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During their existence as a corporation, a period of fourteen years and seven months, they were not inactive. In 1621, they relinquished a large proportion of their patent in favor of Sir Wm. Alexander, and assented to a conveyance by the king to him of all the territory lying east of the river St Croix and south of the St. Lawrence, embracing the provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. The other grants made by the council within the present limits of Maine, were as follows: 1st. 1622, Aug. 10. To Sir Ferdinando Gorges and Capt. John Mason, from Merrimac to the Kennebec river.1 2. 1626, Nov. 6. To the Plymouth adventurers a tract on Kennebec river; which was enlarged in 1628.2

3. 1630, Jan. 13. To Wm. Bradford and his associates, fifteen miles on each side of the Kennebec river, extending up to Cobbisecontee; this grant Bradford transferred to the Plymouth adventurers.3

4. 1630, Feb. 12. To John Oldham and Richard Vines, four miles by eight miles on the west side of Saco river1 at itsmouth.

5. 1630, Feb. 12. To Thomas Lewis and Richard Bonighton, four miles by eight, on the east side of Saco river at the mouth.

6. 1630. March 13, To John Beauchamp and Thomas Leverett, ten leagues square on the west side of Penobscot river, called the Lincoln or Waldo patent.5

*[April 22, 1635, the council granted to Sir Wm. Alexander, all that part of the main land from St. Croix along the sea-coast to Pemaquid and so up the Kinnebequi, to be called the county of Canada.]

1 Hutchinson, vol. i. p. 286.

2 Prince, vol. i. pp. 170, 172.

3 Prince, vol. i. p. 196.

4 Ante and York Records.

5 Prince, vol. i. p. 203. Hazard, vol i. p. 318.

7. 1630. To John Dy and others the province of Ligonia, or the Plough patent,' lying between Cape Porpus and Cape Elizabeth, and extending forty miles from the coast.

8. 1631, Nov. 1. To Thomas Cammock, Black Point, fifteen hundred acres.2

9. 1631, Dec. 1. To Robert Trelawny and Moses Goodyeare, a tract between Spurwink river and Casco Bay.

10. 1632. To Robert Aldsworth and Gyles Elbridge, a tract on Pemaquid point.3

11. 1634. To Edward Godfrey and others, twelve thousand acres on the river Agamenticus.*

12. 1634. To Ferdinando Gorges, twelve thousand acres on west side of the river Agamenticus.1§

1 Sullivan, vol i. pp. 114, 304. 2 York Records. 3 Hazard, vol. i. p. 315. *[A grant was made by the council to Godfrey, Dec. 2, 1631.—Sainsbury.] 4 Beside the foregoing, a grant was made to George Way and Thomas Purchase, between the Kennebec and Androscoggin rivers and Casco bay, but its date is not known; the original having been long since lost, and no record remaining. It is referred to in very ancient deeds. This tract became the subject of long and bitter controversy between the Pejepscot proprietors and other claimants, which was not finally settled until about 1814. In 1753, several pamphlets were published by the opposing parties, containing the arguments on the question. Eleazer Way, in a deed to Richard Wharton, of his right as son and heir to George Way, 1683, alleged that Way and Purchase had a grant of the territory from the council of Plymouth.

[Sainsbury in his Colonial Calendar furnishes the date of the grant to Way and Purchase, " June 16, 1632."

Sainsbury's Calendar also notes a grant to Walter Bagnall, of Richmond Island, and fifteen hundred acres of land, Dec. 2, 1631.

And the same day, two thousand acres on the south side of Cape Porpus river, to John Stratton and his associates; from him, the islands lying off Black Point river, were probably named, and have uniformly borne that name to the present day. Stratton was from Shotley, in the county of Suffolk, England.

The grant to Richard Bradshaw of fifteen hundred acres, claimed to be at Spurwink, and before noticed, was dated Nov. 1, 1631.

There may have been other grants, which did not find their way into the records, or were never improved.]

These are all the grants which this company made in Maine, that we have met with previous to their final division in 1635. In that division, the territory now called Maine, was distributed to three of the patentees. Gorges' share extended from the Piscataqua to Kennebec or Sagadahoc. Another portion was between Sagadahoc and Pemaquid, estimated to be ten thousand acres, granted to Mason, and called Masonia. The third from Pemaquid to the St. Croix,' was given to Sir William Alexander. We have no evidence that any occupation was had by Mason or Alexander under these titles.

On the 25th of April 1635, a short time previous to the surrender of their charter, the council had a meeting at Whitehall, in London, at which they prepared a declaration of the reasons which induced them to take this important step, as follows:2 "Forasmuch as we have found by a long experience, that the faithful endeavors of some of us, that have sought the plantation of New England, have not been without frequent and inevitable troubles as companions to our undertakings from our first discovery of that coast to this present, by great charges and necessary expenses; but also depriving us of divers of our near friends and faithful servants employed in that work abroad, whilst ourselves at home were assaulted with sharp litigious questions" both before the privy council and the parliament, having been presented "as a grievance to the Commonwealth;" "the affections of the multitude were thereby disheartened;" "and so much the more by how much it pleased God, about that time to bereave us of the most noble and principal props thereof, as the Duke of Lennox, Marquis of Hamilton, and many other strong stayes to this weak building;" "then followed the claim of the French Ambassador, taking advantage of the divisions of the sea-coast between ourselves, to whom we made a just and satisfactory answer." "Never

Gorges Narrative.

2 Gorges' Narrative, and Hazard, vol. i. p. 390.

theless," they add, "these crosses did not draw upon us such a disheartened weakness, as, there only remained a carcass, in a manner breathless, till the end of the last parliament," when the Massachusetts' company obtained their charter, and afterward thrust out the undertakers and tenants of some of the council, "withal riding over the heads of those lords and others that had their portions assigned unto them in their late majesty's presence. After a further enumeration of grievances, too grievous to be borne, they say they found matters "in so desperate a case" by reason of the complaints made against them, and the procedure in Massachusetts, that they saw no remedy for "what was brought to ruin," but for his majesty to take the whole business into his own hands. "After all these troubles, and upon these considerations, it is now resolved that the patent shall be surrendered unto his majesty."

In the same instrument, they provided for all existing titles made by them, and prayed the king to confirm the grants which they had divided among themselves. These were recorded in a book which accompanied the surrender.

In addition to the reasons set forth in the public declaration of the council, Ferdinando Gorges, grandson of Sir F. Gorges, in "America painted to the life," has the following: "the country proving a receptacle for divers sorts of sects, the establishment in England complained of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, and he was taxed as the author of it, which brought him into some discredit, whereupon he moved those lords to resign their grand patent to the king, and pass particular patents to themselves of such parts along the sea-coast as might be sufficient for them."

The division of the territory among the patentees was made by lot on the 3d of February 1635,' the grants were executed April 22d, and on the 7th of June following, the president and council made full surrender of their charter to the king.

1 Hazard, vol. i. p. 383.

2 Hazard, vol. i. p. 383. Douglas, vol. i. p. 387.

They did however urge upon the king the necessity of taking away the charter of Massachusetts, and of appointing a general governor for the whole territory, to be taken from among the lord's proprietors. The king assented to this plan, but the earnest opposition of the friends of Massachusetts and the other New England colonies, and the breaking out of the civil war, which by its immediate and pressing danger, engrossed the whole thoughts of the king and his government, prevented its being carried into execution. Sir F. Gorges was appointed General Governor of New England 1637, but never came over.

Capt. John Mason, to whom New Hampshire had been assigned, and Sir Ferdinando Gorges, seem to have been the only proprietors who pursued their separate grants with any zeal. But Mason was not long permitted to enjoy the fruit of his enterprise; he died Nov 26, 1635, and his private interest in his remote province, for the want of proper superintendence, and owing to the unfaithfulness of agents immediately declined.2

Gorges lost no time to improve his acquisition. He gave to his province the name of New Somersetshire, from the county in England, in which his estates were situated, and the same year sent over as governor, his nephew, Capt. Wm. Gorges.3 The proprietor could establish no civil government without authority from the king, and Gorges therefore was indefatigable in procuring the necessary requisite for perfecting his title to the sovereignty as well as the soil of the province.1 His labors for this object were not crowned with success until April 3, 1639. In the mean time, however, William Gorges arrived in this country, and held at Saco, March 21, 1636, the first court in this State, of which we have any record. The mem

1 Hazard, vol. i. p. 381. Winthrop, vol i. p. 161.

2 Belknap, N. H., vol i. p. 27. Annals of Portsmouth.

3 Jocelyn, 1 Chron. Chalmers, Annals. p. 473.

4 Geo. Vaughn's letter, Hazard, vol. i. p. 403. Belknap, Appendix.

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