long series of events important in the history of the home of his adoption, was inaugurated by transactions not without interest as indicating the orderly and vigorous policy which was to pervade it. The General Court by which Winthrop was elected was the first to carry into effect a rule to submit the question of the admission of every freeman to the vote of the central government of the Colony. It raised a troop of horse, the first which had been enrolled. And in Winthrop's first year of office, a provision of the ecclesiastical policy of Massachusetts was adopted in a law "that henceforth no persons in the jurisdiction should in any way embody March 11. themselves into church estate without consent of the General Court, and approbation of the neighbor churches." Connecticut took a generous interest in the conversion of the Indians, putting herself to expense to provide missionaries of her own; and she was a liberal patron of Harvard College.5

1658.

CHAPTER X.

affairs.

IN Massachusetts, after the death of Winthrop, Endicott appears to have been regarded as excelling every contemporary in that combination of qualities which Endicott at was required for the conduct of the public busi- the head of ness. Two years excepted, he was always Chief Magistrate thenceforward till, at the age of seventy-seven, he died. Dudley and Bellingham each filled the office one year during this period. In these two years, Endicott was Deputy-Governor; and when he held the first place, Dudley held the second till the last year of his life, as Bellingham did after that time without interruption.

1650.

1654.

By many titles Dudley might seem to be marked as Winthrop's natural successor. They had been associates, from the first, in the councils of the Colony, generally occupying the two highest stations; and Dudley was a person of eminent integrity, ability, and public spirit. But he was already old when Winthrop died, and it is probable that the infirmities of age had somewhat impaired his activity. That his death was not sudden may be probably inferred from his absence from the General Court held two months before, at which Court 1653. he should have taken his place as Deputy-Gover- May 18. nor.1 Bellingham was a man of great capacity, and at a later period rendered long and excellent service. But the natural acerbity of his character was not yet tempered by years; and it may be supposed that his course of factious opposition to Winthrop had brought on him

1 Mass. Rec., IV. (i.) 119.

a degree of distrust, which it required time to overcome. By some of the statesmanlike qualities of his admirable predecessor Endicott was not distinguished; but under the guidance of that master mind the Colony had surmounted its first difficulties, and had established a definite line of policy which could be understood and followed out by such as might not have been competent to project it; so that, on the whole, the energetic pioneer and soldier, trained as he now had been by an instructive experience and companionship of more than twenty years, was recognized as the leader required by those stirring times. The period which began with the Commonwealth of England, and reached beyond it by five years, might be called, in relation to Massachusetts, the period of Endicott's administration; for during that time he was scarcely discharged from the chief magistracy often enough to suggest that it was not intended to be vested for life.

Extension of

setts.

During the first half of this time, Massachusetts extended her confines in two opposite directions. A tract between the Paùcatuck River, which now makes the territory part of the western boundary of the State of of Massachu- Rhode Island, and the Mystic River, by which stood the Pequot fort destroyed by Captain Mason, had been selected for a plantation by William Chesebrough, who went thither from Rehoboth.1 By degrees he was joined by others; and, the question having arisen whether his settlement belonged to Connecticut or to Massachusetts, which latter Colony claimed it as part of her share in the spoil of the Pequot

1649.

1 William Chesebrough took the oath of a freeman of Massachusetts at the first admission of freemen on this side of the water, in May, 1631. (Mass. Rec., I. 366.) In the following year, he was one of the two persons commissioned by Boston "to confer with the Court about raising of a public stock."

(Ibid., 95; see Vol. I. 354.) He was a Deputy in the General Court for Braintree in 1640 (Mass. Rec., I. 301), and in the same year was made a Commissioner " to try small causes" in that town. (Ibid., 306.) He was at Rehoboth in 1646, and as late as 1648. (Plym. Rec., II. 99, 103, 136.)

war, the Federal Commissioners were appealed to by the parties. They decided that the Mystic should be 1658. the boundary between the respective portions of Sept. 18. the conquered soil; and Chesebrough's settlement, known in later times as Stonington, received from the General Court of Massachusetts a municipal organization with the name of Southertown.1

Oct. 19.

Condition of

the north

tlements.

When Massachusetts thus spread herself southwardly to Long-Island Sound, she had received a large accession. of territory on the northeast. Maine and Lygonia, provinces belonging respectively to Gorges and to Rigby, had been neglected by their proprie- easterly set tors amid the distractions of the times.2 The old question of their limits had, however, been brought before the Commissioners for Foreign Plantations, who, favoring the pretensions of Rigby, had decided that the river Kennebunk was the boundary between them, thus severing Saco from the principality of Maine.3 Reduced to these dimensions, Maine comprehended on the mainland only Gorgeana, Wells, and a settlement which had grown up at the mouth of the Piscataqua,

1646.

March.

1647.

1649.

opposite to Strawberry Bank (Portsmouth), and Oct. 20. which now received the name of Kittery. The planters, desirous of some more regular government, and despairing of receiving it from their feudal chief, determined to institute an administration of their own. They accordingly met at Gorgeana, and contracted with each other for a civil society by an obligation con- July. ceived in these words: "The inhabitants, with one free and universanimous consent, do bind themselves in a body politic and combination, to see these parts of the country and province regulated according to such laws as formerly have been exercised, and such others as shall be

1 Conn. Rec. I. 570; Mass. Rec., IV. (i.) 353; Records, &c., in Hazard, II. 395-397.

2 See Vol. I. 527, 595.

3 Williamson, History, &c., I. 301; comp. Winthrop, II. 256, 257.

thought meet, but not repugnant to the fundamental laws of our native country." A Governor and five Counsellors, annually chosen, were to have charge of the public affairs. Edward Godfrey, of Agamenticus, the only Counsellor who had been appointed by Gorges, was chosen Governor. The Counsellors were Edward Rushworth, also of that city, and Richard Leader, Nicholas Shapleigh, and Thomas Withers, of Kittery.2

1650.

Annexation

of Maine to Massachu

setts.

George Cleaves, with a council of Assistants, carried on the government of Lygonia, as agent for Rigby; but on the death of the proprietor, Cleaves went to England, and the bond of allegiance to the heir was more lightly felt by the planters. Both in that province and in Maine, there were numbers who were dissatisfied with the existing state of things. Some desired a different settlement under a new charter; others preferred to follow the example of the Piscataqua towns, and place themselves under the government of Massachusetts. The patent of the Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay granted a territory territory having for its northern boundary a line extending westward from the Atlantic Ocean on a parallel of latitude three miles north of the most northerly part of the river Merrimack. The General Court had obtained some knowledge of the geography of the region, and of their apparent right to lands earlier granted to themselves, but now claimed by the representatives of Gorges and Rigby; and they saw that circumstances favored their producing their claim, and obtaining a recognition of it which would be for the advantage of the settlers as well as for their own. They decided to begin with the inhabitants of Kittery, and accordingly appointed a commission of three distinguished citizens, Mr. Bradstreet, Oct. 14. Mr. Denison, and Mr. Hathorne, - to proceed to that place, conveying "a loving and friendly letter" to the 2 Williamson, History, &c., 303, 327.

1651.

1 Mass. Hist. Coll., I. 103.