The Beginnings of New England Chapter IV - The New England Confederacy
by John Fiske
The Puritan exodus to New England, which came to an end about 1640, was
purely and exclusively English. There was nothing in it that came from
the continent of Europe, nothing that was either Irish or Scotch, very
little that was Welsh. As Palfrey says, the population of 26,000 that
had been planted in New England by 1640 "thenceforward continued to
multiply on its own soil for a century and a half, in remarkable
seclusion from other communities." During the whole of this period New
England received but few immigrants; and it was not until after the
Revolutionary War that its people had fairly started on their westward
march into the state of New York and beyond, until now, after yet
another century, we find some of their descendants dwelling in a
homelike Salem and a Portland of charming beauty on the Pacific coast.
Three times between the meeting of the Long Parliament and the meeting
of the Continental Congress did the New England colonies receive a
slight infusion of non-English blood. In 1652, after his victories at
Dunbar and Worcester, Cromwell sent 270 of his Scottish prisoners to
Boston, where the descendants of some of them still dwell. After the
revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, 150 families of Huguenots
came to Massachusetts. And finally in 1719, 120 Presbyterian families
came over from the north of Ireland, and settled at Londonderry in New
Hampshire, and elsewhere. In view of these facts it may be said that
there is not a county in England of which the population is more purely
English than the population of New England at the end of the eighteenth
century. From long and careful research, Mr. Savage, the highest
authority on this subject, concludes that more than 98 in 100 of the New
England people at that time could trace their origin to England in
the narrowest sense, excluding even Wales. As already observed, every
English shire contributed something to the emigration, but there was
a marked preponderance of people from the East Anglian counties.
[Sidenote: The exodus was purely English]
The population of New England was nearly as homogeneous in social
condition as it was in blood. The emigration was preeminent for its
respectability. Like the best part of the emigration to Virginia, it
consisted largely of country squires and yeomen. The men who followed
Winthrop were thrifty and prosperous in their old homes from which their
devotion to an idea made them voluntary exiles. They attached so much
importance to regular industry and decorous behaviour that for a long
time the needy and shiftless people who usually make trouble in new
colonies were not tolerated among them. Hence the early history of New
England is remarkably free from those scenes of violence and disorder
which have so often made hideous the first years of new communities.
Of negro slaves there were very few, and these were employed wholly in
domestic service; there were not enough of them to affect the industrial
life of New England or to be worth mentioning as a class. Neither were
there many of the wretched people, kidnapped from the jails and slums
of English sea-ports, such as in those early days when negro labour was
scarce, were sent by ship-loads to Virginia, to become the progenitors
of the "white trash." There were a few indented white servants, usually
of the class known as "redemptioners," or immigrants who voluntarily
bound themselves to service for a stated time in order to defray the
cost of their voyage from Europe. At a later time there were many of
these "redemptioners" in the middle colonies, but in New England they
were very few; and as no stigma of servitude was attached to manual
labour, they were apt at the end of their terms of service to become
independent farmers; thus they ceased to be recognizable as a distinct
class of society. Nevertheless the common statement that no traces of
the "mean white" are to be found in New England is perhaps somewhat
too sweeping. Interspersed among those respectable and tidy mountain
villages, once full of such vigorous life, one sometimes comes upon
little isolated groups of wretched hovels whose local reputation is
sufficiently indicated by such terse epithets as "Hardscrabble" or
"Hell-huddle." Their denizens may in many instances be the degenerate
offspring of a sound New England stock, but they sometimes show strong
points of resemblance to that "white trash" which has come to be a
recognizable strain of the English race; and one cannot help suspecting
that while the New England colonies made every effort to keep out such
riff raff, it may nevertheless have now and then crept in. However this
may be, it cannot be said that this element ever formed a noticeable
feature in the life of colonial New England. As regards their social
derivation, the settlers of New England were homogeneous in character to
a remarkable degree, and they were drawn from the sturdiest part of
the English stock. In all history there has been no other instance of
colonization so exclusively effected by picked and chosen men. The
colonists knew this, and were proud of it, as well they might be. It was
the simple truth that was spoken by William Stoughton when he said, in
his election sermon of 1688: "God sifted a whole nation, that He might
send choice grain into the wilderness." [Sidenote: Respectable character
of the emigration]
This matter comes to have more than a local interest, when we reflect
that the 26,000 New Englanders of 1640 have in two hundred and fifty
years increased to something like 15,000,000. From these men have come
at least one-fourth of the present population of the United States.
Striking as this fact may seem, it is perhaps less striking than the
fact of the original migration when duly considered. In these times,
when great steamers sail every day from European ports, bringing
immigrants to a country not less advanced in material civilization
than the country which they leave, the daily arrival of a thousand new
citizens has come to be a commonplace event. But in the seventeenth
century the transfer of more than twenty thousand well-to-do people
within twenty years from their comfortable homes in England to the
American wilderness was by no means a commonplace event. It reminds one
of the migrations of ancient peoples, and in the quaint thought of
our forefathers it was aptly likened to the exodus of Israel from the
Egyptian house of bondage.
In this migration a principle of selection was at work which insured an
extraordinary uniformity of character and of purpose among the settlers.
To this uniformity of purpose, combined with complete homogeneity of
race, is due the preponderance early acquired by New England in the
history of the American people. In view of this, it is worth while to
inquire what were the real aims of the settlers of New England. What was
the common purpose which brought these men together in their resolve to
create for themselves new homes in the wilderness?
This is a point concerning which there has been a great deal of popular
misapprehension, and there has been no end of nonsense talked about it.
It has been customary first to assume that the Puritan migration was
undertaken in the interests of religious liberty, and then to upbraid
the Puritans for forgetting all about religious liberty as soon as
people came among them who disagreed with their opinions. But this view
of the case is not supported by history. It is quite true that the
Puritans were chargeable with gross intolerance; but it is not true that
in this they were guilty of inconsistency. The notion that they came to
New England for the purpose of establishing religious liberty, in
any sense in which we should understand such a phrase, is entirely
incorrect. It is neither more nor less than a bit of popular legend. If
we mean by the phrase "religious liberty" a state of things in which
opposite or contradictory opinions on questions of religion shall exist
side by side in the same community, and in which everybody shall
decide for himself how far he will conform to the customary religious
observances, nothing could have been further from their thoughts. There
is nothing they would have regarded with more genuine abhorrence. If
they could have been forewarned by a prophetic voice of the general
freedom--or, as they would have termed it, license--of thought and
behaviour which prevails in this country to-day, they would very likely
have abandoned their enterprise in despair. [12] The philosophic student
of history often has occasion to see how God is wiser than man. In other
words, he is often brought to realize how fortunate it is that the
leaders in great historic events cannot foresee the remote results of
the labours to which they have zealously consecrated their lives. It is
part of the irony of human destiny that the end we really accomplish by
striving with might and main is apt to be something quite different from
the end we dreamed of as we started on our arduous labour. So it was
with the Puritan settlers of New England. The religious liberty that
we enjoy to-day is largely the consequence of their work; but it is a
consequence that was unforeseen, while the direct and conscious aim of
their labours was something that has never been realized, and probably
never will be. [Sidenote: The migration was not intended to promote what
we call religious liberty]
The aim of Winthrop and his friends in coming to Massachusetts was the
construction of a theocratic state which should be to Christians, under
the New Testament dispensation, all that the theocracy of Moses and
Joshua and Samuel had been to the Jews in Old Testament days. They
should be to all intents and purposes freed from the jurisdiction of
the Stuart king, and so far as possible the text of the Holy Scriptures
should be their guide both in weighty matters of general legislation and
in the shaping of the smallest details of daily life. In such a scheme
there was no room for religious liberty as we understand it. No doubt
the text of the Scriptures may be interpreted in many ways, but among
these men there was a substantial agreement as to the important points,
and nothing could have been further from their thoughts than to found
a colony which should afford a field for new experiments in the art of
right living. The state they were to found was to consist of a united
body of believers; citizenship itself was to be co-extensive with
church-membership; and in such a state there was apparently no more room
for heretics than there was in Rome or Madrid. This was the idea which
drew Winthrop and his followers from England at a time when--as events
were soon to show--they might have stayed there and defied persecution
with less trouble than it cost them to cross the ocean and found a new
state. [Sidenote: Theocratic ideal of the Puritans]
Such an ideal as this, considered by itself and apart from the concrete
acts in which it was historically manifested, may seem like the merest
fanaticism. But we cannot dismiss in this summary way a movement which
has been at the source of so much that is great in American history:
mere fanaticism has never produced such substantial results. Mere
fanaticism is sure to aim at changing the constitution of human society
in some essential point, to undo the work of evolution, and offer in
some indistinctly apprehended fashion to remodel human life. But in
these respects the Puritans were intensely conservative. The impulse by
which they were animated was a profoundly ethical impulse--the desire
to lead godly lives, and to drive out sin from the community--the same
ethical impulse which animates the glowing pages of Hebrew poets and
prophets, and which has given to the history and literature of Israel
their commanding influence in the world. The Greek, says Matthew Arnold,
held that the perfection of happiness was to have one's thoughts hit the
mark; but the Hebrew held that it was to serve the Lord day and night.
It was a touch of this inspiration that the Puritan caught from his
earnest and reverent study of the sacred text, and that served to
justify and intensify his yearning for a better life, and to give it
the character of a grand and holy ideal. Yet with all this religious
enthusiasm, the Puritan was in every fibre a practical Englishman with
his full share of plain common-sense. He avoided the error of
mediaeval anchorites and mystics in setting an exaggerated value upon
otherworldliness. In his desire to win a crown of glory hereafter he did
not forget that the present life has its simple duties, in the exact
performance of which the welfare of society mainly consists. He likewise
avoided the error of modern radicals who would remodel the fundamental
institutions of property and of the family, and thus disturb the very
groundwork of our ethical ideals. The Puritan's ethical conception of
society was simply that which has grown up in the natural course of
historical evolution, and which in its essential points is therefore
intelligible to all men, and approved by the common-sense of men,
however various may be the terminology--whether theological or
scientific--in which it is expounded. For these reasons there was
nothing essentially fanatical or impracticable in the Puritan scheme: in
substance it was something that great bodies of men could at once put
into practice, while its quaint and peculiar form was something that
could be easily and naturally outgrown and set aside. [Sidenote: The
impulse which sought to realize itself in the Puritan ideal was an
ethical impulse]
Yet another point in which the Puritan scheme of a theocratic society
was rational and not fanatical was its method of interpreting the
Scriptures. That method was essentially rationalistic in two ways.
First, the Puritan laid no claim to the possession of any peculiar
inspiration or divine light whereby he might be aided in ascertaining
the meaning of the sacred text; but he used his reason just as he would
in any matter of business, and he sought to convince, and expected to
be convinced, by rational argument, and by nothing else. Secondly, it
followed from this denial of any peculiar inspiration that there was no
room in the Puritan commonwealth for anything like a priestly class, and
that every individual must hold his own opinions at his own personal
risk. The consequences of this rationalistic spirit have been very
far-reaching. In the conviction that religious opinion must be consonant
with reason, and that religious truth must be brought home to each
individual by rational argument, we may find one of the chief causes of
that peculiarly conservative yet flexible intelligence which has enabled
the Puritan countries to take the lead in the civilized world of
today. Free discussion of theological questions, when conducted with
earnestness and reverence, and within certain generally acknowledged
limits, was never discountenanced in New England. On the contrary, there
has never been a society in the world in which theological problems have
been so seriously and persistently discussed as in New England in the
colonial period. The long sermons of the clergymen were usually learned
and elaborate arguments of doctrinal points, bristling with quotations
from the Bible, or from famous books of controversial divinity, and in
the long winter evenings the questions thus raised afforded the occasion
for lively debate in every household. The clergy were, as a rule, men
of learning, able to read both Old and New Testaments in the original
languages, and familiar with the best that had been talked and written,
among Protestants at least, on theological subjects. They were also, for
the most part, men of lofty character, and they were held in high social
esteem on account of their character and scholarship, as well as on
account of their clerical position. But in spite of the reverence in
which they were commonly held, it would have been a thing quite unheard
of for one of these pastors to urge an opinion from the pulpit on the
sole ground of his personal authority or his superior knowledge of
Scriptural exegesis. The hearers, too, were quick to detect novelties
or variations in doctrine; and while there was perhaps no more than the
ordinary human unwillingness to listen to a new thought merely because
of its newness, it was above all things needful that the orthodox
soundness of every new suggestion should be thoroughly and severely
tested. This intense interest in doctrinal theology was part and parcel
of the whole theory of New England life; because, as I have said, it was
taken for granted that each individual must hold his own opinions at
his own personal risk in the world to come. Such perpetual discussion,
conducted, under such a stimulus, afforded in itself no mean school
of intellectual training. Viewed in relation to the subsequent mental
activity of New England, it may be said to have occupied a position
somewhat similar to that which the polemics of the medieval schoolmen
occupied in relation to the European thought of the Renaissance, and of
the age of Hobbes and Descartes. At the same time the Puritan theory of
life lay at the bottom of the whole system of popular education in New
England. According to that theory, it was absolutely essential that
every one should be taught from early childhood how to read and
understand the Bible. So much instruction as this was assumed to be a
sacred duty which the community owed to every child born within its
jurisdiction. In ignorance, the Puritans maintained, lay the principal
strength of popery in religion as well as of despotism in politics; and
so, to the best of their lights, they cultivated knowledge with might
and main. But in this energetic diffusion of knowledge they were
unwittingly preparing the complete and irreparable destruction of the
theocratic ideal of society which they had sought to realize by crossing
the ocean and settling in New England. This universal education, and
this perpetual discussion of theological questions, were no more
compatible with rigid adherence to the Calvinistic system than with
submission to the absolute rule of Rome. The inevitable result was the
liberal and enlightened Protestantism which is characteristic of the
best American society at the present day, and which is continually
growing more liberal as it grows more enlightened--a Protestantism
which, in the natural course of development, is coming to realize the
noble ideal of Roger Williams, but from the very thought of which such
men as Winthrop and Cotton and Endicott would have shrunk with dismay.
[Sidenote: In interpreting Scripture, the Puritan appealed to his
reason] [Sidenote: Value of theological discussion]
In this connection it is interesting to note the similarity between the
experience of the Puritans in New England and in Scotland with respect
to the influence of their religious theory of life upon general
education. Nowhere has Puritanism, with its keen intelligence and its
iron tenacity of purpose, played a greater part than it has played in
the history of Scotland. And one need not fear contradiction in saying
that no other people in modern times, in proportion to their numbers,
have achieved so much in all departments of human activity as the people
of Scotland have achieved. It would be superfluous to mention the
preeminence of Scotland in the industrial arts since the days of James
Watt, or to recount the glorious names in philosophy, in history, in
poetry and romance, and in every department of science, which since the
middle of the eighteenth century have made the country of Burns and
Scott, of Hume and Adam Smith, of Black and Hunter and Hutton and
Lyell, illustrious for all future time. Now this period of magnificent
intellectual fruition in Scotland was preceded by a period of
Calvinistic orthodoxy quite as rigorous as that of New England. The
ministers of the Scotch Kirk in the seventeenth century cherished a
theocratic ideal of society not unlike that which the colonists of New
England aimed at realizing. There was the same austerity, the same
intolerance, the same narrowness of interests, in Scotland that there
was in New England. Mr. Buckle, in the book which thirty years ago
seemed so great and stimulating, gave us a graphic picture of this state
of society, and the only thing which he could find to say about it, as
the result of his elaborate survey, was that the spirit of the Scotch
Kirk was as thoroughly hostile to human progress as the spirit of the
Spanish Inquisition! If this were really so, it would be difficult
indeed to account for the period of brilliant mental activity which
immediately followed. But in reality the Puritan theory of life led
to general education in Scotland as it did in New England, and for
precisely the same reasons, while the effects of theological discussion
in breaking down the old Calvinistic exclusiveness have been illustrated
in the history of Edinburgh as well as in the history of Boston.
[Sidenote: Comparison with the case of Scotland]
It is well for us to bear in mind the foregoing considerations as we
deal with the history of the short-lived New England Confederacy. The
story is full of instances of an intolerant and domineering spirit,
especially on the part of Massachusetts, and now and then this spirit
breaks forth in ugly acts of persecution. In considering these facts, it
is well to remember that we are observing the workings of a system
which contained within itself a curative principle; and it is further
interesting to observe how political circumstances contributed to
modify the Puritan ideal, gradually breaking down the old theocratic
exclusiveness and strengthening the spirit of religious liberty.
Scarcely had the first New England colonies been established when it was
found desirable to unite them into some kind of a confederation. It is
worthy of note that the separate existence of so many colonies was at
the outset largely the result of religious differences. The uniformity
of purpose, great as it was, fell far short of completeness. [Sidenote:
Existence of so many colonies due to slight religious differences]
Could all have agreed, or had there been religious toleration in the
modern sense, there was still room enough for all in Massachusetts;
and a compact settlement would have been in much less danger from the
Indians. But in the founding of Connecticut the theocratic idea had less
weight, and in the founding of New Haven it had more weight, than
in Massachusetts. The existence of Rhode Island was based upon that
principle of full toleration which the three colonies just mentioned
alike abhorred, and its first settlers were people banished from
Massachusetts. With regard to toleration Plymouth occupied a middle
ground; without admitting the principles of Williams, the people of that
colony were still fairly tolerant in practice. Of the four towns of New
Hampshire, two had been founded by Antinomians driven from Boston, and
two by Episcopal friends of Mason and Gorges. It was impossible that
neighbouring communities, characterized by such differences of opinion,
but otherwise homogeneous in race and in social condition, should fail
to react upon one another and to liberalize one another. Still more was
this true when they attempted to enter into a political union. When, for
example, Massachusetts in 1641-43 annexed the New Hampshire townships,
she was of necessity obliged to relax in their case her policy of
insisting upon religious conformity as a test of citizenship. So in
forming the New England Confederacy, there were some matters of dispute
that had to be passed over by mutual consent or connivance. [Sidenote:
It led to a notable attempt at federation]
The same causes which had spread the English settlements over so wide a
territory now led, as an indirect result, to their partial union into a
confederacy. The immediate consequence of the westward movement had been
an Indian war. Several savage tribes were now interspersed between the
settlements, so that it became desirable that the military force should
be brought, as far as possible, under one management. The colony of
New Netherlands, moreover, had begun to assume importance, and the
settlements west of the Connecticut river had already occasioned hard
words between Dutch and English, which might at any moment be followed
by blows. In the French colonies at the north, with their extensive
Indian alliances under Jesuit guidance, the Puritans saw a rival power
which was likely in course of time to prove troublesome. With a view to
more efficient self-defence, therefore, in 1643 the four colonies of
Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven formed themselves
into a league, under the style of "The United Colonies of New England."
These four little states now contained thirty-nine towns, with an
aggregate population of 24,000. To the northeast of Massachusetts,
which now extended to the Piscataqua, a small colony had at length been
constituted under a proprietary charter somewhat similar to that held by
the Calverts in Maryland. Of this new province or palatinate of Maine
the aged Sir Ferdinando Gorges was Lord Proprietary, and he had
undertaken not only to establish the Church of England there, but also
to introduce usages of feudal jurisdiction like those remaining in the
old country. Such a community was not likely to join the Confederacy;
apart from other reasons, its proprietary constitution and the feud
between the Puritans and Gorges would have been sufficient obstacles.
As for Rhode Island, on the other hand, it was regarded with strong
dislike by the other colonies. It was a curious and noteworthy
consequence of the circumstances under which this little state was
founded that for a long time it became the refuge of all the fanatical
and turbulent people who could not submit to the strict and orderly
governments of Connecticut or Massachusetts. All extremes met on
Narragansett bay. There were not only sensible advocates of religious
liberty, but theocrats as well who saw flaws in the theocracy of
other Puritans. The English world was then in a state of theological
fermentation. People who fancied themselves favoured with direct
revelations from Heaven; people who thought it right to keep the seventh
day of the week as a Sabbath instead of the first day; people who
cherished a special predilection for the Apocalypse and the Book of
Daniel; people with queer views about property and government; people
who advocated either too little marriage or too much marriage; all such
eccentric characters as are apt to come to the surface in periods of
religious excitement found in Rhode Island a favoured spot where they
could prophesy without let or hindrance. But the immediate practical
result of so much discordance in opinion was the impossibility of
founding a strong and well-ordered government. The early history of
Rhode Island was marked by enough of turbulence to suggest the question
whether, after all, at the bottom of the Puritan's refusal to recognize
the doctrine of private inspiration, or to tolerate indiscriminately all
sorts of opinions, there may not have been a grain of shrewd political
sense not ill adapted to the social condition of the seventeenth
century. In 1644 and again in 1648 the Narragansett settlers asked leave
to join the Confederacy; but the request was refused on the ground
that they had no stable government of their own. They were offered
the alternative of voluntary annexation either to Massachusetts or to
Plymouth, or of staying out in the cold; and they chose the latter
course. Early in 1643 they had sent Roger Williams over to England to
obtain a charter for Rhode Island. In that year Parliament created a
Board of Commissioners, with the Earl of Warwick at its head, for the
superintendence of colonial affairs; and nothing could better illustrate
the loose and reckless manner in which American questions were treated
in England than the first proceedings of this board. It gave an early
instance of British carelessness in matters of American geography. In
December, 1643, it granted to Massachusetts all the territory on the
mainland of Narragansett bay; and in the following March it incorporated
the townships of Newport and Portsmouth, which stood on the island,
together with Providence, which stood on the mainland, into an
independent colony empowered to frame a government and make laws for
itself. With this second document Williams returned to Providence in the
autumn of 1644. Just how far it was intended to cancel the first one,
nobody could tell, but it plainly afforded an occasion for a conflict of
claims. [Sidenote: Turbulence of dissent in Rhode Island] [Sidenote: The
Earl of Warwick and his Board of Commissioners]
The league of the four colonies is interesting as the first American
experiment in federation. By the articles it was agreed that each colony
should retain full independence so far as concerned the management of
its internal affairs, but that the confederate government should have
entire control over all dealings with the Indians or with foreign
powers. The administration of the league was put into the hands of
a board of eight Federal Commissioners, two from each colony. The
commissioners were required to be church-members in good standing. They
could choose for themselves a president or chairman out of their own
number, but such a president was to have no more power than the other
members of the Board. If any measure were to come up concerning
which the commissioners could not agree, it was to be referred for
consideration to the legislatures or general courts of the four
colonies. Expenses for war were to be charged to each colony in
proportion to the number of males in each between sixteen years of
age and sixty. A meeting of the Board might be summoned by any two
magistrates whenever the public safety might seem to require it; but a
regular meeting was to be held once every year.
In this scheme of confederacy all power of taxation was expressly left
to the several colonies. The scheme provided for a mere league, not for
a federal union. The government of the Commissioners acted only upon the
local governments, not upon individuals. The Board had thus but little
executive power, and was hardly more than a consulting body. Another
source of weakness in the confederacy was the overwhelming preponderance
of Massachusetts. Of the 24,000 people in the confederation, 15,000
belonged to Massachusetts, while the other three colonies had only about
3,000 each. Massachusetts accordingly had to carry the heaviest burden,
both in the furnishing of soldiers and in the payment of war expenses,
while in the direction of affairs she had no more authority than one of
the small colonies. As a natural consequence, Massachusetts tried
to exert more authority than she was entitled to by the articles of
confederation; and such conduct was not unnaturally resented by the
small colonies, as betokening an unfair and domineering spirit. In
spite of these drawbacks, however, the league was of great value to
New England. On many occasions it worked well as a high court of
jurisdiction, and it made the military strength of the colonies more
available than it would otherwise have been. But for the interference
of the British government, which brought it to an untimely end, the
Confederacy might have been gradually amended so as to become enduring.
After its downfall it was pleasantly remembered by the people of New
England; in times of trouble their thoughts reverted to it; and the
historian must in fairness assign it some share in preparing men's minds
for the greater work of federation which was achieved before the end of
the following century. [Sidenote: It was only a league, not a federal
union]
The formation of such a confederacy certainly involved something very
like a tacit assumption of sovereignty on the part of the four colonies.
It is worthy of note that they did not take the trouble to ask the
permission of the home government in advance. They did as they pleased,
and then defended their action afterward. In England the act of
confederation was regarded with jealousy and distrust. But Edward
Winslow, who was sent over to London to defend the colonies, pithily
said: "If we in America should forbear to unite for offence and defence
against a common enemy till we have leave from England, our throats
might be all cut before the messenger would be half seas through."
Whether such considerations would have had weight with Charles I. or not
was now of little consequence. His power of making mischief soon came
to an end, and from the liberal and sagacious policy of Cromwell the
Confederacy had not much to fear. Nevertheless the fall of Charles I.
brought up for the first time that question which a century later was
to acquire surpassing interest,--the question as to the supremacy of
Parliament over the colonies.
Down to this time the supreme control over colonial affairs had been in
the hands of the king and his privy council, and the Parliament had
not disputed it. In 1624 they had grumbled at James I.'s high-handed
suppression of the Virginia Company, but they had not gone so far as
to call in question the king's supreme authority over the colonies. In
1628, in a petition to Charles I. relating to the Bermudas, they had
fully admitted this royal authority. But the fall of Charles I. for the
moment changed all this. Among the royal powers devolved upon Parliament
was the prerogative of superintending the affairs of the colonies. Such,
at least, was the theory held in England, and it is not easy to see how
any other theory could logically have been held; but the Americans never
formally admitted it, and in practice they continued to behave toward
Parliament very much as they had behaved toward the crown, yielding
just as little obedience as possible. When the Earl of Warwick's
commissioners in 1644 seized upon a royalist vessel in Boston harbour,
the legislature of Massachusetts debated the question whether it was
compatible with the dignity of the colony to permit such an act of
sovereignty on the part of Parliament. It was decided to wink at the
proceeding, on account of the strong sympathy between Massachusetts and
the Parliament which was overthrowing the king. At the same time the
legislature sent over to London a skilfully worded protest against
any like exercise of power in future. In 1651 Parliament ordered
Massachusetts to surrender the charter obtained from Charles I. and take
out a new one from Parliament, in which the relations of the colony to
the home government should be made the subject of fresh and more precise
definition. To this request the colony for more than a year vouchsafed
no answer; and finally, when it became necessary to do something,
instead of sending back the charter, the legislature sent back a
memorial, setting forth that the people of Massachusetts were quite
contented with their form of government, and hoped that no change would
be made in it. War between England and Holland, and the difficult
political problems which beset the brief rule of Cromwell, prevented
the question from coming to an issue, and Massachusetts was enabled to
preserve her independent and somewhat haughty attitude. [Sidenote: Fall
of Charles I. brings up the question as to supremacy of Parliament over
the colonies]
During the whole period of the Confederacy, however, disputes kept
coming up which through endless crooked ramifications were apt to end
in an appeal to the home government, and thus raise again and again the
question as to the extent of its imperial supremacy. For our present
purpose, it is enough to mention three of these cases: 1, the adventures
of Samuel Gorton; 2, the Presbyterian cabal; 3, the persecution of the
Quakers. Other cases in point are those of John Clarke and the Baptists,
and the relations of Massachusetts to the northeastern settlements; but
as it is not my purpose here to make a complete outline of New England
history, the three cases enumerated will suffice.
The first case shows, in a curious and instructive way, how religious
dissensions were apt to be complicated with threats of an Indian war on
the one hand and peril from Great Britain on the other; and as we come
to realize the triple danger, we can perhaps make some allowances for
the high-handed measures with which the Puritan governments sometimes
sought to avert it. [Genesis of the persecuting spirit]
As I have elsewhere tried to show, the genesis of the persecuting spirit
is to be found in the conditions of primitive society, where "above
all things the prime social and political necessity is social cohesion
within the tribal limits, for unless such social cohesion be maintained,
the very existence of the tribe is likely to be extinguished in
bloodshed." The persecuting spirit "began to pass away after men
had become organized into great nations, covering a vast extent of
territory, and secured by their concentrated military strength against
the gravest dangers of barbaric attack." [13]
Now as regards these considerations, the Puritan communities in the
New England wilderness were to some slight extent influenced by such
conditions as used to prevail in primitive society; and this will help
us to understand the treatment of the Antinomians and such cases as that
with which we have now to deal.
Among the supporters of Mrs. Hutchinson, after her arrival at Aquedneck,
was a sincere and courageous, but incoherent and crotchetty man named
Samuel Gorton. [Sidenote: Samuel Gorton]
In the denunciatory language of that day he was called a "proud and
pestilent seducer," or, as the modern newspaper would say, a "crank." It
is well to make due allowances for the prejudice so conspicuous in the
accounts given by his enemies, who felt obliged to justify their harsh
treatment of him. But we have also his own writings from which to form
an opinion as to his character and views. Lucidity, indeed, was not one
of his strong points as a writer, and the drift of his argument is not
always easy to decipher; but he seems to have had some points of contact
with the Familists, a sect established in the sixteenth century in
Holland. The Familists held that the essence of religion consists not
in adherence to any particular creed or ritual, but in cherishing the
spirit of divine love. The general adoption of this point of view was to
inaugurate a third dispensation, superior to those of Moses and Christ,
the dispensation of the Holy Ghost. The value of the Bible lay not so
much in the literal truth of its texts as in their spiritual import;
and by the union of believers with Christ they came to share in the
ineffable perfection of the Godhead. There is much that is modern and
enlightened in such views, which Gorton seems to some extent to have
shared. He certainly set little store by ritual observances and
maintained the equal right of laymen with clergymen to preach the
gospel. Himself a London clothier, and thanking God that he had not been
brought up in "the schools of human learning," he set up as a preacher
without ordination, and styled himself "professor of the mysteries of
Christ." He seems to have cherished that doctrine of private inspiration
which the Puritans especially abhorred. It is not likely that he had any
distinct comprehension of his own views, for distinctness was just what
they lacked. [14] But they were such as in the seventeenth century could
not fail to arouse fierce antagonism, and if it was true that wherever
there was a government Gorton was against it, perhaps that only shows
that wherever there was a government it was sure to be against him.
In the case of such men as Gorton, however,--and the type is by no
means an uncommon one,--their temperament usually has much more to do
with getting them into trouble than their opinions. Gorton's temperament
was such as to keep him always in an atmosphere of strife. Other
heresiarchs suffered persecution in Massachusetts, but Gorton was in hot
water everywhere. His arrival in any community was the signal for an
immediate disturbance of the peace. His troubles began in Plymouth,
where the wife of the pastor preferred his teachings to those of her
husband. In 1638 he fled to Aquedneck, where his first achievement was a
schism among Mrs. Hutchinson's followers, which ended in some staying to
found the town of Portsmouth while others went away to found Newport.
Presently Portsmouth found him intolerable, flogged and banished him,
and after his departure was able to make up its quarrel with Newport.
He next made his way with a few followers to Pawtuxet, within the
jurisdiction of Providence, and now it is the broad-minded and gentle
Roger Williams who complains of his "bewitching and madding poor
Providence." The question is here suggested what could it have been
in Gorton's teaching that enabled him thus to "bewitch" these little
communities? We may be sure that it could not have been the element of
modern liberalism suggested in the Familistic doctrines above cited.
That was the feature then least likely to appeal to the minds of common
people, and most likely to appeal to Williams. More probably such
success as Gorton had in winning followers was due to some of the
mystical rubbish which abounds in his pages and finds in a modern mind
no doorway through which to enter. [Sidenote: He flees to Aquedneck and
is banished thence]
Williams disapproved of Gorton, but was true to his principles of
toleration and would not take part in any attempt to silence him. But in
1641 we find thirteen leading citizens of Providence, headed by William
Arnold, [15] sending a memorial to Boston, asking for assistance and
counsel in regard to this disturber of the peace. How was Massachusetts
to treat such an appeal? She could not presume to meddle with the affair
unless she could have permanent jurisdiction over Pawtuxet; otherwise
she was a mere intruder. How strong a side-light does this little
incident throw upon the history of the Roman republic, and of all
relatively strong communities when confronted with the problem of
preserving order in neighbouring states that are too weak to preserve it
for themselves! Arnold's argument, in his appeal to Massachusetts, was
precisely the same as that by which the latter colony excused herself
for banishing the Antinomians. He simply says that Gorton and his
company "are not fit persons to be received, and made members of a body
in so weak a state as our town is in at present;" and he adds, "There is
no state but in the first place will seek to preserve its own safety and
peace." Whatever might be the abstract merits of Gorton's opinions, his
conduct was politically dangerous; and accordingly the jurisdiction over
Pawtuxet was formally conceded to Massachusetts. Thereupon that colony,
assuming jurisdiction, summoned Gorton and his men to Boston, to prove
their title to the lands they occupied. They of course regarded the
summons as a flagrant usurpation of authority, and instead of obeying
it they withdrew to Shawomet, on the western shore of Narragansett bay,
where they bought a tract of land from the principal sachem of the
Narragansetts, Miantonomo. The immediate rule over this land belonged to
two inferior chiefs, who ratified the sale at the time, but six months
afterward disavowed the ratification, on the ground that it had been
given under duress from their overlord Miantonomo. Here was a state
of things which might easily bring on an Indian war. The two chiefs
appealed to Massachusetts for protection, and were accordingly summoned,
along with Miantonomo, to a hearing at Boston. Here we see how a kind of
English protectorate over the native tribes had begun to grow up so soon
after the destruction of the Pequots. Such a result was inevitable.
After hearing the arguments, the legislature decided to defend the two
chiefs, provided they would put themselves under the jurisdiction of
Massachusetts. This was done, while further complaints against Gorton
came from the citizens of Providence. Gorton and his men were now
peremptorily summoned to Boston to show cause why they should not
surrender their land at Shawomet and to answer the charges against them.
On receiving from Gorton a defiant reply, couched in terms which some
thought blasphemous, the government of Massachusetts prepared to use
force. [Sidenote: Providence protests against him] [Sidenote: He flees
to Shawomet, where he buys land of the Indians]
Meanwhile the unfortunate Miantonomo had rushed upon his doom. The
annihilation of the Pequots had left the Mohegans and Narragansetts
contending for the foremost place among the native tribes. Between the
rival sachems, Uncas and Miantonomo, the hatred was deep and deadly.
As soon as the Mohegan perceived that trouble was brewing between
Miantonomo and the government at Boston, he improved the occasion by
gathering a few Narragansett scalps. Miantonomo now took the war-path
and was totally defeated by Uncas in a battle on the Great Plain in the
present township of Norwich. Encumbered with a coat of mail which his
friend Gorton had given him, Miantonomo was overtaken and captured. By
ordinary Indian usage he would have been put to death with fiendish
torments, as soon as due preparations could be made and a fit company
assembled to gloat over his agony; but Gorton sent a messenger to Uncas,
threatening dire vengeance if harm were done to his ally. This message
puzzled the Mohegan chief. The appearance of a schism in the English
counsels was more than he could quite fathom. When the affair had
somewhat more fully developed itself, some of the Indians spoke of
the white men as divided into two rival tribes, the Gortonoges and
Wattaconoges. [16] Roger Williams tells us that the latter term, applied
to the men of Boston, meant coat-wearers. Whether it is to be inferred
that the Gortonoges went about in what in modern parlance would be
called their "shirt-sleeves," the reader must decide. [Sidenote:
Miantonomo and Uncas]
In his perplexity Uncas took his prisoner to Hartford, and afterward,
upon the advice of the governor and council, sent him to Boston, that
his fate might be determined by the Federal Commissioners who were
there holding their first regular meeting. It was now the turn of the
commissioners to be perplexed. According to English law there was no
good reason for putting Miantonomo to death. The question was whether
they should interfere with the Indian custom by which his life was
already forfeit to his captor. The magistrates already suspected the
Narragansetts of cherishing hostile designs. To set their sachem at
liberty, especially while the Gorton affair remained unsettled, might be
dangerous; and it would be likely to alienate Uncas from the English. In
their embarrassment the commissioners sought spiritual guidance. A synod
of forty or fifty clergymen, from all parts of New England, was in
session at Boston, and the question was referred to a committee of five
of their number. The decision was prompt that Miantonomo must die. He
was sent back to Hartford to be slain by Uncas, but two messengers
accompanied him, to see that no tortures were inflicted. A select band
of Mohegan warriors journeyed through the forest with the prisoner and
the two Englishmen, until they came to the plain where the battle had
been fought. Then at a signal from Uncas, the warrior walking behind
Miantonomo silently lifted his tomahawk and sank it into the brain of
the victim who fell dead without a groan. Uncas cut a warm slice from
the shoulder and greedily devoured it, declaring that the flesh of
his enemy was the sweetest of meat and gave strength to his heart.
Miantonomo was buried there on the scene of his defeat, which has ever
since been known as the Sachem's Plain. This was in September, 1643, and
for years afterward, in that month, parties of Narragansetts used to
visit the spot and with frantic gestures and hideous yells lament their
fallen leader. A heap of stones was raised over the grave, and no
Narragansett came near it without adding to the pile. After many a
summer had passed and the red men had disappeared from the land, a
Yankee farmer, with whom thrift prevailed over sentiment, cleared away
the mound and used the stones for the foundation of his new barn. [17]
[Sidenote: Death of Miantonomo]
One cannot regard this affair as altogether creditable to the Federal
Commissioners and their clerical advisers. One of the clearest-headed
and most impartial students of our history observes that "if the English
were to meddle in the matter at all, it was their clear duty to enforce
as far as might be the principles recognized by civilized men. When they
accepted the appeal made by Uncas they shifted the responsibility from
the Mohegan chief to themselves." [18] The decision was doubtless based
purely upon grounds of policy. Miantonomo was put out of the way because
he was believed to be dangerous. In the thirst for revenge that was
aroused among the Narragansetts there was an alternative source of
danger, to which I shall hereafter refer. [19] It is difficult now to
decide, as a mere question of safe policy, what the English ought to
have done. The chance of being dragged into an Indian war, through the
feud between Narragansetts and Mohegans, was always imminent. The policy
which condemned Miantonomo was one of timidity, and fear is merciless.
The Federal Commissioners heartily approved the conduct of Massachusetts
toward Gorton, and adopted it in the name of the United Colonies. After
a formal warning, which passed unheeded, a company of forty men, under
Edward Johnson of Woburn and two other officers, was sent to Shawomet.
Some worthy citizens of Providence essayed to play the part of
mediators, and after some parley the Gortonites offered to submit to
arbitration. The proposal was conveyed to Boston, and the clergy were
again consulted. They declared it beneath the dignity of Massachusetts
to negotiate "with a few fugitives living without law or government,"
and they would no more compound with Gorton's "blasphemous revilings"
than they would bargain with the Evil One. The community must be
"purged" of such wickedness, either by repentance or by punishment. The
ministers felt that God would hold the community responsible for Gorton
and visit calamities upon them unless he were silenced. [20] The
arbitration was refused, Gorton's blockhouse was besieged and captured,
and the agitator was carried with nine of his followers to Boston, where
they were speedily convicted of heresy and sedition. Before passing
judgment the General Court as usual consulted with the clergy who
recommended a sentence of death. Their advice was adopted by the
assistants, but the deputies were more merciful, and the heretics
were sentenced to imprisonment at the pleasure of the court. In this
difference between the assistants and the deputies, we observe an early
symptom of that popular revolt against the ascendancy of the clergy
which was by and by to become so much more conspicuous and effective
in the affair of the Quakers. Another symptom might be seen in the
circumstance that so much sympathy was expressed for the Gortonites,
especially by women, that after some months of imprisonment and abuse
the heretics were banished under penalty of death. [Sidenote: Trial and
sentence of the heretics]
Gorton now went to England and laid his tale of woe before the
parliamentary Board of Commissioners. The Earl of Warwick behaved with
moderation. He declined to commit himself to an opinion as to the
merits of the quarrel, but Gorton's title to Shawomet was confirmed. He
returned to Boston with an order to the government to allow him to pass
unmolested through Massachusetts, and hereafter to protect him in
the possession of Shawomet. If this little commonwealth of 15,000
inhabitants had been a nation as powerful as France, she could not have
treated the message more haughtily. By a majority of one vote it was
decided not to refuse so trifling a favour as a passage through the
country for just this once; but as for protecting the new town of
Warwick which the Gortonites proceeded to found at Shawomet, although it
was several times threatened by the Indians, and the settlers appealed
to the parliamentary order, that order Massachusetts flatly and doggedly
refused to obey. [21] [Sidenote: Gorton appeals to Parliament]
In the discussions of which these years were so full, "King Winthrop,"
as his enemy Morton called him, used some very significant language. By
a curious legal fiction of the Massachusetts charter the colonists were
supposed to hold their land as in the manor of East Greenwich near
London, and it was argued that they were represented in Parliament by
the members of the county or borough which contained that manor, and
were accordingly subject to the jurisdiction of Parliament. It was
further argued that since the king had no absolute sovereignty
independent of Parliament he could not by charter impart any such
independent sovereignty to others. Winthrop did not dispute these
points, but observed that the safety of the commonwealth was the supreme
law, and if in the interests of that safety it should be found necessary
to renounce the authority of Parliament, the colonists would be
justified in doing so. [Sidenote: Winthrop's prophetic opinion] [22]
This was essentially the same doctrine as was set forth ninety-nine
years later by young Samuel Adams in his Commencement Oration at
Harvard.
The case of the Presbyterian cabal admits of briefer treatment than that
of Gorton. There had now come to be many persons in Massachusetts who
disapproved of the provision which restricted the suffrage to members of
the Independent or Congregational churches of New England, and in 1646
the views of these people were presented in a petition to the General
Court. The petitioners asked "that their civil disabilities might be
removed, and that all members of the churches of England and Scotland
might be admitted to communion with the New England churches. If this
could not be granted they prayed to be released from all civil burdens.
Should the court refuse to entertain their complaint, they would be
obliged to bring their case before Parliament." [23] The leading signers
of this menacing petition were William Vassall, Samuel Maverick, and The
Presbyterian cabal. Dr. Robert Child. Maverick we have already met. From
the day when the ships of the first Puritan settlers had sailed past
his log fortress on Noddle's Island, he had been their enemy; "a man of
loving and curteous behaviour," says Johnson, "very ready to entertaine
strangers, yet an enemy to the reformation in hand, being strong for the
lordly prelatical power." Vassall was not a denizen of Massachusetts,
but lived in Scituate, in the colony of Plymouth, where there were no
such restrictions upon the suffrage. Child was a learned physician who
after a good deal of roaming about the world had lately taken it into
his head to come and see what sort of a place Massachusetts was.
Although these names were therefore not such as to lend weight to such a
petition, their request would seem at first sight reasonable enough.
At a superficial glance it seems conceived in a modern spirit of
liberalism. In reality it was nothing of the sort. In England it was
just the critical moment of the struggle between Presbyterians and
Independents which had come in to complicate the issues of the great
civil war. Vassall, Child, and Maverick seem to have been the leading
spirits in a cabal for the establishment of Presbyterianism in New
England, and in their petition they simply took advantage of the
discontent of the disfranchised citizens in Massachusetts in order
to put in an entering wedge. This was thoroughly understood by the
legislature of Massachusetts, and accordingly the petition was dismissed
and the petitioners were roundly fined. Just as Child was about to start
for England with his grievances, the magistrates overhauled his papers
and discovered a petition to the parliamentary Board of Commissioners,
suggesting that Presbyterianism should be established in New England,
and that a viceroy or governor-general should be appointed to rule
there. To the men of Massachusetts this last suggestion was a crowning
horror. It seemed scarcely less than treason. The signers of this
petition were the same who had signed the petition to the General Court.
They were now fined still more heavily and imprisoned for six months.
By and by they found their way, one after another, to London, while the
colonists sent Edward Winslow, of Plymouth, as an advocate to thwart
their schemes. Winslow was assailed by Child's brother in a spicy
pamphlet entitled "New England's Jonas cast up at London," and replied
after the same sort, entitling his pamphlet "New England's Salamander
discovered." The cabal accomplished nothing because of the decisive
defeat of Presbyterianism in England. "Pride's Purge" settled all that.
The petition of Vassall and his friends was the occasion for the
meeting of a synod of churches at Cambridge, in order to complete the
organization of Congregationalism. In 1648 the work of the synod was
embodied in the famous Cambridge Platform, which adopted the Westminster
Confession as its creed, carefully defined the powers of the clergy, and
declared it to be the duty of magistrates to suppress heresy. In 1649
the General Court laid this platform before the congregations; in
1651 it was adopted; and this event may be regarded as completing the
theocratic organization of the Puritan commonwealth in Massachusetts.
[Sidenote: The Cambridge Platform; deaths of Winthrop and Cotton]
It was immediately preceded and followed by the deaths of the two
foremost men in that commonwealth. John Winthrop died in 1649 and John
Cotton in 1652. Both were men of extraordinary power. Of Winthrop it is
enough to say that under his skilful guidance Massachusetts had been
able to pursue the daring policy which had characterized the first
twenty years of her history, and which in weaker hands would almost
surely have ended in disaster. Of Cotton it may be said that he was the
most eminent among a group of clergymen who for learning and dialectical
skill have seldom been surpassed. Neither Winthrop nor Cotton approved
of toleration upon principle. Cotton, in his elaborate controversy
with Roger Williams, frankly asserted that persecution is not wrong in
itself; it is wicked for falsehood to persecute truth, but it is the
sacred duty of truth to persecute falsehood. This was the theologian's
view. Winthrop's was that of a man of affairs. They had come to New
England, he said, in order to make a society after their own model;
all who agreed with them might come and join that society; those who
disagreed with them might go elsewhere; there was room enough on the
American continent. But while neither Winthrop nor Cotton understood the
principle of religious liberty, at the same time neither of them had the
temperament which persecutes. Both were men of genial disposition, sound
common-sense, and exquisite tact. Under their guidance no such
tragedy would have been possible as that which was about to leave its
ineffaceable stain upon the annals of Massachusetts.
It was most unfortunate that at this moment the places of these two men
should have been taken by two as arrant fanatics as ever drew breath.
For thirteen out of the fifteen years following Winthrop's death, the
governor of Massachusetts was John Endicott, a sturdy pioneer, whose
services to the colony had been great. He was honest and conscientious,
but passionate, domineering, and very deficient in tact. At the same
time Cotton's successor in position and influence was John Norton, a man
of pungent wit, unyielding temper, and melancholy mood. He was possessed
by a morbid fear of Satan, whose hirelings he thought were walking
up and down over the earth in the visible semblance of heretics and
schismatics. Under such leaders the bigotry latent in the Puritan
commonwealth might easily break out in acts of deadly persecution.
[Sidenote: Endicott and Norton take the lead] [Sidenote: The Quakers and
their views]
The occasion was not long in coming. Already the preaching of George Fox
had borne fruit, and the noble sect of Quakers was an object of scorn
and loathing to all such as had not gone so far as they toward learning
the true lesson of Protestantism. Of all Protestant sects the Quakers
went furthest in stripping off from Christianity its non-essential
features of doctrine and ceremonial. Their ideal was not a theocracy
but a separation between church and state. They would abolish all
distinction between clergy and laity, and could not be coaxed or bullied
into paying tithes. They also refused to render military service, or
to take the oath of allegiance. In these ways they came at once into
antagonism both with church and with state. In doctrine their chief
peculiarity was the assertion of an "Inward Light" by which every
individual is to be guided in his conduct of life. They did not believe
that men ceased to be divinely inspired when the apostolic ages came
to an end, but held that at all times and places the human soul may be
enlightened by direct communion with its Heavenly Father. Such views
involved the most absolute assertion of the right of private judgment;
and when it is added that in the exercise of this right many Quakers
were found to reject the dogmas of original sin and the resurrection of
the body, to doubt the efficacy of baptism, and to call in question the
propriety of Christians turning the Lord's Day into a Jewish Sabbath, we
see that they had in some respects gone far on the road toward modern
rationalism. It was not to be expected that such opinions should
be treated by the Puritans in any other spirit than one of extreme
abhorrence and dread. The doctrine of the "Inward Light," or of private
inspiration, was something especially hateful to the Puritan. To the
modern rationalist, looking at things in the dry light of history,
it may seem that this doctrine was only the Puritan's own appeal to
individual judgment, stated in different form; but the Puritan could not
so regard it. To such a fanatic as Norton this inward light was but
a reflection from the glare of the bottomless pit, this private
inspiration was the beguiling voice of the Devil. As it led the Quakers
to strange and novel conclusions, this inward light seemed to array
itself in hostility to that final court of appeal for all good
Protestants, the sacred text of the Bible. The Quakers were accordingly
regarded as infidels who sought to deprive Protestantism of its only
firm support. They were wrongly accused of blasphemy in their treatment
of the Scriptures. Cotton Mather says that the Quakers were in the habit
of alluding to the Bible as the Word of the Devil. Such charges, from
passionate and uncritical enemies, are worthless except as they serve to
explain the bitter prejudice with which the Quakers were regarded. They
remind one of the silly accusation brought against Wyclif two centuries
earlier, that he taught his disciples that God ought to obey the Devil;
[24] and they are not altogether unlike the assumptions of some modern
theologians who take it for granted that any writer who accepts the
Darwinian theory must be a materialist. [Sidenote: Endicott and Norton
take the lead] [Sidenote: The Quakers and their views]
But worthless as Mather's statements are, in describing the views of
the Quakers, they are valuable as indicating the temper in which these
disturbers of the Puritan theocracy were regarded. In accusing them of
rejecting the Bible and making a law unto themselves, Mather simply put
on record a general belief which he shared. Nor can it be doubted that
the demeanour of the Quaker enthusiasts was sometimes such as to seem
to warrant the belief that their anarchical doctrines entailed, as a
natural consequence, disorderly and disreputable conduct. In those
days all manifestations of dissent were apt to be violent, and the
persecution which they encountered was likely to call forth strange and
unseemly vagaries. When we remember how the Quakers, in their scorn of
earthly magistrates and princes, would hoot at the governor as he
walked up the street; how they used to rush into church on Sundays and
interrupt the sermon with untimely remarks; how Thomas Newhouse once
came into the Old South Meeting-House with a glass bottle in each hand,
and, holding them up before the astonished congregation, knocked them
together and smashed them, with the remark, "Thus will the Lord break
you all in pieces"; how Lydia Wardwell and Deborah Wilson ran about the
streets in the primitive costume of Eve before the fall, and called
their conduct "testifying before the Lord"; we can hardly wonder that
people should have been reminded of the wretched scenes enacted at
Munster by the Anabaptists of the preceding century. [Sidenote: Violent
manifestations of dissent]
Such incidents, however, do not afford the slightest excuse for the
cruel treatment which the Quakers received in Boston, nor do they go
far toward explaining it. Persecution began immediately, before the
new-comers had a chance to behave themselves well or ill. Their mere
coming to Boston was taken as an act of invasion. It was indeed an
attack upon the Puritan theocratic idea. Of all the sectaries of that
age of sects, the Quakers were the most aggressive. There were at one
time more than four thousand of them in English jails; yet when any of
them left England, it was less to escape persecution than to preach
their doctrines far and wide over the earth. Their missionaries found
their way to Paris, to Vienna; even to Rome, where they testified under
the very roof of the Vatican. In this dauntless spirit they came to New
England to convert its inhabitants, or at any rate to establish the
principle that in whatever community it might please them to stay, there
they would stay in spite of judge or hangman. At first they came to
Barbadoes, whence two of their number, Anne Austin and Mary Fisher,
sailed for Boston. When they landed, on a May morning in 1656, Endicott
happened to be away from Boston, but the deputy-governor, Richard
Bellingham, was equal to the occasion. He arrested the two women and
locked them up in jail, where, for fear they might proclaim their
heresies to the crowd gathered outside, the windows were boarded up.
There was no law as yet enacted against Quakers, but a council summoned
for the occasion pronounced their doctrines blasphemous and devilish.
The books which the poor women had with them were seized and publicly
burned, and the women themselves were kept in prison half-starved for
five weeks until the ship they had come in was ready to return to
Barbadoes. Soon after their departure Endicott came home. He found fault
with Bellingham's conduct as too gentle; if he had been there he would
have had the hussies flogged. [Sidenote: Anne Austin and Mary Fisher]
Five years afterward Mary Fisher went to Adrianople and tried to convert
the Grand Turk, who treated her with grave courtesy and allowed her to
prophesy unmolested. This is one of the numerous incidents that, on a
superficial view of history, might be cited in support of the opinion
that there has been on the whole more tolerance in the Mussulman than in
the Christian world. Rightly interpreted, however, the fact has no such
implication. In Massachusetts the preaching of Quaker doctrines might
(and did) lead to a revolution; in Turkey it was as harmless as the
barking of dogs. Governor Endicott was afraid of Mary Fisher; Mahomet
III. was not.
No sooner had the two women been shipped from Boston than eight other
Quakers arrived from London. They were at once arrested. While they were
lying in jail the Federal Commissioners, then in session at Plymouth,
recommended that laws be forthwith enacted to keep these dreaded
heretics out of the land. Next year they stooped so far as to seek the
aid of Rhode Island, the colony which they had refused to admit into
their confederacy. "They sent a letter to the authorities of that
colony, signing themselves their loving friends and neighbours, and
beseeching them to preserve the whole body of colonies against 'such a
pest' by banishing and excluding all Quakers, a measure to which 'the
rule of charity did oblige them.'" Roger Williams was then president of
Rhode Island, and in full accord with his noble spirit was the reply of
the assembly. "We have no law amongst us whereby to punish any for only
declaring by words their minds and understandings concerning the things
and ways of God as to salvation and our eternal condition." As for these
Quakers we find that where they are "most of all suffered to declare
themselves freely and only opposed by arguments in discourse, there
they least of all desire to come." Any breach of the civil law shall be
punished, but the "freedom of different consciences shall be respected."
This reply enraged the confederated colonies, and Massachusetts, as the
strongest and most overbearing, threatened to cut off the trade of
Rhode Island, which forthwith appealed to Cromwell for protection. The
language of the appeal is as touching as its broad Christian spirit is
grand. It recognizes that by stopping trade the men of Massachusetts
will injure themselves, yet, it goes on to say, "for the safeguard of
their religion they may seem to neglect themselves in that respect; for
what will not men do for their God?" But whatever fortune may befall,
"let us not be compelled to exercise any civil power over men's
consciences." [25] [Sidenote: Noble conduct of Rhode Island]
There could never, of course, be a doubt as to who drew up this state
paper. During his last visit to England, three years before, Roger
Williams had spent several weeks at Sir Harry Vane's country house in
Lincolnshire, and he had also been intimately associated with Cromwell
and Milton. The views of these great men were the most advanced of
that age. They were coming to understand the true principle upon which
toleration should be based. (See my Excursions of an Evolutionist, pp.
247, 289-293.) Vane had said in Parliament, "Why should the labours of
any be suppressed, if sober, though never so different? We now profess
to seek God, we desire to see light!" [Sidenote: Roger Williams appeals
to Cromwell]
This Williams called a "heavenly speech." The sentiment it expressed was
in accordance with the practical policy of Cromwell, and in the appeal
of the president of Rhode Island to the Lord Protector one hears the
tone with which friend speaks to friend.
In thus protecting the Quakers, Williams never for a moment concealed
his antipathy to their doctrines. The author of "George Fox digged out
of his Burrowes," the sturdy controversialist who in his seventy-third
year rowed himself in a boat the whole length of Narragansett bay to
engage in a theological tournament against three Quaker champions, was
animated by nothing less than the broadest liberalism in his bold reply
to the Federal Commissioners in 1657. The event showed that under his
guidance the policy of Rhode Island was not only honourable but wise.
The four confederated colonies all proceeded to pass laws banishing
Quakers and making it a penal offence for shipmasters to bring them to
New England. These laws differed in severity. Those of Connecticut, in
which we may trace the influence of the younger John Winthrop, were the
mildest; those of Massachusetts were the most severe, and as Quakers
kept coming all the more in spite of them, they grew harsher and
harsher. At first the Quaker who persisted in returning was to be
flogged and imprisoned at hard labour, next his ears were to be cut off,
and for a third offence his tongue was to be bored with a hot iron.
At length in 1658, the Federal Commissioners, sitting at Boston with
Endicott as chairman, recommended capital punishment. It must be borne
in mind that the general reluctance toward prescribing or inflicting the
death penalty was much weaker then than now. On the statute-books there
were not less than fifteen capital crimes, including such offences as
idolatry, witchcraft, blasphemy, marriage within the Levitical degrees,
"presumptuous sabbath-breaking," and cursing or smiting one's parents.
[26] The infliction of the penalty, however, lay practically very much
within the discretion of the court, and was generally avoided except in
cases of murder or other heinous felony. In some of these ecclesiastical
offences the statute seems to have served the purpose of a threat, and
was therefore perhaps the more easily enacted. Yet none of the colonies
except Massachusetts now adopted the suggestion of the Federal
Commissioners and threatened the Quakers with death. [Sidenote: Laws
passed against the Quakers]
In Massachusetts the opposition was very strong indeed, and its
character shows how wide the divergence in sentiment had already become
between the upper stratum of society and the people in general. This
divergence was one result of the excessive weight given to the clergy by
the restriction of the suffrage to church members. One might almost say
that it was not the people of Massachusetts, after all, that shed
the blood of the Quakers; it was Endicott and the clergy. The bill
establishing death as the penalty for returning after banishment was
passed in the upper house without serious difficulty; but in the lower
house it was at first defeated. Of the twenty-six deputies fifteen were
opposed to it, but one of these fell sick and two were intimidated,
so that finally the infamous measure was passed by a vote of thirteen
against twelve. Probably it would not have passed but for a hopeful
feeling that an occasion for putting it into execution would not
be likely to arise. It was hoped that the mere threat would prove
effective. Endicott begged the Quakers to keep away, saying earnestly
that he did not desire their death; but the more resolute spirits
were not deterred by fear of the gallows. In September, 1659, William
Robinson, Marmaduke Stevenson, and Mary Dyer, who had come to Boston
expressly to defy the cruel law, were banished. Mrs. Dyer was a lady
of good family, wife of the secretary of Rhode Island. She had been an
intimate friend of Mrs. Hutchinson. While she went home to her husband,
Stevenson and Robinson went only to Salem and then faced about and came
back to Boston. Mrs. Dyer also returned. All three felt themselves
under divine command to resist and defy the persecutors. On the 27th of
October they were led to the gallows on Boston Common, under escort of
a hundred soldiers. Many people had begun to cry shame on such
proceedings, and it was thought necessary to take precautions against a
tumult. The victims tried to address the crowd, but their voices were
drowned by the beating of drums. While the Rev. John Wilson railed and
scoffed at them from the foot of the gallows the two brave men were
hanged. The halter had been placed upon Mrs. Dyer when her son, who
had come in all haste from Rhode Island, obtained her reprieve on
his promise to take her away. The bodies of the two men were denied
Christian burial and thrown uncovered into a pit. All the efforts of
husband and son were unable to keep Mrs. Dyer at home. In the following
spring she returned to Boston and on the first day of June was again
taken to the gallows. At the last moment she was offered freedom if she
would only promise to go away and stay, but she refused. "In obedience
to the will of the Lord I came," said she, "and in his will I abide
faithful unto death." And so she died. [Sidenote: Executions on Boston
Common] [Sidenote: Wenlock Christison's defiance and victory]
Public sentiment in Boston was now turning so strongly against the
magistrates that they began to weaken in their purpose. But there
was one more victim. In November, 1660, William Leddra returned from
banishment. The case was clear enough, but he was kept in prison four
months and every effort was made to induce him to promise to leave the
colony, but in vain. In the following March he too was put to death. A
few days before the execution, as Leddra was being questioned in court,
a memorable scene occurred. Wenlock Christison was one of those who had
been banished under penalty of death. On his return he made straight for
the town-house, strode into the court-room, and with uplifted finger
addressed the judges in words of authority. "I am come here to warn
you," said he, "that ye shed no more innocent blood." He was instantly
seized and dragged off to jail. After three months he was brought to
trial before the Court of Assistants. The magistrates debated for more
than a fortnight as to what should be done. The air was thick with
mutterings of insurrection, and they had lost all heart for their
dreadful work. Not so the savage old man who presided, frowning gloomily
under his black skull cap. Losing his patience at last, Endicott smote
the table with fury, upbraided the judges for their weakness, and
declared himself so disgusted that he was ready to go back to England.
[27] "You that will not consent, record it," he shouted, as the question
was again put to vote, "I thank God I am not afraid to give judgment."
Christison was condemned to death, but the sentence was never executed.
In the interval the legislature assembled, and the law was modified. The
martyrs had not died in vain. Their cause was victorious. A revolution
had been effected. The Puritan ideal of a commonwealth composed of a
united body of believers was broken down, never again to be restored.
The principle had been admitted that the heretic might come to
Massachusetts and stay there.
It was not in a moment, however, that these results were fully realized.
For some years longer Quakers were fined, imprisoned, and now and then
tied to the cart's tail and whipped from one town to another. But these
acts of persecution came to be more and more discountenanced by public
opinion until at length they ceased.
It was on the 25th of May, 1660, just one week before the martyrdom of
Mary Dyer, that Charles II. returned to England to occupy his father's
throne. One of the first papers laid before him was a memorial in behalf
of the oppressed Quakers in New England. In the course of the following
year he sent a letter to Endicott and the other New England governors,
ordering them to suspend proceedings against the Quakers, and if any
were then in prison, to send them to England for trial. Christison's
victory had already been won, but the "King's Missive" was now partially
obeyed by the release of all prisoners. As for sending anybody to
England for trial, that was something that no New England government
could ever be made to allow.
Charles's defence of the Quakers was due, neither to liberality
of disposition nor to any sympathy with them, but rather to his
inclinations toward Romanism. Unlike in other respects, Quakers and
Catholics were alike in this, that they were the only sects which the
Protestant world in general agreed in excluding from toleration. Charles
wished to secure toleration for Catholics, and he could not prudently
take steps toward this end without pursuing a policy broad enough to
diminish persecution in other directions, and from these circumstances
the Quakers profited. At times there was something almost like a
political alliance between Quaker and Catholic, as instanced in the
relations between William Penn and Charles's brother, the Duke of York.
[Sidenote: The "King's Missive"] [Sidenote: Why Charles II. interfered
to protect the Quakers]
Besides all this, Charles had good reason to feel that the governments
of New England were assuming too many airs of sovereignty. There were
plenty of people at hand to work upon his mind. The friends of Gorton
and Child and Vassall were loud with their complaints. Samuel Maverick
swore that the people of New England were all rebels, and he could prove
it. The king was assured that the Confederacy was "a war combination,
made by the four colonies when they had a design to throw off their
dependence on England, and for that purpose." The enemies of the New
England people, while dilating upon the rebellious disposition of
Massachusetts, could also remind the king that for several years that
colony had been coining and circulating shillings and sixpences with the
name "Massachusetts" and a tree on one side, and the name "New England"
with the date on the other. There was no recognition of England upon
this coinage, which was begun in 1652 and kept up for more than thirty
years. Such pieces of money used to be called "pine-tree shillings";
but, so far as looks go, the tree might be anything, and an adroit
friend of New England once gravely assured the king that it was meant
for the royal oak in which his majesty hid himself after the battle of
Worcester!
Against the colony of New Haven the king had a special grudge. Two of
the regicide judges, who had sat in the tribunal which condemned his
father, escaped to New England in 1660 and were well received there.
They were gentlemen of high position. Edward Whalley was a cousin of
Cromwell and Hampden. He had distinguished himself at Naseby and Dunbar,
and had risen to the rank of lieutenant-general. He had commanded at
the capture of Worcester, where it is interesting to observe that the
royalist commander who surrendered to him was Sir Henry Washington, own
cousin to the grandfather of George Washington. The other regicide,
William Goffe, as a major-general in Cromwell's army, had won such
distinction that there were some who pointed to him as the proper person
to succeed the Lord Protector on the death of the latter. He had married
Whalley's daughter. Soon after the arrival of these gentlemen, a royal
order for their arrest was sent to Boston. If they had been arrested and
sent back to England, their severed heads would soon have been placed
over Temple Bar. The king's detectives hotly pursued them through the
woodland paths of New England, and they would soon have been taken but
for the aid they got from the people. Many are the stories of their
hairbreadth escapes. Sometimes they took refuge in a cave on a mountain
near New Haven, sometimes they hid in friendly cellars; and once, being
hard put to it, they skulked under a wooden bridge, while their pursuers
on horseback galloped by overhead. After lurking about New Haven and
Milford for two or three years, on hearing of the expected arrival
of Colonel Nichols and his commission, they sought a more secluded
hiding-place near Hadley, a village lately settled far up the
Connecticut river, within the jurisdiction of Massachusetts. Here the
avengers lost the trail, the pursuit was abandoned, and the weary
regicides were presently forgotten. The people of New Haven had been
especially zealous in shielding the fugitives. Mr. Davenport had not
only harboured them in his own house, but on the Sabbath before their
expected arrival he had preached a very bold sermon, openly advising
his people to aid and comfort them as far as possible. [28] The colony,
moreover, did not officially recognize the restoration of Charles II. to
the throne until that event had been commonly known in New England for
more than a year. For these reasons the wrath of the king was specially
roused against New Haven, when circumstances combined to enable him at
once to punish this disloyal colony and deal a blow at the Confederacy.
We have seen that in restricting the suffrage to church members New
Haven had followed the example of Massachusetts, but Connecticut had
not; and at this time there was warm controversy between the two younger
colonies as to the wisdom Of such a policy. As yet none of the colonies
save Massachusetts had obtained a charter, and Connecticut was naturally
anxious to obtain one. Whether through a complaisant spirit connected
with this desire, or through mere accident, Connecticut had been prompt
in acknowledging the restoration of Charles II.; and in August, 1661,
she dispatched the younger Winthrop to England to apply for a charter.
Winthrop was a man of winning address and of wide culture. His
scientific tastes were a passport to the favour of the king at a time
when the Royal Society was being founded, of which Winthrop himself was
soon chosen a fellow. In every way the occasion was an auspicious one.
The king looked upon the rise of the New England Confederacy with
unfriendly eyes. Massachusetts was as yet the only member of the league
that was really troublesome; and there seemed to be no easier way to
weaken her than to raise up a rival power by her side, and extend to it
such privileges as might awaken her jealousy. All the more would such
a policy be likely to succeed if accompanied by measures of which
Massachusetts must necessarily disapprove, and the suppression of
New Haven would be such a measure. [Sidenote: New Haven annexed to
Connecticut]
In accordance with these views, a charter of great liberality was at
once granted to Connecticut, and by the same instrument the colony of
New Haven was deprived of its separate existence and annexed to its
stronger neighbour. As if to emphasize the motives which had led to this
display of royal favour toward Connecticut, an equally liberal charter
was granted to Rhode Island. In the summer of 1664 Charles II. sent a
couple of ships-of-war to Boston harbour, with 400 troops under command
of Colonel Richard Nichols, who had been appointed, along with Samuel
Maverick and two others as royal commissioners, to look after the
affairs of the New World. Colonel Nichols took his ships to New
Amsterdam, and captured that important town. After his return the
commissioners held meetings at Boston, and for a time the Massachusetts
charter seemed in danger. But the Puritan magistrates were shrewd, and
months were frittered away to no purpose. Presently the Dutch made war
upon England, and the king felt it to be unwise to irritate the people
of Massachusetts beyond endurance. The turbulent state of English
politics which followed still further absorbed his attention, and New
England had another respite of several years. [Sidenote: Founding of
Newark]
In New Haven a party had grown up which was dissatisfied with its
extreme theocratic policy and approved of the union with Connecticut.
Davenport and his followers, the founders of the colony, were beyond
measure disgusted. They spurned "the Christless rule" of the sister
colony. Many of them took advantage of the recent conquest of New
Netherland, and a strong party, led by the Rev. Abraham Pierson, of
Branford, migrated to the banks of the Passaic in June, 1667, and laid
the foundations of Newark. For some years to come the theocratic idea
that had given birth to New Haven continued to live on in New Jersey. As
for Mr. Davenport, he went to Boston and ended his days there. Cotton
Mather, writing at a later date, when the theocratic scheme of the early
settlers had been manifestly outgrown and superseded, says of Davenport:
"Yet, after all, the Lord gave him to see that in this world a
Church-State was impossible, whereinto there enters nothing which
defiles."
The theocratic policy, alike in New Haven and in Massachusetts, broke
down largely through its inherent weakness. It divided the community,
and created among the people a party adverse to its arrogance and
exclusiveness. This state of things facilitated the suppression of
New Haven by royal edict, and it made possible the victory of Wenlock
Christison in Massachusetts. We can now see the fundamental explanation
of the deadly hostility with which Endicott and his party regarded the
Quakers. The latter aimed a fatal blow at the very root of the idea
which had brought the Puritans to New England. Once admit these heretics
as citizens, or even as tolerated sojourners, and there was an end of
the theocratic state consisting of a united body of believers. It was a
life-and-death struggle, in which no quarter was given; and the Quakers,
aided by popular discontent with the theocracy, even more than by the
intervention of the crown, won a decisive victory.
As the work of planting New England took place chiefly in the eleven
years 1629-1640, during which Charles I. contrived to reign without a
parliament, so the prosperous period of the New England Confederacy,
1643-1664, covers the time of the Civil War and the Commonwealth, and
just laps on to the reign of Charles II. By the summary extinction of
the separate existence of one of its members for the benefit of another,
its vigour was sadly impaired. But its constitution was revised so as
to make it a league of three states instead of four; and the Federal
Commissioners kept on holding their meetings, though less frequently,
until the revocation of the Massachusetts charter in 1684. During
this period a great Indian war occurred, in the course of which this
concentration of the military strength of New England, imperfect as it
was, proved itself very useful. In the history of New England, from the
restoration of the Stuarts until their final expulsion, the two most
important facts are the military struggle of the newly founded states
with the Indians, and their constitutional struggle against the British
government. The troubles and dangers of 1636 were renewed on a much more
formidable scale, but the strength of the people had waxed greatly in
the mean time, and the new perils were boldly overcome or skilfully
warded off; not, however, until the constitution of Massachusetts had
been violently wrenched out of shape in the struggle, and seeds of
conflict sown which in the following century were to bear fruit in the
American Revolution. [Sidenote: Breaking down of the theocratic policy]
[Sidenote: Weakening of the Confederacy]
