USA > Massachusetts > The landing at Cape Anne; or, The charter of the first permanent colony on the territory of the Massachusetts company > Part 7
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4 Charles M. Endecott, Esq., of Salem, has printed a valuable memoir of his noble ancestor, the Governor.
5 This was to anticipate Oldham's occupation under the Gorges charter.
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PRELACY EXCLUDED FROM NEW ENGLAND.
Dorchester agents at Naumkeag or Salem, and make way for the settling of another colony in the Massachusetts." These authorities show two distinct objects : to continue and strengthen the first colony at Salem, and to begin another 1 at the mouth of Charles River, now Charlestown and Boston.
The members of the Massachusetts Company suffered from the abuses or rather severities of the Episcopal authorities ; but they cherished the hope of a reforma- tion 2 in the church, and shrank from the absolute separation of the Independents or Pilgrims - a position held by thousands of the faithful and conscientious sons of the church, until the act of uniformity, in 1662, severed the bonds ; and from that date the Dissenters rapidly increased in numbers and influence.
The attempt to introduce Prelacy into the Plymouth Colony almost immediately resulted in the practical question, whether the Pilgrims should banish or be banished by the intruders. This was the alternative. They sought, won, and defended an asylum for the enjoyment of their own faith. It has been well said that they sought " not religious freedom, but freedom to enjoy their own opinions." 3 This act of self-preservation led, as we have seen, to the establishment of the colony at Cape Anne, afterwards removed to Salem. There the same causes produced a like result, in the case of the banished Browns; and thus Prelacy was excluded from
1 Five days after his arrival at Salem, June 17, 1630, Gov. Winthrop entered in his journal, " we went to Massachusetts to find out a place for our setting downe." Savage's ed. 1853, i. 32.
separating from it,"
" " They were rather desirous of reforming the Church of England than of " a measure which would have broken the strength of the Dissenters, as a body, to the eminent hazard of civil liberty." Sir James Mackintosh.
3 Arnold's Discourse before the Rhode Island Hist. Soc., Jan. 7, 1853.
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THE BASTARD PAPACY IN ENGLAND.
the very colony which it had planted and nourished - a joy to the Pilgrims.
The autobiography of Sir Simon D'Ewes, as cotem- porary with these movements, exhibits the views of the Fathers of New England, respecting the tendency of public affairs in Old England. He says :
"For men to call themselves Protestants, as Bishop Laud,1. Bishop Wren, and their wicked adherents, to swallow up the preferments of our church, to inveigh against Popery in word only, and in the main to project and plot the ruin of the truth and gospel, to maintain and publish the most gross and feculent errors of the Romish . synagogue, to cause God's day to be profaned, his public service to be poisoned by idolatry and super- stition, his faithful and painful ministers to be censured, suspended, deprived, and exiled, they do no less impu- dently and furiously weaken and undermine the Gospel of truth, than if they were hired by the Pope himself, at great rates." 2
1 Yet Laud's memory is precious, for the evil which he did has been prolific of good. By his persecutions he " may be called the Father of New England." Douglass' Summary, i. 367; Neal's N. E. 191, 192. He is credited with the good service of reclaiming from the Romish Church, William Chillingworth, author of the great argument "The Religion of Protestants." Ilis victimis used to say " Great laud to the Lord - little Laud to the Devil!"
" Did not the deeds of England's primate First drive your fathers to this climate,
Whoin jails. and fines and every ill Forced to their good against their will ? Y'e owe to their obliging temper The peopling your new fangled empire,
While every British act and canon Stood forth your causa sine qua non." M'Fingal, Canto ii.
Milton's " Reformation in England " best exhibits the facts and principles leading to the settlement of New England.
2 " The sour crudities of yesterday's Popery, those constitutions of Edward VI." being established in Elizabeth's reign: " from that timo followed nothing but im- 10
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TOLERATION WOULD HAVE BEEN FATAL.
The Puritan founders of New England did not1 pro- fess toleration ; it would have been suicidal. Neither justice nor equity required that they should receive or retain any who were inimical to their adopted insti- tutions; they well understood the truth, a few years afterward spoken by John Pym,2 in his great speech in
prisonments, troubles, disgraces on all those that found fault with the decrees of the convention, and straight were branded with the name of Puritans." Milton's Prose Works, 1641, Bohn's ed. ii. 410, 374, 26. At the Hampton Court Confer- enee, Thursday, 12 Jan. 1603, James said of the Puritans, "I shall make them conform themselves, or I will harry them out of this land, or do worse," of which Bancroft, the High Church Bishop of London, declared that he " was fully per- suaded that his majesty spoke by the instinct of the spirit of God!" This " finished specimen of all that a king ought not to be " compelled a union of the State and Church Puritans, which party thenceforth included all who opposed the king, and even Abbott, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was reckoned among them, because lie did not approve the Court maxims of the king's unlimited power." Rapin's Ilist. of Eng. ii. fol. 176, 179, 214, 215, 222.
1 Governor Thomas Dudley's lines may be quoted :
"Let men of God in courts and churches watch O'er such as do a TOLERATION hateh ; Lest that ill egg bring forth a eoekatrice, To poison all with heresy and vice. If meu be left, and otherwise combine, My epitaph 's I died no libertine!"
Rev. John Cotton and Rev. John Norton were equally intolerant; but these men founded institutions whose strength is in freedom of opinion. Dr. Increase Mather, in his election sermon, May 23, 1677, " concerning the Danger of Apostacy," says, " that which concerns the magistrate's power in matters of religion," "is now become a matter of scruple and distaste to some amongst us." The third or Pro- vineial charter of 1692, which was procured by MATHER, tolerated " all Christians, except Papists; " and here Mather seems to have Milton's authority, "Whether Popery be tolerable or no? Popery is a double thing to deal with, and elaims a two-fold power, ecelesiastieal and political - both usurped, and the one supporting the other." In Holland, as early as 1573, " all restraint in matter of religion was as detestable as the Inquisition itself; " but even there they were compelled to acts of severity towards Popery, in consequence of her political machinations. Broad- head's History of New York, 101, 103, 458, 559, 787.
" I am not of opinion," said Milton, in 1641, " to think the church a vine in this respect, because, as they take it, she eannot subsist without clasping about the elm of worldly strength and felicity, as if the heavenly city could not support itself without the props and buttresses of secular authority."
2 Foster's Statesinen of the Commonwealth, New York ed. 166.
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SELF-PRESERVATION REPELLED OLD WORLD POLITIES. 75
Parliament, 1640, "The principles of Poperie," said he, " are such as are incompatible with any other religion. There may be a suspension of violence for some time, by certain respects; but the ultimate end even of that moderation is, that they may with more advantage cx- tirpate that which is opposite to them. Lawes will not restrain them - oathes will not."
The heavy darkness of the Romish sway, which had been penetrated by the glimmerings of the dawning Reformation, seemed to be again fast gathering over England. The Christian and Patriot now rose to the death struggle for Religion and Liberty. While the conflict raged in England, not less arduous was the struggle for the possession of the New World in behalf of the Rights of Man. Our fathers, driven from home by oppression and cruelty, the legitimate offspring of the Old World polities, with the instinct of self-preservation, repelled their intrusion 1 upon these western shores, amid whose wilds and solitudes they seemed instantly to feel the inspiration of the liberty which they sought. "The English Puritans, the chief of men, whom it is the paltry fashion of this day to decry, divided their vast inheritance
1 Among the " General Considerations for the Plantation in New England " stands this : " FIRST, It will be a service to the church of great consequence, to carry the gospell into those parts of the world, and to raise a bulwarke againste the Kingdom of Antichrist, which the Jesuits labor to rear up in all places of the world." Hutchinson's Collection, 27.
Dr. Donne, Dean of St. Paul's, in a sermon to the " Honorable Company of the Virginian Plantation," Nov. 13, 1622, said, " The Papists are sorrie wee have this countrey, and surely twenty lectures in matter of controversie doe not so much vexe them, as one ship that goes and strengthens that plantation; neyther can I recour- mend it to you by any better rhetorique than their mnalice."
In 1648, the Rev. John Cotton, of Boston, said : "Some of the Jesuits at Lisburn, and others in the Western Islands, have professed to some of our merchants and mariners, they look at our plantations, (and at some of us by name. ) as dangerous supplanters of the Catholic cause." " Way of Congregational Churches Cleared." London, 1648, p. 21, 22.
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RELIGIOUS AND CIVIL LIBERTY INSEPARABLE.
between them in the reign of Charles I. One body remained at home, and established the English Consti- tution : one crossed the Atlantic, and founded the Ameri- can Republic - the two greatest achievements of modern times." 1
Distant by three thousand miles from Cathedral shades, and the terrors of Spiritual and Star Chamber powers, safe in the retirement of the forests of the New World, wary by experience, elevated and enlightened by the teachings of Christ, amid a combination of favorable circumstances never previously known in the experience of man, and which can never exist again, Freedom spon- taneously developed her institutions in their simplest and truest forms, and published to all the world the insepara- ble bonds of religious and civil liberty. Under these circumstances, and amid these influences, has been originated and developed the true polity for an enlight- ened and free people, containing within itself the recu- perative principle of life, and the germ of kindred institutions among all nations.
' Edinburgh Review.
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APPENDIX.
I.
EDMUND, LORD SHEFFEILD- a prominent and influential statesman or courtier of the times of Elizabeth, James, and Charles the First, seems to have retained the royal favor more successfully than did some of his cotemporaries. For this reason, perhaps, he occupies a less conspicuous position in history, than belongs to others whose mis- fortunes reflect lustre on their worth, and infamy on their sovereigns. He was born of noble lineage, about 1566, and was carly introduced at Court ; for in 1582, he was one of those who, by command of Elizabeth, attended her suitor, the Duke of Anjou, to Antwerp. For his good service in the contest with the Armada, he was, three days after, on the 26th of July, 1583, knighted by his uncle, High Admiral Howard. After this he was for some years Governor of Briel, a forti- fied seaport in the Netherlands, famous in her history, which England held as security for loans in the war with Spain. Upon his return to England he mingled in the affairs of state, and his name is frequently associated with the Earl of Northampton. In 1612, they were both seeking a place in the royal council, and there was a " flocking of Parliament men " " in meetings and consultations with the Earl of Southampton and Lord Sheffeild, at Lord Rochester's chambers." About 1614, he obtained the presidency of the council of the north,
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an institution created by Henry VIII. at York, in 1537, after the troubles which broke out in the northern counties, in consequence of the suppression of the lesser monasteries, to administer justice and maintain order in these counties, independently of the courts at West- minster. The jurisdiction of the court, at first very limited, became more extended and arbitrary under James I. and Charles I. The office he held till January, 1618-19, when we find " my Lord Scroop's patent is now drawing for the Presidentship of York. He is to make up the sum already tendered to my Lord Sheffeild, £4500 ; and £1500 is to be given elsewhere, by way of gratuity. My Lord Sheffeild, at the resigning up of his interest, had this further testimony of the King's favor, that at his request, his Majesty was content to knight every one of the Council at York, before not knighted, which were divers ; and thence accrues a further profit to his Lordship." During the next month he was appointed Vice Admiral of the fleet then fitting out, and on Tuesday, the 21st of this month, my Lord Sheffeild " married a fine young gentlewoman of some sixteen years of age, Sir William Irwin's daughter, and is (for the country's sake, I suppose) highly applauded by the King for his choice. And surely if it be true " Blessed is the wooing that is not long adoing," we must give him for a happy man, since less than three days concluded wooing, wedding, and bedding."
He became connected with American affairs in 1609, being one of the patentees named in the charter of the Virginia company in that year, and was, in 1620, one of a committee, with the Earl of South- ampton, Sir Nicholas Tufton, and others, to propitiate the King's favor, and in the same year he appeared in the party against the King's favorite, Sir Thomas Smith ; but two years later, in 1622, he joined the King's party, and so continued till after 1625, when he was created by Charles I. Earl of Mulgrave. In April, 1628, when the Earl of Arundel, in parliament, resolutely declared his purpose to maintain popular liberty against the King's prerogative, Mulgrave sustained him. HIe was one of the twelve eminent peers, among whom were Warwick, Say and Seal, and Brook, all inclined to the popular party, who so- licited from Charles I. the convocation of the constitutional parliament
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APPENDIX.
of 1640, which assumed the sovereign power. From his disaffection to the Virginia company, it is reasonable to suppose that he had con- siderable influence in procuring the patent to the Plymouth company, of which he was an original member, and under which he issued the patent of Cape Anne, thus rendering his name of permanent interest in New England. He died in 1646. A fac-simile of his signature, and his picture, are in Thane's Autography, vol. i. p. 17.1
' Rapin's England, ii. 115, 136 ; Collier's Dictionary ; Hazard, i. 118; Stith's Virginia, 180, 187, 220 ; Appendix, 16 ; Life and Times of James I., i. 83, 180, 176, 333, 471; ii. 120, 136, 137, 145, 146 ; Davies' Ilist. of Holland, ii. 175; Guizot's Hist. of the English Rev. of 1640, Bogue's ed. 46, n. 1, 84 ; Purchas' Pilgrims, vi. 1900 - 1905.
II.
" 16 : 12mo. : 1680.
RICHARD BRACKENBURY, of Beuerly, in the County of Essex, in New England, aged eighty yeares, testifieth that he the said Richard came to New England with John Endecott, Esqr. late Gouernor in New England, deceased, and that we came ashore at the place now called Salem, the 6th of September, in the yeare of our Lord, 1628 : fifty- two yeares agoe : at Salem we found liueing, old Goodman Norman, & his sonn : William Allen & Walter Knight, and others, those owned that they came ouer vpon the acco' of a company in England, caled by vs by the name of Dorchester Company or Dorchester marchants, they had sundry houses built at Salem, as Alsoe John Woodberye, M". Conant, Peeter Palfery, John Balch & others, & they declared that they had an house built at Cape Ann for the dorchester company, & I haueing waited vpon M". Endecott, when he atended the company of
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APPENDIX.
the Massathusetts pattentees, when they kept theire court in Cornewell Street in London I vnderstood that this company of London haueing bought out the right of the Dorchester marchants in New Eng- land, and that M". Endeeott hat power to take possession of theire right in New England, which M". Endecot did, & in perticuler of an house built at Cape Ann, which Walter Knight & the rest, said they built for Dorehester men : & soe I was sent with them to Cape Ann to pull downe the said house for M'. Endeeott's vse, the which wee did, & the same yeare wee eame ouer according to my best remembrance, it was that wee tooke a further possession, on the north side of Salem ferrye, comonly caled Cape an side, by cutting thach for our houses,1 and soone after laid out lotts for tillage land on the sª Cape an side, & quickly after sundry houses were built on the said Cape an side, and I my selfe haue liued there, now for about 40 yeares & I with sundry others have beene subdueing the wildernes & improuing the feilds & comons there, as a part of Salem, while wee belonged to it & since as inhabitants of Beverly for these fifty yeares, & neuer y' I heard of disturbed in our possession, either by the Indians or others sauc in our late vnhappy warr, with the heathen, neither haue I heard by myselfe or any other inhabitants with vs, for the space of these fifty yeares, that M". Mason or any by from or vnder him did take any possession or lay any elaime. to any lands heare saue now in his last claime within this yeare or two, :
Richard Braekenbury made oath to the truth of the above writ- ten the 20th daye of January, 1690 before me, Bartholomew Gedney, Assistant In the Collony of Massachusetts."
1 " The roofe ouer the hall, I couered with Deale boords, and the rest with such thatch as I found growing here about the Harbour, as sedge, flagges, and rushes, a farre better couering than boords, both for warmth and titeness." - Letter July 28, 1622, from Edward Wynne, Gov. of Lord Baltimore's Plantation at " Ferryland," Newfoundland.
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III.
" 16 : 12mo. : 1680.
WILLIAM DIXY, of Beuerly in New England, aged about 73 yeares, Testifieth that I came to New England & ariued in June 1629, at cape an, where wee found the signes of buildings & plantation work, & saw noe English people soe we sailed to the place now caled Salein, where we found Mr. John Endecott, Governo" & sundry inhabitants besides : some of whom sd they had beene seruants to Dorchester com- pany : & had built at cape an sundry yeares before wee came ouer, when we came to dwell heare the Indians bid vs welcome & shewed themselues very glad that we came to dwell among them, and I vnder- stood they had kindly entertained the English y' came hether before wee came, & the English & the Indians had a feild in comon fenced in together, & the Indians fled to shelter themselues, vnder the English oft times, Saying they were afraid of theire enemy Indians in the Contry : In perticuler I remember somtime after, wee ariued, the Agawam Indians, complained to M'. Endecott that they weare afraid of other Indians, caled as I take it, tarrateens, Hugh Browne was sent with others in a boate to agawam for the Indians releife, & at other times wee gaue our neighbour Indians, protection from theire enemy Indians.
Taken vpon oath this 16th February, 1680 : before me William Browne & Bartholomew Gedney, Assistants."
IV.
"16 : 12mo. : 1680.
HUMPHRY WOODBERYE, of Beuerly in New England, aged about 72 yeares. Testifieth, that when I liued in Sumersetshire in England, I remember that my father, John Woodberye, (since deceased) did about
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56 yeares agoe remooue for new England, & I then traucled with him as farr as Dorchester, and I vnderstood that my said father came to New England by order of a company caled, Dorchester Company, (among whom Mr. White, of Dorchester in England, was an active in- strument,) & that my father & the company with him brought cattle & other things, to Cape Ann, for plantation work, & built an house & · kept theire cattell, & sett up fishing, & afterwards some of them remoued, to a neck of land, since called Salem : After about 3 years absence, my said father returned to England, & made vs acquainted with what settlement they had made in New England, & that he was sent back by some that Intended to setle a plantation about 3 leagues west of Cape Ann, to further this designe, after about halfe a year's stay in Ingland, my father returned to new England & brought me with him, wee ariued at the place now caled Salem, in or about the month of June 1628: where wee found seuerall persons that said they were seruants to the Dorchester company, & had built another house for them at Salem besides that at cape Ann The latter end of that sumer, 1628 : John Endecott, Esq", came ouer gouerno", declaring his power, from a company of pattentees in or about London : and that they had bought the houses boates and seruants, which belonged to the Dorchester Company & that he sd Endecott had power to receive them, which accordingly he did take possession of :
When wee setled the Indians neuer then molested vs in our im- prouemen's or sitting downe, cither on Salem or Beuerly sides of the ferry, but shewed themselues very glad of our company, & came & planted by vs, & often times came to vs for shelter, saying they were afraid of their enemy Indians vp in the contry : & we did shelter them w" they fled to vs, & we had theire free leaue to build & plant where wee haue taken vp lands, the same yeare or the next after, wee came to Salem wee cutt hay for the cattell wee brought ouer, on that side of the ferry now caled Beuerly : & haue kept our possession there cuer since, by cutting hay or thatch, or timber & boards & by laying out lotts for tillage, & then by peoples planting : & some time after, build- ing and dwelling heere, where I with others haue liued about 40 yeares : In all this time of my being in New England I neuer heard
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APPENDIX.
that Mr. Mason, took possession heare, disbursted estate vpon or layd any claime, to this place of ours, sauce the discourses of a claime within this yeare or two :
The testimoney within written is taken vpon oath this 16: Feb- ruary, 1680 : before William Browne & Bartholomew Gedney, Assistants."
V.
"GLOUCESTER, June 22d, 1854.
J. WINGATE THORNTON, Esq. Dear Sir,. * * *
On the north-west side of the outer harbor of Gloucester is a tract of land, containing about one hundred acres, more or less, which, in our carly town-records, is called ' ffisherman's field.' It is mentioned by that name in a grant to Rev. Richard Blynman, one of the company who made the permanent settlement here in 1642. Commencing at the westerly end of the beach, on the north side of the harbor, it extends in a southerly direction, and on its westerly side is skirted by the main road to Manchester, which separates it from a range of hills. On the sea-ward side it has two coves, one of which is very small, formed by the projection of a rocky bluff into the harbor. This bluff is called Stage Head, and tradition affirms that this is the place where the operations of the first fishing company at Cape Ann were carried on. A breastwork was raised on this spot in the revolutionary war, and Stage Fort has been its general appellation for many years. I have met with nothing to show that this place might have derived its name from its improvement for a fishing stage at any later period in the history of the town, than that now under consideration. One of the objects of the fishing company just mentioned, was to combine fishing and agricultural employments ; and for the latter no spot more favor-
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able than 'flisherman's field' could be found on our shores, as it is less rocky than any other tract of equal extent on the borders of the harbor. It was also convenient for their fishery.
Many of the first settlers of Gloucester who resided at the harbor, received grants of land in ' ffisherman's field ;' finding probably in its state of preparation for cultivation, a compensation for its incon- venient distance from their homes. It may be suggested that these grantors were fishermen, and that the spot derived its name from that circumstance ; in answer to which it may be said, that none of them are known to have been of that occupation, while it is certain that the chief employment of most of the early settlers here was upon the soil, and not upon the sea. The records authorize an inference that many of them were employed in the forest and the ship-yard.
Current tradition, then, and the names applied to that locality, leave no room for doubt in my mind, that 'ffisherman's field' was the spot occupied by the English at Cape Ann in 1624, and all who visit it may find an interesting subject of thought, in reflecting upon the care that nurtured and the heroism that defended the feeble germ there planted, through every stage of its growth to a vigorous and happy maturity.
Yours, very truly,
JOHN J. BABSON."
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