The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 by Julian Hawthorne

J >> Julian Hawthorne >> The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1

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A great deal of pains had been taken to convert and civilize these New
England tribes. John Eliot translated the Bible for them; and it was he
who made the first attempt to determine the grammar of their speech. But
though many Indians professed the Christian faith, and some evinced a
certain aptitude in letters, no new life was awakened in any of them, and
no permanent good results were attained. Meanwhile, the Pokanokets, with
Philip at their head, refused to accept the white man's God, or his
learning; and they watched with anxiety his growing numbers and power.
They had sold mile after mile of land to the English, not realizing that
the aggregate of these transactions was literally taking the ground from
under their feet; but the purchasers had the future as well as the present
in view, and contrived so to distribute their holdings as gradually to
push the Indians into the necks of land whence the only outlet was the
sea. It was the old story of encroachment, with always a deed to justify
it, signed with the mark of the savage, good in law, but to his mind a
device to ensnare him to his hurt. In 1674, Philip was compelled to appear
before a court and be examined, whereat his indignation was aroused, and,
either with or without his privity, the informer who had procured his
arrest was murdered. The murderers were apprehended and sentenced to be
hanged by a jury, half white and half Indian. The tribe retaliated and war
was begun.

Philip, or Metaconet the son of Massasoit, may at this time have been
about forty years old; he had been "King" for twelve years. The portraits
of him show a face and head that one can hardly accept as veracious; an
enormous forehead impending over a small face, with an almost delicate
mouth. But he was obviously a man of ability, and his courage was hardened
by desperation. His aim was to unite all the tribes in an effort to
exterminate the entire English population, though this has been estimated
to number in New England, at that time, more than fifty thousand persons.
The odds were all upon the colonists' side; but they had not yet learned
the Indian method of warfare, and the woods, hills and swamps, and the
unprotected state of many of the settlements, gave the Indians
opportunities to prolong the struggle which they amply improved. Had they
been united, and adequately armed, the issue might have been different.

Captain Benjamin Church, a hardy pioneer of six and thirty, who had
watched the ways of the Indians, and learned their strategy, soon became
prominent in the war, and ended as its most conspicuous and triumphant
figure. At first the colonists were successful, and Philip was driven off;
but this did but enable him to spread the outbreak among other tribes.
From July of 1675 till August of the next year, the life of no one on the
borders was safe. The settlers went to the meeting-house armed, and turned
out at the first alarm. They were killed at their plowing; they were
ambuscaded and cut off, tortured, slain, and their dissevered bodies hung
upon the trees. At the brook thereafter called Bloody Run, near Deerfield,
over seventy young men were surprised and killed. Women and children were
not spared; it was hardly sparing them to carry them into captivity, as
was often done. The villages which were attacked were set on fire after
the tomahawking and scalping were done. Horrible struggles would take
place in the confined rooms of the little cabins; blood and mangled
corpses desecrated the familiar hearths, and throughout sounded the wild
yell of the savages, and the flames crackled and licked through the
crevices of the logs.

In December, Church commanded, or accompanied, the little army which
plowed through night and snow to attack the palisaded fort and village,
strongly situated on an island of high ground in the midst of a swamp, in
the township of New Kingston. The Narragansetts were surprised; the
soldiers burst their way through the palisades, and the red and the white
men met hand to hand in a desperate conflict. Then the tomahawk measured
itself against the sword, and before it faltered more than two hundred of
the New Englanders had been killed or wounded, and the village was on
fire. The pools of blood which the frost had congealed, bubbled in the
heat of the flames. None could escape; infants, old women, all must die.
It was as ghastly a fight as was ever fought. The victors remained in the
charred shambles till evening, resting and caring for their wounded; and
then, as the snow began to fall, went back to Wickford, carrying the
wounded with them. It is said that a thousand Indian warriors fell on that
day.

At Hadfield had occurred the striking episode of the congregation,
surprised at their little church, and about to be overcome, being rescued
by a mysterious gray champion, who appeared none knew whence, rallied
them, and led them to victory. It was believed to be Goffe, one of the men
who sentenced Charles I. to be beheaded, who had escaped to New England at
the time of the Restoration, and had dwelt in retirement there till the
peril of his fellow exiles called him forth. The war was full of harrowing
scenes and strange deliverances. Annie Brackett, a prisoner in an Indian
party, crossed Casco Bay in a birch-bark canoe with her husband and infant
and was rescued by a vessel which happened to enter the harbor at the
critical moment.

Church hunted the Indians with more than their own cunning and
persistency; and at last it was he who led the party which effected
Philip's death. The royal Indian was hemmed in in a swamp and finally
killed by a traitor from his own side. The savages could fight no more;
they had caused the death of six hundred men, had burned a dozen towns,
and compelled the expenditure of half a million dollars. Scattered alarms
and tragedies still occurred in the East, and along the borders; but the
war was over. In 1678 peace was signed. And then Massachusetts turned once
more to her deadlier enemy, King Charles.

CHAPTER EIGHTH

THE STUARTS AND THE CHARTER

The cutting off of Charles I.'s head was a deed which few persons in
Massachusetts would have advocated; Cromwell himself had remarked that it
was a choice between the king's head and his own. History has upon the
whole accepted the choice he made as salutary. Achilles, forgetting his
heel, deemed himself invulnerable, and his conduct became in consequence
intolerable; Charles, convinced that his anointed royalty was sacred, was
led on to commit such fantastic tricks before high heaven as made the
godly weep. Achilles was disillusioned by the arrow of Paris, and Charles
by the ax of Cromwell. Death is a wholesome argument at times.

But though a later age could recognize the high expediency of Charles's
taking off, it was too bold and novel to meet with general approbation at
the time, even from men who hated kingly rule. Prejudice has a longer root
than it itself believes. And the Puritans of New England, having been
removed from the immediate pressure of the king's eccentricities, were the
less likely to exult over his end. Many of them were shocked at it; more
regretted it; perhaps the majority accepted it with a sober equanimity.
They were not bloodthirsty, but they were stern.

Neither were they demonstrative; so that they took the Parliament and the
Protector calmly, if cordially, and did not use the opportunity of their
predominance to cast gibes upon their predecessor. So that, when the
Restoration was an established fact, they had little to retract. They
addressed Charles II. gravely, as one who by experience knew the hearts of
exiles, and told him that, as true men, they feared God and the king. They
entreated him to consider their sacrifices and worthy purposes, and to
confirm them in the enjoyment of their liberties. Of the execution, and of
the ensuing "confusions," they prudently forbore to speak. It was better
to say nothing than either to offend their consciences, or to utter what
Charles would dislike to hear. Their case, as they well knew, was critical
enough at best. Every foe of New England and of liberty would not fail to
whisper malice in the king's ear. They sent over an envoy to make the best
terms he could, and in particular to ask for the suspension of the
Navigation Acts. But the committee had small faith in the loyalty of the
colony, and even believed, or professed to do so, that it might invite the
aid of Catholic and barbarous Spain against its own blood: they judged of
others' profligacy by their own. The king, to gain time, sent over a
polite message, which meant nothing, or rather less; for the next news was
that the Acts were to be enforced.

Massachusetts thereupon proceeded to define her position. A committee
composed of her ablest men caused a paper to be published by the general
court affirming their right to do certain things which England, they knew,
would be indisposed to permit. In brief, they claimed religious and civil
independence, the latter in all but name, and left the king to be a
figurehead without perquisites or power. They followed this intrepid
statement by solemnly proclaiming Charles in Boston, and threw a sop to
Cerberus in the shape of a letter couched in conciliating terms, feigning
to believe that their attitude would win his approbation. Altogether, it
was a thrust under the fifth rib, with a bow and a smile on the recover.
Probably the thrust represented the will of the majority; the bow and
smile, the prudence of the timid sort. Simon Bradstreet and John Norton
were dispatched to London to receive the king's answer. They went in
January of 1662, and after waiting through the spring and summer, not
without courteous treatment, returned in the fall with Charles's reply,
which, after confirming the charter and pardoning political infidelities
under the Protectorate, went on to refuse all the special points which the
colony had urged.

Already at this stage of the contest it had become evident that the
question was less of conforming with any particular demand or command on
the king's part, than of admitting his right to exercise his will at all
in the premises. If the colony conceded his sovereignty, they could not
afterward draw the line at which its power was to cease. And yet they
could not venture to declare absolute independence, partly because, if it
came to a struggle in arms, they could not hope to prevail; and partly
because absolute independence was less desired than autonomy under the
English flag. England was as far from granting autonomy to Massachusetts
as independence, but was willing, if possible, to constrain her by fair
means rather than by foul. Meanwhile, the tongue of rumor fomented
discord. It was said in the colony that England designed the establishment
of the Episcopal Church in Massachusetts; whereupon the laws against
toleration of "heretics," which had been falling into disuse, were
stringently revived. In London the story went that the escaped regicides
had united the four chief colonies and were about to lead them in arms to
revolt. Clarendon, to relieve anxiety, sent a reassuring message to
Boston; but its good effect was spoiled by a report that commissioners
were coming to regulate their affairs. The patent of the colony was placed
in hiding, the trained bands were drilled, the defenses of the harbor were
looked to, and a fast day was named with the double purpose of asking the
favor of God, and of informing the colony as to what was in the wind.
Assuredly there must have been stout souls in Boston in those days. A few
thousand exiles were actually preparing to resist England!

The warning had not been groundless. The fleet which had been fitted out
to drive the Dutch governor, Peter Stuyvesant, from Manhattan, stopped at
Boston on its way; and we may imagine that its entrance into the harbor on
that July day was observed with keen interest by the great-grandfathers of
the men of Bunker Hill. It was not exactly known what the instructions of
the English officers required; but it was surmised that they meant
tyranny. The commission could not have come for nothing. They had no right
on New England soil. The fleet, for the present, proceeded on its way, and
Massachusetts voluntarily contributed a force of two hundred men; but they
were well aware that the trouble was only postponed; and depending on
their charter, which contained no provision for a royal commission, they
were determined to thwart its proceedings to the utmost of their power.
How far that might be, they would know when the time came. Anything was
better than surrender to the prerogative. When, in reply to Willoughby, a
royalist declared that prerogative is as necessary as the law, Major
William Hawthorne, who was afterward to distinguish himself against the
Indians, answered him, "Prerogative is not above law!" It was not, indeed.

Accordingly, while the fleet with its commissioners was overawing the New
Netherlanders, the Puritans of Boston Bay wrote and put forth a document
which well deserves reproduction, both for the terse dignity of the style,
which often recalls the compositions of Lord Verulam, and still more for
the courageous, courteous, and yet almost aggressive logic with which the
life principles of the Massachusetts colonists are laid down. It is a
remarkable State paper, and so vividly sincere that, as one reads, one can
see the traditional Puritan standing out from the words--the steeple
crowned hat, the severe brow, the steady eyes, the pointed beard, the dark
cloak and sad-hued garments. The paper is also singular in that it
remonstrates against a principle, without waiting for the provocation of
overt deeds. This excited the astonishment of Clarendon and others in
England; but their perplexity only showed that the men they criticised saw
further and straighter than they did. It was for principles, and against
them, that the Puritans always fought, since principles are the parents of
all acts and control them. The royal commission was, potentially, the sum
of all the wrongs from which New England suffered during the next hundred
years, and though it had as yet done nothing, it implied everything.

Whose hand it was that penned the document we know not; it was probably
the expression of the combined views of such men as Mather, Norton,
Hawthorne, Endicott and Bellingham; it may have been revised by Davenport,
at that time nearly threescore and ten years of age, the type of the
Calvinist minister of the period, austere, inflexible, high-minded,
faithful. Be that as it may, it certainly voiced the feeling of the
people, as the sequel demonstrated. It is dated October the Twenty-fifth,
1664, and is addressed to the king.

"DREAD SOVEREIGN:--The first undertakers of this Plantation did obtain a
Patent, wherein is granted full and absolute power of governing all the
people of this place, by men chosen from among themselves, and according
to such laws as they should see meet to establish. A royal donation, under
the Great Seal, is the greatest security that may be had in human affairs.
Under the encouragement and security of the Royal Charter this People did,
at their own charges, transport themselves, their wives and families, over
the ocean, purchase the land of the Natives, and plant this Colony, with
great labor, hazards, cost, and difficulties; for a long time wrestling
with the wants of a Wilderness and the burdens of a new Plantation; having
now also above thirty years enjoyed the privilege of Government within
themselves, as their undoubted right in the sight of God and Man. To be
governed by rulers of our own choosing and laws of our own, is the
fundamental privilege of our Patent.

"A Commission under the Great Seal, wherein four persons (one of them our
professed Enemy) are impowered to receive and determine all complaints and
appeals according to their discretion, subjects us to the arbitrary power
of Strangers, and will end in the subversion of us all.

"If these things go on, your Subjects will either be forced to seek new
dwellings, or sink under intolerable burdens. The vigor of all new
Endeavours will be enfeebled; the King himself will be a loser of the
wonted benefit by customs, exported and imported from hence to England,
and this hopeful Plantation will in the issue be ruined.

"If the aim should be to gratify some particular Gentlemen by Livings and
Revenues here, that will also fail, for the poverty of the People. If all
the charges of the whole Government by the year were put together, and
then doubled or trebled, it would not be counted for one of these
Gentlemen a considerable Accommodation. To a coalition in this course the
People will never come; and it will be hard to find another people that
will stand under any considerable burden in this Country, seeing it is not
a country where men can subsist without hard labor and great frugality.

"God knows our greatest Ambition is to live a quiet Life, in a corner of
the World. We came not into this Wilderness to seek great things to
ourselves; and if any come after us to seek them here, they will be
disappointed. We keep ourselves within our Line; a just dependence upon,
and subjection to, your Majesty, according to our Charter, it is far from
our Hearts to disacknowledge. We would gladly do anything in our power to
purchase the continuance of your favorable Aspect. But it is a great
Unhappiness to have no testimony of our loyalty offered but this, to yield
up our Liberties, which are far dearer to us than our Lives, and which we
have willingly ventured our Lives and passed through many Deaths, to
obtain.

"It was Job's excellency, when he sat as King among his People, that he
was a Father to the Poor. A poor People, destitute of outward Favor,
Wealth, and Power, now cry unto their lord the King. May your Majesty
regard their Cause, and maintain their Right; it will stand among the
marks of lasting Honor to after Generations."

Throughout these sentences sounds the masculine earnestness of men who
see that for which they have striven valiantly and holily in danger of
being treacherously ravished from them, and who are resolute to withstand
the ravisher to the last. It is no wonder that documents of this tone and
caliber amazed and alarmed the council in London, and made them ask one
another what manner of men these might be. It would have been well for
England had they given more attentive ear to their misgivings; but their
hearts, like Pharaoh's, were hardened, and they would not let the people
go--until the time was ripe, and the people went, and carried the spoils
with them.

The secret purpose of the commission was to pave the way for the gradual
subjection of the colony, and to begin by inducing them to let the
governor become a royal nominee, and to put the militia under the king's
orders. Of the four commissioners, Nicolls remained in New York, as we
have seen; the three others landed in Boston early in 1665. Their first
order was that every male inhabitant of Boston should assemble and listen
to the reading of the message from King Charles. These three gentlemen
--Maverick, Carr and Cartwright--were courtiers and men of fashion and
blood, and were accustomed to regard the king's wish as law, no matter
what might be on the other side; but it was now just thirty years since
the Puritans left England; they had endured much during that time, and had
tasted how sweet liberty was; and half of them were young Americans, born
on the soil, who knew what kings were by report only. Young and old,
speaking through the assembly, which was in complete accord with them,
informed the commissioners that they would not comply with their demand.
What were the commissioners, that they should venture to call a public
meeting in the town of a free people? The free people went about their
affairs, and left the three gentlemen from the Court to stare in one
another's scandalized faces.

They were the more scandalized, because their reception in Connecticut
and Rhode Island had been different. But different, also, had been the
errand on which they went there. Those two colonies were the king's pets,
and were to have liberty and all else they wanted; Connecticut they had
protected from the rapacity of Lord Hamilton, and Rhode Island had never
been other than loving and loyal to the king. They had, to be sure, been
politely bowed out by little Plymouth, the yeomen Independents, who still
preferred, if his majesty pleased, to conduct their own household affairs
in their own way. But to be positively and explicitly rebuffed to their
faces, yet glowing with the sunshine of the royal favor, was a new
experience; and Cartwright, when he caught his breath, exclaimed, "He that
will not attend to the request is a traitor!"

The Massachusetts assembly declined to accept the characterization. Since
the king's own patent expressly relieved them from his jurisdiction, it
was impossible that their refusal to meet three of his gentlemen-in-
waiting could rightly be construed as treason. The commissioners finally
wanted to know, yes or no, whether the colonists meant to question the
validity of the royal commission? But the assembly would not thus be
dislodged from the coign of vantage; they stuck to their patent, and
pointed out that nothing was therein said about a commission? So far as
they were concerned, the commission, as a commission, could have no
existence. They recognized nothing but three somewhat arrogant persons,
in huge wigs, long embroidered waistcoats under their velvet coats, and
plumes waving from their hats. They presented a glittering and haughty
aspect, to be sure, but they had no rights in Boston.

At length, on the twenty-third of May, matters came to a crisis. The
commissioners had given out that on that day they were going to hold a
court to try a case in which the colony was to defend an action against a
plaintiff. This, of course, would serve to indicate that the commissioners
had power--whether the assembly conceded it or not--to control the
internal economy of the settlement. Betimes in this morning, the rather
that it was a very pleasant one--the trees on the Common being dressed in
their first green leaves since last year, while a pleasant westerly breeze
sent the white clouds drifting seaward over the blue sky--a great crowd
began to make its way toward the court house, whose portals frowned upon
the narrow street, as if the stern spirit of justice that presided within
had cast a shadow beneath them. The doors were closed, and the massive
lock which secured them gleamed in the single ray of spring sunshine that
slanted along the facade of the edifice.

It was a somber looking throng, as was ever the case in Puritan Boston,
where the hats, cloaks and doublets of the people were made of dark,
coarse materials, not designed to flatter the lust of the eye. The visages
suited the garments, wearing a sedate or severe expression, whether the
cast of the features above the broad white collars were broad and ruddy,
or pale and hollow-cheeked. There was a touch of the fanatic in many of
these countenances, as of men to whom God was a living presence in all
their affairs and thoughts, who feared His displeasure more than the
king's, who believed that they were His chosen ones, and who knew that His
arm was mighty to defend. They were of kin to the men who stood so
stubbornly and smote so sore at Marston Moor and Naseby, and afterward had
not feared to drag the father of the present Charles to the block. Fiber
more unbending than theirs was never wrought into the substance of our
human nature; and oppression seemed but to harden it.

They conversed one with another in subdued tones, among which sounded
occasionally the lighter accents of women's voices; but they were not a
voluble race, and the forms of their speech still followed in great
measure the semi-scriptural idioms which had been so prevalent among
Cromwell's soldiers years before. They were undemonstrative; but this
very immobility conveyed an impression of power in reserve which was more
effective than noisy vehemence.

At length, from the extremity of the street, was heard the tramp of
horses' hoofs, and the commissioners, bravely attired, with cavalier
boots, and swords dangling at their sides, were seen riding forward,
followed by a little knot of officers. The crowd parted before them as
they came, not sullenly, perhaps, but certainly with no alacrity or
suppleness of deference. There was no love lost on either side; but
Cartwright, who wore the most arrogant front of the three, really feared
the Puritans more than either of his colleagues; and when, seven years
afterward, he was called before his majesty's council to tell what manner
of men they were, his account of them was so formidable that the council
gave up the consideration of the menacing message they had been about to
send, and instead agreed upon a letter of amnesty, as likely to succeed
better with a people of so "peevish and touchy" a humor.

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