Although, by the generosity of the Church, all the inhabitants received allotments of the Shawshine lands, comparatively few of them established a residence upon that territory. As early, however, as 1655, there were so many householders in Shawshine, gathered from Cambridge and elsewhere, that they were incorporated as a distinct town, named Billerica, and an amicable arrangement was made by them with the inhabitants of Cambridge, in regard to their respective territorial rights and liabilities.

The Town Records, Jan. 29, 1654–5, show that "In answer to a letter sent to the town from our neighbors of Shawshine, alias Bilracie, wherein they desire that whole tract of land may be disengaged from this place and be one entire body of itself, the town consented to choose five persons a Committee to treat and conclude with them concerning their request therein; at which time there was chosen Mr. Henry Dunster, Elder Champney, John Bridge, Edward Goffe, and Edward Winship." The result appears in the Record of the General Court, under date of May 23, 1655:

"In answer to the desire of our brethren and neighbors, the inhabitants of Shawshin, requesting immunities and freedom from all public rates and charges at Cambridge, and that all the land of that place, as well those appertaining to the present inhabitants of Cambridge as those granted them by the Court, might belong entirely to that place, for the better encouragement and carrying on of public charges that will necessarily there fall

"We, whose names are underwritten, being empowered by the inhabitants of Cambridge, at a public meeting of the town, the 29th of January, 1654, to make such propositions and conclusions therein as to us might seem most meet and equal, do make these following propositions with reference to the compliance of the above named our beloved brethren and neighbors, the inhabitants of Shawshin, and the approbration of the General Court for the full conclusion thereof.

1. "That all the lands belonging to that place called by the name of Shawshin, with its appurtenances or latter grants made by the General Court, as well those the propriety and peculiar right whereof belongeth to any particular person, as those granted by the town or church of Cambridge to that place for a township, as also those given by the inhabitants of Cambridge for the fur

therance and encouragement of a plantation there, shall be one entire township or plantation, always freed and acquitted from all manner of common charges or rates, of what nature or kind soever, due or belonging of right to be paid unto Cambridge by virtue of any grant of that place unto them by the General Court.

"2. That whensoever any of the inhabitants of Cambridge, their heirs or assigns, whether in that place or elsewhere, shall make any improvement of their lands above premised, more or less, by fencing, building or breaking up, or mowing of the meadows, every such person shall pay to the common charges of that place, i. e., Shawshin, suitable to his or their improvement of the aforesaid kind, in due proportion with the rest of the inhabitants in that place, the whole estate and improvements of the place being laid at an equal and proportionable rate.

"3. That the inhabitants of Shawshin shall, at all time and times hereafter forever, acquit and discharge the inhabitants of Cambridge from all common charges, rates, dues, duties, and incumbrances by any manner of ways or means due by them to be paid, executed, or performed, by virtue of their interest in that place, given unto them by the grant of the General Court.

"4. That whensoever any of the inhabitants of Cambridge shall alienate their present interest in any of the above named lands from themselves and heirs, then the said lands shall, in all respects, be liable to common charges of that place, as though those particular persons had their grants thereof made them from the said town or plantation of Shawshin.

“5. That no person or persons which either have had or hereafter shall have any lot or allotment granted them in the above named township of Shawshin, in case they make not improvement thereof by building and fencing, especially the houselot, shall have any power to make any sale or gift thereof to any other person, but such land and allotments shall return again to the town, i. e., Shawshin; and in case, after such like improvement, any person shall then remove, to the deserting and leaving their brethren and neighbors that have adventured by their encouragement to settle there with them, no such person or persons, for seven years next ensuing the confirmation hereof, shall have power to make either sale, or gift, or alienation thereof to any person or persons whatsoever, save only unto such as the greater part of the inhabitants then resident at Shawshin shall consent unto and approve of.

6. That in case any grievance shall hereafter happen to arise,

which for the present neither side foresee, nor is hereby clearly determined, that then all such matter of grievance or difference shall be from time to time heard and determined by meet persons, three or five, indifferently chosen by the prudential men of Cambridge and Shawshin.

“And these aforementioned propositions to be subscribed by all the present inhabitants of Shawshin, and by all such as hereafter shall have any allotments granted them there, and return hereof made to the inhabitants of Cambridge within ten days after the end of the first session of the next General Court. Given under our hands this 17th 12m. 1654, by us,

66 HENRY DUNSTER,

RICHARD CHAMPNEY,
EDWARD GOFFE,

JOHN BRIDGE.

"These propositions are accepted of and consented unto by us the present inhabitants of Shawshin; and we do humbly crave this honored Court to confirm and record the same.

"Your humble servants,

"RALPH HILL, Sen".
WILLIAM FRENCH,
JOHN STERNE,
WILLIAM PATTIN,
GEORGE FARLEY,

RALPH HILL, Jun'.,
JOHN CROE,

JAMES PARKER,

JONATHAN DANFORTH,
HENRY JEFTES,

WILLIAM CHAMBERLYN,

JOHN PARKER,
ROBERT PARKER.

"Their request was granted by the Court."

On the same day, May 23, 1655, "in answer to the petition of several proprietors and inhabitants of Shawshin, humbly desiring a tract of land lying near the line of the farms of John and Robert Blood, and so along by the side of Concord River, &c., the Court grants their request in that respect, so as it hinder no former grants, and grant the name of the plantation to be called Billirikey." 1

Thus was this first dismemberment of the extensive township of Cambridge amicably accomplished. No reasonable objection could be urged against granting an independent ecclesiastical and civil organization to those persons who resided at such a great distance from the centre of the town, as soon as they were able to defray their necessary expenses.

1 Mass. Col. Rec., iv. (i.), 237-240.

CHAPTER VII.

CIVIL HISTORY.

DURING the period embraced in the preceding chapter, very important events occurred in England. The ecclesiastical yoke which the Fathers of New England were unable to bear was broken, and the people enjoyed comparative religious freedom. The civil government also was overturned and established on new foundations. King Charles the First was beheaded Jan. 30, 1649, and the House of Lords was soon afterwards suppressed. For a few years, a Parliament consisting of a single House, and the army under the command of Cromwell, as chief general, exercised a joint, or perhaps rather antagonistic, supremacy, until Dec. 16, 1653, when Cromwell, with the title of Protector, grasped the reins of government, which he held with a firm hand so long as he lived. After this Revolution in England, and as one of its consequences, the inhabitants of Cambridge were once more tempted to remove. "Cromwell had been very desirous of drawing off the New Englanders to people Ireland after his successes there, and the inhabitants of New Haven had serious thoughts of removing, but did not carry their design into execution. Jamaica being conquered, Cromwell renewed his invitation to the colony of the Massachusetts to remove and to go and people that island, and it appears by Mr. Leverett's letters and a letter from the General Court to Cromwell, that he had it much. at heart. Cromwell foresaw that the West India planters would raise estates far superior to those of the inhabitants of the northern colonies, and though a mere worldly consideration was not proper for him to urge, yet accompanied with the fulfillment of a divine promise, that God's people should be the head and not the tail, it was in character, and he artfully enough joined it with the other consideration. But all was insufficient to induce the people of New England to quit a country where they could live tolerably, and were indulged with all the privileges they desired,

and we have no account of many families having removed."1 Although this temptation was offered to the people of the whole Colony, the inhabitants of Cambridge may be supposed to have been peculiarly sensitive to its force, inasmuch as it was presented by one of their most honored and trusted townsmen. Captain Gookin was in England in 1655, and was selected by Cromwell as a special agent to manage this affair. Having received his instructions, he returned to New England and devoted himself earnestly to his appointed task. Several of his letters to Secretary Thurloe concerning this mission are printed in Thurloe's State Papers. In the first, dated Jan. 21, 1655–6, he announces his recent arrival at Boston, "after ten weekes of an exercising passage from the Isle of Wight." 2 At a later period, he mentions in detail some of his labors, and hopes, and discouragements, reminding the secretary that he undertook the work with some misgivings. This letter may deserve insertion :

“RIGHT HONORABLE. Since my arrival in New England, which was the 20th of January last, I wrote two letters by way of Barbadoes, and this 3d also the same way being destitute of a direct conveyance from hence. The sum of the 2 first were to inform your honour of my arrivall here, and of a little motion that I had then made in his highnesse's affayres; but the sharpness of the winter prevented my travill into other colonies. But I procured a meeting of the council of this colony March the 7th being the soonest they mett, although the governour called them a month before; but in the interval between my arrival and the counsel's meeting, I endeavoured to make knowne, as far as I could, the sum of his highness desires; but there was little done during that season for the forementioned reson, but after the counsell of this colony mett, and I had delivered his highness letters, and declared the cause of my coming, they thankfully accepted and readily made an order for the promotion thereof, requiring their officers to attend my motions in the publishing the same. Whereupon I did forthwith cause a short declaration to be printed and published unto all the towns and plantations of the English, not only in this, but other colonys, (the copie of which printed paper and order I have enclosed,) and together therewith I procured and imployed persons of trust in severall parts (where I could not be in person) to promote the business and take subscriptions. Shortly after this was done in mid Aprill 1 Hutchinson's Hist. Mass., i. 190–192. 2 Vol. iv., p. 440.