USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts, 1630-1880. Vol. I > Part 16
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Accordingly, at the meeting of the General Court of the Company on the 28th of August (two days only after this Agreement was signed), Mr. Deputy, in the Governor's absence, acquainted the Court " that the especial cause of their meeting was to give answer to divers gentlemen, intending to go into New England, whether or no the Chief Government of the Plantation, together with the Patent, should be settled in New England, or here." Two Committees were thereupon appointed to pre- pare arguments, the one " for" and the other "against" "the settling of the chief government in New England," with instructions to meet the next morning, at seven of the clock, to confer and weigh each other's arguments, and afterwards to make report to the whole Company. On the next morning, at the carly hour which had been appointed, the Committees met together, and debated their arguments and reasons on both sides ; and after a long discussion in presence of the Company, Mr. Deputy put it to the question as follows : ---
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" As many of you as desire to have the patent and the government of the Plan- tation to be transferred to New England, so as it may be done legally, hold up your hands ; so many as will not, hold up your hands."
And thereupon the decision of the question is thus entered upon the Records : -
"Where, by erection of hands, it appeared, by the general consent of the Com- pany, that the government and patent should be settled in New England, and accordingly an order to be drawn up."
Nearly two months more were still to intervene before this declaration of Independence was to assume a more practical shape. Many incidental arrangements occupied the attention of the Company at their meetings in September and October. On the 20th of this latter month, however (1629), a further step forward was taken, and one which betokened that there were to be no steps backward, - " nulla vestigia retrorsum." On that day, Governor Cradock "acquainted those present that the especial occasion of summoning this Court was for the election of a new Governor, Deputy, and Assistants; the Government being to be transferred into New England, according to the former order and resolution of the Company; " - and soon afterwards, some other business having been previously transacted, the following entry is found in the Records: -
" And now the Court, proceeding to the election of a new Governor, Deputy, and Assistants, - which, upon serious deliberation, hath been and is conceived to be for the especial good and advancement of their affairs ; and having received extraordinary great commendations of Mr. JOHN WINTHROP,1 both for his integrity and sufficiency, as being one every (way) well fitted and accomplished for the place of Governor, - did put in nomination for that place the said Mr. John Winthrop, Sir R. Saltonstall, Mr. Is. Johnson, and Mr. John Humfry : and the said Mr. Winthrop was, with a general vote, and full consent of this Court, by erection of hands, chosen to be Governor for the ensuing year, to begin on this present day ; who was pleased to accept thereof, and thereupon took the oath to that place appertaining."
Mr. John Humfrey was then, in like manner, chosen Deputy-Governor ; and Sir Richard Saltonstall, Mr. Isaac Johnson, Mr. Thomas Dudley, Mr. John Endicott, and fourteen others, were chosen to be Assistants.
John Winthrop, who was thus, on the 20th day of October, 1629, old style, or the 30th, as we should now reckon it, unanimously elected Gov- ernor of the Massachusetts Bay Company, and with whose career and character the fortunes of Massachusetts were to be so closely associated for the next twenty years, was then in the forty-first year of his age. He was born at Edwardston, near Groton, in Suffolk, on the 12th day of
1 The name of Winthrop is spelled three or four different ways in these Records. This very paragraph uses y' in one line, and i in others. And so it is with other names.
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January, 1587, old style, or, as it would now be counted, the 22d of January, 1588. His grandfather, Adam Winthrop, the second of that name on the family pedigree, was a wealthy Clothier of Suffolk, to whom the Manor of Groton had been granted by Henry VIII. in 1544, immediately after the Reformation, of which he and his family were zealous supporters, and he had been Master of the great Cloth Workers' Company in London, in 1551. His third son, Adam, - a lawyer, who had graduated at Mag- dalen College, Cambridge, and had been afterwards connected with that University as Auditor of Trinity and St. John's Colleges, - married, in 1574, Alice Still, a sister of Dr. John Still, then Master of Trinity, and afterwards Bishop of Bath and Wells. She dying, without surviving issue, he married, secondly, Anne, a daughter of Henry Browne of Edwardston. Of this marriage, John, the Governor, was the only son. There is ample evidence, in his life and writings, that he must have enjoyed a good education ; but it has not been ascertained at what schools it was com- menced, or how far it was prosecuted beneath the paternal roof. But we learn from his father's Diary that he was admitted into Trinity Col- lege, Cambridge, on the 8th of December, 1602, and that he remained at the University for two years. An early love-match prevented him from staying to take a Degree. He was married on the 16th of April, 1604, in the first half of his eighteenth year, to Mary Forth, daughter and sole heiress of John Forth, Esq., of Great Stambridge, in the County of Essex.
Of the life of Winthrop for the next ten or twelve years but few details are to be found, and those chiefly of a domestic character. He resided for several years with his wife's family at Great Stambridge. The wife of his youth bore him six children, the eldest of whom, born on the 22d of Feb- ruary, 1606, is known to history as the Governor of Connecticut. Nine years afterwards, in 1615, his wife died, and he was left a widower, in his twenty-eighth year. After an interval of less than a year (according to the customs of that period), he was married again to Thomasine Clopton, daughter of William Clopton, Esq., of Castleins, a seat near Groton. But a year and a day only had elapsed since her marriage, when she and her infant child were committed to the grave. No wonder that, under such successive and severe bereavements, his spirit should have been sorely tried. No wonder that he was oppressed with melancholy, and that he should have been led to conceive and entertain many misgivings as to his religious condition. He gave himself to the study of divinity, and seriously contemplated an abandonment of his profession as a lawyer, with a view to take orders as a clergyman. His "Religious Experiences," as recorded by himself from time to time, during a period of three years, furnish a striking testimony to his Christian faith and character, and have a charm not unlike that which belongs to the devotional writings of Baxter or Bunyan. But his father and friends dissuaded him from any change of his profession ; and we find him, not many years afterwards, discharging
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his duties as a justice of the peace, following the circuits, holding a court as Lord of the Manor of Groton, admitted as a member of the Inner Tem- ple in London, preparing papers for parliamentary committees, and exer- cising the office of an attorney of the Court of Wards and Liveries, of which Sir Robert Naunton was then Master. Meantime he was once more married, in 1618, to Margaret, the daughter of Sir John Tyndal, knight, of Great Maplested, in the Your faithfull and obedient wife Margaret winthrope county of Essex, who was happily destined to be spared to him as an affec- tionate and devoted wife for thirty years. Eleven or twelve of those years were passed in England; and the idea of leaving their native land for a remote and unsettled region in another hemisphere was hardly in the dreams of either of them until the occasion presented itself. Winthrop was not one of the original Massachusetts Company. His name was not with those of Cradock and Saltonstall and Humfry and Isaac Johnson and Endicott in the Massachusetts Charter, signed in behalf of Charles I. on the 4th of March, 1628-29. Nor does he seem to have been associated with them as an adventurer in the joint stock of the Com- pany. But now that a great responsibility was to be incurred and a bold step taken, in transferring the Patent and the whole Government to New England, he appears to have been summoned at once to their counsels, and at the earliest practicable moment to have been invested with their Chief Magistracy.
He said of himself, on a most solemn occasion, a few years after his arrival in New England: " I was first chosen to be Governor, without my seeking or expectation, - there being then divers other gentlemen who, for their abilities every way, were far more fit." Those gentlemen, how- ever, were of a different opinion ; and he was obliged to confess, in his little memorandum of private and personal self-communings, that "it is come to that issuc, as, in all probabilitye, the welfare of the Plantation depends upon my assistance : for the maine pillars of it, beinge gentlemen of high qualitye and eminent parts, bothe for wisdom and Godlinesse, are determined to sit still if I deserte them."
But the considerations which induced Winthrop and the other signers of the Cambridge Agreement to come over to New England were of no mere private or personal character. They had relation to the condition of England at that day, - its social, moral, religious, and political condition. Charles I. was just entering on that course of absolute government which brought him at last to the block. Forced loans and illegal taxes were imposed and extorted. Buckingham had just fallen beneath the stroke of an assassin ; but Strafford stood ready to replace him as the tool of despot- ism. Laud, already Bishop of London, and virtually Primate, was assert- ing the Divine right of Kings for his Master, and assuming the whole power
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of the Church for himself. Puritanism was his pet aversion. Parliament was dissolved, and the King's intention announced of ruling without one. Proclamations, Star Chamber and High Commission Courts, were to be the only instruments of government. The Marshalsea and the Gate-House were crowded with gentlemen who had refused to yield to arbitrary exac- tions. Free Speech was the special subject of proscription; and the brave Sir John Eliot was doomed to linger out his few remaining years and die in the Tower. Winthrop gives a faint impression of all this in a letter to his wife, dated May 15, 1629, as follows : -
" It is a great favour, that we may enjoye so much comfort & peace in these so evill & declining tymes, & when the increasinge of our sinnes gives us so great cause to looke for some heavye scourge & Judgment to be cominge upon us : The Lorde hath admonished, threatened, corrected, & astonished us, yet we growe worse & worse, so as his Spirit will not allwayes strive with us, he must needs give waye to his furye at last : He hath smitten all the other Churches before our eyes, & hath made them to (Irinke of the bitter cuppe of tribulatio, even unto death. We sawe this, & humbled not ourselves, to turne from our evill wayes, but have provoked him more than all the nations rounde about us : therefore he is turninge the Cuppe towards us also, & be- cause we are the last, our portion must be, to drinke the verye dreggs which remaine : My dear wife, I am veryly persuaded, God will bringe some heavye Affliction upon this lande, & that speedylye : but be of good comfort, the hardest that can come shall be a meanes to mortifie this bodye of corruption, which is a thousand tymes more dangerous to us then any outward tribulation, & to bring us into nearer comunion with our Lord Jesus Christ, & more assurance of his kingdome. If the Lord seeth it wilbe good for us, he will provide a shelter & a hidinge place for us & others, as a Zoar for Lott, Sarephtah for his prophet, &c. : if not, yet he will not forsake us : though he correct us with the roddes of men, yet if he take not his mercye & lovinge kind- nesse from us we shalbe safe."
In these words, "If the Lord seeth it will be good for us, he will provide a shelter and a hiding place for us and others," is found the first intimation of what followed. Winthrop was at that moment engaged in preparing a memorable paper, which has sometimes been ascribed to others, and which has been printed in more than one volume, with many variations and abbreviations, but of which the original draught has recently been found among his own manuscripts and in his own handwriting.1 That original draught is indorsed "For N. E. May, 1629." It is sometimes referred to in history as "The Conclusions for New England," and sometimes as "General Considerations for the Plantation of New England." But its true title is, " Reasons to be considered for justifying the undertakers of the intended Plantation in New England, and for encouraging such whose hearts God shall move to join with them in it." The second of the Rea- sons is in terms almost identical with the letter just quoted : -
" 2. All other churches of Europe are brought to desolation, & o' sinnes, for with the Lord beginnes allreaddy to frowne upon us & to cutte us short, doe threatne evill
1 [See Massachusetts Historical Society, Proceedings, July, 1865 .- ED.] VOL. 1. - 14.
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times to be comminge upon us, & whoe knowes, but that God hath provided this place to be a refuge for many whome he meanes to save out of the generall callamity, & see- inge the Church hath noe place lefte to flie into but the wildernesse, what better worke can there be, then to goe & provide tabernacles & foode for her against she comes thether : "
" The Church hath no place left to fly into but the wilderness." This was the idea which had carried the Pilgrims to Plymouth ten years before, and which is now in part urging the Puritans to Massachusetts. But indeed, as we have seen, both Church and State were now in peril. Reli- gious and civil rights alike were trampled under foot at home; and "a shelter and a hiding-place" could only be sought and secured beyond the seas.
Meantime, however, the Puritans of Massachusetts had higher and larger views than merely securing a refuge for themselves. A great country was to be settled and civilized and Christianized. The very first clause of The Conclusions for New England, as prepared by Winthrop in May, 1629, sets forth that "it will be a service to the Church of great consequence to carry the Gospell into those partes of the World, to helpe on the comminge of the fulnesse of the Gentiles; " and a later Consid- cration, in the same Paper, is as follows : -
" 3. It is the revealed will of God that the Gospell should be preached to all nations, & though we know not whether these Barbarians will receive it at first or noe, yet it is a good worke to serve Gods providence in offering it to them (& this is fittest to be doone by Gods owne servants) for God shall have glory by it though they refuse it, & there is good hope that the Posterity shall by this meanes be gathered into Christs sheepefould."
The spreading of the Gospel, and the conversion of the Heathen, were foremost in the contemplation of the New England Fathers.
This Paper of Winthrop's was widely circulated at the time among the great Puritan leaders in England. It found its way to the noble Sir John Eliot, while imprisoned in the Tower, and a copy of it has recently been discovered among his papers at Port Eliot, in Cornwall. He seems to have held correspondence in regard to it with the famous John Hampden, and a letter of Hampden's to Sir John has been printed both in Nugent's Memorials of Hampden, and in Forster's Life of Eliot, requesting that " the Paper of Considerations Concerning the Plantation " might be sent to him, and promising to return it safely after it had been transcribed. Nothing could be more interesting or suggestive than this positive proof that the views of the Massachusetts Company were communicated to those great English Patriots, Eliot and Hampden, and were the subject of their consultation and correspondence. "Both of them," as Forster says, "in that evil day for religion and freedom, had sent their thoughts across the wide Atlantic towards the New World that had risen beyond its waters; and both had been eager in promoting those plans for emigra-
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tion which in the few succeeding years exerted so momentous an influence over the destiny of mankind. It was in this very year" (1629), he con- tinues, "that the Company of Massachusetts Bay was formed; and though the immediate design had scarcely at first extended beyond the provision of a refuge abroad for the victims of tyranny in Church and State at home, it soon became manifest that there had entered also into it a larger and grander scheme, that, with more security for liberty of person and freedom to worship God, had mingled the hope of planting in those distant regions a free Commonwealth and citizenship to balance and redress the old; and that thus early such hopes had been interchanged respecting it between such men as Eliot and Hampden, Lord Brooke, Lord Warwick, and Lord Say and Sele." !
Four or five months were now occupied in busy preparations for the great Emigration. Eleven or twelve ships were to be employed in carry- ing the Governor and Company across the Atlantic. Four of them were ready to sail together from Southampton on the 22d of March, and on that day Governor Winthrop and the Company embarked for New England, taking the Charter of Massachusetts with them. In the principal ship, with Winthrop, were Sir Richard Saltonstall; Isaac Johnson with his wife, the Lady Arbella, a daughter of the Earl of Lincoln; George Phillips, the Minister; Thomas Dudley, the Deputy Governor; William Coddington, afterwards Governor of Rhode Island; and Simon Bradstreet, who was to survive them all, and to be known as " the Nestor of New England." Two of the Governor's young children were with him, but his wife was obliged to postpone her departure for another year. John Wilson, the first Minister of Boston, seems to have been in one of the other vessels, which had the names of the " Talbot," the " Ambrose," and the " Jewel." The ship which bore Winthrop and the Charter had long been known as the "Eagle," but was now called the " Arbella," in compliment to the Earl's daughter who was one of her passengers. Detained by unfavorable winds at Cowes, and again off Yarmouth, the voyage was not fairly commenced until the Sth of April.
In the mean time, the delay had given opportunity for those of the Company on board the " Arbella" to address to those from whom they were parting their admirable Farewell Letter, entitled: "The Humble Request of his Majesty's Loyall Subjects, the Governor and the Company late gone for New England ; to the rest of their brethren in and of the Church of England; for the obtaining of their Prayers, and the removal of suspicions, and misconstruction of their Intentions."
This Letter belongs to the History of Massachusetts. Nothing more tender or more noble can be found in the annals of New England or of Old England. It furnishes the key-note of the whole enterprise, and illus- trates the spirit and character of those engaged in it. Not a word of it can be spared from any just account of the Puritan leaders of 1630. It is as follows : -
1 Forster, Life of Sir John Eliot, ii. P. 531.
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" REVEREND FATHERS AND BRETHREN, - The general rumor of this solemn enter- prise, wherein ourselves with others, through the providence of the Almighty, are engaged; as it may spare us the labor of imparting our occasion unto you, so it gives us the more encouragement to strengthen ourselves by the procurement of the prayers and blessings of the Lord's faithful servants. For which end we are bokdl to have recourse unto you, as those whom God hath placed nearest his throne of mercy ; which as it affords you the more opportunity, so it imposeth the greater bond upon you to intercede for his people in all their straits. We beseech you, therefore, by the mercies of the Lord Jesus, to consider us as your brethren, standing in very great need of your help, and earnestly imploring it. And howsoever your charity may have met with some occasion of discouragement through the misreport of our inten- tions, or through the disaffection or indiscretion of some of us, or rather amongst us ->(for we are not of those that dream of perfection in this world), yet we desire you would be pleased to take notice of the principals and body of our Company, as those who esteem it our honor to call the Church of England, from whence we rise, our dear mother ; and cannot part from our native Country, where she specially resideth, without much sadness of heart and many tears in our eyes, ever acknowledging that such hope and part as we have obtained in the common salvation we have received in her bosom, and sucked it from her breasts.
" We leave it not, therefore, as loathing that milk wherewith we were nourished there ; but, blessing God for the parentage and education, as members of the same body, shall always rejoice in her good, and unfeignedly grieve for any sorrow that shall ever betide her, and while we have breath, sincerely desire and endeavor the continuance and abundance of her welfare, with the enlargement of her bounds in the Kingdom of Christ Jesus.
"Be pleased, therefore, reverend fathers and brethren, to help forward this work now in hand ; which if it prosper, you shall be the more glorious, howsoever your judgment is with the Lord, and your reward with your God. It is a usual and landable exercise of your charity, to commend to the prayers of your congregations the necessities and straits of your private neighbors : do the like for a Church spring- ing out of your own bowels. We conceive much hope that this remembrance of us, if it be frequent and fervent, will be a most prosperous gale in our sails, and provide such a passage and welcome for us from the God of the whole earth, as both we which shall find it, and yourselves, with the rest of our friends, who shall hear of it, shall be much enlarged to bring in such daily returns of thanksgivings, as the specialties of his providence and goodness may justly challenge at all our hands. You are not ignorant that the spirit of God stirred up the Apostle Paul to make continual mention of the Church of Philippi, which was a Colony from Rome ; let the same spirit, we beseech you, put you in mind, that are the Lord's remembrancers, to pray for us without ceasing, who are a weak colony from yourselves, making con- tinual request for us to God in all your prayers.
"What we entreat of you that are the ministers of God, that we also crave at the hands of all the rest of our brethren, that they would at no time forget us in their private solicitations at the throne of grace.
" If any there be who, through want of clear intelligence of our course, or tenderness of affection towards us, cannot conceive so well of our way as we could desire, we would entreat such not to despise us, nor to desert us in their prayers and affections, but to consider rather that they are so much the more bound to express the bowels of their
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compassion towards us, remembering always that both nature and grace doth ever bind us to relieve and rescue, with our utmost and speediest power, such as are dear unto us, when we conceive them to be running uncomfortable hazards.
" What goodness you shall extend to us in this or any other Christian kindness, we, your brethren in Christ Jesus, shall labor to repay in what duty we are or shall be able to perform, promising, so far as God shall enable us, to give him no rest on your behalfs, wishing our heads and hearts may be as fountains of tears for your everlasting welfare when we shall be in our poor cottages in the wilderness, overshadowed with the spirit of supplication, through the manifold necessities and tribulations which may not altogether unexpectedly, nor, we hope, unprofitably, befall us. And so com- mending you to the grace of God in Christ, we shall ever rest
Your assured friends and brethren,
" JOHN WINTHROP, Gov. CHARLES FINES, 1
RICHARD SALTONSTALL, ISAAC JOHNSON, THOMAS DUDLEY,
GEORGE PHILLIPPS,
WILLIAM CODDINGTON,
&c. &c.
" From YARMOUTH, aboard the ARBELLA, April 7, 1630."
While they were still at " the Cowes," Governor Winthrop had written the first pages of a Diary or Journal, which, having been continued until within a few weeks of his death, has supplied the main materials of early Massachusetts History. He seems to have appreciated the full magnitude of the work on which he had entered; to have realized that he was going out to lay the foundation of a great Commonwealth; and to have felt that no incident connected with such an enterprise could be too trifling to be recorded. He looked forward to some day of leisure for revising what he had written, and making it more worthy of himself and of his subjeet. But no such leisure time was ever vouchsafed to him, and his daily record of events as they occurred, providentially preserved, and now known as Winthrop's History of New England, furnishes almost all which is known of the first nineteen years of Massachusetts.
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