dispensable to its safety. But New England, when she counts up the benefactors eminently worthy of her grateful and reverent remembrance, can never omit his name.1 The Commissioners thought it prudent to attempt to secure the smaller Colonies, before they should undertake the decisive contest with Massachusetts.2 New Haven was no more a power. Opposition was not to be apprehended from Connecticut, conciliated as she was, on the one hand, to the King by the annexation of the neighboring Colony, and apprehensive, on the other, of losing all her western towns to enlarge the new province of the Duke of York. At Plymouth, whither they now proceeded, they conducted themselves with moderation, and experienced no difficulty. They 1 “A fit instrument to begin this wilderness work; of courage bold, undaunted, yet sociable and of a cheerful spirit, loving and austere, applying himself to either, as occasion served." (Wonder-working Providence, Chap. IX.) Endicott was brother-in-law of Ludlow (Endicott, Life of Endicott, 12); and his son, as did a son of Dudley, married a daughter of Winthrop (Ibid., 108). He died at Boston, having removed thither from Salem about the year 1655. His house stood upon the hill lately levelled into Pemberton Square. In his last year, the Commissioners were instructed to endeavor to have him superseded as Governor. "His Majesty will take it very well, if, at the next election, any other person of good reputation be chosen in the place, and that he [Endicott] may no longer exercise that charge." (Letter of Secretary Morrice, in Hutch. Coll., 392.) 2 "I do think it will be better to begin at Connecticut, and to despatch the other three Colonies before this [Massachusetts]. For, if we have good success there, it will be a strong inducement to these to submit also to his Majesty's Commission; and if these [Massachusetts] should any way oppose us, it would be an ill precedent to the other." (Letter of Cartwright to Nicolls, February 4, 1665, in O'Callaghan, Documents, &c., III. 87). This policy had been sketched in the "Considerations," &c. (See above, p. 578, note 2.) "Until.. some apparent inclination towards a compliance shall discover itself in Boston or the other lesser corporations, no applications or demands should be made to them, because they else may be moved thereby to mingle or intermeddle with the proceedings of the Commissioners in the other Provinces.” Disaffection, however, was not wanting in Connecticut. On the 14th of September, 1664, a letter from William Morton, of New London, was read to the Privy Council, representing that "treasonable words" had been "spoken by several persons there." And instructions were directed to be sent to the royal Commissioners to make inquiry, and take measures “for vindication of his Majesty's honor.” (Journal of the Privy Council.) missioners at Feb. 22. presented the King's letter, and made four proposals. These were:-1. That all householders should Operations take the oath of allegiance, and that justice should of the Combe administered in the King's name; 2. That Plymouth. "all men of competent estates and civil conversation, though of different judgments, might be admitted to be freemen, and have liberty to choose and be chosen officers, both civil and military;"-3. That "all men and women of orthodox opinions, competent knowledge, and civil lives, not scandalous," should be admitted to the Lord's Supper and have their children baptized, either in the churches already existing, or in congregations of their own; — 4. That "all laws, and expressions in laws, derogatory to his Majesty," should be "repealed, altered, and taken off from the file." These proposals were the same as those which had occasioned such consternation in Massachusetts, when communicated through Norton and Bradstreet.2 To the first, the second, and the fourth of them the Court of Plymouth readily gave its assent, adding, as to the first two, that they accorded with former practice, and, as to the other, professing ignorance of the exist ence of any objectionable matter of the kind described. The third was likewise conceded; but with the explanation, that none should "withdraw from paying their due proportions of maintenance to such ministers as were orderly settled in the places where they lived, until they had one of their own, and in such places as were capable of maintaining the worship of God in two distinct congregations." When the King was informed of the "dutiful 1 It is in Morton's Memorial, 312. 2 See above, p. 527. 3 Plym. Rec., IV. 85, 86. Being advised of what the Court had done, Cartwright wrote: "We desire, that, when you send us your assent to the third proposition, you will let it and the other three be fairly written together, that they may be present to his Majesty; and that, at the end of them, you would add something to this purpose, that the Articles of Confederation, when the Four Colonies entered into an offensive and defensive VOL. II. 51 ness and obedience" of the people of Plymouth, he wrote them a letter of commendation."Your carriage," he said, "seems to be set off with the more lustre, by the contrary deportment of the Colony of the Massachusetts, as if, by their refractoriness, they had designed to recommend and heighten the merit of your compliance." The Commissioners made some suggestion "in reference unto the manner of choice of the Governors of this jurisdiction, and in reference unto an Address to be made to his Majesty for the renewal of the patent;" but the consideration of these questions was postponed by the freemen, and was not for the present resumed. They did not like the conditions, which were hinted at, of a more direct responsibility to the government in England, and "preferred to remain as they were."2 June 7. 3 In the settlements on Narragansett Bay, whither the Commissioners next proceeded, they were looked for with affectionate expectation. The planters at Warwick flattered themselves that their hour for revenge had come, and they lost no time in approaching the deliverIn an "humble petition of Samuel Gorton, Randall Holden, John Weeks, and John Greene, in behalf of themselves and others," the early transactions between them and Massachusetts were narrated in March 4. ers. league, neither did, nor shall, oblige you to refuse his Majesty's authority, though any one, or all the other three, should do so." The object was to confirm the King's "good opinion of their loyalty," who, it was said, had been informed "that that union was a war combination made by the Four Colonies, when they had a design to throw off their dependence on England, and for that purpose." (Mass. Hist. Coll., V. 192.) If Plymouth did what Cartwright proposed (Hutchinson, I. 215, note), she did not stain her records with it. The demand may have influenced her action when, soon after, she pro posed to Massachusetts a dissolution of the Confederacy. (Plym. Rec., IV. 92.) 1 The letter, dated April 10, 1666, has been printed by Hutchinson (Hist.) I. 466). 2 Plym. Rec., IV. 92. 3 Clarke, after twelve years' absence, returned to Rhode Island from England, June 7, 1664, six weeks before the arrival of the Commissioners at Boston. (Backus, I. 349; Arnold, I. 309, 310.) Clarke and two others had gone to New York in October, 1664, and had there waited upon the Commissioners with a congratulatory address. detail, and the Commissioners were entreated to "please to take their distresses into their Honors' breasts," and cause "some responsible and correspondent satisfaction " to be made.1 All of the Commissioners had before this time made hasty visits to Rhode Island, except Nicolls; and to him the Governor and Deputy-Governor The Commishad written with the most profuse assurances of the Narradevotion to the King, and deferential supplica- gansett tions for the favor of his representatives.2 sioners in country. Feb. 3. March 20. Their enthusiastic loyalty gained them little indulgence. The Commissioners were acquainted with the cession of the Narragansett country to the King, procured twenty years before by Gorton and his company. They made a prompt and peremptory use of this advantage. Cutting the knot of the questions pending between Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island for the possession of that territory, they took it away from all the claimants. "We," they proclaimed, "his Majesty's Commissioners, have received them [the Narragansett Indians] into his Majesty's protection, and do, in his Majesty's name, order, appoint, and command, that the said country henceforward be called the King's Province, and that no person, of what Colony soever, presume to exercise any jurisdiction within this the King's Province, but such as receive authority from us under our hands and seals, until his Majesty's pleasure be further known." They declared the Paucatuck River to be the western boundary of the new province, and decreed that the Atherton Company should relinquish its lands on the repayment by the Indians of the purchase money. As a provisional arrangement, they authorized the Magistrates of Rhode Island to administer "the 1 Mass. Rec., IV. (ii.) 253 – 255. 2 R. I. Rec., II. 86-89 (comp. 91, 92). It is odd to see Benedict Arnold's hand to such complaints against April 8. Massachusetts as this letter conveys. * See above, p. 136. April 7. 1 King's Province" till the royal pleasure should be known.1 The Indian, Pomham,2 was another party concerned in these determinations. To gratify the town of Warwick, the Commissioners ordered him to remove, after the next harvest, either within the line of Massachusetts, or to some place to be granted to him by Pessacus; a step to which with difficulty he was brought, by a present of forty pounds, to consent. The Apostle Eliot interposed modestly with Carr in Pomham's behalf, and received a tart reply. Roger Williams, venturing on an intercession for delay, was more respectfully treated. Williams sweetened his remonstrance by writing to the Commissioner: "Your Honor will never effect by force a safe and lasting conclusion, until you have first reduced the Massachusetts to the obedience of his Majesty; and then these appendants, towed at their stern, will easily, and not before, wind about also."8 The three Commissioners went next to Connecticut, where they made the same requisitions as had been comThe Commis- plied with by Plymouth; and in this quarter also they received a satisfactory reply. The April 20. demand relating to the conditions of citizenship sioners in Connecticut. 1 R. I. Rec., II. 59, 60, 93, 95. 2 See above, p. 123. The 3 R. I. Rec., II. 132-138. business was not brought to a conclusion till the spring of 1666. "I desire you to take notice," wrote Carr to Eliot (February 28, 1666), "that I judge the persons employed in the affairs of the King's Province were well satisfied concerning his Majesty's royal and beneficent affections towards the Indians, and will, I doubt not, in observance thereof, continue, as they have in some measure begun, to take care, as in duty they are bound, to let them understand the same, though yourself had not taken upon you to be director. Your and others' in terposings wherein you and they are not concerned, as though we were not able to order the King's affairs in these parts, without your advice and direction," &c. (Ibid., 135.) Unwonted language to be read by the honored correspondent of Robert Boyle. Williams could no more favorably describe his clients than as a barbarous scum and offscourings of mankind." (Ibid.) Writing to Lord Arlington of Williams's letter, Carr mentions him as "an ancient man, one (I think) that meant none ill in sending it.” (Ibid., 137.) |