Favor of the King to the Atherton Company Charter of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations Reception of the Charter at Rhode Island Population of the Narragansett Settlements in 1663 . Debate between Massachusetts and the Royal Commissioners The Royal Commissioners in New Hampshire and Maine Demand from England for Agents to be sent over by Massachusetts Present of Masts from Massachusetts to the King Proposal for an Expedition against New France HISTORY OF NEW ENGLAND. BOOK II. THE CONFEDERACY OF THE FOUR COLONIES. CHAPTER I. When that league was passed since the planta THE Confederation of the four Colonies makes an epoch in the history of New England. formed, twenty-three years had tion at Plymouth was begun, and thirteen years since a royal charter, transferred to the soil of Massachusetts, had there become the basis of a government. The institutions and the social condition of the Colonies had taken a definite shape. It will be instructive here to pause, and observe what the founders had done towards realizing the purposes of their emigration, and what was that primitive system of society which was to influence the character and fortunes of the later generations of the people. The men who established the charter government in Massachusetts entertained the hope of building up a free community of Englishmen, numerous and strong enough for the maintenance of those rights, the denial of which had driven them from their homes. It was material to their object, not only to invite numbers of sympathizing associates, but also to make their power effective by political consolidation. The first years had brought some disappointments in this respect. Connecticut and New Haven attracted from Massachusetts some of her most honored men. To the new-comers who presently proceeded to establish the youngest Colony, Massachusetts stood in no relations which authorized her to do more than endeavor to prevail upon them to cast their lot with her.1 With the emigrants to Connecticut River— associates whom it was grievous to her to lose she felt justified in being more importunate. In having assumed her citizenship they seemed even to have conferred on her an indefeasible title to their allegiance. In the state of mind which the circumstances of the time had brought about, she was inclined to maintain that a virtual engagement had been entered into by her freemen to stand together for the common cause, so that none of them could, at pleasure, by withdrawing himself, withdraw a portion of the power which was the safeguard of all. Her churches also sought to be cheered and guided by that mutual illumination which would be dimmed by distance; and "the removal of a candlestick" was regarded as. "a great judgment." 2 But the desire for another residence was too earnest to be overcome, and Connecticut and New Haven took their independent positions. Upon her precursors at Plymouth, Massachusetts had no claim for a political union; and the cordial good understanding which, from the first, existed between the two oldest Colonies, was found to yield all, or most, of the benefits which would have resulted from an arrangement of that nature. The isolation of the settlements at Providence and on Rhode Island was not without its advantages to the other Colonies. In the road to Narragansett Bay a permanent safety-valve was opened for the escape of uneasy spirits, whose presence would have troubled their order and thwarted their aims. 1 See Vol. I. 529. 2 Ibid., 447. |