Martha's

The evangelical labors of Thomas Mayhew, the younger, in Martha's Vineyard, had preceded those of Eliot, at least in respect to systematic instruction. They were so successful, that, in his first communication to the Society for Propagating the Gospel, he was able to report: "Through the mercy of God, there are an hundred ninety- Mayhew at nine men, women, and children, that have pro- Vineyard. fessed themselves to be worshippers of the great Oct. 16. and ever-living God."1 In the next year the number of his converts had increased to "two hundred eighty-three Indians, not counting young children." lic worship was conducted by natives in two places on the Lord's day, and "about thirty Indian children were at school." The prospect which he had opened was

to constitute and appoint Indian Commissioners in their several plantations, to hear and determine all such matters that do arise among themselves as one magistrate may do amongst the English;" and Atherton and these Commissioners, sitting together, were to have the power of a County Court within the plantations. (Mass. Rec., IV. (i.) 334.)

Gookin first came to Boston, from Virginia, May 20, 1644, and was admitted to be a freeman nine days afterwards (Mass. Rec., II. 293), being then called Captain. He was probably one of the "divers godly disposed persons," who, according to Winthrop (II. 165), left Virginia on account of the massacre perpetrated there by the Indians in that year; a calamity which Winthrop connected with the Virginians' "reviling the Gospel and those faithful ministers [Tompson and others] God had sent among them" from New England. Gookin established himself at Cambridge, where he was presently appointed captain of the train-band, having formerly been "a Kentish soldier," and "a very forward man to

1651.

1652.

Oct. 22.

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advance martial discipline, and withal the truths of Christ." (Wonder-Working Providence, 192.) In 1649, he was a Deputy to the General Court (Mass. Rec., II. 265); in 1651, he was Speaker of the House (Ibid., III. 221); and in the following year he was made an Assistant. (Ibid., 258.)

Atherton took the freeman's oath, May 2, 1638 (Mass. Rec., I. 374), and was a Deputy from Dorchester to the General Court in the autumn of the same year (Ibid., 235), in the next year (Ibid., 255), and in several other years. In 1646, he was chosen to be a captain (Ibid., II. 146), and in 1653, Speaker of the House (Ibid., III. 297), being then Deputy for Springfield, though his home was still in Dorchester, residence in a place not being required in those days as a qualification for representing it. The next year he was made an Assistant (Ibid., 339); and in 1661, Major-General (Ibid., IV. (ii.) 1). See above, p. 231.

1657.

clouded by his premature death. A vessel in November. which he had embarked for England with some of his converts was never heard of afterwards. But

the enterprise was not abandoned. "Old Mr. Mayhew, his worthy father, struck in with his best strength and skill;" and the loss which seemed "almost irreparable" was not permitted by the aged mourner to be complete and fatal.

Missionary

southern

Colonies.

The southern Colonies of New England did not prove to be fertile missionary ground. More powerful, better compacted, and less needy than their countrymen efforts in the in Massachusetts, the Mohegans, Narragansetts, Wampanoags, and Nyantics were less susceptible of influence from their new neighbors. It was thought matter of surprise, that, "in Rhode Island and Providence Plantations," where the language of the natives was so well understood by Mr. Williams and others, "no conversions had taken place among them;" and one reason of this barrenness was supposed to be "the bad example of the English in those parts, where civil government and religion ran very low." The remnants of the Pequot race were in intimate dependence upon the English; but among them the labors of Mr. Richard Blindman found a very scanty requital, so far as is known. "In the jurisdiction of Connecticut, Mr. Abraham Pierson, pastor of the church at Branford, having gained some knowledge of the Indian tongue, made some beginnings, and continued in that work some years, to preach the Gospel to some Indians in those parts;” but Gookin had not "heard of any considerable fruits of his

Gookin, in Mass. Hist. Coll., I. 203. * Letter of Commissioners, in Hazard, II. 397.

See above, p. 195, note 5.- Cotton (Way Cleared, &c., 79–82) is very severe upon Williams for neglecting, with his facilities for addressing the Indians,

"to take the opportunity of preaching to them the word of the Lord."

It is not even certain that Mr. Blindman accepted the appointment offered to him by the Commissioners. (Records, &c., in Hazard, II. 371, 372, 378.)

labors with them,"1 and it may be presumed there were none. At Sandwich, in Plymouth Colony, lived Mr. Richard Bourne and Mr. William Leverich, both of whom followed, but with no striking success, in the steps of Eliot and Mayhew. Most of the services of the missionaries who have been named were rendered under the direction of the Federal Commissioners, through whom allowances were made from the treasury of the English corporation.*

The chief proceedings of the Commissioners of the United Colonies during the time of their most unrestricted freedom have been recorded in this and in the last chapter. The course of affairs in the mother country, averting the danger of encroachment from that quarter, had relieved the Confederacy from the heaviest responsibility which it had been devised to meet. Among the particulars of miscellaneous business brought before the Commissioners from time to time by the several jurisdictions, occur such as are indicative of the generous comprehensiveness of their objects, confined, and at the same time illustrated, by their humble means. On information from the Corporation of Harvard College, "that the former College buildings were in a decaying condition, and would require considerable charge erelong for a due repair, and that, through the increase of scholars, many of them were forced to lodge in the town," the Commissioners, "conceiving that the advancement of learning here might also advance the work of Christ among the Indians," desired Mr. Winslow to ascertain whether aid 1651. could be obtained for the College from the So- September. ciety for Propagating the Gospel, at the same time expressing their readiness to propose to the Colonies, "that by pecks, half-bushels, and bushels of wheat, according as

1 Gookin, in Mass. Hist. Col., I. 208; comp. Records, &c., in Hazard, II. 469. • Gookin, in Mass. Hist. Col., I. 196.

8 "Further Progress," &c., 21 - 25. * Records, &c., in Hazard, II. 393.

men were free and able, the College might have some considerable yearly help."1 "To the end that the works of God and his goodness, which had been great towards his people in their first planting of this desolate wilderness, might never be forgotten, but be kept in a thankful and perpetual remembrance, to the praises of his Sept. 17. grace and comfort of posterity," they requested

1656.

the several General Courts to collect memorials of the past, so that "some one fitly qualified might be appointed and desired to compose the same into a history, and prepare it for the press."2

1 Records, &c., in Hazard, II. 197. - In this year, the account of Thomas Weld's agency was at last settled. When he presented it in 1647 (see above, p. 334, note 1), he bespoke the interest of Mr. Ezekiel Rogers to get it despatched. (Letter of Rogers to Winthrop, Nov. 8, 1647, in the "Hutchinson Papers" in the possession of the Mass. Hist. Soc., I. 133.) But the parties were not yet prepared to agree. At length, Oct. 25, 1651, a committee of the General Court, consisting of Nowell, Duncan, William Tyng, and Edward Johnson, "accepted and allowed of" the account, with a balance in Weld's favor of £19. 16, in a sum of £1,625. 2. 6. (Mass. Archives, LVIII. 6.)

Records, &c., in Hazard, II. 367. Accordingly, New Haven (May 27, 1657) "agreed to desire Mr. Davenport, Mr. Higginson, and Mr. Pierson to gather up the most remarkable passages of God's Providence which hath been observable in these parts since their first beginnings, which may be a help towards the compiling of a history of the gracious providences of God to New England" (N. H. Rec., II. 217); and Connecticut (Oct. 2, 1656) raised a committee, consisting of Major Mason, Mr. Stone, and six others, for the same service. (Conn. Rec., I. 284.) I do not know that Plymouth or Massachusetts acted on the recommendation. Perhaps it was known that Bradford and Winthrop had been keeping journals.

CHAPTER IX.

THE plantations about Narragansett Bay were as yet incapable of a settled government. They needed first to learn by experience that social order is inconsistent with such an uncompromising individualism as they affected to maintain. Unorganized within themselves, they continued to have but a loose relation to the unity of New England. Little cause as there might be to admit that they had legitimate political claims, plausible as were the reasons which the Confederacy might plead for interference in their affairs, and incompetent as they were to selfdefence against its well-compacted power, the Confederacy had no mind to molest them. They served the Confederacy a useful purpose. In the existing ferment of opinion in the parent country, it was to be expected that among the emigrants to New England there would be persons affected with all sorts of eccentric humors; and it was beneficial to the other plantations that there should be a place where such persons might conveniently collect, and gradually become quiet and wise by making their experiments where they would do little harm except to one another. It was an advantage to have, near by, a sufficient receptacle for the overflow of communities which would be the more wholesome for being drained. Williams, Coddington, and some of their associates, possessed qualities worthy of high esteem; but it is doing them no injustice to say, that to build solid commonwealths was not their vocation, and that, if the NewEngland settlements had all been "Providence Plantations," New England would have proved a failure.