majesty doth not impose the use of the Common Prayer Book on any; but he understands that liberty of conscience comprehends every man's conscience, as well as any particular, and thinks that all his subjects should have equal right." To this the Massachusetts Court replied: "Concerning the use of the Common Prayer[Pg 197] Book and ecclesiastical privileges, our humble addresses to his Majesty have fully declared our main ends, in our being voluntary exiles from our dear native country, which we had not chosen at so dear a rate, could we have seen the word of God warranting us to perform our devotions in that way; and to have the same set up here, we conceive it is apparent that it will disturb our peace in our present enjoyment."[171]

But afterwards they found it dangerous longer to resist the King's commands, and professed to obey them by providing that those who were not Congregationalists might exercise the elective franchise, provided that, in addition to taking the oath of fidelity to the local Government, and paying a rate which was not paid by one in a hundred, and obtaining a certificate from the Congregational minister as to their being blameless in words and orthodox in religion, they were then approved by the Court. The right of franchise was possessed by every member of any Congregational Church, whether he had property or not, or paid rate or not;[172] not so with any other inhabitant, unless he adduced proof that he had paid rate, produced a certificate of character and of orthodoxy in religion, signed by a Congregational minister, and was approved by the Court. No instance is recorded of any Episcopalian ever having obtained the [Pg 198]freedom of the colony under such conditions; "nor," as Mr. Hutchinson says, "was there any Episcopal Church in any part of the colony until the Charter was vacated."[174]

The Court of Massachusetts Bay also instructed their agents in England, in 1682, to represent that "as for Anabaptists, they were now subject to no other penal statutes than those of the Congregational way." But as late as the spring of 1680 the General Court forbade the Baptists to assemble for their worship in a meeting-house which they had built in Boston.[175] The statement which they instructed their agents to make in England was clearly intended to convey the impression that the Baptist worship was equally allowed with the Congregational worship; but though penalties against individual Baptists may have been relaxed, their worship was no more tolerated than that of the Episcopalian until the cancelling of the Charter.

The same kind of misleading evasion was practised upon the Government in England in regard to the Quakers, as in respect to the Baptists, the Episcopalians, and the elective franchise. The agents of the colony in England were instructed to state that the "severe laws to prevent the violent and impetuous[Pg 199] intrusions of the Quakers had been suspended;" but they did not say that laws less severe had been substituted, and that fines and imprisonments were imposed upon any party who should be present at a Quakers' meeting. Yet, as late as 1677, the Court of Massachusetts Bay made a law "That every person found at a Quakers' meeting shall be apprehended, ex officio, by the constable, and by warrant from a magistrate or commissioner shall be committed to the House of Correction, and there have the discipline of the house applied to him, and be kept to work, with bread and water, for three days, and then released, or else shall pay five pounds in money as a fine to the country for such offence; and all constables neglecting their duty in not faithfully executing this order, shall incur the penalty of five pounds upon conviction, one-third thereof to the informer."[176]

They likewise instructed their agents in England to give assurance "That the Acts of Trade, so far as they concerned the colony, should be strictly observed, and that all due encouragement[Pg 200] and assistance should be given to his Majesty's officers and informers that might prosecute the breaches of said Acts of Trade and Navigation."[177] But while as a Court they professed this in their records and through their agents in England, officers were elected in the colony who would not execute the law, and so not a farthing of duties was collected under it at Massachusetts Bay.

Thus for twenty years the rulers of Massachusetts Bay resisted and evaded the six conditions on which King Charles the[Pg 201] Second, after his restoration, proposed to overlook and pardon their past offences and perpetuate the Charter given to them by his Royal father; for twenty years the King, without committing a single unconstitutional or oppressive act against them, or without demanding anything which Queen Victoria does not receive, this day, from every colony of the British Empire, endured their evasions and denials of his authority and insults of his Commissioners and officers. In all the despatches of the King's Government to the rulers of Massachusetts Bay, during these twenty years, as the reader of the preceding pages will have seen, the spirit of kindness, and a full recognition of their rights in connection with those of the Crown, were predominant.

This they repeatedly acknowledged in their addresses to the King. They pretended the Royal Charter gave them absolute independence; and on that absurd interpretation and lawless assumption they maintained a continuous contest with the mother country for more than fifty years. Every party in England, and the Commonwealth as well as Royalty, maintained the right of King and Parliament to be the supreme tribunal of appeal and control in America as well as in England; while the rulers of Massachusetts Bay Colony alone, in contradistinction to all the other British colonies in America, denied in short the authority of both King and Parliament, though often amidst wordy professions of personal loyalty to the Throne. Mr. Bancroft well sums up the history of Massachusetts pretensions and intolerance in the sentences: "Massachusetts owned no King but the King of Heaven." "Massachusetts gave franchises to the members of the visible Church," but "inexorably disfranchised Churchmen, Royalists, and all the world's people." "In Massachusetts, the songs of Deborah and David were sung without change; hostile Algonquins like the Canaanites were exterminated or enslaved; and a peevish woman was hanged, because it was written, 'The witch shall die.'"[178]

No hostile pen ever presented in so few and expressive words the character and policy of the Government of Massachusetts Bay during the whole existence of the first Charter, as is presented in these words of their eulogist Bancroft; and these words express the causes of their contests with the Crown[Pg 202] and Parliament, of their proscription and persecution of the majority of their fellow-colonists not of their politics or form of worship, and of their dealing at pleasure with the territories of their neighbours,[179] and the lands and lives of the Indian tribes.