1623. the mouth of qua. 1630. CHAPTER XIII. THE settlements north of Massachusetts, which last engaged our attention, were more or less connected with the Antinomian dispersion. The principal of those which had been made further towards the east belonged as yet to Churchmen. David Thompson, who, under the auspices of John Mason, attempted a plantation at Plantation at the mouth of the Piscataqua, soon became disthe Piscata-couraged, and removed to an island in Boston harbor.1 A new patent having been solicited from the Council for New England2 by Gorges, Mason, and others, the enterprise was resumed, and a party of some fifty men was sent out to be employed in fishing, trade, salt-making, and farming, under the superintendence of Captain Walter Neal. He returned to England after about three years, and, August. the other partners having withdrawn themselves, the settlement fell into the hands of Mason, who reinforced it with a new supply of men and means, and gave it in charge to Francis Williams. withstanding the judicious management of this agent, the undertaking still continued to be unprosperous. Mason made too free an outlay for stores, tools, arms, ammunition, and live stock, of the last of which he imported costly specimens from Denmark. His death put a sudden end to the measures on foot for retrieving his affairs in the plantation. 1633. 1634. 1636. 1 See above, pp. 205, 233. 2 The patent was the one dated November 3, 1631. See above, p. 398, note. Hubbard (215, 216) has preserved what he understood to be a copy of it. 3 Not 3 See Letters of Ambrose Gibbons and others, in Farmer's edition of Belknap's New Hampshire, I. 422–432. 1638. Some By his will, his two grandsons, John and Robert Tufton, inherited his American property, which he estimated at ten thousand pounds sterling. In the hands of Francis Norton, sent over by his widow and executrix as her attorney, it ran down. Supplies ceased on the one hand, and remittances on the other. settlers went away, and those who remained ceased to pay rent for the houses and lands they occupied, which at last they came to look upon as their own. From the disorder into which the plantation fell, it recovered only through some voluntary combination of the inhabitants, the tenor and date of which are alike unknown, no records of the time having been preserved. The fact of the combination is known from a reference to it in an arrangement, subsequently made at an unpropitious moment, for May 25. the maintenance of a clergyman of the Church of England.1 1640. gress of set The country east of the Piscataqua was still almost without English inhabitants. After the capture of the factories on the Penobscot and at Machias by slow prothe French, there was probably no English post tlement eastward of the Plymouth trading-house on the further east. Kennebec, except that at Pemaquid,3 an offshoot from the fishing-station which had been established on the island of Monhegan within six or seven years after Smith's exploration. Perhaps, however, some fishermen may have collected on Muscongus Bay, where land had been granted by the Council for New England to Thomas Leverett of the English Boston, associated with the four 1 Francis Williams, Ambrose Gibbons, and eighteen others, "inhabitants of the lower end of Pascataquack," made an appropriation of land for a glebe, and money for building a church and parsonage, to Thomas Walford and Henry Sherburne, churchwardens, and their successors. Walford was apparently the smith who had been found at Mishawum by Winthrop's company, and 5 been speedily expelled for "contempt London merchants whose partnership had occasioned so much trouble to the New-Plymouth contractors." In settling the country between the Kennebec and the Piscataqua, which was claimed by Sir Ferdinando Gorges, scarcely greater progress had been made. William Gorges, Sir Ferdinando's nephew, had attempted to revive the settlement at Agamenticus, but he had probably remained there less than two years. After his departure, the Massachusetts magistrates "received a commission from Sir Ferdinando Gorges to govern 1635. 1637. June. 1638. his province of New Somersetshire, which is from Cape Elizabeth to Sagadahoc, and withal to oversee his servants and private affairs; which was observed as a matter of no good discretion, but passed in silence," for other reasons as well as "that it did not appear what authority he had to grant such a commission."3 Josselyn, who, on his first visit to America, sailed along the coast from Boston to within less than thirty miles of the Kennebec, has recorded, that the country was "no other than a mere wilderness, here and there by the sea-side a few scattered plantations, with as few houses."4 The little settlements which had been made ten or fifteen years before had acquired no importance, and possessed no orderly organization. July. 5 The hope by which Gorges had long been allured, of being at the head of an energetic and magnificent government, was doomed to be signally frustrated. As affairs now stood at home, he could indulge small expectation of immediately realizing his scheme to be made General Governor of New England. But his ambition contracted itself slowly, and its next aim was to establish a miniature sovereignty on his private estate. To this end, he obtained from the king a charter, constituting him Lord 1 See above, pp. 334, 397, note. 2 Gorges, Briefe Narration, Chap. XXV.; see above, p. 205. 3 Winthrop, I. 231; see above, p. 402. 4 Account of Two Voyages, &c., 20. 5 See above, p. 205. 1639. April 3. Proprietary of the Province of Maine,1 with extraordinary powers of legislation and government, transmissible, with the property, to his heirs and assigns. Province The boundaries were the ocean, the Piscataqua of Maine. and Kennebec rivers, and a line drawn from one river to the other at a hundred and twenty miles' distance from their mouths. The Proprietary was made ruler in church and state, except so far as his prerogative was limited by the essential rights of the crown. He had the patronage of churches, which were to be instituted agreeably to the hierarchical model. In concurrence with representatives of the freeholders, he might establish laws, with penalties extending to liberty, property, and life. By his sole authority, he could erect courts with civil, ecclesiastical, and admiralty jurisdiction; appoint and remove judicial, military, and ministerial officers; prescribe the forms of litigation; and hear appeals. He could make war, and raise, organize, train, and command troops; erect manors and municipal corporations; regulate markets and tolls; designate ports of entry, and exact duties on merchandise. No one could reside or trade within his province, except by his consent; and all freeholders and tenants were to hold of him and his heirs and assigns, as feudal lords of the soil. Here was a monarchy, near enough-had it been substantial enough to blight with its unwholesome shadow the bourgeoning democracy of Massachusetts Bay. What 1 The instrument is in Hazard, I. 442-455. It calls the territory granted “the Province or County of Maine." It was the same as that assigned to Gorges at the surrender of the charter of the Plymouth Council in 1635 (see above, pp. 400, 401), and then named New Somersetshire, from Gorges's English home. This eastern country had been commonly called the Mayne [main] land, in distinction from the numerous islands on its coast, (Smith, Generall Historie, 19; Hazard, I. 385); and thus perhaps it was that Gorges's province obtained its name. I know of nothing to confirm the statement of Sullivan (History, &c., 307),— though it is adopted by Holmes (Annals I. 254, note 5), that "the territory was called the Province of Mayne by way of a compliment to the Queen of Charles the First, who. . . . . owned, as her private estate, a province then called the Province of Meyne.” Sept. 2. 1640. March 10. 1 was wanting to the completeness of its dignity was a sufficiency of subjects; and these were not to be had. Even if, under sufficiently favorable circumstances, the system of polity set up might have proved attractive to the sort of men who are disposed to seek their fortunes in distant wilds, the experiment was now to be made at just the time when cavaliers and their followers were wanted for different business at home. Gorges flattered himself with being "seized of what he had travailed for above forty years, together with the expenses of many thousand pounds, loaded with troubles and vexations from all parts." But he was too late, though he lost no time in the institution of his government. By an instrument twice executed, the second time in an amended form, he appointed his son Thomas Gorges to be Deputy-Governor of his domain, with six persons, residents on the spot, for Counsellors. He accompanied their commission with detailed instructions respecting their official duty. The Counsellors, who were severally to fill the offices of Secretary, Chancellor, FieldMarshal, Treasurer, Admiral, and Master of Ordnance, were jointly to constitute a Supreme Court of Judicature, to meet every month, and to be served by a Registrar and a Provost-Marshal. The Province was to be divided into counties or bailiwicks, hundreds, and tithings. To form a Legislature, eight Deputies, "to be elected by the freeholders of the several counties," were to be associated with the Counsellors. Each county was to have its court, consisting of a lieutenant and eight justices, to be appointed by the Council.2 The first step towards putting this machinery in opera 1 Briefe Narration, Book III. Chap. III. — He had been recently put to unpleasant straits. June 27, 1638, he was ordered to pay two hundred and fiftyfour pounds to John Mitchell, minister, and others, "poor people,"―arrears due from him on account of his adventures to Laconia, "he having hitherto paid only five pounds." (Journal of the Privy Council.)- Similar proceedings against him were had, February 22, March 20, and October 30, 1639. 2 Gorges, Briefe Narration, Book II. Chap. III., IV. |