USA > Maine > The beginnings of colonial Maine, 1602-1658 > Part 35
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To this protest the general court of Massachusetts, October 23, 1657, replied by a "declaration and protestation",1 reaffirming its "right and claim to those parts", but asserting its purpose to "sur- cease any further prosecution", at the same time insisting that "if any mischief or inconvenience" should result "by means of their own differences, or for want of a settled government all the blame and danger must and ought to be imputed" to the inhabitants themselves. Here, also, it was made to appear that Josselyn, Jordan and Cleeve, in their attitude toward Massa- chusetts, did not represent the people among whom they lived ; and in response to added complaints of unsettled conditions, com- missioners, appointed by the general court, were directed to repair to Black Point, Richmond's island and Casco to receive the sub- mission of the inhabitants. In attending to this duty, the com- missioners held a court, July 13, 1658, at the house of Robert Jordan, at Spurwink. Hither came a majority of the residents in the places mentioned. As at Kittery, York, Wells, Saco and Cape Porpoise, there was "serious debate", but final unanimity, "the inhabitants of Black Point, Blue Point, Spurwink and Casco bay, with all the islands thereunto belonging", acknowledging themselves to be subject to the government of Massachusetts bay. Twenty-nine persons signed the form of submission. Among them appear such familiar names as George Cleeve, Robert Jordan and
1 Baxter, George Cleeve, Collateral Documents, 299.
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THE BEGINNINGS OF COLONIAL MAINE.
Michael Mitton.1 In the articles of agreement it was announced that the places formerly known as Black Point, Blue Point and Stratton's islands would be called Scarborough henceforth. Those places, hitherto known as Spurwink and Casco bay from east side of Spurwink river to the Clapboard islands in Casco bay, and run- ning back into the country eight miles, would be called hence- forth Falmouth. Henry Josselyn, Robert Jordan, George Cleeve, Henry Watts and Francis Neale were appointed commissioners for the year ensuing and were invested with full power, or any three of them, for the trial of all causes without jury, within the limits of Scarborough and Falmouth; while Henry Josselyn, Robert Jordan, Nicholas Shapleigh, Edward Rishworth and Abraham Preble were invested with magisterial power throughout the county of York.2
The purpose of Massachusetts, at least the initial purpose, in her invasion of Maine territory, was now accomplished. It was not without watchfulness and skilful management, however, that under changed political conditions in England she succeeded in retaining her hold upon the territory thus secured. The stars in their courses seem to fight on her side, and she was able at length to extend her jurisdiction into the larger territory still farther to the eastward. The story of those added endeavors is one of very deep interest, but it belongs to a period outside of that to which the present volume is restricted.
1 Baxter, George Cleeve, Collateral Documents, 301-303.
2 Ib., 303-306.
CHAPTER XXIII.
REVIEW OF THE PERIOD.
I N its beginnings colonial Maine seemed to possess advantages that promised much for its development and prosperity. It had prominent and powerful promoters, and they lost no time in obtaining a foothold here. The date of the arrival of the Popham colonists at the mouth of the Kennebec is only a little later than that of the colonists who made their settlement at Jamestown, Virginia. But the Popham colony was a failure. None of the colonists remained in the country when Gilbert and the ships returned homeward. English fishermen and traders continued to make their way to the coast of Maine, but of settlers little is heard for many years. As late as 1620, and for some time afterward, Maine had no settlement that equalled in the number of its inhabitants that of the Pilgrim colony at Plymouth. Indeed, after the landing of the Puritans at Salem and Boston, colonial Maine had no rivals to the larger and more prosperous communi- ties within the limits of the Bay colony. This was also true at the time when Massachusetts extended her jurisdiction over the Maine settlements.
It may properly be asked, therefore, why during the period covered by these pages, were Maine settlements weak, lacking elements of growth and stability, as compared with settlements in other parts of New England territory ?
Certainly it was not because of racial differences in the colonists. All the settlers in New England in the first half of the seventeenth century had a common ancestry. They spoke the same language, and their political opinions were developed under the same condi- tions. But they were not all on the same side in the great move- ment toward democracy that was in progress in the period now
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THE BEGINNINGS OF COLONIAL MAINE.
under review. A recent English historian1 tells us that "the sovereignty of the people" and "the equality of man with man in the scales of justice" were first ushered into the world of English politics by the trial of Charles I, that resulted in his execution. As to the final act in the conflict between the king and the House of Commons this is true. Charles had no use for political princi- ples that found expression in such notions as "the sovereignty of the people" and "the equality of man with man in the scales of justice". His own views concerning king and people he stated frankly, even bluntly, on the scaffold. "For the people", he said, "truly I desire their liberty and freedom as much as any body whatsoever ; but I must tell you, their liberty and freedom consists in having government, those laws by which their lives and their goods may be most their own. It is not their having a share in the government ; that is nothing appertaining to them. A subject and a sovereign are clear different things".2
To Charles these were old truths, needing, as he thought, reaffirmation. For them he was ready to die. It has well been said that "nothing in Charles' life became him like the manner in which he left it".3 In that solemn hour he certainly exhibited calm dignity and bravery. But in these last words the king cor- rectly represented his attitude towards the people over whom he had reigned so arbitrarily as to make his trial necessary.4
Over against these old-world ideas that at length wrought the ruin of the Stuarts stood those of the new democracy, which for a score and more of years had found voices in the House of Com- mons declaring the sovereignty of the people and the supremacy of Parliament.5 . It was a new democracy. It had its beginnings
1 George Macaulay Trevelyan, England under the Stuarts, 281.
2 Ib., 289.
8 S. R. Gardiner, Puritan Revolution, 160.
4 "England must be brought under a settled government; and a settled gov- ernment, with Charles to stir up discord against every element in the state in turn, was a sheer impossibility." Ib., 158.
5 Some voices were heard in the House of Lords, but in the progress of the movement for democracy, the influence of the Lords rapidly declined.
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REVIEW OF THE PERIOD.
farther back than the trial of Charles, however, and in the interest of religious rather than civil liberty. Happily in places on the continent of Europe conditions were better at that time than in England. For example, when the Pilgrims, in the latter part of the sixteenth century, left the land of their birth and crossed over into Holland, it was because there "they heard was freedom of religion for all men".1 But in English towns and villages the word "freedom" was already stirring the thoughts of men and becoming forceful to such a degree as to call for action and sacri- fice. But before their departure for Holland, the need of civil freedom must have been strongly impressed upon the Pilgrims on account of the cruel, it might indeed be called brutal treatment they received from the civil authorities in their experiences in getting out of England.2 During their residence in Holland, however, their civil and religious ideals were enlarged ; and at length, looking for a new home in which their ideals might have such fulfilment as they desired, the Pilgrims crossed the sea and made the first permanent settlement in New England. To what extent their ideals had been enlarged during those years of exile on the continent appears in the opening words of their General Laws and Liberties, to which they gave these fitting words of introduction :
At the time of the opening of the Long Parliament (November 3, 1640), it is estimated that one-half of the peers supported the king, while about thirty remained at Westminster and continued to act with the majority of the House of Commons. But just before the execution of Charles (January 29, 1649), the House of Commons voted, "That the House of Peers is useless and ought to be abolished." It was abolished. "Not only was the abolition of the Upper House the necessary preliminary to all reforms, it was justifiable by nature and reason." The House of Lords During the Civil War, by Charles Hard- ing Firth, Regius Professor of Modern History in the University of Oxford, 213, 216.
1 Bradford, Journal, 15.
2 These experiences are quite fully related by Bradford in the early part of his Journal.
25
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THE BEGINNINGS OF COLONIAL MAINE.
"We, the associates of the colony of New Plymouth, coming hither as free-born subjects of the kingdom of England, endowed with all and singular the privileges belonging to such, being assembled, do enact, ordain and constitute, that no act, imposition, law or ordinance, be made or imposed upon us at present or to come, but such as shall be made or imposed by consent of the body of free- men or associates, or their representatives legally assem- bled, which is according to the free liberties of the freeborn people of England".1
The causes of irritation that drove the Pilgrims out of England in the closing years of Elizabeth's reign were also forceful during the reign of her successor. Many of the most influential and con- scientious of the conformist Puritans in the English church felt compelled to leave it. "About the year 1620, the storm began to brew. Strong Protestants of all sections were drawn together by a vague sense of approaching peril, which thenceforward inspired every word and action of the House of Commons. So
James I, when he died [March 27, 1625], left Protestants angry and suspicious, and bold in the consciousness of representing pub- lic opinion."2 Conditions under Charles, however, were not bet- ter than under James, but worse. In the opening years of his reign it was only too evident that he would run a more irritating course than his father.
Accordingly, there was still unrest in English hearts and homes, and when at length this was aggravated by an outbreak of reli- gious tyranny that became increasingly intolerable, the Puritans followed the Pilgrims hither,3 with the purpose, as John Winthrop
1 From a copy of these Laws and Liberties, printed at Cambridge in 1672, and now in the Maine Historical Society library.
2 Trevelyan, England under the Stuarts, 149, 150.
8 "The men who formed the strength of the anti-monarchical and the Puritan part of the community were always contemplating emigration. England sent enough of these elements to found a new world ; but if the war had gone differently, she would have sent out enough to ruin herself. The most advantageous merchants, the most skilled artisans, the lords and
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REVIEW OF THE PERIOD.
said on the voyage over, "to seek out a place of cohabitation and consortship under a due form of government, both civil and eccle- siastical".1 By "due form of government" Winthrop did not mean a form characterized by such a measure of civil and religious liberty as the descendants of Winthrop and his fellow voyagers now enjoy. The full vision of that better day had not broken upon them. But they soon framed a form of government here, which, with all its shortcomings as we now see them, afforded a freedom from political and ecclesiastical constraint greatly in advance of what they had known hitherto, and which in time, under the protection of just laws, would develop the principles of true freedom, civil and religious, to an extent not before attained in the history of civilization, and in the enjoyment of which, even in the beginnings of the Bay colony, they greatly prospered.
In this, indirectly, the Puritans of Massachusetts were greatly aided by the course of events in England. Not all came hither who were in agreement with them in their democratic aspirations. Indeed there were many who still hoped that in some way Charles would be made to see how destructive to his own interests, as well as to those of the country, was the course he had taken, and that at length he would recognize the necessity of retracing his steps. But the hope had no fulfilment, and more and more the conviction was strengthened that "a king who had ruled so badly in the past was incapable of ruling at all in the future".2 And so there fol- lowed what is sometimes designated as the "Puritan Revolution", sometimes as the "Civil War" and sometimes as the "Great Rebellion". Charles drew to his standard the cavaliers, includ- ing all those who for various reasons rallied to the support of the king ; while around Cromwell gathered the yeomen freeholders,
gentlemen who took counsel for the liberties of their country, the plough- men who saw visions, the tinkers who dreamed dreams, were perpetually thinking of New England. Thither twenty thousand Puritans had already carried their skill and industry, their silver and gold, their strivings and hopes." Trevelyan, England under the Stuarts, 225.
1 The Puritan Age, Rev. Dr. George E. Ellis, 50.
2 S. R. Gardiner, The Puritan Revolution, 126.
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THE BEGINNINGS OF COLONIAL MAINE.
many of the smaller country squires, tenant farmers not a few, some of the gentry and large numbers of the dwellers in cities and towns, all inspired by the hope of securing better conditions for themselves and their children. Generally it can be said that the Puritan movement was the strongest in the eastern and middle countries of England, while the king, although aided by devoted royalists and churchmen in towns and cathedral cities, relied upon the support he received from the southwestern counties.1 But the cause for which Charles stood was a losing one. Ill success attended his forces; and in the struggle until its fatal close for the king, affairs on this side of the sea received no attention. In this condition of things in England, the Puritans of Massachusetts were left to develop in their own way a form of government based upon civil liberty and the sovereignty of the people.
The colonists who came to Maine, however, were moved thereto by other influences than were forceful in the establishment of the Bay colony and other New England colonies. The Popham colo- nists, on account of their early return homeward, had no part in New England's development; but as they came hither under influences that continued to be represented here, it is noteworthy that those who were instrumental in their coming were in sym- pathy with the king, who, by his language and his acts, had already irritated the Puritans of England in such a way2 as thus early to force an issue between king and Commons, that was finally to be decided on memorable battlefields in a great crisis in the his- tory of the English people.
Very little is known concerning the settlers who had homes on the Pemaquid peninsula in 1625, and at other places between Pemaquid and the Kennebec at a later period. There are no known facts that connect them with any movement in the mother
1 Trevelyan, England under the Stuarts, 228.
2 Gorges, in a letter to Cecil, referring to conditions in England at the time of the Popham colony, and urging the importance of American colo- nization to the English people, describes them as "now sick in despair and in time will grow desperate through necessity". Baxter, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, III, 162.
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REVIEW OF THE PERIOD.
country like that which brought the Pilgrims and the Puritans to New England. They seem to have represented no organized enterprise, but, so far as may be inferred from such information as has been preserved, they made their way hither out of personal considerations, some of them bringing their families, allured in all probability by what they learned from traders and fishermen, who called their attention to favorable opportunities for advantageous settlement upon the coast of Maine.
At the same time, in the Province of Maine a few voices were heard that indicate in those who uttered them the presence of the spirit of the Puritan movement in England. Thus, when George Cleeve was told by John Winter that he was a trespasser at Spur- wink, but might become a tenant to Trelawny on some other part of the latter's Cape Elizabeth estate, Cleeve showed plainly where he stood by his very democratic reply that "he would be tenant to never a man in New England".1 So also a kindred spirit seems to have been manifested at Richmond's island in 1636 by the six men in Winter's employ, who "fell into such a mutiny" that they left the plantation "to fish for themselves". As Winter in report- ing the case to Trelawny mentioned the names of the men, it is possible to follow them and learn somewhat of their subsequent history.2 They all seem to have made their way to Portsmouth. The one whom Winter called the leader of the party was evidently a member of the Church of England, for he was one of the parish- ioners who "founded and built" at Portsmouth, in 1640, the "par- sonage house, chapel with the appurtenances at their own proper costs and charges". The others, also, seem to have been citizens of good repute. Evidently these men felt that they were not receiving just treatment from Winter; and as freemen on Ameri- can soil they asserted what they regarded as the right of freemen and exchanged Richmond's island and John Winter's hard condi- tions for better conditions farther down the coast.
Two others, not long resident in Maine, manifested sympathy
1 Trelawny Papers, 265.
2 Ib., 93, and note by Hon. James P. Baxter.
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THE BEGINNINGS OF COLONIAL MAINE.
with the Puritan movement, one as it shaped itself on this side of the sea, and the other as connected with efforts in England to bring the despotic rule of Charles to an end. The first was Edward Trelawny, who soon after his arrival at Richmond's island in 1635, drawn thither doubtless on account of the interests of Robert 'Trelawny, proceeded to Boston on a visit. While there, in a letter written to his brother Robert, he indicated such a degree of sympathy with the Massachusetts colonists as to make it evident that he had been drawn into the Puritan movement.1 The other was Thomas Gorges, governor of the Province of Maine. Having in 1640-1643 faithfully served the Gorges inter- ests here, finding himself out of harmony with the supporters of Charles as the civil war opened, he resigned his governorship, returned to England and joined the parliamentary party-an act that spoke louder than words as to his attitude in that time of stress and storm.
If there were others north of the Piscataqua who were in sym- pathy with the Puritan movement-and doubtless there were- they occupied the less conspicuous places in the walks of life and so were not heard from. The royalists in general were in the positions of influence. Their voices were those that made most frequent and forceful expression, and thus largely gave tone to public sentiment as it found utterance in Maine settlements, until their inhabitants came under the jurisdiction of Massachusetts.
But like the royalists in England, the Maine royalists were on the wrong side in that great movement in which through Puritan warfare the battle for the sovereignty of the people was fought
1 Trelawny Papers, 72-74 ; 78, 79. Referring to New England as "blest and beloved of the Lord", Trelawny asks : "And what is the reason of all this ; surely one is (as I conceive) that as God's people are come into a new country, where they freely enjoy the liberty of his holy ordinance without any trouble or molestation at all, either of bishop, archbishop or any other inferior carping minister or gaping officer, so they come unto the land and to the Lord with new hearts and new lives and enter into a new covenant so to continue ever to their end. And who would not be among such a people and in such a land?" Trelawny Papers, 74.
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REVIEW OF THE PERIOD.
and won. That battle, however, as subsequent events showed, was not directed against royalty, but against the arbitrary meas- ures for which James I and Charles I stood. "It is useless to ask", says a recent distinguished English historian, referring to Charles, "whether it [the House of Commons] might not have regulated the king's authority instead of shattering it. It was its business to shatter it, because with Charles on the throne it was impossible to regulate it".1 It was an important period in the history of the English people. It meant much for them; it meant much for the whole world in connection with the develop- ment of free institutions. "On the continent of Europe, at the beginning of the seventeenth century absolute monarchy had everywhere triumphed over the ruins of the oligarchical and feudal liberties of the middle ages. Never were the notions of right more completely confounded than in the midst of the splendor and literature of Europe; never was there less political activity among the people ; never were the principles of true free- dom less widely circulated." This is the statement of a great French scholar,2 who turning from the consideration of such con- ditions upon the continent found in the Puritan movement of the seventeenth century in England the "fruitful germs of free insti- tutions" and "the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people". Nor was he satisfied with his investigations until he had crossed the sea and studied here the further development of those princi- ples of government for which the Puritans of England contended in the great uprising against Charles.
1 S. R. Gardiner, The Puritan Revolution, 118.
2 Alexis de Tocqueville in Democracy in America, 24. "During the sev- enteenth century a despotic scheme of society and government was so firmly established in Europe, that but for the course of events in England it would have been the sole successor of the medieval system. . But at this moment the English, unaware of their destiny and of their service, tenacious only of their rights, their religion and their interests, evoked a system of government which differed as completely from the continental model as it did from the chartered anarchy of the middle ages." Trevelyan, England under the Stuarts, 1, 2.
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THE BEGINNINGS OF COLONIAL MAINE.
It is now readily admitted that those who supported the king in that crisis in England's history did so out of a sense of loyalty and duty, having regard to the right as they saw the right. In such a crisis, when good men differ and the lines are closely drawn, it is not easy for those of either party to give their opponents just credit for sincerity and honesty of purpose. Dur- ing the American revolution, the tories were not only bitterly denounced, but in many cases were compelled to leave their homes and seek refuge in the provinces, or in England. They are no longer tories, but loyalists.1 So, too, in the civil war of 1861-1865, those who began the war and fought until they had exhausted the means of war, were rebels. They are now confed- erates. Time is needed in order to reach just judgment. But we do neither the loyalists of the revolution, nor the confederates of the south any injustice in saying that they were on the wrong side. Some of them have said so themselves.2 The supporters of Charles I were on the wrong side.
It is here, therefore, that an answer is to be found to the
1 "A few years ago the most intense hate was cherished by colonists [refer- ring to loyalists in the British provinces] towards people of the United States. Their fathers were the losers, ours were the winners in the war of the Revolution. Nor was kind feeling entertained among us. It was thought disloyal in a colonist, and to evince a want of patriotism in a citizen of the republic, to seek to promote sentiments of love on either side, and to unite kinsmen, who, two generations ago, were severed in the dismemberment of the British empire. But the change is wonderful, and some persons who commend the work of reconciliation live to witness the consummation of their highest hopes." Lorenzo Sabine, Loyalists of the American Revolu- tion, I, 137.
2 "The world has not stood still in the years since we took up arms for what we deemed our most invaluable right-that of self-government. We now enjoy the rare privilege of seeing what we fought for in the retrospect. It no longer seems desirable. It would now prove only a curse. We have good cause to thank God for our escape from it, not alone for our sake, but for that of the whole country and even of the world." Brigadier General E. P. Alexander, chief of artillery in Longstreet's corps. Military Memories of a Confederate, introduction, p. viii. General Alexander directed the Confederate artillery fire that preceded what is called "Pickett's charge" at the battle of Gettysburg, July 3, 1863.
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