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CHAPTER IV.

Reasoning of the first Settlers as to their Independence-The Colony becomes a Republic from Necessity-Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance dispensed with-They decline to set up the King's Arms-Mutilate the Flag-Drinking Healths abolished-Blackstone's Remarks about the Lord's Brethren-Order that none but Church Members be admitted to be Freemen-Another, forbidding a Stranger to settle in the Colony without a License-Petitioning the King called slandering the Brethren-Punishment of Morton, Sir Christopher Gardener, and Ratcliffe-Morton publishes a Satire at Amsterdam-Returns to Massachusetts-Is fined and banished again-Intimate Connection between their Church and State-The King orders several Vessels in the Thames to be put under Embargo-A House of Representatives meets in Boston, and is admitted as a Branch of the Legislature-The Governor is not re-elected, and is made to account for his Expenditure of the public Moneys-His manly Conduct on the Occasion-A Code of Laws ordered to be compiled-Also a uniform System of Church Discipline.

HAVING traced the origin of this republic, and its history to the removal of the proprietors and their charter to New England, I shall now give a brief sketch of their resolute and systematic defense of their independence until the year 1686, when the patent was revoked. We have seen that they apprehended aggression from three sources, the Crown, the Hierarchy, and the Parliament. It will be instructive to show with what courage they resisted, or what ingenuity they evaded compliance with the authority or claims of all. Their conduct in this particular was not the result of accident, or of public distractions in England, or of their remote and isolated situation, though all contributed to favor their object, but it was a predetermined and well-concerted plan. They had paid a large sum of money to the Council of New Plymouth for their territory, they had fortified their title to the soil by purchases from the Indians, and they affected to believe that if the fortuitous circumstance of prior discovery had conveyed any right to the Crown, the king had formally surrendered it by the charter, in consideration of the conditions contained in it. They regarded it, therefore, as peculiarly their own country, and they were unwilling to allow any interference whatever from any quarter. The form of the grant of incorporation caused at first some embarrassment, by its total want of adaptation to the pur

poses to which it had been so unexpectedly applied. But as it was based on general election, and the governor and assistant were chosen by the freemen, all power centred in the people, and the moment the government was organized, it naturally, and of necessity, became a republic. Whatever authority the general court exercised, was delegated by qualified voters, and the officers they appointed received their commissions from those whom they empowered to issue them. The fundamental principle, therefore, of this little commonwealth was originally the same as that which now distinguishes and animates the individual States and great Federal Republic of the present day—namely, that the people are the source of all power.

At first, little could be done in matters of legislation, when the individual wants and general weakness of the whole community required the personal and continued exertion of all its members. The governor, his deputy, and four assistants, were appointed justices of the peace, with the same powers exercised by persons holding similar situations in England. A court of civil and criminal jurisdiction was also created, consisting of the higher officers of the corporation. In the absence of all statute law, the Bible was substituted as a model and guide. In organizing the judiciary, a difficulty arose as to the nature of the oaths. The customary form of acknowledging the royal authority was evidently inapplicable, for the people, and not the king, was supreme, and his name, therefore, was very quickly dispensed with. The oath of allegiance required some consideration, not whether it should be adopted, for that was not to be thought of, but whether it could be so qualified as to consist with their own independence, or be made contingent on residence and protection.* Sins of omission are so much safer than sins of commission, so much more difficult of detection, and so much more capable of explanation when discovered, that it was deemed prudent to omit it altogether, and to substitute one of fidelity to the local government instead. The king's arms were not only liable to the same objections, but had no warrant in Scripture; and a tender conscience supplied a better reason for declining to set them up, than the silence of the charter, or their own repugnance. The royal colors were no less exceptionable. To substitute new ones would be to hoist a flag

* See an abstract of laws prepared for Massachusetts, by Mr. Cotton.

of independence, which it was far more prudent quietly to maintain than openly proclaim, but there was no valid objection why they should not be altered in such a manner as to retain their form and general appearance, and yet destroy their identity.

Their ministers suggested a mode of mutilation that would effectually answer their purpose, and a reason for their conduct which rendered it an imperative duty. They told them the cross was a relic of Romish superstition, and as such must be removed, if they were desirous of securing a blessing on their undertakings. The uninitiated militia at first refused to muster under this "new-fangled flag," but when its unscriptural character was pointed out to them, they admitted the propriety of the alteration, and the cross was accordingly condemned as unlawful. Foreign gold and silver coins marked in a similar manner could not be so conveniently defaced, and were suffered to pass current without objection. They were unobtrusive, and, humanly speaking, merited toleration by their intrinsic value, but when weighed in the balance with political and religious principles, were found wanting, and treated as mere dross, unworthy of the consideration of a people who had forsaken Mammon, and crossed the Atlantic to preserve and perpetuate the true faith.

Thus we see how carefully they abstained at the very outset, from all recognition of the power of the Crown, either directly or indirectly. Drinking to the health of each other at table, as it was followed by toasts, and long usage had sanctioned the priority of the king's name, with the usual benediction of "God bless him," it was thought advisable to abolish, as it would, as a matter of course, cause a discontinuance of the other practice, which might be a snare to those whose intimate associates in England thought no harm in usurping his authority, and could see no sin in compassing his death.

They were now a sovereign people, but the exercise of such unlimited power was new to them, and this novelty, as yet wholly unrestrained by constitutional checks, increased their impatience of individual resistance, which is at all times the natural tendency of a democracy, and made them both arbitrary and vindictive in their conduct. An English Dissenter of the name of Blackstone, whom they found living at Boston, and claiming it by

*

* Hubbard's New England, Chap. xxvI. Wonder Working Providence, 39.

virtue of his discovery and possession, was soon made to feel the difference between republican and royal compulsion; and on quitting the community, remarked, in the bitterness of disappointed feeling, "that he had left England because he did not like the Lord's Bishops, but that he should now leave them, for he could not stand the Lord's Brethren."

The first emigrants who had a community of feeling both on political and religious matters, were resolved that their country should not merely be independent, but that its government should be freed from the interference of any new-comers who entertained different opinions from themselves. Dissent they knew they could deal with, but they knew also, that members of the Church of England, if allowed to obtain a footing among them, would, as a matter of course, acknowledge the king to be their sovereign, keep him informed of their usurpations, and be protected in their worship. They therefore at this early date, 18th of May, 1631, enacted in "order that the body of the commons might be preserved of good and honest men," that no person should be admitted to the freedom of the company, but such as were members of some of the churches established by law. So effectually did this check the introduction of Episcopalians, that during the whole continuance of the Charter, not a single congregation was collected in all Massachusetts.

This bold attempt at exclusive sovereignty, is thus lamented by Leechford: None may now be a freeman of that company unless he be a Church member among them. None have voice in elections of governor, deputy, and assistants, none are to be magistrates, officers, or jurymen, grand or petit, but freemen. The ministers give their votes in all elections of magistrates. Now the most of the persons at New England are not admitted of their Church, and therefore are not freemen, and when they come to be tried there, be it for life or limb, name or estate, or whatsoever, they must be tried and judged too by those of the Church, who are in a sort their adversaries. How equal that hath been or may be, some by experience do know, others may judge." Another law was passed in the year 1767, having in view the same object: "That none should be received to inhabit within the jurisdiction, but such as should be allowed by some of the magistrates," and it was fully understood, that differing from the churches established in the country, was as great a disqualifi

cation as any political opinions. In defense of this order, it is advanced that the apostolic rule of rejecting such as brought not the true doctrine with them, was as applicable to the commonwealth as the Church, and that even the profane were less to be dreaded than the able advocates of erroneous tenets.*

Complaints they could not prevent, nor could the right to petition the Crown be openly impugned but by creating a new offense, that of accusing the brethren; no one could petition without being guilty of this crime. They therefore forbore to press a man to trial for memorializing the king in council, but they charged him with slandering the brethren, and held him liable to fine, imprisonment, or corporal punishment, or all three, for this petit treason. The intercourse with Europe was then so limited, and the distance so appalling, that public attention in England was not attracted for some time to this glaring usurpation. Morton, who had the temerity to erect his May-pole again on land not within the jurisdiction of Massachusetts, was seized by the governor soon after his arrival, put into the stocks, and transported to his native country, where, we are very gravely informed by Prince, "he was not even rebuked." He was imprudent enough to return after his property had thus been invaded, and himself imprisoned and exiled, but was soon made sensible of his rashness. The governor, affecting to espouse the cause of an Indian, who disputed his right to the possession of a canoe, arrested him, burned down his establishment, and confiscated his estate, to pay for the expense of conveying him to England.

In London he was joined by two other victims of their cruelty and oppression-Sir Christopher Gardner and Philip Ratcliffe, who united with him in petitioning the king for redress. The former had been sent out by Sir Ferdinando Georges, as his agent, for the protection of a large territory he had purchased, adjoining that of the colony of Massachusetts. Whatever his religion may have been, one thing was certain, he was not a Puritan. As a stranger wholly unconnected with the colony, it was not a question for their consideration whether he was a Romanist or a Churchman; but they assumed the fact that he was a Papist, and ordered him to be arrested. Knowing their cruelty, and fearing the result, he preferred trusting to the hospi

* See Minot, Hist. Mass., vol. 1. p. 29.

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