Part 236

"While the king was engaged in the overthrow of the London company [see VIRGINIA: A. D. 1622-1624], its more loyal rival in the West of England [the Plymouth company, or North Virginia branch of the Virginia company] sought new letters-patent, with a great enlargement of their domain. The remonstrances of the Virginia corporation and the rights of English commerce could delay for two years, but not defeat, the measure that was pressed by the friends of the monarch. On the 3d of November, 1620, King James incorporated 40 of his subjects—some of them members of his household and his government, the most wealthy and powerful of the English nobility—as 'The Council established at Plymouth, in the county of Devon, for the planting, ruling, ordering, and governing New England in America.' The territory, which was conferred on them in absolute property, with unlimited powers of legislation and government, extended from the 40th to the 48th degree of north latitude, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The grant included the fisheries; and a revenue was considered certain from a duty to be imposed on all tonnage employed in them. The patent placed emigrants to New England under the absolute authority of the corporation, and it was through grants from that plenary power, confirmed by the crown, that institutions the most favorable to colonial independence and the rights of mankind came into being. The French derided the action of the British monarch in bestowing lands and privileges which their own sovereign, seventeen years before, had appropriated. The English nation was incensed at the largess of immense monopolies by the royal prerogative; and in April, 1621, Sir Edwin Sandys brought the grievance before the house of commons. … But the parliament was dissolved before a bill could be perfected. In 1622, five and thirty sail of vessels went to fish on the coasts of New England, and made good voyages. The monopolists appealed to King James, and he issued a proclamation, which forbade any to approach the northern coast of America, except with the leave of their company or of the privy council, In June, 1623, Francis West was despatched as admiral of New England, to exclude such fishermen as came without a license. But they refused to pay the tax which he imposed, and his ineffectual authority was soon resigned."

_G. Bancroft, History of the United States (Author's last revision), part 1, chapter 13 (volume 1)._

ALSO IN: _C. Deane, New England (Narrative and Critical History of America, volume 3, chapter 9)._

_Sir Ferdinando Gorges, Brief Narration (Maine Historical Society Collection, volume 2)._

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1621-1631. The grants made by the Council for New England. Settlements planted. Nova Scotia, Maine and New Hampshire conferred.

Captain John Mason, a native of King's Lynn, in Norfolk, became governor of Newfoundland in 1615. "While there he wrote a tract entitled 'A Brief Discourse of the Newfoundland,' and sent it to his friend Sir John Scot of Edinburgh, to peruse, and to print if he thought it worthy. It was printed in the year 1620. … In the spring or summer of 1621, Mason returned into England, and immediately found proof of the effect of his little tract. … Sir William Alexander, afterwards Earl of Stirling, immediately sought him out. He had been appointed Gentleman of the Privy Chamber to Prince Henry, honored with Knighthood, and was Master of Requests for Scotland. He invited Mason to his house, where he discussed with him a scheme of Scotch colonization, and he resolved to undertake settling a colony in what is now Nova Scotia. He begged Mason to aid him in procuring a grant of this territory from the Council for New England, it being within their limits. Mason referred him to Sir Ferdinando Gorges, one of the Council and their Treasurer. The king readily recommended Alexander to Gorges, and Gorges heartily approved the plan. In September, 1621, Alexander obtained a Royal Patent for a tract of land which he called New Scotland, a name attractive to his countrymen. This must have been gratifying to Mason, who had urged Scotch emigration in his tract printed only a year before. The Council for New England, established in November, 1620, was now granting and ready to grant to associations or to individuals parcels of its vast domain in America. … The second patent for land granted by the Council was to Captain John Mason, bearing date March 9, 1621-2. It was all the land lying between the Naumkeag and the Merrimac rivers, extending back from the sea-coast to the heads of both of these rivers, with all the islands within three miles of the shore. Mason called this Mariana. This tract of territory lies wholly within the present bounds of Massachusetts. We now arrive at a period when Mason and Gorges have a joint interest in New England. {2307} On the 10th of August, 1622, the Council made a third grant. This was to Gorges and Mason jointly of land lying upon the sea-coast between the Merrimac and the Kennebec rivers, extending three-score miles into the country, with all islands within five leagues of the premises to be, or intended to be, called the Province of Maine. Thus was the territory destined seven years later to bear the name of New Hampshire, first carved from the vast domain of New England, whose boundaries were fixed by the great circles of the heavens. Thus was Capt. Mason joint proprietor of his territory afterwards known as New Hampshire, before a single settler had built a cabin on the Pascataqua. Captain Robert Gorges, son of Sir Ferdinando, was authorized to give the grantees possession of this new Province. Great enthusiasm on the subject of colonization now prevailed in England, extending from the king, through all ranks. … Before the year 1622 closed, the Council issued many patents for land, in small divisions, to persons intending to make plantations. Among the grants, is one to David Thomson and two associates, of land on the Pascataqua. The bounds and extent of this patent are unknown. Only the fact that such a patent was granted is preserved. … The Council for New England, in view of the many intended settlements, as well as the few already made, now proposed to set up a general government in New England. Captain Robert Gorges, recently returned from the Venetian wars, was appointed Governor, with Captain Francis West, Captain Christopher Levett, and the governor of New Plymouth as his Council. Captain Gorges arrived here the middle of September, 1623, having been preceded some months by Captain West, who was Vice-Admiral of New England as well as Councillor. Captain Levett came as late as November. … The next year, 1624, war between England and Spain broke out, and drew off for a while Gorges and Mason from their interests in colonization. Gorges was Captain of the Castle and Island of St. Nicholas, at Plymouth, a post that he had held for thirty years; and he was now wholly taken up with the duties of his office. Mason's services were required as a naval officer of experience. … In 1626 England plunged into a war with France, without having ended the war with Spain. Captain Mason was advanced to be Treasurer and Paymaster of the English armies employed in the wars. There was no time now to think of American colonization. His duties were arduous. … In 1629 peace was made with France, and the war with Spain was coming to an end. No sooner were Gorges and Mason a little relieved from their public duties than they sprang at once to their old New England enterprise. They resolved to push forward their interests. They came to some understanding about a division of their Province of Maine. On the 7th of November, 1629, a day memorable in the history of New Hampshire, the Council granted to Mason a patent of all that part of the Province of Maine lying between the Merrimac and Pascataqua rivers; and Mason called it New Hampshire, out of regard to the favor in which he held Hampshire in England, where he had resided many years. … This grant had hardly been made when Champlain was brought to London, a prisoner, from Canada, by Kirke. The French had been driven from that region. Gorges and Mason procured immediately a grant from the Council of a vast tract of land in the region of Lake Champlain, supposed to be not only a fine country for peltry, but to contain vast mineral wealth. The Province was called Laconia on account of the numerous lakes supposed or known to be there, and was the most northern grant hitherto made by the Council. The patent bears date November 17, 1629, only ten days later than Mason's New Hampshire grant. … For the purpose of advancing the interests of Gorges and Mason in Laconia as well as on the Pascataqua, they joined with them six merchants in London, and received from the Council a grant dated November 3, 1631, of a tract of land lying on both sides of the Pascataqua river, on the sea-coast and within territory already owned by Gorges and Mason in severalty. This patent, called the Pascataqua Patent, covered, on the west side of the river, the present towns of Portsmouth, New Castle, Rye and part of Greenland; on the east side, Kittery, Eliot, the Berwicks, and the western part of Lebanon."

_C. W. Tuttle, Captain John Mason (Prince Society Publications, 1887), pages 12-24._

ALSO IN: _S. F. Haven, Grants under the Great Council for New England (Lowell Institute. Lecture: Early History of Massachusetts, pages 127-162)._

_J. P. Baxter, editor, Sir Ferdinando Gorges and his Province of Maine (Prince Society Publications 1890)._

_J. G. Palfrey, History of New England, volume 1, page 397, foot-note._

See, also, MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1623-1629; and CONNECTICUT: A. D. 1631.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1623-1629. The Dorchester Company and the royal charter to the Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay.

See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1623-1629.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1629. The new patent to Plymouth Colony.

See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1623-1629 PLYMOUTH COLONY.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1629-1630. The immigration of the Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay with their charter.

See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1629-1630.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1634-1637. The pioneer settlements in Connecticut.

See CONNECTICUT: A. D. 1634-1637.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1635. Dissolution of the Council for New England and partitioning of its territorial claims by lot.

"The Council for New England, having struggled through nearly fifteen years of maladministration and ill-luck, had yielded to the discouragements which beset it. By the royal favor, it had triumphed over the rival Virginia Company, to be overwhelmed in its turn by the just jealousy of Parliament, and by dissensions among its members. The Council, having, by profuse and inconsistent grants of its lands, exhausted its common property, as well as its credit with purchasers for keeping its engagements, had no motive to continue its organization. Under these circumstances, it determined on a resignation of its charter to the king, and a surrender of the administration of its domain to a General Governor of his appointment, on the condition that all the territory, a large portion of which by its corporate action had already been alienated to other parties [see above: A. D. 1621-1631], should be granted in severalty by the king to the members of the Council. Twelve associates accordingly proceeded to a distribution of New England among themselves by lot; and nothing was wanting to render the transaction complete, and to transfer to them the ownership of that region, except to oust the previous patentees, of whom the most powerful body were colonists in Massachusetts Bay. To effect this, Sir John Banks, Attorney-General, brought a writ of 'quo warranto' in Westminster Hall against the Massachusetts Company. …

See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1634-1637.

{2308}

It seemed that, when a few more forms should be gone through, all would be over with the presumptuous Colony. … But … everything went on as if Westminster Hall had not spoken. 'The Lord frustrated their design.' The disorders of the mother country were a safeguard of the infant liberty of New England."

_J. G. Palfrey, History of New England, volume 1, chapter 10._

In the parcelling of New England by lot among the members of the Council, the divisions were: (1) Between the St. Croix and Pemaquid, to William Alexander. (2) From Pemaquid to Sagadahoc, in part to the Marquis of Hamilton. (3) Between the Kennebec and Androscoggin; and (4) from Sagadahoc to Piscataqua, to Sir F. Gorges. (5) From Piscataqua to the Naumkeag, to Mason. (6) From the Naumkeag round the sea-coast, by Cape Cod to Narragansett, to the Marquis of Hamilton. (7) From Narragansett to the half-way bound, between that and the Connecticut River, and 50 miles up into the country, to Lord Edward Gorges. (8) From this midway point to the Connecticut River, to the Earl of Carlisle. (9 and 10) From the Connecticut to the Hudson, to the Duke of Lennox. (11 and 12) From the Hudson to the limits of the Plymouth Company's territory, to Lord Mulgrave.

_W. C. Bryant and S. H. Gay, History of the United States, volume 1, page 337, foot-note._

ALSO IN: _T. Hutchinson, History of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, volume 1, pages 48-50._

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1636. Providence Plantation and Roger Williams.

See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1636; and RHODE ISLAND: A. D. 1636.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1636-1639. The first American constitution. The genesis of a state.

See CONNECTICUT: A. D. 1636-1639.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1636-1641. Public Registry laws.

See LAW, COMMON: A. D. 1630-1641.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1637. The Pequot War.

"The region extending from the bounds of Rhode Island to the banks of the Hudson was at the time of the colonization held in strips of territory mainly by three tribes of the natives, who had long had feuds among themselves and with other tribes. They were the Narragansetts, the Mohegans, and the Pequots. The Mohegans were then tributaries of the Pequots, and were restive under subjection to their fierce and warlike conquerors, who were estimated to number at the time 1,000 fighting men. … The policy of the whites was to aggravate the dissensions of the tribes, and to make alliance with one or more of them. Winthrop records in March, 1631, the visit to Boston of a Connecticut Indian, probably a Mohegan, who invited the English to come and plant near the river, and who offered presents, with the promise of a profitable trade. His object proved to be to engage the interest of the whites against the Pequots. His errand was for the time unsuccessful. Further advances of a similar character were made afterwards, the result being to persuade the English that, sooner or later, they would need to interfere as umpires, and must use discretion in a wise regard to what would prove to be for their own interest. In 1633 the Pequots had savagely mutilated and murdered a party of English traders, who, under Captain Stone, of Virginia, had gone up the Connecticut. The Boston magistrates had instituted measures to call the Pequots to account, but nothing effectual was done. The Dutch had a fort on the river near Hartford, and the English had built one at its mouth. In 1636 several settlements had been made in Connecticut by the English from Cambridge, Dorchester, and other places. John Oldham, of Watertown, had in that year been murdered, while on a trading voyage, by some Indians belonging on Block Island. To avenge this act our magistrates sent Endicott, as general, with a body of 90 men, with orders to kill all the male Indians on that island, sparing only the women and little children. He accomplished his bloody work only in part, but after destroying all the corn-fields and wigwams, he turned to hunt the Pequots on the main. After this expedition, which simply exasperated the Pequots, they made a desperate effort to induce the Narragansetts to come into a league with them against the English. It seemed for a while as if they would succeed in this, and the consequences would doubtless have been most disastrous to the whites. The scheme was thwarted largely through the wise and friendly intervention of Roger Williams, whose diplomacy was made effective by the confidence which his red neighbors had in him. The Narragansett messengers then entered into a friendly league with the English in Boston. All through the winter of 1637 the Pequots continued to pick off the whites in their territory, and they mutilated, tortured, roasted, and murdered at least thirty victims, becoming more and more vindictive and cruel in their doings. There were then in Connecticut some 250 Englishmen, and, as has been said, about 1,000 Pequot 'braves.' The authorities in Connecticut resolutely started a military organization, giving the command to the redoubtable John Mason, a Low-Country soldier, who had recently gone from Dorchester. Massachusetts and Plymouth contributed their quotas, having as allies the Mohegans, of whose fidelity they had fearful misgivings, but who proved constant though not very effective. Of the 160 men raised by Massachusetts, only about 20, under Captain Underhill,—a good fighter, but a sorry scamp,—reached the scene in season to join with Mason in surprising the unsuspecting and sleeping Pequots in one of their forts near the Mystic. Fire, lead, and steel with the infuriated vengeance of Puritan soldiers against murderous and fiendish heathen, did effectively the exterminating work. Hundreds of the savages, in their maddened frenzy of fear and dismay, were shot or run through as they were impaled on their own palisades in their efforts to rush from their blazing wigwams, crowded within their frail enclosures. The English showed no mercy, for they felt none. … A very few of the wretched savages escaped to another fort, to which the victorious English followed them. This, however; they soon abandoned, taking refuge, with their old people and children, in the protection of swamps and thickets. Here, too, the English, who had lost but two men killed, though they had many wounded, and who were now reinforced, pursued and surrounded them, allowing the aged and the children, by a parley, to come out. {2309} The men, however, were mostly slain, and the feeble remnant of them which sought protection among the so-called river Indians, higher up the Connecticut, and among the Mohawks, were but scornfully received,—the Pequot sachem Sassacus, being beheaded by the latter. A few of the prisoners were sold in the West Indies as slaves, others were reduced to the same humiliation among the Mohegans, or as farm and house servants to the English. … But the alliances into which the whites had entered in order to divide their savage foes were the occasions of future entanglements in a tortuous policy, and of later bloody struggles of an appalling character. … In all candor the admission must be made, that the Christian white men … allowed themselves to be trained by the experience of Indian warfare into a savage cruelty and a desperate vengefulness."

_G. E. Ellis, The Indians of Eastern Massachusetts (Memorial History of Boston, volume 1, pages 252-254)._

"More than 800 [of the Pequots] had been slain in the war, and less than 200 remained to share the fate of captives. These were distributed among the Narragansets and Mohegans, with the pledge that they should no more be called Pequots, nor inhabit their native country again. To make the annihilation of the race yet more complete, their very name was extinguished in Connecticut by legislative act. Pequot river was called the Thames, Pequot town was named New London."

_S. G. Arnold, History of Rhode Island, volume 1, chapter 3._

ALSO IN: _G. H. Hollister, History of Connecticut, chapters 2-3._

_G. E. Ellis, Life of John Mason (Library of American Biographies, series 2, volume 3)._

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1638. The purchase, settlement and naming of Rhode Island. The founding of New Haven Colony.

See RHODE ISLAND: A. D. 1638-1640; and CONNECTICUT: A. D. 1638.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1639. The Fundamental Agreement of New Haven.

See CONNECTICUT: A. D. 1639.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1640-1644. The growth of population and the rise of towns. The end of the Puritan exodus.

"Over 20,000 persons are estimated to have arrived in New England in the fifteen years before the assembling of the Long Parliament [1640]; one hundred and ninety-eight ships bore them over the Atlantic; and the whole cost of their transportation, and of the establishment of the plantation, is computed at about £200,000, or nearly a million of dollars. The progress of settlement had been proportionally rapid. … Hingham was settled in 1634. Newbury, Concord, and Dedham were incorporated in 1635. And from that date to 1643, acts were passed incorporating Lynn, North Chelsea, Salisbury, Rowley, Sudbury, Braintree, Woburn, Gloucester, Haverhill, Wenham, and Hull. West of Worcester, the only town incorporated within the present limits of the state was Springfield, for which an act was passed in 1636. These little municipalities were, in a measure, peculiar to New England; each was sovereign within itself; each sustained a relation to the whole, analogous to that which the states of our Union hold respectively to the central power, or the constitution of the United States; and the idea of the formation of such communities was probably derived from the parishes of England, for each town was a parish, and each, as it was incorporated, was required to contribute to the maintenance of the ministry as the basis of its grant of municipal rights. Four counties were erected at this time: Suffolk, Essex, Middlesex, and Old Norfolk, all which were incorporated in 1643. Each of the first three contained eight towns, and Old Norfolk six."

_J. S. Barry, History of Massachusetts, volume 1, chapter 8._