USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Chelsea > Documentary history of Chelsea : including the Boston precincts of Winnisimmet, Rumney Marsh, and Pullen Point, 1624-1824, vol 1 > Part 3
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65
1 2 Proceedings, vol. v. p. 307.
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precise date of the copy, though very early, has not been ascer- tained ; but it is certain that some marginal notes are in the handwriting of Governor Richard Bellingham, which adds weight to the suggestion that this was the official copy. Inas- much as this costly purchase was made solely to prevent so im- portant an historical document relating to our own State from passing into other than Massachusetts hands, it seems to be eminently fitting that the Commonwealth should assume the cost and the ownership, and that its final resting-place should be in the State Library, as a companion to the manuscript volume of Governor Bradford's History. 1
To Vol. VI. 2d ser. p. 258, of our Proceedings Judge Cham- berlain contributed a " Memorial of Daniel Leonard," Chief Justice of Bermuda, to the Lords Commissioners of the Treas- ury in reference to his salary in that office, and called attention to the singular circumstance that it was nearly fifty years after the publication of the " Massachusettensis " Letters, in reply to those of John Adams, under the signature of " Novanglus," before Adams learned that their author was Leonard, having always attributed them to Jonathan Sewall. On page 400 of the same volume he showed that Jolin Trumbull, in his " McFingal," had alluded to the controversy in a way that points to Leonard as the author, and makes it quite clear that it was not Sewall. Later, on page 401, he gave certain particulars relative to Nathaniel Rogers, a Boston merchant, a graduate of Harvard, in 1762, who contributed the preface to Wood's "New England's Prospect." Rogers wrote from Boston to Thomas Whately, in London, December 12, 1768, one among the " Hutchinson Letters," in which he proposes his own appointment to the place of Secretary of the Colony, when Andrew Oliver, then Secretary, should be advanced to the Lieutenant-Governorship. His death, in 1770, defeated this purpose. On page 433 of the same volume he printed a " Mc- morial of Captain Charles Cochrane," presumably addressed to Lord George Germaine, setting forth his military career in this country from the arrival of the British army at Boston in 1774. Captain Cochrane was killed at Yorktown, October 17, 1781, the only officer of the British army who fell during the siege.
To Vol. VII. 2d ser. p. 127, of our Proceedings Judge Chamberlain contributed an article on " Governor Winthrop's
1 It was printed in 1890 in Whitmore's " Bibliographical Sketch of the Laws of the Massachusetts Colony," p. xxv, and in 1904 in Noble's " Records of the Court of Assistants," vol. ii. p. 115.
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Estate," with a facsimile of an unrecorded deed from him to John Newgate of lands in Rumney Marsh ( Chelsea ), drawn and witnessed by Thomas Lechford, the lawyer, now in the pos- session of Charles P. Greenough, Esq. He adds: "Winthrop's allotment is in plain sight of my own house, and in the last thirty years I have often climbed its rounded height, and never, I think, without consciousness that it was once Winthrop's ; but not until within a few months have I known that it was in any way associated with so pathetic an incident in the life of one who by great service and high character gained thie esteem and love of his contemporaries, and has since taken his place among the founders of states." The " pathetic incident " referred to was the serious impairment of Governor Winthrop's property, owing to the rascality of his bailiff, James Luxford, by which he lost everything but honor. Later in the same volume (p. 214) he took part in the discussion on " The Genesis of the Massachusetts Town," carried on between Mr. Adams, Mr. Goodell, Professor Channing, and himself. In his portion he develops at considerable length arguments employed in his paper upon " The New Historical School"; but devotes especial attention to the "parochial theory," which traces the origin of the New England town to the Eng- lish parish. In this connection he studies with great care the reasoning of Toulmin Smith, who claims that in England the parish antedates the town, and that its original functions were secular and not ecclesiastical, and shows the impossibility of its application to the origin of New England towns. As to their origin he says that there are at least three theories, - that they were native to the soil, that they were copies of English prototypes as those were of German, or that they were essen- tially reproductions of the English parish. Judge Chamberlain argues for the first theory, - that the origin and development of the town were due to certain conditions peculiar to them- selves. The sporadic settlements in New England were made on territory not capable of instant and effective protection by an acknowledged sovereign, so that the inhabitants were forced to postpone communal affairs to affairs of state, such as war and peace, territorial limits, jurisdiction, and defence. From the first those village communities exercised certain rights and performed certain duties, not unlike those which afterwards ap- pertained to them as incorporated towns. By common consent
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they divided some lands among themselves, and held other lands for common use ; in both cases assuming corporate owner- ship, so far at least as to make good title in the allottees. Then followed, later, the erection of these communities into bodies politic, owing their corporate existence to, and exercising all their functions in strict subordination to the paramount power, the State. Finally, as early as 1636, there was promul- gated in Massachusetts a setting forth of their rights, powers, and duties with a completeness and precision to which the advanced civilization of two and a half centuries has found little to add. He then goes into a detailed account of all those original scattered settlements by name, arguing that their records from what may be called the historic period, though meagre, throw some light upon the antecedent period. Finally, he enters into an examination of Mr. Adams's paper, which had preceded his own, and shows in what respects they agree and in what they differ.
In Vol. VIII. 2d ser. p. 108, treating of " The Transfer of the Colony Charter," he showed that the King's Charter, dated March 4, 1629, granted to the purchasers from the Plymouth Council, constituted them a body corporate with power to establish two governments, - one for themselves as a corpora- tion in England, and another for the colonists or plantation in Massachusetts Bay, and that this dual government under the Charter has been misunderstood by many writers, including Mr. Doyle in his "History of the Puritan Colonies." Ou page 123 of the same volume may be found an article by him on " The Talcott Papers," which form Volume IV. of the Col- lections of the Connecticut Historical Society. These consist of papers, correspondence, and documents (chiefly official) during Joseph Talcott's governorship of the Colony of Con- necticut, 1724-1741. The most interesting subject comprised in this volume has to do with the celebrated law-suit of John Winthrop, grandson of Governor John Winthrop, of Connec- ticut, against his sister Ann, wife of Thomas Lechmere. Ac- cording to the laws of Connecticut, the landed estate of John Winthrop's father, Wait Winthrop, dying intestate, would be distributed by giving a double portion to the oldest son and the remaining third to his sister. But, dissatisfied with this division, he claimed the whole of the realty, as he would be entitled to do by the laws of England, on the ground that the
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Colony law was invalid, being in contravention of the Charter of King Charles II., in 1662, which forbade the making of any law "contrary to the laws of this realm of England." This was not the view taken by Thomas Leelmmere and his wife, and in 1724 they began proceedings to recover one-third of the real estate. These proceedings, brought before different eourts in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and England, terminated in a deeree of the King in Council, February 15, 1728, which deelared the Connectieut law void, reversed the judgments of hier courts, and gave the whole real estate to John Winthrop. The appalling result of this decree can be easily understood ; it affected every person in Connecticut ; it reversed the policy of the distribution and the settlement of estates, which had prevailed from the beginning in Connecticut and the other New England colonies; it unsettled the foundations of prop- erty, and threatened universal litigation in families. In this alarming exigeney the first question was as to the likelihood of the reversal of the decree as matter of law; or if not, whether the King by a supplementary charter would rescind that elause, which forbade their passing any law contrary to the law of England ; and if this lay outside of his power or will, then could and would Parliament do so? In the un- settled state of the royal prerogatives Connectieut might well doubt whether to seek relief from the King or from Parlia- ment ; and as it turned out, she could apply to neither with safety. Judge Chamberlain gives a most interesting narrative of every step taken in the long course of proceedings by the various counsel of Connecticut before the King in Council and the Board of Commissioners for Trade and Plantations, from 1728 down to July 18, 1745, when, after a ease, essentially the same, earried by appeal from Massachusetts to the King in Couneil, had been decided differently, and the Massachusetts law, although contrary to the English law, had been sustained, the original deeree was reversed, the ancient law restored, and the peril to the charter avoided. Incidentally Judge Chamberlain discusses the question of the constitutional rela- tions of the Colonies to the King and to Parliament, in their progress towards independence of both. He shows that the Colonies in their disputes about their boundaries, or conflicting grants within their own limits, based their respective elaims on grants from the King as rightful owner of the fee of lands dis-
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covered under the English flag; yet, when their exigencies required, they sought the intervention of Parliament against the King, and whenever they deemed it safe, they practically denied the authority of both. So Parliament, though recog- mizing the King's property in colonial lands, and his jurisdiction over their inhabitants, yet gradually began to invade his pre- rogatives, and finally transferred them to itself. The British statutes are full of acts regulating colonial domestic trade, manufactures, finance, and internal government, all of which are really prerogative matters. Thus we see that colonial affairs were an important factor in British constitutional progress.
In Vol. IX. 2d ser. p. 105, Judge Chamberlain brought to the attention of our Society the fact that the inhabitants of Chelsea, on December 14, 1781, made a contribution of money "for the distressed inhabitants of South Carolina and Georgia, who are driven from their habitations by the British troops." No mention of this had ever been made by any historian of Massachusetts, known to him, and it seems to have been entirely forgotten.
To Vol. X. 2d ser. p. 463, he contributed some extracts from a lost Diary of Samuel Holten, a member of the Conti- mental Congress, from Massachusetts, 1778-1783; and also a paper, believed to be in the handwriting of William Paca, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, from Maryland, containing the substance of a conversation of Mr. James Wilson, a signer of the Declaration and afterwards Judge of the Supreme Court of the United States, about the serious condition of American affairs in March, 1778. On page 503 of the same volume he printed certain extracts from manuscripts of General William Chamberlin, relating to the Battle of Bennington, and some doggerel verses descriptive of the fight.
To Vol. XI. 2d ser. pp. 286-299, he contributed an inter- esting review of the principal contents of the Bowdoin and Temple Papers, then just published by our Society. He believes that these writings will enhance the already high reputation of James Bowdoin, and serve to modify somewhat the historic judgment respecting his son-in-law, Sir John Temple, as well as to throw light upon the true history of the American Revolution and upon two conspicuous actors
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therein. Incidentally he criticises Bancroft's historical work, as impaired by its manifest partisanship, notwithstanding its great and manifest excellences. Judge Chamberlain wonders why James Bowdoin is never mentioned with " the Otises, the Adamses, the Warrens, and the Hancocks," for he rendered services second to those of no other, and under circumstances which ordinarily disqualify a man for leadership in a revolu- tion. Neither his independent fortune, nor his aristocratie position, nor his personal friendships, nor that conservatismn which culture is supposed to engender, swerved him by a hair's breadth, or for a moment deadened his zeal in the patriotic cause till its complete triumph. Judge Chamberlain's opinion of Temple is somewhat qualified ; his abilities and his services to the cause of the patriots are beyond question, but his connection with the abstraction and transmission to Boston of "The Hutchinson Letters" implies such a violation of the sacredness of private correspondence that it is doubtful whether he is entitled to share in that charitable consideration which all will readily accord to others of the Boston patriots. The Bowdoin and Temple Papers are of great value in cor- recting popular errors in regard to the causes of the American Revolution. They prove that the Grenville policy of drawing a revenue from the Colonies, after the excessive expenditure incurred in the subjugation of Canada, was intended to support the expense of the military establishment in the Colonies, and not to be applied to the payment of the debt thus incurred ; also that the modification of the charter in Massachusetts, in 1774, was a plan duly considered and determined upon without special reference to any particular exigency, and not a malig- nant exercise of power provoked by the destruction of the tea in 1773. So, too, the " Molasses Act " of 1773, which caused much discontent in Massachusetts, as seriously affecting one of her great industries, - that of distilling rum from molasses for West India consumption, - was made inoperative by rea- son of the great inducements it offered to smuggling; and its enforcement was one of the causes of the Revolution. And, finally, the Stamp Act of 1765 was preceded by a careful investigation of the resources of the Colonies, and an endeavor to learn what subjects and what mode of taxation were least objectionable to the Colonists. At the November meeting of this Society, 1897, Judge Chamberlain joined in the tributes
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to the memory of Justin Winsor, dwelling especially upon the admirable character of his administration of the Boston Public Library, his method of historical composition, and his unusual qualities as a presiding officer.
The last time Judge Chamberlain took part in our pro- ceedings was at the June meeting, 1900, when he spoke ex- temporaneously on the social and economical revolution in New England, which began about fifty years ago, and which seemed to him to have produced far greater and more important changes than the political revolution that preceded it. He gave some interesting reminiscences of his own boyhood on the banks of the Merrimac, of the emigration to the Western States, of the decline of the rural districts, and of the effects consequent upon the opening of the first long railroad line.
As a writer upon historical topics Judge Chamberlain first attracted attention by a notable address before the Webster Historical Society, January 18, 1884, after he had passed his sixty-second year, on "John Adams the Statesman of the American Revolution." In the report of the Council of this Society for that year the present writer said of that address that " he has traced the secret springs of that great movement with a depth of philosophical insight superior to any previous treatment of the subject." This estimate of the value of that study has been confirmed by the opinion of numerous students of history. Let me dwell briefly here upon certain considera- tions that were either specially brought out or were put in a new light in this address. The period of John Adams's life included was the nine years covered by the American Revo- lution, and the principal object of the paper was to point out how there can justly be claimed for him the foremost place among such statesmen as Samuel Adams, John Jay, Thomas Jefferson, and even Benjamin Franklin. It was because John Adams possessed two of the prime faculties of a great states- man, "the historic imagination, which develops nationality from its germ ; and clear intuitions of organic constitutional law." It was especially this sublime. intuition of nationality which distinguished him among his contemporaries. When the declaration of the Continental Congress, September, 1774, went forth, the cause of Massachusetts became the cause of all the Colonies ; it was nationalized, and this was John Adams's greatest feat in statesmanship. The value of this
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politie stroke became apparent in the next session of Congress in May, 1775. He then developed his plan of severing at once every political tie which bound the separate Colonies to Great Britain through their royal governments, and of laying the basis for independence by the ercction of State govern- ments in their stead ; this eventuated in the Declaration of Independence.
When John Adams entered public life, in 1774, he was probably well qualified to conduct causes and to argue questions of public law before any tribunal sitting in West- minster Hall, and he might have represented with distinction any English constituency in the House of Commons. By his mental constitution as well as by special education he was constructive ; before he tore down, he planned reconstruction. Thus he maintained, first in Massachusetts and later in the Continental Congress, that the people of the Colonies were actually living under constitutional governments that had been developed gradually among themselves, and not living under the royal charters; these constitutions he claimed were inviolable. As a consequence acts which under the royal charters would have been rebellion to the British constitution were, on the contrary, a justifiable and patriotic defence of the constitutional liberties of the people. The Colonists claimed all the rights of Englishmen, and while they never disputed the reasonable exercise of its powers by Parliament, they repudiated the assumption that colonial legislation or colonial courts of law could be controlled by the royal prerogative.
Judge Chamberlain does not find the causes of the Ameri- can Revolution in such acts of provocation as the passage of the Stamp Act, Writs of Assistance, and the attempt to tax the Colonies without representation, as is the generally ac- cepted opinion. These were the occasion rather than the cause of the Revolution. They only hastened a crisis which could not have been averted. The true causes lay in the innate temper of the Colonists, their English love of freedom, their jealousy of commercial interference, and their increasing reliance upon their charters as the real foundations of their governments and of their political rights.
But what attracted most attention in this address was the assertion that " the American Revolution in its most vital and
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most potent force was religious rather than political." Hc claims that the encroachment of the English Church upon the New England ecclesiasticism, and the Puritan apprehen- sion that it would become the State religion, irritated and alarmed the Puritan mind, until the Revolution followed as a consequence. In Virginia it was otherwise; there "it was essentially a question of taxation "; the Colonists there were mainly identified with the English Church, and there could arise no ecclesiastical issue. Subsequently he qualified this statement by adding " it was one cause ; no one claims that it was the sole cause." In a note appended to the reprint of the address he says, "Notwithstanding what I say about Ecclesiasticism as a cause of the Revolution, some of my critics have substituted the for a." This seems to me hardly ingenuous, considering the prominence given to this cause throughout the course of his argument. His view seems to be developed from John Adams's opinion, quoted by him in an- other note to the reprint, that " the apprehension of Episcopacy contributed fifty years ago as much as any cause to arouse the attention of the common people. . . . The objection was not merely to the office of a bishop, but to the authority of Par- liament over the Colonies."1 In still another note Judge Chamberlain adds : " When this address was delivered, in 1884, it was, so far as I had noticed, the earliest historical presentation of ecclesiasticism (associated with political lib- erty) as one of the causes which brought on the Revolution. I restricted the influence to Massachusetts and Virginia." Naturally he attributed a somewhat overweening importance to the special cause that he believed to have been his own discovery. In the same note he continues, " By some inad- vertence at the time when this paper was preparing I failed to consult Foote's ' Annals of King's Chapel.' Had I read this work I should have seen that I had been anticipated in my views, and have acknowledged the industrious research, can- dor, good judgment, and literary ability which, as I think, have been combined in an equal degree in no historical work by an American since Belknap's ' History of New Hampshire.' Had I done so, it would have saved me vast labor and much thought, which I do not, however, now regret, for I was enabled to form an independent judgment, which happens to
1 Works, vol. x. p. 185.
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accord with that of Mr. Foote." Unquestionably these novel views of Judge Chamberlain attracted much attention and were widely commented upon in private communications and in the public press. They met with almost universal approval at the time, as not only new but true. There were some who dissented, it is true, but Judge Chamberlain always pleased himself with believing that his views have been generally accepted as true by the writers of later historical monographs. This cannot be said, however, of one of the latest studics of the subject, " The Anglican Episcopate and the American Colonies," by Arthur Lyon Cross.1
What is regarded by many as the ablest of Judge Chamber- lain's historical writings is the chapter on "The Revolution Impending," contributed in 1888 to Vol. VI. of Winsor's "Narrative and Critical History of America." This was written at about the same time as a paper read before the American Historical Association at its Boston meeting in May, 1887, on " The Constitutional Relations of the American Colonies to the English Government at the Commencement of the American Revolution," and each study supplements the other. These papers show a sure insight into the hid- den springs of political activity in the Colonies ; while his familiarity with the legislative acts of the mother country, his knowledge of the principles of the common law, and his judi- cial cast of mind shed a flood of light upon points obscure to or misunderstood by writers who have not enjoyed the advan- tage of a similar legal training. He was thus able to give a more philosophical treatment of the causes and a wider in- terpretation of the results of the Revolution than it had pre- viously received. He starts with the assertion that it was no unrelated event, but formed a part of the history of the Brit- ish race on both continents, standing midway between the Great Rebellion and the Revolution of 1688, on the one hand, and the Reform Bill of 1832 and the Extension of the Suf- frage in 1884 on the other. It was not a quarrel between two peoples, but a strife between two parties (the conservatives and the liberals) in both countries, that went on at the same time and with nearly equal step. Its purpose in Great Britain was to regain liberty, and in America to preserve it. It not only liberated the English colonies in America, but wrought
1 Harvard Historical Studies, vol. ix. 1902.
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with other forces in transferring the prerogatives of the crown to Parliament. The American Revolution was one of those great world movements which mark constitutional progress.
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