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1629.

CHAP. VI. east of New Netherland. Straggling plantations, some of them but single families, were already settled on portions of the coast between New Plymouth and Piscataqua. A few persons began a plantation on Massachusetts Bay, 1625. near what is now Quincy, which they called Mount WolMount laston. The settlement soon afterward fell under the conor "Merry trol of Thomas Morton, who changed its name to "Merry Mount." Mount;" sold powder and shot to the savages; harbored

Wollaston,

runaways; and, setting up a May-pole, broached a cask of wine and held a high carousal. But the New Plymouth 1628. people, at the solicitation of "the chief of the straggling plantations," at length interfered by force; and Morton was taken prisoner and sent back to England.*

Example of New Plymouth promotes Puri

tion.

land on

In the mean time, the Puritans in England had grown more and more uneasy under the restraints of English tan emigra- law, and the intolerance of the English hierarchy; and the example of the New Plymouth colonists had inspired their brethren at home with the desire of emigrating across the Atlantic. It was a favorable moment to execute the design. The leading members of the council for New England, unable or unwilling to undertake the colonization of the country which had been granted to them by James I., were limiting their ambition to the sale of subordinate Grant of patents. At the instigation of John White, a Puritan clerMassachu- gyman of Dorchester, Sir Henry Rosewell, John Endicott, obtained and several other persons of distinction in that neighborcouncil of hood, obtained from the New England corporation the grant of a belt of land on Massachusetts Bay, extending from three miles south of the River Charles to three miles north of the River Merrimack, and stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Other associates from London and its vicinity-Winthrop, Dudley, Johnson, Pynchon, Eaton, Saltonstall, and Bellingham-soon afterward became jointly interested in the enterprise. In the autumn of the same year, about sixty emigrants, under the guidance of Endicott, were dispatched to Naumkeag, or Salem, where they were welcomed by Roger Conant, who, expelled from New

setts Bay

from the

New En

gland.

19 March.

14 Sept.

Endicott at
Salem.

* Bradford, in Prince, 231, 240, 244, 250, 252; Morton's Memorial, 135–141.

14

1628,

1629.

March.

Royal char

ter

for Mas

sachusetts

Plymouth, had settled himself there, two years before. CHAP. VI. This was the first English emigration to Massachusetts Bay. The "Old Colony," at New Plymouth, had preceded, by about eight years, Endicott's settlement at Salem.* Early in the following spring, a royal charter passed the great seal, incorporating "the governor and company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England;" confirming to them the Plymouth Company's grant to Rosewell and his Bay. associates; and superadding powers of government. The territory conveyed, included all that portion of New Netherland lying north of Esopus and south of the Mohawk River; but it was expressly provided that, with respect to such parts or parcels as had, before the third day of November, 1620, been "actually possessed or inhabited by any other Excepting Christian prince or state," the grant should be "utterly void." Nothing was said in the charter about any particular religion: there was no suggestion that the new colony was to be exclusively Puritan. Nevertheless, it was declared and granted, that the colonists themselves "shall have and enjoy all liberties and immunities" of British subjects; and no laws or ordinances were to be made or executed, by the corporation or its officers, "contrary or repugnant to the laws and statutes” of the realm.†

clause.

About two hundred fresh emigrants, sent out at the expense of the corporation, joined the settlement at Salem 29 June. in the course of the summer. The whole population of Massachusetts Bay now numbered about three hundred; Settleone third of whom soon afterward planted themselves a Salem and little south of Salem, at Cherton, or Charlestown. Under town.

* Chalmers, 136; Young's Ch. Mass., 13, 30; Bancroft, i., 340, 341; Hildreth, i., 176, 178.

† Original Charter in the State House at Boston; copies are in Ancient Charters, in Hutchinson, and in Hazard; Chalmers, 137. The excepting clause in the patent is as follows: "Provided always, that if the said lands, &c., were, at the time of the granting of the said former letters patent, dated the third day of November, in the eighteenth year of our said dear father's reign aforesaid (1620), actually possessed or inhabited by any other Christian prince or state, or were within the bounds, limits, or territories of that southern colony (of Virginia), that then this present grant shall not extend to any such parts or parcels thereof, so formerly inhabited, or lying within the bounds of the southern plantation as aforesaid; but, as to those parts or parcels so possessed or inhabited by such Christian prince or state, or being within the bounds aforesaid, shall be utterly void; these presents or any thing therein contained to the contrary notwithstanding.”—Hazard, i., 244.

ments at

at Charles.

1629. 6 August.

intolerance

CHAP. VI. Endicott's influence, a church was immediately organized at Salem, by the signature of a covenant by thirty persons out of the two hundred who formed the settlement. The polity of the ecclesiastic colony rejected the Anglican Liturgy, and even denied its use to those who were "sincere in their affection for the good of the plantation." This innovation displeased several of the colonists, who, headed by John and Samuel Brown, both members of Endicott's council, demanded the enjoyment of the right of all British subjects, to worship God according to the ritual of the Religious Established Church. But Endicott, "whose self-will was established inflamed by fanaticism," instantly forbade them the rechusetts. ligious liberty they desired. The wrongs which the hierarchy had inflicted upon the Puritans in the Old World, were now retorted upon powerless Episcopalian emigrants in the wilderness of the New. The Browns were arrested as "factious and evil-conditioned," and immediately sent back to England, because they adhered to an "immunity" which the charter had granted and declared. But they found that "the blessings of the promised land were to be kept for Puritanic dissenters." Thus early was freedom of conscience banished from Massachusetts, by her colonists themselves; for it was, indeed, "an age of much less charity than zeal."*

in Massa

* Young's Ch. Mass., 67, 89, 196, 287-292; Neal's Puritans, i., 299, 300; Neal's N. E., i., 141-144; Hutchinson, i., 18; Bancroft, i., 348-350, Hildreth, i., 182, 183; Chalmers's Revolt of the Colonies, i., 41-43.

CHAPTER VII

1630-1632.

1430.

The Gold

en Fleece.

WHEN Philip of Burgundy, as sovereign of the Nether- CHAP. VII lands, instituted the Order of the Golden Fleece, he gave to it the expressive motto "Pretium non vile laborum."* The legend was more significant than Philip imagined. Industry had at last received heraldic honors; and the recompense of labor could never be ignoble, while knighthood wore upon its glittering collar the emblem of that valued object which Argonautic enterprise had sought and found in Colchis.

spirit of the

The self-relying spirit of the Dutch had already conse- Industrial crated, in the heart of the nation, the sentiment that labor Dutch. is honorable. In Holland, human industry and human skill early won their most splendid triumphs. The whole land was a monument of victorious toil. A great portion of its marshy surface lying below the level of the ocean, required to be defended, by artificial means, against the irruption of the tides. And every moment was a moment of peril. The dikes, which had been built by hardy industry, could be maintained only by ceaseless vigilance. A breach in an embankment might flood a territory which years of incessant labor could scarcely drain. But the indomitable spirit of the nation was equal to any emergency. That all-pervading spirit was still further developed by the system of local association, which the genius of a selfrelying people introduced. Holland was rather an aggre- Rise of the gate of towns, than a state in which, as in other nations, wh the towns were of less relative importance. The greater

*Davies, i., 220; McCullagh, ii., 107, 108.

Dutch

towns.

1630.

Holland.

CHAP. VII. part of its land was originally held by feudal lords, who were bound to protect and defend their tenants and retainers, in return for their allegiance and assistance. But while there were lords and vassals in Holland, there were No serfs in no serfs.* By degrees, industry sought companionship, and busy hamlets clustered behind the rising dikes. These hamlets gradually expanded into towns; and the hum of the active loom was never intermitted. The towns soon grew rich and powerful; concessions of franchises were successively extorted from the necessities of feudalism; and while the accumulating wealth of manufacturers and merchants contributed increasing quotas to the expenses of the construction and maintenance of the dikes, the territorial nobles avoided raising questions of their waning Burgher authority. On the other hand, the thrifty burghers, from the time they first surrounded their towns with permanent walls, insisted upon the principle of self-assessment; for they felt that, "although the same tribute and tax, laid by consent, or by imposing, be all one to the purse, yet it worketh diversely upon the courage." In every vicissitude of affairs, the Dutch burghers, therefore, clung to their essential principle of self-taxation, which soon became an immunity, by usage and prescription; and the territorial lord found that he must yield to the progressive spirit of popular freedom many of the attributes of feudalism, which, in other lands, were jealously maintained.

governments.

The feudal

system

Thus the industrial ideas of the Dutch people and the modified. growing influence of the Dutch towns curtailed the authority of the feudal chief. Those ideas and that influence naturally modified the rigorous form of the ancient tenures of land. The noble owner of the soil, from being the predatory head of an armed band of dependents, soon became the careful landlord, drawing his revenue from ascertained rent. Living in the hum of industry, he could not help unconsciously imbibing some of the thrift and prudence of the laborious classes which surrounded him. Constant intercourse, in the relations of business and in the

* Grotius.

+ Lord Bacon on "The true Greatness of Kingdoms."

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