chosen, a statesman equally obnoxious to the royal displeasure.1 1 The troubles of the Virginia Company, in its contest with the court, are set forth at large in Peckard's "Life of Nicholas Ferrar," the Protestant monk, who, before his seclusion, had, as Deputy-Governor of the Company, shown extraordinary ability in the management of its affairs. I have only an abridgment of that work, published by Joseph Masters (London, 1852). The story is therein told, in pp. 67-91, 94, 95. The friendliness of Sir Edwin Sandys to Robinson's congregation has been already mentioned. (See above, pp. 151, 152.) Hume (Chap. XLVIII.) commemorates "his activity and vigor in discharging his duty as a member of Parliament." In 1614, the king had committed him to the Tower for some freedoms in debate. He was known as a man of letters, having published metrical versions of some portions of Scripture, and written a work entitled "Europæ Speculum, or a View or Survey of the State of Religion in the Western Parts of the World," wherein he recorded the results of personal observations in all the countries of Southern Europe, except Spain. The copy which I have read is of an edition published at the Hague in 1629. From the Preface it appears that Sir Edwin was not known to have deceased (though he died in that year), and that the publication was unauthorized by him. The Preface also declares, that there had been an earlier edition, in 1605, from "a spurious stolen copy, in part epitomized, in part amplified,” and that, "since that time, there had been another impression of the same." I know no book which conveys so lively an idea of the state of mind of a large class of reflecting Protestants at that period. The author's reason is fully satisfied of the necessity of the Reformation from Romanism. But the influences of early training still embarrass him. He is full of anxiety for the result of the contest. And he inclines much to the opinion, that the methods of the Papists for winning and securing disciples should be adopted by their opponents. The struggle within him between the old feeling of conservatism and the conviction of a need of change is curiously manifest. While the treaty for a marriage between Prince Charles and the Infanta was pending, Spain exerted great control over the English councils, — partly, it was believed, through money used for corruption. Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador, had helped to influence King James against Sandys, by representing him as hostile to the proposed match. In a MS. volume in the State-Paper Office, entitled “America and West Indies," at page 507, is a letter, of January 7, 1621, addressed by Sandys to "the Right Honorable my most honored good Lord, the Marquis of Buckingham, Lord High Admiral of England." In it he says: "I understand, by the last boastings of Sir Thomas Smith and his partisans, of their sedulous endeavors by a cloud of untruths to make a fresh interposition between the most joyful sight of his Majesty's favor, and the darkness wherewith myself and my service rest yet obscured, an attempt of strange malignity.” He represents, that, by God's blessing his labors, "more hath been done in one year, with less than eight thousand pounds, for the advancement of that Colony [Virginia] in people and store of commodities, than was done in Sir Thomas Smith's twelve years with expense of near eighty thousand pounds." He declares himself willing to give one more year's service to it, if the king de of the Coun cil for New England. The king showed his resentment by favoring the interIncorporation ests of the rival Company, and of this disposition Gorges did not fail to take advantage. Reviving from their recent discouragement,1 he and his associates solicited, and with no difficulty obtained, a new incorporation, under the title of "The Council established at Plymouth, in the County of Devon, for the planting, ordering, ruling, and governing of New England in America." Most of the forty patentees of 1620. Nov. 3. sires. If not, he will gladly retire, and avoid offering offence to his Majesty. Lord Southampton, Sandys's friend, who succeeded him as Governor of the Virginia Company, continued in that office till its dissolution, which took place in June, 1624, by judgment of the Court of King's Bench on a writ of quo warranto issued in November of the previous year. These measures against the Company had been preceded by sharp disputes within it. "There is a great faction fallen out in the Virginia Company," &c. "The last week, the Earl of Warwick and the Lord Cavendish fell so foul at a Virginia or Bermudas court, that the lie passed and repassed, and they are got over to try their fortune." (Letters of Chamberlain to Sir Dudley Carleton, April 19 and July 26, 1623, in Birch's "Court and Times of James the First,” II. 389, 413.) On the dissolution of the Company, Mr. Ferrar, the Deputy-Governor, is said (Life of Nicholas Ferrar, 98) to have " seen the attested copies of all the books and papers belonging to them delivered into safe custody in the Dorset family." It is these copies, I suppose, which, having come into the possession of Mr. Jefferson, now belong to the Law Library at Washington, in consequence of the purchase by the government of the papers of that statesWhen Dr. Peckard wrote his Life of Ferrar, about 1790, he applied man. for them to the Duke of Dorset, but 1 See above, p. 98. 2 Gorges, Briefe Narration, Chap. XVI. The petitioners had asked (March 3, 1620) “that their territory may be called, as by the Prince his Highness it hath been named, New England." The patent is in Hazard, I. 103. The royal warrant for its preparation had been issued, July 23. (Hazard, I. 99.) Acquainted with this movement, Weston and others had, before the embarkation at Leyden, rec-. ommended the taking of a patent from the Council for New England, rather than from the Virginia Company. (Bradford, 44.) Of the records of the Council for New England, two portions survive among the documents in the State-Paper Office this Council were men of distinguished consequence. Thirteen were peers, some of them of the highest rank. It was empowered to hold territory in America, extending westward from sea to sea, and in breadth from the fortieth to the forty-eighth degree of north latitude. Upon lands of this corporation Bradford and his companions had sat down without leave, and were of course liable to be summarily expelled. Informed of their position by the return of the Mayflower to England in the spring, their friends obtained from the Council a patent which was brought by the Fortune.1 It was taken out in the name of "John Pierce, in London. The first (consisting of forty pages, if my memorandum is correct) is bound in the beginning of the first volume of the series entitled "Board of Trade." Its title, " A Journal of the Council of Trade from the last of May, 1622, to the 21st of June, 1623," which is in a much more modern handwriting, and was prefixed, as I think there can be no doubt, by some person who did not understand the character of the document, has concealed it from the knowledge of inquirers in later times. It has been injured by fire. Mr. Felt, who had seen it, quotes it (Ecclesiastical History, &c., I. 68) under the title of "Council Records of London." Mr. Deane, in his edition of Bradford (209), and Mr. Haven (Archæol. Amer., III. 54), more precisely recognize the memoranda of Mr. Felt as being from "the Records of the Council for New England.” The other fragment is the tenth parcel in the file, in the State-Paper Office, designated by the number 485. It is, I suppose, no part of the original Journal, but of a copy, made probably in the year 1674, when the project to send Randolph to New England was maturing. It extends over the time between November, 1631, and November, 1638. It seems that, not long before the 1621. Nov. 9. commission of Colonel Nichols and others, in 1664, the Journal was placed in the hands of the first Lord Clarendon, from which time it was lost sight of. In May, 1678, "the Lords of the Committee" (that is, the Privy Council's Committee of Trade, &c., established March 12, 1675) applied by letter to the second Lord Clarendon for “a large book in folio, bound in parchment, of the Records of the Council for New England from 1620 to 1635," which, as they had learned from Robert Mason, was in 1662 delivered by him to the Earl's father, "wherein, among other things, are contained all the grants made from the said Council." (Original Papers in the State-Paper Office, II. 151.) In a subsequent letter, Southwell, Secretary of the Committee, informs Lord Clarendon (Ibid., 162) that, on an examination of the Records of the Privy Council, he finds that Mason's claim cannot be substantiated, unless Lord Clarendon can find the book lately applied for. 1 The original of this instrument, after a long disappearance, came to light, within the present century, in the Land-Office of Massachusetts, and had been seen by Judge Davis when he prepared his edition of Morton's "Memo Patent from England. June 1. It citizen and clothworker of London, and his associates," with the understanding that it should be held in trust for the Adventurers, of whom Pierce was one. It the Council allowed a hundred acres of land to every colonist gone and to go to New England, at a yearly rent of two shillings an acre after seven years. granted fifteen hundred acres for public uses, and liberty to "hawk, fish, and fowl"; to "truck, trade, and traffic with the savages"; to "establish such laws and ordinances as are for their better government, and the same, by such officer or officers as they shall by most voices elect and choose, to put in execution"; and to "encounter, expulse, repel, and resist by force of arms" all intruders, and other persons who should "enterprise or attempt destruction, invasion, detriment, or annoyance to the said plantation." The number of colonists was to be reported to the Council from time to time, and they were to "apply themselves and their labors in a large and competent manner to the planting, setting, making, and procuring of good and staple commodities in and upon the land granted unto them, as corn and silk-grass, hemp, flax, pitch and tar, soap-ashes and pot-ashes, iron, clapboard, and other the like materials." The instrument was signed for the Council by the Duke of Hamilton, the Duke of Lenox, the Earl of Warwick, Lord Sheffield, and Sir Ferdinando Gorges. At the end of five weeks after her arrival, the Fortune sailed again for England. She had brought out a letter from Weston, complaining in harsh terms the Fortune. that the Mayflower had returned without a Dec. 13. Sailing of rial." (Davis's Morton, p. 73.) Again it was lost sight of, and was given up by the antiquaries (Young, Pilgrims, 235), till once more discovered, in 1854, among Judge Davis's papers. It has since been published in a beautiful edition by that accomplished NewEngland archeologist, Mr. Charles Deane, of Cambridge. A copy, certified by Samuel Wells of Boston, July 28, 1743, to have been exactly taken from the original, then in his custody, probably for an examination of some title, has been in the library of the American Antiquarian Society at Worcester for more than twenty years. 1 freight. "That you sent no lading in the ship is wonderful, and worthily distasted. I know your weakness was the cause of it, and, I believe, more weakness of judgment than weakness of hands. A quarter of the time you spent in discoursing, arguing, and consulting would have done much more." He desired a fair engrossment of the contract with the Adventurers, subscribed with the names of the principal planters; and he abounded in protestations that he would adhere to the engagements, though all the other Adventurers should be discouraged.2 The dignified reply of Bradford is penetrated with an unconscious pathos. On the side of the settlers, he says, there had been disappointments far more serious. "The loss of many honest and industrious men's lives cannot be valued at any price. It pleased God to visit us with death daily, and with so general a disease that the living were scarce able to bury the dead, and the well not in any measure sufficient to tend the sick. And now to be so greatly blamed for not freighting the ship doth indeed go near us, and much discourage us."3 The Fortune carried homeward "two hogsheads of beaver-skins, and good clapboards as full as she could hold; the freight estimated at five hundred pounds." But the remittance failed through her capture and pillage, near the coast of England, by a French privateer. Cushman, who had come in that vessel, returned in her, as had been arranged in England, to make a personal report to the Adventurers. While at Plymouth, he had exercised his gifts in a "prophecy," which was Cushman's printed on his return to London; an interesting Prophecy. memorial of the transactions which he witnessed and 1 It seems that the indenture had never been executed, in consequence of the dispute about the two articles last inserted (see above, p. 158). The emigrants now yielded, and sent the contract by the Fortune. 4. 2 Weston's letter, in Bradford, 107. 3 Bradford's letter, in Bradford, 109. 4 Dr. Young has reprinted it (Pilgrims, 262 et seq.). |