USA > Massachusetts > Commonwealth history of Massachusetts, colony, province and state, volume 1 > Part 46
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The quarrel was taken to Court, which not unnaturally de- cided in favor of D'Aulnay, and even issued an order for the arrest of La Tour. The latter now turned to the only possible source of assistance and despatched an agent, a Protestant merchant of La Rochelle, to Boston, to establish commercial connections and to get aid.
La Tour's emissary appeared at a favorable moment. Suf-
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fering as it was from a commercial crisis, the colony was straining every nerve to find new outlets for its activity. It was at this time that Massachusetts fishermen first began to frequent the Acadian banks, and the chance to secure a share in the profits of Acadian trade was not one to be lost. For the time being, however, the Massachusetts government would do no more than sanction trade relations, influenced, it ap- pears, by the fact that La Tour was under the ban of the French government.
Two years later, in the summer of 1643, La Tour himself appeared in Boston harbor, seeking assistance to regain his principal fort on the St. Johns, which was blockaded by D'Aulnay. He brought with him a letter signed by the Vice- Admiral of France, which seemed to show that he was again in favor at Court. Thus one of the principal objections to aiding him was removed. The policy of the colony, however, had been not to intermeddle in the affairs of its foreign neigh- bors unless its own interests were at stake; and the question now arose whether circumstances demanded a departure from this policy.
In favor of intervention was the fact that D'Aulnay had been a troublesome neighbor who ought not to be allowed to become supreme in Acadia; that if La Tour was overcome, the new Acadian trade was likely to suffer; and,-what ap- pealed strongly to the Puritans,-that La Tour had Protestant connections. The chief arguments against intervention were that D'Aulnay, obviously the stronger, might win and take vengeance on the colony, and that he might bring down upon it the wrath of France. The latter danger seemed to be re- moved by the letter which La Tour brought, and the strength of the colony seemed a guarantee against attack by D'Aulnay alone. Nevertheless, there was much hesitation among the elders and magistrates whom Winthrop summoned to con- sider the question.
Ultimately it was decided to permit La Tour to hire ships in Boston to assist in regaining his fort, and two men were found to accept La Tour's offer: one Hawkins, who com- manded the small English force; and Edward Gibbons, a lead- ing merchant of the colony, who was later to rise to the rank of magistrate and commander of the colony's militia.
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At a later time Winthrop confessed that he acted in this matter with undue haste. Only the magistrates and elders re- siding in the towns near Boston attended the meeting, and Winthrop admits that the General Court would never have authorized intervention without referring the question to the Confederation, which was then in process of formation. It soon appeared, indeed, that there was a serious difference of opinion even among the magistrates, which veiled a conflict of interest between the towns to the north of Boston and the metropolis. Boston wished to preserve and extend the Aca- dian trade; the weaker and more exposed settlements to the northward feared the vengeance of D'Aulnay.
The leading men of Salem and Ipswich voiced their disap- proval in a spirited letter of protest which has been preserved for us by Hutchinson. While all their arguments may not command our approval, one at least was sound. If D'Aulnay's past record justified intervention in behalf of his adversary, it should have been done, so they argued, "professedly and orderly," and not as "margent notes upon a French text which to us is as yet but Apocrypha." In other words the aid half- heartedly given to La Tour would arouse D'Aulnay's hostility without seriously weakening him.
The event proved the soundness of their contention, for af- ter raising the blockade of La Tour's fort, Hawkins allowed himself to be persuaded to help pursue D'Aulnay home to Port Royal, where English volunteers assisted in the capture of a pinnace and the killing of three of D'Aulnay's men. The lat- ter forthwith undertook reprisals, and Massachusetts found itself at war with the lawful Governor of Acadia.
Furthermore, La Tour proved unable to maintain himself despite the aid thus afforded him. Unable to secure further assistance from the colony, which now centered its efforts upon the restoration of peace with D'Aulnay, he borrowed further sums from Boston merchants, chiefly Gibbons, and as security pledged his Acadian interests and possessions. By a strange turn in the wheel of fortune these private transactions became of more importance than any of the public acts of the colony.
What the real policy of the Bay colony was at this time, it is a little difficult to say. The affair was now referred in
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proper fashion to the Confederation, which in 1644 authorized Massachusetts in order to prevent La Tour's fort from falling into the hands of D'Aulnay, to take it by purchase or otherwise, and to undertake reprisals against D'Aulnay if he would not come to terms. At about this time also Hawkins, Gibbons, and the younger Winthrop purchased the rights of the Plymouth traders to Penobscot, and Winthrop wrote to a Scotch nobleman, Lord Forbes, to know if the Scotch had any intention of reviving the schemes of Alexander for the coloni- zation of Nova Scotia. One may say that at the least it was desired to maintain a balance of power in Acadia, and that possibly the more sanguine hoped to dispossess the French altogether.
All these schemes broke down because of the complete vic- tory of D'Aulnay. La Tour's fort was captured and he him- self became for a period of years a homeless adventurer. With considerable difficulty Massachusetts made peace with the vic- tor on terms which permitted trade with the French of Acadia, but not with the Indians. Yet so advantageous to the French did this commercial connection with Boston prove that when D'Aulnay died in 1650 his widow promptly wrote to the Mas- sachusetts government desiring the continuance of amicable relations. This, indeed, was the chief result of all the com- plicated transactions of the decade, that Acadia had become commercially dependent upon Boston. Henceforth, whether Acadia was English or French, whether there was war or peace between the crowns of England and France, this de- pendence was a primary factor in the relations of the Bay colony with its French neighbors.
NEGOTIATIONS WITH NEW FRANCE (1647-1651)
Scarcely had peace been made with D'Aulnay when we find Winthrop making overtures to the government of New France. The precise nature of these overtures has aroused some conjecture, for none of the correspondence has been pre- served. New England accounts speak only of a proposal for free trade between Massachusetts and Canada; Charlevoix adds that Winthrop proposed a treaty of perpetual alliance, while John Gilmary Shea, the learned editor of Charlevoix, ascribed to Winthrop a plan for the formation of a general
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union of the English, French and Dutch colonies, a sort of seventeenth century Pan-American Union.
There is no evidence to support anything more than a pro- posal for trade, and in view of Winthrop's recent experience with political intervention in Acadia, it is hard to believe that he can have proposed anything else. In any case, nothing came of the proposals at the time.
Three years later, however, in 1650, the Governor of New France, hard pressed by the Iroquois, recalled Winthrop's ad- vances, and sent the Jesuit Druilletes to Boston to propose a commercial treaty, an alliance against the Iroquois, and a gen- eral agreement for the maintenance of neutrality in the event of war between France and England. The reply of the Coun- cil was to the effect that trade relations would be welcomed; that, as to neutrality, they were disposed to keep peace with their neighbors unless given cause of offense; but that the question of an alliance was one for the Confederation. Druil- letes visited Plymouth and spent some time in Boston sound- ing out the attitude of leading men toward his proposals. He even wrote to the younger Winthrop, hoping through him to influence the attitude of Connecticut.
Druilletes was in fact so far encouraged by the result of his mission that he was sent back the following year to nego- tiate with the Commissioners of the Confederation. Here, however, he met with failure. The Commissioners would not entertain the idea of an alliance against the Iroquois, nor would they permit the raising of volunteers or the passage of French troops through New England. They were willing to make a commercial treaty, but found the French offer, even on this score, not satisfactory. In short, what the New Eng- landers wanted was trade, and what the French wanted was aid against the Iroquois. Neither could be had without the other; consequently no agreement was possible. The deci- sion was eminently wise, for it is very doubtful whether any trade which the New Englanders might have gained with the French colony on the St. Lawrence would have compensated them for the dangers and losses of a war with the Iroquois.
Nevertheless the episode is interesting as showing a ten- dency for the small European settlements in America to settle their relations upon an amicable basis without regard to the
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ACADIA UNDER THE ENGLISH
European situation. Even in its infancy America showed signs of diplomatic independence, and the roots of the Monroe Doctrine may be traced far back of 1776. Yet while America was a dependency of Europe, its intervention in American af- fairs was a factor of continuous importance in the relations of the colonies to one another; and that intervention became more rather than less frequent as European statesmen began to regard the colonies as useful makeweights in their schemes.
RELATIONS WITH ACADIA DURING THE PERIOD OF ENGLISH RULE (1654-1670)
A quite unexpected instance of European intervention, af- fecting the relations of Massachusetts and Acadia, occurred in the year 1654. It will be recalled that the fleet despatched by Cromwell for the conquest of New Netherland was still at Boston when news of peace arrived. Sedgwick and Leverett, however, had been instructed, if time permitted, to range the coast against the French. Between England and France there was no open war, but a state of hostility existed which in the seventeenth century might justify almost anything. Whether Cromwell's instructions contemplated an attack upon French colonies is a question to which no definite answer is possible. Sedgwick and Leverett so interpreted them, and in a short time the Acadian forts were in the hands of the English.
Nova Scotia historians have been wont to ascribe this at- tack to the influence of Massachusetts, but there is conclusive evidence that the Bay colony was not even consulted. As the profits of the fur trade were earmarked by Sedgwick for the support of the garrisons which were left in Acadia, and as he gave orders to Leverett, who was left in command, to exclude Massachusetts vessels from the Acadian trade, it is quite prob- able that the conquest was not altogether welcome to that colony.
Nevertheless the Bay colony thought it saw a chance to profit, and instructed Leverett, when he went to England in the autumn of 1655, to sound Cromwell about giving Massachu- setts a grant of that territory, provided it could be secured "free from charges and other engagements." Most of the Maine settlements had by this time been absorbed, and the annexation of Acadia was the next logical step.
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The disposition of Acadia proved to be a perplexing prob- lem. In view of the relations of France and England the very title of the English was perhaps questionable, and besides Mas- sachusetts there were other claimants. Among them was La Tour, ready as ever to accommodate himself to the new re- gime. After the death of D'Aulnay he had returned to Aca- dia, persuaded his rival's widow to marry him, and was en- joying the fruits of his audacity when the English fleet dis- possessed him. He was not without hope, however, that he could make terms with Cromwell, nor was he altogether dis- appointed.
Among La Tour's assets was a grant from Sir William Alexander of all southern Acadia, which he had pledged to the Boston merchant Gibbons in return for loans amounting, with interest, to some four thousand pounds. Gibbons was now dead, but his widow presented her claims to Cromwell. As a practicable solution of a difficult problem, the Protector decided to recognize the validity both of Alexander's grant and the mortgage. In the autumn of 1656 Acadia was granted to La Tour, Thomas Temple, and William Crowne on condi- tion that they pay the expenses of the English garrisons and the money due Mrs. Gibbons. Temple, who was the nephew of the influential parliamentarian Lord Say and Sele, was made Governor, and came to America in the spring of 1657 to govern and exploit his new possesion.
There are few more interesting episodes in the early his- tory of Massachusetts, and few so little known, as the rela- tions of Massachusetts and Acadia during the Temple regime. Possessing no aptitude for trade and no inclination to exile himself among the French fur traders and savage Indians of Acadia, Temple settled down at Boston, where he resided for fifteen years. It was undoubtedly his intention to exploit the Acadian fur trade with the financial assistance of English friends and adventurers; but lack of success and the contem- porary troubles in England forced him to make terms with the Boston merchants. They it was who furnished him with goods for the trade, who received and disposed of the furs at the end of the trading season, and who, so he complained, insisted upon a profit of one hundred per cent. In consequence he was always in debt to his financial backers, who took as
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security a mortgage on his Boston possessions and Acadian interests. Thus the profits of the Acadian trade went into the pockets of Boston merchants, and the economic connection be- tween Boston and Acadia established in the days of D'Aulnay and La Tour was more tightly riveted.
One result of Temple's dependence on the Boston merchants was the absence of friction with the Massachusetts govern- ment. The General Court not only recognized his govern- ment and trade monopoly, but on occasion aided him in repel- ling the attacks of certain French traders who still maintained their position in northern Acadia. In return for this assistance Temple on at least one occasion ventured to express to Charles II a favorable opinion of the people among whom he had made his home.
MASSACHUSETTS AND THE ANGLO-FRENCH WAR (1666-1667)
The overthrow of the Puritan regime in England proved a severe check to the expansion of Massachusetts. The grant of royal charters to Rhode Island and Connecticut (1662, 1663) put a stop to encroachments on the weaker southern colonies; while the revival of the claims of the Mason heirs to New Hampshire and of the heirs of Gorges to Maine threatened the loss of the northern settlements. The conquest of New Netherland (1664), while very welcome to Connecti- cut, was a questionable advantage to Massachusetts, and pres- ently European complications resulted in the restoration of Acadia to France.
In 1666 England became involved in a war with France; and for the first time Massachusetts had occasion to realize the dangers and problems caused by its close proximity to the centres of French power in North America. The western frontier of the colony was alarmed by rumors of a French and Indian attack, so that a watch was kept during the whole summer of 1666, and several coasting vessels were taken by French privateers.
Besides this danger from the sea it appeared that the French problem involved relations both with Europe and neigh- boring colonies. Charles II sent orders for the northern colo- nies to concert measures for the conquest of Canada, and Gov-
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ernor Nicolls of New York seconded the request. A confer- ence at Boston, however, attended by Temple and representa- tives of Massachusetts and Connecticut, decided that in the absence of English naval assistance an attack was imprac- ticable. To the appeal of Nicolls for aid in repelling a threat- ened French and Indian attack, Massachusetts and Connecti- cut replied by despatching a small scouting party in the direc- tion of Canada ; and some assistance was given to Temple, who according to his own report cleared Acadia of the French. Thus it appeared that strategically the northern colonies formed a single area, and that no one of them could pursue a policy of complete isolation.
Hostilities were ended by the Peace of Breda (July, 1667), which peace was more damaging to the interests of the colony than the war. In exchange for the English half of the island of St. Kitts, which the French had captured, Charles II re- stored Acadia to the French. An English historian has con- jectured that in so doing English statesmen were consciously attempting to put a curb upon the too independent spirit of Massachusetts. Of this there is no evidence, but the cession was very ill regarded at Boston. Taking advantage of a de- lay in executing the terms of the treaty, the Massachusetts government sent the King a dignified and strongly worded pro- test. This protest proved an accurate forecast of the conse- quence of Charles's action; for the French were able, using Acadia as a base, to obstruct the fur trade and the fishery, to encroach upon the northern frontier, and in time of war to prey upon the commerce of Massachusetts. In one respect only did the situation remain unchanged : the Boston merchants continued their trade with Acadia. The loss of political con- trol did not entail the loss of economic control.
CONTINUED EXPANSION OF MASSACHUSETTS (1667-1675)
The Anglo-French war of 1666-1667 was not the result of any deep-seated conflict of interests between the two monar- chies either in Europe or America; but the succeeding twenty years witnessed in both continents a rapidly growing antago- nism. In this developing conflict no colony had a more vital stake than Massachusetts. None felt more keenly the pres- sure of the expanding power of France in America. The
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war had revealed some of the dangers inherent in the situa- tion; yet so little was Massachusetts actually affected by it, that no sooner was it over than the colony resumed its career of expansion, encouraged thereto also by a slight relaxation in the attitude of the English government. In 1668 it reas- serted control over the Maine settlements, which in 1665 had been removed from its jurisdiction by the Royal Commission. In 1671 a resurvey of the northern line was undertaken with the express purpose of finding justification for the extension of control over the settlements between Casco Bay and Pema- quid. Mathematics yielded to politics, and in 1674 the General Court established for these settlements the new county of Devonshire with Pemaquid as its capital.
In extending its jurisdiction beyond the Kennebec, Massa- chusetts was entering debatable territory. The French claimed everything east of that river as part of Acadia; and in 1665 Charles II had granted the territory between the Kennebec and the St. Croix to his brother James, a grant which he renewed in 1674, despite the fact that by his orders Sir Thomas Temple had, in 1670, surrendered the Acadian forts, including Penob- scot, to the French.
To complicate matters still further, in 1674 a Dutch priva- teer, with the assistance and at the instigation of a Boston sea captain, John Rhoade by name, captured the French forts in southern Acadia, taking prisoner the Governor of Acadia, who was left at Boston. When, however, Rhoade attempted to assert Dutch authority in that region by right of conquest, the authorities of the Bay colony seized him and tried him for piracy. Thus the Dutch failed to profit from their conquest; the French, who were just reestablishing their power, were weakened; and the power of Massachusetts seemed more strongly entrenched.
Plans for westward expansion were also resumed at this time. In 1672 negotiations were begun with New York for the establishment of a Massachusetts plantation on or near the Hudson. In all probability this was in part a revival of the plan of 1659 to secure a share in the fur trade which centered at Albany ; but there is some evidence to show that the authori- ties of the colony hoped, if the scheme proved successful, to use such a trading post to keep a better eye on the French and
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to increase the influence of Massachusetts with the Iroquois Confederacy. That Confederacy was already recognized as perhaps the most powerful group of Indians in all northeast- ern North America. Its war parties occasionally appeared in New England, causing consternation among the Indians and some loss of property to the whites. It was notoriously hostile to the French, and so of possible future use, but among the English it as yet counted only the province of New York as a friend and ally.
Such were the forces which one may discern at work in the years immediately preceding King Philip's War. It is little wonder that Edward Randolph, making his first report con-' cerning Massachusetts, in 1676 writes that the colony was ready to claim "as farre as their convenience and interest di- rects, never wanting a pretext of right to any place that is commodious for them, declaring they doe not know the boundaries of their commonwealth."
EFFECT OF KING PHILIP'S WAR ON EXTERNAL RELATIONS (1675-1684)
King Philip's War caused the abandonment of these schemes of expansion, and at the same time set in motion forces which made the check more or less permanent. It will be recalled that the war involved nearly all New England. It, therefore, brought Massachusetts into relations with New York to the west and with the French to the north.
The extension of the war into western Massachusetts gave rise to the charge that the Indians were being supplied with munitions by the Dutch traders of Albany; while at the same time it suggested the possibility of getting the assistance of the Mohawks, who had long been hostile to the New England tribes. It was at this time that the government of New York took a position of much future consequence for Massachusetts impressed upon its western neighbor, New York colony, that the Iroquois were dependents of that province, and that independent negotiations with them by other governments were not permissible. Ultimately, despite his rage at the charges against the Albany traders, Andros, who was at this time Governor of New York, permitted the Mohawks to go on the warpath; but their assistance was not of great value.
From early eighteenth century histories of New France in the Harvard University Library FRENCH VIEWS OF THE NORTHERN INDIANS
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EFFECT OF PHILIP'S WAR
In fact, it caused further complications because Iroquois raid- ing parties continued to frequent New England territory after the war was over, causing no little damage to whites and In- dians alike, until peace was made with them in 1680.
Even more important were the developments which resulted from the war in Maine. The outbreak of war in this quarter was by many attributed to French intrigues, a fact which tended to increase the feeling of hostility which the New Eng- land Puritan normally cherished towards the French Papists. The unprejudiced modern historian will readily accept the statement of the contemporary Hubbard that the French were not to blame; but he will not fail to see also that they profited from it.
During the course of the war some of the Abnaki took ref- uge in Canada. The Jesuits, who had formerly had a mission among them, seized the opportunity to establish for them a new mission near Quebec, which came to be much frequented by the Abnaki of the Kennebec and the Penobscot, and became a centre of French influence among them. Thus were the foundations laid of the Abnaki-French alliance which for a long period to come checked the northward expansion of Massachusetts.
A further result of the war in Maine was the occupation of Pemaquid by Governor Andros. As the representative of the Duke of York in America his commission included the Duke's province of Cornwall between the Kennebec and the St. Croix. He now seized upon the war as a pretext for oc- cupying Pemaquid, thus effectively asserting the Duke's claims to the region. At the same time he interposed between Mas- sachusetts and the French, at the very point where their ter- ritorial claims conflicted, a government over whose policy Massachusetts had no control and for whose acts it had no responsibilty. With a representative of the Duke in control both at Pemaquid and at Albany, the relations of Massachu- setts with the French were becoming increasingly dependent upon the policy and acts of others.
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