Chapter 29

FIRST SETTLEMENT--ROYAL CHARTER GRANTED.

English Puritanism, transferred from England to the head of Massachusetts Bay in 1629, presents the same characteristics which it developed in England. In Massachusetts it had no competitor; it developed its principles and spirit without restraint; it was absolute in power from 1629 to 1689, and during that sixty years it assumed independence of the Government to which it owed its corporate existence; it made it a penal crime for any emigrant to appeal to England against a local decision of Courts or of Government; it permitted no oath of allegiance to the King, nor the administration of the laws in his name; it allowed no elective franchise to any Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Baptist, Quaker, or Papist. Every non-member of the Congregational Churches was compelled to pay taxes and bear all other Puritan burdens, but was allowed no representation by franchise, much less by eligibility for any office.

It has been seen that the "_Pilgrim_ Fathers" commenced their settlement at New Plymouth in 1620--nine years before the "_Puritan_ Fathers" commenced their settlement on the opposite side of Massachusetts Bay, making Boston their ultimate seat of government. The Pilgrim Fathers and their descendants were professedly congregational separatists from the Church of England; they had fled by stealth, under severe sufferings, from persecution in England to Holland, where they had resided eleven years and upwards, and where they had learned the principles of religious toleration and liberty--the fruit of Dutch Arminian advocacy and suffering. The Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Company emigrated directly from England, on leaving which they professed to be members of the Church of England; their emigration commenced in 1628, the very year that Charles the First, having quarrelled with and dissolved the last of three Parliaments in less than four years, commenced his eleven years' rule without a Parliament. During that eleven years a constant current of emigration flowed from England to Massachusetts Bay, to the extent of 13,000, including no less than seventy clergymen of the Church of England, and many men of rank, and wealth to the amount of some £300,000. All these emigrants, or "adventurers," as they were called, left England with a stinging sense of royal and episcopal despotism, and with a corresponding hatred of royalty and episcopacy, but with no conception of the principles of religious toleration or liberty beyond themselves.

During the eight years' interval between the settlement of the Pilgrims at New Plymouth to that of the Puritans at Salem and Boston, trade had largely increased between England and Massachusetts Bay,[22] and the climate, fisheries, furs, timber, and other resources of northern New England became well known, and objects of much interest in England.

King James had divided all that part of North America, 34° and 45° of North latitude, into two grand divisions, bestowing the southern part upon a London Company, and the northern part upon a Company formed in Plymouth and Bristol. The Northern Company resolved to strengthen their interests by obtaining a fresh grant from the King. A new patent was issued reorganizing the Company as the Council for the Affairs of New England, the corporate power of which was to reside at Plymouth, west of England, under the title of the "Grand Council of Plymouth," with a grant of three hundred square miles in New England. The Company formed projects on too large a scale, and did not succeed; but sold that portion of its territory which constituted the first settlements of the Massachusetts Bay Company to some merchants in the west of England, who had successfully fished for cod and bartered for furs in the region of Massachusetts Bay, and who thought that a plantation might be formed there. Among the most active encouragers of this enterprise was the Rev. John White, a clergyman of Dorchester, a maritime town, which had been the source of much commercial adventure in America.[23] One special object of Mr. White was to provide an asylum for the ministers who had been deprived and silenced in England for nonconformity to the canons and ceremonies imposed by Laud and his associates. Through Mr. White the guarantees became acquainted with several persons of his religious sympathies in London, who first associated with them, and afterwards bought rights in their patent. Among these was Matthew Cradock, the largest stockholder in the Company, who was appointed its first president, with eighteen associates, including John Winthrop, Isaac Johnson, Sir Richard Saltonstall, and other persons of "like quality." The chief object of these gentlemen in promoting a settlement in New England was to provide a retreat where their co-religionists of the Church of England could enjoy liberty in matters of religious worship and discipline. But the proposed undertaking could not be prosecuted with success without large means; in order to secure subscriptions for which the commercial aspect of it had to be prominently presented.

The religious aspect of the enterprise was presented under the idea of connecting and civilizing the idolatrous and savage Indian tribes of New England. There was no hint, and I think no intention, of abolishing and proscribing the worship of the Church of England in New England; for Mr. White himself, the projector and animating spirit of the whole enterprise, was a conformist clergyman.[24] It was professedly a religio-commercial undertaking, and combined for its support and advancement the motives of religion and commerce, together with the enlargement of the Empire.

For greater security and more imposing dignity, the "adventurers" determined to apply for a Royal Charter of incorporation. Their application was seconded by Lord Dorchester and others near the Throne; and Charles the First, impressed with the novel idea of at once extending religion, commerce, and his Empire, granted a Royal Patent incorporating the Company under the name of "The Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay, in New England." But several months before the Royal Charter was obtained, or even application for it made, Endicot, one of the stockholders, was sent out with a ship of one hundred emigrants, and, in consequence of his favourable report, application was made for a Royal Charter.[25]

It was the conduct of Endicot, a few months after his arrival at Massachusetts Bay--first condemned and afterwards sustained and justified by the Directors of the Corporation in London--that laid the foundation of the future Church history of New England, and of its disputes with the mother country. Endicot and his one hundred emigrant adventurers arrived in the summer of 1628, and selected Naumkeag, which they called Salem, as their place of settlement, the 6th of September. Endicot was sent, with his company, by the Council for New England, "to supersede Roger Conant at Naumkeag as local manager."[26] "The colony, made up of two sources, consisted of not much above fifty or sixty persons, none of whom were of special importance except Endicot, who was destined to act for nearly forty years a conspicuous part in New England history."[27] The Royal Charter passed the seals the 4th of March, 1629, with Mr. Cradock as the first Governor of the Company. "The first step of the new Corporation was to organize a government for its colony. It determined to place the local administration in the hands of thirteen councillors, to retain their office for one year. Of these, seven, besides the Governor (in which office Endicot was continued), were to be appointed by the Company at home; these eight were to choose three others; and the whole number was to be made up by the addition of such as should be designated by the persons on the spot at the time of Endicot's arrival, described as "old planters."[28] A second embarkation of planters and servants was ordered by the Company at a meeting, April 30, 1629, shortly after its incorporation by Royal Charter. Five ships were provided for this embarkation; and four ministers were provided--Francis Higginson, Samuel Skelton, Francis Bright, and Ralph Smith.[29] Mr. Higginson says in his journal that he sailed from the Isle of Wight the 11th of May, and arrived at Cape Ann the 27th of June, and at Naumkeag (Salem) the 29th. They found at Naumkeag about one hundred planters and houses, besides a fair house built for Mr. Endicot. The old and new planters together were about three hundred, of whom one hundred removed to Charlestown, where there was a house built; the rest remained at Salem.

"Mr. Endicot had corresponded with the settlers at Plymouth, who satisfied him that they were right in their judgments of the outward form of worship, being much like that of the Reformed Churches of France, &c. On the 20th of July, Mr. Higginson and Mr. Skelton, after fasting and prayer, were first elected by the Company for their ministers--the first, teacher; the other, pastor. Each of them, together with three or four grave members, lay their hands on each and either, with solemn prayer. Nothing is said of any Church being formed; but on the 6th of August, the day appointed for the choice and ordination of elders and deacons, thirty persons entered into a covenant in writing, which is said to be the beginning of the Church, and that the ministers were ordained or instituted anew. The repetition of this form they probably thought necessary, because the people were not in a Church state before. It is difficult to assign any other reason. Messengers or delegates from the Church of Plymouth were expected to join with them, but contrary winds hindered them, so that they did not arrive until the afternoon, but time enough to give the right hand of fellowship.

"Two of the company, John and Samuel Brown, one a lawyer, the other a merchant, both men of good estates, and of the first patentees of the Council, were dissatisfied. They did not like that the Common Prayer and service of the Church of England should be wholly laid aside, and therefore drew off, with as many as were of their sentiments, from the rest, and set up a separate society. This offended the Governor, who caused the two members of his Council to be brought before him; and judging that this practice, together with some speeches they had uttered, tended to sedition, he sent them back to England. The heads of the party being removed, the opposition ceased."[30]