USA > Rhode Island > Providence County > Providence > History of the state of Rhode Island and Providence plantations, Vol. I > Part 2
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Whether we contemplate this act in its intrinsic character, or regard it in the magnificence of its results, it assumes a degree of importance scarcely equalled in the history of our race. The stern devotion to principle which impelled them to encounter the severest hardships, when a simple act of submission to a creed would ensure them peace and plenty in their English homes-the lofty courage which inspired even women and children gladly to brave the perils of the deep-and, above all, their unwavering faith in the promises of an Omnipotent Deity, present a picture whose moral sublimity is not enhanced even by the success which has crowned their enterprise. After a stormy passage of sixty-five days, they dropped anchor on the dreary coast of Cape Cod. At the end of another tedious month, consumed in exploring the vicinity, and in preparations for landing, the Pilgrims stood at last on Plymouth rock.
About this time a company of merchants and others which had been formed in the West of England, with Sir Ferdinand Gorges, governor of Plymouth, at their head,
Dec. 11. O. S.
Nov. 3.
1 100, not 101 .-- Young's Pilgrims, 122, note 1, and p. 100, notes 2, 5.
8
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND.
CHAP. encouraged by the reports of the celebrated Captain John I. Smith, and supported by the influence of some of the 1620. most powerful noblemen in the kingdom, obtained a charter of incorporation, with the exclusive right of plant- ing and governing New England. This company, known as the council of Plymouth, were thereby invested with unlimited jurisdiction over a region of almost boundless extent, embracing the entire breadth of the continent from sea to sea, between the fortieth and forty-eighth par- allels of north latitude. But the apparent compass of their power was the real measure of their weakness. So violent was the opposition to this monstrous monopoly, that not even the proclamation of King James, enforcing the terms of the grant, and sustained by the utmost stretch of the prerogative, could preserve inviolate the charter of the company. The spirit of English liberty, nourished by the Puritans in proportion as the encroachment of the crown increased, spurned the authority of an instrument which fettered both sea and land. Extensive fishing ex- peditions were fitted out for the coast of New England, and conducted without regard to the claims of the coun- cil. In vain did the company send out officers to main- tain their authority in New England, or appeal to the king to sustain their pretensions. The parliament stood firmly on the rights of the subject, until the company, exhausted by fruitless efforts to secure their monopoly, at length resorted to the sale of charters as their sole source of revenue. In the course of a few years they disposed, in various grants, of all the lands in New England, some of them twice over ; nothing of value remained to them ; 1635. many of the original patentees had already abandoned June 7. their interests, and the council itself finally surrendered its charter and became extinct.1
From this company the purchase of a large grant of
1 Report of Board of Trade on Duke of Hamilton's claim to Narraganset. -British State Paper Office, New England Papers, vol. xxxvi. p. 222.
9
THE MASSACHUSETTS COMPANY.
lands in Massachusetts was made, and a party of emi- CHAP. I. 1628. March 19. grants, under the direction of John Endicott, came over the same year, and established themselves at Salem, where Roger Conant, from New Plymouth, had already made a settlement. That enterprise, originating in a commercial speculation, and proving unfortunate, had been abandoned by all but Conant and a few associates, who, inspired by the zeal of friends in England, had remained to found another home where the exiles for religion might find rest. A few of Endicott's followers settled at Charlestown. The next year a royal charter was with much difficulty obtained, and the Massachusetts company became legally 162 9. a distinct trading corporation. This was followed by an March 4. emigration of about two hundred persons under the pastoral care of Rev. John Higginson. These settled at Salem and Charlestown. The powers and privileges which the Mas- sachusetts charter conferred differed in no essential par- ticulars from those of similar companies already existing. That it was soon to be virtually erected into a basis of civil government became apparent, when, at a meeting of the company in London, it was resolved to transfer the charter to the freemen of the company inhabiting the colony. By this act a powerful stimulus was given to the scheme of colonization. Large numbers prepared to cross the sea. A meeting of the company was held to transfer Oct. 20. the government to America, by appointing an entire board of officers who would agree to emigrate. John Winthrop was chosen governor. In the month of March following, the great expedition, consisting of about eight hundred 1630. souls, embarked in eleven ships at Yarmouth, and reached their destination in June and July. Nearly as many more followed in the course of the year. The settlement of Boston and the final establishment of the colony of Mas- sachusetts Bay date from this period.
Although the terms of the patent, and the royal intent in granting it, point only to a commercial ad-
10
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND.
CHAP. I. venture, yet the circumstances which determined the emigration, the documentary proofs in relation to it, and 1630. the character and subsequent conduct of the men, furnish sufficient evidence that a large portion of them were ac- tuated by other motives than pecuniary gain. What were these motives ? Certainly not those assigned to them by Charles I., " the freedom of liberty of conscience ;" for scarcely had the royal charter been obtained, and the church under Higginson established itself in Salem, while the government had not yet been transferred to America, or the settlement of Boston commenced, before the per- manent policy of the Puritans was developed in active hostility to dissenters. Two men named Browne, occu- pying influential positions in the colony, were foremost in opposition to the new church organization, and strenuously demanded that the English liturgy should not be aban- doned. Thus the enemy from which they had fled ap- peared at once among them. Episcopacy asserted its rights in the stronghold of the Puritans. But should the exultant hierarchy, which had driven them across the sea, be allowed to dictate to them in their new-found homes, and perhaps in time expel them from their "New English Canaan ?" The colonists thought not, and availing them- selves of a clause in the form1 of government prescribed by the company under their charter, which permitted the expulsion of "incorrigible persons, " the two Brownes were summarily sent back to England, by order of Endi- cott, in the very ships which had brought them over. Thus early was dissent rebuked, and theological con- tumacy punished, before the Puritan church itself was fairly established in Massachusetts. "The freedom of liberty of conscience " then formed no part of the Puritan polity in its inception, nor yet, as we shall presently see, in its completion. The Puritans fled from England be- cause they could not conform to the usages of the estab-
1 1629, April 30 .- Young's Chrons. Mass., 196.
11
THE PURITANS.
lished church, because they desired a still further exten- CHAP. sion of the principles of the Reformation, because they I. would not assent to those forms of church service attempted 1630. to be enforced by the celebrated act of uniformity. Differ- ing widely on these points from the government creed, they looked for a home in the new world, where they might erect an establishment in accordance with their peculiar theological views. "They sought a faith's pure shrine," based on what they held to be a purer system of worship, and a discipline more in unison with their notions of a church. For this they crossed the Atlantic and obtained a home, where the Pilgrims had preceded them, on the dreary coast of New England. Here they proceeded to organize a State, whose civil code followed close on the track of the Mosaic law, and whose ecclesiastical polity, like that of the Jews, and of all those then existing, was identified with the civil power. They thus secured what was denied them in England, the right to pursue their own form of religion without molestation, and in this the object of their exile was attained. The hardships of the infant colony are evinced in the fearful havoc which death and desertion made in their ranks. More than one hun- dred, discouraged at the prospect which pestilence and famine presented, abandoned the enterprise, and returned immediately to England, while of those who remained, double that number, before the close of the year, had fallen victims to disease. So great was the decrease from these causes, and so disheartening the effect produced in England by the report of those who returned, that the accessions by emigration for the next two years were not sufficient to make up the losses. A similar series of dis- asters had occurred to the Pilgrims in commencing their settlement. Sickness and starvation had reduced their numbers one-half within a few months, and the additions were at no time so considerable as those which the sister colony afterwards received. Ten years of hardship and
12
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND.
CHAP. I. suffering elapsed before the great emigration of the Puritans, and at that time the Plymouth colony contained 1630. only three hundred persons. Such were some of the difficulties encountered by the early settlers of New Eng- land.
The government of Plymouth was for many years a pure 1620. democracy. In the cabin of the Mayflower the first solemn Nov. 11. compact in the history of America, creating a body politic by voluntary act of the signers, was subscribed. Upon this brief but comprehensive constitution rests the whole fabric of American republicanism.1 The right to frame laws, and the duty of obeying them, were here simulta- neously declared by the free act of the whole people. As the Pilgrims were more liberal towards those who differed from them in points of religious doctrine than the Pu- ritans, so were they more free in their political constitu- tion. There were good reasons for this difference. In the first place, the principles of the early Separatists, although falling far short of the full idea of liberty of conscience, were much more liberal than were those of either of the two parties into which the Puritans were divided in the reign of James I. They were upon the right line of action, without having yet attained the ulti- mate result of their movement, or having traced back to its source, in the philosophy of mind, the secret impulse
1 In the name of God, Amen. We, whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign lord, King James, &c., having under- taken, for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith and honor of our King and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia, do, by these presents, solemnly and mutually, in the pres- ence of God and of one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation, and furtherance of the ends aforesaid ; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony ; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witness whereof, &c .- Bradford's & Winslow's Journal, Mourt's Relation. Young's Chrons. of Pilgrims, p. 121.
13
THE PILGRIM FATHERS.
which urged them onward. Their conceptions of the CHAP. great truth which they were unconsciously developing were
I. but vague and uncertain, but their course seems to have 1620. been guided in no small degree by its dawning light. Their venerable teacher, Robinson, in his final sermon, before their departure from Leyden, had given them a July. solemn charge, which seemed to foreshadow the new revc- lation that was to spring from the oracles of God. "I charge you, before God and his blessed angels, that you follow me no farther than you have seen me follow the Lord Jesus Christ. If God reveal any thing to you, by any other instrument of his, be as ready to receive it as ever you were to receive any truth by my ministry ; for I am verily persuaded, I am very confident, that the Lord has more truth yet to break forth out of his holy word."1 The contrast to the bigotry of England which this liberal and Christian advice presents, is a proof, how far in ad- vance of his age was this learned and pious pastor of the Pilgrims. Had Robinson been able to accompany the emigrants to America, the future apostle of religious frec- dom would have found in him a sympathizing friend. The result of his teaching is seen in the milder treatment of those who differed from them, which the records of Ply- mouth present when compared with those of Massachu- setts. The spirit of Robinson appeared to watch over his feeble flock on the coast of New England, long after his body was mouldering beneath the cathedral church at Ley- den. Again, their twelve years' residence in Holland had brought the Pilgrims in contact with other sects of Chris- tians, and given them a more catholic spirit than per- tained to those whose stay in England had been embittered by the strife of contending factions in the established church. Whether these reasons fully account for the superior liberality of the Plymouth Colonists, or not, the records show, that as they were distinct from the Puritans
1 Morton's Memorial, p. 29, note.
14
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND.
CHAP. I. in England, and had been long separated from them in Hol- land, so did they preserve that distinction in some measure 1620. in America. The Pilgrims of Plymouth were more liberal in feeling, and more tolerant in practice, than the Puri- tans of Massachusetts Bay. The simple forms of demo- cratic government were maintained in Plymouth for eighteen years, until the growth of the colony compelled the introduction of the representative system. The laws were enacted by the entire people, and their execution intrusted to a governor, and council of five assistants, afterwards increased to seven.
1629.
April 30. 1630.
Aug. 23.
The government of Massachusetts was much more restrictive, and the circumstances of the colony compelled more frequent changes in its forms than was the case with Plymouth. The royal charter, with the plan of govern- ment adopted under it, by the company in which John Endicott was named as governor, had formed the fun- damental law, until the corporation itself emigrated the next year to America, with Winthrop at its head. A new organization under the king's patent now took place. By this patent, a governor, deputy-governor, and eighteen as- sistants were to be elected annually by a majority of the freemen of the company.1 Soon after the arrival of Win- throp, the first Court of Assistants was held at Charles- town. The proceedings of that court were singularly in- dicative of the future policy of the colony. The first measure proposed was " how the ministers shall be main- tained:"2 This question, so honorable to the colonists, who, amid the hardships of an infant settlement, made the support of the clergy their earliest care, would prove, if other evidence were wanting, that the religious senti- ment was the most active cause of Puritan emigration ; and it might further serve as a premonition to all those whose creed was heterodox, or whose conduct was at
1 1 Holmes's Annals, 195.
2 1 Prince, 246.
15
MORTON OF MERRY MOUNT.
variance with the spirit of the times, that the Massa- CHAP. chusetts colony was no home for them. And, as if to
I. confirm the latter position beyond mistake, the second 1634. measure of the court was to order, " that Morton of Mt. Wollaston be sent for presently." Thomas Morton was one of a company under Capt. Wollaston, who, some years before, had located in what is now the town of Quincy. Wollaston, on his return to England, left the 1625. place in charge of one of his companions, who was dis- placed by the intrigues of Morton, and the establishment under the new name of Merry Mount, became a scene of riot and dissipation, to the infinite annoyance of the neigh- boring settlements. The colonists had once equipped 1628.
Miles Standish with an armed force to abate this nuisance, and having captured Morton, sent him to England as a prisoner, with charges against him to be disposed of as the company there might see fit. He found means to return the 1629. next year, and renewed the orgies of Merry Mount, until the summary proceedings of the Court of Assistants broke up this resort of idlers.1 This was a step for which no one 1630.
can censure the court. The dissolute character of Morton and his crew rendered their expulsion necessary for the wel- fare of the colony, while the fact of their supplying the In- dians with firearms merited the severest punishment. But it is the promptness of the. government in taking action upon the case, which is chiefly worthy of note. Scarcely had they landed in New England, before they provide, first for the support of the ministry, and second for the purifi- cation of society. The only other measure of the court at this session related to the price of labor. However much we may approve of their action in the two preceding
1 Morton's house was burnt by order of the Court at their next session, Sept. 7 (1 Prince, 248), and himself imprisoned until sent for the second time to England, whence he again returned in 1643, and finally died at Piscataqua. For particulars concerning this notorious " old roysterer," see Morton's New England's Memorial, 135-142, with the Editor's note ; also 1 Mass. Hist. Coll. iii. 61-64. Ilis own account of himself in his book entitled New English
16
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND.
CHAP I. matters, this certainly was ill-advised, and as the event proved, injurious. Mechanics' wages were fixed at two 1630. shillings a day, and a fine of ten shillings was decreed against giver and taker for any excess above this rate. The experiment of arbitrary values, whether placed upon labor, or affixed to things intrinsically worthless, has been often tried with ruinous results, and the attempt in this case displayed a disposition to excessive legislation, incompat- ible with the real interests of society.1
Oct. 19.
The first General Court, composed of all the freemen of the colony, was held in the autumn. The spirit of this assembly was liberal and yielding. Over one hundred per- sons were admitted freemen of the company, many of whom were not connected with any of the churches .? Among the applicants for freedom was William Blackstone, the earliest settler of Boston, having resided there four or five years previous to the arrival of Winthrop, and the same who after- wards removed to what is now the town of Cumberland, being unable to brook " the tyranny of the Lord's brethren " at the Bay.3 The influence of the governor and assistants and the disposition of the people to repose confidence in their authority, led the Court to order that for the future the freemen should choose the assistants only, and that these should select the governor and deputy from among themselves, and should also make laws and appoint officers.4
Canaan, by Thos. Morton, Amsterdam, 1637, 4to., 191 pp., a copy of which I have read in the British Museum, does not display his character much more favorably than does the indignant secretary of the court of N. Plymouth in the pages above referred to.
1 These absurd regulations were several times repealed and re-enacted, and were the occasion of much trouble in Massachusetts, frequently requiring the interposition of the courts to adjust variations in the price of labor between different towns .- 1 Savage's Winthrop, 31, note. This was not the only sub- ject upon which the rulers of the Bay abused their legislative prerogative.
? 1 Hutchinson's Mass., 26.
$ 1 Savage's Winthrop, 53, note (1853). He was admitted at the next Court, May 18, 1631.
4 Prince's Annals (1826), 320.
17
THE RELIGIOUS TEST ACT.
CHAP. I. 1631.
This was a wide departure from the terms of the charter, and a concession of power which, however safely reposed in this case, furnished a dangerous precedent for the future. At the next General Court, being the first court of election in Massachusetts, this power was wisely restricted by the people, who reassumed the right to choose their own offi- cers, and although they did not at this time expressly limit the term of office to one year, they established their right to make such annual changes in the board as the majority might wish. Thus they partially rescinded the act of the pre- vious Court by which they had yielded too much. It would have been well if they had stopped at this point, and not made the legislation of the two Courts present a still further contrast, by an order which entirely reversed the liberality of the former in admitting freemen without a religious test. This measure, which was to be the exciting cause of future troubles, and the means of calling into existence a new State based upon principles as yet untried, was considered essential to the preservation of purity in the community. " To the end the body of the commons may be preserved of honest and good men, it was ordered and agreed, that for the time to come, no man shall be admitted to the freedom of this body politic, but such as are members of some of the churches within the limits of the same."1 This extraordinary law continued in force until the dissolu- tion of the government,2 and the spirit of intolerance which it necessarily, if not intentionally fostered, survived in the hearts of the people, and was displayed in the conduct of the rulers, long after the odious enactment was ex- punged from the statute book. The apologists of this
' Prince's Annals (1826), 354.
2 It was nominally repealed in 1665 (1 Holmes's Annals, 210, note), but its features were essentially retained, by substituting for church membership a minister's certificate that the candidate for freedom was of orthodox princi- ples. and of good life and conversation. 1 Hutchinson's Mass., 26, and note, p. 231.
VOL 1-2
18
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND.
CHAP. I. law have excused its existence on the ground of dangers, which were feared from the hostility of the prelatical 1631. party in England, requiring a strong bond of union, and the incitement of religious zeal in those to whom was in- trusted the exercise of political power. They overlook or conceal the facts that the requisites for church member- ship in Massachusetts were far more strict than in Eng- land, and that it was a greater grievance to be deprived of civil liberties for this cause in New England than in Old ; and again, the direct effect of such a law must be to incul- cate hypocrisy, since no rectitude of conduct could procure the immunities, which were the reward of profession only, so that if any one did not feel himself to be at heart a Chris- tian, and could thus conscientiously unite with a church, he must submit either to dissemble or be disfranchised. At this day it appears strange that men, who in so many re- spects showed that they were wise and. good, should not have seen and shunned the consequences of such a law. It would seem as if they believed that the act of legisla- tion was omnipotent, having in itself an efficacy to change the heart of man, and to reverse the principles of human na- ture. How, otherwise, could they sanction a statute which placed a premium upon deception, and which required a spiritual change, such as they held could only be effected by divine grace, as a prelude to the exercise of civil rights, while, as the evidence of this change, they could require only the assurance of the applicant, accompanied by such proofs; in outward conduct, of his sincerity as might suffice to satisfy public opinion ? The external conditions of citizen- ship were too easy, and its advantages too great, to be overlooked by those whose lives were governed by any other motives than those of conscience. The terms of the law are such as to defeat its avowed object. To preserve men " honest and good," we should avoid the occasion of evil, and not offer an inducement to practise it under the cloak of sanctity. The spirit of this law is one which
19
ARRIVAL OF ROGER WILLIAMS.
would blot out from the great canon of petition, " lead us not into temptation," to substitute for the teachings of Infi- nite Wisdom the devices of man's invention, which would expose frail humanity to a powerful allurement under the name of a sanctifying trial, and expect it to emerge un- scathed, or even strengthened, from the dangerous ordeal. The operation of the law could not fail to introduce into the body politic elements the very opposite to what was intended, and to assimilate the institutions of the State to those from which they had fled, by making still more close, in Massachusetts than ever it had been in England, the union of civil with ecclesiastical power. To establish a tyranny of the church, to cherish a feeling of intolerance, and to foster a spirit of dissimulation, were the inevitable results of this baleful statute. To infuse discontent into the minds of many, and thus to involve the State in con- tinual difficulty, was its legitimate and immediate effect. It was the first direct legislative exposition of the feeling of the colonists towards those who differed from them in religious opinions, however blameless might be their lives. It foreshadowed a similar fate to others, under the sanction of law, which had already been visited upon the Brownes, by order of Endicott, under a construction of the charter. Nor was it many years before the emigration of some pro- minent citizens, and the open opposition of others, dis- played the light in which independent men viewed the infringement upon freedom of thought and action of which this statute was the harbinger.
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