USA > Massachusetts > The landing at Cape Anne; or, The charter of the first permanent colony on the territory of the Massachusetts company > Part 2
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By their charter the Virginia Company had the right to choose their officers. Sir Edwin Sandys, their treas- urer in the year 1619, was the first in the list of candidates for that office in the next year. After the nomination of Sandys, and as they were proceeding to the election, a message was received from the king, that it was his "pleasure not to have Sir Edwin Sandys chosen, and nominating for the office Sir Thomas Smith, and one or two others, one of whom they might elect." Smith was a royal favorite. He was appointed Treasurer by the king at the organization of the company, and held the office till being "notoriously 3 infamous and utterly detested and cursed by the whole company" for his peculations and malfeasance in their affairs, he was superseded by Sandys. Upon this, Sir Edwin4 withdrew
1 Stith's Hist. of Virginia, 168 - 170, 178; 179.
2 Spanish influence was the true cause of James's conduct. Peckard's Life of Ferrar, 85, 89 - 168.
3 Stith's Hist. of Virginia, 178, 182, 185, 186 ; Peckard's Life of Ferrar. A portrait of Smith is in Thane's British Autography, i. 27.
4 Soon after Sir Edwin, " being found too daring and factious in Parliament," was placed under arrest by the king, for a month. He was the second son of Edwin Sandys, Archbishop of York, was' Prebend of York, 1581, knighted in 1603, author of "A View of the State Religion in the Western Quarter of the World," 1629, and died at Northbourn, Kent, in October, 1620. This family was friendly
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SOUTHAMPTON. - MOTIVES TO COLONIZATION.
his name, and the company, consisting of nearly five hundred persons, proceeded to ballot, when of the king's candidates, it was found that one of them had only one ball and the other two, while Henry, the Earl of South- ampton, who was not the king's nominee, and no less odious to him than Sandys, had all the rest. The suc- cessful candidate was one of the most influential patriots in the House of Lords.
That distinguished pioneer and most ardent friend of colonization, Captain John Smith, said, "I am not so simple as to think that ever any other motive than wealth will ever erect there a commonwealth, or draw company from their ease and humors at home."1 The expectations of those engaged in the earlier attempts to colonize America, were almost as irrational as those cherished a century later by the adventurers in the South Sea Bubble or the Mississippi Scheme. Sudden and extraordinary profits were looked for, and golden visions allured men of all ranks! Among the adven- turers and patentees were many of the great peers of the realm, of the most eminent knights, gentlemen and wealthy merchants; men of almost every degree of nobility, and of every profession and occupation, from the merchant to the humblest artisan, are named in the charter.
to the Pilgrims. John Robinson's Works, 1851, i. xxii., xxxix .; Hunter's Tract. " The Court and Times of James the First," London, 1848, 2 vols., contains inter- esting cotemporary notices of Sandys ; in vol. i. 61, 314, 320, 325 ; in vol. ii. 222, 224, 238, 252, 258, 261, 266, 412, 444.
1 Shakspeare's " Comedy of Errors," written probably about 1591, and printed in 1623, hands down the popular impression of America, the " form and pressure of the time." Dromio describes Nell's form as " spherical, like a globe," so that " he could find out countries in her." Antiphiolus inquires " Where's America ? the Indies ? " Dromio replies, " Oh, sir, upon hier nose, all o'er embellish'd with rubies, carbuncles, sapphires, declining their rich aspect to the hot breath of Spain, who sent whole armadoes of carracks to be ballasted at her nose."
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DISAPPOINTMENTS. - SIR FERDINANDO GORGES.
The brothers, Sir Humphrey Gilbert and Sir Walter Raleigh, and their kindred, Chief Justice Popham, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, and their families, and others, had pursued the design of colonizing these Western Atlantic coasts, with a perseverance and assiduity worthy of better success.
Extravagant hopes,1 the charms of title and office,2 the allurements of gain, well supplied ships, plentiful stores for the colonists, and all the appliances of wealth and power combined, yet proved ineffectual in their attempts; death removed some of the most zealous and influential patrons, and disappointment waited on every effort.
But there was one who would not yield, and who, during these disastrous years, with untiring diligence and labor, collected from every source information respecting the geography, climate, productions, and inhabitants of the new world ; and this only suggested bolder views and stimulated him to more comprehensive measures. Next to Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Sir Ferdinando Gorges stands out the most conspicuous in the history of northern colonization.
1 Stith's Virginia, 43, 77, 81, 82, 101, 149 ; Smith's Description of New Eng- land, 1616, p. 1; Smith's Virginia, ii. 178, 239. "The destruction of most plantations hath been the base and hasty drawing of profits in the first years." Bacon, " Of Plantations."
2 " Captain-General, Lieutenant-General, Admiral, High Marshal, General of Horse, were among the offices conferred in 1609; and the like ambitious titles were given by the Northern Company." Belknap's Amer. Biog. ii. 99, 151; Stith, 101, 137; " Brief Relation " of the Council, Mass. Hist. Coll., xix. 21, 23.
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CHAPTER II.
REASONS FOR CREATING A NEW COMPANY - THE PLYMOUTH COUNCIL INCORPORATED IN 1620 - ITS POWERS - ITS POLITICAL IMPOR- TANCE - PARLIAMENTARY DIFFICULTIES - PROPOSED DIVISION OF TERRITORY AMONG THE PATENTEES - PLAN OF DIVISION - PRO- PRIETORS' NAMES - ROYAL SANCTION OBTAINED - LORD SHEFFEILD'S TITLE.
DIFFERENCES 1 having arisen between the councils of Northern and Southern Virginia, Sir Ferdinando turned the royal dissatisfaction to the service of the North. Ir- ritated against the London Company, by their election of the Earl of Southampton, as their treasurer, in bold de- fiance of his will, the jealous monarch was not unwilling to promote a rival to the refractory company,2 and readily
1 See "order in council on the difference between the Northern and Southern Plantations," June 18, 1621, and another, Sept. 28, 1621, " relative to encroach- ments on the grant to the New England Company," both published in " Docu- ments " of " Colonial History of New York," 1853, vol. iii. pp. 4, 5.
2 Nor was his revenge - steadily pursued under the forms of law - consummated until full four years had passed. One of Sir Thomas Wentworth's newsmongers, Mr. Wendesford, wrote to him on the 17th of June, 1624, " Yesterday Virginia pa- tent was overthrown at King's Bench, so an end of that plantation's saving. Me- thinks I imagine the fraternity have before this had a meeting of comfort and consolation, stirring up each other to bear it courageously, and Sir Edwin Sandys in the midst of them, sadly sighing forth, Oh! the burden of Virginia !" Straf- ford Papers, i. 21. Nicholas Ferrar caused a certified copy of the records to be made; Stith says that they hand down " the full conviction of King James' arbitra- ry and oppressive proceedings against the company, and of his having acted with such mean arts and frauds, and such little tricking, as highly misbecoming majes- ty." Hist. of Virginia, vi. vii. The secret of James' hostility was the Spanish jealousy and intrigue, through Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador, whose influence over the king was almost absolute. This appears in Peckard's Life of Ferrar, Cambridge, 1791, pp. 85, 89-168, a work indispensable to the history of that company. Read also note 1, p. 101, vol. i. Holmes' Annals.
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THE PLYMOUTH COUNCIL, ITS OBJECTS, ETC.
listened to the suggestions of his " trusty and well-beloved servant, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, Knight, Captain of our Fort and Island by Plymouth, and by certain, the princi- pal knights and gentlemen adventurers" of the second colony, who had lost much " in seeking to lay the foun- dation of a hopeful plantation,"1 and had also taken ac- tual possession of that territory " to his name and use as Sovereign Lord thereof." They assured him that there were no subjects of any other Christian power having any title or possession in America, between the fortieth and for- ty-eighth degrees of north latitude, and that the country had been recently nearly depopulated by a wonderful plague. "Thankful for the divine favor of this prior discovery and occupancy," and for an opportunity for the " conver- sion of such savages 2 as remained wandering in desolation and distress, to civil society and Christian religion," and probably not less grateful for a plea for enlarging his do- minions, his majesty granted the absolute property of that vast territory, extending from sea to sea, to Gorges and his associates, whom he incorporated under the title of " The council established at Plymouth, in the county of Devon, for the planting, ruling, ordering, and governing of New England, in America."
The order for the patent was issued by the king in coun- · cil, on the third of November, in the year 1620. It was passed under the great seal, on the third of July following,
1 The old term for Colonies. Bacon's Essays, " Of Plantations," xxxiii. In the "Tempest," 1623, act 2, scene i., " Plantations of this Isle ; " so used by Milton, about 1650. Prose works, Bohn's edition, 341, 344, 345, 347, and in the state pa- . pers generally.
2 This was generally assigned in the early charters, as a prominent design; it was in the Virginia charter. The enemies of the Puritans often reproach them with delay and indifference in the work of civilizing and Christianizing the In- dians, but if this were just, which it is not, the charge comes with an ill grace from those who prefer it. What colony out of New England can show an Eliot, a Mayhew, a Brainard, or a Kirkland ?
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VIRGINIA COMPANY.
and was the only 1 civil basis 2 of all the subsequent pa- tents and plantations which divided this country.
This charter conferred the usual powers of corporations, and special authority to make laws and ordinances ; to dis- pose of their lands; to appoint and remove governors and other officers of the plantations ; to establish all manner of order, laws, and directions, instructions, forms, and cere- monies of government and magistracy, not contrary to the laws of England ; to rule all inhabitants of the colony by such laws and ordinances, and, in cases of necessity, ac- cording to the good discretion of their governors and officers respectively, in capital, criminal, or civil cases, as near as conveniently might be agreeably to the laws of England. The charter further gave extraordinary powers as in cases of rebellions and hostile invasions.
By this movement the infatuated and unwary king opened a new source of complaints against himself, for no sooner had the patent been executed, than the members of the London, or Virginian Company, took various ex- ceptions to it, 3 and their objections were willingly enter- tained by the patriots in both Houses of Parliament, between whom and the king were gathering the contro- versies, which were bequeathed by James to his son Charles - a fatal legacy.
It is remarkable that, under this charter, the creature of absolutism, and intended as one of its supports, grew up those colonies which were the very nurseries of re-
1 Except De Mont's, from Henry IV. of France, 1603; Haliburton's Nova Sco- tia, i. 11 - 29; Hazard's Hist. Coll. i. 45.
2 Belknap's Hist. of New Hampshire, ed. 1831, p. 3; Holmes' Annals, i. 164.
3 The Patent for New England was the first named in the list of " Publick Grievances of the Kingdome." Sce also the " Declaration " in Mass. Hist. Coll. xix .; Purchas' Pilgrims, iv. 1827 - 1882; Hazard, i. 300.
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MONOPOLIES. - OPPOSED BY PARLIAMENT.
ligious and civil liberty, affording refuge and security even to the regicides.1
While the injustice of the king toward the Virginia Company gained for it the popular favor, 2 his rigid en- forcement of the most odious exclusive privileges 3 of the New England Company, was to the latter a prolific source of legal and parliamentary difficulties and popular dislike, seriously embarrassed its proceedings at home, impaired its authority in the colonies, and ultimately led to the sur- render of the royal patent, in the year 1635.4
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Among the reasons assigned by the council for the resignation of their charter, they said that, " At home they were assaulted with sharp litigious questions before the Lords of his Majesty's most Honorable Privy Coun- cil, by the Virginian Company, and that in the very in- fancy thereof, who finding they could not prevail in that way, they failed not to prosecute the same in the House of Parliament, pretending our said Plantation to be a grievance to the Commonwealth, and for such presented it unto King James of blessed memory, who, although his justice and royal nature could [not] so relish it, but
1 President Stiles' History of Whalley, Goffe and Dixwell. Hartford, 1794.
2 Even the king's favorite Dean of St. Paul's, Dr. John Donne, preached a ser- mon before "the Honorable Company of the Virginian Plantation, 13th Novem- ber, 1622," commending it to the public favor. This discourse is omitted in the folio collection of his sermons.
3 As, a monopoly of fishing and curing fish, or of cutting timber and wood for the use of the fishing vessels on the New England shores; but the Virginia Company was not less grasping in its claims; indeed their similar claims furnished an argu- ment for the creation of the N. E. Company. The charter of the Northern Company recites that one of the reasons for its incorporation was the " differences between themselves, and those of the said first colony." I suppose this was a principal procuring cause of the enactment of the Statute of Monopolies, 21 James, 1623. Gorges' Brief Relation, pp. 11, 12,.14. It is a curious fact, that to exclude all in- truders, the Massachusetts Company voted, July 28, 1620, to solicit the king to renew the proclamation of Nov. 6, 1622, enforcing the monopolies.
4 Commons' Journals, 1, 673, 688; Gorges' Brief Narration, chap. xvi. in Maine Hist. Coll. ii. 31, 32; Rymer's Fod. xvii. 416, 400.
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CONFLICT OF GRANTS. - DIVISION OF TERRITORY.
was otherwise pleased to give his gracious encourage- ment, for prosecution thereof, yet such was the times, as the affections of the multitude were thereby dis- heartened." 1
These facts furnish some apology for the loose and im- methodical transactions of the company, and, in a degree, for the confusion and conflict of their grants. This sub- ject has been involved in deep obscurity. Dr. Belknap says, " That either from the jarring interests of the mem- bers, or their indistinct knowledge of the country, or their inattention to business, or some other cause which does not fully appear, their affairs were transacted in a con- fused manner from the beginning, and the grants which they made were so inaccurately described, and interfered so much with cach other, as to occasion difficulties and controversies, some of which are not yet [1784] ended.
As the collisions with the Virginia Company, the ele- ments of political discord involved in the granting of this charter, and the direct attacks of the House of Commons, discouraged any considerable action of the council in their corporate capacity, they perhaps sought to avoid this by a division of the territory among the individual members, with all the incidental privileges requisite to the estab- lishment and government of colonies.
Though the charter created a corporation, one of its provisions seems to have contemplated, at the option of the patentees, a division of the territory " as well among Adventurers as Planters," reserving merely a general su- pervisory authority in the council. They were authorized from time to time, under their common seal, to distribute among themselves or others, the lands " by these presents
" This important paper is in Hazard's ITist. Coll. i. 390. Compare it with the " Brief Relation," 1622, in Mass. Hist. Coll. xix.
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POWER OF GOVERNMENT CLAIMED.
formerly granted unto each our loving subjects." This was to be done by the company " upon a commission of survey and distribution executed and returned for that purpose," respect being " had as well to the proportion1 of the adventurers, as to the special service, hazard, exploit, or merit of any person so to be recompensed, advanced, or rewarded."
Preliminary to a division, they, in the year 1622,2 pub- lished and dedicated to Prince Charles, their proposed " Platform of the government and division of the territo- ries in general." In this they assumed to hold under the royal patent, a relation to the American territory, and proposed colonies, like that of the king to his dominions. Adopting the language of sovereignty, they resolved " that of this our realm, two parts 3 of the whole territory is to be divided between the patentees into several counties, to be by themselves or their friends planted at their pleasure or best commodity." These were to be subdivided into baronies, hundreds, cities or towns, as might be deemed expedient. Their deputies convened in general assembly, by the order of the council, might enact laws, subject to the approval of the council, who were " to give life to the laws so to be made as to those to whom of right it best belongs,4 according to his majesty's royal grant in that
" Some of them agreed, in 1622, " to disburse a hundred pounds apiece." Mass. Hist. Coll. xix. 13. Four years before, in 1618, the Virginia Company directed a division of the Somer Isles, - a share to every adventurer. Smith's General Ilis- torie, Book 5, pp. 187, 189.
2 After "almost two years " of disputes with their enemies. Mass. Ilist. Soc. xix. 12.
3 The other third part " to be reserved for publick uses." Mass. Ilist. Coll. xix. 1,2, 3, 11-15.
4 That the Massachusetts Colony "wholly excluded themselves from ye publick government of ye council authorized for those affairs and made y"selves a free people, and for such hold themselves at ye present," was one of the reasons for the resignation of the patent, in 1635. Hazard, i. 390, 302.
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PORTIONS AND NAMES OF PROPRIETORS.
behalf:" and further, these "lords of counties may of themselves subdivide their said counties into manors and . lordships, as to them shall seem best." They also de- clared, that cities and inferior towns " shall be incorporate and made bodies politic to govern their affairs and peo- ple."
The king tacitly approved of this scheme. Captain John Smith, the first topographer of the New England coast, says in his " Generall Historie," published in the year 1624, that it was " at last engrossed by twenty 1 pat- tentees, that divided my map into twenty parts and cast lots for their shares." It affords curious evidence of the interest felt respecting this country among geographers and men of science, at that early period, that in the fourth volume of Puchas' "Pilgrims," published only a few months afterwards, is a map of New England, repre- senting this distribution of the territory, and showing portions and names of the several proprietors ; a fact creditable to the author's diligence and accuracy. The map, a fac-simile of a portion of which is here given, suggests, at a glance, their very imperfect knowledge of the country, and how imaginary were the lines of this territorial division.
The names on the map are in the following order, beginning at the north-east, the abbreviations being omit- ted.
[THOMAS] EARL OF ARUNDEL, SIR FERDINANDO GORGES,2 EARL OF CARLILE,
LORD KEEPER, SIR WILLIAM BELASIS, SIR RO. MANSELL,
1 Many of the patentees " quitted their interests " during the troubles in Par- liament. Gorges, chap. xxi.
2 Sir Ferdinando Gorges' life and services have been commemorated by the Hon. George Folsom, in his Discourse before the Maine Historical Society, Sept. 6, 1846, published in their collections, vol. ii. pp. 3-79.
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The Prouince of
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Cape Sandys
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Sagadabock
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Cape Cod
Lo:Gorges S' Sam : Argall D'Bar: Gooch
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D:of Buckingham E:of Warwick D'of Richmond M'.leings D' Sutcliffe
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A PART OF Captain John Smithjs flap, as divided in PURCHAS PILGRIM.
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MAR3111 2443000
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THE KING APPROVES. - CHARLES Ist's PLAN.
EARL OF HOLDERNESS,
[ROBERT] EARL OF WARWICK,1
[WILLIAM] EARL OF PEMBROCK, DUKE OF RICHMOND,2
[EDMUND] LORD SHEFFEILD, MR. [ABRAM] JENNINGS,
SIR HE. SPELMAN,
DR. [MATHEW] SUTCLIFFE,
SIR WILL. APSLEY,
[DEAN OF EXETER,]
CAPTAIN LOUE,
[EDWARD] LORD GORGES,
[GEORGE] DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM, SIR SAM. ARGALL, DR. BAR. GOOCH.
However liberal, or even extravagant, their interpre- tation of the charter may have been, all exceptions 2 to these proceedings were precluded, when on the third of February, 1624-5, in the presence of King James, the patentees of the council of New England " had their portion assigned unto them by lot, with his Highness' approbation, upon the sea-coast, from east to west, some eighty and one hundred leagues long.3' The king died soon after, and his son, Charles I. on the thirteenth of · the next May, issued a proclamation 4 that, to the end there might be one uniform course of government through all his dominions, the government of the colonies should depend immediately on himself, and not be committed to · any company or corporation whatever. Probably this was a plan devised by the high church party, to frustrate
' The Earl of Warwick's nephew, Capt. Thomas Cammock, was the founder of the town of Scarborough, Maine. Maine Hist. Coll. iii.
^ It is not improbable that " Richmond's Island," on the coast of Maine, derived its name from the Duke of Richmond, who, in virtue of this allotment, may have given a patent, or verbal right of occupation there, and from its narrow bounds, both the grant and the grantor might soon be forgotten, while the island still re- tains the name.
3 " Then followed ye claims of ye French ambassadour, taking advantage at ye di- visions made of ye sea coast between orselves to whom we made a just and satis- factory answer." Reasons of Resignation, 1635; Gorges' Description of N. E. " Briefe Narration."
3 Hubbard's Hist. of N. E., Appendix iii., quoted in Harris' full and valuable note.
4 Roger White's Letter to Governor Bradford, Dec. 1, 1625; Mass. Hist. Coll. iii.
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LORD SHEFFEILD'S TITLE.
the success of Puritanism, but his majesty's attention was soon diverted to more important issues.
The council's transactions being thus ratified by the crown, the several patentees of the territory of New England, became each 1 a lord proprietor of his portion, with an absolute title thereto, clothed with all the powers of government, originally in the king, and by him vested in them.
Thus was derived the title and authority of Lord Shef- feild, in the exercise of which he issued the charter 2 for . Cape Anne,3 under whose authority the colony was found- ed, in the year 1624, which is now expanded into the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
1 In the year 1623, Mr. David Tompson occupied "Tompson's Island " in Boston Harbor, but Hubbard says, " he could pretend no other title than a promise or a gift, to be conferred on him, in a letter of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, or some other member of the council." Tompson seems to have been one of the council's officials. See Robert Gorges' Charter of Dec. 30, 1623.
" A precedent for this was established by Sir Walter Raleigh, who, in 1587, incorporated " the Borough of Virginia," and appointed John White Governor, with a council of twelve. Holmes' Annals, i. 104, 105.
3 The location and boundaries of the several portions were necessarily vague and contingent. Sheffeild, in addition to his title as patentee, held also by purchase from the company. The Rev. Joseph' B. Felt, in 1845, found in the archives of the British Government a volume marked " Journal of Council of Trade," apparently the original record of the council for New England. In it was this entry, " Nov. 27, 1622, Lord Sheffeild and Abram Jennings, £110 each, for their lands in New England," but without any other description. In 1621 and 1622, Mr. Ambrose Jeu- nings, of London, and Mr. Abraham Jennings, of Plymouth, employed ships in the fishing business on this coast. New England's Trials, p. 17, in Force's Tracts, vol. ii .; Sullivan's Maine, 392; George Folsom's History of Saco and Biddeford, 19; Williamson's Maine, i.
لة السعر
CHAPTER III.
WRIOTHESLEY, EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON, TIIE PATRON OF BARTHOLO- MEW GOSNOLD - GOSNOLD SAILS FOR NORTH VIRGINIA, IN MAY, 1602 - DISCOVERS CAPE ANNE- NAMES CAPE COD - VISITS MAR- THA'S VINEYARD - BUILDS A FORT AT ELIZABETH'S ISLAND - CAP- TAIN ' JOHN SMITH VISITS AND NAMES NEW ENGLAND, IN 1614 - MASSACHUSETTS ESTEEMED A PARADISE - IT IS VISITED BY THE PLYMOUTH COLONISTS - SOME OF THE COLONISTS REMOVE TO NANTASKET - ROGER CONANT - BAD CONDUCT AND DISGRACE OF LYFORD AND OLDHAM.
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