USA > Maine > The beginnings of colonial Maine, 1602-1658 > Part 14
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The conspirators did not remain long at Saco, but made their way to Monhegan, where they spent the long, cold winter "with bad lodging and worse fare". One of their number died on the island, and the rest returned to England in a vessel sent to make a fishing voyage and "for Rocroft's supply and provision".
But meanwhile Captain John Mason,3 then at Newfoundland, had advised Dermer to go to England and consult with Gorges and others before returning to the Maine coast. This he did, taking with him Tisquantum; and because of this change in his plans he was not "at the usual place of fishing", namely Monhe-
1 Sir Ferdinando Gorges and his Province of Maine, II, 27.
2 A Brief Relation of the Discovery and Plantation of New England by the President and Council for New England, 1622. Baxter, Sir Ferdinando Gorges and his Province of Maine, I, 212-215.
8 Afterward prominently associated with Gorges in colonial enterprises. When (Nov. 7, 1629) they divided their Province of Maine, Mason received that part of the grant lying between the Merrimac and Piscataqua rivers, which then received the name New Hampshire. Captain Mason died in Lon- don in 1635.
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gan, when Rocroft arrived. But when, in the spring of 1619, he reached the island in one of the Plymouth company's fishing ves- sels, he learned from the conspirators, who were still there, that Rocroft had gone to Virginia. Until he heard at length of the misfortunes that befel Rocroft there, he was hopeful of his return. Then he took the pinnace assigned the year before to Rocroft for Dermer's use, and with Tisquantum as a guide, he explored the coast as far as Cape Cod, returning June 23, to Monhegan, where on a vessel about to sail for Virginia, he placed a part of his pro- visions and other stores, and then, in the pinnace, he proceeded to follow the coast as far as Chesapeake bay. In a letter to Samuel Purchas,1 Dermer gave an interesting account of his adventures by the way. At Cape Cod, he left Tisquantum, who desired now to return to his own people. On the southern part of Cape Cod he was taken prisoner by Indians, but fortunately succeeded in making his escape. At Martha's Vineyard, he met Epenow, the Indian who accompanied Hobson to the American coast in 1614. "With him", says Dermer, "I had such confer- ence" that he "gave me very good satisfaction in everything almost I could demand". Continuing his journey he passed through Long Island sound2 "to the most westerly part where the coast begins to fall away southerly", and thence, through New York bay,& down the coast to Virginia. Here, as was the case with most of his men, Dermer was "brought even unto death's door" by a burning fever, but recovered. In the spring of 1620, he returned to Monhegan, and having spent the summer in exploration on the coast, he again started for Virginia. At Martha's Vineyard he tarried to visit Epenow; but this time,
1 Purchas his Pilgrimes, IV, 1178, 1179.
2 "Discovering land about thirty leagues in length heretofore taken for main"-the first record of a passage through the Sound.
8 "In this place I talked with many savages, who told me of two sundry passages to the great sea on the west, offered me pilots, and one of them drew me a plot with chalk upon a chest, whereby I found it a great island, parted the two seas ; they report the one scarce passable for shoals, perilous currents, the other no question to be made of." Dermer seems to have had in mind a possible route to China as he records this interview.
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with the Indian it was war, not peace; and in the sudden, unex- pected conflict that followed his landing, all of Dermer's men except one were slain; and Dermer himself was so severely wounded in the desperate encounter, that although he managed to escape and reached Virginia, he died soon after his arrival. His death was a great loss to the northern colony. He possessed the confidence of Gorges and those associated with him in the affairs of the Plymouth company. The president and council for New England in their reference to his services and death make men- tion of him as "giving us good content in all he undertook".1
From what is known of Dermer, Gorges and his associates at Plymouth were fully justified in their expectations concerning him. Such was his ability for the successful administration of important affairs, and such promise did he give of steadfastness of purpose and energy in overcoming difficulties, at the same time possessing considerable experience in matters pertaining to his country's interest upon the American coast, that hopes concern- ing English colonial opportunities had been happily reawakened. By the tidings of Dermer's death, however, these hopes again received an unexpected blow.
By this time the fishing interests that centered at Monhegau were becoming quite prosperous. All of the prominent voyagers to the coast of Maine, from Gosnold's exploration in 1602, had emphasized the very great value of the coast fisheries. The waters around the island kingdom, and even those of the North Sea to which English fishermen were wont to repair, offered no such opportunity for successful fishing as the waters abont Mon- hegan. Plymouth and Bristol were ports from which vessels had long made their way "to exercise the trade of fishing". Indeed it was because of her fisheries that England possessed the hardy
1 July 10, 1621, there was read before the Virginia company in London a relation of "Mr. Dermer's discoveries from Cape Charles to Cape Cod, up Delaware river and Hudson's river, being but twenty or thirty leagues from our plantation, and within our limits, within which rivers were found divers ships of Amsterdam and Horn", etc. Brown, Genesis of the United States, II, 877.
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and daring seamen, who won her great victory over Spain in the defeat of the Armada. Down to the time of Elizabeth, the for- eign trade of England is said to have been largely in the hands of German merchants. But the fishing fleets of the kingdom were so many schools for training experienced seamen. Plymouth was the birth place of great sailors and furnished men for great enter- prises.1 It was a native of Plymouth, Martin Frobisher, who sailed from that port in 1576 to explore the coast of Labrador. It was from Plymouth that Sir Francis Drake in 1577 sailed on his celebrated voyage around the world. It was from Plymouth that Sir Humphrey Gilbert in 1584 made his way to Newfoundland to take possession of the island and safeguard national interests in the name of the queen. It was from Plymouth, also, that Sir Walter Ralegh obtained sailors for the vessels he secured in his effort to plant an English colony on the American coast. Bristol, likewise, early had its large fishing interests and became a port for the supply of hardy fishermen. When Edward III invaded France in 1337, Bristol contributed twenty-four ships and six hundred and eight men, while larger London contributed twenty- five ships and six hundred and sixty-two men. It was from Bris- tol that John Cabot sailed on the voyage of discovery that fur- nished the basis for the English claim to the possession of so large a part of North America. When Captain Martin Pring, a native of Bristol, sailed in 1603 for the New England coast, he was sent thither by Master John Whitson, Master Robert Aldworth, and other of the chiefest merchants of Bristol. Notwithstanding dis- couragements with reference to colonization, therefore, the mer- chants of Bristol and Plymouth in 1620 had at Monhegan, and
1 Plymouth Municipal Records, R. N. Worth, F. G. S., p. 203. "Small however as the English ships were, they were in perfect trim ; they sailed two feet for the Spaniards one ; they were manned with 9000 hardy seamen, and their admiral was backed by a crowd of captains who had won fame in the Spanish seas. With him was Hawkins, who had been the first to break into the charmed circle of the Indies, Frobisher, the hero of the northwest passage ; and above all Drake, who held command of the privateers." Green, Short History of the English People, p. 419.
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the waters near it, vessels successfully employed in fishing and in building up profitable trade relations with the Indians on the main land.
But up to this time since the return of the Popham colonists in 1608, nothing is heard concerning permanent settlements on the Maine coast.1 Even of winter occupants, we have no information whatever, except what has come down to us concerning Vines' company at the mouth of the Saco in 1616 and 1617 and the Rocroft conspirators at Monhegan in 1618 and 1619. Captain John Smith, who, as already stated, carefully examined the coast in the summer of 1614, says: "When I went first to the north part of Virginia where the western colony had been planted, it had dissolved itself within a year, and there was not one Christian in all the land". 2 In his General Historie, although he refers to the various efforts he and others had made in the hope of estab- lishing a colony on the New England coast, the record for the most part is a record of failures. Books, pamphlets, maps, he freely distributed among his countrymen as he went hither and thither, spending nearly a year in these busy endeavors to estab- lish plantations in so goodly a land as he described ; but it was of no avail. One might as well, "try to hew rocks with oyster shells", he said, as to induce merchants and others to furnish funds for colonization undertakings. 3
1 "It is well known that this [Pemaquid] was a gathering place for voy- agers, fishermen and temporary sojourners from the later part of the six- teenth century." Report of the Commissioners in charge of the Remains of the Ancient Fortifications at Pemaquid, Dec. 13, 1902. There is no foundation whatever for this statement. The earliest mention of Pemaquid by any voyager is in connection with Waymouth's voyage of 1605. As to fishermen and fishing vessels at Pemaquid, neither de Monts nor Waymouth, who were on the coast in the summer of 1605 report any. In the Relation of the colonists, 1607-8, there is no mention of either men or vessels at Pema- quid. They visited the Indians there, but found no "voyagers, fishermen and temporary sojourners". In fact, it was late in the first quarter of the seventeenth century before any such gathering at Pemaquid could have been reported.
2 True Travels, Adventures and Observations, Arber's reprint, 1884, 89.
8 Richmond, Va., Ed. 1819, II, 220.
CHAPTER IX. THE FIGHT FOR FREE FISHING.
B UT while Gorges and those associated with him in the admin- istration of the affairs of the northern colony had failed in all of their efforts to plant permanent settlements on the coast of Maine, the southern colony in Virginia, notwithstanding many difficulties, had succeeded in obtaining there a firm foot- hold. But the Virginia colonists lacked the fishing privileges that attracted their own vessels, as well as vessels from England, to the waters in the vicinity of Monhegan; and they desired to extend their boundaries farther north so as to bring the fisheries of the northern colony within their own limits. Accordingly, after the breaking up of the Popham colony, the council of Vir- ginia wrote to the mayor and aldermen of Plymouth1 inviting them, inasmuch as on account of "the coldness of the climate and other connatural necessities" their "good beginnings" had not "so well succeeded as so worthy intentions and labors did merit", to unite with them in their efforts farther down the coast, where the conditions, as they viewed them, were more favorable. But the members of the Plymouth company, although greatly disap- pointed and discouraged by the return of the Popham colonists to England, were not ready to abandon their interests. Long con- tinued ill success, however, had had a depressing effect upon all of them, and Captain John Smith, in recording his experiences in connection with the Plymouth company, had some reason for his assertion that the charter of the company was virtually dead.2
Nevertheless, it was not dead ; but there was need of the influ- ence of new forces, and a revival of colonial interests in the west-
1 Calendar of the Plymouth Municipal Records, R. N. Worth, F. G. S., 203.
2 General Historie, Richmond, Va., Ed. II, 177.
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ern countries of England, if anything was to be accomplished in connection with the charter. Some important lessons had been learned from the London or South Virginia company, which twice (in 1609 and 1612) had secured an enlargement of its privileges, and was now enjoying considerable prosperity. Accordingly, an application for a like enlargement was made by the Plymouth company March 3, 1619. After mention of the "great charge and extreme hazard" that had attended the efforts of the company in its "continued endeavor to discover a place fit to entertain such a design, as also to find the means to bring to pass so noble a work", the company asked for like privileges as the Virginia company.1 In response to this request a warrant was obtained for a patent giving to the adventurers of the northern colony "like liberties, privileges, powers, authorities, lands as were heretofore granted to the company of Virginia", with an excep- tion as to freedom of customs.2
Notwithstanding opposition on the part of the Virginia com- pany, a patent, known as the "Great Patent of New England", was issued by James I, November 3, 1620, to the "Council estab- lished at Plymouth in the County of Devon, for the planting, rul- ing, ordering and governing of New England in America".3
Gorges, who had been prominent in the affairs of the Plymouth company, as long as it had any affairs, was no less prominent in this new movement, cherishing the hope that he might yet secure the ends at which he had aimed with so much labor and loss. Evidently he had given to many men of influence within his circle of friends sound reasons for securing an enlargement of privileges by a re-incorporation of the Plymouth company; but now, he says, "I was bold to offer the sounder considerations to divers of his majesty's honorable privy council, who had so good liking thereunto, as they willingly became interested themselves therein
1 Farnham Papers, I, 15-18.
2 Ib., 18, 19.
3 Ib., 20-45. 10
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as patentees and counselors for the managing of the business, by whose favors I had the easier passage in the obtaining his majesty's royal charter to be granted us according to his warrant to the then solicitor-general."1 This proposed re-incorporation of the Plymouth company, whose territorial limits were from the thirty-eighth degree north latitude to the forty-fifth, changed those limits so that they included the territory from the fortieth degree to the forty-eighth, and from the Atlantic westward to the Pacific. Its affairs were entrusted to forty-eight patentees, thir- teen of whom were peers of the realm, and all men of distinction. They were to have not only the planting, ruling and governing of this vast territory, but they were also "to have and to hold, possess and enjoy" the firm lands, soils, grounds, havens, ports, rivers, waters, fishings, mines and minerals, as well royal mines of gold and silver, or other mine and minerals, precious stones, quarries and all, and singular other commodities, jurisdictions, royalties, privileges, franchises and pre-eminencies, both within the same tract of land upon the main, and also within the said islands and seas adjoining.2 No other of the king's subjects could enter and visit any of the ports of New England in America, or trade or traffic therein, without a license from the council for New England on penalty of the forfeiture of both ships and goods.
To a certain extent monopolies had flourished during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. In fact, toward the close of her reign, they flourished to such an extent that, as Macaulay& says, "There was scarce a family in the realm which did not feel itself aggrieved by the oppression and extortion which this abuse naturally caused. Iron, oil, vinegar, coal, saltpetre, lead, starch, yarn, skins, leather, glass, could be bought only at exhorbitant prices". This condi- tion of affairs aroused strong opposition and in the Parliament of 1601, the first great battle with monopoly was successfully fought
1 Gorges, Briefe Narration. Sir Ferdinando Gorges and his Province of Maine, II, 30, 31.
2 Farnham Papers, I, 33.
8 History of England, I, 49.
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in the House of Commons, the queen, with admirable tact, plac- ing herself at the head of the party redressing the grievance, and leaving to her successor, says Macaulay, "a memorable example of the way to deal with public movements".
But James, a stout asserter of royal prerogatives, did not fol- low Elizabeth's wise, tactful example. Gorges, who was a most devoted royalist, had the king's ear, as well as the ears of those nearest to the throne; and in the patent of 1620, a gigantic mon- opoly was created. In the patent of 1606, the privilege of "fish- ings" was conferred upon the patentees; but this may have meant "fishings" in rivers and ponds only, and not in the seas adjoining the main. In the patent of 1620, however, the words "seas adjoining"1 are used in connection with the privileges granted, and "sea waters" in connection with "fishings".
The southern, or Virginia company, was the first to protest against such a denial of the rights of free fishing on the seas. Early information concerning the privileges for which Gorges and his associates asked seems to have reached the members of the Virginia company; and the treasurer of the company, Sir Edwin Sandys, at a meeting held on March 15th, only a few days after Gorges and his associates made their request for a new charter, called the attention of the members of the company to the pur- poses of the northern company ; and a committee was appointed to appear before the privy council on the following day, and pro- test against this attempt to overthrow the right of free fishing on the New England coast.2
At the interview, Gorges was present. As a result of the con- ference, the matter at issue was referred to two members of the council, the duke of Lennox and the earl of Arundell, both of whom were interested in the re-incorporation of the Plymouth company. In their report they suggested and recommended a modification of the charter, so that each company should have the right to fish within the limits of the other, with the provision that
1 Farnham Papers, I, 33.
2 Narrative and Critical History of the United States, III, 297.
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such fishing should be "for the sustentation of the people of the colonies there". This was not acceptable to either company, and when, July 21, 1620, the matter again came before the privy council, its members confirmed the recommendation of March 16; and July 23, 1620, the warrant for the preparation of a patent for the northern company was granted by the king, and the issue of the great patent of New England followed, November 3, 1620.
But the South Virginia company was not the only party affected by the monopoly thus created. Far heavier was the blow that now fell on the merchants of Plymouth, Bristol and other western ports of England, whose vessels in increasing numbers now made their way annually to Monhegan and Damariscove. As from the ancient harbor of Plymouth, known as Sutton's Pool1-whence the Mayflower colony sailed in 16202-fishing vessels at the pres-
1 Plymouth is on the south side of the river Plym, and was called by the Saxons Tameorworth, afterwards Sutton or South-Town, and was divided into Sutton Prior and Sutton Ralph. As far back as 1383, it had occasion- ally received the name of Plymouth and in a petition to Parliament in 1411, it is called Sutton. In the reign of Henry II it was little more than a small fishing village; but in 1253 it had grown into such importance that a market was established there. In 1377, only three towns in England had a larger population, viz., London, York and Bristol. Historical, Practical and Theoretical Account of the Breakwater in Plymouth Sound, by Sir John Rennie, F. R. S., 5.
2 There is no spot in Plymouth, England, of so great interest to a native of New England, as the pier whence the Mayflower sailed on her mem- orable voyage. For many years before 1620, hardy Plymouth fishermen had passed this entrance to Sutton's Pool, as they left Plymouth on their way to Monhegan and the waters of the Maine coast. In the pavement in the middle of the pier is this record :
Mayflower, 1620
In the wall on the seaward side of the pier a bronze tablet bears this inscription :-
"On the 6th of September, 1620, in the mayoralty of Thomas Townes, after being kindly entertained and courteously used by divers friends there dwelling, the Pilgrim Fathers sailed from Plymouth in the Mayflower, in the Providence of God, to settle in New England and to lay the foundation of the New England States. The ancient causeway whence they embarked
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SUTTON'S POOL AND OLD PORT OF PLYMOUTH. In the foreground, pier from which the Mayflower sailed.
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ent time sail out of its narrow entrance on their way to their accustomed fishing grounds, so was it then. So also was it with fishing vessels then, as now, at Bristol, whence John Cabot sailed on his voyage of discovery in 1497. For nearly a score of years at least the great value of the fisheries on the coast of Maine had been sufficiently attested to the people of England by both explor- ers and fishermen, and the little harbor at Monhegan, and that at Damariscove, as well as the waters about these islands, presented busy scenes as vessels from English ports came hither with each opening spring. Not only, therefore, did this assault upon free fishing call forth the protest of the Virginia colonists, but it aroused a feeling of intense indignation on the part of the mer- chants and fishermen connected with the fishing interests of the western counties of England; and with united voices they insisted, "Fishing is free!" The state of feeling in Plymouth and vicinity found strong expression in the following letter 1 addressed to Cranfield, the lord treasurer, February 12, 1621 :
It pleased your honor upon the motion of Sir Warwick Hele, to signify your pleasure that our ships bound on their fishing voyages for the northern parts of Virginia should not be stayed, or interrupted in their proceedings as was by some intended, for which your humble favor the inhabi- tants of this town, and others in these western parts do acknowledge themselves much bound to your lordship; yet seeing some threats have been given out by Sir Ferdi- nando Gorges, either to disturb the poor men in their pres- ent voyages, or to procure their trouble in their return, and being that it is suspected he is now in pursuit of such his intention ; we, being assured that no such thing can be
was destroyed not many years afterwards ; but the site of their embarkation is marked by the stone bearing the name of the Mayflower in the pavement of the adjacent pier. This tablet was erected in the mayoralty of J. T. Bond, 1891, to commemorate their departure and the visit to Plymouth in July of that year of a number of their descendants and representatives."
1 Public Records Office, London, I. S. P. Dom. James I, V, 127, 92.
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effected, but your honor must have notice thereof, both in respect your lordship is a patentee in that patent for New England, as also in regard of your other honorable places, we humbly beseech your lordship that you would be pleased to give order that nothing be done against us in this business till we have been heard both for the interest we have in regard of your former adventures and employ- ments that way, and the general estate of these western parts of the realm, having little or no other means left them for employment of their people and shipping. Humbly submitting the consideration hereof to your honor's grave wisdom do in all duty remain,
Your honor's to be commanded,
JOHN BOWND, Mayor.
Robert Rawlin, Thomas Sherwill, James Bagg, Nicholas Sherwill, Leonard Pomery, Thomas Townes, John Scob- bett.
Plymouth, this 12th of February, 1621.
The feeling was intense not only in Plymouth, but in Bristol and other seaport towns. The monopoly thus created meant to each English fishing vessel on the New England coast a charge of about eighty-three cents a ton, which, considering the probable average size of the fishing vessels of the period, was a demand of more than a hundred dollars for each vessel.1 Moreover, the right to take wood for the erection of stages and other uses was denied, a matter of importance to all fishing vessels making their way hither. In response to this popular uprising against Gorges and his associates, the House of Commons, more responsive to popular feeling than ever before, became the field on which was to be fought the battle in behalf of the immemorial right of every Englishman to free fishing upon the seas.
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