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

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32

King James, like other spiteful and weak men, had a long memory, and amid
the many things that engaged his attention he did not forget the colonists
of Plymouth, who had exiled themselves without a charter from him. In the
same year which witnessed their disembarkation at Plymouth Rock, he
incorporated a company consisting of friends of his own, and gave them a
tract of country between the fortieth and the forty-eighth parallels of
north latitude, which of course included the Plymouth colony. In addition
to all other possible rights and privileges, it had the monopoly of the
fisheries of the coast, and it was from this that revenue was most
certainly expected, since it was proposed to lay a tax on all tonnage
engaged in it. All the new company had to do was to grant charters to all
who might apply, and reap the profits. But the scheme was fated to
miscarry, because the pretense of colonization behind it was impotent, and
the true object in view was the old one of getting everything that could
be secured out of the country, and putting nothing into it. The fisheries
monopoly was powerfully opposed in Parliament and finally defeated; small
sporadic settlements, with no sound principle or purpose within them,
appeared and disappeared along the coast from Massachusetts to the
northern borders of Maine. One grant conflicted with another, titles were
in dispute, and lawsuits were rife. The king sanctioned whatever injustice
or restriction his company proposed, but his decrees, many of them
illegal, were ineffective, and produced only confusion. Agriculture was
hardly attempted in any of the little settlements authorized by the
company, and the only trade pursued was in furs and fishes. The rights of
the Indians were wholly disregarded, and the domain of the French at the
north was infringed upon. All this while the Pilgrims continued their
industries and maintained their democracy, undisturbed by the feeble
machinations of the king; and in 1625 the death of the latter temporarily
cleared the air. Charles affixed his seal to the famous Massachusetts
Charter four years later; and though Gorges and some others continued to
harass New England for some time longer, the plan of colonizing by
fisheries was hopelessly discredited, and the development of civil and
religious liberties among the serious colonists was assured.

The experiments thus far made in dealing with the new country had had a
significant result. The Plymouth colony, going out with neither charter
nor patronage, and with the purpose not of finding gold or making
fortunes, but of establishing a home wherein to dwell in perpetuity--which
was handicapped by the abject poverty of its members, and by the
severities of a climate till then unknown--this enterprise was found to
hold the elements of success from the start, and it steadily increased in
power and influence. It suffered from time to time from the tyranny of
royal governors and the ignorance or malice of absentee statesmanship; but
nothing could extinguish or corrupt it; on the contrary, it went "slowly
broadening down, from precedent to precedent," until, when the moment of
supreme trial came to the Thirteen Colonies, the descendants of the
Pilgrims and the Puritans, and the men who had absorbed their ideas, put
New England in the van of patriotism and progress. It is a noble record,
and a pregnant example to all friends of freedom.

In suggestive contrast with this was the Jamestown enterprise. As we have
seen, this colony was saved from almost immediate extinction solely by the
genius and energy of one man, whom his fellow members had at first tried
to exclude altogether from their councils and companionship. Belonging to
a class socially higher and presumably more intelligent than the Pilgrims,
and continually furnished with supplies from the Company in England, they
were unable during twelve years to make any independent stand against
disaster. In a climate which was as salubrious as that of New England was
rigorous, and with a soil as fertile as any in the world, they dwindled
and starved, and their dearest wish was to return to England. They were
saved at last (as we shall presently see) by two things; first, by the
discovery of the value of tobacco as an export, and of its usefulness as a
currency for the internal trade of the country; and secondly, and much
more, by the Charter of 1618, which gave the people the privilege of
helping to make their own laws. That year marked the beginning of civil
liberty in America; but what it had taken the Jamestown colonists twelve
weary and disastrous years to attain, was claimed by the pious farmers of
Plymouth before ever they set foot on Forefather's Rock. Willingness to
labor, zeal for the common welfare, indifference to wealth, independence,
moral and religious integrity and fervor--these were some of the traits and
virtues whose cultivation made the Pilgrims prosperous, and the neglect or
lack of which discomfited the Virginia settlers. The latter, man for man,
were by nature as capable as the former of profiting by right conditions
and training; and as soon as they obtained them they showed favorable
results. But in the meantime the lesson was driven home that a virgin
country cannot be subdued and rendered productive by selfish and unjust
procedure: a homely and hackneyed lesson, but one which can never be too
often quoted, since each fresh generation must buy its own experience, and
it often happens that a situation essentially old assumes a novel aspect,
owing to external modifications of time and place.

The Plymouth Colony, after remaining long separate and self-supporting,
consented to a union with the larger and richer settlements of
Massachusetts. The charter secured by the latter, and the manner in which
it was administered, were alike remarkable. The granting of it was
facilitated by the threatened encroachments of other than Englishmen upon
the New England domain; it was represented to Charles that it was
necessary to be beforehand with these gentry, if they were to be
restrained. Charles was on the verge of that rupture with law and order in
his own realm which culminated in his dismissal of Parliament, and for ten
years attempting the task of governing England without it. He approved the
charter without adequately realizing the full breadth and pregnancy of its
provisions, which, in effect, secured civil and ecclesiastical
emancipation to the settlers under it. But what was quite as important was
the consideration that it went into effect at a time incomparably
favorable to its success. The Plymouth colony had proved that a godly and
self-denying community could flourish in the wilderness, in the enjoyment
of spiritual blessings unattainable at home. The power of English prelacy
did not extend beyond the borders of England: idolatrous ceremonies could
be eschewed in Massachusetts without fear of persecution. Thousands of
Puritans were prepared to give up their homes for the sake of liberty, and
only waited assurance that it could be obtained. The condition of society
and education in England was vicious and corrupt; and though it might
become brave and true men to suffer persecution in witness of their faith,
yet there was danger that their children might be induced to fall away
from the truth, after they were gone. Martyrdom was well, but it must not
be allowed to such an extreme as to extirpate the proclaimers of the
truth. Many of those who were prepared to take advantage of the charter
were of the best stock in England, men of brains and substance as well as
piety; graduates of the Universities, country gentlemen, men of the world
and of affairs. A colony made of such elements would be a new thing in the
earth; it would comprise all that was strong and wise in human society,
and would exclude every germ of weakness and frailty. The sealing of the
charter was like the touching of the electric button which, in our day,
sets in motion for the first time a vast mechanical system, or fires a
simultaneous salute of guns in a hundred cities. King Charles I., who was
to lose his anointed head on the block because he tried to crush popular
liberty in England, was the immediate human instrument of giving the
purest form of such liberty to English exiles beyond the sea.

The charter constituted an organization called the Governor and Company
of Massachusetts Bay in New England. The governor, annually elected by the
members, was assisted by a deputy and assistants, and was to call a
business meeting monthly or oftener, and in addition was to preside four
times a year at an assembly of the whole body of the freemen, to make laws
and determine appointments. Freedom of Puritan worship was assured, in
part explicitly, in part tacitly. The king had no direct relation with
their proceedings, beyond the general and vague claims of royal
prerogative; and it was an open question whether Parliament had the power
to override the authority of the patentees.

It will be seen that this charter was in no respect inharmonious with the
system of self-government which had grown up among the Plymouth colonists;
it was a more complete and definite formulation of principles which must
ever be supported by men who wish so to live as to obtain the highest
social and religious welfare. It was the stately flowering of a seed
already obscurely planted, and though it was to be now and again checked
in its development, would finally bear the fruit of the Tree of Life.

CHAPTER THIRD

THE SPIRIT OF THE PURITANS

Among the characteristic figures of this age, none shows stronger
lineaments than that of John Endicott. He was, at the time of his coming
to Massachusetts, not yet forty years of age; he remained there till his
death at six-and-seventy. He was repeatedly elected governor, and died in
the governor's chair. In 1645 he was made Major-general of the Colonial
troops; nine years before he had headed a campaign against the Pequot
Indians. His character illustrated the full measure of Puritan sternness;
he was an inflexible persecutor of the Quakers, and was instrumental in
causing four of them to be executed in Boston. In his career is found no
feeble passage; he was always Endicott. He was a man grown before he
attained, under the ministrations of Samuel Skelton of Cambridge, in
England, the religious awakening which placed him in the forefront of the
Puritan dissenters of his time; and it may be surmised that the force of
nature which gave him his self-command would, otherwise directed, have
opened still wider the gates of license and recklessness which marked the
conduct of many in that period. But, having taken his course, he
disciplined himself to the strictest observances, and required them of
others. He was a man of perfect moral and physical courage, austere and
choleric; yet there was in him a certain cheerfulness and kindliness, like
sunshine touching the ruggedness of a granite bowlder. An old portrait of
him presents a full and ruddy countenance, without a beard, and with large
eyes which gaze sternly out upon the beholder. When the Massachusetts
Company was formed, it contained many men of pith and mark, such as
Saltonstall, Bellingham, Eaton, and others; but, by common consent,
Endicott was chosen as the first governor of the new realm, and he sailed
for Boston harbor in June, 1628. He took with him his wife and children,
and a small following of fit companions, and landed in September.

Many tales are told of the doings of Endicott in Massachusetts. Like
those of all strong men, his deeds were often embellished with legendary
ornaments, but the exaggerations, if such there be, are colored by a true
conception of his character. At the time of his advent, there was at
Merrymount, or Mount Walloston, now within the boundaries of Quincy, near
Boston, a colony which was a survival of the one founded by Thomas Weston,
through the agency of Thomas Morton, an English lawyer, who was more than
once brought to book for unpuritanical conduct. Here was collected, in
1628, a number of waifs and strays, and other persons, not in sympathy
with the rigorous habits of the Puritans, whose proceedings were of a more
or less licentious and unbecoming quality, calculated to disturb the order
and propriety of the realm. Endicott, on being apprised of their behavior,
went thither with some armed men, and put a summary end to the colony;
Morton was sent back to England, and the "revelries" which he had
countenanced or promoted were seen no more in Massachusetts. The era for
gayeties had not yet come in the new world. Endicott would not be
satisfied with crushing out evil; he would also nip in the bud all such
lightsome and frivolous conduct as might lead those who indulged in it to
forget the dangers and difficulties attending the planting of the reformed
faith in the wilderness.

More impressive yet is the story of how he resented the project of Laud,
Archbishop of Canterbury, and the most zealous supporter of the follies
and iniquities of King Charles, to force the ritual of the orthodox church
upon the people of Massachusetts. When Endicott received from Governor
Winthrop the letter containing this news, whose purport, it carried out,
would undo all that the Puritans had most passionately labored to
establish; for which they had given up their homes and friends, and to the
safe-guarding of which they had pledged their lives, their fortunes, and
their sacred honor:--he was deeply stirred, and resolved that a public
demonstration should be made of the irrevocable opposition of the people
to the measure. He was at that time captain of the trained band of Salem,
which was used to meet for drill in the square of the little settlement.
It had for a long time disquieted Endicott and other Puritan leaders that
the banner of England, under which, as Englishmen, they must live and
fight, should bear upon it the sign of the red cross, which was the very
emblem of the popery which their souls abhorred. It had seemed to them
almost a sin to tolerate it; and yet it was treason to take any liberties
with the national ensign. But Endicott was now in a mood to encounter any
risk; since, if Laud's will were enforced, there would be little left in
New England worth fighting for.

Accordingly, on the next training day, when the able men of Salem were
drawn up in their breastplates and headpieces, with the Red-Cross flag
floating over them, and the rest of the townspeople, with here and there
an Indian among them, looking on: Endicott, in his armor, with his sword
upon his thigh, spoke in passionate terms to the assembly of the matter
which weighed upon his heart. And then, as a symbol of the Puritan
protest, and a pledge of his vital sincerity, he took the banner in his
hand, and, drawing his sword, cut the cross out of its folds. The
unparalleled audacity and rashness of this act, which might have brought
upon New England a revocation of her charter and destruction of the
liberties which already exceeded those vouchsafed to Englishmen at home,
alarmed Winthrop, and sent a thrill throughout the colony. But the deed
was too public to be disavowed, and Endicott and they must abide the
consequences. Information of the outrage was carried to Charles; but he
was fortunately too much preoccupied at the moment with the struggle for
his crown at home to be able to take proper action upon the slight put
upon his authority in Salem. No punishment was inflicted upon the bold
soldier, who thus anticipated by nearly a century and a half the step
finally taken by the patriots of 1776.

To return, however, to Endicott's arrival in Boston (as it was afterward
named, in honor of that Lincolnshire Boston from which many of the
emigrants came). There were already a few settlers there, who had come in
from various motives, and one or two of whom were inclined to assert
squatter sovereignty. The rights of the Indians were respected, in
accordance with the injunctions of the Company; and Sagamore John, who
asserted his rights as chief over the neck of land and the hilly
promontory of the present city, was so courteously entreated that he
permitted the erection of a house there, and the laying out of streets.
While these preparations were going forward, the bulk of the first
emigration, numbering two hundred persons, with servants, cattle, arms and
other provisions, entered the harbor. They had had a prosperous and pious
voyage, being much refreshed with religious services performed daily; and
it may be recorded as perhaps a unique fact in the annals of ocean
navigation that the ship captain and the sailors punctuated the setting of
the morning and noon watches with the singing of psalms and with prayer.
This sounds apocryphal; but it is stated in the narrative of "New
England's Plantation," written and circulated by Mr. Higginson soon after
their arrival; and it must be remembered that the ship carried a supply of
personages of the clerical profession out of proportion to the number of
the rest of the passengers. But palliate the marvel how we may, we cannot
help smiling at it, and at the same time regretting that the Puritans
themselves probably had no realization of the miracle which was
transacting under their noses. They doubtless regarded it as a matter of
course, instead of a thing to occur but once in a precession of the
equinoxes.

And now, it might be supposed, began the building of the city: the
clearing of the forest, the chopping of wood, the sawing of beams, the
digging of foundations, the ringing of hammers, and the uprising on every
side of the dwellings of civilization. And certainly steps were taken to
provide the company with shelter from the present summer heats and from
the snows of winter to come; and they had brought with them artisans
skilled to do the necessary work. But though the Puritans never could be
called remiss in respect of making due provision for the necessities of
this life, yet all was done with a view to the conditions of the life to
come; and in the annals of the time we read more of the prayers and fasts,
the choosing of ministers, and the promotion and practice of godliness in
general, than we do of any temporal matters. Men there were, like
Endicott, who united the strictest religious zeal with all manner of
practical abilities; but there were many, too, who had been no more
accustomed to shift for themselves than were the gentlemen of Jamestown.
They differed from the latter, however, in an enlightened conception of
the work before them, in enthusiasm for the commonweal, and in
determination to familiarize themselves as soon as possible with the
requirements of their situation. The town did not come up in a night, like
the shanty cities of our western pioneers; nor did it contain gambling
houses and liquor saloons as its chief public buildings. These men were
building a social structure meant to last for all time, and houses in
which they hoped to pass the years of their natural lives; and they
proceeded with what we would now consider unwarrantable deliberation and
with none too much technical skill. They sought neither wealth nor the
luxuries it brings; but, rather, welcomed hardship, as apt to chasten the
spirit; and never felt themselves so thoroughly about their proper
business as when they were assembled in the foursquare little log hut
which they had consecrated as the house of God. Boston and Salem grew:
they were larger and more commodious at the end of the twelvemonth than
they had been at its beginning; but more cannot be said. Sickness,
misfortune, and scarcity handicapped the settlers; many died; the yield of
their crops was wholly inadequate to their needs; servants whose work was
indispensable could not be paid, and were set free to work for themselves,
and the outlook was in all respects gloomy. If the enterprise was to be
saved, the Lord must speedily send succor.

The Lord did not forget His people. A great relief was already preparing
for them, and the way of it was thus.--

The record of the former chartered companies had shown that conducting
the affairs of colonists on the other side of the ocean was attended with
serious difficulties on both parts. The colonists could not make their
needs known with precision enough, or in season, to have them adequately
met; and the governing company was unable to get a close knowledge of its
business, or to explain and enforce its requirements. Furthermore, there
was liable to be continual vexatious interference on the part of the king
and his officers, detrimental to the welfare of colonists and company
alike.

The men who constituted the Massachusetts Company were not concerned
respecting the pecuniary profits of the venture, inasmuch as they looked
only for the treasures which moth nor rust can corrupt; their "plantation"
was to the glory of God, not to the imbursement of man. Nor were they
anxious to impose their will upon the emigrants, or solicitous lest the
latter should act unseemly; for the men who were there were of the same
character and aim as those who were in England, and there could be no
differences between them beyond such as might legitimately arise as to the
most expedient way of reaching a given end. But the Company could easily
apprehend that the king and his ministers might meddle with their projects
and bring them to naught; and since those affairs, unlike mercantile ones,
were not of a nature to admit of compromise, they earnestly desired to
prevent this contingency.

Debating the matter among themselves, the leaders of the organization
conceived the idea of establishing the headquarters of the Company in the
midst of the emigrants in America: of becoming, in other words, emigrants
themselves, and working side by side with their brethren for the common
good. This plan offered manifest attractions; it would remove them from
unwelcome propinquity to the Court, would be of great assistance to the
work to do which the Company was formed, would give them the satisfaction
of feeling that they were giving their hands as well as their hearts to
the service of God, and, not least, would give notice to all the Puritans
in England, now a great and influential body, that America was the most
suitable ground for their earthly sojourning.

These considerations determined them; and it remained only to put the
plan into execution. Twelve men of wealth and education, eminent among
whom was John Winthrop, the future governor of the little commonwealth,
met and exchanged solemn vows that, if the transference could legally be
accomplished, they would personally voyage to New England and take up
their permanent residence there. The question was shortly after put to the
general vote, and unanimously agreed to; a commercial corporation (as
ostensibly the Company was) created itself the germ of an independent
commonwealth; and on October 20th John Winthrop was chosen governor for
the ensuing twelvemonth; money was subscribed to defray expenses; as
speedily as possible ships were chartered or purchased; the numbers of the
members of the Company were increased, and their resources augmented, by
the addition of many outside persons in harmony with the movement, and
willing to support it with their fortunes and themselves; and by the early
spring of 1630 a fleet of no less than seventeen ships, accommodating
nearly a thousand emigrants representing the very best blood and brain of
England, was ready to sail.

At the moment of departing, there was a quailing of the spirit on the
part of some of the emigrants; but Winthrop comforted them; he told them
that they must "keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace"; that,
in the wilderness, they would see more of God than they could in England;
and that their plantation should be of such a quality as that the founders
of future plantations should pray that "The Lord make it likely that of
New England." These were good words. Nevertheless, there were not a few
seceders, and it was not till the year had advanced that the full number
of vessels found their way to the port of Boston. But eleven ships,
including the Arbella which bore Winthrop, sailed at once, with seven
hundred men and women, and every appliance that experience and forethought
could suggest for the convenience and furtherance of life in a new
country. Their going made a deep impression throughout England.

And well it might! For these people were not unknown and rude, like the
Plymouth Pilgrims; they were not fiercely intolerant fanatics, whose
sincerity might be respected, but whose company must be irksome to all
less extreme than themselves. They were of gentle blood and training;
persons whose acquaintance was a privilege; who added to the richness and
charm of social life. That people of this kind should remove themselves to
the wilderness meant much more, to the average mind, than that religious
outcasts like the Pilgrims should do so. For the latter, one place might
be as good as another; but that the others should give up their homes and
traditions for the hardships and isolation of such an existence seemed
incomprehensible; and when no other motive could be found than that which
they professed--"the honor of God"--grave thoughts could not but be
awakened. The sensation was somewhat the same as if, in our day, a hundred
thousand of the most favorably known and highly endowed persons in the
country were to remove to Chinese Tartary to escape from the corruption
and frivolity of business and social life, and to create an ideal
community in the desert. We could smile at such a hegira if Tom, Dick and
Harry were concerned in it; but if the men and women of light and leading
abandon us, the implied indictment is worth heeding.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32