The Loyalists of America and Their Times Volume I Part 6
"The generall rumor of this solemne enterprise, wherein ourselves, with others, through the providence of the Almightie, are engaged, as it may spare us the labour of imparting our occasion unto you, so it gives us the more incouragement to strengthen ourselves by the procurement of the prayers and blessings of the Lord's faithful servants: For which end wee are bold to have recourse unto you, as those whom G.o.d hath placed nearest his throne of mercy; which, as it affords you the more opportunitie, so it imposeth the greater bond upon you to intercede for his people in all their straights. We beseech you, therefore, by the mercies of the Lord Jesus, to consider us as your Brethren, standing in very great need of your helpe, and earnestly imploring it. And howsoever your charitie may have met with some occasion of discouragement through the misreport of our intentions, or through the disaffection or indiscretion of some of us, or rather amongst us, for wee are not of those that dreame of perfection in this world; yet we desire you would be pleased to take notice of the princ.i.p.als and body of our Company, as those who esteeme it an honour to call the Church of England, from whence we rise, our deare Mother, and cannot part from our native countrie, where she specially resideth, without much sadness of heart and many tears in our eyes, ever acknowledging that such hope and part as we have obtained in the common salvation, we have received it in her bosome, and suckt it from her b.r.e.a.s.t.s: Wee leave it not, therefore, as loathing the milk wherewith wee were nourished there; but blessing G.o.d for the parentage and education, as members of the same body shall always rejoice in her good, and unfeignedly grieve for any sorrow that shall ever betide her; and, while we have breath, sincerely desire and endeavour the continuance and abundance of her welfare, with the enlargement of her bounds in the kingdome of Christ Jesus.
"Be pleased, therefore, Reverend Fathers and Brethren, to helpe forward this worke now in hand; which, if it prosper, you shall be the more glorious; howsoever, your judgment is with the Lord, and your reward with your G.o.d. It is an usuall and laudable exercise of your charity to recommend to the prayers of your congregations the necessities and straights of your private neighbours. Doe the like for a Church springing out of your owne bowels. Wee conceive much hope that this remembrance of us, if it be frequent and fervent, will bee a most prosperous gale in our sailes, and provide such a pa.s.sage and welcome for us from the G.o.d of the whole earth, as both we which shall finde it, and yourselves with the rest of our friends who shall heare of it, shall be much enlarged to bring in such daily returns of thanksgivings, as the specialties of his Providence and Goodnes may justly challenge at all our hands. You are not ignorant that the Spirit of G.o.d stirred up the Apostle Paul to make continuall mention of the Church of Philippi (which was a colonie of Rome); let the same Spirit, we beseech you, put you in mind, that are the Lord's Remembrancers, to pray for us without ceasing (who are a weake Colony from yourselves), making continuall request for us to G.o.d in all your prayers.
"What we entreat of you, that are the ministers of G.o.d, that we crave at the hands of all the rest of our Brethren, that they would at no time forget us in their private solicitations at the throne of grace.
"If any there be, who, through want of clear intelligence of our course, or tendernesses of affection towards us, cannot conceive so well of our way as we could desire, we would entreat such not to despise us, nor to desert us in their prayers and affections; but to consider rather that they are so much the more bound to expresse the bowels of their compa.s.sion towards us; remembering alwaies that both Nature and Grace doth binde us to relieve and rescue, with our utmost and speediest power, such as are deare unto us, when we conceive them to be running uncomfortable hazards.
"What goodness you shall extend to us, in this or any other Christian kindnesse, wee, your Brethren in Christ Jesus, shall labour to repay, in what dutie wee are or shall be able to performe; promising, so farre as G.o.d shall enable us, to give him no rest on your behalfes, wishing our heads and hearts may be as fountains of tears for your everlasting welfare, when wee shall be in our poore cottages in the wildernesse, overshadowed with the spirit of supplication, through the manifold necessities and tribulations which may, not altogether unexpectedly nor we hope unprofitably, befall us.
"And so commending you to the Grace of G.o.d in Christ, we shall ever rest
"Your a.s.sured Friends and Brethren."
Signed by JOHN WINTHROP, _Governor_;
Charles Fines, George Philips, Richard Saltonstall, Isaac Johnson, Thomas Dudley, William Coddington, &c., and was dated "From Yarmouth, aboard the _Arabella_, April 7, 1630."]
[Footnote 56: History of the United States, Vol. I., p. 273.
In a note, Mr. Bancroft says:--"The Editor of Winthrop did me the kindness to read to me _unpublished letters_ which are in his possession, and _which prove that the Puritans in England were amazed as well as alarmed at the boldness of their brethren in Ma.s.sachusetts_."
(_Ib._)
Why have these letters remained unpublished, when every line from any opposed to Endicot and his party, however private and confidential, has been published to the world? The very fact that all the letters of Endicot and the Browns, and of the Puritans who wrote on the subject, according to Mr. Bancroft, have been suppressed, affords very strong ground to believe that the Ma.s.sachusetts Puritans violated the acknowledged objects of the Charter and the terms of their settlement, and committed the first breach of faith to their Sovereign, and inculcated that spirit and commenced that series of acts which resulted in the dismemberment of the British Empire in America.]
[Footnote 57: The General a.s.sembly of the Province of Maryland pa.s.sed an Act in 1649 containing the following provision:
"No person whatsoever, in this province, professing to believe in Jesus Christ, shall from henceforth be anywise troubled or molested for his or her religion, or in the free exercise thereof, or any way compelled to the belief or exercise of any other religion against his or her consent."
Mr. Bancroft says: "Christianity was made the law of the land [in Maryland], and no preference was given to any sect, and equality in religious rights, no less than civil freedom, was a.s.sured."]
PART IV.
CONTEST BETWEEN KING CHARLES AND THE Ma.s.sACHUSETTS BAY PURITANS, DURING TEN TEARS, FROM 1630 TO 1640; PROFESSIONS OF THE PURITANS ON LEAVING ENGLAND; THEIR CONDUCT ON ARRIVING AT Ma.s.sACHUSETTS 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 Ma.s.sACHUSETTS 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 Ma.s.sACHUSETTS BAY; ROYAL AND COLONIAL RESTRICTIONS ON EMIGRATION; IT CEASES; COLONIAL PROPERTY AND TRADE DEPRESSED; REVIEW OF THE TREATMENT OF Ma.s.sACHUSETTS 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 superst.i.tious," and many ministers were ejected from their benefices for nonconformity to them; but none of the nonconformists who refused compliance with such "corrupt and superst.i.tious" ceremonies ever professed that the _polity_ and _worship_ of the Church was "corrupt and superst.i.tious," and should therefore be renounced, much less abolished, as did Endicot and his party at Ma.s.sachusetts Bay, and that twenty years before the death of Charles the First and the usurpation of Cromwell.[58]
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 Ma.s.sachusetts Bay and a.s.suming 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 Ma.s.sachusetts 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]
But though the Editor of Winthrop has suppressed the letters which would explain how Mr. Winthrop changed from Episcopalianism to Congregationalism on his a.s.suming the government of Ma.s.sachusetts 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; Ma.s.sachusetts, 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 G.o.d."[60]
It thus appears that the new Congregationalists of Ma.s.sachusetts 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 Ma.s.sachusetts, 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 Ma.s.sachusetts 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 a.s.sure us that on the settlement of the Puritans at Ma.s.sachusetts 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, const.i.tuted 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 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 Ma.s.sachusetts 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 Ma.s.sachusetts 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 Ma.s.sachusetts 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 Ma.s.sachusetts, 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 Ma.s.sachusetts 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 Ma.s.sachusetts. 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 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 Ma.s.sachusetts Company had encroached upon the territory held by them under Royal Charter--territory which afterwards const.i.tuted portions of New Hampshire and Maine. Were the King and Privy Council to be precluded from inquiring into such complaints? Yet New England historians a.s.sail 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 pet.i.tioners are held up as slanderers and enemies, and the King and Council represented as acting tyrannically and as infringing the rights of the Ma.s.sachusetts 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 Ma.s.sachusetts 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 Ma.s.sachusetts 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]
In regard to these proceedings, the reader's attention is directed to the following facts: 1. The princ.i.p.al charges of the complainants were denied--resting to be proved by parties that must be called from that place [Ma.s.sachusetts], which required long, expensive time, "and were in due time further to be inquired into;" and the Ma.s.sachusetts Corporation took effectual precaution against any doc.u.mentary 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 "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 Ma.s.sachusetts Bay?
Must it not have been by their a.s.suring the King's Council that the worship of the Church of England had not been abolished in Ma.s.sachusetts, 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 Ma.s.sachusetts 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 Ma.s.sachusetts 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 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 Ma.s.sachusetts, 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 disfranchis.e.m.e.nt of all Planters who would not join the Congregational Church, in spite of the efforts of the dominant party in Ma.s.sachusetts 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, "surrept.i.tiously" carried from England to Ma.s.sachusetts, new councillors appointed, and the whole government set up at Ma.s.sachusetts 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 Ma.s.sachusetts, 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 than three years of secrecy, the act became known to the King and Privy Council?[63]
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 Ma.s.sachusetts 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 Ma.s.sachusetts 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, 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 Ma.s.sachusetts 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 a.s.sistants and the deputies discovered their minds to one another,' and the fortifications were hastened. All the ministers a.s.sembled 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 Ma.s.sachusetts Bay in their determining to resist the appointment of a general officer to which no other British colony had, or has, ever objected.[65] The decision in their behalf by the King in Council, in regard to the complaints made against them in 1632, deserved their grat.i.tude; the a.s.surance 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 Ma.s.sachusetts 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 Ma.s.sachusetts Bay a.s.sumed not merely the liberty of worship for themselves, 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 Ma.s.sachusetts 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 Ma.s.sachusetts 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 Ma.s.sachusetts 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 Ma.s.sachusetts Bay and its members disfranchised; and when it now came to light that the Charter had been secretly transferred from England to Ma.s.sachusetts, 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 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 a.s.sail King Charles and his Council for such an Act should remember that Cromwell himself and his Rump Parliament pa.s.sed 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 Ma.s.sachusetts General Court pa.s.sed 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 Ma.s.sachusetts, 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 judicial investigation and decision. The Grand Council of Plymouth, from which the Ma.s.sachusetts 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 partic.i.p.ation 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 Ma.s.sachusetts 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 Ma.s.sachusetts 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 Ma.s.sachusetts (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 Ma.s.sachusetts 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 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 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 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 Ma.s.sachusetts, 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: