USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts, 1630-1880. Vol. I > Part 15
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answer his people before they call, as he had filled the heart of that good man, Mr. Conant, in New England, with courage and resolution to abide fixed in his purpose, notwithstanding all opposition and persuasion he met with to the contrary, had also inclined the hearts of several others in England to be at work about the same design." - Planter's Plea.
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Mr. White's account, in the Planter's Plea, printed in 1630, is brief, and does not refer to his own services.1
"Some then of the adventurers that still continued their desire to set forward the plantation of a Colony there, conceiving that if some more cattle were sent over to those few men left behind, they might not only be a means of the comfortable subsist- ing of such as were already in the country, but of inviting some other of their Friends and Acquaintance to come over to them, adventured to send over twelve Kine and Bulls more ; and conferring casually with some gentlemen of London, moved them to add as many more. By which occasion the business came to agitation afresh in Lon- don, and being at first approved by some and disliked by others, by argument and dis- putation it grew to be more vulgar ; insomuch that some men shewing some good affection to the work, and offering the help of their purses if fit men might be pro- cured to go over, inquiry was made whether any would be willing to engage their per- sons in the voyage. . . . Hereupon divers persons having subscribed for the raising of a reasonable sum of money, a Patent was granted with large encouragements every way by his most Excellent Majesty."
It will be observed that no mention is made by Mr. White of the grant from the Council for New England. After the Royal Charter the grant from the Council apparently was regarded as of little consequence, and it has not been preserved except in citations from it contained in the Char- ter. The conveyance, bearing date March 19, 1627-28, was made to six persons, doubtless the friends alluded to by Mr. White as offering the use of their purses, - Sir Henry Rosewell and Sir John Young, knights, both of Devonshire; Thomas Southcoat, presumed to be of Devonshire ; John Humfrey, who had been treasurer of the fishing company, whose wife was daughter of Thomas, third Earl of Lincoln; John Endicott, of Dorchester, the leader of the first party of emigrants; and Simon Whet- comb, perhaps of London, subsequently an Assistant, constant in his attendance at the meetings of the Company in London, and a liberal con- tributor to its expenses.
The first portion of the records of the Council for New England, as we have them, extends from Saturday, the last of May 1622, to Sunday, June 29, 1623, inclusive. The second portion begins the 4th of November, 1631. The patent to the friends of the Massachusetts Company comes between these periods, and no official account of the circumstances attending the applica- tion for it and its being granted is known to exist. The years 1622 and 1623 were those of hopeful expectation on the part of the New England Council. They were looking for an amended charter for themselves from the Crown, and trying to raise money for their operations in the failure of their members to pay their dues. They clung to their aristocratic ideas, but were anxious to admit untitled persons to fellowship so far as might be
1 Mr. White is described as "a person of great gravity and presence," and as always having great influence with the Puritan party, "who bore him more respect than they did to their diocesan." He is styled "famous," "the Patriarch of Dor-
chester," &c. - Echard, Hist. of England, p. 653. To these titles have been added those of " Father of the Massachusetts Colony," and " Patriarch of New England." - Fuller, Worthies of England ; Callender, Ilist. Discourse.
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THE MASSACHUSETTS COMPANY.
necessary to secure their capital and their services. In their new "Grand Patent, to be held of the Crown of England by the Sword," it was resolved to call the country " Nova Albion," and to have power given to create titles of honor and precedency. They proposed to admit new associates on the payment of £110, " provided that they, so to come in, be persons of Honor or Gentlemen of blood (except only six Merchants, to be admitted by us for the service and special employment of the said Council in the course of trade and commerce, who shall enjoy such liberties and immunities as are thereunto belonging.")
It is not impossible that the grant to the six friends of Mr. White, for purposes of settlement, was a modification of the idea of admitting six mer- chants to partnership for the sake of their practical utility. There is a degree of mystery attending the transaction for which no means of positive solution exist.
It is expressly charged by Sir Ferdinando Gorges that changes were privately made in the terms and extent of the grant, through some influence of which he was not cognizant, affecting his own interests and those of his son. He says that the Council for New England were in a state of " such a disheartened weakness as there only remained a carcass in a manner breathless, when there were certain that desired a patent of some lands in Massachusetts Bay to plant upon, who presenting the names of honest and religious men easily obtained their first desires; but, these being once got- ten, they used other means to advance themselves a step from beyond their first proportions to a second grant surreptitiously gotten of other lands also justly passed tinto some of us, who were all thrust out by these intruders that had exorbitantly bounded their grant from East to West through all that main land from sea to sea. . . . But herewith not yet being content, they obtained, unknown to us, a confirmation of all this from His Majesty, by which means they did not only enlarge their first extents . . . but wholly excluded themselves from the publick government of the Council authorized for those affairs, and made themselves a free people." 1
In their irregular modes of doing business, the execution of papers was often left to different officers or members of the Council, the seal serving as a sufficient emblem of authority. Especially must this have been the case in the period of which no record remains, between 1624 and 1629, when the Council was compared by Gorges to " a dead carcass."
It seems to have been the impression of the Council, as represented by Gorges, their most active member, that the grant to the friends of Mr. White was intended to be merely a place for a settlement in Massachusetts Bay, where they were to be subject to the authority of the Council and to serve the interests of that body as the six merchants before mentioned inight have done; the enlargement of territory and privileges being the private work
1 Resignation of the Great Charter of New England, April 25, 1635, in Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, April, 1867.
[The document of resignation is given in Haz. ard's Historical Collections i. 390 .- ED.]
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THE MEMORIAL IHISTORY OF BOSTON.
of some friend or friends, whose position in the Council gave the power to make such changes. There is but one person, so far as known, whose offi- cial relation to the Council would enable him to accomplish that purpose, and whose personal interest in the object would have prompted the act. The Earl of Warwick was an ardent promoter of the Puritan movement. When the records, which closed in June, 1623, with a formal division of New England among the remnant of the patentees, (twenty from the original forty), commence again in November 1631, the Earl of Warwick is president, his predecessor, Gorges, being treasurer. The old names have mostly dis- appcared from the minutes of the meetings, which were held at Warwick House, where very few, chiefly new members, were accustomed to attend. The books and papers and the scal were in possession of the Earl, who for some reason, when called upon to produce them, omitted to do so. He was, of course, treated with great respect ; but when he was in vain desired to " direct a course for finding out what patents have been granted for New England," and when the Great Seal had been repeatedly called for without effect, those who represented the pecuniary interest of the remaining asso- ciates, growing uneasy, voted to hold their meetings elsewhere, and Warwick appears no more among them.
Gorges' narrative of transactions at the time of the grant to the Massa- chusetts Company, printed in 1658, when affairs had long been settled, shows that he was then absent from London, and had been applied to by Warwick for his consent: -
"Some of the discreeter sort, to avoid what they found themselves subject unto, made use of their friends to procure from the Council for the affairs of New England to settle a colony within their limits ; to which it pleased the thrice-honored Lord of Warwick to write to me, then at Plymouth, to condescend that a patent might be granted to such as then sued for it. Whereupon I gave my approbation so far forth as it might not be prejudicial to my son Robert Gorges' interests, whereof he had a patent under the seal of the Council.1 Hereupon there was a grant passed as was thought reasonable ; but the same was afterwards enlarged by His Majesty and con- firmed under the great seal of England."
It might very well happen, in their careless way of conducting such oper- ations, that a vote of those present at the meeting of the Council would empower the President, or a Committee, to execute an instrument according to their judgment of what was advisable and proper. The alleged interests of Robert Gorges were doubtless believed to possess no legal validity. Under the circumstances of the case, and regarding the Council as incapa- ble of accomplishing any successful results by its own efforts, the bold idea of creating an independent proprietorship, of liberal extent, for actual settle-
1 The patent of Robert Gorges, conveying ten miles in length and thirty miles into the land on the northeast side of Massachusetts Bay, was disregarded by subsequent grantees as invalid, partly for its uncertainty. Hutchin- son, Ilist. of Mass. i. 14; Young, Chronicles of
Mass. p. 51 ; Mass. Archives, Lands, i. 1 ; 3 MMass. Hist. Coll. vi. [Cf. Mr. C. F. Adams Jr.'s chap- ter in the present volume. A reprint of Gorges will be found in 3 Massachusetts Historical Col- lections, vi., and in Maine Historical Collections, iii .- ED.]
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THE MASSACHUSETTS COMPANY.
ment by an carnest body of men, might naturally and honestly appear to the Earl of Warwick to present the wisest course for the Council to adopt. In view of the Council's probable dissolution, he might also deem it advisable that the records of the many irregular proceedings, causing confusion and conflict of titles, should not be left as the seeds of future controversy. The account books and registers of the corporation have disappeared, and what are called the Records are supposed to be only transcripts used in the Parliamen- tary examinations to which the Council were subjected. Whether placed in some secret depository at Warwick House, or committed to the flames, they carry with them the history of a multitude of ineffectual endeavors, from which only two of their members, Gorges and Mason, reaped any perma- nent results ; and these were in localities not interfering with the claims and rights of the Massachusetts Company. The rise of this company, limited as it was, comparatively, in its jurisdiction, is considered as giving the death- blow to the Great Council for New England. That unwieldy corporation, after seeking in vain to cause a revocation of the Massachusetts Charter, ultimately declared it to be a reason for the surrender of their own.1
Besides the persons named in the charter from the Crown, additional to the six original grantees, many persons of wealth and consideration came forward to promote its design. Headquarters, as had been the case with the Council for New England, were established at London, and before the royal sanction had been officially secured operations were fairly in progress. Yet it was only at great cost and by means of high influence that the over- ruling grant from the Throne was carried through its formalities, and passed the seals on the 4th of March, 1629. Thus nearly a year had passed since the grant from the Council on the 19th of March, 1628.2 But the Company did not wait for either of these legal securities. The first date in their records is March 16, 1628, when without organization they were en- gaged in fitting out Endicott's expedition. He sailed on the 20th of June following. Favorable letters being received from him on Feb. 13, 1629, preparations were hastened for another and larger emigration. Endicott was made Governor of the Colony, and a form of government drawn up for his direction.3 On the 23rd of March, letters were received from Isaac
1 [The declaration of reasons, &c., will be found in Hazard's Collections, i. A manuscript of this declaration is in the Massachusetts His- torical Society's cabinet. - Proceedings, April, 1868, p. 161 .- ED.]
2 [It was under this grant that the limits of Massachusetts were fixed three miles north of the Merrimac, - a trace of which remains in the zigzag line of our present northeastern boundary, following a parallel of the river. The southern bounds were three miles south of the Charles, and gave rise to much dispute with the Ply- mouth people. The tortuous river, with all its southern affluents, offered ground for much diversity of opinion. See Brad- ford's Plymouth Plantation, p. 369. - ED.] VOL. I .-- 13.
3 It was just at this point of time that the men from Lincolnshire and other eastern coun- ties, encouraged by Endicott's letters, present- ed themselves for admission to the Company. " 2d March, 1628-29. Also it being propounded by Mr. Coney in behalf of the Boston men (whereof divers had promised, though not in our book underwritten) to adventure £400 for the common stock, that now their desire was that to persons of them might underwrite £25 a man in the joint stock, they withal promising
Josh: Scotton
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Johnson, a son-in-law of the Earl of Lincoln, giving notice that " one Mr. Iliggeson, of Leicester, an able minister, proffers to go to our plantation," On the 8th of April Francis Higginson and Samuel Skelton sign an agreement to that end; and on the 25th the second expedition set sail, carrying those ministers and three hundred passengers with them.1
On the 28th of July Governor Cradock " read certain propositions, con- ceived by himself," giving reasons for transferring the government to Mas- sachusetts ; but at this point another writer takes up the story in the follow- ing chapter.
Thus the Massachusetts Company in England, having accomplished its great purpose, was merged in the Colony of Massachusetts Bay. Those members who remained in the mother country retained an organization, and endeavored by small appropriations of land and some advantages of trade to leave chances of compensation for the money they had expended. Nothing, however, ever came of those uncertain provisions. No list of members was entered in their records; but among the names casually men- tioned (about one hundred in number), as contributors or associates,1 will be found many prominently connected with the revolutionary events which changed the kingdom of Great Britain to a commonwealth.2
with those ships to adventure in their particular alone above £250 more, and to provide able men to send over for managing the business."-Mass. Company Records. [The instructions to Endicott are given in the Mass. Records, i. 2, ii. 383; Amer. Antiq. Soc. Coll., iii. 79; and in Hazard's Collec- tions, i. 236, 359. The original authorities on this settlement are these: A Narrative of the Planting of the Massachusetts Colony, which Joshua Scottow, then in a somewhat senile frame of mind, but who had been a well-to-do and active Boston merchant for many years, printed in 1694. There are copies of the orig- inal edition in the Massachusetts Historical Society's library (Proceedings, i. 447), and it is printed in their Collections, fourth series, iv. (Mr. Savage gives a notice of Scottow in 2 Mass. Hist. Coll., iv. 100. Cf. Tyler's American Literature, i. 94.) Johnson's Wonder-working Providence, noticed elsewhere in this volume. Higginson's New England Plantation, July to September, 1629, of which three editions were is- sued in 1630 (all are in the Lenox Library ; copies also in Harvard College Library, &c.) ; and it is reprinted in Young, Force's Tracts, i., and in Mass. Hist. Coll., i. There is a second-hand ac- count in Morton's Memorial. There has been some unsatisfactory controversy as to whom the
title of first Governor of Massachusetts rightfully belongs, but it has all arisen from a lack of clear perception of the facts, or from inexactness of terms. The conditions are clearly stated in the following chapter. Cf., further, S. F. Haven in Amer. Antiq. Soc. Coll., iii. p. c .; Savage's note to Winthrop's New England, ii. 200; Gray, Mass Reports, ix. 451 ; R. C. Winthrop's Life of John Winthrop, i. ch. xvii., ii. ch. ii .; Essex In- stitute Hist. Coll., v. and viii. - ED.]
1 Mass. Company Records.
2 The Records (so called) of the Council for New England may be found in the Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society of April, 1867, and October, 1875, edited by Mr. Deane, whose able exposition of the character and ter- mination of both corporations occupies a follow- ing chapter of the present work. [The reader is also referred to Dr. Haven's paper on the origin of the Massachusetts Company in the American Antiquarian Society's Collections, iii., and to his "History of the Grants under the Great Council for New England," in the Lowell Lectures, 1869, by the Massachusetts Historical Society. The Records of the Massachusetts Company are printed in the Mass. Records, pub- lished by the State, i. 21, and in Young's Chron- icles of Mass. - ED.]
CHAPTER II
BOSTON FOUNDED. 1630-1649.
BY THE HON. ROBERT C. WINTIIROP, LL.D., President of the Massachusetts Historical Society.
T THE History of The Massachusetts Bay Company has been brought down, in a previous chapter, to the last week of the month of July, 1629. On the 28th day of that month, a momentous movement, fraught with most important results for the infant Colony, was made in the General Court of the Company. At a meeting holden at the house of the Deputy- Governor (Thomas Goffe) in London, Matthew Cradock, the Governor of the Company, " read certain propositions conceived by himself; viz., that for the advancement of the plantation, the inducing and encouraging persons of worth and quality to transplant themselves and families thither, and for other weighty reasons therein contained, to transfer the govern- ment of the plantation to those that shall inhabit there, and not to con- tinue the same in subordination to the Company here, as it now is."
. It is much to be regretted that the Paper containing these propositions is not to be found, but the language thus given from the original Records indicates, clearly and precisely, the condition of things then existing in the Plantation at Salem, and the radical change which was contemplated by Governor Cradock. The Government then existing at Salem is styled a Government " in subordination to the Company here; " that is, in London. The proposition of Cradock was, that this Government shall no longer be " continued as it now is," but shall be "transferred to those that shall inhabit there."
The proposition was too important to be the subject of hasty decision, and the Records state that, " by reason of the many great and considerable consequences thereupon depending, it was not now resolved upon." The members of the Company were requested to consider it " privately and seriously;" " to set down their particular reasons pro et contra, and to produce the same at the next General Court; where, they being reduced to heads and maturely considered of, the Company may then proceed to a final resolution thereon." In the mean time, the members were " desired to carry this business secretly, that the same be not divulged."
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
This call for " private and serious" consideration ; this demand for par- ticular reasons, on both sides, set down in writing; and this solemn in- junction of secrecy, - furnish abundant proof that the Company understood how important and how bold a measure their Governor had proposed to them. It was no mere measure of emigration or colonization. It was a measure of government; of self-government; of virtual independence. It clearly foreshadowed that spirit of impatience under foreign control which, at a later day, was to pervade not only the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, but the whole American Continent.
The General Court of the Company now adjourned, as usual, to the following month. They met again, to consider this momentous matter, on the 28th day of August, 1629; but the interval had not been unimproved by those who desired to have it wisely and rightly decided. It had cost then, we may well believe, many an anxious hour of deliberation and consultation; and, two days only before the meeting of the Court, an Agreement had been finally drawn up and subscribed, which was to settle the whole question.
This Agreement was entered into and executed at Cambridge, beneath the shadows, and probably within the very walls, of that venerable University of Old England, to which New England was destined to owe so many of her brightest luminaries and noblest benefactors. It bore date August 26, 1629; and was in the following words : -
THE AGREEMENT AT CAMBRIDGE.
"Upon due consideration of the state of the Plantation now in hand for New England, wherein we, whose names are hereunto subscribed, have engaged ourselves, and having weighed the greatness of the work in regard of the consequence, God's glory and the Church's good ; as also in regard of the difficulties and discourage- ments which in all probabilities must be forecast upon the prosecution of this busi- ness ; considering withal that this whole adventure grows upon the joint confidence we have in each other's fidelity and resolution herein, so as no man of us would have adventured it without assurance of the rest ; now, for the better encouragement of ourselves and others that shall join with us in this action, and to the end that every man may without scruple dispose of his estate and affairs as may best fit his prepara- tion for this voyage ; it is fully and faithfully AGREED amongst us, and every one of us doth hereby freely and sincerely promise and bind himself, in the word of a Christian, and in the presence of God, who is the searcher of all hearts, that we will so really endeavor the prosecution of this work, as by God's assistance, we will be ready in our persons, and with such of our several families as are to go with us, and such provision as we are able conveniently to furnish ourselves withal, to embark for the said Plantation by the first of March next, at such port or ports of this land as shall be agreed upon by the Company, to the end to pass the Seas, (under God's protection, ) to inhabit and continue in New England : Provided always, that before the last of September next, the whole Government, together with the patent for the said Plantation, be first, by an order of Court, legally transferred and established to remain with us and others which shall inhabit upon the said Plantation ; and provided,
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BOSTON FOUNDED.
also, that if any shall be hindered by such just and inevitable let or other cause, to be allowed by three parts of four of these whose names are hereunto subscribed, then such persons, for such times and during such lets, to be discharged of this bond. And we do further promise, every one for himself, that shall fail to be ready through his own default by the day appointed, to pay for every day's default the sum of £3, to the use of the rest of the company who shall be ready by the same day and time.
" (Signed) RICHARD SALTONSTALL, THOMAS SHARPE,
THOMAS DUDLEY, INCREASE NOWELL,
WILLIAM VASSALL, JOHN WINTHROP,
NICHOLAS WEST, WILLIAM PINCHON,
ISAAC JOHNSON, KELLAM BROWNE,
JOHN HUMFREY, WILLIAM COLBRON."
The leading Proviso of this memorable agreement must not fail to be noted : ---
" Provided always, that before the last of September next, the whole Government, together with the patent for the said Plantation, be first, by an order of Court, legally transferred and established to remain with us and others which shall inhabit upon the said Plantation."
This was the great condition upon which Saltonstall, and Dudley, and Johnson, and Winthrop, and the rest, agreed so solemnly "to pass the seas (under God's protection ), to inhabit and continue in New England."
They were not proposing to go to New England as adventurers or traffickers; not for the profits of a voyage, or the pleasure of a visit; but "to inhabit and continue" there. And they were unwilling to do this while any merely subordinate jurisdiction was to be exercised there, as was now the case, and while they would be obliged to look to a Governor and Company in London for supreme authority. They were resolved, if they went at all, to carry " the whole Government" with them.
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