charter. Winthrop's letter addressed to the Commissioners for Plantations, under this order, is a document worthy of all remembrance, as displaying the spirit and Winthrop's policy of the time. It begins with a refusal to reply to the transmit the patent, expressed in the form of recall of the a petition for a further consideration of the demand, and in the style of diplomatic courtesy appropriate to such communications. It declares, that, had notice been received of the prosecution under the quo warranto, there would have been "a sufficient plea to put in." The material part of the manifesto then follows: "It is not unknown to your Lordships, that we came into these remote parts with his Majesty's license and encouragement, under his great seal of England; and, in the confidence we had of the great assurance of his favor, we have transported our families and estates, and here have we built and planted, to the great enlargement and securing of his Majesty's dominions in these parts, so as, ent country. In "this present year, 1638," the quidnunc Sir Simonds D'Ewes understood that "their numbers there did now amount to some fifty thousand, and most of them truly pious; and every parish supplied with such able, painful, preaching ministers, as no place under heaven enjoys the like." (Autobiography, &c., II. 117, 118.) Three years later, Milton wrote: "What numbers of faithful and freeborn Englishmen and good Christians have been constrained to forsake their dearest home, their friends and kindred, whom nothing but the wide ocean and the savage deserts of America could hide and shelter from the fury of the bishops? O sir, if we could but see the shape of our dear mother England, as poets are wont to give a personal form to what they please, how would she appear, think ye, but in a mourning weed, with ashes upon her head, and tears abundantly flowing from her eyes, to behold so many of her children exposed at once, and thrust from things of dearest necessity, because their conscience could not assent to things which the bishops thought indifferent? What more binding than conscience? What more free than indifferency? Cruel, then, must that indifferency needs be, that shall violate the strict necessity of conscience; merciless and inhuman that free choice and liberty, that shall break asunder the bonds of religion! Let the astrologer be dismayed at the portentous blaze of comets, and impressions in the air, as foretelling troubles and changes to states; I shall believe there cannot be a more ill-boding sign to a nation — God turn the omen from us! than when the inhabitants, to avoid insufferable grievances at home, are enforced by heaps to forsake their native country.” (Reformation in England, Book II.) if our patent should be now taken from us, we should be looked at as runagates and outlaws, and shall be enforced either to remove to some other place, or to return to our native country again, either of which will put us to insuperable extremities; and these evils (among others) will necessarily follow: "1. Many thousand souls will be exposed to ruin, being laid open to the injuries of all men. "2. If we be forced to desert the place, the rest of the plantations about us (being too weak to subsist alone) will for the most part dissolve and go along with us, and then will this whole country fall into the hands of French or Dutch, who would speedily embrace such an opportunity. "3. If we should lose all our labor and cost, and be deprived of those liberties which his Majesty hath granted us, and nothing laid to our charge, nor any failing to be found in us in point of allegiance, (which all our countrymen do take notice of, and do justify our faithfulness in this behalf,) it will discourage all men hereafter from the like undertakings, upon confidence of his Majesty's royal grant. "4. Lastly, if our patent be taken from us, (whereby we suppose we may claim interest in his Majesty's favor and protection,) the common people here will conceive that his Majesty hath cast them off, and that hereby they are freed from their allegiance and subjection, and thereupon will be ready to confederate themselves under a new government, for their necessary safety and subsistence, which will be of dangerous example unto other plantations, and perilous to ourselves of incurring his Majesty's displeasure, which we would by all means avoid." 1 1 Hubbard, History, 269, 270. Hubbard, from whom Hazard copied, (I. 435, 436,) printed this paper from the original in the Massachusetts archives, where it is still preserved. The scarcely covert threats contained in it were suited to have effect, not only on the temper of the imperilled government Here, after a little more empty threatening from the Commissioners,1 the business slept for the present. There was more serious matter for concern nearer home. The Scots were in arms. Hutchinson thought that, if the settlers in Massachusetts had now been pushed to extremity, "it is pretty certain the body of the people would have left the country," either betaking themselves to the Dutch on Hudson's River, or seeking some unoccupied spot out of the reach of any European power.2 But a combination with the Dutch, while it would have secured their liberty of worship, might not even have involved a necessity for their change of residence. As things stood, the great maritime power of the United Provinces, had it been engaged to come in aid of what they could do for themselves, might fairly be supposed competent to protect them in their Massachusetts homes. at home, but on further machinations of Gorges, who, however some of his interests might clash with those of the chief adjacent colony, could not but contemplate the probable contingencies which might make him desire its protection for his domain against his French neighbors on the other border. See Thomas Gorges's letter in Hutchinson's Collection, &c., 114. 1 "The Governor [May 6, 1639] received letters from Mr. Cradock, and in them another order from the lords commissioners, to this effect: That, whereas they had received our petition upon their former order, etc., by which they perceived that we were taken with some jealousies and fears of their intentions, etc., they did accept of our answer, and did now declare their intentions to be only to regulate all plantations to be subordinate to the said Commission; and that they meant to continue our liberties, etc., and therefore did now again peremptorily require the Governor to send them our patent by the first ship; and that in the mean time they did give us, by that order, CHAPTER XIV. It was while events were ripening for the overthrow of the English throne and church, that the ten years had passed since the arrival of Winthrop's company in Massachusetts Bay. From the time of the dissolution of his third Parliament, King Charles had ruled with absolute authority. After reducing his expenses by a Despotism of Charles sudden and inglorious peace with both France the First. and Spain, still he wanted money, which he proceeded to raise by illegal impositions. Duties on imported merchandise were exacted, in contempt of the denial of a Parliamentary grant; and customs were levied, unknown to former practice. Compositions with Papists for breaches of the laws became a permanent resource of the exchequer. Titles to crown lands anciently alienated by the crown were scrutinized, and, on pretence of some defect, fines were extorted from the possessors. . A law, long obsolete, had required landholders to the amount of twenty pounds' yearly rent to receive knighthood when summoned for that purpose; Charles so far revived it as to oblige all persons with twice that rental to buy a release from the liability. The charter of London was declared forfeit, for some alleged irregularity of administration; and the city only saved its legal existence by the payment of a fine of seventy thousand pounds. In other quarters enormous mulcts were exacted by the Star-Chamber Court, on various pretexts. Monopolies were sold for the manufacture and vending of necessary articles.1 Custom 1 "Salt, starch, coals, iron, wine, pens, cards, dice, beavers, belts, bone lace, meat dressed in taverns (the vintners of London gave the king £ 6,000 house officers were empowered to search warehouses and dwellings. An early practice of requiring seaport towns to furnish vessels for the king's service-which was the same thing as for their own protection - had, for the convenience of both parties, led to a pecuniary com- Exaction of mutation by what was called Ship-money. The Ship-money. sovereign's right in respect to it had never received any stricter definition than was furnished by the obvious conditions of the case. Profiting by this vagueness, 1634. Charles assessed ship-money on the whole king- October. dom. By a fiction of state, the central counties were held to bound upon the Channel, and Derbyshire and Oxford were summoned to pay coin in the place of a despatch of squadrons from their docks. The spirit of Englishmen was not broken down to an acquiescence in the encroachments of prerogative. But where to find means of redress? There was no Parliament to provide new securities for the violated or threatened liberties of the subject. There were no honest tribunals to give him the benefit of those securities which were his by ancient law. Prostitute officials did thoroughly the work of an insolent court. The twelve judges endeavored to forestall public opinion by an extra-judicial for freedom from this horrible imposition), tobacco, wine-casks, game, brewing and distilling, lamprons, weighing of hay and straw in London, gauging of red herrings, butter-casks, kelp and seaweed, linen cloth, rags, hops, but tons, hats, gut-string, spectacles, combs, tobacco-pipes, sedan chairs, and hack ney-coaches (now first invented), saltpetre, gunpowder, down to the privilege of gathering rags exclusively, all these things were subject to monopolies, and all heavily taxed." (John Forster, Historical and Biographical Essays, I. 59.) "It is a nest of wasps, or swarm of vermin, which have overcrept the land, - I mean the monopolers and pollers of the people. Like the frogs of Egypt, they have gotten the possession of our dwellings, and we have scarce a room free from them. They sup in our cup, they dip in our dish, they sit by our fire. We find them in the dye-fat, the wash-bowl, and the powdering-tub. They share with the butler in his box. They have marked and sealed us from head to foot. Mr. Speaker, they will not bate us a pin. We may not buy our own clothes without their brokage.” (Ibid., 64; a quotation from a speech of Culpepper, afterwards King Charles's Chancellor of the Exchequer, at the opening of the Long Parliament.) |