The History of the Thirteen Colonies of North America 1497-1763
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Title: The History of the Thirteen Colonies of North America 1497-1763
Author: Reginald W. Jeffery
Release date: July 15, 2012 [eBook #40244]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
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THE HISTORY OF THE THIRTEEN COLONIES OF NORTH AMERICA
[Illustration: GEORGE WASHINGTON _From the painting attributed
to Gilbert Stuart in the National Portrait Gallery._]
THE HISTORY
OF THE THIRTEEN COLONIES
OF NORTH AMERICA
1497-1763
BY
REGINALD W. JEFFERY, M.A.
BRASENOSE COLLEGE, OXFORD
WITH EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS AND A MAP
METHUEN & CO.
36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDON
_First Published in 1908_
PREFACE
It has been my object in this small book to put into a handy form a
short narrative of the History of the Thirteen Colonies. In the limited
space at my command I have endeavoured to give as often as possible the
actual words of contemporaries, hoping that the reader may thereby be
tempted to search further for himself amongst the mass of documentary
evidence which still needs so much careful study. I cannot send this
book into the world without acknowledging my indebtedness to both the
Beit Professor of Colonial History, Mr H. E. Egerton, and the Beit
Lecturer on Colonial History, Mr W. L. Grant, whose kind suggestions
have proved most valuable. At the same time I must thank Mr E. L. S.
Horsburgh, for by his action the writing of this little work was made
possible.
R. W. J.
OXFORD, 1908
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION: EARLY ENGLISH VOYAGES TO NORTH AMERICA
Spanish, French, and Dutch colonisation--English colonisation
--The Cabotian discoveries--The Cabots' second voyage--The
Bull of Alexander VI.--The voyages of John Rut and Master Hore
--Newfoundland Fishery--Cabot, Willoughby, and Chancellor--The
attraction of the West--The North-West Passage--Martin
Frobisher--Sir Humphrey Gilbert--Sir John Hawkins and Sir
Francis Drake--Sir Walter Raleigh--The Elizabethan Period 1
CHAPTER II
VIRGINIA: THE FIRST GREAT COLONY OF THE BRITISH
Character of the men--Raleigh's Virginian colonies--Motives
for colonisation--Gosnold and Pring--Richard Hakluyt--Elizabeth
and James I.--Formation of the London and Plymouth Companies--
The government of the London Company--The Virginian settlers--
Foundation of Jamestown--Captain John Smith--The lust for gold
--Smith's good work--English interest in Virginia--Sir George
Somers and Sir Thomas Gates--Lord Delawarr--Improvements in
Virginia--The Princess Pocahontas--Samuel Argall--Sir Thomas
Dale--Yeardley and the first Representative Assembly--The
Company in danger--The abolition of the Company--A change in
the character of Virginian history--Wyatt and Harvey as
Governors--A land of peace and plenty--Sir William Berkeley
--Trouble with the Indians--Virginia and the Civil War--
Berkeley's dislike of education--Arlington and Culpeper--
Virginia under Berkeley--Bacon's rising--Sir Herbert Jeffreys
--Virginia and the Revolution--Virginia in the eighteenth
century--Robert Dinwiddie 19
CHAPTER III
THE COLONISATION OF MARYLAND AND THE CAROLINAS
The colonisation of Maryland--Lord Baltimore--Leonard Calvert
--Quarrel over the Isle of Kent--The Civil War--The Commonwealth
--Lord Baltimore restored--A spirit of unrest in Maryland--
Francis Nicholson--Irreligion of the colonists--Industry in
Maryland--The Carolinas--The foundation of the colony--Its
progress--The Fundamental Constitutions--State of anarchy--
South Carolina--William Sayle--Joseph West--Amalgamation of
the two Carolinas--Danger from French and Spaniards--Queen
Anne's War--Indian troubles--The Treaty of Utrecht--The
Carolinas become a Crown colony--Interest of Carolina history 54
CHAPTER IV
THE PURITANS IN PLYMOUTH AND MASSACHUSETTS
Character of New England colonies--The Plymouth Company--The
Puritans--William Bradford--The Pilgrim Fathers--The
foundation of New Plymouth--Life in the colony--Description
of the colony--Development of government--The Civil War--
Ineffectual attempts to obtain a charter--The foundation of
Massachusetts--Ferdinando Gorges, John White, and John
Endecott--A charter granted--John Winthrop--Government of
Massachusetts--Puritan intolerance--Roger Williams--Harry
Vane, John Wheelwright, and Mrs Anne Hutchinson--Harvard
College--The New England Confederacy--Massachusetts and the
Home Government--Brutality to Quakers--King Philip's War--
Edward Randolph's complaints--The rule of Sir Edmund Andros
--The Revolution of 1688--A new charter--Sir William Phipps
--The Earl of Bellomont and Governor Fletcher--Advance of
the colony 76
CHAPTER V
CONNECTICUT; RHODE ISLAND AND PROVIDENCE PLANTATION; NEW
HAVEN; MAINE; NEW HAMPSHIRE
Quarrelsome provinces--The foundation of Connecticut--The Pequod
War--The Restoration--Sir Edmund Andros--Connecticut's progress
--Foundation of Rhode Island and Providence Plantation--Samuel
Gorton--Government of the colony--The Royal Commissioners in
Rhode Island--James II. and the Revolution--The foundation of
New Haven--The regicides in New Haven--The foundation of Maine
--Sir Ferdinando Gorges--The Restoration in Maine--Descriptions
of Maine--Gorges sells his rights--The foundation of New
Hampshire--The greed of Massachusetts--New Hampshire and the
Revolution--The necessity of union 107
CHAPTER VI
THE FIGHT WITH THE DUTCH FOR THEIR SETTLEMENT OF NEW NETHERLANDS
The Dutch Wars--The position of New York--The New Netherlands
--Stuyvesant's attack on New Sweden--Nicolls' attack on the
New Netherlands--Splendid work of Nicolls--The character of
New York--Government of New York and Albany--Francis Lovelace
--The Dutch recapture New York--New Jersey--Thomas Dongan--The
Leisler Rising--Lack of a Constitution--The Earl of Bellomont
and Lord Cornbury--Governors of the early eighteenth century
--Lucrative character of governor's post 128
CHAPTER VII
THE QUAKER SETTLEMENTS AND GEORGIA
The Quakers in America--East and West New Jersey--Delaware--
The Jerseys under one governor--The Jerseys united--William
Penn--The foundation of Pennsylvania--Philadelphia--Penn's
constitution--The Revolution and after--Penn regains
proprietorship--Intercolonial disputes--An asylum of rest--
John and Thomas Penn--The foundation of Georgia--Oglethorpe's
difficulties--John and Charles Wesley--War with Spain--Attack
on St. Augustine--Oglethorpe's daring--Quarrels concerning
slavery--Oglethorpe's work--Georgia becomes a Crown colony--
The coming struggle with France 146
CHAPTER VIII
THE SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY OF NEW ENGLAND
Population of Puritan colonies--Towns--Wooden houses--Industry
and commerce--Minor industries--Shipbuilding--Eighteenth-century
commerce--Agriculture--Want of money--The colonial mint--Paper
money--Wages and prices--The poor-law--Slavery--Missionary
efforts--Religion--Education--Literature--Printing--Means of
travel--Curious laws--The character of the settlers 168
CHAPTER IX
THE SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY OF THE SOUTHERN
AND MIDDLE COLONIES
Character of the colonies--Classes in colonial society--
Indentured servants--Slavery--White population--Industry
and commerce--Money--Education--Literature--Religion--Town
life--Conclusion 187
CHAPTER X
THE FRENCH COLONIES IN NORTH AMERICA
Early French voyages--Jacques Cartier--The Marquis de la Roche
--Samuel Champlain--A passage to the East--The Franciscans and
Jesuits--The Company of the One Hundred Associates--Character
of Champlain--Colbert and colonisation--The Company of the West
--System of government--Count Frontenac--Western discoveries--
Joliet and Marquette--La Salle--The Mississippi--La Salle's great
expedition--His failure--His place in history--The Iroquois--The
Treaty of Utrecht 200
CHAPTER XI
FRENCH AGGRESSION
The colonies were not united--Dongan and Denonville--King
William's war--The Albany Conference--Expedition against Quebec
--The Abenaki Indians--Incapacity of the colonies--The Treaty
of Ryswick--The War of the Spanish Succession--The horrors of
Indian warfare--Samuel Vetch--Colonial jealousies--English
indifference--The capture of Acadia--Colonial fear of English
interference--The English view of the colonials--The Hill-Walker
expedition--Walker's cowardice--The character of the expedition
--The Treaty of Utrecht--A lost opportunity--Relations between
Indians and Canadian Government--The French scheme--Crown Point
--The War of the Austrian Succession--Louisburg--Character of
forces--The capture of Louisburg--Shirley's plans--The Treaty
of Aix-la-Chapelle 224
CHAPTER XII
THE CLIMAX: THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN ENGLISH AND FRENCH COLONISTS
The colonial share in the capture of Canada--The internal
jealousies of the colonies--French aggression in the Ohio
valley--George Washington--Results of the campaign of 1754--
Character of General Braddock--Schemes for 1755--Braddock's
disaster--The work of Dinwiddie and Johnson--The deportation
of the Acadians--The results of the campaign of 1755--The
Seven Years' War--The character of the Marquis de Montcalm--
Webb, Abercromby, and Loudoun--Unsuccessful attack upon
Louisburg--Montcalm at Fort William Henry--The rise of William
Pitt--The plan of campaign of 1758--The character of General
Wolfe--The capture of Louisburg--Abercromby's disaster at
Ticonderoga--The character of Lord Howe--Capture of Forts
Frontenac and Duquesne--The campaigns of 1759--Amherst's
delay--The siege of Quebec--English despair--The discovery of
the path--Death of Wolfe--Wolfe and Montcalm--The climax--The
collapse of the French Empire in the West--The rise of a new
nation 254
CHRONOLOGY 285
BIBLIOGRAPHY 296
INDEX 299
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
GEORGE WASHINGTON _Frontispiece_
_From the painting attributed to Gilbert Stuart in the
National Portrait Gallery._
_To face page_
SIR FRANCIS DRAKE 14
_From an engraving by J. Honbraken in the British
Museum._
CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH 30
_From an engraving in his "Generall Historie of Virginia."_
MAP OF NORTH AMERICA, 1755 144
WILLIAM PITT, LORD CHATHAM 166
_From the painting by W. Hoare in the National Portrait
Gallery._
QUEBEC FROM POINT LEVY IN 1761 200
_From an engraving by R. Short._
THE MARQUIS DE MONTCALM 246
_From a painting by J. B. Massé._
GENERAL JAMES WOLFE 270
_From the picture by Schaak in the National Portrait
Gallery._
THE DEATH OF WOLFE 278
_After the painting by B. West._
THE HISTORY OF THE THIRTEEN COLONIES
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION: EARLY ENGLISH VOYAGES TO NORTH AMERICA
It would be out of place in this small book to give in detail a history
of all the discoveries which were made along the shores of North and
South America at the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth
centuries. As the main object is to depict briefly the political history
of the Thirteen English Colonies on the North American seaboard, it will
be unnecessary to say more than a few words about the discoverers whose
enterprise and bravery made colonisation possible. With the Spanish,
French, and Dutch voyagers it is not proposed to deal; their stories are
well known, and affected but little the establishment of our early
settlements in the West. Like the British nation, these three peoples
also strove to create lasting empires in America; but unlike their
rival, they failed. The Spaniards made the fatal error of attempting to
settle during the period of exploration. They based their colonies upon
slavery, and a mistaken commercial policy; and the sparseness of their
colonists made them incapable of contending against the pressure of
surrounding savagery. The result was that they, who were without the
traditions of public morality and who were to a certain extent lacking
in administrative powers, became intermixed with the inferior races with
whom they came in contact. The French were no more successful in their
endeavours to establish a New France beyond the sea; they failed, partly
because of the French temperament, and partly through obvious errors.
The French character was buoyant and cheerful--both excellent natural
gifts for colonists--but they were unable to combine the spirit of
adventure with that patient commercial industry which so wonderfully
distinguished the Puritan emigrants. The Dutch might have proved serious
rivals to the British in the West had they been able to rise from the
position of mere traders, and had they had a sufficiently large
population on which to draw. Their commercial system deteriorated,
becoming uneconomic and non-progressive; while their arduous and gallant
struggle against Philip II. and Alva had necessarily handicapped them in
the race for colonial aggrandisement.
The English, in strong contrast to these competitors, never drew a
distinct or sharp line between the soldier and the trader. The story of
Great Britain's expansion contains the names of hundreds of gallant
heroes, but they were at the same time sober and industrious men. The
plodding and commercial characteristics possessed by the British
colonial saved him from perpetrating those foolish errors of the
Spaniard which arose from a desire to gain rapid wealth and a tawdry
glory. One fact stands out pre-eminent amongst the reasons of British
success--the English kept their period of exploration almost entirely
separate from their epoch of settlement. The glorious dreams of
Eldorado, the visions of the golden city of Manoa had been dispersed
like a morning mist when the period of colonisation dawned bright and
clear at the beginning of the seventeenth century.
The period which coincides with the reign of Henry VII. forms one of the
greatest epochs of history; it was indeed the veritable Renaissance, the
birth of the New World. It was at this moment that the history of
America, the modern history of England, and the present history of
Europe practically began. These startling facts were due to the
simultaneous discoveries in the East and the West. The voyages of
Bartholomew Diaz, of Christopher Columbus, and of Vasco de Gama might
well have astonished the world, but seem to have had very little effect
upon the English as a nation. England was not yet ready to take up the
position of Mistress of the Seas; the time was not yet ripe for colonial
advancement. The country, from both political and social points of view,
was still suffering from the confusion and anarchy which had resulted
from the rule of the Lancastrians, and from the chaos left by the Wars
of the Roses. Two men, however, seem to have understood something of the
possibilities that lay open to them in the West. John and his son
Sebastian Cabot, of Genoese stock, but sometime resident in Venice,
sailed, under the patronage of Henry VII., from Bristol, in 1497, to
discover the island of Cathay. John Cabot is described as one who had
"made himself very expert and cunning in knowledge of the circuit of the
world and Ilands of the same, as by a Sea card and other
demonstrations."[1] The royal charter, granted to these men in March
1496, contained a most important clause, "to saile to all parts,
countreys, and seas of the East, of the West, and of the North, under
our banners and ensignes, ... to set up our banners and ensignes in
every village, towne, castle, isle, or maine land of them newly found
... as our vassals, and lieutenants, getting unto us the rule, title,
and jurisdiction of the same."[2] Bacon, in his _History of Henry VII._,
refers to Cabot's now celebrated voyage. "There was one Sebastian
Gabato, a Venetian living in Bristow, a man seen and expert in
cosmography and navigation. This man seeing the success and emulating
perhaps the enterprise of Christopherus Columbus in that fortunate
discovery towards the south-west, which had been by him made some six
years before, conceited with himself that lands might likewise be
discovered towards the north-west. And surely it may be that he had more
firm and pregnant conjectures of it than Columbus had of his at the
first. For the two great islands of the Old and New World, being in the
shape and making of them broad towards the north and pointed towards the
south, it is likely that the discovery just began where the lands did
meet. And there had been before that time a discovery of some lands
which they took to be islands, and were indeed of America towards the
north-west."[3] Bacon is here calling attention to what has since become
the great controversial question of whether or not the Norsemen
discovered the American continent in the eleventh century. It is very
improbable that the Cabots knew anything of this tradition; and this
voyage was solely the outcome of the discoveries of Columbus. Their
object is definitely stated to have been a "great desire to traffique
for the spices as the Portingals did."[4] It is a remarkable fact that
very little is known of this voyage, and there are practically no
English records available in which to find the history of so great an
event. A Bristol book contains this terse mention of the exploring
expedition: "In the year 1497, the 24th of June, on St John's day, was
Newfoundland found by Bristol men in a ship called the _Mathew_."[5]
Carrying out the commands of the charter, John Cabot and his son planted
the English standard upon American soil, but they did little besides: no
explorations were made into the interior; they were completely satisfied
with the all-important fact of discovery. As a proof of their success,
Sebastian Cabot brought back three Indians "in their demeanour like to
bruite beastes," but who seem to have settled down and taken up English
customs, for Robert Fabian says, "of the which upon two yeeres after, I
saw two apparelled after the maner of Englishmen in Westminster pallace,
which that time I could not discerne from Englishmen."[6]
The restless ambition of the Cabots incited them to a further voyage in
February 1498, the charter on this occasion being granted only to the
father. They again started from Bristol, and sailed along the North
American coasts from the ice-bound shores of Newfoundland[7] to the
sunny Carolinas or Florida. The younger Cabot afterwards wrote that he
sailed "unto the Latitude of 67 degrees and a halfe under the North Pole
... finding still the open Sea without any maner of impediment, he
thought verily by that way to have passed on still the way to Cathaia
which is in the East."[8] This voyage is recorded by Sir Humphrey
Gilbert, and was frequently quoted as a reason for England's claim to
North America. "The countreys lying north of Florida, God hath reserved
the same to be reduced unto Christian civility by the English nation.
For not long after that Christopher Columbus had discovered the Islands
and continent of the West Indies for Spaine, John and Sebastian Cabot
made discovery also of the rest from Florida northwards to the behoofe
of England."[9] The Cabots disappear from English history for a time and
there are no records of the reception of this voyage. It was undoubtedly
of twofold importance; it started that "will o' the wisp" of the
North-West Passage, that led so many men to risk and lose their lives;
and it may also be regarded as the foundation-stone of the English power
in the West.
The next few years of the history of the exploration of America is
filled with the records of Spaniards, Italians, and Frenchmen. The
voyage of the Bristol merchants by which North America had just been
discovered had no effect, and awakened no enthusiasm in the hearts of
the English during the early portion of the sixteenth century. Henry
VII. and his more adventurous son were both such severe and orthodox
Catholics that they hesitated to trespass upon the limitations laid down
by the bull of Alexander VI., by which everything on the western side of
an imaginary line between the forty-first and forty-fourth meridians
west of Greenwich belonged to Spain; while the Brazil coast, the East
Indies, and Africa south of the Canary Islands fell to Portugal.
Between 1500 and 1550 only two true voyages of discovery have been
chronicled. The first was in 1527, when a canon of St Paul's,
erroneously named Albert de Prado, sailed with two ships in search of
the Indies. It is probable that this was the voyage of John Rut of the
Royal Navy, with whom, there is reason to suppose, a Spaniard, called
Albert de Prado, sailed. They failed to make any real discoveries, but
brought back a cargo of fish from the inhospitable shores of
Newfoundland and Labrador. The second voyage was that of Master Hore, in
1536, who, it is supposed, set out in the spirit of a Crusader, but who
was more probably a briefless barrister accompanied by "many gentlemen
of the Innes of Court and of the Chancery."[10] They were shipwrecked on
the Newfoundland coast, where, as none of them knew how to fish, and
although Hore told them they would go to unquenchable fire, they began
to eat one another. "On the fieldes and deserts here and there, the
fellowe killed his mate, while he stooped to take up a roote for his
reliefe, and cutting out pieces of his bodie whom he had murthered,
broyled the same on the coles and greedily devoured them."[11] Luckily
for the remainder, a French ship was blown into the harbour, and they
seized her with all the food she had on board, sailing home in safety,
leaving the French sailors to a horrible fate, which they seemed to have
escaped; for "certaine moneths after, those Frenchmen came into England
and made complaint to King Henry the 8: the king ... was so mooved with
pitie, that he punished not his subjects, but of his owne purse made
full and royale recompense unto the French."[12]
The two voyages here set forth are the only ones that are actually
recorded, but there is reason for supposing that English ships were
quite familiar with the coast of what was afterwards called Maine.
Between 1501 and 1510 there are many scattered intimations of English
voyages; and one patent in particular, in the first year of the
sixteenth century, shows that men of some importance were granted leave
to sail and discover in the West. In 1503 a man brought hawks from
Newfoundland to Henry VII.; and in the next year a priest is paid £2 to
go to the same island. In or about the eighth year of Henry VIII.,
Sebastian Cabot was again in the employ of the English and in command of
an expedition to Brazil, which only failed owing to "the cowardise and
want of stomack" of his partner, Sir Thomas Pert.[13] It is evident from
the first Act of Parliament relating to America, passed in 1541, that
the Newfoundland fishery was carried on by Devonshire fishermen almost
continuously from the discovery of the island; and the Act of 1548,
prohibiting the exaction of dues, shows "that the trade out of England
to Newfoundland was common."[14] Anthony Parkhurst corroborates this
fact in a letter to Richard Hakluyt in 1578, in which he says, "The
Englishmen, who commonly are lords of the harbors where they fish, and
do use all strangers helpe in fishing if need require, according to an
old custome of the countrey."[15] It may, therefore, be inferred that
the growth of the Newfoundland fisheries, together with the increasing
knowledge of the country and its products, helped to suggest to the
Englishmen of the period the possibilities of future colonisation.
The great voyager Sebastian Cabot returned to England in 1548 from his
sojourn in Spain. Under the patronage of Charles V. he had made several
voyages, including one of particular importance to the Rio de la Plata.
On his arrival in England he was rewarded by Edward VI. with a pension
of £166, 13s. 4d., as a slight evidence of that king's appreciation of
his manifold services. Old man though he was, his mind still ran on the
discovery of a North-West, or North-East Passage to the Indies, and he
became the governor of a company of merchant adventurers for the
discovery of regions beyond the sea. He did not participate in any of
these discoveries, "because there are nowe many yong and lustie Pilots
and Mariners of good experience, by whose forwardnesse I doe rejoyce in
the fruit of my labours and rest with the charge of this office."[16]
Amongst the young and lusty pilots were Sir Hugh Willoughby and Richard
Chancellor, who turned their attentions to a North-East passage. The
former died on his vessel in the midst of the ice floes in 1553, while
the latter succeeded in reaching Archangel, and so brought about,
through a successor, Anthony Jenkinson, the foundation of the Muscovy
Company.
It was, however, the discovery of America, and in particular of the
North-West Passage, that offered great inducements to Englishmen. The
American continent had an ever fascinating attraction, for the reports
of its vast wealth drew adventurous spirits as with a magnet. The gold
of Mexico and Peru dazzled their eyes and made them hope to find some
similar hoard on every barren strip of shore from Patagonia to
Newfoundland. "It was thought that in those unknown lands, peopled by
'anthropophagi and men whose heads did grow beneath their shoulders,'
lay all the treasures of the earth. That was an irresistible temptation
to the great merchants of England, citizens of no mean city, pursuing no
ignoble nor sordid trade."[17] Thus early in the reign of Elizabeth
there was an attempt at American plantation; it certainly was only an
attempt, for it in no way furthered the schemes of colonisation. Thomas
Stukeley, a member of a good Devonshire family, planned, with the
sanction of the queen, in 1563, to colonise Florida. He made the fatal
mistake of so many others, of converting a colonising expedition into
one of mere buccaneering. Spanish and French vessels were his real
objects, not the foundation of an English settlement in the New World.
The scheme naturally failed; and Stukeley removed his activities to
Barbary, where he met a glorious death amongst the chivalry of Portugal
upon the classic field of Alcazar.
The search for the North-West Passage was even more tempting than the
projection of imaginary colonies in the South; it opened before the eyes
of speculative voyagers a promise of all the wealth of the East. A large
proportion of Hakluyt's great prose epic--that marvellous work of
adventure--is filled with the search for Cathay. That mystic land became
the purpose and the goal of hundreds of seamen who, during the
centuries, struggled and toiled through overwhelming perils, ever to be
baffled by the solid and impenetrable ice. Those wild north seas seem
to have caused little terror to the Tudor sea-dogs; Master Thorne, for
example, deserves to live in the memory of Englishmen for all time
simply for one remark with which he is credited. When the objection of
the ice was proposed to him, he waived it on one side with words which
might well be taken as the motto of the British Empire: "There is no
land unhabitable and no sea innavigable."[18] Sir Humphrey Gilbert, in
particular, tried to encourage men to push forward in their adventurous
discoveries, and there is no doubt that his famous work, _A Discourse to
prove a passage by the North West to Cathaya and the East Indies_, did a
great deal to stimulate men in their hopeless task.
It was largely due to this _Discourse_ that Martin Frobisher sailed to
find the tantalising passage, in June 1576, under the patronage of the
all-powerful Earl of Warwick. He sighted Greenland, and then reached
that inlet on the American coast which he called Frobisher Bay. He
brought back with him samples of a black stone which were supposed to
contain gold, and thus added the temptation of easily acquired wealth to
the sufficiently delusive and dangerous task of discovering the passage.
The possibility of mineral wealth in the Arctic Regions brought about
the formation of the Company of Cathay, under the government of Michael
Lok; and as its Captain-General, Frobisher undertook a second voyage in
May 1577. His object was "the further discovering of the passage to
Cathay, and other Countreys, thereunto adjacent, by West North-West
navigations: which passage or way is supposed to be on the North and
North-West part of America ... where through our Merchants may have
course and recourse with their merchandise."[19] Frobisher took
possession of the barren territory, and on his return Queen Elizabeth
"named it very properly Meta Incognita, as a marke and bound utterly
hitherto unknown."[20] The gold-refiners of London were still deceived
by the black stones; and again Frobisher sailed, in May 1578, to work
this imaginary mine. He took with him on this occasion "a strong fort or
house of timber" for the shelter of "one hundreth persons, whereof 40
should be mariners for the use of ships, 30 Miners for gathering the
gold Ore together for the next yere, and 30 souldiers for the better
guard of the rest, within which last number are included the Gentlemen,
Gold finers, Bakers, Carpenters & all necessary persons."[21] This might
be regarded as an early attempt to found a colony, for Frobisher seems
to have hoped to establish a thriving industry in this desolate and
ice-bound land; but as a matter of fact these "necessary persons" did
nothing at all except to discover an island which existed only in their
imaginations, and they returned to England in the autumn. Frobisher's
efforts as a discoverer now ceased; for his seamanship and courage were
required in home waters for the protection of his native land.
[Illustration: SIR FRANCIS DRAKE _From an engraving by J.
Honbraken in the British Museum._]
Sir Humphrey Gilbert, half-brother of Raleigh, was the "first of our
nation that carried people to erect an habitation and government in
those northerly countreys of America."[22] He was a man bold in action
and chivalrous in character; he was one of those giants of the
Elizabethan period, and if he had any faults they were only those of his
age, while his virtues were all his own. As early as 1563 he was
connected with schemes for colonisation in the formation of a company
for the discovery of new trades. He it is who has the proud position of
being the founder of our premier colony, Newfoundland. In 1578, letters
patent were granted to him by Queen Elizabeth for establishing a colony
in North America. He made his first voyage in that year, sailing from
Dartmouth in September. The expedition was a complete failure, and
fearing lest his patent should expire, he undertook that voyage which
has made him one of the most famous men in history. In 1583 he sailed to
Newfoundland, and took possession in the name of the Virgin Queen, "and
signified unto al men, that from that time forward, they should take the
same land as a territorie appertaining to the Queene of England."[23]
His great action was not allowed to be forgotten; the gallant knight
himself never saw England again, but passed to his grave beneath the
rough waters of the Atlantic. Hakluyt, however, printed the story of an
eye-witness, Edward Hayes, who gave a graphic account of the whole
expedition. Gilbert insisted on returning in the _Squirrel_, a small
crazy craft, rather than in the larger vessel, known as the _Hinde_. The
weather became very foul; and on Monday afternoon, the 9th of September,
Hayes says, "the frigate was neere cast away oppressed by the waves, yet
at that time recovered: and giving foorth signes of joy the Generall,
sitting abaft with a booke in his hand cried out unto us in the Hind (so
oft as we did approach within hearing) We are as neere to heaven by sea
as by land." About twelve that night, the frigate being ahead of the
Hinde, her lights suddenly went out; and after a minute's awful
silence, the men of the Hinde exclaimed, "the General was cast
away."[24] Thus the hero, strong in his belief and fear of God, with
chivalrous and stainless name, found his last resting-place in the sea.
He was a forerunner of the very noblest type, an example to the men of
his own generation, and to those fearless adventurers who have helped to
create the British Empire in all parts of the world.
The northern portions of America were for the most part more easily
accessible to the English, and the dangers of Spanish and Portuguese
attacks were more remote. The West Indies, however, and even South
America, were not without their fascination, and many Englishmen made
voyages to those parts, not so much for the purposes of discovery as for
trade, buccaneering, and booty. The earliest of these West Indian
trading voyages was that of Thomas Tison, who, it is known, sailed to
the West, some time previous to the year 1526. He dwelt on one of the
West Indian Islands as a secret factor for some English merchants; and
"it is probable that some of our marchants had a kinde of trade to the
West Indies even in those ancient times and before also: neither doe I
see," says Hakluyt, "any reason why the Spaniards should debarre us from
it at this present."[25] As a trader, pirate, and slave-dealer, Sir John
Hawkins made three celebrated voyages in 1562, 1564, and 1568, between
Guinea and the West Indies. On one of these he was accompanied by
Francis Drake, who was destined for far greater things than
slave-dealing. After many adventures off the Spanish main, Drake, in the
spirit of a Crusader, started on his momentous voyage round the world.
In a small vessel called the _Golden Hinde_ or _Pelican_, with a still
smaller ship, the _Elizabeth_, the great seaman sailed from Plymouth in
February 1577. Sailing down the South American coast, he at last arrived
at the Straits of Magellan, where one of his company, Master Thomas
Doughty, mutinied and was executed. After being deserted by the
_Elizabeth_, the voyage proceeded along the shores of Chili and Peru;
and passing still farther north, it is probable that Drake discovered
"that portion of North America now known as Oregon, and anticipated by
centuries the progress of English colonisation: the New Albion, which he
took over from the Indians, being probably the British Columbia of
to-day."[26] Drake's return was made without any very serious mishaps,
and he dropped anchor in Plymouth Sound in November 1580. It was a fine
exploit, and roundly applauded throughout the country. No one, however,
realised at that time, nor indeed for generations to come, that Drake
had discovered and annexed what was afterwards to become so large a
portion of the British dominions beyond the seas.
One man in particular could not fail to be moved to enthusiasm by these
voyages of discovery. The dream of a great country in the far West,
peopled by the Anglo-Saxon race, was ever before the eyes of Sir Walter
Raleigh. The character of this great man of action was not without many
faults, for it was composed of much fine gold tempered with clay. His
endeavours, however, to extend the limits of Britain's rule excite the
imagination and entrance the mind of the reader. The mantle of Gilbert
fell upon the shoulders of Raleigh, who at once attempted to carry on
the work of colonisation which had been started by his half-brother in
Newfoundland; and the road to which was about to be pointed out by
Richard Hakluyt in his _Discourse of Western Planting_. Raleigh must
have appreciated the appeal made by Sir George Peckham, friend of
Gilbert, when he said, "Behold heere, good countreymen, the manifold
benefits, commodities and pleasures heretofore unknowen, by Gods
especiall blessing not onely reveiled unto us, but also as it were
infused into our bosomes, who though hitherto like dormice have
slumbered in ignorance thereof, being like the cats that are loth for
their prey to wet their feet: yet if now therefore at the last we would
awake, and with willing mindes (setting frivolous imaginations aside)
become industrious instruments to ourselves, questionlesse we should not
only hereby set forth the glory of our heavenly father, but also easily
attaine to the end of all good purposes that may be wished or
desired."[27] Up to this time, by a curious chance, the coastline of the
modern United States, from the St Lawrence to the Savannah River, had
scarcely been visited and was, in fact, very little known. Here then was
an opportunity for Raleigh; and a land, where, if effort was made, the
greatest success might be achieved. The land had been unspoilt and
untouched by the Spaniards; those few hardy seamen who had entered
harbour or creek had found no signs of gold, and had sailed away again.
But it was a land of excellent climate, freed from the ice and fogs of
the more northern latitudes in which the Elizabethan seamen had shown
such pluck and powers of endurance. Captain Carlile, the son-in-law of
Francis Walsingham, had already in 1583 issued his encouraging report
concerning American trade. Raleigh could not fail to be struck by the
sentence, "that whereas one adventureth in the great enterprise, an
hundred for that one will of themselves bee willing and desirous to
adventure in the next."[28] Gilbert's patent for the colonisation of
North America had been transferred to Raleigh, who, with great caution,
in 1584 dispatched two sea-captains, Amidas and Barlow, to spy out this
land of promise. The narrative of these adventurers as given in
_Hakluyt's Voyages_ is extremely picturesque. They steered a more
southerly course than that of any previous British explorer, and finally
reached the island of Roanoke, now within the limits of North Carolina.
They described it as a land flowing with milk and honey. "The second of
July, we found shole water, wher we smelt so sweet and so strong a smel,
as if we had been in the midst of some delicate garden abounding with
all kinde of odoriferous flowers.... We found the people most gentle,
loving, and faithfull, voide of all guile and treason, and such as live
after the maner of the golden age."[29] Amidas and Barlow thus brought
back to their patron Raleigh a story full of hope and wondrous
possibilities. They had found a land worthy of colonisation and well
suited to the English; and this land of promise and of future greatness
was christened by the Virgin Queen--Virginia.
The days of exploration and discovery by sea in the West had practically
come to an end; the great epoch of colonisation was about to begin. When
Elizabeth came to the throne, English ships had seldom sailed further
than Iceland in the north and the Levant in the south-east, where a
lucrative trade had sprung up as early as 1511. But by the end of the
sixteenth century, owing to the encouragement of the Tudor sovereigns,
the religious persecutions, and the "peculiar" policy of Elizabeth, the
English flag had been proudly borne into all the seas of the world. The
globe had been circumnavigated by Drake and Cavendish; trade through
Archangel had been established with Russia; spices had been brought from
the Indies by the East India Company; "the commodious and gainful voyage
to Brazil"[30] was regularly undertaken by the merchants of Southampton;
while a vast fishing trade had steadily grown up off the coasts of
Newfoundland. Above all the "navigations, voyages, traffiques, and
discoveries of the English nation" had laid the foundation for greater
things. Raleigh's dreams were to be accomplished, though not by himself.
Like so many others he was attracted by gold; his thoughts lay too
readily in the discovery of an El Dorado in South America, of which the
Elizabethan poet wrote:--
"Guiana whose rich feet are mines of gold."
The grain of mustard seed had, however, been planted; the idea had been
put forth to the world; a new nation was to rise in the Western
hemisphere; and, although no definite results were to be seen by the
eyes of the Elizabethans, yet their wild adventures, their acts of
knight-errantry, their perils and their sufferings had paved the way for
the industrious, sober, steady, and more prudent enterprises of Stuart
Cavaliers and of Puritan Pilgrims.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] _Hakluyt's Voyages_ (ed. 1904), vii. p. 154.
[2] _Hakluyt's Voyages_, vii. p. 143.
[3] _Bacon's Works_ (ed. 1870), vi. 196.
[4] _Hakluyt's Voyages_ (ed. 1904), vii. p. 153.
[5] Barrett, _History and Antiquities of Bristol_ (1789), p. 172.
[6] _Hakluyt's Voyages_ (ed. 1904), vii. p. 155.
[7] It is thought by some that Cabot sailed to Greenland. Cf. Biggar,
_Voyages of the Cabots and of the Corte Reals_ (Paris, 1903).
[8] _Hakluyt's Voyages_, vii. p. 150.
[9] _Ibid._, viii. p. 37.
[10] _Hakluyt's Voyages_, viii. p. 3.
[11] _Ibid._, viii. p. 5.
[12] _Ibid._, viii. p. 7.
[13] _Hakluyt's Voyages_, x. p. 2.
[14] _Ibid._, viii. p. 9.
[15] _Ibid._, viii. p. 10.
[16] _Hakluyt's Voyages_, vii. p. 149.
[17] Fletcher, _Cornhill Magazine_, Dec. 1902.
[18] _Hakluyt's Voyages_, ii. p. 178.
[19] _Hakluyt's Voyages_, vii. p. 212.
[20] _Ibid._, vii. p. 320.
[21] _Ibid._, vii. p. 321.
[22] _Ibid._, vii. p. 38.
[23] _Hakluyt's Voyages_, viii. p. 54.
[24] _Hakluyt's Voyages_, viii. p. 74.
[25] _Ibid._, x. pp. 6, 7.
[26] Egerton, _Origin and Growth of the English Colonies_, p. 65.
[27] _Hakluyt's Voyages_ (ed. 1904), viii. p. 123.
[28] _Hakluyt's Voyages_ (ed. 1904), viii. p. 141.
[29] _Ibid._, viii. pp. 298 and 305.
[30] _Hakluyt's Voyages_, xi. p. 25.
CHAPTER II
VIRGINIA: THE FIRST GREAT COLONY OF THE BRITISH
The English settlers in America may be less romantic and less
interesting figures than their Elizabethan predecessors, but they were
undoubtedly fitter instruments for the specific work. The Elizabethan
seamen had played their part, and men now arose who were to fulfil a
greater destiny. The Gilberts and the Drakes were of a race which had
ceased to be, and Fuller justly remarks "how God set up a generation of
military men both by sea and land which began and expired with the reign
of Queen Elizabeth, like a suit of clothes made for her and worn out by
her; for providence so ordered the matter that they almost all attended
their mistress before or after, within some short distance, unto her
grave."[31] Although the adventurous spirit of the Golden Age had passed
away, men were still left who could echo the words of Sir Humphrey
Gilbert and say, "and therefore to give me leave without offence always
to live and die in this mind, that he is not worthy to live at all that
for fear or danger of death shunneth his country's service and his own
honour, seeing death is inevitable and the fame of virtue
immortal."[32] The one great figure who appears to connect the old
period with the new was Sir Walter Raleigh. As has already been
mentioned, he had sent out an expedition in 1584 to see what possibility
there was of establishing a colony in America. The glowing accounts
brought back by his two captains made Raleigh decide upon an undertaking
which, though it proved a failure, must ever be regarded as memorable in
the world's history.
In 1585 Raleigh sent seven ships and one hundred and eight settlers to
the land which had been granted to him by patent. The territory had
already been named Virginia, in honour of the Queen, and it was here
that he hoped to establish a little colony composed of sturdy
Englishmen. In June the settlers, having landed in Roanoke, were left
under the leadership of Ralph Lane; the other generals, Grenville,
Cavendish, and Amidas, returning to the mother country. From the outset
it was certain that Raleigh's colony must fail. The man chosen as leader
had no special aptitude for the post, being possessed with the mania for
discovery rather than the desire to teach the settlers to form a
self-supporting community. But even worse than this, Lane made the fatal
error of estranging the natives by the severity and brutality of his
punishments. Exactly a year after the settlers had landed, Sir Francis
Drake put in to see how his friend Raleigh's Utopian schemes progressed.
He found the colony in a miserable plight and, yielding to the earnest
entreaties of the settlers, took them on board and sailed to England.
Raleigh, however, had not forgotten his colony, and had dispatched Sir
Richard Grenville with supplies; but when he reached the settlement he
found it deserted. Sir Walter Raleigh's buoyant nature was not depressed
by this first failure, and in 1587 a fresh attempt to settle Virginia
was made. Under the command of White, one hundred and thirty-three men
and seventeen women were sent out. White soon returned to England for
supplies, leaving his daughter Eleanor Dare, who gave birth to the first
white child born in the New World. The unhappy emigrants received but
little assistance from the home authorities. Certainly two expeditions
were sent out to help them, but they failed because their captains found
it more lucrative and exciting to go privateering. The stirring times in
Europe and the coming of the Armada were sufficient to absorb the minds
of such men as Raleigh and Drake, and the colony in Virginia was left to
its fate. What that fate was can only be imagined, for, when White at
last reached Virginia in 1589, not a trace of the colony was to be
found, while another expedition in 1602 proved equally unsuccessful in
the search. Hunger and the Indians had done their cruel work, and the
hand of destiny seemed turned against the foundation of an Anglo-Saxon
colony in the mysterious West.
There were, however, dominant motives for colonisation at the beginning
of the seventeenth century, and these, together with the intrepidity of
certain of the Elizabethan school, changed the aspect of the whole
question. The previous incentives for discovery and adventure upon the
high seas had been the tricks of imagination, the more glorious scheme
of spreading Christianity and the race for gold. But now there was a
fear amongst the more intellectual thinkers in England that the country
was suffering from a surplus population. This purely imaginary danger
gave birth to the idea that America might provide new homes for this
surplus, and, at the same time, bring new markets into existence which
in the future would very materially help to develop the naval resources
of the English.
One of the most able and energetic of the new patrons of colonisation
was Shakespere's friend, the Earl of Southampton, who in March 1602
dispatched to the West, Bartholomew Gosnold with thirty-two companions.
This little band of adventurers landed further north than Raleigh's
ill-fated colonists, probably at a spot where in later years the Puritan
settlers established themselves. The chief feature of Gosnold's venture
was the discovery of a new route to the West by way of the Azores, and
thus a week was saved in future voyages. In the following year the
_Discovery_ and _Speedwell_ were sent out under Martin Pring, the
patrons of the expedition having first obtained formal permission from
Sir Walter Raleigh, whose patent rights were still regarded as valid. It
is interesting to notice that with this concession on Raleigh's part his
connection with Virginia ceased for ever.
One of Pring's patrons was Richard Hakluyt, to whom all Englishmen are
indebted for his great prose epic and for the stimulus he gave to the
early founders of the British Empire. Hakluyt was born in London about
the year 1552. He was educated at Westminster School and Christ Church,
Oxford, where he took his degree in 1574. His interest in geography and
discovery had been aroused when quite a boy by seeing a map in the
possession of a relative, and from that moment, he writes, "I constantly
resolved, if ever I was preferred to the University, where better time
and more convenient place might be ministred for those studies, I would,
by God's assistance, prosecute that knowledge and kinde of literature,
the doores whereof (after a sort) were so happily opened before me."[33]
Hakluyt's first book was published in 1582, under the title, _Divers
Voyages touching the discoverie of America and the Ilands adjacent unto
the same, made first of all by Englishmen and afterwards by the
Frenchmen and Britons_. This work consisted of a collection of documents
to support England's claim to the prior discovery of America. In the
autumn of 1584 he presented to Queen Elizabeth his _Discourse of Western
Planting_, the writing of which was largely due to the inspiration of
Sir Walter Raleigh. The subject matter had been supplied by the two
voyagers to Virginia, Captains Amidas and Barlow. The first edition of
his great work saw light in the year after the Armada; but Hakluyt was
not satisfied, and for nine more years laboured on, until in 1598 he
produced the second edition in three volumes, and the world was
infinitely the richer for the _Principal Navigations, Voyages,
Traffiques, and Discoveries of the English Nation_.
The year that Hakluyt sent out Pring to make discoveries is ever famous
for the death of Queen Elizabeth. The great queen, whatever her faults
may have been, had indeed bound her subjects to her by affection and
admiration, and created amongst them a remarkable spirit of both
patriotism and gallantry. It was therefore a fitting and happy
circumstance that associated the last of the Tudors with the first of
our American colonies. Virginia, named from Elizabeth, the child, so to
speak, of a queen, came in time to be the mother of Presidents. It is
not, however, until the accession of the pedantic James that a stern
resolve to accomplish the establishment of a colony seems to have been
taken. The irony of history is better illustrated in this fact than
perhaps elsewhere. The mean mind and timid heart of James I. could never
arouse or inspire enthusiasm as Elizabeth's actions had done. And yet
the appreciation of the importance of a great Empire was reserved for
the reign of the first Stuart rather than during the rule of the
greatest of the Tudors.
The pressing question of surplus population which had reached a climax
at the accession of James I., together with the prosperity and success
of the newly formed East India Company may have had something to do with
the momentous decision that was taken in 1606. In that year two
companies were formed: the first was the London Company, which was given
permission by the Crown to plant in North America between 45° and 38°
north latitude; the second division was the Plymouth Company, whose
rights of plantation overlapped those of the London Company, their
district being between 41° and 34° north latitude. With the history of
this second company we shall deal later.
The London Company consisted of various members, such as Richard
Hakluyt, the recorder of voyages; Sir George Somers, "a lamb on shore, a
lion at sea";[34] and Sir Thomas Gates. The Council was nominated by the
King, and included many well-known men of the day; in particular, Sir
Ferdinando Gorges, who played an important part in colonial history for
many years,[35] and Sir Edwin Sandys, who, in the perilous time which
came upon the Company, fought manfully for the right. The system of
administration was of considerable complexity, as the control of affairs
was both divided and qualified. In return for finding the capital for
the proper working of the scheme, the Company was to receive certain
trading privileges. The actual government was vested in two councils,
both of which were nominated by James I., the one to be resident in
England and supreme in all political and legislative affairs, the other
to be established in the colony and liable for the proper administration
of all local matters. The orders given to those in office, when the
first settlement was made, were to a certain extent harsh, but in no way
contrary to the spirit of the times. The Church of England was to be
supported and the supremacy of the King to be acknowledged. All serious
crimes were to be tried by jury and punished with death, but the penalty
for minor offences was left to the discretion of the resident council.
The Company took care that no trade was carried on by private
individuals, and it was insisted that magazines should be erected for
the produce of the colony and for supplying necessities to the
colonists. It may be stated finally that the old ideas of enterprise and
adventure were not lost sight of, and what had stirred Columbus and many
another voyager was now definitely mentioned in the commands. The
settlers were told "to show kindness to the savages and heathen people
in those parts, and use all proper means to draw them to the true
knowledge and service of God."[36]
By the middle of December 1606, one hundred and forty-three
colonists[37] were on board three ships ready to sail for their new home
in the West. On the morning of New Year's Day, 1607, the little fleet
sailed down the Thames. All praise be to them for showing so brave a
spirit in launching out into an unknown world at the very dawn of
England's expansion. And yet it must be acknowledged that they were the
very worst type of settlers that could have been chosen for such an
undertaking. They were idle, discontented, impatient, and incapable.
Many of them were gentlemen, who had no idea of manual labour; some were
goldsmiths and jewellers, who were without knowledge of agriculture,
building, or even protecting themselves from savages. But even worse
than this was the fact that they had no leader with natural gifts for so
important a position. At their head, to begin with, was Christopher
Newport, famous as a raider off the Spanish main. In council with him
were Gosnold, the intrepid voyager, and Captain John Ratcliffe, a
discontented man, as proved by his later actions, although a
contemporary describes him as "a very valiant, honest, and painful
soldier."[38] From the very outset there were quarrels, and Captain John
Smith, whom we shall meet again, was kept in confinement during the
greater part of the voyage.
On the 16th April 1607, the storm-tossed adventurers sighted the
southernmost extremity of Chesapeake Bay, and called it Cape Henry in
honour of the Prince of Wales. On the 13th May they selected a place for
settlement, and Jamestown, the first permanent plantation, was
established in Virginia on the James River. Almost immediately Edward
Maria Wingfield was elected president, which proved to be one of the
many mistakes made by the settlers. Nobody can question Wingfield's
bravery, honesty, and desire to act justly, but it is very evident from
the records that he was formal and pompous in manner, and filled with a
too conscious sense of his own dignity. No sooner had the president been
elected than the colony was weakened by a division of their party.
Captain John Smith with a few followers preferred to accompany Newport
on an exploring expedition, and reached a spot where now stands Richmond
City. The Indians, under their leader Powhattan, appeared friendly to
this party, but native friendship could only bear a slight strain, and
trouble was only too likely to arise from the careless conduct of the
settlers who had remained at Jamestown. The time was passed in a series
of petty squabbles, and the infant colony struggled through a period of
the gravest vicissitudes. Gosnold, one of the best of the party, died,
and this was followed by the deposition of Wingfield, Captain Ratcliffe
being made governor in his place. His period of office was marked by
troubles with the Indians, and dire sickness which broke out amongst the
settlers, owing to bad water, want of food, and the unhealthy situation
of Jamestown.
At last the dominant character of Captain John Smith manifested itself,
and he was chosen chief by common consent. This man's remarkable
adventures read like fiction, but there is little doubt that there is a
great deal of truth in all that he has left on record. Some of the most
romantic episodes that he lays before the reader may perhaps be regarded
as exaggerations or even untrustworthy, but it would be entirely
erroneous to look upon him as a mere Baron Munchausen or a foolish
braggart. He was brave beyond words, robust in person and self-reliant
in mind. In all his actions he was public-spirited, and, at the same
time, for his age and for his training, tolerant, kindly, and humane. He
was one of the most romantic figures of the period, and as such appeals
in his narrative to the sympathy of his readers and captures their
affection. As a soldier in the wars in the Netherlands he had passed
through many a danger. As a traveller in France, Italy, and the near
East he had learnt to understand and command men. As a hardy crusader
and captain in the Turkish wars he had fought manfully against the
infidel in Hungary. He had suffered all the horrors of slavery, from
which he had escaped through the forests of Transylvania. This man of
many adventures may be regarded by posterity as the chief promoter of
the colonisation of Virginia, and, if not her founder, at least her
saviour.
The early settlers in Virginia would have suffered the fate of Raleigh's
colony of 1587 had it not been for Captain John Smith's perseverance,
steady courage, and determination. He struggled hard to teach the
colonists the necessity of making themselves a self-sufficing community.
Most of the men thought that gold was to be picked up anywhere, failing
to see that if they did not strive manfully they must inevitably starve.
Smith himself says, "our diet is a little meal and water, and not
sufficient of that";[39] and his words are proved by the fact that
within the past six months fifty of the colonists died, and to use the
words of the chronicler, "for the most part they died of famine." Smith
determined that this should not continue, and he took for his motto,
"Nothing is to be expected except by labour." Excellent as was the
motto, the material from which he had to build up a colony was of the
very worst, and it is only natural that he should write home and ask for
"thirty carpenters, blacksmiths, masons, and diggers up of trees' roots,
rather than a thousand of such as we have."[40] His past experiences now
stood him in good stead, and he proved himself a capable leader by
succeeding in forcing the colony into a small, settled community. When
he felt that the colony was for the time being fairly secure he went on
exploring expeditions among the Indians. This was part of the purpose
and duty of the colony, for men were eager to find a short passage to
India, and no one imagined that America was of the gigantic size that
later discovery proved it to be. Whilst on these expeditions the
adventures of Smith were most extraordinary, and may possibly have been
coloured by lapse of time and a brilliant imagination. Once he saved his
life by the marvels of his compass and by the writing of notes to his
friends in Jamestown; and once indeed, according to his own record, he
was saved by the lovely Pocahontas, who pleaded with her father
Powhattan for his life. This latter story is, however, extremely
unlikely, for the Indian princess could have been only a child at the
time, and it is probable that Smith added the account when the fame of
Pocahontas had spread to Europe.
[Illustration: CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH _From an engraving in his
"Generall Historie of Virginia."_]
Smith spent the whole of the spring of 1609 in Jamestown endeavouring to
make the settlers industrious by prosecuting the manufacture of tar,
pitch, and soap ashes. Up to this time, with absurd carelessness, the
Jamestown fortification had been left without a well, and Smith now
remedied this obvious defect. With equal energy he turned to building,
and during the months of February, March, and April, he erected twenty
houses, besides a blockhouse, and re-roofed the church. Agriculture and
the fishing industry were no longer neglected, and while some of the
settlers under Smith's guidance brought forty acres under cultivation,
others undertook to supply the colony with fish. Struggle as he did,
Smith continually suffered reverses, and many disasters overtook the
colonists, the most serious being the destruction of their corn by rats.
Starvation stared them in the face, but Smith's firmness and activity
overcame the horrors of famine, and instead of allowing the settlers to
mass together, the men were quartered in different localities where they
had to seek food for themselves. When this remarkable man at last left
the colony, it can scarcely be said to have been in a prosperous state,
but there were four hundred and ninety strong colonists who had been put
on the right road towards progress, partly by Smith's example and partly
by his doctrine "that he who would not work might not eat."
About the time that Smith was preparing to return to England there was
in that country a reawakening of interest in what Drayton called,
"Virginia, earth's only Paradise." The keener interest that was now
being shown was largely due to a number of pamphlets that had been
published, and also to the enthusiastic sermons of many of the clergy of
the day. In a pamphlet named the _Nova Britannia_ it was pointed out
that Virginia was a valuable opening as a new market for English cloth,
and, in addition, that trade between the two countries would stimulate
the merchant navy. "We shall not still betake ourselves to small and
little shipping as we daily do beginne, but we shall rear againe such
Marchants Shippes, both tall and stout, as no forreine sayle that
swimmes shall make them vayle or stoop; whereby to make this little
northern corner of the world to be in a short time the richest
storehouse and staple for marchandise in all Europe."[41] With this idea
of making England "the richest storehouse," a new charter was granted to
the Company in May 1609. The London Company was now put under a number
of influential men, including Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, and Sir
Francis Bacon, while at the same time the old directors remained upon
the board. Under the new charter the dual control of the two councils
disappeared, and the government was to be in the hands of one council
nominated in the first case by the King, and afterwards, as vacancies
occurred, they were to be filled by men elected by the Company. The
powers of the Company were also extended, for besides the right of
levying duties, it was conceded that defensive war might be waged if it
were thought expedient. By these means the Company practically became an
independent body.
The outcome of the change was immediately seen in an expedition which
set out under Sir George Somers and Sir Thomas Gates. In July 1609 these
adventurers were wrecked upon the uninhabited Bermudas, but in the
following spring they succeeded in reaching Virginia. The attractive
picture of the settlement as drawn in pamphlet and sermon in England was
scarcely true to life. As a matter of fact no sooner had Smith left the
colony than its inhabitants dropped back into their slothful ways,
which were at once taken advantage of by the cunning Redskins, who,
peaceful while the great captain was present, had now become most
hostile. Thus Sir Thomas Gates in this year records, "the state of the
Colony ... began to find a sensible declyning: which Powhattan (as a
greedy Vulture) obseruing, and boyling with desire of reuenge, he
inuited Captaine Ratclife and about thirty others to trade for Corne,
and vnder the colour of fairest friendship he brought them within the
compasse of his ambush, whereby they were cruelly murthered and
massacred."[42]
The fate of the colony once more hung in the balance; starvation was
once again at the door. Very fortunately for the settlers, Lord Delawarr
arrived as Captain-General and Governor, with, what was most important,
supplies. The Company, however was becoming disheartened. The colony had
now been in existence for three years and the returns to the
shareholders were meagre indeed. Something had to be done and strong
measures seemed appropriate. In June 1611, Delawarr embarked for
England, but Sir Thomas Dale had already been dispatched with the title
of High Marshal of Virginia. He was armed with a military and civil code
of the greatest severity, for he was confronted with the arduous task of
governing a people made up of "the scourings of London." The military
code was from the first practically a dead letter; but the civil
enactments were so extremely harsh and so peculiar to modern ideas that
they deserve some attention. Daily worship according to the service of
the Church of England was enforced by a penalty of six months in the
galleys. To refrain from attending Sunday service meant death. If any
man "unworthily demean himself unto any preacher or minister of God's
word" he was to be openly whipped three times, and after each whipping
he was to confess his crime. But these laws were almost mild in
comparison with the vague and brutal enactment that "no man shall give
disgraceful words or commit any act to the disgrace of any person in
this colony, or any part thereof, upon pain of being tied head and feet
together upon the ground every night for the space of one month."[43]
These harsh laws continued, but did not affect the tide of emigration
from England. In August 1611, Sir Thomas Gates returned as Governor with
three hundred fresh settlers.[44] From this moment a much better class
of colonists began to come out, bringing with them their own servants,
and forming the nucleus of a sound colonial population. There were, of
course, other reasons for the improved state of affairs, not the least
important being the fact that Gates worked hard for the benefit of the
colony. An excellent change was carried out when the settlers deserted
unhealthy Jamestown for the more salubrious Henrico. Here a church, a
hospital, and good houses of brick were erected, and a palisade was
raised as a protection from the Indians. Industries, too, began to
thrive, for the records show that both silk and iron were manufactured,
while vines were cultivated with success by some Frenchmen introduced
by Lord Delawarr. Even in England the affairs of the Company had changed
for the better, as in 1612 a fresh charter had been obtained, by which
the Bermudas or Somers Islands were added to its dominions.
Prosperous as the colony appeared there was ever the menace of the
Indian tribes with whom an intermittent war had been waged for some
time, and during which Powhattan had taken captive several of the
settlers. Peace, however, existed between the English and Japazaus, the
Indian chief of the district along the Potomac, to whom Samuel Argall
was sent by the Governor to trade for corn. This was not Argall's first
visit to Japazaus, and a certain friendship existed between the two, the
Indian chief regarding himself as indebted to the Englishman. With the
King of the Potomac district, as wife of one of his captains, was the
romantic Pocahontas, daughter of Powhattan. To the unscrupulous and
ready-witted Argall this appeared a glorious opportunity of demanding
the Princess as a hostage, and paying off old scores against Powhattan.
Argall broached the subject to Japazaus, who readily accepted the plan.
The story is told with strict truth by Ralph Hamor, the secretary of the
colony, who says, "Capt. Argall, having secretly well rewarded him, with
a small copper kettle, and som other les valuable toies so highly by him
esteemed, that doubtlesse he would have betraied his owne father for
them, permitted both him and his wife to returne,"[45] but Pocahontas
remained a captive. Hearing of his daughter's plight Powhattan
immediately restored some of his prisoners and demanded her surrender,
but the English not being satisfied, asked for more. By this time other
influences were at work, and Pocahontas exhibited no desire to return to
her people. In the spring of 1613, she was baptised by the name of
Rebecca, and married to one of the most influential settlers, John
Rolfe, "a gentleman of approved behaviour and honest cariage."[46] The
marriage was welcomed by the Indian chief, and peace was restored for
the time being. Pocahontas and her husband went to England in 1616,
where she was fêted and presented at court, but the English climate did
not suit the Indian beauty, and she died in the spring of the following
year at Gravesend.
The year 1614 is memorable in Virginian history for the first hostile
action between the English and their French rivals. Samuel Argall, who
has been classified as "a sea-captain with piratical tastes," attacked a
French settlement on the coast of Maine and sacked Port Royal, the
capital of Acadia or Nova Scotia. These acts were contrary to all the
principles of international law, but France, under the weak rule of
Marie de' Medici, was in no state to avenge her wrongs, and the matter
dropped after a formal complaint by the French ambassador. This and
other weighty questions caused an animated discussion in Parliament
concerning the rights and privileges of Virginia. Martin, the advocate
of the Company, told the House to look to the advantages to be gained in
Virginia, and not to waste their time on the trifles that generally
engaged their attention. In fact, his speech was so heated that he was
forced to confess his errors on bended knee, and with that the House of
Commons was satisfied, and dropped the subject.
After the retirement of Gates, Sir Thomas Dale continued the government
of Virginia under the merciless code; and yet the colony prospered,
private industry and private property being allowed. Dale's second
period of office was for two years only, and he departed at a time when
a greedy and unprincipled set of men began to administer the affairs of
the Company. In 1617 they selected as their Deputy Governor in Virginia
the most unsuitable Samuel Argall. Certainly he was a man endowed with
ability and resolute courage, but he was one of the few unscrupulous
villains who have disgraced colonial history. Immediately on coming into
power he issued a series of edicts of arbitrary character. Trade with
the Indians was forbidden, but this was not for the advantage of the
shareholders of the Company, but for the benefit of their deputy. The
settlers were made to work as slaves for Argall, for whom the
constitution of the colony afforded splendid opportunities. Such a state
of affairs was not to last for long; the despotic conduct of the
Governor leaked out at identically the moment the Company passed into
the hands of a more honest and capable set of directors.[47] Sir Edwin
Sandys, a leader of that party which was soon to turn boldly against the
King, together with the brilliantly versatile Southampton and the
skilled John Ferrars, were now at the head of Virginian affairs in
England.
The history of Virginia changed for the better in 1619, when Sir George
Yeardley superseded the piratical Argall. The new Governor was not a
particularly strong man, and in many of his actions he proved himself a
weak successor of the stern Sir Thomas Dale. On the other hand there was
beneath the somewhat too gentle exterior a man of considerable worth,
for he succeeded in governing peaceably a turbulent people without
falling back upon unnecessary severity. Yeardley's first year of
administration is ever famous for the establishment of the earliest
representative assembly in the New World. It is only natural that a
fully developed scheme was not evolved at once. There is some
uncertainty as to what classes actually obtained the franchise, but it
is probable that every freeman possessed a vote. Certain it is, however,
that each plantation and each county returned two members, and it is
equally well-known that the assembly took upon itself both legislative
rights and judicial powers. Thus the year 1619 witnessed the creation of
Virginia as an almost independent power heralding a revolutionary change
in the near future.
The colony seemed prosperous in every way, but there were dark clouds
overshadowing the Company on all sides. It was rumoured, and with some
truth, that five thousand emigrants had landed in Virginia, and yet only
one thousand were actually resident. Men asked themselves the question,
"had the settlers returned, or had they died in this so-called land of
promise"? The new board of directors, if they had been left to
themselves, would have put the Company upon an assured footing, and
success would most certainly have attended their efforts. But this was
not to be; the Company was attacked from within and without. Lord
Warwick's party, a clique within the Company, showed every sign of
hostility to Southampton and Sandys. The external attacks came from
three sources, not the least important being that of the Crown. James I.
was jealous of the power of that Company which he himself had created.
His fears were increased by the insidious attacks of the Spanish
ambassador, Gondomar, who informed the King that "a seditious Company
was but the seminary to a seditious Parliament."[48] Even the English
people, little realising the work that the Company was painfully
accomplishing for Imperial purposes, now turned against the men whom,
for sentimental reasons, they ought to have supported, and used the
popular cry against monopolies to bring about the downfall of the
founders of a new nation. The dangers of the Company were increased by
the perils of the colony itself. The old Indian hostility had for a few
years slumbered, but after the death of Powhattan and the succession of
Opechancanough in 1618 the horrors of Indian warfare once more
threatened the colony. In the following year the death of a famous
Indian, Jack the Feather, was a sufficient pretext, and Opechancanough
attacked Virginia. The English proved successful in the end, but not
before they had lost three hundred and seventy of their number. It is
not to be wondered at that the Assembly issued a severe order that "the
inhabitants of every plantation should fall upon their adjoining
savages";[49] this the planters readily obeyed; and the steps taken,
though harsh, appear to have been effectual.
The news of the Indian massacres, the action of Spain and the absurd
desire of a Spanish marriage, worked upon the mind of James I. to such
an extent that he determined to abolish the Company.[50] In 1623 the
King demanded the surrender of the charter, which Sandys and his party
stoutly refused. A writ of _quo warranto_ was then issued to decide
whether the privileges of the Company were purely a monopoly, or whether
they were exercised for the public good. The Law Courts gave a verdict
against the Company, and the charter was declared null and void. The
storm cloud, which had long hung over the Company, had now burst upon
the heads of the devoted directors. They were forced to succumb to the
most pernicious of all influences, for they had been crushed by greed
and covetousness, together with the intrigues of disgraceful courtiers
and disappointed speculators who showed a lack of public spirit that too
often marked the early years of the Stuart period. In reviewing the
actions of the Company it is universally agreed that they had in almost
every case been for good; it is, however, acknowledged with similar
unanimity that for the actual benefit of the colony in the future it was
as well that the Company's powers should pass to the Crown. Had the
actions of the Company been disliked in the colony itself, it is
inexplicable that the colony should have supported the Company at the
time of its trial. The settlers could not foresee what might be the
outcome of a continuance of the Company's rule. At the time they merely
realised with disgust that James had acted as he had done, solely to
gain the fickle and grudging favour of the decadent Spain; but they did
not understand that the Company must inevitably in the future, if it had
not already done so in the past, act as a trammelling influence upon the
progress and prosperity of the little settlement. Unwittingly James, by
his action, had removed the fetters, and had given an opportunity of
free growth to the colony. It was no longer possible for the welfare of
the individual planter to be sacrificed to the merely temporary
advantage of the English trader and shareholder. "Morally and
politically, indeed, the abrogation of the Virginian charter was a
crime"; but "the colony, happily for its future, passed under the
control of the Crown while it was yet plastic, undeveloped and
insignificant."[51] Henceforth the constitution of Virginia was of the
normal type; the administration was carried on by a governor and two
chambers, the one nominated, the other popularly elected.
The first chapter of Virginian history may be said to have closed when
the Company ceased to exist, and at the same time the romantic and
heroic aspect of the colony was concluded. Although perhaps no
individual connected with the foundation of the colony can be compared
with the glorious figures of the Elizabethan epoch, yet in the
characters of Hakluyt, Southampton, Sandys, and Captain John Smith there
was something of the old order. The heroism of the first actors upon the
Virginian stage was probably as great as that of their predecessors, but
the new order of things did not call upon them to exhibit such feats of
strength or of bravery. By the abrogation of the Company's charter a
revolution had indeed been effected. From this moment the history of
Virginia can only be dealt with in a brief and hasty sketch, for happy
is the country that has no history, and such is the case with regard to
the later years of England's first great colony. The interests of the
settlers are in the future mainly confined to the growth of tobacco, as
will be shown in a later chapter, and from 1623 the chroniclers cease to
record the story of the terrible struggle for bare existence, but tell
rather the tale of a steady but unheroic prosperity amongst a rich class
of planters employing negro labour.
The first Governor under the Crown was Sir Francis Wyatt, who was of
good character and inspired the colonists with a self-reliant temper. He
was succeeded in 1626 by Sir George Yeardley, who had already won the
affection of many of the settlers in the days of the Company's rule. The
following year, however, Yeardley died; and the Crown appointed a
creature of its own, Governor Harvey, who quarrelled with the Assembly
on every possible occasion. In fact so bitter did these quarrels become
that a settler, Mathews by name, as leader of the popular party, seized
Harvey in 1635, and placed him upon a vessel where he was kept in
honourable confinement until the old country was reached. It is hardly
likely that the colonists imagined that the Crown would take their part
against the Governor, but their action was probably due to a general
desire to impress the Crown with their power. Charles I., who had
previously shown good feeling towards the colony, now behaved foolishly
in sending Harvey back to Virginia, where he remained for four years,
filling up his time by sending numerous petty and querulous complaints
to the home country of the misdoings of the settlers. During Harvey's
administration the old proprietors made several attempts to obtain a
fresh grant of the charter and the reinstitution of the Company. But
with the same ardent spirit as the colonists had supported the Company
in 1623, so now they opposed its re-establishment and for the same
reason. The change that they had imagined must inevitably take place by
the abolition of the Company was a loss of their titles; but having been
firmly settled under the Crown they were frightened that if the Company
should be again created their titles would be again endangered. The
advocate of the colonists was the pliant and pliable Sandys, who, when
he reached England, deserted his constituents, and pleaded for the
restoration of the old rule. The colony immediately on hearing of this
sent word to the King that their representative was acting contrary to
their wishes, and in 1639 they received the satisfactory reply that
Charles had no intention of restoring the Company.
From this time the settlers appear from contemporary records to have
been contented. The writers point out how nature gave freely, how
beautiful was the land, and how peaceful were the natives. There can be
no doubt that this was the content and boastfulness of a young people,
and that it was unduly exaggerated. On the other hand it must also be
allowed that though Virginia was not quite the paradise represented in
some of the letters written by the settlers, yet it was, when the Civil
War broke out in England, a land of comparative peace and plenty.
Sir Francis Wyatt was again sent out to succeed Governor Harvey in 1639,
but his period of office was short and uneventful. More stirring times
came when the colony passed under the rule of Sir William Berkeley. He
was a typical cavalier, bluff in speech, hot in temper, brave in danger,
and contemptuous of learning. He may, in later years, have exercised a
merciless tyranny, but it was the hardship of his fortunes together
with something closely akin to lunacy that drove him to such actions. On
his appointment, his instructions were more carefully formulated than
had hitherto been the case. This was only natural as the Court party at
home were beginning to see the dangers that were looming ahead, and so
they trusted that in Virginia trouble might be checked by the exaction
of the strictest oaths of allegiance and supremacy, and by the
insistence on the service of the Church of England. This latter was
hardly necessary as speaking widely the Church of England was the Church
of the Virginians. There were, however, three parishes, the members of
which were almost entirely nonconformists until dispersed and scattered
by a conformity act between the years 1642 and 1644.
Sir William Berkeley had hardly taken up the reins of government when
the history of the colony was marked by a great calamity. Opechancanough
was now an old man, enfeebled in body and physically incapable of
leading his people; but his mind was still as active as ever, his savage
cunning was in no way dimmed by years, and he had ever nursed the hatred
he had felt for the settlers since the failure of his attack in the days
of the Company. The rumours of the outbreak of the Civil War in England
soon reached the ears of the Indians, some of whom had actually seen two
ships of the white settlers bombarding each other in the Bay.
Opechancanough seized this opportunity of division and strife among the
Virginians, and fell upon the colony. Before the settlers were ready to
resist, three hundred men, women and children had been slain. The local
militia at last made headway against the savages, and after the capture
and death of the old chief in 1646 a treaty was made as to the boundary
between the English and the Indians, under which peace reigned for
thirty years.
It has been the fashion to regard Virginia as a purely Cavalier colony;
this is probably due to an attempt to accentuate the difference between
the Southern colony and the New England group. It is, however, an
exaggeration to say that Virginia was entirely composed of those
supporting cavalier principles. Certainly there were large landowners
who sympathised with Charles and his party, but there was a very large
and prosperous middle class, composed of small landowners and well-to-do
tradesmen, amongst whom it was only natural to find various opinions and
sympathies. As a whole, however, Virginia may be said to have been
Royalist, not from any rooted objection to the Commonwealth, but rather
because the Royalist party was temporarily predominant in the
settlement. Sir William Berkeley, as a loyal Governor, forbade the
showing of any sympathy to the Parliamentary rebels, and he was
supported in his action by Charles II., who, in 1650, before he left
Breda, despatched a commission empowering Berkeley to act in his name.
The far-reaching power of Cromwell was not to be stayed by any such
commission, for the Commonwealth was determined "to grasp the whole of
the inheritance of the Stuart Kings,"[52] and so Ayscue was sent in 1651
to reduce the colonies to submission. On March 12 of the following year,
Virginia acknowledged the new power in England, much to the rage and
discontent of the Governor. Berkeley had indeed done his best, and had
issued a stirring declaration which concluded with these words, "But,
gentlemen, by the Grace of God we will not so tamely part with our King
and all those blessings we enjoy under him, and if they oppose us, do
but follow me, I will either lead you to victory or lose a life which I
cannot more gloriously sacrifice than for my loyalty and your
security."[53] The settlers, however, were not stirred, and though a
thousand men had been collected at Jamestown, the Assembly refused their
support, not so much for the love of Cromwell as because they feared
material loss if they resisted him. Had the great Protector lived longer
the history of the American colonies might have been very different. He
was the first Englishman who can really be said to have understood in
its fullest sense the word Empire. But the gods were not generous to
this imperialist, and they did not grant to him the necessary time for
the achievement of a policy which Cromwell himself classed as similar to
that of "Queen Elizabeth of famous memory."[54] As it was, the rule of
the Commonwealth had little definite effect upon Virginia, except that
it necessitated a change in governors. The first was Richard Bennet, who
was elected by the Assembly in 1652, and ruled for three years. His
successor, Edward Digges, was a worthy and sensible man, under whose
administration the colony continued a calm and happy existence for one
year. In 1656 Samuel Mathews was chosen, but during his rule Virginian
history was unimportant, and the only cloud upon the horizon was an
Indian panic which came to nothing.
The submission of Virginia was for the time only, and at the
restoration of Charles II. once more the royalist party became supreme.
The King was accepted with perfect quiescence, and it is probable that
the Virginians, like the English, rejoiced at the change, looking
forward to the return of more mirthful and joyous days. As England
learnt to repent the return of the Stuarts, so also Virginia found that
she had fallen upon evil times, a fact which is partially shown in
Berkeley's report in 1671. "As for the boundaries of our land, it was
once great, ten degrees in latitude, but now it has pleased his Majesty
to confine us to halfe a degree. Knowingly I speak this. Pray God it may
be for his Majesty's service, but I much fear the contrary.... I thank
God, there are _no free schools, nor printing_, and I hope we shall not
have these hundred years; for _learning_ has brought disobedience, and
heresy, and sects into the world, and _printing_ has divulged them, and
libels against the best government. God keep us from both."[55]
The greed of the cavaliers under Charles II. is notorious, and it
affected Virginia just as much as it did England. Lord Arlington and
Lord Culpeper obtained in 1672 the most monstrous rights, together with
a grant by which the whole soil of the colony passed into their hands.
An agency was at once sent to England to oppose this discreditable
action, at the same time taking with them a charter for which they hoped
to obtain ratification from the King. Needless to say in this they were
unsuccessful; but the charter is historically important, because it
contained a clause stating that the colonists could not be taxed without
the consent of their own legislature. The work of the agency partly
failed owing to the supineness of Governor Berkeley; chiefly, however,
because the people of Virginia were unable to see that agencies could
not be sent without expenditure. When a poll-tax was enacted to cover
the necessary expenses of their agents, there was a popular outburst.
The inhabitants of Virginia at this time were much divided, and composed
of distinct classes, the well-to-do planter, the tradesman, the "mean
whites," the negro and the criminal. The last class had been growing
steadily for some years as the colony had been used as a dumping-ground
for gaol-birds, and indeed the criminal section would have increased
still more had it not been for the better class of settlers who
determined to stop it. In April 1670, the General Court held at
Jamestown issued a notice "because by the great numbers of felons and
other desperate villains being sent over from the prisons in England,
the horror yet remaining of the barbarous designs of those villains in
September 1663, who attempted at once the subversion of our religion,
laws, liberties, rights and privileges," we do now prohibit "the landing
of any jail-birds from and after the 20th of January next upon pain of
being forced to carry them to some other country."[56] Although this law
tended to exclude a cheap form of labour, nevertheless between 1669 and
1674 Virginia, commercially, was in a most flourishing condition,
raising a greater revenue for the Crown than any other settlement. Sir
John Knight informed Lord Shaftesbury that £150,000 in customs on
tobacco alone had been paid, "so that Virginia is as of great importance
to his Majesty as the Spanish Indies to Spain, and employs more ships
and breeds more seamen for his Majesty's service than any other
trade."[57]
Commercial success was not the only thing that went to make up Virginian
history, for there were signs of external danger only too plainly
exhibited by numerous outrages on the part of the Indians. Had Berkeley
shown any skill or energy in suppressing these disorders all might have
gone well; as it was he did nothing, with dire results. The incapacity
of the Governor at last aroused the wrath of a young, honest,
courageous, but indiscreet, member of the Assembly, named Nathaniel
Bacon. He took up arms and was at first pardoned, but when he once again
attempted to seize Jamestown he was taken, and died in so mysterious a
manner as to give rise to rumours of poison and treachery, though it was
also reported, "that, he dyed by inbibing or taking in two _(sic)_ much
Brandy."[58] Bacon's rising had the effect desired in so far as it
brought about the recall of Berkeley. So vindictively and cruelly did
the Governor punish Bacon's followers that in 1677 the Crown sent three
Commissioners, Sir John Berry, Colonel Francis Moryson, and Colonel
Herbert Jeffreys to look into the grievances of either side. They almost
immediately quarrelled with the Governor, who was anxious to carry on
his severe punishments. The King, however, had commanded the
Commissioners to show, if possible, the greatest lenience. As a matter
of fact out of a population of 15,000, only 500 were on the side of the
Governor, and this small party who claimed to be the loyalists, very
naturally advocated confiscations and fines. Berkeley obstructed the
Commissioners as well as he was able, showing himself reckless of all
consequences, and exhibiting gross discourtesy to the King's
representatives. The truth was that Berkeley was growing old, and had
possessed unlimited power far too long, supported as he had been by a
most corrupt Assembly. The end of the quarrel came when the Governor, or
more probably, Lady Berkeley, insulted the officials beyond forgiveness.
After a consultation at the Governor's house the Commissioners were sent
away in his carriage with "the common hangman" for postillion.[59] This
outrage upon the laws of hospitality was too much; and Jeffreys
immediately assumed the reins of government. Sir William Berkeley gave
one more snarl, informing the new Governor that he was "utterly
unacquainted"[60] with the laws, customs, and nature of the people; he
then sailed for England, which he reached just alive, but "so unlikely
to live that it had been very inhuman to have troubled him with any
interrogations; so he died without any account given of his
government."[61]
Sir Herbert Jeffreys had a difficult task before him in trying to purge
the Assembly. Within a year of taking up office he died, leaving no
lasting memorial of his skill as Governor, but he is "to be remembered
as the first of a long series of officers of the standing army who have
held the governorship of a colony."[62] Jeffreys' successor, Sir Henry
Chicheley, only held office for a few months, and at his departure the
old type of governor disappears. The year 1679 is remarkable for the new
method of administration, a method which proved injurious to the
colony. Thomas, Lord Culpeper, was the first of the new scheme, and
though he resided in the colony for four years he did nothing for its
inhabitants. The appointment of Culpeper was most ill-advised, as he was
already detested owing to the grant of 1672. He took up his office at
identically the same time as the burgesses acquired the right of sitting
as a separate chamber, and he found the council refractory, the colony
unprosperous, and the Company of his Majesty's Guards in "mutinous
humours."[63] His tenure of office expired in 1684, and he was succeeded
by Lord Howard of Effingham. It cannot be said that the new Governor was
idle, but whatever he did was to the disadvantage of Virginia and the
Virginians. By a scandalous system of jobbery he inflicted grievous
financial injury upon individuals, and at the same time retarded the
progress of the colony by a system of new imposts. By his skill he
obtained for the Governor and the Council the right of appointing the
Secretary to the Assembly, which ought not to have been allowed by a
free representative body. From this time the evils of the English
colonial system became apparent, and it is now that absentee governors
enrich themselves at the expense of their settlements, the actual
administration being left to lieutenant governors in the confidence of
their chiefs, who remained at home.
The great stumbling-block to colonial prosperity was the lack of unity
between the different settlements on the eastern coast of North America.
In 1684 an attempt was made to bring about united action against
Indians, who had desolated the western borders of the English colonies.
A conference was called at Albany, and Virginia, like all the other
colonies, sent delegates to discuss the possibility of creating the
United States under the British Crown. Nothing, however, came of it, for
the jealousies and wranglings of the delegates only too well illustrated
the feelings of the different settlements for each other. The Revolution
of 1688 was accepted with tranquillity in Virginia, and two years later
Francis Nicholson was appointed King William's lieutenant governor.
Nicholson was a man of much colonial experience, of violent temper, and
scandalous private life. He strongly opposed the desire for political
freedom, but at the same time he made an excellent governor, and during
his rule, which lasted until 1704 (except for a period of six years,
1692-1698), the colony prospered. A desire for education evinced itself
at this period, and in 1691 Commissary Blair was sent to England to
obtain a patent for the creation of a college. He returned within two
years, his labours having been crowned with success, and in 1693 the
second university[64] in America was established under the title of
William and Mary College.
As the seventeenth century drew to a close, Virginian progress was
stimulated by the settlement, on the upper waters of the James River, of
De Richebourg's colony of Huguenots, which is said to have "infused a
stream of pure and rich blood into Virginian society." If the test of a
colony is its population, Virginia at this time must have been most
flourishing. Less than a century had passed since Newport and his one
hundred and forty-three settlers had sailed into the James River; the
colony had suffered privations, had witnessed many a fluctuation of
fortune, but at the dawn of the eighteenth century about one hundred
thousand souls were living there in peace, plenty and happiness. During
the century that had passed, the settlers had won for themselves
political rights, and practically, political freedom. They were to a
certain extent restricted by the Navigation Acts, but the influence of
the Crown or of the English Parliament was hardly felt. Their interest
in English political life was meagre; the importance of getting
trustworthy lieutenant governors was far greater to the Virginian than
whether Whig or Tory was in power at home. Sometimes the colony was
fortunate, sometimes the reverse, but in every case the lieutenant
governor was opposed to any extension of political rights. The
difficulty of united effort on the part of the planters was, to a
certain extent, intensified by a want of towns. Hampton was Virginia's
chief port, and was composed of a hundred poor houses, while
Williamsburg cannot be regarded as a true centre of either economic or
intellectual activity. This lack of town life is pointed out by
Commissary Blair, who informed the Bishop of London, "even when attempts
have been made by the Assembly to erect towns they have been frustrated.
Everyone wants the town near his own house, and the majority of the
burgesses have never seen a town, and have no notion of any but a
country life."[65] The lieutenant governors during the eighteenth
century had not only to contend with the supineness of the settlers, but
also with intercolonial discord. Thus Alexander Spotswood, in 1711,
attempted to assist North Carolina against the Tuscarora Indians, but he
received no support from either the Council or Assembly of Virginia.
Five years later Spotswood was met with similar bickerings and squabbles
when South Carolina was invaded by the Yamassees. In 1741 Oglethorpe
begged assistance to protect the newly established Georgia; instead of
sending their best we are told that his officer brought back "all the
scum of Virginia."[66]
The worst feature of Virginian life was the omnipresent and omnipotent
slave system, but from the mere commercial aspect this was in favour of
the colony at the time. The planters, however, were never ready to leave
the colony for imperial purposes owing to the fear of a negro rising at
home. This was one of the chief difficulties with which the Governor,
Robert Dinwiddie, had to contend, during that trying period of French
and Indian attack, which prepared the way for the Seven Years' war. With
this period it is not proposed to deal now, but to leave it to a later
chapter concerning the struggle between the French colonists in the
north and west, and the English settlers upon the eastern seaboard
during that period which is peculiarly connected with Britain's imperial
story.
FOOTNOTES:
[31] Quoted by Professor Raleigh in Introduction to _Hakluyt's Voyages_
(ed. 1904), xii. p. 24.
[32] _Hakluyt's Voyages_ (ed. 1904), vol. vii. p. 190.
[33] _Hakluyt's Voyages_ (ed. 1904), vol. i. p. xviii.
[34] Quoted by Doyle, _The English in America_, Virginia (1882), p. 145.
[35] _American Historical Review_, vol. iv. No. 4, pp. 678-702.
[36] Quoted by Doyle, _op. cit._, p. 147.
[37] Doyle says 143 colonists; neither Percy nor Newport mention the
exact number; Bradley, in his life of _Captain John Smith_, says 105.
[38] _Cf._ footnote, Doyle, _op. cit._, p. 149.
[39] Smith's Letter to the Virginia Company.
[40] Quoted by Bradley, _Captain John Smith_ (1905), p. 144.
[41] Force, _Tracts_ (1836-46), vol. i.
[42] Gates, _A True Declaration of the Estate of the Colonie in
Virginia_ (1610).
[43] Force, _Tracts_ (1836-46), vol. iii.
[44] Sir Thomas Dale was Governor 1611 and 1614 to 1616. Sir Thomas
Gates as Governor organised the colony 1611 to 1614. See _Dictionary of
National Biography_, xxi. p. 64.
[45] Hamor, _A True Discourse of the Present Estate of Virginia_ (ed.
1860).
[46] Hamor, _A True Discourse of the Present Estate of Virginia_ (ed.
1860).
[47] The characters of the two parties is controversial owing to the
scarcity of documentary evidence.
[48] Doyle, _op. cit._ p. 220.
[49] _Ibid._, p. 226.
[50] There was no question of abandoning the colony itself, which was
what Spain desired.
[51] Doyle, _op. cit._ pp. 242, 244.
[52] Gardiner, _History of the Commonwealth_, i. 317.
[53] Neill, _Virginia Carolorum_ (1886), p. 215.
[54] _Cromwell's Speech V._, Sept. 17, 1656.
[55] Hening, _Statutes at Large_ (New York, 1823), ii. p. 517.
[56] _Calendar of State Papers_, Colonial, 1669-1674, p. 64.
[57] _Calendar of State Papers_, Colonial, 1669-1674, p. 530.
[58] _Strange News from Virginia_ (1677), p. 8.
[59] _Calendar of State Papers_, Colonial, 1677-1680, p. 64.
[60] _Ibid._, p. 67.
[61] _Ibid._, p. iv.
[62] Fortescue, _Introduction to Calendar_, 1677-1680, p. v.
[63] _Calendar of State Papers_, Colonial, 1677-1680, p. 589.
[64] See p. 93.
[65] _Calendar of State Papers_, Colonial, 1697, p. 642.
[66] _Itinerant Observations_, p. 62.
CHAPTER III
THE COLONISATION OF MARYLAND AND THE CAROLINAS
"Maryland is a province not commonly knowne in England, because the name
of Virginia includes or clouds it, it is a Country wholy belonging to
that honorable Gentleman the Lord Baltamore."[67] Such is the
description of the colony that now comes before us, and at the time it
was penned John Hammond, the writer, told the truth. The colony had
arisen under rather peculiar circumstances, which neither resembled the
foundation of Virginia nor the settlement of the Pilgrim Fathers. In
1632 Charles I. granted to George Calvert, first Lord Baltimore, an
ill-defined tract of territory to the north of Virginia. Baltimore was
an old hand at colonisation, for he had some years previous attempted to
form a settlement in Newfoundland which had not been successful. David
Kirke, who took over the Baltimore lands there, said that Newfoundland
agreed with all God's creatures except Jesuits and schismatics, and that
a great mortality among the former tribe had driven Baltimore away.
Whether this was the true reason, or whether, as it has been proposed,
Baltimore was practically driven out by the Presbyterians, it is hard to
decide. His next trial as a colony founder was made in the more
southern lands of Virginia, but here his Roman Catholicism was sternly
opposed by the English Church party. Under these circumstances his
Maryland colony seemed likely to flourish, for there were neither
schismatics nor churchmen, nor Presbyterians, but only Indians to
contend against. Before the first Lord Baltimore could accomplish
anything he died, but the grant was transferred to his son Cecil. The
charter is an important one, for by it the Proprietors gained both
territorial and political rights; the freemen or representative assembly
were to be consulted, and with their advice the Proprietor could enact
laws. All places of worship were to be consecrated according to the
Church of England, and so the Roman Catholic faith had only a
subordinate position in a colony which owed its foundation to a true
upholder of that belief. From the very first Maryland was better off
than several of the other colonies, as the Crown divested itself of the
right of levying taxes within the province; but in other respects the
constitution was normal, consisting of a governor and two chambers, the
proprietor possessing the privilege of creating councillors.
Leonard Calvert, brother of the second Lord Baltimore, sailed to take
possession in 1633, accompanied by two Jesuit priests and three hundred
emigrants. These colonists were neither gaol-birds nor religious
fanatics; they had been selected with great care and were well provided.
One of the Jesuits, Father White, has left on record his _Impressions_
in which he says that the colony was founded with a definite religious
and educational purpose. "We had not come thither for the purpose of
war, but for the sake of benevolence, that we might imbue a rude race
with the precepts of civilisation, and open up a way to heaven, as well
as impart to them the advantages of remote regions."[68] When the
settlers came to the place of landing they "beheld the natives armed.
That night fires were kindled through the whole region, and since so
large a ship had never been seen by them messengers were sent everywhere
to announce 'that a canoe as large as an island had brought as many men
as there was trees in the woods.'"[69] From this moment and onwards the
relations with the natives were always friendly. The small independent
landowners being free from this danger, at first, lived happy and
contented lives, but they were gradually crushed out of existence by
large estate-holders working with gangs of indentured labourers.
The people of Virginia looked with some scorn upon their modern
neighbours, and it was not long before a quarrel took place. The Isle of
Kent lay in such a position off the coast that under Baltimore's patent
it ought to have been included in the province of Maryland. But in 1625
the Virginians had settled there for trading purposes, and were
determined not to be brought under the yoke of Baltimore's
proprietorship. Two years after the establishment of Maryland, the Isle
of Kent was under the rule of William Clayborne, a strong Protestant, a
contentious man, who was described by his enemies as "a pestilent enemie
to the wel-faire of that province and the Lord Proprietor."[70]
Calvert, anxious to establish the rights of his brother, sent two ships
to the Isle of Kent, and these were attacked by the crew of a pinnace
belonging to Clayborne, lives being lost on both sides. The quarrel
continued with so much fervour that it became merged in the greater
struggle of the Civil War. Calvert was granted by the King letters of
marque for privateering purposes, and he took good care to prey upon his
enemy, Clayborne, whose friend Ingle had been furnished with similar
letters from Parliament. Thus having placed the quarrel which was really
personal under the banners of King and Parliament, the two rivals
contended with each other.
The Parliamentary forces were, at first, successful; Ingle and Clayborne
invaded Maryland, seized St Mary's, and Calvert was obliged to fly. But
with assistance from Governor Berkeley of Virginia, he returned and
drove out the Clayborne faction which had disgusted the people by its
incapacity and greed. The quarrel ceased for a short time, owing to
Calvert's death; but it was not long before it was renewed. Lord
Baltimore appointed as his deputy William Stone, an ardent nonconformist
and Parliamentarian, who repaid the Proprietor's generosity by leaguing
with the people of the Isle of Kent. Traitor though he was, it is to be
remembered that during his period of rule one good act was passed.
Maryland was already celebrated for its toleration, but in 1649 it was
still further enacted that a Christian was not to be "in any ways
molested or discountenanced for or in respect of his or her religion,
nor in the free exercise thereof."[71]
For the peace of their minds and the preservation of their property
Stone and the settlers acknowledged the Parliamentary commissioners,
including Clayborne, who landed in 1652. They first displaced Stone, but
realising that he was popular, and thinking that it would be
advantageous for them, reinstated him. Stone, however, once more proved
a trimmer, and sided with the Proprietor; his late followers deserted
him and turned to Clayborne. On the establishment of the Protectorate in
1654 Lord Baltimore asserted his rights, claiming that he now held from
the Protector Cromwell, and declaring that the commissioners' privileges
had ceased. Clayborne and his companions were not the men to take such a
rebuff as this. "It was not religion, it was not punctilios they stood
upon, it was that sweete, that rich, that large country they aimed
at."[72] With this desire, according to a contemporary, Clayborne
asserted his authority by disfranchising the Roman Catholics and
forbidding the oath of loyalty to the Proprietor. William Stone, stung
to resistance and filled with importance as the representative of Lord
Baltimore, took up arms and was defeated by the Protestant party at
Providence in 1655. Many of Stone's followers were executed, and their
property confiscated; Stone himself was sentenced to death, but was
reprieved. Clayborne's party now seemed triumphant, but the home
authorities refused to bestow upon him the Isle of Kent, and within two
years the Protector restored to Baltimore his proprietorship of
Maryland. Trouble still continued, and in 1659 Josias Fendall, the
Proprietor's Governor, so worked upon the members of Assembly that they
claimed full legislative rights and complete independence of the
Baltimore family.
At the Restoration the quarrel came to an end, and Lord Baltimore
re-established his rights with nothing more than a mere show of force.
Philip Carteret was appointed Governor, and during his term of office a
mint was set up in the colony. He was succeeded in 1662 by Charles
Calvert to the alarm of the Protestant inhabitants, who sent an
extraordinary document to the Lord Mayor and London merchants entitled,
"_Complaint from heaven with a hue and cry and a petition out of
Virginia and Maryland, to the King and his Parliament against the
Barklian and Baltimore parties. The platform is Pope Jesuit determined
to overthrow England with fire and sword and destructions, and the
Maryland Papists to drive us Protestants to purgatory._"[73] These,
however, were purely imaginary troubles, and a more real one fell upon
both Virginia and Maryland on August 27, 1667, when a terrific gale
destroyed in two hours four-fifths of their tobacco and corn, and blew
down 15,000 houses. On the whole Virginia suffered perhaps more than
Maryland, but neither colony was really subject to such perils; and
both, during the first fifteen years of Charles II.'s reign, enriched
themselves as well as the Proprietor or the Crown by the fertility of
their soil. This period of prosperity, however, gave way to one of
unrest.
By the death of Cecil, Lord Baltimore in 1675, Charles Calvert, the late
Governor, succeeded as heir to the family titles, estates and
proprietorship of Maryland, the latter being placed under his deputy,
Thomas Notley. The Proprietor was not at first upon the best of terms
with the home government. He was severely reprimanded by the Privy
Council for the imprisonment and assassination of a collector of
customs. It is not hinted that Baltimore had any actual hand in this
crime, but it is thought that he connived "at least _ex post facto_ in
his murder." No sooner had the Proprietor got over this difficulty, than
he fell out with the settlers, who were caused much uneasiness in 1681
by the limitation of the franchise to those freeholders of 50 acres or
those owners of other property of the value of £40. A spirit of unrest
was therefore abroad, and there were not wanting those who were ready to
snatch the opportunity and pose as patriots against the aggression of
the Proprietor. Josias Fendall, who had already tried to deprive the
Baltimore family of their rights, and who had now become an unworthy
demagogue, leagued with John Coode, a clergyman, and revolted. The
insurrection, as such, was short-lived. But exciting events were taking
place in England, and Coode again seized his chance when news of the
Revolution of 1688 drifted across the Atlantic. He placed himself at the
head of the Association for the Defence of the Protestant Religion, and
in 1689, pretending that he was serving William III., seized in the
King's name the government of Maryland. The King bestowed some signs of
favour upon this clever rebel, but his designs were soon discovered, and
the government of Maryland was radically changed. In 1691 the colony was
placed under the direct control of the Crown; the political rights of
the Proprietor were annulled; the Church of England was established, and
the Roman Catholics were persecuted.
The first royal Governor was Francis Nicholson, who had served elsewhere
successfully, but was regarded with suspicion and dislike by many of
the inhabitants of Maryland. Gerald Slye's accusations against
Nicholson, in May 1698, give some idea of this dislike, and are of some
interest as an indication of the means used by an ignorant colonist to
discredit the Governor in England. A few of the accusations will show
how utterly foolish these complaints were. Slye began by asserting that
"all thinking men are amazed that such a man should have twisted himself
into any post in the government, for besides his incapacity and
illiteracy, he is a man who first in New York, then in Virginia, and at
last in Maryland, has always professed himself an enemy to the present
King and government." The next charge was that the Governor "makes his
chaplain walk bareheaded before him from home to church." This is
further extended by the fact that he "usually makes his chaplain wait
ten or twelve hours for service so that often morning prayer is said in
the evening." But there are more charges concerning Nicholson's
treatment of his chaplain, for he, "a pious and good gentleman, the
credit of the clergy in this province, happening one day by the
Governor's means [to be] a little disguised in drink"[74] was suddenly
summoned to conduct Divine Service. And so charge after charge of the
same absurd character were brought against Nicholson not so much because
of his ill-doing, but because he had the misfortune to be Governor.
The people of Maryland were not content until in 1715 the fourth Lord
Baltimore became a Protestant, and by his conversion it was held that
his full rights had revived. Fourteen years later the Proprietor's
title obtained an everlasting memorial in the foundation of the city of
Baltimore as a port for the planters. The restoration of the Calverts to
their former rights was by no means advantageous to the religious life
of the colony. The fourth lord was a hanger-on of Frederick, Prince of
Wales, while the fifth to hold the title was a notorious profligate.
These men insisted on exercising their right of clerical patronage
without any regard to the welfare of the Church. Thus George Whitefield,
who visited the colony in 1739, failed to arouse religious fervour. His
preaching in Maryland was far less successful than it had been in
Virginia. The former colony he found in "a dead sleep," and to use his
own words, he "spoke home to some ladies concerning the vanity of their
false politeness, but, alas! they are wedded to their quadrille and
ombre."[75]
If the Marylanders were conspicuous for their irreligion, they were
equally noticeable for their industry. A large number of German
emigrants had come to the colony, and had started a continuous movement
of extension towards the West. To these Germans is entirely due the
improved state of the country, and the better means of communication
even beyond the mountains. But the rolling westward of the Maryland
population brought the colony into close touch with the power of France;
and like the other colonies it was destined, about the middle of the
eighteenth century, to contend against the policy of the French King, by
which, if it had been successful, the seaboard colonies would have been
deprived of the possibility of further expansion towards the Pacific.
The history of the Carolinas only resembles that of Maryland in the fact
that they were both proprietary colonies. The swampy and low-lying coast
to the south of Virginia had, in the early years of colonisation,
offered little temptation to settlers, and long remained uninhabited by
Englishmen or Spaniards. Certainly in 1564, Laudonnière, a Huguenot
gentleman and naval officer, attempted a plantation at Port Royal in
South Carolina, and named his fortress Caroline, "in honour of our
Prince, King Charles";[76] but it was an absolute failure, and the
history of the fate of these Huguenots at the hands of the brutal
Spaniard, Menendez, is as well-known as the tremendous retribution which
followed his barbarous cruelty. Captains Amidas and Barlow, in 1584, at
the charge and direction of Sir Walter Raleigh, visited this portion of
the North American continent, but nothing came of it, and "Caroline" was
left strictly alone as if a curse were upon the land. Adventurers from
Virginia at last broke down the old prejudices, and by the year 1625
landseekers and discoverers had penetrated as far south as the Chowan.
By a strange chance the country named by Laudonnière was destined in
1629 to receive much the same name from an Englishman for much the same
reason. In that year Sir Robert Heath obtained from Charles I. a grant
of land to the south of Virginia, which was called after the King "the
province of Carolina." No practical result, however, came from this
grant, and Carolina, as it may now be called, still remained uninhabited
except for the natives.
The first real charter to the Lords Proprietor of Carolina was dated the
24th March 1663, but owing to the previous grant of Charles I. numerous
legal steps had to be taken before matters were satisfactorily arranged.
The land between Virginia and Florida was now granted to eight
patentees, amongst whom were the Duke of Albemarle, the Earl of
Clarendon, Sir William Berkeley, but above all the Earl of Shaftesbury.
These Proprietors had political and territorial authority, but there was
also to be an assembly of freeholders with legislative powers. Twenty
thousand acres of land were reserved for the original Proprietors, but
at the same time a notice was issued inviting planters to settle in the
colony, promising one hundred acres to each settler within five years,
together with the privilege of residing in a land blest with the
doctrine of freedom of conscience. This notice was published not only in
England, but also in Barbadoes, the Bermudas, Virginia and New England,
so that the colonisation of the Carolinas was not only, nor even mainly,
undertaken by adventurers from the home country. On Albemarle River a
settlement was made from Virginia, which formed the nucleus of North
Carolina. Near Cape Fear the New Englanders also had a little colony
which was absorbed by a more prosperous settlement from Virginia.
Settlers soon came from Barbadoes, for there the news had been welcomed,
and hundreds of experienced planters showed themselves willing to accept
the offer of the Proprietors, and expressed a desire to come with their
negroes and servants. They had, no doubt, been tempted by the extra
inducements published in August 1663, when the Carolinas were advertised
as wonderfully healthy and a land capable of bearing commodities not yet
produced in other plantations as wine, oil, currants, raisins, silks,
etc. Most of the Barbadoes planters were afterwards absorbed in the
colony sent out from England forming the nucleus of South Carolina.
The history of the first year in the Carolinas is practically unknown,
except that in September the province was divided into two, and the
northern section seems to have been already settled. The growth of the
colony must have been steady, for in June 1665, Thomas Woodward,
surveyor for the Proprietors in Albemarle county, shows that the
population has increased, and that "the bounds of the county of
Albemarle, fortie miles square, will not comprehend the inhabitants
there already seated."[77] He continues to give the Proprietors
excellent advice, and recommends that they should show generosity if
they wish to encourage settlers; "so if your Lordships please to give
large Incouragement for some time till the country be more fully Peopled
your Honore may contract for the future upon what condition you please.
But for the present, To thenke that any men will remove from Virginia
upon harder Conditione then they can live there will prove (I feare) a
vaine Imagination, It bein Land only that they come for."[78] There were
however, others who continued to praise the colony, and one writer in
1670 says of Ashley River, "it is like a bowling alley, full of dainty
brooks and rivers of running water; full of large and stately
timber."[79] The reader can hardly refrain from wondering where the
resemblance to a bowling alley is to be found. Again the panegyrist says
in a somewhat peculiar sentence, "as of the land of Canaan, it may be
said it is a land flowing with milk and honey, and it lies in the same
latitude."[80] The Proprietors were very anxious to preserve this lovely
land for the "better folk," and in December 1671 Lord Ashley wrote to
Captain Holstead not to invite the poorer sort to Carolina, "for we find
ourselves mightily mistaken in endeavouring to get a great number of
poor people there, it being substantial men and their families that must
make the plantation which will stock the country with negroes, cattle,
and other necessaries, whereas others rely and eat upon us."[81]
Carolina's presiding genius and champion was Lord Shaftesbury's medical
adviser, secretary, and personal friend, John Locke. He is supposed in
1667 to have drawn up the Fundamental Constitutions which contained an
elaborate scheme of feudal government. Whether he did produce this
astounding document has never been conclusively proved, nor is it of
much value, since the principles contained in it were never enforced as
a working system, for they were neither adapted to the times nor the
conditions of a colony of freemen. By the year 1670 the elective
Assembly possessed the definite powers of appointing officers,
establishing law courts, and superintending the military defences of the
colony. These privileges did not prevent them committing a great blunder
by which the colony was converted into a paradise for the bankrupt and
the pauper, but a hell for the honest and willing settler. It was now
enacted that no colonist for the first five years after the true
foundation of the colony should be liable for any exterior debts; that
no newcomer need pay any taxes for his first year; and that marriage
should be regarded as valid if mutual consent should be declared before
the governor.
The northern section of the colony suffered most, and for fifty years
this part of Carolina was wearied by ever recurring disputes and
insurrections. "The colony indeed seems to have reached that chronic
state of anarchy when the imprisonment and deposition of a governor is a
passing incident which hardly influences the life of the community."[82]
Thus during the government of Thomas Eastchurch, who was sent out by the
Proprietors to Albemarle in 1677, there was much trouble. Eastchurch
appointed as his deputy the immoral Thomas Miller of the King's Customs.
"Now Miller had a failing, not as the Proprietors point out, the common
one of religious bigotry which had bred such dissension in New England,
but a weakness for strong liquor."[83] On his arrival he undertook to
model the Parliament, "no doubt with alcoholic readiness and assurance,
which proceeding we learn without surprise gave the people occasion to
oppose and imprison him."[84] Thereupon certain unscrupulous men took
Miller's place and began at once to collect the Customs and so defrauded
the Crown. For some short time angry words passed between the home
Government and the colony, but the storm was calmed by the restoration
of the King's duties. Eastchurch was succeeded by Culpeper, who
controlled affairs until Seth Sothel came out as governor in 1683. The
new ruler's rapacity and arbitrary conduct caused the Assembly to
depose and banish him, paying no attention to the feeble remonstrance of
the Proprietors.
Meanwhile the southern portion of Carolina, particularly the settlements
of Yeamans at Cape Fear and Sayle at Charleston, proved themselves more
orderly and promising than the anarchic Albemarle; and probably for this
reason the Proprietors displayed towards them more consideration. The
constitution which was granted to Charleston in 1670 was most liberal in
character, for not only were the freemen allowed to elect the members of
the House of Representatives, but they also possessed the privilege of
nominating ten out of the twenty councillors. As so many of the settlers
had come from Antiqua, "weary of the hurricane,"[85] or from Barbadoes,
they naturally reproduced their old methods of life, and having been
accustomed to slaves, they tried to force the Indians into servility;
but they found the Red Indian very different from the African negro, for
he was possessed of a proud spirit and remarkable cunning that saved him
from serfdom. The community of the South was one of wealthy traders who
generally lived in the capital, partly because of the fine harbour and
the insalubrious swamps inland, and partly because of the scheme of the
Proprietors by which every freeholder had a town lot one-twentieth the
extent of his whole domain.
The first governor was William Sayle, of Barbadoes, described in 1670 as
"a man of no great sufficiency."[86] It is very difficult at this
distance of time to deduce the character of this governor, for Henry
Brayne wrote, "Sayle is one of the unfittest men in the world for his
place"; and he then proceeded to call him "crazy."[87] On the other
hand, when Sayle died in 1671, being at least eighty years of age, he is
called "the good aged governor";[88] and the Council of Ashley River, on
March 4, 1671, recorded that he was "very much lamented by our people,
whose life was as dear to them as the hopes of their prosperity."[89]
Sayle's chief work during his short period of office was an attempt to
inculcate godly ways amongst the somewhat ungodly colonists. He urged
the Proprietors to send out an orthodox minister, and proposed the man
"which I and many others have lived under as the greatest of our
mercies."[90] He knew very well that some special inducement would have
to be held out to the Proprietors, and so uses the scriptural words,
"for where the Ark of God is, there is peace and tranquillity."[91]
Sayle was succeeded by Joseph West as governor in 1671, but his
appointment was only temporary, as Lord Shaftesbury in the autumn of
that year sent a commission to Sir John Yeamans. His unpopularity,
however, caused his deposition; and Joseph West was again nominated as
governor in 1674, a post which he filled with conspicuous satisfaction
and success for eleven years. While West was still in office, the Lords
Proprietor issued an order in December 1679 for the proper establishment
of Charlestown. "Wherefore we think fit to let you know that the Oyster
Point is the place we do appoint for the port-town, of which you are to
take notice and call it Charlestown, and order the meetings of the
Council to be there held, and the Secretary's, Registrar's, and
Surveyor's offices to be kept within that town. And you are to take care
to lay out the streets broad and in straight lines, and that in your
grant of town-lots you do bound everyone's land towards the streets in
an even line, and suffer no one to encroach with his buildings upon the
streets, whereby to make them narrower than they were first
designed."[92] Such was the town to which West welcomed the Huguenots
who were excluded from the colonies of their own country. The
Proprietors, too, appreciating the wisdom of their governor, afforded
the unhappy French means of cultivating their native produce of wine,
oil, and silk, so that they soon established new homes for their
distressed brethren, "who return daily into Babylon for want of such a
haven."[93] By the end of West's administration the Clarendon
settlements centering round Charlestown had become extremely well-to-do,
and the town government, which was of excellent character, administered
the affairs of about three thousand people. But the southern territory
fell into the evil ways of North Carolina; and after West's retirement,
which finally took place in 1685, a series of unsatisfactory governors
caused a continual bickering, ill-feeling, and well nigh insurrection.
Sothel, whose bad government in Albemarle was already known in the
south, was appointed governor in 1690; but after a year the southern
settlers, taking example from their northern brethren, drove him out.
The Proprietors at last found that they had had enough of this
disgusting incompetence and anarchy. The Locke Constitutions had failed
in every way; a change must be made; and it appeared that an
amalgamation of North and South under one governor might have the effect
desired. Their first choice of an administrator was most unsuccessful;
Philip Ludwell of Virginia found he had a hard task before him in
restoring peace out of chaos and anarchy. The task was too much for him,
and having proved himself incapable was succeeded by a Carolina planter,
Thomas Smith, in 1692. Bickering and quarrels continued; Indian attacks
were occasionally met and dealt with; but the southern Spaniards were an
ever present danger that made Smith's rule no sinecure. After three
years Joseph Archdale, a quaker, and one of the Proprietors, came out as
governor, but after a few months in the colony he was succeeded by his
nephew, Joseph Blake. The benign rule of both these governors gave at
last to the Carolinas a peace which they had not known for twenty years.
The Huguenots were once again welcomed by Blake, and although they had
been steadily settling in the Carolinas, particularly since the
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, yet they now obtained a more
hearty welcome and complete toleration. So much had Blake's government
done for the Carolinas that the royal special agent in 1699 records, "if
this place were duly encouraged, it would be the most useful to the
Crown of all the Plantations upon the continent of America."
There were, however, two external dangers to which the Carolinas were
exposed at the very moment they seemed to have obtained internal peace.
The first was the new French settlement on the Mississippi; the second
was the fear of Spanish aggression from Florida. The French danger was
never really very extreme, and the Carolinas escaped many of the horrors
of New England history. But the Spanish peril was true enough, for as
early as 1680 a party of Scotch Presbyterians were routed from their
little settlement at Port Royal, and this was regarded by the Carolina
settlers as a just cause of complaint and an insult to his Majesty King
Charles. To their great disappointment in 1699, when Edward Randolph was
sent out to make investigations concerning Spanish intrusions, he
brought with him no troops for their protection. At the beginning of the
eighteenth century, therefore, it appeared best to the settlers that for
their own defence they should take offensive action.
The war of the Spanish Succession, or, as it was called in the colonies,
Queen Anne's war, had broken out, and rumours had reached the settlers
of a coming Spanish onslaught. To meet this, James Moore, a political
adventurer, but a very brave and capable man, led 500 English and 800
Indian allies into Spanish territory and took the unprotected town of St
Augustine; but the fort, which was used as a last stronghold, resisted
him for three months, and as he was unprovided with siege guns, he was
obliged to retire on the appearance of a Spanish man-of-war. Nothing
daunted, but rather elated with their previous success, a larger raid
was made in 1704. Sir Nathaniel Johnstone was now governor, and he
commissioned Colonel Moore to attack Apalachee, eighty miles to the west
of St Augustine. In this action Moore was again successful, as Colonel
Brewton records that "by this conquest of Apalachee the Province was
freed from any danger from that part during the whole war."[94] The
Spaniards, however, did not remain idle, and in 1706, in alliance with
the French from Martinique, with a fleet of ten sail and a force of 800
men attacked Charlestown. The inhabitants were terrified, and their
anguish was intensified by the horror of a severe outbreak of yellow
fever. Many of them, therefore, fled from the town, but Sir Nathaniel
Johnstone routed the combined forces of France and Spain and captured no
fewer than 230 prisoners.
Factious quarrels within the Province itself now threatened the safety
of the settlers. Since 1691 North and South Carolina had been united
under one governor, but the custom had been established that the
northern portion of the colony was always under the administration of a
deputy. In 1711 Thomas Cary disputed with Edward Hyde as to which held
the office; it was decided in favour of the latter. The purely personal
quarrel drove Cary to forget his feelings of patriotism, and flying from
Carolina he stirred up the Tuscarora Indians, who, with fiendish
delight, attacked a small settlement of Germans from the Palatinate.
South Carolina, where the supreme governor dwelt, immediately dispatched
an army to the assistance of the North, with the effect that apparent
peace was gained and the army was no longer required. Immediately upon
its withdrawal, however, the Tuscaroras again fell upon the helpless
people; this was too much, vengeance must be taken; and this fierce
Indian tribe was practically decimated and forced to migrate north.
Although the Treaty of Utrecht was signed in 1713, and the Spanish War
of Succession came to an end, yet there was little hope of peace in the
West as long as either side allied with the Indians. The fate of the
Tuscaroras may have stimulated the Yamassee Indians to revenge in 1716.
In April, headed by Spaniards, they massacred about eighty inhabitants
of Granville County, South Carolina. Charles Craven, the governor,
proved himself a man of vigour, activity, and stern resolve, and by his
efforts within a few months the colony was assured of safety, and there
was apparent peace between the settlers of Carolina and the Spaniards of
Florida.
In the winter of 1719 that perpetual love of dissension, and dislike of
any federal action, was once more manifested by the Assembly of South
Carolina. The governor was a son of Sir Nathaniel Johnstone, and he had
done his best for the Proprietors, but unlike the northern portions the
South now disowned all proprietary rule and elected a governor under the
Crown. The home authorities immediately sent out Francis Nicholson, a
capable colonial official who had already had experience in New York,
Virginia, and Maryland. Ten years later the Proprietors accepted the
inevitable, and being compensated financially, handed over the Carolinas
to the Crown. They probably never regretted the bargain, as in 1739 the
war against Spain once more jeopardised the existence of the English
settlements in the south, the inhabitants of which were in chronic fear
of murder and rapine. The chief Spanish attack was made in 1742, when an
army of 5000 landed at St Simon's, owing to the failure of Captain Hardy
to intercept the enemy's fleet. The expedition was unsuccessful; the
colonists held their own; eighty prisoners were brought into
Charlestown; and the Spaniards retired.
The share taken by the two Carolinas in American history during the next
few years was far less than that of other colonies, but will be dealt
with in another chapter. The great interest of the early history of the
Carolinas is that the colony won for itself against very considerable
odds the rights of local government and freedom from the shackles of the
Proprietors. The settlers exhibited from first to last that full
determination which is peculiarly associated with those of English stock
to control their own destiny without the leading-strings of a few,
perhaps benevolent, but generally misguided, human beings, whose powers
have been conferred upon them by chance. The settlers of the Carolinas
were a dogged type of men who faced external dangers with courage and
good sense, distinctly contradictory of their pig-headed, factious,
anarchic spirit in all internal affairs.
FOOTNOTES:
[67] Hammond, _Leah and Rachel_ (London, 1656), p. 20.
[68] White, _A Relation of the Colony of the Lord Baron Baltimore in
Maryland_ (ed. 1847).
[69] _Ibid._
[70] Hammond, _ut supra._
[71] Bozman, _History of Maryland, 1633-60_ (1837), vol. ii. p. 661.
[72] Hammond, _ut supra._
[73] _Calendar of State Papers_, Colonial, 1661-1668, p. 119.
[74] _Calendar of State Papers_, Colonial, 1697-1698, p. 246.
[75] _Letters_, vol. i. p. 135.
[76] _Hakluyt's voyages_ (edit. 1904), vol. ix. p. 17.
[77] Saunders, editor of _Colonial Records of North Carolina_, p. 99.
[78] _Ibid._, p. 100.
[79] _Calendar of State Papers_, Colonial, 1669-1674, p. 186.
[80] _Calendar of State Papers_, Colonial, 1669-1674, p. 187.
[81] _Ibid._, p. 297.
[82] Doyle, _Cambridge Modern History_ (1905), vol. vii. p. 35.
[83] Fortescue, _Calendar of State Papers_, Colonial, 1677-1680, p. ix.
[84] _Ibid._, p. ix.
[85] _Calendar of State Papers_, Colonial, 1669-1674, p. 620.
[86] _Ibid._, p. 130.
[87] _Calendar of State Papers_, Colonial, 1669-1674, p. 137.
[88] _Ibid._, p. 187.
[89] _Ibid._, p. 169.
[90] _Ibid._, p. 70.
[91] _Ibid._, p. 86.
[92] _Calendar of State Papers_, Colonial, 1677-1680, p. 455.
[93] _Ibid._, p. xi.
[94] _Historical Collections of South Carolina_ (New York, 1836).
CHAPTER IV
THE PURITANS IN PLYMOUTH AND MASSACHUSETTS
It has been customary to regard the members of the colony of Virginia as
Cavaliers of the most ardent type, but, as has been shown, this is
scarcely correct, and amongst the Virginians there were many who did not
approve of either the actions of Laud or the dissimulation of Charles.
In much the same way it would be erroneous to ascribe to the New England
group a plebeian origin. The Virginian gentleman found his counterpart
in the New England colonies of Plymouth and Massachusetts. It is,
however, more true to describe these two colonies as the offspring and
embodiment of Puritanism, than to describe Virginia as purely
monarchical. In the northern colonies, congregationalism was the chief
form of religious worship, and this, as was natural, determined their
political form; it was no insurmountable step from a belief in
congregations to a belief in republics. The men who found this step so
easy were a very different pattern to the early ne'er-do-wells of
Virginian colonisation. The northern colonies were founded by the yeoman
and the trader, both of whom were patient, watchful, and ready to assert
with an Englishman's doggedness all political rights. These men formed
small organic communities filled with the very strongest sense of
corporate life. Not that these forms took an absolutely exact line, for
in some cases the community was a pure democracy with limitations and
restrictions; in others there was a very wide and modified oligarchy.
The men were the very best of settlers; they knew what they wanted, and
were ready to work and even sacrifice their lives to gain that object.
It is not surprising that in the New England colonies prosperity raised
its head long before it had come to Virginia, though the soil of the
latter was far more fertile than the sterile lands of the northern
group.
The Plymouth Company had been formed at the same time as the London
Company, but it had accomplished very little.[95] In 1607 it dispatched
an expedition under George Popham and Raleigh Gilbert to the River
Kennebec, in the territory afterwards called Maine. The climate,
however, did not suit the adventurers, and owing to the mismanagement of
the leaders and the indifference of the Company nothing came of the
undertaking. For thirteen years the Plymouth Company made no further
effort, but in 1620 it was entirely reorganised, placed upon a new
footing, and renamed the New England Company. This may have been caused
by two things. In the first place Captain John Smith had made a voyage
to New England in 1614; it was indeed that resourceful but perhaps
boastful adventurer who either gave the name by which the country was
afterwards known, or gave currency to an already existing though not
generally accepted title. "In the moneth of Aprill, 1614 ... I chanced
to arrive in _New-England_, a parte of _Ameryca_ at the _Ile of
Monahiggin_, in 43-½ of Northerly Latitude."[96] But even this voyage
and the several others that followed would not have been sufficient to
arouse the Plymouth Company. It was in truth a second and deeper cause
that started the reorganisation of a corporation that had so long lain
dormant. A new force had now entered into colonisation that was to do
much for the establishment of the Anglo-Saxon race in America. Religion
had sent men to convert the savages, but now religious persecution sent
men to make homes amongst those barbarians.
It is unnecessary here to discuss the rise of the Puritans as an
important sect in English history. They were those "whose minds had
derived a peculiar character from the daily contemplation of superior
beings and eternal interests."[97] They differed in nearly every respect
from the ordinary Englishman of the Elizabethan period, and yet they
were in many instances intellectual and well-bred. They saw, however,
that "they could not have the Word freely preached and the sacraments
administered without idolatrous gear," and so they concluded to break
away from the Church. It was this separation that gained for them the
name of Separatists, and brought upon them the punishment of the State.
To avoid this some sought leave from Elizabeth to settle in the land
"which lieth to the west," their object being to "settle in Canada and
greatly annoy the bloody and persecuting Spaniard in the Bay of
Mexico."[98] Such was the knowledge of geography about 1591, and it was
very fortunate for the would-be-colonists that nothing came of the
scheme. Two years later some Independents of London fled to Amsterdam,
where they hoped to exercise their religion unmolested. Soon after the
beginning of the seventeenth century the Nonconformists of Gainsborough
took refuge in the Low Countries, to be followed in 1606 by the
Congregationalists from Scrooby. They first found shelter in Amsterdam,
and later, some, choosing John Robinson as their minister, moved to
Leyden.
The laws of England had driven these men abroad, but they never forgot
the fact that they were Englishmen. They found their families growing up
around them and naturally imbibing foreign ideas. This fact deeply
pained the parents, who looked back upon their own happy youths in Tudor
England. They determined, therefore, to leave the Netherlands, and
William Bradford, their faithful chronicler, tells in quaint but honest
words why they were driven to this decision. "In y^e agitation of their
thoughts, and much discours of things hear aboute; at length they began
to incline to this new conclusion, of remooual to some other place. Not
out of any new fanglednes, or other such like giddie humor, by which men
are oftentimes transported to their great hurt & danger. But for sundrie
weightie & solid reasons."[99] The most serious of these reasons "and of
all sorowes most heauie to be borne; was that many of their children, by
these occasions (and y^e great licentiousnes of youth in y^t countrie)
and y^e manifold Temptations of the place, were drawne away by euill
examples into extrauagante & dangerous courses, getting y^e raines off
their neks & departing from their parents. Some became souldjers,
others took vpon them farr viages by Sea; and other some worse courses
... so that they saw their posteritie would be in danger to degenerate &
be corrupted."[100] It was for this reason, then, in particular, that
the people of the congregation of Leyden turned their thoughts to the
"countries of America which are frutful & fitt for habitation; being
deuoyed of all ciuill Inhabitants; wher ther are only saluage & brutish
men which range vp and downe, litle otherwise than y^e wild beasts of
the same."[101] And yet though they sought a home for themselves where
they might worship as they pleased, they were at the same time filled
with that missionary spirit which had encouraged Columbus and many
another adventurer to persevere. Their great aim was to lay "some good
foundation or at least make some way thereunto, for y^e propagating &
advancing y^e gospell of y^e Kingdom of Christ in those remote parts of
y^e world; yea, though they should be but even as stepping stones unto
others for y^e performing of so great a work."[102]
With these intentions the ever famous Pilgrim Fathers came to England,
bringing with them a document admitting the supremacy of the State in
religious matters. The wording of the clauses, however, was so artful
that these Puritans proved that though gentle as doves they were not
without the wisdom of the serpent. They obtained leave from James I. to
set out on their voyage; but they were financed by certain London
traders who were to receive all the profits for the first seven years,
when the partnership was to be dissolved. Until this dissolution the
whole band was to live as a community with joint property, trade, and
labour. A few labourers were sent out by the London partners, but the
group to which the term of Pilgrim Fathers strictly applies was composed
of forty-one Puritan emigrants and their families, who had, as a friend
said, "been instrumental to break the ice for others; the honours shall
be yours to the world's end."[103] The voyage of the _Mayflower_ is now
one of the most familiar events in the history of the British Empire.
The little vessel, accompanied by the _Speedwell_, which had to return,
sailed from Plymouth in August 1620. The original intention of the
emigrants had been to land on part of the shores of Virginia; but owing
to storms, the fragile character of the vessel, and the obstinacy of the
captain, they reached Cape Cod, "which is onely a headland of high hils
of sand ouergrowne with shrubbie pines hurts and such trash."[104] While
lying off this inhospitable promontory the emigrants with forethought
bound themselves together by a social compact, thus forming a true body
politic.
The Pilgrims landed at a spot "fit for habitation" in Cape Cod Harbour
on the 22nd of December. Exploring expeditions were undertaken by the
more adventurous under Miles Standish, a man after the type of Captain
John Smith, but less boastful and of sterner religious character. No
definite settlement was fixed upon and the people were therefore forced
to remain in the neighbourhood of Cape Cod, where they faced the winter
unprepared. Although their minister, John Robinson, had described them
months before as "well-weaned from the delicate milk of the Mother
country and inurred to the difficulties of a strange land,"[105] yet
their sufferings during those wild and stormy months must have been
terrible. Several of the party died, amongst them their first governor,
William Carver. His successor was the already mentioned chronicler,
William Bradford, who served the colony well and faithfully for twelve
years. He was the first American citizen of English birth who was
selected as governor by free choice. His strength of character, moral
rectitude, and lofty public spirit made him worthy of the high office
conferred upon him. Fortunately his first year of government was freed
from the burden of Indian attacks. The truth was that the Pilgrim
Fathers always preserved friendly relations with the neighbouring
Redskins; partly because they had been so reduced in numbers by
pestilence that they were never a serious danger, and partly owing to
Edward Winslow, one of the ablest and most highly educated of the
settlers, who had saved, by his knowledge of medicine, the Indian
chief's life, thus establishing from the first amicable relations.
Amidst the most heart-rending adversity the Pilgrim Fathers worked at
the communal industry, and struggled through those months of cold and
semi-starvation, helped no doubt by the fact that they were religious
enthusiasts filled with a sense of a divine mission. In May 1621
Bradford records the first marriage amongst the settlers, which was
conducted on somewhat novel lines, for "according to y^e laudable
custome of y^e Low-cuntries, in which they had liued was thought most
requisite to be performed, by the magistrate."[106] In November fifty
additional settlers came out from the Leyden congregation, and these not
only increased the difficulty of supplying food for everyone, but also
introduced a feeling of dissatisfaction with what they found. Bradford
had, however, the laugh on his side. On Christmas Day the Governor
called them to work as usual, but "the new company ... said it wente
against their consciences to work on y^t day." They were therefore
allowed to remain at home, the rest of the colony going out to work; but
when the governor came home at noon, "he found them in y^e streete at
play openly; some pitching y^e barr & some at stoole-ball and such like
sports. So he went to them and tooke away their Implements and tould
them that it was against his conscience, that they should play & others
worke."[107]
The settlers had indeed laboured hard and not in vain, for a definite
grant of their territory was issued by the New England Company, and
there was now no fear of their log-fort, their houses, or their
twenty-six acres of cleared ground being seized by the original members
to whom the land had been granted by James I. The little plot of ground
thus carefully tended seems to have been a real oasis in the wilderness.
An eye-witness, Edward Winslow, has drawn an ideal picture of the
settlement. "Here are grapes, white and red, and very sweet and strong
also; strawberries, gooseberries, raspas, etc.; plums of three sorts,
white, black and red, being almost as good as a damson; abundance of
roses, white, red and damask; single but very sweet indeed. The country
wanted only industrious men to employ."[108] With such a tempting
account it is not surprising that thirty-five new settlers went out in
1622.
The communal principle gradually began to break down. The younger men
did not care to work so hard and find that they gained no more than the
weak and aged; nor were the married men pleased with the idea of their
wives cooking, washing, and sewing for the bachelors. As early as 1623,
signs of the disappearance of the system were beginning to show
themselves; and by 1627 its break up was completed when the interests of
the London partners were transferred to six of the chief settlers with a
general division of land and live stock. The government of the
settlement was now placed on an assured footing; the laws were passed by
the whole body of freemen, who had also the double right of electing the
governor and a committee of seven assistants. Under the new methods the
colony throve apace, and three years after the change, two new townships
were formed and these sent delegates to an assembly which was primarily
composed of the whole body of freemen, but which, owing to the existence
of these delegates, gradually developed, until in New Plymouth there was
a proper bicameral legislature with a governor at its head.
The Plymouth colonists set "the example of a compact religious
brotherhood."[109] In 1636 they passed a code of laws which in no way
clashed with those of England, but applied more especially to the style
of life which they had adopted. The brotherhood extended its bounds year
by year, and hardly a score of years had passed since their first
landing before eight prim, clean, and comfortable towns had been built,
containing a population of about 3000 inhabitants. By this time the
Civil War had broken out in England, but the settlers were little
affected by it, for they lived their own quiet lives and went on their
way, filled with religious fervour and working hard to support
themselves.
After the Restoration, however, they felt bound to bestir themselves in
political affairs, and in June 1661 their general court sent a petition
to Charles II., asking him to confirm their liberties, explaining to him
that they were his faithful subjects "who did hither transport ourselves
to serve our God with a pure conscience, according to His will revealed,
not a three days' journey as Moses, but near three thousand miles into a
vast howling wilderness, inhabited only by barbarians." They concluded
their petition in the quaintest words, saying that if only the King will
grant their wishes, "we say with him, it is enough, our Joseph (or
rather) our Charles is yet alive."[110] The poverty of the Plymouth
brethren about this time is evidenced by their lack of funds necessary
for the renewal of their charter in 1665; and also in the fact that the
people were not able to maintain scholars for their ministers, "but are
necessitated to make use of a gifted brother in some places."[111]
Nevertheless in this same year they are computed to have had a fighting
force of 2500 men; and on two later occasions (1676 and 1690) they were
strong enough to make strenuous but ineffectual attempts to obtain a
charter from the Crown. The little colony that has perhaps the proudest
of all positions in American history was finally, in 1691, merged in its
more arrogant and pushing neighbour Massachusetts, and the land of the
Pilgrim Fathers lost its identity.
Just as Puritanism had been the cause of the foundation of New Plymouth,
so it was in the case of Massachusetts. Lord Macaulay has pointed out
that "the Puritan was made up of two different men, the one all
self-abasement, penitent gratitude, passion; the other proud, calm,
inflexible, sagacious."[112] The first type represented New Plymouth,
where Puritanism was distressed, and where its followers struggled
manfully but were self-abased. Massachusetts, on the other hand,
resembled the second type; here Puritanism was vigorous; the upholders
of the belief were aggressive, strong, determined, and pushing. Thus the
two colonies were not only different in character, but for that very
reason were destined to differ in prosperity.
As early as 1620, Sir Ferdinando Gorges and others had been interested
in the colonisation of New England; and in a document issued in the
following year, strict injunctions were laid down for the carrying out
of material fit for the foundation of a settlement. Thus, every "shipp
of three score tons shall carry w^{th} them twoe Piggs, two Calves, twoe
couple of tame Rabbetts, two couple of Hens and a cocke."[113] Nothing,
however, seems to have been permanently established, and within two
years this New England Company is said to have been "in a moribund
condition."[114] In 1623 some Dorchester traders started a fishing
station at Cape Ann, Massachusetts Bay. The manager was Roger Conant,
who had disagreed with his brethren in New Plymouth and had separated
from them. Three years later the scheme was abandoned; most of the
settlers returned except Conant and a small band who "squatted" at
Naumkeag, better known in later years as Salem. The failure of the
merchants did not discourage John White, incumbent of Dorchester, and he
determined to form a settlement for Puritans, from which there sprang
the colony of Massachusetts. Matters were at once hurried on, and in
1629 six Puritan partners obtained a grant of land from the New England
Company, which was to extend westward as far as the Pacific Ocean, then
believed to be but a short distance. One of the partners, John Endecott,
was selected to occupy the land. On his arrival he had some trouble with
an earlier but somewhat disreputable squatter called Morton, who had
formed a little colony, Merry Mount, where, apparently, his perfectly
innocent sports, such as dancing round the Maypole, annoyed the stern
New Englanders, and made them class such diversions as "beastly
practices." Endecott took strong measures, and as the Maypole was
particularly disgusting to the Puritan mind, he settled the matter by
hewing "down the _infelix arbor_."[115]
A royal charter was readily granted in March 1629, establishing the
Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay, but omitting to insist on the
Company's meetings being held in England. It was not a very great step,
therefore, to transfer the schemes of a mere trading company to the
principles of a self-sufficing colony; and before the end of the year
the interests of the traders passed into the hands of ten persons who
were particularly concerned in the prosperity of the colony, which in
the future was regarded as perfectly distinct from the Company. The
necessary preliminaries having been satisfactorily concluded, emigration
began at once. The character of the colonists was very superior to that
of the "riff-raff" that had been sent to Virginia. Some of the most
intellectual clergymen of the day took a deep interest in the
undertaking, a few indeed actually accompanied the three hundred and
fifty settlers who embarked for their new homes.
"The first beginning of this worke seemed very dolorous," writes the
chronicler, but the people were most fortunate in their choice of
governor, John Winthrop. He was a man of forty-three years of age, who
had received a good education at Cambridge and had some knowledge of the
law; he had passed the latter years of his life, before emigration, as a
Suffolk squire, and had been moulded in the school of Hampden. His
character was of the best, and he is revered as one of the strongest and
certainly one of the most lovable of the early settlers in America. He
was a thorough Puritan, but of that type of which Charles Kingsley wrote
and made so attractive. Like his brethren the governor showed humility,
but unlike so many he was sweet-tempered and moderate; not that he was
too gentle, for his decisive mind and sound constructive statesmanship
saved him from any appearance of weakness. It may be said, in short,
that Winthrop, as a man of wealth, of good birth, and of great
abilities, was the most remarkable Puritan statesman in colonial
history. He was assisted in his work by "the worthy Thomus Dudly,
Esq.,"[116] as Deputy Governor, and Mr Simon Brodstreet as Secretary.
Endecott's original settlement had been at Charlestown, where the
colonists had pitched some tents of cloth and built a few small huts;
but in 1630 Winthrop moved to Boston, which became the capital, and
within a few months eight small settlements were established along
Boston Bay.
A regular representative assembly with governor and assistants soon
became necessary, its importance being brought forward by the Watertown
protest. The freemen of this settlement refused to pay a tax of £60 to
fortify the new town of Cambridge, "and delivered their opinions, that
it was not safe to pay moneys after that sort for fear of bringing
themselves and posterity into bondage."[117] Thus it was seen that a
representative assembly was indispensable; it was not, however, until a
lost pig in 1644 had caused a petty civil suit which led to a quarrel
between the deputies and assistants that the Massachusetts parliament
became bicameral. Long before this the colony had been regarded with
disfavour in England. Archbishop Laud was only too ready to listen to
any stories against the Puritans; the colony was therefore solemnly
arraigned before the Privy Council and the three chief members were
questioned as to the conduct of the rest; and as an immediate
consequence the intending settlers of the year 1634 were not allowed to
sail without taking the oath of allegiance and promising to conform to
the Book of Common Prayer. The emigrants were willing enough to
subscribe to these as England was becoming unbearable. Laud with his
Arminian theories, Pym with his revolutionary ideas, and Charles with
his irresolution, were gradually causing a distinct emigration to what
the newcomers imagined was a land of peace. They arrived to find it in a
bellicose state, for the fact that a royal Commission of twelve, with
Laud at the head, had been appointed to administer the affairs of the
colonies, had so alarmed them that the colonists had started to fortify
Dorchester, Charlestown, and Castle Island.
Nothing perhaps is more astonishing than the bitter intolerance of those
who had fled to find toleration; but to the Puritan toleration was only
significant of indifference, and was therefore an abhorrent principle at
the very time he so sorely needed it. The religious dissensions during
the early years of the colony of Massachusetts illustrate the fanatical
and bigoted character of the Puritan quite as clearly as any particular
event or series of events in English history. It is painful to find even
in the first few months of the settlement, when Endecott was still in
command, many evidences of intolerance. John and Samuel Browne collected
a congregation and conducted the service according to the Book of Common
Prayer; but so horrible did this appear to Endecott that these luckless
men were expelled from the colony. Two years later political and social
rights were intimately connected with religious privileges by an
ordinance that no one was to be a freeman unless he belonged to a
church; and this was still further extended in 1635, so that no man
could vote at a town meeting unless he possessed the ecclesiastical
qualification.
Religious troubles were fomented, after 1631, by the able but bigoted
Roger Williams. He was a man of very considerable gifts, being both an
energetic and attractive preacher, but at the same time filled with an
intense hatred of Erastianism. As soon as he arrived he was chosen
minister of Salem, where he exhibited his imperfect sense of proportion
and gained for himself the title of "a haberdasher of small
questions."[118] His energy and impulsiveness led him astray, and the
more intellectual could hardly fail to see that his mind was incapable
of distinguishing the vital from the trifle. His political doctrines
forced him into extraordinary actions, such as that of persuading
Endecott to cut the cross out of the royal ensign; while at the same
time he not only denied the English sovereign's right to grant territory
in North America, but also with equal vehemence repudiated all secular
control in religious affairs. For four years the freemen of
Massachusetts quietly suffered Roger Williams' whimsicalities, but in
October 1635 their patience had come to an end, and the General Court of
the Colony banished him with twenty of his disciples, as his sympathetic
chronicler says, "and that in the extremity of winter, forcing him to
betake himselfe into the vast wilderness to sit down amongst the
Indians."[119] The kindly governor, John Winthrop, does not seem to have
approved of the verdict, for many years afterwards Roger Williams wrote
"that ever honoured Governour Mr Winthrop privately wrote to me to steer
my course to Nahigonset Bay.... I took his prudent motion as an hint and
voice from God, and waving all other thoughts and motions, I steered my
course from Salem (though in winter snow which I feel yet) unto these
parts, wherein I may say Peniel, that is, I have seene the face of
God."[120]
During the year 1635 three notable personages came to the colony. The
first was Henry Vane, the younger, "who," wrote Winthrop, "being a young
gentleman of excellent parts, and had been employed by his father (when
he was ambassador) in foreign affairs; yet, being called to the
obedience of the gospel, forsook the honors and preferments of the
court, to enjoy the ordinances of Christ in their purity here."[121] The
other two recruits were, John Wheelwright, a clergyman, and his sister
Mrs Anne Hutchinson, who was a woman of great learning and brilliance,
but by instinct an agitator of a most indiscreet and impetuous
character; although both acute and resolute, she allowed herself to be
carried away by her passion for theological controversy. Her religious
views were Antinomian and were strongly opposed to the doctrines of the
Puritans, who believed in justification by faith, strengthened by
sanctified works. To Governor Winthrop the distinction between the two
doctrines appeared to be a mere jargon of words, and he was not very far
wrong when he said "no man could tell, except some few who knew the
bottom of the matter, where any difference was."[122] Mrs Hutchinson
soon had a large following, including Wheelwright, Thomas Hooker, and
John Cotton, but the latter deserted her and refused to follow her in
all her heresies. In 1636 she was strongly supported by Harry Vane, who
was for a short time the governor; but in the following year both she
and her brother were tried before the General Court and were banished
as heretics.
Meantime the education of Massachusetts was not neglected, as is proved
by the foundation in 1636 of Harvard College at Cambridge, for "it
pleased God to stir up the heart of one Mr Harvard (a godly gentleman
and a lover of learning, then living amongst us) to give the one halfe
of his Estate (it being in all about 1700 _l._) towards the erecting of a
Colledge, and all his Library."[123] The building was erected rapidly
and was "very faire and comely within and without,"[124] says an
anonymous writer in 1641; but Charles II.'s commissioners do not seem to
have been so much impressed, as twenty years later they speak of it as a
wooden college. The great days of Harvard had not as yet arrived; nor
indeed was the learning more advanced even as late as 1680, for the
whole place is described by two Dutch visitors as smelling like a
tavern. "We inquired," they say, "how many professors there were, and
they replied not one, that there was no money to support one."[125] But
out of such small beginnings a great educational establishment rose
which has won for itself a famous name and added lustre to the annals of
the colony.
It seemed extremely likely that the war-clouds that had arisen in the
Old Country might drift across the Atlantic to New England. It was for
this reason that some sort of confederation between the colonies was
proposed; and in 1643 Massachusetts, New Haven, Plymouth, and
Connecticut formed the first New England Confederacy. A distinct desire
for religious and political unity had been in the air for some time,
not only because of the dread of Dutch and Indian attack, but also
because it was hoped that intercolonial quarrels might be checked, and a
firm and united attitude might be shown towards any encroachments on the
part of the British Government. There were, however, in this
confederation two essential weaknesses which sooner or later would
inevitably wreck the whole scheme. In the first place Massachusetts was
by far the largest, richest, and most prosperous of the colonies; it was
therefore called upon to contribute the largest share, but received no
more than the weaker and poorer members of the Union. Secondly, although
the federal government was exactly what was wanted, it could exercise no
direct control over the citizens of any particular colony. This latter
was probably the chief cause of the non-success of the confederation.
Maine and the settlements along the Narragansett Bay in vain pleaded to
be enrolled in the first United States; but they were refused as being
neither sufficiently settled nor possessing political order. The four
confederate colonies bound themselves by written conditions and were
denominated "The United Colonies of New England." It was obvious from
the very beginning that disagreement would come, if for no other reason
because of the struggle that was taking place in England. Massachusetts
was no more for the Parliament than for the King, while the other New
England colonies were as a whole sturdy supporters of Pym and his party.
Disagreement bred disagreement, as is seen in the proposal to fight the
Dutch in America, while Blake was winning fame in European waters. This,
however, was prevented by the commissioners of one colony standing out
against the opinions of the others. A similar lack of unity was only
too apparent in 1654, when Massachusetts consented to make war against
the Nyantic Indians, but the indifference and incapacity of their
captain caused general dissatisfaction among the rest of the
confederation.
The attitude of Massachusetts toward England during the Civil Wars was a
most unsatisfactory one; it was as it were prophetic of what was to
come. The contemptuous and haughty indifference shown by the colony to
Cromwell was not because of any deep-seated loyalty to Charles I.; it
was rather the exhibition of an independent spirit and a desire to leave
England and English affairs strictly alone, if they were allowed, in
turn, to live under the government of a governor and magistrates of
their own choosing and under laws of their own making. This feeling does
not seem to have been understood in England, and at the time of the
Restoration the colony was regarded as having been Parliamentarian in
its sympathies, whereas indeed it had been separatist. The Royal
Commissioners in 1661 found that Massachusetts "was the last and hardest
persuaded to use his Majesty's name in their forms of justice";[126] and
yet in February the King was petitioned to look upon the colonists
kindly and "let not the Kinge heare men's wordes: your servants are true
men, fearers of God and the Kinge, not given to change, zealous of
government and peaceable in Israel, we are not seditious as to the
interest of Cæsar nor schismaticks as to the matters of religion."[127]
The religion of Massachusetts was, at this time, of the narrowest and
most bigoted type. The colonists were intolerant of any opinion save
their own, and their cruel fanaticism was excited particularly against
the humble and law-abiding sect of Quakers. The General Court at Boston
regarded the Quakers as a positive danger to the State, and as people
"who besides their absurd and blasphemous doctrines, do like rogues and
vagabonds come in upon us."[128] In 1656 two Quaker women landed at
Boston; they were immediately treated with extreme brutality and finally
banished to the Barbadoes. This led to further definite enactments, and
at the instigation of some of the most intolerant clergy of Boston, an
act was passed imposing the penalty of death in cases of extreme
obstinacy. So brutal were the punishments inflicted even where no
extreme obstinacy was shown that it is probable that death was
preferable and welcomed by the ill-treated wretches who had fallen into
the hands of these fanatics. At the Restoration, Edward Burrough, an
English Quaker, took up the case of his brethren in Massachusetts, and
laid before Charles II. a list of brutalities that were only equalled by
the horrors of the Inquisition. We read of men being whipped
twenty-three times, receiving 370 stripes from a whip with three knotted
cords; two unhappy wretches were cut to bits by 139 blows from pitched
ropes, one being "brought near unto death, much of his body being beat
like unto a jelly."[129] Others were put neck and heels in irons, or
burnt deeply in the hand; some had their ears cut off by the hangman;
while many other free-born subjects of the King were "sold for bondmen
and bondwomen to Barbadoes, Virginia, or any of the English
Plantations."[130] Burrough succeeded in persuading the King to take
some action, and the Massachusetts Council was severely reprimanded for
the treatment it had meted out to the Quakers. As a result of the King's
interference the General Court at Boston determined in 1661 to act with
as much lenity as possible to the Quakers, but to prevent their
intrusion it was recognised that "a sharp law" against them was a
necessity.
During the last quarter of the seventeenth century the New England
Confederacy, including Massachusetts, was disturbed by all the horrors
of Indian warfare. In the year 1670 the Pokanoket Indians under their
chief Metacam, or as he was generally known, King Philip, became
unfriendly. For some time the warfare was not of a very serious
character, but at last in 1674 an Indian convert brought news of a
general attack, and paid the penalty of his fidelity to the English by
being murdered by Philip or one of his braves. The Indian chief now fell
upon the extreme south of New Plymouth, and fire, murder, and rapine
were common throughout the land. The Puritans of Boston, under their
Governor Leverett, saw in this terrible slaughter the hand of the Lord,
and in November the whole city passed a day of humiliation. Within the
chapels and homes their sins were openly acknowledged, but the people
showed more of the spirit of the Pharisee than of the Publican in this
humiliation before God. They penitently confessed that they had
neglected divine service, but what was to them still worse, they had
shown sinful lenity to the heretical sect of Quakers, and had indeed
invited the Almighty's wrath by an extravagance in apparel and in
wearing long hair. Pharisaical as this day of humiliation sounds, the
greater number of the people were probably genuine in their attitude
towards what they regarded as sin; and certainly when the time came they
were ready to prove themselves sturdy fighters. It was only natural that
the settlers should be successful in the end, for as a civilised people
they were better armed and better organised, but their victory was
delayed in the coming, and when the war was really over they found that
it had cost them dear. Edward Randolph writing at the time sums up the
English losses at a high figure. "The losse to the English in the
severall colonies in their habitations and stock, is reckoned to amount
to 150,000 l., there having been about 1200 houses burned, 8000 head of
cattle great and small, killed, and many thousand bushels of wheat,
pease and other grain burned ... and upward of 3000 Indians, men, women
and children destroyed."[131] King Philip, who had caused all this
destruction, was in 1676 hunted down and shot "with a brace of bullets
... this seasonable prey was soon divided, they cut off his Head and
Hands and conveyed them to Rhode Island, and quartered his Body and hung
it upon four trees."[132] With this last act of unnecessary barbarity
the Indian power was broken, and Philip's war was at an end.
Meantime the administration of New England had been vested in the hands
of special commissioners, whose powers were transferred to the Privy
Council. Under this system, revenue officers appointed in England were
sent out in 1675 to enforce the Navigation Acts, which were excellent as
a stimulus to English shipping, but were nevertheless retrograde with
regard to the colonies. Edward Randolph was despatched to America to
report upon the working of the colonial system under these famous laws,
and he showed, even as early as this, that the revenue acts were openly
violated by the people, who, a century later, were to be notorious for
their smuggling proclivities. Massachusetts was looked upon by the home
authorities with the strongest suspicion, which was still further
intensified by Edward Randolph's eight specific charges against the
settlers. (1) That they have no right to the land or government in any
part of New England, and that they have always been regarded as
usurpers; (2) that they have formed themselves into a commonwealth,
denying appeals to England, and refusing to take the oath of allegiance;
(3) that they have protected the regicides; (4) that they coin their own
money with their own impress; (5) that in 1665 they opposed the King's
commissioners with armed force; (6) that they have put men to death for
matters of religion; (7) that they impose an oath of fidelity to their
government; (8) that they have violated all the acts of Trade and
Navigation to the annual loss of £100,000 to the King's Customs. After
these charges had reached England, the agents of the Massachusetts
government, William Stoughton and Peter Bulkeley, were called upon to
answer the serious indictment. They pleaded that they were unable to
answer any other questions but those concerning the business on which
they had come; but they agreed that as private individuals they would
make some kind of defence, and at the same time promised, on behalf of
the settlers, amendment in the future. This submission only acted as an
incentive for further attack, and Randolph now charged the "Bostoners"
with denying the right of baptism to those not born in church
fellowship; and also with fining certain persons for absenting
themselves from the meeting-houses. The Committee of Trade and
Plantations next turned to the Charter of the colony, and this was
severely criticised; then the Laws of the colony were discussed, and
many illegal imposts were discovered. Amongst other things it was seen
that three shillings and fourpence was the fine levied for galloping in
the streets of Boston; that five shillings was demanded from those who
dared to observe Christmas Day, and that no less than £5 was the fine
for importing playing cards; with all of which they now found serious
fault, though it must be allowed that they tended to create "an ideally
holy and unhappy community."[133] All this time Stoughton and Bulkeley
were most anxious to return to America, but they were obliged to stay
all through 1678, and it was only in 1679 that they were able to leave,
because England was too busy with the Popish Plot to worry about the
affairs of the far distant Massachusetts. The matter, however, was by no
means finished. Randolph was determined to bring the colony to book; and
when he was again sent out in 1680 to supervise the customs he at once
renewed his charges. "The Bostoners, after all the protestations by
their agents, are acting as high as ever, and the merchants trading as
freely; no ship having been seized for irregular trading, although they
did in 1677 make a second law to prevent it."[134] He then says that
his life was threatened by these smugglers, and that as he has only life
and hope left, he is unwilling to expose himself to the rage of a
bewildered multitude. He concludes by beseeching for strong measures,
which he considers are essential, and "for his Majesty to write more
letters will signify no more than the London Gazette."[135] This appeal
had its effect, and the King practically threatened to land redcoats in
Boston "a century before their time, when there should be no Washington
to organise resistance, no European coalition to distract their
operations, and no French fleet and army to drive them from the
Continent."[136]
Even after this thundering declaration the actions of the settlers were
not always in accordance with strict loyalty, and in 1684, though their
agents loudly protested, the Court of Chancery decreed the Massachusetts
Charter to be null and void. James II.'s well-intentioned efforts
carried out in the wrong way by the wrong methods, and generally by the
wrong men, deprived him of popularity both in his home dominions and in
his growing Empire in the West. His great scheme for the colonies was
one of union; but his action was far more destructive than anything that
George III. ever proposed or imagined. The representative principle was
snatched from the youthful colonies; and they were deprived of their
legislative, executive and financial rights, which were given to a royal
Governor and Council, ruling an united province entitled New England,
and bearing a special flag of its own. The Governor appointed by the
King was Colonel Sir Edmund Andros, a very active and most capable
administrator, but an ardent churchman, and therefore particularly
unacceptable to the Puritan colonies of the New England group. He was by
no means a young man when he arrived to take over the administration in
December 1686, but with surprising energy he set about doing what he
could by extending the frontier against the Indians, and establishing a
line of garrisoned forts to keep them in awe. Discontent, however, was
visible on every side; Connecticut refused to give up its charter,
which, according to tradition, was hidden in an oak; while the town of
Ipswich, Mass. refused like Watertown many years earlier to pay taxes
without representation. When James issued his Declaration of Indulgence
some of the best of the Massachusetts colonists imagined that it meant
real toleration; Increase Mather was one of these. He had conducted the
diplomatic relations of the colony during the struggle over the charter;
he was well-beloved as the minister of the old North Church of Boston,
and as President of Harvard College. For these reasons he was once again
selected as mediator, and was deputed to plead with James on behalf of
his colony, but like so many in England he found that he had come on a
fruitless errand, and that genuine toleration was very far from the
thoughts of the Papist King.
The news of the Revolution in England in November 1688 aroused the
people of Massachusetts. Sir Edmund Andros, instead of accepting the
inevitable, arrested John Winslow, the bearer of the good tidings. The
discontent which had long been simmering beneath the surface now broke
out. The covetousness of the rulers, the ruination of trade, the
oppression of the people, and that "base drudgerie" to which they had
been put stirred them to a state of frenzy. Boston and Charlestown
armed; Andros was unable to quell the fury, and he was captured by his
subordinates, who claimed that "the exercise of Sir Edmund's commission,
so contrarie to the Magna Charta, is surely enough to call him to
account by his superiors."[137] In this the people of New England made a
mistake, for although Andros was sent over to England with a party of
his accusers, he was only examined by the Lords of the Committee for
Trade and Plantations, and was almost immediately released without being
finally tried.
The rule of William and Mary in England was acknowledged willingly in
Massachusetts. A new charter was granted to the colony, in which it was
stated that the Governor, Lieutenant-Governor and Secretary were to be
appointed by the Crown. The franchise was now based upon a property
qualification, and the religious oligarchy was swept away. The first
Council was nominated by the Crown, but in the future the members were
to be selected by the General Court. The little colony that owed its
origin to the Pilgrim Fathers was incorporated within the prosperous
bounds of Massachusetts, which from this date to the great schism
remained a Crown colony with distinct tendencies towards, and sometimes
clearly expressed desires of, emancipation and independence. "It was not
as though the colony complained of grievances which could be enquired
into and put right; it simply adopted towards England now openly and
now by equivocation an attitude of 'hands off.'"[138]
The first Governor of the new Crown colony was that romantic character,
Sir William Phipps. He was born in 1650 on a small plantation on the
banks of the Kennebec; he was one of twenty-six children, and until
eighteen years of age kept "sheep in the wilderness." There is little
doubt that from early times he was determined to succeed, and he always
prophesied that one day he would be the owner of a fair brick house in
Green Lane, North Boston. According to his earliest biographer he was
one of the most remarkable men of his day, being "of an Enterprising
Genius and naturally disclaimed Littleness: But in his Disposition for
Business was of the Dutch Mould, where with a little show of Wit, there
is much Wisdom demonstrated, as can be shewn by any Nation. His Talent
lay not in the Airs that serve chiefly for the pleasant and sudden Turns
of Conversation; but he might say as Themistocles, Though he could not
play the Fiddle, yet he knew how to make a little City become a great
One. He would prudently contrive a weighty Undertaking, and then
patiently pursue it unto the End. He was of an Inclination, cutting
rather like a Hatchet than like a Razor."[139] Such was the character of
this man, who, in 1683, found himself the Captain of a King's ship. In
1687 he was fortunate enough to discover a wrecked vessel filled with
treasure, and after being entertained and knighted by James II. he
returned to New England to build the "fair brick house" of which he had
foretold. After the resettlement of Massachusetts, which now
practically extended from Rhode Island to New Brunswick, excluding New
Hampshire, Phipps was appointed Governor. He owed his appointment to the
favour of Increase Mather, but it seems to have been welcomed generally,
for Phipps was at first popular, generous, and well-meaning. At the
outset he was confronted by difficulties that would have baffled a man
of far greater capacity. The taxation of the colony had not been
specifically mentioned in the charter, and the colonists seized upon the
opportunity to enact that no taxes were to be levied without the consent
of the Assembly. The home government immediately rejected this, and so
opened the door for the squabbles and recriminations eighty years
afterwards, which led to the separation of the American colonies from
the mother country. Gradually Phipps lost his popularity, which had to a
certain extent been founded upon his romantic history. He became brutal,
covetous and violent, and so in 1694 the Bostonians turned against him.
His temper had never been calm, and it is said that by the end of his
period of office he was engaged in violent quarrels with every man of
importance in the province.
The governorship of the colony between 1698 and 1701 was amalgamated
with those of New York, New Jersey, and New Hampshire. The Earl of
Bellomont was given supreme control, and won the goodwill of the people
by favouring the democratic party and recommending many reforms. His
special title to Fame is his suppression of the pirates along the
coasts, who according to Bellomont's complaint in 1698 had been
protected and encouraged by Benjamin Fletcher, Governor of New York. "I
have likewise discovered that protections were publickly exposed to sale
at the said rates to Pyrats that were of other companies ... and made
discovery of the bonds the Pyrates entered into to Coll: Fletcher when
he granted them Commissions."[140] Bellomont was determined to save the
colonies from these sea-wolves, and in 1701 he had the satisfaction,
just before he died, of bringing the infamous Captain Kidd to the
gallows.
The later history of Massachusetts must be left to the chapter on French
Aggression. The colony founded first as a trading Company by a few
adventurous Puritans had in seventy years become not only one of the
most prosperous, but also one of the largest of the thirteen States. It
had embraced several of the smaller and weaker settlements, the history
of one of which has already been traced; the story of the others has yet
to be told.
FOOTNOTES:
[95] See p. 24.
[96] Smith, _A Description of New England_ (1616), p. 1.
[97] Macaulay, _Essays_ (ed. 1891), p. 23.
[98] _Calendar of Domestic State Papers_, 1591-1594, p. 400.
[99] Bradford, _History of the Plimoth Plantation_, p. 15.
[100] Bradford, _History of the Plimoth Plantation_, p. 16.
[101] _Ibid._, p. 17.
[102] _Ibid._
[103] Quoted by J. R. Green, _Short History of the English People_
(1893), iii. p. 1051.
[104] Smith, _A Description of New England_ (1616), p. 27.
[105] Quoted by J. R. Green, _op. cit._, p. 1049.
[106] Bradford, _op. cit._, May 12.
[107] Bradford, _op. cit._
[108] Young, _Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers_ (ed. 1841).
[109] Thwaites, _The Colonies, 1492-1750_ (1891), p. 123.
[110] _Calendar of State Papers_, Colonial, 1661-1668, p. 36.
[111] _Ibid._, p. 344.
[112] Macaulay, _Essays_ (ed. 1891), p. 23.
[113] _American Historical Review_, vol. iv. No. 4, p. 689.
[114] _Ibid._, p. 702.
[115] Doyle, _The English in America_ (1887), vol. i. p. 119.
[116] _A History of New England_ (1654), p. 38.
[117] Winthrop, _The History of New England from 1630 to 1649_. [1633,
Feb. 17.]
[118] Doyle, _Cambridge Modern History_ (1905), vol. vii. p. 17.
[119] _Simplicities Defence against Seven-Headed Policy_ (1646), p. 2.
[120] Massachusetts Historical Society, _Collections_, i.
[121] Winthrop, _The History of New England from 1630 to 1649_ (1853),
vol. i. p. 170.
[122] _Ibid._, vol. i. p. 213.
[123] _New England's First Fruits_ (1643), p. 12.
[124] _Ibid._
[125] _Journal of a Voyage to New York in 1679-80._
[126] _Calendar of State Papers_, Colonial, 1661-1668, p. 344.
[127] _Ibid._, p. 9.
[128] _Calendar of State Papers_, Colonial, 1661-1668, p. 32.
[129] Burrough, _A Declaration of the Sad and Great Persecution and
Martyrdom of the ... Quakers, etc._ (1660).
[130] Burrough, _A Declaration of the Sad and Great Persecution, and
Martyrdom of the ... Quakers_, etc. (1660).
[131] Hutchinson, _A Collection of Original Papers_, etc. (1769).
[132] _The Warr in New-England Visibly Ended_ (1677).
[133] Fortescue, Introd.: _Calendar of State Papers_, Colonial,
1677-1680, p. xiv.
[134] _Calendar of State Papers_, Colonial, 1677-1680, p. xviii.
[135] _Ibid._, p. 545.
[136] Fortescue, _Calendar of State Papers_, Colonial, 1677-1680, p.
xxi.
[137] Hutchinson, _A Collection of Original Papers relative to the
History of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay_ (1769).
[138] Egerton, _A Short History of British Colonial Policy_, p. 62.
[139] Mather, _Magnalia Christi Americana, II._ (1702).
[140] O'Callaghan, editor, _Documents relative to the Colonial History
of the State of New York_ (1854).
CHAPTER V
CONNECTICUT; RHODE ISLAND AND PROVIDENCE PLANTATION; NEW HAVEN; MAINE;
NEW HAMPSHIRE
The early history of the group of colonies which is now to engage the
attention is less interesting than that of either Virginia or
Massachusetts. There is not the glamour of a first colony as in the case
of Virginia; the men were not Pilgrim Fathers in the true sense as in
Plymouth; the prosperity of Massachusetts, the rivalries of Maryland,
and the Spanish danger in the Carolinas, are all wanting in this portion
of New England. There is therefore not only a lack of romance, but there
is too a pettiness in the quarrels which continually occurred in these
colonies.
The New England Company, when once it had started an active existence,
made every effort to extract some advantage from the land which had been
granted to it. In 1631 Lord Saye and Sele, Lord Brooke and others
obtained from the Company a tract of land in the rich valley of the
Connecticut River. Very little, however, came of this scheme; and the
first true settlement was made against the strenuous opposition of the
Dutch, by a party from New Plymouth. A fresh influx of settlers came
from the already rising colony of Massachusetts, for they had found
that the land was somewhat sterile, at any rate not sufficiently fertile
to support them all. The settlers on the Connecticut came from the town
of Dorchester, and planted themselves at Windsor, to the disgust of the
New Plymouth settlers, who were at last forced to retire. This proved,
as often enough in future years, that the unscrupulous and overbearing
temper of the men of Massachusetts earned for them a reward which they
did not deserve. The patentees, seeing their rights invaded by these
Dorchester filibusters, sent out a small party to establish their
privileges, but these in turn were routed, and the men of Massachusetts
were left in possession, though contrary to the wishes of their
mother-settlement. When, however, the versatile John Winthrop, son of
the more statesmanlike Governor, arrived with a commission as Governor
of the new colony on behalf of the patentees, Massachusetts ceased to
complain, and allowed the secession to become complete. Within two years
the new colony of Connecticut had a population of eight hundred men,
women and children, grouped in three towns, Hartford, Wethersfield, and
Windsor. The freemen of these towns declared in 1638 that their
constitution was the same as that of Massachusetts; but there was one
great dissimilarity, for no religious test was imposed. This
constitution occupies a famous place in the world's history, for not
only was it the first written constitution that actually created a
government, but it has also been characterised as "the oldest political
constitution in America."[141] By means of this important document,
issued in January 1639, all possible claims to sovereignty on the part
of Massachusetts were placed on one side for ever; or was there any
reference to the sovereignty of Charles I. or the home parliament. The
document was merely an agreement amongst the colonists themselves, and
by abstaining from any religious tests, or intolerance, they earned the
gratitude and admiration of mankind, and throughout the whole colonial
period bravely sustained this liberal spirit which had distinguished
them so early in their history.
Before accomplishing this great work the colonists had a hard fight for
existence against the Pequod Indians. As early as 1633 a Virginian
ship's captain, Stone, was killed by this tribe near the mouth of the
Connecticut River; two years later John Oldham, a trader, was also
murdered by a party of Narragansetts inhabiting Block Island. It was
evident that the redskins must be taught a severe lesson if Englishmen
were to live in peace. Endecott, with a small force from Massachusetts,
was despatched to punish the Narragansetts, but he utterly failed in his
attack upon the island tribe. In retaliation the settlers in Connecticut
were surrounded by the murderous Pequods, and cut off from the sea;
fortunately, Roger Williams, having the confidence and goodwill of the
redskins, managed, at this time of trial, to obtain the neutrality of
the Narragansetts. This was a great advantage, as Massachusetts deserted
the new settlement, leaving it to fight its own battles. Leaders with
plenty of courage were not wanting, and Captains Mason and Underhill,
with ninety men, marched against the Pequods. Two hundred of these
tribesmen had attacked Wethersfield, and "having put poles in their
Conoos, as we put Masts in our boats, and upon them hung our English
mens and womens shirts and smocks in stead of sayles, and in way of
bravado came along in sight of us as we stood upon Seybrooke Fort."[142]
Captain John Mason was not the man to be discouraged by such warlike
displays, and with considerable strategy attacked them on the flank and
assaulted their chief stronghold. The action was a hot one, for although
only two Englishmen were slain, many were wounded, and six hundred
Pequods are reported to have fallen. The men of Connecticut were
desperate, and fighting for their lives. They were determined to
annihilate the Pequod tribe once for all, and to establish peace by
means of a sanguinary slaughter. Their actions may appear brutal, but
they were necessary as Captain John Underhill took care to explain.
"Great and dolefull was the bloudy sight to the view of young souldiers
that never had beene in Warre, to see so many soules lie gasping on the
ground so thicke in some places, that you could hardly passe along. It
may be demanded, Why should you be so furious (as some have said),
should not christians have more mercy and compassion? But I would refer
you to David's warre, when a people is growne to such a height of bloud
and sinne against God and man, and all confederates in the action, there
hee hath no respect to persons, but harrowes them and sawes them and
puts them to the sword."[143] This massacre and total destruction of the
Pequods had the important effect of reversing the territorial relations
between the English and the Indians; direct communication between the
mouth of the Connecticut and Boston was now made possible, and some form
of union could only be a matter of time.
As has already been shown Connecticut did join in such an union when it
entered into the Confederation of New England in 1643, and it was as a
member of that group that it passed through the period of the civil
wars. With the Restoration the ambitions of the settlers increased, and
in 1661 John Winthrop went to England to obtain a charter which would
define the boundaries of the colony, and include within it the smaller
settlement of New Haven, the members of which protested in vain. The
patent of incorporation was granted in 1662, and the document concludes
with the words which illustrate the interesting but absurd legal fiction
under which the King granted land in America. The Governor and Company
of the English colonists of Connecticut are to hold "the same of his
Majesty, his heirs and successors as of the manor of East Greenwich in
free and common soccage, yielding the fifth part of all gold or silver
ore."[144] So ridiculous was this fiction that the colonists were
actually supposed to be represented in the home parliament by the member
of the borough containing the manor of East Greenwich. It is not
surprising that even as early as this period these rigid Presbyterians
felt that if the actions of the home government endangered their welfare
they would be justified in ignoring that authority, and relying only
upon the common weal as supreme law in the colony. But though they
regarded with jealousy any attempt to limit their rights, they were too
weak, owing to internal dissension, to throw off the yoke of the home
authorities. They had in no way added to their strength by the
incorporation of New Haven, but rather increased their weakness. This
unstable condition is illustrated in particular, first by the
emigration of the people of the town of Branford, who, armed with their
civil and ecclesiastical records, preferred to occupy lands near the
Delaware rather than stay under the jurisdiction of Connecticut; and
secondly by the description of Connecticut itself, as recorded by the
Governor, William Leete, in 1680. He shows that for the last seven years
the popularity of the colony had evidently declined in England, for only
one or two settlers had come
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